Historical Fragments 1.1.1.1–1.4.1.19

With the whole sense of our life and faith we give thanks to God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ, that he has placed us in the light of the knowledge of his confession through the prophetic and apostolic teachings, so that we should not be held by the judgment of the world, detained in the darkness of worldly ignorance; since the only and fullest hope of salvation is to confess God the Father almighty through his only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

But plainly no less cause for our rejoicing is heaped up daily, in that, freeing us from the error of the world, he now also does not allow us to be mixed in the inexpiable fellowship of heretics. For from your letter, which you entrusted to our beloved brother and fellow priest Hilary, we have learned the devil's fraud and the conspiring schemes of the heretics against the church of the Lord, that, divided in the regions of East and West, we should be deceived by differing opinions about one another.

For many, who were present either at Ariminum or at Nicé, were compelled under the authority of your name to silence about ousia. This word, once found by you against the heresy of the Ario-maniacs, has always been received by us holily and faithfully.

For we have embraced the word homoousion for the true and lawful birth of the only-begotten God from God the Father, detesting, with the blasphemies of Sabellius, the union itself, and not understanding the Son to be any part of the Father, but the whole and perfect only-begotten God born from the whole and perfect unbegettable God; confessed by us for that reason to be of one ousia or substance with God the Father, lest he should seem rather a creature, or an adoption, or a mere title; and because he is from him, as son from father, as God from God, as power from power, as spirit from spirit, as light from light, we hear also his likeness to God the Father not unwillingly (since he is the image of the invisible God), but understanding as the only likeness worthy of the Father that which is of true God to true God, so that not a union but a unity of divinity is understood; because union is singular, but unity, according to the truth of the birth, is the fullness of the one born,

especially since the Lord Jesus Christ himself professed to his disciples, saying: "I and the Father are one"; by which he signifies not only the love that is toward the Father but also the divinity that is of God from God, according to that saying: "He who has seen me has seen the Father also," and: "If you will not believe me, believe at least my works, that the Father is in me and I in the Father."

Holding this faith, then, always, we will also hold it, detesting also those who say: "He was not before he was born." Not that we proclaim the only-begotten God unbegettable, but because it is most impious to put any time before God, the God of times, since that very "before he was born, he was not" belongs to time.

But we do not deny that he was obedient to the Father even unto death on a cross, according to the weakness of the man he assumed, since he himself spoke of his ascension to heaven: "If you loved me, you would rejoice that I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I"; by whose taking of flesh he deigned to call us his brothers, since, remaining in the form of God, he had willed to be in the form of a servant.

Therefore, dearest brothers, since our simplicity learns from your letter that it suffered fraud in the silence about ousia, and since our brother Hilary, the faithful preacher of the Lord's name, has reported that even the piety of those who returned from Ariminum to Constantinople, when met, as your letter testifies, could not compel them to condemn such great blasphemies, we too withdraw from all that was wrongly done through ignorance.

Auxentius, Ursacius, Valens, Gaius, Megasius, and Justinus we hold excommunicated, according to your letter, and certainly, as we said, according to the profession of our brother Hilary, who declared that he would have no peace with those who followed their errors; all the blasphemies too

which you appended to your letter we condemn, and above all we reject their apostate priests, who have been put, most unworthily, through ignorance or impiety, in the places of brothers who are exiled. We promise this before God and also confess it: that whoever thinks he should resist what we have decreed within Gaul is to be cast out from the communion and see of the priesthood. For neither will he who, unlike the rest, either permits an occasion for preaching what we do not condemn, or, against God and the majesty of Christ the only-begotten God, thinks otherwise than we do about the meaning of homoousion,

resisting, be judged worthy of the holiness of the priesthood by name. From which, may Your Love know, Saturninus, who most impiously contradicted the salutary decisions, is already excommunicated by all the Gallic bishops, according to the twofold letter of our brothers; whose old crimes, long concealed, and the certain ones of new rashness published in his letters, have made him unworthy of the name of bishop. Here ends the catholic faith set out at the city of Paris by the Gallic bishops to the Eastern bishops.

I have received the letter of Your Sincerity, from which I learned that, as befits a bishop and priest of God, you resisted the transgressor Ossius, and, when very many fell at Ariminum into communion with Valens, Ursacius, and the rest, whom they themselves had earlier condemned on recognizing the crime of blasphemy, you refused your assent, keeping, that is, the faith that the fathers of Nicaea wrote. We congratulate you on this, and we congratulate ourselves, because you live by this purpose and, strong in this faith, have deigned to remember us.

As you remain in the same confession and keep no fellowship with hypocrites, be assured of our communion with you. With whatever treatises you can, with as much labor as you are able, rebuke the transgressors, reprove the unfaithful, fearing nothing from the worldly kingdom, as you have done; because he who is in us is greater than he who is in this world.

We, your fellow priests, toiling in a third exile, say this, which we thought evident: that the whole hope of the Ario-maniacs hangs not on their own disunited agreement but on the protection of the worldly kingdom, not knowing the Scriptures, that those are cursed who put their hope in man. But our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. We desire to endure in sufferings, that, according to what is said, we may be glorified in the kingdom.

Deign to write to us what you have achieved by correcting the wicked, or how many brothers you have found standing, or have yourself corrected by admonishing. All who are with me greet you, especially the deacon, and they ask that you deign to greet with our respect all who faithfully cling to your side. Here ends the letter of Eusebius to Gregory, Spanish bishop.

I, Germinius, bishop, believe and profess that there is one true God the Father, eternal, almighty;

and Christ, his only Son and our Lord God, true Son of God from the true God the Father, begotten before all things, like the Father in all things in divinity, love, majesty, power, glory, life, wisdom, and knowledge, inasmuch as he was begotten perfect from perfect;

the taking of man from the Virgin Mary, as the prophets foretold would be, and the voices of the Gospels and the apostles teach was fulfilled; his passion also and death and resurrection and ascension into heaven we accept and believe. We profess also that at the end of the world he will descend from heaven

to judge the living and the dead and to render to each according to his works. And in the Holy Spirit, that is, the Paraclete, who was given to us by God the Father through the Son.

To Gregory, bishop of Alexandria; to the bishop of Nicomedia; to the bishop of Carthage; to the bishop of Campania; to the bishop of Naples in Campania; to the clergy of Ariminum; to the bishop of Campania; to the bishop of Salona in Dalmatia; to Amphion, Donatus, Desiderius, Fortunatus, Eutychius, Maximus, Sinferon, and to all our fellow priests throughout the world, presbyters and deacons, and to all who are under heaven in the holy catholic church: we, the bishops who, from the various Eastern provinces, that is, from the province of the Thebaid and from the province of Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Cilicia, Isauria, Cappadocia, Galatia, Pontus, Bithynia, Pamphylia, Paphlagonia, Caria, Phrygia, Pisidia, and from the Cyclades islands, Lydia, Asia, Europa, Hellespont, Thrace, and Haemimontus, assembled at the city of Serdica and held a council: eternal greeting in the Lord.

It is indeed the unceasing prayer of all of us, dearest brothers, first, that the holy catholic church of the Lord, free of all dissensions and schisms, may everywhere keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of love through right faith (and it is right for all who call on the Lord to hold, embrace, guard, and keep a blameless life also, especially for bishops, who preside over the most holy churches); second, that the rule of the church and the holy tradition and judgments of the fathers may remain firm and solid for ever, and never be disturbed by new sects and perverse traditions emerging, especially in appointing or deposing bishops, so as to prevent it from holding the gospel and holy precepts, and what was commanded to the holy and most blessed apostles and has been kept by our elders and by ourselves until today, and is kept.

For there arose in our times one Marcellus of Galatia, the most execrable plague of all heretics, who with sacrilegious mind, profane mouth, and abandoned argument would set bounds to the perpetual, eternal, and timeless kingdom of Christ the Lord, saying that the Lord received a beginning of reigning four hundred years ago and that an end will come to it together with the end of the world. He tries with rash audacity to assert this too: that at the conception of the body he was then made the image of the invisible God, and was then made bread, door, and life. And he confirms this not only in words and in assertive talk, but put everything that had been conceived by a sacrilegious mind and uttered by a blasphemous mouth into a book full of blasphemies and execrations, striving with eagerness, adding still worse things, slandering the divine Scriptures with his own interpretation and wicked mind, which he applied against them from his own pestilent sense. From which it plainly and clearly appeared that he is a heretic, who, mixing his assertions with certain filth, now openly mingling the falsehoods of Sabellius, now the malice of Paul of Samosata, now the blasphemies of Montanus, leader of all heretics, and making one confusion of these, has, like a foolish Galatian, turned aside to another gospel, which is not another, according to which the blessed apostle Paul, condemning such men, says: "Even if an angel from heaven should announce to you otherwise than what you have received, let him be anathema."

Great was the concern of our fathers and elders about this sacrilegious preaching. For a council of bishops was summoned at the city of Constantinople in the presence of the emperor Constantine of most blessed memory. They came from many Eastern provinces, to reform by sound counsel a man steeped in evil things, so that he, corrected by admonition and most holy reproof, might depart from his sacrilegious preaching. They rebuked and reproached him, and also besought him with the affection of love, for a long time, and achieved nothing. For after one and a second and many reproofs, when they could achieve nothing (for he persisted, contradicted the right faith, and resisted the catholic church with malicious contention), from then on all began to shudder at him and avoid him. And seeing that he was perverted and sinning and condemned by himself, they condemned him by ecclesiastical acts, so that he should no longer stain the sheep of Christ with pestilent evil contacts. Then also, for the remembrance and caution of posterity, they deposited some of his most perverse opinions against the right faith and the most holy church, with their own most holy writings, in the archive of the church. But these were the first things according to the impiety of Marcellus the heretic; worse things followed. For who of the faithful would believe or tolerate what was wickedly done and written by him, which were worthily anathematized, together with Marcellus himself, by our fathers at the city of Constantinople? For a book of judgments against him, written by the bishops, exists, in which book even those who are now with Marcellus and favor him, that is, Protogenes, bishop of the city of Serdica, and Cyriacus of Naissus, wrote judgment against him with their own hand. Their hand strongly testifies that the most holy faith must in no way be changed nor the holy church subverted by false preaching, lest in this way a most grievous pestilence and plague of souls be brought upon men, as Paul says: "Whether we or an angel from heaven should announce to you otherwise than what you have received, let him be anathema."

We were greatly amazed that some who wish to be churchmen easily receive into communion one who dares to preach a gospel otherwise than it truly is, neither inquiring into his blasphemies, which are recorded in his own book, nor willing to give their agreement to those who investigated everything carefully and, finding them, justly condemned him. For Marcellus, since he was held a heretic among his own, sought the help of travel abroad, namely to deceive those who did not know him and his pestilent writings. But whatever he does among them, he hides his impious writings and profane opinions, putting false things for true, and has made gain for himself of the simple and innocent. Under the pretext of the church's rule he led on many pastors of the church and, bringing them into his power, deceived them with crafty fraud, introducing the sect of the heretic Sabellius and restoring the arts and tricks of Paul of Samosata. For the alien tradition of Marcellus is mixed with the sects of all heretics, as was mentioned above. Therefore all the leaders of the holy church ought, remembering the words of Christ the Lord, who says, "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravening wolves; by their fruits you will know them," to avoid and shudder at men of this kind, and not readily communicate with them; to recognize them from their deeds and to condemn them beforehand from their sacrilegious writings. But now we greatly fear that in our times what is written may be fulfilled: "While men slept, the enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat." For when those who ought to watch in the guarding of the church do not watch, false things imitating true ones utterly overturn what is right.

Therefore we, who have fully learned his sect and crimes from Marcellus's book, have written to you, dearest brothers, that you admit neither Marcellus nor those who join him to the communion of the holy church; and that you remember the prophet David, who says: "I said to those who do wickedness: Do not do wickedness; and to those who sin: Do not lift up the horn; do not lift your horn on high; do not speak iniquity against God." And believe Solomon, who says: "Do not move the eternal boundaries which your fathers set." Since this is so, do not follow the errors of the most perverse Marcellus, and condemn beforehand what was devised and handed down by him in unjust preaching against Christ the Lord, so that you yourselves may not be partakers in his blasphemies and crimes. But for brevity, so much about Marcellus.

But hear what was done concerning Athanasius, formerly bishop of Alexandria. He was gravely accused of being sacrilegious toward God and profane toward the mysteries of the holy church. With his own hands he broke a chalice dedicated to God and Christ, smashed the venerable altar itself, overturned the priestly chair, and himself demolished to the ground the basilica itself, the house of God, the church of Christ. The presbyter himself, a grave and just man named Ischyras, he handed over to military custody. He was accused besides of injuries, violence, slaughter, and the very killing of bishops. Raging like a tyrant even on the most holy days of Easter, joined with generals and counts, who for his sake shut some up in custody, harassed others with beatings and scourges, and drove the rest by various tortures to his sacrilegious communion (deeds never committed by the innocent), he hoped that in this way he and his faction could prevail, so as to compel the unwilling to his communion through generals, judges, prisons, beatings, and various tortures, to drive the reluctant, and to terrify like a tyrant those who opposed and resisted him. These were indeed grave and bitter charges brought against him by his accusers.

For these reasons a council was of necessity first summoned at Caesarea in Palestine; and when neither he nor his satellites came to that council, after another year it was of necessity held again at Tyre because of his crimes. Bishops came from Macedonia, Pannonia, Bithynia, and from all parts of the East, constrained by the emperor's order. Learning of Athanasius's outrages and crimes from the acts, they did not believe the accusers indiscriminately or rashly, but chose illustrious and praiseworthy bishops from their council and sent them to the very spot where the things of which Athanasius was accused had been done. These, seeing everything with their own eyes and learning the truth, returned to the council and confirmed by their testimony that the crimes charged by the accusers were true. Hence, in Athanasius's presence, they pronounced a sentence worthy of his crimes. On account of this, fleeing from Tyre, he appealed to the emperor. The emperor heard him; and after an examination, recognizing all his outrages, he deported him into exile by his own sentence. These things having so turned out, when Athanasius was held in exile, condemned worthily for the merit of his crimes (sacrilegious toward God, profane toward the sacred mysteries, violent in demolishing a basilica, horrible in the deaths of bishops and the persecution of innocent brothers), the authority of the law, the canon of the church, and the holy tradition of the apostles were kept by all the bishops in rejecting the wicked.

But while Athanasius, after his condemnation, was procuring for himself a return from exile, he came from Gaul to Alexandria after a very long time. Counting the past as nothing, he grew stronger in wickedness; for by comparison with what followed, what he committed first was light. For along the whole way of his return he overturned churches, restored some condemned bishops, promised others hope of returning to the episcopate, appointed some from among unbelievers as bishops, while the priests were safe, abiding and sound, through fights and slaughters by pagans, respecting no laws, giving everything over to desperation. Hence by force, by slaughter, by war he plundered the basilicas of the Alexandrians. When a holy and sound priest had already been appointed in his place by the judgment of the council, like a barbarian enemy, like a sacrilegious plague, bringing in mobs of pagans, he burned the temple of God, smashed the altar, and secretly and stealthily fled from the city.

But concerning Paul, formerly bishop of the city of Constantinople, after his return from exile, whoever hears will shudder … For at Ancyra too, in the province of Galatia, after the return of Marcellus the heretic, there were burnings of houses and various kinds of wars. Presbyters were dragged naked by him to the forum, and (what must be told with tears and mourning) he openly and publicly profaned the consecrated body of the Lord, hung around the necks of priests; and most holy virgins dedicated to God and Christ he stripped of their garments and exposed with horrible shamefulness publicly in the forum and in the middle of the city, while the people ran together. But (also) in the city of Gaza in the province of Palestine, after his return, Asclepas smashed the altar and caused many riots. Besides, at Adrianople, Lucius, after his return, ordered the sacrifice made by holy and sound priests to be thrown, if it is right to say it, to the dogs. Since this is so, shall we still entrust the sheep of Christ to such great wolves, and make the members of Christ members of fornication? Far from it.

For afterwards Athanasius, traveling through various parts of the world, seducing some and deceiving by his fallacy and pestilent flattery innocent bishops who did not know his crimes, or some Egyptians who did not know his deeds, begging written statements from individuals, disturbed peaceful churches, or himself forged new ones at his pleasure. Yet this could avail nothing against the judgment long since consecrated by most holy and illustrious bishops. For the commendation of those who were neither judges at the council, nor ever had the council's judgment, nor were present when the said Athanasius was heard, could neither avail him nor profit him. Finally, when he knew that these things had turned out in vain for him, he went to Julius at Rome, and also to certain bishops of his own party with Julius; deceiving them by false letters, he was very easily received into communion by them. From then on they began to labor not so much for him as for their own acts, because, believing him all too rashly, they had communicated with him. For even if those letters were from some people, they were not from those who had been judges or had sat in the council. Even if they were from some people, they ought never rashly to have trusted him when he spoke for himself.

But they would not believe the judges who worthily sentenced him either, because others too, who in the past were detected in their crimes, are now joined with Marcellus and Athanasius (we mean Asclepas, who was stripped of the honor of the episcopate seventeen years ago, then Paul and Lucius and as many as are joined with such men). Going round foreign regions together, they persuaded people not to believe the judges who worthily pronounced sentence on them, so that by this kind of trading they might procure for themselves at some time a return to the episcopate. They did not defend themselves in the very places where they had sinned, nor in neighboring places or where they had accusers, but before strangers and those placed far from their own regions, ignorant of the facts; they tried to break a just sentence, reporting their deeds to those who knew nothing of them at all. They do this craftily. For knowing that many of the judges, accusers, and witnesses had died after so many and such great sentences, they thought to restore another judgment, wishing to plead their case before us, who neither excused them nor judged them. For those who judged them have already gone to the Lord.

They wished also, for the Eastern bishops, … defenders in place of judges, … in place of defenders, at a time when their defense did not avail, especially since they could not be defended at all then, when their accusers were refuting them face to face. They thought to introduce a new law, that Eastern bishops should be judged by Western ones. And they wished the church's judgment to be able to stand through those who pitied not so much them as their own acts. Since, then, church discipline has never accepted this wickedness, we ask, dearest brothers, that you too condemn with us the criminal ruin and deadly attempts of these lost men.

For while Athanasius was still bishop, he himself condemned Asclepas, deposed by his own sentence. And Marcellus likewise never communicated with him. And Paul was present at Athanasius's deposition and, writing the sentence with his own hand, himself also condemned him with the rest. And as long as each of them was bishop, he confirmed his own judgments. But when each of them, for different causes and at different times, was worthily driven from the church for his deserts, they made a greater concord by one conspiracy, each forgiving the other the offenses that they had condemned, when they were bishops, by divine authority.

For since Athanasius, going into Italy and Gaul, procured a judgment for himself after the death of some of the accusers, witnesses, and judges, and believed that he could be heard anew at a time when his outrages would be obscured by length of time (to which Julius, bishop of the city of Rome, Maximinus, Ossius, and very many others, giving their consent wrongly, obtained from the emperor's kindness that a council of theirs be held at Serdica), we came to Serdica, summoned by the emperor's letter. When we came there, we learned that in the middle of the church Athanasius, Marcellus, all the criminals driven out by the sentence of a council, and each justly condemned beforehand for his crimes, were sitting with Ossius and Protogenes, disputing together and (what is worse) celebrating the divine mysteries. Nor was Protogenes, bishop of Serdica, ashamed to communicate with Marcellus the heretic, whose sect and reprobate sense he had himself condemned with his own voice, subscribing four times in council to the sentences of the bishops. Hence it is clear that he condemned himself by his own sentence, since by communicating with him he made himself a partaker.

But we, holding the discipline of the church's rule and wishing to help the wretched somewhat, instructed those who were with Protogenes and Ossius to exclude the condemned from their assembly and not to communicate with sinners; then to hear with us what had been judged against them in the past by our fathers. For Marcellus's book needed no accusation (for by itself he was openly known as a heretic), and, lest they believe false suggestions, none of them was obscuring a most perverse mind for the sake of a bishop's place. But they resisted this (for what reason we do not know), and refused to separate themselves from their communion; confirming the sect of Marcellus the heretic, they put the crimes of Athanasius and the wickedness of the rest before the faith and peace of the church.

Learning these things, we eighty bishops, who had come to Serdica from various and distant provinces with great expense and labor to confirm the peace of the church, seeing this, bore it not without tears. For it was no light thing that they utterly refused to send away from themselves those whom our fathers had justly condemned for their crimes. We therefore judged it wicked to communicate with them, and would not mix the holy sacraments of the Lord with the profane, keeping and holding the discipline of the church's (rule). For that they did not send away from themselves the said Ossius and Protogenes was perhaps from a bad conscience, which each of them feared might be laid bare by someone, and which they greatly dreaded would come to light. Nor did any of them dare pronounce sentence against them, lest he condemn himself, because they had communicated, against the prohibition, with those with whom they ought in no way to communicate.

But we asked them again and again not to shake what is firm and solid, not to overturn the law, not to disturb divine rights, not to confuse everything, and not to frustrate the tradition of the church even in a small part, nor to bring in a new sect, nor, coming from the West, to set themselves in any part above the Eastern bishops and the most holy councils. But they, despising this, threatened us and promised that they would vindicate Athanasius and the other criminals, as if indeed they could do or say anything else, having received all the criminals and lost men into their fellowship. Besides, they put forward this with great swelling, possessed rather by audacity and rashness than by lawful reason. For seeing that those who receive the condemned incur offense and guilt as violators of heavenly laws, they tried to set up a judgment with such authority that they wished to call themselves judges of judges, and to reopen, if it is right to say so, the sentence of those who are already with God. But we asked them for very many days to cast off the condemned and to join (themselves) to the holy church, and to agree with the fathers who speak truly. But they utterly refused to do this.

While we were disputing, five bishops of our side came forward, who remained as survivors of the six who had been sent to the Mareotis. And they proposed to them this choice: that some bishops from each council should be sent to the places where Athanasius committed his crimes and outrages, to write everything faithfully under the witness of God; and if what we reported to the council were found false, we ourselves should be condemned and should complain neither to the emperors nor to the council nor to any bishop. But if what we said before should be established as true, we would depose, to match our number, those of you whom you chose, that is, those who communicated with Athanasius after his condemnation, and also those who are supporters and defenders of Athanasius and Marcellus; and none of you would complain to the emperors or to the council or to any bishop. This choice, proposed by our men, Ossius and Protogenes and all their associates feared to accept.

An immense multitude of all criminals and lost men had flowed together to Serdica, coming from Constantinople, from Alexandria; from there those guilty of murders, guilty of blood, guilty of slaughter, guilty of robberies, guilty of plunder, of spoils, and guilty of all abominable sacrileges (and) crimes; who broke altars, burned churches, and pillaged private houses; profaners of God's mysteries and betrayers of Christ's sacraments, who, asserting the impious and criminal doctrine of the heretics against the faith of the church, murdered with atrocious slaughter most wise presbyters of God, deacons, and priests. All these Ossius and Protogenes had gathered with them in their conventicle. And honoring them, they despised all of us, deacons and priests of God, because we would never be joined with such men. And they reported to the common people and to all the pagans what had passed between us, inventing false things for true, and recounting that the discord between us had arisen not from the cause of God but from human presumption. Mixing human with divine and joining private matters to church affairs, they stirred up the city's agreement against us and a riot, saying that we had brought grave injury on the city by schism unless we communicated with them (which was wicked), and they cried this out often. For we would not communicate with them at all unless they cast out those whom we had condemned and gave due honor to the council of the East.