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| Eunomius supersedes Eleusius the Macedonian in the See of Cyzicus, His Origin and Imitation of Aëtius, whose Amanuensis he had been.
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Chapter VII.—Eunomius
supersedes Eleusius the Macedonian in the See of Cyzicus, His Origin
and Imitation of Aëtius, whose Amanuensis he had been.
The bishop of Constantinople
being informed of these circumstances, constituted Eunomius bishop of
Cyzicus, inasmuch as he was a person able by his eloquence to win over
the minds of the multitude to his own way of thinking. On his arrival
at Cyzicus an imperial edict was published in which it was ordered that
Eleusius should be ejected, and Eunomius installed in his place. This
being carried into effect, those who attached themselves to Eleusius,
after erecting a sacred edifice without the city, assembled there with
him. But enough has been said of Eleusius: let us now give some account
of Eunomius. He had been secretary to Aëtius, surnamed Atheus, of
whom we have before spoken,578
and had learnt from conversing with him, to imitate his sophistical
mode of reasoning; being little aware that while exercising himself in
framing fallacious arguments, and in the use of certain insignificant
terms, he was really deceiving himself. This habit however inflated him
with pride, and he fell into blasphemous heresies, and so became an
advocate of the dogmas of Arius, and in various ways an adversary to
the doctrines of truth. And as he had but a very slender knowledge of
the letter of Scripture, he was wholly unable to enter into the spirit
of it. Yet he abounded in words, and was accustomed to repeat the same
thoughts in different terms, without ever arriving at a clear
explanation of what he had proposed to himself. Of this his seven books
On the Apostle’s Epistle to the Romans, on which he
bestowed a quantity of vain labor, is a remarkable proof: for although
he has employed an immense number of words in the attempt to expound
it, he has by no means succeeded in apprehending the scope and object
of that epistle. All other works of his extant are of a similar
character, in which he that would take the trouble to examine them,
would find a great scarcity of sense, amidst a profusion of verbiage.
This Eunomius Eudoxius promoted to the see of Cyzicus;579
| 579Sozom. VI. 8, gives the same account; but
Philostorgius (V. 3) and Theodoret (H. E. II. 37 and 39) say
that Eunomius was made bishop of Cyzicus under the Emperor Constantius
immediately after the Synod of Seleucia. He was banished by Valens
because he favored the usurper Procopius.
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who being come thither, astonished his auditors by the extraordinary
display of his ‘dialectic’ art, and thus a great sensation
was produced at Cyzicus. At length the people unable to endure any
longer the empty and assumptions parade of his language, drove him out
of their city. He therefore withdrew to Constantinople, and taking up
his abode with Eudoxius, was regarded as a titular580
| 580σχολαῖος, defined
by Sophocles (Greek Lexicon of the Rom. and Byzantine Periods)
as suspended. It appears, however, that among the civil and
military officers in the Roman system there were some who bore the
title without being concerned in the management of their offices, and
that these were termed vacantes and therefore that Socrates is
using the Greek equivalent of a Latin term and applying it in
ecclesiastical matters as its original was applied in civil and
military affairs. Cf., on the position of bishops without churches
Bingham, Christ. Antiq. IV. ii. 14. This system of clerics
without charges was abused so much that the Council of Chalcedon (Canon
6) forbade further ordination sine titulo.
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bishop. But lest we should seem to have said these things for the sake
of detraction, let us hear what Eunomius himself has the hardihood to
utter in his sophistical discourses concerning the Deity himself, for
he uses the following language: ‘God knows no more of his own
substance than we do; nor is this more known to him, and less to us:
but whatever we know about the Divine substance, that precisely is
known to God; and on the other hand, whatever he knows, the same also
you will find without any difference in us.’ This and many other
similar tedious and absurd fallacies Eunomius was accustomed to draw up
in utter insensibility to his own folly. On what account he afterwards
separated from the Arians, we shall state in its proper place.581
| 581See chap. 3, and on the Eunomians with their
subsequent fortunes, V. 24.
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