For I who have been bought with a price, because, being freed from the law of sin, I have been made a servant of justice—now that I live in the law of justice, a burden ought not to have been laid upon me by you, that I should again be made a servant of iniquity and injustice. A burden, then, has been laid upon me by you, because you have been delivered to Satan for destruction on account of your murders and sacrilege. If you had not been delivered to Satan, you would recall that the Apostle wrote to Timothy: 'But we know
that the law is good, if a man uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not laid down for the just man, but for the unjust and disobedient, for the impious and sinners, for the wicked and profane, for parricides and matricides, for the unchaste, for those who lie with males, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and for whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, which is according to the Gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which has been entrusted to me.' If you have not been delivered, from the time you denied the Son of God, into the destruction of Satan, how is it that, passing over all those things which could have restrained you from so great a crime, you deigned to leap forth to do these deeds which can abolish all these things which are known to be of sound doctrine?
You who do these things which are opposed to sound doctrine—you who proscribe, torture, deport, cast into prison, and slay—tell me, I beseech you, whether you are any different from that King Herod, whose butchery the sacred Scripture thus describes: 'At the same time Herod the king laid hands on some of the Church to afflict them. He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and when he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. Now those were the days of unleavened bread. When he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivered to four squads of soldiers to be guarded, intending after the Passover to bring him forth to the people. Peter therefore was kept in prison.'
'Prayer therefore was made most earnestly to the Lord for him by the Church. And when Herod was about to bring him forth, that night Peter was sleeping among the soldiers, bound with two chains, and the guards before the door were keeping the prison. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood by, and a light shone in that place; and striking Peter's side, he awakened him, saying, Rise quickly. And he arose, and the chains fell from his hands,' and below: 'And when they had passed the first and second guards, they came to the iron gate that leads into the city, which opened to them of its own accord. And when they had gone out, they went along one street, and immediately the angel departed from him. And Peter, coming to himself, said:'
Now I know truly that the Lord has sent his angel and delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews. Now when day came, there was no small stir among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. And Herod, when he had sought for him and not found him, having examined the guards, commanded that they be led away to execution.' We see you like him in all things, whether in cruelty or in sacrilege; for as he killed James the blessed apostle, so you also have slain a vast multitude of believers, who believed as James the apostle believed; as he persecuted in the apostle James the only-begotten Son of God, so you also persecute both those whom you have already destroyed and us. Again we both instruct and exhort you,
that you return to the Church of God and cease now to persecute Athanasius or us who act against your heresy, lest you begin to perish after the example of that Herod, whose destruction the sacred Scripture recounts, saying: 'He went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there. Now he was angry with the Tyrians and Sidonians. And with one accord they came to him, and having persuaded Blastus, who was the king's chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their regions were supplied with food from the king's country. On an appointed day Herod, clothed in royal apparel, sat on the tribunal and made an oration to them. And the people cried out: The voice of a god and not of a man! And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give the honour to God, and being eaten by worms he expired.'
Were you ignorant, you who wish to be seen as skilled in the law, that blessed John the apostle said—so that you might say, 'Condemn the innocent'—'By this we understand that we have known him, if we keep his commandments. He who says, I have known him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, in them truly the charity of God is perfected.' You order things to be done against God's commandment; the Apostle, on the contrary, says that whoever does not keep his precepts has not even known him, for, he says, 'if one says, I have known him, and does not keep his commandments, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him.' You wish us to be liars, you wish us to be found murderers, and this without doubt so that we may not be found to be Christians.
For Christians are neither liars nor murderers. The Apostle says: 'Those who keep his word—in them truly the charity of God is perfected'; but you, apostate, forerunner of Antichrist, say: 'Whoever does not keep his commandments shall live.' Further: 'He who says he is in the light,' he says, 'and hates his brother, is in darkness even until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no stumbling-block in him. But he who hates his brother walks in darkness and knows not where he goes, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.' What could be said to this by you, man of darkness? Why do you press those set in darkness as though into the light:
'Hate with me, you also, the one whom I unjustly hate; be sharers in my madness; be, like me, you also murderers.' Then, if he says that whoever hates his brother walks in darkness, so that he does not know where he is going—namely because the darkness of violence has blinded his eyes—what then if someone should kill his brother? What if he should be a murderer? But to you the crime of murder seems nothing, you who are found to have shed the blood of so many servants of God. You dare to order God's priests to do these things which are pleasing only to your father the devil and to you Arians, his sons. Likewise the most holy Apostle exhorts that, holding to the path of justice, we may deserve to be established in everlasting rest;
and you, most wise man, compel us to come with you to eternal torments. 'Little children, let no one deceive you. He who does justice is just; but he who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil sins from the beginning. For this the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.' Since therefore it is said by the Apostle that sin is of the devil, and you compel us to commit capital crimes, what else can I call you but the procurator of the devil? You whom I see so love his causes, so cherish his affair, that you desire us all to be found on his side. For why else do you compel every worshipper of God to make the passage over to him, unless because you have chosen to favour that same party? You hear the blessed Apostle say:
'For this the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil'; and you press the worshippers of God to complete the work of the devil. When you do these things, do you not appear to have set yourself up as an assailant of him who destroyed the work for the devil? But it is no wonder if you have chosen that the things which the only-begotten Son of God dissolved should be able to be rebuilt through you, the devil's satellite, since indeed you have not hesitated to deny even him who destroyed the work of the devil. Hence it is nothing to you to shed the blood of the innocent, because, already denying the lover of the innocent and the defender of his worshippers, you have betaken yourself to him to whom Judas Iscariot betook himself.
If therefore you cannot deny that it is a work of the devil to shed the blood of a just man, it is surely clear that you have done the work of the devil and have exhorted us to do the same. Further, John, most beloved of God, speaks, that brotherly charity may be kept inviolate, saying: 'By this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. Everyone who is not just is not of God, and he who does not love his brother; for this is the promise which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; and not as Cain, who was of the evil one and killed his brother. And for what did he kill him? Because his own works were evil, but his brother's just. Do not marvel, brethren, if the world hates us. We know that we have passed from
death to life, because we love the brethren; but he who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.' Since therefore everyone who is found to hate his brother is called a son of the devil, a murderer, is compared at last to Cain the fratricide, is designated to abide in death, why did you compel me to fulfil this work, which would have made me a fratricide like Cain and a son of the devil, which would have made me abide in eternal death? Since you already see that I have passed from death to life, since God has already established me among those whom he deigns to call his sons, for what reason did you wish me to become Cain, darkness also, and a son of the devil?
In what did I injure you, in what matters did I stand forth as an adversary of your salvation, that you should have desired me to be so harmed? Why do we repeat these things except that at some time you may be able to understand—since you are ignorant of what the good is? For if you knew, you would never yourself have committed so great a crime and pressed us to perpetrate it. Tell me, I pray, amid these things, why do you persecute the bishop of God's house? For the Apostle says that whoever hates his brother is a murderer. If you do not wish to have the name of murderer, why do you hate your brother? Prove Athanasius worthy of hatred; make manifest what evils he has done, that he may be worthy to be hated even by us all. Surely you will produce no unjust deed committed that makes him hateful.
Since these things are so, it is necessary that you hate him for this reason: because your work is evil, but that of Athanasius just. For this indeed you wish to kill him: that he did not imitate you, the wicked, criminal, and sacrilegious one. It is evident that these things are so. For when the glorious Apostle introduces the comparison of Cain and Abel, you seem to me to be Cain, but Athanasius Abel: 'By this,' he says, 'the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. Everyone who is not just is not of God, and he who does not love his brother; for this is the promise which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, and not as Cain, who was of the evil one, and killed his brother. And for what did he kill him?
Because his works were evil, but his brother's just.' Nor ought you to doubt that your works are evil, but Athanasius's just. For you are a murderer, a destroyer of the religion of God, a denier of the only-begotten Son of God, an assailant of the apostolic faith, a founder of Arian idolatry; Athanasius, on the contrary, remains in the fear of God, so that, as far as can be seen, he is found to have committed nothing that could separate him from those most beloved by God. Since these things are so, we exhort you to love yourself in Athanasius. You retain the Scripture: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself,' and 'he who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the law.'
For as you hate yourself in him, being ignorant that it is evil to hate the just man unjustly, so you will begin to love yourself in him, if this malice of yours is turned into benevolence. Then you will be able to be rescued from the darkness in which the blessed Apostle says you dwell. 'Do not marvel, brethren,' he says, 'if the world hates us. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. But he who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has life abiding in him.' Do not any longer dare to say, 'Condemn the innocent,' O man who has not life abiding in you, man who has not yet made the passage from death to life.
For if you had made it—that is, if you had believed in the only Son of God as we do—you would not have chosen to be a murderer, lest, that is, you should begin again to go back to death. In a twofold manner, therefore, established without hope of life, you deigned to command that the innocent be killed by the priests. But perhaps you may attempt to say: 'I love those who love God, and I hate those who hate him.' But you cannot say this concerning Athanasius, since indeed it is rather established that you hate God, because you have both forsaken him and made the passage over to idolatry.
Therefore, since you persecute no fault in God's priest, but only justice, only the religion of God, it remains that you should now further see what kind of men this blessed Apostle John commanded us—whom you were exhorting to slay the innocent—to be toward our fellow-servants: 'He laid down his life for us, and we too ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.' By the Apostle I am commanded to lay down my life for my brother, and by you, chattel of Antichrist, I am ordered to slay my brother. And again, 'Let us have confidence,' he says, 'toward God, and whatever we ask we shall receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do the things pleasing before his sight in the name of his Son Jesus
Christ, and love one another, as he has given us commandment.' But how can I be heard by him in every entreaty, I who do not keep his commandment? For he commanded me to love my brother, not to slay him. And below: 'Dearly beloved, let us love one another, because charity is of God.' And again: 'Whoever does not love his brother does not know God, because God is charity. By this the charity of God has been made manifest in us, that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. In this is charity, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as the expiator of our sins. Dearly beloved, if God so loved us, we too ought to love one another.' And again:
'If anyone says that he loves God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.' And again: 'This commandment we have from him, that whoever loves God should love also his brother.' And again: 'By this we understand that we love the children of God, when we love God and do his commandments. For this is the charity of God, and his commandments are not grievous.' Consider these few things out of many, and you will find into what darkness you have drawn us, you man of darkness. 'By this we understand,' he says, 'that we love the children of God, since we love God and do his commandments. For this is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments;'
and you deign to impel me to shatter these commandments, to establish other things contrary to those very ones which have been brought forth through you by the instigation of the devil. How shall I be able to be found loving God, I who through you am found made an adversary of his commandments? By which deeds whom do I seem to you to be, except one of those tares destined for the fire? Of whom the Lord says: 'As therefore the tares are gathered and burned with fire, so shall it be at the consummation of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all scandals and those who work iniquity, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the just shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.'
You perceive that, if to satisfy you the heretic I were to condemn the innocent, I would be with you in Gehenna. For neither could we attain the kingdom of God, in which we could shine like the sun, if we had either perpetrated murder or violated the apostolic faith. Rejoice still that you dwell amid these evils; refuse to recognize the evils you do, and you will without doubt find that you are among those wicked ones whom the Lord designates as destined for the fire, saying: 'The angels shall go forth and separate the wicked from the company of the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
You deem it nothing to persecute the servants of the only-begotten Son of God, you member of the devil, you who had supposed that you could lead the whole holy Church into scandal. But behold what God promises to you and to all your fellow-sacrilegious ones: 'Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; but whoever scandalizes one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that an ass's millstone be hung about his neck and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea. But woe to this world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come, yet woe to that man through whom the scandal comes. And if your hand or your foot scandalizes you, cut it off and cast it from you,' and below: 'See that you do not despise one of these little ones;'
for I tell you that their angels in heaven always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.' Therefore you who not only despise those who believe in his divine majesty but also slay them—what reward will that one whom you deny render to you, who told you that it would be better for you if you hung an ass's millstone about your neck and were cast into the depth of the sea than that you should lead one of those who believe in him into scandal, than that you should despise one of those who are to possess the kingdom of heaven? What will he render to you who, for this cause, have deserved to be cut off from the members of his holy Church—because you are one through whom the devil has sent scandals in our days into the people of God?
Although you have stirred up scandals, yet you have deceived only those who did not know that you had already so withered—like a stream cut off from its source, like a broken branch from a tree; but as for us who know you to be placed outside the Church, who discern that you are the enemy of the only-begotten Son of God, knowing you to be dead, we behold your efforts, by God's help, to be beneath our feet. For we know that a dead man cannot lord it over the living. But what do you say—that you live in Christ? Whence are you able to prove it, since you deny him? For none can live except those who confess him to be true God, true Son of God. Whence do you live, since you persecute us for this very reason, because we confess ourselves to be his servants? Or do you perhaps persecute us for some other cause?
Have you perhaps found that we have offended against you, and are therefore so hostile toward us? We do not hold ourselves to have sinned against you. For how could it be proved that we have sinned against you, when we press you to come from death to life? And yet if you feel that we have offended against you, receive what the Lord has commanded you to do concerning us, saying: 'If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him between you and him alone; and if he hears you, you have gained your brother; but if he does not hear you, take with you still one or two, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. But if he does not hear them, tell the Church; and if he does not hear the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican.'
Since you have not done these things which the Lord commanded to be done—since not only did you not admonish Athanasius between you and us, in whose presence you might have convicted him, one of us, of having been guilty, but you compelled him to be condemned unheard by us, his fellow-priests, since you took away his hearing—how can you justly accuse us of having offended against you in any way, when you have fulfilled none of these commandments of the Lord? Why do you so hatefully persecute us, when rather you are the one guilty of transgression, you who have by no means acted toward us as the only-begotten Son of God gave you commandment, but who have carried out everything as it pleased our enemy the devil?
For such is his counsel, such his will: that a man be condemned unheard, that an absent man be killed, that the blood of the innocent be shed. Since, I say, you did not act in the manner in which the Lord commanded you to act, you dared to bring the matter before the blessed Church, you dared to say: 'Athanasius has sinned and ought to be condemned by the communion of all.' But what will you attempt to say? That he offended against God? And behold, it cannot be found wherein he offended against God, since indeed neither you nor your fellow-sacrilegious ones, sons of the harlot Arian heresy, can be admitted as witnesses against a catholic bishop.
For the Lord was speaking of three catholic witnesses, of servants of his majesty, that the blessed Church might believe them, not us profane ones, born of adultery from a harlot. But if we do not so receive this precept of the Lord, then the worshippers of Saturn and of all idols could be admitted as witnesses against the household of God; then your fellow-blasphemers, forsaken by God, could be, and the Jews, set without light as you are. For if you heretics—and indeed of all sects—are to be admitted as witnesses against Christians, then heathens and Jews ought to be as well, since whether Jews or heathens or you heretics are set outside the Lord's Church without God, then all those who were not in the ark of most holy Noah.
For just as those set outside the ark could not be saved, so neither can you, but you will perish in the same way, unless, believing in his only Son of God, you remain together with us in the holy Church. If therefore neither you nor your fellow-blasphemers are able to be witnesses, how did you bring it about, most senseless king, that a man of complete innocence should be condemned—and indeed by his own fellow priests? I add this: that you had already accused him of having been a murderer at Serdica, in the synod of the catholics, and your wickedness was utterly unable to prove it. I add that you yourself sent letters to the church of the Alexandrians, affirming that this man was righteous, a catholic bishop.
Lastly, even if he had sinned, Athanasius ought to have been expelled by the people entrusted to him—and indeed so that that people might ask that another worthy man from their own body be made bishop for them; yet he ought not to have been pursued with the sword by you, the emperor.
But since you, in place of the innocent man—against whom you established nothing true—in place of the catholic bishop, sent your fellow-sacrilegious Georgius, and against those unwilling to be defiled by his sacrilege you inflicted such great insults and such great punishments, that you proscribed very many, banished them into exiles and into the mines, and even killed a very great number, and to this very day do not cease to do these things to those who refuse to receive your blasphemy—which is also that of Georgius—things which enraged foes, the most monstrous barbarians, would scarcely do: how do you suppose you can be regarded as a Christian, you who seem to be fiercer than the most savage wild beasts and more monstrous than all brute animals?
You dared to say that Athanasius must be struck down, not seeing that then you Arians were being punished—and indeed by the power of God—when you plotted to introduce idolatry into the Lord's Church. But perhaps you will still say: Athanasius has wronged me. To pass over the fact that you are a liar in this too, did you not know what is written—what the Lord commanded you to do concerning those who wrong you—that you should have pursued him thus with the sword? 'Then Peter, coming to him, said to him: Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often shall I forgive him? Up to seven times? He says to him: I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.' Or are you ashamed to hear Athanasius called your brother?
If you profess yourself a Christian, you ought to call all Christians brothers—and indeed not only Athanasius, but also those whom you see begging for alms. For all of us who are set within the Lord's Church are one in him, with whom there is no respect of persons. And yet you would do well if you refuse to have him called your brother; for since you are a son of pestilence and he is one of the sons of light, since you are the chattel-slave of our enemy and he is the servant of God, it would be most unjust if you, the forerunner of Antichrist, were called the brother of a man of God. If you had seen him wrong you in anything, it ought to have been forgiven him by you at once, that God might forgive you your own crimes.
But now, since you were unable to forgive because of your obstinacy and ill-will—you who have made void the Lord's command—receive what may be set before you: 'Then Peter, coming to him, said: Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often shall I forgive him? Up to seven times? He says to him: I do not say to you up to seven times, but seventy times seven. Therefore the kingdom of heaven is likened to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed ten thousand talents. But since he had nothing with which to repay, his lord commanded that he be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and the debt be repaid.'
'But that servant, falling down, kept beseeching him, saying: Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything. And the lord, taking pity on that servant, released him and forgave him the debt. But that servant, going out, found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and, seizing him, he throttled him, saying: Pay what you owe. And that fellow servant, falling down, entreated him, saying: Have patience with me, and I will repay you. But he would not; instead he went off and cast him into prison until he should repay the debt. Now his fellow servants, seeing what was being done, were grieved, and they came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then his lord summoned him and said to him: Wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me;'
'Ought you not also to have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you? And his lord, being angry, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay the whole debt. So also will my Father who is in heaven do to you, if you do not each forgive his brother from your hearts.' What do you answer to these things, you the eyes of whose mind were wholly unable to see what the Lord has commanded to be done? Where do you place the fact that he wronged neither you nor God, but is enduring persecution—for holding the apostolic faith, for refusing to become sacrilegious as you are?