[Sidenote:  Athanasius de Synodis.]

The exiled patriarch of Alexandria was watching from his refuge in the desert, and this was the time he chose for an overture of friendship to his old conservative enemies.  If he was slow to see his opportunity, at least he used it nobly.  The Eastern church has no more honoured name than that of Athanasius, yet even Athanasius rises above himself in his De Synodis.  He had been a champion of controversy since his youth, and spent his manhood in the forefront of its hottest battle.  The care of many churches rested on him, the pertinacity of many enemies wore out his life.  Twice he had been driven to the ends of the earth, and twice come back in triumph; and now, far on in life, he saw his work again destroyed, himself once more a fugitive.  We do not look for calm impartiality in a Demosthenes, and cannot wonder if the bitterness of his long exile grows on even Athanasius.  Yet no sooner is he cheered with the news of hope, than the jealousies which had grown for forty years are hushed in a moment, as though the Lord himself had spoken peace to the tumult of the grey old exile’s troubled soul.  To the impenitent Arians he is as severe as ever, but for old enemies returning to a better mind he has nothing but brotherly consideration and respectful sympathy.  Men like Basil of Ancyra, says he, are not to be set down as Arians or treated as enemies, but to be reasoned with as brethren who differ from us only about the use of a word which sums up their own teaching as well as ours.  When they confess that the Lord is a true Son of God and not a creature, they grant all that we care to contend for.  Their own of like essence without the addition of from the essence does not exclude the idea of a creature, but the two together are precisely equivalent to of one essence.  Our brethren accept the two separately:  we join them in a single word.  Their of like essence is by itself misleading, for likeness is of properties and qualities, not of essence, which must be either the same or different.  Thus the word rather suggests than excludes the limited idea of a sonship which means no more than a share of grace, whereas our of one essence quite excludes it.  Sooner or later they will see their way to accept a term which is a necessary safeguard for the belief they hold in common with ourselves.

[Sidenote:  End of the Council of Ariminum.]

There could be no doubt of the opinion of the churches when the councils had both so decidedly refused the dated creed; but the court was not yet at the end of its resources.  The Western deputies were sent back to Ariminum, and the bishops, already reduced to great distress by their long detention, were plied with threats and cajolery till most of them yielded.  When Phoebadius and a score of others remained firm, their resistance was overcome by as shameless a piece of villany as can be found in history.  Valens