§7. The Golden Decade, 346–356.

§7. The Golden Decade, 346–356.

According to the Apology of Athanasius, all this took place some time before the council of Tyre; we cannot fix the date, except that it must have come after the Easter of 332 (see above). It appears most natural, from the language of Apol. Ar. 71, to fix the exposure of Arsenius not very long before the summoning of the council of Tyre, but long enough to allow for the renewed intrigues which led to its being convened. But this pushes us back behind the intended council of Caesarea in 334; we seem therefore compelled to keep Arsenius waiting at Tyre from about 333 to the summer of 335.

It must be remembered that the Council of Tyre was merely a parergon to the great Dedication Meeting at Jerusalem, which was to celebrate the Tricennalia of Constantine’s reign by consecrating his grand church on Mount Calvary. On their way to Jerusalem the bishops were to despatch at Tyre their business of quieting the Egyptian troubles (Eus. V. C. iv. 41). To Tyre accordingly Athanasius repaired. He left Alexandria on July 11, 335, and was absent, as it proved (according to the reckoning of the Hist. Aceph., below, p. 496), two years, four months and eleven days.

§5. The Council of Tyre and First Exile Af Athanasius, 335–337.

Many of the bishops who were making their way to the great festival met at Tyre. The Arian element was very strong. Eusebius of Nicomedia, Narcissus, Maris, Theognis, Patrophilus, George, now bishop of Laodicea, are all familiar names. Ursacius and Valens, ‘young both in years and in mind’ make their first entrance on the stage of ecclesiastical intrigue; Eusebius of Caesarea headed a large body of ‘conservative‘ malcontents: in the total number of perhaps 150, the friends of Athanasius were outnumbered by nearly two to one. (See Gwatkin’s note, p 85, Hefele ii. 17, Eng Tra.) Eusebius of Caesarea took the chair (yet see D.C.B. ii. 316). The proceedings of the Council were heated and disorderly; promiscuous accusations were flung from side to side; the president himself was charged by an excited Egyptian Confessor with having sacrificed to idols (p. 104, n. 2), while against Athanasius every possible charge was raked up. The principal one was that of harshness and violence. Callinicus, bishop of Pelusium, according to a later story , had taken up the cause of Ischyras, and been deposed by Athanasius in consequence. A certain Mark had been appointed to supersede him, and he had been subjected to military force. Certain Meletian bishops who had refused to communicate with Athanasius on account of his irregular election, had been beaten and imprisoned. A document from Alexandria testified that the Churches were emptied on account of the strong popular feeling against these proceedings. The number of witnesses, and the evident readiness of the majority of bishops to believe the worst against him, inspired Athanasius with profound misgivings as to his chance of obtaining justice. He had in vain objected to certain bishops as biassed judges; when it was decided to investigate the case of Ischyras on the spot, the commission of six was chosen from among the very persons challenged (p. 138). Equally unsuccessful was the protest of the Egyptian bishops against the credit of the Meletian witnesses (p. 140). But on one point the accusers walked into a trap. The ‘hand of Arsenius’ was produced, and naturally made a deep impression (Thdt. H.E. i. 30). But Athanasius was ready. ‘Did you know Arsenius personally?’ ‘Yes’ is the eager reply from many sides. Promptly Arsenius is ushered in alive, wrapped up in a cloak. The Synod expected an explanation of the way he had lost his hand. Athanasius turned up his cloak and shewed that one hand at least was there. There was a moment of suspense, artfully managed by Athanasius. Then the other hand was exposed, and the accusers were requested to point out whence the third had been cut off (Socr. i. 29). This was too much for John Arcaph, who precipitately fled (so Socr., he seems to have gone to Egypt with the couriers mentioned below, cf. p. 142). But the Eusebians were made of sterner stuff: the whole affair was a piece of magic; or there had been an attempt to murder Arsenius, who had hid himself from fear. At any rate Athanasius must not be allowed to clear himself so easily. Accordingly, in order partly to gain time and partly to get up a more satisfactory case, they prevailed on Count Dionysius, in the face of strong remonstrances from Athanasius (p. 138), to despatch a commission of enquiry to the Mareotis in order to ascertain the real facts about Ischyras. The nature of the commission may be inferred, firstly, from its composition, four strong Arians and two (Theodore of Heraclea, and Macedonius of Mopsuestia) reactionaries; secondly, from the fact that they took Ischyras with them, but left Macarius behind in custody; thirdly, from the fact that couriers were sent to Egypt with four days‘ start, and with an urgent message to the Meletians to collect at once in as large numbers as possible at Irene, so as to impress the commissioners with the importance of the Meletian community at that place. The Egyptian bishops present at Tyre handed in strongly-worded protests to the Council, and to Count Dionysius, who received also a weighty remonstrance from the respected Alexander, Bishop of Thessalonica. This drew forth from him an energetic protest to the Eusebians (p. 142 sq.) against the composition of the commission. His protest was not, however, enforced in any practical way, and the Egyptians thereupon appealed to the Emperor (ib.). Athanasius himself escaped in an open boat with four of his bishops, and found his way to Constantinople, where he arrived on October 30. The Emperor was out riding when he was accosted by one of a group of pedestrians. He could scarcely credit his eyes and the assurance of his attendants that the stranger was none other than the culprit of Tyre. Much annoyed at his appearance, he refused all communication; but the persistency of Athanasius and the reasonableness of his demand prevailed. The Emperor wrote to Jerusalem to summon to his presence all who had been at the Council of Tyre (pp. 105, 145).

Meanwhile the Mareotic Commission had proceeded with its task. Their report was kept secret, but eventually sent to Julius of Rome, who handed it over to Athanasius in 339 (p. 143). Their enquiry was carried on with the aid of Philagrius the prefect, a strong Arian sympathiser, whose guard pricked the witnesses if they failed to respond to the hints of the commissioners and the threats of the prefect himself. The clergy of Alexandria and the Mareotis were excluded from the court, and catechumens, Jews and heathen, none of whom could properly have been present on the occasion, were examined as to the interruption of the eucharistic service by Macarius (p. 119). Even with these precautions the evidence was not all that could be wished. To begin with, it had all taken place on an ordinary week-day, when there would be no Communion (pp. 115, 125, 143); secondly, when Macarius came in Ischyras was in bed; thirdly, certain witnesses whom Athanasius had been accused of secreting came forward in evidence of the contrary (p. 107). The prefect consoled himself by letting loose the violence of the heathen mob (p. 108) against the ‘virgins’ of the Church. The catholic party were helpless; all they could do was to protest in writing to the commission, the council, and the prefect (pp. 138–140. The latter protest is dated 10th of Thoth, i.e. Sep. 8, 335, Diocletian leap-year).

The commission returned to Tyre, where the council passed a resolution (Soz. ii. 25) deposing Athanasius. They then proceeded to Jerusalem for the Dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Here Arius with certain others (probably including Euzoius) was received to communion on the strength of the confession of faith he had presented to Constantine a few years before, and the assembled bishops drew up a synodal letter announcing the fact to Egypt and the Church at large (pp. 144, 460). At this juncture the summons from Constantine arrived. The terms of it shewed that the Emperor was not disposed to hear more of the broken chalice or the murdered Arsenius: but the Eusebians were not at a loss. They advised the bishops to go quietly to their homes, while five of the inner circle, accompanied by Eusebius of Caesarea, who had a panegyric to deliver in the imperial presence, responded to the summons of royalty. They made short work of Athanasius. The whole farrago of charges examined at Tyre was thrown aside. He had threatened to starve the panendaimwn patriz, the chosen capital of Constantine, by stopping the grain ships which regularly left Alexandria every autumn. It was in vain for Athanasius to protest that he had neither the means nor the power to do anything of the kind. ‘You are a rich man,’ replied Eusebius of Nicomedia, ‘and can do whatever you like.’ The Emperor was touched in a sore place . He promptly ordered the banishment of Athanasius to Treveri, whither he started, as it would seem, on Feb. 5, 336 (pp. 105, 146, 503, note 11). The friends of Athanasius professed to regard the banishment as an act of imperial clemency, in view of what might have been treated as a capital matter, involving as it did the charge of treason (p. 105); and Constantine II., immediately after his father’s death, stated (pp. 146, 272, 288) in a letter (written before he became Augustus in Sept. 337) that he had been sent to Treveri merely to keep him out of danger, and that Constantine had been prevented only by death from carrying out his intention of restoring him. These charitable constructions need not be rudely ignored; but in all probability the anxiety to be rid of a cause of disturbance was at least one motive with the peace-loving Emperor. At any rate the Eusebians could not obtain the imperial sanction to their proposed election of a successor (Pistus ?) to Athanasius. On his return after the death of Constantine he found his see waiting for him unoccupied (Apol. c. Ar. 29, p. 115).

The close of the Tricennalia was made the occasion of a council at Constantinople (winter 335–336). Marcellus was deposed for heresy and Basil nominated to the see of Ancyra, Eusebius of Caesarea undertaking to refute the ‘new Samosatene.’ Other minor depositions were apparently carried out at the same time, and several Western bishops, including Protogenes of Sardica, had reason later on to repent of their signatures to the proceedings (Hil. Fragm. iii.).

Death of Arius. From Jerusalem Arius had gone to Alexandria, but (Soz. ii. 29) had not succeeded in obtaining admission to the Communion of the Church there. Accordingly he repaired to the capital about the time of the Council just mentioned. The Eusebians resolved that here at any rate he should not be repelled. Arius appeared before the Emperor and satisfied him by a sworn profession of orthodoxy, and a day was fixed for his reception to communion. The story of the distress caused to the aged bishop Alexander is well known. He was heard to pray in the church that either Arius or himself might be taken away before such an outrage to the faith should be permitted. As a matter of fact Arius died suddenly the day before his intended reception. His friends ascribed his death to magic, those of Alexander to the judgment of God, the public generally to the effect of excitement on a diseased heart (Soz. 1. c.). Athanasius, while taking the second view, describes the occurrence with becoming sobriety and reserve (pp. 233, 565). Alexander himself died very soon after, and Paul was elected in his place (D.C.B. art. Macedonius (2)), but was soon banished on some unknown charge, whereupon Eusebius of Nicomedia was translated to the capital see (between 336 and 340; date uncertain. Cf. D.C.B. ii. 367a).

Of the sojourn of Athanasius at Treveri, the noble home of the Emperors on the banks of the Mosel, we know few details, but his presence there appeals to the historic imagination. (See D.C.B. i. 186a.) He cannot have been there much above a year. He kept the Easter festival, probably of 336, certainly of 337, in the still unfinished Church (p. 244: the present Cathedral is said to occupy the site of what was then an Imperial palace: but the main palace is apparently represented by the ‘Roman baths).’ He was not suffered to want (p. 146): he had certain Egyptian brethren with him; and found a sympathetic friend in the good Bishop Maximinus (cf. p. 239). The tenth festal letter, §1, preserves a short extract from a letter written from Trier to his clergy.

Constantine died at Nicomedia, having previously received baptism from the hands of Eusebius, on Whit-Sunday, May 22, 337. None of his sons were present, and the will is said to have been entrusted to the Arian chaplain mentioned above (p. xxxiv). Couriers carried the news to the three Caeesars, and at a very moderate rate of reckoning, it may have been known at Trier by about June 4. Constantine, as the eldest son, probably expected more from his father’s will than he actually obtained. At any rate, on June 17 he wrote a letter to the people and clergy of Alexandria, announcing the restoration of their bishop in pursuance of an intention of his father’s, which only death had cut short. Constantius meanwhile hastened (from the East, probably Antioch) to Constantinople (D.C.B.i. 651): he too had expectations, for he was his father’s favourite. The brothers met at Sirmium, and agreed upon a division of the Empire, Constantius taking the East, Constans Italy and Illyricum, and Constantine the Gauls and Africa. On Sep. 9 they formally assumed the title Augustus . Athanasius had apparently accompanied Constantine to Sirmium, and on his way eastward met Constantius at Viminacium (p. 240), his first interview with his future persecutor. He presently reached Constantinople (p. 272), and on his way southward, at Caesarea in Cappadocia, again met Constantius, who was hurrying to the Persian frontier. On Nov. 23 he reached Alexandria amid great rejoicings (pp. 104, 503, Fest. Ind. x.), the clergy especially ‘esteeming that the happiest day of their lives.’ But the happiness was marred by tumults (Soz. ii. 2, 5, Hil. Fragm. iii. 8, Fest. Ind. xi., next year ‘again’), which were, however, checked by the civil power, the prefect Theodorus being, apparently, favourable to Athanasius (pp. 102, 527, note 2). The festal letter for 338 would seem to have been finished at Alexandria, but the point is not absolutely clear. Here begins his second period of ‘quiet,’ of one year, four months and twenty-four days, i.e., from Athyr 27 (Nov. 23), 337, to Pharmuthi 21 (April 16), 339.

§6. Renewal of Troubles. Second Exile. Pistus and Gregory, Culmination of Eusebian Intrigue. Rome and Sardica. (337–346).

(1). The stay of Athanasius at Alexandria was brief and troubled. The city was still disturbed by Arian malcontents, who had the sympathy of Jews and Pagans, and it was reported that the monks, and especially the famous hermit Antony, were on their side. This impression, however, was dissipated by the appearance of the great Ascetic himself, who, at the urgent request of the orthodox (pp. 214 sq., 503), consented to shew himself for two days in the uncongenial atmosphere of the city. The mystery and marvellous reputation, which even then surrounded this much-talked-of character, attracted Christians and heathen alike, in large numbers, to hear and see him, and, if possible, to derive some physical benefit from his touch. He denounced Arianism as the worst of heresies, and was solemnly escorted out of town by the bishop in person. As an annalist toward the close of the century tells us, ‘Antony, the great leader, came to Alexandria, and though he remained there only two days, shewed himself wonderful in many things, and healed many. He departed on the third of Messori’ (i.e., July 27, 338).

Meanwhile the Eusebians were busy. In the new Emperor Constantius, the Nicomedian found a willing patron: probably his translation to the See of Constantinople falls at this time. It was represented to the Emperor that the restoration of the exiled Bishops in 337, and especially that of Athanasius, was against all ecclesiastical order. Men deposed by a Synod of the Church had presumed to return to their sees under the sanction of the secular authority. This was technically true, but the proceedings at Tyre were regarded by Athan. as depriving that Synod of any title to ecclesiastical authority (pp. 104, 271). It is impossible to accept au pied. de la lettre the protests on either side against state interference with the Church: both parties were willing to use it on their own side, and to protest against its use by their opponents. Constantine had summoned the Council of Nicaea, had (Soz. i. 17) fixed the order of its proceedings, and had enforced its decisions by civil penalties. The indignant rhetoric of Hist. Ar. 52 (p. 289) might mutatis nominibus have been word for word the remonstrance of a Secundus or Theonas against the great Ecumenical Synod of Christendom. At Tyre, Jerusalem, and CP., the Eusebians had their turn, and again at Antioch, 338–341. The Council of Sardica relied on the protection of Constans, that of Philippopolis on Constantius. The reign of the latter was the period of Arian triumph; that of Theodosius secured authority to the Catholics. The only consistent opponents of civil intervention in Church affairs were the Donatists in the West and the Eunomians or later Arians in the East (with the obscure exception of Secundus and Theonas, the original Arians cannot claim the compliment paid by Fialon, p. 115, to their independence). To the Donatists is due the classical protest against Erastianism, ‘Quid Imperatori cum ecclesia’(D. C. B. i. 652). Believing, as the present writer does, that the Donatist protest expresses a true principle, and that the subjection of religion to the State is equally mischievous with that of the State to the Church, it is impossible not to regret these consequences of the conversion of Constantine. But allowance must be made for the sanguine expectations with which the astonishing novelty of a Christian Emperor filled men’s minds. It was only as men came to realise that the civil sword might be drawn in support of heresy that they began to reflect on the impropriety of allowing to even a Christian Emperor a voice in Church councils. Athanasius was the first to grasp this clearly. The voice of protest sounds in the letter of the Egyptian Synod of 338–9; throughout his exiles he steadily regarded himself, and was regarded by his flock, as the sole rightful Bishop of Alexandria, and continued to issue his Easter Letters from first to last. At the same time, it must be admitted that if he was right in returning to Alexandria in 337 without restoration by a Synod, he could not logically object to the return of Eusebius and Theognis (p. 104), who had not been deposed at Nicaea, but banished by the Emperor. The technical rights of Chrestus and Amphion (l. c.) were no better than those of Gregory or George. The spiritual elevation of Athanasius over the head and shoulders of his opponents is plain to ourselves; we see clearly the moral contrast between the councils of Rome and Antioch (340–41), of Sardica and Philippopolis (343), of Alexandria (362) and Seleucia (359). But to men like the Eastern ‘conservatives’ the technical point of view necessarily presented itself with great force, and in judging of their conduct we must not assume that it was either meaningless diabolism or deliberate sympathy with Arianism that led so many bishops of good character to see in Athanasius and the other exiles contumacious offenders against Church order. (I am quite unable to accept M. Fialon’s sweeping verdict upon the majority of Oriental bishops as ‘weak, vicious, more devoted to their own interests than to the Church,’ &c., p. 116. He takes as literally exact the somewhat turgid rhetorical complaints of Greg. Naz.)

But the Eusebians were not limited to technical complaints. They had stirring accounts to give of the disorders which the return of Athanasius had excited, of the ruthless severity with which they had been put down by the prefect, who was, it was probably added, a mere tool in the hands of the bishop. Accordingly in the course of 338 the subservient Theodorus was recalled, and Philagrius the Cappadocian, who had governed with immense popularity in 335–337 (Fest. Ind. and p. 107 sq.), was sent to fill the office a second time. This was regarded at Alexandria as an Arian triumph (see p. 527, note 2). His arrival did not tend to allay the disorders. Old charges against Athanasius were raked up, and a new one added, namely that of embezzlement of the corn appropriated to the support of widows by the imperial bounty. The Emperor appears to have sent a letter of complaint to Athanasius (p. 273), but to have paid little attention to his defence. The Eusebians now ventured to send a bishop of their own to Alexandria in the person of Pistus, one of the original Arian presbyters, who was consecrated by the implacable Secundus. The date of this proceeding is obscure, probably it was conducted in an irregular manner, so as to render it possible to ignore it altogether if, as proved to be the case, a stronger candidate should be necessary. First, however, it was necessary to try the temper of the West. A deputation consisting of a presbyter Macarius and two deacons, Martyrius and Hesychius, was sent to Julius, bishop of Rome, to lay before him the enormities of Athanasius, Marcellus, Paul, Asclepas and the rest, and to urge the superior title of Pistus to the recognition of the Church. But upon hearing of this Athanasius summoned the Egyptian Episcopate together (winter 338–339), and composed a circular letter (pp. 101–110) dealing fully with the charges against him, especially with regard to the manner of his election and the irregularity of his return a year before. Two presbyters carried the letter in haste to Rome, and enlightened the Church there as to the antecedents of Pistus. Next day it was announced that Macarius, ‘in spite of a bodily ailment,’ had decamped in the night. The deacons however remained, and requested Julius to call a council, undertaking that if Athanasius and the Eusebians were confronted all the charges brought by the latter should be made good. This proposal seemed unobjectionable, and Julius wrote inviting all parties to a council at Rome, or some other place to be agreed upon (p. 272); his messengers to the Eusebians were the Roman presbyters Elpidius and Philoxenus , (p. 111). The council was fixed for the following summer (so it would seem); but no reply was received from the Eusebians, who kept the presbyters in the East until the following January, when they at length started for Rome bearing a querulous and somewhat shifty reply (answered by Julius, p. 111, sqq.). But before the invitation had reached the Eusebians they had assembled at Antioch, where Constantius was in residence for the winter (laws dated Dec. 27; the court thereon January ? p. 92), repeated the deposition of Athanasius, and appointed Gregory, a Cappadocian, to succeed him. It had become clear that Pistus was a bad candidate; perhaps no formal synod could be induced to commit themselves to a man excommunicated at Nicaea and consecrated by Secundus. At any rate they tried to find an unexceptionable nominee. But their first, Eusebius, afterwards bishop of Emesa, refused the post, and so they came to Gregory , a former student of Alexandria, and under personal obligations to its bishop (Greg. Naz. Or. xxi. 15).

All was now ready for the blow at Athanasius. It fell in Lent (pp. 94, 503). His position since the arrival of Philagrius had been one of unrest. ‘In this year again,’ says our annalist, ‘there were many tumults. On the xxii Phamenoth (i.e. Sunday, Mar. 18, 339) he was sought after by his persecutors in the night. On the next morning he fled from the Church of Theonas after he had baptized many. Then on the fourth day (Mar. 22) Gregory the Cappadocian entered the city as bishop’ (Fest. Ind. xi.). But Athanasius (p. 95), remained quietly in the town for about four weeks more . He drew up for circulation ‘throughout the tribes’ (cf. Judges xix. 29) a memorandum and appeal, describing the intrusion of Gregory and the gross outrages which had accompanied it. This letter was written on or just after Easter Day (April 15), and immediately after this he escaped from Alexandria and made his way to Rome. The data as to the duration of the periods of ‘quiet’ and exile fix the date of his departure for Easter Monday, April 16. This absence from Alexandria was his longest, lasting ‘ninety months and three days,’ i.e. from Pharmuthi 21 (April 16) 339 to Paophi 24 (October 21), 346.

(2.) The Second Exile of Athanasius falls into two sections, the first of four years (p. 239), to the council of Sardica (339–343), the second of three years, to his return in Oct. 346. The odd six months cannot be distributed with certainty unless we can arrive at a more exact result than at present appears attainable for the month and duration of the Sardican synod.

In May, 339, Athanasius, accompanied by a few of his clergy (story of the ‘detachment’ of his monk Ammonius in Socr. iv. 23, sub fin.), arrived at Rome. He was within three months followed by Marcellus, Paul of CP., Asclepas, and other exiles who had been restored at the end of 337 but had once more been ejected. Soon after, Carpones, an original Arian of Alexandria, appeared as envoy of Gregory. He confirmed all that had been alleged against Pistus, but failed to convince Julius that his own bishop was anything but an Arian. Meanwhile time wore on, and no reply came from the Eusebians. Athanasius gave himself up to enforced leisure and to the services of the Church. Instead of his usual Easter letter for the following spring, he sent a few lines to the clergy of Alexandria and a letter to his right-hand man, bishop Serapion of Thmuis, requesting him to make the necessary announcement of the season. Gregory made his first attempt (apparently also his last) to fix the Easter Festival, but in the middle of Lent, to the amusement of the public, discovered that a mistake had been made, the correction of which involved his adherents in an extra week of Lenten austerities. We can well imagine that the spectacle of the abstracted asceticism of Ammonius aroused the curiosity and veneration of the Roman Christians, and thus gave an impulse to the ascetic life in the West (see Jerome, cited below, p. 191). That is all we know of the life of Athanasius during the first eighteen months of his stay at Rome.

In the early spring of 340 the presbyters returned (see above) with a letter from a number of bishops, including the Eusebian leaders, who had assembled at Antioch in January. This letter is carefully dissected in the reply of the Roman Council, and appears to have been highly acrimonious in its tone. Julius kept it secret for a time (p. 111), hoping against hope that after all some of the Orientals would come for the council; but at length he gave up all expectations of the kind, and convoked the bishops of Italy, who examined the cases of the various exiles (p. 114). All the old charges against Athanasius were gone into with the aid of the Mareotic report (the ex parte character of which Julius strongly emphasises) and of the account of the proceedings at Tyre. The council had no difficulty in pronouncing Athanasius completely innocent on all points. The charge of ignoring the proceedings of a council was disposed of by pointing out the uncanonical character of Gregory’s appointment (p. 115), and the infraction by the complainants of the decrees of Nicaea. With regard to Marcellus, he responded to the request of the bishops by volunteering a written confession of his faith (p. 116, Epiph.Hoer. 72), which was in fact the creed of the Roman Church itself (Caspari, Quellen iii. 28, note, argues that the creed must have been tendered at an earlier visit, 336–337, but without cogent reasons). Either Julius and his bishops were (like the fathers of Sardica) very easily satisfied, or Marcellus exercised extreme reserve as to his peculiar tenets (Zahn, p. 71, makes out the best case he can for his candour). The other exiles were also pronounced innocent, and the synod ‘restored’ them all. It remained to communicate the result to the Oriental bishops. This was done by Julius in a letter drawn up in the name of the council, and preserved by Athanasius in his Apology. Its subject matter has been sufficiently indicated, but its statesmanlike logic and grave severity must be appreciated by reference to the document itself. It has been truly called ‘one of the ablest documents in the entire controversy.’ It is worth observing that Julius makes no claim whatever to pass a final judgment as successor of S. Peter, although the Orientals had expressly asserted the equal authority of all bishops, however important the cities in which they ruled (p. 113); on the contrary he merely claims that without his own consent, proceedings against bishops would lack the weight of universal consent (p. 118). At the same time he claims to be in possession of the traditions of S. Paul and especially of S. Peter, and is careful to found upon precedent (that of Dionysius) a claim to be consulted in matters alleged against a bishop of Alexandria. This claim, by its modesty, is in striking contrast with that which Socrates (ii. 17) and Sozom. (iii. 8, 10) make for him,-that owing to the greatness of his see, the care of all the churches pertained to him: and this again, which represents what the Greek Church of the early fifth century was accustomed to hear from Rome, is very different from the claim to a jurisdiction of divine right which we find formulated in Leo the Great.

The letter of Julius was considered at the famous Council of the Dedication (of Constantine’s ‘Golden’ Church at Antioch, see Eus. V.C. iii. 50), held in the summer of 341 (between May 22 and Sept. 1, see Gwatkin, p. 114, note). Eusebius of Constantinople was there (he had only a few months longer to live), and most of the Arian leaders. Caesarea was represented by Acacius, who had succeeded Eusebius some two years before; a man of Whom we shall hear more. But of the ninety-odd bishops who attended, the majority must have been conservative in feeling, such as Dianius of Caesarea, who possibly presided. At any rate Hilary (de Syn. 32) calls it ‘a synod of saints,’ and its canons passed into the accepted body of Church Law. Their reply to Julius is not extant, but we gather from the historians that it was not conciliatory. (Socr. ii. 15, 17; Soz. iii. 8, 10; they are in such hopeless confusion as to dates and the order of events that it is difficult to use them here; Theodoret is more accurate but less full.)

But the council marks an epoch in a more important respect; with it begins the formal Doctrinal Reaction against the Nicene Formula. We have traces of previous confessions, such as that of Arius and Euzoius, 330–335, and an alleged creed drawn up at CP. in 336. But only now begins the long series of attempts to raise some other formula to a position of equality with the Nicene, so as to eventually depose the omoousion from its position as an ecumenical test.

The first suggestion of a new creed came from the Arian bishops, who propounded a formula (p. 146, §22), with a disavowal of any intention of disparaging that of Nicaea (Socr. ii. 10), but suspiciously akin to the evasive confession of Acius, and prefaced with a suicidally worded protest against being considered as followers of the latter. The fate of this creed in the council is obscure; but it would seem to have failed to commend itself to the majority, who put forward a creed alleged to have been composed by Lucian the martyr. This (see above, p. xxviii, and p. 461, notes 5–9), was hardly true of the creed as it stood, but it may have been signed by Lucian as a test when he made his peace with bishop Cyril. At any rate the creed is catholic in asserting the exact Likeness of the Son to the Father’s Essence (yet the Arians could admit this as de facto true, though not originally so; only the word Essence would, if honestly taken, fairly exclude their sense), but anti-Nicene in omitting the omoousion, and in the phrase thmenupsasei tria, tphde sumfwnia en, an artfully chosen point of contact between Origen on the one hand, and Asterius, Lucian, and Paul of Samosata on the other. The anathemas, also, let in an Arian interpretation. This creed is usually referred to as the ‘Creed of the Dedication’ or ‘Lucianic’ Creed, and represents, on the one hand the extreme limit of concession to which Arians were willing to go, on the other the theological rallying point of the gradually forming body of reasoned conservative opinion which under the nickname of ‘semi-Arianism’ (Epiph. Hoer. 73; it was repudiated by Basil of Ancyra, &c.) gradually worked toward the recognition of the Nicene formula.

A third formula was presented by Theophronius, bishop of Tyana, as a personal statement of belief, and was widely signed by way of approval. It insists like the Lucianic creed on the pretemporal gennhsi", against Marcellus, adding two other points (hypostatic pre-existence and eternal kingdom of the Son) in the same direction, and closing with an anathema against Marcellus, Sabellius, Paul, and all who communicate with any of their supporters. This was of course a direct defiance of Julius and the Westerns (Mr. Gwatkin, by a slip, assigns this anathema to the ‘fourth’ creed).

Lastly, a few months after the council late autumn of 341) a few bishops reassembled in order to send a deputation to Constans (since 340 sole Western Emperor). They decided to substitute for the genuine creeds of the council a fourth formulary, which accordingly the Arians Maris and Narcissus, and the neutrals Theodore of Heraclea and Mark of Arethusa, conveyed to the West. The assertion of the eternal reign of Christ was strengthened, and the name of Marcellus omitted, but the Nicene anathemas were skilfully adapted so as to strike at the Marcellian and admit the Arian doctrine of the divine Sonship. This creed became the basis on which the subsequent Arianising confessions of 343 (Philippopolis), 344 (Macrostich), and 351 (Sirmium) were moulded by additions to and modifications of the anathemas. This series of creeds mark ‘the stationary period of Arianism,’ i.e. between the close of the first generation (Arius, Asterius, Eusebius of Nicomedia) and the beginnings of the divergence of parties under the sole reign of Constantius. At present opposition to the school of Marcellus and to the impregnable strength of the West under a Catholic Emperor kept the reactionary party united.

It has been necessary to dwell upon the work of this famous Council in view of its subsequent importance. It is easy to see how the Eastern bishops were prevailed upon to take the bold step of putting forth a Creed to rival the Nicene formula. The formal approval of Marcellus at Rome shewed, so they felt, the inadequacy of that formula to exclude Sabellianism, or rather the direct support which that heresy could find in the word ‘homoüsion.’ This being so, provided they made it clear that they were not favouring Arianism, they would be doing no more than their duty in providing a more efficient test. But here the Arian group saw their opportunity. Conservative willingness to go behind Nicaea must be made to subserve the supreme end of revoking the condemnation of Arianism. Hence the confusion of counsels reflected in the multiplicity of creeds. The result pleased no one. The Lucianic Creed, with its anti-Arian clauses, tempered by equivocal qualifications, was a feeble and indirect weapon against Marcellus, who could admit in a sense the pre-aeonian gennhs" and the ‘true’ sonship. On the other hand, the three creeds which only succeeded in gaining secondary ratification, while express against Marcellus, were worthless as against Arianism. On the whole, the fourth creed, in spite of its irregular sanction, was found the most useful for the time (341–351); but as their doctrinal position took definite form, the Conservative wing fell back on the ‘Lucianic’ Creed, and found in it a bridge to the Nicene (cf. pp. 470, 472, Hil. de Syn. 33, and Gwatkin, p. 119, note).

(3.) Athanasius remained in Rome more than three years after his departure from Alexandria (April, 339—May? 342, see p. 239). During the last of these years, the dispute connected with him had been referred by Julius to Constans, who had requested his brother to send some Oriental bishops with a statement of their case: this was the reason of the deputation (see above) of the winter of 341. They found Constans at Treveri, but owing to the warnings of good Bishop Maximinus , he refused to accept their assurances, and sent them ignominiously away. This probably falls in the summer of 342, the deputation on arriving in Italy having found that Constans had already left Milan for his campaign against the Franks (Gwatkin, p. 122, note 3). If this be so, Constans had already made up his mind that a General Council was the only remedy, and had written to Constantius to arrange for one. Before leaving Milan he had summoned Athanasius from Rome, and announced to him what he had done. The young Prince was evidently an admirer of Athanasius, who had received from him in reply to a letter of self-defence, written from Alexandria, an order for certain puktia, or bound volumes of the Scriptures (see Montfaucon, Animadv. xv., in Migne xxv., p. clxxvi.). The volumes had been delivered before this date. Constans hurried off to Gaul, while Athanasius remained at Milan, where he afterwards received a summons to follow the Emperor to Treveri ; here he met the venerable Hosius and others, and learned that the Emperors had fixed upon Sardica (now Sophia in Bulgaria), on the frontier line of the dominions of Constans , as the venue for the great Council, which was to assemble in the ensuing summer. Athanasius must have kept the Easter of 343 at Treveri: he had written his usual Easter letter (now lost) most probably from Rome or Milan, in the previous spring. The date of assembly and duration of the Sardican synod are, unfortunately, obscure. But the proceedings must have been protracted by the negotiations which ended in the departure of the Easterns, and (p. 124, note 2) by the care with which the evidence against the incriminated bishops was afterwards gone into .

We shall probably be safe in supposing that the Council occupied the whole of August and September, and that Constans sent Bishops Euphrates and Vincent to his brother at Antioch as soon as the worst weather of winter was over.

The Western bishops assembled at Sardica to the number of about 95 (see p. 147). Athanasius, Marcellus, and Asclepas arrived with Hosius from Treveri. Paul of Constantinople, for some unknown reason, was absent, but was represented by Asclepas . The Orientals came in a body, and with suspicion. They had the Counts Musonianus and Hesychius, and (according to Fest. Ind., cf. p. 276) the ex-Prefect Philagrius, as advisers and protectors: they were lodged in a body at the Palace of Sophia. The proceedings were blocked by a question of privilege. The Easterns demanded that the accused bishops should not be allowed to take their seats in the Council; the majority replied that, pending the present enquiry, all previous decisions against them must be in fairness considered suspended. There was something to be said on both sides (see Hefele, p. 99), but on the whole, the synod being convoked expressly to re-hear both sides, the majority were perhaps justified in refusing to exclude the accused. A long interchange (p. 119), of communications followed, and at last, alleging that they were summoned home by the news of the victory in the Persian war, the minority disappeared by night, sending their excuse by the Sardican Presbyter Eustathius (p. 275). At Philippopolis, within the dominions of Constantius, they halted and drew up a long and extremely wild and angry statement of what had occurred, deposing and condemning all concerned, from Hosius, Julius and Athanasius downward. They added the Antiochene Confession (‘fourth’ of 341), with the addition of some anathemas directed at the system of Marcellus. Among the signatures, which included most of the surviving Arian leaders, along with Basil of Ancyra, and other moderate men, we recognise that of Ischyras, ‘bishop from the Mareotis,’ who had enjoyed the dignity without the burdens of the Episcopate since the Council of Tyre (p. 144). The document was sent far and wide, among the rest to the Donatists of Africa (Hef, p. 171).

This rupture doomed the purpose of the council to failure: instead of leading to agreement it had made the difference a hopeless one. But the Westerns were still a respectable number, and might do much to forward the cause of justice and of the Nicene Faith. Two of the Easterns had joined them, Asterius of Petra and Arius, bishop of an unknown see in Palestine. The only other Oriental present, Diodorus of Tenedos, appears to have come, like Asclepas, &c., independently of the rest. The work of the council was partly judicial, partly legislative. The question was raised of issuing a supplement to, or formula explanatory of, the Nicene creed, and a draft (preserved Thdt. H.E. ii. 8) was actually made, but the council declined to sanction anything which should imply that the Nicene creed was insufficient (p. 484, correcting Thdt. ubi supra, and Soz. iii. 12).

The charges against all the exiles were carefully examined and dismissed. This was also the case with the complaints against the orthodoxy of Marcellus, who was allowed to evade the very point which gave most offence (p. 125). Probably the ocular evidence (p. 124) of the violence which many present had suffered, indisposed the fathers to believe any accusations from such a quarter. The synod next proceeded to legislate. Their canons were twenty in number, the most important being canons 3–5, which permit a deposed bishop to demand the reference of his case to ‘Julius bishop of Rome,’ ‘honouring the memory of Peter the Apostle;’ the deposition to be suspended pending such reference; the Roman bishop, if the appeal seem reasonable, to request the rehearing of the case in its own province, and if at the request of the accused he sends a presbyter to represent him, such presbyter to rank as though he were his principal in person. The whole scheme appears to be novel and to have been suggested by the history of the case of the exiles. The canons are very important in their subsequent history, but need not be discussed here. (Elaborate discussions in Hefele, pp. 112–129; see also D.C.A. pp. 127 sq., 1658, 1671, Greenwood, Cath. Petr. i. 204–08, D.C.B. iii. 662 a, and especially 529–531.) The only legislation, however, to which Athanasius alludes is that establishing a period of 50 years during which Rome and Alexandria should agree as to the period for Easter (Fest. Ind. xv., infr. p. 544, also Hefele pp. 157 sqq.). The arrangement averted a dispute in 346, but differences occurred in spite of it in 349, 350, 360, and 368.

The synod addressed an encyclical letter to all Christendom (p. 123), embodying their decisions and announcing their deposition of eight or nine Oriental bishops (including Theodore of Heraclea, Acacius, and several Arian leaders) for complicity with Arianism. They also wrote to the Church of Alexandria and to the bishops of Egypt with special reference to Athanasius and to the Alexandrian Church, to Julius announcing their decisions, and to the Mareotis (Migne xxvi. 1331 sqq. printed with Letters 46, 47. Hefele ii. 165 questions the genuineness of all three, but without reason; see p. 554, note 1).

The effect of the Council was not at first pacific. Constantius shared the indignation of the Eastern bishops, and began severe measures against all the Nicene-minded bishops in his dominions (pp. 275 sqq). Theodulus, Bishop of Trajanople, died of his injuries before the Sardican Bishops had completed their work. At Hadrianople savage cruelties were perpetrated (ib.); and a close watch was instituted in case Athanasius should attempt to return on the strength of his synodical acquittal. Accordingly, he passed the winter and spring at Naissus (now Nish, see Fest. Ind. xvi.), and during the summer, in obedience to an invitation from Constans, repaired to Aquileia, where he spent the Easter of 345.

Meanwhile, Constans had made the cause of the Sardican majority his own. At the beginning of the year 344 he sent two of its most respected members to urge upon Constantius the propriety of restoring the exiles. Either now or later he hinted that refusal would be regarded by him as a casus belli. His remonstrance gained unexpected moral support from an episode, strange even in that age of unprincipled intrigue. In rage and pain at the apparent success of the envoys, Stephen, Bishop of Antioch, sought to discredit them by a truly diabolical trick (see p. 276). Its discovery, just after Easter, 344, roused the moral sense of Constantius. A Council was summoned, and met during the summer (p. 462, §26, ‘three years after’ the Dedication at Midsummer, 341). Stephen was ignominiously deposed (see Gwatkin 125, note 1), and Leontius, an Arian, but a lover of quiet and a temporiser, appointed. The Council also re-issued the ‘fourth’ Antiochene Creed with a very long explanatory addition, mildly condemning certain Arian phrases, fiercely anathemarising Marcellus and Photinus, and with a side-thrust at supposed implications of the Nicene formula. A deputation was sent to Italy, consisting of Eudoxius of Germanicia and three others. They reached Milan at the Synod of 345, and were able to procure a condemnation of Photinus (not Marcellus), but on being asked to anathematise Arianism refused, and retired in anger. At the same Synod of Milan, however, Valens and Ursacius, whose deposition at Sardica was in imminent danger of being enforced by Constans, followed the former example of Eusebius of Nicomedia, Maris, Theognis, and Arius himself, by making their submission, which was followed up two years later by a letter in abject terms addressed to Julius, and another in a tone of veiled insolence to Athanasius (p. 131). In return, they were able to beat up a Synod at Sirmium against Photinus (Hil. Frag. ii. 19), but without success in the attempt to dislodge him.

Meanwhile, Constantius had followed up the Council at Antioch by cancelling his severe measures against the Nicene party. He restored to Alexandria certain Presbyters whom he had expelled, and in the course of the summer wrote a public letter to forbid any further persecution of the Athanasians in that city. This must have been in August, 344, and ‘about ten months later’ (p. 277), i.e., on June 26, 345 (F. I xviii.), Gregory, who had been in bad health for fully four years, died . Constantius, according to his own statement (pp. 127, 277), had already before the death of Gregory written twice to Athanasius (from Edessa; he was at Nisibis on May 12, 345), and had sent a Presbyter to request him urgently to come and see him with a view to his eventual restoration. As Gregory was known to be in a dying state, this is quite intelligible, but the language of Hist. Ar. 21, which seems to put all all three letters after Gregory’s death, cannot stand if we are to accept the assurance of Constantius. Athanasius, at any rate, hesitated to obey, and stayed on at Aquileia (344 till early in 346), where he received a third and still more pressing invitation, promising him immediate restoration. He at once went to Rome to bid farewell to Julius, who wrote (p. 128 sq.) a most cordial and nobly-worded letter of congratulation for Athanasius to take home to his Church. Thence he proceeded to Trier to take leave of Constans (p. 239), and rapidly travelled by way of Hadrianople (p. 276) to Antioch (p. 240), where he was cordially received by Constantius. His visit was short but remarkable. Constantius gave him the strongest assurances (pp. 277, 285) of goodwill for the future, but begged that Athanasius would allow the Arians at Alexandria the use of a single Church. He replied that he would do so if the Eustathians of Antioch (with whom alone he communicated during this visit) might have the same privilege. But this Leontius would not sanction, so the proposal came to nothing (Soc. ii. 23, Soz. iii. 20), and Athanasius hastened on his way. At Jerusalem he was detained by the welcome of a Council, which Bishop Maximus had summoned to greet him (p. 130), but on the twenty-first of October his reception by his flock took place; ‘the people, and those in authority, met him a hundred miles distant’ (Fest. Ind. xviii.), and amid splendid rejoicings (cf. p. xlii., note 3), he entered Alexandria, to remain there in ‘quiet’ ‘nine years, three months and nineteen days’ (Hist. Aceph. iv., cf. p. 496), viz., from Paophi 24 (Oct. 21), 346, to Mechir 13 (Feb. 8), 356. This period was his longest undisturbed residence in his see; he entered upon it in the very prime of life (he was 48 years old), and its internal happiness earns it the title of a golden decade.

§7. The Golden Decade, 346–356.

(1). This period is divided into two by the death of Constans in 350, or perhaps more exactly by the final settlement of sole power in the hands of Constantius on the day of Mursa, Sept. 28, 351 . The internal condition of the Church at Alexandria, however, was not seriously disturbed even in the second period. From this point of view the entire period may be treated as one. Its opening was auspicious. Egypt fully participated in the ‘profound and wonderful peace’ (p. 278) of the Churches. The Bishops of province after province were sending in their letters of adhesion to the Synod of Sardica (ib. and p. 127), and those of Egypt signed to a man.

The public rejoicing of the Alexandrian Church had something of the character of a ‘mission’ in modern Church life. A wave of religious enthusiasm passed over the whole community. ‘How many widows and how many orphans, who were before hungry and naked, now through the great zeal of the people were no longer hungry, and went forth clothed;’ ‘in a word, so great was their emulation in virtue, that you would have thought every family and every house a Church, by reason of the goodness of its inmates and the prayers which were offered to God’ (p. 278). Increased strictness of life, the santification of home, renewed application to prayer, and practical charity, these were a worthy welcome to their long-lost pastor. But most conspicuous was the impulse to asceticism. Marriages were renounced and even dissolved in favour of the monastic life; the same instincts were at work (but in greater intensity) as had asserted themselves at the close of the era of the pagan persecutions (p. 200, fin.). Our knowledge of the history of the Egyptian Church under the ten years’ peaceful rule of Athanasius is confined to a few details and to what we can infer from results.

Strong as was the position of Athanasius in Egypt upon his return from exile, his hold upon the country grew with each year of the decade. When circumstances set Constantius free to resume the Arian campaign, it was against Athanasius that he worked; at first from the remote West, then by attempts to remove or coax him from Alexandria. But Athanasius was in an impregnable position, and when at last the city was seized by the coup de main of 356, from his hidings places in Egypt he was more inaccessible still, more secure in his defence, more free to attack. Now the extraordinary development of Egyptian Monachism must be placed in the first rank of the causes which strengthened Athanasius in Egypt. The institution was already firmly rooted there (cf. p. 190), and Pachomius, a slightly older contemporary of Athanasius himself, had converted a sporadic manifestation of the ascetic impulse into an organised form of Community Life. Pachomius himself had died on May 9, 346 (infr. p. lx., note 3, and p. 569, note 3: cf. Theolog. Literaturztg. 1890, p. 622), but Athanasius was welcomed soon after his arrival by a deputation from the Society of Tabenne, who also conveyed a special message from the aged Antony. Athanasins placed himself at the head of the monastic movement, and we cannot doubt that while he won the enthusiastic devotion of these dogged and ardent Copts, his influence on the movement tended to restrain extravagances and to correct the morbid exaltation of the monastic ideal. It is remarkable that the only letters which survive from this decade (pp. 556–560) are to monks, and that they both support what has just been said. The army of Egyptian monks was destined to become a too powerful weapon, a scandal and a danger to the Church: but the monks were the main secret of the power and ubiquitous activity of Athanasius in his third exile, and that power was above all built up during the golden decade.

Coupled with the growth of monachism is the transformation of the episcopate. The great power enjoyed by the Archbishop of Alexandria made it a matter of course that in a prolonged episcopate discordant elements would gradually vanish and unanimity increase. This was the case under Athanasius: but the unanimity reflected in the letter ad Afros had practically already come about in the year of the return of Ath. from Aquileia, when nearly every bishop in Egypt signed the Sardican letter (p. 127; the names include the new bishops of 346–7 in Letter 19, with one or two exceptions). Athanasius not infrequently (pp. 559 sq. and Vit. Pach. 72) filled up vacancies in the episcopate from among the monks, and Serapion of Thmuis, his most trusted suffragan, remained after his elevation in very close relation with the monasteries.

Athanasius consecrated bishops not only for Egypt, but for the remote Abyssinian kingdom of Auxume as well. The visit of Frumentius to Alexandria, and his consecration as bishop for Auxume, are referred by Rufinus i. 9 (Socr. i. 19, &c.) to the beginning of the episcopate of Athanasius. But the chronology of the story (Gwatkin, pp. 93 sqq., D.C.B. ii. 236 where the argument is faulty) forbids this altogether, while the letter of Constantius (p. 250) is most natural if the consecration of Frumentius were then a comparatively recent matter, scarcely intelligible if it had taken place before the ‘deposition’ of Athan. by the council of Tyre. Athanasius had found Egypt distracted by religious dissensions; but by the time of the third exile we hear very little of Arians excepting in Alexandria itself (see p. 564); the ‘Arians’ of the rest of Egypt were the remnant of the Meletians, whose monks are still mentioned by Theodoret (cf. An incident the growing numbers of the Alexandrian Church during this period is the which shows necessity which arose at Easter in one year of using the unfinished Church of the Caesareum (for its history cf. p. 243, note 6, anti Hist. Aceph. vi., Fest. Ind. xxxvii., xxxviii., xl.) owing to the vast crowds of worshippers. The Church was a gift of Constantius, and had been begun by Gregory, and its use before completion and dedication was treated by the Arians as an act of presumption and disrespect on the part of Athanasius.

(2.) But while all was so happy in Egypt, the ‘profound peace’ of the rest of the Church was more apparent than real. The temporary revulsion of feeling on the part of Constantius, the engrossing urgency of the Persian war, the readiness of Constans to use his formidable power to secure justice to the Nicene bishops in the East, all these were causes which compelled peace, while leaving the deeper elements of strife to smoulder untouched. The riva depositions and anathemas of the hostile Councils remained without effect. Valens was in possession at Mursa, Photinus at Sirmium. Marcellus was, probably, not at Ancyra (Zahn 82); but the Arians deposed at Sardica were all undisturbed, while Athanasius was more firmly established than ever at Alexandria. On the whole, the Episcopate of the East was entirely in the hands of the reaction—the Nicene element, often large, among the laity was in many cases conciliated with difficulty. This is conspicuously the case at Antioch, where the temporising policy of Leontius managed to retain in communion a powerful body of orthodox Christians, headed by Diodorus and Flavian, whose energy neutralised the effect of his own steadily Arian policy (particulars, Gwatkin, pp. 133, sqq., Newman, Arians , p. 455—from Thdt. H. E. ii. 24). The Eustathian schism at Antioch was, apparently, paralleled by a Marcellian schism at Ancyra, but such cases were decidedly the exception.

Of the mass of instances where the bishops were not Arian but simply conservative, the Church of Jerusalem is the type. We have the instructions given to the Catechumens of this city between 348 and 350 by Cyril, who in the latter year (Hort, p. 92) became bishop, and whose career is typical of the rise and development of so-called semi-Arianism. Cyril, like the conservatives generally, is strongly under the influence of Origen (see Caspari iv. 146–162, and of. the Catechesis in Heurtley de Fid. et Symb. 62 with the Regula Fidel in Orig. de Princ. i). The instructions insist strongly on the necessity of scriptural language, and while contradicting the doctrines of Acius (without mentioning his name; cf. Athanasius on Marcellus and Photinus in pp. 433–447) Cyril tacitly protests against the dmoonsion as of human contrivance (Cat. v. 12), and uses in preference the words ‘like to the Father according to the Scriptures’ or ‘in all thing.’ This language is that of Athanasius also, especially in his earlier works (pp. 84 sqq.), but in the latter phase of the controversy, especially in the Dated Creed of 359, which presents striking resemblances to Cyril’s Catecheses, it became the watchword of the party of reaction. The Church of Jerusalem then was orthodox substantially, but rejected the Nicene formula, and this was the case in the East generally, except where the bishops were positively Arian. All were aggrieved at the way in which the Eastern councils had been treated by the West, and smarted under a sense of defeat (cf. Bright, Introd. to Hist. Tr., p. xviii.).

Accordingly the murder of Constans in 350 was the harbinger of renewed religious discord. For a time the political future was doubtful. Magnentius, knowing what Athanasius had to fear from Constantius, made a bid for the support of Egypt. Clementius and Valens, two members of a deputation to Constantius, came round by way of Egypt to ascertain the disposition of the country, and especially of its Bishop. Athanasius received them with bitter lamentations for Constans, and, fearing the possibility of an invasion by Magnentius, he called upon his congregation to pray for the Eastern Emperor. The response was immediate and unanimous:‘O Christ, send help to Constantius’ (p. 242). The Emperor had, in fact, sought to secure the fidelity of Athanasius by a letter (pp. 247, 278), assuring him of his continued support. And until the defeat of Magnentius at Mursa, he kept his word. That victory, which was as decisive for Valens as it was for Constantius (Gibbon, ii. 381, iii. 66, ed. Smith), was followed up by a Council at Sirmium, which successfully ousted the too popular Photinus (cf. pp. 280, 298; on the appeal of Photinus, and the debate between him and Basil of Ancyra, apparently in 355, see Gwatkin, pp. 145 sq., note 6). This was made the occasion for a new onslaught upon Marcellus in the anathemas appended to a reissue of the ‘fourth Antiochene’ or Philippopolitan Creed (p. 465; on the tentative character of these anathemas as a polemical move, cf. Gwatkin, p. 147, note 1). The Emperor was occupied for more than a year with the final suppression of Magnentius (Aug. 10, 353), but ‘the first Winter after his victory, which he spent at Arles, was employed against an enemy more odious to him than the vanquished tyrant of Gaul’ (Gibbon).

It is unnecessary to detail the tedious and unedifying story of the councils of Aries and Milan. The former was a provincial council of Gaul, attended by legates of the Roman see. All present submissively registered the imperial condemnation of Athanasius. The latter, delayed till 355 by the Rhenish campaign of Constantius, was due to the request of Liberius, who desired to undo the evil work of his legates, and to the desire of the Emperor to follow up the verdict of a provincial with that of a more representative Synod. The number of bishops present was probably very small (the numbers in Socrates ii. 36, Soz. iv. 9, may refer to those who afterwards signed under compulsion, p. 280, cf. the case of Sardica, p. 127, note 10). The proceedings were a drama in three acts, first, submission, the legates protesting; secondly, stormy protest, after the arrival of Eusebius of Vercellae; thirdly, open coercion. The deposition of Athanasius was proffered to each bishop for signature, and, if he refused, a sentence of banishment was at once pronounced, the emperor sitting with the ‘velum’ drawn, much as though an English judge were to assume the black cap at the beginning of a capital trial. He cut short argument by announcing that ‘the was for the prosecution,’ and remonstrance by the sentence of exile (p. 299); the opep egw boulomai tonto kanwn put into his mouth by Athanasius (p. 281) represents at any rate the spirit of his proceedings as justly as does ‘la tradizione son’ io’ that of the autocrat of a more recent council. At this council no creed was put forth: until the enemy was dislodged from Alexandria the next step would be premature. But a band of exiles were sent in strict custody to the East, of some of whom we shall hear later on (pp. 561, 481, 281, cf. p. 256, and the excellent monograph of Kruger, Lucifer von Calaris, pp. 9–23).

Meanwhile, Athanasius had been peacefully pursuing his diocesan duties, but not without a careful outlook as the clouds gathered on the horizon. The prospect of a revival of the charges against him moved him to set in order an unanswerable array of documents, in proof, firstly of the unanimity, secondly of the good reason, with which he had been acquitted of them (see p. 97). He had also, in view of revived assertions of Arianism, drawn up the two letters or memoranda on the rationale of the Nicene formula and on the opinion ascribed to his famous predecessor, Dionysius (the Apology was probably written about 351, the date of the de Decr., and de Sent. Dion. falls a little later). In 353 he began to apprehend danger, from the hopes with which the establishment of Constantius in the sole possession of the Empire was inspiring his enemies, headed by Valens in the West, and Acacius of Caesarea in the East. Accordingly, he despatched a powerful deputation to Constantius, who was then at Milan, headed by Serapion, his most trusted suffragan (cf. p. 560, note 3 a; p. 497, §3, copied by Soz. iv. 9; Fest. Ind. xxv.). The legates sailed May 19, but on the 23rd Montanus, an officer of the Palace, arrived with an Imperial letter, declining to receive any legates, but granting an alleged request of Athanasius to be allowed to come to Italy (p. 245 sq.). As he had made no request of the kind, Athanasius naturally suspected a plot to entice him away from his stronghold. The letter of Constantius did not convey an absolute command, so Athanasius, protesting his willingness to come when ordered to do so, resolved to remain where he was for the present. ‘All the people were exceedingly troubled,’ according to our chroniclers. ‘In this year Montanus was sent against the bishop, but a tumult having been excited, he retired without effect.’ Two years and two months later, i.e., in July-Aug. 355 (p. 497), force was attempted instead of stratagem, which the proceedings of Arles had, of course, made useless. ‘In this year Diogenes, the Secretary of the Emperor, came with the intention of seizing the bishop,’ and ‘Diogenes pressed hard upon all, trying to dislodge the bishop from the city, and he afflicted all pretty severely; but on Sept. 4 he pressed sharply, and stormed a Church, and this he did continually for four months …until Dec. 23. But as the people and magistrates vehemently withstood Diogenes, he returned back without effect on the 23rd of December aforesaid’ (Fest. Ind. xxvii., Hist. Aceph. iii.). The fatal blow was clearly imminent. By this time the exiles had begun to arrive in the East, and rumours came that not even the powerful and popular Liberius, not even ‘Father’ Hosius himself, had been spared. Athanasius might well point out to Dracontius (p. 558) that in declining the bishopric of the ‘country district of Alexandria’ he was avoiding the post of danger. On the sixth of January the ‘Duke’ Syrianus arrived in Alexandria, concentrating in the city drafts from all the legions stationed in Egypt and Libya. Rumour was active as to the intentions of the commandant, and Athanasius felt justified in asking him whether he came with any orders from the Court. Syrianus replied that he did not, and Athanasius then produced the letter of Constantius referred to above (written 350–351). The magistrates and people joined in the remonstrance, and at last Syrianus. protested ‘by the life of Caesar’ that he would remain quiet until the matter had been referred to the Emperor. This restored confidence, and on Thursday night, Feb. 8, Athanasius was presiding at a crowded service of preparation for a Communion on the following morning (Friday after Septuagesima) in the Church of Theonas, which with the exception of the unfinished Caesareum was the largest in the city (p. 243). Suddenly the church was surrounded and the doors broken in, and just after midnight Syrianus and the ‘notary’ Hilary ‘entered with an infinite force of soldiers.’ Athanasius (his fullest account is p. 263) calmly took his seat upon the throne (in the recess of the apse), and ordered the deacon to begin the 136th psalm, the people responding at each verse ‘for His mercy endureth for ever.’ Meanwhile the soldiers crowded up to the chancel, and in spite of entreaties the bishop refused to escape until the congregation were in safety. He ordered the prayers to proceed, and only at the last moment a crowd of monks and clergy seized the Archbishop and managed to convey him in the confusion out of the church in a half-fainting state (protest of Alexandrians, p. 301), but thankful that he had been able to secure the escape of his people before his own (p. 264). From that moment Athanasius was lost to public view for ‘six years and fourteen days’ (Hist. Aceph., i.e., Mechir 13, 356-Mechir 27, 362), ‘for he remembered that which was written, Hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast (pp. 288, 252, 262). Constantius and the Arians had planned their blow with skill and delivered it with decisive effect. But they had won a ‘Cadmean Victory.’

§8. The Third Exile, 356–362.

The third exile of Athanasius marks the summit of his achievement. Its commencement is the triumph, its conclusion the collapse of Arianism. It is true that after the death of Constantius the battle went on with variations of fortune for twenty years, mostly under the reign of an ardently Arian Emperor (364–378). But by 362 the utter lack of inner coherence in the Arian ranks was manifest to all; the issue of the fight might be postponed by circumstances but could not be in doubt. The break-up of the Arian power was due to its own lack of reality: as soon as it had a free hand, it began to go to pieces. But the watchful eye of Athanasius followed each step in the process from his hiding-place, and the event was greatly due to his powerful personality and ready pen, knowing whom to overwhelm and whom to conciliate, where to strike and where to spare. This period then of forced abstention from affairs was the most stirring in spiritual and literary activity in the whole life of Athanasius. It produced more than half of the treatises which fill this volume, and more than half of his entire extant works. With this we shall have to deal presently; but let it be noted once for all how completely the amazing power wielded by the wandering fugitive was based upon the devoted fidelity of Egypt to its pastor. Towns and villages, deserts and monasteries, the very tombs were scoured by the Imperial inquisitors in the search for Athanasius; but all in vain; not once do we hear of any suspicion of betrayal. The work of the golden decade was bearing its fruit.

(1.) On leaving the church of Theonas, Athanasius appears to have made his escape from the city. If for once we may hazard a conjecture, the numerous cells of the Nitrian desert offered a not too distant but fairly inpenetrable refuge. He must at any rate have selected a place where he could gain time to reflect on the situation, and above all ensure that he should be kept well informed of events from time to time. For in Athanasius we never see the panic-stricken outlaw; he is always the general meditating his next movement and full of the prospects of his cause. He made up his mind to appeal to Constantius in person. He could not believe that an Emperor would go back upon his solemn pledges, especially such a voluntary assurance as he had received after the death of Constans. Accordingly he drew up a carefully elaborated defence (Ap. Const. 1–26) dealing with the four principal charges against him, and set off through the Libyan desert with the intention of crossing to Italy and finding Constantius at Milan. But while he was on his way, he encountered rumours confirming the reports of the wholesale banishment not only of the recalcitrants of Milan, but of Liberius of Rome and the great Hosius of Spain. Next came the news of the severe measures against Egyptian bishops, and of the banishment of sixteen of their number, coupled with the violence practised by the troops at Alexandria on Easter Day (p. 248 sq.); however, his journey was continued, until he received copies of letters from the Emperor, one denouncing him to the Alexandrians and recommending a new bishop, one George, as their future guide, the other summoning the princes of Auxumis to send Frumentius (supr. p. xlviii.) to Egypt in order that he might unlearn what he had been taught by ‘the most wicked Athanasius’ and receive instruction from the ‘venerable George.’ These letters, which shew how completely the pursuers were off the scent (p. 249), convinced Athanasius that a personal interview was out of the question. He returned into the desert,’ and at leisure completed his apology (pp. 249–253), with the view partly of possible future delivery, partly no doubt of literary circulation. Before turning back, however, he appears to have drawn up his letter to the bishops of Egypt and Libya, warning them against the formula (see p. 222) which was being tendered for their subscription, and encouraging them to endure persecution, which had already begun at least in Eibya (Ep. Aeg.); the designation of George (§7) was already known, but he had not arrived, nor had Secundus (19) reappeared in Egypt, at any rate not in Libya (he was there in Lent, 357, p. 294). The letter to the bishops, then, must have been written about Easter, 356; not long after, because it contains no details of the persecution in Egypt; not before, for the persecution had already begun, and Athanasius was already in Cyrenaica, whence he turned back not earlier than April (to allow time for Constantius (1) to hear that Athanasius was thought to have fled to Ethiopia, (2) to write to Egypt, (3) for copies of the letter to overtake Athanasius on his way to Italy. Constantius was at Milan Jan.-April).

Meanwhile in Alexandria disorders had continued. The ‘duke’ appears to have been either unable for a time, or to have thought it needless, to take possession of the churches; but we hear of a violent dispersion of worshippers from the neighbourhood of the cemetery on Easter Day (p. 249, cf. the Virgins after Syrianus but before Heraclius, p. 288); while throughout Egypt subscription to an Arianising formula was being enforced on the bishops under pain of expulsion. After Easter, a change of governor took place, Maximus of Nicaea (pp. 301 sqq., 247) being succeeded by Cataphronius, who reached Alexandria on the 10th of June (Hist. Aceph. iv.). He was accompanied by a Count Heraclius, who brought a letter from Constantius threatening the heathen with severe measures (pp. 288, 290), unless active hostilities against the Athanasian party were begun (this letter was not the one given p. 249; Ath. rightly remarks ‘it reflected great discredit upon the writer’). Heraclius announced that by Imperial order the Churches were to be given up to the Arians, and compelled all the magistrates, including the functionaries of heathen temples, to sign an undertaking to execute the Imperial incitements to persecution, and to agree to receive as Bishop the Emperor’s nominee. These incredible precautions shew the general esteem for Athanasius even outside the Church, and the misgivings felt at Court as to the reception of the new bishop. The Gentiles reluctantly agreed, and the next acts of violence were carried out with their aid, ‘or rather with that of the more abandoned among them’ (p. 291). On the fourth day from the arrival of Cataphronius, that is in the early hours of Thursday, June 13, after a service (which had began overnight, pp. 290, 256 fin., Hist. Aceph. v.), just as all the congregation except a few women had left, the church of Theonas was stormed and violences perpetrated which left far behind anything that Syrianus had done. Women were murdered, the church wrecked and polluted with the very worst orgies of heathenism, houses and even tombs were ransacked throughout the city and suburbs on pretence of ‘seeking for Athanasius.’ Sebastian the Manichee, who about this time succeeded to the military command of Syrianus, appears to have carried on these outrages with the utmost zest (yet see Hist. Ar. 60). Many more bishops were driven into exile (compare the twenty-six of p. 297 with the ‘sixteen’ p. 248, but some may belong to a still later period, see p. 257), and the Arian bishops and clergy installed, including the bitterly vindictive Secundus in Libya (p. 257). The formal transfer of churches at Alexandria took place on Saturday, June 15 (infr., p. 290, note 9): the anniversary of Eutychius (p. 292) was kept at Alexandria on July II, (Martyrol. Vetust. Ed. 1668). After a further delay of ‘eight months and eleven days’ George, the new bishop, made his appearance (Feb. 24, 357 , third Friday in Lent). His previous career and character were strange qualifications for the second bishopric in Christendom. He had been a pork-contractor at Constantinople, and according to his many enemies a fraudulent one; he had amassed considerable wealth, and was a zealous Arian. His violent temper perhaps recommended him as a man likely to crush the opposition that was expected. The history of his episcopate may be briefly disposed of here. He entered upon his See in Lent, 357, with an armed force. At Easter he renewed the violent persecution of bishops, clergy, virgins, and lay people. In the week after Pentecost he let loose the cruel commandant Sebastian against a number of persons who were worshipping at the cemetery instead of communicating with himself; many were killed, and many more banished. The expulsion of bishops (‘over thirty,’ p. 257, cf. other reff. above) was continued (the various data of Ath. are not easy to reconcile, the first 16 of p. 257 may be the ‘sixteen’ of p. 248, before Easter, 356: we miss the name of Scrapion in all the lists 1) Theodore, Bishop of Oxyrynchus, the largest town of middle Egypt, upon submitting to George, was compelled by him to submit to reordination. The people refused to have anything more to do with him, and did without a bishop for a long time, until they obtained a pastor in one Heraclides, who is said to have become a ‘Luciferian.’ (Cf. Lib. Prec., and Le Quien ii. p. 578.) George carried on his tyranny eighteen months, till Aug. 29, 358. His fierce insults against Pagan worship were accompanied by the meanest and most oppressive rapacity. At last the populace, exasperated by his ‘adder’s bites’ (Ammian.), attacked him, and he was rescued with difficulty. On Oct. 2 he left the town, and the party of Athanasius expelled his followers from the churches on Oct. 11, but on Dec. 24, Sebastian came in from the country and restored the churches to the people of George. On June 23, 359, ‘the notary Paul’ (‘in complicandis calumniarum nexibus artifex dirus, unde ei Catenae inditum est cognomentum,’ Ammian. Marc. XIV. v., XV. iii.), the Jeffreys of the day, held a commission of blood, and. ‘vindictively punished many .’ George was at this time busy with the councils of Seleucia and Constantinople (he was not actually present at the latter, Thdt. H. E. ii. 28), and was in no hurry to return. At last, just after the death of Constantius, he ventured back, Nov. 26, 361, but on the proclamation of Julian on Nov. 30 was seized by the populace and thrown into chains; on Dec. 24, ‘impatient of the tedious forms of judicial proceedings,’ the people dragged him from prison and lynched him with the utmost ignominy.

Athanasius meanwhile eluded all search. During part of the year 357–358 he was in concealment in Alexandria itself, and he was supposed to be there two years later (Fest. Ind. xxx., xxxii.; the latter gives some colour to the tale of Palladius—cf. Soz. v. 6—of his having during part of this period remained concealed in the house of a Virgin of the church), but the greater part of his time was undoubtedly spent in the numberless cells of Upper and Lower Egypt, where he was secure of close concealment, and of loyal and efficient messengers to warn him of danger, keep him informed of events, and carry his letters and writings far and wide. The tale of Rufinus (i. 18) that he lay hid all the six years in a dry cistern is probably a confused version of this general fact. The tombs of kings and private persons were at this time the common abode of monks (cf. p. 564, note 1; also Socr. iv. 13, a similar mistake). Probably we must place the composition of the Life of Antony, the great classic of Monasticism, at some date during this exile, although the question is surrounded with difficulties (see pp. 188 sqq.). The importance of the period, however, lies in the march of events outside Egypt. (For a brilliant sketch of the desert life of Athanasius see D.G.B. i. 194 sq.; also Bright, Hist. Treatises, p. lxxiv. sq.)

(2.) With the accession of Constantius to sole power, the anti-Nicene reaction at last had a free hand throughout the Empire. Of what elements did it now consist? The original reaction was conservative in its numerical strength, Arian in its motive power. The stream was derived from the two fountain heads of Paul of Samosata, the ancestor of Arius, and of Origen the founder of the theology of the Eastern Church generally and especially of that of Eusebius of Caesarea. Flowing from such heterogeneous sources, the two currents never thoroughly mingled. Common action, dictated on the one hand by dread of Sabellianism, manipulated on the other hand by wire-pullers in the interest of Arianism, united the East till after the death of Constantine in the campaign against the leaders of Nicaea. Then for the last ten years of the life of Constans, Arianism, or rather the Reaction, had its ‘stationary period’ (Newman). The chaos of creeds at the Council of Antioch (supr. p. xliv.) shewed the presence of discordant aims; but opposition to Western interference, and the urgent panic of Photinus and his master, kept them together: the lead was still taken by the Arianisers, as is shewn by the continued prominence of the fourth Antiochene Creed at Philippopolis (343), Antioch (344), and Sirmium (351). But the second or Lucianic Creed was on record as the protest of the conservative majority, and was not forgotten. Yet until after 351, when Photinus was finally got rid of and Constantius master of the world, the reaction was still embodied in a fairly compact and united party. But now the latent heterogeneity of the reaction began to make itself felt. Differing in source and motive, the two main currents made in different directions. The influence of Aristotle and Paul and Lucian set steadily toward a harder and more consistent Arianism, that of Plato and the Origenists toward an understanding with the Nicenes.

(a.) The original Arians, now gradually dying out, were all tainted with compromise and political sub-serviency. Arius, Asterius, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and the rest (Secundus and Theonas are the solitary exception), were all at one time or another, and in different degrees, willing to make concessions and veil their more objectionable tenets under some evasive confession. But in many cases temporary humiliation produced its natural result in subsequent uncompromising defiance. This is exemplified in the history of Valens and Ursacius after 351. Valens, especially, figures as the head of a new party of ‘Anomoeans’ or ultra-Arians. The rise of this party is associated with the name of Aetius, its after-history with that of his pupil Eunomius, bishop of Cyzicus from 361. It was marked by a genuine scorn for the compromises of earlier Arianism, from which it differed in nothing except its more resolute sincerity. The career of Aetius (D.C.B. i. 50, sqq.) was that of a struggling, self-made, self-confident man. A pupil of the Lucianists (supr., p. xxviii.), he shrunk from none of the irreverent conclusions of Arianism. His loud voice and clear-cut logic lost none of their effect by fear of offending the religious sensibilities of others. In 350 Leontius ordained him deacon, with a licence to preach, at Antioch; but Flavian and Diodorus (see above, §7) raised such a storm that the cautious bishop felt obliged to suspend him. On the appointment of George he was invited to Alexandria, whither Eunomius was attracted by his fame as a teacher. His influence gradually spread, and he found many kindred spirits among the bishops. The survivors of the original Arians were with him at heart, as also were men like Eudoxius, bishop of Germanicia (of Antioch, 358, of CP. 360), who fell as far behind Aetius in sincerity as he surpassed him in profanity; the Anomoeans (anomoio") were numerically strong, and morally even more so; they were the wedge which eventually broke up the reactionary mass, rousing the sincere horror of the Conservatives, commanding the sometimes dissembled but always real sympathy of the true Arians, and seriously embarrassing the political Arians, whose one aim was to keep their party together by disguising differences of principle under some convenient phrase.

(b.) This latter party were headed by Acacius in the East and in the West by Valens, who while in reality, as stated above, making play for the Anomoean cause, was diplomatist enough to use the influential ‘party of no principle’ as his instrument for the purpose. Valens during the whole period of the sole reign of Constantius (and in fact until his own death about 375) was the heart and soul of the new and last phase of Arianism, namely of the formal attempt to impose an Arian creed upon the Church in lieu of that of Nicaea. But this could only be done by skilful use of less extreme men, and in the trickery and statecraft necessary for such a purpose Valens was facile princeps. His main supporter in the East was Acacius, who had succeeded to the bishoprick, the library, and the doctrinal position of his preceptor Eusebius of Caesarea. The latter, as we saw (p. xxvii. note 5), represented ‘the extreme left’ of the conservative reaction, meeting the right wing, or rather the extreme concessions, of pure Arianism as represented by its official advocate Asterius, whom in fact Eusebius had defended against the onslaught of Marcellus. In so far then as the stream of pure Arianism could be mingled with the waters of Conservatism, Acacius was the channel in which they joined. Eusebius had not been an Arian, neither was Acacius; Eusebius had theological convictions, but lacked clearness of perception, Acacius was a clear-headed man but without convictions; Eusebius was substantially conservative in his theology, but tainted with political Arianism; Acacius was a political Arian first, and anything you please afterwards. On the whole, his sympathies seem to have been conservative, but he manifests a rooted dislike of principle of any kind. He appoints orthodox bishops (Philost. v. 1), but quarrels with them as soon as he encounters their true mettle, Cyril in 358, Meletius in 361; he befriends Arians, but betrays the too honest Aetius in 360. His ecclesiastical career begins with the council of four creeds in 341; in controversy with Marcellus he developed the concessions of Asterius till he almost reached the Nicene standard; he hailed effusively the Anomoean Creed of Valens in 358 (Soz. iv. 12), and in 359–60 forced that of Nike in its amended form upon the Eastern Church far and wide. He is next heard of, signing the Omoousion, in 363, and lastly (Socr. iv. 2) under Valens is named again along with Eudoxius. The real opinions of a man with such a record are naturally not easy to determine, but we may be sure that he was in thorough sympathy with the policy of Constantius, namely the union of all parties in the Church on the basis of subserviency to the State.

The difficulty was to find a formula. The test of Nicaea could not be superseded without putting something in its place, which should include Arianism as effectually as the other had excluded it. Such a test was eventually (after 357) found in the word omoio" . It was a word with a good Catholic history. We find it used freely by Athanasius in his earlier anti-Arian writings, and it was thoroughly current in conservative theology, as for example in Cyril’s Catecheses (he has omoion kata ta" grafa" and omoion kata panta). It would therefore permit even the full Nicene belief. On the other hand many of the more earnest conservative theologians had begun to reflect on what was involved in the ‘likeness’ of the Son to the Father, and had formulated the conviction that this likeness was essential, not, as the Arians held, acquired. This was in fact a fair inference from the ousua" aparallakton eikona of the Dedication Creed. This question made an agreement between men like Valens and Basil difficult, but it could be evaded by keeping to the simple omoion, and deprecating non-scriptural precision. Lastly, there were the Anomoeans to be considered. Now the omoion had the specious appearance of flatly contradicting this repellent avowal of the extremists; but to Valens and his friends it had the substantial recommendation of admitting it in reality. ‘Likeness’ is a relative term. If two things are only ‘like’ they are ipso facto to some extent unlike; the two words are not contradictories but correlatives, and if the likeness is not essential, the unlikeness is. So far then as the ‘Homoean’ party rested on any doctrinal principle at all, that principle was the principle of Arius; and that is how Valens forwarded the Anomoean cause by putting himself at the head of the Homoeans. His plan of campaign had steadily matured. The deposition of Photinus in 351 had sounded the note of war, Aries and Milan (353–5) and the expulsion of Athanasius (356) had cleared the field of opponents, George was now in possession at Alexandria, and in the summer of 357 the triumph of Arianism was proclaimed. A small council of bishops met at Sirmium and published a Latin Creed, insisting strongly (1) on the unique Godhead of the Father, (2) on the subjection of the Son ‘along with all things subjected to Him by the Father,’ and (3) strictly proscribing the terms omoousion, omoiousion, and all discussion of ousiu, as unscriptural and inscrutable.

This manifesto was none the less Anomoean for not explicitly avowing the obnoxious phrase. It forbids the definition of the ‘likeness’ as essential, and does not even condescend to use the omoion at all. The Nicene definition is for the first time overtly and bluntly denounced, and the ‘conservatives’ are commanded to hold their peace. The ‘Sirmium blasphemy’ was indeed a trumpet-blast of defiance. The echo came back from the Homoeans assembled at Antioch, whence Eudoxius the new bishop, Acacius, and their friends addressed the Pannonians with a letter of thanks. But the blast heralded the collapse of the Arian cause; the Reaction ‘fell to pieces the moment Arianism ventured to have a policy of its own’ (Gwatkin, p. 158, the whole account should be consulted). Not only did orthodox Gaul, under Phoebadius of Agen, the most stalwart of the lesser men whom Milan had spared, meet in synod and condemn the blasphemy, but the conservative East was up in arms against Arianism, for the first time with thorough spontaneity. Times were changed indeed; the East was at war with the Wests but on the side of orthodoxy against Arianism.

(c) We must now take account of the party headed by Basil of Ancyra and usually (since Epiphanius), but with some injustice, designated as Semi-Arians. Their theological ancestry and antecedents have been already sketched (pp. xxvii., xxxv.); they are the representatives of that conservatism, moulded by the neo-Asiatic, or modified Origenist tradition, which warmly condemned Arianism at Nicaea, but acquiesced with only half a heart in the test by which the Council resolved to exclude it. They furnished the numerical strength, the material basis so to call it, of the anti-Nicene reaction; but the reaction on their part had not been Arian in principle, but in part anti-Sabellian, in part the empirical conservatism of men whose own principles are vague and ill-assorted, and who fail to follow the keener sight which distinguishes the higher conservatism from the lower. They lent themselves to the purposes of the Eusebians (a name which ought to be dropped after 342) on purely negative grounds and in view of questions of personal rights and accusations. A positive doctrinal formula they did not possess. But in the course of years reflexion did its work. A younger generation grew up who had not been taught to respect Nicaea, nor yet had imbibed Arian principles. Cyril at Jerusalem, Meletius at Antioch, are specimens of a large class. The Dedication Creed at Antioch represents an early stage in the growth of this body of conviction, conviction not absolutely uniform everywhere, as the result shews, but still with a distinct tendency to settle down to a formal position with regard to the great question of the age. There was nothing in the Nicene doctrine that men like this did not hold: but the word omoousion opened the door to the dreaded Sabellian error: was not the history of Marcellus and Photinus a significant comment upon it? But if ousia meant not individuality, but specific identity (supr., p. xxxi. sq.) even this term might be innocently admitted. But to make that meaning plain, what was more effective than the insertion of an iota?  JOmoiousio", then, was the satisfactory test which would banish Arius and Marcellus alike. Who first used the word for the purpose, we do not know, but its first occurrence is its prohibition in the ‘blasphemy’ of Valens in 357. The leader of the ‘semi-Arians’ in 357 was Basil of Ancyra, a man of deep learning and high character. George of Laodicea, an original Arian, was in active but short-lived alliance with the party, other prominent members of it were Eustathius, Bishop of Sebaste (Sivas), Eleusius of Cyzicus, Macedonius of Constantinople, Eusebius of Emesa, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Mark of Arethusa, a high-minded but violent man, who represents the ‘left’ wing of the party as Cyril and Basil represent the ‘right.’

Now the ‘trumpet-blast’ of Valens gave birth to the ‘Semi-Arians’ as a formal party. An attempt was made to reunite the reaction on a Homoean basis in 359, but the events of that year made the breach more open than ever. The tendency towards the Nicene position which received its impulse in 357 continued unchecked until the Nicene cause triumphed in Asia in the hands of the ‘conservatives’ of the next generation.

Immediately after the Acacian Synod at Antioch early in 358, George of Laodicea, who had reasons of his own for indignation against Eudoxius, wrote off in hot haste to warn Basil of the fearful encouragement that was being given to the doctrines of Aetius in that city. Basil, who was in communication (through Hilary) with Phoebadius and his colleagues, had invited twelve neighbouring bishops to the dedication of a church in Ancyra at this time, and took the opportunity of drawing up a synodical letter insisting on the Essential Likeness of the Son to the Father (omoion kat ousian), and eighteen anathemas directed against Marcellus and the Anomoeans. (The censure of omoousion h tautoousion is against the Marcellian sense of the omoousion). Basil, Eustathius, and Eleusius then proceeded to the Court at Sirmium and were successful in gaining the ear of the Emperor, who at this time had a high regard for Basil, and apparently obtained the ratification by a council, at which Valens, &c., were present, of a composite formula of their own (Newman’s ‘semi-Arian digest of three Confessions’) which was also signed by Liberius, who was thereupon sent back to Rome. (Soz. iv. 15 is our only authority here, and his account of the formula is not very clear: he seems to mean that two, not three, confessions were combined. (Cf. p. 449, note 4.) On the whole, it is most probable that the ‘fourth’ Antiochene formula in its Sirmian recen-sion of 351 is intended, perhaps with the addition of twelve of the Ancyrene anathemas. (The question of the signatures of Liberius need not detain us.) The party of Valens were involved in sudden and unlooked-for discomfiture. Basil even succeeded in obtaining a decree of banishment against Eudoxius, Aetius, and ‘seventy’ others (Philost. iv. 8). But an Arian deputation from Syria procured their recall, and all parties stood at bay in mutual bitterness.

Now was the opportunity of Valens. He saw the capabilities of the Homoean compromise, as yet embodied in no creed, and resolved to try it: and his experiment was not unsuccessful. All parties alike seem to have agreed upon the necessity for a council of the whole Church (on the origin of the proposal, and for other details, see p. 448). But Valens was determined what the result of the council must be. Accordingly he prevailed on the Emperor to divide it, the Western Synod to meet at Ariminum, the Eastern at ‘Rocky Seleucia,’ a mountain fortress in Cilicia where there happened to be plenty of troops. The management of the latter was entrusted to Acaciusat Rimini Valens would be present in person. In event of the two synods differing, a delegation of ten bishops from each was to meet at Court and settle the matter. The Creed to be adopted had also to be arranged before. hand, and for this purpose, to his great discredit, Basil of Ancyra entered into a conference (along with Mark of Arethusa and certain colleagues) with Valens, George of Alexandria, and others of like mind. The result was the ‘Dated Creed’ (May 22, 359) drawn by Mark, prohibiting the word ousia (in a gentler tone than that of the creed of Valens in 357), but containing the definition omoion kata panta (‘as also the Scriptures teach,’ see above, on Cyril, p. xlix.), words which Valens and Ursacius sought to suppress. But Constantius insisted on their retention, and Basil emphasised his subscription by a strongly-worded addition. Moreover in conjunction with George of Laodicea he drew up a memorandum (Epiph. 72, 12–22) vindicating the term ousia as implied in Scripture, insisting on the absolute essential likeness of the Son to the Father, except in respect of the Incarnation, and repudiating the idea that agennhsia is the essential notion of Godhead. Such a protest was highly significant as an approach to the Nicene position, but Basil must have felt its inefficiency for the purpose in hand. Had the creed been anything but a surrender of principle on his part, no explanatory memoranda would have been needed.

After the fiasco of the Dated Creed, the issue of the Councils was not doubtful. The details may be reserved for another place (pp. 448, 453 sqq.), but the general result is noteworthy. At both Councils the court party were in a minority, and in both alike they eventually had their way. (See Bright, Hist. Tr. lxxxiv.—xc., and Gwatkin, 170—180.) On the whole the Seleucian synod came out of the affair more honourably than the other, as their eventual surrender was confined to their delegates. Both Councils began bravely. The majorities deposed their opponents and affirmed their own faith, the Westerns that of Nicaea, the Easterns that of the Dedication. From both Councils deputations from each rival section went to the Emperor, who was now at Constantinople. The deputies from the majority at Ariminum, where the meeting had begun fully two months before the other, were not received, but detained first at Hadrianopic, then at Nike in Thrace (chosen, says Socr. ii. 37, to impose on the world by the name), where they were induced to sign a recension of the Dated Creed (the Creed itself had been revoked and recast without the date and perhaps without the kata panta before the preliminary meeting at Sirmium broke up, p. 466) of a more distinctly Homoean character. Armed with this document Valens brought them back to the Council, and ‘by threats and cajolery’ obtained the signatures of nearly all the bishops. Yet the stalwart Phoebadius, Claudius of Picenum, the venerable African Muzonius, father of the Council, and a few others, were undaunted. But Valens, by adroit dissimulation and by guiding into a manageable shape the successive anathematisms by which his orthodoxy was tested, managed to deceive these simple-minded Westerns, and with applause and exultation, ‘plausu quodam et tripudio’ (Jer.), amidst which ‘Valens was lauded to the skies’ (!), the bishops were released from their wearisome detention and suspense. But Valens ‘cum recessisset tunc gloriabatur’ (Prov. xx. 14). The Western bishops realised too late what they had done, ‘Ingemuit totus orbis, etse Arianum esse miratus est.’ Valens hurried with the creed and the anathemas of Phoebadius to Constantinople, where he found the Seleucian deputies in hot discussion at court. The Eastern bishops at Seleucia had held to the ‘Lucianit’ creed, and contemptuously set aside not only the Acacian alternative (p. 466), but the whole compromise of Basil and Mark at the Sirmian conference of the preceding May. The ‘Conservatives’ and Acacians were at open war. But the change of the seat of war to the court gave the latter the advantage, and Valens and Acacius were determined to secure their position at any cost. The first step was to compel the signature of the ‘semi-Arian’ deputies to the creed of Ariminum. This was facilitated by the renewal on the part of Acacius and Valens of their repudiation, already announced at Seleucia (p. 466), of the ÆAnomoion, (of course with the mental reservation that the repudiation referred only to will). Even so, tedious discussions , and the threats of Constantins, with whom Basil had now lost all his influence (Thdt. ii. 27), were needed to bring about the required compliance late at night on New Year’s Eve, 359—360 (Soz. iv. 23). In January, at the dedication of the Great Church of Constantine, the second step was taken. The revised creed of Nike was reissued without the anathemas of Ariminum. Aetius was offered by his friend Eudoxius as a sacrifice to the Emperor’s scruples (see the account of the previous debates in Thdt. ubi supra), much as Arius had been sacrificed by his fellow-Lucianists at Nicaea (§2 supra: nine bishops protested, but were allowed six months to reconsider their objection; the six months lasted two years, and then a reconciliation with Actius took place for a time, Philost. vii. 6). Next a clean sweep was made of the leading semi-Arians on miscellaneous charges (Soz. iv. 24, sq.), and Eudoxius was installed as bishop of the New Rome in the place of Macedonius. The sacrifice of Actins gave the Homocans a free hand against their opponents, and was compensated by the appointment of numerous Anomoeans to vacant sees. In particular Eunomius replaced Eleusius at Cyzicus. In the eastern half of the Empire Homoeanism was supreme, and remained so politically for nearly twenty years. But not in the West. Before the Council of Constantinople met, the power of the West had passed away from Constantius. Gaul had acknowledged Julian as Augustus, and from Gaul came the voice of defiance for the Homoean leaders and sympathy for their deposed opponents (Hil. Frag. xi.). And even in the East, throughout their twenty years the Homoeans retained their hold upon the Church by a dead hand. ‘The moral strength of Christendom lay elsewhere;’ on the one hand the followers of Eunomius were breaking loose from Eudoxius and forming a definitely Aden sect, those of Macedonius crystallising their cruder conservatism into the illogical creed of the ‘Pneumatomachi;’ on the other hand the second generation of the ‘semi-Arians’ were, under the influence of Athanasius, working their way to the Greek Catholicism of the future, the Catholicism of the neo-Nicene school, of Basil and the two Gregories.

The lack of inner cohesion in the Homoean ranks was exemplified at the start in the election of a new bishop for Antioch. Eudoxius had vacated the see for that of New Rome; Anianus, the nominee of the Homoeusian majority of Seleucia, was out of the question; accordingly at a Council in 361 the Acacians fixed upon Meletius, who had in the previous year accepted from the Homoeans of CP. the See of Sebaste in the room of the exiled Eustathius. The new Bishop was requested by the Emperor to preach on the test passage Prov. viii. 22. This he did to a vast anti eagerly expectant congregation. To the delight of the majority (headed by Diodorus and Flavian), although he avoided the omousion, he spoke with no uncertain sound on the essential likeness of the Son to the Father. Formally ‘Nicene,’ indeed, the sermon was not (text in Epiph. Hoer. lxxiii. 29–33, see Hort, p. 96, note 1), but the dismay of the Homoean bishops equalled the joy of the Catholic laity. Meletius was ‘deposed’ in favour of the old Arian Euzoius (infr., p. 70), and after his return under Jovian gave in his formal adhesion to the Nicene test.

(3.) The history of Athanasius during this period is the history of his writings. Hidden from all but devotedly loyal eyes, whether in the cells of Nitria and the Thebaid, or lost in the populous solitude of his own city, he followed with a keen and comprehensive glance the march of events outside. Two men in this age had skill to lay the physician’s finger upon the pulse of religious conviction; Hilary, the Western who had learned to understand and sympathise with the East, Athanasius, the Oriental representative of the theological instincts of the West. First of all came the writings of which we have spoken, the circular to the bishops and the Apology to Constantius; then the dignified Apology for his flight, written not long before the expulsion of George late in 358, when he had begun to realise the merciless enmity and profound duplicity of the Emperor. We find him not long after this in correspondence with the exiled confessor, Lucifer of Calaris (pp. 561 sq., 481 sqq.), and warning the Egyptian monks against compromising relations with Arian visitors (Letter 53, a document of high interest), narrating to the trusted Scrapion the facts as to the death of Arius, and sending to the monks a concise refutation of Arian doctrine (Letters 52, 54). With the latter is associated a reissue of the Apology of 351, and, as a continuation of it, the solitary monument of a less noble spirit which Athanasius has left us, the one work which we would gladly believe to have come from any other pen . But this supposition is untenable, and in the ferocious pamphlet against Constantius known as the Arian History we are reminded that noble as he was, our saint yet lived in an age of fierce passions and reckless personal violence. The Arian History has its noble features—no work of Athanasius could lack them—but it reveals not the man himself but his generation; his exasperation, and the meanness of his persecutors. (For details on all these tracts see the Introductions and notes to them.) None of the above books directly relate to the doctrinal developments sketched above. But these developments called forth the three greatest works of his exile, and indeed of his whole career. Firstly, the four Logoi or Tracts against Arianism, his most famous dogmatic work. Of these an account will be given in the proper place, but it may be noticed here that they are evidently written with a conciliatory as well as a controversial purpose, and in view of the position between 357 and 359. Next, the four dogmatic letters to Serapion, the second of which reproduces the substance of his position against the Arians, while the other three are devoted to a question overlooked in the earlier stages of the controversy, the Coessentiality of the Holy Spirit. This work may possibly have come after the third, and in some ways the most striking, of the series, the de Synodis written about the end of 359, and intended as a formal offer of peace to the Homoeusian party. Following as it did closely upon the conciliatory work of Hilary, who was present at Seleucia on the side of the majority, this magnanimous Eirenicon produced an immediate effect, which we trace in the letters of the younger Basil written in the same or following year; but the full effect and justification of the book is found in the influence exerted by Athanasius upon the new orthodoxy which eventually restored the ‘ten provinces’ to ‘the knowledge of God’ (Hil. de Syn. 63. Further details in Introd. to de Syn., infra, p. 448. It may be remarked that the romantic idea of his secret presence at Seleucia, and even at Ariminum, must be dismissed as a too rigid inference from an expression used by him in that work: see note 1 there).

This brings us to the close of the eventful period of the Third Exile, and of the long series of creeds which registers the variations of Arianism during thirty years. We may congratulate ourselves on ‘having come at last to the end of the labyrinth of expositions’ (Socr. ii. 41), and within sight of the emergence of conviction out of confusion, of order out of chaos. The work of setting in order opens our next period. Of the exile there is nothing more to tell except its close. Hurrying from Antioch on his way from the Persian frontier to oppose the eastward march of Julian, Constantius caught a fever, was baptised by Euzoius, and died at Mopsucrenae under Mount Taurus, on Nov. 3, 361. Julian at once avowed the heathenism he had long cherished in secret, and by an edict, published in Alexandria on Feb. 9, recalled from exile all bishops banished by Constantius. ‘And twelve days after the posting of this edict Athanasius appeared at Alexandria and entered the Church on the twenty-seventh day of the same month, Mechir (Feb. 21). He remained in the Church until the twenty-sixth of Paophi (i.e., Oct. 23) …eight whole months’ (Hist. Aceph. vii. The murder of George has been referred to above, p. liii.).

§9. Athanasius Under Julian and His Successors; Fourth and Fifth Exiles. Feb. 21, 362, to Feb. 1, 366.

(a) The Council of Alexandria in 362. The eight months of undisturbed residence enjoyed by Athanasius under Julian were well employed. One of his first acts was to convoke a Synod at Alexandria to deal with the questions which stood in the way of the peace of the Church. The Synod was one ‘of saints and confessors,’ including as it did many of the Egyptian bishops who had suffered under George (p. 483, note 3, again we miss the name of the trusted Serapion), Asterius of Petra and Eusebius of Vercellae, with legates from Lucifer of Calaris, Apollinarius of Laodicea, and Paulinus the Presbyter who ruled the Eustathian community of Antioch. Our knowledge of the proceedings of the Synod (with an exception to be referred to later on) is derived entirely from its ‘Tome’ or Synodal letter addressed to the latter community and to the exiles who were its guests. Rufinus, from whom or from the Tome itself Socrates appears to derive his knowledge, follows the Tome closely, with perhaps a faint trace of knowledge from some other source. Sozomen gives a short and inadequate report (v. 12). But the importance of the Council is out of all proportion either to the number of bishops who took part in it or to the scale of its documentary records. Jerome goes so far as to say that by its judicious conciliation it ‘snatched the whole world from the jaws of Satan’ (Adv. Lucif. 20). If this is in any measure true, if it undid both in East and West the humiliating results of the twin Synods of 359, the honour of the achievement is due to Athanasius alone. He saw that victory was not to be won by smiting men who were ready for peace, that the cause of Christ was not to be furthered by breaking the bruised reed and quenching the smoking flax. (Best accounts of the Council, Newman, Arians V. i., Krüger, Lucif. 41—52, Gwatkin, p. 205, sqq.) The details may be reserved for the Introduction to the Tome, p. 481. But in the strong calm moderation of that document we feel that Athanasius is no longer a combatant arduously contending for victory, but a conqueror surveying the field of his triumph and resolving upon the terms of peace. The Council is the ripe first-fruits of the de Synodis, the decisive step by which he placed himself at the head of the reuniting forces of Eastern Christendom; forces which under the recognised headship of the ‘Father of Orthodoxy’ were able successfully to withstand the revived political supremacy of Arianism under Valens, and after his death to cast it out of the Church. The Council then is justly recognised as the crown of the career of Athanasius, for its resolutions and its Letter unmistakably proceed from him alone, and none but he could have tempered the fiery zeal of the confessors and taught them to distinguish friend from foe.

It would have been well had Lucifer been there in person and not by deputy only. As it was he had gone to Antioch in fiery haste, with a promise extorted by Eusebius to do nothing rashly. Fanatical in his orthodoxy, quite unable to grasp the theological differences between the various parties (his remonstrances with Hilary upon the conciliatory efforts of the latter shew his total lack of theology: see also Krüger, pp. 36, sq.), and concentrating all his indignation upon persons rather than principles, Lucifer found Antioch without a bishop; for Euzoius was an Arian, and Meletius, whose return to the church of the Palaea was (so it seems) daily expected, was to Lucifer little better. What to such a man could seem a quicker way to the extinction of the schism than the immediate ordination of a bishop whom all would respect, and whose record was one of the most uncompromising resistance to heresy? Lucifer accordingly, with the aid we may suppose of Kymatius and Anatolius, ordained Paulinus, the widely-esteemed head of the irreconcileable or (to adopt Newman’s word) protestant minority, who had never owned any Bishop of Antioch save the deposed and banished Eustathius. The act of Lucifer had momentous consequences (see D.C.B. on Meletius and Flavian, &c.); it perpetuated the existing tendency to schism between East and West; and but for the forbearance of Athanasius it would perhaps have wrecked the alliance of Conservative Asia with Nicene orthodoxy which his later years cemented. Even as it was, the relations between Athanasius and Basil were sorely tried by the schism of Antioch. The Tome however was signed by Paulinus , who added a short statement of his own faith, which, by recognising the legitimacy of the theological language of the other catholic party at Antioch, implicitly conceded the falseness of his own position.

Eusebius and Asterius of Petra carried the letter to Antioch, where they found the mischief already done. In deep pain at the headstrong action of his fellow-countryman, Eusebius gave practical assurance to both parties of his full sympathy and recognition, and made his way home through Asia and Illyria, doing his best in the cause of concord wherever he came. Lucifer renounced communion with all the parties to what he considered a guilty compromise, and journeyed home to Sardinia, making mischief everywhere (terribly so at Naples, according to the grotesque tale in the Lib. Prec.; see D.C.B. iv. 1221 under Zosimus (2)), and ended his days in the twofold reputation of saint and schismatic (Krüger, pp. 55, 116 sq.).

It may be well to add a few words upon the supposed Coptic acts of this council, and upon their connection with the very ancient Syntama Doctrinoe, wrongly so named, and wrongly ascribed to Athanasius. These ‘acts’ are in reality a series of documents consisting of (1) The Nicene Creed, Canons, and Signatures; (2) A Coptic recension of the Syntagma Doctrinoe; (3) the letter of Paulinus from Tom. Ant., sub fin., a letter of Epiphanius, and a fragmentary letter of ‘Rufinus,’ i.e. Rufinianus (see infr. p. 566, note 1). Revillout, who published these texts from a Turin and a Roman (Borgia) manuscript in 1881 (Le Concile de Nice’e d’apres les textes Coptes) jumped (Archives des missions scientifiques et littéraires, 1879) at the conclusion that the whole series emanated from the council of 362, from whose labours all our copies of the Nicene canons and signatures are supposed by him to emanate. His theory cannot be discussed at length in this place. It is worked out with ingenuity, but with insufficient knowledge of general Church history. It appears to be adopted wholesale by Eichhorn in his otherwise critical and excellent Athanasii de vita ascetica testmonia (see below, p. 189); but even those whose scepticism has not been awaked by the hypothesis itself must I think be satisfied by the careful study of M. Batiffol (Studia Patristica, fasc. ii.) that Revillout has erected a castle in the air. Of any ‘acts’ of the Council of 362 the documents contain no trace at all. It is therefore out of place to do more than allude here to the great interest of the Syntagma in its three or four extant recensions in connection at once with the history of Egyptian Monasticism and with the literature of the Didach twn ib apostolwn (see Harnack in Theol. Litzg. 1887, pp. 32, sqq., Eichhorn, ib. p. 569, Warfield in Andover Review, 1886, p. 81, sqq., and other American literature referred to by Harnack a.a.O).

All over the Empire the exiles were returning, and councils were held (p. 489), repudiating the Homoean formula of union, and affirming that of Nicaea. In dealing with the question of those who had formerly compromised themselves with Arianism, these councils followed the lead of that of Alexandria, which accordingly is justly said by Jerome (adv. Lucif. 20) to have snatched the world from the jaws of Satan, by obviating countless schisms and attaching to the Church many who might otherwise have been driven back into Arianism.

Such were the more enduring results of the recall of the exiled bishops by Julian; results very different from what he contemplated in recalling them. Apparently before the date of the council he had written to the Alexandrians (Ep. 26), explaining that he had recalled the exiles to their countries, not to their sees, and directing that Athanasius, who ought after so many sentences against him to have asked special permission to return, should leave the City at once on pain of severer punishment. An appeal seems to have been made against this order by the people of Alexandria, but without effect. Pending the appeal Athanasius apparently felt safe in remaining in the town, and carrying out the measures described above. In October (it would seem) Julian wrote an indignant letter to the Prefect Ecdikius Olympus (Sievers, p. 124), threatening a heavy fine if Athanasius, ‘the enemy of the gods,’ did not leave not only Alexandria, but Egypt, at once. He adds an angry comment on his having dared to baptize ‘in my reign’ Greek ladies of rank (Ep. 6). Another letter (Ep. 51) to the people of Alexandria, along with arguments in favour of Serapis and the gods, and against Christ, reiterates the order for Athanasius to leave Egypt by Dec. 1. Julian’s somewhat petulant reference to the bishop as a ‘contemptible little fellow’ ill conceals his evident feeling that Athanasius, who had ‘coped with Constantius like a king battling with a king’ (Greg. Naz.), was in Egypt a power greater than himself. But no man has ever wielded such political power as Athanasius with so little disposition to use it. He bowed his head to the storm and prepared to leave Alexandria once more (Oct. 23). His friends stood round lamenting their loss. ‘Be of good heart,’ he replied, ‘it is only a cloud, and will soon pass away’ (Soz. v. 14). He took a Nile boat, and set off toward Upper Egypt, but finding that he was tracked by the government officers he directed the boat’s course to be reversed. Presently they met that of the pursuers, who suspecting nothing asked for news of Athanasius. ‘He is not far off’ was the answer, given according to one account by Athanasius himself (Thdt. iii. 9, Socr. iii. 14). He returned to Chaereu, the first station on the road eastward from Alexandria (as is inferred from the Thereu or Thereon of Hist. Aceph. vii., viii.; but the identification is merely conjectural; for Chaereu cf Itin. and Vit. Ant. 86), and after danger of pursuit was over, ‘ascended to the upper parts of Egypt as far as Upper Hermupolis in the Thebald and as far as Antinoupolis; and while he abode in these places it was learned that Julian the Emperor was dead, and that Jovian, a Christian, was Emperor’ (Hist. Aceph.). Of his stay in the Thebaid (cf. Fest. Ind. xxxv.) some picturesque details are preserved in the life of Pachomius and the letter of Ammon (on which see below, p. 487). As he approached Hermupolis, the bishops, clergy, and monks (‘about 100 in number’) of the Thebaid lined both banks of the river to welcome him. ‘Who are these,’ he exclaimed, ‘that fly as a cloud and as doves with their young ones’ (Isa. lx. 8, LXX). Then he saluted the Abbat Theodore, and asked after the brethren. ‘By thy holy prayers, Father, we are well.’ He was mounted on an ass and escorted to the monastery with burning torches (they ‘almost set fire to him’), the abbat walking before him on foot. He inspected the monasteries, and expressed his high approval of all he heard and saw, and when Theodore, upon departing for his Easter (363) visitation of the brethren, asked ‘the Pope’ to remember him in his prayers, the answer was characteristic: ‘If we forget thee, O Jerusalem’ (Vit. Pachom. 92, see p. 569). About midsummer he was near Antinoupolis, and trusted messengers warned him that the pursuers were again upon his track. Theodore brought his covered boat to escort him up to Tabenne, and in company with an ‘abbat’ called Pammon they made their way slowly against wind and stream. Athanasius became much alarmed and prayed earnestly to himself, while Theodore’s monks towed the boat from the shore. Athanasius, in reply to an encouraging remark of Pammon, spoke of the peace of mind he felt when under persecution, and of the consolation of suffering and even death for Christ’s sake. Pammon looked at Theodore, and they smiled, barely restraining a laugh. ‘You think me a coward,’ said Athanasius. ‘Tell him,’ said Theodore to Pammon. ‘No, you must tell him.’ Theodore then announced to the astonished archbishop that at that very hour Julian had been killed in Persia, and that he should lose no time in making his way to the new Christian Emperor, who would restore him to the Church. The story (below, p. 487) implies rather than expressly states that the day and hour tallied exactly with the death of Julian, June 26, 363. This story is, on the whole, the best attested of the many legends of the kind which surround the mysterious end of the unfortunate prince. (Cf. Thdt. H.E. iii. 23, Soz. vi. 2. For the religious policy of Julian and his relation to Church history, see Rendall’s Julian and the full and excellent article by Wordsworth in D.C.B. iii. 484–525.)

Athanasius entered Alexandria secretly and made his way by way of Hierapolis (Sept. 6, Fest. Ind.) to Jovian at Edessa, and returned with him (apparently) to Antioch. On Feb. 14 (or 20, Fest. Index) he returned to Alexandria with imperial letters and took possession of the churches, his fourth exile having lasted ‘fifteen months and twenty-two days’ (Hist. Aceph.). The visit to Antioch was important.

Firstly, it is clear from the combined and circumstantial testimony of the Festal Index, the Hist. Aceph., and the narrative of Ammon, that Athanasius hurried to meet Jovian on his march from Persia to Antioch, and visited Alexandria only in passing and in private. He appears to have taken the precaution (see below) of taking certain bishops and others, representing the majority (plhqo") of the Egyptian Church, along with him. Accordingly the tale of Theodoret (iv. 2), that he assembled a council (tou" logimwterou" twn episkopwn egeira"), and wrote a synodal letter to Jovian, in reply to a request from the latter to furnish him with an accurate statement of doctrine (followed by Montf., Hefele, &c.) must be set aside as a hasty conjecture from the heading of the Letter to Jovian (see below, ch. v. §3 (h), and cf. Vales. on Thdt. iv. 3, who suspected the truth).

Athanasius, secondly, had good reason for hurrying. The Arians had also sent a large deputation to petition against the restoration of Athanasius, and to ask for a bishop. Lucius, their candidate for the post, accompanied the deputation. But the energy of Athanasius was a match for their schemes. He obtained a short but emphatic letter from Jovian, bidding him return to his see, and placed in the Emperor’s hands a letter (below, Letter 56, p. 567), insisting on the integrity of the Nicene creed, which it recites, and especially on the Godhead of the Holy Spirit.

Meanwhile at Antioch, where the winter was spent (Jovian was mostly there till Dec. 21), there was much to be attended to. Least important of all were the efforts of the Arian deputation to secure a hearing for their demands. Jovian’s replies to them on the repeated occasions on which they waylaid him are perhaps undigni-fled (Gwatkin) but yet shew a rough soldier-like common sense. ‘Any one you please except Athanasius’ they urged. ‘I told you, the case of Athanasius is settled already:’ then, to the body-guard ‘Feri, feri’ (i.e. use your sticks!) Some of the plhqo" of Antioch seized Lucius and brought him to Jovian, saying, ‘Look, your Majesty, at the man they wanted to make a bishop 1’ (See p. 568 sq.)

Athanasius appears to have attempted to bring about some settlement of the disputes which distracted the Church of Antioch. The Hist. Aceph. makes him ‘arrange the affairs’ of that Church, but Sozom. (vi. 5), who copies the phrase, significantly adds w" oion te hn—‘as far as it was feasible.’ The vacillations (Philost. viii. 2, 7, ix. 3, &c.) of Euzoius between Eudoxius on the one hand, and the consistent Anomoeans on the other, and the formation of a definite Anomoean sect, represented in Egypt by Heliodorus, Stephen, and other nominees of the bitter Arian Secundus (who appears to be dead at last) probably concerned Athanasius but little. But the breach among the Antiochene Catholics was more hopeless than ever. The action of Paulinus in ordaining a bishop for Tyre, Diodorus by name (p. 580 note), shews that he had caught something of the spirit of Lucifer, while on the other hand we can well imagine that it was with mixed feelings that Athanasius saw a number of bishops assemble under Meletius to sign the Nicene Creed. To begin with, they explained the omoousion to be equivalent to ek th" ousia" and omoion kat` ousian. Now this was no more than taking Athanasius literally at his word (de Syn. 41 exactly; the confession, Socr. iii. 25, appears to meet Ath. de Syn. half way: cf. the reference to `Ellhnikh crhsi" with de Syn. 51), and there is no reason to doubt that the majority of those who signed did so in all sincerity, merely guarding the omoousion against its Sabellian sense (which Hilary de Syn. 71, had admitted as possible), and in fact, meaning by the term exactly what Basil the Great and his school meant by it. This is confirmed by the express denunciation of Arianism and Anomoeanism. But Athanasius may have suspected an intention on the part of some signatories to evade the full sense of the creed, especially as touching the Holy Spirit, and this suspicion would not be lessened by the fact that Acacius signed with the rest. It must remain possible, therefore, that a clause in the letter to Jovian referred to above, expresses his dipleasure at the wording of the document. (On the significance of the confession in question, see Gwatkin, pp. 226 sq., 244, note 1.) We gather from language used by St. Basil at a later date (Bas. Epp. 89, 258) that Athanasius endeavoured to conciliate Meletius, and to bring about some understanding between the two parties in the Church. Meletius appears to have considered such efforts premature: Basil writes to him that he understands that Athanasius is much disappointed that no renewal of friendly overtures has taken place, and that if Meletius desires the good offices of the Bishop of Alexandria the first word must come from him (probably seven or eight years later than this date). In justice to Meletius it must be allowed that Paulinus did his best to embitter the schism by ordaining bishops at Tyre and elsewhere, ordinations which Meletius naturally resented, and appears to have ignored (D.C.B. iv. Zeno (3),—where observe that the breach of canons began with the appointment of Paulinus himself). Athanasius returned to Alexandria on Feb. 14 (Hist. Aceph.) or 20 (Fest. Ind.), and Jovian died, by inhaling the fumes of a charcoal fire in the bedroom of a wayside inn, on Feb. 17.

Valentinian, an officer of Pannonian birth, was elected Emperor by the army, and shorty co-opted his brother Valens to a share in the Empire. Valens was allotted the Eastern, Valentinian choosing the Western half of the Empire. Valentinian was a convinced but tolerant Catholic, and under his reign Arianism practically died away in the Latin West (infra, p. 488). Valens, a weak, parsimonious, but respectable and well-intentioned ruler, at first took no decided line, but eventually (from the end of 364) fell more and more into the hands of Eudoxius (from whom he received baptism in 367) and the Arian hangers-on of the Court (a suggestive, if in some details disputable, sketch of the general condition of the Eastern Church under Valens in Gwatkin, pp. 228–236, 247 sq.). The semi-Arians of Asia were continuing their advance toward the Nicene position, but the question of the Holy Spirit was already beginning to cleave them into two sections. At their council of Lampsacus (autumn of 364) they reasserted their formula of ‘essential likeness’ against the Homocans, but appear to have left the other and more difficult question undecided. After Valens had declared strongly on the side of the enemy, they were driven to seek Western aid. They set out to seek Valentinian at Milan, but finding him departed on his Gallic campaign (Gwatkin, 236, note) they contented themselves with laying before Liberius, on behalf of the Synod of Lampsacus and other Asiatic Councils, a letter accepting the Nicene Creed. After some hesitation (Soc. iv. 12) they were cordially received by Liberius, who gave them a letter to take home with them, in which the controverted question of the Holy Spirit is passed over in silence. (Letter of the Asiatics in Soot. iv. 12, that of Liberius in Hard. Conc. i. 743–5, the names include Cyril of Jerusalem, Macedonius, Silvanus of Tarsus, Athanasius of Ancyra, &c., and the Pope’s letter is addressed to them ‘et universis orientalibus orthodoxis’). On their return, the disunion of the party manifested itself by the refusal of several bishops to attend the synod convoked to receive the deputies at Tyana, and by their assembling a rival meeting in Carla to reaffirm the ‘Lucianic’ Creed (Hefele, ii. 287 E. Tr.). Further efforts at reunion were frustrated by the Imperial prohibition of an intended Synod at Tarsus, possibly in 367.

Athanasius remained in peace in his see until the spring of 365, when on May 5 a rescript was published at Alexandria, ordering that all bishops expelled under Constantius who had returned to their sees under Julian should be at once expelled by the civil authorities under pain of a heavy fine. The announcement was received with great popular displeasure. The officials were anxious to escape the fine, but the Church-people argued that the order could not apply to Athanasius, who had been restored by Constantius, expelled by Julian in the interest of idolatry, and restored by order of Jovian. Their remonstrances were backed up by popular riots: when these had lasted a month, the Prefect quieted the people by the assurance that the matter was referred back to Augustus (Hist. Aceph. x., followed by Soz. vi. 12). But on Oct. 5 an imperative answer seems to have come. The Prefect and the Commandant broke into the Church of Dionysius at night and searched the apartments of the clergy to seize the bishop. But Athanasius, warned in time, had escaped from the town that very night and retired to a country house which belonged to him near the ‘New River’ . This was the shortest and mildest of the five exiles of Athanasius. In the autumn the dangerous revolt of Procopius threw the Eastern Empire into a panic. It was no time to allow popular discontent to smoulder at Alexandria, and on Feb. 1, 366, the notary Brasidas publicly announced the recall of Athanasius to Imperial order. The notary and ‘curiales’ went out to the suburb in person and escorted Athanasius in state to the Church of Dionysius.

§10. Last Years, Feb. 1, 366-May 2, 373.

Athanasius now entered upon the last septennium of his life, a well-earned Sabbath of honoured peace and influence for good. Little occurred to disturb his peace at home, and if the confusion and distress of the Eastern Church under Valens could not but cause him anxiety, in Egypt at any rate, so long as he lived, the Catholic Faith was secure from molestation.

In 367 Lucius, who had been ordained Bishop of Alexandria by the Arian party at Antioch, made an attempt to enter the city. He arrived by night on Sept. 24, but on the following day the public got wind of his presence in Alexandria, and a dangerous riot was imminent. A strong military force rescued him from the enraged mob, and on Sept. 26 he was escorted out of Egypt. In the previous year a heathen riot had taken place and the great Church in the Caesareum had been burned. But in May, 368, the building was recommenced (the incendiaries having been punished) under an Imperial order.

On Sept. 22, 368, Athanasius began to build a Church in the quarter ‘Mendidium’ (perhaps in commemoration of his completion of the 40th year of his Episcopate, see Hist. Aceph. xii.), which was dedicated Aug. 7, 370, and called after his own name.

In 368 or the following year we place the Synod at which Athanasius drew up his letter to the bishops of Africa giving an account of the proceedings at Nicaea, and mentioning his dissatisfaction at the continued immunity enjoyed by Auxentius at Milan (see p. 488).

Our knowledge of the last years of the life of Athanasius is derived partly from his own letters (59–64), partly from the scanty data of his latest works, partly from the letters of Synesius and Basil. From Synesius (Ep. 77) we hear of the case of Siderius, a young officer from the army who was present in Libya on civil duty, The Bishop of Erythrum, Orion by name, was in his dotage, and the inhabitants of two large villages in the diocese, impatient of the lack of supervision, clamoured for a bishop of their own, and for the appointment of Siderius. Sideus was accordingly consecrated by a certain Bishop Philo alone, without the canonical two assistants, and without the coguisance of Athanasius. But in view of the immense utility of the appointment Athanasius overlooked its irregularity, and even promoted Siderius to the Metropolitan see of Ptolemais, merging the two villages upon Orion’s death once more into their proper diocese. (Fuller details D.C.B. iv. 777, sq.) But if Athanasius was no slave to ecclesiastical discipline when the good of the church was in question, he enforced it unsparingly in the interest of morality. An immoral governor of Libya was sternly excommunicated and the fact announced far and wide. We have the reply of Basil the Great, who in 370 had become Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, to this notification, and from this time frequent letters passed between the champions of the Old and of the New Nicene orthodoxy. Unhappily we have none of the letters of Athanasius: those of Basil shew us that the loss is one to be deplored. The correspondence bore partly on the continuance of the unhappy schism at Antioch. Basil asks for the mediation of Athanasius; if he could not bring himself to write a letter to the bishops in communion with Meletius, he might at least use his influence with Paulinus and prevail upon him to withdraw. He also presses Meletius to take the initiative in conciliation: possibly he did so, at least one of Basil’s letters is sent by the hand of one of Meletius’ deacons (Bas. Epp. 60, 66, 69, 80, 82, 89). But ‘nothing came of the application:’ Meletius probably felt injured at the strong support Athanasius had given to Paulinus, even in so questionable an affair as that of Diodorus of Tyre (supra, §9, and cf. Letter 64); while Athanasius was too deeply committed to surrender Paulinus, who again was the last man to yield of his own accord (Thdt. H.E. v. 23).

Basil obtained the good offices of Athanasius in his attempt to induce the bishops of Rome and the West to give him some support in his efforts against heresy in the East; but the failure here was due to the selfishness and arrogance of the Westerns. (Epp. 61, 67).

Basil was also troubled with the continued refusal of Athanasius and the Westerns to repudiate Marcellus, who was still living in extreme old age, and to whom the mass of the people at Ancyra were attached (Bas. Ep. 266, Legat. Eugen. 1, anariqmhton plhqo"). This state of things, he urged, kept alive the prejudice of many against the Nicene decrees (Ep. 69). But the Marcellians, perhaps aware of the efforts of Basil, sent a deputation, headed by the deacon Eugenius, and fortified by letters from ‘the bishops’ of Macedonia and Achaia, to Alexandria. A synod was apparently in readiness to receive them, and upon demand they produced a statement of their faith, emphatically adopting the Nicene creed, condemning Sabellius, but affirming an en upootaoei triada. The distinction between Logo" and the Son is rejected, and the idea that the Monad existed before the Son anathematised. Photinus is classed as a heretic with Paul of Samosata. Only the eternal duration of Christ’s kingdom is not mentioned. (It may be noted that while this letter gives up many points of the theology of Marcellus, the process is quite completed in a letter submitted by the Marcellian community in 375 to some exiled Egyptian bishops at Diocaesarea ; Epiph. Haer. 72, 11). Athanasius accepted the confession, and the assembled bishops subscribed their names (only a few signatures are preserved). While we understand Basil’s regret at the refusal of Athanasius to condemn Marcellus, we can scarcely share it. If Athanasius shewed partiality toward his old ally, it was an error of generosity, or rather let us say a recognition of the truth, too often forgotten in religious controversy, that mistakes are not necessarily heresies, and that a man may go very far wrong in his opinions and yet be entitled to sympathy and respect.

Basil speaks of Athanasius in terms of unbounded veneration and praise, and Athanasius in turn rebukes those who attempted to disparage Basil’s orthodoxy, calling him a bishop such as any church might desire to call its own (p. 579 sq.).

During the last decade of his life the attention of Athanasius was drawn to the questions raised by the Arian controversy as to the human nature of our Lord. The Arian doctrine on this subject was apparently as old as Lucian, but the whole subject received little or no attention in the earlier stages of the controversy, and it was only with the rise of the Anomoean school that the questions came into formal discussion. In the later letters of Athanasius we see the traces of wide-spread controversy on the matter (especially in that to Epictetus, No. 59), and Apollinarius, bishop of the Syrian Laodicea, and a former close friend of Athanasius, whose legates in 362 had joined in condemning the Arian Christology, broached a peculiar theory on the subject, viz., that while Christ took a human soul along with His Body, the Word took the place of the human spirit, pnxuma (1 Thess. v. 23). The details of the system do not belong to our subject (an excellent sketch in Gwatkin’s Arian Controversy, pp. 136—141); in fact it was two years after the death of Athanasius when Apollinarius definitely founded a sect by consecrating a schismatic bishop for the already distracted Church of Antioch. But Athanasius marked with alarm the tendency of his friend, and in the very last years of his life wrote a tract against his tenet in two short books, in which, as in writing against Marcellus and Photinus 15 years before, he refrains from mentioning Apollinarius by name. It may be observed that at the close of the second book he brings himself for the first time to censure by name ‘him they call Photinus,’ classing him along with Paul of Samosata.

Athanasius was active to the last; spiritually (we are not able to say physically) ‘his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.’ In his seventy-fifth year he entered (Ruf. ii. 3) upon the forty-sixth year of his episcopate. Feeling that his end was near, he followed the example of his revered predecessor Alexander, and named Peter as the man whom he judged fittest to succeed him; then ‘on the seventh of Pachon (May 2, 373) he departed this life in a wonderful manner.’

Chapter III.—Writings and Personal Characteristics of S. Athanasius.

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