Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom

So the forty bishops returned to their lodgings, and spent the night without sleep, some weeping, others grieving, others again held inactive by a stupor of pacificism which dulled their minds-according as their individual feelings disposed them. However, those of John's priests who had the fear of God in their hearts, gathered the faithful laity in the public baths, called the baths of Constans, and occupied the night vigil in reading aloud the divine oracles, or in baptizing the catechumens, as usual at the Paschal festival. These proceedings were reported by those corrupters of mind and perverters of sense, Antiochus, Severianus, and Acacius, to their champions, with the demand that the people should be prevented from assembling there. The magistrate on duty objected that it was night, and that the crowds of people were large; some regrettable incident might well occur. Acacius and his party urged against this: "Not a soul has stayed in the churches; we are afraid that if the king goes to church and finds no one there, he may recognize the affection of the people for John, and condemn us as slanderers, especially after our telling him that there is absolutely no one who is kindly disposed towards him, but that he is regarded as an outlaw." So the magistrate, under protest, on the ground of what was likely to result, granted them the services of one Lucius, reported to be a Greek, and his commando of armed men, giving him instructions to go and call the people, gently, to the church. This he did, but as they would not obey, he returned to Acacius and his party, and explained the zeal and dense numbers of the people. Hearing this, they seduced him with golden words, and promises of further promotion, urging him to hinder the glory of the Lord; instructing him either to bring the people to church by verbal persuasion, or to excite them, and by drastic action prevent the festival from being celebrated.

So Lucius at once set out upon his mission, accompanied by the clergy of Acacius' party. This was in the second watch of the night; for in our parts of the world they keep the people at church till the first cock-crow. He took 400 Thracian swordsmen (the same number that Esau had), newly enlisted, and absolutely reckless, and at a moment's notice threw himself, like a savage wolf, with the clergy to guide his movements, upon the crowd of people, hacking a way through with flashing swords. He pressed forwards to the blessed water within, to stop those who were being initiated into (the sacrament of) the Saviour's resurrection, pinioned the deacon, and poured away the sacramental elements; he beat the priests, men advanced in years, about the head with bludgeons, until the laver was dyed with blood. Sad it was to see that angelic night, in which even demons fall prostrate in terror, turned into a labyrinth. Here were women, stripped for baptism, running by the side of their husbands, glad so to escape in dishonour, in their terror of murder or dishonour; here was a man, with a wounded hand, making off, crying; another fellow dragging after him a maiden whose clothes he had torn off. All of them were carrying away loot which they had pillaged.

So those priests and deacons who were seized were thrown into the gaol; the better-class lay folk were expelled from the capital. Orders were issued one after the other, containing various threats against those who would not renounce communion with John. Yet in spite of all this, the bishops of whom I have told devoted themselves to their duties in the open air all the more earnestly; and the gathering of those who love Christian teaching, or rather, love God, was not brought to an end. As we read in the book of Exodus, the more they killed them, the more numerous they were.

So when the king went out next day, to take exercise in the plain beside the city, he saw the waste ground round Pempton clothed in white; and in astonishment at the sight of the newly baptized, thick as blossoms in spring (there were about 3000 of them), he asked the guard what was the great crowd gathered there. Instead of telling him the truth, they said that they were the mis-believers; so as to bring upon them the wrath of the king. Hearing of this incident, those who were responsible, for the affair, the champions of envy, sent to the suburb the most pitiless of their followers, to scatter the audience and arrest the teachers. So once more some few of the clergy, and a larger number of the laity, were arrested.

Deac. Most blessed father, how was it that, when they were so many that the newly baptized alone numbered 3000, these few soldiers mastered them, and broke up the assemblage?

Bish. There is no indication here of small numbers, nor proof of want of zeal. It only shows their exceeding piety, and proves their attention to their teachers, who continually urged them to cultivate a peaceful habit of mind.

And Theodorus said—

Deac. Excellently spoken; certainly it was not to be expected that men who had learnt prudence and gentleness from the holy John should maintain his cause by folly and turbulence.

CHAPTER X. CHRYSOSTOM'S DEPARTURE, AND ITS SEQUEL

Bish. So you are satisfied with this explanation. Do not, then, I beg, interrupt my words; they are begotten of sad events. As a general rule, it is events that beget more words than anything else. Well, the wives of some eminent men were arrested, as well us the clergy and laity who were taken prisoners. From some of these they snatched their veils, and tore their earrings, with the lobe of the ear, from others; seeing this, a very wealthy lady, the wife of one Eleutherus, threw off her veil of her own accord, and ran into the city, disguised in the dress of a female slave, to shield her modesty. For she was endowed with a beautiful face and comely figure. So the prisons of the magistrates were filled, but they were turned into churches; hymns were sung, and oblations of the mysteries celebrated in the prisons, while in the churches floggings and tortures and terrible oaths were brought to bear, to compel people to anathematize John, who had fought against the malice of the devil even to the death.

The feast of Pentecost passed, and five days afterwards Acacius, Antiochus, Severianus, and Cyrinus came to the king, and said: "Your majesty, as by God's appointment you are not under our authority, but have authority over all, you can do whatever you will. Be not more mild than a priest, and more holy than a bishop; we said to you publicly, Upon our heads be the deposition of John. Do not then be unmerciful to all of us, in being merciful to one man." They employed the same language, I might say the same actions, as the Jews, to persuade the king.

So the king despatched Patricius the notary, with the following message to John: "Acacius, Antiochus, Severianus, and Cyrinus have taken your condemnation upon their own heads. Commend, therefore, your affairs to God, and leave the Church." So Bishop John came down from the bishop's house, with the bishops, and after giving them clear and definite instructions, said to all, "Come, and let us with prayer take leave of the angel of the Church." He rejoiced at what had happened, but grieved over the misfortune of the people.

At this moment one of the officials who loved God sent word to John: "A savage and brazen-laced man, named Lucius, is waiting with his commando in the public bath, ready to drag you out, and expel you from the city by force, if you refuse to go, or delay; and the people of the city are in a ferment. Do your best to get away unnoticed, to prevent the people from coming into conflict with the military, in trying to help you." Then John with tears kissed some of the bishops (his emotion would not allow him to do so to all), and took his leave of them, saying to the rest, within the vestry, "Stay here for the present, and let me go and have a little rest." But he went into the baptistery, and called Olympias, a lady who spent all her time in the church, and Pentadia, and Procle, the deaconesses, and Silvina, the widow of the blessed Nevridius, who adorned her widowhood by a beautiful life, and said to them, "Come here, my daughters, and listen to me. I see that the things concerning me have an end; I have finished my course and perhaps you will see my face no more. What I want to ask you is this: let no one dissever you from the good-will you have always borne to the Church; and whoever succeeds me, if he be brought forward for ordination not by his own wish, and without place-hunting, with the approval of all, bow your heads to him, as you have done to John. The Church cannot exist without a bishop. And so may you find mercy. Remember me in your prayers."

The ladies burst into tears, and threw themselves at his feet. Then he made a sign to one of the reverend priests, and said, "Take them away, for fear of their raising a disturbance." So they were kept under control for a while, and apparently acquiesced. And so he moved away to the eastern part of the church (there was nothing western about him!); but he had given orders for the mule which he generally rode to be waiting at the west end, where was the porch of the church, in front of the main door, so as to mislead the people, who were waiting for him there. With him went forth the angel, unable to bear the desolation of the Church, brought about by wicked principalities and powers, who had produced a sort of theatrical exhibition. Yes, there was a roar, like that one hears in a theatre; the ungodly hissed and booed, Jews and Greeks yelled at the top of their voices. And there were blows and body wounds, inflicted by the soldiers, as if they were dealing with criminals in a prison; while every faculty of the soul was tortured by the withdrawal of the teacher, and by the blasphemy against God. For in the place appointed for the remission of sins, there took place the shedding of blood.

Now after this scene of awful and inexplicable darkness, a flame appeared from the middle of the throne in which John usually sat, like a heart set in the midst of a body, to expound to the other organs the oracles of the Lord; and sought for the interpreter of the Word. Not finding him, it devoured the chamber used for the Church vessels. Then it spread like a tree, and crept through the rafters to the roof; and consuming the belly like a viper, it leapt upon the back of the church building. It seemed as though God was paying the reward of iniquity appointed as its penalty, to admonish and warn those who will not be warned, except by the sight of such heaven-sent calamities; and more, leaving to posterity a memorial of the savage synod.

But what happened to the church was nothing wonderful, in comparison with the destruction of the building, commonly called the Senate, which lies opposite the church, many paces away to the south. The fire seemed to be possessed of reason; it passed over the heads of the people in the street between, like a man crossing a bridge, and first caught, not the part nearest to the church, so that we cannot ascribe the misfortune to the proximity of the two buildings, but the part on the side of the king's palace. This clearly showed that the marvel was heaven-sent; for one could see crowds of people passing without harm upon their ordinary business between the mountains of fire. In the same way the flames, whirling and surging like the sea tossed by a fierce wind, seemed to advance in obedience to signal; they seized the buildings all round without mercy, but showed consideration for one little outhouse, that in which the bulk of the sacred vessels was stored. Not that they reverenced the gold, or the rest of the precious materials; it was to give no ground to his accusers for the false charge against the good bishop, that he had appropriated part of the valuables.

So the fire, after doing all this mischief, gradually withdrew to the back parts of the city, following the track of the malice of the criminals; to expose the madness of Theophilus, who apparently had been scheming to use the treasures of the Church as a plea for John's ejection. There was no loss of life from the fire, of man or beast, among the great crowd; but the filthiness of the men who were behaving so foully was purged by the violence of the flames, which in three hours of a single day, between twelve and three o'clock, destroyed the work of years.

CHAPTER XI. EXILE AND DEATH OF CHRYSOSTOM

Deac. And where were John and the rest of the bishops, father, while this was going on?

Bish. The rest of the bishops were put in prison, or haled out of the city, or found means of concealment; John, Cyriacus, and Eulysius were carried off in bonds to Bithynia by the soldiers of the prefect, under threats of punishment for setting fire to the church. Later on, Cyriacus and Eulysius, with other clergy, were brought up for trial, but were acquitted, and set at liberty, while the holy John, outspoken as ever, sent them this last message: "You refused to give me the opportunity of defending myself on the other matters; at least let me have a hearing in regard to what happened to the church, as to whether I am guilty, as you allege, of the incendiarism." His request for a hearing on this point was equally unsuccessful, and he was sent in charge of soldiers to a very lonely village in Armenia, called Cucusus, in the hope of getting him killed by the Isaurians, who were continually raiding the place, by night and by day.

The successor appointed in the place of John the inspired teacher was Arsacius, brother of the blessed Nectarius; a man with less power of speech than a fish, and of action than a frog. For there are times when action speaks, especially when it is for good. However, Arsacius only held on to life for fourteen months, when he died; for he had broken an oath upon the gospels. He had sworn to his brother Nectarius, that he would never accept consecration as bishop, when Nectarius reproached him for refusing to be Bishop of Tarsus, saying that he was waiting for his own death. What led to his perjury was first of all ambition, for the sake of which he wooed, so to speak, his brother's wife; and after that, shame. His brother's reproof was indeed prophetic.

A priest named Atticus, who had taken an active part in the schemes against John, was appointed as successor to Arsacius. Observing that none of the eastern bishops, or even of the laity of Constantinople, would communicate with him, because of the lawless and irregular proceedings which had taken place, in his ignorance of the divine scriptures he set to work to coerce those who would not communicate with him by means of rescripts. The edict against the bishops contained the following threat: "If any of the bishops does not communicate with Theophilus and Porphyrius and Atticus, let him be expelled from the Church, and deprived of his personal property." Some of them, crushed by the pressure of circumstances, thereupon communicated, against their will; those who were poorer, and less firm in a sound faith, were induced by promises of gifts to communicate, while those who set no store by birth and possessions and fatherland, and perishable glory, and bodily suffering, preserved the nobility of their souls by flight, mindful of the gospel oracle, "If they persecute you in one city, flee unto another," and repeating to themselves the words of the Proverb, "Possessions shall not benefit in the day of wrath." Some of them reached Rome, some the mountains, and others escaped from wickedness like that of the Jews in the retreats of anchorites.

The edict against the lay-people contained the clause, "Those in high position are to be deprived of their official dignities, soldiers are to lose their girdles, the common people are to be heavily fined, and submit to banishment." In spite of all this, the prayers of the devout were offered in the open air, amid much suffering; because they were friends of the Saviour, Who said, "I am the way and the truth," and again, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

Meanwhile, the blessed John resided at Cucusus for a year, feeding great numbers of the poor of Armenia, where a great famine occurred at the. time; not with corn, so much as with words. This again roused the malignity of the fratricides, who transferred him to Arabissus, exposing him to hardships of all sorts, in the hope of bringing about his death. Here once more the light of his virtues shone brightly (for a city set upon a hill cannot be hid, nor can a clearly burning lamp be hidden under a wooden bushel-measure); he awoke people from all the surrounding districts who were slumbering in the depths of unbelief, from the sleep of ignorance to the rays of the word.

Then the flames of malignity blazed yet more fiercely in Severianus and Porphyrius and other bishops of Syria, and they set to work to get him again transferred elsewhere; for he was obnoxious to them not only in his days of what men call prosperity, but also, and much more, in his adversities. They were dunces in knowledge of the nature of temptations, and forgot the divine message to the apostle when tribulations befell him, "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is perfected in weakness." So when they saw the Church of Antioch migrating to the Church of Armenia, and the gracious philosophy of John chanted from there back again to the Church of Antioch, they longed to cut short his life. The accounts they heard tortured them like blows of a whip—such is the power of malice, which hates the good—until their clerical followers saw what was going on, and said in astonishment, Here is a formidable dead man, who frightens living men, and men in authority too, as bogies frighten children. The wonder of it! Men supported by the powers of the world and by the wealth of the Church, men with authority and control of affairs in their hands, turning pale and writhing in fear of a priest, alone, disfranchised, infirm, exiled!