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Updated: June 2, 2025
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.
Constantine was therefore satisfied, and now directed them to lay it before the bishops at Jerusalem, who duly approved of it and received its authors to communion. In order to complete the work of peace, Athanasius was condemned afresh on the return of the commission from Egypt, and proceedings were begun against Marcellus of Ancyra.
Athanasius found his safest refuge in the deserts among the hermits of the Thebaid in Egypt.
In 347, however, they had found it prudent to make their peace with Julius of Rome by confessing the falsehood of their charges against Athanasius. Of late they had been active on the winning side, and enjoyed much influence with Constantius.
By Valens, Athanasius was forced for the fifth time to fly from Alexandria, to avoid the displeasure which his disobedience again drew down upon him. But his flock again rose in rebellion in favour of their popular bishop; and the emperor was either persuaded or frightened into allowing him to return to his bishopric, where he spent the few remaining years of his life in peace.
Athanasius invoked her; "nay," he adds, "I should like to know whether St. Augustine, in all his voluminous writings, invokes her once." What has to be shown is, that this step was not a mistake; that it was inevitable and legitimate. "This being the faith of the Fathers about the Blessed Virgin," says Dr. Newman, "we need not wonder that it should in no long time be transmuted into devotion."
And the confoundedly learned Doe, pointing out to me the pink and yellow town upon the African sands, among its palms and its shipping, said: "Behold the city of Alexander the Great, of Julius Cæsar and Cleopatra; the home of the Greek scriptures; and the see of the great saints, Clement, Athanasius, and Cyril." So I did what he wanted.
The exiled patriarch of Alexandria was watching from his refuge in the desert, and this was the time he chose for an overture of friendship to his old conservative enemies. If he was slow to see his opportunity, at least he used it nobly. The Eastern church has no more honoured name than that of Athanasius, yet even Athanasius rises above himself in his De Synodis.
These men, and many others, did much to further monasticism. But we must now leave sunny Africa and journey northward through Gaul into the land of the hardy Britons and Scots. Athanasius, the same weary exile whom we have encountered in Egypt and in Rome, had been banished by Constantine to Treves, in 336. In 346 and 349 he again visited Gaul.
Though Athanasius was no Marcellian, he was as determined as ever to leave all questions open which the great council had forborne to close. The new Nicenes of Pontus, on the other hand, inherited the conservative dread of Marcellus, so that it was a sore trial to Basil when Athanasius refused to sacrifice the old companion of his exile.
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