OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

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letters, and the liberal alms of their adherents ; r chap.

yyt

and from the satisfaction which they soon en-joyed of observing the intestine divisions of theadversaries of the nicene faith. Such was thenice and capricious taste of the emperor Con-stantius ; and so easily was he offended by theslightest deviation from his imaginary standardof Christian truth, that he persecuted, withequal zeal, those who defended the consubstan-tiality, those who asserted the similar substance,and those who denied the likeness, of the Son ofGod. Three bishops, degraded and banishedfor those adverse opinions, might possibly meetin the same place of exile; and according tothe difference of their temper, might either pityor insult the blind enthusiasm of their antago-nists, whose present sufferings would never becompensated by future happiness.

The disgrace and exile of the orthodox bi- Third ex-sliops of the West were designed as so many of Atha-preparatory steps to the ruin of Athanasius f r o“ U A lejc .himself. 5 Six-and-twenty months had elapsed, and p ia 3 56during which the imperial court secretly labour-ed, by the most insidious arts, to remove himfrom Alexandria, and to withdraw the allow-

r CtEterum exules satis constat, totius orbis stndiis celebratos pecuni-asquc eis in sump turn affatim congcstas legationibus quoqtte eos plebisCatholic® ex omnibus fere provinciis frequentatos. Snip. Sever. Hist.

Sacra, p 414. Athanas. tom. i, p. 836-840.

* Ample materials for the history of this third persecution of Atha-nasius may be found in his own works. See particnlaily his very ableapology to Constantins (tom. i. p. 673), his first Apology for his flight(p. 701), his prolix epistle to the Solitaries (p. 808), and the originalprotest of the people of Alexandria against the violences committed bySyrianus ip. 866) Sozonten (1. iv, c. 9) has thrown into the narrativetwo or three luminous and important circumstance?.