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Therefore, by the well-established and universally wondrous ordinances of the church, this deceiver has also been refuted again. And having passed him by, and having crushed him like a beetle or a cantharis or the so-called buprestis, a noxious creature, with the bulwark of the church and the power of God, let us go on again to the next matters, calling upon God as our helper. - - - Against the Anomoeans ˉnˉ, and of the sequence ˉoˉ. 1. There are, again, certain ones called Anomoeans. And these are recent. They had as their leader a certain deacon, Aetius, who was promoted because of his prating by George of Alexandria, who had become bishop of the Arians and Meletians together, and in the times of Julian, as has been previously shown by me above, was paraded through the city on a camel, and first imprisoned and suffered many things at the hands of the Greeks, and paraded, 3.341 as I said, and beaten with clubs, then dragged through nearly the whole city, and thus died, and after death was burned and reduced to ashes together with many bones of cattle and beasts, and afterwards winnowed by them to the winds, and thus met his end. But someone might say concerning the one who died thus, "Did he not then bear witness, having suffered these things from the Greeks?" And if indeed the struggle had been for the truth and such things had happened to him from the Greeks because of envy and his confession of Christ, truly he would have been ranked among the martyrs, and not among the least. But the cause was not his confession of Christ, but because of the great violence with which he treated both the city and the people in his so-called episcopate, in some places robbing people of their inheritances from their parents, *. And lest we slander the man; for many are the things done by him to the Alexandrians, how he took over all the natron, and how he contrived to manage the papyrus and reed marshes and the salt lakes and appropriate them for himself; so that every sordid means of life for the sake of gain through much scheming, even down to petty matters, was not neglected by him, so that he even contrived to make a certain number of biers for the bodies of the departed, and no body of the dead could be carried out without the ones ordered by him, especially of strangers, not for the sake of hospitality but, as they said, for the sake of procuring a living. For if anyone buried a body by himself, he was in danger. And so from each of those carried out some profit was brought to him. And I am silent about the other things, all that the man procured for himself in luxuries and other * and in cruelty. Therefore, on account of all these things, the people of Alexandria, holding onto their wrath against him, especially the Greeks, dealt him this end. But the reason for me to speak about this is that when they heard the news of Constantius' death, those same Alexandrians immediately destroyed him in this way, the subject of this matter has come up for me for no other reason than because of Aetius, the deacon appointed by him. 2. This Aetius was uneducated even in secular learning until his full maturity, as the story goes. But he contrived, after submitting himself and studying in Alexandria under an Aristotelian philosopher and sophist and learning their so-called dialectic, nothing other than to give schematic form to 3.342 the exposition of the doctrine of God; but he attempted it rather leisurely, at once rising early and sitting at this task diligently until evening, I mean, speaking and defining things about God by means of a kind of geometry and through figures, both teaching and performing initiations. And since he was a most profound Arian and held the mad teaching of Arius, he became an even greater destroyer, being worn down by these things and sharpening his tongue each day against the Son of God and against the Holy Spirit. This man was accused by some and reported to the same Constantius and suffered exile in the regions of the Taurus; in which place he spread all the things of his evil teaching and

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τοίνυν τῶν ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ θεσμῶν καὶ καλῶς ἐχόντων καὶ τῶν πάντων θαυμασίων γινομένων ἐλήλεγκται πάλιν καὶ οὗτος ὁ πλάνος. καὶ τοῦτον δὲ παρελθόντες ὥσπερ κάνθαρον ἢ κανθαρίδα ἢ τὸ καλούμενον βούπρηστις κνώδαλον καταθλάσαντές τε τῷ ἐκκλησιαστικῷ ἑδραιώματι καὶ τῇ τοῦ θεοῦ δυνάμει ἐπὶ τὰς ἑξῆς πάλιν ἴωμεν, τὸν θεὸν βοηθὸν ἐπικαλούμενοι. - - - Κατὰ Ἀνομοίων ˉνˉ, τῆς δὲ ἀκολουθίας ˉοˉ. 1. Ἀνόμοιοι πάλιν τινές εἰσι καλούμενοι. οὗτοι δὲ πρόσφατοι. ἔσχον δὲ ἀρχηγὸν Ἀέτιόν τινα διάκονον, προαχθέντα διὰ τὴν αὐτοῦ φλυαρίαν ὑπὸ Γεωργίου τοῦ Ἀλεξανδρέως, τοῦ τῶν Ἀρειανῶν ἅμα καὶ Μελιτιανῶν γεγονότος ἐπισκόπου καὶ ἐν χρόνοις Ἰουλιανοῦ, ὡς ἄνω μοι προδεδήλωται, τὴν πόλιν πομπεύσαντος ἐπὶ καμήλου, καὶ πρῶτον μὲν πολλὰ ὑπὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων συγκλεισθέντος καὶ πεπονθότος, πομπεύσαντός τε, 3.341 ὡς ἔφην, καὶ ξύλοις παισθέντος, ἔπειτα δὲ συρέντος ὅλην σχεδὸν τὴν πόλιν καὶ οὕτως ἀποθανόντος καὶ μετὰ θάνατον καέντος καὶ μετὰ πολλῶν ὀστέων κτηνῶν καὶ ζῴων εἰς τέφραν συναχθέντος, καὶ μετέπειτα τοῖς ἀνέμοις ὑπ' αὐτῶν λικμηθέντος, καὶ οὕτως τὸ πέρας ἐσχηκότος. λέξειε δ' ἄν τις περὶ τοῦ οὕτως τετελευτηκότος, οὐκοῦν ἐμαρτύρησεν ὑπὸ Ἑλλήνων ταῦτα πεπονθώς; καὶ εἰ μὲν ὑπὲρ ἀληθείας αὐτῷ ἦν ὁ ἀγὼν καὶ ὑπὸ Ἑλλήνων διὰ φθόνον καὶ τὴν εἰς Χριστὸν ὁμολογίαν τὰ τοιαῦτα αὐτῷ συμβέβηκεν, ὄντως ἐν μάρτυσι καὶ οὐκ ἐν μικροῖς ἐτέτακτο. οὐκ ἦν δὲ τὸ αἴτιον διὰ τὴν εἰς Χριστὸν ὁμολογίαν, ἀλλὰ δι' ἣν ἐν τῇ ἑαυτοῦ δῆθεν ἐπισκοπῇ καλουμένῃ πολλὴν βίαν τὴν πόλιν τε καὶ τὸν δῆμον διέθετο, πῆ μὲν ἁρπάζων τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τὰ ἀπὸ τῶν γονέων αὐτῶν κληρονομήματα, *. καὶ ἵνα μὴ διαβάλλωμεν τὸν ἄνδρα· πολλὰ γάρ ἐστι τὰ ὑπ' ἐκείνου τοῖς Ἀλεξανδρεῦσι γενόμενα, πῶς μὲν τὴν νίτρον ἅπασαν ἐξέλαβε, πῶς δὲ τὰ ἕλη τὰ τῆς παπύρου καὶ τοῦ καλάμου καὶ τὰς λίμνας τοῦ ἁλὸς διοικεῖν καὶ εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἀποφέρεσθαι ἐπενόησεν· ὡς πᾶσα αἰσχρότης βίου κέρδους ἕνεκα διὰ πολλῆς μηχανῆς, ἄχρι καὶ λεπτῶν πραγμάτων, παρ' αὐτῷ οὐκ ἠμέλητο, ὡς καὶ κλίνας ἐπενόησε τοῖς σώμασι τῶν ἐξοδευόντων ποιῆσαι ἐν ἀριθμῷ τινι, καὶ ἄνευ τῶν ὑπ' αὐτοῦ ἐπιτεταγμένων οὐκ ἐξεκομίζετο σῶμα τῶν τελευτώντων, ἐπὶ πλεῖστον δὲ τῶν ξένων, οὐ διὰ φιλοξενίαν, ἀλλά, καθὼς ἔλεγον, διὰ πορισμὸν βιώδη. εἴ τις γὰρ ἔθαπτε δι' ἑαυτοῦ σῶμα, κίνδυνον ὑφίστατο. οὕτως δὲ ὑφ' ἑκάστου τῶν ἐκφερομένων κέρδος τι αὐτῷ προσεφέρετο. καὶ σιωπῶ τὰ ἄλλα λέγειν ὅσα ὁ ἀνὴρ ἐν τρυφαῖς καὶ ἄλλοις * ἐκομίζετο καὶ ἐν ἀπηνότητι. διὰ γοῦν ταῦτα πάντα τὴν εἰς αὐτὸν μῆνιν κεκρατηκότες Ἀλεξανδρέων παῖδες, Ἕλληνες δὲ μάλιστα, τοῦτο αὐτὸν διέθεντο τὸ τέλος. ἐμοὶ δὲ γέγονε πρόφασις περὶ τούτου λέγειν, ὡς ἐνηχηθέντες τὴν τοῦ Κωνσταντίου τελευτὴν εὐθὺς οὕτως αὐτὸν ἀπώλεσαν οἱ αὐτοὶ Ἀλεξανδρεῖς, δι' οὐδὲν ἕτερον ἡ περὶ τούτου μοι γεγένηται ὑπόθεσις ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν Ἀέτιον τὸν ὑπ' αὐτοῦ κατασταθέντα διάκονον. 2. Οὗτος ὁ Ἀέτιος καὶ κατὰ τὸν κοσμικὸν λόγον ἀπαίδευτος ἦν ἕως τῆς τελείας αὐτοῦ ἡλικίας, ὡς ὁ λόγος. ἐπενόησε δέ, ὑποβὰς καὶ σχολάσας ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ Ἀριστοτελικῷ φιλοσόφῳ καὶ σοφιστῇ καὶ τὰ τῆς διαλεκτικῆς δῆθεν ἐκείνων μαθών, οὐδὲν ἕτερον πλὴν σχη3.342 ματοποιεῖν τὴν περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγου ἀπόδοσιν· σχολαίτερον δὲ ἐπεχείρει, ὀρθρίζων ἅμα καὶ ἐνδελεχῶς ἄχρι ἑσπέρας εἰς τοῦτο καθεζόμενος, φημὶ δὲ εἰς τὸ διὰ γεωμετρίας τινὸς καὶ διὰ σχημάτων περὶ θεοῦ λέγειν τε καὶ ὁρίζειν, διδάσκων τε καὶ τελῶν. οἷα δὲ Ἀρειανὸς βαθύτατος καὶ τὴν Ἀρείου ἔχων μανιώδη διδασκαλίαν, περισσοτέρως τις λυμεὼν γέγονε τούτοις κατατριβόμενος καὶ κατὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ κατὰ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος τὴν γλῶσσαν αὐτοῦ καθ' ἑκάστην ἡμέραν ὀξύνας. Οὗτος δὲ κατηγορεῖται ὑπό τινων καὶ τῷ αὐτῷ Κωνσταντίῳ δηλοῦται καὶ ὑφίσταται ἐξορίαν ἐν τοῖς τοῦ Ταύρου μέρεσιν· ἐν ᾧ τόπῳ πάντα τὰ τῆς αὐτοῦ κακοδιδασκαλίας ἐπλάτυνε καὶ