Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Sozomen/Book VI/Chapter 35
Chapter XXXV.—The Wooden Tripod and the Succession of the Emperor, through a Knowledge of its Letters. Destruction of the Philosophers; Astronomy.
Such is the information which I have been enabled to collect concerning the ecclesiastical philosophers of that time. As to the pagans, they were nearly all exterminated about the period to which we have been referring.[1]
Some among them, who were reputed to excel in philosophy, and who
viewed with extreme displeasure the progress of the Christian religion,
were devising who would be the successor of Valens on the throne of the
Roman Empire, and resorted to every variety of mantic art for the
purpose of attaining this insight into futurity. After various
incantations, they constructed a tripod of laurel wood, and they wound
up with the invocations and words to which they are accustomed; so that
the name of the emperor might be shown by the collection of letters
which were indicated, letter by letter, through the machinery of the
tripod and the prophecy. They were gaping with open mouth for Theodore,
a man who held a distinguished military appointment in the palace. He
was a pagan and a learned man. The disposition of the letters, coming
as far as the delta of his name, deceived the philosophers. They hence
expected that Theodore would very soon be the emperor. When their
undertaking was informed upon, Valens was as unbearably incensed, as if
a conspiracy had been formed against his safety. Therefore all were arrested; Theodore and the
constructors of the tripod were commanded to be put to death, some with
fire, others with the sword. Likewise for the same reason the most
brilliant philosophers of the empire were slain; since the wrath of the
emperor was unchecked, the death penalty advanced even to those who
were not philosophers, but who wore garments similar to theirs; hence
those who applied themselves to other pursuits would not clothe
themselves with the crocotium or tribonium, on account of the suspicion
and fear of danger, so that they might not seem to be pursuing magic
and sorcery. I do not in the least think that the emperor will be more
blamed by right-thinking people for such wrath and cruelty than the
philosophers, for their rashness and their unphilosophical undertaking.
The emperor, absurdly supposing that he could put his successor to
death, spared neither those who had prophesied nor the subject of their
prophecy, as they say he did not spare those who bore the same name of
Theodore,—and some were men of distinction,—whether they
were precisely the same or similar in beginning with θ and ending with δ. The
philosophers, on the other hand, acted as if the deposition and
restoration of emperors had depended solely on them; for if the
imperial succession was to be considered dependent on the arrangement
of the stars, what was requisite but to await the accession of the
future emperor, whoever he might be? or if the succession was regarded
as dependent on the will of God, what right had man to meddle? For it
is not the function of human foreknowledge or zeal to understand
God’s thought; nor if it were right, would it be well for men,
even if they be the wisest of all, to think that they can plan better
than God. If it were merely from rash curiosity to discern the things
of futurity that they showed such lack of judgment as to be ready to be
caught in danger, and to despise the laws anciently established among
the Romans, and at a time when it was not dangerous to conduct pagan
worship and to sacrifice; in this they thought differently from
Socrates; for when unjustly condemned to drink poison, he refused to
save himself by violating the laws in which he had been born and
educated, nor would he escape from prison, although it was in his power
to do so.
Footnotes
[edit]- ↑ Philost. ix. 15; Eunap. Fragm. ii. 32, 33; Am. Marcel. xxix. 1. 29–44; Zos. iv. 13; Soc. iv. 19.