394

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAP.

XXL

tial rigour ; anil the Greeks still revere the holymemory of two clerks, a reader and a sub-dea-con, who were accused of the murder of Her-mogenes, and beheaded at the gates of Con-stantinople. By an edict of Constantius againstthe catholics, which has not been judged wor-thy of a place in the Theodosian code, thosewho refused to communicate with the arian bi-shops, and particularly with Macedonius, weredeprived of the immunities of ecclesiastics, andof the rights of Christians ; they were compel-led to relinquish the possession of the churches,and were strictly prohibited from holding theirassemblies within the walls of the city. Theexecution of this unjust law, in the provincesof Thrace and Asia Minor , was committed tothe zeal of Macedonius; the civil and militarypowers were directed to obey his commands ;and the cruelties exercised by this semi-ariantyrant in the support of the homoiousion, ex-ceeded the commission, and disgraced the reignof Constantius . The sacraments of the churchwere administered to the reluctant victims, whodenied the vocation, and abhorred the prin-ciples of Macedonius. The rites of baptismwere conferred on women and children, who,for that purpose, had been torn from the armsof their friends and parents ; the mouths of thecommunicants were held open, by a w r oodenengine, while the consecrated bread was forceddown their throat; the breasts of tender virginswere either burnt with red-hot egg-shells, or in-humanly compressed between sharp and heavy