St Athanasius the Great LETTERS, Part II, Complete

Translated by Cardinal Newman.

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Page 3

Letter XIII.--(For 341.) Coss. Marcellinus, Probinus; Praef. Longinus; Indict. xiv; Easter-day, xiii Kal. Maii, xxiv Pharmuthi; AEra Dioclet. 57.

Again, my beloved brethren, I am ready to notify to you the saving feast [4364] , which will take place according to annual custom. For although the opponents of Christ [4365] have oppressed you together with us with afflictions and sorrows; yet, God having comforted us by our mutual faith [4366] , behold, I write to you even from Rome. Keeping the feast here with the brethren, still I keep it with you also in will and in spirit, for we send up prayers in common to God, 'Who hath granted us not only to believe in Him, but also now to suffer for His sake [4367] .' For troubled as we are, because we are so far from you, He moves us to write, that by a letter we might comfort ourselves, and provoke one another to good [4368] . For, indeed, numerous afflictions and bitter persecutions directed against the Church have been against us. For heretics, corrupt in their mind, untried in the faith, rising against the truth, violently persecute the Church, and of the brethren, some are scourged and others torn with stripes, and hardest of all, their insults reach even to the Bishops. Nevertheless, it is not becoming, on this account, that we should neglect the feast. But we should especially remember it, and not at all forget its commemoration from time to time. Now the unbelievers do not consider that there is a season for feasts, because they spend all their lives in revelling and follies; and the feasts which they keep are an occasion of grief rather than of joy. But to us in this present life they are above all an uninterrupted passage [to heaven]--it is indeed our season. For such things as these serve for exercise and trial, so that, having approved ourselves zealous and chosen servants of Christ, we may be fellow-heirs with the saints [4369] . For thus Job: 'The whole world is a place of trial to men upon the earth [4370] .' Nevertheless, they are proved in this world by afflictions, labours, and sorrows, to the end that each one may receive of God such reward as is meet for him, as He saith by the prophet, 'I am the Lord, Who trieth the hearts, and searcheth the reins, to give to every one according to his ways [4371] .'

[4364] Vid. Letter x. 1.

[4365] The Arians (hoi christomachoi).

[4366] Cf. Rom. i. 12

[4367] Phil. i. 29.

[4368] Cf. Heb. x. 24

[4369] Cf. Col. i. 12

[4370] Job vii. 1. not LXX.

[4371] Jer. xvii. 10.

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