Therefore at that time, when in the forty-sixth year of his priesthood Athanasius, after many struggles and many crowns of patience, had rested in peace, being asked about a successor, he chose Peter, the partner and companion of his tribulations. But Lucius, bishop of the Arian party, straightway flew upon him like a wolf upon a sheep. And Peter indeed, immediately boarding a ship, fled to the city of Rome. But Lucius, as though material for his cruelty had been offered him, grew the more savage toward the rest. And so he went into bloodshed in such a manner that he seemed not to preserve even any appearance of religion; for at his very entry such great and shameful things were done against the virgins and the continent of the Church as are not recorded even in the persecutions of the heathen.
Then, after the flights and exiles of citizens, after slaughters and tortures and the flames by which he had destroyed countless souls, he turned the weapons of his fury against the monasteries. He laid waste the desert and declared war upon men who were at peace. Three thousand at once, or even more—men dispersed throughout the whole desert in secret and solitary dwelling—he set out to assail all together. He sent an armed band of horse and foot: tribunes, prefects, and commanders of war he chose, as though about to fight against Barbarians. When these had come, they saw a new kind of warfare: their foes offering their necks to the swords and saying nothing else but: 'Friend, for what hast thou come?'