Remembering Exile

In this final chapter, I explore once again how the discourse of exile was used to remember and shape Nicene orthodoxy. And yet, this final bishop in flight had a conflicted legacy. I then begin where we left off in the previous chapter and, here, examine Theodoret’s reconstruction of the Antiochene landscape. In this examination, however, I pay attention, not to the invading bishop, but, to her thrice ousted bishop, Meletius of Antioch. I then turn to a more detailed assessment of Sozomen of Constantinople’s reconstruction of Meletius’s exile and its role in the struggle for orthodoxy not in Antioch, but in Constantinople. Finally, I compare Sozomen to his Constantinopolitan counterpart, Socrates, who was also heavily invested in promoting a pro-Nicene vision in and around this golden city. As I conclude, this new Rome, this space of imperial Christianity and receptacle of Athanasian orthodoxy, wrestled with a legacy of episcopal flight because it continued to threaten to undermine the very orthodoxy it sought to reinforce.