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ARIUS having thus satisfied the emperor, returned to Alexandria.
But his artifice for suppressing the truth did not succeed; for on his
arrival at Alexandria, as Athanasius would not receive him, but
turned away from him as a pest, he attempted to excite a fresh
commotion in that city by disseminating his heresy. Then indeed both
Eusebius himself wrote, and prevailed on the emperor also to write,
in order that Arius and his partisans might be readmitted into the
church. Athanasius nevertheless wholly refused to receive them, and
wrote to inform the emperor in reply, that it was impossible for those
who had once rejected the faith, and had been anathematized, to be
again received into communion on their return. But the emperor,
provoked at this answer, menaced Athanasius in these terms:
'Since you have been apprised of my will, afford unhindered access
into the church to all those who are desirous of entering it. For if
it shall be intimated to me that you have prohibited any of those
claiming to be reunited to the church, or have hindered their
admission, I will forthwith send some one who at my command shall
depose you, and drive you into exile.'
The emperor wrote thus from a desire of promoting the public good, and
because he did not wish to see the church ruptured; for he labored
earnestly to bring them all into harmony. Then indeed the partisans of
Eusebius, ill-disposed towards Athanasius, imagining they had found
a seasonable opportunity, welcomed the emperor's displeasure as an
auxiliary to their own purpose: and on this account they raised a great
disturbance, endeavoring to eject him from his bishopric; for they
entertained the hope that the Arian doctrine would prevail only upon
the removal of Athanasius. The chief conspirators against him were
Eusebius bishop of Nicomedia, Theognis of Nicaea, Maris of
Chalcedon, Ursacius of Singidnum in Upper Moesia, and Valens of
Mursa in Upper Pannonia. These persons suborn by bribes certain of
the Melitian heresy to fabricate various charges against Athanasius;
and first they accuse him through the Melitians Ision, Eudaemon and
Callinicus, of having ordered the Egyptians to pay a linen garment as
tribute to the church at Alexandria. But this calumny was immediately
disproved by Alypius and Macarius, presbyters of the Alexandrian
church, who then happened to be at Nicomedia; they having convinced
the emperor that these statements to the prejudice of Athanasius were
false. Wherefore the emperor by letter severely censured his
accusers, but urged Athanasius to come to him. But before he came
the Eusebian faction anticipating his arrival, added to their former
accusation the charge of another crime of a still more serious nature
than the former; charging Athanasius with plotting against his
sovereign, and with having sent for treasonable purposes a chest full
of gold to one Philumenus. When, however, the emperor had himself
investigated this matter at Psamathia, which is in the suburbs of
Nicomedia, and had found Athanasius innocent, he dismissed him with
honor; and wrote with his own hand to the church at Alexandria to
assure them that their bishop had been falsely accused. It would
indeed have been both proper and desirable to have passed over in
silence the subsequent attacks which the Eusebians made upon
Athanasius, lest from these circumstances the Church of Christ
should be judged unfavorably of by those who are adverse to its
interests. But since having been already committed to writing, they
have become known to everybody, I have on that account deemed it
necessary to make as cursory allusion to these things as possible, the
particulars of which would require a special treatise. Whence the
slanderous accusation originated, and the character of those who
devised it, I shall now therefore state in brief. Marcotes is a
district of Alexandria; there are contained in it very many villages,
and an abundant population, with numerous splendid churches; these
churches are all under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Alexandria,
and are subject to his city as parishes. There was in this region a
person named Isohyras, who had been guilty of an act deserving of many
deaths; for although he had never been admitted to holy orders, he had
the audacity to assume the title of presbyter, and to exercise sacred
functions belonging to the priesthood. But having been detected in his
sacrilegious career, he made his escape thence and sought refuge in
Nicomedia, where he implored the protection of the party of
Eusebius; who from their hatred to Athanasius, not only received him
as a presbyter, but even promised to confer upon him the dignity of the
episcopacy, if he would frame an accusation against Athanasius,
listening as a pretext for this to whatever stories Ischyras had
invented. For he spread a report that he had suffered dreadfully in
consequence of an assault; and that Macarius had rushed furiously
toward the altar, had overturned the table, and broken a mystical
cup: he added also that he had burnt the sacred books. As a reward
for this accusation, the Eusebian faction, as I have said promised
him a bishopric; foreseeing that the charges against Macarius would
involve, along with the accused party, Athanasius, under whose
orders he would seem to have acted. But this charge they formulated
later; before it they devised another full of the bitterest malignity,
to which I shall now advert. Having by some means, I know not
what, obtained a man's hand; whether they themselves had murdered any
one, and cut off his hand, or had severed it from some dead body,
God knows and the authors of the deed: but be that as it may, they
publicly exposed it as the hand of Arsenius, a Melitian bishop,
while they kept the alleged owner of it concealed. This hand, they
asserted, had been made use of by Athanasius in the performance of
certain magic arts; and therefore it was made the gravest ground of
accusation which these calumniators had concerted against him: but as
it generally happens, all those who entertained any pique against
Athanasius came forward at the same time with a variety of other
charges. When the emperor was informed of these proceedings, he wrote
to his nephew Dalmatius the censor, who then had his residence at
Antioch in Syria, directing him to order the accused parties to be
brought before him, and after due investigation, to inflict punishment
on such as might be convicted. He also sent thither Eusebius and
Theognis, that the case might be tried in their presence. When
Athanasius knew that he was to be summoned before the censor, he sent
into Egypt to make a strict search after Arsenius; and he ascertained
indeed that he was secreted there, but was unable to apprehend him,
because he often changed his place of concealment. Meanwhile the
emperor suppressed the trial which was to have been held before the
censor, on the following account.
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