Opening the library…
From the Two Books on the Promises
Dionysius of Alexandria
Fragments of Dionysius’s response to millenarian interpretation, including his discussion of Revelation’s language, authorship, literary character, and place within Christian reading of apocalyptic prophecy in the early church.
The original books are lost and known through later quotation.
7. And furthermore, on the ground
The old reading was, τὸν λόγον, τὴν γνῶσιν. Valesius expunges the τὴν γνῶσιν, as disturbing the sense, and as absent in various codices. Instead also of the reading, τόν τε τῆς σοφίας, τόν τε τῆς γνώσεως, the same editor adopts τόν τε τῆς γνώσεως, τόν τε τῆς φράσεως, which is the reading of various manuscripts, and is accepted in the translation. Valesius understands that by the ἑκάτερον λόγον Dionysus means the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and the λόγος προφορικός, that is, the subjective discourse, or reason in the mind, and the objective discourse, or utterance of the same.
[The jealousy with which, while the canon of New Testament Scripture was forming, every claim was sifted, is well illustrated in this remarkable essay. Observe its critical skill and the fidelity with which he exposes the objections based on the style and classicality of the Evangelist. The Alexandrian school was one of bold and original investigation, always subject in spirit, however, to the great canon of Prescription.]