the history of heresies, and their refutation - Catholic Apologetics ...

St. Peter was soon after put in prison for the faith, and about to be martyred. Arius endeavoured again to
be received by him; and it was then, as Baronius(3) tells us, on the authority of the Acts of the martyrdom
of St. Peter, that Christ appeared to the Saint with a torn garment, and said to him: "Arius has torn this;
take heed lest you receive him into your communion." Alexander has strong doubts of the truth of this
vision (4); but his arguments are not convincing, and it has been admitted into the Roman Breviary on the
26th of November, the feast of St. Peter. Arius, for all that, was promoted to the priesthood by Achilla,
who succeeded St. Peter, martyred in 311, and got the charge of a parochial church called Baucal (5), in
Alexandria. On the death of Achilla, Arius, who was now, as Fleury tells us, advanced in years, expected
to succeed him; but St. Alexander was chosen, a man of great knowledge and most exemplary life. Arius
began immediately to censure his conduct and condemn his doctrine, saying that he falsely taught that
the Word, the Son of God, was equal to the Father, begotten by him from all eternity, and of the same
nature and substance as the Father, which, he said, was the heresy of Sabellius. He then began to
promulgate the following blasphemies : 1. That the Word was not from all eternity, but was brought forth
out of nothing by the Father, and created, the same as one of ourselves; and, 2ndly, that Christ, according
to his free will, was of a mutable nature, and that he might have followed vice, but that, as he embraced
goodness, God, as a reward for his good works, made him a participator in the divine nature, and
honoured him with the title of the Word, the Son, and of Wisdom (6). Noel Alexander says that these
errors are taken from an impious work he wrote, called Thalia, and from an Epistle of his to St.
Alexander, referred to by St. Athanasius, and from the Synodical Epistle of the Council of Nice, quoted by
Socrates, St. Epiphanius, and Theodoret. Noel Alexander also says, on the authority of St. Athanasius and
Theodoret, that he taught that the Word in the Incarnation took a body without a soul, and that the soul
was part of the divinity.
(3) Baron. An. 310, n. 4 & 5.
(4) N. Alex. t. 8, diss. 9.
(5) St. Epip. Her. 69, Theod. &c.
(6) Nat. Alex. ar. 3, sec. 2; Fleury, cit. n. 28; Baron. An. 315, n. 19 &20; Hermant c. 84.
9. Arius began at first privately to teach his errors; but he soon became so bold that he publicly preached
them in his parish. St. Alexander at first tried to bring him back by admonition, but, finding that of no
avail, he had recourse to more rigorous measures; and as some bishops were even then tainted with his
heresy especially Secundus of Ptolemais, and Theonas of Marmorica he convoked a synod in Alexandria,
in 320, at which nearly one hundred bishops from Lybia and Egypt assembled, besides a great number of
priests. Arius was called before them, and publicly professed his errors; so the assembled Fathers
excommunicated him and his adherents, and St. Alexander wrote from the synod an encyclical letter,
giving an account of it to all the bishops of the Church (7). Notwithstanding this, Arius only became more
obstinate, and made many proselytes, both men and women; and Theodoret says (8) he seduced several
of his female followers. He then put himself under the protection of Eusebius of Nicomedia, a powerful
and learned, but wicked, man, who left his own bishopric of Beyrout, and intruded himself into the see of
Nicomedia, through the influence of Constantia, the sister of Constantine. He wrote to St. Alexander,
requesting him to receive Arius again into his communion; but the Holy Patriarch not only refused his
request, but obliged Arius and all his followers to quit Alexandria (9).
(7) N. Alex. ar. 4, s. 1; Fleury. ibid; Hermant, c. 86; Orsi. (8) Theodoret, l. 1, c. 4. ( 9) Socrat, l. 1, c. 6; Orsi,
n. 9 Fleury, loc. cit.
10. Arius then went to Palestine, and succeeded in seducing several bishops of that and the neighbouring
provinces, especially Eusebius of Cesarea, Aezius of Lidda or Hospolis, Paulinus of Tyre, Gregory of
Beiroot, Athanasius of Anazarbus, and Theodotus of Laodicea. When St. Alexander heard of this, he
complained very much of it, and wrote to several of the bishops of Palestine, who yielded to his advice,
and forsook Arius. He then took refuge with his friend Eusebius of Nicomedia, and there he wrote his
book called Thalia, interlarding it with low jests, to take the common people, and with all his blasphemies
against the faith, to instil into the minds of every class the poison of his heresy (10). Eusebius called
together a synod in Bythinia of bishops favourable to Arius, who wrote to several other bishops to
interfere with St. Alexander to receive him again to his communion, but the saint was inflexible (11).
11. About this time Constantine gained the victory over Licinius, which gave him peaceable possession of
the empire; but when he came to Mcomedia he was afflicted to hear of the dissensions between St.
Alexander and Arius and the bishops of the East. Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had the first story for the
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