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Such, then, is the testimony borne in various ways by Origen, Eusebius, and Cyril, by Aerius, Jovinian, and Vigilantius, to the immemorial reception among Christians of those doctrines and practices which the private judgment of this age considers to be unscriptural.
Again, the only value of the protest of these three men would be, of course, that they represented others; that they were exponents of a state of opinion which prevailed either in their day or before them, and which was in the way to be overpowered by the popular corruptions. What are Aerius and Jovinian to me as individuals?
There is one chance for it, not in the second and third centuries, but in the fourth; I mean in the history of Aerius, Jovinian, and Vigilantius, men who may be called, by some sort of analogy, the Luther, Calvin, and Zwingle, of the fourth century.
Or, again, do we wish to fix upon what can be detected in their creed of a positive character, and distinct from their protests? We happen to be told what it was in the case of one of them. Aerius was an Arian; does this mend matters? Is there any agreement at all between him and Luther here?
If Aerius is an authority against bishops, or against set fasts, why is he not an authority against the Creed of St. Athanasius? What has been last said leads to a further remark.
Neither do we favor Aerius, but we on our part are contending with you who are defending a heresy manifestly conflicting with the prophets, apostles and holy Fathers, namely, that the Mass justifies ex opere operato, that it merits the remission of guilt and punishment even for the unjust, to whom it is applied, if they do not present an obstacle.
The adversaries also falsely cite against us the condemnation of Aerius, who, they say was condemned for the reason that he denied that in the Mass an offering is made for the living and the dead. With this he finds fault.
Now does any one mean to maintain that Aerius, Jovinian, or Vigilantius, held justification by faith only in the sense of John Wesley, or of John Newton?
Now it so happens, that as Aerius, Jovinian, and Vigilantius in the fourth protested against austerities, so did Praxeas, Noetus, and Sabellius in the third protest against the Catholic or Athanasian doctrine of the Holy Trinity. A much stronger case surely could be made out in favour of the latter protest than of the former. Noetus was of Asia Minor, Praxeas taught in Rome, Sabellius in Africa.
A quarrel followed, from whatever cause; Aerius left his post, and accused Eustathius of covetousness, as it would appear, unjustly. Next he collected a large number of persons of both sexes in the open country, where they braved the severe weather of that climate. A congregation implies a creed, and Aerius founded or formed his own on the following points: 1.
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