A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

and Antioch without a bishop. The agreement had been that Paulinus would
succeed Meletius in the important see of Antioch, but the bishops assembled in
Constantinople had always been uneasy about this plan and it soon became clear
that Paulinus had little popularity. He was an ascetic man who had simply failed
to create a network of local supporters. He did, however, have some backing
from the western bishops, but this did not help him, as the easterners were
determined to stand up to any intrusion, real or apparent, from the western
Church into their affairs. It was now proposed that the matter be solved by
electing a younger clergyman from Antioch, one Flavianus, to the vacant
bishopric.
In his position as Bishop of Constantinople, Gregory now took over the
chairmanship of the council. He suddenly found himself cast in a role for which
he was totally unsuited, and it was his intransigence that proved his immediate
undoing. Instead of letting the situation over Antioch resolve itself, he entered
the fray with his own proposal that Paulinus should be supported as Bishop of
Antioch. No doubt he felt he ought to honour Meletius’ agreement, but he may
also have been under pressure from Theodosius to support a pro-western policy
to keep harmony within the empire. He found little enthusiasm for his proposal
but refused to compromise. The leader of Flavianus’ supporters, Diodore, the
bishop of the apostle Paul’s home town, Tarsus, approached Gregory with his
candidate, but Gregory simply refused to listen. When Gregory made a speech to
the assembled bishops in support of Paulinus’ candidature, he made the fatal
mistake of saying that he would resign his bishopric if his own proposal was not
followed. The result was chaos. In his autobiographical poem, De Sua Vita,
written when he had returned to Cappadocia, a bitter Gregory denounced the
bishops: ‘They screeched on every side, a flock of jackdaws all intent on one
thing, a mob of wild young men, a new kind of gang, a whirlwind causing the
dust to swirl as the winds went out of control, men with whom not even a ruler
with the authority of fear or age would think it proper to reason, buzzing around
as if they were in complete disorder, like a swarm of wasps suddenly flying in
your face.’ 4 Yet he had only himself to blame for the mayhem.
There followed a walkout. Virtually nothing is known of the theological
debates of the council of 381, but Gregory was certainly hoping to get some
acceptance of his belief that the Spirit was consubstantial with the Father.
Whether he dealt with the matter clumsily or whether there was simply no
chance of consensus, the ‘Macedonians’, bishops who refused to accept the full
divinity of the Holy Spirit, left the council. (Some accounts suggest that the