It was natural that Alexandria, who had suffered so much for Christianity, should share in its triumph, and as soon as universal toleration was proclaimed her star reemerged. Rome, as the stronghold of Paganism, was discredited, and it seemed that the city by the Nile might again become Imperial, as in the days of Antony. That hoped was dashed, for Constantine, a very cautious man, thought it safer to found a new capital on the Bosphorus, where no memories from the past could intrude. But Alexandria was the capital spiritually, and at least it seemed that she, who had helped to free imprisoned Christendom, would lead it in harmony and peace to its home at the feet of God. That hope was dashed too. An age of hatred and misery was approaching. The Christians, as soon as they had captured the machinery of the pagan state, turned it against one another, and the century resounds to a dispute between two dictatorial clergymen. Both were natives of Alexandria. Arius, the older, took duty at St. Mark’s—the vanished church by the sea at Chatby where the Evangelist was said to have been martyred. Learned and sincere, tall, simple in his dress, persuasive in his speech, he was accused by his enemies of looking like a snake, and of seducing, in the theological sense, 700 virgins. Athanasius, his opponent, first appears as a merry little boy, playing with other children on the beach below St. Theonas’—on the shore of the present western harbour, that is to say. He was playing at Baptism, which not being in orders he had no right to do, and the Patriarch, who happened to be looking out of the palace window, tried to stop him. No one ever succeeded in stopping St. Athanasius. He baptised his playmates, and the Patriarch, struck by his precocity, recognised the sacrament as valid and engaged the active young theologian as his secretary. Physically Athanasius was blackish and small, but strong and extremely graceful—one recognises a modern street type. His character can scarcely be discerned through the dust of the century, but he was certainly not loveable, though he lived to be a popular hero. His powers were remarkable. As a theologian he knew what is true, and as a politician he knew how truth can be enforced, and his career blends subtlety with vigour and self-abnegation with craft in the most remarkable way.