History of the Arians 56–72

Then, as though fulfilling the whole of the order (for this was what they were eager for, and what the count and the catholicus enjoined), they seized the benches, the throne, the table (for it was of wood), and the curtains of the church, and whatever else they could, carried them out, burned them before the gate in the great square, and threw incense on them. Oh! Who, hearing this, would not weep, and perhaps shut his ears, so as not to bear even someone else telling it, thinking it harmful even to hear such a thing? For they praised their idols and said, “Constantius has become a pagan, and the Arians have recognized our ways”; for they do not care even to feign paganism, if only the heresy may stand. Indeed they attempted to sacrifice a heifer that drew water for the gardens in the Caesareum, and would have sacrificed it, had it not been female; for they said that such animals may not be sacrificed among them.

Such things, then, the impious Arians did with the pagans, thinking that these acts reached to our dishonor. But divine justice exposed their wickedness and worked a great and remarkable sign, showing plainly to all by this too that, as in their impiety they dare against none other than the Lord, so in doing these things they attempted again to act in insult to him; and this had a still clearer proof from the miracle that happened. For one of the dissolute young men ran in and dared to sit on the throne; and having sat down, the wretch let out some obscene sound through his nose. Then he rose and tried violently to tear away the throne and drag it toward himself; but he did not know he was drawing judgment upon himself. For as those who then lived in Azotus, having dared to touch the ark, on which it was not lawful for them even to look, were at once destroyed by it, first being afflicted with tortures in their seats, so this wretch too only dared to drag it, and what he dragged he drew upon himself; and as if justice sent the wood back against him, he struck his own belly with it, and by the blow of the throne he brought out his own bowels; and the throne rather tore his life from him than it was torn away by him. So, as it is written of Judas, his bowels gushed out, and he fell and was carried out, and after one day he died. And another, who entered with branches and, like a pagan, waved them with his hand and mocked, was at once blinded, and no longer saw nor knew where on earth he was; and as he too was about to fall, he was led by the hand by those with him and supported as he went out; and the bold man scarcely came to himself after a day, knowing neither what he had done nor what he had suffered.

Seeing this, the pagans were afraid and dared nothing further; but the Arians were not ashamed even so, but, like the Jews, though they saw signs, the unbelievers did not believe; rather they hardened themselves like Pharaoh, having their hopes too set somewhere below, on the emperor and his eunuchs. They permitted the pagans—or rather the more abandoned of the pagans—to do what has been described; for they had someone to act these things for them and incite the pagans: Faustinus, called the catholicus, but a market lout in character and licentious in soul. But they themselves undertook to do things like these with their own hands, so that, as they copied their heresy from the other heresies, so they might have their wickedness shared with the most licentious. The rest they did through those men, as I said; but the offenses they committed themselves—how do they not surpass all wickedness and outdo the malice of any executioner? What house did they not ravage? What dwelling did they not plunder on the pretext of searching? What garden did they not trample, and what tomb did they not open? Their pretext was that they were looking for Athanasius, but their whole aim was to plunder and despoil those they met. How many … were sealed up? How many people’s goods in their lodgings did they give over to the soldiers who served them? Who did not experience their malice? Who, meeting them, did not hide in the marketplace? Who did not, because of them, leave his house and spend the night in the desert? Who, eager to guard his own property from them, did not lose most of it? Who, inexperienced in the sea, did not rather choose to try it and its dangers than to see these men threatening? Many changed houses, moving from lane to lane and from the city to the suburbs. How many incurred how many fines, and, having nothing, borrowed from others, only to escape their plots!

For they showed themselves fearsome to all and boasted against all, naming the emperor to everyone and threatening them with fear of him, having as servants of their wickedness the duke Sebastian, a Manichee and a licentious young man, and the prefect, and the count, and the catholicus as their actor. Many virgins who condemned their impiety and recognized the truth they brought out of their houses; others they insulted as they walked, and caused their heads to be uncovered by the young men with them; and to their own women they gave license to insult whomever they wished. The modest and faithful women turned aside and gave way to them; but they, going about like maenads and furies, thought it a misfortune not to find someone to wrong, and passed in grief the day on which they could do no harm. In short, they were so savage and bitter toward all that all called them executioners, murderers, lawless, busybodies, evildoers—anything rather than Christians.

For imitating the Scythians, they seized Eutychius, a subdeacon who served the Church well, and having had him beaten on the back with oxhide whips nearly to death, they asked that he be sent to the mines—and not simply to the mines, but to those of Phaeno, where even a condemned murderer can scarcely live a few days. And what is strange, they did not allow him even a few hours to be treated for the blows, but had him sent off at once, saying, “If this happens, all will be afraid and will be with us from now on.” But not long after, unable to reach the mine because of the pain of the blows, he died on the … And he died rejoicing, having the glory of martyrdom; but the impious were not ashamed even so, but, as it is written, having merciless bowels, and having practiced this, they did something satanic again. For when the people pleaded for Eutychius and begged for him, they had four good and freeborn men seized—Hermias, who washed the feet of the poor, and …; and the duke, having beaten these severely with blows, threw them into prison. But the Arians, crueler even than Scythians, when they saw that these men had not died of the blows, complained and threatened: “We are writing to the eunuchs that he does not scourge as we wish.” Hearing this and afraid, he was compelled to beat the men a second time. And those who were beaten, knowing why they were beaten and by whom they had been slandered, said nothing else than this: “We are beaten for the truth, but we do not communicate with the heretics; beat us now as you wish; God will judge you for this.” The impious wished them to be endangered and die in the prison; but the people of God, knowing the time, pleaded, and after about seven days or more they were released.

But they, as if grieved, attempted again to do something else more cruel and unholy—cruel toward all, but fitting their Christ-fighting heresy. For the Lord commanded us to remember the poor, saying, “Sell your possessions and give alms,” and, “I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; for inasmuch as you did it to one of these least, you did it to me.” But these men, as truly minded against Christ, have dared to act contrary to his will in this too. For since the duke had handed over the churches to the Arians, and the needy and the widows could not stay in them, the widows sat in places appointed for them by the clergy entrusted with the widows; and when these men saw the brothers giving to them eagerly and feeding the widows, they beat them on the feet and drove them away, and slandered to the duke those who gave. This was done through one Dynamius, a soldier; and it pleased Sebastian, for among the Manichees there is no mercy, but even to pity a poor man is hateful to them. There was, then, a new charge, and a court now first invented by them: a man was tried for a kindness; the one who showed mercy was accused, and the one who received the kindness was beaten; and they preferred that the poor man go hungry rather than that the one who wished to show mercy should give. This too they learned from the Jews of old, being new Jews themselves; for those too, seeing the man blind from birth now seeing, and the man who had been paralyzed a long time made well, blamed the Lord who had done them good and judged those who had been benefited as transgressors.

Who then did not marvel at this? Who did not curse the heresy and those who championed it? Who did not recognize that the Arians are more savage even than beasts? For the abominable men did not even gain the ends for which they did these things, but rather increased the hatred against themselves among all. They thought that by plotting and fear they would force some into the heresy so as to assemble with them; but the opposite befell them. For those who suffered bore what was done by them as martyrdom, and neither betrayed nor denied their piety toward Christ; and those who looked on from outside, and even the pagans who saw it, cursed them as antichrists, as executioners; for the human race loves the poor and is compassionate. But these men had lost even human reasoning; and what they would have prayed to receive from others if they were suffering, they would not allow others to receive, having the support and power of the magistrates and especially of the duke.

What they did to the presbyters and deacons too, and how they drove them into flight before the duke and the magistrates, having their relatives brought out of their houses by the soldiers, and Gorgonius the general beating them with blows; and how (the cruelest thing of all) they plundered with such insolence the bread even of those already dead—this cannot even be told in words, their cruelty surpassing any narration. For what could one say and seem to have said enough? Or which first thing could one mention without finding the second more terrible, and what follows the second still more? For all their undertakings and impieties are full of murder and impiety; and they are so crafty in mind and so wily in character that they try to deceive even by promises of patronage and gifts of money, so that, since they have no standing from reason, they may at least by these means seem to make some show to the simple. [64] Who, then, would still call these men even simply pagans, let alone Christians? Who would regard their character as human, and not rather bestial, because of the cruelty and savagery of their deeds? For they are more wicked than executioners and more audacious than the other heresies; the pagans fall far behind them—or rather are very far from them. For I heard from our fathers, and I believe their word true, that formerly, when the persecution took place under Maximian, the grandfather of Constantius, pagans hid our brothers, the Christians who were being sought; and often they lost money themselves and experienced prisons, only that they might not become betrayers of the fugitives; for they guarded those who fled to them as they would themselves, and chose to run risks for them. But now these admirable men, the inventors of the new heresy, known by nothing else than their plotting, do the opposite in everything. For they themselves, becoming executioners on their own account, seek to hand everyone over, and cause those who hide others to be plotted against, regarding the one who hides and the one hidden as equally enemies. So murderous are they, and the evildoers have emulated the wickedness of Judas.

And it is impossible to speak worthily of the evils they do, except to say only this: that as I write and wish to enumerate the deeds of their wickedness, it occurs to me to wonder whether this heresy is not the fourth daughter of the horseleech in the Proverbs, which after so many injustices and so many murders has not said, “Enough.” For it still behaves insolently; those not yet discovered it goes about seeking, and those it has already wronged it is eager to wrong again. For see, after the night attack, after the evils that came of it, after the persecution through Heraclius, they still do not cease slandering us to the emperor—for they are confident that, being impious, they are listened to—so that something more than exile may happen, and in future those who do not yield to their impieties may be put to death. So now too, emboldened, Secundus the utterly wicked Pentapolitan and his confederate Stephen, knowing that even if they do wrong they have the heresy as their defense, when they saw a presbyter at Barca who would not obey them—he was called Secundus, of the same name as the heretic but not of the same faith—killed him by kicking. And as he was being killed he imitated the saint, saying, “Let no one avenge me before judges; I have the Lord to avenge me, for whose sake I suffer these things at their hands.” But they neither pitied him as he spoke nor respected the days; for in Lent itself they kicked the man to death.

O new heresy, that has put on the devil wholly, in impiety and in deeds! For this evil has only now been devised for the first time. Even if some formerly seemed to think along these lines, they hid it and concealed that they held such views. But Eusebius and Arius, like serpents coming out of a den, spewed out the venom of this impiety: Arius undertook the audacity of open blasphemy, and Eusebius its championship; but he was not able to champion the heresy until, as I said before, he found the emperor as its patron. Our fathers held an ecumenical synod, and three hundred, more or less, assembled and condemned the Arian heresy, and all declared it alien and foreign to the faith of the Church. But its champions, seeing themselves disgraced and having nothing reasonable to say, devised another way, and attempted to champion it by … At this one may marvel the more at their new and wicked practice, and at how they surpass the other heresies. For the inventions of the other heresies place their madness in the plausibility of words, to deceive the simple. The pagans, as the Apostle said, make their attempts with excellence and persuasiveness of speech and plausible sophisms; the Jews, abandoning the divine Scriptures, now, as the Apostle said, contend endlessly about fables and genealogies; the Manichees, and the Valentinians with them, and others, peddling the divine Scriptures, make a trade of their own fabricated words. But the Arians are more audacious than the other heresies, and have shown those to be their younger sisters, being more impious than they, as has been said, and emulating them all in wickedness, especially the Jews. For as those, unable to refute Paul on the matters they alleged as pretexts, at once brought him to the tribune and the governor, so these, devising still more than those, use only the power of the magistrates; and if anyone so much as contradicts them, he is dragged to the governor or the general.

The other heresies, when refuted by proofs from the truth itself, are silent, doing nothing more than being put to shame by the refutations; but this new and abominable heresy of theirs, when overthrown by arguments, when it has fallen, put to shame by the truth itself, then tries to drag by violence, blows, and prisons those whom it could not persuade by arguments, making itself known even so to be anything rather than godly. For it is the mark of godliness not to compel but to persuade, as we said. For the Lord himself, not forcing but leaving it to the will, said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me,” and to the disciples, “Do you also wish to go away?” This heresy is altogether foreign to godliness. What else would it do but the opposite of the Savior, since as a Christ-fighter it has enrolled Constantius as the leader of its impiety, as though he were the Antichrist himself? For he, for the heresy’s sake, was eager first to emulate Saul in cruelty. Saul, because the priests gave provisions to David, gave the order, and they were all killed, three hundred and five in number; but this man, because all flee the heresy and the sound faith in the Lord was confessed, destroys a synod of three hundred bishops: he exiles the bishops themselves, and hinders the people from practicing piety and praying to God, preventing their assemblies. And as Saul razed Nob, the city of the priests, so this man, increasing the evil still further, has handed over the churches to the impious; and as Saul honored Doeg the slanderer above the true priests and persecuted David, listening to the Ziphites, so this man prefers the heretics to the pious, and still persecutes those who flee him, listening to his eunuchs, who slander the orthodox—not perceiving that whatever he does and writes on behalf of the Arian heresy is an attack upon the Savior.

Ahab did not behave so against the priests of God as this man has dared to behave against the bishops. For Ahab, after Naboth had been murdered, was at least pricked in conscience, and was afraid when he saw Elijah; but this man was not ashamed before the great Hosius, nor, having exiled so many bishops, was he benumbed or pricked in conscience at all; but like another Pharaoh, the more he is afflicted, the more he is hardened, and he devised worse things every day. And this is the strange thing in his wickedness: while the bishops were being exiled, it happened that some others too received sentence for charges of murder, sedition, or theft, according to the nature of the charge; and these, when he was petitioned, he released after a few months, as Pilate released Barabbas; but the servants of Christ he not only did not release, but even condemned them … mercilessly in their exiles, becoming an undying evil to them. For to the others he was a friend because of their character, but to the orthodox an enemy because of their piety toward Christ. Did he not by this show plainly to all that the Jews of that time, who asked for Barabbas and crucified the Lord, were such as the Christ-fighters with Constantius are now? And perhaps he is more bitter than Pilate; for Pilate at least washed his hands, perceiving … [69] And what wonder is it if, having been led astray into impiety, he is so cruel against the bishops, when he did not spare even his own kin, as a man would? For he slaughtered his uncles and did away with his cousins; and he did not pity his father-in-law, though he was married to his daughter, nor his relatives when they suffered; and he has always been a breaker of oaths toward all. So too he has dared to act impiously toward his brother. He pretends to build him a tomb, yet he has given his betrothed, Olympias, to barbarians—she whom his brother guarded till his death and was bringing up as his own wife. And he has tried to set aside the judgment of the brother whose heir he boasts to be, writing such things as anyone with even a little perception would be ashamed of. And I, comparing his letters, find that he does not have his wits in their natural state, but is moved only by those who suggest things to him, and has no mind of his own at all. Solomon says, “When a king listens to an unjust word, all those under him are lawless.” But this man shows by what he does that he is himself that unjust one, and those around him lawless.

When, then, can this man, being such and delighting in such men, think anything just or reasonable—a man bound by the lawlessness of his companions, with these men enchanting him, who have their brains trodden down in their heels? For this reason he writes, and having written repents, and repenting is provoked again …, and, not knowing what to do, shows the emptiness of wits in his soul. So one might more justly pity him, being such, because, with the appearance and name of a free man, he is the slave of those who drag him to their own pleasure of impiety. Indeed, the senseless and witless one, as the Scripture says, wishing to oblige others, has given himself up to condemnation at the coming judgment, as fuel for the fire, already doing what they wish and pledging to them both the plot against the bishops and authority over the churches. For see, now again he has troubled the churches in Alexandria and in Egypt and all the Libyas, and has openly ordered that the bishops of the catholic Church and of piety be cast out of the churches, and that all of these be handed over to those who hold the views of Arius. The general began to do this; and then bishops were sent off in chains, and presbyters and monks in irons, beaten with blows nearly to death. Everything everywhere is in confusion, and all Egypt and Libya is in danger, the people being indignant at this lawless order and seeing these things. [71] When, then, was such lawlessness heard of? When did such an evil happen even in a persecution? It was pagans who persecuted formerly; but they did not bring their idols into the churches. Zenobia was a Jewess and patroness of Paul of Samosata; but she did not give the churches to the Jews as synagogues. This abomination is new; it is not simply persecution, but more than persecution: a prelude and preparation for Antichrist. For grant that they invented false pretexts against Athanasius and the other bishops they exiled—what is that compared with this new practice? What pretext can they allege against all Egypt and Libya and Pentapolis? For they did not begin plotting against each one individually, so that they might at least be able to lie, but attacked all at once, so that, even if they wished to invent something, they would be condemned. Their wickedness blinded their minds in this, and they demanded that all the bishops alike be cast out without any pretext, so that they showed that they had invented false pretexts against Athanasius and the other bishops they exiled for no other reason than the abominable heresy of the Christ-fighting Arians. For this is no longer hidden, but has now become plain to all. Athanasius he ordered to be cast out of the city, and to those men he handed over the churches. And the presbyters and deacons who were with him, appointed from the time of Peter and Alexander, are cast out and put to flight; while the real Arians—not those suspected from outside, but those who from the beginning were expelled for the heresy together with Arius himself by Bishop Alexander: in Upper Libya Secundus, and in Alexandria Euzoius the Canaanite, Julius, Ammon, Marcus, Irenaeus, Zosimus, and Sarapion surnamed Pelycon, …

And the general Sebastian wrote to the officers and military authorities in the various places; and the true bishops were persecuted, and those holding impious views were brought in in their place. They exiled bishops grown old in … and of many years in the episcopate, appointed from the time of Bishop Alexander: Ammonius, Hermes, Anagamphus, and Marcus to the Upper Oasis; Muis, Psenosiris, Nilammon, Plenes, Marcus, and Athenodorus to Ammoniaca—for no other reason than that they might die passing through the deserts. For they did not pity them even when sick, but drove them on, though they could barely travel because of their weakness, so that they were carried on litters, and because of their sickness their burial clothes followed them. One of them died, and they did not even allow the body to be given to his own people. For this reason too they exiled Bishop Dracontius to the deserts around Clysma, Philo to Babylon, Adelphius to Psinabla in the Thebaid, and the presbyters Hierax and Dioscorus to Syene; and Ammonius, Agathus, Agathodaemon, Apollonius, Eulogius, Apollos, Paphnutius, Gaius, and Flavius, aged bishops, and again the bishops Dioscorus, Ammonius, Heraclides, and Psais, they put to flight; some they handed over to the quarries, others they persecuted wishing to kill them, and many others they plundered. And forty laymen, and virgins, whom they had first set by a fire, they exiled, having beaten them with rods of palm so that after five days some of them died, and others had to undergo surgery because of the thorns embedded in their limbs, and endured pains worse than death. And what was more terrible, … to anyone of sound mind, but characteristic of the impious: since the women, as they were beaten, called on Christ, they gnashed their teeth against them all the more. Indeed they did not even give the bodies of those who died to their own people for burial, so that they might seem to conceal the murder; but they did not escape notice; for the whole city saw it, and all turned away from them as executioners, evildoers, and robbers. For they also overthrew monasteries and tried to throw monks into the fire; they plundered houses, and, breaking into the house of free persons, seized deposits placed there by the bishop; they beat the widows on the soles of their feet and hindered the alms. [73] Such, then, were the wicked deeds of the Arians. And their godless undertakings—who, hearing of them, will not shudder? For they caused such aged bishops of many years to be exiled, and in their place, licentious young men, pagans, not even catechumens, … and others accused of greater crimes, because of their wealth and their civic power, giving gold—as from a market they sent them off, naming them bishops. And thereafter the calamity became more terrible for the people. For, turning away from these hirelings of those men, strangers to themselves, … they were scourged, their property confiscated, and they were shut up in prisons by the general. For being a Manichee he did this eagerly, so that they might not seek their own and might receive those they turned away from—men who did such things as they used to act out in the idol-temples before this.