Exile at Kucusus
Not long did the peace last. A statue of the empress had been inaugurated before the cathedral. The crowd indulged in most intemperate rejoicings, and paid almost idolatrous homage to the statue. This Chrysostom, in preaching, censured. The empress took the blame to herself: it kindled her wrath afresh. It was whispered to her that the great preacher had alluded to her under the name of Herodias. A new synod of the patriarch’s opponents was convoked. It issued, in the year 404, a second sentence of deposition against him. It alleged that Chrysostom, after being deposed by a synod, had, contrary to the law of the Church, resumed his see without being restored by another synod. The emperor Arcadius confirmed the decision, and subscribed a decree of banishment. This time Chrysostom waited for force to be used. Soldiers were sent into the church: they pushed aside the people who were protecting their bishop. Blood flowed, and the church was desecrated.
Chrysostom was carried away to Nicæa in Bithynia, and was ordered, in the midst of the summer heats, to go thence on foot, amid the greatest privations and hardships, to Kucusus in Armenia. The journey brought on him a grievous illness. Thus he was detained for some time at Cæsarea in Cappadocia. He was scarcely recovered when he was driven further on. In 406, he reached Kucusus. But he kept up intercourse by letter with his friends in the capital. Arsacius, in the meantime, had been intruded by the emperor’s power into his see; and a grievous persecution was instituted against those who would not recognise the intruder. Chrysostom consoled them in many letters. Banished as he was, he concerned himself for the spread of the faith among Persians and Goths. His sufferings, and the magnanimity with which he bore them, won for him sympathy far and wide. But his enemies remained unmoved. He besought the intercession of Pope Innocent I., describing to him, in a letter which is translated in this volume, the utter illegality of the violence which he was suffering. The Pope applied to the emperor Honorius for succour, and was supported by him in sending a solemn deputation to the emperor Arcadius; but he was under the dominion of the offended Eudoxia, and refused to listen either to his brother emperor or the Pope.