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| Chapter III. Of Abbot Sarapion and the heresy of the Anthropomorphites into which he fell in the error of simplicity.
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Chapter III.
Of Abbot Sarapion and the heresy of the
Anthropomorphites into which he fell in the error of simplicity.
Among those then who were
caught by this mistaken notion was one named Sarapion, a man of
long-standing strictness of life, and one who was altogether perfect in
actual discipline, whose ignorance with regard to the view of the
doctrine first mentioned was so far a stumbling block to all who held
the true faith, as he himself outstripped almost all the monks both in
the merits of his life and in the length of time (he had been there).
And when this man could not be brought back to the way of the right
faith by many exhortations of the holy presbyter Paphnutius, because
this view seemed to him a novelty, and one that was not ever known to
or handed down by his predecessors, it chanced that a certain deacon, a
man of very great learning, named Photinus, arrived from the region of
Cappadocia with the desire of visiting the brethren living in the same
desert: whom the blessed Paphnutius received with the warmest welcome,
and in order to confirm the faith which had been stated in the letters
of the aforesaid Bishop, placed him in the midst and asked him before
all the brethren how the Catholic Churches throughout the East
interpreted the passage in Genesis where it says “Let us make man
after our image and likeness.”1664
And when he
explained that the image and likeness of God was taken by all the
leaders of the churches not according to the base sound of the letters,
but spiritually, and supported this very fully and by many passages of
Scripture, and showed that nothing of this sort could happen to that
infinite and incomprehensible and invisible glory, so that it could be
comprised in a human form and likeness, since its nature is incorporeal
and uncompounded and simple, and what can neither be apprehended by the
eyes nor conceived by the mind, at length the old man was shaken by the
numerous and very weighty assertions of this most learned man, and was
drawn to the faith of the Catholic tradition. And when both Abbot
Paphnutius and all of us were filled with intense delight at his
adhesion, for this reason; viz., that the Lord had not permitted a man
of such age and crowned with such virtues, and one who erred only from
ignorance and rustic simplicity, to wander from the path of the right
faith up to the very last, and when we arose to give thanks, and were
all together offering up our prayers to the Lord, the old man was so
bewildered in mind during his prayer because he felt that the
Anthropomorphic image of the Godhead which he used to set before
himself in prayer, was banished from his heart, that on a sudden he
burst into a flood of bitter tears and continual sobs, and cast himself
down on the ground and exclaimed with strong groanings: “Alas!
wretched man that I am! they have taken away my God from me, and I have
now none to lay hold of; and whom to worship and address I know
not.” By which scene we were terribly disturbed, and moreover
with the effect of the former Conference still remaining in our hearts,
we returned to Abbot Isaac, whom when we saw close at hand, we
addressed with these words.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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