Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Of Aëtius the Syrian, Teacher of Eunomius.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XXXV.—Of Aëtius the Syrian, Teacher
of Eunomius.
At Antioch in Syria another
heresiarch sprang up, Aëtius, surnamed Atheus. He agreed in
doctrine with Arius, and maintained the same opinions: but separated
himself from the Arian party because they had admitted Arius into
communion. For Arius, as I have before related,386
entertaining one opinion in his heart, professed another with his lips;
having hypocritically assented to and subscribed the form of faith set
forth at the council of Nicæa, in order to deceive the reigning
emperor. On this account, therefore, Aëtius separated himself from
the Arians. He had, however, previously been a heretic, and a zealous
advocate of Arian views. After receiving some very scanty instruction
at Alexandria, he departed thence, and arrived at Antioch in Syria,
which was his native place, was ordained deacon by Leontius, who was
then bishop of that city. Upon this he began to astonish those who
conversed with him by the singularity of his discourses. And this he
did in dependence on the precepts of Aristotle’s
Categories; there is a book of that name, the scope of which he
neither himself perceived, nor had been enlightened on by intercourse
with learned persons: so that he was little aware that he was framing
fallacious arguments to perplex and deceive himself. For Aristotle had
composed this work to exercise the ingenuity of his young disciples,
and to confound by subtle arguments the sophists who affected to deride
philosophy. Wherefore the Ephectic academicians,387
| 387Diogenes Laertius, Proem. XI (16), says:
‘Philosophers were generally divided into two classes,—the
dogmatics, who spoke of things as they might be comprehended; and the
ephectics, who refused to define anything, and disputed so as to make
the understanding of them impossible.’ The word
‘ephectic’ is derived from the verb ἐπέχω,
‘to hold back,’ and was used by the philosophers to whom it
is applied as a title because they claimed to hold back their judgment,
being unable to reach a conclusion. Cf. also the name
‘skeptic,’ from σκέπτομαι .
See Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics, p. 525.
|
who expound the writings of Plato and Plotinus, censure the vain
subtlety which Aristotle has displayed in that book: but Aëtius,
who never had the advantage of an academical preceptor, adhered to the
sophisms of the Categories. For this reason he was unable to
comprehend how there could be generation without a beginning, and how
that which was begotten can be co-eternal with him who begat. In fact,
Aëtius was a man of so superficial attainments, and so little
acquainted with the sacred Scriptures, and so extremely fond of
caviling, a thing which any clown might do, that he had never carefully
studied those ancient writers who have interpreted the Christian
oracles; wholly rejecting Clemens and Africanus and Origen, men eminent
for their information in every department of literature and science.
But he composed epistles both to the emperor Constantius, and to some
other persons, wherein he interwove tedious disputes for the purpose of
displaying his sophisms. He has therefore been surnamed Atheus. But
although his doctrinal statements were similar to those of the Arians,
yet from the abstruse nature of his syllogisms, which they were unable
to comprehend, his associates in Arianism pronounced him a heretic.
Being for that reason expelled from their church, he pretended to have
separated himself from their communion. Even in the present day there
are to be found some who from him were formerly named Aëtians, but
now Eunomians. For some time later Eunomius, who had been his
amanuensis, having been instructed by his master in this heretical mode
of reasoning, afterwards became the head of that sect. But of Eunomius
we shall speak more fully in the proper place.388
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
