A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

296 A Source Book for Ancient Church Historybecause thy unwarrantable ordination displeased many.And thou wert not readily persuaded to delay such procedureor restrain thy purpose, no, not even by the word of the ApostlePaul, the most blessed seer and the man who put on Christ, theApostle of us all; for he, in writing to his dearly loved Timothy,says: “Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker ofother men's sins.” [I Tim. 5:22.] And thus he at once shows hisown consideration of him, and gives his example and exhibitsthe law according to which, with all carefulness and caution,candidates are chosen for the honor of ordination. We make thisdeclaration to thee, that in the future thou mayest study to keepwithin the safe and salutary limits of the law.(b) Fragment on the Meletian Schism. (MSG, 10:1567.)For the connection of the Meletians with Arianism, seeSocrates, Hist. Ec., I, 6. Text in Routh, op. cit., IV, 94.[270]Meletius received and read this epistle, and he neither wrote areply, nor repaired to them in prison, nor went to the blessed Peter[bishop of Alexandria]. But when all these bishops, presbyters,and deacons had suffered in the prison, 91 he at once enteredAlexandria. Now in that city there was a certain person, Isidorusby name, turbulent in character, and possessed with the ambitionof being a teacher. And there was also a certain Arius, whowore the habit of piety and was in like manner possessed withthe ambition of being a teacher. And when they discovered theobject of Meletius's passion and what it was he sought, hasteningto him and regarding with malice the episcopal authority of theblessed Peter, that the aim and desire of Meletius might be mademanifest, they discovered to Meletius certain presbyters, then inhiding, to whom the blessed Peter had given authority to act asdiocesan visitors for Alexandria. And Meletius, recommending91 Diocletian persecution, A. D. 306.