sect. They held the possibility in the passionless state of a perfection in which sin was impossible; such a man needed neither instruction for his soul nor fasting to discipline his body, for delicate food and luxurious living could stir no evil desire in him. It is probably a misconception to suppose that they claimed that he could be guilty of licentious conduct without falling from perfection. The soul of him who was "spiritual," as they boasted themselves to be, was changed into the divine nature; he could see things invisible to ordinary men; and so some of them used to dance by way of trampling on the demons which they saw, a practice from which they were called Choreutae. The things they saw in their dreams they took for realities, and boasted that they then acquired a knowledge of future events, could see the condition of departed souls, and could read men's hearts. Both sexes might partake of this divine illumination, and they had female teachers, whom they honoured more than the clergy. The use of the Lord's Supper they regarded as a thing indifferent: it could neither benefit the worthy nor harm the unworthy receiver; but there was no reason for separating from the church by refusing it. They disparaged all the ordinary forms of Christian charity as compared with the merit of bestowing alms on one of their members. They had speculations about our Lord's humanity, of which the most intelligible is that the body which He assumed had been full of demons which it was necessary for Him to expel.
History.—The first whom we read of as a leader of the sect is Adelphius; hence "Adelphians" was one of their many names. He was a layman of Mesopotamia. Epiphanius speaks of them in his time as having no recognized leader. Theodoret tells that Flavian bp. of Antioch sent monks to bring the Messalian teachers at Edessa to Antioch. They denied their doctrines, and charged their accusers with calumny. Flavian then used an artifice afterwards repeated by Alexius Comnenus in the case of the Bogomiles. He affected to take their part, treated the aged Adelphius with great respect, and led him to believe that he would find in an aged bishop one able to understand and sympathize with views which younger men rejected only from want of experience. Adelphius, having been thus enticed into a full disclosure of his sentiments, was rebuked in the words addressed by Daniel to the wicked elder (Susanna, 52) and punished as convicted out of his own mouth. He and his party were beaten, excommunicated, and banished, and were not allowed, as they wished, the alternative of recantation, no confidence being felt in their sincerity, especially as they were found communicating in friendly terms with Messalians whom they had anathematized. Probably it was on this occasion that Flavian held a synod against them (Photius, 52), attended by three other bishops (Bizus of Seleucia, a Mesopotamian bishop, Maruthas, described by Photius as bp. of the Supharenians, and Samus) and by about 30 clergy. With Adelphius there were condemned two persons named Sabas, one of them a monk and a eunuch, Eustathius of Edessa, Dadoes, Hermas, Symeon, and others. Flavian informed the bishops of Edessa and neighbourhood what had been done, and received an approving reply. The Messalians banished from Syria went to Pamphylia, and there met new antagonists. They were also condemned by a council of 25 bishops held at Side and presided over by Amphilochius of Iconium, which sent a synodical letter to Flavian, informing him of their proceedings. In their Acts Amphilochius gave a full statement of the Messalian tenets expressed in their own words. Photius represents the synod at Antioch just mentioned as having been called in consequence of the synodical letter from Side, but this is more than doubtful, though Theodoret also, in his Eccl. Hist., mentions the proceedings in Pamphylia before mentioning those which resulted in the banishment of the Messalians to Pamphylia. We cannot fix the year of these proceedings, but c. 390 will probably not be far wrong. Measures were taken against the Messalians in Armenia also. Letoius bp. of Melitene obtained information from Flavian as to the proceedings in Antioch. Finding some monasteries in his diocese infected by this heresy, he set fire to them, and hunted the wolves from his sheepfold. A less zealous Armenian bishop was rebuked by Flavian for favour shewn to these heretics. In Pamphylia the contest lasted for several years. The orthodox leaders were another Amphilochius, bp. of Side, and Verinianus bp. of Perga, who were stimulated by energetic letters from Atticus bp. of Constantinople, and later, in a.d. 426, from the synod held for the consecration of Sisinnius, the successor of Atticus, in which Theodotus of Antioch and a bishop named Neon are mentioned by Photius as taking active parts. Messalianism had probably at that time given some trouble in Constantinople itself. Nilus (de Vol. Paup. ad Magnam, 21) couples with Adelphius of Mesopotamia, Alexander, who polluted Constantinople with like teaching, and against whom he contends that their idleness, instead of aiding devotion, gave scope to evil thoughts and passions and was inimical to the true spirit of prayer. Tillemont has conjectured that this was the Alexander who about this time founded the order of the Acoimetae (see D. C. A. s.v.), but the identification is far from certain. There is no evidence that the latter was a heretic save that his name has not been honoured with the prefix of saint; and his institution would scarcely have met with the success it did if it could have been represented as devised by a notorious Messalian to carry out the notions of his sect as to the duty of incessant prayer.
Between the accession of Sisinnius and the council of Ephesus in 431, John of Antioch wrote to Nestorius about the Messalians, and Theodosius legislated against them (xvi. Cod. Theod. de Haer. vol. vi. p. 187). At Ephesus Valerian of Iconium, and Amphilochius of Side, in the name of the bps. of Lycaonia and Pamphylia, obtained from the council a confirmation of the decrees made against the Euchites at Constantinople in 426 and the anathematization of the Messalian book, Asceticus, passages from which Valerian laid before the synod (Mansi, iv. 1477). Fabricius names Agapius, and Walch Adelphius, as the
