The Arian Persecution Under Constantine

Not long afterward they carried out the plans for which they had used these tricks. No sooner had they formed their plans than they at once admitted Arius and his companions to communion. They set aside the repeated condemnations passed on them, and once again claimed the emperor’s authority on their behalf. They were not ashamed to say in their letters, “Since Athanasius has suffered, all envy has ceased; from now on let us receive Arius and his companions.” And to frighten their hearers they added, “because the emperor has commanded it.” They were not even ashamed to add, “for these men profess orthodox opinions.” They had no fear of what is written: “Woe to those who call bitter sweet, who put darkness for light.” For they are ready to undertake anything in support of their heresy. Is it not plainly proved by this, then, to everyone, that we suffered before, and that you persecute us now, not on the authority of a sentence of the church, but because of the emperor’s threats, and because of our devotion to Christ? In the same way they conspired against other bishops as well, inventing charges against them too. Some of these died in the place of their exile, having won the glory of confessing Christ. Others are still banished from their own country, and contend more and more manfully against their heresy, saying, “Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ.” [a]

From this too you can see what kind of heresy it is, and condemn it with greater confidence. Take a man who is their friend and their partner in impiety. He may be open to ten thousand charges for other outrages he has committed, and the evidence and proof against him may be perfectly clear. Yet they approve of him, and at once he becomes the emperor’s friend, his impiety winning him an introduction. With a great many pretenses, he gains the confidence to do whatever he likes before the magistrates. But take a man who exposes their impiety and honestly pleads the cause of Christ. He may be pure in everything, conscious of no wrongdoing, and faced by no accuser. Yet on the false pretexts they have invented against him, he is immediately seized and sent into banishment by sentence of the emperor, as if he were guilty of the crimes they wish to lay on him, or as if, like Naboth, he had insulted the king. Meanwhile the man who pleads the cause of their heresy is sought out and immediately sent to take possession of the other man’s church. From then on, confiscations, insults and every kind of cruelty are inflicted on those who will not receive him. Strangest of all, the man whom the people want, and know to be blameless, the emperor takes away and banishes; but the man they neither want nor know, he sends them from a distant place, with soldiers and with letters from himself. From then on a hard necessity is laid on them. Either they must hate the man they love, who has been their teacher and their father in godliness, and love the man they do not want, and trust their children to one whose life, conduct and character they know nothing about; or else they must certainly suffer punishment if they disobey the emperor. [d] This is how the impious are proceeding now against the orthodox, as they did before, giving proof of their malice and impiety among all people everywhere. For suppose they did accuse Athanasius: what have the other bishops done? On what grounds can they charge them? Has the dead body of an Arsenius been found in their case too? Is there a presbyter Macarius, or has a cup been broken among them? Is there a Melitian to put on an act? No. But just as their proceedings against the other bishops show that the charges they brought against Athanasius are in all probability false, so their attacks on Athanasius make it plain that their accusations against the other bishops are groundless as well. This heresy has come out upon the earth like some great monster. It not only injures the innocent with its words, as with teeth, but it has also hired power from outside to help it in its designs. And it is strange that, as I said before, no accusation is brought against any of them; or if one of them is accused, he is not brought to trial; or if a show of inquiry is made, he is acquitted against the evidence, while the one who convicted him is plotted against, instead of the guilty man being put to shame. So the whole party of them is full of idleness, and their spies, for bishops they are not, are the vilest of them all. If anyone among them wants to become a bishop, he is not told, “A bishop must be blameless,” but only, “Take up opinions contrary to Christ, and do not trouble about how you live. That will be enough to win you favor, and friendship with the emperor.” Such is the character of those who support the teachings of Arius. And those who are zealous for the truth, however holy and pure they show themselves, are still, as I said before, turned into culprits whenever these men choose, and on whatever pretexts they see fit to invent. The truth of this, as I remarked before, you can clearly gather from their proceedings. [e]

There was a certain Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, a confessor, and sound in the faith. Because he was very zealous for the truth, hated the Arian heresy, and would not receive those who held its teachings, he was falsely accused before the emperor Constantine, and a charge was invented against him that he had insulted the emperor’s mother. At once he was driven into banishment, and a great number of presbyters and deacons with him. And immediately after the bishop’s banishment, the men he would not admit into the clergy because of their impiety were not only received into the church by these people; most of them were even appointed bishops, so that they would have accomplices in their impiety. Among them were Leontius the eunuch, now of Antioch, and his predecessor Stephanus; George of Laodicea; Theodosius, who was of Tripolis; Eudoxius of Germanicia; and Eustathius, now of Sebaste. [i] Did they stop there? No. Eutropius, bishop of Adrianople, was a good man and excellent in every way. He had often convicted Eusebius, and had advised those who passed that way not to comply with his impious demands. So he suffered the same treatment as Eustathius, and was thrown out of his city and his church. Basilina was the most active in the proceedings against him. Then there were Euphration of Balanea, Cymatius of Paltus, Carterius of Antaradus, Asclepas of Gaza, Cyrus of Beroea in Syria, Diodorus of Asia, Domnion of Sirmium, and Ellanicus of Tripolis. These men were simply known to hate the heresy. Some of them on one pretext or another, and some on none at all, they removed on the authority of royal letters. They drove them out of their cities, and appointed others whom they knew to be impious men to occupy the churches in their place. [k] About Marcellus, the bishop of Galatia, it is perhaps unnecessary for me to speak. Everyone has heard how Eusebius and his party, whom he had first accused of impiety, brought a counter-accusation against him and had the old man banished. He went up to Rome and made his defense there, and at their request he offered a written statement of his faith, which the Council of Sardica approved. But Eusebius and his party made no defense. And when they were convicted of impiety out of their own writings, they were not put to shame, but grew even bolder against everyone. For they had an introduction to the emperor through the women, and everyone feared them. [l]

And I suppose no one is unaware of the case of Paul, bishop of Constantinople; for the more famous a city is, the less anything that happens in it stays hidden. A charge was invented against him too. For Macedonius, his accuser, who has now become bishop in his place (I was present myself at the accusation), afterward held communion with him, and was a presbyter under Paul himself. And yet when Eusebius, with an evil eye, wanted to seize the bishopric of that city (he had moved in the same way from Berytus to Nicomedia), the charge against Paul was revived. They did not give up their plot, but kept on with the slander. He was banished first to Pontus by Constantine. A second time, by Constantius, he was sent bound in iron chains to Singara in Mesopotamia, and from there moved to Emesa. A fourth time he was banished to Cucusus in Cappadocia, near the deserts of Mount Taurus. There, as those who were with him have declared, he died by strangling at their hands. Yet these men, who never speak the truth, though guilty of this, were not ashamed after his death to invent another story, that he had died of illness, although everyone who lives in that place knows what happened. Even Philagrius, who was then deputy governor of those parts, and who reported all their proceedings just as they wished, was astonished at this. Grieved, perhaps, that someone else and not he himself had done the evil deed, he told Serapion the bishop, and many other friends of ours, what had happened. Paul had been shut up by them in a very cramped and dark place and left to die of hunger; and when after six days they went in and found him still alive, they immediately set on the man and strangled him. This was the end of his life. And they said that Philip, who was prefect, was their agent in carrying out this murder. Divine justice, however, did not overlook it. Not a year passed before Philip was stripped of his office in great disgrace, so that, reduced to private life, he became the laughingstock of those he least wanted to witness his fall. For in extreme distress of mind, groaning and trembling like Cain, and expecting every day that someone would kill him, far from his country and his friends, he died, like a man stunned by his misfortunes, in the way he least wanted. Moreover, these men do not spare even after death those against whom they invented charges while they were alive. They are so eager to show themselves fearsome to everyone that they banish the living and show no mercy to the dead. Alone of all the world they show their hatred toward those who have departed, and conspire against their friends. They are truly inhuman, haters of what is good, more savage in temper than mere enemies, for the sake of their impiety. They eagerly plot the ruin of me and of all the rest, with no regard for truth, by false charges. [m]

Seeing that this was so, the three brothers, Constantine, Constantius and Constans, after their father’s death had everyone return to his own country and church. They wrote letters about the rest to their respective churches, but about Athanasius they wrote the following, which also shows the violence of the whole proceedings and proves the murderous spirit of Eusebius and his party. A copy of the letter of Constantine Caesar to the people of the catholic church in the city of Alexandria. “I suppose it has not escaped the knowledge of your pious minds,” and so on. This is his letter. And what more believable witness of their conspiracy could there be than he, who knew these things and wrote of them in this way? [p]