Amphilochius

, a native of Cappadocia, bishop of Iconium in the fourth century, was the friend of St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Basil. He assisted at the first general council of Constantinople in the year 381, and presided at the council of Sidae. In the year 383, he contrived the following method of persuading the emperor to prohibit the assemblies of the Arians: observing that Theodosius encouraged the Arians, he went to his palace, and approaching Arcadius, his son, caressed him as if he had been an infant, but did not treat him with the customary respect. Theodosius, enraged at an affront offered to himself in the person of his son, ordered the bishop to be thrust out of the palace, when, turning to Theodosius, he cried, “My lord, you cannot bear that your son should be injured, and are displeased at those who do not treat him with respect; can you then doubt, that the God of the universe also abhors those who blaspheme his son?” Theodosius, upon this, called back the bishop, begged his pardon, and soon after published severe laws against the assemblies of the Arians. St. Amphilochius died about the year 394. Very few of his works remain. Jerome mentions but one, concerning the “Divinity of the Holy Spirit,” which is not extant. The principal is an Iambic poem of considerable length, in which is inserted a catalogue of the books, of the Old and New Testament. Cave and Dupin say that it was the production of Gregory Nazianzen, but Combesis and Tillemont contend for its belonging to Amphilochius. The fragments which remain of his other works are in the Bibl. Patrum, and there is a letter of his concerning synods, published by Cotelerius. Father Combesis published all he could collect, in 1644, fol. Greek and Latin, but he has inserted some pieces on very doubtful authority. ²