§ 121. THE ARIAN AND SEIVn-AKIAN KF.ACTI02T. 63S
their influence against the adiierents of the homoousion. Con itantine himself was turned by Eusebius of C^sarea, who stooc beween Athanasius and Arius, by his sister Constantia and her father confessor, and by a vague confession of Arius, to think more favorably of Arius, and to recall him from exile. Nevertheless he afterwards, as before, thought himself in accordance with the orthodox view and the N^icene creed. The real gist of the controversy he had never understood. Atlianasius, who after the death of Alexander in April, 328,' became bishop of Alexandria and head of the Nicene party, refused to reinstate the heretic in his former position, and was condemned and deposed for false accusations by two Arian councils, one at Tyre under the presidency of the historian Eusebius, the other at Constantinople in the year 335 (or 336), and banished by the emperor to Treves in Gaul in 336, as a disturber of the peace of the church.
Soon after this Arius, having been formally acquitted of the charge of heresy by a council at Jerusalem (a, d. 335), was to have been solemnly received back into the fellowship of the church at Constantinople. But on the evening before the intended jDrocession from the imperial palace to the church of the Apostles, he suddenly died (a. d. 336), at the age of over eighty years, of an attack like cholera, while attending to a call of nature. This death was regarded by many as a divine judgment ; by others, it was attribut(;d to poisoning by enemies ; by others, to the excessive joy of Arius in his triumph.''
On the death of Constantino (337), who had shortly before received baptism from the Arian Eusebius of Nicomedia, Athanasius was recalled from his banishment (338) by Constantine 11. (t 340), and received by the people with great enthusiasm ; "more joyously than ever an emperor." ' Some months after-
' According to the Syriac prefiice to the Syriac Festival Letters of Athanasiua, first edited by Cureton in 1848. It was previous y supposed that Alexander died two years earlier. Comp. Hefele, i. p. 429.
* Comp. Athanasius, De morte Arii Epist. ad Serapionem (Opera, torn. i. p. 340). He got his information from his priest Macarius, who was in Constantinople at the time.
' So says Gregory Nazianzen. The date of his return, according to the Fef Uval Letters of At'\anasius, was the 23d November, 338.
634 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
vards (339) he held a council of nearly a hundred hirihops in Alexandria for the vindication of the Nicene doctrine. But this was a temjDorary triumph. . i I In the East Arianism prevailed. Constantius, second son of Constantine the Great, and ruler in the East, together with his whole court, was attached to it with fanatical hitolerance. Eusebius of Niconiedia was made bishop of Constantinople (338), and was the leader of the Arian and the more moderate, but less consistent semi-Arian parties in their common opposition to Athanasins and the orthodox West. Hence the name Fusebians.'' Athanasius was for a second time deposed, and took refuge witli the bishop Julius of Rome (339 or 310), who in the autumn of 341 held a council of more than fifty bishops in defence of the exile and for the condemnation of his opponents. The wliole Western church was in general more stead fast on the side of the Nicene orthodoxy, and honored in Athanasius a martyr of the true faith. On the contrary a synod at Antioch^ held under the direction of the Eusebians on the occasion of the dedication of a church in 341,"" issued twenty-five canons, indeed, which were generally accepted as orthodox and valid, but at the same time confirnjcd the deposition of Athanasius, and set forth four creeds, which rejected Arianism, yet avoided the orthodox formula, particularly the vexed homoousion.''
Thus the East and the West were in manifest conflict.
I To heal this division, the two emperors, Conf?.tantius in the
East and Coustans in the AVest, summoned a general council
at Sardica in Illyria, a. d. 343.^ Here the Nicene party and
the Roman influence prevailed.* Pope Julius was represented
' Oi Ttipl Y-vai^iov.
' Hence called the council in encmniis {ijKaiv'ioi^), or in dedicatione.
' This apparent contradiction between orthodox canons and semi-Arian confe» Bions has occasioned all kinds of hypotheses in reference to this Antiochian synod Comp. on tl.em, ITefcle, i. p. 486 sqq.
* Not A. D. 347, aa foimerly supposed. Comp. Ilefelc, i. 515 sqq.
' About a hundred and seventy bishops in all (accordinj:; to Athanasius) were present at Sardica, ninety-four occidentals and seventy-six orientals or Eusebiana. Sozomen and Socrates, on the contrary, estimate the number at three hundred. Tht signatures of the acts of the council arc lost, excepting a defective Ust of fifty -nine names of bishops in Hilary.