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PALLADIUS governor of the province, by sect a heathen, and
one who habitually prostrated himself before the idols, had frequently
entertained the thought of waging war against Christ. After
collecting the forces already enumerated he set out against the
Church, as though he were pressing forward to the subjugation of a
foreign foe. Then, as is well known, the most shocking deeds were
done, and at the bare thought of telling the story, its recollection
fills me with anguish. I have shed floods of tears, and I should
have long remained thus bitterly affected had I not assuaged my grief
by divine meditation. The crowds intruded into the church called
Theonas and there instead of holy words were uttered the praises of
idols; there where the Holy Scriptures had been read might be heard
unseemly clapping of hands with unmanly and indecent utterances; there
outrages were offered to the Virgins of Christ which the tongue
refuses to utter, for "it is a shame even to speak of them." On
only hearing of these wrongs one of the well disposed stopped his ears
and prayed that he might rather become deaf than have to listen to their
foul language. Would that they had been content to sin in word alone,
and had not surpassed the wickedness of word by deed, for insult,
however bad it be, can be borne by them in whom dwells Christ's
wisdom and His holy lessons. But these same villains, vessels of
wrath fitted for destruction, screwed up their noses and poured out,
if I may so say, as from a well-head, foul noises through their
nostrils, and rent the raiment from Christ's holy virgins, whose
conversation gave an exact likeness of saints; they dragged them in
triumph, naked as when they were born, through all the town; they
made indecent sport of them at their pleasure; their deeds were
barbarous and cruel. Did any one in pity interfere and urge to mercy
he was dismissed with wounds. Ah woe is me. Many a virgin underwent
brutal violation; many a maid beaten on the head, with clubs lay
dumb, and even their bodies were not allowed to be given up for
burial, and their grief-stricken parents cannot find their corpses to
this day. But why recount woes which seem small when compared with
greater? Why linger over these and not hurry on to events more
urgent? When you hear them I know that you will wonder and will stand
with us long dumb, amazed at the kindness of the Lord in not bringing
all things utterly to an end. At the very altar the impious
perpetrated what, as it is written, neither happened nor was heard of
in the days of our fathers.
A boy who had forsworn his sex and would pass for a girl, with eyes,
as it is written, smeared with antimony, and face reddened with rouge
like their idols, in woman's dress, was set up to dance and wave his
hands about and whirl round as though he had been at the front of some
disreputable stage, on the holy altar itself where we call on the
coming of the Holy Ghost, while the by standers laughed aloud and
rudely raised unseemly shouts. But as this seemed to them really
rather decorous than improper, they went on to proceedings which they
reckoned in accordance with their indecency; they picked out a man who
was very famous for utter baseness, made him strip off at once all his
clothes and all his shame, and set him up as naked as he was born on
the throne of the church, and dubbed him a vile advocate against
Christ. Then for divine words he uttered shameless wickedness, for
awful doctrines wanton lewdness, for piety impiety, for continence
fornication, adultery, foul lust, theft; teaching that gluttony and
drunkenness as well as all the rest were good for man's life. In this
state of things when even I had withdrawn from the church, for how
could I remain where troops were coming in, where a mob was bribed to
violence, where all were striving for gain, where mobs of heathen were
making mighty promises?, forth, forsooth, is sent a successor in my
place. It was one named Lucius, who had bought the bishopric as he
might some dignity of this world, eager to maintain the bad character
and conduct of a wolf. No synod of orthodox bishops had chosen him;
no vote of genuine clergy; no laity had demanded him; as the laws of
the church enjoin.
Lucius could not make his entrance into the city without parade, and
so he was appropriately escorted not by bishops, not by presbyters,
not by deacons, not by multitudes of the laity; no monks preceded him
chanting psalms from the Scriptures; but there was Euzoius, once a
deacon of our city of Alexandria, and long since degraded along with
Arius in the great and holy synod of Nicaea, and more recently raised
to rule and ravage the see of Antioch, and there, too, was Magnus
the treasurer, notorious for every kind of impiety, leading a vast
body of troops. In the reign of Julian this Magnus had burnt the
church at Berytus, the famous city of Phoenicia; and, in the reign
of Jovian of blessed memory, after barely escaping decapitation by
numerous appeals to the imperial compassion, had been compelled to
build it up again at his own expense.
Now I invoke your zeal to rise in our vindication. From what I
write you ought to be able to calculate the character and extent of the
wrongs committed against the Church of God by the starting up of this
Lucius to oppose us. Often rejected by your piety and by the orthodox
bishops or every region, he seized on a city which had just and
righteous cause to regard and treat him as a foe. For he does not
merely say like the blasphemous fool in the psalms "Christ is not true
God." But, corrupt himself, he corrupted others, rejoicing in the
blasphemies uttered continually against the Saviour by them who
worshipped the creature instead of the Creator. The scoundrel's
opinions being quite on a par with those of a heathen, why should he
not venture to worship a new-made God, for these were the phrases
with which he was publicly greeted "Welcome, bishop, because thou
deniest the Son. Serapis loves thee and has brought thee to us."
So they named their native idol. Then without an interval of delay
the afore-named Magnus, inseparable associate in the villainy of
Lucius, cruel body-guard, savage lieutenant, collected together all
the multitudes committed to his care, and arrested presbyters and
deacons to the number of nineteen, some of whom were eighty years of
age, on the charge of being concerned in some foul violation of Roman
law. He constituted a public tribunal, and, in ignorance of the laws
of Christians in defence of virtue, endeavoured to compel them to give
up the faith of their fathers which had been banded down from the
apostles through the fathers to us. He even went so far as to maintain
that this would be gratifying to the most merciful and clement Valens
Augustus. "Wretched man" he shouted "accept, accept the doctrine
of the Arians; God will pardon you even though you worship with a
true worship, if you (to this not of your own accord but because you
are compelled. There is always a defence for irresponsible
compulsion, while free action is responsible and much followed by
accusation. Consider well these arguments; come willingly; away with
all delay; subscribe the doctrine of Arius preached now by Lucius,"
(so he introduced him by name) "being well assured that if you obey
you will have wealth and honour from your prince, while if you refuse
you will be punished by chains, rack, torture, scourge and cruel
torments; you will be deprived of your property and possessions; you
will be driven into exile and condemned to dwell in savage regions."
Thus this noble character mixed intimidation with deceit and so
endeavoured to persuade and compel the people to apostatise from true
religion. They however knew full well how true it is that the pain of
treachery to right religion is sharper than any torment; they refused
to lower their virtue and noble spirit to his trickery and threats, and
were thus constrained to answer him. "Cease, cease trying to
frighten us with these words, utter no more vain words. We worship no
God of late arrival or of new invention. Foam at us if you will in
the vain tempest of your fury and dash yourselves against us like a
furious wind. We abide by the doctrines of true religion even unto
death; we have never regarded God as impotent, or as unwise, or
untrue, as at one time a Father and at another not a Father, as this
impious Arian teaches, making the Son a being of time and
transitory. For if, as the Ariomaniacs say, the Son is a
creature, not being naturally of one substance with the Father, the
Father too will be reduced to non-existence by the nonexistence of the
Son, not being as they assert at one period a Father. But if He is
ever a Father, his offspring being truly of Him, and not by
derivation, for God is impassible, how is not he mad and foolish who
says of the Son through whom all things came by grace into existence,
"there was a time when he was not."
These men have truly become fatherless by falling away from our fathers
throughout the world who assembled at Nicaea, and anathematized the
false doctrine of Arius, now defended by this later champion. They
laid down that the Son was not as you are now compelling us to say, of
a different substance from the Father, but of one and the same. This
their pious intelligence clearly perceived, and so from an adequate
collation of divine terms they owned Him to be consubstantial.
Advancing these and other similar arguments, they were imprisoned for
many days in the hope that they might be induced to fall away from theft
right mind, but the rather, like the noblest of the athletes in a
Stadium, they crushed all fear, and from time to time as it were
anointing themselves with the thought of the bold deeds done by their
fathers, through the help of holy thoughts maintained a nobler
constancy in piety, and treated the rack as a training place for
virtue. While they were thus struggling, and had become, as writes
the blessed Paul, a spectacle to angels and to men, the whole city
ran up to gaze at Christ's athletes, vanquishing by stout endurance
the scourges of the judge who was torturing them, winning by patience
trophies against impiety, and exhibiting triumphs against Arians. So
their savage enemy thought that by threats and torments he could subdue
and deliver them to the enemies of Christ. Thus therefore the savage
and inhuman tyrant evilly entreated them by inflicting on them the
tortures that his cruel ingenuity devised, while all the people stood
wailing and shewing their sorrow in various ways. Then he once more
mustered his troops, who were disciplined in disorder, and summoned
the martyrs to trial, or as it might rather be called, to a foregone
condemnation, by the seaport, while after their fashion hired cries
were raised against them by the idolaters and the Jews. On their
refusal to yield to the manifest heresy of the Ariomaniacs they were
sentenced, while all the people stood in tears before the tribunal, to
be deported from Alexandria to the Phoenician Heliopolis, a place
where none of the inhabitants, who are all given over to idols, can
endure so much as to hear the name of Christ.
After giving them the order to embark, Magnus stationed himself at
the port, for be had delivered his sentence against them in the
neighbourhood of the public baths. He showed them his sword
unsheathed, thinking that he court thus strike terror into men who had
again and again smitten hostile demons to the ground with their
two-edged blade. So he bade them put out to sea, though they had got
no provisions on board, and were starting without one single comfort
for their exile. Strange and almost incredible to relate, the sea was
all afoam; grieved, I think, and unwilling, if I may so say, to
receive the good men upon its surface, and so have part or lot in an
unrighteous sentence. Now even to the ignorant was made manifest the
savage purpose of the judge and it may truly be said "at this, the
heavens stood astonished."
The whole city groaned, and is lamenting to this day. Some men
beating on their breast with one hand after another raised a mighty
noise; others lifted up at once their hands and eyes to heaven in
testimony of the wrong inflicted on them, and so saying in all but
words, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth," what unlawful
deeds are being done. Now all was weeping and wailing; singing and
sighing sounded through all the town, and from every eye flowed a river
of tears which threatened to overwhelm the very sea with its tide.
There was the aforesaid Magnus on the port ordering the rowers to
hoist the sails, and up went a mingled cry of maids and matrons, old
men anti young, all sobbing and lamenting together, and the noise of
the multitude overwhelmed the roar raised by the waves on the foaming
sea. So the martyrs sailed off for Heliopolis, where every man is
given over to superstition, where flourish the devil's ways of
pleasure, and where the situation of the city, surrounded on all sides
by mountains that approach the sky, is fitted for the terrifying lairs
of wild beasts. All the friends they left behind now alike in public
in the middle of the town and each in private apart groaned and uttered
words of grief. and were even forbidden to weep, at the order of
Palladius, prefect of the city, who happened himself to be a man
quite given over to superstition. Many of the mourners were first
arrested and thrown into prison, and then scourged, torn with carding
combs, tortured, and, champions as they were of the church in their
holy enthusiasm, were despatched to the mines of Phennesus and
Proconnesus.
Most of them were monks, devoted to a life of ascetic solitude, and
were about twenty-three in number. Not long afterwards the deacon who
had been sent by our beloved Damasus, bishop of Rome, to bring us
letters of consolation and communion, was led publicly through the town
by executioners, with his hands tied behind his back like some
notorious criminal. After sharing the tortures inflicted on
murderers, he was terribly scourged with stones and bits of lead about
his very neck. He went on board ship to sail, like the rest, with
the mark of the sacred cross upon his brow; with none to aid and none
to tempt him he was despatched to the copper mines of Phennesus.
During the tortures inflicted by the magistrate on the tender bodies of
little boys, some have been left lying on the spot deprived of holy
rites of burial, though parents and brothers and kinsfolk, and indeed
the whole city, begged that this one consolation might be given them.
But alas for the inhumanity of the judge, if indeed he can be called
judge who only condemns! They who had contended nobly for the true
religion were assigned a worse fate than a murderer's, their bodies
lying, as they did, unburied. The glorious champions were thrown to
be devoured by beasts and birds of prey. Those who were anxious for
conscience' sake to express sympathy with the parents were punished by
decapitation, as though they had broken some law. What Roman law,
nay what foreign sentiment, ever inflicted punishment for the
expression of sympathy with parents? What instance is there of the
perpetration of so illegal a deed by any one of the ancients? The male
children of the Hebrews were indeed once ordered to be slain by
Pharaoh, but his edict was suggested by envy and by fear. How far
greater the inhumanity of our day than of his. How preferable, if
there be a choice in unrighteousness, their wrongs to ours. How much
better; if what is illegal can be called good or bad, though in truth
iniquity is always iniquity.
I am writing what is incredible, inhuman, awful, savage,
barbarous, pitiless, cruel. But in all this the votaries of the
Arian madness pranced, as it were, with proud exultation, while the
whole city was lamenting; for, as it is written in Exodus, "there
was not a house in which there was not one dead."
The men whose appetite for iniquity was never satisfied planned new
agitation. Ever wreaking their evil will in evil deeds, they darted
the peculiar venom of their iniquity at the bishops of the province,
using the aforesaid treasurer Magnus as the instrument of their
unrighteousness.
Some they delivered to the Senate, some they trapped at their good
pleasure, leaving no stone unturned in their anxiety to hunt in all
from every quarter to impiety, going about in all directions, and like
the devil, the proper father of heresy, they sought whom they might
devour.
In all, after many fruitless efforts, they drove into exile to
Dio-Caesarea, a city inhabited by Jews, murderers of the Lord,
eleven of the bishops of Egypt, all of them men who from childhood to
old age had lived an ascetic life in the desert, had subdued their
inclinations to pleasure by reason and by discipline, had fearlessly
preached the true faith of piety, had imbibed the pious doctrines, had
again and again won victory against demons, were ever putting the
adversary out of countenance by their virtue, and publicly posting the
Arian heresy by wisest argument. Yet like Hell, not satisfied with
the death of their brethren, fools and madmen as they were, eager to
win a reputation by their evil deeds, they tried to leave memorials in
all the world of their own cruelty. For lo now they roused the
imperial attention against certain clerics of the catholic church who
were living at Antioch, together with some excellent monks who came
forward to testify against their evil deeds. They got these men
banished to Neocaesarea in Pontus, where they were soon deprived of
life in consequence of the sterility of the country. Such tragedies
were enacted at this period, fit indeed to be consigned to silence and
oblivion, but given a place in history for the condemnation of the men
who wag their tongues against the Only begotten, and infected as they
were with the raving madness of blasphemy, strive not only to aim their
shafts at the Master of the universe, but further waged a truceless
war against His faithful servants.
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