Arius’s Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia

To his very dear lord, the man of God, the faithful and orthodox Eusebius, Arius, unjustly persecuted by Pope Alexander on account of the all-conquering truth that you also champion, sends greetings in the Lord. [a] Since my father Ammonius is about to leave for Nicomedia, I thought it my duty to greet you through him. I also wanted to tell you, knowing the natural affection you have for the brothers for the sake of God and his Christ, that the bishop is ravaging and persecuting us severely and leaving no stone unturned against us. He has driven us out of the city as godless men, because we do not agree with what he publicly preaches. He preaches this: God always, the Son always; as the Father, so the Son; the Son exists together with God, unbegotten; he is everlasting; God does not come before the Son, either in thought or by any interval; always God, always Son; he is begotten of the unbegotten; the Son is from God himself. Your brother Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, Theodotus, Paulinus, Athanasius, Gregory, Aetius and all the bishops of the East have been condemned because they say that God existed before his Son. The only exceptions are Philogonius, Hellanicus and Macarius, who are unlearned men and have embraced heretical opinions. Some of them say that the Son is something belched forth, others that he is something put forth, others that he too is unbegotten. These are ungodly ideas we cannot listen to, even if the heretics threaten us with a thousand deaths. But this is what we say and believe, what we have taught and still teach: that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way a part of the unbegotten, and that he does not have his existence from any matter; but that by his own will and counsel he has existed before times and before ages, as fully God, the only Son, unchangeable; and that before he was begotten, or created, or determined, or established, he did not exist. For he was not unbegotten. We are persecuted because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning. This is why we are persecuted, and also because we say that he is from nothing. And we say this because he is neither a part of God nor from any underlying being. For this we are persecuted; the rest you know. I bid you farewell in the Lord, remembering our afflictions, my fellow pupil of Lucian, true Eusebius. [b]

Of those named in this letter, Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea, Theodotus of Laodicea, Paulinus of Tyre, Athanasius of Anazarbus, Gregory of Berytus, and Aetius of Lydda; Lydda is now called Diospolis. Arius prided himself on having these men of one mind with him. As his opponents he names Philogonius, bishop of Antioch, Hellanicus of Tripolis, and Macarius of Jerusalem. He spread slanders against them because they said that the Son is eternal, existing before all ages, equal in honor and of one substance with the Father. [e] When Eusebius received the letter, he too spewed out his own ungodliness, and wrote to Paulinus, the leader of the Tyrians, in the following words. [i]