CHAPTER XI

HAIL OF EXTRAORDINARY SIZE; AND EARTHQUAKES IN BITHYNIA AND THE HELLESPONT

ON the 2nd of July of the following year, in the consulate of Lupicin and Jovian, there fell at Constantinople hail of such a size as would fill a man’s hand. Many affirmed that this was an intimation of the Divine displeasure, because of the emperor’s having banished several persons engaged in the sacred ministry, on account of their refusal to communicate with Eudoxius. During the same consulate, on the 24th of August, the emperor Valentinian proclaimed his son Gratian Augustus. In the next year, when Valentinian and Valens were a second time consuls, there happened on the 11th of October, an earthquake in Bithynia which destroyed the city of Nice. This was about twelve years after Nicomedia had been visited by a similar catastrophe. Soon afterwards the largest portion of Germa in the Hellespont was reduced to ruins by another earthquake. Nevertheless no impression was made on the mind of either Eudoxius the Arian bishop, or the emperor Valens, by these supernatural occurrences; for they were not deterred thereby from their relentless persecution of those who dissented from them in matters of faith. Meanwhile these convulsions of the earth were regarded as typical of the disturbances which agitated the churches: for many of the clerical body were sent into exile, as we have stated; Basil and Gregory alone, by a special dispensation of Divine Providence, being on account of their eminent piety exempted from this punishment. The former of these individuals was bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia; while the latter presided over Nazianzen a little city in the vicinity of Cæsarea. But we shall have occasion to mention both again in the course of our history.