Dialogue on the Life of John Chrysostom 3–5

[Deacon:] Upon this the blessed pope Innocent sent letters of communion to both parties alike, setting aside the supposed judgement passed by Theophilus, and saying that another synod beyond reproach, of Westerners and Easterners, must be convened, with friends withdrawing from the court first, and then enemies as well; for a verdict given by either side is, as a rule, not upright. A few days later there arrived again a certain Peter, [a presbyter] of Theophilus, together with Martyrius, a deacon of the Church of Constantinople, delivering letters from the same Theophilus and some so-called minutes, in which John appeared to have been condemned by thirty-six bishops, twenty-nine of them Egyptians and seven from other regions. Pope Innocent read the minutes and found both that the charges were not grave and that John had not been present and convicted face to face; and he continued to deride the madness of Theophilus, who had so boldly cast so severe a vote against an absent man. … beseeching God with fasting that the dissension of the Church might be dissolved and brotherly love be knit together again. The substance of the letter was this: ‘Brother Theophilus, we hold both you and our brother John in communion, as we made our mind plain in our former letter too; and now, not departing from the same resolve, we write the same to you again, and will do so as often as you write: that unless … shows …, it is impossible for us to withdraw from John's communion without reason. So then, if you are confident in your verdict, present yourself before the synod that is to be held according to Christ, and there, having examined the charges with the canons of Nicaea as witnesses (for the Church of the Romans accepts no other canon), you will gain a security that cannot be contested.’

After a short time had gone by, there arrived [the] presbyter [Theotecnus] with letters of John's synod, from twenty-five bishops or a few more, in which they reported that John had been expelled from the city with military help and sent into exile at Cucusus, and that the church had been burned. Giving him too letters of communion for Bishop John and for those in communion with him, [the pope] urged them with tears to be patient, since he could not help, because some who had power for evil were working against him. A little later there arrived … of the Church of [Constantinople]; he too was wholly carried away, showing his enmity by his manner and pouring out many insults against Bishop John; he delivered letters from a few bishops, Acacius, Paul, Antiochus, Cyrinus, Severian and some others, in which they slander John as having burned the church. The story seemed to us so false that [we judged that] John need not even make a defence on this count at a formal synod …

Bishop: Then be so good as to lend me your ear, so that I may tell you everything in detail; for [I am] full, as he says who hints that the mind is a belly filled with words.

[Deacon:] Father, [first hear] the exact account of what reached us, so that I may then begin my questions to you. Again, then, some days later the bishop of Synnada arrived, without letters, but able to give a consistent account. He said he had fled because of the threat in the imperial decree, which ran: ‘If anyone is not in communion with Arsacius and Porphyrius, let such a one be excluded from the episcopate, and let him lose besides whatever property he is thought to have, in money or estates.’ After Cyriacus [came Eulysius, with letters of] … of John's synod and of the venerable Anysius [of Thessalonica], which report the plundering that was taking place throughout Constantinople; and Anysius [declared] that he abides by the judgement of the Romans. Eulysius too related the same, in agreement with Cyriacus. After a month of days had passed, Palladius the bishop of Helenopolis arrived, without letters; he said that he too had fled the madness of the officials, … [bi]shop or clergyman, or [any] who received [one of John's] communion in his house. [Then came] devout men delivering letters from all John's clergy, in which they write that their Church had suffered violence and tyranny, their bishop having been expelled with military help and sent into exile through the plotting of Acacius of Beroea, Theophilus of Alexandria, Antiochus of Ptolemais and Severian of Gabala. In these letters the aforesaid clergy also produced an inventory, in which they hand over the church's treasures in the presence of the judges as witnesses, Studius the prefect of the city and …, in gold and silver and vestments, so wiping away the slander against Bishop John. After them Demetrius the bishop of Pessinus came a second time, having gone round the East proclaiming the communion of the Romans with Bishop John, with letters of Pope Innocent; he brought also letters from the bishops of Caria, in which they embrace John's communion, and from the presbyters of Antioch, in which they appeal to the good order of the Romans and lament the ordination of Porphyrius, which had been carried out lawlessly and impiously. After all these came the presbyter … relating … of the monasteries in Mesopotamia(?) …, how respectable women of consular family, deaconesses of the Church of Constantinople, are brought in public view before [the prefect], being forced either to communicate with Arsacius or to pay as much as two hundred pounds of gold under the fiscal verdicts. And what need is there even to speak of ascetics and virgins? They showed sides torn on the rack and mutilated ears … so that Pope Innocent, no longer able to bear it, sent to the pious emperor Honorius, setting out in detail the substance of the letters. Moved by them, his piety orders a synod of the Westerners to be convened, and that they should bring forth one common vote and refer it to his piety. The bishops of Italy assembled and begged the emperor to write to his brother and co-emperor Arcadius to order a synod to be held at Thessalonica, so that both parts, East and West, might easily come together, and a complete synod, complete not in quantity of number but in quality of judgement, might bring forth an undisputed verdict. Fired by this, his piety writes to the bishop of Rome to send five bishops, two presbyters of Rome and one deacon, to convey his letter to his brother. The letter contained this substance:

‘This is the third time I write to your Gentleness, asking that the affair of the plot against John, bishop of the Constantinopolitans, be set right; and, it seems, nothing has been achieved. Therefore I have written again by the bishops and presbyters, being much concerned for the peace of the Church, through which our empire too is at peace, that you may deign to order the bishops of the East to meet at Thessalonica. For the bishops of our West, having chosen men unbending toward wickedness and falsehood, have sent five bishops, two presbyters and one deacon of the greatest Church of the Romans. Deign to treat them with every honour, so that, if they are persuaded that Bishop John has been justly expelled, they may teach me to withdraw from his communion; or, if they convict the bishops of the East of wilful malice, they may turn you away from their communion. As to what the Westerners think about Bishop John, of all the letters written to me I have appended two, which are equal in weight to all the rest: the letter of the bishop of Rome and that of the bishop of Aquileia. And this above all I beg of your Gentleness: that Theophilus of Alexandria be made to appear, even against his will, since he above all is said to be the cause of all the evils; so that the synod of the bishops who come, being hindered in nothing, may award the peace that befits our times.’

[Deacon:] So the [legates], having received the letters of Innocent and of Venerius of Milan and the rest, and the memorandum of the synod of the whole West, were sent with public warrants to Constantinople, together with the bishops Cyriacus, Demetrius, Palladius and Eulysius. The memorandum said that John should not enter into judgement unless his Church and communion were first restored to him, so that, having no ground for delay, he might come into the council of his own free will. They went off, then, to Constantinople, and came back after four months, recounting Babylonian doings: ‘We were detained … most wretched …, who at once attached a centurion to us and would not allow us to put in at [Thessalo]nica; for their aim there was first to deliver the letters to Bishop Anysius. Putting us on two ships,’ he says, ‘he sent us off. A violent south wind arose, and after sailing for three days without food across the Aegean Sea and the straits, we anchored on the third day at the twelfth hour before the city, near the suburb of Victor. In that place we were detained by those who collect the harbour dues, and taken back, on whose orders we do not know, and shut up in a fortress on the coast of Thrace called Athyra. There we were maltreated, the Romans in one small room, Cyriacus and his companions in separate ones, so that we did not even have a servant to wait on us. When the letters were demanded of us, we did not hand them over, saying: “How is it possible that we, who are envoys, should not deliver the emperor's letters and those of the bishops to the emperor himself?” As we persisted in not handing them over, first Patricius the notary came to us, then some others, and finally there came a man who commanded a regiment, Valerian by name, a Cappadocian, and breaking … [took] the emperor's letter along with the other letters. On the next day they sent to us (whether the people of the emperor's court or Atticus's party we do not know; for he was said to have leapt upon the throne of the Church) offering us three thousand gold coins and asking us to be persuaded to communicate with Atticus and [say nothing of] John's case. We were not persuaded by them, … seeing such savagery. This God the Saviour also made plain by various revelations: to Paul, the deacon of the holy Aemilius, a very gentle and sober man, the blessed apostle Paul appeared on the ship, saying to him, “Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, knowing that the days are evil”; the dream hinted at their many-sided deceit, by gifts and by flattery, aimed at counterfeiting the truth. Then the same Valerian the tribune came and put us on a most rotten ship, as was rumoured, having paid the shipmaster a price, [at the instance] of bishops, for the destruction of those aboard, together with twenty soldiers from various units … Having sailed a good many stades, then, and being about to perish, [we changed] the vessel, and on the twentieth day we landed at Hydruntum in Calabria.’ They could no longer tell us where the blessed bishop John was, nor where the bishops Demetrius, Cyriacus, Eulysius and Palladius are now, who had undertaken the embassy with our bishops.

Bishop: Come now, most holy man, give me your mind and attend closely to what is said, and I will make known to you in order where their drunkenness began, and up to what point it seemed to stop, though it has not yet stopped. The source, one might say, or beginning of all the evils is the demon who hates the good, who always works like a wolf against the rational flocks of Christ, destroying unsparingly [the experienced shepherds] …, as the king of the Egyptians did the male children of the Jews, and fattening the impostures of the false shepherds with the deceits of earthly pleasures. The channels of that evil source after him, as the whole earth knows, are Acacius, Antiochus, Theophilus and Severian, who are called what they are not, and are what they cannot bear to be called; and of the order of the clergy, two presbyters and five deacons, collected some from an unclean, others from a vicious company (and I do not know whether it is safe to call such men presbyters or deacons); and of the emperor's court only two or three, who also put sinew into Theophilus's party, joining the fight with military help; and of women, besides those who are notorious, three widows rich from their husbands, who, to the ruin of their own salvation, [spent] money got by plunder: [Marsa], the wife of Promotus, Castricia the wife of Saturninus, and Eugraphia, a raving woman; the rest I am ashamed even to mention. These women and these men, sluggish of heart in the faith, like a phalanx mad with wine, brought together into one purpose of hatred of teaching, worked a torrent of destruction against the peace of the Church.

Deacon: Then, Father, be good enough to tell us, with God as witness, where their hatred for him came from, and what quarrel of Bishop John's grieved so many dignitaries; and at the same time make known to us where his life began, how he was brought to the episcopate of Constantinople, how long he held it, what his character was, and what the end of his life was, if indeed he has fallen asleep, as we hear. For even if the memory of the man runs through all as wonderful and virtuous, still it is my habit not to believe reports readily, until I learn [for certain] from those who know how to blame and to praise rightly.

Bishop: … but I do not accept the distinction, most truth-loving man and man of God, Theodore. You should have been satisfied by my very grey hairs, if I may speak of myself, and by my rank, as proof of the truth. But since you have not done this, and you condemn me twice over, at least now promise me an attentive hearing without excuses, so that the laps of my words may not be run for nothing. For I know what is written in the divine law: ‘The Lord will destroy all who speak lies’; and in the apostle John: ‘He who speaks a lie is not of God’; and again in David: ‘For the mouth of those who speak unjust things has been stopped.’ For truly the liar wrongs the one he persuades; and the one who is persuaded by the liar, believing too easily, also does wrong. Since both, then, sin equally, let neither of us wrong his neighbour. For this is virtue: for the speaker to speak the truth, and for the hearer to test what is wrong. ‘Become,’ says Scripture, ‘approved money-changers, throwing the counterfeit away from the genuine’; not that we should receive a sound because it is loud, but that, having weighed what is said or written …, we should receive it on the testimony of the facts. Great is the danger of ears and tongue. That is why God, the master craftsman, made the [tongue] to be guarded under two lips, and fixed the rampart of the teeth further in, so that the fortress, being secure, might restrain its looseness, as it is written: ‘Set, O Lord, a guard on my mouth, and a door of enclosure about my lips, that I may not sin with my tongue.’ And [the ears he bored] with a spiral passage, hinting by their shape that a word should not slip in too quickly, so that, winding for a longer time, it may [leave behind] the stuff of falsehood with the dregs of wickedness. Nor did he care for these organs only, as though they alone could stumble; he also set curtains over the pupils, the windows of the body, so that they might not let in the death of licentiousness, to which the prophet [bears witness] …

Deacon: If the inquiry concerned ordinary matters, most holy Father, the dignity of your appearance would have been enough to make your words credible; but since it brings no small reproach now, and condemnation hereafter, when rulers and peoples are gathered before the fearful judgement seat, and since it is the truth that is being sought, forgive me, excellent man, for not accepting grey hairs as witnesses. For bad men too have grown old, not having whitened their souls with virtue but having wrinkled their bodies with length of time; such were the [elders] in Babylon …, of whom the word cries out in reproach: ‘Ephraim is a silly dove, without heart; grey hairs have broken out on him, and he did not know it.’ And repeating it, it says more sharply: ‘Ephraim became a cake not turned, and strangers devoured his strength.’ I will add this too, even if I lengthen my speech: who was greyer, or more seemly in appearance, than Acacius of Beroea, whom you now blame as a wrongdoer? Even his nostrils trailed white hairs when he came to Rome bringing the decree of Bishop John's ordination.

Bishop: Now I know clearly that you are an approved money-changer, not trusting the tent of skin but seeking the knowledge of the one who dwells in it. For the temples of the Egyptians too, very large and boasting the beauty of their stones, have inside them monkeys and ibises and dogs instead of gods; but our Lord and God, when he gave his answer to Samuel about the appointment of a ruler of Israel, charged him not to look at the bearing and shape of a body of clay, saying: ‘God does not see as man sees; for man looks on the face, but God on the heart.’ Therefore the imitators of God search out the deeper side of everything. So I readily give myself up, having hallowed your balance, which never tips to one side. The Babylonian elders, old in body but in their souls utter infants from [boorishness], if they had believed in the resurrection of the dead, would first, being sound in wisdom, not have lusted after Susanna, another man's wife; and then, if they had had the fear of God, they would not have woven slander into their licentiousness. For a dishonoured old age is proof of the youthful …

[Bishop:] This John was an Antiochene by birth (he has fallen asleep), the son of parents of good family who held distinguished posts on the staff of the general of Syria; he was born to his father with only a sister besides. Being of quick understanding, he was trained in rhetoric for the ministry of the divine oracles. Then, at eighteen years of bodily age, he rebelled against the sophists of verbiage, and, grown to manhood in mind, he came to love sacred learning. At that time the blessed Meletius the confessor, an Armenian by birth, governed the Church at Antioch. Noticing the gifted young man, he let him be continually in his company, loving the beauty of his heart, and with a prophetic eye foreseeing the young man's [future]. … the bath of regeneration; [and after attending the bishop] about three years, he is promoted [reader]. … to be content with labours in the city, and while his youth was in its vigour, though his mind was sound, he goes to the nearby mountains. There he met an old Syrian and stayed with him four years, fighting against the reefs of pleasure. When he had overcome these more easily, not so much by toil as by reason, he withdrew alone into a cave, longing to be unknown; and there he spent twenty-four months, mostly without sleep, learning the covenants of Christ by heart to drive out ignorance. Since for two years he did not lie down, neither by night nor by day, the parts below his stomach were deadened and the functions of his kidneys were injured by the cold. No longer able to look after himself, he returns to the harbour of the Church. This too was [the work] of the Saviour's providence, [drawing him away] for the benefit of the Church, through his illness, from the [labours] of asceticism. … [He is ordained] deacon by Meletius, after serving the altar for five years. Then, as his excellence as a teacher was already shining out, and the people were being sweetened from the brine of life by contact with him, he is ordained presbyter by Flavian the bishop. Distinguishing himself for twelve years in the Church of the Antiochenes, he gave dignity to the priesthood there by the strictness of his life, salting some with sobriety, enlightening others with teaching, watering others with the streams of the Spirit.

While these things were thus running before a fair wind under Christ's steering, the blessed Nectarius [bishop of Constantinople] falls asleep. Thereupon some who were not wanted came running together, courting the presidency, men who were no men, presbyters in rank but unworthy of the priesthood, some besieging the praetorium, others offering bribes, others going down on their knees before the populace. At this the people of the orthodox were in turmoil, [asking for a man worthy] of the priesthood. At that time Eutropius held power … Wishing, then, to give him to the city (for he had experience of John's virtue, when imperial business had taken him into the inner East), he gets the emperor to write to the count of Antioch, telling him to send John off quietly, without disturbing the city of the Antiochenes. The count received the letter and at once asked John to come out of the city to the Martyria near the …; [then, putting him into a carriage] of the public post, he hands him over to the eunuch who had been sent, together with the soldier of the magister. Thus brought [to Constantinople, he was ordained bishop] of the Church.

From the start, then, Theophilus, the bishop of the Alexandrians, noting his character and the irreproachable freedom of his speech, set himself against the ordination. For he is clever at reading from a man's outward look his hidden will and mind.

Deacon: Wait, Father, let me raise a small objection.

Bishop: What is it?

Deacon: If Theophilus is the kind of man who sees so sharply, how did he not know that by driving him out he would throw the world into confusion?

Bishop: That is not surprising, my good friend. The demons too recognized the Saviour's coming, and yet did not know that by a single breath of those who believed in him [they would be overthrown] …

[Deacon: How did they recognize] the Saviour's coming?

Bishop: When they cried out, ‘We know who you are, the Holy One of God; why have you come before the time to torment us?’ You see that they foresaw not only that he is holy but also that he is judge. But why do I speak of demons? The wretched courtesans recognize chaste men from the look of their eyes, and turn away, as a diseased eye turns from the brightness of the sun and the vulture from perfume. Where does the saying ‘Godliness is an abomination to sinners’ come from, if they did not recognize it? So Theophilus too, since he did not find in John's look what answered to or pleased his own eye, guessed the opposite by conjecture, not by sure knowledge.

Deacon: You have spoken wonderfully, Father. But why did he oppose the ordination?

Bishop: It was his habit not to ordain good and sensible men except by mistake, since he wished to rule everyone as though they were fools; he thought it better to rule fools than to listen to the wise. Nevertheless he is overcome by saving Providence, willing and unwilling. So John was ordained, and he begins his care of affairs with the pipe of reason. Seldom using the staff of reproof, he directs a sermon against the [feigned] cohabitation of brothers and sisters, in truth against licentiousness, showing that, in a choice of evils, brothel-keepers are better. For they, living far from the house of healing, keep their disease to themselves, for those who want it; but these men, living inside the workshop of salvation, call even the healthy into disease. From this the godless part of the clergy, fevered by passion, is vexed.

After that sermon he begins on injustice, overturning greed, the metropolis of evils, to build up righteousness. For this is the mark of wise master builders: first to pull down the building of falsehood, and afterwards to lay the foundation of truth, as is said in the prophet: ‘I have set you over nations and kingdoms, to root up and to plant, and to dig down and to build up’; the one as a farmer, the other as a builder. From this the … part [of the clergy] is disturbed again, … their way of living, as he urged them to be content with their own allowances and not to chase the cooking smells of the rich, lest, having smoke for their torch-bearer, they be handed over to the flame of licentiousness; [for they were] flatterers and parasites even more than gluttons, and were in league with the sophists of accusation.

After this he examines the steward's accounts and finds expenditure that did not benefit the Church; he orders such outlays to cease. He comes to the part covering the bishop's expenditure and finds a lavishness that was not fitting, and orders the extravagance to be transferred to [the hospital]. … [Since there was more] need, he builds more hospitals, [setting over them] two devout presbyters, as well as doctors and cooks and good unmarried workers to serve them, so that strangers coming to the city who fell ill might receive care, both for the sake of the good deed itself and for the glory of the Saviour. After this he calls together the order of widows, … going round among them [to examine] those who did not [live] rightly … [urging them to abstain from the baths and] from extravagant clothes, or else to marry again quickly, so that the law of the Lord might not be outraged. After this he urged the people to persevere in the night litanies, and their wives to stay at home, urging them to pray in the daytime, since their husbands have no leisure in the daytime. All this grieved the more sluggish of the clergy, who were used to sleeping all night. After this he took up the sword of reproof against the rich, lancing the abscesses of the soul and teaching them to be without pride and modest toward other people, obeying the apostolic word written to Timothy: ‘Charge the rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches.’ Things being so, and the Church growing better every day, souls being led to sobriety and psalmody, the demon who hates the good could not bear the desertion of those he held, whom the word of the Lord had drawn away through John's teaching, so that, [leaving] the courts of the devil, they ran to the fold of the Saviour, in love with the pipe of the …