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tine. A fresh and more violent edict was published against Athanasius; orders were given to arrest him as an impious person, and to put the Arians in possession of his churches, and of the benefactions, which Constantine had left for ecclesiastical and charitable uses. All Bishops were prohibited from communion with him, under pain of losing their sees; and the laity were to be compelled by the magistrates to join themselves to the heretical party. Hilary of Poictiers was the next victim of the persecution. He had taken part in a petition, presented to Constantius, in behalf of the exiled bishops. In consequence a Gallic Council was called, under the presidency of Saturninus, Bishop of Arles; and Hilary was banished into Phrygia.

6.

The history of Liberius, the occupier of the most powerful see in the West, possesses an interest, which deserves our careful attention. In 356, the year after the Council of Milan, the principal eunuch of the Imperial Court had been sent, to urge on him by threats and promises the condemnation of Athanasius; and, on his insisting on a fair trial for the accused, and a disavowal of Arianism on the part of his accusers, as preliminary conditions, had caused him to be forced away to Milan. There the same arguments were addressed to him in the more impressive words of the Emperor himself; who urged upon him "the notoriously wicked life of Athanasius, his vexatious opposition to the peace of the Church, his intrigues to effect a quarrel between the imperial brothers, and his frequent condemnation

in the Councils of Eastern and Western Christendom;" and further exhorted him, as being by his pastoral office especially a man of peace, to be cautious of appearing the sole obstacle to the happy settlement of a question, which could not otherwise be arranged. Liberius replied by demanding of Constantius even more than his own deputies had proposed to the Milanese Council;-first, that there should be a general subscription to the Nicene faith throughout the Church; next, that the banished bishops should be restored to their sees; and lastly, should the trial of Athanasius be still thought advisable, that a Council should be held at Alexandria, where justice might be fairly dealt between him and his accusers. The conference between them ended in Liberius being allowed three days to choose between making the required subscription, and going into exile; at the end of which time he manfully departed for Beroa, in Thrace. Constantius and the empress, struck with the nobleness of his conduct, sent after him a thousand pieces of gold; but he refused a gift, which must have laid him under restraint towards heretical benefactors. Much more promptly did he reject the offer of assistance, which Eusebius, the eunuch before-mentioned, from whatever feeling, made him. "You have desolated the Churches of Christendom," he said to the powerful favourite, "and then you offer me alms as a convict. Go, first learn to be a Christian "."

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There are men, in whose mouths sentiments, such as these, are becoming and admirable, as being the result

3 Soz. iv. 11. Theod. Hist. ii. 16.

of Christian magnanimity, and imposed upon them by their station in the Church. But the sequel of the history shows, that in the conduct of Liberius there was more of personal feeling and intemperate indignation, than of deep-seated fortitude of soul. His fall, which followed, scandalous as it is in itself, may yet be taken to illustrate the silent firmness of those others his fellowsufferers, of whom we hear less, because they bore themselves more consistently. Two years of exile, among the dreary solitudes of Thrace, broke his spirit; and the triumph of his deacon Felix, who had succeeded to his power, painfully forced upon his imagination his own listless condition, which brought him no work to perform, and no witness of his sufferings for the truth's sake. Demophilus, one of the foremost of the Eusebian party, was bishop of Beroa, the place of his banishment; and gave intelligence of his growing melancholy to his associates. Wise in their generation, they had an instrument ready prepared for the tempter's office. Fortunatian, Bishop of Aquileia, who stood high in the opinion of Liberius for disinterestedness and courage, had conformed to the court-religion in the Arian Council of Milan; and he was now employed by the Eusebians, to gain over the wavering prelate. The arguments of Fortunatian and Demophilus shall be given in the words of Maimbourg. "They told him, that they could not conceive, how a man of his worth and spirit could so long obstinately resolve to be miserable upon a chimerical notion, which subsisted only in the imagination of people of weak or no understanding: that, indeed, if he suffered for the cause of God and the Church, of which God had

given him the government, they should not only look upon his sufferings as glorious, but, being willing to partake of his glory, they should also become his companions in banishment themselves. But that this matter related neither to God nor religion; that it concerned merely a private person, named Athanasius, whose cause had nothing in common with that of the Church, whom the public voice had long since accused of numberless crimes, whom Councils had condemned, and who had been turned out of his see by the great Constantine, whose judgment alone was sufficient to justify all that the East and West had so often pronounced against him. That, even if he were not so guilty as men made him, yet it was necessary to sacrifice him to the peace of the Church, and to throw him into the sea to appease the storm, which he was the occasion of raising; but that, the greater part of the Bishops having condemned him, the defending him would be causing a schism, and that it was a very uncommon sight to see the Roman prelate abandon the care of the Church, and banish himself into Thrace, to become the martyr of one, whom both divine and human justice had so often declared guilty. That it was high time to undeceive himself, and to open his eyes at last; to see, whether it was not passion in Athanasius, which gave a false alarm, and opposed an imaginary heresy, to make the world believe that they had a mind to establish error "."

The arguments, diffusively but instructively reported in the above extract, were enforced by the threat of

4 Webster's translation is used: one or two irrelevent phrases, introduced by Maimbourg on the subject of Roman supremacy, being omitted.

death as the consequence of obstinacy; while, on the other hand, a temptation of a peculiar nature presented itself to the exiled bishop in his very popularity with the Roman people, which was such, that Constantius had already been obliged to promise them his restoration. Moreover, as if to give a reality to the inducements by which he was assailed, a specific plan of mutual concession and concord had been projected, in which Liberius was required to take part. The Western

Catholics were, as we have seen, on all occasions requiring evidence of the orthodoxy of the Eusebians, before they consented to take part with them against Athanasius. Constantius then, desirous of ingratiating himself with the people of Rome, and himself a Semi-Arian, and at that time alarmed at the increasing boldness of the Anomoans, or pure Arians, presently to be mentioned, perceived his opportunity for effecting a general acceptance of a Semi-Arian creed; and thus, while sacrificing the Anomoans, whom he feared, to the Catholics, and claiming from the Catholics in turn what were scarcely concessions, in the imperfect language of the West, for realizing that religious peace, which he held to be incompatible with the inflexible orthodoxy of Athanasius. Moreover, the heresies of Marcellus and Photinus were in favour of this scheme; for, by dwelling upon them, he withdrew the eyes of Catholics from the contrary errors of Semi-Arianism. A creed was compiled from three former confessions, that of the orthodox Council against Paulus (A.D. 264), that of the Dedication (A.D. 341), and one of the three published at Sirmium. Thus carefully composed, it was signed by

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