Historical Fragments 1.8.1.1–2.2.5.4

Earlier decrees, venerable fathers, contain that the holiness of the law rests on church affairs. We have seen well enough, by the letter given to your prudence, that attention must be given to the same matters, since this indeed befits the office of bishops, and the salvation of all peoples far and wide is strengthened by this foundation. But the matter has warned that the decrees should be put forth again. For no one will judge it superfluous

for what has been defined to be doubled, since frequent admonition usually increases the measure of diligence. This being so, let Your Sincerity know that you must deal with faith and unity, and give attention that a fitting order be provided for church affairs. For the prosperity of all peoples will spread everywhere, and faithful concord will be kept, when, all questions of this kind being wholly cut off, it has set going what is to be followed.

This matter ought not to extend the attention of your mind further; for reason does not allow anything to be defined in your council about the Eastern bishops. Therefore you must treat only those things that your gravity knows pertain to you, and, all things being quickly completed, by unanimous consent send ten men to my court, as we informed your prudence in the earlier letter. For they will be able to answer all that the Easterners propose to them,

or to treat of the faith, so that every question may be ended with a fitting outcome and ambiguity laid to rest. This being so, you must decree nothing against the Easterners. Or if you wish to define anything against them in their absence, whatever has been usurped will vanish with void effect. For no definition can have any force when our decrees already testify that strength and power are denied it. This being so, you must, with the moderation of religion, accomplish venerable things befitting venerable bishops, so that what religion demands may be set forth, and no one usurp what reason forbids to be heard. May the Divinity keep you for many years, fathers. The end. Given on the fifth day before the Kalends of June, in the consulship of Eusebius and Hypatius.

Narrative text. All the catholics, agreeing as one, subscribed to this definition. In the same council, after it was decreed that nothing of the fathers' tradition should be diminished, those who opposed it were also condemned by the spiritual voice of all agreeing as one. This is a copy of that proceeding.

In the consulship of Eusebius and Hypatius, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of August. When the synod of bishops had been gathered at the place of Ariminum, and the faith had been discussed, and they had settled in mind what should be done, Graecianus, bishop of Calles, said: "As far as was fitting, dearest brothers, the catholic synod has shown patience, and the devout church has shown (itself) so often toward Ursacius, Valens, Germinius, and Gaius, who, by so often changing what they had believed, have disturbed all the churches, and now try to insert their heretical mind into Christian minds; for they wish to overturn the decree made at Nicaea, which was set against the Arian heresy and the others. Moreover they have brought you a creed written by themselves, which we were not allowed to accept.

They have already been declared heretics by us before, and this has been proved over many days. We did not admit them to our communion, condemning them by our voice in their presence. Now say again what pleases you, so that it may be confirmed by the subscription of each." All the bishops said: "It pleases us that the heretics named above be condemned, so that the church may remain in perpetual peace with unshaken faith, which is truly catholic." The end.

Full of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul speaks thus to the Corinthians: "But faith, hope, love remain." He thus embraces the great mystery of the truth to be completed in a threefold disposition of human sense. But the other things, whether offices or gifts, in which we now move in part, he signifies are to be done away, when at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ the perfection of the heavenly council is found. For when our corruption has been transformed into the glory of eternity, this,

which is now believed to be something, will not be, when that begins to be granted which, when it is, is always eternal. But this is the merit of faith, hope, and love: that, when bodies have been dissolved by the debt of death, they always remain and never cease; and though everything in man is in part, these alone are perfect. For whether prophecies are done away, or tongues cease, or knowledge is destroyed, those three above attain an unchangeable perfection, and will neither borrow anything from outside nor acquire more abundantly beyond what they hold. For when complete truth drives out prophecies, tongues, and knowledge, eternity itself, as they will be, will take hold of faith, hope, and love, the conductors and patrons for reaching eternity.

And the same blessed apostle distinguished the merits of each thing by the measure of its honor, so that it might be readily understood that, while the rest are to be done away by the advance of heavenly increase, these three alone, with no small fruit of their honor, are the things that remain.

So God rewards with the prizes of righteousness one who believes him to be God while not knowing him. For this reason faith first justifies Abraham; and the faith of the mother of the Canaanite daughter, testing the Lord by his silence, saves her; and to those who believe in his name power is given, in John, to be born of God. Great is the merit of faith, and perfect is the blessedness of those who believe God, through which, for those born in the body, (in) iniquity, in sickness, there come righteousness and health and birth from God.

Hope, trusting in what God has disposed, surpasses the pleasantness of worldly life and the goods of a quiet age, ready to earn the gain of future things by the loss of present ones; and the Lord rewards it with this prize: "Everyone who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or sons or field for my name's sake will receive a hundredfold and will possess eternal life." Excellent witness of the powers of God is the confidence of its expectation, despising all present things as nothing and uncertain, but grasping future things as eternal and present!

But though the same apostle gives equal glory to the abiding faith, hope, and love, and signifies that they are equally inviolable, he shows that love surpasses the others above. For through it we are joined to God by a kind of bond of the love we have received, and our will becomes inseparable from him once it has been filled with the love of devotion to his name; from which neither sword nor famine nor nakedness will separate us; through which anger, rivalry, ambition, iniquity, luxury, and greed are suppressed. And therefore, while faith, hope, and love remain, the greatest of these is love, through which no force of worldly movements dissolves or divides those who are bound together by an inseparable affection in God's name.

And to this so great and so weighty apostolic authority I too, among the rest, if I have any place after them, bear witness through

this love laid up for us before the ages of the world in the hope of heaven, being taken up into it. And I cling to the name of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, rejecting the society of the wicked and the fellowship of unbelievers, with whom the power was given me, as to the rest, to flourish with the goods of the world, to enjoy domestic leisure, to abound in all advantages, to boast of the king's friendship, to be falsely called a bishop, to become weighty to each and all, publicly and privately, in lordship over the church; if only I would corrupt the gospel truth with falsehood, console the guilt of my conscience with the flattery of ignorance, defend the corruption of my judgment with the excuse of another's decision, be held for the crime of heresy not by my own faith, which would certainly be liable, but by the simplicity of the ignorant, and feign honesty under the difficulty of public understanding.

For love, abiding (in) simplicity of heart through faith and hope in Christ, did not bear these things. And since I had received from the Apostle, "For we have not received a spirit of fear," and had learned from the Lord saying, "Everyone who confesses me before men, I too will confess him before my Father who is in heaven," and it was said by the same: "Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are you when they curse you and persecute you and say all evil against you for righteousness' sake; rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven," I could not prefer an ambitious conscience in the guilt of silence to an injurious endurance for the confession of God.

I attempt, then, to bring before the public conscience a work weighty and manifold, entangled by the devil's fraud, subtle on the heretics' part, prejudged by the dissimulation and fear of many, foreign by the distance of the places where the affair was carried on and where we are, ancient in time, new through silence, long passed over under a feigned peace of affairs, lately renewed by the impious cunning of most deceitful men; and by it, while rest is taken even in the business of the Roman empire, the king is troubled, the palace is in a ferment, bishops run about, officials of the master's office fly hither and thither, and there is turmoil against apostolic men with the haste of all the offices. So everywhere there is action, alarm, pressure, that the labor and care of carrying this assertion have plainly betrayed its iniquity.

For I remember that it has long been current in men's talk that certain priests of God are in exile because they will not pass sentence against Athanasius; and this error has taken hold of almost all minds, so that they think that, under his name, each of them has not a sufficiently worthy cause for the exile he has undergone.

I pass over that, although the highest reverence is to be shown to the king (for the kingdom is from God), yet his judgment is not calmly admitted into episcopal decisions, because what is Caesar's is to be rendered to Caesar, but to God what is God's. I say nothing of the emperor's judgment given after the hearing of the case was taken away; I do not complain that a sentence is extorted against one absent, though, as the Apostle says, "where faith is, there is liberty," priestly simplicity ought not to suffer this. But these things I pass over, not because they are to be despised, but because graver things lie beneath them.

For although from these things, and from what was done in each land, it could be known that something far other was being done than was supposed, yet it seemed good to set out the whole affair in this volume with greater care. For these things were then put forward by us hastily,

the corruption of the Gospels, the depravation of the faith, and the blasphemous, feigned confession of Christ's name. And it was necessary that in that speech everything was hasty, disordered, and confused, because the more earnestly we sought a hearing, the more stubbornly they opposed it.

I will begin, then, from what was done most recently, that is, from the time when first, in the town of Arles, my brother and fellow minister Paulinus, bishop of the church of Trier, did not join himself to their ruin and dissimulation. And I will set out what kind of judgment that was,

by drawing back his will from which he was judged unworthy of the church by the bishops and worthy of exile by the king. And that this is done so is shown not by the order of events but by reasoning drawn from present things: so that from these it may first be understood that it was a confession of faith rather than favor toward a man, from which injury began against him who did not assent to them.

And I will also usefully admonish that careful attention be given to this whole volume. For everything must be separated by times, distinguished by judgments, set apart by persons, and weighed by the force of the words, lest perhaps by so many letters, so many

synods then often thrust upon us, one be filled with a harmful weariness before the end. For in these things it is at stake what knowledge of God is to be sought, what hope of eternity, in what state perfect truth stands. And since the business of so grave a matter is being treated, each one ought to spend care on learning these things, so that, standing thereafter on his own judgment, he may not follow another's opinion. The end.

The Arian heretics have indeed dared many things, and often, against the servants of God who keep the right and catholic faith. The holy synod, by the grace of God gathered at Serdica from Rome, the Spains, the Gauls, Italy, Campania, Calabria, Africa, Sardinia, Pannonia, Moesia, Dacia, Dardania, the other Dacia, Macedonia, Thessaly, Achaea, Epirus, Thrace, Europa, Palestine, and Arabia: to the bishops everywhere, fellow ministers of the catholic and apostolic church, dearest brothers.

Formerly, when Eusebius, Maris, Theodore, Diognitus, Ursacius, and Valens wrote to Julius, our fellow priest, bishop of the Roman church, against our aforesaid fellow bishops (we mean Athanasius and Marcellus), (bishops) from other places also wrote, to (testify to the innocence of Athanasius,) our fellow bishop; and what was done by Eusebius gave all of us nothing other than proof of falsehood …

For they fled, dearest brothers, not only because of those whom they had falsely attacked, but also because of those who had come from various places to convict them of many crimes. For men returning from exile brought out iron and chains … For those who trust their own words could be present for this too. Since, then, they did not come, we think that no one is now ignorant, even if they again wished to act craftily there, that, having nothing to charge against our fellow ministers, they accuse them when absent but avoid them when present.

What we have always believed, we hold now too; for experience proves and confirms what each has heard by hearing. For what the most blessed teacher of the Gentiles, the apostle Paul, said of himself is true ("since you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me"); although, since the Lord Christ dwelt in him, there can be no doubt that the Spirit spoke through his soul and the instrument of his body sounded. And you too, dearest brother, though separated in body, were present in concordant mind and will; and the excuse for your absence was honorable and necessary, lest either schismatic wolves should steal and snatch by ambush, or heretical dogs, roused to rabid fury, should madly bark, or certainly the serpent, the devil, should pour out the poison of blasphemies. For this will seem best and most fitting: that the priests of the Lord from each and every province should refer to the head, that is, to the see of the apostle Peter.

Since, then, all that was done, carried out, and decreed is contained in the documents, and the living voices of our dearest brothers and fellow presbyters Archidamus and Philoxenus and of our dearest son the deacon Leo will be able to set it forth most truly and faithfully, it seems almost superfluous to put the same things in this letter. It was plain to all that those who came from the East, who call themselves bishops (though among them are certain ringleaders whose sacrilegious minds the Arian heresy has dyed with pestilent poison), long evaded and refused, through lack of confidence, to come to trial, and criticized your communion and ours, which had no fault; because not only do we likewise believe in the innocence of Athanasius on the testimony of eighty bishops, but also, when summoned by your presbyters and by letter to the synod that was to be held in the city of Rome, they refused to come; and it was quite unjust, when they showed contempt and so many priests bore witness, to deny fellowship to Marcellus and Athanasius.

There were three things to be treated. For the most religious emperors themselves permitted that everything be discussed anew: first of all, the holy faith and the integrity of the truth, which they had violated; second, the persons whom they said had been cast down by an unjust judgment, so that, if they could prove it, a just confirmation might be made; and the third question, which is truly to be called a question, that they had done grave and bitter injuries, even intolerable and wicked outrages, to the churches, when they seized bishops, presbyters, and deacons, sent all clerics into exile, transported them to desert places, killed them with hunger, thirst, nakedness, and every want, wore others out shut up in prison, filth, and stench, and some in iron chains, so that their necks were strangled in the tightest rings. Finally, some of them died bound in that unjust punishment, whose death there can be no doubt was made glorious by martyrdom. They still dare to hold some, and there was no cause of crime except that they resisted and cried out that they cursed the Arian and Eusebian heresy and would not have communion with such men; while those who preferred to serve the world profited. And those who had been deposed before were not only received but even promoted to clerical rank, and received the reward of falsehood.

Hear, most blessed brother, what was decreed about the impious and inexperienced young men Ursacius and Valens: since it was plain that they did not cease to sow the deadly seeds of adulterous doctrine, and that Valens, leaving his church, had wished to invade another church. At the time when he stirred up a riot, one of our brothers who could not flee, Viator, was overwhelmed and trampled in the city of Aquileia and died on the third day. The cause of his death was certainly Valens, who stirred up and incited the disturbance. But when you read what we reported to the most blessed Augusti, you will easily see that we passed over nothing, as far as reason allowed. And lest a long narrative be tiresome, we have indicated what they did and committed.

Your excellent prudence should arrange that, through your letters, our brothers in Sicily, Sardinia, and Italy may know what was done and what was defined, and that they may not unknowingly accept letters of communion, that is, little letters, from those whom a just sentence has degraded. But let Marcellus, Athanasius, and Asclepas remain in our communion, since an unjust judgment could not harm them, nor the flight and evasion of those who would not come to the judgment of all the bishops who assembled. The rest, as we mentioned above, the full report of the brothers whom your sincere love sent will teach Your Unanimity. We have taken care to append the names of those who were deposed for their crimes, so that Your Excellent Gravity might know who are deprived of communion. As we said before, deign to admonish all our brothers and fellow bishops by your letters not to accept their little letters, that is, letters of communion.

Likewise the names of the heretics: (1) Ursacius of Singidunum. (2) Valens of Mursa. (3) Narcissus of Irenopolis. (4) Stephen of Antioch. (5) Acacius of Caesarea. (6) Menophantus of Ephesus. (7) George of Laodicea.

Likewise the names of the bishops below who were at the synod and subscribed to the same (in) the judgment: (1) Ossius of Córdoba in Spain. (2) Annianus of Castulo in the Spains. (3) Florentius of Emerita in the Spains. (4) Domitianus of Asturica in the Spains. (5) Castus of Caesaraugusta in the Spains. (6) Praetextatus of Barcelona in the Spains. (7) Maximus of Luca in Tuscia. (8) Bassus of Diocletianopolis in Macedonia. (9) Porphyrius of Philippi in Macedonia. (10) Marcellus of Ancyra in Galatia. (11) Euterius of Ganos in Thrace. (12) Asclepas of Gaza in Palestine. (13) Musaeus of Thebes in Thessaly. (14) Vincent of Capua in Campania. (15) Januarius of Beneventum in Campania. (16) Protogenes of Serdica in Dacia. (17) Dioscorus of Therasia. (18) Hymenaeus of Hypata in Thessaly. (19) Lucius of Caenopolis in Thrace. (20) Lucius of Verona in Italy. (21) Evagrius of Heraclea Lyncestis in Macedonia. (22) Julius of seven-gated Thebes in Achaea. (23) Zosimus of Lychnidus in Macedonia. (24) Athenodorus of Elatea in Achaea. (25) Diodorus of Tenedos in Asia. (26) Alexander of Larissa in Thessaly. (27) Aetius of Thessalonica in Macedonia. (28) Vitalis of Aquae in Dacia Ripensis. (29) Paregorius of Scupi in Dardania. (30) Tryphon of Macaria in Achaea. (31) Athanasius of Alexandria. (32) Gaudentius of Naissus in Dacia. (33) Jonas of Particopolis in Macedonia. (34) Alypius of Megara in Achaea. (35) Macedonius of Ulpiana in Dardania. (36) Calvus of Castra Martis in Dacia Ripensis. (37) Fortunatianus of Aquileia in Italy. (38) Plutarch of Patrae in Achaea. (39) Heliodorus of Nicopolis. (40) Euterius of the Pannonias. (41) Arius of Palestine. (42) Asterius of Arabia. (43) Socrates of Asopus in Achaea. (44) Stercorius of Canusium in Apulia. (45) Calepodius (of Naples) in Campania. (46) Irenaeus of Scyros in Achaea. (47) Martyrius of Naupactus in Achaea. (48) Dionysius of Elis in Achaea. (49) Severus of Ravenna in Italy. (50) Ursacius of Brixia in Italy. (51) Protasius of Milan in Italy. (52) Mark of Siscia in Savia. (53) Verissimus of Lyon in Gaul. (54) Valens of Oescus in Dacia Ripensis. (55) Palladius of Dium in Macedonia. (56) Gerontius of Beroea in Macedonia. (57) Alexander of Cyparissia in Achaea. (58–59) Eutychius of Methone in Achaea. (60) Alexander of Coronea in Achaea. Bishops in all, sixty-one in number.

The matter, as I think, needs no interpretation by another's words. For everything has been so published and expressed as to be brought into the light of knowledge: the witnesses from Egypt suborned, Athanasius himself present, the nightly and shameful flight of the false judges through their conscience, and the grave odium of such great crimes, set before the eyes of all. Add the origin of the case, from which an occasion for a sentence against Athanasius was sought. He is accused of an altar overturned by the assault of his presbyter at the very time of the sacrifices, where the presbyter Ischyras was standing. Ischyras is denied to be a presbyter, and the falsehood of the crime is condemned together with its author. Moreover, the work of the sacrifice could not be without a presbyter. When the question turns on the man, there is no place for so grave a deed; there is no church in the Mareotis. Did the very sanctity of the ground fail, or did the place of the violated sacrifice sink, as happens, in some chasm? Ischyras is asserted to have been ordained bishop from deacon, so that the lying bishop might have greater authority about the insult suffered as presbyter. But if the place of the church existed, it still exists; if it does not exist, neither did it exist. And what doubt is there that these judges of false crimes asserted that something was done which plainly was not done, rather than that those who judged afterward established that what had existed had not existed, which, if it had existed, cannot not have existed?

If anyone, then, is trained in human institutions for the use of common understanding, if anyone walks by the precepts of prudence in the way of pursuing the truth, let him attend and weigh what judgment he would wish to hold in matters of this kind. I say nothing for the moment of the authors of the judgments. Let these two judgments stand: one that affirms a crime, names the place of the crime, and designates the man who suffered the injury; the other that denies the crime, the place, and the man. I ask to which judgment it will seem fair for you to yield. Surely, I think, anyone consulted by both and placed between the two judgments will speak thus: if there is a crime, it must be shown; if there is a place, it must be pointed out; if there is a man, he must be seen. But when there is neither proof of the deed, nor sanctity of the place, nor man injured, it will be thought madness for a judge to judge things that do not exist.

Look up to heaven and the stars, you priests, and to him who made them from nothing, and attend with the freedom of the faith and hope you have received, remembering that such a form of future judgment upon you has been set before you: "With the judgment you judge, you will be judged." Answer me as I ask: By what judgment did you condemn Athanasius? You will say, of course, "by that of bishops", and this will be the excuse of your confession. "We followed," he says, "the holy reverence for judgments under episcopal communion." But will you deny that you knew that communion had been restored to Athanasius, whose condemnation Valens, Ursacius, and Saturninus demanded of you, by Ossius, Maximinus, and Julius? I do not make it a matter of communion; I ask what your judgment was about Athanasius's crime. His presbyter Macarius is said to have rushed into the church of the Mareotis, disturbed the presbyter Ischyras, and thrown down the sacraments of our salvation; a catechumen and a pagan were questioned as witnesses of this. But do you not know that afterwards it was judged by holy men that there was no church of the Mareotis and that Ischyras was not a presbyter? What is it that you followed? You give authority to false bishops and deny it to true ones; you decree that what is does not exist, and you judge what does not exist. But, I suppose, so that you would believe this charge, prison demanded it, the guard pressed, the torturer bore down, the sword hung over you, the fire burned. In judging things that do not exist, wickedness obtained episcopal authority among you; in holding fast to the truth, holiness lost its credit. O true disciples of Christ! O worthy successors of Peter and Paul! O devout fathers of the church! O ambitious envoys between God and the people, to have sold the truth of Christ for the falsehood of men! We have satisfied, then, the first proposition, in which we promised that Athanasius could be held guilty of none of the crimes charged. It remains for me to say very briefly what was done concerning Marcellus and Photinus.

Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, had been instructed by Marcellus; for he was also a deacon under him for some time. Having corrupted the ways and disciplines of innocence, he persisted in disturbing the gospel truth with new preachings. And it often happens that, when the growth of vices has caused losses in the love of God, a mad zeal for depraved knowledge increases. So, to remove from the episcopate Photinus, who two years before had already been condemned as a heretic at the synod of Milan, priests gathered from very many provinces, the more anxious and troubled that everything would again be disturbed and confused, because it had long since been necessary to cut off from the church many bishops guilty either of false judgments against Athanasius or of communion with the Arian heresy. Seizing this opportunity, Ursacius and Valens approach the bishop of the Roman people, beg to be received into the church, and ask to be admitted to communion by pardon. Julius, with his council, grants the pardon they begged, so that, with gain to the catholic church, he might also take strength from the Arians, by admitting to catholic communion, through the pardon of reconciled peace, those who had earlier disturbed unity and now repented of this plan and audacity. And since there is no confession except of the truth, no repentance except of a fault, no pardon except of a wrong done, Valens and Ursacius, to be admitted to communion as they begged, first profess concerning the innocence of Athanasius, the falsehood of the judgment, and the crime of the Arian heresy, in such a letter as this.