A Letter to Every Church

To his fellow ministers in every place, his beloved lords, Athanasius sends greetings in the Lord. [a]

Our sufferings have been dreadful beyond endurance, and it is impossible to describe them as they deserve. But so that you may more readily grasp how dreadful the events that have taken place are, I have thought it good to remind you of a story from the Scriptures. A certain Levite was wronged through his wife. When he considered how exceedingly great the defilement was (for the woman was a Hebrew, of the tribe of Judah), he was stunned by the outrage done to him. So, as the Holy Scripture relates in the Book of Judges, he divided his wife’s body and sent a part of it to every tribe in Israel. He did this so that it might be understood that such a wrong concerned not himself alone but reached to all alike; and so that, if the people felt with him in his sufferings, they might avenge him, or, if they neglected to do so, they might bear the disgrace of being counted from then on as guilty of the wrong themselves. The messengers he sent told what had happened, and those who heard and saw it declared that such things had never been done from the day the children of Israel came up out of Egypt. So every tribe of Israel was moved, and all came together against the offenders as though they had suffered the wrong themselves. In the end the men who did this wickedness were destroyed in war and became a curse in everyone’s mouth. For the assembled people gave no thought to the blood they shared with them, but looked only at the crime they had committed. [b]

You know the story, brothers, and the detailed account Scripture gives of it. So I will not describe it further, since I am writing to people who know it, and since I am anxious to set before your piety our present circumstances, which are even worse than those I have mentioned. My purpose in reminding you of this story is that you may compare those ancient events with what has happened to us now; and that, seeing how far these exceed the others in cruelty, you may be filled with greater indignation over them than the people of old felt against those offenders. For the treatment we have suffered surpasses the bitterness of any persecution. The Levite’s misfortune was small compared with the enormities now committed against the church. Or rather, such deeds as these were never heard of before in the whole world, nor did anyone ever experience the like. For in that case only one woman was wronged and one Levite suffered injury; now the whole church is wronged, the priesthood insulted, and, worst of all, piety is persecuted by impiety. Then the tribes were stunned, each at the sight of a part of the body of one woman; but now the members of the whole church are seen divided from one another, and are sent abroad, some to you and some to others, bringing word of the insults and injustice they have suffered.

So you too must be moved, I beg you, considering that these wrongs are done to you no less than to us. Let everyone lend his help, as though he were himself the sufferer, so that the church’s canons and the church’s faith are not soon corrupted. For both are in danger, unless God quickly sets right by your hands what has been done wrong, and the church is avenged on her enemies. For our canons and our forms were not given to the churches only now; they were handed down to us wisely and securely from our forefathers. Nor did our faith begin at this time; it came down to us from the Lord through his disciples. Rouse yourselves, then, brothers, as stewards of the mysteries of God who now see them seized by others, so that the ordinances kept in the churches from of old until now are not lost in our days, and we are not called to account for the trust committed to us. You will learn more about our situation from those who carry our letters; but I was anxious to write you a short account of it myself, so that you may know for certain that such things have never before been committed against the church, from the day when our Savior, as he was taken up, gave command to his disciples, saying, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”