Son of God is a creature." Crowds came flocking
to see the old man, for all had heard of his miracles and of his
holiness. He blessed them all and exhorted them to hold fast to the
true faith of Christ, so steadfastly upheld by their Patriarch, after
which, having done the work he had come to do, he returned to his
solitude.

The Arians were still plotting. Some time before, when Athanasius had
been visiting that part of his diocese called the Mareotis, he had
heard that a certain Ischyras, who gave himself out as a priest
although he had never been validly ordained, was causing scandal. He
celebrated, so people said, or pretended to celebrate, the Holy
Mysteries in a little cottage in the village where he lived, in the
presence of his own relations and a few ignorant peasants. Athanasius
sent one of his priests, called Macarius, to inquire into the matter
and to bring the impostor back with him.

Macarius, on his arrival, found Ischyras ill in bed and unable to
undertake the journey. He therefore warned one of his relations that
the sick man had been forbidden by the Patriarch to continue his
so-called ministry, and departed. Ischyras, on his recovery, joined
himself to the Meletians, who, urged on by the Arians, were moving
heaven and earth to find a fresh charge against Athanasius. On hearing
his story, they compelled him by threats and by violence to swear that
Macarius had burst in upon him while he was giving Holy Communion in
the church, had overturned the altar, broken the chalice, trampled the
sacred Host underfoot and burned the holy books. They reported that
all this had been done by order of the Patriarch.

Once more Athanasius had to defend himself, and once more he
triumphantly cleared himself of the accusation brought against him.

In the first place, as he proved to the Emperor, there was no church
in the village where Ischyras lived. In the second, the man himself
had been ill in bed. In the third, even if he had been up and well, he
could not have consecrated, since he had never been validly ordained.
Ischyras himself, not long after, escaping from the hands of the
Meletians, swore in the presence of thirteen witnesses that he had
been induced by threats to bear witness to the lie.

But the failure of this plot was only the signal for hatching another.
A certain Meletian Bishop called Arsenius, whom Athanasius had deposed
for refusing to obey the decrees of the Council of Nicea, was induced
to hi