NPNF2-04. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters

The synod addressed an encyclical letter to all Christendom (p. 123), embodying their decisions and announcing their deposition of eight or nine Oriental bishops (including Theodore of Heraclea, Acacius, and several Arian leaders) for complicity with Arianism. They also wrote to the Church of Alexandria and to the bishops of Egypt with special reference to Athanasius and to the Alexandrian Church, to Julius announcing their decisions, and to the Mareotis (Migne xxvi. 1331 sqq. printed with Letters 46, 47. Hefele ii. 165 questions the genuineness of all three, but without reason; see p. 554, note 1).

The effect of the Council was not at first pacific. Constantius shared the indignation of the Eastern bishops, and began severe measures against all the Nicene-minded bishops in his dominions (pp. 275 sqq). Theodulus, Bishop of Trajanople, died of his injuries before the Sardican Bishops had completed their work. At Hadrianople savage cruelties were perpetrated (ib.); and a close watch was instituted in case Athanasius should attempt to return on the strength of his synodical acquittal. Accordingly, he passed the winter and spring at Naissus (now Nish, see Fest. Ind. xvi.), and during the summer, in obedience to an invitation from Constans, repaired to Aquileia, where he spent the Easter of 345.

Meanwhile, Constans had made the cause of the Sardican majority his own. At the beginning of the year 344 he sent two of its most respected members to urge upon Constantius the propriety of restoring the exiles. Either now or later he hinted that refusal would be regarded by him as a casus belli. His remonstrance gained unexpected moral support from an episode, strange even in that age of unprincipled intrigue. In rage and pain at the apparent success of the envoys, Stephen, Bishop of Antioch, sought to discredit them by a truly diabolical trick (see p. 276). Its discovery, just after Easter, 344, roused the moral sense of Constantius. A Council was summoned, and met during the summer64 (p. 462, §26, ‘three years after’ the Dedication at Midsummer, 341). Stephen was ignominiously deposed (see Gwatkin 125, note 1), and Leontius, an Arian, but a lover of quiet and a temporiser, appointed. The Council also re-issued the ‘fourth’ Antiochene Creed with a very long explanatory addition, mildly condemning certain Arian phrases, fiercely anathematising Marcellus and Photinus, and with a side-thrust at supposed implications of the Nicene formula. A deputation was sent to Italy, consisting of Eudoxius of Germanicia and three others. They reached Milan at the Synod of 345, and were able to procure a condemnation of Photinus (not Marcellus), but on being asked to anathematise Arianism refused, and retired in anger.

At the same Synod of Milan, however, Valens and Ursacius, whose deposition at Sardica was in imminent danger of being enforced by Constans, followed the former example of Eusebius of Nicomedia, Maris, Theognis, and Arius himself, by making their submission, which was followed up two years later by a letter in abject terms addressed to Julius, and another in a tone of veiled insolence to Athanasius (p. 131). In return, they were able to beat up a Synod at Sirmium against Photinus (Hil. Frag. ii. 19), but without success in the attempt to dislodge him.

Meanwhile, Constantius had followed up the Council at Antioch by cancelling his severe measures against the Nicene party. He restored to Alexandria certain Presbyters whom he had expelled, and in the course of the summer wrote a public letter to forbid any further persecution of the Athanasians in that city. This must have been in August, 344, and ‘about ten months later’ (p. 277), i.e., on June 26, 345 (F. I. xviii.), Gregory, who had been in bad health for fully four years, died65. Constantius, according to his own statement (pp. 127, 277), had already before the death of Gregory written twice to Athanasius (from Edessa; he was at Nisibis on May 12, 345), and had sent a Presbyter to request him urgently to come and see him with a view to his eventual restoration. As Gregory was known to be in a dying state, this is quite intelligible, but the language of Hist. Ar. 21, which seems to put all three letters after Gregory’s death, cannot stand if we are to accept the assurance of Constantius. Athanasius, at any rate, hesitated to obey, and stayed on at Aquileia (344 till early in 346), where he received a third and still more pressing invitation, promising him immediate restoration. He at once went to Rome to bid farewell to Julius, who wrote (p. 128 sq.) a most cordial and nobly-worded letter of congratulation for Athanasius to take home to his Church. Thence he proceeded to Trier to take leave of Constans (p. 239), and rapidly travelled by way of Hadrianople (p. 276) to Antioch (p. 240), where he was cordially received66 by Constantius. His visit was short but remarkable.

Constantius gave him the strongest assurances (pp. 277, 285) of goodwill for the future, but begged that Athanasius would allow the Arians at Alexandria the use of a single Church. He replied that he would do so if the Eustathians of Antioch (with whom alone he communicated during this visit) might have the same privilege. But this Leontius would not sanction, so the proposal came to nothing (Soc. ii. 23, Soz. iii. 20), and Athanasius hastened on his way. At Jerusalem he was detained by the welcome of a Council, which Bishop Maximus had summoned to greet him (p. 130), but on the twenty-first of October his reception by his flock took place; ‘the people, and those in authority, met him a hundred miles distant’ (Fest. Ind. xviii.), and amid splendid rejoicings (cf. p. xlii., note 3), he entered Alexandria, to remain there in ‘quiet’ ‘nine years, three months and nineteen days’ (Hist. Aceph. iv., cf. p. 496), viz., from Paophi 24 (Oct. 21), 346, to Mechir 13 (Feb. 8), 356. This period was his longest undisturbed residence in his see; he entered upon it in the very prime of life (he was 48 years old), and its internal happiness earns it the title of a golden decade.