Documents on the Melitian Charges

Peter was bishop among us before the persecution, and in the course of it he suffered martyrdom. Melitius, who held the title of bishop in Egypt, was convicted of many crimes, among them offering sacrifice to idols, and Peter deposed him in a general council of the bishops. Melitius did not then appeal to another council, or try to clear himself before those who would come after. Instead he made a schism, so that those who took up his cause are still called Melitians instead of Christians. He began at once to revile the bishops and to bring false accusations, first against Peter himself, then against his successor Achillas, and after Achillas against Alexander. He worked craftily in this way, following the example of Absalom, so that, disgraced as he was by his deposition, he might mislead the simple with his slanders. While Melitius was busy with this, the Arian heresy had also arisen. At the Council of Nicaea the heresy was anathematized and the Arians were cast out, but the Melitians, on whatever grounds, were received; it is not necessary to give the reason now. Yet five months had not passed when, the blessed Alexander having died, the Melitians, who ought to have kept quiet and been grateful to be received on any terms at all, were troubling the churches again, like dogs unable to forget their vomit. [a]

When he learned this, Eusebius, the leader of the Arian heresy, sent to the Melitians and bought them with large promises. He became their secret friend and arranged with them to have their help whenever he might want it. At first he sent to me, urging me to admit Arius and his companions to communion. In the messages he sent by word of mouth he threatened me, while in his letters he only made a request. I refused, declaring that it was not right to admit to communion those who had invented a heresy contrary to the truth and had been anathematized by the Ecumenical Council. Then he got the emperor Constantine, of blessed memory, to write to me as well, threatening me, if I did not receive Arius and his companions, with the afflictions I have suffered before and am still suffering. The following is part of his letter. Syncletius and Gaudentius, officers of the palace, brought it.

Part of a letter from the emperor Constantine. “Now that you know my will, grant free admission to all who wish to enter the church. For if I learn that you have hindered or shut out anyone who claims to be admitted into communion with the church, I will immediately send someone to depose you by my command and remove you from your place.”

Upon this I wrote to the emperor and tried to convince him that that anti-Christian heresy had no communion with the catholic church. At once Eusebius seized the opportunity he had agreed on with the Melitians. He wrote and persuaded them to invent some pretext, so that, just as they had schemed against Peter and Achillas and Alexander, they might devise and spread reports against us too. So, after searching a long time and finding nothing, they at last agreed together, on the advice of Eusebius and his associates, and through Ision, Eudaemon and Callinicus they made up their first accusation, about the linen vestments. They claimed that I had laid a law on the Egyptians and had required them to be the first to keep it. But some presbyters of mine happened to be present, and when the emperor examined the matter the accusers were condemned. The presbyters were Apis and Macarius. The emperor wrote condemning Ision and ordering me to appear before him. His letters were as follows. [e]

When Eusebius heard of this, he persuaded them to wait. When I arrived, they next accused Macarius of breaking the cup, and brought against me the most terrible accusation possible: namely, that I was an enemy of the emperor and had sent a purse of gold to a certain Philumenus. So the emperor heard us on this charge too, at Psammathia. As usual they were condemned and driven from his presence, and as I was returning he wrote the following letter to the people. Constantine, Maximus, Augustus, to the people of the catholic church at Alexandria.

“Beloved brothers, I greet you warmly, and I call on God, the chief witness of my intention, and on the only Son, the Author of our law, who is Sovereign over the lives of all and who hates quarrels. But what am I to say to you? That I am in good health? No; I could enjoy better health and strength if you were filled with love for one another and had rid yourselves of your hostilities, through which, in the storms stirred up by quarrelsome men, we have left the harbor of brotherly love. “Alas, what perversity this is! What evil comes every day from the uproar of envy that has been stirred up among you! That is why evil reports have settled on the people of God. Where has the faith of righteousness gone? For we are so wrapped in mists of darkness, not only through many errors but through the faults of ungrateful men, that we put up with those who favor folly, and though we know of them, we pay no attention to those who set goodness and truth aside. “What a strange inconsistency this is! We do not convict our enemies, but we follow the example of robbery they set us, so that the most harmful errors, finding no one to oppose them, easily make a way for themselves, if I may put it so. Is there no understanding among us, for the credit of the nature we share, seeing that we are so careless of the commands of the law? [g]

“But someone will say that love is something nature brings out. Then I ask: how is it that we, who have the law of God as our guide in addition to our natural advantages, put up with the disturbances and disorders raised by our enemies, who seem inflamed, as it were, with firebrands? How is it that, having eyes, we do not see or understand, though we are surrounded by the understanding of the law? “What a stupor has seized our life, that we are so careless of ourselves, even though God warns us! Is this not an intolerable evil? And ought we not to regard such men as our enemies, and not as the household and people of God? For they rage against us, abandoned as they are; they charge us with serious crimes and attack us as enemies.

“I would have you consider for yourselves with what extreme madness they do this. These foolish men carry their malice on the tip of their tongues. They carry about with them a kind of leaden anger, so that they strike at one another and drag us in too, which only adds to their own punishment. “The good teacher is counted an enemy, while the man who clothes himself in the vice of envy, against all justice, profits from the gentle temper of the people. He plunders and devours, he dresses himself up, and he recommends himself with false praise. He overturns the truth and corrupts the faith, until he finds a hole and a hiding place for his conscience. So their very perversity makes them wretched, while they shamelessly push themselves forward into places of honor, however unworthy they may be. “Ah, what harm this is! They say, ‘That man is too old; that one is a mere boy. The office belongs to me; it is owed to me, since it is taken away from him. I will win everyone over to my side, and then I will do my utmost to ruin him.’ This proclamation of their madness is plain to all the world: the sight of their crowds and gatherings, and of men rowing at the word of command in their hostile cliques. “Alas, how absurd our conduct is, if I may say so! Do they make a show of their folly in the church of God? Are they not yet ashamed of themselves? Do they not yet blame themselves? Are they not stung in their consciences, so as to show at last that they have a proper sense of their deceit and quarrelsomeness? Theirs is nothing but the force of envy, backed by the harmful influences that naturally go with it. “But these wretches have no power against your bishop. Believe me, brothers, their efforts will have no other result than this: after they have worn away our days, they will have left themselves no room for repentance in this life. So I beg you, help yourselves. Receive our love kindly, and with all your strength drive away those who want to wipe out among us the grace of being of one mind. Look to God, and love one another. “I received your bishop Athanasius gladly, and I spoke with him as one persuaded that he was a man of God. It is for you to understand these things, not for me to judge them. I thought it fitting that the most reverend Athanasius himself should carry my greeting to you, since I know his kind care for you. That care, in a way worthy of the peaceable faith I myself profess, is constantly at work in the good work of declaring saving knowledge, and he will be able to encourage you as is fitting. May God keep you, beloved brothers.” Such was Constantine’s letter. [h]

After these events the Melitians stayed quiet for a little while, but afterward they showed their hostility again and devised the following plot, aiming to please those who had hired their services. The Mareotis is a country district belonging to Alexandria, in which Melitius had not been able to make a schism. The churches there were still within their appointed limits, all the presbyters had congregations in them, and the people were living in peace. At that time a certain man named Ischyras, who was not a clergyman but a worthless character, tried to lead astray the people of his own village by declaring himself a clergyman. When the presbyter of the place learned of this, he told me while I was making my visitation of the churches, and I sent the presbyter Macarius with him to summon Ischyras. They found him sick and lying in a cell, and they charged his father to warn his son not to go on with the things that had been reported against him. But when he recovered from his sickness, and his friends and his father kept him from pursuing the same course, he fled over to the Melitians. They in turn communicated with Eusebius and his associates, and at last they invented that slander: that Macarius had broken a cup, and that a certain bishop named Arsenius had been murdered by me. They hid Arsenius away, so that, since he did not appear, he would seem to have been done away with; and they carried about a hand, pretending that he had been cut to pieces. As for Ischyras, whom they did not even know, they began to spread the report that he was a presbyter, so that what he said about the cup would mislead the people. Ischyras, however, being rebuked by his friends, came to me in tears and said that Macarius had done nothing of what they had reported, and that he himself had been put up to inventing this slander by the Melitians. And he wrote the following letter. To the blessed pope Athanasius, Ischyras sends greeting in the Lord. [i]

“When I came to you, my lord bishop, wanting to be received into the church, you rebuked me for what I had said before, as though I had gone to such lengths of my own free choice. So I submit to you this defense of mine in writing, so that you may understand that violence was used on me, and blows were struck on me, by Isaac and Heraclides, and Isaac of Letopolis, and those of their party. “I declare, and I call God as my witness in this matter, that I know you to be guilty of none of the things they have stated. No breaking of a cup or overturning of the holy table ever took place; they forced me by violent treatment to assert all this. I make this defense and submit it to you in writing, asking and claiming for myself to be admitted among the members of your congregation. I pray that you may have health in the Lord. “I submit this, in my own handwriting, to you, Bishop Athanasius, in the presence of the presbyters Ammonas of Dicella, Heraclius of Phascos, Boccon of Chenebri, Achillas of Myrsine, Didymus of Taphosiris, and Justus from Bomotheus; and of the deacons Paul, Peter and Olympius of Alexandria, and Ammonius, Pistus, Demetrius and Gaius of the Mareotis.”

In spite of this statement of Ischyras, they again spread the same charges against me everywhere, and reported them to the emperor Constantine as well. He too had heard about the affair of the cup before, at Psammathia, when I was there, and had found out the falsehood of my enemies. But now he wrote to Dalmatius the censor at Antioch, requiring him to open a judicial inquiry into the murder. So the censor sent me notice to prepare my defense against the charge. When I received his letters, at first I paid no attention to the thing, because I knew that nothing they said was true. But seeing that the emperor was moved, I wrote to my fellow ministers in Egypt and sent a deacon, wanting to learn something about Arsenius, for I had not seen the man for five or six years. Well, not to tell the story at length, Arsenius was found in hiding, first in Egypt, and afterward my friends found him hiding again, in Tyre too. And what was most remarkable, even when he was discovered he would not admit that he was Arsenius, until he was proved to be so in court before Paul, who was then bishop of Tyre; at last, out of sheer shame, he could not deny it. [j]

He did this to keep his bargain with Eusebius and his associates, lest, if he were discovered, the game they were playing would at last be broken up; and in fact that is what happened. For when I wrote to the emperor that Arsenius had been found, and reminded him of what he had heard at Psammathia about the presbyter Macarius, he stopped the proceedings of the censor’s court. He wrote condemning the proceedings against me as slander, and ordered Eusebius and his associates, who were coming into the East to appear against me, to go back. Now, to show that they did accuse me of murdering Arsenius, it will be enough, without bringing forward the letters of many people on the subject, to produce just one, from Alexander the bishop of Thessalonica, from which the drift of the rest may be judged. He knew of the reports that Arcaph, who is also called John, was spreading against me about the murder, and when he heard that Arsenius was alive, he wrote as follows. Letter of Alexander. To his dearly beloved son and like-minded fellow minister, the lord Athanasius, Alexander the bishop sends greeting in the Lord.

“I congratulate the most excellent Sarapion on striving so earnestly to adorn himself with holy habits, and so bringing still greater praise to the memory of his father. For, as the Holy Scripture says somewhere, ‘Though his father dies, yet he is as though he were not dead,’ for he has left behind him a memorial of his life. You yourself, my lord, know very well what my feelings were toward the ever-memorable Sozon, for you know how sacred his memory is, as well as the goodness of the young man. “I have received only one letter from your reverence, which came by the hand of this youth. I mention this, my lord, so that you may know. Our dearly beloved brother, the deacon Macarius, gave me great pleasure by writing to me from Constantinople that the false accuser Arcaph had been disgraced, for having announced before everyone that a living man had been murdered. The unerring Scriptures assure us that he will receive from the righteous Judge, together with the whole tribe of his associates, the punishment his crimes deserve. May the Lord of all keep you for very many years, my lord, kindest in every way.” [k]

Those who lived with Arsenius also bear witness that he was kept in hiding for this very purpose, so that they could pretend he was dead. For in searching for him we found the man who had hidden him, and as a result he wrote the following letter to John, who played the leading part in this false accusation. To his dearly beloved brother John, Pinnes, presbyter of the monastery of Ptemencyrcis, in the district of Anteopolis, sends greeting. “I want you to know that Athanasius sent his deacon into the Thebaid to search everywhere for Arsenius. Pecysius the presbyter, and Silvanus the brother of Helias, and Tapenacerameus, and Paul, a monk of Hypsele, whom he came across first, admitted that Arsenius was with us. When we learned this, we had him put on board a boat to sail down to the lower country with Helias the monk. “Afterward the deacon suddenly came back with some others and entered our monastery looking for the same Arsenius. They did not find him, because, as I said, we had sent him away to the lower country. But they took me, together with Helias the monk who had carried him off out of the way, to Alexandria, and brought us before the duke. There I could not deny it, but admitted that he was alive and had not been murdered; and the monk who had carried him off admitted the same. “So I am telling you these things, Father, so that you do not decide to accuse Athanasius. For I have said that he is alive and was hidden with us, and all this has become known in Egypt and can no longer be kept secret. “I, Paphnutius, a monk of the same monastery, who wrote this letter, send you warm greetings. I pray for your health.” The following also is the letter the emperor wrote when he learned that Arsenius had been found alive. Constantine, Victor, Maximus, Augustus, to the pope Athanasius. [l]

“Having read the letters of your wisdom, I felt moved to write back to your fortitude, and to urge you to try to bring the people of God back to calm and to merciful feelings. For in my own mind I hold these things to be of the greatest importance: that we should cultivate truth, always keep righteousness in our thoughts, and take pleasure above all in those who walk in the right way of life. “But about those who deserve every curse, I mean the most perverse and ungodly Melitians, who have at last made fools of themselves by their folly, and are now raising senseless commotions with envy, uproar and tumult, and so making their own ungodly dispositions plain, I will say this much. You see that those whom they pretended had been killed with the sword are still among us and alive. Now what could tell more strongly against them, and point so plainly and clearly to their condemnation, than that those they declared had been murdered are still alive, and so will be able to speak for themselves? [n]

“But these same Melitians brought a further accusation. They firmly asserted that you had rushed in with lawless violence, seized a cup that was kept in the most holy place, and broken it. There certainly could not be a more serious charge or a graver offense, if such a crime had actually been committed. “But what kind of accusation is this? What is the meaning of this change and shifting and variation in the details of it, so that they now transfer the same accusation to another person? That fact makes it clearer than daylight, so to speak, that they meant to lay a trap for your wisdom. “After this, who could be willing to follow them, men who have fabricated such charges to injure another, especially since they are rushing on to ruin and know that they are accusing you of false and made-up crimes? Who, as I said, will follow them, and so go headlong down the road to destruction, the road on which, it seems, they alone suppose they have hope of safety and help? “But if they were willing to walk with a pure conscience, to be guided by the best wisdom, and to go in the way of a sound mind, they would easily see that no help can come to them from divine Providence while they give themselves to such doings and court their own destruction. I would not call this a harsh judgment of them, but the simple truth.

“Finally, I will add that I want your wisdom to have this letter read often in public, so that it may come to the knowledge of everyone, and above all reach the ears of those who act this way and stir up disturbances. For the judgment I have expressed according to the demands of fairness is also confirmed by the plain facts. “Therefore, since such conduct is so great an offense, let them understand that this is my judgment, and that I have made this decision: if they stir up any further commotion of this kind, I will take up the matter in person, and not according to the laws of the church but according to the civil laws, and so I will find them out in future. For they are plainly robbers, so to speak, not only against humankind but against the divine teaching itself. May God always keep you, beloved brother.”

But so that the wickedness of the slanderers might be shown even more fully, see how Arsenius himself also wrote to me after he was found in his hiding place. Just as the letter Ischyras had written admitted the falsehood of their accusation, so the letter of Arsenius proved their malice still more completely. To the blessed pope Athanasius, Arsenius, bishop of those in the city of the Hypselites who were formerly under Melitius, together with the presbyters and deacons, wishes much health in the Lord. “We earnestly desire peace and union with the catholic church, over which by the grace of God you preside, and we wish to submit ourselves to the canon of the church according to the ancient rule. So we write to you, dearly beloved pope, and declare in the name of the Lord that from now on we will not hold communion with those who remain in schism and are not yet at peace with the catholic church, whether bishops, presbyters or deacons. “Nor will we take part with them if they want to settle anything in a council. Nor will we send letters of peace to them or receive such letters from them. Nor will we publish any decision about bishops, or on any other general question of the church, without the consent of you, the bishop of the metropolis. But we will obey all the canons that have been laid down before, following the example of the bishops Ammonian, Tyrannus, Plusian and the rest. “So we beg your goodness to write to us soon in reply, and also to our fellow ministers about us, telling them that from now on we will hold to the resolution stated above, and will be at peace with the catholic church and in unity with our fellow ministers in the various districts. And we are confident that your prayers, being acceptable to God, will so prevail with him that this peace will be firm and unbroken to the end, according to the will of God, the Lord of all, through Jesus Christ our Lord. “We, and those who are with us, greet the sacred ministry that serves under you. Very soon, if God permits, we will come to visit your goodness. I, Arsenius, pray for your health in the Lord for many years, most blessed pope.” [o]

But a stronger and clearer proof of the slander against us is the recantation of John, to which the most God-beloved emperor Constantine, of blessed memory, is a witness. He knew how John had accused himself, and he had received letters from him expressing his repentance, so he wrote to him as follows. Constantine, Maximus, Augustus, to John. “The letters I received from your prudence pleased me greatly, because from them I learned what I very much longed to hear: that you had laid aside every petty feeling, had joined the communion of the church as was right for you, and were now in perfect harmony with the most reverend bishop Athanasius. Be assured, then, that so far I fully approve of your conduct, because, giving up all skirmishing, you have done what is pleasing to God and have embraced the unity of his church. “So, in order that you may have your wishes fulfilled, I have thought it right to give you permission to use the public conveyance and to come to the court of my clemency. Take care, then, to make no delay. Since this letter gives you the right to use the public conveyance, come to me at once, so that you may have your desires fulfilled and, by appearing in my presence, may enjoy the pleasure it is fitting for you to receive. May God keep you always, dearly beloved brother.” [q]