4. Proceedings after the Council of Milan

Are they then satisfied with all this, and content to be quiet for the future? By no means; they have not given over yet, but like the horseleach¹⁴⁰³ in the Proverbs, they revel more and more in their wickedness, and fix themselves upon the larger dioceses. Who can adequately describe the enormities they have already perpetrated? who is able to recount all the deeds that they have done? Even very lately, while the Churches were at peace, and the people worshipping in their congregations, Liberius, Bishop of Rome, Paulinus¹⁴⁰⁴ , Metropolitan of Gaul, Dionysius¹⁴⁰⁵ , Metropolitan of Italy, Lucifer¹⁴⁰⁶ , Metropolitan of the Sardinian islands, and Eusebius¹⁴⁰⁷ of Italy, all of them good Bishops and preachers of the truth, were seized and banished¹⁴⁰⁸ , on no pretence whatever, except that they would not unite themselves to the Arian heresy, nor subscribe to the false accusations and calumnies which they had invented against me.

5. In praise of Hosius.

Of the great Hosius¹⁴⁰⁹ , who answers to his name, that confessor of a happy old age, it is superfluous for me to speak, for I suppose it is known unto all men that they caused him also to be banished; for he is not an obscure person, but of all men the most illustrious, and more than this. When was there a Council held, in which he did not take the lead¹⁴¹⁰ , and by right counsel convince every one? Where is there a Church that does not possess some glorious monuments of his patronage? Who has ever come to him in sorrow, and has not gone away rejoicing? What needy person ever asked his aid, and did not obtain what he desired? And yet even on this man they made their assault, because knowing the calumnies which they invent in behalf of their iniquity, he would not subscribe to their designs against us. And if afterwards, upon the repeated stripes above measure that were inflicted upon him, and the conspiracies that were formed against his kinsfolk, he yielded¹⁴¹¹ to them for a time¹⁴¹² , as being old and infirm in body, yet at least their wickedness is shewn even in this circumstance; so zealously did they endeavour by all means to prove that they were not truly Christians.