Julius of Rome and the Bishops of the East

Athanasius, on leaving Alexandria, had fled to Rome. Paul, bishop of Constantinople, Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra, and Asclepas, bishop of Gaza, went there at the same time. Asclepas was opposed to the Arians and had therefore been deposed, after some of the heterodox accused him of having thrown down an altar; Quintianus had been appointed in his place over the church of Gaza. Lucius too, bishop of Adrianople, who had been deposed from the church in his care on another charge, was staying in Rome at this time. When the Roman bishop learned the charge against each of them, and found that they held the same views on the Nicene doctrines, he admitted them to communion as sharing his orthodoxy. And since care for all of them befitted the dignity of his see, he restored each of them to his own church. He wrote to the bishops of the East and rebuked them for having judged these bishops unjustly and for troubling the churches by abandoning the Nicene doctrines. He summoned a few of them to appear before him on an appointed day, to give him an account of the sentence they had passed, and threatened that he would bear with them no longer unless they stopped making innovations. Such was the substance of his letters. [a]

Athanasius and Paul were restored to their own sees and sent the letter of Julius on to the bishops of the East. The bishops could hardly stand such documents. They met together at Antioch and drew up a reply to Julius, beautifully written and composed with great legal skill, yet full of considerable irony and containing the strongest threats. In this letter they admitted that the church of Rome was entitled to honor from all, because it was the school of the apostles and had been the mother city of piety from the beginning, although those who brought the doctrine there had come from the East. They added that they themselves ought not to be given second place in honor because they did not have the advantage of size or numbers in their churches, for they surpassed the Romans in virtue and resolve.

They called Julius to account for having admitted Athanasius and his followers to communion, and expressed their indignation at him for having insulted their synod and overturned its decrees; and they attacked what he had done as unjust and contrary to the law of the church. After these rebukes and protests against such grievances, they went on to say that if Julius would accept the deposition of the bishops they had expelled, and the appointment of those they had ordained in their places, they promised him peace and fellowship; but that unless he agreed to these terms, they would openly declare themselves his opponents. They added that the priests who had governed the Eastern churches before them had raised no objection when the church of Rome deposed Novatian. They made no mention in their letter of the ways they had departed from the doctrines of the Council of Nicaea. They merely said that they had various reasons to give in justification of what they had done, but that they thought it unnecessary to enter on any defense of their conduct at that time, since they were suspected of having violated justice in every respect.