is Epistles to the Monks, (p. 808-866.)
They are justified by original and authentic documents; but they would
inspire more confidence if he appeared less innocent, and his enemies
less absurd.]

[Footnote 106: Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 41-47.]

Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.--Part V.

But the injustice of these ecclesiastical judges had not been
countenanced by the submission, or even by the presence, of Athanasius.
He resolved to make a bold and dangerous experiment, whether the throne
was inaccessible to the voice of truth; and before the final sentence
could be pronounced at Tyre, the intrepid primate threw himself into a
bark which was ready to hoist sail for the Imperial city. The request
of a formal audience might have been opposed or eluded; but Athanasius
concealed his arrival, watched the moment of Constantine's return from
an adjacent villa, and boldly encountered his angry sovereign as he
passed on horseback through the principal street of Constantinople.
So strange an apparition excited his surprise and indignation; and the
guards were ordered to remove the importunate suitor; but his resentment
was subdued by involuntary respect; and the haughty spirit of the
emperor was awed by the courage and eloquence of a bishop, who implored
his justice and awakened his conscience. [107] Constantine listened to
the complaints of Athanasius with impartial and even gracious attention;
the members of the synod of Tyre were summoned to justify their
proceedings; and the arts of the Eusebian faction would have been
confounded, if they had not aggravated the guilt of the primate, by the
dexterous supposition of an unpardonable offence; a criminal design to
intercept and detain the corn-fleet of Alexandria, which supplied the
subsistence of the new capital. [108] The emperor was satisfied that the
peace of Egypt would be secured by the absence of a popular leader; but
he refused to fill the vacancy of the archiepiscopal throne; and the
sentence, which, after long hesitation, he pronounced, was that of a
jealous ostracism, rather than of an ignominious exile. In the remote
province of Gaul, but in the hospitable court of Treves, Athanasius
passed about twenty eight months. The death of the emperor changed the
face of public affairs and, amidst the general indulgence of a young
reign, the primate was restored to his country by an honorable edict of
the younger Constantine, who exp