§ 163. ATHA.t<ASIUS THE GKEAT. 881
81011 of Alexandria, on the recommendation of tlie dying ^lex aiider, and by the voice of the people, though not yet of canonical age, and at first disposed to avoid the election by flight ; and thus he was raised to the highest ecclesiastical dignity of the East. For the bishop of Alexandria was at the same tiraa metropolitan of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis.
But now immediately began the long series of contests with the Arian party, which had obtained influence at tho court of Constanti:ne, and had induced the emperor to recall Arius and his adherents from exile. Henceforth the personal fortunes of Athanasius are so inseparably interwoven with the history of tlie Arian controversy that Nieene and Athanasian are equivalent terms, and the difterent depositions and restorations of Athanasius denote so many depressions and victories of the ISTicene orthodoxy. Five times did the craft and power of his opponents, upon the pretext of all sorts of personal and political often ces, but in reality on account of his inexorable opposition to the Arian and Semi-Arian heresy, succeed in deposing and banishing him. The first exile he spent in Treves, the second chiefly in Rome, the third with the monka in the Egyptian desert; and he employed them in the written defence of his righteous cause. Then the Arian party waa distracted, first by internal division, and further by the death of the emperor Constantius (361), who was their chief support. The pagan Julian recalled the banished bishops of both parties, in the hope that they might destroy one another. Thus, Athanasius among them, who was the most downright opposite of the Christian-hating emperor, again received hia bishopric. But when, by his energetic and wise administration, he rather restored harmony in his diocese, and sorely injured paganism, which he feared far less than Arianism, and thus frustrated the cunning plan of Julian, the emperoi resorted to violence, and banished him as a dangerous disturber of the peace. For the fourth time Athanasius left Alexandria, but calmed his weeping friends with the prophetic words: " Be of good cheer; it is only a cloud, which will soon
Alexander died in 328, not in 326. See particulars in Laraow, 1. c. p. 26, and § 121 above.
fi88 TIIIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
pass over." By presence of mind he escaped from an imjjerial ship on the Nile, which had two hired assassins on board. After Julian's death in 362 he was again recalled by Jovian But the next emperor Yalens, an Arian, issued in 367 an edict which again banished all the bishops who had been deposed under Constantius and restored by Julian. The aged Atlianaeius was obliged for the fifth time to leave his beloved flock, and kept himself concealed more than four months in the tomli of his father. Tlien Valens, boding ill from the enthusiastic adherence of the Alexandrians to their orthodox bishoj), repealed the edict.
From this time Athanasius had peace, and still wrote, at a great age, with the vigor of youth, against Apollinananism. In the year 373 ' he died, after an administration of nearly forty-six years, but before the conclnsion of the Arian war. He had secured by his testimony the final victory of orthodoxy, but, like Moses, was called away from the earthly scene before the goal was reached.
Athanasius, like many great men (from David and Paul to Napoleon and Schleiermacher), was very small of stature," somewhat stooping and emaciated by fasting and many troubles, l)ut fair of countenance, with a piercing eye and a personal appearance of great power even over his enemies.' His omnipresent activity, his rapid and his mysterious movements, his fearlessness, and liis proplietic insight into the future, were attributed by his friends to divine assistance, by his enemies to a league with evil powers. Hence the belief in hie magic art.* His congregation in Alexandria and the people
' Opinions concerning the year of his death waver between 371 and 373. As he was bishop forty-six years, and came to the see in 828 (not 326, as formerly supposed), he cannot have died l)cfore 372 or 873.
" Julian called him contemptuously (Ep. 51) ftTjSe avrip, a.\\' av^pa.nruTi<o\
* Comp. Gregory Naz. in his Eulogy.
* This belief embodied itself in the Arian form of the legend of St. George of Cappadocia, the Arian bishop elected in opposition to Athanasius, and killed by th( populace in Alexandria, in his contest with the wizard Athanasius. In this wa) Arians revenged themselves on the memory of their great adversary. Afterwards the wizard became a dragon, whom George on his horse overcomes. According to others, George was a martyr under Diocletian.