OF THE HOMAN EMPIRE. 393

venerable remains into the church of St. Aca- chap.

XXI.

cius. This prudent, and even pious measure, .

•was represented as a wicked profanation by thewhole party which adhered to the homoousiandoctrine. The factions immediately flew toarms; the consecrated ground was used as theirfield of battle ; and one of the ecclesiastical his-torians has observed, as a real fact, not as afigure of rhetoric, that the well before thechurch overflowed with a stream of blood,which filled the porticoes and the adjacentcourts. The writer who should impute thesetumults solely to a religious principle, wouldbetray a very imperfect knowledge of humannature; yet it must be confessed, that the mo-tive which misled the sincerity of zeal, and thepretence which disguised the licentiousness ofpassion, suppressed the remorse, which, in ano-ther cause, would have succeeded to the rageof the Christians of Constantinople . 11

The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Con- Crueltystantius, which did not always require the pro- Brians,vocations of guilt and resistance, was justlyexasperated by the tumults of his capital, andthe criminal behaviour of a faction, which op-posed the authority and religion of their sove-reign. The ordinary punishments of death,exile, and confiscation were inflicted with par-

r See Socrates, I. ii, r. 6, 7 - 12, 13-17,15-2G, 27-38, and Sozomen , !.iii, 3, 4-7*9, I. iv, c. ii, 21. Tlie acts of St. Paul of Constantinople , ofwhich PhotiiiK lias made an abstract (Phot. Bibliot. p. 1419-1430), arcan indifferent copy of these historians; but a modern Greek, whocould write the life of a saint without adding fables and miracles, isentitled to some commendation.