THE DECLINE AND FALL

374

chaf of an hundred years ; and the insolent triumph

.;„of the arians provoked some of the orthodox

party to treat with inhuman severity the charac-ter, or rather the memory, of an unfortunate oldUUUi, to whose former services Christianity itselfwas so deeply indebted. 0

Exiie«. The full of Liberius and Osius reflected abrighter lustre on the firmness of those bishopswho still adhered, with unshaken fidelity, to thecause of Athanasius and religious truth. Thejpgenious malice of their enemies had deprivedthem of the benefit of mutual comfort and ad-yjee, separated those illustrious exiles into dis-tant provinces, and carefully selected the mostinhospitable spots of a great empire/ Yet theysoon experienced that the deserts of Libya , andthe most barbarous tracts of Cappadocia , wereless inhospitable, than the residence of thosecities in which an arian bishop could satiate,without restraint, the exquisite rancour of theo-logical hatred/ Their consolation was derivedfrom the consciousness of rectitude and inde-pendence ; from the applause, the visits, the

0 The life of Osins is collected by Tillemont (tom. vii, p. 524*561),who in the most extravagant terms first admires, and then reprobates,the bishop of Cordova, In the midst of their lamentations on his fall,the prudence of Athanasius may he distinguished from the blind andintemperate zeal of Hilary.

p The confessors of the \V<st were successively banished to the de-serts of Arabia or Thebais, the lonely places of Mount Taurus, thewildest parts of Phrygia , which were in the possession of the impiousmontam.sts, &c. ty hen the heretic y£tius was too favourably enter-tained at Mopsuestia in Cilicia , the place of his exile was changed, bythe advice of Acacius , to Amblada, a district inhabited by savages, andinfested by war and pestilence. Philostorg. 1. v, c, 2.

q See the cruel tieatment and strange obstinacy of Eusebius , in hisown letters published by Uaromus, n. 356, No. 92-102.