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| Athanasius and Paul going to Rome, and having obtained Letters from Bishop Julius, recover their respective Dioceses.
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Chapter XV.—Athanasius and Paul285
| 285Julius, in his letter to the Eastern bishops (Ep.
I. adv. Eusebianos, 4 and 5), mentions Athanasius and Marcellus,
ex-bishop of Ancyra, as with him at this time, but does not allude to
Paul; from which it has been inferred that Socrates is in error here in
setting the date of Paul’s visit to Rome at this time, as
otherwise Julius would have named him also with Athanasius and
Marcellus. Sozomen, as usual, copies the mistake of Socrates; cf.
Sozom. III. 15.
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going to Rome, and having obtained Letters from Bishop Julius,
recover their respective Dioceses.
Athanasius, meanwhile, after a
lengthened journey, at last reached Italy. The western division of the
empire was then under the sole power of Constans, the youngest of
Constantine’s sons, his brother Constantine having been slain by
the soldiers, as was before stated. At the same time also Paul, bishop
of Constantinople, Asclepas of Gaza, Marcellus of Ancyra, a city of the
Lesser Galatia, and Lucius of Adrianople, having been accused on
various charges, and expelled from their several churches arrived at
the imperial city. There each laid his case before Julius, bishop of
Rome. He on his part, by virtue of the Church of Rome’s peculiar
privilege, sent them back again into the East, fortifying them with
commendatory letters; and at the same time restored to each his own
place, and sharply rebuked those by whom they had been deposed. Relying
on the signature of the bishop Julius, the bishops departed from Rome,
and again took possession of their own churches, forwarding the letters
to the parties to whom they were addressed. These persons considering
themselves treated with indignity by the reproaches of Julius, called a
council at Antioch, assembled themselves and dictated a reply to his
letters as the expression of the unanimous feeling of the whole
Synod.286
| 286It appears from this that there was no recognition
of any special prerogative or right belonging to the bishop of Rome as
yet. The position of that bishop during these agitations in the Eastern
church, when the Western church was in comparative peace, seems to be
that of an arbitrator voluntarily invoked, rather than of an official
judge. Cf. Neander, Hist. of the Christ. Church, Vol. II. p.
171, 172.
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It was not his province, they said, to take cognizance of their
decisions in reference to any whom they might wish to expel from their
churches; seeing that they had not opposed themselves to him, when
Novatus was ejected from the church. These things the bishops of the
Eastern church communicated to Julius, bishop of Rome. But, as on the
entry of Athanasius into Alexandria, a tumult was raised by the
partisans of George the Arian, in consequence of which, it is affirmed,
many persons were killed; and since the Arians endeavor to throw the
whole odium of this transaction on Athanasius as the author of it, it
behooves us to make a few remarks on the subject. God the Judge of all
only knows the true causes of these disorders; but no one of any
experience can be ignorant of the fact, that such fatal accidents are
for the most part concomitants of the factious movements of the
populace. It is vain, therefore, for the calumniators of Athanasius to
attribute the blame to him; and especially Sabinus,287
| 287i.e. in his Collection of Synodical
Transactions, mentioned in chap. 17.
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bishop of the Macedonian heresy. For had the latter reflected on the
number and magnitude of the wrongs which Athanasius, in conjunction
with the rest who hold the doctrine of consubstantiality, had suffered
from the Arians, or on the many complaints made of these things by the
Synods convened on account of Athanasius, or in short on what that
arch-heretic Macedonius himself has done throughout all the churches,
he would either have been wholly silent, or if constrained to speak,
would have spoken more plausible words, instead of these reproaches.
But as it is intentionally overlooking all these things, he willfully
misrepresents the facts. He makes, however, no mention whatever of the
heresiarch, desiring by all means to conceal the daring enormities of
which he knew him to be guilty. And what is still more extraordinary,
he has not said one word to the disadvantage of the Arians, although he
was far from entertaining their sentiments. The ordination of
Macedonius, whose heretical views he had adopted, he has also passed
over in silence; for had he mentioned it, he must necessarily have
recorded his impieties also, which were most distinctly manifested on
that occasion. Let this suffice on this subject.
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