Section 305
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274 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. he proceeds : " But I have also written to our beloved and fellowpresbyters Dionysius and Philemon, who agreed before with Stephen in sentiment, and wrote to me on these matters ; before, indeed, I wrote briefly, but now more fully." Such were the ac counts respecting the controversy mentioned. CHAPTER VI. « The heresy of Sabellius. SPEAKING of the heresy of Sabellius, that arose about this time, and that was then increasing, he writes as follows : " But as to the opinion which is now agitated at Ptolemais of Pentapolis, it is impious, and replete with blasphemy towards Almighty God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and abounds also in much infidelity in regard to his only begotten Son, and the first born of. all creation, the incarnate word ; it abounds also in ir reverence to the Holy Spirit. But as the brethren came to me from both sides, both before the letters were received and the question was discussed, I drew up a more regular treatise on the subject, as far as I was enabled under God ; copies of which I have sent to thee. CHAPTER VII. The execrable error of the heretics, the divine vision of Dionysius, and the ecclesiastical canon given to him. BUT in the third epistle on baptism, which Dionysius wrote to Philemon a presbyter of Rome, he relates the following circum stances : " I perused," says he, " the works and traditions of the heretics, defiling my mind for a little with their execrable senti ments ; but I have also derived this benefit from them, viz., to refute them in my own mind, and to feel the greater disgust at them. And when a certain brother of the presbyters attempted to