Letter to Rufinianus

To our lord, son and most longed-for fellow minister Rufinianus, Athanasius sends greeting in the Lord. [a]

You write what it is fitting for a beloved son to write to a father. So I embraced you when you came near me in writing, most longed-for Rufinianus. And though I could have written to you as a son, at the opening, in the middle and at the close, I held back, so that my praise of you and my witness to you would not be made known in writing. For you are my letter, as it is written, known and read in the heart. Believe, then, believe me, that this is how you stand with me. I speak to you, and I invite you to write. For by doing so you give me the greatest pleasure. [b]

In an honorable spirit, a spirit fitting for the church and becoming to your piety, you ask me about those who were drawn away by necessity but not corrupted by error, and you want me to write what has been decided about them, whether in synods or elsewhere. Know, then, most longed-for lord, that first of all, when the violence had ceased, a synod was held, with bishops from other lands present. Others have been held by our fellow ministers living in Greece, and by those in Spain and Gaul. The same decision was reached here and everywhere. Those who had fallen and had been leaders of impiety are to be pardoned when they repent, but are not to be given the rank of clergy. But men who were not impious by choice, but were drawn away by necessity and violence, are not only to receive pardon but also to hold the rank of clergy. This was all the more so because they offered a plausible defense, and what had happened seemed to have been done for a particular purpose. For they assured us that they had not gone over to impiety. Rather, so that certain most impious men would not be elected and ruin the churches, they chose to give in to the violence and bear the burden rather than lose the people. In saying this they seemed to us to say something plausible. For they offered as their excuse Aaron, the brother of Moses, who in the wilderness gave in to the people’s wrongdoing, and they said his excuse had been the danger that the people would go back to Egypt and remain in idolatry. There was reason in this view: if they stayed in the wilderness, they might give up their impiety, but if they went into Egypt, they would be ruined and the impiety among them would grow. For this reason, then, they have been allowed to rank as clergy, those who had been deceived and had suffered violence being pardoned.

I give this information to your piety confident that you will accept what has been decided, and will not charge those who met, as I have said, with laxness. Be good enough to read it to the clergy and the lay people under you, so that they may be informed and may not blame you for taking this view of such persons. It would not be fitting for me to write, when your piety is able to do it yourself: to announce our mind about them and to carry out all that remains to be done. Thanks be to the Lord, who has filled you with all speech and all knowledge. Let those who repent, then, openly anathematize by name the error of Eudoxius and Euzoius. These ringleaders of the Arian heresy went on blaspheming, and wrote that he was a creature. And let them confess the faith confessed by the fathers at Nicaea, and that they put no other synod above that one. Greet the brotherhood with you. The brotherhood with us greets you in the Lord.