St Nicholas Scotches a Rumour
Three highly decorated officers in the Roman Army fall victim to a campaign to discredit them.
331
Roman Empire 27 BC - AD 1453
Three highly decorated officers in the Roman Army fall victim to a campaign to discredit them.
331
Roman Empire 27 BC - AD 1453
This post is number 4 in the series Miracles of Nicholas
From 331, the Praetorian Prefect of the East was Ablabius, making him the most important man in the eastern Roman Empire after the Emperor himself. Originally a pagan from Crete, he became a Christian and was a close confidant of Emperor Constantine. Later, under Constantius, he lost his place and his life for supporting the Orthodox party in the Arian crisis.
ONE day a malicious rumour came to the ears of Ablabius, the right-hand-man of Emperor Constantine the Great, whispering that three officers, much decorated for crushing a revolt of the Taifals in Phrygia, were really conspiring with them to create a breakaway Taifal state. Ablabius and the Emperor saw no alternative but to have the alleged traitors beheaded.
The situation seemed hopeless, but one of them, Nepotian, remembered how Nicholas, bishop of the town which had been their base for the Taifal campaign, had rescued three innocent men from a similar fate there.* So they spent the night in prayer, asking Nicholas’s God to help them. Ablabius, meanwhile, slept fitfully.
Next morning Constantine sent for him, and began to recount a troubling dream he had experienced the night before. “But sire,” Ablabius broke in, awestruck, “this same Nicholas appeared to me also, saying: ‘Have nothing to do with these just men’.” So the officers were released, and all three resigned their commissions to become monks.
Next in series: St Nicholas and the Unjust Judge
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did Ablabius suspect the three officers of treason?
Because he listened to an unfounded rumour.