By Water & Blood

On the Audianians

A certain Audaius, coming from Syria beyond the Euphrates, said that God is human-formed, and assigned to him the parts of the body, foolishly understanding what the divine Scripture said condescendingly. For when the divine Scripture converses with humans, who do not even know accurately the nature of things seen, it made the teaching as they were able to hear. For this reason it named God’s visual power “eyes,” and the auditory “ears,” and the practical “hands,” and the other energies likewise. Understanding none of this, the foolish man assigned the human form to God. For thus he also understood: “Let us make man according to our image and according to likeness.” And sick with irrationality, he did not grasp the invisible and immortal of the soul, but fixed his reasoning on the body alone. But concerning this too it will be said, God willing, in the discussions of the formation of man.

They say, then, that this Audaius also said that darkness and fire and water are unbegotten. But those who have shared his designation conceal these things. They pretend to flee communion with the Church because of usurers and those who live with women—although many things more severe are also dared among them. And they do not see that even for the most exact of bishops cutting off is not easy; but there is need of accusers, need of witnesses, according to the apostolic law: “Do not receive an accusation against a priest apart from two or three witnesses.” That the ecclesiastical laws punish those caught is witnessed by what happens everywhere on land and sea. For bishops and deacons and priests are separated from the ecclesiastical rolls.

But these boast that they grant remission of sins. For dividing the sacred books in two along with the spurious ones (for they especially regard these as apocryphal and mystical), and setting them verse by verse on this side and that, they order each to pass between them and confess the faults committed; then to those who have confessed they grant the remission—not appointing a time for repentance, as the ordinances of the Church command, but making the pardon by authority. Knowing that what happens is a game, those who pass conceal the true faults and say certain small and laughable things, which one would hesitate even to utter unless he had their madness of mind.