Arius the Libyan: A Romance of the Primitive Church

by Nathan C. Kouns

But this habit of independent thought did not tend as in later times in the direction of ecclesiastical schisms; because, if any one embraced a doctrinal error, either it was maintained by him as an individual opinion; or if a mistaken zeal led him to proclaim it publicly, and seek thereby to bind the consciences of other Christians, the matter soon came to the knowledge of the churches, and, when the Church assembled to consider the alleged error, the Holy Paraclete directed the counsels of the assembled bishops and presbyters, so that their deliverances were infallibly correct, and were universally accepted as final. So that, during the first three centuries, no heresy could survive the condemnation of a Christian council, and no learning, zeal, and genius could give to heresy such vitality and power as to seriously threaten the peace of the Church. Even Peter could not force the observance of the rite of circumcision upon the free Christian communities; and the heresies of Menander, Cerinthus, Nicolaus, Valentinius, Marcion, Tatianus, Blastus, Montanus, Artimon, and others, perished almost as soon as they had been condemned.

It was perfectly natural, therefore, that while both Arius and Theckla were almost children in many respects, they should both be far advanced in religious learning, each of them in harmony with one of the separate systems under which they had been reared; and that they should be, in many attitudes of thought and feeling, a pleasing enigma to each other. The girl, although brimful of bright and pleasing fancies, had all her life been accustomed to accept as truth whatever was taught to her as such, and the very basis of her training had been implicit and unquestioning obedience to authority without reason, so that she had never, perhaps, attempted to exercise an independent thought, judgment, or inquiry about any question of religious, political, or social life, her existence having been passed in strict and unconscious conformity to rigid Egyptian customs, into the molds and forms of which she had been fashioned from her infancy. The illness of her mother, which left her to the freedom of thought, expression, and action, characteristic of every Christian household, was a new and intoxicating experience to the girl; and, whatever else it might be possible for her to become, it was manifestly impossible that she could ever again resiliate into the moral and social mummyism of ordinary Egyptian female life. The bondage of Egypt was broken.

But the boy, fixed and immovable in his faith in the few salient and all-important doctrines covered by the Apostles' Creed, as that creed was taught during the first three centuries, as to everything else, had been freed by his training from the shackles of authority, and so unconsciously enjoyed and exercised "the liberty of the gospel" in which he had been reared by questioning, investigating, trying every phenomenon--social, religious, and political--that came within the range of his observation and experience.

Am-nem-hat imagined that in these two youthful but well-instructed young people he beheld the living incarnation of the opposing civilizations under which they had been reared; and it was a pathetic and beautiful thing to see with what eager intentness he noted almost every inflection of their voices, every expression of their countenances, almost every peculiar turn and change of their thoughts, while he encouraged them to talk, hardly caring what might be the subject of their conversation.

At the beginning of their little feast the ancient said: "Arius, if ye Christians have any custom of thank-offering, prayer, or libations, before ye partake of food, I would desire to have thee perform or repeat it now."

Then answered Arius: "We make no libation or offering, nor are we restricted to any set formula for returning thanks to God; but generally we repeat the [Greek: Patèr hemon]."

"Wilt thou do so now?"

Then the boy said, "Yea, gladly"; and, while they watched him narrowly, he solemnly said: "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name: thy kingdom come: thy will be done on earth as in heaven. Give us daily our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive debtors: and let us not be led into trial, but deliver us from trouble: for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the truth, forever."

Then said Am-nem-hat, "Theckla, what form of worship hast thou been taught to observe before partaking of thy daily food?"

And the girl said: "On solemn occasions, our fathers make libations; but it is not according to Egyptian customs, or religion, for a female to meddle with any sacred rite, beyond her own private devotions, as thou, O priest, must assuredly know."