History of the Arians 40–55

So Liberius, speaking thus at that time, was admired by all; but the emperor, instead of answering, only gave orders and exiled them, separating each from the others, as he had also done with the former ones. For in exiling, he himself set this precedent, so that even in punishments he might be crueler than the tyrants and persecutors before him. For in the former persecution Maximian, who was then emperor, used to exile confessors together, many at once, and lightened their punishment, consoling them by each other’s company; but this man has become crueler even than he, and has separated those who spoke boldly and confessed together, and divided those bound together in the faith, so that even when dying they might not see one another—thinking that separation of the body altogether parts the disposition of the soul, or that, separated from one another, they would forget their agreement and unanimity; not knowing that, even if each remains alone, he has with him the Lord whom they confessed together, who will make those with each of them more (as he did with Elisha the prophet) than the soldiers who are with Constantius. Truly wickedness is blind; for in the very thing by which they thought to grieve the confessors, separating them from one another, they rather did great harm to themselves. For if they had been together and in the same place, the abomination of the impious would have been made known from one place; but now, by separating them, they have caused their impious heresy and wickedness to run through every place and become known.

What they did while doing this—who, hearing it, will not think them anything rather than Christians? For when Liberius sent to the emperor Eutropius, a presbyter, and Hilary, a deacon, with letters, at the time when Lucifer and his companions were making their confession, they at once exiled the presbyter; and the deacon Hilary they stripped, scourged on the back, and exiled, crying out, “Why did you not resist Liberius, but even brought letters from him?” This Ursacius and Valens and the eunuchs with them did. And the deacon, as he was scourged, blessed the Lord, remembering him who said, “I gave my back to the scourges.” But they, while scourging him, laughed and mocked him, not blushing that they were insulting a Levite. They, in laughing, thought what befitted them, and he, blessing, endured. For to be beaten is the mark of Christians, but to scourge Christians is the audacity of Pilate and Caiaphas. So they tried to corrupt the church of the Romans too at the beginning, wishing to mix impiety into it also. And Liberius, after being exiled, gave way after two years, and, fearing the death with which he was threatened, signed. But this too shows their violence, and Liberius’s hatred of the heresy and his vote for Athanasius while he had free choice. For what is done under torture contrary to one’s original judgment is the will not of those who were afraid but of those who tortured them. They have tried to do everything on behalf of the heresy; but in every church those who keep the faith they learned await their teachers; they have found out the Christ-fighting heresy, and all turn away from it as from a serpent.

Having done such and so many things, the impious thought they had done nothing so long as the great Hosius had not experienced their wickedness. For they planned to extend their madness even against so great an old man; and they were neither ashamed that he is the father of the bishops, nor respectful that he had been a confessor, nor reverent of the length of his episcopate, which he had held sixty years and more; but they despised everything and looked only to the heresy—men truly neither fearing God nor regarding man. So they went to Constantius and again used such words: “We have done everything: we have exiled the bishop of the Romans, and before him we exiled very many bishops, and we have filled every place with fear; but these great works of yours are nothing to us, nor have we achieved anything at all, so long as Hosius remains. For while he is in his own place, all are in their own churches; he is able by word and faith to persuade all against us. He presides over synods, and when he writes he is listened to everywhere; he set forth the faith at Nicaea and proclaimed the Arians heretics everywhere. If, then, he remains, the exile of the others has been in vain, for our heresy is being put out of the way. Begin, then, to persecute him too, and do not spare him, even though he is old; for our heresy does not know how to honor even the gray hairs of the aged.”

Hearing this, the emperor did not delay, but, knowing the man and the old man’s ability, he writes and orders him to come to him, at the time when he was first trying Liberius. When he came, he asked and urged him with the usual words, by which he thought he had deceived the others too, to write against us and to hold communion with the Arians. But the old man, bearing the very hearing of it with displeasure and grieved that he had even uttered such a thing, rebuked him, persuaded him, and withdrew to his homeland and his church. But when the heretics complained and provoked him again—and he had the eunuchs too reminding him and provoking him more—the emperor then writes with threats; and Hosius is insulted, but is not moved by fear of the plot; standing firm in mind, and having built the house of his faith on the rock, he spoke boldly against the heresy, regarding the threats in the letters as drops of rain and gusts of wind. So when Constantius wrote many times, now flattering him as a father, now threatening, naming those who had been exiled, and saying, “Are you still the only one against the heresy? Be persuaded and write against Athanasius; for whoever writes against him will certainly hold the views of the Arians with us,” Hosius, not alarmed but suffering insults, himself wrote as follows; we have read the letter, and it is written at the end. “Hosius to Constantius the emperor, greeting in the Lord.

I made my confession the first time too, when persecution arose under your grandfather Maximian. If you too persecute me, I am ready now too to endure anything rather than shed innocent blood and betray the truth; but I do not accept you when you write such things and threaten. Stop writing such things; do not hold the views of Arius, nor listen to the Easterners, nor trust Ursacius and Valens. For what they say, they say not because of Athanasius but because of their own heresy. Believe me, Constantius, who am your grandfather in age: I was myself at the synod of Sardica, when you and your brother of blessed memory, Constans, assembled us all; and I myself challenged the enemies of Athanasius, when they came to the church where I was staying, to say whatever they had against him, promising them that they might be confident and expect nothing else than that the judgment would be right in all things. This I did not once but twice, urging that, if they were unwilling before the whole synod, then at least before me alone; promising again that, if he were shown guilty, he would certainly be rejected by us too; but if he were found blameless and proved you false accusers, and you still refused the man, I would persuade Athanasius to come with me to the Spains. And Athanasius agreed to these terms and did not object; but they, having confidence in nothing, refused. And again Athanasius came to your court, when you sent for him by letter, and asked that his enemies, who were present in Antioch itself, be summoned, all together or each of them, so that they might either convict or be convicted, and either prove in his presence what they say or not slander him in his absence. You would not bear him saying this, and they too refused. Why, then, do you still listen to those who speak ill of him? How do you tolerate Valens and Ursacius, though they repented and confessed their false accusation in writing? For they confessed not under force, as they pretend, not with soldiers pressing on them, not with your brother’s knowledge (for no such things happened under him as happen now—God forbid!), but of their own will they went up to Rome and wrote in the presence of the bishop and the presbyters, having first written to Athanasius a friendly and peaceable letter. If they plead force, and know that this is evil, and you too disapprove of it, then stop using force: do not write, do not send counts, release those who have been exiled, lest, while you complain of force, they commit greater acts of force. For what such thing was done by Constans? What bishop was exiled? When did he intervene in an ecclesiastical judgment? What palatine of his compelled anyone to sign against anyone, that Valens and his party should say such things? Stop, I beseech you, and remember that you are a mortal man; fear the day of judgment; keep yourself pure for it. Do not intrude yourself into church affairs, nor give us orders about them; rather learn these things from us. God has entrusted the kingdom to you; to us he has committed the affairs of the Church. And as one who would steal your rule from you opposes God who ordained it, so you too must fear lest, by drawing the affairs of the Church to yourself, you become guilty of a great offense. “Render,” it is written, “to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” It is not lawful, then, for us to rule on earth, nor have you, O emperor, authority to burn incense. These things I write out of care for your salvation. Concerning what you wrote, this is my judgment: I neither agree with the Arians—indeed I anathematize their heresy—nor do I write against Athanasius, whom we and the church of the Romans and the whole synod have cleared. Indeed you too, perceiving this, sent for the man and allowed him to return with honor to his homeland and his church. What, then, has been the pretext for so great a change? For the same enemies he had before he has now; and what they now whisper (for they do not speak when he is present), they spoke against him before you sent for Athanasius; these things they also bandied about when they came to the synod; and when asked by me, as I said, for proofs, they could not provide them; for if they had had them, they would not have fled so shamefully. Who, then, persuaded you, after so long a time, to forget your own letters and words? Hold back, and do not be persuaded by wicked men, lest through your obligations to one another you make yourself guilty. For here you oblige these men, but at the judgment you will have to make your defense alone. These men wish through you to wrong their own enemy, and wish you to become the minister of their wickedness, so that through you they may sow their abominable heresy in the Church. It is not …

This the old man of Abraham’s stock, Hosius, truly holy, thought and wrote. But the emperor neither ceased from plotting nor stopped seeking a pretext against him, but went on threatening terribly, either to bring him over by force or, if he would not be persuaded, to exile him. And as the officers and satraps of Babylon, seeking a pretext, found none against Daniel except in the law of his God, so the present satraps of impiety could not invent any other charge against the old man; for the truly holy Hosius was known to all, and his life was blameless, except for his hatred of the heresy. So they slander him too—no longer as those men slandered Daniel to Darius (for Darius heard the charge against Daniel with displeasure), but as Jezebel did against Naboth, and as the Jews to Herod—saying: “He not only does not sign against Athanasius, but condemns us on his account; and he so hates the heresy that he writes to others to endure death rather than become traitors to the truth. For it is on its account, he says, that our beloved Athanasius is persecuted, and Liberius, bishop of the Romans, and all the others are plotted against.” Hearing this, the patron of impiety and emperor of the heresy, Constantius—and especially that there are others in the Spains who think the same as Hosius—having tried to make them too sign and being unable to compel them, sends for Hosius; and instead of exile he detains him a whole year at Sirmium: the godless man not fearing God, the unholy one not respecting his father’s affection for Hosius, the unloving one not ashamed of his old age (for he is now a hundred years old). For he disregarded all these things because of impiety, this new Ahab, another Belshazzar arisen in our days. He used such violence on the old man and confined him so much that, being hard pressed, he with difficulty communicated with Valens and Ursacius and their party, but did not sign against Athanasius. Yet even so the old man did not neglect the matter; for when he was about to die, as if making his will, he bore witness to the violence, anathematized the Arian heresy, and charged that no one should accept it.

Who, seeing this, or even only hearing it, will not himself be amazed and cry out to the Lord, saying, “Will you make a full end of Israel?” Who, considering this, will not fittingly cry out, “An astonishing and horrible thing has been done in the land,” and, “The heaven was astonished at this, and the earth shuddered exceedingly”? The fathers of the people and teachers of the faith are taken away, and the impious are brought into the churches. When Liberius, bishop of Rome, was exiled, and the father of the bishops, the great Hosius, suffered thus, who, seeing so many bishops exiled from Spain and the other parts, did not recognize, if he had even a little perception, that the pretexts against Athanasius and the others are false and all full of false accusation? For this reason those men too endured to suffer everything, perceiving the plot made by the false accusation of these. For what charge was there against Liberius? Or what accusation against the old man Hosius? Who even told a lie against Paulinus, Lucifer, Dionysius, and Eusebius? Or what sin was alleged against the other exiled bishops, presbyters, and deacons? There is none—God forbid! For the plots did not come about because of charges, nor was each exiled because of an accusation; but it is an uprising of impiety against piety, zeal on behalf of the Arian heresy, and a prelude to the coming of Antichrist, for whom Constantius is preparing the way.

For after he had accomplished all he wished in the churches of Italy and the other parts—after exiling some, compelling others, and filling every place with fear—he then turned his anger, like a disease, upon Alexandria. This was done craftily by the Christ-fighters: so that they might have a show of the signatures of many bishops, and so that Athanasius, when persecuted, might not have even a bishop to complain to, they first filled every place with fear, and kept him in reserve for their plot—not knowing, the fools, that they were displaying not the choice of the bishops but the violence they themselves had used; and that, even if brothers forsake us, even if friends and acquaintances stand afar off, and no one is found to share our grief and comfort us, yet above all refuge in God suffices. For Elijah too was alone when persecuted, and God was all in all to the saint. And the Savior has given us this example: he too was left alone and plotted against by his enemies, so that we too, if persecuted and forsaken by men, may not lose heart, but have our hope in him and not betray the truth, which, though at the beginning it may seem to be afflicted, yet afterwards even its persecutors will acknowledge.

So they provoke him, and the emperor first writes and sends a threat to the duke and the soldiers. The notaries Diogenius and Hilary are sent, and palatines with them; and all those terrible and cruel things were done against the church that have been told briefly a little before, and that all have come to know from the protests drawn up by the people, which anyone can read, written at the end of this account. Then, after what was done by Syrianus—after so much had happened, and the outrages against the virgins—having approved of such evils done in this way, he writes again to the council and people of Alexandria, inciting the young men that all should gather together and either persecute Athanasius or know that they were his enemies. Athanasius, however, had withdrawn even before this letter came, from the time Syrianus attacked the church, knowing what is written: “Hide yourself for a little while, until the wrath pass by.” The bearer of these letters was one Heraclius, a count by rank, going ahead of one George, sent by the emperor as a spy—for one sent by him could not be a bishop, God forbid!—as both what happened and the preludes of his entry show. [49–50] The letter, then, he posted publicly, and it showed great shame on the part of the writer. For since, as the great Hosius wrote, he could find no plausible pretext for his change, he devised one far more unseemly for himself and for those who advised him; for he said, “Out of regard for my friendship with my brother of divine and pious memory, for a time … to you …”; this shows him to have lied, and to be ungrateful toward his brother after his death. Then he calls him, rightly, “of divine and pious memory,” as indeed he is; whose command and friendship … as he himself wrote. And yet, even if he had yielded for the sake of Constans of blessed memory, he ought not to have been undutiful toward his brother, so that he might be heir of his judgment as of his kingdom. But he deposed Vetranio, wishing to claim his right, saying, “To whom does the inheritance belong after the death of brothers?”; yet because of the abominable heresy of the Christ-fighters he does not know what is right, but is undutiful toward his brothers. Because of this heresy he did not even think to keep his father’s judgment whole; but where it pleases the impious, he pretends to keep it, and where it grieves them, he does not even know how to keep reverence toward his father. For his father sent the bishop to the Gauls for a time, through the slander of Eusebius and his party, because of the cruelty of those plotting against him (as the younger Constantine of blessed memory, his brother, made plain after their father’s death, as is shown from his letter); but he was not persuaded by Eusebius and his party to send the bishop they wished, but even prevented them when they wished it and restrained them with a terrible threat when they attempted it. [51] How, then, if he wished, as he writes, to keep the arrangements of his father, did he send first Gregory and now George, the devourer of the treasury? Or why is he eager to bring into the Church the Arians, whom his father named Porphyrians, and as their patron exiles others? And if his father did receive Arius, yet Arius, having perjured himself and burst asunder, cancelled his father’s kindness; for he too, learning of it, then condemned him as a heretic. And how, while pretending to care for the ecclesiastical canon, has he devised to do everything contrary to it? For what canon is there that a bishop be sent from the palace? Or what canon that soldiers invade churches? Or who handed down that counts and irrational eunuchs should rule church affairs, and that the judgment of so-called bishops should be published by edict? He lies in everything because of the unholy heresy; for against his father’s judgment he then sent Philagrius as prefect a second time, and what is now happening has happened. And concerning his brother he does not tell the truth; for after his death too he wrote to the bishop not once nor twice but three times, and again promised not to change, and even urged him to take courage, so that he should be troubled by no one, but remain in the church in all security; and he sent orders through Asterius the count and Palladius the notary to Felicissimus, then duke, and to Nestorius the prefect, that, whether Philip the prefect or anyone else should dare to plot against Athanasius, they should prevent him.

For this reason too, when Diogenius came and Syrianus laid his ambush, both he and we and the people asked for the emperor’s letters, thinking that, as it is written, “Let no lie be spoken to the king from the mouth,” so too the emperor, having promised, would neither lie nor change. How then, if he yielded for his brother’s sake, did he write after his death too? And if he wrote then out of regard for his memory, why afterwards was he wholly ungrateful to him, persecuting the man and writing such things, in which he pretends a judgment of bishops, but himself does whatever seems good to him—not escaping notice, however, but having the proof of his villainy close at hand? For if it is a judgment of bishops, what has the emperor to do with it? But if it is the emperor’s threat, what need is there here of the so-called bishops? When since the world began was such a thing heard? When did a judgment of the Church receive its authority from the emperor, or was such a decision even known? There have been many synods before this, many judgments of the Church; but neither did the Fathers ever persuade an emperor about such things, nor did an emperor meddle in the affairs of the Church. The apostle Paul had friends of Caesar’s household, and in writing he greeted the Philippians from them; but he did not take them as partners in judgments. But now there is a new spectacle, and this is an invention of the Arian heresy: heretics and the emperor Constantius have come together, so that he, using the bishops as a pretext, may act by his authority against whom he wishes and, persecuting, not be called a persecutor; and they, having the emperor’s power, may plot against whom they wish—and they wish it against those who are not impious as they are. One might see this played among them as a comedy on a stage: the so-called bishops acting their parts, and Constantius doing their business and again making promises, as Herod did to Herodias; and they again dancing their slanders for the exile and death of those who are pious toward the Lord.

Whom, then, have they not harmed by slander? Against whom have the Christ-fighters not plotted? Whom did Constantius not exile when they denounced him? When did he not listen to them gladly? And, what is strange, whom did he ever receive when he spoke against them, and did he not rather welcome them, whatever they said? What church now worships Christ with freedom? For if it is pious, it is in danger; and if it dissembles, it is afraid. He has filled everything, as far as lay in him, with hypocrisy and impiety. For if anywhere there is someone pious and a lover of Christ (and there are many such everywhere, like the prophets and the great Elijah), they hide—if they too can find a faithful man, like Obadiah—and either go off into a cave and the holes of the earth, or spend their time wandering in deserts. For the fools invent such slanders as Jezebel invented against Naboth, and the Jews against the Savior; and then he, being the patron of the heresy and wishing to pervert the truth, as Ahab wished to turn the vineyard into a garden of herbs, does what they wish, since he too has heard from them what he wished.

So, as I said before, he exiled the true bishops, because they would not be impious as he wished; so too he has now sent Heraclius the count against Athanasius, who posted the edicts publicly and announced the emperor’s orders: that if they did not obey the letters, there would be a withdrawal of the bread allowance and an overturning of the idols, and many councillors and people of the city would certainly be carried off captive. Then, after threatening this, he was not ashamed to say publicly with a loud voice, “The emperor rejects Athanasius and has ordered the churches to be handed over to the Arians.” When all marveled at this and nodded to one another, “Has Constantius become a heretic?”, and said that he ought to blush, he compelled the more the councillors and the people—pagans and temple-wardens of the idols—to sign to this and to profess that they would receive whatever bishop the emperor sent. A fine champion of the canons of the Church, Constantius, to have this done! For instead of the church he demanded letters from the marketplace, and instead of the people, from the temple-wardens; for he knew that he was sending not a bishop for Christians but a busybody for those who signed.

The pagans, then, as though buying with their signature the immunity of their idols, and some of the trade guilds, signed—unwillingly, but still they signed—as though about a governor or some other magistrate being sent, because of the threats he uttered; for what were they, being pagans, likely to do but what pleases the emperor? But when the people had assembled in the great church (for it was the fourth day of the week), on the next day Heraclius the count takes with him Cataphronius the prefect of Egypt, Faustinus the catholicus, and Bithynus, a heretic, and they stir up the young men of the marketplace and the idol-worshippers, saying that this was the emperor’s order, that they should attack the church and stone the people. Most of the people had already gone out, the dismissal having taken place, and only a few women remained, when it happened as they had ordered. And it was a pitiable sight: a few women were sitting just after the prayer, when the young men, stripped, came upon them at once with stones and clubs; some they stoned, and the godless men beat the holy bodies of the virgins with blows, pulled off their veils and bared their heads, and kicked those who tried to pull them back—the wretches. These things are terrible, very terrible; but what followed was more terrible and more unbearable than any outrage. For knowing the modesty of the virgins and the purity of their hearing, and that they can bear stones and swords more easily than words of obscenity, they used such words in attacking them; and it was the Arians who suggested them to the young men, for they laughed when these things were said and done. The holy virgins and other modest women fled such utterances as the bites of asps; but the Christ-fighters cooperated, and perhaps even joined the young men in uttering them; for they delighted in the words flung out by them with licentiousness.