Browsing Category Saint of the Day

The Rev’d Alban Butler (1710-1773) undertook to write a thoroughgoing account of saints for the Catholic Book Society (Derby, England: Thomas Richardson & Son). What resulted was a massive 12-volume (one per month) work: The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints: Compiled from Original Monuments and Other Authentic Records. The first edition was completed in 1759, and became a classic in hagiography, with later editions that included commentary, such as the 1842-1846 work, used here.
[Because subsequent research showed that certain individuals never existed or had actually been pagan deities cloaked in a Christian veneer, or because the miracles were simply too “out there” for a more modern audience, a severe gelding of Butler’s magisterial work took place in 1956. Alas.]
Out of each day’s multiple stories, I shall lift up those vignettes to riff on. Enjoy and (if it’s in your particular vernacular) be edified! – TK

February 26: How to Really Throw Shade–Alexander, Enemy of Arius!

Tim Koch Race to the Bottom, Saint of the Day 0 Comment

For those of you who have followed this series during 2018, the name of that hoary heresiarch [major proponent of a Christian doctrinal assertion disfavored by those in charge], Arius, has come up repeatedly. This is not coincidental–he was the most persuasive and most powerful and most popular of those who dared question church orthodoxy. For this, he was excommunicated, recommunicated, and excommunicated–because the Church itself did not know its own mind: Arius was just that good.

Today’s saint–Alexander of (of all places) Alexandria–lived contemporaneously with Arius in in the same city. They both had substantial followings. Some 1700 years later, one is a saint (Alexander) and one damned (according to the Church) for eternity for his unrepentant heretical bent. Here’s basically some of what Arius put forward (though it must be acknowledged that ALL of Arius’s works were ordered destroyed, and so we can only surmise from the attack on him what he actually professed.

In brief, Arius maintained that:

  1. Jesus, being the (or even “a”) Son of God means that he post-dates God. Fathers come before there can be sons.
  2. Jesus was, in fact, capable of sinning while on earth. Otherwise, his incarnation would be meaningless to human beings (he’d just be a “special case” and not someone anyone was capable of emulating, and, likewise, he’d be unable to understand or experience full humanity in all its frailties). Arius never said that Jesus did sin, but that he possessed that capacity.
  3. Jesus was not like Certs (with Retsyn!)–that is, Jesus wasn’t “Two, Two, Two Natures in One!” but was, in fact, one person with one soul that lived and actually truly died and then lived again. That is, to the extent that Jesus was “God” then God died for real. And since Arius was not agreeing with the idea that, even for 2 or 3 days, there was “no living God” around, then Jesus could not be said to be co-eternal and consubstantial or any of those other fancy words to act like the Emperor has very fine clothes on that only the “truly faithful” are capable of apprehending.

Well, even now the Church has no good answer for Arius’s positions except “He’s wrong! He’s wrong! He’s wrong!” In fact, today’s saint, Alexander, agitated the Church hierarchy relentlessly until it came to the attention of the Emperor (unbaptized but a catechumen, we are told) grew restless with the bickering. Arius the heresiarch is really the reason that the Church found itself holding the First Council of Nicea (cf. Nicene Creed), at which Emperor Constantine told them to figure out ONE ORTHODOXY TO UNITE THE EMPIRE, not caring whether it was Arianism or not. When the Council decided against Arius, Constantine–finally able to merge Church and State–wasted no time in unilaterally exiling the excommunicated Arius, and by fiat declared an end to the matter.

Of course, these questions have never truly gone away.

What is of particular interest in Butler’s version of Alexander’s story is the shade that he throws at Arius–a thoroughgoing ad hominem attack that doesn’t do much to address the above enumerated points:

This heresiarch was well versed in profane literature, was a subtle dialectitian, had an exterior show of virtue, and an insinuating behaviour; but was a monster of pride, vain glory, ambition, envy, and jealousy. Under an affected modesty he concealed a soul full of deceit, and capable of all crimes.

Really? Capable of “all crimes”? Like robbery? Murder? Rape? Really?!

Well, Butler tells us, not only was Arius “a monster,” but “Arius engaged in his errors two other curates of the city, a great many virgins [?!], twelve deacons, seven priests, and two bishops.” That alone shows the magnetic power of Arius, Heresiarch of Alexandria.

Oh, yes: and what of our Saint Alexander? Butler reports, “Alexander, who was one of the mildest of men, first made use of soft and gentle methods to recover Arius to the truth, and endeavoured to gain him by sweetness and exhortations.”

I guess that, failing such soft methods, the only other option for our saint was to ensure that Arius was cut off from the sacraments of the Church, sent body and soul to hell, and exiled by the Emperor from Arius’s own home.