rents of the
wicked Athanasius, who, by flying from justice, has confessed his guilt,
and escaped the ignominious death which he had so often deserved.

Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.--Part VI.

Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent dangers; and the
adventures of that extraordinary man deserve and fix our attention. On
the memorable night when the church of St. Theonas was invested by the
troops of Syrianus, the archbishop, seated on his throne, expected,
with calm and intrepid dignity, the approach of death. While the public
devotion was interrupted by shouts of rage and cries of terror,
he animated his trembling congregation to express their religious
confidence, by chanting one of the psalms of David which celebrates
the triumph of the God of Israel over the haughty and impious tyrant
of Egypt. The doors were at length burst open: a cloud of arrows was
discharged among the people; the soldiers, with drawn swords, rushed
forwards into the sanctuary; and the dreadful gleam of their arms was
reflected by the holy luminaries which burnt round the altar. Athanasius
still rejected the pious importunity of the monks and presbyters, who
were attached to his person; and nobly refused to desert his episcopal
station, till he had dismissed in safety the last of the congregation.
The darkness and tumult of the night favored the retreat of the
archbishop; and though he was oppressed by the waves of an agitated
multitude, though he was thrown to the ground, and left without sense or
motion, he still recovered his undaunted courage, and eluded the eager
search of the soldiers, who were instructed by their Arian guides,
that the head of Athanasius would be the most acceptable present to the
emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt disappeared from the eyes
of his enemies, and remained above six years concealed in impenetrable
obscurity.

The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled the whole extent of
the Roman world; and the exasperated monarch had endeavored, by a very
pressing epistle to the Christian princes of Ethiopia, * to exclude
Athanasius from the most remote and sequestered regions of the earth.
Counts, praefects, tribunes, whole armies, were successively employed to
pursue a bishop and a fugitive; the vigilance of the civil and military
powers was excited by the Imperial edicts; liberal rewards were promised
to the man who should produce Athanasius, either ali