How the Quarrel Between Alexander and Arius Began

“I understand, then, that the present controversy began like this. You, Alexander, asked the presbyters what each of them thought about a certain passage in the divine law — or rather, I should say, you asked them about some part of an unprofitable question. Then you, Arius, thoughtlessly held fast to what ought never to have been thought of at all, or, if thought of, should have been buried in deep silence. So a quarrel arose between you, fellowship was broken off, and the holy people, torn into different parties, no longer kept the unity of the one body. Now, therefore, both of you show the same forgiveness, and accept the advice that your fellow servant rightly gives. What, then, is this advice? It was wrong in the first place to put such questions, or to answer them when they were put. For points of debate that no law requires, but that are prompted by the quarrelsome spirit that misused leisure breeds, even if they are meant only as exercise for the mind, ought surely to be kept within our own thoughts. They should not be brought out hastily in the public assemblies, nor carelessly trusted to the ears of everyone. For how very few people are able either to understand such lofty and deep subjects accurately or to explain them adequately? Or, granting that someone were fully capable of this, how many people will he convince? Or again, who, in dealing with questions of such fine subtlety, can guard himself against a dangerous slide away from the truth? So in these cases we must be sparing with our words. Otherwise, either because we ourselves, through the weakness of our natural powers, cannot explain the subject clearly, or because our hearers are too slow to grasp exactly what we say, the people may be driven, by one cause or the other, into either blasphemy or schism. [a]