Saint Athanasius, the Father of Orthodoxy

								

my Lord!' I cried, 'and rent Thy garments?'
"'It is Arius,' He replied, 'who has torn My robe, and tomorrow they
will come to you to intercede for him. Therefore I have warned you to
keep him from the fold. But you shall die for Me tomorrow.'"
Then Achillas and Alexander, and they that were with them, prayed once
more with their Bishop, and he blessed them and bade them depart in
peace. And when the morning came, the promise of Christ was fulfilled,
and His faithfu1 servant received the martyr's crown.
Achillas succeeded Peter as Patriarch, and in course of time, yielding
to the entreaties of Arius and deceived by his apparent good faith, he
received him back into the fold and gave him charge of one of the
largest churches in Alexandria in a district called Baukalis.
Tall and striking in appearance, with a certain eloquence and a great
pretense of holiness, Arius soon became a popular preacher. He had
even hoped, it was said, to succeed Achillas as Patriarch; and when,
on the death of Achillas, Alexander was elected to take his place,
Arius' anger and envy knew no bounds. Since he could find no fault
with the conduct of the new Patriarch, whom everyone acknowledged to
be blameless and holy, he proceeded to find fault with his doctrine.
"In teaching that Christ was the Eternal Son of God," said the priest
of Baukalis, "Alexander and his clergy made a great mistake. Since
Christ was the creation of God the Father, how could He Himself be
God?"
It was a heresy that struck at the very roots of Christianity.
Alexander remembered, too late, the warning of Peter. Gentle and
peaceful by nature, he tried at first to win Arius by kindness. "Let
him explain his difficulty," he said, "and discuss the question with
theologians"; but all such suggestions were met with pride and
obstinacy. Arius at last sent a haughty statement of his opinions,
which were condemned by nearly all the Bishops of Egypt. He was
therefore deposed and forbidden to preach, but he was not the man to
take his defeat humbly.
Hastening to Caesarea in Palestine, where he had influential friends,
he gave himself out as "the very famous, the much suffering for God's
glory, who, taught of God, has acquired wisdom and knowledge." Many
were seduced by his insidious persuasions, among them Eusebius, the
Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, who, thoroughly taken in by the
deceits and false holiness of the heretic, wrote a letter to Alexander
in his favor.
The Patriarch replied by a detailed account of Arius' teaching and his
trial, giving the reasons why the Synod had thought fit to depose him.
This letter had an effect on the clergy and Bishops of Palestine which
Arius was quick enough to see. He therefore retired into Syria, where
he made great friends with another Eusebius, the clever and crafty
Bishop of Nicomedia, who had gained an unfortunate influence over the
Emperor.
It was now nearly twelve years since Constantine, himself a pagan,