Saint John Chrysostom, His Life and Times / A sketch of the church and the empire in the fourth century

by W. R. W. Stephens

But on a sudden, in A.D. 398, the Patriarch wheeled round; he discovered that he had been in error. “The writings of Origen were fraught with danger to the unlearned, however profitable to philosophic minds.” Such was the reason alleged for this sudden revulsion of opinion. The real reasons appear to have been of a less calm and philosophic character. One of the most distinguished presbyters in Alexandria at this time was Isidore, an octogenarian. His youth had been spent in pious seclusion, among the monks of Scetis and Nitria, and his piety had attracted the notice of Athanasius, whom he accompanied to Rome in A.D. 341, and by whom he was afterwards ordained priest. He became the Hospitaller of the Church in Alexandria, whose duty it was to attend to the reception of Christian visitors. In spite of great personal austerity, he was, as became his position, gentle and amiable to all men, even Pagans, when brought into contact with them. In A.D. 398, at the age of eighty, he had been employed to carry to Rome the recognition by Theophilus of Flavian as bishop of Antioch; and now, in the extremity of age, he was destined to become the first victim of a persecution by Theophilus, which, beginning with him, culminated in the deposition and exile of Chrysostom.[542]

An opulent widow committed to Isidore a large sum of money to be expended on clothing for the poor of Alexandria, and adjured him by a solemn oath to conceal the trust from Theophilus, lest the Patriarch’s well-known cupidity should be tempted to appropriate the money to aid his grand operations in building. The precaution, however, was vain: nothing said or done in his diocese could escape the vigilance of informers in the employ of Theophilus. Isidore was questioned by the Patriarch concerning the charitable gift, and required to place the money at his disposal; but the hospitaller refused, and boldly maintained that it would be better bestowed on the bodies of the sick and poor, which were the temples of God, than on the erection of buildings. The Patriarch was astounded at the temerity of his disobedience, but dissembled for the moment the depth of his resentment. Two months later, in a convocation of the clergy, he produced a paper containing the charge of a horrible and unmentionable crime against Isidore, which the Patriarch said he had received eighteen years ago, but had been unable to prove from the absence of the principal witness. The whole charge turned out to be a baseless fabrication; but Isidore was ejected from the priesthood by the contrivance of Theophilus.[543]

The aged hospitaller fled to the peaceful retreat of his earlier days, the desert of Nitria. The most distinguished of the monks in this seclusion were four brothers—Ammon, Dioscorus, Eusebius, and Euthymius—eminent alike for their piety and the height of their stature, whence they were known by the name of the “tall brethren.” They were venerated as the fathers of the Nitrian monks. Theophilus had in former times professed the highest admiration and respect for their virtues. He had made the eldest, Dioscorus, bishop of Hermopolis, and had persuaded, if not compelled, Eusebius and Euthymius, much against their will, to be presbyters in Alexandria.[544] Their simple piety was so much shocked by the avarice and other failings of the Patriarch, that they implored him to release them from clerical duties and restore them to the freedom of the desert. When Theophilus discovered their real reason for requesting this permission he was furious, and tried to intimidate them into submission by fierce menaces, but in vain. They withdrew, and for a time the Patriarch was at a loss how to execute vengeance on men who had few possessions of any kind to be deprived of. But now the opportunity arrived. Isidore, the excommunicated hospitaller, had been sheltered in their friendly retreat. Theophilus devised a malignant plan for disturbing their peace. The “tall brethren” belonged to that more mystical order of monks which embraced Origen’s doctrine of a purely spiritual Deity, and were determined adversaries of the more sensuous and anthropomorphite school. Theophilus now scrupled not to declare himself in favour of the Anthropomorphites, whom he had formerly denounced. He encouraged the more coarse and ignorant to make violent and tumultuous assaults on the monastic retreat of Nitria, and, directed the bishops of the neighbourhood to eject several of the most distinguished monks, including Ammon. They repaired to Alexandria, sought an interview with Theophilus, requested to hear the cause of their ejection, and remonstrated on the treatment of Isidore. Theophilus burst into a violent rage, changed colour at every moment, glared on them with bloodshot eyes, dealt blows to Ammon on his face, and, while the blood trickled down, shouted, “Heretic, anathematise Origen.” One of the number was put in prison to intimidate the rest; but they all entered it voluntarily together, and refused to come out unless their companion also was released. This was at length permitted, but the design of persecution was followed up. The Patriarch’s paschal letter of A.D. 401 is chiefly occupied with a condemnation of Origen and his disciples. He confesses, indeed, that he had himself at one time been cast into that fiery furnace of error, but, like the three children, he had come out unscathed; “not even his hair or garments had been singed.” He describes himself as having now returned from the land of captivity to the true Jerusalem; Origen and his doctrines are condemned with much heat; and a prominent place is assigned to him and all his disciples in the infernal regions.[545]

But Theophilus was far from being contented to stop at this point. He convoked a synod of neighbouring bishops. The monks were not informed of it, nor invited to appear and make their defence. Three of the most eminent were excommunicated as heretics and magicians. It was in vain that the monks protested against the injustice of condemning Origen or his readers on the strength of a few passages only, and those, as they maintained, in many instances garbled or interpolated. A synodical letter was published, addressed to the Catholic world, reprobating the writings of Origen. It produced a profound sensation in Rome, where the Pope Anastasius anathematised Origen.[546] But the humiliation of the Nitrian brethren was not yet complete. Five most insignificant monks, scarce worthy, according to Palladius, to discharge menial offices as lay brethren, were ordained by Theophilus, one to a bishopric, one to be priest, and the three others to be deacons. A small town was created a see, there being none vacant to receive the new bishop. With these tools the Patriarch could rapidly execute his designs. His creatures prepared, under his direction, a list of complaints and charges against the Nitrian monks, which they publicly presented to him in church. Armed with this, he had an interview with the governor of Egypt, and obtained from him an order for the forcible expulsion of insubordinate monks from the settlement at Nitria. With a troop of soldiers and a rabble of rascals, such as in all large towns are ready for the perpetration of any mischief, whom he had previously primed with drink, the Patriarch fell by night upon the monastic dwellings. Dioscorus was the first victim of his rage. He was one of the “tall brethren,” who had been compelled by Theophilus to become bishop of Hermopolis. He was now dragged before the Patriarch by some rude Ethiopian slaves, and told that he was deprived of his see. Diligent search was made for the three other brethren, but they were undiscoverably hidden in a well. The fury of the Patriarch expended itself principally upon inanimate objects; the dwellings of the monks were pillaged and burned, together with their valuable libraries, and, to the horror of the pious, even some of the Eucharistic elements[547] were consumed in the general destruction.

The havoc being completed, Theophilus returned to Alexandria. The terrified monks came out of their hiding-places, and, wrapping themselves in their sheepskins, their only remaining property, set out from their beloved solitudes to seek shelter and a new home elsewhere. Three hundred, following the “tall brethren,” took their journey towards Palestine; the rest dispersed in different directions. Not more than eighty arrived with the four brethren at Jerusalem, whence they shortly afterwards withdrew northwards to Scythopolis, a place eminently adapted to their wants by its situation in a well-watered valley rich in palm-trees, of which the leaves furnished materials for mats, baskets, and the other articles usually wrought by monkish labour.[548] But distance did not diminish the malice of their persecutor. They were pursued by letters from Theophilus addressed to all the bishops of Palestine, who were admonished not to grant ecclesiastical communion or shelter to the heretical fugitives. Jerome mentions two commissioners who scoured Palestine, and left no hole or cave unexplored in the diligence of their search for the offenders.[549] Thus hunted and harassed, the poor monks at length resolved to embark for Constantinople, throw themselves on the generosity of the Emperor and Archbishop, and submit their cause to their decision. They reached the capital, fifty in number; their foreign aspect, bare arms and knees, and primitive garb of white sheepskins, excited much curiosity and interest among the people of Constantinople. They repaired first of all to Chrysostom, in the hope that his authority would be sufficient to procure them justice, without an application to the civil powers. The Archbishop received them with great kindness and respect, and shed tears of compassion when he heard the tale of their sufferings and wanderings. But he acted with caution; he consulted some Alexandrian clergy who were at this time in Constantinople engaged in distributing presents to conciliate, or, more properly speaking, to bribe, the favour of persons just appointed to civil offices in Egypt. They admitted the virtues and hard usage of the monks, but recommended him not to incur the displeasure of Theophilus by admitting them to communion. The monks were lodged in the precincts of the church of Anastasia; Olympias and other pious women attended to their wants, which were to some extent supplied by the produce of their own manual labour. They were admitted to prayer in the church, but excluded from the Eucharist until the merits of their cause should have been carefully sifted, and their excommunication revoked. Chrysostom, unsuspicious of others, in his own innocence, was sanguine of his power to obtain their restitution. He despatched a letter to Theophilus, in which he besought him in courteous and friendly terms to be reconciled with the fugitives, and thereby to confer a favour on himself, his spiritual son and brother. But no notice was taken of the request; and meanwhile the agents of Theophilus were busily employed at Constantinople in disseminating injurious tales about the monks—they were heretics, magicians, rebels.

Throughout the rest of Christendom Theophilus pursued a different method. He toiled with diligence worthy of a better cause to obtain a wide condemnation of Origen and his works. Could he once secure such a general condemnation, and then prove Chrysostom and the monks to be at variance with it, he would possess a powerful engine in working the ruin of both. It is difficult to believe that even Theophilus would have pursued the monks with such insatiable animosity had they not fled to the patriarch of that see which was regarded with peculiar jealousy by the bishops of Alexandria, and had not the present occupant of that see been elected in preference to the candidate put forward by himself. Thus he clutched at the opportunity of depressing his rival, and punishing his victims, the monks, at the same time.

He found a faction hostile to the Archbishop already existing in Constantinople, and quite ready to submit the management of their interests to his skilful direction. The persecution of the monks was quickly dropped. Their supposed offence was only the handle by which to compass the destruction of a more formidable foe. Jerome contributed powerful aid to the designs of Theophilus by favourable notices of him in his letters, depreciating the conduct of the monks.[550] But a more active auxiliary appeared in the Bishop of Constantia, whose advanced age seems never to have diminished the alacrity with which he entered the lists of controversy. Theophilus, in his Origenistic days, had attacked Epiphanius with some vehemence as an anthropomorphite; but he now wrote a letter to the bishop expressing regret for his former language, and his increasing conviction of the mischievous tendency of Origen’s doctrines.[551] He implored his holy brother to convene a council of the bishops of Cyprus without delay, for the purpose of condemning the heretic, and of drawing up letters, announcing their decision, to be sent round to the principal sees, especially Constantinople, where the heretical and contumacious monks were harboured. Epiphanius flattered himself that he had converted the Patriarch, and was delighted to receive such a powerful accession to his side. The council was summoned, the condemnation carried, and the letters despatched.[552] Theophilus himself, at the commencement of A.D. 402, issued a paschal letter, which contained a subtle exposition and refutation of the Origenistic errors. The letter was translated, and highly commended, both for matter and expression, by Jerome.[553]

To Chrysostom himself Theophilus wrote a sharp complaint of his protecting heretics, and violating the canon of Nice, which prohibited any bishop from exercising jurisdiction in matters relating to another see. The cause of the Nitrian monks, he asserted, could not be decided legally anywhere but in a council of Egyptian bishops. It will be borne in mind, however, that Chrysostom had carefully abstained from pronouncing any decision, through a council or otherwise, on the affair of the monks. They, indeed, became provoked with him that he did not espouse their cause more heartily. The agents of Theophilus were busily engaged in damaging their character; a little money easily persuaded the sailors and others employed in the Alexandrian corn trade to point at the monks in the streets as magicians and heretics. The monks declared to Chrysostom their resolution to appeal to the civil powers to obtain a formal prosecution of their accusers as base calumniators. Chrysostom remonstrated, and declined, if that step were taken, to mediate any more in their affair. Some of his enemies in Constantinople did not fail to represent this as a cruel desertion of those whom he had at first befriended.[554]

Thus hostile forces were on all sides closing round the Archbishop, but he continued apparently unconscious of the snares which were being woven for him. The Origenistic controversy, into the vortex of which his enemies sought to drag him, possessed little interest for him. The more mystical, abstract speculations of Origen’s theology were alien from his practical sphere of work and practical habit of mind; and, in common with the other chief representatives of the Antiochene school, Diodorus and Theodore, he neither wholly embraced nor wholly rejected his system of doctrine. At any rate, he paid no attention to the letter from Cyprus, which requested him to join in the condemnation of Origen and his writings. This was precisely what his enemies wanted.

The Nitrian monks, cast off by the Archbishop when they had announced their intention of appealing to secular authority, drew up documents filled with charges of the most flagrant crimes against their accusers and against Theophilus. They demanded that their calumniators in Constantinople should be immediately tried by the prefect, and that Theophilus should be summoned to defend his conduct before a council under the presidency of Chrysostom. One day, as the Empress was riding in her litter to worship in the church of St. John the Baptist at Hebdomon, she was accosted by some of those strange skin-clad beings of whom, and of whose wanderings and wrongs, she had heard much. She caused her litter to stop, bowed graciously to the monks, and implored the favour of their prayers for the Empire, the Emperor, herself, and her children. The monks presented their petition; Eudoxia courteously accepted it, and promised them that the council which they desired should be convened; that Theophilus should be summoned to attend it, and that the accusers now in Constantinople should either substantiate their charges, or suffer the penalties of calumnious defamation. This inquiry was immediately instituted; the poor culprits confessed that they had been paid agents of Theophilus, and that their accusations had been dictated by him. They therefore entreated that their trial might be deferred till his arrival. Meanwhile, however, they were put in prison, where one of them died; and as the arrival of Theophilus continued to be delayed, they were banished to Proconnesus for libel. An officer was despatched to Alexandria to serve Theophilus with a peremptory summons to appear at Constantinople, and empowered to enforce his obedience, if he was reluctant.[555]