Defence against the Arians

Contents

Reading pages: 1–12 · 13–26 · 27–38 · 39–51 · 52–69 · 70–82 · 83–90

1. 1Athanasius explains that his case has already been judged in his favor many times, at Alexandria, Rome, and Sardica, and even by his former accusers Ursacius and Valens.
2. 2Athanasius points to the recantation of Valens and Ursacius as proof of the plot against him and introduces the letter of the Egyptian synod.
3. 3The Egyptian bishops explain why they now break their silence: Athanasius’s enemies are again accusing him before the emperors of murders that never happened.
4. 4The bishops say it is the accusers, not Athanasius, who deserve lament, since they seek his death and exile again after he has been restored.
5. 5The Egyptian bishops deny that Athanasius caused any killings, recount the origins of the hostility of Eusebius’s party, defend Athanasius’s election, and attack Eusebius’s moves from see to see.
6. 7The bishops turn Eusebius’s reproach back on him, since he and Theognis were themselves deposed, and deny that Athanasius’s return caused riots.
7. 8The bishops deny that the Council of Tyre was a true synod and point out that Arsenius, whom Athanasius was accused of murdering, is alive and seeks communion with them.
8. 9The bishops explain that Athanasius was exiled not on the Tyre charges but on Eusebius’s new slander that he threatened the grain supply to Constantinople, and that Constantine had earlier condemned the Meletians.
9. 10The bishops point out the contradiction in a synod that relied on imperial power yet overturned the emperor’s own judgment clearing Athanasius.
10. 11The bishops show that the charge of the broken chalice is impossible: Ischyras’s house was no church, he was no presbyter, and it was not the Lord’s day.
11. 12The bishops argue that Ischyras was never validly ordained, since Colluthus was only a presbyter, and that he has been rewarded for his accusation with a church and perhaps a bishopric.
12. 13The bishops recount how Athanasius’s declared enemies were sent secretly to investigate in the Mareotis, taking the accuser with them but leaving the accused under guard at Tyre.
13. 14The bishops describe the one-sided inquiry in the Mareotis, conducted with the accuser and the prefect, excluding the clergy and using pagan witnesses.
14. 15The bishops describe the violence against virgins in Alexandria during the commission’s visit and cite Ischyras’s own letter admitting that he invented the charge.
15. 17The bishops cite witnesses and letters, including Constantine’s, against the charges, and argue that the Meletian John was a tool of the Arian party, whose real aim was to remove an opponent of their heresy.
16. 18The bishops answer the new charge that Athanasius sold the imperial grain meant for widows, saying the Arians invented it in order to take the grain for themselves.
17. 19The Egyptian bishops ask the bishops everywhere to accept their testimony for Athanasius, to reject Eusebius’s party, who have set up a bishop for the Arians, and to disregard letters signed in the names of Egyptian bishops.
18. 20Athanasius relates how Eusebius’s party declined Julius’s invitation to a synod at Rome, where more than fifty bishops received him, and introduces Julius’s letter.
19. 21Julius rebukes the Eusebians for the contentious and arrogant tone of their reply to his letter of invitation.
20. 22Julius argues that a review of a synod’s judgment is customary and was requested by the Eusebians’ own envoys, so they had no reason to be offended by his invitation.
21. 23Julius argues that it is the Eusebians, by receiving the Arians condemned at Nicaea, who dishonor a synod, while he only sought a fair hearing for Athanasius and Marcellus.
22. 24Julius explains that the Eusebians wanted him to write to Pistus, an Arian appointed by the deposed Secundus, which would have dishonored Nicaea.
23. 25Julius turns the Eusebians’ appeal to the authority of synods against them, rebukes translations of bishops from see to see, and rejects their excuses about the short notice and the troubled times.
24. 26Julius answers the complaint that he wrote alone and only to the Eusebians, stating that his letter expresses the view of all the bishops of Italy.
25. 27Julius explains why he received Athanasius: the letters against him contradict each other, many bishops testify for him, Arsenius is alive, and the Mareotic inquiry was one-sided.
26. 28Julius reports Athanasius’s evidence: the letters of Alexander of Thessalonica and of Ischyras himself, and contradictions in the Mareotic minutes, which show the charge was invented.
27. 29Julius argues that he acted canonically in receiving Athanasius, while the Eusebians acted against the canons in appointing a stranger at Antioch and sending him to Alexandria with soldiers.
28. 30Julius condemns the uncanonical installation of Gregory at Alexandria by soldiers, and the violence that accompanied it, as the real breach of the canons.
29. 31Julius protests that the inquiry into the chalice was held before a civil judge, catechumens, pagans, and Jews, while the presbyters were excluded.
30. 32Julius reports that Marcellus of Ancyra confessed an orthodox faith at Rome and was therefore kept in communion.
31. 33Julius reports that many bishops and presbyters from the East came to Rome complaining of violence and persecution, which made his invitation to a synod the more necessary.
32. 34Julius urges the Eusebians to correct their uncanonical acts, to stop demanding a choice between communion with them and with Athanasius and Marcellus, and to come and prove their charges.
33. 35Julius closes by asking for a new synod, protesting that bishops were deposed and exiled without reference to all the churches, and claiming that matters concerning Alexandria should first be referred to Rome.
34. 36Athanasius recounts how the Eusebians at Sardica refused to face trial and were deposed, and introduces the synod’s letter to the church of Alexandria.
35. 37The synod of Sardica tells the church of Alexandria that the Arian party fled trial, that Julius rightly received Athanasius, and that the Mareotic minutes were one-sided and self-refuting.
36. 38The synod recalls the exposed charge that Athanasius murdered Arsenius and urges the Alexandrians to hold the right faith and endure persecution.
37. 39The synod of Sardica asks the emperors to stop magistrates from judging clergy, declares Gregory deposed, clears four Alexandrian presbyters, and begins its parallel letter to the bishops of Egypt and Libya.
38. 42In its letter to Egypt and Libya the synod repeats its account of the Arsenius charge and its exhortation to hold the faith and endure, adding that many other bishops have suffered likewise.
39. 43The letter to Egypt and Libya repeats the synod’s request to the emperors and its deposition of Gregory, and introduces the synod’s encyclical letter to all bishops.
40. 44The synod’s encyclical relates that the Eastern bishops came to Sardica but, though summoned repeatedly in the presence of Hosius and others, refused to face Athanasius, Marcellus, and Asclepas.
41. 45The synod explains that the Eastern bishops fled Sardica because their victims—exiles, bishops in chains, and envoys of whole churches—had come to accuse them.
42. 46The synod reports its own examination of the charges: Arsenius is alive, the Mareotic evidence shows no Eucharist could have been celebrated, and Ischyras was never a presbyter.
43. 47The synod reports that Marcellus’s book was found orthodox when read in context, that Asclepas proved his innocence, and that the Eastern bishops promoted deposed Arians.
44. 48The synod names the leaders of the Arian party and reports, on the evidence of two bishops who left them, that they had agreed beforehand to avoid the trial.
45. 49The synod declares Athanasius, Marcellus, and Asclepas innocent, rejects the bishops intruded into their sees, deposes and excommunicates the Arian leaders, and asks all bishops to sign.
46. 50Athanasius lists the bishops who signed the decrees of Sardica, by region, and counts 344 supporters in all.
47. 51Athanasius quotes Constantius’s three letters inviting him back after Sardica and tells how he took leave of Rome, where Julius wrote to the church of Alexandria.
48. 52Julius congratulates the Alexandrians that God has restored their bishop in answer to their faith and prayers.
49. 53Julius tells the Alexandrians to receive Athanasius with joy, as one proved like gold in the fire and declared innocent by the whole synod.
50. 55Athanasius tells of his reception by Constantius and quotes the emperor’s letters ordering the clergy and people of Alexandria to receive him and the magistrates to punish disturbers.
51. 56Athanasius reports that Constantius had his earlier hostile orders removed from the official records of Egypt.
52. 57Athanasius quotes the letter of the synod of Jerusalem, which received him on his way home and rejoiced with the Alexandrians at his return.
53. 58Athanasius quotes the recantation of Ursacius and Valens to Julius, with their anathema of Arius, and their letter of peace to himself, and prepares to recount the affair from its beginning.
54. 59Athanasius recounts the origin of the Meletian schism, Eusebius’s alliance with the Meletians, Constantine’s threatening letter, and the charge of treason dismissed at Psammathia.
55. 61Constantine opens his letter to the Alexandrian church by lamenting the envy and slander that have broken their concord.
56. 62Constantine denounces the envy and ambition of Athanasius’s enemies, tells the Alexandrians that he received Athanasius as a man of God, and urges them to concord.
57. 63Athanasius tells how the Meletians, with Eusebius’s party, built the charges of the broken chalice and the murder of Arsenius around Ischyras, who later confessed the plot.
58. 64Ischyras’s written confession to Athanasius that the charges of the broken chalice and the overturned table were false and extorted from him by violence.
59. 66Alexander of Thessalonica writes to Athanasius rejoicing that the accuser Archaph was disgraced when the supposedly murdered Arsenius was found alive.
60. 67Athanasius quotes the letter of the Meletian presbyter Pinnes admitting to John Arcaph that Arsenius had been hidden in their monastery and found alive.
61. 68Constantine’s letter to Athanasius condemns the Meletians, whose charges of murder were refuted by the living men themselves and whose charge about the chalice kept shifting.
62. 69Arsenius, the bishop supposedly murdered by Athanasius, writes to him submitting to the catholic Church and breaking communion with the Meletian schismatics.
63. 70Athanasius quotes Constantine’s letter welcoming John Arcaph’s reconciliation, then tells how Eusebius’s party revived the Meletian charges at Tyre, and gives Meletius’s own list of his clergy, which shows that Ischyras was never a presbyter.
64. 72Athanasius shows from Meletius’s list that Ischyras was never a presbyter, and recounts how, after failing at Tyre, his enemies sent a hostile commission to the Mareotis with the accuser but without the accused.
65. 73The clergy of Alexandria protest to the Mareotic commission that it proceeded one-sidedly, without the accused and without them.
66. 74The clergy of the Mareotis testify to the synod of Tyre that Ischyras was never a presbyter, that no chalice was broken, and that the commission suborned witnesses through fear of the prefect.
67. 75The Mareotic clergy testify to the imperial officials that Ischyras is no presbyter, that his “church” is an orphan’s small house, and that no chalice was broken.
68. 77The Egyptian bishops at Tyre protest to the council and twice to the count Dionysius against the hostile Mareotic commission, ask them not to sign the Eusebians’ decisions, and appeal to the emperor.
69. 80Alexander of Thessalonica warns the count Dionysius against the one-sided Mareotic commission, and Dionysius warns the Eusebians that their proceedings will incur blame.
70. 82Athanasius explains that he withdrew from the Council of Tyre because one-sided proceedings have no force, as Paul and Festus attest.
71. 83Athanasius shows from the Mareotic minutes themselves that the charge was impossible: catechumens were present and Ischyras was lying sick, so no Eucharist was being celebrated.
72. 84Athanasius reveals the purpose of the plot: the same bishops went on to Jerusalem and received Arius into communion, as their synodal letter shows.
73. 85Athanasius points out that Ischyras was rewarded with the title of bishop in a tiny village and an imperial order to build him a church, and quotes the order of the catholicus.
74. 86Constantine summons the bishops of Tyre to Constantinople after Athanasius met him on the road and asked for a hearing in their presence.
75. 87Athanasius tells how the Eusebians had him exiled to Gaul on the charge of threatening the grain supply, and quotes Constantine II’s letter restoring him after his father’s death.
76. 88Athanasius concludes that his exile to Gaul was a protective measure and that the bishops’ verdicts and the recantation of Valens and Ursacius were just.
77. 89Athanasius points to the exile of many bishops, including Liberius and Hosius, as proof that they upheld the judgments in his favor, explaining that both later yielded only under compulsion.
78. 90Athanasius closes by commending the testimony of so many bishops, and the sufferings of Liberius and Hosius, as a lasting witness against the Arian heresy.