The news of the disturbances at Antioch had reached Constantinople long before Flavian; and the bishop, as he was on his way, met two commissioners, who had been sent by the emperor to declare his sentence to the people. The buildings of the city were to be spared; but it was to lose its rank among the cities of the empire. The baths, which in those countries were reckoned almost as a necessary of life, were to be shut up, and all public amusements were to be at an end. The officers, after reaching Antioch, and publishing this sentence, set about inquiring who had taken a part in the tumult. Judgment was to be executed without mercy on all whose guilt could be proved; and the anxiety of the people became extreme. A number of monks and hermits came down from the mountains, and busied themselves in trying to comfort those who were in distress. One of these monks, Macedonius, a man of rough and simple appearance, but of great note for holiness, met the emperor's commissioners as they were riding through the market-place; whereupon he laid hold of one of them by the cloak, and desired them both to dismount. At first they were angry; but, on being told who he was, they alighted and fell on their knees before him; for, in those days, monks famous for their holiness were looked on much as if they had been prophets. And Macedonius spoke to them in the tone of a prophet:--"Go," he said, "say to the emperor, You are a man; your subjects too are men, made in the image of God. You are enraged on account of images of brass; but a living and reasonable image is of far higher worth than these. Destroy the brazen images, and it is easy to make others; but you cannot restore a single hair of the heads of the men whom you have put to death." The commissioners were much struck with the way in which Macedonius uttered this, although they did not understand what he said (as he spoke in the Syrian language); and when his words were explained to them in Greek, they agreed that one of them should go to the emperor, to tell him how things were at Antioch, and to beg for further instructions.