Introduction, Part 1

I had supposed that, after so many proofs of my innocence had been given, my enemies would shrink from any further inquiry and would by now condemn themselves for their false accusations against others. But they are not yet ashamed. Though they have been so plainly convicted, they have no sense of shame and keep up their slanders against me, claiming to think that the whole matter ought to be tried over again. They do not want judgment passed on themselves, for that they avoid; they want to harass me and to unsettle the minds of simple people. So I thought it necessary to make my defense to you, so that you will listen to their grumbling no longer, but will denounce their wickedness and their base slanders. It is only to you, whose minds are sincere, that I offer a defense. As for the quarrelsome, I appeal with confidence to the decisive proofs I hold against them. My case needs no further judgment, for judgment has already been given, and not once or twice only, but many times. First, it was tried in my own country, in an assembly of nearly a hundred of its bishops. A second time it was tried at Rome, when, as a result of letters from Eusebius, both they and we were summoned, and more than fifty bishops met. A third time it was tried in the great council gathered at Sardica by order of the most religious emperors Constantius and Constans. There my enemies were degraded as false accusers, and the sentence given in my favor received the votes of more than three hundred bishops, from the provinces of Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis, Palestine, Arabia, Isauria, Cyprus, Pamphylia, Lycia, Galatia, Dacia, Moesia, Thrace, Dardania, Macedonia, Epirus, Thessaly, Achaia, Crete, Dalmatia, Siscia, Pannonia, Noricum, Italy, Picenum, Tuscany, Campania, Calabria, Apulia, Bruttia, Sicily, the whole of Africa, Sardinia, Spain, Gaul and Britain. [a]

Added to these was the testimony of Ursacius and Valens, who had once slandered me but afterward changed their minds. They not only agreed to the sentence given in my favor, but also confessed that they themselves and the rest of my enemies were false accusers. Men who make such a change and such a recantation of course cast blame on Eusebius and his party, since it was with them that they had devised the plot against me. Now, when a matter has been examined and decided on such clear evidence by so many eminent bishops, everyone will admit that further discussion is unnecessary. Otherwise, if an investigation is opened now, the matter may be discussed again and investigated again, and there will be no end to such trifling.

The decision of so many bishops was enough to put to shame those who would still like to allege some charge against me. But when my enemies too bear witness in my favor and against themselves, declaring that the proceedings against me were a conspiracy, who would not be ashamed to doubt any longer? The law requires that judgments be settled on the word of two or three witnesses, and here we have this great crowd of witnesses in my favor, with the proofs supplied by my enemies besides. So much is this so that those who still oppose me no longer set any store by their own arbitrary judgment. They now turn to violence, and instead of fair reasoning they try to injure the very men who exposed them. For this is what galls them most: that the measures they carried out in secret, devised by themselves in a corner, have been brought to light and laid bare by Valens and Ursacius. They know well that the recantation of those two, while it clears the men they have injured, condemns themselves. [e]

This in fact led to their degradation at the Council of Sardica, as I mentioned before, and with good reason. The Pharisees of old, when they took up Paul’s defense, fully exposed the conspiracy that they and the Jews had formed against him; and the blessed David was shown to have been persecuted unjustly when his persecutor confessed, “I have sinned, my son David.” So it was with these men. Overcome by the truth, they made a request and delivered it in writing to Julius, bishop of Rome. They also wrote to me, asking to be at peace with me, though they had spread such reports about me; and very likely even now they are covered with shame when they see that those they tried to destroy are, by the grace of the Lord, still alive. In keeping with this conduct, they also anathematized Arius and his heresy. They knew that Eusebius and his party had conspired against me for the sake of their own false belief and nothing else. So as soon as they had decided to confess their slanders against me, they at once renounced as well that antichristian heresy for whose sake they had falsely made those charges.

The following are the letters written in my favor by the bishops in the various councils, and first the letter of the Egyptian bishops.

Circular Letter of the Council of Egypt. The holy council gathered at Alexandria from Egypt, the Thebaid, Libya and Pentapolis, to the bishops of the catholic church everywhere, brothers beloved and greatly longed for in the Lord: greetings.

Dearly beloved brothers, we might have published a defense of our brother Athanasius against the conspiracy of Eusebius and his party. We might have complained of what he suffered at their hands and exposed all their false charges, either when their conspiracy began or when he arrived at Alexandria. But circumstances did not allow it then, as you also know. And lately, after Bishop Athanasius returned, we thought they would be put to confusion and covered with shame at their open injustice, so we made ourselves keep silent. But consider all he has gone through: his severe sufferings, his removal into Gaul, his stay in a foreign and far-off country instead of his own, his narrow escape from death through their slanders, which he escaped only thanks to the mercy of the emperor. Such distress would have satisfied even the cruelest enemy. Yet they are still without shame. They are again acting insolently against the church and against Athanasius. Angry that he was delivered, they venture on still more outrageous schemes against him, and they stand ready with an accusation, without fear of the words of Holy Scripture, “A false witness will not go unpunished,” and, “The mouth that lies kills the soul.” So we can no longer keep silent, amazed as we are at their wickedness and at the endless love of strife shown in their intrigues. [h]

Look: they do not stop troubling the emperors’ ears with fresh reports against us. They do not stop writing letters meant to bring death, to destroy the bishop who opposes their impiety. Again they have written to the emperors against him. Again they want to conspire against him, charging him with a slaughter that never took place. Again they want to shed his blood, accusing him of a murder that was never committed; indeed, at that earlier time they would have murdered him by their slanders, had we not had a kind emperor. Again they press, to say the least, for him to be sent into exile, while they pretend to lament the miseries of those he is said to have exiled. They lament before us things that never happened, and, not satisfied with what has already been done to him, they want to add other and crueler treatment to it. So mild they are, and merciful, and so just in their disposition! Or rather, for the truth must be told, so wicked and malicious they are, winning respect by fear and threats rather than, as becomes bishops, by their godliness and justice. In their letters to the emperors they have dared to pour out language that no quarrelsome person would use even among those outside the church. They have charged him with a number of murders and slaughters, and not before a governor or any other higher official, but before the three Augusti. Nor do they shrink from any journey, however long, so long as all the higher courts can be filled with their accusations. Indeed, dearly beloved, their business is accusation, and of the gravest kind, since the courts to which they appeal are the gravest on earth. And what other aim do they have in these inquiries than to move the emperor to put him to death?

It is their own conduct, then, and not that of Athanasius, that most deserves lament and mourning. It would be more fitting to lament them, for such actions ought to be wept over, since it is written, “Do not weep for the dead, nor mourn for him; but weep bitterly for the one who goes away, for he will return no more.” Their whole letter has nothing in view but death. Their aim is to kill whenever they are allowed, or, if not, to drive into exile. And this they were allowed to do by the most religious father of the emperors, who satisfied their fury by banishing Athanasius instead of putting him to death. That this is not how even ordinary Christians behave, hardly even pagans, much less bishops, who claim to teach others righteousness, we think your Christian consciences must see at once. How can they forbid others to accuse their brothers, when they themselves become their accusers, and before the emperors at that? How can they teach compassion for the misfortunes of others, when they cannot rest content even with our exile? For there was admittedly a general sentence of exile against us bishops, and we all looked on ourselves as exiles. And now again we regard ourselves as restored with Athanasius to our homes, and in place of our former lament and mourning over him we have the greatest encouragement and grace. May the Lord continue it to us, and not let Eusebius and his party destroy it. [j]

Even if their charges against him were true, here is a certain charge against them: that against the teaching of Christianity, after his exile and trials, they have attacked him again, and they accuse him of murder and slaughter and other crimes, which they sound in the emperors’ ears against the bishops. But how many-sided their wickedness is! What sort of men do you think they are, when every word they speak is false, every charge they bring is slander, and there is no truth at all either in their mouths or in their writings? Let us then at last take up these matters and answer their latest charges. This will show that at the council and at the trial, in what they represented before, their conduct was dishonorable, or rather their words were untrue; and it will also expose them for what they are putting forward now.

We are ashamed even to make a defense against such charges. But since our reckless accusers seize on any charge, and allege that murders and slaughter were committed after the return of Athanasius, we beg you to bear with our answer, though it is rather long, for circumstances force us to it. No murder has been committed, either by Athanasius or on his account; we say so because our accusers, as we said before, force us into this humiliating defense. Slaughter and imprisonment are foreign to our church. Athanasius handed no one over to the executioner, and as far as he was concerned the prison was never disturbed. Our sanctuaries are now, as they have always been, pure, and honored only with the blood of Christ and his devout worship. Neither presbyter nor deacon was killed by Athanasius. He committed no murder; he caused no one’s exile. If only they had never done the like to him, nor given him the actual experience of it! No one here has been exiled on his account; no one at all except Athanasius himself, the bishop of Alexandria, whom they exiled. And now that he is restored, they are again seeking to entangle him in the same plot as before, or an even crueler one, setting their tongues to speak every kind of false and deadly word against him.

For look: they now blame him for the acts of the magistrates. Although they plainly admit in their letter that the prefect of Egypt passed sentence on certain persons, they are not ashamed now to lay this sentence on Athanasius, and that though he had not yet entered Alexandria at the time, but was still on his way back from his place of exile. In fact he was then in Syria. We are forced to bring forward in his defense how far from home he was, so that a man may not be held responsible for the actions of a governor or prefect of Egypt. But even supposing Athanasius had been in Alexandria, what had the prefect’s proceedings to do with Athanasius? In any case he was not even in the country. And what the prefect of Egypt did was not done on church grounds, but for reasons you will learn from the records. After we learned what they had written, we searched diligently for those records, and we have sent them to you. Since, then, they now raise an outcry over things that were never done either by him or for him, as though they had certainly taken place, and testify against such evils as though they were sure they existed, let them tell us from what council they obtained their knowledge, from what proofs, and from what judicial inquiry. But if they have no such evidence to offer, and nothing but their own bare assertion, we leave it to you to consider, as regards their earlier charges too, how those things happened and why they speak of them as they do. In truth it is nothing but slander, a plot of our enemies, a temper that cannot be governed, and an impiety on behalf of the Arian madmen that rages against true godliness and wants to root out the orthodox, so that from now on the advocates of impiety may preach without fear whatever doctrines they please. The history of the matter is as follows.

When Arius, from whom the heresy of the Arian madmen takes its name, was cast out of the church for his impiety by Bishop Alexander, of blessed memory, Eusebius and his party, who are the disciples and partners of his impiety, considered that they too had been cast out. They wrote often to Bishop Alexander, begging him not to leave the heretic Arius outside the church. But when Alexander, in his devotion to Christ, refused to admit that impious man, they turned their resentment on Athanasius, who was then a deacon, because in their busy inquiries they had heard that he was much in Bishop Alexander’s company and much honored by him. Their hatred of him grew greatly once they had felt his devotion to Christ at the council gathered at Nicaea, where he spoke boldly against the impiety of the Arian madmen. But when God raised him to be bishop, their long-nursed malice burst into flame. Fearing his orthodoxy and his resistance to their impiety, they, and especially Eusebius, who was stung by the awareness of his own wrongdoing, threw themselves into every kind of treacherous scheme against him. They set the emperor against him. They often threatened him with councils, and at last they gathered at Tyre. To this day they do not stop writing against him, and they are so implacable that they even find fault with his appointment as bishop, using every means to show their enmity and hatred toward him and spreading false reports for the sole purpose of blackening his character. [m]

Yet the very misrepresentations they are making now only prove that their earlier statements were falsehoods and a mere conspiracy against him. For they say that “after the death of Bishop Alexander, when a certain few had mentioned the name of Athanasius, six or seven bishops elected him secretly in a hidden place.” This is what they wrote to the emperors, with no scruple about asserting the greatest falsehoods. But the whole multitude, all the people of the catholic church, gathered together as with one mind and body. They cried and shouted that Athanasius should be bishop of their church. They made this the subject of their public prayers to Christ, and for many days and nights they implored us to grant it, neither leaving the church themselves nor letting us leave. Of all this we are witnesses, and so is the whole city, and the province too. Not a word did they speak against him, as these persons have claimed; rather they gave him the finest titles they could think of, calling him good, devout, a Christian, an ascetic, a genuine bishop. And that he was elected by a majority of our body, in the sight and amid the acclamations of all the people, we who elected him also testify; and surely we are more credible witnesses than those who were not present and now spread these false accounts.

Yet Eusebius finds fault with the appointment of Athanasius, he who perhaps never received any appointment to his office at all, or, if he did, has himself made it invalid. He first held the see of Berytus, but he left it and came to Nicomedia. He left the one against the law, and against the law he seized the other. He deserted his own without affection and holds another’s without reason. He lost his love for the first in his lust for another, and did not even keep the one he gained at the prompting of that lust. For look: withdrawing from the second, he again takes possession of another’s, casting an envious eye all around him on other men’s cities, thinking that godliness consists in wealth and in the size of cities, and making light of the inheritance of God to which he had been appointed. He does not know that “where” even “two or three are gathered in the name of the” Lord, “there” is the Lord “in the midst of them.” He does not consider the words of the apostle, “I will not boast in another man’s labors.” He does not see the charge the apostle has given, “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be set free.” If this saying applies to a wife, how much more does it apply to a church, and to the same office of bishop! Whoever is bound to it ought not to seek another, or he will prove an adulterer according to Holy Scripture.

Though he is conscious of these misdeeds of his own, he has boldly taken it on himself to attack the appointment of Athanasius, to which all have borne honorable witness. He dares to reproach him with his deposition, though he has been deposed himself and has a standing proof of it in the appointment of another in his place. How could either he or Theognis depose anyone, after they had been deposed themselves, as the appointment of others in their place sufficiently proves? You know very well that Amphion was appointed to Nicomedia and Chrestus to Nicaea in their place, because of their own impiety and their connection with the Arian madmen, who were rejected by the Ecumenical Council. But while they want to set aside that true council, they try to give that name to their own unlawful gathering. While they are unwilling for the decrees of the council to be enforced, they want to enforce their own decisions. They use the name of a council while refusing to submit to one as great as this. So they care nothing for councils, but only pretend to, in order to root out the orthodox and annul the decrees of the true and great council against the Arians, on whose behalf, both now and before, they have dared to make these false statements against Bishop Athanasius. Their earlier statements were like the ones they now falsely make, namely, that disorderly gatherings were held at his arrival, with lament and mourning, and that the people indignantly refused to receive him. That was not the case. Quite the opposite: joy and good cheer prevailed, and the people ran together, hurrying to get the sight of him they longed for. The churches were full of rejoicing, and thanksgivings were offered to the Lord everywhere. All the ministers and clergy looked on him with such feeling that their souls were filled with delight, and they counted that the happiest day of their lives. Why should we speak of the inexpressible joy among us bishops? We have already said that we counted ourselves sharers in his sufferings. [r]

Since this, by common admission, is the truth of the matter, though they represent it very differently, what weight can be given to that council or trial they boast of? They take it on themselves to meddle in a case they did not witness, did not examine, and did not meet about, and they write as though they were sure their statements were true. How then can they claim to be believed about the matters they say they did meet to consider? Will it not rather be believed that in both cases they acted out of enmity toward us? What kind of council of bishops was held then? Was it an assembly that aimed at the truth? Was not nearly every one of them our enemy? Did not the attack of Eusebius and his party on us come from their zeal for the Arian madness? Did they not urge on the others of their party? Have we not always written against them as holders of the teachings of Arius? Was not Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine accused by our confessors of sacrificing to idols? Was not George proved to have been deposed by the blessed Alexander? Were they not charged with various offenses, some with one thing, some with another? [u]

How then could such men think of holding a meeting against us? How can they have the boldness to call that a council, where a count presided and an executioner was in attendance, where a court usher, instead of the deacons of the church, brought us into court, and where the count alone spoke and all present held their peace, or rather obeyed his directions? At his wish, the removal of those bishops who seemed to deserve it was blocked. When he gave the order, we were dragged about by soldiers; or rather, Eusebius and his party gave the order, and he served their will. In short, dearly beloved, what kind of council was it, whose aim was exile and murder at the emperor’s pleasure? And what sort of charges did they bring? For here is something still more astonishing. There was one Arsenius, whom they declared had been murdered; and they also complained that a chalice belonging to the sacred mysteries had been broken.

Now Arsenius is alive, and he asks to be admitted to our communion. He waits for no other testimony to prove that he is still living, but confesses it himself, writing in his own name to our brother Athanasius, whom they flatly declared to be his murderer. The impious wretches were not ashamed to accuse him of murdering a man who was a long way from him, separated from him by a great distance by sea or by land, and whose dwelling at that time no one knew. They even had the boldness to remove him from sight and hide him, though he had suffered no harm; and if it had been possible they would have carried him off to another world, or else taken his life in earnest, so that by a true or a false report of his murder they might really destroy Athanasius. But thanks be to divine Providence for this too, which did not let them succeed in their injustice, but showed Arsenius alive to the eyes of all, and he has clearly proved their conspiracy and slanders. He does not shun us as murderers, nor hate us as men who have wronged him, for indeed he has suffered no harm at all. He wants to be in communion with us; he wishes to be counted among us; and he has written to that effect.

Nevertheless they laid their plot against Athanasius, accusing him of murdering a man who was still alive; and these same men are the authors of his exile. For it was not the father of the emperors, but their slanders, that sent him into exile. Consider whether this is not the truth. When nothing was found against our fellow minister Athanasius, and still the count threatened him with violence and was very zealous against him, the bishop fled from this violence and went up to the most religious emperor. There he protested against the count and against their conspiracy, and he asked either that a lawful council of bishops be gathered or that the emperor himself hear his defense against the charges they brought. At this the emperor wrote in anger, summoning them before him and declaring that he would hear the case himself, and for that purpose he also ordered a council to be held. Then Eusebius and his party went up and falsely accused Athanasius, not of the same offenses they had published against him at Tyre, but of intending to hold back the ships loaded with grain, as though Athanasius were the man to claim that he could stop the shipments of grain from Alexandria to Constantinople. [y]

Some of our friends were at the palace with Athanasius and heard the emperor’s threats when he received this report. Athanasius cried out against the slander and declared flatly that it was not true; for how, he argued, could he, a poor man in a private station, do such a thing? Yet Eusebius did not hesitate to repeat the charge publicly, and he swore that Athanasius was a rich man, powerful and able to do anything, so that it might be supposed from this that he had used such language. Such was the accusation these venerable bishops brought against him. But the grace of God proved stronger than their wickedness, for it moved the pious emperor to mercy, and instead of death he passed on him the sentence of exile. So their slanders, and nothing else, were the cause of it. For the emperor, in the letter he had written earlier, complained of their conspiracy, censured their schemes, and condemned the Melitians as unscrupulous and deserving to be abhorred; in short, he expressed himself in the severest terms about them. He was greatly moved when he heard the story of the dead man who was alive; he was moved at hearing of a murder where the man was alive and had not lost his life. We have sent you the letter.

But these marvelous men, Eusebius and his party, to make a show of refuting the truth of the case and what this letter says, put forward the name of a council and based its proceedings on the emperor’s authority. Hence the presence of a count at their meeting, and the soldiers as guards of the bishops, and letters from the emperor compelling the attendance of anyone they required. But notice here the strange character of their schemes and the inconsistency of their bold measures, all so that by some means or other they may take Athanasius away from us. If as bishops they claimed the judgment of the case for themselves alone, what need was there for a count and soldiers to attend? Or how was it that they met under the sanction of letters from the emperor? Or if they needed the emperor’s support and wanted to draw their authority from him, why were they then overturning his judgment? He declared in the letter he wrote that the Melitians were slanderers and unscrupulous, and that Athanasius was entirely innocent, and he made much of the pretended murder of a living man. How then did they decide that the Melitians had told the truth and that Athanasius was guilty of the offense? And how were they not ashamed to make the living man dead, a man living both after the emperor’s judgment and at the time they met, and who to this very day is among us? So much for the case of Arsenius.