But although viciously constituted and, indeed, all the more on that very account, the synod made much display of complying in formalities with the established order of an ecclesiastical court of judicature. The prosecution was to be carried on in the name of a plaintiff who was to be present, and to submit his charge in writing. The defendant was to be cited to appear and defend himself; and if he failed to appear after three or four citations, he would be pronounced contumacious, and as such be punishable by the synod with excommunication and deposition. The further penalties of imprisonment, exile, or death could not be inflicted by any but the secular power.
Theophilus was president of the synod, and the prosecution was conducted in the name of John, Archdeacon of Constantinople, who cherished malice against Chrysostom because he had once been suspended by him for ill-treating a slave, though afterwards restored. The charges were drawn up under twenty-nine heads. The evidence of most worthless witnesses was accepted, or, more properly speaking, invited. A strange medley of monstrous and incredible offences was included in the list of charges prepared by the Archdeacon John—acts of personal violence, as well as violations of ecclesiastical discipline. “He had struck people on the face, had calumniated many of his clergy, had called one Epiphanius fool and demoniac, had imprisoned others, had accused his archdeacons of robbing his pallium for an unlawful purpose; he had despotically and illegally deposed bishops in Asia, and had ordained others without sufficient inquiry into their qualifications, mental or moral; he had alienated the property and sold the ornaments of the Church; he held private interviews with women, he dined on Cyclopian fare, he ate a small cake after holy communion, he had administered both sacraments, after he himself or the recipients had eaten.”[572] The crowning charge was that of treasonable language against the Empress—“he had called her Jezebel.” This was the trump card of the cabal. If the Emperor’s Court could be persuaded to believe him guilty on this point, exile at least, and probably death, would be the inevitable consequence.
Such were the principal charges in the list presented by the Archdeacon John. A second list, presented by Isaac the monk, accused him of extending sympathy and hospitality to Origenists, of instigating the people to sedition, of using unseemly expressions in his sermons, such as “I exult, I am beside myself with joy,” or language which gave a dangerous encouragement to sinners; for example, “as often as you sin come to me and I will heal you.”
By artfully making slight alterations in expressions actually used, and tearing them from their context, it was easy to represent them as mischievous or blasphemous. It is not surprising then that Chrysostom steadfastly refused to answer in person such a list of partly monstrous, partly puerile, accusations before such a synod. He pursued the only dignified course possible under the circumstances. When a notary from the Emperor came to him with a rescript, and showed him the petition inserted in it from the synod, that the Emperor would compel the attendance of the Archbishop; and when, presently, a second deputation from the synod, consisting of a renegade priest of his own clergy, and Isaac the monk, brought a peremptory summons from the synod, he inflexibly maintained the same attitude. “I will not attend a synod which is composed of my enemies, and to which I am summoned by my own clergy. I appeal to a lawfully constituted General Council.” The citations were rapidly repeated three or four times, and always met by the same response. The cabal expended their fury on the messengers of the Archbishop; they beat one bishop, tore the clothes of another, and placed on the neck of a third the chains which they had designed for the person of Chrysostom himself, their intention having been to put him secretly on board ship, and send him off to some remote part of the Empire. Some of the clergy were so much intimidated by these violent proceedings that they dared not return to Constantinople. Demetrius, however, Bishop of Pessina, denounced the conduct of the synod, quitted it, and returned to the Archbishop. After several more ineffectual citations, the synod, at its twelfth session, declared that it would proceed to judgment against Chrysostom as contumacious. Either by a happy coincidence, or by the contrivance of Theophilus, a message arrived from the Court on the same day, urging the bishops to decide the cause as speedily as possible. With much alacrity the request was obeyed. They drew up a despatch to the Emperor—a formal statement: “Whereas John, being accused of crimes, has declined to appear before us, and that in such cases ecclesiastical law pronounces deposition, we have hereby deposed him; but as the indictment against him contains charges of treason as well as ecclesiastical offences, we leave these to be dealt with by you, since it belongs not to us to take cognisance of them.” The synod waited for the Imperial ratification of their verdict, and meanwhile issued a circular to the clergy of Constantinople, informing them of the deposition of their spiritual father.[573]
Having attained, as he believed, the object of his intrigue, Theophilus went through the form of reconciliation with the “tall brethren” in the presence of the synod. The facility with which they were restored to favour on a simple request for pardon is in strange contrast to the relentless animosity with which they had been hitherto pursued, and indicates that their persecution had been maintained simply as the means to securing a more important victim.
Both Dioscorus and Ammon had recently died, the latter predicting with his dying lips that the Church was about to be distressed by a furious persecution, and torn by a deplorable schism. He was buried in that church of the Apostles, in the suburb of The Oak, where, nine years before, he had baptized the founder, the Prefect Rufinus. The monks of the foundation celebrated his obsequies with great pomp; and Theophilus, his bitter persecutor, condescended to weep over his death, and publicly declare that he had never known a monk of more exalted saintliness.[574]
The triumph of the synod seemed to be completed by the receipt of an Imperial rescript, ratifying the sentence of deposition, and announcing that the Archbishop would be banished. Many members of the synod were probably disappointed at the mildness of the penalty; but the people of Constantinople were enraged, and impeded the execution of the sentence. It was evening when the impending degradation of their Archbishop became known. During the whole of the night, crowds of people watched outside the Archbishop’s palace and the cathedral to guard against his forcible abduction. Early in the morning they thronged the church, loudly protested against the injustice of the sentence, and demanded with shouts the submission of his cause to a General Council. For three days and nights the flock incessantly guarded their beloved pastor. Under their protection he passed to and from the palace and the church. On the second day he delivered a discourse to them in the cathedral. The first portion of it is in all respects worthy of Chrysostom; the conclusion, involved and rugged, seems to have been added by another hand, and extracts will not be made from it here.[575]
“Many are the billows, and terrible the storms, which threaten us; but we fear not to be overwhelmed, for we stand upon the rock. Let the sea rage, it cannot dissolve the rock; let the billows rise, they cannot sink the vessel of Jesus Christ. Tell me, what is it we fear? death?—‘To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’ Or exile?—‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.’ Or confiscation of goods?—‘We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.’”... “I fear not poverty, I desire not wealth; I dread not death, I do not pray for life, save for the sake of your advancement. I beseech you be of good courage; no man will be able to separate us, for ‘that which God hath joined together no man can put asunder.’ If man cannot dissolve marriage, how much less the Church of God! Thou, oh my enemy! only renderest me more illustrious, and wastest thine own strength, ‘for it is hard to kick against the pricks.’ Waves do not break the rock, but are themselves dispersed into foam against it. Nothing, oh man! is stronger than the Church, ... it is stronger even than Heaven, ‘for Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.’ What words? ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ If thou disbelievest the words, yet believe the facts. How many tyrants have attempted to overcome the Church; how often have wild beasts, and the sword, and the furnace, and the boiling caldron, been employed against it, yet have they not prevailed. Where are those who made war upon it? They have been silenced and consigned to oblivion. Where is the Church? It shines above the brightness of the sun. Let none of the things that have been done disturb you. Grant me one favour only,—unwavering faith. Was not St. Peter on the point of sinking, not because of the uncontrollable onset of the waves, but because of the weakness of his faith? Did man’s votes bring me here, that man should put me down? I say not this in a spirit of boastfulness—God forbid—but in the desire to settle your agitated minds.”... “Let no one trouble you; give heed to your prayers. This disturbance is the devil’s work, that he might destroy your zeal in the sacred Litanies; but he does not succeed. We find you even more earnest than before. To-morrow I shall go out with you in the Litany, for where you are, there I am. Though locally separated, we are in spirit united; we are one body, the body is not separated from its head; even death cannot separate us.”... “For your sakes I am ready to be slaughtered ten thousand times over, since death is to me the warrant of immortality. These intrigues are to me but the occasion of security. I say these things to listening ears; so many days have you watched, and nothing has moved you from your purpose. Neither length of time nor threats have enervated you; you have done what I have always been desiring, despised the things of this world, bidden farewell to earth, released yourselves from the fetters of the body: this is my crown, my consolation, my anointing; this the suggestion to me of immortality.”
Another discourse[576] contains much to the same effect, and a declaration of his belief that the real cause of his deposition was his sturdy opposition to the corrupt manners and morals of the age. “You know,” he says, “why they are going to depose me—because I spread no fine carpets, and wear no silken robes; because I have not pampered their gluttony, or made presents in gold and silver.” He would comfort and encourage himself with the prospect of being reckoned among those who had suffered for righteousness’ sake. The cruel and capricious woman, who one day called him “a thirteenth apostle,” and the next “a Judas,” would receive a just retribution for her conduct.
The attachment of the people to the Archbishop, and their sense of the injustice with which he was treated, were so strong that, with his powers of swaying their feelings, he might easily have raised a formidable sedition, and defied, for an indefinite time, the sentence of the synod and the edict of the Emperor. But his sentiments were too loyal, too Christian, too peaceful, for any such desperate and violent measures. He might have continued to demand the reference of his cause to a General Council; but, had this been granted, there was the extreme probability that his enemies would refuse, and persuade many more to refuse, a recognition of its decision. Then would follow one of those melancholy schisms, of which the Church already knew too well the misery. He determined to bow to the storm. On the third day after his deposition by the council, and about noon, when the people were not guarding the approaches to the church quite so vigilantly, he passed out, unperceived, by one of the side entrances, and surrendered himself to some of the Court officials, who conducted him at nightfall to the harbour. In spite of the darkness, he was recognised by some of the people, who followed him with loud cries of distress. He besought them to abstain from the commission of violence, commended them to the care of Jesus Christ, cited the example of Job blessing and thanking God in the midst of trouble, and declared that he patiently waited for the decision of an Œcumenical Council. The vessel in which he embarked conveyed him the same night to Hieron,[577] on the Bithynian coast, at the mouth of the Euxine. Perhaps owing to the dangerous proximity of this place to Chalcedon, the headquarters of his enemies, he removed (being apparently uncontrolled in his movements) to a country-house belonging to a friend, near Prænetum, on the Astacene gulf opposite Nicomedia.