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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book II/Chapter 24

Chapter XXIV.—Athanasius, passing through Jerusalem on his Return to Alexandria, is received into Communion by Maximus: and a Synod of Bishops, convened in that City, confirms the Nicene Creed.
Athanasius the bishop being fortified with such letters as these, passed through Syria, and came into Palestine. On arriving at Jerusalem he acquainted Maximus the bishop both with what had been done in the Council of Sardica, and also that the Emperor Constantius had confirmed its decision: he then proposed that a Synod of the bishops there should be held. Maximus,
therefore, without delay sent for certain of the bishops of Syria and Palestine, and having assembled a council, he restored Athanasius to communion, and to his former dignity. After which the Synod communicated by letter
to the Alexandrians, and to all the bishops of Egypt and Libya, what had been determined respecting Athanasius. Whereupon the adversaries of Athanasius exceedingly derided Maximus, because having before assisted in his deposition, he had suddenly changed his mind, and as if nothing had previously taken place, had voted for his restoration to communion and rank. When Ursacius and Valens, who had been fiery partisans of Arianism, ascertained these things, condemning their former zeal, they proceeded to Rome, where they presented their recantation to Julius the bishop, and gave their assent to the doctrine of consubstantiality: they also wrote to Athanasius, and expressed their readiness to hold communion with him in future. Thus Ursacius and Valens were at that time subdued by the good fortune of Athanasius and induced to recognize the orthodox faith. Athanasius passed through Pelusium on his way to Alexandria, and admonished the inhabitants of every city to beware of the Arians, and to receive those only that professed the Homoousian faith. In some of the churches also he performed ordination; which afforded another ground of accusation against him, because of his undertaking to ordain in the dioceses of others.
Such was the progress of affairs at that period in reference to Athanasius.

## Footnotes

* ↑ The bishop of Jerusalem was under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan bishop of Cæsarea, and according to later usage and canon, had no right to call a synod without the permission of the metropolitan. Evidently usage had not yet become fixed into uniformity in this respect.
* ↑ Cf. Athan, Apol. c. Arian. 57.
* ↑ Cf. Apost. Cann. XXXV. ‘Let not a bishop dare to ordain beyond his limits, in cities and places not subject to him.’ It follows, therefore, that the whole of Egypt was not under the bishop of Alexandria; otherwise no such charge as is here mentioned could have been made against Athanasius. That these ordinations were made in Egypt is evident from the mention of Pelusium, which Athanasius had already passed through.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book III/Chapter 24

Chapter XXIV.—The Bishops flock around Jovian, each attempting to draw him to his own Creed.
Jovian having returned from Persia, ecclesiastical commotions were again renewed: for those who presided over the churches endeavored to anticipate each other, in the hope that the emperor would attach himself to their own tenets. He however had from the beginning adhered to the homoousian faith, and openly declared that he preferred this to all others. Moreover, he wrote letters to and encouraged Athanasius bishop of Alexandria, who immediately after Julian’s death had recovered the Alexandrian church, and at that time gaining confidence from the letters [spoken of] put away all fear. The emperor further recalled from exile all those prelates whom Constantius had banished, and who had not been re-established by Julian. Moreover, the pagan temples were again shut up, and they secreted themselves wherever they were able. The philosophers also laid aside their palliums, and clothed themselves in ordinary attire. That public pollution by the blood of victims, which had been profusely lavished even to disgust in the reign of Julian, was now likewise taken away.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book III/Chapter 4

Chapter IV.—On the Death of George, Athanasius returns to Alexandria, and takes Possession of his See.
Not long after this, Athanasius returning from his exile, was received with great joy by the people of Alexandria. They expelled at that time the Arians from the churches, and restored Athanasius to the possession of them. The Arians meanwhile assembling themselves in low and obscure buildings, ordained Lucius to supply the place of George. Such was the state of things at that time at Alexandria.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book III/Chapter 26

Chapter XXVI.—Death of the Emperor Jovian.
Thus did the emperor repress at that time the impetuosity of those who were disposed to cavil: and immediately departing from Antioch, he went to Tarsus in Cilicia, where he duly performed the funeral obsequies of Julian, after which he was declared consul. Proceeding thence directly to Constantinople, he arrived at a place named Dadastana, situated on the frontiers of Galatia and Bithynia. There Themistius the philosopher, with others of the senatorial order, met him, and pronounced the consular oration before him, which he afterwards recited before the people at Constantinople. And indeed the Roman empire, blest with so excellent a sovereign, would doubtless have flourished exceedingly, as it is likely that both the civil and ecclesiastical departments would have been happily administered, had not his sudden death bereft the state of so eminent a personage. For disease caused by some obstruction, having attacked him at the place above mentioned during the winter season, he died there on the 17th day of February, in his own and his son Varronian’s consulate,
in the thirty-third year of his age, after having reigned seven months.
This book contains an account of the events which took place in the space of two years and five months.

## Footnotes

* ↑ 364 a.d.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book III/Chapter 5

Chapter V.—Of Lucifer and Eusebius.
About the same time Lucifer and Eusebius
were by an imperial order, recalled from banishment out of the Upper Thebaïs; the former being bishop of Carala, a city of Sardinia, the latter of Vercellæ, a city of the Ligurians in Italy, as I have said
previously. These two prelates therefore consulted together on the most effectual means of preventing the neglected canons
and discipline of the church from being in future violated and despised.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Theodoret, H. E. III, 4, mentions Hilarius, Astenius, and some other bishops who were at this time recalled from exile by Julian’s edict, and joined Lucifer and Eusebius in these deliberations about restoring the authority of the canons and correcting abuses in the church.
* ↑ Cf. II. 36.
* ↑ More especially the canons of the Council of Nicæa.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book III/Chapter 6

Chapter VI.—Lucifer goes to Antioch and consecrates Paulinus.
It was decided therefore that Lucifer should go to Antioch in Syria, and Eusebius to Alexandria, that by assembling a Synod in conjunction with Athanasius, they might confirm the doctrines of the church. Lucifer sent a deacon as his representative, by whom he pledged himself to assent to whatever the Synod might decree; but he himself went to Antioch, where he found the church in great disorder, the people not being agreed among themselves. For not only did the Arian heresy, which had been introduced by Euzoïus, divide the church, but, as we before said,
the followers of Meletius also, from attachment to their teacher, separated themselves from those with whom they agreed in sentiment. When therefore Lucifer had constituted Paulinus their bishop, he again departed.

## Footnotes

* ↑ II. 44.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 83

Letter LXXXIII.
To a Magistrate.
I have had only a short acquaintance and intercourse with your lordship, but I have no small or contemptible knowledge of you from the reports through which I am brought into communication with many men of position and importance. You yourself are better able to say whether I, by report, am of any account with you. At all events your reputation with me is such as I have said. But since God has called you to an occupation which gives you opportunity of showing kindness, and in the exercise of which it lies in your power to bring about the restoration of my own city, now level with the ground, it is, I think, only my duty to remind your excellency that in the hope of the requital God will give, you should show yourself of such a character as to win a memory that cannot die, and be made an inheritor of everlasting rest, in consequence of your making the afflictions of the distressed hard to bear. I have a property at Chamanene, and I beg you to look after its interests as though they were your own. And pray do not be surprised at my calling my friend’s property my own, for among other virtues I have been taught that of friendship, and I remember the author of the wise saying a friend is another self. I therefore commend to your excellency this property belonging to my friend, as though it were my own. I beg you to consider the misfortunes of the house, and both to grant them consolation for the past, and for the future to make the place more comfortable for them; for it is now left and abandoned on account of the weight of the rates imposed upon it. I will do my best to meet your excellency and converse with you on points of detail.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in 372.
* ↑ Censitor, i.e. the magistrate responsible for rating and taxation in the provinces.
* ↑ cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. viii. 12, 3; and Cic. Lœl. xxi. So, amicus est tanquam alter idem.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 89

Letter LXXXIX.
To Meletius, bishop of Antioch.
1. The eagerness of my longing is soothed by the opportunities which the merciful God gives me of saluting your reverence. He Himself is witness of the earnest desire which I have to see your face, and to enjoy your good and soul-refreshing instruction. Now by my reverend and excellent brother Dorotheus, the deacon, who is setting out, first of all I beg you to pray for me that I be no stumbling block to the people, nor hindrance to your petitions to propitiate the Lord. In the second place I would suggest that you would be so good as to make all arrangements through the aforementioned brother; and, if it seems well that a letter should be sent to the Westerns, because it is only right that communication should be made in writing even through our own messenger, that you will dictate the letter. I have met Sabinus the deacon, sent by them, and have written to the bishops in Illyria, Italy, and Gaul, and to some of those who have written privately to myself. For it is right that some one should be sent in the common interests of the Synod, conveying a second letter which I beg you to have written.
2. As to what concerns the right reverend bishop Athanasius, your intelligence is already aware of what I will mention, that it is impossible for anything to be advanced by my letters, or for any desirable objects to be carried out, unless by some means or other he receives communion from you, who at that time postponed it. He is described as being very anxious to unite with me, and to be willing to contribute all he can, but to be sorry that he was sent away without communion, and that the promise still remains unfulfilled.
What is going on in the East cannot have failed to reach your reverence’s ears, but the aforementioned brother will give you more accurate information by word of mouth. Be so good as to dispatch him directly after Easter, because of his waiting for the answer from Samosata. Look kindly on his zeal strengthen him by your prayers and so dispatch him on this commission.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in the year 372.
* ↑ It is the contention of Tillemont that this cannot apply to the great Athanasius, to whom Meletius is not likely to have refused communion, but is more probably to be referred to some other unknown Athanasius. Maran, however, points out (Vit. Bas. xxii.) not only how the circumstances fit in, but how the statement that communion was refused by Meletius is borne out by Letter cclviii. § 3, q.v. Athanasius was in fact so far committed to the other side in the unhappy Antiochene dispute that it was impossible for him to recognise Meletius. cf. Newman, Church of the Fathers, chap. vii.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 87

Letter LXXXVII.
Without address on the same subject.
I am astonished that, with you to appeal to, so grave an offence should have been committed against the presbyter as that he should have been deprived of his only means of livelihood. The most serious part of the business is that the perpetrators transfer the guilt of their proceedings to you; while all the while it was your duty not only not to suffer such deeds to be done, but to use all your authority to prevent them in the case of any one, but specially in the case of presbyters, and such presbyters as are in agreement with me, and are walking in the same way of true religion. If then you have any care to give me gratification, see that these matters are set right without delay. For, God helping you, you are able to do this, and greater things than this to whom you will. I have written to the governor of my own country, that, if they refuse to do what is right of their own accord, they may be compelled to do so on pressure from the courts.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Of the same date as the preceding.
* ↑ Probably to Elias.
* ↑ Πατρίς. The Ben. Ed suppose the reference to be here to Annesi. cf. Letters viii. and li.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 88

Letter LXXXVIII.
Without address on the subject of the exaction of taxes.
Your excellency knows better than any one else the difficulty of getting together the gold furnished by contribution. We have no better witness to our poverty than yourself, for with your great kindness you have felt for us, and, up to the present time, so far as has lain within your power, have borne with us, never departing from your own natural forbearance from any alarm caused by superior authority. Now of the whole sum there is still something wanting, and that must be got in from the contribution which we have recommended to all the town. What I ask is, that you will grant us a little delay, that a reminder may be sent to dwellers in the country, and most of our magistrates are in the country. If it is possible for it to be sent in short of as many pounds as those in which we are still behind-hand, I should be glad if you would so arrange, and the amount shall be sent later. If, however, it is absolutely necessary that the whole sum should be sent in at once, then I repeat my first request that we may be allowed a longer time of grace.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Of the same date
* ↑ χρυσίον πραγματευτικόν, Lat. aurum comparatitium. The gold collected for the equipment of troops. Cod. Theod. vii. 6. 3. The provinces of the East, with the exception of Osroene and Isauria, contributed gold instead of actual equipment. The Ben. note quotes a law of Valens that this was to be paid between Sept. 1 and April 1, and argues thence that this letter may be definitely dated in March, 372, and not long before Easter, which fell on April 8.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 85

Letter LXXXV.
That the oath ought not to be taken.
It is my invariable custom to protest at every synod and to urge privately in conversation, that oaths about the taxes ought not to be imposed on husbandmen by the collectors. It remains for me to bear witness, on the same matters, in writing, before God and men, that it behoves you to cease from inflicting death upon men’s souls, and to devise some other means of exaction, while you let men keep their souls unwounded. I write thus to you, not as though you needed any spoken exhortation (for you have your own immediate inducements to fear the Lord), but that all your dependents may learn from you not to provoke the Holy One, nor let a forbidden sin become a matter of indifference, through faulty familiarity. No possible good can be done them by oaths, with a view to their paying what is exacted from them, and they suffer an undeniable wrong to the soul. For when men become practised in perjury, they no longer put any pressure on themselves to pay, but they think that they have discovered in the oath a means of trickery and an opportunity for delay. If, then, the Lord brings a sharp retribution on the perjured, when the debtors are destroyed by punishment there will be none to answer when summoned. If on the other hand the Lord endures with long suffering, then, as I said before, those who have tried the patience of the Lord despise His goodness. Let them not break the law in vain; let them not whet the wrath of God against them. I have said what I ought. The disobedient will see.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in the year 372.
* ↑ The distress of the Cappadocians under the load of taxes is described in Letter lxxiv. An objectionable custom arose, or was extended, of putting the country people on oath as to their inability to pay.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 86

Letter LXXXVI.
To the Governor.
I know that a first and foremost object of your excellency is in every way to support the right; and after that to benefit your friends, and to exert yourself in behalf of those who have fled to your lordship’s protection. Both these pleas are combined in the matter before us. The cause is right for which we are pleading; it is dear to me who am numbered among your friends; it is due to those who are invoking the aid of your constancy in their sufferings. The corn, which was all my very, dear brother Dorotheus had for the necessaries of life, has been carried off by some of the authorities at Berisi, entrusted with the management of affairs, driven to this violence of their own accord or by others’ instigation. Either way it is an indictable offence. For how does the man whose wickedness is his own do less wrong than he who is the mere minister of other men’s wickedness? To the sufferers the loss is the same. I implore you, therefore, that Dorotheus may have his corn returned by the men by whom he has been robbed, and that they may not be allowed to lay the guilt of their outrage on other men’s shoulders. If you grant me my request I shall reckon the value of the boon conferred by your excellency in proportion to the necessity of providing one’s self with food.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Of the same date as the preceding.
* ↑ Probably to Elias. Three manuscripts add “of recommendation on behalf of presbyters about the carrying off of corn.”
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume IX/Title Page/Homilies on Psalms/Homilies on the Psalms
## Contents

* Homily on Psalm I
* Homily on Psalm LIII. (LIV.)
* Homily on Psalm CXXX. (CXXXI.)
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume IX/Title Page/Homilies on Psalms
## Contents

* Introduction
* Homilies on the Psalms
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book VII/Chapter 16

Chapter XVI.—The Jews commit Another Outrage upon the Christians and are punished.
Soon afterwards the Jews renewed their malevolent and impious practices against the Christians, and drew down upon themselves deserved punishment. At a place named Inmestar, situated between Chalcis and Antioch in Syria, the Jews were amusing themselves in their usual way with a variety of sports. In this way they indulged in many absurdities, and at length impelled by drunkenness they were guilty of scoffing at Christians and even Christ himself; and in derision of the cross and those who put their trust in the Crucified One, they seized a Christian boy, and having bound him to a cross, began to laugh and sneer at him. But in a little while becoming so transported with fury, they scourged the child until he died under their hands. This conduct occasioned a sharp conflict between them and the Christians; and as soon as the emperors were informed of the circumstance, they issued orders to the governor of the province to find out and punish the delinquents. And thus the Jewish inhabitants of this place paid the penalty for the wickedness they had committed in their impious sport.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book VII/Chapter 19

Chapter XIX.—Of Palladius the Courier.
How the Emperor Theodosius received intelligence of what was done in an incredibly short space of time, and how he was quickly informed of events taking place far away, I shall attempt to explain. For he had the good fortune to possess among his subjects a man endowed with extraordinary energy both of body and mind, named Palladius; who rode so vigorously that he would reach the frontiers of the Roman and Persian dominions in three days,
and again return to Constantinople in as many more. The same individual traversed other parts of the world on missions from the emperor with equal celerity: so that an eloquent man once said not unaptly, ‘This man by his speed proves the vast expanse of the Roman Empire to be little.’ The king of the Persians himself was astonished at the expeditious feats which were related to him of this courier: but we must be content with the above details concerning him.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Much, of course, depends, in estimating the rate of speed here recorded, on the exact distance between Constantinople and the rather indefinite limits of the Persian empire. But even if the minimum of 500 miles be taken as a basis, the speed seems almost incredible.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book VII/Chapter 2

Chapter II.—Character and Conduct of Atticus Bishop of Constantinople.
When Theodosius the emperor was in the eighth year of his age, Atticus was in the third year of his presidency over the church at Constantinople, a man as we have by anticipation said
distinguished alike for his learning, piety, and discretion, wherefore it came about that the churches under his episcopate attained a very flourishing condition. For he not only united those of ‘the household of faith,’
but also by his prudence called forth the admiration of the heretics, whom indeed he by no means desired to harass; but if he sometimes was obliged to impress them with the fear of himself, he soon afterward showed himself mild and clement toward them. But indeed he did not neglect his studies; for he assiduously labored in perusing the writings of the ancients, and often spent whole nights in the task; and thus he could not be confused by the reasonings of the philosophers, and the fallacious subtleties of the sophists. Besides this he was affable and entertaining in conversation, and ever ready to sympathize with the afflicted: and in a word, to sum up his excellences in the apostle’s saying, ‘He was made all things to all men.’
Formerly while a presbyter, he had been accustomed, after composing his sermons, to commit them to memory, and then recite them in the church: but by diligent application he acquired confidence and made his instruction extemporaneous and eloquent. His discourses however were not such as to be received with much applause by his auditors, nor to deserve to be committed to writing. Let these particulars respecting his talents, erudition, and manners suffice. We must now proceed to relate such things as are worthy of record, that happened in his time.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Cf. VI. 20.
* ↑ Gal. vi. 10.
* ↑ 1 Cor. ix. 22.