e composed little poems so comical
that they are known by heart in the mills, the taverns, and the ports.

"A thousand times no! the Son is not co-eternal with the Father, nor of
the same substance. Otherwise He would not have said, 'Father, remove
from Me this chalice! Why do ye call Me good? God alone is good! I go to
my God, to your God!' and other expressions, proving that He was a
created being. It is demonstrated to us besides by all His names: lamb,
shepherd, fountain, wisdom, Son of Man, prophet, good way,
corner-stone."

_Sabellius_--"As for me, I maintain that both are identical."

_Arius_--"The Council of Antioch has decided the other way."

_Antony_--"Who, then, is the Word? Who was Jesus?"

_The Valentinians_--"He was the husband of Acharamoth when she had
repented!"

_The Sethianians_--"He was Sem, son of Noah!"

_The Theodotians_--"He was Melchisidech!"

_The Merinthians_--"He was nothing but a man!"

_The Apollonarists_--"He assumed the appearance of one! He simulated the
Passion!"

_Marcellus of Ancyra_--"He is a development of the Father!"

_Pope Calixtus_--"Father and Son are the two forms of a single God!"

_Methadius_--"He was first in Adam, and then in man!"

_Cerinthus_--"And He will come back to life again!"

_Valentinus_--"Impossible--His body is celestial."

_Paul of Samosta_--"He is God only since His baptism."

_Hermogenes_--"He dwells in the sun."

And all the heresiarchs form a circle around Antony, who weeps, with his
head in his hands.

A Jew, with red beard, and his skin spotted with leprosy, advances close
to him, and chuckling horribly:

"His soul was the soul of Esau. He suffered from the disease of
Bellerophon; and his mother, the woman who sold perfumes, surrendered
herself to Pantherus, a Roman soldier, under the corn-sheaves, one
harvest evening."

Antony eagerly lifts up his head, and gazes at them without uttering a
word; then, treading right over them:

"Doctors, magicians, bishops and deacons, men and phantoms, back! back!
Ye are all lies!"

_The Heresiarchs_--"We have martyrs, more martyrs than yours, prayers
more difficult, higher outbursts of love, and ecstasies quite as
protracted."

_Antony_--"But no revelation. No proofs."

Then all brandish in the air rolls of papyrus, tablets of wood, pieces
of leather; and strips of cloth; and pushing them one before the other:

_The Corinthians_--"Here is the Gospel of the Hebrews!"

_The Marcionites