Antony Shuns the Melitians, Manichaeans, and Arians

He was altogether wonderful in faith, and devout. He never held communion with the Melitian schismatics, knowing their wickedness and their apostasy from the beginning. Nor did he have friendly dealings with the Manichaeans or any other heretics, or if he did, it went only as far as advising them to turn to piety. For he thought, and declared, that close dealings with these people were harmful and ruinous to the soul. In the same way he loathed the heresy of the Arians, and urged everyone neither to go near them nor to hold their mistaken belief. Once, when some Arian madmen came to him, he questioned them, and when he had learned their impiety he drove them from the mountain, saying that their words were worse than the poison of serpents. [a]