Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part V

But the injustice of these ecclesiastical judges had not been
countenanced by the submission, or even by the presence, of
Athanasius. He resolved to make a bold and dangerous experiment,
whether the throne was inaccessible to the voice of truth; and
before the final sentence could be pronounced at Tyre, the
intrepid primate threw himself into a bark which was ready to
hoist sail for the Imperial city. The request of a formal
audience might have been opposed or eluded; but Athanasius
concealed his arrival, watched the moment of Constantine’s return
from an adjacent villa, and boldly encountered his angry
sovereign as he passed on horseback through the principal street
of Constantinople. So strange an apparition excited his surprise
and indignation; and the guards were ordered to remove the
importunate suitor; but his resentment was subdued by involuntary
respect; and the haughty spirit of the emperor was awed by the
courage and eloquence of a bishop, who implored his justice and
awakened his conscience. 107 Constantine listened to the
complaints of Athanasius with impartial and even gracious
attention; the members of the synod of Tyre were summoned to
justify their proceedings; and the arts of the Eusebian faction
would have been confounded, if they had not aggravated the guilt
of the primate, by the dexterous supposition of an unpardonable
offence; a criminal design to intercept and detain the corn-fleet
of Alexandria, which supplied the subsistence of the new capital.
108 The emperor was satisfied that the peace of Egypt would be
secured by the absence of a popular leader; but he refused to
fill the vacancy of the archiepiscopal throne; and the sentence,
which, after long hesitation, he pronounced, was that of a
jealous ostracism, rather than of an ignominious exile. In the
remote province of Gaul, but in the hospitable court of Treves,
Athanasius passed about twenty eight months. The death of the
emperor changed the face of public affairs and, amidst the
general indulgence of a young reign, the primate was restored to
his country by an honorable edict of the younger Constantine, who
expressed a deep sense of the innocence and merit of his
venerable guest. 109

107 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 804. In a church dedicated to
St. Athanasius this situation would afford a better subject for a
picture, than most of the stories of miracles and martyrdoms.]

108 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 729. Eunapius has related (in
Vit. Sophist. p. 36, 37, edit. Commelin) a strange example of the
cruelty and credulity of Constantine on a similar occasion. The
eloquent Sopater, a Syrian philosopher, enjoyed his friendship,
and provoked the resentment of Ablavius, his Prætorian præfect.
The corn-fleet was detained for want of a south wind; the people
of Constantinople were discontented; and Sopater was beheaded, on
a charge that he had _bound_ the winds by the power of magic.
Suidas adds, that Constantine wished to prove, by this execution,
that he had absolutely renounced the superstition of the
Gentiles.]

109 (return) [ In his return he saw Constantius twice, at
Viminiacum, and at Cæsarea in Cappadocia, (Athanas. tom. i. p.
676.) Tillemont supposes that Constantine introduced him to the
meeting of the three royal brothers in Pannonia, (Mémoires
Eccles. tom. viii. p. 69.)]

The death of that prince exposed Athanasius to a second
persecution; and the feeble Constantius, the sovereign of the
East, soon became the secret accomplice of the Eusebians. Ninety
bishops of that sect or faction assembled at Antioch, under the
specious pretence of dedicating the cathedral. They composed an
ambiguous creed, which is faintly tinged with the colors of
Semi-Arianism, and twenty-five canons, which still regulate the
discipline of the orthodox Greeks. 110 It was decided, with some
appearance of equity, that a bishop, deprived by a synod, should
not resume his episcopal functions till he had been absolved by
the judgment of an equal synod; the law was immediately applied
to the case of Athanasius; the council of Antioch pronounced, or
rather confirmed, his degradation: a stranger, named Gregory, was
seated on his throne; and Philagrius, 111 the præfect of Egypt,
was instructed to support the new primate with the civil and
military powers of the province. Oppressed by the conspiracy of
the Asiatic prelates, Athanasius withdrew from Alexandria, and
passed three years 112 as an exile and a suppliant on the holy
threshold of the Vatican. 113 By the assiduous study of the Latin
language, he soon qualified himself to negotiate with the western
clergy; his decent flattery swayed and directed the haughty
Julius; the Roman pontiff was persuaded to consider his appeal as
the peculiar interest of the Apostolic see: and his innocence was
unanimously declared in a council of fifty bishops of Italy. At
the end of three years, the primate was summoned to the court of
Milan by the emperor Constans, who, in the indulgence of unlawful
pleasures, still professed a lively regard for the orthodox
faith. The cause of truth and justice was promoted by the
influence of gold, 114 and the ministers of Constans advised
their sovereign to require the convocation of an ecclesiastical
assembly, which might act as the representatives of the Catholic
church. Ninety-four bishops of the West, seventy-six bishops of
the East, encountered each other at Sardica, on the verge of the
two empires, but in the dominions of the protector of Athanasius.
Their debates soon degenerated into hostile altercations; the
Asiatics, apprehensive for their personal safety, retired to
Philippopolis in Thrace; and the rival synods reciprocally hurled
their spiritual thunders against their enemies, whom they piously
condemned as the enemies of the true God. Their decrees were
published and ratified in their respective provinces: and
Athanasius, who in the West was revered as a saint, was exposed
as a criminal to the abhorrence of the East. 115 The council of
Sardica reveals the first symptoms of discord and schism between
the Greek and Latin churches which were separated by the
accidental difference of faith, and the permanent distinction of
language.

110 (return) [ See Beveridge, Pandect. tom. i. p. 429-452, and
tom. ii. Annotation. p. 182. Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
310-324. St. Hilary of Poitiers has mentioned this synod of
Antioch with too much favor and respect. He reckons ninety-seven
bishops.]

111 (return) [ This magistrate, so odious to Athanasius, is
praised by Gregory Nazianzen, tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 390, 391.

Sæpe premente Deo fert Deus alter opem.

For the credit of human nature, I am always pleased to discover
some good qualities in those men whom party has represented as
tyrants and monsters.]

112 (return) [ The chronological difficulties which perplex the
residence of Athanasius at Rome, are strenuously agitated by
Valesius (Observat ad Calcem, tom. ii. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c.
1-5) and Tillemont, (Men: Eccles. tom. viii. p. 674, &c.) I have
followed the simple hypothesis of Valesius, who allows only one
journey, after the intrusion Gregory.]

113 (return) [ I cannot forbear transcribing a judicious
observation of Wetstein, (Prolegomen. N.S. p. 19: ) Si tamen
Historiam Ecclesiasticam velimus consulere, patebit jam inde a
seculo quarto, cum, ortis controversiis, ecclesiæ Græciæ doctores
in duas partes scinderentur, ingenio, eloquentia, numero, tantum
non æquales, eam partem quæ vincere cupiebat Romam confugisse,
majestatemque pontificis comiter coluisse, eoque pacto oppressis
per pontificem et episcopos Latinos adversariis prævaluisse,
atque orthodoxiam in conciliis stabilivisse. Eam ob causam
Athanasius, non sine comitatu, Roman petiit, pluresque annos ibi
hæsit.]

114 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12. If any corruption
was used to promote the interest of religion, an advocate of
Athanasius might justify or excuse this questionable conduct, by
the example of Cato and Sidney; the former of whom is _said_ to
have given, and the latter to have received, a bribe in the cause
of liberty.]

115 (return) [ The canon which allows appeals to the Roman
pontiffs, has almost raised the council of Sardica to the dignity
of a general council; and its acts have been ignorantly or
artfully confounded with those of the Nicene synod. See
Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 689, and Geddos’s Tracts, vol. ii. p.
419-460.]

During his second exile in the West, Athanasius was frequently
admitted to the Imperial presence; at Capua, Lodi, Milan, Verona,
Padua, Aquileia, and Treves. The bishop of the diocese usually
assisted at these interviews; the master of the offices stood
before the veil or curtain of the sacred apartment; and the
uniform moderation of the primate might be attested by these
respectable witnesses, to whose evidence he solemnly appeals. 116
Prudence would undoubtedly suggest the mild and respectful tone
that became a subject and a bishop. In these familiar conferences
with the sovereign of the West, Athanasius might lament the error
of Constantius, but he boldly arraigned the guilt of his eunuchs
and his Arian prelates; deplored the distress and danger of the
Catholic church; and excited Constans to emulate the zeal and
glory of his father. The emperor declared his resolution of
employing the troops and treasures of Europe in the orthodox
cause; and signified, by a concise and peremptory epistle to his
brother Constantius, that unless he consented to the immediate
restoration of Athanasius, he himself, with a fleet and army,
would seat the archbishop on the throne of Alexandria. 117 But
this religious war, so horrible to nature, was prevented by the
timely compliance of Constantius; and the emperor of the East
condescended to solicit a reconciliation with a subject whom he
had injured. Athanasius waited with decent pride, till he had
received three successive epistles full of the strongest
assurances of the protection, the favor, and the esteem of his
sovereign; who invited him to resume his episcopal seat, and who
added the humiliating precaution of engaging his principal
ministers to attest the sincerity of his intentions. They were
manifested in a still more public manner, by the strict orders
which were despatched into Egypt to recall the adherents of
Athanasius, to restore their privileges, to proclaim their
innocence, and to erase from the public registers the illegal
proceedings which had been obtained during the prevalence of the
Eusebian faction. After every satisfaction and security had been
given, which justice or even delicacy could require, the primate
proceeded, by slow journeys, through the provinces of Thrace,
Asia, and Syria; and his progress was marked by the abject homage
of the Oriental bishops, who excited his contempt without
deceiving his penetration. 118 At Antioch he saw the emperor
Constantius; sustained, with modest firmness, the embraces and
protestations of his master, and eluded the proposal of allowing
the Arians a single church at Alexandria, by claiming, in the
other cities of the empire, a similar toleration for his own
party; a reply which might have appeared just and moderate in the
mouth of an independent prince. The entrance of the archbishop
into his capital was a triumphal procession; absence and
persecution had endeared him to the Alexandrians; his authority,
which he exercised with rigor, was more firmly established; and
his fame was diffused from Æthiopia to Britain, over the whole
extent of the Christian world. 119

116 (return) [ As Athanasius dispersed secret invectives against
Constantius, (see the Epistle to the Monks,) at the same time
that he assured him of his profound respect, we might distrust
the professions of the archbishop. Tom. i. p. 677.]

117 (return) [ Notwithstanding the discreet silence of
Athanasius, and the manifest forgery of a letter inserted by
Socrates, these menaces are proved by the unquestionable evidence
of Lucifer of Cagliari, and even of Constantius himself. See
Tillemont, tom. viii. p. 693]

118 (return) [ I have always entertained some doubts concerning
the retraction of Ursacius and Valens, (Athanas. tom. i. p. 776.)
Their epistles to Julius, bishop of Rome, and to Athanasius
himself, are of so different a cast from each other, that they
cannot both be genuine. The one speaks the language of criminals
who confess their guilt and infamy; the other of enemies, who
solicit on equal terms an honorable reconciliation. * Note: I
cannot quite comprehend the ground of Gibbon’s doubts. Athanasius
distinctly asserts the fact of their retractation. (Athan. Op. i.
p. 124, edit. Benedict.) The epistles are apparently translations
from the Latin, if, in fact, more than the substance of the
epistles. That to Athanasius is brief, almost abrupt. Their
retractation is likewise mentioned in the address of the orthodox
bishops of Rimini to Constantius. Athan. de Synodis, Op t. i. p
723-M.]

119 (return) [ The circumstances of his second return may be
collected from Athanasius himself, tom. i. p. 769, and 822, 843.
Socrates, l. ii. c. 18, Sozomen, l. iii. c. 19. Theodoret, l. ii.
c. 11, 12. Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12.]

But the subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity of
dissembling, can never expect a sincere and lasting forgiveness;
and the tragic fate of Constans soon deprived Athanasius of a
powerful and generous protector. The civil war between the
assassin and the only surviving brother of Constans, which
afflicted the empire above three years, secured an interval of
repose to the Catholic church; and the two contending parties
were desirous to conciliate the friendship of a bishop, who, by
the weight of his personal authority, might determine the
fluctuating resolutions of an important province. He gave
audience to the ambassadors of the tyrant, with whom he was
afterwards accused of holding a secret correspondence; 120 and
the emperor Constantius repeatedly assured his dearest father,
the most reverend Athanasius, that, notwithstanding the malicious
rumors which were circulated by their common enemies, he had
inherited the sentiments, as well as the throne, of his deceased
brother. 121 Gratitude and humanity would have disposed the
primate of Egypt to deplore the untimely fate of Constans, and to
abhor the guilt of Magnentius; but as he clearly understood that
the apprehensions of Constantius were his only safeguard, the
fervor of his prayers for the success of the righteous cause
might perhaps be somewhat abated. The ruin of Athanasius was no
longer contrived by the obscure malice of a few bigoted or angry
bishops, who abused the authority of a credulous monarch. The
monarch himself avowed the resolution, which he had so long
suppressed, of avenging his private injuries; 122 and the first
winter after his victory, which he passed at Arles, was employed
against an enemy more odious to him than the vanquished tyrant of
Gaul.

120 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 677, 678) defends his
innocence by pathetic complaints, solemn assertions, and specious
arguments. He admits that letters had been forged in his name,
but he requests that his own secretaries and those of the tyrant
might be examined, whether those letters had been written by the
former, or received by the latter.]

121 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 825-844.]

122 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 861. Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16.
The emperor declared that he was more desirous to subdue
Athanasius, than he had been to vanquish Magnentius or Sylvanus.]

If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the most
eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel order
would have been executed without hesitation, by the ministers of
open violence or of specious injustice. The caution, the delay,
the difficulty with which he proceeded in the condemnation and
punishment of a popular bishop, discovered to the world that the
privileges of the church had already revived a sense of order and
freedom in the Roman government. The sentence which was
pronounced in the synod of Tyre, and subscribed by a large
majority of the Eastern bishops, had never been expressly
repealed; and as Athanasius had been once degraded from his
episcopal dignity by the judgment of his brethren, every
subsequent act might be considered as irregular, and even
criminal. But the memory of the firm and effectual support which
the primate of Egypt had derived from the attachment of the
Western church, engaged Constantius to suspend the execution of
the sentence till he had obtained the concurrence of the Latin
bishops. Two years were consumed in ecclesiastical negotiations;
and the important cause between the emperor and one of his
subjects was solemnly debated, first in the synod of Arles, and
afterwards in the great council of Milan, 123 which consisted of
above three hundred bishops. Their integrity was gradually
undermined by the arguments of the Arians, the dexterity of the
eunuchs, and the pressing solicitations of a prince who gratified
his revenge at the expense of his dignity, and exposed his own
passions, whilst he influenced those of the clergy. Corruption,
the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was
successfully practised; honors, gifts, and immunities were
offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote; 124 and
the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully
represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and
union of the Catholic church. The friends of Athanasius were not,
however, wanting to their leader, or to their cause. With a manly
spirit, which the sanctity of their character rendered less
dangerous, they maintained, in public debate, and in private
conference with the emperor, the eternal obligation of religion
and justice. They declared, that neither the hope of his favor,
nor the fear of his displeasure, should prevail on them to join
in the condemnation of an absent, an innocent, a respectable
brother. 125 They affirmed, with apparent reason, that the
illegal and obsolete decrees of the council of Tyre had long
since been tacitly abolished by the Imperial edicts, the
honorable reestablishment of the archbishop of Alexandria, and
the silence or recantation of his most clamorous adversaries.
They alleged, that his innocence had been attested by the
unanimous bishops of Egypt, and had been acknowledged in the
councils of Rome and Sardica, 126 by the impartial judgment of
the Latin church. They deplored the hard condition of Athanasius,
who, after enjoying so many years his seat, his reputation, and
the seeming confidence of his sovereign, was again called upon to
confute the most groundless and extravagant accusations. Their
language was specious; their conduct was honorable: but in this
long and obstinate contest, which fixed the eyes of the whole
empire on a single bishop, the ecclesiastical factions were
prepared to sacrifice truth and justice to the more interesting
object of defending or removing the intrepid champion of the
Nicene faith. The Arians still thought it prudent to disguise, in
ambiguous language, their real sentiments and designs; but the
orthodox bishops, armed with the favor of the people, and the
decrees of a general council, insisted on every occasion, and
particularly at Milan, that their adversaries should purge
themselves from the suspicion of heresy, before they presumed to
arraign the conduct of the great Athanasius. 127

123 (return) [ The affairs of the council of Milan are so
imperfectly and erroneously related by the Greek writers, that we
must rejoice in the supply of some letters of Eusebius, extracted
by Baronius from the archives of the church of Vercellæ, and of
an old life of Dionysius of Milan, published by Bollandus. See
Baronius, A.D. 355, and Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 1415.]

124 (return) [ The honors, presents, feasts, which seduced so
many bishops, are mentioned with indignation by those who were
too pure or too proud to accept them. “We combat (says Hilary of
Poitiers) against Constantius the Antichrist; who strokes the
belly instead of scourging the back;” qui non dorsa cædit; sed
ventrem palpat. Hilarius contra Constant c. 5, p. 1240.]

125 (return) [ Something of this opposition is mentioned by
Ammianus (x. 7,) who had a very dark and superficial knowledge of
ecclesiastical history. Liberius... perseveranter renitebatur,
nec visum hominem, nec auditum damnare, nefas ultimum sæpe
exclamans; aperte scilicet recalcitrans Imperatoris arbitrio. Id
enim ille Athanasio semper infestus, &c.]

126 (return) [ More properly by the orthodox part of the council
of Sardica. If the bishops of both parties had fairly voted, the
division would have been 94 to 76. M. de Tillemont (see tom.
viii. p. 1147-1158) is justly surprised that so small a majority
should have proceeded as vigorously against their adversaries,
the principal of whom they immediately deposed.]

127 (return) [ Sulp. Severus in Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 412.]

But the voice of reason (if reason was indeed on the side of
Athanasius) was silenced by the clamors of a factious or venal
majority; and the councils of Arles and Milan were not dissolved,
till the archbishop of Alexandria had been solemnly condemned and
deposed by the judgment of the Western, as well as of the
Eastern, church. The bishops who had opposed, were required to
subscribe, the sentence, and to unite in religious communion with
the suspected leaders of the adverse party. A formulary of
consent was transmitted by the messengers of state to the absent
bishops: and all those who refused to submit their private
opinion to the public and inspired wisdom of the councils of
Arles and Milan, were immediately banished by the emperor, who
affected to execute the decrees of the Catholic church. Among
those prelates who led the honorable band of confessors and
exiles, Liberius of Rome, Osius of Cordova, Paulinus of Treves,
Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercellæ, Lucifer of Cagliari and
Hilary of Poitiers, may deserve to be particularly distinguished.
The eminent station of Liberius, who governed the capital of the
empire; the personal merit and long experience of the venerable
Osius, who was revered as the favorite of the great Constantine,
and the father of the Nicene faith, placed those prelates at the
head of the Latin church: and their example, either of submission
or resistance, would probable be imitated by the episcopal crowd.
But the repeated attempts of the emperor to seduce or to
intimidate the bishops of Rome and Cordova, were for some time
ineffectual. The Spaniard declared himself ready to suffer under
Constantius, as he had suffered threescore years before under his
grandfather Maximian. The Roman, in the presence of his
sovereign, asserted the innocence of Athanasius and his own
freedom. When he was banished to Beræa in Thrace, he sent back a
large sum which had been offered for the accommodation of his
journey; and insulted the court of Milan by the haughty remark,
that the emperor and his eunuchs might want that gold to pay
their soldiers and their bishops. 128 The resolution of Liberius
and Osius was at length subdued by the hardships of exile and
confinement. The Roman pontiff purchased his return by some
criminal compliances; and afterwards expiated his guilt by a
seasonable repentance. Persuasion and violence were employed to
extort the reluctant signature of the decrepit bishop of Cordova,
whose strength was broken, and whose faculties were perhaps
impaired by the weight of a hundred years; and the insolent
triumph of the Arians provoked some of the orthodox party to
treat with inhuman severity the character, or rather the memory,
of an unfortunate old man, to whose former services Christianity
itself was so deeply indebted. 129

128 (return) [ The exile of Liberius is mentioned by Ammianus,
xv. 7. See Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16. Athanas. tom. i. p. 834-837.
Hilar. Fragment l.]

129 (return) [ The life of Osius is collected by Tillemont, (tom.
vii. p. 524-561,) who in the most extravagant terms first
admires, and then reprobates, the bishop of Cordova. In the midst
of their lamentations on his fall, the prudence of Athanasius may
be distinguished from the blind and intemperate zeal of Hilary.]

The fall of Liberius and Osius reflected a brighter lustre on the
firmness of those bishops who still adhered, with unshaken
fidelity, to the cause of Athanasius and religious truth. The
ingenious malice of their enemies had deprived them of the
benefit of mutual comfort and advice, separated those illustrious
exiles into distant provinces, and carefully selected the most
inhospitable spots of a great empire. 130 Yet they soon
experienced that the deserts of Libya, and the most barbarous
tracts of Cappadocia, were less inhospitable than the residence
of those cities in which an Arian bishop could satiate, without
restraint, the exquisite rancor of theological hatred. 131 Their
consolation was derived from the consciousness of rectitude and
independence, from the applause, the visits, the letters, and the
liberal alms of their adherents, 132 and from the satisfaction
which they soon enjoyed of observing the intestine divisions of
the adversaries of the Nicene faith. Such was the nice and
capricious taste of the emperor Constantius; and so easily was he
offended by the slightest deviation from his imaginary standard
of Christian truth, that he persecuted, with equal zeal, those
who defended the _consubstantiality_, those who asserted the
_similar substance_, and those who denied the _likeness_ of the
Son of God. Three bishops, degraded and banished for those
adverse opinions, might possibly meet in the same place of exile;
and, according to the difference of their temper, might either
pity or insult the blind enthusiasm of their antagonists, whose
present sufferings would never be compensated by future
happiness.

130 (return) [ The confessors of the West were successively
banished to the deserts of Arabia or Thebais, the lonely places
of Mount Taurus, the wildest parts of Phrygia, which were in the
possession of the impious Montanists, &c. When the heretic Ætius
was too favorably entertained at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the place
of his exile was changed, by the advice of Acacius, to Amblada, a
district inhabited by savages and infested by war and pestilence.
Philostorg. l. v. c. 2.]

131 (return) [ See the cruel treatment and strange obstinacy of
Eusebius, in his own letters, published by Baronius, A.D. 356,
No. 92-102.]

132 (return) [ Cæterum exules satis constat, totius orbis studiis
celebratos pecuniasque eis in sumptum affatim congestas,
legationibus quoque plebis Catholicæ ex omnibus fere provinciis
frequentatos. Sulp. Sever Hist. Sacra, p. 414. Athanas. tom. i.
p. 836, 840.]

The disgrace and exile of the orthodox bishops of the West were
designed as so many preparatory steps to the ruin of Athanasius
himself. 133 Six-and-twenty months had elapsed, during which the
Imperial court secretly labored, by the most insidious arts, to
remove him from Alexandria, and to withdraw the allowance which
supplied his popular liberality. But when the primate of Egypt,
deserted and proscribed by the Latin church, was left destitute
of any foreign support, Constantius despatched two of his
secretaries with a verbal commission to announce and execute the
order of his banishment. As the justice of the sentence was
publicly avowed by the whole party, the only motive which could
restrain Constantius from giving his messengers the sanction of a
written mandate, must be imputed to his doubt of the event; and
to a sense of the danger to which he might expose the second
city, and the most fertile province, of the empire, if the people
should persist in the resolution of defending, by force of arms,
the innocence of their spiritual father. Such extreme caution
afforded Athanasius a specious pretence respectfully to dispute
the truth of an order, which he could not reconcile, either with
the equity, or with the former declarations, of his gracious
master. The civil powers of Egypt found themselves inadequate to
the task of persuading or compelling the primate to abdicate his
episcopal throne; and they were obliged to conclude a treaty with
the popular leaders of Alexandria, by which it was stipulated,
that all proceedings and all hostilities should be suspended till
the emperor’s pleasure had been more distinctly ascertained. By
this seeming moderation, the Catholics were deceived into a false
and fatal security; while the legions of the Upper Egypt, and of
Libya, advanced, by secret orders and hasty marches, to besiege,
or rather to surprise, a capital habituated to sedition, and
inflamed by religious zeal. 134 The position of Alexandria,
between the sea and the Lake Mareotis, facilitated the approach
and landing of the troops; who were introduced into the heart of
the city, before any effectual measures could be taken either to
shut the gates or to occupy the important posts of defence. At
the hour of midnight, twenty-three days after the signature of
the treaty, Syrianus, duke of Egypt, at the head of five thousand
soldiers, armed and prepared for an assault, unexpectedly
invested the church of St. Theonas, where the archbishop, with a
part of his clergy and people, performed their nocturnal
devotions. The doors of the sacred edifice yielded to the
impetuosity of the attack, which was accompanied with every
horrid circumstance of tumult and bloodshed; but, as the bodies
of the slain, and the fragments of military weapons, remained the
next day an unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the
Catholics, the enterprise of Syrianus may be considered as a
successful irruption rather than as an absolute conquest. The
other churches of the city were profaned by similar outrages;
and, during at least four months, Alexandria was exposed to the
insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the ecclesiastics of
a hostile faction. Many of the faithful were killed; who may
deserve the name of martyrs, if their deaths were neither
provoked nor revenged; bishops and presbyters were treated with
cruel ignominy; consecrated virgins were stripped naked, scourged
and violated; the houses of wealthy citizens were plundered; and,
under the mask of religious zeal, lust, avarice, and private
resentment were gratified with impunity, and even with applause.
The Pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a numerous and
discontented party, were easily persuaded to desert a bishop whom
they feared and esteemed. The hopes of some peculiar favors, and
the apprehension of being involved in the general penalties of
rebellion, engaged them to promise their support to the destined
successor of Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The
usurper, after receiving the consecration of an Arian synod, was
placed on the episcopal throne by the arms of Sebastian, who had
been appointed Count of Egypt for the execution of that important
design. In the use, as well as in the acquisition, of power, the
tyrant, George disregarded the laws of religion, of justice, and
of humanity; and the same scenes of violence and scandal which
had been exhibited in the capital, were repeated in more than
ninety episcopal cities of Egypt. Encouraged by success,
Constantius ventured to approve the conduct of his minister. By a
public and passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates the
deliverance of Alexandria from a popular tyrant, who deluded his
blind votaries by the magic of his eloquence; expatiates on the
virtues and piety of the most reverend George, the elected
bishop; and aspires, as the patron and benefactor of the city to
surpass the fame of Alexander himself. But he solemnly declares
his unalterable resolution to pursue with fire and sword the
seditious adherents of the wicked Athanasius, who, by flying from
justice, has confessed his guilt, and escaped the ignominious
death which he had so often deserved. 135

133 (return) [ Ample materials for the history of this third
persecution of Athanasius may be found in his own works. See
particularly his very able Apology to Constantius, (tom. i. p.
673,) his first Apology for his flight (p. 701,) his prolix
Epistle to the Solitaries, (p. 808,) and the original protest of
the people of Alexandria against the violences committed by
Syrianus, (p. 866.) Sozomen (l. iv. c. 9) has thrown into the
narrative two or three luminous and important circumstances.]

134 (return) [ Athanasius had lately sent for Antony, and some of
his chosen monks. They descended from their mountains, announced
to the Alexandrians the sanctity of Athanasius, and were
honorably conducted by the archbishop as far as the gates of the
city. Athanas tom. ii. p. 491, 492. See likewise Rufinus, iii.
164, in Vit. Patr. p. 524.]

135 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 694. The emperor, or his Arian
secretaries while they express their resentment, betray their
fears and esteem of Athanasius.]