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

by W. R. W. Stephens

The destruction of the church and senate-house was the first pretext for instituting persecution against the adherents of Chrysostom; the second was, their refusal to recognise his successor. One week after his deposition, Arsacius, brother of Nectarius the predecessor of Chrysostom, was, apparently by the simple exercise of Imperial authority, elevated to the see. He was eighty years old, and is quaintly described by Palladius as “muter than a fish, and more incapable than a frog.”[601] The probable aim of the Empress was to secure a man whose servility might be depended on. His brother, Nectarius, had once desired to make him Bishop of Tarsus; and, on his declining to accept the promotion, had taunted him with ambitiously reserving himself for the see of Constantinople; whereupon Arsacius had taken an oath that he never would accept any bishopric. But ambition and Imperial authority overcame his scruples. He is described by the historians as a man of pious disposition and mild conduct; with one exception: that he persecuted with relentless vigour the contumacious adherents of his predecessor. By Chrysostom he is denounced as a wolf, and in a figurative sense as an adulterer, on account of his usurpation of the see during the lifetime of its legitimate occupant.[602] Arsacius applied to the civil powers for assistance to compel the Johnites to attend the churches where he and his clergy officiated. A tribune was directed to attack a body of them who had assembled for worship in some remote part of the city. The soldiers dispersed the assembly, took several of the most eminent persons prisoners, and, as usual, stripped the women of their golden girdles, jewels, and earrings. The only consequence of this was, that the Johnites became more attached to the cause and memory of their late Archbishop. Some of them fled the city, and many more refrained as much as possible from appearing in public places, such as the Forum and the baths. Meetings of some kind for worship were not discontinued, or were soon resumed, for we find Chrysostom, in one of his letters written during his exile, reproving two priests, Theophilus and Salustius, for slackness in attending such assemblies.[603] But worshippers ran great risks. The prefect Optatus, who succeeded Studius, probably because the latter was considered too lenient, appears to have entertained all the animosity of a thorough Pagan against Christians, and to have rejoiced in the present opportunity of inflicting sufferings upon them. He combined the two charges of incendiarism and contumacy in his prosecution of the Johnites, and endeavoured to extort confessions of guilt from his victims with merciless barbarity.

A few instances are recorded, and they are quite enough to sicken us of the tale of such horrors. Eutropius, a reader, was commanded to name the persons who had set fire to the church. He refused. He was young and delicate, and it was thought a confession might be wrung from him under the agony of torture. He was lashed with a scourge, his cheeks were scraped, and his sides lacerated with iron teeth, after which lighted torches were applied to the wounded parts. No information could be extorted from him: he was therefore conveyed to prison, and thrown into a dungeon, where he expired. Some priests, adherents of Arsacius, buried him by night, that his mangled body might not be seen by any eyes but those of his enemies. Celestial music was said to have been heard at the time of his interment.

Tigrius, the priest, whose presence with Serapion had been demanded at the Synod of the Oak, was another victim. He was stripped, scourged on his back, and then stretched on the rack till his bones were dislocated. He survived the torture, and was banished to Mesopotamia. Serapion himself, now bishop of Heraclea in Thrace, was seized, tried on several calumnious charges, barbarously scourged, and sent into exile.

Those ladies also who were most distinguished for their friendship with the deposed Archbishop, and for the dedication of their time and money to the Church, were marked objects of persecution. They were brought before the prefect, and admonished by him to acknowledge Arsacius, and so save themselves from future annoyance. A few from timidity complied; but Olympias, who was subjected to a severer examination, confronted it with a dauntless spirit. She was bluntly asked why she had set fire to the “Great Church.” “My manner of life,” replied the accused, “is a sufficient refutation of such a charge; a person who has expended large sums of money to restore and embellish the churches of God is not likely to burn and demolish them.” “I know your past course of life well,” cried the prefect. “If you know aught against it, then descend from your place there as judge, and come forward as my accuser,” replied the undaunted Olympias. Perceiving that she was not to be browbeaten, Optatus proposed the same course to her which had been adopted by some other women as a means of exemption from further persecution, namely, communion with Arsacius; but she scornfully rejected the base compromise. “I have been publicly calumniated by a charge which cannot be proven, and I will not accede to any terms till I have been cleared from this accusation. Even if you resort to force, I will not hold communion with those from whom I ought to secede, nor do anything contrary to the principles of my holy religion.” She made a request, which was granted, that she might be allowed a few days to consult with lawyers on the proper means of legally refuting the libellous accusation. The prefect, however (on what pretence is not stated), sent for her again, and exacted a heavy fine, in the hope that she would be induced to yield. The fine was paid without any reluctance, but her refusal to acknowledge the usurper was inflexible; and to avoid, if possible, further pressure and persecution, she retired to Cyzicus, on the other side of the straits.[604]

The tidings of her fortitude and loyalty were conveyed to the exiled Chrysostom, and so cheered his spirit in the midst of depression and sickness that his sufferings seemed to him as nothing. “When many men and women, old and young, highly reputed for their virtue, had turned their backs on the enemy almost before the conflict had begun, she, on the other hand, after many encounters, so far from being enervated, was even invigorated; she spread forth the sails of patience, and floated securely as on a calm sea; so far from being overwhelmed by the storm, she was scarcely sprinkled by the spray. In the seclusion of her little house she was able to inspire courage into the hearts of others, and had been to them a haven of comfort and a tower of strength.”[605]

The deaconess Pentadia, widow of the consul Timasius, was another victim. She led the life of a recluse, never going beyond the walls of her house except to church. She was now dragged from her retreat through the Forum to the prefect’s tribunal, and thence to prison, charged with being an accomplice in the late fire. Several persons were put to the torture before her eyes, in order to intimidate her into a confession; but in vain. Her firm demeanour, courageous answers, and powerful demonstrations of her innocence, confounded and silenced her adversaries, and elicited the admiration of the public. Beyond imprisonment, no indignities seem to have been inflicted on her; and when desirous to quit the capital, she was persuaded by Chrysostom to remain, who represented the great value of her presence and example in animating others to undergo their present afflictions. She had apparently intended to try and join him in his place of exile, when he had been removed to Cucusus, on the confines of Lesser Armenia, for he dwells on the great risk to her delicate health from a journey in winter, and the danger of being plundered by the Isaurian robbers, who were just then, he says, in a powerful condition. He, therefore, on all grounds, begs her to remain where she is, but to relieve his mind from anxiety about her affairs and health by constantly writing to him.[606]

Meanwhile, the injured Church of Constantinople did not cease through letters and emissaries to solicit the interference of the Western Church. The first intimation of the calamities we have been describing which reached the ears of Rome was through a messenger despatched by Theophilus. The letter which he brought was inscribed “From Pope Theophilus to Pope Innocent,” and stated in the barest manner, without assigning his reasons or mentioning any assessors in his judgment, that he had deposed Chrysostom, and that it behoved Innocent to break off communion with him. The Pope was displeased by the cool and curt character of the letter, and somewhat perplexed how to notice or reply to so inexplicit a despatch. Eusebius, a deacon from Constantinople, who was in Rome at the time on some ecclesiastical business, obtained an interview with Innocent, and entreated him not to act till information should be received from Constantinople, which, he added (on what grounds does not appear), he had good reason to expect would arrive in a short time. Three days afterwards four bishops did arrive, bearing the letter from Chrysostom to Innocent which contained that pathetic and perspicuous narrative of the recent occurrences, from which extracts have been made in the preceding chapter. They brought two other letters, one from the forty friendly bishops, another from the clergy of Constantinople.

Innocent no longer hesitated to pronounce an opinion. His letter to Theophilus is brief, decisive, almost peremptory in tone. “The See of Rome,” he said, “would maintain communion with Alexandria and Constantinople to avoid rending the unity of the Church; but he annulled (ἀθέτησας) the deposition of John apparently made by Theophilus. It was impossible to recognise the validity of a sentence pronounced by such an irregular synod as that lately convened at Chalcedon. If Theophilus had confidence in the justice of that sentence, he must appear in person to prove it before a General Council called together and regulated according to the Canons of Nice.” A few days after the despatch of this letter, Peter, an Alexandrian priest, arrived with a deacon from Constantinople, bearing another letter from Theophilus, and certain minutes, so called, of the acts of the Synod of the Oak. Innocent, having perused the minutes, was indignant at the mingled monstrosity and levity of the charges brought against Chrysostom, and at the condemnation having been pronounced in the absence of the defendant. He ordered special prayers and fasts to be observed by the Church for the restoration of concord, and addressed to Theophilus a sharp letter of reproof.[607]

It is not easy to make out precisely how many communications passed each way between the Churches of Rome and Constantinople, or the exact date of each; but several letters are distinctly mentioned. Theotecnus, a priest from Constantinople, brought a letter from twenty-five of the forty bishops who had constantly adhered to Chrysostom, in which they described the expulsion of the Patriarch and the conflagration of the church. Innocent replied by a letter of condolence, and exhortation to bear their trial with Christian fortitude and patience, for at present he confessed, with deep regret, that he saw small prospect of rendering much effectual aid, “owing to the opposition of certain persons powerful for evil,” alluding probably to the jealousies between the Courts of the two brothers, Honorius and Arcadius. The cabal also sent a letter to Innocent, containing their version of the late transactions. Their emissary was Paternus, who called himself a priest of Constantinople; “an ugly little fellow,” says Palladius, “and very unintelligible.” The letter was written in the names of Arsacius, Paulus, Antiochus, Cyrinus, Severian, and some others; and, among other opprobrious charges, distinctly accused Chrysostom of setting fire to the church. Innocent treated the letter with much disdain, and would not condescend to answer it. Some days afterwards, Cyriacus, bishop of Synnada, arrived in Rome as a fugitive, in consequence of an Imperial edict, which directed the deposition of any bishop who refused to communicate with Arsacius and Theophilus, and the confiscation of his property, if he had any. After Cyriacus arrived Eulysius, bishop of Apamea in Bithynia, bringing a letter from fifteen of the forty friendly bishops, which described all the past and present distress of the Church caused by Chrysostom’s enemies, and in all respects confirmed the oral account of Cyriacus. In the course of another month, Palladius, bishop of Hellenopolis, fled to Rome from the intolerable harshness of magisterial decrees, which now subjected to confiscation the house of any one who should be found to have harboured bishop, priest, or even layman, who communicated with Chrysostom. From a letter of Chrysostom[608] it appears that Palladius and many others lived for some time in concealment at Constantinople, in the hope of escaping persecution. They were courteously lodged in Rome by one Pinianus and his wife, by Juliana, Proba, and other Roman ladies, whom Chrysostom warmly thanks for their kindness in letters written by him from Cucusus.[609] Germanus the priest, and Cassian the deacon, custodians of the Church treasury at Constantinople, also came to Rome, bringing a letter from the whole body of the clergy who adhered to Chrysostom, describing the violent deposition and expulsion of the Archbishop, and the tyranny of their adversaries under which they were now suffering.[610]