CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH LED TO THE INTERFERENCE OF THEOPHILUS WITH THE AFFAIRS OF CHRYSOSTOM—CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE WRITINGS OF ORIGEN—PERSECUTION BY THEOPHILUS OF THE MONKS CALLED “THE TALL BRETHREN”—THEIR FLIGHT TO PALESTINE—TO CONSTANTINOPLE—THEIR RECEPTION BY CHRYSOSTOM—THEOPHILUS SUMMONED TO CONSTANTINOPLE. A.D. 395-403.

In tracing to its starting-point the interference of Theophilus with the affairs of Chrysostom, we have to unravel a curious and tangled skein of controversy. The doctrines of Origen were as much an occasion of strife a hundred and fifty years after his death, as he himself had been during his life. With one hand holding on to the philosophy of the past, and with the other firmly grasping the Christianity of the present, he was persecuted by Pagans, yet never universally accepted and cordially trusted by the Church.529 So with his system of doctrine; it became a sort of debatable ground for the possession of which contending parties strove. The prize was worth the struggle; for the genius of Origen could not be questioned, but the quantity of his writings being enormous,530 and the range of his doctrine wide and many-sided, narrow-minded partisans, grasping only a part of it, condemned or extolled him unfairly on a single issue. The mystical element in his teaching was carried by some of his admirers to extremes of fanciful, allegorical, interpretation of Scripture, such as he himself would never have devised or approved. To others of a more prosaic, material cast of thought this same mystical vein was repugnant, and was denounced by them with characteristic coarseness. Men of larger minds, who had patience to peruse his voluminous works, and ability to criticise them, admired his genius, recognised his great services to Christianity, heartily embraced much of his teaching, questioned some portions, and rejected others. Such were Gregory Nazianzenus, Basil, Chrysostom, and Jerome, who would never have been so great as writers, or commentators, had they not been students of Origen. As a general statement, it may be true to say that he was less acceptable to the colder, more practical, more realistic mind of the Western Church, than to the lively imagination and speculative spirit of Oriental churchmen. The most controverted points, indeed, in his system were of a kind with which the Western mind did not naturally concern itself. The pre-existence of souls; their entrance into human bodies after the fall as the punishment of sin; their emancipation from the flesh in the resurrection; the ultimate salvation of all spirits, including Satan himself,—these are questions singularly congenial to Oriental, singularly alien from Western, thought. The Origenistic controversy fell into abeyance before the engrossing interest and importance of the Arian contest; but when that wave had spent itself, it revived, and just at this period all the greatest names of the day became engaged on one side or the other. As usual, the real questions at issue were too often forgotten amidst the personal jealousies, intrigues, angry recriminations to which the discussion of them gave birth.

In spite of his doubtful orthodoxy, the Egyptian Church could not fail to be proud of so distinguished a son as Origen, and Theophilus was at first his earnest defender. Some of the more illiterate Egyptian monks had recoiled from Origen’s highly spiritual conception of the Deity into an opposite extreme. Interpreting literally those passages of Scripture where God is spoken of as if possessing human emotions and corporeal parts, they altogether humanised His nature; they conceived of Him as a Being not “without body, parts, or passions;” they obtained, in consequence, the designation of “Anthropomorphites.” Against this humanising, material conception Theophilus, in a paschal letter, directed argument and proof.531 It was received by many of the monks with dismay, sorrow, and resistance. Serapion, one of the most aged, burst into tears when informed that the mind of the Eastern Church concurred, on the whole, with the doctrine of Theophilus, and exclaimed, “My God is taken away, and I know not what to worship.”532

Rufinus, a monk of Aquileia, and for a time the ardent friend of Jerome, was, during a visit to Egypt, initiated by Theophilus into the doctrines of Origen, conceived a warm admiration for them, extolled him as the light of the Gospel next to the Apostles, and imparted some of his own enthusiasm to John, bishop of Jerusalem, whom he soon afterwards visited. Jerome fully appreciated the merits of Origen, though his larger mind and more extensive knowledge were not blind to his defects.

Such were the amicable relations between the leading churchmen of the East in A.D. 395, when a visitor from the West threw among them the apple of discord. This was Aterbius, a pilgrim, who had a reputation as a subtle theologian, and appears, immediately on his arrival in Jerusalem, to have applied himself to the business of detecting heresy. He entered into friendly intercourse for a short time with the bishop and Rufinus, and then suddenly included Jerome with them both in a public denunciation as Origenists, and declared the whole diocese of Jerusalem to be infected with that heresy. Jerome immediately and indignantly repudiated the charge; he declared that he was not an Origenist, for that he merely read the works of Origen with reservations, as he might those of a heretic.533 Rufinus would not condescend to make any defence, oral or written, but shut himself up in his cloister in sullen silence till Aterbius had quitted Jerusalem, fearing, so Jerome affirms, to condemn what he really approved, or to incur the reproach of heresy by an open resistance.534 John of Jerusalem was equally indignant at the accusation, but displeased with Jerome for publicly exculpating himself independently of his bishop. In fact, the episcopal pride of the Bishop of Jerusalem was severely wounded at this time, both by the pre-eminence of the metropolitan see of CÆsarea,535 and by the reputation of Jerome’s monastic establishment at Bethlehem, which attracted visitors from all parts of Christendom.

When the minds of all were thus ruffled, a second and far more mischievous visitor arrived in the person of Epiphanius, the octogenarian Bishop of Constantia, Metropolitan of Cyprus. He was one of those men who, joining some erudition and a high reputation for rigid orthodoxy to a narrow mind and impulsive temper, figure prominently in theological warfare as the very personifications of discord. Shocked at the intelligence of the heretical tendency in Palestine, and vexed that it should have been detected by a stranger rather than by himself, who was a native of Palestine, and the visitor of a monastery between Jerusalem and Hebron, he lost not a moment in setting out for the Holy City. He accepted the hospitality of the Bishop John, and spent the evening in all amity with him, nor was the obnoxious subject of dispute mentioned between them.536

A strange scene took place on the following day.

In the church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the presence of a large congregation, Epiphanius fulminated a discourse against Origen, his doctrines, and all who favoured them. Bishop John and his clergy expressed their contempt by grimaces, sneers, and impatient scratchings of their heads. At last an archdeacon stepped forward, and required Epiphanius, in the name of the bishop, to desist from his discourse. The assembly was dissolved, but met again in the afternoon, largely augmented, in the church of the Holy Cross. This time Bishop John discoursed, and denounced the Anthropomorphites, or Humanisers, under which opprobrious name the partisans of Origen endeavoured to include all their opponents. Pale and trembling, and in a voice quivering with passion, the bishop directed his discourse, and turned his body, towards Epiphanius, who sat motionless in his chair. The invective being concluded, the aged Bishop of Constantia rose and pronounced these words with solemn deliberation: “All that John, my brother in the priesthood, my son in age, has just said against the heresy of the Anthropomorphites I thoroughly approve; and as we both condemn that absurd belief, it is only just that we should both denounce the errors of Origen.”537 A general laugh and acclamation on the part of the assembly proclaimed their sense of this speech as a successful hit. John made one more effort to right himself. He preached again in the church of the Holy Cross, this time on the chief verities of the faith, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the condition of souls before and after this life. It was intended to be a grand and convincing display of his orthodoxy, and at the moment Epiphanius expressed even approbation. On subsequent reflection, however, the aged critic thought he discovered that it teemed with error. He abruptly quitted Jerusalem, repaired to Bethlehem, resisted the solicitation of Jerome and his friends to be reconciled, and addressed a circular letter to all the monasteries of Palestine, requiring them to break off communion with the Bishop of Jerusalem.

Rufinus ranged himself immediately on the side of Bishop John; but Jerome, though with somewhat balanced feelings, sided on the whole with Epiphanius. Then the pent-up jealousy of John towards the monasteries of Bethlehem burst forth; they were placed under interdict, and the church of the Holy Manger closed against them. They were in despair for want of a priest to celebrate the Eucharist; but Epiphanius provided one through a forcible ordination. The young Paulinian had always steadfastly declined holy orders, though considered eminently qualified by his learning and virtue. He was now on a visit to the monastery of Epiphanius, near Eleutheropolis. When Epiphanius was celebrating the Eucharist, the young man was seized by the deacons, dragged to the steps of the altar, and there made to kneel. Epiphanius approached, cut off some of his hair, ordained him deacon, and obliged him to assist in the celebration on the spot. At a fresh sign from the bishop he was a second time seized, gagged to prevent his adjuring the bishop in the name of Jesus Christ, and when he rose from his knees he was declared to be a priest.538 The joy which filled the monasteries of Bethlehem was only to be equalled by the indignation of their opponents at Jerusalem. John actually applied (not without money, it is said) to Rufinus at Constantinople, then PrÆtorian Prefect, and even procured a decree of banishment against Jerome;539 but, the murder of Rufinus taking place soon afterwards, the governor of CÆsarea evaded the execution of the decree. Jerome retaliated by one of those fierce, nervous philippics which exhibit more command of language than of temper. The governor of Palestine made a praiseworthy but ineffectual effort to bring about a reconciliation. John had determined to invite an arbitrator, from whom he expected a strong partiality for his own cause. He appealed to Theophilus, from whom Rufinus, the monk, had derived his first acquaintance with Origen. Jerome indignantly complained of this invocation of a foreign jurisdiction. Was not CÆsarea the metropolitan see of Palestine? why this contempt of ecclesiastical law?540 Theophilus, however, had no scruples in accepting the appeal. It was just one of those recognitions of pre-eminence which the Patriarch of Alexandria, like the Bishops of Rome, joyfully welcomed. The gratification of ambition was pleasantly disguised from others, and perhaps from themselves, under the semblance of peacemaking. Theophilus despatched Isidore as his legate to Palestine. His arrival was preceded by two letters, one intended for the Bishop of Jerusalem, the other for Vincentius, the presbyter and friend of Jerome at Bethlehem.

Unfortunately the letter intended for the bishop was delivered to Vincentius, and he and Jerome read with indignation assurances of sympathy and friendship towards John, and expressions of contempt for Jerome and his party, the language, in short, of an accomplice rather than of an arbitrator. It set forth in flowery oriental terms the confidence of the legate in the success of his mission; “as smoke disperses in the air, as wax melts before the fire, so will these enemies, who always resist the faith, and seek to disturb it now, by means of simple ignorant men be dispersed on my arrival.”541 The legate took up his abode at Jerusalem, and spent his time in familiar intercourse with the bishop and Rufinus. To Bethlehem he paid occasional visits, where he conducted himself with dictatorial haughtiness. Jerome and the monks plainly perceived that the so-called arbitrator was committed to one side—which was not theirs.

But on a sudden, in A.D. 398, the Patriarch wheeled round; he discovered that he had been in error. “The writings of Origen were fraught with danger to the unlearned, however profitable to philosophic minds.” Such was the reason alleged for this sudden revulsion of opinion. The real reasons appear to have been of a less calm and philosophic character. One of the most distinguished presbyters in Alexandria at this time was Isidore, an octogenarian. His youth had been spent in pious seclusion, among the monks of Scetis and Nitria, and his piety had attracted the notice of Athanasius, whom he accompanied to Rome in A.D. 341, and by whom he was afterwards ordained priest. He became the Hospitaller of the Church in Alexandria, whose duty it was to attend to the reception of Christian visitors. In spite of great personal austerity, he was, as became his position, gentle and amiable to all men, even Pagans, when brought into contact with them. In A.D. 398, at the age of eighty, he had been employed to carry to Rome the recognition by Theophilus of Flavian as bishop of Antioch; and now, in the extremity of age, he was destined to become the first victim of a persecution by Theophilus, which, beginning with him, culminated in the deposition and exile of Chrysostom.542

An opulent widow committed to Isidore a large sum of money to be expended on clothing for the poor of Alexandria, and adjured him by a solemn oath to conceal the trust from Theophilus, lest the Patriarch’s well-known cupidity should be tempted to appropriate the money to aid his grand operations in building. The precaution, however, was vain: nothing said or done in his diocese could escape the vigilance of informers in the employ of Theophilus. Isidore was questioned by the Patriarch concerning the charitable gift, and required to place the money at his disposal; but the hospitaller refused, and boldly maintained that it would be better bestowed on the bodies of the sick and poor, which were the temples of God, than on the erection of buildings. The Patriarch was astounded at the temerity of his disobedience, but dissembled for the moment the depth of his resentment. Two months later, in a convocation of the clergy, he produced a paper containing the charge of a horrible and unmentionable crime against Isidore, which the Patriarch said he had received eighteen years ago, but had been unable to prove from the absence of the principal witness. The whole charge turned out to be a baseless fabrication; but Isidore was ejected from the priesthood by the contrivance of Theophilus.543

The aged hospitaller fled to the peaceful retreat of his earlier days, the desert of Nitria. The most distinguished of the monks in this seclusion were four brothers—Ammon, Dioscorus, Eusebius, and Euthymius—eminent alike for their piety and the height of their stature, whence they were known by the name of the “tall brethren.” They were venerated as the fathers of the Nitrian monks. Theophilus had in former times professed the highest admiration and respect for their virtues. He had made the eldest, Dioscorus, bishop of Hermopolis, and had persuaded, if not compelled, Eusebius and Euthymius, much against their will, to be presbyters in Alexandria.544 Their simple piety was so much shocked by the avarice and other failings of the Patriarch, that they implored him to release them from clerical duties and restore them to the freedom of the desert. When Theophilus discovered their real reason for requesting this permission he was furious, and tried to intimidate them into submission by fierce menaces, but in vain. They withdrew, and for a time the Patriarch was at a loss how to execute vengeance on men who had few possessions of any kind to be deprived of. But now the opportunity arrived. Isidore, the excommunicated hospitaller, had been sheltered in their friendly retreat. Theophilus devised a malignant plan for disturbing their peace. The “tall brethren” belonged to that more mystical order of monks which embraced Origen’s doctrine of a purely spiritual Deity, and were determined adversaries of the more sensuous and anthropomorphite school. Theophilus now scrupled not to declare himself in favour of the Anthropomorphites, whom he had formerly denounced. He encouraged the more coarse and ignorant to make violent and tumultuous assaults on the monastic retreat of Nitria, and, directed the bishops of the neighbourhood to eject several of the most distinguished monks, including Ammon. They repaired to Alexandria, sought an interview with Theophilus, requested to hear the cause of their ejection, and remonstrated on the treatment of Isidore. Theophilus burst into a violent rage, changed colour at every moment, glared on them with bloodshot eyes, dealt blows to Ammon on his face, and, while the blood trickled down, shouted, “Heretic, anathematise Origen.” One of the number was put in prison to intimidate the rest; but they all entered it voluntarily together, and refused to come out unless their companion also was released. This was at length permitted, but the design of persecution was followed up. The Patriarch’s paschal letter of A.D. 401 is chiefly occupied with a condemnation of Origen and his disciples. He confesses, indeed, that he had himself at one time been cast into that fiery furnace of error, but, like the three children, he had come out unscathed; “not even his hair or garments had been singed.” He describes himself as having now returned from the land of captivity to the true Jerusalem; Origen and his doctrines are condemned with much heat; and a prominent place is assigned to him and all his disciples in the infernal regions.545

But Theophilus was far from being contented to stop at this point. He convoked a synod of neighbouring bishops. The monks were not informed of it, nor invited to appear and make their defence. Three of the most eminent were excommunicated as heretics and magicians. It was in vain that the monks protested against the injustice of condemning Origen or his readers on the strength of a few passages only, and those, as they maintained, in many instances garbled or interpolated. A synodical letter was published, addressed to the Catholic world, reprobating the writings of Origen. It produced a profound sensation in Rome, where the Pope Anastasius anathematised Origen.546 But the humiliation of the Nitrian brethren was not yet complete. Five most insignificant monks, scarce worthy, according to Palladius, to discharge menial offices as lay brethren, were ordained by Theophilus, one to a bishopric, one to be priest, and the three others to be deacons. A small town was created a see, there being none vacant to receive the new bishop. With these tools the Patriarch could rapidly execute his designs. His creatures prepared, under his direction, a list of complaints and charges against the Nitrian monks, which they publicly presented to him in church. Armed with this, he had an interview with the governor of Egypt, and obtained from him an order for the forcible expulsion of insubordinate monks from the settlement at Nitria. With a troop of soldiers and a rabble of rascals, such as in all large towns are ready for the perpetration of any mischief, whom he had previously primed with drink, the Patriarch fell by night upon the monastic dwellings. Dioscorus was the first victim of his rage. He was one of the “tall brethren,” who had been compelled by Theophilus to become bishop of Hermopolis. He was now dragged before the Patriarch by some rude Ethiopian slaves, and told that he was deprived of his see. Diligent search was made for the three other brethren, but they were undiscoverably hidden in a well. The fury of the Patriarch expended itself principally upon inanimate objects; the dwellings of the monks were pillaged and burned, together with their valuable libraries, and, to the horror of the pious, even some of the Eucharistic elements547 were consumed in the general destruction.

The havoc being completed, Theophilus returned to Alexandria. The terrified monks came out of their hiding-places, and, wrapping themselves in their sheepskins, their only remaining property, set out from their beloved solitudes to seek shelter and a new home elsewhere. Three hundred, following the “tall brethren,” took their journey towards Palestine; the rest dispersed in different directions. Not more than eighty arrived with the four brethren at Jerusalem, whence they shortly afterwards withdrew northwards to Scythopolis, a place eminently adapted to their wants by its situation in a well-watered valley rich in palm-trees, of which the leaves furnished materials for mats, baskets, and the other articles usually wrought by monkish labour.548 But distance did not diminish the malice of their persecutor. They were pursued by letters from Theophilus addressed to all the bishops of Palestine, who were admonished not to grant ecclesiastical communion or shelter to the heretical fugitives. Jerome mentions two commissioners who scoured Palestine, and left no hole or cave unexplored in the diligence of their search for the offenders.549 Thus hunted and harassed, the poor monks at length resolved to embark for Constantinople, throw themselves on the generosity of the Emperor and Archbishop, and submit their cause to their decision. They reached the capital, fifty in number; their foreign aspect, bare arms and knees, and primitive garb of white sheepskins, excited much curiosity and interest among the people of Constantinople. They repaired first of all to Chrysostom, in the hope that his authority would be sufficient to procure them justice, without an application to the civil powers. The Archbishop received them with great kindness and respect, and shed tears of compassion when he heard the tale of their sufferings and wanderings. But he acted with caution; he consulted some Alexandrian clergy who were at this time in Constantinople engaged in distributing presents to conciliate, or, more properly speaking, to bribe, the favour of persons just appointed to civil offices in Egypt. They admitted the virtues and hard usage of the monks, but recommended him not to incur the displeasure of Theophilus by admitting them to communion. The monks were lodged in the precincts of the church of Anastasia; Olympias and other pious women attended to their wants, which were to some extent supplied by the produce of their own manual labour. They were admitted to prayer in the church, but excluded from the Eucharist until the merits of their cause should have been carefully sifted, and their excommunication revoked. Chrysostom, unsuspicious of others, in his own innocence, was sanguine of his power to obtain their restitution. He despatched a letter to Theophilus, in which he besought him in courteous and friendly terms to be reconciled with the fugitives, and thereby to confer a favour on himself, his spiritual son and brother. But no notice was taken of the request; and meanwhile the agents of Theophilus were busily employed at Constantinople in disseminating injurious tales about the monks—they were heretics, magicians, rebels.

Throughout the rest of Christendom Theophilus pursued a different method. He toiled with diligence worthy of a better cause to obtain a wide condemnation of Origen and his works. Could he once secure such a general condemnation, and then prove Chrysostom and the monks to be at variance with it, he would possess a powerful engine in working the ruin of both. It is difficult to believe that even Theophilus would have pursued the monks with such insatiable animosity had they not fled to the patriarch of that see which was regarded with peculiar jealousy by the bishops of Alexandria, and had not the present occupant of that see been elected in preference to the candidate put forward by himself. Thus he clutched at the opportunity of depressing his rival, and punishing his victims, the monks, at the same time.

He found a faction hostile to the Archbishop already existing in Constantinople, and quite ready to submit the management of their interests to his skilful direction. The persecution of the monks was quickly dropped. Their supposed offence was only the handle by which to compass the destruction of a more formidable foe. Jerome contributed powerful aid to the designs of Theophilus by favourable notices of him in his letters, depreciating the conduct of the monks.550 But a more active auxiliary appeared in the Bishop of Constantia, whose advanced age seems never to have diminished the alacrity with which he entered the lists of controversy. Theophilus, in his Origenistic days, had attacked Epiphanius with some vehemence as an anthropomorphite; but he now wrote a letter to the bishop expressing regret for his former language, and his increasing conviction of the mischievous tendency of Origen’s doctrines.551 He implored his holy brother to convene a council of the bishops of Cyprus without delay, for the purpose of condemning the heretic, and of drawing up letters, announcing their decision, to be sent round to the principal sees, especially Constantinople, where the heretical and contumacious monks were harboured. Epiphanius flattered himself that he had converted the Patriarch, and was delighted to receive such a powerful accession to his side. The council was summoned, the condemnation carried, and the letters despatched.552 Theophilus himself, at the commencement of A.D. 402, issued a paschal letter, which contained a subtle exposition and refutation of the Origenistic errors. The letter was translated, and highly commended, both for matter and expression, by Jerome.553

To Chrysostom himself Theophilus wrote a sharp complaint of his protecting heretics, and violating the canon of Nice, which prohibited any bishop from exercising jurisdiction in matters relating to another see. The cause of the Nitrian monks, he asserted, could not be decided legally anywhere but in a council of Egyptian bishops. It will be borne in mind, however, that Chrysostom had carefully abstained from pronouncing any decision, through a council or otherwise, on the affair of the monks. They, indeed, became provoked with him that he did not espouse their cause more heartily. The agents of Theophilus were busily engaged in damaging their character; a little money easily persuaded the sailors and others employed in the Alexandrian corn trade to point at the monks in the streets as magicians and heretics. The monks declared to Chrysostom their resolution to appeal to the civil powers to obtain a formal prosecution of their accusers as base calumniators. Chrysostom remonstrated, and declined, if that step were taken, to mediate any more in their affair. Some of his enemies in Constantinople did not fail to represent this as a cruel desertion of those whom he had at first befriended.554

Thus hostile forces were on all sides closing round the Archbishop, but he continued apparently unconscious of the snares which were being woven for him. The Origenistic controversy, into the vortex of which his enemies sought to drag him, possessed little interest for him. The more mystical, abstract speculations of Origen’s theology were alien from his practical sphere of work and practical habit of mind; and, in common with the other chief representatives of the Antiochene school, Diodorus and Theodore, he neither wholly embraced nor wholly rejected his system of doctrine. At any rate, he paid no attention to the letter from Cyprus, which requested him to join in the condemnation of Origen and his writings. This was precisely what his enemies wanted.

The Nitrian monks, cast off by the Archbishop when they had announced their intention of appealing to secular authority, drew up documents filled with charges of the most flagrant crimes against their accusers and against Theophilus. They demanded that their calumniators in Constantinople should be immediately tried by the prefect, and that Theophilus should be summoned to defend his conduct before a council under the presidency of Chrysostom. One day, as the Empress was riding in her litter to worship in the church of St. John the Baptist at Hebdomon, she was accosted by some of those strange skin-clad beings of whom, and of whose wanderings and wrongs, she had heard much. She caused her litter to stop, bowed graciously to the monks, and implored the favour of their prayers for the Empire, the Emperor, herself, and her children. The monks presented their petition; Eudoxia courteously accepted it, and promised them that the council which they desired should be convened; that Theophilus should be summoned to attend it, and that the accusers now in Constantinople should either substantiate their charges, or suffer the penalties of calumnious defamation. This inquiry was immediately instituted; the poor culprits confessed that they had been paid agents of Theophilus, and that their accusations had been dictated by him. They therefore entreated that their trial might be deferred till his arrival. Meanwhile, however, they were put in prison, where one of them died; and as the arrival of Theophilus continued to be delayed, they were banished to Proconnesus for libel. An officer was despatched to Alexandria to serve Theophilus with a peremptory summons to appear at Constantinople, and empowered to enforce his obedience, if he was reluctant.555

Thus the preparations for a judicial investigation of the affair of the monks emanated not from Chrysostom, but from the throne, although he was represented by his enemies as the originator, and by Jerome he is styled a parricide for labouring to condemn Theophilus.556 Chrysostom seems, in fact, to have dismissed alike the business of the monks and the theological question of Origenism from his mind. Intent on edifying the Church, instead of agitating it by personal or polemical strife, he quietly pursued his daily routine of duties as chief pastor, feeding his flock with the wholesome food of the Word and of the bread of life.

Theophilus was unable to evade obedience to the summons which commanded him to repair to Constantinople. His only hope now was to change his position from that of the accused into that of the accuser. The council which was called together for the purpose of investigating his conduct should, by his contrivance, be transferred into a council for arraigning Chrysostom of heresy and misdemeanour. The letters of Epiphanius and Theophilus having failed to obtain from Chrysostom that condemnation which they demanded of the writings of Origen, the Bishop of Constantia, at the urgent request of Theophilus, set forth at the beginning of A.D. 403 for Constantinople, bringing the decree of the Council of Cyprus for the signature of the Archbishop. Theophilus slowly proceeded overland from Egypt through Syria, Cilicia, and Asia Minor, in order to bring up as many bishops as possible to the council, who would be prepared to act under his direction. Epiphanius, having landed, halted at the church of St. John, outside Constantinople, held an assembly of clergy, and even, it is said, committed the irregularity of ordaining a deacon.557 Chrysostom, however, acted with all due courtesy and discretion. He sent out a large body of clergy to welcome the visitor by inviting and conducting him to the hospitable lodging prepared for him in the archiepiscopal palace. Epiphanius, acting on preconceived judgment of the two chief subjects in dispute, declined the offer unless the Archbishop would consent to expel the monks, and to sign the decree against Origen. Chrysostom justly replied that he could not anticipate the decision of a council which was being summoned for the very purpose of considering both these questions. Epiphanius, therefore, found a lodging elsewhere, and diligently strove to induce such bishops as he could collect to sign the decree.558 His reputation for learning, orthodoxy, and piety secured the consent of many, but on the part of many more there was determined opposition. Eminent among these was Theotimus, a Goth by birth, but educated in Greece, who had been made Bishop of Tomis and Metropolitan of Scythia. He was a man of genuine sanctity, ascetic habits, and courageous spirit. Tomis was a great central market of Gothic and Hunnish tribes, and the bishop used boldly to enter the motley concourse and try to win converts. He would invite savage Huns to partake of some hospitable entertainment in his house, and by gifts and little attentions, and courteous treatment, he sought to soften their ferocity, and effect an opening in their hearts for the reception of Christian teaching. He came to be regarded by them with a kind of superstitious reverence, and was commonly called by them “the god of the Christians.” Over his half-episcopal, half-barbarian costume flowed the long hair which betokened his Gothic origin. He lifted up his voice with boldness to denounce the present ill-considered condemnation of the works of Origen. It was unseemly and unjust, he maintained, to pass a coarse and sweeping sentence on the entire works of one whose genius had been acknowledged by the whole Church. He produced a volume of Origen, and from it read some beautiful, powerful passages of irreproachable orthodoxy. Then, turning to Epiphanius, he asked him how he could attack a man to whom the Church owed a thousand similar, and even more beautiful, passages. “How call him a son of Satan? Place what is good in him on one side, and what is bad on the other, and then choose.”559

This courageous protest, however, did not divert Epiphanius and his partisans from their course of action. In fact, they proceeded a step further. It was arranged that when a large congregation was collected in the Church of the Apostles, Epiphanius should enter and harangue the assembly, denouncing both the writings of Origen and his admirers, especially the “tall brethren,” and even Chrysostom himself as their protector. Chrysostom, however, received intimation of their design, and by his direction Serapion confronted Epiphanius at the entrance of the church, and told him that “he had already violated ecclesiastical law by ordaining a deacon in the diocese and church of another bishop, but to minister and preach without permission was a still grosser outrage; a popular tumult would probably ensue, and Epiphanius would be held responsible for any violence which might be committed.” Epiphanius, though not without angry remonstrances, desisted.560

Eudoxia seems to have placed special faith in the intercessions of ecclesiastical visitors of distinction. As she had formerly asked the prayers of the “tall brethren,” so now, the young prince her son (afterwards Theodosius II.), being attacked by an alarming illness, she implored the prayers of Epiphanius on his behalf. The bishop replied that her child’s recovery depended on her repudiation of the heretical refugees. The Empress, however, declared that she should prefer simply to resign her son’s life to the will of God who gave it without complying with the requisition of Epiphanius.561

It may be that these incidents were beginning to tell upon the reason of the aged zealot, and open his eyes to the irregularity of his proceedings; at any rate, shortly after this, he granted an interview to Ammon and his brothers. The record of the conversation is instructive. “Allow me to ask, holy father,” said Ammon, “whether you have ever read any of our works or those of our disciples?” Epiphanius was obliged to confess that he had not even seen them, and that he had formed his judgment simply from general report. “How then,” replied Ammon, “can you venture to condemn us when you have no proof of our opinions? We have pursued a widely different course. We conversed with your disciples, we read your works, among others one entitled the ‘Anchor of Faith;’ and when we met with persons who ridiculed your opinions, and asserted that your writings were replete with heresy, we have defended you as our father. Is it just, on such slender ground as common report, to condemn those who have so zealously befriended you?” These bold and pungent remarks are said to have wrought compunction in the heart of the aged bishop. He began to perceive that he had been made the agent of a plot, and he lost no time in extricating himself from it by departing from Constantinople. His farewell words to some of the bishops who accompanied him to the ship were: “I leave to you the city, the palace, and this piece of acting.”562