Petrus (5) II., archbp. of Alexandria, succeeded Athanasius in May
373. To promote the peaceful succession of an orthodox bishop, Athanasius, being
requested to recommend one who could be elected by anticipation, named Peter, whom Gregory Nazianzen describes as honoured for his wisdom and grey hairs (Orat. 25. 12), "who had been a companion of his labours" (Theod. iv. 20), and, in Basil's phrase, his spiritual "nursling" (Ep. 133); and who, in conjunction with another presbyter, when they were passing through Italy to Egypt in 347, had accepted from the notorious Arian intriguers Valens and Ursacius a written attestation of their desire to be at peace with Athanasius, when his cause was for the time triumphant (Athan. Hist. Ar. 26). The clergy and magistrates assented to the nomination; the people in general applauded; the neighbouring bishops came together to attend the consecration, in which, according to a "fragment" of Alexandrian history, the dying archbp. took the principal part (cf. Theod. l.c.; and Hist. Aceph. ap. Athan.). Five days afterwards (May 2) Athanasius died, and Peter took possession of "the evangelical throne." But the Arians seized the opportunity for which they had been waiting, and employed, as in 340, the agency of a pagan prefect. Palladius, by means of bribes, assembled a "crowd of pagans and Jews" and beset that same church of Theonas within which Syrianus had all but seized Athanasius in 356. Peter was commanded to withdraw; he refused; the church doors were forced, and the brutal orgies described in Athanasius's Encyclical were repeated: a youth in female dress danced upon the altar; another sat naked on the throne, and delivered a mock sermon in praise of vice (cf. Peter ap. Theod. iv. 22 with Greg. Naz. Orat. l.c.). At this point Peter quitted the church; Socrates says that he was seized and imprisoned (iv. 21), but his own narrative points the other way. It proceeds to describe the intrusion of the Arian Lucius. Peter tells us that the pagans esteemed Lucius as the favourite of Serapis, because he denied the divinity of the Son; and dwells on the brave confessorship (1) of 19 priests and deacons whom Magnus, after vain attempts to make them Arianize, transported to the pagan city of Heliopolis in Phoenicia, sending also into penal servitude 23 monks and others who expressed their sympathy; (2) of 7 Egyptian bishops exiled to Diocaesarea, a city inhabited by Jews, while some other prelates were "handed over to the curia," their official immunity from onerous curial obligations being annulled in requital of their steadfastness in the faith. Damasus of Rome, hearing of this new persecution, sent a deacon with a letter of communion and consolation for Peter; the messenger was arrested, treated as a criminal, savagely beaten, and sent to the mines of Phenne. Peter adds that children were tortured, and intimates that some persons were actually put to death or died of cruel usage, and that, after the old usage in pagan persecutions, their remains were denied burial. The narrative illustrates at once the theology, ritual, and electoral customs of the Egyptian church. Peter puts into the mouth of the 19 confessors an argument, quite Athanasian in tone, from the eternity of the Divine Fatherhood (cf. Athan. de Decr. Nic. 12): like Athanasius, he there insists that God could never have existed without His "Wisdom" (cf. Orat. c. Ar. i. 14; disowns a materialistic conception of the γέννησις (cf. de Decr. Nic. 11; Orat. c. Ar. i. 21); quotes the Arian formula ἦν ὅτε οὐκ ἦν ("once the Son was not," cf. Orat. c. Ar. i. 5, etc.); and represents the Homoousion as summarizing the purport of many texts (cf. de Decr. Nic. 20).