their professions and subscriptions, they had passed themselves upon him as holding the true faith. But the general character of the emperor had not improved with his years.

Constantine left his dominions among his three sons, Constantine, Constantius, and Constans. The first was already possessed of the dominion of Spain and Gaul, and the last of Italy and Africa. Constantius ascended his father's throne at Constantinople. The eldest brother sent back Athanasius to Alexandria, declaring that he only fulfilled the intentions of his late father This prince was killed in a contest with his brother Constans, not long after.

Constantius, a weak man, fell entirely into the hands of the Arians, who had first seduced to their party many of the domestics and officers of the royal household, and even the empress herself herself Their cause was also much promoted by the death of the bishop of Constantinople, who, during his lifetime, had prevented the spread of heresy in the city. Great dissensions now arose; the Arian party would have chosen Macedonius, but the multitude, still favourable to orthodoxy, elected Paulus, a man pointed out by the recommendation of their late bishop. Their choice displeased Constantius; and for the first time we behold, on the part of the civil government, a violation of the church's right to choose its own bishops. The emperor, through the medium of a synod of Arian bishops, and in violation of the canon that forbid the translation of bishops, appointed Eusebius of Nicomedia in his place. This great champion of the Arian heresy, now installed in the see of the metropolis of the East, used every effort to alter the profession of the Catholic faith agreed upon at Nice, and to crush Athanasius. For this purpose, he procured a council to be summoned in the emperor's presence, at Antioch. Ninety bishops assembled; but some, knowing the purpose for which the council was called, declined attendance. Among others, Julius, bishop of Rome, neither came nor sent his delegates; without whose consent, the historian tells us, no institution ought by canon to be imposed upon the church. This shews that the influence of that see had not been declining in the Christian world, though we seem for some time to have lost sight of it, and have seen a new rival to its bishop erected in the bishop of the imperial residence.

Athanasius was, of course, condemned in this synod. His see was first offered to a person of the name of Eusebius; but he declined it, because of the great love which the people had to

their bishop. A person of the name of Gregory was then appointed. In this synod a confession of faith was drawn up, with great subtlety, which, while it pretended to be the ancient faith, expressed no more than what an Arian would subscribe to. With Gregory, who was to supersede Athanasius, an order was sent, for the civil power to put him by force into possession; and scenes of tumult and of violence, like those of a pagan persecution, ensued.

When the church where Athanasius was officiating was attacked by the military, having ordered his deacon to read the collects to the people, and to sing a psalm, he escaped unnoticed among the multitude, who went out in a body from the church. He departed, and found an asylum at Rome. Eusebius, with the most artful policy, had written to Julius, to judge and pronounce the definitive sentence on Athanasius; but he lived not to know the result, having died immediately after the council. Great tumults again took place at Constantinople. The people again brought forth Paulus, the bishop of their choice; and the Arian party produced Macedonius in opposition to him. The emperor, being at Antioch, sent an order to one of his officers to drive Paulus from the city. The officer was resisted, and finally murdered by the populace. This brought Constantius in haste, who severely punished the city, by depriving it of the annual donation of corn. Gregory, who had lately been imposed upon Alexandria, was translated to Constantinople, and George of Cappadocia, another Arian, was placed in his room. All the deposed bishops had recourse to Rome. Julius, in a council of the western or Italian bishops, restored them to their sees, and the people seem to have received them. The eastern bishops, however, assembled at Antioch, to protest against the right of Julius to interfere; and, having the emperor on their side, Athanasius and Paulus were again expelled with great military violence. Socrates speaks of three thousand one hundred and fifty persons having been killed by the soldiers, or crushed to death, at the forcible introduction of the Arian bishop at Constantinople; and scenes of a similar nature took place at Alexandria.

Athanasius and Paulus again met at Rome, and applied to the Western emperor, who interposed with his brother on their behalf. At length, a general council was called, at the requisition of both emperors, to meet at Sardica, in Illyria'. Three

1 A.D. 347.

hundred bishops assembled from the West, at the head of whom was Hosius, who had drawn up the confession of faith in the council of Nice. The eastern bishops avoided attendance; not more than seventy assembled, and they afterwards withdrew so that the leading bishops of the East and West appeared to divide on the great question of the Redeemer's Godhead.

In this council decrees were passed, that but too clearly shew the state of the times. "The translation of bishops from one see to another is pronounced a pernicious custom, that must be rooted out. None," it is remarked," have been found to pass from a greater to a less; therefore they are induced by avarice and ambition." They enjoin" the residence of bishops," and forbid their journeys to court." A time is limited for the residence of one bishop in the diocese of another, in order "that they may not supplant each other."

The council of Sardica reversed the sentences which had been passed on Athanasius and the other bishops; and Constans interested himself so greatly on their behalf, that when his brother refused to receive them, he threatened him with war. This had the desired effect on Constantius; the bishops were for the present reinstated in their sees. Constantius demanded of Athanasius, that one of the churches of Alexandria should be left in the hands of the Arians; and he, on his part, proposed that a similar indulgence should be granted to the orthodox, in the cities of the Arian bishops: at this, however, they demurred. Within four years after the council of Sardica, Constans fell in a rebellion in the West, and Constantius became sole emperor1. The persecution was now renewed against the orthodox. Paulus was again deposed, loaded with irons, and murdered; and Macedonius, with an armed force, took possession of his see. Athanasius was ordered to be executed, wherever he might be seized. On the knowledge of this, he again fled for his life. In Constantinople, and throughout the East, where the Arians abounded, a persecution was commenced against all who refused to renounce the Nicean faith; this differed nothing in its cruelty and instruments of torture and death, from the persecutions of the pagans. Many were exposed to the severest treatment, and suffered martyrdom at Alexandria, through the savage cruelty of George, the Arian bishop; and the Novatians, who had three places of worship in Constantinople, from their known

'A. D. 351.

attachment to the ancient faith, had their full share in this Arian persecution. But the cities of Greece, Illyricum, and the West, were still unanimous for the ancient faith, and, notwithstanding the change of the imperial policy, enjoyed peace.

The affairs of the empire had, however, brought Constantius into the West, and he summoned a council of bishops at Milan', in order to impose on them his Arian creed. Many were found faithful, and, after enduring cruel torments, were driven into banishment. Liberius, the Roman bishop, was banished into Thrace; and Hosius of Corduba, now more than a hundred years old, and long threatened to no purpose, was at length overcome with scourges and tortures. Liberius also, to the great scandal of the faithful, was brought, after two years' banishment, to subscribe to the Arian faith, and to condemn Athanasius. So complete was the triumph of Arianism, that a proverb arose," All the world against Athanasius, and Athanasius against all the world."

As for Athanasius, he had concealed himself among the monks in the deserts of Egypt, who, notwithstanding their superstitions, were all zealous defenders of the ancient faith, and much attached to Athanasius, as the friend of their founder Anthony, who had lately died at the age of a hundred and five years. The life of this man has been written by Athanasius.

Constantius died not long after these transactions, and was succeeded by Julian, a descendant of a brother of the first Constantine. Constantius had appointed him Cæsar, and committed the war in Gaul to his management: the knowledge of his rebellion, and the apprehension of a civil war, had shortened the days of the late emperor. Julian, though, for disguise, he had even been a reader in the church of Constantinople, was known to have zealously embraced the ancient pagan theology. His first measures, however, were rather favourable to the orthodox Christians, through policy, and from his hatred of the ruling party, the Arians, whom Constantine had favoured. At the same time that he repealed the law against idolatry, he recalled the orthodox bishops from exile, and restored their confiscated property. It soon appeared, however, that the new emperor had laid a systematic plan for the re-establishment of the old religion, and that nothing less than the extirpation of the Christian name, would satisfy his philosophical ambition. But the career permitted to Julian was so short, that all his

schemes proved abortive; and the injury which he did the church, hardly deserves to be remembered among those greater wrongs which she received from her own divisions and corruptions, and from the public calamities of subsequent ages.

Athanasius had not at first ventured to return from his retreat, for fear of the Arian bishop George; but the latter, with many professed Christians, had now fallen a victim to the pagans, in a tumult which their zeal to expose some secrets of the ancient pagan superstition had excited. After this event, Athanasius made his appearance, and was received with great affection by his people: the Arians, no longer supported by the civil power, were expelled from the churches, and elected a bishop of their own. The first care of Athanasius, was to assemble a council at Alexandria, in order to re-establish the standard of the ancient faith which had been assaulted, not only by the Sabellians, who denied a distinction of persons in the Godhead, and by Arius, who denied the divine essence or substance to the Son, but also by two more recent introducers of false doctrine, Macedonius, who, without calling in question the deity of the Son, denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost, and Apollinarius, who had taught that the Son of God had not taken upon him the whole nature of man, but merely the human body. Against all these errors the true faith was asserted 1.

Athanasius was not long permitted to enjoy his liberty; he was accused to the emperor of having subverted all Alexandria, so that he was again compelled to conceal himself. On his departure, addressing his friends, he said, "Let us go aside for a season: this is but a little cloud, and will soon pass away." So indeed it proved; for, in a few months, Julian perished in the Persian war, after a reign of little more than a year and a half, at a time when, with great political sagacity, he was fostering many a plan for the suppression of the Christian faith. Julian did not openly and avowedly persecute, because he was aware that there were multitudes who were ready to go to prison and to death for their religion; but he resolved to harass the Christians by every sort of oppression, under any colourable pretence. A heavy taxation was imposed for not sacrificing; Christians were debarred from the schools of learning; and idolatry was made the test of loyalty in the army, in which we find, among those who refused to deny their Saviour,

1 Socrates.