e was
betrayed by the treachery of a female slave; and he was once concealed
in a still more extraordinary asylum, the house of a virgin, only twenty
years of age, and who was celebrated in the whole city for her exquisite
beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related the story many years
afterwards, she was surprised by the appearance of the archbishop in a
loose undress, who, advancing with hasty steps, conjured her to afford
him the protection which he had been directed by a celestial vision to
seek under her hospitable roof. The pious maid accepted and preserved
the sacred pledge which was intrusted to her prudence and courage.
Without imparting the secret to any one, she instantly conducted
Athanasius into her most secret chamber, and watched over his safety
with the tenderness of a friend and the assiduity of a servant. As
long as the danger continued, she regularly supplied him with books and
provisions, washed his feet, managed his correspondence, and dexterously
concealed from the eye of suspicion this familiar and solitary
intercourse between a saint whose character required the most
unblemished chastity, and a female whose charms might excite the most
dangerous emotions. During the six years of persecution and exile,
Athanasius repeated his visits to his fair and faithful companion; and
the formal declaration, that he saw the councils of Rimini and Seleucia,
forces us to believe that he was secretly present at the time and place
of their convocation. The advantage of personally negotiating with his
friends, and of observing and improving the divisions of his enemies,
might justify, in a prudent statesman, so bold and dangerous an
enterprise: and Alexandria was connected by trade and navigation with
every seaport of the Mediterranean. From the depth of his inaccessible
retreat the intrepid primate waged an incessant and offensive war
against the protector of the Arians; and his seasonable writings, which
were diligently circulated and eagerly perused, contributed to unite and
animate the orthodox party. In his public apologies, which he addressed
to the emperor himself, he sometimes affected the praise of moderation;
whilst at the same time, in secret and vehement invectives, he exposed
Constantius as a weak and wicked prince, the executioner of his family,
the tyrant of the republic, and the Antichrist of the church. In the
height of his prosperity, the victorious monarch, who had chastised the
rashness of G