Two Presbyters in the mean time came to Rome from the East, Domitianus of Constantinople, and Vallagus of Nisibis in Mesopotamia, and brought with them the original Acts, which they had purchased with a large Sum of the Imperial Officers, containing an authentic Detail of the Cruelties which some Women of Quality had been made to endure for not communicating with Arsacius, and the Bishops of his Faction. |Innocent applies to
Honorius;| With these the good Bishop was so deeply affected, that he could no longer forbear applying to Honorius, who, at his Request, writ immediately to Arcadius a very pressing and friendly Letter in favour of Chrysostom, and those of his Communion. At the same time he issued an Order for convening a Council of the Western Bishops, who, meeting soon after at Rome, drew up an Address, which they sent to Ravenna, where the Emperor then was, earnestly intreating him to interpose anew his good Offices with his Brother Arcadius, that an Oecumenical Council might be allowed to assemble at Thessalonica, in order to compose the present Differences, which had already produced a Misunderstanding between the Eastern and Western Churches, and might in the End bring on an intire Separation. |who writes to Arcad-
ius.| Honorius, in Compliance with their Request, writ a Third Letter to Arcadius (for he had, it seems, written already a Second), and at the same time one to Innocent, desiring him to appoint Five Bishops, Two Presbyters of the Roman Church, and One Deacon, to carry his Letter into the East, thinking that such a Legation would add no small Weight to his Mediation. The Letter to Arcadius was in the following Terms:
His Letter.
“This is the Third time I write to your Meekness (ad Mansuetudinem tuam) intreating you to correct and rectify the iniquitous Proceedings that have been carried on against John Bishop of Constantinople. But nothing, I find, has been hitherto done in his Behalf. Having therefore much at Heart the Peace of the Church, which will be attended with that of our Empire, I write to you anew by these holy Bishops and Presbyters, earnestly desiring you to command the Eastern Bishops to assemble at Thessalonica. The Western Bishops have sent Five of their Body, Two Presbyters of the Roman Church, and One Deacon, all Men of the strictest Equity, and quite free from the Byass of Favour and Hatred. These I beg you would receive with that Regard which is due to their Rank and Merit: If they find John to have been justly deposed, they may separate me from his Communion; and you from the Communion of the Orientals, if it appears that he has been unjustly deposed. The Western Bishops have very plainly expressed their Sentiments, in the many Letters they have written to me on the Subject of the present Dispute. Of these I send you Two, the one from the Bishop of Rome, the other from the Bishop of Aquileia; and with them the rest agree. One thing I must above all beg of your Meekness; that you oblige Theophilus of Alexandria to assist at the Council, how averse soever he may be to it; for he is said to be the first and chief Author of the present Calamities. Thus the Synod, meeting with no Delays or Obstructions, will restore Peace and Tranquillity in our Days[[1421]].”
The Pope’s Legates
not allowed to touch
at Thessalonica.
With these Letters the Legates set out from Rome, attended by the above-mentioned Prelates Demetrius, Cyriacus, Eulysius, and Palladius; and, sailing for Greece, put in at Athens, with a Design to pursue their Voyage to Thessalonica, having Letters from Innocent to Anysius Bishop of that City. But at Athens they were, to their great Surprize, stopt and detained by a Military Tribune, who let them know, that they must not touch at Thessalonica; and at the same time appointed a Centurion as a Guard over them, strictly injoining him not to suffer them, under any Pretence whatsoever, to approach that City. Soon after the Tribune parted them, and, putting them on board Two Vessels, ordered the Mariners to convey them strait to Constantinople. Anysius communicated with Chrysostom, as I have observed above; and it was, without all doubt, on this Consideration that the Legates were not allowed to set foot in his Diocese. |The hard Usage they
met with on their
Journey,| They arrived at Constantinople the Third Day after they had left Athens, but starved with Hunger; for the Tribune had neither supplied them with Provisions when they embarked, nor allowed them Time to supply themselves; so that they had tasted no Kind of Victuals during the Three Days they were at Sea. |and at Constant-
inople.| On their Arrival at Constantinople, they were not suffered to come ashore there, but ordered to a Castle on the Thracian Coast called Athyra, where they were all closely confined, the Legates in one common Room, and the other Bishops in so many separate Cells. As the People of Constantinople were most zealously attached to Chrysostom, the Emperor apprehended, and with a great deal of Reason, that their entering the City, and conversing publicly there, might be attended with uncommon Disturbances and Commotions; and therefore thought it adviseable to keep them at a Distance, and under Confinement. They had not been long thus confined, when they were ordered, they knew not by whom, to deliver the Letters they had brought. But neither by this Person, whoever he was, nor by several others, who were successively sent on the same Errand, could they be prevailed upon to part with them, alleging, that Letters from an Emperor ought to be delivered to none but an Emperor.
As they continued firm and unshaken in this Resolution, one Valerian, a Military Tribune, was at last called in, and ordered to employ the Rhetoric peculiar to his Profession, since no other could prevail. |The Letters taken
from them by Force.| Valerian accordingly, after a short Preamble, proceeded to Violence; and, seizing them, took the Letters by Force, having in the Struggle wounded one of the Bishops in the Hand. The next Day they were visited by a Person, who, without acquainting them who he was, or by whom sent, offered them a very considerable Sum, on condition they would communicate with Atticus, who, upon the Death of Arsacius, had, by the Bishops of his Faction, been intruded in his room. |They are put on board
a leaky Vessel;| Upon their rejecting, as they did, with the utmost Indignation, this Offer, Valerian, who was present, conducted them under a strong Guard to the Sea-side, and there put them on board an old leaky Vessel, having first, with a large Bribe, prevailed upon the Commander, as they were informed, to engage his Word, that they should not outlive that Voyage. |but arrive safe in
Italy.| They outlived it however, and, having reached Lampsacus, they embarked on board another Vessel, which landed them safe at Otranto. As for the Eastern Bishops who had attended them from Rome, viz. Cyriacus, Eulysius, Palladius, and Demetrius, after having been some time kept under close Confinement at Athyra, they were banished to the most remote and abandoned Places of the Empire. The other Bishops, who refused to communicate with Atticus, Theophilus, and Porphyrius, fared no better, being in like manner either driven into Banishment, or obliged to abscond, and, under the Disguise of Mechanics, earn their Livelihood by the meanest Professions. Many perished in the Places of their Exile for want of Necessaries; and others were so cruelly harassed, nay, and barbarously beaten, by the merciless Soldiery, appointed to conduct them, that they died on the Road[[1422]]. Such were the wretched Effects of that unchristian Principle of Persecution being lawful to punish Error in religious Disputes, which all Sects of Christians then held, and all suffered by in their Turns, as the different Parties among them got the Civil Magistrate and Force on their Side.
Honorius resolves to
revenge the Affront
offered to his Embas-
sadors, but is diverted
from it.
Honorius, being informed of the base Treatment the Legates had met with, though vested with the sacred Character of Embassadors, was so provoked at such a notorious Violation of the Right of Nations, that he resolved to make War on his Brother, and revenge it by Force of Arms. But from this Resolution he was diverted by a threatened Invasion of the Barbarians, and the seasonable Discovery of the famous Stilicho’s Treachery, which obliged him to keep all his Troops in Italy, or the adjoining Provinces. As for Innocent, finding the Mediation of Honorius, which he had procured, prove unsuccessful, and no other Means left of affording the least Relief to Chrysostom and the other persecuted Bishops, he resolved to make known to the World his Abhorrence of the Evils, which it was not in his Power to redress; and accordingly separated himself from the Communion of Atticus, Theophilus, and Porphyrius, as the chief Authors of the present Calamities[[1423]].
Arcadius and Eudoxia
not excommunicated
by Innocent.
Baronius, thinking it inconsistent with the Dignity of his High Pontiff thus tamely to bear with the insulting Conduct of Arcadius, would fain persuade us, that, after he had tried in vain all other Methods of bringing the Emperor, and the Empress Eudoxia, to a Sense of their Duty, he at last thought himself obliged to thunder against both the tremendous Sentence of Excommunication, cutting them off as rotten Members from the Body of the Faithful committed to his Care and Direction. To prove this, he produces several Letters from Innocent to Arcadius, and from Arcadius to Innocent, transcribed partly from Gennadius, Glycas, and Nicephorus, and partly from the Vatican Manuscripts[[1424]]. To enter into a critical Examination of those Pieces, would be wasting Time, and tiring the Reader to no Purpose. I shall therefore content myself with Three Observations, each of them sufficient, in my Opinion, to make the World reject them all as mere Forgeries. In the first place, the Silence of the Historians, who writ at that Time, touching so remarkable and unprecedented an Event as the Excommunication of an Emperor and an Empress, is an unanswerable Confutation of every Proof that can be alleged to support the Authenticity of the pretended Letters. For who can imagine, that the Writers, who flourished then, and have transmitted to us most minute Accounts of far less important Transactions both Civil and Ecclesiastical, would have passed this over in Silence? In the Second place, Eudoxia is supposed, in all those Letters, to have outlived Chrysostom; whereas it is certain, that she died in 404, four Years before him. Lastly, In the above-mentioned Letter, Arcadius is all along supposed to have repented, and changed his Conduct towards Chrysostom, to have persecuted his Enemies as he had formerly done his Friends, and to have chiefly vented his Resentment on the first Author of all the Disturbances, the Empress, who thereupon, out of Grief, Rage, and Despair, fell into a dangerous Malady[[1425]]. But of all this not the least Hint is to be met with in Palladius, who writ in the last Days of the Life and Reign of Arcadius; nay, that Historian speaks of the Friends of Chrysostom as Men still under the Emperor’s Displeasure, and feeling the dreadful Effects of it in the inhospitable Places, to which they had been formerly confined.