ation, 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. [137]

[Footnote 136: These minute circumstances are curious, as they are
literally transcribed from the protest, which was publicly presented
three days afterwards by the Catholics of Alexandria. See Athanas. tom.
l. n. 867]

[Footnote 137: The Jansenists have often compared Athanasius and
Arnauld, and have expatiated with pleasure on the faith and zeal, the
merit and exile, of those celebrated doctors. This concealed parallel is
very dexterously managed by the Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, tom.
i. p. 130.]

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, [137a] 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 alive or dead; and the
most severe penalties were denounced against those who should dare to
protect the public enemy. [138] But the deserts of Thebais were now
peopled by a race of wild, yet submissive fanatics, who preferred the
commands of their abbot to the laws of their sovereign. The numerous
disciples of Antony and Pachonnus received the fugitive primate as their
father, admired the patience and humility with which he conformed to
their strictest institutions, collected every word which dropped from
his lips as the genuine effusions of inspired wisdom; and persuaded
themselves that their prayers, their fasts, and their vigils, were less
meritorious than the zeal which they expressed, and the dangers
which they braved, in the defence