Last year I suffered from a very violent fever, and came near to the gates of death. When, by God's mercy, I was restored, I was distressed at coming back to life, as I bethought me of all the troubles before me. I considered with myself for what reason, hidden in the depths of the wisdom of God, yet further clays of life in the flesh had been allowed me. But when I heard of these matters I concluded that the Lord wished a me to see the Churches at rest after the storm c which they had previously suffered from the the alienation of the men in whom, on account of their fictitious gravity of character, every confidence had been placed. Or peradventure the Lord designed to invigorate my soul, and to render it more vigilant for the future, to the end that, instead of giving heed to men, it might be made perfect through those precepts of the Gospel which do not share in the changes and chances of human seasons and circumstances, but abide for ever the same, as they were uttered by the blessed lips that cannot lie.
Men are like clouds, shifting hither and thither in the sky with the change of the winds.
And of all men who have ever come within my experience these of whom I am speaking are the most unstable. 24 Hermogenes, fell asleep, and then they went over to Eusebius, the coryphaeus, as we know on personal evidence, of the Arian ring. Leaving this, for whatever reasons, they came home again, and once more concealed their Arian sentiments. Of this last I know nothing, except that I am told that they have suppressed the homoousion, and are supporting the like in essence , while they subscribe with Eunomius the blasphemies against the Holy Spirit. Although all of the creeds which I have enumerated may not be opposed to one another, yet they alike exhibit the inconsistency of the men's minds, from their never standing by the same words.