Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/78

60 winter, was induced by the Arians to hold there, instead of at Aquileia, the council which Liberius and many Italian bishops had requested him to assemble. The event was disastrous: Vincent, the Roman legate, was induced to join with other prelates in condemning Athanasius; but Paulinus of Trèves had inherited Maximin's steadfastness, and preferred exile to the betrayal of a just cause.

In the Lent of 354 the Alexandrian churches were so crowded that some persons suffered severely, and the people urged Athanasius to allow the Easter services to be held in a large church which was still unfinished, called the Caesarean. The case was peculiar (Ap. ad Const. 15; Epiph. Haer. 69, 2): the church was being built on ground belonging to the emperor; to use it prematurely, without his leave, might be deemed a civil offence; to use it before dedication, an ecclesiastical impropriety. Athanasius tried to persuade the people to put up with the existing inconvenience: they answered, they would rather keep Easter in the open country. Under these circumstances he gave way. The Arianizers were habitually courtiers, and ready, on occasion, to be formalists likewise; and this using of the undedicated imperial church was one of several charges now urged at court against their adversary, and dealt with in his Apology to Constantius; the others being that he had stimulated Constans to quarrel with his brother, had corresponded with Magnentius, and that he had not come to Italy on receiving the letter brought by Montanus. A letter which Athanasius wrote before the Easter of this year, or perhaps of 355, is particularly interesting; he seeks to recall Dracontius, a monk who had been elected to a bishopric, and had weakly fled from his new duties. The earnestness, good sense, and affectionateness of this letter are very characteristic of Athanasius. He dwells repeatedly on the parable of the Talents, reminds Dracontius of solemn obligations, and warns him against imagining the monastic life to be the one sphere of Christian self-denial. The calm contemplation of fast-approaching trials, which would make a severe demand on Christian men's endurance, shews a "discernment" of the "signs" of 354‒5 in Athanasius.

For, in the spring of 355, he would hear of the success of Constantius in terrorizing the great majority of a large council at Milan, which had been summoned at the urgent desire of Liberius. A few faithful men, such as Eusebius of Vercelli, Lucifer of Caliaris, Dionysius of Milan, after a momentary weakness, and Maximus of Naples, who was suffering at the time from illness, alone refused to condemn Athanasius (Hist. Ar. 32‒34); and in standing out against the incurable tyrannousness of Caesarism, as thus exhibited, must have felt themselves to be contending both for civil justice and for Nicene orthodoxy.

That some coup d’état was meditated against Athanasius must have been evident, not only

from the emperor's passionate eagerness to have him condemned, and from the really brutal persecution which began to rage throughout the empire against those who adhered to his communion (Hist. Ar. 31), but from the appearance at Alexandria, in July or Aug. 355, of an imperial notary, named Diogenes, who, though he brought no express orders, and had no interview with Athanasius, used every effort to get him out of the city. Failing in this, he departed in Dec.; and on Jan. 5, 356, Syrianus, a general, with another notary named Hilarius, entered Alexandria. The Arian party exulted in their approaching triumph; Athanasius asked Syrianus if he had brought any letter from the Emperor. He said he had not. The archbishop referred him to the guarantee of security which he had himself received; and the presbyters, the laity, and the majority of all the inhabitants supported him in demanding that no change should be made without a new imperial letter—the rather that they themselves were preparing to send a deputation to Constantius. The prefect of Egypt and the provost of Alexandria were present at this interview; and Syrianus, at last, promised "by the life of the emperor" that he would comply with the demand. This was on Jan. 18; and for more than three weeks all was quiet. But about midnight on Thursday, Feb. 8, when Athanasius was at a night-long vigil service in St. Theonas's church, preparatory to the Friday service, Syrianus, with Hilarius, and Gorgonius, the head of the police force, beset the church with a large body of soldiers. "I sat down," says Athanasius, "on my throne" (which would be at the extreme end of the church), "and desired the deacon to read the Psalm" (our 136th), "and the people to respond, For His mercy endureth for ever, and then all to depart home." This majestic "act of faith" was hardly finished, when the doors were forced, and the soldiers rushed in with a fierce shout, clashing their arms, discharging their arrows, and brandishing their swords in the light of the church lamps. Some of the people in the nave had already departed, others were trampled down or mortally injured; others cried to the archbishop to escape. "I said I would not do so until they had all got away safe. So I stood up, and called for prayer, and desired all to go out before me . . . and when the greater part had gone, the monks who were there, and certain of the clergy, came up to me and carried me away." And then, he adds, he passed through the mass of his enemies unobserved, thanking God that he had been able to secure in the first instance his people's safety, and afterwards his own. As on a former occasion, he deemed it his duty to accept an opportunity of escape, especially when the sacrifice of his life would have been ruinous to the cause of the church in Egypt (see Augustine, Ep. 228, 10); and he therefore concealed himself in the country, "hiding himself," as the Arian History, c. 48, employs the prophet's words, "for a little moment, until the indignation should be overpast."

(6) From his Third to his Fourth Exile (356‒362).—On leaving Alexandria, Athanasius at first thought of appealing in person to  