[S. ATHANASIUS — DUBIA]
it is said to fight, not indeed as something immobile or inanimate. For a natural movement of affections is implanted in it, by which it is named "flesh," as A he interpreted it even more clearly in the Epistle to the Romans, explaining the movement that is in the flesh, warring against the mind and suffering in opposition, as it is naturally not the same as the mind, but something entirely different from it: "For I delight," he says, "in the law of God according to the inner man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." This will, or soul, Paul properly called by this name, distinguishing it from the spirit, when he says: "May God sanctify you wholly, and may your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." In these words, while explaining the spirit, soul, and body as the whole man, and praying that he be sanctified and preserved without blame, he therefore designated the spirit, which was to be sanctified, that is, the human mind. Then he calls the soul the faculty of desiring, and the body the earthly tabernacle; so that according to this distinction, the earth-born man consists of three: the intelligible, the concupiscible, and the corporeal. The will, furthermore, or soul, which is the concupiscible faculty, is united both to the mind and to the human body. Therefore, when the power of understanding grows strong, the whole man becomes intellectual, although he is entangled in carnal desires, according to the manifest dissension and battle that is in man—the rational faculty with the irrational—not indeed as the one dominating, but as the one suffering domination. But the mind is called principal, C inasmuch as it is the prince and leader of the animal body. Therefore man, according to the principality of the mind, is a partaker of divinity, since he is an intellectual animal; and for this reason he says: "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit."
ADMONITION ON THE CATHOLIC EPISTLE
This Epistle is not found in the ancient collections of the works of Athanasius, and we doubt whether it is a genuine work of Athanasius; for some modes of expression are found here that are not used in the true works of Athanasius, although the occasion to use them presented itself to him six hundred times; for example, the style is also more relaxed than that of Athanasius. In the title even, certain signs occur: the word *vox* [written in Greek in the original] is never used by Athanasius, who is accustomed everywhere to call fellow-bishops *sulleitourgoi* [co-ministers]. Likewise, the names of provinces are fewer than those that are usually inserted into a Catholic Epistle that is encyclical. Furthermore, Athanasius is accustomed to narrate events in his epistles more fully and clearly than they are set forth here. For this reason, it has seemed best to relegate it among the doubtful works.
CATHOLIC EPISTLE OF OUR HOLY FATHER ATHANASIUS
A To all the brethren in every place who contend for the faith and salvation, and to the orthodox bishops in Egypt, Syria, Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Arabia, Athanasius and the fellow-bishops send greeting in the Lord.
As many of you as see impiety raising itself against piety, through manifest empty words, and through deceitful pretenses, and dissensions, and unseemly disturbances, and blows, and wounds, and murders, you ought to flee, as if from a tempest to a harbor, and seek to save yourselves; neither mingling with the impiety of those who deny the one and true divinity of the holy Trinity, and alienate the Son from the Father, and separate the Spirit from the Son, nor mixing in their confusions and bloodguiltiness. For so do we also seek to save ourselves and those who obey us, and for a long time now we have been refuting the manifest impiety of Arius and the hypocrisy of them who seduce the simpler ones with fabricated phrases; and we separate ourselves from all their disorder, mourning for what they do, because they cause the good name to be blasphemed, and we desire that the law of faith and of seemly conduct may be preserved in us and in those with us. B Therefore we exhort you also, as many of you as have already made the same stand, and as many as have not yet risen up to this zeal. Or have you not perceived how through these things Christianity is being destroyed, and how the devil, under a deceitful guise, is warring against the Church and sinking her like a ship? But if you also wish to write to us and communicate concerning such things, we shall gladly receive your unanimity and harmony, brethren, and your communion of prayers, even if we are separated in place; making known to you that, even if the contagion of this corruption has now for a long time been spreading, yet still it remains in the greatest part of the peoples, and in the greatest part of the bishops, that the good of the apostolic faith is preserved; even though some hold the people by force and with other phrases C for the sake of the glory, and what they really think they hide, and what they do not think they profess to believe.