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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 117
43. There are many other heresies too, which use the words only, but not in a right sense, as I have said, nor with sound faith [2486] , and in consequence the water which they administer is unprofitable, as deficient in piety, so that he who is sprinkled [2487] by them is rather polluted [2488] by irreligion than redeemed. So Gentiles also, though the name of God is on their lips, incur the charge of Atheism [2489] , because they know not the real and very God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So Manichees and Phrygians [2490] , and the disciples of the Samosatene, though using the Names, nevertheless are heretics, and the Arians follow in the same course, though they read the words of Scripture, and use the Names, yet they too mock those who receive the rite from them, being more irreligious than the other heresies, and advancing beyond them, and making them seem innocent by their own recklessness of speech. For these other heresies lie against the truth in some certain respect, either erring concerning the Lord's Body, as if He did not take flesh of Mary, or as if He has not died at all, nor become man, but only appeared, and was not truly, and seemed to have a body when He had not, and seemed to have the shape of man, as visions in a dream; but the Arians are without disguise irreligious against the Father Himself. For hearing from the Scriptures that His Godhead is represented in the Son as in an image, they blaspheme, saying, that it is a creature, and everywhere concerning that Image, they carry about [2491] with them the phrase, 'He was not,' as mud in a wallet [2492] , and spit it forth as serpents [2493] their venom. Then, whereas their doctrine is nauseous to all men, forthwith, as a support against its fall, they prop up the heresy with human [2494] patronage, that the simple, at the sight or even by the fear may overlook the mischief of their perversity. Right indeed is it to pity their dupes; well is it to weep over them, for that they sacrifice their own interest for that immediate phantasy which pleasures furnish, and forfeit their future hope. In thinking to be baptized into the name of one who exists not, they will receive nothing; and ranking themselves with a creature, from the creation they will have no help, and believing in one unlike [2495] and foreign to the Father in essence, to the Father they will not be joined, not having His own Son by nature, who is from Him, who is in the Father, and in whom the Father is, as He Himself has said; but being led astray by them, the wretched men henceforth remain destitute and stripped of the Godhead. For this phantasy of earthly goods will not follow them upon their death; nor when they see the Lord whom they have denied, sitting on His Father's throne, and judging quick and dead, will they be able to call to their help any one of those who have now deceived them; for they shall see them also at the judgment-seat, repenting for their deeds of sin and irreligion.
[2486] ten p. hugiainousan. Dep. Ar. 5, note 6.
[2487] rhantizomenon, Bingh. Antiqu. xi. 11. S:5.
[2488] Cf. Cyprian, Ep. 76 fin. (ed. Ben.) and Ep. 71 cir. init. Optatus ad Parmen. i. 12.
[2489] atheotetos. vid. supr. de Decr. 1, note 1, Or. i. 4, note 1. 'Atheist' or rather 'godless' was the title given by pagans to those who denied, and by the Fathers to those who professed, polytheism. Thus Julian says that Christians preferred 'atheism to godliness.' vid. Suicer Thes. in voc.
[2490] Montanists.
[2491] peripherousi, S:34. n. 5.
[2492] Instead of provisions.
[2493] Cf. Ep. Aeg. 19. Hist. Ar. 66. and so Arians are dogs (with allusion to 2 Pet. ii. 22.), de Decr. 4. Hist. Ar. 29. lions, Hist. Ar. 11. wolves, Ap. c. Arian. 49. hares, de Fug. 10. chameleons, de Decr. init. hydras, Orat. iii. 58 fin. eels, Ep. Aeg. 7 fin. cuttlefish, Orat. iii. 59. gnats, de Decr. 14 init. Orat. iii. 59. init. beetles, Orat. iii. fin. leeches, Hist. Ar. 65 init. de Fug. 4. [swine, Or. ii. 1.] In many of these instances the allusion is to Scripture. On names given to heretics in general, vid. the Alphabetum bestialitatis hereticae ex Patrum Symbolis, in the Calvinismus bestiarum religio attributed to Raynaudus and printed in the Apopompaeus of his works. Vid. on the principle of such applications infr. Orat. iii. 18.
[2494] Orat. i. 9.
[2495] Orat. iii. 4. note.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians.asp?pg=117
