Apostle

 "THE Apostle" is the usual title of S. Paul in antiquity, as "the Philosopher" at a later date is appropriated to Aristotle. "When 'the Apostle' is mentioned," says S. Augustine, "if it is not specified which, Paul only is understood, because he is more celebrated from the number of his Epistles, and laboured more abundantly than all the rest," ad Bonifac. iii. 3. E.g. "And this is what Peter has said, 'that ye may be partakers in a divine nature;' as says also the Apostle, 'know ye not that ye are the Temple of God,'" etc. Orat. i. § 16. Vid. also Enc. supr. vol. i. p. 6; Decr. §§ 15 and 17. "The Apostle himself, the Doctor of the Gentiles," Syn. §§ 28 and 39. "John saying and the Apostle," Orat. i. § 47.

 However, S. Peter also is called the Apostle, Orat. i. § 47. Arius

 IT is very difficult to gain a clear idea of the character of Arius. Athanasius speaks as if his theological song, or Thalia, was but a token of his personal laxity; and certainly the mere fact of his having written it seems incompatible with any remarkable seriousness and strictness. "He drew up his heresy on paper," Athan. says, "and imitating, as if on a festive occasion ([ hos en thaliai ]) no grave writer, but the Egyptian Sotades, in the character of his music, he writes at great length," etc. De Syn. § 15. Again, Orat. i. §§ 2-5, he calls him the Sotadean Arius; and speaks of the "dissolute manners," and "the effeminate tone," and the "jests" of the Thalia; a poem which, he says shortly before, "is not even found among the more respectable Greeks, but among those only who sing songs over their wine, with noise and revel." Vid. also de Sent. D. 6. Constantine also, after the [ Ares Areie ], proceeds, [ epischeto de se he goun Aphrodites homilia ]. Epiph. Hær. 69, 9 fin. Socrates too says that "the character of the book was gross and dissolute." Hist. i. 9. The Arian Philostorgius tells us that "Arius wrote songs for the sea, and for the mill, and for the road, and set them to suitable music," Hist. ii. 2. It is remarkable that Athanasius should say the Egyptian Sotades, as again in Sent. D. 6. There were two Poets of the name; one a writer of the Middle Comedy, Athen. Deipn. vii. 11; but the other, who is here spoken of, was a native of Maronea in Crete, according to Suidas (in voc.), under the successors of Alexander, Athen. xiv. 4. He wrote in Ionic metre, which was of infamous name from the subjects to which he and others applied it. Vid. Suid. ibid. Some read "Sotadicos" for "Socraticos," Juv. Satir. ii. 10. Vid. also Martial, Ep. ii. 86. The characteristic of the metre was the recurrence of the same cadence, which virtually destroyed the division into verses, Turneb. in Quinct. i. 8, and thus gave the composition that lax and slovenly air to which Athanasius alludes. Horace's Ode, "Miserarum est neque amori," etc., is a specimen of this metre, and some have called it Sotadic; but Bentley shows in loc. that Sotades wrote in the Ionic à majore, and that his verse had somewhat more of system than is found in the Ode of Horace. Athenæus implies that all Ionic metres were called Sotadic, or that Sotades wrote in various Ionic metres. The Church adopted the Doric music, and forbade the Ionic and Lydian. The name "Thalia" commonly belonged to convivial songs; Martial contrasts the "lasciva Thalia" with "carmina sanctiora," Epigr. vii. 17. Vid. Thaliarchus, "the master of the feast," Horat. Od. i. 9. This would be the more offensive among Christians in Athan.'s day, in proportion to the keener sensibilities of the South, and the more definite ideas which music seems to have conveyed to their minds; and more especially in a case where the metre Arius employed had obtained so shocking a reputation, and was associated in the minds of Christians with the deeds of darkness, in the midst of which in those heathen times the Church lived and bore her witness.

 Such is Athan.'s report, but Constantine and Epiphanius speak of Arius in very different terms, yet each in his own way, as the following extracts show. It is possible that Constantine is only declaiming, for his whole invective is like a school exercise or fancy composition. Constantine too had not seen Arius at the time of this invective, which was prior to the Nicene Council, and his account of him is inconsistent with itself, for he also uses the very strong and broad language about Arius quoted above. "Look then," he says, "look all men, what words of lament he is now professing, being held with the bite of the serpent; how his veins and flesh are possessed with poison, and are in a ferment of severe pain; how his whole body is wasted, and is all withered and sad and pale and shaking, and fearfully emaciated. How hateful to see, how filthy is his mass of hair, how he is half dead all over, with failing eyes, and bloodless countenance, and woe-begone! so that all these things combining in him at once, frenzy, madness, and folly, for the continuance of the complaint, have made thee wild and savage. But not having any sense what bad plight he is in, he cries out, 'I am transported with delight, and I leap and skip for joy, and I fly:' and again, with boyish impetuosity, 'Be it so,' he says, 'we are lost.'" Harduin. Conc. t. i. p. 457. Perhaps this strange account may be taken to illustrate the words "mania" and "Ariomaniacs." S. Alexander too speaks of Arius's melancholic temperament, [ melangolikois hermosmenes doxes kenes ]. Theod. Hist. i. 3, P. 741. S. Basil also speaks of the Eunomians as [ heis lampran melangolian parenechthentas ]. Contr. Eun. ii. 24. Elsewhere he speaks of the Pneumatomachists as worse than [ melangolontes ]. De Sp. S. 41.

 Epiphanius's account of Arius is as follows: "From elation of mind the old man swerved from the mark. He was in stature very tall, downcast in visage, with manners like a wily serpent, captivating to every guileless heart by that same crafty bearing. For ever habited in cloak and vest, he was pleasant of address, ever persuading souls and flattering; wherefore what was his very first work but to withdraw from the Church in one body as many as seven hundred women who professed virginity?" Hær. 69, 3. Arius is here said to have been tall; Athanasius, on the other hand, would appear to have been short, if we may so interpret Julian's indignant description of him, [ mede aner, all' anthropiskos euteles ], "not even a man, but a common little fellow." Ep. 51. Yet S. Gregory Nazianzen speaks of him as "high in prowess and humble in spirit, mild, meek, full of sympathy, pleasant in speech, more pleasant in manners, angelical in person, more angelical in mind, serene in his rebukes, instructive in his praises," etc. etc. Orat. 21. 9. There is no proof that S. Gregory had ever seen him.