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56 more hands than two." The case of the broken chalice now remained; it was resolved to send a commission of inquiry to the Mareotis. Ischyras accompanied the commissioners, as "a sharer in lodging, board, and wine-cup"; they opened their court in the Mareotis. It appeared in evidence that no books had been burned, and that Ischyras had been too ill to officiate on the day of the alleged sacrilege. An inquiry of such an ex parte character called forth indignant protests from the Alexandrian and Mareotic clergy, one of the documents bearing the date Sept. 7, 335. The commissioners, disregarding remonstrance, returned to Tyre (Apol. 27, 73‒76, 17, 15).

Athanasius, regarding the proceedings of the council of Tyre as already vitiated (Apol. 82), resolved, without waiting for the judgment of such an assembly, "to make a bold and dangerous experiment, whether the throne was inaccessible to the voice of truth." Attended by five of his suffragans, he took the first vessel for Constantinople, and suddenly presented himself in the middle of the road when the emperor was riding into the city. Constantine, on learning who he was, and what was his errand, tried to pass him by in silence; but Athanasius firmly stood his ground. "Either summon a lawful council, or give me opportunity of meeting my accusers in your presence." The request was conceded. The bishops of the council, after receiving their commissioners' report, had by a majority condemned Athanasius, and then pronounced Arius orthodox on the ground of a doctrinal statement made five years earlier, when they were startled by an imperial letter expressing suspicion of their motives, and summoning them to Constantinople. Many of them, in alarm, fled homewards; but the two Eusebii, Theognis, Patrophilus, Valens, and Ursacius repaired to court, and, saying nothing of "the chalice," or the report of the commission, presented a new charge, like the former quasi-political ones—that Athanasius had talked of distressing Constantinople by preventing the sailing of Alexandrian corn-ships. "How could I, a private person, and poor, do anything of the kind?" asked Athanasius. Eusebius of Nicomedia answered by affirming with an oath that Athanasius was rich and powerful, and able to do anything. The emperor cut short Athanasius's defence with a show of indignation; and, perhaps not from real belief in the charge, but by way of getting rid of the case and silencing the archbishop's enemies in his own interest, banished him to the distant city of Trier or Trèves, the seat of government of his eldest son Constantine, who received the exile with much kindness, in Feb. 336.

(3) From his First Exile (336) to his Second (340).—His life at Trèves, including nearly two years and a half, was an interval of rest, much needed and doubtless invigorating, between the storms of the past and those of the future. He had now to "stand and wait"—a new experience for him. He was "abundantly supplied with all necessaries" (Constantine II. in Apol. 87); he had the friendship of Maximin, the orthodox bp. of Trèves, afterwards canonized; he had with him some Egyptian

"brethren," and kept up a correspondence with his friends at home, although at the risk of having his letters seized.

For more than a year Constantine's death produced no change in Athanasius's position; but at length, on June 17, 338, Constantine II., who in the partition of the empire had a certain precedency over his brothers Constantius and Constans, the sovereigns of the East and of Italy, wrote from Trèves to the Catholics of Alexandria, announcing that he had resolved, in fulfilment of an intention of his father, to send back Athanasius, of whose character he expressed high admiration (Apol. 87). In this he appears to have presumed his brother's consent, and to have then taken Athanasius with him to Viminacium, an important town of Moesia Superior, on the high-road to Constantinople. Here the three emperors had a meeting, and all concurred in the restoration of Athanasius, who, after passing through Constantinople, saw Constantius a second time, at a farther point on his homeward journey, at Caesarea in Cappadocia (Apol. ad Const. 5; Hist. Ar. 8). His arrival at Alexandria, in Nov. 338, was hailed by popular rejoicing: the churches resounded with thanksgivings, and the clergy "thought it the happiest day of their lives." But his enemies bestirred themselves, and "did not shrink from long journeys" in order to press on the emperors new charges against him—that he had misappropriated the corn granted by the late emperor for charitable purposes in Egypt and Libya, and that the day of his return had been signalized by bloodshed. Constantius wrote to him in anger, assuming the truth of the former charge; but Athanasius was successful in disproving both. However, Constantius—who was so soon to be "his scourge and torment" (Hooker, v. 42, 2)—fell more and more under the influence of his great enemy Eusebius, now transferred from Nicomedia to the see of Constantinople, which had been forcibly vacated by the second expulsion of the orthodox Paul. The Eusebians now resumed a project which had been found impracticable while Constantine lived; this was to place on "the Evangelical throne" an Arian named Pistus, who had been a priest under Alexander, had been deposed by him for adhering to Arius, and had been consecrated, as it seems (Apol. 24), by a notorious Arian bishop named Secundus. It was argued that Athanasius had offended against all ecclesiastical principles by resuming his see in defiance of the Tyrian sentence, and by virtue of mere secular authority. The charge did not come well from a party which had leaned so much on the court and the State; but it must be allowed that Athanasius's return had given some colour to the objection, although he doubtless held that the assembly at Tyre had forfeited all moral right to be respected as a council. By way of harassing Athanasius, the Eusebians, apparently about this time, made Ischyras a bishop, after obtaining an order in the name of the emperor that a church should be built for him—an order which failed to procure him a congregation (Apol. 12, 85).

The Eusebians now applied to the West in behalf of their nominee Pistus. Three clergy appeared as their envoys before Julius, bp. of 