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| Hail of Extraordinary Size; and Earthquakes in Bithynia and the Hellespont.
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Chapter XI.—Hail of
Extraordinary Size; and Earthquakes in Bithynia and the
Hellespont.
On the 2d of June of the
following year, in the consulate590
of Lupicin and Jovian, there fell at Constantinople hail of such a size
as would fill a man’s hand. Many affirmed that this hail had
fallen as a consequence of the Divine displeasure, because of the
emperor’s having banished several persons engaged in the sacred
ministry, those, that is to say, who refused to communicate with
Eudoxius.591
During the same consulate, on the 24th of August, the emperor
Valentinian proclaimed his son Gratian Augustus. In the next year,592
when Valentinian and Valens were a second time consuls, there happened
on the 11th of October, an earthquake in Bithynia which destroyed the
city of Nicæa on the eleventh day of October. This was about
twelve years after Nicomedia had been visited by a similar catastrophe.
Soon afterwards the largest portion of Germa in the Hellespont was
reduced to ruins by another earthquake. Nevertheless no impression was
made on the mind of either Eudoxius the Arian bishop, or the emperor
Valens, by these occurrences; for they did not desist from their
relentless persecution of those who dissented from them in matters of
faith. Meanwhile these convulsions of the earth were regarded as
typical of the disturbances which agitated the churches: for many of
the clerical body were sent into exile, as we have stated; Basil and
Gregory alone, by a special dispensation of Divine Providence, being on
account of their eminent piety exempted from this punishment. The
former of these individuals was bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia;
while Gregory presided over Nazianzus,593
| 593If Socrates means to speak with precision here of
the offices occupied by these men during the year which his narrative
has reached he is mistaken, for Basil became bishop of Cæsarea in
Cappadocia the year following, and Gregory was made bishop, not of
Nazianzus at this time, but of Sisima. He did not, however, enter on
the duties of this bishopric as he says in his letters.
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a little city in the vicinity of Cæsarea. But we shall have
occasion to mention both Basil and Gregory again in the course of our
history.594
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