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Rh into a league with the Meletians of Egypt, of whom a bishop named John Arcaph was the head. "He bought them," says Athanasius, "by large promises, and arranged that they should help him on any emergency" by that machinery of false accusation which they had already employed against three archbishops. The charges were not to be theological: to attack Athanasius's teaching would be to declare against the Nicene doctrine, and this was a step on which Eusebius could not venture. He began by writing to Athanasius in behalf of Arius, and urging that, as a man whose opinions had been seriously misrepresented, he ought in justice to be received to church communion. Athanasius's answer shews the ground on which he took his stand. "It cannot be right to admit persons to communion who invented a heresy contrary to the truth, and were anathematized by the oecumenical council." It is probable that (as Fleury thinks, though Tillemont and Neander date it much later) we should refer to this period the visit of Anthony to Alexandria (Vit. Ant. 69), when he confounded the Arians' report that he "agreed with them." This would be a great support to Athanasius. But Eusebius had recourse to Constantine, who thereupon wrote, commanding Athanasius to admit into the church "all who desired it," on pain of being removed from his see by sheer State power. This gave him an opportunity of laying before Constantine his own views of his duty. "There could be no fellowship," he wrote, "between the Catholic church of Christ and the heresy that was fighting against Him." Not long afterwards, in compliance with instructions from Eusebius, three Meletians, Ision, Eudaemon, and Callinicus, appeared before the emperor at Nicomedia with a charge against Athanasius that he had assumed the powers of the government by taxing Egypt to provide linen vestments for the church of Alexandria. But two of Athanasius's priests, happening to be at court, at once refuted this calumny; and Constantine wrote to Athanasius, condemning his accusers, and summoning him to Nicomedia. Eusebius, however, persuaded the accusers to meet him on his arrival with a bolder charge: "he had sent a purse of gold to Philumenus, a rebel." This, being easily overthrown, was at once followed up by the famous story of the broken chalice. A certain Ischyras, a layman pretending to the character of a presbyter, officiated at a little hamlet called "the Peace of Sacontarurum," in the Mareotis; Athanasius, being informed of this while on a visitation tour, sent a priest named Macarius, with the actual pastor of the district, to summon Ischyras before him, but found him ill. Ischyras, on recovering, attached himself to the Meletians, who, resolving to use him as a tool, made him declare that Macarius had found him in church "offering the oblations," had thrown down the holy table, broken the chalice, and burnt the church books; of which sacrilege Athanasius was to share the responsibility. But Athanasius was able to prove before Constantine at Nicomedia, early in 332, that, point by point, it was a falsehood. About mid-Lent he returned home with a letter from Constantine

reprobating his enemies and praising him as "a man of God"; whereupon Ischyras came to him, asking to be received into the church, and piteously protesting that the Meletians had set him on to assert a falsehood. But he was not admitted to communion; and the story was ere long revived in an aggravated form—Athanasius himself being now called the perpetrator of the outrage (Apol. 62, 64, 28, 74, 17, 65, 68).

A darker plot followed. John Arcaph persuaded a Meletian bishop, named Arsenius, to go into hiding. A rumour was then spread that he had been murdered, and dismembered for purposes of magic, by Athanasius, in proof of which the Meletians exhibited a dead man's hand (Apol. 63, 42; Socr. i. 27; Soz. ii. 25; Theod. i. 30). The emperor was persuaded to think it a case for inquiry. Athanasius received a summons to appear at Antioch and stand his trial. At first he disdained to take any steps, but afterwards sent a deacon to search for the missing Arsenius. The deacon ascertained that Arsenius was concealed in a monastery at Ptemencyrcis, on the eastern side of the Nile. Before he could arrive there the superior sent off Arsenius, but was himself arrested by the deacon, and obliged to confess "that Arsenius was alive." At Tyre Arsenius was discovered. Constantine stopped the proceedings at Antioch on hearing of this exposure, and sent Athanasius a letter, to be read frequently in public, in which the Meletians were warned that any fresh offences would be dealt with by the emperor in person, and according to the civil law (Apol. 9, 68).

The slandered archbishop had now a breathing-time. Arcaph himself "came into the church," announced to Constantine his reconciliation with Athanasius, and received a gracious reply; while Arsenius sent to his "blessed pope" a formal renunciation of schism, and a promise of canonical obedience (Apol. 66, 17, 70, 69, 8, 27).

But the faction had not repented. Eusebius persuaded Constantine that such grave scandals as the recent charges ought to be examined in a council; and that Caesarea would be the fitting place. There a council met in 334 (see Tillemont, Ath. a. 15; cf. Festal. Epp. index, for A.D. 334). Athanasius, expecting no justice from a synod held under such circumstances, persisted, Sozomen says (ii. 25), "for thirty months" in his refusal to attend. Being at last peremptorily ordered by Constantine to attend a council which was to meet at Tyre, he obeyed, in the summer of 335 and was attended by about fifty of his suffragans. Athanasius saw at once that his enemies were dominant; the presiding bishop, Flacillus of Antioch, was one of an Arian succession. Some of the charges Athanasius at once confuted; as to others he demanded time. Incredible as it may seem, the dead man's hand was again exhibited. Athanasius led forward a man with downcast face, closely muffled; then, bidding him raise his head, looked round and asked, "Is not this Arsenius?" The identity was undeniable. He drew from behind the cloak first one hand, and then, after a pause, the other; and remarked with triumphant irony, "I suppose no one thinks that God has given to any man 