Church History 8.9–8.19

The hostility of the clergy toward him was increased by Serapion, whom he had made his archdeacon, an Egyptian, quick to anger and ready to insult; and not least by his counsels to Olympias. This woman, of a most distinguished family, though she had become a widow young, lived the philosophic life exceedingly according to the rule of the church; and Nectarius ordained her a deaconess. John, seeing her giving away her property to those who asked and disregarding everything else, caring only for divine things, said: “I praise your purpose; but one who seeks the summit of virtue according to God must be a good steward. You, by bringing wealth to the rich, pour out what is yours no less than if you threw it into the sea. Or do you not know that you have of your own will dedicated your property to the needy for God’s sake, and that you have been appointed to manage it as money that has passed out of your ownership, and have become accountable for it? If, then, you obey me, you will in future measure your giving to the need of those who ask; for so you will benefit more, and obtain from God the rewards of mercy and of most zealous care.” He also had a disagreement with many of the monks, and especially with Isaac. For those who lived the philosophic life quietly in their monasteries he praised exceedingly, and took great care that they not be wronged and have what they needed; but those who went outside and appeared about the city he reviled and turned back, as insulting philosophy. For such reasons many of the clergy and monks hated him, and called him harsh, irascible, awkward and proud. They also tried to malign his way of life to the people, and alleged as true that he ate with no one and did not accept invitations to a feast. I can give no other reason for this, except that someone truthful, I think, told me when I asked about it, that through his ascetic discipline his head and the mouth of his stomach were badly affected, and so he declined the company of meals. From this especially they wove the greatest slanders against him.

An occasion of hatred toward him on the part of the emperor’s wife also arose, through Severian, bishop of Gabala in Syria. He and Antiochus of Ptolemais — a city of Phoenicia — were at the same time both learned and able to teach in church. But Antiochus spoke very fluently and with a fine voice, so that he was called Chrysostom by some; while Severian, though thought better in thought and in testimonies from the Scriptures, kept the Syrian roughness on his tongue. Antiochus, coming first to Constantinople, was praised for his discourses, collected money and returned to his city. Severian, coming later in rivalry with him, found John well disposed, was often admired speaking in church, was in honour, and became well known to the powerful and to the emperor and empress themselves. When John went away to Asia, he entrusted the church to him; for, as Severian paid him court with flatteries, he thought him a zealous friend. But Severian was more concerned to please his hearers and to delight the people with his words. When John learned this, he was jealous, as they say, Serapion stirring him up about these things. When he had returned from Asia, Severian happened to be passing somewhere; Serapion, seeing him, did not rise, deliberately showing those passing by that he despised the man. Severian, angry at this, cried out: “If Serapion dies a Christian, Christ was not made man.” Accused of this by Serapion, he was driven from the city by John as insolent and a blasphemer against God. For some were brought forward to witness to these things; and Serapion’s friends, concealing all the rest that had been said, testified that he had said only that “Christ was not made man.” John blamed him for this and the rest; for, he said, it does not follow that Christ was not made man if Serapion does not die a cleric. The emperor’s wife, as soon as this had happened, learned it through Severian’s supporters, and at once recalled him from Chalcedon. John, though many begged him, refused to have dealings with him; until, in the church named after the Apostles, the empress laid her son Theodosius on his knees, entreating and adjuring him many times, and barely brought him into friendship with Severian. So I have learned.

Meanwhile a question that had begun not long before was stirred in Egypt, whether one ought to hold God to be in human form. Most of the monks there were of this opinion, from simplicity taking the sacred words without examination, being accustomed to hear of the eyes of God and his face and hands and such things. But those who looked to the meaning hidden in the words held the opposite, and said that those who spoke so blasphemed the divine outright. Theophilus urged in church that one should hold to this belief; and in the letter about the feast of Pascha, which he wrote according to custom, he taught that God must be thought of as incorporeal and foreign to human shape. When this became known to the monks of Egypt, they came to Alexandria; and gathering together they rioted and planned to kill Theophilus as impious. But he appeared at once among them while they were still rioting and said: “So I have seen you, as the face of God.” What was said sufficiently restrained the men; and, laying aside their anger, they said: “Then, if you truly believe this, condemn also the books of Origen, since those who study them are taught to think so.” “But this,” he said, “has long been my decision, and I will do as you think best; for I too blame no less those who hold the views of Origen.” So, beguiling the monks in this way, he broke up the riot.

Perhaps this question too would have been entirely settled then, had not Theophilus, out of private enmity, stirred it up again when it had already ceased, plotting against Ammonius, Dioscorus, Eusebius and Euthymius, called the Tall Brothers. We have learned earlier that these brothers were renowned among those who practised philosophy in Scetis. They had been very dear to him among the monks of Egypt, and he often made them his companions and housemates, and made Dioscorus bishop of Hermopolis. He came to hate them through his enmity to Isidore, whom he had been eager to ordain at Constantinople after Nectarius. For some say that a woman of the Manichean heresy came over to the catholic church; and since she rashly shared in the mysteries before renouncing her former heresy, Theophilus blamed the archpresbyter of the time, with whom he was also otherwise at odds. Peter — for that was his name — maintained that the woman had been admitted to communion according to the law of the church and with Theophilus’s consent, and named Isidore as witness of this. Isidore happened then to have been sent to Rome; but on his return he testified that Peter spoke the truth. Theophilus, angry, as though falsely accused, drove both out of the church. So some say. But from a man worthy of belief, who associated with these monks at that time, I have learned that Theophilus had a twofold cause of ill will toward Isidore: one common to him and Peter the presbyter, because they refused to bear witness that Theophilus’s sister had been named heir; and one his own, because when much money was offered to Isidore as steward of the poor, and Theophilus tried to take it, as having spent heavily on building churches, he would not give way, saying that it was better to restore with fitting care the bodies of the sick, which one may more properly regard as temples of God, for whom the money had been given, than to build walls. But whether for this or for some other reason, Isidore, deprived of communion by Theophilus, went to Scetis, to the monks there as to friends. Ammonius took some of them and came to Theophilus and begged him to restore communion to Isidore. He is said to have promised readily at the time. But as time passed and nothing more was done for them, and Theophilus had plainly been putting them off, they came to him more urgently and demanded that he fulfil his promise. He put one of the monks in the public prison, to strike fear into the others. But he was mistaken in this. For Ammonius with all the monks with him, seeming to the keepers of the prison to have come to bring necessities to those confined, were readily admitted; and once inside, they would not come out. When Theophilus learned this, he sent word calling the men to him. At first they demanded that he come himself and bring them out; for it was not just that those publicly insulted should be released from prison secretly. Later, giving way, they went to him. When they apologized, he dismissed them as though he would not trouble them further; but privately he was stung, indignant, and plotting to do them harm. At a loss what harm to do them, since they owned nothing and disregarded everything but wisdom, he resolved to injure them in their quiet. And since he knew, from their conversations when they were with him, that they blamed those who hold God to be in human form, as holding the views of Origen, he set them at odds with the multitude of monks, which was of the other opinion. From this a dreadful strife prevailed among the monks; and not conducting their debates with one another in order, they did not try to persuade one another but fell to insults. Some called those who defined God as incorporeal Origenists, while the others called those of the opposite belief Anthropomorphites.

Dioscorus and Ammonius and their companions, perceiving the plot, withdrew to Jerusalem; and from there they came to Scythopolis, thinking the place suitable to live in because of the many palm trees, whose leaves they used for the work usual to monks; for about eighty men followed them. Meanwhile Theophilus sent some people to Constantinople, both to prepare slanders against them beforehand, and to oppose them if they petitioned the emperor about anything. When Ammonius and his companions learned this, they sailed to Constantinople, and Isidore with them; and together they strove to have the plots against them examined before the emperor as judge and John the bishop. For they thought that he, being concerned for just freedom of speech, could help them toward justice. He received the men kindly when they came to him, held them in honour, and did not prevent them from praying in church; but he did not think it right to let them share in the mysteries, as it was not lawful to do so before a judgment. He wrote to Theophilus to restore communion to them, as believing rightly about God; or, if their case had to be decided by trial, to send someone he thought fit to act as judge. Theophilus made no reply. After much time had passed, Ammonius and his companions approached the emperor’s wife as she was going out, complaining of what Theophilus had plotted against them. She, perceiving that they had been plotted against, stopped in respect for them; and leaning out of the imperial carriage, she bowed her head and said: “Bless me and pray for the emperor and me, and our children and the empire. I shall soon see to a synod and to Theophilus’s coming.” She was eager about these things. And as a false rumour prevailed in Alexandria that John had communicated with Dioscorus and his companions and was eager to help them in everything, Theophilus planned, if he could, to depose John himself from the episcopate.

Hiding and contriving these things in his mind, he wrote to the bishops in the cities, accusing the books of Origen. Reckoning that it would be of the greatest help to him if he took as partner in his undertakings Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, a man most distinguished in his time for the reverence of his life, he made him his friend, though he had earlier blamed him for holding God to be in human form. As though he had come by repentance to recognize the right belief, he wrote that he agreed with him, and stirred up accusations against the books of Origen as the cause of such doctrines. Epiphanius, who had long turned away from Origen’s writings, readily agreed with Theophilus’s letter; and meeting with the bishops in Cyprus he forbade the reading of Origen’s works. Writing their decisions to others, and to the bishop of Constantinople, he urged them to hold synods and decree the same. Theophilus, seeing that there was no danger in following Epiphanius, who had many admirers who wondered at whatever he thought because of the virtue of his life, decreed the like with the bishops under him. John did not think the effort over these things worth attention, and put the letters of Epiphanius and Theophilus in second place. Those of the powerful and of the clergy who were ill disposed to him, learning that Theophilus was eager for his deposition, zealously worked with him, and prepared for a very great synod to be held in Constantinople. Theophilus, learning this, hurried still more. He ordered the bishops from Egypt to sail, and wrote to Epiphanius and others of the East to come with speed, while he himself made the journey on foot. Not long after, Epiphanius, sailing first from Cyprus, landed at the place before Constantinople called the Hebdomon, prayed in the church there, and entered the city. John honoured him on his entry by sending the whole clergy to meet him. But Epiphanius plainly had yielded to the accusations against him; and when he was urged to stay in church lodgings, he would not consent. He avoided meeting John; but calling together privately the bishops staying in Constantinople, he showed them what had been decreed against Origen’s works, and persuaded some to vote for it; but most refused. Theotimus, bishop of Scythia, opposed Epiphanius outright. For he said that it was neither holy to insult one who had long since died, nor free of blasphemy to malign the judgment of the older writers and set aside what they had approved. And as he spoke, he brought forward a book of Origen and read from it; and showing that what was read was useful to the churches, he said: “Those who malign these things suffer something absurd; for they run the risk of insulting the things of which the words speak.” John still held Epiphanius in respect, and invited him to hold services with him and to stay with him. But he replied that he would neither stay with him nor pray with him unless he condemned Origen’s works and drove out Dioscorus and his companions. When John put this off, thinking it unjust to do so before a trial, as a service was about to be held in the church named after the Apostles, John’s enemies arranged that Epiphanius should come forward and publicly, before the people, condemn the books of Origen and Dioscorus’s party as holding his views, and at the same time malign the bishop of the city as supporting them. For they thought that in this way they would set him against the multitude. The next day Epiphanius, coming forward for this, was already near the church, when Serapion, sent by John — for he had learned what had been planned the day before — met him and protested that he was acting neither justly nor to his own advantage; for if a disturbance or riot arose among the people, he himself would be in danger as its cause. So he was checked in this attempt.

Meanwhile it happened that the emperor’s little son fell ill; and the mother, fearing lest he suffer harm, sent to Epiphanius and asked him to pray for him. He promised that the sick child would live if she turned away from Dioscorus’s party, who were heretics. The empress said: “If it seems good to God to take my child, let it be so; for the Lord who gave takes away again. But if you were able to raise the dead, your archdeacon would not have died.” For Crispion had died not long before, the brother of Phuscon and Salamanes, the monks mentioned under Valens, whom Epiphanius had had as his companion and appointed his archdeacon. Ammonius and his companions — for so it seemed good to the empress herself — came to Epiphanius. When he asked who they were, Ammonius answered: “The Tall Brothers, Father. But I would gladly learn whether you have ever met our disciples or our writings.” When he said no, Ammonius asked again: “How then have you supposed us to be heretics, having no proof of our belief?” When Epiphanius said he had heard so, he said: “We have experienced the very opposite. For we have often met your disciples and your writings, among which is the one entitled Ancoratus. And when many wished to revile you and malign you as a heretic, we fought for you, as was fitting, as for a father, and defended you. So you ought not, from hearsay, to condemn in their absence those whom you have not condemned by your own conviction, nor return such a recompense to those who speak well of you.” Epiphanius, after speaking with them more moderately at that time, sent the men away. Not long after he sailed for Cyprus, either condemning his journey to Constantinople, or because God had given him an oracle, and, as is likely, had foretold his death to him; for he died at sea before reaching Cyprus. It is said, at any rate, that he said to the bishops who came with him to the sea, as he was about to board the ship: “I leave you the city and the palace and the play-acting; but I am going, for I am in haste, in great haste.” I have learned also the story, still told by many, that John foretold to Epiphanius his death at sea, and he to John his deposition from the episcopate. For while they were at odds, Epiphanius sent word to John: “I hope you will not die a bishop.” And John answered: “Nor I that you will set foot in your city.”

When Epiphanius had sailed away, John, preaching in church, delivered a general censure of women; and the multitude took it as composed in riddles against the emperor’s wife. The bishop’s enemies, taking down the speech, carried it to the empress. She complained to her husband of the insult, and pressed for Theophilus to come quickly and hold a synod. Severian of Gabala, not yet freed from his former vexation, worked with her and helped contrive these things. But whether John came to that discourse just as it happened, or, as some say, suspecting that the empress had persuaded Epiphanius to plot against him, I cannot say exactly. Not long after Theophilus arrived at Chalcedon in Bithynia, and many bishops of other cities, some urged by Theophilus, others summoned by the emperor’s order. Those came most eagerly who had been deprived of their sees in Asia by John, and those who were hostile to him for other reasons in other ways; and the ships from Egypt for which Theophilus had been waiting had already arrived at Chalcedon. When they had all met together there and were deliberating how their attempt against John might go as they wished, Cyrinus, who then led the church in Chalcedon, perhaps favouring Theophilus out of kinship — for he was an Egyptian — and otherwise at odds with John, reviled him greatly. A swift penalty seemed to overtake him for these insults. For Maruthas from Mesopotamia, who was with the bishops, accidentally trod on one of his feet. In pain, he did not cross over to Constantinople with the other priests, though he seemed necessary for the plots against John. Afterwards, growing worse, his leg was often sawn by the physicians; for a putrefaction set in and spread over the whole body, so that the other foot suffered the same by the spread of the disease. And not long after he ended his life in agony.

When Theophilus crossed over, none of the clergy of Constantinople met him; for he was already plainly hostile to the bishop. But the Alexandrian sailors who happened to be in the city, from the other ships and especially from the grain ships, gathered together and received him with eager acclamations. Passing by the church, he went to an imperial house in which lodging had been prepared for him. When he learned that many were hostile to John and ready to accuse him, having arranged the rest as he thought best, he went to the Oak. This is a suburb of Chalcedon, now named after Rufinus the consular, in which there is a palace and a large church, which Rufinus himself built in honour of the apostles Peter and Paul and named the Apostoleion after them; and nearby he settled monks, who made up the clergy of the church. Meeting here with the other bishops, Theophilus made no mention of the books of Origen; but he called the monks from Scetis to repentance, promising neither to bear a grudge nor to harm them. When Theophilus’s supporters shouted at them to ask pardon, and pretended that the synod was interceding for them, the monks, troubled and thinking they ought to do so, with many bishops seated before them, said what they are accustomed to say even when wronged: “Forgive.” Theophilus readily made peace and restored communion to them, and the examination of the wrongs done at Scetis was dissolved. This, I think, would not have happened if Dioscorus and Ammonius had been present with the other monks. But the former had already died and been buried in the church named after the martyr Mocius; and Ammonius, while the synod was being prepared, fell ill; crossing to the Oak, he grew worse from the disease and not long after ended his life, and was thought worthy of a splendid burial by the monks nearby, where he lies. Theophilus, when he learned of it, is said to have wept and said before all that there was no monk in his time like Ammonius, even if he had been a cause of trouble to him. Yet this too went as he wished. The synod summoned all the clergy of Constantinople, threatening deposition against those who disobeyed. It summoned John too to make his defence, and ordered Serapion, Tigrius the presbyter and Paul the reader to appear with him. John, sending some of the clergy friendly to him and Demetrius, bishop of Pessinus, told them that he did not shun judgment, but was ready, if he first learned who the accusers were and examined the indictment, to make his defence before a greater synod; for he would not choose to endure anything foolish and to put up with manifest enemies as judges. When they were angry at him as disobedient to a synod, some of those who had brought the message, in fear, did not return; but Demetrius and those who preferred John’s company went back to him. On the same day a courier and a stenographer came from the palace, urging him to go to the bishops, and them not to delay over the judgment. When, having been summoned four times, he appealed to an ecumenical synod, they deposed him, charging him with nothing else but that, when summoned, he had not obeyed.

When the people in Constantinople learned this toward evening, they were stirred to riot; and running together at dawn to the church, they shouted many things, and that a greater synod ought to judge his case. When those ordered by the emperor pressed to take him into exile, they would not allow it. But he, fearing lest another charge be fabricated against him, either of disobeying the emperor or of stirring up the people, on the third day after his deposition, when the crowd had dispersed, left the church secretly about midday. As he was being led away, the people rioted fiercely, and reviled the emperor and the synod, and especially Theophilus and Severian; for both were the leaders of the plot. Severian, teaching in church at that time, even praised John’s deposition, as for arrogance, even if no other charge had been made. “For other sins,” he said, “the Divine forgives men; but he sets himself against the proud.” At this the multitude was indignant, renewed its anger, and rioted without restraint, and would keep quiet neither in churches nor in the market places; but going with wailing and lamentation as far as the palace itself, they begged for John’s recall. The empress, yielding to the people’s entreaties, persuaded her husband to consent; and quickly sending Brison, her faithful eunuch, she brought John back from Prenetus in Bithynia, declaring that she was innocent of the plots against him, and that she held him in reverence as a priest and the initiator of her children. When he returned he stayed in a suburb belonging to the empress herself near Anaplus; and before the judgment of a greater synod, so that it might be clear that he had been unjustly deprived of his episcopate, he declined for the time to enter the city. But when the people again became angry and reviled the rulers, he was compelled to enter. The people met him with psalms composed for the occasion — most carried lighted candles — and led him to the church. Though he refused and insisted many times that those who had condemned him must first revoke their vote, as is lawful for priests, they compelled him to greet the people with the peace and to sit on the episcopal throne. Compelled, he also delivered an impromptu discourse. Taking his starting point from a most graceful comparison, he hinted that Theophilus had tried to outrage the church under him as the king of the Egyptians had Sarah, the wife of the patriarch Abraham, as the books of the Hebrews relate; and, praising the people, as was fitting, for their zeal and the rulers for their goodwill toward him, he moved the multitude to much applause and acclamation of the emperor and his wife, so that he left his discourse half finished.

Theophilus, at a loss what to do in the circumstances, did not dare, though eager, to accuse John openly of performing priestly acts unlawfully after deposition; for he would already be offending the rulers, who, because of the agitation of the people, had compelled him to return when he refused. But he set up a tribunal for the accusers of Heraclides in his absence, thinking to find in this a more plausible ground for John’s deposition. When John’s friends objected that it was neither lawful nor in accordance with church practice to try one who was absent, and Theophilus’s party maintained the contrary, the remaining multitude of Alexandrians and Egyptians and the people of Constantinople seized on the quarrel and came to blows, so that many were wounded and some even killed. Severian and the other bishops, except those who held with John, in fear left Constantinople in flight. And Theophilus too at once, without delay, though winter was already beginning, fled and sailed with Isaac the monk to Alexandria. By chance he put in from the open sea at Gerae, a small city about fifty stadia from Pelusium. The bishop there having then died, the citizens, as I have learned, had voted that Nilammon should preside over their church, a good man who had reached the summit of monastic philosophy. He lived before the city, having shut himself up in a cell and blocked the door with stones. As he was refusing the priesthood, Theophilus came to him and advised him to accept ordination from him. When he had refused many times and did not persuade him, he said: “Tomorrow, if you please, do it, Father, so that today I may set my affairs in order.” When Theophilus came on the next day as agreed and ordered the door to be opened, Nilammon said: “First let us pray.” Theophilus approved and prayed; and Nilammon, while praying, departed this life. At first this was unknown to Theophilus and those with him standing outside. But when the day was spent and he did not answer, though they called him many times more loudly, they threw down the stones before the door and found the man dead. Having laid him out as was fitting, they thought him worthy of a public burial; and the people of the place built a house of prayer around his tomb, and they still keep the day of his death most notably. So Nilammon died — if one should call it death — which he prayed to undergo before being entrusted with the priesthood, of which he thought himself unworthy through the modesty of his character. John, having returned to Constantinople, appeared still more beloved by the people. And when about sixty bishops, who had then met in Constantinople, had voted that what had been done at the Oak was void and that he should hold the episcopate, he continued to serve as priest, to ordain, and to manage the rest of the church’s affairs as is lawful for those who preside. Then he appointed Serapion bishop of Heraclea in Thrace.