Chapter XXXVIII.--The Death of Arius. [257]
Such was the supplication of Alexander. Meanwhile the emperor, being desirous of personally examining Arius, sent for him to the palace, and asked him whether he would assent to the determinations of the Synod at Nicæa. He without hesitation replied in the affirmative, and subscribed the declaration of the faith in the emperor's presence, acting with duplicity. The emperor, surprised at his ready compliance, obliged him to confirm his signature by an oath. This also he did with equal dissimulation. The way he evaded, as I have heard, was this: he wrote his own opinion on paper, and carried it under his arm, so that he then swore truly that he really held the sentiments he had written. That this is so, however, I have written from hearsay, but that he added an oath to his subscription, I have myself ascertained, from an examination of the emperor's own letters. The emperor being thus convinced, ordered that he should be received into communion by Alexander, bishop of Constantinople. It was then Saturday, and Arius was expecting to assemble with the church on the day following: but divine retribution overtook his daring criminalities. For going out of the imperial palace, attended by a crowd of Eusebian partisans like guards, he paraded proudly through the midst of the city, attracting the notice of all the people. As he approached the place called Constantine's Forum, where the column of porphyry is erected, a terror arising from the remorse of conscience seized Arius, and with the terror a violent relaxation of the bowels: he therefore enquired whether there was a convenient place near, and being directed to the back of Constantine's Forum, he hastened thither. Soon after a faintness came over him, and together with the evacuations his bowels protruded, followed by a copious hemorrhage, and the descent of the smaller intestines: moreover portions of his spleen and liver were brought off in the effusion of blood, so that he almost immediately died. The scene of this catastrophe still is shown at Constantinople, as I have said, behind the shambles in the colonnade: and by persons going by pointing the finger at the place, there is a perpetual remembrance preserved of this extraordinary kind of death. So disastrous an occurrence filled with dread and alarm the party of Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia; and the report of it quickly spread itself over the city and throughout the whole world. As the king grew more earnest in Christianity and confessed that the confession at Nicæa was attested by God, he rejoiced at the occurrences. He was also glad because of his three sons whom he had already proclaimed Cæsars; one of each of them having been created at every successive decennial anniversary of his reign. To the eldest, whom he called Constantine, after his own name, he assigned the government of the western parts of the empire, on the completion of his first decade. His second son Constantius, who bore his grandfather's name, he constituted Cæsar in the eastern division, when the second decade had been completed. And Constans, the youngest, he invested with a similar dignity, in the thirtieth year of his own reign.
[257] For a reproduction of the circumstances related in this chapter, together with a historical estimate of them based on additional evidence, see Neander, Hist. of the Christ. Ch. Vol. II. p. 384-388.
Chapter XXXIX.--The Emperor falls sick and dies.
A year having passed, the Emperor Constantine having just entered the sixty-fifth year of his age, was taken with a sickness; he therefore left Constantinople, and made a voyage to Helenopolis, that he might try the effect of the medicinal hot springs which are found in the vicinity of that city. Perceiving, however, that his illness increased, he deferred the use of the baths; and removing from Helenopolis to Nicomedia, he took up his residence in the suburbs, and there received Christian baptism. [258] After this he became cheerful; and making his will, appointed his three sons heirs to the empire, allotting to each one of them his portion, in accordance with the arrangements he had made while living. He also granted many privileges to the cities of Rome and Constantinople; and entrusting the custody of his will [259] to that presbyter by whose means Arius had been recalled, and of whom we have already made mention, he charged him to deliver it into no one's hand, except that of his son Constantius, to whom he had given the sovereignty of the East. After the making of his will, he survived a few days and died. Of his sons none were present at his death. A courier was therefore immediately despatched into the East, to inform Constantius of his father's decease.
[258] It was the belief of many in the earlier ages of the church that baptism had a certain magical power purging away the sins previous to it, but having no force as regards those that might follow; this led many to postpone their baptism until disease or age warned them of the nearness of death; such delayed baptism was called clinic baptism,' and was discouraged by the more judicious and spiritual-minded Fathers, some of whom doubted its validity and rebuked those who delayed as actuated by selfishness and desire to indulge in sin. The church, however, encouraged it in the cases of gross offenders. Cf. Bingham, Eccl. Antiq. IV. 3, and XI. 11, and Bennett, Christian Archæology, pp. 407 and 409.
[259] Cf. Euseb. Life of Const. IV. 63, and Rufinus, H. E. I. 11. The story is, however, doubtful, as Valesius observes. It is more likely that some one of the lay officials of the government, or, as Philostorgius says, Eusebius of Nicomedia, was entrusted with this will, and not a mere presbyter. That it was probably Eusebius of Nicomedia becomes the more probable when we consider that that bishop also probably baptized Constantine.