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66 permitting him to return to Alexandria, had felt his powerful influence thwarting his plans and had banished him as "the great foe of the gods." We must distinguish this action which was clearly a piece of pagan persecution of Christianity from the many Arian attacks directed against Athanasius. With the accession of Jovian of course the great bishop was free to come back to his post. The emperor addressed him a letter of warm admiration, and obtained from him a reply setting forth the orthodox belief as opposed to Arianism.

Unfortunately this state of things lasted but a very short time. Jovian was accidentally killed after only reigning eight months, being suffocated when sleeping in a room heated with a charcoal brazier. He was succeeded by a military officer, Valentinian ( 364), who was both orthodox and tolerant. But Valentinian assigned the eastern provinces of his empire to Valens his brother, who proved to be a bitter Arian, influenced, as Theodoret says, by his wife. In spite of this fact, Valentinian was able to induce Valens to join him in signing an edict ordering that "those who labour in the field of Christ are not to be persecuted nor oppressed, and that the stewards of the Great Ruler are not to be driven away." After this it may strike us as surpising that Valens should have been allowed to persecute the Nicene party, and Gibbon endeavours to discredit the idea that he did so before the death of Valentinian, which occurred in the year 375. But he ventures on this doubt in the teeth of the unanimous testimony of the Church historians, who agree in describing acts of cruelty, including one almost incredibly barbarous crime, as committed during the lifetime of the elder brother. The story of this outrageous deed is that eighty men—Theodoret says "presbyters"—who had come as a deputation to Constantinople were sent out to sea in an unballasted ship and there burnt to death by men who had accompanied them in