Innocent no longer hesitated to pronounce an opinion. His letter to Theophilus is brief, decisive, almost peremptory in tone. “The See of Rome,” he said, “would maintain communion with Alexandria and Constantinople to avoid rending the unity of the Church; but he annulled (ἀθέτησας) the deposition of John apparently made by Theophilus. It was impossible to recognise the validity of a sentence pronounced by such an irregular synod as that lately convened at Chalcedon. If Theophilus had confidence in the justice of that sentence, he must appear in person to prove it before a General Council called together and regulated according to the Canons of Nice.” A few days after the despatch of this letter, Peter, an Alexandrian priest, arrived with a deacon from Constantinople, bearing another letter from Theophilus, and certain minutes, so called, of the acts of the Synod of the Oak. Innocent, having perused the minutes, was indignant at the mingled monstrosity and levity of the charges brought against Chrysostom, and at the condemnation having been pronounced in the absence of the defendant. He ordered special prayers and fasts to be observed by the Church for the restoration of concord, and addressed to Theophilus a sharp letter of reproof.607
It is not easy to make out precisely how many communications passed each way between the Churches of Rome and Constantinople, or the exact date of each; but several letters are distinctly mentioned. Theotecnus, a priest from Constantinople, brought a letter from twenty-five of the forty bishops who had constantly adhered to Chrysostom, in which they described the expulsion of the Patriarch and the conflagration of the church. Innocent replied by a letter of condolence, and exhortation to bear their trial with Christian fortitude and patience, for at present he confessed, with deep regret, that he saw small prospect of rendering much effectual aid, “owing to the opposition of certain persons powerful for evil,” alluding probably to the jealousies between the Courts of the two brothers, Honorius and Arcadius. The cabal also sent a letter to Innocent, containing their version of the late transactions. Their emissary was Paternus, who called himself a priest of Constantinople; “an ugly little fellow,” says Palladius, “and very unintelligible.” The letter was written in the names of Arsacius, Paulus, Antiochus, Cyrinus, Severian, and some others; and, among other opprobrious charges, distinctly accused Chrysostom of setting fire to the church. Innocent treated the letter with much disdain, and would not condescend to answer it. Some days afterwards, Cyriacus, bishop of Synnada, arrived in Rome as a fugitive, in consequence of an Imperial edict, which directed the deposition of any bishop who refused to communicate with Arsacius and Theophilus, and the confiscation of his property, if he had any. After Cyriacus arrived Eulysius, bishop of Apamea in Bithynia, bringing a letter from fifteen of the forty friendly bishops, which described all the past and present distress of the Church caused by Chrysostom’s enemies, and in all respects confirmed the oral account of Cyriacus. In the course of another month, Palladius, bishop of Hellenopolis, fled to Rome from the intolerable harshness of magisterial decrees, which now subjected to confiscation the house of any one who should be found to have harboured bishop, priest, or even layman, who communicated with Chrysostom. From a letter of Chrysostom608 it appears that Palladius and many others lived for some time in concealment at Constantinople, in the hope of escaping persecution. They were courteously lodged in Rome by one Pinianus and his wife, by Juliana, Proba, and other Roman ladies, whom Chrysostom warmly thanks for their kindness in letters written by him from Cucusus.609 Germanus the priest, and Cassian the deacon, custodians of the Church treasury at Constantinople, also came to Rome, bringing a letter from the whole body of the clergy who adhered to Chrysostom, describing the violent deposition and expulsion of the Archbishop, and the tyranny of their adversaries under which they were now suffering.610
The reply of Innocent to this letter from the clergy of Constantinople is dignified as well as sympathetic. He exhorts, as usual, to patience, and to the derivation of comfort from the remembrance of the sufferings of all God’s saints in past times. But he deeply deplores their wrongs, and again expresses his reprobation in the strongest terms of the illegality of the late proceedings. “The canon which prohibited the ordination of a successor during the lifetime of the reigning bishop had been grossly violated. The Canons of Antioch, on which the synod had relied, were invalid, having been composed by heretics, and they had been rejected by the Council of Sardica. The Canons of Nice alone were entitled to the obedience of the Church; but adversaries and heretics were always attempting to subvert them.”... “What steps, then, should be taken in the existing crisis? Plainly a General Council must be convoked: that was the only means of appeasing the fury of the tempest. He was watching an opportunity to accomplish this: meanwhile, they must wait in patience, and trust the goodness of God for the restoration of tranquillity and good order.”
To Chrysostom Innocent wrote, as friend to friend, as a bishop to a brother bishop, a letter of Christian consolation and encouragement, not entering into the legal questions of the case, and not pledging himself to decisive action of any kind. It was not necessary to remind one, who was himself the teacher and pastor of a great people, that God often tried the best of men, and put their patience to the severest tests, and that they are firmly supported under the greatest calamities by the approving voice of conscience.... A good man may be severely tried, but cannot be overcome, since he is preserved and guarded by the truth of Holy Scripture. Holy Scripture supplied abundant examples of suffering saints who did not receive their crowns until they had undergone the heaviest trials with patience. “Take courage, then, honoured brother, from the testimony of conscience. When you have been purified by affliction, you will enter into the haven of peace in the presence of Christ our Lord.”611
Innocent, however, not only wrote commonplace letters of condolence, but exerted himself to obtain the council which he had recommended to the Church of Constantinople as the only means of redressing her wrongs. He wrote a letter to Honorius, then at Ravenna, representing the lamentable condition of the Church of Constantinople, which elicited from the Emperor an order for the convention of an Italian synod. This synod, after a due consideration of all the circumstances, was to submit its decision and suggestions to himself. The result of the deliberations of the Italian bishops, swayed no doubt by Innocent, was to request the Emperor to write to his brother Arcadius, urging the convocation of a General Council to be held in Thessalonica, which would be a convenient meeting-point for the prelates of East and West. Honorius complied, and the letter was despatched under the care of a deputation from the Italian Church, consisting of five bishops, two priests, and a deacon. The Emperor calls it the third letter612 which he had written relative to the affairs of Constantinople. He professes great solicitude for the peace of the Church, “on which,” he observes, “the peace of our Empire depends;” and with a view to this object, he urges the convocation of a council at Thessalonica, and specially entreats that the attendance of Theophilus, who was, he is informed, author of all these disturbances, should be insisted upon. He commends the deputation to the honourable care of Arcadius; and that he may know the sentiments of the Italian Church on the present state of affairs, he sends him two letters as samples of many, one from the Bishop of Rome, the other from the Bishop of Aquileia.
The only bishop on the deputation whose see is mentioned was Æmilius, bishop of Beneventum. The Oriental refugees, Cyriacus, Demetrius, Palladius, and Eulysius, accompanied the Italians. They were the bearers not only of letters from Honorius, Innocent, and the bishops Chromatius of Aquileia and Venerius of Milan, but also of a memorial from the Italian synod, which recommended that Chrysostom should be reinstated in his see before he was required to take his trial before a council. He would then, it was observed, have no reasonable excuse for declining to attend it. The deputation was absent four months. On their return the members had a pitiful tale to tell of failure in their errand, and of personal suffering from maltreatment. They touched at Athens on their voyage out, whence they had intended to proceed to Thessalonica, and lay the letters first of all before Anysius, bishop of that place; but at Athens they were arrested by a military officer, who placed them on board two vessels under charge of a centurion, to be conveyed to Constantinople. A furious southerly gale sprang up soon after their departure, and, after a voyage of some danger, they arrived, late on the third day, at the suburb of Constantinople called Victor. But, instead of being allowed to proceed to the city, they were shut up in a fortress named Athyra, on the coast—the Romans in a single chamber, the Orientals in separate apartments. No servant even was permitted to attend them. They were commanded to deliver up the letters which they had brought, but refused, as being ambassadors, to surrender them to any but to the Emperor himself. Secretaries and messengers were sent in succession, but the ambassadors steadfastly adhered to their refusal. The letters were at length wrested from their possession by sheer violence: one bishop’s thumb was broken in the struggle. On the following day a large bribe was offered them if they would recognise Atticus (the aged Arsacius was now dead) as Patriarch, and say no more about the trial of Chrysostom. This base proposal was firmly resisted; and, seeing the utter hopelessness of their mission, they requested to be released as soon as possible, and suffered to return to their dioceses in safety. The Italians saw no more of their companions from the East. They themselves were thrust into a miserable vessel, with twenty soldiers of various grades, and conveyed to Lampsacus, on the Asiatic coast, where they embarked in another vessel, and, after a tedious voyage of twenty days, arrived at Hydruntum, in Calabria.613
Neither the Papacy nor the Empire of the West was sufficiently powerful at this time to insist further upon justice being done to the Patriarch, in the face of the determined animosity of the ruling powers at Constantinople; but the friends of the martyr deemed that they read unequivocal signs of the Divine displeasure in the misfortunes which befell some of Chrysostom’s greatest personal enemies. Thrace and Illyria were ravaged by an incursion of Huns, and the Isaurians, a predatory barbarian race, which inhabited the fastnesses of Mount Taurus, committed fearful havoc in Syria and Asia Minor. Cyrinus, bishop of Chalcedon, one of the four who had taken on them the responsibility of Chrysostom’s condemnation, died in great agony from the wound in his foot, originally caused when his foot had been trodden upon by Bishop Maruthas, more than a year ago, just before the Synod of the Oak. At the end of September, Constantinople was visited by a destructive fall of hailstones of extraordinary size; and on October 6, A.D. 404, died the Empress Eudoxia. Nilus, one of the most eminent anchorites of the day, once prefect of Constantinople, who had abandoned wealth, family, and position for the solitudes of Mount Sinai, addressed two letters of reproof and warning to Arcadius on the iniquitous banishment of Chrysostom and inhuman persecution of his followers. “How can you expect to see Constantinople delivered from visitations of earthquake and fire from Heaven, after the enormities which have there been perpetrated; after crime has been established there by the authority of laws; after the thrice-blessed John, the pillar of the Church, the lamp of truth, the trumpet of Jesus Christ, has been driven from the city? How can I grant my prayers (Arcadius had apparently begged the intercession of the saint to remove the national troubles) to a city stricken by the wrath of God, whose thunder is every moment ready to fall upon her?”614
But human and divine warnings were alike wasted; the enemies of the Patriarch had complete sway over the Court, and suffered it not to swerve from the path of persecution. The Western bishops and presbyters, after the disastrous termination of their embassy to Constantinople, returned home, without honour indeed, but unmolested. Their Eastern colleagues did not escape so easily. They were conveyed to places of exile in the most distant and opposite quarters of the Empire. Cyriacus was confined in a Persian fortress beyond Emessa; Eulysius in Arabia; Palladius on the confines of Ethiopia; Demetrius was to have been confined in one of the Egyptian oases, but died of the harsh treatment to which he was subjected on the journey. The exiles suffered such brutal insults and indignities from the soldiers who conducted them to these places, that the desire of life was extinguished. The little money which they had collected for the expenses of their journey was taken from them by their guards, who divided it among themselves. They were forced to perform in one day the distance of two days’ journey. They were not permitted to enter any churches on their route, but forced into Jewish or Samaritan synagogues, and lodged at night in low inns, where their ears were shocked by the filthy conversation of abandoned characters of both sexes. Yet even some of these degraded people were won to a more respectful behaviour, if not actually converted, by the Christian exhortations and instruction of the captives. The “Word of God was not bound.” Some of the bishops friendly to Theophilus bribed the soldiers to hurry the exiles out of their dioceses as quickly as possible. Distinguished among these malignants were the bishops of Tarsus, Antioch, Ancyra, and of Cæsarea in Palestine. Most of the bishops of Cappadocia, on the other hand, especially Theodorus of Tyana, and Bosporius of Colonia, accorded them a compassionate and courteous reception.615
Arsacius died in November A.D. 404. Out of many ambitious candidates for the vacant throne, Atticus, a presbyter, who had taken an active part in the persecution of Chrysostom, a native of Sebaste in Armenia, was appointed. He was a man of moderate abilities and generally mild disposition, but relentless in his determination to crush out the party of the exiled Patriarch. By his influence an Imperial rescript was obtained, which decreed that “any bishop who did not communicate with Theophilus, Porphyry of Antioch, and Atticus, should be ejected from the Church, and his property confiscated.” The wealthy, for the most part, bowed to the storm; the poor sought peace of body and of conscience in flight either to Rome or monasteries. This rescript, aimed at the bishops, was followed up by another directed against the laity. Any layman who refused to recognise the above-mentioned prelates was, if a civilian, to be deprived of any office which he might hold; if a soldier, of his military girdle; if an artisan, to be heavily fined or banished. Bishops and presbyters were dispersed as fugitives into all parts of the Empire. Some sought retirement in some secluded little country property of their own, and obtained a precarious livelihood by manual labour, farming, or fishing.616
But, in spite of all the various means of coercion at Constantinople, in spite of trials, torture, imprisonment, banishment, the bulk of the people could not be brought to attend the ministration of Atticus and his clergy. Their churches were comparatively empty, while the persecuted adherents of the exile persistently held their services in some sequestered valley, or on some lonely hillside. In fact, persecution, as has always been the case, only intensified the attachment of many to the person and the cause which it was intended to crush, and so far defeated its own object. Chrysostom himself observes,617 that many of those who had enjoyed a high reputation for piety were the first to fall away when brought to the test of persecution; whereas others, who had formerly been abandoned to frivolity and vice, now renounced the theatre and circus, hastened into the desert to attend the assembly of the Catholics at worship, and displayed the greatest fortitude before the judge when brought to trial, in the face of torture, and with the prospect of imprisonment or exile.
The party now in power could not convert the hearts of clergy or people to their side, but they could, and did, change the outward aspect of the Church. The men of probity and piety with whom Chrysostom had replaced the six simoniacal bishops deposed in Asia were expelled, and the delinquents restored. The Church in that region was reduced to a disgraceful state. Ordinations were conducted, not amidst prayer and fasting, but feasting, drunkenness, and gross bribery. The see of Heracleides, the good bishop of Ephesus, appointed by Chrysostom, was occupied by a eunuch, a monster of iniquity. The people in disgust deserted the churches.
The death of Flavian, bishop of Antioch, nearly coincided with the banishment of Chrysostom. The people of Antioch were much attached to a priest named Constantius, a man described by Palladius as a faithful and incorruptible servant of the Church from his earliest youth, first as a messenger who carried ecclesiastical despatches, then as reader, deacon, priest. He had won the love and admiration of the people by his gentle, amiable disposition, his intelligence, strict integrity, and exemplary piety. There was a general desire to make him bishop, but an ambitious priest named Porphyry frustrated the design. By bribery, and calumnious stories conveyed to the Court at Constantinople, he procured an Imperial rescript condemning Constantius to be banished to one of the oases as a disturber of the people. With the assistance of his friends Constantius escaped to Cyprus. Porphyry meanwhile imprisoned several of the clergy of Antioch, and seized the opportunity of the Olympian festival (when most of the inhabitants had poured out to the celebrated suburb of Daphne) to enter the church with a few bishops and clergy; and then, with doors fast closed, he was hurriedly ordained, so hurriedly that some portions of the service were omitted. Acacius, Severian, and Antiochus, who had officiated, immediately fled. The people were enraged when they discovered the trick, surrounded Porphyry’s house, and threatened to burn it to the ground. He applied for protection to the prefect, who lent him a body of troops, with which he forcibly took possession of the church. He contrived to get an unscrupulous and cruel man sent from Constantinople to be captain of the city guards, terror of whom drove the people to attend the churches, though they did so with disgust, and earnestly prayed for retribution from Heaven on the authors of this wickedness.618
Innocent remained inflexibly attached to the cause of Chrysostom. The Church of Rome and the Italian bishops broke off all communion with Theophilus and Atticus, and ceased not to demand the convocation of a General Council, as the only tribunal by which the Patriarch could be lawfully acquitted or condemned.619 But the Court of Ravenna was not in a position to support these demands by intimidation or actual force. All the skill of Stilicho and all the resources at his command were barely sufficient to repel the persevering efforts of Alaric and Rhadagaisus to take the great prize which they so eagerly coveted, the capital of the Roman Empire. The inevitable fall of Rome was averted only for a little while.
Thus the spirit of lawlessness and selfishness took advantage of the impotence of the secular power both in Rome and Constantinople to work its will upon the Church. It dealt a blow to Christian morality and ecclesiastical discipline from which the Church at Constantinople never recovered, and which caused a throb of pain from one end of Christendom to the other; for, in spite of all differences and divisions, Christendom was one then, so that, if one member suffered, all the members suffered with it; and what was done and said, and thought and felt, in the Church of Alexandria, or Antioch, or Constantinople, was not unknown or unregarded by the Churches of Rome or Milan, and through them made its impress on the Churches even of Gaul and Spain.
CHRYSOSTOM ORDERED TO BE REMOVED TO CUCUSUS—PERILS ENCOUNTERED AT CÆSAREA—HARDSHIPS OF THE JOURNEY—REACHES CUCUSUS—LETTERS WRITTEN THERE TO OLYMPIAS AND OTHER FRIENDS. A.D. 404.
It now only remains to follow the illustrious exile along his painful journey to its melancholy or, if we regard him as the Christian martyr, its glorious termination.
He was removed, as has been already seen, from Constantinople on June 20, and conveyed, in the course of a few days, to Nicæa. Here he remained till July 4, and several of his letters to Olympias were written from this place. The soft yet fresh sea air revived his health, which had suffered from the feverish and harassing scenes that he had gone through at Constantinople, and from the journey begun in the very middle of the summer heat. Nothing could exceed the kindness of the soldiers under whose custody he travelled, who discharged towards him all the duties of servants as well as of guards.620 His ultimate destination was not known for some time by himself or his friends. Common report sent him to Scythia,621 but the intention of his enemies appears to have changed from time to time. Sebaste in Armenia had been first proposed, but finally Cucusus, a village in the Tauric range on the edge of Cilicia and the Lesser Armenia, was fixed upon. It was a remote and desolate spot, subject to frequent attacks from the marauding Isaurians; and at first Chrysostom earnestly entreated his friends in Constantinople to try and procure a more agreeable place of exile, a favour frequently granted to criminals. Olympias, Bishop Cyriacus, Briso the chamberlain, and a lady named Theodora, repeatedly interceded on his behalf; but their efforts were ineffectual.622 The Empress herself, it would appear, selected Cucusus, and was inexorable in her decision.623
From beginning to end of his exile Chrysostom’s mind was occupied with organising such work as yet remained possible to him. It has been seen with what zeal he had planted a missionary settlement in Phœnicia. This project continued to the close of his life to be an object of his most solicitous interest. On July 3, the eve of his departure from Nicæa, he addressed a letter to a priest named Constantius,624 apparently the superintendent of the missionary work in Phœnicia and the surrounding countries. He implores him to prosecute his labours for the extirpation of Paganism with zeal undiminished, and undismayed by the present afflicted state of the bishop and the see, to whom the mission owed its origin. “The pilot and the physician, far from relaxing their efforts when the ship and the patient are in peril, redouble their efforts to save them.” He begs Constantius to inform him year by year how many temples are destroyed, how many churches built, how many good Christians immigrate into Phœnicia. He had himself persuaded a recluse, whom he found at Nicæa, to go and place himself under the direction of Constantius in the missionary work. He had, he says, happily concluded, just about the time of his deposition, arrangements for the suppression of Marcionism, which was very prevalent at Salamis, in Cyprus. He begs Constantius to write to his friend Bishop Cyriacus, if still in Constantinople, and request him to carry these plans into effect. Finally, he implores the prayers of Constantius and all faithful people for the cessation of the present calamities of the Church, especially of the intolerable evils which had befallen it in Asia; alluding no doubt to the restoration of the simoniacal bishops.
On July 4 or 5 the exile started from Nicæa on his toilsome and perilous journey in the midsummer heat, across the scorching plains of Galatia and Cappadocia. He describes himself625 as an object of great compassion to travellers whom he met coming from Armenia and the East, who stopped to weep and wail over his distress. His route lay in a diagonal line across the centre of Asia Minor, ascending first of all near the stream of the river Sangarius, which in its upper course winds through vast plains of black bituminous soil, scantily cultivated, but supplying pasture to great herds of cattle. Chrysostom had always been an ascetic liver, but he had not a robust frame, and he had been accustomed to wholesome food and the frequent use of the bath. Continuous travelling by night as well as day, the scorching sun, hot dust, hard bread, brackish water, and deprivation of the bath, threw him into a fever; but either from fear of the Isaurians, or of Leontius, bishop of Ancyra, in Galatia, one of his most virulent enemies, the journey was pursued without intermission till he arrived, more dead than alive, at Cæsarea, in Cappadocia.
He has left us a detailed account of the perils which befell him here, and a melancholy picture indeed it is of the ferocity and cunning of which bishops and monks were capable under the influence of fanatical partisanship.626 Having escaped, he says, from the Galatian (probably meaning Leontius), he was met, as he approached Cæsarea, by several persons, who informed him that Pharetrius the bishop was eagerly expecting him, and preparing to welcome him with affectionate hospitality. He confesses that he himself mistrusted these specious offers, but he kept his suspicions to himself. On his arrival at Cæsarea, in a state of extreme exhaustion, Pharetrius did not appear, but he was enthusiastically received by the people as well as some monks and nuns. The extreme kindness and skill of physicians (one of whom declared his intention of accompanying him to the end of his journey), wholesome food, and the use of the bath, so much renovated his strength and diminished his fever, that he became anxious in a day or two to resume his journey. But just at this juncture the city was thrown into consternation by tidings that a large body of Isaurians was ravaging the neighbourhood, and had already burned a town with much slaughter. All the available troops in Cæsarea were marched out, and the whole male population, including old men, turned out to man the walls. During this time of suspense, the house in which Chrysostom lodged was besieged by a large body of monks, who with furious cries and gestures demanded his surrender. The prætorians who guarded him were terrified by the fierce behaviour of these fanatics, and declared that they would rather face the Isaurians than fall into the hands of these “wild beasts.” The governor of the city succeeded in protecting the person of Chrysostom, but not in quelling the fury of the monks, who renewed their assault still more hotly on the following day. The Bishop Pharetrius was very generally suspected to be the instigator of these attacks, and an appeal was made to him to interpose his authority, that the Archbishop might at least enjoy a few days’ repose, which the state of his health greatly needed. But the envy of Pharetrius was embittered by the popularity of Chrysostom, and the great kindness and compassion which his hardships had elicited from clergy and people. He refused to interfere; but Chrysostom’s friends took advantage of a brief lull in the hostile visits of the monks to convey him in a litter outside the town, amidst the lamentations of the attendant people, and imprecations on the author of the malevolent assaults. When he was once outside the town several of the clergy joined him, and besought him not to think of trusting himself to Pharetrius; it would be worse, they declared, than falling into the hands of the Isaurians: “only escape from our hands, and wherever you fall you will fall safely.”
At this crisis a lady named Seleucia, the wife of Rufinus, a man of rank and a friend of Chrysostom, entreated him to accept a lodging at her country house, about five miles out of the city. He accepted the offer; but, unknown to him, Pharetrius, whose rage was inflamed by the rescue of his prey, visited the house, and threatened to take vengeance on the mistress if her guest was not surrendered. This demand was refused, and the lady gave orders to her steward, in the event of any attack by monks, to collect all the labourers on the estate and repel the assault by force. But her courage at last gave way under the pressure of incessant menaces from Pharetrius, and it was resolved to remove the Archbishop, not less for his own safety than for that of the person whose roof had afforded him shelter. In the dead of night, when Chrysostom was sleeping, unconscious of impending danger, he was roused by a companion, the priest Evethius, who told him that he must instantly prepare for flight. It was midnight, and the sky murky and moonless; but they dared not light torches for fear of attracting the observation of their enemies. The road was rugged and rocky; the mule which carried the Archbishop’s litter fell, and he was thrown out. Evethius took him by the hand and led, or rather dragged, him along. In such a pitiable plight, faint with fatigue and fever-stricken, did the bishop of the second see in Christendom stumble and totter in the darkness along the Cappadocian mountain path. “Were not these calamities,” he writes to Olympias, “sufficient to blot out many sins, and suggest to me a hope of future glory?”
Of the remainder of his journey to Cucusus we possess no detailed narrative. He only speaks in general terms of his sufferings for thirty days from fever, aggravated by the want of a bath, and by deficient accommodation of every kind in a journey made along a rough road, through a desolate mountainous country, liable to an attack at any moment from Isaurian bandits.627 Desolate though the region was, however, he speaks of monks and nuns occasionally meeting him in large numbers, and loudly bewailing his calamities, exclaiming that it “had been better the sun should have hidden his rays, than that the mouth of Chrysostom should have been closed.”628 About seventy days629 after his departure from Constantinople, that is, about the end of August or beginning of September, Cucusus was reached. After the fatigues and dangers of his journey, it was a haven of rest to the exhausted exile, though he describes it as in itself the most desolate place in the world; a mere village high up in the eastern range of Taurus, on the confines of Lesser Armenia, Cilicia, and Cappadocia.630 But it was protected from the Isaurians by a strong garrison, and it contained many warm-hearted friends of the Archbishop, who emulated one another in showing him attention. Several had sent invitations to him, before he left Cæsarea, to accept a lodging at their houses, but more especially one whom he calls “my Lord Diodorus,” who had known him in Constantinople. This generous personage not only placed his whole house at the disposal of Chrysostom, betaking himself to a country villa to make room for his guest, but furnished it with every possible defence against the cold of the approaching winter, in that altitude very severe. The Bishop of Cucusus not only received him with great civility, but was even desirous that his own throne should be occupied by the illustrious exile, that his flock might profit by the eloquence of the greatest teacher and preacher of the day; but Chrysostom thought it prudent to decline the honour.631
Many of his friends in Constantinople and other places, who owned property near Cucusus, directed their stewards to provide in various ways for the comfort of the exile, and some of his friends actually came to share his fortunes in person. The aged deaconess, Sabiniana, arrived from Constantinople with the fixed determination of accompanying him to his final place of exile, whatever that might be. Constantius, the presbyter of Antioch, whom the people had wished to make bishop, also took up his abode at Cucusus, as well to escape from the persecution of Porphyry as from his zealous attachment to Chrysostom.632 Thus the natural disadvantages of the place, the want of good physicians and of a plentiful market, the severity of the heat in summer and cold in winter, were largely compensated by the enjoyment of freedom, rest, and the kind attention of friends. He warns his supporters in Constantinople, who were endeavouring to procure a change of destination for him, to be careful that he was not removed to a place worse than Cucusus, where he possessed all substantial necessaries and comforts of life. If, however, they thought there was a chance of obtaining Cyzicus or Nicomedia, they were not to desist from their efforts; but he was convinced that another long and fatiguing journey to a spot as remote and desolate as Cucusus would kill him.633
The leisure of the exile was profitably employed in writing letters to every variety of friends—men of rank, ladies, deaconesses in Constantinople, bishops, clergy, missionary monks, and his kind acquaintances in Cæsarea, especially the physician Hymnetius, who had attended him there with affectionate care. As might be expected, none of his letters describe his condition so minutely or pour forth so unrestrainedly his fears and hopes, his causes of distress or joy, as those written to Olympias. The style in which she is usually addressed is at once respectful, affectionate, and paternal: “To my lady, the most reverend and religious deaconess Olympias, Bishop John sends you greeting in the Lord.” They are seventeen in number, written at different stages of his exile; nor is it possible to determine precisely the date of each. The first three seem to have been written from Cucusus, and are mainly devoted to the aim of consoling her under the present calamities of the Church; to dissipating, as he expresses it, that cloud of sorrow which surrounded her.634 “Come now, let me soften the wound of your sadness, and disperse the sad cogitations which compose this gloomy cloud of care. What is it which upsets your mind, and occasions your grief and despondency? Is it the fierce and lowering storm which has overtaken the Churches and enveloped all with the darkness of a moonless night, which is growing to a head every day, and has already wrought many lamentable shipwrecks? All this I know; it shall not be gainsaid: and, if you like, I can form an image of the things now being done so as to represent the tragedy more distinctly to thee. We behold a sea heaved up from its lowest depths, some sailors floating dead, others struggling in the waves, the planks of the vessel breaking up, the masts sprung, the canvas torn, the oars dashed out of the sailors’ hands, the pilots, seated on the deck, clasping their knees with their hands, and crying aloud at the hopelessness of their situation; neither sky nor sea clearly visible, but all one impenetrable gloom, and monsters of the deep attacking the shipwrecked crew on every side. But why attempt further to describe the indescribable? Yet, when I see all this, I do not despair, when I consider who is the Disposer of this whole universe—One who masters the storm, not by the contrivance of art, but can calm it by His nod alone. He does not always destroy what is terrible in its beginning, but waits till it has come to its consummation; and then, when most men are in despair, He works marvels and does things beyond all expectation, displaying a power which belongs to Him alone. Wherefore, faint not, for there is only one thing, Olympias, which is really terrible, there is only one real trial—and that is sin. All things else, whether they be insidious assaults of foes, or hatred, or calumny, or abuse, or confiscation of goods, or exile, or the sharpened sword, and war raging throughout the world, are but as a tale; they endure but for a season, they are perishable, and have their sphere in a mortal body, and do no injury to the vigilant soul.”... “Why, then, do you fear temporal things, which flow away like the stream of a river?”... “Let none of these things which happen vex you; cease to entreat the help of this person or that, but continually beseech Jesus Christ, whom you serve, merely to bow the head, and all these troubles will be dissolved; if not in an instant of time, that is because He is waiting till wickedness has grown to a height, and then he will suddenly change the storm into a calm....”
He enters into an eloquent review of the sufferings and persecution to which our blessed Lord was subjected from His birth to His death, in order to prove that apparent failure is a fallacious test of the truth and real value of man’s character and work.
“Why are you troubled because one man has been expelled and another introduced into his place? Christ was crucified, and the life of Barabbas, the robber, was asked. How many must have been shocked and repelled by this ignominious termination to a life of miracles! But in every stage of His life there was much to surprise and offend and try the faith. His birth was the cause of death to many innocent children in Bethlehem; poverty, danger, exile, marked His infancy. He was misunderstood and suspected throughout His ministry. ‘Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil;’ ‘He deceiveth the people;’ ‘He casteth out devils through the chief of the devils;’ ‘He was a gluttonous man and winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.’ His discernment of purity and goodness was questioned, because He permitted the sinful woman to approach Him; ‘neither did His brethren believe on Him.’ You speak of many having been frightened out of the straight path by the present calamities. How many of Christ’s disciples stumbled at the time of His crucifixion! One betrayed Him, another denied Him, the others fled, and He was led to trial bound and alone. How many, think you, were offended when they beheld Him, who a little while ago was raising the dead, cleansing the lepers, expelling devils, multiplying loaves, now bound, forlorn, surrounded by coarse soldiers, followed by a crowd of tumultuous priests? How many when He was being scourged, and they saw Him torn by the lash, and standing with bleeding body before the governor’s tribunal? How many, again, when He was mocked, now with a crown of thorns, now with a purple robe, now with a reed in His hand? How many when He was smitten on the cheek, and they cried, ‘Prophesy, who is he that smote Thee?’ and dragged Him hither and thither, consuming a whole day in jesting and revilement in the midst of the throng of Jewish spectators? How many when He was led to the cross with the marks of the scourge upon His back? How many when the soldiers divided His raiment among themselves? How many when fastened to the cross and crucified?” And, after our Lord’s Ascension, what had been the lot of the early Church? Calamity, persecution, discomfiture, weakness, the offence of many and the defection of many. Yet the truth of Jesus Christ’s Gospel had not been obscured; it had shone more and more brightly: God had wrought out the triumph of His Church.
The above is a much-condensed rendering of passages which can hardly be too much admired for the spirit as well as style in which they are written. The union of a Christian philosophy and a Christian faith, a philosophy which traces a principle in God’s modes of operation, and a faith which contentedly accepts whatever happens, in the firm belief that, be it pleasant or painful, it is part of some purpose of God; a philosophy which traces in every suffering of Christ’s servants for the cause of truth a reflection of the Master’s sufferings, and a faith which enables the sufferer not only to be cheerful himself, but to cheer others, form, indeed, a noble object of contemplation. In a letter written to Olympias, just after his hardships and perils at Cæsarea, he begs her to rejoice, as he declares he can himself rejoice, in suffering as a pledge of future glory. He never had desisted, and never would desist, from declaring that the only real calamity to a man’s self was sin; all other evils were as dust and smoke. Spoliation of goods was freedom; banishment was but a change of abode; death was but the discharge of nature’s debt, which all must eventually pay. So much has been at all times, and is still, uttered by Christian writers and preachers about patience and joy in affliction, that we may be disposed to pass over language of this kind sometimes as a hackneyed commonplace; but it must be remembered that, in Chrysostom’s case, the speaker was an actual sufferer. His words were not the sentimental utterances of a rhetorical preacher addressing an admiring audience, but convictions deliberately expressed by a persecuted sufferer, who was really living by the principles which he was accustomed to preach.
The rapturous and lavish praise which in some of his letters he bestows upon the virtues of Olympias would by a lady of piety in modern times be distrusted as flattery, and distasteful as a dangerous encouragement to self-righteousness and conceit; but the language of ornate compliment, which would be offensive to Western taste, seems natural to Orientals: and it may therefore be supposed that its effect in elating the mind of the recipient is faint in proportion. Chrysostom begins his second letter by recommending Olympias to divert her mind from those calamities and sins, for which she was no way responsible, by directing it to the final judgment. The awe with which she must contemplate that scene, in which she, together with all others, is individually concerned and interested, will expel the useless grief which mourns over iniquity wrought by others. But he breaks off suddenly from such a line of argument, as inapplicable to the case of so angelic a being as Olympias. “To me, indeed, and those who, like me, have been plunged beneath a sea of sins, such discourse is necessary, for it excites and alarms; but you, who abound in goodness, and who have already touched the very vault of Heaven, cannot even be pricked by such language; wherefore, in addressing you, I will chant another strain and strike another string.” He does indeed; he invites her to count over her own perfections, and to dwell with complacent satisfaction on the heavenly rewards which are surely in store for her.... “It would fill a volume to relate the history of her patience, tried in such a variety of ways from her youth. She had laid such vigorous siege to her body, though naturally delicate and nurtured in the lap of luxury, that it might truly be called dead; and these austerities had raised for her such a swarm of maladies as defied the skill of physicians, and involved her in continual suffering. To speak, indeed, of patience and self-control, in reference to her fasts and vigils, would be inaccurate, because those expressions implied a conquest over oppugnant passions. But she had no desires to conquer: they were not merely subdued but extinguished. It was as easy and natural to her to fast as it was to others to eat, as natural to her to pass the night in vigil as to others to sleep.” With an admiring comment on her squalid and neglected attire he closes this singular enumeration of her perfections, lest, as he expresses it, he should lose himself in an illimitable sea if he attempted to wade further; his object being, not to make an exhaustive catalogue of her virtues, but only such as might be sufficient to lift her out of her present state of depression.
It is worth making such extracts as these, because they enable us to see how widely remote Chrysostom was from the mind and taste of our own times in some points, although in others he seems so nearly congenial. There is another vein of thought in this letter which is still more alien. “If,” he says, “in addition to the rewards of her chastity, her fasts, her vigils, her prayers, her boundless hospitality, she wishes to enjoy the sight of her adversaries, those iniquitous and blood-stained men undergoing punishment for their crimes, that pleasure also shall be hers. Lazarus saw Dives tormented in flames. This you will experience. For if he, who neglected but one man, suffered such punishment, if it was expedient for the man who should offend one little one to be hanged or cast into the sea, what penalty will be exacted of men who have offended so large a part of the world, upset so many churches, and surpassed the ferocity of barbarians and robbers? You will see them fast bound, tormented in flames, gnashing their teeth, overwhelmed with useless sorrow and vain remorse; and they, in their turn, will behold you wearing a crown in the blessed mansions, exulting with angels, reigning with Christ; and they will cry aloud and groan, repenting of the contumely which they fastened upon thee, supplicating, but in vain, thy pity and compassion.”635
To our ears of course such language is extraordinarily shocking; but it is valuable as a warning, in estimating the character of Chrysostom, not to judge him or any individual by words or deeds, which are not so much the offspring of the man as of the age and circumstances in which he lived. Chrysostom had exercised as well as taught meekness, forbearance, and charity towards all men, enemies as well as friends; but he lived when the minds of Christians had for generations been inured to scenes of persecution, and to such a rigorous system and barbarous execution of criminal law as are hardly conceivable by us. Fierce opposition of party against party, violence and bloodshed put down, if at all, by the stern hand of force, hardened public feeling, and the individual, however amiable and gentle by nature, inevitably becomes infected by the prevailing mode of thought; he must look at things and judge of things more or less from the same point of view as the generality of men amongst whom he lives. What would seem revoltingly cruel to a humane man now, appeared to a man who lived some hundreds of years ago, though perhaps equally humane by nature, and in private life amiable, a merely natural and just retribution.
The letters of Chrysostom to those bishops636 who remained loyal to his cause are full of asseverations that his affection for them cannot be diminished by separation or distance. He exhorts them to continue their labours with unabated zeal, and carefully to abstain from all communion with the adverse party. Small though their numbers were, yet their fortitude under persecution would so much encourage others that their conduct might be the salvation of the Church. Several of his letters to laymen in Constantinople are models of wise Christian counsel. He is never less than the pastor, while he is always the friend. He writes to one Gemellus,637 on his promotion to some high magisterial office, that, “while others congratulated him merely on his new honours, he would rather dwell with thankfulness on the abundant opportunities Gemellus would now possess of exercising wisdom and gentleness on a large scale. He doubted not Gemellus would prove to those who were attached to the vain glories of this earth, that the true dignity of the magistrate consisted not in the robe or the girdle of office, or in the voice of the herald, but in reforming what was evil, and repairing what was falling to pieces, in punishing injustice, and preventing the right from being oppressed by might. He knew the boldness of Gemellus, his freedom of speech, his magnanimity, his contempt for the things of this world, his mildness, his benevolence; and he was persuaded that he would be as a haven to the shipwrecked, as a staff to the fallen, a tower of defence to those who were oppressed by tyranny.” Gemellus appears to have been on the point of receiving baptism, and perhaps on that account to have been exposed to a rather trying degree of persecution. Chrysostom begs him not to delay baptism in the hope of receiving it from his hands, because the grace of the sacrament would be equally effectual by whatever hands administered, and his own joy would be none the less.638
So again, in his letter to Anthemius, who had recently been made prefect and consul:—“Nothing has been really added to you; it is not the prefect or the consul whom I love, but my most dear and gentle Lord Anthemius, full of philosophy and understanding. I do not felicitate thee because thou hast climbed to this throne, but because thou hast gained a grander sphere wherein to exercise thy benevolence and wisdom.”639
He was less distant from Antioch than Constantinople, and was cheered by visits from not a few of his old friends in his native city, and maintained a correspondence by letter with many more; but intercourse of either kind was much impeded by the dangers and difficulties of the roads, and at times by the severity of the climate.640 The illegal seizure of the see of Antioch by Porphyry, and the harsh treatment to which the orthodox were subjected under his administration, caused them to turn to Chrysostom, not only with sympathy as a fellow-sufferer, but also for guidance, comfort, and some kind of episcopal superintendence. Their presents to him were so numerous that he felt compelled sometimes to decline them, or to request permission that they might be transferred to the aid of the missionary work in Phœnicia.641
Much of his thought and correspondence was concerned in providing for the welfare of the Church in Persia, Phœnicia, and among the Goths. In his fourteenth letter to Olympias he begs her to use her best endeavours to detach Maruthas, bishop of Martyropolis in Persia, from the influence of the hostile party; “to lift him out of the slough” is his expression, for he greatly needed his assistance on account of affairs in Persia; and he was very anxious to know what Maruthas had accomplished there, and whether he had received two letters recently sent by himself. From this it would seem as if Maruthas, who had been present at the Synod of the Oak (when he caused the fatal injury to the foot of Cyrinus), had returned to Persia and again visited Constantinople, and that Chrysostom had hopes of working in connexion with him for the good of the Church in Persia.642 In the same epistle he expresses his sorrow at having heard, through some Gothic monks with whom Serapion had sought shelter, that the Gothic bishop Unilas, whom he had recently consecrated, was dead, after a short but active career, and that the Gothic king had written to request that a new bishop should be sent out. Chrysostom was fearful lest Atticus and his party should appoint one; and he urges that everything should be done to delay the appointment if possible till winter came, when the season would prevent any one being sent till the following spring. Meanwhile, Moduarius, the deacon who had brought the letter from the Gothic prince, was to repair secretly and quietly to Cucusus, and there confer with Chrysostom on this important matter, to avert if possible the appointment of an improper person to so difficult a charge.
But of course the exile’s interest was pre-eminently centred on that city of which he could not but consider himself still the chief pastor, although deprived of his external authority over it. Banishment, imprisonment, and intimidation had thinned the ranks of the orthodox; and among the remaining pastors there were some whose neglect of duty, the result of indolence or faint-heartedness, called forth severe rebukes from their former chief. “He had heard with concern, and was vexed that the information had not come direct from the clergy themselves, that a priest, Salustius, had preached only five times between the end of June and October, and that he and Theophilus, another priest, rarely attended Divine service at all.”643 To Theophilus he writes a letter of mingled sorrow and reproof, expressing a hope that the report may be incorrect, and begging him to refute it, or to amend his conduct. He reminds him of the dreadful punishment which was inflicted on the servant who buried the talent which he ought to have used, and of the fearful responsibility of neglecting that most beautiful flock, which, by the grace of God, was being strengthened in goodness, though now agitated by so terrible a tempest.644 Several of his clergy and friends are upbraided with more or less of affectionate expostulation for slackness in writing to him; others are praised for their unshakable fortitude, patience, and zeal under affliction. He had learned with much concern from Domitianus, to whom the care of the widows and virgins of the Church was confided, that they were reduced to extreme indigence, and he entreats his friend Valentinus to sustain his well-known character for benevolence by relieving their necessities.645
Peanius, a man of rank and position in Constantinople, is thanked and praised for the unremitting zeal, yet tempered with moderation, with which he had resisted the usurping party, had stood inflexible in loyalty when others had fled, and had exerted himself for the welfare of the Church, not only in Constantinople, but also in Phœnicia, Palestine, and Cilicia. Chrysostom observes in the same letter that the members of the Church in those regions had, with very few exceptions, refused to recognise Arsacius.646
Those clergy and other persons who had been imprisoned on the charge of incendiarism were released in the beginning of September;647 and Chrysostom, having heard of their liberation, was eagerly expecting a visit from them when he wrote (about the end of October probably) to Elpidius, bishop of Laodicea,648 in Syria, a prelate venerable in years and eminent in piety, who had as a priest accompanied Meletius to the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381, and was his counterpart in the moderation and gentleness of his disposition. Chrysostom wrote to thank him for his zeal in endeavouring to retain the bishops, not only in his own region, but in all parts of the world, in loyal fidelity to the exiled Patriarch. Elpidius proved the sincerity of his own attachment to his friend by suffering deposition from his see, and imprisonment for three years in his own house. Alexander, the successor of the usurper Porphyry in the see of Antioch, restored Elpidius to his see about A.D. 414—a recognition of his merits which received the high approbation of Pope Innocent.649
Thus by letters did the exile maintain his influence over all varieties of people in distant and opposite quarters of the Empire. Exhortation and reproof, consolation and encouragement, or the mere expression of affectionate goodwill, are the main chords struck, as circumstances require. But there is one tone which pervades all alike—the unshakable Christian faith of the writer. His deep belief that all suffering was sent for a remedial chastening purpose, and that, if resignedly borne, it enhanced the glory of the reward reserved for those who should suffer for righteousness’ sake; that sin is the only real evil, that expatriation and persecution, and even death, since they touch only the external and temporal, are to be regarded as mere shadows, cobwebs, and dreams; that distance and material obstacles cannot impede the wings of affection and prayer, and that the cause of right and truth, although long depressed, will eventually triumph—these are convictions firmly rooted, which he never tires of repeating, and on the strength of which he lived cheerful and contented.
The wide range of his influence, and the nobility of his Christian resignation and fortitude, maintained during his exile, have elicited the admiration of a historian not lavish of his compliments to Christian saints. “Every tongue,” says Gibbon, “repeated the praises of his genius and virtue; and the respectful attention of the Christian world was fixed on a desert spot among the mountains of Taurus.”650
CHRYSOSTOM’S SUFFERINGS FROM THE WINTER COLD—DEPREDATIONS OF THE ISAURIANS—THE MISSION IN PHŒNICIA—LETTERS TO INNOCENT AND THE ITALIAN BISHOPS—CHRYSOSTOM’S ENEMIES OBTAIN AN ORDER FOR HIS REMOVAL TO PITYUS—HE DIES AT COMANA, A.D. 407—RECEPTION OF HIS RELIQUES AT CONSTANTINOPLE, A.D. 438.
Thus the autumn of A.D. 404 wore away. The time of the exile was occupied, not unpleasantly, by sending and receiving letters, and his spirits were cheered by occasional visits from friends. The destitute in the neighbourhood of Cucusus were relieved by his alms; the mourners comforted by his affectionate sympathy; some persons taken captive by the Isaurians obtained a release through his intercession or ransom. But the winter, always severe in that elevated region, set in this year with unusual rigour: all communication with the outer world was cut off by the impassable condition of the roads, and the cold told cruelly on the delicate constitution of the poor exile. In a letter to Olympias, written just on the return of spring A.D. 405, he draws a pitiable picture of his winter sufferings. For days together he lay in bed; but, in spite of being wrapped under a very pile of blankets, with a fire constantly burning in his room, he could not keep out the cold. He suffered from constant sleeplessness, headache, sickness and aversion from all food; but, with the return of milder weather in spring, “he was brought up again from the gates of death;” and he compares the softness of the climate at that season to the amenity of the air of Antioch. His spirits also were raised by the arrival of messengers from Constantinople, bringing letters from Olympias and other friends.651
But the blessings of restoration to health and warm weather were counterbalanced by the misery of constant disturbance from the Isaurian bandits, who commenced their marauding campaigns as soon as the break-up of winter made the country practicable for their operations. They swarmed over the whole neighbourhood, and the roads which had been impassable from snow were now impassable from robbers, who mingled much merciless bloodshed with their plunder. When the full blaze also of summer heat came, Chrysostom found it almost as injurious to his health as the excessive cold; but he kept up his correspondence with his friends with unabated assiduity.652
The mission in Phœnicia occupied a great deal of his attention during this year. He had written, as already related, from Nice to Constantius, the superintendent of the mission, exhorting him not to allow the work to flag, owing to his own deposition and banishment, but rather to carry it on with additional energy. The efforts of the missionaries had begun to provoke a rather fierce opposition on the part of the Pagans, and attempts were made to deprive them of the bare necessaries of life. But Chrysostom’s confidence and zeal never failed for a moment. The missionaries were to keep him informed of their wants, for, through the liberality of his friends, he could supply them with all that they required. He was ably seconded by Nicolaus, a priest, who, though living at a distance, supplied the mission not only with money but with men. Gerontius, a presbyter whom Chrysostom had persuaded to abandon a solitary ascetic way of life for missionary work, was anxious to visit Cucusus on his way to Phœnicia; but Chrysostom begs him not to delay, as the work was urgent and winter was approaching. He represents the greater advantages of the active life Gerontius was now embracing. There would be nothing to prevent him observing his fasts, vigils, and other ascetic practices, as before, for the good of his own soul, and at the same time, by his missionary labours, he would reap the reward of those who save the souls of others.653
The Pagan resistance assumed more alarming proportions as time went on. A letter written to the missionaries seems to imply, by its tone of mingled warning and exhortation, that their courage was beginning to fail. Chrysostom had recourse to his favourite comparisons of the pilot and the physician, who exert twofold energy as the violence of the storm and the disease increase. Rufinus, a presbyter, seems to have been sent into Phœnicia as a kind of special agent to restore peace, and is stimulated to his work by an animated letter. “I hear that the rage of the Greeks in Phœnicia has burst forth again, that several monks have been wounded, and some even killed. Wherefore I urge you the more earnestly to set out upon your journey with great speed, and take up your position.”... “If you saw a house in a blaze you would not retreat, but advance upon it as quickly as possible, so as to anticipate the flames. When all is tranquillity it is within the compass of almost any one to make converts, but when Satan is raging and the devils are in arms, then, to make a gallant stand and rescue those who are falling into the hands of the enemy, is the work of a noble, vigilant spirit, a work which befits an alert and lofty mind like yours, an apostolic achievement worthy of crowns innumerable and rewards which defy description.” He entreats Rufinus to write to him from every halting-place on his journey, and to keep him constantly informed of all which might take place after his arrival. He would send, if necessary, ten thousand times to Constantinople, in order to provide Rufinus with all things necessary to facilitate his journey and procure his ultimate success. The letter closes with a passage which remarkably illustrates the importance attached to reliques. “With regard to the reliques of the holy martyrs, feel no anxiety, for I immediately despatched the most religious presbyter, my Lord Terentius, to my Lord Oneius, the most religious Bishop of Arabissus, who possesses many reliques indisputably genuine, which in a few days we will forward to you into Phœnicia.”... “Use diligence to get the churches which are yet unroofed completed before the winter.”654
There is no further record of the future progress or ultimate issue of this mission, in which the heart of the exile was so deeply wrapped up. Theodoret (v. 29) merely says that through the energy of Chrysostom the extirpation of idolatry in Phœnicia, and the destruction of Pagan temples, were successfully carried on. But there are instances of the existence of Paganism mentioned in the middle of the fifth century;655 and it is only too certain that, under the feeble and degenerate successors of Chrysostom, the work would not receive any powerful impulse. Partly from the absence of a great central organising force like the Papacy, partly from the irregular and unpractical temperament of the Eastern nature, missionary enterprises have not proceeded in great number from the Eastern Church. The preaching of Ulphilas to the Goths, the missions organised by Chrysostom among the Goths and in Phœnicia, and the missionary labours of the Nestorians in Asia, are but the rare exceptions which prove the rule.
The misery and desolation caused in the neighbourhood of Cucusus by the Isaurians seem to have culminated in the winter of A.D. 405-406 and the ensuing spring. The inhabitants of the villages fled from their homes at the approach of these formidable robbers, and sought a precarious refuge in woods and caves. Many perished from cold in these wild retreats, and many more at the hands of the ruffian robbers, who showed no mercy even to the aged, the women and children. Chrysostom himself was, like others, frequently moving from place to place, now in this village, now in that, sometimes in the woods or secluded places. The only spot in which the poor harassed people seem to have found tolerable security was in the strong fortress of Arabissus, a neighbouring town. Yet even here they ran considerable risks. A body of 300 Isaurians attacked and very nearly captured it in the middle of the night; and the discomfort was extreme at all times, for the castle was crowded like a prison; the difficulty of obtaining food was often very great, and the difficulty of corresponding with friends still greater. Privation, anxiety, and frequent hurried movements in cold weather brought severe illness on Chrysostom again. Physicians attended him with great kindness, but the impossibility of procuring comforts and wholesome food rendered their services almost nugatory. His greatest grief, however, seems to have been the difficulty of maintaining regular correspondence with friends. The bearer of a letter from Olympias actually fell into the hands of the robbers, but was released; in consequence of which Chrysostom entreats her not to send any more special messengers, but only to avail herself of such persons as were obliged by business to pass through his place of exile. He would not add to his present sufferings the distress of knowing that any life had been lost on his account.656
To the year A.D. 406 belong those letters of affectionate gratitude, written to the bishops of the West, for their zeal in supporting his cause, especially those who had undertaken a long and perilous voyage to Constantinople to intercede in his behalf. These letters were sent by the hands of Evethius, the presbyter, who had for some time been his companion in exile. One letter may be quoted as an example: “I had already been amazed at your zeal, on behalf of the reformation of the Church, displayed for a long time; but most of all am I now astonished at your great earnestness, in having undertaken so long a journey by sea, full of labour and toil, on behalf of the interests of the Church. I have longed continually to write to you, and offer you the salutation due to your piety; but since that is not possible, living as I now am in a region almost inaccessible, I take advantage of a most honourable and reverend presbyter to send you greeting, and to beseech you to persevere to the end in harmony with such a noble beginning. For ye know how great will be the reward of your patience, how vast the return from a benevolent God to those who labour for the common peace, and undergo so great a conflict.”657
To Chromatius, bishop of Aquileia, he writes thus: “The loud-voiced trumpet of your warm and genuine affection has sounded forth even as far as to me, a clear and far-reaching blast indeed, extending to the very extremities of the world. Distant as we are, we know, not less than those present with thee, thy exceeding and burning love; wherefore we long extremely to enjoy a meeting with thee face to face. But, since the wilderness in which we are imprisoned precludes this, we fulfil our desire, as well as we can, by writing to you through our most honourable and reverend presbyter, expressing our great gratitude for the zeal which you have for so long a time displayed in our behalf; and we beg you, when he returns, or by the hands of chance messengers who may visit this desolate spot, to send tidings of your health, for you know how much pleasure it will afford us to hear frequently of the welfare of those who are so warmly disposed towards us.”658