Polemical Works 5

I. LETTER OF LUCIFER, PANCRATIUS, AND HILARIUS TO BISHOP EUSEBIUS. To the most honourable lord, Bishop Eusebius: Lucifer the bishop, Pancratius the presbyter, and Hilarius. Having trodden down the head of the devil and his wicked suggestions, holy lord, we beg you not to neglect the grace granted you by our Lord, but to deign to hasten with all speed, so that, as you press forward, the doctrine of the Arians may be put to flight. For the Lord and His Christ know that, just as at the coming of the most blessed apostles the name of God was glorified in the downfall of Simon, so, with Valens driven out, at your coming the shattered engine of the blaspheming Arians may be destroyed.

We, most holy lord, from the first day on which we came to Vercelli, have desired your piety even to this present day, and we beseech the Lord that in this church all the saints may praise its perpetual restoration and follow after your spiritual power with due praise. And we believe this shall come to pass, because we are confident that the passion of the Saviour cannot be overcome. May Christ the Lord preserve you glorious, most holy and most blessed. II. LETTER OF POPE LIBERIUS TO LUCIFER, SET IN EXILE. Bishop Liberius to his most beloved brother Lucifer.

Although, under the guise of peace, the enemy of the human race seems to have raged the more violently against the members of the Church, yet an outstanding and singular faith has shown you priests, most acceptable in the Lord, both here approved before God and already marked out as martyrs for a glory to come. By what proclamation of praise, then, by what exultation of voice I may set forth the merits of your virtue, placed as I am between the grief of your absence and the joy of your glory, I simply cannot find, save that I know I can offer you more approvable consolations from this, if you believe that I have been thrust into exile together with you. In short, being still held in the very expectation, in that a harder necessity for the time being tears me from your fellowship, I am grieved enough.

For I had wished, most devoted brothers, to be first expended on behalf of all, that through me your love might rather attain an example of glory. But let this be the palm of your merits, that you, going before, have come from perseverance in the faith to the illustrious glory of confession. I beg, therefore, your love, that you believe me present with you, and that you neither feel me absent in affection nor perceive it, and that you understand that I grieve enough that for the time being I am parted from your fellowship. In fine, how great a glory you have obtained, from this you may all the more know: for if those who are crowned in persecution could feel only the bloody swords of the persecutor, on the contrary,

you, devout soldiers of God in all things, having experienced even false brethren as enemies, have carried off the victory over their perfidy; and by however much their violence in the world could grow, by so much are they found to confer rewards of praise upon holy priests. Be therefore secure concerning the heavenly promise, and because you have been made nearer to God, by your prayers lift me up, your fellow-priest and servant of God, to the Lord, that we may be able tolerably to bear the assaults that come upon us, which, being announced from day to day, inflict graver wounds; that, with faith inviolate and the state of the catholic Church safe, the Lord may deign to make me equal to you.

And because I desire to know more faithfully what was done in the very encounter, I beseech your holiness, deign faithfully to make all things known to me by letter, so that either the mind itself, which is tortured by diverse rumours, or the strength of the body, which is already worn thin, may feel a greater increase from your encouragement. [and in another hand] May God keep you unharmed, my lords and brothers. III. LETTER OF FLORENTIUS TO LUCIFER. To the most kindly lord Lucifer, Florentius. A certain man presented to our lord and Augustus a book in your name; he ordered it to be carried to your holiness and desires to know whether that same book was sent by you.

You ought, therefore, to write out that which is in the faith of the truth and send back the book, so that it may be offered anew to his Eternity. IV. LETTER OF LUCIFER TO FLORENTIUS. To Florentius, Master of the Offices, Lucifer the bishop. That the bearer of the book, whom your honour mentions, approached the emperor in my name, was indeed sent by my lowliness; the book itself too, as you have deigned to advise, was carefully inspected and handed over to Bonosus, who is engaged in affairs, to be delivered—these things your religious prudence had to arrange, most dear son. It will now belong to your generosity to defend without any hesitation what has been acknowledged by me.

For we, by God's favour, stand joyful against those things which are prepared for our slaying; and when he begins to examine the reasons why I have written in such a manner, he will find them out. V. LETTER OF ATHANASIUS TO LUCIFER. To the most beloved lord, brother Lucifer, bishop and confessor: Athanasius, greeting in the Lord. God favouring, being sound in body, we have sent even now our most dear Eutyches the deacon, so that your religious holiness too—which is for us a thing to be wished and desired—may deign to make us more certain concerning your safety and that of all yours.

For to you confessors and living servants of God we believe that the state of the catholic Church is being renewed, and that what the heretics attempted to tear apart, this our Lord Jesus Christ restores whole through you. For although the forerunners of Antichrist have done all things through the power of this world to extinguish the lamp of truth, yet the Divinity through your confession has shown its light the brighter, so that their deceit can lie hidden from no one. Before this they could at least dissemble; now they are named Antichrists. For who would not curse them? Who would not flee their communion as a stain and the venom of a serpent?

Every church everywhere mourns, every city groans; aged bishops labour in exile, and the heretics dissemble, who, while they deny Christ, have made themselves publicans, sitting in the churches and exacting tributes. O new kind of men and of persecution, which the devil has devised, that he might use these very ministers for doing evil and with such great cruelty! But even if they do such great things, and have stretched out their arrogances and blasphemies, yet your confession and religion and wisdom is no small, but the greatest solace and a great consolation to the brotherhood.

For it has reached us that your holiness has written to Augustus Constantius, and we marvel more and more, that dwelling as it were in the midst of scorpions you nevertheless use freedom of soul, so as to lead astray the erring to the light of truth, whether by warning or by teaching or by correcting. I ask, therefore—and let all the confessors ask together with me—that you deign to send us a copy, that not only by hearing but also from the letter all may perceive the virtue of your soul and the confidence and freedom of your faith. Those who are with me salute your holiness; I salute all who are with you. May the Divinity ever guard you unharmed, vigorous, and mindful of us, most beloved lord and truly man of God. VI. LETTER OF ATHANASIUS TO LUCIFER.

To the most glorious and deservedly most longed-for fellow-bishop Lucifer: Athanasius, greeting in the Lord. Although I believe that news has reached your holiness also concerning the persecution which even now the enemies of Christ, seeking our blood, have attempted to make against the brotherhood, yet our most dear friends can also report it to your piety; for they have dared to extend their fury through soldiers to such a degree that they not only drove out the clergy of the city, but even went out to the deserts and sent their deadly hands against the monks. Hence it came about that I too withdrew farther away, lest even those who received us should suffer trouble from the same men. For whom will the Arians spare, who have not even spared their own souls?

But when can they withdraw from their abominable deeds, so long as they persist in denying the Lord Christ, the only-begotten Son of God? This is the root of their perversity; upon this sandy foundation of theirs they build their perverse ways, just as we find it written in the thirteenth psalm: The fool has said in his heart, There is no God; and there follows at once: They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their works. Hence the Jews, denying the Son of God, were worthy to hear: Woe to the sinful nation, a people full of iniquities, a wicked seed, lawless children. Whence lawless? Because, indeed, you have forsaken the Lord. Hence the most blessed Paul, when he had begun not only to believe in the Son of God but also to preach His Godhead, wrote:

I am conscious to myself of nothing evil. Thus, according to your confession, we too desire, holding the apostolic tradition, to live according to the commandments of the divine law, that we may be found with you in that choir in which now exult the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs. Therefore, although the Arian madness, with alien power, so bestirred itself that the brethren were not permitted—so did those men rage—even freely to look upon the air, yet according to your prayers, God favouring, even though with toil and peril, I was able to see the brother who is wont to convey things as needful as letters, both of your holiness and of others.

And so we have received the letters and books of your most religious and most wise soul, in which we have seen the apostolic image, the prophetic confidence, the mastery of truth, the doctrine of the true faith, the heavenly way, the glory of martyrdom, triumphs against the Arian heresy, the entire tradition of our fathers, the right rule of ecclesiastical order. O truly Lucifer [Light-bearer], who, in keeping with your name, bearing the light of truth, have set it upon a lampstand, that it may give light to all. For who, save the Arians, does not clearly discern from your teaching the true faith indeed, but the stain of the Arians?

Mightily and wonderfully, just as light is from darkness, so have you separated the truth from the craftiness and hypocrisy of the heretics; you have defended the catholic Church; you have proved the words of the Arians to be nothing but a phantasm; you have taught that the diabolical gnashings are to be trodden underfoot. How good and pleasant are your exhortations to martyrdom! How much to be longed for you have shown death to be for Christ the Son of God! How great a love of the age to come and of the heavenly life you have made manifest!

You seem to be the true temple of the Saviour, who, dwelling in you, Himself speaks these things through you—He who has granted such great grace to your discourses; for whereas before you were loved by all, yet now so great a love of affection toward you has been set in the souls of all, that they name you the Elijah of our times. And no wonder; for if those who seem to please God are named sons of God, how much more worthy is it to call confessors, and above all, partakers of the prophets. Believe me, Lucifer, you have not spoken these things alone, but the Holy Spirit with you. Whence this so great memory of the Scriptures? Whence the sense and entire understanding of them? Whence such an ordered composition of discourse? Whence so great exhortations to the heavenly way?

Whence the confidence against the devil and the proofs against the heretics, unless the Holy Spirit had been set within you? Rejoice therefore, now clearly seeing yourself to be in Him in whom your predecessors also now are as martyrs, that is, in the choir of the angels. We too rejoice, having you as an example of virtue, of patience, and of freedom. For concerning those things which you wrote about my name, I blush to bring forth anything, lest I seem a flatterer; but I know and believe that the Lord Himself, who has revealed all knowledge to your holy and religious soul, will render to you also for this labour a reward in the kingdom of heaven. Since, therefore, you are such a one—

we ask through our prayers to the Lord that you be an intercessor for us, that He may now deign to look upon—since He is merciful—the catholic Church, and rescue all His servants from the hands of the persecutors; that even all those who through temporal fear have fallen may at length be able to raise themselves up and return to the way of righteousness, from which, led astray, they wander, not knowing in what pit they wretchedly lie. But especially I ask that, if anything has been said by me less than it should, you deign to pardon; for from so great a fountain my inexperience has scarcely been able to draw what little it could. And concerning our brethren, if I could not see them, again I ask you to pardon me.

For the Truth itself is witness that I wished and longed to obtain this, and had so great grief that I could not; for neither did tears cease from my eyes nor groaning from my soul, because we are not permitted even to see the brethren. And He is witness that I could not even see the parents whom I have, since they persecute us. For what do the Arians not do? They watch the roads, they set snares against those setting out and going forth from the city, they search the ships, they go round the deserts, they throw households into disorder, they harass the brethren, they devise troubles for individuals; but thanks be to God, while they do these things, so much the more are they execrated by all and are truly known, as your holiness said, to be the bondslaves of Antichrist;

and they themselves, wretched, while they are held in hatred, persist in their malignity, until by the death of their Pharaoh they too are condemned. Those who are with me salute your piety; deign to salute those who are with you. May the divine grace of God preserve you unharmed, mindful of us, ever blessed—deservedly a man of God, servant of Christ, partaker of the apostles, solace of the brotherhood, master of truth, and in all things most longed-for. VII. LETTER OF LIBERIUS. To the most glorious Constantius Augustus: Bishop Liberius. I wish, most tranquil emperor, that your clemency may grant me kindly ears, so that I may lay open to your gentleness the purpose of my mind.

For of a Christian emperor and of a son of Constantine of holy memory, I ought without hesitation to obtain this very thing; but I perceive that I labour in this, that by repeated satisfaction I cannot recall to favour toward me your mind, which is placable even toward the guilty. For the discourse of your piety, already some while ago sent forth to the people, lacerates me greatly—me, for whom it is necessary to bear all things patiently—but that your mind, which is ever at leisure for gentleness, which, as it is written, never keeps its wrath to the going down of the sun, should retain indignation toward me, is a marvel to me.

For I, most religious emperor, seek with you a true peace, one that is not composed of words with an inward disposition of deceit, but reasonably confirmed by the precepts of the Gospels. Not the affair of Athanasius only, but many other things came into public view, on account of which I had entreated your gentleness that a council be held, so that, above all things—which the sincere devotion of your mind toward God especially desires—when the cause of the faith, in which is our first hope toward God, had been diligently treated, the affairs of those who ought to marvel at our observance toward God might be brought to an end.

And it would have been worthy of a worshipper of God, worthy of your empire, which is governed and increased by the piety of Christ, especially to grant this very thing to us, out of reverence for the holy religion to which you are prudently intent—to grant your clemency toward obtaining these things. But many hasten to tear the members of the Church, who have fabricated that I suppressed letters, lest the charges against him whom they were said to have condemned should be laid open before all—namely those letters of the Eastern and Egyptian bishops, in which the same charges against Athanasius were contained throughout. But it is clear enough to all, and no one denies, that we made known the letters of the Easterns.

That we read them to the church, read them to the council, and moreover replied to the Easterns on these matters—to whom we did not lend our faith and judgement, because at the same time the sentence of seventy-five Egyptian bishops concerning Athanasius stood opposed, which likewise we recited and made known to the Italian bishops. Whence it seemed contrary to the divine law, even when the number of bishops for Athanasius was greater, to lend consent in any part. These writings, if he owes any faith to God, Theosebius, who had been sent hastening to Africa, left with us; which writings, however, afterward all, lest by chance they should be lacking for obtaining the council, Vincentius, who with the others had been sent as legate to Arles, carried away.

Your prudence therefore sees that nothing has entered my mind which it was not worthy for those serving God to think. God is my witness, the whole Church with its members is my witness, that by faith, and with you in my God, I trample and have trampled all worldly things, as the evangelical and apostolic rule has enjoined; not with rash frenzy, but by the divine law established and observed; and living in another ecclesiastical ministry, I have fulfilled nothing through boastfulness, nothing through desire of glory, that pertained to the law;

and to this office—God my witness—I came unwilling; in which I desire indeed to remain, without offence to God, as long as I shall be in the world, and I have never accomplished my own decrees, but the apostolic ones, that they might be ever confirmed and kept. Following the custom and order of my elders, I have added nothing to the episcopate of the city of Rome, I have suffered nothing to be diminished; and preserving that faith which has run through the succession of so many bishops, of whom several stood forth as martyrs, I ever wish it to be kept unimpaired. Finally, that I should now open my cause to your piety, ecclesiastical solicitude and my very devotion persuade me. The Easterns signify that they wish to be joined to our peace.

What peace is that, most clement emperor, when there are from those very parties four bishops—Demophilus, Macedonius, Eudoxius, Martyrius—who, eight years ago, when at Milan they had been unwilling to condemn the heretical opinion of Arius, went out from the council with angry minds? Whether it be lawful to lend consent to their opinions, or what it may be worth, your equity and clemency will be able to judge.

It is no new thing that is now being subtly attempted under the occasion of the name of Athanasius. There remain the letters of Bishop Alexander, sent long ago to Silvester of holy memory, in which they signify that, before the ordination of Athanasius, they had cast out of the Church eleven, both presbyters and also deacons, because they followed the heresy of Arius; of whom now certain ones, placed outside the catholic Church, are said to have found themselves conventicles, with whom it is asserted that Georgius also communicates by letter in Alexandria. What peace, therefore, can there be, most tranquil emperor, if bishops, having been brought forward—as has now been done throughout Italy—are compelled to obey the sentences of such men? Receive another point, since your tranquillity patiently admits it.

There remain the letters of the legates who had been sent to your clemency, which lately arrived, in which they signify that on account of the disturbance indeed of all the churches, they had wished beforehand to yield to the sentences of the Easterns, yet had proposed a condition: that if they should condemn the heresy of Arius, they would in this manner, as being inclined, obey their sentences. The agreement, as they themselves signify, is confirmed with Scripture as witness. They go into the council; they receive with deliberation the responses, that they cannot condemn the doctrine of Arius, but that Athanasius—which alone they were demanding—must be deprived of communion. Hence now let your clemency also consider whether, the right law of the catholic religion being rightly preserved, a matter ought to be diligently examined and treated for the sake of one man.

Wherefore again and again I ask your gentleness, your mind devoted to God, through the power of Him who has proved to all mortals how great He is in your defence, having before your eyes the benefits of Him who governs your empire in all things: cause these things to be diligently treated in the assembly of bishops with all consideration, so that, the times being pacified through you, God favouring, with your tranquillity consenting, all things may be so examined that whatever shall have been confirmed by the judgement of the priests of God—when it shall be established that all consented in the exposition of the faith which was confirmed among so many bishops at Nicaea, in the presence of your father of holy memory—may with such a precedent be kept in future; that the Saviour Himself, who looks from above upon the purpose of your mind, may rejoice, in so great a dispatch of affairs, that you have not undeservedly set the cause of faith and peace even before the necessities of the commonwealth.

Therefore, to entreat your gentleness that you may deign with benevolent mind to hear our allegations, it has been resolved that my brother and fellow-bishop, the holy man Lucifer, with Pancratius my fellow-presbyter and Hilarius the deacon, should set out; whom we believe can without difficulty obtain from your clemency a council for the peace of all the catholic churches. May the clemency of Almighty God guard you for us, most clement and most religious Augustus. VIII. LETTER OF ATHANASIUS. Athanasius to those devoted to the solitary life and approved in the faith of God, most beloved brothers, greeting in the Lord. To the Lord indeed I give thanks, who has granted you to believe in Him, that with the saints you too may have life everlasting.

But because there are certain ones who relish the things of Arius, going about the monasteries for no other reason than that, as it were coming to you and returning from us, they may lead the simple astray; and because there are certain others who indeed affirm that they do not relish the things of Arius, yet go and pray together on equal terms with them—being of necessity urged on by most sincere brothers, I have taken pains to write, so that, sincerely and without guile keeping the pious faith which the grace of God works in us, you may not give the brothers occasion of scandal; for when someone sees you who are faithful in Christ communicate with such men or pray together with them, then, supposing this to be a matter of no distinction, they fall into the mire of impiety.

That nothing of the sort may happen, therefore, let it be your care, most dear brothers, to turn away those indeed who relish the things of the Arian impiety, but to shun those who are supposed indeed not to relish the things of Arius, yet pray together with the impious; and especially because it befits us to flee also the communion of those whose sentiment we execrate. If, therefore, anyone comes to you—if indeed he brings, according to the blessed John, right doctrine—say to this man 'Hail,' and receive such a one as a brother; but if anyone feigns indeed to confess the right faith, yet appears to communicate with those men, exhort such a man indeed to abstain from such fellowship, and if indeed he shall promise, then hold even this one as a brother.

But if he persists with a contentious mind, then shun this one also. It would indeed have been possible for me even to extend the letter at great length, adding from the divine Scriptures a pattern of this kind of doctrine; but because, being prudent, you forestall those who write, and, being the more intent upon abstinence, are fit also to teach others, therefore I have briefly dictated, as a diligent man to the diligent, confident that, living thus, you will keep a pure and sincere faith, and that those men too, now seeing that you do not pray together with them, will perceive the profit, fearing lest perchance they be reckoned as impious and as those who relish the things of those men.