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It was decided, with some appearance of equity, that a bishop, deprived by a synod, should not resume his episcopal functions till he had been absolved by the judgment of an equal synod; the law was immediately applied to the case of Athanasius; the council of Antioch pronounced, or rather confirmed, his degradation: a stranger, named Gregory, was seated on his throne; and Philagrius, the præfect of Egypt, was instructed to support the new primate with the civil and military powers of the province.
It seems rather that the paganismus of the West was partly represented by Arianism. In Cappadocia the heresy found its first great literary champion in the sophist Asterius. Gregory and George were brought to Alexandria from Cappadocia, and afterwards Auxentius to Milan and Eudoxius to Constantinople. Philagrius also, the prefect who drove out Athanasius in 339, was another of their countrymen.
If the soldiers connived at the escape of Athanasius, they were all the less disposed to spare his flock. The outrages of Philagrius and Gregory were repeated by Syrianus and his successor, Sebastian the Manichee; and the evil work went on apace after the arrival of the new bishop in Lent 357.
He was therefore removed, and an apostate called Philagrius, notorious for his violence and cruelty, was put in his place. The first act of this man was to publish an edict stating that Gregory was the Patriarch of Alexandria and that Athanasius was to be treated as an enemy.
Athanasius was expelled by the apostate prefect Philagrius, and Gregory installed by military violence in his place. Scenes of outrage were enacted all over Egypt. Athanasius fled to Rome. Thither also came Marcellus of Ancyra, and ejected clerics from all parts of the East. Under the rule of Constans they might meet with justice.
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