This Arsenius, whose arm was said to have been cut off, had once been a Reader of Athanasius, and, fearing reproof for a fault, had withdrawn himself from the assembly. The wicked men, judging his lurking-place opportune for them for a fabrication of this sort, at the beginning of the contrived crime kept him hidden in the keeping of a certain man whom they had entrusted as most faithful to their crimes. Yet it reached him, placed in his hiding-place, what crime was being charged against Athanasius in his name.
And whether the very regard for humanity, or divine providence, impelled him, escaping secretly through the silences of the night from his confinement, he sailed to Tyre, and on the day before the last day for pleading the cause was to be at hand, Arsenius presented himself to Athanasius, and informed him how the course of events stood. Athanasius bade the man be at home, and that none be made aware of his presence. Meanwhile the Council was convened, into which a good many, conscious of the trumped-up calumnies, almost all came together against Athanasius with a hostile and prejudiced mind. About the same time Paphnutius the confessor, of whom we made mention above, was present, conscious of Athanasius's innocence.
When he had seen Maximus, Bishop of Jerusalem, who together with him, an eye having been gouged out and a knee hamstrung, had stood forth as a confessor, but who, through excessive simplicity, suspected nothing of the priests' crime, sitting with the others whom the stain of faction had allied, he did not fear to approach the midst of the assembly, and said: 「You, O Maximus, with whom I share one and the same badge of confession, with whom my mortal light was equally gouged out, which won me a clearer view of the divine light: you, I say, I will not allow to sit in the council of the malignant, and to enter in with those who work iniquity.」 And laying his hand upon him, raising him from their midst, and instructing him on each point, he thenceforth allied him to Athanasius in perpetual communion. But meanwhile the case is pleaded.
First is brought in the accusation of a certain woman, who said that she had once received Athanasius into her hospitality, and that by him, at night, suspecting nothing, she had suffered the violence of defilement. Athanasius is ordered to be brought in to this: he enters with his presbyter Timothy, and admonishes him that, after the woman had made an end of speaking, he himself, while Athanasius kept silent, should answer to the things she had said. And when the woman had pleaded the things she had been taught, Timothy, turning to her, said: 「Truly, woman, did I stay with you once, or did I, as you assert, do violence to you?」 Then she (as the impudence of such women has it), upbraiding Timothy, said: 「You, you did violence to me; you in that place defiled my chastity.」
And at the same time, turning to the judges, she began to call upon the faith of God as her witness that she spoke the truth. Then a ridiculous shame began to take hold of all, that so easily, while he kept silent, the faction's contrived crime had been laid bare. Yet the judges were not permitted to make inquiry concerning the woman—whence, or by whom, or how this calumny had been fitted up—since the freedom of judging lay with the accusers. Hence there is a passing to another crime. A deed unheard of for ages is brought forth. 「This is,」 they say, 「the case where no one can be deceived by the tricks of words: the matter is conducted before the eyes, words ceasing: this arm, they say, accuses you, Athanasius, cut off. This is the right hand of Arsenius, which—how, or for what uses you cut it off—do you declare.」 Then he:
「For who among you,」 he said, 「knew Arsenius, that you should recognize this to be his right hand?」 Several rose up who said that they had known Arsenius very well, among whom were some without any consciousness of the faction. Athanasius then begged the judges that they would order his man, whom the business required, to be brought in. And when Arsenius had been brought in, his face being raised, Athanasius said to the council and the judges: 「This is Arsenius.」 And raising no less his right hand: 「This,」 he said, 「is also his right hand, this is his left. But this hand which these men offer—whence it is, do you inquire.」 Then, as if a certain night and darkness had been poured over the eyes of the accusers, they knew not what to do or where to turn.
For those very witnesses who a little before had said that they knew Arsenius confirmed that the man present was indeed he. But because the assembly was conducted not for the purpose of judging the man, but of crushing him, a sudden uproar arose from all; they shouted that Athanasius was a sorcerer, and that he deceived the eyes of the beholders, and that such a man ought by no means to live any longer. And, making a rush upon him, they prepared to tear him apart with their own hands. But Archelaus, who together with the rest presided over the council by the Emperor's command, snatched him from the hands of those who would have torn him to pieces and led him out by secret passages, and advised him to entrust his safety to flight, the only means by which he could be saved.
The council, nevertheless, assembling again, condemned Athanasius as if he had confessed to the charges laid against him, as though nothing at all had been discovered. And sending forged accounts of what had thus been done throughout the whole world, they drove the rest of the bishops, by the Emperor's compulsion, to consent to their crime.