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Defence of His Flight

St Athanasius, NPNF II.4

Chapter 1

I hear that Leontius¹, now at Antioch, and Narcissus² of the city of Nero, and George³, now at Laodicea, and the Arians who are with them, are spreading abroad many slanderous reports concerning me, charging me with cowardice, because forsooth, when I myself was sought by them, I did not surrender myself into their hands. Now as to their imputations and calumnies, although there are many things that I could write, which even they are unable to deny, and which all who have heard of their proceedings know to be true, yet I shall not be prevailed upon to make any reply to them, except only to remind them of the words of our Lord, and of the declaration of the Apostle, that ‘a lie is of the Devil,’ and that, ‘revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of God⁴.’ For it is sufficient thereby to prove, that neither their thoughts nor their words are according to the Gospel, but that after their own pleasure, whatsoever themselves desire, that they think to be good.

Notes

Leontius died in the summer of 357, probably before Ath. wrote.
De Syn. 17.
Apol. Ar. 48.
John viii. 44; 1 Cor. vi. 10.