ressed a deep sense of the innocence and
merit of his venerable guest. [109]

[Footnote 107: Athanas. tom. i. p. 804. In a church dedicated to St.
Athanasius this situation would afford a better subject for a picture,
than most of the stories of miracles and martyrdoms.]

[Footnote 108: Athanas. tom. i. p. 729. Eunapius has related (in Vit.
Sophist. p. 36, 37, edit. Commelin) a strange example of the cruelty and
credulity of Constantine on a similar occasion. The eloquent Sopater, a
Syrian philosopher, enjoyed his friendship, and provoked the resentment
of Ablavius, his Praetorian praefect. The corn-fleet was detained for
want of a south wind; the people of Constantinople were discontented;
and Sopater was beheaded, on a charge that he had bound the winds by the
power of magic. Suidas adds, that Constantine wished to prove, by this
execution, that he had absolutely renounced the superstition of the
Gentiles.]

[Footnote 109: In his return he saw Constantius twice, at Viminiacum,
and at Caesarea in Cappadocia, (Athanas. tom. i. p. 676.) Tillemont
supposes that Constantine introduced him to the meeting of the three
royal brothers in Pannonia, (Memoires Eccles. tom. viii. p. 69.)]

The death of that prince exposed Athanasius to a second persecution;
and the feeble Constantius, the sovereign of the East, soon became
the secret accomplice of the Eusebians. Ninety bishops of that sect or
faction assembled at Antioch, under the specious pretence of dedicating
the cathedral. They composed an ambiguous creed, which is faintly tinged
with the colors of Semi-Arianism, and twenty-five canons, which still
regulate the discipline of the orthodox Greeks. [110] It was decided,
with some appearance of equity, that a bishop, deprived by a synod,
should not resume his episcopal functions till he had been absolved by
the judgment of an equal synod; the law was immediately applied to
the case of Athanasius; the council of Antioch pronounced, or rather
confirmed, his degradation: a stranger, named Gregory, was seated on his
throne; and Philagrius, [111] the praefect of Egypt, was instructed
to support the new primate with the civil and military powers of
the province. Oppressed by the conspiracy of the Asiatic prelates,
Athanasius withdrew from Alexandria, and passed three years [112] as an
exile and a suppliant on the holy threshold of the Vatican. [113] By
the assiduous study of the Latin language, he soon qualified himself
to negotiat