119. The mention of those princes who were publicly supposed
to be Christians, as we find it in an epistle of Dionysius
of Alexandria (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c. 10), evidently alludes
to Philip and his family; and forms a contemporary evidence
that such a report had prevailed; but the Egyptian bishop,
who lived at an humble distance from the court of Rome,
expresses himself with a becoming diffidence concerning the
truth of the fact. The epistles of Origen (which were extant
in the time of Eusebius, see 1. vi. c. 36) would most
probably decide this curious, rather than important,
question.