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MACEDONIUS, On his expulsion from the church of
Constantinople, retired to one of the suburbs of the city, where he
died. Eudoxius took possession of his church in the tenth year of the
consulate of Constantius, and the third of Julian, surnamed
Caesar. It is related that, at the dedication of the great church
called "Sophia," when he rose to teach the people, he commenced his
discourse with the following proposition: "The Father is impious,
the Son is pious and that, as these words excited a great commotion
among the people, he added, "Be calm; the Father is impious,
because he worships no one; the Son is pious, because he worships the
Father." On this explanation, he threw his audience into laughter.
Eudoxius and Acacius jointly exerted themselves to the utmost in
endeavoring to cause the edicts of the Nicene Council to fall into
oblivion. They sent the formulary read at Ariminum with various
explanatory additions of their own, to every province of the empire,
and procured from the emperor an edict for the banishment of all who
should refuse to subscribe to it. But this undertaking, which
appeared to them so easy of execution, was the beginning of the
greatest calamities, for it excited commotions throughout the empire,
and entailed upon the Church in every region a persecution more
grievous than those which it had suffered under the pagan emperors.
For if this persecution did not occasion such tortures to the body as
the preceding ones, it appeared more grievous to all who reflected
aright, on account of its disgraceful nature; for both the persecutors
and the persecuted belonged to the Church; and the one was all the
more disgraceful in that men of the same religion treated their fellows
with a degree of cruelty which the ecclesiastical laws prohibit to be
manifested towards enemies and strangers.
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