Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/71

Rh question. The Aetian interest with Eusebius (Soz. 1.16), the powerful Eunuch, divides the intended council, but notwithstanding, the Aetians are defeated at Seleucia, A. D. 359, and, dissolving the council, hasten to Constantius, at Constantinople, to secure his protection against their opponents. (S. Ath. transl. pp. 73, 77, 88, 163, 164.) The Anti-Aetians (who are in fact the more respectable Semi-Arians, see ARIUS) follow, and charge their opponents with maintaining a Difference in Substance (ἑτεροούσιον) in the Trinity, producing a paper to that effect. A new schism ensues among the Aetians, and Aetius is abandoned by his friends (called Eusebians or Acacians, see ARIUS) and banished (S. Bas. 1.4), after protesting against his companions, who, holding the same principle with himself (viz. that the Son was a creature, κτίσμα), refused to acknowledge the necessary inference (viz. that He is of unlike substance to the Father, άνόμοιον). (Thdt. 2.23; Soz. 4.23; S. Greg. p. 301, D. ; Phil. 4.12.) His late friends would not let him remain at Mopsuuestia, where he was kindly received by Auxentius, the Bishop there : Acacins procures his banishment to Amblada in Pisidia (Phil. 5.1), where he composed his 300 blasphemies, captious inferences from the symbol of his irreligion, viz. that Ingenerateness (ἀγεννησία) is the essence (οὐσια) of Deity; which are refuted (those at least which St. Epiphanius had seen) in S. Ep. ad v. Haer. 76. He there calls his opponents Chronites, i.e. Temporals, with an apparent allusion to their courtly obsequiousness. (Praefat. apud S. Ep.; comp. c. 4.)

On Constantius's death, Julian recalled the various exiled bishops, as well as Aetius, whom he invited to his court (Ep. Juliani, 31, p. 52, ed. Boisson.), giving him, too, a farm in Lesbos. (Phil. 9.4.) Euzoius, heretical Bishop of Antioch, took off the ecclesiastical condemnation front Aetius (Phil. 7.5), and he was made Bishop at Constantinople. (S. Ep. 76. p. 992c.) He spreads his heresy by fixing a bishop of his own irreligion at Constantinople (Phil. 8.2) and by missionaries, till the death of Jovin, A. D. 364. Valens, however, took part with Eudoxius, the Acacian Bishop of Constantinople, and Aetius retired to Lesbos, where he narrowly escaped death at the hands of the governor, placed there by Procopius in his revolt against Valens, A. D. 365, 366. (See Gibbon. ch. 19.) Again he took refuge in Constantinople, but was driven thence by his former friends. In vain he applied for protection to Eudoxius, now at Marcianople with Valens; and in A. D. 367 (Phil. 9.7) he died, it seems, at Constantinople, unpitied by any but the equally irreligious Eunomius, who buried him. (Phil. 9.6.) The doctrinal errors of Aetius are stated historically in the article on ARIUS. From the Manichees he seems to have learned his licentious morals, which appeared in the most shocking Solifianism, and which he grounded on a Gnostic interpretation of St. John, 17.3. He denied, like most other heretics, the necessity of fasting and self-mortification. (S. Ep. ad v. Haer. 76.4.) At some time or other he was a disciple of Eusebius of Sebaste. (S. Bas. Epist. 223 [79] and 244 [82].) Socrates (2.35) speaks of several letters from him to Constantine and others. His Treatise is to be found ap. S. Epiphan. ad v. Haer. 76, p. 924, ed. Petav. Colon. 1682.

AETIUS (Ἀέτιος, Aetius), a Greek medical writer, whose name is commonly but incorrectly spelt Aetius. Historians are not agreed about his exact date. He is placed by some writers as early as the fourth century after Christ; but it is plain from his own work that he did not write till the very end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth, as he refers (tetrab. iii. serm. 1.24. p. 464) not only to St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, who died A. D. 444, but also (tetrab. ii. serm. 3.110, p. 357) to Petrus Archiater, who was physician to Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and therefore must have lived still later; he is himself quoted by Alexander Trallianus (12.8, p. 346), who lived probably in the middle of the sixth century. He was a native of Amida, a city of Mesopotamia (Photius, cod. 221) and studied at Alexandria, which was the most famous medical school of the age. He was probably a Christian, which may account perhaps for his being confounded with another person of the same name, a famous Arian of Antioch, who lived in the time of the Emperor Julian. In some manuscripts he has the title of κώμης ὀψικίου, comes obsequii, which means the chief officer in attendance on the emperor (see Du Cange, Gloss. Med. et Inf. Latin.); this title, according to Photius (l.c.), he attained at Constantinople, where he was practising medicine. Aetius seems to be the first Greek medical writer among the Christians who gives any specimen of the spells and charms so much in vogue with the Egyptians, such as that of St. Blaise (tetrab. ii. serm. 4.50, p. 404) in removing a bone which sticks in the throat, and another in relation to a Fistula. (tetrab. iv. serm. 3.14, p. 762.)

The division of his work Βιβλία Ἰατρικὰ Ἐκκαίδεκα, Sixteen Books on Medicine, into four tetrabibli (τετράβιβλοι) was not made by himself, but (as Fabricius observes) was the invention of some modern translator, as his way of quoting his own work is according to the numerical series of the books. Although his work does not contain much original matter, it is nevertheless one (of the most valuable medical remains of antiquity, as being a very judicious compilation from the writings of many authors whose works have been long since lost.

The whole of it has never appeared in the original Greek; one half was published at Venice, 1534, fol. "in aed. Aldi," with the title Aetii Amideni Librorum Medicinalium tomus primus; primi scilicet Libri Octo nunc primum in lucem editi, Graecè: the second volume never appeared. Some chapters of the ninth book were published in Greek and Latin, by J. E. Hebenstreit, Lips. 4to. 1757, under the title Tentamen Philologicum Medicum super Aetii Amideni Synopsis Medicorum Veterum, &c.; and again in the same year, Aetii Amideni Ἀνεκδότων ..... Specimen alterum.

Another chapter of the same book was edited in Greek and Latin by J. Maginus a Tengström, Aboae, 1817, 4to., with the title " Commentationum in Aetii Amideni Medici Ἀνέκδοτα Specimen Primum," etc.

Another extract, also from the ninth book, is inserted by Mustoxydes and Schinas in their " Συλλογὴ Ἑλληνικῶν Ἀνεκδότων," Venet. 1816, 8vo. The twenty-fifth chapter of the ninth book was edited in Greek and Latin by J. C. Horn, Lips. 1654, 4to.; and the chapter (tetrab. i. serm. 3.164) " De Significationibus Stellarum," is inserted in Greek and Latin by Petavius, in his " Uraxolo-