Four Discourses Against the Arians

Athanasius of Alexandria (296–373)

Discourse I

Chapter I. Introduction.

Reason for writing; certain persons indifferent about Arianism; Arians not Christians, because sectaries always take the name of their founder.

1. Of all other heresies which have departed from the truth it is acknowledged that they have but devised a madness, and their irreligiousness has long since become notorious to all men. For that their authors went out from us, it plainly follows, as the blessed John has written, that they never thought nor now think with us. Wherefore, as saith the Saviour, in that they gather not with us, they scatter with the devil, and keep an eye on those who slumber, that, by this second sowing of their own mortal poison, they may have companions in death. But, whereas one heresy, and that the last, which has now risen as harbinger of Antichrist, the Arian, as it is called, considering that other heresies, her eider sisters, have been openly proscribed, in her craft and cunning, affects to array herself in Scripture language , like her father the devil, and is forcing her way back into the Church's paradise,-that with the pretence of Christianity, her smooth sophistry (for reason she has none) may deceive men into…

See also

• More works by Athanasius of Alexandria

Enable JavaScript to read the full text and search the library.