20 L. Were Arians really then received after all? Pray tell me who they were.
O. Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, Theognis, bishop of Nicæa, Saras, at the time presbyter of Libya, Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine, and others whom it would be tedious to enumerate; Arius also, the presbyter, the original source of all the trouble; Euzoius the deacon, who succeeded Eudoxius as bishop of Antioch, and Achillas, the reader. These three who were clerics of the Church of Alexandria were the originators of the heresy.
L. Suppose a person were to deny that they were welcomed back, how is he to be refuted?
O. There are men still living who took part in that Council. And if that is not enough, because owing to the time that has elapsed they are but few, and it is impossible for witnesses to be everywhere, if we read the acts and names of the bishops of the Council of Nicæa, we find that those who we saw just now were welcomed back, did subscribe the homoousion along with the rest.
L. Will you point out how, after the Council of Nicæa, they relapsed into their unfaithfulness?
O. A good suggestion, for unbelievers are in the habit of shutting their eyes and denying that things which they dislike ever happened. But how could they afterwards do anything but relapse, when it was owing to them that the Council was convened, and their letters and impious treatises which were published before the Council, remain even to the present day? Seeing, therefore, that at that time three hundred bishops or more welcomed a few men whom they might have rejected without injury to the Church, I am surprised that certain persons, who are certainly upholders of the faith of Nicæa, are so harsh as to think that three Confessors returning from exile were not bound in the interests of the world's salvation to do what so many illustrious men did of their own accord. But, to go back to our starting point, on the return of the Confessors it was determined, in a synod afterwards held at Alexandria, that, the authors of the heresy excepted (who could not be excused on the ground of error), penitents should be admitted to communion with the Church: not that they who had been heretics could be bishops, but because it was clear that those who were received had not been heretics. The West assented to this decision, and it was through this conclusion, which the necessities of the times demanded, that the world was snatched from the jaws of Satan. I have reached a very difficult subject, where I am compelled against my wishes and my purpose, to think somewhat otherwise of that saintly man Lucifer than his merits demand, and my own courtesy requires. But what am I to do? Truth opens my mouth and urges my reluctant tongue to utter the thoughts of my heart. At such a crisis of the Church, when the wolves were wildly raging, he separated off a few sheep and abandoned the remnant of the flock. He himself was a good shepherd, but he was leaving a vast spoil to the beasts of prey. I take no notice of reports originating with certain evil speakers, though maintained by them to be authenticated facts; such as that he acted thus through the love of glory, and the desire of handing down his name to posterity; or again that he was influenced by the grudge he bore against Eusebius on account of the quarrel at Antioch. I believe none of these reports in the case of such a man; and this I will constantly affirm even now— that the difference between us and him is one of words, not of things, if he really does receive those who have been baptized by the Arians.
Source: The Dialogue Against the Luciferians (New Advent)