More Divisions among the Arians: The Psathyrians

Divisions arose among the Arians too, for this reason. The contentious questions they argued over every day led them to put forward the most absurd propositions. It has always been believed in the church that God is the Father of the Son, the Word. Yet they asked whether God could be called “Father” before the Son existed. In claiming that the Word of God was not begotten of the Father but created “out of nothing,” they had fallen into error on the chief and central point, and so they deservedly fell into absurd quibbles about a mere name. Dorotheus, whom they had sent for from Antioch, maintained that God neither was nor could be called Father before the Son existed. But Marinus, whom they had summoned from Thrace before Dorotheus, was stung by the greater respect paid to his rival and took up the defense of the opposite opinion. [a]

As a result a schism arose among them, and, divided over this term, each party held separate meetings. Those under Dorotheus kept their original meeting places, but the followers of Marinus built separate houses of prayer for themselves and asserted that the Father had always been Father, even when the Son was not. This section of the Arians was called the Psathyrians, because one of the most zealous defenders of this opinion was Theoctistus, a Syrian by birth and a cake-seller by trade. Selenas, bishop of the Goths, took up the views of this party. He was a man of mixed descent, a Goth on his father’s side and a Phrygian on his mother’s, and because of this he taught in church with great ease in both languages.

This faction, however, soon quarreled among themselves. Marinus fell out with Agapius, whom he himself had raised to be bishop of Ephesus. They disputed not about any point of religion, but, in their small-mindedness, about precedence; and in this the Goths sided with Agapius. As a result many of the clergy under their authority, disgusted by the contest for empty glory between the two, left them both and joined the homoousian faith. The Arians stayed divided among themselves in this way for thirty-five years. They were reunited in the reign of Theodosius the Younger, in the consulship of Plintha, the commander-in-chief of the army, who was himself a member of the sect of the Psathyrians. They were persuaded to give up their quarrel, and afterward they passed a resolution, giving it all the force of law, that the question which had divided them should never be raised again. But this reconciliation reached no further than Constantinople. In other cities where members of these two parties were found, they kept to their former separation. So much for the divisions among the Arians.