maintained that the Christian Doctrine is the Unique Way;
those who wavered indecisively were seduced by some of the
old rich philosophies with their occultism and their secretive
initiations. Consequently, a fierce battle was waged: a
spiritual intellectual battle. And since Alexandria was the
battlefield,^2 it became littered with the wreckage of the
conflagration. Arius was merely a flotsam of this wreckage.
His arrogance was such that he presumed he could collect
the routed, reorganise them, and instigate the fight. The
Church met this renewed struggle with the same invincibility.
While the Arian heresy was thus gaining force, Abba
Alexandros was most active in refuting it: several councils
were convoked in different cities of Egypt. Letters were sent
by him to all the Churches. Seventy of these letters, a
century later, were still current, but only two of them are
now existent. He, also, wrote an Encyclic Epistle containing
a brief history of the Arian heresy, and an exposition of the
True Faith.
- It was at this time that Emperor Constantine declared
Christianity one of the State religions. Hence the efforts of
Arius and his followers to incite the civil authorities against
the ‘Orthodox Faith’ in an attempt to stir up a persecution
failed. - However, the Arians expended all sorts of other
efforts to influence Emperor Constantine both directly and
indirectly. They incited riots among the people, exploited
the ignorance and weakness of those who could easily be
swayed, and resorted to whatever tricky or base means to
poison the air. Meantime Constantine was unaware of the
magnitude of the Principle at stake. Thinking that he could
resolve the matter and put an end to the raging dissensions,
he sent a letter, rather crude in tenor, addressed simply "To