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by St. Athanasius, the Eusebians, ol jrcpl rhv TS,ia{puiv, whose object it was to undo the work of Xicsea, and to procure the complete victory of Arianism. They did not pubhcly recall the signatures that had been forced from them. They explained that Arius had repented of any excess in liis words, or had been misunderstood. They dropped the Xicene formulae, as ambiguous. They were the leaders of a much larger party of con- servative prelates, who wished to stand well with the emperor, who reverenced the martjT Lucian and the great Origen, and were seriously alarmed at any dan- ger of Sabellianisra. The campaign opened with a successful attack on Eustathius of Antioch, the prin- cipal prelate of the East properly so called. He had been having an animated controversy with Eusebius of Caesarea, in which he had accused that learned per- sonage of polj'theism, while Eusebius retorted with a charge of Sabellianism. Eustathius was deposed and exiled, for alleged disrespectful expressions about the emperor's mother, St. Helena, who was greatlj' de- voted to the memory of St. Lucian. It is said that he was also charged •n'ith immorality and heresy, but it is certain that the whole case was got up by the Euse- bians. The great see of Alexandria was filled in 32S by the deacon Athanasius, who had taken a leading part at Nicaea. Small in stature, and young in years, he was at the head of a singularly united body of nearly a hundred bishops, and liis energy and vivacity, his courage and determination marked liim out as the one foe whom the Eusebians had to dread. The Alexandrian Arians had now signed an ambiguous formula of submission, and Eusebius of Xicomedia «Tote to Athanasius, asking Mm to reinstate them, adding a verbal message of threats. The Meletian schism, in Egj^jt, had only been partially healed by the mOd measures decreed at Xicaea, and the schis- matics were giving trouble. Constantine was induced by Eusebius to write to Athanasius curtly telling him he should be deposed, if he refused to receive into the Church any who demanded to be received. Athana- sius explained why he could not do tliis. and the em- peror seems to have been satisfied. Eusebius then joined hands with the Meletians, and induced them to trump up charges against Athanasius. They first pretended that he had invented a tribute of linen gar- ments which he exacted. This was disproved, but Athanasius himself was sent for to the court. The Meletians then brought up a charge which did duty for many years, that he had ordered a priest named Macarius to overturn an altar and break up a chalice belonging to a priest named IschjTas, in the Mareotis, though in fact Ischyras had never been a priest, and at the time alleged could not have been pretending to say Mass, for he was ill in bed. It was also said that Athanasius had assisted a certain Philumenus to con- spire against the emperor, and had given him a bag of gold. Again the accusers were refuted and put to flight. The saint returned to his Church with a letter from Constantine, in which the emperor sermonized the Alexandrians after his wont, urging them to peace and unity. But the question of the broken chalice was not dropped, and the Meletians further got hold of a bishop named Arsenius, whom they kept in hiding while they declared that Athanasius had put him to death; they carried about a severed hand, which they said was Arsenius's, cut off by the patriarch for the purpose of magic. Athanasius induced IschjTas to sign a document denjang the former charge, and man- aged to discover the whereabouts of Arsenius. Con- stantine in consequence wTote a letter to the patriarch declaring him innocent.

Eusebius had stood apart from all these false accusa- tions, and he was not disheartened by so many failures. He got the Meletians to demand a sj-nod, ami repre- sented to Constantine that it would be right for peace to be obtained before the assembling of many bishops, at Jerusalem, to celebrate the dedication of the new

Chiu-ch of the Holy Sepulchre. This was in 335. A synod met at Tyre, whose history need not be de- tailed here. Athanasius brought some fifty bishops with him, but they had not been summoned, and were not allowed to sit with the rest. A deputation was sent into the JIareotis to inquire into the question of Ischyras and the chalice, and the chief enemies of Athanasius were chosen for the purpose. The synod was tumultuous, and even the Count Dionysius, who had come with soldiers to support the Eusebians, thought the proceedings unfair. It remains a mystery how so many well-meaning bishops were deceived into condemning Athanasius. He refused to await their judgment. Extricating himself with difficulty from the assembly, he led away his Egj'ptians and betook himself directly to Constantinople, where he accosted the emperor abruptly, and demanded justice. At his suggestion, the Council of Tjtc was ordered to come be- fore the emperor. Meanwhile Eusebius had brought the bishops on to Jerusalem, where the deliberations were made joyous by the reception back into the Church of the followers of Arius. The Egj'ptian bish- ops had drawn up a protest, attributing all that had been done at TjTe to a conspiracy between Eusebius and the Meletians and Arians, the enemies of the Church. Athanasius asserts that the final act at Jeru- salem had been Eusebius's aim all along; all the accu- sations against himself had tended only to get him out of the road, in order that the rehabihtation of the Arians might be effected.

Eusebius prevented any of the bishops at Jerusalem from going to Constantinople, save those he could trust, Eusebius of C^sarea, Theognis of Xicaea, Patro- philus of Scj'thopolis, and the two j'oung Pannonian bishops Ursacius and ^'alens, who were to continue Eusebius's policy long after his death. They care- fully avoided renewing the accusations of murder and sacrilege, which Constantine had already examined; and Athanasius tells us that five Egj-ptian bishops reported to him that they rested their case on a new charge, that he had tlu-eatened to delay the corn ships from Alexandria wiiich suppUed Constantinople. The emperor was enraged. Xo opportunity of defence was given, and Athanasius was banished to Gaul. But, in public, Constantine said that he had put in force the decree of the Council of Tyre. Constantine the Younger, however, declared later that his father had intended to save Athanasius from his enemies by sending him away, and that before djnng he had had the intention of restoring him. The leader of the Meletians, John Arkaph, was similarly exiled. Euse- bius wanted him no turther. and hence did not care to protect him. One triumph was yet wanting to Eusebius, the reconciliation of Arius, his friend This was to be consummated at length at Constantinople, but the designs of man were frustrated by the hand of God. Arius died suddenly under peculiarly humiliat- ing conditions, on the eve of the daj' appointed for his solemn restoration to Catholic communion in the cathedral of Xew Rome.

Until 337 the Eusebians were busy in obtaining, by calumny, the deposition of the bishops who supported the Xicene faith. Of these the best known are Paul of Constantinople, Asclepas of Gaza, and Marcellus, Metropolitan of Ancyra. In the case of Marcellus they had received considerable provocation. Marcel- lus had been their active enemy at Xici^a. At Tyre he had refused to condemn Athanasius, and he pre- sented a book to the emperor in which the Eusebians received hard words. He was convicted, not without ground, of Sabellianizing, and took refuge at Rome. On 22 May, 337, Constantine the Great died at Xico- media, after having been baptized by Eusebius, bishop of the place. His brothers and all but two of his nephews were at once murdered, in order to sim- phfy the succession, and the world was di\'itled be- tween his three young sons. An arrangement was