Constantius, after taking the advice of his own bishops, thought it wisest to yield to the wishes or rather the commands of his brother Constans, and he wrote to Athanasius, calling him into his presence in Constantinople. But the rebellious bishop was not willing to trust himself within the reach of his offended sovereign; and it was not till after a second and a third letter, pressing him to come and promising him his safety, that he ventured within the limits of the Eastern empire. Strong in his high character for learning, firmness, and political skill, carrying with him the allegiance of the Egyptian nation, which was yielded to him much rather than to the emperor, and backed by the threats of Constans, Athanasius was at least a match for Constantius. At Constantinople the emperor and his subject, the Alexandrian bishop, made a formal treaty, by which it was agreed that, if Constantius would allow the Homoousian clergy throughout his dominions to return to their churches, Athanasius would in the same way throughout Egypt restore the Arian clergy; and upon this agreement Athanasius himself returned to Alexandria.
Among the followers of Athanasius was that important mixed race with whom the Egyptian civilisation chiefly rested, a race that may be called Koptic, but half Greek and half Egyptian in their language and religion as in their forefathers. But in feelings they were wholly opposed to the Greeks of Alexandria. Never since the last Nectanebo was conquered by the Persians, eight hundred years earlier, did the Egyptians seem so near to throwing off the foreign yoke and rising again as an independent nation. But the Greeks, who had taught them so much, had not taught them the arts of war; and the nation remained enslaved to those who could wield the sword. The return of Athanasius, however, was only the signal for a fresh uproar, and the Arians complained that Egypt was kept in a constant turmoil by his zealous activity. Nor were the Arians his only enemies. He had offended many others of his clergy by his overbearing manners, and more particularly by his following in the steps of Alexander, the late bishop, in claiming new and higher powers for the office of patriarch than had ever been yielded to the bishops of Alexandria before their spiritual rank had been changed into civil rank by the emperor’s adoption of their religion. Meletius headed a strong party of bishops, priests, and deacons in opposing the new claims of the archiepiscopal see of Alexandria. His followers differed in no point of doctrine from the Athanasian party, but as they sided with the Arians they were usually called heretics.
By this time the statesmen and magistrates had gained a clear view of the change which had come over the political state of the empire, first by the spread of Christianity, and secondly by the emperor’s embracing it. By supporting Christianity the emperors gave rank in the state to an organised and well-trained body, which immediately found itself in possession of all the civil power. A bishopric, which a few years before was a post of danger, was now a place of great profit, and secured to its possessor every worldly advantage of wealth, honour, and power. An archbishop in the capital, obeyed by a bishop in every city, with numerous priests and deacons under them, was usually of more weight than the prefect. While Athanasius was at the height of his popularity in Egypt, and was supported by the Emperor of the West, the Emperor Constantius was very far from being his master. But on the death of Constans, when Constantius became sovereign of the whole empire, he once more tried to make Alexandria and the Egyptian church obedient to his wishes. He was, however, still doubtful how far it was prudent to measure his strength against that of the bishop, and he chose rather to begin privately with threats before using his power openly. He first wrote word to Athanasius, as if in answer to a request from the bishop, that he was at liberty, if he wished, to visit Italy; but he sent the letter by the hands of the notary Diogenes, who added, by word of mouth, that the permission was meant for a command, and that it was the emperor’s pleasure that he should immediately quit his bishopric and the province. But this underhand conduct of the emperor only showed his own weakness. Athanasius steadily refused to obey any unwritten orders, and held his bishopric for upwards of two years longer, before Constantius felt strong enough to enforce his wishes. Towards the end of that time, Syrianus, the general of the Egyptian army, to whom this delicate task was entrusted, gathered together from other parts of the province a body of five thousand chosen men, and with these he marched quietly into Alexandria, to overawe, if possible, the rebellious bishop. He gave out no reason for his conduct; but the Arians, who were in the secret, openly boasted that it would soon be their turn to possess the churches. Syrianus then sent for Athanasius, and in the presence of Maximus the prefect again delivered to him the command of Constantius, that he should quit Egypt and retire into banishment, and he threatened to carry this command into execution by the help of the troops if he met with any resistance. Athanasius, without refusing to obey, begged to be shown the emperor’s orders in writing; but this reasonable request was refused. He then entreated them even to give him, in their own handwriting, an order for his banishment; but this was also refused, and the citizens, who were made acquainted with the emperor’s wishes and the bishop’s firmness, waited in dreadful anxiety to see whether the prefect and the general would venture to enforce their orders. The presbytery of the church and the corporation of the city went up to Syrianus in solemn procession to beg him either to show a written authority for the banishment of their bishop, or to write to Constantinople to learn the emperor’s pleasure. To this request Syrianus at last yielded, and gave his word to the friends of Athanasius that he would take no further steps till the return of the messengers which he then sent to Constantinople.
But Syrianus had before received his orders, which were, if possible, to frighten Athanasius into obedience, and, if that could not be done, then to employ force, but not to expose the emperor’s written commands to the danger of being successfully resisted. He therefore only waited for an opportunity of carrying them into effect; and at midnight, on the ninth of February, A.D. 356, twenty-three days after the promise had been given, Syrianus, at the head of his troops, armed for the assault, surrounded the church where Athanasius and a crowded assembly were at prayers. The doors were forcibly and suddenly broken open, the armed soldiers rushed forward to seize the bishop, and numbers of his faithful friends were slain in their efforts to save him. Athanasius, however, escaped in the tumult; but though the general was unsuccessful, the bodies of the slain and the arms of the soldiers found scattered through the church in the morning were full proofs of his unholy attempt. The friends of the bishop drew up and signed a public declaration describing the outrage, and Syrianus sent to Constantinople a counter-protest declaring that there had been no disturbance in the city.
Athanasius, with nearly the whole of the nation for his friends, easily escaped the vengeance of the emperor; and, withdrawing for a third time from public life, he passed the remainder of this reign in concealment. He did not, however, neglect the interests of his flock. He encouraged them with his letters, and even privately visited his friends in Alexandria. As the greater part of the population was eager to befriend him, he was there able to hide himself for six years. Disregarding the scandal that might arise from it, he lived in the house of a young woman, who concealed him in her chamber, and waited on him with untiring zeal. She was then in the flower of her youth, only twenty years of age; and fifty years afterwards, in the reign of Theodosius II., when the name of the archbishop ranked with those of the apostles, this woman used to boast among the monks of Alexandria that in her youth she had for six years concealed the great Athanasius.
But though the general was not wholly successful, yet the Athanasian party was for the time crushed. Sebastianus, the new prefect, was sent into Egypt with orders to seize Athanasius dead or alive, wherever he should be found within the province; and under his protection the Arian party in Alexandria again ventured to meet in public, and proceeded to choose a bishop. They elected to this high position the celebrated George of Cappadocia, a man who, while he equalled his more popular rival in learning and in ambition, fell far behind him in coolness of judgment, and in that political skill which is as much wanted in the guidance of a religious party as in the government of an empire.
George was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, and was the son of a clothier, but his ambition led him into the Church, as being at that time the fairest field for the display of talent; and he rose from one station to another till he reached the high post of Bishop of Alexandria. The fickle, irritable Alexandrians needed no such firebrand to light up the flames of discontent. George took no pains to conceal the fact that he held his bishopric by the favour of the emperor and the power of the army against the wishes of his flock. To support his authority, he opened his doors to informers of the worst description; anybody who stood in the way of his grasp at power was accused of being an enemy to the emperor. He proposed to the emperor to lay a house-tax on Alexandria, thereby to repay the expense incurred by Alexander the Great in building the city; and he made the imperial government more unpopular than it had ever been since Augustus landed in Egypt. He used the army as the means of terrifying the Homoousians into an acknowledgment of the Arian opinions. He banished fifteen bishops to the Great Oasis, besides others of lower rank. He beat, tortured, and put to death; the persecution was more cruel than any suffered from the pagans, except perhaps that in the reign of Diocletian; and thirty Egyptian bishops are said to have lost their lives while George was patriarch of Alexandria. Most of these accusations, however, are from the pens of his enemies. At this time the countries at the southern end of the Red Sea were becoming a little more known to Alexandria. Meropius, travelling in the reign of Constantine for curiosity and the sake of knowledge, had visited Auxum, the capital of the Hexumito, in Abyssinia. His companion Frumentius undertook to convert the people to Christianity and persuade them to trade with Egypt; and, as he found them willing to listen to his arguments, he came home to Alexandria to tell of his success and ask for support. Athanasius readily entered into a plan for spreading the blessings of Christianity and the power of the Alexandrian church. To increase the missionary’s weight he consecrated him a bishop, and sent him back to Auxum to continue his good work. His progress, however, was somewhat checked by sectarian jealousy; for, when Athanasius was deposed by Constantius, Frumentius was recalled to receive again his orders and his opinions from the new patriarch. Constantius also sent an embassy to the Homeritse on the opposite coast of Arabia, under Theophilus, a monk and deacon in the Church. The Homerito were of Jewish blood though of gentile faith, and were readily converted, if not to Christianity, at least to friendship with the emperor. After consecrating their churches, Theophilus crossed over to the African coast, to the Hexumito, to carry on the work which Frumentius had begun. There he was equally successful in the object of his embassy. Both in trade and in religion the Hexumito, who were also of Jewish blood, were eager to be connected with the Europeans, from whom they were cut off by Arabs of a wilder race. He found also a little to the south of Auxum a settlement of Syrians, who were said to have been placed there by Alexander the Great. These tribes spoke the language called Ethiopie, a dialect of Arabic which was not used in the country which we have hitherto called Ethiopia.