Eunapius,

(48) Julian was a warm friend to learning and philosophy among the pagans. He recalled to AlexEpist. xlv. andria the physician Zeno, who in the last reign had fled from the Georgian faction, as the Christians were then called. He founded in the same city a colEpist. lvi. lege for music, and ordered the prefect Ecdicius to look out for some young men of skill in that science, particularly from among the pupils of Dioscorus; and he allotted them a maintenance from the treasury, with rewards for the most skilful. At Canopus, a pagan philoVit. Soph. Sopher, Antoninus, the son of Eustathius, taking advantage of the turn in public opinion, and copying the Christian monks of the Thebaid, drew round him a crowd of followers by his self-denial and painful torture of the body. The Alexandrians flocked in crowds to his dwelling; and such was his character for holiness, that his death, in the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, was thought by the Egyptians to be the cause of the overthrow of paganism. (49) But Egyptian paganism, which had slumbered for fifty years under the Christian emperors, was not again to be awakened to its former life. Though the wars between the several cities for the honour of their Gentes. gods, the bull, the crocodile, or the fish, had never Ammianus, ceased, all reverence for those gods was dead. The lib. xxii. sacred animals, in particular the bulls Apis and Mnevis, were again waited upon by their priests as of old, but it was a vain attempt on the part of the pagans. Not only was the Egyptian religion overthrown, but the Thebaid, the country of that religion, was fallen too low to be again raised. The people of Upper Egypt had lost all heart, not more from the tyranny of the Roman government in the north than from the attacks and settlement of the Arabs in the south. All changes in the country, whether for the better or the worse, were laid to the charge of these latter unwelcome neighbours; and when the inquiring traveller asked to be shown the crocodile, the river-horse, and the other animals for which Egypt had once been noted, he was told with a sigh that they were seldom to be seen in the Delta since the Thebaid had been peopled with the Blemmyes. Falsehood, the usual vice of slaves, had taken a deep hold on the Egyptian character. A denial of their

Athanasius,

contra

Lane's

wealth was the means by which they usually tried to save it from the Roman tax-gatherer; and an Egyptian was ashamed of himself as a coward, if he could not show a back covered with stripes gained in the attempt to save his money. Peculiarities of character often descend unchanged in a nation for many centuries; aud, after fourteen hundred years of the same slavery, the same stripes from the Egypt. lash of the tax-gatherer are still the boast of the Egyptian peasant. Cyrene was already a desert; the only cities of note in Upper Egypt were Coptos, Hermopolis, and Antinoopolis; but Alexandria was still the queen of cities, though the large quarter called the Bruchium had not been rebuilt; and the Serapium, with its library of seven hundred thousand volumes, was, after the capitol of Rome, the chief building in the world.

Sophistes.

(50) This temple of Serapis was situated on a rising ground at the west end of the city, and though not built like a fortification, was sometimes called the Aphthonius citadel of Alexandria. It was entered by two roads; that on one side was a slope for carriages, and on the other a grand flight of a hundred steps from the street, with each step wider than that below it. At the top of this flight of steps was a portico, in the form of a circular roof, upheld by four columns. Through this was the entrance into the great courtyard, in the middle of which stood the roofless hall or temple, surrounded by columns and porticoes, inside and out. In some of the inner porticoes were the book-cases for the library which made Alexandria the very temple of science and learning, while other porticoes were dedicated to the service of the ancient religion. The roofs were ornamented with gilding, the capitals of the columns were of copper gilt, and the walls were covered with paintings. In the middle of the inner area stood one lofty column, which could be seen by all the country round, and even from ships some distance out at sea. The great statue of Serapis, which had been made under the Ptolemies, having Rufinus, perhaps marble feet, but for the rest built of wood, Eccl. Hist. clothed with drapery, and glittering with gold and silver, stood in one of the covered chambers, which had a smell window so contrived as to let the sun's rays kiss the lips of the statue on the appointed occasions. This was one

lib. xi. 23.

of the tricks employed in the sacred mysteries, to dazzle the worshipper by the sudden blaze of light which on the proper occasions was let into the dark room. The temple itself, with its fountain, its two obelisks, and its gilt ornaments, has long since been destroyed; and the column in the centre, under the name of Pompey's pillar, alone remains to mark the spot where it stood, and is one of the few works of Greek art which in size and strength vie with the old Egyptian monuments.

Socrates,

(51) The reign of Julian, instead of raising paganism to its former strength, had only shown that its Eccl. Hist. life was gone; and under JOVIAN, his successor, lib. iii. 4. the Christians were again brought into power.

A

A.D. 363. Christian emperor, however, would have been but little welcome to the Egyptians if, like Constantius, and even Constantine in his latter years, he had leaned to the Arian party; but Jovian soon showed his attachment to the Nicene Creed, and he reappointed Athanasius to the bishopric of Alexandria. But though Athanasius regained his rank, yet the Arian bishop Lucius was not deposed. Each party in Alexandria had its own bishop; those who thought that the Son was of the same substance with the Father looked up to Athanasius, while those who gave to Jesus the lower rank of being of a similar substance to the Creator obeyed Lucius.

(52) We must not, however, be led away by words to think that a disagreement on this curious metaphysical proposition was the only cause of the quarrel which divided Egypt into such angry parties. The creeds were made use of as the watchwords in a political struggle. Blood, language, and geographical boundaries divided the parties; and religious opinions seldom cross these unchanging lines. Every Egyptian believed in the Nicene Creed and the incorruptibility of the body of Jesus, and hated the Alexandrian Greeks; while the more refined Greeks were as united in explaining away the Nicene Creed by the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, and in despising the ignorant Egyptians. Christianity, which speaks so forcibly to the poor, the unlearned, and the slave, had educated the Egyptian population, had raised them in their own eyes;

and, as the popular party gained strength, the Arians lost ground in Alexandria. At the same time the Greeks were falling off in learning and in science, and in all those arts of civilisation which had given them the superiority. Like other great political changes, this may not have been understood at the time; but in less than a hundred years it was found that the Egyptians were no longer the slaves, nor the Greeks the masters.

Zosimus,

Socrates,

lib. iv.

(53) On the death of Jovian, when Valentinian divided the Roman empire with his brother, he took Italy and the West for his own kingdom, and gave to lib. iv. VALENS Egypt and the eastern provinces, in which A.D. 364. Greek was the language of the government. Each emperor adopted the religion of his capital; Valentinian held the Nicene faith, and Valens the Arian faith; Eccl. Hist. and unhappy Egypt was the only part of the empire whose religion differed from that of its rulers. Had the creeds marked the limits of the two empires, Egypt would have belonged to Rome; but, as geographical boundaries and language form yet stronger ties, Egypt was given to Constantinople, or rather to Antioch, the nearer of the two eastern capitals. This year was marked by the Chronicon Christians rather violently taking possession of Athanas. the Roman palace in Alexandria, named the Cæsarium, for a church. This was the cause of sad riots between them and the pagans, who in the next year burnt it to the ground. But in the year following it was granted to the Christians by the emperor, and rebuilt for them by his orders.

Syriac.

(54) By Valens, Athanasius was forced for the fifth time to fly from Alexandria, to avoid the displeasure which his disobedience again drew down upon him. But his flock again rose in rebellion in favour of their popular bishop; and the emperor was either persuaded or frightened into allowing him to return to his bishopric, where he spent the few remaining years of his life in peace. Athanasius died at an advanced age, leaving a name more famous than that of any one of the emperors under whom he lived. He taught the Christian world that there was a power greater than that of kings, namely the church. He was often beaten in the struggle,

but every victory over him was followed by the defeat of the civil power; he was five times banished, but five times he returned in triumph. The temporal power of the church was then nearly new; it only rose upon the conversion of Constantine, and it was weak compared to what it became in after ages; but, when an emperor of Germany did penance barefoot before Pope Hildebrand, and a king of England was whipped at Becket's tomb, we only witness the full-grown strength of the infant power that was being reared by the bishop of Alexandria. His writings are numerous and wholly controversial, chiefly against the Ariaus. The Athanasian Creed seems to have been so named only because it was thought to contain his opinions, as it is known to be by a later author. He was not a man to shudder at its declaration of our Heavenly Father's eternal wrath against those who held any other opinions; but yet it is not likely that he would have wholly approved of it, as it does not state that "the Son is of one substance with the Father," words which he thought all-important as a bulwark against the Arians, and for which he would willingly have laid down his life.

(55) On the death of Athanasius, the Homoousian party chose Peter as his successor in the bishopric, overlooking Lucius, the Arian bishop, whose election had been approved by the emperors Julian, Jovian, and Valens. But as the Egyptian church had lost its great champion, the emperor ventured to reassert his authority. He sent Peter to prison, and ordered all the churches to be given up to the Arians, threatening with banishment from Egypt whoever disobeyed his edict. The persecution which the Homoousian party throughout Upper Egypt then suffered from the Arians. equalled, says the ecclesiastical historian, anything they had before suffered from the pagans. Every monastery in Egypt was broken open by Lucius at the head of an armed force, and the cruelty of the bishop surpassed that of the soldiers. Men, of whose virtues the world was not worthy, were stript, beaten, stoned, and put to the sword; and the Homoousian monks, in revenge, when praying for success in Eccl. Hist. working miracles, used to call upon the name of lib. ii. 4. "Jesus Christ, whom Lucius persecuted." But the list of cruelties makes us doubt the truth of the tale; we

Rufinus,