A Brighter Day Begins with His Word.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series • VOL 4 • SECTION 96

[664] Cf. Orat. i. 2 and notes.

← Athanasius — Select Works and Letters

[664] Cf. Orat. i. 2 and notes.

[665] Ad. Ep. Æg. §22. supr. §11.

[666] [Prolegg. ch. ii. §3 (1) ad fin.] Athan. speaks more openly against this arrangement. infr. §71.

[667] [According to the tenses in the original the five months mark the date not of Alexander's death (April 17, 328), but of the renewed Meletian troubles. The settlement did not keep them quiet for five months. The terminus a quo of the five months is somewhat doubtful; but it certainly is not the Council of Nicæa, see §71, &c. Montf. Monit. in Vit. S. Athanasii, also Prolegg. ch. ii. §3 (1) and ch. v. §3 a.]

[668] Ad. Ep Æg. 23.

[669] Supr. §7, and de Decr. 27.

[670] palatinoi, vid. Apol. ad Const. §19.

[671] Infr. §71 fin. Sozom. ii. 25.

[672] sticharia, ecclesiastical. [See D.C.A. p. 1933.]

[673] They are lost.

[674] Suburb of Nicomedia, infr. §65.

[675] archieresian

[676] Cf. §§46, 72, 77.

[677] Cf. de Syn. 16, [and Fest Ind. passim].

[678] [Cf. the list of Mareotic clergy supr., p. 72. The three deacons of Alexandria are in the list, p. 71].

[679] Vid. §60.

[680] Dalmatius was the name of father and son, the brother and nephew of Constantine. Socrates, Hist. i. 27. gives the title of Censor to the son; but the Chron. Pasch. p. 531 (Dind.) gives it to the father. Valesius, and apparently Tillemont (Empereurs, vol. 4. p. 657) think Socrates mistaken. The younger Dalmatius was created Cæsar by Constantine a few years before his death; and as well as his brother Hannibalian, and a number of other relatives, was put to death by the soldiery, on the death of Constantine. vid. Hist. Ar. 69. [Gwatkin, p. 108 note].

[681] Ecclus. 30. 4.

[682] despota. Theod. H. E. i. 5. init.

[683] [The mone here is not a monastery in the later sense, but a village or cluster of cells. This intercepted letter demonstrates the existence of Meletian monks, of which there is other evidence also: (see below, Introd. to Vit. Ant. The objection of Weingarten to the genuineness of this letter is purely arbitrary)].

[684] According to the system of government introduced by Diocletian and Constantine, there were thirty-five military commanders of the troops, under the Magistri militum, and all of these bore the name of duces or dukes; the comites, or counts, were ten out of the number, who were distinguished as companions of the Emperor. vid. Gibbon, ch. 17. Three of these dukes were stationed in Egypt [i.e. in the whole prefecture; one only in the province of Egypt in the narrower sense].

[685] Cf. §28.

[686] Vid. supr. p. 92, note 3; the (so-called) Apostolical Canon apparently referred to here, is Can. 27. according to Beveridge.

[687] Cf. p. 95, note 4.

[688] i.e. Meletian Bishops who had conformed; or, since they are not in the list, §71. Catholic Bishops with whom the conforming party were familiar; or Meletians after the return of Meletius. vid. Tillemont, Mem. vol. 8. p. 658.

[689] On the "cursus publicus," vid. Gothofred. in Cod. Theod. viii. tit. 5. It was provided for the journeys of the Emperor, for persons whom he summoned, for magistrates, ambassadors, and for such private persons as the Emperor indulged in the use of it, which was gratis. The use was granted by Constantine to the Bishops who were summoned to Nicæa, as far as it went, in addition (though aliter Valesius in loc.) to other means of travelling. Euseb. v. Const. iii. 6. The cursus publicus brought the Bishops to the Council of Tyre. ibid. iv. 43. In the conference between Liberius and Constantius, Theod. Hist. ii. 13. it is objected that the cursus publicus is not sufficient to convey Bishops to the Council which Liberius proposes; he answers that the Churches are rich enough to convey their Bishops as far as the sea. Thus S. Hilary was compelled (data evectionis copia, Sulp. Sev. Hist. ii. 57.) to attend at Seleucia, as Athan. at Tyre. Julian complains of the abuse of the cursus publicus, perhaps with an allusion to these Councils of Constantius. vid. Cod. Theod. viii. tit. 5. l. 12. where Gothofred quotes Liban. Epitaph. in Julian. vol. i. p. 569. ed. Reiske.) Vid. the well-known passage of Ammianus, who speaks of the Councils being the ruin of the res vehicularia Hist. xxi. 16. The Eusebians at Philippopolis say the same thing. Hilar. Frag. iii. 25. The Emperor provided board and perhaps lodging for the Bishops at Ariminum; which the Bishops of Aquitaine, Gaul, and Britain, declined, except three British from poverty. Sulp. Hist. ii. 56. Hunneric in Africa, after assembling 466 Bishops at Carthage, dismissed them without modes of conveyance, provision, or baggage. Victor Utic. Hist. iii. init. In the Emperor's letter previous to the assembling of the sixth Ecumenical Council, a.d. 678, (Harduin, Conc. t. 3. p. 1048 fin.) he says he has given orders for the conveyance and maintenance of its members. Pope John VIII. reminds Ursus, Duke of Venice (a.d. 876.), of the same duty of providing for the members of a Council, "secundum pios principes, qui in talibus munifice semper erant intenti." Colet. Concil. (Ven. 1730,) t. xi. p. 14.

[690] stratopedon; vid. Chrys. on the Statues, p. 382, note 6. Gothofr. in Cod. Theod. vi. 32, 1. 1. Castra sunt ubi Princeps est. ibid. 35, l. 15. also Kiesling. de Discipl. Cler. i. 5. p. 16. Beveridge in Can. Apost. 83. interprets strateia of any civil engagement as opposed to clerical.

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