FURY OF THE PEOPLE AT THE REMOVAL OF
CHRYSOSTOM—DESTRUCTION OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH AND
SENATE-HOUSE BY FIRE—PERSECUTION OF CHRYSOSTOM’S
FOLLOWERS—FUGITIVES TO ROME—LETTERS OF INNOCENT
TO THEOPHILUS—TO THE CLERGY OF CONSTANTINOPLE—TO
CHRYSOSTOM—DEPUTATION OF WESTERN BISHOPS TO
CONSTANTINOPLE REPULSED—SUFFERINGS OF THE EASTERN
CHURCH—TRIUMPH OF THE CABAL. A.D. 404, 405.
The people, meanwhile, both within the church and outside, were not
long in discovering that the Archbishop had disappeared from the
building and its precincts. They became furiously agitated: some
rushed to the harbour, but too late to obstruct the embarkation. The
doors of the cathedral, which had been locked by some of the cabal,
who anticipated a rush of the people as soon as the departure of
Chrysostom should have been discovered, were fiercely battered by the
crowd on both sides. Jews and Pagans looked on, and jeered derisively
at the tumult. The horror of this scene of wild confusion was suddenly
increased by the apparition of fire bursting forth from the building.
How kindled, by accident or design, it is impossible to determine. Each
party fiercely charged the other with the guilt of the catastrophe, and
some attributed it to miraculous interference of heavenly powers. The
conflagration broke out in or near the throne of the Archbishop, which
it consumed, and then spread to the roof. In three hours the edifice,
whose erection and embellishment had been the work of many years, was
reduced to a heap of cinders. The only portion not destroyed was the
treasury which contained the sacred vessels of silver and gold, as if
expressly to confute one of the charges made against the Archbishop,
that he had sold all the most valuable ornaments belonging to the
church. Germanus and Cassian, the custodians of the treasury, when they
fled to Rome, carried with them a copy of the inventory of all these
articles, which, when they surrendered their office, had been handed
over to the prefect and some of the other chief functionaries of the
city.
The conflagration, however, did not confine itself to the cathedral.
A violent north wind carried the flames across the Forum, and ignited
the great curia or senate-house; not, however, that side of it which
faced the cathedral, but the further side, which looked into the little
forum where the royal palace was situated. The whole senate-house was
destroyed. The statues of the Muses which Constantine had brought from
Helicon were consumed, and all the other principal adornments. The
images of Zeus and Athene alone were found intact, beneath a heap of
ruins and of masses of molten lead which had dropped upon them from the
burning roof.[598]
The real or affected suspicion that the Archbishop and his flock were
the incendiaries was quite a sufficient pretext for treating them
with rigour. He himself, with Cyriacus and Eulysius, was detained in
chains under a strict guard in Bithynia. These two companions were
taken from him and conveyed bound to Chalcedon, but after examination
were dismissed as innocent. But at Constantinople the persecution
was enforced with merciless severity under the auspices of Optatus,
a Pagan, now prefect in the place of Studius. All the followers of
the Archbishop, clerical and lay, high and low, were subjected, if
caught, to rigorous inquisition, and most of them to severe punishment.
Chrysostom wrote a letter from Bithynia to the Emperor, imploring
that he might at least be allowed to appear and defend himself and
his clergy from the atrocious charge of incendiarism, but the letter
received no attention; and as the poor exile continued his journey to
Nice, his sufferings were enhanced by pitiable intelligence of the
persecution inflicted on bishops, priests, and deacons who refused to
anathematise him or recognise the validity of his deposition. But the
spirit of the exile was not only brave to support his own troubles, but
could spare some of its energy to encourage those, who were suffering
in his cause, to patience, fortitude, resignation, and even joy.[599]
In times of religious persecution, the language of the New Testament,
about the blessedness of tribulation as a pledge of future happiness
and a means of preparation for it, comes home to men’s hearts with
a reality and force which seem to exceed our present application
of it to the troubles and sorrows of ordinary life. Those who were
firmly persuaded that their cause was the cause of truth and of
Jesus Christ read the words, “Blessed are ye when ye are persecuted
for righteousness’ sake,” or, “Happy are ye when men revile you and
persecute you,” as if spoken directly to themselves; and they really
did “rejoice in that day, and leap for joy.” Such are the texts which
Chrysostom cites for the consolation of his suffering friends. He
speaks of their exposure to intimidation by threats, imprisonment,
frequent appearance in judges’ courts, torture at the hands of the
executioner, shameless false evidence, coarse ribaldry, and scurrilous
jests; but “blessed were they, yea, thrice blessed, and more than that,
to endure imprisonment and chains, for not only was their fortitude the
subject of admiration everywhere, but their present sufferings were the
measure of their future happiness, and their names had been inscribed
in the Book of Life.”[600]
The destruction of the church and senate-house was the first pretext
for instituting persecution against the adherents of Chrysostom;
the second was, their refusal to recognise his successor. One week
after his deposition, Arsacius, brother of Nectarius the predecessor
of Chrysostom, was, apparently by the simple exercise of Imperial
authority, elevated to the see. He was eighty years old, and is
quaintly described by Palladius as “muter than a fish, and more
incapable than a frog.”[601] The probable aim of the Empress was
to secure a man whose servility might be depended on. His brother,
Nectarius, had once desired to make him Bishop of Tarsus; and, on his
declining to accept the promotion, had taunted him with ambitiously
reserving himself for the see of Constantinople; whereupon Arsacius had
taken an oath that he never would accept any bishopric. But ambition
and Imperial authority overcame his scruples. He is described by the
historians as a man of pious disposition and mild conduct; with one
exception: that he persecuted with relentless vigour the contumacious
adherents of his predecessor. By Chrysostom he is denounced as a wolf,
and in a figurative sense as an adulterer, on account of his usurpation
of the see during the lifetime of its legitimate occupant.[602]
Arsacius applied to the civil powers for assistance to compel the
Johnites to attend the churches where he and his clergy officiated. A
tribune was directed to attack a body of them who had assembled for
worship in some remote part of the city. The soldiers dispersed the
assembly, took several of the most eminent persons prisoners, and,
as usual, stripped the women of their golden girdles, jewels, and
earrings. The only consequence of this was, that the Johnites became
more attached to the cause and memory of their late Archbishop. Some of
them fled the city, and many more refrained as much as possible from
appearing in public places, such as the Forum and the baths. Meetings
of some kind for worship were not discontinued, or were soon resumed,
for we find Chrysostom, in one of his letters written during his
exile, reproving two priests, Theophilus and Salustius, for slackness
in attending such assemblies.[603] But worshippers ran great risks. The
prefect Optatus, who succeeded Studius, probably because the latter was
considered too lenient, appears to have entertained all the animosity
of a thorough Pagan against Christians, and to have rejoiced in the
present opportunity of inflicting sufferings upon them. He combined
the two charges of incendiarism and contumacy in his prosecution of
the Johnites, and endeavoured to extort confessions of guilt from his
victims with merciless barbarity.
A few instances are recorded, and they are quite enough to sicken us of
the tale of such horrors. Eutropius, a reader, was commanded to name
the persons who had set fire to the church. He refused. He was young
and delicate, and it was thought a confession might be wrung from him
under the agony of torture. He was lashed with a scourge, his cheeks
were scraped, and his sides lacerated with iron teeth, after which
lighted torches were applied to the wounded parts. No information could
be extorted from him: he was therefore conveyed to prison, and thrown
into a dungeon, where he expired. Some priests, adherents of Arsacius,
buried him by night, that his mangled body might not be seen by any
eyes but those of his enemies. Celestial music was said to have been
heard at the time of his interment.
Tigrius, the priest, whose presence with Serapion had been demanded at
the Synod of the Oak, was another victim. He was stripped, scourged
on his back, and then stretched on the rack till his bones were
dislocated. He survived the torture, and was banished to Mesopotamia.
Serapion himself, now bishop of Heraclea in Thrace, was seized, tried
on several calumnious charges, barbarously scourged, and sent into
exile.
Those ladies also who were most distinguished for their friendship with
the deposed Archbishop, and for the dedication of their time and money
to the Church, were marked objects of persecution. They were brought
before the prefect, and admonished by him to acknowledge Arsacius,
and so save themselves from future annoyance. A few from timidity
complied; but Olympias, who was subjected to a severer examination,
confronted it with a dauntless spirit. She was bluntly asked why she
had set fire to the “Great Church.” “My manner of life,” replied the
accused, “is a sufficient refutation of such a charge; a person who
has expended large sums of money to restore and embellish the churches
of God is not likely to burn and demolish them.” “I know your past
course of life well,” cried the prefect. “If you know aught against
it, then descend from your place there as judge, and come forward as
my accuser,” replied the undaunted Olympias. Perceiving that she was
not to be browbeaten, Optatus proposed the same course to her which had
been adopted by some other women as a means of exemption from further
persecution, namely, communion with Arsacius; but she scornfully
rejected the base compromise. “I have been publicly calumniated by a
charge which cannot be proven, and I will not accede to any terms till
I have been cleared from this accusation. Even if you resort to force,
I will not hold communion with those from whom I ought to secede, nor
do anything contrary to the principles of my holy religion.” She made
a request, which was granted, that she might be allowed a few days
to consult with lawyers on the proper means of legally refuting the
libellous accusation. The prefect, however (on what pretence is not
stated), sent for her again, and exacted a heavy fine, in the hope
that she would be induced to yield. The fine was paid without any
reluctance, but her refusal to acknowledge the usurper was inflexible;
and to avoid, if possible, further pressure and persecution, she
retired to Cyzicus, on the other side of the straits.[604]
The tidings of her fortitude and loyalty were conveyed to the exiled
Chrysostom, and so cheered his spirit in the midst of depression and
sickness that his sufferings seemed to him as nothing. “When many men
and women, old and young, highly reputed for their virtue, had turned
their backs on the enemy almost before the conflict had begun, she, on
the other hand, after many encounters, so far from being enervated, was
even invigorated; she spread forth the sails of patience, and floated
securely as on a calm sea; so far from being overwhelmed by the storm,
she was scarcely sprinkled by the spray. In the seclusion of her little
house she was able to inspire courage into the hearts of others, and
had been to them a haven of comfort and a tower of strength.”[605]
The deaconess Pentadia, widow of the consul Timasius, was another
victim. She led the life of a recluse, never going beyond the walls
of her house except to church. She was now dragged from her retreat
through the Forum to the prefect’s tribunal, and thence to prison,
charged with being an accomplice in the late fire. Several persons were
put to the torture before her eyes, in order to intimidate her into
a confession; but in vain. Her firm demeanour, courageous answers,
and powerful demonstrations of her innocence, confounded and silenced
her adversaries, and elicited the admiration of the public. Beyond
imprisonment, no indignities seem to have been inflicted on her; and
when desirous to quit the capital, she was persuaded by Chrysostom to
remain, who represented the great value of her presence and example
in animating others to undergo their present afflictions. She had
apparently intended to try and join him in his place of exile, when he
had been removed to Cucusus, on the confines of Lesser Armenia, for
he dwells on the great risk to her delicate health from a journey in
winter, and the danger of being plundered by the Isaurian robbers, who
were just then, he says, in a powerful condition. He, therefore, on
all grounds, begs her to remain where she is, but to relieve his mind
from anxiety about her affairs and health by constantly writing to
him.[606]
Meanwhile, the injured Church of Constantinople did not cease through
letters and emissaries to solicit the interference of the Western
Church. The first intimation of the calamities we have been describing
which reached the ears of Rome was through a messenger despatched
by Theophilus. The letter which he brought was inscribed “From Pope
Theophilus to Pope Innocent,” and stated in the barest manner, without
assigning his reasons or mentioning any assessors in his judgment,
that he had deposed Chrysostom, and that it behoved Innocent to break
off communion with him. The Pope was displeased by the cool and curt
character of the letter, and somewhat perplexed how to notice or reply
to so inexplicit a despatch. Eusebius, a deacon from Constantinople,
who was in Rome at the time on some ecclesiastical business, obtained
an interview with Innocent, and entreated him not to act till
information should be received from Constantinople, which, he added
(on what grounds does not appear), he had good reason to expect would
arrive in a short time. Three days afterwards four bishops did arrive,
bearing the letter from Chrysostom to Innocent which contained that
pathetic and perspicuous narrative of the recent occurrences, from
which extracts have been made in the preceding chapter. They brought
two other letters, one from the forty friendly bishops, another from
the clergy of Constantinople.
Innocent no longer hesitated to pronounce an opinion. His letter
to Theophilus is brief, decisive, almost peremptory in tone. “The
See of Rome,” he said, “would maintain communion with Alexandria
and Constantinople to avoid rending the unity of the Church; but
he annulled (ἀθέτησας) the deposition of John apparently made by
Theophilus. It was impossible to recognise the validity of a sentence
pronounced by such an irregular synod as that lately convened at
Chalcedon. If Theophilus had confidence in the justice of that
sentence, he must appear in person to prove it before a General Council
called together and regulated according to the Canons of Nice.” A few
days after the despatch of this letter, Peter, an Alexandrian priest,
arrived with a deacon from Constantinople, bearing another letter
from Theophilus, and certain minutes, so called, of the acts of the
Synod of the Oak. Innocent, having perused the minutes, was indignant
at the mingled monstrosity and levity of the charges brought against
Chrysostom, and at the condemnation having been pronounced in the
absence of the defendant. He ordered special prayers and fasts to be
observed by the Church for the restoration of concord, and addressed to
Theophilus a sharp letter of reproof.[607]
It is not easy to make out precisely how many communications passed
each way between the Churches of Rome and Constantinople, or the exact
date of each; but several letters are distinctly mentioned. Theotecnus,
a priest from Constantinople, brought a letter from twenty-five of the
forty bishops who had constantly adhered to Chrysostom, in which they
described the expulsion of the Patriarch and the conflagration of the
church. Innocent replied by a letter of condolence, and exhortation
to bear their trial with Christian fortitude and patience, for at
present he confessed, with deep regret, that he saw small prospect
of rendering much effectual aid, “owing to the opposition of certain
persons powerful for evil,” alluding probably to the jealousies between
the Courts of the two brothers, Honorius and Arcadius. The cabal
also sent a letter to Innocent, containing their version of the late
transactions. Their emissary was Paternus, who called himself a priest
of Constantinople; “an ugly little fellow,” says Palladius, “and very
unintelligible.” The letter was written in the names of Arsacius,
Paulus, Antiochus, Cyrinus, Severian, and some others; and, among
other opprobrious charges, distinctly accused Chrysostom of setting
fire to the church. Innocent treated the letter with much disdain, and
would not condescend to answer it. Some days afterwards, Cyriacus,
bishop of Synnada, arrived in Rome as a fugitive, in consequence of an
Imperial edict, which directed the deposition of any bishop who refused
to communicate with Arsacius and Theophilus, and the confiscation of
his property, if he had any. After Cyriacus arrived Eulysius, bishop
of Apamea in Bithynia, bringing a letter from fifteen of the forty
friendly bishops, which described all the past and present distress
of the Church caused by Chrysostom’s enemies, and in all respects
confirmed the oral account of Cyriacus. In the course of another month,
Palladius, bishop of Hellenopolis, fled to Rome from the intolerable
harshness of magisterial decrees, which now subjected to confiscation
the house of any one who should be found to have harboured bishop,
priest, or even layman, who communicated with Chrysostom. From a
letter of Chrysostom[608] it appears that Palladius and many others
lived for some time in concealment at Constantinople, in the hope of
escaping persecution. They were courteously lodged in Rome by one
Pinianus and his wife, by Juliana, Proba, and other Roman ladies, whom
Chrysostom warmly thanks for their kindness in letters written by
him from Cucusus.[609] Germanus the priest, and Cassian the deacon,
custodians of the Church treasury at Constantinople, also came to
Rome, bringing a letter from the whole body of the clergy who adhered
to Chrysostom, describing the violent deposition and expulsion of the
Archbishop, and the tyranny of their adversaries under which they were
now suffering.[610]
The reply of Innocent to this letter from the clergy of Constantinople
is dignified as well as sympathetic. He exhorts, as usual, to patience,
and to the derivation of comfort from the remembrance of the sufferings
of all God’s saints in past times. But he deeply deplores their wrongs,
and again expresses his reprobation in the strongest terms of the
illegality of the late proceedings. “The canon which prohibited the
ordination of a successor during the lifetime of the reigning bishop
had been grossly violated. The Canons of Antioch, on which the synod
had relied, were invalid, having been composed by heretics, and they
had been rejected by the Council of Sardica. The Canons of Nice alone
were entitled to the obedience of the Church; but adversaries and
heretics were always attempting to subvert them.”... “What steps, then,
should be taken in the existing crisis? Plainly a General Council must
be convoked: that was the only means of appeasing the fury of the
tempest. He was watching an opportunity to accomplish this: meanwhile,
they must wait in patience, and trust the goodness of God for the
restoration of tranquillity and good order.”
To Chrysostom Innocent wrote, as friend to friend, as a bishop to a
brother bishop, a letter of Christian consolation and encouragement,
not entering into the legal questions of the case, and not pledging
himself to decisive action of any kind. It was not necessary to remind
one, who was himself the teacher and pastor of a great people, that God
often tried the best of men, and put their patience to the severest
tests, and that they are firmly supported under the greatest calamities
by the approving voice of conscience.... A good man may be severely
tried, but cannot be overcome, since he is preserved and guarded by
the truth of Holy Scripture. Holy Scripture supplied abundant examples
of suffering saints who did not receive their crowns until they had
undergone the heaviest trials with patience. “Take courage, then,
honoured brother, from the testimony of conscience. When you have been
purified by affliction, you will enter into the haven of peace in the
presence of Christ our Lord.”[611]
Innocent, however, not only wrote commonplace letters of condolence,
but exerted himself to obtain the council which he had recommended
to the Church of Constantinople as the only means of redressing her
wrongs. He wrote a letter to Honorius, then at Ravenna, representing
the lamentable condition of the Church of Constantinople, which
elicited from the Emperor an order for the convention of an Italian
synod. This synod, after a due consideration of all the circumstances,
was to submit its decision and suggestions to himself. The result of
the deliberations of the Italian bishops, swayed no doubt by Innocent,
was to request the Emperor to write to his brother Arcadius, urging
the convocation of a General Council to be held in Thessalonica, which
would be a convenient meeting-point for the prelates of East and West.
Honorius complied, and the letter was despatched under the care of a
deputation from the Italian Church, consisting of five bishops, two
priests, and a deacon. The Emperor calls it the third letter[612] which
he had written relative to the affairs of Constantinople. He professes
great solicitude for the peace of the Church, “on which,” he observes,
“the peace of our Empire depends;” and with a view to this object,
he urges the convocation of a council at Thessalonica, and specially
entreats that the attendance of Theophilus, who was, he is informed,
author of all these disturbances, should be insisted upon. He commends
the deputation to the honourable care of Arcadius; and that he may know
the sentiments of the Italian Church on the present state of affairs,
he sends him two letters as samples of many, one from the Bishop of
Rome, the other from the Bishop of Aquileia.
The only bishop on the deputation whose see is mentioned was Æmilius,
bishop of Beneventum. The Oriental refugees, Cyriacus, Demetrius,
Palladius, and Eulysius, accompanied the Italians. They were the
bearers not only of letters from Honorius, Innocent, and the bishops
Chromatius of Aquileia and Venerius of Milan, but also of a memorial
from the Italian synod, which recommended that Chrysostom should be
reinstated in his see before he was required to take his trial before
a council. He would then, it was observed, have no reasonable excuse
for declining to attend it. The deputation was absent four months. On
their return the members had a pitiful tale to tell of failure in their
errand, and of personal suffering from maltreatment. They touched at
Athens on their voyage out, whence they had intended to proceed to
Thessalonica, and lay the letters first of all before Anysius, bishop
of that place; but at Athens they were arrested by a military officer,
who placed them on board two vessels under charge of a centurion, to
be conveyed to Constantinople. A furious southerly gale sprang up
soon after their departure, and, after a voyage of some danger, they
arrived, late on the third day, at the suburb of Constantinople called
Victor. But, instead of being allowed to proceed to the city, they were
shut up in a fortress named Athyra, on the coast—the Romans in a single
chamber, the Orientals in separate apartments. No servant even was
permitted to attend them. They were commanded to deliver up the letters
which they had brought, but refused, as being ambassadors, to surrender
them to any but to the Emperor himself. Secretaries and messengers were
sent in succession, but the ambassadors steadfastly adhered to their
refusal. The letters were at length wrested from their possession by
sheer violence: one bishop’s thumb was broken in the struggle. On the
following day a large bribe was offered them if they would recognise
Atticus (the aged Arsacius was now dead) as Patriarch, and say no more
about the trial of Chrysostom. This base proposal was firmly resisted;
and, seeing the utter hopelessness of their mission, they requested
to be released as soon as possible, and suffered to return to their
dioceses in safety. The Italians saw no more of their companions from
the East. They themselves were thrust into a miserable vessel, with
twenty soldiers of various grades, and conveyed to Lampsacus, on the
Asiatic coast, where they embarked in another vessel, and, after a
tedious voyage of twenty days, arrived at Hydruntum, in Calabria.[613]
Neither the Papacy nor the Empire of the West was sufficiently
powerful at this time to insist further upon justice being done to the
Patriarch, in the face of the determined animosity of the ruling powers
at Constantinople; but the friends of the martyr deemed that they
read unequivocal signs of the Divine displeasure in the misfortunes
which befell some of Chrysostom’s greatest personal enemies. Thrace
and Illyria were ravaged by an incursion of Huns, and the Isaurians,
a predatory barbarian race, which inhabited the fastnesses of Mount
Taurus, committed fearful havoc in Syria and Asia Minor. Cyrinus,
bishop of Chalcedon, one of the four who had taken on them the
responsibility of Chrysostom’s condemnation, died in great agony
from the wound in his foot, originally caused when his foot had been
trodden upon by Bishop Maruthas, more than a year ago, just before the
Synod of the Oak. At the end of September, Constantinople was visited
by a destructive fall of hailstones of extraordinary size; and on
October 6, A.D. 404, died the Empress Eudoxia. Nilus, one of the most
eminent anchorites of the day, once prefect of Constantinople, who
had abandoned wealth, family, and position for the solitudes of Mount
Sinai, addressed two letters of reproof and warning to Arcadius on the
iniquitous banishment of Chrysostom and inhuman persecution of his
followers. “How can you expect to see Constantinople delivered from
visitations of earthquake and fire from Heaven, after the enormities
which have there been perpetrated; after crime has been established
there by the authority of laws; after the thrice-blessed John, the
pillar of the Church, the lamp of truth, the trumpet of Jesus Christ,
has been driven from the city? How can I grant my prayers (Arcadius had
apparently begged the intercession of the saint to remove the national
troubles) to a city stricken by the wrath of God, whose thunder is
every moment ready to fall upon her?”[614]
But human and divine warnings were alike wasted; the enemies of the
Patriarch had complete sway over the Court, and suffered it not
to swerve from the path of persecution. The Western bishops and
presbyters, after the disastrous termination of their embassy to
Constantinople, returned home, without honour indeed, but unmolested.
Their Eastern colleagues did not escape so easily. They were conveyed
to places of exile in the most distant and opposite quarters of the
Empire. Cyriacus was confined in a Persian fortress beyond Emessa;
Eulysius in Arabia; Palladius on the confines of Ethiopia; Demetrius
was to have been confined in one of the Egyptian oases, but died
of the harsh treatment to which he was subjected on the journey.
The exiles suffered such brutal insults and indignities from the
soldiers who conducted them to these places, that the desire of life
was extinguished. The little money which they had collected for the
expenses of their journey was taken from them by their guards, who
divided it among themselves. They were forced to perform in one day
the distance of two days’ journey. They were not permitted to enter
any churches on their route, but forced into Jewish or Samaritan
synagogues, and lodged at night in low inns, where their ears were
shocked by the filthy conversation of abandoned characters of both
sexes. Yet even some of these degraded people were won to a more
respectful behaviour, if not actually converted, by the Christian
exhortations and instruction of the captives. The “Word of God was not
bound.” Some of the bishops friendly to Theophilus bribed the soldiers
to hurry the exiles out of their dioceses as quickly as possible.
Distinguished among these malignants were the bishops of Tarsus,
Antioch, Ancyra, and of Cæsarea in Palestine. Most of the bishops of
Cappadocia, on the other hand, especially Theodorus of Tyana, and
Bosporius of Colonia, accorded them a compassionate and courteous
reception.[615]
Arsacius died in November A.D. 404. Out of many ambitious candidates
for the vacant throne, Atticus, a presbyter, who had taken an active
part in the persecution of Chrysostom, a native of Sebaste in Armenia,
was appointed. He was a man of moderate abilities and generally mild
disposition, but relentless in his determination to crush out the
party of the exiled Patriarch. By his influence an Imperial rescript
was obtained, which decreed that “any bishop who did not communicate
with Theophilus, Porphyry of Antioch, and Atticus, should be ejected
from the Church, and his property confiscated.” The wealthy, for the
most part, bowed to the storm; the poor sought peace of body and of
conscience in flight either to Rome or monasteries. This rescript,
aimed at the bishops, was followed up by another directed against the
laity. Any layman who refused to recognise the above-mentioned prelates
was, if a civilian, to be deprived of any office which he might hold;
if a soldier, of his military girdle; if an artisan, to be heavily
fined or banished. Bishops and presbyters were dispersed as fugitives
into all parts of the Empire. Some sought retirement in some secluded
little country property of their own, and obtained a precarious
livelihood by manual labour, farming, or fishing.[616]
But, in spite of all the various means of coercion at Constantinople,
in spite of trials, torture, imprisonment, banishment, the bulk
of the people could not be brought to attend the ministration of
Atticus and his clergy. Their churches were comparatively empty,
while the persecuted adherents of the exile persistently held their
services in some sequestered valley, or on some lonely hillside. In
fact, persecution, as has always been the case, only intensified the
attachment of many to the person and the cause which it was intended
to crush, and so far defeated its own object. Chrysostom himself
observes,[617] that many of those who had enjoyed a high reputation
for piety were the first to fall away when brought to the test of
persecution; whereas others, who had formerly been abandoned to
frivolity and vice, now renounced the theatre and circus, hastened
into the desert to attend the assembly of the Catholics at worship,
and displayed the greatest fortitude before the judge when brought to
trial, in the face of torture, and with the prospect of imprisonment or
exile.
The party now in power could not convert the hearts of clergy or people
to their side, but they could, and did, change the outward aspect of
the Church. The men of probity and piety with whom Chrysostom had
replaced the six simoniacal bishops deposed in Asia were expelled,
and the delinquents restored. The Church in that region was reduced
to a disgraceful state. Ordinations were conducted, not amidst prayer
and fasting, but feasting, drunkenness, and gross bribery. The see of
Heracleides, the good bishop of Ephesus, appointed by Chrysostom, was
occupied by a eunuch, a monster of iniquity. The people in disgust
deserted the churches.
The death of Flavian, bishop of Antioch, nearly coincided with the
banishment of Chrysostom. The people of Antioch were much attached to a
priest named Constantius, a man described by Palladius as a faithful
and incorruptible servant of the Church from his earliest youth, first
as a messenger who carried ecclesiastical despatches, then as reader,
deacon, priest. He had won the love and admiration of the people by his
gentle, amiable disposition, his intelligence, strict integrity, and
exemplary piety. There was a general desire to make him bishop, but
an ambitious priest named Porphyry frustrated the design. By bribery,
and calumnious stories conveyed to the Court at Constantinople, he
procured an Imperial rescript condemning Constantius to be banished
to one of the oases as a disturber of the people. With the assistance
of his friends Constantius escaped to Cyprus. Porphyry meanwhile
imprisoned several of the clergy of Antioch, and seized the opportunity
of the Olympian festival (when most of the inhabitants had poured out
to the celebrated suburb of Daphne) to enter the church with a few
bishops and clergy; and then, with doors fast closed, he was hurriedly
ordained, so hurriedly that some portions of the service were omitted.
Acacius, Severian, and Antiochus, who had officiated, immediately fled.
The people were enraged when they discovered the trick, surrounded
Porphyry’s house, and threatened to burn it to the ground. He applied
for protection to the prefect, who lent him a body of troops, with
which he forcibly took possession of the church. He contrived to get
an unscrupulous and cruel man sent from Constantinople to be captain
of the city guards, terror of whom drove the people to attend the
churches, though they did so with disgust, and earnestly prayed for
retribution from Heaven on the authors of this wickedness.[618]
Innocent remained inflexibly attached to the cause of Chrysostom. The
Church of Rome and the Italian bishops broke off all communion with
Theophilus and Atticus, and ceased not to demand the convocation of a
General Council, as the only tribunal by which the Patriarch could be
lawfully acquitted or condemned.[619] But the Court of Ravenna was
not in a position to support these demands by intimidation or actual
force. All the skill of Stilicho and all the resources at his command
were barely sufficient to repel the persevering efforts of Alaric and
Rhadagaisus to take the great prize which they so eagerly coveted, the
capital of the Roman Empire. The inevitable fall of Rome was averted
only for a little while.
Thus the spirit of lawlessness and selfishness took advantage of the
impotence of the secular power both in Rome and Constantinople to work
its will upon the Church. It dealt a blow to Christian morality and
ecclesiastical discipline from which the Church at Constantinople never
recovered, and which caused a throb of pain from one end of Christendom
to the other; for, in spite of all differences and divisions,
Christendom was one then, so that, if one member suffered, all the
members suffered with it; and what was done and said, and thought and
felt, in the Church of Alexandria, or Antioch, or Constantinople, was
not unknown or unregarded by the Churches of Rome or Milan, and through
them made its impress on the Churches even of Gaul and Spain.