Re: Another heresy

At 05:13 PM 12/10/2005, Vernon Jenkins wrote:

>robust argument should not be interpreted as
>incivility, impertinence or personal
>malice. ASA, surely, is a forum for grown-ups -
>and one in which plain speaking is encouraged.

Picture this: What if Athanasius was on this
list. No doubt even he would be called,
"unChristian" and offensive to some here:
"Arius himself has copied the weak and effeminate
character of Sotades, writing the 'Thalia'. He
has emulated the dancing of Herodias, dancing
about and jesting in his slanders against the
Savior. The result is that those who fall into
heresy are perverted in mind, act foolishly, and
exchange the name of the Lord of glory for 'the
likeness of the image of mortal man'. Thus,
instead of Christians they are called Arians and
have this mark of impiety. (Ag. Ar. 1:2)
"How can non-Christians be Christians? Rather,
they are Ario-maniacs! How are those who have
shaken of the apostolic faith part of the
Catholic Church? They are inventors of new evils;
they have abandoned the words of Holy Scripture,
calling Arius's 'Thalia' a new wisdom. They state
this in fairness, for they are announcing a new
heresy. Therefore anyone may have cause to wonder
that although many individuals have written many
works and the greatest number of homilies on the
Old and New Testaments, a 'Thalia' is discovered
in none of them. It is found not among the
serious Greeks but only among those who sing such
things with their drink, clapping and joking so
that others may laugh. The 'marvelous' Arius
copied nothing stately, not knowing the things of
serious individuals. He stole the greatest number
of things from other heresies and emulated the
jests of Sotades alone. What was more fitting for
him to do, wishing to dance against the Savior,
than indicate in loose and dissolute songs his
wretched words of impiety? As Wisdom says, 'A man
is known from the utterance of his word.' Thus
from Arius's words the unmanly character of his
soul and the perdition of his thought should be known. (Ag. Ar. 1:4)

"But after this, as a successor of the devil's
reckless haste, Arius wrote in his 'Thalia', "The
Father is invisible even to the Son, and the Word
is able neither to see nor to know perfectly and
accurately his Father." … These are the words
this impious fellow spoke. He said that the Son
is distinct in himself and that in all respects
he does not share in the Father. These are parts
of the fables Arius written down in a laughable document. (Ag. Ar. 1:6)
"Who, hearing such things and the melody of the
'Thalia', does not justly hate Arius's jesting
about such things as if he were on a stage? … And
who, reading his words one after another, does
not see his impiety as the serpent's error into
which that clever snake misled the woman? Who is
not astonished at such blasphemies? As the
prophet said, 'heaven was astounded, and the
earth shuddered at the transgression of the law.'
… Will not all human nature be struck speechless
at Arius's blasphemies and shut its ears and
close its eyes, so that it would be able neither
to hear such things nor to see him who wrote these things? (Ag. Ar. 1:7)
"… is it not worthy to obliterate and expunge
both the other words and the Arian 'Thalia' as an
image of evil, filled with every impiety in which
anyone falling 'does not know that giants perish
with her and assemble at the trap of hell'? …
They profess the patronage of friends and the
fear of Constantius, so that those who join them
through hypocrisy and promise will not see the
filth of the heresy. Is not this heresy worthy of
hate for this very reason? (Ag. Ar. 1:10)
"It is necessary that the nature of the image be
of such a kind, such as is its Father, even if
the Arians, being blind, would see neither the
image nor anything else … Deprived of the
thoughts of their hearts, rather than of their
derangements, they take refuge again and again in
the literal sense of the Holy Scriptures, but
they fail, in their usual way, to understand even that." (Ag. Ar. 1:52)
"If a decision was made by the bishops, what
concern had the emperor with it? Or if it was but
a threat of the emperor, what need then was there
of the designated bishops? When in the world was
such a thing ever before heard of? When did a
decision of the Church receive its authority from
the emperor? Or rather, when was his decree even
recognized? (The Monks History of Arian Impiety, 52)
"What hell has vomited the statement that the
Body born of Mary is coessential with the Godhead
of the Word?, or that the Word has been changed
into flesh, bones, hair, and the whole body, and
altered from its own nature? Or who ever heard in
a Church, or even from Christians, that the Lord
wore a body putatively, not in nature; or who
ever went so far in impiety as to say and hold,
that this Godhead, which is coessential with the
Father, was circumcised and became imperfect
instead of perfect; and that what hung upon the
tree was not the body, but the very creative
Essence and Wisdom? Or who that hears that the
Word transformed himself a passible body, not of
Mary, but of his own essence, could call him who
said this a Christian? Or who devised this
abominable impiety, for it to enter even his
imagination, and for him to say that to pronounce
the Lord's body to be of Mary is to hold a tetrad
instead of a Triad in the Godhead?-those who
think thus, saying that the body of the Savior
which he put on from Mary, is of the essence of
the Triad. Or whence again have certain vomited
an impiety as great as those already mentioned,
saying, namely, that the body is not newer than
the Godhead of the Word, but was coeternal with
it always, since it was compounded of the essence
of Wisdom? Or how did men called Christians
venture even to doubt whether the Lord, who
proceeded from Mary, while Son of God in essence
and nature, is of the seed of David according to
the flesh, and of the flesh of Saint Mary? (Epistle to Epictetus, 9)

~ Janice :)
Received on Sat Dec 10 17:51:03 2005