Athanasius, intimidated by the Emperor's Threats, returns to Rome again

At this time another accusation was concocted against Athanasius by the Arians, who invented this pretext for it. The father of the Augusti had long before granted an allowance of corn to the church of the Alexandrians for the relief of the indigent. This, they asserted, had usually been sold by Athanasius, and the proceeds converted to his own advantage. The emperor, giving credence to this slanderous report, threatened Athanasius with death, as a penalty; who, becoming alarmed at the intimation of this threat, took to flight, and kept himself concealed. When Julius, bishop of Rome, was apprised of these fresh machinations of the Arians against Athanasius, and had also received the letter of the then deceased Eusebius, he invited the persecuted Athanasius to come to him, having ascertained where he was secreted. The epistle also of the bishops who had been some time before assembled at Antioch, just then reached him; and at the same time others from the bishops in Egypt, assuring him that the entire charge against Athanasius was a fabrication. On the receipt of these contradictory communications, Julius first replied to the bishops who had written to him from Antioch, complaining of the acrimonious feeling they had evinced in their letter, and charging them with a violation of the canons, because they had not requested his attendance at the council,²⁸⁹ seeing that the ecclesiastical law required that the churches should pass no decisions contrary to the views of the bishop of Rome: he then censured them with great severity for clandestinely attempting to pervert the faith; in addition, that their former proceedings at Tyre were fraudulent, because the investigation of what had taken place at Mareotes was on one side of the question only; not only this, but that the charge respecting Arsenius had plainly been proved a false charge. Such and similar sentiments did Julius write in his answer to the bishops convened at Antioch; we should have inserted here at length, these as well as those letters which were addressed to Julius, did not their prolixity interfere with our purpose. But Sabinus, the advocate of the Macedonian heresy, of whom we have before spoken, has not incorporated the letters of Julius in his Collection of Synodical Transactions;²⁹⁰ although he has not omitted that which the bishops of Antioch sent to Julius. This, however, is usual with him; he carefully introduces such letters as make no reference to, or wholly repudiate the term homoousion; while he purposely passes over in silence those of a contrary tendency. This is sufficient on this subject. Not long after this, Paul, pretending to make a journey from Thessalonica to Corinth, arrived in Italy: upon which both the bishops²⁹¹ made an appeal to the emperor of those parts, laying their respective cases before him.

Chapter XVIII.—The Emperor of the West requests his Brother to send him Three Persons who could give an Account of the Deposition of Athanasius and Paul. Those who are sent publish Another Form of the Creed.

When the Western emperor²⁹² was informed of their affairs, he sympathized with their sufferings; and wrote to his brother [Constantius], begging him to send three bishops who should explain to him the reason for the deposition of Athanasius and Paul. In compliance with this request, Narcissus the Cilician, Theodore the Thracian, Maris of Chalcedon, and Mark the Syrian, were deputed to execute this commission; who on their arrival refused to hold any communication with Athanasius or his friends, but suppressing the creed which had been promulgated at Antioch, presented to the Emperor Constans another declaration of faith composed by themselves, in the following terms:

Another Exposition of the Faith.

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, the Creator and Maker of all things, of whom the whole family in heaven and upon earth is named;²⁹³ and in his only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was begotten of the Father before all ages; God of God; Light of Light; through whom all things in the heavens and upon the earth, both visible and invisible, were made: who is the Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and Life, and true Light: who in the last days for our sake was made man, and was born of the holy virgin; was crucified, and died; was buried, arose again from the dead on the third day, ascended into the heavens, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and shall come at the consummation of the ages, to judge the living and the dead, and to render to every one according to his works: whose kingdom being perpetual, shall continue to infinite ages; for he shall sit at the right hand of the Father, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. [We believe] in the Holy Spirit, that is, in the Comforter, whom the Lord, according to his promise, sent to his apostles after his ascension into the heavens, to teach them, and bring all things to their remembrance: by whom also the souls of those who have sincerely believed on him shall be sanctified; and those who assert that the Son was made of things which are not, or of another substance, and not of God, or that there was a time when he did not exist, the Catholic Church accounts as aliens.

Having delivered this creed to the emperor, and exhibited it to many others also, they departed without attending to anything besides. But while there was yet an inseparable communion between the Western and Eastern churches, there sprang up another heresy at Sirmium, a city of Illyricum; for Photinus, who presided over the churches in that district, a native of the Lesser Galatia, and a disciple of that Marcellus who had been deposed, adopting his master's sentiments, asserted that the Son of God was a mere man. We shall, however, enter into this matter more fully in its proper place.²⁹⁴