The Arian Leaders of This Time

Dorotheus, bishop of the Arians, who, as we have said, had been moved by that sect from Antioch to Constantinople, died at the age of one hundred and nineteen on the sixth of November, in the seventh consulship of Honorius and the second of Theodosius Augustus. After him Barbas presided over the Arian sect. In his time the Arian party was helped by having two very eloquent members, both of the rank of presbyter. One was named Timothy and the other George. George excelled in Greek learning, while Timothy was well versed in the sacred Scriptures. George always had the writings of Aristotle and Plato in his hands; Timothy drew his inspiration from Origen, and in his public expositions of the holy Scriptures he also showed no small knowledge of the Hebrew language. Timothy had earlier belonged to the sect of the Psathyrians, but George had been ordained by Barbas. I have talked with Timothy myself, and I was greatly struck by how readily he would answer the hardest questions and clear up the most obscure passages of the divine Scriptures. He also always quoted Origen as an unquestionable authority to confirm what he said. [a]

But it astonishes me that these two men went on upholding the heresy of the Arians, the one so familiar with Plato and the other with Origen so often on his lips. For Plato does not say that the second and third cause, as he usually calls them, had a beginning of existence, and Origen everywhere acknowledges that the Son is co-eternal with the Father. Still, though they remained attached to their own church, they changed the Arian sect for the better without realizing it, and by their own teaching they displaced many of Arius’s blasphemies. But enough about these men. Sisinnius, bishop of the Novatians, died in the same consulship, and Chrysanthus was ordained in his place. We will have to speak of him shortly.