Paul and Athanasius Driven Out Again

This cluster of disasters came within a short space of time, for they happened in the fourth year after the council at Sardica, in the consulship of Sergius and Nigrinian. When these events became known, the whole sovereignty of the empire seemed to fall to Constantius alone. So he was proclaimed sole ruler in the East, and he made the most vigorous preparations against the usurpers. At this point the enemies of Athanasius, thinking the moment favorable, again made up the most slanderous charges against him, before he had arrived at Alexandria. They assured the emperor Constantius that he was overturning all Egypt and Libya. And the fact that he had taken it upon himself to ordain outside the limits of his own diocese did a good deal to make the accusations believable. Meanwhile, at this juncture, Athanasius entered Alexandria. He called together a council of the bishops of Egypt, and by a unanimous vote they confirmed what had been decided at the Synod of Sardica and at the one Maximus had assembled at Jerusalem. [a]

But the emperor, who had long been steeped in the Arian teaching, reversed all the lenient measures he had so recently decided on. First of all he ordered that Paul, bishop of Constantinople, be sent into exile, and those who took him there strangled him at Cucusus in Cappadocia. Marcellus too was thrown out, and Basil was again made ruler of the church at Ancyra. Lucius of Adrianople was loaded with chains and died in prison. The reports made about Athanasius so worked on the emperor’s mind that in an uncontrollable rage he ordered him to be put to death wherever he might be found. He also included Theodulus and Olympius, who presided over churches in Thrace, in the same sentence. Athanasius, however, knew what the emperor intended. When he learned of it he once more took to flight, and so escaped the emperor’s threats.

The Arians denounced this flight as a crime, especially Narcissus, bishop of Neronias in Cilicia, George of Laodicea, and Leontius, who then had the oversight of the church at Antioch. This last man, when he was a presbyter, had been stripped of his rank for the following reason. He spent a great deal of his time with a woman named Eustolium, and to remove all suspicion of an illicit relationship with her he castrated himself; from then on he lived with her more openly, on the ground that there could no longer be any reason for evil suspicions. Afterward, however, at the earnest wish of the emperor Constantius, he was made bishop of the church at Antioch, after Stephen, the successor of Placitus. So much for this.