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But when Athanasius was proved innocent, and the Bishops whom the Arians had banished appeared to bear witness to the violence and cruelty with which they had been treated, the Arians abruptly left the Council and returned to Philippopolis. Here they formed a council of their own, in which they not only excommunicated Athanasius, but had the impudence to "excommunicate" Pope Julius himself.
That small, insignificant deacon is the great Athanasius. Next after the pope and deacon of Alexandria we must turn to one of its most important presbyters the parish priest of its principal church, which bore the name of Baucalis, and marked the first beginnings of what we should call a parochial system. In appearance he is the very opposite of Athanasius.
He was brought at last to communicate with the Arianizers, but even in his last illness refused to condemn Athanasius. After this there was but one power in the West which could not be summarily dealt with. The grandeur of Hosius was merely personal, but Liberius claimed the universal reverence due to the apostolic and imperial See of Rome.
From Egypt came Alexander of Alexandria with his young deacon Athanasius, and the Coptic confessors Paphnutius and Potammon, each with an eye seared out, came from cities farther up the Nile. All these were resolute enemies of Arianism; its only Egyptian supporters were two bishops from the edge of the western desert. Syria was less unequally divided.
Both Constantine and Constans were Athanasius' friends, and Constantius was not strong enough to resist them. Eusebius determined to take a bold step he would appeal to the Pope, and he promptly set to work to compose a letter which was a masterpiece of deceit. "Athanasius has been deposed by a Council of the Church," he wrote. "His return was therefore unlawful."
At the same council, in the thirtieth year of this reign, Arius was re-admitted into communion with the Church, and after a few months he was allowed to return to Alexandria, to the indignation of the popular party in that city, while Athanasius remained in banishment during the rest of the reign, as a punishment for his disobedience.
Each party in Alexandria had its own bishop; those who thought that the Son was of the same substance with the Father looked up to Athanasius, while those who gave to Jesus the lower rank of being of a similar substance to the Creator obeyed Lucius. This curious metaphysical proposition was not, however, the only cause of the quarrel which divided Egypt into such angry parties.
The story of St. Antony, as it has been handed down to us, runs thus: The life and conversation of our holy Father Antony, written and sent to the monks in foreign parts by our Father among the saints, Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria.
What a light was hereby thrown upon every controversy in the Church! not that, for the moment, the multitude may not falter in their judgment, not that, in the Arian hurricane, Sees more than can be numbered did not bend before its fury, and fall off from St. Athanasius, not that the crowd of Oriental Bishops did not need to be sustained during the contest by the voice and the eye of St.
I was alert as a lark when I entered: I came out in a species of voluptuous dream. All the band conducted me to the railway-station, and I was very much touched with the attention. "Take this shawl: the night will be chilly before you get to the city." "Don't let them carry you beyond Noisy." "Come back to Épernay every May-day: never forget the feast of Saint Athanasius."
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