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| Narrative of events at Alexandria in the time of Lucius the Arian, taken from a letter of Petrus, Bishop of Alexandria.
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Chapter XIX.—Narrative of events
at Alexandria in the time of Lucius the Arian, taken from a letter of
Petrus, Bishop of Alexandria.
Palladius governor of the province, by sect a heathen,732
| 732 ἐθνικός,
“foreigner” a “gentile.” Another common term
for “heathen” in ecclesiastical Greek is ῞Ελλην, but
neither “Gentile” nor “Greek” expresses the
required sense so well as “Heathen,” which, like the
cognate “Pagan,” simply denotes a countryman and villager,
and marks the age when Christianity was found to be mainly in
towns. | 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 Theonas733
| 733 Vide note on page 120. | 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.”734
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,735
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,736
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,737
| 737 I
adopt the reading στιβῇ for
στίμμι.
cf. Ez. xxiii. 40
(Sept.). ἐστίβιζον
τοῦς
ὀφθαλμόυς
σου | 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.738
| 738 cf. Greg. Naz. Orat. xxv. 12. p. 464 Ed. Migne. | In this state of things when even I
had withdrawn from the church739
—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.740
No synod of
orthodox bishops had chosen him;741
| 741 On
the subject of episcopal election, vide Dict. Christ. Biog. iv.
335. | 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 Nicæa, and more recently raised to rule and ravage
the see of Antioch, and there, too, was Magnus the treasurer,742
| 742 ὀ τῶν
κομητατησίων
δὲ
λαργιτιόνων
κόμης. Valesius says,
“thesauri principis, qui vulgo sacræ largitiones dicebantur,
alii erant per singulas diœceses quibus prœerant comites.
Alii erant in comitatu una cum principe, qui comitatenses largitiones
dicebantur. His præerat comes largitionum
comitatensium.” | 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,743
| 743 Beyrout, between the ancient Byblus and Sidon. Near here St.
George killed the dragon, according to the legend. Our patron
saint’s dragon does not seem to have been, as may possibly have
been the case in some similar stories, a surviving Saurian, but simply
a materialization of some picture of George vanquishing the old dragon,
the Devil. | the famous city of
Phœnicia; 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 of 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.”744
| 744 Ps. xiv. 1. The Sept.
reads Εἶπεν
ἄφρων ἐν
καρδία αὐτοῦ
οὐκ ἔστι
Θεός, which admits of the
translation “He is not 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 handed 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 do 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 Nicæa, 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 their 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,745
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 Phœnician Heliopolis,746
| 746 In
Cœle-Syria, near the sources of the Orontes, where the ruins of
the temple of the sun built by Antoninus Pius are known by the modern
equivalent of the older title—Baal-Bek, “the city of the
sun.” | 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 he had delivered his
sentence against them in the neighbourhood of the public baths. He
showed them his sword unsheathed, thinking that he could 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.”747
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,”748
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 and 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,749
| 749 Here the obvious sense of δεισιδαιμονῶν
matches the “superstitious” of A.V.
in Acts xvii. 22 | 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 Phennesus750
| 750 Valesius identifies Phennesus with Phynon in Arabia Petræa,
now Tafileh. | and Proconnesus.751
| 751 The
island of Marmara in the sea of that name. |
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.752
| 752 The
Roman “Flagellum” was a frightful instrument of torture,
and is distinguished from the “scutica,” or whip, and
“virga,” or rod. It was knotted with bones and bits of
metal, and sometimes ended in a hook. Horace (Sat. I. iii. 119) calls
it “horribile.” | 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.753
| 753 cf.
Soph. Ant. 30, Where the corpse of Polyneikes is described as
left
——“unwept
unsepulchred
A prize full rich for
birds.” (Plumptre.)
Christian sentiment is still
affected by the horror felt by the Greeks at deprivation of the rites
of burial which finds striking expression in the dispute between Teucer
and Menelaos about the burial of Ajax. | 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.”754
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.755
In all, after many fruitless
efforts, they drove into exile to Dio-Cæsarea,756
| 756 Now
Sefurieh, anciently Sepphoris; an unimportant place till erected by
Herod Antipas into the capital of Galilee. | 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,757
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
Neocæsarea758
| 758 Now Niksar, on the river Lykus, the scene of two councils; (i.)
a.d. 315, when the first canon ordered every
priest to forfeit his orders on marriage (Mansi ii. 539) (ii.) a.d. 350, when Eustathius of Sebaste was condemned
(Mansi, iii. 291). | 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.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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