§2. Violent and Uncanonical Intrusion of Gregory.
Now the outrages which have been committed
against us and against the Church are these. While we were holding our
assemblies in peace, as usual, and while the people were rejoicing in
them, and advancing in godly conversation, and while our
fellow-ministers in Egypt, and the Thebais, and Libya, were in love and
peace both with one another and with us; on a sudden the Prefect of
Egypt puts forth a public letter, bearing the form of an edict, and
declaring that one Gregory from Cappadocia was coming to be my
successor from the court. This announcement confounded every one, for
such a proceeding was entirely novel, and now heard of for the first
time. The people however assembled still more constantly in the
churches, for they very well knew that neither
they themselves, nor any Bishop or Presbyter, nor in short any one had
ever complained against me; and they saw that Arians only were on his
side, and were aware also that he was himself an Arian, and was sent by
Eusebius and his fellows to the Arian party. For you know, brethren, that Eusebius and his fellows have always been the supporters and associates of the impious heresy of the Arian madmen, by whose means they have ever carried on their designs against me, and were the authors of my banishment into Gaul.
The people, therefore, were justly indignant and
exclaimed against the proceeding, calling the rest of the magistrates
and the whole city to witness, that this novel and iniquitous attempt
was now made against the Church, not on the ground of any charge
brought against me by ecclesiastical persons, but through the wanton
assault of the Arian heretics. For even if there had been any complaint
generally prevailing against me, it was not an Arian, or one professing
Arian doctrines, that ought to have been chosen to supersede me; but
according to the ecclesiastical Canons, and the direction of Paul, when
the people were ‘gathered together, and the spirit’ of them
that ordain, ‘with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ’ all things ought to have been enquired into and transacted canonically, in the presence of those among the laity and clergy who demanded the change; and not that a person brought from a distance by Arians, as if making a traffic of the title of Bishop, should with the patronage and strong arm of heathen magistrates, thrust himself upon those who neither asked for nor desired his presence, nor indeed knew anything of what had been done. Such proceedings tend to the dissolution of all the ecclesiastical Canons, and compel the heathen to blaspheme, and to suspect that our appointments are not made according to a divine rule, but as a result of traffic and patronage.