A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

248 A Source Book for Ancient Church History[225]waxed bolder in denying the Son and in ascribing His humanactions to the Father, he accordingly, by demonstrating that itwas not the Father but the Son that was made man for us, mightpersuade the ignorant persons that the Father is not the Son, andso by degrees lead them to the true godhead of the Son and theknowledge of the Father.Ch. 6. … If in his writings he is inconsistent, let them [i.e.,the Arians] not draw him to their side, for on this assumptionhe is not worthy of credit. But if, when he had written his letterto Ammonius, and fallen under suspicion, he made his defence,bettering what he had said previously, defending himself, butnot changing, it must be evident that he wrote what fell undersuspicion by way of “accommodation.”Ch. 13. The following is the occasion of his writing theother letters. When Bishop Dionysius had heard of the affairsin Pentapolis and had written in zeal for religion, as I havesaid, his letter to Euphranor and Ammonius against the heresyof Sabellius, some of the brethren belonging to the Church,who held a right opinion, but did not ask him so as to learnfrom himself what he had written, went up to Rome and spakeagainst him in the presence of his namesake, Dionysius, bishopof Rome. And the latter, upon hearing it, wrote simultaneouslyagainst the adherents of Sabellius and against those who heldthe same opinions for uttering which Arius was cast out of theChurch; and he called it an equal and opposite impiety to holdwith Sabellius or with those who say that the Word of God is acreature, framed and originated. And he wrote also to Dionysius[i.e., of Alexandria] to inform him of what they had said abouthim. And the latter straightway wrote back and inscribed a bookentitled A Refutation and a Defence.Ch. 14. … In answer to these charges he writes, after certainprefatory matter in the first book of the work entitled A Refutationand a Defence, in the following terms:Ch. 15. “For never was there a time when God was not a