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| Arius having returned to Alexandria with the Emperor's Consent, and not being received by Athanasius, the Partisans of Eusebius bring Many Charges against Athanasius before the Emperor.
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Chapter XXVII.—Arius
having returned to Alexandria with the Emperor’s Consent, and not
being received by Athanasius, the Partisans of Eusebius bring Many
Charges against Athanasius before the Emperor.
Arius having thus satisfied the
emperor, returned to Alexandria. But his artifice for suppressing the
truth did not succeed; for on his arrival at Alexandria, as Athanasius
would not receive him, but turned away from him as a pest, he attempted
to excite a fresh commotion in that city by disseminating his heresy.
Then indeed both Eusebius himself wrote, and prevailed on the emperor
also to write, in order that Arius and his partisans might be
readmitted into the church. Athanasius nevertheless wholly refused to
receive them, and wrote to inform the emperor in reply, that it was
impossible for those who had once rejected the faith, and had been
anathematized, to be again received into communion on their return. But
the emperor, provoked at this answer, menaced Athanasius in these
terms:
‘Since you have been apprised of my will, afford
unhindered access into the church to all those who are desirous of
entering it. For if it shall be intimated to me that you have
prohibited any of those claiming to be reunited to the church, or have
hindered their admission, I will forthwith send some one who at my
command shall depose you, and drive you into exile.’
The emperor wrote thus from a desire of promoting the
public good, and because he did not wish to see the church ruptured;
for he labored earnestly to bring them all into harmony. Then indeed
the partisans of Eusebius, ill-disposed towards Athanasius, imagining
they had found a seasonable opportunity, welcomed the emperor’s
displeasure as an auxiliary to their own purpose: and on this account
they raised a great disturbance, endeavoring to eject him from his
bishopric; for they entertained the hope that the Arian doctrine would
prevail only upon the removal of Athanasius. The chief conspirators
against him were Eusebius bishop of Nicomedia, Theognis of Nicæa,
Maris of Chalcedon, Ursacius of Singidnum in Upper Mœsia, and
Valens of Mursa in Upper Pannonia. These persons suborn by bribes
certain of the Melitian heresy to fabricate various charges against
Athanasius; and first they accuse him through the Melitians Ision,
Eudæmon and Callinicus, of having ordered the Egyptians to pay a
linen garment as tribute to the church at Alexandria. But this calumny
was immediately disproved by Alypius and Macarius, presbyters of the
Alexandrian church, who then happened to be at Nicomedia; they having
convinced the emperor that these statements to the prejudice of
Athanasius were false. Wherefore the emperor by letter severely
censured his accusers, but urged Athanasius to come to him. But before
he came the Eusebian faction anticipating his arrival, added to their
former accusation the charge of another crime of a still more serious
nature than the former; charging Athanasius with plotting against his
sovereign, and with having sent for treasonable purposes a chest full
of gold to one Philumenus. When, however, the emperor had himself
investigated this matter at Psamathia, which is in the suburbs of
Nicomedia, and had found Athanasius innocent, he dismissed him with
honor; and wrote with his own hand to the church at Alexandria to
assure them that their bishop had been falsely accused. It would indeed
have been both proper and desirable to have passed over in silence the
subsequent attacks which the Eusebians made upon Athanasius, lest from
these circumstances the Church of Christ should be judged unfavorably
of by those who are adverse to its interests.240
| 240From the sentiments expressed here may be inferred
the respect of the author for the church. His view on the suppression
of facts which did not redound to the honor of the church does not show
a very high ideal of history, but it bespeaks a laudable regard for the
good name of Christianity.
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But since having been already committed to writing, they have become
known to everybody, I have on that account deemed it necessary to make
as cursory allusion to these things as possible, the particulars of
which would require a special treatise. Whence the slanderous
accusation originated, and the character of those who devised it, I
shall now therefore state in brief. Mareotes241
| 241This description is probably dependent on
Athanasius, who says in his Apologia contra Arianos, 85,
‘Mareotes is a region of Alexandria. In that region there never
was a bishop or a deputy bishop; but the churches of the whole region
are subject to the bishop of Alexandria. Each of the presbyters has
separate villages, which are numerous,—sometimes ten or
more.’ Ischyras was probably a resident of one of the obscurest
of these villages; and it can be seen that what is said of his doings
here could easily come to pass.
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is a district of Alexandria; there are contained in it very many
villages, and an abundant population, with numerous splendid churches;
these churches are all under the jurisdiction of the bishop of
Alexandria, and are subject to his
city as parishes.242
| 242παροικία = later
‘parochia’; hence the derivatives.
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There was in this region a person named Ischyras, who had been guilty
of an act deserving of many deaths;243
| 243Another evidence of the author’s reverence for
the institutions of religion. For subsequent history of Ischyras, see
II. 20.
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for although he had never been admitted to holy orders, he had the
audacity to assume the title of presbyter, and to exercise sacred
functions belonging to the priesthood. But having been detected in his
sacrilegious career, he made his escape thence and sought refuge in
Nicomedia, where he implored the protection of the party of Eusebius;
who from their hatred to Athanasius, not only received him as a
presbyter, but even promised to confer upon him the dignity of the
episcopacy, if he would frame an accusation against Athanasius,
listening as a pretext for this to whatever stories Ischyras had
invented. For he spread a report that he had suffered dreadfully in
consequence of an assault; and that Macarius had rushed furiously
toward the altar, had overturned the table, and broken a mystical cup:
he added also that he had burnt the sacred books. As a reward for this
accusation, the Eusebian faction, as I have said, promised him a
bishopric; foreseeing that the charges against Macarius would involve,
along with the accused party, Athanasius, under whose orders he would
seem to have acted. But this charge they formulated later; before it
they devised another full of the bitterest malignity, to which I shall
now advert. Having by some means, I know not what, obtained a
man’s hand; whether they themselves had murdered any one, and cut
off his hand, or had severed it from some dead body, God knows and the
authors of the deed: but be that as it may, they publicly exposed it as
the hand of Arsenius, a Melitian bishop, while they kept the alleged
owner of it concealed. This hand, they asserted, had been made use of
by Athanasius in the performance of certain magic arts; and therefore
it was made the gravest ground of accusation which these calumniators
had concerted against him: but as it generally happens, all those who
entertained any pique against Athanasius came forward at the same time
with a variety of other charges. When the emperor was informed of these
proceedings, he wrote to his nephew Dalmatius the censor, who then had
his residence at Antioch in Syria, directing him to order the accused
parties to be brought before him, and after due investigation, to
inflict punishment on such as might be convicted. He also sent thither
Eusebius and Theognis, that the case might be tried in their presence.
When Athanasius knew that he was to be summoned before the censor, he
sent into Egypt to make a strict search after Arsenius; and he
ascertained indeed that he was secreted there, but was unable to
apprehend him, because he often changed his place of concealment.
Meanwhile the emperor suppressed the trial which was to have been held
before the censor, on the following account.
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