Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/366

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with a different creed" (Basil. u.s. and § 9; 226 [73]).

On Basil's elevation to the episcopate in 370 Eustathius exhibited great joy, and professed an earnest desire to be of service to his friend. He recommended persons as fellow-helpers who, as Basil bitterly complains, turned out to be spies of his actions and words, interpreting all in a malevolent sense and reporting to their chief (ib. 223 [79], § 3). For their subsequent bitter relations, see Basilius of Caesarea. Eustathius heaped calumnies on the head of his former associate, openly charging him with Apollinarian and other heretical views, and encouraged the clergy of his diocese and province to form a rival communion. Demosthenes, the Vicar of the Prefect, an old enemy of Basil, strenuously forwarded this object. In 376 he visited Sebaste and other chief places in the province, oppressing Basil's adherents, whom he compelled to undertake onerous and costly public duties, and loading the followers of Eustathius with the highest honours (ib. 237 [264], § 2). Eustathius, seeing Arianism in the ascendant, openly sought communion with those whom he had repeatedly denounced. His deposition at Constantinople was not forgotten by the Arians, who had not hitherto recognized him as a canonical bishop. He now sought their goodwill by humiliating concessions. He had overthrown the altars of Basilides, bp. of Gangra, as an Arian, but now begged admission to his communion. He had treated the people of Amasea as heretics, excommunicating Elpidius for holding intercourse with them, and now earnestly sought their recognition. At Ancyra, the Arians refusing him public recognition, he submitted to communicate with them in private houses. When the Arian bishops met in synod at Nyssa he sent a deputation of his clergy to invite them to Sebaste, conducted them through the province with every mark of honour, allowed them to preach and celebrate the Eucharist in his churches, and withheld no mark of the most intimate communion (ib. 257 [72], § 3). These humiliations had but tardy and partial success in obtaining his public acknowledgment by the dominant ecclesiastics. His efforts to secure Arian favour and his effrontery in trading upon his former recognition by Liberius extorted from Basil a vehement letter of remonstrance, addressed to the bp. of Rome and the other Western bishops, depicting the evils inflicted on the Eastern church by the wolves in sheep's clothing, and requesting Liberius to declare publicly the terms on which Eustathius had been admitted to communion (ib. 263 [74], § 3). All Basil's efforts to obtain this mark of sympathy and brotherly recognition from the West were fruitless. He continued to be harassed by the unscrupulous attacks of Eustathius till his death in 379. If the see was vacated by his death, and not, as Hefele holds, with much probability, by his deposition at Gangra, Eustathius died soon after. In 380 Peter became bp. of Sebaste, and thus Basil's brother replaced Basil's most dangerous enemy.

The synod of Gangra, of uncertain date [D. C. A., s.v.], is intimately connected with the name of Eustathius. The identity of the Eustathius there condemned with the bp. of Sebaste, though affirmed by every ancient authority, has been denied by Blondel (De la primauté, p. 138), Baronius (Annal. iii. ann. 361, n. 53), Du Pin (Nouvelle bibliothèque, ii. 339) and called in question by Tillemont (Mém. eccl. ix. note 28, S. Basile); but on careful investigation Hefele (Hist. of the Church Councils, ii. 325 ff. Engl. trans.) scouts the idea that another Eustathius is intended. C. F. Loots Eust. of Seb., Halle, 1898.

[E.V.]

Eustathius (22), bp. of Berytus (Beyrout), a time-serving prelate attached to the court, who kept steadily in view the aggrandizement and independence of his see of Berytus, then suffragan to Tyre. As a bishop of some consideration for theological knowledge, he was appointed commissioner, with Photius of Tyre and Uranius of Himera, by Theodosius II., a.d. 448, to examine the tenets of Ibas of Edessa, charged by the monastic party with favouring the Nestorian heresy. This commission, dated Oct. 26, 448, and addressed to Damasus, the secretary of state (Labbe, Conc. iv. 638), was opened at Berytus, Feb. 1, a.d. 449. In the residence of Eustathius, recently erected by him near his magnificent new church. Ibas indignantly disclaimed the blasphemies attributed to him, and produced a protest, signed by a large number of his clergy, that they had never heard him utter words contrary to the faith (ib. p. 637). The accusation broke down. But the investigation was revived a week or two afterwards at Tyre (ib. 635). Eustathius and his brother commissioners drew up a concordat, which was signed, Feb. 25, by Ibas and his accusers, and countersigned by Eustathius and Photius (ib. 632). At the second council of Ephesus, the disgraceful "Robbers' Synod," Aug. 8, 449, Eustathius, Eusebius of Ancyra, and Basil of Seleucia were the imperial commissioners (ib. 1079). Eustathius lent all his influence to Dioscorus and the dominant party against the venerable Flavian, voting for the rehabilitation of Eutyches and declaring that he had stated the true faith in perfect conformity to the doctrine of godliness (ib. 262). In 450, through the influence of pope Leo and his legates at Constantinople, Eustathius's name was erased from the diptychs of the church as an accomplice in Flavian's violent death. He and his associates, however, were allowed to retain their sees, in the hope that this leniency might lead them to repent (Leo Magn. Ep. 60). The feeble Theodosius II. being now replaced by the orthodox and vigorous Marcian, Eustathius found it politic to change his camp, and at the council of Chalcedon promptly abandoned Dioscorus, declaring his agreement in faith with Flavian, and with exaggerated expressions of penitence asking pardon for his share in the acts of the recent synod (Labbe iv. 141, 176, 177). The abject humiliation of Eustathius and his party prevailed with the orthodox bishops, who acquitted them as mere tools of Dioscorus and received them as brothers (ib. 508-509). At a later session of the council, Oct. 20, the issue between Eustathius and Photius of Tyre was discussed (ib. 539). As a reward for his support of the court party at the "Latrocinium," Eustathius had obtained from Theodosius a decree giving metropolitical rank to Berytus (Lupus, in Canon. 950). Flavian's successor Anatolius, together with Maximus of Antioch