Constantine’s Letter to the Synod of Tyre and the Exile of Athanasius

After fleeing from Tyre, Athanasius went to Constantinople. He came to the emperor Constantine and complained, in the presence of the bishops who had condemned him, of what he had suffered, and he begged him to allow the decrees of the Council of Tyre to be examined before the emperor himself. Constantine thought this request reasonable, and he wrote to the bishops gathered at Tyre in these words: [a]

“I do not know what your synod has decided amid confusion and heat. But it seems that some disturbance and disorder has led to decrees being passed that do not agree with the truth, and that your constant provoking of one another plainly kept you from considering what pleases God. It will be the work of God’s providence, however, to scatter the evils that have come out of this quarrelsomeness, and to show us clearly whether you have not been led astray in your judgment by private friendship or dislike. So I command all of you to come here to my Piety without delay, so that we may receive an exact account of what you have done. “I will explain to you why I write to you this way, and from what follows you will understand why I summon you before me by this letter. As I was riding back into the city that bears my name, which I regard as my greatly blessed homeland, Athanasius the bishop, with some people who were with him, appeared so unexpectedly in the middle of the road that I was greatly surprised to see him. God, who sees all things, is my witness that at first I did not know who he was; but some of my attendants found out who he was and what injustice he had suffered, and they told me. “On that occasion I did not grant him a hearing. He kept on asking for one, however. Although I refused him and was on the point of ordering him to be removed from my presence, he told me, quite boldly, that he asked no other favor of me than that I summon you here, so that he might complain in your presence of what he had suffered needlessly. “Since this request seems reasonable and timely, I thought it right to write to you this way, and to command all of you who met at the Synod of Tyre to hurry to the court of our Clemency, so that you may show by your actions the purity and firmness of your decisions before me, whom you cannot deny to be a true servant of God. “Through my zeal in his service, peace has been established throughout the world, and the name of God is truly praised among the barbarians, who until now were ignorant of the truth; and plainly, whoever is ignorant of the truth does not know God. Even so, as I have said, through me the barbarians have learned to know God truly and to worship him. For they saw that his protection rested on me everywhere and at all times, and they revere God all the more deeply because they fear my power. “But we who have to proclaim the mysteries of patient forbearance (for I will not say that we keep them), we, I say, ought to do nothing that leads to quarreling or hatred, or, to speak plainly, to the ruin of the human race. “Come to us, then, as I have said, with all speed. And be assured that I will do everything in my power to preserve all the especially unerring parts of God’s law, so that no fault or false teaching can be fabricated in them; while those enemies of the law who, under cover of the Holy Name, try to bring in various and conflicting blasphemies have been openly scattered, utterly crushed, and wholly suppressed.” [b]

This letter of the emperor frightened some of the bishops so much that they set out for home. But Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, and his supporters went to the emperor and told him that the Synod of Tyre had passed no decree against Athanasius that was not founded on justice. They brought forward Theognis, Maris, Theodore, Valens and Ursacius as witnesses, and testified that he had broken the chalice of the mysteries. After many other slanders, their accusations won the day. The emperor, either believing their statements to be true or thinking that harmony would be restored among the bishops if Athanasius were out of the way, exiled him to Trier in western Gaul, and he was taken there. [d]