EUSEBinS
624
EUSEBITTS
by St. Athanasius, the Eusebians, ol jrcpl rhv TS,ia{puiv,
whose object it was to undo the work of Xicsea, and to
procure the complete victory of Arianism. They did
not pubhcly recall the signatures that had been forced
from them. They explained that Arius had repented
of any excess in liis words, or had been misunderstood.
They dropped the Xicene formulae, as ambiguous.
They were the leaders of a much larger party of con-
servative prelates, who wished to stand well with the
emperor, who reverenced the martjT Lucian and the
great Origen, and were seriously alarmed at any dan-
ger of Sabellianisra. The campaign opened with a
successful attack on Eustathius of Antioch, the prin-
cipal prelate of the East properly so called. He had
been having an animated controversy with Eusebius
of Caesarea, in which he had accused that learned per-
sonage of polj'theism, while Eusebius retorted with a
charge of Sabellianism. Eustathius was deposed and
exiled, for alleged disrespectful expressions about the
emperor's mother, St. Helena, who was greatlj' de-
voted to the memory of St. Lucian. It is said that he
was also charged •n'ith immorality and heresy, but it is
certain that the whole case was got up by the Euse-
bians. The great see of Alexandria was filled in 32S
by the deacon Athanasius, who had taken a leading
part at Nicaea. Small in stature, and young in years,
he was at the head of a singularly united body of
nearly a hundred bishops, and liis energy and vivacity,
his courage and determination marked liim out as the
one foe whom the Eusebians had to dread. The
Alexandrian Arians had now signed an ambiguous
formula of submission, and Eusebius of Xicomedia
«Tote to Athanasius, asking Mm to reinstate them,
adding a verbal message of threats. The Meletian
schism, in Egj^jt, had only been partially healed by
the mOd measures decreed at Xicaea, and the schis-
matics were giving trouble. Constantine was induced
by Eusebius to write to Athanasius curtly telling him
he should be deposed, if he refused to receive into the
Church any who demanded to be received. Athana-
sius explained why he could not do tliis. and the em-
peror seems to have been satisfied. Eusebius then
joined hands with the Meletians, and induced them to
trump up charges against Athanasius. They first
pretended that he had invented a tribute of linen gar-
ments which he exacted. This was disproved, but
Athanasius himself was sent for to the court. The
Meletians then brought up a charge which did duty
for many years, that he had ordered a priest named
Macarius to overturn an altar and break up a chalice
belonging to a priest named IschjTas, in the Mareotis,
though in fact Ischyras had never been a priest, and
at the time alleged could not have been pretending to
say Mass, for he was ill in bed. It was also said that
Athanasius had assisted a certain Philumenus to con-
spire against the emperor, and had given him a bag of
gold. Again the accusers were refuted and put to
flight. The saint returned to his Church with a letter
from Constantine, in which the emperor sermonized
the Alexandrians after his wont, urging them to peace
and unity. But the question of the broken chalice
was not dropped, and the Meletians further got hold
of a bishop named Arsenius, whom they kept in hiding
while they declared that Athanasius had put him to
death; they carried about a severed hand, which they
said was Arsenius's, cut off by the patriarch for the
purpose of magic. Athanasius induced IschjTas to
sign a document denjang the former charge, and man-
aged to discover the whereabouts of Arsenius. Con-
stantine in consequence wTote a letter to the patriarch
declaring him innocent.
Eusebius had stood apart from all these false accusa- tions, and he was not disheartened by so many failures. He got the Meletians to demand a sj-nod, ami repre- sented to Constantine that it would be right for peace to be obtained before the assembling of many bishops, at Jerusalem, to celebrate the dedication of the new
Chiu-ch of the Holy Sepulchre. This was in 335. A
synod met at Tyre, whose history need not be de-
tailed here. Athanasius brought some fifty bishops
with him, but they had not been summoned, and were
not allowed to sit with the rest. A deputation was
sent into the JIareotis to inquire into the question of
Ischyras and the chalice, and the chief enemies of
Athanasius were chosen for the purpose. The synod
was tumultuous, and even the Count Dionysius, who
had come with soldiers to support the Eusebians,
thought the proceedings unfair. It remains a mystery
how so many well-meaning bishops were deceived into
condemning Athanasius. He refused to await their
judgment. Extricating himself with difficulty from
the assembly, he led away his Egj'ptians and betook
himself directly to Constantinople, where he accosted
the emperor abruptly, and demanded justice. At his
suggestion, the Council of Tjtc was ordered to come be-
fore the emperor. Meanwhile Eusebius had brought
the bishops on to Jerusalem, where the deliberations
were made joyous by the reception back into the
Church of the followers of Arius. The Egj'ptian bish-
ops had drawn up a protest, attributing all that had
been done at TjTe to a conspiracy between Eusebius
and the Meletians and Arians, the enemies of the
Church. Athanasius asserts that the final act at Jeru-
salem had been Eusebius's aim all along; all the accu-
sations against himself had tended only to get him out
of the road, in order that the rehabihtation of the
Arians might be effected.
Eusebius prevented any of the bishops at Jerusalem from going to Constantinople, save those he could trust, Eusebius of C^sarea, Theognis of Xicaea, Patro- philus of Scj'thopolis, and the two j'oung Pannonian bishops Ursacius and ^'alens, who were to continue Eusebius's policy long after his death. They care- fully avoided renewing the accusations of murder and sacrilege, which Constantine had already examined; and Athanasius tells us that five Egj-ptian bishops reported to him that they rested their case on a new charge, that he had tlu-eatened to delay the corn ships from Alexandria wiiich suppUed Constantinople. The emperor was enraged. Xo opportunity of defence was given, and Athanasius was banished to Gaul. But, in public, Constantine said that he had put in force the decree of the Council of Tyre. Constantine the Younger, however, declared later that his father had intended to save Athanasius from his enemies by sending him away, and that before djnng he had had the intention of restoring him. The leader of the Meletians, John Arkaph, was similarly exiled. Euse- bius wanted him no turther. and hence did not care to protect him. One triumph was yet wanting to Eusebius, the reconciliation of Arius, his friend This was to be consummated at length at Constantinople, but the designs of man were frustrated by the hand of God. Arius died suddenly under peculiarly humiliat- ing conditions, on the eve of the daj' appointed for his solemn restoration to Catholic communion in the cathedral of Xew Rome.
Until 337 the Eusebians were busy in obtaining, by calumny, the deposition of the bishops who supported the Xicene faith. Of these the best known are Paul of Constantinople, Asclepas of Gaza, and Marcellus, Metropolitan of Ancyra. In the case of Marcellus they had received considerable provocation. Marcel- lus had been their active enemy at Xici^a. At Tyre he had refused to condemn Athanasius, and he pre- sented a book to the emperor in which the Eusebians received hard words. He was convicted, not without ground, of Sabellianizing, and took refuge at Rome. On 22 May, 337, Constantine the Great died at Xico- media, after having been baptized by Eusebius, bishop of the place. His brothers and all but two of his nephews were at once murdered, in order to sim- phfy the succession, and the world was di\'itled be- tween his three young sons. An arrangement was
