The Conclusion of the Epistle of the Bishops.

After receiving and perusing this epistle, he neither wrote any reply nor repaired to them in the prison, nor went to the blessed Peter. But when all these bishops and presbyters and deacons had suffered martyrdom in the prison at Alexandria, he at once entered Alexandria. Now in that city there was a certain person, by name Isidorus, turbulent in character, and possessed with the ambition of being a teacher. And there was also a certain Arius, who wore the habit of piety, and was in like manner possessed with the ambition to be a teacher. And when they discovered the object of Meletius’s passion30 τῆς ἐπαράτου ἐλευθέρίας. Cupiditatem. and what it was that he sought, hastening to him, and looking with an evil eye on the episcopal authority of the blessed Peter, that the aim and desire of Meletius might be made patent,31 [It is impossible to accept modern theories of the inconsiderable number of the primitive martyrs, in view of the abounding evidences of a chronic and continuous persecution always evidenced by even these fragments of authentic history. See vol. iv. p. 125.] Ut cogniscatur concupiscentia Meletii. they discovered to Meletius certain presbyters, then in hiding, to whom the blessed Peter had given power to act as parish-visitors. And Meletius recommending them to improve the opportunity given them for rectifying their error, suspended them for the time, and by his own authority ordained two persons in their place,32 Exod. xxii. 20. The text is—Commendans ei occasionem Meletius, separavit eos, &c.; on which see especially Neander, iii. p. 311 (Bohn). namely, one in prison and another in the mines. On learning these things the blessed Peter, with much endurance, wrote to the people of Alexandria an epistle in the following terms.33 Exod. xx. 3. This epistle is given elsewhere. [This volume, infra.]