Church History 4.2–4.12

The emperor, persuaded by the slanders of those of the opposite sect, did not keep to the same mind, but ordered those to be driven out who had obtained their return contrary to what had earlier been decided by the synod at Sardica. Then, Marcellus having been expelled again, Basil held the church of Ancyra; and Lucius was thrown into prison and died. Paul was condemned to perpetual exile and was carried away to Cucusus in Armenia, where he died; whether by disease or violence I do not know exactly, but the report still prevails that he was strangled by those of Macedonius's opinion. When he had been carried into exile, Macedonius held the church, having fortified himself with many monasteries which he founded at Constantinople and with treaties with the surrounding bishops. He is said to have ill-treated those of Paul's opinion in various ways: first driving them from the churches, and afterward forcing them to communicate with him, so that many died under blows, some were deprived of property, others of citizenship, and others were branded on the forehead, so that they might be marked as such. The emperor, learning of this, condemned it and held Macedonius's party to blame; and this became a cause of the deposition of Macedonius himself, when they took from him the church of Constantinople.

For the evil went as far as murders. For others were put to death, and Martyrius and Marcian, who had been members of Paul's household and, it is said, died bravely, having been handed over by Macedonius to the prefect as responsible for the death of Hermogenes and for the riot connected with it. One was a subdeacon; the other, Marcian, a cantor and reader of the divine Scriptures. Their tomb is famous, before the wall of Constantinople, a memorial as of martyrs, enclosed by a house of prayer, which John began to build and Sisinnius completed, who afterward presided over the church of Constantinople. For they have thought it not right that men honoured by God should lack the honours of martyrdom, since the place there, where those led to death had their heads cut off, which had formerly been inaccessible because of apparitions, was cleansed, those possessed by demons were freed from their affliction, and many other wonders happened at their tomb. Let this be said about Martyrius and Marcian. If it seems incredible to anyone, it is no labour to learn more exactly from those who know; perhaps they will relate things still more wonderful.

About this time, Athanasius having fled, George ill-treated those in Egypt who refused to hold the same views as he. The emperor, marching against Illyricum, came to Sirmium, and Vetranio came to meet him there on stated terms. When the soldiers who had proclaimed him changed sides and acclaimed Constantius alone as emperor and Augustus (for the emperor himself and his supporters had worked for this), Vetranio understood that he had been betrayed; and falling prostrate at Constantius's feet, he became a suppliant. Constantius, stripping him of the imperial ornaments and the purple, pitied him, allowed him to live as a private man, and ordered that he should have necessities in abundance from the public treasury, saying that, as an old man, it was more fitting for him to be released from imperial cares and to live in quiet. When things had turned out so with Vetranio, he sent a very large army against Magnentius into Italy; and having made his cousin Gallus Caesar, he sent him to Syria to guard the eastern region.

At that time, when Cyril governed the church of Jerusalem after Maximus, a sign of the cross appeared in the sky, shining brightly, not streaming out in rays like a comet, but as a mass of much light, fairly dense and transparent; in length it stretched from the place of the Skull to the Mount of Olives, taking up about fifteen stades of the sky above this place, and its breadth was in proportion to its length. At the wonderful marvel all were seized with fear. Leaving houses and markets and whatever work each was doing, they gathered with their children and wives into the church, sang praise to Christ together, and eagerly confessed him as God. The report of it greatly amazed the whole inhabited world in our part of it. It did not take long; for, as was usual, those who had come from almost every land to Jerusalem to pray and to visit the places there told their families what they had seen. The emperor also learned of it, both from many others who reported it and from a letter of Cyril the bishop. It was said by those learned in such matters that this had been foretold long ago in the sacred books by a certain divine prophecy. What happened in this way brought many pagans and Jews to Christianity.

Meanwhile Photinus, who governed the church of Sirmium and had already earlier introduced a new heresy, openly maintained his own doctrine while the emperor was still staying there. Having a natural gift for speaking well and being able to persuade, he drew many to an opinion like his own. He said that there is one God almighty, who created all things by his own Word; but he did not accept the generation and existence of the Son before the ages, and taught that Christ came into being from Mary. When this doctrine became widely known, the bishops of the West and of the East were indignant, all alike thinking that what each of them believed was being innovated upon; for the faith of Photinus was shown to be entirely at variance both with those who admired the tradition of Nicaea and with those who approved the opinion of Arius. The emperor was angry at this, and, staying at Sirmium at that time, he convened a synod. From the East there came, among others, George, who had been entrusted with the church of Alexandria, Basil, bishop of Ancyra, and Mark of Arethusa; from the West, Valens of Mursa and Hosius the confessor, who, having taken part in the synod of Nicaea, took part in this one against his will. For not long before, through the plotting of those who held the views of Arius, he had been condemned to live in exile, and at the urging of those who met at Sirmium he was summoned by the emperor. For they thought that if by some persuasion or force they made him vote with them, he, being most distinguished and admired by all, would be a credible witness to their own doctrine. When they met at Sirmium (this was the year after the consulship of Sergius and Nigrinianus, when no consul was proclaimed either from the East or from the West because of the disturbance in public affairs caused by the usurpers), they deposed Photinus as holding the views of Sabellius and Paul of Samosata. After this, again contrary to what had earlier been decided about the faith, they issued three expositions, composing one in Greek and the others in Latin, which in many respects, both in wording and in meaning, agreed neither with each other nor with those decided before. It should be known that the Greek one called the Son neither of the same essence nor of like essence with the Father, but anathematized those who say that he is without beginning, or that the essence of God is extended and makes the Son, or who think him co-ordinate with the Father rather than subordinate to him. One of the Latin ones forbids entirely to speak of essence, which the Romans call substantia, whether the Son is of like essence or of the same essence with the Father, as neither stated in the sacred Scriptures nor easily grasped by human thoughts and knowledge; it bids all confess that the Father is greater in honour, dignity and divinity, and in the very name of Father, and holds that the Son is subordinate to the Father together with all things; that the Father has no beginning, and that the generation of the Son is unknown to all except the Father. It is said that after this document had been issued, the bishops concerned, as it had been composed improperly, were eager to take it back for correction, and that the emperor ordered this, threatening punishment against those who concealed it; but once issued, it could no longer be hidden at all. The third document agrees in meaning with the others in other respects, but removed the name of essence, and gives this reason in these very words, in the Latin language: “The name of essence, which was set down rather simply by the fathers and, being unknown to the many, caused offence because it is not found in the Scriptures, it has seemed good to remove, and to make no mention at all of essence, chiefly because the divine Scriptures nowhere speak of one essence of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; nor is one to speak of one subsistence. We say the Son is like the Father, as the divine Scriptures say.” These were the decisions about the faith made in the presence of the emperor himself. Hosius at first refused to agree to them; but being forced, and having endured blows, as it is said, though an old man, he agreed and signed. This synod decided to test Photinus after his deposition, to see whether he could perhaps change his former opinion. But when the bishops urged him and promised to give back his episcopate if he renounced his own doctrine and voted with their documents, he would not; instead he challenged them to a debate. On a set day the bishops met, and judges took their seats by the emperor's order, those who then seemed to hold first place at the palace in learning and rank; and Basil, bishop of Ancyra, took up the debate with Photinus. When the contest had gone on at length by question and answer on both sides, with shorthand writers recording the words of each, Basil prevailed. Photinus was condemned to exile, but even so did not stop promoting his own doctrine; he wrote and published treatises in Latin and Greek in which he tried to show the opinions of all others except his own to be false. Concerning Photinus and the heresy named after him, let this be said by me.

Meanwhile Magnentius, having seized the elder Rome, killed many of the senate and of the people. Learning that Constantius's generals were already near, he withdrew to the western Gauls. There, attacking each other many times, now these and now those were defeated, until at last Magnentius was defeated and fled to Mursa, a fortress of the Gauls. Seeing his own soldiers dejected at their defeat, he stood on a height and tried to make them bolder. But they, as they are accustomed to acclaim emperors, and eager to do so when Magnentius appeared, without meaning to, unwittingly acclaimed Constantius instead of Magnentius as Augustus. Concluding from this that God did not wish him to reign, Magnentius tried to leave this fortress and go farther. Pursued by Constantius's army, he engaged it near the place called Mons Seleucus, fled, and escaped to Lugdunum. There, having killed his mother and his brother, whom he had made Caesar, he finally killed himself. Not long after, Decentius, another brother of his, hanged himself. Even so the public disturbances did not come to an end. Shortly afterward one Silvanus seized power among the western Gauls, and Constantius's generals at once put him down. The Jews in Diocaesarea overran Palestine and the surrounding peoples, and taking up arms, refused to obey the Romans. When Gallus the Caesar, who was staying at Antioch, learned of this, he sent an army, subdued them, and laid Diocaesarea waste. Thinking himself successful, he could not bear his good fortune, but wished to make himself sole ruler. When Magnus the quaestor and Domitian, the prefect of the East, reported his plans of revolt to the emperor, he killed them. Constantius, indignant, summoned him. Unable to disobey, for he was afraid, he set out on the journey; and when he was already near the island of Flanona, he was put to death by the emperor's order, in the year when he was consul for the third time and Constantius for the seventh.

When the usurpers had been put down and Constantius seemed to have rest from the evils that had befallen, he left Sirmium and went toward the elder Rome; for he wished to hold the triumphal procession over the usurpers there. Thinking at the same time that he could bring the bishops of both parts of the empire to one mind about the doctrine, he ordered a synod to be held in Italy. Meanwhile Julius died, having governed the church of the Romans for twenty-five years, and Liberius succeeded him. Those who rejected the faith of Nicaea, reckoning that they had an opportunity to slander those of the opposite opinion, worked very diligently at the palace to have expelled from the churches all those whom they had deposed, as being of another opinion and as having striven, while Constans was alive, to set the two empires against each other, since he had threatened his brother with war unless he received them, as was said above. They blamed Athanasius most of all. In the excess of their hatred for him, not even while Constans was alive and Constantius pretended to love him did they refrain from their enmity; but meeting at Antioch, Narcissus the Cilician, Theodore the Thracian, Eugenius of Nicaea, Patrophilus of Scythopolis, Menophantus of Ephesus and others, about thirty in all, wrote to the bishops everywhere that he had returned to Alexandria contrary to the laws of the church, not having been found innocent by a synod but through the partisanship of those who held his views; and they urged them neither to communicate with him nor to write to him, but to George, whom they had ordained. At that time Athanasius took no account of these things; but he was to experience harsher troubles than before. For as soon as Magnentius had perished and Constantius alone ruled the Roman world, he made every effort to bring the bishops of the West to join those who held the Son to be of like essence with the Father. He did not do this at first by open compulsion, but by persuading them to vote with what had been decided against Athanasius by the bishops of the East; for he reckoned that if Athanasius were put out of the way by common vote, the matters of religion too would easily go as he wished.

When a synod was held at Milan, at the emperor's urging, few came from the East, the others, naturally, declining to come because of illness or the length of the journey; from the West more than three hundred gathered. When those from the East demanded that Athanasius be condemned, so that he might be altogether driven from Alexandria, the others agreed, through fear, deceit, or ignorance of the facts. Only Dionysius, bishop of Alba, the metropolis of Italy, Eusebius of Liguria, Paulinus of Trier, Rhodanius and Lucifer cried out and protested that Athanasius should not be condemned so easily; for, if this happened, the evil would not stop there, but the plot would go on against those who held right doctrines about God; and these efforts were being made by the emperor's Arian party for the overthrow of the faith of Nicaea. Those who spoke so freely were condemned to exile, and Hilary with them. The outcome confirmed that the true cause of the assembly at Milan was what they said. For not long afterward the synod at Ariminum and that at Seleucia were gathered, and each tried to innovate against what had been decided at Nicaea, as I shall show shortly. Athanasius, convinced that he was being plotted against at the palace, neither dared to go to the emperor himself nor judged it useful. He chose five of the bishops of Egypt, among whom was Serapion of Thmuis, a man most godly in life and a powerful speaker, and sent them to the emperor, who was then staying in the West of the empire. With them he also sent three presbyters of his church, to reconcile the ruler to him, to answer, if need be, the slanders of his opponents, and to do whatever else they judged best for the church and for him. Not long after they had sailed, he received a letter from the emperor summoning him to the palace. At this Athanasius himself and the people of the church were troubled and in anguish, thinking it neither safe to obey the emperor, who was of another opinion, nor without danger to disobey. Yet the decision to stay prevailed, and the man who had brought the letter went back without success. The following summer another official came from the emperor and, with the governors of the province, pressed him to leave the city, and made bitter war on the clergy. When the people of the church took heart, and he saw them drawn up for battle, achieving nothing even so, he departed. Not long afterward the forces which the Romans call legions were summoned from Egypt and Libya; and when it was reported that Athanasius was hiding in the church called that of Theonas, the commander of the troops there, with soldiers, and Hilary, who had come again from the emperor to hasten these matters, unexpectedly at an untimely hour broke down the doors and entered the church. Searching everywhere, they did not find Athanasius inside. For it is said that he often escaped many other dangers through divine warnings, and that God showed him this attack beforehand; he went out at once, and the soldiers, who occupied the doors of the church, missed seizing him by a moment.

It seems one should not disbelieve that this man was dear to God and clearly foresaw the future. For we have received things about him more wonderful than those already told, bearing witness to his most exact knowledge of what was to come. Thus, the first time the emperor wished to harm him, while Constans was still alive, he became a fugitive and was hidden by one of his acquaintances; and for a long time he lived in a recess of the earth, in a sunless chamber that had formerly been a water cistern. No one knew of it except those with whom he was hidden and a maidservant who was thought trustworthy, so that she might wait on him. Since those of another opinion were very eager to capture the man, the maidservant, naturally won by gifts or promises, was about to betray him. But God revealed the plot beforehand, and he moved elsewhere in time; and the maidservant was punished for having informed falsely against her masters, who had fled. For those of the opposite sect made no small charge against those who received or hid Athanasius, but dragged them to court as disobedient to the emperor's commands and offenders against the state. Something similar happened to Athanasius at another time too, which has come to our hearing. When, for such a reason, he was fleeing to Egypt and sailing up the Nile, some people informed on him, and those who were to arrest him pursued him. Learning beforehand from God of the pursuit, he told his fellow passengers and ordered them to turn back to Alexandria. As they sailed down, he passed his pursuers sailing up, and came safely to the city, where among the crowd and the multitude of houses he lay hidden more safely. From such things, and many others he likewise foretold, he was slandered by his opponents, pagans and those of another opinion, as accomplishing them by sorcery. It is said, for instance, that once, as he was going through the city, a crow happened to fly overhead and caw. A crowd of pagans who were there, mocking him as a sorcerer, asked him to tell them what the crow was saying. Smiling quietly, he said: “Cras, which in the language of the Romans is ‘tomorrow.’ By crying this it announces that tomorrow will be unpleasant for you; for it signifies that by order of the emperor of the Romans you will be prevented from holding tomorrow's festival.” Athanasius's prediction, though it seemed laughable, proved true. For the next day a letter of the ruler was delivered to the governors, ordering them not to allow the pagans to go to the temples or to celebrate their customary rites and festivals; and the festival that happened to fall then, which the pagans revered and celebrated lavishly, was broken up. That the man had the gift of prophecy, this is enough to say. When, as has been said, he escaped those who had come to arrest him, the clergy and people under him held the churches for some time, until the prefect of Egypt and the commander of the soldiers there drove out those who obeyed him and handed the churches over to those who were waiting for George. Not long after, George himself arrived and held the churches under him. He was thought a tyrant, practising to rule more by force than in the manner and character of priests: wishing to be feared by all, and harsh to those who praised Athanasius, so that men and women suffered chains and beatings. Having fallen into general hatred for this reason, the people, moved to anger, set upon him while he was in the church and almost killed him. Having been in such danger, he barely escaped and fled to the emperor; and those of Athanasius's opinion held the churches. This did not last long. For the general of Egypt came and again handed over the churches to George's party. After this an imperial secretary from the order called notaries, sent to punish them, tortured and ill-treated many Alexandrians. Not long after, George himself returned, more fearsome, naturally, from what had happened, and more hated than before, as having moved the emperor to ill-treat many, and being accused by the monks of Egypt of unbelief and arrogance; and the people followed their opinion and held their testimony to be true, since they practised virtue and their life was one of philosophy.

These things befell Athanasius and the church of Alexandria in succession, not at the same time, after the death of Constans; for clarity I have related them together here. When the synod at Milan had broken up without result, the emperor put out of the way those who had opposed the efforts against Athanasius, condemning them to exile. Since he made much of the church everywhere agreeing about the doctrine and the priests being of one mind, he planned to call bishops from everywhere to the West. Considering that this was difficult because of the distance by land and sea between, he was at a loss what to do, but did not altogether give it up. Remaining of the same mind, before coming to Rome and holding the procession customary among the Romans over the conquered, he summoned Liberius, the bishop of Rome, and tried to persuade him to agree with the priests about him, among whom was Eudoxius. When he opposed and insisted that he would never do this, the emperor ordered him to be taken to Beroea in Thrace. It is said that besides this, another reason for Liberius's exile was that he did not choose to renounce communion with Athanasius, but bravely opposed the emperor on this, when the emperor accused Athanasius of having wronged the churches and, of his two brothers, of having destroyed the elder and, as far as lay in him, made Constans his enemy. When the emperor put forward the judgment of the bishops everywhere, and especially of those who met against him at Tyre, Liberius said that one should not rely on them, since they had in every way voted gladly out of enmity and favour. He asked that the faith handed down at Nicaea be confirmed by the signatures of the bishops everywhere, and that those living in exile on this account be recalled; and when this had been done, so as not to seem burdensome and costly, that public carriages or money be given to no one, but that all meet at their own expense at Alexandria, where were the one who had done wrong and those who had been wronged, the proofs of the charges, and an exact test of the truth about them. Showing the written testimony of Valens and Ursacius about Athanasius, which they had given to Julius, who governed the see of the Romans before him, asking pardon and declaring that what they had done in the Mareotis was false, he asked that the emperor not condemn Athanasius in his absence, nor trust those who had then voted, since the plot was plain. As for his brothers, he should not expect to avenge himself through a priestly hand, which God had ordained ready not for this but for sanctification and every just and good deed. When Liberius would not yield to what he commanded, the emperor ordered him to be taken to Thrace unless he changed his mind within two days. “I need no time to deliberate, emperor,” said Liberius; “this has long been deliberated and decided by me, and I am setting out on the road from here at once.” It is said that as he was being led away the emperor sent him five hundred gold pieces; he did not accept them, and said to the man who brought them: “Go and tell him who sent this gold to give it to the flatterers and hypocrites about him, whom insatiable want, harassing them daily, punishes for their greed, always desiring money and never satisfied. For us Christ, who is like the Father in all things, is the nourisher and steward of all good things.” For such a reason Liberius was deprived of the church of the Romans, and Felix, a deacon of the clergy there, was entrusted with it. They say that he remained of the same mind in faith as those who met at Nicaea and was altogether blameless in religion; this alone was charged against him, that before his ordination he had also tolerated communion with men of another opinion. When the emperor entered Rome and the people there kept crying out for Liberius and begging to have him back, he consulted with the bishops who were with him and answered that he would recall him and give him back to those who asked, if he agreed to be of one mind with the priests who were with him.

About this time Aetius openly taught the opinion he held about God. He was then a deacon of the church of Antioch, having been made one by Leontius. He held the same views as Arius, saying that the Son is a creature, from nothing, and unlike the Father. Being exceedingly contentious and bold in discourse about God, and using his reasonings confidently and with variety, he was thought to be of another opinion even by those who held like views. Expelled from their church, he alleged that he declined communion with them because they had wrongly communicated with Arius, “since,” he said, “Arius perjured himself when, having repented, he swore to the emperor Constantine that he agreed with those who had met at Nicaea.” So it is said. While the emperor was still staying in the western part of the empire, it was reported that Leontius, bishop of Antioch, had died. As the church there needed guarding, Eudoxius asked the emperor to let him return to Syria. Being permitted, he hastened to Antioch and secured the episcopate there for himself, without the consent of George, bishop of Laodicea, or Mark of Arethusa, who were then distinguished among the bishops of Syria, or of the others to whom the ordination belonged. It is said that he arranged this with the ruler's approval, with the help of the eunuchs of the palace, who with Eudoxius approved the doctrine of Aetius and held the Son to be unlike the Father. When he had taken possession of the church of Antioch, gaining freedom of speech, he openly headed this heresy. Meeting at Antioch with those of the same views, among whom were Acacius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, and Uranius of Tyre, he rejected both “of like essence” and “of the same essence,” on the pretext that the bishops of the West had so decided. For Hosius, with some of the priests there, forced at Sirmium, as has been said, to put an end to the contentiousness of Valens, Ursacius and Germanius, had agreed to say neither “of the same essence” nor “of like essence,” since the words were not known in the sacred Scriptures and it is beyond the mind of men to busy oneself about the essence of God. And as to those who had achieved this, they sent a letter to them, to Valens, Ursacius and Germanius, thanking them, and attributing to them the occasion of the right belief of those in the West.