Athanasius and Paul Appeal to Julius of Rome

Meanwhile Athanasius, after a long journey, at last reached Italy. The western part of the empire was then under the sole rule of Constans, the youngest of Constantine’s sons, since his brother Constantine had been killed by the soldiers, as was said before. At the same time Paul, bishop of Constantinople, Asclepas of Gaza, Marcellus of Ancyra, a city of Lesser Galatia, and Lucius of Adrianople, who had been accused on various charges and expelled from their churches, also arrived at the imperial city. There each of them laid his case before Julius, bishop of Rome. Julius, for his part, by virtue of the special privilege of the church of Rome, sent them back to the East, strengthening them with letters of recommendation. At the same time he restored each to his own place and sharply rebuked those who had deposed them. [a]

Relying on the signature of Bishop Julius, the bishops left Rome and took possession of their own churches again, forwarding the letters to those to whom they were addressed. These men, considering themselves insulted by Julius’s reproaches, called a council at Antioch, met, and dictated a reply to his letters as the expression of the unanimous feeling of the whole synod. It was not his business, they said, to review their decisions about anyone they might wish to expel from their churches, since they had not opposed him when Novatian was put out of the church. These things the bishops of the Eastern church communicated to Julius, bishop of Rome.

Now when Athanasius entered Alexandria, a riot was raised by the partisans of George the Arian, in which, it is said, many people were killed. Since the Arians try to throw the whole blame for this on Athanasius as its cause, we ought to make a few remarks on the subject. God, the Judge of all, alone knows the true causes of these disorders. But no one with any experience can fail to know that such deadly accidents mostly go along with the factional movements of the crowd. It is useless, then, for the slanderers of Athanasius to put the blame on him, and above all Sabinus, bishop of the Macedonian heresy. For if Sabinus had considered how many and how great were the wrongs that Athanasius, together with all the rest who hold that the Son is of one substance with the Father, had suffered from the Arians, or the many complaints made about these things by the synods called on Athanasius’s account, or, in short, what that arch-heretic Macedonius himself has done throughout all the churches, he would either have kept completely silent, or, if forced to speak, would have spoken more credible words instead of these reproaches. As it is, he deliberately passes over all these things and willfully misrepresents the facts. Yet he makes no mention at all of the founder of the heresy, wishing by every means to hide the outrageous crimes he knew him to be guilty of. And what is still more remarkable, he has not said one word against the Arians, although he was far from sharing their opinions. He has also passed over in silence the ordination of Macedonius, whose heretical views he had adopted; for if he had mentioned it, he would have had to record his impious acts as well, which showed themselves most plainly on that occasion. Let this be enough on this subject.