PART III.

Thus there were many at Constantinople who were ready to take part against Chrysostom, if an opportunity should offer; and it was not long before they found one.

The bishop of Alexandria at this time was a bold and bad man, named Theophilus. He was jealous of the see of Constantinople, because the second general council had lately placed it above his own;[25] he disliked the bishop because he had hoped to put one of his own clergy into the place, and had seen enough of Chrysostom at his first meeting to know that he could not make a tool of him; and although he had been obliged by the emperor and Eutropius to consecrate Chrysostom as bishop, it was with a very bad grace that he did so.

[25] See page 84.

There were then great quarrels as to the opinions of the famous Origen, who had lived two hundred years before.[26] Some of his opinions were really wrong, and others were very strange, if they were not wrong too. But besides these, a number of things had been laid to his charge of which he seems to have been quite innocent. If Theophilus really cared at all about the matter, he was in his heart favourable to Origen. But he found it convenient to take the opposite side; and he cruelly persecuted such of the Egyptian monks as were said to be touched with Origen's errors. The chief of these monks were four brothers, called the _long_ or _tall brothers_: one of them was that same Ammonius who cut off his ear, and was ready to cut out his tongue, rather than be a bishop.[27] Theophilus had made much of these brothers, and had employed two of them in managing his accounts. But these two found out such practices of his in money matters as quite shocked them, and as, after this, they refused to stay with the bishop any longer, he charged them and their brothers with Origenism (as the following of Origen's opinions was called). They denied that they held any of the errors which Theophilus laid to their charge; but he went with soldiers into the desert, hunted out the brothers, destroyed their cells, burnt a number of books, and even killed some persons. The tall brothers and some of their friends fled into the Holy Land, but their enemy had power enough to prevent their remaining there, and they then sought a refuge at Constantinople.

[26] See Chapter VII.

[27] See page 65.

On hearing of their arrival in his city, Chrysostom inquired about them, and, finding that they bore a good character, he treated them kindly; but he would not admit them to communion until he knew what Theophilus had to say against them. Theophilus, however, was told that Chrysostom _had_ admitted them, and he wrote a furious letter to him about it. The brothers were very much alarmed lest they should be turned away at Constantinople, as they had been in the Holy Land; and one day when the empress Eudoxia was in a church, they went to her and entreated her to get the emperor's leave that a council might be held to examine their case.

Theophilus was summoned to appear before this council, and give an account of his behaviour to the brothers; but when he got to Constantinople, he acted as if, instead of being under a charge of misbehaviour himself, he had been called to judge the bishop of the capital. He would have nothing to do with Chrysostom. He spent large sums of money in bribing courtiers and others to favour his own side; and, when he thought he had made all sure, he held a meeting of six and thirty bishops, at a place called the Oak, which lay on the Asiatic shore, opposite to Constantinople (A.D. 403). A number of trumpery charges were brought against Chrysostom, and, as he refused to appear before such a meeting, which was almost entirely made up of Egyptian bishops, and had no right whatever to try him, they found him guilty of various offences, and, among the rest, of high treason! The emperor and empress had been drawn into taking part against him, and he was condemned to banishment. But on the night after he had been sent across the Bosphorus (the strait which divides Constantinople from the Asiatic shore), the city was shaken by an earthquake. The empress in her terror supposed this to be a judgment against the injustice which had been committed, and hastily sent off a messenger to beg that the bishop would return. And when it was known next day that he was on his way back, so great was the joy of his flock that the Bosphorus was covered with vessels, carrying vast multitudes of people, who eagerly crowded to welcome him.