Section 298
The text on this page is estimated to be only 27.84% accurate
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 267 man is then not suffered to taste until he has first cursed him self; and instead of saying Amen after he had taken the bread, he says, ' I will no longer return to Cornelius.' " And, after other matters, he again proceeds, as follows : " Now, you must know, that he is stripped and abandoned, the brethren leaving him every day and returning to the church. He was also excommuni cated by Moses, that blessed witness, who but lately endured a glorious and wonderful martyrdom, and who, whilst yet among ihe living, seeing the audacity and the folly of the man, excluded dim from the communion, together with the five presbyters that had cut themselves off from the church." At the close of the epistle, he gives a list of the bishops who lad come to Rome, and had discarded the incorrigible disposition ofNovatus; at the same time adding the names, together with ;he churches governed by each. He also mentions those that •vere riot present at Rome, but who, by letter, assented to the lecision of the former, adding also the names and the particular iities whence each one had written. Such is the account written >y Cornelius to Fabius bishop of Antioch. CHAPTER XLIV. Dionysius*s account of Scrapion. IN a letter to this same Fabius, who in some measure seemed o incline to this schism, Dionysius of Alexandria, amongst many >ther matters that he wrote to him on repentance, and in which ic describes the conflicts which the martyrs had recently endured it Alexandria, with other accounts, relates one fact, wonderful adeed. This we deem belonging to our history, and is as follows : ; But I will give you one example that occurred with us. There vas a certain Serapion, an aged believer, who had passed his ong life irreproachably, but as he had sacrificed during the perecution, though he frequently begged, no one would listen to him. le was taken sick, and continued three days in succession speechess and senseless. On the fourth day, recovering a little, he 25*