us, and to the holy Father, Athanasius, of blessed memory, and to
all orthodox men, Apollinaris, of Laodicea, he it was who
originated and propagated this doctrine. And at first, when we were
assured of it by some of his disciples, we disbelieved that such a
man could admit such an error into his path, and patiently waited
in hope, till we might ascertain the state of the case. For we
argued that his youths, who came to us, not entering into the
profound views of so learned and clear-minded a master, had
invented these statements of themselves, not gained them from him.
For there were many points in which those who came to us were at
variance with each other: some of them ventured to say that Christ
had brought down His body from above (and this strange theory,
admitted into the mind, developed itself into worse notions);
others of them denied that Christ had taken a soul; and some
ventured to say that Christ's body was consubstantial with the
Godhead, and thereby caused great confusion in the East"--_Haer._
lxxvii. 2.

He proceeds afterwards:--

"Full of distress became our life at that time, that between
brethren so exemplary as the forementioned, a quarrel should at all
have arisen, that the enemy of man might work divisions among us.
And great, my brethren, is the mischief done to the mind from such
a cause. For were no question ever raised on the subject, the
matter would be most simple (for what gain has accrued to the world
from such novel doctrine, or what benefit to the Church? rather has
it not been an injury, as causing hatred and dissension?): but when
the question was raised, it became formidable; it did not tend to
good; for whether a man disallows this particular point, or even
the slightest, still it is a denial. For we must not, even in a
trivial matter, turn aside from the path of truth. No one of the
ancients ever maintained it--prophet, or apostle, or evangelist, or
commentator--down to these our times, when this so perplexing
doctrine proceeded from that most learned man aforesaid. His was a
mind of no common cultivation; first in the preliminaries of
literature in Greek education, then as a master of dialectics and
argumentation. Moreover, he was most grave in his whole life, and
reckoned among the very first of those who e