Church History 6.33–7.2

From here we must go on to Syria and to the Persians bordering on the Syrians, who in numbers rivalled those who lived the philosophic life in Egypt. At that time there were especially distinguished among the Nisibenes, about the mountain called Sigoron, Batthaeus, Eusebius, Barges, Halas and Abbos, Lazarus who became a bishop, Abdaleus, Zeno and Heliodorus the old. They were also called Grazers, having lately begun this kind of philosophy. They are so named because they have no dwellings, eat neither bread nor relish, nor drink wine; but living on the mountains they ever bless God in prayers and hymns according to the rule of the church; and when the time for food comes, as if pasturing, each with a sickle, they go round the mountain and feed on the plants. So they lived the philosophic life. At Carrhae there was Eusebius, who lived the philosophic life voluntarily shut in; and Protogenes, who governed the church there after Vitus, then the bishop — that famous Vitus whom, they say, the emperor Constantine, on first seeing him, confessed that God had often shown to him in appearances long before, and had told him to obey whatever he said. Aones too had his monastery at Phadana; this is the place where Jacob, the descendant of Abraham, coming from Palestine, met the virgin who was afterwards his wife, and rolling the stone from the well there, first watered her flock. They say that this Aones was the first among the Syrians to begin the strict philosophy apart from all men, as Antony among the Egyptians.

With him lived Gaddanas and Azizus, rivalling him in a like virtue. In Edessa nearby and around it the most renowned philosophers at this time were Julian and Ephraem the Syrian writer, who have been described under the reign of Constantius; and Barses and Eulogius, who both later became bishops — not of any city, but for honour, as a reward, so to speak, for their way of life — being ordained in their own monasteries, in the same way as Lazarus who has been mentioned. These are those who then lived the philosophic life with distinction among the Syrians and the neighbouring Persians who came to my knowledge. The way of life was common, one may say, to all: to care for the soul as much as possible and to accustom it to be ready for departure from here, in prayers and fasts and divine hymns, and to spend most of their life in these; and to neglect altogether money, the business of civic affairs, and the ease or care of the body. Some came to such a pitch of self-control that, through excessive fasting, worms crept from the teeth of Batthaeus; that Halas did not taste bread for eighty years; and that Heliodorus endured most nights without sleep, joining weeks of days together in fasting. Syria, both the so-called Coele and the part beyond it, except Antioch, changed over to Christianity more slowly. Yet it too was not without church philosophers; these were and appeared all the braver, inasmuch as they were hated and plotted against by the inhabitants of the country, and held out nobly, not defending themselves or taking vengeance, but readily enduring the insults and blows of the pagans. Such, I have learned, were Valentine, whom some said came from Emesa and others from Arethusa; another of the same name; and Theodore — both from Titti in the district of Apamea; and Marosas from Nechila, and Bassus, Bassones and Paul, who was from the village of Telmissus, who, having settled many in many places and brought them together in the right way to know how to live the philosophic life, finally established at the place called Jugatum a very great and celebrated community of monks. There he died and has his tomb, having lived very long, so that he survived even to our day, having lived the philosophic life with renown and in a godly way. Almost all the other monks described lived a long time too. And it seems to me that God made the men long-lived to advance religion. For they brought the Syrians almost entirely, and very many of the Persians and Saracens, to their own worship and made them cease being pagans; and having begun monastic philosophy there, they made many like themselves. I conjecture that the Galatians and Cappadocians and their neighbours also had many other church philosophers at that time, since they had long zealously upheld the doctrine. Most of them lived in communities in cities or villages; for they were neither accustomed to it by the tradition of their predecessors, nor perhaps did it seem possible to live in deserts because of the severity of the winter that regularly occurs from the nature of that country. The most renowned monks there of whom I have learned were Leontius, who later governed the church at Ancyra, and Prapidius, who when already old oversaw many villages as bishop. He also presided over the Basileias, which is a most celebrated hospice for the poor, built by Basil, the bishop of Caesarea, from whom it received its name at the beginning and still has it.

I have narrated these things about the church philosophers of that time as far as I was able to learn them. Of the pagans, on the other hand, almost all were destroyed at that time. For some who were thought to excel the others in philosophy, vexed at the growth of Christianity, resolved to learn in advance who would rule the Romans after Valens, and used every kind of divination about this. At last they made a wooden tripod of laurel and consecrated it with the invocations and words they were accustomed to use, so that by the putting together of letters, each letter being indicated by the mechanism of the tripod and the divination, the name of the future emperor would appear. As they were agape for Theodore, a man distinguished in the service of the palace, a pagan and a man of letters, the series of letters, coming as far as the delta in his name, deceived the philosophers, and they expected that Theodore would reign almost at once. When the attempt was reported, Valens, as one whose life had been plotted against, was intolerably angry. Upon this Theodore and the makers of the tripod were arrested and ordered to be put to death, some by fire, others by the sword. In the same way and for the same reason those throughout the empire who were distinguished as philosophers were destroyed. Since the emperor’s anger was unchecked, the slaughter extended even to those who were not philosophers but wore their dress; so that those who pursued other studies did not dress in saffron cloaks or short philosophers’ cloaks, from suspicion of danger and fear, lest they seem to have busied themselves with divination and magic rites. I think it right that the emperor, above all in the judgment of the sensible, should be blamed for so great anger and cruelty, and the philosophers for their rashness and their unphilosophical attempt. For he, supposing — a very foolish thing — that he would kill the one who was to reign after him, spared neither those who divined nor him about whom they divined, nor, as they say, those notable men of the time who had the same name, or one like it, beginning with theta and running as far as delta. And they were led on to this as though it lay with them to pull down an emperor and set one up again. Yet if such things are to be reckoned among what is once fixed in the motion of the stars, they should have awaited the one to come, whoever he was. And if the matter is of God’s counsel, why did they need to meddle? For surely it is not possible by foreknowledge or human effort to know what seems good to God. Nor, even if it were possible, was it right for men, though the wisest of all, to think that they could take better counsel than God. But if simply from eagerness to know the future they behaved so recklessly as to leap into ready danger and to despise the laws long established among the Romans — even at a time when it was safe to be pagan and to sacrifice — they did not think as Socrates did, who, when he could have saved himself, and that when he was about to drink the hemlock unjustly, out of respect for the laws under which he had been born and brought up, did not escape from the prison, though he was able to.

But let each consider and speak of these things as seems good to him. When the Sauromatae overran some places of the western empire, Valentinian marched against them. They, hearing of the size and equipment of the army, sent envoys asking for peace. When he saw them, he asked whether all the Sauromatae were like these. When they said that the best of them had come as envoys, he was filled with anger; and shouting loudly, he said that his subjects were suffering terrible things and that the empire of the Romans, having come round to him, was in an evil plight, if the Sauromatae, a barbarian nation, whose best were these men, were not content to live by themselves but dared to invade the territory he ruled and imagined they could make war on the Romans at all. As he raged for a long time and shouted such things, his inward parts were torn by the excessive strain; a vein and an artery burst together, and as the blood gushed out he died in a fortress in Gaul, being about fifty-four years old and having reigned thirteen years very well and with great distinction. On the sixth day after his death, his younger son of the same name was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers. Not long after, Valens and Gratian, the boy’s brother, ratified his elevation, although at first they were angry because the soldiers had invested him with the insignia of rule before they gave permission. Meanwhile Valens, living at Antioch in Syria, grew still more hostile to those who believed otherwise than he did about the divine, and harshly afflicted and banished them. Then Themistius the philosopher, addressing a speech to him, advised him that he should not be surprised at the disagreement of the church’s doctrines, which was more moderate and smaller than that among the Greeks; for the opinions among them were many times more numerous, and, as in a multitude of doctrines, the difference about them necessarily produces more quarrels and debates. For perhaps it is pleasing to God not to be easily known, and to be thought of in different ways, so that each may fear him the more, since the exact knowledge of him is incomprehensible, as each reckons how great and of what kind he is, as far as he thinks he can attain.

Made somewhat more humane by these words of Themistius, the emperor no longer inflicted punishments as harshly as before. Yet he did not altogether spare his anger against the priests, until anxieties about public affairs arose and no longer allowed him to pursue such matters. For the Goths, who had formerly lived beyond the river Ister and ruled the other barbarians, being driven out by those called Huns, crossed over into Roman territory. This nation, they say, was previously unknown to the Thracians along the Ister and to the Goths themselves. They lived near one another without knowing it, because a very great lake lay between them, and each thought that the land they inhabited was the end of the dry land, and beyond it sea and boundless water. But a heifer stung by a gadfly happened to run across the lake, and a herdsman followed; and seeing the land on the other side, he reported it to his own people. Others say that a stag, fleeing, showed some Huns who were hunting this way, which was covered on the surface by the water. They then returned, admiring the country, which had a milder climate and was suitable for farming, and reported to the ruler of the nation what they had seen. At first they made trial of the Goths with a few men; afterwards they marched against them in full force, conquered them in battle, and took possession of all their land. The Goths, pursued, crossed into Roman territory; and having crossed the river, they sent envoys to the emperor, promising to be his allies in future and asking him to let them settle where they wished. Ulfilas, the bishop of the nation, led this embassy; and when it succeeded as they wished, they were permitted to live in Thrace. Not long afterwards they quarrelled among themselves and were divided in two; the one part was led by Athanaric, the other by Fritigern. When they made war on one another, Fritigern, having fared badly in the battle, asked the Romans to help him. When the emperor ordered the soldiers in Thrace to help him and fight as his allies, he engaged again, won, and put Athanaric’s party to flight. As though returning thanks to Valens and giving assurance that he was his friend in every respect, he shared his religion, and persuaded the barbarians who obeyed him to believe the same. This, I think, is not the only reason why the whole nation is to this day attached to those who hold the views of Arius. Ulfilas too, who was then their priest, at first did not differ at all from the catholic church; but in the reign of Constantius, having, heedlessly I think, taken part in the synod at Constantinople with Eudoxius and Acacius, he continued in communion with the priests of those who had met at Nicaea. But when he came to Constantinople, it is said that the leaders of the Arian heresy discussed the doctrine with him and promised to support his embassy to the emperor if he believed as they did; and that, compelled by need, or really thinking it better to believe so about God, he communicated with the followers of Arius and cut off both himself and the whole nation from the catholic church. For the Goths, having been taught the things of piety by him as their teacher, and having through him entered on a gentler way of life, readily obeyed him in everything, persuaded that nothing said or done by him was bad, but that everything contributed to the benefit of those who followed it. Indeed he had given very great proof of his virtue, having endured countless dangers for the doctrine while these barbarians were still worshipping as pagans. He was the first inventor of letters for them and translated the sacred books into their own language. This, then, is the reason why the barbarians along the Ister for the most part hold the views of Arius. At that time a multitude of Fritigern’s people were put to death bearing witness for Christ. For Athanaric, angry that those under him too were becoming Christians at Ulfilas’s persuasion, as though the ancestral religion were being overturned, subjected many to many punishments. Some he brought to trial and, when they spoke boldly for the doctrine, killed them; others he killed without even giving them a hearing. For it is said that those ordered by Athanaric to do this carried an image standing on a wagon round to each tent of those reported to be Christians, and ordered them to worship it and sacrifice; and when they refused, they burned the tents with the people in them. I have learned that another still more pitiable thing happened then. Many, men and women, worn out by the violence of those compelling them to sacrifice — some of the women leading little children, others nursing newborn babes at the breast — fled to the tent of the church there. The pagans set it on fire, and all perished. Not long after the Goths made peace with one another; and, carried away into madness, they did harm to the Thracians and ravaged their cities and villages. When Valens learned this, he discovered by experience how greatly he had erred. For thinking that the Goths would be useful to himself and his subjects and fearsome to his enemies, as always under arms, he had neglected the Roman legions, and instead of those usually levied for military service from the cities and villages under the Romans, gold was exacted. Disappointed in his hope, he left Antioch and came in haste to Constantinople. Then the persecution against Christians who believed otherwise than he had a respite. When Euzoius died, Theodore was put forward into his office and led those who held the views of Arius.

About this same time, when the king of the Saracens died, the treaty with the Romans was broken. Mavia his wife, governing the nation, ravaged the cities of the Phoenicians and Palestinians as far as the Egyptians who live on the left as one sails up the Nile, in the region called Arabia. This war was not to be thought easy, as being waged by a woman; for they say that this battle was fierce and hard for the Romans to win, so that the commander of the soldiers in Phoenicia called to his help the general of all the cavalry and infantry of the East. He laughed at the summons and ordered the one who had called him to keep out of the fight; but drawing up his army against Mavia, who commanded against him, he was routed and barely saved by the commander of the Palestinian and Phoenician soldiers. For when that commander saw him in danger, he thought it foolish to stay out of the battle according to his order; and running up he met the barbarians, gave the general the chance of a safer flight, and himself, withdrawing gradually, shot arrows as he fled and drove back the enemy pressing on him with his arrows. Many who live in those parts still remember these things, and among the Saracens they are in songs. As the war weighed heavily, it seemed necessary to send envoys to Mavia about peace. She, the story goes, flatly refused the treaty with the Romans to those who came as envoys about it, unless a certain Moses, who then lived the philosophic life in the desert nearby, were ordained bishop for those under her rule — a man distinguished for the virtue of his life and for divine and marvellous signs. The commanders of the soldiers who reported this, being permitted by the emperor, seized Moses and brought him to Lucius. He, in the presence of the officials and of the assembled crowd, said: “Stop; for I am not able worthily to bear the name and honour of a high priest. But if God indeed should approve this for me, unworthy as I am, I call to witness the creator of heaven and earth that you will not lay on me your hands, stained with the blood and gore of holy men.” Lucius answered: “If you are still ignorant of my faith, you are not acting justly in turning from me before you learn it. If you have been told slanders, come now, hear from me, and be a judge of what I say.” “But to me,” said Moses, “your faith appears very clear; and of what kind it is, bishops, presbyters and deacons bear witness, suffering in exiles beyond the frontier and in the mines. Do you then hold these as tokens of belief about God, which are wholly foreign to Christ and to those who think rightly about God?” When he swore, saying such things, that he would not receive the priesthood if Lucius ordained him, the Roman officials, excusing Lucius, brought Moses to the bishops who were in exile. Ordained by them, he went to the Saracens; and having reconciled them to the Romans, he lived there as their priest and brought many to become Christians, having found very few who shared in the doctrine. For this tribe took its origin from Ishmael, the son of Abraham, and had its name from him, and the ancients called them Ishmaelites after their forefather. But, rubbing off the reproach of bastardy and the low birth of Hagar, Ishmael’s mother, for she was a slave, they named themselves Saracens, as being descended from Sarah, the wife of Abraham. … deriving their race, they all, like the Hebrews, are circumcised, abstain from pork, and keep many other of their customs. That they do not live entirely as the Hebrews do must be ascribed to time, or to their intermingling with the surrounding nations. For Moses, who lived many ages later, gave laws only to those who came out of Egypt. And those living near them, being exceedingly superstitious, naturally corrupted the ancestral way of life of Ishmael, which alone the ancient Hebrews followed before the legislation of Moses, using unwritten customs. Indeed, they worshipped the same demons as their neighbours, and by honouring and naming them in the same way, they showed in the likeness of their religion to their neighbours the cause of the corruption of their ancestral laws. As tends to happen, the long time that passed consigned some things to oblivion and made other things venerable among them. Afterwards some of them, associating with Jews, learned from whom they were descended, returned to their kin, and adopted the Hebrew customs and laws; and from that time many among them still live in Jewish fashion. Not long before the present reign they also began to become Christians. They came to share in the faith in Christ through association with the priests and monks living near them, who practised the philosophic life in the neighbouring deserts, living well and working wonders. It is said that at that time a whole tribe also changed over to Christianity, when Zocomus, its phylarch, was baptized for the following reason. Being childless, he came to a certain monk, drawn by his fame, to meet him, and lamented his misfortune; for having children is of great importance to the Saracens, and, I think, to all barbarians. The monk bade him take courage, prayed, and sent him away, promising that he would have a son if he believed in Christ. When God confirmed the promise by the deed and a son was born to him, Zocomus himself was initiated and brought those under him to the same. And from that time, they say, this tribe became prosperous and populous, and formidable to the Persians and the other Saracens. Such is the way the Saracens first changed over to Christianity, and what we have received about the first who was bishop among them.

Those in the cities who were zealous for the doctrine of the synod at Nicaea took courage again, especially the Alexandrians in Egypt. When Peter returned then from Rome with letters of Damasus confirming the decisions of Nicaea and his own ordination, they handed the churches over to him; and Lucius, driven out, sailed away to Constantinople. The emperor Valens, being, as was natural, full of cares, had no leisure to deal with them. For as soon as he came to Constantinople he was under much suspicion and hatred among the people. For the barbarians, having ravaged Thrace and advanced already as far as the suburbs, were attempting to attack the very walls, no one preventing them. The city took this badly; they blamed the emperor because he did not go out against them but put off the fighting, and they put about the story that he himself was bringing in the enemy. At last, watching a horse race, they openly cried out against him for neglecting the common affairs, and demanded arms, saying they would fight themselves. Valens, insulted, marched against the barbarians; and he threatened, if he returned, to punish them both for the insults of the people and because they had earlier joined the usurper Procopius.

As he was going out of Constantinople, Isaac, a monk, a good man in every way and despising dangers for the sake of the divine, came up to him and said: “Give back, O emperor, to those who believe rightly and keep the tradition of those who met at Nicaea the churches that were taken from them, and you will win the war.” The emperor, angered, ordered him to be arrested and kept in chains until he should return and exact the penalty for his daring. He answered: “But you will not return, if you do not give back the churches.” And so it turned out. For when he went out with the army, the Goths retreated before his pursuit. He, going on, having already passed through Thrace, came to Adrianople. Coming close to the barbarians, who were encamped in a safe place, he engaged them sooner than he should, without first arranging how and where the army must be drawn up. When his cavalry was scattered and the infantry routed, pursued by the enemy, he dismounted in his flight and slipped unnoticed into a small house or tower, with a few following him. The barbarians ran after him to seize him, and rushing onward ran past; for they did not suspect that he was hiding there. But some of those with him, when most of the barbarians had already passed the place and only a few were behind, shot arrows from the roof at those passing by. At this they cried out, “Valens is here.” Those nearby who heard it passed on with a shout what they heard to those in front and behind, so that in a short time even the enemy further off heard, and quickly all came together to him. Surrounding the house and gathering a great deal of wood around it, they set it on fire; and at once the flame, driven by a wind that happened to be blowing, went through the wood. At the same time the things stored in the house caught fire and burned up the emperor himself and those with him. He died at about fifty years of age, having reigned thirteen years with his brother and three after him.

So it befell Valens to die. The barbarians, elated by their victory, ravaged all Thrace, and finally overran the suburbs of Constantinople. At that critical time great help was given by a few of the allied Saracens sent by Mavia, and very much by the people. For Domnica, the wife of Valens, supplied them with a fixed pay from the public treasury, and armed as each happened to be, they went out against the enemy, beat them off and drove them far from the city. Gratian, now governing the whole Roman empire together with his brother, not approving of his uncle’s attitude, which he had kept to the end toward those who believed otherwise than he did, granted return to all who had been condemned to exile for religion, and made a law that all should worship freely as they wished and hold assemblies, except the Manichees and those who held the views of Photinus and Eunomius.

Reckoning that, while the barbarians along the Ister were troubling the Illyrians and Thracians, it was necessary to defend those regions, and necessary also to be present with his subjects in the West, especially as the Alamanni were harming the Gauls there, he made Theodosius his partner in the empire at Sirmium — a man of the Iberian race near the Pyrenees mountains, of noble family, who had often distinguished himself in wars, so that even before he reigned he seemed to his subjects fit to rule. At this time, except at Jerusalem, those who held the views of Arius still held the churches of the East. The Macedonians, especially those in Constantinople, after their agreements with Liberius, did not differ greatly from those who approved the doctrine of those who met at Nicaea, but mingled with them in the cities as with people of the same belief and communicated with one another. But after the law issued by Gratian, gaining freedom, some of the bishops of this heresy took possession of the churches of which they had been deprived under Valens. Meeting at Antioch in Caria, they decreed that the Son ought not to be called of the same essence with the Father, but of like essence, as before. From this some, separating, held assemblies by themselves; while others, condemning the contrariness and contentiousness of those who had decreed this, withdrew from them and agreed more firmly with those who worship according to the doctrine of the synod at Nicaea. Of the bishops who returned at that time, according to Gratian’s law, from the exile that had befallen them in the reign of Valens, some took no thought for the first place, but, preferring the concord of the peoples, begged those of the Arian heresy not to forsake them, nor to cut the church by dissension — the church which, handed down as one by God and the apostles, contentiousness and love of precedence had divided into many. Of this zeal was Eulalius, bishop of Amasea in Pontus. It is said that after his return he found one of Arius’s bishops presiding over his church, and that those who obeyed him in the city were not even fifty in all; and, providing for the union of all, he begged him to take the first place and govern the church jointly, holding the precedence as a reward for concord. But he would not be persuaded; and not long after he was not to lead even the few he had, since they joined the others.