Why the Arians Are Not Christians

Four Discourses Against the Arians. Discourse One. Introduction. Why he writes; some people are indifferent about Arianism; the Arians are not Christians, because sects always take the name of their founder.

It is admitted of all the other heresies that have departed from the truth that they have invented nothing but madness, and their ungodliness has long been notorious to everyone. For since their authors went out from us, it plainly follows, as the blessed John has written, that they never thought with us and do not think with us now. So, as the Savior says, because they do not gather with us, they scatter with the devil. They keep watch for those who are asleep, so that by this second sowing of their own deadly poison they may have companions in death. But there is one heresy, the last, which has now arisen as a forerunner of Antichrist: the Arian heresy, as it is called. She sees that the other heresies, her elder sisters, have been openly outlawed. So, in her craft and cunning, she pretends to dress herself in the language of Scripture, like her father the devil, and she is forcing her way back into the paradise of the church. She hopes that with a show of Christianity her smooth trickery (for reason she has none) may lead people into wrong thoughts about Christ. Indeed, she has already led astray some of the foolish, not only so as to corrupt their ears, but even to take and eat with Eve, until in the ignorance that follows they think bitter is sweet and admire this loathsome heresy. For this reason I have thought it necessary, at your request, to rip open “the folds of its breastplate” and to show the foul smell of its folly. Then those who are far from it may go on avoiding it, and those whom it has deceived may repent. Opening the eyes of their heart, they may understand that darkness is not light, nor falsehood truth, nor Arianism good. They may understand, too, that those who call these men Christians are in great and serious error, since they have neither studied Scripture nor understood Christianity at all, or the faith it contains. [a]

For what have they found in this heresy that is like the true faith, that they talk idly as if its supporters said nothing evil? This is truly to call even Caiaphas a Christian, to count Judas the traitor still among the apostles, to say that those who asked for Barabbas instead of the Savior did no evil, and to commend Hymenaeus and Alexander as right-minded men, as if the apostle had slandered them. But a Christian cannot bear to hear this, nor can he think that the man who dared to say it is in his right mind. For with them Arius takes the place of Christ, as Manichaeus does with the Manichaeans. And in place of Moses and the other saints they have discovered one Sotades, a man whom even the pagans laugh at, and the daughter of Herodias. For Arius has imitated the loose and effeminate tone of the one, writing his Thalia on his model; and he has rivaled the other in her dancing, reeling and frolicking in his blasphemies against the Savior. So the victims of his heresy lose their wits and become fools. They change the name of the Lord of glory into the likeness of “the image of corruptible man,” and instead of Christians they come to be called Arians, wearing this badge of their ungodliness. Let them not make excuses. Let them not throw their disgrace back on those who are not like them, by calling Christians after the names of their teachers, so that they themselves may seem to bear that name in the same way. Nor let them make a joke of it when they feel ashamed of their disgraceful title. Rather, if they are ashamed, let them hide their faces, or let them draw back from their own ungodliness. For Christian people never at any time took their title from the bishops among them, but from the Lord, in whom we have our faith. So although the blessed apostles became our teachers and were servants of the Savior’s good news, we do not have our title from them. From Christ we are Christians, and from him we are named Christians. But those who take the faith they profess from others have good reason to bear the name of those whose property they have become. [d]

Yes, indeed. All of us are Christians and are called Christians after Christ. Marcion started a heresy long ago and was cast out. Those who stayed with the one who expelled him remained Christians; but those who followed Marcion were no longer called Christians, but from then on Marcionites. In the same way Valentinus, Basilides, Manichaeus and Simon Magus have passed on their own names to their followers. Some are addressed as Valentinians, or Basilidians, or Manichaeans, or Simonians; and others are called Cataphrygians, from Phrygia, and Novatians, from Novatus. So too Melitius, when he was expelled by Peter, the bishop and martyr, no longer called his party Christians, but Melitians. And so, when Alexander of blessed memory had cast out Arius, those who stayed with Alexander remained Christians; but those who went out with Arius left the Savior’s name to us who were with Alexander, and from then on they were called Arians. Look, then: after Alexander’s death too, those who are in communion with his successor Athanasius, and those with whom this same Athanasius is in communion, follow the same rule. None of them bears his name, nor is he named after them; all alike, as is usual, are called Christians. For although we have a succession of teachers and become their disciples, yet because they teach us the things of Christ, we are Christians all the same, and are called Christians. But those who follow the heretics, however countless their successors in the heresy, still bear the name of the man who invented it. So, though Arius is dead, and many of his party have succeeded him, those who think as he did are known from Arius and are called Arians. And here is a striking proof of this. Those of the Greeks who even now come into the church, giving up the superstition of idols, take the name not of their catechists but of the Savior, and begin to be called Christians instead of Greeks. But those of them who go off to the heretics, and all who change from the church to this heresy, abandon Christ’s name and from then on are called Arians, since they no longer hold Christ’s faith but have inherited Arius’s madness. [h]

How then can they be Christians, who instead of Christians are Ario-maniacs? Or how do they belong to the catholic church, when they have shaken off the apostolic faith and become the authors of new evils? Having abandoned the sayings of divine Scripture, they call Arius’s Thalia a new wisdom; and rightly so, for they are announcing a new heresy. So one may well wonder. Many have written many treatises and a wealth of sermons on the Old Testament and the New, yet in none of them is a Thalia to be found. It is not found even among the more respectable of the pagans, but only among those who sing such songs over their drinks, amid cheers and jokes, when people are merry, so that the rest may laugh. Then this marvelous Arius came along. He took no serious model, and was ignorant even of what is respectable. He stole freely from other heresies, yet chose to be original in the ridiculous, with no rival but Sotades. For what suited him better, when he meant to dance out against the Savior, than to throw his wretched, ungodly words into loose and dissolute meters? So, just as Wisdom says, “a man is known by the utterance of his word,” from those verses the writer’s effeminate soul and corrupt thinking might be seen. In fact that crafty man did not escape detection. For all his twisting this way and that, like the serpent, he only fell into the error of the Pharisees. In order to break the law, they pretended to be anxious about the words of the law; and in order to deny the Lord who had been expected and was then present, they played the hypocrite with God’s name. They were convicted of blasphemy when they said, “Why do you, being a man, make yourself God,” and say, “I and the Father are one”? In the same way this counterfeit, Sotadean Arius pretends to speak of God, bringing in the language of Scripture. Yet on every side he is recognized as godless Arius, who denies the Son and counts him among the creatures. [k]