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 underhand proceeding with the Meletians may have roused the emperor's indignation and led to his banishment. The probability that Arius was recalled first, as positively stated in what purports to be a contemporary document, is certainly greater than that merely à priori probability on which De Broglie insists. Moreover, if Arius had been restored to favour, the vacillating mind of Constantine may have been moved to recall the two bishops. At all events, c. 329, we find Eusebius once more in high favour with Constantine (Socr. H. E. i. 23), discharging his episcopal functions and persuading Constantine that he and Arius held substantially the creed of Nicaea. Thenceforward Eusebius used his great power at court and his ascendancy over the mind of Constantine to blast the character and quench the influence of the most distinguished advocates of anti-Arian views. He put all the machinery of church and state into operation to unseat Athanasius, Eustathius, Marcellus, and others; and, by means open to the severest reprehension, steadily and unscrupulously strove to enforce his latitudinarian compromise on the Catholic church. It is not difficult to trace his hand in the letter of Constantine threatening Athanasius, now archbp. of Alexandria, with deposition if he did not admit those anxious for communion. Moreover, Athanasius assures us that Eusebius wrote to him personally with the same object. The answers Athanasius gave to Eusebius and the emperor made it clear that the project could never succeed so long as Athanasius remained at Alexandria.

Meanwhile, considerable controversy had occurred between Eusebius of Caesarea and Eustathius of Antioch on the true meaning of the term Homoousios. Eustathius [ (3)], in his zeal for the Nicene faith, had strenuously refused to admit Arians into communion, and laid himself open, in the opinion of Eusebius of Caesarea, to the charge of Sabellianism (Soz. ii. 18). This provided the opportunity for Eusebius of Nicomedia to strike a blow at Eustathius, and nothing can exceed the treachery shewn by Eusebius on this occasion. His apparently friendly visit to Eustathius on his way to Jerusalem (Soz. ii. 19; Theod. i. 21), the gathering of his Arian supporters on his return to Antioch, shew the scheme to have been deeply laid. Here, 330 or beginning of 331, the council of his friends was held, at which the charge of Sabellianism was, according to Theodoret (i. 21) and Philostorgius (ii. 7), aggravated by the accusation brought by a woman, that Eustathius was the father of her child—a not uncommon device of the enemies of ecclesiastics. The upshot was that through this, and other vamped-up charges of disrespect to the emperor's mother, Eustathius was deposed and exiled by the Eusebians. The letter of Constantine upon the affair, and against heretics generally, brought the controversy to a lull, until the first attack upon Athanasius. The career of Eusebius of Nicomedia during the remaining ten years of his life is so closely intertwined with the romantic sufferings of Athanasius that it is difficult to indicate the part he took in the persecution of Athanasius without reproducing the story of this great hero of the Catholic faith. The first charge which Eusebius encouraged the Meletians to bring against Athanasius concerned his taxing the people of Egypt for linen vestments, and turned upon the supposed violence of Macarius, the representative of Athanasius, in overthrowing the altar and the chalice, when reproving (for uncanonical proceedings) Ischyras, a priest of the Colluthian sect. These charges were all absolutely disproved by Athanasius before Constantine at Nicomedia. On his return to Alexandria, Athanasius had to encounter fresh opposition. The preposterous story of the murder of Arsenius, with its grotesque accompaniments, was gravely laid at his door. [.] To this, at first, he disdained to reply. Eusebius declared even this to be a serious charge, and made much capital out of the refusal of Athanasius to attend the council at Caesarea, which was summoned, among other causes, to investigate it (Theod. i. 28). In 335, the partisan council of Tyre passed a sentence of deposition upon Athanasius, who had fled to Constantinople to appeal to the emperor, who summoned the whole synod of Tyre before him. Eusebius and a few of his party, Theognis, Patrophilus, Valens, and Ursacius, obeyed the summons, and confronted Athanasius; but abandoning the disproved charges upon which the sentence of deposition rested, they met him with new accusations likely to damage him in the view of the emperor. Constantine yielded to the malicious inventions of Eusebius, and banished Athanasius to Trèves, in Feb. 336. The cause of banishment is obscure, but twice over (Ap. § 87, Hist. Ar. § 50) Athanasius declares that Constantine sent him to Gaul to deliver him from the fury of his enemies. While Athanasius was in exile Eusebius and his party impeached Marcellus of Ancyra for refusing to appear at the council of Dedication at Jerusalem, 335, and for Sabellianism, an implication of heresy to which he exposed himself while zealously vindicating his refusal to hold communion with Arians. [ (1); .] Marcellus was deposed by the Eusebians, and not restored till the council of Sardica. At the council of Dedication at Jerusalem, Arius propounded a view of his faith which was satisfactory to the council, was received into communion there, and sent by Eusebius to Alexandria, whence, as his presence created great disturbance, he was summoned to Constantinople. There Arius died tragically on the eve of the public reception which Eusebius had planned. The death of Alexander of Constantinople followed very shortly, and the effort to elect Paul ( (18)] in his place (without the consent of the bp. of Nicomedia) roused the ire of Eusebius, who intrigued to secure his first deposition. Eusebius must still have retained the favour of Constantine, as he appears to have administered baptism to the dying emperor, May 337. Jerome says that by this act Constantine avowed himself an Arian. "But all history protests against the severity of this sentence" (de Broglie). Hefele supposes that Constantine regarded Eusebius as the great advocate of Christian unity. Moreover, in the eyes of Constantine, Eusebius was one who had signed the Nicene