Eran. -I think so. But it will be well for us to lay down the names of the holders of these different opinions, that the point under discussion may be made plainer.
Orth. -I will tell you the names. Simon, Menander, Marcion, Valentinus, Basilides, Bardesanes, Cerdo, and Manes, openly denied the humanity of Christ. On the other hand Artemon, Theodotus, Sabellius, Paul of Samosata, Marcellus, and Photinus, fell into the diametrically opposite blasphemy; for they preach Christ to be man only, and deny the Godhead which existed before the ages. Arius and Eunomius make the Godhead of the only begotten a created Godhead, and maintain that He assumed only a body. Apollinarius confesses that the assumed body was a living body, but in his work deprives the reasonable soul alike of its honour and of its salvation. This is the contrariety of these corrupt opinions. But do you, with all due love of truth, tell us, must we institute a discussion with these men, or shall we let them go dashed down headlong and howling to their doom?
Eran. -It is inhuman to neglect the sick.
Orth. -Very well; then we must compassionate them, and do our best to heal them.
Eran. -By all means.
Orth. -If then you had scientifically learned how to cure the body, and round you stood many men asking you to cure them, and shewing their various ailments, such as arise from running at tile eyes, injury to the ears, tooth-ache, contraction of tile joints, palsy, bile, or phlegm, what would you have done? Tell me; would you have applied the same treatment to all, or to each that which was appropriate?
Eran. -I should certainly have given to each the appropriate remedy.
Orth. -So by applying cold treatment to the hot, and heating the cold, and loosing the strained, and giving tension to tim loose, and drying the moist, and moistening the dry, you would have driven out the diseases and restored the health which they had expelled.
Eran. -This is the treatment prescribed by medical science, for contraries, it is said, are the remedies of contraries.
Orth. -If you were a gardener, would yon give the same treatment to all plants? or their own to the mulberry and the fig, and so to the pear, to the apple, and to the vine what is fitting to each, and in a word to each plant its own proper culture?
Eran. -It is obvious that each plant requires its own treatment.
Orth. -And if you undertook to be a ship builder, and saw that the mast wanted repair, would you try to mend it in the same way as you would the tiller? or would you give it the proper treatment of a mast?
Eran. -There is no question about these things: everything demands its own treatment, be it plant or limb or gear or tackle.
Orth. -Then is it not monstrous to apply to the body and to things without life to each its own appropriate treatment, and not to keep this rule of treatment in the case of the soul?
Eran. -Most unjust; nay, rather stupid than unrighteous. They who adopt any other method are quite unskilled in the healing art.
Orth. -Then in disputing against each heresy we shall use the appropriate remedy?
Eran. -By all means.
Orth. -And it is fitting treatment to add what is wanting and to remove what issuperfluous?
Eran. -Yes.
Orth. -In endeavouring then to cure Photinus and Marcellus and their adherents, in order to carry out the rule of treatment, what should we add?
Eran. -The acknowledgment of the Godhead of Christ, for it is this that they lack.
Orth. -But about the manhood we will say nothing to them, for they acknowledge the Lord Christ to be man.
Eran. -You are right.
Orth. -And in arguing with Arius and Eunomius about the incarnation of the only begotten, what should we persuade them to add to their own confession?
Eran. -The assumption of the soul; for they say that the divine Word took only a body.