The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

Next in importance must be reckoned the bishop of Syria and of the interior of Asia; or, as they are sometimes called in the later councils, the Eastern bishops, as distinguished from the Church of Egypt. Then, as afterward, there was a rivalry between those branches of oriental Christendom; each, from long neighborhood, knowing each, yet each tending in an opposite direction till, after the Council of Chalcedon, a community of heresy drew them together again. Here, as in Egypt, we find two classes of representatives—scholars from the more civilized cities of Syria; wild ascetics from the remoter East. The first in dignity was the orthodox Eustathius, who either was, or was on the point of being made, bishop of the capital of Syria, the metropolis of the Eastern Church, Antioch, then called "the city of God." He had suffered in heathen persecutions, and was destined to suffer in Christian persecutions also. But he was chiefly known for his learning and eloquence, which was distinguished by an antique simplicity of style. One work alone has come down to us on the "Witch of Endor."

Next in rank and far more illustrious was his chief suffragan, the metropolitan of Palestine, the bishop of Cæsarea, Eusebius. We honor him as the father of ecclesiastical history, as the chief depositary of the traditions which connect the fourth with the first century. But in the bishops of Nicæa his presence awakened feelings of a very different kind. He alone of the eastern prelates could tell what was in the mind of the Emperor; he was the clerk of the imperial closet; he was the interpreter, the chaplain, the confessor of Constantine. And yet he was on the wrong side. Two especially, we may be sure, of the Egyptian Church, were on the watch for any slip that he might make. Athanasius—whatever may have been the opinions of later times respecting the doctrines of Eusebius—was convinced that he was at heart an Arian. Potammon of the one eye had known him formerly in the days of persecution, and was ready with that most fatal taunt, which, on a later occasion, he threw out against him, that, while he had thus suffered for the cause of Christ, Eusebius had escaped by sacrificing to an idol.

If Eusebius was suspected of Arianism, he was supported by most of his suffragan bishops in Palestine, of whom Paulinus of Tyre, and Patrophilus of Bethshan (Scythopolis) were the most remarkable. One, however, a champion of orthodoxy, was distinguished, not in himself, but for the see which he occupied—once the highest in Christendom, in a few years about to claim something of its former grandeur, but at the time of the council known only as a second-rate Syro-Roman city—Macarius, bishop of Ælia Capitolina, that is, "Jerusalem."

From Neocæsarea, a border fortress on the Euphrates, came its confessor bishop, Paul, who, like Paphnutius and Potammon, had suffered in the persecutions, but more recently under Licinius. His hands were paralyzed by the scorching of the muscles of all the fingers with red-hot iron. Along with him were the orthodox representatives of four famous churches, who, according to the Armenian tradition, travelled in company. Their leader was the marvel, "the Moses" as he was termed, of Mesopotamia, James, or Jacob, bishop of Nisibis. He had lived for years as a hermit on the mountains—in the forests during the summer, in caverns during the winter—browsing on roots and leaves like a wild beast, and like a wild beast clothed in a rough goat-hair cloak. This dress and manner of life, even after he became bishop, he never laid aside; and the mysterious awe which his presence inspired was increased by the stories of miraculous powers which, we are told, he exercised in a manner as humane and playful as it was grotesque; as when he turned the washerwoman's hair white, detected the impostor who pretended to be dead, and raised an army of gnats against the Persians. His fame as a theologian rests on disputed writings.

The second was Ait-allaha—"the brought of God," like the Greek "Theophorus"—who had just occupied the see of Edessa, and finished the building of the cemetery of his cathedral.

The third was Aristaces, said to be the cousin of Jacob of Bisibis and son of Gregory the Illuminator, founder of the Armenian Church. He represented both his father and the bishop and Tiridates, the king of Armenia; the bishop and King having received a special invitation from Constantine, and sent their written professions of faith by the hands of Aristaces.

The fourth came from beyond the frontier, the sole representative of the more distant East, "John the Persian," who added to his name the more sounding title—here appearing for the first time, but revived in our own days as the designation of our own bishops of Calcutta—"Metropolitan of India."