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AMONG those then who were caught by this mistaken notion was one named
Sarapion, a man of long-standing strictness of life, and one who was
altogether perfect in actual discipline, whose ignorance with regard to the
view of the doctrine first mentioned was so far a stumbling block to all
who held the true faith, as he himself outstripped almost all the monks
both in the merits of his life and in the length of time (he had been
there). And when this man could not be brought back to the way of the right
faith by many exhortations of the holy presbyter Paphnutius, because this
view seemed to him a novelty, and one that was not ever known to or handed
down by his predecessors, it chanced that a certain deacon, a man of very
great learning, named Photinus, arrived from the region of Cappadocia with
the desire of visiting the brethren living in the same desert: whom the
blessed Paphnutius received with the warmest welcome, and in order to
confirm the faith which had been stated in the letters of the aforesaid
Bishop, placed him in the midst and asked him before all the brethren how
the Catholic Churches throughout the East interpreted the passage in
Genesis where it says "Let us make man after our image and likeness."
And when he explained that the image and likeness of God was taken by all
the leaders of the churches not according to the base sound of the letters,
but spiritually, and supported this very fully and by many passages of
Scripture, and showed that nothing of this sort could happen to that
infinite and incomprehensible and invisible glory, so that it could be
comprised in a human form and likeness, since its nature is incorporeal and
uncompounded and simple, and what can neither be apprehended by the eyes
nor conceived by the mind, at length the old man was shaken by the numerous
and very weighty assertions of this most learned man, and was drawn to the
faith of the Catholic tradition. And when both Abbot Paphnutius and all of
us were filled with intense delight at his adhesion, for this reason; viz.,
that the Lord had not permitted a man of such age and crowned with such
virtues, and one who erred only from ignorance and rustic simplicity, to
wander from the path of the right faith up to the very last, and when we
arose to give thanks, and were all together offering up our prayers to the
Lord, the old man was so bewildered in mind during his prayer because he
felt that the Anthropomorphic image of the Godhead which he used to set
before himself in prayer, was banished from his heart, that on a sudden he
burst into a flood of bitter tears and continual sobs, and cast himself
down on the ground and exclaimed with strong groanings: "Alas! wretched man
that I am! they have taken away my God from me, and I have now none to lay
hold of; and whom to worship and address I know not." By which scene we
were terribly disturbed, and moreover with the effect of the former
Conference still remaining in our hearts, we returned to Abbot Isaac, whom
when we saw close at hand, we addressed with these words.
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