CHAPTER XXVI

AFTER THE DEATH OF CONSTANS THE WESTERN EMPEROR, PAUL AND ATHANASIUS ARE AGAIN EJECTED FROM THEIR SEES: THE FORMER AFTER BEING CARRIED INTO EXILE IS SLAIN; BUT THE LATTER ESCAPES BY FLIGHT

A CONFLUX of these disastrous events occurred at nearly one and the same time; for they happened in the fourth year after the council at Sardica, during the consulate of Sergius and Nigrinian. Under these circumstances the entire sovereignty of the empire seemed to devolve on Constantius alone; who being accordingly proclaimed in the East sole Autocrat, made the most vigorous preparations against the tyrants. Hereupon the adversaries of Athanasius, thinking a favourable crisis had arisen, again framed the most calumnious charges against him, before his arrival at Alexandria; assuring the emperor Constantius that all Egypt and Libya was in danger of being subverted by him. And his having undertaken to ordain out of the limits of his own diocese, tended not a little to accredit the accusations against him. Amidst such unhappy excitement, Athanasius entered Alexandria; and having convened a council of the bishops in Egypt, they confirmed by their unanimous vote, what had been determined in the Synod at Sardica, and that assembled at Jerusalem by Maximus. But the emperor who had been long since imbued with Arian doctrine, reversed all the indulgent proceedings he had so recently resolved on. He began by ordering that Paul, bishop of Constantinople, should be sent into exile; whom those who conducted him strangled, at Cucusus in Cappadocia. Marcellus was also ejected, and Basil again made ruler of the church at Ancyra. Lucius of Adrianople, being loaded with chains, died in prison. The reports which were made concerning Athanasius, so wrought on the emperor’s mind, that in an ungovernable fury he commanded him to be put to death wherever he might be found: he moreover included Theodulus and Olympius, who presided over churches in Thrace, in the same proscription. Athanasius having obtained intelligence of the peril to which these mandates exposed him, once more had recourse to flight, and so escaped the emperor’s menaces. The Arians denounced his retreat as criminal, particularly Narcissus bishop of Neroniades in Cilicia, George of Laodicæa, and Leontius who then had the oversight of the church at Antioch. This last person when a presbyter, had been divested of his rank, because in order to remove all suspicion of illicit intercourse with a woman named Eustolium, with whom he spent a considerable portion of his time, he had castrated himself, and thenceforward lived more unreservedly with her, when there could be no longer any ground for evil surmises. Afterwards however, at the earnest desire of the emperor Constantius, he was created bishop of the church at Antioch, after Stephen, the successor of Flaccillus.