News of the Banished Bishops

Seeing these things, I did not pass sentence on myself, but hurried to come to your Piety with this defense of mine. I knew your goodness, I remembered your faithful promises, and I was confident that, as it is written in the divine Proverbs, “Just speeches are acceptable to a gracious king.” But when I had already set out on my journey and had passed through the desert, a report suddenly reached me which at first I thought unbelievable, but which afterward proved true. [a]

It was rumored everywhere that Liberius, bishop of Rome, the great Hosius of Spain, Paulinus of Gaul, Dionysius and Eusebius of Italy, Lucifer of Sardinia, and certain other bishops, presbyters and deacons had been banished because they refused to sign my condemnation. These had been banished; and Vincentius of Capua, Fortunatian of Aquileia, Heremius of Thessalonica, and all the bishops of the West were being treated with no ordinary force. In fact they were suffering extreme violence and grievous injuries, until they could be brought to promise that they would not hold communion with me.

While I was astonished and perplexed at this news, another report overtook me, about those of Egypt and Libya. Nearly ninety bishops had been persecuted, and their churches handed over to those who professed Arianism. Sixteen had been banished, and of the rest some had fled and others were forced to put on a pretense. For the persecution in those parts was said to be so violent that at Alexandria, while the brothers and sisters were praying during Easter and on the Lord’s days in a desert place near the cemetery, the general came upon them with a force of soldiers, more than three thousand in number, with weapons, drawn swords and spears. Then outrages such as you would expect to follow so unprovoked an attack were committed against women and children who were doing nothing more than praying to God. It would perhaps be out of place to give an account of them now, lest the mere mention of such atrocities move us all to tears. But such was their cruelty that virgins were stripped, and even the bodies of those who died from the blows they received were not given up at once for burial, but were thrown out to the dogs, until their relatives, at great risk to themselves, came secretly and stole them away; and much effort was needed so that no one would know of it.