Maximus assembled the bishops of Palestine to greet
him at Jerusalem. But his entry into Alexandria (Oct. 346) was the
crowning triumph of his life. For miles along the road the great city
streamed out to meet him with enthusiastic welcome, and the jealous
police of Constantius could raise no tumult to mar the universal harmony
of that great day of national rejoicing.

[Sidenote: Interval of rest (346-353.)]

The next few years were an uneasy interval of suspense rather than of
peace, for the long contest had so far decided nothing. If the Nicene
exiles were restored, the Eusebian disturbers were not deposed. Thus
while Nicene animosity was not satisfied, the standing grounds of
conservative distrust were not removed. Above all, the return of
Athanasius was a personal humiliation for Constantius, which he was not
likely to accept without watching his opportunity for a final struggle
to decide the mastery of Egypt. Still there was tolerable quiet for the
present. The court intriguers could do nothing without the Emperor, and
Constantius was occupied first with the Persian war, then with the civil
war against Magnentius. If there was not peace, there was a fair amount
of quiet till the Emperor's hands were freed by the death of Magnentius
in 353.

[Sidenote: Modification of Nicene position.]

The truce was hollow and the rest precarious, but the mere cessation of
hostilities was not without its influence. As Nicenes and conservatives
were fundamentally agreed on the reality of the Lord's divinity, minor
jealousies began to disappear when they were less busily encouraged. The
Eusebian phase of conservatism, which emphasised the Lord's personal
distinction from the Father, was giving way to the Semiarian, where
stress was rather laid on his essential likeness to the Father. Thus 'of
a like essence' (_homoiousion_) and 'like in all things' became more and
more the watchwords of conservatism. The Nicenes, on the other side,
were warned by the excesses of Marcellus that there was some reason for
the conservative dread of the Nicene 'of one essence' (_homoousion_) as
Sabellian. The word could not be withdrawn, but it might be put forward
less conspicuously, and explained rather as a safe and emphatic form of
the Semiarian 'of like essence' than as a rival doctrine. Henceforth it
came to mean absolute likeness of attributes rather than common
possession of the divine essence. Thus by the time the war is renewed,
we can alre