4. Arians persecute Eustathius and others.
There was one Eustathius 1, Bishop of Antioch, a Confessor, and sound in the Faith. This man, because he was very zealous for the truth, and hated the Arian heresy, and would not receive those who adopted its tenets, is falsely accused before the Emperor Constantine, and a charge invented against him, that he had insulted his mother 2. And immediately he is driven into banishment, and a great number of Presbyters and Deacons with him. And immediately after the banishment of the Bishop, those whom he would not admit into the clerical order on account of their impiety were not only received into the Church by them, but were even appointed the greater part of them to be Bishops, in order that they might have accomplices in their impiety. Among these was Leontius the eunuch 3, now of Antioch, and his predecessor Stephanus, George of Laodicea, and Theodosius who was of Tripolis, Eudoxius of Germanicia, and Eustathius 4, now of Sebastia.
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Apol. Fug. 3, note 9. ↩
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If the common slander of the day concerning S. Helena was imputed to S. Eustathius, Constantine was likely to feel it keenly. ‘Stabulariam,’ says S. Ambrose, ‘hanc primo fuisse asserunt, sic cognitam Constantio.’ de Ob.Theod.42, Stabularia, i.e. an innkeeper; so Rahab is sometimes considered to be ‘cauponaria sive tabernaria et meretrix,’ Cornel. à Lap. in Jos. ii. 1 . ἐξ ὁμιλιας γυναικὸς οὐ σεμνῆς ουδὲ κατὰ νόμον συνελθούσης . Zosim,Hist.ii. p. 78. Constantinus ex concubina Helena procreatus. Hieron.in Chron. Euseb.p. 773. (ed. Vallars.) Tillemont however maintains (Empereurs,t. 4. p. 613), and Gibbon fully admits (Hist.ch. 14. p. 190), the legitimacy of Constantine. The latter adds, ‘Eutropius (x. 2.) expresses in a few words the real truth, and the occasion of the error, “exobscuriori matrimonioejus filius.”’ [Cf.Soz. ii. 19.] ↩
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Below, §28, note. ↩
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Ep. Æg. 7. ↩
