KALLISTOS
11. 1. Kallistos validated
this heresy. He was a man crafty in vice and versatile in deceit, hunting the
episcopal throne for his own ends. It was he who, by convincing Zephyrinos (a
man uncultivated, unlettered, and inexperienced in ecclesiastical rulings) with
bribes and unending solicitations, steered the greedy bribe-taker where he
wanted. He continually persuaded him to incite factions between the brothers.
Later on, he fostered favor for himself among both parties “by the speeches of
cheats.” By sometimes claiming in private to hold the same views as those who
thought the truth, he deceived them, all the while doing likewise with those
who agreed with Sabellios’s teachings.
It was he too who drove Sabellios away, though he could
have corrected him. 2. For when I admonished Sabellios, he was not hardened.
But when Sabellios spent time alone with Kallistos, he was spurred by him to
incline to the dogma of Kleomenes (since Kallistos claimed to share those
views). At that time, Sabellios did not realize Kallistos’s dissemblance.
Later, however, he realized it, as I will soon relate.
3. Kallistos led Zephyrinos himself astray. He persuaded
him to declare publicly: “I know one God Christ Jesus, and beside him no other
who is born and subject to suffering.” At other times, he persuaded him to say:
“The Father did not die, but the Son.” In this way he kept the discord among
the people unchecked.
Knowing his thoughts, I did not give ground to him but
exposed and opposed him on behalf of the truth. But he—going mad because
everybody flocked to his theater performance (except my party)—denounced us as
“ditheists,” thus violently vomiting out the poison lurking within him. 4.
Therefore, beloved, I think it right to present his life, since he was our
contemporary, so that through exposing the behavior of such a person, his
contrived heresy might at once become well recognized and clear to people of intelligence.
He became a confessor when Fuscianus was prefect of Rome.56 The mode of his
confession was as follows. (Refutation of All Heresies 9.11.1-4, in, Refutation
of All Heresies [trans. M. David Litwa; Writings from the Greco-Roman
World; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016], 643, 645)
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