Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part VI

Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent dangers; and
the adventures of that extraordinary man deserve and fix our
attention. On the memorable night when the church of St. Theonas
was invested by the troops of Syrianus, the archbishop, seated on
his throne, expected, with calm and intrepid dignity, the
approach of death. While the public devotion was interrupted by
shouts of rage and cries of terror, he animated his trembling
congregation to express their religious confidence, by chanting
one of the psalms of David which celebrates the triumph of the
God of Israel over the haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. The
doors were at length burst open: a cloud of arrows was discharged
among the people; the soldiers, with drawn swords, rushed
forwards into the sanctuary; and the dreadful gleam of their arms
was reflected by the holy luminaries which burnt round the altar.
136 Athanasius still rejected the pious importunity of the monks
and presbyters, who were attached to his person; and nobly
refused to desert his episcopal station, till he had dismissed in
safety the last of the congregation. The darkness and tumult of
the night favored the retreat of the archbishop; and though he
was oppressed by the waves of an agitated multitude, though he
was thrown to the ground, and left without sense or motion, he
still recovered his undaunted courage, and eluded the eager
search of the soldiers, who were instructed by their Arian
guides, that the head of Athanasius would be the most acceptable
present to the emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt
disappeared from the eyes of his enemies, and remained above six
years concealed in impenetrable obscurity. 137

136 (return) [ These minute circumstances are curious, as they
are literally transcribed from the protest, which was publicly
presented three days afterwards by the Catholics of Alexandria.
See Athanas. tom. l. n. 867]

137 (return) [ The Jansenists have often compared Athanasius and
Arnauld, and have expatiated with pleasure on the faith and zeal,
the merit and exile, of those celebrated doctors. This concealed
parallel is very dexterously managed by the Abbé de la Bleterie,
Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 130.]

The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled the whole
extent of the Roman world; and the exasperated monarch had
endeavored, by a very pressing epistle to the Christian princes
of Ethiopia, 13711 to exclude Athanasius from the most remote and
sequestered regions of the earth. Counts, præfects, tribunes,
whole armies, were successively employed to pursue a bishop and a
fugitive; the vigilance of the civil and military powers was
excited by the Imperial edicts; liberal rewards were promised to
the man who should produce Athanasius, either alive or dead; and
the most severe penalties were denounced against those who should
dare to protect the public enemy. 138 But the deserts of Thebais
were now peopled by a race of wild, yet submissive fanatics, who
preferred the commands of their abbot to the laws of their
sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony and Pachonnus
received the fugitive primate as their father, admired the
patience and humility with which he conformed to their strictest
institutions, collected every word which dropped from his lips as
the genuine effusions of inspired wisdom; and persuaded
themselves that their prayers, their fasts, and their vigils,
were less meritorious than the zeal which they expressed, and the
dangers which they braved, in the defence of truth and innocence.
139 The monasteries of Egypt were seated in lonely and desolate
places, on the summit of mountains, or in the islands of the
Nile; and the sacred horn or trumpet of Tabenne was the
well-known signal which assembled several thousand robust and
determined monks, who, for the most part, had been the peasants
of the adjacent country. When their dark retreats were invaded by
a military force, which it was impossible to resist, they
silently stretched out their necks to the executioner; and
supported their national character, that tortures could never
wrest from an Egyptian the confession of a secret which he was
resolved not to disclose. 140 The archbishop of Alexandria, for
whose safety they eagerly devoted their lives, was lost among a
uniform and well-disciplined multitude; and on the nearer
approach of danger, he was swiftly removed, by their officious
hands, from one place of concealment to another, till he reached
the formidable deserts, which the gloomy and credulous temper of
superstition had peopled with dæmons and savage monsters. The
retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of
Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society of the
monks, who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries, and
as messengers; but the importance of maintaining a more intimate
connection with the Catholic party tempted him, whenever the
diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert,
to introduce himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to
the discretion of his friends and adherents. His various
adventures might have furnished the subject of a very
entertaining romance. He was once secreted in a dry cistern,
which he had scarcely left before he was betrayed by the
treachery of a female slave; 141 and he was once concealed in a
still more extraordinary asylum, the house of a virgin, only
twenty years of age, and who was celebrated in the whole city for
her exquisite beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related the
story many years afterwards, she was surprised by the appearance
of the archbishop in a loose undress, who, advancing with hasty
steps, conjured her to afford him the protection which he had
been directed by a celestial vision to seek under her hospitable
roof. The pious maid accepted and preserved the sacred pledge
which was intrusted to her prudence and courage. Without
imparting the secret to any one, she instantly conducted
Athanasius into her most secret chamber, and watched over his
safety with the tenderness of a friend and the assiduity of a
servant. As long as the danger continued, she regularly supplied
him with books and provisions, washed his feet, managed his
correspondence, and dexterously concealed from the eye of
suspicion this familiar and solitary intercourse between a saint
whose character required the most unblemished chastity, and a
female whose charms might excite the most dangerous emotions. 142
During the six years of persecution and exile, Athanasius
repeated his visits to his fair and faithful companion; and the
formal declaration, that he _saw_ the councils of Rimini and
Seleucia, 143 forces us to believe that he was secretly present
at the time and place of their convocation. The advantage of
personally negotiating with his friends, and of observing and
improving the divisions of his enemies, might justify, in a
prudent statesman, so bold and dangerous an enterprise: and
Alexandria was connected by trade and navigation with every
seaport of the Mediterranean. From the depth of his inaccessible
retreat the intrepid primate waged an incessant and offensive war
against the protector of the Arians; and his seasonable writings,
which were diligently circulated and eagerly perused, contributed
to unite and animate the orthodox party. In his public apologies,
which he addressed to the emperor himself, he sometimes affected
the praise of moderation; whilst at the same time, in secret and
vehement invectives, he exposed Constantius as a weak and wicked
prince, the executioner of his family, the tyrant of the
republic, and the Antichrist of the church. In the height of his
prosperity, the victorious monarch, who had chastised the
rashness of Gallus, and suppressed the revolt of Sylvanus, who
had taken the diadem from the head of Vetranio, and vanquished in
the field the legions of Magnentius, received from an invisible
hand a wound, which he could neither heal nor revenge; and the
son of Constantine was the first of the Christian princes who
experienced the strength of those principles, which, in the cause
of religion, could resist the most violent exertions 144 of the
civil power.

13711 (return) [ These princes were called Aeizanas and
Saiazanas. Athanasius calls them the kings of Axum. In the
superscription of his letter, Constantius gives them no title.
Mr. Salt, during his first journey in Ethiopia, (in 1806,)
discovered, in the ruins of Axum, a long and very interesting
inscription relating to these princes. It was erected to
commemorate the victory of Aeizanas over the Bougaitæ, (St.
Martin considers them the Blemmyes, whose true name is Bedjah or
Bodjah.) Aeizanas is styled king of the Axumites, the Homerites,
of Raeidan, of the Ethiopians, of the Sabsuites, of Silea, of
Tiamo, of the Bougaites, and of Kaei. It appears that at this
time the king of the Ethiopians ruled over the Homerites, the
inhabitants of Yemen. He was not yet a Christian, as he calls
himself son of the invincible Mars. Another brother besides
Saiazanas, named Adephas, is mentioned, though Aeizanas seems to
have been sole king. See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, ii. 151.
Salt’s Travels. De Sacy, note in Annales des Voyages, xii. p.
53.—M.]

138 (return) [ Hinc jam toto orbe profugus Athanasius, nec ullus
ci tutus ad latendum supererat locus. Tribuni, Præfecti, Comites,
exercitus quoque ad pervestigandum cum moventur edictis
Imperialibus; præmia dela toribus proponuntur, si quis eum vivum,
si id minus, caput certe Atha casii detulisset. Rufin. l. i. c.
16.]

139 (return) [ Gregor. Nazianzen. tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 384, 385.
See Tillemont Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 176-410, 820-830.]

140 (return) [ Et nulla tormentorum vis inveneri, adhuc potuit,
quæ obdurato illius tractus latroni invito elicere potuit, ut
nomen proprium dicat Ammian. xxii. 16, and Valesius ad locum.]

141 (return) [ Rufin. l. i. c. 18. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 10. This
and the following story will be rendered impossible, if we
suppose that Athanasius always inhabited the asylum which he
accidentally or occasionally had used.]

142 (return) [ Paladius, (Hist. Lausiac. c. 136, in Vit. Patrum,
p. 776,) the original author of this anecdote, had conversed with
the damsel, who in her old age still remembered with pleasure so
pious and honorable a connection. I cannot indulge the delicacy
of Baronius, Valesius, Tillemont, &c., who almost reject a story
so unworthy, as they deem it, of the gravity of ecclesiastical
history.]

143 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 869. I agree with Tillemont,
(tom. iii. p. 1197,) that his expressions imply a personal,
though perhaps secret visit to the synods.]

144 (return) [ The epistle of Athanasius to the monks is filled
with reproaches, which the public must feel to be true, (vol. i.
p. 834, 856;) and, in compliment to his readers, he has
introduced the comparisons of Pharaoh, Ahab, Belshazzar, &c. The
boldness of Hilary was attended with less danger, if he published
his invective in Gaul after the revolt of Julian; but Lucifer
sent his libels to Constantius, and almost challenged the reward
of martyrdom. See Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 905.]

The persecution of Athanasius, and of so many respectable
bishops, who suffered for the truth of their opinions, or at
least for the integrity of their conscience, was a just subject
of indignation and discontent to all Christians, except those who
were blindly devoted to the Arian faction. The people regretted
the loss of their faithful pastors, whose banishment was usually
followed by the intrusion of a stranger 145 into the episcopal
chair; and loudly complained, that the right of election was
violated, and that they were condemned to obey a mercenary
usurper, whose person was unknown, and whose principles were
suspected. The Catholics might prove to the world, that they were
not involved in the guilt and heresy of their ecclesiastical
governor, by publicly testifying their dissent, or by totally
separating themselves from his communion. The first of these
methods was invented at Antioch, and practised with such success,
that it was soon diffused over the Christian world. The doxology
or sacred hymn, which celebrates the _glory_ of the Trinity, is
susceptible of very nice, but material, inflections; and the
substance of an orthodox, or an heretical, creed, may be
expressed by the difference of a disjunctive, or a copulative,
particle. Alternate responses, and a more regular psalmody, 146
were introduced into the public service by Flavianus and
Diodorus, two devout and active laymen, who were attached to the
Nicene faith. Under their conduct a swarm of monks issued from
the adjacent desert, bands of well-disciplined singers were
stationed in the cathedral of Antioch, the Glory to the Father,
And the Son, And the Holy Ghost, 147 was triumphantly chanted by
a full chorus of voices; and the Catholics insulted, by the
purity of their doctrine, the Arian prelate, who had usurped the
throne of the venerable Eustathius. The same zeal which inspired
their songs prompted the more scrupulous members of the orthodox
party to form separate assemblies, which were governed by the
presbyters, till the death of their exiled bishop allowed the
election and consecration of a new episcopal pastor. 148 The
revolutions of the court multiplied the number of pretenders; and
the same city was often disputed, under the reign of Constantius,
by two, or three, or even four, bishops, who exercised their
spiritual jurisdiction over their respective followers, and
alternately lost and regained the temporal possessions of the
church. The abuse of Christianity introduced into the Roman
government new causes of tyranny and sedition; the bands of civil
society were torn asunder by the fury of religious factions; and
the obscure citizen, who might calmly have surveyed the elevation
and fall of successive emperors, imagined and experienced, that
his own life and fortune were connected with the interests of a
popular ecclesiastic. The example of the two capitals, Rome and
Constantinople, may serve to represent the state of the empire,
and the temper of mankind, under the reign of the sons of
Constantine.

145 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 811) complains in general
of this practice, which he afterwards exemplifies (p. 861) in the
pretended election of Fælix. Three eunuchs represented the Roman
people, and three prelates, who followed the court, assumed the
functions of the bishops of the Suburbicarian provinces.]

146 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. l. ii.
c. 72, 73, p. 966-984) has collected many curious facts
concerning the origin and progress of church singing, both in the
East and West. * Note: Arius appears to have been the first who
availed himself of this means of impressing his doctrines on the
popular ear: he composed songs for sailors, millers, and
travellers, and set them to common airs; “beguiling the ignorant,
by the sweetness of his music, into the impiety of his
doctrines.” Philostorgius, ii. 2. Arian singers used to parade
the streets of Constantinople by night, till Chrysostom arrayed
against them a band of orthodox choristers. Sozomen, viii. 8.—M.]

147 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 13. Godefroy has
examined this subject with singular accuracy, (p. 147, &c.) There
were three heterodox forms: “To the Father _by_ the Son, _and_ in
the Holy Ghost.” “To the Father, _and_ the Son _in_ the Holy
Ghost;” and “To the Father _in_ the Son _and_ the Holy Ghost.”]

148 (return) [ After the exile of Eustathius, under the reign of
Constantine, the rigid party of the orthodox formed a separation
which afterwards degenerated into a schism, and lasted about
fourscore years. See Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 35-54,
1137-1158, tom. viii. p. 537-632, 1314-1332. In many churches,
the Arians and Homoousians, who had renounced each other’s
_communion_, continued for some time to join in prayer.
Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 14.]

I. The Roman pontiff, as long as he maintained his station and
his principles, was guarded by the warm attachment of a great
people; and could reject with scorn the prayers, the menaces, and
the oblations of an heretical prince. When the eunuchs had
secretly pronounced the exile of Liberius, the well-grounded
apprehension of a tumult engaged them to use the utmost
precautions in the execution of the sentence. The capital was
invested on every side, and the præfect was commanded to seize
the person of the bishop, either by stratagem or by open force.
The order was obeyed, and Liberius, with the greatest difficulty,
at the hour of midnight, was swiftly conveyed beyond the reach of
the Roman people, before their consternation was turned into
rage. As soon as they were informed of his banishment into
Thrace, a general assembly was convened, and the clergy of Rome
bound themselves, by a public and solemn oath, never to desert
their bishop, never to acknowledge the usurper Fælix; who, by the
influence of the eunuchs, had been irregularly chosen and
consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the end of
two years, their pious obstinacy subsisted entire and unshaken;
and when Constantius visited Rome, he was assailed by the
importunate solicitations of a people, who had preserved, as the
last remnant of their ancient freedom, the right of treating
their sovereign with familiar insolence. The wives of many of the
senators and most honorable citizens, after pressing their
husbands to intercede in favor of Liberius, were advised to
undertake a commission, which in their hands would be less
dangerous, and might prove more successful. The emperor received
with politeness these female deputies, whose wealth and dignity
were displayed in the magnificence of their dress and ornaments:
he admired their inflexible resolution of following their beloved
pastor to the most distant regions of the earth; and consented
that the two bishops, Liberius and Fælix, should govern in peace
their respective congregations. But the ideas of toleration were
so repugnant to the practice, and even to the sentiments, of
those times, that when the answer of Constantius was publicly
read in the Circus of Rome, so reasonable a project of
accommodation was rejected with contempt and ridicule. The eager
vehemence which animated the spectators in the decisive moment of
a horse-race, was now directed towards a different object; and
the Circus resounded with the shout of thousands, who repeatedly
exclaimed, “One God, One Christ, One Bishop!” The zeal of the
Roman people in the cause of Liberius was not confined to words
alone; and the dangerous and bloody sedition which they excited
soon after the departure of Constantius determined that prince to
accept the submission of the exiled prelate, and to restore him
to the undivided dominion of the capital. After some ineffectual
resistance, his rival was expelled from the city by the
permission of the emperor and the power of the opposite faction;
the adherents of Fælix were inhumanly murdered in the streets, in
the public places, in the baths, and even in the churches; and
the face of Rome, upon the return of a Christian bishop, renewed
the horrid image of the massacres of Marius, and the
proscriptions of Sylla. 149

149 (return) [ See, on this ecclesiastical revolution of Rome,
Ammianus, xv. 7 Athanas. tom. i. p. 834, 861. Sozomen, l. iv. c.
15. Theodoret, l. ii c. 17. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p.
413. Hieronym. Chron. Marcellin. et Faustin. Libell. p. 3, 4.
Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p.]

II. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of Christians under the
reign of the Flavian family, Rome, Alexandria, and the other
great cities of the empire, still contained a strong and powerful
faction of Infidels, who envied the prosperity, and who
ridiculed, even in their theatres, the theological disputes of
the church. Constantinople alone enjoyed the advantage of being
born and educated in the bosom of the faith. The capital of the
East had never been polluted by the worship of idols; and the
whole body of the people had deeply imbibed the opinions, the
virtues, and the passions, which distinguished the Christians of
that age from the rest of mankind. After the death of Alexander,
the episcopal throne was disputed by Paul and Macedonius. By
their zeal and abilities they both deserved the eminent station
to which they aspired; and if the moral character of Macedonius
was less exceptionable, his competitor had the advantage of a
prior election and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm attachment
to the Nicene creed, which has given Paul a place in the calendar
among saints and martyrs, exposed him to the resentment of the
Arians. In the space of fourteen years he was five times driven
from his throne; to which he was more frequently restored by the
violence of the people, than by the permission of the prince; and
the power of Macedonius could be secured only by the death of his
rival. The unfortunate Paul was dragged in chains from the sandy
deserts of Mesopotamia to the most desolate places of Mount
Taurus, 150 confined in a dark and narrow dungeon, left six days
without food, and at length strangled, by the order of Philip,
one of the principal ministers of the emperor Constantius. 151
The first blood which stained the new capital was spilt in this
ecclesiastical contest; and many persons were slain on both
sides, in the furious and obstinate seditions of the people. The
commission of enforcing a sentence of banishment against Paul had
been intrusted to Hermogenes, the master-general of the cavalry;
but the execution of it was fatal to himself. The Catholics rose
in the defence of their bishop; the palace of Hermogenes was
consumed; the first military officer of the empire was dragged by
the heels through the streets of Constantinople, and, after he
expired, his lifeless corpse was exposed to their wanton insults.
152 The fate of Hermogenes instructed Philip, the Prætorian
præfect, to act with more precaution on a similar occasion. In
the most gentle and honorable terms, he required the attendance
of Paul in the baths of Xeuxippus, which had a private
communication with the palace and the sea. A vessel, which lay
ready at the garden stairs, immediately hoisted sail; and, while
the people were still ignorant of the meditated sacrilege, their
bishop was already embarked on his voyage to Thessalonica. They
soon beheld, with surprise and indignation, the gates of the
palace thrown open, and the usurper Macedonius seated by the side
of the præfect on a lofty chariot, which was surrounded by troops
of guards with drawn swords. The military procession advanced
towards the cathedral; the Arians and the Catholics eagerly
rushed to occupy that important post; and three thousand one
hundred and fifty persons lost their lives in the confusion of
the tumult. Macedonius, who was supported by a regular force,
obtained a decisive victory; but his reign was disturbed by
clamor and sedition; and the causes which appeared the least
connected with the subject of dispute, were sufficient to nourish
and to kindle the flame of civil discord. As the chapel in which
the body of the great Constantine had been deposited was in a
ruinous condition, the bishop transported those venerable remains
into the church of St. Acacius. This prudent and even pious
measure was represented as a wicked profanation by the whole
party which adhered to the Homoousian doctrine. The factions
immediately flew to arms, the consecrated ground was used as
their field of battle; and one of the ecclesiastical historians
has observed, as a real fact, not as a figure of rhetoric, that
the well before the church overflowed with a stream of blood,
which filled the porticos and the adjacent courts. The writer who
should impute these tumults solely to a religious principle,
would betray a very imperfect knowledge of human nature; yet it
must be confessed that the motive which misled the sincerity of
zeal, and the pretence which disguised the licentiousness of
passion, suppressed the remorse which, in another cause, would
have succeeded to the rage of the Christians at Constantinople.
153

150 (return) [ Cucusus was the last stage of his life and
sufferings. The situation of that lonely town, on the confines of
Cappadocia, Cilicia, and the Lesser Armenia, has occasioned some
geographical perplexity; but we are directed to the true spot by
the course of the Roman road from Cæsarea to Anazarbus. See
Cellarii Geograph. tom. ii. p. 213. Wesseling ad Itinerar. p.
179, 703.]

151 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 703, 813, 814) affirms, in
the most positive terms, that Paul was murdered; and appeals, not
only to common fame, but even to the unsuspicious testimony of
Philagrius, one of the Arian persecutors. Yet he acknowledges
that the heretics attributed to disease the death of the bishop
of Constantinople. Athanasius is servilely copied by Socrates,
(l. ii. c. 26;) but Sozomen, who discovers a more liberal temper.
presumes (l. iv. c. 2) to insinuate a prudent doubt.]

152 (return) [ Ammianus (xiv. 10) refers to his own account of
this tragic event. But we no longer possess that part of his
history. Note: The murder of Hermogenes took place at the first
expulsion of Paul from the see of Constantinople.—M.]

153 (return) [ See Socrates, l. ii. c. 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 26,
27, 38, and Sozomen, l. iii. 3, 4, 7, 9, l. iv. c. ii. 21. The
acts of St. Paul of Constantinople, of which Photius has made an
abstract, (Phot. Bibliot. p. 1419-1430,) are an indifferent copy
of these historians; but a modern Greek, who could write the life
of a saint without adding fables and miracles, is entitled to
some commendation.]