Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book IV/Chapter 13

.&#8212;Eunomius separates from Eudoxius; a Disturbance is raised at Alexandria by Eudoxius, and Athanasius flees into Voluntary Exile again, but in Consequence of the Clamors of the People the Emperor recalls and re-establishes him in his See.

the same time Eunomius

separated himself from Eudoxius, and held assemblies apart, because after he had repeatedly entreated that his preceptor A&#235;tius might be received into communion, Eudoxius continued to oppose it. Now Eudoxius did this against his preference, for he did not reject the opinion with A&#235;tius since it was the same as his own;

but he yielded to the prevailing sentiment of his own party, who objected to A&#235;tius as heterodox. This was the cause of the division between Eunomius and Eudoxius, and such was the state of things at Constantinople. But the church at Alexandria was disturbed by an edict of the pr&#230;torian prefects, sent hither by means of Eudoxius. Whereupon Athanasius, dreading the irrational impetuosity of the multitude, and fearing lest he should be regarded as the author of the excesses that might be committed, concealed himself for four entire months in an ancestral tomb. Inasmuch however as the people, on account of their affection for him, became seditious in impatience of his absence, the emperor, on ascertaining that on this account agitation prevailed at Alexandria, ordered by his letters that Athanasius should be suffered to preside over the churches without molestation; and this was the reason why the Alexandrian church enjoyed tranquillity until the death of Athanasius. How the Arian faction became possessed of the churches after his decease, we shall unfold in the course of our history.