Dialogue on the Life of John Chrysostom

Contents

Reading pages: 1–2 · 3–5 · 6–8 · 9–10 · 11 · 13–15 · 16–17 · 18 · 19

1. 1Prologue: the bishop explains to the Roman deacon Theodore that virginity and priesthood are special gifts, not to be seized, then tells of his arrival in Rome as one of John Chrysostom's party and of the letters that reached Pope Innocent.
2. 2John Chrysostom's letter to Pope Innocent describing Theophilus of Alexandria's arrival in Constantinople, the proceedings against John in his absence, his expulsion, and the violent clearing of the churches on Holy Saturday, and asking Innocent to declare those proceedings void.
3. 3The deacon relates how Pope Innocent kept communion with both John and Theophilus, received a stream of letters and refugees from Constantinople reporting John's exile and the persecution of his followers, and moved the emperor Honorius to ask Arcadius for a synod at Thessalonica.
4. 4The deacon tells how the Western embassy to Constantinople was detained, robbed of its letters, offered bribes and shipped home; the bishop names John's enemies, and the two speakers spar over whether grey hair is a warrant of truth.
5. 5The bishop tells of John's birth in Antioch, his training, his years as a monk, his ordination as deacon and presbyter, his summons to the see of Constantinople, Theophilus's opposition, and John's reforms of the clergy, the church's finances, the widows and the rich.
6. 6John's enemies, among them Acacius of Beroea, seek grounds against him and turn to Theophilus; the bishop explains that the quarrel arose from Theophilus's persecution of the old presbyter Isidore and the Nitrian monks who pleaded for him.
7. 7Theophilus condemns the leading Nitrian monks, raids their monasteries and drives them out; they flee to Palestine and then to Constantinople, where John shelters them without receiving them into communion and writes to Theophilus, who refuses and warns him against judging outside his province.
8. 8John's attempt at peace fails; the Nitrian monks win an imperial order bringing Theophilus to Constantinople, where he wins allies, gathers charges, convenes the Synod of the Oak, and condemns John in his absence after John refuses to appear before judges who are his avowed enemies.
9. 9After a brief recall John is attacked again: his enemies invoke the Arian canon against bishops who return without a synod, the emperor orders him out of his church, and on Holy Saturday soldiers break up the baptisms of his followers.
10. 10John's followers are imprisoned; after Pentecost the emperor orders John to leave; John takes leave of the bishops and of Olympias and the deaconesses, slips out of the church, and fire then destroys the great church and the Senate house.
11. 11John's last exile and death at Comana, and, in what the printed editions number chapter 12, the bishop's defence of John's habit of eating alone, arguing from Scripture that teaching, not entertaining, is a bishop's work.
12. 13The bishop concludes his defence of John's refusal to give banquets, rebuts Theophilus's claim that John deposed sixteen bishops, and begins the story of the charges brought by Eusebius against Antoninus of Ephesus.
13. 14The deacon asks the bishop to shorten the story; the bishop tells how John handled Eusebius's charges against Antoninus of Ephesus, sent judges to Asia, and later, at the request of the Ephesian clergy and bishops, sailed to Ephesus to ordain a new bishop.
14. 15The case against Antoninus's six bishops is concluded: they confess to buying their ordinations and are deposed with restitution; the bishop then denounces the bishops who, after John's exile, imprisoned John's appointee at Ephesus and replaced him with an unworthy eunuch.
15. 16The bishop describes how Porphyrius had himself secretly ordained bishop of Antioch and persecuted John's followers there, and then defends the deaconess Olympias, whom Theophilus had reviled for sheltering the Nitrian monks.
16. 17The bishop praises the expelled Nitrian monks, describes the illnesses that struck John's enemies, and then praises the deaconess Olympias, her refusal of a second marriage, her generosity, and her care for John.
17. 18The bishop answers the objection that John could have accepted the Church's support and should have been more prudent with the powerful, arguing from Scripture that John's austerity set a pattern for his successors and that his open rebukes followed the prophets and apostles.
18. 19The bishop answers charges that John was proud and insulting, lists John's exiled and persecuted supporters, reflects on the last times and on vice and virtue, and Theodore closes with a reproach to John's persecutors and a blessing on John, to which the bishop adds a final denunciation of those who sold the priesthood.