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CHAPTER VI

THE MOVEMENTS THAT LED TO THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON (A.D. 382–445)

 

(a) The Church historians—Socrates (to a.d. 439), Sozomen (to a.d. 439); Theodoret (to a.d. 429), Evagrius (to a.d. 594). The pagan historian Zosimus (to a.d. 410). Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, "Chrysostom."

(b) Hefele, History of the Councils, Eng. Trans., vol. ii., 1876; Bright, Age of the Fathers, vol. ii., 1903; Stephens, Life of Chrysostom, 1872; Dorner, The Person of Christ, Div. ii. vol. i.; Ottley, The Incarnation, part vi., 1896; Loofs, Nestoriana.

 

With the tragic death of Valens and the accession of Gratian in the West and Theodosius in the East the long Arian tyranny comes to an end. Here then a new chapter opens in the history of the Eastern Church. Theodosius was more generous in conduct and more liberal in ideas than either his enemies have been willing to admit in the one case or his friends in the other. One frightful outbreak of his fiery Spanish temper has left an indelible stain on the emperor's memory in spite of the humble penance to which he afterwards submitted. Hearing of a riot at Thessalonica in which a general and other officers of the army had been killed by the populace, who were indignant at the punishment of a favourite charioteer, although this had been on account of a vile crime, Theodosius flew into a rage, ordered the citizens to be invited to the hippodrome as for an expected race, and set his soldiers on to an indiscriminate slaughter, which resulted in a massacre of 5000 men, women, and children. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, after writing to the emperor to express his horror of the crime, though in courteous

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