Athanasians were actually in a majority, and their opponents could only get their way by removing farther east, to Philippopolis—there to register their decisions comfortably without the inconvenience of opposition. This plainly shows that the mass of the Church was with Athanasius. The powerful Eusebius had died the year before the council of Sardica, and two years after that event Gregory also died—perhaps murdered. Things were not going well for the Arians, and Constans seized the opportunity to force his brother, under threat of war, to let Athanasius return to his see. Constantius actually himself received the patriarch quite graciously. But the death of Constans in 350 put an end to the truce. Now that Constantius was undisputed master of the empire, the Arians sprang into power and became quite overbearing and most truculent. After hairbreadth escapes and romantic adventures Athanasius fled up the Nile and took refuge with the monks in the desert. The venerable Hosius and Liberius the bishop of Rome were detained in captivity till their patience was worn down and they both signed a virtually Arian confession. It was a dark period for the Nicene faith. Still the time was not all lost. Athanasius in his quiet retreat now wrote some of his most important works, including his famous Four Discourses on Arianism and his History of the heresy. So things went on for eleven dreary years, till the death of Constantius (a.d. 361) brought deliverance from an unexpected quarter in the advent of a pagan emperor.
Julian, the cousin and successor of Constantius, has been execrated in the Church as "the Apostate." When at liberty to show his hand he manifested bitter antipathy to Christianity, after apparently having been baptised in his infancy—a fact, if this were the case, for which it would be hard to make him responsible. While in the power of his cousin Constantius, he had conformed, as he was bound to do unless he had developed a very precocious martyr conscience. But as soon as he was free to act for himself he threw off the hateful yoke of his oppressor's religion.
