St Athanasius the Great LETTERS, Part II, Complete

Translated by Cardinal Newman.

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Page 48

Letter LII.--First Letter to Monks [4641] . (Written 358-360).

1. To those in every place [4642] who are living a monastic life, who are established in the faith of God, and sanctified in Christ, and who say, 'Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed Thee [4643] ,' brethren dearly beloved and longed for, heartiest greeting in the Lord.

1. In compliance with your affectionate request, which you have frequently urged upon me, I have written a short account of the sufferings which ourselves and the Church have undergone, refuting, according to my ability, the accursed heresy of the Arian madmen, and proving how entirely it is alien from the Truth. And I thought it needful to represent to your Piety what pains the writing of these things has cost me, in order that you may understand thereby how truly the blessed Apostle has said, 'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God [4644] ;' and may kindly bear with a weak man such as I am by nature. For the more I desired to write, and endeavoured to force myself to understand the Divinity of the Word, so much the more did the knowledge thereof withdraw itself from me; and in proportion as I thought that I apprehended it, in so much I perceived myself to fail of doing so. Moreover also I was unable to express in writing even what I seemed to myself to understand; and that which I wrote was unequal to the imperfect shadow of the truth which existed in my conception.

[4641] This beautiful and striking Letter (Migne xxv. 691) formed the introduction to a work, which the Author, as he says in the course of it, thought unworthy of being preserved for posterity. Some critics have supposed it to be the Orations against the Arians; but this opinion can hardly be maintained (supr. p. 267). The Epistle was written in 358, or later, before the Epistle to Serapion. On its relation to the 'Arian History,' see above, pp. 267, 268.

[4642] This appears inconsistent with the directions below, S:3 (note 3). The heading is, therefore, of doubtful genuineness.

[4643] Matt. xix. 27.

[4644] Rom. xi. 33.

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