Nestorius Harasses the Macedonians

Nestorius did indeed act against the custom of the church, and he made himself hated in other ways as well, as is clear from what happened while he was bishop. For Antony, bishop of Germa, a city of the Hellespont, was spurred on by Nestorius’s example of intolerance toward heretics and began to persecute the Macedonians, on the pretext of carrying out the wishes of the patriarch. For some time the Macedonians put up with his harassment. But when Antony went to still greater extremes, they could no longer bear his harsh treatment and were driven to a sad act of desperation. They bribed two men who put profit first and right second, and these murdered their tormentor. When the Macedonians had committed this crime, Nestorius took occasion from it to treat them still more violently, and he persuaded the emperor to take away their churches. So they were deprived not only of the churches they had at Constantinople, outside the old walls of the imperial city, but also of those they had at Cyzicus, and of many others that belonged to them in the countryside of the Hellespont. As a result, many of them at that time came over to the catholic church and professed the homoousian faith. But as the proverb says, “Drunkards never lack wine, nor the quarrelsome strife.” And so it turned out with Nestorius. After he had worked so hard to drive others out of the church, he was himself thrown out, for the following reason. [a]