vourites, which marks even
the ablest of his family, became in Constantius a public calamity. It
was bad enough when the uprightness of Constantine or Julian was led
astray, but it was far worse when the eunuchs found a master too weak to
stand alone, too jealous to endure a faithful counsellor, too
easy-tempered and too indolent to care what oppressions were committed
in his name, and without the sense of duty which would have gone far to
make up for all his shortcomings. The peculiar repulsiveness of
Constantius is not due to any flagrant personal vice, but to the
combination of cold-blooded treachery with the utter want of any inner
nobleness of character. Yet he was a pious emperor, too, in his own way.
He loved the ecclesiastical game, and was easily won over to the
Eusebian side. The growing despotism of the Empire and the personal
vanity of Constantius were equally suited by the episcopal timidity
which cried for an arm of flesh to fight its battles. It is not easy to
decide how far he acted on his own likings and superstitions, how far he
merely let his flatterers lead him, or how far he saw political reasons
for following them. In any case, he began with a thorough dislike of the
Nicene council, continued for a long time to hold conservative language,
and ended after some vacillation by adopting the vague Homoean
compromise of 359.

[Sidenote: Second exile of Athanasius, Lent, 339.]

Eusebian intrigue was soon resumed. Now that Constantine was dead, a
schism could be set on foot at Alexandria; so the Arians were encouraged
to hold assemblies of their own, and provided with a bishop in the
person of Pistus, one of the original heretics deposed by Alexander. No
fitter consecrator could be found for him than Secundus of Ptolemais,
one of the two bishops who held out to the last against the council. The
next move was the formal deposition of Athanasius by a council held at
Antioch in the winter of 338. But there was still no charge of
heresy--only old and new ones of sedition and intrigue, and a new
argument, that after his deposition at Tyre he had forfeited all right
to further justice by accepting a restoration from the civil power. This
last was quite a new claim on behalf of the church, first used against
Athanasius, and next afterwards for the ruin of Chrysostom, though it
has since been made a pillar of the faith. Pistus was not appointed to
the vacant see. The council chose Gregory of Cappadocia as a bette