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| How Valens exiled the virtuous bishops.
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Chapter XII.—How Valens exiled the virtuous
bishops.
At the
very time of the baptism of Valens Eudoxius bound the unhappy man by an
oath to abide in the impiety of his doctrine, and to expel from every
see the holders of contrary opinions. Thus Valens abandoned the
apostolic teaching, and went over to the opposite faction; nor was it
long before he fulfilled the rest of his oath; for from Antioch he
expelled the great Meletius, from Samosata the divine Eusebius, and
deprived Laodicea of her admirable shepherd Pelagius.712
| 712 Present at Antioch in 363; banished to Arabia in 367. Present at
Constantinople in 381. | Pelagius had taken on him the yoke of
wedlock when a very young man, and in the very bridal chamber, on the
first day of his nuptials, he persuaded his bride to prefer chastity to
conjugal intercourse, and taught her to accept fraternal affection in
the place of marriage union. Thus he gave all honour to temperance, and
possessed also within himself the sister virtues moving in tune with
her, and for these reasons he was unanimously chosen for the bishopric.
Nevertheless not even the bright beams of his life and conversation
awed the enemy of the truth. Him, too, Valens relegated to Arabia, the
divine Meletius to Armenia, and Eusebius, that unflagging labourer in
apostolic work to Thrace. Unflagging he was indeed, for when apprised
that many churches were now deprived of their shepherds, he travelled
about Syria, Phœnicia and Palestine, wearing the garb of war and
covering his head with a tiara, ordaining presbyters and deacons and
filling up the other ranks of the Church; and if haply he lighted on
bishops with like sentiments with his own, he appointed them to empty
churches.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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