its back was broken and its ribs cracked by fire. St. Theonas'—the episcopal church—was gutted, and Athanasius nearly killed by some soldiers on its altar. And all the time everyone was writing—encyclicals as to the date of Easter, animadversions against washing, accusations of sorcery, complaints that Athanasius had broken a chalice in a church in a village near Lake Mariout, replies that there was no chalice to break, because there was no church, because there was no village—reams and reams of paper on this subject travelling over the empire for years, and being perused by bishops in Mesopotamia and Spain. Constantine died; but his successors, whatever their faith, were drawn into the dance of theology, none more so than Julian, who dreamed of Olympus. Arius died, falling down in the streets of Alexandria one evening while he was talking to a friend; but Arianism survived. Athanasius died too; but not before he had weaned the Church from her traditions of scholarship and tolerance, the tradition of Clement and Origen. Few divines have done more for her, and her gratitude has been both profound and character istic; she has coupled his name to a Creed with which he had nothing to do—the Athanasian.
Were his activities all about nothing? No! The Arian controversy enshrined a real emotion. By declaring that Christ was younger than God Arius tended to make him lower than God, and consequently to bring him nearer to man—indeed, to level him into a mere good man and to forestall Unitarianism. This appealed to the untheologically-minded to Emperors, and particularly to Empresses. It made them feel less lonely. But
