The Body of Paul Brought Home, and the Death of Meletius

At that time the emperor had the body of the bishop Paul brought from the city of Ancyra. Philip, the praetorian prefect, had banished Paul at the urging of Macedonius and had ordered him strangled at Cucusus, a town of Armenia, as I have already related. The emperor received the remains with great reverence and honor and laid them in the church that now takes its name from him. The Macedonian party had held this church while they remained separate from the Arians, but the emperor expelled them from it at that time because they refused to adopt his views. About this time Meletius, bishop of Antioch, fell sick and died, and Gregory, the brother of Basil, delivered a funeral oration in his praise. His friends carried the body of the dead bishop to Antioch. There those who had attached themselves to him again refused to submit to Paulinus and had Flavian put in Meletius’s place, and the people began to quarrel all over again. So once more the church at Antioch was split into rival factions, not over any difference of faith, but simply over a preference for one bishop or another. [a]