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II. (361). The work was never printed, but an extract was much used by later chronographers. Theodorus' method was to select, with verbal faithfulness, from the narratives in common the clearest and best in style and note the agreements in the margin, while the parts peculiar to each were also used and as such specially pointed out. Theodorus continued this work in a church history of his own, beginning with the death of Theodosius II. and ending with the reign of the elder Justin (518).; but this work is lost with the exception of a few excerpts and citations in the works of subsequent authors and in the acts of the seventh council (cf. MPG, Ixxxvi. 157-2280).

(ExwIN PREUSCHEN.)

THEODOSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA. See MorroYHYSITES, § 13.

Roman emperor (379-395); b. probably at Cauca (29 Roman miles from Segovia), Spain, in 346; d. at Milan Jan. 17, 395. His father, Count Theodosius, was one of the last of the great generals of the western empire, and to him the future emperor owed his military training. Theodosius early had a command of his own in Moesia; but he renounced public service upon the execution of his father through intrigue, after the death of Valentinian I. (373), and lived with his wife, a woman of noble family, both being orthodox Christians. In 375 Gratian, in dire straits by reason of a new inundation of barbarians, recalled Theodosius from private life and in 379 proclaimed him Augustus of the East. Theodosius thereupon made Thessalonica the center of his operations against Goths, Alans, and Huns. Early in 380 he fell ill and desired baptism, which was administered by the venerable Bishop of Acholios. Theodosius then issued at Constantinople, Feb. 27, 380, the explicit Edictum de fine catholica as a law of the empire, wherein the catholic faith is solemnly acknowledged and heretics are threatened with incisive penalties. This edict strikes the keynote of the emperor's religious policy, clearly indicating the course of its further activities.

The war with the Goths came to an end at the close of 380, and Theodosius triumphantly entered Constantinople Nov. 24. The ecclesiastical situation was then controlled by the Arians, and the emperor's immediate effort was to convert them in the spirit of his edict. Bishop Demophilus forsook the city two days after the emperor's arrival, declining to acknowledge the Nicene Creed as the indispensable condition to his further activity. The emperor appointed as his successor Gregory Nazianzen (q.v.), and the same policy was pursued in a series of edicts. On Jan. 10, 381, the pretorian prefect, Eutropius, was directed to expel the antiNicene heretics from the towns and cities, while

Sapor was dispatched to the East to eject the Arian bishops. On July 19, the heretics were forbidden to build new churches. These two edicts were also incisively summarized in a third edict of July 30, the same year, while decrees were issued against the Manieheans. These measures may probably be taken as threats intended to have restraining effect.

To this period belongs the ecumenical Council of Constantinople (381), at which the Praetor Nectarius, a layman, was elected bishop of Constantinople, after Gregory Nazianzen had abdicated that see. This incident sealed the downfall of the Arians in the East (see ARIANdSM, L, 4, § 8; CouN CILS AND SYNODS, § 3). In the prosecution of the religious policy, Theodosius from the outset deemed it important to act independently of the West. In the year 382, there was a pause in legislation adverse to heretics. Thereafter, in June 383, according to Socrates and Sozomen, Theodosius undertook to settle matters by means of a religious conference at Constantinople, whereto invitations were issued to leaders of both orthodox and heretical parties. But the conference proved fruitless, and decrees of July 25 and Sept. 25 resumed interdiction of religious assemblings of heretics; including the Apollinarists and the Macedonians, while ordination of heretical ecclesiastics was forbidden. In the autumn of 383, the emperor was wholly preoccupied with the treacherous assassination of Gratin, at Lyons, on Aug. 25, and the usurpation of the Spaniard Maximus in Gaul, who was not fully conquered until the summer of 388. Thereupon legislation to strengthen the Church was vigorously resumed, and sharp measures were passed against paganism. Probably in 388 the Pretorian Prefect Cynegius was dispatched to Egypt and Asia Minor with the commission of effacing Hellenism by destruction of the pagan temples and inhibition of idolatrous rites. As a result, in many places, bloody tumults arose, especially in Alexandria, where Bishop Theophilus, in cooperation with the civil power, demolished the Serapium. Also on Semitic soil vehement conflicts occurred; and though the detailed facts have not been transmitted, the elegy of Libanius, Peri ton hieron, discloses a great devastation in which the monks played a leading part. After the emperor's sojourn at Milan (389 or 390), his religious policy against the believers in the gods was exercised with great firmness, finding distinct expression in a ruling addressed to the pretorian prefects on Feb. 24, 391: " No one shall pollute himself with sacrifices. No one shall slaughter an innocent sacrificial beast. None shall set foot in a heathen sanctuary, nor visit a pagan temple. None shall look up to an idol made with human hands." A law of Nov. 8, 392, places animal sacrifice and soothsaying on a footing with high treason. While the edict was running its course, the West had once again fallen into a dangerous crisis, which required the emperor's prompt intervention. Theodosius, on leaving the West, had appointed the Frankish Arbogast as mentor to the youthful Augustus. But this gave rise to difficulties which culminated in the assassination of Valentinian at Vienne, May 15, 392. Arbogast elevated in his place Eugenius, who reluctantly assumed the hazardous dignity, and was soon constrained,