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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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11 Pages
Page 4
3. The true nature of the proceedings at Ariminum.
This being pointed out, who will accept those who cite the synod of Ariminum, or any other, against the Nicene? or who could help hating men who set at nought their fathers' decisions, and put above them the newer ones, drawn up at Ariminum with contention and violence? or who would wish to agree with these men, who do not accept even their own? For in their own ten or more synods, as I said above, they wrote now one thing, now another, and so came out clearly as themselves the accusers of each one. Their case is not unlike that of the Jewish traitors in old times. For just as they left the one well of the living water, and hewed for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water, as the prophet Jeremiah has it [3718] , so these men, fighting against the one ecumenical synod, 'hewed for themselves' many synods, and all appeared empty, like 'a sheaf without strength [3719] .' Let us not then tolerate those who cite the Ariminian or any other synod against that of Nicaea. For even they who cite that of Ariminum appear not to know what was done there, for else they would have said nothing about it. For ye know, beloved, from those who went from you to Ariminum, how Ursacius and Valens, Eudoxius [3720] and Auxentius [3721] (and there Demophilus [3722] also was with them), were deposed, after wishing to write something to supersede the Nicene decisions. For on being requested to anathematise the Arian heresy, they refused, and preferred to be its ringleaders. So the bishops, like genuine servants of the Lord and orthodox believers (and there were nearly 200 [3723] ), wrote that they were satisfied with the Nicene alone, and desired and held nothing more or less than that. This they also reported to Constantius, who had ordered the assembling of the synod. But the men who had been deposed at Ariminum went off to Constantius, and caused those who had reported against them to be insulted, and threatened with not being allowed to return to their dioceses, and to be treated with violence in Thrace that very winter, to compel them to tolerate their innovations.
[3718] ii. 13.
[3719] Hos. viii. 7, LXX.
[3720] Eudoxius was at Seleucia, not at Ariminum.
[3721] See note on S:10 infr.
[3722] Bishop of Beroea in Macedonia Tertia, and from 370-380 successor of Eudoxius as Arian bishop of CP.
[3723] There were some 400 in all, so that the orthodox majority must have been far more than 200 (see de Syn. 8, 33). But Gwatkin (Stud. 170, note 3), inclines to accept the statement in the text.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/ad-afros-epistola-synodica.asp?pg=4
