CHAPTER XLIX

INTRIGUE TRIUMPHANT

It soon became patent to all the world that Eudoxia was leaving no stone unturned to ruin the Patriarch, and darkest clouds of misgiving closed over the last smile of brief sunshine in the hearts of his friends. The Empress had again invoked the aid of Theophilus, and though he would not come in person, he was sending ‘three miserable Egyptians’ to act in his name. All the other bishops and ecclesiastics to whom Chrysostom’s very virtues were a reproach were speeding like vultures to a feast. Another Council was to be held, about which two things were clear—that it would not be the General Council which the Patriarch had demanded; and that, under the terrifying influence of the Court, it would be all but exclusively composed of the Patriarch’s opponents.

Those who were not in the secret could not understand the rush and blare of the new thunderstorm. Chrysostom had only shared the feeling of every sincere Christian in the city in deploring the Pagan profanities which accompanied the Sunday inauguration of Eudoxia’s statue, and surely his disapprobation could not have created an offence so deadly as to cause his destruction to be determined. Philip and Kallias alone divined the secret. Kallias knew that ere now spurious sermons, attributed to Chrysostom, had been handed about. He sorely suspected a plot between the reporter Phocas and his patron, Severian; and Philip agreed with him. Philip determined to take the bull by the horns, and walked with Eutyches to the 421 lodging of Phocas. Philip never attempted a ruse. If he carried a point, it was always by frank forthrightness.

‘Phocas,’ he said, ‘we love the Patriarch, and have reason to fear that the present exasperation of the Court against him must be based on travesties of what he really said about the Augusta’s statue. Would you mind lending us your verbatim report?’

‘That you may compare it with that of your friend Kallias,’ said Phocas, with a touch of professional jealousy, ‘and injure my reputation as a tachygraphist, to his advantage.’

‘Nay,’ said Eutyches, with the frank smile which disarmed opposition. ’We really are not capable of such small tricks. Philip has told you that we have reasons for suspecting that he whom we regard as a father is being ruined by subterranean plots. It may help us and save him if by two reports—Kallias’s and yours together—we can prove that he said nothing wrong. No reporter in Constantinople comes near you two.’

‘That boy knows how to flatter,’ said Phocas, disarmed. ’Well, you shall see my report.’

‘They saw it, and found that while in a few expressions it had been a little coloured, it agreed in the main with that of their friend.

‘Was this the report which, as people say, Severian showed to the Empress?’ asked Philip.

‘That I don’t know,’ answered Phocas; ‘but Severian paid me for a copy.’

They thanked him, and parted good friends; but Philip determined to push his inquiries a little further.

He went to Amantius; but though Amantius was Eudoxia’s chamberlain, she never shared her secrets with him. He could give no information. Nor could Briso. He had seen a manuscript, in a handwriting which he knew to be Severian’s, lying on the table of the Empress’s room. He knew no more.

‘Could you not get me a glimpse of it?’ asked Philip.

‘Any attempt to do so, my good youth, might simply cost us our heads,’ said Briso; ‘and I doubt whether any good would result from it.’

Philip’s plans were defeated. Unless God threw His 422 shield of protection over his beloved master he could now see no hope.

The bishops who were hurrying to Constantinople were deliberately poisoned against Chrysostom by his enemies, or won over by the bribes and threats of Eudoxia’s agents. One honest man, Theodotus of Tyana, finding that he was expected to take part, not in a trial, but in a conspiracy, turned his back on the capital and returned to his own diocese.

Christmas was now close at hand, and on Christmas Day the Emperor and Empress always attended St. Sophia in state. Now, however, Arcadius announced that he could not again communicate with Chrysostom until he had cleared himself of the heavy charges against him. Chrysostom replied that to clear himself was what he had always longed for, and that whenever the Emperor would summon a fair and free Council he would with the utmost pleasure appear before it. Even before the packed assemblage, which it was ridiculous to describe as a Council, he was ready to appear as soon as they formulated their charges and adduced their witnesses.

The boldness of his innocence alarmed his adversaries. What if he should appear in person, and by his innocence, his eloquence, his popularity, his array of overwhelming refutation, should scatter their trumpery falsehoods and trivialities to the four winds, and emerge from the storm more invincible than ever? This would not at all suit them. They wrote to Theophilus for counsel, and he advised them to rely exclusively on a canon of the Antiochene Council of 341 which forbade a bishop dispossessed by a synod to return to his see until he had been recalled by another synod. According to that canon, said Theophilus, John had no right whatever to be in Constantinople.

The answer of Chrysostom to this pretext was overwhelming. The Synod of the Oak was wholly incompetent; it broke every conceivable law of ecclesiastical discipline and of common equity; it was composed of Egyptian hangers-on of Theophilus. Its assembling in his own diocese to sit in judgment upon him was a direct violation of rules of the Council of Nice, on which nobody had insisted more strongly than Theophilus himself.

Next, even if the Synod of the Oak had been valid, its decrees had at the time been rejected by a much larger synod of bishops sitting with Chrysostom, including seven metropolitans.

Thirdly, Chrysostom’s return had since then been approved and his entire innocence asserted by an agreement of at least sixty bishops—nearly double the number which had voted at the Oak.

Fourthly, Chrysostom had not returned of his own accord at all, but had been carried back, almost by violence, by his people, and in obedience to the commands of the Imperial Court.

Fifthly, the Council of Antioch which passed the canon now adduced against him was an heretical Council, of which the authority was repudiated by the Church; and this very canon could have no better proof of its worthlessness than that it had been forged as an implement of oppression to overthrow the holy Athanasius.

Against these decisive considerations the episcopal conspirators raged in vain. At last they urged the Emperor to hear the matter pleaded by ten bishops on either side. What Severian’s party lacked in argument they compensated by a noise and bluster so unseemly as to threaten scenes of violence in the Emperor’s very presence. Awaiting a moment’s lull in the wild storm, Elpidius, Bishop of Laodicea—an aged and blameless prelate, with white hair and beard, and venerable aspect, who was on the side of Chrysostom—arose. He said in his quiet voice: ‘Emperor, will you ask Severian and his party whether they are ready to subscribe to the creed of the Council of Antioch? If they cannot do this the Council was heretical and its canons are invalid.’ The opponents of Chrysostom were thunderstruck by this very simple but unexpected proposal, which Arcadius, with a smile, declared to be excellent. They stood silent; but at last, out of mere bravado, they said they would subscribe to the faith of the Council of Antioch, and broke up the discussion. They never dared to do what they had promised, and excused themselves by the monstrous pretence that the promise had only been extorted by force.

This might have seemed a triumph for the Patriarch; 424 but it was fruitless. Eudoxia had decided to expel Chrysostom, if not by semi-legal methods, then by open tyranny. Might should be right; and if any of the bishops who were friendly to him refused to succumb either to bribes or menaces, then the Patriarch should be expelled in spite of them, and with complete disregard to their remonstrances.