Audians

AUDIANS: The followers of a certain Audius, according to Epiphanius (Hær., lxx; followed by Augustine, Hær., 1), Theodoret (Hist. eccl., iv, 10; Hær. fab., iv, 10), and Ephraem Syrus (Serm., xxiv, Adv. hær.), who state that Audius was a Mesopotamian, a layman who lived ” in the time of Arius,” that he declaimed against the worldly conduct of the clergy, founded an ascetic sect, and, in his old age banished to Scythia, did successful missionary work among the Goths. When Epiphanius wrote (c. 375) the sect was practically extinct in its original home. He praises the orthodoxy of Audius and his exemplary life, but blames him and his followers for holding anthropomorphic views of God and for being quartodecimans.

G. Krüger.

Bibliography: C. W. F. Walch, Entwurf einer vollständigen Historie der Ketzereien, iii, 300-321, Leipsic, 1786; G. Hoffmann, Auszüge aus syrischen Akten persischer Märtyrer, pp. 122, Leipsic, 1880; J. Overbeck, S. Ephraemi Syri Rabulæ opera, p 194, Oxford, 1865; L. E. Iselin, in JPT, xvi (1890). 298-305.