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Rh then proceeded southwards to Tabenne. At midsummer, according to another narrative, he was at Antinoe, apprehensive of being arrested and put to death, when Theodore and another abbot named Pammon came to see him, and persuaded him to embark with them in Theodore's closely covered boat, in order to conceal himself in Tabenne. Athanasius was in prayer, agitated by the prospect of martyrdom, when Theodore, according to the story, assured him that Julian had at that very hour been slain in his Persian war. The day of Julian's death was June 26, 363.

"The cloud had passed," and Athanasius returned by night to Alexandria. After his arrival, which was kept secret, he received a letter from the new emperor Jovian, desiring him to resume his functions, and to draw up a statement of the Catholic faith. Athanasius at once assembled a council, and framed a synodal letter, in which the Nicene Creed was embodied, its Scripturalness asserted, and the great majority of Churches (including the British) referred to as professing it: Arianism was condemned, semi-Arianism pronounced inadequate, the Homoousion explained as expressive of Christ's real Sonship, the co-equality of the Holy Spirit maintained in terms which partly anticipate the language of the Creed of Constantinople. On Sept. 5 Athanasius sailed to Antioch, bearing this letter. He was most graciously received, while the rival bp. Lucius and his companions were rebuffed with some humour and some impatience by the blunt soldier-prince, who, however, during his brief reign, shewed himself as tolerant as he was orthodox. The general prospects of the church must now have seemed brighter than at any time since 330. Liberius was known to have made a full declaration of orthodoxy; and many Western bishops, responding to the appeals of Eusebius and Hilary of Poictiers, had eagerly renounced the Ariminian Creed and professed the Nicene. But the local troubles of Antioch were distressing; and Athanasius, seeing no other solution, recognized their bishop Paulinus as the true head of the Antiochene church, on his appending to his signature of the Tome a full and orthodox declaration, which, according to Epiphanius (Haer. 77, 20), Athanasius himself had framed.

Having written his Festal Letter for 364 at Antioch, Athanasius reached home, apparently, on Feb. 13, a few days before Jovian's death. Valentinian I. succeeded, and soon afterwards assigned the East to his brother Valens. The Alexandrian church was not at first a sufferer by this change of monarchs; and 364‒365 may be the probable date for the publication of the Life of Anthony, which Athanasius addressed "to the monks abroad," i.e. those in Italy and Gaul. But, ere long, his troubles to some extent reappeared. According to the Egyptian documents, it was the spring of 365 when Valens issued an order for the expulsion of all bishops who, having been expelled under Constantius, had been recalled under Julian, and thereby announced that he meant to follow the Arian policy of Constantius. On May 5 this order reached Alexandria, and caused a popular ferment, only quieted on June 8 by the prefect's

to refer the case of Athanasius to the emperor. If we may combine his statement with Sozomen's (who, however, places these events in a subsequent year), we should suppose that the prefect was but biding his time; and on the night of Oct. 5, Athanasius, having doubtless been forewarned, left his abode in the precinct of St. Dionysius's church, and took refuge in a country house near the New River. For four months the archbishop's concealment lasted, until an imperial notary came to the country house with a great multitude, and led Athanasius back into his church, Feb. 1 (Mechir 7), 366. His quiet was not again seriously disturbed, and Athanasius was free to devote himself to his proper work, whether of writing or of administration. His Festal Letter for 367 contained a list of the books of Scripture which, so far as regards the New Testament, agrees precisely with our own (see, too, de Decr. 18). The canonical books are described as "the fountains of salvation, through which alone" (a mode of speaking very usual with Athanasius) "is the teaching of religion transmitted"; a second class of books is mentioned, as "read" in church for religious edification ; the name "apocryphal" is reserved for a third class to which heretics have assigned a fictitious dignity (Westcott, On the Canon, pp. 487, 520). To this period has been assigned the comment on doctrinal texts which is called a treatise On the Incarnation and against the Arians; but its entire genuineness may be reasonably doubted. In or about 369 he held a council at Alexandria, in order to receive letters from a Roman council held under Damasus, the successor of Liberius, and also from other Western prelates, excommunicating Ursacius and Valens, and enforcing the authority of the Nicene Creed. Hereupon Athanasius, in a synodal letter addressed To the Africans, i.e. to those of the Carthaginian territory, contrasts the "ten or more" synodical formulas of Arianism with the Nicene Creed, gives some account of its formation, and exposes the futile attempt of its present adversaries to claim authority for the later, as distinct from the earlier, proceedings of the Ariminian council. It appears that on Sept. 22, 369, Athanasius, who had in May 368 begun to rebuild the Caesarean church, laid the foundations of another church, afterwards called by his own name (Fest. Ind.). We find him excommunicating a cruel and licentious governor in Libya, and signifying the act by circular letters. One of these was sent to Basil, who had just become exarch, or archbp., of Caesarea in Cappadocia, and had received, perhaps at that time, from Athanasius, a formal notification of the proceedings of the council of 362 (Ep. 204). Basil immediately announced to his own people the sentence pronounced in Egypt; the strong sense of church unity made such a step both regular and natural, and he wrote to assure Athanasius that the offender would be regarded by the faithful at Caesarea as utterly alien from Christian fellowship (Ep. 60). This led to a correspondence, carried on actively in 371. Basil, who had troubles of all kinds weighing upon his spirit, sought aid in regard to one of them—the unhappy schism of Antioch (Ep. 