Church History 5.9–5.15

Since my account has come to this point and I have narrated the killing of George and Theodore, I think it a fit time to make mention of the brothers Eusebius, Nestabus and Zeno. The people of Gaza, hating them, seized them where they were hiding at home, first put them in prison and scourged them. Then, gathering in the theatre, they cried out much against them, as men who had violated the shrines and had used the past time for the destruction and insult of paganism. By shouting and urging one another on to murder them, they were filled with fury; and exhorting one another, as a rioting populace is accustomed to do, they ran to the prison, brought them out and killed them most cruelly, dragging them now face down, now on their backs, dashing them against the ground, and striking them as they could, some with stones, some with clubs, others with whatever came to hand. I have learned also that women came out from their looms and stabbed them with their shuttles; and that of the cooks in the market, some snatched cauldrons boiling with hot water from the trivets and poured them over them, and others pierced them with spits. When they had torn them apart and crushed their heads so that the brain ran out on the ground, they dragged them outside the city, where they used to throw out dead beasts; and kindling a fire they burned their bodies, and mixed what remained of the bones, whatever the fire had not consumed, with the bones of camels and asses thrown out there, so that they could not easily be found. But they did not remain hidden long. For a Christian woman, not from Gaza but living there, by divine arrangement gathered them up by night, put them in a pot, and gave them to Zeno, their cousin, to keep. For God had so declared to her in dreams, and had shown her the man and where he was staying, and pointed him out before she saw him, since he was unknown to her and was hiding, the persecution having lately been stirred up. For he too had then nearly been seized by the people of Gaza and killed; but while the crowd was busy with the murder of his cousins, he found his chance and fled to the city of Anthedon on the sea, about twenty stadia from Gaza, which at that time likewise delighted in paganism and was passionately devoted to the worship of images. Denounced there as a Christian, he was cruelly beaten on the back with rods by the people of Anthedon and driven out of the city; and coming to the port of Gaza he lay hidden there. There the woman met him and gave him the relics. He kept them at home for a while; but when he was allotted the oversight of the church there — this happened in the reign of Theodosius — he built a house of prayer outside the city, set up an altar in it, and laid the bones of the martyrs there, near Nestor the confessor. Nestor had been with his cousins while they were alive, and, seized together with them by the populace, had shared their chains and scourging. But as he was being dragged, those who dragged him, seeing his comely body, took pity on him and threw him out before the gates, still breathing but expected to die. Some people took him up and carried him to Zeno, in whose house he died while still being treated for his wounds. The people of Gaza, considering the magnitude of their own daring, were in great fear that the emperor would not let them go unpunished; for a rumour was already going about that he was angry and intended to decimate the populace. But this was false, a popular rumour only, as is natural, carried about from the cowardice of a guilty conscience for what they had done. For he did not blame the people of Gaza even in writing, as he had blamed the Alexandrians in the case of George. Instead he took away his office from the then governor of the province and held him under suspicion, bringing him to trial and reckoning it clemency not to vote for his death. He accused him of having arrested and held in chains some of the people of Gaza who were said to have begun the riot and the murders, so that they might be called to account according to the laws. “For what need was there,” he said, “to arrest them for retaliating on a few Galileans for the many wrongs done to them and to the gods?” Such is the account.

At this time Hilarion the monk too, being sought by the people of Gaza, fled to Sicily. There he gathered wood on the deserted mountains, carried it on his shoulders, and sold it in the city; and in this way he provided his daily food, as much as he needed to live. But when his identity and character were disclosed by a man of rank who was possessed by a demon, he freed him from the possession and went to Dalmatia. Having accomplished there too, by divine power, very great and astonishing deeds — so that by prayer he even stopped the sea, which after a recession was rushing in to flood the dry land — he withdrew again from there. For it was not to his liking to stay among those who praised him; but by changing his place he tried to remain unknown and to dissolve by frequent moves the fame that prevailed about him. Finally, sailing along Cyprus, he put in at Paphos; and urged by the then bishop of the Cypriots, he came to love living there, and practised the philosophic life at a place called Charburis. The reason this man was not martyred was his flight. He fled because there is a sacred command not to wait for persecutors, but, if taken while being persecuted, to be brave and superior to the compulsion of the persecutors. It was not only at Gaza and Alexandria that the deeds described were dared against the Christians. The inhabitants of Heliopolis by Lebanon and of Arethusa in Syria appear to have surpassed them in excess of cruelty. For the former — it is incredible even to tell, had not some who lived at that time reported it — compelled holy virgins, unaccustomed to be seen by a crowd, to stand publicly stripped of their clothing, as a common spectacle and outrage for whoever wished; and after first abusing them as they pleased, they finally shaved their heads, cut them open, and called the swine to eat their entrails, covering the innards on top with the swine’s usual food, so that the swine could not easily tell the difference but, from the craving of their usual food, would tear human flesh as well. As I conjecture, what drove the people of Heliopolis to such cruelty against the holy virgins was the abolition of their former ancestral custom that their virgins should be prostituted to any comer before coming together in marriage with their betrothed. For Constantine, having destroyed the temple of Aphrodite at Heliopolis, then for the first time built a church among them, and by law forbade them to practise their customary sexual immorality. The Arethusians cruelly killed Mark, who had been their bishop, an old man venerable for his grey hairs and his life. They had been angry with him before; for in Constantius’s reign he had led the pagans back to Christianity more zealously than by persuasion, and had destroyed their most venerable and costly temple. When the rule passed to Julian, seeing the populace stirred up against him, and having at the same time been condemned by the emperor’s order either to pay the value of the temple or to rebuild it, reckoning both impossible, and the second unlawful in any case for a Christian, let alone a priest, he fled at first. But learning that many were in danger on his account, and were suffering being dragged to court and the terrors that go with it, he came back from his flight and of his own will gave himself up to the crowd to do with him what they wished. They, when they ought rather to have praised him for an act worthy of a philosopher, thought themselves despised, and the whole populace went at him. They dragged him through the streets, pushing him and tearing his hair, each striking whatever limb he could reach. The deed was pursued with eagerness and rage by men and women and every age, so that they even cut his ears with thin cords; and children going to school made the thing a game, tossing him up and rolling him toward themselves, sending him back and catching him on their writing-styluses and stabbing him without mercy. When his whole body had been wounded but he was still breathing, they smeared him with honey and fish sauce, put him in a basket — a thing woven of rushes — and hoisted him up high. Then, it is said, when wasps and bees were flying at him and devouring his flesh, he said to the Arethusians that he was high and saw them low and going on the ground, and that from this he inferred what would happen afterwards to himself and to them. The story is that the prefect of that time, though a pagan above all, was of a noble character — so that his reputation prevails even now — and, admiring Mark’s endurance, spoke frankly to the emperor and reproached him that they were rightly incurring shame, being defeated by one old man who had bravely withstood so many tortures; and that they were in danger of being ridiculous, while those to whom they did these things became more glorious. So the blessed man withstood the rage of the Arethusians and the many tortures so nobly that he was praised even by the pagans themselves.

At this time Macedonius, Theodulus and Tatian, Phrygians, bravely suffered martyrdom. For when the governor of the province at Merus, a city of Phrygia, opened the temple there and cleansed it, which had been filthy from long neglect, they entered by night and broke the statues. When others were arrested as guilty of this and were about to be punished, they gave themselves up. Though they could have suffered nothing if they had consented to sacrifice, since the governor accepted this alone as their defence for their offence, he could not persuade them, and tortured them in many ways; finally he put them on gridirons and lit a fire beneath. As they burned, they said: “If you desire roasted meat, Amachius” — for that was the governor’s name — “turn us over on the other side to the fire too, so that we may not seem unpleasant to your taste when half-cooked.” And having borne themselves so nobly, they ended their lives in the tortures. They say also that Busiris at Ancyra in Galatia endured a splendid and most courageous confession for religion. He was then of the heresy of those called Encratites. The governor of the province arrested him, and wished to torture him as having behaved insolently against the pagans. Bringing him out publicly to the rack, he ordered him to be hoisted up. But Busiris raised his hands to his head and bared his sides, and said to the governor that the executioners need not labour in vain lifting him up on the rack and letting him down again; for he would readily, even without this, offer his sides to the torturers as long as he wished. The governor, astonished at the promise, was still more amazed at the trial of it. For while his sides were torn with the claws as long as the governor thought fit, he held out, keeping his hands raised and receiving the blows eagerly. Afterwards he was put in chains, but was released not long after, when Julian was reported killed; and he lived until the reign of Theodosius and went over to the catholic church, condemning his former heresy. It is said that at this time Basil, presbyter of the church at Ancyra, and Eupsychius of Caesarea in Cappadocia, of a noble family, who had lately married and was still, as it were, a bridegroom, departed this life by martyrdom. I conjecture that Eupsychius was killed because of the temple of Fortune, at whose destruction, as was told above, all the people of Caesarea together felt the emperor’s wrath. Those who had done the destruction with their own hands were punished, some with death, others condemned to exile from their homeland. Basil, who was zealous for doctrine, opposed the followers of Arius as long as Constantius ruled; and for this, by the vote of Eudoxius’s party, he was forbidden to hold assemblies. When Julian held the empire alone, Basil went about openly and publicly urging the Christians to hold fast to their own doctrines and not to defile themselves with the sacrifices and libations of the pagans, and to count as nothing the honours the emperor bestowed on them, declaring them to be temporary, bought at the price of everlasting destruction. Being zealous in this, and suspected and hated by the pagans, when he saw them sacrificing publicly he stood and groaned aloud and prayed that no Christian would fall into such error. For this he was arrested and handed over to the governor of the province; and having endured many tortures, he completed his martyrdom bravely throughout the whole contest. If these things turned out so against the emperor’s intention, they nevertheless show that no ignoble and no few martyrs arose under his rule. For clarity’s sake I have gathered them all together and narrated them, even though the time of each one’s martyrdom differed.

After Athanasius’s return, Lucifer, bishop of Caralis in Sardinia, and Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli of the Ligurians in Italy, came back from the Upper Thebaid; for there they had been ordered under Constantius to live in perpetual exile. By common agreement, for the correction of church affairs, Eusebius came to Alexandria in order to gather a synod with Athanasius for the confirmation of what had been decided at Nicaea; while Lucifer sent with Eusebius a deacon, who represented him at the synod, … and arriving at Antioch found the church there in turmoil. For it was divided by those of the Arian heresy, led by Euzoius; and the partisans of Meletius, as was said before, were also at odds with those who shared their own belief. Since Meletius had not yet returned from exile, he ordained Paulinus bishop. Meanwhile bishops of many cities, gathered at Alexandria with Athanasius and Eusebius, confirmed the decisions of Nicaea. They confessed the Holy Spirit to be of the same essence with the Father and the Son, and named them a Trinity; and they taught that the man whom God the Word assumed must be held to be perfect not in body only but in soul also, as the ancient philosophers of the church had also held. And since the inquiry about essence and hypostasis was troubling the churches, and there were frequent disputes and debates about these terms, they seem to me to have decided very wisely not to use these names of God at the very outset, except when someone tried to cast out the opinion of Sabellius; lest through poverty of names one should seem to call the same thing by three appellations, rather than that each should be understood in a threefold way in its own right. Such were the decisions of those who then met at Alexandria. At this synod Athanasius, defending himself concerning his flight, went through the account he had written about it.

When the synod had broken up, Eusebius came to Antioch and found the people divided. For those attached to Meletius would not join Paulinus, but held their assemblies apart. Though Eusebius was displeased that the ordination had taken place without the consent of all, as it ought not, out of respect for Lucifer he found no open fault. He communicated with neither party, but promised to correct in a synod what grieved each side. While he was trying to bring the people together in concord, Meletius returned from exile, and finding those who shared his views separated, he held assemblies with them by themselves outside the city; while Paulinus held his within, with his own people. For Euzoius, the head of the Arian heresy, respecting him as a gentle man, venerable for his life and his age, did not drive him out, and even assigned him one church. Eusebius, having failed in his effort, left Antioch. Lucifer, considering himself insulted by him because he had not accepted the ordination of Paulinus, was angry and quarrelled about communion with him; and as if out of contentiousness he tried to discredit what had been decided by the synod at Alexandria. This was the origin of the heresy of those called Luciferians after him. For those who were vexed with him over these things cut themselves off from the church. He himself, though overcome by vexation, since through the deacon whom he had sent with Eusebius he had agreed to abide by what the synod at Alexandria had done, kept to the belief of the catholic church and went to Sardinia. Eusebius went round the East, setting right those who had neglected the faith and teaching what one ought to believe; then, hastening on, he passed through Illyricum and came to Italy. There he found that Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, a city of Aquitania, had already accomplished this; for he had returned from exile before him and had taught the Italians and Gauls which doctrines to accept and which to avoid. For he was eloquent in the Latin tongue and wrote, as has been said, works of worth contending against the doctrines of Arius. Thus this Hilary and Eusebius together upheld the doctrine of the synod at Nicaea in the western part of the empire.

Meanwhile the party of Macedonius, among whom were Eleusius, Eustathius and Sophronius, having by now begun to be openly called Macedonians, as having separated into a body of their own, and having gained freedom through the death of Constantius, called together those who had shared their views at Seleucia and held several synods. They condemned Acacius’s party and the faith confirmed at Ariminum, and ratified the faith set out at Antioch and afterwards confirmed by them at Seleucia. When asked why they differed from Acacius’s party, with whom they had formerly communicated as being of the same belief, they answered through Sophronius the Paphlagonian that the westerners held the homoousios, and Aetius in the East the unlikeness in essence; that the former improperly wove the distinct hypostases of the Father and the Son together into a unity by the name homoousios, while the latter set too far apart the kinship of the Son’s nature with the Father; but that they themselves were orthodox in saying that the Son is like the Father in hypostasis, and had chosen this way as a middle between the two, each of the others having gone to the extreme opposite. In this way they tried to defend themselves against those who blamed them.

The emperor, learning that Athanasius was holding assemblies in the church of the Alexandrians, teaching the people without fear, and persuading many pagans to change over to Christianity, ordered him to leave Alexandria, and threatened him with the heaviest penalties if he remained there. He made it a ground of complaint that, having been condemned to exile by the emperors before him, he had taken back the throne of the episcopate without permission; for he had not allowed those banished by Constantius to return to the churches, but only to their homelands. When, because of this order of the emperor, Athanasius was about to go into exile, seeing the crowd of Christians around him in tears, he said, “Take courage; it is a little cloud and will soon pass.” Having said this he bade them farewell, entrusted the church to the most zealous of his friends, and left the city of the Alexandrians. At this time the people of Cyzicus sent envoys to the emperor about their own affairs and about restoring the pagan temples; he praised them for their care for the shrines and granted them everything they asked. He also excluded Eleusius, their bishop, from the city, as having damaged the temples and insulted the sacred precincts, having built homes for widows, established convents of holy virgins, and persuaded the pagans to neglect their ancestral rites. He also forbade the foreign Christians who were with him to set foot in Cyzicus, alleging, as was likely, that they would raise a riot for the sake of religion, with the Christians of the city joining them and thinking like them about the divine, as well as the public wool-workers and the workers of the mint. These were numerous and divided into two populous guilds, and by order of the former emperors lived in Cyzicus with their wives and households, paying each year a fixed contribution to the treasury, the one of military cloaks, the other of newly minted coins. For since he had resolved to establish paganism by every means, he thought it foolish to force or punish populaces unwilling to sacrifice; for in each city the magistrates could hardly even have registered the number of so many. Nor did he prevent them from assembling and praying as they chose. For he knew that what needs a free choice for its establishment can hardly ever be achieved by compulsion. But he was eager to drive the clergy and the heads of the churches out of the cities, really intending by their absence to break up the people’s assemblies, so that they would have neither anyone to lead their assemblies nor teachers, nor share in the mysteries, and in long time would fall into forgetfulness of their own religion. On the pretext that the clergy led the multitudes into dissension, he ordered Eleusius and those with him to leave Cyzicus, although there had been no riot and none was expected. He urged the people of Bostra by public proclamation to drive out of their city Titus, then bishop of the church there. For when he threatened to hold him and the clergy responsible if the people rioted, Titus sent a petition to the emperor and declared that the Christian multitude was equal to the pagan, but that it was quiet and, led by his exhortations, thought of nothing seditious. Seizing on these words to make Titus hated by the people, the emperor wrote to the people of Bostra and accused him of having become an accuser of the populace, as though they refrained from riot not of their own will but because of his exhortations; and he stirred up the people to drive him out of the city as an enemy. It is likely that many such things happened elsewhere also, some by the emperor’s order, others from the anger and rashness of the populaces. For these too one will lay the blame for what happened on the ruler; for he did not bring those who so broke the law under the laws, but in his hatred of the religion, while seeming to blame them in words, he encouraged in deeds those who did such things. Hence, even though he himself did not persecute, my forebears and my grandfather fled from city to city and village to village. For though his father was a pagan, he himself with his whole household, and the family of Alaphion, were the first to become Christians in Bethelia, a village of Gaza, which was populous and had temples venerable to its inhabitants for their antiquity and workmanship, especially the Pantheon, which stood on a man-made hill as on an acropolis and overlooked the whole village from every side. I conjecture that the place took its name from this and that, translated from the Syrian language into Greek, it is called “dwelling of the gods,” because of the temple of the Pantheon. It is said that the monk Hilarion was the cause of these households’ becoming Christian. For when this Alaphion was possessed by a demon, for a long time some pagans and many Jews used incantations and certain magic arts and accomplished nothing; but Hilarion, by simply calling on the name of Christ, drove out the demon, and they changed over to the Christian religion. My grandfather excelled in the interpretation of the sacred Scriptures, being gifted and of an inquiring mind, and moderately trained in learning, so that he was not without a share of arithmetic too. Hence he was very much loved by the Christians of Ascalon and Gaza and the surrounding country, as one needful to religion and able easily to resolve the difficulties of the sacred Scriptures. As for those of the other family, one could hardly describe their virtue. For they were the first to found churches and monasteries there, and they adorned them with their dignity and their kindness to strangers and the needy. Of this family good men survived even to our day, whom, when they were already old, I knew when I was young. But I must mention them later.