Chapter 6: Athanasius’s First Exile
6
Athanasius’s First Exile
The mood of the first three years of Athanasius’s episcopate in Alexandria was chronicled, to some degree, by his Festal Letters from that period. The Festal Letters were pastoral encyclicals written each year for the churches in his jurisdiction about the proper date and mode of celebration for Easter. In his first Festal Letter, written in 329, Athanasius made no mention of the tumult in Alexandria. His focus was entirely upon the appropriate celebration of Easter, “the Christian Passover.” Using the theme of sounding a trumpet, Athanasius reminded his readers that even as Moses and the Levitical priests urged the sounding of a trumpet and the keeping of holy feasts, “blessed Paul” raised up his voice like a trumpet, saying, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed, therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness.”245
In a similar way, Christ our Savior, “In the first day of the great feast, stood and cried out saying, ‘if any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink’ [John 7:37]. For it became the Savior not simply to call us to a feast, but to ‘the great feast’; if only we will be prepared to hear, and to conform to the proclamation of every trumpet.”246 While proclaiming a holy fast, in preparation for Easter, Athanasius urged that fasting with the body avails nothing, if it is not met and joined to a fasting of the soul: “Behold, my brethren,” he wrote, “how much a fast can do, and in what manner the law commands us to fast. It is required that not only with the body should we fast, but with the soul. Now the soul is humbled when it does not follow wicked opinions, but feeds on becoming virtues. For virtues and vices are the food of the soul, and it can eat either of these two meats, and incline to either of the two, according to its own will. If it is bent toward virtue, it will be nourished by virtues, by righteousness, by temperance, by meekness, by fortitude, as Paul saith; ‘Being nourished by the word of truth’ [1 Tim 4:6].” Likewise, Jesus Christ enjoined us to feast on God’s word in the inner person: “Such was the case with our Lord, who said, ‘My meat is to do the will of My Father which is in heaven’ [John 4:34]. But if it is not thus with the soul, and it inclines downwards, it is then nourished by nothing but sin.”247 Since this holy celebration of Easter involves the Christian in both fasting and feasting, Athanasius enjoined, “We begin the holy fast on the fifth day of Pharmuthi [March 31], and adding to it according to the number of those six holy and great days, which are the symbol of the creation of this world, let us rest and cease (from fasting) on the tenth day of the same [month of] Pharmuthi [April 5], on the holy Sabbath of the week . . .”248 In the midst of Easter fasting and feasting Athanasius urged the church to express their Easter faith through care for those who stood at the margins of society. One’s spiritual celebration was to be met and expressed through an advocacy for the poor and the stranger. Hence, the bishop enjoined, “Let us remember the poor, and not forget kindness to strangers; above all, let us love God with all our soul, and might, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. So we may receive those things . . . which God hath prepared for those that love Him, through His only Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ . . .”249
Athanasius’s second Festal Letter from 330 retained much of the same pastoral and celebrative spirit of the first. It began: “Again, my brethren, is Easter come and gladness; again the Lord hath brought us to this season; so that when, according to custom, we have been nourished with His words, we may duly keep the feast. Let us celebrate it then, even heavenly joy, with those saints who formerly proclaimed a like feast, and were examples to us of conversation in Christ . . .”250 Yet by paragraph 6 of the same encyclical the bishop began to address the dangers of heretics and heresy. He urged his readers to “hold fast” to the traditions and teaching that had been first delivered to them, and to beware of the teachings of “wicked men” who “dissemble, putting on as the Lord says sheep’s clothing, and appearing like unto whited sepulchers; but they took those divine words in their mouth, while they inwardly cherished evil intentions.”251 In paragraph 7 Athanasius seemed to announce the policy of separation and noncooperation that he pursed with the heretical Arians and schismatic Meletians. He wrote, “For there is no fellowship whatever between the words of the saints and the fancies of human invention; for the saints are the ministers of the truth, preaching the kingdom of heaven, but those who are borne in the opposite direction have nothing better than to eat, and think their end is that they shall cease to be, and they say, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’ [Isa 22:13].”252
By the time he had issued his third Festal Letter, in 331, Arius had returned to Alexandria; with him had come “tribulation” and “affliction.” The introduction to the letter combined the mood of celebration with a call to constancy in the midst of affliction:
Again, my beloved brethren, the day of the feast draws near to us, which, above all others, should be devoted to prayer, which the law commands to be observed, and which it would be an unholy thing for us to pass over in silence. For although we have been held under restraint by those who afflict us, that, because of them, we should not announce to you this season; yet thanks be to ‘God who comforteth the afflicted’ [2 Cor 7:6], that we have not been overcome by the wickedness of our accusers and silenced; but obeying the voice of truth, we together with you cry aloud in the day of the feast.253
The faithful were urged to keep the feast in ways that would nourish their souls and give them joy and gladness, whereas “there is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord [Isa 48:22], [for] they labor in pain and grief.”254 Athanasius urged his readers to be faithful and true: “knowing that the Lord loves the thankful, never cease to praise Him, ever giving thanks unto the Lord. And whether the time is one of ease or of affliction, they offer up praise to God with thanksgiving, not reckoning these things of time, but worshipping the Lord, the God of [all] times.”255 In this, the faithful should follow the example of St. Paul: “In times of ease, he failed not, and in afflictions he gloried, knowing that ‘tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and that hope maketh not ashamed’ [Rom 5:3].”256 Hence, he exhorted his flock, “Let us, being followers of such men, pass no season without thanksgiving, but especially now, when the time is one of tribulation, which the heretics excite against us, will we praise the Lord, uttering the words of the saints; ‘All these things have come upon us, yet we have not forgotten Thee’ [Ps 44:17].”257
Arius had returned to Alexandria, with the emperor’s consent, sometime in 330, and with him had come intense controversy.258 Eusebius of Nicomedia and those who supported him had been successful in rehabilitating the career of Arius. Arius had been received and reinstated by the Emperor Constantine based on his recantation and a carefully worded confession of faith that skirted most of the salient themes of the Arian controversy. When Arius and his party arrived in Alexandria, Athanasius refused them admission to the church and sought to deprive them of ecclesiastical function in his jurisdiction. Arius wrote to the emperor, telling him, in the words of Socrates the historian, “that it is impossible for those who had once rejected the faith, and had been anathematized, to be again received into communion on their return.”259 Barring the Arians from communion, Athanasius wrote to Constantine to inform him of his decision. Constantine’s anger is clearly visible in the letter that he wrote in return (a portion of which is preserved by Socrates): “Since you have been apprised of my will, afford unhindered access into the church to all those who are desirous of entering it. For if it shall be intimated to me that you have prohibited any of those claiming to be reunited to the church, or have hindered their admission, I will forthwith send some one who at my command shall depose you, and drive you into exile.”260
It was in the context of Athanasius’s staunch refusal to bend his will to Emperor Constantine’s wishes for unity and harmony in the church that “the Eusebians” (as Athanasius styled them) found a vantage point from which to harass and afflict him. Socrates, following Athanasius’s own assessment, linked this opposition from Eusebius of Nicomedia and others to their antipathy towards the bishop of Alexandria because of his defense of the Nicene theology. Hence, Socrates reported, “On this account they raised a great disturbance, endeavoring to eject him from his bishopric; for they entertained the hope that the Arian doctrine would prevail only upon the removal of Athanasius.”261 The “dirty tricks” played by the Eusebians began with their lodging charges against Athanasius with Emperor Constantine, at the very time he was already running afoul of the imperial policy of reconciling with the “former” heretics. Sozomen confided to his readers that “the various calamities which befell Athanasius were primarily occasioned by Eusebius and Theognis. As they possessed great freedom of speech and influence with the emperor, they strove for the recall of Arius, with whom they were on terms of concord and friendship, to Alexandria, and at the same time the expulsion from the Church of him who was opposed to them. They accused him before Constantine of being the author of all the seditions and troubles that agitated the Church, and of excluding those who were desirous of joining the Church; and alleged that unanimity would be restored were he alone to be removed.”262 Socrates reported that they bribed the Meletians to fabricate and file charges against Athanasius with the emperor. He wrote, “These persons suborn by bribes certain of the Melitian heresy to fabricate various charges against Athanasius; and first they accuse him through the Melitians Ision, Eudaemon and Callinicus, of having ordered the Egyptians to pay a linen garment as tribute to the church at Alexandria.”263 Given the level of internal conflict that was brewing in the church of Alexandria, it is not difficult to imagine that the Meletians, who were smarting under Athanasius’s attempts to force them into compliance with the Nicene compromise, were willing to take steps to oppose and undermine his authority as bishop. Nor does it require a large leap of faith to assume that they were willing to work with the Eusebians to that end. It was a classic case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”264
It just so happened, however, that two of Athanasius’s supporters (presbyters Alypius and Macarius) were at royal court at this time, and they convinced the emperor that these charges stemmed from prejudice against Athanasius and were utterly false. Socrates reported that the emperor “severely censured [Athanasius’s] accusers, but urged Athanasius to come to him.”265 Before Athanasius was able to appear before Constantine, however, the Eusebians mounted another set of charges against him, this time attempting to charge him with treason through Athanasius’s alleged financial support of one of Constantine’s political rivals (one Philumenus). Once again the emperor mounted an inquiry, and once again he found that the Alexandrian bishop was being falsely accused.
Theodoret recorded “a portion” of the letter that Constantine wrote to the church at Alexandria vindicating their bishop and ecclesiastical leader: “Believe me, my brethren,” the emperor wrote, “the wicked men were unable to effect anything against your bishop. They surely could have had no other design than to waste our time, and to have themselves no place for repentance in this life. Do you, therefore, help yourselves and love that which wins your love; and exert all your power in the expulsion of those who wish to destroy your accord. I joyfully welcomed Athanasius your bishop; and I have conversed with him as with one whom I know to be a man of God.”266 This interview seems to have occurred in the spring of AD 332, since Athanasius’s fourth Festal Letter mentions that he is at the court of Constantine to answer charges that have been brought against him. The letter was delivered to the Alexandrian church by the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. Athanasius’s letter concluded by stating, “For I am at the Court, having been summoned by the emperor Constantine to see him. But the Meletians, who were present there, being envious, sought our ruin before the Emperor. But they were put to shame and driven away thence as calumniators . . .”267
The third set of charges brought against Athanasius and his administration as bishop of Alexandria stemmed from an incident surrounding a Meletian named Ischyras, a person who, Socrates reported, “had been guilty of an act deserving of many deaths.”268 According to Socrates’s chronicle, Ischyras was acting as a priest in Alexandria even though he had not been ordained into holy orders. This breach of ecclesiastical law soon came to the attention of Bishop Athanasius, who dispatched his presbyter Macarius to look into the matter. Macarius’s visit to Ischyras’s church devolved into conflict and violence, in which it was alleged that the altar was overturned, a sacred chalice was broken, sacred books were burnt and Ischyras was injured. Being forced to flee from Alexandria by Athanasius, Ischyras made his way to the episcopate of Eusebius, in Nicomedia, where he was promised an episcopate of his own, if he would testify against Athanasius as being the one behind the violence and sacrilege.269 In his defense against these charges, Athanasius refuted the notion by showing that the building was not properly a church and that Ischyras was not properly ordained as a priest.270 The charges that there was violence involved, however, were not addressed, and that gives the impression (as Hanson points out) that “his opponents cried ‘Violence and sacrilege’ and Athanasius replies ‘No: only violence.’”271 Ischyras subsequently withdrew the charges, in a letter published by Athanasius in his Defense Against the Arians. Hanson discredits that admission because it was probably made under duress.272
At this same time, the Eusebians accused Athanasius of having murdered one of the Meletian bishops, a man named Arsenius. Athanasius had chopped off his hand, the Eusebians alleged, then used it in the performance of diabolical magic. They even produced a severed hand, of unknown origin, which, they claimed, belonged to Arsenius and had been employed by Athanasius for occult practices.273 The emperor delegated this case to his half-brother, a man named Dalmatius, who as a “censor” was ruling the East and was located in Antioch of Syria. Dalmatius was empowered to banish or acquit after due investigation of the charges. Bishops Eusebius and Theognis were also ordered to the trial, “that the case might be tried in their presence.”274 This clearly implicated them in having pressed the charges against Athanasius. Having heard about these new charges mounted against him, and knowing that Arsenius was actually alive and in hiding somewhere, Athanasius began to make a thorough search for the allegedly murdered Meletian bishop. In the meantime, however, he did not appear before the tribunal, no doubt convinced he could not get a fair hearing before them.
Emperor Constantine called a council of bishops at Jerusalem, in order to celebrate the thirtieth year of his reign as well as the establishment and consecration of a new cathedral that he caused to be erected there. As a secondary matter, he ordered the bishops to reconvene at the coastal city of Tyre to hear, examine and to adjudicate the charges brought against Athanasius and his colleague Macarius. Macarius had been arrested in Alexandria and was brought to the meeting in chains, under military guard, and Athanasius was threatened with the same fate, if he did not present himself willingly before the assembly.275
As providence would have it, Arsenius was also in Tyre, having fled Alexandria and gone into hiding so that the charges against Athanasius would seem all the more credible. Agents of the governor, Archelaus, overheard whispers that Arsenius was alive and well in Tyre, concealed in the house of one of the citizens there. A search was made and Arsenius was quietly discovered and taken into custody. The “murdered man” initially denied his true identity, but Paul the bishop of Tyre knew him by sight and identified Arsenius as the person in question. Athanasius was soon brought before the Synod of Tyre to answer the charges against him. As soon as he was brought forth, his accusers confronted him with the charge of murder and magic and presented him with the evidence of the severed hand. Conducting the testimony with a sense of high courtroom drama, Athanasius asked whether there were among his accusers any who knew Arsenius, and several of them professed to know him. He then caused Arsenius to be introduced to the court, with his hands covered by his cloak. He then asked them, “‘is this the person who lost a hand?’ All were astonished at the unexpectedness of this procedure, except those who knew whence the hand had been cut off; for the rest thought that Arsenius was really deficient of a hand, and expected that the accused would make his defense in some other way.”276 Athanasius dramatically threw back the cloak to expose one of Arsenius’s hands; then after a long, pregnant pause he then turned back the cloak to expose the other hand as well. Addressing himself to the assembly, Athanasius said, “Arsenius, as you see, is found to have two hands; let my accusers show the place whence the third [hand] was cut off.”277 During the tumult caused by these dramatic developments, Athanasius’s chief accusers, including Achab (who is also called John Archaph), slipped away.278
The charges involving sacrilege and violence in the case of Macarius’s attack upon Ischyras were not so easily set aside. Athanasius argued that Ischyras was not properly ordained and that the place had not really been a church on that basis; in essence, as noted above, he addressed the charge of sacrilege but not the element of violence. A commission was appointed by the judges to go to the Mareotis section of Alexandria, where the incident occurred, so that the disputed points could be examined by them on location. When Athanasius saw that this commission was made up entirely of his accusers and opponents, and that they were set at liberty while Macarius was detained in bonds, he appealed to the governor about the impropriety of these developments. But when those appeals went unheeded, Athanasius secretly withdrew from the synod and made his way to the emperor.279 Sozomen reported that
Athanasius was filled with apprehension when he reflected upon these subjects and began to suspect that his enemies were secretly scheming to effect his ruin. After several sessions, when the Synod was filled with tumult and confusion and the accusers and a multitude of persons around the tribunal were crying aloud that Athanasius ought to be deposed as a sorcerer and a ruffian, and as being utterly unworthy [of] the priesthood, the officers who had been appointed by the emperor to be present at the Synod for the maintenance of order, compelled the accused to quit the judgment hall secretly; for they feared lest they might become his murderers, as is apt to be the case in the rush of a tumult.280
The Synod of Tyre, upon hearing the report of the commission sent to Mareotis, deposed Athanasius in his absence, but were wholly silent about the disgraceful defeat of the charge of murder against him. Moreover, they received into communion the Meletian Arsenius, and even allowed him to vote against Athanasius in the proceedings.281
London Papyrus 1914 (LP 1914) purports to be a letter written by one Callistus, a Meletian cleric in Alexandria. It bewails in some detail the violence perpetrated against the Meletians by Athanasius’s adherents and Athanasius himself. It is written in very awkward Greek, by someone whose native language was probably Coptic. It details a violent attack upon the Meletian bishops by a drunken mob of Athanasius’s supporters, augmented by soldiers. They were beaten “all bloody” and in fear of death, when they were cast out of the city by the mob. Five others were arrested, and two Meletian clergy were imprisoned in the meat market. Athanasius, who was apparently abroad at the time, was said to be “anxious and despondent” because of news that Macarius (his assistant) had been taken into custody by the emperor and that reports were circulating about his violent administration of matters in Alexandria. This manuscript, which is fragmentary and (apparently) of Meletian origin, gives some of the background of the events that led up to the Council of Tyre (335). Indeed, Hanson, who accepts the complete authority and authenticity of LP 1914, points to the strong similarity between the charges against Athanasius in it and those mounted at the Synod of Tyre.282 It is also worth noting, as Maurice Wiles does, that the charges brought against Athanasius were not of a theological nature, but rather had to do with what was regarded as “his oppressive and sometimes violent exercise of ecclesiastical authority.”283 With Constantine, who had actively supported the “same substance” language of the Nicene Creed, still on the imperial throne, it might have seemed unwise to attack Athanasius—the chief defender of that formula—on theological grounds. Hence, the opposition against Athanasius, which may have been theologically motivated at basis, was actually voiced in terms of his ecclesiastical authority and its alleged abuses.284
Soon after these developments Constantine summoned the assembled bishops to Constantinople, saying that Athanasius had fled to him for protection and that it was necessary for them to come to the capital so that he could carefully examine the charges against the Alexandrian bishop. In a lengthy letter, preserved by Socrates, Constantine urged the bishops to put aside “this jealous rivalry” and to judge these matters without partiality and prejudice.285 Athanasius, for his part, had repeatedly entreated for an audience before the emperor, and petitioned for nothing more than a fair hearing of the charges against him in the presence of his accusers. Hence, Constantine concluded, “Wherefore as this seems reasonable, and consistent with the equity of my government, I willingly gave instructions that these things should be written to you. My command therefore is, that all, as many as composed the Synod convened at Tyre, should forthwith hasten to the court of our clemency, in order that from the facts themselves you may make clear the purity and integrity of your decision in my presence, whom you cannot but own to be a true servant of God.”286
Instead of hastening to Constantinople, as the emperor ordered, most of the bishops assembled at Tyre went home to their respective cities. But several of Athanasius’s chief accusers, including Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theognis, Maris, Patrophilus, Ursacius, and Valens, did go up to Constantinople, but they would not allow further inquiry to proceed on the charges of violence and sacrilege with respect to the breaking of the communion chalice, and the murder of Arsenius. Instead, they brought a new charge with them, one that was designed to trouble the emperor more than matters of ecclesiastical unity and propriety: “they had recourse to another calumny, informing the emperor that Athanasius had threatened to prohibit the sending of corn which was usually conveyed from Alexandria to Constantinople. They affirmed also that these menaces were heard from the lips of Athanasius by the bishops Adamantius, Anubion, Arbathion and Peter, for slander is most prevalent when the assertor of it appears to be a person worthy of credit.”287 Constantine was so infuriated by this new charge, which threatened the stability of the capital and therefore the entire empire, that he immediately condemned Athanasius to exile and ordered him to reside among the Gauls. And so, Socrates concluded, “He accordingly took up his abode at Treves, a city of Gaul.”288 The removal of Athanasius from his episcopal see was accompanied by widespread riots in Alexandria and letters of protest from the saintly Antony of the Desert.289
Athanasius’s fourth Festal Letter (332) was composed while he was at the court of the emperor and was delivered to the Alexandrian church by a solider. He apologized for the lateness of his correspondence, bewailing the difficulty of his long journey and his subsequent illness. Despite mounting persecution, the bishop urged his readers, “Let us not fulfill these days like those that mourn, but, by enjoying spiritual food, let us seek to silence our fleshly lusts. For by these means we shall have strength to overcome our adversaries, like blessed Judith, when having first exercised herself in fastings and prayers, she overcame the enemies . . .”290
In his own written defense against various charges, which Athanasius subsequently mounted in Defense Against the Arians (Apologia contra Arianos), he reported, “It was proved also by the anger of the Emperor; for although he had written the preceding letter, and had condemned their injustice, as soon as he heard such a charge as this, he was immediately incensed, and instead of granting me a hearing, he sent me away into Gaul.”291 Sozomen reported that “the emperor, either believing their statements to be true, or imagining that unanimity would be restored among the bishops if Athanasius were removed, exiled him to Treves, in Western Gaul; and thither, therefore, he was conducted.”292 Whether Constantine believed he heard a shred of truth in the new charges against Athanasius, or whether he was simply wearied by all the controversy surrounding the troublesome Alexandrian bishop, we cannot know from this historical distance. It is clear, however, that Athanasius started on his first exile in February 336, journeying to Treves (or Treveri in Gaul). The fact that Constantine did not appoint an episcopal successor to Athanasius during his banishment suggests that perhaps the exile of the troublesome Alexandrian bishop had less to do with the charges mounted against him by the Synod of Tyre and more to do with the unity and harmony that the emperor hoped would descend upon the church during Athanasius’s absence.293 The exile may have been intended as a temporary matter, since no successor was elected, and Athanasius continued to act as episcopal leader of Egypt, albeit from exile.
The nearly two full years that Athanasius spent in the city of Treves must have seemed like an extended vacation from the tumultuous events in Alexandria and the East. The city was rapidly becoming a northern Rome. During this period Constantine II, Caesar of the West (324–37), held court there and proved to be friendly towards the exiled bishop. Athanasius testified that Constantine II provided him with “all necessaries.”294 The exiled bishop also probably received a warm welcome from the resident bishop, Maximin (322–49), who was a fellow supporter of the Nicene theology.295 It is in this period of relative calm and repose that some scholars locate the composition of Athanasius’s first major theological works, Against the Heathen and On the Incarnation, although we have suggested them to be the product of an earlier phase of his ministry.
Athanasius’s fifth and sixth Festal Letters were written in exile. The fifth letter urged its readers to celebrate Easter because it unites the cross of Jesus Christ with their own cross-bearing life in the world: God “both brought about the slaying of His Son for salvation, and gave us this reason for the holy feast, to which every year bears witness, as often as at this season the feast is proclaimed. This also leads us on from the cross through this world to that which is before us, and God produces even now from it the joy of glorious salvation, bringing us to the same assembly, and in every place uniting all of us in spirit . . .”296 Persecution was certainly part of this “cross” that the community bore in their solidarity with Christ and one another, and though separated by distance, they were united in spirit.
The sixth letter makes no mention of the bishop’s location in exile but is full of his atonement theology, which is given, perhaps, to set the Easter celebration in its appropriate theological context. He wrote, “In our commemoration of these things, my brethren, let us not be occupied with meats, but let us glorify the Lord, let us become fools for Him who died for us, even as Paul said: ‘For if we are foolish, it is to God; or if we are sober-minded it is to you; since because One died for all men, therefore all were dead to Him; and He died for all, that we who live should not henceforth live to ourselves, but to Him who died for us, and rose again’ [2 Cor 5:13–15]. No longer then ought we to live to ourselves, but as servants to the Lord.”297 In a similar way, the seventh Festal Letter (335) urged its readers to emulate Jesus Christ both in life and in death:
In this David participated, saying in the Psalms, “For thy sake we die all the day; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter” [Ps 44:22]. Now this is becoming in us, especially in the days of the feast, when a commemoration of the death of our Savior is held. For he who is made like Him in His death, is also diligent in virtuous practices, having mortified his members which are upon the earth, and crucifying the flesh with the affections and lusts, he lives in the Spirit, and is conformed to the Spirit. He is always mindful of God, and forgets Him not, and never does the deeds of death.298
It was also during this period that Arius himself passed from the scene. The council of Jerusalem, which met to celebrate the thirtieth year of Constantine’s reign, rehabilitated Arius’s career and voted to reinstate him in the church. Arius still hoped to return to Alexandria, but that was made impossible by the strong sentiments against him there. He returned instead to Constantinople, and Alexander, who was bishop of that city, refused to receive him into communion there as well.299 A council was called at the instigation of Eusebius of Nicomedia, and during its deliberations Arius died an ignoble death, stricken by a physical ailment while visiting a public latrine. Some attributed his death to weakness of heart, and the rush of joy that Arius might have felt as events began to fall together in his favor; others attributed his death in a latrine to God’s judgment for Arius’s impiety; still others saw it as the result of some secret imposition of the magical arts.300 Athanasius, in an account preserved by Sozomen, reported that Constantine viewed Arius’s ignoble death as proof of his perjury, and to Athanasius it seemed appropriate that Arius did not live long enough to be fully reinstated and received into the church.301
245. Athanasius, Festal Letter 1, NPNF, vol. IV, 507.
246. Ibid.
247. Ibid., 508.
248. Ibid., 509.
249. Ibid., 510.
250. Athanasius, Festal Letter 2, NPNF, vol. IV, 510.
251. Ibid., 511.
252. Ibid., 512.
253. Athanasius, Festal Letter 3, NPNF, vol. IV, 512–13.
254. Ibid., 513.
255. Ibid., 514.
256. Ibid.
257. Ibid., 514–15.
258. Socrates, Church History I.27, NPNF, vol. II, 29.
259. Ibid.
260. Ibid.
261. Ibid.
262. Sozomen, Church History II.22, NPNF, vol. II, 272. Cf. Socrates, Church History I.23, NPNF, vol. II, 26–27.
263 Socrates, Church History I.27, NPNF, vol. II, 29.
264. Sozomen opines that from this period onward, the summer of 330, the Meletians received and supported the Arian theology (Church History II.21, NPNF, vol. II, 272).
265. Socrates, Church History I.27, NPNF, vol. II, 29.
266. Theodoret, Church History I.25, NPNF, vol. III, 61.
267. Athanasius, Festal Letter 4, NPNF, vol. IV, 517.
268. Socrates, Church History I.27, NPNF, vol. II, 30.
269. Ibid.
270. Athanasius, Defense Against the Arians 11, NPNF, vol. IV, 106.
271. Hanson, Christian Doctrine of God, 257.
272. Ibid., 256.
273. Socrates, Church History I.27, NPNF, vol. II, 30.
274. Ibid.
275. Scorates, Church History I.28, NPNF, vol. II, 30.
276. Socrates, Church History I.29, NPNF, vol. II, 31.
277. Ibid.
278. Socrates, Church History I.30, NPNF, vol. II, 31.
279. Socrates, Church History I.31, NPNF, vol. II, 31.
280. Sozomen, Church History II.25, NPNF, vol. II, 276.
281. Socrates, Church History I.32, NPNF, vol. II, 31–32.
282. Hanson, Christian Doctrine of God, 254.
283. Wiles, Archetypical Heresy, 6.
284. Arnold, Early Episcopal Career, 103, agrees with this assessment, but Hanson, Christian Doctrine of God, 275, accepts the charges against Athanasius as being valid and not motivated by theological bias.
285. Socrates, Church History I.34, NPNF, vol. II, 32.
286. Ibid.
287. Socrates, Church History I.35, NPNF, vol. II, 33.
288. Ibid.
289. Sozomen, Church History II.31, NPNF, vol. II, 280.
290. Festal Letter 4, NPNF, vol. IV, 516.
291. Athanasius, Defense Against the Arians 87, NPNF, vol. IV, 146.
292. Sozomen, Church History II.28, NPNF, vol. II, 279.
293. Arnold, Early Episcopal Career, 173, 185–86.
294. Defense Against the Arians 87, NPNF, vol. IV, 146.
295. Defense Against the Arians 50, NPNF, vol. IV, 127.
296. Festal Letter 5, NPNF, vol. IV, 518.
297. Festal Letter 6, NPNF, vol. IV, 520.
298. Festal Letter 7, NPNF, vol. IV, 523.
299. Socrates, Church History I.37, NPNF, vol. II, 34.
300. Sozomen, Church History II.29, NPNF, vol. II, 279.
301. Sozomen, Church History II.30, NPNF, vol. II, 279–80. Cf. Socrates, Church History I.38, NPNF, vol. II, 34–35.