Church History 1 part 13/18

But when all, abandoning the city, gathered outside the walls, he himself came to Edessa, and ordered the prefect (Modestus was then in that office) to muster the soldiers under him who were accustomed to exact the taxes, and to take along those present of the armed forces, and to disperse the assembled crowd, striking with rods and clubs and, if necessary, using the other instruments of war.

At dawn, then, the prefect did what had been commanded.

And as he passed through the marketplace, he saw a woman carrying an infant in her arms and hastening along very much.

For she even broke through the ranks of the leading men, disregarding all of them.

For a soul set ablaze by divine zeal admits no human fear, but reckons such terrors as laughter and child's play.

Then the prefect, seeing her and understanding what was happening, had her brought before him and asked where she was going.

"I have learned," she said, "of the plots contrived against the servants of God, and I wish to go and join those who share my faith, longing to receive along with them the slaughter you are bringing upon them."

"But the infant," said the prefect, "why ever are you carrying it?" And she said:

"So that this child too may share with me in a death so worthy of love."

Having learned this from the woman, and through her having come to know the eagerness of them all, the prefect reported it to the emperor and made clear that the slaughter to come would be in vain;

"for we shall reap nothing from this act but ill repute," he said, "and we shall not extinguish their eagerness."

Having said this, he did not allow the multitude to undergo the trial of the grievous things that had been expected;

but he was ordered to bring their leaders—I mean the presbyters and deacons—and to do one of two things: either persuade them to commune with the wolf, or drive them out of the city and send them off to some remote regions.

When he had gathered them all together, he used gentle words and tried to persuade them to follow the emperor's decrees;

for he said it was full of madness for a mere handful of men to resist an emperor who ruled over so great and so many peoples.

But since they all stood there in silence, the prefect said to their leader (he was Eulogius, a man worthy of praise):

"Why in the world do you not answer what has been said by us?" And he replied:

"I did not think it right," he said, "to answer when I had not been asked anything."

"But surely," said the prefect, "I have gone through many words, exhorting you to what will be of benefit."

But Eulogius said that those words had been addressed to all of them, and that he considered it improper to push the others aside and answer on his own;

"but if you should ask me alone, I will declare my own opinion."

"Well then," said the prefect, "commune with the emperor."

And he replied ironically and with much wit:

Perceiving this, the prefect grew angry, and heaping abuse upon the old man, he added the following as well:

"That is not what I said, you dolt, but I exhorted you to commune with those with whom the emperor communes."

And when the old man said that he too had a shepherd and followed his directions, the prefect at once seized eighty of them together and sent them off to Thrace.

As they were being led away, they enjoyed the greatest possible attention and care;

for cities and villages came out to meet them, honoring these victorious contestants.

But envy, arming their adversaries, prompted them to tell the emperor that the disgrace intended for those men had procured them the greatest honor.

On learning this, Valens ordered them to be divided into pairs, and to be scattered—some to Thrace, others to the remote regions of Arabia, and others to the small towns of the Thebaid.

They say that these most cruel men even separated those whom nature had joined together, and parted brothers from one another.

Eulogius, the leader of the others, and Protogenes, who came next after him, he sent to Antinoë, a city of the Thebans.

But I, for my part, will not consign their virtue to oblivion.

For when they found that the bishop of the city was of like mind with them, they took part in the church assemblies; but seeing that very few gathered there, and inquiring into it, they learned that those who inhabited the city were pagans, and, as was fitting, they were grieved and lamented this unbelief;

yet they did not think that lamenting alone was sufficient, but as far as they were able, they devoted their care to healing them.

For the divine Eulogius, shut up in a small dwelling, entreated the God of all the whole day and the whole night through.

But the admirable Protogenes, who had been trained in the shorthand script devised by Eunomius and practiced in writing with speed, found a suitable place and, turning it into a schoolroom and place of instruction, became a teacher of boys, and at the same time taught them to write swiftly and instructed them in the divine oracles.

When one of the boys fell ill, he went to the house, and, taking hold of the sick boy's right hand, drove out the disease by prayer.

When the fathers of the other children learned of this, they brought him to their houses and entreated him to help those who were sick.

But he said he would not entreat God to drive out the disease until the sick person had first been deemed worthy of the gift of baptism.

And they eagerly obeyed (for their longing for health impelled them), and thus they reaped health of soul and body at the same time.

And if he ever persuaded one of the healthy to partake of divine grace, he would lead him to Eulogius, and, knocking at the door, would beg him to open it and to set the Lord's seal upon the one thus caught.

And when Eulogius was displeased at having his prayer interrupted, Protogenes would say that the salvation of those who were straying was more urgent.

And all marveled at Protogenes, seeing him work such wonders, and impart the light of the knowledge of God to so many, and yet yield the first place to Eulogius and bring those he had caught to him.

Thus they naturally reckoned that his (Eulogius's) virtue was far greater and more excellent.

And when the storm had ceased and a clear calm had come, and they were ordered to return, all escorted them on their way, wailing and weeping, not least the leader of the church, who was being deprived of their cultivation.

And when they reached their native land, the divine Eulogius, since the great Barses had passed on to the life free of grief, was entrusted with the helm of the church that Barses had governed;

while the admirable Protogenes was appointed to cultivate Carrhae, a city that lay untilled, full of pagan thorns, and in need of much diligent labor.

These things, then, took place after the peace of the churches.

But Valens, having stripped almost every church, so to speak, of its shepherd, set out for Caesarea, whose inhabitants were Cappadocians; and at that time Basil, the luminary of the whole world, presided over it.

He dispatched the prefect, charging him either to persuade Basil to embrace communion with Eudoxius, or, if he would not be persuaded, to drive him out.

For having heard beforehand of the man's renown, he did not wish to attack him first, lest, by nobly receiving the assault and repelling it, he should become a model of courage for the others.

But the scheme proved to resemble a spider's web.

For the old accounts sufficed for the benefit of the other bishops, and like towers, they kept the wall of the faith unshaken.

The prefect, however, having arrived at Caesarea and summoned Basil the Great, treated him with honor and used gentle words toward him, exhorting him to yield to the circumstances and not to abandon so many churches for the sake of a slight precision of doctrines;

and he promised also the emperor's friendship, and the benefits that would come to many through him as a result of it.

But that divine man said that such words were fitting for mere boys.

For it is they, and those like them, who gape after such things;

but those who have been nurtured in the divine oracles cannot bear to abandon a single syllable of the divine doctrines, and for their sake, if need be, they embrace every kind of death.

As for the friendship of the emperor, I consider it a great thing when joined with piety, but apart from piety I call it destructive.

When the prefect grew angry and said that he was foolish, the divine Basil said:

"I pray that I may keep this folly forever."

And when he was ordered to depart, to deliberate on what should be done, and to declare his decision on the following day (and a threat was attached to these words as well), that all-glorious man is said to have replied:

"I, for my part, shall come to you tomorrow the very same man I am today;

but do not you change your mind—rather, carry out your threats."

After these words, the prefect, going to meet the emperor, reported what had been said, and made known the man's virtue, and revealed the courage and boldness of his soul.

And at that time the emperor, remaining silent, entered the city.

But when he saw that plagues sent by God had fallen upon his household (for his son, having fallen ill, was at the very gates of death, and various afflictions were besieging his wife), and when he recognized the cause of these grim events, he entreated the divine man—whom he had threatened to punish—to come to his house.

And the generals carried out the imperial commands.

Then the great Basil, arriving at the palace and seeing the emperor's son at the very point of death, promised that he would be restored to life if he were deemed worthy of the most holy baptism at the hands of the orthodox;

and having said this, he departed.

But he, remembering his oaths after the manner of the foolish Herod, ordered those present with him from the Arian faction to baptize the child;

and the child immediately met the end of his life.

And Valens, repenting and reflecting on the harmful truthfulness of his oaths, entered the divine temple, enjoyed the teaching of the great Basil, and offered the customary gifts at the altar.

And having ordered him to come within the very curtains where he was seated, he engaged him in much conversation concerning divine doctrines, and indeed heard him speak.

And the divine Basil, smiling, [said]:

But when that man, growing still more indignant, threatened him:

"It is your business," said the great Basil, "to concern yourself with the seasoning of sauces;"

"for you cannot comprehend divine doctrines, since your ears are stopped up."

This, then, is what he said to him.

But the emperor so admired the man that he even bestowed the finest estates he possessed there upon the poor who were cared for by him — those maimed in their whole body who stand in especial need of the greatest care.

Thus, then, did the great Basil escape the first assault of Valens.

He again exhorted him to join the party of the opponents, and then, failing to persuade him, ordered the decree of exile to be drawn up.

But when he attempted to confirm this with his own hand, he did not draw out a single stroke of a letter;

and when the second and the third reed-pen also suffered the same fate, while he persisted in his effort to ratify that impious law, his right hand was shaken and seized with trembling;

and his soul, filled with terror, tore the document apart with both hands.

And the Ruler of the universe so persuaded him that he himself gave up, and let the others too be spared that fate, and showed this man to be superior to the plots laid against him;

through what happened concerning this man displaying His own power, and through the other dispensation proclaiming the courage of the best of men.

Here, then, Valens, having made his assault, was disappointed of his hope.

But in Alexandria, when Athanasius the victorious, after his many contests and his crowns equal in number, had received release from his labors and passed into the life free from toil, Peter, a most excellent man, received the primacy — that blessed head having first cast his vote for him, and all having come to agree with it, both the clergy and those in office of highest rank.

And all the people too made known their delight by their acclamations;

for he had shared in the toils of Athanasius, had been with him both when he was at home and when he was abroad, and had endured with him dangers of every kind.

On this account also the bishops nearby assembled together, and those who spent their time in the ascetic arenas, leaving them, deemed Peter worthy to inherit the throne of Athanasius.

But when they had established him upon the episcopal throne, immediately the governor of the province, having gathered together the pagan and Jewish crowd, surrounded the precincts of the church, ordering Peter to come out;

for he even threatened to drive him out against his will.

He did these things ostensibly to gratify the emperor and to fill those of opposing views with calamities, but in truth he was sating himself with impious rage.

For he was devoted to the worship of idols, and considered the tempest that had befallen the church a most splendid festival.

The admirable Peter, then, seeing this unexpected war, went out secretly, and boarding a ship, set sail for Rome.

A few days later, Euzoius arrived from Antioch bringing Lucius, and handed the churches over to him — Lucius, of whose impiety and lawlessness Samosata too had had experience.

But the multitude, having been nourished on the teachings of Athanasius, and then seeing food of the opposite kind set before them, withdrew from the assemblies of the church.

Lucius, employing the servants of the idols as his bodyguard, tortured some, imprisoned others, forced others to flee, and, after the manner of barbarians, plundered the houses of still others.

But these things the admirable Peter has related better in a letter;

and I, after relating one unholy deed of Lucius, will insert that letter into my history.

Men in Egypt who emulated the way of life of the angels fled from the tumults of civic life and chose instead the life in the desert, rendering the sandy and barren land fruitful, bringing forth to God, as their sweetest and fairest fruit, the virtue which He had ordained.

Of this way of life many others too were founders, but the best trainer of the ascetic communities was that much-hymned Antony, who made the desert a wrestling-school of virtue for the ascetics.

The followers of that man, then (for he himself had already put in, laden with the greatest and fairest cargoes, at the windless harbors), that wretched and thrice-miserable man drove out;

and leading forth from their caves the leaders of those divine choirs — the celebrated Macarius, and his namesake, and Isidore, and the others — he sent them off to a certain island inhabited by impious men, which had never before received any teacher of piety.

For the idol, leaving the ancient dwelling it possessed, drove the priest's daughter mad, and led her, raving like a Bacchant, down to the shore, where the boatmen had moored the ferry;

and using the girl's tongue as an instrument, it cried out through her the very words that the woman possessed by the spirit of Python had cried at Philippi.

And all heard, both men and women, that demon saying:

"O your power, O servants of Christ! We have been driven by you from everywhere — from cities and villages, from mountains and hills, from the desert bereft of inhabitants."

"We hoped that, dwelling on this little island, we should be rid of your darts, but we have been cheated of our hope;"

"for it was those who persecute you who sent you here — not to distress you, but to drive us out through you."

"We are departing even from this little island;"

"for we are being struck by the rays of your virtue."

Saying these things and others like them, they cast the girl down to the ground, and themselves vanished utterly.

But that divine company, praying, raised the girl up, and restored her to her father sound of mind and in good health;

and the spectators of the miracle, rolling before the feet of those holy men, besought to partake of the provisions of salvation.

And they demolished the precinct of the idols, and, illumined by the rays of their teaching, were deemed worthy of the grace of most holy baptism.

When these things had become known in the city, all the people gathered together in a body, reviling Lucius and declaring that divine wrath would overtake them unless that holy company of saints were released;

and Lucius, fearing thus the uproar of the city, permitted those divine men to return to their caves.

These things, then, are sufficient to show that man's abomination and impiety;

but the letter of the admirable Peter will teach more clearly the lawless deeds that were dared.

But I, avoiding excessive length, will insert into my history what lies in the body of the letter.

Palladius, the governor of the province, being a pagan in religion and always grovelling before idols, having often contemplated waging war against Christ, gathered together the aforesaid crowds and rushed against the church, as though hastening to subdue barbarians.

Then indeed the worst things happened.

But even merely wishing to dictate this, since the memory caused me such pain, I let loose an unmeasured flood of tears;

and I would have remained long in this state, had I not, by a divine reasoning, brought myself to find relief.

For in the church called after Theonas, the crowds, having burst in, raised, instead of solemn words, acclamations in praise of idols; instead of the reading of the divine Scriptures, indecent clapping of hands and effeminate voices mixed with shamefulness; and against the virgins of Christ, insults which the tongue cannot bear to utter;

for it is shameful even to speak of it.

Indeed, anyone of right mind who heard these things would have stopped his ears, and would rather have prayed to become deaf than to be an ear-witness of their shameful speech.

But would that they had erred by words alone, being content with these, and had not proceeded also in deed to the...

for reviling, whatever kind it may happen to be, is easy to bear among those in whom the mind of Christ and divine teachings dwell.

These men, then, being vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, wrinkling up their noses and pouring forth, so to speak, a long, lewd snorting from their nostrils as from a spout, tore the garments of the holy virgins of Christ, whose asceticism bore the mark of the holy angels, and paraded them naked, as nature made them, in triumph through the whole city, mocking them wantonly in whatever manner they pleased; and altogether the things done were cruel and monstrous.

If, then, anyone, moved with compassion at these things, tried to stop them with words of exhortation, he was let go only after being wounded.

But alas for the calamities! Many suffered violent corruption of body; many of the virgins, struck on the head with clubs, remained speechless and lifeless, their bodies not even being permitted to be given over for holy burial;

But why do I recount small things in the presence of great ones? Why do I linger over these instead of pressing swiftly on to what is more urgent — matters at which, I well know, you will marvel and, like us, remain speechless for a long time, astonished at the Lord's loving-kindness, that He did not utterly destroy the whole?

For things which, according to what is written, neither happened nor were heard of in the days of our fathers — these the impious men performed upon the very altar.

For as on the platform of a disorderly stage, they made a boy — one who had denied his male nature and desired the female, and who, as it is written, had painted his eyes with antimony and reddened his face with rouge, after the effeminate fashion of their idols — dance upon the very altar, where we invoke the descent of the Holy Spirit, turning about in a circle and gesturing this way and that with both hands, while they themselves laughed broadly and let loose lawless cries.

But others again, considering even this to be disorderly, and reckoning what had gone before to be more decent than lawless, took one of their own number, most notorious for shamefulness, stripped him of both his garments and his modesty, exposing him just as nature had shaped him, set him upon the throne of the church, and proclaimed him a shameful orator against Christ.

For instead of divine words he put forward shamefulness; instead of solemn discourse, wantonness; instead of piety, impiety; instead of self-control, fornication, adultery, sodomy, theft, and, besides other things, drunkenness and gluttony, urging that these were profitable for life.

These things being so, and I myself having withdrawn from the church (for how could it be otherwise, where there were incursions of soldiers, a populace bribed to riot, and lavish gifts of money and crowds of pagans brought in with the greatest of promises?), one Lucius was sent, ostensibly as my successor — a man who regarded the bishopric, purchased with gold, as a worldly dignity, and who was eager to possess the wickedness and the deeds of a wolf — appointed not by a synod of orthodox bishops, not by the vote of true clergy, not at the request of the people, as the ordinances of the church prescribe.

Accompanying such a man (for he could not enter the city by an ordinary entrance) were none of the bishops, none of the presbyters, none of the deacons, no crowds of the people; nor did monks go before him chanting hymns from the Scriptures; but there was Euzoius, who had formerly been deposed together with Arius — a deacon of our own Alexandria — at the holy and great synod of Nicaea, and who now, invested with authority, was ravaging the church of Antioch; and there was also the count of the imperial largesses, bringing with him an unmeasured multitude of soldiers, a man ever notorious in every impiety, Magnus by name;

who, in the days of Julian, had burned down the church of the Berytians (this being a distinguished city of Phoenicia), and who, in the times of Jovian of blessed memory, was compelled to restore it at his own expense, and came within a little of having his head cut off, had he not, through much running about, obtained the imperial clemency.

It is fitting, then, that your zeal should take account from this of the sort and magnitude of the wrongs committed against the church of God, when so great a tyrant as the aforesaid rose up against us — a zeal which I entreat may be roused to avenge what has taken place.

For Lucius, who had repeatedly been disavowed by your piety and by the orthodox bishops everywhere, straightway entered the city that was — for good reason — hostilely disposed toward him.

For not only does he say, like the ill-famed fool in the Psalms:

"Christ is not the true God" — but he has also been corrupted in his ways and has corrupted others, rejoicing at the blasphemies hurled against the Savior by those who worship the creature rather than the Creator.

And how could it be otherwise? For, holding a mind akin to that of the Greeks, this accursed man has of late dared to worship a novel god.

For before his very eyes they sent forth these praises:

"Well have you come, O bishop!" — not calling him "son"

"Serapis, loving you, has brought you here!" — naming their ancestral idol.

An inseparable partner in his impiety, a bitter henchman, and a most savage satrap, having gathered together the crowds placed under his own charge, seized presbyters and deacons, nineteen in number — some of whom had passed their eightieth year — as though they had been caught in some abominable crime hostile to Roman law; and, setting up a public tribunal, he tried to compel them (not knowing the laws that uphold the virtue of Christians) to betray the ancestral faith handed down to us by the apostles through the fathers, taking pleasure in this and insisting that the most humane Augustus Valens approved.

"Be persuaded, you wretches," he said with a loud voice, "be persuaded to the mind of the Arians."

"For the Divine will pardon you, even though you still hold the true religion in your hearts, if you do this not of your own free will but under compulsion."

"For to compulsion a defense remains, but upon willingness follows accusation."

"Therefore, setting such reasonings before your eyes, come readily, laying aside all delay, subscribing to the doctrine of Arius, which Lucius now proclaims by name, knowing well that, if you obey, you will have money and resources and honors from the emperor; but if you refuse, you will experience prison and racks and tortures and scourges and houses of correction, and, deprived at once of money and property and banished from your homeland, you will be condemned to dwell in harsh places."

But this "noble" man, mixing deceit with threat, both urged and compelled everyone to depart from their pious conviction.

But they, considering treachery to piety more bitter than every torment (for so it is), when compelled, answered him with such words as these, subjecting both his deceit and his threats to virtue and noble resolve alike:

"Cease, then; cease trying to frighten us with these words."

"Refrain from uttering vain words."

"We worship neither a newly-come nor a recent god; and even though you foam as you rage in vain and dash against us like a violent wind, we live as citizens according to the doctrines of piety even unto death — never having thought of God as powerless, unwise, or apart from truth, nor as at one time being a Father and at another not, as this impious Arian holds, glorifying the Son as merely temporal or transient."

"For if, according to the Arian madmen, the Son is a creature who did not exist alongside the Father, then the Father himself must also have come into being; for while the Son did not yet subsist, according to them God was at one time not a Father."

"But if He is always Father, then obviously the one truly begotten of Him subsists eternally, and not by way of emanation (for God is impassible); how then is he not foolish and raving mad who thinks that there was a time when the Son — through whom all things were graciously brought into being — did not exist? Our fathers, at any rate, from every part of the world — from whom these men, having fallen away, have fittingly become fatherless — assembled at Nicaea and anathematized the evil doctrine of Arius, which this younger man now champions; they declared the Son to be, not of a different substance from the Father, as you now compel us to say, but of the same substance."

"Having rightly understood this with pious mind, from a great collection of divine sayings, they confessed the Son to be consubstantial." Those who spoke such things, and things like them, he imprisoned for many days, thinking to shift them from their pious resolve.

But they, rather, like the noblest athletes in the stadium, having extinguished all cowardice, anointing themselves with the manly deeds of the fathers through divine reasonings, held their resolve toward piety all the more nobly, considering the racks a gymnasium of virtue.

So then, as they contended and became a spectacle, as the blessed apostle writes, to both angels and men, the whole city ran together, beholding the athletes of Christ overcoming the scourges of the tormenting judge by endurance, and raising trophies through patience against impiety, and displaying triumphs over the Arians.

This bitter enemy, thinking to subdue them through threats and deceit, supposed he would hand them over to those who were impious toward Christ.

Having thus abandoned hope in the assaults of tortures devised with cruel ingenuity — while all the people mourned variously and for many reasons — this bitter man, devoid of all humanity, once more gathered together the customary crowds for tumult, and summoned them to judgment, or rather to a foregone condemnation, at the harbor of the sea, while, as usual, the hired shouts of the mob were let loose against them by the idolaters and the Jews.