There was a heretic called Arius, who disputed with a bishop who was named Alexander, a wise and orthodox man. The heretic said, that Christ the Son of God could not be equal to his Father, nor so mighty as he; and said, that the Father was before the Son, and took example from men, how every son is younger than his father in this life. Then said the holy bishop Alexander in opposition to him, "God was ever, and ever was his Wisdom of him begotten, and the Wisdom is his Son, as mighty as his Father." Then the heretic got the emperor's support to his heresy, and proclaimed a synod against the bishop, and would bend all the people to his heresies. Then the bishop watched one night in God's church, and cried to his Lord, and thus said, "Thou Almighty God, judge right judgement between me and Arius." On the morrow they came to the synod. The heretic then said to his companions, that he would go forth for his need. When he came to the place and sat, all his entrails came out, while he was sitting, and he sat there dead. Thus God manifested that he was as void in his inside as he had before been in his belief. He would make Christ less than he is, and diminish the dignity of his Godhead; when a death was given him as ignominious as he was well worthy of. There was another heretic who was called Sabellius. He said, that the Father was, whenever he would, Father; and again, when he would, he was Son; and again, when he would, was Holy Ghost; and was therefore one God. Then this heretic also perished with his heresy. Now again, the Jewish people who slew Christ, as he himself would and permitted, say that they will believe in the Father, and not in the Son whom their forefathers slew. Their belief is naught, and they will therefore perish. For our redemption Christ permitted them to slay him. All {293} mankind could not have done it, if he himself had not willed it; but the Holy Father created and made mankind through his Son, and he would afterwards through the same redeem us from hell-torment, when we were undone. Without any passion he might have had us, but that seemed to him unjust. But the devil undid himself, when he instigated the Jewish people to the slaying of Jesus, and we were redeemed by his innocent death from the eternal death. We have the belief that Christ himself taught to his apostles, and they to all mankind; and that belief God has confirmed and established by many miracles. First Christ by himself healed dumb and deaf, halt and blind, mad and leprous, and raised the dead to life: after, by his apostles and other holy men, he wrought the same miracles. Now also in our time, everywhere where holy men rest, at their dead bones God works many miracles, because he will with those miracles confirm people's faith. God works not these miracles at any Jewish man's sepulchre, nor at any other heretic's, but at the sepulchres of orthodox men, who believed in the Holy Trinity, and in the true Unity of one Godhead.