Chrysostom was chosen, without his own agency, patriarch of Constantinople. At this post he labored several years with happy effect. By talent and cul- ture he was peculiarly fitted to labor in a great metrop- olis. He happily avoided the temptation of hierarch- ical pride and worldly conformity. In the midst of the splendors of New Rome he continued his ascetic habits, and applied all his income to the sick and the poor. He preached an earnest, practical Christianity, insisted on church discipline, and boldly attacked the vices of his age, and the hollow, worldly, and hypocrit- ical religion of the imperial court.
But his unsparing sermons aroused the anger of the empress Eudoxia, a young and beautiful woman, who despised her husband and indulged her passions. His rising fame, moreover, excited the envy of the ambi- tious patriarch, Theophilus of Alexandria, who could not tolerate a successful rival in Constantinople. An act of Christian love toward the persecuted Origenlstic monks of Egypt involved him in the Origenistic* con- troversy, which raged at that time with great violence in Egypt and Syria, and at last the united influence of Theophilus and Eudoxia overthrew him. Persecution and suffering were to test his character and to throw around his memory the halo of martyrdom for the cause of purity and charity. Theophilus first sent the aged Epiphanius, so well known for his orthodox zeal and his hatred of the arch-heretic Origen, to Con- stantinople, as a tool of his hierarchical plans, in the hope that he would destroy the thousand-headed hydra of heresy, and ruin Chrysostom for his apparent con- nection with it. Chrysostom, as a pupil of the Anti- ocbian school of theology and as a practical divine, had no sympathy with the philosophical speculations and allegorical fancies of Origen, but he knew how to ap- preciate the merits of this great man, and was prompt- ed by a sense of justice and Christian love to intercede in behalf of the Origenistic monks, whom Theophilus had unmercifully expelled from Egypt, and he showed them kindness when they arrived at Constantinople, aithoush he did not admit them to the holy commu- nion till their innocence should be publicly establish- ed. Epiphanius himself found that injustice had been | done to those monks, and left Constantinople with the words, "I leave to j-ou the city, the palace, and hypoo- ,
risy." He died on board the ship on his Tetam to Qy- prus (408). Theophilus now proceeded to Constaiiti* nople in person, and at once appeared as accuser and judge of Chrysostom. He well knew how to use tbt dissatis&ction of the clergy, of the empress Eodoxta^ and of the court, with Chrysostom, on account of his moral severity and his bold denunciations. In Qur- sostom*s own diocese, on an estate, "at the oak** {sj* nodus ad quercum), in Chalcedon, he held a secret council of thirty-six bishops against Chrysostooi, and there procured, upon false charges of immormlitjf nn- churchly conduct, and high treason, his depositioo aod banishment in 103. Among the twenty-nine charges were these : that Chrysostom called the saint Epipha- nius a fool and demon ; that he wrote a book ftill of abuse of the clergy ; that he received visits from, fe- males without witnesses ; that he bathed alone and ate alone.
Chrysostom was recalled, indeed, in three days, in consequence of an earthquake and the diss&tisfictioa of the people, but was again condemned by a oonnctl in 404, and banished from the court, because, incensed by the erection of a silver statue of Eudoxia doae to the church of St. Sophia, and by the theatrical perform- ances connected with it, he had, with unwise and un- just exaggeration, opened a sermon, on Mark vi, 17 sq^ in commemoration of John the Baptist, with the perHm- al allusion, "Again Herodias rages, again she raves, again she dances, and again she demands the head of John [Chrysostom's own name] upon a charger'* (Soc- rates, Hist. Ecd, vi, c. 18). Trom his exile in Cucu- sus and Arabissus he corresponded with all parts of the Chrbtian world, took lively interest in the misaions in I Persia and Scytliia, and appealed to a general conuciL But even the powerful intercession of pope Innocent I and the sympathy of the people at Constantinofde were of no avail against the wrath of the court and the envy I ofa rival patriarch. The enemies of Chrysostom pro- ; cured from Arcadius an order for his transportation to I the remote desert of Pityus. On the way thither be I died at Comana in Pontus, A.D. 407, in the sixtieth year of his age, praising God for everything, even for his unmerited persecutions. His laat words were: Ao^a Tip ^t(f} ledvTUiv (vuciv. They express tiie nK^to of his life and work.
Chrysostom was venerated by the people as a saint ; and thirty years after his death, by order of Theodonns II (488), his bones were brought back in triumph to Constantinople, and deposited in the imperial tomb in the Church of the Apostles. The emperor himself met he remains at Chalcedon, fell down before the ooflSn, and in the name of his guilty parents, Arcadiua and Eu- doxia, implored the forgiveness of the holy man. The age could not, indeed, understand and appreciate the bold spirit of Origen, but was still accessible to the nar- row piety of Epiphanius and the noble virtues of Chiy- sostom.