Church History 6.7–6.18

When Valentinian set out from Constantinople for Rome, travelling through Thrace, the bishops of the Hellespont and Bithynia, and all others who held it right to call the Son of the same essence with the Father, put forward Hypatianus, bishop of Heraclea …, to go as envoy for them, asking that they be permitted to meet for the correction of the doctrine. When he came and reported the bishops’ request, Valentinian answered: “For me, ranked with the laity, it is not lawful to busy myself with such matters; let the priests, whose concern this is, meet by themselves wherever they wish.” When the emperor had given such an answer to Hypatianus’s embassy, they met at Lampsacus. After deliberating for two months, they finally decreed that what had been done at Constantinople through the zeal of the party of Eudoxius and Acacius was void; that the exposition of the faith which they had brought forward as belonging to the western bishops, and had induced some to sign on the promise of condemning the “unlike in essence,” a promise they had broken, was also invalid; and that the belief should prevail that the Son is like the Father in essence, the addition of “like” being necessary because of the meaning of the hypostases. They decreed that the faith confessed at Seleucia, which had been set out at the dedication of the church at Antioch, should be the rule in every church; that those deposed by those who say that the Son is unlike the Father should take back their own thrones, as unlawfully driven from their churches; and that if anyone wished to accuse them, he should do so at equal risk to himself; and that the judges should be the orthodox bishops of the province and of the neighbouring provinces, meeting in the church where the witnesses of each one’s life are. Having determined these things, they summoned the party of Eudoxius and offered them repentance; and when they would not listen, they made known their decisions to the churches everywhere. Reckoning, as was likely, that Eudoxius would win over the palace to his side and slander them, they decided to forestall him and report what had been done at Lampsacus. This they did, meeting the emperor Valens at Heraclea as he was returning from Thrace; for he had accompanied his brother for some distance on his journey to elder Rome. But Eudoxius had already arranged matters with the emperor and his court as he wished. So when the envoys from Lampsacus came to him, he bade them not to quarrel with Eudoxius. When they objected, and blamed Eudoxius for the deceit practised at Constantinople and for what had been plotted against the decisions of Seleucia, he was moved to anger, ordered them to live in exile, and ordered the churches to be handed over to Eudoxius’s party. Meanwhile he went to Syria; for he suspected that the Persians might break the thirty years’ truce made under Jovian. When they made no move, he stayed at Antioch. Then he condemned Meletius the bishop to exile, but spared Paulinus out of respect for his life. Those who did not communicate with Euzoius he drove from the churches, fined, tortured and otherwise afflicted.

Then, as one may conjecture, things worse than these would have happened, had not the war against Procopius intervened. For he seized power as a usurper at Constantinople, gathered a great army in a short time, and hurried against Valens. Valens, marching from Syria, engaged him near Nacolia, a city of Phrygia; and having taken him alive through the treachery of Agelo and Gomarius, his generals, he put him and the traitors to death pitiably. For it is said that the latter, though he had sworn to be well disposed to them, he had sawn in two; and as for Procopius, he bent down two trees standing not far apart, fastened a leg to each tree, and let them spring up; and they, straightening to their usual position, tore the man apart. When the war had ended, he came to Nicaea; and being at peace, he again troubled those who did not share his belief about the divine. He was exceedingly angry with those who had met at Lampsacus, because they had condemned the bishops who held Arius’s views and the document on the faith set out at Ariminum. In this frame of anger he brought Eleusius from Cyzicus, set up an assembly of bishops of his own belief, and tried to force him to share their faith. At first Eleusius resisted bravely; but fearing exile and the confiscation of his property — for Valens threatened him with these if he did not obey — he did what was ordered. And at once he repented; and returning to Cyzicus he publicly confessed his sin in the church and urged them to ordain another bishop; for it was no longer fitting that he should serve as priest, having become a betrayer of his own doctrine. But the people of Cyzicus, very well disposed to him out of respect for the man’s conduct, would not have another bishop. When Eudoxius, the head of the Arian belief at Constantinople, learned this, he ordained Eunomius bishop of Cyzicus; for he thought that, being a powerful speaker, he would easily draw the people of Cyzicus to his own doctrine by some persuasion. When Eunomius came to Cyzicus by the emperor’s order, Eleusius withdrew and Eunomius took possession of the churches there. Those who followed Eleusius built a house of prayer outside and held their assemblies before the city. Of Eunomius, and of the heresy named after him, I shall speak a little later.

Similar evils were suffered by those at Constantinople who upheld the doctrine of those who met at Nicaea, and with them those who held the views of Novatus. The emperor ordered them all to be driven from the city, and the churches of the Novatians to be shut; but of the others he had nothing to shut, for they had already been deprived of them earlier, in the reign of Constantius. He also condemned to exile at that time Agelius, who since the times of Constantius had led the church of the Novatians in Constantinople. He was said to live in a wonderful way according to the laws of the church; and his life, which is the chief thing in philosophy, was free from the possession of money, as his manner of living showed: for he used one tunic and always walked without shoes. But not long after he himself was recalled, took back the churches under him, and held assemblies without fear. The cause of this was a certain Marcian, who, admired for his life and learning, had formerly served in the palace and was then a presbyter of the Novatian heresy and taught grammar to the emperor’s daughters, Anastasia and Carosa, after whom baths in Constantinople are named to this day. Out of respect and gratitude toward him, these favours were granted to the Novatians alone.

About this time a son named after the emperor Valentinian was born to him in the West; and not long after, Gratian, whom he had had before his accession, was made emperor. Meanwhile, although hail like stones fell unusually in many places, and very great earthquakes did great damage to other cities and especially to Nicaea in Bithynia, the emperor Valens and the bishop Eudoxius did not cease persecuting Christians who believed otherwise than they did. Against those who shared the belief of those who met at Nicaea they seemed somehow to have accomplished their aim; for in the greater part of the territory ruled by Valens, and above all in Thrace, Bithynia and the Hellespont and still further afield, they had neither churches nor priests. But against those who held the views of Macedonius, who in this region were many times more numerous than they, they were angry; and turning against them, they persecuted them severely. These, in fear of the evils threatening them, sent envoys to one another from city to city, and judged it better to take refuge with Valentinian and the bishop of the Romans, and to share the faith with them rather than with Eudoxius and Valens and their party. When this seemed good, they chose three of their number for this purpose, Eustathius bishop of Sebasteia, Silvanus of Tarsus and Theophilus of Castabala, and sent them to the emperor Valentinian, writing to Liberius the bishop of the Romans and to the priests in the West that, since they had a tried and firm faith from the apostles and ought above others to care for religion, they should help their envoys with all their strength and deliberate with them about …, until they decided how to set right the affairs of the church. When they arrived, they learned that the emperor was in Gaul, … the barbarians bordering on that country. The road to Gaul appearing to them … because of the war, they gave the letters to Liberius. Having communicated about the matters of their embassy, they condemned Arius and those who taught as he did; they rejected every heresy opposed to the faith of the synod at Nicaea; and they accepted the term homoousios as meaning the same as “like in essence.” When Liberius had received their written confession of these things, he communicated with them, and wrote to the bishops of the East praising their concord and agreement in doctrine, and reported what had been done with the envoys. The confession of Eustathius’s party was this.

“To our lord brother and fellow minister Liberius, Eustathius, Silvanus and Theophilus, greeting in the Lord. Because of the mad suspicions of the heretics, who do not cease sowing offences in the catholic churches, we, to remove every pretext, confess the synod held at Lampsacus and at Smyrna and in other various places by orthodox bishops; and as envoys of the synod we bring letters to your goodness and to all the bishops of Italy and the West, that we hold and keep the faith which was set out at the holy synod in the time of the blessed Constantine by three hundred and eighteen God-bearing fathers, and which remains until now and for ever in an unmixed and unshaken state, in which the homoousios is placed in holiness and piety against the perversion of Arius. Likewise we confess with our own hand that we, together with those named above, have held and hold the same faith and will keep it to the end; condemning Arius and his impious teaching with his disciples, and every heresy of the Patripassian, of Marcion, of Photinus, of Marcellus, of Paul of Samosata, the teaching of these and all who think like them. All heresies opposed to the aforesaid holy faith, which was piously set out by the holy fathers at Nicaea, we anathematize; anathematizing Arius especially, and what was done at Ariminum contrary to the aforesaid faith of the holy synod of Nicaea, to which we subscribed, persuaded by deceit and perjury, when it was brought to Constantinople from Nice in Thrace.” Having made this confession, they joined to their own confession the faith set out at Nicaea in its own words; and having received letters from Liberius about what had been done, they sailed to Sicily.

A synod was held there too, and the bishops there decreed the same things; having done this, they returned. At that time a synod was being held at Tyana by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Athanasius of Ancyra, Pelagius of Laodicea, Zeno of Tyre, Paul of Emesa, Otreius of Melitene, Gregory of Nazianzus and many others, who had voted at Antioch under Jovian’s reign to uphold the homoousios; and the letters of Liberius and the westerners were read. Overjoyed at these, they wrote to all the churches to read the decisions of the western bishops and the letters of Liberius and of the Italians, the Africans, the western Gauls and the Sicilians — for the envoys from Lampsacus had brought letters from these too — and to reckon the number of them all; for they far outnumbered the synod at Ariminum; and to become of one mind and in communion with them, and to declare in a letter of their own that they held this view; and to meet at Tarsus in Cilicia while it was still spring, on a fixed day which they appointed. So they urged one another to meet. When the synod at Tarsus was already about to assemble, about thirty-four of the bishops of Asia met in Caria in Asia; they praised the zeal for the concord of the churches but rejected the term homoousios, and maintained that the faith set out at Antioch and Seleucia should prevail, as being that of the martyr Lucian and as having been tested by those before them amid dangers and much sweat. But the emperor, through Eudoxius’s zeal, broke up the synod expected in Cilicia, writing about it and adding threats. Separately he ordered the governors of the provinces to drive from the churches the bishops who had been deposed under Constantius and had taken back their priesthood in the reign of Julian. Because of this order the authorities in Egypt too were eager to take the churches there from Athanasius and drive him from the city. For no ordinary penalty was attached to the imperial letter if this were not done: it condemned all alike, governors and the soldiers under them and the city councils, to pay large sums of money, and threatened them with bodily tortures. The multitude of the Christians gathered and asked the prefect not to drive out the bishop heedlessly, but to examine more precisely the terms of the imperial letter, as applying only to those who had returned under Julian after exile under Constantius. Athanasius, they said, had been exiled under Constantius, but had been recalled by him and had recovered his see; Julian, who recalled all others, had persecuted him alone; and Jovian again had recalled him. Saying this they did not convince him; but they held out nonetheless and would not allow force to be used. As the people streamed together from every side and there was much uproar and turmoil throughout the city and a riot was expected, the prefect reported to the emperor what had happened and allowed Athanasius to remain in the city. Some days later, when the riot that had been stirred up seemed to have subsided, Athanasius secretly left the city in the evening and hid in a certain place. At an untimely hour of the same night the prefect of Egypt and the commander of the troops there seized the church in which he had his lodging; and having searched for him everywhere, even in the upper rooms, they withdrew, having failed in their plan. For they thought that, now that the multitude had forgotten its former agitation, if they attacked when all had turned to sleep, they would easily carry out the emperor’s order and keep the city free from riot. Everyone was naturally amazed that Athanasius was not found. For whether he withdrew because a divine power had forewarned him, or because certain persons had told him, both come to the same thing; and it seemed beyond human foresight to learn of the plot in advance, at so critical a moment, and guard against it. Others say that, foreseeing the irrational movement of the multitude, and fearing lest he should seem to be the cause of the evils that would follow, he spent all this time in his father’s tomb. So he escaped and lay hidden. Not long afterwards the emperor wrote that he should return and have the church. I judge that Valens came to write this against his intention, either reckoning with the prevailing esteem for Athanasius, and that Valentinian would probably blame him for it, since he upheld the doctrine of those who met at Nicaea; or, because those who praised Athanasius were many, suspecting their agitation, lest they cause some revolt to the harm of public affairs. I think too, as is likely, that the heads of the Arian heresy did not press very hard in this matter, reckoning that if he were driven from the city, he would again trouble the emperors, would gain from this an occasion for conversing with them, and would win Valens over, and stir Valentinian to anger as one of the same mind. For they were especially fearful because of what had happened under Constantius, having experienced his virtue. For even then he so overcame his opponents’ plots that Constantius gladly gave up to him the churches of Egypt, and he hardly yielded to Constantius’s letters to return from Italy for this purpose. This, then, I conjecture to be the reason why Athanasius was not deprived of the church as the others were. For the others a persecution followed like the pagan one. Exile beyond the frontier was pressed upon those who refused to share the same belief; houses of prayer were taken from some and handed over to others. But Egypt was so far untouched by these things, while Athanasius was still alive.

The emperor Valens decided to go to Antioch on the Orontes. While he was on his way, Eudoxius died, having held the churches in Constantinople for eleven years. They were entrusted to Demophilus, ordained as his successor by those who held the views of Arius. Those of the doctrine of the synod at Nicaea, thinking this had happened opportunely for them, elected a certain Evagrius as their bishop. He was ordained by Eustathius, who had governed the church of the Antiochenes in Syria; for, recalled from exile by Jovian, he was then living secretly in Constantinople, teaching those who shared his belief and urging them to remain in the same opinion about the divine. Thereupon those of the Arian heresy, stirred to riot, harshly persecuted the supporters of Evagrius’s ordination. The emperor, learning this at Nicomedia, halted his journey for a time; and fearing lest the city suffer some harm from riot, he decided to send to Constantinople as many soldiers as he thought sufficient for this. He ordered Eustathius to be arrested and to live at Bizye, a city of Thrace, and Evagrius to be taken elsewhere. So it turned out.

Those who held the views of Arius, becoming bolder, as tends to happen to the prosperous, plotted intolerably against those of the opposite belief. They, insulted in their bodies, handed over to magistrates and to prisons, and their property little by little consumed by the frequent fines that followed, decided to petition the emperor, so as to find some release from their sufferings. For this they chose eighty churchmen, led by Urbanus, Theodore and Menedemus. When they arrived at Nicomedia, they presented a petition in which they had written down their sufferings. The emperor was extremely angry, but did not make plain how angry he was; secretly he ordered the prefect to arrest and kill them. The prefect, fearing lest the multitude riot if so many pious men who had done no wrong were put to death without reason, pretended to condemn them to exile. On the pretext of sending them away, he put them on board a ship, and they did not bear this ignobly. When they were sailing in the middle of the gulf called Astacenus, the sailors, as they had been ordered, set fire to the vessel and withdrew, leaping into the ship’s boat. The ship, driven by a following wind, held out on its course as far as Dacibiza, a place on the coast of Bithynia; and as soon as it touched land it broke up, burned together with the men.

Valens left Nicomedia and made his way to Antioch. Meanwhile, staying in Cappadocia, he was eager, as was his custom, to harm the orthodox and to hand over the churches there to those who held the views of Arius. He thought he would accomplish this easily because, through some disagreement, Basil had been brought to vexation with Eusebius, who then governed the church of Caesarea. For this reason Basil had withdrawn to Pontus and was living with the monks practising the philosophic life there. The people, and especially the most powerful and the wisest, held Eusebius under suspicion, as having become the cause of the flight of a man most renowned for his life and eloquence, and were planning to abandon him and hold assemblies by themselves. Basil, so as not to be responsible for a church not free from disturbances because of the risings of those of other belief, kept quiet in the monasteries about Pontus. The emperor and the bishops with him — for those of the Arian heresy were always with him — were made more eager for the attempt by Basil’s absence and the people’s hatred of Eusebius. But it turned out against their expectation. For as soon as it was announced that they were marching on Cappadocia, Basil left Pontus and came of his own accord to Caesarea; and being reconciled with Eusebius, he was well disposed to him, and came opportunely to the church’s help with his words. Valens, having failed in his effort, then withdrew unsuccessful with the bishops who were with him.

Some time later Valens came again to Cappadocia and found that Basil had been entrusted with the churches there after the death of Eusebius. Having resolved to drive him out, he refrained from the plot against his will. For it is said that on the night following the attempt his wife fell into terrors, and Galates, the only son he had, died of a swift illness. Everyone thought that God had avenged what had been planned against Basil by taking away the child to afflict the parents. Valens too supposed this; at any rate, after his son died, he troubled Basil no more. While the boy was alive but ill and about to die, he sent to Basil begging him to pray for the sick child. For as soon as Valens came to Caesarea, the prefect summoned Basil and ordered him to adopt the emperor’s beliefs, and threatened him with death if he disobeyed. Basil said that it would be worth much to him, and that he would be very grateful, if he would quickly free him from the bonds of the body. When the prefect told him to deliberate that day and the following night, and not to leap heedlessly into evident danger, but to come the next day and make his mind plain, he said: “I have no need to deliberate. I shall be the same tomorrow too. For, being a creature myself, I will not endure to worship one like me and confess him God, nor to share religion with you and the emperor. For even if you are very distinguished and govern no small … , I will not … neglect my faith toward God, which I would never betray, though condemned to confiscation of property, or exile, or death. For none of these can grieve me. I have no property but a ragged cloak and a few books; I dwell on the earth as one always passing through; and my body, through weakness, will be beyond feeling and torture after the first blow.” When Basil had spoken so freely, the prefect, admiring the man’s virtue, reported to the emperor. During the celebration of the feast of the Theophany, the emperor came to the church with his officials and guards, offered gifts at the holy table, entered into conversation with Basil, and praised his wisdom and the order and good discipline of his priestly and liturgical ministry. Yet not long after, through the slander of his opponents, the decision prevailed that Basil should live in exile; and the night came on which this was to be done. But suddenly fever seized the emperor’s son and cast him into a sudden and dangerous illness. The father threw himself on the ground, mourning the child while still alive; and being at a loss and eager by every means to keep him safe, he allowed his household to summon Basil to visit the sick boy; for, having so lately insulted him, he was ashamed to send for him himself. As soon as he came, the child grew better, so that many then maintained that he would not have died, had not the emperor also called in men of other belief together with Basil to pray for the child. It is said also that the prefect fell ill then, and that, when he begged and entreated Basil, he became well. But these things perhaps will not seem marvellous when considered in the case of Basil, a man of the highest philosophy and exceedingly renowned for his eloquence.

He and Gregory, being contemporaries, were known, so to speak, as rivals in virtue. For both, when young, studied at Athens under Himerius and Prohaeresius, the most esteemed sophists of the time, and afterwards at Antioch under Libanius the Syrian. Disdaining to practise as sophists and to plead at law, they resolved to live the philosophic life according to the rule of the church. Having spent some time on the studies of the Greek philosophers and having mastered the interpretations of the sacred words from the works of Origen and of those before and after him who were renowned for interpreting the sacred books, they were of great help at that time to those who shared the belief of those who met at Nicaea. For each bravely stood up for this doctrine of the synod at Nicaea against those who held the views of Arius, and refuted them as neither holding the other doctrines rightly nor the opinions of Origen, on which they most relied. By common agreement, or by lot, as I have learned from some, they divided the dangers between them. Basil went round the cities of Pontus, established many communities of monks there, and by teaching the multitudes persuaded them to think as he did. Gregory, who had been allotted the oversight of Nazianzus, a small city, after his father, for this reason visited other places too, and above all Constantinople continually. Not long after he was entrusted with the leadership of the people there by the vote of many priests. For since there was neither a bishop nor a church there, the doctrine was in danger of no longer existing at all in Constantinople

When the emperor came to Antioch, he drove entirely out of the churches there and in the surrounding cities those who believed as those who met at Nicaea, and afflicted them with punishments of every kind; so that some maintain that he put many of them to death in various ways and ordered them to be thrown into the river Orontes. Learning that at Edessa there was a famous house of prayer named after the apostle Thomas, he came to see it. Since the houses of prayer had been taken from them there too, when he saw those of the catholic church gathered in the plain before the city, he is said to have reviled the prefect and struck him on the jaw with his fist, for having allowed such assemblies to take place contrary to his order. Modestus — for that was the prefect’s name — though he was of another belief, secretly sent word to the Edessenes to take care not to meet the next day at their usual place to pray; for he had been ordered by the emperor to punish those who were caught. He uttered these threats intending that few or none should be in danger, and eager to excuse himself with respect to the ruler’s anger. But the Edessenes, making nothing of the threat, streamed together at dawn more zealously than before and filled the usual place. When this was reported, Modestus did not know what to do; but at a loss in the circumstances, he nevertheless went to the plain. A certain woman, dragging a little child and trailing her cloak carelessly, against the decorum fitting a woman, as if hurrying on some urgent business, cut through the line of soldiers leading the prefect. Seeing this, Modestus ordered her to be arrested, called her, and demanded that she tell the reason for her running. She said that it was to reach the plain quickly, where those of the catholic church were assembling. “Are you the only one,” said Modestus, “who does not know that the prefect is about to go there at once and will kill all whom he finds?” “Yes, I have heard,” she said, “and for this very reason I must run, so that I may not be too late and miss bearing witness for God.” “But why are you bringing this child with you?” asked the prefect. “So that he too,” she said, “may share in the common suffering and be thought worthy of the same reward.” Modestus, admiring the woman’s courage, turned back to the palace; and consulting with the ruler about her, persuaded him that what had been decided must not be carried out, showing it to be shameful and inexpedient. So the city of the Edessenes, as a whole people, confessed in the manner described for the doctrine.