bishop,
and making the additional threat that if he would not reinstate him he
should be made to do so by force of arms.

Constantius, after taking the advice of his own bishops, thought it
wisest to yield to the wishes or rather the commands of his brother
Constans, and he wrote to Athanasius, calling him into his presence
in Constantinople. But the rebellious bishop was not willing to trust
himself within the reach of his offended sovereign; and it was not till
after a second and a third letter, pressing him to come and promising
him his safety, that he ventured within the limits of the Eastern
empire. Strong in his high character for learning, firmness, and
political skill, carrying with him the allegiance of the Egyptian
nation, which was yielded to him much rather than to the emperor, and
backed by the threats of Constans, Athanasius was at least a match
for Constantius. At Constantinople the emperor and his subject, the
Alexandrian bishop, made a formal treaty, by which it was agreed
that, if Constantius would allow the Homoousian clergy throughout his
dominions to return to their churches, Athanasius would in the same
way throughout Egypt restore the Arian clergy; and upon this agreement
Athanasius himself returned to Alexandria.

Among the followers of Athanasius was that important mixed race with
whom the Egyptian civilisation chiefly rested, a race that may be called
Koptic, but half Greek and half Egyptian in their language and religion
as in their forefathers. But in feelings they were wholly opposed to the
Greeks of Alexandria. Never since the last Nectanebo was conquered by
the Persians, eight hundred years earlier, did the Egyptians seem so
near to throwing off the foreign yoke and rising again as an independent
nation. But the Greeks, who had taught them so much, had not taught them
the arts of war; and the nation remained enslaved to those who could
wield the sword. The return of Athanasius, however, was only the signal
for a fresh uproar, and the Arians complained that Egypt was kept in a
constant turmoil by his zealous activity. Nor were the Arians his only
enemies. He had offended many others of his clergy by his overbearing
manners, and more particularly by his following in the steps of
Alexander, the late bishop, in claiming new and higher powers for
the office of patriarch than had ever been yielded to the bishops of
Alexandria before their spiritual rank had been changed into civil rank
by the