Meanwhile Hosius of Cordova was ordered to Sirmium and there detained. Constantius was not ashamed to send to the rack the old man who had been a confessor in his grandfather's days, more than fifty years before. 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. It was a great and wealthy church, and during the last two hundred years had won a noble fame for world-wide charity. Its orthodoxy was without a stain; for whatever heresies might flow to the great city, no heresy had ever issued thence. The strangers of every land who found their way to Rome were welcomed from St. Peter's throne with the majestic blessing of a universal father. 'The church of God which sojourneth in Rome' was the immemorial counsellor of all the churches; and now that the voice of counsel was passing into that of command, Bishop Julius had made a worthy use of his authority as a judge of Christendom. Such a bishop was a power of the first importance now that Arianism was dividing the Empire round the hostile camps of Gaul and Asia. If the Roman church had partly ceased to be a Greek colony in the Latin capital, it was still the connecting link of East and West, the representative of Western Christianity to the Easterns, and the interpreter of Eastern to the Latin West. Liberius could therefore treat almost on the footing of an independent sovereign. He would not condemn Athanasius unheard, and after so many acquittals. If Constantius wanted to reopen the case, he must summon a free council, and begin by expelling the Arians. To this demand he firmly adhered. The Emperor's threats he disregarded, the Emperor's gifts he flung out of the church. It was not long before Constantius was obliged to risk the scandal of seizing and carrying off the bishop of Rome.
Third exile of Athanasius (356).
Athanasius was still at Alexandria. When the notaries tried to frighten him away, he refused to take their word against the repeated written promises of protection he had received from Constantius himself. Duty as well as policy forbade him to believe that the most pious Emperor could be guilty of any such treachery. So when Syrianus, the general in Egypt, brought up his troops, it was agreed to refer the whole question to Constantius. Syrianus broke the agreement. On a night of vigil (Feb. 8, 356) he surrounded the church of Theonas with a force of more than five thousand men. The whole congregation was caught as in a net. The doors were broken open, and the troops pressed up the church. Athanasius fainted in the tumult; yet before they reached the bishop's throne its occupant had somehow been safely conveyed away.
George of Cappadocia.
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. George of Cappadocia is said to have been before this a pork-contractor for the army, and is certainly no credit to Arianism. Though Athanasius does injustice to his learning, there can be no doubt that he was a thoroughly bad bishop. Indiscriminate oppression of Nicenes and heathens provoked resistance from the fierce populace of Alexandria. George escaped with difficulty from one riot in August 358, and was fairly driven from the city by another in October.
Athanasius in exile (356-362).
Meanwhile Athanasius had disappeared from the eyes of men. A full year after the raid of Syrianus, he was still unconvinced of the Emperor's treachery. Outrage after outrage might turn out to be the work of underlings. Constantine himself had not despised his cry for justice, and if he could but stand before the son of Constantine, his presence might even yet confound the gang of eunuchs. Even the weakness of Athanasius is full of nobleness. Not till the work of outrage had gone on for many months was he convinced. But then he threw off all restraint. Even George the pork-contractor is not assailed with such a storm of merciless invective as his holiness Constantius Augustus. George might sin 'like the beasts who know no better,' but no wickedness of common mortals could attain to that of the new Belshazzar, of the Lord's anointed 'self-abandoned to eternal fire.'
Political meaning of his exile.
The exile governed Egypt from his hiding in the desert. Alexandria was searched in vain; in vain the malice of Constantius pursued him to the court of Ethiopia. Letter after letter issued from his inaccessible retreat to keep alive the indignation of the faithful, and invisible hands conveyed them to the farthest corners of the land. Constantius had his revenge, but it shook the Empire to its base. It was the first time since the fall of Israel that a nation had defied the Empire in the name of God. It was a national rising, none the less real for not breaking out in formal war. This time Greeks and Copts were united in defence of the Nicene faith, so that the contest was at an end when the Empire gave up Arianism. But the next breach was never healed. Monophysite Egypt was a dead limb of the Empire, and the Roman power beyond Mount Taurus fell before the Saracens because the provincials would not lift a hand to fight for the heretics of Chalcedon.
The Sirmian manifesto (357).