{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/203/2030165.htm","path":"chr/ecf/203/2030165.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/203/2030165.htm","text":"p. 151 Chapter XXV.\u2014Of the death of the Emperor Theodosius. 905\nAfter this victory Theodosius fell sick and divided his empire between his sons, assigning to the elder the sovereignty which he had wielded himself and to the younger the throne of Europe. 906\nHe charged both to hold fast to the true religion, \u201cfor by its means,\u201d said he, \u201cpeace is preserved, war is stopped, foes are routed, trophies are set up and victory is proclaimed.\u201d After giving this charge to his sons he died, leaving behind him imperishable fame.\nHis successors in the empire were also inheritors of his piety.\nTheodosius died of dropsy at Milan, Jan. 17, 395. \u201cThe character of Theodosius is one of the most perplexing in history. The church historians have hardly a word of blame for him except in the matter of the massacre of Thessalonica, and that seems to be almost atoned for in their eyes by its perpetrator\u2019s penitent submission to ecclesiastical censure. On the other hand the heathen historians, represented by Zosimus, condemn in the most unmeasured terms his insolence, his love of pleasure, his pride, and hint at the scandalous immorality of his life.\u201d \u201cIt is the fashion to call him the Great, and we may admit that he has as good a right to that title as Lewis XIV., a monarch whom in some respects he pretty closely resembles. But it seems to me that it would be safer to withhold this title from both sovereigns, and to call them not the Great, but the Magnificent.\u201d Hodgkin, Dynasty of Theodosius. 133.\nThe great champion of orthodoxy, he was no violent persecutor, and received at his death from a grateful paganism the official honours of apotheosis.\n151:906\nArcadius was now eighteen, and Honorius eleven. Arcadius reigned at Constantinople, the puppet of Rufinus, the Eunuch Eutropius, and his Empress, Eudoxia.\nHonorius was established at Milan, till the approach of Alaric drove him to Ravenna. (402.)","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. III: The Ec...","type":"page"}