The Story of

RN CHRYSOSTOM
Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop

J.
N. D. KELLY
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2015

https://archive.org/details/goldenmouthstory00kell_0
GOLDEN MOUTH
GOLDEN MOUTH
The Story of John Chrysostom-
Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop

J. N. D. Kelly

Cornell University Press

Ithaca, New York
 © 1995 by J. N. D. Kelly

All rights reserved. Except for brief

quotations in a review, this book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any form
without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address Cornell University Press,
Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850

First published 1995 by Cornell Unversity Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kelly, J. N. D. (John Norman Davidson)

Golden mouth : the story of John Chrysostom, ascetic, preacher,
bishop / J. N. D. Kelly,
p.cm.
Includes bibliograohical references and index.
ISBN 0-8014-3189-1 (alk. paper)
1. John Chrysostom, Saint, d. 407. 2. Christian saints-Turkey-

Biography. I. Title.
BRX720-C5JK45 1995
970 9’nQ9_r^9n
270.2’092-dc20
[B] 95-1444

Printed in Great Britain

LM BR
BR 1 720
-C5
K45
1995

Contents

Preface vii
Abbreviations ix

1. The Early Years 1

2. The Young Ascetic 14

3. Retreat to the Mountains 24
4. Deacon and Pamphleteer 36
5. Preacher’s First Year 55
6. An Anxious Lent 72
7. Decade of Development 83
8. Unexpected Promotion 104
9. Diplomat and Rough Reformer 115
10. The Bishop at Work 128
11. Crises inthe Capital 145
12. Intervention in Asia 163
13. Dispute with Severian 181
14. The Affair of the Long Brothers 191
15. Epiphanios to the Rescue 203
16. The Oak 211
17. Between Two Exiles 228
18. Final Exile 250
19. Last Journey 272
Epilogue: Triumphal Return 286

Appendix A. Some Ancient Sources 291

Appendix B. The Chronology of John’s Earlier Life 296
Appendix C. Charges Brought against John at The Oak 299
Town Plans of Constantinople and Antioch 302
Index 304
 Preface

It may surprise readers to learn that this is the first comprehensive study
ofJohn Chrysostom to be published in this country since 1880, when
W.R.W. Stephens’s classic Saint John Chrysostom, His Life and Times
appeared. One reason for this apparent neglect may be that the field, both
here and abroad, has for more than sixty years been dominated by C. Baur’s
erudite two-volume biography, published in German at Munich in 1929/30
and in an (execrable) English translation in 1959. Meanwhile, so far from
standing still, Chrysostom studies have been exceptionally active in every
department during the past five decades. To give but two examples out of
many, our knowledge of the Syrian asceticism by which John was attracted
as a young man has been greatly enriched by scholars like G.M. Colombas,
P. Canivet, and S. Brock, while E. Demougeot, J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, G.
Albert, and others have provided us with a fuller understanding of the
political setting of his episcopate. Slow but steady progress has been made
(mainly by Sources chretiennes ) in the production of critical editions of his
treatises, and F. van Ommeslaeghe’s rehabilitation of ‘Martyrios’ as a
primary source for his life counts as a major event.
Three considerations have been in my mind in preparing this book. In
the first place, I wanted to repay an old debt. The Hensley Henson lectures
which I gave in Oxford in 1979/80 were devoted to aspects of John, but since
I was not wholly satisfied with my treatment of them, I did not publish the

lectures, as is expected, at the time. A primary object, therefore, has been

to fulfil this obligation at last. Secondly, however, it occurred to me that
the most sensible way of doing this would be to incorporate the substance
of the lectures, with modifications, in a more general survey of John and
his career. This I have done in Chapters 2, 3, and 16, although I doubt
whether even I could now disentangle the old from the new. Thirdly, as I
was already convinced of the need for a fresh study of John which would
take account of recent scholarly developments, I welcomed the opportunity
to do what I could to provide one, not least because it would enable me to
present a more realistic appraisal of his complex personality than the
conventional one, as well as to put forward one or two interpretations of
my own. I should like to have included some tentative discussions of the
intellectual presuppositions underlying John’s thinking, perhaps also of
certain of his specifically theological ideas which still need clarification; but
viii Preface

advancing years were insistent that I should leave these to younger

scholars.
Many friends have encouraged and helped me in my work, but two to
whom I am particularly indebted are David Taylor, who not only let me
consult him on Syriac matters, but critically read three chapters, and Nigel
Wilson, who generously lent me books unavailable in the Bodleian Library,
and went to the trouble of studying select passages of John’s works in order
to discuss with me the supposed Attic qualities of his style. Others to whom
I gladly offer thanks are Professor Cyril Mango, who recommended to me

the 9th-century mosiac image of John Chrysostom (from the north tympa-
num of Hagia Sophia) which is reproduced on the jacket; Peter Hayward,
of the cartographical department of the Oxford School of Geography, who,
on the basis of material I supplied, prepared the two city plans; and Alice
Gibbons, who gave me unsparing assistance in photocopying my typescript.
I pay a special tribute to Colin Haycraft, chairman of Duckworth and

most congenial of publishers, who often discussed the book with me,
prodded me when I was deflected by other projects, and just before his
sudden death posted me the proofs along with my original typesecript
meticulously copy-edited by himself.
Finally I must ask readers to be indulgent with the inconsistencies in
my spelling of Greek proper names. All my life I have been impatient with
the patronising way with which we westerners present Greek names in
their Latin forms, and in my old age I decided to break free from it, adopting
the principles used by my stand-by mini-encyclopedia, Der Kleine Pauly.
Unfortunately I have sometimes deviated from its high standards - for
example, printing Chalkedon but shying away from Nikaia,

13 November 1994 J.N.D.K.

Feast (in the east) of
St John Chrysostom
 Abbreviations

AASS Acta Sanctorum (Antwerp 1643 ff.; Venice 1734 ff.; Paris
1863ff.)
AB Analecta Bollandiana
ACO E. Schwartz, Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum
Baur C. Baur, John Chrysostom and his Time (ET London 1959),
2 vols
BSS Bibliotheca Sanctorum (Rome 1961-1970)
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift
CCL Corpus christianorum, Series Latina
CIL Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum
CQ Classical Quarterly
CSCO Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium
CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
CT Theodosian Code
DHGE Dictionnaire d'histoire et de geographie ecclesiastique
ET English translation
GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller
GRBS Greek Roman, and Byzantine Studies (Durham, N.
,

Carolina)
HE Historia ecclesiastica
HJG Historisches Jahrbuch der Gorresgesellschaft
HTR Harvard Theological Review
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
JW P. Jaffe, Regesta pontificum Romanorum (2nd ed. by G.
Wattenbach)
LXX Septuagint
Mansi J.D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima
collectio
MGHAA Monumenta Germaniae historica, Auctores antiquissimi
Moulard A. Moulard, Saint Jean Chrysostome, sa vie, son oeuvre
(Paris 1949)
MSR Melanges de science religieuse
OCA Orientalia Christiana analecta (Rome)
OCP Orientalia Christiana periodica (Rome)
X Abbreviations

PG Migne’s Patrologia Graeca

PL Migne’s Patrologia Latina
PLRE The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge)
PSyr Patrologia Syriaca
PW Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopadie der classischen
Wissenschaft
RAC Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum
REA Revue des etudes anciennes
REB Revue des etudes byzantines
REL Revue des etudes latines
RHE Revue d’histoire ecclesiastique
SC Sources chretiennes (Paris)
SM Studia monastica (Montserrat)
ST Studi e testi (Rome)
7APA Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association
Tillemont Lenain de, Memoires pour servir a Vhistoire des six premiers
siecles (Venice 1732), vol. xi
TM Travaux et memoires (Paris)
TU Texte und Untersuchungen
VC Vigiliae christianae
ZKTh Zeitschrift fur Katholische Theologie
ZNTW Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
 1

The Early Years

In the middle of the fourth century AD Antioch, in the province of Syria

(now Antakya, in south Turkey, capital of the vilayet of Hatay), was
reckoned one of the most prosperous and splendid cities of the Roman
empire. Founded in 300 BC by Seleukos I Nikator, one of Alexander the
1

Great’s generals, it occupied a spectacular site, mainly on the left bank of

the river Orontes as it flowed south-west to the sea some 30 km away, but
also on the right bank and on an island (long disappeared through silting)
formed by a loop of the river; the walls surrounding it extended some 10
km. Immediately to the south-east rose the thickly wooded slopes of Mount
Silpios (508 m), at first gradually but then precipitously, like a towering
wall. Laid out on the favoured checker-board plan, its main street was
paved with marble, embellished with two-storeyed colonnades, and lit with
oil-fed lamps by night; and it was justly proud of its magnificent buildings,
abundant water-supply and public baths (eighteen, one for each ward),
theatres and hippodrome. Eight kilometres to the south-west the main road
led to Daphne (Harbiye), a picturesque garden-suburb with elegant villas,
refreshing springs (still in use), and a temple of Apollo famous for its oracle;
here Olympic games were regularly held.
Its position on the great commercial highway from Asia to the Mediter-
ranean, its connection with the nearby port of Seleukeia, and the agricul-
tural products of its intensively cultivated hinterland made Antioch
wealthy, supplied with goods of every kind. It also possessed a mint and
an arms factory. At the same time it maintained a vigorous intellectual and
cultural life, being admired for its schools and professors. In addition, it
was the administrative and military key-point of the Roman east. Here
resided not only the governor consularis ) of the province of Syria, but the
(<

count (comes) of Oriens, the vast civil diocese 2 which, from Valens’ reign
(364-78), comprised fifteen provinces and extended from Mesopotamia to
the borders of Egypt. Here too, because of the importance of the city as a
base for warlike operations against Persia, the military commander for

1
See G. Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria (Princeton 1961); J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz,
Antioch (Oxford 1972).
2
For reasons of administrative efficiency Diocletian had grouped the provinces in twelve
huge dioikeseis.
2 Golden Mouth

Oriens ( magister militum per Orientem ) had his headquarters with a

powerful supporting garrison. The emperors themselves, with their court
and army of functionaries, often made Antioch their temporary capital,
sometimes for prolonged periods, staying in the huge palace which Dio-
cletian (284-305) had constructed on the island.
By ancient standards Antioch was a large city, smaller than Rome, but
comparable in size with Constantinople and Alexandria, although it was
rapidly being overtaken by the former as the fourth century advanced. Its
built-up area was densely inhabited, and its population (although such
calculations are notoriously difficult to substantiate) has been estimated
as falling between 150,000 and 300,000. 3 It was a mixed and also cosmo-
politan community, and while Greek was the language in general use, the
peasants in the surrounding country were Syriac-speaking. In general it
was affluent, and while about a tenth of the population was abjectly poor, 4
this was probably a smaller proportion than for other comparable cities. At
this time it was an increasingly Christian stronghold. While professing
pagans were numerous, especially in the professional and upper classes,
and there was a substantial, well organised and confident Jewish element, 5
with a synagogue at Daphne as well as one in the city, there can be no doubt
that the majority of citizens were Christians, and that this majority was
reflected on the city council. 6 They recalled with pride that the apostles
Peter and Paul had both worked at Antioch, and that it was there, according
to Acts 11.26, that believers had been first called Christians. Ecclesiasti-
cally the council of Nicaea (325), in its sixth canon, had recognised that the
see of Antioch, like those of Rome and Alexandria, enjoyed a special
precedence, and throughout the fourth century its bishop, although his
jurisdiction over them remained vague and ill-defined, was looked up to by
the bishops of the entire civil diocese of Oriens as their leader.
With a Christian population of this size it was inevitable that there
should be several Christian churches in fourth-century Antioch, 7 although
a self-consciously pagan writer like Libanios would scorn to mention them
in the detailed, affectionate description of the city he published in 360. 8
Much the grandest was the octagonal Great Church, or Golden Church,
begun by Constantine in 327 and completed under his son Constantius II;
it was dedicated on 6 January 341 on the occasion of the meeting of an

important council. This remarkable building, of exceptional size and

beauty, was crowned by a shallow, gilded dome of impressive height. It
almost certainly stood on the island in the Orontes, adjacent to the imperial

3
So Liebeschuetz, op. cit., 92-6.
4
We owe this figure to John himself (In Matt. hom. 66.3: PG 58.630), who also suggests that
the very rich too amounted to a tenth.
5
See esp. R.L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews (Berkeley 1983), 34-65.
6
P. Petit,Libanius et la vie municipale a Antioche au ivme siecle (Paris 1955), 200-3.
7
W. Eltester, ‘Die Kirchen Antiochias im iv. Jahrhundert’, ZNTW 36 (1937), 251-86.
8
Or. 11.196-272 (Forster 1.504-35).
 1. The Early Years 3

palace; its site included a substantial guest-house and canteens for feeding
the poor. In addition, in the main town between the river and Mount Silpios,
there were three or four parish churches of which the most frequently
mentioned was the Palaea, or Old Church, a basilica constructed between
313 and 324 but replacing one going back to the third century which had
been destroyed in Diocletian’s persecution (303-12). Some claimed it had
been founded by the apostles, but in fact it owed its name to having been
the leading church of the city before the building of the Great Church. There
was, thirdly, a small church in the old town which, as we shall see, 9 the
separatist but orthodox group known as the Eustathians were permitted
to use. In addition, there were a number of martyrs’ shrines, testifying to
the rapid growth of the cult of martyrs in the first half of the fourth century.
Since they were erected over the bodies of martyrs or housed their remains,
they were required by law to be outside the city walls. The most noteworthy
were the cemetery church outside the gate leading to Daphne, the great
martyrion which formed the centre-piece of the cemetery outside the
Romanesian gate to the north, the martyrion of St Babylas on the right
bank of the Orontes (to be erected in 379), 10 and the shrine of the Maccabees,
the seven Jewish brothers and their mother who, under Antiochos
Epiphanes, had suffered death c. 168 BC for refusing to eat pork (2 Macc.
7), and had come to be treated as prototypes of Christian martyrs.
The citizens of Antioch had a reputation for pleasure-seeking, worldli-
ness, fickleness and cynicism; among other diversions they had a passion
for horse- racing and the theatre, and in spring and summer they streamed
out to Daphne for relaxation or amusement. By contrast the desert regions
near the city, the higher slopes and peaks of Mount Silpios and the other
mountains on its outskirts, were becoming peopled by hermits and monks
who, in obedience to what they conceived to be the call of Christ, had turned
their backs on civilisation and the vanities of the world. The monastic ideal,
with its summons to throw off the entanglements of ordinary life, not least
the attractions of sex, had been sweeping through the Christian east since
the beginning of the fourth century; nowhere had it caught on more
effectively than in Syria, and nowhere did it assume more bizarre forms.
The sophisticated citizens of Antioch, Christian and non-Christian alike,
might view the often uncouth monks of the neighbourhood with contempt
and revulsion, but the masses venerated them, and when they appeared in
the city at times of crisis, even the highest government officials found it
prudent to treat them with respect. The more noteworthy drew constant
streams of visitors to their cells and retreats, seeking counsel or help or
merely eager to gaze on the holy man.

9
See below, p. 12.
10
See below, p. 41.
4 Golden Mouth

II

It was at Antioch that John, later to be designated Chrysostom, or Golden

Mouth, 11 because of his dazzling effectiveness as a pulpit orator, was born
and was to spend almost fifty years of his life. Various dates between 344
and 354 have been proposed for his birth, but while certainty is impossible
the one which seems to fit most of the known facts is 349. 12 If this is correct,
he was considerably junior to Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzos, and
Basil’s younger brother, Gregory of Nyssa, the three outstanding Greek-
language Christian thinkers and preachers of the fourth century, the first
two of whom were bom around 330 and the third about 335. He was very
slightly junior too, to his great Latin contemporary, Jerome, 13 who was to
stay in or near Antioch in the 370s without, apparently, meeting him but
was to assail him mercilessly in later life, and probably much the same age
as Theophilos (b. c. 345), the imperious patriarch of Alexandria who was to
be the main instrument of his downfall. From the historian Sokrates 14 (c.
380 - c. 450) we learn that his father was called Sekoundos and his mother
Anthousa, both people reckoned to be of good family in the city. While the
latter is a thoroughly Greek name, Sekoundos despite its deceptively Greek
spelling is a Latin one, and invites the guess that his father may have been
of Roman stock. This is borne out by the fact that he also had an aunt,
probably his father’s sister, called Sabiniana, 15 a Latin name too. Years
later his disciple and biographer Palladios was to come across her in
Antioch, a venerable lady ‘who conversed intimately with God’. In addition,
he had an elder sister whose name has not survived and who, so far as we
know, was to play no part in his subsequent story. 16
There can be no doubt that John’s family, if not of the foremost rank,
was well placed socially, and also very comfortably off. Where exactly they
lived we have no means of knowing, but the dozens of villas which excava-
tions have uncovered, in the city itself and in its suburbs, with their richly
coloured mosaic floors and elegant lay-out, give a vivid impression of the
life style of the more well-to-do citizens. It has been widely assumed, on the
basis of a report by Palladios, 17 that his father held the important position
of military commander for Oriens, being therefore a very prominent per-
sonage indeed. But this reading of the passage is now regarded as mistaken.
What Palladios in fact meant, it would appear, is that Sekoundos and his
forbears had served with distinction in the officium, or secretariat, of the

11
The nickname was applied to several admired orators, and to John, in the east and west
generally, from the fifth century.
12
See Appendix B.
13
Most scholars place his birth c. 347, but there is a case for its being much earlier.
14
6.3: John nowhere names them himself.
15
Palladios, Hist. Lausiaca, 41 (Butler 129).
16
Palladios, Dial. 5 (SC 341.104).
17
Dial. 5 (SC 341.104).
 1. The Early Years 5

commander-in-chief. In other words, he did not, as the military commander

for Oriens did, rank as a senator of the highest grade, to be dignified after
about 365 with the honorific title of ‘illustrious’, nor indeed was he a general
at all. Rather, he was a responsible, top-class civil servant. 18 This is in
harmony with John’s own statement, 19 to be made many years later, that
he and a boyhood friend of his named Basil had been equally matched in
possessing moderate affluence and a similar family background. It also
agrees with the claim which he put into his mother’s mouth, in the sequel
to the same passage, that she had not frittered away his father’s estate
(evidently it was not enormous) in order to give him a liberal education,
but had paid for it out of her own (apparently ample) dowry.
His family, his mother at any rate if not his father, was Christian. This
is clearly suggested in the section of his later apologetic essay Priesthood
referred to above; in addition, we possess a graphic reminiscence of his from
his teens (to be related shortly) which implies that Anthousa was known
to be a Christian. In spite of this he was not baptized in infancy; following
the practice widely accepted in those days, his family deferred his baptism,
and (as we shall see) it was only as a young man approaching twenty that
he took the momentous step of offering himself for it. By that time his father
Sekoundos was long dead; he had died, as John himself records, 20 shortly
after his son’s birth, when Anthousa was about twenty. Like many devout
Christians (pagans too) of that epoch, she set her face resolutely against a
second marriage, and as a result the responsibility both of managing her
household and of bringing up her children devolved wholly on her. Years
later, in a passage which, for all its emotional overtones, was almost
certainly based on authentic reminiscences, he was to represent her recall-
ing her struggles, as an inexperienced young woman, with indolent or
mischievous servants, rapacious relatives and extortionate tax-collectors,
and also the consolation she had derived, when he was still a baby unable
to speak, first of all from God’s ever-present help, and then from the striking
resemblance she wistfully imagined she could trace between his and his
dead father’s features. 21

m
In the same passage John portrays Anthousa as complaining that, while it
was bad enough for a young widow to be left with a baby daughter, it was
infinitely worse to be left with an infant son. In the one case she was at
least spared expense and anxiety, but the cost of educating a boy (to
mention nothing more) could be crippling. Beyond the fact that she faced

18
See A.H.M. Jones, HTR 46 (1953), 71: an article now generally accepted.
19
De sacerdotio 1 (SC 272.62).
20
De sacerdotio 1 (SC 272.66); Ad viduam iun. 2 (PC 48.624).
21
De sacerdotio 4 (SC 272.68).
6 Golden Mouth

the challenge, we have no direct information about the earlier stages of

John’s schooling and must have recourse to conjecture. Thus he must have
spent his infant years at home, picking up what he could from nurses,
servants, above all his mother. After that, like other Christian boys of his
social standing, he must have followed, with his young friend and comrade
Basil (as he himself records among the youthful reminiscence from which
we have been drawing), the educational programme universally accepted
in the Graeco-Roman world of his day22 - which in fact had scarcely
undergone any serious modification since the fourth century before Christ.
This involved attending, at the age of seven or thereabouts, the elementary
school, where children learned reading, writing and simple arithmetic, and
then, from about ten to fourteen or fifteen, the grammar school. Here a boy
was given a thorough grounding in Greek classical literature, especially
the poets, but also prose-writers and orators; Homer, Euripides, Menander
and Demosthenes were the four pillars. In striking contrast to much
modem English practice, he was drilled in grammar and syntax, and was
expected to learn long passages by heart and to be able to comment on them.
Nor was the subject-matter - the mythology, history, etc. - neglected, still
less the moral and practical lessons that could be drawn from it. The
content of the works studied was inevitably pagan, and thoughtful Chris-
tians were becoming increasingly conscious of the incompatibility of such
a curriculum with an upbringing based on the scriptures. As yet no
arrangements existed for this outside the child’s home and church, and
ordinary Christian parents like Anthousa had no practicable alternative to
sending their sons to the traditional schools.
The third stage was the school of rhetoric, which boys normally entered
when they were fourteen or fifteen (in some cases later), 23 and in which they
were trained in all aspects of the arts of composition and public speaking,
including the actual preparation and delivery of speeches of different kinds.
At this point there is a momentary break in the general cloud enveloping
John’s youth, for Sokrates records that at Antioch he had Libanios as his
professor of rhetoric and attended the lectures of Andragathios on philo-
sophy. 24 Sokrates adds that among his fellow-pupils were Theodore, who
was later to become bishop of Mopsuestia (an important see in Cilicia) and
a remarkable commentator on scripture, and Maximos, future bishop of
Seleukeia, the nearby seaport. Nothing is known of Andragathios, but
Libanios (314-393) was the distinguished professor, fine stylist and man of
letters who occupied the official chair of rhetoric at Antioch from 354 until
his death, and whose letters and speeches provide a detailed, fascinating
picture of political, social, and economic life in the city. A convinced pagan

22
For this paragraph see H.I. Marrou, Histoire de I’&Lucation dans 1‘antiquiM (6th ed., Paris
1965), esp. 243-64.
23
The normal age of Libanios’ pupils was 14 to 18: see A. J. Festugtere, Antioche paienne et
chrftienne (Paris 1959), 187 n. 4.
24
6.3.
 1. The Early Years 7

devoted to traditional values, openly contemptuous of the new official

religion, although enjoying good relations with many who professed it, he
was the friend and admirer of the apostate emperor Julian, and viewed the
progress of Christianity with acute dismay. The veracity of Sokrates’
testimony has sometimes been questioned, but needlessly. While a large
,

majority of Libanios students were pagans, they undoubtedly included a

number of Christians, 26 and that John was one of these, likely enough in
itself quite apart from Sokrates’ report, is confirmed by striking imitations
of the master which have been detected in his earlier writings. 26
In his early thirties John was to tell a story which coheres perfectly with
everything we know of Libanios’ character and personality, and thus
provides further confirmation of Sokrates’ witness. When I was still a
young man’, he was to write, T recall the admiration which my professor —
incidentally, the most superstitious of men - publicly expressed for my
mother. In his usual way he questioned the bystanders about my origins,
and when he learned that I was the son of a widow, he inquired of me both
my mother’s age and the length of her widowhood. When I replied that she
was forty years old, and that it was twenty years since she had lost my
father, he was astounded and, looking round at the company, exclaimed,
“Great heavens, what remarkable women are to be found among the
127
Christians!”
Any
reconstruction of John’s schooling is inevitably conjectural, devoid
forthe most part of hard facts; but we are able in some degree to gauge its
impact from his writings and sermons. Latin formed no part of his curricu-
lum, but he is likely to have picked up at least a smattering of it if (as will
be argued in the next chapter) he was already setting his sights on the
higher civil service. Latin was still the official language of the empire in
the east, and he himself was to remark on its usefulness for someone
training for the bureaucracy. 28 But his chief debt to his teachers was for
the classic purity of his Greek diction and the astonishing elegance of
expression he acquired from them. If a junior contemporary like Isidore of
Pelusion (d. c. 435), himself a highly polished writer, could wax lyrical on
the music of his prose, 29 modem connoisseurs of Greek literature have
united in acclaiming him ‘an almost pure Atticist’, the only pjp ose author of
his epoch who can stand comparison with Demosthenes. 30 If this judgment

25
See P. Petit, Les ttudiants de Libanius (Paris 1957), 196.
26
See C. Fabricius, Zu den J ugendschriften des J. Chrysostomos (Lund 1962), 119-211; also
Symbolae Osloenses 33 (1957), 135f.
27
Ad viduam iun. 2 ( PG 48.601). The description of Libanios as ‘superstitious’ is realistic: he
was always consulting the gods about his health, etc. See A.J. Festugtere, op. cit., 409; PW
XII 1540.
(2).
28
Adu. oppug. vitae man. 3.5 (PG 47.357).
29
Ep. 4.224 (PG 78.1317-18).
30
See, e.g., O. Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur (Freiburg i. Br. 1912) 3,
353, who cites an enthusiastic encomium by U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff.
8 Golden Mouth

is accepted, it must be with the reservation that John used a language

which, in syntax but even more in vocabulary, had moved beyond that of
the fourth century BC. This said, it remains true that his earlier writings
reveal that he had gained at school a first-rate working knowledge of the
most admired authors of the classical period and regularly looked to them
as models. The three who had greatest influence on him, as indeed on his
master Libanios, were Demosthenes, Plato and Homer, in that order. 31 This
legacy of his boyhood education is all the more striking in view of the deeply
critical attitude which, as we shall discover, he was to develop towards
Hellenistic culture. Similarly, his treatises and sermons alike give proof,
abundant although sometimes underrated in the past, that he was thor-
oughly familiar with, and prepared to exploit as the occasion demanded,
all the oratorical and stylistic devices which often appear artificial to
modem taste but which were strenuously inculcated in the fourth-century
schools of rhetoric. His skill in these techniques of the so-called Second
Sophistic gives credence to the anecdote reported by Sozomen that, when
Libanios was dying and his friends inquired who should succeed him in his
chair of rhetoric, he answered, ‘It ought to have been John had not the
Christians stolen him from us.’ 32

IV
These years of John’s childhood and adolescence were full of incident and
excitement for both Antioch and its Christian inhabitants. The emperors -
Constantius II (337-61); Gallus (351-4), whom Constantius as Augustus
appointed as Caesar, or junior emperor, with responsibility for the east
while he himself was occupied with the west; Gallus’ half-brother Julian
(361-3); Jovian (363-4); Valens (364-78) - were frequent, sometimes regu-
lar, residents in the palace on the island on the Orontes. The amenities of
Antioch, not least its excellent climate, made it a favourite resort, but it
was also their military base for the war with Persia; and for much of the
time the city was crowded with troops. 33 The strain put on its resources
could be crippling, and we hear of a famine during Gallus’ stay, a severe
economic crisis during Julian’s. 34 It was from Antioch that Julian, brought
up as a Christian but now a militant pagan, led the Roman army to the
eastern front on 5 March 363, only to be struck down by the banks of the
Tigris on 26 June. It was to Antioch that his hastily acclaimed successor,
Jovian, after concluding a humiliating peace with Persia, felt obliged to

31
For these statements see C. Fabricius, op. cit., esp. 143-9.
32
8.2. See also T.E. Ameringer, The Stylistic Influence of the Second Sophistic on the
Panegyrical Sermons of St John Chrysostom (Washington 1921).
33
Libanios, Or. 11.177-8 gives a vivid picture of these throngs of soldiers in 360.
34
See G. Downey, ‘The Economic Crisis at Antioch under Julian the Apostate’ (in P.R.
Coleman (ed.), Studies in Roman Social and Economic History (Princeton 1921)).
 1. The Early Years 9

retreat for a brief, uncomfortable stay. These events must have left their
imprint on John’s consciousness, especially Julian’s unexpected death. A
pagan, and personal friend of the emperor’s like Libanios was, of course,
shattered by the news, but in Christian circles it was greeted with unin-
hibited rejoicings in churches and theatres alike. As a lad of fourteen John
must have listened with tingling ears to the exultant shouts of ‘God and
his Christ have triumphed.’35
Such jubilation was understandable in view of the tense atmosphere
which had been building up among Christians in Antioch ever since the
brilliant, serious-minded young emperor’s arrival there on 18 July 362.
Exactly a month before reaching it, on 17 June, he had published an edict
which, though apparently innocuous, effectively banned professing Chris-
tians from teaching in schools. 36 Its unconcealed object was to undermine
the growing influence of Christians among the educated class. In the course
of his uneasy stay in the city he had completed his skilfully argued, if
repetitive, intellectual critique of Christianity, Against the Galilaeans and ,

had developed increasingly anti-Christian policies. Two of his measures in

particular (as we shall later discover) left an indelible impression on John’s
imagination. The first was his removal, in autumn 362, of the remains of
Babylas, a celebrated local martyr and bishop (d. c. 250), from the new
shrine close to the temple of Apollo at Daphne to which his bigoted brother
Gallus, in an attempt to check the licence of that pleasure-resort, had
translated them from the cemetery outside the south walls, and his return
of them to their original resting place. He was instigated to do this by
reports he had received that Apollo’s oracle had been reduced to silence and
its precinct polluted by the proximity of dead bodies, but his action outraged
Christian feeling. When the temple and its hallowed image of the god were
mysteriously destroyed by fire shortly afterwards (22 October), the blame
was inevitably placed on Christians, and Julian’s attitude hardened. He
set up an exceptionally harsh investigation to discover the perpetrators, 37
had the Golden Church shut down and allowed its liturgical vessels to be
confiscated. But far more shocking to Christian sentiment were the over-
tures he made to the Jews, especially his programme, energetically under-
taken early in 363, for having the Temple at Jerusalem, which had been
razed to the ground by the Romans in AD 70, restored with government
help and the Jewish sacrificial system restarted in it. 38 To Christians this
seemed a blasphemous attempt not only to revive the faith which Christi-
anity had (as they saw it) fulfilled and so superseded, but also to demon-
strate the falsity of sayings of Christ recorded in the gospels which were

35
Theodoret, HE 3.28.1-2 GCS 44.206).
(
36
CT 13.3.5. For his own amplification of the edict see the fragmentary Letter 42 (Bidez 162),
73-5.
37
Ammianus Marcellinus (22.13.2) speaks of ‘quaestiones ... soli to acriores’.
38
See, e.g., R.L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews (University of California 1983),
138-48.
10 Golden Mouth

interpreted as prophesying that the Temple would never be rebuilt. Their

suspicions were well grounded, for one of Julian’s chief motives was ‘to
refute the Christians and prove that Jesus was not divine’. 39
Julian’s brief reign dealt a blow to the confidence of Christians, not least
in Antioch where much of it was spent, which was to linger in their
consciousness for decades. Accustomed for half a century to Christian
emperors who had actively supported their cause, they now found them-
selves ruled by a militant pagan who not only decreed general toleration
for all religions (pagans, Jews, Christians - heretics as well as orthodox),
but withdrew the privileges and immunities previous emperors had
granted them, reopened the temples and ordered the return of any that had
been seized by Christians, and reintroduced the worship of the ancient gods
and public sacrifices in their honour. No less ominous were the violent
reprisals which both pagans and Jews, whose temples and holy places
Christians had violated at will, felt free to exact just so soon as they sensed
the way the wind was blowing. 40 Thoughtful Christians (and we must
include the youthful John among them) must have felt a cold shudder of
apprehension as it dawned on them how much vitality there still was in
paganism, and how precarious the position of the church was.

V
Meanwhile the Christian community in Antioch had interior worries of its
own at which we must briefly glance if we are to understand John’s
subsequent activities. Basically, they sprang from the ways in which the
hotly argued debate about the nature of the Trinity - more precisely, about
the relation of the Son to the Father, and then somewhat later about the
status of the Holy Spirit — was evolving in the eastern church, but they
were exacerbated from time to time by the shifts of government policy.
A generation earlier the landmark council of Nicaea (325) which Con-
stantine the Great had summoned had decreed that, while the Godhead
was one and indivisible, the Son was ‘of the same essence’ or being as the
Father. Its object had been to eliminate the contention of the famous heretic
Arius (Areios) that the Son was a creature, superior to other creatures, but
inferior in essence or being to the Father. Since then the situation had
become more complicated. While a determined minority remained passion-
ately loyal to the strict Nicene definition, the great majority suspected this
of having ‘Sabellian’ 41 implications,
i.e. of confusing the Father and the Son

and regarding the Godhead as an undifferentiated unity. In order, there-

fore, to emphasise their distinction as ‘persons’ ( hupostaseis ), they pre-

39
Ibid., 143.
40
For a few, well chosen examples see J. Lieu, J. North and T. Rajak (eds.), The Jews among
Pagans and Christians (London and New York 1992), 104.
41
From Sabellius, an otherwise unknown early third-century Roman theologian who taught
such a doctrine.
 1. The Early Years 11

ferred to describe their relationship in terms of ‘likeness in all respects’, or

even simply of ‘likeness’. These formulae, especially the latter, had the
immense advantage, from the government’s point of view, of being accept-
able not only to moderate churchmen generally but also to moderate Arian
churchmen. For this reason emperor Constantius II, who shared his father
Constantine’s understandable eagerness to achieve as wide a measure of
Christian unity as possible, had the Homoean (from homoios i.e. like) ,

compromise canonised as the official teaching of the church at separate

councils of eastern and western bishops held in 359, and then confirmed at
a great united council held at Constantinople in 360. Two further develop-
ments which were taking place about this time and a little later deserve
note. First, after its earlier setback at Nicaea, Arianism had not only made
itself respectable by sheltering under the Homoean formula, but in the
fifties and sixties, as a protest against this compromise, was being bril-
liantly expounded in a revised, radical form by Aetios and Eunomios, who
argued that the Son was in fact ‘unlike’ the Father (hence the soubriquet
‘Anomoean’, from anomoios, i.e. unlike), being altogether different from
him in essence. Secondly, in reaction to this, an increasing number of
eastern Christians who wished to maintain the Nicene principle of the
Son’s full divinity were beginning to rally round the affirmation that, while
there were three distinct persons ( hupostaseis ) in the Godhead, the three
were one in essence or being ( ousia ).
These theological tensions were reflected, with painful distortions,
among the Christians of Antioch. Half a dozen years after Nicaea, probably
in 331, 42 the opponents of the council’s teaching had succeeded in getting
its stubbornly Nicene-minded bishop, Eustathios, ejected, and for many
years a succession of prelates more or less openly sympathetic to Arianism,
usually in its more moderate forms, officially controlled the see. A small
group, uncompromisingly devoted to the Nicene ‘of one essence’ and known
after their banished leader as Eustathians, kept themselves apart under
the hard-line priest Paulinos. The great majority, however, despite their
distaste for Arianism in its various forms, for some years maintained
uneasy communion with the bishops, but in the 350s and early 360s, given
a lead by two highly educated, ascetic laymen Diodore and Flavian (we shall
hear more of both later), who openly proclaimed the equality of the Son and
the Spirit with the Father, began adopting a more independent stance.
Thus the Christian community which John knew as a schoolboy and
student was deeply divided. There seems little doubt that he and his family
adhered to the party of Diodore and Flavian; he was soon, as we shall see
in the next chapter, to put himself under Diodore ’s spiritual wing. In 360
the see of Antioch fell vacant owing to the translation of the Arianizing
Eudoxios to Constantinople. With the agreement of the court and the ruling

42
For the date, about which there is much debate, see M. Spanneut, DHGE 16/17; he bases
himself on Theodoret, HE 2.31.11-12 ( GCS 44.173).
12 Golden Mouth

Homoean group the choice fell on Meletios, formerly bishop of Sebaste

(Sivas) in Armenia, a man of intellectual distinction and a born leader, but
he almost at once made it apparent by his preaching that, while prepared
to employ Homoean language, he was much more sympathetic to Nicaea
than his sponsors had bargained for. In spite of his immense popularity he
was therefore exiled to Armenia only a few weeks after his installation; 43
understandably emperor Constantius would only have bishops who sub-
scribed to the Homoean creed which had only recently been promulgated
in the most solemn fashion as the church’s official teaching. The new bishop
appointed in his place was Euzoios, an avowed Arian and one of Arius’
earliest collaborators (he was, however, steadily moderating his tone). A
large section of the community, however, continued to regard Meletios as
their true chief pastor, and preferred to hold their services outside the city.
Constantius died on 3 November 361. His successor, Julian, had no
interest in favouring any one Christian faction; rather he found amusement
in the divisions of Christians. One of his first acts, as we noted above, was
to publish an edict of general toleration, which included an amnesty for
orthodox Christians who had been driven into exile by his Arian predeces-
sor. 44 In the resulting free-for-all Meletios was able to come back to Antioch
in 362, but before he did so the priest Paulinos had been consecrated bishop
by Lucifer of Cagliari, a zealous partisan of the extreme Nicene position,
who had also been enabled by the emperor’s cynical clemency to return from
banishment. Thus the schism was made worse, for, in addition to the
Arianizing government nominee occupying the official throne, there were
now two ‘orthodox’ bishops of Antioch, Paulinos representing the die-hard
Nicene stance, and Meletios (though exiled again in 365, he managed to
reside in the city from 367 to 371) championing the full divinity of the
Son, but expressing it in terms of the new, increasingly popular ‘three
hypostases’ theology. Euzoios, we should note, made no attempt to have
Paulinos exiled, and even allowed him the use of a small church in the
old town. The motive is said to have been respect for him personally, 45
but it was also a skilful move to make things difficult for the much more
dangerous Meletios.
The division between the Meletians and the Eustathians was particu-
larly unfortunate, for both groups were united in their opposition to every
kind of Arianism and in their adhesion to the essentials of the Nicene creed.
What made matters worse was that the most important see in the eastern
part of the empire, Alexandria, recognised only Paulinos as lawful bishop,
and on its advice the Roman popes adopted the same line and cold-
shouldered Meletios and his successor. This tragic legacy of schism, which

43
Scarcely thirty days, John reports in Horn, in Melet. 1 (PG 50.516), where he also records
the extraordinary devotion he inspired in such a short time.
44
See J. Bidez and F. Cumont, luliani imperatoris epistulae et leges (Paris 1922), nos 43-5.
45
Sokrates 4.2.
 1. The Early Years 13

grew more intense in the reign of the Arian-minded Valens (364-78), was
to embitter church life in the Syrian metropolis throughout the whole of
John’s life there; indeed, its dying embers were not to be extinguished until
long after his death. 46

46
See below, p. 290.
 2

The Young Ascetic

As a boy and teenager John’s figure remains largely in the shadows, and
we catch few if any reliable glimpses of his personality or activities. The
picture changes strikingly when he reaches the end of his schooldays, and
from this date we can follow his development in at any rate broad outline.
In his apologia Priesthood written some twenty or so years later, he was
}
l

to set down some illuminating reminiscences of critical moments in his life

as a young man, and we shall draw on these. Their trustworthiness has
sometimes been questioned, but it is difficult to believe that he could have
written anything but the truth about himself in a work designed to be read
by, and to convince, people among whom he had lived, and many of whom
had known him personally, most of his life.
First, then, it seems clear that he completed his rhetorical studies under
Libanios in 367, 2 when Flavius Valens, a bigoted, deeply superstitious
Christian who actively supported Arianism in its Homoean form, 3 was now
Augustus in charge of the eastern parts of the empire (364-78). The normal
time for leaving school was towards the end of July, August and September
being vacation months. According to Palladios, he was now eighteen; his
own story about his mother, reproduced on p. 7 above, might suggest that
he was twenty, but he was an inveterate rounder off of numbers. Palladios
adds that he was a young man of more than ordinary intellectual ability,
and his conduct seems to have been exemplary since in later life his
detractors were unable, in spite of energetically raking over his past, to
discover any youthful misdemeanours. 4 He still lived at home with his
mother Anthousa, and while he had numerous friends, much the closest
was the youthful Basil who has already been mentioned. 5 Coming from the
same social background, they had been brought up together and had
attended the same schools; they were always in each other’s company, and
shared a common outlook on most things, being both keen Christians. So

1
De sacerdotio 1.1-3 (SC 271.60-76). The other main sources for this and the next section
are Palladios, Dial. 5 (SC 341.105-10); Sokrates, 6.3; Sozomen, 8.3.
2
For the chronology see Appendix B.
3
See above, p. 11.
4
See below, p. 204.
5
See above, p. 5.
 2. The Young Ascetic 15

John was later to record in vivid passages which recapture the intimate
friendship of the two young men, the one (himself) quick-tempered and
self-assertive, the other more sensible and equable. In important respects,
he admits, they differed. He himself was assiduous in his attendance at the
law-courts, following the cases conducted there with excited interest; in
addition, like the majority of the citizens of Antioch, he was passionately
fond of the theatre. Basil had not the least concern for such things; he was
so devoted to his books that he scarcely ever ventured out into the city
square.
This reference to his habit as a student of hanging around the law-courts
early gave rise to the inference that his ambition at this time must have
been to practise at the bar. Sokrates, followed by Sozomen, drew this
conclusion, the former adding for good measure that his adolescent enthu-
siasm had been checked when he realised how hard-worked a barrister was,
and also how frequently he could be led into conniving at injustice. In fact,
it was natural enough for a young man studying rhetoric to pay regular

visits to the law-courts; and the value of an acquaintance with the law was
not confined then, any more than today, to the legal profession. We have
perhaps a more accurate clue to the career for which he was preparing
himself in Palladios’ remark that ‘he was given a thorough training in
rhetoric with a view to the service of the divine oracles (ton theion logion)\
The last three words seem at first sight to mean, and were in the past
generally interpreted as meaning, the holy scriptures (the sense they most
frequently bear in Palladios); but this makes nonsense of the passage, since
a rhetorical education was neither necessary nor, in the view of strict
Christians, desirable for the ministry of God’s word. It also ignores the
contrast which Palladios draws in the very next sentence between John’s
earlier, presumably secular, interests, and the sacred studies to which he
was toturn in reaction on leaving Libanios’ school.
There has therefore been widespread acceptance for the proposal that
the correct rendering of ‘divine oracles’ is ‘imperial pronouncements’, i.e.
rescripts, letters and constitutions emanating from the imperial chancel-
lery, ultimately from the emperor. 6 Such documents were regularly de-
scribed in Latin as ‘sacred oracles (sacra oraculaY in the late empire, and
the Greek adjective for ‘divine’ ( theios ), like its Latin equivalent, very
commonly carried the alternative meaning ‘imperial’. On the assumption
that this was what Palladios had in mind, the career for which John was
being trained as a youth, no doubt by his own choice and with his mother’s
approval, was service as one of the clerks of the sacra scrinia, i.e. the
influential and much sought after secretariats which assisted the appro-
priate ministers in drafting official rescripts and constitutions, sometimes
also legislation. This was a branch of the civil service for which a first-class
literary education was indispensable, since government pronouncements

A.H.M. Jones, HTR 46 (1953), 171-3.

16 Golden Mouth

needed to be clothed in clear and dignified prose, and for which practical
experience of the law-courts was useful. Socially it ranked well above the
secretariat of the commander-in-chief, in which John’s father had served,
for the successful clerks who came to the top in each of the scrinia ended
their days with the rank of senators.

n
While this may have been the glittering career originally planned for him,
it was not the one to which John was eventually to devote himself. In the
passage already cited Palladios makes it plain that John’s graduation from
school coincided with a radical change in his whole mental attitude. He
rebelled, Palladios states, against his liberal arts teacher, 7 an expert in
‘meretricious verbiage’, who had claimed his attention hitherto and, ‘be-
coming intellectually a full-grown man, he fell in love with sacred studies’,
i.e. became absorbed with the scriptures. This dramatic switch is reflected

in John’s own reminiscences, for he was to record that, when he and his
comrade Basil had completed their formal education, they decided ‘to
embrace the blessed life of solitaries and the true philosophy’ (i.e., in the
language of educated Christians of that time, the life of withdrawal,
contemplation, scripture reading). Basil’s enthusiasm for this, he con-
fessed, was at first much the more intense; his own fluctuated wildly, as
he was alternately distracted by worldly excitements, and then drawn back
to higher pursuits. Although their friendship remained firm, there was a
temporary break in their intimacy. We cannot gauge how long this lasted,
but the time came when John was at last able, through his friend’s
influence, to drag himself out of his involvement with frivolous concerns.
Basil received him with open arms, devoted himself wholly to him and laid
bare a plan he had been pondering for some time, that they should abandon
their parental homes and set up house together. His persuasions won John
over, and the two made all the arrangements to carry out their project. It
was only Anthousa who, with her tearful entreaties that John should not,
in effect, leave her a widow for a second time but should stay at home with
her as long as she lived, finally frustrated it.
Although often nowadays neglected, this passage throws light on what
seems to have been a turning-point in John’s acceptance of committed
Christianity; it also illustrates one of the forms this might take for educated
young men in fourth-century Antioch. It was about the same time, as we
learn from Palladios in the text already cited, that John fell under the
influence of ‘blessed Meletios the confessor, who then ruled the church of
Antioch’. This description was not strictly accurate, for the government
nominee who was official bishop was the Arianizing Euzoios (361-76);

7
The genitive singular, given by the G group of MSS, is preferable on grammatical grounds
to the accusative plural printed by most editors. See SC 341.107 n. 3.
 2. The Young Ascetic 17

nevertheless, from 360 until his formal restoration in 378, Meletios was
looked to as their leader by the main body of ‘orthodox’ Christians in
Antioch, 8who held their services in the open air, first on the slopes of the
mountain, then on the banks of the Orontes, finally in the military exercise
ground (polemikon gumnasion ) outside the north gate. 9 In spite of Valens’
decree (5 May 365) ordering back into exile the bishops whom Julian the
Apostate had permitted to return, 10 Meletios seems to have contrived to
remain in the city, probably because the emperor had been prevented from
taking up residence there because of his preoccupation with the revolt (28
September 365) of the would-be usurper Prokopios, and then with a
punitive war against the Goths who had supported him. 11 According to
Palladios, ‘he took notice of the gifted young man, was greatly attracted by
the beauty of his character, and encouraged him to be continually in his
company. This close association of John with Meletios in fact marked
another important stage in his spiritual development as a Christian.
Palladios records that he now took the momentous step of offering himself
for baptism, and after that was in regular attendance on the bishop for
around three years. With the touching faith of a hero-worshipper Palladios
later claimed that he could not believe that ‘from the hour of his baptism
John ever swore or made others take oaths, ever spoke evil of anyone, or
told lies, or cursed, or tolerated frivolous talk’. 12
In the fourth-century church the customary time for administering
baptism was the night preceding the dawn of Easter. On the assumption
that John left Libanios’ school in mid-summer 367, the most probably date
for his baptism would be Easter 368. Some of those who accept 349 as the
date of his birth prefer to opt for Easter 367, implying that he left Libanios
before the end of the school year and proceeded to the sacrament immedi-
ately; but on the face of it this seems precipitate, and in any case is not
supported by any evidence. Others insist that he must have had a
catechumenate, or period of organised preparation, of at least two years;
but this is to overlook the fact that, while a two-year catechumenate was
normally required of converts from paganism, the children of Christian
parents were treated as catechumens from birth. 13 For these intensive
instruction in Christian faith and morals during the preceding Lent was
usually considered sufficient. The date 368 would also allow for John’s three
years’ attendance on Meletios as an assistant mentioned by Palladios, for
the harassed bishop was obliged to return into exile, at his family estate in
Armenia, when Valens at last arrived and set up his headquarters in
Antioch in late autumn 371. It was almost certainly Meletios who super-

8
See above, p. 12.
9
Theodoret, Hist. rel. 2 (SC 234.228).
10
See above, pp. 10 and 12.
11
So E. Schwartz, ZNTW 34 (1935), 168; 170 n. 82.
12
Dial. 19 (SC 341.380).
13
See Baur, 1.85 (with n. 8).
18 Golden Mouth

vised John’s Lenten instruction and officiated at his baptism, for these
tasks counted among a bishop’s chief responsibilities.

Ill

Palladios gives no hint of the form John’s attendance on Meletios took, but
we may reasonably infer that he acted as the bishop’s aide, or one of his
aides, in carrying out his liturgical, pastoral and administrative functions.
From a different quarter, however, we have some valuable information
which, as well as confirming the intensification of his religious commit-
ment, goes a little way towards filling in our picture of his activities and
state of mind during this critical period (368-72) of his life.
Our informant is the historian Sokrates, who, without mentioning
Meletios’ interest in him, reports that, when John had turned his back on
a secular career, he abandoned ordinary social life in favour of ‘the life of
tranquillity - ton hesuchion bion’, i.e. the life of ascetic withdrawal -
adopted the attire (the coarse, sleeveless robe known as the lebiton) and
the abstracted, solemn mode of walking affected by Christian ‘monks’, and
applied himself to bible study and to making frequent visits to church for
prayer. 14 He was inspired, Sokrates remarks, by the example of Evagrios,
a man who cannot now be identified, but who had studied under the same
professors and had a little earlier made a similar break. Already showing
the power to influence people which was always to characterise him, John
persuaded two friends who had also been fellow-students with him under
Libanios, Theodore and Maximos, to join him in renouncing any idea of a
life spent in making money and instead to embrace one of gospel simplicity.
We know nothing of Maximos except that he was to become bishop of
Seleukeia in Isauria (Silifke). Theodore, however, of whom we shall hear
more shortly, was to become bishop of Mopsuestia, in Cilicia (Misis, almost
30 km east of Adana), from 392 to 428, and one of the most brilliant (and
controversial) theologians and scripture expositors of the eastern church.
Sokrates adds that, in their zeal for spiritual excellence, John and his
two friends set themselves to study its principles under Diodore and
Carterios, who were at that time in charge of an ascetic school or schools
asketerion or asketeria it is not clear whether he used the singular or
(i :

plural). The Carterios mentioned here is otherwise unknown, but Diodore

was the orthodox leader whom we met (along with his colleague Flavian)
as a layman in the previous chapter, 15 and who had meanwhile (between
361 and 365), with Flavian, been ordained priest by Meletios. He was well
qualified to give instruction in asceticism, for the privations to which he
had subjected himself were so extreme that he had ruined his physical

14
6.3: see Sozomen 8.2.
15
See above, p. 11.
 2. The Young Ascetic 19

health - earning him a mocking rebuke from Julian the Apostate in 363, 16
who attributed his emaciated appearance and bodily discomforts to the
merited anger of the gods. That John had studied under Diodore has
sometimes been questioned, but he himself was to confirm it many years
later when Diodore, now bishop of Tarsos, visited Antioch and he acclaimed
him from the pulpit as his spiritual father and teacher. 17 It is more than
likely that he owed to him (among others) the marked preference he was
to show in mature life for the literal, as opposed to the allegorical, method
of interpreting scripture. The latter was widely popular, especially in
Alexandrian circles, as a means of evading difficulties in the sacred text,
but Diodore was a sharp critic of allegorising and championed straightfor-
ward, historical exegesis, while allowing that the historical events could
foreshadow spiritual realities later to be revealed.
an intriguing question what exactly this asketerion was, in which
It is
upper-class, deeply religious young Christians of Antioch, like John and
Theodore (John supplies us elsewhere with some further names), picked
up their grounding in ascetic commitment and the understanding of scrip-
ture under Diodore’s direction. Scholars have often assumed that it must
have been a monastery, i.e. a community of monks living together under a
rule, but this suggestion must be ruled out. As Meletios’ deputy, in charge
of the church during his absences, Diodore had too much on his hands to
be the superior of a religious house. John, too, was still living at home with
his mother, and was carrying out a range of practical duties for Meletios or
his deputy. Nor is there any evidence, literary or archaeological, for the
existence of a monastery within the walls of Antioch at this early date. 18
On the other hand, if Diodore’s asketerion was not a monastery proper, it
seems to have had certain unmistakably ‘monastic’ features. As we shall
shortly discover, 19 the young men who frequented it regarded one another
as ‘brothers’, as ‘members’ of a ‘body*, and on entering it they were enrolled
on an official list ( katalogos ). When they joined it the members made a
covenant or pact ( sunthekai ) with Christ by which they bound themselves
to renounce marriage and a range of indulgences normally accepted by men
of their class.
It seems more realistic, therefore, to envisage Diodore’s pupils as a
close-knit fellowship of dedicated Christians who, while staying in their
separate homes and living in the world, accepted self-imposed rules of
rigorous self-denial and met together, probably in some private house, to
pray, study the bible and hear expositions of it, and be counselled by the
master in ascetic withdrawal. Writing more than half a century later, when
conditions had changed somewhat, it is understandable that Sokrates

16
Letter 90 (to Photinos of Sirmium: Bidez 174-5).
( PG 52.761-6).
17
Laus Diodori
18
Cf. P. Canivet, Le monachisme syrien selon Theodoret de Cyr (Paris 1977), 50-1.
19
See below, p. 23.
20 Golden Mouth

should have used to describe the group a term which was not strictly
applicable to it. Nevertheless, in the eyes of contemporaries its members
were ‘monks’ ( monachoi ), for the Greek word, like its Syriac equivalent
ihidaya had a wider connotation then than it has today. It embraced not
,

only (a) hermits and (b) religious organised in a community, but also fervent
Christians who, while still moving around in the world, were striving to
live a life as far as possible detached from it, focused wholly on God 20 Their .

ideals and practices, it may be suggested, illustrate, in a Greek-speaking

milieu, the peculiarly Syrian genre of asceticism practised by the ‘sons of
the covenant’ or ‘daughters of the covenant’ ( benai qyama or henat qyama)
of whom we hear from fourth- and early fifth-century Syrian writers,
notably Aphrahat and Rabbula of Edessa 21 While the institution took a
.

variety of forms, the ‘sons of the covenant’ often formed small brotherhoods
attached to a local church and lived with its clergy; alternatively, they could
stay with their relations, as apparently John did, or else completely alone.
Without exception they entered into a pact or covenant with Christ, and
bound themselves to remain celibate, abstain from wine and meat, wear a
distinctive dress, and devote themselves to prayer; secular employment
was forbidden for them. For discipline and support they generally depended
on the local clergy, as John’s group looked to Diodore for counsel and
leadership, and they were expected to assist the clergy in liturgical,
administrative and pastoral functions. They formed a pool to which local
bishops readily turned when they needed new clergy for their churches.
The expression ‘sons of the covenant’ had different nuances at different
times, but when John was a young man its meaning admirably described
the form of ascetic commitment which he and his fellow-students adopted.

IV
Two literary works by John, the earliest from his pen that have survived,
may fairly be traced to this period. In a striking way they both illustrate
the religious ideals which were then pervading his mind and, if correctly
interpreted, throw light on his relations with one of the close friends
mentioned in the previous section.
The first is the short essay known as A King and a Monk Compared 22

20
G.M. Colombia, ‘El concepto de monjey vida monastica hasta fines del siglo v*, SM 1 (1959),
338-42
21
E.G.S. Jargy, OCP 17 (1951), 304-420; A. Vdobus, Church History 30 (1961), 19-27; S. Brock,
Syriac Perspectives and Late Antiquity (London 1984), 1-19. A key text is Aphrahat’s sixth
Demonstration ( PSyr 1.239-312).
22
Comparatio regis et monachi (PG 47.387-392). For an English trans. see D.G. Hunter, A
Comparison between a King and a Monk (Lampeter 1988), who dates it (p. 39) ‘not long after
379’, partly because he does not think John’s enthusiasm for monasticism developed so early
as has been argued above.
 2. The Young Ascetic 21
23
Although its authenticity has sometimes been doubted, this is an attempt
to show that, contrary to appearances and popular belief, it is not the
emperor, but the monk living alone and surrendered wholly to God, who is
true king. The monk (the term is used with its wide connotation) has got
the better of human passions and desires, but the emperor, though ruling
the world and robed in purple, is still enslaved to them. Both wage war,
but the monk conquers evil demons and rescues people from paganism and
heresy, the emperor fights with barbarians only to further his avarice and
ambition. The monk spends his day in bible study and the night, after a
frugal repast, conversing with God; the emperor is in conference all day
with heavy-drinking military men, and spends the night sleeping off the
effects of rich banquets. While the monk is welcomed by rich and poor with
open arms, the emperor is dreaded by his subjects because of the exactions
he has to make and his soldiers’ brutal behaviour. He can distribute gold
when so disposed, but the monk bestows richer gifts - the grace of the Spirit,
release from demonic possession, comfort in affliction. Death itself, the
thought of which terrifies the emperor, causes no worry to the monk, who
long ago renounced the things for the sake of which most men desire life.
And their prospects in the next world are immeasurably different. The
monk can expect to be received by the Lord who provided the pattern of
this blessed form of life; even if he has been a good ruler, the emperor can
only look for a more modest reward, while if he has been an evil one, the
torments he must face are beyond description.
Graphically written, but showing awkwardnesses of style which differ-
entiate it from John’s later work, the piece, which has all the air of a
laboured school composition, is a Christian variation on the ancient para-
dox beloved by the Stoics that it is only the wise man who is truly free,
intelligent, rich, sovereign. As such it leaves the impression that John
wrote it quite soon after leaving Libanios’ classroom. This is borne out, first,
by the fact that it is a clear example, carried out according to all the rules,
of what was known technically as a ‘comparison ( sunkrisis)\ i.e. one of the
dozen or so progumnasmata 24 or preliminary exercises traditionally used
,

in teaching rhetoric in schools; secondly, by the inclusion, in a piece only a

few pages long, of no fewer than four striking phrases taken from his recent
professor’s speeches. 25 As well as supporting an early date, the patently
artificial character of the essay is an argument against those who place it
either in his period (372-8) of monastic retreat to Mt Silpios (hardly a
propitious time in any case for literary composition), or after his return to

23
See J.A. de Aldama, Repertorium pseudochrysostomicum (Paris 1965), 327; also Clauis
patrum Graecorum 2.4500. The stylistic blemishes giving rise to these doubts seem better
explained by the immaturity of the work.
24
On these see PW Suppl. VH.118f.
25
See C. Fabricius, Symbolae Osloenses 33 (1957), 135f. All four passages (from Orations 13
and 64, and the Apology of Socrates) date from 362-3, when Julian was resident in Antioch,
and applaud either his or Sokrates’ ascetic or simple habits.
22 Golden Mouth

Antioch, when his writings were to be both much more mature and more
in contact with real life. In fact, it reads like an attempt by a relatively
inexperienced enthusiast to persuade his friends to resist the allurements
of a career in the imperial bureaucracy, with its opportunities for wielding
secular power, and embrace instead the ‘true philosophy*26 of ascetic com-
mitment. It has been proposed, 27 with some plausibility, that it was
addressed in particular to his comrade Theodore, who (it would seem) was
probably bom in 352, entered Libanios’ school in 366 and left it to join the
ascetic group counselled by Diodore in 368/9, when he was sixteen or
seventeen. If our little piece was written in 368, when John was a leading
member of the group, it could not fail to have been devoured by his younger
friend, and may have contributed to his conversion.
This is, of course, speculation, but there can be little doubt that the
second of John’s literary productions from this period, the longish letter
known as To Theodore When He Fell Away 28 was directed to this Theodore.
,

Both Hesychios of Jerusalem, writing in the 430s, and Sozomen a little

later, report 29 that John sent the future bishop of Mopsuestia when still a
young man a letter which, from their summary of its contents, seems
identical with this one; the only reasons for rejecting their evidence arise
from supposed chronological considerations which have been shown to be
insubstantial. 30 As it has come down, our letter is attached to a much
lengthier work bearing the same title, of which it purports to be the second
book. 31 There is nowadays agreement that the two are in fact independent.
The longer piece is not a letter but a treatise, and is more mature theologi-
cally; and while there is a broad similarity of subject-matter, viz. an appeal
to a lapsed ascetic to return to his vocation, it is evident that the persons

admonished, and their situations, are markedly different. The letter, it is

clear, was not drafted (a widely held assumption which was one of the
causes of the alleged chronological difficulties) when John was living as a
hermit or semi-hermit in the mountains outside Antioch, but when he and
Theodore were associated with a group of other ascetically motivated
Christians in the city. On the other hand, internal evidence demands that
the treatise (which nowhere mentions Theodore’s name) should be placed
some sixteen or seventeen years later.
It is the letter which alone concerns us here. It is linked, we should note,

26
For ‘philosophy’ used in this sense see also De sacerdotio 1.2 (SC 272.62), with A.M.
Malingrey’s note.
27
R.E. Carter, ‘Chrysostom’s Ad Theodorum lapsum and the early chronology of Theodore of
Mopsuestia’, VC 16 (1962), 87-101. By 1967 ( Studia Patristica 10 = TU 107) Carter had come
to doubt the authenticity of Comparatio.
28
Ad Theodorum lapsum 2: PG 47.309-16: also in SC 117 (ed. J. Dumortier).
29
8.2: for Hesychios see Mansi ix.248.
30
R E. Carter, art. cit. 92-5.
31
PG 47.277-308. For its independence see J. Dumortier’s discussion in SC 117; R.E. Carter,
art. cit., 88-92.
 2. The Young Ascetic 23

with A King and a Monk Compared by the similarity of some of its themes,
and indeed seems to refer to it in a passage pointedly contrasting power,
wealth and reputation with the true freedom enjoyed by the Christian. 32
What prompted John to write it was the fact that Theodore (it slips out that
he was not yet twenty years old), after joining his ascetic group and creating
an edifying impression by his ardour in mortifications and scripture study,
had thrown it all up. Family business had claimed his attention; later we
learn that his thoughts were turning to marriage. Hence John wrote to him,
in highly charged grief rather than anger, reproaching him with indiffer-
ence ( rathumia and urging him to think again and rejoin the fraternity;
his friends Valerios, Florentios, Porphyrios and others are all praying for
him. He reminds him that he had forsworn extravagant food and clothes,
and dismissed all thought of his family rank and wealth from his mind. The
letter throws precious light on a personal crisis in the early career of the
future famous exegete and bishop of Mopsuestia, but it also confirms the
picture of John’s spiritual fellowship we set out in the previous section.
John upbraids his young friend with ‘erasing his name from the list
(katalogos ) of brothers’ and ‘trampling on the contract ( sunthekai he had

entered into with Christ’. 33 Marriage, he concedes, may in general be

honourable, but for Theodore it would amount to adultery since he has
‘joined himself to the heavenly bridegroom’. There is no question here of
vows taken by a monk in a monastery (as some interpreters suppose), but
still less is John’s language intended to be purely figurative (as others
argue). Rather it evokes distinctive features of the characteristically Syrian
‘sons of the covenant’, 34 and confirms that this was the pattern of ascetic
brotherhood to which John and his circle belonged.
John’s message to Theodore was that, if he had momentarily yielded to
the Devil’s seductions, he need only turn his gaze to heaven, and Christ
would rescue him. Serious Christians a couple of generations later were
filled with admiration for his letter, the pious Sozomen exclaiming that in
both diction and sentiments it was more divine than the mind of man could
conceive. 36 Theodore evidently thought so too, for Sozomen adds that, when
he had pondered it, he once again abandoned his property, said goodbye to
thoughts of marriage and, saved by John’s wise counsel, returned to the
life of true philosophy.

32
See R.E. Carter, art. cit., 93f. The passage referred to is the opening of sect. 3 ( PG 47.312).
33
Ad Theodorum lapsum 2.1 ( PG 47.309).
34
See above, p. 20.
35
8 2
. .
 3

Retreat to the Mountains

Palladios reports that, after serving as bishop Meletios’ personal aide for
‘about three years’, John was appointed an official reader ( anagnostes
1
:

lector in Latin), in the eastern churches the lowest order of the clergy,
ranking immediately below that of deacons. Although Palladios does not
explicitly say so, his language implies that it was Meletios, not an otherwise
unknown bishop Zeno as stated by Sokrates, 2 who ordained him. This is
what we should have expected if, as our chronology requires, the ordination
or promotion (it was the latter verb, proagein that the biographer pre-
,

ferred) took place in 371, since Meletios was still in Antioch for most of that
year. Emperor Valens had made brief stays in the city in 370, possibly also
in early 371, during which Meletios may have gone into temporary hiding.
When Valens, however, set up his winter quarters there in late autumn
371, 3 and was clearly set for continuous residence except for military
expeditions in summer, he could no longer afford to play fast and loose with
the decree of 5 May 365 expelling the bishops whom Julian the Apostate
had permitted to regain their sees, and was obliged to go into definitive
exile. He was to remain in his Armenian homeland until the emperor’s
death in the disastrous battle against the Goths at Adrianople (Edirne) on
9 August 378.
Meletios must have foreseen well in advance that he was faced with an
indefinite absence from his flock. It was therefore desirable to reinforce the
ranks of the local clergy, and after his three years of probation John must
have seemed marked out for recruitment to it. As a reader he had the
specific functions of reading the Old Testament lesson and the epistle at
mass, but further responsibilities are likely to have devolved upon him now
that he belonged, however modestly, to the official body of the clergy.

n
Years later John was to record two dramatic incidents which, although they
cannot be precisely dated, must have happened quite soon after his admis-

1
Dial. 5 (SC 341.108).
2
6.3.
3
Cf. PW II: 7A.2115 (A. Nagl).
 3. Retreat to the Mountains 25

sion as a reader. One of them, of little or no importance in itself, vividly

recaptures the atmosphere of stark terror which gripped Antioch during
the winter of 371/2 and for many months thereafter; the other was to have
a profound and lasting impact on his own career.
He was to recount the first in a sermon delivered at Constantinople some
thirty years later. Long ago when he was ‘still a mere lad’, he recalled, 4 he
was walking with a friend through the gardens alongside the Orontes on
his way to a martyr’s shrine when his companion noticed a white object
floating on the water. It looked like a piece of linen, but when they saw that
it was in fact a book they vied with each other in sporting rivalry to fish it

out. When they had got hold of it and turned a page, they discovered to
their horror that it was covered with magical formulae. Its terrified owner
had tried to get rid of it, but they knew that even so he had been arrested
and executed. Panic reigned in Antioch at the time, for the government,
alarmed by the exposure of a conspiracy to ascertain by divination when
the emperor would die and what the name of his successor would be, was
holding a succession of ferocious investigations, trials and executions of
everyone even remotely suspected of being involved. 5 Anyone dabbling in
sorcery or magic arts, or possessing books dealing with such potentially
treasonable subjects, was liable to summary action. The city was every-
where patrolled by soldiers on the lookout, and as they handled the
incriminating codex the young men saw one approaching. Rigid with fear,
they managed to conceal it, and when he had passed on his way they flung
it back into the river. Their escape from almost certain death, John was to

assure his rapt congregation, was but one out of countless instances of God’s
merciful intervention which should incite human beings to greater love for
him.
Our knowledge of the second, intrinsically much more important inci-
dent comes exclusively from the autobiographical passages of his dialogue
Priesthood (written 390/1) on which we drew extensively in the previous
chapter. In these he describes, 6 in his liveliest narrative style, how when
he was a reader still living at home, almost certainly after Meletios’
departure for exile, he and his comrade Basil heard a report that the
responsible church authorities were planning to seize them both and have
them ordained under duress (such press-ganging of apparently suitable
young men for the ministry was not uncommon at the time). Their intention
was, in all probability, to ordain them priests; the widely held view that
they were to be consecrated bishops, unlikely in itself, is traceable to John’s
preoccupation with the episcopal office in important later sections of the
dialogue. The correct reading in the key passage (1.6) is probably not

4
Horn, in Act. 38.5 (PG 60.274f.). John was 22 or 23, but his use of meirakion (‘mere lad’)
was flexible: see Appendix B.
5
For a full, up-to-date account of the affair, see J. Matthews, The Roman Empire of
Ammianus (London 1989), 219-20.
6
De sacerdotio 1.3 (SC 272.72-6).
26 Golden Mouth

episkopes (‘episcopate’), but hierosunes (‘priesthood’), an inclusive term

applying in the appropriate context to both the presbyterate and the
episcopate 7 .

Both young men, John relates, were filled with dismay by the news.
John, however, while convinced of his own utter unworthiness, had no
doubt at all that Basil was eminently suited for the priestly office. So he
resorted to what has impressed most modem students as a dishonourable
stratagem 8 Although he and Basil made a solemn agreement to act in
.

unison, either both of them accepting or both declining ordination, he

privately decided to go his own way even if it meant letting his friend down.
Thus when the bishop arrived, Basil submitted under protest to being
ordained, being convinced that in view of his promise John too would accept
ordination; indeed, bystanders confirmed that he had already done so. In
fact, he had gone into hiding. Basil was shattered when he discovered the
deception, and reproached him bitterly, only to be assured by John (who
was highly amused by the success of his ploy) that he had acted in the way
he had out of regard for the church’s best interests. What he had done, he
argued, should properly be described as ‘prudent management’ oik - (<

onomia), doing what is best in difficult circumstances, rather than as a

deceitful act. In certain circumstances, he suggested, ‘a well-timed decep-
tion, undertaken with a morally good intention’, could be the proper course
for a Christian 9 He then proceeded to illustrate, at great length and with
.

a casuistical expertise which has often embarrassed his admirers, how

invaluable deceits (apatai ) planned ‘with a salutary purpose’ can be in war,
in medical practice, even in the conduct of family life and relations with
one’s friends 10 .

Ordinary readers are usually struck by the freshness and naturalness

of John’s narrative, and by the countless lifelike touches it contains. They
find in these traits a guarantee of its general veracity, even allowing for
the freedom he clearly allowed himself in setting down his recollections.
The impression of authenticity is heightened, as the dialogue proceeds, by
his deeply emotional account of the public reaction to his refusal to be
ordained. The prominent people who had put him forward were outraged
by what they regarded as gross discourtesy. In the community he was
accused on every hand of arrogance and vain ambition for spurning this
public service; not a soul would come forward to defend him. Even Basil
found himself implicated in his disgrace, and complained that he had had
to go into hiding, for every time he ventured into the street he risked being
upbraided for John’s conduct; no one would believe that he had not been
fully aware what his close friend and comrade was up to 11.

Cf. A.M. Malingrey, SC 272 (Paris 1980),

7
72f.
s
Desac. 1.5-7 (SC 272.88-98).
9
De sac. 1.7 (SC 272.90).
10
De sac. 1.6-7 (SC 272.90-8).
11
See the remarkable passage 1.4 (SC 272.76-87).
 3. Retreat to the Mountains 27

By contrast the majority of Chrysostom scholars this century (there have

been welcome signs of a reaction recently) 12 have been inclined to dismiss
this entire section of John’s treatise, with almost all the rest of the
seemingly autobiographical material it contains, as ‘a literary fiction’
without historical basis, a dramatic lead-up to the eloquent exposition of
the dignity and responsibilities of priesthood which, as they maintain, was
his sole concern, 13 and which itself, as everyone would admit, while pur-
porting to be John’s rejoinder to Basil some twenty years back, really
represents his mature views at the time of writing. In support of their
scepticism they point out, first, that none of our usual authorities shows
any knowledge of what must have been, if it ever took place at all, an
extremely important episode in John’s life. Secondly, they argue that if a
young man like Basil was so closely involved in John’s affairs, it is
surprising that no other record of his existence seems to have survived, and
that no mention of him can be found elsewhere in John’s writings. Thirdly,
they make much of the fact that in a Platonic-style dialogue, the genre to
which everyone agrees Priesthood belongs, it is quite normal for the
mise-en-scene to be largely invented. 14
Of these three arguments (there are others of less weight) the first is
scarcely persuasive. Sokrates and Sozomen had access to only a few,
apparently random facts about John’s youthful experiences, while it would
be absurd to expect Palladios’ compressed summary (half a dozen sen-
tences) to include everything of significance. He makes no mention, for
example, of either the key role of Diodore as John’s ascetic mentor or of the
close friendship between John and Theodore. It was his practice, in any
case, to pass discreetly over anything likely to show his hero in an unfa-
vourable light. The second carries scepticism too far. The inability to
identify a relatively obscure individual in a world about which hard
information is so sparse would not in itself be an argument against his
existence. As it happens, however, there is a Basil known to history whom,
while proof is out of the question, scholars from Tillemont to the present
day have recognised as one who might well have been John’s comrade. 15
This was the Basil who attended the council of Constantinople (381) as
bishop of Raphaneae (Rafniye), a garrison town on the road from Emesa
(Homs) to Antioch. If John’s friend was ordained about 371, he could have
been bishop of Raphaneae by 381. Some have even read John’s comforting
promise, in the last paragraph of the dialogue, 16 that he will give him his

12
See the remarks of A.M. Malingrey in SC 272.19-22.
13
For a summary of current attitudes see J. Quasten, Patrology (Maryland 1960) 3, 462. A.
Nagele, HJG 37 (1916), 1-48 remains an influential statement of the sceptical case.
14
J. Stiglmayr, ‘Die historische Unterlage der Schrift des hi. Chrysostomus iiber das
Priestertum’, ZKTh 41 (1917), 413-49, is a convincing refutation of this case. It is a neglected
study.
15
E.g. A.M. Malingrey, op. cit., 7-10.
16
De sac. 6.13 (SC 272.362).
28 Golden Mouth

presence and counsel frequently as a coded message that at the time of its
composition Basil was exercising his ministry not far from Antioch.
As regards the third argument, the dialogue form certainly gave John a
free hand in shifting the scenery of his story, improvising conversational
exchanges and lengthier speeches, and the like. But, written as it was for
a community in which he had grown up and was now a leading presbyter,
it did not license him to impose on his readers the report of an attempted

ordination which was an entire fabrication. More seriously, the argument

rests on a failure to recognise the true character of Priesthood Cast in the .

form of a dialogue, it is really an essay in self-vindication, an apologetikos

logos as it is often described in early MSS, designed to justify, in face of the
criticism and hostility it had aroused and which had probably persisted for
years, his apparently frivolous rejection of the priestly office long ago.
Modem students have tended to regard it exclusively as a magnificent
description of that office in all its aspects. It is that in full measure, but
when he wrote it John’s overriding concern was to assure the Antiochene
public that, contrary to the misrepresentations he had suffered from as a
young man, his only motive for turning the priesthood down had been his
conviction at the time that he was utterly unfit for it. His statement is an
intensely personal one - the passion vibrating through it can be sensed by
readers today - but it would have been laughed out of court at Antioch,
where many were still alive who had known him as a young man, and would
have bemused readers elsewhere, if the spumed ordination which he
claimed had inspired it was in fact nothing more than a ‘dramatic fiction’.

Ill

If scepticism about John’s youthful reminiscences seems ill-founded, we

must accept that in 371/2 a determined attempt was made by the church
authorities in Antioch to have him ordained. We must also accept, although
the fact has been generally ignored by historians, that his successful
resistance aroused widespread indignation and resentment. Quite soon,
probably, after this dramatic incident he took the decision, as he was to
recall about a decade later, 17 ‘to quit the city and make for the huts of the
monks’ ( tas skenas ton monachon ). Palladios, who must have obtained his
information from John, was more specific, reporting that when he was a
reader ‘he betook himself to the nearby mountains’, 18 i.e. to Mt Silpios. He
suggests that John had two motives. First, he had conscientious scruples
that the tasks he was undertaking in the city were not sufficiently demand-
ing; secondly, he was troubled by the difficulty he had in controlling his
burgeoning sexuality. The former must be set in the context of the severe
disruption caused to the orthodox community by Meletios’ enforced return

17
De compunctione 1.6 (PG 47.403): written 381/2 after his return to Antioch.
18
Dial. 5 (SC 341.108).
 3. Retreat to the Mountains 29

to exile in late 371. Several of his clergy seem to have left Antioch about
the same time; in 372, for example, we find that Diodore had joined the
bishop in Armenia. 19 If anything, the church desperately needed trained
manpower, but the leaders who remained may have had qualms about
asking the young reader who had recently rejected ordination to assume
additional responsibilities. The second is perhaps confirmed by John’s own
confession, in the closing pages of Priesthood, 20 that at this time he was still
the prey to ‘vicious passions’ {epithumiai atopoi)\ it was only his closeted
life and deliberate avoidance of, among other things, frequent meetings

with women that prevented them from erupting.

By themselves these two reasons provide a sufficient explanation of his
decision. He had been drawn, as we have seen, 21 to ‘the blessed life of
solitaries’ ever since leaving Libanios’ school; to migrate to the mountains
was a logical further step. But it is reasonable to surmise that there was
another, perhaps even more compelling reason for his withdrawal, which
Palladios as a hero-worshipper did not think it necessary to record. Al-
though he was confining himself, as he claimed in the vivid reminiscence
cited above, to a tiny room, making himself unsociable and avoiding
company as much as possible, his resolve to make a complete break with
the community in which his credit had sunk so low can be readily under-
stood.
Silpios was the obvious region for him to retreat to. Its north-eastern
slopes, with their barren cliffs of lime and chalk and the inhospitable
hinterland, had for some time been the favourite resort of religiously-
minded Antiochenes seeking escape to a more intense life of communion
with God. So numerous were they that the historian-theologian Theodoret,
a native of Antioch (b. c. 393) and later bishop of Kyrrhos, in north Syria,
an industrious chronicler of the heroes of Syrian asceticism, was to declare
that they had made the whole area as beautiful as a flower-decked
meadow. 22 Palladios, who had almost certainly gleaned his information
from John, reports that he there fell in with an elderly Syrian, an expert
in ascetic self-mastery, placed himself under his tutelage and spent the
next four years with him, struggling against the onset of sensual passions. 23
John himself, in the retrospective text already cited, gives a rare self-
deprecatory glimpse of the petty things he was tempted to fret about as he
embarked on his new life: 24 ‘I couldn’t stop fussing and trying to discover
where I’d get my supply of necessary items, whether I’d be able to eat fresh
bread each day and whether I’d be obliged to use the same oil for both my
lamp and my food, whether I’d have a wretched diet of lentils forced on me,

19
Cf. Basil ofCaesarea, Ep. 99.3 (ed. Y. Courtonne, 1, 217).
20
De sac.6.12 (SC 272.342-6).
21
See above, p. 16.
22
HE 4.28.3 (GCS 44.269).
23
Dial. 5 (SC 341.108-10).
24
De compunctione 1.6 (PG 47.403).
30 Golden Mouth

and be assigned some back-breaking task - being ordered, for example, to

dig, or carry logs or water, or perform all sorts of services of that kind. In
a word, my great worry was about the time that would be allowed me for
spiritual recreation’ ( anapausis ).

TV
So far as particular events or experiences are concerned, John’s life during
these four critical years (372-6) remains a complete blank to us, but we can
form a fairly clear, if general, picture of its pattern. It is sometimes assumed
that he spent them alone with his Syrian guru; after all, beyond remarking
that he modelled himself on the old man’s tough self-discipline, that is all
Palladios actually tells us. But his summary statement should not be taken
as necessarily complete. John’s own fragmentary reminiscence of his move
quoted above makes it plain that it was not to isolation but to some kind
of community. He speaks there of ‘the huts of the monks’, and implies that
there would be people who would assign him tasks and supervise his
behaviour. These hints are confirmed, and fleshed out with detail, by
several homilies which he was to preach in Antioch after his ordination in
386, and in which, with starry-eyed enthusiasm, he was to hold up the
monks settled on Silpios as an inspiring example to his worldly congrega-
tion. 25 His descriptions of their manner of life and their conduct are
uncritically eulogistic; he was recalling his own time spent among them
with affectionate nostalgia, and could not bring himself to admit that
human frailties could exist among such paragons. But his accounts of the
structures and routines of these settlements can be accepted as authentic
recollections of the one to which he himself had belonged during those four
years.
The picture he draws is of what was, in essence, a multiple hermitage,
with numerous small huts or cells grouped closely together. In a vivid image
he likens them to the serried tents of a military camp, with the difference
that there were no glittering spears with saffron mantles fastened to them
planted by the monks’ hovels. Each monk had his own hut assigned to him;
he remained in it alone throughout the night and much of the day. It seems
likely that John and his Syrian guide occupied adjacent cells. But while
each retained his independence in a way characteristic of Syrian monasti-
cism, the monks were far from being hermits or anchorites in the strict
sense. There were certain clearly defined communal arrangements to
which they were all expected to adhere. Thus before daybreak, so soon as
the cock crowed, their superior (proestos ) went his rounds and, with a light
touch of his foot, awakened the inmates of the huts. They all got up - no
need to dress, for sleeping naked was banned - and together, with arms

25
In Matt. hom. 55 5 - 6 68 3 - 5 69 3 - 4 70 5 72 3 - 4 In
.
;
.
;
.
;
.
;
.
;
1 Tim. hom. 14 3-6
. (. PG 58 545 - 50
.
;

643 - 8 651 - 4 660 - 2 670 - 4 PG 62 574 - 80 ).

; ; ; ;
.
 3. Retreat to the Mountains 31

upraised, chanted psalms of praise and gratitude to God. Their day was in
fact divided into four parts, and at the end of each they assembled to glorify
God in unison with psalm-singing (John uses the Greek terms for terce,
sext, nones and vespers). 26
After these acts of worship the monks returned each to his own cell to
study the scriptures, meditate on them and on God himself, or on the
contrast between the visible and the invisible world. The rule of silence was
strictly observed. But there were also practical tasks they took in hand —
digging the ground, watering and planting it, plaiting straw to make
baskets, weaving coarse cloth, copying books. The substantial profits they
made from this work they devoted to poor relief. There were also visitors
to be received and entertained. Their sole meal, taken by most (it would
seem) in common, came in the evening. Some took only bread and salt,
others added a little oil, the more enfeebled ate green vegetables (lachana)
and dried lentils (ospria ). Their clothing was equally simple, consisting for
the most part of goat-skins and camel-skins. In their cells they slept on
straw spread on the bare ground, but sometimes with no roof except the
sky above them.
Scholars have sometimes claimed that it was during his four years in
such a community that John wrote several of his ascetic treatises. 27 These
include A King and a Monk Compared and To Theodore When He Fell Away,
which we noticed in the last chapter, but also certain others at which we
shall glance in the next. As it happens, internal evidence makes it much
more plausible that these texts originated when John was in Antioch, in
direct contact with the individuals addressed or the problems treated. It is,
however, difficult, in the light of his fairly detailed descriptions of the
monastic routine, to find a place in it for such extensive literary activity; it
is even harder to picture him carrying it out in the tiny cell, lacking all but

the most basic facilities, which he must have occupied. Hardest of all,
perhaps, is it to envisage him being allowed to devote himself to such a
time-consuming, essentially private employment in a community in which
the tasks carried out by the members seem to have been largely shared.
One wonders whether those who attribute the composition of such lengthy
works to John’s monastic period have been led astray by the misleading
parallel of his contemporary Jerome, a very different, elitist figure, who
during part of this time was installed in his cave with his library at not far
distant Chalcis, and was able to keep on writing to his friends and studying
books to his heart’s content. 28
In fact, if we wish to form a realistic idea of how John and his fellow-
monks spent the greater part of their time, we should recall that the ideal
at which they aimed was to maintain, as far as possible, uninterrupted

26
In I Tim. hom. 14.4 ( PG 62.576D: trite, hekte, ennete, hesperinai euchai).
27
E.g. A. Moulard, Saint Jean Chrysostome (Paris 1949), 34-7.
28
J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome (London 1975), ch. vi.
32 Golden Mouth

communion with God. This ideal was well expressed in the counsel which
Eusebios, the early fifth-century leader of just such a community at
Koruphe, a cone-shaped mountain dominating the plain of Tell ‘Ade just
east of Antioch, gave to his disciples. ‘He exhorted them’, Theodoret records,
‘to keep up their converse with God uninterruptedly, without allowing a
single moment to be exempt from this activity. While they should carry out
the exercises prescribed by their rule, they should, during all the breaks
between these throughout the entire day, go each by himself, and under
the shade of a tree or beside a rock or wherever else he could find some
tranquillity, standing erect or lying on the ground, should pray to the
Master and implore him for salvation .’29 How far they succeeded in living
up to these high standards, no one can tell, but John shared them to the
full, claiming in one passage that the task of monks was that of Adam before
the Fall, to converse continually with God, with absolute frankness and a
conscience free from guilt 30 .

V
After four years of semi-communal monasticism John switched to a much
more rigorous, demanding programme. For this stage our sole informant
is Palladios, who relates that, when he had mastered his sensual passions,
‘not so much by strenuous self-discipline as by spiritual insight’, he went
off by himself to a cave in the mountain and lived there alone for ‘thrice
eight months, seeking complete escape from the world 31 He adds that he
’.

passed most of that long span without sleeping, learning the Old and New
Testaments by heart, and that for the entire two years he never lay down
by night or day. He was allowing himself, we may assume, only the most
meagre diet, with long spells of fasting. It is little wonder that, as a result
of his self-mortification, he severely damaged his health; as Palladios puts
it,‘his gastric regions were deadened, and the functions of his kidneys were
impaired by the intense cold’. For the rest of his life John was to suffer from
rushes of blood to the head, stomach trouble and insomnia, and to be
extremely sensitive to winter cold.
Scholars have sometimes speculated on what drove John to seek com-
plete isolation in this way. The fanciful theory has even been propounded
that he wanted to hide himself from leading Christians in the Antiochene
community who were still over-eager to recruit him for the ordained
ministry. There is, however, no need to hunt around for any other expla-
nation than the obvious one, his yearning for a less distracted, richer, ever
more continuous converse with God. We should note that among the
distinctive features of Syrian asceticism at this time was the conviction

29
Hist. phil. 4.5 (SC 234.300-2).
30
Horn in Matt. 68.2 (PG 58.643-4).
31
Dial. 5. (SC 341.110).
 3. Retreat to the Mountains 33

that the supreme perfection was to be found in the entirely secluded life;
‘it was the solitary virtuoso’, as a contemporary scholar has remarked, ‘who

dominated the scene’. 32 Even in the community in which John had spent
his first four years, we saw that each of the monks had his own cell, and
spent prolonged periods all alone in it. In fact, as another scholar has noted,
the communal monastery in fifth-century Syria could be regarded simply
as ‘a school for solitaries, the training ground in which the future champi-
ons of asceticism prepared themselves’. 33 Some of these Syriac monasteries
had ‘the curious custom of choosing out their more advanced members for
the life of complete seclusion, wholly consecrated to the things of God. These
were the monks of the first class, the authentic ones, the specialists in
mortification and continuous prayer, the only ones in whom writers of the
time like Theodoret were interested.’
So in withdrawing to his lonely cave, once he felt sure he had won control
of his physical nature, John was taking a step which contemporaries
accepted as natural for an advanced ascetic. Theodoret, who had studied
the behaviour, and indeed idiosyncrasies, of such heroes at first hand, has
a passage which provides an instructive commentary. 34 There are several
ladders, he remarked, by which aspirants to higher religion can ascend to
heaven. There are, of course, those who fight their battle in groups; they
win an incorruptible crown. ‘There are others, however, who embrace the
life of complete isolation and train themselves to hold converse all alone by

themselves with God. Cutting themselves off from all human consolation,
they in this way find themselves acclaimed as victors. Some of these live
in huts, others in wretched hovels, celebrating God’s praises. Others too
prefer to dwell in caverns or in holes in the rocks.’
The punishing regimen to which John, by Palladios’ account, subjected
himself while shut up in his cave, though striking modem students as
bizarre to the point of absurdity, was also entirely in keeping with every-
thing we know about the practices of Syrian solitaries of that period.
Denying oneself sleep, with its ‘most sweet tyranny^ was a highly prized
form of self-mortification among them. 35 Their supreme objective was, as
far as possible, to commune with God continually, and any practice or
indulgence that stood in the way of this was to be rigorously excluded. Thus
any device that reduced sleep, or made the short periods of inevitable rest
as uncomfortable as possible, was welcomed; the ideal, rarely of course
achieved, was complete sleeplessness. Similarly, the practice of continually
standing (technically known as stasis) was much in vogue in the second
half of the fourth and the first half of the fifth centuries. Several of the holy
men whose portraits figure in Theodoret’s gallery practised this for years

32
S. Brock, Syrian Perspectives in Late Antiquity (London 1984), 13.
33
G.M Colomb&s, El Monacato Primitivo I (Madrid 1974), 138.
34
Hist. rel. 27 (SC 257.216-18).
35
E.g. Theodoret, De caritate 3 (SC 257.262).
34 Golden Mouth

on end; in reporting on them he distinguished between those who stood

erect without interruption and the weaker spirits who divided the day
between standing and sitting. 36 According to some, the rationale of the
practice was that it was improper for the slave to lie down in the presence
of his master. How deeply entrenched it was is impressed on the traveller
today when, visiting the Syrian Orthodox abbey of Qartmin (still in use) in
the Tur Abdin region of south-east Turkey, he is shown a cell containing a
narrow alcove, as high as a man, which was carefully constructed in the
37
fifth or sixth century to assist a recluse to remain perpetually standing.
John had probably envisaged himself as glorifying God, like other
contemporary solitaries, in his lonely cell, perhaps also guiding others to
follow his example, for the rest of his life. But it was not so to be. When he
realised, Palladios reports, that the breakdown of his health made further
progress in self-mortification impracticable, he returned to the city. 38
Palladios does not conceal his satisfaction. It was the Saviour’s providence,
he claimed, which, exploiting his enfeebled condition for the benefit of the
church, obliged him to abandon his cave. We need not doubt that it was his
wretched state of health that prompted the move. It is likely, as we shall
see, 39 that pressures from outside helped to reinforce his decision, but
Palladios’ account provides a sufficient general explanation. A suggestion
which should be rejected is that, while ill health played its part, the real
reason for his return was disillusionment with the monastic life, the
conviction that he was cut out for active service to the church rather than
a purely contemplative role. 40 Such a view is impossible to reconcile with
the admiration he lavishes on monks not only in the homilies drawn on in
the previous section, which he preached after his ordination in 386, but in
such a work as Against the Enemies ofMonasticism 41 which he was to write,

shortly after settling again in Antioch. It is, perhaps, significant that the
advocates of this line tend to date this work, almost certainly mistakenly,
to the four years he spent in a monastic settlement.
The chief objection to their interpretation, however, is that it rests on a
misunderstanding of John’s conception of what being a monk entails. On
the one hand, he never seems to have wavered from the belief that monks,
whether living in community or as solitaries, are (perhaps he meant, have
the best chance of being) perfect Christians; as he repeatedly claimed, they
live the life of angels and as such are beacons to ordinary people. Not that
he viewed them as totally withdrawn from the world; just occasionally he
could express exasperation when a monk, asked to undertake some service

36
Theodoret, Hist, rel. 27 (SC 257.216-18).
37
See A. Palmer, Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier (Cambridge 1990), 98-9, where the
Syriac Life of Barsawmo is referred to for the rationale of the practice.
38
Dial. 5 (SC 341.110).
39
See below, p. 37.
40
E.g. A. Moulard, op. cit., 38f.
41
Adv. oppugnatores vitae monasticae ,
PG 47.349-86.
 3. Retreat to the Mountains 35

for the church, showed selfish concern that his ‘spiritual leisure’ might be
interrupted. 42 On the other hand, he was insistent that Christians in the
world should, as far as their circumstances allowed, accept exactly the same
standards of perfection as monks. Scripture, he pointed out, nowhere
mentions the expressions ‘living in the world’ ( biotikos ) and ‘monk’ {mon-
achos)\ the distinction was a purely human invention. The reason for this
is that Christ’s ‘great and marvellous precepts’, the ideals implied in the
Beatitudes and held up before men in the gospels, are addressed to all his
followers alike. Thus the monastic calling, in the wider sense, is just as
imperious an obligation, and just as practicable an option, in the crowded
city as in a cavern or on the mountainside. It is as much within the reach
of the married man, living with his wife and rearing children, as of the
single man, provided he conducts his relations with his wife becomingly. 43
John’s attitude, it is apparent, contained an ambiguity which he never
attempted to resolve. It meant, however, that when he left his cave and
resumed city life he did not conceive of himself as ceasing to be a monk. As
deacon, priest and bishop he not only remained a monk at heart (what, after
all, was a monk but a Christian striving to live out the gospel to the full?),

but continued, as far as his new situation permitted, to practise his routine
of monastic austerities - for example living alone as much as possible.
Consistently with this, he never hesitated as bishop, when the needs of the
church seemed to warrant it, to call monks from their seclusion and either
ordain them and associate them with his ministry or employ them as
missionaries. However romantically he could idealise monks in their se-
cluded retreats, he could never, with his wider understanding of the
monastic vocation, envisage them as standing apart from the church and
its predicaments. As he was to put it eloquently, ‘Nothing more truly
characterises the man who believes in and loves Christ than that he is
concerned for his brothers and exerts himself for their salvation. Let all the
monks who have withdrawn to the mountain peaks and have crucified
themselves to the world heed these words. Let them back up the church’s
leaders with all the powers at their command, encouraging them by their
prayers, their sympathy, their love. Let them realise that if, placed though
they are so far away, they fail to sustain with all their efforts those whom
God’s grace has exposed to such anxieties and dangers, their life has lost
all its point and their religious devotion has been shown up as useless.’ 44

42
De compunctions 1.16 ( PG 47.403).
43
Adv. oppugn, vitae mon. 3.14; In Matt. hom. 7.7; In Heb. horn. 7.4 (PG 47.373; 58.81f.;
63.67f.).
44
De incomp. 6.2f. (PG 48.752).
 4

Deacon and Pamphleteer

By the time John got back to Antioch, probably in the last quarter of 378,
momentous changes affecting the Christian population were under way in
the city as in the eastern empire generally. The death of Emperor Valens
in battle at Adrianople (9 August 378) signalled the collapse of his polity
of actively supporting a Homoean or even Arianizing interpretation of
Christianity, which had driven a wedge between the eastern and (pro-
Nicene) western parts of the empire. On hearing the news his 19-year-old
nephew Gratian, emperor in the west since 367 and an adherent of the
orthodox Nicene doctrine, immediately issued a decree from Sirmium
(Sremska Mitrovica, west of Belgrade) permitting the return of all exiled
bishops and proclaiming freedom of worship for all but a few extremist
sects. The brilliant general Theodosius, whom he then summoned from
1

retirement in Spain to lead an expedition against the Goths south of the

Danube, and whom after its signal success he promoted Augustus of the
east on 19 January 379, was an even more resolute upholder of the full
Nicene teaching. Through his influence Gratian’s edict of toleration was
replaced, on 3 August 379, by one outlawing all forms of heresy; 2 like
Constantine the Great, he believed that the emperor’s first duty was to
maintain the unity of the church. Then on 28 February 380 he decreed 3
that all his subjects should conform to the faith preached by St Peter to the
Romans and now taught by pope Damasus and by Peter of Alexandria (he
included Peter because it was with Alexandria among the eastern churches
that Rome customarily dealt), i.e. the belief in the one Godhead of three
co-equal persons subsisting in trinity. Anyone deviating from this was
branded as a heretic. He thus made plain his resolve to reorganise the
church in his realms on the basis of Nicene orthodoxy, and thereby re-
establish religious unity with the west.
Meanwhile Meletios, taking advantage of Gratian’s edict, had returned
to Antioch from his Armenian exile. The orthodox community, with the
exception of Paulinos’ tiny hard-line Nicene group, joyfully received him

1
Sokrates 5.2; Sozomen 7.1: referred to in CT 16.5.5.
2
CT 16.5.5.
3
CT 16.1.2.
 4. Deacon and Pamphleteer 37

back as their legitimate bishop, and the military commander Sapores,

imperial commissioner for church affairs, recognised him as such. It seems
likely that he also handed over the city churches to him, but it has been
argued that he must have waited until early 381, when an imperial rescript
specifically ordered the surrender of catholic churches everywhere to their
bishops. 4 Meletios met no opposition from Dorotheos, the Arian appointed
to succeed Euzoios as bishop in 376; he may have left the city when Valens
5

marched north against the Goths in 378. The elderly but intransigent
Paulinos presented greater difficulties, since he was the bishop recognised
by Rome and Alexandria. Meletios, however, was irenically disposed, and
after discussions they reached an agreement under which Paulinos recog-
nised him as bishop of the see while he himself retained the title as pastor
of his own church and congregation. It is inconceivable that the agreement,
which Paulinos had little option but to accept, included the right to the
succession in the event of Meletios predeceasing him, 6 although this com-
promise seems to have been canvassed in the west. 7 Meletios thus ended -
only temporarily, as it soon appeared - the Antiochene schism. For the
moment, however, he was establishing his leadership not only in Antioch
but throughout most of the east, where he was the outstanding orthodox
bishop since the death of Basil of Caesarea on 1 January 379. As such he
was increasingly trusted by Theodosius, and increasingly exerted an influ-
ence on his theological policies. When the great council which the emperor
summoned to Constantinople met in May 381, it was Meletios whom he
singled out, by the extraordinary deference with which he greeted him in
the presence of the assembled bishops, as his choice for its president. 8

II

John’s return to Antioch cannot have been long after Meletios’ arrival there
and reassumption of office. Although it was forced on him by the collapse
of his health, it would be unrealistic to exclude a connection between the
two events. It was clearly a major concern of Meletios to rebuild his
congregation, and church life in the Syrian capital generally, under a staff
of reliable clergy. There can have been few whom he was more eager to
recruit than his former trusted reader, notwithstanding his refusal to
accept ordination six years back. Once he had satisfied himself about John’s
motives for refusing, it is likely that he put pressure on him to exchange
active service in the city for a solitary life for which his physique made him
manifestly unsuited.

4
CT 16.5.6.
5
Sokrates 5.3; Sozomen 6.37.
6
So Sokrates 5.5; Sozomen 7.3.
7
Cf. Ambrose, Epp. 12.6; 13.2.
Theodoret, HE 5.7 (GCS 44.286-7).
8
38 Golden Mouth

These must remain tempting surmises. What is certain is that, once back
in Antioch, after a period(it need not have been prolonged) which we must

allow for the restoration of his health, John resumed his old position as a
reader in Meletios’ entourage. From that moment until early 386, some
eight years later, we can trace with confidence the broad outline of his
career, but have practically no detailed facts or events, apart from his
literary activities, with which to fill it. The cardinal points we can be sure
of are these. First, he continued as a reader for two years after his return.
Reporting this, Palladios chooses his words with care: ‘He assisted at the
altar for three more years, in addition to the three’, 9 i.e. the three prior to
his retreat to the mountains. Secondly, he was then ordained by Meletios
to the diaconate, 10 the rank in the Christian ministry immediately below
the priesthood. Assuming the accuracy of the figures, we can date this
advancement to the closing months of 380, more probably to the opening
weeks of 381. It cannot have been later, for by the end of January or very
soon thereafter Meletios was in Constantinople; 11 he wished to be at the
emperor’s right hand as preparations went ahead for the council, over
which he was to preside and at which he was to die without ever setting
eyes on either Antioch or John again. Finally, five years later, probably in
the opening weeks of 386, 12 he was to be ordained priest by Flavian, who
as layman and priest has already appeared in these pages, 13 and whom, on
the unexpected death of Meletios, the council, to the distress of its new
president Gregory of Nazianzos, now bishop of Constantinople, had ap-
pointed bishop of Antioch. Gregory had pleaded that there should be no
election but that the succession be allowed to pass to Paulinos; such a
gesture would have gratified the west, and abolished the Antiochene
schism once and for all. But the bishops, all of them orientals, were
determined to make no concessions to Rome, always indifferent to the
needs of the east, and its uncompromising protege Paulinos. The result was
that Rome refused to recognise Flavian and excommunicated his
consecrators, and the division at Antioch was renewed with enhanced
bitterness. 14
Meletios’ death must have been a personal blow to John; in later
addresses he was more than once to give vivid expression to his admiration
for him. As a deacon he is likely to have taken a modest part in the
extraordinary solemnities accompanying the interment of the bishop’s
remains, brought back by ship from Constantinople, alongside those of
Babylas in the new martyrion which he had helped to build with his own

9
Dial. 5 (SC 341.110).
10
Palladios, loc. cit.
11
See A.M. Ritter, Das Konzil von Konstantinopel und sein Symbol (Gottingen 1965), 35.
12
For the date see Baur, 1.180.
13
See above, pp. 11 and 18.
14
Sozomen 7.11.
 4. Deacon and Pamphleteer 39

hands for his venerated predecessor .

15
It was under Flavian, however, with
whom his relations were to be exceptionally warm, that he was to serve the
remaining years of his diaconate. With the other deacons (there were
usually seven assisting a bishop, but we cannot be sure of the number at
Antioch) he now had a prominent role at divine service, reciting for example
the intercessory prayers, but also seeing that the unbaptised left the church
before the central part of the mass. The deacons were also expected to
exclude unsuitable persons (e.g. flagrant sinners) from the holy table, and
John himself clearly attached importance to this task. ‘If a general, a
consul, even he who wears the imperial diadem comes forward unworthily,’
he later advised deacons, ‘you must stop him; your authority is greater than
his .’ 16
While deacons were not allowed to preach, they assisted with the
instruction of catechumens, and had a role in the baptismal service. But
most of their real work lay outside the sanctuary. Closely attached to the
bishop’s person, they were expected to help him in all aspects of his pastoral
work, to be (as an ancient collection of church law expresses it ) 17 ‘his ear,
his mouth, his heart, his soul’. In particular, they acted for him in looking
after the poor, the sick and mentally deranged (‘demoniacs’), widows and
orphans, Christians who might be in prison. In the second half of the fourth
century this had become an enormous responsibility. A few years later,
when the position had probably not altered greatly, John was to claim that,
while the church in Antioch had an income ‘not exceeding that of one very
rich man and one very moderately wealthy man’, it had to maintain
upwards of three thousand widows and virgins, not to mention a host of
prisoners in gaol, people who were sick or in hospital, others who were
impoverished or maimed, others still who crouched by the altar in desper-
ate need of food and clothing 18 It is sometimes stated that the management
.

of the church’s property, including its cemeteries, was a further burden

shouldered by the deacons, but in John’s time, as his own language makes
plain, this was in the main administered at Antioch (in contrast, for
example, to Rome) by the priests 19 .

These generalities help us to form some idea of John’s day-to-day

activities as a deacon during these years; in his contemporary writings we
can catch occasional glimpses of him dealing with a particular situation or
individual. In one passage, for example, he recalls how he had succeeded
in persuading a teenager, the son of a father who wanted him to join up as
a soldier and a devout mother who longed to see him a monk, to return from
the monastic settlements on Mt Silpios and practise asceticism unostenta-
tiously at home, thereby avoiding a family crisis which might have had

15
Sozomen 7.10: also In Bab. horn. 3 (PG 49.533).
16
In Matt. horn. 82.6 (PG 58.744).
17
Apostolic Constitutions 11.44 (F.X. Funk, 1.139).
18
In Matt. horn. 66.3 (PG 58.630).
19
E.g. In Matt. horn. 85.3 (PG 58.762).
40 Golden Mouth

drastic repercussions on the whole ascetic community as well as himself. 20

(The story, incidentally, shows the lad acting out one of those ‘well-
intentioned deceptions’ of which, as we have seen, 21 John approved.) In
another, trying to reconcile a young man who has become a victim to
epilepsy to his lot, he begs him to reflect on the much more appalling
sufferings of a couple of people whom he names, and whose condition he
describes in realistic detail. 22 The case of the one, an old man who has been
afflicted for fifteen years, is all the more pitiful because he has a clear
perception of his plight, that of the other because all his friends have ceased
calling on him because of the stench of his room. Alternatively, he should
visit the local hospital and then the prison, with their miserable inmates,
or go to the public baths and observe the half-naked, diseased wretches
clustering around the entrances, with only dung and straw for shelter, their
bodies shivering with cold and their teeth chattering as they try to move
passers-by to pity. It would be even more effective for him to call at the
poor-house outside the walls, and see men and women wasting away with
agonising, incurable diseases like elephantiasis and cancer, who because
of them are prohibited from entering the city and denied access even to
washing facilities and other basic necessities.
John’s descriptions are so personal, etched with such precision and
poignant detail, that they are clearly not the colourful flourishes of a
rhetorician, but snapshots of actual human beings in their humiliation and
agony. They reflect his compassionate impressions as he went his rounds.

m
Though not yet John from wielding
licensed to preach, nothing prevented
his pen as an author. even possible that the desire to enlist his
It is
assistance in that capacity was one of Meletios’ reasons for wanting him
back in the capital. In fact, we have a sizeable collection of pamphlets,
letters and essays which, although their individual dates cannot usually
be fixed with precision, almost certainly belong to the period between his
return and his ordination as priest in 386. Though commonly classified as
his ascetic works, they cover quite a variety of topics, including the
problems of marriage and of human suffering, and anti-pagan polemics.
They are all written with consummate rhetorical artifice, reminding us that
he was still, and would always remain, under the influence of the professor
on whom he had scornfully turned his back. A review of them, however
cursory, is demanded not only because they form an important part of his
literary legacy, but because they throw light on his state of mind and his
understanding of Christianity at this critical stage of his development.

20
Adv. oppugn, vitae mon. 3.12 (PG 47.368-76).
21
See above p. 26.
22
Ad Stagirium ascetam a daemone vexatum 3.12f. ( PG 47.489-91).
 4. Deacon and Pamphleteer 41

Let us start with two apologies, the first of which has the clumsy title St
Baby las, in Refutation of Julian and the Pagans Its theme, developed
with bravura and sometimes tedious repetitiveness, is the assertion that
the source of Christianity’s victory over paganism is the power of Christ,
which is just as visible today as when he was alive on earth. For evidence
John points to the remains of Babylas, the defiant bishop of Antioch
martyred c. 250, which, when translated from the old city cemetery to the
garden suburb of Daphne, had first caused licence and frivolity to cease
there, then reduced the nearby oracle of Apollo to silence, and finally, when
returned by the outraged emperor Julian to their former resting-place, had
struck back by making the god’s famous temple go up in flames and by
destroying his great chryselephantine statue. 24 The discourse contains
vivid descriptions of Babylas’ heroism and brutal execution, gloats over the
weakness of Apollo when faced with the martyr’s invincible power, up-
braids Julian for sacrilege in daring to move his holy body and derisively
tears to pieces the lament which Libanios (a sincere pagan who felt
genuinely shattered by the event) had composed for the destruction of the
temple. A problem which evidently worried thoughtful Christians, why
Julian had not been immediately struck down by the divine wrath, is
answered by reminding them that God is always merciful, allows time for
a change of heart, but if it fails to come punishes ruthlessly. The message
hammered home is that pagans should be persuaded, by the contrast
between the laughable ineffectiveness of the old gods and the extraordinary
miracles which Christ continues to work through his saints, to transfer
their allegiance to him.
Meletios, we know, had a deep veneration for his predecessor Babylas,
and was already planning the construction of a magnificent new shrine for
his remains on the north side of the Orontes. It is likely that he commis-
sioned John to prepare the discourse as part of a campaign to promote a
reinvigorated orthodoxy drawing inspiration from the local hero. Since it
contains no hint of the projected shrine, work on which must have begun
later in the year, we can safely date it to the early months of 379. John’s
claim to be writing in the twentieth year after the burning of Apollo’s
temple can be explained by his inveterate habit of rounding off numbers. 25
Older doubts about its authenticity, based mainly on its supposed stylistic
inferiority to John’s acknowledged writings, have been convincingly dis-
proved. 26 As it stands the treatise provides indirect evidence of the strength
of the pagan minority in Antioch in the late 370s. Only the tension between
it and the Christians can explain, for example, John’s intemperate on-

23
De s. Babyla c. lulianum et Gentiles [PG 50.533.572): critical edition by M. Schatkin, SC
(

362 (Paris 1990).

24
See above, p.9.
25
For this habit, with examples, see C. Baur, ZKTh 52 (1928), 404 n. 5.
26
See M. Schatkin’s article in Kyriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten (Munster 1970),
1,474-89.
42 Golden Mouth

slaught on his old professor Libanios, who was still alive and in the city.
For all mockery and scornful assumption that paganism had been
his
finally defeated, it is evident that its momentary resurgence under Julian
still fills him with anxiety.
The second apology, Christ's Divinity Proved against Jews and Pagans 27 ,

is rather shorter. As it has come down, its argument is directed exclusively

against pagans; it is clear, from occasional remarks he makes, that John
intended a section specifically aimed at Jewish critics, but he never seems
to have completed it. We have no firm clues to its date, for the juxtaposed
statements 28 that Julian belongs to ‘our generation’ and that more than
four hundred years have elapsed since the Temple at Jerusalem was
destroyed (AD 70) suggest that John was being more than usually reckless
with figures. But its resemblance to Babylas both in style and in certain
themes points to a date not long after it, perhaps early in John’s diaconate. 29
Better planned and much less diffuse than its sister work, it contains
passages of splendid eloquence, and like Babylas witnesses to the contin-
ued vitality of the conflict between Christianity and paganism. The argu-
ment is also interesting, for John disclaims any intention of appealing to
Christ’s role in creation or to the miracles he worked in his lifetime; he
admits that, if he did, educated pagans would dismiss his claims with
incredulity. Instead, as in Babylas he asserts that the source of Christian-
,

ity’s victory over paganismand Hellenic culture generally, as over Judaism,

is the active power of Christ. That this power is divine, he argues, is
convincingly shown as much in the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophe-
cies as in that of Christ’s own predictions that nothing would ever prevail
against his church and that the Jewish Temple would be utterly destroyed.
The spread of the church and its growing strength are evident for all to see,
as is the desolation of the Temple at Jerusalem. The reflective pagan can
only conclude that, if Christ were not God, if he were not a mighty God, it
is inexplicable that his worshippers, in spite of being harried so cruelly,
should have increased to such a multitude, and that the Jews who insulted
and crucified him should have been so completely humbled. 30

IV
Two Heart and To Stageirios 32 which are best
treatises, Contrition of 31
,

classified as pastoral, bring us close to the heart of John’s understanding

of Christian commitment. The former looks back, perhaps with just a hint
of disenchantment, to his recent sojourn with the monks, while in the latter,

27
Adv. ludaeos et Gentiles demonstratio quod Christus sit deus ( PG 48.813-38).
28
Cap. 16 (PG 48.835).
29
Cf. A. Lukyn Williams, Adversus ludaeos (Cambridge 1935), 136.
30
Dem. 17 (PG 48.838).
31
De compunctione ( PG 47.393-432).
32
Ad Stag. (PG 47.423-94).
 4. Deacon and Pamphleteer 43
33
which Sokrates attributes to his diaconate, he admits to being confined
to hishome. It therefore seems probably that he wrote both as a young
deacon.
The theme of Contrition developed with eloquence and pathos in two
,

complementary books, is the Christian’s need of a humble and penitent

heart, constantly aware of his sins and of the terrible judgment awaiting
him, sustained always by a burning love for Christ. One by one John
analyses the gospel commands - commands which, he insists (somewhat
unconvincingly), are not really onerous - and remorselessly lays bare the
way Christians whittle them down, observe them in a purely external
sense, or quite frankly ignore them. The trouble is that they are still victims
of pride and complacency, taken up wholly with worldly satisfactions.
Businessmen go to endless trouble to make material gains, but Christians,
to whom heaven is promised, are reluctant to make any sacrifices to obtain
it. This applies just as much to clergy and monks as to lay folk. An informed

outsider could be excused if he concluded that Christ has no more deter-

mined enemies than his so-called ‘crucified’ disciples. What Christians need
is the true contrition which gives wings to the soul. Like Paul, they should
be fired by the passionate yearning for Christ which raised him to the third
heaven. Like David, they should humble themselves in tears and throw
themselves penitently on God’s mercy. 34
John’s pleadings are remarkable for the uncompromising, almost fanati-
cal note which runs through them. He was already, and for the rest of his
career was to remain, scornfully impatient of anything less than total
commitment to the gospel. The second treatise, a work of extraordinary
diffuseness in three books, deals with the problem of personal suffering. It
was addressed to Stageirios, a young friend of John’s who, after becoming
a monk (a noticeably slack one, always boasting of his upper-class back-
ground), had suffered an alarming epileptic seizure - possession by a
demon, as people in those days assumed. 35 His condition, with all its
distressing symptoms of convulsions, 36 foaming at the mouth, and falling to
the ground, had proved incurable, in spite of his consulting an exceptionally
holy exorcist and praying at renowned martyrs’ shrines. The despairing
man was driven to question God’s providence, even to consider suicide.
Nothing like this had happened to him during his earlier playboy existence;
friends of his, leading indulgent lives, who had been similarly afflicted had
been quickly, and permanently, cured. What made things worse was the
fear that, if his rich, truculent father discovered the plight he was in (his
mother had so far managed to conceal it), he would vent his indignation on
the monastic community. Little wonder that he was utterly dejected, and

“as.
34
De comp. 2.2-3 PG 47.413-15).
(
35
See, e.g., RAC 5.830f.
36
For a remarkable description, see 1.1 ( PG 47.426 ad fin.).
44 Golden Mouth

that John wrote to him (he could not visit him, being obliged by a splitting
headache to remain at home) to console him and help him to see his
misfortunes in perspective.
His opening remarks must have given the sufferer a jolt. Stageirios’
troubles, he said, were certainly calculated to disturb the mind, but only a
mind ‘that is slack, uninstructed, and indolent 37 He then launched out on ’.

an immense examination of the divine purpose in adversity, urging

Stageirios to recognise the loving hand of providence in his trials. The
onslaughts of his demon cannot really harm him if he bears them in a spirit
of penitence; God indeed permits them so as to give men an opportunity to
do better, also to lighten their burden of punishment in the next world. By
all accounts there has already been a significant improvement in
Stageirios’ whole demeanour and ascetic commitment 38 A sovereign rem- .

edy for his depression is to reflect on the famous figures of the bible, who
all had to put up with afflictions far worse than his and from those
sufferings won the privilege of free access to God 39 As for Stageirios .

himself, his depression results from his assessing his condition by worldly
standards and not by sound reasoning. When his epilepsy throws him to
the ground in full view of his comrades, he blushes with shame; but the
only fall which should make a man ashamed is falling into sin. The true
victim of demonic possession is not the epileptic who bears his lot wdth
Christian dignity; it is the man addicted to sensuality, greed, envy and the
40
rest .

Throughout, John’s teaching is that suffering such as Stageirios’ is not

an evil God’s providential chastisement, intended to bring out
in itself; it is

the best in him, or even to help him expiate his sins in this world. ‘The time
for depression is not when we suffer adversity, but when we commit what
is wrong ... It is our sins which separate God from us and make him our
enemy, while the punishments he inflicts reconcile him to us, and cause
him to be merciful and come close to us .’41 Some of John’s themes, such as
his suggestion of the redemptive effects of suffering, are patently Christian.
But it can hardly escape notice that others, e.g. his pleas that things which
are commonly reckoned evil are not really such, or that a man’s only
experience of genuine evil is when he chooses to do wrong, are not so much
Christian as Stoic in inspiration. This is scarcely surprising, for his think-
ing (as is now widely recognised ), 42 like that of other Christian writers of
his time and earlier, was steeped in the popular Stoicism which pervaded
the culture in which he, and they, had been brought up.

37
Ad Stag. 1.1 (PG 47.426).
38
1.10; 2.1 ( PG 47.447f.; 449f.).
39
For the expression see Ad Stag. 2.5 ad init. (PG 47.454).
40
Ad Stag. 2.2-3 (PG 47.450-1).
41
Ad Stag. 3.14 (PG 47.491-4).
42
See, e.g., M. Spanneut, art. ‘Epiktet’, RAC 5.599-681.
 4. Deacon and Pamphleteer 45

V
We now come with celibacy, marriage, and
to three pieces concerned
sexuality generally. The longest and most comprehensive is the treatise
Virginity The ideal of virginity it presents and its rather extreme treat-
ment of the subject link it with other ascetic works which John produced
shortly after his return from the mountain, and suggest a date around
381/2. It was addressed, apparently, to women who had already embraced
the virgin state. Its aim was to demolish the doubts of critics of virginity
by highlighting its special dignity ( axioma ), and to impress on dedicated
virgins both its demands and its signal rewards. The modem reader44
should recall that in the fourth century, with the ascetic movement in full
swing, countless earnest Christians felt themselves called to a life of
complete abstinence from sex, sometimes in community but as often as not
without separating themselves from society. They found inspiration in, for
example, Jesus’ commendation (Matt. 19.12) of those who renounced sexual
activity for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, and in St Paul’s remark (1
Cor. 7.7) that he wished everyone could remain unmarried like himself. For
decades virginity had been a popular theme with preachers and pamphlet-
eers, and it was natural that John, a committed celibate himself, should
seek to encourage others to walk the same austere path.
He starts off with an attack on extremists who reject marriage altogether
- a pre-emptive strike intended to parry possible accusations of being an
extremist himself. They show, he argues, a Manichaean contempt for the
natural order created by God, and by downgrading marriage diminish the
achievement of those who choose celibacy as the nobler way. 45 He then
moves to a sustained eulogy of virginity itself, defining it as more than
abstinence from sex: it involves also purity of soul and consecration to
Christ. He is aware of its difficulties: ‘One must walk on burning coals
without being scorched, on a naked sword without being wounded, since
lust is as overpowering as fire and steel.’ 46 But these can be overcome, and
the rewards it bestows are beyond price, here serenity of soul and continual
converse with God, 47 hereafter the blessedness of the elect. In a word, it
transforms human beings into angels, among whom there is no marriage
(Matt. 22.30). 48 By contrast, the best he can say of marriage is that it is,
‘for those who choose to use it rightly, a haven of chastity, preventing
human nature from relapsing into bestiality. John’s frank advice to those

43
De virginitate: PG 48.533-96:
crit. ed. by H. Musurillo and B. Grillet, SC 125 (Paris 1966),
where the date are fully treated.
etc.
44
See above all P. Brown’s penetrating and wide-ranging study, The Body and Society
(London 1989), which only came to the writer’s notice after he had drafted these sections.
45
Devirg. 8(114-18).
46
Devirg 27.1
. (176-8).
47
Devirg. 68.1 (338).
48
Devirg. 11.1(126).
46 Golden Mouth
who can curb their sensuality by spiritual discipline is not to marry at all. 49
He reels off a formidable (but, for a fourth-century rhetorician, fairly
conventional) catalogue of the discomforts inseparable from marriage,
rangingfrom petty jealousies to the pains of childbirth, all of which distract
a man and his wife from heavenly things. 50 They are far worse than any
trials a virgin has to face - trials which, in fact, bring her joy since she
endures them for Christ. The truth is, marriage was no part of the original
divine intention. Sexuality had no place in Paradise, but came into its own
after the Fall, when God ordained marriage for the continuation of the race
and as a brake on incontinence. 51
Some two-thirds of Virginity is an extended commentary on St Paul’s
well-known discussion of sexual matters in 1 Cor. 7, but it is noticeable
that, wherever possible, John seeks to play down any expression of the
Apostle’s which presents marriage in an indulgent light. For example, he
grudgingly accepts his suggestion (1 Cor. 7.16) that a wife may be able to
save her husband, 52 but points out that the very form of his question implies
that the possibility is a remote one; in any case it is one not likely to be
achieved by their having intercourse. Again, he perversely interprets St
Paul’s advice to spouses (1 Cor. 7.5) not to abstain from intercourse except
as a temporary measure as a covert encouragement to continence. 53 One
would not expect a positive evaluation of sexuality from a Christian writer
of this period, but the view John takes here (he was to modify it somewhat
in later pronouncements) is almost wholly negative. It is noticeable that,
while relying so heavily on St Paul, he nowhere in this work appeals to the
famous passage in Ephesians (5.21-31) in which the union of man and wife
is compared to that between Christ and the church. An equally negative
feature of the pamphlet is the disparaging view of women which it takes.
Itwas woman, John argues, who, in the person of Eve, subjected man to
death, and women who were the undoing of Old Testament heroes like
Samson and Solomon. 54 Woman, he agrees, was created to be man’s helper
(Gen. 2.18), and she still fulfils that role in bearing children and satisfying
his sexual desires. But when it comes to serious things, she is only a
hindrance. 55
To a Young Widow and Single Marriage can be treated more briefly. 56
Linked together in the manuscript tradition, the latter used to be regarded
as the sequel to the former, but they are distinct in genre and circumstance.

49
De virg. 9.1 (120).
50
De virg. 51-72.
51
Devirg. 14-15(136-48).
52
De virg. 47.1-2 (262-4).
53
De virg. 29 (184-8).
54
De virg. 46.2 (258).
55
46.5 (262).
56
Ad viduam iuniorem and De non iterando coniugio: PG 48.599-610; 609-20: critical edition
by B. Grillet and G. Ettlinger, SC 138 (Paris 1966).
 4. Deacon and Pamphleteer 47

The former is a letter written to comfort a lady of rank suddenly bereaved

of her husband Therasios, a young soldier with brilliant prospects. It can
with confidence be dated 380/1 since it mentions the desperate campaign
of the recently crowned (379) emperor Theodosius against the invading
Goths, but not his crushing defeat of them in 382. 57 The latter is a treatise
for young widows in general, didactic in tone and devoid of personal
allusions. It seems later than and complementary to Virginity to which it
,

makes a passing reference. 58 and may perhaps be dated c. 382. Both alike
deal with the specifically Christian problem of the remarriage of widows.
In pagan society, while widowhood enjoyed respect, remarriage was ac-
cepted as normal, and was strongly encouraged by Roman law. In the
gospels there is not a word against it, but St Paul (1 Cor. 7.30), while
approving provided the new partner is a Christian, suggests that the
it

widow would be happier if she stays as she is. Later epistles attributed to
him advise younger widows to remarry (1 Tim. 5.14) but forbid clergy and
widows on the official list to do so (1 Tim. 3.2; 12; 5.9), presumably because
it indicates a sensual propensity. These rigorist hints were eagerly taken

up by the early church, and by the fourth century all serious Christian
thinkers in the east deplored second marriages as a carnally inspired
deviation from the Christian ideal.
The letter falls into the rhetorical category of consolatio or logos para-
muthetikos much cultivated in antiquity, which combined eulogies of the
,

deceased with stock arguments intended to help the bereaved to bear their
loss. John tries his hand at it here with the skill of an expert, but also, since
he knew the couple personally, with occasional touches of real feeling. For
example, after evoking the horror and anxiety with which the massacres
being carried out by the Goths in nearby Thrace had filled the capital, he
reminds his correspondent of the numberless other young women whose
husbands have been cut down in battle and who have never seen their
bodies again. 59 She at least has watched over Therasios in his illness, has
listened to his last words, has been able to kiss his eyes when he lay dead,
and has shed tears at his grave. The treatise, on the other hand, with its
artifices of style, its recourse to fictitious dialogue and its dramatic inter-
rogations, belongs to the rhetorical genre known as enkomion, and lacks
any personal note.
While each has distinct emphases, the theme of both is identical, the
praise of the widow who rejects the temptation to marry again. In both the
excesses of language and argument noticeable in Virginity are absent, and
the disparagement of sexuality is toned down; their common teaching is
that widowhood is as much superior to a second marriage as virginity is to
marriage. In the letter the positive aspects of widowhood are brought out.

57
Ad uid. iun. 4 (SC 138.138-40).
58
De non iter, coniug. 1 (SC 138.166).
59
Ad vid. iun. 4-5 (SC 138.132-44).
48 Golden Mouth

For example, the true widow is joined in holy union with Christ; 60 if she
perseveres, she will be reunited with her husband, not for a short time but
for endless ages, not in a union of mortal bodies but of bodies glorified as
the faces of Moses (Ex. 34.29) and of Christ himself (Matt. 17.2) were once
transfigured with light. 61 The treatise, in its more formal way concedes the
legitimacy of a second marriage since St Paul himself expressly allowed it,
but argues that it is a sign, not indeed of licentiousness ( aselgeia ), but of a
weak, sensual spirit unable to rise above the earthly. 62 It is a sophism to
claim that, since marriage is a good thing, it must be good to remarry if
one’s husband dies. The essence of marriage consists, not in physical union
(if it did, fornication would count as marriage), but in a woman being

content with one man, a conjugal bond in virtue of which the two become
‘one flesh’ (Matt. 19.5). This means that, if a widow admits another man to
her house, she is not indeed guilty of fornication, but both her original
husband and her new one are ‘deprived of the esteem and affection due
from a wife to her husband’. 63 John was evidently troubled by St Paul’s wish
(1 Tim. 5.14) that younger widows should marry and bear children, but
extricated himself from the difficulty by pleading, somewhat speciously,
that the widows the Apostle was addressing were only weak-willed ones
with sensual proclivities. 64 Such second marriages, he held, were a conces-
sion to human frailty, not to be condemned, but certainly not to be
applauded. By contrast, the young widows who win God’s approval are
those who are resolved to remain such and who, detaching themselves from
earthly interests, embrace the angelic existence appropriate to those who
have Christ himself as their bridegroom. 65

VI
We should also, notwithstanding Palladios’ dating them to the start of his
episcopate, 66 assign to John’s diaconate two associated treatises, 67 one
addressed to men and the other to women, denouncing the cohabitation of
monks and virgins. Constantinople is ruled out by John’s disclaimer 68 in
the former of episcopal rank (he is not a spiritual judge but just a doctor

60
Ad vid. iun. 2(SC 138.122).
61
Ad vid. iun. 3(SC 138.128-30).
62
De non iterando 2 (SC 138.168).
63
De non iterando 2 (SC 138.168-70).
64
De non iterando 3 (SC 138.176-8).
65
De non iterando 6 (SC 198-200).
66
Dial. 5 (SC 341.118).
67
habent virgines and Quod regulares viris cohabitare non debeant
C. eos qui subintroductas
(PG 47.495-514; 514-52):ed. by J. Dumortier, Jean Chrysostome: les cohabitations
crit.
suspectes (Paris 1955). For their date see J. Dumortier, MSR 6 (1949), 247-52. See also the
valuable analysis by E.A. Clark in Church History 46 (1977). 171-85.
68
C. eos 2 (PG 47.496).
 4. Deacon and Pamphleteer 49
69
offering advice), by a reference to monks loaded with chains making for
the mountain peaks (a spectacle foreign to the capital but familiar at
Antioch), and by the fact that his strictures are not addressed specifically
70
to clergy (as Palladios states) but more generally to monks. The case for
Antioch, however, is clinched by Jerome’s famous Letter 22 (‘On Preserving
Virginity) to his protegee Eustochium. Not only is its title borrowed from
that of John’s second treatise, which was originally named ‘How to Preserve
Virginity’, 71 but it contains 72 a scarcely veiled criticism of John’s extrava-
gant ranking, in that treatise, of the faithful virgin with the Cherubim and
Seraphim. 73 Jerome, we should note, hounded from his desert retreat, was
at Antioch from 376/7 to 380, 74 staying probably with his friend and patron
Evagrios, and like him an adherent of Paulinos’ little sect and an ardent
opponent of Meletios. It was probably from Evagrios or other friends that,
settled in Rome, he obtained information about John’s two pamphlets. 75 As
his letter to Eustochium was composed in spring 384, we can safely date
these to 382/383.
The living together in ‘spiritual marriage’ of men and women vowed to
abstention from sex had had a long history in the church. We already come
across it at Corinth among the Christians whose sexual problems Paul
addressed in 1 Cor. 7.25-38 (John, we note, did not interpret the passage
in this sense, although his older contemporary Ephraem did). 76 The practice
was much in vogue among earnest Christians in the fourth century, and
while enthusiasm for virginity was ostensibly the prime motive, it also had
practical advantages. A woman who had opted for virginity while still living
in the world (there were as yet no convents for women) might, if she had
no male relatives to whom to turn, need someone to look after her financial
affairs and otherwise act as her protector. Who more suitable than a
‘brother’ likewise dedicated to celibacy? Similarly a monk who had not
withdrawn to a monastery might need a housekeeper, someone to prepare
his food, wash his clothes and so on. (A surprisingly high proportion of the
zealous Christians we know about in that period belonged to the very
affluent class, and were accustomed to lavish domestic service.) An obvious
candidate for the role was a woman vowed to virginity. Such menages,
based on a convergence of needs as well as on a common spiritual ideal,
were apparently as numerous at Antioch as at other Christian centres. The

69
C. eos 5 ( PG 47.501).
70
C. eos 9 (PG 47.508:
cf. andros monazontos).
71
See J. Dumortier, art. cit., 250 n.3.
72
Ep. 22.2 ( CSEL 54.146).
73
Quod regul. 6 (PG 47.527).
74
J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome (London 1975), 75-8.
75
He cannot have received copies of them, for in 393 he was to claim (De vir. ill. 129) that,
while John was said to have several works to his credit, the only one he had read was
Priesthood. See below, p. 83.
76
S. Ephraemi Syri Commentarii in Epistulas Divi Pauli (Latin translation from' Armenian:
Venice 1893), 62.
50 Golden Mouth

officialchurch, however, had quickly come to frown on them, and a whole

series of synods had legislated against them. The council of Nicaea (325),
for example, had, in its third canon, specifically forbidden a cleric of
whatever rank to have any woman other than his mother, sister, aunt or
someone equally above suspicion, resident with him.
At Antioch it was a question, apparently, of lay folk sharing house, and
the church authorities must have decided that it was time to intervene. It
was with their encouragement, probably, that, in these two skilfully argued
tracts (they are in effect one), John weighed in against the practice, calling
on supposedly consecrated men and women to abandon what he assured
them was a morally dangerous mode of life, one which moreover was bound
to expose them to misunderstanding and even ridicule. He wrote with a
mixture of friendly appeal, brutal realism and stinging sarcasm. His main
argument is that for two people of different sex to continue living together,
under the same roof and in such close personal relations, is humanly
impossible without succumbing to sexual passion and so compromising
their vocation. Even if physical intercourse is avoided, which John seems
prepared to concede, cohabiting without it only leads to a state of perma-
nent sexual arousal. Weaker brethren are thus imperilled, and scandal
damaging to the community is inescapable. Characteristically, he is most
severe to the female partners. Called to be brides of Christ, they move about
among their men folk with alluring walks and seductive glances more
appropriate to courtesans. Their virginity is only nominal; their bodies may
remain physically intact, but both they and their male companions are
guilty of sexual sin in their hearts. 77 He is dismissive of the pretexts
advanced to justify these spiritual unions. If a monk really needs help with
household tasks, a fellow-monk would be preferable to a virgin, and would
raise none of the embarrassing problems she inevitably does. On the other
hand, a well-off woman requiring advice and assistance with her business
affairs would do better to marry than put herself under the protection of a
monk, who so far from playing the part of her banker ought to be counselling
her to scorn riches and embrace poverty. If the man pleads that it is a poor
woman he is succouring, there are plenty of elderly or maimed women
around to whom he should be giving shelter rather than chasing the pretty
young ones. 78
John’s scorn, and also his disparagement of the female sex, come out
most vividly in some of the derisive cameos he sketches. One is of the monk,
supposedly an athlete of Christ and bearing his cross, who spends his time
in trivial womanish chatter with his partner, running errands to the
jewellery or perfumery shops for her, with her sandals, girdles and hair-
nets hanging for all to see in his house. He has become her eunuch (John

77
See esp. Quod regul. 1 and 3 (PG 47.515; 519-20).
78
C. eos 6-7 (PG 47.502-5).
 4. Deacon and Pamphleteer 51

is an maneless lion. 79
incorrigible sexist), or (to vary the image) a toothless,
In another he expatiates on the embarrassing encounters, during the night
or the early morning, when they cross from one room to the other (it is likely
that the man sleeps naked), or again when the monk visits the virgin when
she is sick and, getting in ahead of female servants, performs services for
her which only women can decently carry out. ‘These may be small things,
but they bring to birth big coals of lust.’ 80 Such behaviour gives the church
a bad name, brings virginity into disrepute, and gives occasion to mockery
and coarse jokes among pagans. His advice to a monk is to reject with
contempt any ‘criminal liaison’ now, so that hereafter, ‘when bodily pas-
sions have been done away with and the tyranny of lust is quenched’, he
and his virgin sister may, with a clear conscience, enjoy an entirely pure
and holy intercourse with one another as they share the (sexless) life of
angels. 81 With almost mystical fervour he exhorts the virgin ‘to forget this
criminal liaison and the partner who sinfully cohabits with her’, bearing in
mind that she has a heavenly bridegroom - indeed, lover (he does not shrink
from the term erastes with its sexual overtones) - who will be captivated
,

by her immaculate beauty, and for whom it will be worth making any
sacrifices here on earth. 82

VII
There remains one further piece, Against the Enemies of Monasticism 83
which can be safely attributed to this astonishingly productive period. One
of John’s most elaborate works, in three books, it illustrates not only the
extreme irritation which the proselytising activities of monks were causing
in leading circles in Antioch, but also the disenchantment he himself was
feeling with traditional Hellenic culture and education. The only clue to its
date is his complaint that monks should suffer harassment at a time when
the reigning emperors are ‘devout Christians’ ( ton basileon en eusebeia
zonton). 8* This cannot refer, as Montfaucon proposed, 85 to the Arianizing
Valens, in spite of his having been responsible for legislation directed
against monks who used their vocation as an excuse for avoiding public
duties. 86 In John’s parlance the expression must denote orthodox, i.e.
Nicene-minded, emperors, and would most naturally refer to Gratian and
Theodosius I. As the latter was proclaimed on 19 January 379 and the

79
C. eos 9-10 C PG 47.507-10).
80
Quod (PG 47.528-9).
regul. 8
81
C. eos 13(PG 47.513-14).
82
Quod regul. 9 (PG 47.531-2).
83
Adv. oppugnatores vitae monasticae: PG 47.319-86. There is no critical edition, but a good
English translation by David G. Hunter (Lampeter 1988).
84
Adv. oppugn. 1.2 (PG 47.321).
85
PG 47.317-18.
86
CT 12.1.63 (1 Jan. 370: renewed 373). It seems to have applied only to Egypt.
52 Golden Mouth

former murdered at Lyons on 25 August 383, a date somewhere between

these points would seem most probable.
John was provoked to write the treatise, he explains, by the hostility and
actual violence shown by professing Christians in the city, many of them
baptised, to monks from the nearby mountains. In a dramatic paragraph87
he describes how, in the market-place or in doctors’ consulting rooms, in
fact wherever people gather to gossip, you could find one man boasting that
he was the first to beat up a monk, another that he had been the first to
track down his hut, a third that he had spurred the magistrate into action
against the holy men, a fourth that he had dragged them through the
streets and seen them locked up in gaol. The bystanders were vastly
amused by the recital of these gallant exploits. The people involved, it
emerges, were upper-class citizens who were getting fed up with the success
the monks were having in recruiting their teenage sons to the harsh life of
their settlements. So ‘they harry those who introduce other people to our
philosophy, forbidding them with fearsome threats to open their mouths,
much less give anyone instruction in it’. John professed himself doubly
shocked that such outrages were being perpetrated at a time when the
emperors were orthodox Christians.
In springing to the monks’ defence he argues that, so far from being
persecuted, they deserve to be imitated, since they exemplify the authen-
tically Christian life. A city like Antioch, though possessing law-courts and
laws, is really full of corruption, whereas ‘the desert teems with the fruit
of philosophy’, i.e. genuine Christianity. 88 So a father, Christian or indeed
pagan, could not find better teachers for his children than monks. To prove
the point, John, in his second book, imagines a highly placed, wealthy
pagan whose only son, a young man of first-rate prospects, has been lured
away to the austere life of a monastery. Dispensing with scripture and
relying wholly on examples from classical literature, 89 he begs the dis-
traught man not to be shattered by what, correctly interpreted, is a matter
for congratulation. Through following the monks’ instructions, his son can
attain true riches, greatness, happiness, health - all the blessings a fond
parent could hope for. The boy may even become more gentle and consid-
erate to his father! 90 He will certainly be rewarded with a life free from
turmoil, a harbour untroubled by storms. 91 To reach this satisfying conclu-
sion John freely exploits (it is interesting to note) the ancient Stoic paradox
that it is only the sage - as he saw it, the Christian ascetic - who possesses
what is truly good and worthwhile.
If much of this has the air of a sophisticated exercise, John tackles the
central issue of the validity of traditional culture in his third book, where

87
Adv. oppugn. 1.2 (PG 47.322).
88
Adv. oppugn. 1.7 (PG 47.328).
89
Adv. oppugn. 2.3-5 (PG 47.334-40).
90
Adv. oppugn. 2.9 (PG 47.344).
91
Adv. oppugn. 10 (PG 47.347f.).
 4. Deacon and Pamphleteer 53

he deals with a Christian father faced with the same predicament. The
most awful responsibility, he claims, which God imposes on parents is
to bring their children up properly.
92
Yet most fathers, when they urge
them to get down to their books of rhetoric, are really only concerned for
their having a successful career. Instead of warning them against love
of money and worldly ambition and holding up the gospel ideals before
them, they surround them with superfluous luxuries and give fine
names to practices like theatre-going and horse-racing, which are really
vicious. 93 Worse still, pederasty is so rampant in schools, homosexuality
94
in the city, that a youth can hardly escape unscathed. The result is a
society which is rotten through and through, in contrast with which the
monks in their ascetic retreats live the life of angels, enjoying true
freedom from care, true peace, true happiness. 95 Hence John proposes a
radical programme, that parents should entrust their children to monks
from the start. He rejects the suggestion that they should first attend
the school of rhetoric, and having completed the course there should then
take up ‘philosophy’ with the monks; by that time they would be irre-
trievably lost. 96 A liberal arts education can do more harm than good;
the first Christians never had one, indeed were sometimes illiterate, and
yet they overturned the world. ‘True wisdom and true education consist
only in the fear of God.’ 97
Later John accepts a compromise, 98 although it is a somewhat unrealistic
one: that the young men, after living for ten, or even twenty, years in a
monastery, should return like well-trained athletes to the city, and there
share the blessings they have received with their parents, their home, their
fellow-citizens. This sprawling, wide-ranging essay reveals a revulsion
from traditional education and culture, indeed from ordinary family life,
its values and aspirations which is without parallel in other Christian
intellectuals of the period, such as Basil of Caesarea, and which his readers
must have found astounding. He was, we should recall, a young man still
full of fervour for the stern, uncompromising monastic life in which he had
recently been immersed; he was also driven to propose extreme measures
which he must have known to be impracticable by his disgust at the
meretricious attractions of life in the great city. A decade later, when he
came to write On Vain Glory and How Parents Should Educate Children ,"
we find him in a more practical frame of mind. A priest of pastoral
experience, John had now abandoned (except as a wistful dream) all idea

92
Adv. oppugn. 3-4 PG 47.351-4).
(.

93
Adv. oppugn. 5-7 (PG 47.356-60.
94
Adv. oppugn. 3.8 (PG 47.360-3).
95
Adv. oppugn. 3.11 (PG 47.366).
96
Adv. oppugn. 3.11 (PG 47.366).
97
Adv. oppugn. 3.12 (PG 47.368).
99
Adv. oppugn. 3.18 (PG 47.380).
99
De inani gloria et de educandis liberis see below, pp.85-7.
54 Golden Mouth

of packing children off to monasteries for their schooling .

100
He is as
insistent as ever on the need for a thoroughly Christian education based
on the scriptures, but he now recognises that it is in the home that children
must receive it and that the duty of instructing them falls primarily on
their father.

100
De inani gloria 19 (SC 188.102-4).
 5

Preacher’s First Year

With this impressive literary output to his credit, John’s promotion in the
church of Antioch could not be delayed much longer. Although Palladios
could be an uncritical admirer, his later comment that his hero was now
1

becoming renowned as a brilliant teacher whose counsel people found

helpful in coping with life’s bitterness sounds like an accurate assessment
of his growingprestige as a pastor. From his own point of view he had finally
overcome his scruples about accepting more responsible clerical office.
Bishop Flavian, therefore, now in the fifth year of his episcopate, ordained
him to the priesthood. The date cannot be fixed with precision, but since
Palladios adds that he served the Antiochene church for twelve years before
becoming bishop of Constantinople (February 398), his ordination should
probably be placed early in 386, at any rate before the opening of Lent on
15 February. This is confirmed by John himself, for in a sermon delivered
on 13 or 14 March 387 he claims that this is now the second year that he
has been preaching. 2 He was thirty-seven years old, at the height of his
intellectual and spiritual development.
The sermon John preached on the day of his ordination, 3 the first in his
long career as a preacher, has been preserved intact. Even today the reader
can sense the atmosphere of expectation in the congregation when he
stepped forward to the ambo of the Golden Church to speak. He began by
expressing incredulity (‘Is this night? Am I dreaming?’) that a mere ‘strip-
ling’ ( meirakiskos ), ‘panic-stricken ... quite inexperienced in public speak-
ing’, should be raised to ‘such a height of authority. Soon he was abjectly
protesting that, burdened with sin as he was, he could not presume to
dedicate these first-fruits of his oratory, as he would have wished, to God.
But all was not lost; instead he would glorify God by singing the praises of
one of his ‘comrades in the Lord’s service’. By this neat transition he
switched to what he had always intended as his main theme, a fulsome
eulogy of Flavian. With extravagant hyperbole he extolled the bishop’s
disdain for high living and riches, his absolute self-mastery, his austerities,

1
Dial. 5(SC 341.110).
2
Horn, ad pop. Antioch. 16.2 (PG 49.164).
3
PG 48.693-700: critical edition by A.M. Malingrey, SC 272.367-419 (Paris 1980).
56 Golden Mouth

his vigilant care for the church, his virtues ‘whichno human voice but only
one inspired by the Spirit could express’. The loss of Meletios had made his
flock inconsolable, but Flavian seemed like Meletios restored from the dead.
John concluded by begging the people to pray both for Flavian, ‘our father,
master, shepherd, pilot’, and for himself, once a solitary but now dragged
into the limelight, with ‘this formidable, crushing yoke’ placed on his
4
shoulders .

Modem readers tend to find rhetoric like this turgid and artificial, but
John was deploying the stock-in-trade of the ancient genre encomium as
modified by Christian orators 5 By fourth-century standards his address
.

was a small masterpiece. We may be sure that Flavian did not feel in the
least embarrassed by the exaggerated compliments, and that the huge
audience savoured with relish the carefully arranged periods and contrived
repetitions, the recherche vocabulary and the skilful use of commonplaces
(topoi dear to practised orators. But even the modern reader can overhear,

rising above the literary conventions, John’s authentic voice when, for
example, he exclaims that ‘nothing, nothing so impedes our advance to
heaven as wealth and all the evils which flow from it 6 or when he depicts ’,

the church’s sense of deprivation at Meletios’ untimely death.

II

As a priest John had a larger range than as a deacon 7

of responsibilities .

While the bishop, if present, presided at mass, with the priests (we have
no clue to their number at Antioch) concelebrating with him, when he was
absent (as the elderly Flavian not infrequently was) one of the priests
officiated as ‘president’ (proestos ). As such he gave the liturgical greeting
‘Peace be with you’ to the congregation, and John himself confirms that he
often fulfilled this role 8 At Antioch the priests also, it seems, collaborated
.

with the bishop in administering the property of the see. John apparently
found this an irksome and uncongenial duty, for a few years later we find
him grumbling that, as a result of the meanness of the laity, the Antiochene
church was obliged to own farms, real estate, houses for letting, carriages
for hire, packhorses and mules, and the clergy had to employ themselves,
to the neglect of the care of souls, on tasks properly belonging to rent
collectors, accountants, and petty tradesmen 9 .

John’s principal functions as a priest, however, were preaching and

giving instruction to the people. There would always be a sermon, on

4
SC 272.418.
5
Cf. Th. Payr’s study in RAC 5.332-43.
6
SC 272.406; 414.
7
For the duties of priests at Antioch see P. Rendinck, La cura pastorale in Antiochia nel iv
secolo (Rome 1970), esp. 175-80.
8
In Matt. hom. 32.6 (PG 57.385).
9
In Matt. hom. 85.3-4 (PG 57.761-4).
 5. Preacher's First Year 57

occasion several, after the gospel at mass on Sundays and major feast-days,
but also, it seems, on Fridays and Saturdays. There were also addresses
on weekdays in Lent and Easter week immediately before the evening
service or vespers, as well as at special celebrations. In addition, a priest
was expected to give courses of instruction to candidates preparing for
baptism, and to assist in administering, or himself to administer, that
sacrament. Other pastoral duties inevitably fell to him, but in John’s case
it is certain that from the start Flavian, now in his late seventies, had a

special role in view for his newly ordained priest. He had apparently singled
him out to be not only the city’s preacher par excellence but also his own }

personal assistant. John himself made this clear in a revealing remark in

one of his sermons. He reckoned it, he declared, a more signal honour than
any crown or diadem that the bishop who had ordained him was reluctant
to appear anywhere unaccompanied by his spiritual son; he therefore had
the privilege of escorting him wherever he went. 10
So for almost twelve years, from 386 to late 397, John stood out as the
leading pulpit orator of Antioch, building up an unrivalled reputation. The
Syrian capital was amazingly addicted to sermons. You could not find
another city anywhere, he once observed, which had such a passion (he
used the adverb erotikos ) for them; 11 and he often inveighed bitterly against
the crowds which flocked to church exclusively to listen to the preacher,
only to rush off before the awesome climax when Christ would reveal
himself in the holy mysteries. 12 As Flavian’s personal aide John preached
in whatever churches the bishop visited in the course of his duties; while
this would be most often the Golden Church, we know that he frequently
held forth in the Palaia, or Old Church, once at any rate in ‘the new church’ 13
(probably a recent building in the suburbs), on occasion at martyrs’ shrines.
There are indications, however, that he had a regular congregation which
he regarded as peculiarly his own, and from which he felt it a wrench to be
parted. 14 This is likely to have been the Golden Church, which was Flavian’s
cathedral.
A large number of sermons delivered in the first year or so of his ministry
have come down to us. Their freshness and frequent informality suggest
that they have survived broadly in the form in which they were preached,
no doubt taken down (as Sokrates reports and other evidence confirms) 15
by stenographers as he spoke and afterwards, in most cases, revised before
publication by himself. It is generally agreed that he preached extempore;
a late biographer has preserved a reminiscence that, when he went to the
ambo, people were amazed that he had no scrap of paper or book in his

10
In illud, In faciem tiom. 1 (PG 51.371-2).
11
In prod. lud. hom. 1.1 (PG 49.373).
12
E.g. De incomp, dei nat. hom. 3.6 (PG 48.725).
13
In illud. In faciem hom. 1 (PG 51.371).
14
Ibid.
15
6.4: see also the short note inserted at the beginning of the Homilies on Hebrews (PG 63.9).
58 Golden Mouth

hand but held impromptu, something they had never seen before. 16
forth
This is borne out by the numerous improvisations they contain, such as
rebukes for chattering or inattention, comments on the weather, references
to outbursts of applause, even warnings against pickpockets. 17 As they
provide graphic evidence not only of John’s style of oratory but also of the
varied issues which engaged him at the time, it seems appropriate to pass
some representative examples in quick review. His later output as a
preacher was so enormous that in subsequent chapters we shall only single
out particular addresses for attention when they throw significant light on
his opinions or career.

in
Within weeks, possibly days, of his ordination Lent began (Monday 16
February). 18 John had been chosen to give a course of homilies on Genesis,
the book from which it was already the custom for the lessons before vespers
on weekdays to be taken. Eight of these have been preserved, 19 most of them
delivered on successive days; he must have preached many more, but the
rest have all been lost, although the eight contain references to one or two
of them. That he was still a novice when he gave them is charmingly
confirmed by his apology for his apparent presumption in tackling such
great issues; in doing so, he explains, he was placing his trust, not in his
own abilities, but exclusively in the prayers of his superiors and of the
congregation before him. 20
The core of each is the discussion of some knotty or controversial point
of doctrine or interpretation which has been thrown up by the text just read.
In the first, for example, John defends the biblical teaching that the
material order has been created out of nothing. 21 The adversaries he has in
view are, first, pagans in general, whose rejection of it leads them inevitably
to idolatry, and then the Manichees (a dualist group which in the fourth
century proved intellectually attractive to many Christians - including, for
many years, Augustine), who claimed that matter is uncreated and eternal,
a principle antagonistic to Spirit. If creation from nothing is hard to
understand, he suggests, it is at least as difficult to grasp how our bodies
were formed out of earth, or for that matter how the food we eat is
transformed into flesh and blood. What we need is a recognition of the limits

16
George of Alexandria: see F. Halkin, Douze rtcits byzantins sur s. Jean Chrysostome
(Brussels 1977), 115.
17
De incomp. 4.6 (PG 48.735).
18
E. Schwartz, ‘Christliche und judische Ostertafeln’, Abhandl. K. Gesellschaft der Wiss. zu
Gottingen phil.-hist. Kl. NF 8 (1905), 171.
,

19
PG 54.581-620 (to be distinguished from the 67 homilies on Genesis printed in the same
volume).
20
In Gen. sermo 2.1 (PG 54.586).
21
PG 54.581-4.
 5. Preacher’s First Year 59

of human knowledge, and a firm trust in scripture. The doctrine of creation

also helps us to understand the wretchedness of the human condition, and
so to escape the pessimism to which, he claims, Manichaeism condemns its
adherents. The abuse he heaps on Manichees (‘dogs which say nothing but
are mad with rabies Don’t look at their show of moderation, but at the
. . .

monster behind the mask’) 22 leaves the impression that he was worried
about their possible influence on his flock. He had good reason for fear, for
Manichaeism was widely diffused in Syria at this time; 23 as a missionary
religion it was making converts everywhere. It was to remain a constant
target for him.
In the next two homilies, 24 analysing ‘Let us make man in our image and
likeness’ (Gen. 1.26), he first argues against Jewish critics that the plural
verb proves that God had with him an only-begotten Son who co-operated
in his creative works. He then explains that the creation of man in God’s
‘image’ ieikona) does not imply an anthropomorphic view of the Godhead.
The image is not of essence or being, but of authority ( arche ), for God has
given man domination over the rest of creation. On the other hand, his
‘likeness’ ( homoiosis ) indicates that he should be kind and gentle ( hemeros
kai praos) as he is. In the fourth25 he sets out what, in his view, Genesis
teaches about the relative positions of the sexes. When he created woman,
God made her ‘of equal honour’ with man, appointing her his helper (Gen.
2.18). Not just an ordinary helper, he points out, like the horses and cattle
which in different ways help men, but ‘a helper fit for him’, words which
stress her equality with him. When tempted, however, woman abused her
position and showed herself unfit for rule, and God therefore condemned
her to a subordinate role. Even so, God mercifully tempered his sentence,
for while decreeing (Gen. 3.16) that her husband would rule over her, he
made her lot easier by adding, ‘Your desire shall be for your husband’,
meaning that in her troubles he would be her refuge and consolation. He
then goes on to interpret the Apostle’s refusal to allow women to teach or
to wield authority over men (1 Tim. 2.12) in the light of the Genesis story:
on the great occasion when she exercised authority over him and tried to
teach him, the results were disastrous.
In the sixth and seventh he grapples with the problem why the tree in
the Garden was called ‘of the knowledge of good and evil’ since Adam was
clearly aware of moral distinctions before eating its fruit. His solution is
that We
know evil before committing it, but understand it more clearly
after committing it, and more clearly still when we are punished.’26 So it
was that by eating the forbidden fruit Adam attained full knowledge of the
wickedness of disobedience.

22
In Gen. sermo 7.4 ( PG 54.613).
23
Brown, JRS 59 (1969).
Cf. e.g. P.
24
In Gen. sermo 2 and 3 (PG 54.587-90; 590-2).
25
In Gen. sermo 4.1 (PG 54 .594-5).
26
In Gen. sermo 7.2-3 (PG 54.611).
60 Golden Mouth
In these sermons John is examining a host of scripture texts; as we
should expect of an Antiochene who had been a student under Diodore and
a friend of Theodore, he shows himself in general a stickler for literal
exegesis as he understands it27 (the resulting interpretations are some-
times bizarre). Yet so far from being a dry-as-dust academic lecturer, he is
always striving to make the bible come alive to ordinary people. Exposition
apart, he intersperses his addresses with vivid passages of human interest.
The opening of the first, for example, is a prose poem lyrically celebrating,
first, the joy felt by seafarers and farmers a t the arrival of spring, and then
the even more thrilling excitement of earnest Christians when the season
of fasting begins. Whenever the bishop is present, John is sure to salute
him with obsequious compliments. One evening, when it is getting dark
and the congregation is distracted by the sacristan bringing in lights, he is
quick to rebuke it for neglecting the much more splendid and salutary light
he is kindling from God’s word. 28 Elsewhere we find him impressing on
children the duty of gratitude to their parents, extolling the joys of fasting,
urging his audience to be diligent in bible-study and alms-giving, and
especially to be generous to the wretched poor crowding on either side as
they go out, and not rush past them as if they were ‘pillars, not human
bodies .lifeless statues, not breathing human beings’. 29 Again and again
. .

he exhorts his hearers (this could evoke thunderous applause) 30 to repeat

his message to their households over the supper with which they would
break their fast, thereby transforming their homes into churches, indeed
into heaven itself.

IV
In September of the same year John embarked on a more specifically
doctrinal series of sermons, aimed at countering the propaganda of the
Anomoeans. As was noted earlier, 31 these were radical Arians who taught
that, so far from being ‘one in essence with’, or even ‘like’, the Father, the
Word was wholly ‘unlike’ (anomoios hence their nickname) him. Along with
:

other Arians, they exploited to the full every text in the New Testament
which seemed to imply (as great numbers did) the Son’s inferiority to or
dependence on the Father. In the early 360s, however, their doctrine had
been developed by the brilliant logician Eunomios (d. 395) into a rational-
istic system of which the centre-piece was the complete knowability of God.
The Father, he argued, 32 alone possesses Godhead; ingenerate himself, he
created the Word and imparted to him, not his divinity, but his activity,

27
See below, p. 95.
28
In Gen. sermo 4.3 (PG 54.597).
29
In Gen. sermo 5.3 (PG 54.602-3).
30
In Gen. sermo 7.1 (PG 54.508).
31
See above, p. 11.
32
For a summary of his position see M. Spanneut, DHGE 15.1399-405.
 5. Preacher's First Year 61

thus making him his instrument for bringing other creatures into exist-
ence. Since ‘ingenerateness’ exhaustively defines God’s being, and since
according to his theory of language words fully express the essence of the
things they denote, 33 man can have as complete a knowledge of God as he
has of himself. 34 It follows equally that there can be no resemblance
whatever between the Father, whose essence is ingenerateness, and the
Son, who by definition is generate.
As presented by Eunomios, Anomoeism had been exhaustively criticised
by John’s older contemporaries, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa.
Even so, while other forms of Arianism were in retreat after the re-estab-
lishment of orthodoxy in 378, it was still a force to be reckoned with in
Antioch in the early 380s. Numbers of intelligent Christians were attracted
by its simplicity and logical clarity as well as by its genuine soteriological
concern. It posed a sufficient threat for John to single it out as a prime
target. It is interesting that he lets it out that he had been meditating an
onslaught on the Anomoeans for some time, but had postponed it because
he had noticed the enjoyment they took in his sermons and did not wish ‘to
frighten away the quarry 35 Eventually they actually pressed him to debate
5
.

the difference between their beliefs and his, and he eagerly took up the
challenge. But he did so, he avowed, in a deliberately irenical, constructive
spirit, hoping to heal these people ‘infected with error’ rather than let them
succumb to their sickness. 36 ‘Nothing he remarked with an uncharacter-
5

istic rejection of aggressiveness, ‘is more effective than moderation and

gentleness.’
As a come down to us, 37 originally delivered
result five addresses have
(as theirnumerous allusions to the liturgy make clear) at mass on Sundays
between September 386 and early 387. The pervasive theme of all five, but
treated in special detail in the first and third, is one which Basil of Caesarea
and Gregory of Nyssa had developed with skill and eloquence, viz. the limits
of human understanding and its inability to apprehend the essence of God.
How could it, John pleads forcefully in the third, 38 since God’s being is
inaccessible even to angels and archangels, since he dwells (as Paul
expressed it in 1 Tim. 6.16) ‘in unapproachable light? He thus confronted
head-on Eunomios’ central tenet, on which the whole system of advanced
Anomoeism rested. He backed his argument with a host of texts from the
bible, but also by reminding his audience that man is ignorant of the real
nature not only, for example, of the sky above his head, but of his own soul. 39

33
See J. Dani61ou, ‘Eunome l’Arien et I’ex6g6se neo-platonicienne du Cratyle’, REG 69 (1956),
412-32.
34
Cf. his remarkable statement quoted by Sokrates, 4.7.
35
De incomprehensibili dei natura 1.6 (PG 48.707). Critical edition by A.M. Malingrey, with
introduction bv J. Dani61ou, in SC 28bis (Paris 1970).
36
De incomp. 6-7 (PG 48.707-8).
37
De incomp. PG 48.701-48.
38
De incomp. 3.3-5 (PG 48.721-5).
39
De incomp. 2.7 (the sky); 5.4 (the soul) (PG 48.717-18; 740-1).
62 Golden Mouth

John is aware, of course, that he was laying himself open to the charge of
agnosticism, and even represents Anomoean critics as objecting, ‘Are you
then ignorant of what you worship?’ But he has his rejoinder ready, based
on Paul’s statement (1 Cor. 13.9 and 12) that we now ‘know in part’. There
is a knowledge which men can have of God, but it is not knowledge of his
essence (that only the Son possesses), but knowledge that he exists and
knowledge of his action in the world. 40 In all this he was sketching a doctrine
which was to become fundamental in eastern Christianity, and which was
to be conveyed to the west by the writings of the mystical theologian known
as Pseudo-Dionysius (c. 500). 41
What gives these three addresses much of their power and strange
fascination is their evocation of the transcendence and impenetrable mys-
tery of the divine being. In the fourth and fifth John turns to the specifically
theological questions of the relationship, first, of the Son, and then of the
Spirit, to the Father. Appealing again to a few key- texts (notably the claims
in John 1.18 that the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,
has made him known, and in 1 Cor. 2.11 that no one comprehends the
thoughts of God except the Spirit of God), he seeks to demonstrate, in
refutation of the Anomoeans, not only that the Son and the Spirit are alone
in having complete knowledge of the Father, but that they both share his
divinity, being only distinguished from him as persons ( hupostaseis ). 42 We
may be sure that his eager audience found his case convincing, for even if
43
it missed the nuances of his close critique of Eunomios, it is likely that it

found his confident, if uncritical, handling of the texts irresistible. Much of

his argument followed lines of thought already laid down by Basil and
Gregory of Nyssa, but while they addressed elite groups John had a unique
populist flair for making abstruse concepts and complex exegesis accessible
to the ordinary folk crowding his church.

V
Several times John pleads with his congregation to hold out a brotherly
hand to the Anomoeans, to pray fervently that ‘they may desist from their
madness’. 44 No such conciliatory note can be overheard in the eight ad-
dresses 45 incorrectly (but not inappropriately) entitled Against the Jews at
which we must now glance.
On the Wednesday (2 September 386) 46 following the Sunday on which
he had inaugurated his anti-Anomoean course John felt constrained to
interrupt it in order to declaim against Christians who found themselves

40
E.g. De incomp.
1.5 (PG 48.706).
41
On himsee I.P. Sheldon-Williams, Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval
Philosophy 1967, 457-72.
,

42
De incomp. 5.2-3 (PG 48.737-9).
43
J. Dani61ou brings some of this out in his commentary in SC 28bis.
44
De incomp. 5.5 (PG 48.743).
45
Aduersus ludaeos: PG 48.843-942. ET by P.W. Harkins (Washington 1977). For an illumi-
nating discussion see R.L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews (London 1983).
46
For the dates of this and other sermons see E. Schwartz, art. cit. 169-83.
 5. Preacher's First Year 63

irresistibly attracted to the faithand ceremonial practices of their Jewish

fellow-citizens. There was, as we noted earlier, 47 a sizeable and, it appears,
socially influential Jewish minority in Antioch, with synagogues both in
the city and out at Daphne, and what spurred the anxious pastor into action
was the imminent approach of the great sequence of Jewish autumn feasts
and fasts - the Feast of Trumpets (New Year), then the Day of Atonement
ten days later, finally the week-long Feast of Tabernacles. The Antiochene
Jews were not standoffish, still less confined to a ghetto, but celebrated
these solemn occasions publicly, apparently welcoming outsiders. From
experience John knew how fascinatedly many Christians flocked to watch
them, even to participate in them. Many, as he ruefully admitted, ‘hold
Jews in deep respect and regard their way of life (politeia ) as deserving
reverence’. 48 Some, for example, to his unconcealed horror, 49 considered an
oath taken in a synagogue especially binding, while others consulted rabbis
when sick and found their cures effective (as John confesses they some-
times were, though protesting that they were obtained by amulets, magical
incantations, and the like). He therefore exerted himself, in this first
homily and in a second preached several days later (aimed particularly at
people who practised circumcision), to give a stern warning to such back-
sliders. How could they have the face, after cavorting with those who had
shed Christ’s blood, to return to church and partake of that very blood at
the altar?50 The numbers implicated must have been large, for he was to
insist next year that careless talk about them could be damaging for
morale. 51
These tirades reveal John as a master of unscrupulous, often coarse
invective. 52 His object, of course, is to convince his hearers of the folly, the
sheer apostasy, of taking any part whatever in Jewish rituals. But to
achieve this pastoral aim he paints the Jews themselves, their religion and
their social habits in repulsive colours. 53 Through rejecting the Saviour
foretold in their own scriptures they have forfeited the status of children
and been reduced to that of dogs, to which, ironically, Jesus had once
assigned the Gentiles (Matt. 15.26). The hardness of heart which, according
to Acts 7.51, caused them to resist the Spirit itself resulted from their
bestial gluttony and drunkenness, as Moses had made plain when he
exclaimed (Deut. 32.15), ‘Israel ate, and was gorged and made sleek.’ On
their feast-days they descend to shameless sensuality, dancing in the city
squares with naked feet and leading processions of perverts and tarts.
There is nothing holy in their synagogues; they are no better than theatres

47
See above, p. 2.
48
Adu.Iud 1.3 (PG 48.847).
49
Adv.Iud . 1.3 (PG 48.848).
50
Adv. lud. 2.3 (PG
48.861).
51
Adv. lud. 8.4 (PG
48.983).
52
See esp. M. Simon, Verus Israel (Paris 1948), 256-63.
53
All citations in this paragraph are taken from Adv. lud. 1.
64 Golden Mouth
(in John’s eyes cesspools of immorality), brothels or dens of thieves. The
fact that they house the books of Moses and the prophets does not sanctify
them, any more than the heathen temple of Serapis at Alexandria, where
those same books are kept, is thereby made holy. The Jews’ souls have
become the dwelling-places of demons: not surprisingly, since they are the
‘Christ-killers’ ( Christoktonoi ) who did not shrink from slaying the Lord.
God himself, speaking through his prophets, has branded their worship as
abominable; they themselves should be shunned as a filthy plague threat-
ening the entire world.
In proof of these ferocious claims John marshals a battery of mainly Old
Testament texts in which God rebuked Israel and criticised its sacrificial
system. He makes his point by isolating them from the particular situations
to which they originally applied and gratuitously giving them a general
reference. To give two examples, when members of his congregation plead
that there is surely ‘something solemn and grand’ about the Jewish festi-
vals, he flings back at them Amos’ (5.21) dismissive, T hate, I despise your
feasts’, 54 without explaining the context of the prophet’s rebuke. Again, his
warning to the backsliders that the people with whom they wish to consort
are ‘those who shout “Crucify him, crucify him”, and who say “His blood be
upon us and our children” (he cites the verbs in the present tense), rests
’

on the unspoken assumption that their Jewish neighbours, indeed the Jews
everywhere at any time, are to be identified with the handful to whom the
evangelists attributed these cries. 55 He is so distressed by the Judaizers’
disloyalty that he begs his auditors to be diligent in tracking them down -
women searching out women, men men, slaves slaves, freemen freemen,
even children children - so that, when next they come together for the
liturgy, they may receive commendation from himself and, far more impor-
tant, a reward from God exceeding all description and amply compensating
them for any trouble they have taken. 56 On 31 January 387 John delivered
a third homily Against the Jews which is traditionally included in the series
inaugurated by the two mentioned above. 57 Actually, while inveighing
incidentally against the Jews, it has a somewhat different objective, viz. to
induce a small group of Christians in Antioch who continued the age-old
Syrian custom of celebrating Easter ‘with the Jews’, i.e. on the Sunday
following the Passover on 14 Nisan, to give up the practice, which had been
forbidden by the council of Nicaea (325), and fall into line with the rest of
the church. Did they really consider the Jews wiser than the fathers who
met at the council with Christ himself guiding their decisions? 58 In any case
the Jews had no right to be celebrating the Passover now in Antioch, since
Moses had forbidden its celebration anywhere except in Jerusalem (Deut.

54
Adv. Iud. 1.7 (PG 48.853).
55
Adv.Iud . 1.5 (PG 48.850).
56
Adv. Iud. 1.8 (PG 48.856).
57
Adv. Iud. 3 (PG 48.861-72).
58
Adv.Iud. 3.3 (PG 48.865).
 5. Preacher's First Year 65

16.5-6). autumn of the same year, however, when his Jewish fellow-
In
citizens were preparing once again to observe their traditional fasts and
feasts, John felt a fresh urge to break away from the scriptural exposition
on which he was then engaged: "Again the wretched Jews, most pitiful
of mankind, are about to fast; again it is incumbent to protect the
church’s flock.’ 59 The five addresses he then delivered are conventionally
included in the cycle.
In general, these are more theological in content, somewhat more mod-
erate in tone. In the first, or fourth (they are best cited by their traditional
numbers), he challenges Christians tempted to participate in Jewish ritu-
als to reflect on what they are doing. 60 ‘Surely the difference between us
and Jews is not trifling? Why do you try to mix what cannot be mixed?
. . .

They crucified the Christ whom you worship.’ Later he enlarges on the
consideration which he had urged in the third, and which recurs several
times in the series, viz. that in keeping these fasts and festivals the Jews
of Antioch are violating their own law, since it is insistent (again he appeals
to Deut. 16, among other texts) that their observance is tied to Jerusalem
and the Temple, now destroyed. 61 It is a plea, we should observe, which
would have cut little ice with contemporary Judaism, which had its own
solutions to problems created by the loss of the Temple. 62 In the fifth he
widens the perspective, returning to a central theme of his earlier apolo-
getic writings, that the supreme proof that Christ is truly God is his
prediction that Jerusalem would be captured and the Temple destroyed. 63
His argument is that the fulfilment of this prophecy, ratified by the failure
of all attempts (including most signally the Emperor Julian’s) to rebuild
the Temple, taken in conjunction with Malachi’s prophecy (1.11-12) that a
pure worship would be offered, not in any one place and still less at
Jerusalem, but ‘from the rising of the sun to its setting’, decisively proves
that the Jewish religion has been superseded by the Christian one. 64
The sixth and seventh homilies continue the theme that the old dispen-
sation has been supplanted by the new, while the eighth is largely an
exhortation to his audience to extend a helping hand to weaker brethren
who may have slipped. In the sixth, however, John abandons reasoned
debate and resumes his earlier vituperative style. Explaining the present
wretched plight of the Jews, he declares, with Ezekiel 23.5-9 among his
witnesses, that they had always been sinners and blasphemers. They
adored the golden calf, attempted more than once to murder Moses,
sacrificed their children to demons, persecuted their prophets, and finally

59
Adv.Iud . 4.1 (PG 48.871).
60
Adv.Iud 4.3 (PG 48.875).
.

61
Adv. Iud. 4.4-6 (PG 48.876-81).
62
See R.L. Wilken’s discussion, op. cit., 148-53.
63
See above, p. 42.
64
Adv. Iud. 5.11-12 (PG 48.900-4).
66 Golden Mouth
shed the precious blood of the Messiah, so committing the supremely
infamous crime which leaves them no hope of pardon. 65
These homilies, with their scurrilous attacks on the Jews (he kept them
up, whenever opportunity offered, throughout his career), have distressed
modem readers, who have speculated how much, given the wide diffusion
and popularity of his writings, they must have fuelled the cruelly repressive
attitudes to Judaism adopted by later Christianity. In his own day, how-
ever, there was nothing exceptional about them - except, of course, their
oratorical bravura. So far from being original, the arguments they deploy
reflect a tradition of Christian polemic which can be traced back, in east
and west alike, to the late first century, when the church separated itself
from the synagogue. Since Christians, following Paul’s lead, now claimed
to have displaced the Jews as God’s chosen people, as the true Israel, it was
logical that they should represent them as traitors to their own scriptures
and as having thus forfeited the promises originally made to them. Equally
it was in the church’s interest, since it had appropriated the Jewish bible

and regarded the blessings it contained as applying exclusively to itself, to

do everything in its power to discourage its members from too cosy relations
with their Jewish neighbours, who might all too easily open their eyes to a
quite different interpretation of it, and thus tempt them from their alle-
giance. There is, in fact, plenty of evidence, in (for example) the legislation
of the councils of Elvira (306) 66 and Laodikeia
and in the so-called
(431),
67

Apostolic Constitutions (fourth cent.: of Syrian provenance), 68 both of the

fascination Jewish practices continued to have for susceptible Christians,
and of the efforts the church authorities made to keep the two communities
apart. John’s homilies vividly illustrate how real this danger was in a
pluralistic city like Antioch, where Jews and Christians jostled against
each other in their daily lives and the Jews, apparently, welcomed the
presence of Christians at their celebrations.
After all the abuse he had heaped upon them, it is ironical that many
years later, when his own career lay in ruins, John was to acknowledge that
the Jews of Constantinople counted among his sympathisers. 69

VI
Among John’s most carefully crafted sermons were those he preached
either at celebrations in honour of holy persons or martyrs, or on great
feast-days. Several such from his first twelve months as a priest have
survived. As well as illustrating his oratorical skills, they throw intriguing
light on the forms of Christian devotion he was concerned to promote.

65
Adv. lud. 6.2 (PG 48.905-7).
66
Canons 26 and 49 (Hefele, Histoire des conciles 1, 235; 249).
67
Canons 37 and 38 (Hefele, op. cit., 1, 1019).
68
2.61.1; 5.17; 8.47.70 (Funk 175; 287-8; 584).
69
Ep.l ad Innocentium: SC 342.86.
 5. Preacher’s First Year 67

In the former category we should place five panegyrics of local saints: 70 the
15-year-old Pelagia who c. 283, to frustrate a threat to her virginity, had flung
herself to death from the roof of her home (8 October 386); Ignatios, second
bishop of Antioch and author of seven remarkable letters, tom to pieces c. 107
by lions in the Colosseum at Rome (17 October 386); Philogonios, an advocate
promoted c. 316 as twenty-second bishop of the see (20 December 386); the
martyr Lucian, exegete and theologian (7 January 387); and Meletios,
Flavian’s predecessor and John’s own patron (12 February 387). All these were
spoken at the shrines where the saints’ relics were preserved. In the case of
Meletios, for example, this was the one he had had built for Babylas on the
north side of the Orontes, and where his own body had been interred at his
request. 71 Pelagia’s shrine was some distance from the city, making it neces-
sary for the faithful to troop out to it in procession - and for John to admonish
them to behave with decorum, without dancing, laughter, or tipsy loutishness,
which would provoke criticism from heretics who might be in the crowd. 72 The
core, often the larger part, of these panegyrics consists of a graphic recital of
the valiant life, achievements, and (where appropriate) sufferings of their hero
or heroine. But John always made a point of appealing to his auditors to
imitate their heroism, sometimes also of impressing on them the wonderful
relief from life’s afflictions, of whatever kind, they would be able to obtain by
coming close to, or actually touching, with faith, the caskets housing their
remains. 73 In all of them he is stressing, sometimes by implication, but on
occasion directly, the enriching fellowship which their devotees on earth can
have with the blessed saints.
Striking examples of the second category are the three sermons which
John preached on Whitsunday (Pentecost) and Christmas 386, and on
Epiphany (6 January) 387. 74 In each of these dazzling orations he holds
together several loosely related themes. In the first, for example, he not
only explains how the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the apostles (which
Pentecost celebrates: see Acts 2) transformed them into angelic beings
armed with supernatural powers, but argues on the basis of this that the
gift of the Spirit to sinful men can effect their reconciliation with God. 75 He
then turns on the heretics who deny that the Spirit is fully divine (an active
group, apparently, in Antioch). Their denial makes a mockery of the
privileges Christians believe they enjoy (forgiveness of sins, access to God
in prayer, etc.), and indeed (this was a characteristic touch) of the authority
of the bishop presiding at this service, since all these depend on his being

70
Des. Pelagia JPG 50.579-84); In s. mart, lgnatium (PG 50.587-96); De beato Philogonio (PG
<

48.747-56); In s. Meletium (PG 50.519-26); In s. Lucianum. mart. (PG 50.515-20). For their
dates (in brackets), see E. Schwartz, art. cit., 173-9.
71
See above, p. 38.
72
De s. Pelagia 4 (PG 50.585-6).
73
See esp. In mart. Ignat. 5 (PG 50.595-6).
s.
74
De s. Pentecoste horn. In diem natalem dom. nostri Iesu Christi
-,
;
De baptismate Christi et
de Epiphama (PG 50.453-64; 49.352-62; 363-72).
75
De s. Pentecoste 1.2-3 (PG 50.456-7).
68 Golden Mouth
76
the Spirit of God. In his prologue he had pointedly reminded his hearers
that, while Christians observe three principal feasts (Epiphany, Easter,
Pentecost), they are not tied to three fixed days as the Jews were when
Moses commanded them to appear thrice yearly before God (Ex. 23. 17): the
spiritual realities these feasts express remain valid, and should be kept in
mind, every day of the year. 77 Later he tackles a problem on which, he says,
people were often seeking enlightenment: why the wonders so evident at
the first Pentecost are no longer available. His solution is that in those
days, when men were emerging from Judaism and paganism, they needed
physical signs to bolster their faith; mature Christians are aware that the
miracles of grace are spiritually discerned. 78 Finally, seizing on the com-
parison of the Spirit to ‘tongues as of fire’ (Acts 2.3), he winds up his homily
with a vivid picture of the Spirit burning up a man’s sins as fire destroys
thorns, and of the day of judgment which, however menacing, a man can
face with confidence if he has purged his sins by the grace of the Spirit
whom God has sent. 79
The topics treated in the Epiphany address are even more variegated.
One which stands out is the question why the baptism of Jesus, and not his
birth, is called his ‘epiphany’, i.e. manifestation. John’s answer is that his
true nature was not revealed to mankind when he was bom, but when the
Holy Spirit descended on him at his baptism (cf. John 1.26 and 1.33-4). 80
But it is the Christmas sermon which, for reasons which will become clear,
is historicallythe most important of the three. Exceptionally long, although
Flavian was booked to follow with another address, it contains a blistering
attack on pagans who ridicule the Christian claim that ‘God was born in
flesh’, although their own objects of worship, artefacts of stone or wood, are
by comparison utterly contemptible. 81 It concludes with a passionate appeal
to the congregation to come with fear and trembling, with a clean con-
science, without pushing or shoving or brawling, to the dread table at which
men, dust and ashes as they are, receive Christ’s body and blood. 82 These
digressions apart, it is exclusively concerned with promoting, and giving
reasons for, the celebration of Christ’s nativity on 25 December. The
key-note is struck in the opening paragraph, where John expresses his joy
that the practice of observing it on this day, prevalent in the west (so he
claims) from earliest times, has at last been accepted in Antioch (witness
the vast congregation present in the church), in spite of the fact that ‘it is
not yet ten years since the significance of the day became known to us’. 83

76
De s. Pentecoste 1.4 PG 50 458 9
( .
-
),
77
De s. Pentecoste 1.1 (PG 50 453 - 4
. ).
78
De s. Pentecoste 1.4 (PG 50 459 . ).
79
De s. Pentecoste 1.5 (PG 50 460 - 1
. ).
80
De baptismo Christi 2 (PG 49 365 - 6 . ).
81
In diem natalem 6 (PG 49 358 - 60 ).
.

82
In diem natalem 7 (PG 49 360 - 2 ).
.

83
In diem natalem 1 (PG 49 351 - 2 ).
.
 5. Preacher's First Year 69

Many in his audience, John freely admits, are puzzled and sceptical
about the legitimacy of this novel and exciting feast. To convince them that
25 December was the actual date of Christ’s birth he appeals first to the
rapid and widespread acceptance of that date. This surely suggests that it
cannot be of mere human contrivance; it must be ‘from God’ (he cites
Gamaliel’s remark in Acts 5.39-9) for otherwise it could never have won
recognition so quickly. Secondly, he argues that, since ‘we have received
this date from the Romans’, we can safely assume it to be correct since they
have access to the official records kept at Rome of the census which the
governor Quirinius conducted at the time of the birth (Luke 2.1-7). 84
Thirdly, he devotes the bulk of his sermon to an elaborate, somewhat
bizarre computation based on the stories in Luke’s gospel (1.5-56) of the
promise made by the angel of the Lord to the priest Zechariah that his wife
Elizabeth, now past the age of child-bearing, would give birth to a son (John
the Baptist), and the announcement six months later to the Blessed Virgin
that she will conceive and bear a son. 85 On the assumption that Zechariah
was high priest, and as such could only enter the holy of holies of the Temple
once a year, in September, he deduces that Mary must have conceived Jesus
six months later, i.e. in March, and given birth to him nine months after
that, i.e. around 25 December. John presents his argument with panache
and, considering the complexity of his scriptural evidence, surprising
clarity. Unfortunately his whole case hinges on the premiss that Zechariah
was high priest, and this is completely fallacious.
In spite of what John says about its antiquity, Christmas was a com-
paratively recent feast, originating indeed in the west at Rome, but only
around 330. 86 Almost certainly it was intended to be a Christian counter to
the widely popular pagan festival of the birthday of the Unconquered Sun
(Sol Invictus), observed in the west at the winter solstice on 25 December.
John confirms this connection in his opening paragraph, where he exclaims
that, while it is exciting to watch the sun bestriding the earth and scatter-
ing its rays on all mankind, it is much more so to see the Sun of Righteous-
ness (Malachi 4.2: a title regularly applied to Christ) pouring out his
radiance from our human flesh and enlightening our souls. 87 Its emergence
soon after the council of Nicaea (325) is also significant: there can be little
doubt that the orthodox Nicene party saw it as a liturgical rebuff to
Arianism. This is borne out by evidence supplied by sermons of Gregory of
Nazianzos and Gregory of Nyssa, 88 both champions of the Nicene renais-
sance, that, in spite of the nativity having been hitherto commemorated at
Epiphany in the east, Christmas had been introduced both at Constanti-

84
In diem natalem 2 (PG 49.352-3).
86
In diem natalem 3-5 (PG 49.354-8).
86
See, e.g., B. Botte, Les origines de la Noel et de I'Epiphanie (Louvain 1932).
87
In diem natalem 1 (PG 49.351).
88
B. Botte, op. cit., 26-31.
70 Golden Mouth

nople and in Asia Minor by 380, i.e. at the time of the restoration of
orthodoxy by Theodosius the Great. John’s sermon is fully in line with this,
with its vigorous and repeated assertion that it was God himself who was
made flesh.
A further point deserving note is the sermon’s clear implication that
Christmas was being observed for the first time at Antioch in 386. Against
this it has been objected that John’s remark that ‘it is scarcely ten years
since this day became fully known to us’ indicates that the feast had been
established there for several years. This, however, is to read far too much
into his words. Correctly interpreted, they refer simply to the appreciation
at Antioch of the full significance of 25 December, not to its adoption as a
feast. Indeed, the celebration of Christmas there before 386 cannot be
reconciled either with his enthusiasm that ‘today at last’ the great day he
has been longing to see has arrived, or with his assurance in his Pentecost
address earlier in the year that the church has three great feasts -
Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost (no mention of Christmas) - the theme of
the first being Christ’s appearance on earth ‘as a child’. 89 What surely
clinches the matter is the notice he gave, 90 only a few days before in his
panegyric of Philogonios, of the imminent approach of ‘the most solemn and
awesome of all festivals, which one would not be wrong to designate “the
metropolis” of all festivals, the birth of Christ in flesh’, from which all other
great feasts take their origin and derive their meaning. For this great,
seemingly unprecedented occasion he begged everyone to abandon his
home and pack the church.
It is tempting to speculate whether the continuing schism between the
official church in Antioch and the minute hard-line group presided over by
Paulinos played any part, one way or the other, in the introduction of the
new feast. Although we cannot be certain, it is more than likely that the
Paulinians, or Eustathians, who were alone recognised by the holy see and
maintained close ties with it, already celebrated the nativity on 25 Decem-
ber. If so, thiswould probably have seemed to many in Flavian’s congrega-
tion an excellent reason for resisting its adoption. Others, however, aware
that rapprochement with Rome was in the church’s long-term interest, and
recalling that Meletios and his party had been careful to build doctrinal
bridges with the west, 91 may have seen some advantage in not lagging
behind Rome’s protege in a matter of such symbolical importance. These
conflicting positions may well have stimulated the sharp debates to which
John refers, 92 and may even have delayed recognition of the feast for some
time. Unfortunately we have no means of answering these questions. It
remains interesting, however, that John, who was chosen by the authorities

89
De s. Pentecoste 1.1 PG 50.454).
(
90
De beato Philogonio 3 (PG 48.752-3).
91
See above, p. 37.
92
In diem natalem 1 (PG 49.352).
 5. Preacher's First Year 71

to explain the new feast to the general public and win support for it, went
out of his way to highlight the authority of Rome (a line of argument not
used by other eastern leaders). The feast, he claimed, had been observed
at Rome from earliest times, the Romans were uniquely qualified to know
the precise date of the nativity, and it was they ‘who have now transmitted
reliable knowledge of it to us’.
 6

An Anxious Lent

Less than two months after his Christmas sermon, on Sunday 21 February
387, John harangued the congregation in the Old Church on Paul’s advice
to Timothy, ‘Drink a little wine for your stomach’s sake’ (1 Tim. 5.22),
taking occasion to criticise ‘our simpler brothers’ who, when they see people
getting drunk and behaving disgracefully, call for a ban on wine. Wine, he
pointed out, is God’s creation; it is not the mere use of it that causes
1

drunkenness, but immoderate indulgence in it. In his peroration he called

on Christians, if they should come across someone blaspheming God, to
rebuke him sharply, if necessary striking him in the face: ‘Make your fist
holy by that blow.’ He was booked to preach again on the Saturday and
Sunday following, and on Monday 1 March, the first day of Lent, to embark
on a course of Lenten homilies. But on the intervening Thursday, or
perhaps Friday, there was a sudden explosion of popular violence in
Antioch which was to fill the city with horror, and then with fear only
gradually yielding to hope, through all the weeks of Lent until the arrival
of Easter. 2
Our information about the riot and its sequel, it is worth noting, comes
almost exclusively from John’s Lenten sermons and five ‘speeches’ (nos 19,
20, 21, 22, 23) of his former tutor Libanios, who was also in Antioch during
the crisis. Of these latter all but Oration 23 were composed after the affair
had been settled; they were probably intended, in Libanios’ manner, 3 not
for public delivery, but to be brought, in one way or another, to the attention
of the important persons (Theodosius and the imperial commissioners) for
whose eyes they were intended or, in the case of Oration 23, to be read out
before select groups. 4 While some of them contain clearly fictitious matter,
the circumstantial detail in which they abound is invaluable for recon-
structing what actually happened. There are striking parallels between the

Ad pop. Antioch, horn. 1.4-5 (PG 49.22).

1

2
The most up-to-date study, both of the events and of John’s homilies, is F. van de
fullest,
Paverd, St John Chrysostom: the Homilies on the Statues (Rome 1991), which contains a full
bibliography. His chronology has been followed here.
3
P. Petit, ‘Recherches sur la publication et la diffusion des discours de Libanius’, Historia
5 (1956), 479-509.
4
P. Petit, Libanios: Discours (Paris 1979) I, 272-3.
 6. An Anxious Lent 73

accounts given by the two men, and in the past Libanios has been unfairly
accused of cribbing from John for his own purposes. 8 The sensible verdict,
however, is that of A.F. Norman, that ‘the coincidences of content and form
are to be explained by the common subject-matter and the common rhetori-
cal store of topic and rule, which made any account with pretensions to
accuraty and to plausibility inescapably similar to another’. 6

II

The insurrection was triggered off by the reading out, in the court-house
7

(dikasterion) on the island, of a government decree which imposed, without

previous notice, a new, exorbitant tax. Its exact nature, which has been
endlessly but inconclusively debated by historians, is irrelevant to this
book, but it apparently affected all social classes. Its announcement pro-
voked the city councillors (or decurions) and other prominent citizens
crowding the hall to address tearful protests to the provincial governor
(consularis Syriae ), who was present. 8 When these proved unavailing and
news of the levy spread to the populace, a crowd rushed to Flavian’s house,
doubtless hoping that a bishop held in high esteem at court would be able
to do something to have the impost withdrawn; but he (as Libanios reports
with satisfaction) 9 could not be found. At this point the mob took over,
instigated by a small group plausibly identified as the theatrical claque, 10
a paid body which at Antioch and elsewhere had come to assume a political
role, but consistently referred to by John as ‘strangers, men of mixed race’
or ‘strangers and foreigners’. 11 First, they attacked the governor’s resi-
dence, and then, having failed to break in, vandalised the nearby public
baths. 12 Finally, they set about jeering at, pulling down, even breaking to
pieces, the painted portraits and bronze statues of the emperor and his
family set up before the palace and in public places. 13 When they had burned
down the house of a citizen who had defended the tax and there was talk
of setting fire to the palace, a company of archers acting as police inter-
vened; then troops led by the count of Oriens in person moved in. 14
The whole disturbance was over by noon. 15 Even before that, when the
mob started maltreating the imperial effigies, the authorities had dis-

5
R. Goebel, De J. Chrysostomi et Libanii orationibus (Gottingen 1910).
6
Libanius: Selected Works (Loeb 1979) 2, 232.
7
For a fuller account see F. van de Paverd, op. cit., ch. 2.
8
Libanios, Or. 19.15-26.
9
Or. 19.28.
10
R. Browning, JRS 42 (1952), 13-21. For criticism of his thesis see F. van de Paverd, op. cit.,
27-33.
11
E.g. Horn. 2.3; 3.1 (PG 49.38; 48).
12
Libanios, Or. 20.3; 22.6.
13
Libanios, Or. 22.7-8.
14
Libanios, Or. 22.9; 19.34-6.
15
Libanios, Or. 22.9.
74 Golden Mouth
patched mounted messengers to Constantinople to report the outrage to
the emperor. 16 The count of Oriens lost no time in rounding up such of the
rioters as he could lay hands on, and having them summarily tried and,
when found guilty, ruthlessly executed. 17 Meanwhile the citizens were
filled with chill foreboding as the heinousness of what had been done sank
in. Everyone knew that to insult or show disrespect to the images of the
reigning emperor was equivalent to insulting him personally, and therefore
counted as high treason. 18 Both John and Libanios 19 vividly record the
rumours which circulated about the terrible punishment the angry em-
peror was likely to inflict. The city was likely, it was whispered, to be given
over to plunder and devastation: it might even be razed off the face of the
earth. It is scarcely surprising that there was a wholesale exodus, with
people of all classes (including, to his chagrin, most of Libanios’ students) 20
seeking refuge in the countryside or the mountains; the authorities, sig-
nificantly, took steps to prevent the city councillors from joining the mad
rush. 21 In contrast, Bishop Flavian, notwithstanding his advanced years,
bravely set out on 22 February on the long journey to Constantinople to
plead with Theodosius in an effort to ‘rescue so great a people from the
imperial wrath’. 22
After more than a fortnight of anguished waiting, on 15 March, two
commissioners nominated by Theodosius to investigate the affair, Cae-
sarios, master of the offices, and the general Ellebichos, arrived at Antioch
from the capital. They had, John was later to report, 23 passed Flavian as
he travelled north, and had communicated to him the gist of their mandate.
The choice of Ellebichos must have seemed a hopeful omen, for as military
commander for Oriens he was a familiar figure in the city, where he had
his headquarters. 24 They got down to business immediately, next day
arresting all the city councillors; it was these whom the government seems
to have held primarily responsible. 25 Their alleged crime did not consist,
apparently, in having themselves done violence to the imperial images, nor
even (as Libanios implies 26 in one of his Orations and some modern scholars
accept) 27 in having failed to check the riot. Rather it lay in the fact that,
whereas as subjects they should have welcomed the tax imposed by their

16
Libanios, Or. 20.4.
Libanios, Or. 21.9; John, Horn. 3.6 ( PG 49.56).
17

18
E.g. Ambrose, Expos, in ps. 118, 25 ( CSEL 62.219).
19
E.g. Or. 20.5; 23.12; Horn. 2.3-4; 6.7 (PG 49.36-8; 91).
20
Or. 23.20-8.
21
Libanios, Or. 22.11.
22
Horn. 3.1 (PG 49.47).
23
Horn. 21.2 (PG 49.213).
24
For his career see PLRE 1.178.
25
Libanios, Or. 21.7; 23.25.
26
Or. 19.25-8.
27
E.g. P. Petit, Libanius et la vie municipale a Antioche au ivme sidcle (Paris 1955), 238-9.
 6. An Anxious Lent 75

generous emperor, 28 they had had the effrontery to voice disloyal com-
plaints against it when it was announced - complaints which, taken up by
the mob outside, had led to their seditious misconduct. 29 Then on the
following day, 17 March, the commissioners presided as judges over the
‘fearsome tribunal’, as John calls it, 30 at which the councillors were inter-
rogated and tried. Libanios, it is interesting to note, sat with them as an
assessor. 31 A dramatic incident was the appearance in the city, very early
in the morning as the commissioners were riding to the court-house, of some
monks who had come down from their mountain retreats to plead for the
accused, and who in fact persuaded the commissioners to agree to submit
any decision they might reach to the emperor for his final ratification. 32
It was towards evening that the judges announced the sentences. First,
the emperor had decreed that Antioch was to be stripped of its status as a
metropolis, that rank being transferred to its neighbour Laodikeia; 33 that
its theatres, racecourse, and baths be shut down; 34 and that the free
distribution of bread to the poor be suspended. 35 Military law was also
imposed, with troops taking over the maintenance of order from the civic
authorities. 36 Then came their verdict on the convicted city councillors.
Some were sentenced to banishment, others to death; we do not know the
criteria by which the different degrees of criminality were assessed. The
carrying out of the death sentences, however, as the monks had demanded,
was deferred until the emperor reached a final decision. In the meantime
those so sentenced were to be kept in gaol. Next day, as darkness fell,
Caesarios set off at high speed for Constantinople to report the results of
the investigation to Theodosius.

in
Throughout these and the following weeks until Easter John went ahead
with his planned programme of Lenten discourses. Because the events
arising out of the riot and his concern to raise the morale of his stricken
flock are prominent in all but two of them (the ninth and tenth), they are
traditionally known as the Homilies on the Statues. 37 By conventional
reckoning they number twenty-one. The first, however, cited in the first
paragraph of this chapter, was preached before the outbreak of the insur-
rection. On the other hand, a strong case has been made out for including

28
Libanios, Or. 22.4-6 (his considered view, as against that expressed in Or. 19).
29
For a full discussion see Paverd, op. cit., 82-107.
30
Horn. 17.1: cf. 13.1 (PG 49.172; 135).
31
Libanios, Or. 22.23.
32
Horn. 17.1-2 (PG 49.172; 174).
33
Horn. 17.2 (PG 49.176; 179); Libanios, Or. 20.6.
34
Horn. 14.6; 17.2; 18.4 (PG 49.151; 176; 187); Libanios Or. 23.26-7; 20.6.
35
Libanios, Or. 20.7 and 38.
36
Libanios, Or. 23.26.
37
Ad populum Antiochenum horn. 21 (PG 49.15-222). A critical edition is urgently needed.
76 Golden Mouth

in the series an address which has commonly been treated as a baptismal

instruction ( catechesis ). 38 Not only is it so included in the great majority of
MSS, but it is demonstrably not a catechesis, being addressed largely to
baptised Christians; while it makes pointed references back to other
homilies on the Statues. As it is now generally accepted 39 that Antioch
followed the Alexandrian calendar, according to which Easter in 387 fell
on 25 April, and that the Antiochene Lent lasted for eight weeks, 40 it has
become possible to establish, as F. van de P^verd has convincingly shown, 41
the order and, in most cases, precise dates of the homilies.
Page after page of these addresses is taken up with what at first sight
seems routine religious or moral instruction; John was not the man to be
distracted from this by a transitory political crisis, however alarming. So
he carries on doggedly expounding Genesis (the book prescribed for Lenten
meditation) to his congregation, or attempting to clear up for them the
problems it raises. 42 Again, he lashes out at their follies and vices - the
ostentatious luxury of the rich, 43 compared with which poverty borne with
a humble spirit is a ‘treasure inviolable’, or the wickedness of malicious
gossip. 44 His sharpest, most persistent attacks are reserved for the practice
of swearing oaths. He regarded Jesus’ ban on them (Matt. 5.21) as absolute,
and had made the eradication of the habit in Antioch his principal objective
for this Lent. It would be a great error, however, to be taken in by
appearances. John presents his themes in the setting of the anguished
plight of the city and its inhabitants, and so gives them enhanced relevance
and urgency; he also stresses that the exposition of scripture is always the
richest source of consolation. 45 With the hippodrome and theatres, even the
factories, shut down, his church was thronged with worried people, like a
harbour (as he graphically puts it) 46 packed with shipping in foul weather.
The question on everyone’s lips was What has the emperor decided? Will
he really bring himself to annihilate such a great and populous city?’ 47 The
question was a reasonable one: Theodosius was a man of ungovernable
temper, and in 390 was to order the slaughter of several thousand citizens
at Thessalonica after an uprising.
The homilies mirror, in vivid and often poignant flashes, the drama as
it unfolded week by week and John strove to set what was happening in a

38
Ad illuminandos cat. 2 (. PG 49.231-40): for the argument see F. van de Paverd, op. cit.,
216-30.
E.g. V Grumel, La chronologie (Paris 1958), 267; Lietzmann-Aland, Zeitrechnung der
39

romischen Kaiserzeit (Berlin 1984), 22.

40
A. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy (ET: London 1958).
41
Op. cit., 205-364.
42
E.g. Horn. 7-9.
43
Horn. 2.5-8 (PG 49.41-6).
44
Horn. 3.5 (PG 49.53-5).
45
Horn. 7.1 (PG 49.92).
46
Horn. 4.1; 15.1 (PG 49.59; 153-5).
47
Horn. 6.7 (PG 49.91).
 6. An Anxious Lent 77

Christian perspective. In the second, for example, delivered a day or so after

the riot, he depicts the desolate aspect of the city after its display of
shameful, uncharacteristic violence. 48 Normally as crowded with busy
citizens as a hive with bees, its main streets are deserted and everyone who
has not abandoned it is shut up indoors, terrifiedly asking who is the latest
person to be rounded up and executed. If only people had heeded his recent
sermon urging them to deal severely with blasphemers, 49 the grievous
insult to the emperor would never have been perpetrated. Even so, it is up
to Christians to demonstrate their difference from unbelievers by the
courage and reliance on God with which they face disaster. They at least
are aware that he has permitted these things to happen so that they may
be brought by their sufferings to a healthier frame of mind.
In the third (Sunday 28 February), 50 pointing dramatically to Flavian’s
empty throne in the apse, he encourages his congregation to take heart
from their bishop’s bravery in travelling, crippled as he is with age and
ill-health, to the capital, and lists the pleas he will confidently present to
‘our humane emperor’, including the reminder that the paschal season, at
which Christ obtained redemption for all mankind, is ideally suited for the
exercise of forgiveness. 51 He will also press the point that the crimes
committed were not the work of Antiochene citizens but (did John really
believe this?) of ‘foreigners and immigrants’ for whose misdeeds it would
be unjust to punish innocent people. In the sixth (Wednesday 3 March) he
adds further reasons for confidence, especially the news just received that
the horses of the messengers sent post-haste to Constantinople had broken
down, so that there was a good chance that Flavian would catch up with
them. 52 He adds that Flavian was carrying with him a copy of the Easter
amnesty releasing prisoners from gaol which Theodosius had circulated at
the beginning of Lent. Notwithstanding this upbeat message, however, he
continues to urge his listeners to reflect earnestly on the moral instruction
he has been giving them, for this will enable them to rise above ‘the great
despondency which weighs heavily upon us’. 63
The atmosphere of despondency was evidently real. He begins his
fifteenth homily (Saturday 6 March) by explaining that he is not going to
give a lecture on fasting, as might have been expected on a Saturday. 54 With
‘the dread of impending calamity stalking the streets and the city itself
threatened with destruction, no one is in the mood for excessive indulgence,

48
Horn. 2.1-3 (PG 49.33-8).
49
See above, p. 72.
50
For the date see Paverd, op. cit., 48. For the dates of other homilies mentioned below see
ch. iv with table on pp. 363f.
51
Horn. 3.1-2 (PG 49.47-9).
52
Horn. 6.2-3 (PG 49.83-4).
53
Horn. 6.7 (PG 49.90-1).
54
Horn. 15.1 (PG 49.153-4).
78 Golden Mouth
which shows, indeed, what a salutary emotion fear is. In the sixteenth, 55
however, delivered on 13 or 14 March, a day or two before the commission-
ers’ arrival, he is distinctly upset, expressing indignation and shame that
the governor, a pagan, had found it necessary to stand up in the church and
address soothing words to the distracted congregation. Apparently a ru-
mour that Antioch was surrounded by troops and was about to be sacked
had induced widespread panic; it had perhaps been fomented by alarmist
reports of the commissioners’ approach. After grudgingly commending the
governor’s solicitude, he gives vent to his disgust that, after all the instruc-
tion he has given them about putting their entire trust in God, they have
had to turn to a pagan to teach them how to bear adversity.
When the judges’ sentence proved less harsh than anyone, himself
included, had expected, John changes his tone, and in successive homilies
urges his people to be continually thanking God for their deliverance.
Indeed, they should keep the memory of their sufferings alive, and report
them to their children, recalling that it was God from whom they had
sought help, and God who had given it them. 56 To highlight the horrors
from which God had saved them he sketches heart-rending pictures, 57 first,
of the trial itself, with soldiers armed with clubs and swords standing guard
and the relatives of the accused crowding outside in agonised silence
pierced only by the shrieks of witnesses as they were scourged, and then
of those sentenced to death being led away in chains, their property seized
by the state and their wives and children left without a roof above their
heads. As an eye-witness the spectacle had moved him to ask himself, and
now to ask his congregation, ‘If here on earth, when men are judges, neither
mother, sister, father, nor any other person, though guiltless of the deeds
perpetrated, can do anything to rescue the criminals, who will stand by us
when we are judged at the dread tribunal of Christ?’ On the Sunday
following (28 March), in a more petulant mood, he contrasts the hermits
who, at the hour of greatest terror, had come down from their mountain
retreats to bring succour to the afflicted city, with the irresponsible rabble
who, the public baths having been shut for weeks, ‘in their eagerness for
bathing rush to the Orontes, disporting themselves in it, leaping about and
dancing indecently, dragging women in with them’ - all this at a time when
their chief magistrate and many leading citizens were still in prison, under
sentence of death, with the emperor’s final decision uncertain. 58
Only the day before (Saturday 27 March) he had made light of the
emperor’s orders for the theatres and baths to be closed down and for
Antioch to be stripped of its status as a metropolis. 59 The closures, he

55
Horn. 16.1 (PG 49.161-3).
56
E.g. Horn. 12.1: given Tues. 23 March (PG 49.128).
57
Horn. 13.1: given on Wed. 24 March (PG 49.47-9).
58
Horn. 18.4 (PG 49.186-8).
b9
Hom. 17.2 (PG 49.175-6).
 6. An Anxious Lent 79

claimed, are in fact blessings for which the emperor deserves gratitude. The
theatres, which John prays may never be reopened, are the seed-bed of the
city’s depravity, while bath-houses only encourage softness and effeminacy.
As for Antioch, what option had Theodosius but to downgrade its status?
Did people expect him to thank them for their insults? The penalty he had
imposed was a wise and salutary one, not least because it reminds the
citizens that the true greatness of their city resides in ‘the virtue and
religious zeal of its inhabitants’. All this is of a piece with the message which
echoes insistently throughout the homilies, that the present troubles are
to be viewed as a penance for one’s sins, and that it is by deepening one’s
spiritual union with God that one may hope to win his forgiveness 60 John .

seems to have no doubt that the riot was a criminal outrage which, even
though the work of a handful of good-for-nothing foreigners (as he regu-
61 -
larly, against all likelihood, describes them no doubt in an attempt to
save his congregation embarrassment), had justly brought down the em-
peror’s wrath upon the entire city. Nowhere does he question Theodosius’
moral right to levy whatever taxes he deems fit, or to resort to the most
savage, indiscriminate punishments. For John he is always ‘our humane’,
‘most mild and merciful’ and ‘godly sovereign 62 .

IV
Fortunately the end was not far off. The degradation and other penalties
inflicted on the city were real, and the commissioners, personally decent
and well-disposed men, had pursued their interrogations reluctantly but
with rigour. It was their duty to impress on the civil population that
resistance to government tax demands was not to be tolerated. But they
had decided to refer the death sentences to the emperor for final confirma-
tion, and to recommend the convicted generally to his clemency. They had
even leaked this hopeful news in appropriate quarters 63 Caesarios had .

personally carried their report and recommendations at top speed to

Constantinople, and it is very probable that Flavian, who, although trav-
elling much more slowly than a great state official, had set out some
nineteen days before him, had reached the capital shortly before he arrived
there and had had an audience with the emperor. Very soon Theodosius
published a decree which both granted a free pardon to all the councillors
and announced the restoration to Antioch of all its previous privileges and,
best of all, of the imperial favour.
Our two contemporary witnesses differ markedly in their accounts of
how this happy outcome was achieved. Libanios gives all the credit for both

60
E.g. Horn. 3.7; 4.2; 5.4; 6.1; 6.4; 7.1; 20.1 ( PG 49.57-8; 61-2; 74-5; 81-3; 85-7; 91-3; 197-9).
61
See above, p. 73.
62
E.g. Horn. 3.2; 4.4(PG 49.49; 65-6); see also Horn. 21 throughout.
63
E.g. to Libanios: see his Or. 21.8; 10-11.
80 Golden Mouth
these decisions to Caesarios, 64 John to Flavian. Libanios, who nowhere
mentions Flavian’s mission, was clearly determined to ignore his role in
the settlement, while for John it had been a triumph exclusively for the
church. Both men were being selective with the truth, for while it is
impossible now to reconstruct in detail what happened, 66 it seems reason-
able to conclude that both the bishop and the master of the offices played
their parts. Flavian knew nothing about the judges’ sentences, or of their
suspension, but he must have learned about the fate in store for the city
when he met the commissioners on his way north; his plea is therefore
likely to have been a general one for leniency to a great community only a
handful of whose members had been culpable. Caesarios alone could have
reported the results of the trial and the judges’ recommendations. There
are other discrepancies (for example, John suggests that the decree was
entrusted to Flavian, Libanios to Caesarios), 66 but in any case the royal
letters announcing pardon for the councillors and reconciliation for the city
seem to have reached Antioch just before mid-April. Their arrival gave the
signal for rapturous festivities, with the main square festooned with
garlands and lit by night with torches. 67 Flavian himself was back in the
city in the last days of holy week, and on Easter Sunday (25 April) John
delivered the last, exultant homily of the series.
This was one of his most accomplished, and also most tendentious,
orations. It opened with fulsome tributes, first to Flavian for having
undertaken the risky, inconvenient journey to the capital and for having,
while there, ‘in only a few days’ rescued the city and its citizens from
impending calamity, and then to the emperor for having so swiftly and with
such largeness of heart laid aside his wrath, making it ‘plain that he would
grant to the clergy what he would grant to no one else’. 68 It then reproduces
at length what purports to be the tearful but carefully argued address in
which the bishop, in audience with Theodosius, pleaded with him to spare
the city from utter destruction, to pardon the councillors in spite of ‘their
having committed unforgivable sins’69 and, Finally, abandoning his fully
justified anger, to restore Antioch to the favour it had previously enjoyed
with him. Flavian even added, if we are to believe John, that if Theodosius
turned down this last petition and decided to reject the city completely, he
himself would never set foot in it again, ‘for God forbid that I should ever
account myself the citizen of a country with which you, the most humane
and merciful of men, had refused to be peacefully reconciled’. 70 The em-
peror, John goes on, was himself close to tears, but held them back because

64
Or. 21.12-23.
66
The most thorough discussion available is by Paverd, op. cit., 135-49.
66
Horn. 21.4 PG 49.220); Or. 21.23.
(.

61
Horn. 21.4 (PG 49.220).
68
Horn. 21.2 (PG 49.213).
69
Horn. 21.3 (PG 49.218-19).
70
Horn. 21.3 (PG 49.219).
 6. An Anxious Lent 81

of the bystanders. His response was a model one for a Christian ruler: "Why
should it be thought wonderful or magnificent that we should forgo our anger
against the men who have insulted us, we who are ourselves only men, seeing
that he who is Lord of the world, having come as he did to earth and having
been made a servant for our sakes, and having been crucified by those to whom
he had done kindness, besought the Father on their behalf, praying, “Forgive
them, for they do not know what they are doing”?’71
John had explained to his congregation that the account he was about
to give of Flavian’s powerful and effective plea to Theodosius, as of the
conference between the two men, had not been derived from the bishop
himself, who had been much too modest to talk about his own noble
achievements, but from one of the courtiers present 72 While there can be .

no doubt that Flavian interceded with the emperor at a personal audience,

it would be naive to regard John’s seemingly verbatim report of his address,

which completely ignores the part played by anyone other than the bishop
in appeasing Theodosius, and also the emperor’s exemplary reply, as other
than a brilliant propaganda set-piece in which the speeches attributed to
both parties were largely the product of the preacher’s imagination. At this
moment of civic jubilation John had a much nobler objective, as he would
have considered it, than giving an accurately researched history lecture.
So far as the vast audience cramming the church was concerned, he wanted
to impress on it the salutary message he had set down in his opening
paragraph 73 that ‘our city has become famous just because, when this
,

appalling calamity overtook us, it bypassed all those in powerful positions

or loaded with wealth, all those wielding great influence with the emperor,
and turned for refuge to the church and to God’s priest, and with supreme
confidence placed all its reliance on the hope which is from above’. But he
was also setting his sights on the educated pagans in Antioch, many of
whom during the past anxious weeks had turned up in his congregation 74 .

The resolution of the city’s crisis, as he had delineated it in his homily,

through the co-operation of a godly, humane emperor and a devoted bishop,
should open their eyes to ‘the power of Christianity’ and persuade them to
abandon their error and accept ‘our philosophy 75 .

V
The Homilies on the Statues have often been acclaimed as among the finest
examples of John’s pulpit oratory. They certainly illustrate his skill, so
admired by scholars ancient and modem 76 at composing Greek of near-
,

71
Horn. 21.4 (PG 49.219-20).
12
Horn. 21.2 (PG 49.213).
73
Horn. 21.1 (PG 49.211).
74
Horn. 15.1 (PG 49.153-4): cf. De Anna 1.1 (PG 54.684).
75
Horn. 21.4 (PG 49.220).
76
See above, p. 7.
 I
82 Golden Mouth 1

Attic quality. His prose is, of course, strongly influenced, in vocabulary and

phraseology, by the very unclassical language of the Septuagint and New

Testament. Apart from this, the differences between his Greek usage and
that of the best classical orators are confined largely to matters of detail -
the use of words in a post-classical or Christian sense, the preference for a
word-order characteristic of late writers, small points of syntax, etc 77 John .

had acquired this mastery from the thorough literary training Libanios had
given him, and from the remarkable continuity of the Greek educational
system, which for hundreds of years focused attention on the same great
texts. It would be a mistake, however, to find in it alone the clue to his
success as a popular preacher, since relatively few in his avid audiences
can have been literary connoisseurs. What must have counted much more
with them were the extraordinary clarity of his diction (a clarity which
Isidore of Pelusion, himself a stylist of grace, described as unequalled by
any other writer he knew ), 78 the simplicity and picturesqueness of his
imagery, and, above all, the sureness with which he, as a speaker of rare
charisma, was able instinctively to touch their hearts and consciences. To
modem students his sermons, including several of these, often seem
unbearably long (it has become a cliche to contrast John’s makrologia, or
long-windedness, with Augustine’s hreviloquium ), 79 lacking in logical ar-
rangement, disjointed in the way they pass from one idea to another. But
they cannot listen to the preacher himself. The crowds which hung on his
lips seem not to have been put off by such technical defects, for they were
magnetised by the conviction and passion which pulsated through every
paragraph.
With even pagans flocking to hear them, these homilies amply confirmed
John’s position as Antioch’s leading preacher. From now, as a German
scholar well expressed it 80 he had the hearts and ears of the entire
,

population wide open for him. It is likely, too, that they helped to bring him,
just over a year in priest’s orders, to the notice of the wider world outside
the Syrian capital 81 It is also clear from them, especially from the twenty-
.

first, with its eloquent but misleading presentation of the settlement of the
crisis as a transaction exclusively between Theodosius and Flavian, that
the novice preacher was already master of the art of the political sermon.

77
In reaching this conclusion the writer is indebted to discussions with his friend N.G. Wilson.
For a detailed treatment see M. Soffray, Recherches sur la syntaxe de saint Jean Chrysostome
d’aprds les homilies sur les statues (Paris 1939).
Ep. 2.42 ( PG 78.484), where he links his clarity with the Attic quality of his prose.
78

79
E.g. O. Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur (Freiburg i. Br. 1912), 353.
80
O. Bardenhewer, op. cit., 343.
81
See below, p.105.
 7

Decade of Development

The ten years from 387 to 397 were very busy ones for John, and they also had
a formative impact on his career. It is therefore disappointing that, with one
6
or two significant exceptions, we are completely in the dark about his personal
life during the decade, and also about the major events in which he must have

been involved from time to time. Fortunately substantial portions of his work
as an author and preacher have been preserved, and these enable us to form
some idea of the issues which chiefly interested him as a pastor and, in much
more shadowy outline, of his steadily growing stature in the community.
It was in the first half of the decade, between 387 and 393, that he
published his most famous and widely studied treatise, Priesthood. Sok- 1

rates, indeed, assigned it to his diaconate, 2 but this seems excluded by the
fact that John himself, in a homily preached almost certainly in 388, makes
an unmistakable reference to it as a work he plans to produce ‘at some
future date’. 3 It cannot, however, be later than 393, for in that year Jerome,
living at Bethlehem, noted that he had read it; 4 it was indeed the only work
of John’s he had read so far. As we must allow time for it to reach him, a
date around 390/91, when John had had several years’ practical experience
as a working priest, would seem in order.
As was argued earlier, 5 Priesthood is really a piece justificative designed
to show, probably in view of doubts still persisting in certain circles in
Antioch but also of his own desire to put out a personal statement, that
his refusal to be coerced into ordination almost twenty years earlier had
been motivated solely by his deep sense of unworthiness for the priestly
office. It shows many points of contact with, and has been strongly influ-
enced by, the discourse On His Flight 1 which his older contemporary

1
De sacerdotio : for text and critical edition see p. 26 n. 7 above. It is cited here by the pages
of SC 272.
2
62. .

3
In illud, Vidi hom. 5.1 (PG 56.131). For the date see J. Dumortier, Homilies sur Ozias (SC
277, Paris 1981), 185 n. 1.
4
De vir. ill. 129. For the date 393 see P. Nautin, RHE
56 (1961), 33-5.
5
See above, pp. 26-8.
6
So J.A. Nairn, De sacerdotio (Cambridge 1906), xv.
7
Or. 2 Defuga (PG 35.408-513) (critical ed. by J. Bemardi in SC 247, Paris 1978).
84 Golden Mouth

Gregory of Nazianzos (who had himself been forcibly ordained by his father,
and in dismay had temporarily withdrawn to solitude) had circulated in
362, but John’s originality and the impress of his personality are obvious
on every page. Cast in the form of a dialogue between himself and his
boyhood comrade Basil, it is stylistically the most accomplished of his
non-oratorical works, although its astonishing prolixity makes it heavy
going for modem readers. The first of its six books is taken up with
autobiographical reminiscences. In the remaining five he describes, in a
series of elaborate developments, the awesome dignity and terrifying
responsibilities of a priest or bishop, privileged as he is (for example) to
baptise, to absolve sinners, even to make Christ present on the altar, but
also liable to be held to account in the life to come for the misdeeds any of
his charges may have committed.
As the essay draws to its close, John reflects that ordained clerics, being
exposed to the busy world with its sensual allurements, face much greater
temptations than ‘monks dwelling in the desert, far removed from the city
and the market-place’. Unlike these, he is in daily contact with women, and
some of them deliberately set out to ensnare the hapless male. 8 A bishop,
for example, cannot concentrate exclusively on the men in his congregation,
but must be constantly visiting its female members pastorally - ‘and it is
not just a loose woman’s glance, but a chaste woman’s equally, which can
upset and trouble a man’s soul’. 9 Leaving aside temptations like these, and
the no less insidious ones of ambition, the cleric shoulders a range of
responsibilities unknown to the recluse. He has oversight of his charges’
moral and spiritual welfare, and if things go wrong can never plead
ignorance or inexperience. Mixing with men who have wives and children,
own property and occupy public positions, he must have a certain know-how
in worldly affairs, an ability to be understanding or critical as circum-
stances require. He is no seafarer idling in port, but has to steer his ship
safely through every kind of weather. 10 He also has to deal with constant
attacks on himself, however unjustified and from whatever quarter they
come, calmly and constructively, ‘forgiving irrational onslaughts, without
making a fuss and losing his temper’. 11 Compared with his life, that of the
recluse is easy; there is no need to lavish excessive admiration on him for
falling so rarely into sin, and even then relatively minor sin, since he has
only himself to cope with and little to excite his passions. 12
Texts like these might seem to imply that John has lost the enthusiasm
for monasticism evident, for example, in his earlier attacks on its detrac-
tors, 13 but such an inference would be misplaced. It was inevitable, in a

8
De sac. 6.2-3 (306-10).
9
Desac. 6.8 (332).
10
De sac. 6.4; 6.9 (272; 318-20).
n Desac. 6.9 (334-6).
12
Desac. 6.6 (324).
13
See above, pp. 51-4.
 7. Decade of Development 85

work aimed at explaining how daunting as a young man living in quasi-

monastic seclusion he had found the prospect of priesthood, that he should
highlight the contrast between the two vocations. As a corrective we should
note that in one of these very texts he makes a point of insisting that,
14

when selecting candidates for ordination, one should look for men who,
while able to mix confidently in society, possess and seem likely to maintain
all those qualities (serenity, inner strength, deep spirituality, continence,
etc.) ‘which distinctively belong to the monk’. We should also recall that
those lyrical descriptions of monks as ‘beacons who give light to the entire
world’ 15 which we recorded earlier were composed by him within a year at
most of Priesthood. The fact is that, while always impatient of the recluse who
cultivated cloistered virtue in the vain hope of saving himself, 16 John never
ceased to regard the monk, whether layman or priest, as representing authen-
tic Christianity. What he consistently demanded, with a seriousness which

his own experience of clerical office greatly intensified, was that the monk
should always be ready to place himself at the service of the community, since
‘there is nothing chillier than a Christian who is not trying to save others’.
17

n
Another work dating from this decade, one briefly mentioned earlier, 18 is
the cumbrously, and misleadingly, named On Vain Glory and How Parents
Should Bring up Children. 19 Surviving in only two MSS and first published
in 1656 by the Dominican F. Combefis under the more apposite title (in
Latin) St John Chrysostom's Golden Book on Bringing Up Children its ,

authenticity, and also its unity, have often been questioned, the latter on
the ground of the apparent difference of subject-matter between the pro-
logue and the body of the work. In recent years both have become generally
accepted, largely as a result of studies by S. Haidacher and B.K. Exarchos
demonstrating the book’s linguistic and stylistic kinship and literary
contacts with John’s acknowledged writings. 20
It opens with a stinging exposure of the absurd lengths to which people
will go in their craving for popular esteem. 21 A very rich man will throw
away his entire fortune putting on lavish shows in the theatre for the
entertainment of the public (this was a service, or leitourgia expected of 7

wealthy city councillors). 22 Even if he is doomed to end up begging in the

14
De sac. 6.8 (330).
15
In Matt. horn. 72.4 (PG 58.672).
16
E.g. In 1 Tim. hom. 14.1 (PG 62.571). See also J.M. Leroux, ‘Monachisme et communaut6
chr6tienne d’apr&s s. J. Chrysostome’, Thfologie de la vie monastique, 1961, 168-72.
17
In Act. hom. 20.4 (PG 60.162).
18
See above, p. 53.
19
De inani gloria et de educandis liberis: not in PG, but critically edited by A.M. Malingrey,
SC 188 (Paris 1972): she provides full discussions of authenticity, date, etc.
20
S. Haidacher, Des hi. Johannes Chrysostomus iiber Hoffart und Kindererziehung (Freiburg
i. Br. 1907); B.K. Exarchos, Johannes Chrysostomos iiber Hoffart und Kindererziehung
(Munich 1954) - developing three important articles in Theologia 19 (1941-8).
21
De inani gloria 1-15 (SC 188.64-96).
22
A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire (Oxford 1964), 2.736-7.
86 Golden Mouth

city square, he is desperate to bask for a day or two in his fellow-citizens’

applause. Ordinary people, too, sometimes very poor people, will indulge
in crippling extravagances, such as buying ostentatious silver, fine clothes
or a servant they don’t really need, just to attract compliments or to ‘keep
up their dignity. The church itself, John laments, is being rent asunder by
just such a fever of ‘vain glory’ ( kenodoxia ). In his second, much longer
section he seems to change tack 23 and argues that giving children a
,

thorough moral and spiritual training calls for at least as much care as
having them taught liberal arts at school. This is a task, moreover, which
parents should undertake personally; much as he would like them to
become monks, he does not advise sending them off to the monks’ retreats 24 .

He then outlines a detailed programme, based on scripture and Christian

morality, for bringing up a boy from infancy to his engagement; he should
marry young, before joining the army or the public service, for a youthful
love-match will prevent him from getting interested in other women 25 In .

a final paragraph he gives advice about bringing up girls 26 Just as boys get .

excited by sex, so their sisters find pretty clothes and expensive jewellery
irresistible; their mothers should keep these temptations well out of their
way.
John makes a neat transition from his original theme, the wickedness
and sheer folly of vain glory, to the seemingly unrelated one of education 27 .

He does this by, first, protesting that a man’s true dignity does not lie in
ostentatious display but in contempt of riches, even in embracing poverty,
and then asking how such an inversion of values has come about. Surely
because parents, instead of caring for their children’s true welfare, insist
on surrounding them with meretricious luxuries. He thus slips naturally
into an informal talk to parents 28 (this explains its repetitiveness and
occasionally slipshod style) which reveals, incidentally, how greatly his
ideas have changed since the days when he dreamed unrealistically of
packing boys off to monasteries 29 Although one suspects young people may
.

have found his prescriptions for training them as ‘athletes for Christ 30
’

somewhat cramping, the book is the earliest surviving manual setting out
a comprehensive programme for the moral and spiritual formation of young
Christians at home, in addition to the education they received at school.
John’s complaint in his first paragraph 31 that the church itself is being split
asunder by vain glory, coupled with his sharp question, ‘Hasn’t anyone done

23
De inani gloria 16-90 (SC 188.94-196).
24
De inani gloria 18-19 (SC 188.100-4).
25
De inani gloria 81 (SC 188.186-8).
26
De inani gloria 90 (SC 188.196).
27
De inani gloria 15-16 (SC 188.94-100).
28
De inani gloria 22 (SC 188.106): ‘Well then, each of you fathers and mothers ...’
29
See above, p. 53
30
De inani gloria 19 (SC 188.102).
31
De inani gloria 1 (SC 188.64-8.
 7. Decade of Development 87

what I demanded?’, provides a clue to its date, for it is only in his tenth

homily on Ephesians (as Haidacher first pointed out) 32 that he makes such
a demand in the context of the church’s divisions. As we shall shortly see,
the reference there is almost certainly to an embittered struggle among
members of the hard-line Nicene group in Antioch to find a successor to
Evagrios, who had taken over its leadership on the death of Paulinos in
388, when he too died c. 393. This would place John’s ‘golden book’ in the
middle or even late 380s.

in
Priesthood and Educating Children form only a small fraction of John’s
literary oeuvre during this decade. Much the greater portion consists of
either miscellaneous sermons or homilies expounding scripture (mostly in
the form of continuous courses). Judging by the hundreds of these which
have been preserved, and the many which one suspects may have perished,
his output must have been enormous. It greatly exceeded his later output
at Constantinople, even allowing for his having been resident there for only
six years. There is nothing surprising in this, since as bishop, as the
ninth-century patriarch Photios observed, 33 he was deeply involved with
public business. Preoccupation with this, Photios also claimed, gives the
clue to which homilies were composed at Antioch, which at Constantinople:
the latter were perforce less finished in style. Here we shall pass his
preaching activity during these ten years in selective review; questions of
the dates, or provenance in the Syrian capital, of individual sermons or
sermon courses will only be touched on when there is no general agreement
about them. 34
John’s occasional sermons covered a wide range of topics. On 1 January
388, for example, we find him denouncing the ways in which pagans
celebrated New Year, with night-long dancing and toasts in neat wine at
dawn. 36 His eloquence was not, apparently, wholly successful for, preaching
on the following day on one of the gospel parables, 36 he reproaches critics
who sneered that, notwithstanding his rebukes, the pubs had been
crammed with revellers. Yes, he retorted, but they were blushing with
shame in their consciences. On 24 January he delivered a panegyric on
Babylas, 37 on 4 February another on two local soldier-martyrs, Juventinos
and Maximinos. 38 The former combines a eulogy of the saintly bishop with

32
Op. cit., 20-3. Cf. In Eph. horn. 10.3 (PG 62.80).
33
Bibliotheca 172-4 (P. Henry 2.170).
34
On both questions M. von Bonsdorf, Zur Predigttatigkeit des J. Chrysostomus (Helsingfors
1922), remains reliable in general, and has been largely followed here.
35
In kalendas horn. ( PG 48.953-62).
36
De Lazaro concio 1.2 (PG 48.964-5).
37
PG 50.527-34: crit. ed. in SC 362 (Paris 1990), 279-313.
38
PG 50.571-8.
88 Golden Mouth

a ferocious attack on Julian the Apostate and a tribute to Meletios; the

latter, as well as graphically describing the young officers’ beheading on
Julian’s orders, highlights the emperor’s policy of facing Christians with
the choice of either abandoning their faith or losing their jobs.
Among sermons for holy days two Good Friday addresses stand out: 39
one, delivered in the cemetery north of the city, proclaims that since the
crucifixion death has become only a sleep for Christians (he is playing on
‘cemetery’, which in Greek means a place for sleep); in the other he recalls
the penitent thief to whom Jesus promised entrance to paradise, and
exhorts his hearers to pray earnestly for their enemies. In two other
sermons, 40 given perhaps in 388 and 395/396, he strives to give fresh heart
to the citizens after earthquakes, natural disasters which occurred fre-
quently at Antioch. In the first he explains that the quake is a sign of God’s
anger, a warning too of the much more terrible judgment to come; in the
second he congratulates his audience on the salutary change of conduct
which the shock of the calamity has produced in them. Others could be
cited, such as the seven on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke
16. 19-31), 41 in which he argues again and again that the poor man is
precious in God’s sight while anyone who is rich is no better than a robber
if he does not share his wealth with those who have none. 42 Pride of place,
perhaps, should be given to seven enthusiastic eulogies of the Apostle
Paul; 43 their first Latin translator, Anianus of Celeda (a Pelagian: fl. 400),
commented that in them John had not so much drawn a portrait of his hero
as brought him back to life again. 44
One of John’s responsibilities was, along with his brother clergy, to
prepare candidates for baptism, and among his more noteworthy addresses
are ‘catecheses’, i.e. lectures on Christian faith and morals given to them
between their enrolment early in Lent and their baptism during the night
of Easter, and then in Easter week. Two sets of these have survived, one of
four catecheses 45 (three pre-baptismal, one post-baptismal) delivered ap-
parently in 388, the other 46 of eight (three pre-baptismal, five post-baptis-
mal) dating probably from 391. 47 They have exceptional interest, not least
because we can compare them with two other fourth-century sets of

39
PG 49.393-8; 399-408.
40
PG 48.1027-43; 50.713-16. For the dates see A. Cameron, Chiron 17.354.
41
PG 48.963-1054.
42
E.g.De Lazaro 1.12; 2.4-5 (PG 48.980-1; 987-9).
43
De laudibus s. Pauli apostoli (PG 50.473-514): crit. ed. by A. Pi6dagnel in SC 300 (Paris
1982).
44
PG 50.471.
45
Cat. 1 (PG 49.223-32); Cat. 2-4 in A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Varia Graeca sacra (St
Petersburg 1909), 154-83 (I have not had access to this work).
46
Discovered in a MS at Mt Athos in 1955 by A. Wenger and published in Jean Chrysostome:
Huit cattich&ses baptismales (SC 50bis, Paris 1970).
47
For this date see F. van de Paverd, John Chrysostom: the Homilies on the Statues (Rome
1991), 291-3.
 7. Decade of Development 89
48
catecheses, twenty-four given by Cyril of Jerusalem in 347/348, and
sixteen 49 given (possibly at Antioch) by John’s friend Theodore of Mopsues-
tia at some date between 388 and 392. Two points about them deserve
notice. First, John’s address to the newly baptised given at dawn on Easter
Sunday (cat. 4 in the first cycle, cat. 3 in the second: identical in both), in
which he exultantly salutes them as stars brighter than any in the sky,
welcomes them at last as brothers, braces them for their combat with the
devil, and warns them against backsliding (‘just as there is no second cross,
there is no second remission of sins by regenerative washing*), stands out
as an exceptionally vibrant example of his oratory. Secondly, it is note-
worthy that the post-baptismal addresses in his second series are not
‘mystagogical’, i.e. devoted to explaining the sacraments, as they are in
Cyril’s and Theodore’s courses. That task was probably carried out by one
of the other priests he mentions as collaborating in the course of instruc-
tion. 60 His message to the newly baptised is that, reborn as they now are
in Christ, they must dazzle people by their exemplary conduct, avoiding for
example excess in food and drink, keeping well clear of the distractions of
horse-racing and the theatre, visiting the shrines of martyrs to obtain the
healing of body and soul their relics bestow, resolutely adopting a routine
which includes daily prayer in church before getting down to the day’s
business, and returning in the evening to implore God’s forgiveness for any
sins they may have committed. 51

IV
Ten or twelve years earlier, as a solitary in his cave outside Antioch, John
had acquired an exceptional mastery of the bible. 52 He now seems to have
decided that it was his vocation to make this available to the general public.
He therefore embarked on the great series of sermon commentaries, in most
cases covering whole books of scripture, which is his chief literary legacy
from this decade. Earliest in date are sixty-seven homilies expounding
Genesis verse by verse, from beginning to end. 53 It seems clear from what
he himself says in the opening paragraph of the twenty-third, that he
delivered the first thirty-two during Lent (the season favoured for reading
from Genesis), 54 the remaining thirty-five after Whitsunday of the same
year, probably 389. 55 Photios, while recognising in them John’s charac-
teristic clarity and richness of ideas, was disappointed by their common-

46
PG 33.331-1180.
49
ST 145 (photocopies of the Syriac MS with French translation).
50
Cat. 8.1 (SC 50bis.246).
51
Each of the foregoing clauses summarises the content of Cat. 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.
52
See above, p. 32.
53
PG 53.21-54.580.
54
See above, p. 58.
55
For the year, still debated, see Bonsdorf, op. cit., 9-13.
90 Golden Mouth

place diction, and for this reason, in obedience to the criterion mentioned
above, 56 assigned them to his period as bishop. 57 But internal evidence (e.g.
hints in the homilies that there are Syriac-speakers in the congregation,
and a reference to ‘infirm brothers nominally attached to us’ who are in
. . .

fact Judaizers) 58 make it certain that they originated in Antioch.

Along with these we may list his Explanations ( hermeneiai they are not :

described as homilies) of fifty-eight selected Psalms 59 (numbered in the

Septuagint 4-12; 43-9; 108-17, 119-50). Photios considered them so thor-
ough and so stylistically polished that John could only have composed them
when he had some leisure from business; he implied, probably correctly,
that they were prepared at Antioch. 60 Externally they present the appear-
ance of a running commentary, and that is what the majority of critics since
the days of Tillemont have taken them to be. Numerous passages, however,
leave a strong impression of being addressed directly to a congregation, 61
and most of them end with the ascription of praise customary in a homily.
The solution may well be that what were originally homilies have been
grouped together as a continuous commentary. For Old Testament scholars
they have a special interest: whereas John normally relies exclusively on
the text of the Septuagint, here he occasionally refers to the translations
of ‘others’ (in fact, Symmachus, Aquila, and Theodotion). 62
Other examples of John’s exposition of the Old Testament from this
period could be mentioned, such as four homilies on Isaiah 6 dating from
386/38 7, 63 but he seems to have concentrated his main effort on the New
Testament. Thus he delivered ninety homilies on Matthew 64 (the earliest
and most extensive patristic commentary on the first gospel) in 390,
eighty-eight on John 65 in 391. Internal evidence suggests that both courses
were spread over their respective years. Bypassing Acts (he had preached
on its beginning at Eastertide 388, 66 and was to tackle the entire book at
Constantinople), he then threw himself into the exposition of Paul’s letters.
His thirty-two homilies on Romans, 67 since earliest times considered one of
his most finished productions, 68 are plausibly assigned to 392. That they
originated in Antioch, not Constantinople, seems confirmed not only by his

56
See above, p. 87.
57
Bibliotheca 172-4 (P. Henry 169).
58
In Gen. horn. 4.4; 12.1 PG 53.43; 98).
(.

59
PG 55 39-498
60
Bibliotheca 172-4 (P. Henry 2.169-70).
61
E.g. Expos, in ps. 4.2; 7.1; 44.1; 140.1 (PG 55.41; 80; 183; 426-7).
62
Expos, in ps. 4.9 (PG 55.53).
63
In illud, Vidi dominum 2, 3, 5, 6 (PG 56.107-19; 129-42: see also SC 277).
64
PG 57-8.
65
PG 59.
66
PG 51.65-112.
67
PG 60.391-682.
68
E.g. Isidore of Pelusion (Ep. 5.32: PG 78. 1348) applauds their depth of thought and classical
perfection of language.
 7. Decade of Development 91

statement that he and his congregation are subject to one and the same
bishop, 69 but by the complete absence, from his discussion of ‘the supreme
authority’ (Rom. 13. Iff.), 70 of any mention of the emperor. In 392/3 he
followed these with fourteen homilies on 1 Corinthians, 71 and then thirty
on 2 Corinthians. 72 It was probably in the same year, or perhaps in 394,
that he prepared a course on Galatians, 73 but what has come down is a
verse-by-verse commentary. In several passages, 74 however, John appears
75
to be addressing an audience before him, and the conjecture of most critics
is that what was originally a set of homilies has been rearranged, probably
but not necessarily by himself, as a single, unbroken exposition.
Four further sermon courses remain: eighteen homilies on 1 Timothy 76
and ten on 2 Timothy, 77 six on Titus, 78 and twenty-four on Ephesians. 79 That
those on the Pastorals were given at Antioch seems proved both by repeated
references to local features (e.g. to the monks settled near the city) 80 and
by the fact that John discusses Timothy s position as bishop in ways which
would have been impossible had he held the office himself. 81 In the Ephe-
sians homilies too, sometimes assigned to Constantinople (on the basis of
Photios’ criterion) because of their generally careless composition, John
speaks 82 enthusiastically of monks who have taken to the harsh mountains,
a sure pointer to Antioch, and in the tenth and, more specifically, the
eleventh refers to a schism in the community in which the dissident party
is fully orthodox in belief. 83 There can be little doubt, as we shall later
confirm, 84 that this is the protracted split between the main orthodox
community presided over by Flavian and the small hard-line group headed
for many years by Paulinos and then, after his death in (probably) 388, by
Evagrios.
Since John’s plan so far seems to have been to treat the New Testament
books in their canonical order, one might have expected the homilies on the
Pastorals, generally dated c. 394, to be later than those on Ephesians, but
in fact they are earlier. This is brought out by the marked difference in tone

69
In Rom. hom. 8.7 (PG 60.464).
70
In Rom. hom. 23.2 (PG 60.617-19).
71
PG 61.11-382).
72
PG 61.381-610).
73
PG 61.611-82).
74
E.g. In Gal. comm. 9 (PG 61.627).
75

76
E.g. H. Lietzmann, PW IX. 1818.
PG 62.501-660.
77
PG 62.559-662.
78
PG 62.663-700.
79
PG 62.9-174.
80
In Tim. hom. 14.3-5 (PG 62.574-7).
1
81
E.g. In 1Tim. hom. 5.1; 10.1 (PG 62; 525-7; 547-9).
82
In Eph. hom. 6.4; 13.4 (PG 62.47-8; 97).
83
In Eph. hom. 10.3; 11.5 (PG 62.78-80; 87).
84
See below, pp. 10 If.
92 Golden Mouth

of their respective references to wars with barbarians threatening the

empire. In the homilies on 1 Timothy John discusses with almost armchair
detachment the effects of wars between Romans and barbarians, and the
cruel treatment the latter inflict when victorious. 85 In the Ephesians
homilies these speculative possibilities have become a horrendous reality,
and John warns his listeners to wake up to their peril. 86 There are countless
disasters everywhere now, and no one is alarmed. Let us at last be afraid.
God is accustomed to punish the just along with the unjust ... Do you not
see these wars? Do you not hear of the calamities? Do you not learn the
lesson from what is happening? Nations, entire cities, are being engulfed
and have perished. Tens of thousands are now being reduced to slavery to
the barbarians. If the fear of hell does not bring us to our senses, let these
appalling events bring that about.’ This emotional appeal conjures up the
alarms and anxieties of 395 and the years immediately following, when
hordes of trans-Caucasian Huns poured through the Caspian gates and
roved pillaging through the length and breadth of Syria, threatening
Antioch itself. 87 The inescapable inference is that we should date the
Ephesian homilies to 395-7, probably even as late as 396-7; and this would
be confirmed if the disaster referred to in the tenth was the widespread
earthquake of S96. 88
These commentaries, if we can so designate them, differ greatly from
one another. While some (e.g. those on Romans and Galatians) have always
been acclaimed for their stylistic finish, others (e.g. those on the Pastorals
and Ephesians) reveal what seems to be great carelessness in their compo-
sition. Again, the sprawling Matthew commentary (almost 800 columns in
Migne), full of moral and ascetical exhortation shot through (it may be
remarked) with Stoic presuppositions, 89 stands in marked contrast with the
shorter, but theologically much more polemical, commentary on John.
While the explanations of selected Psalms and of Galatians have come
down in the guise of running commentaries, all the rest are in the form of
homilies. John’s biographer Baur, however, raised the question whether
these homilies are in fact what they purport to be. Starting from the
premiss that what chiefly identifies a spoken address by John as such is
the presence in it of spontaneous interjections - e.g. comments on the
weather or the reaction of the audience - he went on to claim that these
tell-tale signs of actual delivery are wholly, or almost wholly, lacking in the
great homiletic commentaries. This makes it plain, he argued, that they
were not originally real sermons, but were composed by John in the

85
In 1 Tim. hom. 7.1; 18.2 ( PG 62.533-5; 589).
86
In Eph. hom. 6.4 (PG 62.48-9).
87
See esp. Jerome, Letters 60.16 (where he speaks of Antioch as being besieged); 78.8 ( CSEL
54.570-1; 55.45-6).
88
PG 62.79. For the quake see G. Downey, Speculum 30 (1955), 597.
89
See esp. A. Uleyn, ‘La doctrine morale de s. J. Chrysostome dams le commentaire sur s.
Matthieu', Revue de l’universit6 dVttawa 27.2 (1957).
 7. Decade of Development 93

artificialform of homilies with a view to publication. From this he drew

‘the surprising conclusion that Chrysostom, considering everything, must
have written more than he preached’. 90
Few students have accepted, or even discussed, the case Baur made out.
It seems particularly implausible when we study the homilies on Genesis,
which he used as one of its main props. In the first of these we find John
proclaiming how glad he is to see God’s church packed with cheerful
worshippers; in the sixth he expresses shame that they have neglected their
Lenten duties to be present at games; in the thirty-third he recalls that the
approach of Easter caused him to interrupt his course, and surveys his
preaching activities in the meantime. 91 But Baur’s case seems scarcely
more plausible when we turn to the homilies on the gospels and the epistles.
In them we even come across several instances of John breaking away from
his argument to comment on the applause or laughter of the congregation. 92
But the debate should not be confined to spontaneous remarks of this kind,
the absence of which in no way proves that what looks like a homily is not
in fact one. These texts abound in passages which show John dealing
directly with his audience in a way which makes it clear that they are, or
are based on, spoken addresses. Sometimes it is a reference back, as when
he exclaims, ‘Come, let us resume today the discussion we were having
three days ago about kindness, but left unfinished.’ 93 Sometimes it is a
lively sketch he draws of the crowd pushing and shoving to find a place in
the church from which his voice can be heard. 94 Sometimes it is a rhetorical
question which he throws at his auditors: ‘Did you not think yesterday that
I had said great, even extravagant things about Paul’s love for Christ? . .

Even I thought they could not have been surpassed, but what we have heard
today is even more glorious than that.’95
This brings us to the related problem of the marked difference in literary
finish between different series of homilies. Photios’ famous solution of it
was a brilliant guess, but had to be abandoned as evidence accumulated
that some of the most carelessly composed courses originated at Antioch.
An alternative explanation advanced recently96 suggests that, where a
sermon course has come down in a stylistically defective form, this may be
due to the fact that the surviving text rests on an uncorrected transcription
of the original notes of the stenographers who took it down. This proposal
has great plausibility, and although it was based on a close examination of

90
1, 220-3.
91
In Gen. hom. 1.1; 6.1; 33.1 ( PG 53.21; 54-5; 305-6).
92
E.g. In Matt. hom. 17.7; In 1 Cor. hom. 4.6; 26.8; In 2 Cor. hom. 5.5 (PG 57.264; 61.30; 224;
434).
93
In Matt. hom. 52.3 (PG 58.522).
94
In Ioh. hom. 3.1 (PG 59.37).
95
In Rom. hom. 16.1 (PG 60.517-18).
96
See B. Goodall, The Homilies of St John Chrysostom on the Letters of St Paul to Titus and
Philemon (Univ. of California Press 1979), esp. ch. v.
94 Golden Mouth
only the homilies on Titus and Philemon (preached at Constantinople), it
seems likely that it would be corroborated if an equally searching scrutiny
were extended to other series. If accepted, the results of this experiment
throw valuable light on John’s procedures. His favoured practice, it would
seem, was, before publishing a set of sermons, to edit carefully the notes
supplied by stenographers and so produce a polished version; an excellent
example would be the Homilies on the Statues. Sometimes, as in the case
of the Romans homilies, he might subject the notes to a rather more
thorough revision, or even, as with the homilies on Galatians, make it so
drastic as to eliminate almost all the signs of their having been originally
preached. On the other hand, several of his courses, for reasons about which
we can only speculate, escaped all editing and have survived only in
transcriptions of the stenographers’ notes. That this is not guesswork is
confirmed by the eloquent little note prefixed to the (later) homilies on
Hebrews, which describes them as having been ‘published after his [i.e.
John’s] falling asleep by Constantinos, presbyter of Antioch, on the basis
of stenographers’ notes’ ( semeion ). 97
An important, perhaps startling, corollary of this argument is that it is
precisely these transcriptions, rough and unpolished as they are, which
bring us closest (even allowing for the stenographers’ inevitable mistakes)
to the words which the great orator actually spoke. As the scholar cited
above neatly expressed it, ‘If we do not have the final revision of the master
writer, we have something equally valuable - a very close approximation
to the live oratory of the master preacher .’98

V
John’s sermon-commentaries (they fill nine or ten folios if we include the
ones he was to prepare later at Constantinople) form the most impressive,
and also most readable, collection of patristic expositions of scripture. To
modem students their chief value lies, not in his elucidation of the texts
reviewed, but in the light they throw, first, on his exegetical methods,
secondly and more importantly, on his understanding of Christian faith
and morals. Neither John, nor any Christian teacher for centuries to come,
was properly equipped to carry out exegesis as we have come to understand
it. He could not be expected to understand the nature of the Old Testament

writings, still less the complex issues raised by the study of the gospels.
(The Pauline letters, it is worth noting, being actual letters, presented him
with fewer problems; since he felt an empathy with the apostle, his
explanations of them tend to be somewhat more in line with what modern
critics look for.) Like other Christian expositors of that age he also believed
that the true author of scripture (not remotely but directly) was the Holy

97
PG 63.9.
98
B. Goodall, op. cit, 78.
 7. Decade of Development 95

Spirit. Even though he recognised the human writer’s personal involve-

ment (which, he claimed, accounted for ‘the discrepancy between the
evangelists in small matters’), 99 this assumption effectively blocked any
open-minded examination of the bible.
On the other hand, the commentaries reveal him as an effective, if
slightly independent, exponent of Antiochene exegesis. This comes out in
his frequently expressed determination to explain scripture in the plain,
historical sense, without resort to the arbitrary allegorising fashionable in
much of the contemporary church. Like his boyhood friend Theodore, he
had learned this approach at the feet of their teacher Diodore of Tarsos. 100
Like Theodore, too, he was prepared (probably more freely than he), so long
as the literal sense was safeguarded, to admit a further, even more
important spiritual sense. To give but two examples, while confident that
the stories of Noah and the Ark, and of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac,
recorded actual historical events, he held that in addition the former
prefigured Christ and his church, the latter the cross. 101 Of these two
outstanding pupils of Diodore, it may be remarked, Theodore was the more
rigorous and probing, often producing insights well ahead of his age, 102 John
was an equally conscientious disciple of the master, but was able to exploit
his methods more effectively on the popular stage.

VI
Theodore, who a few years later was also to produce a commentary on
John’s gospel, remarks in his introduction that, while the exegete’s task is
to clear up obscure passages as succinctly as possible (only resorting to
long-winded explanations when demolishing heretical interpretations), the
preacher’s is to spread himself to his heart’s content (presumably in the
interest of edification) on passages which are already perfectly clear. 103 As
one who was primarily a preacher, John freely availed himself of this
licence. As a result one of the most attractive and informative features of
his commentaries is his readiness to go beyond strict comment on the text
and draw out whatever useful lessons he thinks he can discern in it.
Sometimes these lessons are spiritual or religious, as when, expounding
the Psalter, he manages to extract from Psalm 7 directions on the kinds of
prayer Christians should use, 104 from Psalm 44 (45) an assurance that
virginity is the becoming garment of the church, 105 and from Psalm 133

99
In Matt. horn. 1.1 (PG 57.16).
100
See above, p. 19.
101
Horn, de Lazaro 6.7; in Ps. 46 (PG 48.1037; 55.209).
102
On Theodore as an exegete see M.F. Wiles, The Cambridge History of the Bible (Cambridge
1970) 1, 489-510.
103
Theodori Mops, in evangelium Iohannis Praef. ( CSCO 115.6 - Syriac text; 116.2 - Latin
trans.: Louvain 1940).
104
PG 55.385-6.
105
PG 55.202.
96 Golden Mouth

(134) a warning of the special purity one should aim at when receiving
communion. 106 At other times they take the form of attacks on heretics,
especially the Arians. Indeed, although their name is not mentioned in it,
his commentary on John becomes a running debate with them, the reason
being that while the Fourth Gospel abounds in passages suggestive of
Christ’s transcendence (on which the orthodox seized eagerly), it also
contains many which seem to stress his human weaknesses (which equally
delighted Arianizers). The Manichees, too, are frequent targets. In one
lengthy tirade he pours scorn on them for tracing all wickedness to an
increate principle of evil, whereas in fact (he argues) it originates in the
negligence and perverse choices of human beings themselves. 107 In another
he castigates them for picking out Paul’s phrase ‘the present evil age’ (Gal.
as confirming their pessimistic vision of exis tence in this world. 108 After
1 .4)
again insisting that the evils we deplore arise not from the natural order
but from ill-directed human wills, he triumphantly concludes with the
question, ‘Can this life really be evil, in which we have come to know God,
meditate on the world to come, have become angels instead of men, and
take our part with the choirs of heaven?’
More often these homiletical excursuses are moral or social in import.
So when expounding 1 Corinthians and Ephesians we find him not only
discussing the questions of marriage and sex which they raise, but putting
forward somewhat more positive views than he had earlier held. 109 He
stresses, for example, the equality of man and wife in sexual relations,
insisting that neither must deprive the other of intercourse without his or
her consent - What is the advantage of abstinence and continence if love
is disrupted?’
110
He upholds the Pauline principle that ‘the husband is the
head of the wife’ (Eph. 5.23), interpreting it as meaning that the man’s role
is that of leader and provider, the woman’s that of submission. But he is
adamant that no relationship in human life is so close as that between
them, for ‘there is nothing that so welds our life together as the love ( eros )
of a man and his wife’. 111 Indeed, ‘there is nothing in the world sweeter for
a man than having children and a wife’ - provided, he adds cautiously, he
lives chastely. 112 Again, the apostle’s promise (1 Tim. 2.15) that women will
be saved through child-bearing prompts him to deliver a little lecture 113 on
bringing up sons and daughters which, in its emphasis on the importance
of implanting good habits from the start and on early marriages in the
interest of sexual purity, bears a remarkable resemblance to the advice he

106
PG 55.386.
107
In Matt. hom. 59.2-3 (PG 58.576-7).
108
In Gal. comm. 1.4 (PG 61.618-19).
109
See above, p. 46.
110
In 1 Cor. hom. 19.1-2 (PG 61.152-4).
111
In Eph. hom. 20.1 (PG 62.135-6).
112
In Matt. hom. 37.7 (PG 57.428).
113
In 1 Tim. hom. 9.2 (PG 62.546-8).
 7. Decade of Development 97

had given in On Vain Glory 114

But a favourite theme, to which he con-
.

stantly returns irrespective of its relevance to the scripture he is explain-

ing, is the corrupting influence of theatrical shows, in which young men
dress up as girls, old men play degrading roles, unveiled women unblush-
ingly deliver indecent speeches, and everything (the actors’ words and
gestures, their clothes and suggestive glances, the dissolute music, the very
plots of the dramas) conspires to undermine moral standards, make men
discontented with their wives and break up homes. 115
What is perhaps most remarkable about these commentaries is the way
they mirror John’s indignation against conspicuous affluence and the
selfishness of the rich, and his passionate championship of the poor, the
exploited and the helpless. He pours contempt, for example, on the luxuri-
ous mansions of the wealthy, with their lofty columns crowned with gold
capitals, their marble-encrusted walls and their fountains of running
water, their exotically carpeted floors, and the cohorts of gold-liveried
eunuchs who attend their owners’ pleasure. 116 A man’s true glory, he
protests, does not consist in things like these, but in gentleness, humility,
unfeigned charity. He is even more derisive of Christian women, especially
those supposedly consecrated to virginity, who come to church flaunting
extravagant hair-styles, decked out with gold and pearls, and trailing
expensive dresses. 117 It is as if they were actresses, or even street walkers;
they only succeed in making themselves laughing-stocks to pagans. He
vents his fury, equally, on the sumptuous banquets which such people put
on, at which the tables are laden with all kinds of luxurious meats, fowls,
costly fish, pastries, and wine from Thasos, the guests reclining on ornate,
softly draped couches while flute-players, dancers and buffoons are brought
in to add to the fun. 118
Such scathing descriptions are matched by heart-rending ones of impov-
erished outcasts stretched out all night, not on silver couches, but on dank
straw in the colonnaded entrances to the public baths, frozen stiff with cold
and racked with hunger; 119 of the beggar who, while warmly clad citizens
saunter home from the baths to well-prepared dinners, hangs about the
narrow lanes like a famished dog in the mud and the dark, head bowed and
hand outstretched, starving but with nothing to eat; 120 or of convicts in
prison, some of them lying there in squalor, chained and in rags, cowering
like dogs at the visitor’s feet and showing the still bleeding scars received
from scourging, others who have been let out for the day, still in chains, to
beg for sustenance in the city square, obliged when they return in the

114
See above, p. 86.
118
In Matt. horn. 37.6 (PG 57.426-7).
116
InPs. 48.8 (PG 55.510).
117
In 1 Tim. horn. 8.1-3 (PG 62.541-4).
118
In Matt. hom. 48.5-6; 70.4 (PG 58.492-5; 659-60).
119
De Lazaro cone. 1.8 (PG 48.973).
120
In 1 Cor. hom. 11.5 (PG 61.94-5).
98 Golden Mouth

evening to surrender the miserable sums they have received to their

gaolers. 121
John’s indignation against the selfish rich reaches boiling-point when
he declaims against their criminal madness in cramming whole wardrobes
with expensive clothes while allowing human beings created in God’s image
to stand outside in the street naked, shivering with cold, scarcely able to
hold themselves upright. 122 He then draws a terrifying picture of how, in
the effort to soften people’s hearts and make their appeals for alms more
effective, some have been driven to stick sharp nails into their own heads
so that they can present a laughable spectacle, or even to blind their
children at an early age. ‘As for you,’ he concludes, "you would let out your
own children for your circus charioteers, you would throw away your very
souls for your pantomime dancers, but to Christ when he is starving you
would not hand over the smallest piece of money. If you do give a few pence,
it is as if you had given away your entire fortune But when we have to
. . .

give an account of ourselves, when we hear Christ saying, “You saw me

hungry, and gave me nothing to eat, naked and you did not clothe me”, what
shall we say, and what shall we plead in our defence?’
John’s appeal here to the key verses (Matt. 25.31-46) in which Jesus
identifies himself with everyone who is needy and afflicted and warns that
men will be judged by the way they treat such people, is significant. For
him ‘this most sweet passage’, as he calls it, 123 provides the supreme motive
for social action, 124 and he constantly strives to impress on his congregation
that, when confronted with anyone in want or distress, they are in fact
dealing with Christ himself, who when the reckoning comes will be their
judge. 125 As for wealth, John’s commentaries show that he was no political
or economic theorist, but took a sharply critical view of it - a much more
critical one than that of most of the fathers - based on his naive reading of
the bible. It is obvious, he explains, that in the beginning God did not make
one man rich and another poor. 126 Hence differences in wealth can only have
been brought about by injustice, the strong defrauding the weak just as big
fish gobble up the small ones. 127 So it has been down the ages since Adam.
Even if a particular rich man has not acted improperly himself, the wealth
he possesses must have been acquired somewhere far back by theft from
others. In the end its true owner is the Lord, and if so it belongs equally to
all since he dispenses his blessings (the sun, the air, the earth, water, etc.)
to everyone without discrimination. In so doing he puts mankind to shame,
for it is men who appropriate particular things to themselves and have

121
In I oh. horn. 60.4 ( PG 59.333).
122
In 1 Cor. horn. 21.5 (PG 61.176-9).
123
In Matt, horn 79.1 (PG 58.717).
124
See esp. R. Brandle, Matt. 25.31-46 im Werk des Johannes Chrysostomos (Tubingen 1979).
125
From scores of passages see esp. In Rom. hom. 16.6 (PG 60.547-8).
126
In 1 Tim. hom. 12.4 (PG 62.562-4).
127
In Ps. 110.3 (PG 55.281).
 7. Decade of Development 99

introduced ‘those chilly words {to psuchron touto rema) “mine” and “yours” \
The moral he draws repeated in sermon after sermon, is that anyone who
has money should be generous in alms-giving: ‘a rich man is good when he
distributes his wealth but he is not good so long as he keeps it to himself.’
. . .

And he should be generous without the patronising probing to which the

comfortably-off like to subject the wretched applicant in the effort to expose
him as an impostor. God pours his sunshine and rain on all of us alike
without asking any questions, in spite of our wilful misbehaviour. If he
were to make such searching inquiries about us when the day of judgment
comes, we should never qualify for pardon, much less mercy. 128
John’s critique of slavery in these commentaries is much less radical
than of wealth and the exploitation of the poor. The church, we should
remember, showed little or no interest in reforming an institution so firmly
built into the fabric of Roman society. The ordination of slaves, for example,
was prohibited, while the council of Gangra in Paphlagonia had recently
129
(c. 355) anathematised those who, on religious grounds, encouraged
slaves to resist or break free from their masters. 130 What weighed even more
with John was Paul’s advice to slaves to accept their status and serve their
masters ‘with fear and trembling* (1 Cor. 7.20-1; Eph. 6.5). His theoretical
position, 131 often stated in these homilies, is that the origin of slavery is to
be traced, far back in human history, to sin - more specifically, the sin of
Noah’s youngest son Ham (Gen. 9.24-7). 132 He is convinced that, if only the
world heeded the commandment ‘Love your neighbour as yourself there ’,

would be no slaves and no free men; 133 and he is sure that the first
Christians in Jerusalem must have set their slaves free. 134 In practice,
however, leaving theorising apart, he accepts the presence of slaves in
households as a fact of life, reserving his rebukes for those who keep
excessive numbers of them or inflict on them savage or humiliating pun-
ishments. 136 Commenting on Eph. 6.5-9, he argues that Paul’s words "be
obedient to your earthly masters’ imply that the master-slave relationship
is purely temporary and slavery only a name, and that if the slave follows

the apostle’s further advice and serves his master ‘with a good will, as to
the Lord and not to men’, ‘slavery is divested of its indignity* ( dusgeneia ). 136
He clearly felt uneasy about slavery, arguing that we do not need domestic
help since God has given us hands and feet to look after ourselves; 137 if

128
Be eleemosyna 6 (PG 51.269-71).
129
T.D. Barnes, JTS NS 40 (1980) 121-4.
130
Canon 3: Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des conciles (Paris 1907) 1 (2), 1034.
131
In 1 Cor. hom. 40.5; in Eph. horn. 22.2; in 1 Tim. hom. 16.2 (PG 61.353-4; 62.157; 590).
132
Be Lazaro cone. 6.7 (PG 48.1037-8).
133
In 1 Cor. hom. 32.6 (PG 61.272).
134
In Act. hom. 11.3 (PG 60.97): preached in Constantinople.
135
E.g. In 1 Cor. hom. 40.5; In Eph. hom. 15.34 (PG 6.355; 62.109-10).
136
In Eph. hom. 22.1-2 (PG 62.155-7).
137
In 1 Cor. hom. 40.5 (PG 61.353-4).
100 Golden Mouth
slavery had been necessary, God would have created a slave to serve Adam.
So we find him anyone who has too many slaves
in his impatience urging
to set those free who are superfluous to his needs, after having them taught
a useful trade. 138 His objections, however, are more to the self-indulgence
and ostentatious extravagance of keeping slaves than to the institution
itself. Commenting on Rom. 13.1 he clearly recognises that slavery is a
lawful state of life appointed by providence, analogous to the subjection of
wife to husband and son to parent. 139

VH
At first sight these homilies seem tantalisingly reticent about John himself
and about current events in Antioch. He had been a prominent actor in the
drama which paralysed the city during Lent 387, but once the curtain had
dropped on it his figure seems to retreat into the shadows for a decade.
While this is in general true, a close examination of the commentaries
yields one or two valuable insights into his personal development, and also,
even more revealingly, although only in haziest outline, into his attempts
to grapple with a worrying crisis.
In the first place,seems clear that, when studied in chronological order
it

they convey the unmistakable impression of a man steadily growing in

self-assurance and in confidence in his authority as a church leader. 140 In
his early days as a preacher, as we have occasionally noted, 141 John
regularly makes a great display of diffidence, of self-effacement, especially
when Flavian is present, but by 390, when he prepared his Matthew
commentary, no trace of this is left. Instead we find him ordering deacons
to repel an unworthy would-be communicant, however exalted, from the
altar, adding peremptorily, ‘If you dare not do this yourself, bring him to
me, for I shall not tolerate such impudence.’ 142 From his imperious tone
some earlier scholars 143 inferred that he must have been a bishop when he
preached this homily; we know on other grounds that he was not, but he
was clearly becoming a priest who expected his words to be heeded. When
a few years later he lays it down that presbyters possess all the powers of
bishops except that of ordaining, 144 he seems to be giving a strong hint that
he is Flavian’s co-equal collaborator in his other duties as bishop, viz.
teaching and presiding over the church. A further pointer in the same
direction is the way in which, when championing bishops against malicious
charges brought by members of their flocks, he slips instinctively into the

138
In 1 Cor. 40.5 ( PG 61.353-4).
139
In Rom. hom. 23.1 (PG 60.615).
140
For this paragraph see Bonsdorf, op. cit., 52, 57-8, etc.
141
See above, pp. 57 and 60.
142
In Matt. hom. 82.6 (PG 58.744-6).
143
Including his greatest editor, Sir Henry Savile (1610-13).
144
In 1 Tim. hom. 11.1 (PG 62.553).
 7. Decade of Development 101

first person and exclaims, We

don’t dare avenge .’ 145 More generally, the
. .

progressive sharpening of his attacks on critics of the church’s rulers

(archontes) observable in these commentaries
146
may be fairly interpreted
as evidence of his increasingly confident identification with the leadership.
It is no accident that this growing self-assertiveness dates from the time
when he was completing Priesthood an essay ,
in self-vindication which
exalts the priest’s authoritative position in the church.
The Ephesians homilies not only reinforce these impressions, but supply
a graphic picture of John wrestling with a particular crisis. In the sixth he
voices distress at the slackness which has gripped the church, from the
clergy at the top downwards, and which results in scandalous behaviour,
with no one stepping in to rebuke and offenders going unpunished. 147 There
is a general break-down of order. In the tenth and eleventh he becomes
more explicit: 148 the church’s unity is threatened by the craving for power
(philarchia ), and the tyranny of ambition has kindled a blaze which, even
if put out once, soon flares up again. In the eleventh he identifies the trouble

as a split in the community in which the rebellious party professes the same
orthodox faith, but is defective as regards ordination. 149 What amusement
this must cause to pagans! You can hear them jeering, ‘If they have the
same doctrines, the same sacraments, why does another leader place
himself in charge of another church?’ John concludes with a challenge to
the dissidents: ‘At least let the church remain undivided. If we have been
canonically appointed, persuade those who have mounted the throne un-
canonically to step down ... If you cannot produce a just reason for
separating yourselves from us, I entreat you to do your best to stand firmly
yourselves from now on and to bring back those who have seceded.’ 150
While the reference here is clearly to the Antiochene schism, it is not so
clear which of its many twists and turns John was dealing with. Paulinos,
almost a hundred years old, died around 388, but on his deathbed had
consecrated Evagrios, 151 a nobly bom Antiochene of his congregation who
had earlier been the young Jerome’s patron and protector, as his successor.
The consecration was irregular, having been carried out in Paulinos’
lifetime without any other participating bishop. 152 Several scholars 153 have
therefore concluded that Evagrios must have been John’s target. This must
remain a possibility, not least because we know 154 that Evagrios and his

145
In Tit. horn. 1.4 (.PG 62.669).
146
In Gal. comm. 1.6-7; In 2 Tim. horn. 2.2-4; In Eph. horn. 10.2-3; 11.4-6 (PG 61.623-5;
62.609-12; 77-80; 85-8).
147
In Eph. horn. 6.3-4 (PG 62.47-8).
148
In Eph. horn. 10.2-3; 11.4 (PG 62.77-8; 85-6).
149
In Eph. horn. 11.4-5 (PG 62.85-6).
150
In Eph.
horn. 11.6 (PG 62.88).
151
DHGE 16.102-7 (M. Spanneut): see also J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome (London 1975), index.
152
Theodoret, HE
5.23 (Parmentier 322-3).
153
Notably Tillemont, Mtmoires (1693-1712), xi. 269.
154
Theodoret, loc. cit.
102 Golden Mouth

supporters maintained an energetic campaign against Flavian, seeking to

poison the emperor’s mind against him; but the theory has its difficulties.
Flavian was remarkably tolerant of Paulinos, however much he may have
been irritated by his opposition, and is not likely to have sanctioned open
attacks on him or his (however unwisely) chosen successor. Evagrios, too,
was a widely respected figure, not least in the circle of John’s admirers. 155
A further objection is that Evagrios’ death should almost certainly be placed
in 393-4, well before the date to which we have assigned the homilies on
Ephesians. An attractive alternative explanation 156 is that what had stirred
John into action was the attempt by some unknown presbyter to set himself
up as bishop of the separatist sect on Evagrios’ death, or at some time
thereafter. It is perhaps possible to overhear a hint of this move in Sokrates’
report 157 that when Evagrios died Flavian saw to it that no successor to him
was appointed, since he was ‘moving every stone’ to attach his followers to
his own community.
Whatever the exact nature of the crisis, there can be no denying the
central part John played in dealing with it. It was he, clearly, who was in
charge of the campaign to bring the dissidents to order. There is no mention
of Flavian, although it is likely that John was acting with his approval. The
closing sections of Homily ll, 158 with their mixture of argument and
pleading, illustrate the methods he employed. First, he forcibly makes the
point that, on the analogy of the human body (Eph. 1.16), members of the
church must stick together, no one of them trespassing on the position of
another; where Christians hold the same doctrines, separatism can only be
caused by the craving for power (philarehia ); to make schism in the church
is no less evil than lapsing into heresy. At the same time he insists that he
is not bossing them: ‘My job is to counsel and advise you.’ He makes this
point, he assures his audience, so that none of them may plead that he has
not been warned of the sinfulness of schism. As he proceeds, however, his
tone becomes more personal, and he implores them to desist if they think
that in splitting the church they are getting their own back on him. By all
means let them punish him, ‘a person of no importance whatsoever’, but
they should do so by striking him or spitting on him - anything rather than
by inflicting pain on Christ by sundering his body. Indeed, if it will do any
good, he is prepared to step down from his office. He warns them, however,
that they should not place all the blame on himself ( eph hemas). Each one
’

of them is of full age, and like himself will in the end have to give an account
of his conduct.
Even a casual reader can sense the passion which, even more than usual,
vibrates through John’s words. There can be no doubt that they, coupled

155
Cf. Palladios, Dial. 5 (SC 341.130-2).
156
First put forward by J. Stilting, AASS IV.495.
157
5
158
4-6 (PC 62.84-8).
 7. Decade of Development 103

with whatever other measures Flavian and he took, were effective; we know
that no third bishop took charge of the little sect after Evagrios’ death,
although a determined rump of dissidents kept themselves apart for many
years. For students of John’s career, however, the incident has exceptional
importance, not least as suggesting that in the closing stage of his presby-
terate, partly no doubt as a result of Flavian’s increasing age and enfeeble-
ment, he was called upon to shoulder the responsibilities of acting bishop
of the see.
 8

Unexpected Promotion

One day in (probably) late October 397 John received an urgent summons
from Asterios, count of the civil diocese of Oriens and governor of Antioch.
He was to present himself immediately at the great martyrs’ shrine outside
the Romanesian gate, so called because the road through it led northwards
1

to Constantinople or New Rome. Having got there, he was driven some 25

km to Pagrae (Bagras), the first post-station on the trunk road to Tarsos
and beyond; as they drove, the governor gave him the astonishing news
that he was being taken, on imperial orders, to the capital to become its
new bishop. The emperor’s letter had insisted that the operation should be
carried out as discreetly as possible; it was feared that the populace might
be tempted to demonstrate if they learned that their adored preacher was
being taken from them. Nevertheless bishop Flavian, it seemed, was
informed in confidence of what was afoot. Once at Pagrae, Asterios handed
him over to two government officials, a palace eunuch and a courier
attached to the master of the offices, under whose protection he was
conveyed by a coach of the imperial post to Constantinople. 2 The land-route,
by Tarsos and then over the Taurus range, and so to Ankyra and then
Nikomedia, covered almost 1200 km. 3 In an emergency, travelling by night
and day, a special courier could complete the journey in six days, but John
and his escorts were in no hurry and probably took about a fortnight. 4
This dramatic change in John’s fortunes had been triggered off by the
death on 26 September of Nektarios, the greatly respected city praetor
whom Theodosius I, to everyone’s surprise (he was then a layman, still
unbaptised), had nominated as bishop in 381. Actually, it had been an
astute choice, for Constantinople was then a predominantly Arian city, and
while the emperor was determined to bring it round to the Nicene orthodoxy
to which he was attached, he rightly judged that a popular, diplomatic
figure like Nektarios was more likely to achieve this than a no-tuming-back

1
See above, p. 3: it was probably the one marked Bridge Gate on the plan of Antioch.
2
For this para, see Palladios, Dial. 5 (SC 341.112-14).
3
See Itinerarium Burdigalense ( CSEL 39.14-17), which gives the distance as 800 Roman
miles (= about 736m cr 1185 km).
4
L. Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (2 ed. London 1979), 88.
 8. Unexpected Promotion 105

dogmatist. As was to be expected, there was intense competition and

unabashed lobbying for the succession. 6 In particular, Theophilos, the
ambitious and powerful patriarch of Alexandria, coveted the position for
Isidore, an octogenarian priest whom he had employed on confidential
missions and who was now guest-master of the Alexandrian church. Noth-
ing could have suited him more than to install a trusted friend of his own
in the see of the imperial city. But, as in 381, while the canonical procedures
had be formally observed, the choice effectively lay with the emperor -
to
or, since Arkadios was no Theodosius, with the eunuch Eutropios, super-
intendent of the sacred bedchamber, who was then masterminding impe-
rial decisions.
There has been much discussion of the motives behind John’s selection.
Sokrates attributes it to his renown as an eloquent teacher; 6 according to
Palladios, Eutropios had gained an insight into his character and abilities
when visiting the east on state business. 7 This has the ring of truth,
especially if his visit took him to Antioch and he noticed that John was to
all intents and purposes acting bishop there. It is also not impossible, as
Baur suggested, 8 that Caesarios, who had been one of the commissioners
investigating the riot of 387, and who had recently been praetorian prefect
and was now consul, 9 had given a favourable report on John’s performance
during that crisis. Another suggestion 10 meriting serious consideration is
that, in its zeal for Nicene orthodoxy, the Theodosian house wanted more
vigorous action against Arianism in the capital, and considered John the
man for the job: so far from being suppressed, the Arian minority was in a
distinctly militant mood. 11 It is equally possible that the authorities were
looking for a bishop who would collaborate with them in what was clearly
one of their political objectives at this time, to consolidate and extend the
authority of the imperial see. Any one, or perhaps a combination of some,
of these reasons may have been at work. In any case it was entirely natural
that Constantinople should look to the Syrian metropolis for a new bishop.
It had done so in the past, and would do so again in the not too distant
future. 12
Whatever the motive, it was on Eutropios’ recommendation that
Arkadios had ordered John to be brought to the capital. At the same time
the emperor had taken the unusual step of summoning a special synod of
leading bishops of the east to take part in the election and consecration of
the new bishop. His object, according to Sokrates and Sozomen, 13 was to

5
Sokrates 6.2; Sozomen 8.2.
6
Loc. cit.
I
Dial. 5 (SC 341.112).
8
2, 7.
9
PLRE 1, 171.
10
J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops (Oxford 1990), 166.
II
See below, p. 138.
12
See pp. 11; 289.
13
62 8 2
.
;
. .
106 Golden Mouth

highlight the importance and solemnity of the occasion - in other words,

to impress on the outside world the special status he wished to be accorded
to the imperial see. Among the bishops responding to the summons was
Theophilos of Alexandria. When he arrived and learned who the chosen
candidate was (the authorities seem to have kept this dark until the last
moment), he was furious and did his best to oppose the decision and smear
John. 14 The synod, however, duly carried through John’s election; even
Theophilos, in spite of initially refusing to do so, gave his vote for him and,
as senior bishop, presided at his consecration. 15 He had been coerced, or
rather blackmailed, it was said, 16 by Eutropios, who had threatened that,
if he held back, he would make public certain treasonable letters of the
patriarch’s which had come into his hands. Although Theophilos had no
option but to yield, it was a humiliation he was never to forget.
John was the twelfth bishop of Constantinople. There is a discrepancy
in our sources about the date of his consecration, the calender of Constan-
tinople (or synaxarion) 11 giving 15
December 397 and Sokrates 26 February
398. 18 Sokrates’ dating is and most authorities
characteristically precise,
nowadays accept it. 19 The lapse of five months since Nektarios’ death has
never been satisfactorily explained. John was just under fifty years of age.
A description of his appearance which may well derive from authentic
reminiscences has been handed down in the menaia, or office-books for
feasts of saints in the eastern church. 20 According to this, he was diminutive
in stature, with a disproportionately big head on top of an emaciated body
— which he was to describe as being as frail as a spider’s web. 21 His nose
was prominent, with the nostrils wide apart, and he had piercing eyes set
deep in their sockets. His cheeks were pallid, withered as a result of
rigorous fasting, and his lofty forehead was furrowed with wrinkles. He had
big ears, and while his head was balding, he had a sparse, straggling beard.
Although pleasant to look at, he tended to assume a severe expression.

II

John’s promotion was almost certainly a surprise to him, but there is no

reason to suppose (as has often been claimed) 22 that it was an unwelcome
one. It made him chief pastor of a city which was even larger and more
magnificent, and already more important ecclesiastically as well as politi-

14
Palladios, Dial. 5 (SC 341.116); Sokrates, 6.2.
15
So John addressed him as his father (Palladios, Dial. 7: SC 341.152).
16
Sokrates 6.2.
17
Synaxarium ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae : ed. H. Delehaye, Propylaeum ad Acta SS.
Novembris (Brussels 1900), 312-13.
18
62
. .

19
E.g. H. Lietzmann, PW IX (2), 1819; G. Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale (Paris 1974), 464-5.
20
PG 29.cccxc.i-ii.
21
Ep. 4.4 (PG 52.595).
22
E.g. A. Moulard, S. Jean Chrysostome (Paris 1974), 270.
 8. Unexpected Promotion 107

cally, than Antioch. 23 When Constantine the Great inaugurated his ‘new
Rome’ in May 330, it covered an area four times as extensive (some 700
hectares) as old Byzantium. The walls he built, protecting its land-facing
flank and linking the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara, stood more than
two kilometres beyond the walls of the earlier city. He seems to have
envisaged a capital of between 100,000 and 150,000 inhabitants. With the
rapid growth of its population this total had certainly been reached by 380,
and in 384 there was already talk of new walls that would be needed further
to the west than the original ones. These new walls, which remain one of
24

the most impressive defensive systems of the ancient world, were in fact
constructed in 412-13 more than a kilometre west of Constantine’s, virtu-
ally doubling the area of the city to some 14,000 hectares (excluding the
suburbs north of the Golden Horn). This would have sufficed for a popula-
tion of 400,000-500,000 inhabitants, but in John’s time the figure is likely
to have been considerably less than that. The most recent estimates suggest
that it may have been between 200,000 and 300,000.
If Constantinople was only slightly more populous than Antioch (al-
though growing faster), by the time of John’s appointment it had at last
established precedence as the permanent seat of the eastern emperor and
his government. For Constantine his new city, which he had deliberately
modelled on the pattern of Rome and endowed with many of its privileges
(including regular distributions of free bread - brought, however, not from
North Africa but from Egypt), had been, after 330, his normal residence,
but his immediate successors often preferred to set up their headquarters
at Antioch. 25 All this changed with Theodosius I and his descendants: from
381 Constantinople was again the imperial capital of the east, rivalling
Rome and Milan (later Ravenna) in the west. When John arrived there, he
found himself living in close proximity to the emperor and his court. His
cathedral, the Great Church (Megale ), perhaps already becoming known as
Sophia (Wisdom) or Hagia Sophia, a basilica with a wooden cupola (xulo
trullos) which Constantius had started c. 346, 26 stood prominently to the
north of the Augustaion, the vast porticoed piazza which Constantine had
remodelled and renamed after his mother, the Augusta Helena, and which
formed the political as well as the ecclesiastical hub of the city. To the east
rose the senate-house, also an apse-ended basilica. On the south was the
Chalke or Bronze House, 27 the principal entrance to the sacred palace
which, with many changes and enlargements, was to remain the residence
of eastern emperors for a thousand years. To the north-west the palace was
bounded by the huge hippodrome, often to be the target of John’s invectives;
it was connected with the palace, and the emperors had a royal box

23
For this section see G. Dagron, op. cit., 518-30.
24
Themistios, orator and city praetor, Or. 18.223 (Downey 1.322).
25
See above, pp. 2; 8f.
26
Sokrates 2.16: cf. R. Janin, Les gglises et les monasttres (Paris 1965), 455-7; 469.
27
See C. Mango, The Brazen House (Copenhagen 1959).
108 Golden Mouth

(kathisma ) from which they could watch the chariot races and other
excitements taking place in it.
Three other churches, within and outside the city, call for mention since
they figure in this story. The first was Hagia Eirene (Holy Peace), only 150
metres from the Great Church. Often called the Old Church (Palaia ), it had
been there before Constantine, who (according to Sokrates) 28 had enlarged
and beautified it, and given it its name. The general council of 381 was
almost certainly held there. The second, the church of the Holy Apostles,
stood far to the west, just inside the original walls that John knew. Much
the most elaborately decorated, it had been begun by Constantine, who had
erected on the site a circular mausoleum to be his own burying-place, and
completed by Constantius II, who had built a large cruciform church, to be
dedicated in 370, adjacent to it. 29 The street leading to it from the palace
was the main thoroughfare of the capital, known as the Mese. This splendid
ceremonial boulevard, the scene of state entrances by emperors into the
city and of great ecclesiastical processions, started at the Augustaion and,
after traversing the forums of Constantine and Theodosius, veered south-
west, eventually reaching the old Golden Gate in the walls of Constantine,
where it joined the Via Egnatia, the great highway linking the eastern with
the western parts of the empire. From the Golden Gate it proceeded along
the coast to Hebdomon (Bakirkoy) seven Roman miles from Hagia Sophia,
where there was an imperial palace and an extensive parade ground for
military manoeuvres (the Campus Martius), and where emperors were
proclaimed and part of their investiture carried out. Here, among others,
stood our third church, an imposing circular sanctuary which Theodosius
I had built in 391 to receive, and be the permanent shrine of, the head of

John the Baptist when arrived early next year. 30

it

Although not yet a patriarchate, the see of Constantinople enjoyed in

the 380s and 390s an increasingly important status. As Byzantium it had
been a simple bishopric in the province of Thrace, with the bishop of
Heraklea (Eregli) as its metropolitan, but as Constantinople, Constantine’s
official residence, it inevitably began to acquire an independent position.
Its growing prestige isillustrated by the fact that a succession of ambitious
prelates (e.g. Eusebios of Nikomedia in 339 and Eudoxios of Antioch in 360)
were willing to exchange their metropolitan or even patriarchal sees for it.
The council summoned by Theodosius I to Constantinople in summer 381
(to be recognised as the second ecumenical council) carried this process of
advancement a decisive step further. In its third canon it decreed that ‘the
bishop of Constantinople shall have a precedence of honour next after the

28
(‘... enlarged and beautified’).
1.16; 2.16
29
Mango, BZ 83 (1990), 51-62: this article supersedes R. Janin, op. cit., 42-8.
C.
30
Sozomen 7.21. For the church see R. Janin, op. cit., 413-14. No trace of it or of Holy Apostles
(replaced in 1462-70 by the Mosque of Sultan Mehmet) survives. The present buildings of H.
Eirene and H. Sophia (museum of Aya Sofya) were erected in the sixth century by Justinian.
 8. Unexpected Promotion 109

bishop of Rome, since it is new Rome’. Behind this ruling we can discern
not only the determination of the majority of bishops present to cut
Alexandria, traditionally accepted as the senior eastern see, down to size,
but even more the wish of the emperor to secure for the bishop of his capital
a position superior to that of all other eastern bishops. The ruling did not,
of course, assign him any specific jurisdiction over other churches. Never-
theless the fact that he was bishop of the capital, in close contact with the
emperor and presiding ex officio over meetings of bishops resident or
visiting there, could not fail to enhance his authority. As a matter of fact,
there is evidence that, in the span between the council and John’s accession,
Nektarios intervened, or attempted to intervene, at least three times to
settle difficult issues in churches outside his immediate jurisdiction (the
civil dioceses of Pontica and Oriens), not however on his own initiative but
in response to ecclesiastics who, without attributing to him any canonical
oversight in those areas, recognised that the bishop of the imperial city was
uniquely qualified to wield efficacious influence in them. 31

m
John’s installation as bishop gave him an entree to the, to him, wholly new
and not altogether congenial world of the imperial court; his life was to be
closely, and tragically, bound up with it for the next six years. The emperor
and empress, with their family and most of the high officials composing the
government, were members of his flock. While normally attending the
liturgy in the palace chapel, the imperial couple, both earnest Christians
of strictly orthodox persuasion, were neighbours and came to his cathedral
on great occasions. The emperor, Arkadios, was only about twenty years
old. and halting speech, he was intellec-
Slight of build, with drooping eyes
tuallydim and ineffectual in character. Basically decent, he tended to be
guided by stronger personalities, but on occasion could break out of his
habitual lethargy and show independence. Created Augustus in 383, he
had been left as regent of the eastern part of the empire by his father,
Theodosius I, when he marched west against the usurper Eugenius in 394;
the praetorian prefect Rufinus, Theodosius’ powerful minister, was in
When Theodosius, after crushing Eugenius, died at
effective charge. 32
Milan on 17 January 395, Arkadios had succeeded to the eastern throne
(with Rufinus still guiding his policies), while his younger brother
Honorius, then a boy of 10, whom his father had named Augustus in 393
and had taken with him to Italy, inherited the western one. Theodosius
had already, probably in October 394, appointed Stilicho, the distinguished
Vandal commander to whom he had given his favourite niece Serena in
marriage, as regent for the youthful Honorius. On his deathbed, according

31
See J. Hajjar, Le synode permanent (OCA 164: Rome 1962), 56-60; G. Dagron, op. cit., 461-7.
32
Zosimos 4.51.4 (ed. F. Paschoud: see his n. 209).
no Golden Mouth

to Stilicho himself, the emperor had named him guardian to both his sons,
the 18-year-old Arkadios (legally of full age since 14) as well as Honorius.
Although historians have questioned it, 33 this was a claim which Stilicho
was to press in coming years, but which was to be strongly resisted by the
eastern authorities, and which was bound to create a steadily widening rift
between east and west.
The empress, Aelia Eudoxia, was intelligent, vivacious and strong-willed
- the complete antithesis of her husband, over whom she soon established
an ascendancy. 34 Daughter of a successful Frankish general, Bauto, she
had been brought up in Constantinople in the household of one of the sons
of Promotos, a bitter enemy and probable victim of Ruflnus, but always
retained a ‘strong vein of barbarian high-spiritedness’. 35 A woman of
exceptional beauty {kallei lampousan exaisioi ), Arkadios, a man of sensual
proclivities, had been induced to marry her in 395 by his chief chamberlain
Eutropios, who had shown him her portrait 36 - thereby foiling a scheme of
Ruflnus to marry his own daughter to the young emperor and thus ensure
imperial rank for himself. An ambitious intriguer, she was impulsive and
volatile, much under the influence of palace eunuchs and, even more, of a
camarilla of court ladies, especially Marsa, the widow of Promotos, and her
confederates Castricia and Eugraphia. One of her intimates was a courtier
described as count John, with whom gossip alleged she had sexual rela-
tions. 37 She was an enthusiastic, deeply superstitious Christian.
The sovereigns apart, much the most powerful figure in the court, or for
that matter in Constantinople, was (as has been hinted) Eutropios, 38
superintendent of the bedchamber or head of the imperial household. Bom
on the Assyrian frontier, this extraordinary man had been castrated in
infancy and sold into slavery. He had served several masters in menial,
often degrading roles, had inevitably been the victim of physical abuse, but
had at last, when already old (c. 379) been granted his freedom. His fortunes
now underwent a remarkable change, for he entered the service of the
imperial palace as a chamberlain, an office which gave him unique access
to the emperor’s person and the power to control the access of others. He
quickly won the trust of Theodosius I, who c. 393, when preparing for his
campaign against the usurper Eugenius, sent him as his personal emissary
to Egypt to consult a renowned solitary, John, whose predictions had earlier
proved accurate, about its likely result. 39 By 395, now chief of the bedcham-
ber, he had become a strong rival to the generally hated praetorian prefect

33
Notably A. Cameron, Claudian (Oxford 1970), 38-40.
34
For her see K.G. Holum, Theodosian Empresses (California 1982), 48-78.
Philostorgios, HE 11.6 ( GCS 21.136: barbarikou thrasous ouk oligon).
35

36
Zosimos 5.3. 2-3 (indirectly confirmed by the Roman poet Claudian, De nuptiis Honorii
Augusti 23-5).
37
Zosimos 5.16.8: cf. PLRE 2.593-4.
38
For his career see PLRE 2.440-1.
39
Sozomen 7.22.
 8. Unexpected Promotion Ill

Rufinus, and later in the year almost certainly collaborated with Stilicho
40
in his murder. Persuaded by Rufinus, Arkadios had ordered Stilicho, then
in Thessaly, to dispatch the eastern army which Theodosius had taken to
the west, and which he had with him, back to Constantinople. Stilicho
obeyed, placing it under the command of Gainas, a Gothic general who had
risen from the ranks under Theodosius, 41 and with whom he had reached
an understanding about Rufinus’ fate. Gainas and his troops marched
eastwards along the Via Egnatia; when they reached the outskirts of the
city, Arkadios, in accordance with custom, came to meet them at the
Campus Martius at Hebdomon. Rufinus accompanied the emperor, but as
the praetorian prefect was carrying out an informal walk-about, greeting
officers and men, they fell on him with drawn swords and he was cut to
pieces (27 November 395).
Eutropios at once stepped into the dead minister’s shoes and, as well as
seizing much of his immense fortune, for the next four years took over his
role as the emperor’s all-powerful adviser, virtually in control of the eastern
government. As the arranger of his marriage, with the insight and skill to
exploit his weaknesses, he had enormous influence with Arkadios, who was
genuinely fond of him, and also for a time with Eudoxia. In 396 he
demonstrated his contempt for the army establishment by bringing about
the downfall of two leading generals whose wealth he coveted, and in 398,
to everyone’s surprise and chagrin, personally conducted a successful
military campaign against marauding Huns who had penetrated deep into
the provinces of Asia Minor. In gratitude for his victory the emperor
nominated him eastern consul for 399, and in the same year honoured him
with the exceptional title of ‘patrician’. Thus, when he selected John as
bishop of the capital, although socially despised as a eunuch and former
slave, hated for his shameless rapacity and cynical sale of offices, Eutropios
was at the height of his power.

IV
John’s new residence (the episkopeion ), where he and the clergy closely
associated with him lived and where he received visitors and conducted
business, stood to the south-east of the Great Church, having direct access
to Burnt down in 388 by Arian mobs rioting because of a false report that
it.

the orthodox Theodosius I had been defeated in battle by the usurper

Maximus in N. Italy, 42 its rebuilding had been undertaken by Nektarios,

but the work had not been completed.
Close to the house, adjoining the south portico of Hagia Sophia and
communicating with its narthex by a staircase, was a sprawling convent

40
Zosimos 5.8.1.
41
Sozomen 8.14.
42
Sokrates 5.13.
112 Golden Mouth
which had been founded, and was now presided over, by the deaconess
Olympias, 43 a woman of remarkable intelligence, determination of charac-
ter and outspokenness (some, in the sexist language of the time, declared
that she was more a man than a woman). 44 Of aristocratic lineage, grand-
daughter of Constantine’s praetorian prefect Ablabios, she was fabulously
wealthy, with estates in Thrace, Galatia, Cappadocia and Bithynia, as well
as numerous properties in Constantinople itself. In 385 Theodosius, eager
to build connections between his Spanish relatives and the affluent elite of
the capital, had arranged her marriage with one of them, Nebridios, city
praetor in 386. When he died less than two years later, he pressed her to
marry another kinsman, Elpidios. A Christian committed to the ascetic
ideal, she refused, bluntly retorting that, if her king, Jesus Christ, had
intended her to live with a man, he would not have taken her husband
away. The emperor was furious; it was against the public interest for such
riches as she possessed to remain in the keeping of a widow, and a
downright waste if she were to lavish them on pious charities. He ordered
her fortune to be impounded until she was thirty, but four years later,
before she had reached that age, he relented and restored it to her, having
been assured (we are told) of the sincerity and high quality of her ascetic
devotion. 45
Henceforth she gave herself wholly to the service of God and his church,
especially the care of the sick and poor. According to Palladios, 46 a great
admirer, she deliberately modelled herself, in her spiritual exercises and
charitable works, on Melania the Elder, the wealthy Roman aristocrat who
in 378, with Rufinus of Aquileia as her adviser, had founded a double
monastery at Jerusalem, and whose relatives, years later when she herself
had moved back to Rome, were to extend hospitality to John’s supporters
seeking refuge there. 47 This report has prompted the speculation (unprov-
able but not improbable) that Olympias herself may at some point have
made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and got to know the great lady
personally. 48 At this time her main task was the supervision of her convent,
which she had built on property belonging to herself and which, beginning
with about fifty of her own maidservants, soon increased to the amazing
total of some two hundred and fifty inmates, all virgins. 49 In addition, she
kept open house for visiting ecclesiastics and Christian travellers in need

43
Lausiac History 56; also the anonymous Life written
For her see Palladios, Dial. 10, 16, 17;
contemporary who knew her and her sisters (ed. by
in the first half of the fifth century by a
A.M. Malingrey, SC 13bis: Paris 1968). Much of this and the next paragraph is drawn from
this. See also BSS IX. 1154-8 (R. Janin).
44
Palladios, Dial. 16 (SC 341.318).
45
Life 2-4 (SC 13bis.408-14).
46
Lausiac History 56 (Butler, 149-50).
47
See below, p. 275.
48
E.D. Hunt, JTS 24 (1973), 477.
49
Life 6 (SC 13bis.418-20).
 8. Unexpected Promotion 113

of hospitality. It is intriguing to note that, among the numerous guests she

thus entertained, and freely loaded with gifts when they departed, were
several (e.g. Epiphanios of Cyprus and Theophilos of Alexandria) who were
50
to become John’s irreconcilable foes. Highly educated, well grounded in
the scriptures, she had placed her services at the disposal of bishop
Nektarios. The courtly old man so valued her charitable generosity, and
found her advice on church affairs so helpful, that he ordained her a
deaconess when she was still in her early thirties, notwithstanding the ban
imposed by St Paul, and quite recently reaffirmed by Theodosius, on
consecrating widows under the age of sixty. 51
As the leading deaconess attached to his cathedral, John must have
made the acquaintance of Olympias almost immediately after his arrival
in the capital From the start there seems to have developed between them
.

a deep and, as events were to show, lasting friendship founded on an affinity

which was both spiritual and intellectual. Like him, she was devoted to the
bible, reading its books over and over again. Both practised similar austeri-
ties. Like him, she had ruined her digestive system by excessive fasting
and an injudicious diet. While he needed warm baths because of his
wretched physical condition, she on a similar principle shunned them
except for urgent reasons of health. Even when she allowed herself one, she
was careful not to remove her undergarment, thus avoiding the sight of her
naked body or permitting her maids to see it. 52 Her convent was separated
from his palace by a single wall, and he was the only outsider, man or
woman, who had leave to cross the threshold. Indeed, he took over the
spiritual direction of her community; his inspired talks, her unknown
biographer records, 53 by means of the divine charity with which they
overflowed, set ablaze the love of God in its inmates. In return Olympias
made herself responsible for taking care of his clothes and for preparing
his simple meals, which she sent across each day to the episkopeion. There
was no one in Constantinople with whom he was to have a deeper or more
sympathetic understanding, no one with whom he was to feel more at ease
or to whom he was to pour out his heart more unreservedly, than this
independent, strong-willed but also intensely emotional woman.
Modem students, influenced by the post-Freudian atmosphere in which
they have been brought up, are bound to discern a sexual element in this
close and strong relationship. They are entirely correct in so doing. It would
be a mistake, however, to suppose that John and Olympias were unaware
of this factor. The temptations to which relations between the sexes can
give rise were never far from the thoughts of committed Christians of that
epoch, least of all from John’s. But while acutely alive to the sexual

50
Life 14 (SC 13bis.436-9).
51
1 Tim. 5.9; CT 16.2.27 (21 June 390).
52
Life 13 (SC 13bis.434-6).
53
Life 8 (SC 13bis.422).
114 Golden Mouth

dimension, they viewed it with a profound repugnance which modem

people usually find it hard to understand. Hence they employed a well-
organised self-discipline (including, for example, the elaborate formal
courtesy by which they distanced themselves from one another) to keep it
at arm’s length. What their heroic efforts cost them we can only surmise,
but if their effects on John were relatively slight, on Olympias they were
to be deeply damaging.
 9

Diplomat and Rough Reformer

John took up the reins of his new office with resolution, and also with an
assured conviction of his authority. From the start, however, he set himself
to woo the common people, using language which strikes modem readers
as extravagant, but which was in fact characteristic of his populist ap-
proach. In his second sermon in Constantinople (a tirade against rationalist
Arianism) he exclaimed, ‘I have already addressed you once, but from that
day I have come to love you as if I had grown up among you from childhood.
The chains of affection which bind me to you are as strong as if I had enjoyed
your most pleasant company for time past counting. And this has come
about, not because I am especially given to friendship and love, but because
you are of all people the most desirable, the most lovable. For who would
not admire and marvel at your zeal tested in the flames, your unfeigned
love, your warm regard for your teachers, the unity you maintain among
yourselves ?’ 1 He went on to assure his audience that he now felt no less
attached to the church in Constantinople than to that of his birth and
upbringing. Indeed, if the church at Antioch had been earlier in its foun-
dation, that of the capital was even more fervent in its faith. If the
congregation there was larger (was this a hint that the situation in
Constantinople must be improved?) and the theatre more brilliant, the
endurance of Christians here had been more severely tested by the ravag-
ing wolves of Arianism.
As he spoke, John was, almost instinctively, building up a constituency
which he would never lose. He was prepared also, as we shall see, when
the occasion seemed appropriate, to address the emperor and empress with
fulsome flattery. Towards both, especially the emperor, his public stance
had all the respect, even obsequious deference which we should expect of
an eastern prelate of that epoch, and which has often been contrasted with
the commanding manner of a western bishop like Ambrose of Milan 2 His .

sermons abound in colourful descriptions of the imperial regalia, as of the

C. Anomoeos horn. 1.1-2 ( PG 48.796-7). He recalls that in his first sermon (now lost),
1

comparing himself to David facing Goliath, he had promised to counter the rationalism of the
Anomoeans with the simpler weapons provided by scripture.
2
E.g. F. Homes Dudden, The Life and Times of St Ambrose (Oxf ord 1935), 1.370.
116 Golden Mouth

majestic ritual of court and palace 3 - although a note of deprecation can almost
always be detected in them. He was also studiously careful (considerations of
personal safety must also have played their part) never to breathe a word of
criticism of Arkadios himself. Nevertheless he stands out among contempo-
raries for his boldness in asserting the pre-eminence of the bishop over the
temporal ruler, however august. Years before at Antioch, while assuring his
congregation that ‘the emperor is crown and head of all who dwell on earth 4 ’,

he had been equally insistent that the bishop too was a prince, a prince
moreover of greater honour and dignity than the emperor 5 The divine laws,
.

he went on to claim, made the emperor subject to the bishop since he had to
resort to the bishop for every blessing from above. The bishop’s panoply, too,
was more splendid than the emperor’s and his power much more effective,
since the breastplate and belt he wore were of righteousness and truth, while
he wielded a sword not of steel but of the Holy Spirit.
While his utterances on the subject at Constantinople are fewer, exactly
the same principles inspire them. He is emphatic, for example, that the
wrath of emperors can be arbitrary and cruel; when that happens, their
power is thoroughly evil, as corrupting to the soul as disease to the body 6 .

On the other hand, the basis of the bishop’s authority is the fact that he is
Christ’s ambassador; his office is a spiritual one in which the grace of God
operates. ‘So long as I sit on this throne and possess this presidency
(
proedria ), however unworthy I may be, I have the dignity and power’ which
belong to Christ’s envoy 7 Some years after his installation, lecturing on
.

the book of Acts, he was to give a stern warning that if anyone were to
disobey his spiritual admonitions, no matter how exalted his office, no
matter if he were the wearer of the imperial diadem itself, he would have
no hesitation in excommunicating him: ‘So long as I sit on this throne, I
shall not surrender any of the rights belonging to it .’8 In thus proclaiming
the bishop’s independence of the state John was repudiating in advance the
caesaropapism which was to be everywhere taken for granted in the
churches of the east in contrast to that of the west, and which even he had
found it convenient to accept in his Homilies on the Statues 9 .

II

John lost no time, as we shall see, in impressing the stamp of his authority
on the church of the capital. For the moment, however, there was an urgent
task transcending local problems which the new-found status of Constan-

E.g. De perfecta caritate 6-7 PG 56.286-7).

3
(
4
Ad pop. Antioch, hom. 2.2 (PG 49.36).
5
Ad pop. Antioch hom. 3.2 (PG 49.50): cf. DeAnna hom. 2.4 (PG 54.648).
6
In Col. hom. 7.3 (PG 62.547-8).
7
In Col. hom. 3.5 (PG 62.323-4).
8
In Act. hom. 8.3 (PG 60.74-6).
9
See above, pp. 79-82.
 9. Diplomat and Rough Reformer 117

tinople as a pre-eminent see laid upon him. It was customary for patriarchs
and metropolitans to send formal notice of their appointment to their
opposite numbers, accompanying it with a statement of their belief, and to
expect in return an acknowledgment implying fellowship. Without delay,
therefore, John dispatched a delegation to Rome to announce his election
and consecration to the pope, Siricius (384-99). Not surprisingly, however,
he decided to use this exchange of courtesies to achieve another objective
close to his heart, the ending of Antioch’s ecclesiastical isolation from Rome
and the west. As we have often noted, 10 Rome had steadfastly cold-shouldered
Meletios and Flavian, along with Alexandria recognising only Paulinos,
and after him Evagrios, as lawful bishop of the Syrian metropolis. In 393
a representative eastern council had been held at Caesarea in Palestine to
settle the Antiochene affair, and had come out in favour of Flavian’s
legitimacy. Although the council had received advice from the pope which
effectively ruled out Evagrios on the ground that his ordination had been
irregular, 11 the holy see had taken no action to break the deadlock.
John’s two objectives, obtaining letters of fellowship from the pope and
healing the schism, were by no means distinct, as often seems to be
supposed. 12 If Siricius was still minded to distance himself from Flavian,
he could scarcely accord recognition to one who had been his trusted
associate for so long. So John selected the members of his delegation with
diplomatic shrewdness. They were Akakios, a white-haired champion of
orthodoxy who was bishop of Beroea (Haleb), an important see close to
Antioch, and Isidore, none other than Theophilos’ passed-over candidate
for Constantinople. Akakios was a venerable ascetic who inspired trust and
could report reliably on the situation in Antioch. Isidore was a clever
negotiator who was well known in Rome from previous business visits, and
who could vouch that the embassy had the full support of Alexandria. It
appears that he had agreed these names with Theophilos, whom, according
to Sozomen, 13 he had persuaded to support his efforts to secure the recog-
nition of Flavian by the holy see as well as by Alexandria. Theophilos’
readiness to co-operate with John is not really surprising, for, although he
had not taken part in the council at Caesarea, he was fully aware that
Flavian’s legitimacy was now generally acknowledged in the east; but it
shows him in an unexpectedly attractive light, since he is unlikely at this
time to have been personally well-disposed to John.
The mission was doubly successful. Backed as John was by Alexandria,
on which Rome relied for information about and guidance on eastern church
affairs, the elderly pope, who was probably not wholly clear about the game

10
See above, pp. 12; 37.
11
E.W. Brooks, The Sixth Book of the Select Letters of Severus, Patriarch of Antioch (Oxford
1903) 2 (2), 223 (Letter 2.3).
12
E.g. by Baur, 2.19.
13
8.3.
118 Golden Mouth

‘new Rome’ was playing with him 14 had no qualms about recognising him
,

and sending him letters of communion, notwithstanding his long associa-

tion with Flavian. Equally he was persuaded by Akakios and Theophilos’
agent Isidore to grant full recognition to Flavian. Thus when Akakios, after
sailing first to Egypt, returned to Syria, he carried with him to Flavian
letters of fellowship both from Alexandria and, after almost twenty years,
from the holy see itself 15 As for John, he could congratulate himself on
.

having done a good deed both for the church of his native city and for his
revered former bishop. His great disappointment must have been that, in
spite of the recognition of Flavian by Rome, a tiny but obdurate rump of
Eustathians continued to hold aloof from him 16 .

in
Having dispatched his delegation to Rome, John carried out what would
nowadays be called a visitation of his diocese. He had not been idle, one
suspects, during the weeks between his consecration and enthronement,
but had spent time briefing himself on the current state of the church in
the capital. His conclusion was that reform was urgently needed, and he
soon made it plain that he was going to be a bishop with both standards
and a style radically different from those of his easy-going predecessor. He
also revealed, in more ways than one, that he had, perhaps unexpectedly,
a shrewd eye for business and an appreciation of the value of money -
although he himself, it is ironical to note, was later to be accused of being
somewhat cavalier about disclosing the income and expenditure of the
17
church .

He made a start with the finances both of the see and, more particularly,
of his own palace 18 He carefully scrutinised the accounts, and ruthlessly
.

cut out any expenditure which did not seem of benefit to the church. He
was especially shocked by the palace accounts, from which he discovered
that sums he considered excessive were being squandered on hospitality.
As was normal for a bishop of a great city, Nektarios had entertained on a
large scale and had kept a generous table. John was prepared to provide
accommodation and board for visiting ecclesiastics, but on a modest scale.
Lavish banqueting and glittering receptions, however, amounted in his
eyes to robbing the church and the poor. He himself refused to offer official
or private dinners in his palace, and regularly turned down invitations to
such functions. Indeed, it was his practice to take his meals alone, the main
reasons being (as his defenders never tired of pointing out) either that his

14
So Ch. Pietri, who gives an admirable summary of the affair, with full references, in Roma
Christiana (Rome 1976) 2, 1282-8.
15
Sozomen 8.3.
16
See below, pp. 286f.; 290.
17
See below, p. 222.
18
Palladios, Dial. 5 (SC 341.122).
 9. Diplomat and Rough Reformer 119

lifelong asceticismhad ruined his digestive system, or that his absorption

in pastoral duties obliged him to defer his meals to unsocial hours. 19 It is
clear, however, that this mean and kill-joy attitude (as they judged it)
dismayed influential circles in the capital, and created a great deal not only
of resentment against him but also of libellous gossip. This is confirmed by
the painstaking lengths to which Palladios goes to defend his hero, filling
page after page with arguments, often strained and even bizarre, to
demonstrate that, quite apart from the evils to which lavish hospitality can
give rise (sickness, quarrelling, sexual licence), being a good teacher is far
superior to being a generous host. 20 He was walking on a tightrope, for Paul
had ruled (1 Tim. 3.2) that a bishop should be ‘given to hospitality’ as well
as ‘apt to teach’.
Several years later, when he was standing his trial, it was to be alleged
ofJohn that he had appropriated and sold valuable marble slabs which
Nektarios had assembled with a view to cladding the walls of the church
of Anastasia with them. 21 This was the small, highly revered oratory
(originally a private house) in which in 379-80, in the difficult days of Arian
domination in the city, Gregory of Nazianzos had held forth to the orthodox
minority and sustained their spirits. It had been the policy of subsequent
emperors to enlarge it greatly, and also to embellish it. 22 It is more than
likely that, so far as the facts were concerned, the accusation was correct,
but that this was just another example of his impatience with wasteful
extravagance. We can easily envisage John, in his zeal for frugality and
concern for the efficient use of church funds, suspending a programme
of what he regarded as unnecessary decoration. It is also probable that
the related charge of having sold off a large number of precious objects
belonging to the church provides a further example of his converting
treasures he thought unsuitable for the church to hoard to useful
purposes. 23
These drastic economies and high-handed disposals, although making
him unpopular in smart society and suspect to critics eager to catch him
out, resulted in substantial savings as well as a useful inflow of fresh
money. These assets John devoted, Palladios reports, 24 ‘to the hospital’; the
expression suggests that there was already one attached to the see. Pal-
ladios adds that, because the need for such institutions was pressing, he
founded several more. The compressed narrative gives no indication when
he did this, but the probability is that these foundations were spread over
several years. His most striking, and certainly most controversial, initia-
tive of this kind was the establishment, in the countryside outside the city

19
Palladios, Dial. 12 (SC 341.230-2): cf. Sokrates 6.4; Sozomen 8.9.
20
Dial. 12-13 (SC 341.220-66).
21
See below, p. 222.
22
Sokrates 5.7; Sozomen 7.5. See R. Janin, Les 6glises et les monastdres (Paris 1965), 22-5.
23
See below, p. 222.
24
Dial. 5 (SC 341.122).
120 Golden Mouth

walls close to the river Lykos, of a hospital for lepers. Almost all our
knowledge of this enterprise (again it should be dated somewhat later than
his reform of the palace expenses) comes from a panegyric pronounced by
an admirer conventionally known as ‘Martyrios’25 immediately after the
news of John’s death reached Constantinople in late 407. This contains a
vivid description of his sympathy for the victims of the dread disease, his
purchase of the land required, the start of the building works, and the
furious indignation of the wealthy owners of property in the neighbour-
hood. 26
It would be a mistake to assume that John was a pioneer in this field. It
is likely that he was inspired by the example of Basil of Caesarea, who in
the early 370s, in the suburbs of his see city, had founded a multipurpose
complex, popularly likened to a new town, providing accommodation for
sick people, including lepers, and their doctors and ancillary staff. 27 In
Constantinople itself Makedonios, semi-Arian bishop in the early 340s and
again 350-360, had established a number of poor-houses which almost
certainly took in the sick, 28 while in the early 380s, well before John’s
arrival, we hear of hospices (xenones ) for the sick attached to the churches
and have a vivid picture of the empress Flacilla, Theodosius’ first wife,
going her rounds of them and personally giving the patients their meals. 29
These settlements seem to have been in the charge of monks, and John’s
originality, it has been suggested, 30 may be detected in the steps he took to
withdraw them from monastic influences and attach them to the central
administration of the see. At any rate Palladios hints that he kept the
control of his new foundations firmly in his own hands, placing two of his
trusted clergy in charge of them and nominating the necessary doctors,
cooks, and other staff (he insisted that they should be unmarried). 31

IV
Next, John turned his attention to his clergy. 32 His object was ostensibly to
impose his own high standards on their day-to-day conduct, eradicating
any trace of worldliness, self-indulgence, and money-grubbing, but also, it
seems clear, to bring them more effectively under his personal control.
Sokrates, it is significant, speaks of them as his ‘subjects’ ( hupekooi ), an
expression unusual in this context which is eloquent of his authoritarian
style of leadership. His scrutiny, according to Sozomen and Palladios alike,

25
F. van Ommeslaeghe, Studia Patristica XII ( TU115), 478-83. See Appendix A.
26
P 491b-495b; 499a-b.
27
See esp. Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 43.63 ( PG 36.577-80).
28
Sozomen 4.20: cf. 4.27 (‘communities of sick and pooF).
29
Theodoret, HE 5.19.2-3 (GCS 44.314).
30
G. Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale (Paris 1974), 511.
31
Dial. 5 (SC 341.122).
32
For this para, see Sokrates 6.3-4; Sozomen 8.3; Palladios, Dial. 5 (SC 341.118-20).
 9. Diplomat and Rough Reformer 121

covered every facet of their behaviour, from their deportment in public to

their meals, which he insisted should be as simple as possible, avoiding
both luxury and excess. It is evident that many of them had fallen into
indulgent habits, but Sokrates’ comment that his criticism was harsher
and more violently expressed than was appropriate deserves note. Even
Palladios admits that, while he sometimes used ‘the flute of reason’ in
carrying out the investigation of his clergy, he could also resort to ‘the
cudgel of reprimand’. He was assisted, and enthusiastically abetted, in his
inquiries by his archdeacon Sarapion. An Egyptian, rough-spoken, hot-
tempered, and a bully, he had been chosen by John himself, who left much
of the day-to-day administration of the see in his hands. On one occasion,
when most of the clergy were within earshot, he is reported to have said to
John in an audible voice, ‘You will never, bishop, be able to get control of
this lot unless you drive them all with a rod.’33 As a result of his investiga-
tion, and no doubt on Sarapion’s advice, John carried out a drastic purge
and sacked a number of his clergy for a variety of reasons. These included
two deacons (one of them also named John) who had been found guilty,
according to Palladios, 34 of murder and fornication respectively.
A practice to which he particularly objected was that of men vowed to
celibacy sharing their homes with spiritual sisters ( suneisaktoi unmarried :

women supposedly consecrated to God). Long ago, as a deacon at Antioch,

he had published two treatises deploring, with sometimes coarse realism,
the moral dangers to which it could too easily give rise. 35 Now he seems to
have been informed that numbers of clerics in the capital were given to it,
and rushed out a pastoral inveighing against ‘the pretence of living together
as brothers and sisters’. 36 The general view37 nowadays is that this was, in
all probability, a revised edition of the former of his two Antiochene
pamphlets. This evidently caused deep resentment - so deep that he was
later to be accused of grossly insulting the reputation of his clergy. 38 Such
a charge could scarcely have been made with any plausibility if it had been
common knowledge that the menages to which he objected had in fact been
widespread at the time. 39 One is left with the uneasy suspicion that, misled
perhaps by exaggerated or even malicious rumours, he may have misjudged
the situation and weighed in with unnecessary severity. At the same time
John was turning a critical eye on what Palladios calls ‘the brigade ( tagma )
of widows’ in Constantinople. 40 Although some have thought that these
were widows in general, 41 Palladios’ use of the military term tagma and ,

33
Sokrates 1.4.
34
Dial. 8 (SC 341.162).
35
See above pp. 48-51.
36
Palladios, Dial. 5 (SC 341.118).
37
See J. Dumortier, S. Jean Chrysostome: les cohabitations suspectes (Paris 1955), 24.
38
See below, p. 222: also Appendix C.
39
Cf. J. Dumortier, JTS 6 (1955), 101.
40
Dial. (SC 341.122-4).
41
E.g. A.M. Malingrey, SC 341.123 n. 4.
122 Golden Mouth

the fact that John was able to ‘summon’ them, suggests that the reference
is to the official or ‘canonical’ widows of the church. From the earliest times
widows had had a special status in the Christian community, forming a
kind of order, and from the fourth century deaconesses were largely
recruited from them. As official widows consecrated to God’s service John
felt entitled to expect them to observe the strictest standards. He called
them before him, carried out a searching review of their behaviour, and
when he came across any whose lives he considered worldly or sensual,
confronted them with a stark alternative. Either they must take up regular
fasting, eschew the indulgence of baths and give up wearing attractive
clothes: or they should have done with the fiction of consecrated widowhood
and settle as quickly as possible for a second marriage (a state permissible
in his eyes, but vastly inferior to the one they were forsaking).
Even his close neighbour and regular attendant, the rich widow and
deaconess Olympias, did not escape his scrutiny, but in her case it was for
very different reasons and resulted in his givingher rather different advice.
He quickly discovered, Sozomen informs us 42 that while she was disposing
,

of her enormous wealth exclusively for the benefit of Christians and the
Christian religion, she was doing so quite indiscriminately, giving to
everyone who asked regardless of whether he was in genuine need. Cour-
teously but firmly he called her to order, pointing out that handing money
to people who were already well off was like pouring it into the sea. She
would benefit a greater number of God’s poor, and herself receive a greater
spiritual reward, if she planned her charity more selectively. The state,
understandably, viewed the fortunes of widows with a jealous eye, and even
the devout Theodosius I had authorised legislation declaring null and void
the wills of widows or deaconesses leaving money or property to clerics 43 .

There is evidence that, under Arkadios, the powerful eunuch Eutropios

tried hard to ensure that this legislation was properly applied 44 It did not,
.

however, preclude benefactions to the church itself, even though, as in this

case, they were being placed in effect at the disposal of the bishop. Already
under John’s spell, the strong-willed aristocrat accepted his counsel, and
in due course the bulk of her property, including a huge amount of real
estate in Constantinople, was handed over to him for the benefit of the
Great Church 45 We need not doubt that he administered the funds thus
.

placed at his disposal as wisely as he could; it was his considered view46

that the church, by absorbing the surplus wealth of the rich, should be the
divinely appointed agent for its redistribution to the needy. But we can also
understand that his success in securing exclusive control of Olympias’

42
8.9.
43
CT 16.2.27 and 28.
44
G. Dagron, op. cit., 500-1.
45
Life of Olympias 5-7 (SC 13bis.416-20).
46
E.g. In Act. horn. 11.3 (PG 60.96-8).
 9. Diplomat and Rough Reformer 123

entire inheritance aroused, as Sozomen reports, feelings of envy and

hostilityamong the clergy, and perhaps in other quarters as well.

V
Even more intriguing, although at first sight surprising in view of the
esteem with which he normally regarded monasticism, was the hostile
stance John adopted soon after his installation to the great majority of
monks in the capital. ‘He had’, according to Sozomen, 47 ‘a dispute with a
large number of the monks [in the city], and especially with Isaac. For while
he greatly commended followers of this vocation who lived quietly in their
monasteries, and indeed took every care to prevent them suffering injustice
and to see that they were provided with whatever they needed, he abused
and castigated those who went out of doors and showed themselves in the
streets, arguing that by doing so they brought their vocation into disrepute.’
Palladios does not dwell on John’s attitude to the monks in general, but
launches a terse, personal attack on their leader, sneering at ‘Isaac, the
little Syrian, the layabout, troop-leader of bogus monks, who has worn
himself out with incessant slander of bishops’. 48
To understand these two comments, the one detached and factual and
the other bitterly prejudiced, two things must be remembered. First, while
the origins of monasticism in Constantinople 49 are obscure (largely because
the earliest communities had been founded by semi-Arian bishops 50 whose
initiative the orthodox preferred to overlook once they had taken over), it
clearly developed after 380 certain highly distinctive features which
marked it off from the more usual forms with which John was familiar and
of which he approved. In contrast to Antioch, for example, where the monks
dwelt in the nearby mountains and only made exceptional appearances in
the city, in Constantinople it was an urban phenomenon, with an increas-
ing number of monastic houses within the walls. In organisation, moreover,
it seems to have been extremely loose and informal, with the minimum of

discipline and
little, if any, recognition of episcopal oversight. In this last
respect stood in glaring contrast to the situation in Alexandria, where
it

the vast army of monks was mobilised to be at the bishop’s beck and call.
Further, the monks of the capital refused to be confined to their monaster-
ies, but roamed freely about the streets and had no hesitation about visiting

friends in private houses. They had strong social and, on occasion, political
concerns, were frequently fomenters of and participants in street demon-
strations, and since they were very numerous were liable to form a powerful

47
8.9.
**
Dial. 6 (SC 341.126-8).
49
See esp. J. Pargoire, ‘Les d6buts du monachisme k Constantinople’, Revue des -questions
historiques 65 (1899), 67-143; G. Dagron, ‘Le monachisme k Constantinople jusqu’au concile
de ChalcSdoine’, TM 4 (1970), 229-76.
50
Sozomen 4.20.
 9
1

124 Golden Mouth

pressure rabble. They were to cause trouble to the authorities for decades,
and even the measures which the council of Chalkedon (451) took to curb
them were only partly successful.
Secondly, there can be no doubt that the Isaac mentioned in the two
sources quoted is to be identified with the revered figure 51 of that name
who, in the orthodox tradition, came to be venerated, with his disciple
Dalmatios (an officer of the imperial guard converted to the religious life),
as the true founder of monasticism in the capital. Originally a hermit of
the Syrian desert, he had come to Constantinople in response to a divine
call to do battle with Arianism and had settled in a cell just outside the
city. In 378, when the Arian emperor Valens was setting out for his
disastrous campaign against the Goths, Isaac had publicly rebuked him
and had (correctly, as it turned out) prophesied that, unless he restored the
churches to the orthodox, he would not return in safety. 52 Gaoled for his
treasonable insolence, he had been freed by Theodosius I, and two high-
ranking officers, Satuminos and Victor, had persuaded him to remain in
the capital, building him a cell outside the (Constantinian) walls, close to
the Xerolophos gate, where the pious emperor often visited him. A colony
of monks settled around him, and in 282-3 he and Dalmatios got the first
(orthodox) monastery going. Before long he had become the charismatic
spiritual leader of the great army of monks in the city.
It is little wonder that John had a dispute, a pretty acrimonious one as
it appears, with the multitude of monks he found in the capital. Wandering

about the streets singly or in groups, apparently completely undisciplined

and visiting their friends in tenements or mansions, they shattered his
cherished vision of monastic life as separated from city life by an unbridge-
able gulf. Genuine monks, he liked to think, 63 were ‘liberated from the
market-place and the turmoil that goes on there, with their huts set up in
the wilderness, where they have no dealings with anyone but converse with
God in the tranquillity of isolation’. Worst of all, they acknowledged no
allegiance to himself as their bishop, but gave their entire loyalty to Isaac.
As one who knew the situation well has recorded, 54 Isaac visited and
supervised the various monastic communities in the city ‘as if they were
his own children’; when he had ascertained their needs he persuaded
comfortably-off people to supply them, and in return ‘he was honoured by
all the monks, and they paid him their obedience as their father’. It was
impossible for John to have patience with monks of this kind (‘bogus
monks’, as his admirer Palladios called them), and he had no hesitation in
taking repressive measures to bring them to heel. It is not at all clear what

51
AASS May VII (the Greek Vita Isaacii with Latin translation). For his identification with
the Isaac mentioned by Sozomen and Palladios see most recently G. Dagron, art. cit., 245.
52
Sozomen 6.40; Theodoret, HE 4.34 (GCS 44.272).
53
De Lazaro cone. 3.1 (PG 48.932).
54
Kallinikos (prior c. 406-46 of the Ruflnianai monastery near Chalkedon), VitaHypatii 11.4
(ed. G.J.M. Bartelink 1971: SC 177.110).
 9. Diplomat and Rough Reformer 125

form these took, but there are hints that he tried to force them to accept
ordination; 55 there is a story that one of them showed his reluctance by
biting his finger when he laid hands on him. His object, clearly, was to
reduce what he considered a disorderly rabble to canonical obedience to
himself.
John’s clash with Isaac, whose hold over the monks he begrudged as
trespassing on his own authority, seems (to judge by the language of
Sozomen and even more of Palladios) to have been sharper and more
personalised. It was to cause deep embarrassment to their admirers, in
ancient and also modem times, since both came to be venerated as saints;
they preferred to pass it over, as far as possible, in silence. 56 Again, we have
no clue to the measures John took to discipline Isaac and limit his activities,
but they left ‘the little Syrian’ with a burning sense of resentment which
led him, years later when John was standing his trial, to volunteer a whole
sheaf of additional charges against him, including the claim that he himself
had suffered much at his hands. 57

VI
At one level John’s reforming efforts were directed, high-mindedly but
perhaps unrealistically, at imposing on his clerical and near-clerical sub-
ordinates the same rigorous moral standards and life style as he observed
himself. At another level a rather different motive can be detected in them:
a centralising, authoritarian bishop, he was determined, ‘so long as’ he ‘sat
on this throne’, to bring every group of churchmen in his diocese under his
personal control. It must therefore have been particularly exasperating to
him that there was one important group, the so-called Novatians, to which,
however much it irked him, he found himself obliged to concede inde-
pendence.
The Novatians 58 were a rigorist sect which traced its origins to the
learned Roman presbyter Novatianus who, in 251, had broken with the
new pope, Cornelius, because of his lenient policy in readmitting to com-
munion Christians who had ‘lapsed’ under persecution. With others who
shared his view, he had himself set up as antipope, and with them moved
into schism. Completely orthodox in other respects, the Novatians differed
from the catholic church only in their insistence that there could be no
forgiveness, not only for apostasy but also for the major sins; they called
themselves ‘the pure’ ( katharoi ) or ‘the assembly of saints’ in contrast to
the church, which offered pardon for post-baptismal sin through its peni-
tential system. The sect spread rapidly throughout the empire, and in the

55
Kallinikos, op. cit., 11.8 (SC 177.114).
56
There is no mention of it,
for example, in either the Vita Isaacii printed in AASS May VII
or the entry for Isaac (by R. Janin) in BSS VII. 920-1.
57
Photios, Bibliotheca cod. 59 (Henry 1.56; SC 342.112).
58
See esp. H.J. Vogt, Coetus sanctorum (Bonn 1968).
126 Golden Mouth

fourth century had a bishop and several churches in Constantinople.

Because of their strict adherence to Nicene orthodoxy the Novatians shared
to the full with catholics in the persecutions imposed by the official
Arianizing bishops, and could point to their confessors and martyrs. As
recently as June 383, when Theodosius I was considering measures to end
religious divisions, his bishop, Nektarios, had sought the advice of his
Novatian colleague, Agelios, and it was the solution proposed by Agelios’
reader, Sisinnios, which was accepted. As a result, when the emperor
placed a ban, under severe penalties, on all sectarian worship, the Nova-
tians were specifically exempted because of their loyalty to the Nicene faith,
being permitted to function freely and hold public services, while their
churches were granted the same privileges as those of the catholic church. 59
This was the situation confronting John when he became bishop of the
capital; for all his centralising zeal, there was nothing that even he could
do about it. The Novatian bishop was Sisinnios, Agelios’ reader and now
his successor. As well as being intellectually able and a fine preacher, he
was a wit with a flair for mordant repartee. 60 He had been the theological
confidant of John’s predecessor, Nektarios, and was greatly liked and
admired by leading members of the senate. That relations between John
and him were not easy is understandable, and John’s frustration is vividly
portrayed in a confrontation between the two men described by Sokrates. 61
In characteristic fashion John took occasion to rebuke Sisinnios, insisting
that the city could not have two bishops. Sisinnios replied that in fact it did
not. When John angrily retorted that he seemed to be wanting to be sole
bishop, Sisinnios explained that what he had been trying to say was that
it was only John in whose eyes he was not a bishop. By this point the

interchange was becoming acrimonious, with John threatening that he

would prevent Sisinnios from preaching. Fortunately Sisinnios had a sense
of humour and quipped, ‘I’ll richly reward you if you relieve me of such a
chore.’ This seemed to mollify the stern John, who assured him that he
would not silence him if he really found preaching such a burden. 62
The Novatians were clearly a special case. As a reforming bishop,
resolved to assert his authority, he had a much freer hand with clergy and
monks belonging to the catholic church, and did everything in his power to
make them conform to his ideals. Whatever his success, his uncompromis-
ing methods certainly alienated, and made bitter enemies of most of them.
As Sokrates, a sharp-eyed observer living in the city, remarked, ‘At the very
start of his episcopate he appeared so harsh ( trachus ) to churchmen that

59
Sokrates 5.10.
60
See esp. the picture of him in Sokrates, 6.22; he was particularly well informed about the
Novatians.
61
6.22.
62
The suggestions that the anecdote shows that Sisinnios viewed John as his rival as a pulpit
orator (R. Janin, Echos d’Orient 28 (129), 397), or that John was jealous of him as a preacher
(H.J. Vogt, op. cit., 258), seem equally improbable.
 9. Diplomat and Rough Reformer 127

they began to hate him, while many felt a revulsion from him and began
avoiding him because he was so ill-tempered (orgilos).*63 Even the more
sympathetic Sozomen admitted that his natural proneness to be critical of
misconduct was compounded when he became a bishop; the acquisition of
power made his tongue readier in condemnation and incited him to more
violent outbursts against wrongdoers. 64 He added that, as a result of the
stem measures he took, ‘the clergy and great numbers of the monks became
hostile to John, calling him severe, irascible, cruel, and imperious’. 65 Both
historians agree that, because of his high-handed and violent treatment of
them, his clergy began a whispering campaign to undermine his authority,
disseminating (for example) damaging innuendoes about his habit of
taking his meals alone. Thus any honeymoon period he may have enjoyed
in the first few months after his enthronement was swiftly replaced by deep
and widespread unpopularity in circles from which a bishop would nor-
mally expect to find loyal backing.

63
64
. .

64
8 3
. .

65
8 9
. .
 10

The Bishop at Work

As bishop of the imperial city John faced a range of responsibilities and

opportunities extending far beyond anything that had come his way at
Antioch. In this chapter we shall pass in quick review, without regard for
strict chronology, the chief areas of his activity and concern, dwelling on
one or two of them in greater detail. In passing it should be noted that he
was known simply as bishop. The titles of archbishop and patriarch, often
mistakenly attributed to him, are not attested for the see of Constantinople
until the council of Chalkedon (451).
In the first place, his office gave him an altogether unique status in the
capital. In an illuminating aside he recalls that, when visiting the mansions
of the great, even the imperial palace itself, the bishop is received with
greater deference and honour than prefects or governors. Quite apart from 1

social precedence, however, he now assumed the role of counsellor and

ecclesiastical confidant of the emperor and his family. Since Constantine
the Great became a Christian, the emperors had relied for advice, on
matters of faith and on church affairs generally, on the bishop of the city
in which they from time to time resided. Now that the court was perma-
nently settled at Constantinople, that function naturally devolved on its
bishop. This meant that John was in frequent and regular contact, except
when some really serious break-down of relations occurred, with the palace,
and also with the ministers and state officials who continually gathered
there. In this and the following chapters we shall be able to observe his
relations, usually cordial, sometimes cool, on occasion completely dis-
rupted, with Arkadios and Eudoxia, and to catch occasional glimpses of his
dealings with the powerful superintendent of the bedchamber, Eutropios,
and other leading personalities of the capital.
Closely connected with, indeed arising out of, this special relationship
with the emperor, was the presidency which John now took over, as bishop
of Constantinople, of what was coming to be called the ‘resident synod’
(sunodos endemousa) 2
This was a new type of synod, unexemplified else-

1
In Act. hom. 3.5 ( PG 60.41).
2
Cf. J. Hajjar, Le synode permanent dans U6glise Byzantine des origines au xi sidcle ( OCA
164, Rome 1962).
 10. The Bishop at Work 129

where, which seems to have come into existence quite recently, probably
during Nektarios’ episcopate (381-97). It was composed of the bishops
resident in or temporarily visiting the capital, and it met, with the em-
peror’s encouragement and under the chairmanship of the bishop of the
see, to discuss and settle matters of ecclesiastical business, great or small,
referred to it. There was no shortage of members, for now that the emperor,
whose influence could be decisive in church affairs, was settled in Constan-
tinople, many bishops liked to reside there for prolonged spells, while many
more flocked there from all comers of the eastern empire to seek solutions
to their local problems, or even simply to advance their personal interests
or those of their friends. It was natural that the emperor, with his wider
responsibilities, should delegate all this multifarious business to the bishop
of the capital sitting in conclave with such other bishops as were available.
As Anatolios, one of John’s successors, was to explain to the council of
Chalkedon some sixty years later, ‘It is a time-honoured custom that the
reverend bishops visiting our famous city should meet together when
occasion demands to resolve ecclesiastical disputes and causes, and to give
answers to petitioners.’ 3 When John assumed this new role, he became
effectively the intermediary between the court and the eastern episcopate,
and inevitably exercised an influence on the discussion and settlement of
its disputes.
Thirdly, there can be little doubt that John’s jurisdiction as bishop
extended, de facto if not yet de jure far beyond the imperial city and the
,

surrounding territory. In 451 the council of Chalkedon was to enact, in its

28th canon, 4 that the ‘archbishop’ of Constantinople should have authority
to consecrate the metropolitans of the three civil dioceses of Pontus, Asiana
and Thrace, as well as the bishops of sees in barbarian territories. This
effectively transformed Constantinople into a patriarchate, for although
ecclesiastical oversight over the dioceses and other regions specified was
not mentioned, it was, in the thinking of the times, implied in the right to
consecrate the metropolitans. 5 To a large extent, as several bishops present
when the canon was discussed testified, this legislation merely gave ca-
nonical recognition to existing practice. It is impossible now to trace the
precise stages by which the jurisdiction of the imperial see was progres-
sively extended, but it is clear that John played a noteworthy part in the
process. Theodoret’s statement, 6 made c. 420, that he had exercised over-
sight over the six provinces of Thrace, the eleven of Asiana, and the eleven
of Pontus, is, from the canonical point of view, a palpable error, for the

primacy of honour assigned to Constantinople by the council of 38 7 had

3
ACO II.i.465-6.
4
ACO n.i.3.88-9.
5
A. Grillmeier and H. Bacht, Das Konzil von Chalkedon (Wurzburg 1953), E.472-4 (E.
Herman).
6
HE 5.28 GCS 44.329).
(
7
See above, pp. 108ff.
130 Golden Mouth

not carried with it the right to intervene in the affairs of other churches.
Nevertheless John, as we shall discover, never showed any hesitation,
when the opportunity offered, about asserting such a right on behalf of his
see.

n
Apart from presiding at the liturgy, John’s most conspicuous function as
bishop was preaching. At special seasons, such as Lent and the festival
days following Easter, he might preach daily, but this would have been
highly exceptional; his normal practice seems to have been to preach every
Sunday and feast-day when not taken on business outside the capital. In
one passage he remarks that he has been expounding the scriptures ‘twice
a week 8 but this cannot be taken as a rigid rule. Most of his sermons were
’,

given in Hagia Sophia, his cathedral, but many others, as occasion de-
manded, in Hagia Irene (the oldest church in the city), in the basilica of the
Holy Apostles, in the little Anastasia church, or in other churches or
martyrs’ shrines. A bishop customarily preached from his throne at the far
end of the apse well behind the altar (in those days not concealed from the
congregation, as today in the east, by an icon-bearing screen), but John
preferred normally to address the people at closer range, seated at the ambo
or pulpit-like lectern just west of the chancel from which the scripture
lessons were chanted 9 The explanation usually given, that his voice was
.

not strong enough to carry from the distant apse, has the support of
Sokrates 10 but it is also likely that he wished to establish a close personal
,

rapport with his hearers, looking them in the eyes as he spoke.

John’s preaching proved immensely popular. The people were so excited
by it, Sozomen reports 11 so insatiable in their appetite for it, that there
,

was a real danger of their injuring one another as they jostled and shoved
to get closer to him so as to hear more distinctly what he was saying. A less
friendly witness, the pagan historian Zosimos, paid him the backhanded
compliment, The fellow was quite clever at bringing the ignorant masses
under his spell 12 The surviving sermons themselves confirm their raptur-
.’

ous reception, containing (as we saw his earlier ones at Antioch do) frequent
references to the applause which greeted them. As always, John was
sceptical of this, and in one passage confesses that when he heard his words
clapped, his instinctive reaction was delight, but that this human feeling
turned to despondency when he got home and reflected that the cheering
crowd had derived no benefit from his teaching 13 So he tried to lay down
.

8
In Act. horn. 29.3 ( PG 60.127).
9
Sozomen 8.5.
10
6.5.
11
8.5.
12
5.23.4.
13
In Act. hom. 30.4 (PG 60.226-7).
 10. The Bishop at Work 131

the rule that his words should be listened to and, if necessary, admired in
silence.At this point the cheering broke out afresh. Having rebuked it, he
reminded his audience that both the pagan philosophers and the apostles,
even Christ himself delivering the Sermon on the Mount, had been listened
to without interruption. Much better than noisy applause, the proper place
for which was the theatre or the public baths, was the secret approbation
of the heart as one reflects, at home or in the market place, on the words
spoken.
Notwithstanding the magnetism of his eloquence, John sometimes had
occasion to express disappointment at the sparseness of his congregation. 14
Sozomen, however, speaks of great crowds, including many heretics and
even pagans, flocking to hear him. 15 Some, he admits, came out of curiosity,
attracted by his reputation as an orator. But the attachment of the people,
it is evident from an episode he relates,
16
was all too obviously to him
personally. One Sunday, when to their surprise he had, out of customary
hospitality and respect for his age, invited an elderly bishop from Galatia
to preach in his place, the huge congregation expressed their disappoint-
ment by streaming out of the church with loud complaints. Even he,
however, for all their devotion to him, could not draw them to Hagia Sophia
when alternative excitements like the theatre and horse-racing were avail-
able. This particularly exasperated him, and one of his most colourful and
brilliant addresses is a tirade, delivered on Sunday 3 July 399, denouncing
the shamelessness of the crowds which had forsaken the church on the two
previous days, preferring to watch the races in the nearby hippodrome on
the Friday (when they should have been contemplating the Lord’s supreme
sacrifice on the cross), and on the Saturday (when they should have been
preparing penitentially for Sunday) to succumb to the seductions of the
theatre. 17 It is a reasonable surmise 18 that the law 19 published on 27 August
399 banning the holding of theatrical shows, horse-races, and other spec-
tacles ‘designed to make people effeminate’, on the Lord’s day (unless, of
course, it coincided with the emperor’s birthday) was inspired by him.
John’s output of sermons was much smaller at Constantinople than at
Antioch, but it included some interesting new types. In addition to homilies
given at festivals or other church celebrations, quite a number of his
addresses were prompted by circumstances in his own life or political
happenings; we shall consider some of the more important of these in later
chapters. An entirely fresh category is the sermon on a state occasion, a

14
Horn. 4 in eos qui non adfuerunt 1; Horn. 5 de studio praesentium 1; Horn. 7 in templo s.

Anastasiae ( PG 63.477; 485; 493).

15
8.5.
16
In illud, Pater meus (PG 63.511-12).
17
C. ludos et theatra (PG 56.263-70). For its date see J. Pargoire, Echos d’Orient. 3 (1899-
1900), 151-62.
18
Baur, 2.89.
19
CT 2.8.23.
132 Golden Mouth
noteworthy example being the short panegyric20 he delivered in the church
of the Holy Apostles, in the presence of Arkadios and Eudoxia, on 17
January 399, the anniversary of the death of Theodosius I (whose body lay
in the adjacent mausoleum). The message he impressed on the imperial
couple was the novel one that the dead emperor deserved respect, not
because he had been sovereign and had worn the purple mantle, but
because he had been a devout Christian who had clothed himself with
Christ in baptism. His armour had been the breastplate of righteousness,
the sword of the Spirit, and the shield of faith. It was with these, and these
alone, that he had overcome the usurper Maximus (in August 385), and
then the puppet emperor Eugenius (on 5/6 September 394 at the river
Frigidus). With a dramatic flourish John recalls how, on the latter occasion,
when the conflict was at its height and his own forces looked like being
defeated, Theodosius had jumped from his horse, cast away his shield and,
kneeling on the ground, implored God’s help. 21 Miraculously the wind
changed, the tide of battle turned, and Eugenius’ troops were forced to
surrender and hail Theodosius as their emperor. He had emerged as
glorious not simply because of his victory, but because he had won it by
reliance on God. To savour to the full John’s eulogy we should remember
that the battle was the final encounter between a Christian emperor and
traditional paganism, for Eugenius, himself a Christian, was backed by
prominent pagans determined to rescue the ancient cults. Christians
regarded its result as clear evidence of divine intervention. 22
As at Antioch, a large proportion of John’s sermons were scripture
homilies. Notwithstanding the distractions of episcopal office, he quickly
resumed the systematic exposition of the Pauline epistles, and several
courses spread irregularly over his years as bishop have come down. The
earliest seem to have been fifteen homilies on Philippians and five on
Colossians, 23 given in spring-summer and early autumn 399 respectively.
Next came fifty-five homilies on Acts; 24 it will be argued later that these
were started soon after 12 July 400 and were continued, with breaks, into
early 401. They were followed, probably after a prolonged interval, by
eleven homilies on 1 Thessalonians, five on 2 Thessalonians. 25 That the
latter series came directly after the former is suggested both by the close
similarity of subject-matter and by the explanation John gives in its first
paragraph 26 of Paul’s reasons for writing a second epistle. A plausible
dating would be 402, after his return in April from the journey he made to

20
PG63.491-2. It seems to be a fragment of a larger whole now lost.
21
Cf. Rufinus, HE2 (11).33 (PL 539-40). For the battle see Ambrose, Explan, in psalm.
36.25.2-4 ( CSEL 64.91).
22
See J. Straub, ‘Eugenius’, RAC 6.869-72.
23
PG 62.173-299; 299-392.
24
PG 60.13-384. For the date see below pp. 166-8.
25
PG 62.391-468; 467-500.
26
In 2 Thess. horn. 1.1 (PG 62.467-9).
 10. The Bishop at Work 133

Asia Minor in the early months of that year. 27 The three homilies on
Philemon 28 cannot be placed very long after these, since in the third he
claims 29 to be fulfilling a promise (viz. that he would explain how God’s
mercifulness can be squared with his sending people to hell) which he had
‘recently’ (proen ) made to the congregation, in fact in his eighth homily on
1 Thessalonians. Finally, we have thirty-four homilies on Hebrews,
30
the
last of John’s great series of commentaries, published (as the heading in
the MSS records) after his death by the presbyter Constantinos on the basis
of surviving shorthand notes. They were probably preached in the winter
of 402-3.
The relative order of these courses, and their approximate dates, have
been worked out largely from internal evidence. 31 For example, John’s
sombre comment, 32 in Homily 2 on Philippians, that, ‘while many paupers
lead lives free from care, government ministers, wealthy people, grandees
have suffered more miserable fates than criminals, bandits, and grave-
robbers’ has been widely taken as a veiled allusion to Eutropios’ arbitrary
rule, under which such reversals of fortune were regular occurrences. If
this is correct, the homily must predate the powerful eunuch’s downfall in
July 399. 33 On the other hand, in his seventh homily on Colossians John
illustrates the futility of earthly power by citing an example from ‘present-
day affairs’, an exalted official who only yesterday sat on a raised-up
tribunal, with heralds announcing his approach and clearing the streets
before him, but who now cowers abject and alone, bereft of everything. 34
The wretched man can only be Eutropios; and since, though disgraced he
is still alive, the homily must have been preached in autumn or early winter

399. Again, hints in the 2 Thessalonians homilies 35 that John’s congrega-

tion is split into factions, awash with ugly rumours against himself, suggest
a relatively late stage in his episcopate, while the mention of someone else
having been temporarily responsible for baptising the catechumens points
unmistakably to Severian of Gabala, who was to carry out his episcopal
functions during his absence in Asia during the early months of 402,
including Easter. 36 Finally, while everyone agrees that the Hebrews homi-
lies belong to the closing stages of John’s ministry in Constantinople, they
nowhere betray any sign of strained relations between him and the imperial
couple. They might conceivably be fitted into the period of resumed friend-

27
See below, pp. 173-7; 181.
28
PG 62.701-20.
29
In Philem. horn. 3.2; in 1 Thess. horn. 8.4 (PG 62.716-18; 445-6).
30
PG 63.9-236.
31
See esp. M. von Bonsdorf, Zur Predigttatigkeit des J. Chrysostomus (Helsingfors 1922),
76-117.
32
PG 62.198.
33
See below, p. 147.
34
In Col. horn. 7.3 (PG 62.346-7).
35
In 2 Thess. horn. 2.1-2; 4.4 (PG 62.473-4; 491-2).
36
See below, p. 173.
134 Golden Mouth

ship after his return from his first exile in early October 403, 37 but it seems
much preferable to place them well before that troubled autumn, indeed in
the preceding winter, since in the eleventh he speaks of the extreme cold
and chides his listeners for neglecting the poor who are exposed to it. 38

m
The subject-matter of John’s sermons and homilies in the capital is broadly
identical with that of his Antiochene ones, although less space is devoted
to theological polemics. There are, for example, virtually no serious cri-
tiques of Manichaeism; on Syrian soil he had come face to face with it at
every turn, but probably met it very rarely at Constantinople. He occasion-
ally delivers carefully argued attacks on Arianism, e.g. in two sermons
given on 17 and 24 July 399, the one claiming that the words *My Father
is working still, and I am working’ (John 5.17) indicate the Son’s perfect
equality with the Father, the other seeking to refute Anomoean misinter-
pretations of the text ‘The Son can do nothing of his own accord but only
what he sees the Father doing’ (John 5.19). 39 But there are no set-piece
courses directed against it; he preferred, as we shall see, to conduct his
anti-Arian campaign in a populist manner in the streets.
On the other hand, on the theme of marriage, which he seems to have
constantly pondered, it is interesting to observe a small but significant
extension of the relaxed, positive approach which, no doubt as a result of
pastoral experience, he had been coming to adopt at Antioch. 40 Tackling in
Homily 12 on Colossians the question how a man and his wife become ‘one
flesh’, he explains that, just as when one takes the purest gold and fuses it
with other gold, so in sexual intercourse the woman receives from her
husband ‘the rich, fecund element’ (to piotaton he chooses this periphrasis
:

rather than sperma i.e. semen), nourishes and warms it, and then, when
,

she has contributed something of her own substance, gives back a child,
which is a sort of bridge linking the three as one flesh. 41 It is the pleasure
involved in the act, he emphasises, which welds the two spouses together;
and even if no child results, the two still become one flesh, for their
intercourse ( mixis ) accomplishes their union, fusing and commingling their
two bodies just as when we pour myrrh into olive oil. Evidently many in
his audience were embarrassed by his frank speaking. The reason for this,
he retorts, is their own loose, indeed prurient attitude to marriage, only too
glaringly betokened by the licentious behaviour they accept at weddings.
They should recognise that marriage is the gift of God, the very root of our
existence. There is no need to blush when talking openly about marriage,

37
See below, p. 235.
38
In Heb. hom. 11.3 (PG 63.94).
39
PG 63.511-16; 56.247-56. For their dates see J. Pargoire, art. cit., 157-9.
40
See above, pp. 96f.
41
In Col. hom. 12.5-6 (PG 62.388).
 10. The Bishop at Work 135

which is an honourable state (Heb. 13.4) and an image of the presence of

Christ.
In the moral and social fields, again, the ground covered is much the
same, but John’s tone becomes sharper. He had always, for example,
condemned the seductions of the racecourse and the theatre, but nowhere
with such violence (or, for that matter, such psychological insight) as in the
sermon of 13 July 399 mentioned in the previous section. First, he graphi-
cally recalls how, on the preceding Friday, when he heard from his palace
the shouting of the fans in the nearby hippodrome, he had held his head in
shame for them. 42 Instead of reflecting on Christ’s sacrifice, these so-called
Christians were leaping up and down and screaming themselves hoarse,
their souls in degrading bondage to their passions. To make matters worse,
they had next day crowded into an even viler den of perdition, the theatre,
old men disgracing their white hair, young men tossing their youth to
destruction, fathers to all intents and purposes murdering their children. 43
Even in the street a man’s self-control can be knocked off balance when he
passes a pretty woman, but in the theatre his eyes are fixed on a slut
shamelessly parading her charms, singing lewd songs, making suggestive
movements and gestures. Of course he falls under her spell, for his body is
only flesh and blood, and in his imagination he slips into having sex with
her. Nor is that all: when the theatre shuts its doors and he returns home,
he in effect takes her with him, for he cannot get her glances, the swaying
of her body, her provocative poses out of his mind. So besotted is he with
these sexual fantasies that his wife and family seem dull and commonplace
by comparison and, as the blaze the temptress has kindled spreads, the
stability of his home and the happiness of his marriage go up in smoke.
John’s denunciation of the rich, above all of the vulgar display of their
wealth, also reached fresh heights. Palladios singled this out for special
mention, reporting that ‘he brandished the sword of rebuke against the
wealthy’, urging them to show humility and avoid condescension. 44 No
doubt the capital offered even more glaring examples of the abuse of riches
than Antioch. So we find him railing at the luxurious banquets, the silver
and gold dinner-services, the beautiful, richly clad servants of the well-off,
or at the expensive clothes and elaborate ornaments favoured by upper-
class ladies. Flaunting such attire is more dishonourable and shameful
than if they were completely naked, as Eve had been in Paradise before her
sin. What is the point of all this extravagance if the soul within is polluted? 46
What chiefly scandalises him, as we should expect, is the stark contrast
between conspicuous affluence and the appalling lot of the poor. His
indignation reaches a crescendo when he savages rich ladies who, while the

42
C. ludos et theatra 1 (PG 56.263-5).
43
C. ludos et theatru 2 (PG 56.265-7).
44
Dial. 5 (SC 341.124).
45
E.g. In Act. hom. 35.5 (PG 60.252).
136 Golden Mouth

poor (also made in God’s image) are shivering with cold, insist on having
toilet utensils made for them of solid silver, as if they thought their
excrement merited privileged treatment. 46 What senselessness, what mad-
ness is this! The church has so many poor standing around it, and has also
so many children who are rich; yet she is unable to give relief to one poor
person. “One man is hungry, another gets drunk” (1 Cor. 11.21); one man
defecates in a silver pot, another has not sq much as a crust of bread.’
This particular sally caused great offence. He admitted as much in his
next homily a few days later, and begged forgiveness. He had no wish, he
explained, to violate the canons of decency, but felt obliged to speak out on
the interest of his hearers’ salvation. 47 In an address given (probably) in
spring 400 he freely acknowledged that his incessant diatribes against the
rich aroused angry protests - Will you never stop sharpening your tongue
against the well-off?’ 48 They go far to explain the dislike in which he was
coming to be held among the propertied classes, as well as his growing
popularity with the common people, who felt sure that he was their
champion. No amount of criticism, however, could deter him from proclaim-
ing, for example, how much better it is to sit down at table with the poor
than with the rich, notwithstanding the unbridgeable gulf between the
simplicity of the one and the luxurious style of the other, since at the poor
man’s table one comes face to face with Christ. 49 Nor can he resist remind-
ing his congregation, again and again, that the Lord makes not the slightest
difference between a ragged old man, filthy and with his nose dribbling,
and the handsome young man who wears the diadem and the purple, but
invites both to his spiritual banquet to receive exactly the same benefits. 50
The rich should never be repelled by the wretched poor, but should assist
them, share their food with them, give them shelter in their homes. 51 Above
all, they should use their wealth to help them: the man who denies alms to

the starving is as much his brother’s murderer as was Cain. 52

John even floats, in a passage 53 which is tantalising for other reasons
(for example, are the population figures accurate, or mere guesses?), a
utopian scheme for solving the problem of poverty for Christians; it is
inspired by the report in Acts 4.32-4 that the earliest believers in Jerusalem
‘had everything in common’, with the result that ‘there was not a needy
person among them’. Let us suppose, he suggests, that there are 100,000
Christians in Constantinople, and that in the entire city there are not more
than 50,000 poor people. If all the citizens above the poverty line sold their

46
In Col. hom. 7.4-5 (PG 62.349-52).
47
In Col. hom. 8.1 (PG 62.351).
48
Cum Saturninus et Aurelianus 2 (PG 52.415-16). For its date see below, pp.l53f.
49
In Col. hom. 1.4 (PG 62.304-5).
50
In 1 Thess. hom. 11.4-5 (PG 62.466-7).
51
In Act. hom. 45.3-6 (PG 60.318-19).
52
In 1 Thess. hom. 8.4 (PG 62.444).
53
In Act. hom. 11.3 (PG 60.97-8).
 10. The Bishop at Work 137

land, houses, movable goods, everything in fact of which they are possessed,
and pooled the proceeds, they would realise a million pounds weight of gold,
perhaps two or even three times as much. If this were shared out, the whole
population would be able to live comfortably, especially if, since living
separately is more expensive, they saved money by living in community
like monks. As a bonus, such a mutually beneficial rearrangement of
community finances would convert the pagans. Up to a point John was
teasing his auditors. The poor should not get excited, he assured them, nor
the rich alarmed; there was no prospect of his idyllic project being carried
out. Yet he remained convinced that, if it were, both rich and poor would
be happier. What is interesting to modern students is that he always
envisaged the voluntary charity of individuals as being the agent of such
a redistribution. It never occurred to him, although often described as
‘almost a socialist’, 54 that central government should have any respon-
55
sibility for it.

IV
The new bishop did not confine his efforts to promote Christian faith and
morals to sermons. He was well aware of the dramatic impact of the liturgy,
religious ceremonial, solemn processions, and the like, and exploited it to
the full. An example which Palladios records 56 was the encouragement he
gave to men (women he advised to stay at home at such dangerous hours) 57
to attend night services; they could in fact last throughout the night, and
so were called pannuchides. He had been used to, and greatly valued,
nocturnal devotions at Antioch, 58 and may have been disappointed not to
find them in vogue at Constantinople. He seems to have had some success,
for about three years later we find him rhapsodising, with haunting
eloquence, on the spiritual benefits such vigils bestow. 59 When darkness
and silence enfold everything, our minds are purer, lighter, more spiritually
alert, and we are brought to a true contrition when we gaze up at the sky
spangled with stars as with ten thousand eyes, and experience to the full
the joy of contemplating our Creator. Palladios comments acidly that some
of John’s clergy were not so thrilled at having to get out of bed and work at
such unsocial hours.
Sometimes confused with this initiative, 60 but in fact quite distinct, was
another which John took, this time with the object of foiling Arian propa-

54
So, e.g., J.B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire (London 1923), 1.139.
56
Cf. S. Giet, *La doctrine de l’appropriation des biens chez quelques-uns des pores’,
Recherches de science religieuse 35 (1948), 55-91.
56
Dia/. 5 (SC 341.124).
57
See De sacerdotio 3.3 (SC 272.216).
58
In Oziam horn. 1.1; Comm, in ps. 133.1 (SC 277.44; PG 55.386-7).
59
In Act. horn. 26.3 (PG 60.202).
60
E.g. (apparently) by A.M. Malingrey, SC 341.124 n. 2.
138 Golden Mouth

ganda. Whatever the truth of the suggestion that he had been specifically
appointed to consolidate the Nicene orthodoxy dear to the imperial family, 61
it was inevitable that he should be disturbed to discover a significant,

aggressive Arian minority in the capital. Theodosius I, it is true, had ejected

them from the churches of the city, 62 but they continued to hold regular
services just outside the walls. Their practice was to assemble, during the
night between Saturday and Sunday and on the eves of great festivals, in
public porticoes just within the gates, and then chant Arian-slanted hymns
antiphonally throughout the night. 63 When dawn broke, they would proc-
ess, still chanting their hymns, through the centre of the city, march out
through the gates, and then celebrate the liturgy at their customary
meeting-places. As well as proclaiming the specifically Arian teachings,
their hymns regularly caricatured or taunted the orthodox doctrine, one
popular refrain provocatively asking, Where are the people who declare
the Three to be but one single power?’
These colourful propagandist manifestations seem to have been effec-
tive, sufficiently so at any rate to worry John that simple folk might be
enticed from their allegiance to orthodoxy by them. To counter them he
therefore set himself to organise rival nocturnal processions involving his
own congregation, with antiphonal choirs intoning the dogmas of Nicaea.
Indeed, he contrived that these processions of his were more elaborate and
spectacular than the Arian ones, carrying as they did silver crosses with
blazing tapers fixed to them. What is of especial interest is that, in setting
up these religious diversions, he had the enthusiastic support and co-op-
eration of the empress Eudoxia, who not only met the cost of the silver
crosses, but lent John a favourite chamberlain, the eunuch Brison, 64 a
skilled musician, to train and lead the choirs. As was to be expected the
Arians were furious at having their brilliant propaganda weapon copied,
and were determined to exact their revenge. By design or accident, the rival
processions clashed one night, a vicious street battle broke out, there were
casualties (some fatal) on both sides, and Brison himself was gashed on the
forehead by a stone. The disastrous affray gave the government a pretext,
which it no doubt welcomed, for banning all such public hymn-singing by
the Arians, although Sozomen reports that the orthodox kept up the
practice started by John ‘right down to the present da/, i.e. the 440s.
Another field in which John as bishop sought to stimulate faith and
devotion by magnificent liturgical improvisations was the public venera-
tion of saints and martyrs. An example of the veneration of saints was the
day-long excursion in honour of the apostles Peter and Paul of which we
are given a snapshot glimpse in the sermon denouncing theatrical shows

61
See above, p. 105.
62
e.g.CT 16.5.6(10 Jan. 381).
63
For this and the following paragraph see Sokrates 6, and Sozomen 8.8.
64
He was to remain a valued friend of John’s: see PLRE 2, 242.
 10. The Bishop at Work 139

already cited. John recalls how, on the previous Wednesday, he and his
congregation, ‘our entire city’ in fact, had crowded into the church of the
Apostles, where they spent some time praising Peter and his brother
Andrew, Paul and his aide Timothy. 65 Their original intention, apparently,
had been to cross the Bosporus to The Oak (Drys) or Rufinianai 66 (now
Caddebostani), 4 km south-east of Chalkedon, where Rufinus, the former
prefect, had erected a splendid mansion and a church enriched with relics
of the two apostles, and pay tribute to them there. A violent storm with
pelting rain had at first frustrated the plan and forced them to seek refuge
in Holy Apostles, which contained relics of Andrew and Timothy but not,
alas, of Peter and Paul. At last, however, the wind and the rain ceased;
John and his flock went down to the shore, boarded boats and braved the
sea-passage. After a few hours they were holding ‘a spiritual festival’ in
Rufinus’ church, proclaiming the struggles and triumphs of the two apos-
tles.
we have noted earlier, 67 the cult of martyrs was
In the fourth century, as
in full swing among Christians, but Constantinople, having been founded
after the cessation of persecution, unfortunately could not boast of martyrs
of its own. From 381 onwards, if not earlier, the authorities had been
diligent in importing sacred relics, some from places which had a surplus
of them and others of special relevance to the city, and installing them in
shrines where they could be venerated. Theodosius I, for example, had had
the remains of Paul the Confessor, an early orthodox bishop of Constanti-
nople who had been exiled to Cucusos in Armenia and, it was supposed, 68
strangled there, brought back in 381 and solemnly placed in the church
which his Arian successor Makedonios had erected. 69 John seems to have
entered into the good work with enthusiasm, and we have graphic accounts
of two splendid occasions when he presided over the reception of relics of
hallowed persons. Both have generally been taken to date from 398-9, the
honeymoon period of his relations with the imperial family, largely because
they represent the emperor and the empress, particularly the latter, as
eagerly collaborating with their bishop, but it has been persuasively ar-
gued 70 that the second should be placed after 9 January 400, when Eudoxia
was proclaimed Augusta, on the ground that she is depicted as wearing the
diadem, a part of the imperial insignia which was reserved exclusively to
a reigning Augustus or Augusta.
The first occasion was the arrival in Constantinople, from Sinope (Sinop)
on the southern shores of the Black Sea, of certain relics of the martyr

65
PG 56.265. For this paragraph see J. Pargoire, art. cit., 153-5.
66

67
BZ 8 (1899), 429-77.
Cf. J. Pargoire, ‘Rufinianes’,
See above, pp. 66f.
68
For doubts about his murder see W. Telfer, HTR 43 (1950), 88.
69
Sozomen 7.10; Sokrates 5.9.
70
K.G. Holum, Theodosian Empresses (California 1982), 56.
140 Golden Mouth

Phokas, 71 a gardener who was to become patron of sailors. The ship

transporting them docked on a Saturday, when John delivered an address
which has been lost. In his sermon next day he recalled how the martyr
had yesterday been carried in triumph through the main square of the city,
and encouraged the eager congregation to escort him today by sea, with
lighted torches which would set the waves ablaze, to his final resting-
place. 72 No one, not even a girl or a married woman, had any excuse for
absenting himself, since the emperor and empress had themselves left the
palace to join them in escorting the holy man to the shrine in which they
planned to place him. As they had to make the journey by boat, it seems
likely that this was in Ortakoy, on the European shore of the Bosporus
about 4 km north of the Golden Horn, where Basil I (867-86) was to
establish a monastery in honour of Phokas in the ninth century and where
a Greek Orthodox church bearing his name can be seen today. 73
The second was, if anything, a more spectacular celebration. Relics of
three martyrs had arrived in Constantinople, and now had to be taken to
the shrine prepared for them. The martyrs’ names are not given, but there
74
is a strong case for identifying them with Sisinnius, Martyrius and
Alexander, 75 who had been brutally done to death in Anaunia (Val di Non),
in the Tridentine region of north Italy, in 397; bishop Vigilius of Trent had
written to John promising to send him some relics. 76 These were now borne
by night, in a vast torchlight procession which emptied the city, along the
sea-shore to the church of St Thomas at Drypia, more than 13 km west of
the city centre. John himself marched in front, and at dawn preached the
festival sermon in the martyrion. 11 Claiming to be ‘drunk with spiritual joy*,
he rapturously described how the enormous crowd, comprising every rank
from courtiers and state officials to the humble poor, had trudged the entire
way, the rich abandoning their chariots. Their torches had given the sea,
alongside which they had marched, the appearance of being on fire. The
Christ-loving empress, he exulted, throwing away her diadem and purple
robe, had herself followed the veiled casket on foot like a handmaid,
repeatedly touching it and so drawing spiritual power from its hallowed
contents and encouraging ordinary folk to do likewise. In an extended
climax he apostrophised Eudoxia personally, assuring her that not only the
present but all future generations would proclaim her blessed for her
unparalleled devotion to the holy martyrs and for the humility with which,
casting aside all pomp and circumstance and mingling on equal terms with
the common people, she had accompanied them to their shrine.

71
His relics were widely distributed, his head being kept at Rome: Asterios of Amasea, PG
40.309.
72
PG 50.699-706.
73
AB 30 (1911), 256-7.
74
J.Vanderspoel, CQ 36 (1986), 239-55.
75
BSS XL. 1251-4 (Igino Rogger).
76
Ep. 2 CPL 13.552-8).
77
PG 63.467-72.
 10. The Bishop at Work 141

Arkadios had not followed the reliquary on the long journey to Drypia,
nor been present at John’s address. On the empress’s prudent advice, the
preacher explained, he had stayed at home in case his cavalry escort should
endanger the milling crowds of devotees. But Eudoxia had promised, John
assured the congregation, that he would attend the liturgy on the following
day. The indolent but devout sovereign duly arrived, with his full military
bodyguard, and, having doffed his diadem and ordered his soldiers to lay
down their arms, did respectful obeisance to the heroic martyrs; but he was
careful to take his departure before John got started on his second sermon. 78
His premature leave-taking, however, should be attributed to temperamen-
tal lethargy rather than any lack of confidence in his bishop. Indeed, the
whole episode, as well as being a remarkable illustration of John’s propa-
gandist methods - perhaps, too, of his skill at arranging colourful diver-
sions as exciting as, but much more edifying than, the theatre and the
hippodrome - provides vivid proof of the cordial relations he enjoyed,
certainly at the start of his episcopate but also for prolonged periods before
the final break, with the imperial couple. His first sermon, too, with its
astonishing build-up of flattery, demonstrates that the stem bishop, nor-
mally so ready to find fault with great persons, was quite ready, when the
occasion demanded, to be as extravagantly fulsome in his tributes to royalty
as any Byzantine court prelate.

V
Among John’s responsibilities as bishop was oversight of all the charitable
institutions in and around the city. In addition to hospitals for the sick, 79
these included numerous poor-houses (ptocheia ); some of them dated back
to the Arian bishop Makedonios, and they were usually attached to
churches. Although detailed information is lacking, it seems reasonable to
suppose that, when John assumed control, he centralised their administra-
tion and brought them under his personal supervision. 80 Outside the city
itself and in a rather different field, we hear of his efforts to evangelise the
peasants of Thrace, and to encourage landed proprietors in rural districts
to build churches on their estates rather than, as many were prone to do,
shopping-centres, baths, and taverns, which would only make country folk
as decadent as town dwellers. 81 They should also maintain clergy to man
the church and ensure that regular services would be held and the holy
sacrifice offered each Sunday. How satisfying they would find it to be
carried in a litter to the house of God, knowing that they had built it
themselves, and after attending the morning and evening hymns invite the

78
PG 63.473-8.
79
For these see above, pp. 119f.
80
See G. Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale (Paris 1974), 510-11.
81
In Act. horn. 18.4 (PG 60.147-8).
142 Golden Mouth

priesthome as a guest at their table. With all these local preoccupations it

seems remarkable that he found time and energy to organise campaigns,
outside Constantinople and in areas remote from its jurisdiction, both to
eradicate the lingering remains of paganism and near-pagan heresy, and
to promote missionary work among barbarians. These campaigns provide
evidence not only of his zeal for evangelism, but also of the enhanced role
he was determined to give to the see of the capital.
Thus John was responsible, with government authority and help, for
securing the closure of the pagan temples still in use at Gaza, the impor-
tant, obstinately pagan port on the coast of Palestine, and later their
complete destruction (including that of the world-famous Mameion, or
temple of Marnas, the Cretan Zeus), and the settlement of Christian
missionaries in the area. In his Life of his bishop, Porphyrios of Gaza
(395-420), Mark the Deacon relates how Porphyrios had sent him to
Constantinople in 398 to beg the emperor to suppress these temples; he
had also furnished him with a personal letter to John. 82 This John had
shown to Eutropios, and as a result of the eunuch’s intervention an edict
was shortly after published shutting the temples down. Although doubt
has been thrown on large portions of Mark’s narrative, there is no reason
to suspect the authenticity of this section. A couple of years later,
however, John was upset to learn that the Marneion was still function-
ing, and again used his influence at court to obtain a further edict
ordering its complete destruction. 83 According to Theodoret, 84 he also
dispatched a group of monks to Gaza; and the historian adds that the
money required to pay the workmen was not defrayed by the imperial
treasury but by John himself, who persuaded certain wealthy, devout
ladies to make liberal contributions. Theodoret also reports 85 that John
wrote to the then bishop of Kyrrhos (some 100 km north-east of Antioch),
urging him to take severe measures against adherents of the Marcionite
heresy, 86 and promising him government support in these worthy en-
deavours.
John’s main field of missionary work was among the Goths, the great
majority of whom were Arians of the radical Anomoean brand. 87 By an
accident of history Christianity had originally been brought to the Goths
north of the Danube by Ulflla (c. 311-83), who had been consecrated when
this was the official orthodoxy. In spite of his seven-year mission, ending
in 347-8, the main body of Goths remained heathen, but when Valens
allowed them to settle in the empire south of the Danube in 376, a condition

82
Ch. 26 (ed. H. Gr§goire and M.A. Kugener, Paris 1960: pp. 22-3).
83
See below, pp. 168f.
84
HE 5.29 ( GCS 44.329-30).
83
HE 5.31 (GCS 44.330-1).
86
A dualist heresy which contrasted the NT God of love with the OT God of justice.
87
See above, p.ll.
 10. The Bishop at Work 143

had been their conversion to the faith, 88 naturally in the Arianizing form
professed by the emperor. John found numbers of Goths settled in Constan-
tinople, and assigned a church, almost certainly that of Paul the Confessor
mentioned in the previous section, for their use, appointing priests, dea-
cons, and readers proficient in the Gothic language to service it. 89 The
services were, of course, orthodox, and he himself on occasion preached in
it, using an interpreter. In this way ‘he rescued many from their error’

(Theodoret). There survives, in fact, one of the sermons he delivered there,

an enormously long homily90 somewhat patronising in tone, in which John,
recalling that a Gothic preacher had preceded him, insists that there is
nothing disgraceful in his arranging for barbarians to stand up and speak
in church. Had not Isaiah prophesied (65.25) that wolves and lambs would
feed together? He had not been talking about mere animals but predicting
that ‘the savage part of mankind’ would be brought to gentleness by the
gospel message. This happy situation, he claims, has been realised today,
when we see ‘the most barbarous of humans standing alongside the sheep
of the church, sharing with them a common pasture and a single fold, with
the same table set before all’. Since Abraham had been a barbarian who
received his call in what is now Persia, Moses had grown up in a barbarian
home and the Magi had come from barbarian Persia, no one should be
surprised or dismayed to hear barbarians proclaiming the word in church.
He was careful to slip in a firm rebuttal of the Arian position: 91 ‘Even when
the Son was in the virgin’s womb, he was with the Father. Don’t inquire
how, or demand proofs. When God is accomplishing his work, only faith,
assent and confession are required.’ He did so, however, unprovocatively,
and it must quickly have got around that in the bishop the Goths had a
friend who sympathised with them and whom they could trust.
In addition, to judge by two letters John was later to write in exile, 92 he
set up a community of Gothic monks in Constantinople on property which
had belonged to the general Promotos, i.e. just south of Holy Apostles. This
may have served, among other things, as a training-school for Gothic
clergy. 93 But his zeal for promoting orthodox Christianity ranged far beyond
the capital and its resident Goths. On the one hand, he dispatched mission-
aries, probably monks, to work among the nomadic Goths along the lower
Danube. 94 He also consecrated (when we do not know) a Goth named Unila,
apparently a man of outstanding ability, to be bishop of Christian Goths

88
P. Heather, The crossing of the Danube and the Gothic conversion’, GRBS 27 (1986),
289-318.
89

90
Theodoret, HE 5.30 GCS 44.330).
(

PG 63.499-511.
91
PG 63.504.
92
Epp. 14.5; 207 (PG 52.618; 726-7).
93
G. Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale (Paris 1974), 466. For the location of Ta Pro 'motou see
R. Janin, Les 6glises et les monast&res (Paris 1962), 229.
Theodoret, HE 5.31 ( GCS 44.330-1).
94
144 Golden Mouth

settled in the Crimea, where he seems

to have accomplished a great deal
in a relatively short time. 95 On
the other hand, he would appear to have
had a lively interest in the fortunes of Christianity in Persia. This comes
out in a letter he was to write in 404 to Olympias, asking her to get in touch
with, and give him the latest news of, Maruthas. 96 This was none other
than Maruta, 97 bishop of the frontier town Mayferqat (Martyropolis, in
Mesopotamia), the physician cleric whom Arkadios sent as ambassador to
Persia in 399, at the accession of Yazdegerd I, and who was able to induce
the shah to adopt a more tolerant attitude to Christians in his realms, in
contrast to the prolonged persecution they had had to endure under Sapor
II (340-79). He was even granted permission to build churches wherever

he pleased. 98 John is likely to have met him, if not before, on the occasion
of his appointment as ambassador, when he must have been a frequent
visitor at court, and to have concerned himself with his plans for assisting
the Christian cause in Persia. Whether he was in touch with him again on
his return in 400-1 we do not know, but before long Maruthas was to move
into the camp of John’s adversaries 99 and be one of his judges at The Oak.
For the moment we should note that John’s great interest in promoting
Christianity among barbarians and outside the borders of the empire was
at this time unusual, not to say unprecedented.

95
Ep. 14.5 (PG 52.618).
96
Ibid.
97
For a concise summary see BSS VIII. 1300-9 (J.M. Sauget).
98
Sokrates 7.8.
99
Sozomen 8.16.
 11

Crises in the Capital

John had not many months before being drawn into grave political
to wait
crises. The concerned the chief chamberlain Eutropios, Arkadios’
first
all-powerful favourite, the patron to whom John owed his throne. In spring
399 his star seemed to be irreversibly in the ascendant. Not only were the
reins of government of the eastern parts of the empire effectively in his
hands, but in 397 he had shown his independence of Stilicho, as emperor
Honorius’ regent virtual ruler of the western parts, having him declared a
public enemy by the senate of Constantinople. His successful campaign in
1

the following year against the Huns in Armenia 2 had given a great boost
both to his prestige and to his own self-confidence. He enjoyed the full
backing of Arkadios, who had rewarded him with exceptional honours and
titles. It mattered little that the western government, disgusted at the
bestowal of the consulship, the highest office open to a private citizen, had
refused to include his name on the official list. Everywhere in the east he
was being publicly feted, with statues in his honour erected in front of the
senate-house in Constantinople and in public squares and boulevards. His
position seemed impregnable; but by early August he had been stripped of
his offices, disgraced and (his life spared for a while as a result of John’s
eloquent pleadings) sent into ignominious exile.
The prime originator of Eutropios’ downfall was Gainas, the ambitious
but deeply frustrated Gothic general who had had the praetorian prefect
Rufinus cut down before the emperor’s eyes at Hebdomon in November
395. 3 In early 399 there had been a dangerous revolt, led by his kinsman
Tribigild, of Goths whom Theodosius I had settled in Phrygia; they had
taken part in Eutropios’ campaign against the Huns, but both they and
Tribigild himself had been outraged by the meanness of the rewards they
had received. Eutropios dispatched two armies to put the rebellion down,
one under Gainas to Thrace to protect the European side of the Hellespont,
the other under a militarily incompetent friend of his own, Leo, to Asia to

1
Zosimos 5.11.1.
2
See above, p. 111.
3
See above, p. 111. For the background history of this chapter see esp. G. Albert, Goten in
Constantinopel (Paderbom 1984); J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops (Oxford
1990).
 4

146 Golden Mouth

confront the mutineers. Both men were, it would seem given the rank of ,

magistri militum praesentales i.e. commanders-in-chief attached to the

,

emperor’s person. When Leo’s army was disastrously defeated, Gainas was
given full command, but did not engage Tribigild, with whom he was in fact
in collusion. Instead he terrified the government in Constantinople by
telling it that Tribigild was a formidable foe with whom it would be
advisable to negotiate. He finally warned Arkadios that, if Tribigild and
his mutineers were to return to their allegiance, the indispensable condi-
tion would have to be the liquidation of Eutropios.
Gainas’ animosity6 against Eutropios seems to have been mainly in-
spired by resentment that he himself had not been granted the rank and
public status to which, as the most experienced general in the east who had
also opened the door to the eunuch’s rise to power, he felt he was entitled.
In fact, he had been passed over as commanding officer when Eutropios
chose himself to lead the campaign against the Huns, and had been kept
as a military count {comes rei militaris) a high but by no means top-level
}

army rank, until the crisis over Tribigild forced Eutropios to promote him
to generalissimo. Coupled with this was jealousy at the exalted honours
and enormous wealth which Eutropios was acquiring — particularly his
wealth, for Gainas, in addition to the regular army under his command,
had been building up a private army of his own people 6 which needed money
for its upkeep. Further, he was probably afraid, not without reason, that
he might before long share the fate of other Theodosian commanders whom
Eutropios, always suspicious of soldiers of prominence, had eliminated 7 .

Unfortunately for Eutropios, Gainas’ ultimatum arrived at a moment

when, behind a fagade of deferential congratulation, influential circles in
Constantinople had decided that they had had enough of him. Loathed and
feared by the military establishment, he was despised by the senatorial
aristocracy as a eunuch, and hated for his arrogance and his flaunting of
his power. Leo’s crushing defeat had strengthened his adversaries’ hands,
since he had been personally responsible for choosing such an inept general.
Even John, with whose measures to curb the relics of paganism and to
promote missions he had fully co-operated 8 had turned against him, ,

angered by legislation he had pushed through checking abuses of the right

to seek sanctuary in churches 9 and, in particular, limiting intervention on
behalf of condemned persons to making an appeal to a higher tribunal 10 .

What proved decisive, however, was the fact that the empress, once his
friend but increasingly resentful of his influence over her husband, had

4
See PW Supp. XII. 734-5 (A. Demandt); G. Albert, op. cit., 115.
5
Zosimos 5.13; 17.
6
Sokrates 6.5; Sozomen 8.4. Cf. G. Albert, op. cit., 112-14.
7
See above, p. 111.
8
See above, p. 142.
9
Sokrates 6.5; Sozomen 8.7.
10
CT 9.40.16; 9.45.3; 11.30.57; 16.2.32 and 33 (all of July 398).
 11. Crises in the Capital 147

joined the hostile camp. The crunch came, it is said, 11

when in his folly he
sneered that he could have her ejected from the palace just as easily as, by
arranging her marriage, he had brought her into it. Stung by the insult,
she went to the emperor, holding their two little daughters in her arms,
and bitterly complained of the eunuch’s insolence. Arkadios exploded with
anger (although normally sluggish, he was liable to violent outbursts of
temper), ordered Eutropios into his presence, and summarily dismissed
him from all his offices and dignities.

n
Eutropios’ panic-stricken but also (as it turned out) tactically shrewd

reaction, on hearing the emperor’s sentence, was to make his way, as

quickly and inconspicuously as possible, from the palace to nearby Hagia
Sophia. It is perhaps ironic that, after legislating to limit the right to
asylum in churches in an effort to control its abuse, he should himself have
sought to take advantage of it, but in his desperate situation the move was
an astute one. If anyone could be counted on to stand up for a suppliant
seeking the protection of his altar, it was John. So in fact it proved. The
news of the powerful minister’s dismissal spread throughout the city like
wild-fire, and the church was soon filled with an excited mob calling for
him to be handed over. Eutropios had flung himself at the base of the holy
table, but when government officers arrived to arrest him John refused to
yield to their demands. Meanwhile units of the army assembled before the
palace, loudly denouncing his crimes and calling for his summary execu-
tion. Eventually Arkadios himself appeared in public, addressed the crowd
of soldiers at great length, begged them to take account not only of
Eutropios’ misdeeds but also of the valuable services he had rendered the
state, declared that he himself was prepared as a fellow-human being to
forgive him his wrong-doing, and, finally, visibly weeping (his affection for
the favourite he had trusted so long could not be concealed), pleaded with
them to respect the holy table at which he had sought sanctuary. 12
For the moment the infuriated crowd dispersed. It was, apparently, a
Saturday in late July 399. The following day, when John presided at the
liturgy, Hagia Sophia was thronged with an enormous congregation; it was
equalled only (as he observed with satisfaction) by the full house to be
expected at Easter. The occasion had evidently been stage-managed to
produce the maximum of dramatic effect. As the crowd pressed forward,
women and girls as well as men, to catch a glimpse of the altar as the veil
normally concealing it was withdrawn, they could see, with gloating eyes,
grovelling beneath it and clutching one of its supporting pillars, white-faced

11

12
Philostorgios, HE 11.6 ( GCS 21.136): cf. Sozomen 8.7 (lie offended the empress’).
These scenes are reconstructed from John’s remarks next day: Horn, in Eutrop. 3-4 (JPG
52.393-5).
148 Golden Mouth

and with chattering teeth, the aged eunuch who a few hours earlier ‘was
shaking the whole world’. When the time came, John took his seat at the
ambo and delivered what has always been considered, from that day to this,
one of his most dazzling addresses. 13 Its stylistic finish, the elegance of its
structure, the skilful blending of indignation, pathos and religious appeal,
betoken the thought he had given to its preparation overnight, as well as
the care with which he must have revised the stenographers’ notes.
Its pervading message was one close to John’s heart: ‘Vanity of vanities,
everything is vanity (Eccl. 1.2). Poignantly illustrated in Eutropios’ rever-
sal of fortune, this text, he insists, should be inscribed in everyone’s
conscience. With its help and the pitiable example before them, the rich
man should abandon pride in material possessions, the poor man be
grateful for poverty as a refuge in which he can trust. But John’s object, as
he repeatedly emphasises, was to soften his hearers’ hearts, to persuade
them to spare Eutropios’ life and be content with the punishment so far
inflicted, remembering that God encourages the merciful and that they
themselves will have to give an account of their own failures. To achieve
this he first castigates the disgraced minister for surrounding himself with
fair-weather friends and parasites, for throwing pretentious drinking-
parties and banquets, for his flaunting (against all John’s advice) of his wealth,
for his extravagant staging (again against all advice) of theatrical shows and
horse-races. In his hour of need these follies bring him no comfort; it is only
the church, on which he waged war (polemetheisa ekklesia ) and which he
delighted to harry, 14 which comes to his aid. Then turning to the congregation,
surprised and indignant that he was offering sanctuary to the man who had
done his best to abolish the right to it, he pleaded that it was the church’s glory
to wrap her cloak, like an affectionate mother, around her erring son. As for
its being disgraceful that ‘the accused sinner, the extortioner, the robber’
should be allowed to cling to the altar, people should remember the harlot who,
in the gospel (Luke 7.36-50), took hold of the Lord’s feet. So far from being
rebuked, she had won his admiration and praise, and, impure though she was,
had been rendered pure by touching him. Eutropios, too, by being the first to
violate the law he himself enacted against asylum in churches, had trium-
phantly exposed its wickedness. 15
Interspersed with these reproaches and pleadings are some brilliantly
etched, sometimes cruel images highlighting the fallen eunuch’s desperate
plight. Only recently richer and more exalted than any subject, ‘he has
become more wretched than a chained convict, more pitiable than a menial
slave, more indigent than a beggar wasting away with hunger, having every
day a presentiment of sharpened swords, the criminal’s grave, executioners

13
Horn, in Eutropium eunuchum, patricium, ac consulem ( PG 52.391-6). Although often
translated (never worthily), there is no proper critical edition of this great work.
14
Horn, in Eutrop. 1 (PG 52.392).
15
Horn, in Eutrop. 3 (PG 52.394).
 11. Crises in the Capital 149

taking him away to death Though I should try my very best, I could never
. . .

convey to you in words the agony he must be suffering, from hour to hour
expecting to be butchered.’ Or, again, John compares the cowering figure
to a fearsome lion which has at last been tied up, or to a frog or a hare which
has been galvanised by sheer terror. In a final sally he invites the congre-
gation to look at ‘the harlot-face which a few days back shone radiant (such
is the prosperity derived from acts of extortion), but which now looks uglier

than any wrinkled old hag, with its usual enamel and grease-paint make-
up wiped off by the sponge of adversity.’ 16
Apart from denouncing his greed and rapacity, John nowhere touches
on the political background of Eutropios’ disgrace. Characteristically, he
preferred to stand aloof from the clashes of rival groups or of individuals
competing for power, and concentrate on the ambitions and passions
inspiring them. Many contemporaries, however, according to Sokrates and
Sozomen, 17 found the sermon objectionable because of its censorious tone;
it was just another example (Sokrates evidently shared this view) of John’s

habit of lecturing the highly placed with excessive vehemence. Instead of

showing compassion, they complained, he had been guilty of kicking a man
when he was down (just the thing he had twice at least protested he had
no intention of doing). 18 Their criticism suggests that they had missed the
point. His granting sanctuary to Eutropios was being sharply criticised; he
also realised that, if he was to deflect the wrath of the army and the mob,
he had to combine a frank acknowledgement of the eunuch’s misdeeds with
as vivid a portrayal as possible of his present humiliation. The tactic
succeeded, and as the address drew to its close he could exclaim that he
detected many people’s eyes streaming with tears. So in his peroration he
implored them to show compassion. What kind of mercy will they deserve
if, when the emperor, whom Eutropios had really injured, lays his anger
aside, they persist in theirs? How can they presume to approach the altar,
after repeating in the liturgy the Lord’s Prayer with its petition for
reciprocal forgiveness, if they have excluded it from their hearts?
John’s eloquence had saved Eutropios from death, at least for a few
months. According to the usual account, he was allowed to stay in the
church, but some days later, mistrustful of his security there, he slipped
out, only to be quickly rounded up. This implausible story, however, is
based on a further address of John’s 19 which, as we shall shortly see,
probably refers to a very different asylum -seeker. What actually happened
was that he was first banished to Cyprus, having been given a guarantee
that his life would be spared in Constantinople. 20 On 17 August an edict 21

16
Horn, in Eutrop. 2; 4; 3 (PG 52.393; 395; 394).
17
6.5; 8.7.
18
Cf. the opening words of paras. 2 and 3: PG 52.392.
19
Horn, de capto Eutropio (PG 52.395-414). See below, pp. 154-6.
20
Zosimos 5.18.2.
21
CT 9.40.17.
150 Golden Mouth

was published (the first, so far as we know, addressed to the new praetorian
prefect Aurelianos) setting out this sentence, and also annulling his acts,
confiscating his entire property, and stripping him of all his dignities. But
neither Gainas nor his other enemies in high places (including, we may
suspect, the empress) were satisfied. So at their insistence, the wretched
man was brought back from Cyprus three or four months later, tried before
a court presided over by Aurelianos on a trumped-up charge of high treason,
and beheaded. 22 The trial and execution took place at Chalkedon so that
the promise given to him that he would be safe in the capital might be
observed to the letter. He must have been dead before the end of the year,
since Asterios of Amasea (d. c. 410) refers 23 to his fate in a sermon given in
the first days of 400.

m
John’s success in getting Eutropios’ life temporarily spared can only have
irritated the influential circles which were bent on, and (as we have seen)
were soon able to bring about, his destruction. He made a pointed reference
to them in a sermon24 delivered (as he himself stated) scarcely thirty days
after the eunuch’s downfall, a reversal of fortune which, he charac-
teristically argued, should shake his hearers out of their insane rapacity
and trust in material riches. He drew a sombre picture of Eutropios’ present
plight: after spending sleepless nights and taking endless trouble indulging
his extortionate greed, he now finds himself a fugitive, without home or
city, without the bare necessities of life, haunted every hour by premoni-
tions of the sword’s blade, the executioner, the criminal’s grave, dragging
out an existence worse than a thousand deaths. By contrast other people
gorge themselves with his possessions, and those who recently toadied to
him now plot his extermination. Among these latter it is tempting to
include the empress and her close circle of friends; one suspects, too, that
their annoyance at his attitude to the fallen minister, so much more
generous than theirs, may have created a rift between them and their
bishop. All this is speculation, but if correct it would explain an extraordi-
nary outburst in which John, contemptuously contrasting the gold orna-
ments favoured by wealthy ladies with the chains Paul as a prisoner had
to wear, pointed a finger at Eudoxia herself. If the empress, he declared, 25
clad all in gold, and the Apostle Paul carrying his chains entered the church
together, everyone present would turn his eyes - and rightly too - away
from her to him. A man like Paul, more an angel than a man, was a more
wonderful spectacle than a woman in her most exquisite finery. As a devout

22
Philostorgios, HE 11.6 (GCS 40.136).
23
Horn. 4 (PG 40.225).
24
Quod frequenter conueniendum 1 (PG 63.461-2).
25
In Col. hom. 10.4 (PG 62.371). This reference confirms the date proposed on p. 133 above.
 11. Crises in the Capital 151

Christian Eudoxia was bound to agree, but she is not likely to have thanked
the preacher for making the comparison so publicly.
But Eudoxia had other things to think about at this time than such
needling puritanical diatribes. In a matter of weeks, on 9 January 400, 20
she was to be raised to the rank of Augusta, with Arkadios himself no doubt
presenting her with the purple chlamys, or military cloak fastened to the
right shoulder, and the distinctive imperial diadem. For generations it had
been usual for emperors to grant this courtesy title to their wives or close
female relatives, and Eudoxia must have felt that the time had come for
her to receive it. If she needed help in securing it, she could rely on the new
praetorian prefect Aurelianos, grateful for his own elevation to office and
for the part she had played in bringing about Eutropios’ disgrace, or
perhaps also on her intimate friend, the young count John, who, we are
27
told, was in a special degree in the emperor’s confidence. While the title
was honorific, conveying no executive powers, it is evident that from the
date of its bestowal, in the vacuum after the removal of Eutropios, her
influence over her ineffectual husband was greatly increased. If O. Seeck’s
remark28 that she was now named ‘co-ruler - Mitregentin’ goes too far, this
was the perception of her role which the coinage depicting her as Augusta
and the whole apparatus of imperial propaganda aimed at disseminating. 29

IV
Meanwhile a crisis far more damaging to the imperial city than the toppling
of an over-mighty minister, a crisis in which its deeply non-political bishop
would again find himself involved in one way or another, was building up.
While aspects of it (e.g. chronology) are still debated, its broad outline is
clear enough. 30 Important sources, though often difficult to interpret, are
two works by Synesios of Cyrene (c. 370-413), in Libya, a cultivated
Neoplatonist, later to be ordained bishop, who was in Constantinople as a
special envoy from 397 to late 400. These are his speech On Kingship (De
regno), which he delivered before a picked audience in 398, and his Egyptian
Tale, or De providentia, composed in Constantinople in 400, which gives a

26
Chronicon Paschale s.a. 400.
27
Zosimos 5.13.8. For John see PLRE 2, 594-5, which states that he became comes in 401/3.
In this book he is sometimes given the title by anticipation so as to distinguish him from the
bishop.
28
Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt 5, 318.
29
K.G. Holum, Theodosian Empresses (California 1982), 65-7.
30
For the chronology and historical framework I am chiefly indebted to G. Albert, ‘Zur
Chronologie der Empdrung des Gainas’, Historia 29 (1980), 504-8; Goten in Constantinopel
(Paderbom 1984). For Synesios we now have A. Cameron and J. Long, Barbarians and Politics
at the Court of Arkadios (California and Oxford 1993), which includes an annotated ET of De
providentia. It reached me too recently to take account of its wide-ranging, revisionist
discussions.
152 Golden Mouth
first-hand account of events there during this critical period in the form of
colourful, highly tendentious allegory.
Once again the threat came from Gainas. To start with there was no
apparent breach between him and the new praetorian prefect Aurelianos.
They had worked together to bring about the eunuch’s fall, and it was
Aurelianos who had presided at his trial. Behind the facade of co-operation,
however, it was clear to the Gothic commander that Aurelianos, consul from
the beginning of 400, was at least as great an obstacle to his ambitions as
Eutropios. The earlier view31 that he was leader of an ‘anti-German’ party
set on reducing the role of barbarians in the empire has been generally
discarded; 32 there was in fact no such ‘party. He undoubtedly represented,
however, a deeply rooted conviction, widely held in the court and other
important circles, that the growing influence of Germans and other bar-
barians in the state, especially in the army, must be resisted and reversed.
Even if he did not inspire, he was in sympathy with the trenchant presen-
tation of this policy in his friend Synesios’ De regno which called for the
,

creation of a truly national army and the removal of barbarians from

positions of command and the senatorial rank to which their holders were
entitled, and included thinly veiled attacks on Gainas himself. 33 The Goth,
w ho had been in Constantinople ostensibly negotiating an agreement
r

between the government and Tribigild, decided to anticipate his enemies

and strike first. Having concluded a treaty with Tribigild w'hich seems to
have allayed the fears of the capital, he moved to Thyatira and there,
throwing off the mask, joined forces with him. The two then marched in
early April with their armies, Tribigild to Lampsakos and Gainas to
Chalkedon in Bithynia, looting wherever they went. With Tribigild watch-
ing the Hellespont, Gainas could threaten the capital, which was filled with
alarm, with impunity. His position was in fact so strong that he was able
to insist that the emperor should come in person to meet him at Chalkedon.
The two men met in the splendid, beautifully situated church of the
martyr Euphemia, just outside Chalkedon 34 (in 431 to be the setting of the
fourth general council). Although neither was in any doubt which had the
whip hand, the discussions were conducted with elaborate courtesy and
mutual expressions of non-aggression and friendship. 35 Gainas held
Arkadios in deep respect and, provided his own position was secured, had
no wish to upset the established order. His first demand was that three
men whom he judged his most dangerous political adversaries in the
emperor’s entourage should be handed over as hostages, to be dealt with
at his discretion. These were Aurelianos, the former consul (383) and

31
See esp. O. Seeck, op. cit., 5, 314-18.
32
See G. Albert, Goten passim; also A. Lippold’s review in BZ 78 (1985), 398-9.
33
E.g. De regno 20 (Terzaghi 2.46C).
34
For an eloquent description see Evagrios Scholastikos, HE 2.3 (PG 86.2492-3). No vestige
survives today.
36
Sokrates 6.6; Sozomen 8.4.
 11. Crises in the Capital 153

high-ranking general Satuminos, and count John, Eudoxia’s favourite (her

lover too, gossips whispered), the emperor’s confidant, and since Eutropios’
removal the strongest political influence inside the palace. Arkadios had
no option but to agree. He also had to comply with Gainas’ further demands
(a) that he should be confirmed in the office of generalissimo ( magister
utriusque militiae) and (b) that as such he should be empowered to take
}

over military control of Constantinople and garrison his Gothic troops

(including his private army) there. Because he wanted to be absolutely sure
of his position, both parties bound themselves by solemn oaths. In addition
Gainas forced the emperor to appoint Caesarios, brother and political foe
of Aurelianos, as praetorian prefect in his place. It seems probable, too, that
he obliged Arkadios to nominate him as consul for 401. 36
John found himself drawn into the affair of the hostages from the start.
Two of them at any rate (Sokrates and Sozomen mention only Satuminos
and Aurelianos) had been conducted to Gainas’ camp near Chalkedon
under threat of execution. At this precise moment John was planning (as
we shall see) 37 to travel to Asia Minor to settle a serious disciplinary
problem, but on receiving an urgent message from the palace he cancelled
the proposed trip. Arkadios and Eudoxia must have been aware of his
interest in Goths, 38 and probably influence with them, and judged him the
man to help them in the present crisis. At their request, therefore, he
crossed over to Chalkedon to intercede with Gainas for the lives of the
hostages. Our sole direct knowledge of this demarche comes from the
sermon39 he is commonly held to have delivered on his return to the capital;
its ancient title, it should be noted, speaks only of Satuminos and Aure-
lianos. He apologises in this for his long absence from his congregation, but
explains that, ‘as the common father of you all’, he has had to concern
himself for members of his flock in desperate need. So he has expended
immense time and trouble moving around, arguing, pleading, that ‘these
important people’ might be spared their threatened fate. The rest of the
address is, for the most part, an impassioned tirade against the lust for
riches; his hearers should blame this, and the insane reliance on material
prosperity of which it is the expression, both for the disaster which has
befallen the hostages and for the pitiable, divided situation in which the
city now finds itself. But his advocacy, long-drawn-out and difficult though
it was, had eventually proved successful. Resisting Caesarios’ demand for

the hostages’ execution, Gainas contented himself with some macabre

play-acting, merely grazing their skin with a naked sword, and sentenced
them to exile. 40 He even abstained from seizing their property, 41 much as

36
Theodoret, HE 5.32.6 (GCS 44.333).
37
See below, p. 164.
38
See above, pp. 142-4.
39
Horn, cum Saturninus et Aurelianus acti essent in exsilium etc. (JPG 52.413-20).
40
Zosimos 5.18.9.
41
Synesios, Deprov. 1.16 (Terzaghi 102).
154 Golden Mouth

he needed funds for the maintenance of his private army — an act of

unexplained generosity which should also, in all probability, be attributed
to John’s persuasiveness.
Somehistorians 42 are sceptical about the whole incident. A visit to
Chalkedon, just across the straits, near enough (as we have seen ) 43 for John
and his congregation to pay it a devotional visit one afternoon, would not
have required a lengthy absence. So they would place the sermon some
months later, to his return from the expedition he made in the summer to
Thrace .
44
But this is to miss John’s point. He wanted to impress on his
auditors how arduous and time-consuming had been; in
his negotiations
any case, any separation from his flock, because of illness or whatever other
reason, always seemed an eternity to him. Rhetoric apart, it is unrealistic
to suppose that so ambitious and controversial a mission could have been
carried to its conclusion in a brief span. There must have been a great deal
of toing and froing, tough discussions, and confrontations with different
persons, including the recently promoted Caesarios. John’s proposals are
likely to have been bitterly opposed by some Gothic commanders, and even
more by their Greek supporters; Gainas himself seems to have been neither
a strong nor a decisive leader. The haggling could have dragged on for a
week or ten days; John’s success in the end speaks volumes for his
persuasiveness and commanding personality, but also for the respect which
his known concern for Gothic Christians had engendered in Gainas and
other Goths in his close circle.
This was not, it is clear, John’s only involvement with the hostages. The
eleventh of the charges to be brought against him some three years later46
was that ‘he informed against count John during the mutiny of the troops’.
Since we know of no other military uprising in this period, the reference
can only be to Gainas’ coup. The likeliest explanation is that, in a desperate
attempt to avoid being handed over to the Goth, the count had tried to
conceal himself in a church, and that John was accused of betraying his
whereabouts. The mystery is solved if we accept that, as has been convinc-
ingly argued 46 the subject of the homily conventionally entitled ‘On the
,

arrest of Eutropios 47 is not in fact the eunuch but the young courtier. In its
’

opening paragraphs the preacher’s concern is to repudiate the allegation

that he had been responsible a few days before for the ‘betrayal’ of someone
who had sought sanctuary; the fugitive, he claims, had had only himself to
blame since he had left the church of his own volition. That the man, who
is nowhere named, was Eutropios can be safely ruled out, if only for the

42
J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, op. cit., 110.
E.g.
43
See above, p. 139.
44
See below, pp. 160-3.
45
See below, p. 222: also Appendix C.
46
A. Cameron, Nottingham Medieval Studies 32 (1988), 34-48.
47
Horn, de capto Eutropio (PG 52.395-414: only 395-402 are relevant, the remainder of the
sermon being taken up with generally edifying themes).
 11. Crises in the Capital 155

reason that none of the personal allusions fits him. To give but one example,
he is described 48 as having plotted against John and done him much harm,
whereas however much John disapproved of Eutropios there was no per-
sonal animosity between them. But the fatal objection to the traditional
identification is the improbable scenario it presupposes. It is hard to
understand why Eutropios should have attempted to escape, since John
had assured him of asylum, Arkadios had publicly announced his readiness
to forgive him, and it was clear that his life at any rate was going to be
spared. It is equally hard to reconcile the tumultuous violence on the part
of the army, which apparently maltreated John and insulted the emperor,
described in the homily, 49 with its noisy but loyal and respectful demon-
stration a few days earlier when Eutropios had fled to Hagia Sophia. 50
An alternative reconstruction, which both explains how the charge came
to be levelled against John and takes full account of the alarming situation
depicted in the homily, may be proposed. Only two hostages were initially
handed over to Gainas; they were (as Sokrates, Sozomen, and the sermon’s
title suggest) Satuminos and Aurelianos. Somehow count John had man-
aged to lie low; it would indeed be surprising if one so intimate with both
Arkadios and Eudoxia had not received, and acted on, a warning signal.
When the Goths took over the city, however, one of their chief immediate
objectives must have been to track down the third wanted man. Such a
well-known figure could not long remain concealed, even though he tried
to hide himself in a church. Soon it was crowded with Gothic troops
searching for him and brandishing naked swords. ‘The church was be-
sieged,’ John states, 51 but ‘I withstood them; I was not afraid of their wrath.’
The infuriated soldiers then carried him off by force to the palace; their
rough usage convinced him that he faced death. When they got there, ‘the
diadem proved impotent, the purple was insulted’: in other words,
Arkadios’ appeals for his friend were thrown rudely back at him and he
could do nothing. The armed rabble eventually discovered and seized the
count. We are not told the details of his arrest, but John is insistent that
the fault lay with himself: had he clung to the altar he would have remained
untouched.
Nothing in the homily actually requires us to identify the fugitive with
the courtier, but there is also nothing in it which is inconsistent with this
identification, which in the light of the accusation later brought against
John is highly plausible. Indeed, some of John’s remarks seem to point in
the count’s direction. For example, the hint that ‘the wearer of the diadem’
could do nothing to help the fugitive suggests that he was a close friend of
Arkadios. Again, John seems to link him with Saturninos and Aurelianos,
rebuking him in section 3 for pursuing ‘wealth the runaway’ in language

48
Section 5 (PG 52.400).
49
Section 3 (PG 52.399).
50
See above, p. 147.
51
Section 1 (PG 52.397).
156 Golden Mouth

almost identical with that he had used to rebuke them, and in sections 4
and 6 including him with ‘those who have gone away whose careers are
. . .

ended’. 52 Acceptance of the identification clears up several other points.

Thus we now know that the homily was not preached, as generally as-
sumed, in August 399, but in late April 400. The troops whose disorderly,
insolent behaviour is highlighted were not the disciplined, loyal imperial
guard, but Gothic soldiers on the rampage. Even more interesting, perhaps,
is the discovery that the count, later to rank among John’s bitterest foes,
was already intriguing against him in 399. 53 In general, this re-reading of
this usually neglected homily brings to light a hitherto unsuspected episode
of some importance in the history of the capital and in the personal life of
John.

V
Meanwhile, his demands met and the hostages (two for the moment) dealt
with, Gainas had crossed the Bosporus and installed himself with his army
in Constantinople. It was probably the end of April 400. 54 It is calculated55
that he had some 35,000 troops with him, mostly Goths, although this total
includes the Gothic soldiers’ families. Even allowing for this, a much
smaller force would have sufficed, since no military units were stationed
in the capital - apart from the imperial guard (scholae palatinae ). But
Gainas had to satisfy his men’s desire to plunder and enjoy the rich pickings
of the splendid city. 56 They were billeted at scattered locations throughout
it, to the great discomfort of the inhabitants, who had to put up as best they

could with their rough behaviour, but also to their own danger, since they
were living in widely separated groups amid a frightened and hostile
population. Synesios, who was there at the time, reports 57 that they treated
the city as if it were their camp. With sombre eloquence John, returning to
Constantinople from his negotiations over the hostages, recaptures 58 the
atmosphere of confusion, fear, mutual suspicion and mistrust he found
there. He even speaks of a ‘civil war’ (polemos emphulios ), a not inapt
expression since the army of the state (for such it officially was) was
oppressing its citizens, and since these were split by fierce political and,
now that the Arian minority could raise its head, religious animosities.
Gainas was now effectively in control of the government as well as the
capital. The mastery of the eastern parts of the empire was within his

52
PG 52.398; 400 and 401.
53
Sect. 5 ad init. (PG 52.400). It was A. Cameron (art. cit.) who first explained this text.
54
This is G. Albert’s chronology: some prefer late December 399 or early January 400.
55
On the basis of Synesios, De prou. 2.2 (Terzaghi 2.115C); Zosimos 5.19.4. See G. Albert,
op. cit., 131 n. 184.
56
Synesios, Deprov. 1.15 (Terzaghi 2.99A; 100).
57
De prov. 2.1 (Terzaghi 2.109B).
58
Cum Satuminus et Aurelianus 1 (PG 52.415).
 11. Crises in the Capital 157

grasp, with the emperor obliged to gratify his wishes and a highly placed
citizen who backed him installed as praetorian prefect. But it was no part
of his plan to overthrow a regime under which he had risen to the highest
military rank, but rather to consolidate his own position within it. The
dream he cherished, it is likely, was to build up a commanding role for
himself in the eastern empire analogous to that conspicuously achieved by
another (but far abler) barbarian general, the Vandal Stilicho, in the west.
This bold, but strictly limited, ambition is well illustrated by the fact that,
although now at the height of his power, he approached the emperor with
the seemingly modest request that one of the city churches should be
assigned to his Goths for Arian services. His ostensible plea, it is reported,
was that it was unbecoming to his dignity, as a Roman officer of the highest
rank, to be obliged to go outside the city walls, as the legislation of
Theodosius I required of Arians, when he wanted to worship God. But his
ulterior motive may have been, it has been suggested, 59 to secure for himself
and his followers, dispersed as they were haphazardly throughout a resent-
ful city, a convenient rallying-point where, in addition to holding services,
they could meet to formulate plans and affirm their national identity.
The incident is reported, cursorily by Sokrates 60 (who cites it merely as
illustrating John’s notorious ‘outspokenness’ iparrhesia )), but in circum-
stantial detail by Sozomen and Theodoret. 61 The last-mentioned relates a
verbal exchange between John and Gainas which, although the historian
was himself probably responsible for the phrasing, retains (as many have
noted) 62 a remarkable flavour of verisimilitude. It seems that Arkadios,
almost certainly advised by the new praetorian prefect Caesarios and in
any case thoroughly afraid of what the Goth might do if he were thwarted,
was at first inclined to yield to his demand, and asked John’s co-operation
in complying with it. Oblivious (as we should expect) of the political issues
at stake, John indignantly refused and brushed his fears aside, and at his
request the emperor arranged a meeting between the two men in his
presence.
When Gainas repeated his demand, John, who was accompanied by
several other bishops, retorted 63 that the emperor, as an adherent of the
true religion, could not act so sacrilegiously. In reply Gainas urged that he
too,as a man of faith, needed a house of prayer. John’s rejoinder was that
every church in the city was open to him. Gainas countered this by arguing
that this was no use to him since he belonged to a different denomination;
his request for a place where he could worship was fully justified by the
long years of military service he had rendered to the Roman empire. With

59
G. Albert, op. cit., 132.
60
6 6
. .

8.4; Theodoret HE 5.32.2-8 ( GCS 44.332-3). Their accounts agree in substance.

61
Sozomen
62
E.g. E.Demougeot, De Vunitt a la division de I’empire romain (Paris 1951), 254.
63
This summary is a conflation of Sozomen and Theodoret.
158 Golden Mouth

astonishing frankness John insisted that the rewards he had received

greatly exceeded any labour he had expended. He reminded him that, when
he had crossed the Danube to join the Roman army as a common soldier,
he had been a rough-clad, penniless barbarian, whereas he was now
commander-in-chief and had been deemed worthy of a consul’s robe of
office. He had sworn allegiance to Theodosius the Great, and was now guilty
of great ingratitude when he sought to persuade Arkadios to violate his
father’s law banning the holding of heretical services in the city. At one
point he turned to the emperor and, with a rhetorical flourish, exclaimed
that it would be nobler to step down from his throne than to hand over the
house of God to infidels.
Without saying so explicitly, Theodoret seems to imply that John’s
intervention was successful, while Sozomen states that, by his outspoken
protest, he prevented the introduction of any innovation in church practice
64
in Constantinople. Synesios, it is true, is often cited as evidence that
Caesarios was able, in spite of everything, to get a church in the city handed
over for Arian worship, but this interpretation is based on what is probably
a mistaken translation of his text, which in fact suggests that this was what
he set himself to bring about without implying that he was successful in
his efforts. John’s speech, as reproduced by the historians, gives some
readers an impression of hauteur, even harshness, but it is unlikely to have
struck Gainas as a hostile rebuke. A Christian himself, he revered John a3
a holy man, and was aware of his pastoral concern for Goths; he was also
under the spell of his forceful personality. We can readily understand that
he was reduced to silence, and felt he had no option but to drop his project.

VI
Reports of John’s successful confrontation with Gainas got around the city
immediately. There were many bystanders who witnessed it. Apart from
the bishops forming his escort, there must have been courtiers and servants
present; several of these had an interest in spreading the news. His prestige
in the city received an enormous boost. The flagging spirits of the citizens,
the great majority of whom were keenly orthodox, were cheered when they
learned how boldly and effectively their bishop had defied the Arian
generalissimo. For Gainas himself the episode was an irretrievable set-
back. The more its significance sank in, the more his standing with the
palace and with the faction supporting him, even with his own followers,
must have been weakened. Not surprisingly, it is to this moment that the
break-down of his control of the city, and also of his own barbarian troops
occupying it, can be traced. There are reports 65 of an abortive attempt to

64
De prov. 1.18 (Terzaghi 2.108-9). For the correct interpretation of the text see G. Albert,
op. 157 n. 41.
cit.,
65
Sokrates 6.6; Sozomen 8.4; Philostorgios, HE 11.8 ( GCS 21.139).
 11. Crises in the Capital 159

plunder the cash-tables of the bankers, even of soldiers being sent to set
fire to the imperial palace. It is difficult to believe that, as the ancient
historians allege and some modem ones accept, these outrages were carried
out on his orders in an effort to terrorise his enemies and so restore his
position. It is more plausible to attribute them to arbitrary action by groups
of barbarian soldiers stationed in the city, and to see them as evidence of
the growing disregard for his authority among them. Whatever the truth,
these excesses inevitably increased the apprehensions of the populace,
already raised to fever-pitch by the appearance some weeks earlier of a
comet 66 of unprecedented size which was taken as the harbinger of dreadful
calamities.
In the second week of July, disturbed by the deteriorating situation,
worried perhaps also by the hostility of the population and the threat it
posed to his men and their families, Gainas left the capital, accompanied
by trusted units of his army, and made for Hebdomon about 10 km to the
west. The pretext he gave out, according to Sokrates and Sozomen, 67 was
that he was possessed by a demon and wished to pray at the great church
there in which the head of John the Baptist was venerated. That he was
confused and troubled is likely, but there is plausibility in the suggestion. 68
that, being resolved to quit Constantinople, he was planning to regroup his
forces, dispersed and becoming more and more unmanageable, at the
parade ground and barracks at Hebdomon. His orders, however, for the
gradual, unostentatious evacuation of the main army were misunderstood
or at any rate disregarded. In their haste and panic the soldiers drew
attention to their movements, and made things worse by looting their
billets. 69 In the resulting confusion violent incidents between them and the
exasperated citizens were unavoidable. There was a popular rising against
them, the gates were eventually shut, there was bitter street fighting, and
7,000 barbarians (so it is said, but the number must be exaggerated)
crowded into a church near the palace, probably the one which John had
assigned to Goths for orthodox worship. They expected to find sanctuary
there, but the emperor ordered their destruction. The roof of the building
was tom off, blazing torches were flung in, and the packed masses of
soldiers were burned or stoned to death. 70 The date was 12 July 400. 71
In the months following his confrontation with Gainas John’s position
in the capital was probably more influential than it had ever been, or would
ever be again. It is far-fetched, however, to claim 72 that the mass of the

66
This was the comet first seen in China on 19 March 400 and visible there during April-May:
Ho Peng Yoke, ‘Ancient and Mediaeval Observations of Comets and Novae in Chinese
Sources’, Vistas in Astronomy (ed. A. Beer) 5 (1962), 161 no. 183.
67
6.6; 8.4.
68
G. Albert, op. cit., 135-6.
69
See esp. Synesios, De prov. 2.1; 2.2 (Terzaghi 2.111; 112).
70
Sokrates 6.6; Sozomen 8.4; Synesios, De prov. 2.3 (Terzaghi 2.118); Zosimos 5.19.4.
71
Chronicon paschale s.a. 400.
72
E.g. S. Mazzarino, Stilicone (Rome 1942), 215-16.
160 Golden Mouth

citizens looked tohim personally, after his refusal of a church to the Goth,
as the leader around whom they could rally and who could unleash their
pent-up fury against the hated occupiers of their city. John’s interest in the
affair was exclusively religious; he had no hostility to Goths as such but
was in general well disposed towards them, demanding only their
conversion to orthodoxy. If he was glad to see them ejected from Con-
stantinople, as some have argued on the basis of his 37th Homily on
Acts 73 this implied (as his later missionary activities were to show) no
,

alteration in his support for their assimilation in society. The rising of

the citizenry against them was in fact an entirely spontaneous explosion
which, as the catastrophic course it took demonstrated only too clearly,
owed nothing to his inspiration. It is even more misleading to speak 74 of
him as ‘tolerating the massacre’ of the Goths. The historian Zosimos,
himself a pagan, remarked 75 that seriously committed Christians
(among whom John was surely pre-eminent, and cannot have been far
from his thoughts) viewed the burning of the church and the extermina-
tion of the barbarians inside it as ‘an enormous sacrilege’. One’s surmise
is that John would resign himself to the butchery of the soldiers as a
mysterious judgment of providence, the penalty no doubt for their sins,
but that he would have been horrified by the gross violation of the right
to sanctuary.

VII
John was to have one more meeting with Gainas. After the success of the
popular insurrection against the Goths, the emperor had declared their
commander a public enemy, 76 and the gates of Constantinople had been
closed against him. He nevertheless still had a large part of the imperial
army at his disposal, and with it marched into Thrace, pillaging and
ravaging as he went. Meanwhile confusion reigned in the capital. The
unexpected turn of events had been a severe setback for the praetorian
prefect Caesarios and his supporters, but equally an immense encourage-
ment for their opponents, who included Eudoxia and her close circle. There
were loud demands for the return of Aurelianos and the other exiles. But
Caesarios continued in office; indeed, the situation was too menacing to
allow of changes at the top. Everyone, according to Theodoret, 77 rulers and
ruled alike, was paralysed with dread of the Goth, without an army to
march against him, at first too divided even to parley with him. Eventually,
Theodoret continues, they persuaded John, who was utterly fearless,

73
PG 60.267. See A. Cameron, Chiron 17 (1987), 346-9.
74
E. Demougeot, op. cit., 298.
75
5.19.5.
76
Sokrates 6.6; Sozomen 8.4.
77
HE 5.32-3 (GCS 44.333-4).
 11. Crises in the Capital 161

unworried by his recent clash with Gainas or any resentment it might have
engendered in him, to go as the city’s ambassador to Thrace and negotiate
with him. When Gainas learned of his approach, he went out to meet him,
received him with every mark of deference, and even got him to bless his
children.
The incident illustrates in a remarkable way John’s standing at the time,
both with the authorities in the capital (whatever they thought of him
personally) and with Gainas. He was apparently the only person with
whom the now embittered and hostile barbarian was prepared to enter into
discussions. But Theodoret provides no clue to the object of the mission,
although the abrupt termination of his narrative may indicate that it ended
in failure. Fortunately we are able to supplement his account with the help
of the thinly veiled, tendentious description of the situation in Constanti-
nople at the time given by Synesios in his Egyptian Tale. This suggests 78
that, in the first place, after the massacre and the enforced withdrawal of
the main body of Goths, the emperor was persuaded by Caesarios that the
net result of his supposed victory over the barbarians was the loss of the
best part of the army. It might therefore be in his interest to induce this to
return, however unpalatable this might be to the local population. Messen-
gers were therefore dispatched, with urgent petitions and even gifts, in an
effort to bring about some mutually acceptable accommodation. In the light
of language like this it seems probable that one part at any rate of John’s
mission, undertaken at the behest of Caesarios (who apparently tried to
bribe him), was to use his influence to persuade Gainas to return and
resume his position as commander-in-chief. But in the same passage
Synesios also records the holding of a solemn service of thanksgiving
presided over by ‘the high priest’, presumably John, at which thanks were
offered for recent events and the people called for the return of Aurelianos
and the other hostages. The high priest, we are told, assured them that, if
heaven were well disposed, this would indeed be brought about. It seems
likely, 79 therefore, that, included in the petitions which John carried to
Gainas on this final visit to him, was an urgent plea for the restoration of
the exiles.
If this reconstruction is correct, when John set forth for Thrace in
summer 400 he was the envoy both of Caesarios and his partisans and of
the friends and supporters of Aurelianos. This dual role illustrates not only
the dominant part he was playing at this critical juncture in the political
life of the capital, but also, intriguingly, what has been aptly called 80 his

‘versatility’, even his ‘dangerous independence’. So far from being a political

78
De prou. 2.3 (Terzaghi 2.118-19). It was O. Seeck ( Untergang 5.324) who first linked the
accounts of Theodoret and Synesios.
79
On this see C. Zakrzewski, ‘Le parti th^odosien et son antith6se\ Eus Supplementa 18
(Lemburg 1931), 119.
80
E. Demougeot, op. cit., 298.
162 Golden Mouth

bishop serving one or other of the factions in the state, he remained

supremely detached from the political struggles of the time, prepared when
he thought fit to take up the causes of mutually opposed groups. His
overriding concern was always with his pastoral responsibilities and with
the defence and promotion of orthodoxy. It is ironic that, while the rival
parties had little option but to accept his services, the efforts he made on
their behalf brought him, from Eudoxia and the hostages at any rate, more
hostility than gratitude. 81 It is no less ironic that, in spite of having
successfully resisted Gainas’ demand for a church, his relations with the
Goth and readiness to negotiate with him should have induced some of his
enemies to whisper that he had been willing to sacrifice the interests both
of church and empire to him. 82
On this occasion, notwithstanding the obsequious reception the Gothic
commander gave him, his mission proved unsuccessful. Gainas had no
reason to place any faith in the proposed reconciliation, and in any case
was fully occupied with pillaging. Still less, we must suppose, could he see
any reason to order the return of the hostages, even if he were in a position
to do so. The rest of his story scarcely concerns us here, although it is worth
recording that the government was eventually able to muster an army to
send against him, led by another barbarian general, Fravitta (a pagan this
time), and that this defeated him ignominiously as he was trying to cross
the Hellespont into Asia. Escaping northwards across the Danube, as
Zosimos reports, 83 or (as seems more probable) returning to upper Thrace, 84
he found himself confronted by the Hunnish chieftain Uldin, was engaged
by him in battle, and was killed. According to the Paschal Chronicle the
fatal battle took place on 23 December 400. Uldin sent his head as a grateful
tribute to Arkadios, who had it paraded in the streets of Constantinople in
early 401.

81
See below, pp. 17 If.
82
So ‘Martyrios’, P 486a: AB 97 (1979), 152.
83
5.21.6.
84
Philostorgios, HE 11.8 GCS 21.139):
( cf. Sokrates 6.6; Sozomen 8.4, who both attribute his
final defeat and death to Roman troops.
85
Chronica minora 2.66.
 12

Intervention in Asia

In April 400, when the crisis over Gainas and his Goths was coming to the
boil,John found himself drawn into an affair which, with a protracted gap
between its two phases, was to occupy him for two full years, and lead him
into exercising quasi-patriarchal authority far beyond the confines of the
imperial city. Because of its far-reaching ecclesiastical implications, and
also because provides eye-witness glimpses of his style of leadership, the
it

story deserves examination in some detail. Our principal source is Pal-

ladios, who was personally present at the key incidents.
1

One Sunday morning, before the start of divine service, John was in his
palace conferring with some twenty-two bishops. The majority were from
Asia, the province on the western seaboard of Asia Minor; headed by
Antoninos, metropolitan of its capital Ephesos, they were staying in the
palace, having come to Constantinople on urgent business. Among others
present were three elderly metropolitans from Scythia, Thrace and Galatia
respectively. Palladios, who was also present, more than once calls their
meeting a ‘synod’, and there can be no doubt that this was the ‘resident
synod’ mentioned earlier. 2 All unexpectedly, Eusebios, bishop of Valenti-
nopolis and one of Antoninos’ suffragans, joined the gathering and pro-
duced a formal dossier of accusations against him. Keeping his annoyance
in check, John begged him to desist, but the excited man was not to be
silenced. John therefore called on Paul, bishop of Heraklea, to mediate
between Antoninos and his enraged suffragan, and himself led the other
bishops into the Great Church to begin the liturgy. Almost immediately,
however, Eusebios burst into the sanctuary and, in full view of the bewil-
dered congregation, thrust a copy of the charge-sheet into his hands. To
calm him down and avoid alarming the people further, John took it but,
feeling too upset to offer the holy sacrifice himself, delegated this respon-
sibility to another bishop and withdrew after the scripture readings.
When the mass was over, John reconvened the resident synod in the
baptistery, and summoned Eusebios. First, he warned him that he had

1
Dial. 13-16 (SC 341.273-303). There are brief references to John’s activities in Asia Minor
in Sokrates 6.15 and Sozomen 8.6.
2
See above, pp. 128f.
164 Golden Mouth

better be sure he had proof of his allegations; once they had been made
public and entered in minutes, the process would be irreversible. Since
Eusebios insisted, his seven charges were read out. Antoninos, he claimed,
had melted down sacred vessels and given the silver ingots to his son. He
had appropriated slabs of marble taken from the baptistery of his church
and converted them into baths for his personal use. He had decorated his
dining-room with marble columns which he had found lying around in
churches. He had retained in his employ a servant who was guilty of
murder. He had sold real estate bequeathed to the church and pocketed the
proceeds. He had taken back, and resumed sexual relations with, the wife
from whom he had separated when made a bishop. Worst of all, it was his
regular practice to demand a fee proportionate to the revenues of the
prospective see from anyone he consecrated bishop. Men who had paid for
their offices, Eusebios declared, as well as the agents who had handled the
cash, were present in the baptistery; he had the necessary proofs.
On the advice of the most elderly bishops present it was agreed that,
while all the charges were shocking, it would be sensible to concentrate on
the most heinous, selling holy orders, believed to be bestowed by the Holy
Spirit, for money (technically known as simony). John therefore formally
asked, first, Antoninos, and then certain bishops alleged to have paid him
to ordain them, what they had to say. Both he and they firmly repudiated
the accusations. The debate dragged on until the afternoon, but reached a
deadlock when Eusebios failed, in spite of his assurances, to produce
witnesses who could swear that they had seen money changing hands. At
this point John, who was determined to have the scandal cleared up,
announced his intention to travel to Asia himself and personally carry out
an investigation there. It is not recorded that anyone objected that, from
the strictly canonical point of view, this might be ultra vires. Antoninos,
however, was so alarmed at the prospect of such a visitation that he
privately persuaded a powerful friend (a man, in fact, whose estates in Asia
he managed) to use his influence at court to block John’s projected journey.
The palace, we may surmise, was taken aback to hear of it. John had taken
his decision on the spur of the moment, but it had its own reasons for
wanting his presence So he received a peremptory order 3 ‘It
in the capital. :

is unthinkable that you, our bishop and the protector of our souls, should
absent yourself from the city and undertake a journey to Asia at a time
when great trouble is expected. The witnesses can easily be fetched.’
The great trouble, as Palladios explains, was the threat offered by
Gainas, who was camped at Chalkedon just across the straits. John was
urgently needed, as we have seen 4 to negotiate with him on behalf of the
,

hostages. He therefore had no option but to comply. Rather than wait,

however, for the witnesses to find their way to Constantinople, or risk their

3
Palladios, Dial 14 (SC 341.282).
4
See above, pp. 152f.
 12. Intervention in Asia 165

being tampered with in the meantime, he reassembled the synod and got
it to agree to send, in his place, three of its members to Asia to examine the

witnesses. The three chosen were Synkletios of Traianopolis (Thrace),

Hesychios of Parion (Hellespont) and John’s friend and biographer Pal-
ladios of Helenopolis (Bithynia), only the second being from the civil diocese
of Asiana, of which the province of Asia was part. They were to carry out
their interrogations at Hupaipa, a small town at the foot of the Tmolos
mountains on the road between Ephesos and Sardes, chosen as being
conveniently placed for all parties. Anyone they summoned who failed to
present himself within two months would be liable to excommunication.
From this point onwards the affair assumed the air of a black comedy.
Setting out while the city was occupied by the Goths, Synkletios and
Palladios duly landed at Smyrna and found their way to Hupaipa, but
without Hesychios; a friend of Antoninos, he had excused himself on
grounds of ill health. Letters were dispatched summoning the interested
parties, and eventually Antoninos and Eusebios turned up - but not a
single witness. Antoninos, we are told, had in the meantime bought off
both his accuser and the witnesses, and Eusebios was reduced to pleading
unconvincingly that these were detained by pressing business. Asked by
the exasperated commissioners when he expected to produce them, he
swore to do so within forty days; it was his private hope, and expectation,
that, as the summer heat was reaching its extreme intensity (middle to end
of July), 5 the two would not relish sticking it out so long at Hupaipa. They
did stick it out, however, and when neither Eusebios nor his witnesses put
in an appearance after forty days, they notified the bishops of Asia that he
had been excommunicated. For good measure they then waited thirty days
more, and when there was still no sign of the witnesses, they packed their
bags and returned to Constantinople. Here, according to Palladios, 6 they
had a chance encounter with Eusebios; but when they reproached him, he
pleaded sickness, but promised to produce the witnesses without fail.
Thus ended the first act of the bizarre drama. The second and final act,
which opened with the death of Antoninos at some unknown date and an
urgent plea to John to come in person to Asia to sort out the confused
situation, is held both by Baur 7 and by some present-day students 8 to have
followed almost immediately, with John setting sail from the capital
shortly after Epiphany (6 January) 401 and returning in triumph soon after
Easter (14 April). But there are strong grounds for rejecting this chronol-
ogy. A decisive one is that Palladios, who was closely involved in the affair
from start to finish and had access to the minutes, insists twice over9 that

5
G. Albert, Histona 29 (1980), 507 with nn. 22 and 23.
6
Dial 14 (SC 341.286).
7
2.145; 152 n. 13.
8
E.g. J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, Nottingham Medieval Studies 29 (1985), 5: he later abandoned
this view.
9
Dial. 15 (SC 341.290 and 296).
166 Golden Mouth

itdragged on for two years, i.e. until Easter 402 (6 April). No less compel-
ling, however, are certain pieces of evidence, relating to John’s known
activities or to events in which he played a part, which cannot be reconciled
with such a programme but point, quite independently, to his continued
presence in Constantinople in the early months of 401 at any rate. The older
view, which has recently been convincingly reargued, 10 that John’s Asian
journey took place about a year later, from late 401 or, more probably, early
402 to spring 402, makes full allowance for these as well as cohering
admirably with Palladios’ timetable. In the following two sections, which
form an extended entr’acte, we shall review some of this evidence before
recounting, in the fourth and fifth, the saga of John’s activities in Asia
Minor.

II

One of John’s best-known, but also (in the form in which they have been
handed down) sermon-courses is the series
stylistically least satisfactory,
of 55 homilies on the Acts of the Apostles. 11 Long ago M. von Bonsdorff
established 12 that he delivered them in Constantinople, and went on to
argue that he began the course shortly after the collapse of the Gothic
occupation on 12 July 400 and continued it, with occasional interruptions
(e.g. when absent on his embassy to Thrace),
13
well into 401. As regards
their starting-point, he maintained that the homilies must post-date (a)
the synod at which Antoninos was accused since they contain covert but
unmistakable warnings 14 against the kinds of misconduct with which he
was charged, and (b) the Gothic occupation since there is no trace in them
of the alarm and confusion which paralysed the city during it. Indeed, the
only reference to the Goths comes in Homily 37, 15 where John uses the
expulsion of foreigners from a city as an illustration of the need to purge
the human soul of the alien, vicious elements which exist in it side by side
with natural, healthy ones. It seems clear 16 that it was the expulsion of the
Goths which inspired his imagery, but equally clear, not least from the
detached tone of his discussion, that the expulsion was no recent event, but
lay some months back in the past. The inference must be that the homily
was preached some months after 12 July 400, probably late in 400 or even
early in 401.
It is Homily 44, however, which provides clinching proof that the course

10
A. Cameron, Chiron 17 (1987), 350-1. For oider scholars see, e.g., O. Seeck, Untergang der
antiken Welt (Stuttgart 1920), 5.577.
11
See above, p. 132.
12
Zur Predigttatigkeit des Johannes Chrysostomus (Helsingfors 1922), 90-9.
13
See above, pp. 160f.
14
See esp. horn. 3.4-5; hom. 12.1-2 (PG 60.40-1; 101-2).
15
37.3 (PG 60.267).
16
Cf. A. Cameron’s examination in art. cit., 346-7.
 12. Intervention in Asia 167

was still in progress in the early months of 401. In this he dramatically

exclaims, 17 ‘By God’s grace I too have spent three years ( trietia ), not indeed
exhorting you day and night, but often every three or every seven days.’
Taken literally, this would suggest that the homily was preached in late
February 401, since he had been consecrated bishop and had started his
career as a preacher in Constantinople on 26 February 398. It may be
argued that we should not press him too strictly, since he was clearly
echoing Paul’s speech to the elders of Miletus in Acts 20.31 (on which he
was commenting), in which the apostle reminded his auditors that he had
been admonishing them ‘night and day for three years’ (the same word
trietia). In any case it was his habit to round off numbers. Even so, he could
scarcely have made the claim with any plausibility unless he and his
congregation were already some weeks into 401. But the argument against
taking his words too literally cuts both ways: the sermon could have been
given somewhat later than 26 February. Moreover, on either interpretation
there were eleven more homilies to follow, and they must have occupied at
least a full month, possibly more.
Interesting confirmation that the course on Acts was in full swing in 401
is furnished by John’s reference in it in two passages 18 to an impressive
earthquake. The second of these is relevant for dating; it is also worth
quoting in its own right as a trenchant example of John’s pulpit style.
Lamenting the proneness of human beings to forget almost immediately
any benefits they receive, he cries: ‘Tell me, did not God last year (perusin)
shake our entire city with an earthquake? Did not everyone rush to be
baptised? Did not fornicators, homosexuals, and depraved people forsake
their homes and their familiar lairs, alter their practices, and turn relig-
ious? But when just three days had passed, they reverted to their habitual
misbehaviour. How did this come about? Through their downright lazi-
ness!’ Hitherto there has been great uncertainty about the earthquake in
question, but a strong case was recently made 19 for identifying it with the
earthquake which Synesios of Cyrene, writing to a friend, describes 20 as
having taken place on the very day on which he was leaving Constantinople
after his three-year stay there: ‘God shook the earth repeatedly during the
day.’ In the same letter he expresses regret that he has not been able to say
goodbye to Aurelianos, ‘dear friend and consul’, which must date it to late
400 when Aurelianos, whose consular year was 400, had returned with his
fellow-hostages from exile. On other grounds it seems certain 21 that Syne-
sios’ stay in the capital lasted from 397-8 until late 400, probably until just
before the end of the sailing season in early November. If the earthquake
took place about that time and John could refer to it as an event of ‘last

17
44.4 (PG 60.312).
18
Horn. 7.2; 41.2 (PG 60.66; 291).
18
See A. Cameron, art. cit.
20
Ep. 61 (PG 66.1404-5).
21
See esp. T.D. Barnes, GRBS 27 (1986), 93-118.
168 Golden Mouth

year’,without any hint that it was of very recent occurrence, he must have
been speaking at a date some way into 401.

in
An incident which, as well as confirming John’s continued presence in
Constantinople in early 401, throws an intriguing light on his relations at
that time with both Arkadios and Eudoxia, is an interview he is reported
to have given, possibly as late as February or even March of that year, to
Porphyrios, bishop of Gaza, in Palestine. Our knowledge of it comes
exclusively from the so-called Life 22 of Porphyrios by his deacon Mark. The
underlying original of this fascinating little work in all probability goes
back to its supposed author, but in its present form it has undergone
far-reaching, tendentious revision in the sixth, possibly seventh, century
and abounds in strongly fictional elements. 23 Although scepticism about it
has deterred scholars from drawing on its evidence, there can be little doubt
that, used with discrimination, it remains a valuable historical source, and
that it is astonishingly accurate about contemporary institutions and
practices, and in particular recaptures much of the atmosphere and style
of the Byzantine court.
As we saw earlier, 24 Porphyrios had managed in 398, after John’s
persuasive intervention with Eutropios, to obtain an imperial edict shut-
ting down the pagan temples at Gaza. The most famous and important,
however, the Marneion, had escaped closure, and in the meantime pagan
worship had been resumed; in addition, the small Christian population was
being subjected to increasing harassment. According to the Life 25 Por- ,

phyrios therefore resolved personally to petition the emperor to have the

offending temples once and for all destroyed, and sojourneyed to Constan-
tinople accompanied by Mark and also his metropolitan, bishop John of
Caesarea (in Palestine). They travelled by sea, setting out in late Septem-
ber and spending some time in Rhodes with the anchorite Prokopios. Gifted
with clairvoyance, the holy man at once recognised the episcopal rank of
two of his guests, and prophesied in detail the way in which they would be
received at court. On reaching the capital, their first call was on its bishop, 26
but while encouraging his project John warned Porphyrios that he would
not be able himself to press his suit with Arkadios since the emperor was
not on speaking terms with him: ‘the empress has made him angry with
me because I rebuked her on account of a property which she coveted and
then appropriated.’ He referred the matter, however, to Amantios, one of
Eudoxia’s principal eunuchs, a devoted Christian who had great influence

22
Vita Porphyrii 32-54 (ed. H. GrSgoire and M.A. Kugener, Collection Byzantine Paris 1930).
,

23
See esp. P. Peeters, AB 59 (1941), 65-216.
24
See above, p. 142.
25
Chs. 33-50.
26
Ch. 37.
 12. Intervention in Asia 169

with her. Amantios took up the case with enthusiasm, and introduced the
visitors to the empress, who received them with great courtesy and prom-
ised to put pressure on her husband. Porphyrios played his part adroitly,
and at one interview, noticing that she was in an advanced state of
pregnancy, disclosed a prophecy made by Prokopios that the child she
would bear would be a son, and that he would one day ascend the throne.
Not surprisingly, he was promised by the grateful Augusta all he had
petitioned for. But he had to wait many months - indeed, until the baptism
of the child at Epiphany 402 - for the promises to be fulfilled. Even then
(as we shall see) he had to employ a cunning stratagem suggested by the
empress, for Arkadios and his advisers had understandable objections to
harassing such loyal subjects and reliable taxpayers as the pagan inhabi-
tants of Gaza. 27
Some features in this richly embroidered tale seem more plausible than
others. For example, Porphyrios is not likely to have ventured on the long
sea route to Constantinople, taking in Rhodes on the way, in the late
autumn and early winter; from 24 September to 10 November the sea was
considered dangerous for shipping, while there was a general shut-down of
seaborne traffic from 11 November to 10 March. 28 The narrative here is
redolent of miracle, and Mark’s (or his reviser’s) choice of seasons seems to
have been motivated by the desire to highlight the triumph of faith over
natural hazards rather than to record actual dates. We have in fact no
reliable evidence when or how his hero travelled to the capital. On the other
hand, there is no reason to question the substantial accuracy of his account
of Porphyrios’ interview with John, any more than of his success in at long
last securing the destruction of the temples in Palestine, additional privi-
leges for the Christians there, and, finally, the erection in 406 of a magnifi-
cent church, the Eudoxiana, on the site of the Mameion. 29 As has often been
remarked, 30 his portrayal of the main personalities (Arkadios, Eudoxia,
John himself) and his report of their conversations and behaviour have a
striking air of verisimilitude. John in particular is drawn to the life, and
the words put into his mouth are the very ones we should expect to hear
from him. For example, his comment 31 that he was not in the least
concerned about the sovereigns’ wrath since by yielding to it they only did
harm to themselves without injuring him exactly recaptures his style and
attitude.
Two points in this ancient ‘faction’ call for special comment. First, when
Porphyrios and his companions were first brought into Eudoxia’s presence,
she begged forgiveness because her pregnancy had prevented her from

27
Ch. 41.
28
J. Roug6, L’organisation du commerce maritime en M6diterran£e sous Vempire romain
(Paris 1966), 33.
29
Ch. 92.
30
E.g. Gr6goire-Kugener, op. cit., lxiii-lxiv.
31
Ch. 37.
170 Golden Mouth
getting up from her golden couch and greeting the holy men at the door
with the reverence they deserved. 32 This detail provides a fairly firm date
for the episode, and also for Porphyrios’ encounter with John shortly before,
for it was on 10 April 401 that Eudoxia gave birth to her only son, the future
emperor Theodosios II.

Secondly, the existence of a serious quarrel at this time between John

and the empress has been called in question on the ground that, when he
made his trip to Asia Minor, he was acting "with a decisive authority which
implied that ‘he enjoyed unlimited credit with the court’. 33 But this is to
assume that the break was of long duration, whereas Eudoxia was an
impulsive woman whose fits of temper could be transitory. There was time
enough for her mood to change, for on our chronology John’s Asian journey
lay several months ahead. In any case, it is important to distinguish
between personal quarrels, however explosive, and matters of government
policy, with which they are not likely to have interfered. Needless doubts
have also been cast on the empress’s alleged seizure of a piece of property,
an action which would certainly have brought her bishop’s wrath down on
her if he had reason to suspect injustice. We have, as it happens, an
independent witness to her insatiable rapacity in the historian Zosimos. 34
Later biographers, like Theodore of Trimithos in Cyprus and Pseudo-
George of Alexandria (both seventh-century), were to enlarge on Mark’s
terse statement. 35 They identify the victim as a poor widow and the property
as a small vineyard, all that was
her after the confiscation of the
left to
estate of her unjustly accused and exiled husband Theognostos. Eudoxia
fancied it, and took advantage of an imperial law supposedly decreeing (no
such law existed) that any land on which the emperor or empress had
trodden should pass into their possession. Both elaborate on John’s cham-
pionship of the wronged woman, and on the crescendo of confrontation
between bishop and sovereign.
In addition, both represent John as drawing a comparison between her
action and that of Jezebel, king Ahab of Israel’s queen, who, when her
husband had set his heart on a nearby vineyard and its owner, Naboth,
refused to surrender it, caused the poor man to be stoned to death on a false
charge (1 Kings 21.5-16), and as dwelling on this comparison in a public
address. Many of these picturesque details are plainly legendary, but
doubts about the nucleus of the story, that it was a widow who was
dispossessed and that John, as her bishop, leaped to her defence, are surely
misplaced. There is nothing intrinsically improbable in it. Equally mis-
placed is the scepticism so often voiced 36 about his having likened her

32
Ch. 39.
33
Gr6goire-Kugener, op. cit., 113n. 1.
34
5.24.1-2.
35
For these texts see F. Halkin, Douze rfoits byzantins surJean Chrysostome (Brussels 1977),
esp. 191-204 (Pseudo-George’s version).
36
See esp. F. van Ommeslaeghe, AB 97 (1979) 131-59.
 12. Intervention in Asia 171

conduct to that of Jezebel. It would indeed be surprising, assuming she had

in fact appropriated a poor widow’s land, if such a comparison had not
occurred to him, and equally surprising if so forceful and fearless a pastor
had refrained from reminding her, and his congregation, of the shameful
precedent for such behaviour. Palladios himself, as we shall discover, 37 was
later to report that he was charged with having treasonably called the
empress Jezebel, a charge which makes it clear that it was he, not later
writers, who first invoked the biblical parallel. 38
This is, we should remark, the first recorded open break between John
and the imperial couple. It is likely that there had been earlier brushes
between the censorious bishop and the hot-tempered Augusta; indeed, we
have already noted 39 one occasion of possible friction. But however provoca-
tive his pulpit sallies, a public rupture seems to have been avoided. It is
tempting to connect Eudoxia’s resort to openly expressed indignation with
the return to Constantinople of the three hostages - Aurelianos, Saturni-
nos, especially her favourite and intimate count John. This must have
occurred at latest in the first weeks of 401, but most probably in the closing
quarter of 400. 40 The historian Zosimos confirms this surmise, actually
stating41 that, while she had previously been irritated by her bishop
because of his habit of lampooning her before his congregation, it was ‘after
the return of John and the others’ that ‘she began openly showing the
hostility ( dusmeneia she felt for him’. It would seem that the hostages,
especially John, instead of being grateful for his repeated efforts on their
behalf, bore him a bitter grudge and (again especially John) incited her
against him. One possible reason for this may have been lingering resent-
ment at the tone of his sermon on returning from his only half-successful
mission to Gainas. So far from protesting against their ill-treatment, he
had indirectly suggested that the blame for it lay with their own exorbitant
trust in riches - and had done so in language strikingly reminiscent of the
language he had used about the despised, and to them odious, Eutropios. 42
More immediate and important, however, were their suspicions both of his
attitude to Gainas and of the confidence which the hated Goth so evidently
placed in him. Above all, perhaps, they were enraged by his collaboration,
so clearly implied (as they saw it) in his mission to Thrace, with their enemy
Caesarianos, who had replaced Aurelianos as praetorian prefect and, to
their chagrin, still retained the office. 43 In addition, count John had a

37
See below, p. 228.
38
On
this para, see G. Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale (Paris 1974), 498-504; K.G. Holum,
Theodosian Empresses (California 1982), 72.
39
See above, p.150.
40
For this date see Synesios, De prou. 2.4 (Terzaghi 2.122); ep. 61 (PG 66.1404). See above,
p. 167.
41
5.23.2.
42
G. Albert, Goten in Konstantinopel (Paderbom 1984), 163-5.
43
On this para, see G. Albert, op. cit., 167 and 192-3.
172 Golden Mouth

private grievance of his own, believing, rightly or wrongly, that the bishop
had betrayed him in his hour of need. 44 It is significant that, from now
onwards, he was to remain an influential figure at court, ready (we may
believe) to seize every opportunity to fuel the empress’s animosity against
him.

'
IV
It is now time to resume the story of the see of Ephesos and its corrupt
bishop Antoninos. We have no certain knowledge when the news of his
death and the Ephesian church’s invitation to John to come in person to its
rescue reached Constantinople, but the date is likely to have been late
autumn or, more probably, early winter 401. Had they arrived in the
summer or early autumn, it is likely that John would have rushed off to
Asia immediately; it was the best time for travelling and, so far as we know,
he had no other urgent business to detain him. The church’s invitation was
indeed a pressing one; it took the form of a solemn resolution (psephisma),
ratified by both the clergy of Ephesos and the bishops of the province,
calling on John to assist it in choosing a successor to Antoninos and in
restoring order to a community which had been led astray by greedy
self-seekers. 45 As it happened, he was preoccupied (as we shall discover) 46
with a body of fugitive hermits from Egypt seeking his protection, but he
was satisfied that he had their troubles well in hand. So far as the palace
was concerned, there was this time no hint of a veto. On the contrary,
everything suggests that his mission had the support and full co-operation
of the government, which may not have shared to the full his concern for
clearing up scandal, but was at least as interested as he in extending the
influence of the imperial see.
John must have been eager to set out at the earliest possible moment,
but an overridingly important task imposed delay. The christening of
Eudoxia’s infant son, the future emperor Theodosios II, had been arranged
for Monday 6 January 402, the feast of Epiphany, a highly suitable day
since it celebrated the Lord’s baptism. No one but the bishop of the imperial
see, if present in the capital, could fittingly preside at so solemn an occasion,
and there was no reason why John should not. Notwithstanding earlier
frictions, his relations with the court were sufficiently correct for him to
have government backing for his projected Asian journey. As a matter of
fact, Eudoxia herself, in a letter written eighteen months later begging him
to return from his first exile, confirms that he did so, declaring that she
reveres him as ‘the baptiser ( mustagogon ) of her children’. 47 Earlier this

44
See above, pp. 155f.
45
For Palladios’ paraphrase of it see Dial. 14 (SC 341.286).
46
See below, pp. 19 Iff.
47
Sozomen 8.18.5: he uses the verb mustagogein in the sense of ‘baptise’ in 8.21.1.
 12. Intervention in Asia 173

century a hitherto unknown fragment came to light of a sermon which John

48
preached, almost certainly on the Tuesday following, and which attests
his presence in the city and his amicable relations with the emperor. In
this he prays that Arkadios may live to enjoy many consulates, and may
acclaim the child who is being baptised, and who shares with him the
governance of the world (an allusion to his proclamation as Augustus on
10 January), as his well-loved son.
In passing we may note that, as he was present at the royal christening,
John is likely to have witnessed (with what feeling we can only speculate)
the ingenious trick by means of which Porphyrios, prompted by Eudoxia,
at last, after so many months’ delay, obtained the imperial consent to the
destruction of the pagan temples at Gaza and relief for the local Christian
population. 49 As the brilliant procession emerged from the baptistery, the
bishop pressed a written petition asking that these pious requests of his be
ratified into the hands of the courtier carrying the infant (was he the
empress’s favourite, count John?). A party to the plot, the courtier caused
the child’s head to bend forward in token of acquiescence, and cried out,
‘His majesty commands that whatever the petition asks for shall be done.’
However reluctant to harry the poor pagans of Gaza, the emperor had no
option but to arrange for his newly baptised son’s first command to be
rigorously carried out.
It was immediately after 7 January, therefore, that John set sail from

Constantinople, disregarding (as Palladios pointedly remarks) 50 both the

wintry season and his own wretched state of health. He had entrusted the
day-to-day administration of the see to his sharp-tongued, domineering
archdeacon Sarapion, 51 who was also to keep him posted about current
happenings in the capital. His episcopal functions, more particularly his
preaching duties, he had delegated to Severian, bishop of the little sea-port
of Gabala in Syria (Jeble, 25 km south of Laodikeia - Latakia), a popular
pulpit orator with a fine command of scripture who, being an ambitious
social climber, was trying his fortune in Constantinople. A date in very
early January fits in neatly with the claim 52 he was to make on his return,
two or three weeks (as we assume) after Easter (6 April), that he had been
absent slightly more than 100 days. He took ship to cross the Propontis or
Sea of Marmara to Apamea (Mudanya), on the north coast of Bithynia, a
brief voyage which would shorten the journey to Ephesos and perhaps make
up for lost time. It has often been objected that a sea trip was out of the
question in early January, but this rests on a misunderstanding. While
there was a general shut-down of shipping from 10 November to 10 March,

48
A. Wenger, REB 10 (1952), 51-4: Greek text, French translation, and full discussion of date
and circumstances.
49
For the story see Vita Porphyrii 45.
50
Dial. 14 (SC 341.288).
51
See above, p. 121.
52
PG 51.421.
174 Golden Mouth

it was by no means absolute; urgent voyages could be undertaken at any

time in winter. 53 There was always a risk, of course, as Palladios empha-

sises, and in fact he and his party narrowly escaped being shipwrecked by
a violent squall, but after a couple of days’ delay put in safely at Apamea.
There he was met, apparently by previous arrangement, by Palladios,
bishop of nearby Helenopolis, Cyrinos, bishop of Chalkedon, and Paul,
bishop of Heraklea. This rendezvous, incidentally, confirms our chrono-
logy: 54 if John had left Constantinople in early January 401, Palladios
would not have had time to travel to Helenopolis, do what business he had
there, and then go to Apamea to meet him. With these three as his
companions, he travelled south by road to Ephesos.

V
Although not a patriarchal see (and never to become one), Ephesos was a
leading ecclesiastical centre, and seems to have claimed some sort of
primacy over the provinces adjacent to Asia itself; John’s mandate, Pal-
ladios expressly states, 55 was ‘to restore to health the deeply disordered
affairs of the entire civil diocese of Asiana’. When he got there, he set about
his task with characteristic energy and decisiveness. First, a successor to
Antoninos had to be elected. He therefore summoned a council of seventy
bishops from Lydia, Asia and Caria, the more western of the eleven
provinces making up the civil diocese (the only ones, apparently, which
came directly under the authority of the see, whatever its grander preten-
sions). Several bishops from Phrygia also attended voluntarily, from their
keenness, Palladios loyally observes, 56 to profit from the great man’s
wisdom and eloquence. As the deadlock between rival aspirants to the
vacant throne remained unresolved, John broke it by proposing, and
pushing through, the election of an outsider, Herakleides, a Cypriot who
had spent years in the Egyptian desert as a disciple of Evagrios Pontikos
(345-99), the widely influential exponent of Origenistic spirituality, but for
the past three years had served him as a deacon at Constantinople. 57 It
seems more than likely that, anticipating the impasse, John had brought
him with him. Before many months his association with Evagrios was to
bring Herakleides into great trouble. 58 In the meantime his election (which
Palladios, significantly, passes over in silence) proved extremely unpopu-
lar, and aroused a storm of protest on the score of his unsuitability. We
even hear of rioting, which must have led to the intervention of the civil

53
See E. de Saint-Denis, ‘Mare Clausum’, REL 25 (1947), 196-214; J. Roug6, ‘La navigation
hivemale sous l’empire Romain’, REA 54 (1952), 316-17.
54
A. Cameron, art, cit., 350 n. 38.
55
Dial. 14 (SC 341.288).
56
Dial. 14 (SC 341.290).
57
Sozomen 8.6. Cf. E. Honigmann, ST 173 (1953), 120-1.
58
See below, p. 223.
 12. Intervention in Asia 175

authorities in John’s support, and it is reported that the general dissatis-

factionwas so great that he was obliged to prolong his stay in Ephesos well
59
beyond his original intentions .

Next, the unfinished business of the damaging allegations against

Antoninos called for completion 60 Indeed, of all the abuses John was
.

expected to sort out this was on every count the most urgent and important.
Antoninos’ accuser, Eusebios, had in any case turned up, and was demand-
ing a place on the council. Objections were raised to this, but he pointed
out that the inquiry, now two years old, had only been adjourned because
of the non-appearance of the witnesses; Antoninos might be dead, but six
bishops who had purchased their consecration from him were still in office.
The objection having been overruled, the minutes of the earlier proceedings
were produced and noted, and John instituted a thorough investigation.
This time the hitherto elusive witnesses, some of them clergy, others lay
folk (including some women), came forward. The six bishops who figured
on Eusebios’ charge-sheet were also present; presumably they were there
as members of the council. At first they categorically denied the allegations,
but the witnesses were able to supply particulars of the payments made -
the dates, the places, the exact amounts. With the evidence looking blacker
and blacker, the defendants at last caved in and acknowledged their guilt.
In mitigation they pleaded that their only motive for paying Antoninos to
consecrate them had been to secure exemption from the often burdensome
municipal charges for which they, as members of their city councils (mem-
bership was in practice hereditary), had been liable, but from which, under
legislation going back to Constantine the Great 61 they would be freed if
,

they were made bishops. Notwithstanding a recent ban on the ordination

of councillors 62 (not in fact rigorously enforced), they had considered this a
fairly innocuous form of tax- avoidance, and therefore begged either to be
allowed to continue as bishops or to have their money refunded; some of
them had handed over personal belongings of their wives to Antoninos.
It is at first sight puzzling that John apparently took this unblushing
avowal in his stride. Penalties against simony, as selling ordination for
money was called, were normally severe in the early church; here the
offence was compounded by the lesser one of continuing after consecration
to enjoy the comforts of married life. But if simony of this kind was, as it
seems to have been, widespread in Asia Minor, John perhaps reckoned that
it could be more effectively flushed out if those who confessed voluntarily

were treated mildly. At all events he was prepared in the present case, with
the agreement of his council, to take what seems an extraordinarily lenient
line. The guilty six were, of course, to be stripped of episcopal rank and

59
Sokrates 6.11, supplemented by a revealing fragment from his first edition prin,ted in PG
67.732, which alone mentions the rioting and the prolongation of John’s stay.
60
For the following see Palladios, Dial. 15 (SC 341.294-6).
61
CT 16.2.2 (21 Oct. 319): cf. Eusebios, HE
10.7 (SC 55.112).
62
CT 9.45.3 (27 July 398 - enacted probably under the influence of Eutropios).
176 Golden Mouth
office.Surprisingly, however, they were to be allowed, at divine service, to
occupy places and receive communion within the sanctuary of the church,
from which the laity were excluded. The heirs of Antoninos were to pay
them back the money and goods he had received from them. Even more
surprisingly, John undertook to obtain from the emperor permission for
them to be permanently exempt both from membership of their councils
and from the financial and other burdens attaching to it. This last promise
provides eloquent confirmation (if confirmation is required) that, through-
out this entire expedition, he was acting with the full backing of the
emperor and his advisers.
Six new bishops were consecrated and installed in place of the six he had
dethroned. They had, presumably, been vetted and approved by John
himself; Palladios assures us that they were all men of exemplary life and
teaching, and all dedicated celibates. 63 But the drastic purge he had carried
out at Ephesos was not the end of John’s activities in Asia Minor. Sozomen
reports that he deposed thirteen bishops on grounds of simony, ‘some in
Lycia and Phrygia, others in Asia itself and nominated replacements. 64
’,

His accuracy has sometimes been questioned in view of Palladios’ indignant

insistence that he deposed only six; 65 he was rebutting the charge Theophi-
los was later to bring that, in his ‘passion for domination’ (philarchias
pathos ), John had unseated sixteen in a single day. 66 But there is in fact no
discrepancy: Palladios was referring exclusively, as his reference to the
minutes of the proceedings makes plain, to the depositions carried out in
the province of Asia as a result of the decisions taken at the council held at
Ephesos. It is reasonable to conclude that, perhaps on the basis of informa-
tion received there, John afterwards moved south to Lycia and then east
to Phrygia, and carried out similar purges in those provinces too. It is worth
recording that, at the council of Chalkedon in 451, a priest from Constan-
tinople was to affirm, without anyone contradicting him, that John had
gone to Asia (Asiana?), and had there deposed and replaced fifteen bish-
ops. 67
One John took in the interest of
final step which, before leaving Asiana,
and close down
religious uniformity was, according to Sokrates, 68 to seize
numerous churches of the Novatians, Quartodecimans and other heretics.
The Novatians belonged to the rigorist but otherwise orthodox sect which
John had, with great reluctance, been obliged to tolerate at Constanti-
nople. 69 The Quartodecimans celebrated Easter on the 14 Nisan, the day of
the Jewish passover; it is possible that these Quartodecimans were Nova-

63
Dial. 15 (SC 341.296).
64
8 6
. .

65
Dial. 15 (SC 341.300-2).
66
Dial. 13 (SC 341.272).
61
ACO II.i.453-8.
68
6.19.
69
See above, pp. 125f.
 12. Intervention in Asia 111

who had adopted this practice, as many of them seem to have done. 70
tians
Some scholars 71 have questioned whether John could have carried out this
purge, since the Novatians at any rate still enjoyed the protection of the
law granted them by Theodosius I. 72 But Sokrates’ evidence is not to be
dismissed lightly; he was keenly interested in the Novatians, and carefully
collected information about them. He also reports 73 that Leontios of
Ankyra, before long to be one of John’s bitterest enemies, had similarly
deprived a Novatian community in Galatia of their church. John was
certainly acting with a harshness which he could not have got away with
at Constantinople, where the Novatians were respected and their bishop,
Sisinnios, a popular figure and in good standing with court circles. 74 But
where he was convinced the good of the church was at stake, he was not
the man to shrink (as his behaviour at Ephesos had shown) from taking
matters into his own hands. In any case it seems likely that the existing
legislation favouring the Novatians, to which sticklers for orthodoxy
strongly objected, was already beginning to crumble, for Theodosios II
seems to have had no difficulty in replacing it in 423 with a law75 which
placed Novatians on exactly the same footing as other sectarians. 76 John’s
harassment of the Novatians, it is worth noting, caused resentment back
in the capital, where Sisinnios (who had tried to persuade Leontios to
reverse his policy) is likely to have protested; and when John himself was
deposed, there were some who argued that because of it he deserved his
fate. 77
His business in the civil diocese of Asiana successfully concluded, John
and his party made their way back to the capital. As it was March, when
the sea-lanes were officially closed to all but the most venturesome, 78 they
travelled the entire distance by road. This meant that they passed through
Nikomedia (Izmit), the leading city of Bithynia and of the civil diocese of
Pontica, a favourite imperial residence. Here John summarily dismissed
the bishop, Gerontios. 79 Originally a deacon at Milan, this man had in-
curred the displeasure of its masterful bishop, Ambrose, who had ordered
him to remain within doors for a year in penitential seclusion. Ignoring this
sentence, he had betaken himself to Constantinople, where his proficiency
as a physician, agreeable social manners and facility in public speaking

70
E.g. Sokrates 4.28; 5.21. Cf. E. Amann, DTC 13.1446-7 (citing Theodoret, Haeret. fabul.
compend. 3.4: PG 83.405).
71
E.g. Baur. 2,150.
72
See above, p. 126.
73
6 22
. .

74
See above, p. 126.
75
CT 16.5.59 (9 April 423).
76
For this suggestion, and the whole incident, see H.J. Vogt, Coetus sanctorum (Bonn 1968),
257-8.
77
Sokrates 6.19.
78
J.Roug6, op. cit. (1966), 33.
79
Sozomen 8.6 (the only source for this episode).
178 Golden Mouth
won him favour everywhere, especially at court. As a result he had been
promoted bishop of Nikomedia, a metropolitan see. Ambrose’s demands to
John’s easy-going predecessor Nektarios to have him sacked had had no
effect whatever. Gerontios was the kind of prelate of whom John intensely
disapproved, and he seized this opportunity of getting rid of him. In his
place he consecrated Pansophios, a mild and upright man who had earlier
been tutor to Eudoxia herself.
We can readily believe that John considered Pansophios the right man
for the job. It is intriguing to note, however, that it was an appointment
which was likely to give pleasure to the empress. For that very reason it
was also a politically astute one: it was not likely to be overturned by the
authorities however much local opposition it aroused. In fact, the people of
Nikomedia were outraged by both John’s moves. Gerontios was a highly
popular bishop, all the more so as he had unsparingly placed his medical
skills at the service of rich and poor alike. As for Pansophios, they received
him ‘with a mixture of aversion and fear’ (Sozomen). There were demon-
strations and riots, deputations of protest were sent to Constantinople, and
indignant crowds paraded the streets chanting litanies as at a time of
calamity; the universal plea was that Gerontios should continue as their
bishop. As we should expect, John remained entirely unmoved. While in
Bithynia, he also concerned himself with the vacant see of Basilinopolis,
just west of the great lake on which Nicaea stands, filling it with a devoted
disciple of his own named Alexander. 80 Bom into a senatorial family at
Cyrene, in North Africa, he had embraced the monastic life as a teenager,
and had later been ordained priest. He had made John’s acquaintance when
visiting Constantinople on business, and in the dark days following his
patron’s downfall was to remain unswervingly loyal to him.

VI
John’s Asian tour had all the appearances of a triumphal success. In
modem times there has been endless debate 81 among historians and
canonists about the constitutional propriety of the programme he carried
out. Had not the council of Constantinople (381), in its second canon,
decreed that in the civil dioceses of the eastern empire the bishops of one
should not interfere in the affairs of another unless specifically invited to
do so? Yet John had been busily unseating bishops, first, in Asiana, then
in Pontica, and consecrating new men, in some cases nominees of his own
who were locally resented, in their places. The council had also, in its third
canon, assigned the see of Constantinople a primacy second only to that of
Old Rome, but that had been a primacy of honour, not of executive action.
It has often been remarked that there was little or no disposition, among

For him see Synesios, Ep. 66 (PG 66.148-10).

For a useful summary see P.J. Hajjar, Le synode permanent . OCA 164 (Rome 1962), 60-8.
 12. Intervention in Asia 179

contemporaries, to criticise John’s behaviour. Antoninos himself, when

Eusebios first brandished his charge-sheet, seems to have raised no objec-
tion 82 on grounds of legal competence, to either John himself or, as was
,

eventually decided, a three-man commission going to Asia to investigate

the charges. Even at John’s trial, two years later, when his enemies were
scraping around for indiscretions with which to blacken him, only one of
the numerous indictments brought against him denounced him for en-
croaching on other men’s territory and ordaining bishops there, and this
was apparently not deemed important enough to be discussed. Against this,
there is an often overlooked remark of Sozomen’s 83 made years after John’s
,

death, that, following on his sacking of Gerontios, both the victims of his
purges and their associates began complaining that he was behaving like
a revolutionary, overturning the traditional rights of consecration in the
churches.
So far as church law is concerned, a balanced verdict, modelled on that
pronounced earlier this century by Pierre Batiffol 84 seems in order. How-
,

ever high-handed some of his actions at Ephesos (e.g. his imposition of his
protege Herakleides), John’s intervention there was entirely in conformity
with the council of Constantinople. Asia lay outside his jurisdiction as
bishop of the capital, but he had been expressly requested by the local
church to sort out its problems; this explains Palladios’ emphasis on the
formal resolution it had passed 85 By contrast, his earlier decision to
.

adjudicate on Antoninos’ conduct and his dispatch of a commission to Asia

to act for him were seriously open to question. The ‘resident synod’ with
whose assent he took it was still, to the best of our knowledge, a largely
consultative gathering without judicial teeth. His deposition of Gerontios
was an even more blatant infringement of accepted procedures; Nikomedia
was a metropolitan see in the civil diocese of Pontica, and he was behaving
as if he had primatial responsibility for it.
But there are wider considerations which a strictly juridical analysis
tends to ignore, and in so doing obscures what was really happening. For
one thing, both church institutions and church law were still developing,
in some areas more rapidly than in others. For another, the influence of
the Christian emperor, often arbitrary but always a force to be reckoned
with in the east, could cut across canonical conventions. The ‘resident
synod’, for example, was to become an important organ in the later Byzan-
tine church; when John decided to investigate Antoninos’ conduct, we can
observe it taking a big step in that direction. Its status was still undefined,
however, and we may question whether that step would have been taken
if John had been a less forceful character, or if Antoninos had not had a

82
See above, p. 164.
83
86
. .

84
Le siege apostolique (359-451) (Paris 1924), 291; 296.
85
See above, p. 172.
180 Golden Mouth

guilty conscience and had resisted. Again, John’s expedition to Asia clearly
had, and could never have been carried through without, the imperial
government’s approval and active co-operation. This goes far to explain why
criticism of his actions was so muted, and why the single protest at his trial
was quickly swept under the carpet. Government backing, too, explains
how he got away with his brutal deposition of Gerontios.
More generally, John’s Asian journey vividly shows him, sometimes
within established conventions but quite as often in defiance of them,
always however with the blessing of the state, firmly extending the author-
ity of his see. He was setting a pattern which his successors were quick to
follow. It is scarcely surprising that, just half a century later, the council
of Chalkedon (451), in its 28th canon, 86 was to decree, as if it were merely
spelling out the ‘primacy of honour’ conferred by the council of Constanti-
nople, that the bishop of New Rome should consecrate all metropolitans in
the three vast civil dioceses of Thrace, Pontica and Asiana. John’s contri-
bution to the recognition of Constantinople as the patriarchate of the
eastern empire was not insignificant. 87

86
ACO Et.i.447-8.
87
V. Grumel, in Les regestes des actes du patriarchat de Constantinople 1.1.14-26, actually
20 and 23) John’s deposition of six bishops at Ephesos and others in Lycia and
lists (nos.
Phrygia as fully canonical enactments.
 13

Dispute with Severian

Returning from Bithynia, John crossed the Bosporus and entered Constan-
tinople some two or three weeks after Easter 402 (6 April). It was a
triumphal homecoming, and he was greeted by an enormous, cheering
crowd. It seems to have escorted him from the harbour to the square
adjacent to his palace, transforming the city, as he was shortly to exclaim
with delight, into a church ringing with God’s praises. On the day following,
back again in his own cathedral, he delivered one of his warmest, most
pastorally sensitive addresses, thanking the people both for their stead-
1

fastness during his absence from them and for their rapturous welcome.
Moses, he exulted, when he had been communing with God on the holy
mountain, had been away from the Israelites for only forty days, and when
he came down had found them given over to idolatry and sedition. 2 ‘I have
been away, not forty days, but fifty, a hundred, indeed more, and I have
found you well behaved, practising our holy religion with enhanced devo-
tion.’ He had no need, therefore, to regret his lengthy absence; his confi-
dence in their affection, in their faith, in the chastity of his spiritual spouse
had been fully justified. Their ecstatic welcome had made him abundantly
happy to return to his paradise - a paradise far superior to Eden, where
there had been a scheming serpent, an Eve who proved a temptress, an
Adam who had been led astray. Here to his delight he found a people
worshipping God, confuting heretics and celebrating Christ’s mysteries. If
any vines or olives in this garden were deteriorating, he would soon restore
them to a healthy condition. It had grieved him, it had grieved them too,
that he had been prevented from keeping Easter with them. But this was
no occasion for worry; he and they could keep the feast together today, since
Christians proclaim the Lord’s death and resurrection every time they
celebrate the eucharist. No need to be distressed either that he had not
officiated at the baptisms on the eve of Easter. Although he had been
absent, Christ himself had been present, guiding the officiant’s hand. It is
not the human minister, but the Holy Spirit, who bestows the grace. All

1
PG 52.421-4 gives only the ancient Latin version in a defective text. For the Greek ‘original,
discovered in 1958 in a Moscow codex, see A. Wenger, REB 19 (1961), 114-23; he also prints
the excellent Latin text of Vaticanus 3.836.
2
Exodus 24.18; 32.1-29.
182 Golden Mouth

the time he had been away, correcting abuses in the Asian churches, he
had been linked to them by the bond of love, praying for the church God
had entrusted to him. Their prayers, too, had sustained him whenever he
boarded a ship, or entered a town or an inn. Most love withers with time,
but separation had made theirs more intense. He begged them to continue
loving him; their prayers were his bulwark and protection, their love his
treasure beyond price.
It was a masterly performance, an eloquent illustration of his skill at
exploiting the affectionate ties between himself and his flock - and also at
seizing every opportunity to slip in useful morsels of theological instruction.
He spoke with passion and conviction, all the more so perhaps because he
was all the time angrily aware that, while he could rely unreservedly on
the huge audience before him, there were other circles in the city of whose
loyalty he could not be so sure. There was bitter irony in several passages
of the address, obvious today to anyone who cares to read between the lines,
but far more obvious to his listeners, who could watch every gesture, every
facial expression, and interpret every inflection of his voice. They must
immediately have sensed that he did not expect them to believe that his
paradise regained harboured no scheming serpent, no Eve leading the
innocent astray, no Adam whose seduction was planned. They must have
had shrewd ideas as to whom he was pointing to when he spoke of wild
vines or olive trees in need of corrective treatment if they were to bear fruit.
They would quickly guess whom he had in mind when, having expressed
his joy that his sheep were in good heart and that no wolf could be seen
anywhere, he darkly added that, whenever one did put in an appearance,
it soon disguised itself as a sheep so as not to seem to lag behind them in

love. What they probably did not all know was that, while John was in Asia
Minor, his archdeacon Sarapion, in obedience to his instructions, had been
feeding him with information of what was going on in Constantinople 3 and ,

that these reports had alarmed and depressed him. Their gist was that
bishop Severian 4 the fellow-Syrian whom he had welcomed in the capital,
,

had encouraged to preach, and had introduced at court, whom he had even
invited to stand in for himself as cathedral preacher and had installed in
his palace, had been exploiting this position to promote himself at his
patron’s expense. He had, Sarapion suggested, been undermining, system-
atically and with considerable success, John’s standing both with the palace
and with influential clerical and lay circles.
not difficult for us to reconstruct, in very broad outline, what had
It is
actually been happening. There was clearly no love lost between Sarapion
and Severian, and it is more than likely that the archdeacon’s reports to
John were heavily prejudiced. There is no reason to suppose that, at the

3
Sokrates 6.11.
4
M. Aubineau, Un traits in6dit de christologie de Sevtrien de Gabala (Geneva 1983), gives
an excellent summary of his career and relations with John.
 13. Dispute with Severian 183

early stages of their relationship at any rate, Severian was out to damage
John, who from his great position had been extremely helpful to him; in
Sozomen’s words 6 he had found John ‘well disposed’ to him. He was an
,

ambitious man, however, with an eye to the main chance. A first-rate

6
biblical scholar, he was an accomplished preacher whose sermons (quite a
-
few survive many of them handed down, ironically, under John’s name)
have often been underrated by critics. They reveal that one of his strong
points was the exposition of scripture. Although he had a harsh voice and
spoke with a strong Syrian accent, they evidently went down well with
popular audiences. Even before John’s departure for Asia, he was becoming
a favourite preacher with Arkadios and Eudoxia, and it is scarcely surpris-
ing that, with the stage left to himself, he made it his business to enhance
his reputation, even striving (to Sarapion’s annoyance ) 7 to outshine John
himself. As acting bishop he had the entree to the court, and the surmise
of historians that the empress and her intimate coterie of ladies found him
a much more easy-going and acceptable spiritual mentor than the ever
censorious John has much plausibility.
This was a critical juncture in John’s career. His split with the imperial
family over Eudoxia’s appropriation of the widow’s vineyard had clearly
been patched up by the time he presided in early January at the infant
Theodosios’ baptism. His relations with the sovereigns must then have
been correct, if not cordial, and it is evident that his Asian mission had
government backing throughout. It was all too easy, however, for things to
come unstuck, and for him to turn his back on the capital for more than
three months was a risky venture. The danger was all the greater since the
caretaker bishop he had nominated was a character so different from
himself, a man well able, and only too eager, to ingratiate himself with
influential people at court. Although the evidence is difficult to piece
together, there can be little doubt that the various individuals and groups
hostile to him took advantage of his prolonged absence, and of Severian’s
presence, to get together and form something like an organised opposition.
He was not the first, and certainly not the last, confident leader to
undertake a lengthy mission far from his home base, only to discover on
his return that the political atmosphere there had changed significantly.

n
From the moment of John’s departure there seems to have been tension,
not to say hostility, between the two men he had left in charge of his affairs.
Sarapion was convinced that the plausible, popular Syrian bishop was
seeking to upstage, in the end to undermine, his master. It irked Severian

5
8 10
. .

6
See esp. J. Zellinger, Studien zu Severian von Gabala (Munster 1926); H.D. Altendorf,
Untersuchungen zu Severian von Gabala (Diss. Tubingen 1957 - typescript).
7
Sokrates in PG 67.733 (a fragment from the first edition of his History).
184 Golden Mouth
that the role he had been assigned was a largely public relations one,
preaching and presiding at the liturgy, while the real management of the
diocese had been entrusted to the archdeacon (in whose hands John, blind
to his adjutant’s character, had in fact always been glad to leave it). Their
mutual animosity came to a head in an incident which, trivial in itself, was
quickly blown up out of all proportion to its importance. It is intriguing to
note that two very different accounts of it and its repercussions have come
down from the pen of Sokrates, one in a fragment8 of the first edition of his
History (now almost entirely lost), the other 9 in the second, revised edition.
Both versions agree that one day, when Severian walked past the place
where Sarapion was seated, the archdeacon conspicuously failed to rise
respectfully as courtesy to his senior required. God only knew, Sokrates
confessed in his first edition, whether he had simply not noticed the bishop
(as he was later to affirm on oath), or was arrogantly showing his contempt
for him. According to his revised account, Severian, who had no doubt that
the latter was the true explanation of his casual behaviour, indignantly
exclaimed, ‘If Sarapion dies a Christian, then Christ did not become man.’
His earlier version had not mentioned this outburst, but had gone on to
relate that Severian was so infuriated by Sarapion’s apparent rudeness
that he summarily, without awaiting the verdict of a formal investigation,
degraded him from the diaconate and excluded him from communion. It is
extremely unlikely, as is generally agreed 10 that he in fact imposed these
,

drastic penalties, for such an action would have gone far beyond any
authority he had as John’s stand-in preacher.
It was thus a troubled situation, heavy with petty bickerings, that John
found on his return home. He had not to look far for material for the veiled
expressions of disenchantment evident in his sermon. In addition, as
Sokrates (in his final version) and Sozomen emphasise 11 he was already ,

nursing a grievance of his own against Severian. No more immune from

vanity than other brilliant orators, he had been stung to the quick by the
reports he had received of his locum’s pulpit successes. The incident of
Sarapion’s apparent rudeness to Severian must have been the talk of the
town, but when the archdeacon gave his personal report of it to John, he
repeated Severian’s angry exclamation but dishonestly omitted (according
to Sokrates in his revised edition) the conditional clause, ‘If Sarapion dies
a Christian’, thereby transforming it into a crude denial by the bishop of
the Lord’s incarnation. He even got friends to swear that that was what
Severian had actually said. John was naturally shocked, but instead of
setting up a tribunal to investigate what was obviously a preposterous
charge immediately went over the top, and ordered the bishop to remove

8
PG67.732-6. For this earlier edition see Appendix A.
9
8.11 (PG 67.696-700).
10
E.g. Baur, 2.159; Moulard, 409.
11
6.11; 8.10. Sokrates speaks of John’s ‘jealousy* (zelotupia ), while Sozomen employs the verb
derived from the noun.
 13. Dispute with Severian 185

himself from the city because of his insolence and his ‘blasphemy against
God’. 12
In his first edition, which (as we noted) omitted Severian’s outburst
altogether, Sokrates had given a rather different account. According to this,
John held a court of inquiry which looked into the allegation of rudeness
on Sarapion’s part, and acquitted him of intentional disrespect. To induce
Severian to accept Sarapion’s apology John even suspended the archdeacon
from his duties for a week. It was only when the bishop refused to accept
this verdict and insisted on Sarapion’s demotion and excommunication that
John, put out by his obstinacy, indicated to him, through a third party, that
it was high time he returned to his diocese in Syria, which he had so long

neglected. This is a pleasant story, presenting John and Sarapion as

behaving sensibly and fairly and Severian as unreasonable inflexible.
Indeed, the degree of inflexibility it attributes to Severian seems incredible
since (if the rest of the story is true) he had been offered a generous
settlement. It is not surprising that Sokrates omitted this entire feature,
as well as his earlier report of Severian’s action against Sarapion, from his
revised edition, when he had clearly been more fully briefed on what had
happened. Palladios seems to have been equally keen to protect his hero,
for while normally profuse in his references to Severian, he nowhere refers
to his expulsion from the city by John on a charge of blasphemy, something
we should have expected him to exploit if it had not been so embarrassing.
John was, we may suspect, enjoying the euphoria of his successful Asian
expedition; he was also intensely irritated by what he considered Severian’s
disloyalty. It is hard otherwise to explain his acting in such an impetuous
and high-handed manner. He was evidently in an angry mood; the accusa-
tion later to be brought against him 13 that he had set loose his dekanoi (i.e.
ushers or bailiffs attached to his household) to hound Severian suggests
that he took rough measures to hasten the troublesome Syrian’s departure
from the city. But he had reckoned without the empress, who had conceived
a liking for Severian as well as admiring his sermons. She was deeply upset
by the news that he had been sent packing, and that he had already quitted
Constantinople. In fact, he had only crossed the Bosporus and was at the
moment staying at Chalkedon, almost certainly with its bishop Cyrinos,
waiting probably to see whether the wind would veer in his favour.
(Cyrinos, we recall, 14 had very recently been John’s trusted friend, but was
soon to become an implacable enemy. If, as seems likely, he had already
turned against John, his hostility can only have been strengthened by the
tales of his harshness which his guest poured into his ears.) Eudoxia at
once sharply reprimanded John, and ordered that Severian should be

12
Sokrates 6.11; Sozomen 8.10. Sokrates implies Severian’s expulsion, while Sozomen
(largely but not exclusively dependent on him) spells it out.
13
The seventh of the first list of charges brought against him at The Oak: see below, p. 222.
14
See above, p. 174.
186 Golden Mouth
immediately recalled 16 John had no option but to acquiesce, and Severian
.

returned, taking up residence again, it is generally assumed, in the bishop’s

palace. But John stubbornly refused to hold any intercourse with him, still
less would he listen to well-wishers urging him to lay aside his disdainful
aloofness. It was humiliating for him that the empress should have coun-
termanded his instructions and openly taken sides with the upstart who
was flagrantly abusing the kindness shown him.
The rupture between the bishop and his stand-in preacher became public
knowledge immediately, and as John was the idol of the people there were
violent demonstrations, with his supporters going on the rampage. This is
clear not only from the evident alarm of the authorities, but from his own
sermon of reconciliation some days later, in which he repeatedly urged his
listeners to restrain their anger and desist from rioting 16 There is no reason
.

to suppose that he had instigated the mob to demonstrate on his behalf,

but he was fully alive to the political usefulness of crowds and was a master
at managing them .
17

m
It was the empress herself who, in her impulsive but shrewd fashion, took
the initiative and brought the ugly situation which had developed to an
end 18 Quite apart from the desirability of restoring calm to the disorderly
.

city, she still stood in superstitious awe of her bishop. She knew that her
flare-up of temper on hearing of Severian’s expulsion had angered him, and
she must have been reluctant to incur his further wrath. So, with a
characteristically theatrical gesture, she sought John out in the church of
the Holy Apostles, and, placing her year-old son in his lap, implored him,
in the name of her dear child, to be reconciled with Severian. It was only
with great difficulty that she prevailed upon him, and with many misgiv-
ings that John gave his consent. But the restoration of amity could not be
a private transaction. The mob violence which had convulsed the city
demanded that it be given the fullest publicity, and so a spectacular
liturgical celebration lasting two days was arranged, presumably in the
Great Church, at which the two bishops pledged themselves to unity and
harmony. In his address Severian was to evoke 19 eloquently the practice of
fine artists who, in order to emphasise that ‘two emperors or two brothers
who are also magistrates’, though physically separate, are one in heart, like
to paint the female figure of Concordia (Homonoia ) standing behind them
and enfolding them both in her arms. This was no conventional comparison,
but a pointedly topical reference, intended to flatter the imperial family, to

15
Sokrates 6.11.
16
De recipiendo Severiano (PG 52.426).
17
See, e.g., p. 208 below ominous message to Epiphanios.
for his
18
Sokrates 6.11.
19
Sermo ipsius Severiani de pace (PG 52.426-7; Papadopulos-Kerameus, 17-18).
 13. Dispute with Severian 187

the concord which had been achieved between Arkadios and Honorius in
402, when the two brothers (whose governments were so often at odds with
each other) assumed the consulate together, and which, for reasons of
imperial propaganda, was celebrated by images on coins and public monu-
ments depicting them as standing together as united comrades (none, alas,
survives with an actual representation of Concordia). 20 Severian’s apt
rhetorical flourish tempts one to speculate (it is probably only a fanciftil
guess) whether John and he may not have stood side by side in token of
unity, in full view of the congregation, at some stage in the stately ritual.
John addressed the crowded church on the first day; it is likely that
Eudoxia, if not Arkadios himself, was present. The Greek text of his sermon
has, unfortunately, not survived; all we have is a Latin translation21 of
what, from its relative shortness and compression, reads like an abbrevia-
tion of the original. As the occasion required, it was an appeal for peace and
reconciliation, but one which John seems to make in a cool, even grudging
spirit, clearly in deference to the imperial command. It opens with an
elaborate plea to the people to show obedience to him. The church owes
obedience to its bishop, just as subjects do to their ruler; as their father, a
father excessively fretting for his children, and ready to lay down his life
for them, he has a right to their obedience. Then he comes to his point. He
is an ambassador pleading for peace; nothing could be more appropriate

for a bishop to ask from his flock than peace, since it was to reconcile men
that Christ became incarnate and died on the cross. So let them not shame
him or frustrate his embassy. Dreadful things have been done in the
church, but he could never give his approval to violence or sedition. So let
them calm down, control their excited feelings, and put a curb on their
indignation - indignation, presumably, at Severian’s presumption. A ces-
sation of strife is both God’s will and the will of their devoutly Christian
emperor. It is right that princes should be obeyed, especially when they
themselves comply with the church’s laws. ‘If then I have prepared your
minds to accept my petition as an ambassador, receive back our brother
Severian.’ There was a burst of cheering at this point, and he went on: ‘Even
as I spoke, you expelled all your anger from your minds. So receive him
back with full hearts and open minds. Overlook and forget the wretched
events of the past; when the moment of peace has arrived, there should be
no remembrance of divisions.’
On the day following it was the rehabilitated Severian’s turn. A trun-
cated Latin version of his address has traditionally been printed alongside
John’s, but the complete Greek text22 came to light in the 1880s (although

20
See R. Grigg’s remarkable article in The Art Bulletin (New York) 59 (1977) no. 4, 469-82.
Also now A. Cameron, Barbarians and Politics at the Court ofArkadios (California University
Press 1993), 246-9; 407-8.
21
PG 52.423-6.
22
A. Padadopulos-Kerameus, Analekta Hierosolumitikes Stakhuologias (St Petersburg 1891)
1.16-26. The Latin text is to be found in PG 52.425-8.
188 Golden Mouth

historians have made little use of it). It is a fine example of his oratorical
style, highlighting its simplicity and repetitiveness, his liking for a succes-
sion of short, balanced clauses linked by assonance or rhyme, and the
variety and originality of his imagery. He starts off by announcing, like the
heavenly choir at Christ’s birth, tidings of great joy: today the church’s ship
is in peaceful waters, only the heretics are storm-tossed. Is there a hint
here that, although a charge of heresy had been the pretext for his
expulsion, he had no truck with it? Here and there he inserts tactful
references to John; twice he salutes him as ‘our common father’, i.e. ‘mine
as well as yours’, once as ‘the divine trumpet’. The body of the sermon in
an extended paean of peace which would have been tedious if it had not
been developed so ingeniously and flexibly. It is Christ himself, ‘who is our
peace and who has made both of us one’ (Eph. 2.14), who has restored it.
There has been, he emphasises, no division of heart or mind, of faith or
doctrine, between the two; their rift has been entirely the insidious work
of the devil. So today, as he with open arms accepts yesterday’s invitation
to renewed friendship, it is the devil and his allies who are weeping and
lamenting, while the angels are rejoicing.
In his closing section23 Severian attempted to allay the worries which he
implied must be troubling many good Christian souls. In doing so he made
full use of his renowned exegetical skills, but also displayed a measure of
confidence, even of provocation, which must have raised many eyebrows,
and which explains the omission of the entire passage from the Latin text.
‘Let no one’, he pleaded, "be upset, or ask, “Should Christ’s high-priests have
yielded to petty-mindedness 0mikropsuchid)T He answered the question
’

by avowing that bishops were only human, and for their comfort referred
doubters to the example of the apostles. He then proceeded to a detailed
analysis of the ‘sharp contention’ between Paul and Barnabas narrated in
Acts 15.36-41 which, because Paul was not happy with the evangelist Mark,
had led to their parting and going their separate ways. That again had been
an instance of ‘human petty-mindedness’, but it had not been a case of the
one party honouring justice, the other injustice, but of both seeking to
advance true religion in their different ways. Paul’s rejection of Mark had
had the effect of spurring the younger man on to greater endeavour, and
in the end this had led to a reconciliation between Paul and Barnabas. ‘Let
this ancient precedent’, Severian concluded, "be an encouragement to us in
our situation. If there was petty-mindedness between Paul and Barnabas,
why should people be surprised if it should arise between us two? ... So let
us beseech our common father to seal the word of peace between us in Christ
Jesus our Lord.’

23
Papadopulos-Kerameus, op. cit., 25-6.
 13. Dispute with Severian 189

IV
John’s clash with Severian, in its origins a trivial affair, but one which he
managed clumsily and with headstrong brutality, was to prove a turning-
point in his career. The solemnly celebrated reconciliation was, of course,
a political comedy played to appease public opinion - and, not least, to bring
the rioting mobs to order. As Sokrates noted 24 beneath the fagade of amity
,

the two men preserved their festering antipathy for each other. For
Severian this meant little or nothing. He was free to continue living in
Constantinople, he enjoyed access to the court and retained the friendship
of the imperial family, and he had nothing to fear from the bishop beyond
his frown and cold shoulder. In contrast to John’s, his sermon had exhaled
an air of assurance and confidence. But for John it meant that he had
gained an implacable adversary who was resolved never to give up. What-
ever Severian’s original attitude to John, he could not now forget, or forgive,
his humiliating expulsion, without a trial or even a cursory investigation.
From this point onwards, indeed until the drama reached its denouement
with John’s death, he was to be a key figure at the centre of all the intrigues
and plots against him. While Theophilos, as we shall see, was to be the
immediate architect of John’s downfall, it was Severian who was to prepare
the ground in Constantinople, assiduously fanning the flames of hostility
against him among the clergy, at court, with government officials and with
the sovereigns themselves. He had already been getting to work, as we
noted 25 on Cyrinos of Chalkedon.
,

To outward appearances, of course, John had emerged as victor in the

petty squabble. The empress herself, who had at first rebuked him for
banishing her favourite preacher, had thought better of her anger, had
thrown herself on his Christian charity, and had begged him, in her
humblest manner, to reach an accommodation with his despised rival. If
peace had been restored to the church and calm to the streets of the capital,
the credit lay with him; it was he who had, however grudgingly, held out
the hand of friendship to Severian and ordered the unruly crowds to desist
from violence and go home. But the reality was rather different. For once
John had been clearly in the wrong and, as a result, had publicly lost face.
For once, yielding to vanity and extreme irascibility, he had allowed himself
to make an egregious mistake which no one could pretend was anything
other than that. Although the empress still retained, and would until the
end retain, her awe and almost superstitious respect for him, his standing
with her, and with many others, must have been seriously diminished.
We cannot tell how far John, always resilient and optimistic, was aware
of this, but he seems to have realised that radical adjustments would have
to be made in his administrative arrangements. A major step he took was

24
6 11
. .

25
See above, p. 185.
190 Golden Mouth

to ordain Sarapion, from the start his indispensable man of confidence but
hated by most of his clergy and now the instigator of his ill-judged attack
on Severian, to the priesthood. That he did so at this juncture is evident
from the fact that one of the accusations to be levied against him at his trial
was that he had ordained Sarapion when he still had a serious charge
hanging over him 26 - presumably that of having shown disrespect to Bishop
Severian. This is often represented 27 as a concession which John made in
the interests of conciliation. It may have been, but John did not make
concessions easily; we are also entitled to view his action, which he must
have taken with a heavy heart since he had by no means lost confidence in
Sarapion, as a sign of his awareness of his weakened position. As a result
he had to find a replacement for the all-important position of archdeacon
and steward of his household. Choosing men was never John’s strong suit,
and the deacon he now appointed, a man of whose name and background
we know nothing, was to prove a traitor to him in his darkest hour,
disloyally persuading his clergy to renounce their allegiance to their
bishop 28 .

26
See below, p. 222; also 299.
27
E.g. Baur, 2.161.
28
So John himself reports in his first letter to Pope Innocent I: SC 342.72-4. See below, p. 216.
 14

The Affair of the Long Brothers

A few months before John set out for Asia, probably in late autumn 401,
there had suddenly appeared in the streets of Constantinople some fifty
travel-worn monks of Egyptian origin, headed by four - Dioskoros, Ammo-
1

nios, Eusebios, and Euthymios - who were conspicuous for their height and
therefore known as the Long Brothers 0makroi adelphoi ). The eldest of the
four, Dioskoros, had been bishop of Hermopolis (Damanshur), a tiny see
some 60 km south-east of Alexandria created to provide for their spiritual
needs. They had originally been settled at Kellia (‘the cells’), not far from
Nitria (Wadi el Natrun) in the desert south-west of the Nile Delta, and had
been prominent members of the group of monks whom Evagrios Pontikos
(345-99), 2 spiritual author and founder of monastic mysticism, had gath-
ered round him during his fourteen years’ stay there. Ammonios indeed
seems to have shared with Evagrios the leadership of the community3 (to
which Palladios tells us 4 he too had belonged for nine years). They had a
great reputation for holiness and courageous endurance for the orthodox
faith. More than a year before, however, the three younger brothers had
been excommunicated, and all four of them hounded out of Egypt, then out
of Palestine, by Theophilos, patriarch of Alexandria, ostensibly on the
charge of being Origenists, i.e. followers of the teaching of Origen, the
remarkable third-century Alexandrian biblical scholar, theologian, and
spiritual writer. Origen’s influence had been widely pervasive in the
eastern churches, but in the later fourth century his ideas were increas-
ingly becoming the subject of attack, notably by Epiphanios, the aged,
immensely venerated bishop of Constantia (formerly Salamis) in Cyprus
(367-403), who as early as the mid-370s had set himself in the vanguard of
opposition to him.
Like other cultivated eastern Christians, like Theophilos himself until
a year or so back, 5 the Long Brothers and their adherents enthusiastically

1
See above, p. 172.
2
See above, p.174.
3
Palladios, Hist. Laus. 24 (Butler 78).
4
Hist. Laus. 18 (Butler 47).
5
For Theophilos’ attitude to Origen (and a detailed discussion of all the issues), see E.A.
Clark, The Origenist Controversy (Princeton 1992).
192 Golden Mouth
agreed with Origen that the divine nature is wholly spiritual and incorpo-
real. After all, their spiritual mentor had been the fervently Origenist
Evagrios, whom Theophilos too had so much admired that he had wanted
to make him a bishop. 6 By contrast the great majority of simple Egyptian
monks, uneducated and fanatical, clung tenaciously to the naive view
(‘anthropomorphism’) that, since the bible declares that God had made man
in his own image, he too must have all the corporeal attributes that men
have (eyes, hands, feet, mouth, etc.) - and which, indeed, scripture con-
stantly appears to represent him as possessing. But if on the matter of God’s
incorporeality the Long Brothers were certainly Origenists, there is no
evidence that they endorsed any of the great theologian’s more daring
speculations which were now being called into question and which later
orthodoxy was to condemn. Hitherto they had basked in Theophilos’ favour,
and it was out of his great regard for them that he had not only consecrated
Dioskoros as bishop, but had forcibly constrained Eusebios and Euthymios
to settle in Alexandria, accept ordination, and share the administration of
the church with him. 7 Suddenly, however, he had turned implacably
against them. The reasons for his decision to persecute them are not wholly
clear, but can be reconstructed in broad outline.
What initially turned him against them was the decision of Eusebios and
Euthymios to abandon his service and return to the desert. At first, while
irritated, he was not unduly upset, believing their motive to be their longing
to resume the contemplative life. Annoyance, however, turned to anger
when he discovered that the real cause of their dissatisfaction was disgust
at his absorption in money-making; they even feared for their souls if they
continued being associated with such activities. 8 But this alone does not
provide the full explanation of his bitter hostility. This is to be found in the
fact that he had broken irrevocably with his guest-master Isidore, the once
trusted agent whom he had earlier backed for the see of Constantinople,
and that he, disgraced and excommunicated by his master, had been given
shelter and active support by the Long Brothers. 9
Theophilos’ squalid quarrel with Isidore has been variously reported.
Sokrates 10 traces the rift to a row he had with Peter, archpriest of Alexan-
dria, whom he wanted to get rid of anyway, in which Isidore had supported
Peter. For Palladios, 11 whose account is echoed by Sozomen, 12 its main-
spring was the patriarch’s cupidity. A rich widow, it seems, had given
Isidore 1,000 gold staters with instructions to spend them on clothing for
the poor, but to keep this secret from Theophilos since she feared he would

6
Sokrates 4.23.
7
Sokrates 6.7.
8
Sokrates 6.7.
9
Sozomen 8.12.2.
10
6.9.
11
Dial. 6 (SC 341.130-6).
12
8 12
. .
 14. The Affair of the Long Brothers 193

squander the money on the costly building projects for which he was
notorious. 13 Isidore did as she had requested, to the extreme annoyance of
Theophilos, who was kept informed by his spies. Whichever of these stories
is true (it is quite probable they both are), Theophilos was outraged by
Isidore’s insubordination, and was determined to destroy him. He recalled
that eighteen years previously he had received a letter accusing Isidore of
buggery with a young sailor. He had done nothing about it at the time as
he was too busy (and Isidore then stood high in his favour), but he had filed
the letter in case it should some day come in useful. He now brought it out,
dragged Isidore before the assembled clergy, and, although neither the
sailor nor any supporting evidence could be produced, had him excluded
from church fellowship. He had, if we can trust Palladios, 14 got over the
embarrassing lack of hard evidence by bribing another young man with
fifteen gold pieces (which he dutifully handed over to his widowed mother!)
to accuse Isidore of sexual misconduct with him. In his despair, and fearing
for his life, Isidore fled to the monastic community in the Nitrian desert of
which he had been an inmate in his youth, the very community to which
Ammonios and the other Long Brothers belonged. They welcomed the
wretched octogenarian, and boldly took up his cause, making a powerful
plea to Theophilos to restore him to communion. 15
Theophilos was infuriated that Ammonios and his brethren had given
Isidore shelter, and still more that they had dared to become his champions.
He therefore thought up an ingenious scheme for exacting his revenge. As
it happened, he had recently decided that, outspoken Origenist though he

had hitherto been, the time had come when it would suit his interest to
make his peace with the simple-minded ‘anthropomorphist’ monks. In his
pastoral letter of early 399 announcing the date of Easter, which was
circulated throughout Egypt but is now lost, 16 he had denounced anthropo-
morphism and come out unambiguously in favour of the incorporeality of
God taught by Origen. He had been thoroughly alarmed, however, by the
hostility which this had aroused among anthropomorphist monks, who
descended in force on Alexandria and demonstrated menacingly. He had
managed temporarily to appease them by tactfully exclaiming, 17 When I
look at you, I am sure I am seeing the face of God’, but from this moment
he carried out a cynical volte-fate and declared a holy war on Origenism
and its adherents. He was thus enabled, at a stroke, both to enlist the
formidable army of crudely literalist monks as his storm-troopers and, on

13
For his passion for building ( lithomania ) and worship of money see Isidore of Pelusion, Ep.
152 CPG 78.285).
14
Loc. cit. Theophilos confirms the charge of immorality and his condemnation of Isidore in
a garbled, tendentious account given in his synodical letter to the bishops of Palestine and
Cyprus: see Jerome, Ep. 92.3 ( CSEL 55.150-1).
15
Sozomen 8.12.
16
Itsargument in outline can be deduced from Sokrates 6.7.; Sozomen 8.11; Gennadius, De
vir. ill. 33 (PL 58.1077-8).
17
Sokrates 6.7.
194 Golden Mouth

the pretext of their being Origenists, to order the expulsion of the leaders
of the intellectually-minded ascetics of Nitria. When a number of these
went up to Alexandria with their priests to seek an explanation of their
unexpected dismissal, he seized Ammonios by the throat, struck him on
the face causing his nose to bleed, and shouted, ‘Anathematise Origen, you
heretic!’ 18
Shortly afterwards, to put the matter on a proper legal basis, he assem-
bled a synod ‘of bishops of the neighbourhood’ and, in their absence, had
the Long Brothers formally excommunicated, branding men (as Palladios
lamented) 19 whom until recently he had been treating with exceptional
honour, as impostors, all because they had loyally supported his fallen
guest-master. Relying exclusively on Palladios’ report, scholars 20 have
generally assumed that this synod was held in Alexandria in 400. There is
a strong case, 21 however, for identifying it with the synod of anti-Origenist
bishops from the vicinity of Nitria which Theophilos, by his own account, 22
convened in a church of one of the monasteries there, and which fulminated
against Origenism. But Theophilos’ real object was to rid himself of the
Long Brothers altogether. He therefore lodged incriminating charges
against them with the Augustalis, or prefect of Egypt, demanding their
expulsion by military force. He backed his own indictment with another of
similar content (he was responsible for its wording) which he had suborned
five Nitrian monks to sign publicly; as a reward he ordained one of them
bishop, another priest, and the remaining three deacons. 23
Having received the authorisation he needed, Theophilos personally, in
spring 400, with a handful of government soldiers provided by the Augus-
talis and a drunken rabble of his own, supervised a night attack on the
Nitrian settlements which culminated in the ejection of the Long Brothers
and their monks, the deposition of Dioskoros from his bishopric, and the
plundering and burning of the monks’ cells. 24 The Long Brothers, who had
managed to conceal themselves while the brutal assault was in progress,
had no option but to take to the road. Even then they could not escape the
despotic patriarch’s fury. When he learned that the fugitives were being
kindly received in various places, he addressed a circular letter25 to the
bishops of Palestine (he was later to send it on to those of Cyprus), 26
reminding them of his condemnation of Origen’s teaching, giving a shame-
lessly distorted account of what had happened at Nitria, and sternly

18
For the order, and his challenge to Ammonios, see Palladios, Dial. 6 (SC 341.138).
19
Dial. 7 (SC 341.140).
20
E.g. Baur 2, 204 n. 11.
21
See A. Favale, Teofilo d’Alessandria (Turin 1958), 106-7.
22
Jerome, Ep. 92.1 (CSEL 55.147-8).
Cf. his synodical letter:
23
Palladios, Dial. 7 (SC 341.140-2).
24
Palladios, Dial. 7 (SC 341.142-6);
also Sokrates 6.7.
25
Jerome, Ep. 92 (CSEL 55.147-50: as usual, Jerome was his translator).
26
See below, p. 197.
 14. The Affair of the Long Brothers 195

warning them to shield their flocks from the misguided monks’ teaching.
Palladios, in what seems a selective citation of this letter, represents 27 him
as requesting them not to grant them admission to either a church or a
private house.

n
Harassed and hustled along wherever they went, the Long Brothers and
their companions, originally more than three hundred, made their way to
Jerusalem, and thence to Scythopolis (Bethshan, on the west side of the
Jordan valley). Here the abundance of palm-trees attracted them; they
fancied they could scrape a living by making matting with their leaves. But
wherever they went, they found that doors were slammed in their faces;
Theophilos and his emissaries had seen to that. Their number was steadily
dwindling as the faint-hearted dropped out. Eventually, after many months
of wandering, they conceived the idea of sailing to Constantinople, taking
Isidore with them, and there, according to Sokrates and Sozomen 28 sub- ,

mitting their case to the emperor and the bishop of the imperial see. The
likelihood is, however, that it was John on whom they mainly pinned their
hopes, renowned as he was for his years-long sojourn in the Syrian moun-
tains as a hermit, although they must also have been fully aware of the
influence he could use in official circles in their favour. They had no inkling
that taking up their cause might be liable to embroil him with adversaries
who would be only too eager to undermine him.
On arriving in the capital the refugees made their way straight to John’s
palace, fell on their knees before him, and poured out the story of their
tribulations. Although Sokrates states 29 that John was in the dark about
the whole affair, this was plainly not the case. The Origenistic controversy
had been raging some years and must have been talked about every-
for
where; nothing interested people more than theological wrangles. More
importantly, Theophilos’ circular to the bishops of Palestine and then those
of Cyprus can hardly have escaped him, and it is likely that (as we shall
see ) 30 he had recently received a letter from Epiphanios of Cyprus warning
him to abstain from studying Origen’s writings and urging him to convene
a synod to condemn their teaching. What was true was that he had so far
kept himself aloof from the controversy, having no wish to be forced to adopt
a public stance on the issues at stake. As we have seen, he was by nature
much more a practical than a dogmatic theologian. All his life he had been
convinced that to rack one’s brains about the being of God, which in the

27
Dio/. 7 (SC 341.148).
28
Sokrates 6.9.; Sozomen 8.13. Palladios (Dial. 7: SC 341.148) speaks only of their having
recourse to John.
29
6.7ad fin.
30
See below, p. 198.
196 Golden Mouth

last resort transcends human comprehension, was one of the most pre-
sumptuous sins of heretics. 31
In fact, when
the refugees appeared32 before him, begging for his help
and threatening that, if he could do nothing for them, the only course left
to them would be to resort to the emperor, he was painfully conscious of
the awkwardness of his position. However shocked he was by their ill-
treatment, he knew that they were canonically subject to the bishop of
Alexandria, and that they lay under his ban. No one was more aware than
he of Theophilos’ extreme touchiness, or recalled more vividly how annoyed
he had been when John had been appointed bishop of the imperial see
instead of his own nominee. He was anxious, too, we may suspect, to do
nothing to endanger the fragile co-operation he had established with him
in ending the schism of Antioch. 33 He took every care, therefore, to observe
all the proprieties, and to avoid giving the Egyptian Pharaoh the least
ground for complaint. Thus he declined to put even the monks’ leaders up
in his palace as official guests, a courtesy which in normal circumstances would
have been expected of a bishop, but lodged the party in a hospice attached to
the church of Hagia Anastasia. 34 Again, so as to avoid the charge of expending
church funds on their maintenance, he arranged for this to be looked after by
Olympias and her deaconesses. Some of the more able-bodied were encouraged
to contribute to the upkeep of the group by taking jobs.
John knew that Theophilos had agents resident in the capital whose
business it was to ensure, by the tactful distribution of bribes, that the
persons appointed to government posts in Egypt were likely to meet with
their master’s approval. These he now summoned, and inquired of them
what they knew about the fugitives, and also what should be done about
them. Although it seems surprising that they should have dared speak so
frankly, we have Palladios’ word that they honestly admitted that the
monks had been violently treated. Their advice was that, while it was his
duty as a bishop to show them kindness, it would be highly imprudent to
admit them to communion, since this would enrage Theophilos beyond
measure. John was careful to follow this advice: while permitting them to
attend public prayers, he refused to allow them to receive communion. In
fact, if we can trust Palladios, he seems at first to have imagined, with his
customary optimism, that if he handled the matter discreetly, he stood a
good chance of persuading Theophilos to lay aside his embittered feelings
towards them. So he took two important steps (the importance of the former
has not usually been sufficiently noticed). First, he forbade them to talk
publicly about the injustice they had suffered, insisting that they keep
silent about the reasons for their flight to the capital. They must have been
taken aback by this ban, but he explained that the success of the negotia-

31
See, e.g., his sermons ‘On God’s Incomprehensibility delivered in 386: see above, pp. 6 If.
32
Palladios, Dial. 7 (SC 341.148-52), is the source of much of the rest of this section.
33
See above, p. 117.
34
See above, p. 119.
 14. The Affair of the Long Brothers 197

tions he planned to undertake with Theophilos on their behalf depended

on their observing it.
Secondly, he sent a personal letter to the patriarch, couched in warm
and conciliatory terms, begging him to receive them back. The summary
preserved by Palladios 35 runs: ‘Please do me a courtesy - me, who am your
son as well as your brother - and take these people back under your
protection’ (the reference to his being his son was a reminder to Theophilos
that he had, albeit reluctantly, been John’s consecrator). Sozomen’s ver-
sion36 of this letter is somewhat more circumstantial. According to it, John
requested Theophilos to restore the monks to communion since their belief
concerning God was, as far as he could discover, entirely correct. If he
considered that their case should be judicially investigated, he should send
someone to Constantinople to charge them formally.

m
Theophilos himself had not been idle in the meantime. When news that the
Long Brothers had set sail for Constantinople reached him, he at once
realised the damage they could do there to him and his reputation. His first
thought was to enlist Epiphanios of Cyprus, renowned as a heresy-hunter
and the pioneer of anti-Origenism, as an ally; with his immense prestige
he could be useful in swinging opinion in the capital against the fugitives.
He therefore rushed off a personal letter to him 37 at the same time ,

dispatching to him and the other bishops of Cyprus the circular letter he
had earlier addressed concerning the Nitrian affair to the bishops of
Palestine 38 In the personal note he urged Epiphanios to convoke a synod
of the island’s bishops, have Origen and his teaching formally condemned,
and then send the minuted decisions to himself, to the bishop of Constan-
tinople and to anyone else he deemed suitable, so that no one could be under
any illusions about the pemiciousness of the doctrines for which the Long
Brothers had been appropriately punished. So that no time might be lost,
he suggested that he send the documents by special courier to Constanti-
nople. He had singled out Epiphanios, he tactfixlly added, as one who had
been a doughty fighter in this field long before himself. The old man,
needless to say, was flattered by the conversion to his own way of thinking
of ‘so great a pontiff who only a year or two back had been rebuking him
’,

for anthropomorphism 39 As requested, he at once assembled the Cypriot

.

bishops in synod and had Origen and his works condemned. He then

35
Dial. 7 (SC 341.152).
36
8.13.
37
Letter 90 in Jerome’s correspondence ( CSEL 55.143-6).
38
See above, p. 194.
39
Sokrates 6.10. For his satisfaction see his letter to Jerome (Ep. 91 in Jerome’s correspon-
dence: CSEL 55.145-6).
198 Golden Mouth
communicated these decisions to John, and exhorted him to summon a
synod in Thrace which would likewise proceed to outlaw Origenism. 40
Meanwhile Theophilos himself, as he informed Epiphanios in his letter,
had sent to Constantinople several hermits and clerics to act for him there.
He had astutely arranged that the hermits should be drawn from the
Nitrian settlements themselves (they probably included the five he had
suborned to denounce the Long Brothers to the Augustalis), 41 and that all
the members of the group should be dignified men of austere bearing, likely
to inspire respect. Their mandate was to rebut any propaganda the Long
Brothers might disseminate, and to present their eviction from Nitria and
Palestine in the most favourable light.
Having thus prepared the ground, Theophilos was in no mood to respond
positively to John’s conciliatory letter. His mood had in fact become dis-
tinctly hostile, for completely unfounded rumours were circulating Alexan-
dria that John was offering communion to the refugees and was prepared
to rally to their defence. 42 More importantly, he seems to have begun to
suspect that John’s espousal (as he took it to be) of the Long Brothers in a
dispute which was the exclusive concern of the Alexandrian church was all
part of a deliberate policy of extending the authority of the imperial see.
John was at this time carrying out his visitation of the Asian churches, and
the reports which Theophilos received of his activities there can only have
confirmed his worst suspicions. The Alexandrian church had never been
slow, at least until 381, to intervene in the controversies of the eastern
churches, not least Constantinople, but similar pretensions by New Rome
were not to be tolerated. It was inevitable, he saw clearly, that what had
begun as an irritating dispute with a pack of insubordinate monks should
from now onwards take on a wider, political dimension. John being absent
from the capital, there was no point in calling him to order for interference
for the moment. He decided, however, that since the Long Brothers had
apparently found such a powerful protector in the capital, the agents he
had earlier sent there needed reinforcement. According to Palladios, 43 he
therefore dispatched to Constantinople a further delegation, this time
composed of men chosen for their skill in controversial debate, and armed
them with damaging dossiers which he had personally drafted.
One of his objects, Palladios adds, was through these agents to spread
the impression, especially in the palace, that the fugitives were nothing but
impostors. In this he seems to have had considerable success, for the monks
were forced back on the defensive and found it necessary to send him

40
Sokrates 6.10.
41
Palladios, Dial. 7 (SC 341. 152) refers only to Theophilos’ second delegation (see below); but
this consisted of trained dialecticians, not simple monks.
42
Sozomen 8.13.
43
Dial. 7 (SC 341.152). It is tempting to identify the two sets of emissaries, but the sources
are positive that the first set were sent immediately after Theophilos learned of the sailing of
the monks for Constantinople, the second after he had received John’s letter.
 14. The Affair of the Long Brothers 199

written assurances that they abjured any form of erroneous doctrine. As

these apparently failed to specify Origenism, they only increased his
exasperation. The monks then decided that the time had come for a
counter-attack. For the first time, therefore, they drafted for presentation
to John a formal petition giving a detailed statement of the violence of
which they had been victims and a catalogue of their charges against
Theophilos. Palladios was careful to call their submission a ‘petition’
(ilibellous enteuktikousY
4
since he knew that John could not properly receive
a formal accusation against the patriarch of another province. The refugees’
grievances against Theophilos were, apparently, so serious, and expressed
in such outspoken terms that Palladios, who was not normally backward
in reporting matters prejudicial to him, coyly excused himself from repro-
ducing them in case he should upset the faith of younger and less mature
Christians.
Once again, therefore, John, probably on his return from Asia, found
himself in an acutely embarrassing position. 45 As we have seen, the last
thing he wanted was for the affair to become an open scandal. First, he
made a fresh attempt, getting other bishops to add their voices to his own,
to persuade the refugees to abandon their incriminating charges against
Theophilos. Only mischief, he argued, could result from pressing them in
a formal way. Whatever Theophilos imagined, he himself had no wish to
provoke a clash between the sees of Constantinople and Alexandria, still
less to be drawn himself into confrontation with the Egyptian patriarch.
Then, when his request was met with a stubborn refusal, he sent Theophi-
los a second letter informing him that the refugees had lodged a written
indictment against him. He enclosed a copy of it, and begged him to respond
to it as he judged best. He had done everything he could to induce them to
leave the capital, but they had paid no attention to his plea.
Theophilos’ reaction was immediate, and explosive. First, in a fit of
temper he excommunicated bishop Dioskoros, eldest of the Long Brothers.
At the time of his night raid on the Nitrian settlement he had had him
manhandled and had deposed him from his modest bishopric (Hermopolis
Parva), but had been careful not to include him when he excommunicated
his three brothers. Then he dashed off a truculent note to John, in effect
bidding him mind his own business. As summarised by Palladios, 46 it runs:
‘I think you are not unaware of the ordinance of the Nicene canons

forbidding a bishop to adjudicate a case which falls outside his ecclesiastical

area. If however you were unaware, now that you have been informed
refrain from meddling with accusations brought against me. If it were
necessary for me to be put on trial, it would be before Egyptian judges and

44
Dioi. 7 (SC 341.154).
45
Palladios, Dial. 7 (SC 341.152-4) is the source of this and the following paragraph.
46
Dial. 7 (SC 341. 154), the sole source for the letter. Theophilos refers to canon 5 of the council
of Nicaea (325), reaffirmed in a fuller form in canon 2 of the council of Constantinople (381).
200 Golden Mouth

not before you, who live more than seventy-five days’ journey away.’ This
was a shot across John’s bows, a sharp warning that if the see of Constan-
tinople had got away successfully with unwarranted intervention in Asia,
it must not expect to do so in Egypt. What the letter did not reveal was that

for Theophilos themisdeeds of the Nitrian refugees were becoming an issue

of secondary importance in comparison with the threat which John himself
seemed to pose to his authority and prestige.

If our chronology is correct, the agony of the refugees had been dragged out
for several months, the delay being caused in part by John’s insistence that
they should on no account ventilate their grievances officially, in part by
his absence in Asia Minor for more than three months in early 402. A
further factor contributing to it undoubtedly was the distrust and suspicion
of them which Theophilos’ two groups of agents had, it would seem,
successfully sown. It may be remarked that the alternative chronology
favoured by many scholars, 47 which places the Asian trip in early 401,
makes the prolonged delay much harder to understand. The long impasse,
however, was abruptly broken in mid-summer 402. On receiving Theophi-
los’ letter John decided that there was nothing more he could do in the
affair. 48 Keeping the contents of the letter to himself, he summoned both
the Nitrian monks and the Egyptian patriarch’s agents, and urged them to
make peace with one another. His well-intentioned mediation, however,
only had the effect of making both parties stick more obstinately to their
entrenched positions. The Nitrian monks, in particular, after waiting
two-thirds of a year with no prospect of vindication, had reached the end
of their patience. Driven to despair at being let down by the man they had
confidently expected to be their champion, they resolved to emerge from
their enforced silence, bypass John, and make a direct appeal to the
emperor and empress. With this object they drafted two petitions addressed
to them personally. One was directed against Theophilos’ agents, and
charged them with having made scandalously defamatory statements
about them. The other was a detailed catalogue of highly damaging accu-
sations against Theophilos himself.
Their opportunity came, it seems certain, on 24 June 402. This was the
feast of John the Baptist, and on it, according to Palladios, 49 they contrived
to waylay the emperor and empress at the Baptist’s shrine at Hebdomon -
the shrine hallowed by its possession of the Precursor’s head, to which
Gainas had gone to pray two years previously. 50 The royal couple, one would

47
See above, p. 165.
48
Palladios, Dial. 8 (SC 341.154-6).
49
Dial. 8 (SC 341.156).
50
See above, p. 159.
 14. The Affair of the Long Brothers 201
guess, to make their devotions on the holy day, and the
had gone there
monks seized the chance to present their petitions to them. In particular,
they begged the empress that their complaints against Theophilos’ agents
might be investigated by the civil courts, and that the patriarch himself
should be brought to stand his trial before John. Sozomen, who makes no
mention of either the emperor or the Baptist’s shrine, gives a somewhat
more colourful picture of the encounter. 51 According to him, Ammonios and
his companions poured out their grievances against Theophilos to Eudoxia
as she was driving in her carriage. As she already had some knowledge of
their troubles, and respected the men personally, she had ordered her
coachman to stop when she saw they wanted to speak with her, and then
leaned out of the carriage, and begged them to bless her and to pray for the
emperor, for herself and their children, and for the empire. When she had
heard their story, she promised that she would make it her business to see
that a council before which Theophilos would have to appear was speedily
convened.
Whatever we make of Sozomen’s picturesque additions, his report of the
meeting and that of Palladios supplement each other without introducing
any disturbing discrepancies. What is interesting is that both stress the
role of Eudoxia; both make it plain that it was to her that the refugees
wished to present their petitions, and that they were confident that they
could rely on her support. It is tempting to suspect that their dramatic
encounter with her was not wholly accidental. We should dearly like to
know what comings and goings (if any) there had been behind the scenes,
and in any event how her sympathies had been enlisted. There can be little
doubt, however, that it was as a result of pressure from Eudoxia that the
government now at last decided to act in the refugees’ interest. On the
authority of the master of the offices (head of the central administration)
an imperial order52 was issued requiring Theophilos, whether willing or
unwilling, to present himself before a court presided over by John. As
befitted such an important mission, a high official, Elaphios, 53 chief of the
imperial couriers {agentes in rebus), was dispatched to Alexandria to convey
the order to Theophilos and conduct him to the capital. At the same time
the agents he had been employing to destroy the Nitrian refugees’ reputa-
tion were arrested, taken to court, and confronted with the alternative of
either substantiating the defamatory statements they had made or under-
going the harsh penalties imposed by law for slander. 54
Thus what John had dreaded, and had striven by every means at his
disposal to prevent, had been brought about. He cannot have been con-

51
8.13.
52
This is summarised by Palladios, Dial. 8 (SC 341.156-8).
53
PLRE 2, 387.
54
Ten laws dating from 319 to 406 and dealing with defamation (De famosis libellis) are listed
in CT 9.34. In certain circumstances death could be the penalty.
202 Golden Mouth

suited by the authorities, or if he was they must have ignored his advice.
His position, we recall, was much weakened at the time; his public recon-
ciliation with Severian, with its embarrassing loss of face to himself, had
been forced on him by the empress only a few weeks back. Officially, of
course, his relations with the court continued correct; the fact that it was
before him that Theophilos was to be arraigned confirms that he retained
the authorities’ confidence. It is interesting, however, that they were
prepared to brush aside his scruples about intervening in Egyptian church
affairs. They probably took it for granted that the imperial see was fully
entitled to do so. Altogether John cannot have regarded his dealings with
the Nitrian refugees with much satisfaction. Although his pastoral sympa-
thies lay with them, he had felt obliged, out of regard for canonical order
and to avoid a collision with Theophilos, to abandon them to their fate. If
their prospects for the moment looked brighter, this was not due to any
action on his part, but to the Augusta having taken up their cause and
having persuaded the emperor and his ministers to act on their behalf.
 15

Epiphanios to the Rescue

It is not difficult to imagine Theophilos’ indignation and disgust when

Elaphios handed him the imperial rescript summoning him to Constanti-
nople. It was an insult for the bishop of Alexandria, acknowledged until
quite recently as the premier see among the eastern churches and still their
link with the holy see in the west, to be peremptorily called to answer
charges concerning his treatment of persons wholly under his own jurisdic-
tion. It was a further shock that the investigating judge was to be the
bishop of the upstart see of Constantinople, a man whom the government
had appointed in preference to his own favoured candidate, and whom only
Eutropios’ blackmail had induced him to consecrate. The summons, he
must have inferred, was one more move in the step-by-step advancement
of the imperial see, and there can be little doubt that he detected John’s
hand behind it.

There is some have claimed, to have been an element of fear

also likely,
in his reaction. Fear is not an emotion one would normally attribute to
Theophilos, but we can agree that the omens probably looked threatening
to him. About the same time, or not much later, the news must have reached
him that his envoys in Constantinople had been brought to trial on charges
of slandering the Nitrian refugees. The case had gone against them, a
sentence of death seemed certain, but since the terrified plaintiffs had put
the entire blame for the libels they had been putting about on Theophilos
himself, it had been deferred pending his arrival for the synod. In the
meantime they had been flung into gaol; because of his delay in reaching
the capital, one or two of them died there .
1

II

Theophilos had, of course, no option but to obey the imperial order, but he
was determined to do so, as far as possible, at the time and in the manner
best suited to his interests. In particular, before setting out he wanted to
organise a counter-offensive. It was clear to him that the moment was now

1
Palladios, Dial. 8 (SC 341.158).
204 Golden Mouth
come when he might usefully revive a plan he had first conceived when
John was consecrated. It was precisely then, according to Sokrates, 2 that
he had begun considering how he might bring about his deposition; he had
discussed the matter secretly with some friends by word of mouth, with
others by correspondence. Since John clearly had full government backing,
he had had to put the plan into cold storage at the time, and indeed (as we
have seen) 3 he had agreed to co-operate with him in finding a solution to
the schism at Antioch. Everything he heard, however, about John’s recep-
tion of the Long Brothers, especially the malicious rumours reaching him
that he was admitting them to communion, had brought these long dor-
mant ideas back to life again. His resolve to act on them must have been
finally confirmed when he learned that John had been chosen to sit in
judgment on him. He must have taken it for granted that, in spite of his
warnings against interfering in a field outside his jurisdiction, 4 he had
consented to play this role.
So Theophilos devised an ingenious strategy which, if he kept his nerve,
might enable him not only to extricate himself from his present predica-
ment but also, with luck, to turn the tables on his adversary. First, he
delayed his departure as long as he decently could, and when he eventually
set out chose the lengthy land-route 5 through Palestine and Asia Minor
rather than the obvious and expeditious sea-passage (only 17-20 days). 6 His
object, as we shall see, 7 was not to spin out time, but to muster support for
his cause.
Secondly, he seems to have made contact with bishops Akakios, Antio-
chos and Severian, and the monk Isaac, four of John’s most determined
enemies in the capital, and arranged with them to have a thorough
investigation of his conduct as a young man carried out at Antioch. Our
information about this comes from Palladios, 8 who however represents the
four Syrians as themselves instituting the inquiries and only turning to
Theophilos for advice when these proved fruitless. The unlikelihood of
relatively minor figures like them having done so on their own has long
been recognised, although it is agreed that an outsider in Constantinople
observing them at work might well have drawn that conclusion. There was,
in fact, no point in raking over John’s past until his possible deposition
became an issue, i.e. until Theophilos received the news that he was to be
tried by him, and then it was Theophilos himself, not the Syrians, who had
a powerful motive for collecting material (if any could be found) likely to

2
6.5.
3
See above, p. 117.
4
See above, p. 199.
5
Sozomen 8.14.
6
So Casson, TAPA 82 (1951), 145.
L.
7
See below, p. 213.
8
Dial. 6 (SC 341.128).
 15. Epiphanios to the Rescue 205
damage him. It was he, therefore, who was likely, as part of his carefully
concerted counter-attack, to have set the Syrians to work to unearth it.
A third step he took was to get in touch, as he had done 9 the previous
year on learning that the Nitrian refugees had set sail for the capital, with
Epiphanios of Cyprus. On that earlier occasion he had stopped short of
voicing any overt criticism of John or of his theological stance, referring to
him neutrally as ‘the reverend bishop of Constantinople’. 10 Now he seems
to have gone over the top, accusing him of taking the excommunicated
monks under his protection, probably also of admitting them to commun-
ion, and of being tainted with Origenism himself. The gist of his message
was that Epiphanios should hasten in person to the capital since the
orthodox faith was in dire peril there. The letter itself has not survived, but
we can safely infer that its contents were along these lines from Epiphanios’
subsequent behaviour. It is fruitless to ask whether or not Theophilos
actually thought that John was an Origenist. It seems unlikely, for he was
aware that as a theologian John belonged to the non-speculative
Antiochene school. But there were no limits to the fantasies which a man
of his violent, passionate temperament could bring himself to believe. His
cynical object was, by involving John in the current wave of hostility to
Origenism, to undermine his credibility, first, as judge of himself, and then,
he must have hoped, as bishop. The fiery old champion of orthodoxy, for
years notorious as the hammer of Origenism, seemed to him to be ideally
cut out to be his ally in achieving this aim.

m
The reconstruction of events set out above, it is fair to warn the reader,
while generally accepted, has not satisfied some students. Their preferred
version, 11 which would date Epiphanios’ visit to Constantinople several
months earlier, is that he went there on his own initiative immediately
after holding the synod in Cyprus condemning Origen and, instead of
sending them by special courier, took its decrees with him. It is difficult to
see, however, why he should have done so, still less why, when he got to
the capital, he should have treated John (as we shall find him doing) with
aloofness and plain distrust as out-and-out heretic, since in his original
letter Theophilos had cast no doubts on John’s orthodoxy. In addition, we
have Sokrates’ explicit statement 12 that it was in response to Theophilos’
promptings ( tais hupothekais Theophilou peistheis ) that he went to the
capital, which surely implies a second letter, this time denigrating John
and calling on Epiphanios to rally to the defence of the faith.
On receiving this letter Epiphanios, characteristically, leaped into ac-
9
See above, p. 197.
10
Ep. 90 in Jerome’s correspondence ( CSEL 55.143-5).
11
See, e.g., P. Nautin’s article ‘Epiphane (saint) de Salamine’ in DHGE 15.624.
12
6.12 (PG 67.701A).
206 Golden Mouth
tion. He had long had his suspicions of John. Had he not for years been the
devoted adjutant of Flavian, whom to his disgust the council of Constanti-
nople (381) had appointed bishop of Antioch, over the head of Paulinos, the
rightful claimant (as he saw it) to the see on the death of Meletios? More
recently, had he not been dragging his feet when challenged to convene a
synod in Thrace to condemn Origen and his writings? 13 Theophilos’ revela-
tion that he was now offering hospitality, even church fellowship, to the
Nitrian heretics made hesitation out of the question. At the first opportu-
nity, presumably just so soon as the festivities of Easter 403 (28 March)
were concluded, he set sail from Cyprus armed with the synodical decisions
condemning Origenism.
In early or mid-April his ship docked, not at one of the harbours close to
the centre of Constantinople, but at Hebdomon, some 10 km from it. Having
stepped ashore, Epiphanios with his escorting clergy marched to the church
of John the Baptist, none other than the shrine at which the Nitrian monks
had poured out their woes to Eudoxia almost a year previously. Here,
according to Sokrates, 14 he proceeded, first, to celebrate mass, and then to
ordain a deacon, in neither case seeking the permission of the local bishop
(John). This was a gross violation of canonical order, but it was not the first
time that Epiphanios had chosen to flout it. Almost a decade before, at
Besanduc in Palestine, he had ordained Jerome’s younger brother
Paulinian to both diaconate and priesthood successively, despite the fact
that John, bishop of Jerusalem, had refused to do so. 15 Although Besanduc
lay outside his jurisdiction, John expostulated vehemently since Paulinian
was to serve Jerome’s community at Bethlehem, which lay within it; he
even excommunicated Jerome and his monks. In defence of Epiphanios
some 16 have pleaded that, misled by the identity of the two bishops’ names,
Sokrates must have transferred to Constantinople an incident which
actually took place at Jerusalem years before. Quite apart, however, from
the detail that the two stories were quite different, Sokrates was a young
man living in the capital at the time and was not likely to have slipped up
about an event which must have been much talked about. From our
knowledge of Epiphanios’ character there was in any case nothing implau-
sible in his acting a second time in this high-handed fashion.
His gesture was in fact a deliberate signal of the grave doubts he felt
about John’s legitimacy as bishop. It was to be quickly followed by others
conveying the same message. Meanwhile John, who had received no ad-
vance notice of Epiphanios’ projected visit, had been informed of his arrival
at Hebdomon. He immediately dispatched a special delegation of his clergy
to welcome the great man and invite him, as a matter of course, to take up
residence with his entourage at his palace. Epiphanios met them as he

13
See above, p. 198.
14
6.12 and 14.
15
See J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome (London 1975), 200f.
16
E.g. Cesare Baronius, Annales ecclesiastici ad ann. 402 (Lucae 1740), vi.384.
 15. Epiphanios to the Rescue 207
approached the city gates and, in compliance with Theophilos’ advice, 17
disdainfully rejected the proffered invitation. Instead he insisted, as John
must have learned with consternation, on putting up in private lodgings.
As if this were not a sufficient rebuff, he went on to declare that he would
not stay under the same roof with John or join him at divine service until
he had expelled Dioskoros and his companions from the city, and had signed
with his own hand the condemnation of Origen’s writings he had brought
with him. 18 The demand was an unreasonable one, since John had already
taken steps to satisfy himself about the refugees’ orthodoxy. But
Epiphanios was acting, in his naive and impetuous way, as the agent of
Theophilos, who shrewdly calculated that if John declined to comply with
the demand, he might be judged a heretic by right-thinking people and his
credibility as a judge at the forthcoming synod might be compromised.

IV
Once established in his private lodgings, Epiphanios set in motion his
planned anti-Origenistic campaign aimed at exposing John. His first step
was, on his own authority and of course without reference to his intended
victim, to make contact with all the bishops staying in Constantinople at
the time and invite them to a meeting. When they were assembled, he read
out to them the condemnation of Origen’s writings which had been ratified
by the previous year’s special synod at Cyprus, perhaps also that agreed
by Theophilos’ earlier synod at Alexandria. He then called on everyone
present to add his signature to these censures. Out of respect for the
venerable champion of orthodoxy, several agreed to do so; it is probable
that two or three did so less out of regard for him than out of hostility
towards John. But the majority flatly refused to acquiesce. The most
resolute and outspoken of these was Theotimos, since 392 bishop of Tomi
(Constantza), capital of Scythia Minor, whom we recall 19 as having been
present at the ‘resident synod’ at which Antoninos of Ephesos was de-
nounced, a man respected for his learning, ascetic life and supernatural
powers. He stood up boldly and declaimed against the indecency of insult-
ing the memory of one who was long dead, and with whose teaching no one
had hitherto found fault. In support of his plea he produced one of Origen’s
books, read out a number of passages from it, and showed how valuable
they were, and then exclaimed that people who cast aspersions on such
teaching were acting absurdly. 20
This was an unexpected setback for Epiphanios, but he was apparently
not in the least dismayed. On the contrary, he allowed himself to be

17
Sokrates 6.12.
18
Sokrates 6.14.
19
See above, p. 163.
20
Sozomen 8.14.
208 Golden Mouth

persuaded by some of John’s enemies to plan a much more direct and

public attack on him. (It is intriguing to reflect that, if he had been able
to carry it out, it would have been a repeat performance of a similar
attack he had launched on John of Jerusalem, whom he had also
suspected of Origenism, in the church of the Resurrection in September
393. 21 His plan was to go to the church of the Holy Apostles and, as
divine service was beginning, to take his place at the ambo and, in the
full hearing of the packed congregation, first, to denounce Origen’s
writings as heretical, then to declare Dioskoros and the other desert
monks excommunicate, and finally to upbraid John himself for his
sympathetic attitude to them.
So far John, whatever exasperation he may have privately felt or
expressed to his close circle, had shown what for him was quite remarkable
restraint in face of Epiphanios’ provocative behaviour. What had held him
back, it is likely, was partly respect for him personally, but partly too
awareness of the immense veneration the public generally felt for him. The
furthest he had gone was to counter his demand for Origen to be publicly
condemned by pleading that such a drastic step would not be proper
without a general council. When alerted, however, to Epiphanios’ latest
scheme, he decided that it was time to call a halt to the dangerous drama.
On the following morning, when Epiphanios, braced for action, was enter-
ing the church of the Holy Apostles, he found himself confronted at the door
by the priest Sarapion, John’s former archdeacon and still, apparently, his
hatchet man, bearing a stem message from his master. This pointed out
that, in carrying out an ordination and celebrating mass without the
authority of the bishop of the see, he had been violating the canons of the
church. In the past he had declined invitations to come to Constantinople;
now he had come without any invitation. The concluding sentence had an
ominous ring: Epiphanios had better look out, for if popular demonstrations
were to break out, he might find himself in grave danger. 22 There was no
mistaking the warning these words contained, and Epiphanios turned back
and left the church. He was as well aware as anyone of the power a populist
bishop like John could wield through excitable mobs.

V
Epiphanios’ stay in the imperial city was, it is generally agreed, extremely
short, a matter of days rather than weeks. Even so, it would have been
extraordinary if a visitor so eminent, so admired, and whose business so
directly affected people whom the empress had taken under her protection,
had not been received at court. In fact, Sokrates reports that John was to
be greatly upset, after his departure, by rumours that Eudoxia had incited

21
For the story see J.N.D. Kelly, op. cit., 198-9.
Sokrates 6.14; Sozomen 8.14.
 15. Epiphanios to the Rescue 209
23
Epiphanios against him. These rumours, if they existed at all, were wildly
off themark, but the report clearly implies that she and the Cypriot bishop
had met and talked together. Sozomen gives a fuller, much more circum-
stantial account of exchanges between them. According to him, 24 the infant
heir to the throne, Theodosios, was sick, and Eudoxia summoned
Epiphanios, who was reputed to have remarkable powers in such cases,
and begged him to pray for his recovery. Exploiting the situation, he
promised that the little boy would live provided she withdrew her support
from Dioskoros and his heretical monks. This apparently upset the em-
press, but she recalled, or was reminded, that a highly valued archdeacon
of the bishop’s had recently died. So she coldly replied that if God wished
to take her son’s life she was content to bow to his will. Then she added,
with a touch of asperity, that if Epiphanios had possessed the power to
raise the dead to life, he would have saved his archdeacon.
Sozomen has a further report that, with Eudoxia’s encouragement, the
Long Brothers sought an interview with Epiphanios and he held a confer-
ence with them. This took place, it would seem, in an atmosphere of
cordiality, and Ammonios was able to extract an admission from him that
he had never had contact with their followers, much less examined any-
thing they had written. In fact, he confessed, he had condemned them on
the basis of hearsay alone. In return they professed themselves regular
readers and admirers of his writings, including his Ancoratus a work he,

had written as long ago as 374 and which contains sections critical of
Origenism. They declared they had always defended his opinions when
attacked. Understandably flattered by their compliments, the old man
allowed himself to be persuaded that they were not such outrageous
heretics after all.

Because they rest on the authority of Sozomen alone, these stories are
often played down or even dismissed as later gossip, but this is a mistake.
They may have undergone some ‘amplification posterieure’, 25 but much of
the detail in them has the ring of authenticity. For example, both Eudoxia’s
appeal on behalf of her child, and her quick stiffening of attitude when the
wily bishop made abandonment of the refugees a condition of his interces-
sion, seem
lifelike and entirely in character. Epiphanios’ realisation all too
late that he might have been wrong in his wholesale condemnation of the
Long Brothers reminds us of a similar, equally sudden change of heart in
his earlier quarrel with John of Jerusalem. 26 So far as our John is con-
cerned, the incident of the empress’s appeal on her child’s behalf indirectly
confirms that, at this stage at any rate, she bore him no special animosity.
It is hardly conceivable that, when urging her to throw over the Nitrian

23
6.15 (ad init.).
24
8.15.
25
So P. Nautin, DHGE 15.625.
26
See J.N.D. Kelly, op. cit., 200.
210 Golden Mouth
monks, Epiphanios refrained from voicing bitter criticism of the bishop he
regarded as shielding them and sharing their objectionable views. Yet the
confidence of the court in John, and its determination that he should
preside at the forthcoming trial, seem to have remained undisturbed.

VI
Epiphanios’ mission, as he must have known, had ended in failure. He had
not obtained anything like the number of signatures condemning Origen
he had expected; despite a show of embarrassed deference, he had encoun-
tered firm opposition from the majority of bishops. So far from bringing the
empress over to his side, he had only succeeded in irritating her. He had
become confident that he would teach John a sharp lesson, but the message
conveyed by Sarapion had been a stinging public rebuke to himself. As he
contemplated the futility of his too hastily undertaken journey, did it
perhaps occur to him that Theophilos had been cynically using him for his
own purposes? His decision to return home, so soon after he had arrived,
is scarcely surprising. His bitterness and disillusionment were vividly
expressed in a sentence he is said27 to have uttered to the bishops seeing
him off at the quay: ‘I am glad to leave you with the city, the court, the
whole wretched show. I am off home as fast as I can.’
Another story28 which was later bandied about in the capital alleged that,
before boarding his ship, Epiphanios sent John a note expressing the
unkindly wish, ‘I hope you will be no longer a bishop when you die.’ John’s
riposte was, so it was said, equally unfriendly: ‘And I hope you will not set
foot in your city again.’ We need not take the anecdote literally, but it
illustrates the intense rancour which public opinion assumed must exist
between the two men - who, in fact, in an extraordinary way, resembled
one another in passionate zeal for orthodoxy, inability to compromise with
what they considered false or wrong, and fearless outspokenness. The wish
attributed to John was the first to be fulfilled, for Epiphanios ended his
days on the high seas on 12 May 403, well before Theophilos set out from
Egypt. The supposed wish of Epiphanios was also to find fulfilment in due
course. But while John had no responsibility for Epiphanios’ death, reports
that the octogenarian champion of orthodoxy, doubly revered now that he
was dead, had refused to share communion with him, and that he had
spoken slightingly of the old man, were to be brought forward at his trial
as damning evidence against him.

27
Sozomen 8.15.
Ibid.
 16

The Oak

With the collapse of Epiphanios’ clumsy attempt to brand John as an

Origenist heretic, Theophilos’ first plan for destroying the credibility of his
proposed judge had failed ignominiously. But he was already well advanced
with a far more ambitious strategy which, if successful, would result in the
reversal of their roles, in himself in fact being called upon to sit in judgment
on John. It is ironical that John, although still apparently supported by the
court, seemed bent on smoothing the path for him.
Not long after Epiphanios’ departure in early May 403, he took it into
his head to preach a sermon violently denouncing the weaknesses conven-
tionally attributed to women. We have no idea what provoked this outburst.
Sokrates (not followed by Sozomen) alleges that it was irritation fired by
1

reports that Eudoxia had incited Epiphanios against him. While not
impossible, this seems unlikely: all the evidence is that the empress keenly
supported the Long Brothers and that, while meeting Epiphanios, her
relations with him had been cool. In fact, criticism of what sexist preachers
considered feminine vanity or excessive influence had been a favourite
theme of John’s since his days at Antioch. 2 Following his normal practice,
his diatribe on this occasion was in general terms, but the congregation at
once jumped to the conclusion (probably correctly) that it was a thinly veiled
attack on Eudoxia personally. Some have suggested that ill-disposed people
may have tampered with the text so as to give this impression (they are
said to have done this sometimes); 3 but Sokrates explicitly states that it
was the people who, listening to his words, interpreted them as a satiric
portrayal of the Augusta.
The sermon itself has long disappeared, but its impact on the court could
not fail to be damaging to the preacher. Reports of it were rushed to
Eudoxia; it must have infuriated her that the common people were in no
doubt that she was the target. It wounded her on a sensitive spot, her
natural self-esteem as a woman. Fuel must have been added to her

1
6.15 ad init.: cf. Sozomen 8.16.
2
From many examples see In Matt. horn. 7.3; In Joh. hom. 61.4 ( PG 57.257-9; 59.340-2); De
sacerdotio 3.9 (SC 272.162-4).
3
Palladios, Dial. 6 (SC 341.126).
212 Golden Mouth
indignation as she discussed the affair with her intimate circle, and she
found an all too eager ally in Severian, still nursing bitter memories of
John’s harsh treatment of him the previous year. She hastened with her
complaints to Arkadios, insisting that the insulting language was no less
injurious to him than to herself. According to Sokrates and Sozomen, 4 it
was at this point that the imperial couple began planning to have Theophi-
los brought as quickly as possible to Constantinople to preside over a
council to try John, but this (as we shall discover) cannot be correct;
however intense his annoyance, Arkadios was still sticking to the original
idea agreed with his advisers of bringing Theophilos to trial. In their highly
compressed narratives the historians have brought a somewhat later
switch of plan forward. Nevertheless the sense of outrage and resentment
in the palace was so great that some 5 have identified the crisis provoked
by the tactless sermon as the fateful turning-point in John’s fortunes.

II

In late August 403 it became known in the capital that Theophilos had at
last arrived, more than a year after the imperial summons had been sent
to him. From this point, in addition to our usual authorities, we have a
fresh, exceptionally vivid source in a letter which John was to send, 6 some
nine months later, to the Roman pope, Innocent I (401-17). Traditionally
preserved as the second chapter of Palladios’ Dialogue it has been convinc- ,

ingly shown to have been no part of the original text of that work. 7 In it
John, already doomed, in a desperate effort to enlist the pope’s support,
sets out his personal version of the key events leading to his downfall,
starting with the Egyptian Pharaoh’s arrival in the capital. Although his
report is tantalisingly selective and charged, understandably, with deeply
felt emotion, it clearly counts as evidence of primary importance, providing
as it does information not available elsewhere.
For the moment Theophilos was at Chalkedon, on the Asiatic shore of
the Bosporus, having made the entire journey from Egypt by land. 8 Signifi-
cantly, he was staying with the local bishop, Cyrinos, an Egyptian like
himself, who had accompanied John as a chosen colleague on his visit to
Asia Minor, but had since become his uncompromising enemy; he kept
telling the members of Theophilos’ party that John was ‘impious, haughty,
and inexorable’. 9 Ostensibly summoned by Arkadios to stand his trial
before John, Theophilos had made it clear, both before leaving Alexandria
and while travelling north, that he was ‘on his way to the court to depose

4
Sokrates 6.15; Sozomen 8.16.
5
E.g. Baur, 2.229.
6
See below, p. 246. Critical edition by A.M. Malingrey in SC 342 (Paris 1988).
7
SC 342.55-8.
8
Sozomen, 8.14: confirmed by ‘Martyrios’: seeAB 98 (1977), 402.
9
Sokrates 6.15: the meaning of agonatos, here translated ‘inexorable’, is not wholly clear.
 16. The Oak 213
John ’. 10
He had made his plans with elaborate thoroughness. Thus, to be
sure of local support, he had sent ahead by sea some twenty-nine Egyptian
bishops - causing John to complain to the pope that, although ordered to
present himself alone, he had arrived with quite a crowd of fellow-country-
men he had collected 11 Again, his choice of the exhausting land-route
.

rather than the more obvious sea one had a characteristic ulterior motive:
in every church centre through which he passed he was at pains to mobilise
the local clergy against John. When he reached Chalkedon, he was accom-
panied by numerous bishops, some invited by himself, others responding
to the emperor’s summons (presumably for the council at which the Egyp-
tian patriarch was to be tried). The motley band included the bishops John
had deposed in Asia, who joined the party ‘with the utmost alacrity’, as well
as several who were ill-disposed to him for other reasons 12 .

After a short interval, his plans completed, Theophilos and his entourage
crossed the Bosporus, putting in at the great harbour of Eleutherios 13 later ,

of Theodosios, on the sea of Marmara (now reduced to the pretty little

fishing port of Yenikapi). The harbour normally used by travellers from
Chalkedon was (as is the case today) in the Golden Horn; there the
Prosphorianos port had a special Scala Chalkedonensis reserved for them.
His decision to break with normal practice was deliberate: he wanted to
ensure a rousing send-off for his visit to the capital. It was in the harbour
of Eleutherios, with its vast adjacent granaries, that the ships bringing
from Alexandria the com for the regular free distributions of bread docked,
and he was aware that the fleet was already there, unloading its cargoes.
Thus, when he stepped ashore one Thursday around noon, he was greeted
by the thunderous cheers of the crews, proud to welcome their own patri-
arch 14 John had sent no delegation to meet him; it was common knowledge
.

that he had come as an enemy 15 He had nevertheless prepared accommo-

.

dation and hospitality which he pressed him and his companions to accept.
Theophilos, however, scorned the offer and refused to have anything to do
with him. In John’s own words, ‘He did not enter the church, as custom and
long-standing religious propriety required. He paid me no call, but rejected
all conversation with me, and declined to take part in prayer or communion
with me. Once disembarked from his boat, he rushed past the main porch
of the church and, disregarding my entreaties that he and his companions
would occupy the rooms we had been preparing for them, marched off and
set up his camp somewhere outside the city 16 In fact, we know in precise
.’

10
(SC 341.174).
Palladios, Dial.
11
Ep. ad Innocentium (SC 342.70).
1
12
Sozomen 8.16 (the sole source for these interesting facts).
13
R. Janin, Constantinople byzantine (Paris 1950), 218-20; 226 (Prosphorianos port).
14
Palladios, Dial. 8 (SC 341.160); Sokrates 6.15; Sozomen 8.17.
15
Sozomen 8.17.
16
Ep. 1 ad Innocentium (SC 342.70-2).
214 Golden Mouth
terms from Sokrates, and more generally from Sozomen, 17 that Theophilos
found lodging in a magnificent mansion, the Palatium Placidianum, nor-
mally assigned by the state to the reigning Augusta or one recently
widowed, which stood in the First Region close to the imperial palace
18
itself. John’s evasive reference to his camping ‘somewhere outside the city’
was probably prompted by his reluctance to have to tell the pope that his
persecutor had been the empress’s personal guest.
With this palace as his base Theophilos spent the next three weeks
systematically lobbying anyone who had a grievance against John or for
any reason disliked him, not scrupling (if we can trust Palladios) 19 to make
lavish use of bribery or the persuasive power of sumptuous entertainment.
For his headquarters he used the house of the rich widow Eugraphia, leader
of a cabal of society ladies who hated John for his unsparing strictures on
their avarice, extravagance, and vanity. A typical sally, which Palladios
cites as reflecting credit on his hero, was the reproof: Time has made you
old women: so why do you take forceful measures to rejuvenate your
appearances, arranging kiss-curls above your foreheads as tarts do, shock-
ing other decent women, all so as to give a false impression of youthfulness
to the people you meet, whereas in fact you are widows?’ In the same house
he met and plotted with John’s most determined adversaries, Severian of
Gabala, another Syrian Antiochos of Ptolemais (also a popular preacher,
nicknamed Golden Mouth in his lifetime), 20 and the venerable, widely
respected Akakios of Beroea (Haleb), whom John had sent in 398 as a
trusted envoy to pope Siricius. 21 For what it is worth, Palladios attributes
the present bitterness of the last-mentioned against John to disgust at the
mean accommodation provided for him when visiting the capital the
previous year. 22 There is a suggestion in ‘Martyrios’, who also reports that
these three worked together to ruin John, that Theophilos also held a
private conference with the empress at which they reached a mutual
compact assuring her of the elimination of her bishop and him of judicial
immunity23 (it is scarcely surprising that our other sources are silent about
so delicate a matter). Meanwhile John, by his own frank admission to the
pope, 24 was in a state of total embarrassment, at a loss to understand the
motive for Theophilos’ hostility, still less what he was up to. As he put it,
‘I did everything that seemed proper. I repeatedly invited him to meet me,

and to explain for what reason he had, from the moment of his arrival, set
such a conflict ablaze and brought scandal to our great city.’

17
Sokrates 6.15; Sozomen 8.17.
18
R. Janin, op. cit., 135-6, with n. 1.
19
Dial. 8 (SC 341.160-4).
20
Sozomen 8.10.
21
See above, p. 117.
22
Dial. 6 (SC 341.126).
23
P 480b-481a: see AB 95 (1977), 402-3. His reference to the three bishops is in P 483a-b.
24
Ep. 1 ad Innocentium (SC 342.72).
 16. The Oak 215
True to character, Theophilos spumed these approaches. Until now the
tide had been flowing wholly in his favour. Rapturously received in the city,
installed in an imperial palace, he was intriguing with circles close to the
court and, apparently, with the empress herself. If he had not yet discred-
ited John, he would soon be well placed to do so, and also perhaps achieve
his downfall. It was probably at this juncture that the plan, reported by
Sokrates and Sozomen 25 for getting Theophilos to preside over a synod
,

which would impeach and condemn John began being canvassed in the
palace. At this point, according to John’s own account 26 Theophilos’ accus-
,

ers, i.e. the Long Brothers and their companions, began applying fresh
pressure to the emperor; presumably they were alarmed by the signs that
their persecutor, supposedly summoned to stand his trial, was about to
stage a triumphant come-back, with unforeseeable but certainly ruinous
consequences to themselves. Their pleas seem to have recalled Arkadios to
his senses. With a weak man’s unpredictability he sent John a peremptory
message ordering him to cross the Bosporus and present himself at the
palace on the eastern side where he was temporarily residing 27 This can .

only have been the Rufinianai, the sumptuous mansion three miles from
Chalkedon which the praetorian prefect Rufinus had built for himself, but
which had been seized by the state when he was disgraced 28 Here he was .

to open the council convened to adjudicate the charges brought against

Theophilos - charges which, John added, included violence, even murder.
The abrupt change of course suggests that the court, always irresolute and
vacillating, but still primarily concerned for the unhappy refugees, was also
shot through with divisions which interested parties like them were quick
to exploit.
This was John’s great opportunity. Had he been a political realist, he
would have seized it without hesitation. Had he done so, we can only

speculate what the outcome would have been. But he did not. Without
hesitation and in the strongest terms he refused to act as Theophilos’ judge.
His own report to the pope clearly explains his reasons for so deciding:
Aware as I was of the laws of our fathers, respecting and honouring this
man, having moreover in my hands a letter of his which demonstrated that
judicial cases may not lawfully be tried outside the territory of their origin
but that matters affecting each province should properly be settled within
that province, I refused to act as his judge, indeed rejected the proposal
with the utmost vehemence 29 .’

25
See above, p. 212.
26
1 ad lnnocentium (SC 342.72).
Ep.
27
Loc. cit., lines 44-5: we are indebted to A.M. Malingre/s restoration of what seems the
correct text, substituting the infinitive peran suggested by the mss E and R for the adverb
p6ran commonly accepted.
28
R. Janin, op. cit., 150-1; 459-60.
29
Ep. 1 ad lnnocentium (SC 342.72). It is not clear whether the letter he refers to is the one
he had received from Theophilos on his return from Asia (see above, p. 199) or a fresh warning
shot.
216 Golden Mouth

This, as events were soon to prove, was in fact the critical turning-point
which determined John’s fate. However intense the indignation felt in the
palace, by Eudoxia in particular, at his blistering denunciations, it is
evident that the authorities were still, with whatever understandable
hesitations, adhering to their original policy of bringing Theophilos to
justice for his ill-treatment of the Long Brothers. They must have been
astonished, mystified and finally infuriated by John’s stubborn refusal to
co-operate and implement the agreed plan. From this moment they seem
to have decided to wash their hands of him, and to give the go-ahead to the
alternative plan now being mooted in court circles of having John himself
brought to trial before Theophilos. Arkadios and his advisers must have
been strengthened in their decision by the evidence rapidly piling up of the
bitter hostility which John aroused among great numbers of bishops and
clergy in the capital, as well as in circles close to the court.
Theophilos, to whom the news of the emperor’s summons to John to
proceed with his trial must have come as an unexpected shock, must for
his part have been equally amazed and delighted by his enemy’s reluctance
to act. Not only had the danger disappeared, but the initiative had clearly
passed to himself. Most important, he could now count (as will soon emerge)
on the co-operation, indeed support, of the authorities. With enthusiasm
he redoubled his efforts to amass a dossier of plausible charges against
John. Among those who eagerly supplied him with accusations, in return
for a promise of reinstatement, were the two deacons whom John had
sacked on criminal charges at the beginning of his reign 30 Isaac also,
.

revered leader of the monks of the capital, but burning with bitter resent-
ment against its bishop 31 was only too keen to provide compromising
,

material. But in his present confident mood Theophilos felt the time had
come for him to take a drastic initiative. ‘Launching a fresh line of attack,’
John was to write helplessly to the pope 32 ‘he summoned my archdeacon
,

entirely on his own authority, as if the church were already widowed and
no longer had a bishop, and with his collaboration won my entire clergy
over to his side. From that moment the churches were in uproar, with the
clergy in each being seduced from their allegiance, suborned to produce
allegations against me, and encouraged to indict me.’ Even allowing for the
defections to be expected as the realisation of his beleaguered position
spread, one is amazed by his frank admission of the fragile hold he
apparently had on the loyalty of his clergy.
Soon Theophilos had not only compiled what he judged to be a plausible
charge-sheet, but had mobilised a numerous, formidable opposition to

30
Palladios, Dial. 8 (SC 341.162).
31
See above, pp. 123-5.
32
Ep. 1 ad Innocentium ( CS 342.72-4).
 16. The Oak 217
John. With his bishops and other supporters he then recrossed the
Bosporus to the eastern shore; it would be much less risky to mount his
offensive against John there, in territory controlled by his ally bishop
Cyrinos, than in Constantinople itself, where the populace was likely to
demonstrate if they saw their beloved bishop threatened. The operation
had been carefully planned, and he established himself in the suburb of
Chalkedon known as The Oak (Drus ) in the splendid Rufinianai palace
mentioned in the previous section; close by it was a small port which, as
we shall see, was to prove convenient. The fact that he had permission to
use this imperial mansion as the setting of the proceedings he was planning
to bring against John is itself proof that they had the approval, indeed
authorisation, of the government.
One final but indispensable preparatory step he now took was to make
peace with the Long Brothers. Sokrates, 33 followed by several modem
scholars, 34 places his reconciliation with them soon after John’s deposition,
but Sozomen’s statement, 35 backed by fairly circumstantial information,
that it took place before the opening of John’s trial, inspires greater
confidence. This was a concession on which the imperial couple is likely to
have insisted, and which in any case Theophilos knew it would be tactful
to make in view of Eudoxia’s personal concern for the Long Brothers.
Sozomen indicates that he had them brought across the Bosporus to The
Oak and housed in the monastery attached to Rufinianai. Here he invited
them to reconsider their position, promising that if they did so he would
bear no grudge against them; it was made clear that the whole issue of
Origenism had been dropped. The wretched men, already stunned by
John’s refusal to sit in judgment on their persecutor, were easily persuaded
to supplicate for pardon, and this the Egyptian Pharaoh graciously granted
them, restoring them to communion with himself. Sozomen sardonically
remarks that the settlement could hardly have been reached so easily had
their more resolute leaders been available. Bishop Dioskoros, however, had
died some time previously, and Ammonios was fatally ill and, although he
had struggled to get to The Oak, died before John’s trial opened. He won a
tearful tribute from his former persecutor, who remarked that, although
he had caused him a great deal of trouble, he had never known a monk to
equal him in moral stature. 36

33
6.16.
34
Notably Lenain de Tillemont, M6moires pour servir a Vhistoire eccl6siastique des premiers
six si&cles (Venice 1732), XI. 487 and 644 n. 15. See also Baur, 255.
35
8.17.
36
Sozomen 8.17.
218 Golden Mouth

IV
Itwas probably in late September that Theophilos’ court, henceforth to be
known as the Synod of The Oak, opened. 37 Its actual members, according
38
to Palladios, numbered thirty-six; twenty-nine of these, he emphasises,
had come from Egypt. Those from other regions included notorious enemies
of John, like Severian, Antiochos, Akakios and Cyrinos of Chalkedon.
Among others present who were not strictly members of the tribunal were
the bishops John had deposed in Asia and prominent clergy he had
quarrelled with or degraded in Constantinople, notably the abbot Isaac.
Photios, later to be patriarch (857-67; 878-86), who had access to the
archives of the see of Constantinople, published an invaluable resume of
the acts of the synod, 39 and these make it clear that while Theophilos, with
Akakios, Antiochos, Severian, and Cyrinos as his coadjutors, effectively
controlled its business ( huperchon katarehontes) Paul, bishop of Heraklea,
f

was its official president (protos tes sunodou ). 40 This arrangement had been
carefully thought out. It would not have done for Theophilos himself to be
seen as presiding at any stage of the proceedings. Had he done so, he would
have been guilty of the canonical impropriety against which he had sternly
warned John. On the other hand, Heraklea was the senior see of Thrace
next after Constantinople, and for its bishop to take the chair gave the
tribunal a plausible air of legality. Paul, we recall, 41 had been a close
confidant of John, accompanying him on his Asian visitation, but had
evidently had second thoughts about his master. Reluctance to recognise
this explains the insistence of some older scholars that Theophilos presided
over at any rate the opening sessions. 42 Palladios, it is true, makes no
mention of Paul’s presidency, but he too had no wish to bring it into the
open that John’s old friend was now sitting in judgment on him. His
references to ‘the envoys of Theophilos’ and to John’s replies being sent to
Theophilos imply nothing more than that the Alexandrian was in de facto
charge of the agenda.
The court had before it a list of twenty-nine charges industriously
compiled by the two deacons whom John had discharged soon after his own
appointment; Theophilos had promised them reinstatement as their re-
ward. 43 These were to be supplemented, as we shall see, by a further
seventeen submitted by Isaac. The preliminaries concluded, the court

37
P. Ubaldi, ‘La sinodo ad Quercum dell’anno 403’, Memorie della Reale Accademia delle
Scienze di Torino ser. II, t. 52 (1903), 33-98 remains fundamental. See also F. van Om-
meslaeghe, AB 95 (1977), 389-413. For the date see Baur, 2.257-8.
38
Dial. 3 (SC 341.66).
39
Critical edition by A.M. Malingrey, SC 342; ET in Appendix C.
40
SC 342.100 and 112.
41
See above, p. 174.
42
See, e.g., the discussion by A. Favale in Teofdo dAlessandria (Turin 1958), 136-7.
43
Palladios, Dial. 8 (SC 341.162).
 16. The Oak 219
dispatched two young, recently consecrated bishops from Libya, accompa-
nied by a secretary, to convey a formal summons to John to appear before
44
it. According to Palladios, the citation was addressed, with calculated
insolence, ‘to John’, with no mention of his status as bishop. He was
requested to bring Sarapion, his former archdeacon, and the priest Tigrios,
a protege of Sarapion’s, with him. Sokrates adds that he was also asked to
bring a reader named Paul. 45 John’s own report to the pope was terser: ‘He
sent to fetch me, and cited me before his tribunal.’ 46 But it had a sting in
its tail: ‘This he did notwithstanding the fact that he himself had not been
cleared of the accusations brought against him - something grievously
contrary to the canons and to every law.’
Meanwhile John seems to have been well aware of what was happening.
Palladios, who claims to have been present, draws a graphic picture of him
seated, in the reception hall of his palace, surrounded by and conversing
with forty bishops; 47 they were probably bishops who had assembled in
Constantinople in response to the emperor’s summons, and had until now
been expecting to sit in judgment on Theophilos. Some historians 48 have
deduced from this, and from the message they were shortly to send to The
Oak, that, provoked by Theophilos’ challenge, John had revoked his earlier
decision and had convened the council originally ordered by Arkadios.
There is no hint of this either in Palladios’ account or in John’s letter to
Innocent I, and such a move by him would have been inconceivable without
the express authorisation of the emperor, who had now given his full
support and encouragement to Theophilos’ tribunal. In fact, Palladios’
narrative, a set-piece richly charged with emotional overtones and recalling
(possibly modelled on) the philosopher Sokrates’ (d. 399 BC) last conversa-
tion with his friends set out in Plato’s Phaedo 49 depicts John consoling,
,

encouraging, and exhorting his faithful brothers at what he believes must

be his last hour. Palladios describes how John, with a characteristic
gesture, thrust the index finger of his right hand into the palm of his left,
and impressed on all present that they must not abandon their churches
whatever happened to him. They must not, of course, sign any decree
deposing him since he was not conscious of anything meriting such a
sentence. That apart, they must do all in their power to maintain commun-
ion with his adversaries so as to avoid splitting the church.
When ‘Theophilos’ envoys’, as they are called by Palladios, had arrived
and had had the citation read out by the secretary, John’s supporting
bishops, according to Palladios, 50 sent the Alexandrian a sharp rejoinder

44
Dial. 8 (SC 341.170).
45
6.15.
46
Ep. 1ad Innocentium (SC 342.74).
47
Dial. 8 (SC 341.166-8).
48
E.g. E. Demougeot, De l‘unit6 a la division de Vempire romain (Paris 1951), 318.
49
P. Ubaldi, art. cit., 68 n. 4.
50
Dial. 8 (SC 341.170-4).
220 Golden Mouth

on their own account, protesting against theillegality, under canon 5 of the

council of Nicaea, of hispresuming to set up a court in a region outside his
episcopal jurisdiction, and adding for good measure that, as they were a
more numerous and representative assembly, armed with a full dossier of
charges against him, it would make more sense for him to cross the
Bosporus and come to be judged by them. John for his part declined to
associate himself with this blunt challenge, but insisted on sending a
personal reply. This amounted to a robust refusal to appear before a court
manifestly packed with declared enemies; before he would recognise its
jurisdiction at least Theophilos and Akakios, who had made no secret of
their determination to destroy him, as well as Severian and Antiochos,
must be removed from it. His own later, compressed report to the pope51
makes no mention of a separate, more sharply worded reply sent by his
colleagues to Theophilos, but confirms, in agreement with Palladios, that
the proven hostility of several of the judges, together with the canonical
impropriety of an Egyptian bishop setting up a court in Thrace, was the
substance of his objection. From this report, as well as from Palladios’
narrative and the excerpts of the official record preserved by Photios, 52 it
is clear that he was fully prepared to answer accusations brought against
him provided that those who were his sworn enemies were excluded from
the tribunal.
The clergy carrying the two rejoinders back to the synod met with such
a brutal reception that some of them, to save their skins, switched to
Theophilos’ camp, while others, intimidated, could only advise waiting to
see how events unfolded. 53 Palladios records that scarcely had the ill-fated
men set out from the reception hall than a notary, an official of the
consistory, arrived from the palace bearing an imperial order instructing
John, whatever his personal wishes in the matter, to present himself before
the court. Sozomen gives further details, 54 speaking of ‘a courier and a
shorthand writer’ and adding that their task included urging the tribunal
to get on with its work with all speed. According to Palladios, a second
delegation from The Oak was then announced, consisting of two of John’s
own priests, Eugenios and the monk Isaac. But John rebuffed them with
the complaint that his enemies were still sitting among his accusers. But
Palladios’ information was not complete (he was not out to be an exhaustive
chronicler), and can be supplemented from our other sources. First, these
indicate that no fewer than four55 citations were dispatched to John in rapid
succession that day (a succession of boats must have been scurrying to and
fro between the little harbour at Rufinianai and the port of Prosphorianos).

51
Ep. 1 ad Innocentium {SC 342.74-6).
52
See esp. Photios’ excerpts: SC 342.106.
53
Palladios, Dial. 8 {SC 341.176-8), supplemented by ‘Martyrios’, P 486b-489b, and Sozomen,
8.17.
54
Loc. cit.
55
On this the acts of the synod, ‘Martyrios’ (loc. cit.), and the historians are agreed.
 16. The Oak 221
Three was the prescribed number; but if the tribunal was prepared to
exceed that, it failed to observe customary procedure in other important
respects - notably in not submitting to the accused the list of accusations
and the names of his judges, and in not allowing him to raise objections to
any of the latter. 56 Secondly, ‘Marty rios’ suggests not one but repeated
interventions by the palace. All vacillation had evidently disappeared, and
the imperial couple were now openly taking sides with Theophilos. This
makes one sceptical of the charge of illegality, as distinct from canonical
irregularity, commonly alleged against the synod. 57 Finally, it is clear, both
from the historians but most persuasively, of course, from John’s own letter
to the pope, that he was already appealing over the heads of his accusers
to a general council to review and adjudicate the whole affair. It was to be
his bitter protest that, ‘although I had declared my readiness to refute their
charges in the presence of a hundred, even a thousand, bishops ... in my
absence, while I was calling for a synod and demanding a judgment’,
Theophilos had pressed shamelessly ahead with his illegally constituted
court packed with prejudiced accusers and witnesses. 58

V
While impatiently awaiting John’s reaction to its successive summonses,
the synod had before it, and was no doubt exchanging views on, the
charge-sheet compiled by his two former deacons. For the reader’s conven-
ience all twenty-seven charges, along with the seventeen later submitted
Isaac, are printed in Appendix C in an English translation
59
by the monk
of the authoritative text preserved by Photios. Palladios, we should note,
gives no account of the proceedings, but refers to two or three of all these
60
charges in unrelated contexts; ‘Martyrios’ reproduces seven of them, but
the historians none. This highlights the difficulty we should have had in
reconstructing the events of the synod had not Photios made his abstract
of its acts. The charges in fact make an extraordinary medley, set out as
they are haphazard and without regard to logical order. For convenience
we may arrange them in several groups.
Three (2, 19, 27) fastened on acts of violence or cruelty attributed to John:
e.g. he had had accusers of the Long Brothers imprisoned
61
and had then
neglected them, and had given a bloody blow in the face to one Memnon
before starting divine service. Four more (1, 9, 21, 26) blamed him for
having had clergy unjustly suspended, accused, deposed, or even exiled.
One (6) recalled that he had spoken of the recently deceased, everywhere

56
F. van Ommeslaeghe, art. cit., 417.
57
Cf., e.g., Photios’ description of it as ‘illegally (paranomos ) assembled’: SC 342.100.
58
Ep. 1 ad Innocentium (SC 342.76).
59
See below, pp. 299-301.
60
Loc. cit. See F. van Ommeslaeghe, art. cit., 410-11.
61
See above, p. 201.
222 Golden Mouth

revered Epiphanios as a crazed babbler; while others (5, 7, 8, 20, 22) claimed
that he had treated his clergy with contempt, slandered them in his
writings, or otherwise exposed them to embarrassment (his victims in-
cluded Severian and Antiochos). Four (3, 4, 16, 17) cast doubts on the
probity of his financial administration: he had sold precious objects and
marble building material belonging to the church, as well as a bequest left
to it, while no one had a clue to what he had done with the revenues of the
see. Three more (15, 23, 25) held his private life up to question: he received
visits from women with no one else present, reserved the palace bath for
his exclusive use, and took his meals alone, gorging himself gluttonously.
In five (10, 13, 14, 18, 24) he was alleged to have conducted ordinations
irregularly (e.g. ordaining men still subject to charges, or without witnesses
being present). Two (12, 28) referred to supposed liturgical omissions or
improprieties (failing to say prayers when setting out for or leaving church,
and changing his vestments at the throne and eating a piece of bread after
communion), while another (29) insinuated that he gave money to bishops
he consecrated so as to consolidate his hold over the clergy under him. One
(11), incongruously but with the clear object of embarrassing him politi-
cally, dragged up from the past the allegation that he had betrayed 62 count
John, Eudoxia’s favourite, at the time of Gainas’ military coup.
Sokrates was to brush these indictments aside as ‘bizarre’ ( atopous ), 63
and the modem student is puzzled what to make of them. Some seem
merely frivolous. A bishop can hardly have merited deposition because he
allowed an over-zealous minder to bar his bath to other users, still less
because of his preference for robing in full view of the congregation rather
than in the vestry. The complaints about John’s shabby treatment of his
former deacon, and of his demanding guest bishop Akakios, were no more
than grouses put forward by these very persons. The innuendo about his
receiving women alone was malicious tittle-tattle. Other charges bordered
on the libellous. Whatever John’s reasons for taking meals privately, they
did not include gourmandise; while, however high-handed his sales of
church property, most people must have known that they were not designed
to enrich himself but to finance his charities. He may not have been as
sympathetic as he should have been to the Long Brothers’ slanderers, but
it was the government, not he, which had gaoled them. Admittedly, there
64

is likely to have been an element of truth, perhaps a substantial one, in

several of the charges. John was authoritarian and imperious; we can
readily believe, for example, that when he was determined to ordain
somebody, he may have pushed ahead with the ceremony without observ-
ing the usual conventions or scrutinising possible objections to the candi-
date. He could also be blunt-spoken, ill-tempered and harsh; from the start

62
See above, pp. 154-6.
63
6.15. Cf. P. Ubaldi’s remark about their showing Hina mancanza di seriet&’: art. cit., p. 76.
64
Palladios, Dial. 8 (SC 341.158).
 16. The Oak 223
he had ruled his clergy with a firmness which brooked no opposition but
created great resentment. 65 Even so, one may reasonably question whether
the specific grievances voiced in the charge-sheet could have stood up to
close judicial scrutiny. Sokrates’ dismissal of them is significant, and
hardly less so is the tribunal’s own reluctance to spell them out when
forwarding its verdict to the emperor. 66
When it became apparent that, even after four citations, John was
stubbornly refusing to appear before it unless his principal accusers were
stood down, the synod (according to Photios’ summary of its proceedings) 67
started its formal business, addressing itself to the first two charges. There
was then an interruption; it had to turn its attention to the cases of
Herakleides, whom John had consecrated bishop of Ephesos, 68 and of
Palladios of Helenopolis, John’s biographer. This diversion was caused by
the monk John, whose complaint of victimisation by John the synod had
begun considering. It would seem that, when giving his evidence, he had
launched an attack on Herakleides (possibly on Palladios too), branding
him as an Origenist, and also as having been guilty of petty theft when
John ordained him. After dealing with these matters and other grievances
put forward by the monk, the synod returned to the charge-sheet and,
apparently deciding that it was too long for clause-by-clause scrutiny,
concentrated on the ninth charge (John’s public indictment of three of his
deacons for theft) and the twenty-seventh (the punch he was alleged to have
given Memnon - an ironical choice since the judges themselves had recently
witnessed the beating-up of John’s envoys). At this point Isaac stepped
forward and, after adding fuel to the case against Herakleides by stating
that Epiphanios had refused all fellowship with him because of his
Origenist leanings, volunteered a fresh dossier of charges against John
compiled by himself. One suspects he was prompted to do so by his own,
perhaps the general, dissatisfaction with the official dossier.
This suspicion is borne out by the fact that, while several of his charges
overlap with ones on the monk John’s list, his revised version omits their
implausible features and gives them a sharper edge. For example, he
repeats (3) the complaint about John’s taking his meals alone, but cuts out
the absurd suggestion that he was privately indulging himself. The objec-
tion to the practice, he argues, was the discredit it brought on the duty of
hospitality expected of a bishop. Again, he gave added weight to the
allegation that John’s ordinations could be irregular by claiming (14) that
it was his habit to ordain men without proper synodical consultation or

even contrary to the wishes of his clergy (an imputation modem students
are likely to find credible). Most of the items on his dossier, however, were

65
See above, pp. 125-7.
66
See below, pp. 226; 228.
67
SC 342.106-8.
68
See above, p. 174.
224 Golden Mouth

fresh. In one example, he pointed out that Epiphanios had refused

(2), for
to hold fellowship with John, a statement which, in the atmosphere of
veneration surrounding the holy man, came close to declaring him excom-
municate. In another (8) he accused him of inciting the people to demon-
strate against The Oak. It is hard to believe there was any truth in this,
since John was fully aware that his trial had the emperor’s blessing; but
the thrust provides interesting evidence that his treatment by the authori-
69
ties was already provoking popular indignation. In others he attacked
John for ordaining bishops in provinces outside his jurisdiction (10), for
ordering bishops to be driven from his house without the customary letters
of commendation (11), and for consecrating as bishops slaves who did not
belong to him and had not been freed by their masters (16). The first is the
only clear reference at the synod to his seemingly high-handed behaviour
during his Asian tour; one might have expected to hear more of it, but the
better-informed of his judges were probably anxious to play it down since
they knew that it had imperial backing. The second reads like a modified
version of the more violent account of his attempt to pack Severian off to
his Syrian diocese 70 which figured as the seventh item in the official
charge-sheet. The third gives us a sharp reminder that both church and
state still excluded slaves from holy orders unless they had previously been
granted freedom by their masters. 71
Several of Isaac’s imputations continue to baffle scholars, who can find
no satisfactory explanation for them. In the ninth he criticises John for
giving asylum in church to pagans (Hellenas who have injured Christians,
but no specific instance of his having done so has been produced. The
suggestion 72 that Isaac was referring to Eutropios seems untenable since
by all accounts the eunuch was a serious Christian. In two more (4 and 5)
he demands an explanation of bizarre language he alleges John used in
church, describing the altar as ‘filled with Furies’ and exclaiming ‘I am
beside myself with love’. No trace of such expressions can be found in John’s
surviving sermons; if the attribution is correct, it is conceivable that either
the preacher or an editor erased them as inappropriate from the stenogra-
pher’s draft.
Finally, two challenged John on important points of doctrine. The sixth
accused him of giving carte blanche to sinners by teaching that, however
often they sinned, so long as they repented and came to him, he would heal
them; while the seventh alleged that he had blasphemed by asserting in
church that, while Christ had prayed, he had not been heard because he
had not prayed in the proper way. For the former charge, which was

69
See below, p. 229.
70
See above, p. 185.
71
Cf. Arkadios’ recent legislation in CT 9.45.3 (27 July 398).
72
P. Ubaldi, art. cit., 80, who remarks (rather weakly) that ‘his life was in truth more pagan
than Christian’.
 16 The Oak
. 225
apparently widely believed and brought criticism from his friends, John, 73

we may suspect, had only himself to blame. The church in those days had
a severe penitential discipline for dealing with sins committed after bap-
tism, but it was a once-for-all exercise and subject to such demanding
conditions that it was normally postponed until death’s approach. In his
eagerness to give fresh hope to troubled consciences, he often went over the
top in extolling the efficacy of repentance (i.e. the humble outpouring of the
contrite heart to God) in liberating them from their sins; 74 for example, he
could say, "You are a sinner? Don’t give up. I keep on applying these
ointments to you Even if you sin every day, every day repent.’ 75 It is little
. . .

wonder that such unqualified language upset puritan-minded people. But

the thrust of the second charge escapes us, for it has proved impossible to
identify any passage which exactly fits it. Perhaps it rests on a misunder-
standing of John’s exegesis of the unanswered prayer, ‘Father, let this cup
pass from me’ (Matt.26.39), according to which it was in respect of his
humanity that Jesus uttered the prayer, while in respect of his divine
nature his will was in complete harmony with the Father’s; 76 or on a
misinterpretation of his routine teaching that, as Christ, Jesus had no need
to pray since he and the Father were one in will. 77

VI
The tribunal did not, apparently, investigate John’s extra-territorial
78
power-building. In fact, according to Photios’ excerpts from its acts, it
examined only two items on Isaac’s dossier: Epiphanios’ refusal to hold
communion with him (2), and his supposed blasphemy in the matter of
Christ’s unanswered prayers. It then turned back to the original dossier
submitted by the deacon John, concentrating on the charges (3 and 4) that
John had sold off precious objects and marble building material belonging
to the church. Here the archpriest Arsakios, bishop Nektarios’ brother who
a year later was to succeed John, and the priest Attikos stood up as
witnesses and testified against him. Photios interposes on his own account
the tart question how these two could possibly have claimed to be witnesses
of the affair. There was then a demand that the synod should conclude its
proceedings and pronounce judgment. The president, Paul of Heraklea,
agreed, and those present and entitled to do so voted one by one, Theophilos
casting his vote last. When the turn of Akakios of Beroea came, he is
reported to have remarked, ‘If only I could be sure that, if we were to grant

73
Sokrates 6.21.
74
See esp. in Heb. hom. 9.2-4; 31.3 (PG 63.78-80; 215-17).
75
De poenit. hom. 8.1 (PG 49.337).
76
In illud, Pater si possibile (PG 51.35-7).
77
E.g. In Joh. hom. 64.2 (PG 59.356-7).
78
SC 342.112.
226 Golden Mouth

him pardon, .John would reform himself and abandon his hardness and
rudeness ( duritia et asperitate), I would have interceded with you all on his
behalf.’79 We owe this reminiscence to no less a person than Theophilos’
young nephew Cyril, destined to be his successor at Alexandria and a
renowned if controversial theologian, whom his uncle had brought from
Egypt with him. Akakios’ comment is all the more significant because,
although he was now hostile to John, he had formerly been a trusted
confidant 80 and was himself a widely respected man.
The vote was for John’s deposition, not apparently on the basis of the
specific charges adduced (were they considered too loaded in the main
with petty personal complaints?), but on the ground of his contumacious
refusal to respond to the court’s summons. ‘Martyrios’ sarcastically
remarks that, after condemning John for non-appearance, his judges
somewhat inconsistently produced a memorandum, to be circulated to
the public as well as the clergy and official circles, listing the accusations
on which their verdict had been based 81 According to Photios’ summary
.

of the minutes 82 forty-five voted. How the number had risen from around
,

thirty-six is not immediately clear, but it is possible that some of the

additional signatures were those of bishops deposed by John who had
not originally been members of the court; others may even have been
those of defectors from John’s camp. Palladios is often said to have
claimed that the synod carried through all its deliberations in a single
day 83 This is intrinsically unlikely, for the sending of the four citations
.

and of the replies of John and his supporters must alone have consumed
many hours, with boats ferrying their bearers to and fro across the
straits. But at this point Palladios’ narrative is exceptionally condensed;
what in fact he seems to have been protesting about was that the judges
had carried out their sentence of deposition in a single day, i.e. with the
barest minimum of deliberation. ‘Martyrios’, w e should note, simply r

remarks that the synod worked in great haste. Photios’ abstract, how-
ever, categorically states that the proceedings occupied twelve sessions
(
praxeis ), a thirteenth being assigned to the case of Herakleides of
Ephesos. On the basis of this and a comparison with the general proce-
dural practice of synods one of John’s most learned biographers, J.
Stilting, argued that the tribunal must have ‘lasted three or four
weeks 84 We get a distinct impression, however, that both the court and
’.

the synod itself were determined that it should dispatch its business

79
Cyril of Alexandria, Ep. 33 ( PG 77.159: only the Latin translation survives).
80
See above, p. 117.
81
P 498a-b.
82
SC 342.112.
83
Dial. 8 (SC 341.178). Cf. F. van Ommeslaeghe, art. cit., 406: ‘toutes les sessions ... en un
jour.’
84
AASS Sept. IV 591C (Venice 1761).
 16. The Oak 227
with all speed, and the evidence of ‘Martyrios’ concurs with this. More
recent conjectures that its duration was ‘about a fortnight 85 or even just
’,

‘eight or ten days ’, 86 have much to commend them, but they are only
conjectures.

J.B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire 1, 152 n. 1.

Baur, 2,261 n. 49.

 17

Between Two Exiles

The synod lost no time in sending Arkadios a formal report of its decisions.
As summarised by Palladios, this declared that various charges had been
1

brought against John but that, although aware of his guilt, he had declined
to appear in person to answer them. He had therefore been sentenced to
deposition as the canons required. The report added that the indictments
had included a charge of high treason, on which the synod admitted that
it had no competence to adjudicate. No trace of this, we should note, appears

in Photios’ excerpts from the minutes. The report ended by expressing the
hope that the emperor would issue an order for John’s summary banish-
ment, and would refer the charge of treason, which was a capital one, to
the appropriate court. Notification of John’s deposition was simultaneously
sent to the clergy of Constantinople.
The crime of high treason’, Palladios went on, ‘was the insult he had
given the empress, according to the synod’s report, in having called her
Jezebel.’ Only Palladios mentions the inclusion of the treason charge in the
report to the emperor, but there is no reason to question his accuracy. It
has been suggested, 2 however, that Palladios himself may not have believed
that John had been guilty of such an indiscretion, but nothing in his
language supports this. On the contrary, his expression of relief in the next
sentence that, mercifully, God had softened the hearts of the royal couple
indicates that he accepted that he had: there would have been no need for
generosity had no prima facie offence been committed. It is more difficult
to identify the occasion when John had ventured into such dangerous
territory. A common view is that he may have brought Jezebel as a
hate-figure into his notorious tirade against the female sex preached
shortly after Epiphanios’ departure, which was widely interpreted as a
covert attack on Eudoxia, 3 and that must remain a distinct possibility.
Alternatively, and perhaps more probably, the reference may be to a much
earlier sermon in early 401, when he and the empress were estranged

x
Dial. 8 (SC 341.178).
2
F. van Ommeslaeghe, AB 97 (1979), 132-3: see KG. Holum, Theodosian Empresses
(California 1982), 74 n. 105.
3
See above, p. 211.
 1 7. Between Two Exiles 229
because of her seizure of a widow's property. 4 That was a long time ago,
and the authorities had taken no action then. But it would not have been
untypical of the judges, with their ham-fisted methods of assembling their
evidence, to have dragged up this incident from the past in their efforts
finally to break John.
In any case the authorities were not prepared to do anything in regard
to the allegation of treason. Whatever they may have thought of it, they
were not interested in pressing a capital charge against their bishop. What
they wanted was his removal, and the synod’s sentence of deposition gave
them that. The sentence was at once confirmed, 5 and an imperial order was
issued for John’s immediate banishment. In the view of some modern
students 6 it was carried out that very day; this, they claim, is what John
himself implies in his later letter to Innocent I. But the claim rests on a
misreading of John’s text, which certainly states 7 that he was arrested and
put aboard a ship late one evening, but nowhere specifies which evening it
was. In fact, Sokrates and Sozomen 8 (here he is not simply copying Sokrates
but has independent information) are positive that the government could
do nothing for three days because of exceptionally violent demonstrations
in John’s favour. As we noted above, 9 the mob was already in a turbulent
mood during the earlier sessions of the synod. Immediately its verdict
became known, angry crowds rushed to Hagia Sophia, kept watch there
throughout the night, and prevented the officers sent to arrest John from
doing so. Meanwhile they were clamouring for a more authoritative council
to adjudicate the affair. The historians’ version is confirmed by the warm
tribute John was shortly to pay to his congregation for their devoted
support ‘for so many days’. 10

II

The timing of John’s arrest is not a matter of merely academic interest. The
recognition that there was a gap of three days before it took place enables
us to restore to its rightful position an important, in some respects contro-
verted, sermon of John’s which, where the alternative view prevailed, had
to be relegated to limbo.
It was on the morning of the second day, probably, that John stepped
forward to the ambo of his packed cathedral and delivered what he in-
tended, certainly in its opening paragraphs, to be a dignified farewell

4
See above, pp. 168-71.
5
SC 342.114.
6
E.g. Baur, 2,263:
cf. 2,270 n. 4.

342.78, lines 1-4. The previous sentence, which speaks of his being ‘driven from the
SC
7

church’, has nothing to do with his arrest, but refers to Theophilos’ relentless persecution of
him.
8
Sokrates 6.15 ad fin.; Sozomen 8.18.
9
See above, p. 224.
10
PG 52.430.
230 Golden Mouth
address. A text, five sections long, which purports to be this address has
come down, 11 and while critics remain divided about the closing two
sections, there hasbeen a reasonable consensus that the first three are
authentic. Although plainly an abbreviation of the original, they leave a
strong impression of John’s style, language and characteristically direct,
outgoing approach. His object, clearly, is to prepare his worried listeners
for his imminent exile. Instead of getting alarmed or turbulent, he urges
them to sustain him with their prayers. 12 So. he dwells eloquently on his
own readiness to face whatever disasters are in store, on the invincibility
of the church so often demonstrated in history, on the bond between a
bishop and his flock which, like that between husband and wife, makes
them inseparable. With Christ’s promise, ‘Lo, I am with you always’ (Matt.
28.20) ringing in his ears, what has he to fear? Above all, he places his
confidence in the trust and loyalty of his devoted people wonderfully
displayed in the courageous vigils they have been keeping for him recently.
Themes like these criss-cross in the opening sections. In the closing two
the tone changes abruptly: John turns from affectionate pleading and
exhortation to polemical abuse. They have come down in what seem to be
two redactions which at points repeat, at points supplement each other. 13
The text of both is confused, even chaotic, and the Greek seems occasionally
hardly to make sense. In both redactions John angrily asks why his
persecutors are so keen to depose him. It is because he has refused to
indulge in the soft life of luxury himself, and also refused to sanction their
gluttony and avarice. In the second he takes a swipe at Theophilos without
naming him: just as long ago the Egyptian Potiphar tried to seduce Joseph,
so an Egyptian today - in vain - seeks to separate John from the flock which
is his spiritual bride. Even Arkadios (again not named) is asked to reflect
that David, the model king, made no attack on true religion, never made
ill-gotten gains his aim, and never allowed himself to be led by his wife. In
both there are warnings to misguided women who shut their ears to the
truth, give bad advice to their husbands, or wage war against the immacu-
late church while wallowing themselves in a life of sensuality. In both the
figures of Jezebel and of Herodias, John the Baptist’s persecutor, are
paraded - ‘once again Herodias is dancing, and seeks the head of John’. In
one daring passage the preacher exclaims, ‘In the evening she called me
the thirteenth apostle, today she has branded me as Judas. Yesterday she
sat with me conversing freely, but today pounces on me like a wild beast.
But we must not forget the words of Job who, when he suffered so much
. . .

affliction, could only proclaim, “Blessed be the Lord’s name forever.”

’
14

11
Sermo antequam iret in exsilium (PG 52.427-32). Sir Henry Savile and Bernard de
Montfaucon, the greatest of John’s editors, accepted the genuineness of the three first sections.
12
PG 52.430 ad init.
13
PG 52.431-2; 435-8 (the latter is separately designated Sermo cum iret in exsilium).
14
PG 52.437-8.
 1 7. Between Two Exiles 231
These texts clearly present something of a problem. In traditionalist
circles they have generally been pushed to one side 15 - although this does
nothing to tackle the question how they originated in the first place. On
the other hand, scholars of the calibre and independence of O. Seeck 16 and
H. Lietzmann 17 had no doubts about their authenticity. According to them,
they represent, not shorthand notes of John’s actual address (if they had
been such, they would have been much less disjointed), but bits and pieces
of it as remembered by friendly listeners. To the present writer a solution
along these lines seems much the most satisfactory. 18 It is not easy to
imagine stenographers taking down, much less preserving copies of, such
politically sensitive material. Two further points deserve mention. First,
there is a clear link between these fragments and the three earlier sections,
not only in their common preoccupation with John’s exile, but in such
themes as the resemblance between a bishop’s relationship with his flock
and that of husband and wife. Secondly, the genuineness of at any rate part
of the second redaction is supported by the fact that, in his very next
sermon, 19 John was to remind his audience that he had appealed to the
words of Job cited above when setting out for exile.
However provocative the Finale of his farewell address, John was in no
mood for a head-on clash with the emperor. As her pastor he was ready
enough, when the occasion seemed to warrant it, to rebuke Eudoxia for
what he considered feminine follies, but his consistent attitude to Arkadios,
as to his father Theodosius I, was one of unwavering respect and deference.
If the imperial orders meant exile, he was fully prepared, as his sermon
had made plain, to accept it, placing his trust in God. So the following day,
at noon when the heat was at its most intense and the streets were
deserted, 20 he quietly slipped out of the church and, without fuss or
publicity, surrendered himself to the chief of police ( kouriosos ). Although
we have no proof of it, we may suspect that he had privately notified this
high official of his intention. The last thing he wanted, the historians
emphasise, was that there should be more rioting and civic uproar on his
account. Late that evening, with an enormous crowd surging around the
little procession, he was escorted under guard down to the port and bundled
eneballomen is the word he uses) aboard a waiting boat. As it sailed in the
(<

darkness from the Bosporus into the Sea of Marmara, he was still loudly
demanding a more authoritative court to review his case. He was being

15
Moulard, for example (341-2), fully agrees that John gave the address, but confines his
summary to the first three sections.
16
Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt 5, 361 and 581 n. 31.
17
PW IX.2.1822.
18
See also KG. Holum, Theodosian Empresses (California 1982), 74-5.
19
See below, p. 236.
20
Sokrates 6.15; Sozomen 8.18. In Ep. 1 ad Innocentium (SC 342.78) John seems to suggest
that his arrest and embarkation both took place in the late evening, but this is probably the
result of the compression inevitable in such a brief account.
232 Golden Mouth

taken to Praenetos, a market -town and developing port on the south coast
of the Astacene Gulf between Helenopolis and Nikomedia. It was the
preferred starting-point for travellers to Nicaea who had sensibly avoided
the tedious land route from Constantinople 21 .

m
Praenetos was probably intended as a temporary halting place. We have
no clue to the locality the government had planned (if indeed it had yet
reached a decision) for John’s permanent exile, but in any case he was never
to reach it. Against all expectation the authorities suddenly reversed their
policy in regard to him.
Predictably, the news of his deposition, and of his departure from the
city under guard, provoked a furious outburst of popular indignation,
directed in the first instance at the sovereigns, but even more at the bishops
who had taken part in The Oak, especially at Theophilos and Severian of
Gabala 22 The fact that Severian judged this the moment to declaim from
.

the pulpit that John had richly deserved his fate if only because of his
insufferable arrogance (‘God is prepared to forgive other faults, but scrip-
ture teaches that he resists the proud’) was like pouring petrol on a bonfire.
What was decisive, however, in forcing an about-turn on the authorities
was not mob violence but some disaster which they interpreted as a divine
warning. Theodoret identifies it as ‘a tremendous earthquake’ which took
place on the night after John’s arrest 23 but the evidence we should expect
,

confirming it is lacking. Palladios’ account 24 is diplomatically vague, but

suggests a personal tragedy: ‘on the following day a misfortune ( thrausis
occurred in the imperial bedchamber.’ O. Seeck took this to be an accident
to Eudoxia’s daughter Flacilla which resulted in her death 25 while Baur ,

explained it as a miscarriage suffered by Eudoxia herself 26 Baur’s conjec- .

ture, apparently, is supported by ‘Martyrios’ in language which, although

27
full of ‘laborious circumlocutions’, is unmistakable in its meaning .

Intensely superstitious, the empress inevitably took this to be a signal

of God’s anger at the expulsion of his consecrated representative, and
begged Arkadios to order John’s immediate recall (a request the emperor
is likely to have welcomed). To persuade John himself to agree she dis-
patched one of her favourite eunuchs, the chief chamberlain Brison, a friend
and admirer of John’s 28 to Praenetos to bring him back. She even sent John
,

21
A.H.M. Jones, Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (Oxford, 2 ed. 1971), 164-5.
22
Sokrates 6.15; Sozomen 8.18.
23
HE 5.34.5 (GCS 44.335).
24
Dial. 9 (SC 341.180).
25
Op. cit., 5.362. K.G. Holum, op. cit., 75, is inclined to take the same view.
26
2,265.
27
F. van Ommeslaeghe, AB 99 (1981), 337 (he does not quote the text).
28
See above, p. 138; also p. 255.
 1 7. Between Two Exiles 233
an agonised note, which he was shortly after to cite with satisfaction, 29
protesting before God that she had had no part in the plot which wicked,
depraved people had concocted against him, but deeply revered him as the
priest who had baptised her children. The royal emissaries had consider-
able difficulty in finding him; John claims that they had no clear idea of his
whereabouts, 30 so that one wonders if he had somehow gone into hiding.
When Brison eventually tracked him down, John was evidently in no hurry
to return. He insisted that, as he had been deposed by a synod, he could
not properly resume his former position until a subsequent synod had
overruled that verdict. His obstinacy added to the court’s impatience, and
no fewer than three groups of imperial messengers were sent to put
pressure on him. 31 He eventually agreed to be taken back to the outskirts
of Constantinople, and Theodoret has left a colourful picture of the vast
flotilla of boats crowding the mouth of the Bosporus to welcome the
returning hero. John, however, insisted on staying outside the walls at a
suburban villa called Marianai which Eudoxia placed at his disposal; he
was adamant that he would not enter the city itself until the injustice of
his deposition had been formally recognised. 32
The delay, which seems to have been prolonged, exasperated the popu-
lace, and there were renewed demonstrations against the imperial couple.
What finally induced him to change his mind was a quite unforeseen,
near-disastrous development of which historians have only recently begun
to take notice - the temporary occupation of the Great Church by swarms
of rampaging monks, followed by their forcible expulsion by government
troops. John himself makes two unmistakable allusions to the shocking
incident. First, in a sermon delivered shortly afterwards, he recalls how
33

Theophilos’ supporters had fought with clubs in the church, and how
although they had been vanquished by the prayers of the faithful the
baptistery had been spattered with blood. Then in his letter to Innocent I
he describes 34 how the emperor, just before his own recall, had ‘driven from
the church those who had shamelessly invaded it.’ In the past students
could make little or nothing of the latter passage, while they tended to
dismiss the former on the ground 35 that the sermon must be inauthentic,
or at any rate tampered with, since it was in the following year, at Easter
404, that the baptistery was the scene of bloodshed. A fuller, much more
36

explicit account of the affair is given by the pagan Zosimos, who reports
37

that, before John’s return, ‘the city was filled with tumult, and the church

29
Sermo post reditum 4 (PG 52.445).
30
Sermo post reditum 4 (PG 52.445-6).
31
Theodoret, HE 5.34.6 (GCS 44.335).
32
Sokrates 6.15; Sozomen 8.18.
33
Sermo post reditum 2 (PG 52.444).
34
Ep. 1 ad Innocentium ( SC 342.78).
35
See, e.g., Montfaucon in PG 52.437-8; Baur, 2,272 n. 27; Moulard, 344.
36
See below, p. 244.
37
5.23.4-5.
234 Golden Mouth

of the Christians was taken over by the so-called monks ... who prevented
the crowds from participating in the customary prayers.’ The ordinary
citizens, he adds, were infuriated by this behaviour and joined with the
military in launching attacks on the black-robed fanatics, butchering them
until the building was filled with corpses. This important evidence, too, has
until recently been largely overlooked.
Today scholars have been obliged to take a fresh look at these texts; as
a result they have been enabled for the first time to reconstruct in plausible
outline the short-lived emergency to which they refer. This has been
brought about in part by the publication of a hitherto unknown passage 38
of ‘Martyrios’ which confirms in a remarkable way the glimpses of it given
by both John and Zosimos. He too testifies that, in the anxious period when
John was laying down conditions for his return, a mob of his opponents
occupied the church, filling it with stones and bludgeons, challenging
would-be worshippers either to denounce their bishop or else suffer physi-
cal violence. He even adds, strikingly bearing out the evidence of John’s
sermon, that the sacred place where baptisms were administered was
stained with the blood of injured catechumens. There are readily under-
standable differences between our three witnesses. Zosimos alone tells us
that the intruders were monks. Only he and John (by implication, in his
letter to the pope) speak of government troops being moved in. Reading
John and ‘Martyrios’, one would infer that the victims were all innocent
worshippers; it is only Zosimos who reveals that numerous black-robed
monks were among the dead.
These differences apart, their convergent testimony leads to one fairly
safe conclusion. The reversal of John’s banishment had been a shattering
blow to all who had been working for his downfall. The most furious
reaction, however, had come from the monks of the capital, who gave their
allegiance to his arch-enemy Isaac, now hand in glove with Theophilos, and
whom he had criticised from the start of his ministry as an indisciplined
rabble 39 In a desperate move, characteristic of their fanaticism, they
.

barricaded themselves in Hagia Sophia, spreading terror among ordinary

people and threatening his loyal supporters. So alarming was the situation
that the government felt obliged to send in troops. The people, aware that
John’s return had been settled in principle by the authorities, were only
too eager to join forces with them and assist in punishing his irreconcilable
enemies.
This reconstruction, incidentally, helps to clear up a passage in Sokrates
which has long puzzled scholars, his report 40 of a violent conflict, in the

38
See F. van Ommeslaeghe, AB 99 (1981), 333-9, who cites the text (P 501a-b) in a French
translation on p. 337. The contribution of T.E. Gregory, Byzantion 43 (1973), 63-81 was
fundamental.
39
See above, pp. 123-5.
40
6.17: also Sozomen 8.19. Tillemont (xi.19) long ago queried Sokrates’ account.
 1 7. Between Two Exiles 235
period of John’s banishment, between ‘Alexandrians’ and ‘Constantinopoli-
tans’ which resulted in numerous persons being wounded, several killed.
Sokrates links this implausibly with an attempt by Theophilos to have
Herakleides, John’s unpopular choice as bishop of Ephesos, 41 deposed; it
seems much more likely that he was referring, confusedly and on the basis
of incomplete evidence, to the affray in the church. 42

IV
In this atmosphere of excitement and violence, ‘Martyrios’ confirms, 43 the
emperor and empress put renewed pressure on John to overcome his
scruples and return. When they backed this with letters containing solemn
promises to convene a council charged with re-examining his case in all its
aspects, he consented. By this time Theophilos, with his attendant Egyp-
tian bishops, and Isaac had boarded a ship by night and were on their way
to Alexandria. 44 Severian, too, and the other bishops who had banded
together against John at The Oak had also been quick to take their
departure. John seems to admit 45 that they had had no hand in the monks’
occupation of Hagia Sophia, but recognised its criminality and distanced
themselves from it. Nevertheless, once it became known that the court was
bent on recalling John and was planning a synod to review his case, they
knew that the tide had turned against them. Theophilos had been well
advised to go. His reappearance in Constantinople (he had crossed the
Bosporus from Chalkedon) at the very moment of John’s expulsion had
exasperated the masses, and there were ominous threats of having him
thrown into the sea. 46
John’s re-entry into the city in early October was a triumphal one.
Writing to the pope, he simply recalls 47 that the emperor had sent a
secretary of the imperial consistory ( notarios ) to conduct him, and that
more than thirty bishops came out to escort him. In fact, immense, exultant
crowds received him, thronging the streets and squares, singing psalms
and carrying lighted tapers. 48 They included, ‘Martyrios’ (who claims to
have been present) insists, 49 numbers of affluent people as well as the poor,
and these showed their zeal by not only providing flaming torches but
holding them aloft themselves. When the procession reached Holy Apostles,

41 see
See above, p. 174. For Herakleides’ imprisonment after John’s definitive exile,

Palladios, Dial. 20 (SC 341.398).

42
So too van Ommeslaeghe, art, cit., 339 n. 23.
43
P 501a-b.
44
Sokrates 6.17; Sozomen 8.19: also John’s letter to Innocent I (SC 342.78-80).
46
Ep. 1 ad lnnocentium (SC 342.78 lines 106-7).
46
Palladios, Dial. 9 (SC 341.180).
47
Ep. 1 ad lnnocentium (SC 342.80).
49
Sozomen 8.18.
49
P 501b-503a.
236 Golden Mouth

the people at John’s bidding swarmed into the church, where he delivered
a short, extempore address; the Greek original is lost, but two independent
Latin versions which, it is generally agreed, reproduce its substance
survive. 60 Recalling that he had used Job’s exclamation, ‘Blessed be God’,
in his last sermon to them, 51 he declares that he is glad to repeat the words
now - ‘Blessed be God, who allowed me to go into exile; blessed also be God,
who has ordered me to return.’ His enemies had hoped to separate him from
his people, but their efforts had only won him more friends. Previously the
church alone had been filled, today the entire city square has been trans-
formed into a church. Best of all, although there is horse-racing in the
hippodrome, there are no spectators there, for everyone has thronged to
church. What especially rejoices him is that, while the flock assembled here
is so numerous, the wolves, the robbers, the adulterers who tried to seduce
his bride have all been dispersed. And they have been routed, not by any
spear or sword of his, but by the tears and continuous prayers of his faithful
people.
The following Sunday, in spite of his initial refusal, his reiterated
protests that he must be rehabilitated before resuming his episcopal
functions, he was prevailed upon, by popular demand, to take his seat on
the throne of Hagia Sophia and, at the start of the service, to give the
liturgical greeting ‘Peace be with you’ to the congregation. This was a right
reserved to the bishop, and the people’s insistence that he should exercise
it was a public acknowledgement that in their view his deposition was

invalid. 52 The incident is reported, in slightly differing accounts, by Sok-

rates and Sozomen; 53 ‘Martyrios’ is silent about it, but it is understandable
that he should not record such a rash move. He also preached an exultant
celebratory sermon. 54 It opened with what Sozomen called an elegant
comparison between Theophilos, who had tried to seduce John’s bride, his
church in the capital, with that Pharaoh (was not Theophilos nicknamed
the Egyptian Pharaoh?) who (Gen. 12.10-20) was struck by the beauty of
Sarah, wife of Abraham (who was passing her off, in the interest of his own
safety, as his sister) and took her into his harem, only to be stricken by God
‘with great plagues’. 55 Theophilos’ dastardly attempt had been frustrated,
and the church’s honour remained unstained. John then showered extrava-
gant compliments on his people, who had not only thwarted Theophilos but,
during his own absence, had shown unexampled faith, courage and devo-
tion, and who, when his return became known, had braved the sea to greet

50
PG 52.439-42. It is Sozomen (8.18) who reports the extempore address, but he confuses it
with the sermon to be discussed below.
51
See above, p. 230.
52
On this see F. van de Paverd, Zur Geschichte der Messliturgie in Antiocheia und Konstan-
tinopel gegen Endedes vierten Jahrhunderts (Rome 1970), 442-3.
53
6.16; 8.18.
54
Post reditum a priore exsilio (PG 52.443-8).
55
According to the Jewish midrashic tradition Sarah (Sarai) remained inviolate.
 1 7. Between Two Exiles 237
his ship and had turned the forum
into a worshipping church. But his most
effusive praise reserved for Eudoxia. He brings her in, he observes, not
is

to flatter her, but to celebrate her piety, zeal, outstanding virtue. He

describes how desperately she had worked to bring about his restoration
and how, once she had achieved it, she had assured him that she counted
this a crown more splendid than her diadem. The sermon ends with a
promise that henceforth he will do nothing except in concert with both the
people and ‘our most devout Augusta’, whose pastoral concern it is that the
church should sail its course unbuffeted by the waves.
According to Sozomen, the sermon was rapturously received, with the
crowded congregation cheering the imperial couple to the skies, and John
had to break off before he had reached his finale. Some modem students
have been less indulgent. 56 Finding it hard to believe that John could have
used such blatant flattery, or drawn such a manifest travesty of Eudoxia’s
role, they have claimed that it can be no part of his genuine oeuvre. In fact,
its authenticity has never been seriously questioned. 57 The one serious
argument which used to be brought against it, 58 that the bloodshed in the
baptistery referred to in section 2 surely points to a later author, has lost
its force now that we know the story of the monks’ occupation of Hagia
Sophia. The critics’ squeamishness does more credit to their good taste than
to their appreciation either of the complexity of John’s character or of the
diplomatic ambivalences considered acceptable in Byzantine court rhetoric.

V
For several weeks John enjoyed something of a St Luke’s summer. His
recall contrary to all expectations, brought about partly at any rate as a
result of their demonstrations, redoubled his popularity with the masses.
His deferential tributes ensured that his relations with the court were once
again on an amicable footing. He was nevertheless fully aware of the
delicacy of his position and, by his own account, 59 repeatedly put pressure
on the emperor to summon an authoritative synod which would redress the
wrong done to him at The Oak. Arkadios, he reports, complied with his
request, dispatching messengers in all directions to summon the bishops
to a fresh synod. Theophilos in particular was commanded to present
himself in the capital along with his supporting Egyptian bishops. He was
called upon, as John expressed it, ‘to give an account of all that had
happened, and not to suppose that the unjust acts he had dared carry out,
unilaterally, in my absence and in defiance of so many canons, would suffice
for his defence’. Not surprisingly, Theophilos decided to remain in Alexan-

56
E.g. Baur, 2,272 n. 27; Moulard, 344.
57
It accepted, for example, by Savile, Montfaucon, Tillemont
was and Stilting.
58
See above, p. 233.
59
Ep. 1 ad Innocentium (SC 342.80).
238 Golden Mouth

dria; the excuse he sent, according to John, was that he feared that his
devoted people would riot if he left them.
In the meantime, Sozomen reports 60 some sixty bishops met in conclave,
,

solemnly declared the decisions of The Oak null and void, and confirmed
John as the rightful bishop of the see. At first sight he seems to imply that
this happened shortly after John’s return. If this is correct, the total must
have been made up of John’s own supporters supplemented by a number
of bishops who had come to the capital for the abortive council to judge
Theophilos, and had delayed their departure. It seems more likely, how-
ever, that the meeting took place somewhat later, and that many of the
participating bishops were early arrivals for the new council ordered by the
emperor 61 In passing, there is no reason to suppose, as has sometimes been
.

suggested 62 that Arkadios himself had convened the meeting. The gather-
,

ing, it is clear, was an informal one, designed to provide John with

assurances which would quieten his scruples pending the forthcoming
general council. It had no canonical authority, and it is significant that John
makes no mention of it in his letter to Innocent I. Whatever its status and
date, however, John’s confidence was evidently at a high level. It must have
seemed certain to him that, when the new council met, he would be finally
vindicated. Disregarding therefore the risk he was running, he resumed
presiding in his cathedral, ordaining clergy, and exercising all the normal
episcopal functions 63 Thus when Paul of Heraklea, who had presided at
.

The Oak, died shortly after his own return from temporary exile, he
consecrated the priest Sarapion as metropolitan of Thrace in his place 64 ,

thereby removing from the capital a confidant on whom he placed complete

reliance but who was widely detested as a trouble-maker.
For all his assurance John was in fact playing with fire, for nothing could
have been more brittle than the patched-up harmony between himself and
the palace. Although Theophilos and the cohort of Egyptian bishops he had
brought to The Oak had returned to Alexandria, he still had a host of
enemies in the capital. He himself complains to the pope of ‘certain Syrians’
of Theophilos’ entourage whom the patriarch had left behind 65 this sug- ;

gests that although Antiochos, Akakios and Severian had temporarily

made themselves scarce, one or two of them were soon back in Constanti-
nople. Although they could do nothing while he apparently basked in the
court’s favour, they were only waiting for him to make a false or indiscreet
move. The moment came sooner perhaps than they dared hope. About
mid-November the city prefect Simplikios had a silver statue of Eudoxia 66 ,

60
8.19: cf. Sokrates 6.18.
61
So Baur, 2,270; Moulard, 345.
62
E. Demougeot, De l’unit6 a la division de I’empire romain (Paris 1951), 324.
63
Sozomen 6.18 ad fin.
64
Sokrates 6.17; Sozomen 8.19.
65
Ep. 1 ad Innocentium (SC 342.82).
66
Sokrates 6.18; Sozomen 8.20.
 1 7. Between Two Exiles 239
arrayed in the distinctive mantle of an Augusta, set up in front of the
senate-house, well within earshot of Hagia Sophia. It stood resplendent on
a column of porphyry; the base bore a bilingual inscription, 67 four compli-
mentary Greek hexameters on the left, and on the right a brief summary
of their content in Latin. The statue was formally dedicated one Sunday,
and Simplikios arranged for the occasion to be celebrated with spectacles
of mimes and dancers ‘as was then the usual practice when statues of the
emperors were erected’. 68 Unfortunately the music, singing and clamorous
applause interrupted the service in the cathedral, where John was presid-
ing at the liturgy. Instead of courteously asking for the celebrations to be
discontinued (as Sokrates suggests would have been appropriate), he lost
his temper, and in a public address complained that these noisy entertain-
ments were an insult to the church, and witheringly denounced their
organisers.
While John’s irritation was understandable, his outburst was, to say the
least, politically maladroit. The setting up of this statue was a significant
occasion for the imperial family; this is confirmed by the way the event was
singled out for mention by later chroniclers. 69 There is evidence that, ever
since her elevation to the rank of Augusta, 70 the eastern government had
been striving in its propaganda to promote the recognition of Eudoxia’s
imperial status; as western complaints at the highest level reveal, 71 it was
having images of her, arrayed in the honorific mantle and diadem appro-
priate to an Augusta, distributed throughout the empire, including (to the
annoyance of the authorities there) the western parts. A report of his
sermon was immediately taken to the empress. Although he seems to have
avoided mentioning her personally, it was inevitable that she should
interpret it as an attack on herself, an attack all the more wounding as the
homage implied in the silver statue fully accorded with the divinely
appointed role which she and the court generally regarded as devolving on
her as Augusta. 72
So infuriated was she, we are told, 73 that she even began planning
another synod against John, this time because of his temerity in resuming
his duties as bishop before being formally exonerated. She had conveniently
forgotten that it was only in response to her frantic appeals that he had
agreed to return from exile, and that whatever ecclesiastical functions he
had undertaken had been with the full knowledge and connivance of the

67
CIL 3.736.
68
Sozomen, loc. cit.
69
E.g. Marceliinus Comes, s.a. 403 (MGHAA xi.67).
70
See above, p. 151.
Collectio Avellana 38.1 ( CSEL 35: 1.85 - a letter from Emperor Honorius dated late June
71

404).
72
For this para, see KG. Holum, Theodosian Empresses (California 1982), esp. 65-7; he cites
also her representation on the imperial coinage.
73
Sokrates 6.18; Sozomen 8.20.
240 Golden Mouth
court. Almost certainly it was the news of her change of attitude, so
contrary to her earlier blandishments, which provoked him into a further
tirade, this time on the occasion, apparently, of some ceremony in honour
of his name-saint John the Baptist. It started dramatically with the words,
‘Again Herodias is enraged, again she dances, again she seeks to have
John’s head on a platter.’ Like other preachers then and now, John was
evoking famous biblical figures to press home his homiletical message, and
we can be sure that he pointed no finger overtly at the empress. But in the
fevered atmosphere of the capital people could not fail to detect in his words
a veiled comparison between his own predicament facing the irate Eudoxia
and the fate of the Baptist, whom the tetrarch Antipas had had reluctantly
beheaded at his queen’s behest 74 Apart from its exordium the sermon has
.

disappeared (an address which had proved so offensive to the palace was
not likely to remain in circulation), but both Sokrates and Sozomen knew
it, and described it as ‘much spoken of ‘notorious 76
’,
’.

VI
Reports of John’s sermon, as Sokrates observed 76 only added to the em-
,

press’s exasperation, with the result that the fragile reconciliation patched
up between him and the court now lay in tatters. The altered atmosphere
was not slow in making itself felt. According to Palladios 77 the first bishops
,

arriving in the capital in response to Arkadios’ summons entered into

communion with John. It seemed to them the proper thing to do, especially
as they took it for granted that his formal rehabilitation would be a matter
of course. To their astonishment they were informed that ‘those in power’
{hoi kratountes disapproved; Palladios was too prudent to mention names.
By December more and more bishops were pouring in, some of them well
disposed to John, but others, like Akakios of Beroea, Leontios of Ankyra,
Ammonios of Laodikeia and Brison of Philippopolis, his sworn enemies.
The news that the palace was distancing itself from John must have revived
their spirits and, joining forces with Severian and others like-minded, they
wrote to Theophilos urging him to change his mind and come to Constan-
tinople to lead a new campaign against its bishop; failing that, they sought
his advice on the tactics they should adopt 78 Recalling his earlier experi-
.

ences, Theophilos preferred to direct operations from Egypt, but dispatched

three bishops to the capital armed with instructions which, if followed, he
was sure would irretrievably ruin any hope of John’s sentence of deposition
being overturned.

74
Mark 6.16-28. It was not Herodias but her daughter who danced.
75
The sermon printed in PG 59.485-90 is not authentic: see J.A. de Aldama, Repertorium
pseudochrysostomicum (Paris 1965), 138-9 (no. 381).
76
6.18.
77
Dial. 9 (SC 341.184).
78
Palladios, Dial. 9 (SC 341.180-2).
 1 7. Between Two Exiles 241
The breach between John and the palace became official as Christmas
approached. It was the custom of the imperial family to forsake the chapel
in the Sacred Palace on that day and worship with their subjects in Hagia
Sophia. Now Arkadios sent John a curt message informing him that he and
Eudoxia would not be present since they could not, in conscience, hold
communion with him as their bishop until he had been canonically cleared
of the charges of which he had been found guilty at The Oak. 79 Although
John’s disgrace and the imperial disfavour were evident for all to see, there
was a curious stalemate from Christmas until almost Easter 404, with the
authorities apparently unsure about their next move. All the bishops
summoned to the council were now in Constantinople except Theophilos,
who was however closely following events from Alexandria. There was
intensive lobbying, by the bishops ill-disposed to John but also by people
close to the court, to drop their allegiance to him. Palladios reports that one
of these, Theodore of Tyana, who would have liked to remain loyal, judged
80
it prudent to leave the city rather than give offence in high quarters.

Another, Pharetrios of Caesarea (in Cappadocia), felt so intimidated that

he cravenly went over to the enemy camp. It looked as if the council which
had originally been assembled to overturn the decisions of The Oak was
going to be transformed into one to ratify them. Meanwhile John, who had
forty-two bishops firmly attached to him, 81 continued to draw vast crowds
to his sermons, and to protest his readiness to defend himself.
82
In fact, no formal council was held. There are passages in Palladios and
83
Sokrates which at first sight seem to suggest that there was ‘a second
synod’, but in both cases the reference is almost certainly to an informal
meeting or meetings of John’s enemies. 84 In his letter to Innocent I John
himself is emphatic that all his demands for a tribunal before which he
could plead his case went unanswered. 85 The truth seems to be that, faced
with his defiant attitude and supreme self-confidence, his opponents drew
back; as Sozomen put it (using material not available to Sokrates), his
86
accusers took fright and had not the courage to follow up their charges.
Clearly they could not be sure that the verdict would go in their favour.
Moreover, John’s popularity with the masses must also have been a
deterring factor; the government, they well knew, had no wish to risk a
repeat of the violent demonstrations which had attended his first exile.
What was really decisive, however, was the advice which they had recently
received from Theophilos. This was that they could get rid of John quietly,

79
Sokrates 6.18; Sozomen 8.20.
80
Dial. 9 (SC 341.184-6).
81
Palladios, Dial. 9 (SC 341.190 lines 110-11).
82
Dial. 9 (SC 341.186 line 156).
83
6.18 (PG 67.720-1).
84
See below, p. 243.
85
SC 342.82.
86
8.20.
242 Golden Mouth

without the embarrassment of letting him plead his case publicly, by calling
in aid the canons of the famous synod held at Antioch in May 341 (the
so-called Dedication Council). The fourth 87 of these canons (of which Theo-
philos had sent them a copy) had laid it down unequivocally that, if a bishop
who had been deposed by a synod resumed his functions on his own
responsibility, without first having his sentence quashed by another synod,
he was excluded from office henceforth, without the possibility of an appeal.
When they studied it, they at once perceived' that it provided a solution to
their problem. They therefore decided, as Sokrates put it, 88 to drop all
further investigation and rely exclusively on the fact that John was in clear
breach of this canon.
Their stance placed John and his supporters in an awkward position.
While canon 4 (with the related canon 12) had been drafted with the object
of preventing Athanasios, the champion of Nice ne orthodoxy, who was then
in exile, from returning to his see, the Antiochene canons were held in high
esteem in the east; canon 4 in particular reappears in the respected
Apostolic Canons 89 (late fourth century), and was to be appealed to at the
fourth session of the council of Chalkedon (451). They therefore resorted to
denouncing the Dedication Council as having been Arian. Historically, this
was a travesty of the truth; 90 the participating bishops had explicitly
repudiated Arius and his distinctive teaching. Nevertheless they had
deliberately sought to bypass the then controversial new formula ‘of one
substance’, and their own middle-of-the-road position, judged by the ortho-
doxy current c. 400, could be plausibly misrepresented as tainted with
Arianism. 91 This was therefore the line that John’s friends adopted. At a
joint meeting of the opposing parties held in the emperor’s presence
(Palladios is our sole informant of it) 92 we find them protesting that appeal
to the canon was illegitimate in the present case since (a) John had not
been canonically deposed, but simply expelled by government officials; (b)
he had not returned to his see on his own initiative, but at the express
command of the emperor; and (c) the canons of Antioch were in any case
the fabrication of Arian heretics. They seem to have had some initial
success in winning Arkadios over to their viewpoint, for (if we can trust the
story) he expressed warm approval when the leader of John’s group,
Elpidios of Laodikeia, challenged Akakios and Antiochos to sign a declara-
tion that they personally accepted the canons and shared the theological
position of the bishops who had framed them. Greatly daring, the two
assured the meeting that they were ready to sign, and the scruples of the
emperor, who was convinced of their orthodoxy, were set at rest. The

87
Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des conciles 1.745-6.
88
6.18.
89
Included in Apostolic Constitutions 8.47 (Funk, I, 564-91).
90
Cf. J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (London, 3 ed. 1972), 263-74.
91
See above, pp. lOf.
92
Dial. 9 (SC 341.188-90).
 1 7. Between Two Exiles 243
objections of John’s supporters were therefore overruled, and the official
view which prevailed seems to have been that he was disqualified for office
by the disputed canon.

VII
The approach of Easter 404 brought the stalemate to an end; the great
feast, preceded by a solemn vigil and the mass baptism of catechumens
during the night, called for a public clarification of John’s position. By his
own account he had been, incessantly and insistently, clamouring for a
council, a court of law, a tribunal, at which he could have the charges
against him rehearsed and be able to marshal his defence. 93 This his
opponents, the majority of bishops in the capital, steadfastly refused to
grant him, being satisfied that the Antiochene canons made such a council
not only unnecessary but also improper. At some point, probably soon after
the debate between both parties mentioned above, they must have held a
meeting, taken a formal decision to this effect, and communicated it to the
emperor. It was their verdict at this meeting which Arkadios had in mind
when, as Sokrates reports, 94 he now informed John that he could not attend
his Easter services ‘since he had been condemned by two synods’. At the
same time, yielding to pressure from Antiochos and his associates, he
reluctantly instructed John to cease functioning in Hagia Sophia. 95 As John
himself tersely expressed it, 96 ‘I was once again expelled from my church.’
When John protested that he had received his church from God and would
not abandon his sacred charge unless forced to do so, the emperor responded
by forbidding him, pending further action, to leave his episcopal residence.
In his eagerness to exonerate Arkadios from all blame, Palladios describes
how the worried man summoned Antiochos and Akakios and warned them
not to give him bad advice, 97 only to be confidently assured that they were
prepared to take full responsibility for what effectively amounted to John’s
deposition.
the beginning of holy week it had become known to the people that
By
their bishop,now a prisoner in his own palace, would not be officiating at
the Easter services in his cathedral. On Good Friday, when the emperor
and empress customarily visited certain martyrs’ shrines, some forty
Johnite bishops (again it is Palladios who recounts the story) 98 waylaid the
royal procession and made a last desperate attempt to persuade them, in
consideration of the holy season and of all the catechumens waiting to be
baptised, to restore to the church its beloved bishop. Their petition was

93
Ep. 1 ad Innocentium (SC 342.82).
94
6.18.
95
Palladios, Dial. 9 (SC 341.190-2).
96
Ep. 1 ad Innocentium (SC 342.82).
97
Dial. 9 (SC 341.192-4).
98
Dial. 9 (SC 341.194).
244 Golden Mouth

rebuffed. It may have been Eudoxia who took the lead in spuming it," for
one of the bishops, Paul of Krateia, had the courage to warn her to fear God
and not do anything which might bring his wrath down on her children.
It was on Easter Sunday itself (17 April), more particularly on the
evening preceding it, that the lengths to which John’s enemies in high
places, prodded by Antiochos, Akakios, and Severian, were prepared to go
were revealed. 100 Arrangements had been made for the baptism during the
night of the scores of catechumens who had been preparing for it through-
out Lent. In spite of the ban imposed on John but undoubtedly with his
agreement, the clergy loyal to him were determined to go ahead with these
arrangements, and the mass of ordinary citizens, including the catechu-
mens, showed themselves resolved to support them. This was a display of
independence which the authorities had perhaps not bargained for, but
which, when they learned that the baptisms were proceeding, they felt
bound to resist. The master of the offices, Anthemios, according to Pal-
ladios, was at first reluctant to have recourse to violence, and when
persuaded to intervene made it plain that he did so under protest. Thus,
when evening fell and John’s clergy were beginning their services in Hagia
Sophia and Hagia Eirene, some four hundred young recruits commanded
by a pagan officer Loukios forced their way into the baptisteries with orders
to break up the solemn gatherings. There followed extraordinary scenes of
brutality and sacrilege, with officiating clergy being driven out with cudg-
els, women catechumens who had undressed in preparation for immersion
fleeing half-naked, the water in the fonts turned red with the blood of the
wounded, and unbelieving soldiers forcibly entering the place where the
holy sacrament was kept and desecrating its contents. Sozomen, a devout
man who had detailed information about what happened, remarked that
he would not elaborate on it in case his work should fall into the hands of
non-Christians and bring the church into disrepute.
There is in fact close agreement among our sources about the horrors
perpetrated. 101 Both John and Palladios also agree in their concern to
exonerate the emperor; as John exclaims, ‘All these violent deeds were
committed against the wishes of our religious sovereign ... they were
organised by the bishops.’ 102 But two discrepancies between the sources
deserve attention. First, according to Palladios and Sokrates the baptism
of catechumens and the soldiers’ attack took place in the Baths of Constan-
tius, 103 close to the church of the Holy Apostles, and most historians have
followed their account, arguing that the clergy and their charges must have

99
Baur, 2, 283.
100
For the story told in this para, see esp. John’s letter to Innocent I (SC 342.82-6); also
Palladios, Dial. 9 (SC 341.194-8); ‘Martyrios’ (P 508b-512b); Sozomen 8.21.1-4.
101
For a detailed comparison of the accounts of John and Palladios, see A.M. Malingrey, SC
342.52-8.
102
Ep. 1 ad Innocentium (SC 342.86).
103
For their location see R. Janin, Constantinople byzantine (Paris 1950), 346.
 1 7. Between Two Exiles 245
transferred themselves there after finding that they were forbidden to use
Hagia Sophia. John himself, however, Sozomen and (as we now know)
‘Martyrios’ all speak unequivocally of ‘the churches’ or ‘the church’. Sec-
ondly, while John places the army break-in ‘in the evening’, Palladios says
it occurred ‘in the second watch’, i.e. at midnight or a little later. In both

cases it seems reasonable to prefer the evidence of John, who wrote his
letter to the pope within a few weeks of the events, and of ‘Martyrios’, who
claims to have been an eye-witness.
Ejected forcibly from the churches, John’s clerical and lay supporters
assembled next morning in the Baths of Constantius to celebrate the Easter
liturgy. For this again we have the explicit testimony of ‘Martyrios’ and
Sozomen; 104 John’s abridged narrative passes over this move. Meanwhile
the Great Church stood virtually empty - embarrassingly so, for the
imperial family was due to worship there. In spite of efforts to pack a
congregation into it, 105 Arkadios seems to have had to absent himself from
the service. Before long, however, the multitude crowding the baths was
again driven out by armed force, and reassembled for worship in the open
air some distance from the centre, north-west of the city, at a place called
Pempton, which Constantine the Great had arranged for horse-racing. It
was from this date that John’s devoted adherents began holding separate
meetings for worship, in one place or another, and that the Johnite schism
came into being. 106 When the emperor took a ride later in the day in that
region, he and his escort came across this motley gathering of worshippers,
the recently baptised still wearing the white garments they had been given
after receiving the sacrament. Palladios, who alone reports this episode,
says they numbered ‘about three thousand’, 107 but the figure should be
treated with caution; it is an edifying reminiscence of the number baptised
by the apostles on the first Whitsunday (Acts 2.41). A number of clergy and
even more layfolk were, according to Palladios, arrested.

vm
For two full months John was allowed to remain, under government
surveillance, in his official residence. Although prohibited from appearing
in public, he had several friendly bishops with him, and was able to keep
in touch with sympathisers and maintain correspondence. He is even
reported, 108 when a poor deranged man attempted to break into the palace
armed with a dagger, to have sent some of his bishops to the city prefect to
plead with him to exercise leniency. There was apparently one genuine plot

104
P 508b-512b; 8.21.1-4.
105
Palladios, Dial. 9 (SC 341.196).
106
Sokrates 6.18; Sozomen 8.21; ‘Martyrios’, P 508b-511b.
107
DiaZ. 9 (SC 341.200).
108
Sozomen 8.21.
246 Golden Mouth
to assassinate him, 109 the hired killer being a slave of the priest Elpidios,
who had testified against John at The Oak; according to ‘Martyrios’, when
the attempt was foiled and the culprit taken before the city prefect, he was
given only a token punishment. Henceforth John’s keener supporters took
it in turns to mount guard over his residence by day and night. 110 It is

evident that the schism between the Johnites, comprising at this stage the
mass of ordinary citizens, and the established authorities in church and
state was continuing unabated, and was rapidly spreading beyond the
capital.
Some students have found the prolonged inaction of the government
surprising, but easy enough to surmise possible reasons for it, even if
it is

we lack the means of assessing the probable weight attaching to each.

There is no evidence that Arkadios, in any case always irresolute, had any
special animus against John. Even Eudoxia, for all her violent tantrums
against him, seems to have had a warm feeling and a deep, ultimately
superstitious reverence for him; having already been punished by God once
(as she devoutly believed) for having sent the holy man into exile, she may
well have been wary of courting further chastisement. A rather different
factor which should not be overlooked is that the authorities were in all
probability momentarily stunned by the appalling events of Easter week-
end. They must have been disturbed by the popular reaction to them, and
anxious to avoid making things worse by taking stern action against the
people’s hero. It must have been during this indecisive period that an
attempt was made to break the deadlock by trying to persuade John to
abdicate voluntarily, as his predecessor, the great theologian Gregory of
Nazianzos (who was only too eager to do so), had done in 381. We owe our
knowledge of this manoeuvre to ‘Martyrios’, who describes how the empress
herself put the proposal to him, and when he raised objections of conscience
promised to take the responsibility on herself. 111 His rejoinder, that each
man is responsible for his own actions, and that he could no more shelter
behind her than Adam had been able to blame his sin on Eve or Eve hers
on the serpent, only made her explode with indignation. According to
‘Martyrios’, who was probably retailing gossip leaked from the palace, she
complained to Arkadios that John had insulted them both, comparing them
to Adam and Eve.
While confined to his palace, John took a step of great importance. At
some date between Easter and Pentecost (7 June), probably quite soon after
the former, he wrote for support to the pope, Innocent I, and, in identical
terms, to the two other leading patriarchs of the west, Venerius of Milan
and Chromatius of Aquileia. Written under the stress of emotion, breath-
less in tone and repetitive, in general careless of style but with occasional

109
P 516a-517b; Palladios, Dial. 20 (SC 341.402); Sozomen
‘Martyrios’, 8.21.6-8.
110
Sozomen 8.22 ad init.
F. van Ommeslaeghe, AS 97 (1979), 152-3 (citing P 506b-507a).
111
 1 7. Between Two Exiles 247
flashes of rhetoric, this remarkable document 112 (of which abundant use
has been made in this chapter) is an anguished recital of the disasters
caused by Theophilos, to John and the church of Constantinople, from the
moment of his being summoned from Alexandria to stand his trial to the
recent bloody events of Easter. There are gaps in his story which tantalise
modem readers; for example, he says nothing about the circumstances, of
his temporary recall. But it was not his object to give a complete account;
he could rely on the letter’s bearers to supply missing details. His ostensible
aim was to alert the western bishops to the turmoil and division into which
the churches of the east had been thrown by Theophilos’ machinations, and
to warn them that if his presumptuous interference in a province far
removed from his own were to remain unchecked, the entire Christian
world would be reduced to chaos. While the letter is at every point careful
to shield the emperor, its silence on the subject of Eudoxia could be read as
an accusation.
It was entirely natural that John, now effectively primate of the eastern
churches, should resort to Innocent in his hour of crisis. His move in no way
implied that he recognised the holy see as the supreme court of appeal in
the church (much as the pope would have relished it if he had). Such an
idea, absent from his sermons and other writings, is ruled out by his
simultaneous approach to the two other western patriarchs. In writing to
Innocent and his western colleagues he was concerned, in a general way,
to mobilise their moral co-operation in calling a halt to the ‘illegal behaviour
which is devastating the churches’. Secondly, he perhaps also hoped,
although this nowhere comes out in his text, that the western leaders would
persuade the government of Honorius, since 402 settled at Ravenna, to lean
on Arkadios to modify his policies. Thirdly, however, when he called on his
venerable correspondents to declare in writing that his condemnation, in
his absence and by people without any authority to sit in judgment on him,
was invalid, 113 he was taking steps to safeguard his own position. That this
was a prime objective comes out clearly in the hope he expressed that they
would continue that exchange of letters and of other tokens of brotherly
fellowship which he had enjoyed with them in the past, and which (this he
did not say in so many words, but clearly implied) would assure himself
and the world that they did not recognise his purported deposition and were
114
still in full communion with him.

112
French translation, by A.M. Malingrey in SC 342 (Paris 1988). The
Critical edition, with
letterhas hitherto been printed as ch. II of Palladios’ Dialogue, since it appears as such in
Medicaeus IX. 14, the only complete MS of the latter; Malingrey has demonstrated that it
forms no part of the original text of the Dialogue.
113
SC 342.90.
This, rather than A.M. Malingrey’s Veuillez nous gratifier d’une prompte r<§ponse
114 ...

comme auparavant’, seems to be the true bearing of lines 218-22 of p. 90.The adverb sunethos
should be retained rather than the unsupported sunechos (‘promptly ) which she
7

(‘as hitherto’)
substitutes.
248 Golden Mouth
John nominated an impressive delegation to carry his letter to the west:
four bishops - Pansophios of Pisidia, Pappos from Syria, Demetrios of
Pessinos and Eugenios from Phrygia - and two deacons, Paul and Cyriacos.
His ability to make these arrangements illustrates, incidentally, the large
measure of freedom of action he still enjoyed. The delegates carried two
other important documents with them, a letter to the pope from John’s forty
loyal bishops, and another to him from the clergy of the capital who still
stood by him.

IX
The stalemate dragged on, with the court irresolute and the authorities
thereby prevented from acting, until the Thursday after Pentecost, 9
June. On that day his four leading adversaries - Akakios, Severian,
Antiochos and Cyrinos of Chalkedon - their patience exhausted, sought
an audience with Arkadios and put pressure on him to take decisive
action. 115 Public order, they assured him, could never be restored until
John, the source of all the trouble, had been finally got rid of. The
emperor, it would appear, continued hesitant, reluctant to make a move,
and only agreed to sign the decree of exile when they declared that they
would take full responsibility themselves; the accounts of Palladios and
Sozomen are at one in this. Even so, he procrastinated for more than a
week, and it was only on 20 June that he sent a notary, Patrikios, to
convey to John his decision that he must leave his church and city and
go into exile forthwith. 116
John accepted the emperor’s orders, which he must have been expect-
ing for days, even weeks, calmly. He first protested, however, that he
was being expelled by force, without the legal trial which even common
criminals had a right to expect. 117 He then left his official residence and,
probably in the sacristy of Hagia Sophia, held a last meeting with the
bishops still faithful to him. There he was warned that a company of
armed soldiers, commanded by none other than the Loukios who had
been responsible for the bloody events of the evening before Easter, was
standing by in case of resistance. He was also told that the mass of
citizens were in a state of intense agitation, and that there was a real
danger that they might clash with the troops in an effort to save him.
He bade farewell to the bishops and other clergy, and then, in the
baptistery, to his faithful deaconesses Olympias, Pentadia, Procla and
Silvina, an aristocratic widow, all devoted workers on his cathedral staff.
According to Palladios, who paints an edifying picture of these parting

115
Palladios, Dial. 10 (SC 341.204): cf. Sozomen 8.22.
116
The date is given by Sokrates 6.18, and appears in Chronicon paschale s.a. 404 (PG
92.781).
117
Sozomen 8.22.
 1 7. Between Two Exiles 249
greetings, he instructed them to show loyalty and obedience to anyone
consecrated bishop in his place provided he had not intrigued to obtain the
office and was generally deemed worthy of it: The church cannot continue
to exist without a bishop.’ 118

118
Dial. 10 (SC 341.206-8).
 18

Final Exile

It was on the afternoon of 20 June that John left Constantinople for good.
The city was in uproar as rumours that his expulsion was at hand spread,
and an enormous crowd packed itself into Hagia Sophia desperate to catch
a last glimpse of their bishop. As at his earlier banishment he was
determined, our main sources agree, that his arrest should not provoke
1

popular demonstrations, and therefore adopted a simple ruse. To distract

attention he ordered the mule on which he normally moved about the city
to be saddled and placed as if awaiting him outside the great west door of
the cathedral; meanwhile he himself slipped out almost unobserved by a
side entrance, and there surrendered himself to an armed guard. He was
accompanied by his faithful friends, bishops Cyriakos and Eulysios, and
several other clergy. Led by a young officer named Theodore, the party went
unobtrusively to the harbour, boarded a small vessel and set out across the
Bosporus. Landing on the Bithynian shore (for this second exile the more
irksome landward route had been chosen), John and his escorts travelled
eastwards to Nikomedia (Izmit), and then southwards to Nicaea (Iznik),
scene almost eighty years before of the first ecumenical council. The journey
must have been uncomfortable in the sweltering heat of mid-summer, but
in letters 2 to Olympias written from Nicaea John reported that he was in
excellent health and spirits, enjoying the pure air. He also commented on
the considerate treatment he was receiving from the soldiers escorting him;
they were so attentive to his needs that he scarcely noticed the absence of
servants.
Back in the capital reports of John’s arrest had created tumult in Hagia
Sophia, where the crowds inside struggled to force their way out. The doors,
however, had been deliberately barricaded in case there should be a mass
attempt to rescue him; they had to be broken down, with some people
pulling them inwards, others battering them with stones. 3 In the turmoil

1
‘Martyrios’, P 518a-520a; Palladios, Dial. 10 (SC 341.208 - describing the ruse); Sozomen
8.22.
2
Epp. 11 and 10 (PG 52.609; 608): 1.106-8; II. 110. From now on John’s letters to Olympias
are cited, first, by their number and column in PG 52, then by their number and page (Greek
text) in A.M. Malingrey’s critical edition (SC 13bis: Paris 1968).
3
Sozomen 8.11.
 18. Final Exile 251
an unknown hand started a fire near the bishop’s throne; 4 fanned by a
north-east wind, this spread to the nearby hangings and woodwork. Within
three hours the entire building, with the exception of the small section
serving as cathedral treasury, as well as the adjacent senate-house, with
its remarkable collection of works of art, had been gutted. Palladios,
characteristically, attributes the disaster to the avenging hand of God, but
suspicion inevitably fell on John’s supporters (even, implausibly, on John
himself). This is reflected in the accounts of Sokrates 5 and the pagan
Zosimos, 6 who adds that in their desire to prevent the appointment of
another bishop the Johnites were resolved to bum the whole city down,
starting with the cathedral. ‘Martyrios’, perhaps surprisingly, does not
exclude the possibility that over-zealous Johnites might have been the
culprits, but also puts forward the interesting suggestion that these may
have been hired agents of John’s enemies. 7 Sozomen’s picture is of Johnites
and anti-Johnites hurling accusations and counter-accusations at one
another. 8
The government, hitherto so hesitant, seems to have been goaded into
activity by the destruction of both cathedral and senate-house. First, a
high-powered commission was immediately set up to discover the arsonists.
The city prefect, Stoudios, was in charge of it. 9 He was a friend of John’s,
who later in the year was to send him a consolatory letter on his brother’s
death, 10 but at least one other member was an implacable enemy, count
John, Eudoxia’s favourite, now finance minister {comes sacrarum largi-
tionum ). n As the Johnites were the prime suspects, one of the commission’s
first acts was to order the arrest of the bishops and other clergy accompa-
nying John. They had scarcely landed with him on the Bithynian coast
when they were seized, put in chains and imprisoned at Chalkedon. 12
Then, less than a week after John’s deportation, a successor bishop was
installed in the church of the Apostles. 13 He was Arsakios, younger brother
of John’s predecessor Nektarios. A mild and ineffectual octogenarian,
caricatured by the malicious as ‘dumb as a fish, inactive as a frog 14 he had
7

been a hostile witness at The Oak. Sokrates and Sozomen 15 stress his piety

4
Palladios, Dial. 10 (SC 341.210-14).
5
6.18.
6
5.24.3-4.
7
P 518a-520b.
8
8 22
. .

9
Sokrates and Sozomen suggest that Optatos was in charge, but he only became city prefect
in November 404. Both Palladios (Dial. 3: SC 341.78) and the decree calling off the investiga-
tion (see below, p. 253) confirm that he was Stoudios.
10
Ep. 197 (PG 52.721-2).
11
Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341.78).
12
Dial. 11 (SC 341.214); ep. 174 (PG 52.711).
13
Chronicon paschale s.a. 404 (PG 92.781).
14
Palladios, Dial. 11 (SC 341.216).
15
6.19 and 8.23.
252 Golden Mouth
and gentle disposition, but these qualities did not make him acceptable to
the public generally, much less to the Johnites, in whose eyes he was an
unlawful intruder. They persisted, therefore, in holding their separate
assemblies in outlying parts of the city. When Arsakios complained to the
emperor, the authorities reacted by sending soldiers to break up these
meetings. Brutal violence was used, on women as well as men, and many
of John’s more prominent or devoted adherents were gaoled 16 The govern- .

ment was determined to stamp out all manifestations of disloyalty to the

official bishop, and imposed harsh penalties on those who attended, or
allowed those for whom they were responsible to attend, ‘riotous assem-
blies’. There must have been specific legislation authorising this, but it has
disappeared. Its broad tenor, however, can be inferred from a later decree 17
directing provincial governors to insist on orthodox Christians holding
communion with the chief bishops recognised by the authorities.
The persecution of Johnites, which was to continue for years (even after
John’s death), rapidly spread to the provinces, including of course Syria.
At Antioch Bishop Flavian is commonly held to have died in late September
and to have been then succeeded by the priest Porphyrios. This seems
impossible, however, in view of the recorded circumstances of Porphyrios’
appointment. When Flavian died, the trio Severian, Akakios and Antiochos
were soon on the scene and, taking advantage of the fact that the bulk of
the population was out at Daphne attending the Olympic games, unscru-
pulously rushed through the election and consecration of Porphyrios, who
shared their hostility to John 18 If this account is correct (there is no reason
.

to doubt it), Porphyrios’ installation must have taken place in July-August,

when the games were customarily held 19 probably in July, and Flavian
,

cannot have long survived John’s deposition. Palladios, in a neglected

passage 20 confirms this, stating that ‘the death of Flavian
,
coincided with . . .

the exile of John’. The action of the trio caused great offence in the city,
where the popular choice would, according to Palladios, have been Constan-
tios, Flavian’s adjutant and a trusted friend of John’s. The result, inevita-
bly, was the birth in Antioch of a militant Johnite schism at the time when
John himself was still on the first lap of his journey to his place of exile.
Meanwhile the investigation into the fire was carried out with relentless
rigour. It was fortunate for John that the guardians of the cathedral
treasury, Germanos and the deacon Cassian 21 had prepared and were able
,

to submit an authenticated inventory of all the gold, silver and precious

16
Sozomen 8.23.
17
CT16.4.6 (18 Nov. 404): see below, p. 272.
18
Palladios, Dial. 16 (SC 341.304-12 - including a critical portrait of Porphyrios and a
flattering one of Constantios).
19
G. Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria (Princeton 1961), 418 n. 25.
20
Dial. 11 (SC 341.308, lines 1 and 2). His use of sunakmazo in the sense of ‘coincide’ has not
been noted in dictionaries.
21
Later founder of monasteries at Marseilles and famous for his ascetic writings.
 18. Final Exile 253
22
objects it contained; he had been accused at The Oak of appropriating
church property, 23 and this time too his enemies were only biding their time
to bring similar charges. The commission of inquiry did not hesitate to
employ torture, and the Johnites were to compile an impressive list of
martyrs who had suffered at its hands. 24 Olympias herself, known to be the
leader of John’s deaconesses and a sympathetic friend, was brought before
it.
25
When asked why she had set fire to the church, she retorted that,
having spent considerable sums of money building churches, she was not
likely to start burning them down. When the examining magistrate tried
a softer line, offering to leave her and her nuns in peace provided she
acknowledged Arsakios as her bishop, she spiritedly replied that nothing
would induce her to act contrary to what the divine law enjoined. In the
end a huge fine of two hundred pounds of gold was imposed on her.
After more than two months’ work the commission had to admit that it
was getting nowhere. An imperial decree, 26 addressed to the city prefect
Stoudios, was published on 29 August ordering that, since it had proved
impossible to identify the arsonists, the imprisoned clergy should be re-
leased from gaol. They were, however, to be put on board ship and packed
off home. In fact, as well as proscribing all who took part in ‘riotous
assemblies’ separate from the official churches, the decree required all
non-resident bishops and clergy to quit ‘this most sacred city\ This injunc-
tion applied not only to the many Johnite bishops in Constantinople (e.g.
Palladios), 27 but also to the many (like Severian, Akakios and Antiochos)
who were John’s adversaries. The government was evidently getting impa-
tient with the presence of so many quarrelsome clerical busybodies in the
capital.

II

John was held in Nicaea for several days. Presumably his military escort
were awaiting instructions about the place of exile to which they were to
conduct him. This was a matter of great concern to him. He was hoping it
might be a populous, accessible city, perhaps even Sebasteia (Sivas), capital
of Armenia Prima, which seems to have been talked of and where a wealthy
28
friend, Arabios, was eager to place his mansion at his disposal. As he
waited, bad news kept filtering in from the capital - the appointment of
Arsakios in his place, the persecution of dear friends, the brutal deposition
of bishops he had appointed (especially Herakleides of Ephesos, who was

22
Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341.76-8).
23
See above, p. 222.
24
Sozomen 8.24.
25
Sozomen 8.24.
26
CT 16.2.37.
27
See below, p. 275.
28
Ep. 121 (PG 52.676).
254 Golden Mouth

kept in gaol at Nikomedia for four years), 29 etc. It must have distressed him
to learn that, just so soon as the authorities had ordered his banishment,
the rich citizens who had objected to his plans for a great leper hospital had
halted all work on it and had even pounced on the funds he was collecting
to finance the project. 30 He was worried, too, about Olympias, especially as
he had received no letter from her; he wanted to know not only how well
she was, but even more whether she had managed ‘to scatter the dark cloud
of depression’. 31 He was no less concerned, however, for his clerical friends,
locked up in chains on suspicion of arson in the filthy, smelly gaol at
Chalkedon, and dashed off a note of characteristically bracing encourage-
ment to them. 32 Their lot, he assures them, calls for congratulation and
rejoicing since they are enduring it because of their faith. ‘A golden crown
does not bring so much honour to the head that wears it as his chains do
to the prisoner whose right hand has been fettered in God’s service.’
Whatever they do, ‘never cease giving glory to God in all things’.
At last official notification arrived that his place of exile was to be, not
some great centre of social and commercial life, but Cucusos Koukousos ). (.

This is described by Theodoret, writing in the first half of the fifth century,
as ‘a small city which had earlier been attached to Cappadocia but now
belonged to Armenia Secunda. 33 It had probably been raised to the rank of
a city when Armenia Secunda was created by emperor Valens in 371/2. It
was a natural enough choice for the government, which had used it before,
and would use it again, for important exiles; a previous bishop of Constan-
tinople, Paul, had been deported there in 351 (and had been strangled by
his guards). But John, knowing that it was a fairly isolated place in the
mountains, was deeply disappointed. He seems to have written at once to
friends urging them to arrange with the authorities, in view of his fragile
health, for some more congenial centre to be designated for his residence.
Their efforts proved fruitless; a few weeks later he was bitterly complaining
that, ‘in spite of having so many rich and influential friends, I have not
succeeded in obtaining what even criminals are granted, transfer to a
nearer locality, with a more satisfactory climate. Notwithstanding my
broken, enfeebled condition and the ever-present threat of Isaurian brig-
ands, this modest and inexpensive favour has not been granted me. Nev-
ertheless glory be to God for this too.’ 34

29
Palladios, Dial. 20 (SC 341.398).
30
‘Martyrios’, P 495b. For the hospital see above, pp. 119f.
31
Ep. 10 (PC 52.609): 11.110.
32
Ep. 118 (PG 52.673).
33
HE 2.5.2 (CSC 44.99). See A.H.M. Jones, Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (2 ed.
Oxford 1970), 182.
34
Ep. 120 (PG 52.674-5).
 18. Final Exile 255

in
It was on 4 July or shortly after35 that John and his military escort set out
on their long, wearisome journey. Their route can be followed, in broad
outline, with the aid of the Antonine Itinerary (Itinerarium Antoninianum ),
a fourth-century military road manual covering the entire empire, which
features not only the larger cities through which they passed, but also
Arabissos, another small city of Armenia Secunda where John was to stay,
and Cucusos itself. 36 It took them, as John was to tell his friend Brison, 37
eunuch and choir-master, some seventy days to reach their destination.
While the soldiers marched, John was able to use a litter ( lektikion )
strapped to a mule. 38 Although his guards treated him considerately -
especially their commanding officer, Theodore, with whom he established
a friendly relationship - he had a wretched time, even worse, he com-
plained, 39 than the lot of criminals kept chained or condemned to the
salt-mines. In the same letter he spoke bitterly of the filthy water, mouldy
and hard bread, the lack of baths - indeed, of most basic necessities. On
top of all, he was almost continuously ill, racked with high fever and
without medical attention. As the party moved south, it was constantly
threatened with attacks by marauding Isaurians, a warlike tribe which had
its strongholds high in the Taurus mountains and periodically descended
to plunder and terrorise the settled population. Yet in the earlier stages,
at any rate, of the long trek his spirits were from time to time cheered when,
as the sad little procession made its way past farmsteads or through
villages and towns, ordinary folk came out in crowds to gaze, with wonder
and pity, tears in their eyes, at the famous exile. 40
The two principal cities on the route were Ankyra (Ankara) and Caesarea
(Kayseri), capitals of Galatia and Cappadocia respectively. In spite of his
exhaustion and need of medical care, John knew he could not look for a
friendly reception at Ankyra. Its bishop, Leontios, although commended by
Theodoret 41 as ‘adorned with many virtues’ and by Sozomen 42 as having
previously been one of the two outstanding monks in Galatia, had taken
the initiative in proposing an appeal to the Antiochene canons as a certain
means of destroying him. 43 Nevertheless the two men seem to have met
when John and his escort reached the city. It must have been an awkward
confrontation, for all that John records of it is that ‘the Galatian all but

35
Ep. 10 PG 52.608): 11.110: also ep. 221 PG 52.734).
(. (.

36
O. Cuntz, Itineraria Romana (Leipzig 1929), e.g. 31.
37
Ep. 234 (PG 52.739). For Brison see above, p. 138.
38
Ep. 9.3 (PG 52.615): IX.228.
39
Ep. 120 (PG 52.674).
40
Ep. 9 (PG 52.608): III. 112.
41
HE 5.27.4 (GCS 44.329).
42
6.34 ad fin.
43
Palladios, Dial. 9 (SC 341.186). See above, p. 242.
256 Golden Month

threatened me with death’. 44 He and his guards, we may suppose, did not
linger long in Ankyra, and were soon making their way to Cappadocia. As
they approached Caesarea, travellers they met brought him messages from
its bishop, Pharetrios, assuring him how keenly he was looking forward to
receiving him. He wanted to show hospitality and affection, and had even
put his religious houses, male and female, on the alert for his arrival.
Although he disclosed his inner doubts to no one else, John was later to tell
Olympias how sceptical he had been about this promised welcome. 45 He
was well aware that, when the conspiracy against him at Constantinople
was taking shape, Pharetrios, a cautious man always anxious to be on the
winning side, had stayed at home but assured its leaders by private letters
of his support. 46
John’s suspicions were to prove all too accurate. He was more dead than
alive, he wrote, 47 exhausted and suffering from recurrent bouts of fever,
when the little party reached Caesarea. They put up at an inn on the very
fringe of the city, and he was at last able to sleep on a bed, eat decent food
and drink clean water, have a proper bath, above all be looked after by
first-class doctors. Although still in grave danger, his spirits revived. To
his gratification, the top administrative and military officials, the leading
professors, all the clergy and many religious turned out to meet him and
showed him every consideration. Everyone, in fact, was there except
Pharetrios himself. Stung with jealousy, as John suspected, all he now
wanted was to have him ejected from his city. As John, who was quick to
take the hint, was preparing to resume his journey, his departure was held
up by a terrifying rumour that a wild horde of Isaurians had burst into the
province, spreading fire and devastation and threatening the city. Then at
dawn one morning he found his lodging surrounded by scores of fanatical
monks, incited apparently by Pharetrios, loudly demanding that he should
get out; otherwise they would bum the roof over his head. His military
guards were terrified; even the civil governor, who had been alerted, was
helpless with the hysterical mob, and was reduced to begging Pharetrios
to hold his hand for a few days until John’s health improved.
Even this had no effect, for the monks were back next morning. In spite
of renewed fever, John had no option but to quit the city, accompanied by
sympathetic local clergy who had, however, no power to help him. For a
moment it seemed that all might be well, for a wealthy lady, Seleukeia,
gave him hospitality in one of her country houses 8 km away. Pharetrios,
however, was furious when he heard of this, and ordered her with threats
to get rid of him. At first Seleukeia refused to be intimidated, even inviting
John to stay in her private mansion, a heavily fortified building, but he

44
Ep. 14.1 (PG 52.613): IX.220.
45
Ep. 14.1 (PG 52.613): IX.220-2.
46
Palladios, Dial. 9 (SC 341.184-6).
47
For this para, seeep. 14.2-3 (PG 52.613-16): IX.222-30; alsoep. 120 (PG 52.674).
 18. Final Exile 257
declined. In the end even Seleukeia had to give in to her bishop and felt
obliged to turn him out of doors in the middle of the night. To save her
honour, she had concocted an alarmist rumour that another Isaurian
onslaught was imminent. John’s description of the adventures of that
terrible night, when he and his companions had to flee her house, is one of
the most dramatic he ever wrote. 48 As there was no moon, he had ordered
torches to be lit, but a priest called Evethios who accompanied him caused
them to be extinguished in case they betrayed their position to the (imagi-
nary) Isaurians, and he had to leap to the ground, and then had to be
dragged by Evethios along the precipitous mountain path.
Writing to a highly placed friend, Paeanios, John was to describe Phare-
trios’ behaviour towards him as abominable and unforgivable. 49 But he
begged him not to breathe a word about it to anyone. He made an identical
request to Olympias. 50 His unjust sufferings, he assured her, would help to
efface his sins, and should be a ground for rejoicing. Leave it to his military
guards, when they returned to the capital, to tell the story; they too had
been exposed to frightful dangers. This insistence on silence has seemed
surprising, but his real motive comes out in the letter to Paeanios: he feared
that, if reports about his brutal treatment were made public by his known
friends, the news would exasperate Pharetrios’ clergy, all of whom stood
firmly on his side, as well as his other supporters, with disastrous conse-
quences for everyone, including himself. Pharetrios’ conduct, like that of
Leontios, lays bare the relentless hatred with which the hard core of
anti- Johnites were still prepared to pursue their bete noire. Their attitude,
it is interesting to note, contrasted strikingly with that of the authorities

in Constantinople. There the official policy, for the present at any rate,
seems to have been that, while John had, understandably, to be detained
at a remote centre where he was unlikely to cause trouble, the conditions
of his exile should be as relaxedand comfortable as was reasonably possible.
His escort, for example, clearly had instructions to treat him with consid-
eration, and no objection seems to have been raised to his having social
relations with, or accepting hospitality from, prominent citizens, even
top-ranking officials like provincial governors.

IV
We have no details of John’s journey from Caesarea, but it was probably
made more bearable because one of the ‘skilled and highly reputed doctors’
he met there had volunteered to accompany him. 51 Eventually, probably
about 20 September, the party reached Cucusos, represented today by the

48
Ep. 14.3 PG
(. 52.615): IX.228.
49
Ep. 204 (PG 52.725). For Paeanios see p. 263 below.
50
Ep. 14.3(PG 52.616): IX.230.
51
Ep. 12 (PG 52.609): IV. 116.
258 Golden Mouth
agricultural village of Goksun, some 175 km north-east of Adana in south-
ern Turkey. Then it was a small city, with a bishopric, in the Cilician
Taurus, over 1400 m above sea-level, approachable by difficult passes,
resembling an oasis surrounded by mountains. 52 To John, as he never tired
of repeating, 53 it seemed the most forsaken comer of the world, ‘possessing
neither a public square nor shopping facilities’. 54 To some extent this
reaction reflects the shock felt by a man accustomed all his life to populous
and splendid capitals on being transported to a small provincial centre. In
fact, his initial impressions were favourable. Its pure air, he noted, recalled
the climate of his native Antioch. 55 It had a garrison, and the sight of
numerous well-armed soldiers banished for the moment his dread of
Isaurian raiders. 56 A wealthy resident, Dioskoros, moved out to his country
estate and lent him his town house, going to trouble and expense to equip
it with everything needful, especially in view of the coming winter. Friends

in Constantinople with property in the neighbourhood instructed their

stewards to make life comfortable for him. The provincial governor,
Sopater, was kindness itself. 57 In spite of her great age the deaconess
Sabiniana, almost certainly his aunt, had arrived the same day as he,
having courageously overcome the hazards of the difficult journey from
Antioch; while his devoted friend, the priest Constantios, also from Antioch
but the victim of much abuse there, was expected at any moment. 58
To add to his satisfaction, his health had markedly improved, at any rate
for the early months of his stay. To Firminos, 69 a layman of Caesarea, he
wrote simply, ‘I am well’, and to Paeanios, 60 ‘Although Cucusos is a deserted
spot, I enjoy peace here, and through sitting indoors regularly have been
able in large measure to cure the illnesses contracted on my journey.’ He
could assure Olympias 61 that he now felt physically stronger than when he
lived in Constantinople. In spite of being constantly aware of the Isaurian
menace, his optimism was now so great that he tried to stop his friends
from lobbying for his transfer to a more congenial detention centre. He had
no wish, he told Paeanios, 62 to undergo again the discomforts of travel
which such a change was bound to entail. He was even more open with
Olympias in his first letter from Cucusos. 63 His well-wishers, he pleaded,

52
See F. Hild, Das byzantinische Strassensystem in Kappadokien (Vienna 1977), 134, with
photos 96 and 97.
53
E.g. epp. 234, 235, 236 (PG 52.735-40).
54
Ep. 14.1 (PG 52.612): IX.218.
55
Ep. 14.4 (PG 52.616): IX.232.
56
Ep. 13 (PG 52.610-11): VI. 126-8.
57
Ep. 64 (PG 52.644).
58
Ep. 13 (PG 52.611): VI.130.
59
Ep. 80 (PG 52.651).
60
Ep. 193 (PG 52.720).
61
Ep. 14.4 (PG 52.617): IX.232.
62
Ep. 193 (PG 52.720).
63
Ep. 13.3 (PG 52.611-12): VI.128-30.
 18. Final Exile 259
should make no effort to move him from it unless (a faint hope, as he must
have realised) he were allowed to choose the alternative himself. What he
feared, he confessed, was that he might be sent to an even more distant and
inhospitable location. He was terrified, too, of having to set out on the road
afresh: ‘to me travelling is more painful than any number of banishments.’
If she wanted to help him, she should use all her finesse to discover where
the authorities were minded to send him. If it were somewhere near
Constantinople, Cyzikos perhaps or Nikomedia, then she should encourage
the arrangement But not if it were some spot more remote than, or even as
.

remote as, Cucusos.

John was to remain in Armenia for almost three years, but he was very
soon forced to adopt a more realistic view of Cucusos. First, the winter of
404-5, as he was to tell Olympias, 64 was exceptionally severe; as a result he
suffered a painful recurrence of stomach upsets, headaches, loss of appetite,
sleeplessness night after night. Because of the intense cold he had to shut
himself in a single small room, with his eyes smarting from the smoke of
his fire, never venturing out of doors. Much of the time he had to remain
in bed, covered with layers of thick rugs, but even so he could not keep
warm. Thus he passed ‘two whole months in a worse condition than if I had
been a corpse’. There was a dramatic change when warmer weather
returned with the spring, but his digestive system had become so impaired
that he was obliged to stick to an extremely light diet. The arrival of
summer brought miseries of its own. On the one hand, he found the great
heat no less upsetting than extreme cold; on the other, ‘we live in a state
65
of continuous siege, all the time terrified by repeated Isaurian attacks’.
In addition, there was a shortage of doctors and essential medicines. With
all these troubles it is surprising that he was able to assure his correspon-
dents that his physical state was reasonably good and his spirits high.
Then the following winter there were trials no less severe and even more
alarming to be faced. With characteristic resilience John had been looking
forward to it with confidence. His health was excellent, he told his friend
bishop Elpidios, 66 the Isaurian incursions had for the moment ceased, and
experience had taught him how to cope with the rigours of winter - for
example, staying indoors when temperatures dropped. He was soon to be
disillusioned, not this time by the cruel climate, but by the unexpected
renewal of ferocious plundering raids by the Isaurians. Normally they kept
themselves in winter to their inaccessible villages and towns in the moun-
tains, but this winter seems to have been exceptional. They were, indeed,
almost continuously active, in spite of strong repressive measures taken by
the government, from 404 to 408. 67 ‘Here there is nothing’, John exclaimed

64
Ep. 6.1 (PG 52.593): XII.316.
65
Ep. 146 (PG 52.698-9).
66
Ep. 142 (PG 52.627).
67
E. Demougeot , De Vunit6ala division (Paris 1951), 343-4; F. Paschoud Zosime (Paris 1986),
,

HI, 189-90.
260 Golden Mouth
in one letter, 68 ‘except butchery, wild confusion, bloodshed and blazing
buildings, with the Isaurians ravaging whatever they come across with
sword and fire.’ The situation became so perilous that he and the civil
population had to evacuate Cucusos precipitately, ‘in the very depth of
winter’, and for days a panic-stricken rabble was fleeing from place to place,
camping in snow-bound forests and ravines. 69 Eventually they found refuge
in Arabissos 70 (Afsin: today a small village), a frontier fortress town
described by the Antonine Itinerary 71 as 52 Roman miles (=77 km) from
Cucusos, almost 1000 m high in the Amanus range. John himself was
lodged in the citadel. He complained that it was ‘worse than a dungeon’;
and with so many people packed into the small town there was a real danger
of famine. 72 He was at any rate so secure that he was able one night to sleep
undisturbed while three hundred Isaurians temporarily wreaked havoc in
the lower town. 73
John made friends with Otreios, the bishop of Arabissos, 74 but was
seriously ill during most of his stay there. It was only in the spring of 406
that he recovered. How long he remained at Arabissos has been debated.
Palladios seems to imply that he was detained for only one year at
Cucusos; 75 but he was dependent for this on hearsay, and spoils his story
by adding that he was sent to Arabissos by the malice of his enemies, a
suggestion contradicted by John’s own letters. Some have argued that, as
the Isaurians continued to be exceptionally active throughout 406 and 407
(his letters abound in references to their atrocities), he may have been
permitted to enjoy its relative security until 407. On balance it seems more
likely that, asCucusos was his nominated place of exile, he returned there
after his health was restored in summer 406. This is supported by a letter76
in which he claims to have sent someone to Bishop Otreios to collect certain
valuable relics from him, and also by his last letter77 to Olympias (probably
early 407), in which he mentions ‘all those trials I had to endure after my
sojourn at Arabissos’.

V
Throughout these years of exile John carried on a vast correspondence.
Some 240 of his letters have survived; 78 there can be little doubt that there

68
Ep. 61 (PG 52.642).
69
Ep. 127 (PG 52.687).
70
Ep. 69 (PG 52.646).
71
O. Cuntz, op. cit., 31.
72
Ep. 69 (PG 52.646).
73
Ep. 135 (PG 52.693).
74
Ep. 126 (PG 52.687).
75
Dial. 11 (SC 341.220).
76
Ep. 126 (PG 52.687).
77
Ep. 4.4 (PG 52.594): XVII.382.
78
PG 52.549-748. Only the 17 to Olympias have received a critical edition.
 18. Final Exile 261
were others which have perished. Addressed to more than one hundred
individuals in Constantinople and elsewhere, they are the precious sources
of such knowledge as we possess of his personal experiences and thoughts
during this trying period. Yet it is a surprisingly unequal, not to say
disappointing, collection. A
score, perhaps, of the letters are intensely
A
personal and revealing. number are rich in descriptive detail. But an even
greater number, probably the majority, are conventional and flat, repeating
well-worn topics in stereotyped language and lacking the liveliness and
personal touch one looks for in correspondence. But they all make it plain
that, used as he had been to living in great cities, with a daily load of
multifarious business, John missed the company of people and an outlet
for his energies. The letters are full of his sense of loneliness and inactivity;
many contain insistent, sometimes reproachful demands for return-letters
from his correspondents and for news of their doings and welfare 79 .

In fact, he was not so deprived of society or of pastoral opportunities (of

a modest kind, perhaps) as he would like one to believe. From time to time,
as the letters reveal, increasingly as the months slipped by, visitors found
their way to Cucusos. After all, the road through it, although snow-bound
in winter and cut off by Isaurian invaders in the open seasons, was an
important military thoroughfare from Sebasteia in the north to not-too
distant Antioch in the south. One such visitor, out of many, was a bishop
named Seleukos, who had braved the icy roads in his eagerness to see him.
John sent him on his way with letters of commendation 80 one to another ,

bishop, Tranquillinos, and a second to a physician with a request to treat

his severe cough. One or two adventurous friends even penetrated as far
as Arabissos in winter 81 Towards the end of his exile, according to both
.

Palladios and Sozomen 82 large numbers of his admirers were making a

,

pilgrimage from Antioch and other Syrian cities to set eyes on their revered
preacher and hear his voice again. In addition to preaching as opportunity
offered, he was active pastorally. Sozomen reports 83 that he had ample
funds at his disposal, supplied by Olympias and other friends, and these
he expended sometimes on helping the destitute of Cucusos and Arabissos,
sometimes on ransoming wretched people who had been dragged off into
slavery by Isaurian captors.
The letters illustrate the range of his contacts and concerns, as well as
his determination to keep in touch with the people who still respected him
as their bishop. A great many reveal his preoccupation with ‘the common
tempest afflicting the church and the shipwreck spreading throughout the
world 84 as a result of the events leading up to and flowing from his
*

79
E.g. ep. 185 - to Pentadia; 190 - to Brison ( PG 52.716; 718).
80
Epp. 37-8 (PG 52.630-1).
81
E.g. epp. 135 and 136 (PG 52.693-4).
82
Dial. 11 (SC 341.220-2); 8.27.
83
Loc. cit.
84
Ep. 113 - to Palladios (PG 52.669).
262 Golden Mouth
deposition. In of these 85 he urges his clerical correspondents to use
some
all their efforts, particularly unremitting prayer, to resist and reverse these
disasters. In others 86 he congratulates individual bishops or groups of them
who have stood firm in the crisis, begs them to continue their struggle and
assures them of the heavenly rewards that await them. In still others 87 he
challenges friends to maintain the hostility they have so far shown to those
who have thrown the churches into disorder and scandal. Quite a number88
are addressed to women who have proved steadfast under the terrible
ordeals to which they have been subjected; they can be sure that Tolessings
passing all understanding’ will be theirs in the world to come. Two of these
were to Pentadia 89 once his faithful deaconess. In one he praises her
,

unflinching courage in the face of brutal judicial interrogation; in the other

he seeks to dissuade her from visiting him on the ground that her presence
in the capital will be an inspiration to others threatened with persecution.
Several show him making a brave attempt to maintain the semblance
of directing his church. In two 90 for example, he rebukes priests for
,

neglecting their preaching duties and absenting themselves from divine

service. In two more we find him maintaining close contact with the
community of Gothic monks he had established on ‘the estate of Promotos’
in Constantinople 91 In one 92 he expresses sympathy with them in the
.

harassment to which they have been exposed since his departure. This, he
promises them, will redound to their eternal glory. In the meantime they
should keep up their patient efforts to prevent disturbance or dissension
from upsetting the church of the Goths. In the other93 he seeks to enlist
Olympias’ help in ensuring that a worthy successor is found for the
community to replace Unila 94 as bishop of the Goths settled on the north-
west shores of the Black Sea. He is worried lest the choice should be made
by those at present in control of the church in the capital, who could not be
relied upon to nominate a man of the right calibre. In another to Olympias 95
he advises her that it might be best for Herakleides, whom he had contro-
versially appointed bishop of Ephesos 96 and who was the object of virulent
,

attack at The Oak and brutal imprisonment thereafter, to resign and so be rid
of everything. In the meantime he told her that he had written to Pentadia
asking her to do everything in her power to relieve his present troubles.

85
E.g. epp. 113; 114; 121 ( PG 52.669; 670; 675).
86
E.g. epp. 150-6 (PG 52.700-3).
87
Epp. 88-90 (PG 52.654-5).
88
Epp. 29; 40; 60; 103; 133 (PG 52.627; 632; 662-3; 681-92).
89
Epp. 94 and 104 (PG 52.657-9; 663-4).
90
Epp. 203 and 212 (PG 52.724; 729).
91
See above, p. 143.
92
Ep. 207 (PG 52.726-7).
93
Ep. 14.5 (PG 52.618): IX.236-8.
94
See above, pp. 143f.
95
Ep. 14.4 (PG 52.617): IX.234.
96
See above, p. 174.
 18 Final Exile
.
263
Quite a few letters are purely personal. There are three, for example, to
a society lady, Carteria, one thanking her for a rather special ointment
which she had personally prepared for him. 97 Again, there is a charming
note to bishop Cyriakos asking him to be kind to the son of Sopater,
governor of Armenia, and introduce him (the lad was a student at Constan-
tinople) to people in a position to make his stay there more agreeable. 98 A
deeper note is struck in a letter to one Malchos consoling him and his wife
on the death of their daughter; rather, it bids them rejoice since, like
farmers with their first-fruits, they have presented their first-born to ‘the
common Lord of all’. 99
Several are to important civic or state functionaries whose friendship
John wishes to retain or cultivate. In one letter, 100 for example, John offers
somewhat stilted congratulations to Gemellos, once a pupil at Libanios’
school and now promoted prefect of Constantinople (404-8), on his appoint-
ment. In another 101 he urges him (he was obviously a devoted admirer) not
to put off his baptism until he himself is free to administer the sacrament,
but to be baptised as soon as possible by loyal friends of his. Another close
friend and correspondent who was also urban prefect was Paeanios. 102 Most
intriguing a congratulatory letter to Anthemios, 103 who as master of the
is
offices had been reluctant to use violence in Hagia Sophia on the eve of
Easter 404. 104 and who was soon to become virtual ruler of the eastern
empire and master of John’s fate. John piles up effusive compliments on
his appointment as consul for the year and praetorian prefect (405-14),
recalling his own affection for him and making it unambiguously plain
that everyone suffering unjust treatment will be looking to him for relief.
With his habitual optimism he was nursing hopes which were not to be
fulfilled.
Several of John’s correspondents, it is interesting to note, were men and
women of high social position living at Rome. The Candidianus, for exam-
ple, to whom he wrote in warm
terms, 105 probably quite early in his exile,
and who was clearly a friend of long standing, was a high-ranking general,
husband of Vasianilla, a devout Christian whose ascetic achievements
Palladios admired. 106 Two other Romans to whom he wrote,
107
thanking the
first for her support and the second for the generosity with which she and
her companions had, in difficult circumstances, received friends whom he

97
Ep. 34 (PG 52.629-30).
98
Ep. 64 (PG 52.644).
99
Ep. 71 (PG 52.647-8).
100
Ep. 124 (PG 52.678). For Gemellos see PLRE 1, 388.
101
Ep. 132 (PG 52.690-1).
102
PLRE 2,818. For John’s letters to him see above, pp. 257; 258.
103
Ep. 147 (PG 52.699). See PLRE 2, 93-5.
104
See above, p. 244.
105
Ep. 42 (PG 52.633). See PLRE 1, 179.
106
Lausiac History 41 (Butler 128).
107
Epp. 168 and 169 (PG 52.709).
264 Golden Mouth
had commended were Proba and Juliana. The former 108 was the
to her,
wealthy widow of Claudius Probus, four times praetorian prefect, the
S.
latter 109 wife of Olybrius, consul for 359. Both received letters from
Augustine too, and as members of the gens Anicia belonged to the old
aristocracy.
Although their significance can be exaggerated, great interest attaches
to a handful of letters which graphically illustrate the oversight John
struggled to maintain, within the limits of his constricted situation, over
his campaign to convert non-Christians, chiefly but not exclusively in
Phoenicia (roughly modem Lebanon). His interest in this mission dated
back to his early days as bishop, 110 when he had entrusted its administra-
tion to a priest at Antioch, his friend Constantios 111 - a capable man who
had been bishop Flavian’s adjutant, and would undoubtedly have suc-
ceeded him but for the machinations of John’s enemies. 112 When he reached
Nicaea in July 404, he learned to his distress that it was undergoing a
disturbing setback. He at once wrote to Constantios urging him, 113 notwith-
standing his present difficulties, to carry on with the good work, and to
send him up-to-date information about the construction of churches, the
number of helpers, and the general progress of the Christian cause. He also
sent him a monk whom he had found living enclosed at Nicaea to assist
him. Other letters 114 over the next two years show how energetically he
kept on exerting himself to organise the dispatch of money, supplies and
qualified manpower to Phoenicia. A final letter, 115 written probably in 406,
reveals that there had been bitter fighting between the missionaries and
the pagans; John pressed a priest called Rufinos to hasten there at once to
restore order. He begged him to spare no pains in getting the churches still
under construction securely roofed before winter set in; he need be in no
anxiety about martyrs’ relics, for he was arranging to get some absolutely
authentic ones from Otreios, bishop of Arabissos, and would be sending
them to him shortly.
Further evidence of John’s restless concern for missionary work is
provided by a letter to Olympias 116 and another to his old friend Agapetos. 117
In the former he calls on Olympias to get in touch with Maruthas, bishop
of Martyropolis in Mesopotamia, in spite of his having acted as one of the
judges at The Oak (in fact, such an approach, he suggests, might well help

108
PLRE 1, 732 and 736-40.
109
PLRE 1, 468 and 639.
110
See above, p. 142.
111
See above, pp. 252; 258.
112
See above, p. 252.
113
Ep. 221 (PG 52.732-3).
114
Epp. 21; 53; 54; 123 (PG 52.624; 637-8; 638-9; 676-8).
115
Ep. 126 (PG 52.685-7).
116
Ep. 14.5 (PG 52.618): IX.236.
117
Ep. 175 (PG 52.711-12).
 18. Final Exile 265
in dragging him back from the abyss).As we noted earlier, 118 John’s interest
had been aroused by the bishop some years
in the christianisation of Persia
previously. He seems to have borne him little resentment, had sent him
two so far unanswered letters, and was particularly eager to discover what
success he had had in Persia, and why he had returned to Constantinople.
In the latter he begs Agapetos to give generous assistance to the priest
Elpidios, who had been striving to win over pagan inhabitants of the
Amanos mountains (between Cilicia and Syria), and had already achieved
numerous conversions as well as building churches and founding monastic
communities.

VI
Ever since Photios singled them out for their usefulness and careful
composition, 119 the seventeen letters (there are likely to have been more
originally) which John sent to Olympias at irregular intervals between his
arrival at Nicaea in June 404 and the early months of 407 have always
attracted special attention. They had last seen each other in the baptistery
of Hagia Sophia immediately before his arrest, and they were never to meet
again. For the first year of their correspondence she was in Constantinople,
much of the time seriously ill. In spring 405 John fulsomely congratulated
her not only on her ‘repeated triumphs’ (presumably in the judicial proc-
esses from which she had emerged as the moral victor), but on the extraor-
dinary example she was setting, confined though she was to her sick-room,
120
‘to that great and populous city by her fortitude in bearing her sufferings.
At some unknown date, however, in 405 she withdrew of her own choice
from the capital and settled at Cyzikos (Erdex peninsula) on the Sea of
Marmara. 121 But her struggle against relentless pressure had taken its toll.
The correspondence indicates that for many months she continued ill,
suffering from a double break-down both of physical health and, even more
grievously, of morale.She was shattered by the cruel division in the church,
by the persecution many of her friends, above all by the seemingly
of so
inexplicable disaster which had befallen John and by her interminable
separation from him.
John and Olympias had to rely on such couriers as they could be sure
were trustworthy. A letter written from Arabissos contains a chill warning
to her against employing anyone for this service unless he was making the
journey on other business, for otherwise there was a real danger of his being
murdered. 122 (This was written in 406, when the government’s attitude may

118
See above, p. 144.
119
Bibliotheca 86 (ed. R. Henry, Paris 1960: 2, 11).
120
Ep. 6.1 (PG 52.599): XII.318-20.
121
Sozomen 8.24.7.
122
Ep. 15 (PG 52.620): XV.358-60.
266 Golden Mouth
well have been hardening.) The letters themselves vary greatly in length,
style and content. If the early ones and a few others are short notes rushed
off to give the latest news, there are some (e.g. 1 (VII), 2 (VIII), and 3 (X))
which develop into sustained and closely argued treatises. While the
language is always polished, John now and then slips into almost conver-
sational Greek; 123 at other times he deploys all the artifices of structured
rhetoric. Invariably he addresses Olympias with a deferential courtesy
(‘Your excellency, Your grace’, ‘Your reverence’) which modem readers,
unused to ancient conventions, often find off-putting. Yet everywhere, even
in those lengthy passages which are virtually homilies, the letters reveal,
with a vividness which has few parallels in ancient correspondence, the
intimacy and deep mutual trust which bound together these two remark-
able spirits, the one assured and self-reliant but greatly in need of a
confidante, the other no less strong-willed but baffled and disoriented by
the course of events.
Their close rapport is evident in the naturalness with which John pours
out (while her letters are lost, we may be sure that Olympias fully recipro-
cated) all the minute incidents of his daily life, the excitements, dangers
and disappointments he experiences, the ups and downs of his health, his
reaction to the cruel winter, such details as his struggle to keep warm, his
124
fits of vomiting and the medicine he takes to check them. It is evident,
too, in his unquestioning reliance on her to carry out confidential commis-
sions for him and to keep him supplied with information. 125 It comes out,
again, in his eagerness to hear from her, in his restless interest in her
health, in the desolation he feels when letters fail to arrive from her. 126 But
it is most tenderly, and eloquently, expressed when he seeks to console her

for what he knows distresses her most, her separation from ‘the nothing-
ness that is all I am’ ( tes oudeneias tes hemeteras)} 21
Here we are brought face to face with an ever-present concern in all these
letters, the overriding one in several - John’s desire to help Olympias to
shake off ‘the tyranny of depression’ (athumia) which has fastened its grip
on her. 128 To achieve this he continually reminds her of certain confidently
held beliefs which should be, and are, as self-evident to her as they are to
him. For example, if the church is like a ship battered by storms, God is
‘the pilot of the universe’ and will set it on its true course in his own good
time. 129 If her friends are victims of unjust treatment, confiscations, false
accusations, banishment itself, all these apparent disasters are only tran-
sitory; the one thing which should be dreaded and make one downcast is

123
E.g. epp. 13.1 (PG 52.610): VI. 128; 14.2 (PG 52.613): IX.222.
124
For examples see section IV above.
125
(PG 52.618): IX.236 (Maruthas).
E.g. ep. 14.5
126
E.g. ep. 10(PG 52.609): 11.110.
127
Ep. 2.11 (PG 52.568): VIII.202.
128
Ibid.
129
Ep. 1.1 (PG 52.549-50): VII. 134-6.
 18. Final Exile 267
sin.Christ himself was maltreated, vilified, and betrayed. The first disci-
ples were persecuted, but so far from impeding the church this was the
stimulus to its progress 130 The fact is, as he constantly insists, suffering
.

here, in the providence of God, both allows a man to expiate his sins and
procures ineffable rewards in the life to come 131 Olympias should abandon
.

her gloom, turning her eyes away from the distresses of the moment to
contemplate the deliverance and the ultimate recompense which will surely
be hers.
It is Job, stripped of everything but nevertheless exclaiming, The Lord
gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the Lord’s name’, who sums up
John’s consistent message of grateful acceptance of whatever comes to
pass 132 So he can encourage Olympias to believe that the greater one’s
.

suffering, the more fruitful it becomes provided one is thanking God 133 .

Even separation from such a loved friend as himself will bring a measure-
less reward if she bears it courageously, ‘never letting a bitter word escape
her lips, but glorifying God for all she has to bear 134 But the cure of moral
’.

prostration demands the active co-operation of the sufferer, just as the cure
of physical illness that of the patient 135 So he assures her, with his
.

invincible faith in the efficaciousness of personal effort, What we are

aiming at is not just to rid you of your depression, but to fill you with
immense and lasting joy. This is possible if you will it. For it is not on the
immutable laws of nature, which it is impossible for us to manipulate or
alter, that our good dispositions depend, but on the free decisions of our
will, which we can easily control .’ 136 Here, as elsewhere in his elaborate
argument (e.g. in his tireless insistence that the experiences generally
rated disastrous are really matters of indifference), we catch echoes of the
great Stoic commonplaces which he had inherited from his upbringing. As
he expounds them, however, they are almost always interwoven with
distinctively Christian themes such as the hope of rich rewards in the life
to come and the acceptance of suffering, not with Stoic resignation, but with
the joyous outpouring of thanks to God.
We have no means of knowing whether John’s earnest, repetitious efforts
to Olympias out of her dejection were successful, but one suspects that
lift

they were not. John himself seems to admit as much, a little impatiently,
in his last letter to her. After sending her a reasoned summary of his
familiar arguments, he suggests that, properly studied, this should prove
an effective medicine for her if only she makes up her mind to use it. He
then adds, ‘But if you obstinately resist me and do not heal yourself, if while
receiving endless counsel and consolation you decline to drag yourself from

130
Ep. 1.4-5 (PG 52.553-6): VII.146-56.
131
Epp. 14.1 (PG 52.612-13): IX.220; 2.3 (PG 52.559): VIII.170.
132
Ep. 2.11 (PG 52.568): VIII.204.
134
E.g. ep. 16 (PG 52.621): XIV.352.
135
Ep. 2.1 (PG 52.556): VIII. 158-60.
136
Ep. 3.1 (PG 52.572-3): X.242-4.
268 Golden Mouth

the stagnant pond of depression, I for my part shall not find it easy to
comply with your request to keep sending you frequent, lengthy letters
from which you are not going to derive any improvement in your spiritual
condition.’ 137 His ill-success is not really surprising; in her deep prostration
she needed something more than intellectual reassurance and brisk admo-
nition to pull herself together. For all his affection and devotion John was
temperamentally unsuited to enter sympathetically into her psychological
predicament. One small but significant evidence of this is the rebuke he
once gave her for rejecting his pleas: ‘If you go on repeating, “I should like
to, but I haven’t got the strength”, I too shall go on repeating, “Mere excuses
and pretexts!” For I know how strong the sinews of your deeply religious
soul are.’ 138

vn
Meanwhile John had decided to disseminate the message he had been
giving Olympias to a wider public, and put together two pieces amplifying
his ideas on the seemingly inexplicable trials which befall ordinary decent
people. He intended them primarily for the hard core of Johnites in
Constantinople, but also for Olympias herself. In his last letter, written in
spring 407, he recalls that he had sent her the first of these ‘recently
(
proen ), and then describes the second, which he enclosed with the letter,
as ‘carrying on the same combat’. 139 It was this latter piece, as we noted in
the preceding paragraph, which he had hoped she would find to be an
infallible remedy for her depression. These were the last of his formal
compositions, but neither shows any flagging of his powers as a writer of
high-flown rhetoric.
The first and much shorter of the two, No Man Can Be Harmed Save By
Himself, 140 in several MSS entitled ‘Letter written from Cucusos to Olym-
pias and to all the faithful’, is in fact a treatise prepared in the style and
with all the rhetorical features of a spoken address. Its object is to convince
John’s adherents in the capital and elsewhere, victims since his deposition
of every sort of persecution at the hands of both the civil and the ecclesias-
tical authorities, that this treatment is incapable of doing them any real
damage provided they retain, through their own firm resolve, their per-
sonal moral integrity. The reason for this is that a man’s true worth does
not reside in riches, health, reputation, freedom, or even life itself, but in
that very moral integrity, which John defines more precisely as ‘a thorough

137
Ep. 4.4 (PG 52.595): XVII.384-6.
138
Ep. 2.3 (PG 52.558): VIII. 166.
139
Ep. 4.4 (PG 52.595): XVII. 384.
140
Quod nemo laeditur nisi a seipso: PG 52.459-80. There is a first-class critical edition, with
French translation, by A.M. Malingrey in SC 103 (Paris 1964), to which the present writer is
much indebted.
 18. Final Exile 269
grasp of the true doctrines coupled with strict integrity of behaviour’. 141
This no one, not even the Devil, will be able to take from him provided he
is careful to keep it intact. Thus it cannot be affected by such apparent
disasters as exile, enslavement, torture, death itself; it is only when, like
Adam, he abandons it through negligence or lack of vigilance, and so slips
into sin, that he sustains real injury. 142 John winds up his stem but bracing
message by recalling the three young Jews who, according to Daniel 3, were
thrown into ‘the burning fiery furnace’ for refusing to worship the golden
image which Nebuchadnezzar had set up. 143 They had been subjected to
much the same injustices and cruelties as the Johnite supporters for whom
he was writing, but they emerged from their ordeal not only scatheless but
bathed in a special radiance.
As he expounds it, John’s thesis is an elaboration of the paradox set
out in the title, to which he constantly returns as he develops his
argument. The paradox itself is a neat distillation of an axiom tradi-
tional in Greek thinking from Sokrates and Plato right down to the later
Stoics, the idea that it is always better to suffer injustice than to inflict
it, and that for the good man who remains true to himself no evil is

possible either in this life or after death. 144 This is a theme which
underlies much
of John’s teaching; what is a little startling is that,
whereas he usually sets it in a patently Christian context, this is almost

wholly lacking here. In other works he stresses, for example, that the
experience of suffering is an opportunity for thanksgiving, 145 or argues
that no one can make us truly wretched while we fear the Lord and
receive his grace, 146 or celebrates the disciple who bears every kind of
disaster in the knowledge that nothing can separate us from the love of
Christ (Rom. 8. 35), 147 or claims triumphantly that no one in the world
can inflict real harm on the man who is a Christian. 148 By contrast there
is little or no attempt in this essay to give a Christian slant to the

successive themes developed. The illustrations, it is true, are drawn

from scripture, with Paul held up as the heroic exemplar, but the
substance of the argument might have been drawn from a Stoic man-
ual. 149 The Christian element is minimal, with only perfunctory refer-
ences to Christ. There is a problem here which has embarrassed some
students, but no satisfactory solution to it has been proposed.

141
Quod nemo laeditur 3 (PG 52.463).
142
Quod nemo laeditur 4 (PG 52.464).
143
Quod nemo laeditur 17 (PG 52.478-80).
144
E.g. Plato, Apol. 32d; 41d; Gorgias 469bc; 477e; 509c; Repub. 10.608d-609a;
12.613a;
Epiktetos, Discourse 1.1.21-5; 4.1.127-31.
145
De incomp. 4.4 (PG 48.735-6).
146
Ad pop. Antioch, horn. 18.4 (PG 49.186).
147
De res. mort. 3-04 (PG 50.425).
148
In Act. horn. 51.4 (PG 60.356).
149
See esp. E. Amand de Mendieta, Byzantion 36 (1936), 353-81.
270 Golden Mouth
150
The second piece, which John hoped would prove particularly helpful
to Olympias, aptly named by its most recent editor On God's Providence ,

is also a treatise with many of the characteristics of an address. It, too, is

aimed at giving reassurance to the Christian community in Constantinople
whose faith has been shaken by the dreadful events happening to them-
selves and like-minded fellow-Christians. As in its briefer predecessor,
much of the argument rests on widely accepted Stoic presuppositions; for
example, the axiom that the man who keeps himself free from wrong-doing
cannot be injured by anyone, or even by death itself, has an important place
in it. 151 Here, however, these considerations take second place to a powerful
presentation of distinctively Christian themes, such as the certainty of
God’s love for man (surpassing all the forms of love we know), 152 or the
reminder that the cross, a scandal in the eyes of most people, meant for
Christ himself his glorification (John 17), while for Paul it was the ground
for his boasting (Gal. 6. 14). 153 Combined with these is a characteristic
emphasis on man’s inability to understand God’s providence, and a chal-
lenge to Christians in the capital to imitate those heroes of the Old
Testament who, ‘although they had no clear knowledge of the resurrection
and witnessed events quite contrary to God’s promises, did not allow
themselves to be scandalised or upset, but committed themselves to his
inscrutable providence Confident of the power and resourcefulness of
. . .

his wisdom, they looked forward to the outcome, indeed well before the
outcome bore whatever adversity was perpetrated with thanksgiving,
glorifying the God who permitted these things to happen.’ Those who can
read the New Testament are even better placed, for they have the Lord’s
assurance, ‘He who endures to the end will be saved’ (Matt. 10.22). 154
For all its fine formal structure, this letter-treatise is no detached
discussion of great philosophical and religious issues. Its language is
eloquent, and it throbs with the emotion of personal involvement. From
time to time, especially towards the end, this erupts in scarcely disguised
allusions to current events and personalities. The centre-piece of the
section just quoted is a poignant description of ‘the church rent asunder,
with its most illustrious members harassed and scourged, its chief pastor
exiled to the ends of the earth’. 155 Later John bitterly contrasts his faithful
congregation (swollen by an inflow of people hitherto devoted to the theatre
and race-course) obliged, as a result of the removal of their rightful clergy,
to celebrate the liturgy on their own in the wild countryside, with the false

150
Ad eos qui scandalizati sunt ob adversitates PG 52.479-528): critical edition, with French
{

translation, by A.M. Malingrey - J. Chrysostome : Sur la Providence de Dieu { SC 79: Paris

1961).
151
E.g. Ad
eos qui scandalizati sunt 15-16 {PG 52.516-18).
152
Ibid.,6 {PG 52.488-91).
153
Ibid, 17 {PG 52.516-18).
154
Ibid, 9 (PG 52.499-500).
155
Loc. cit.
 18. Final Exile 271
bishops who, after deceiving the world with a pretence of sound religion
and charitable conduct, have been exposed as the impostors they are. 156 He
even lampoons ‘the high-priest who has become vicious and ravages his
flock more cruelly than a wolf would’ (this can only be Attikos, bishop of
Constantinople since March 406), and ‘the highly placed magistrate who
shows himself ruthless in the extreme’ 157 (almost certainly Optatos, city
prefect 404-5, always detested by Johnites for his severity). This was
dangerous language if the treatise found its way, as it was likely to do, into
the hands of the authorities, but at this stage John seems, for reasons hard
158
to explain, to have been optimistic about his prospects of a come-back. In
any case, he was evidently pleased with what he had written, and begged
Olympias to read it continually, aloud if her health permitted.

156
Ad eos qui scandalizati sunt 19 ( PG 52.520-1).
157
Ibid., 20 (PG 52.521).
158
See below, p. 282.
 19

Last Journey

During John was eagerly watching events unfold,

his three years of exile
in Constantinople and the greater world beyond, impatient to assess their
bearing on his fortunes. One such event, of more than ordinary importance,
was the death of Eudoxia on 6 October 404. A few days before a hail-storm
of unprecedented ferocity, with hail-stones as big as walnuts, had beaten
down on the capital and its suburbs. Emotionally upset by it, perhaps also
1

guilt-stricken, she had suffered another miscarriage, one which this time
ended her life. She was buried in the Holy Apostles. We should dearly like
to know John’s reaction to the wholly unexpected passing of the volatile,
impulsive empress, once his eager supporter and friend, but later fatally
estranged, but no mention of it survives, or is likely ever to have figured,
in his correspondence. The Johnites, inevitably, were quick to interpret her
death as manifest proof of divine displeasure at his ill-treatment and as a
vindication of their cause.
If they hoped the government would relax its severity, they were greatly
mistaken. The opposition to John extended far beyond her and her circle,
and was deeply entrenched. In any case, a new situation had been created
by the appointment of Arsakios as bishop, and the authorities were deter-
mined to maintain it at whatever cost. About mid-November they replaced
Stoudios, a detached and perhaps covertly sympathetic city prefect, 2 with
Optatos, a non-Christian with a reputation for imposing harsh penalties; 3
for the next eight or nine months the implementation of the penal legisla-
tion lay in his hands. Then on 18 November, alarmed at the rapid spread
of the divisions caused by John’s deposition, they published a fresh edict
extending the ban on dissident worship to the provinces. 4 This instructed
provincial governors to outlaw all services held by orthodox Christians in
places other than the official churches, and made communion with
Arsakios, Theophilos and Porphyrios of Antioch, the three government-
recognised patriarchs of the east, obligatory.

1
Sokrates 6.19; Sozomen 8.27; Chronicon paschale s.a. 404 (PG 92.781): the last mentions
her burial place.
2
See above, p. 251.
3
PLRE 1, 649-50.
4
CT 16.4.6.
 19. Last Journey 273
5
Early in 405 a further edict, dated 4 February, made it impossible for
bishops sympathetic to John who had been deposed to recover their sees by
requiring them to be held in custody far from their episcopal cities, without
any right of appeal. Finally, when the aged Arsakios died on 11 November
405, 6 and the Johnites hoped against hope that the return of their hero
might be arranged, the government after four months’ delay pushed
through the election of the Armenian priest Attikos, whom Palladios was
to describe correctly as the architect of the conspiracy against John. 7 A dull
preacher, but a man of warm personality and immense charitableness, he
was also a capable administrator. 8 It was probably the combination of this
quality with his record of antipathy to John that prompted his choice as
bishop: the authorities reckoned that he was better equipped to carry out
their policies energeticallythan his elderly, indolent predecessor. Under
him the legislation penalising anyone, clerical or lay, who refused to hold
communion with the officially recognised bishops was intensified. 9

II

If theprospects for John and his adherents in Constantinople looked bleak,

more encouraging signals were coming from the west. About the time of
Eudoxia’s death 10 two letters from the pope, Innocent I, reached the capital,
one to John, to be forwarded to him at Cucusos, and the other to the clergy
and people loyal to him. Separately, but at roughly the same time and
closely linked with the second, a third letter of importance arrived from
Ravenna, where the western court had moved in 402: it was from Emperor
Honorius to his elder brother Arkadios. Palladios, who came to Rome in
autumn 404 and thoroughly briefed himself on recent events there, has left
a detailed and, to all appearances, trustworthy chronicle of the successive
pressures which were brought to bear on the pope during the preceding
months, and which culminated in the writing of all three letters.
The first official report about what had been happening in Constanti-
nople to reach Innocent was a terse note from Theophilos which simply
announced that he had deposed John. 11 Its clear implication, whether
stated or not, was that it was no longer proper for the pope to maintain
communion with him. As leading patriarch of the east (as he still believed
himself to be), bishop of a see with close traditional ties with Rome,
Theophilos was doing nothing exceptional in making this demarche if he ;

5
CT 16.2.35.
6
Sokrates 6.20.
7
Dial. 11 (SC 34.216).
8
For balanced, well documented accounts of him see DCB 1, 207-9 (E. Venables); DHGh o,

161-6 (M. Th. Disdier).

9
Palladios, Dial. 11 (SC 341.216-24).
(8.27) dates the arrival of these letters to the time of the hail-storm.
10
Sozomen
Palladios, Dial. 1 (SC 341.62-4): source for the whole paragraph.
11
274 Golden Mouth

had refrained from notifying Rome about The Oak until now, that was
because its decisions had been almost immediately suspended. Neverthe-
less Innocent was disturbed that Theophilos was the sole signatory of the
letter, and that he had given no explanation of his drastic action. Mean-
while a deacon Eusebios, probably John’s business representative in Rome,
advised him against precipitate action. Just three days later there arrived
the delegation 12 carrying John’s impassioned and circumstantial appeal to
the pope, as well as letters from the forty loyalist bishops and from the
faithful clergy. As John had drafted his appeal towards the end of April and
two or three weeks must be allowed for its transmission, both it and, three
days earlier, Theophilos’ curt message must have been delivered to the
Lateran palace by mid-May at latest.
Innocent’s reaction to these two communications (they had been written,
it should be noted, quite independently of each other) was cautious but by

no means neutral 13 He dispatched letters to both John and Theophilos

.

informing each that he was in full communion with him. This amounted to
a rejection of Theophilos’ request that he should break off communion with
John. He demanded, moreover, that a fresh, impartial synod composed of
western as well as eastern bishops, with declared enemies of either side
excluded, should be convened to adjudicate the affair. His attitude sharp-
ened, however, when, a few days later he received from Theophilos a copy
of the acts of The Oak, along with an assurance that, in deposing John, the
canons of the council of Antioch had been invoked. The acts made it plain
to Innocent that John had been condemned in his absence, on largely trivial
charges and by a synod packed with Egyptian bishops. He therefore sent
the patriarch a markedly stiffer letter 14 repeating that he remained in
,

communion with both John and him, but adding that he could not reason-
ably break off communion with John on the strength of such frivolous
proceedings. If Theophilos insisted on sticking to his verdict on John, he
would have to submit it to a properly constituted synod at which the canons
of Nicaea, the only ones recognised by the Roman church, would be
authoritative.
So far John’s fate was still unknown at Rome, but in early July a
Constantinopolitan priest, Theoteknos, representing the Johnite bishops,
brought the pope a full account of his banishment to Armenia, as also of
the burning of the Great Church 15 Then throughout the summer and
.

autumn, as the eastern government’s penal legislation made their resi-

dence there untenable, a stream of refugees from Constantinople poured
into Rome, each the bearer of an anguished complaint or a grim story of

12
See above, p. 248.
13
Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341.64).
14
Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341.66-8). He is the sole source of this letter, no. 5 in Innocent’s
correspondence.
15
Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341.68).
 19. Last Journey 275
persecution. Palladios, who himself arrived in September, driven out (as
he hints) by the decree of 29 August, methodically records their names. 17
1 *3

They all gave full reports to Innocent, who notes that he questioned them
closely. 18 There must also have been intense interest in the news they
brought, and discussion about it, in the imperial court, for Honorius and
his chief minister Stilicho were in residence in Rome from November 403
until 25 July 404; the letter of Honorius to Arkadios mentioned above
reveals how fully informed he was about everything that had been happen-
ing in the eastern capital. Others in Rome who undoubtedly listened
eagerly to the refugees’ alarming stories were the small but influential
group of John’s sympathisers and friends there - the aged Melania, whom
Olympias had taken as her role-model in asceticism, 19 and her granddaugh-
ter Melania the Younger (both had returned to Rome from the holy land in
400), as well as aristocratic ladies such as Proba and Juliana, with whom
John would soon be corresponding. 20 The younger Melania, we know, 21 gave
generous hospitality at this time to Palladios and numerous others visiting
Rome to forward John’s interests.
It was not only desperate Johnites who were doing all they could to lobby
the pope. Hard on Theoteknos’ heels a priest Paternos arrived with a sheaf
of abusive letters from Antiochos and other virulently anti-Johnite bish-
ops. 22 But Innocent had already come down firmly on John’s side; what he
was not so clear about was the action he should take. After his second letter
to Theophilos 23 he had ceased acknowledging the approaches of John’s
24
adversaries. The cautious reply he sent to Theoteknos, however, betrays
the difficulty in which he found himself. While confirming his continued
communion with John, he counselled patience since he himself could do
nothing against the powerful forces determined to destroy John. This was
a veiled allusion to the eastern government, on which protests from even
the leading bishop of the west were unlikely to have the least effect. It was
apparent to him that, if influence was to be brought to bear on it, this could
only be through a direct approach by the western government. It seems
certain, in fact, that before the court left for Ravenna at the end of July,
there had been close consultation between himself and Honorius and his
advisers, and that a common policy had been worked out. For several weeks
Innocent took no steps to implement this; he was waiting for the opportune
moment. In late September, however, when the priest Germanos and the

16
See above, p. 253.
17
Dial. 3 (SC 341.68-80).
18
Ep. 7.4 (PL 20.506-8).
19
See above, p. 112.
20
See above, p. 264.
21
Palladios, Lausiac History 61 (Butler 57).
22
Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341.70-2).
23
Ep. 5 (PL 20.493-5): see above, p. 274.
24
Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341).
276 Golden Month
deacon Cassian presented him with a petition from all the clergy loyal to
John in Constantinople 26 he decided that that moment had arrived and
,

sent off letters to both John and his clergy. It is likely that he also notified
Honorius, so that he could dispatch the letter he was planning to send to
his brother.

m
Innocent’s letter to John 26 was in largely general terms. While taking his
innocence for granted and making a scathing comment on the ‘hubris’ of
his oppressors, it made no direct reference to the wrongs done him. It
sought to remind him of what, as ‘the teacher and shepherd of so many
peoples’, he already knew full well, that it is often the best of mankind who
are tested by afflictions, and that ‘the man who can rely on God first of all,
and then on his own good conscience’, should be able, as the example of the
saints abundantly proves, to bear whatever comes to him.
Innocent was more specific, and much more outspoken, in his message
to John’s loyalist clergy and people 27 He had read and re-read, he
.

assured them, the story of their wretched plight as set out in the letter
brought by Germanos and Cassian. He compared their sufferings to
those of the saints of old, and promised that, if they showed patient
endurance, God would speedily bring them to an end. In the meantime
he felt himself punished along with them. It was intolerable, he then
declared, that all these misfortunes should have been brought about by
‘the very people whose special concern it should be to promote peace and
harmony’. It was preposterous that bishops who were guiltless should
have been deposed. ‘John, our brother and fellow-minister, your bishop,
has been the first to receive this unjust treatment, without being allowed
a hearing, without an accusation being brought or heard.’ It was against
all precedent, too, that a new bishop should have been installed while
the rightful holder of the see was still alive. Innocent then deplored the
reliance of John’s persecutors on church canons that were heretical
rather than on the Nicene ones, which alone were binding. The only
means of checking the storm that had arisen was, as he had long been
arguing, a proper synodical investigation. This alone would bring calm
to the disordered situation brought about by the Devil in order to try the
saints. He was now giving earnest thought to how such an ecumenical
synod could be assembled.
28
If Innocent’s letter was outspoken, that of Honorius to his elder brother
was testy, not to say ill-tempered. It opened with some peevish grumbles

25
Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341.76-8).
26
Ep. 12: preserved only by Sozomen, 8.26 ( GCS 50.385-7).
27
Ep. 7 (PL 20.502-7): preserved only by Sozomen, 8.26 (GCS 50.385-7).
28
No. 38 in the Collectio Avellana (CSEL 35.85-8).
 19. Last Journey 277
about the unseemly parading of Eudoxia’s images (it was apparently 29

written before news of her death had reached Ravenna) and about the
devastation carried out by Alaric the Hun in Illyricum. Honorius then
deplored at length the tumult and violence which had recently disgraced
Constantinople at the holy season of Easter, the imprisoning of clergy at
the time when amnesties were normally granted, the bloodshed desecrat-
ing the sanctuary, and the driving of ‘venerable bishops’ into exile. Actions
like these were an insult to God, who had shown his displeasure in the
burning down of the Great Church. Turning to more recent history, he
struck at the eastern government’s intervention in church affairs. Disputes
about religion ought to be settled by the bishops, to whom the interpretation
of divine things belonged; the role of princes was to respect the faith. As
regards the dispute over John, he recalled that both parties had been at
one in sending representatives to Rome to seek its arbitration, and con-
demned the precipitate haste with which, before the matter had been
properly examined and judgment given, the accused bishops had been
bundled off into exile. It was all the more outrageous as those to whom the
final decision had been entrusted had judged it proper to remain in
communion with John pending the settlement of his case. The letter’s
analysis of the crisis was, as we should expect, closely in line with Inno-
cent’s as shown in all his dealings with it, but it criticises and rebukes the
eastern authorities with a frankness which the pope was in no position to
use. As it has been aptly remarked, 30 Honorius made an admirable inter-
mediary for conveying the condemnation of the holy see to the court at
Constantinople.

IV
Whether Innocent’s letter to John came to the attention of the eastern
government we do not know, but it is likely to have been infuriated by the
other two, which gave open support to a condemned trouble-maker. Inno-
cent’s could only fuel the dangerous schism it was striving to stamp out;
Honorius’ must have been regarded as unwarranted interference. It is
scarcely surprising that Arkadios declined to acknowledge it, notwith-
31
standing being followed by a second letter requesting a reply to it.
its
Meanwhile appeals to the pope continued to pour in from Constantinople.
One of the latest recorded by Palladios, 32 complaining of the harsh methods
employed by Optatos, the city prefect, to force women of rank and deacon-
esses to accept communion with Arsakios, gives us a date at the end of 404
33
at least, more probably well into 405. By this time, according to Palladios,

29
See above, p. 239.
30
Ch. Pietri, Roma
Christiana (Rome 1976), 1, 1319. .

Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341.82), where Honorius describes the letter cited below as ‘my
31 third
32
Dial. 3 (SC 341.78-80).
33
Dial. 3 (SC 341.80): meketi karteresanta.
278 Golden Mouth

Innocent had reached the end of his patience. It is likely, although specific
evidence is lacking, that he was also under pressure from John’s influential
friends living in Rome. 34 More important, probably, were the disappoint-
ment and frustration which the evident failure of Honorius’ approach to
his older brother must have inspired both at Rome and Ravenna. He
therefore sent off to Honorius a comprehensive summary of all the reports
and complaints he had received from the east. As a result of this move,
made probably early in 405, the collaboration between pope and emperor
entered on a fresh, more active phase.
First, as Innocent must have expected and had probably planned,
Honorius’ response 35 was to request him to convene a council of Italian
bishops to adjudicate on the great issue of John’s deposition. It was now
their policy, Honorius’ personal approach to his brother having proved
fruitless, to confront the east with the canonically formulated judgment
of the west on the divisive question. Innocent duly assembled a repre-
sentative synod; as well as bishops in the vicinity of Rome, it included
several from the north (e.g. Chromatius of Aquileia), and also refugee
bishops from the east (notably Palladios). The synod, which probably
met in early summer 405, 36 rejected the charges which had been brought
against John, treated Theophilos, Arsakios, and their partisans as
excommunicate, and, guided by Innocent, besought the emperor to invite
his brother to summon a council of eastern bishops, reinforced by a
delegation of westerners, to meet at Thessalonica. The meeting-place
proposed was geographically convenient for both parties; the choice also
cohered with Innocent’s policy, inherited from his predecessor Siricius
(384-99), of making the bishop of Thessalonica his vicar, and thus
maintaining the ecclesiastical authority of Rome in territory which was
politically subject to Constantinople. The Roman synod’s determination
to have John rehabilitated was made crystal-clear in its stipulation that,
while he would be expected to appear at the projected council, he must
first be given back his see and title as bishop, and restored to ecclesias-
tical fellowship. 37
Secondly, Honorius fully endorsed the synod’s report and agreed to write
toArkadios asking him to arrange for the great council it had proposed to
be held at Thessalonica. 38 At his request Innocent organised an impressive
delegation to convey the imperial letter, as well as letters from himself and
other Italian bishops and the acts of the Roman synod, to Constantinople.
The delegation consisted of five Latin bishops, two priests and a deacon,
and was accompanied by four of the eastern bishops who had fled to Rome,

34
Ch. Pietri, Roma Christiana (Rome 1976), 1, 1319.
35
Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341.80-2).
36
Ch. Pietri, op. cit., 1, 1321 n.2.
37
Palladios, Dial. 4 (SC 341.86): an extract, apparently, from the synod’s proceedings.
38
Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341.82).
 19. Last Journey 279
39 40
including Palladios. Honorius’ letter to his brother was superficially less
aggressive in tone than his earlier rancorous communication. He made
much, for example, of his concern for the peace of the church, with which
the welfare of the empire was bound up, and professed himself ready to
revise his views on John in the light of the projected council’s deliberations.
He made no attempt, however, to disguise his present conviction that John
was the innocent victim of a sinister conspiracy; what he in fact was asking
for was the ‘correction’ diorthosis ) of the sentence passed on him. He also
(<

insisted that the presence of Theophilos, the man responsible for all the
trouble, at the council was indispensable. For a fuller exposition of the
views of the west on John he referred Arkadios to two letters which he
enclosed, one from Innocent and the other from Chromatius of Aquileia.
Although backed by Honorius and carrying his letter, the delegation was
actually a pontifical one; as such it was granted the privilege of travelling
by the imperial post. 41 The date of its departure is debated, a favourite
choice being late autumn 405. 42 But this seems much too early: Attikos,
who was probably appointed bishop in March 406, had already been
installed when it reached the vicinity of Constantinople. It is more likely
to have set out early in 406, at the very start of the sailing season, i.e. 11
March. For all its impressiveness, it is hard to imagine what Honorius and
Innocent expected it to achieve. Perhaps they were hoping that, bishop
Arsakios having died in November 405, the eastern authorities might be
prepared to modify their policy in regard to John. 43 If so, they were doing
nothing to help them, for their mandate was to demand a complete climb-
down by Constantinople. In any case, this was a time of growing friction
between the two governments. From the start of 405 Stilicho, Honorius’
all-powerful minister, had refused to recognise the consulate of Anthemios,
now praetorian prefect of the east; while the eastern government was fully
aware that Stilicho was planning, from 405 at least, to bring eastern
Illyricum (the Balkans, apart from former Yugoslavia) back under western
control. 44 As for Anthemios, whatever his personal feelings about John, he
was clearly in no mood to gratify the hopes of the Johnites; it must have
been with his approval that Attikos was appointed as Arsakios’ successor.
In fact, reports of the embassy caused great resentment in the capital;
a campaign seems to have been mounted to portray it as an insult to the
eastern government. 45 It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that Anthemios
saw to it that every obstacle was placed in the way of the unwelcome visitors
once they had penetrated the provinces under Arkadios’ suzerainty. From

39
Palladios, Dial 4 (SC 341.84-6).
40
Palladios, Dial. 3 (SC 341.82-4): cited only here.
41
Palladios, Dia/. 4 (SC 341.84).
42
So, e.g., E. Demougeot, De l’unit6 a la division de I’empire romain (Paris 1951), 346.
43
E.g. Ch. Pietri, Roma Christiana (Rome 1976), 1, 1324.
44
A. Cameron, Claudian (Oxford 1970), 60-2; 157-8.
45
Sozomen 8.28.
280 Golden Mouth

the moment they had rounded the Peloponnese and were sailing in the
direction of Athens they were kept under continuous military surveil-
lance. 46 Although they were carrying letters from the pope to the bishop of
Thessalonica, Anysios, they were prevented by the authorities from enter-
ing the great harbour there, let alone from landing; Illyricum was forbidden
territory for suspect westerners. Instead the two groups were separated
and placed on different ships, the Latins on one and the Greeks on another,
and peremptorily ordered to sail on, storm : tossed and for three days
without adequate provisions, to the capital. Here too the harbour police
dashed their hopes of going ashore. They were obliged to reverse course,
and were interned in the Thracian fortress of Athyras, several kilometres
west of the city (probably the present Buyukfekmege). 47 The Latin party
was confined to a small apartment, without a servant to attend to them;
the Greeks were locked up separately. Although the emperor was in
Constantinople, he flatly declined to offer the western delegation the
audience they expected; when they protested that they were ambassadors
and could only deliver the letters they were carrying, including that of
Honorius to his brother, to him personally, a military tribune wrested the
sealed documents violently from them. A clumsy attempt was then made
them (3,000 gold pieces was the sum proposed) to enter into
to bribe
communion with Attikos, drop their concern for John, and stop talking
about the need for a fresh council. Faced with this final humiliation, they
demanded to be permitted to return in peace to their homes. This request
at least was granted. They were taken, under a heavy escort and in an
unseaworthy vessel, across the Propontis as far as Lampsakos, at the
northern mouth of the Hellespont (Dardanelles). There they were put on
board a more serviceable ship, and after some twenty days at sea landed
on the Calabrian coast, having achieved nothing and utterly disconsolate.
Their fate was at least less wretched than that of their four eastern
companions, who were all dispatched to remote places of exile.
The deliberately hostile reception of the delegation, carrying as it did a
letter from Honorius as well as one from the pope, was a slap in the face
for the western government. It was a calculated blow, however; Anthemios
was aware that he could act as he did without fear of retaliation. Stilicho’s
position had changed dramatically for the worse. He was now perforce
concentrating all his efforts and attention on striving to check the Ostro-
goth Radagaisus, who since the closing months of 405 had been ravaging
the north of Italy. 48 Until August 406, when he was able to crush the
barbarian hordes at Fiesole, his hands were too full for him to spare a

46
We owe the story of the expedition and its fate to Palladios, Dial. 4 (SC 341.86-92), who
was a member of it.
47
So called from the river of that name, between Selymbria (Silivri) and Constantinople: see
Strabo, Geog. 7, 331 (frag. 56).
48
Cf. CT 7.13.16 (17 April 406): encouraging the mobilisation of slaves.
 19. Last Journey 281
thought for the luckless embassy or for John. So far from reaching an
accommodation with them, the eastern government stepped up its perse-
cution of the Johnites, and replaced the name of Arsakios with that of
Attikos in the edict requiring all bishops to be in communion with the three
officially recognised patriarchs of the east. 49 The rebuff to the pope was
equally insulting. His reaction was to renounce fellowship with Attikos,
Theophilos and Porphyrios, and all the other leading opponents of John,
pending the holding of the general council which had always been at the
centre of his policy. 50

V
When news of the ambitious embassy the west was planning on his behalf
filtered through to him, John was naturally excited, and rushed off several
letters of thanks and encouragement to the Latin bishops and priests who
were going to take part in it. 51 Written in almost identical terms, they were
all curiously general, almost conventional in content; they also made no
mention of the persons for whom they were intended. This omission was
probably due to the fact that, at the moment of writing, he was still unaware
of their names, and expected the presbyter (Evethios) who was acting as
courier to distribute them to the appropriate persons when they had been
identified. In a similar vein, again without naming the addressees, he wrote
to the eastern bishops who he understood would be accompanying the
delegation. 52 Nor did he forget Chromatius of Aquileia, 53 one of his stoutest
supporters who had played an influential role in the consultations which
had resulted in the expedition. It is interesting to note that, while invari-
ably commending his correspondents and pressing them to maintain the
struggle, John seems in some of these letters to entertain doubts about the
likely result of their endeavours. In one, 54 for example, he assures its anony-
mous recipient that, whether his crowned with success or ‘the
efforts are
originators of all these troubles’ persist in their contentiousness and refuse to
accept conciliation, he at any rate can be certain of the reward awaiting him.
This suggests that he may not have been either surprised or unduly cast
down when he learned of the embassy’s failure. We have no idea when
reports of this reached him, but such news is likely to have travelled swiftly,
if not directly from Constantinople, at any rate from Antioch, from which
frequent visitors found their way to him. Certain of his letters (e.g. 182 to
Venerius of Milan and 184 to Gaudentius of Brescia) 55 have sometimes been

49
Palladios, Dial. 11 (SC 341.218-20).
50
Palladios, Dial. 20 (SC 341.430-2); Theodoret, HE 5.34 (GCS 44.336).
51
Epp. 157-61 (PG 52.703-6).
52
Epp. 165-7 (PG 52.707-9).
53
Ep. 155 (PG 52.702-3).
54
Ep. 160 (PG 52.705).
55
PG 52.714-15; 715-16.
282 Golden Month

interpreted as expressing gratitude to western leaders for backing the

luckless venture. 56 If this reading of them is correct, the mood they reveal
is one of unshaken resolve; he is insistent that his correspondents should
redouble their efforts. Early in 407, when he drafted his last surviving letter
to Olympias, his spirits were certainly confident. In it he assured her that,
if it was her continued separation from himself that caused her depression,

she could afford now to be cheerful, for it would soon be brought to an end. 57
It is not clear what grounds he can have had for believing, least of all at
this juncture, that his return to Constantinople was imminent; it is more
than likely that we have here yet another instance of his incurable opti-
mism. He was in a more sombre mood when he wrote, somewhat later in
the year, to Innocent. 58 He thanked the pope for giving him all the support
of a loving father; if the issue had rested with him, all the wrongs which
scandalised the Christian world would by now have been put right. Since
this had not come about, he begged Innocent to continue the struggle in so
great a cause with unremitting zeal. Even if he achieved nothing, it was
the sure knowledge of his trust and affection which gave John, now (as he
complained) in the third year of his weary exile, an inexpressible consola-
tion - a consolation which would sustain him even if he should be relegated
to an even more remote and desolate place of exile.
This letter, it seems, dates from spring or very early summer 407, 59 for
its closing sentence indicates that John had heard rumours, at least, of the
fate in store for him. The government had, in fact, decided to substitute a
more distant, much harsher exile for his relatively easy house-detention in
Armenia. An imperial edict was issued ordering his removal, as a matter
of urgency, to Pityus on the eastern shores of the Black Sea. 60 Now
Pitsunda, some 75 km north-west of Sukhumi in the Georgian republic of
Abkhazia of the former Soviet Union, it was then the most easterly Roman
outpost, more than 1100 km by sea from Constantinople. It had a strong
fortress and an excellent harbour, but was incessantly plagued by attacks
by barbarian tribes even more savage than the Isaurians, who descended
from the slopes of the Caucasus. 61 It had been the place of exile, as John
well knew, of Abundantios, 62 one of the generals whose ruin had been
brought about by Eutropios.

56
So, e.g., Moulard, 392.
57
Ep. 4.4 (PG 52.594: XVII. 382). Baur held (2, 399) that John’s confidence was based on his
hopes of the success of the Roman embassy; but the letter’s date (see SC 13bis.98) excludes
this.
58
PL 52.535-6.
69
It is usually dated late 406, but he cannot have heard of his projected removal to Pityus so
early: see the letter to Olympias just cited (early 407).
60
Palladios, Dial. 11 (SC 341.222).
Theodoret, HE 5.34.7-8 (GCS 44.335): see A.H.M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman
61

Provinces (Oxford 1971), 173.

62
See above, p. Ill; also PLRE 1, 4-5. Jerome (ep. 60.16: CSEL 54.570) pictures him as living
there ‘in destitution’ (egens).
 19. Last Journey 283
According to Palladios, 63 this sharp aggravation of his sentence (which
would make visits to him impossible, and cut him off from the network of
friends he had established in Armenia) resulted from a frenzied appeal to
the court from Porphyrios of Antioch and other Syrian bishops, his old
adversary Severian being prominent among them. Cucusos was becoming
a place of pilgrimage, they complained, with swarms of John’s admirers
streaming north from the Syrian capital and elsewhere to visit him and
listen to his words, and bringing back rapturous reports of his preaching.
His extraordinary popularity stung them with jealousy, and they were
impatient to have him transported to somewhere completely out of reach.
It is likely enough that factors like this played their part, but to concentrate
on them exclusively and ignore the political dimension is to oversimplify.
Sozomen 64 sets the move in the context of the growing demand in the west
for a general council, something the eastern authorities wished at all costs
to avoid. Their decision should in any case be seen as a by-product of the
great resentment created in Constantinople by the west’s persistent inter-
vention on John’s behalf, most recently exemplified in the papal embassy.
They must have feared, too, that the balance was once again swinging in
the west’s favour, for Stilicho, having decisively defeated Radagaisus at
Fiesole in August 406, would soon be again well placed to champion the
Johnite cause. He was not likely, if John was still around and easily
accessible, to leave the humiliating rebuff administered to the western
delegation unrequited.

VI
There some uncertainty when the deportation order, with the detach-
is
ment of praetorian guards who were to carry it out (there seem to have been
just two of them) reached Cucusos (or Arabissos, if the alternative hypo-
thesis is accepted). All the information, meagre as it is, that we have about
65
John’s last journey and its tragic outcome is supplied by Palladios.
66
‘Martyrios’ throws no light on them; all we gather from his exordium is

that news of John’s death has reached Constantinople, without any details
of how it happened or of events preceding it. Palladios, we may be sure, was
careful to ransack every scrap of evidence bearing on this last phase of
John’s life that filtered through to him, but even so it does not amount to
much. He describes ‘that most cruel’ journey as having lasted three months
{trimenon) ,
67
the order must have arrived, and John and
If this is correct,
his escort must havearound mid-June 407. But three months has
set off,

always struck scholars as an inordinately long time, implying as it does

63
Dial. 11 (SC 341.222).
64
g 28
65
Dial. 11 (SC 341.224-28).
66
P 532b-533c.
67
SC 341.224, line 116.
284 Golden Mouth
that, although the soldiers had orders to proceed with all possible dispatch,
they only covered about three or four kilometres a day on average. There
is therefore much to be said for the suggestion that Palladios may have
misunderstood the reports given to him, and that the duration of the
journey was in fact three weeks. 68
If this is accepted, the praetorian guards with John would have taken to
the military road leading north to the Black Sea around 25 August. In
accordance with their instructions, they pressed ahead with brutal disre-
gard for the frail physique and fragile health of their prisoner. If we can
trust Palladios (it may have been just a rumour current in Johnite circles),
they did not trouble to conceal the fact that they had been promised
promotion if he succumbed on the way. One of them, we are told, felt
genuine compassion for him, but he dared not show this except secretly.
Much of the route covered difficult, often mountainous country, and the
little party made forced marches of some 20 kilometres a day; this time
John had no litter or mule at his disposal. As was to be expected in early
autumn, pelting rainstorms alternated with blazing sunshine. When they
reached a town or village where the elementary comforts he needed (e.g.
the warm baths he had so often told 69 Olympias were indispensable to his
health) might have been obtained, his escort hurried past without stopping.
This was not necessarily an example of deliberate harshness; his identity
was no secret, and demonstrations of public sympathy were the last thing
his guards wanted. More questionable was the way in which (according to
Palladios), when travellers they met made suggestions aimed at easing his
sufferings, their leader brushed them contemptuously aside.
On 12 September they reached Dazimon (today Tokat), in the rocky and
well forested valley of the river Iris (Ye^il Irmak). They had completed
about three-quarters of the way to Polemonion (just east of the little port
of Fatsa) on the Black Sea coast, where, judging by their route, they
probably planned to board a ship bound for Pityus. 70 John was utterly
exhausted, racked with fever and with his face burnt brick red by the sun,
but they pressed on next day, crossing the Iris (the ancient bridge can still
be seen) and passing the important city of Comana Pontica (close to the
village of Gbmenek) without a moment’s halt. Some eight kilometres
beyond they reached a hamlet (today Bizeri) clustered around the shrine
of a local martyr Basiliskos, whom Palladios represents (probably mistak-
enly) 71 as a bishop of Comana who had perished in 312, a victim of the
persecution of Maximin Daia (308-12). Here they decided to spend the
night, close to the martyr’s tomb. Palladios relates, in one of the rare

68
E.g. D. Stiemon, BSS VI. 684 (taking up a suggestion of Baur’s, in 2, 420).
69
E.g. ep. 4.4 (PG 52.595): XVII.384.
70
Baur, 2, 240.
71
He is more likely to have been a soldier who was exposed as a Christian. For a good
discussion see BSS IV.54-6 (G.D. Gordini).
 19. Last Journey 285
intrusions of the miraculous in his story, how as John slept Basiliskos
appeared to him in a dream and bade him take heart, for on the following
day they would be united together. The saint, he adds, was said to have
appeared a short while before to the priest in charge of the chapel, and to
have warned him to prepare a place ‘for my brother John’. Like other
Christians of that age, Palladios accepted these manifestations without
question; some years later he was to describe, 72 in almost identical lan-
guage, the death of a woman recluse to whom the martyr Kollouthos had
appeared with a similar message.
Next morning, 14 September, John, feeling at the end of his tether,
begged the soldiers to postpone departure until the fifth hour (11 a. m.), but
they insisted on setting out at once. He managed to drag himself on for four
or five kilometres, but weakness then overcame him and he collapsed. His
guards had no option but to bring him back to Basiliskos’ chapel. From this
point Palladios’ generally sober narrative takes on a heightened tone as he
draws an idealised sketch of John’s last moments. First, he asked for ‘the
white garments which befitted his life’. Then, having changed into these,
he distributed his discarded clothes to the bystanders, received the holy
sacrament, and made his final prayer aloud in their hearing. Finally, he
stretched himself out on a bed, and was ‘gathered to his fathers’. 73 His last
words were the thanksgiving which, as Palladios remarks, had been ha-
bitually on his lips, and which summarily expressed one of his deepest
convictions, ‘Glory be to God for everything.’ 74 If our reckoning that he was
born in 349 or thereabouts is correct, he was about fifty-eight years old. His
body was interred close by that of Basiliskos; in the now ruinous little
church at Bizeri an empty grave has traditionally been shown as his
original resting-place.

72
Hist. Laus. 60 (Butler 154). See Baur, 2, 429; P. Devos, AB
107 (1989), 262-5.
73
1 Macc. 2.69. Palladios assimilates his death to that of the patriarch Jacob
by usmg the
expression (Gen. 49.33) ‘having drawn up his feet’, i.e. into the bed.
74
Ep. 93 (to Paeanios: PG 52.719-20) can be read as an eloquent commentary
 EPILOGUE

Triumphal Return

More than thirty years were to elapse before John would return to the
capital he had left, deposed but believing himself still its lawful bishop, in
June 404. On his death his partisans in Constantinople, Antioch and other
cities where hostile bishops were installed, while refusing to participate in
the doing so with sullen resentment, were careful not to
official services or
elect a successor and so create a continuing schism. The government
1

therefore had no motive for keeping up its harassment of them and, in the
interest of communal peace, published some kind of amnesty. 2 Even Theo-
philos, now that his bete noire was out of the way, urged Attikos, 3 since 406
bishop of Constantinople, to desist from reprisals against the Johnites. As
a realist he knew that nothing was to be gained by perpetuating divisions,
and that his move might assist bridge-building with Rome. So far from
being appeased, however, the Johnites now took the offensive, calling for
their hero’s name to be inscribed in the diptychs, i.e. the formal list of dead
(and living) persons commemorated in the liturgy. This would be a first
step to his complete rehabilitation, implying that his deposition had been
uncanonical and that he had remained bishop until his death. Their
demand received powerful support from Innocent I and other western
bishops; the pope made compliance with it the indispensable condition for
his resumption of communion with the eastern churches. 4
This demand was quite unacceptable to John’s victorious enemies, and
for years they turned a deaf ear to it. The first break in their ranks came,
appropriately enough, at Antioch, where public sympathy for him and his
cause were particularly strong. The hated Porphyrios, who had succeeded
Flavian in 404, 5 died in 412, and his successor Alexander, a man of ascetic
training and a peacemaker by temperament, was determined to end the
divisions in his community. 6 He first dealt with the lingering Antiochene

1
Theodoret, HE 5.34.10 ( GCS 44.336).
2
Synesios, ep. 66 (PG 66.1408-9). He uses the term amnestia.
3
Synesios, loc. cit.
4
Theodoret, HE 5.34.11 ( GCS 44.336).
5
See above, p. 252.
6
Theodoret, HE 5.35.1-5 ( GCS 44.337-8).
 Epilogue: Triumphal Return 287
schism; going over with his congregation to the church where the remaining
Eustathians worshipped, he charmed them by persuasive blandishments
and led all but a handful of them in procession to the Golden Church. He
sealed the union by accepting the priests and deacons ordained by Paulinos
and Evagrios among his own clergy. He then turned his attention to much
the largest body of dissidents in Antioch, the Johnites, and won them over
at a stroke by including John’s name in the diptychs. What is more, as
metropolitan of Syria he arranged for Elpidios and Pappos, devoted friends
of John who had had to lie low for three years, 7 to return to the sees from
which they had been ejected. He then sent a delegation to Rome to report
what he had done, and the delighted pope, sitting in synod with twenty
Italian bishops, wrote back enthusiastically announcing that he was ad-
mitting Antioch to communion. 8
Alexander died in 416. His successor, Theodotos (417-29), initially tried
to reverse his policy, erasing John’s name from the diptychs, but was
immediately forced by a popular outcry to replace it. 9 But if John’s reha-
bilitation was carried out relatively swiftly in the Syrian patriarchate, the
process took longer and proved rather messier at Constantinople. At
Antioch it was simply a case of appeasing Johnite malcontents, something
Alexander was happy to do and which cast no doubts on his own position.
For Attikos placing John’s name in the diptychs was tantamount to admit-
ting that he himself had been an intruder on the see for at any rate his first
two years. Pressure on him to do so was, however, mounting. In the main
it came from the large proportion of Christians in the city who shunned his

services. The pope too, however, wrote to his nuncio in the eastern capital,
Boniface (to become pope in 418), telling him to advise those who were
pleading for the recognition of Attikos by Rome that he would have to accept
exactly the same conditions as Alexander had recently accepted at Anti-
och. 10 More alarming still, Alexander himself turned up in Constantinople
and, as well as using his personal influence with his brother bishop, did not
scruple to incite the people to force his hand. Eventually, faced with excited
calls for John’s name to be inscribed in the diptychs and growing threats
of public disorder, he consulted the youthful Theodosios II, sole eastern
emperor since Arkadios’ death in 408. His reply, dictated (we may assume)
by his praetorian prefect and guardian Anthemios, was to the effect that
there could surely be no harm in placing a dead man’s name on a tablet if
thereby peace and harmony could be ensured.
So, grudgingly and with blustering protests, Attikos capitulated. To
explain and justify his conduct he sent a detailed account of the affair to

7
Palladios, Dial. 20 (SC 341.398).
Ep. 19 (PL 20.540-2; JW 305).
8

9
So we must deduce from a letter of Attikos of Constantinople to Cyril of Alexandria: PG
77.849D.
10
Ep. 23 (PG 20.246-7; JW 309).
288 Golden Mouth
Cyril, 11who had succeeded his uncle Theophilos as bishop of Alexandria in
412, inheriting his hatred of John as well as his despotic disposition. He
had been forced to give way, he claimed in this extraordinary letter, because
of the alarming situation, against his better judgment. Even so, he had not
transgressed the canons, for the names not only of bishops, but of priests,
deacons, laymen, even women, figured in the diptychs. He concluded by
challenging Cyril, ‘for the sake of securing peace throughout the entire
world’, to instruct the churches of Egypt to have ‘the name of that dead
man inscribed in the diptychs’. Cyril’s reply 12 dissected Attikos’ excuses
with cold contempt. According to his information, he pointed out, John’s
name had not been inscribed at Constantinople in the lists of lay folk, but
in that of bishops. That was the equivalent of restoring Judas to the ranks
of the apostles. If Attikos was really concerned for church unity, he should
at once erase the name of a man who had ceased to be a bishop from the
lists of genuine bishops.
Yet, for all his domineering tone, Cyril himself found it prudent before
long to fall into line. Alexandria could not forever remain isolated from the
other eastern churches or from Rome. Among the factors weighing on him
may have been pressure from the government in Constantinople. 13 When
or for what precise reasons he made the, to him, unpalatable gesture, is
not clear. A date around 418, however, seems plausible, for the council of
Carthage of May 419 requested Pope Boniface to obtain certified copies of
the Nicene canons from the great sees of the east, including Alexandria. 14
Whatever the date and circumstances of his climb-down, it is certain that
he made it for political reasons, and that he remained convinced until his
death of the legitimacy of The Oak and of John’s culpability.

II

It is often suggested that ‘the first and chief credit’ for John’s formal
rehabilitation belongs to Innocent I, who masterminded it by uncompro-
misingly insisting that there could be no communion between Rome and
any of the eastern churches until they inscribed his name in their dip-
tychs. 15 But this verdict, which would have gratified that forceful promoter
of papal authority, rests on a misreading of the evidence. At Alexandria
Cyril's reluctant capitulation was in part determined by his need to restore
the special relationship with Rome, but equally he could not afford to
maintain a stance which clashed so markedly with imperial policy. Antioch,

11
Ep. 75 in Cyril’s correspondence: PG 77.347-52. It is the main source of the previous
paragraph.
12
Ep. 76 (PG 77.352-60).
13
See Baur, 2, 450-1.
14
CCL 149.160.
16
So Baur, 2, 232: cf. A. Moulard, 403; E. Demougeot, 351; etc.
 Epilogue: Triumphal Return 289
too, was keen to renew its ties with Rome, but this was at least in part
because it needed the pope’s support in getting rid of the Eustathian
schism. As for Constantinople, it is obvious that, although Attikos was
eager for peace with the holy see, 16 he found Innocent’s conditions totally
repugnant. But all this is beside the point. What the evidence overwhelm-
ingly suggests is that, in inscribing John’s name in their diptychs, the
authorities at both Antioch and Constantinople were responding, gladly in
the former case and with grave misgivings in the latter, to immense popular
pressure. 17 In particular, there is not the slightest hint, in Attikos’ fairly
detailed letter to Cyril, of the desirability of placating the pope. Everything
points to the conclusion that John owed his restoration to the honour and
dignity of which he had been stripped exclusively to the insistent demands
of his activist followers and of the ordinary people whose affection he had
always courted.
Notwithstanding their success, his admirers in Constantinople still
remained dissatisfied. The diptychs of churches, as Attikos had remarked
in his astonishingly frank letter to Cyril, sometimes included the names of
schismatics (e.g. Paulinos and Evagrios at Antioch) and other persons of
dubious repute which the authorities had inserted, or allowed to remain
there, in the interest of peace and unity. They demanded, therefore, a fuller,
more signal acknowledgement of John’s exceptional status. The more
determined and fanatical of them refused to rest content so long as his body
lay in a humble grave in faraway Pontus, where no one could visit his shrine
or draw strength from contact with it. Both groups had to wait several years
for their aspirations to be fulfilled, but in the end they were. The first step was
taken on 26 September 428, when John’s memory was for the first time
solemnly celebrated in the liturgy. 18 The bishop who must have presided at
the mass, enthroned only in April of that year, was Nestorios, like John a monk
and priest who had been summoned from Antioch to the capital, like him to
be deposed (431), but in his case for heresy. It is pleasant to reflect that it was
he who, with the court’s consent and in the interest of communal reconciliation,
had promoted what was in effect the canonisation of his countryman.
The climax came some nine years later, when John’s remains were
brought with magnificent ceremony to Constantinople. A new bishop,
Proklos (434-46), with the ready support of the emperor and his elder sister
Pulcheria, had had them fetched from Comana. The ship conveying them
from the Asian coast reached the mouth of the Bosporus on the night of 27
January 438. 19 It was surrounded by so many boats illuminated by torches
20
that, in the colourful language of the historian, the sea seemed to have

16
Theodoret, HE 5.34.12 GCS 44.337).
(
17
See esp. E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums (Tubingen 1930), 325.
18
Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon (MGAA xi.77).
19
For the date see Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon (MGAA xi.77); Sokrates 7.45.
20
Theodoret, HE 5.36.1-2 ( GCS 44.338), the source of most of this paragraph.
290 Golden Month
become an extension of the mainland. When the precious reliquary was
carried ashore, Theodosios II, son of Arkadios and Eudoxia, was there to
receive it. Bending low, fixing his gaze on it and pressing his forehead
against he offered prayers on behalf of his parents, begging John to grant
it,

them pardon for all the injustices they had done him in ignorance. A
triumphant procession then accompanied it through the city to the church
of the Holy Apostles, traditional burying-place of bishops and emperors.
There John’s body was ceremonially placed, 21 not far from the spot where
the bodies of Arkadios and Eudoxia had been interred. It was to remain
there until, after the capture of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth
Crusade, the plundering Venetians seized it and carried it off as a precious
relic to Rome, where it was installed in St Peter’s basilica. 22
The return of John’s remains to Constantinople and their interment in
the church of the Holy Apostles represented, in the thinking of devout
Christians of that age, his final vindication. The small body of die-hard
Johnites in the capital who had hitherto kept themselves stubbornly apart
now conceded that honour had been satisfied, and felt able to join in
communion with Proklos and the orthodox congregation of the city. 23 It is
fascinating to note that, a generation later but in exactly the same way,
the last flickering embers of the seemingly endless Antiochene schism were
extinguished when the body of Eustathios was in 382 solemnly brought
back to Antioch from Philippi in eastern Macedonia. 24 As in the dispute
over the diptychs, John had once again owed his triumph to the unyielding
loyalty and insistent demands of ordinary people.

21
Sokrates 7.45.
22
The claims
of numerous other places to possess relics of John’s body have created needless
doubts about the traditional story. For a brief discussion see BSS VI, 685 (D. Stiemon).
23
Sokrates 7.45 (where he expresses puzzlement that John had been rehabilitated so soon
whereas Origen still remained under a cloud).
24
Theodores Lector, HE 2.1 (PG 86 (1).181).
 Appendix A

Some Ancient Sources

1. JOHN’S letters are a primary source of unique value. Certain of his

homilies (see Chapter 7. VII) can be shown to throw light on his activities,
but in general he rarely refers to events in his life in his wr itings. The great
exception is the account of his boyhood and early manhood which forms the
setting of the dialogue Priesthood. In Chapter 2.n it is argued, against
current scepticism, that these recollections, although set down in middle
age and worked up for dramatic effect, can be trusted as regards the key
facts they record.
‘MARTYRIOS’ designates the unknown author of the so-called Life of
2.
John erroneously attributed to Martyrios, orthodox bishop of Antioch,
459-71. The complete Greek text is found only in MS Paris gr. 1519
(eleventh century). It has never been published in full, although the closing
paragraphs were printed in PG 47.xliii-lii. J.P. Migne recognised that the
work is not a biography proper, but a panegyric which touches on several
key episodes in John’s career; F. van Ommeslaeghe has shown that it was
1

pronounced in 407 within a few weeks of John’s death on the reception of

the news at Constantinople. Whoever the author, he was a passionate
supporter of the dead bishop, having been baptised and ordained by him;
he claims to have been an eye-witness of many of the events described.
Where it can be checked, his accuracy in matters of detail seems firmly
established, and the panegyric is now accepted as an authoritative source
for John’s life. It is remarkable that C. Baur, who had studied the MS
and appreciated its worth, eventually decided 2 that it was a mid-fifth-
century compilation based on Palladios, Sozomen, and others. A critical
edition in Subsidia hagiographica has been promised by van Om-
meslaeghe for more than twenty years. This had not appeared by
January 1994, but repeated announcements of its imminent publication
have deterred the present writer from having his own transcription of
the MS made. He has therefore had to rely for information about it on
valuable (but inevitably selective) articles by van Ommeslaeghe in AB
95 (1977), 97 (1979), 99 (1981) and 110 (1992). References to the Paris
MS are by page and column.

1
Studia patristica 12 (Berlin 1975 = TU 5), 498-83 .

2
1, xxxii.
292 Golden Mouth

PALLADIOS’ 3 (364 - c. 430) Dialogue 4 on John’s life, completed in exile

3.
at Syene (Assouan) in 408, is generally regarded as a trustworthy source. 5
This verdict is based in part on his close involvement, often as an eye-
witness, in the main events of the critical years 400-4, and on the intense
interest he evidently took in John personally, noting his habits and even
mannerisms. 6 This makes it likely that, being so much in John’s company
(sometimes for weeks on end), it was from him that he derived the carefully
drafted summary of his early life included in Dial. 5. In addition, he was
exceptionally well qualified to report on Theophilos’ treatment of the
Nitrian monks and their sojourn in Constantinople, since he had met
Isidore and the Long Brothers in Egypt, 7 and can hardly have failed to seek
them out when they came to the capital. The credibility of his work is
enhanced by the pains he clearly took (a) to give precise details of time,
place, numbers, etc. wherever possible, 8 and (b) to include references to, or
excerpts from, great numbers of official letters and other documents. 9 But
if for reasons like these Palladios’ general reliability seems assured, there

are important qualifications to be made. First, he was not a detached

historian, but a partisan concerned to vindicate John and depict him as the
model bishop. We must expect him, therefore, to gloss over incidents which
might seem damaging to him (e.g. the uproar following his appointment of
Herakleides as bishop). 10 Conversely, we should not look for objectivity in his
portraits of John’s enemies. Secondly, when he had no first-hand knowledge
he could either make serious mistakes (e.g. in explaining John’s move from
Cucusos to Arabissos) 11 or seek refuge in edification (e.g. in describing John’s
death). 12 Thirdly, he was not, and did not claim to be, either systematic or
exhaustive, and his narrative therefore often needs to be corrected or supple-
mented by our other sources. A striking case of this is his account of The Oak, 13
where ‘Martyrios’ gives a fuller and more accurate report on the course of the
trial and Photios alone supplies the complete charge-list. 14
4. SOKRATES (c. 380 - c. 450), a barrister, was born and spent his life in
Constantinople. His Church History 15 written 438-43 and covering the
,

period 306 to 439 in seven books, was intended as a continuation of that of

Eusebios. Adopting a plain, unadorned style so as to reach ordinary people

3
For his career see A.M. Malingrey, SC 341 (Paris 1988), 10-18; more fully, E.D. Hunt, JTS
24 (1973), 456-80.
4
Critical editions by P.R. Coleman-Norton, Cambridge 1929; A.M. Malingrey, op. cit.
5
Cf. Altaner-Stuiber’s ‘historisch wichtig’ ( Patrologie 240: Freiburg, 8 ed., 1978).
6
A.M. Malingrey, op. cit., 25.
7
E.D. Hunt, art. cit., 466; 468.
8
A.M. Malingrey, op. cit., 35.
9
P.R. Coleman-Norton, op. cit., lxxii-lxxv.
10
See p. 174.
11
See p. 260.
12
See p. 285.
13
See p. 221.
Cf. F. van Ommeslaeghe, AB 95 (1977), 389-413,
14
esp. 412-13.
15
PG 67: best ed. still R. Hussey, Oxford 1853.
 Appendix A Some Ancient Sources 293
as well as the learned (1.1; 6.prooem.), he gave his narrative a firm
chronological framework, drew on a wide range of sources (including letters
and official documents), mentioning and frequently reproducing them, and
from Book 6 on (6.prooem.) used his own recollections and the reports of
eye-witnesses. He evaluated his sources critically, since he aimed, not
without success, at impartiality and objectivity. Thus, coming across fresh
documents which showed up the errors of one of the chief of them (the Latin
historian Rufinus), he drastically revised Books 2 and 2. That he extended
the revision to the others is clear from the survival, at the end of Book 6,
of a lengthy fragment (important for John’s story) 16 which differs markedly
from the current text. An orthodox Christian who appreciated Greek
culture (3.16), stood up for Origen (6.12-13), and was refreshingly tolerant
of heretics (e.g. 7.6), he himself was sympathetically disposed to the
Novatians (though classifying them with the Arians: 5.20). His account of
John takes up much of Book 6. In general he seems to respect him for his
character, eloquence, and hold over the people, but is puzzled by his
severity and aloofness, and freely reports criticism of him on these grounds.
While trying to be fair, he himself was also critical of him for his harshness
to the Novatians (6.19) and shocked by the freedom with which he offered
forgiveness to sinners (6.21).
5. SOZOMEN(OS) was born c. 400 at Bethelia, a village near Gaza,
educated by monks, and settled in Constantinople after 425; there he
practised as a barrister. His Church History 17 written between 439 and,

450 and dedicated to Theodosios II, was intended (see Dedication) to cover
the period 324-439, but the concluding sections (425-39) are for some
unexplained reason missing. Although composed in a more elegant, high-
flown style, designed to attract a cultivated lay readership, much of it is a
recasting, without acknowledgment, of Sokrates’ History but Sozomen ;

abandons his predecessor’s chronological framework, is sparing with dates

and prefers, save in exceptional cases, to refer to letters and documents
rather than cite them. But if inferior to Sokrates in critical method, his
work is given special importance by his insertion of independent material
bearing (a) on the persecution of Christians in Persia under Shapur II, and
(b) on the development of Syrian monasticism, with accounts of individual
monks. He took a relaxed view of dogmatic controversy, for example
ranking the extreme Arian Aetios among great church teachers; on the
other hand, he was credulous to a degree. In contrast to Sokrates’ distinctly
reserved attitude, he was a warm supporter of John, suppressing anything
in his predecessor’s account which might reflect badly on him and going
out of his way to cite in full documents which tended to vindicate his cause
(8.26).
6. THEODORET(OS) (393-466) was bom at Antioch, brought up by monks,

16
See p. 184.
17
PG 67: critical edition by J. Bidez and G.C. Hansen ( GCS 50: 1961).
294 Golden Mouth

and in 423 became bishop of Kyrrhos, c. 60 km north-west of Beroea (Haleb),

a town important for the religious life of Syria. From then until his death,
while diligent in looking after the spiritual and temporal needs of his flock,
he was greatly involved in the fierce christological controversies of the time.
Antiochene in his sympathies, he was deposed by the council of Ephesos in
449, but in 451 was reinstated after reluctantly anathematising Nestorius;
in 553 certain of his writings were condemned by the Fifth ecumenical
council (Constantinople). His literary output was vast and extremely
varied, covering exegesis, apologetics and dogmatic theology. Here we are
concerned with two of his historical works. His Historia religiosa 18 written ,

c. 444, recounts the lives and practices of 28 male and 3 female ascetics. As

most of them lived near Antioch and were personally known to him, the
work is a rich source for our knowledge of Syrian monasticism. His Church
History, 19 completed during temporary exile in 449-50, covers the years 323
to 428 (discreetly breaking off before the Nestorian controversy). Uncriti-
cally put together and unashamedly apologetic, it is nevertheless valuable
for the mass of original documents on which it is based.
7. PHILOSTORGIOS (c. 368 - after 425), a Cappadocian by birth, settled in

Constantinople when 20 and spent most of his life there, making occasional
trips to Palestine and Antioch. Among other works his Church History 20 in
twelve books, covering the period 320-425. Quite early he had met the
radical Arian Eunomius (d. 394), and became his wholehearted disciple.
His History was heavily biased in favour of Arianism, so that Photios 21
(who, with reservations, praised its style) described it as ‘not so much a
history as a eulogy of the heretics and a barefaced critical onslaught on the
orthodox’. Because of this the complete text has not survived. Substantial
extracts from it, however, were published separately by Photios and, in
addition, numerous fragments have been preserved by Suidas and others.
These make it plain that he used first-rate sources, including acts of
councils and Arian documents not available elsewhere. His work has
considerable interest, both because of the information it supplies about the
controversy and its leading figures, and as illustrating the attraction
intellectual Arianism had for cultivated Christians.
8. ZOSIMOS, according to Photios
22
a count {comes) who had held the
position of counsel for the crown (advocatus fisci), wrote between 498 and
510 his New History 23 of the Roman empire from Augustus. A militant

18
PG 82.1289-1496: critical edition by P. Canivet and A. Leroy-Molinghen in SC 234 (1977)
and 257 (1979).
19
Critical edition by L. Parmentier and F. Scheidweiler, GCS 44 (1954).
20
Critical edition (exceptionally thorough) in GCS 21 (3 ed. 1977) by J. Bidez and F.
Winkelmann.
21
Bibliotheca 40 (R.Henry, 1.23-5).
22
Bibliotheca 98 (R. Henry, 2.65-6).
23
F. Paschoud, Zosime: Histoire nouvelle (text and French translation, with full notes: Paris
1971-81), 6 vols.
 Appendix A. Some Ancient Sources 295
pagan, a leading idea of his work was that the decadence of the empire was
due to the abandonment of the old religion. He was heavily dependent on
his sources, the principal one for the sections cited in this book being
Eunapios of Sardes (345/346 -c. 420), a pagan like himself. Photios, indeed,
who had studied both writers, remarked that Zosimos had not so much
written a history as transcribed that of Eunapios. There is general agree-
ment that Zosimos himself was a very mediocre historian, careless of
chronology and frequently muddled, but that since his sources often con-
tained valuable material the student who makes the effort to ‘sift the wheat
from the tares’24 can be rewarded. Eunapios, it is certain, had first-hand
information about important public events occurring during John’s time as
bishop.

F. Paschoud, op. cit., 1, lxx.

 Appendix B

The Chronology of John’s Earlier Life

It seems reasonably certain that John was born between 340 and 350. This
can be deduced from his own statement, when seeking to console a young
1

widow whose husband has died before attaining the prominence for which
he seemed destined, that while nine emperors have reigned ‘in our lifetime’
(geneas ), only two of them have died natural deaths. His point is that, even
if the young husband had lived and achieved greatness, she and he would
not necessarily have been happy, since men in great positions lead imper-
illed lives. John gives no names, but states that five of the nine perished in
violent ways which he briefly describes. As for the current sovereigns
(plainly Gratian and Theodosius I), they too illustrate his thesis, the one
being young and inexperienced, the other involved from his coronation to
the present day in barbarian wars, both causing great anxiety to their
wives. Since John clearly includes these two among the nine (if not, why
mention them and their troubles at all?), the other seven can only be
Constans (d. 350), Gallus Caesar (d. 354), Constantius II (d. 361), Julian
(d. 363), Jovian (d. 364), ValentinianI (d. 375), and Valens (d. 378). Of these
the third and sixth died ordinary deaths, the others violently in ways which,
it should be noted, tally exactly with John’s descriptions. Some earlier

scholars, including Tillemont, 2 assuming unnecessarily that all nine must

be dead, started the list with Constantine I and Constantine II. This
solution, however, overlooks John’s distinction between ‘past history’, to
which these surely belonged so far as he was concerned, and ‘our lifetime’,
faces the awkward fact that Constantine I died in his bed, and makes
nonsense of John’s pointed references to the reigning emperors. The case
for the identifications given above was made out centuries ago by J.
Stilting, 3 but has been freshly re-argued by G.H. Ettlinger. 4 The conclusion
must be that John’s birth fell in the reign of Constans, i.e. 340-50.
Apart from random reminiscences of his own and one or two scraps
preserved by Sokrates, all the material bearing on John’s early chronology
is contained in a summary account which Palladios drafted with obvious

1
Ad viduam iuniorem 4-5 (PG 48.605-06). Its date is 380/1: see above, p. 47.
2
XI. 556.
3
AASS Sept. IV (Antwerp 1753), 437.
4
Traditio 16 (I960), 373-80.
 Appendix B. The Chronology of John's Earlier Life 297
care. His own reminiscences include a conversation he had when a student
5

7
of ‘twenty with his pagan professor; 6 an attempt by church leaders at
Antioch to have him and his friend Basil ordained; 7 and an alarming
experience which he had at Antioch when ‘a boy’ ( meirakion ), and which
can be dated to winter 371/2 when emperor Valens was in the city. 8
Sokrates reports 9 that his teacher of rhetoric was Libanios, and that he
studied at the ascetic school of Diodore and Carterios. Palladios’ com-
pressed narrative supplies the following facts: John was eighteen when he
left his rhetorical school; falling then under the influence of Meletios,
orthodox bishop of Antioch, he was baptised, attended on the bishop for
three years, and was made reader; at some point he withdrew to the nearby
mountains, where he spent six years as a monk; he then returned to
Antioch, ‘served the altar for two years in addition to the three’ (i.e. the
previous three), and was then ordained deacon by Meletios. It is a reason-
able surmise, 10 in view of his close contacts with him during most of 400-4
and his intense personal interest in him, that Palladios derived this
information from John himself; and this surmise is strengthened by the
precision with which he sets down his facts. The objection 11 that John’s
recollections of his earlier life may have been blurred carries scepticism too
far. He was only in his early fifties, and events like his baptism, retreat to
the mountains, and ordination must have remained fixed in his mind.
When we attempt to piece our miscellaneous data together, it becomes
clear that Meletios’ movements provide the regulative framework; the
hapless bishop, exiled soon after his installation in 351, only managed two
stays in Antioch - 362-5 and 367-71 - between that date and his final return
in autumn 378 on the death of the Arian emperor Valens in August. 12 It
was during this final stay (378-81) that he ordained John deacon. Not
immediately, however. Palladios’ careful statement that, before being
ordained, John served the altar for two further years obliges us to narrow
the date down to late 380 or early 381. Again, since John’s return to Antioch
from the mountains followed closely on, and was probably connected with,
Meletios’ resumption of office, it can be confidently placed in late 378 or
very early 379. His six years of monastic seclusion must consequently have
covered the years 372-8.
John’s earlier association with Meletios - his baptism, three years’ lay
attendance on him, appointment as reader - can only be assigned to the

5
Dial. 5 (SC 341.104-10).
6
See above, p. 7.
7
See above, pp. 25f.
8
See above, pp. 24f.
9
6.3.
10
See more fully Appendix A (1).
11
R E.
Carter, Traditio 18 (1962), 357. This article (pp. 357-64) is much the fullest and best
discussion of John’s early chronology available.
12
PW
15 (1931), 500-2 (W. Ensslin).
298 Golden Mouth

bishop’s residence in Antioch during 367-71; apart from being too early, his
earlier stay during 362-5 is too short for all the events we have to squeeze
in.They can be fitted, exactly and conveniently, into 367-71 if we assume
that he was baptised by Meletios in 367 or, more probably, 368, then
assisted him for three years, and was appointed reader in 371 before he
was again forced into exile by the return of Valens to the city in winter
371/2. Since Diodore accompanied Meletios to Armenia, 13 John’s ascetic
initiation under him is likely to have coincided with his attendance on the
bishop; while the failed attempt to ordain him should be placed after
Meletios’ departure, when there was an urgent need to recruit clergy.
According to Palladios, Meletios was ‘ruling the church’ when John, aged
eighteen (the normal age), left his rhetorical school: this is likely to have
been 367. As the normal date for leaving school was the end of July, 14 and
for administering baptism Easter, he was probably baptised at Easter 368;
the normal two-year catechumenate was usually dispensed with in the case
of children of Christian parents, 16 and in any case may not have been
thought necessaiy for so earnest a young Christian as John.
The conclusion to which this reconstruction points is that John was born
in 349 or thereabouts. There are two apparent discrepancies which have
needlessly worried students: his description of himself as being about
twenty when his professor complimented his mother, and as being a
meirakion (boy) at the time of the alarming experience in 371, when on our
reckoning he must have been twenty-two. The former is simply an example
of his habit, irritating but derived from his rhetorical training, of rounding
off numbers. 16 The latter rests on a misunderstanding of the connotation
of meirakion. Often assumed to refer exclusively to boys of around fourteen,
writers as varied in date and style as Hippokrates, Menander and Epiktetos
define it as applying quite normally to young men from puberty to twenty-
one. 17

Basil, ep. 99.3 - written in 372 (Courtonne 1.217).

13

14
A. J. Festugtere, Antioche paienne et chr^tienne (Paris 1959), 135.
15
Baur 81 and 86 n. 8.
1,
16
ZKTh 52 (1928), 404 n. 5.
C. Baur,
17
In addition to Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon (1968), see A.W. Gomme and F.H.
Sandbach, Menander: A Commentary (Oxford 1973), 140.
 1

Appendix C

Charges Brought against John at The Oak

1. Charges preferred by the deacon John

(1) He accused Chrysostom of having treated him unjustly by excluding^
him having beaten his own servant Eulalios. (2) A monk, John, had, as
for
he alleges, on Chrysostom’s instructions been beaten, taken into custody,
and put in chains along with possessed persons. (3) He sold off a large
number of valuable objects. 3 (4) The slabs of marble belonging to St
Anastasia which Nektarios had set aside for the decoration of the church
had been sold off by him. 4 (5) He disparages his clergy as men without
honour, corrupt, dissolute, 5 good-for-nothings. (6) He called the sainted
Epiphanios a babbler and a little weirdo. (7) He contrived a plot against
Severian, letting his flunkeys 6 loose on him. (8) He composed a slanderous
pamphlet against the clergy. 7 (9) He convened a meeting of his entire clergy
and cited three deacons, Akakios, Edaphios and John, accusing them of
stealing his monk’s cloak, 8 suggesting they might have taken it for a rather
different purpose. (10) He consecrated Antonios in spite of his having been
convicted as a grave-robber. (11) He informed against count John during
the army mutiny. 9 (12) He failed to offer prayer either when setting out for
church or when entering it. (13) He had carried out ordinations of deacons
and of priests without an altar. 10 (14) He ordained four bishops at a single
service of consecration. (15) He receives women entirely on his own,
excluding all others. (16) He used the services of Theodoulos to sell the
inheritance bequeathed by Thekla. (17) No one has any idea where the
revenues of the church have gone. (18) He ordained Sarapion priest while
still subject to a charge. 11 (19) He had people who were in communion with

the whole world shut up in prison by his own decision, and when they died

1
The translation is based on the Greek text presented by A.M. Malingrey in SC 342.100-14.
2
I.e. suspending him from communion and/or his functions as deacon.
3
I.e. church property.
4
See above, p. 119.
5
Autoparachretos a word not found elsewhere and of doubtful meaning.
6
Dekanous: the sense is not clear.
7
Probably the pastoral mentioned on p. 121 above.
8
Maphorion: meaning not wholly clear.
9
See above, pp. 154-6.
10
An ordination was expected to be followed by a mass.
11
Presumably of discourtesy to Severian.
300 Golden Mouth
there he paid no attention to them and did not even think fit to give due
honour to their remains. 12 (20) He insulted the venerable Akakios and did
not even address a word to him. 13 (2 1) He handed over the priest Porphyrios
to Eutropios to be exiled. 14 (22) He also handed over the priest Venerios in
an insulting manner. (23) He has his bath heated for himself alone; after
he has bathed, Sarapion shuts off access to it so that no one else may take
a bath. (24) He had ordained many persons >vithout witnesses. (25) He
takes his meals alone, living gluttonously as Cyclopes do. (26) He acts as
accuser, as witness, and as judge: this is evident from the affair of Mar-
tyrios, the archdeacon, and, it is said, from that of Proairesios, bishop of
Lycia. 16 (27) He gave a blow with his fist to Memnon in the church of the
Apostles, and while the blood was still flowing from his mouth offered him
holy communion. 16 (28) He takes off and puts on his vestments at the
throne, and eats a morsel of bread. 17 (29) He also gives money to the bishops
he consecrates so that through them he can oppress the clergy.

2. Charges preferred by Isaac

(1) With regard to the monk John,
18
already mentioned several times, he
had been thrashed out of regard for the Origenists. 19 (2) Blessed Epiphanios
refused to hold communion with him because of the Origenists Ammonios,
Euthymios, Eusebios and also Herakleides and Palladios. (3) He brings
hospitality into discredit, making a habit of eating alone. (4) He says in
church that the holy table is filled with Furies. 20 (5) In church he brags
loudly, saying ‘I am beside myself with love’; but he ought to explain who
are the Furies, and what he means by ‘I am beside myself with love’. For
the church is unfamiliar with this language. (6) He offers sinners immunity
with his teaching, ‘If you sin again, again repent’, and, ‘As often as you sin,
come to me and I shall heal you.’ (7) He blasphemes when he asserts in
church that, although Christ prayed, he was not listened to because he did
not pray in the right way. (8) He is inciting the populace to demonstrate
against the synod. (9) He has welcomed pagans who have done Christians
much harm, and keeps them in the church and protects them. (10) He
trespasses on provinces outside his jurisdiction and consecrates bishops. 21

12
These were the agents whom Theophilos had sent to slander the Long Brothers and who
were gaoled: see above, p. 201.
13
Bishop of Beroea: see above, p. 117.
14
Nothing is known of this or the next incident.
15
Both these incidents are unknown.
16
Memnon is not known.
17
For John’s practice see Palladios, Dial. 8 (SC 341.162).
18
Referred to in item 1 of the first dossier; he later brought charges on his own against
Herakleides.
19
I.e. the Long Brothers: cf. the three mentioned in the next charge.
20
For brief discussions of this and the following three charges see above, pp. 224f.
21
A reference to John’s activities on his Asian tour.
 Appendix C. Charges Brought against John at The Oak 301

(11) He insults bishops, and orders them to be ejected from his house
without letters of commendation. 22 (12) He insults his clergy with unprece-
dented rudenesses. (13) He has forcibly seized deposits belonging to other
people. (14) He carries out ordinations without consulting his clergy in
synod and against their wishes. (15) He gave hospitality to the Origenists;
but when people in full communion with the church who had arrived with
letters of communion were flung into prison, he not only did not get them
released, but when they died there did not concern himself about them. 23
(16) He has consecrated as bishops other men’s slaves who had not been
freed and who were actually of ill repute. (17) It has come about that this
Isaac has himself suffered much evil at their hands.

22
A more measured reference, perhaps, to his attempt to send Severian home complained of
by the deacon John in his seventh charge.
23
A repetition of the deacon John’s nineteenth charge, contrasting however
Johns warm
welcome of the Long Brothers with his neglect of Theophilos’ agents.
This plan reproduces, with adjustments, that printed in G. Downey, A History of
Antioch in Syria (Princeton 1961). In John’s time the walls of Theodosios II and
Justinian did not exist.
 Index

Ablabios, 112 Aphrahat, 20

Abundantios, 282 Apollo, temple of, 1, 9, 41
Adam, 32, 59, 98, 100, 181, 182, 246 Apostolic Canons, 242
Adrianople, 24, 36 Apostolic Constitutions, 66
Aetios, 11, 293 applause at sermons, 58, 60, 130-1
Agapetos, 264-5 Aquileia, 246, 278, 279, 281
Agelios, 126 Arabios, 252
Akakios, 117-18, 204, 214, 218, 220, 222, Arabissos, 255, 260, 261, 264, 265, 283, 292
225-6, 238, 240, 242, 243, 244, 248, 252, Arius, Arianism, Arians, 10, 11, 12, 14, 36,
253, 300 60-2, 69, 96, 104, 105, 111, 115, 124, 134,
Alaric, 277 137-8, 142-3, 157, 242, 293, 294
Albert, G., 145n, 146n, 151n, 152n, 156n, Arkadios, 105, 109-10, 111, 116, 122, 128,
158n, 159n, 165n, 171n 132, 139-41, 144, 145-7, 152-3, 156,
Aldama, J.A. de, 2 In, 240n 157-8, 162, 168-9, 173, 183, 187, 212,
Alexander of Antioch, 286-7 215, 216, 219, 224n, 228, 230, 231, 232,
Alexander, disciple of John’s, 178 237, 238, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245,
Alexandria, 2, 4, 105, 123, 191, 192, 194, 246, 247, 248, 273, 275, 277, 278, 287,
198, 212, 213, 235, 238, 241, 247; see of, 290
2, 12, 36, 37, 109, 117, 198, 199, 203, Armenia, 145, 253, 254, 255, 259, 263, 274,
273, 288 282, 283, 298
Altendorf, H.D., 183n Arsakios, 225, 251, 252, 253, 272, 273, 277,
Amantios, 168-9 278, 279, 281
Ambrose, 37n, 74n, 115, 132n, 177-8 Asians, 129, 165, 174, 176, 177, 178, 180
Ameringer, T.E., 8n asketerion, 18, 19-20, 297
Ammonios, 191, 193, 194n, 201, 209, 217, Asterios of Amasea, 140n, 150
300 Asterios, governor of Antioch, 104
Ammonios of Laodikeia, 240 asylum in church, 146, 147, 148, 155, 224
Anastasia, church of, 119, 130, 196, 299 Athanasios, 242
Anatolios, 129 Athyras, 280
Andragathios, 6 Attikos, 271, 273, 279, 280, 281, 286-9
Anianus of Celida, 88 Aubineau, M., 182n
Ankyra, 104, 255-6 Augustaion, 107, 108
Anomoeism, Anomoeans, 11, 60-2, 115n, Augustalis, 194, 198
134, 142-3 Augustine, 58, 82, 264
Anthemios, 244, 263, 279, 280, 287 Aurelianos, 150, 151, 152-5, 160, 161, 167,
Anthousa, 4, 5, 6, 14, 16 171
anthropomorphism, 59, 192, 193
Antioch, 1-13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 24, 25, 27, Babylas, 3, 9, 38-9, 41, 67, 87
28, 31, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 49, 50, 51, baptism, 17, 39, 88-9, 244-5, 263
53, 56, 57, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, Bardenhewer, 0., 7n, 82n
70, 72-82, 83, 87, 88, 89, 90-4, 100, 104, Barnes, T.D., 99n, 167n
105, 107, 115, 116, 123, 128, 130, 131, Barcnius, C., 206
132, 134, 135, 204, 211, 252, 258, 261, Basil (boyhood friend), 5, 6, 14-15, 16, 25-8,
264, 281, 283, 286-90, 293-4, 297-8; 84, 297
schism of, 12-13, 37, 38, 87, 91, 101-3, Basil of Caesarea, 4, 29n, 37, 53, 61, 62,
117-18, 196, 204, 286-7, 289, 290; see of, 120, 298n
2 11 287 Basil of Raphaneae, 27
Antiochos, 204, 214, 218, 220, 221, 238, Basilinopolis, 178
242, 243, 244, 248, 252, 253 Basiliskos, 284, 285
Antoninos, 163-5, 172, 174, 175-6, 179, 207 Baths of Constantius, 244, 245
Anysios, 280 Batiffol, P., 179
 Index 305
Baumstark, A., 76n 203-8, 217-19, 228, 232, 233, 235, 238,
Baur, 38n, 92-3, 105, 117n, 131n,
C., 17n, 240, 241, 247, 250, 253, 254, 256, 257,
165, 177n, 184n, 190n, 194n, 212n, 217n, 258, 259, 261-3, 265, 268, 270-1, 272-4,
218n, 227n, 229n, 232, 233n, 237n, 238n, 276-83, 286-90, 291, 292; council of
244n, 282n, 284n, 285n, 288n, 291, 298n (360), 11; council of (381), 27, 37, 38,
Besanduc, 206 108, 129, 178, 179, 199n, 206; council of
Bithynia, 165, 173, 177, 178, 181 (553), 294; patriarchate of, 128, 129,
Bizeri, 284, 285 178-80; see of, 105, 106, 108-9, 116-17,
Boniface, 287, 288 128, 129-30, 172, 178-80, 192, 199, 200,
Bonsdorf, M. von, 87n, 89n, lOOn, 133n, 166 218
Botte, B., 69n Constantinos (presbyter), 94, 133
Brandle, R., 98n Constantios, 252, 258, 264
Brison (bishop), 240 Constantius II, 2, 8, 11, 12, 107, 108, 296
Brison (eunuch), 138, 232, 233, 255, 261n Cornelius (pope), 125
Brock, S., 20n, 33n Crimea, 144, 262
Brooks, E.W., 117n Cucusos, 139, 254, 255, 257-60, 261, 273,
Brown, P., 45n, 59n 283, 292
Browning, R., 73n Cuntz, O., 255n, 260n
Bury, J.B., 137n, 227n Cyriakos (bishop), 250, 263
Byzantium, 107, 108 Cyriakos (deacon), 248
Cyril of Alexandria, 226, 287n, 288, 289
Caesarea (Cappadocia), 255, 256, 257, 258 Cyril of Jerusalem, 89
Caesarea (Palestine), 117, 168; council of, Cyrinos, 174, 185, 189, 212, 217, 218, 248
117 Cyzikos, 259, 265
Caesarios, 74, 75, 79, 80, 105, 153, 154,
157, 158, 160, 161, 171 Dagron, G., 106n, 107n, 109n, 120n, 122n,
Cameron, A., 88n, llOn, 15 In, 154n, 156n, 123n, 124n, 141n, 143n, 171n
160n, 166n, 174n, 187n, 279n Dalmatios, 124
Campus Martius, 108, 111 Damasus, 36
Candidianus, 263 Dani61ou, J., 61n, 62n
Canivet, P., 19n Danube, 36, 143, 158, 162
Carter, R.E., 22n, 23n, 297n Daphne, 1, 2, 3, 9, 41, 63, 252
Carteria, 263 Dazimon, 284
Carterios, 18, 297 Demetrios of Pessinos, 248
Carthage, council of (419), 288 Demosthenes, 6, 7, 8
Caspar, E., 289n Demougeot, E., 157n, 160n, 16 In, 219n,
Cassian, 252, 276 238n, 259n, 279n, 288n
Casson, L., 104n, 204n Devos, P., 285n
Castricia, 110 Diocletian, In, 2, 3
catechesis, 76, 88-9 Diodore of Tarsos, 11, 18, 19, 20, 22, 27, 29,
Chalcis, 31 60, 95, 297, 298
Chalkedon, 139, 150, 152, 153, 154, 164, Dioskoros (friend at Cucusos), 258
174, 185, 189, 212, 213, 217, 218, 235, Dioskoros (Long Brother), 191, 192, 194,
248, 251, 254; council of, 124, 128, 129, 199, 207, 208, 209,217
152, 176, 180, 242 diptychs, 286-8
Christmas, feast of, 67, 68-71 Dorotheos, 37
Chromatius of Aquileia, 246, 278, 279, 281 Downey, G., In, 8n, 92n, 252n
Clark, E.A., 48n, 191n Drypia, 140, 141
Claudian, llOn Dumortier, J., 22n, 48n, 49n, 83n
Colomb&s, G.M., 20n, 33n
Comana Pontica, 284, 289 earthquakes, 88, 92, 167, 232
Combefis, F., 85 Elaphios, 201, 203
Concordia, 186, 187 Ellibichos, 74
Constans, 296 Elpidios of Laodikeia, 242, 259, 287
Constantine the Great, 2, 10, 11, 36, 107, Eltester, W., 2n
108, 128, 175, 245 Elvira, council of, 66
Constantinople, 7, 11, 25, 38, 48, 55, 66, 69, Ephesos, 163, 165, 172, 173, 174-6, 177,
74, 75, 77, 79, 87, 90, 91, 94, 99n, 104-9, 179, 223, 235, 253, 262; council of, 294
110-13, 115-16, 120-2, 129, 131, 133, 134, Ephraem, 49
136, 139, 142, 143, 145-62, 163-9, 171-4, Epiktetos, 269n, 298
176-80, 181-2, 185, 189, 191, 195, 197-8, Epiphanios, 113, 186n, 191, 195, 197-8,
306 Index
203-10, 211, 222, 223, 224, 225, 238, 299, Gennadius, 193n
300 gens Anicia, 264
Ettlinger, G.H., 296 George of Alexandria, 56-7, 170
Eudoxia, 110, 111, 128, 132, 138, 139-41, Germanos, 252, 275, 276
146-7, 150-1, 153, 160, 162, 168-71, Gerontios, 177-8, 179, 180
172-3, 178, 182, 185-7, 189, 201-2, 206, Giet, S., 137n
208-9, 211-12, 214, 216, 217, 222, 228, Goebel, R, 73n
231, 232, 233, 237, 238-40, 241, 244, 246, Goodall, B., 93n, 94n
247, 251, 272, 273, 277, 290; proclaimed Goths, 17, 24, 36, 37, 47, 124, 142-4, 153,
Augusta, 139, 151, 239 156-62, 163, 165, 166, 262; Gothic
Eudoxios, 11, 108 monks, 143, 262
Eugenios (bishop), 248 Gratian, 36, 51, 296
Eugenios (priest), 220 Gr^goire-Kugener, 169n
Eugenius, 109, 110, 132 Gregory of Nazianzos, 4, 38, 69, 84, 119,
Eugraphia, 110, 214 120n, 246
Eulysios (bishop), 250 Gregory of Nyssa, 4, 61, 62, 69
Eunapios of Sardes, 295 Gregory, T.E., 234n
Eunomios, 11, 60-1, 62, 294 Grigg, R, 187n
Euripides, 6 Grillmeier, A., and Bacht, H., 129n
Eusebios (historian), 175n, 292 Grumel, V., 76, 180n
Eusebios of Koruphe, 32
Eusebios of Nikomedia, 108 Hagia Eirene, 108, 130, 244
Eusebios (Long Brother), 191, 192, 300 Hagia Sophia (the Great Church), 107, 108,
Eusebios of Valentinopolis, 163-5, 175, 179 111, 122, 130, 131, 147, 155, 163, 186,
Eustathians, 3, 11, 36, 49, 70, 87, 91, 101-3, 229, 233-4, 235, 236, 237, 239, 241, 243,
118,287, 289 244, 245, 248, 250-1, 263, 265, 274, 277
Eustathios, 11, 290 Haidacher, S., 85, 87
Eustochium, 49 Hajjar, J., 109n, 128n, 178n
Euthymios, 191, 192, 300 Halkin, F., 170n
Eutropios, 105, 106, 110-11, 122, 128, 133, Harkins, P.W., 62n
145-52, 153, 154-5, 168, 171, 175n, 224, Heather, P., 143n
282, 300 Hebdomon, 108, 111, 145, 159, 200, 206
Euzoios, 12, 16, 37 Hefele-Leclercq, 99n, 242n
Evagrios of Antioch, 49, 87, 91, 101-3, 117, Helena, Augusta, 107
287, 289 Helenopolis, 165, 232
Evagrios Pontikos, 174, 191, 192 Heraklea, 108, 163, 174, 218
Evagrios Scholastikos, 152n Herakleides, 174, 179, 223, 226, 235, 253,
Eve, 46, 59, 135, 181, 182, 246 262, 292, 300
Evethios, 257, 281 Herodias, 230, 240
Exarchos, B.K., 85 Hesychios of Jerusalem, 22
exegesis, allegorical, 19; literal, 19, 60, 95 Hesychios of Parion, 165
Hild, F., 258n
Fabricius, C., 7n, 8n, 2 In hippodrome, 107-8, 135, 236
Favale, A., 194n, 218n Holum, K.G.. llOn, 139n, 151n, 171n,
Festugi&re, A.J., 6n, 7n, 298n 228n, 23 In, 232n, 239n
Firminos, 258 Holy Apostles, church of the, 108, 130, 132,
Flacilla (empress), 120 139, 143, 186, 208, 235-6, 244, 251, 272,
Flacilla (Eudoxia’s daughter), 232 290, 300
Flavian, 11, 18, 38, 39, 55, 56, 57, 67, 68, Homer, 6
73, 74, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 100, 102-3, 104, Homes Dudden, F., 115n
117-18, 206, 252, 264, 286 Homoean teaching, 11-12, 14, 36
Fourth Crusade, 290 Honigmann, E., 174n
Fravitta, 162 Honorius, 109-10, 145, 187, 239n, 247, 273,
275, 276-7, 278-80; letter to Arkadios of
Gainas, 111, 145-6, 150, 153-62, 163, 164, June 404, 239, 273, 276-7, 279; letter
171, 200, 221 carried by pontifical delegation, 278-9,
Gallus Caesar, 296
8, 9, 280
Gangra, council of, 99 horse-racing, 3, 53, 89, 131, 135, 236, 245,
Gaudentius of Brescia, 281 270
Gaza, 142, 168-9, 173 hospitals, 119-20, 141; leper hospital, 120,
Gemellos, 263 254
 Index 307
hostages, 152-6, 160-2, 167, 171 praise of Theodosius I, 132; in praise of
Huns, 92, 111, 145, 146, 277 Phokas, 139-40; at Drypia, 140; in the
Hunt, E.D., 112n, 291n, 292n church of the Goths, 143; on Eutropios,
Hunter, D.G., 20n, 51n 147-9; on the arrest of Eutropios, 154-5,
Hupaipa, 165 156; when Satuminos and Aurelianos
were exiled, 153-4, 171; on his return
Ignatios of Antioch, 67 from Asia, 181-3; before his first exile,
Illyricum, 277, 279, 280 229-31; after his first exile, 233-4;
Innocent I, 190, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, celebratory address after return, 236;
219, 220, 221, 233, 235, 238, 241, 246, after the dedication of Eudoxia’s statue,
247, 273-81, 282, 286-9 239-40; treason, charge of, 228-9;
Isaac, 123-5, 204, 216, 218, 220, 221, 223-4, unpopular with his clergy, 126-7, 216;
225, 234, 235, 300, 301 wealth, denunciation of, 56, 97-9, 122,
Isaurians, 254, 255, 256-7, 258, 259-60, 135-6; widowhood, 47-8, 121-2; writings
261, 282 - Priesthood, 5, 14, 25-8, 29, 49n, 83-5,
Isidore, 105, 117-18, 192-3, 195 101; A King and a Monk, 20-2, 23, 31;
Isidore of Pelusion, 7, 82, 90n, 193n To Theodore, 22-3, 31; Contrition of
Itinerarium Antoninianum, 255, 260; Heart, 28, 29, 42-3; Against the Enemies
Burdigalense, 104 of Monasticism, 34, 51-4, 84; St
Babylas, in Refutation of Julian, 41-2;
Janin, R, 107n, 108n, 119n, 125n, 126n, Christ’s Divinity Proved, 42; To
143n, 213n, 214n, 215n, 244n Stageirios, 42-4; Virginity, 45-6, 47; To
Jargy, E.G.S., 20n a Young Widow, 46-8, 286; No Man Can
Jerome, 4, 31, 49, 83, 92n, 193n, 194n, Be Harmed, 268-9; On God’s
197n, 205n, 206, 282n Providence, 270-1
Jerusalem, Temple at, 9-10, 42, 65 John, bishop of Jerusalem, 206, 208, 209
Jews, 2, 9, 10, 63-6 John, Palestinian bishop, 168
Jezebel, 170-1, 228, 230 John, deposed deacon, 121, 222, 225, 299
John the Baptist, shrine of, 108, 159, 200-1, John, renowned solitary, 110
206 John, count, 110, 151, 153, 154-6, 171-2,
John Chrysostom: appearance, 106; Attic 173, 221, 251,299
style, 7-8, 81-2; authoritarian manner, Johnites, Johnite schism, 245, 246, 251,
116, 125, 126, 141, 122; catecheses, 88-9; 252, 268, 269, 271, 272, 273, 275, 277,
commentaries on OT books, 58-60, 89-90, 279, 281, 286, 287, 290
93; on NT books, 90-4, 101-2, 132-4, Jones, A.H.M., 5n, 15n, 85n, 232n, 254n,
166-8; crowds, ability to use, 161-2, 186, 282n
189, 208, 224, 229, 300; education, views Jovian, 8, 296
on, 52-4, 85-7; emperor, attitude to, Julian the Apostate, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 17, 19,
79-81, 113-14, 141, 231, 244; flatteiy of 2 In, 24, 41, 42, 65, 88, 296
Eudoxia, 140-1, 237; habit of rounding Juliana, 264, 275
off numbers, 41, 167, 298; ill-health, 32, Juventinos and Maximos, 87-8
34, 37, 113, 119, 254, 255-6, 266, 284;
inspiration, views on, 94-5; letters from Kallinikos, 124n, 125n
exile, 260-4; Letter 1 to Innocent I, 66n, Kellia, 191
190, 212, 213n, 214n, 215n, 216n, 219n, Kelly, J.N.D., 31n, 49n, lOln, 206n, 208n,
220n, 221, 231n, 233n, 234, 235n, 237n, 209n, 242n
238, 241, 243n, 244n, 245, 246-8, 274; Kollouthos, 285
Letter 2, 282; letters to Olympias, 265-8; Kyrrhos, 29, 142, 294
marriage, conception of, 45-6, 47, 96,
134-5; missions, 142-4, 146, 264; Laodikeia, 66, 74, 240, 242; council of, 66
monasticism, attitude to, 21-5, 51-4, Leo (general), 145-6
84-5, 123-5; Novatians, 125-6, 176-7; Leontios of Ankyra, 177, 240, 255, 257
optimism, 189, 259, 263, 271, 282; poor, Leroux, J.M., 85n
concern for, 60, 97-9, 136-7; repentance ‘letters of fellowship’, 117-18, 247
and forgiveness, 224-5, 243, 300; slavery, Libanios, 2, 6-7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22,
views on, 99-100; sermon(s) at 29, 40, 41-2, 72, 73, 74, 75, 79, 80, 82,
ordination, 55-6; against Anomoeans, 263 297
61-2; against Jews, 62-6; on local saints, Liebeschuetz, J.H.W.G., In, 2n, 105n, 145n,
67; on Pentecost, Christmas, Epiphany, 154n, 165n
67-71, 72; on the Statues, 75-82, 94; Lietzmann, H., 76n, 91n, 106, 231
against theatrical shows, 131, 135; in Lieu, J., lOn
308 Index
Long Brothers, 191-202, 204, 209, 211, 215, Nikomedia, 104, 108, 177-8, 232, 250, 254,
216,217, 221,223, 292, 300 259
Loukios, 244, 248 Nitria, 19, 193, 194, 198
Lucian the martyr, 67 Nitrian refugees, 191, 195, 196, 198-203,
Lucifer of Cagliari, 12 205, 206, 207, 209-10, 292
Lukyn Williams, A., 42n Norman, A.F., 73
Novatians, 125-6, 176-7, 293
Makedonios, semi-Arian bishop, 120, 139, Novatianus, 125
141
Malchos, 263 Oak, The, 139, 217; synod of, 144, 186n,
Malingrey, A.M., 22n, 26n, 27n, 85n, 121n, 218-27, 228, 232, 235, 237, 238, 241, 246,
137n, 215n, 244n, 247n, 291n, 292n 251, 253, 262, 264, 274, 292
Mango, C., 107n, 108n oaths, 17, 76
Manichaeism, Manichees, 45, 58-9, 96, 134 Olympias, 112-14, 122-3, 196, 248, 250,
Marcellinus Comes, 239n, 289n 253, 254, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261,
Marcionite heresy, 142 262, 264-5, 265-8, 270, 271, 275, 282, 284
Marianai, 233 Olympic games, 1, 252
Mark the Deacon, 142, 168-9 Ommeslaeghe, F. van, 120n, 170n, 218n,
Mamas, 142; Mameion, 142, 168-9 221n, 226n, 228n, 232n, 234n, 246n, 291,
Marrou, H I., 6n 292n
Marsa, 110 Optatos, 25 In, 271, 272, 277
‘Martyrios’, 120, 162n, 212n, 214, 220n, Oriens, civil diocese, 1, 2, 4, 5, 73, 74, 104,
221, 226, 227, 232, 234, 235, 236, 244n, 109; count of, 1, 73, 74, 104
245, 246, 250n, 254n, 283, 291, 292 Origen, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 197, 205,
martyrs, cult of, shrines of, 3, 9, 25, 43, 67, 206, 207, 208, 210, 290n, 293
89, 104, 139-41, 243, 264, 284 Origenism, Origenists, 174, 191-5, 197-8,
Maruthas, Maruta, 144, 264-5, 266n 199, 205, 206, 208, 209, 211, 217, 223,
Matthews,J., 25n 300, 301
Maxi mm Daia, 284 Orontes, 1, 2, 3, 8, 17, 25, 41, 67, 78
Maximos (bishop), 6, 18 Otreios, 260, 264
Maximus (usurper), 111, 132
meirakion, 25, 297, 298 Paeanios, 257, 258, 263, 285n
Melania the Elder, 112, 275 Pagrae, 104
Melania the Younger, 275 palace, imperial, 107, 128, 147, 164, 172,
Meletios, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 28, 214, 216, 221, 240, 241, 246
36-9, 40, 41, 49, 56, 67, 70, 88, 117, 206, palace ( episkopeion ), John’s, 111, 113, 118,
297-8 135, 181, 186, 196, 219, 222, 243, 245,
Memnon, 221, 300 246, 248
Menander, 6, 298 Palatium Placidianum, 214, 215
Mendieta, E. Amand de, 269n Palladios, 4, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 24, 27, 28,
Milan, 107, 109, 246 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 38, 49, 55, 104n, 105,
monks, monasticism, 3, 20, 21, 29-32, 49, 112, 118n, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 135,
51-4, 75, 78, 84-5, 256, 293; at 137, 163, 164, 165, 166, 171, 172n, 173,
Constantinople, 123-5, 233-5, 237 174, 175n, 176, 179, 185, 191, 192, 193,
Montfaucon, B. de, 51, 230n, 233n, 237n 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200-1, 203n,
Moulard, A., 31n, 34n, 106n, 184n, 231n, 204, 21 In, 212, 213n, 214, 216n, 218,
233n, 237n, 238n, 282n, 288n 219, 220, 221, 222n, 223, 226, 228, 232,
235n, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246n,
Nagele, A., 27n 247n, 248, 250n, 251, 252, 253, 254n,
Naim, J.A., 83n 255n, 256n, 260, 261, 263, 273, 283-5,
Nautin, P., 83n, 205n, 209n 287n, 291, 296-8, 300
Nebridios, 112 Palmer, A., 34n
Nektarios, 104, 106, 109, 111, 113, 118, Pansophios of Nikomedia, 178
119, 126, 129, 178, 225, 251, 299 Pansophios of Pisidia, 248
Nestorios, 289; Nestorian controversy, 294 Papadopoulos-Kerameus, A., 88n, 186n,
Nicaea, 178, 232, 250, 253, 264, 265; 187n, 188n
council of, 2, 10, 11, 12, 50, 64, 69, 220, Pappos, bishop, 248, 287
250; canons of, 2, 199, 220, 274, 276, 288 Pargoire, J., 123n, 131n, 134n, 139n
Nicene teaching, 10-11, 36, 104, 105, 126, Paschoud, F., 259n, 294n, 295n
138, 242 Patemos, 275
night services, 137 Patrikios, notary, 248
 Index 309
Paul, Apostle, 43, 45-6, 47, 48, 49, 59, 61, Roug6, J., 169n, 174n, 177n
62, 72, 88, 93, 94, 96, 99, 113, 119, 132, Ruflnianai monastery, 124n; palace, 139,
138-9, 150, 167, 187, 269, 270 215, 217, 220
Paul the Confessor, 139, 143, 254 Rufinos (priest), 264
Paul, deacon, 248 Rufinus of Aquileia, 112, 132n, 293
Paul of Heraklea, 163, 174, 218, 225, 238 Rufinus, praetorian prefect, 109, 110, 111,
Paul of Krateia, 244 139, 145, 215
Paulinos, 11, 36-7, 38, 49, 70, 87, 91, 101,
117, 287, 289 Sabellius, Sabellianism, 10
Paverd, F. van de, 72n, 73n, 75n, 76, 80n, Sabiniana, 4, 258
88n, 236n sailing season, 167, 169, 173-4, 177, 279
Payr, Th., 56n Saint-Denis, E. de, 174n
Peeters, P., 168n Sapor II, 144
Pelagia, 67 Sapores, 37
Pempton, 245 Sarapion, 121, 173, 182-5, 190, 208, 210,
Pentadia, 248, 26 In, 262 219, 238, 299, 300
Persia, 1, 8, 144, 265, 293 Sardes, 165
Peter, Apostle, 36, 138-9 Satuminos (hostage), 153-5, 171
Peter (archpriest), 192 Satuminos (officer), 124
Peter of Alexandria, 36 Savile, Sir Henry, lOOn, 230n, 237n
Petit, P., 2n, 7n, 72n, 74n Schatkin, M., 4 In
Pharetrios of Caesarea, 241, 256-7 Schwartz, E., 17n, 62n, 67n
Philogonios, 67, 70 Scythopolis, 195
Philostorgios, llOn, 147n, 150n, 158n, Sebasteia, 253, 261
162n, 294 second marriage, 5, 47-8, 122
Phokas, 140 Second Sophistic, 8
Photios, 87, 89, 90, 91, 93, 125n, 218, 220, Seeck, O., 151, 152n, 161n, 166n, 231, 232
221, 223, 225-7, 228, 265, 292, 294, 295; Sekoundos, 4
his stylistic criterion, 87, 89-90, 91, 93 Seleukeia (lady), 256-7
Pietri, Ch., 118n, 277n, 278n, 279n Seleukeia (seaport), 1, 6
Pityus, 282, 284 Seleukeia (in Isauria), 18
Plato, 269; his Phaedo, 219; his dialogues, 27 Seleukos (bishop), 261
Polemonion, 284 Seleukos I Nikator, 1
Pontus, Pontica, civil diocese, 109, 129, 177, senate-house (Constantinople), 107, 251
178, 180, 289 Septuagint, 82, 90
Porphyrios of Antioch, 252, 272, 281, 283, Severian of Gabala, 133, 173, 182-90, 202,
286 204, 211, 214, 218, 220, 221, 224, 232,
Porphyrios of Gaza, 142, 168-70, 173 235, 238, 240, 244, 248, 252, 253, 283,
Praenetos, 232-3 299
Proba, 264, 275 Sheldon-Williams, I.P., 62n
Procla, 248 Silpios,Mount, 1, 3, 21, 28, 29, 30, 39
Proklos, 289, 290 Silvina, 248
Prokopios (anchorite), 168-9 Simon, M., 63n
Prokopios (would-be usurper), 17 simony, 164, 175, 176
Promotos, 110, 143, 262 Simplikios, 238-9
Pseudo-Dionysius, 62 Siricius, 117-18, 214, 278
Pulcheria, 289 Sirmium, 36
Sisinnios (Novatian bishop), 126, 177
Quartodecimans, 176-7 Sisinnios, Martyrios and Alexander
Quasten, J., 27n (martyrs), 140
slavery, slaves, 99-100, 224
Rabbula of Edessa, 20 Smyrna, 165
Radagaisus, 280, 283 Soffray, M., 82n
Ravenna, 107, 247, 273, 275, 277, 278 Sokrates (historian), 4, 6, 7, 12n, 14n, 15,
Rendinck, P., 56n 18, 19, 24, 27, 36n, 37n, 43, 57, 61n, 83,
‘resident synod’, 128-9, 163-5, 179, 207 102, 105, 106, 108, 119n, 120, 121, 126,
Ritter, A.M., 38n 138n, 144n, 146n, 149, 153, 155, 157,
Romanesian gate, 3, 104 158n, 159, 160n, 162n, 163n, 175n, 176,
Rome, 2, 107, 112, 116, 117, 118, 178, 177n, 182n, 183n, 184, 185, 186n, 189,
273-5, 278, 282; see of, 2, 36, 37, 116-18, 192, 193n, 195, 197n, 198n, 204, 206,
178, 203, 247, 273, 277, 278, 286, 288-9 207n, 208, 211, 212, 214, 217, 222, 223,
310 Index
225n, 229, 231n, 232n, 233n, 235n, 236, Theodosius I, 36-7, 47, 51, 72, 74, 75, 76,

238n, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245n, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 104, 105, 107, 108,
248n, 251, 272n, 273n, 289n, 290n, 109, 110, 111, 112, 120, 122, 124, 132,
292-3, 296 138, 139, 145, 157, 158, 177, 231, 296
Sokrates (philosopher), 219, 269 Theodotos of Antioch, 287
‘sons/daughters of the covenant’, 20, 23 Theophilos, 4, 105, 106, 113, 117-18, 176,
Sopater (governor), 258, 263 189, 191-202, 203-4, 205, 207, 210,
Sozomen, 8, 14n, 15, 18n, 23, 27, 36n, 37n, 212-21, 225, 226, 229n, 230, 232, 234,
38n, 39n, 105, llOn, 118n, 119n, 120, 235, 237, 238, 240, 241, 242, 247, 272,
122, 123, 127, 130, 131, 138, 144n, 146n, 273, 274, 275, 278, 279, 281, 286, 288,
147n, 149, 153, 155, 157, 158, 159, 160n, 292
162n, 163n, 172n, 174n, 176, 177n, 178, Theoteknos, 274, 275
179, 183, 184, 185n, 192, 193n, 195, 197, Theotimos, 207
198n, 200, 204n, 207n, 208n, 209, 210n, Therasios, 47
211, 212, 213n, 214, 217, 220, 225n, 229, Thessalonica, 76, 278, 280
231n, 232n, 233n, 235n, 236, 237, 238, Thrace, 108, 129, 141, 145, 154, 160, 161,
239n, 240, 241, 244, 245, 246n, 250n, 162, 163, 166, 171, 180, 198, 206, 218,
251, 252n, 253n, 255, 261, 265n, 272n, 220, 238
273n, 276n, 279n, 283, 291, 293 Tigrios, 219
Spanneut, M., lln, 44n, 60n Tillemont, L. de, 27, 90, lOln, 217n, 234n,
‘spiritual marriage’, 48-51, 121 237n, 296
stasis, 33-4 Tranquil linos, bishop, 261
stenographers, 57, 93-4, 133, 224, 231 Tribigild, 145-6, 152
Stiemon, D., 284n, 290n
Stiglmayr, J., 27n Ubaldi, P., 218n, 219n, 222n, 224n
Stilicho, 109, 110, 111, 145, 157, 275, 279, Uldin, 162
280 283 Uleyn, A., 92n
Stilting, J., 102n, 226, 237n, 296 Ulflla, 142
Stoics, Stoicism, 21, 44, 52, 92, 267, 269, Unila, 143, 262
270
Stoudios, 251, 253, 272 Valens, 1, 8, 13, 14, 17, 24, 36, 37, 51, 124,
Straub, J., 132n 142, 254, 297-8
Synesios of Cyrene, 151, 152, 153n, 156n, Valentinian I, 296
158, 161, 167, 171n, 178n, 286n Vanderspoel, J., 140n
Synkletios, 165 Vasianilla, 263
Syriac asceticism, 29, 32-4 Venerius of Milan, 246, 281
Via Egnatia, 108, 111
Tarsos, 19, 95, 104 Victor, 124
Taurus, 104, 255, 258 Vigilius of Trent, 140
Telfer, W., 139n Voobus, A., 20n
theatre, 3, 15, 53, 79, 89, 131, 135, 270 Vogt, H.J., 125n, 126n, 177n
Themistios, 107n
Theodore, escorting officer, 250, 255 Wenger, A., 88n, 173n, 18 In
Theodore, later of Mopsuestia, 6, 18, 19, 22, widows, widowhood, 47-8, 121-2
23, 27, 60, 89, 95 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von, 7n
Theodore of Trimithos, 170 Wiles, M.F., 95n
Theodore of Tyana, 241 Wilken, R.L., 2n, 9n, 62n, 65n
Theodoret, 9n, lln, 17n, 29, 32, 33, 34n, Wilson, N.G., 82n
37n, 120n, 124n, 129, 142, 143, 153n,
157, 158, 160, 177n, 232, 233, 254, 255, Zakrzewski, C.,161n
281n, 282n, 286n, 289, 293-4 Zellinger, J., 183n
Theodoros Lector, 290n Zosimos, 109n, llOn, 11 In, 130, 145n,
Theodosios II, 170, 172-3, 177, 183, 209, 146n, 151n, 153n, 156n, 160, 162, 170,
287, 290, 293 171, 233-4, 251, 294-5
3 9999 0283 17 7

LOWER MILLS
 ALSO FROM CORNELL -

LIVY
Reconstructing Early Rome
Gary B. Miles
"A very important work. Miles
goes further than his pre-
decessors, giving us a Livy who
is not merely in control
of
the structure of his history as
a whole and of its individual
episodes, but one who demonstrates
originality as a thinker
and interpreter. Liiy: Reconstructing Early
Rome will be provoca-
tive, in the best sense.”

Judith Ginsburg, Cornell University

In this challenging book Miles argues that Livy’s picture of

early Rome is a reflection of the ideals, tensions, and
concerns
of his own day. Rome coped
with changes by casting them as
continuities with the past; Livy in
his idiosyncratic reinter-
pretation sees the contradictions,
ambiguities, and positive
lessons in those continuities.”
— T. James Luce, Jr., Princeton University
Cloth ISBN 0-8014-3060-7 256 pages

Culture and National Identity

in Republican Rome
Erich S. Gruen
Few encounters
in antiquity have had
more profound conse-
quences than that between Greek
culture and Republican
Rome Focusing on the ruling elites of the
middle and later
Republic, for whom Hellenic
literature, religion, and visual
arts were. at once intimidating
and appealing, Erich S. Gruen
offers a compelling account
of the assimilation Vnd adaptation
of Greek culture by the Romans.
/ » m
Cornell Studies in Classical

Cloth ISBN 0-8014-2759-2

Philology/Townsend Lectures W
Paper ISBN 0-8014-8941-8 36sHI

Cornell University Press

Ithaca, New York 9 780801 431890 1