To the Bishops of Egypt and Libya

Contents

Chapters 20–23 are lost in the scan text used (only the opening words of chapter 20 survive).

Reading pages: 1–10 · 11–20

1. 1Athanasius opens by recalling that Christ foretold false prophets and gave believers the gift of discernment, because the devil disguises himself as the truth.
2. 2Athanasius shows how the devil deceived Eve and Job's wife by counterfeiting, and how since Christ's coming even children mock him and believers see through his disguises.
3. 3Athanasius argues that the devil's truths are not to be trusted, as Christ showed by rebuking Satan and silencing the demons, and that every heresy borrows Christ's name and Scripture's words.
4. 4Athanasius argues that heresies use Scripture's words without its sense, and warns that the Arians plan to send the Egyptian bishops a new creed to sign under threat of banishment, in order to bury Nicaea.
5. 6Athanasius mocks the Arians' yearly new creeds, which they write to cover their plots and which they keep changing.
6. 7Athanasius lists the Arian bishops who were promoted for their heresy and warns that George of Cappadocia, a man of violent character, is about to be sent to Alexandria.
7. 8Athanasius urges the bishops to hold to the Nicene faith and to reject the Arians' writings even when they use Scripture's words, contrasting them with the orthodox bishops whose writings could be trusted.
8. 9Athanasius warns that the Arian envoys are antichrists who use Scripture's words as bait, and that it is the mind and conduct, not the wording, that show a true believer.
9. 10Athanasius argues that a creed which says nothing about the Arian errors is like a physician who ignores the wound and talks about the healthy limbs.
10. 11Athanasius argues that the Arians must answer the charges actually brought against them, and then sets out the statements of Arius for which Alexander cast him out of the Church.
11. 13Athanasius recalls Nicaea's unanimous condemnation of Arius and sets the Arian statements against John, Paul, and the words of Christ.
12. 14Athanasius argues that Scripture, the angels and even the demons know only one Son and Word, and that a created Word would need another Word through whom to be made.
13. 15Athanasius argues from John, Paul and the order of creation that the Word through whom all things were made is the one true Word, and that the Arians can show no work of their other “word.”
14. 16Athanasius likens the Arians to the Manichees, who name a God without works, and rejects their claims that the Son is one power among many and does not know the Father or himself perfectly.
15. 17Athanasius answers the Arian appeal to “The Lord created me” by referring such expressions to Christ's human flesh, and judges Arianism worse than other heresies because it attacks the Godhead itself.
16. 18Athanasius challenges the Arians to state their doctrine openly, and recalls how Arius hid his views and swore a false oath before Constantine.
17. 19Athanasius tells of Arius's sudden death at Constantinople on the eve of his readmission, and urges the bishops to judge the Arians' writings by Arius's own words.
18. 20Athanasius begins to argue that the Arians would be believed only if they renounced Arius's Thalia; the rest of the letter is lost in the scan.