§7. The Golden Decade, 346–356.
(1). This period is divided into two by the death
of Constans in 350, or perhaps more exactly by the final settlement of
sole power in the hands of Constantius on the day of Mursa, Sept. 28, 351. The internal condition of the Church at Alexandria, however, was not seriously disturbed even in the second period. From this point of view the entire period may be treated as one. Its opening was auspicious. Egypt fully participated in the ‘profound and wonderful peace’ (p. 278) of the Churches. The Bishops of province after province were sending in their letters of adhesion to the Synod of Sardica (ib. and p. 127), and those of Egypt signed to a man.
The public rejoicing of the Alexandrian Church
had something of the character of a ‘mission’ in modern
Church life. A wave of religious enthusiasm passed over the whole
community. ‘How many widows and how many orphans, who were before
hungry and naked, now through the great zeal of the people were no
longer hungry, and went forth clothed;’ ‘in a word, so
great was their emulation in virtue, that you would have thought every
family and every house a Church, by reason of the goodness of its
inmates and the prayers which were offered to God’ (p. 278). Increased strictness of life, the sanctification of home, renewed application to prayer, and practical charity, these were a worthy welcome to their long-lost pastor. But most conspicuous was the impulse to asceticism. Marriages were renounced and even dissolved in favour of the monastic life; the same instincts were at work (but in greater intensity) as had asserted themselves at the close of the era of the pagan persecutions (p. 200, §4, fin.). Our knowledge of the history of the Egyptian Church under the ten years’ peaceful rule of Athanasius is confined to a few details and to what we can infer from results.
Strong as was the position of Athanasius in Egypt
upon his return from exile, his hold upon the country grew with each
year of the decade. When circumstances set Constantius free to resume
the Arian campaign, it was against Athanasius that he worked; at first
from the remote West, then by attempts to remove or coax him from
Alexandria. But Athanasius was in an impregnable position, and when at
last the city was seized by the coup de main of 356, from his
hidings places in Egypt he was more inaccessible still, more secure in
his defence, more free to attack. Now the extraordinary development of
Egyptian must be placed in the first
rank of the causes which strengthened Athanasius in Egypt. The
institution was already firmly rooted there (cf. p. 190), and
Pachomius, a slightly older contemporary of Athanasius himself, had
converted a sporadic manifestation of the ascetic impulse into an
organised form of Community Life. Pachomius himself had died on May 9, 346 (infr. p. lx., note 3, and p. 569, note 3: cf. Theolog. Literaturztg. 1890, p. 622), but Athanasius was welcomed soon after his arrival by a deputation from the Society of Tabenne, who also conveyed a special message from the aged Antony. Athanasius placed himself at the head of the monastic movement, and we cannot doubt that while he won the enthusiastic devotion of these dogged and ardent Copts, his influence on the movement tended to restrain extravagances and to correct the morbid exaltation of the monastic ideal. It is remarkable that the only letters which survive from this decade (pp. 556–560) are to monks, and that they both support what has just been said. The army of Egyptian monks was destined to become a too powerful weapon, a scandal and a danger to the Church: but the monks were the main secret of the power and ubiquitous activity of Athanasius in his third exile, and that power was above all built up during the golden decade.