to the patriarchal chair at Antioch, and the emperor
ordered him to be put in possession of that dignity in 361; but some
among the Catholics refused to acknowledge him, regarding his election
as irregular, on account of the share which the Arians had had in it.
The Arians hoped that he would declare himself of their party, but were
undeceived when, the emperor Constantius arriving at Antioch, he was
ordered, with certain other prelates, to explain in his presence that
text of the Proverbs,[1] concerning the wisdom of God: _The Lord hath
created me in the beginning of his ways_. George of Laodicea first
explained it in an Arian sense, next Acacius of Caesarea, in a sense
bordering on that heresy; but the truth triumphed in the mouth of
Meletius, who, speaking the third,[2] showed that this text is to be
understood not of a strict creation, but of a new state or being, which
the Eternal Wisdom received in his incarnation. This public testimony
thunderstruck the Arians, and Eudoxus, then the bishop of
Constantinople, prevailed with the emperor to banish him into Lesser
Armenia, thirty days after his installation. The Arians intruded the
impious Euzoius into that see, who, formerly being deacon at Alexandria,
had been deposed and expelled the church, with the priest and
arch-heretic Arius, by St. Alexander, bishop of Alexandria. From this
time is dated the famous schism of Antioch, in 360, though it drew its
origin from the banishment of St. Eustathius about thirty years before.
Many zealous Catholics always adhered to St. Eustathius, being convinced
that his faith was the only cause of his unjust expulsion. But others,
who were orthodox in their principles, made no scruple, at least for
some time, to join communion in the great church with the intruded
patriarchs; in which their conscience was more easily imposed upon, as,
by the artifices of the Arians, the cause of St. Eustathius appeared
merely personal and secular, or at least mixed; and his two first
short-lived successors Eulalius and Euphronius, do not appear to have
declared themselves Arians, otherwise than by their intrusion. Placillus
the Third joined in condemning St. Athanasius in the councils of Tyre,
in 335, and of Antioch {402} in 341. His successors, Stephen I., (who at
Philippopolis opposed the council of Sardica,) Leontius, and Eudoxus,
appeared everywhere leagued with the heads of the Arians. But the
intrusion of Euzoius, with the expulsion of St. Melet