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EUSEBIUS, as I have already stated, seized the diocese of
Constantinople by force. And thus having acquired great power in that
city, frequently visiting and holding familiar intercourse with the
emperor, he gained confidence and formed plots against those who were
foremost in the support of the truth. He at first reigned a desire of
going to Jerusalem, to see the celebrated edifices there erected: and
the emperor, who was deceived by his flattery, allowed him to set out
with the utmost honour, providing him with carriages, and the rest of
his equipage and retinue. Theognis, bishop of Nicaea, who, as we
have before said, was his accomplice in his evil designs, travelled
with him. When they arrived at Antioch, they put on the mask of
friendship, and were received with the utmost deference. Eustathius,
the great champion of the faith treated them with fraternal kindness.
When they arrived at the holy places, they had an interview with those
who were of the same opinions as themselves, namely, Eusebius,
bishop of Caesarea, Patrophilus, bishop of Scythopolis, Aetius,
bishop of Lydda, Theodotus, bishop of Laodicea, and others who had
imbibed the Arian sentiments; they made known the plot they had
hatched to them, and went with them to Antioch. The pretext for
their journey was, that due honour might be rendered to Eusebius; but
their real motive was their war against religion. They bribed a low
woman, who made a traffic of her beauty, to sell them her tongue, and
then repaired to the council, and when all the spectators had been
ordered to retire, they introduced the wretched woman. She held a
babe in her arms, of which she loudly and impudently affirmed that
Eustathius was the father. Eustathius, conscious of his innocence,
asked her whether she could bring forward any witness to prove what she
had advanced. She replied that she could not: yet these equitable
judges admitted her to oath, although it is said in the law, that "at
the mouth of two or three witnesses shall the matter be established ;"
and the apostle says, "against an elder receive not any accusation but
before two or three witnesses " But they despised these divine laws,
and admitted the accusation against this great man without any
witnesses. When the woman had again declared upon oath that
Eustathius was the father of the babe, these truth loving judges
condemned him as an adulterer. When the other bishops, who upheld the
apostolical doctrines, being ignorant of all these intrigues, openly
opposed the sentence, and advised Eustathius not to submit to it, the
originators of the plot promptly repaired to the emperor, and
endeavoured to persuade him that the accusation was true, and the
sentence of deposition just; and they succeeded in obtaining the
banishment of this champion of piety and chastity, as an adulterer and
a tyrant. He was conducted across Thrace to a city of Illyricum .
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