Great Hail and Earthquakes

On the second of June in the following year, in the consulship of Lupicin and Jovian, hail fell at Constantinople so large that a single stone would fill a man’s hand. Many declared that this hail had fallen because of God’s displeasure, since the emperor had banished a number of men engaged in the sacred ministry, namely those who refused to share communion with Eudoxius. In the same consulship, on the twenty-fourth of August, the emperor Valentinian proclaimed his son Gratian Augustus. The next year, when Valentinian and Valens were consuls for the second time, on the eleventh of October, an earthquake in Bithynia destroyed the city of Nicaea. This was about twelve years after Nicomedia had suffered a similar disaster. Soon afterward the greater part of Germa in the Hellespont was reduced to ruins by another earthquake. [a]

Yet these events made no impression on the mind of either Eudoxius, the Arian bishop, or the emperor Valens, for they did not stop their relentless persecution of those who disagreed with them in matters of faith. Meanwhile these convulsions of the earth were regarded as signs of the disturbances that were shaking the churches. For many of the clergy were sent into exile, as we have said. Only Basil and Gregory, by a special arrangement of God’s providence, were spared this punishment because of their outstanding piety. Basil was bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, while Gregory presided over Nazianzus, a small city near Caesarea. But we will have occasion to mention both Basil and Gregory again in the course of our history.