If the soldiers connived at the escape of Athanasius, they were all the less disposed to spare his flock.  The outrages of Philagrius and Gregory were repeated by Syrianus and his successor, Sebastian the Manichee; and the evil work went on apace after the arrival of the new bishop in Lent 357.  George of Cappadocia is said to have been before this a pork-contractor for the army, and is certainly no credit to Arianism.  Though Athanasius does injustice to his learning, there can be no doubt that he was a thoroughly bad bishop.  Indiscriminate oppression of Nicenes and heathens provoked resistance from the fierce populace of Alexandria.  George escaped with difficulty from one riot in August 358, and was fairly driven from the city by another in October.

[Sidenote:  Athanasius in exile (356-362).]

Meanwhile Athanasius had disappeared from the eyes of men.  A full year after the raid of Syrianus, he was still unconvinced of the Emperor’s treachery.  Outrage after outrage might turn out to be the work of underlings.  Constantine himself had not despised his cry for justice, and if he could but stand before the son of Constantine, his presence might even yet confound the gang of eunuchs.  Even the weakness of Athanasius is full of nobleness.  Not till the work of outrage had gone on for many months was he convinced.  But then he threw off all restraint.  Even George the pork-contractor is not assailed with such a storm of merciless invective as his holiness Constantius Augustus.  George might sin ‘like the beasts who know no better,’ but no wickedness of common mortals could attain to that of the new Belshazzar, of the Lord’s anointed ‘self-abandoned to eternal fire.’

[Sidenote:  Political meaning of his exile.]

The exile governed Egypt from his hiding in the desert.  Alexandria was searched in vain; in vain the malice of Constantius pursued him to the court of Ethiopia.  Letter after letter issued from his inaccessible retreat to keep alive the indignation of the faithful, and invisible hands conveyed them to the farthest corners of the land.  Constantius had his revenge, but it shook the Empire to its base.  It was the first time since the fall of Israel that a nation had defied the Empire in the name of God.  It was a national rising, none the less real for not breaking out in formal war.  This time Greeks and Copts were united in defence of the Nicene faith, so that the contest was at an end when the Empire gave up Arianism.  But the next breach was never healed.  Monophysite Egypt was a dead limb of the Empire, and the Roman power beyond Mount Taurus fell before the Saracens because the provincials would not lift a hand to fight for the heretics of Chalcedon.

[Sidenote:  The Sirmian manifesto (357).]