Letter Viii
LETTER VIII
A.D. 338
Although I have been all this distance away from you, brothers and sisters, I have not forgotten the custom that has been handed down to us by the Fathers. I shall not neglect to notify you of the season of the annual holy Feast and the day on which it is to be celebrated.
ATHANASIUS WATCHED BY HIS ENEMIES
It is true that I have been hindered by those hardships that you have probably heard about, and severe trials have been laid upon me. And we have been separated by a great distance. At the same time, the enemies of the truth have been watching us, laying traps to discover a letter from us. They have hoped that they could, by their accusations, make our wounds more painful. Nevertheless, the Lord has strengthened and comforted us in our afflictions. So we have not been afraid, even in the midst of such schemes and conspiracies, to send you word about our saving Easter Feast—even from the ends of the earth!
When I wrote to the presbyters of Alexandria, I urged them to send these letters to you, although I knew how our enemies would try to scare them. Still, I reminded them of the boldness of the apostle Paul's speech and asked them to remember that "Nothing separates us from the love of Christ, neither affliction, nor distress, nor persecution, nor famine, nor peril, nor sword"
(Rom. 8:35). Keeping the Feast myself, I wanted you also, dear friends, to keep it. Therefore, knowing that an announcement
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like this is due from me, I have not held back from that duty, because I wanted to do the right thing, as Paul advised: "Render to everyone his due" (Rom. 13:7).
CHRIST THE BESTOWER OF THE SPIRIT
Although I committed all my affairs to God, I still wanted to celebrate the Feast with you, disregarding the distance between us. For although distance separates us, the Lord who gives the Feast is the Feast (1 Cor. 5:7). He bestows the Spirit, bringing us together in mind, in harmony, and in the bond of peace.
When we turn our attention to the same things and offer up the same prayers on behalf of each other, no distance can divide us.
The Lord gathers us together and unites us. We are promised that "when two or three are gathered together in His name, He is in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20).
Plainly, then, since He is in the midst of all His churches meeting everywhere, He unites them and accepts all their prayers as if they were in the same place. Yes, He hears them all as they cry out the same "Amen!"
THANKSGIVING AFTER DELIVERANCE
FROM AFFLICTION
That is the way in which I have looked at the hardships and trials I mentioned when I wrote to you, dear friends. And so that we do not make things painful for you, I just want to give you a brief reminder here. It isn't right, you know, for a person to forget, when things get easier, the pains he experienced under tribulation — lest he be excluded from the divine company as a forgetful and unthankful person.
There is no time more appropriate for a person to have a thankful attitude toward God than when he has been going through tribulations and hardships. Nor is there a better time to be giving thanks than when he has come to rest after struggles and temptations. A good example is King Hezekiah, who praised the Lord and gave Him thanks after Israel's Assyrian enemies perished: "The Lord is my salvation, and I will not
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cease to praise Thee with harp all the days of my life, before the house of the Lord" (Isa. 38:20).
Or consider those three saintly men who went through a tremendous trial in Babylon: Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah
(cf. Dan. 1-3). When they saw they were safe and the fire was more like dew than danger, these men gave thanks, singing a song to God.! Brothers and sisters, I, like them, have written with all that I have been through in mind. For in our own time
God has made things happen that would be impossible for human beings to do. Things which men could never accomplish
He has shown to be easy for Him — for example, bringing us back to you.
For God has not given us over as victims to those who are out to swallow up not just us, but the whole church — who are trying by their wickedness to overwhelm faith and godliness.
Oh yes, that is what they had in mind. But God, who is good, showed us His lovingkindness over and over again. Not only did
He give us salvation through His Word (Christ the Son), but now He has rescued us from those enemies who persecuted us and planned to destroy us. As St. Paul once said when he was describing the unbelievable riches of Christ: "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in foolishness and sins, made us alive through Christ" (Eph. 2:4,5).
Ultimately, the power of men and of all creatures is weak and miserable. But the eternal, uncreated Might is rich and incomprehensible, having no beginning and no end. It is so far above man that we cannot grasp it at all.
GOD'S DEALINGS WITH HUMANITY
God does not have just one means of healing. No, having unlimited resources, He works in many ways for our salvation by means of His Word, who is in no way restricted or hindered
1The Song of the Three Children is that addition to Daniel (between 3:23 and 3:24) found in the Greek, but not in the Hebrew, version of the Old Testament.
It is part of those works called the Apocrypha, which were traditionally transmitted alongside the canonical Scriptures.
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in His dealings with us. Rather, since He does have such infinite assets and is so absolutely versatile, He does for each of us exactly what we personally need. For He (Christ) is the Word, and the Power, and the Wisdom of God. And, as Solomon tells us concerning Wisdom, "being one, it can do all things, and remaining in itself, it makes all things new; and passing upon holy souls, fashions the friends of God and the prophets.
To those who, like little lambs, have not yet reached maturity, there is milk, such as Paul fed some: "I have fed you with milk, not with meat" (1 Cor. 3:2). There is also appropriate food for those who have gone beyond babyhood to adolescence, but still are not quite mature. Of them Paul says, "Let him that is weak eat vegetables" (Rom. 14:2). But as soon as a person begins to behave like a mature and holy Christian, his diet changes and instead of being fed on these things, he has the Word (Christ) for bread and flesh for food, for the Scriptures say, "Solid food is for the mature, for those who have grown up enough to have their senses trained" (Heb. 5:14).
WE EACH RECEIVE THE GRACE WE NEED
There are other differences as well. When the Word is sown, it does not yield the same size crop in all human beings. Rather, the crop is varied and rich. In some the yield is a hundredfold, others sixty, and others thirty (Matt. 13:8), as the Savior, that Sower of grace and Bestower of the Spirit, teaches. And this isn't just something that may happen or something on which we have no confirmation. All we have to do is look at the field He has sown: In the church the Word has produced many different results and the product is rich and varied.
Nor, as some think, are only virgins or monks meant by the "field," but honorable matrimony and, indeed, the purity of all.
For in sowing He does not force us to something beyond the abilities of our wills. Nor is the grace confined to those who are
2Wisdom 7:27.
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fully mature. It passes down through all levels so that He can bring all people to salvation.
That is why He, along with the Father, has prepared many mansions (John 14:2). Although our dwelling places vary according to how far along we have come in the practice of the faith
(cf. 2 Cor. 5:10), all of us are within the wall and we are all enclosed by the same fence. The devil and the whole host of his demons and followers are kept out. For apart from light there is darkness, and apart from blessing there is a curse. The devil is apart from the saints, just as sin is far from virtue. Therefore our
Lord rebuked Satan, saying, "Get thee behind Me, Satan"
(Matt. 4:10).
We, on the other hand, are called to the Lord: "Come, blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom which is prepared for you" (Matt. 25:34). So, in the Psalms we hear the Spirit crying out to His people, "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving' (Ps. 100:4).
CHARACTERISTICS
OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
AND SIN By means of righteousness we come into God's presence, as Moses did when he entered the thick cloud where God was
(Exod. 19:20). On the other hand, by the practice of evil a person leaves the presence of the Lord. For example, Cain, when he killed his brother, left the Lord's presence as far as his will was concerned (Gen. 4:16). In contrast to that attitude, the psalmist comes to the Lord, saying, "And I will go in to the altar of God, to God who is the gladness of my joy" (Ps. 43:4).
But the devil! The Scripture tells us that he went out from God's presence and afflicted Job with painful boils (Job 2:7).
After all, that is the characteristic of those who leave God: to find His people and afflict them in some way. The most distinguishing trait of those who fall away from the faith is that they set out to persecute and do harm to the faithful.
The saints, on the other hand, draw other faithful believers to themselves and consider them their friends. David put it clearly and plainly: "I look for the faithful of the earth, so that I can live
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with them" (Ps. 101:6). And Paul urges us to accept even those who are weak in the faith (Rom. 14:1). For righteous people love humanity, while sinners hate their fellow human beings.
Thus the sinner Saul persecuted David; but although David had plenty of opportunity, he did not kill Saul. Esau persecuted
Jacob, but Jacob tried to overcome his brother's wickedness by meekness. And although Joseph's eleven brothers sold him, he, in his lovingkindness, had pity on them.
THE PERVERSENESS OF THE JEWS
But why do we need a lot of words? When our Lord and Savior was persecuted by the Pharisees, He wept because of their coming destruction. He was treated badly, but He did not even make threats in return—neither when he was abused nor when He was killed. In fact, the opposite was true, for He grieved for those who dared to do such things. But they contemptuously shoved aside light and life and grace, which they could have had through the Savior, who suffered in our place.
It was actually for the darkness and blindness of such people that He wept. If they had understood the things written in the Psalms, they would never have been so brash as to undertake such futile attacks upon the Savior. For in the Psalms the Spirit said, "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?" (Ps. 2:1). And if they had considered the prophecy of Moses (Deut. 18:15; 28:66), they never would have hanged Him who was their life. Further, if they had applied their minds to what was written in the Scriptures, they would not have fulfilled so studiously the prophesies which were written about them. But they did, and in consequence their city lies desolate, grace has been taken away from them, and they don't have the Law anymore. God no longer calls them children, but strangers.
All those things they did were actually right there in the Scriptures before their eyes. The psalmist had predicted, "The strange children have acted falsely by Me" (Ps. 18:45, Septuagint). And Isaiah the prophet had said, "I have begotten and brought up children, and they have rejected Me" (Isa. 1:2).
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They are no longer called the people of God and a holy nation, but rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah. They have gone beyond even the sin of the Sodomites, as the prophet foretold,
"Sodom will be justified before you will" (cf. Ezek. 16:48; Lam.
4:6). For the Sodomites only attacked angels, but these people attacked the Lord and God and King of all and actually dared to kill the Lord of angels. They did not know that Christ, who was killed by them, would live yet today.
Those Jews who conspired against Him, however, having fallen away from eternal matters, had only a little while to rejoice in their temporal triumphs, and then they died. They were ignorant of the fact that the immortal promise is not with respect to temporary enjoyment, but relates to the hope of the life everlasting.
The saint of God goes through tribulations, hard work, and much sorrow on earth before entering into the kingdom of heaven. But when he gets to that place where sorrow and distress and longing disappear, he will enjoy eternal rest
— as did Job, who faced many trials here but became the friend of the Lord. What a contrast to those who love pleasure and are actually able to rejoice in it for a short time, but end up having a sorrowful life. Esau is an example of them, for he enjoyed one short meal but was afterward condemned for his behavior.
NO PLACE IS A DESERT FOR THE FAITHFUL
We might compare these distinctions to the departures of the children of Israel and that of the Egyptians from Egypt. The Egyptians, briefly rejoicing in their unjust treatment of Israel, went out after them and were all drowned. But the people of God, though afflicted and persecuted for a little while by their taskmasters, went through the sea unharmed when they came out of Egypt (cf. Exod. 14). They lived in the desert as if it were an inhabited place; for although the place was desolate and nobody lived there, yet because of the gracious gift of the Law and communion with angels it was even better for them than an inhabited country.
Elisha (cf. 2 Kings 6:13-17), when he thought he was all alone
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in the wilderness, was really in the presence of hosts of angels.
The people of Israel went from persecution to the wilderness, and those who remained faithful later entered the Promised
Land.
In the same way, those people today who remain steadfast in the face of difficulties will go on to a place of comfort, while those who persecute others will be trampled underfoot and come to a bad end. For that conclusion we have the example of the rich man accurately described in the Gospel (Luke 16:19).
He lived here in pleasure for a time, but he suffered hunger after he left this life. Having drunk as he pleased here, he was parched with thirst there. Lazarus, on the other hand, had many troubles and difficulties in his life in this world, but he found rest in heaven. Here he was hungry for ordinary bread, but there he was satisfied with bread better than manna.
For the Lord who came from there said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven and gives life to mankind" (John
6:51).
TEMPORAL ILLS NO REASON FOR DISTRESS
Oh, dear friends! The time is coming when we shall be comforted for all our troubles, when we shall rest from our hard work, when we shall regain our lost health, when after dying we shall have immortal life. Therefore, we shouldn't be too upset by all the problems we have as human beings in this life. It isn't right to be agitated by all the difficulties we run into. It isn't right to be afraid when the enemy host that fought against Christ conspires against godliness.
When these things come along, we should simply please God all the more by treating them as the trying and testing of a virtuous life. After all, how can we expect to develop patience if we haven't faced sorrow and hard work? Or how would we ever experience fortitude if our enemies never attacked us? How could we ever show courage if we never had to face bad treatment and injustice? Indeed, how would we ever expect to be long-suffering if we had not faced the opposition of antichrists?
And finally, how could a person hope to recognize virtue when
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he sees it if he has not actually seen the sin and iniquity of the wicked?
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, therefore, is an example to us of how to suffer. When they struck Him, He bore it patiently; when they mocked Him and verbally abused Him, He didn't lash back at them; when He suffered, He didn't threaten His persecutors. Rather, He presented His back to those who wished to whip Him; He turned His cheeks to those who wished to slap Him; He didn't even turn His face away when they spat upon Him (1 Peter 2:23; Isa. 50:6). And at the end,
He willingly let them lead Him to death, so that we could see in Him the picture of all that is good and immortal. Consequently,
He is our example, and following Him we really can tread on serpents and scorpions—and on all the power of the enemy!
WE BENEFIT THROUGH TRIALS AND
SUFFERINGS
So Paul, who followed the Lord's example, urged us, "Follow me, as I follow Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1). In so doing, the apostle had successfully overcome the devils' whole army so that he could write, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ" (Rom. 8:38,39).
Whenever we have suffering and troubles and hard work, the enemy comes along and does everything he can to make us fall.
But the person who is in Christ can be victorious by setting himself against the opposition — meeting anger with longsuffering, insults with meekness, vice with virtue. Then he can triumphantly exclaim, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me' (Phil. 4:13). And, "In all these things we are conquerors through Christ who loved us" (Rom. 8:37).
That is the grace of the Lord. All these troubles and difficulties are the Lord's means of correcting and training the children of men. He suffered to buy freedom from suffering for those who suffer in Him, and He came down in order to raise us up. He went
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to the trouble of being born so that we would love Him who is unbegotten. He accepted a decaying body so that decaying bodies might put on immortality. He became weak for us that we might rise with power. He went down to death that He might give life to the dead, and give us immortal life.
In summary, He became man so that we who die as man might live again, that death should not reign over us anymore. As the apostle Paul proclaimed, "Death shall not have dominion over us' (Rom. 6:9).
THE ERRONEOUS OPINIONS OF THE
ARIANS?
Since they do not care about these things, the Ario-maniacs, being heretics who oppose Christ, flail away at the Helper with their tongues and blaspheme the One who set us free.
Taking everything in the wrong way, they have departed from orthodoxy concerning the Redeemer. They take His becoming man, which after all was for the benefit of humanity, and use it to deny His true divinity. Taking note of the fact that He was born from the Virgin, they question His being truly the Son of God. Pointing out that He became incarnate in time, they deny His eternity. Seeing that He suffered for us, they renounce their faith in Him as the incorruptible Son from the incorruptible Father. And because He endured physical pain for our sakes, they deny that He could possibly be eternal.
Having become unthankful, they reject the Savior and insult Him instead of acknowledging His grace.
THE ARIANS MISUNDERSTOOD THE
SCRIPTURES
It is appropriate for us to say to them: "Oh, unthankful enemy of Christ, utterly wicked killer of your Lord, mentally
3The 'Arians, you will recall, were the infamous fourth-century heretics who fought against the eternality of the Son, saying, for example, "There was a time when He was not."