Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/77

Rh the "Eustathian" body, which held aloof from the crypto-Arian bp. Leontius, and whose services, held in a house, he had been attending. The emperor would have agreed to this, but his advisers stood in the way.

From Antioch Athanasius proceeded to Jerusalem, where an orthodox council met to do him honour, and to congratulate his church. And now he had but to return home and enjoy the welcome which that church was eager to give. This he did, according to the Festal Index, on Oct. 21 (Paophi 24), 346. We see in Gregory Nazianzen's panegyric a picture of the vast mass of population, distributed into its several classes, and streaming forth, "like another Nile," to meet him at some distance from Alexandria; the faces gazing from every eminence at the well-known form, the ears strained to catch his accents, the voices rising in emulous plaudits, the hands clapping, the air fragrant with incense, the city festal with banquets and blazing with illuminations—all that made this return of Athanasius in after-times the standard for any splendid popular display.

(5) From his Second Return (346) to his Third Exile (356).—His 19th Festal Letter, for 347, begins with a thanksgiving for having been "brought from distant lands." The Egyptian prelates, in council, received the decrees of Sardica. More than 400 bishops of different countries, including Britain, were now in communion with Athanasius; he had a multitude of their "letters of peace" to answer. Many persons in Egypt who had sided with the Arians came by night to him with their excuses: it was a time "of deep and wondrous peace" (Hist. Ar. 25), which lasted for a few years. Valens and Ursacius had already, it seems, anathematized Arianism before a council at Milan; but they deemed it expedient to do more. In 347 they appeared at Rome, and presented to Julius a humble apologetic letter, having already written in a different strain to Athanasius, announcing that they were "at peace with him." He believed at the time that they were sincere; they afterwards ascribed their act to fear of Constans (Hist. Ar. 29). This motive, if it existed, was ere long removed; the revolt of Magnentius brought Constans to an ignominious death at the foot of the Pyrenees, in Feb. 350. This tragedy was a severe shock to Athanasius. He received, indeed, letters from Constantius, assuring him of continued favour, and encouraging him to pursue his episcopal work. The Alexandrian authorities were also commanded to suppress any "plotting against Athanasius." Thereupon in presence of high state officers, including the

bearers of these letters, Athanasius desired his people, assembled in church, "to pray for the safety of the most religious Constantius Augustus." The response was at once made, "O Christ, help Constantius!" (Ap. ad Const. 9, 10, 23; Hist. Ar. 24, 51). He had leisure for writing On the Nicene Definition of Faith and On the Opinions of Dionysius, his great predecessor in the 3rd cent., whose language, employed in controversy with Sabellianism, had been unfairly quoted in support of Arianism. [&#8202;Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Dionysius of Alexandria.] He also brought out, at this time, what is called his Apology against the Arians, although he afterwards made additions to it. It may have been about this time that he chose the blind scholar Didymus, already renowned for vast and varied learning, to preside over the "Catechetical School." [&#8202;Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Didymus, head of catechetical school.] When Magnentius sent envoys to Constantius, one of them visited Alexandria; and Athanasius, in speaking to him of Constans, burst into tears. He at first had some apprehension of danger from Magnentius; but it was soon evident that his real danger was from the Arianizing advisers of Constantius. Valens and Ursacius, having now recanted their recantation, were ready to weave new plots; and Liberius, the new bp. of Rome, was plied with letters against him, which were outweighed, in the judgment of a Roman synod, by an encyclic of eighty Egyptian prelates; and Rome remained faithful to his cause. (See Liberius's letter to Constantius, Hil. Fragm. 5. Another letter, in which Liberius is made to say that he had put Athanasius out of his communion for refusing to come to Rome when summoned, is justly regarded as a forgery.) This was in 352; and Athanasius, in May 353, thought it well to send 5 bishops (Soz. iv. 9, and Fragm. Maff.), one being his friend Serapion of Thmuis, and 3 presbyters, to disabuse Constantius of bad impressions as to his conduct. Five days later, May 23, Montanus, a "silentiary" or palace chamberlain, arrived with an imperial letter forbidding him to send envoys, but granting a request for himself to go to Milan. Athanasius, detecting an attempt to decoy him, replied that as he had never made such a request, he could not think it right to use a permission granted under a misconception; but that if the emperor sent him a definite order, he would set forth at once (Ap. ad Const. 19‒21). Montanus departed; and the next news that Athanasius received from Europe was such as to make him forget all personal danger. The Western usurper had been finally overthrown in August; and Constantius, having gone to Arles for the 