toration of Athanasius, he
himself, with a fleet and army, would seat the archbishop on the throne
of Alexandria. [117] But this religious war, so horrible to nature, was
prevented by the timely compliance of Constantius; and the emperor of
the East condescended to solicit a reconciliation with a subject whom he
had injured. Athanasius waited with decent pride, till he had received
three successive epistles full of the strongest assurances of the
protection, the favor, and the esteem of his sovereign; who invited him
to resume his episcopal seat, and who added the humiliating precaution
of engaging his principal ministers to attest the sincerity of his
intentions. They were manifested in a still more public manner, by the
strict orders which were despatched into Egypt to recall the adherents
of Athanasius, to restore their privileges, to proclaim their innocence,
and to erase from the public registers the illegal proceedings which had
been obtained during the prevalence of the Eusebian faction. After every
satisfaction and security had been given, which justice or even delicacy
could require, the primate proceeded, by slow journeys, through the
provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Syria; and his progress was marked by the
abject homage of the Oriental bishops, who excited his contempt
without deceiving his penetration. [118] At Antioch he saw the
emperor Constantius; sustained, with modest firmness, the embraces and
protestations of his master, and eluded the proposal of allowing the
Arians a single church at Alexandria, by claiming, in the other cities
of the empire, a similar toleration for his own party; a reply which
might have appeared just and moderate in the mouth of an independent
prince. The entrance of the archbishop into his capital was a
triumphal procession; absence and persecution had endeared him to the
Alexandrians; his authority, which he exercised with rigor, was more
firmly established; and his fame was diffused from Aethiopia to Britain,
over the whole extent of the Christian world. [119]

[Footnote 116: As Athanasius dispersed secret invectives against
Constantius, (see the Epistle to the Monks,) at the same time that he
assured him of his profound respect, we might distrust the professions
of the archbishop. Tom. i. p. 677.]

[Footnote 117: Notwithstanding the discreet silence of Athanasius, and
the manifest forgery of a letter inserted by Socrates, these menaces are
proved by the unquestionable evidenc