§9. Athanasius under Julian and his successors; Fourth and Fifth Exiles. Feb. 21, 362, to Feb. 1, 366.
(a) The Council of Alexandria in 362. The
eight months of undisturbed residence enjoyed by Athanasius under
Julian were well employed. One of his first acts was to convoke a Synod
at Alexandria to deal with the questions which stood in the way of the
peace of the Church. The Synod was one ‘of saints and
confessors,’ including as it did many of the Egyptian bishops who
had suffered under George (p. 483, note 3, again we miss the name of
the trusted Serapion), Asterius of Petra and Eusebius of Vercellae, with legates from Lucifer of Calaris, Apollinarius of Laodicea, and Paulinus the Presbyter who ruled the Eustathian community of Antioch. Our knowledge of the proceedings of the Synod (with an exception to be referred to later on) is derived entirely from its ‘Tome’ or Synodal letter addressed to the latter community and to the exiles who were its guests. Rufinus, from whom or from the Tome itself Socrates appears to derive his knowledge, follows the Tome closely, with perhaps a faint trace of knowledge from some other source. Sozomen gives a short and inadequate report (v. 12). But the importance of the Council is out of all proportion either to the number of bishops who took part in it or to the scale of its documentary records. Jerome goes so far as to say that by its judicious conciliation it ‘snatched the whole world from the jaws of Satan’ (Adv. Lucif. 20). If this is in any measure true, if it undid both in East and West the humiliating results of the twin Synods of 359, the honour of the achievement is due to Athanasius alone. He saw that victory was not to be won by smiting men who were ready for peace, that the cause of Christ was not to be furthered by breaking the bruised reed and quenching the smoking flax. (Best accounts of the Council, Newman, Arians V. i., Krüger, Lucif. 41–52, Gwatkin, p. 205, sqq.) The details may be reserved for the Introduction to the Tome, p. 481. But in the strong calm moderation of that document we feel that Athanasius is no longer a combatant arduously contending for victory, but a conqueror surveying the field of his triumph and resolving upon the terms of peace. The Council is the ripe first-fruits of the de Synodis, the decisive step by which he placed himself at the head of the reuniting forces of Eastern Christendom; forces which under the recognised headship of the ‘Father of Orthodoxy’ were able successfully to withstand the revived political supremacy of Arianism under Valens, and after his death to cast it out of the Church. The Council then is justly recognised as the crown of the career of Athanasius, for its resolutions and its Letter unmistakably proceed from him alone, and none but he could have tempered the fiery zeal of the confessors and taught them to distinguish friend from foe.