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 DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA kingdom, and founded the university of Lisbon (now of Coimbra, the only one in Portugal). He forbade the use of the Latin language in pub- lic documents, caused many works to be trans- lated into Portuguese, and cultivated poesy himself with some success. So many and so patriotic were his labors that he acquired the title of father of his country. He was also known as the protector of letters, the just, the liberal, and the laborer. His latter years were embittered by the unfilial conduct of his illegitimate but much favored son Affonso, who conspired against him, and by troubles with the church. The military order of Christ was founded by Dionysius in 1319. DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, a saint and bishop of the church, born in Alexandria, Egypt, late in the 2d century, died there A. D. 265. He was of a noble and wealthy pagan family, but in the course of his early philosophical studies his attention was turned to the Christian sa- cred writings, especially the epistles of Paul, and he became a convert. He left the heathen schools, became a pupil of Origen, was or- dained priest, and about 232 was chosen to suc- ceed Heraclas as chief of the Alexandrian school of theology. About 247 he was raised to the office of bishop, made vacant by the death of Heraclas. Shortly after this violent perse- cutions broke out against the Christians. The populace of Alexandria had been stirred up against them by a heathen prophet, and the edict of Decius, which reached that city in 250, put arms in the hands of their enraged enemies. Dionysius, who had taken an active part in preparing the Christians for the com- ing trial, was arrested, sent to be put to death, rescued by a band of peasants, and remained concealed more than a year in the Libyan desert, sending continual messages meanwhile to his brethren in the city. In the persecution under Valerian in 257, Dionysius was again exiled from his see. After his restoration (260), brought about by an edict of Gallienus favor- able to the Christians, he was more than once called to mediate on occasions of public strife. The writings of Dionysius were numerous, but most of them have been lost. They were mainly controversial. He wrote two books refuting the theory of Nepos, of the millennial earthly reign of the Saviour. In opposition to Sabellius, who denied the distinct personality of the members of the Trinity, he wrote seve- ral books and epistles, caused the heresy to be condemned by a council, and insisted upon the distinction between the Son and the Father so strongly that it brought upon him the charge of denying the divinity of Christ, against which he defended himself. He also defended the doctrine of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. In opposition to Paul of Samosata, Dionysius maintained the consubstantial nature of the Son and the Father. The fragments of his writings were collected by Simon de Magistris (folio, Rome, 1796), and are also contained in the Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. iii. DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS 125 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, an Athenian, who was one of the council of the Areopagus when St. Paul preached to the Athenians. He is said to have studied first at Athens, and after- ward at Heliopolis in Egypt. There is a le- gend that when he observed in Egypt the darkening of the sun during the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, he exclaimed, " Either God him- self is suffering, or he is sympathizing with some one who is suffering." He was converted by the preaching of Paul, about A. D. 50, is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (xvii. 34), and was probably the first bishop of Athens, having been appointed to that office, it is said, by St. Paul himself. It is also be- lieved that he suffered martyrdom, but in what year is not known. It is not certain that he ever wrote anything, but his name has been given to four theological treatises, imbued with the mystical doctrines of the Alexandrian Platonism. These works, which are first men- tioned in the 6th century, contain allusions to facts and quotations from authors subsequent to the apostolic age, and were probably writ- ten by some Neo- Platonic Christian of the 4th or 5th century. DIONYSIUS EXIGUUS (the Little, so named from his small stature), a Roman monk of the 6th century. He was a native of Scythia, but became abbot of a monastery in Rome, where he died about 550, during the reign of Justinian. He gave to the western church the first regular collection of ecclesiastical laws, comprising the canons of the apostles and of several councils, and the decrees of some of the popes. But his chronological labors have given him greater celebrity. He is reputed the founder of the era which for more than ten centuries has been observed by Christian nations. Before him the Christian era had been calculated from the death of Christ ; he first fixed the year of the incarnation in the 754th year of Rome, and this, at least after the 8th century, was universally adopted as the commencement of the era. (See CHEONOLOGY.) DIONYSUS OF HALICARNASSUS, a Greek his- torian and rhetorician, born in Halicarnassus, Caria, about 70, died in Rome about 7 B. C., having removed there about 29. Of his life we know almost nothing, excepting that it was for the most part spent in literary labor. He wrote many rhetorical and critical essays, and shortly before his death published the greatest of his works, entitled Tw^at/c^ 'Apxatohoyia, or " Roman Antiquities." It was in 20 books, and contained the history of Rome from the earliest mythical times to the era of the Pu- nic wars, where the history of Polybius be- gins. Only the first 11 books remain, which end with the year 441. Several fragments and extracts from the last nine books have been preserved in the collections made by command of the emperor Constantino Porphyrogenitus in the 10th century. The best editions of his works are those of Hudson (Oxford, 1704) and Reiske (Leipsic, l774-'6). Such of his rhetor-