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| Retirement of Athanasius, and tyranny of Gregory and Philagrius.
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§5.
Retirement of Athanasius, and tyranny of Gregory and
Philagrius.
When all this was done, they did not stop even
here; but consulted how they might act the same part in the other
church463
| 463 [On the
difficulties of this part of the history, see Prolegg. ch. ii. §6
(1) ad fin., and ch. v. §3, c. It must be noted that according to
the following passage Ath. had left the ‘other church’
before Easter Day. It was probably that of ‘Quirinus,’
Hist. Ar. 10.] | , where I was mostly living during those days;
and they were eager to extend their fury to this church also, in order
that they might hunt out and dispatch me. And this would have been my
fate, had not the grace of Christ assisted me, if it were only that I
might escape to relate these few particulars concerning their conduct.
For seeing that they were exceedingly mad against me, and being anxious
that the church should not be injured, nor the virgins that were in it
suffer, nor additional murders be committed, nor the people again
outraged, I withdrew myself from among them, remembering the words of
our Saviour, ‘If they persecute you in this city, flee ye into
another464
.’ For I knew, from the evil they had
done against the first-named church, that they would forbear no outrage
against the other also. And there in fact they reverenced not even the
Lord’s day465
| 465 Easter
Day [Apr. 15]. | of the holy Feast,
but in that church also they imprisoned the persons who belonged to it,
at a time when the Lord delivered all from the bonds of death, whereas
Gregory and his associates, as if fighting against our Saviour, and
depending upon the patronage of the Governor, have turned into mourning
this day of liberty to the servants of Christ. The heathens were
rejoicing to do this, for they abhor that day; and Gregory perhaps did
but fulfil the commands of Eusebius and his fellows in forcing the
Christians to mourn under the infliction of bonds.
With these acts of violence has the Governor
seized upon the churches, and has given them up to Gregory and the
Arian madmen. Thus, those persons who were excommunicated by us for
their impiety, now glory in the plunder of our churches; while the
people of God, and the Clergy of the Catholic Church are compelled
either to have communion with the impiety of the Arian heretics, or
else to forbear entering into them. Moreover, by means of the Governor,
Gregory has exercised no small violence towards the captains of ships
and others who pass over sea, torturing and scourging some, putting
others in bonds, and casting them into prison, in order to oblige them
not to resist his iniquities, and to take letters466
from him. And not satisfied with all this, that he may glut himself
with our blood, he has caused his savage associate, the Governor, to
prefer an indictment against me, as in the name of the people, before
the most religious Emperor Constantius, which contains odious charges,
from which one may expect not only to be banished, but even ten
thousand deaths. The person who drew it up is an apostate from
Christianity, and a shameless worshipper of idols, and they who
subscribed it are heathens, and keepers of idol temples, and others of
them Arians. In short, not to make my letter tedious to you, a
persecution rages here, and such a persecution as was never before
raised against the Church. For in former instances a man at least might
pray while he fled from his persecutors, and be baptized while he lay
in concealment. But now their extreme cruelty has imitated the godless
conduct of the Babylonians. For as they falsely accused Daniel467
, so does the notable Gregory now accuse
before the Governor those who pray in their houses, and watches every
opportunity to insult their ministers, so that through his violent
conduct, many are endangered from missing baptism, and many who are in
sickness and sorrow have no one to visit them, a calamity which they
bitterly lament, accounting it worse than their sickness. For while the
ministers of the Church are under persecution, the people who condemn
the impiety of the Arian heretics choose rather thus to be sick and to
run the risk, than that a hand of the Arians should come upon their
heads.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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