The character given to Achillas by Eusebius is confirmed by Athanasius, who calls him “the great Achillas” (in his Epistle to the Bishops of Egypt, §23). He succeeded Peter as bishop of Alexandria (Epiphanius makes him the successor of Alexander, but wrongly, for the testimony of Athanasius, to say nothing of Jerome, Socrates, and other writers, is decisive on this point; see Athanasius’ Apology against the Arians, §§11 and 59, and Epist. to the Bishops of Egypt, §23), but our authorities differ as to the date of his accession and the length of his episcopate. Eusebius, in this chapter, §31, puts the death of Peter in the ninth year of the persecution 311–312), and with this Jerome agrees in his Chron., and there can be no doubt as to the correctness of the report. But afterwards, quite inconsistently (unless it be supposed that Achillas became bishop before Peter’s death, which, in the face of Eusebius’ silence on the subject, is very improbable), Jerome puts the accession of Achillas into the fifth year of Constantine, a.d. 309. Jerome commits another error in putting the accession of his successor, Alexander, in the sixteenth year of Constantine (a.d. 320); for Alexander’s controversy with Arius (see above, p. 11 sq.) can hardly have broken out later than 318 or 319, and it would appear that Alexander had been bishop already some time when that took place. Theodoret (H. E. I. 2) states that Achillas ruled the church but a short time, and with him agrees Epiphanius (Hær. LXIX. 11), who says that he held office but three months. The casual way in which Achillas is spoken of in all our sources, most of which mention him only in passing from Peter to Alexander, would seem to confirm Theodoret’s report, and Alexander’s accession may, therefore, be put not long after 311.