had been the enemies of Chrysostom, were gradually disposed, by the firmness of the Roman pontiff, to restore the honours of that venerable name.[1] At the pious solicitation of the clergy and people of Constantinople, his relics, thirty years after his His relics transported to Constantinople. A.D. 438, January 27 death, were transported from their obscure sepulchre to the royal city.[2] The emperor Theodosius advanced to receive them as far as Chalcedon; and, falling prostrate on the coffin, implored, in the name of his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia, the forgiveness of the injured saint.[3]
The death of Arcadius A.D. 408, May 1 Yet a reasonable doubt may be entertained, whether, any stain of hereditary guilt could be derived from Arcadius to his successor. Eudoxia was a young and beautiful woman, who in- dulged her passions and despised her husband ; count John enjoyed, at least, the familiar confidence of the empress ; and the public named him as the real father of Theodosius the younger.[4] The birth of a son was accepted, however, by the pious husband, as an event the most fortunate and honourable to himself, to his family, and to the eastern world ; and the royal infant, by an unprecedented favour, was invested with the titles of Caesar and Augustus. In less than four years artenvards, Eudoxia, in the bloom of youth, was destroyed by the consequences of a miscarriage ; and this untimely death confounded the prophecy of a holy bishop,[5] who, amidst the universal joy, had ventured
- ↑ His name was inserted by his successor Atticus in the Diptychs of the church of Constantinople, A.D. 418. Ten years afterwards he was revered as a saint. Cyril, who inherited the place, and the passions, of his uncle, Theoptailus, yielded with much reluctance. See Facund. Hermian. 1. iv. c. i. Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiv. p. 277-283.
- ↑ Socrates, L vii. c. 45. Theodoret, 1. v. c. 36. This event reconciled the Joannites, who had hitherto refused to acknowledge his successors. During his lifetime the Joannites were respected by the catholics as the true and orthodox communion of Constantinople. Their obstinacy gradually drove them to the brink of schism.
- ↑ According to some accounts (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 438, No. 9, 10) the emperor was forced to send a letter of invitation and excuses before the body of the ceremonious saint could be moved from Comana.
- ↑ Zosimus, 1. v. p. 315 [18]. The chastity of an empress should not be impeached without producing a witness; but it is astonishing that the witness should write and live under a prince whose legitimacy he dared to attack. We must suppose that his history was a party libel, privately read and circulated by the Pagans. [For date of Zosimus see above, vol. ii. p. 538.] Tillemont (Hist, des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 782) is not averse to brand the reputation of Eudoxia.
- ↑ Porphyry of Gaza. His zeal was transported by the order which he had obtained for the destruction of eight Pagan temples of that city. See the curious details of his life (Baronius, A.D. 401, No. 17-51), originally written in Greek, or perhaps in Syriac, by a monk, one of his favourite deacons. [The Greek text was first published by Haupt in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy, 1874; and it has been re-edited by the Soc. Philol. Bonnensis Sodales, 1895. For an account of the visit of Porphyry to Constantinople, see Bury, Later Roman Empire, i. p. 200 sqq.
