Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/75

Rome; on the other hand, Athanasius sent to Rome presbyters to state his case, and an encyclic—the invaluable document which has furnished us with so much information—from "the holy synod assembled at Alexandria out of Egypt, Thebais, Libya, and Pentapolis," composed, says Athanasius, of nearly 100 prelates. At Rome his envoys gave such evidence respecting Pistus as to cause the senior of the Eusebian envoys to decamp by night in spite of an indisposition. His companions asked Julius to convoke a council, and to act, if he pleased, as judge. He accordingly invited both parties to a council, to be held where Athanasius should choose. Thus matters stood about the end of 339.

Early in 340 a new announcement disquieted the Alexandrian church. It was notified in a formal edict of the prefect that not Pistus, but a Cappadocian named Gregory, was coming from the court to be installed as bishop (Encycl. 2). This, says Athanasius, was considered an unheard-of wrong. The churches were more thronged than ever; the people, in great excitement, and with passionate outcries, called the magistrates and the whole city to witness that this attack on their legitimate bishop proceeded from the mere wantonness of Arian hatred. Gregory, they knew, was an Arian, and therefore acceptable to the Eusebian party: he was a fellow-countryman of Philagrius. Philagrius attacked the church of St. Quirinus, and encouraged a mob of the lowest townspeople and of savage peasants to perpetrate atrocious cruelties and profanations. Athanasius was residing in the precincts of the church of St. Theonas: he knew that he was specially aimed at, and, in hope of preventing further outrage, he withdrew from the city to a place of concealment in the neighbourhood, where he busied himself in preparing an encyclic to give an account of these horrors. This was on March 19. Four days later Gregory is said to have "entered the city as bishop." Athanasius, after hastily completing and dispatching his encyclic, sailed for Rome in the Easter season of 340, some weeks after Constantine II. had been slain during his invasion of Italy.

(4) From his Second Exile (340) to his Second Return (346).—After Julius had welcomed Athanasius, he sent two presbyters, Elpidius and Philoxenus, in the early summer of 340, to repeat his invitation to the Eusebian prelates, to fix definitely the next December as the time of the proposed council, and Rome as the place. Athanasius received much kindness from the emperor's aunt, Eutropion, and from many others (Ap. ad Const. 417; cf. Fest. Ep. 13). He had with him two Egyptian monks. Their presence in the city, and Athanasius's enthusiasm for Anthony and other types of monastic saintliness, made a strong impression on the Roman church society, and abated the prejudices there existing against the very name of monk, and the disgust at a rude and strange exterior. In fact, Athanasius's three years (340‒343) at Rome had two great historic results. (a) The Latin church, which became his "scholar" as well as his "loyal partisan," was confirmed by the spell of his master-mind "in its adhesion to orthodoxy, although it did not

imbibe from him the theological spirit"; and (b) when Gibbon says that "Athanasius introduced into Rome the knowledge and practice of the monastic life," he records the origination of a vast European movement, and represents the great Alexandrian exile as the spiritual ancestor of Benedict, of Bernard, and of the countless founders and reformers of "religious" communities in the West.

Meantime Elpidius and Philoxenus had discharged their errand. The Eusebians at Antioch, finding that Athanasius was at Rome, and that the council to which they were invited would be a free ecclesiastical assembly, detained the Roman legates beyond the time specified, and then dismissed them with the excuse that Constantius was occupied with his Persian war. At the same time they stimulated Philagrius and Gregory to new severities. Orthodox bishops were scourged and imprisoned; Potammon never recovered from his stripes; Sarapammon, another confessor-bishop, was exiled (Hist. Ar. 12). The letters of Alexandrians to Athanasius, consolatory as proofs of their affection, gave mournful accounts of torture and robbery, of hatred towards himself shewn in persecution of his aunt, of countenance shewn to Gregory by the "duke" Balacius; and some of these troubles were in his mind when, early in 341, he wrote "from Rome" his Festal Letter for the year. That year had begun without any such settlement of his case as had been hoped for at Rome. December had passed, and no council could be held, for the Eusebians had not arrived. January came, and at last the legates returned, the unwilling bearers of a letter so offensive that Julius "resolved to keep it to himself, in the hope that some Eusebians" would even yet arrive (Apol. 24) and render the public reading of it unnecessary. No one came. On the contrary, the Eusebians resolved to take advantage of the approaching dedication of a new cathedral at Antioch, "the Golden Church," in order to hold a council there. Accordingly, ninety-seven bishops, many of whom were rather negatively than positively heterodox, assembled on this occasion, apparently in Aug. 341. Constantius was present. The sentence passed against Athanasius at Tyre was affirmed; several canons were passed; and three creeds were framed, in language partly vague and general, partly all but reaching the Nicene standard (cf. Newman, Arians, c. 4, s. 1; cf. Athan. Treatises, i. 105 seq.). This business necessarily lasted some time; and no information as to this council had reached Rome when, in Nov. 341, Athanasius having now been waiting at Rome for eighteen months (Apol. 29), Julius assembled the long-delayed council, consisting of more than fifty bishops, in the church of the presbyter Vito. Athanasius's case was fully examined; Athanasius was formally pronounced innocent; his right to brotherly treatment and church communion—admitted from the first by the Roman bishop—was solemnly recognized by the Italian council. The year 342 is not eventful in his history. Constans had shewn himself friendly to Athanasius, who at his request had sent him from Alexandria some bound copies of the Scriptures (Ap. ad Const. 4).