As the ordination of those others was performed by Peter and John with fasting, prayer, trial of the clergy, and fear, these men on the contrary acted with gluttony and drunkenness and shameful gifts—abortions of humanity, who were worthy neither of irrational swine nor of dogs, according to him who prophesied concerning Job from the person of the Savior: "Whom I deemed not worthy to be with the dogs of my flock, who lived under thorns" (Job 30:1). But to those who live among mimes and Jews, as friends of the Savior, the mysteries of the priesthood are entrusted by those who claim wisdom; on account of whom even the orthodox crowds flee the oratories. For there reached us that new and most frivolous crime of the Ephesian Church—and why not, since Ephesus is a maritime city and easily carries rumors along? For into that place—or rather, into the place of John who wrote the Gospel and leaned faithfully upon the breast of Wisdom, concerning whom it is written: "Whom Jesus loved" (John 21:20), to whom Timothy, the disciple of Paul, to whom two of the Apostle’s Epistles are addressed, succeeded—there succeeded the "abomination of desolation." For after having a eunuch ordained by those of Victor the tribune, they placed him in the bishop’s seat. And the man who had been established by the seventy bishops, they have kept in prison to this very day, a man well-trained in circular disciplines and learned in the divine Scriptures, who had lived the monastic life in the desert and had been a deacon for three years. And would that the eunuch who was ordained had lived a decent life, and this evil had been, as it were, halved! But now, a worm of the earth, a slave to his belly, insane with a love for women, impudent, drunken, lecherous, venal, illiberal, and avaricious, cursed from his very birth; neither man nor woman; furious, and who, as I have heard often, carried theatrical girls on his shoulders during satyric banquets, with his head crowned with ivy, carrying a mixing bowl in his hand and pouring wine in the guise of the mythical Bacchus. And he did all these things not before he was initiated into Christ, but after his baptism—showing by these things that he does not believe in the resurrection. For he who subverts the foundation of the resurrection, how does he believe in it? And he who does not believe in the resurrection, in what way will he be a preacher of the resurrection, according to him who said: "How then shall they preach, if they have not believed?" (Rom. 10:14). This man is chaste by no merit of his own, being cut with iron, but otherwise he raves fruitlessly through his own filth. These are the things which were done in Asia, about which you asked, because Theophilus wrote that sixteen bishops had been deposed by John. You may be certain that there were six. The acts of the flower are also extant, which are preserved by us with the subscriptions of the twenty-two bishops who heard the case from the beginning, and [the seventy] of those who deposed them and finished the case. A
DIAL. CHAPTER XV.
While these things were being carried out, Eusebius, the accuser of the six remaining bishops, approached us bishops, on account of his long-windedness, asking to be admitted to communion. Certain bishops disagreed, and added that, since he was a calumniator, it was not appropriate for him to be admitted. After these things, he supplicated, saying: "Since this case has been examined for the most part over two years, and a delay has been made for the arrival of the witnesses, I ask your Piety that I may produce the witnesses this very day. For even if Antoninus is dead—he who received the money and performed the ordinations—nevertheless, there survive both those who gave it and those who were ordained." It seemed just to the present Synod that the matter be investigated. The case began with the reading of the acts which had been previously made. The witnesses entered, as did the six who had given money and had been ordained. And at first, they denied it. But with the witnesses pressing, some of whom were laymen and some presbyters, in whom they seemed to place their trust, and indeed some women—who even stated the types of pledges or payments, and the places, and the times, and the quantity—when it became clear that their conscience was not straight, they confessed of their own accord, having been brought under light necessity: "We gave, and we were ordained," thinking such was the custom, that we might seem to be freed from the Curia. "And now we pray, if it is right, that we might be in the ministry of the Church; if not, that we might receive back the gold which we gave; for some among us gave the furniture of their wives." To these things, John promised the Synod: "Regarding the Curia, I shall free them, God helping, by petitioning the Emperor; but you, command that they receive back from the heirs of Antoninus what they gave." The Synod decreed that they should receive the gold from the heirs of Antoninus and communicate within the altar, but that they should no longer be priests—the six of those who were priests—lest, if these things were granted, a Jewish or Egyptian custom come to be of selling and buying the priesthood. B For they say the pestilent and false patriarch of the Jews, every year or every other year, changes the rulers of the synagogue for the purpose of scraping together money, and likewise his rival, the patriarch of the Egyptians, so that the saying of the prophet might be fulfilled: "His priests answered for rewards, and his prophets vaticinated for money" (Mich. 3:11). The acts of all these things are extant, as are the names of the judges. Nor was the investigation conducted in one day, as Theophilus lied, but over two years. And those who had been deposed acquiesced, so that they might be freed from future judgment, in such a way that one of them became a defender of public affairs; and in their place others were substituted, not married, but adorned in life and doctrine. But those noble and litigious men, after the exile of John, having accepted that which they had accepted (for wickedness has no name, just as it has no substance), brought back into the Churches those who had been ejected four years earlier, and expelled those who had been legitimately placed in the sees, for the purpose of scattering the sheep of Christ. That, however, is the most ridiculous thing of all, or rather the most worthy of lamentation, if you hear it, most studious Theodore. "Both your ears shall tingle," as the prophet says (Jer. 19:3); you will weep, being as you are a lover of God, at the sight of frenzied bishops corrupting the gifts of God with a clandestine hand. C Which—CAP. XVI.
Diac. Forgive me, Father; such things surpass all drunkenness, madness, and mockery. For those who are frenzied and drunk and the children—the former when they have regained their senses, the latter when they have matured, and others when they have reached a lawful age—deny [their deeds], blushing for the things done and said disgracefully and inordinately; but these men, in mature age and in apparent sobriety, with DA their wickedness, not only do not feel remorse for what has been done, but they even pray that their evil dealings should remain firm and unshaken. For those who were not afraid to set the Gospel upon a degraded head, upon which the unbridled [feet] of women danced—to whom else shall they be numbered, if not to those who placed the crown of thorns upon the Son of God? Moreover, if you know the manner of the ordination of Porphyrius of Antioch, or those who ordained him, or the past life of the man—whether he was obscure or notable—and his doctrines—whether true or false—declare them to us, especially since he has even written to the Church of the Romans and was not deemed worthy of a reply. THE BISHOP: The same will be my discourse on the truth; for I shall not forget the voice of the Master saying: *For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account in the day of judgment* (Matt. 12: 36). But I, having added this boldly, would say it also concerning every idle hearing. And so do you also secure yourself; if you do not perceive me to be speaking the truth, do not be overcome by my gray hairs, but by the nature of the facts themselves. For what profit would there be for me, having lied about things said today or yesterday, to be put to shame forever before the exact judgment? And how shall I bear the millstone of slander upon the neck of my mind, being dragged down into the depth of Gehenna for those who took scandal B through my lies? This Porphyrius spent time in the Church, and having served as deacon and having performed the priesthood in the presbytery, while bearing a character foreign to the times, he proved of no spiritual use to the Church at any time. Being always in opposition to the neighboring pious bishops, as one who was of a very great city and had the magistrates in his power, he made a trade of the matter. Plotting against the sacred ordinations, he would steal in, with the cleverness of his ways, upon the bishops of the time, as one might say, dragging them even against their will and leading them to wind-blown ordinations. For stubbornness C is terrible, according to the comic poet Menander, woven together with perversity, as he says: *Hard is it, Pamphile, for a free woman to contend with a harlot; she knows more, she does more evil; she respects no one, she flatters rather.* And according to the wise Solomon, *the words of the flatterers are soft, but they strike into the inner chambers of the belly* (Prov. 26: 22). For he is not only a stranger to temperance regarding carnal pleasures, but even an enemy, like a vulture to myrrh, so that a report of his Sodomitic madness gained strength. For since laws and measures and walls had been laid down by nature regarding pleasures, as the many say, he, having trampled the wall, and smashed the measure, and outraged the law, brought forth this reputation, that he should take the lead and feast with conjurers and charioteers and those showing the ancient [plays] with unseemly movement and twisting of the leg. For he did not shrink from competing with conjurers and associating with them in a friendly manner, so that charges were even recorded in the official records of various magistrates, not having read the maxim: *What you ought not to do, do not even suspect that you should do.* D Because of whom the mediator was killed by blows, and the finder was exiled, and the conjurer was banished. They say that in addition to the aforementioned evil deeds, after the ordination he melted down the sacred vessels and squandered them upon the magistrates, so that he might seem to rule, not by reason, but by tyranny over those who miserably fell into his hands. For it was at the time of John’s exile to Armenia that the death of Flavianus, the bishop of Antioch, coincided. Porphyrius, having seen both the men’s and women’s quarters hanging with longing upon the neck of Constantius the presbyter, who had served the Church from his tenderest years—a man, as the Judges say, of both hands—for even his supposedly left hand was better than the right hand of others—he who, having first served in correspondence, was found faultless of shameful gain and gifts—but later, having reached [the rank of] reader and deacon, he conquered without struggle the pleasure of the women who reigned among men, as the Proverb-writer says: *The hand of the elect shall rule easily.* For to rule is perhaps [possible] even for those who are wicked, who by fear or shame prevent the operation of the body with much necessity; but not to be overcome by the desire for those on high, [in comparison] to those below, is something peculiar to the lovers of God, whom also Scripture named the elect, saying, *The hand of the elect shall rule easily.* For he is gentle, if any other is, an ascetic, perceptive, sharp to understand, slow to punish, contemplative, always hinting at the skeptical, merciful, free from the love of money, just in his judgments, long-suffering in the face of insults, vigorous in persuading, having often extended [his] fast until evening in order to deliver those being oppressed, solemn in appearance, piercing in his gaze, quick in his gait, unmarried, as is likely, preserving the blooming smile upon his face even in the midst of his very sicknesses. Therefore, he prepares to have such a man as this banished by means of money in this way: Having sent to the camp to those who held power over the bishops, he causes him to be exiled by imperial letter to Oasis as a disturber of the people. He, knowing it immediately, is saved by his friends to Cyprus. But Porphyrius himself, having placed those around Cyriacus and Diophantus the presbyters, and the remaining clergy, under his own order, watches for a time in which the whole city was shifting toward the suburbs of the city, having with him those around Acacius and Severianus and Antiochus hidden—one of the famous festivals among the Gentiles being celebrated at an interval of four years, of the Heraclean games, called the Olympians, in which, so to speak, even the swarms of women are stirred up along with the common people to Daphne for the spectacle of those contending. Having dashed into the church with the aforementioned bishops and a few clergy, he is ordained in secret, with doors locked, with much haste, so that they might not even finish the prayer, for fear of being caught. For such is adultery, both sowing and begetting and watching. Those around Severianus, having received the sufficient [fee], fled through mountains and pathless places, having escaped human fear, but having fallen into the divine [fear], which they did not know. When the public theater was dissolved and the people had entered into the city, the incident concerning Porphyrius and the drama concerning Acacius was announced to them. Having therefore endured through that evening until the next day, as having been struck by the adultery, they rose up in a body and flowed together with fire and brushwood, wishing to annihilate Porphyrius with the rooms. But Porphyrius, not being ignorant [of the fact that he is hated with intense hatred], having abandoned God, flees to the prefect of the army, and having filled his hands, he wages war against...
A the hearers of the Savior, turning him away from the Isaurian war. And the Isaurians, indeed, being the greatest pirates, were ravaging Rhosus and Seleucia; but Porphyrius and Valentinus the Count, with armed men, were plundering the church of the orthodox; they were taking the fearful sign of the cross, which they carried as a master in numbers, and performing litanies on uncultivated ground, trampling it with their own feet. After a few days, he sends in haste to the Comitatus, and arranges with such magistrates that a certain green and raw old man, of perverse, crooked morals, might be created Prefect of the Night Watch B, so that, having license to calumniate whomsoever he wished, he might hold the city in his hand, imitating the manners of Nero, the enemy of God. For it is not given to him to persuade by speech, but to vex by irrationality and savagery. Indeed, he did not have as his aim to please God, by leading back wandering souls, but to fill the belly of the serpent that moves upon its breast. The people, therefore, though reluctant, gather in the church in appearance, for fear of blows, but in reality, they execrate their own life and await the vengeance of God. At these things, Theodore, being stunned, said: "Beyond nature and reason, Father, you say one resists. For C mostly, those who are eager for vainglory desire to please men, and they are found to be sycophants, and they prepare sumptuous tables, that they may be loved and heard well, often enduring even spitting. How, therefore, did Porphyrius, or some other, exercise threats and punishments and exiles, I do not know." Bishop. "This, however, is worthy of admiration, Theodore, that they broke forth into such an excess of wickedness, that they not only do not strive to please men, but also do not care in the least about the confusion of their own misdeeds: for malice promotes malice into malice. For then malice produces vainglory, when it hopes to rule over the foolish with its flatteries: but when those who are being captured have been found to be superior to flatteries and feasts, it brings forth threats and punishments D, that those whom it could not ensnare with flatteries and feasts, it might strike with savagery and terror; just as happened to the holy martyrs. For there both were expended, the cunning snare of gifts and goods, capturing those gaping after vainglory, and threats of punishments, frying pans, and torture racks, and victims, and whatever things are suitable for moving great pains, preparing, exhibiting the brave and those who love God." The more distinguished clergy of Antioch collect the people in secret, not even approaching the walls of the church, and likewise the whole distinguished society of women, on account of whom the money-greedy shepherds are especially insane. But concerning affairs at Constantinople, what does it matter to say how great a multitude has retreated from the church? Gathering in the open air, as we have said above, so that those who are in charge of ecclesiastical affairs do not have as many hearers—even of their silence; for nowhere among them is there any speech. Deacon. "You have freed my doubting and suspended mind, Father, by having subjected the things themselves to my eyes. For the consistency of the words and the unfictionalized narrative have made me more certain about the truth of the deeds. For it cannot be that a false speech should everywhere be consistent. Do not, therefore, feel burdened, if you know anything, to tell us those things which concern Olympias." Bishop. "What quality is she of? For there are many of that name." Deacon. "The deaconess of the church of Constantinople, who was once the wife of Nebridius the ex-prefect." Bishop. "That person, indeed, I know very well." Deacon. "What quality of woman is she?" Bishop. "Do not, I pray, say what quality of woman, but what quality of human being; for she is a man beyond the habit of the body." Deacon. "In what?" Bishop. "In life, in labors, in knowledge, and in patience regarding tribulations." Deacon. "Why, therefore, did Theophilus revile her?" Bishop. "Who is that?" Deacon. "The Alexandrian bishop." Bishop. "You seem to me, Theodore, to have given so many reaches of the conversation to oblivion." Deacon. "In what respect?" Bishop. "He who did not spare the truth, but trampled it down, as the previous conversation proved; and he who did not honor the Church which is under heaven, for the sake of which the Only-Begotten, as it is said, labored, that He might unite it, but wounded it with his own dress—could he spare a widow woman who consumes her life in prayer? Dissect and see if he ever reproved any wicked person, he who is always an enemy of probity. But why do you not also conjecture from his letters, how they are repugnant among themselves? For he who had treated with insults the blessed Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in Cyprus, who presided over the Church for thirty-six years, as a heretic or schismatic, under Damasus or the blessed Siricius; afterwards, in his letter to Pope Innocent, while vituperating the blessed John, he names Epiphanius 'most holy.' How many times, do you think, he has also kissed the knees of Olympias, out of hope for money, whom he now reviles? When she fell to the ground on account of that matter and poured forth tears, nonetheless that bishop was doing these things. But in what matter did he revile her?" Deacon. "Because she received the monks who had been cast out by him." Bishop. "Is it permitted for a bishop, or is it fitting, to throw out any of his disciples, or any Christian at all, to say nothing of a monk?" Deacon. "If they injured him, or cursed him." Bishop. "Ought he to have fulfilled his own anger, being anxious over a curse? How will he still seek for himself the insults of Christ, who is sailing for the sake of his own glory? But why at all did he not imitate the teacher Paul, saying: 'Being reviled, we bless' (1 Cor. 4:12)?" Deacon. "What, therefore, if those monks were heretics?" Bishop. "And yet it was altogether necessary to correct them and persuade them, and not to cast them out." Deacon. "And if he had done so, they would not have obeyed, who were stubborn." Bishop. "It was necessary to execute that apostolic saying: 'A heretical man, after one and a second correction, avoid, knowing that he who is such is subverted' (Tit. 3:10, 11); but not to expel, and to plunder goods, and to cast them out of the fatherland with the threats of magistrates." Deacon. "You relate to me the duty of a perfect man, and one who loves God, and who is patient of injuries." Bishop. "And certainly it is not a great praise to endure an inferior. But unless he is perfect, as far as is fitting, how is he a bishop of such a kind? For an imperfect man will not consult for the imperfect. But how is he also called 'Theophilus,' a man who does not love God, for whose sake he ought to have patiently borne the injuries of men? If indeed he does not love God, not even himself; but he who is an enemy to himself, how finally will he love others? It is not, therefore, a wonder if he hated Olympias, as one who had received the monks." Deacon. "In confessed indeed"
...or whether they were orthodox or heretical. Yet should the deaconess not have received them? B BISHOP: What then did you think? Did she act rightly, or wrongly? DEACON: I said that she acted wrongly. BISHOP: And is benevolence ever judged? DEACON: Yes, absolutely, when it is practiced toward the wicked who deserve no good. BISHOP: Who, then, were the five thousand whom the Savior fed with five barley loaves? Were they good or bad? DEACON: Obviously good, as being fed by the Savior. BISHOP: Why then were they fed with barley, if they were good? DEACON: Through a scarcity of wheat, perhaps, or a famine. BISHOP: How then are they reproached for unbelief? Were they good or bad? DEACON: If they are reproached, it is as wicked, obviously. BISHOP: And can the same people be both good and bad? DEACON: Absolutely. BISHOP: How? DEACON: C Good in relation to those who are worse, but bad in relation to those who are better. BISHOP: You have spoken wonderfully. In this way, then, the monks were both good and bad. The most faithful woman received them as good, but the wonderful man cast them out as bad, which he ought not to have done. DEACON: But he will say: "You received my enemies to my grief." BISHOP: It is an utter defeat for him that he even calls them enemies, when he is a debtor of insults, as if he were an imitator of Christ. DEACON: Where are the five thousand even reproached by the Savior, as you say? For they are not mentioned as being so. BISHOP: When, having gathered together, they came a second time to Jesus, hearing: D "You seek me, not because you saw signs and wonders, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled" (John 6:26). Theodore said: That is most clear. BISHOP: And he who is rebuked is, in this regard, bad. DEACON: Indeed so. BISHOP: Did the Savior then feed the bad or the good? DEACON: It is admitted that he fed the bad: "For those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Luke 5:31). BISHOP: What then? Has Olympias done something wrong, having imitated her own Lord, who makes his sun rise on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt. 5:45)? Even if the Pharisees reproach the disciples, saying: "Your teacher eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners" (Ibid. 9:11). DEACON: As it seems, contrary to the understanding of the many, the solemn is slandered, and the base is loved. BISHOP: To what does this speech of yours refer, most truth-loving Theodore? DEACON: That if you had not laid bare the argument for me, having explained it syllogistically, I would have been carried away to a senseless opinion, paying no heed to the goal of freedom, but to the babble of Theophilus. BISHOP: Therefore, if those holy men are shown to be not only not bad, but even to have brought many from wickedness to virtue, it will be clear that their persecutor is worthy not of being pursued, but of being pitied, as he always injures the good and accepts the bad. DEACON: It is as you have said. For even if those men are not proven to be saints, as the many say, Olympias will be beyond blame because of the preceding syllogisms, having shown the imitation of the Savior. BISHOP: And what greater testimony of deeds do you see—that of the Gospel, or that of Theophilus? DEACON: Away with that, I beg you. For it is confessed by all that those men were left by him out of some anger and desire for power, and that he insulted them out of superstition and hatred, having used the monks as a pretext. For having failed in his servile flatteries, because he received nothing from her beyond food or gifts, he turned to insults; for this is his habit toward everyone.