THE DECLINE AND FALL

360

CHAP.

XXL

His re*treat,

A. i>. 350*862.

fleeted by the holy luminaries which burnt roundthe altar.* Athanasius still rejected the piousimportunity of the monks and presbyters, whowere attached to his person; and nobly refusedto desert his episcopal station, till he had dis-missed in safety the last of the congregation.The darkness and tumult of the night favouredthe retreat of the archbishop; and though he wasoppressed by the waves of an agitated multitude,though he was thrown to the ground, and leftwithout sense or motion, he still recovered his un-daunted courage, and eluded the eager search ofthe soldiers, who were instructed by their arianguides, that the head of Athanasius would bethe most acceptable present to the emperor.From that moment the primate of Egypt disap-peared from the eyes of his enemies, and remain-ed above six years concealed in impenetrableobscurity/

The despotic power of his implacable enemyfilled the whole extent of the Roman world ;and the exasperated monarch had endeavoured,by a very pressing epistle to the Christian princesof ^Ethiopia, to exclude Athanasius from themost remote and questered regions of theearth. Counts, prefects, tribunes, whole armies,were successively employed to pursue a bishop

* These minute circumstances are curious, as they are literallytranscribed from the protest, which was publicly presented threedays afterwards by the catholics of Alexandria. See Athanas. tom.i, p. 867.

r The jansenists have often compared Athanasius and Arnanld,and have expatiated with pleasure on the faith and zeal, the merit andexile of those celebrated doctors. This concealed parallel is very dex-terously managed by the Abbe de la Bleteric, Vie de Jovien, tom i,p. 130.