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EUNOMIUS in his writings praises Aetius, styles him a man of
God, and honours him with many compliments. Yet he was at that time
closely associated with the party by whom Aetius had been repudiated,
and to them he owed his election to his bishopric.
Now the followers of Eudoxius and Acacius, who had assented to the
decrees put forth at Nice in Thrace, already mentioned in this
history, appointed other bishops in the churches of the adherents of
Basilius and Eleusius in their stead. On other points I think it
superfluous to write in detail. I purpose only to relate what concerns
Eunomius.
For when Eunomius had seized on the see of Cyzicus in the lifetime of
Eleusius, Eudoxius urged him to hide his opinions and not make them
known to the party who were seeking a pretext to persecute him.
Eudoxius was moved to offer this advice both by his knowledge that the
diocese was sound in the faith and his experience of the anger
manifested by Constantius against the party who asserted the only
begotten Son of God to be a created being. "Let us" said he to
Eunomius "bide our time; when it comes we will preach what now we are
keeping dark; educate the ignorant; and win over or compel or punish
our opponents." Eunomius, yielding to these suggestions, propounded
his impious doctrine under the shadow of obscurity. Those of his
hearers who had been nurtured on the divine oracles saw clearly that his
utterances concealed under their surface a foul fester of error.
But however distressed they were they considered it less the part of
prudence than of rashness to make any open protest, so they assumed a
mask of heretical heterodoxy, and paid a visit to the bishop at his
private residence with the earnest request that he would have regard to
the distress of men borne hither and thither by different doctrines,
and would plainly expound the truth. Eunomius thus emboldened declared
the sentiments which he secretly held. The deputation then went on to
remark that it was unfair and indeed quite wrong for the whole of his
diocese to be prevented from having their share of the truth. By these
and similar arguments he was induced to lay bare his blasphemy in the
public assemblies of the church. Then his opponents hurried with angry
fervour to Constantinople; first they indicted him before Eudoxius,
and when Eudoxius refused to see them, sought an audience of the
emperor and made lamentation over the ruin their bishop was wreaking
among them. "The sermons of Eunomius," they said, "are more
impious than the blasphemies of Arius." The wrath of Constantius
was roused, and he commanded Eudoxius to send for Eunomius, and, on
his conviction, to strip him of his bishopric. Eudoxius, of course,
though again and again importuned by the accusers, continued to delay
taking action. Then once more they approached the emperor with
vociferous complaints that Eudoxius had not obeyed the imperial
commands in any single particular, and was perfectly indifferent to the
delivery of an important city to the blasphemies of Eunomius. Then
said Constantius to Eudoxius, if you do not fetch Eunomius and try
him, and on conviction of the charges brought against him, punish
him, I shall exile you. This threat frightened Eudoxius, so he
wrote to Eunomius to escape from Cyzicus, and told him he had only
himself to blame because he had not followed the hints given him.
Eunomius accordingly withdrew in alarm, but he could not endure the
disgrace, and endeavoured to fix the guilt of his betrayal on
Eudoxius, maintaining that both he and Aetius had been cruelly
treated. And from that time he set up a sect of his own for all the
men who were of his way of thinking and condemned his betrayal,
separated from Eudoxius and joined with Eunomius, whose name they
bear up to this day. So Eunomius became the founder of a heresy, and
added to the blasphemy of Arius by his own peculiar guilt. He set up
a sect of his own because he was a slave to his ambition, as the facts
distinctly prove. For when Aetius was condemned and exiled,
Eunomius refused to accompany him, though he called him his master and
a man of God, but remained closely associated with Eudoxius.
But when his turn came he paid the penalty of his iniquity; he did not
submit to the vote of the synod, but began to ordain bishops and
presbyters, though himself deprived of his episcopal rank. These then
were the deeds done at Constantinople.
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