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 capital of Pontus, his refusal to join his comrades in sacrifice declared him a Christian. His trial was deferred some days to offer him time to recant. This interval he employed in firing the temple of the Mother of the Gods on the banks of the Iris in the midst of the city. The building and the statue of the deity were reduced to ashes. At the judgment-seat Theodore boldly acknowledged and gloried in the act. From prison, where he was visited at night by angels who filled the cell with light and song, he passed to death in a furnace. No fewer than three churches were dedicated in his honour at Constantinople (Du Cange, Constantinop. Christ. vol. iv. c. 6, Nos. 100–102). He had also a martyry at Jerusalem (Cyr. Vit. S. Sab. ap. Coteler. Eccl. Gr. Mon. iii. No. 78) and Damascus (Johan. Damasc. de Sacr. Imag. Or. iii.). The little circular church of San Teodoro, popularly known as St. Toto, at the base of the Palatine Hill in Rome, is well known. Zonaras, Annal. lib. xvii. c. 3, p. 213 (ed. Par. 1687); Credenus, ''Hist. Compend.'' pars. ii. p. 681 (ed. Par. 1647); Greg. Nyssen. Oratio de Magno Martyre Theodoro, t. iii. pp. 578–586 (ed. Par. 1633); Surius, Nov. 9, p. 231, § 7; Tillem. ''Mém. eccl. t. v. pp. 369–377, notes 732–735; Ruinart, Acta Martyrum'' pp. 505–511.

[E.V.]

Theodosius (2) I.,  the Great, born 346 at Cauca, a Spanish town upon a small tributary of the Douro; died Jan. 17, 395. His father, an eminent general serving under Valentinian and Valens, was treacherously executed in 376 For the secular history of Theodosius see D. of G. and R. Biogr. We shall here set forth his ecclesiastical polity and his powerful influence on the fortunes of the church. His accession was the turning-point which secured the triumph of Trinitarian orthodoxy over the Arianism dominant in the East for at least the previous 40 years. Theodosius turned what seemed in many places an obscure and conquered sect into a triumphant church, whose orthodoxy, on this point at least, never afterwards wavered. In 378 the Roman empire was in great danger. Valens, the emperor of the East, had been defeated and put to death by the Goths on Aug. 9 in the fatal battle of Hadrianople, and the whole empire was depending on the young Gratian, then less than 20 years old. Gratian perceived that the crisis demanded the ablest general the empire possessed; he boldly summoned the deeply-injured Theodosius from his retirement, and invested him with the imperial purple, Jan. 19, 379, allotting him the government of the East with Illyricum in Europe. Theodosius fixed his residence at Thessalonica, skilfully selected as the headquarters of his operations against the Goths. Constantinople was just then the centre of the conflict between the Catholics and Arians. About July 379 Gregory of Nazianzus, coming there, assumed the care of its one orthodox church, the Arians having possession of the see and all the other churches. Meanwhile at Thessalonica, during the winter of 379–380, Theodosius had a severe illness which led to his baptism by Ascolius, the local bishop, a devoted adherent of the orthodox party. This was followed by his first edict about religion, issued at Thessalonica, Feb. 28, 380, and addressed to the people of Constantinople. It orders that the religion which St. Peter taught the Romans and which Damasus of Rome and Peter of Alexandria profess, should be believed by all nations; that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost should be equally adored; that the adherent of this doctrine should be called Catholic Christians, while all others were to be designated heretics, their places of assembly refused the name of churches, and their souls threatened with divine punishment.

On Nov. 24, 380, Theodosius made his formal entry into Constantinople, and at once took action against the unorthodox. He turned the Arian bp. Demophilus out of the churches, and personally installed Gregory in the great church. But he does not seem to have satisfied the orthodox zeal of Gregory, who in his Carmen de Vita Sua, 1279–1395, speaks very slightingly of him, finding fault with his toleration, and complaining that he made no attempt to heal the wounds and avenge the wrongs of the Catholics. Theodosius, however, soon improved under Gregory's tuition, direct or indirect. Gregory's tenure of the bishopric of Constantinople was only for 7 months. He retired about the end of June 381, yet continued to exercise a most active influence over the emperor through his successor Nectarius. Gregory in the East and Ambrose in the West must be largely credited with the intolerant ecclesiastical legislation of the Theodosian Code, lib. xvi. We may take the ecclesiastical legislation under two heads: (1) against heretics; (2) against pagans. Theodosius's first laws against heretics were issued immediately after the council of Constantinople, and rapidly increased in severity. In June or July, 381, he issued a law which must have been directly inspired by the council (Cod. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. v. leg. 6), prohibiting all assemblies of Arians, Photinians, and Eunomians, and ordering the surrender of all churches to the orthodox. A few weeks later two edicts (ib. tit. i. leg. 3, and tit. v. leg. 8) prohibited Arians, Eunomians and Aetians from building churches to replace those taken from them. In law ix., Mar. 382, first appeared the word inquisitor in connexion with religious controversy, officers being appointed to detect and punish the Manicheans. Law xi. of July 383 prohibited any kind of heretical worship, while in Sept. law xii. prohibited heretical assemblies for worship, building of churches and ordinations of clergy, and confiscated to the fiscus places where they met. Evidently the heretics had many official supporters, and many magistrates were lax in proceeding against them, as stern penalties were threatened against such. Yet the heretics maintained their ground. So in Feb. 384, law xiii. was directed against the Eunomian, Macedonian, Arian, and Apollinarian clergy who had ventured back again and were concealed in Constantinople. The Apollinarians especially erected a regular church organization and established an episcopal succession. Gregory of Nazianzus, much troubled by the Apollinarian party, addressed Ep. 77 to the prefect, telling how they took advantage of his absence at the hot baths at Xanxaris to ordain a bishop at Nazianzus. He calls on