Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Sozomen/Book IV/Chapter 21
Chapter XXI.—Proceedings of Macedonius in Mantinium. His Removal from his See when he attempted to remove the Coffin of Constantine the Great. Julian was pronounced Cæsar.
About the same time Eleusius wholly demolished the church of the Novatians in Cyzicus.[1]
The inhabitants of other parts of Paphlagonia, and particularly of
Mantinium, were subjected to similar persecutions. Macedonius, having
been apprised that the majority of these people were followers of
Novatus, and that the ecclesiastical power was not of itself
sufficiently strong to expel them, persuaded the emperor to send four
cohorts against them. For he imagined that men who are unaccustomed to
arms would, on the first appearance of soldiers, be seized with terror,
and conform to his sentiments. But it happened otherwise, for the
people of Mantinium armed themselves with sickles and axes and whatever
other weapons chanced to be at hand, and marched against the military.
A severe conflict ensued, and many of the Paphlagonians fell, but
nearly all the soldiers were slain. Many of the friends of Macedonius
blamed him for having occasioned so great a disaster, and the emperor
was displeased, and regarded him with less favor than before. Inimical
feelings were engendered still more strongly by another occurrence.
Macedonius contemplated the removal of the coffin of the Emperor
Constantine, as the structure in which it had been concealed was
falling into ruin. The people were divided in opinion on this subject:
some concurred in the design, and others opposed it, deeming it impious
and similar to digging up a grave. Those who maintained the Nicene
doctrines were of the latter sentiment, and insisted that no indignity
should be offered to the body of Constantine, as that emperor had held
the same doctrines as themselves. They were besides, I can readily
imagine, eager to oppose the projects of Macedonius. However, without
further delay, Macedonius caused the coffin to be conveyed to the same
church in which the tomb of Acacius the martyr is placed. The people,
divided into two factions, the one approving, the other condemning the
deed, rushed upon each other in the same church, and so much carnage
ensued that the house of prayer and the adjoining place were filled
with blood and slaughtered bodies. The emperor, who was then in the
West, was deeply incensed on hearing of this occurrence; and he blamed
Macedonius as the cause of the indignity offered to his father, and of
the slaughter of the people.
The emperor had determined to visit the East, and held on his way; he conferred the title of Cæsar on his cousin Julian, and sent him to Western Gaul.
Footnotes
[edit]- ↑ Soc. ii. 38; order and detail from Socrates.