ignominious death, betook himself to the church of the man, whose elevation he had in the first instance secured, whose faithful monition in the prosecution of his office he had spurned, and whose privileges he had sought to curtail in this matter of asylum. There Chrysostom defended him against the rescript of imperial vengeance, against the fury of an angry soldiery and a fickle populace, and against the vindictive feelings of the Christian congregations, who had witnessed his career with pain and displeasure. To his own people, while the miserable Eutropius crouched trembling before the altar, the sacred orator addressed an impassioned appeal from the tribune, ringing the changes on the caducity of high estate, the refrain of his oration being the inspired preacher's burden, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" Chrysostom, moreover, did not confine his merciful interposition to his powerful and tender discourse, but, when himself conveyed before the court to answer for his protection of the culprit, he obtained of the facile emperor the immunity of the sacred precincts of Santa Sophia. The issue in the case of Eutropius was this: whilst he continued under the worthy bishop's wing he was safe; but endeavouring to make his escape he was apprehended and banished to Cyprus, whence after a time he was brought back to Chalcedon, tried, and condemned to lose his head.

Honest and disinterested himself in the highest degree, Chrysostom raised his voice against avarice and selfishness; and the friend of the oppresed poor, he never failed to champion their cause against the oppressive rich. The possessions of a patrician were coveted by the empress, and there was little scruple exercised as to the means whereby these should come into her hands; while greedy of gain, nothing was too small to excite her cupidity, for she longed to grasp the vineyard of a poor widow living near the city. These crying wrongs reached the ears of the advocate of the poor; and with such vigour did he ply his remonstrances, that shame surrendered what power had grasped, and the mortification of defeat was added to the pangs of disappointed desire. The haughty queen and covetous woman were not soon likely to forgive the intrepidity which had baulked the one and defied the other. Opportunities of vengeance were furnished in abundance, and were not allowed to pass unimproved.

As the abuses of Church factions and the evil conduct of Church functionaries in those days are fraught with serious instruction to us of modern times, and the more so as those days and men are held up to admiration and imitation as the model epoch of Christianity, we deem it incumbent on us to dwell at some little length on the development of those enmities

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and incidents which resulted in the ruin of John Chrysostom.
We shall endeavour to put on record here a consecutive narra-
tion of that chain of events which immediately preceded, and led
to the banishment of the patriarch from Constantinople, deriving
our details chiefly from the History of Sozomen. The record
will not fail to make us thank God for something better than
Nicene Christianity, namely, English and nineteenth-century
Christianity.

Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, was at one time on such
cordial terms with his priest Isidorus, that he had endeavoured
to secure him the see of Constantinople, when vacated by the
death of Nectarius. But this feeling of regard was ere long
supplanted by feelings of enmity, arising from the following
circumstance: A wealthy widow lady intrusted Isidorus with
an expenditure of a thousand pieces of gold on the poor women
of the city, swearing him, at the same time, on the holy table,
that Theophilus should not have the fingering of the money,
lest he should expend it on some architectural vagary, or any
other ecclesiastical object. When Theophilus found this out,
he was filled with displeasure. Sozomen hints, that besides
this, Isidorus had not been sufficiently pliant to dispense with the
obligations of truth and justice in order to please the patriarch-
another cause of deadly offence. But motives, even the basest,
are so freely ascribed to the most sacred personages in the
pages of contemporary historians about this period, that we
hesitate to receive them as in every case literally true.
Nevertheless, these odious caricatures convey probably the
prevailing impression of the characters they consign to historical
infamy. Theophilus having disguised his enmity for a time,
at last convoked a synod of his clergy, and there produced a
memorial against Isidorus, which he alleged had been lodged
with himself eighteen years before; that he had forgotten
it, and had only turned it up recently, when rummaging
certain papers in his desk, and that he now required Isidorus
to answer the charge. Isidorus replied, that though the patriarch
had forgotten it, the person who preferred the complaint, must
surely have asked after the fate of his memorial. To this
Theophilus said, that he had gone to sea; whereupon Isidore
rejoined, but he must have come back from his voyage after
two or three years at farthest; which rejoinder non-plussed
the patriarch. The session was adjourned. Meanwhile, Theophi-
las bribed a false witness to testify to the facts, the douceur
being of the amount of fifteen pieces of gold. Isidore was
condemned, but only a few days afterwards the suborned wretch,
tormented by conscience, confessed the perjury, and vindicated
Isidore. There was a terrible outcry against Theophilus, but

Isidore, fearing for his life, dared not remain any longer in Alexandria, lest the man who had stabbed his character should not hesitate to spill his blood. He betook himself to the monastery of Nitria, where he had spent his youth; a cœnobium containing not less than five thousand inmates devoted to religious seclusion.

Theophilus was not thus to be baulked of his revenge. He charged, in some measure justly, the Nitrian community with Origenism; but Theophilus himself might have been charged quite as correctly therewith, for when it suited his purpose he could defend Origen. When Epiphanius required the patriarch of Alexandria to condemn the writings of that suspected father, he replied, "The books of this doctor of the Church are a magnificent meadow; I gather the wholesome flowers, and I leave the poisons untouched." Ammonius, a man of sixty years, one of the most venerable and religious of the recluses of the desert, presented himself before Theophilus to vindicate his community from the charge of holding heretical views, when the patriarch burst into a storm of passion, threw his pallium at the old monk's head, struck him with his fists till he drew the blood, and cried, "Scoundrel, heretic, hypocrite! anathematize Origen." We may not follow too closely the thread of the narrative, but sum up the particulars in the general statement, that Theophilus deposed the heads of the monastery, pillaged the buildings, and dispersed the monks, who fled in great numbers to Jerusalem and elsewhere. The persecuting policy of the patriarch, who forbade his suffragans to receive the refugees into their dioceses, drove the miserable men to the most distant regions, and led many to Constantinople, to seek the protection of the emperor, and the sympathy of Chrysostom. This latter was not withheld; the patriarch lodged fifty of the aged monks in the precincts of the church of St. Anastasia, secured the alms of the pious for their support, but with a cautious wisdom not to give offence to any in authority in the Church, did not admit them to full communion with the Christians of Constantinople till he had made reference to their metropolitan, Theophilus. To this person Chrysostom wrote, begging him as a son and brother to pity the sorrows of the exiled monks, and to re-admit them to his diocese, that they might end their lives in their beloved desert-convent, and in the Divine service which made their solitude a paradise to their souls. The reply of Theophilus was a mission of five brethren charged with most serious accusations of false doctrine against the solitaries, amounting in some cases to the charge of magic and sorcery. Chrysostom still stood by the monks, the Hákρo, or tall brethren, as they were called from their stature;

and Theophilus, full of all wrath and subtlety against them, prepared to pursue them even to the death. The patriarch of Alexandria, not to be baffled in his contest with Chrysostom, engaged on his side, by false representations, Epiphanius, the bishop of Salamis, in the island of Cyprus, who was an impassioned anti-Origenist, and hunted heresy with the keen zest and scent of the bloodhound. This new element in the strife, Epiphanius, arrived at Constantinople, and, without permission asked of the bishop of the diocese, celebrated the offices of worship, and ordained a deacon, in open violation of all ecclesiastical order. To all this Chrysostom only replied with a procession of his clergy to meet and honour Epiphanius, and to invite him to share the hospitalities of his home. The zealous bishop answered, that he would not eat with him till he had condemned the votaries of Origen, the refugee monks under his protection. Epiphanius pushed his opposition to Chrysostom in the patriarch's own city, and amongst his own clergy, to an extreme degree, requiring all the forbearance of the magnanimous divine to withstand the trial put upon his patience when good but mistaken men, like Epiphanius and Jerome-for the recluse of Bethlehem too was involved in the matter-so cruelly and unjustly opposed him.

Denied justice at the hands of their own metropolitan, and finding Chrysostom unable to restore them in honour to their home, the brethren of Nitria appealed to the secular power, and after due investigation, secured the condemnation of those presbyters, the tools and emissaries of Theophilus, who had brought charges against them to Constantinople. Some of these were imprisoned, others banished by the imperial prefects-a dose of gall and wormwood to their ecclesiastical employerand he himself was summoned to court to answer for his proceedings.

Theophilus came, taking the precaution to bring in his train thirty-six bishops, but refused to see, converse with, or enter the house of Chrysostom. Chrysostom, on the other hand, although requested by the emperor to decide upon the conduct of Theophilus, declined the invidious office, either from delicate feeling, or from respect for canonical rules. His antagonist observed no moderation. He plied all measures, good and bad, to excite enmity against the object of his dislike. Courtiers, women, parasites, laymen and clergymen, the rich and the poor, were assailed by every artifice and temptation, to steal them from the side of Chrysostom; and at last, with the signatures of two deacons of Constantinople, whom their patriarch had excluded from orders, the one for murder, the other for adultery, a memorial was addressed to the emperor, demanding a council

to sit upon the opinions of the archbishop. Gold plied freely, obtained access for the document to the royal presence; flattery adroitly offered to Eudoxia, contrasted with the unwelcome reproofs of the more honest Chrysostom, engaged her co-operaation, and the council was decreed. It was held just across the Bosphorus, at the suburb of the Oak Tree, hard by Chalcedon, Rufinus, who had supplanted Eutropius, Chrysostom's patron, having a magnificent palace there, and the bishop of the place, Cyrinus, cherishing a theological hatred to his incomparable metropolitan. The council being assembled, in which sat the thirty-six bishops of Theophilus's party, the proceedings were opened by a presentation of twenty-nine heads of accusation against Chrysostom, by John the Archdeacon of Constantinople, whom Theophilus had summoned to the council, just as if the see of Chrysostom had been vacant. The charges against the archbishop were: 1. That he had excommunicated the aforesaid archdeacon for striking his servant. 2. That he had caused a monk, named John, to be dragged to prison. 3. That he had injured the clergy by directing against them his treatise on keeping unmarried women in their houses. 4. That he had accused three deacons of robbery and fraud. 5. That he had not received with honour the thrice-holy Acacius, Bishop of Berea. 6. That he had handed over the priest Porphyry to the secular arm. 7. That he had struck and ill-used some other person. 8. That he ate his meals alone from inhospitality or pride. 9. That he refused invitations to visit. 10. That he was haughty, distant, avaricious. 11. That he gave money to his bishops in order to bribe them to persecute their clergy. 12. That he entered and left the church without prayer. 13. That he robed and unrobed himself on the pontifical throne. 14. That he ate pastilles, and recommended the faithful to use water or pastilles after communion. 15. That he had the water of his bath warmed for himself. 16. That he sold the marbles which Nectarius, his predecessor, had provided to adorn the church of Anastasia. 17 to 29. To overwhelm the hated prelate, serious charges against his morals in other respects were expanded into the remaining items.

The summons to appear before the council was couched in these terms: The holy synod assembled in the suburb of the Oak, to John-We have received a long memorial against you recounting an infinity of crimes; we, therefore, order you to appear before us, and to bring with you Tyrius and Serapion, whose presence is indispensable. But Chrysostom declined compliance. The forty bishops who were with him indeed replied to Theophilus: That but for the regard they had to the canons of the Council of Nicea, they would have condemned the