St. Alphonsus Liguori: The History of Heresies and Their Refutation

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CHAPTER IV. HERESIES OF THE FOURTH CENTURY - continued

ARTICLE III.

69-74. Heresy of Macedonius.
75 – 77. Of Apollinaris.
78. Of Elvidius.
79. Of Aetius.
80, 81. The Messalians.
82. The Priscillianists.
83. Jovinians.
84. Other Heretics.
85. Of Audeus, in particular.


69. As Arius uttered blasphemies against the Son, so Macedonius had the temerity to speak blasphemously of the Holy Ghost. He was, at first, an Arian, and was deputed to the Council or Cabal of Tyre, as legate of the Emperor Constantius. He was then intruded by the Arians into the see of Constantinople, as Socrates informs us, though Paul, the lawful bishop, was then alive, and he received ordination at the hands of the Arians. A horrible circumstance occurred at his induction into the Metropolitan see. He went to take possession in a splendid chariot, accompanied, not by his clergy, but with the imperial Prefect by his side, and surrounded by a powerful body of armed troops, to strike terror into the people. An immense multitude was assembled, out of curiosity to see the pageant, and the throng was so great, that the church, streets, and squares were all choked up, and the new bishop could not proceed.

The soldiers set about clearing the way; they first struck the people with the shafts of their spears, and whether it was by orders of the bishop, or through their own ferocity, they soon began to wound and kill the people, and trampled on the slain and fallen; the consequence was, that three thousand one hundred and fifty dead bodies lay stretched in gore in the street; the bishop passed through, and as his entrance to the episcopal throne was marked by blood and slaughter, so his future government of the See was distinguished for vengeance and cruelty. In the first place, he began to persecute the friends of Paul, his competitor in the See; he caused some of them to be publicly flogged, confiscated the property of others, more he banished, and he marked his hatred of one in particular by causing him to be branded on the forehead, to stamp him through life with a mark of infamy. Several authors even say that, after he had banished Paul from the See, he caused him to be strangled at Cucusus, the place of his exile (1).


70. His rage was not alone directed against the friends of Paul, but against all who professed the faith of the Council of Nice; the wretch made use of atrocious torments to oblige them to receive communion from him. He used, as Socrates informs us, to have their mouths forced open with a wooden tongs, and the consecrated particle forced on them, a punishment greater than death to the faithful. He used to take the children from their mothers, and have them most cruelly flogged in their mothers presence; and the mothers themselves he used to torture by squeezing both their breasts under the lid of a heavy chest, and then caused them to be cut off with a sharp razor, or burned them with red coals, or with red-hot balls, and left them to die in prolonged tortures. As if it was not enough to torture and destroy the Catholics themselves in this manner, he vented his rage on their churches, which he destroyed to the very foundations, and their ruins he had scattered abroad.


71. One would think that these sacrilegious excesses were quite enough. But he was determined to do something more, and this was the last act he was permitted to perform as bishop. He had the audacity to disinter the body of Constantino, and transfer it from one tomb to another; but Constans could not stand this, so he ignominiously deposed him from the bishopric. While he was Bishop of Constantinople, he was only remarked for being a very bad man, and a Semi-Arian; but after his deposition, the diabolical ambition seized him, of becoming great in impiety, and the chief of a heresy; so, in the year 360, considering that preceding heresiarchs had directed their attacks against the Father and the Son, he determined to blaspheme the Third Person, the Holy Ghost. He, therefore, denied that the Holy Ghost was God, and taught that he was only a creature like the angels, but of a higher order.


72. Lambert Danæus says that Macedonius was deposed in the year 360, and was exiled to a place called Pilæ, where, in his old age, he paid the penalty of his crimes. But his heresy survived him : he had many followers, and the chief among them was Marantonius, Bishop of Nicomedia, and formerly his disciple, and, what was remarkable, he was distinguished for the regularity of his life, and was held in high esteem by the people. This heresy had many adherents in the monasteries of Monks, and among the people of Constantinople, but neither bishops nor churches till the reign of Arcadius, in the Arian domination. The Macedonians were principally scattered about Thrace, in Bithynia, along the Hellespont, and in all the cities of Cizica. They were, in general, people of moral lives, and observers of almost monastic regularity; they were usually called Pneumatomachi, from the Greek word signifying enemies of the Spirit (2).


73. The Macedonian heresy was condemned in several particular Councils. In the year 362, after the return of St. Athanasius, it was condemned in the Council of Alexandria; in 367, in a Council in Illyria; and in 373, in a Council held in Rome, by St. Damasus, for the condemnation of Apollinaris, whose heresy will be discussed presently. In the year 381, Macedonius was again condemned, in the Council of Constantinople (the first Constantinopolitan), and though only an hundred and fifty bishops were present, and these were all Orientals, this Council was recognized as a general one, by the authority of St. Damasus, and another Council of Bishops assembled in Rome immediately after, in 382.


74. Alexander says : ” This was a Council of the Oriental Church alone, and was only, ex post facto, Ecumenical, inasmuch as the Western Church, congregated in the Synod of Rome, under Pope Damasus, held the same doctrine, and condemned the same heresy, as the Oriental Church.” And Graveson says: ” This Council of Constantinople was afterwards reckoned a general one, for Pope Damasus, and the whole Church of the “West, gave it this dignity and authority.” An anonymous author says the same thing (Auctor Lib. Apparat. brev. ad Theol. Jus Canon). This Council is considered a General one, because it followed in everything what was previously defined in the Roman Council, to which the Eastern bishops were convoked, by letters of St. Damasus, presented to the bishops assembled in Constantinople, and what was decreed in that Council was confirmed in the other Synod, held in Rome, in 382. The Fathers of the Council wrote to St. Damasus, that he had, by his fraternal charity, invited them, by letters of the Emperor, to assist as members of the Council, to be held in Rome. The reader will find in the third volume the refutation of the heresy of Macedonius.


75. In this Council of Constantinople, besides the condemnation of the heresy of Macedonius, the heresies of Apollinaris and Eunomius were also condemned; and Maximus Cinicus, who seized on the See of Constantinople, was deposed, and St. Gregory of Nazianzen was confirmed in possession of it, but he, through love of peace, afterwards resigned it, and Neptarius was chosen in his place by the Council. Several canons, regarding the discipline of the Church, were passed, and the Nicene Creed was confirmed by the Council, and some few words were added to it concerning the mystery of the Incarnation, on account of the Apollinarists and other heretics, and a more ample explanation of the article regarding the Holy Ghost was added, on account of the heresies of the Macedonians, who denied his Divinity. The Nicene Creed says, of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, these words alone: ” Qui propter nos homines, et propter nostram salutem descendit, et incarnatus est, et homo factus. Passus est, et resurrexit tertia die; et ascendit in cœlos; et iterum ventures est judicare vivos, et mortuous; et in Spiritum Sanctum, & c.” But the Symbol of Constantinople goes on thus : ” Descendit de cœlis, et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus, et sepultus est; tertia die resurrexit a mortuis secundum Scripturas, & c. Et in Spiritum Sanctum Dominum et vivificantem, ex Patre procedentem, et cum Patre et Filio adorandum et conglorificandum qui locutus est per Prophetas, & c” (3). Nicephorus (4) relates, that St. Gregory of Nyssa laid down the declaration of the Council in these words: ” Et in Spiritum Sanctum Dominum et vivificantem, ex Patre procedentem, cum Patre et Filio coadorandum et conglorificandum, qui locutus est per Prophetas” (Act. Conc. Const.) When this was read in the Council, all the bishops cried out: ” This is the faith of all; this is the orthodox faith; this we all believe” (5).


76. We have now to speak of Apollinaris, who was condemned in the same Council of Constantinople. He was Bishop of Laodicea, and St. Jerome’s master in sacred literature; but he broached another heresy, concerning the person of Jesus Christ. His principal error, as Noel Alexander tells us, on the authority of St. Epiphanius, St. Leo, St. Augustine, and Socrates (6), was, that he supposed the human nature of Jesus Christ only half human nature he supposed that Christ had no soul, but that, in place of one, the Word made flesh answered as a soul to his body. He softened down this doctrine a little after, for then he admitted that Christ was not without a soul altogether, for he possessed that part of the sensitive soul, with which we see and feel in common with all other sensitive beings; but that he had not the reasoning part, or the mind, and the Word, he said, supplied that in the Person of Christ. This error is founded on the false philosophy of Plato, who wished to establish in man three substances, to wit the body, the soul, and the mind.

The Apollinarists added three other errors: First, that the body of Christ, born of Mary, was consubstantial with the Divinity of the Word, and hence it followed that the Divinity of the Word was passible, and suffered, in reality, torments and death. Eranistes, an Apollinarist, contended that the Divine Nature suffered in the flesh, just as the soul suffers, conjoined with the body, in the sufferings of the body. But even in this illustration he was in error, because the body without the soul is not capable of suffering, and, when the body is hurt, it is the soul that suffers in reality, by the communication it has with the body; so that, according to their system, the Divine Nature would suffer, if the flesh, supposed to be consubstantial to the Divinity, was hurt. The second error was, that the Divine Word did not take flesh from the Virgin, but brought it down from heaven, and, on that account, they called the Catholics, who believed that the body of Christ was taken from Mary, Homicolists, and accused them of establishing, not a Trinity, but a Quaternity, of Persons, because, besides the three Divine Persons, they admitted a fourth substance, entirely distinct, Christ-God, and Man. Thirdly The last error was, that the Divine substance of the Word was converted into flesh; but these three errors, N. Alexander says, were not taught by Apollinaris, but by his disciples (7). Apollinaris erred also in the doctrine of the Trinity, by teaching that there were different degrees of dignity in the Trinity itself. He calls the Holy Ghost great, the Son greater, and the Father greatest. He, likewise, taught the errors of the Millenarians, and said that the Jewish rites ought to be resumed (8). Fleury and Orsi, like wise, give an account of his heresy (9).


77.The heresy of Apollinaris, especially that part of it referring to the Mystery of the Incarnation, was already condemned, in the year 362, by St. Athanasius, in the Council of Alexandria; it was also condemned, in 373, by St. Damasus in the Roman Council, and the same year Bernini tells us that Apollinaris died, the laughing-stock of the people, even of the children (10). An author, quoted by St. Gregory of Nyssa (11), relates, that Apollinaris, being in his dotage, gave the book containing his doctrines to a lady of Antioch, a disciple of his, to keep for him; this came to the knowledge of St. Ephraim the Syrian, who was then at Antioch, and he borrowed the book for a few days, from the lady he took it home and pasted the leaves one to the other, so that nothing could open them, folded up the book, and sent it back again to the lady.

Soon after this he had a Conference with Apollinaris, and they began to dispute about the doctrines of his book, in presence of a great many persons. Apollinaris, weakened in his intellect, on account of his great age, said that the answers to St. Ephraim’s arguments would be all found in his book, and he sent to the lady for it; but when he tried to open the first page he found it pasted up, and the whole book just like a log of wood; he was so enraged that he dashed it violently to the ground and trampled on it, and ran out of the place as fast as ever he could, amid the laughter of the bystanders, who continued hooting after him as long as he was in sight. It is said that the, poor old man took it so much to heart, that he fell sick and died. Finally, this heresy was condemned in the Second General Council, (the first of Constantinople,) as appears in the Synodical letters: “Nos præterea doctrinam Dominicus Incarnationis integram & perfectam tenemus, neque dispensationem carnis Christi vel animæ, vel mentis expertem, vel imperfectam esse asserimus; sed agnoscimus Verbum Dei ante secula omnino perfectum horninem in novissimis diebus pro nostra salute factum esse” (12).


78. Among the followers of Apollinaris were the Anti-dicomarianites or adversaries of Mary. These said, following Elvidius, that she did not remain a virgin, but after the birth of Christ had other children by St. Joseph. St. Epiphanius (13), hearing that this error was prevalent in Arabia, refuted it in a long letter directed to all the faithful of that region. At the same time, and in the same country, another error altogether opposed to this was broached, that the Blessed Virgin was a sort of Deity. The followers of this sect were called Collyridians (14), because they worshipped the Virgin by offering her a certain sort of cakes called, in Greek, Collyrides. This superstition came from Thrace and Upper Sythica, and passed into Arabia. The women, especially, were almost all followers of this sect.

On certain fast days every year they ornamented a car, and placed on it a square bench covered with a cloth; on this a loaf was placed, and, being offered to the Virgin, was then divided among the worshippers. St. Epiphanius, in combating this superstition, showed that women can never take any part in the priesthood, and that the worship they offered to the Virgin was idolatrous; for, although the most perfect of all creatures, she was still but a creature, and should not be honored like God with that oblation (15).


79. Aerius was ambitious of becoming Bishop of Antioch, and when Eustasius was elected to that See, he was devoured with envy. Eustasius did all in his power to gratify him; he ordained him priest, gave him the government of his hospital, and when, with all this, he could not prevent him from talking badly of him, he admonished him, tried to gain him over by more kindness, then threatened him, but all in vain. Aerius threw up the government of the hospital, and began to teach his errors to a number of followers, and when these were turned out not only of the churches, but even out of the towns and villages, they assembled in the woods and caverns, and even in the open fields, though sometimes covered with snow. This heresy sprung up in 370, but was never very extensive. Aerius was an Arian all out; but he added other errors of his own to the pre-existing heresy. These can be easily reduced to three heads : First That there is no difference between priests and bishops; Second That prayers for the dead are useless; and, Third That the observance of fasts and festivals, even of Easter, is only a Jewish rite, and useless (16).


80. The fourth century was also infested by the Messalians; these were wandering monks, who professed to abandon the world, though they were not properly monks at all. They were called Messalinians, or Messalians, from a Syriac word signifying prayer, and the Greeks called them Euchitians, for the same reason; they said that the whole essence of religion consisted in prayer (17). They were of two classes; the most ancient were Pagans, and had no connexion with Christians or Jews; they believed in a plurality of Gods, though they adored but one alone, whom they called the Almighty. It is supposed, that these were the people called Hypsisteri, or adorers, of the Most High (18). Their oratories were large buildings, surrounded with porticos, but open to the sky; and they assembled there morning and evening, and, by the light of numerous lamps, sang hymns of praise to God, and, they were called by the Greeks, Eusemites, on that account (19). Those who called themselves Christians, began to appear about the reign of Constans, but their origin is doubtful; they came from Mesopotamia, but they were established in Antioch, in 376, when St. Epiphanius wrote his Treatise on Heresies. St. Epiphanius says, that they took in too literal a sense, the command of Jesus Christ, to leave everything and follow him, and they literally observed it; but they led an idle, vagabond life, begging and living in common, both men and women, so that in the summer time, they used even to sleep together in the streets. They refused to do work of any kind, as they considered it wicked; they never fasted, and used to eat at an early hour in the morning a practice totally opposed to the Oriental manner of fasting (20).


81. The following errors were taught and practised by them (21); they said that every man had, from his birth, a devil attached to him, who prompted him to all evil, and that the only remedy against him was prayer, which banished the devil, and destroyed the root of sin. They looked on the sacraments with indifference, and said the Eucharist did neither good nor harm, and that baptism takes away sin, just like a razor, which leaves the roots. They said the domestic devil is expelled by spitting and blowing the nose, and when they purified themselves in this manner, that they saw a sow and a number of little pigs come out of their mouths, and a fire that did not burn, enter into them (22). Their principal error consisted in taking the precept, to pray continually, in the literal sense; they did so to excess, and it was the parent of a thousand follies in this case; they slept the greater part of the day, and then began to say they had revelations, and prophesied things which never happened.

They boasted that they saw the Trinity with the eyes of the flesh, and that they visibly received the Holy Ghost; they did very extraordinary things while praying; they would frequently jump forward with violence, and then say that they were dancing on the devil, and this folly became so glaring, that they acquired the name of the Enthusiasts (23). They said that man’s science and virtue could be made equal to that of God, so that those who once arrived at perfection, never could afterwards sin, even through ignorance. They never formed a separate community from the faithful, always denying their heresy, and condemning it as strongly as any one else, when they were convicted of it. Their founder was Adelphius, a native of Mesopotamia, and from him they were called Adelphians. The Messalians were condemned in a Council, held in 387, by Flavian, Bishop of Antioch, and also in another Council, held about the same time by St. Anphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, the Metropolis of Pamphilia (24). They were finally condemned in the first Council of Ephesus, especially in the seventh session, and they were proscribed by the Emperor Theodosius, in the year 428. It was a long time before this heresy was finally extinct in the East, and in 1018, during the reign of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, another heresy sprung out of it, the followers of which were called Bongimilists, which signifies, in the Bulgarian language, the beloved of God. Their founder was Basil, a physician, or monk, who, after practising his errors for fifty-two years, and deluding a great number, was burned alive, with all his followers, by order of the Emperor. This unfortunate man promulgated many blasphemous opinions, principally taken from the Messalians and Manicheans; he said that we should use no prayer, except the ” Our Father,” and rejected every other prayer but that, which, he said, was the true Eucharist; that we ought to pray to the devil even, that he might not injure us, and that we should never pray in churches, for our Lord says : ” When you pray, enter into your ” chamber; ” he denied the books of Moses, and the existence of the Trinity, and it was not, he said, the Son of God, who became incarnate, but the Archangel Michael. He published many other like opinions, so that there is little doubt but that he lost, not alone the faith, but his senses likewise (25).


82. About the year 380, the heresy of the Priscillianists first appeared in the East. The founder of this sect was an Egyptian of Memphis, of the name of Mark; he went to Spain, and his first disciples were, a lady of the name of Agapa, and Elpidius, a rhetorician, invited to join him by the lady. These two next wheedled Priscillian to join them, and from him the sect took its name. Priscillian was both noble and rich; he had a great facility of speech, but was unsettled, vain, and proud of his knowledge of profane literature. By his affable manners he gained a great number of followers, both noble and plebeian, and had a great number of women, especially, adherents, and soon the heresy spread like a plague over great part of Spain, and even some bishops, as Instantius and Salvianus, were infected by it. The foundation of this doctrine was Manicheism, but mixed up with the Gnostic, and other heresies. The soul, they said, was of the substance of God himself, and of its own will came on earth, passing through the seven heavens, to combat the evil principle, which was sown in the body of the flesh. They taught that we depended altogether on the stars, which decided our fate, and that our bodies depended on the signs of the zodiac, the ram presiding over the head, the bull over the neck, the twins over the back, and so on with the remainder of the Twelve Signs. They made merely a verbal profession of the doctrine of the Trinity, but they believed, with Sabellius, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, were one and the same thing, and that there was no real distinction of persons. They did not reject the Old Testament, like the Manicheans, but they explained everything in it allegorically, and they added many apocryphal books to the canonical ones.

They abstained from meat, as an unclean thing, and separated married people, notwithstanding the repugnance manifested by those who were not followers of their sect, and this they did through hatred of procreation; for the flesh, they said, was not the work of God, but of the devil; but they used to assemble by night for prayer, and the lights being extinguished, indulged in revolting and promiscuous licentiousness; however, they denied all this when caught, and they taught their followers to practise the doctrine contained in the Latin distich: ” Jura perjura, secretum prodere noli” ” Swear away, but never tell the secret.” They used to fast on every Sunday, and even on Easter Sunday and Christmas-day, and on these days they used to hide themselves, and not appear at Church; their reason for this conduct was their hatred of the flesh, as they believed that Christ was not really born or arose in the flesh, but only in appearance. They used to receive the Eucharist in the church, like other Christians, but they did not consume the species. They were condemned in the Council of Saragossa, by St. Damasus, and in several particular synods. Finally, Priscillian was condemned to death, at the instance of Ithacius, Bishop of Ossobona, in the year 383, by Evodius, appointed Prefect of the Pretorium by the tyrant Maximus (26).


83. St. Augustine (27) speaks of some heretics who lived about this time, and always went barefooted, and taught that all Christians were bound to do likewise (28). 


84. Audæus, chief of the Audæans, was born in Mesopotamia, and was at first a man of exemplary life, and a strict observer of ecclesiastical discipline, but afterwards separated from the Church, and became founder of a sect. He celebrated Easter after the Jewish rite, and said that man was like to God corporeally; interpreting, in the plainest literal sense, that passage of Genesis, where the Lord says : ” Let us make man in our own image and likeness; ” and he and his followers were Antropomorphites. Noel Alexander says that the only error of the Audæans was in separating themselves from the Church, but as for the rest, they never deviated from the faith; but Petavius (29), and others, attribute to them the errors of the Antropomorphites, since they attributed to God, literally, the corporeal members the Scripture mystically speaks of. He also taught some errors concerning the administration of the sacrament of penance, and died in the country of the Goths, in 370 (30).



(1) Bernin. t, 1; Coc. l. 1, c. 25; Dæneus and Theod.
(2) N. Alex. Bernin. t. 1, &c.
(3) Cabassutius, Not. Concil. p. 136; Orsi, t. 81 18, n. 71, & seq.; Fleury, I 18, n. 1, & seq.; Nat. Alex. T. 1. diss 37 ar 2
(4) Niceff 12, c. 2.
(5) Bernini, t. 1, p. 316.
(6) Nat. t. 8, ar. 3, ex St. Epiph. Her. 77; St. Leo, Ser. De Nat. Dom.; St Aug de her. c. 55; Socrat. l, 2, c. 36.
(7) Nat. ibid.
(8) Nat. ibid.
(11) St. Greg. Niss. Serm. de St. Ephrem
(9) Fleury, t. 3, l. 17, n. 225; Orsi,. t: 7, I 16, n. 115.
(10) Bernin. t. 2, s. 4, c. 8.
(12) N. Alex. t. S. c. 3, a. 1481.
(13) St. Epip. Her. 77, n. 26 & 78.
(14) St. Epip. Her. 79
(15) Fleury, t. 3, l. 17, n. 26; Orsi, t. 7, 1. 7, n. 50.
(16) Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 3, art. 15; Fleury, t. 3, l. 19, n. 36.
(17) St. Eph. Her. 88 n. 1
(18) Supplem. t. 11, n . 30
(19) St. Epiph n. 3
(20) Theod. t. 4, c. 11. (
(21 ) Theod. Her . fab . l. 4 c .2 Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 3, act 16; Fleury, t. 3. l. 19 n. 35
(22) St. Aug. Her. l. 5, c. 7
(23) St. Epip. Her. n. 3.
(24) Fleury, t. 3, I. 19, n. 25; Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 3, ar. 16; Orsi, t. 8, l. 12, n. 78.
(25) Graveson, Hist. Eccl. t. 3, col. 2; Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 4, ar. 5; Gotti. Ver. Eel. t. 2, c. 88, s. 2; Van Ranst, His. sec. xii, p. 195; Bernini, t. 2. c. 1.
(26) Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 3. ar. 17; Fleury, t. 3, L 17, n. 56, & l. 18, n. 30; Orsi, t. 8, I 18, n. 44, & 100.
(27) St. Augus. f. deHer. c. 68.
(28) Nat. Alex, ibid, ar. 20.
(29) App. Koncag. Nota, ad N. Alex. t. 8, c. 3, ar. 9; Diz. Portat. t. 1, Ver. Audeo; Berti, t. 1, sec. 4, c.3.
(30) Nat, Alex. loc. cit.