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Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival. Cf. The Symbol of Faith (Creed), as Defined by the Second Ecumenical Council, Bilingual - Greek / English - text, translated by Elpenor.
THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS Resources Online and in Print
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34 Pages
Page 25
The conspirators chose the night for the accomplishment of their enterprise. Gregory they knew was confined by illness. They forced their way into the cathedral, and commenced the rite of ordination. By the time they had set the Cynic on the archiepiscopal throne, and had just begun shearing away his long curls, they were surprised by the dawn. The news quickly spread, and everybody rushed to the church. The magistrates appeared on the scene with their officers; Maximus and his consecrators were driven from the sacred precincts, and in the house or shop of a flute-player the tonsure was completed. Maximus repaired to Thessalonica to lay his cause before Theodosius. He met with a cold reception from the emperor, who committed the matter to Ascholius, the much respected bishop of that city, charging him to refer it to pope Damasus. We have two letters of Damasus's on this subject. In the first, addressed to Ascholius and the Macedonian bishops, he vehemently condemns the "ardor animi et foeda presumptio" which had led certain persons coming from Egypt, in violation of the rule of ecclesiastical discipline, to have proposed to consecrate a restless man, an alien from the Christian profession, not worthy to be called a Christian, who wore an idolatrous garb ("habitus idoli") and the long hair which St. Paul said was a shame to a man, and remarks on the fact that being expelled from the church they were compelled to complete the ordination "intra parietes alienos." In the second letter addressed to Ascholius individually (Ep. vi.) he repeats his condemnation of the ordination of the long-haired Maximus ("comatum") and asks him to take special care that a Catholic bishop may be ordained (Migne, Patrolog., xiii., pp. 366-369; Ep. 5; 5, 6).
Maximus returned to Alexandria, and demanded that Peter should assist him in re-establishing himself at Constantinople. But Peter had discovered the man's true character, and received him as coldly as Theodosius had done. Determined to carry his point he presented himself to the patriarch at the head of a disorderly mob, with the threat that if he did not help him to gain the throne of Constantinople he would have that of Alexandria. Peter appealed to the prefect, by whom Maximus was driven out of Egypt. The death of Peter and the accession of Timotheus are placed Feb. 14, 380. The events described must therefore have occurred in 379. When the second ecumenical council met at Constantinople in 381, the question of Maximus's claim to the see of Constantinople came up for consideration. His pretensions were unanimously rejected.
Bright.
(Notes on the Canons, in loc.)
Maximus, however, having been expelled from Egypt, made his way into Northern Italy, presented to Gratian at Milan a large work which he had written against the Arians (as to which Gregory sarcastically remarks--"Saul a prophet, Maximus an author!" Carm. adv. Mar., 21), and deceived St. Ambrose and his suffragans by showing the record of his consecration, with letters which Peter had once written in his behalf. To these prelates of the "Italic diocese" the appeal of Maximus seemed like the appeal of Athanasius, and more recently of Peter himself, to the sympathy of the church of Rome; and they requested Theodosius to let the case be heard before a really General Council (Mansi, iii. 631). Nothing further came of it; perhaps, says Tillemont, those who thus wrote in favour of Maximus "reconnurent bientôt quel il était" (ix., 502): so that when a Council did meet at Rome towards the end of 382, no steps were taken in his behalf.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/second.asp?pg=25
