Chrysostom desired to regularise his position by a general Council which should inquire into his case and the proceedings of the Synod of the Oak. Theophilus began to spin new intrigues, and there were bloody frays between the populace and his partisans. Not having the countenance of the court, he did not dare to remain any longer in the city, and sailed with his followers back to Egypt.119 If Chrysostom had now been able to control his temper, his reconciliation with the court might have been permanent, and all might have gone smoothly. But a trivial incident occurred which betrayed him into gross impoliteness towards the Empress.
Some months after his return,120 a silver image of Eudoxia on a tall porphyry column was erected by Simplicius, Prefect of the City, in the middle of the Augusteum, and thus close to the vestibule of St. Sophia.121 The inaugural ceremonies were of a pagan character, and accompanied by dancing and music, and the loud noise of the merriment interrupted the service in St. Sophia. Chrysostom complained to the Prefect in no measured terms, and his denunciation of the heathenish rites was taken by the Empress as a personal affront. She was an impulsive woman, and she was now ready to side with his enemies, Severian of Gabala and the rest, who were lurking for an opportunity of vengeance. Chrysostom poured fuel on the flame by a sermon which began: “Again Herodias is furiously raging, again she is dancing, again demanding the head of John on a charger.”122
Chrysostom had demanded a general Council;123 the summonses had been sent out; but Eudoxia was now eager that the Council should be so packed with his opponents that its structure would be not to rescind but to confirm the decree of the Synod of the Oak. At Christmas she and the Emperor refused to communicate with the pastor whom she had so warmly welcomed on his return, until the approaching Council should have tried his case. Theophilus refused to attend; his experiences at Constantinople did not encourage a second visit. But many of his bishops went, and he instructed them to make use of the canon of the Council of Antioch of A.D. 341, which laid down that if a bishop who had been deposed by a synod should then appeal to the secular power his deposition should be final and irrevocable. The Council met early in A.D. 404, but many supporters of Chrysostom were present; and his enemies, who did not propose to investigate the charges against him but to condemn him by virtue of the canon of Antioch, found themselves in an awkward position. For the Council of Antioch was deeply tainted with Arianism, and the canon was aimed at Athanasius. When it was suggested to them in the Emperor’s presence that if the canon was to be accepted as authoritative they must subscribe to the acts of the Council in question, they were taken aback, but for very shame they promised to subscribe. It was a promise they could not possibly fulfil, for the Council was notoriously heretical. And so the matter hung fire, while Chrysostom continued to perform his ordinary duties. But Easter (April 17) was now approaching, and representations were made to the Emperor that it was impossible to allow the ceremonies of that high festival to be celebrated by a man who had been deposed and excommunicated by a synod. He was ordered to remain in his palace and not to enter the church, but he refused to comply unless he were compelled by force.
Easter Eve was the great day for the baptism of converts, and in this year there were three thousand candidates. Large multitudes assembled in St. Sophia, many having come in from the neighbouring towns. At night the church was crowded, when a body of soldiers entered and scattered the congregation. Women and children fled shrieking through the streets, but the clergy succeeded in reassembling the congregation in the Baths of Constantine, and preparations were made to celebrate the services there. But the flock was again dispersed by soldiers. On Easter Day the devoted followers of Chrysostom would not attend the services in St. Sophia, and celebrated Easter in an open field beyond the walls.
For two months longer Chrysostom was allowed to remain in his palace, but was prevented from leaving it. Arcadius felt some compunction about proceeding to extremities. But at length he yielded to the pressure of Severian and the other bishops, who were urging him to tranquillise the city by removing the cause of scandal and disturbance, on June 20 an Imperial mandate was delivered to Chrysostom, ordering him to leave the city. He submitted, and allowed himself to be conducted stealthily to one of the harbours and conveyed in a boat to the Bithynian coast.
On the same night a fire broke out in St. Sophia. It began at the chair of the archbishop and, flaming upwards, caught the roof and turned round the building like a serpent. There was a high wind, and the flames, blown southward, caught the senate-house. Both buildings were destroyed, but the destruction of the senate-house was the greater misfortune, because it was a museum of precious works of classical art. The statues of the nine Muses were burned, but the Zeus of Dodona and the Athene of Lindus escaped.124
The cause of the conflagration was made a matter of judicial inquiry. Some attributed it to Chrysostom himself, others to his friends. It was made a pretext for a bitter and cruel persecution of all his adherents.125 The deaconess Olympias was treated with great harshness; she fell ill and withdrew to Cyzicus. Many persons were punished for refusing to communicate with Arsacius,126 the new archbishop, who was installed a few day later (June 26). He was a brother of Chrysostom’s predecessor Nectarius, and was a gentle old man, whom Chrysostom’s admirers described as muter than a fish and more inert than a frog. Partaking of the communion with him was a sort of test for discovering Johannites, as the followers of Chrysostom were called.
Chrysostom lived in exile for three years, at first in Cucusus on the borders of Cappadocia and Armenia, then at Arabissus.127 From these places he conducted an active correspondence with his friends and admirers in all parts of Christendom, and his influence was so great that his enemies thought it prudent to procure his removal to a more remote spot, Pityus on the Euxine coast. On the way thither he died from exhaustion (September 14, A.D. 407).
The treatment of Chrysostom caused fresh trouble between the courts of Constantinople and Ravenna. Theophilus had first apprised Pope Innocent I of his deposition: letters from Chrysostom himself and his clergy, delivered a few days afterwards, probably convinced him that the proceedings had been extremely irregular, and this conviction was confirmed when he received from Theophilus a memorandum of the acts of the Synod of the Oak. He decided that the matter should be brought before a general Council, and meanwhile declined to desist from communion with the Patriarch, to whom he sent a letter of consolation. An Italian Synod was summoned, and declared the condemnation of Chrysostom illegal and demanded a general Council at Thessalonica.
Honorius had already written twice to Arcadius,128 deploring the tumults and conflagrations which had disgraced Constantinople, and criticising the inconvenient haste with which the sentence against the condemned had been carried out before the decision of the head of the Church had been ascertained. He wrote under the influence of Innocent, and definitely asserted the doctrine that “the interpretation of divine things concerns churchmen, the observation of religion concerns us (the Emperors).” After the meeting of the Italian Synod he wrote a third letter,129 to be carried by a deputation of bishops and priests, who were to inform his brother of the opinion of the Italian Church. The envoys had reason to repent of their expedition. Escorted by soldiers from Athens to Constantinople, they were not permitted to land in that city, but were thrown into a Thracian fortress, forcibly deprived of the letters they bore, and at last hardly allowed to return to Italy (A.D. 406). As they had been specially recommended by Honorius himself to Arcadius, the outrageous treatment they received was a grievous affront to the western court. The Eastern Emperor took no notice whatever of the proposal to summon a general Council, and the Imperial brothers seem never again to have held any communications. Honorius and Innocent could do no more; they had to abandon Chrysostom to his fate.130
The Empress Eudoxia did not live to see the later phase of the episode in which she had played a considerable part, though rather as the instrument of unscrupulous ecclesiastics than as the directress of a conspiracy against a man whose probity she certainly respected. She died on October 6, A.D. 404, of a miscarriage.131
Arcadius slumbered on his throne for three and a half years after