JOHN
455
JOHN
come to Ephesus, where he appointed a new arch-
bishop, and with the consent of the assembled bishops
deposed six bishops for simony. After having passed
the same sentence on Bishop Gerontius of Nicomedia,
he returned to Constantinople.
Meanwhile disagreeable things had happened there. Bishop Severian, to whom Chrysostom seems to have entrusted the performance of some ecclesiastical functions, had entered into open enmity with Sera- pion, the archdeacon and occnnomiis of the cathedral and the episcopal palace. Whatever the real reason may have been, Chrysostom found the case so serious that he invited Severian to return to his own see. It was solely owing to the personal interference of Eu- doxia, whose confidence Serapion possessed, that he was allowed to come back from Chalcedon. whither he had retired. The reconciliation which followed was, at least on the part of Severian, not a sincere one, and the public scandal had excited much ill-feeling. The effects soon became visible. When in the spring of 402 Bishop Porphyrins of Gaza (see Marcus Diac, "Vita Porphyrii", V, ed. Nuth, Bonn, 1897, pp. 11- 19) went to the Court at Constantinople to obtain a favour for his diocese, Chrysostom answered that he could do nothing for him, since he was himself in dis- grace with the empress. Nevertheless, the party of malcontents were not really dangerous, unless they could find some prominent and unscrupulous leader. Such a person presented himself sooner than might have been expected. It was the well-known The- ophilus, Patriarch of .Alexandria. He appeared under rather curious circumstances, which in no way fore- shadowed the final result. Theophilus, towards the end of the year 402, was summoned by the emperor to Constantinople to apologize before a synod, over which Chrysostom should preside, for several charges, which were brought against him by certain Egyptian monks, especially by the so-called four" tall brothers ". The patriarch, their former friend, had suddenly turned against them, and had them persecuted as Origenists (Palladius, "Dialogus", xvi; Socrates, op. cit., VI, 7; Sozomenus, op. cit., VIII, 12).
However, Theophilus was not easily frightened. He had always agents and friends at C'onstantinople, and knew the state of things and the feelings at the court. He now resolved to take advantage of them. He wrote at once to St. Epiphanius at Cyprus, request- ing him to go to Constantinople and prevail upon Chrysostom to condemn the Origenists. Epiphanius went. But when he found that Theophilus was merely using him for his own purposes, he left the capital, dying on his return in 403. At this time Chrysostom delivered a sermon against the vain luxury of women. It was reported to the empress as though she had been personally alluded to. In this way the ground was prepared. Theophilus at last appeared at Constantinople in June, 403, not alone, as he had been commanded, but with twenty-nine of his suffragan bishops, and, as Palladius (ch. viii) tells us, with a good deal of money and all sorts of gifts. He took his lodgings in one of the imperial palaces, and held conferences with all the adversaries of Chrysos- tom. Then he retired with his suffragans and seven other bishops to a villa near Constantinople, called iirl 5p0v (see Ubaldi, "La Synodo ad Quercum", Turin, 1902). A long list of the most ridiculous accusations was drawn up against Chrvsostom (see Photius, "Bibliotheca", .59, in P. G., CIII, 105-11.3), who, surrounded by forty-two archliishops and bishops assembled to judge Theophilus in accordance with the orders of the emperor, was now summoned to present himself and apologize. Chrysostom natu- rally refused to recognise the legality of a synod in which his open enemies were judges. After the third summons Chrysostom, with the consent of the em- peror, was declared to be deposed. In order to avoid useless bloddshed, he surrendered himself on the
third day to the soldiers who awaited him. But the
threats of the excited people, and a sudden accident
in the imperial palace, frightened the empress (Palla-
dius, "Dialogus", ix). She feared some punishment
from heaven for Chrj'sostom's exile, and immediately
ordered his recall. After some hesitation Chrj-sostom
re-entered the capital amid the great rejoicings of
the people. Theopliilus and his party saved them-
selves by flying from C'onstantinople. Chrysostom's
return was in itself a defeat for Eudoxia. When her
alarms had gone, her rancour revived. Two months
afterwards a silver statue of the empress was un-
veiled in the square just before the cathedral. The
public celebrations which attended this incident, and
lasted several days, became so boisterous that the
offices in the church were disturbed. Chrysostom
complained of this to the prefect of the city, who re-
ported to Eudoxia that the bishop had complained
against her statue. This was enough to excite the
empress beyond all bounds. She surmnoned The-
ophilus and the other bishops to come back and to
depose Chrysostom again. The prudent patriarch,
however, did not wish to run the same risk a second
time. He only wrote to Constantinople that Chrysos-
tom should be condemned for having re-entered his
see in opposition to an article of the Synod of Antioch
held in the year 341 (an Arian synod). The other
bishops had neither the authority nor the courage to
give a formal judgment. All they could do was to
urge the emperor to sign a new decree of exile. A
double attempt on Chrysostom's life failed. On Easter
Eve, 404, when all the catechumens were to receive
baptism, the adversaries of the bishop, with impe-
rial soldiers, invaded the baptistery and dispersed
the whole congregation. At last Arcadius signed the
decree, and on 24 June, 404, the soldiers conducted
Chrysostom a second time into exile.
(5) Exile and Death. — They had scarcely left Con- stantinople when a huge conflagration destroyed the cathedral, the senate-house, and other buildings. The followers of the exiled bishop were accused of the crime and prosecuted. In haste Arsacius, an old man, was appointed successor of Chrysostom, Ijut was soon succeeded by the cunning Atticus. Who- ever refused to enter into communion with them was punished by confiscation of property antl exile. Chrys- ostom himself was conducted to Cucusus, a secluded and rugged place on the east frontier of Armenia, con- tinually exposed to the invasions of the Isaurians. In the following year he had even to fly for some time to the castle of Arabissus to protect himself from these barbarians. Meanwhile he alwa3's maintained a correspondence with his friends and never gave up the hope of return. \^'hen the circumstances of liis deposition were known in the West, the pope and the Italian bishops declared themselves in his favour. Emperor Honorius and Pope Innocent I endeavoured to summon a new synod, but their legates were im- prisoned and then sent home. The pope broke off all communion with the Patriarchs of Alexandria, An- tioch (where an enemy of Chrysostom had succeeded Flavian), and Constantinople, until (after the death of Chrysostom) they consented to admit his name into the diptychs of the Church. Finally all hopes for the exiled bishop had vanished. Apparently he was living too long for his adversaries. In the summer, 407, the order was given to carry him to Pithyus, a place at the extreme boundary of the empire, near the Caucasus. One of the two soldiers who had to lead him caused him all possible sufferings. He was forced to make long marches, was exposed to the rays of the sun, to the rains and the cold of the nights. His body, already weakened by several severe ill- nesses, finally broke down. On 14 Sept. the party were at Comana in Pontus. In the morning Chrvso.s- tom had asked to rest there on aecoimt of his state of health. In vain; be was forced to continue his march.
