CHAPTER II

OF THE BISHOPS OF THE LARGE TOWNS IN THE REIGN OF CONSTANTINE; AND HOW, FROM FEAR OF LICINIUS, CHRISTIANITY WAS PROFESSED IN SECRET IN THE EAST AS FAR AS LYBIA, WHILE IN THE WEST, THROUGH THE FAVOUR OF CONSTANTINE, IT WAS OPENLY PROFESSED

A.D. 324.—DURING the consulate of Constantine Cæsar and Crispus Cæsar, Silvester governed the church of Rome, Alexander that of Alexandria, and Macarius that of Jerusalem. No one, since Romanus, had been appointed over the church of Antioch on the Orontes, for the persecution, it appears, had prevented the ceremony of ordination from taking place. The bishops assembled at Nicæa were, however, so sensible of the purity of the life and doctrines of Eustathius, that they adjudged him worthy to fill the apostolic throne; he was then bishop of Berœa, a place in the neighbourhood; they, therefore, translated him to Antioch.

The Christians of the East, as far as Lybia on the borders of Egypt, did not dare to meet openly as a church, for Licinius had withdrawn his favour from them; but the Christians of the West, the Greeks, the Macedonians, and the Illyrians, met for worship in safety through the protection of Constantine, who was then at the head of the Roman Empire.