Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/171

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIEE 151 and the new archbishop, accidentally recommended by his easy temper and venerable aspect, was obliged to delay the ceremony of his consecration, till he had previously dispatched the rites of his baptism.'*^ After this remarkable experience of the ingratitude of princes and prelates, Gregory retired once more to his obscure solitude of Cappadocia ; where he employed the remainder of his life, about eight years, in the exercises of^^igj^D poetiy and devotion. The title of Saint has been added to his name ; but the tenderness of his heart "^^ and the elegance of his genius reflect a more pleasing lustre on the memory of Gregory Nazianzen. It was not enough that Theodosius had suppressed the Edicts of insolent reign of Arianism, or that he had abundantly revenged against the the injuries which the Catholics sustained from the zeal of a.d. 380-394 Constantius and Valens. The orthodox emperor considered every heretic as a rebel against the supreme powers of heaven, and of earth ; and each of those powers might exercise their peculiar jurisdiction over the soul and body of the guilty. The decrees of the council of Constantinople had ascertained the true standard of the faith ; and the ecclesiastics who governed the conscience of Theodosius suggested the most effectual methods of persecution. In the space of fifteen years, he promulgated at least fifteen severe edicts against the heretics ;^^ more especially against those who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity ; and to deprive them of every hope of escape, he sternly enacted that, if any laws or rescripts should be alleged in their favour, the judges should consider them as the illegal produc- tions either of fraud or forgery. The penal statutes were directed against the ministers, the assemblies, and the persons, of the heretics ; and the passions of the legislator were ex- pressed in the language of declamation and invective. I. The heretical teachers, who usurped the sacred titles of Bishops but Tillemont observes (M^m. Eccl^s. torn. ix. p. 719), Apres tout, ce narr6 de Sozomene est si honteux pour tous ceux qu'il y mele, et surtout pour Th^odose, qu'il vaut mieux travailler a le d^truire, qua le soutenir ; an admirable canon of criticism. ^ I can only be understood to mean that such was his natural temper ; when it was not hardened, or inflamed, by religious zeal. From his retirement [at Arianzus, a farm close to the village of Karbala (now KaA^api7, Turk. Gelvere), 2| hours south of Nazianzus, containing "a church full of relics of S. Gregory". Ramsay, Asia Minor, 285], he exhorts Nectarius to prosecute the heretics of Constantinople. ■•s See the Theodosian Code, 1. xvi. tit. v. leg. 6-23, with Godefroy's commentary on each law, and his general summary, or Paratitlon, torn. vi. p. 104-110.
 * '' The whimsical ordination of Nectarius is attested by Sozomen (1. vii. c. 8) ;