For as the wisdom [which is] according to the gentiles, ^[1] by changing them into holy persons, ^[2] constitutes them friends of God and prophets ; so, conversely, the wickedness by transmuting into unholy persons, manifests them to be ^[3] enemies of God and false prophets. What one custom ever included these ? For of a custom there is in any case a single period [as cause], whereas of caprices all kinds of ages ^[4] [are the causes]. And due causes must always pre-exist before the customs of the gentiles and before human laws. I say human, however, because God, as alone knowing all things before they come into being, ^[5] can naturally also arrive at them by from the first enacting them as law. Men, however, when they have beforehand discerned something, and when they have first formed ideas of certain events, then and not before lay down laws, or make a beginning of customs. ^[6] If then it was from the apostles, as we said above, that this custom took its beginning, we must adjust ourselves thereto, whatsoever may have been their reasons and the grounds on which they acted ^[7] ; to the end that we too may observe the same in accordance with their practice. For as to things which were written afterwards and which are until now still found, they are ignored by us ; and let them be ignored, no matter what they are. How can these comply with the customs of the ancients ? And in a word I have deemed certain disquisitions about these matters superfluous ; and I feel that to pay attention to them is noisy and vain. For as we are told after a first and second admonition to avoid them, ^[8] so must we admonish and converse about them, and after brief inculcation and talk in common we must desist. On points, however, of prime importance and great weight we must insist. For if anyone utters any impiety about God, as do those who say he is without mercy; or if anyone introduces the worship of strange gods, such an one the law has commanded to stone. ^[9] But we with the vigorous words of our faith will stone them unless ^[10] they approach the mystery of Christ; or [if] anyone alter or destroy [it], or [say] that he was either not God or not man, or that he did not die or rise again, or that he is not coming again to judge the quick and the dead ; or if he preach any other gospel than we have preached, let him be accursed, says Paul. ^[11] But if anyone despises the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, let such an one be at once ranked with the dead. For these reasons, that we may be in accord, church with church and bishop with bishop and elder with elder, let us be careful in our utterances. Moreover in judging of and dealing with particular cases,—as to how it is proper to admit those who come to us from without, ^[12] and how to supervise those who are within,—we give instructions to the local primates ^[13] who under divine imposition of hands were appointed to discharge these duties ; for they shall give a summary account to the Lord of whatsoever they do.

[This account perfectly accords with what we know from other sources of this controversy. Pope Stephen, as the tract De Rebaptismate alleges, appealed to vetustissima consuetudo ac traditio ecclesiastica. Dionysius meets his appeal by asking how could the orthodox and the heretic have in common any custom? Qualis una istos circumclusit consuetudo? He argues from Tit. iii. 10 that heretics should be left severely alone, and affirms that he has instructed the duly ordained ecclesiastical authorities of his province to treat those who ad ecclesiam advolant—to use the phrase of the De Rebaptismate—as if they came wholly from the outside or pagan world, that is to baptise them, and afterwards to watch them carefully.]