Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

ored by the faithful of Greece, us a worker of miracles. He lived
in Corinth, and therefore was not very fur from the Villa.
Meiella accepted this intention with gratitude.
The Legends introduce to us two Kislmps of Greece, who bore
the name of Dionysius. The oldest is I lie well known Dionysius,
the Areopagite, who through the address that St. Paul made A. D.
61, before the Areopagites, was converted to the Faith, and became
his disciple. He was the first Bishop of Athens, and died
A. D. 117. Centuries later, a church was built to his memory on
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Nicomedia, Gortyna, Amastris, Gnossus and Rome, letters full
of Apostolic zeal, wherein were frequently exposed the errors
and heresies of that century, are for the greater part no longer
extant. Eusebius has only saved some remnants of them in his
Church History. Dionysius encouraged the Athenians in his
epistles, to a firmer faith and to an evangelical life; he mentions
their former Bishop Publius, who was martyred, and his successor
Quadratus, and of the latter he gave testimony, that he
had again lighted up the sinking faith of the Athenians. This
holy Bishop opposed those heresies which arose in the first and
second centuries, and was renowned for inquiring into every
particular of each sect that started up, from what writings their
founders drew them, and in what they consisted.
Some of his writings were wilfully misrepresented by his opponents,
of which he complained: "I wrote some letters," said
he, "at the petition of my brothers, but they have been falsified
by the messengers of Satan, who found it their interest to make
additions and omissions. If they cannot pass unimportant
works without injuring them, it may not be much wondered at,
if from the same source the text of Holy Scripture becomes
hacked and maimed."
"With just this view, to fix the Faith and plant Hope in a soul
weighed down with grief, the saint found himself urged on to
suspend his widely spread activity for some days, and visit
Metella. Detached as he was from earth, this visit was to perform
no earthly duty. Nothing but an immortal soul found value in his
eyes, and little did it trouble him, whether he had to seek it in a
palace, or in a wretched hovel. Let us follow the holy man,
bent with the burden of age and heavy duties, wending his way
slowly towards Theredron.
In his aged countenance shines forth a soul inflamed with
the love of God. With' a magnetic power, he draws all to
Him, and gains the esteem and love of those with whom he
converses.
As much as Metella had been accustomed from her earliest
years, to -mix with those of the highest rank and deepest learn-
ing, she had never met one who had made so great an impression
upon her, or who had inspired her with so much awe, as
this venerable man.
It appeared to her, as if a more than ordinary spirit was concealed
within his breast.
She expressed her gratitude that her affliction was shared in
so sincerely from the side of the Christians.
"
My mind," said
she to him, " is in the same wrecked condition as my body. It
appears to me as if the God of the Christians, whom I saw in a
vision, was drawing me up to His glory of streaming light.
But scarcely have I raised my thoughts to Him, when I seem
to behold the gods of Greece looking angrily at me, and that
this peculiarity that no second truth stands near it.
"Revered master, unloose this knot, and give my mind a rest,
after which it 1ms H