AUDAEUS

audaeus, or audius, a church reformer of the 4th century, by birth a mesopotamian. he suffered much persecution from the syrian clergy for his fearless censure of their irregular lives, and was expelled from the church, thereupon establishing an episcopal monastic community. he was afterwards banished into scythia, where he worked successfully among the goths, not living to see the destruction of his labours by athanaric. the audaeans celebrated the feast of easter on the same day as the jewish passover, and they were also charged with attributing to the deity a human shape, an opinion which they appear to have founded on genesis i. 26. theodoret groundlessly accuses them of manichean tendencies. the main source of information is epiphanius (_haer._ 70).