Page:History of Heresies (Liguori).djvu/76

68 murder of Arsenius, or the broken chalice, they invented a new charge against Athanasius—that he threatened to prevent the usual supply of grain from being sent from Alexandria to Constantinople. This was just the charge calculated to ruin him with the Emperor, who was so enraged, that he even threatened to put him to death; and, though the Saint refuted the accusation, he was condemned to banishment.

26. In the year 336 there was another council held in Constantinople, and the bishop of that city, St. Alexander, seeing that the Eusebians would have it all their own way, did everything in his power to prevent it, but could not succeed. The Eusebians then tried Marcellus of Ancira, the defender of St. Athanasius in the Council of Tyre, for some heresies alleged to have been written by him in a book, published in opposition to Asterius the Sophist, who composed a treatise filled with Arian errors. They, therefore, excommunicated and deposed Marcellus, as he was not one of their party, and elected, in his place, Basil, a partisan of Arius. This was only a secondary consideration, however. The principal reason the Arians had in assembling this council was to re-establish Arius in his place again, and confirm his doctrine. After Arius was received in Jerusalem to the communion of the bishops, he returned to Alexandria, hoping, in the absence of St. Athanasius, banished by Constantine, to be there received by the Catholics. In this he was disappointed—they would have nothing to do with him; but, as he had many partisans in the city, his residence there excited some commotion. When the Emperor was informed of this, he ordered him to come to Constantinople. It is said that the Eusebians induced the Emperor to give this order, hoping to have Arius received into the communion of the Church, in the imperial city; but in this they were most strenuously opposed by St. Alexander, and they, in consequence, threatened him that unless he received Arius into his communion on a certain day, they would have himself deposed. St. James, Bishop of Nisibis, then in Constantinople, said that prayers and penance alone could remedy these evils, and St. Alexander, taking his advice, gave up both preaching and disputing, and shut himself up alone in the Church of Peace, and remained there many nights, weeping and praying.

27. The Eusebians persuaded the Emperor that Arius held the doctrine of the Church, and it was, therefore, regulated that he should, the next Sunday, be received to the communion. The Saturday previous, however, Constantine, that he might be quite certain of the faith of Arius, ordered him to be called into his presence, asked him did he profess the faith of Nice, and insisted that he should give him a written profession of faith, and swear to it. Arius gave him the written profession, but a fraudulent one, and