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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 8
4. How then can they be Christians, who for Christians are Ario-maniacs [1833] ? or how are they of the Catholic Church, who have shaken off the Apostolical faith, and become authors of fresh evils? who, after abandoning the oracles of divine Scripture, call Arius's Thaliae a new wisdom? and with reason too, for they are announcing a new heresy. And hence a man may marvel, that, whereas many have written many treatises and abundant homilies upon the Old Testament and the New, yet in none of them is a Thalia found; nay nor among the more respectable of the Gentiles, but among those only who sing such strains over their cups, amid cheers and jokes, when men are merry, that the rest may laugh; till this marvellous Arius, taking no grave pattern, and ignorant even of what is respectable, while he stole largely from other heresies, would be original in the ludicrous, with none but Sotades for his rival. For what beseemed him more, when he would dance forth against the Saviour, than to throw his wretched words of irreligion into dissolute and loose metres? that, while 'a man,' as Wisdom says, 'is known from the utterance of his word [1834] ,' so from those numbers should be seen the writer's effeminate soul and corruption of thought [1835] . In truth, that crafty one did not escape detection; but, for all his many writhings to and fro, like the serpent, he did but fall into the error of the Pharisees. They, that they might transgress the Law, pretended to be anxious for the words of the Law, and that they might deny the expected and then present Lord, were hypocritical with God's name, and were convicted of blaspheming when they said, 'Why dost Thou, being a man, make Thyself God,' and sayest, 'I and the Father are one [1836] ?' And so too, this counterfeit and Sotadean Arius, feigns to speak of God, introducing Scripture language [1837] , but is on all sides recognised as godless [1838] Arius, denying the Son, and reckoning Him among the creatures.
[1833] de Syn. 13, note 4. Manes also was called mad; 'Thou must hate all heretics, but especially him who even in name is a maniac.' Cyril. Catech. vi. 20, vid. also ibid. 24 fin.--a play upon the name, vid. de Syn. 26, 'Scotinus.'
[1834] Vid. Ecclus. iv. 24.
[1835] It is very difficult to gain a clear idea of the character of Arius. [Prolegg. ch. ii. S:2.] Epiphanius's account of Arius is as follows:--'From elation of mind the old man swerved from the mark. He was in stature very tall, downcast in visage, with manners like wily serpent, captivating to every guileless heart by that same crafty bearing. For ever habited in cloke and vest, he was pleasant of address, ever persuading souls and flattering; wherefore what was his very first work but to withdraw from the Church in one body as many as seven hundred women who professed virginity.?' Haer. 69. 3, cf. ib. S:9 for a strange description of Arius attributed to Constantine, also printed in the collections of councils: Hard. i. 457.
[1836] John x. 30.
[1837] S:1, note 4.
[1838] And so godless or atheist Aetius, de Syn. 6, note 3, cf. note on de Decr. 1, for an explanation of the word. In like manner Athan. says, ad Serap. iii. 2, that if a man says 'that the Son is a creature, who is word and Wisdom, and the Expression, and the Radiance, whom whoso seeth seeth the Father,' he falls under the text, 'Whoso denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.' 'Such a one,' he continues, 'will in no long time say, as the fool, There is no God.' In like manner he speaks of those who think the Son to be the Spirit as 'without (exo) the Holy Trinity, and atheists' (Serap. iv. 6), because they really do not believe in the God that is, and there is none other but He. Cf. also Serap. i. 30. Eustathius speaks of the Arians as anthropous atheous, who were attempting kratesai tou theiou. ap. Theod. Hist. i. 7. p. 760. Naz. speaks of the heathen polutheos atheia. Orat. 25. 15. and he calls faith and regeneration 'a denial of atheism, atheias, and a confession of godhead, theotetos,' Orat. 23. 12. He calls Lucius, the Alexandrian Anti-pope, on account of his cruelties, 'this second Arius, the more copious river of the atheistic spring, tes atheou peges.' Orat. 25. 11. Palladius, the Imperial officer, is aner atheos. ibid. 12.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians.asp?pg=8
