Alexandria after the Death of Arius

The death of Arius did not end the dispute about doctrine that he had started. Those who held his views did not stop plotting against those who held the opposite opinions. The people of Alexandria complained loudly about the exile of Athanasius and offered prayers for his return. Antony, the famous monk, wrote often to the emperor, begging him not to believe the insinuations of the Melitians but to reject their accusations as slanders. Yet the emperor was not convinced by these arguments. He wrote to the Alexandrians accusing them of folly and disorderly behavior, and he ordered the clergy and the holy virgins to keep quiet. He declared that he would not change his mind or recall Athanasius, whom he regarded, he said, as a stirrer-up of riots, justly condemned by the judgment of the church. He answered Antony that he ought not to disregard the decree of the synod. For even if a few of the bishops, he said, had been moved by ill will or by a wish to please others, it was hardly believable that so many wise and excellent bishops could have been driven by such motives. And he added that Athanasius was insolent and arrogant, and a cause of quarrels and riots. [a]

Athanasius’s enemies accused him of these crimes in particular because they knew the emperor especially hated them. When the emperor heard that the church was split into two factions, one supporting Athanasius and the other John, he was carried away with anger and exiled John himself. This John had succeeded Melitius, and the Synod of Tyre had restored him, together with those who shared his views, to communion and to his duties among the clergy. His banishment went against the wishes of Athanasius’s enemies, yet it was carried out, and the decrees of the Synod of Tyre did John no good. For the emperor would listen to no plea or petition of any kind on behalf of anyone suspected of stirring up Christian people to riot or quarreling.