Riots at Constantinople and the Death of Hermogenes

In this way the schemes of those who upheld various heresies against the truth were carried through, and in this way they deposed the bishops throughout the East who firmly maintained the supremacy of the doctrines of the Nicene council. These heretics had taken possession of the most important sees, such as Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch in Syria, and the imperial city of the Hellespont, and they held in subjection all the bishops they had won over. The ruler of the church at Rome and all the priests of the West took these acts as an insult to themselves. From the beginning they had agreed with everything decided by the vote of those assembled at Nicaea, and they did not cease to think so now. When Athanasius arrived, they received him kindly and took up his cause among themselves. Irritated at this interference, Eusebius wrote to Julius, urging him to make himself a judge of the decrees passed against Athanasius by the Council of Tyre. But before he could learn Julius’s views, and in fact not long after the Council of Antioch, Eusebius died. [a]

Immediately on his death, the citizens of Constantinople who held the doctrines of the Nicene council brought Paul to the church. At the same time the opposing crowd seized the occasion and gathered in another church. Among them were the followers of Theognis, bishop of Nicaea, and of Theodore, bishop of Heraclea, and others of the same party who happened to be present; and they ordained Macedonius bishop of Constantinople. This caused repeated riots in the city that took on every appearance of a war, for the people attacked one another and many died. The city was full of uproar, so that the emperor, who was then at Antioch, was angered when he heard what had happened, and issued an order for Paul’s expulsion. Hermogenes, commander of the cavalry, tried to carry out the emperor’s order. He had been sent to Thrace and had to pass by Constantinople on the way, and he thought he could remove Paul from the church by force with his troops. But the people, instead of giving way, met him with open resistance. When the soldiers, to carry out the orders they had received, tried still greater violence, the rioters broke into Hermogenes’s house, set it on fire, killed him, tied a rope to his body and dragged it through the city.

As soon as the emperor heard this he set out on horseback for Constantinople to punish the people. But he spared them when he saw them coming out to meet him with tears and pleas. He took from the city about half of the grain that his father Constantine had granted it every year from the public treasury out of the tribute of Egypt, probably thinking that luxury and excess made the populace idle and inclined to riot. He turned his anger against Paul and ordered him expelled from the city. He was greatly displeased with Macedonius too, both because he had been the occasion of the murder of the general and of others, and because he had been ordained without the emperor’s approval having first been obtained. Still, he returned to Antioch without either confirming or annulling his ordination.

Meanwhile the zealots for the Arian teachings deposed Gregory, because he was lukewarm in supporting their doctrines, and because he had besides earned the ill will of the Alexandrians through the disasters that struck the city at his entrance, especially the burning of the church. In his place they elected George, a native of Cappadocia, who was admired for his energy and his zeal for the Arian doctrine.