CANON IV.

CONCERNING Maximus the Cynic and the disorder which has happened in 

Constantinople on his account, it is decreed that Maximus never was and 

is not now a Bishop; that those who have been ordained by him are in no 

order whatever of the clergy; since all which has been done concerning 

him or by him, is declared to be invalid.

NOTES.

ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON IV.

Let Maximus the Cynic be cast out from among the bishops, and anyone who 

was inscribed by him on the clergy list shall be held as profane.

EDMUND VENABLES.

Smith and Wace, Diet. Christ. Biog.) 

MAXIMUS the Cynic; the intrusive bishop of Constantinople, A.D. 380. 

Ecclesiastical history hardly presents a more extraordinary

career than that of this man, who, after a most disreputable youth, more 

than once brought to justice for his misdeeds, and bearing the scars of 

his punishments, by sheer impudence, clever flattery, and adroit manage-

merit of opportunities, contrived to gain the confidence successively of 

no less men than Peter of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzen, and Ambrose, 

and to install himself in one of the first sees of the church, from 

which he was with difficulty dislodged by a decree of an ecumenical 

council. His history also illustrates the jealousy felt by the churches 

of Alexandria and Rome towards their young and vigorous rival for 

patriarchal honours, the church of Constantinople; as well as their 

claim to interfere with her government, and to impose prelates upon her 

according to their pleasure. Alexandria, as the chief see of the Eastern 

world, from the first asserted a jurisdiction which she has never 

formally relinquished over the see of Constantinople, more particularly 

in a vacancy in the episcopate (Neale, Pair. of Alexandria, i, 206). The 

conduct of Peter, the successor of Athanasius, first in instituting 

Gregory Nazianzen bishop of Constantinople by his letters and sending a 

formal recognition of his appointment and then in substituting Maximus, 

as has been remarked by Milman (History of Christianity, iii., 115, 

note) and Ullman (Greg. Naz., p. 203 [Cox's translation]), furnish 

unmistakable indications of the desire to erect an Oriental papacy, by 

establishing the primacy of Alexandria over Constantinople and so over 

the East, which was still further illustrated a few years later by the 

high-handed behaviour of Theophilus towards Chrysostom.

Maximus was a native of Alexandria of low parentage. He boasted that his 

family had produced martyrs. He got instructed in the rudiments of the 

Christian faith and received baptism, but strangely enough sought to 

combine the Christian profession with Cynic philosophy.

When he presented himself at the Eastern capital he wore the white robe 

of a Cynic, and carried a philosopher's staff, his head being laden with 

a huge crop of crisp curling hair,  dyed a golden yellow, and swinging 

over his  shoulders in long ringlets. He represented himself as a 

confessor for the Nicene faith, and his banishment to the Oasis as a 

suffering   for the truth (Orat. xxiii., p. 419). Before   long he 

completely gained the ear and heart of Gregory, who admitted him to the 

closest companionship. Maximus proclaimed the most unbounded admiration 

for Gregory's discourses, which he praised in private, and, according to 

the custom of the age, applauded in public. His zeal against heretics 

was most fierce, and his denunciation of them uncompromising. The 

simple-hearted Gregory became the complete dupe of Maximus.

All this time Maximus was secretly maturing a plot for ousting his 

unsuspicious patron from his throne. He gained the ear and the 

confidence of Peter of Alexandria, and induced him to favour his 

ambitious views. Gregory, he asserted, had never been formally enthroned 

bishop of Constantinople; his translation thither was a violation of the 

canons of the church; rustic in manners, he had proved himself quite 

unfitted for the place. Constantinople was getting weary of him. It was 

time the patriarch of the Eastern world should exercise his prerogative 

and give New Rome a more suitable bishop. The old man was imposed on as 

Gregory had been, and lent himself to Maximus's projects. Maximus found 

a ready tool in a presbyter of Constantinople, envious of Gregory's 

talents and popularity (de Vit., p. 13). Others were gained by bribes. 

Seven unscrupulous sailor fellows were despatched from Alexandria to mix 

with the people, and watch for a favourable opportunity for carrying out 

the plot. When all was ripe they were followed by a bevy of bishops, 

with secret instructions from the patriarch to consecrate Maximus.

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. Maximums 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 feeds 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 parities 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 Con- 

stantinople 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 re quested 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 bientot quel il etait" 

(ix., 502): so that when a Council did meet at Rome towards the end of 

382, no steps were taken in his behalf.