Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

256 THE SECOND AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.soul. But the plant which he so watered with hisblood was of extraordinary vigour. It not onlygrew amid the intensest intellectual rivalry ofGreek and Jew in the capital, but likewise incourse of time occupied the whole civil governmentwhich obeyed the prefect of Egypt, FromAlexandria, Egypt and the Pentapolis of Gyrenederived their Christian faith and government; andso powerful was this bond that the bishop of thecapital exercised control over all the bishops ofthe civil diocese, as it was then termed. He wasin power a patriarch long before he had that name,or even the name of archbishop. How great andstrict this rule was we may judge from an incidentpreserved by Photius,20 which occurred inthe very last year of the period we are considering,in 235. Heraclas, bishop of Alexandria, a formerpupil of Origen, had inflicted upon that greatwriter a second exulsion from the Church for hiserroneous teaching. Origen on his way to Syriacame to the city of Thmuis, where bishop Am-moiiius allowed him, * in J.J-J- spite KJ t of the abtioned censure of Heraclas, to preach. When Heraclasheard this, he came to Thmuis and deposedAxnmonius, and appointed in his stead Philippusas bishop. Afterwards, on the earnest request ofthe Deoule of the city, he restored Ammonius tonice of bishou, and ordained that he and20 Photius, ffwaytoyal KO.} aiToSe'il-eis, quoted by Dollinger,iuid KalUstus, p. 264, 5.