To the Bishops of Egypt and Libya

All that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as Luke wrote, did and taught, he accomplished having appeared for our salvation. For he came, as John says, not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. And among all else, this too is to be admired in his goodness: that he did not keep silent even about those who would fight against us, but foretold it plainly, so that, when those things came about, we might at once be found with our minds made secure by his teaching, when he said: “False prophets and false christs will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you beforehand.” For the teachings and gifts deposited in us by him are many and beyond man: a pattern of heavenly citizenship, power against demons, adoption as sons, and the gift that is above all and surpassing, the knowledge of the Father and of the Word himself, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. But the mind of men is diligently bent on evil things; and indeed our adversary the devil, envious of such great good things that have come to us, goes about seeking to snatch away the seeds of the Word sown in us. For this reason, then, sealing up the teachings within us like our own treasures by his prediction, the Lord said: “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time is at hand,’ and they will lead many astray. Do not go after them.” A great gift the Word has given us: not to be deceived by appearances, but rather, even if these are veiled, to discern by the grace of the Spirit. For since the inventor of evil and great demon, the devil, is altogether hateful, and as soon as he shows himself is pelted by all, as a serpent, as a dragon, as a lion seeking whom he may seize and devour, he therefore hides and conceals what he is, and craftily assumes the name that all desire, so that, having deceived by the illusion, he may then bind those he has led astray in his own chains. And as if someone wishing to enslave other people's children, while the parents were abroad, were to counterfeit their appearance and deceive the sons who long for them, and then lead them far away and destroy them; in the same way the wretched and crooked devil, having no boldness of his own, but knowing men's love for the truth, counterfeits it in appearance and casts his own poison on those who follow him.

So too he deceived Eve, not speaking words of his own, but counterfeiting the words of God while perverting their sense. So too he prompted Job's wife, persuading her to feign love for her husband while teaching her to blaspheme against God. So the crafty one mocks men with illusions, stealing upon each and dragging him into his own pit of wickedness. Long ago, having deceived the first man, Adam, and thinking that through him he held all men in subjection, he leaped up in his insolence, saying: “I will seize the whole world in my hand like a nest, and I will take it up like eggs that are left; and there is none who will escape me or speak against me.” But when the Lord came to dwell among us, and the enemy made trial of his human economy and could not deceive the flesh that he bore, then the proud one who promised to seize the whole world is from that time, and because of him, mocked even by children, like a sparrow. For now a little child puts its hand into the hole of asps and laughs at him who deceived Eve; and all who rightly believe in the Lord tread upon him who said: “I will set my throne above the clouds; I will ascend; I will be like the Most High.” Thus he suffers with shame; and yet, even if the shameless one dares again to disguise himself, the wretch is now all the more recognized by those who bear the sign on their foreheads, and he turns away humbled and put to shame more terribly. For even if, creeping now as a serpent, he disguises himself as an angel of light, he will have no profit from his pretense; for we have been taught that even if an angel from heaven preaches to us a gospel contrary to what we received, he is to be accursed.

And if again he hides his own lie and pretends to speak the truth with his lips, yet, since we are not ignorant of his designs, we can say what was spoken by the Spirit against him: “But to the sinner God said, ‘Why do you declare my statutes?’” and, “Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner.” For even when he speaks the truth the crafty one is not to be trusted. And Scripture showed this when it told of his evil craft toward Eve in paradise; and the Lord too exposed him, first on the mountain, laying open the fold of his breastplate and showing who the deceiver is, and proving that the tempter is not one of the saints but Satan, when he said, “Get behind me, Satan; for it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve’”; and again when he muzzled the demons crying out from the tombs. For what they said was true, and they did not lie then in saying, “You are the Son of God” and “the Holy One of God”; but he did not wish the truth to be uttered through an unclean mouth, and especially through theirs, lest under cover of it they should mix in their own evil will and sow it besides among men while they slept. For this reason he himself did not endure them when they said such things, and, not wishing us to endure such people either, he gave command, through himself, saying, “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves,” and through the holy apostles, “Do not believe every spirit.” For such is the manner of the working of the adversary; and such are the contrivances of the heresies. For each, having as father of its own invention the devil, who turned aside from the beginning and became a murderer and a liar, and being ashamed to bring forward his hateful name, assumes the good name of the Savior, which is above every name, and clothes itself in the words of the Scriptures. It speaks the words, but steals …

Otherwise, how do Marcion and Manichaeus come to have the Gospel, when they deny the law? For the new comes from the old, and the new bears witness to the old. How then will those who deny the one confess the other? For Paul became an apostle of the gospel which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures. And the Lord himself said, “Search the Scriptures, for it is they that bear witness about me.” How then will they confess the Lord, if they do not first search the Scriptures about him? For the disciples say they have found him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote. And what has the law to do with the Sadducees, who do not accept the prophets? For the God who gave the law himself promised in the law to raise up prophets too, so that the same is Lord of the law and of the prophets, and he who denies one of them necessarily denies the other as well. And what has the Old Testament to do with the Jews any longer, who have not recognized the Lord who was expected from it? For if they believed the writings of Moses, they would have believed the words of the Lord; “for he wrote of me,” he says. And what have the Scriptures to do with the Samosatene, who denies the Word of God and his coming in the flesh, signified and shown by both the Old and the New Testament? And what have the Arians to do with the Scriptures, and why do they bring them forward, men who say that the Word of God is a creature, and, like the Greeks, serve the creature rather than God who created it? For as regards the impiety peculiar to its invention, each of these heresies has nothing in common with the Scriptures; and their champions know this too, that the Scriptures are greatly, or rather wholly, opposed to the mind of each of them. But to deceive the simpler sort, such as those of whom it is written in Proverbs, “The innocent believes every word,” they pretend to study and recite the words, like their father the devil, so that from the words they may seem to have a right mind as well, and then persuade wretched men to think contrary to the Scriptures. In fact in each of the heresies the devil, having disguised himself so, has suggested words full of deceit; for of these the Lord said, “False christs and false prophets will arise, so as to lead many astray.” So the devil has come, saying through each, “I am the Christ, and with me is the truth”; and the slanderer has made them all lie, each by itself and all together. And what is strange: all the heresies, fighting among themselves about the evils each has fashioned, are bound together with one another in lying alone; for they have one father, who sowed the lie in them all. The faithful man, then, the disciple of the Gospel, having the grace to discern spiritual things, and having built the house of his faith upon the rock, stands firm and unshaken, remaining safe from their deceit; but the simple one, as I said before, who has not been firmly instructed, looking only at what is said and not perceiving the meaning, is at once dragged off by their wiles. For this reason it is good and necessary to pray to receive the gift of discerning spirits, so that each may know, according to John's precept, whom he ought to reject and whom to receive as friends and of the same faith. Much might be written, if one wished to work these matters out; for the impiety and perversity of the heresies would appear many and various, and the craftiness of the deceivers very dreadful. But since the divine Scripture is more sufficient than all, I advise those who wish to know much about these things to read the divine words; and I myself have now hastened to make known what is urgent, which is chiefly why I have written in this way. [5] I have heard, while staying in these parts (for genuine brothers of right belief reported it), that certain of those who hold the views of Arius have come together and written, forsooth, about faith as they pleased, and wish to send it to you, so that either you subscribe as they see fit, or rather as the devil has inspired them, or whoever objects is banished. Indeed they are already beginning to harass the bishops of these parts. From this the character of the writers becomes plain. For those who write in such a way that their letters end in banishment and other punishments, what can such men be but strangers to Christians and friends of the devil and his demons? Especially since, while the most God-fearing Emperor Constantius is humane, they noise abroad what they themselves wish, against his mind. And they do this with much craft, and for two reasons chiefly, as it seems to me: first, so that, when you have subscribed, they may seem to put an end to the ill name of Arius and themselves pass unnoticed as not holding Arius's views; and second, so that by writing this they may seem again to cover over the council held at Nicaea and the faith set forth at it against the Arian heresy. But this exposes their malice and heterodoxy all the more. For if they believed rightly, they would be content with the faith set forth at Nicaea by the whole ecumenical council; and if they thought themselves slandered and called Arians without reason, they ought not to be eager to alter what was written against Arius, lest what was written against him should appear defined against them. But now they do not do this, but contend for themselves as if they were Arius. For see how they care nothing for the truth, but say and do everything for the sake of the Arian heresy. For those who dare to slander what was well defined, and attempt to write other things beside it, what else are they doing but accusing the Fathers and championing the heresy against which they met and pronounced? Indeed, even what they now write they do not write out of care for the truth, as I said before, but rather in mockery and by art, to deceive men: so that by sending the letters round they may keep the ears of the people occupied with these things, and gain time against being accused themselves, and, escaping notice as impious, may have room to spread the heresy, which, like gangrene, eats its way everywhere.

So they stir up and disturb everything, and not even so are they content with their own statements; but every year, like people drawing up wills, they too come together and pretend to write about the faith, so that in this too they incur ridicule and shame rather, because their own work is cast out, not by others, but by themselves. For if they had confidence in what they wrote first, they would not seek to write a second time; nor, abandoning that, would they now be writing this, which (having no doubt made a practice of it) they will change again, if a very little time passes and they find a pretext for plotting against someone as usual. For it is then, when they are plotting, that they especially pretend to write about the faith, so that, as Pilate washed his hands, so these too, by writing, may kill those who worship devoutly in Christ, and, appearing to make definitions about the faith, may seem, as I have often said, to escape the charge of heterodoxy. But they will be able neither to escape notice nor to escape; for while they make their defense to themselves, they are always becoming their own accusers, and rightly; for they do not answer those who refute them, but persuade themselves as they wish. When, then, is a charge cleared, when the accused is his own judge? This is why they are always writing, and, always altering their own statements, have an uncertain faith, or rather a manifest unbelief and perversity. And this seems to me to happen to them fittingly. For since, having departed from the truth and wishing to overthrow the faith well written at Nicaea, they have loved, as it is written, to move their feet, therefore these too, like Jerusalem of old, have toiled and grown weary in their changes, writing now one thing and now another, only so that they may gain time and remain fighters against Christ, leading men astray.

Who, then, who cares at all for the truth, will still be willing to bear with them? Who will not turn away from them when they write? Who would not condemn their audacity? For though they are few in number, they want their own decisions to prevail over those of all; and wishing their own gatherings, held in corners and under suspicion, to prevail, they try by force to undo and annul the ecumenical council, which was held without guile and in purity. And men who were promoted by Eusebius and his party for advocating the Christ-fighting heresy dare to make definitions about the faith; and though they ought to be judged as men under accusation, they too, like Caiaphas and his party, attempt to judge; and they compose a Thalia and want it believed, they who do not even know how they themselves believe. For who does not know that because of the madness of Arius, Secundus of the Pentapolis, who long ago was often deposed, was received by them, and that George, now at Laodicea, and Leontius the eunuch, and before him Stephen, and Theodore of Heraclea were put forward? For Ursacius and Valens too, who had earlier been deposed from the presbyterate, were afterwards called bishops because of their impiety, men who from the beginning, as young men, had been instructed by Arius; and Acacius and Patrophilus and Narcissus, most audacious in every impiety (these indeed were deposed at the great council held at Sardica); and Eustathius, now at Sebaste, and Demophilus and Germinius, and Eudoxius and Basil, being advocates of the impiety, were advanced to this. As for those of the present, Cecropius and the so-called Auxentius and Epictetus the play-actor, it is superfluous even to speak, since it is plain to all how, on what pretexts, and by what enemies these too were put forward to act out the slanders against the orthodox bishops who were plotted against; for these too, though coming from eighty stages away and unknown to the people, nonetheless because of their impiety have bought for themselves the name of bishop. For this reason they have hired a certain George from Cappadocia and now wish to send him to you. But there is nothing at all to say even about him. For there is a report in these parts that he is not a Christian at all, but rather has been devoted to the worship of idols, and in character is an executioner; and so they have taken him, being such a man, so that he may be able to wrong, plunder, and murder. For these are the things he has practiced more; and he knows nothing at all of what belongs to faith in Christ.

They, then, contrive such things against the truth; but their intention will be manifest to all, even if a thousand times, like eels, they try to wriggle out and escape notice as Christ-fighters. For this reason I beseech you, let none of you be deceived, let none of you be carried off; but rather, as though Jewish impiety were advancing against faith in Christ, be zealous for the Lord, all of you; and let each hold fast the faith from the Fathers, which those who met at Nicaea recorded in writing, and not tolerate those who attempt innovations against it. For even if they write the words from the Scriptures, do not tolerate those who write them; even if they utter the words of orthodoxy, do not heed those who speak them even so. For they do not speak with a right mind, but, putting on the words like sheep's clothing, inwardly they think the things of Arius, like the devil, the leader of the heresies. For he too spoke words from the Scriptures, but was silenced by the Savior. For if he had also thought what he said, he would not have fallen from heaven; but as it is, having fallen in his mind, the crafty one counterfeits in words; and often, too, the malicious one tries to lead astray by Greek elegance of speech and its sophistries. If, then, what is being written came from the orthodox, such as might have come from the great confessor Hosius, and from Maximinus of Gaul or his successor, from Philogonius and Eustathius of the East, or Julius and Liberius, bishops of Rome, or Cyriacus of Moesia, or Pistus and Aristaeus, the bishops from Greece, or Silvester and Protogenes of Dacia, or Leontius and Eupsychius, the bishops of Cappadocia, or Caecilian of Africa, Eustorgius of Italy, or Capito of Sicily, or Macarius of Jerusalem, or Alexander of Constantinople, or Paederos of Heraclea, or the great Meletius and Basil and Longianus and those with them from Armenia and Pontus, or Lupus and Amphion from Cilicia, or James and those with him from Mesopotamia, or our own blessed Alexander, and those of like belief with them, there would be nothing in what is written to suspect; for the manner of apostolic men is guileless and simple.

But since what has been written comes from those who were hired to advocate a heresy, and, according to the divine proverb, “The words of the ungodly are deceitful,” and “The mouth of the ungodly answers evil things,” and “The ungodly steer deceits,” we must watch, brothers, as the Lord said, and be sober, lest some deception come from their fine speech and craft, lest someone come in the name saying, “I too preach Christ,” and shortly be recognized as Antichrist. And antichrists are all who come to you because of the madness of Arius. For what is lacking among you, that someone should come to you from outside? Or what need have the churches of Egypt and Libya and Alexandria, that these men, trafficking in the episcopate instead of timber and cargo, should intrude upon churches that do not belong to them? Who does not know, who does not see clearly, that they do all this out of zeal for their impiety? Therefore, even if they make themselves out to be speechless, even if they bind on larger fringes than the Pharisees, and puff themselves up in their utterances, and practice their tone of voice, they ought not to be believed; for it is not the wording, but the mind and a conduct joined with piety, that commend the believer. For this reason the Sadducees and the Herodians, though they had the law on their lips, were put to shame when they heard from the Savior, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” And it has been shown to all that even those who seemed to speak the law were proved to be heretics in their mind and fighters against God. Others, then, they led astray by saying such things; but the Lord, become man, they could not deceive; for the Word became flesh, he who knows the thoughts of men, that they are futile. For so he refuted the Jews too when they tried to seize upon him, saying, “If God were your Father, you would love me; for I came forth from the Father and have come to you.” So these men too seem to me to be acting now; for they hide what they think, and then in writing use the words of the Scriptures, so that, having baited men with them, they may drag the ignorant into their own wickedness.

Consider whether this is not so. If, when nothing is in question, they write about the faith, the undertaking is superfluous, and perhaps even harmful, because, when there is no dispute, they themselves furnish an occasion for strife about words, unsettling the innocent hearts of the brothers and sowing among them things that never even entered their minds. But if they attempt to write in self-defense on account of the Arian heresy, they ought first to have removed the seeds of the evils that sprang up, and to have publicly branded those who furnished the seeds, and so to write correctly what is opposite to them; or else to champion openly the views of Arius, so that they may be shown to be fighters against Christ not covertly but openly, and all may flee from them as from the face of a serpent. But as it is, they hide those things too, and write while pretending to be dealing with other things. And as a physician called to a man wounded and sick, who on entering said nothing about the wounds but discoursed about the healthy limbs, would be condemned for great stupidity, because he is silent about what he came for and discourses about other things for which he is not needed; in the same way these men too leave aside the matters of their heresy and attempt to write about other things. Yet, if they cared about the faith and loved Christ, they ought first to have removed the blasphemous words against him, and so in their place to speak and write sound words. But they neither do this themselves nor permit those who wish to do it, whether from ignorance or using an art of craftiness.

If, then, they suffer this through ignorance, they could be charged with rashness, because they make confident assertions about what they do not know; but if they know what they are pretending, the condemnation against them is greater, because when deliberating about their own affairs they treat nothing as a side matter, but when writing about the faith in our Lord they play, and do anything rather than speak the truth; and they hide the points on which their heresy is charged, but recite the words from the Scriptures. This is downright theft of the truth and full of every injustice; and I know well that your piety too will be able to see this clearly from these facts. For no one charged with adultery makes his defense about theft, nor does anyone prosecuting a charge of murder tolerate the accused if they defend themselves by saying, “We have not perjured ourselves, but have even kept the deposit”; for this is mockery rather than the clearing of a charge and a proof of the truth. For what has murder to do with a deposit, or adultery with theft? For though the vices cling to one another, coming out of the same heart, yet for clearing an offense they have no fellowship with one another. So Achar, as it is written in Joshua the son of Nun, when charged with theft, did not defend himself by pleading his good service in the wars, but, convicted in the theft, was stoned by all. And Saul, when charged with negligence and lawlessness, gained nothing by making excuses about other matters. For a defense on other points does not bring acquittal of other charges; but if all things are to be done lawfully and justly, a man ought to make his defense on the very matters on which he is charged, and either show that he has not done it, or, if convicted, confess and no longer do or commit the same things. But if he has in fact done and committed it, and does not confess but even hides it, bringing up other things in place of others, it is plain that he has not acted rightly, but is himself conscious … But what need is there of long words, when these men themselves are accusers of the Arian heresy? For if they do not dare to speak, but rather hide the blasphemous words of those men, they are plainly aware that this heresy is foreign and alien to the truth. But since they hide it and are afraid to speak, it is necessary for us to strip off the covering of the impiety and expose the heresy, since we know what Arius and his party said at that time, and how they were cast out of the Church and deposed from the clergy; first, however, asking pardon for the foul words we are about to bring forward, since we say these things not as holding them but in refutation of the heretics. [12] The blessed bishop Alexander cast Arius out of the Church for holding and saying these things: “God was not always Father; the Son was not always; but, as all things are from nothing, the Son of God too is from nothing; and as all things are creatures, he too is a creature and a thing made; and as all things did not exist before but came into being afterwards, the Word of God himself too once was not, before he was begotten, but has a beginning of being; for he came into being then, when God willed to create him; for he too is one of all the works. And by nature he is changeable, but by his own free will, as he wishes, he remains good; when, however, he wishes, he too can change, just as all things can. For this is why God, foreknowing that he would be good, gave him in advance this glory, which he would have had afterwards from his virtue; so that it is from his works, which God foreknew, that he has now become such.” They say, further, that “Christ is not true God either, but he too, like all the others, is called God by participation.” And they add this too, that “He is not the Word who is in the Father by nature and proper to his essence, and his own Wisdom, in which he made this world; but there is another Word, proper to him, who is in the Father, and another Wisdom, his own, in the Father, in which Wisdom he made this Word too; and this Lord himself is called Word in thought because of rational beings, and is called Wisdom in thought because of beings made wise.” Indeed they say that “as all things are foreign and alien in essence to the Father, so he too is in every respect foreign and alien to the Father's essence, but is proper to things originate and creatures, and is one of them; for he is a creature and a thing made and a work.” And again they say that “He did not create us for his sake, but him for our sake. For God, they say, was alone, and the Word was not with him; then, wishing to create us, he made him, and from the time he came into being he named him Word and Son and Wisdom … by the will of God, not existing before, came to subsist; so he too came into being by the will of God, not existing before. For the Word is not the proper and natural offspring of the Father, but he too came into being by grace. For God, who is, made the Son, who was not, by the will by which he also made and fashioned and created all things and willed them to come into being.” And they say this too, that “Christ is not the natural and true power of God; but as the caterpillar and the locust are called power, so he too is called power of the Father.” In addition he said that “the Father is ineffable to the Son; and the Son can neither see nor know the Father perfectly and exactly. For having a beginning of being, he cannot know the one who is without beginning; but what he knows and sees, he knows and sees in proportion to his own measures, just as we too know and see according to our own power.” And he added this too, that “the Son not only does not know his own Father exactly, but does not even know his own essence.”

By saying these and similar things Arius was shown to be a heretic. And I, merely in writing them down, have been cleansing myself by pondering the arguments against them and holding fast the mind of piety. For indeed at the council of Nicaea all the bishops who came together from every quarter stopped their ears at these things, and all unanimously condemned this heresy on account of them and anathematized it, declaring it alien and foreign to the faith of the Church. It was not compulsion that led the judges to this; all by deliberate choice championed the truth, and they did this justly and rightly. For through these doctrines godlessness is brought in, or rather, contrary to the Scriptures, Judaism, with paganism following close behind, so that he who holds these things can no longer even be called a Christian; for all these things are contrary to the Scriptures. For John says, “In the beginning was the Word”; but these men assert, “He was not, before he was begotten.” And again he wrote, “And we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God and eternal life”; but these men, as though fighting against him, assert that Christ is not true God, but that he too, like all things, is called God by participation. And the Apostle blames the Greeks because they worship creatures, saying, “They served the creature rather than God who created it”; but these men, saying that the Lord is a creature and serving him as a creature, how do they differ from the Greeks? For if they hold this, how is the passage not against them too, and how is blessed Paul not blaming them as well? And the Lord says, “I and the Father are one,” and “He who has seen me has seen the Father”; and the Apostle sent by him to preach writes, “who, being the radiance of his glory and the exact imprint of his hypostasis”; but these godless men dare to divide him, and to call him alien to the Father's essence and eternity, and to bring him in as changeable, not seeing that by saying this they no longer make him one with the Father, but one with the creatures. For who does not see that the radiance is inseparable from the light, and is proper to it, coexisting with it by nature, and did not come into being afterwards? Then, when the Father says, “This is my beloved Son,” and the Scriptures say that he is the Word of the Father, by whom the heavens too were established, and in short “all things came into being through him,” these men, become inventors of new doctrines and fictions, bring in another Word and another Wisdom of the Father, and say that he is called Word and Wisdom in thought because of rational beings, not seeing the absurdity that follows from this.

For if it is because of us that he is called Word and Wisdom in thought, what he himself is they could not say. For if the Scriptures say that he is these things, and these men do not want the Lord to be these things, plainly the godless men, opposed to the Scriptures, do not want him even to exist. And this the faithful can learn from the Father's own voice, and from the angels who worship him, and from the saints who wrote about him; but these men, since they do not have a pure mind and cannot listen to divine men who speak of God, can at least learn from the demons, who are like them, that they did not cry out as though there were many, but knowing him alone said, “You are the Holy One of God, and the Son of God.” For he too who suggested the heresy to them, when tempting on the mountain, did not say, “If you too are a son of God,” as though there were others, but, “If you are the Son of God,” as though he alone were. But these remarkable men, just as the Greeks, falling away from the notion of the one God, sank into polytheism, so these too, not believing that the Word of the Father is one, have fallen into the notion of many; and they deny the God who truly is and the true Word, and have dared even to think of him as a creature, not seeing how full of impiety the notion is. For if he is a creature, how is he the creator of the creatures? Or how is he himself the Son, and Wisdom, and Word? For a word is not created but begotten; and a creature is not a son but a thing made. And if the creatures came into being through him, and he too is a creature, through whom then did he himself come into being? For things made must come into being through someone, as indeed they did come into being through the Word, because he was not a thing made but the Word of the Father. And again, if the wisdom in the Father is other than the Lord, then Wisdom has come into being in wisdom. And if the Word of God is Wisdom, the Word too would have come into being in a word; and if the Word of God is the Son, the Son too would have been made in a son.

How then did the Lord say, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” if there is another in the Father, in whom the Lord himself came into being? And how does John, passing that one by, tell about this one, saying, “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being”? And if all things that came into being by the will came into being through him, how is he himself one of the things that came into being? And when the Apostle says, “For whom are all things and through whom are all things,” how do these men say, “Not we for his sake, but he came into being for ours”? For if that were so, he ought to have said, “for whom the Word came into being.” But as it is, by saying not this but “for whom are all things and through whom are all things,” he shows these men to be heretics and slanderers. Besides, if they have been bold enough to say that there is another Word in God, since they have no clear proofs from the Scriptures, let them show at least one work of his, or a work of the Father done without this Word, so that they may seem to have some pretext for their notion. For the works of the true Word are manifest to all, so that from them he is contemplated by analogy, as from the things that have come into being. For as, seeing the creation, we perceive God who created it, so, seeing nothing disordered in the things that have come into being, but all things moving and abiding in order and providence, we consider that there is a Word of God who is over all and governs all. This the divine Scriptures too bear witness to, saying that he is the Word of God, and that all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. But of that other one of whom they speak, neither saying nor work is shown by them. For the Father himself too, in saying, “This is my beloved Son,” signifies that there is no other beside him.

Accordingly, in this respect the remarkable men have now joined the Manichees. For they too merely name a good God, and only as far as the name, but they can show no work of his, either visible or invisible; and, denying the true God who truly is, the maker of heaven and earth and of all things invisible, they are mere tellers of myths. And these perverse men seem to me to suffer the same. For they see the works of the true Word, who alone is in the Father, and deny him, and fashion for themselves another word, whom they can prove neither from works nor from hearing; unless indeed, supposing God to be composite like a man, speaking and exchanging words, and again in the same way thinking and becoming wise, they tell myths, not seeing into what absurdity they have fallen by saying these things. For if he has words that come upon him in addition, they consider him all the more a man; and if the words are uttered from him and then vanish, they are even more impious, because they dissolve what comes from him who is into non-existence. For if they suppose at all that he begets, it is better and more pious to say that God is the begetter of one Word, who is the fullness of his Godhead, in whom also the treasures of all knowledge are hidden, and to say that he exists and coexists with his own Father, and that through him all things came into being; rather than either to think God the Father of many who do not appear, or to imagine him who is simple by nature as composed of many parts, subject to human passions and manifold. Then, when the Apostle says, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” these men count him as one among the many powers; and, what is worst, the lawless men compare him to the caterpillar and the other irrational creatures sent by him for punishment. Then, when the Lord says, “No one knows the Father except the Son,” and again, “Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from the Father,” how are these men not truly fighters against God, when they say that the Father is neither seen nor known perfectly by the Son? For if the Lord says, “As the Father knows me, I also know the Father,” and the Father does not know the Son in part, how are they not mad when they babble that the Son knows the Father in part and not fully? Then, if the Son has a beginning of being, and all things too have a beginning of having come into being, let them say which is first. But the crafty men have nothing to say, nor can they show such a beginning of the Word. For he is the true and proper offspring of the Father, and “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” As for their saying that the Son does not know his own essence, it is superfluous to answer, except only to condemn their madness: as if the Word did not know himself, he who grants to all the knowledge of the Father and of himself, and blames those who do not know themselves!

“But it is written,” they say, “The Lord created me as a beginning of his ways for his works.” Uninstructed men, thunderstruck in mind! He was also called in the Scriptures a servant, and son of a handmaid, and lamb and sheep, and it is said that he grew weary, and thirsted, and was struck, and suffered. But such expressions have their reason and their fitting explanation close at hand, again indicated from the Scriptures. It is this: that he became man and Son of Man, taking the form of a servant, which was the human flesh. For “the Word,” says John, “became flesh.” And if he became man, no one ought to be offended at such expressions; for it is proper to man to be created, to come into being, to be fashioned, to toil, to suffer, to die, to rise from the dead. And just as, being the Word and Wisdom of the Father, he has all that is the Father's: eternity, unchangeableness, being like him in all respects and in all things, being neither earlier nor later but coexisting with the Father, being himself the very form of the Godhead, and the power to create, and not being created (for being like the Father in essence, he would not be created but creator, as he himself said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working”); so, having become man and bearing flesh, he is of necessity said to be created and made, and all that is proper to the flesh, even if these men, like Jewish hucksters, mix their wine with water, debasing the Word and subjecting his Godhead to the notions of things begotten. For this is why the Fathers were rightly and justly indignant and anathematized this most impious heresy, while these men fear it and hide it, as easily refuted and rotten on every side. And indeed we have written these few things to condemn them; but if anyone wishes to use a fuller refutation against them, he will find that this heresy is not far from the Greeks, and is the last and the dregs of the other heresies. For those err either about the body and the incarnation of the Lord, some falsifying in one way and some in another, or have gone astray like the Jews in thinking that the Lord has not come at all; but this one alone has more madly dared against the Godhead itself, saying that the Word does not exist at all, and that the Father is not always Father. So one might reasonably say that that psalm was written against them: “The fool said in his heart, There is no God.”

“But we are strong,” they say, “and able by our cleverness to champion the heresy.” Their defense would be better if they could champion it not by some art or by Greek sophistries, but by simple faith. So if they are confident and know that it belongs to the Church, let them state their mind openly; for no one who lights a lamp puts it under the bushel, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who come in. If, then, these men can champion it, let them write what was stated above, and show their heresy naked to all, like a lamp; and let them openly accuse the blessed bishop Alexander of having unjustly cast out Arius for saying these things, and let them find fault with the council of Nicaea for recording and writing down the pious faith instead of the impiety. But they will not do it, I know well; for they are not so ignorant of the evils they have fashioned and are eager to sow; on the contrary, they know very well that even if at first they carry off the innocent by empty deceit, their invention is at once quenched like the light of the ungodly, and they are branded everywhere as enemies of the truth. For this reason, then, … doing all things foolishly and speaking as fools, in this alone, as sons of this age, they have acted prudently: they hide their lamp under the bushel, so that it may be thought to shine, and lest, appearing, it be condemned and put out. For Arius himself too, the originator of the heresy and the associate of Eusebius, when he was summoned at that time, through the efforts of Eusebius and his party, by Constantine Augustus of blessed memory, and was required to state his faith in writing, the crafty man wrote it, hiding the words proper to his impiety and pretending, like the devil, to the words of the Scriptures, simply and as they are written. Then, when Constantine of blessed memory said, “If you have nothing else in your mind beside these, take the truth as your witness; for the Lord avenges you if you swear falsely,” the wretch swore that he neither held nor had ever said anything other than what he had now written … burst asunder in the middle.

Death is the common end of life for all men, and one ought not to trample on anyone, even if the dead man was an enemy, since it is uncertain whether the same will not overtake us too before evening. But the end of Arius, since it did not happen in an ordinary way, is for that reason worth telling. When Eusebius and his party were threatening to bring him into the church, Alexander, the bishop of Constantinople, opposed it; but Arius was confident in the violence and threats of Eusebius. For it was the Sabbath, and he expected to join in the assembly on the next day. There was, then, a great struggle, they threatening and Alexander praying; but the Lord, becoming judge, gave decision against the wrongdoers. For the sun had not yet set when, need having drawn him to a certain place, he fell down there, and was at once deprived both of communion and of life. And Constantine of blessed memory, hearing of it, was at once amazed, seeing him convicted of perjury; and it became plain to all then that the threats of Eusebius and his party had been powerless and the hope of Arius had come to nothing. And it was shown again that the Arian madness had been excluded from communion by the Savior, both here and in the Church of the firstborn in heaven. Who, then, would not be amazed, seeing these men contending unjustly for those whom the Lord condemned, and championing the heresy which the Lord proved to be excluded from communion, by not permitting its originator to enter the church, and not fearing what is written, but attempting the impossible? For “what the holy God has purposed, who shall frustrate?” and whom God has condemned, who is he that justifies? Let them, then, as championing their own fancies, write what they wish; but you, brothers, as bearers of the vessels of the Lord and champions of the doctrines of the Church, I beseech you, be examiners of the matter; and if they write words other than the words of Arius stated above, condemn them from that as hypocrites, hiding the poison of their mind and fawning like the serpent with words from the lips. For in writing these things they have with them those who were cast out with Arius at that time, Secundus of the Pentapolis, and the clergy once convicted in Alexandria, and they write to them in Alexandria; and what is remarkable, they caused us and those with us to be persecuted, although the most pious Emperor Constantine sent us back in peace to our country and our church and cared for the concord of the people; but to these men they have now caused the churches to be handed over, and have shown all that it was for their sake that the whole plot against us and against the others was made from the beginning.

How, then, when they do these things, can they be believed when they write these things? For if they were writing correctly, they would blot out the Thalia that Arius wrote, and …