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VICTOR CONSTANTINE MAXIMUS AUGUSTUS, to
the bishops convened at Tyre.
I am indeed ignorant of the decisions which have been made by your
Council with so much turbulence and storm: but the truth seems to have
been perverted by some tumultuous and disorderly proceedings: because,
that is to say, in your mutual love of contention, which you seem
desirous of perpetuating, you disregard the consideration of those
things which are acceptable to God. It will, however, I trust, be
the work of Divine Providence to dissipate the mischiefs resulting
from this jealous rivalry, as soon as they shall have been detected;
and to make it apparent to us, whether ye who have been convened have
had regard to truth, and whether your decisions on the subjects which
have been submitted to your judgment have been made apart from
partiality or prejudice. Wherefore it is indispensable that you should
all without delay attend upon my piety, that you may yourselves give a
strict account of your transactions. For what reason I have deemed it
proper to write thus, and to summon you before me, you will learn from
what follows. As I was making my entry into the city which bears our
name, in this our most flourishing home, Constantinople,--and it
happened that I was riding on horseback at the time,--suddenly the
Bishop Athanasius, with certain ecclesiastics whom he had around
him, presented himself so unexpectedly in our path, as to produce an
occasion of consternation. For the Omniscient God is my witness that
at first sight I did not recognize him until some of my attendants, in
answer to my enquiry, informed me, as was very natural, both who he
was, and what injustice he had suffered. At that time indeed I
neither conversed, nor held any communication with him. But as he
repeatedly entreated an audience, and I had not only refused it, but
almost ordered that he should be removed from my presence, he said with
greater boldness, that he petitioned for nothing more than that you
might be summoned hither, in order that in our presence, he, driven
by necessity to such a course, might have a fair opportunity afforded
him of complaining of his wrongs. 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. It is in consequence of the acts of my
religious service towards God that peace is everywhere reigning; and
that the name of God is sincerely had in reverence even among the
barbarians themselves, who until now were ignorant of the truth. Now
it is evident that he who knows not the truth, does not have a true
knowledge of God also: yet, as I before said even the barbarians on
my account, who am a genuine servant of God, have acknowledged and
learned to worship him, whom they have perceived in very deed
protecting and caring for me everywhere. So that from dread of us
chiefly, they have been thus brought to the knowledge of the true God
whom they now worship. Nevertheless we who pretend to have a religious
veneration for (I will not say who guard) the holy mysteries of his
church, we, I say, do nothing but what tends to discord and
animosity, and to speak plainly, to the destruction of the human
race. But hasten, as I have already said, all of you to us as
speedily as possible: and be assured that I shall endeavor with all my
power to cause that what is contained in the Divine Law may be
preserved inviolate, on which neither stigma nor reproach shall be able
to fasten itself; and this will come to pass when its enemies, who
under cover of the sacred profession introduce numerous and diversified
blasphemies, are dispersed, broken to pieces, and altogether
annihilated.
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