Sarapion’s Error and His Tears

Among those caught by this mistaken idea was one named Sarapion, a man of long-standing strictness of life and altogether perfect in practical discipline. His ignorance about the teaching first mentioned was a stumbling block to all who held the true faith, all the more because he himself outstripped almost all the monks both in the merits of his life and in the length of time he had been there. The holy presbyter Paphnutius could not bring him back to the way of the right faith with many urgings, because this view seemed to him a novelty, one never known to or handed down by those before him. Then it happened that a deacon of very great learning named Photinus arrived from the region of Cappadocia, wanting to visit the brothers living in that desert. The blessed Paphnutius welcomed him most warmly. To confirm the faith stated in the bishop’s letters, he set him in the midst and asked him, before all the brothers, how the catholic churches throughout the East interpreted the passage in Genesis where it says, “Let us make man after our image and likeness.” [a]

Photinus explained that all the leaders of the churches took the image and likeness of God not according to the crude sound of the letters but spiritually. He supported this very fully with many passages of Scripture, and he showed that nothing of this sort could happen to that infinite, incomprehensible and invisible glory, as though it could be contained in a human form and likeness. For its nature is without body, not made of parts, and simple; it can neither be seen by the eyes nor conceived by the mind. At length the old man was shaken by the many weighty arguments of this most learned man and was drawn to the faith of the catholic tradition. Abbot Paphnutius and all of us were filled with intense delight at his coming over, for this reason: the Lord had not allowed a man of such age, crowned with such virtues, who erred only from ignorance and rustic simplicity, to wander from the path of the right faith to the very end. We rose to give thanks, and were all offering our prayers to the Lord together. Then the old man was so bewildered in mind during his prayer, because he felt that the human-shaped image of the Godhead he used to set before himself in prayer had been banished from his heart, that he suddenly burst into a flood of bitter tears and continual sobs. He threw himself down on the ground and cried out with loud groans: “Alas! Wretched man that I am! They have taken my God away from me, and now I have no one to lay hold of, and I do not know whom to worship or address.”

We were terribly disturbed by this scene. And with the effect of the earlier conference still remaining in our hearts, we returned to Abbot Isaac. When we saw him close at hand, we spoke to him in these words.