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           Title: Gathering Clouds: A Tale of the Days of St. Chrysostom
      Creator(s): Farrar, Frederic William (1831-1903)
     Print Basis: New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1895
          Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All; Biography; Biotarget=chrysostom; History
      LC Call no: PZ3.F243 G
   LC Subjects:

   Fiction and juvenile belles lettres

   Fiction in English
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GATHERING CLOUDS

  A TALE OF THE DAYS OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM

   BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
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DARKNESS AND DAWN;

   Or, Scenes in the Days of Nero.

   AN HISTORIC TALE.

   8vo. $2.00.
     _________________________________________________________________

   LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.

   NEW YORK AND LONDON.

GATHERING CLOUDS

A TALE OF THE DAYS OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM

BY

FREDERIC W. FARRAR, D.D.

DEAN OF CANTERBURY

AUTHOR OF ‘DARKNESS AND DAWN,’ ETC.

   NEW YORK

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

   AND LONDON

1895

   Copyright, 1895,

   By F. W. FARRAR.
     _________________________________________________________________

   All rights reserved.

   TROW DIRECTORY
   PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
   NEW YORK

FILIIS CARISSIMIS

R. A. F.   E. M. F.   F. P. F.   I. G. F.

HANC CORRUPTÆ QUIDEM ECCLESIÆ

FIDEI TAMEN INCOLUMIS ADUMBRATIONEM

D. D.

PATER AMANTISSIMUS
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  PREFACE
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   In ‘Darkness and Dawn’ I endeavoured to illustrate in the form of a story an
   epoch of surpassing historical and moral interest—the struggle in the first
   century between a nascent Christianity armed only with ‘the irresistible
   might of weakness,’ and a decadent Paganism supported by the wit, the
   genius, the religion, the philosophy, the imperial power, and all the armies
   of the world. I showed that the victory of Christianity was won by virtue of
   the purity and integrity which it inspired; and that nothing was able to
   resist a faith which placed the attainment of the ideal of holiness within
   the reach of the humblest of mankind. I tried to show some glimpse—so far as
   it was possible—of the frightful spiritual debasement for which a heathendom
   which had become more than half atheistical was responsible; and of the
   noble characters which Christianity developed into a beauty till then not
   only unattained, but unimagined, alike in the high and in the low. So far as
   the historic outline was concerned the picture was not an imaginative
   landscape, but an absolute photograph. Every circumstance, every particular,
   even of costume and custom, was derived directly from the history, poetry,
   satires, and romances of classic writers, or from the literature and remains
   of the early days of Christianity. If I had not followed this method I
   should not have been faithful to the main object which I set before me.

   I acknowledge with gratitude the kind reception which was accorded to
   ‘Darkness and Dawn’ by a large number of readers; and, from many
   communications which have reached me, I trust that I did not wholly fail in
   making my aim understood and appreciated. I did not appeal to the ordinary
   novel-reader. I wished to create an interest far deeper and higher than that
   of passing amusement.

   I dwell on this because my plan in the following pages is closely analogous
   to that which I endeavoured to follow in ‘Darkness and Dawn,’ though the
   truths which I desire to illustrate and the characteristics of the age with
   which I have to deal are altogether different.

   I there showed the influences which enabled the Church to triumph over the
   world: it is now my far sadder task to show how the world reinvaded, and
   partly even triumphed over, the nominal Church. I there showed how the
   Darkness had been scattered by the Dawn: I have here to picture how the Sun
   of Righteousness, which had risen with healing in his wings, was
   overshadowed by many ominous and lurid clouds. ‘Of the Byzantine Empire,’
   says Mr. Lecky, ‘the universal verdict of history is that it constitutes,
   without a single exception, the most thoroughly base and despicable form
   that civilisation has yet assumed…. The Byzantine Empire was pre-eminently
   the age of treachery…. The Asiatic Churches had already perished. The
   Christian faith, planted in the dissolute cities of Asia Minor, had produced
   many fanatical ascetics, and a few illustrious theologians, but it had no
   renovating effect upon the people at large. It introduced among them a
   principle of interminable and implacable dissensions, but it scarcely
   tempered in any appreciable degree their luxury or their sensuality.’

   The apparent triumph of Christianity was in some sense, and for a time, its
   real defeat, the corruption of its simplicity, the defacement of its purest
   and loftiest beauty.

   Yet, however much the Divine ideal might be obscured, it was never wholly
   lost. The sun was often clouded; but behind that veil of earthly mists, on
   the days which seemed most dark, it was there always, flaming in the zenith,
   and it could make the darkest clouds palpitate with light. No age since
   Christ died was so utterly corrupt as not to produce some prophets and
   saints of God. These saints, these prophets, in age after age, were
   persecuted, were sawn asunder, were slain with the sword by kings and
   priests; but the next generation, which built their sepulchres, had, in part
   at least, profited by their lessons.

   ‘The Church,’ said St. Chrysostom, ‘cannot be shaken. The more the world
   takes counsel against it, the more it increases; the waves are dissipated,
   the rock remains immovable.’

   In reading this story, then, the reader will be presented with an historic
   picture in which fiction has been allowed free play as regards matters which
   do not affect the important facts, but of which every circumstance bearing
   on my main design is rigidly accurate, or, at any rate, is derived from the
   authentic testimony of contemporary Pagans, and of the Saints and Fathers of
   the Church of God.

   F. W. Farrar.
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BOOK I
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ANTIOCH
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  CHAPTER I

  THE GATHERING STORM


   Phœbeæ lauri domus, Antiochia

   Turbida…et amentis populi male sana tumultu.

   Ausonius, Ord. Nob. Urbium.

   February 26, a.d. 387, was a memorable day in the fortunes of Antioch, the
   loveliest and one of the most famous capitals of the Eastern Empire.

   On that morning a herald had proclaimed to the people that, owing to the
   necessities of the imperial exchequer, the great Emperor Theodosius had
   decided to levy a subsidy on the most opulent cities of his dominion; and
   that Antioch, renowned all over the world for her luxurious prosperity,
   would be required loyally to pay her share.

   The ‘ignorant impatience of taxation’ is inherent in human nature, and there
   is no monopoly of it either in modern times or in the British nation. If it
   was necessary that cities should be taxed in proportion to their wealth, the
   contribution of Antioch would form a large quota of the sum which had to be
   raised. She had Phœnicia to the south, and Asia Minor to the north. The rich
   beauty of the vegetation which clothed her plain testified to the unwonted
   fertility of her soil. Nowhere were more blooming vineyards than those which
   clothed the slopes of her Mount Silpius. The deep and rapid waters of her
   river—the legendary Orontes—not only clothed the banks with flowering masses
   of pink oleander and delicately scented jasmine, but also refreshed her
   groves of laurel and myrtle and irrigated her gardens full of every
   delicious fruit. Caravans from Mesopotamia and Arabia brought to her all the
   riches of the East through the passes of Lebanon. Her fresh lake and her
   rushing rivulets supplied her with fish and ample stores of food. Ships from
   every port of the Mediterranean poured the abundance of many lands into her
   harbour of Seleuceia. Wealthy proprietors—Greeks, Romans, Jews, Syrians—had
   thronged to her suburbs, to fix their voluptuous homes in scenes where they
   could enjoy the soft western winds which, even in winter, tempered her
   climate. There, in courts and villas lustrous with marble and enriched with
   the finest works of ancient art, they would loll on soft couches beside
   fountains which cooled the summer heat. No wonder that Antioch on the
   Orontes was one of the favourite residences of all who loved the delights of
   effeminate indolence, diversified by wild dissipations of thrilling
   excitement. And was not the delightful grove of Daphne only five miles
   distant—enchanting Daphne, with its rose-gardens and perennial fountains and
   abounding shades? Who could be dull if he went there to watch the Pagan
   pilgrimages which at one time had made it ’a perpetual festival of vice’?
   The self-restraint of Christianity had, indeed, controlled the ‘Daphnic
   morals’ which had once filled the sanctuary of Apollo with gayest revelries.
   Constantine’s statue to his mother, St. Helena, had usurped the reverence
   once given to the marble colossus of the god of song. But the road to Daphne
   still passed through gardens and palaces, and in the ten-mile circuit of the
   old Paradise of Heathendom the possibilities of pleasure and amusement were
   not yet utterly extinct.

   But if the delightfulness of Antioch had made it the chosen home of so many
   hereditary millionaires, successful merchants, and ‘gorgeous criminals,’
   what was more reasonable than the demand that the city should contribute its
   fair share to the urgent needs of the Empire? Theodosius was compelled to
   gratify his hungry soldiery by some sort of donative, and that was
   impossible without fresh taxation. It was not a question of choice, or of
   display and luxury, but of dire necessity, if the army, on which depended
   the defence of the whole Empire, was to be kept in allegiance and good
   humour.

   The soft Antiochenes did not see the matter in this light. The proclamation
   of the imperial requisition had been received in the most indignant spirit
   by the multitude assembled in the great Forum. Usually, all public business
   was accompanied by shouts, acclamations, and intense excitement, and not
   infrequently by the jests and witticisms for which the quick and volatile
   multitude of Antioch was celebrated. But on the present occasion there had
   been neither applause, nor shouts, nor jokes. The grim silence struck chill
   into men’s hearts, like the hush before the outburst of a storm.

   The governor of the city, who rejoiced in the sounding title of ’Count of
   the East,’ had been accompanied to the scene by all his high officials, and
   by his side sat the most celebrated literary man of the day, the Pagan
   sophist Libanius, the chief instructor of all the intellectual youths who
   aimed at oratorical distinction. Libanius was a native of Antioch, and,
   struck by the ominous stillness, the Count turned to him with uplifted
   eyebrows, as though to ask for an explanation of the strange phenomenon.

   ‘This is something quite new to me,’ said Libanius. ’When a multitude is too
   sullen even to roar or hiss there is room for anxiety. “I fear lest from
   this silence calamity should burst forth.”’

   ‘Tush!’ said the angry Governor. ‘It is only another phase of the foolery of
   this mongrel population of Syrians, Greeks, and Jews. I beg pardon of your
   patriotism, Libanius, but you are too cosmopolitan not to recognise that the
   ordinary Antiochene is an amalgam of frivolity and prejudice.’

   ‘This subsidy will heavily tax their resources,’ said the orator.

   ‘Nonsense!’ said the Governor. ‘A little hæmorrhage will do all the good in
   the world to their plethora. Do the fools think they can have all the
   privileges of government for nothing? To what do they owe their wealth, if
   not to the decade of peace and economy which the great Theodosius has
   secured for them? And yet they murmur at this very modest proposal. They
   treated your friend, the Emperor Julian, in just the same way. He asked for
   necessary funds, and they yelled at him in the Circus, “Plenty of
   everything; everything dear!” What would happen to the Empire but for our
   strong Emperor? It would break into fragments, like the vertebræ of a
   serpent which an eagle has dropped out of its talons, and each vertebra
   would turn into a new serpent to sting all the rest. Here are the Goths and
   the Isaurians and the Vandals, and I know not how many nameless barbarians,
   hanging on all our frontiers and threatening to merge us in floods of
   ignorance and rapine. After the defeat of Adrianople there seemed to be
   nothing between us and destruction. Theodosius has given us peace, unity,
   fiscal reform, and wise administration. But for him Antioch would have been
   more surely laid in ruin long ago than by the worst of her earthquakes.’

   ‘He might economise,’ said Libanius.

   ‘Nay,’ said the Count, ‘you are not fair to him, Libanius. You are a Pagan,
   and he has done more to suppress the worship of the old gods than anyone
   since Constantine. This requisition is in reality a signal proof of his
   economy. This is the ninth year of his reign, and, nominally, the fifth year
   of the boy Arcadius. You know that on such anniversaries every soldier in
   the army expects to receive five gold pieces. The sum required would drag a
   Crœsus into the mire. It cost the young Valentinian sixteen hundred pounds
   of gold. It was to avoid the necessity for two ruinous donatives that
   Theodosius determined to antedate by a year his own decennalia, and unite
   them with the quinquennalia of his son. The poor are already overtaxed. What
   could he do but turn to the rich?’

   ‘Let us get back to the Prætorium,’ said Libanius hurriedly. ’I don’t like
   the look of the mob and their sinister silence.’

   ‘Oh! it is nothing,’ said the Governor. ‘Half an hour hence they will be
   roaring for the Green or the Blue factions of charioteers in the Circus, or
   crowding round a sword-juggler in the street of Tiberius.’

   ‘Nevertheless, let us hurry back,’ said Libanius. ‘There have been riots in
   Alexandria, and it required strong measures to put them down.’

   The party of officials, surrounded by their small but glittering escort,
   made its way to the Prætorium, which was at no great distance. Libanius was
   in bad spirits.

   ‘Look,’ he said, ‘at yonder grim, gigantic head on the slope of Mount
   Silpius.’ He pointed to the Charonium which stood out in the sunshine, but
   cast a dark shadow on the mountain behind. ‘The huge features seem to frown
   terribly on this lovely city.’

   ‘Sheer imagination!’ said the Governor; ‘but—what is that?’

   ‘One of the imperial archers, who had been posted at the omphalos in the
   centre of the Colonnade of Antiochus Epiphanes, came running up to the
   Governor’s escort at full speed and in obvious alarm.

   ‘What means this rudeness, you white-faced coward?’ said the captain of the
   escort to him in a stern voice. ’Where are your manners? Do you want to know
   the feel of the rhinoceros-hide round your shoulders?’

   ‘No more coward than you, sir captain,’ said the archer; ’but this is no
   time to bandy words.’

   ‘What is the matter?’ asked the Governor, who had overheard the brief
   altercation. ‘Bring the archer here.’

   ‘The city is in an uproar, my lord,’ said the man, stepping forward.
   ‘Listen!’

   They listened, and there came to their ears a dull roar like the sound of
   many waters. It was the angry hum of voices, broken every now and then by
   cries for vengeance. The Count of the East looked uneasy; the fine features
   of Libanius had settled into the deepest pallor.

   ‘Is the crowd dangerous?’ asked the Governor.

   ‘Most dangerous,’ answered the soldier. ‘This is no mere faction fight of
   the amphitheatre. I was standing by the statue of Apollo, in the Tetrapylon,
   when fierce groups came surging from Singon Street in one direction and
   Herod’s Colonnade in another, in mad rage. I never heard so many hot curses
   in my life, and I have heard a good many. A yelling mob was gathered round
   the statue of the “Fortune of Antioch,” calling down the vengeance of the
   gods with uplifted hands. Only one man tried to allay the excitement. It was
   John the Preacher; and though all the Christians love him, and even the Jews
   and Pagans respect him, his words were of no avail. If some of the
   Church-people had not forced him away he would have been half torn to pieces
   by the mob. Hark, my lord! I see them in the distance, I hear the trampling
   of their feet. In ten minutes more they will be upon you. Take refuge in the
   palace.’

   ‘Is it the riff-raff of the Forum?’

   ‘No, your Excellency,’ said the archer. ‘I saw some of the chief men of the
   city among them, even senators and old officers of the army. The whole city
   is in wild fury.’

   ‘Make your way home with all speed by back streets,’ said the Count to
   Libanius. ‘Captain, take a dozen of my escort, ride under the wall to the
   Golden Gate, and make your way to Daphne. To the palace, soldiers!’

   He drew the sword with which he was girded in sign of his office, and the
   escort rode at a gallop, across the bridge which spanned the Orontes, into
   the gorgeous palace of the old Seleucid kings, which was used as the
   residence of the governor. They were not a moment too soon.
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  CHAPTER II

  THE RIOT


   Continuoque animos vulgi et trepidantia bello

   Corda licet longe præsciscere.

   Verg. Georg. iv. 69.

   The gates were closed, and some twenty resolute soldiers stood on guard
   outside. With spears and drawn swords they kept the threatening mob at bay.
   The foreign athletes and adventurers who formed the mass of the crowd,
   though bent on mischief, were worthless cowards, and did not like the look
   of bare steel.

   ‘Let us away to the Baths of Caligula,’ shouted one of the rioters; and the
   multitude, with an answering shout, rushed off towards the valley of the
   torrent Parthenius, near which the Baths were built. Rushing in
   tumultuously, they swept the attendants before them, smashed the benches,
   broke the taps, daubed the frescoes with mud, tore down the candelabra,
   broke off the heads and noses of the statues, hacked at the trees in the
   grounds with axes, and in ten minutes committed ravages which it took years
   to repair.

   When they had wrecked the Baths the furious mob streamed back to the palace.
   The little band of soldiers still stood before the gates. The captain kept a
   brave mien, though he saw that it would be hopeless for his handful of
   comrades to hold out against the rush of thousands.

   ‘What do you want?’ he called in stentorian tones to the foremost rebels.

   ‘The Governor! the Governor!’ they shouted.

   ‘He is no longer here,’ said the captain, And this was true, for, as he had
   no troops at hand, the Governor had availed himself of the brief respite to
   escape by a back way, and ride off to summon a detachment of guards, who
   were encamped near the grove of Daphne to prevent the disorders which
   frequently arose from the contending jealousies of Christians and Pagans.

   ‘Then look out for yourselves,’ yelled the mob, ‘for we mean to burst in!’

   ‘Open the doors, men!’ said the captain. ‘I will enter last. When we are in,
   close them, and escape.’

   ‘The soldiers with swift discipline executed the manœuvre; and no sooner had
   the captain stepped inside than the sound was heard of the heavy bolts and
   bars being shot into their places.

   But the mob was not so to be baffled. They rained blows upon the gates with
   axes and hammers, and at last improvised a battering-ram from the top of a
   marble bench, until the oaken valves were shattered and fell inwards with a
   crash. Through the courtyard the people rushed into the great Hall of
   Judgment. It was empty, but the awe of the place, where they had heard so
   many sentences of death passed upon offenders, fell for a few moments on
   their minds. Round the chair of state at the back of the apse, in which the
   Count of the East often sat with his assessors, rose the bronze and marble
   statues of the imperial family. Highest of all, with the diadem round his
   brow, the arm outstretched as though to give command, clad in the cuirass
   with the Gorgon head at its centre, towered the figure of Theodosius. Beside
   the statue of the Emperor stood that of Flaccilla, the beloved consort whom
   he had so recently lost, whose gentle nature had always exercised a
   beneficent sway over his tempestuous impulses. On either side of them were
   the smaller statues of their two sons—Arcadius, a boy of nine, and Honorius,
   a child of five. [1] A little on one side was the statue of Count
   Theodosius, the brave father of the Emperor. After saving the East from
   imminent peril, he had fallen a victim to the jealous ingratitude of the
   Emperor Valens, and deserved the remorseful homage of every loyal subject,
   whether in the East or West.

   The ‘divinity which doth hedge a king’ surrounded with tenfold protection
   the majesty of a Roman emperor. He was the one bulwark between civilisation
   and chaos. It is true that since the days of Constantine, as before them,
   the reigns of these Cæsars and Augusti had been brief, and their fate for
   the most part terrible. In the three centuries which had elapsed between
   Julius Cæsar and Constantine there had been sixty-two emperors, so that
   their average reigns had scarcely exceeded five years. Of these sixty-two,
   no less than forty-seven had died violent deaths. Forty-two had been
   murdered, three had committed suicide, one had perished in a rebellion, two
   had abdicated, one had been drowned, one had mysteriously disappeared.
   Eleven only of the entire number had died in the ordinary course of nature.
   Nor had the state of things been much better in the eighty-seven years which
   had elapsed since the death of the first Christian emperor. Their superhuman
   exaltation continued to be nothing but a dizzy precipice. A glance at their
   fates reveals a perfect Iliad of disasters. Constantine, indeed, had died in
   his bed, but not until he had imbrued his hands in the blood of his eldest
   son, Crispus. Of Constantine’s three sons, Constantius inaugurated his reign
   by a massacre of the seed-royal; Constantine II. perished in attempting to
   invade the realm of his brother Constans; Constans was murdered by his own
   soldiers; Gallus was beheaded by Constantius; Constantius died while
   hurrying to suppress the revolt of Julian; Julian, at thirty-seven, fell,
   perhaps by the arrow of one of his own soldiers; Jovian, at thirty-two, was
   suffocated by the fumes of a brasier in a half-finished house; Valentinian
   I. died in a burst of fury at an imaginary insult; his brother Valens was
   burnt to death in the terrific rout at Adrianople; both his sons were
   murdered—Gratian at twenty-four, Valentinian II. at twenty. Of his
   successors, two only in the entire century had died by natural and
   untroubled deaths; and of their widows and families, not a few perished by
   poison, despair, or broken hearts. As the prophet Hoshea says in describing
   a similar epoch, ’

   blood touched blood’ on the crimson footsteps of the throne.

   Such had been ‘the sad stories of the deaths of kings’; yet the awful
   sacro-sanctitude of the imperial person was ideally unimpaired, and the
   spirit of the old Lex Majestatis still haunted the minds of men. Was not the
   emperor the lord of the universe?

   What would have happened next no one can tell. Perhaps the mere emblems of
   imperial power might have been sufficient to restore the people to their
   senses, and to convince them of the futility of a riot for which it was as
   certain as destiny itself that they would be called to give a heavy account.
   But now an incident occurred which swept to the winds all remorse and all
   moderation; for suddenly a stone flew over the heads of the mob, and, with a
   sharp ring, struck the cheek of the statue of Theodosius.

   A boy had flung it in mere gaiety of heart. To the boys of Antioch the riot
   had only been a wild and more than usually exciting holiday. They had not
   the smallest sense of the seriousness of that day’s proceedings. Were not
   their fathers, and even their schoolmasters—yes, and even some of the
   senators, amid the throng? Surely they must know what they were about, and
   it was not for the boys to spoil the fun. They could shy stones if they
   could do nothing else; and was not that lordly bronze statue a quite
   irresistible cockshot?

   A shout of laughter followed the ring of the bronze when the stone so
   effectually struck its mark; but it was drowned by savage cries of ‘Down
   with the Spaniard! Down with the tyrant! Down with the usurer!’ as the mob
   now swarmed on to the judgment seat, and began to strike the imperial
   statues with every implement which they could improvise. The effigies of the
   two young princes being the smallest, were naturally the first to be dashed
   off their pedestals, and were soon battered into shapeless masses.

   ‘I have got the nose of His Majesty Arcadius,’ boasted one man. ‘And I have
   got a curl of his Supreme Babydom Honorius,’ said another. ‘I beat you
   both,’ said a third, ‘for I have got one of the Spaniard’s hands entire, and
   shall keep it as a relic. I warrant you no crown gold shall be put in it for
   his favourite Goths.’

   The statue of Flaccilla was the next to fall, and neither the piety, the
   purity, nor the unassuming good temper of the dead Empress, nor the keen
   recent sorrow of the Emperor for his bereavement, were sufficient to protect
   her image from the brutal insults of the mob. But the worst indignities were
   reserved for the statue of the Emperor himself. They tore off the bronze
   diadem, and smashed it to pieces. They beat off the arms. They drove the
   eyes in with the sharp end of hammers: The equestrian statue of the Count
   his father was treated with equal contumely. They pelted, and battered, and
   tore it down, amid shouts of ‘Defend thyself, great cavalier!’ After they
   had trampled and tripudiated on all five statues to their hearts’ content,
   they tied ropes round the shattered hulks, and dragged them in triumph along
   the red granite flags of the main street and the white slabs of Herod’s
   Colonnade, finally flinging them in undistinguishable fragments at the base
   of the statue of the tutelary genius of their city.

   Encouraged by impunity, the fiercest spirits of the multitude meditated
   still more irreparable misdeeds. It was a common thing in Alexandria to add
   terror to a sedition by a fire. Why should they not try the same at Antioch?

   ‘How shall we answer for it to the Emperor?’ asked a timid voice.

   ‘May all the gods and goddesses confound him!’ shouted a Pagan rioter in the
   crowd named Hermas.

   ‘Why cannot we revolt to Maximus, as Berytus has threatened to do?’ called a
   voice.

   ‘The burgher Aretas has counselled submission, the coward! Let us burn his
   house!’ shouted Hermas, who was in a state of wild excitement.

   The counsel was adopted. Lighted torches began to appear, as though by
   magic, in many hands, and some began to fling them into the windows of the
   public buildings, and to do their best to kindle a conflagration in which
   the glorious city might have been irretrievably damaged. But, happily, at
   this moment a cry arose of ‘The archers! the archers!’ and the steady march
   of armed men was heard approaching from the Golden Gate. The Governor had
   galloped full speed to the camp at Daphne, and was returning at the head of
   an entire company. The news spread like lightning, and the crowd slank off
   in every direction. Most of them did not offer the faintest show of
   resistance, but fled the moment they caught sight of the glittering uniforms
   and the bent bows. A few only of the more resolute, who had seized swords or
   clubs, held their ground in the Tetrapylon, half sheltered by the pillars of
   the intersecting colonnades and by the pedestals of the numerous statues.
   Headed by Hermas, they made a sudden rush on the troop, and struck a dozen
   men bleeding to the ground. But the indignant archers let fly a shower of
   arrows among them, and when the crowd saw some fifty rioters fall to the
   earth, pierced through and through, they raised a yell of terror, and fled
   with wild precipitation. In the course of half an hour not a man of them was
   visible anywhere. They had taken refuge in their houses and barred the doors
   and lattices. The archers paraded the empty streets. The riot had only
   lasted three hours. By noon all was over, and Antioch lay like a city of the
   dead.
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   [1] Considerable uncertainty hangs over the exact dates of the births of
   Arcadius and Honorius.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER III

  THE AGONY, AND THE CONSOLER

     Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days?

     Isaiah xxiii. 7.

   It is difficult to describe the agony of terror which fell on the wretched
   inhabitants of the gayest city of the East when they awoke to a sense of the
   folly into which they had been driven. These soft Syrians had no real
   leaders and no settled purpose of rebellion. They had simply yielded to a
   childish impulse of vexation. They had rebelled against an increase of
   taxation which might be burdensome, but was by no means intolerable. Indeed,
   multitudes now pressed forward, anxious to pay the tax at once. How
   infinitely wiser would it have been for the people of Antioch to submit to
   the inevitable! In the dark hours of the night, and the dreary silence of a
   city reduced to torpor by paralysing fear, they cursed their insane folly,
   and gnawed their tongues for very anguish.

   For now, what had they to expect? They had exposed themselves, a defenceless
   prey, to the fury of him whom they might contemptuously call ‘the
   Spaniard,’ but who was a just and lenient emperor, to whom the whole of the
   East and the West owed the deepest debt of gratitude. Theodosius was the
   sole barrier between them and the flood of barbarians which was already
   beating with the first restless waves of an overwhelming tide against the
   confines of the Empire. Nay, not only against its confines; for the mingled
   pusillanimity and infatuation of Valens had admitted a multitude of Goths
   across the Danube, and the result of the infamous manner in which they had
   been starved and oppressed was that massacre of Adrianople, which was a more
   overwhelming catastrophe to the Empire than the old disaster of Cannæ. The
   Emperor might be but a mortal, and the purple was no protection against the
   dagger-thrust; but the power of the Empire, which for the time being he
   represented, was invincible, and what was to prevent him from obliterating
   Antioch from the face of the earth, and sowing with salt the furrows which
   would be driven over her mounds of ruin?

   There was something awful in the contrast between the city in its normal
   condition and under the black cloud of depression which now settled on her
   inhabitants. Usually, the busy hum of life did not cease till the scent of
   the lilies and jasmines breathed through the starry twilight. Through the
   colonnades bright with innumerable lamps the light-hearted crowd of many
   nationalities, and in bright costumes, used to roam about, far on into the
   night, laughing, chatting, love-making, buying, selling, and feasting their
   eyes on the splendour of the bazaars. But now the streets were deserted,
   and, if any were seen abroad, they hurried along with timid and stealthy
   tread, like ghosts, casting furtive glances to the right or left. And if in
   some byway one or two chanced to meet, they only stopped for a moment to ask
   if there were any news, or to speculate on the nature of the punishment
   which awaited the city, and might bring on many an individual some frightful
   death at the hands of the executioner. Even these hurried communications
   were rare; for many were implicated in the common guilt, and no one knew how
   to trust a neighbour, who might turn out to be an informer. Wild stories of
   portent were passed from lip to lip. Men had seen a spectral woman, tall and
   horrible, passing through all the streets with a whip, which she cracked in
   the air with terrific noise. Surely they must have been the victims of a
   demoniacal possession?

   And on the third day after the riot the spell of terror began to be broken
   by the anguish of retribution. The Count of the East, knowing that he would
   be held responsible for the deadly insult which had been inflicted on the
   Emperor, determined to show his indignation by ruthless vengeance. Men told
   each other in terrified whispers that either there had been spies of the
   Government among the rioters, or that some were turning informers to save
   their own lives. Decurions of archers, each with his little band of ten,
   were not only patrolling the streets, but were seen to stop every now and
   then at different houses, and to lead away with them some prisoner in
   chains. Even boys were arrested and dragged to the Justice Hall, and the
   street would be startled by the wild shriek of a mother who saw her bright
   lad led away to a trial which was nearly certain to end in death. Next day
   the trials began. No advocates appeared. The evidence was quickly taken
   down; the sentences were summary and frightful. The commonest doom was
   decapitation, but some, and even boys among them, were sentenced to still
   more appalling forms of death. The very first to be condemned was Hermas,
   who had been one of the most passionate and determined leaders of the entire
   riot. After a trial of less than five minutes he was sentenced to be flung
   to tigers in the amphitheatre.

   Except the Count and his assessors, scarcely anyone dared to be even a
   listener in the vast Prætorium, where the battered fragments of statues and
   the signs of violent damage bore silent but eloquent testimony to the
   ferocity of the insurgents. Only outside the door stood groups of women,
   like spectres, clad in the garments of woe. Their cheeks hollow and bathed
   in tears, and their long, dishevelled tresses defiled with dust, might have
   melted the iciest heart.

   The agony of two women was long remembered. Their sons were boys of
   fourteen, and some abject sycophant had sworn that he saw them pelting the
   sacred statues with showers of stones. They, on the other hand, swore that
   they were going to the class of their teacher when the rush of the crowd
   swept them away before it, and that they simply stood in the hall watching
   the scene, and had not flung a single stone at the statues; though, being
   Christians, they had for fun tried to hit the Gorgon head on a statue of
   Athene in a recess behind the judge’s chair. But the Governor had not
   recovered from the wrath he felt at having been driven to escape out of the
   back door of his own palace, and he condemned both boys to death.

   One of them was led out first, and his mother cried eagerly to the archer
   who held his fettered hands: ‘He is innocent; has he been set free?’

   ‘He will be, soon enough,’ said the archer brutally; for the men had been
   rendered callous by the fate of some of their comrades who during the riot
   had been beaten or stoned to death by the mob.

   ‘How is he to die?’ she faintly asked.

   ‘By wild beasts in the amphitheatre,’ said the archer. ’There will be a fine
   sight for some of you, and it will teach you a lesson.’

   With a shriek the mother sprang forward and flung her arms round the boy’s
   neck; but she was repulsed by the archers, and during the little struggle
   which ensued the second boy was led out.

   ‘Is he to die, too?’ asked his mother, with a face pale as ashes.

   ‘Yes.’

   ‘By the lions?’

   ‘No, he is to be burnt in the amphitheatre. Antioch will not be in such a
   hurry to revolt again,’ said the archer.

   But the poor woman did not hear the taunt. The shock of horror had killed
   her. She had fallen dead into the arms of her friends.

   Those frightful sentences were carried out, and many more. Even the innocent
   were burnt with torches and beaten with leaded whips to make them give
   evidence. Few witnessed the horrid scenes except the executioner. The chill
   had struck so deep into the hearts of the Antiochenes that they were too
   dejected to haunt the Circus or the Amphitheatre, which ordinarily were
   their chief resorts. Yet, if they looked out from their houses by night they
   saw the gruesome spectacle of prisoners, often among the wealthy and noble,
   led away by torchlight between two lines of soldiers, loaded with chains,
   and scarcely able to drag themselves along from the effects of torture. They
   were sometimes followed by wives or daughters, who wrung their hands in
   speechless agony. All who were able fled from the city. The brigands who
   infested the neighbourhood took advantage of this, and the Orontes daily
   swept along its waters the corpses of men who had fled from uncertain
   dangers to certain death.

   Six days after the riot it was announced that John, the great Christian
   preacher, who in later years was to be known by posterity as St. Chrysostom,
   [2] or the Golden-mouthed, intended to address the people in the Church of
   St. Babylas; and knowing that they would be safe from immediate molestation
   in that sanctuary, and longing for courage and consolation in the sick agony
   of their fear, the people thronged there in thousands.

   It was a church built in the shape of an octagon and roofed with wood from
   the grove of Daphne. The audience stood, and the building was crowded to the
   doors. Many were unable to enter, and there was not a vacant square foot in
   the church, except within the rails of the presbytery. After a brief and
   mournful Litany, John came forward, and a deep hush fell over the
   congregation.

   He was short of stature, and therefore did not address them from the pulpit,
   but from the ambo; yet the impression left by his appearance was one of
   great dignity. Let us look at him, as he pauses for a moment and glances
   round on the upturned faces of the multitude, whose hearts he was about to
   bend and sway as the breeze bends and sways the river reeds, or makes the
   yellow corn ripple before its breath into waves of light and shadow.

   He was at this time about forty years old, and his voice was yet fresh, for
   he had only been ordained presbyter the year before. For six years he had
   been deacon; but the duties of a deacon were not to preach, but to attend to
   the affairs of the Church, and look after the poor. On the other hand, he
   was already well known as a man of distinction by his writings, and as a man
   of sanctity by his ascetic life.

   He began in a low and unimpassioned tone, but from the first his voice,
   clear and resonant, and reaching to the farthest corner of the building,
   arrested eager attention. It was an eminently sympathetic voice, of which
   the accents were thrilled through and through with the emotions of the
   speaker. He never shrank from a quaint phrase or a humorous illustration if
   it came into his mind; nor were smiles, and even laughter, deemed derogatory
   in those days to the sacredness of the House of God, provided only that they
   were not caused by vulgar buffoonery or triviality. But if he could, as
   often as he chose, make the faces of a thousand listeners flash with smiles,
   he could within a few moments make them white again with tears. At one
   moment his sarcastic banter would make them blush for their own hypocrisy;
   now some winged arrow of conviction would pierce their hearts, and now he
   would break into plain thunderings and lightnings, and the boldest would
   cower before his fulminant denunciations. Two things instantly struck those
   who heard him: one was the utter fearlessness of the man, the other his
   absolute sincerity.

   As to his courage, it was impossible to hear him long without the conviction
   that ‘he feared man so little because he feared God so much.’ It was evident
   that here was no silken Pharisee absorbed in ceremonial functions, no
   self-seeking opportunist euphuistically ‘steering through the channel of
   no-meaning between the Scylla and Charybdis of Yes and No.’ If he thought it
   right and needful to say a thing, no ulterior consideration would ever
   prevent him from saying it. He left intrigue, and soft manipulations of the
   truth, and sounding utterances which said nothing, to multitudes of sleek
   arid popularity-mongering priests, who were always ready to answer men
   according to their idols. The one thing—the only thing which John cared
   for—was truth. The one thing which he despised was compromise; the one thing
   which he dreaded was to go before the God of the Amen, the God of eternal
   and essential verities, with the unclean sacrifice of a lie in his right
   hand; the one thing which he desired was to see the things that are, and to
   see them as they are. A firm believer in the great truths of Christianity,
   to which he had been converted either from heathendom or from
   indifferentism, he yet held that theology was valueless unless it were made
   the stepping-stone to godly living. That which most overwhelmed him with its
   inherent majesty was the grandeur of the moral law, and he regarded dogmas
   and observances as altogether lighter than vanity itself, unless they
   produced the fruits of a holy life.

   The sense of his sincerity was deepened in the minds of his hearers by his
   entire disdain for the allurements of the world. He did not shrink from the
   world’s power, for he was indifferent to its smile. What could the world
   give him? Did not every man in Antioch know that he was of noble birth on
   both sides, and that when he had begun a public career he had dazzled all by
   his wit and eloquence to such an extent that Libanius said he would have
   named him his successor if the Christians had not stolen him? But though he
   then had the world at his feet, he had yielded to the impulse of a soul to
   which earth had become as nothing because God had become all in all, and had
   adopted the life of a recluse. The influence of his mother, Anthusa, who,
   though left a widow at an early age, had devoted the whole remainder of her
   life to his service, had barely prevented him from at once becoming a
   hermit. She had taken him by the hand, and led him into the room in which he
   first saw the light, and by her tears and entreaties had persuaded him to
   live at home with her, though he practised at home all the austerities of
   the severest anchorite. His modesty, and his tremendous sense of the dignity
   of the priesthood, led him to avoid the perilous honours of the episcopate
   when they were thrust upon him. This showed his superiority to the
   temptations of earthly honour; and when Anthusa, unwilling any longer to
   resist the bent of his desires, had withdrawn her opposition, he had gone to
   the mountains, and there, with no other home than a cave, had devoted
   himself to such severe studies and such stern discipline as to have subdued
   and annihilated the desires of the flesh. He had, indeed, brought on such
   perilous indisposition that he was compelled to return to the city, lest he
   should become guilty of throwing his life away. The saintly Bishop
   Meletius—’the honey-named and honey-natured,’ as his friend Gregory of
   Nazianzus called him, who was so beloved that his portrait was still in
   every house—had ordained him a reader in 381; and a year before the riot he
   had been admitted to the priesthood by Bishop Flavian, who had succeeded
   Meletius in the disputed patriarchate.

   Such was the man who now stood up in the ambo to reprove, to exhort, and to
   console the miserable people. It was useless to speak to them on other
   subjects till he had calmed the tumult of their minds; but from the first
   sentence he uttered he had cast his spell upon them, and as his voice now
   swelled into hurricane, and now sank to a whisper, no other sound was
   audible, except an occasional storm of sobs from the listening multitude. It
   was customary to applaud in the churches, but on this and subsequent
   occasions the attention of the audience was riveted, and they would not run
   the chance of missing a word. In his later homilies during this crisis there
   were a few timid outbursts of acclamation; but they were instantly
   discountenanced by the preacher. They paid him that spellbound attention
   which speaks a thousandfold more for the power of the orator than the
   superficial signs of outward popularity.

   ‘What shall I speak?’ he said. ‘It is a time for tears, not for talk; for
   wailings, not for words; for supplications, not for harangues, such is the
   greatness of the daring crimes which have been committed, so incurable the
   sore, so deep the wound. It is too great for earthly medicament; it needs
   assistance from above. We should sit on our dunghill like Job, and other
   cities should come to us to lament our calamity. Then the devil danced over
   all the substance of the saint, now he has rioted over our whole community.
   I have waited, but I must speak at last. How terrible is our case! Even were
   the Emperor not to punish us, how should we bear the infamy of our misdeeds?
   I can scarcely speak for grief. Once nothing was more blessed than our city;
   now nothing is less delightsome. Once we filled the Forum as bees buzz round
   their honeycombs; now it is desolate. As the leaves droop and drop in an
   unwatered garden, so it is with us. We must say, as the prophet said of
   Jerusalem, “

   Our city has become like a terebinth which has shed its leaves, and as a
   garden that has no water.“ Our citizens are fleeing from the land they loved
   as from a home wrapped in conflagration.

   Yet it is not for these things that I blush and am confounded. Last year our
   houses were shaken with earthquake; now it is the very souls of their
   inhabitants which shake and tremble. Must we not cry, “

   Send for the wailing women, and let them come“? Ay, weep, and let your
   eyelids stream with tears. We have wronged him who has no equal among men;
   we can only fly for protection to the King of Heaven. Unless we gain His
   mercy there is no consolation left for our recent misdoing.

   ‘Oh, let us awake, then, to a sense of our sins. Repress and punish the
   oaths and blasphemies, which are so common among you. You would not listen
   to my exhortations before; act upon them now. Nay, applaud me not. I care
   not for such praise. The only glory I desire is to see you following my
   counsels. I would rather see the eyes of one among you wet with the tears of
   penitence than that this church should reverberate with the hollow echoes of
   fugitive popularity.’

   And then, with perfect faithfulness and fearlessness, he seized his
   opportunity, and urged upon them the duty of making this an occasion for
   signal penitence. He warned them of the vanity and uncertainty of riches,
   and urged them to the duty of almsgiving. He set before them that their
   great calamity might be turned into a precious boon of Heaven if it wrought
   in them a deeper sincerity and holier aims. He pointed them to God as their
   hope and strength, a very present help in trouble; and so he ended his first
   great discourse, ‘On the Statues,’ with wishing to them all the blessing of
   the Eternal Peace.

   With bowed heads and faces bathed in tears the people left the great
   basilica, too much moved to join in the frivolous discussion of this and
   that phrase in the sermon, or this and that peculiarity of the orator, which
   formed the staple of their Sunday chatter at other times. They still
   whispered to each other of their fears, though the manly courage of the
   orator had tinged their dark prospects with a gleam of hope. But there was
   hardly one among them who did not rejoice that when the hearts of all other
   citizens had become as water there was at least one man whose high
   dauntlessness could look calamity—yes, and even death—boldly in the face,
   and who, fearing to do wrong, feared nothing else.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [2] We find the name ‘Chrysostom,’ or ‘Golden-mouth,’ first given him by St.
   Isidore of Hispala before a.d. 636; but Theodosius II. is said to have
   applied the term to him before the middle of the fifth century.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER IV

  TWO VISITORS BY NIGHT

     Accipiam hospitio, si nox advenis.—Plaut. Rudent, ii. 4.

   John would have been more than mortal if he had not felt some of the
   gratification which the orator derives from the sense of his own power. Nor
   could he be otherwise than conscious that among the hungers, fevers,
   appetites, and malignities around him he was wielding the power of a true
   man. But he resisted all tendency to pride; and mere vanity could have no
   place in a soul so noble as his.

   He lived in Singon Street, in which, as he delighted to narrate, Paul and
   Barnabas had also lived when they first began to preach to the Gentiles, and
   had won so many converts that the brethren were first called ‘Christians’ at
   Antioch. Those who had fixed on that hybrid nickname, half Greek and half
   Latin in form, and expressive of a Jewish conception, had little dreamed
   that a title which was then synonymous with stupid fanatic and
   semi-malefactor was to become the most glorious in the world.

   As the great preacher walked home in the gathering dusk his eyes sought the
   ground, his lips moved in silent prayer. For though he had spoken in terms
   of lofty encouragement, he had not concealed from his hearers the awfulness
   of the crisis, and his hope was placed far less in man than in the living
   God.

   He was somewhat weary after his effort, and looked forward to one of those
   evenings of quiet study which he dearly loved. His mother, Anthusa, met him
   on the threshold, and strained him to her heart. She had prepared for him
   one of those frugal meals of fruit and vegetables which alone he would take,
   and she had placed the lamp on the table of his little room. The house was
   furnished with extreme simplicity, but the taste and the beauty of many of
   the objects in the court and hall and tablinum showed that it had belonged
   to a person of distinction. For John’s father, Secundus, was an officer who
   had risen to the high rank of an illustris, and had bequeathed an ample
   provision to his widow. If the undisputed control of this patrimony had been
   in the hands of Chrysostom, very little would have been left undevoted to
   works of beneficence. He had reduced his own wants to the simplest
   necessities of life.

   He had scarcely ended his slight supper when he was surprised by a low
   summons at the door. Phlegon, the slave, who opened it—a slave in name only,
   but treated like a brother beloved—hesitated to interrupt his master’s
   studies, and told the stately stranger that unless it was a case of sickness
   or spiritual urgency John did not see visitors at so late an hour.

   ‘He will see me,’ was the answer. ‘Tell him that Libanius desires an
   interview.’

   John arose immediately on hearing the name, and hastened to salute his
   former teacher. ‘What brings the world-famous orator and worshipper of the
   gods to the house of the Christian presbyter?’ he asked.

   ‘I come, John,’ he said, ‘to talk to you about the truly deplorable state of
   the city. Can nothing be done for this miserable people?’

   ‘If anyone can do anything for them it should be Libanius,’ answered
   Chrysostom. ‘You are not like us poor Christians. You are known to all the
   noble and the mighty. The Count of the East is your personal friend.
   Further, men know that you sympathise with the miserable, for they have read
   the admirable letter, which does you so much credit, on behalf of a poor man
   oppressed by a cruel governor. Why not go to Constantinople, and plead the
   cause of Antioch before the Emperor?’

   ‘I?’ answered Libanius. ‘It is eight hundred miles off. The mountains of
   Taurus lie deep in snow. My life has not suited me for such sacrifices. And
   the effort would be useless. Theodosius is a rough Spanish soldier with no
   literary culture. My polished periods would be wasted on him. Besides, he is
   a Christian, and detests us who do not believe in the Nazarene.’

   ‘It is idolatry and Pagan sins that have brought down his retribution on our
   city,’ said Chrysostom.

   Libanius waved his hand with a gesture of deprecation. ‘We will not enter
   into that discussion now,’ he said. ‘If Zeus hurled his lightnings every
   time men sinned, he would soon be weaponless. But have you nothing to
   suggest?’

   ‘I have,’ said Chrysostom. ‘There are a hundred thousand Pagans in Antioch,
   and none of them will help. Even their advocates will not plead for the
   accused in these cruel days. There are thousands of Jews in Antioch, but
   neither they nor their Archon will lift a finger; for though Herod
   beautified the city, they still see the great Cherubim of their Temple where
   the hated Titus fixed them over our city gate. But Flavian, our bishop, will
   plead for us all. He is old. The journey is long and painful. The weather is
   wintry. His sister is dying, and Lent, with all its extra burdens, is close
   at hand. But the brave old Bishop will face every toil and every peril, and
   will leave his dying sister, and has yielded to the entreaty which I and
   others have urged upon him. He has already started. I hope much from his
   intercession.’

   ‘I rejoice to hear it,’ said Libanius. ‘It will immensely promote the cause
   of you Christians. And, though I believe not in your creed, this I will say
   for you, that you have hearts of pity. Julian himself, my great and friendly
   Emperor, the last defender of the gods, reproached us with our indifference
   to the sufferings of our fellow-men. And, heavens! what women you Christians
   have! What beautiful Pagan widow of twenty would have remained a widow all
   her days, as your mother, Anthusa, has done, to serve her only son? You can
   never persuade me to accept your worship of the Crucified, but when I see
   your good works I feel within a little of being a Christian.’

   ‘So King Agrippa said to our Paul long ago,’ answered Chrysostom; ‘and Paul,
   whose name is the true glory of Antioch—not your grove of Daphne, nor your
   crowned Charonium—Paul answered, uplifting his fettered hands,

   “Would to God that not thou only, but all these who hear me, were altogether
   such as I am, except these bonds.” Yours, Libanius, is, as our Tertullian
   said, “The testimony of a mind naturally Christian.”’

   Libanius shook his hand. ‘It is your compassion which I admire,’ he said,
   ‘not your creed; your good deeds, not your Christianity.’

   ‘Our good deeds are our Christianity,’ answered Chrysostom; ‘that is, they
   are its test, its issue. They are the golden fruits which grow on the Tree
   of Life. Love is the fulfilling of our law, and we hold that he who doeth
   righteousness is born of God.’

   ‘Your words sound to me like the echo of far-off dreams,’ said the sophist;
   ‘but I wish I could share your good hopes of the clemency of Theodosius. I
   know him. He is frightfully choleric. You remember how philosophical your
   great Constantine was when the mob inflicted that atrocious insult at
   Edessa? They took down his brazen statue, and actually whipped it, exactly
   as boys are whipped in schools, to show that he was more fit to be a
   schoolboy than an emperor! Yet he showed no rage, sought no revenge, and did
   not punish the city at all. But Theodosius is not like that. He might
   forgive the insult to himself, for he is not without magnanimity; but he
   will not forgive the insults to his beloved Flaccilla, to his two boys, to
   his honoured father. Already all the rich are flying from this doomed city,
   and carrying their treasures with them. I feel half inclined to follow them.
   Many a city would welcome me.’

   ‘Despise such selfishness,’ said Chrysostom; ‘choose the nobler part. Stay
   here, and throw the shield of your eloquence and your influence over the
   trembling populace.’

   Libanius mused for a few moments with bowed head. ’I will,’ he said; ‘I
   will. After all, what matters it? Man, as Pindar sang, is but the dream of a
   shadow. Farewell, John. You are a braver man than I, my old pupil; but we
   will work together.’

   As Libanius stepped into the deserted street, and muffled his face in his
   flowing robe, he muttered to himself: ‘A noble fellow is John, in spite of
   his creed! His heart is better than his head. Yet he is a deeper thinker and
   a greater orator than I. It is strange!’

   And Chrysostom thought to himself: ‘He is a man of good impulses, but they
   are poisoned by timidity and self-interest. The god of this world has
   blinded his heart.’

   He composed himself once more to his studies, but he was not destined to be
   undisturbed that evening. He had not read for many moments when he again
   heard at the outer door a low but peculiarly wild and agitated knocking.

   He lifted his head to listen, and when Phlegon opened the door he heard a
   boy’s voice crying, ‘I must see John the Presbyter! I must see John the
   Presbyter!’

   ‘Who are you?’ asked the old porter, with a roughness unusual to him. ‘It is
   not for every street-boy of Antioch to come rushing here at all hours,
   disturbing the studies of the Presbyter.’

   ‘Oh, let me see him! let me see him!’ pleaded the boy.

   ‘It is dark, and late, and most of the household have gone to bed. You must
   come to-morrow.’

   ‘Oh! I must, I must see him!’ said the boy; and brushing past the astonished
   slave, he sprang to the partly opened door of Chrysostom’s study, through
   which there was a gleam of lamplight. Pushing the curtain aside, he stood
   dazed for a moment by the sudden glow after the darkness of the street, and,
   shading his eyes, caught sight of the Presbyter seated with a manuscript
   before him. Chrysostom saw at once from his style of dress that he was a
   young boy, probably the son of one of the wealthier traders of Antioch,
   while the golden bulla which hung down over his tunic showed that his father
   was a Pagan. He saw, too, that he did not belong to the lower class of the
   Antiochene gamins, the noisy and mischievous hangers-on of the dregs of the
   Forum. His neat dress, the bright eyes, the ingenuous features on which
   there was none of the furtive look of vice, the dark curls which it was
   evident had known a mother’s tendance, won for him a kindly feeling before
   he spoke.

   But Chrysostom had barely time to glance at him when the boy flung himself
   down on the floor, and, grasping the hem of the Presbyter’s toga, kissed it,
   and began to implore his pity and protection.

   ‘What is it?’ said John kindly. ‘You are a Pagan. Why do you not go to one
   of your own temples?’

   The boy was sobbing so wildly that it was some time before he could find
   voice to speak; but Chrysostom laid a kind hand upon his head, and bade him
   take courage, for he would help him in any way he could.

   ‘Oh, sir!’ he cried, ‘it is true that I am not a Christian. My father used
   to sell the little silver shrines of Apollo which the visitors to Antioch
   buy; but oh, sir! I have no father now. His name was Hermas, and he was one
   of the leaders in the riot. They flung him yesterday to the beasts in the
   amphitheatre—’

   Again he stopped, and sobbed as if his heart would break.

   —’He hated the Christian emperor, who has ruined his trade. And I know that
   my mother will die of fear and anguish, for the archers are on my track
   too.’

   ‘On yours, my poor lad? Why, what can you have done?’

   The boy turned pale as death, and glanced round the room with terror.

   ‘There is no one to hear you,’ said John; ‘speak to me without fear.’

   ‘Oh, sir!’ said the boy, ‘you will not betray me?’

   Chrysostom could scarcely forbear a smile. ’Betray you?’ he said. ‘Ah! I see
   you have never lived among Christians. No, you are quite safe, my son; and
   we Christians are taught to do good unto all men.’

   ‘Sir,’ said the boy in a low voice, and trembling in every limb, ‘it was I
   who threw that first stone which hit the statue of the Emperor in the
   Prætorium.’

   Chrysostom looked very grave. What frightful consequences had issued from
   that thoughtless act! The boy caught the expression of the Presbyter’s face,
   and cried, ’Oh, father, forgive me! I meant nothing. I was not thinking of
   the Emperor, or of the taxes. I was only amused and excited by the doings of
   the crowd.’

   ‘Did anyone see you?’

   ‘Yes, the two boys who were with me saw me. And, oh, sir!——’ Here he broke
   into such a paroxysm of weeping that he could not proceed. Chrysostom
   suffered his anguish to find its natural relief, and then asked:

   ‘Have they informed against you?’

   ‘No, sir,’ sobbed the boy. ‘Alas! alas! they are dead. When I had thrown the
   stone they began to throw stones, too, at the other pictures and statues,
   but not at the Emperor’s. And some spy saw them, and the archers dragged
   them from their homes, and yesterday——’

   Again it was long before he could speak.

   ‘Yesterday,’ he said, after a deep shudder, ‘they cast Achillas to the
   lions, and—oh, horrible! horrible!—they burned Eros, who was my dearest
   friend, in the amphitheatre. I crept there. I hid myself behind a statue of
   the Quoit-thrower. The shriek of Eros when the flames reached him will ring
   in my ears until I die. For the first time in my life I fainted away,
   and——’

   ‘But the two boys did not tell of you?’

   ‘No; they loved me too dearly, as I loved them. But I had been seen with
   them, and as my father was a ringleader in the riot—— Alas! alas!—oh, that
   shriek! those flames!’

   The boy hid his pale face in Chrysostom’s robe, and gave way to unrestrained
   grief, during which John could only stroke his dark curls in pity.

   ‘But,’ he asked, ‘why have you come here? What can I do for you, my son?’

   ‘Oh! hide me, father. Hide me for the sake of the immortal gods. Oh! I
   forgot—yet hide me from the avengers, for the love of Heaven. Let me not be
   flung to the lions or burnt as Eros was!’

   ‘Hide you?’ said John; ‘how can I hide you in this small house, which many
   visit? Who bade you come here?’

   ‘My mother, sir,’ he said. ‘She is ill—I fear she is dying; but friends will
   tend her, and she bade me fly in the darkness to your house, for she said
   the Christians are kinder and braver than our people. But, sir, if you
   cannot hide me I will return. The archers are certain to come for me
   to-morrow. I can but die. But oh, my mother! my mother!’

   He rose from the floor and prepared to go out; but Chrysostom bade him stay
   while he considered what to do, and at the same moment Anthusa entered.

   ‘John,’ she said, ‘who is this boy? I heard sobs and cries, and I have come
   to see if I can be of any use.’

   The boy hid his face with his hands, through which the tears streamed, while
   Chrysostom briefly told her the story.

   ‘And you would have suffered him to go, John?’ she asked in surprise. ‘That
   would have been utterly unlike you. My boy, we will save you.’

   He seized her hand with transport, and kneeled and kissed it.

   ‘Nay, mother,’ said Chrysostom, ‘I never dreamed of leaving him unhelped. I
   was only perplexed what to do.’

   ‘Let my woman’s wit help you,’ said Anthusa with a smile. ‘He shall sleep
   here to-night; early in the dawn a few touches—even a veil over his eyes and
   a pallium—will suffice to disguise him as though he were one of my girls,
   and I will go with him up the ravine to the cavern of the hermit Macedonius.
   Christian women and others sometimes go to consult him, so that even if we
   are seen on that lonely track it will excite no surprise; but at early dawn,
   and in the present deserted state of the streets, it is unlikely that we
   shall meet a single human being.’

   ‘Macedonius the barley-eater!’ said Chrysostom with a smile. ‘Imagine this
   bright Pagan lad, accustomed to the streets of Antioch, and the Circus, and
   the Amphitheatre, and the games, and all the gladness of life in youth, shut
   up in the damp, dark cavern with the old man who eats nothing but barley,
   who spends his life in scourgings and fastings and vigils! Why, mother,
   before a week was over he would almost wish to come back and face the
   archers. Remember, mother, I have tried the life, and know what it is.’

   ‘Macedonius is very wise, as well as very good,’ answered the lady. ‘I did
   not mean to leave the lad—— What is your name, my boy?’

   ‘Philip, lady; but they named me after the great Macedonian, not after your
   apostle.’

   ‘Well, I did not mean to leave you with Macedonius in the cave of Mount
   Silpius, Philip, but only to ask his advice about you.’

   ‘I have heard of him, lady, and would fain see him. The horrors of these few
   days, and the death of my friends, have entered deep into my heart. In my
   agony I found no Pagan who would help me. I would know more of the religion
   which makes men brave and kind.’

   ‘God bless you, my poor Philip,’ said Chrysostom. ‘I leave you in my
   mother’s hands. With her you will be more than safe.’

   Anthusa with her own hands prepared a little cubicle for Philip that night.
   Not one of the slaves was admitted into the secret, except her nurse Damaris
   and old Phlegon. The lad slept the deep sleep of sorrow and weariness, and
   by dawn Anthusa, accompanied by her two trusted servants, was on her way
   with him to the cave of Macedonius.

   They met no one; but near the track which climbed to the cave one of the
   vilest beggars of Antioch, half-beggar, half-brigand, saw them, and
   recognised Philip, whom he had often noticed in the streets as one of the
   brightest boys in Antioch, as he passed down Herod’s Colonnade on his way to
   school. The boy, from habit, had put on his golden bulla—an ornament unusual
   in his rank of life, but his father had seen better days—and the mendicant,
   seeing it gleam through the front of the pallium, had looked at him more
   attentively, and had penetrated his too slight disguise.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER V

  THE HERMIT AND THE BOY


   And heard an answer, ‘Wake,

   Thou deedless dreamer, lazying out a life

   Of self-suppression, not of selfless love!’

   Tennyson, St. Telemachus.

   Macedonius the hermit, the barley-eater, was seated at the entrance of his
   cavern, and enjoying—so far as he thought it not sinful to enjoy—the cool
   air of the dawn and the glorious pageant of sunrise. He allowed himself but
   little sleep at any time, and long before the dawn he had been watching the
   stars, which hung like the cressets of angels in the purple night, and shed
   on the world their almost spiritual lustre. The unintelligible mystery of
   the universe, which often lay so heavily on his soul, seemed to be lightened
   as he felt himself alone with God, amid the strength of the hills, under
   those vast and silent constellations. Then, across the dark and silent
   valley he saw the first beam of morning smite into vivid crimson the topmost
   summit of the range of Taurus, and the mountainsides began to shine as
   though the angels were pouring river after river of pure gold over their
   snowy cliffs. Then the Orontes, far beneath his feet, began to gleam out
   here and there in streaks of silver under the rich foliage of its banks, and
   he saw the grove of Daphne, with its lightning-scathed shrine of the
   dethroned sun god, and in the far distance Mount Casius flung its huge dark
   shadow over the glimmering sea.

   Accustomed to long hours of unbroken solitude, he was surprised to see three
   figures approaching him so early up the steep mountain track. It was evident
   that they were seeking his cavern home, for the rocky and scarcely
   distinguishable path led to no other spot, and had, in fact, been mainly
   worn by his own feet as he descended the cliff to fill his maple dish with
   water, or to find his winter fuel and supply his daily needs. As the figures
   approached him he recognised Anthusa, whom he had sometimes seen after she
   had waived her opposition to her son’s wish to lead the solitary life, and
   who visited John once or twice in the year when he, too, lived with the
   hermit Syrus in a mountain cave.

   She knelt for his priestly blessing, for Flavian had constrained him to
   accept the priesthood. He addressed her in few words. To be talking to a
   woman was to the hermit, as to the Pharisees of old, a perilous
   condescension, and he involuntarily drew back his robe of skin as she bowed
   before him. Anthusa knew the prejudices of his Order, though her son did not
   share them, and she briefly told him that she had come to confide to his
   protection a boy from Antioch who was in danger of his life.

   The hermit was startled by her request. He shrank from the invasion of his
   solitude. His one luxury was to feel himself far away from the world, and
   alone with God. How could he provide for a boy from the gay, guilty city
   whose temples and palaces gleamed far below? He felt inclined to refuse the
   responsibility, and Anthusa read his hesitation in his eyes.

   ‘Is the boy a Pagan?’ he asked.

   ‘He is.’

   ‘How can I be responsible for one of those servants of the demons?’

   ‘If God can bear with them, and love them,’ she said, ’cannot Macedonius?
   Had not Christ compassion on the ignorant and on those that are out of the
   way?’

   But Macedonius was still troubled. ‘How can he live on barley, as I do,’ he
   asked, ‘and endure life in this oppressive silence, where no sound is heard
   but the roar of the mountain cataracts, or the fall of crags which the
   earthquake has set loose?’

   ‘Father,’ she said, rising from her knees, ‘I know that you dare not refuse
   the charge. It is God who says to thee, “Take this boy; and save him for
   Me.” He will tell you all. Farewell, or I shall be missed at home. Philip,
   may God be with thee! We shall meet again.’

   She turned to go, and Damaris followed her. She had already taken off from
   Philip the veil and pallium, and the boy stood before the solitary in his
   everyday dress. He modestly awaited what the old man would say, but fixed
   his frank and fearless eyes on the gaunt face and emaciated form.

   Macedonius was but fifty-seven years old; but age is not told by years only.
   His eyes had grown dim with many tears, his cheeks were sunken, his hair was
   thin and grey. He sat down on a ledge of rock and leaned his trembling hands
   on a staff, for at that moment he was faint with continued abstinence. The
   long years seemed to separate him from this lad like wastes of the ‘salt,
   unplumbed, estranging sea.’ Yet as he looked at him he recalled his own
   happy, unforgotten youth. He, too, had once been as bright, as active, as
   well-knit as the boy who stood before him. Youth, which ‘dances like a
   bubble, nimble and gay, and shines like a dove’s neck or the colours of the
   rainbow,’ had once been his. He, too, had heard the siren songs singing
   enchantment to him across the smiling summer waves. To him, too, Circe, the
   daughter of the sun, had offered her charmed cup. He had plunged into the
   follies and dissipations and delirious dreams of youth, and known the fatal
   glamour of Satan’s bewitchment. Then God had broken in succession all his
   idols. He had gambled away his patrimony; he had been abandoned by his love,
   and by his friends; he had been smitten with terrible illness. And as he sat
   like the Prodigal, friendless, forsaken, penniless, in rags, and amid the
   swine, a star had looked through the midnight. For Meletius, the good
   bishop, had visited him in his illness, and through his gentle, gracious
   ministrations the snare of the fowler had been broken and he had been
   delivered.

   But when he rose from the bed of sickness, utterly changed in heart, he felt
   driven to fly from the world. Even the Church could not satisfy him, for it
   was tainted with worldliness and rent with partisanship. As a youth he had
   been accustomed to the trimming attitude of mind which made the old Bishop
   Leontius mumble the Gloria in such a way that no party could claim him for
   its own shibboleth; and he had heard the old man say, as he touched his
   white hairs, ‘When this snow melts there will be plenty of mud.’ Plenty of
   mud there was! Not even the blameless life, ‘the sweet, calm look, the
   radiant smile, the kind hand seconding the kind voice’ [3] of the much-loved
   Meletius, could exorcise the intruding world from the schism-troubled
   Church. Macedonius not only saw the sad spectacle of at least three
   Christian bishops of Antioch—an Arian and two orthodox bishops—but he saw
   the heated votaries of two such good men as Paulinus and Meletius railing at
   each other in the assemblies, and even assaulting each other in the streets.
   In vain had Meletius said to his rival, ‘We hold the same doctrines; let us
   be friends. If the episcopal chair be a source of rivalry between us, let us
   place the Holy Gospel upon it, the symbol of Christ Himself, and let us sit
   on either side of it till one of us dies, and then the other shall become
   sole bishop.’ But ecclesiasticism, theological pettiness, sacerdotal
   arrogance, and the fatal force and fascination of opinionated orthodoxy,
   were too strong for Divine charity; and the thoughts of Macedonius were not
   of these things. He cared but little for nice dogmatic definitions and
   curiously articulated formulæ; what he longed to do was to save his soul and
   keep himself unspotted from the world. He loathed the petty baseness of
   partisan wranglings, with their accompaniment of subterranean intrigues and
   bitter personalities. As though amid the spiteful flash of petty runnels
   turbid with shallow mud, he heard the far-off voices of the great sea of
   eternity. He determined to retire from the world. The ideal of contemplative
   cœnobitic communities living apart from the world under strictest discipline
   had dazzled the age in which he lived. False and unscriptural as the ideal
   was, entirely alien as it was from the example of Christ and His Apostles,
   yet in these seething and troubled times the life of ‘the sainted eremite’
   exercised a maddening fascination over countless men of high faculties,
   until this ‘unsocial passion’ leavened a great part of the Christian
   community, filling many a household with anxious forebodings and needless
   suffering. When hermits were looked upon as representing the perfection of
   Divine philosophy, it was hardly strange that the ambition to reach these
   imagined altitudes haunted many a youthful mind.

   So Macedonius had joined a little community of monks near Antioch, of which
   the famous Diodorus of Tarsus was the abbot. He sought always the most
   menial offices. But he soon found that the world could intrude even into a
   monastery. He could not escape from disputes about the episcopal claims of
   Meletius and Paulinus, and about the nice questions respecting the
   hypostatic union. Macedonius found no comfort in such matters. What he was
   aiming at in the great warfare which has no discharge was to subdue the
   flesh to the spirit, to secure a tranquil empire over himself. He left the
   cœnobium, and began to live as a hermit on the hills.

   But any empire over himself which he had gained was infinitely far from
   tranquil. As he had found that the monastic life did not involve any
   exception from trials, but only a substitution of meaner and smaller ones
   for those which had of old assailed him, so it was his bitter experience
   that by flying to the mountain cave he had not escaped either from the devil
   or the flesh. He carried himself with him as all men do, and it was contrary
   to the law of life that he should find any condition which temptation left
   unassailed.

   The conquest was granted to his sincerity, but the same reward would have
   been given to him, with less frightful struggles and more complete
   blessedness, if he had lived as Christ lived, among his kind, and not done
   violence to the laws of Nature and the ordinances of God. How constantly had
   he to wrestle with the instigations of spiritual pride! How often did the
   secret devil of his loneliness whisper into his soul high flatteries of his
   spiritual supremacy, telling him that his name and fame had spread through
   all Syria and Asia—yes, and even to the great western and southern realms of
   Italy and Spain and Africa! Thus did Satan strive to puff him up with vain
   self-exaltation in that inner world of the soul which remains untouched by
   outward ordinances. How often, in spite of his austerities—nay, not only in
   spite of, but (had he only known it) because of them—did evil and carnal
   thoughts come over him like a flood! The enfeebled body was too weakened to
   fight against the rebellious soul. His bones, as he sank back and writhed on
   the rocky floor of his cave, clashed like those of a skeleton, yet all the
   while his imagination was still rioting, in spite of himself, amid the
   sinful scenes of his youth in Antioch.

   As these thoughts passed through his mind, writing all his past history as
   on flashes of lightning, the hermit kept a long and embarrassed silence; but
   rousing himself at last, he said:

   ‘Boy, the mother of John the Presbyter told me that you would explain why
   she has brought thee hither.’

   ‘My name, sir,’ he said, ‘is Philip, and the Lady Anthusa led me here in
   disguise because I am in imminent peril of death for having flung a stone at
   the statue of the Emperor.’

   ‘You should not have done it, Philip,’ said the hermit. ’”

   The powers that be are ordained of God.“’ But when he saw that Philip hung
   his head, he added gently; ‘Tell me the whole story, lad.’

   Then, often interrupted by the barley-eater’s eager interrogations, Philip
   told him of the imperial proclamation, of the outbreak of the populace, of
   the wrecking of the Baths, of the bursting into the Judgment Hall, of the
   destruction of the statues, of the fear and silence which had afterwards
   fallen on the city, of his father’s execution, of the cruel deaths of his
   young companions—of one of which he had been the horrified spectator.

   Macedonius listened with an interest all the more intense because news from
   the world rarely reached his cave. As he heard the story he seemed himself
   to be passing through the whole scene, and, catching the contagion of the
   boy’s anguish, he was carried away by a storm of pity and indignation.
   Philip was amazed to see how his whole form seemed to dilate and his eye to
   flash with its old fire as he strode up and down the cavern when the tale
   was ended. Then, raising his hands to heaven, he said, ‘Antioch shall not be
   destroyed, shall not be decimated! Theodosius shall listen to God’s voice
   through me. Useless, I fear, and evil has been my life, but its sacrifices
   shall not have been all in vain. They have given me a right to speak. I will
   gather all the hermits of the hills around me. We will go down to Antioch.
   We will in the name of God forbid all earthly vengeance. Yes, I will at
   least render this one service to my country before I die!’

   He spoke more to himself than to his solitary listener, but again realising
   the lad’s presence, and glancing up at the sun, which was now high in
   heaven, he said, ‘Forgive me, boy; you must be hungry, and I have nothing
   for you but my sole food, which is barley; and I drink only the pure diamond
   of God which sparkles in yonder rill.’

   ‘Hunger is the best sauce, father,’ said Philip smiling.

   ‘Yes, but I cannot bid thee share my privations. Not far away is another
   hermit, whose fare is not so meagre. I will go and ask him for something for
   thee. Canst thou kindle a fire? Canst thou bake a barley-cake in the embers?
   Yes? Then, by the time it is ready I will be back.’

   Philip deftly kindled a fire, and kneaded the barley-meal into two cakes,
   and the hermit soon returned. He had brought with him some dates and dry
   grapes and figs, and the boy enjoyed them with a very healthy appetite,
   while the hermit watched him with large eyes. When the meal was over
   Macedonius said:

   ‘Boy, it is impossible for thee to stay in this my wretched abode; but four
   miles distant is the monastery of Diodore, and at this moment the great
   Bishop is in his old house. There are a few young novices there of thine own
   age, and if he will receive thee, thou wilt there find work, and safety, and
   holy companionship. I will go and intercede with him.’

   He took his staff and set forth over the steep mountain tracks. When he
   reached the monastery he was warmly welcomed by Diodore and the brethren,
   who promised to shelter Philip till the peril was over. His soul had been
   much troubled all the day; it was troubled still more by an incident of his
   return.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [3] Gregory of Nyssa.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER VI

  THE DEMONIAC


   Opfer fällen hier

   Weder Lamm noch Stier,

   Aber Menschenopfer unerhört.—Goethe.

   The mountain-range of Amanus was full of fissures and ravines, and as he
   crossed one of the deepest and darkest of these a strange and almost naked
   figure, as of one of the demoniacs of Gadara, sprang out before his path.

   ‘Away! away, Macedonius!’ it cried, with wild gesticulations. ’I know thee,
   Crithophagus. Hast thou come to torment me? Am I not wretched enough, lost
   enough? Away, away!’

   Macedonius at once recognised him, though in his dark hour he was but rarely
   seen by human eyes. It was the miserable Stagirius, before whom the pillar
   of life had once moved in golden fire, with its dark side undreamed of. The
   favourite son of a father of wealth and noble birth, everything seemed to
   smile upon his early years. His parents were Christians. He might have
   served God honourably in Church and State. But a vein of pride in his
   disposition, urging him to something exceptional, combined with an
   extraordinary veneration for the life of the desert solitaries, had led him
   to defy the wishes of his father, and to leave his rich home at Antioch for
   the grim life of the hills. A very short experience made it intolerable to
   him. He hated the nightly vigils, he grew utterly weary of the long studies
   and meditations. He felt no better, but rather, and in all senses, worse
   than he had done in the daily life of the city. His miserable soul was torn
   by struggling self-conceit and self-disgust, but false pride kept him from
   acknowledging what he felt to have been a fatal error. Thinking that other
   employment might help him, his brother-monks set him to tend a garden and an
   orchard; and, feeling the uselessness of his misdirected life, he would
   sometimes ask them in fierce petulance whether his noble hands were thus
   meant to load dung-carts and dig at roots. Then, perhaps, the penances and
   discipline would subdue him for a time to humblest self-prostration. The
   severity of the inward tempest was too much for an ill-balanced temperament
   and a frame delicately nurtured. He had become liable to convulsions and
   fits of epilepsy, which all men mistook, and which the wretched youth
   himself mistook, for demoniac possession. In vain he travelled to the most
   esteemed saints and the most celebrated martyries. He had his lucid
   intervals, but he never got over the effects of his disordered body and
   haunted imagination. In vain Chrysostom, whose own health had been for ever
   shattered by the unnatural privations of his hermitage, had written to warn
   him against this satiety of penitence, this wantonness of despairing misery.
   Stagirius continued to be the frequent victim of fits of frenzy and fierce
   impulses to blasphemy and suicide.

   At this moment Stagirius was in one of his wildest paroxysms. How he lived
   no one knew. He had not even the garment of skin-and-hair over a linen tunic
   which most of the solitaries wore. He only had a coarse cincture of goatskin
   round his loins. His eyes glared with the light of madness through the dirty
   and matted locks which streamed over his shoulders. The sun smote him by day
   and the moon by night, and the dews dropped on his nakedness. Like
   Nebuchadnezzar, he ate grass, his hair grew like birds’ feathers, and his
   nails like wild beasts’ claws, and he tore up roots for his sustenance. He
   looked scarcely human, and the terrified hermits sometimes heard his screams
   reverberated by the mountain rocks, as he fancied himself to be wrestling
   with troops of demons. His nights were haunted by frightful visions, and
   many a time he had attempted self-destruction. And this was the gay
   Stagirius, once the favourite of fortune, the envy of the youths of Antioch
   for his beauty and his wealth!

   Macedonius paused irresolutely, for he was unnerved by privations, and he
   had a horror of the madness which he attributed to the presence of malignant
   devils. As Stagirius approached him with yells and threatening gestures, he
   drew back, made the sign of the cross, and muttered the formulæ of exorcism.
   They produced no effect. Stagirius seized him by the arm, and cried, ‘I know
   thee! Away! away! lest the demon who has possession of me tear thee limb
   from limb!’

   ‘Lord Jesus, save me!’ cried Macedonius. At the name a convulsive spasm
   passed through the frame of the unhappy maniac; his face became purple, his
   eyes were distorted, he foamed at the mouth, and fell writhing on the stones
   of the ravine, where he lay as dead.

   Macedonius was lost in pity and horror. He knelt by the unconscious
   sufferer, sprinkled water over him, and supported his head upon his breast.
   After a short time Stagirius opened his eyes. Macedonius gently spoke to him
   by his name, and pressed him to eat some of the barley-cake which he had
   carried with him. Then the hermit prayed for the trembling maniac, and left
   him sane and comforted, though terribly shaken. He offered to take Stagirius
   back to his own cavern, though he was loth that Philip should see so
   deplorable a spectacle. But Stagirius refused. ‘Leave me to my misery,’ he
   feebly moaned. ’The sun has set. To-morrow I will go to Diodore. After a
   short time I will make my way to Egypt, and see the saintly Nilus. It may be
   that he will be able to drive out these demons that have seized the temple
   of my soul.’

   Weeping and deeply troubled, Macedonius blessed him. It was night before he
   reached his own cave, inexpressibly wearied with the exertions and emotions
   of the day.

   As he entered, the flickering embers of the wood-fire showed him that Philip
   had gathered himself a bed of dry leaves, and lay there in the peaceful
   slumbers of his youth.

   Moving very gently, he took his little earthenware lamp, and, lighting it at
   the feeble flames, shaded the light with his hand as he gazed at the
   sleeping boy. There he lay carelessly outstretched on the leaves, his head
   with its dark curls resting on his arm, while his breast rose and fell with
   the regular breathing of deep and placid slumber. He was the picture of
   ruddy health and strength and life, and the hermit involuntarily made the
   sign of blessing over him. Usually he scourged himself before his nightly
   orisons, but he world not do so now lest the whistling cords should waken
   the sleeping boy. But his prayer that night was full of doubt and agony. Had
   he, after all, done right in the adoption of a life so far removed from the
   ordinary conditions of humanity? Was there this unbridged abyss between the
   secular and the religious? Was selfishness the less selfish by being
   expanded to infinitude? Had not God, who placed us in the world, intended us
   to work in it, and, being in it without being of it, to use it without
   abusing it? Why should not the boy who lay so sweetly slumbering there grow
   up to be a useful, happy, Christian man, with all the innocent joy of home
   about him, meeting the heavy trials which would come to him as they come to
   all, but not increasing them by self-invented tortures?

   Then the wild vision of Stagirius came before his mind. What a deplorable
   shipwreck of high hopes! What a triumph of the impure demons was there! And
   he himself—Macedonius—what had he really gained by his will-worship and
   voluntary humility? Had his severity to the body been of any real value
   against the indulgence of the flesh? It seemed to him too late to alter his
   career. This, however, he determined to do—to make his life more useful to
   others. That vow he offered to God in his long prayers that night.

   Next morning he went with Philip over the mountains, and entrusted him to
   the care of the abbot who had succeeded Diodore. There the boy was happy.
   They employed him in rustic occupations, and gave him all such innocent
   gladness as was in their power. For the teachings of Diodore had made them a
   large-hearted community, and the young novices were under gentle and loving
   training. Mingling with these youths, seeing their quiet dutifulness,
   sharing in their lessons, Philip gradually learnt something of the essential
   truths of Christianity. Almost without knowing it, the grace of God took
   gradual hold of his heart.

   But he became in nowise enamoured of the monastic, and still less of the
   eremitic, ideal; and this was chiefly due to the dislike, almost the
   repulsion, forced upon his mind by one of the youngest of the novices. His
   name was Simeon, and he afterwards grew up to be the celebrated
   pillar-saint. Simeon was a short, strong, good-looking boy, entirely
   uneducated, who had spent most of his life as a shepherd tending the flocks
   of his parents. His head was full of fantastic perversions as to the nature
   of duty, largely mingled with the signs of degeneracy, which in these days
   would be called egomania and megalomania. He had been in a monastery in
   which the Abbot Heliodorus had lived from earliest childhood, and Simeon
   thought it was an almost miraculous merit that the Abbot ’had never once in
   his life seen either a pig or a cock!’ Philip did not feel at all edified by
   the merit, and made Simeon positively morose with the way in which he
   ridiculed his vain anecdotes about himself. Simeon told the novices how he
   once wanted to buy some fish, and when the fish-girl said falsely that she
   had none, the fish leapt out and began to jump about Simeon’s feet, till he
   quieted them by a word! The story caused an involuntary burst of
   laughter—the first laugh which Philip enjoyed since his recent troubles.
   Simeon’s pride was severely hurt by this way of receiving his supernatural
   narratives. He was still more displeased when Philip expostulated with him
   about the dirtiness of his person, asking him what religion there could be
   in that, and reminding him of a verse which he had heard one of the monks
   read: ’

   Having our minds sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed
   with pure water.’ As for the visions which this strange shepherd-boy
   constantly narrated, Philip called them mere indigestion. He disliked
   Simeon’s way of wearing a cord tied round his naked waist till it grew into
   his flesh, and his habit of keeping himself awake by leaning on a round
   piece of wood, which slipped under him if he gave way to drowsiness. When
   the Abbot heard of these extravagances he forbade them. He warned Simeon
   that such meaningless austerities might only be a sign of overweening pride.
   Simeon was so much offended that he ran away and hid himself. After long
   search and anxiety he was found in an empty cistern full of all sorts of
   objectionable reptiles. The Abbot could do nothing with the stubborn,
   opinionated, maniacally excited boy, and dismissed him to the career of
   verminiferous glory which he afterwards attained as the first of the
   Stylites. But the effect he produced on the mind of Philip was that of
   disgust: he determined that no morbid impulses should ever make him join the
   half-demented band, in which many who had been mere mendicants and criminals
   surrounded themselves with the same halo of sham sanctity which is to this
   day enjoyed in the East by many a semi-idiotic yogi or repulsive fakir.

   He never met Simeon again, but in after-years he heard, with a somewhat
   disdainful smile, of the Stylite’s performances in the barely human life
   which he spent in numberless genuflexions on the filthy summit of his
   pillar. ’I once watched him,’ said an admiring observer long afterwards,
   ‘and during his prayer he prostrated himself one thousand two hundred and
   forty-four times; and after that I left off counting.’

   Philip was a Christian in those days, and his only reply was, ‘I find
   nothing in the Scriptures as to the advantage of bowing the head like a
   bulrush, or wasting inhuman lives in an atmosphere of dirt.’

   The notion of living on the top of a pillar had not occurred to Simeon
   spontaneously. He had borrowed it from an Eastern hermit named Nicander. The
   practice was so revolting to the good sense of the West, that when a certain
   Wulfil did attempt in the sixth century to introduce it at Trèves, the
   bishop demolished his pillar; but even in the East, Nicander had been
   indignantly reproved by the good sense of St. Nilus, who, besides accusing
   him of levity, warns him that his extravagance was due to pride, and that he
   who exalted himself should be abased. [4]
     _________________________________________________________________

   [4] St. Nilus, Epp. 114, 115.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER VII

  THE JUDGMENT ON THE CITY


   Sæva Necessitas,

   Clavos trabales et cuneos manu

   Gestans ahena.—Horace.

   Twenty-two days had now passed since the riot, and such a Lent had never
   been kept in Antioch. In ordinary times it was an unholy city. Even the
   Emperor Julian, Pagan as he was, had taunted its inhabitants with their
   vices, their violence, drunkenness, incontinence, impiety, avarice, and
   rashness. But this Lent, when the people felt that the sword of Damocles
   hung over their necks by a single hair, the amphitheatre was empty, and
   whenever it was known that Chrysostom would preach, which he did frequently,
   the church was densely crowded. Usually even the Christians paid but little
   attention to sermons. Many only came to church on feast days, if then; and,
   when they came, many stayed at the back of the church among the heathen and
   the unbaptised, while the men busied themselves with secular gossip, and the
   women almost drowned the voice of the preacher with their chatter about
   their children, their woolwork, and their domestic concerns. John’s splendid
   oratory did, indeed, command their attention, and they listened to him so
   intently that the pickpockets and cutpurses were able to ply their busy
   trade among them undisturbed. But what they cared for was the rhetoric, not
   the spiritual truths; the grand sentences, not their practical application.
   When the sermon was over they broke into a cackle of conceited criticism,
   systematically turned their backs on the Holy Communion, and those that
   remained, then as now, were but as planks and broken pieces from the
   shipwreck of the congregation. But now all was different. The orator played
   on their emotions as on the strings of a harp, now elevating them to
   fortitude and resignation, now awakening the heavenly aspirations in which
   alone their souls could find repose.

   But on the twenty-second day arrived the two Imperial Commissioners,
   Hellebichus and Cæsarius. They entered the city at the head of their troops.
   The selection of such men was a hopeful sign, for they were Christians, and
   were known to be men of kindly temperament. Their lofty rank showed the
   importance which the Emperor attached to their mission, for Hellebichus was
   Master of the Forces, and Cæsarius was Count of the Offices. But they bore
   sealed despatches, and no one knew what doom might hang over the rebellious
   city. On their way the Commissioners had met Bishop Flavian, hastening to
   intercede with Theodosius; but not even to him had they been allowed to
   intimate the judgment which the Emperor had pronounced. It was morning when
   they made their entrance into Antioch, and the dejected populace lined their
   route in thousands. Ordinarily they would have ridden through festal and
   rejoicing ranks, they would have been welcomed with laughter, applause, gay
   interpellations, and garlands strewn in their path. Now they were received
   in silence by a multitude robed in garments of woe, who held out to them
   their appealing hands. They were glad when the dismal ride ended at the
   Forum. There they ascended the rostra, and read out to the breathless
   audience the sentence of the Emperor.

   It declared:

   First, that Antioch was to be stripped of its rank as the capital of Syria,
   and that the distinction was to be transferred to the rival city of
   Laodicea.

   Secondly, that until further notice all the baths, circuses, theatres,
   amphitheatres, and places of amusement in the city were to be closed.

   Thirdly—and this came on them as the crushing climax of misery—the trials
   which had been already held by the Count of the East were to be revived, and
   all who were proved guilty of complicity in the riot were to be severely
   punished.

   Fourthly, the Imperial dole of bread to the poor, which was distributed at
   Antioch, as at Rome and Constantinople, was henceforth to be stopped.

   Such was the decree, and no one could deny that it was just and moderate;
   but if it removed the agony of dread, it substituted for it the reality of
   depression. To the proud patriotism of the Antiochenes it seemed an
   insufferable humiliation that the paltry Laodicea should be crowned with the
   privileges of which they were deprived. The closing of the places of
   amusement, and, above all, of the public baths, not only eclipsed their
   gaiety, but involved a loss of health and comfort. Worst of all, a terrible
   trial for life or death, torture or confiscation, hung over numbers of the
   citizens, and especially those who stood highest in rank and wealth.

   They listened in mute despair, and then the Commissioners adjourned to the
   Hall of Justice. There a long list of names was read out of those who had
   been accused, and among them was the name of the boy Philip. Archers were
   despatched on all sides for their arrest, and the mean wretch who had seen
   Philip on his way to the cave of Macedonius gave eager information where he
   might probably be found. That night he was seized at the monastery of
   Diodore. The brothers would doubtless have claimed for him the rights of
   sanctuary; but the archers caught him in the orchard outside, and took him
   with them to Antioch, with a cord drawn round his wrists so tightly as to
   cause him great pain. That night he was thrown with masses of the humbler
   offenders into the common prison. All that the brethren could do was to send
   to Macedonius and tell him the fate of his young charge. It made his soul
   burn with still hotter indignation, and he spent the next twenty-four hours
   in summoning the hermits of the hills from every side to meet him on the
   following morning at the point where the road down the ravine of Parthenius
   led to the city. Chrysostom also was informed of the boy’s fate, and that
   very night, regardless of danger, he visited him, comforted him, soothed his
   terrors, and promised to use every effort in his power to procure his
   acquittal from the capital sentence. He could not promise that he could save
   him from the horrible scourge, which in the case of a boy often caused
   death, and seemed almost worse than death. It was the suspense, the
   uncertainty, which gnawed so deeply into Philip’s heart, and it was amid
   this anguish that, encouraged and comforted by Chrysostom, he offered his
   first timid prayer to the Son of God. That prayer was heard.

   The Commissioners, who numbered many friends among the society of Antioch,
   felt profoundly saddened by the task which they were ordered to fulfil.
   ‘What a difference this city presents to its aspect the last time I visited
   it,’ said Cæsarius as he sat at supper that evening. ‘Then the waves of life
   flashed like the Orontes in the sunshine. Now there is nothing around us but
   lamentations and mourning and woe.’

   ‘Yes,’ answered Hellebichus, ‘but if it was a joyous city, it was also a
   tumultuous city, and full of stirs. It has set to the Empire the worst
   possible example, and justice demands punishment, though I wish the
   infliction of it had fallen to other hands than ours. At least we can do our
   best to temper justice with mercy.’

   Next morning they made their reluctant way to the Court of Justice, in which
   many of the accused, and Philip among them, were already ranged in fetters
   under the guard of the archers. In the city reigned a silence as of death.
   Many of the inhabitants had fled as far even as the barren heights of Mount
   Casius. Only two or three men were seen creeping here and there about the
   Forum like living corpses. Some Christian priests, indeed, clung to the
   robes of the envoys as they entered the hall, and, embracing their feet and
   knees, implored them to promise compassion. In the hall itself, not one
   Pagan advocate had the courage to come forward. Chrysostom was there,
   indeed, for he had to watch the case of Philip and others whom he knew, and
   though, as being a Christian presbyter, he could no longer plead at the bar,
   he was ready to come forward and give evidence. Outside the door stood
   groups of agitated mourners. They reminded him of watchers upon the shore
   who see ships tossing in the storm, for whose imperilled mariners they can
   only pray. The spectacle inside was still more heartrending, for there were
   many soldiers armed with swords and clubs, coercing all present into deep
   stillness. Even outside the doors the women—mothers and wives and
   sisters—were compelled to keep at a distance, lest their wailing should
   disturb the proceedings within. The saddest sight of all was to see them
   lying prostrate in the dust, with veiled faces, in squalid robes, their long
   hair sprinkled with ashes, without friend, or neighbour, or even handmaiden
   to solace or protect them, while with lacerated hearts they listened to the
   sounds of blows within, and heard the cries of those who were suffering
   under the rods. What could these poor women do but look heavenwards, and
   entreat God to give fortitude to the sufferers?

   So there were tortures within the hall and tortures outside of it, and the
   hearts even of the judges were almost paralysed with woe. Chrysostom never
   forgot that dreary and miserable day. It made him think of that great assize
   when each soul must stand alone, with neither father, nor son, nor friend to
   help, before the judgment-seat of Christ.

   Things grew worse and worse as the dreary hours went on; for some were
   doomed to death, and others were laden with heavy chains and led away to
   prison, and the wives and children of others, whose goods were confiscated,
   were turned loose into the streets, penniless after all their wealth.

   As Chrysostom expected, the case of Philip came on that day. He had been
   seen in the midst of the rioters with the two poor boys, his friends
   Achillas and Eros, who had already expiated their boyish thoughtlessness by
   cruel deaths. Moreover, he was the son of Hermas, who had been executed as a
   ringleader in the riot. But the only voices which could have testified that
   he had flung the first stone were hushed in death. That secret, which would
   have inevitably doomed him to the same fate, was buried in the breast of
   Chrysostom. Straining prerogative to the utmost, and with no small danger to
   himself, the Presbyter with passionate eloquence had pleaded Philip’s youth,
   the absence of proof against him, the absence of any proof of malicious
   forethought, the sacred claims of compassion to one so young. It was all in
   vain, and he was dreading to hear the terrible fiat of death pronounced,
   when a slight interruption diverted for a moment the attention of the
   Commissioners. It was by this time late in the evening, and Libanius had at
   last summoned up sufficient courage to creep timidly and almost
   surreptitiously into the Court. But the quick eye of Cæsarius caught sight
   of him, and recognising his face and his position as the intimate friend of
   the late Emperor Julian he beckoned him to come and sit by his side on the
   tribunal. Libanius was so cowed and dejected that Cæsarius even ventured to
   whisper into his ear that they were earnestly desirous to exercise their
   summary jurisdiction as leniently as the stringent orders of the Emperor
   rendered possible.

   ‘Do, by the immortal gods!’ murmured Libanius. ‘Nay, I forgot that you were
   Christians. Then be merciful for the sake of Him who you say was merciful.
   And if you will spare the trembling city, I will immortalise you in one of
   my orations, the finest I can write. It shall be a stream of gold, it shall
   be like the girdle of Hera, woven of gems and purple.’

   While this whispered conversation was going on, Hellebichus had been looking
   at Philip, and was deeply touched by his innocent face and helpless boyhood.
   ‘It is clear,’ he said to Cæsarius, ‘that this boy was at least as guilty as
   some who have already been put to death, but do you not think that it would
   be enough to order him a scourging, and postpone till to-morrow the question
   of further evidence?’

   So the doom was passed. Chrysostom stood by the boy’s side, pressed his
   hand, bade him be brave, and said he would entreat God to enable him to bear
   his pain. Then the sentence was carried out. Though even the executioner,
   moved with pity, mitigated his ferocity, and would not strike with his full
   force, yet at the first blow of the rods the boy grew pale as death; the
   second wrung from him a deep moan; at the third he uttered a heartrending
   cry and fainted. After that he felt no more, and a few minutes later he was
   carried back to the prison, bleeding and half-dead.

   It was called a prison, but the number of accused and suspects was so great
   that they were really shut up in a great circle of walls, exposed to the
   open air, in masses of hopeless and helpless wretchedness. And in that
   circle of misery Chrysostom also spent the night, doing all that he could do
   by consolation and tenderness for many of the sufferers, and sitting for
   hours by a heap of straw on which Philip lay, holding him by the hand, and
   gently attending to all his needs.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE THUNDERBOLT AVERTED


   Thou art a king, a sovereign o’er frail men;

   I am a Druid, servant of the gods;

   Such service is above such sovereignty.

   Mason, Caractacus.

   Next morning the Commissioners, with sad hearts, mounted the horses which
   stood for them at the palace gate in splendid caparisons, and rode towards
   the Court in solemn state, accompanied by their bodyguard with drawn swords.
   Again they rode through a mourning and praying populace, but at one part of
   the main street they were struck with an unwonted spectacle.

   For there a group of men who looked hardly human had taken their stand. Some
   of them were clad in leather, some in rough skins, some with little more
   than rags, the remains of robes which had long nearly fallen to pieces. Over
   their shoulders streamed their unkempt locks. Many of them had not washed
   far years. Their features were gaunt and grim, their gestures uncouth,
   repellent, yet commanding. Their faces were for the most part entirely
   unknown, and many of them had not trodden for many a long year the streets
   of Antioch or any other city. Yet in the bearing of these wild-looking men
   there was no timidity or reverence. They did not bow, or kneel, or weep, or
   supplicate, but stood upright in an attitude almost of menace. They were the
   hermits whom Macedonius had assembled from all the clefts and dens and
   booths of Mount Silpius and Mount Amanus and Mount Casius to come to
   intercede for the guilty city. Among them even Stagirius had come, no
   longer, indeed, in paroxysms of violence, but with the light of madness
   still gleaming in his restless eyes.

   While the Commissioners were wondering at this strange assemblage Macedonius
   strode out, and Cæsarius, to his amazement, saw his bridle and his robe
   seized by a gaunt old man whose goatskin was grimy and tattered, but who,
   speaking in Syriac—the only language he knew—imperiously ordered both
   Commissioners to dismount.

   ‘Who is this madman?’ he exclaimed indignantly, turning to his guard, and
   raising his hand to strike him away with the flat of his sword.

   ‘It is Macedonius the barley-eater,’ exclaimed several voices in awestruck
   tones.

   The name filled both the Commissioners with an almost overpowering sense of
   dread. This, then, was the saint with whose fame the world rang. Here was a
   man who had given up all for Christ—the Elijah of his age. Surely his
   mandates must be messages from God? Without a moment’s delay the two great
   nobles sprang from their horses and knelt on the ground before him, while
   Cæsarius entreated his pardon for his rude exclamation and intended blow. Of
   all this Macedonius took no notice.

   He was neither impressed nor terrified by the long array of steeds and armed
   soldiers, and ‘grooms besmeared with gold,’ nor with the supreme
   jurisdiction of the legates. While all the nobles and rulers of Antioch
   trembled with the trembling population, he felt his soul dilated with the
   flame of inspiration.

   ‘Go, my friends,’ he said, ‘and say to the Emperor “Thou, too, art but a
   man, ruling over men. Darest thou destroy the image of God? Statues are
   easily replaced, as thine have already been, but canst thou restore to life
   the image of God which once thou hast defaced? Canst thou make one hair grow
   again of the men whom thou hast doomed?”’

   ‘Yea,’ said the other hermits, ‘and we are all ready to lay down our lives
   for this city. We will die for those whom you condemn. Some of us will go on
   an embassy to the Emperor in the name of all the rest, nor will we leave
   this city till it is pardoned.’

   The Commissioners felt that they were powerless to disregard what they
   accepted as a supernatural intervention. They knew the reverence with which
   the pious Emperor regarded men whom the current opinion enshrined on the
   summit of human holiness. They rode on to the gates of the Prætorium to
   consult together. There all the bishops who were in the city met them, and
   said that unless they would promise to be merciful they should only pass
   into the hall over their bodies. They promised, and then the bishops kissed
   their hands. A poor mother had been holding the bridle of Hellebichus all
   the way, as the two judges passed through the crowd. Seeing her son among
   the fettered prisoners, she flew to him, flung her arms round him, covered
   him with her long, dishevelled locks, and, drawing the youth to Hellebichus,
   bathed the feet of the Commissioner with her tears, imploring him with cries
   and sobs not to rob her of the support of her old age, but rather to kill
   her there and then. The hearts of the two judges were overwhelmed. They
   could not proceed with their business.

   After consultation they decided to check any crude and ill-advised embassy
   of the hermits to the Emperor, and to postpone all further action until
   Cæsarius had returned to Constantinople for the further commands of
   Theodosius, while Hellebichus remained at his post. The decision was
   announced to the people, and though the accused were left in chains, and the
   families of those whose property had been confiscated were homeless, yet the
   respite caused such joy and hope that they broke into acclamations and
   benedictions. Cæsarius started by night with only two servants. The hermits
   wished to accompany him, but he declined. ‘The journey,’ he said, ‘is long
   and difficult; the fatigues will exhaust your age; and its expenses would be
   beyond your power. But I will gladly be the bearer of your written
   intercession.’

   Few of the hermits could write; most of them could only speak Syriac. But
   Macedonius drew up a brief epistle, boldly reminding the Emperor of his last
   day, and of the judgment of God which awaited him, and to this the hermits
   who could write appended their names and the others their marks. Then
   Cæsarius set forth. He travelled night and day. He did not once descend from
   his chariot, either to take food, or to rest, or to change his clothes; and
   thus he traversed in six days the three hundred leagues which separated
   Antioch from Constantinople. He reached the palace gate of Theodosius at
   noon on the Tuesday in the fourth week of Lent. But he found that his task
   was already accomplished. Eight days before Bishop Flavian had moved the
   heart of the Emperor to pity, and Antioch had been forgiven.

   When the aged Patriarch of Antioch was admitted into the Emperor’s presence
   he was overwhelmed by the sense of his position. Theodosius did not affect
   the superficial splendours of Byzantinism, but stood on a dais at the end of
   the hall, a strong, handsome Spaniard, surrounded by the noble-looking
   Gothic guard in whom he delighted—white-skinned, majestic Amali and Balts,
   wearing their golden collars, and with their long fair hair streaming over
   their shoulders. The shadow of the Empire clung about him in a certain
   magnificent stateliness of demeanour, showing him to be conscious that ‘the
   rule of all things’ was in his hands. Weary with age and with hasty travel,
   and burdened with the responsibilities which he had left behind him and the
   thought of the dear dying sister who had so long been the companion of his
   loneliness, and whose eyes he feared would now be closed by a stranger’s
   hands, Flavian was far more overwhelmed by the thought that he represented
   in his own person a city which had been guilty of crimes against the
   imperial majesty such as might well be deemed unpardonable. He could not
   approach, but stood far off at the end of the hall, his look fixed on the
   ground, his white head bent, his aged eyes bathed in tears. He could not
   speak. The heart of Theodosius had been fiercely exacerbated, but he could
   not brook that spectacle. He descended from his throne, came forward, and
   taking the old man by the hand, gently pleaded with him, as though he
   himself were on his defence.

   ‘Did I,’ he asked, ‘deserve such treatment at the hands of Antioch? Had I
   not always been generous to the city, and was it not my intention to visit
   it in person? Or, if they had any cause of offence against me, why did they
   insult my noble father, the defender of the Empire? Why did they insult my
   young and harmless boys? Above all, why did they heap their outrages on the
   sweet Empress whom I loved so tenderly, and have so recently lost? Was she
   not gentleness and goodness itself? Were not the poor and the sick her
   peculiar charge? Did she not go, Empress as she was, alone and unattended to
   the sick and the poor? Was not her voice raised to me day by day in favour
   of all that was gentle and kind? It is too much, father, it is too much! How
   can I forgive the brutal multitude who would hack to pieces the image of my
   Flaccilla, and drag it with foul insults through the streets?’

   ‘We have sinned, we have sinned,’ said the weeping bishop when at last he
   found words to speak. ‘We acknowledge all your generosity; we owe you
   nothing but love; we do not deserve your compassion or your forgiveness. It
   was a fraud and malice of the devil which led the multitude astray. But oh!
   forgive, forgive them! Thus can you best frustrate the malignity of those
   evil demons. When the devil had robbed man of Paradise, did not God open
   heaven to the ruined race? Oh! be thou like God. The eyes of all, Jews and
   Pagans, Greeks and barbarians, in Antioch are on you. If they see mercy
   prevailing over judgment, and forgiveness dispelling wrath, will they not
   exclaim with one voice, “Heavens! how great is the power of Christianity!”
   And oh, Emperor! bethink thee of the magnanimity of the wise Constantine
   when his statues were pelted, and he only smiled, and, raising his hand to
   his cheek, said that he felt no hurt. Bethink thee too of thine own
   gentleness, and thine exclamation in setting the captives free in the great
   pardon: “Would that I could also recall the dead!” Worse to us than our
   earthquakes, worse than our conflagrations, has been our crime and thy
   anger. Oh! bethink thee of the day when thou too shall stand before the bar
   of Him who said, ”

   If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father which is in
   heaven forgive you your trespasses.“ Forgive the insults inflicted on thee,
   as Eternal God daily forgives the insults which men heap on Him, and, in
   spite of them, still

   causes His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and His rain to fall on
   the just and on the unjust. Thou art kind and gentle: prove thyself nobler
   than our ill-deserts. Otherwise, I myself will never return to my native
   city, but will hide my shame in some far place of exile.’

   Theodosius was so deeply moved by these words that, like Joseph before his
   brethren, he could scarcely refrain from giving way in the presence of his
   courtiers, and he had to turn aside to hide his tears. He had been struck
   most of all by the plea that he stood to men in the place of God, and must
   forgive even as God forgives.

   ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed, ‘was not Christ crucified by the very men whom He came
   to save? Yet He forgave them! And must not I forgive my fellow-men?’ When
   once his wrath was calmed he gave free scope to his emotion. ’Return,’ he
   said to Flavian; ‘return with all speed. Say that I forgive. I rescind the
   decrees which I sent by Cæsarius and Hellebichus. Antioch shall not be
   degraded; the accused shall be amnestied.’

   On hearing the words the revulsion of unlooked-for joy in the heart of
   Flavian was so strong that he sank back fainting into the arms of the
   attendants. When he recovered he hid his face in his hands, and could only
   murmur in broken words his gratitude to God and to the Emperor. As a last
   favour he begged that he might take back with him the boy-Emperor Arcadius,
   as a pledge of mercy and love to the rejoicing city.

   ‘Nay,’ said Theodosius, ‘I cannot send him, but offer up all your prayers
   for me, that my war with Maximus may be successful, and after that I will
   visit Antioch in person. Speed! speed! and deliver the people from the agony
   of their suspense.’

   But the weariness and infirmities of age prevented Flavian from travelling
   back without rest as he had come, and a swift courier was despatched with
   the entrancing news. Nay, more, Theodosius even sent with him an autograph
   letter, brief, but full of kindness and dignity, in which, less in the tone
   of a wrathful emperor, or even of an offended father, than of a friend who
   wishes to be reconciled, he gently reproached them only for having forgotten
   what they owed and what the world owed to his beloved Flaccilla.

   Meanwhile, before this news could reach Antioch, Chrysostom had not been
   idle. He continued to pour forth his impassioned harangues in the Cathedral.
   Might he not justifiably glory in the fact that the only gleam of hope, the
   only intervention on behalf of pity, had come to Antioch from Christians? No
   Pagan magnate or orator had gone to intercede, but Flavian, ready like a
   good shepherd to lay down his life for the sheep. It was not the
   long-bearded, large-cloaked, self-exalting Pagan cynics who had bestirred
   themselves for the city. They had hurried away, anxious only to save their
   goods and to save themselves; but the monks, descending like angels from
   their mountain solitudes, had overawed the majesty of the sword and sceptre
   with the glory of holiness. ‘And now, why,’ he asked, ‘are you so ungrateful
   and so womanish as to plunge into pusillanimous murmurs about your
   punishment, though it is so far less severe than what you dreaded? Ought you
   not rather to burst with praises, and to sing,

   “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, Who hath visited and redeemed His
   people”? Like children you are crying, ‘Oh, unhappy Antioch! how art thou
   dishonoured?” Dishonoured! What dishonours a city? Its vice, its squalor,
   its greed, its cruelty, its drunkenness, not the forfeiture of a nominal
   prerogative. “But Antioch has lost her glory!” Children that you are! What
   is her glory? Not her palaces, not her statues and marble streets and bright
   colonnades, not her Grove of Daphne, nor her fountains, and cypresses, and
   soft air, and multitudinous population; nay, but such virtues as
   Christianity has brought forth in her, and the glory which not even Rome can
   equal, that here the disciples were first called Christians.’

   Nor did John’s labours end with his sermon. The words rang in his ears, ’

   I was in prison, and ye visited me,’ and he made his way to the crowded city
   jail to console the captives, and above all to tend the hapless boy over
   whom his heart yearned in pity. He was conducted into the place where Philip
   lay. It was crowded with other victims, chiefly of the poorest rank. The air
   was poisonously foul; the misery and anguish were intense; there was a total
   lack of all decency, or tendance, or wholesome food. Here in a corner the
   poor lad lay like an image moulded in wax, faint and sore, scarcely able to
   speak, and seemingly almost at the point to die. The soul of Chrysostom was
   moved by mingled pity and indignation as he witnessed his condition.

   Murmuring in his ear a few words of prayer and comfort, he went straight to
   Hellebichus, and, promising to become surety for Philip, entreated the
   Commissioner to allow the boy to be removed. The heart of Hellebichus had
   been greatly softened by all that he had witnessed, and he wrote the
   requisite order. The sick lad was gently placed in a soft litter and carried
   to the house of Chrysostom. There Anthusa tended him with womanly solicitude
   as lovingly as if he had been her own son; and under her gentle nursing the
   young life began to take colour and fragrance again, like a flower which has
   been beaten by storm, and revives in the dew and sunlight.

   During the fifth week of Lent the express courier from Constantinople
   arrived. He was wreathed with olive and myrtle, and carried a branch of
   olive in his hand, and the people knew that he must be the bearer of good
   news. When Hellebichus without delay announced the free forgiveness of the
   Emperor, not even the rules of Lent could check the outburst of general joy.
   Tables were spread in the public ways, and all feasted at the lectisternia.
   Hellebichus himself, with a garland on his brow, promenaded the principal
   streets, amid the acclamations of the multitude. Libanius was by his side,
   pausing now and then to deliver some florid euphuistic passage from one or
   other of his orations, written to move or to thank Theodosius, or in praise
   of Hellebichus and Cæsarius. Antioch, with a great rebound, felt that she
   was herself again. The people even begged Hellebichus to stop and partake in
   their festivity. They made him sit down, and were delighted to see him
   graciously eat a little fish at one of their tables.

   On Easter eve Flavian himself arrived. He was followed, he was borne along
   by great floods of the populace, who broke into shouts of gratitude and
   welcome. The public baths were opened. Banquets were spread in the open air,
   and every house was gay with garlands and festoons. That night the streets
   of the city were bright as day with universal illumination; and the tender
   heart of the old bishop was further gladdened because he found his sister
   still alive.

   Never did Easter morn rise more brightly over Antioch. It seemed to many of
   the people as though that day they too had risen with Christ from the dead.
   The church was wholly unable to accommodate the thousands who thronged to
   it. The sun shone in on a mass of garlands and myrtle boughs. It was on this
   occasion that Chrysostom delivered the famous harangue in which he described
   the mission of Flavian. In speaking of the demonstrations of joy—the Forum
   hung with wreaths, the many lamps, the couches strewn in the streets for
   banquet—he bade them join with these another and a purer festival—to crown
   themselves with the roses of virtue, to kindle in pure souls the lamps of
   wisdom and holiness. Then Flavian himself stood before the holy table, and
   stepped forth with the consecrated elements in his hands. The choir broke
   out into thunders of glad psalmody; sons flung their arms round the necks of
   fathers whose lives were saved, and happy mothers clasped their laughing
   children to their breasts.

   And when Chrysostom returned and broke the glad news to Philip a wan smile
   for the first time flickered over the boy’s pale features. He grasped the
   hand of the Presbyter in a pressure of speechless gratitude when he was told
   that the peril was passed for ever, and that henceforth the house of
   Chrysostom and Anthusa should be his home.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER IX

  PHILIP IS BAPTISED


   In every church a fountain springs,

   O’er which the Holy Dove

   Hovers with softest wings.—Keble.

   The exertions of Chrysostom during this memorable Lent produced their
   natural reaction. His bodily frame, weakened by years of asceticism, was
   incapable of sustaining the tremendous tension of soul and spirit
   necessitated by the events of the last two months, and he fell ill. It was
   not strange, for while he lived the life of a solitary for two whole years,
   and devoted himself to the study of the New Testament, he never lay down to
   sleep. The consequences had been a permanent weakness, and after his severe
   labours he completely broke down. Extreme languor confined him to his
   chamber and his bed.

   And now he reaped the fruits of his kindness to Philip. The boy had
   completely recovered the effects of his cruel flagellation, and the amnesty
   accorded to the city had secured his safety; but meanwhile he had been left
   an orphan by the death of his mother, who died of a broken heart during the
   troubles which followed the execution of her husband. She had, indeed, left
   him a small patrimony, but he had no home. Chrysostom and Anthusa therefore
   decided to make Philip an inmate of their household, and, while he was
   nominally an attendant, Chrysostom really regarded him as an adopted son.
   His father, Hermas, had given the boy a good training, and he had meant him
   to follow the profession of a rhetorician. He had even aspired some day to
   make him a pupil of the much-admired Libanius. It was the ruin of all his
   prospects, and the consequent blighting of his ambition for the son of whom
   he was so proud, which had kindled the fierce wrath of Hermas against the
   Emperor. This bitterness of heart had driven him headlong into the riot,
   which had caused the forfeit of his life.

   Philip felt a passionate love for his protector, and Anthusa supplied to him
   the place of his lost mother. While Chrysostom lay weak and ill Philip was
   tenderly assiduous in every ministration. He would read or talk to him, or
   when the Presbyter was too weary for even this he would sit silently by his
   bedside, anticipating every want. He was still ostensibly a Pagan; but he
   read the Gospels and the Acts to his protector, asked him eager questions,
   and shared in the simple devotions of the family. Of course his life was
   very different from what it had been in the old days, when he might have
   been seen singing with his schoolfellows in the colonnades, or shouting in
   the circus, or looking on with laughter at the shows in the streets. But a
   life of gay excitement was no longer needful to him. The terrible loss of
   his father, the sad death of his mother, his own imminent peril, his talk
   with Macedonius amid the strength and silence of the hills, his re-arrest,
   the frightful experiences of the flagellation and prison, had exercised a
   sobering influence over the natural brightness of his temperament. Meanwhile
   he had caught something of the most attractive side of the new faith. The
   chaste dignity of its continence, and its serene gaiety, so free from all
   dissoluteness, allured him to grasp, as it were, the holy hands extended to
   him. One thing only held him back—the memory of his father’s love. He did
   not see in the home of Chrysostom the unspeakable weariness which so often
   overshadowed the lives of the Pagans. Disenchanted of the old, won by the
   happy freshness of the new, he was drawn to Christianity day after day, by
   almost insensible gradations, like the happy catechumens with whom he had
   spent too brief a time in the monastery of Diodore. Chrysostom would not
   force the workings of the grace of God in the lad’s heart. He waited for
   some new sign from Heaven.

   The sign came quite naturally, yet in a way which they regarded as a Divine
   interposition. Philip had been reading the story how the young Christ had
   been found among the doctors in the Temple; and at night he dreamed that the
   boy Christ had appeared to him, bright and smiling as the Christians love to
   imagine Him in the days of the catacombs, and said to him, ‘Hail, beloved
   one!’ And he, wondering, but not recognising Him, said, ’Who art thou? for I
   know thee not.’ ‘How is it that thou knowest me not?’ said the Vision,
   ‘since I sit so often by thy side, and go with thee wherever thou art? Look
   in my face, and see what is written there.’ And Philip looked, and saw
   written there, ’Jesus of Nazareth.’ ’This is my name,’ said the Vision;
   ‘write it on thy forehead, and it shall be thy safeguard.’ [5]

   He felt too shy to tell that dream to Chrysostom, lest it should seem
   presumptuous; but it left his heart full of sweetness. A few nights later he
   had been reading in the Gospel of St. John those last discourses of Christ,
   ’so rarely mixed of sadness and joy, and studded with mysteries as with
   emeralds.’ The words, ’

   Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me,
   Philip?’ haunted his memory, because he bore the same name as the Apostle of
   Galilee. That night he dreamed again that Jesus Christ appeared to him in
   the dignity and gentleness of His manhood, and said to him the words, ’

   Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me,
   Philip?’ And, won by the ineffable tenderness of His voice and look, Philip
   had answered in his dream, ‘Lord, if Thou wilt take me, I am Thine, and will
   be Thine henceforth for ever.’

   This dream he told to Chrysostom with great modesty, and offered himself as
   a catechumen. Chrysostom embraced him in a transport of thankfulness, and
   his recovery was hastened by joy at the youth’s conversion. From that day
   Philip was carefully instructed, and in due time he descended in white robes
   into the baptismal font in the Church of St. Babylas, while Anthusa and
   Chrysostom stood beside him; and even Macedonius came down from his mountain
   cave, and wept for gladness as he stood sponsor for the young fugitive to
   whom he had hardly been persuaded to give refuge. Many besides Philip had
   been won to the faith by the love and self-sacrifice recently shown by its
   adherents.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [5] Some readers will recall a story of the boyhood of St. Edmund of
   Canterbury.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER X

  PASSING YEARS

     Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum.—Hor.

   Happy years of fruitful and blessed work flowed over Chrysostom after the
   memorable events of 387. They were the most peaceful and untroubled years of
   his life. He used them in the highest duties of his sacred office as a
   writer and a preacher. Two hundred homilies are still extant as a proof of
   his industry. As a preacher he did not merely thrill his audience with
   witching oratory, but built them up in Christ, fearlessly exposing every
   form of fashionable vice. He made some enemies by the plainness of his
   speaking and the uncompromising loftiness of his denunciations. He would
   have been utterly ashamed of himself had he not done so. He knew that
   friendship with the world was enmity with God, and the tumultuous applause
   which accompanied his grander outbursts troubled more than it pleased him.
   It made him fear that the moral lesson would be lost in the intellectual
   excitement, and that his arrows of lightnings had but played before the
   imagination instead of blazing in the conscience. But if he made some bitter
   foes, there were many who loved him, both in the Church and in the world,
   and, happy in the comparative obscurity of his rank, he was less obnoxious
   to the hatred of the bad.

   His one intense desire was to change nominal Christians into real
   Christians. To the heathen he was gentle and generous, understanding their
   difficulties, and trying to win them by the force of his arguments and the
   beauty of his ideal. He did his utmost to turn Christians from the Pagan
   corruptions which had begun to invade the Church on every side. Hence his
   energetic warnings against the drunkenness and luxury of wedding and funeral
   feasts, the superstitious use of amulets, and the orgies of immorality which
   strangely disgraced the nightly celebration of saints’ days and festivals.

   Nor was his preaching only moral. Antioch was full of error and heresies,
   and he endeavoured to refute them, not by virulence and venom, not by
   misrepresentations and anathemas, but by fair, honourable, and kindly
   reasoning.

   During these years, too, he added to his already vast stores of Biblical
   knowledge, and enriched Christian literature with commentaries which, like
   those of his friend Theodore of Mopsuestia, were framed on principles of
   true criticism, and, if less learned than those of St. Jerome, were saner
   and more beneficial than any which were written for a thousand years.

   Of course the happy years were chequered with the natural sorrows of life
   which happen to us all. His heaviest loss was the death of his mother,
   Anthusa, whose unbroken love and care he repaid with the deepest filial
   affection. Her death, though in many respects an irreparable calamity, yet
   did not alter his domestic circumstances. She left him surrounded by
   faithful and attached servants, and Philip, now a fine youth, full of
   vigour, shrewd sense, and practical capacity, attended his steps, lightened
   his burdens, relieved him of all worrying details, acted as his amanuensis,
   and amused his leisure hours with the flow of his natural gaiety. Philip
   would not allow himself to be ordained a reader. Chrysostom represented to
   him the best ideal of manhood he ever hoped to see, and the youth knew that
   in helping him and brightening his life he was rendering higher services to
   the world than any which could come from his independent action. Old friends
   of Chrysostom died as the years flowed on. His Christian teacher, Diodore of
   Tarsus, died in 394, and his Pagan teacher, Libanius, in 395; but Philip’s
   companionship saved him from being lonely, and Philip’s younger friends, who
   all looked up to and loved the great Presbyter, surrounded him with a
   garland of their young enthusiasm.

   Meanwhile Chrysostom was ever watching with the deepest interest, and often
   with profoundest apprehension, the menacing horizon of the future, both in
   the Church and in the world.. The year after the riot he had rejoiced in the
   victory of Theodosius over the usurper Maximus. That bad adventurer had been
   an accomplice in the murder of the young Emperor Gratian; and at the
   instigation of Spanish bishops, but to the disgust of St. Ambrose and St.
   Martin of Tours, he was the first who allowed Christians to be murdered by
   their fellow-Christians because of their opinions. Theodosius defeated the
   usurper in two great battles, and drove him to Aquileia. There Maximus was
   seized by his own soldiers, the purple robe was torn off his back, the
   purple sandals from his feet, the purple and jewelled diadem from his brow,
   and, bound hand and foot, he was dragged into the presence of Theodosius. It
   was August 25, 388, five years almost to a day since the murdered Gratian
   had suffered the same fate. Theodosius looked at the defeated usurper with a
   mixture of pity and contempt, and after a few disdainful questions dismissed
   him without deciding his fate. His captors took the law into their own
   hands, and struck off his head outside the imperial tent. Andragathius, the
   admiral of Maximus, and the actual murderer of Gratian, hearing of his
   master’s defeat, drowned himself in the Adriatic; and Ambrose, of whose
   deeds Chrysostom always heard with the profoundest admiration, secured the
   mercy of Theodosius for the common herd of the vanquished.

   But heart-shaking news came fast and thick. The year 390 was marked by
   terrible events. The people of Thessalonica were passionately devoted to
   chariot-races. They rose in fury against Botheric, their governor, because,
   on the complaint of his cupbearer, he had righteously punished a charioteer,
   who was their favourite, for one of those enormities which were the
   plague-spot of Pagan antiquity. Refusing to release the man from prison,
   Botheric fell a victim to the rage of the mob, who murdered him and many of
   his chief officials, and dragged their bodies with insults through the
   streets. There was every circumstance in this heinous crime to awaken the
   uttermost indignation of Theodosius. He loved Thessalonica. There he had
   long resided; there he had been baptised; and he had been to the city a
   conspicuous benefactor. And now the lewd factions of the multitude had
   brutally murdered his personal friend and his responsible officials. The
   news transported him into one of those paroxysms of fury to which his
   Spanish temperament was liable.

   At last, mad with rage, Theodosius committed the one crime which most deeply
   stained his life. There was to be another great race in the circus at
   Thessalonica, and he knew that the people would assemble in thousands to
   witness it. He issued an edict worthy of a Caligula or a Nero, that when the
   multitude was assembled the doors of the circus should be closed, and the
   soldiers should enter and massacre indiscriminately the innocent and the
   guilty. The moment that his insane wrath had thus found expression he
   repented, and, like the Athenians after their atrocious mandate to massacre
   the people of Mitylene, he sent messengers of mercy to overtake the avengers
   of blood.

   But our words and deeds are often made retributively irrevocable that they
   may transform themselves into their own avenging furies. The repentance came
   too late to prevent the consequences of the crime. The frightful command
   arrived before the news that it was already rescinded. There was no Flavian,
   no Chrysostom at Thessalonica; and if there were any hermits to interpose,
   the horrid deed was not known till it had been accomplished.

   The scene which ensued was one of the most horrible recorded in history.
   With drawn swords the soldiers entered the crowded circus, and slew and
   slew, alike the innocent and the guilty, alike strangers and citizens, alike
   young and old, till their swords were blunt, and their hearts sick, and
   their arms weary, and their eyes dim with the mist of blood, and themselves
   intoxicated with its sickening fumes. They struck to the ground, they
   stabbed, they murdered even children on the bosoms of their mothers, till
   they left only bleeding and ghastly heaps, where the living writhed among
   the wounded and the slain, and a horrid silence buried the wild shrieks of
   agony and fear. For three hours of inconceivable and brutalising horror the
   work of hell went on. One historian says that 15,000 fell; but even if we
   accept the lowest computation, and place the number of victims at 7,000,
   such guilt must have made the remorseful heart of the Christian Emperor
   exclaim with the midnight murderer:


   Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood

   Clean from my hand? No! this my hand will rather

   The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

   Making the green one red!

   The dreadful news reached the Antiochenes. That fate they too might have
   suffered if the voice of the Church had not mollified the swelling anger of
   the Emperor. But Chrysostom heard with proud thankfulness how the dauntless
   Ambrose, overwhelmed as he was with shame and anguish, had maintained the
   violated rights of humanity; how he had towered above the repentant Emperor
   like his embodied moral sense; how he had written for his private eye a
   letter full, indeed, of manly tact, yet stern and uncompromising as that of
   a Hebrew prophet; how he had refused to him the Holy Communion; how he had
   declined to admit him into the Church without a public penance; how he had
   repulsed from the door of the Basilica of Milan the foremost man in all the
   world.

   The conscience of the Emperor sided with the rebukes of the great bishop.
   The hands which were red with innocent blood were impotent to strike his
   judge. Theodosius could be transported out of himself by the evil genius of
   his anger, but he could not act like a deliberate tyrant. He accepted the
   penance imposed on him. After long exclusion from the Church Ambrose
   required him to renew the admirable law of Gratian, which enacted that a
   period of thirty days must always intervene between judgment and punishment.
   Then the Emperor laid aside all the insignia of royalty, and, prostrate on
   the ground, bewept the sin into which he had been misled, and cried, ’

   My soul cleaveth to the dust; quicken Thou me according to Thy word.’

   Fortunately, Ambrose had to deal with an emperor who was emphatically a
   man—a man of ability, and not deaf to the dictates of conscience. Such a
   person as his minister, Rufinus, would have cared nothing for ecclesiastical
   penalties. One day, when he found the Emperor bathed in tears, he could
   hardly conceal the disdainful smile which passed over his features. ‘You
   smile,’ said Theodosius, because you do not feel my misery. The Church of
   God is opened to slaves and beggars: to me it is closed, and with it the
   gates of heaven.’

   The year 392 was darkened by the murder of the youthful emperor, Valentinian
   II., who had been found dead—probably murdered by Arbogast the Frank.
   Chrysostom mourned his sad fate. An emperor since his childhood, that
   magnificent inheritance had brought him nothing but misery. He had suffered
   terror, flight, exile, and manifold perils, only to become the puppet of an
   insolent barbarian. He was devoted to Ambrose, whom he longed to see once
   more, and he had struggled out of every fault and error of his boyhood. As
   he was strolling in his garden on the banks of the Rhone at Vienne, Arbogast
   had strangled this pure and innocent boy, and had hung his body on the
   branch of a tree with his own handkerchief, to make it supposed that he had
   committed suicide. When the assassin seized him, he had called on the name
   of Ambrose, and cried, ‘Alas! what will become of my unhappy sisters?’
   Arbogast, being a barbarian, dared not make himself emperor, but he chose
   the tenth-rate rhetorician, Eugenius, as a suitable block on which to hang
   the imperial purple. Utterly condemned by the Church, Arbogast and his
   puppet-emperor could only stand for a moment by posing as the champions of
   Arianism and Paganism. In 394 Theodosius advanced into Italy, with young
   Alaric—among others—as one of his allied chieftains, and defeated the rebel
   army in the memorable battle of the Frigidus. Eugenius was put to death, and
   Arbogast, flying to the mountains, fell on his own sword.

   Then Chrysostom heard the alarming news that on January 16, 395, the great
   Theodosius had breathed his last in the arms of Ambrose, leaving his life
   ‘like a ruined sea-wall amidst the fierce barbarian tide, beyond which were
   ravaged lands.’ There could not but be vast changes for the worse in the
   reigns of his two orphan sons—the stupidly dull Arcadius, who was now
   eighteen, and the malignantly dull Honorius, who was six or seven years
   younger. The Empire was divided between them, never again to be reunited.
   The successors of the brave and upright Spanish soldier were two vapid and
   lymphatic boys, the one sullen and stupid, the other impotent and half
   imbecile: neither of them capable of being aroused, unless it were to some
   transport of murderous jealousy against the men who overshadowed their
   insignificance. And both of them were left under the tutelage of rival
   aliens, who, it was clear, would wield all the real power. The governor of
   Arcadius was the Gaul Rufinus; of Honorius, the Vandal Stilico. The main
   object of each was to undermine and overthrow the other.

   But amid all these tragic and solemn events Chrysostom was still pursuing
   his daily duties. He had made more than one effort to win over to
   Christianity his old tutor, Libanius; but the sophist, though he was an
   honourable and open-minded man, could not be convinced. Chrysostom
   powerfully met all his other arguments and objections, but there was one on
   which Libanius dwelt with cogent force, and to which the Presbyter could
   give no reply which satisfied either Libanius or himself. It was the evil
   lives of so many nominal Christians; the fact that genuine, untainted
   goodness seemed to have become entirely etiolated; the usurping claims and
   worldly lives of so many priests; the haughty and tyrannous ambition of so
   many prelates; the furies of mutual antagonism which rent Christians into
   fierce dissensions respecting incomprehensible minutiæ of theological
   definition; the violence and fury of hordes of intolerant monks; the
   revolting self-maceration of multitudes of half-idiotic hermits. As Libanius
   dwelt on these evils, and quoted in proof of his allegation, not only Pagans
   like Eunapius, Zosimus, and Ammianus Marcellinus, but even the writings of
   St. Basil, of the Gregories, of Ambrose, and of Jerome, Chrysostom bitterly
   felt that such facts must be a terrible stumbling-block in the path of Pagan
   inquirers, as the chief argument against Christianity. Yet were we not
   forewarned of this? ’

   When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?’

   Philip had been present during the discussion between the Presbyter and
   Libanius; and Chrysostom, deeply attached to the boy, and ever anxious for
   his welfare, exclaimed, ‘O Philip, my son! Libanius has not shaken your
   faith, I trust?’

   ‘Nay,’ said the boy smiling. ‘Many things which Libanius said were sad—and
   yet seemed true. But the Argonauts could not listen to the Sirens while
   Orpheus sang to them, and he who has heard Christ’s voice cannot listen to
   any other.’

   ‘May He be with thee, my son, now and evermore!’ said Chrysostom; and he
   laid his right hand gently on the boy’s dark hair.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XI

  GOTHS AT ANTIOCH


   Oh! thou goddess,

   Thou divine nature, how thyself thou blazon’st

   In these two princely boys!—Cymbeline, iv. 2.

   One day in the year 395, as Chrysostom and Philip were walking down the
   grand main street of Antioch, under the colonnades which sheltered them from
   the almost blinding sunlight, they saw an unwonted sight. No less a person
   than the all-powerful Rufinus had come to Antioch. Nominally sent on a
   mission by Arcadius, he had really come to avenge a terrific private grudge
   against Lucian, the Count of the East. Lucian had been a favourite of
   Rufinus, and had purchased his promotion by bribes; but he had used his
   power well, and had refused to commit an injustice to benefit Eucherius, the
   Emperor’s uncle. Eucherius complained to the Emperor, and as his anger
   endangered Rufinus’s plan for marrying Arcadius to his daughter, he was
   filled with fury against Lucian for his honest independence.

   As his mission was aimed against so powerful an official—for Antioch ranked
   with Constantinople, Rome, and Alexandria, among the four first cities of
   the Empire—the Emperor had attached to the escort of Rufinus some of those
   Gothic guards whose fine presence his father, Theodosius, had regarded as
   the most splendid ornament of his palace. They marched around the chariot of
   the Minister in the splendour of their armour—their necks encircled with
   collars of gold, the tawny wolfskins belted over their breasts, the quivers
   on their backs, the huge bow carried in the left hand, and their fair locks,
   the admiration of all the East, flowing under their helmets adorned with
   pheasant’s plumes.

   They had brought with them some of their youths to witness the glories of
   the Eastern city, and on the morning after Rufinus had made his secret
   midnight entrance into the city and taken possession of the palace of the
   Seleucids, these Goths, laying aside their accoutrements, stalked out over
   the island-bridge into the streets. Barbarians of this stature and
   distinction were almost unknown in Antioch, and wherever they went the slim,
   dark Syrians and the inquisitive Greeks thronged to stare at them, much to
   their indignation. Their knowledge of Greek was highly imperfect, and of
   Syriac they knew nothing. They did not like to condescend to ask their way,
   for if they did the impudent boys in the crowd laughed at their
   pronunciation and their blunders, and had more than once hopelessly
   misdirected them. They had managed to get to the Forum, but with little
   notion where they were; and there a crowd of the loungers who infested
   Antioch gathered in knots about them. Treating the starers with as much
   indifference as they could, one of the Gothic youths had ventured to ask, in
   bad Greek, ‘What that building was?’ pointing to the Hall of Justice. The
   gamin appealed to gave some ridiculous answer, which made the crowd roar
   with laughter; and another tried his wit by giving the Goths the nickname of
   ‘cranes,’ in reference to their slow and stately gait. This amused the
   Antiochenes still more, and the strangers were saluted with general cries of
   ’Cranes! Cranes!’ till one of the younger Goths, more quick-tempered and
   less disdainful than his brothers, gave a buffet to one of these
   ill-mannered tonguesters which laid him sprawling and howling in the dust.
   The rest of the crowd shrank back to a more respectful distance; but,
   jealous of the superior size and beauty of the Goths, and not liking to see
   their comrade so lightly felled by a mere barbarian, the boys began to pelt
   them with stones. Then the Goths indiscriminately seized some of their
   tormentors, and so soundly boxed their ears, or beat them with the flat of
   their swords, that the amusement of the crowd began to be mingled with a
   little salutary dread.

   At this moment Chrysostom entered the Forum with Philip, and the youth’s
   quick glance at once took in the scene.

   ‘My father,’ he said—for so Chrysostom had told him to address him—’I think
   you are seriously wanted here,’ and in a few words he rapidly told him what
   was going on.

   Chrysostom woke from one of the reveries in which he was often lost, and,
   advancing to the crowd, who all knew him, and by all of whom he was deeply
   reverenced, he said to them very sternly:

   ‘Mischievous idlers, what is this? Do you not know that these Goths have
   come here with Rufinus, and belong to the very Bodyguard of the Emperor? Can
   you be so senseless? Do you want another affair of the statues, or do you
   wish to undergo the fate of Thessalonica? Back to your business, if you have
   any, before I summon the archers.’

   The crowd slank away, filled with alarm; and Philip picked up the sobbing
   gamin, much more frightened than hurt, whom the young Goth had knocked down.
   He told him to apologise, which the street-arab was only too glad to do.
   Meanwhile Chrysostom, speaking slowly and distinctly in the simplest Greek,
   expressed his regret to the Goths that they should have been thoughtlessly
   annoyed, and courteously offered to be their guide through the city:

   The Presbyter was only of middle height, and the tall Ostrogoths looked like
   giants by his side; but they recognised a man when they saw him. They
   instantly recovered the good temper which had only been ruffled for a
   moment.

   ‘I did not know that your streets at Antioch buzzed with so many insects,’
   said their chief; ‘but I would not willingly hurt them.’

   ‘The people are more accustomed to you in Constantinople,’ answered
   Chrysostom. ‘They have never seen men like you before, and are, perhaps, a
   little envious.’

   The Goths smiled with gratified vanity at a perfectly sincere compliment,
   and, recognising from something indefinable in his manner that Chrysostom
   must be an ecclesiastic—though in those days the clergy wore the ordinary
   costume of the laity—he asked, ‘Are you not John, the famous presbyter?’

   ‘Not famous,’ said Chrysostom; ‘but I am John.’

   ‘Ah!’ said the Amal, ‘you have spoken kindly to me, and let me tell you a
   story. I once went to visit the Frank Arbogast, and asked him if he knew the
   Bishop Ambrose, at Milan. “Yes,” said Arbogast, “and have often sat at his
   table.” “Ah, chief!” answered one of his guests, “that is why you are so
   victorious, because you are a friend of the man who can make the sun stand
   still.”’

   ‘I cannot compare my insignificance to the greatness of Ambrose,’ said
   Chrysostom.

   ‘I don’t know,’ said the Goth, ‘but you, more than any man, saved Antioch
   from the fate of Thessalonica, and our Fravitta and our Gaïnas, whose sons
   these two boys are, have heard of you and honour you.’

   ‘Would that you, noble Goths, were not Arians,’ said Chrysostom, whom no
   consideration could ever prevent from saying what he thought was right.

   ‘Oh!’ said the Goth, laughing, ‘it is not possible for us Northern soldiers
   to enter into your theological niceties, about which Constantinople idly
   chatters, and lives like Gomorrah all the same. We follow the doctrine of
   our great bishop and teacher—Wulfila, “the little wolf,” so we called him
   out of love for him. He translated our Bible for us, and never meant to be
   otherwise than orthodox.’

   Chrysostom saw that it would be useless to pursue the subject, but he did
   his utmost to interest the Amals and their boys. He showed them the
   flowering banks of the Orontes; he pointed out to them the best statues; he
   walked with them to the huge Charonium, which amazed them above everything;
   he gave them a glimpse of the ravine of Parthenius, and took them to the
   Golden Gate to show them the colossal Cherubim, the spoils of the Temple of
   Jerusalem, which Titus had placed over its arch. Philip, meanwhile, with
   Greek grace and versatility, had made himself perfectly at home with the
   younger Goths, and Chrysostom gave them a little banquet at his own house.

   ‘Tell me your name, Greek,’ said one of the young brothers to Philip. ‘We
   like you. You have been courteous to us.’

   ‘My name is Philip. And yours?’

   ‘I am Thorismund, the son of Gaïnas.’

   ‘And I,’ said the younger, ‘am Walamir, the son of Gaïnas. We are both
   Amalings—that is, of noblest birth—and I hope we shall meet you again,
   Philip.’

   ‘It is not likely,’ said Philip, ‘for I shall never leave the Presbyter, and
   Constantinople is far away. But if you ever return to Antioch, come and see
   us, and I hope that the street riff-raff will behave better.’

   ‘Oh! never mind them,’ said Thorismund; ‘and if the young scamp who went
   down under my buffet was hurt, give him this,’ and he put a broad silver
   piece in Philip’s hand.

   ‘I will give it to him,’ said Philip, ‘but you must not think, Thorismund,
   that we shall all of us fall down at the mere wind of a blow.’

   ‘Would you like to try a friendly wrestling bout?’

   ‘I am quite willing,’ said Philip, laughing, ‘if the Presbyter doesn’t
   object. We might wrestle here on this grass-plat in the garden, and your
   chief and the Presbyter shall be umpires.’

   Chrysostom was a little scandalised by the suggestion, but he
   good-humouredly acquiesced, if the trial of strength was to be quite
   friendly and for fun.

   The two youths rose, and smilingly locked each other in a firm grasp. They
   were of about the same age, and fine specimens of Greek and Teutonic beauty.
   It soon appeared that Thorismund was the stronger, and Philip the more
   skilful, having long been trained in the boyish games of the palæstra. In
   the first trial Thorismund had some trouble to hold his own, but at last by
   sheer strength lifted Philip and threw him; but at the second trial Philip
   with his heel struck the hollow of Thorismund’s knee, and down he fell, with
   Philip uppermost. They were about to try a third bout, when both Chrysostom
   and the chief Amal interfered.

   ‘Enough,’ they said; ‘you have both done well. So part and be friends.’

   ‘That we shall be,’ said Thorismund, ‘and in sign of it I will ask Philip to
   accept this.’ He took from the purse at his girdle a silver fibula, and
   said, ‘This will do to fasten your toga.’

   ‘Well, but,’ said Philip, ‘we must be like the Homeric heroes, and if I take
   your gift you must take mine.’ He fetched from his room an armlet of his
   father’s workmanship, and Thorismund welcomed the gift.

   ‘Do you know what those runes on your fibula mean, Philip?’ asked Walamir.

   ‘No.’

   ‘They are the two words, “Chaste, Faithful,” and you may remember our names
   by them; for of our ancestors young Thorismund was called “the Chaste,” and
   Walamir “the Faithful.”’

   So they said farewell to each other with mutual friendship and esteem.

   Philip gazed after them as they strode down Singon Street. ‘What noble
   fellows!’ he exclaimed. ‘How they tower over the sly, slim, swarthy
   Antiochenes! Those two youths with the sunlight turning their short curls
   into gold might be young Apollos. If the Lystrenians saw them they would
   say, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.”’

   ‘Yes,’ said Chrysostom. ‘They seem to belong to a nobler, stronger, purer
   race than ours. We cannot stand against them. Surely the future must belong
   to them! We have to go to them alike for our soldiers and our generals. Oh
   that they were not Arians!’
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XII

  THE PRESBYTER

     Salt is good; but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be
     seasoned?—Luke xiv. 34.

   The next morning, however, threw a lurid light on the visit of Rufinus to
   Antioch. He had glutted to the full his private enmity. Lucian, Count of the
   East, Governor of Antioch, had been arrested by his order in his own palace,
   and, after the merest mockery of a trial, beaten to death, on the neck, with
   the frightful whips laden with knobs of lead known to the ancients by the
   name of plumbatæ. The unhappy Count had been thrust into a litter in a dying
   condition and carried back to the palace. The horrid deed could not be hid,
   and nothing but terror prevented the Antiochenes from avenging his death by
   another insurrection. Rufinus further purchased their complicity by ordering
   the completion of an Imperial Hall of Pillars, which long continued to be
   the most stately building in a city of palaces.

   How little did the Minister dream that a deed of vengeance which illustrated
   at once his ferocity and his all but absolute power was the chief moment in
   his own headlong downfall! His ultimate aim all along, though he was only an
   adventurer and the son of an Aquitanian cobbler, was nothing less than the
   Empire. He had cherished this mad ambition ever since the day when
   Theodosius, angry at the complaints of favours heaped on the intriguing and
   aspiring Gaul, had pettishly exclaimed, ‘What is there to prevent me from
   making him emperor?’ As a step to the fulfilment of this gorgeous dream
   Rufinus wished to marry Arcadius to his daughter. But when the sweet
   gratification of personal revenge had taken him to Antioch, his rival, the
   supple eunuch Eutropius, outwitted and undermined him. He slipped under the
   dark eyes of the young Emperor, as if by accident, a picture of the
   beautiful Eudoxia, daughter of the Frank general Bauto, who came from a
   house which hated Rufinus. This palace intrigue was buried in profoundest
   secrecy. On April 25, 395, a public rejoicing was ordered. Eutropius was
   seen to be busy in taking from the imperial wardrobe some of the splendid
   robes and jewels of former empresses. They were ostentatiously handed to
   attendants, and attracted a crowd before the palace gate. Everyone thought
   that they were a marriage gift to the daughter of Rufinus, and indulged in
   jeers against that hated official. But no! the procession, solemnly escorted
   by soldiers and preceded by Eutropius, suddenly turned into another street,
   and stopped at the home of Promotus, where Eudoxia lived. The multitudes
   then broke into shouts of joy. Rufinus found that he had been out-manœuvred
   by the astuteness of the eunuch, and learnt for the first time the name of
   his future empress.

   Chrysostom heard all these events with no other thoughts than those of a
   citizen, a patriot, a Christian. How little did he dream that Eudoxia,
   Eutropius, and the Goth Gaïnas, the murderer of Rufinus, would be so closely
   mingled with his future destinies, and that their names would go down to
   history in such immediate connexion with his own! We live in blindness of
   all that may await us in the unknown future years, and often those things
   happen of which we have dreamed the least.

   The presbyter could not but feel solicitude for the future of the Empire,
   yet were there many seasons of depression in which he felt deeper anxiety
   about the future of the Church. The Church had conquered the world, and now
   the world had re-invaded and was re-conquering the Church. In former days
   golden priests had used chalices of wood; now wooden priests used chalices
   of gold. In earlier days life had been full of simplicity, love, and
   sweetness. Now Christianity had become largely nominal, as it had become all
   but universal. He saw much that was weak and bad in Antioch, much that he
   knew to be false in doctrine and unprimitive and unscriptural in practice.
   The corruption of the best is worst. There is no stench (so said St. Francis
   de Sales) so intolerable as that of rotten lilies. In reality there was
   little to choose between the better theoretical Paganism, as it exhibited
   itself in honest men like Libanius, Symmachus, or even the late Emperor
   Julian, and such Christianity as that of the loose livers and ambitious
   Pharisaic priests who on every side were trying to lord it over God’s
   heritage, while they set the worst possible example to the flock. He was to
   become familiar hereafter with worse types than he ever yet had seen. ‘Salt
   like this, which had utterly lost its savour, was in a certain sense worse
   than anything which had been seen on the dunghill of pagan Rome, and was fit
   for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of man.’

   This was the sad thought which most painfully haunted the heart of
   Chrysostom; and it was the one passion of his life so to live, so to write,
   so to preach as to stem the shallow, muddy, yet drowning and ever-advancing
   tide of a merely functional, ecclesiastical, and nominal Christianity. If he
   had one conviction stronger than all others, it was that ‘what the Supreme
   and Sacred Majesty requires of us is innocence alone’; that Christ came not
   to elaborate recondite shibboleths, but to create holy characters; not to
   elevate priests into an usurping autocracy, but to give unimpeded access to
   God to the humblest and guiltiest soul, and to fling wide open to all who
   love righteousness the gates of everlasting life. The indignation of
   Chrysostom burned hot against all who named the name of Christ, yet did not
   even attempt to depart from the forms of iniquity which Christ most hated;
   and most of all against the priests, who combined the privileges of angels
   with the temper of executioners, and carried into the sanctuaries of the
   Church the most hateful of the vices of the world.

   But such beliefs meant immediate failure; and such aims, in the ordinary
   condition of Churches, involved certain martyrdom.

   The day of martyrdom had not yet come, and the hour for that ultimate
   triumph—which, because truth is immortal, had all the inevitableness of a
   law—was yet far off.
     _________________________________________________________________
     _________________________________________________________________

BOOK II
     _________________________________________________________________

DAYS OF STORM


   The time is out of joint:—O cursèd spite,

   That ever I was born to set it right!

   Hamlet, i. 5.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XIII

  TWO ARCHBISHOPS


   O Simon Mago, O miseri seguaci,

   Che le cose di Dio, che di bontate

   Deono essere spose, voi rapaci

   Per oro et per argento adulterate.

   Dante, Inferno, xix. 1–4.

   On September 27, 397, Nectarius, Patriarch of Constantinople, lay dead in
   his stately palace.

   On the Good Friday of that year (April 4) had died a very different prelate,
   the great St. Ambrose. He had died immediately after receiving the
   Sacrament, after lying many hours with his arms outstretched in the form of
   a cross. His friends, the chief citizens of Milan, who adored him, had
   entreated him to pray that for the sake of the Church his days might be
   prolonged, for he was but fifty-seven years old. But he answered, ‘I have
   not so lived among you that I am ashamed to live; and yet—for the Lord is
   merciful—I do not fear to die.’ ‘It is a death-blow for all Italy,’
   exclaimed the brave Vandal, Stilico, when he heard it. And he was right.

   No human being would have dreamed of making any such remark about Nectarius.
   He was commonplace of the commonplace; he was of the world, worldly; he was
   a luxurious worldling, profoundly ignorant of theology. When appointed
   archbishop he was a layman; he had never even been baptised.

   He was, indeed, a strange successor to the humble, holy, fervid St. Gregory
   of Nazianzus, the greatest theologian and one of the greatest orators of his
   day. But Gregory had shown himself too mild, too noble, and too good for the
   magnificent office of which he may be said to have created the possibility.
   When Gregory was carried by force from his humble bishopric at Nazianzus to
   preside over the little handful of the orthodox at Constantinople, the city,
   besides being execrably corrupt, was predominantly Arian.

   Gregory lived in a lodging, and preached in a single room, which was large
   enough to receive the shrunken congregation. It was through his earnestness
   and fame that the room had gradually grown into a chapel, and the chapel
   into ‘The Church of the Resurrection.’ He was no imposing orator, but short
   of stature, and though only fifty years old, was pale, meagre, sickly, and
   prematurely aged, with bald head and beard already sable-silvered. He wore
   an aspect of continual melancholy; his careworn countenance was often bathed
   in tears. And so far from valuing the worldly eminence of his rank, his
   dress was more like that of a mendicant than of the bishop of the queen of
   cities, the capital of the Eastern world.

   It was, of course, impossible that so good a man as Gregory should escape a
   storm of odium. That is the compliment which vice pays to virtue. He had as
   many stones flung at him as bad men have roses; his only criticism of them
   was they were so ill-aimed. His life was often in danger. On one occasion a
   furious swarm of Arians, headed by ‘beggars who had forfeited their claim to
   pity, monks who looked like goats or satyrs, and women more frightful than
   Jezebels,’ armed with sticks, stones, and firebrands, wrecked his church,
   assaulted his congregation, mingled with blood the wine of the chalice, and
   nearly murdered him. He escaped, but because one man had been killed in the
   tumult he was summoned before the magistrates for a breach of the peace.
   Then he was nearly ousted by the intrigue of one of the basest class of
   clerical adventurers in whom that age abounded. Gregory hated the place; he
   hated the work; he hated the prevalent hypocrisy; he hated the universal
   talk about religion, without a semblance of its reality, which left him
   hardly anyone whom he could trust.

   Utterly against his will he was compelled to accept the archbishopric, which
   involved the care of the Church of the Apostles. He had not the least desire
   to be a bishop. He had never cared to hang about the doors of the great.
   With singular independence, he declared that he had never wished to clasp
   the bloodstained hands of rulers, ‘under whose hands the whole world is
   ruled by a little diadem and a small rag of purple.’

   He found the presidency of the Second Œcumenical Council the most
   distasteful of his duties. He describes it as a scene of faction, disorder,
   jealousies, and disgraceful violence. He found that the assembled
   ecclesiastics were chiefly interested in personal questions. They appeared
   as antagonists in a battle, bandying bitter accusations, and leaping from
   their seats in transports of mutual animosity, until Gregory was thoroughly
   ashamed of them. He describes them as chattering like cranes and showing
   their teeth like wild boars, and no sooner had he ended a wise and
   conciliatory speech intended to raise them to a higher level, than the
   younger clergy buzzed about him like wasps. It is curious that the two best
   saints of the fourth century, St. Gregory and St. Martin of Tours, had a
   rooted dislike of ecclesiastical gatherings. Gregory breathed an earnest
   prayer that he might have nothing more to do with them, and Martin said that
   he had never known anything come of them but mischief. The great Bossuet
   agreed with them. ‘You know’—so he wrote to a friend—’what kind of things
   these assemblies usually are.’

   Warning the congregated bishops that they were become a byword of strife and
   partisanship, and finding that they were intriguing to get rid of him, he
   offered to resign. With disgraceful alacrity the assembled Fathers took him
   at his word. He left his episcopate to be sought for by the restless
   ambitions of time-servers and hypocrites, ’angry lions to the small and
   fawning spaniels to the great,’ and, sick at heart, retired ‘to gaze on the
   bright countenance of truth in the mild and dewy air of delightful
   studies.’

   Nectarius owed his election to the Patriarchate to the most casual incident.
   He was a Prætor, and as he was going to Tarsus he called on Chrysostom’s old
   teacher, Diodore, Bishop of Tarsus, to ask if he could take any letters for
   him to that city. Struck with his venerable appearance and his placid
   temper, Diodore mentioned him to Flavian as a possible candidate for the
   vacant archbishopric. Flavian laughed at the notion, but out of compliment
   to Diodore put down the Prætor’s name at the bottom of the list of selected
   candidates, which was handed to the Emperor. Theodosius passed his finger
   down the list, paused at the name of Nectarius, read the list through a
   second time, and then declared that he chose Nectarius.

   ‘Nectarius! Who in the world is Nectarius?’ asked everyone in astonishment,
   and it turned out that he had not even been baptised! But Theodosius had
   very little opinion of any ecclesiastics except Ambrose, and Ambrose was a
   layman when the voice of the people had called him to the Archbishopric of
   Milan. So Nectarius stepped from the baptismal font to the most influential
   patriarchate of the world, and to the presidency of the Second Œcumenical
   Council!

   But Theodosius was grievously mistaken if he supposed that Nectarius was
   going to be a second Ambrose.

   On the contrary, he was just one of those purpureal, imposing, nugatory
   personages who, because of his easygoing nullity, his commonplace, worldly
   shrewdness, and his total absence of zeal and genius, suited the corrupt
   luke-warmness of a semi-Christian city.

   Nectarius rose to the full height of the pomposity which had been impossible
   to Gregory. He could, indeed, give no help to the Emperor in the intense
   perplexities caused by theological disputes. The bishops heard a terrifying
   rumour that Theodosius even meant to consult the heretic Eunomius, who
   openly argued the Son was unlike the Father. The world, as after the Council
   of Rimini, might wake with a groan to find itself Arian! As no help was to
   be obtained from the ignorant Archbishop, Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium,
   threw himself into the breach, and determined to give Theodosius a
   picture-lesson. He went with other bishops to a Court gathering. Theodosius
   was seated on his throne in all his splendour, and by him sat his little son
   Arcadius, only eight years old, whom he had recently invested with the
   diadem, and whom the courtiers were surrounding with flattering homage.
   Amphilochius saluted the Emperor, and did not take the smallest notice of
   Arcadius. ‘What!’ said the Emperor, angrily, ‘do you not see my son?’ ‘Oh,
   said the Bishop, carelessly, ‘I forgot. Good morning, my child!’ and he
   actually had the audacity to pat the august infant on the cheek and tickle
   him with his finger! ’Turn that man out!’ roared Theodosius, in a flame of
   anger. Then Amphilochius, facing him, said, ‘You see, Emperor, you cannot
   tolerate an indignity to your son. Doubt not, then, that God shares the same
   feelings, and learn your duty.’ The Emperor was deeply impressed, and the
   world was saved from the heresy of Eunomius!

   Under the courtly archiepiscopate of Nectarius the clergy of Constantinople
   became utterly corrupt and utterly worldly; but then, Nectarius was such a
   good manager—he kept everything so quiet, and he gave such good dinners! And
   under his sway the Church, to use Kingsley’s phrase, ‘swaggered on, arm in
   arm with the flesh and the devil.’
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XIV

  ANOTHER ARCHBISHOP

     Paul did not say, Let everyone desire the episcopate. It is a work, not a
     relaxation; a solicitude, not a luxury; a responsible ministration, not an
     irresponsible dominion; a fatherly supervision, not a tyrannical
     autocracy.—Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. iii. 216.

   Nectarius, then, on September 27, 397, lay dead in his splendid palace; and
   the breath was hardly out of the Archbishop’s body when there were a dozen
   ‘austere intriguers’ in the field, and the subterranean plots and
   whisperings began, and the wirepullers were incessantly at work. The
   floodgates of ecclesiastical ambition were opened, and poured their muddy
   sluices over the capital of the East.

   All Constantinople buzzed and clacked with the counter-solicitations of
   eager interests, and every nameless pretender to the episcopal throne put
   into play every secret method in his power to win the coveted prize. For did
   not the Archbishop rank among the noblest in the whole land? Had he not the
   precedence over the most illustrious civilians at Court and in the houses of
   the great? Was not the Patriarch of Constantinople practically higher in
   position than even the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome?

   The electorate with whom the choice rested was a little ill-defined. The
   provincial bishops were supposed to have weight in the matter, and as a
   synod of them happened at the time to be assembled in the city, under the
   presidency of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, their influence was
   regarded as highly important. But then the illustres and honorati—all who
   had high civil offices, had also to be consulted. The people, too, had an
   undeniable voice in the nomination of their prelate; and the supreme court
   had necessarily to be reckoned with.

   So, for four weary, dreary, and shameful months Constantinople became a
   turmoil of cabals. There was the cabal of bishops, each trying to further
   the promotion of his own favourite, or of himself. There was the cabal of
   the clergy of Constantinople, some striving with all the reckless passion of
   self-interest to procure their own preferment; others, who had no possible
   chance, trying to curry favour with anyone who, if elected, might advance
   their future interests; there was the cabal of influential personages who
   felt intensely interested in the result, because they had pitted their
   importance against each other, and the failure of their candidate would be a
   diminution of their prestige. And each separate faction strove to calumniate
   and undermine all the candidates of the rest.

   Incomparably the most odious of these cliques were those of the clergy, who
   seemed to hesitate at no moral humiliation which would further their
   ambitious plans. There was no flattery, no complaisance to which they would
   not stoop, if they could only capture popularity among the lowest of the
   people. They trumpeted their own merits in every direction, and got them
   still more effectually trumpeted by the dictated eulogiums of their
   partisans. On the other hand, no amount of subterranean calumny was too
   gross if it served to dim the hopes or dash the prospects of a possible
   rival. As for the civil functionaries and Court officials, they were
   constantly receiving the visits of the clergy, who bowed before them with
   the most abject abasement. Money was spent with profusion in the furtherance
   of their intrigues. From dawn to dusk the baths, the colonnades, the church
   porches, the markets, had but one theme of common interest—who was to be the
   new Archbishop?

   ‘I know,’ some bourgeois would say mysteriously as he stood in a group of
   gossip-mongers.

   ‘You know?’ another would answer, with disdainful curiosity. ‘Who is it,
   then?’

   ‘Ah! that’s telling. But I don’t mind giving you a hint. It’s one of the
   priests of the Church of the Anastasia.’

   ‘Oh! you mean Alopecius,’ said a third. ‘There you’re out. They could not
   possibly elect so mere a booby!’

   ‘Ah! but,’ said a fourth, ‘he knows Castricia, and she has only to whisper
   his name in the ear of the Emperor, and he’s certain. It’s not for nothing
   that he gave her that pair of gold-embroidered shoes which he got all the
   way from Damascus.’

   ‘Nonsense!’ said another. ’Isaac, the monk; he’s the man. Trust him!’—and a
   number of nods, and winks, and wreathed smiles seemed to appeal to something
   esoteric in the knowledge of the hearer.

   ‘You’re about right,’ chimed in another. ‘Besides, he’s got hold of Marsa,
   who is much more powerful than Castricia, for she’s a sort of aunt of the
   new Empress.’

   ‘How sapient you all are!’ answered another. ‘None of you know the least
   thing about it. Isidore the Egyptian—he’ll be the man, you’ll see. The
   Patriarch Theophilus is moving heaven and earth to get him elected—no one
   knows why, unless it is that he may keep him under his thumb, and rule
   Constantinople with a rod of iron, as he rules Alexandria.’

   ‘What a shame to thrust a low Egyptian on us!’ they murmured.

   ‘You are all reckoning without your host, and Theophilus too,’ said another.
   ‘There’s one person who’ll have more to say to the matter than even the
   Emperor himself, and that’s the eunuch.’

   ‘Eutropius!’ they all exclaimed.

   ‘Yes, Eutropius! Did you ever know any pie in which he had not his finger
   since he got rid of Rufinus?’

   ‘Ah!’ said another, ‘then that’s why a certain person took a costly necklace
   of pearls to the Chamberlain’s sister yesterday.’

   ‘A certain person! Who?’

   ‘Serapion,’ answered the speaker, who hated Serapion with a perfect hatred,
   because he had been reproved by him for cheating and perjury.

   ‘That’s just a lie out of your own wicked head,’ hotly retorted the other.
   “Whatever the other may be, Serapion is a perfectly honest man, and if the
   patriarchate can only be picked out of the gutter, he would not stoop there
   for it.’

   All this odious chatter was going on day by day and week by week; and the
   clergy, who were so largely mixed up with it, were sinking lower and lower
   into the contempt of all earnest Christians. There were many who even
   dreaded that the rivalry of cliques might deluge Constantinople with cruel
   massacre, as it had deluged Rome in the struggle for the Papacy between
   Damasus and Ursicinus in 367, when a hundred and thirty-seven corpses had
   hideously defiled, not only the Italian and Liberian basilicas, but even the
   floor of the Church of St. Agnes.

   There seemed no end to the matter, and at last even the populace grew so
   weary and so ashamed of a struggle which seemed to banish from the Christian
   Church even the dregs of spirituality, that they agreed in a public assembly
   to leave the decision in the hands of the Emperor, entreating him to choose
   neither an intriguer, nor a nonentity, nor a time-serving worldling, but
   someone who by his ability and by his goodness would sustain the best
   traditions of a see over which a Gregory of Nazianzus had once presided.

   That seemed likely to settle the matter in favour of the Egyptian presbyter,
   Isidore. The Emperor was believed to incline to him; Arcadius had succumbed
   to the ascendency of the bad hypocrite, Theophilus of Alexandria, a man who,
   in his boundless ambition, his hateful unscrupulosity, and his fierce
   cruelty when he was aroused to envy or hatred, was perhaps the worst type of
   many bad forms of priestliness in an evil age.

   Nobody who knew him dreamt of crediting Theophilus with any pure motive. It
   was not generally known why he had pledged all his influence in favour of
   his obscure presbyter, Isidore, but it was generally believed that he would
   like to see a man of no distinction appointed, that he might bind him to
   himself by personal gratitude, and sufficiently dominate over him to render
   the throne of Constantinople entirely subordinate to that of Alexandria.

   No doubt that motive existed, but there was another and a worse behind.
   Isidore was in possession of one of Theophilus’s many dark secrets, and the
   Patriarch was prepared to pay any price to obviate the serious, but quite
   imaginary, possibility of being blackmailed by his own presbyter. He need
   not have been afraid. The only blackmailer was his own guilty conscience.
   Isidore was an honest man, and so little was he cognisant of the designs of
   his Patriarch, that when they were mentioned to him he fled back to
   Alexandria.

   For Theophilus, whose eye was ever fixed, not on Heaven, but on the main
   chance, had seriously compromised himself nine years before; and the sense
   that he had done so must have been one of the many skeletons which occupied
   the dark places of his soul. In the year 387 the usurper Maximus, taking
   advantage of the youthful helplessness of Valentinian II., had invaded
   Italy, and though Theodosius had advanced to the defence of the young
   Emperor, the issue of the contest was highly uncertain. Theophilus wanted to
   profit by the victory of either; but as he had not the gift of prophecy, and
   could not tell which was the more likely to succeed, he prepared presents
   and sent letters of congratulation both to Maximus and to Theodosius, which
   were to be delivered according as victory declared for the usurper or the
   Emperor. Someone had necessarily to be taken into the Patriarch’s
   confidence, and he entrusted Isidore to proceed to Rome with the duplicate
   letters. As fortune decided for Theodosius, Isidore presented to him the
   letter which bore his address. But he did not bring back with him to
   Alexandria the letter addressed to Maximus. He returned home precipitately,
   as though in great alarm, and declared that the deacon who accompanied him
   had stolen the letter to Maximus. Had that been the case, there was little
   doubt that the letter would be heard of again; but Theophilus wrongfully
   suspected that it was still in Isidore’s possession, and there were popular
   rumours to that effect. The silence and complicity of Isidore were worth
   purchasing at any cost. His allegiance might be finally secured at the
   superb price of the Archbishopric of Constantinople, and Theophilus felt so
   sure of carrying his election that, for the first time for many years, he
   began to feel a little more at ease.

   We shall hear the final fate of Isidore hereafter. His ultimate ruin was
   only one of a long black-list of crimes committed by this man, who was
   amongst the most eminent ecclesiastics of his day. But the times were very
   bad in the Church, as in the State. The evidence under this head which comes
   to us from every side is overwhelming and conclusive. Another Isidore, the
   famous saint and abbot of Pelusium, says: ‘Once pastors would die for their
   flocks; now they destroy the sheep by causing them to stumble…. Once they
   distributed their goods to the needy; now they appropriate what belongs to
   the poor…. Once they practised virtue; now they ostracise those who do.’
   ‘Once men avoided the episcopate because of the greatness of its authority;
   now they rush into it because of the greatness of its luxury. Abate your
   pride, relax your superciliousness, remember that you are but as they. Do
   not use the arms of the priesthood against the priesthood itself.’ ‘There
   are bishops who live up to the Apostolic standard. If you say ”very few,” I
   do not deny it.’

   The decision as to the Archbishopric of Constantinople was now in the hands
   of the Emperor Arcadius, which, as everyone knew, meant that it was in the
   hands of the eunuch Eutropius. The Chamberlain was not in the slightest
   degree interested in the intrigues either of Theophilus or of any of the
   clergy of Constantinople. They only filled him with an amused but cynical
   disgust. He had determined on a coup de théâtre; he meant that Chrysostom,
   whom no one had ever mentioned or dreamed of, should be Archbishop. He had
   heard Chrysostom preach in Antioch, and had been stirred to the depths of
   his heart. He filled the Emperor with the praises of his eloquence, and of
   his genius.

   ‘He will be the glory of your Empire,’ said Eutropius. ’His fame will throw
   the Patriarchs of Alexandria and of the West into the shade. His speech
   rushes like the Nile in flood. No one has ever heard anything like it.’

   Arcadius obeyed the behest of his Minister with his usual sheepish
   nonchalance. His government was a mere slumber, in which he never did
   anything but what he was told by his master for the time being.

   ‘But will John come?’ he asked.

   ‘I will manage that,’ answered Eutropius.

   ‘But will not the Antiochenes rebel, and prevent his removal?’

   ‘Oh! I will manage all that. Only let your Eternity leave it to me, and
   enjoy the pageant I have provided for you to-night.’

   That night, when the palace revels were over, Eutropius gave an unusually
   magnificent reception at the house of his sister. The clergy attended it in
   throngs, with the intense desire of currying favour and making themselves
   agreeable. Theophilus was present in all his pomp, and was surrounded by
   their adulations. Wherever he turned they were on their knees, beseeching
   the blessings which he scattered on all sides with the most peach-ripening
   of smiles. He felt perfectly certain of success, and was convinced that
   before the reception was over Eutropius would announce that the decision of
   the Emperor had fallen on his presbyter, Isidore. Eutropius did not
   undeceive him, but with a very humble bow, before the assemblage broke up,
   said to him in the general hearing:

   ‘May the humblest of the human race request a word with your Beatitude
   before you retire?’

   ‘Certainly,’ said the Patriarch, with bland alacrity, now more than ever
   sure that his long intrigues had been crowned with success.

   ‘I thought that it might be interesting to your Sanctity, and to our friends
   in general, to know that the long vacancy in the Archbishopric has now at
   last been filled up.’

   The eye of Theophilus glittered as he expressed his conviction that the
   Emperor’s sacred majesty would be sure to have made a worthy choice, which
   all the world would approve.

   ‘Surely, surely,’ said the eunuch, devoutly. ‘His Eternity the Emperor, son
   of the holy and orthodox Theodosius, could not possibly do otherwise.’

   ‘And the new Archbishop is——?’ asked Theophilus.

   ‘I quite agree with your Beatitude that the nomination will give universal
   delight,’ said Eutropius, who, with a keen sense of amused malignity, was
   playing with the Patriarch and the assembled clergy as a cat plays with a
   mouse.

   ‘Only you have forgotten to name the fortunate candidate,’ said Theophilus.
   ‘Doubtless it is my saintly presbyter, Isidore.’

   ‘Oh no!’ said Eutropius, blandly; ‘it is no Egyptian. It is someone much
   more worthy and much more widely known than the nobody-in-particular
   Isidore.’

   Theophilus was in an agony of dread and disappointment. ’Who is it?’ he
   asked, almost foaming with rage.

   ‘Yes,’ said Eutropius, pretending not to have heard the question. ‘Quite
   true. I was telling the Emperor all about him this afternoon. He is the idol
   of his Church, the favourite of his people, a great writer, an ascetic, most
   purely orthodox, a man of dauntless independence, and of burning
   eloquence.’

   It would have required a layman adequately to express the fury of
   Theophilus. He felt a mad desire to throttle the eunuch then and there, or
   at least, as he was accustomed to do in Egypt, to smite him such a blow in
   the face that the blood would flow. But he had to master his passion, and as
   the little, bald, wrinkled old man continued to rub his hands and to eye him
   with a gratified smile, he turned his back, and said:

   ‘If you choose to play with the feelings and insult the patience of all
   these reverend bishops and presbyters, and to conceal from us the Emperor’s
   nomination, this is no place for me, and I can only retire.’

   ‘Oh!’ said Eutropius, ‘have I not mentioned his name? I beg your
   Beatitude’s pardon a thousand times. It is—’ after a slight pause, during
   which he watched the Patriarch with wickedly twinkling eyes—’it is John, the
   Presbyter of Antioch.’

   ‘John—the—Presbyter—of—Antioch!’ repeated the clergy, in astonished tones.

   ‘John, the Presbyter of Antioch,’ repeated the Chamberlain; ’an eloquent
   man, as Paul says, and mighty in the Scriptures.’

   It was as though a thunderbolt had fallen into the midst of them, shattering
   a multitude of ambitions. But no one was more profoundly disturbed than
   Theophilus. He had been outwitted—and by an eunuch! His influence had been
   set at nought, his earnest solicitations thrown back, as it were, in his
   face! But that was by no means all. He had heard enough of Chrysostom to
   know that he was the last man to allow himself to be overpowered by
   domineering arrogance, the last man to play the part of a complaisant
   subordinate and a flattering colleague. Theophilus might have made many
   another man—even such a man as St. Jerome—the tool and catspaw of his
   machinations, but John of Antioch? No! And was not John the favourite
   presbyter of Flavian, who had deliberately set at nought the citations of
   Theophilus, and had called him ‘an arrogant and overweening Egyptian’?

   ‘I am sure that your Beatitude will feel exceptional gratification in
   consecrating John,’ said Eutropius, rippling with laughter, which became
   less and less controllable as he marked the Patriarch’s fierce discomfiture.

   Something very like a curse was smothered in the voluminous folds of the
   beard of Theophilus, as he hissed out, ‘I will never consecrate him.’

   Eutropius heard, and laughed more merrily than ever, but affected not to
   have heard, and said: ‘I must now wish good-night to all your reverences and
   your sanctities, and all the other illustrious guests who have honoured by
   their presence my poor abode; but perhaps his Beatitude of Alexandria will
   deign to give me one word in private before he departs.’

   The glittering assembly buzzed into groups, and speedily broke up, leaving
   Theophilus standing alone. He was so absorbed in passionate thought that he
   hardly remembered where he was till a hand pulled his robe.

   He started, and saw the eye of the Chamberlain fixed on him.

   ‘Excuse me,’ said Eutropius, whose whole manner had changed to one of
   insolent triumph, ‘I think you said you would never consecrate John.’

   ‘Never!’ said Theophilus.

   ‘What! Never?’

   ‘Never!’ repeated the Patriarch, stamping his foot, and with a glance which,
   like that of the basilisk, would have struck the eunuch dead if its power
   had equalled its will.

   Eutropius smiled, and drew from his bosom a little bundle of papers. ‘Look
   here,’ he said. ‘Here is a certain letter you once wrote to Maximus.
   Double-dealing is dangerous—especially for Patriarchs; and high treason is a
   very serious matter.’

   The face of Theophilus grew pale as death, and he trembled.

   ‘You will consecrate John,’ said the Chamberlain, ’or——’; he tapped the
   papers with his finger, and saluted him with a mocking bow. He left him; but
   after he had taken a few paces he turned round to look at him. Theophilus
   was standing in an attitude of despair, and had lifted his clenched hands to
   heaven; but when he saw Eutropius looking at him he turned haughtily and
   indignantly away.

   ‘What can I do?’ he exclaimed to himself when he reached the sumptuous
   chamber which he occupied. ‘The wretch holds my life in his hands. Curses on
   him! But I will watch, and by the God of heaven I will be avenged, I will be
   avenged!’

   Eutropius went into his library, and flung himself on the chair of ebon
   inlaid with ivory which stood before his writing-table. He recalled the
   past, and contrasted it with the present. ‘I have triumphed,’ he said. ‘I am
   avenged on the cruelty and baseness of the world. My own parents betrayed my
   helpless infancy; they received my price from the slave-dealers of Armenia.
   They sold me to an Egyptian master. While my youth and beauty lasted he was
   kind to me, and I loved him; without one pang he sold me to Arintheus, and I
   had to do his vilest messages. Arintheus gave me to his daughter; I became a
   slave of the Gynæceum. I had to fan women with peacocks’ feathers, to heat
   their baths, to carry their burdens, until that hateful Megæra, not even
   deigning to sell me, turned me out of doors as of no value. Would to God I
   had flung myself into the Nile, and not borne those years of turpitude and
   infamy! But Abundantius got me a place among the lowest eunuchs of the
   palace; and now,’ he cried, striking the table with his fist, ‘now I am
   here! My own skill, my own genius has lifted me. Theodosius himself sent me
   on the mission to John, the Egyptian eremite, who foretold his death in
   Italy when he went to fight Eugenius. I struck down the mighty Rufinus in
   his towering pride. As for Arcadius, I lead him about as if he were—a cow. I
   have brought every one of my foes to my feet, and now I have humbled to the
   dust this wicked and wily Patriarch. Stilico himself fears me. My name is
   eulogised by millions of lips. I am practically the ruler of the world;
   and—’ he broke into a storm of bitter sobs, and laid his head on his folded
   hands—’and the vilest wretch who sweeps the streets of Constantinople is
   happier than I. Would to God I had never been born!’

   A hand was laid gently on his shoulder. He looked up with a start. It was
   his sister, who had silently entered the room—the only being on earth whom
   he loved. She was past middle life, but still showed something of the beauty
   which once had marked them both.

   He smiled at her sadly, the tears still in his eyes. She would not notice
   them. ‘You have done a noble deed, my brother,’ she said, ‘in making John of
   Antioch the new Patriarch. He is a good man.’

   ‘I am a Christian and a Catholic,’ he answered. ‘Would that I were a better
   Christian!’ He paused; and his conscience whispered to him that he relied on
   words and formulæ alone, and that his many misdeeds—his greed, his
   revengefulness, the malice and hatred and wrath which he nursed in his heart
   against all mankind—were utterly unchristian. ‘But,’ he said, ’John of
   Antioch was the best man whom I knew among all the clergy of the Empire, and
   in selecting him I have acted right, and in a way which will win me deserved
   popularity. But as for gratitude, sister—alas! I never found a trace of it
   on earth!’
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XV

  THE CAPTURE OF CHRYSOSTOM

     Fortune? There is no fortune! All is trial, or punishment, or recompense,
     or foresight.—Voltaire.

   It was a morning in February. Chrysostom was arranging with the faithful and
   indefatigable Philip the duties of the day after they had shared the morning
   meal of bread and dates. Suddenly they heard a summons at the door, and old
   Phlegon came in to say that there stood outside a slave in the gorgeous
   livery of the governor of the city, who had brought a letter.

   ‘What can he want at this early hour?’ said Philip as he cut the silken
   band; broke the Government seal, and handed the letter to the Presbyter.
   Chrysostom read with some surprise, ’Asterius, Count of the East, requests
   the Presbyter John to give him the honour of his company an hour hence at
   the Roman Gate, that he may have the advantage of visiting in his company
   the Martyry of St. Lucianus.’

   He handed it to Philip with a smile.

   ‘Well, that upsets all our plans,’ said Philip. ‘But how odd! An interest in
   martyries was the last thing of which I should have suspected his
   Excellency. But it will be a delightful little excursion along the banks of
   the Orontes. You will let me walk with you as far as the Roman Gate? We must
   start almost immediately to get there in time.’

   A few minutes later they set forth from the house in Singon Street, in which
   Chrysostom had been born, in which he had lived nearly all his life, and in
   which his father Secundus, his mother Anthusa, and his only sister had died.
   It was a burning morning of the Syrian spring, and as they passed in happy
   spirits through the streets—gazing now at the great Charonium, now at the
   statue of the Fortune of Antioch, now at the house which had been Philip’s
   former home, and now at the glancing river, seen in glimpses here and there,
   and at the long colonnades, and the palaces, and the distant hills gleaming
   in the sunshine—the last thought which could occur to their minds would have
   been that thenceforth, to one of them for long years, and to the other for
   ever, those bright scenes would from that moment vanish from their lives,
   that they would never again tread, side by side, those old, familiar
   streets. Chrysostom could not have left the home of his parents, of his
   childhood, and of so many happy and fruitful years, without many a sob had
   he distantly suspected that when he walked from his paternal door so
   unconsciously he would never again set foot upon its threshold. Philip’s
   heart would have been torn with reminiscences of his father’s execution, his
   mother’s sad death, his cruel punishment, the horrible fate of his boyish
   friends, if he could have dreamed how long it was before he could look on
   Antioch again.

   A little before they reached the Roman Gate Asterius met them, all smiles
   and complaisance. Several of his bodyguard and slaves had escorted him, and
   fell back as Chrysostom and Philip approached. They were a little at a loss
   to know why he smiled so much, and was so very deferential; but they were
   soon to learn that

     A man may smile, and smile, and be…

   —well, no, not exactly a villain, but the accomplice in a little plot.

   The Martyry was not far beyond the city walls, and lay in an umbrageous
   grove of oaks and laurels. Asterius was walking with Chrysostom, and Philip
   followed them, a little in front of the escort. But no sooner had they
   turned into the path which led to the chapel than Asterius took Chrysostom
   by the arm, and requested him to step into a chariot which was there
   waiting.

   ‘I am sorry, Count,’ said Chrysostom, ‘but I have my duties at Antioch, and
   directly we have paid our devotions at the shrine of the martyr I must
   return.’

   ‘Pray oblige me,’ said the Count, still all smiles; and meanwhile the escort
   had come up, and, with gentle and respectful violence, lifted the astonished
   and agitated Presbyter into the chariot, and instantly started off at full
   speed.

   ‘What is this, Count? What does this violence mean? Have you entrapped me?
   What has happened? Am I to be suddenly murdered, as Count Lucian was?’

   ‘Pray be at ease, Father,’ said the Count. ‘I cannot explain matters at
   present, but not the smallest harm or incivility is intended you.’

   ‘Incivility!’ said Chrysostom. ‘Is it, then, no incivility to seize an
   unoffending presbyter, entrap him into a chariot, and drive away with him he
   knows not where?’

   ‘Pardon me, dear Presbyter,’ said the Count, still with a smile of provoking
   amiability. ‘The chariot is bounding along at such a rate over this paved
   road that I can scarcely hear you. But, pray, do not be agitated. Not the
   least injury will be done. Quite the contrary. I am only taking you a little
   drive as far as Pagræ, the first station.’

   Chrysostom sank into silence, for, though he was lost in the wildest
   conjectures, it seemed useless to attempt to obtain any more information
   from the sphinx-like Count.

   But Philip?

   When the chariot bounded off at full speed he was extremely alarmed, and all
   the more because before it disappeared in a cloud of dust the soldiers and
   slaves who had accompanied the Count burst into roars of laughter. They were
   not in the secret, but they knew that no crime was meditated, and to them
   the situation had considerable elements of amusement. To Philip’s
   wildly-eager inquiries they could furnish no information, beyond the
   assurance of Asterius that all was well, and that they should hear more on
   the Count’s return. One thing only they were sure of—that Chrysostom would
   be detained away from Antioch for some time.

   Philip was a youth of courage and swift decision. He instantly determined
   what to do. He hurried back through the Roman Gate, hired a horse, galloped
   to Singon Street, told the troubled servants that their master had been
   taken off by Count Asterius, and would be absent for some time. Then, not
   wasting a moment, he threw into a leathern bag some of Chrysostom’s
   manuscripts and the things which he thought he would most immediately need,
   and once more galloped towards Pagræ at the utmost speed to which he could
   urge his horse.

   A little before he reached the station, which was twelve miles from Antioch,
   he met the returning chariot of Asterius, in which, besides the Count, there
   was only one attendant and the charioteer. Asterius seemed still to be lost
   in smiles. He had a notion that the Presbyter John would be in a perfectly
   ecstatic state of mind when he first learnt the secret that he was to be
   Patriarch of Constantinople. [6]

   Philip reined in his horse, and, forgetful of everything but his own alarm,
   called to the Count:

   ‘Oh, my lord! what has become of the Presbyter John?’

   ‘Don’t be alarmed, my good youth,’ said the Count, waving to him a gracious
   and much-ringed hand, but not stopping the chariot.

   Philip again darted forward.

   At Pagræ there was quite a commotion—for there were two imperial chariots,
   with their gorgeously caparisoned horses, and by them stood two persons,
   evidently of the highest distinction, escorted by two decuries of mounted
   soldiers in full armour, which flashed in the sunlight.

   There were again the same mysterious smiles, the same marked deference, but
   the same obvious determination to control the movements of Chrysostom. The
   two officials at once approached with most courteous salutations.

   ‘I,’ said one of them, advancing, ‘am Amantius, the almoner of the Empress
   Eudoxia, and I offer my most respectful greetings to John the Presbyter.’

   ‘And I,’ said the other, ‘am Aurelian, Magister Militum of the Emperor
   Arcadius. And these two bands of soldiers are at your service as an escort,
   for they are under my command.’

   ‘What do you want with me?’ said Chrysostom, indignantly. ’The Count of the
   East has simply carried me hither against my will.’

   ‘I fear we shall have to take the liberty of conveying you a little
   farther,’ said Aurelian, with polite deference.

   ‘Whither?’ said Chrysostom.

   Aurelian glanced at Amantius, to know whether it was safe to tell him his
   destination. The official shook his head.

   ‘At present, John, we cannot tell you,’ he said; ‘you shall know a little
   farther on.’

   ‘But I have brought absolutely nothing with me. I merely started from home
   for a morning walk. May I not send to Antioch for things absolutely
   necessary?’

   ‘We have everything which you can possibly require, and it is entirely at
   your disposal. But, pardon me, time is very precious. We have ample
   refreshments for you in the chariot, and at the next station we will sup.’

   At this moment Philip galloped into the courtyard of the hostelry, and,
   catching sight of his master and adopted father, flung himself into his
   arms, and asked what had happened.

   ‘You must ask these gentlemen, my Philip,’ said the Presbyter. ‘They will
   give me no information.’

   ‘I have brought you some things from home,’ said Philip, ‘and wherever you
   go I will go.’

   ‘Nay, that cannot be, my good youth,’ said Aurelian, kindly. ‘We have no
   orders to conduct anyone but John.’

   Philip glanced from the soldier to the kind face of the eunuch, who seemed
   to be higher in authority, and he said:

   ‘Oh, sir! may I speak to you privately?’

   ‘Only for one moment, then,’ replied Amantius, stepping aside; ‘we are
   wasting very precious time.’

   ‘Sir,’ said Philip, ‘the Presbyter John is a man of very delicate health.
   His digestion was utterly ruined when he lived as a hermit in the cave on
   Mount Silpius. In everything which concerns himself he is as simple as a
   child. He would never trouble himself about food or anything else unless
   someone attended to him. I have waited on him for years as a son. I entreat
   you, let me accompany him. I will be entirely faithful. I will make no
   plots. I am ready to go with him either to prison or to death.’

   ‘You are a brave and gracious youth,’ said Amantius, gazing with admiration
   on Philip’s flushed but beautiful face. ‘Well, I will stretch a point, and
   will speak to the Commandant.’

   He told Aurelian what the youth had said.

   ‘Will you be responsible for him?’ asked the soldier.

   ‘Yes.’

   ‘Then he may come. But we must at once mount the chariots. Young man,’ he
   said to Philip, ‘we are sending one of our soldiers to Asterius. He can ride
   your horse back to Antioch, and you can borrow his.’

   ‘And feel no alarm, my young friend,’ said Amantius. ’John is happy to have
   such a faithful attendant as you.’

   ‘I thank you, sir,’ said Philip. ‘He has twice saved my life. I owe him
   everything.’

   ‘Forward, soldiers!’ shouted Aurelian; and the chariots, with their mounted
   escort, started at full gallop.

   It was useless to ask any more questions. If he attempted to do so,


   The Chamberlain, sedate and vain,

   In courteous words returned reply,

   But dallied with his golden chain,

   And, smiling, put the question by.

   But Chrysostom, who was accustomed to kind care in all personal matters, as
   greatly cheered and relieved, whatever should happen, by the company of his
   beloved and faithful Philip; and for the rest, wholly unable to conjecture
   in his simple mind what the future had in store for him, he resigned himself
   and his fortunes into the hand of God.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [6] The actual name ‘Patriarch’ is not found in public documents till rather
   later, but the historian Socrates uses it, and it was almost certainly
   current in common parlance.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XVI

  TALES BY THE WAY


   For Heaven’s sake, let us sit upon the ground

   And tell sad stories of the death of kings.

   King Richard II., iii. 2.

   Apart from the fatigues of travel and the necessary uncertainty and anxiety,
   the journey of eight hundred miles towards Constantinople was as pleasant
   for Chrysostom as his captors could make it. The modern love for beautiful
   scenery was in those days but little developed; but John was one of the few
   who keenly enjoyed the beauties of Nature, and he could not be indifferent
   to the glorious scenes through which the journey lay. When they did not
   arrive at their station till after dusk he would often sit silent, gazing on
   the stars—’those eternal flowers of heaven,’ as St. Basil calls them—and
   musing on his own unknown future, and on the little lives of men. He was
   also deeply interested in seeing the home of St. Paul’s boyhood as they
   passed through Tarsus, and looked on the silver Cydnus, up which Cleopatra
   had rowed in her gilded barge.

   Had the circumstances been less mysterious Philip would have been wild with
   delight as he galloped among the soldiery of the escort. He felt the
   exhilaration of change and exercise, and new glimpses of the great world;
   and he was naturally a favourite with the soldiers, who delighted in his
   witty Antiochene jokes and in his buoyant freshness of spirits, while they
   were struck with the genuine innocence and sweetness of his character. He
   did not share their rough quarters, but took his meals with Chrysostom and
   the two great officials, and slept at his master’s feet, or in an anteroom.

   They reached Pessinus, the capital of Galatia, after several days of almost
   unbroken travel. There Chrysostom and Philip looked with interest on the
   legend-haunted heights of Mount Dindymus, and saw the ancient temple of the
   mother of the gods, in which the Emperor Julian had recently paid his
   devotions.

   Amantius and Aurelian had become more and more attached to their captive and
   his young companion; they no longer made any secret of the fact that they
   were conveying him to Constantinople. They pretended that it would be as
   much as their lives were worth to say why he was wanted; and he could not
   himself even form a guess, for he dismissed as preposterous the only
   conjecture which flitted across his mind. That he could have been elevated
   to the Patriarchate of Constantinople seemed to him an absurdity; and he
   would have shuddered at the prospect instead of being elated by it.

   The sight of the Temple of Cybele, from which the heaven-fallen image had
   been carried to Rome six centuries earlier, naturally turned their thoughts
   to heathen idolatry, and as they rested in the evening Aurelian said:

   ‘Idolatry is, I suppose, nearly as ancient as mankind itself; but such is
   the epoch in which we live that I have myself seen it receive its
   deathblows.’

   ‘Do you refer to the edicts of Theodosius?’ asked Chrysostom, ‘or to
   Ambrose’s crushing answer to Symmachus, when he pleaded with Gratian to
   restore the altar of victory in the Senate-house of Rome?’

   ‘No. I refer to the destruction of the Temple of Serapis and the battle of
   Frigidus. I was present at both.’

   ‘Do tell us about the destruction of the Serapeum.’

   ‘It was an event of deep interest,’ said Aurelian, ‘but I wish I could
   regard it with unmixed approval. The Christians, especially the monks, after
   Theodosius had forbidden sacrifices in 386, had headed many furious assaults
   on temples. Heathens like Libanius say that they found their account in
   doing so. They did not always escape unpunished. Rustic populations were
   passionately devoted to ancient shrines, like this one as Pessinus, which
   were mixed up with all their memories and traditions. You have, no doubt,
   heard how Marcellus, the lame Bishop of Apamea, was killed in his attack on
   the great Temple of Jupiter. But no temple was so famous as that of Serapis.
   It had been founded by the first Ptolemy, and Alexandria itself was called
   “The City of Serapis.” The temple stood on a mound which was ascended by a
   hundred marble steps. It was of enormous size, had a great library, and was
   full of exquisite statues and precious works of art. The very walls were
   covered with plates of silver and gold. The rising of the Nile, and
   therefore the prosperity and almost the existence of Egypt, was, by the mass
   of the population, believed to depend on the favour of Serapis. Libanius had
   unwisely taunted Theodosius with leaving untouched the great temples at
   Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria, while he allowed the smaller temples
   to be assaulted, destroyed, and, alas! plundered by the monks. Theophilus of
   Alexandria, saving his reverence a bold, bad man, at once sanguinary and
   avaricious——’

   ‘Hush!’ said Chrysostom, who never hesitated to rebuke even the greatest if
   he thought it a duty.

   ‘Well,’ said Aurelian, ‘he really is all I say, and worse; and the blessed
   Paul told the High Priest that he was a whited wall.’

   ‘Yes,’ answered Chrysostom, ‘but directly he knew that he was the High
   Priest he apologised, and said, “It is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of
   the ruler of thy people.”’

   ‘I stand corrected, John,’ answered Aurelian with a smile, for he was a
   soldier, and admired straightforward courage. ‘But to continue. Theophilus
   had already profaned and dismantled a temple of Osiris, and the worshippers
   of Serapis, fearing the next step, garrisoned the Serapeum. The Christians
   assembled to attack it, and there would have been bloodshed, but the
   magistrates secured a truce till the Emperor could be consulted. Theodosius
   decided for the demolition of the temple, in revenge for the Christian
   prisoners whom the Pagans had tortured and killed. It was at once despoiled
   and demolished. But when the multitude entered the shrine where the huge
   gilded idol sat enthroned, with the basket on his head and the three-headed
   monster in his right hand, they paused in superstitious dread. Heaven and
   earth would collapse, it was believed, if the majesty of the god were
   violated. But one of my rude soldiers had no such fear. He put a ladder
   against the statue, and ascended it, amid the breathless silence of the
   multitude, with a huge battle-axe in his hand. Then the audacious legionary
   dashed his axe on the face of the image with all his force, and smote off
   its cheek. The mob expected to see him struck dead or blind; but no
   lightning flashed, no cloud darkened the blue of heaven. He smote again and
   again, while the hall rang with the echo of his blows. In a minute or two
   the hollow head of the image rolled with a clang on the marble floor, and
   out sprang an immemorial colony of rats, whose home had been thus rudely
   invaded. No sooner did the mob see the black, voracious creatures leaping
   and scurrying off in every direction than superstition was changed into
   angry contempt. The protector of heaven and earth had not been even able to
   protect his own rats! The people broke into shouts of laughter, swarmed up
   the pedestal, tore down the image, tripudiated on its shattered fragments as
   they dragged them through the mire of the streets, and ultimately flung them
   into a huge bonfire. There was a little delay in the rising of the Nile, and
   when it did rise it threatened a deluge. “Serapis,” they murmured, “will
   avenge himself.” But no; the waters sank to the due fertilising height, and
   even in Alexandria Serapis will never be worshipped more!’

   Chrysostom listened, and mused.

   ‘But, sir,’ said Philip, modestly, to Aurelian, ‘you said you had also
   witnessed the other deathblow to Paganism.’

   ‘Ah! I see,’ said Aurelian, ‘your youthful blood is all on fire to hear
   about battles. I have been in many. Believe me they are frightful things,
   even when we are victors. I remember only too well the massacre of
   Adrianople. I was near the person of the Emperor Valens on that awful August
   9, 378. It was only by a moment’s delay that I was shut out of the cottage
   in which he was burnt to death with his followers, while the barbarians were
   massacring two-thirds of the Roman army, of which, but for the darkness,
   none would have escaped. Alas! it was the Nemesis of our crimes! If Valens
   admitted the Goths over the Danube to the hospitality of Roman territory, he
   should not have suffered them to be insulted and starved. Yet, even after
   the retribution of Adrianople we were guilty, that very year, of the horrid
   butchery of all the deceived and unarmed Gothic youth, which I for one
   regard as the most frightful of all evil omens and hateful crimes.’

   ‘I would not ask you about those shocking scenes,’ said Philip; ‘but how did
   the battle of the Frigidus put an end to Paganism?’

   ‘I must answer you briefly,’ said Aurelian. ‘It was September 6, 394;
   Eugenius, the puppet-emperor of Arbogast the Gaul, had pretended to espouse
   the cause of the Pagans. In the mountainous passes he had placed statues of
   Jupiter, with his right hand uplifted as though to strike, and armed with
   golden thunderbolts. The battle was very risky, for Arbogast had posted his
   forces with great skill. The first day the enemy got the best of it. The
   Goths of Arbogast routed those under Gaïnas and slew 10,000 of them.
   Theodosius, pressed by many of his generals, would have retreated to a safer
   encampment, if he had not thought that this would look like a defeat of
   Christianity. “Our Labarum, which bears the cross on it,” he cried, “shall
   never retreat before the image of Heracles.”

   ‘There was among the allies one superb young Goth, named Alaric, who, if I
   am not much mistaken, will be heard of again; he, almost alone, urged the
   Emperor to renew the battle. The enemy spent the night in songs and
   revelries; Theodosius spent it in prayer. When he slept he saw two terrible
   figures on white horses, who told him that they were St. John and St. Philip
   come to fight for him. Next morning he dared not narrate the dream to his
   troops, lest they should think it a fiction, until a soldier said he had
   dreamt the very same thing. Then Theodosius told his vision. His robe was
   wet with tears, and when he took it off to don his cuirass he hung the wet
   purple garment on a tree, as though in silent appeal to Heaven. Our men were
   filled with wild enthusiasm; but even then I doubt whether we should have
   won if suddenly—may I say supernaturally?—the bora, the blinding, driving,
   sleet-laden whirlwind of these mountains, had not burst in the very faces of
   Arbogast’s troops. We rushed upon them in the track of the storm, and
   utterly routed them. Theodosius charged into the thick of the fray,
   shouting, “Where is the Lord God of Theodosius?” Eugenius was not fighting,
   as Theodosius did, in the forefront of the battle, but his tent was pitched
   on a knoll at a safe distance, and he sat in the tent-door in his purple and
   his diadem. He was seized by soldiers who, he fancied, had come to drag
   Theodosius a captive into his presence. They tore off his purple and dragged
   him to the feet of his conqueror, where he prostrated himself, trembling.
   Theodosius upbraided him with the murder of the young Valentinian. While he
   was pleading for life one of the soldiers swept off his head with a sword,
   and put it on a pike. Then our men flung down the statues of Jupiter, and,
   seizing the golden thunderbolts, took them to Theodosius. “Keep them for
   yourselves,” said the Emperor, who was in one of his gayest moods. “Thank
   you, Emperor!” said the soldiers; “may we often be smitten by such
   thunderbolts!” Theodosius rolled in his saddle with laughter at their rough
   wit. They took up the laugh—and so Paganism perished, at Alexandria and at
   the Frigidus, in two shouts of mirth!’

   ‘How sad that Theodosius should have died so soon after his great
   victory!’ said Chrysostom. ‘But John, the Egyptian hermit, prophesied that
   it would be so.’

   ‘Yes! he exchanged the laurelled car for the coffin, and passed from triumph
   to the funeral. He has died just when he was most needed. You are hardly
   likely to have read the verses of a new and splendid Roman poet named
   Claudian, the eulogist of Stilico, but he makes the dying Theodosius say,
   and quite truly—you understand Latin?—

     Res incompositas, fateor, tumidasque reliqui.’ [7]

   ‘Were you with him when he died?’

   ‘I was. I was on guard, and a wonderfully pretty and touching scene took
   place in his sick-room. Knowing that his last hour was near, he sent for his
   younger son, Honorius, then little more than a child. The Emperor was so
   weak that he could not preside all day at the games of the circus given in
   honour of his victory; so in the afternoon the little boy Honorius took his
   place. To secure the allegiance of Stilico he married the boy to Maria, the
   daughter of Stilico and Serena, his niece, who had always had a great
   influence over him. The two lovely children knelt by his bedside—Honorius
   with his placid, regular features, and Maria with her rosy cheeks and long
   golden locks. Stilico was there, his white head nobly conspicuous as he
   towered over the rest of the courtiers. The beautiful Serena bent over her
   little daughter. She wore the superb necklace of pearls which she took,
   perhaps wrongly, from the neck of the statue of Rhea, the mother of the
   gods.’

   ‘Did not the old Vestal Virgin prophesy that one day she would be strangled
   with that very necklace?’ asked Amantius.

   ‘Ay,’ said Aurelian, ‘but I don’t think it likely that the prophecy will be
   fulfilled. I could tell you many more incidents. I witnessed, for instance,
   the murder of that bright youth, the Emperor Gratian. But we must now go to
   sleep, for we have a long ride before us to-morrow.’

   At Nicæa, on the eastern shore of Lake Ascanius, Chrysostom visited with
   deep interest the church in which, seventy-two years earlier, the first
   Christian emperor had been present at the first great Œcumenical Council.
   From thence a day’s journey brought them to Nicomedia, the capital of
   Bithynia, the favourite residence of Diocletian before his


   Self-corrected mind

   The imperial farces of the world resigned,

   and he retired to find greater happiness in the cultivation of cabbages at
   Salona. As they passed the village of Ancyron the chariots were stayed for
   half an hour that Chrysostom might visit the house and the room in which the
   great Constantine had ended the splendid and troubled dream of his strange
   life.

   He suggested that evening that Amantius should enliven their journey with
   some of his reminiscences.

   ‘I have been, naturally,’ said Amantius, with a sigh, ‘a man of peace; yet I
   have seen one or two scenes which interested me in the East, as Aurelian has
   in the West. He has said something about the great Ambrose. I could tell you
   something about the great Basil and his brother, Gregory of Nyssa, and his
   friend, Gregory of Nazianzus; something, too, about the Emperor Julian and
   his ways.’

   ‘Tell us something about Basil of Cæsarea,’ said Chrysostom.

   ‘The only time I saw him,’ said Amantius, ‘was in the great cathedral of his
   metropolis. The Emperor Valens was not only an Arian, but a persecutor. He
   entered the densely thronged cathedral with his spear-bearers—it is nearly
   twenty years ago—to overawe Basil into communicating with the Arians. The
   people were pressing on each other like the waves of the sea, and were
   thundering forth the Psalms of the day. Behind the Holy Table, facing the
   people, stood the Archbishop, his crosier in his hand, the episcopal ring on
   his finger, the white pallium, embroidered with its four crosses, over his
   shoulder. He stood there tall, stately, immovable as a statue. His beard was
   long and white, his features thin but noble; his ardent gaze was fixed on
   the Holy Table; the presbyters stood round him, and the fervour of devotion
   and beauty of holiness which reigned through the church so struck the timid
   and conscientious, though cruel, Emperor, that when he came to present his
   offering he tottered, and would have fallen heavily to the ground if a
   presbyter had not caught him in his arms. But Valens inspired no respect.
   The mob of Constantinople openly jeered at him when he went to meet his
   fate, and from the walls of Chalcedon the people insulted him with shouts of
   ”Sabaiarius,” or “small-beer drinker.” If they had behaved in that way to
   his brother, Valentinian I., he would have flung them wholesale to his two
   bears, Golden-Flake and Innocence, which he kept in a den near his bedroom,
   and fed on human flesh.’

   ‘The brute!’ said Philip, sotto voce.

   ‘Basil was as great in the East as Ambrose in the West,’ said Chrysostom;
   ‘but Philip whispers to me that he is dying to know whether you witnessed
   the murder of Rufinus.’

   ‘Yes; and a grim sight it was. Rufinus did not feel a doubt that on that
   very day Arcadius would nominate him Augustus. His purple, his diadem, his
   Court, his largesses, his banquets, his unequalled palace of “The Oak,” at
   Chalcedon, were all prepared; the oration of thanks was hovering on his
   lips. He had been baptised by Gregory of Nyssa. The holy Ammonius, one of
   the four “Tall Brothers” of Egypt, had stood sponsor for him. He was
   murdered in the Hebdomon, seven miles from Constantinople, just after the
   golden coffin of Theodosius had laid in state in the Church of the Apostles,
   with the livid face exposed. Rufinus was so eagerly impatient for the
   consummation of his ambition, which should turn the provincial cobbler’s son
   into an emperor, that he had the audacity to pull Arcadius by his purple
   robe to hurry him on. Then the chief Gaïnas and his Goths closed round him
   in threatening circle, and a soldier suddenly plunged his sword into his
   heart. The Emperor’s robe was stained in the blood of his Minister, and he
   fled in terror. They struck off the head of Rufinus and put it on a pole,
   fulfilling the prophecy he had received in the morning, “that he should came
   back that day with his head higher than all.” Then they hacked his body to
   pieces. One soldier had hewed off his hand, and managed to make the fingers
   open and shut by the severed tendons. He reaped quite a harvest of money in
   the streets by carrying round this hand, and crying, “Give an obol to the
   insatiable!” What a lesson it was of sudden Nemesis in the moment of
   overweening hopes!’

   ‘But have you no reminiscences to tell us, John?’ asked Aurelian.

   ‘Nay,’ answered Chrysostom; ‘what should a humble presbyter like me have to
   tell? You know all about the affair of the statues at Antioch, and you would
   hardly care for my trivial experiences in a lonely mountain cave. Yet—let me
   see—I can tell you one little anecdote. You know that Valens, who was
   intensely superstitious, was at one time in a paroxysm of alarm about
   magic.’

   ‘Why was that?’ asked Philip.

   ‘Because a group of foolish persons at Antioch had tried by Pagan sorcery to
   discover the name of his successor. They wrote the letters of the alphabet
   in a circle, and held a ring by a hair in the middle of the circle after
   elaborate incantations. The ring vibrated till it had touched in succession
   the letters THEOD. But, besides this, it was afterwards declared that the
   letters magically chosen were in four heroic verses, which said that the
   successor of Valens would be a great prince; that they would be put to death
   for their curiosity, but that vengeance would fall on their murderers, who
   would perish by fire on the Plains of Mimas. No one knew what was meant by
   “the Plains of Mimas” till after Valens was burnt alive in the peasant’s
   cottage near Adrianople, when they found there an old tomb inscribed with
   the words, “Here lies Mimas, a Macedonian Captain.”

   ‘The result of the divination was whispered abroad. Filled with fury and
   jealousy, Valens began to take vengeance. Woe to the man whose name began
   with Theod! Many Theodoruses and Theodotuses were put to death, and many
   changed their names; but, after all, his real successor, Theodosius,
   escaped, for he was then living as a private gentleman on his Spanish farm.
   But the horrors of that day will not soon be forgotten. Spies and informers
   sprang up, and flourished like a crop of mushrooms on rotten wood. The
   punishments were frightful. I myself’—he said, with a shudder—’saw the
   philosopher Simonides burnt alive in the Forum of Antioch. He died laughing,
   saying “He fled from life as from a mad mistress.” One youth was executed
   for possessing a magic book, another for using a love-spell. An old woman
   perished for curing the daughter of a proconsul of fever by a crooning song,
   a boy for getting rid of a stomach-ache by muttering the vowels of the
   alphabet. The world went mad with silly superstition. Whole libraries were
   destroyed by the owners, lest they should be condemned to torture or death
   for being the unconscious possessors of a single book of sorcery. Many
   valuable works have thus perished for ever. Well, in those days of grotesque
   and horrible panic, when one was almost afraid to speak above a whisper, I
   was walking to the martyry of St. Babylas with my friend Theodore, now
   Bishop of Mopsuestia. He was in great danger, humble as he was, because of
   the fatal Theod in his name. We were walking under the flowering groves on
   the banks of the Orontes, when we saw something white floating on the river.
   It looked like the leaves of a book, and, moved by curiosity, we fished it
   out of the water with our staves. What was our horror when a glance showed
   us that the papyrus was written all over with magic formulæ. A soldier was
   close at hand. We suspected that he was an informer, and had laid a trap for
   us. We wrapped a stone in the leaves and flung them into the middle of the
   river. For days afterwards we were in an agony of apprehension; but by the
   mercy of God nothing came of it. If the soldier had seen us we should have
   been lost. To this day I count it as my greatest deliverance from imminent
   peril.’

   ‘He was a poor creature—that Valens,’ said Aurelian.

   The next evening they reached Chalcedon, and the waters of the sea shone
   before them like a sheet of gold. Across the narrow strait of the Bosporus
   they saw the gleaming walls and towers and palaces of Constantinople, the
   new Rome.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [7] Claudian, De Bell. Gild., vi. 293.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XVII

  CONSTANTINOPLE


   Urbs etiam magnæ dicitur æmula Romæ,

   Et Chalcedonias contra despectat arenas.—Ausonius.

   A spacious barge, gay with streamers, was moored for them beside the quay at
   Chalcedon, with a gilded dragon at its prow and a gorgeous canopy of purple
   silk. It was manned by five rowers in the imperial livery, who speedily
   conveyed them across the sparkling waters. To the bewilderment of
   Chrysostom, whose unworldly simplicity had not even yet divined the secret,
   a vast multitude lined the opposite shore, and received them with
   acclamations and shouts of joy, in which he repeatedly heard his own name.
   The tall chariot of the Prætorian Præfect, who stood highest among ‘the
   illustrious,’ awaited them, and in this they were driven at a rapid pace to
   the Patriarcheion, or house of the archbishop. The streets were cleared
   before them by a band of liveried runners. The Presbyter looked in mute
   inquiry to his friendly captors. They only informed him, with renewed
   smiles, that for the present he would find rooms prepared for him in the
   Palace of Nectarius, and that, after he had refreshed himself by a bath and
   a morning meal, some of the palace officials would be waiting to conduct him
   to an interview, first with the Grand Chamberlain, and then with the Emperor
   himself.

   Resigning himself to circumstances, and suppressing to the utmost of his
   power every impulse of curiosity, though he was conscious that some great
   crisis of his life was at hand, Chrysostom gave himself up to silent prayer.
   But Philip, in the young enthusiasm of his life, was in the highest spirits,
   and was all eyes. His journey had been full of exhilaration to him, and he
   delighted to catch a glimpse of a great unknown. Who could fail to look with
   interest on the famous city which was the rival of Rome? In that rapid drive
   he could only get confused glimpses of cupolas, and baths, and pillars, and
   statues, and churches, and ancient temples scattered over the seven hills of
   Byzantium, until they entered the second of the fourteen regions of the
   city. It covered the hill on which Constantine had pitched his tent, and he
   chose it as the site of his principal forum. The chariot drove under a
   triumphal arch, and on all sides were porticoes filled with the choicest
   works of ancient Greek statuary. Beside the arch, in a shrine, was the old
   statue of Cybele, which the Argonauts were said to have brought from Mount
   Dindymus. It had been turned into a statue of the genius of the city by
   removing the lions at the feet of the goddess, and altering the arms from a
   gesture of command to one of supplication. In the centre of the Forum stood
   a pillar of marble and porphyry 120 feet high. On its summit Constantine had
   placed a statue of himself, which, with that half-and-halfness which
   characterised his religious attitude, might be regarded as wearing the
   attributes either of Christ or of Apollo. Round its head were some of the
   nails said to have been brought by his mother, St. Helena, from Jerusalem as
   the nails of the Cross; but Pagans might, if they chose, regard them as the
   radiated crown of the old sun-god. This statue had, however, been replaced
   by one of Julian, and Julian’s by that of Theodosius, which now surmounted
   the column. In this open space stood the Church of Santa Sophia, or the Holy
   Wisdom, once a Temple of Peace. South of it was a second forum, a long
   rectangle, bounded on one side by the wall of the Hippodrome, and on the
   other by the wall of the Augusteum, or Imperial Palace, now the Seraglio. In
   this stood the famous Milion, from which all the roads of the East were
   measured. It was a domed building, surrounded by an arcade of seven pillars,
   embellished with statues, and containing those of Constantine and St.
   Helena. On the east side of this second forum ran a long portico, called
   ’The Passage of Achilles.’ The adjacent baths of Zeuxippus were enriched
   with the Athene of Lindus, the Muses of Helicon, the Amphitrite of Rhodes,
   the Pan consecrated by the Greeks after the defeat of Xerxes, and others of
   the loveliest works of the greatest Greek sculptors. North of the famous
   Baths stood the Senate-house built by Julian, and no sooner had the chariot
   passed this building than it drew up at a stately palace next to it. This
   was the Patriarcheion, the residence of Nectarius, and of the Archbishop of
   Constantinople. How unlike the humble lodging which had sufficed for the
   great St. Gregory of Nazianzus!

   Here Chrysostom and Philip alighted after a courteous farewell to Aurelian
   and Amantius, whom they thanked heartily for their many acts of kindness and
   courtesy.

   ‘We shall often meet again,’ said Amantius. ‘Indeed, we shall see you at the
   palace in an hour’s time.’

   A sumptuous breakfast was already laid out, and attendants were in waiting;
   but Chrysostom told them that he required but little food, and that Philip
   would wait on him. Philip opened the bag which he had hastily packed at
   Antioch, and provided the Presbyter with new garments instead of his
   travel-stained suit. He took the same opportunity to array himself in his
   best Antiochene costume, and, though he was not vain, a glance at one of the
   great polished silver mirrors told him that he looked well. When they were a
   little rested and refreshed Chrysostom, with Philip following him, was
   conducted in state to have an interview with Eutropius, the all-powerful
   Minister.

   Passing through the great hall of the Patriarch’s house—known as the
   Thomaites—they passed by the little Church of ‘Our Lady the Theotokos,’
   which stood in the quarter of the Jewish bronzesmiths, the Chalkoprateia. In
   the palace-wall was a gate, called the Gate of Meletius, in honour of the
   saintly Bishop of Antioch, through which the Emperor used to walk to the
   private wooden staircase—the Skepaste Skala—which spanned the space between
   the Church of Our Lady and that of St. Sophia.

   Through this entrance they were conducted to the suite of rooms occupied by
   Eutropius—the Præfectus sacri cubiculi, or Grand Chamberlain.

   The outer hall was full of attendants, and here Philip had to stop; but
   Chrysostom was ushered to the inner room.

   The officers who were conducting him knocked with their golden wands on the
   folding doors, which were flung back, and Chrysostom saw the Chamberlain
   seated at a table inlaid with precious marbles, on which lay a large golden
   inkstand, and a large pen-case, also of solid gold. On one side of him stood
   the Count of the Sacred Wardrobe, the Count of the Palace, and the Groom of
   the Bedchamber; on the other stood Amantius, as almoner of the Empress
   Eudoxia, and Aurelian, as captain of those palace bodyguards who were known
   as Silentiarii and Palatini. On either side of the doors stood four of these
   armed soldiers.

   With these great palace officials stood the two prime favourites and most
   trusted agents of the Grand Chamberlain, men whom he had lifted out of the
   mire to set among princes. One was the Spaniard Osius, once a cook, and
   always a scoundrel, whom Eutropius had elevated to the post, first of Count
   of the Sacred Largesses, and then of Master of the Officers. The other was
   Leo, once a weaver, now a fat, cheery, bibulous general. He was nicknamed
   Ajax because, unlike Tydides


   Whose little body held a mighty mind,

   his greatness was wholly corporeal. Claudian describes him as


   Abundans

   Corporis, exiguusque animi.

   Eutropius instantly rose, and made a profound bow to the embarrassed
   Presbyter. Chrysostom saw before him the practical lord of the Eastern
   Empire, who shaped every whisper of the throne.

   He was a little bald old man, with a fringe of grey hair round his baldness.
   His face might once have been beautiful in its features and pleasant in its
   expression, but now it was withered with premature old age, and there were
   deep wrinkles on the forehead. Years of degraded humiliation, years of
   anxious misery, years of triumph, avarice and guilt, years of cunning
   diplomacy, during which he held in his effeminate hands the threads of
   empire, had left their manifold, and therefore not easily decipherable,
   traces on his countenance; and if something of that which was, or might have
   been, good in him still sometimes shone in his glance or twinkled about his
   well-shaped mouth, the expression of his face more predominantly expressed
   astuteness, ill-dissembled arrogance, and flashes of the bitter hatred and
   contempt which he felt for the majority of mankind. Like Sir Robert Walpole,
   Eutropius held that nearly every man has his price; and he had repeatedly
   enjoyed the sinister satisfaction of seeing men who stood very high in the
   civil and religious world ready and even eager to kotow to him, to kiss his
   feet, to sell their souls to him for a mess of pottage. It had been the
   curse of his life to be driven to radical disbelief in human nature. He
   despised almost every human being whom he knew; he trusted scarcely anyone,
   unless, indeed, their personal interests were, like those of Osius and Leo,
   indissolubly connected with his own.

   But if there was one man in the world whom Eutropius did respect, and in
   whose moral superiority he firmly believed, it was the Syrian presbyter who
   had now been ushered into his presence. He had heard the thunders of his
   impassioned rhetoric waking the echoes of the great dome of the church of
   Antioch. In that fulminant eloquence he had recognised the cry which comes
   from a true human heart. Never before had he heard the unmistakable accent
   of intense and fervent sincerity. It had pierced like lightning through the
   thick crust of revenge, bitterness, and Oriental craft, under which, like a
   dying spark, beneath vast accumulations of embers, lay the true nature of
   Eutropius as God had meant it to be. Yes, this was indeed rhetoric—the
   ornate, if too Asiatic, rhetoric of a pupil of Libanius; but under the
   rhetoric burned the flame of conviction and of truth. Eutropius had heard
   and turned pale; and at the moment, trembling and terrified at accents so
   unlike those which breathed softly through the borrowed platitudes of
   Nectarius and the silken euphuisms of the corrupt and intriguing priests of
   Constantinople, his conscience had started up with pointed finger and
   outstretched arm. At those ‘grave rebukes invincible,’ though they were not
   addressed to him, and though Chrysostom had been wholly unaware of the
   presence of the then obscure and miserable eunuch, Eutropius had stood
   abashed,


   And felt how awful goodness is, and saw

   Virtue in her shape, how lovely; saw, and pined

   His loss.

   The impression had never been quite obliterated: he felt it now. But it
   gratified him to think that he had in consequence tried to do at least one
   purely good deed in his life, by elevating the preacher to an office which,
   in the hands of a great man, might practically be regarded as the highest in
   the world.

   Chrysostom did not lose his self-possession, though he could not but be a
   little agitated to feel that now the well-kept secret, which any mind less
   absolutely unworldly than his would long ago have divined, must at last be
   revealed. He returned with dignity the low bows of Eutropius, of Osius, of
   Leo, and smiled faintly back to the smiles of his friends Aurelian and
   Amantius. But Eutropius, hardly knowing what excuse to offer for the way in
   which he had trepanned his visitor, stood there, still bowing, and a little
   uneasily, washing his hands in air.

   ‘I must,’ he said, with yet another bow, ‘apologise to your Beatitude——’

   ‘My Beatitude!’ exclaimed Chrysostom in amazement. ’Babai!’ (which we may
   render ‘Good Heavens!’) ‘I am but a humble Syrian presbyter of Antioch, and
   we are not addressed by such titles there.’

   The officials, even Eutropius, could not help a little laugh at this; but
   the Chamberlain continued:

   ‘Pardon me, sir, you are no longer the humble presbyter of Flavian at
   Antioch; you are Archbishop of Constantinople and Patriarch of the East.’

   Here, then, was the secret! It had, indeed, once flitted across the thoughts
   of Chrysostom in his journey, because the quick and curious Philip had
   suggested it to him as a possibility. But he had instantly rejected it as
   too wildly improbable to be even contemplated.

   He stood there troubled and almost thunderstruck.

   ‘Oh, spare me!’ he cried at last, with one of those quick gestures of
   repudiation which come so spontaneously to an Oriental. ‘I do not wish for
   this honour. I do not love this burden. I foresee that it will only end in
   trouble and misery. You yourself will repent of it, and regret it. I have
   never been consulted. I was wiled away from my home against my will. Oh,
   Amantius! oh, Aurelian! you have been cruel friends.’

   ‘Nay,’ said Eutropius, ‘the Presbyter John must forgive us all. We doubted
   whether he would consent; and we knew that the Antiochenes love him too well
   to part with him readily. That was the sole object of our little ruse, and
   we trust that in all other respects your wishes and comforts have been
   attended to.’

   ‘Oh! all that is nothing,’ said Chrysostom, wringing his hands. ‘But I must
   refuse. I cannot, I cannot be Patriarch of Constantinople. I am not
   ambitious. I am no courtier. Better by far the damp cave on Mount Silpius,
   in which I so nearly died. Would it had been God’s will that I had died
   there rather than that this should befall me.’

   Eutropius was a little taken aback. He had meant to confer an immense
   favour; he had been foolish enough to expect an effusive gratitude. Why, he
   knew no other bishop or priest in Constantinople who would not have kissed
   his feet in transport for so magnificent a boon. And now he was finding it
   necessary to apologise and to plead.

   ‘I bear you witness,’ he said, ‘you have not sought this responsibility; but
   we must not shun responsibility when it comes. His Eternity the Emperor——’

   ‘His Eternity!’ exclaimed Chrysostom, on whom, unaccustomed to the
   fulsomeness of Byzantine Courts, the title jarred like a blasphemy.

   ‘Oh!’ said Eutropius, ‘it is only a title;’ while Leo and Osius were so
   struck by this strange specimen of independence that it was with difficulty
   they refrained from laughing outright.

   It is surely a most unbecoming title,’ said Chrysostom gravely. ‘I thought
   it had been laughed out of fashion by Athanasius, even in the days of the
   Emperor Constantius. What higher title could you give to Christ Himself? But
   to give it to a man!

   All flesh is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth. “His
   Eternity!”—oh! let me return to my humble home in Antioch. I cannot breathe
   this perfumed atmosphere.’

   ‘By Bacchus!’ whispered Leo, whose expletives were not very carefully
   chosen, ‘you have caught a Hun!’

   Eutropius was fairly disconcerted. Here he was conferring on this man one of
   the most supreme of sacred distinctions, and, so far from thanking him for
   the favour, he had already rebuked him twice! But the very rebukes made him
   feel more keenly the royal independence and sincerity of the Presbyter.
   Almost for the first time in his life he was met by a Christian and a
   disinterested man!

   ‘Well, well, my dear Presbyter,’ he said, ‘we will waive these little forms
   of speech; but I was going to say that we must all obey the wishes of the
   Emperor. He is now expecting you in the Purple Chamber. Are you ready to see
   him?’

   ‘I am ready,’ murmured Chrysostom. ‘Would it had been otherwise. But God’s
   will be done!’
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XVIII

  THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS


   He hath two greyhounds in a leash,

   Terror and Force; two slaves that serve his will,

   Pleasure and Pomp.

   Lord Lytton, The Siege of Constantinople.

   The great official personages rose in a body and preceded Chrysostom, by
   whose side walked Eutropius.

   The Purple Chamber, into which they were ushered by a crowd of slaves, was
   so called partly from its pavement and walls inlaid with porphyry, and
   partly from its rich purple hangings embroidered with gold. The luxury of
   modern days would almost seem like childish simplicity before the lavish
   pomp of Byzantine splendour. The floor along the centre was sprinkled with
   gold dust, brought from distant lands in ships and chariots at enormous
   cost, that the sacred feet of the Emperor might not be desecrated by
   treading on anything less profoundly precious. The walls of alabaster and
   other lustrous marbles were inlaid with agate and cornelian, and the eastern
   sunlight glowed hotly on pillars of the Numidian marble, rose-coloured or
   golden. Chrysostom was almost blinded by the sudden blaze of splendour, to
   which he was wholly unaccustomed. Two lines of the palatine soldiers stood
   at intervals down the centre of the hall. They wore Sidonian war-cloaks so
   richly dight that there were pearls on their girdles and emeralds in their
   helmets. [8] Between and behind them were massed a number of courtiers in
   all the ranks of Byzantine officialism—perfectissimi, egregii, illustres,
   and spectabiles. Round the apse at the end stood a guard of tall and fully
   armed Gothic soldiers in their collars of gold, and nearest the Emperor
   stood the four Prætorian Præfects, conspicuous, like him, in the purple
   robe, or man-dye, which they, however, wore only to the knees.

   In the centre, on a throne supported by four huge golden lions, lolled
   Arcadius on silken cushions fringed with pearls. His robe of purple was
   woven in gold with dragons, which were his imperial insignia. His person was
   a blaze of jewels. Huge rubies and emeralds were pendent from his ears.
   Necklaces of large orient pearls gleamed round his neck, and over his breast
   hung chains of precious stones chosen for their size and lustre. The passion
   for gems, which Constantine had fostered, had lingered among later emperors.
   Round the dark hair of Arcadius was the diadem, a band of purple silk woven
   with pearls and the choicest rubies and emeralds.

   Arcadius was but a youth of nineteen, but it seemed as if all the fire of
   his blood, all the manliness and fervency of youthful life, had either never
   existed in his ill-shaped body, or had long ago been drained out of him by
   the hollow and dreary magnificence in which his days were passed. His
   intellect was of the feeblest; his character was flabby and invertebrate.
   Chrysostom took him in at a glance. He was a youth of short stature, of
   feeble health, of thin person, and of sallow complexion. His thick eyelids
   drooped over his eyes, and gave him the aspect of being always half-asleep;
   and, except in the very rare cases in which he was for a moment aroused out
   of his listlessness, his speech was apt to dribble out in low, lazy, and
   half-finished sentences. He was steeped to the lips in indolent and sensuous
   luxury, and though he was too languid to be actively vicious, this lord of
   the world was the born slave of everyone who had sufficient astuteness and
   opportunity to turn him into a helpless tool.

   The look of Arcadius—who had been an emperor since he was eight years old,
   and who had been married at seventeen—betrayed nothing but infinite boredom.
   He had not even his younger brother’s resource of keeping pet hens. He
   scarcely had as much activity as used to make Louis XV. take a courtier by
   the buttonhole and say, ’Ennuyons-nous ensemble!’

   Chrysostom could not help wondering how it happened that such a poor
   creature—and his equally poor brother, Honorius—could be sons of the able,
   stalwart, and handsome Theodosius; and why the destinies of the word should
   be committed to hands so unequal to the burden.

   And, if there was ever a man to be pitied, it was this hapless potentate.
   There was no bliss in his youthfulness. He cared for no one, and believed in
   no one. He regarded even the Ministers who domineered over him with a dull
   jealousy and suspicion, and would soon have got rid of them if he could only
   have summoned up the energy to do without them. Eutropius only suited him
   because he saved all trouble, relieved him of the intolerable burdens of
   empire, transacted the minute details and functions of necessary business;
   and arranged for him the amusements which served to dissipate his deadly
   dulness and to


   Disguise the querulous morrow

   From its unseen reproval of to-day.

   But meanwhile the wretched little human deity felt an inexorable weariness
   of everything:


   Because his greatness, being of a kind

   Which grew from all men’s littleness combined,

   Dwelt self-condemned among the multitude

   Of voices lifted to proclaim it good.

   And so he sat in his vast hall and in his ‘sacred’ chambers


   An undelighted man. To him all meat

   Was tasteless and all sweetnesses unsweet;

   To him all beauty was unbeautiful,

   All pleasures without pleasantness, and dull

   Each day’s delights.

   The Chamberlain and officials advanced with genuflexions and prostrations,
   and with hands which shaded their eyes, as though they were blinded with the
   divine and sunlike radiance of the Emperor. Chrysostom bowed low, and then
   advanced in the simple dignity of his manhood. Eutropius took him by the
   hand and presented him to Arcadius.

   ‘This, sire,’ he said, ‘is John, the Presbyter of Antioch, whom your sacred
   Majesty has been pleased to appoint to the vacant Archbishopric.’

   ‘Oh!’ said Arcadius, slowly and languidly. ‘I am glad to see you.’

   Chrysostom bowed again, and since Arcadius seemed to have nothing more to
   say, he replied:

   ‘I thank your Clemency, though, had I been consulted, I would gladly have
   remained in my former obscurity.’

   ‘Well,’ said the Emperor, ‘you shall be consecrated Archbishop on the
   twenty-seventh of this month. Meanwhile, as my Chamberlain has doubtless
   explained to you, the palace and the revenues of the Patriarchate are
   yours.’

   ‘May God help me to do my duty!’ said Chrysostom, and as Arcadius had now
   exhausted his conversational resources he bowed once more and stood aside.
   Eutropius gave his arm to the Emperor, who stepped down from his throne and
   retired. Then all the egregii, and spectabiles, and the rest, thronged round
   Chrysostom to load him with congratulations and fulsome compliments. From
   this embarrassment he was set free by a message that her Sacredness the
   Empress Eudoxia desired to see him; and his friend Amantius, as her almoner,
   conducted him into the presence of the young Nobilissima.

   Eudoxia was a very different personage from Arcadius. She was a Frank,
   brilliant, beautiful, impetuous, full of passion and vivacity, determined,
   as far as possible, to brighten by every sort of excitement, mundane and
   religious, the dull though gilded prison of imperialism. Her reception of
   the Archbishop—for as such he was now regarded—was in singular contrast with
   that of her pale-blooded lord. One or two high officials were present in her
   audience-room, and among them the showy Count John, who was her favourite,
   and whom the scandalmongers of Constantinople declared to be her lover and
   the father of her children. At that time she had only one daughter,
   Flaccilla, who was now a year old, and whose rosy little face shone out of
   the glowing silk of her cradle inlaid with gold and ivory, beside the chair
   of the Empress.

   Eudoxia rose to greet Chrysostom, and so far from allowing him to kiss her
   hand, she herself passionately pressed to her lips the hem of his garment.
   Eudoxia had, or fancied she had, deep religious feelings, and she certainly
   had strong superstitions, which she took for religion. Her religiosity was
   intense, but almost exclusively external. It impelled her to give alms, to
   build churches, to attend services, to prostrate herself to her favourite
   priests, and to adore the relics of martyrs; but so long as she manifested
   her devotion in this way she did not think it of any importance that it
   should regulate the passions of her heart and the duties of her daily life.
   Her one object at this moment was to depose the hated Eutropius, and to put
   herself and her favourite, Count John, in his place. She respected and liked
   Amantius, who was a man of unaffected piety; but his character was too pure
   and his temperament too placid to give her material help in her ambitious
   designs. From the first she had intended to attract Chrysostom, and never
   doubted for a moment, that she could make him her devoted ally.

   ‘Most heartily do I congratulate your Sanctity,’ she said, ‘on this high
   promotion.’

   ‘I thank you, Empress,’ he replied; ‘but may I ask you to call me by some
   less flattering title? I am strange to the world of sounding designations
   which I hear on every lip around me. Sanctity! There is none good but
   One.’

   The Empress smiled, for it was new to her to be corrected. Chrysostom had
   spoken with humility, but his independence was something delightfully
   unusual. It would make him a powerful friend, and to her Frankish
   temperament it was infinitely more refreshing than the slavishness with
   which she was surrounded from morning to night.

   ‘You shall not be again offended by the title,’ she said. ‘I know that we
   shall be friends, and that I shall constantly enjoy the privileges of your
   holy counsel. You will have great demands upon you for the needs of the
   Church and of the poor; and your friend and my treasurer, Amantius, has my
   commands to further your benevolence with the largest liberality. Rely on my
   best assistance in all your good endeavours.’

   Chrysostom warmly thanked her; for while he had no personal desires, he had
   an intense appreciation of almsgiving and munificence to churches. He felt
   favourably to the Empress, whose avarice and duplicity had not yet revealed
   themselves, because she had chosen for her chamberlain a man so gentle,
   blameless and pious as Amantius.

   ‘You must show your gratitude,’ she said sweetly, ’by coming to our banquet
   on the 24th. It is Lent, I know, but that day is the Festival of St.
   Matthias.’

   Chrysostom could not refuse; but now he was glad to make his escape into
   privacy. The Empress asked him to give his blessing to her and to her child;
   and Amantius conducted him back to the outer hall, where they found the
   faithful Philip impatiently awaiting them.

   No sooner had they left the Palace and entered the Patriarcheion than the
   youth, who was bubbling over with excitement and gratification, exclaimed:

   ‘So the secret is out, my father. To tell you the truth, I had guessed, or
   half-guessed, it might be so some days since. And only to think that you are
   Archbishop of Constantinople, lord-paramount over bishops innumerable, one
   of the four great Patriarchs of the world, and with the precedence over all
   but Rome!’

   ‘Ah, Philip, Philip! it is natural for youth to be dazzled by honours and
   externals. I was disenchanted of them all long ago in my mountain cavern. To
   me they have not the smallest attraction. Life has but one real boon—the
   blessing and peace of God.’

   ‘But there is much to do,’ said Philip. ‘Won’t you let me write at once to
   Phlegon and the other servants at Antioch to come here, and bring with them
   all you need? They tell me that Osius is the Postmaster-General, and while
   you were with the Empress I saw him, and he will put vehicles at your
   disposal. Don’t take any trouble, father—or my Lord Archbishop I must now
   call you, or your Beatitude, or your Sanctity, or——’

   ‘Nay,’ said Chrysostom, ‘call me “father” always, Philip. Let me feel that I
   have still some ties to a past which I already feel will have been far
   happier than the future can ever be.’

   ‘Well, I will arrange it all; but won’t you come and look round this
   enormous palace which is now yours!’

   ‘Oh, how much I prefer the little house in Singon Street?’ sighed
   Chrysostom.

   They went on their tour of inspection, accompanied by some of the sumptuous
   slaves whom Nectarius had left. Chrysostom tolerated the great marble hall
   Thomaites, and the halls of justice for ecclesiastical cases which opened
   out of it; but he groaned as he passed over the rich carpets and saw the
   silver vases and superb furniture of the room which the late Patriarch had
   occupied.

   ‘Alas!’ he said to Philip, ‘this will never do. I could not live in all this
   sumptuosity. How can it befit those who ought to wash one another’s feet? I
   cannot retain these luxuries; they must be sold and given to the poor.’

   The slaves of Nectarius, who stood behind Chrysostom as he spoke the words,
   lifted up their hands and shrugged their shoulders in displeased
   astonishment.

   ‘Babai!’ whispered one to another, ‘does he think that the palace of a
   Patriarch is to be no better than a damp, unpleasant mountain-cave?’

   Chrysostom selected for his own use an airy room with an antechamber, in
   which Philip could sit, and intercept needless chatterers, intruders, and
   wasters of time. It was the most simply furnished room in this Palace; but
   he gave orders to remove from it everything approaching to luxury, and he
   proposed to fill it with the old familiar books and simple surroundings of
   his former home as soon as they could arrive.

   When the slaves had conducted the strangers round the Palace, they took them
   into the garden which lay between it and the Senate-house, and there, for
   the first time, Chrysostom was genuinely delighted.

   ‘Ah!’ he said, ’Philip, most things have their alleviations. Our dear old
   home would go into this Palace ten times over; and we have not here the
   snowy mountains, or the river, or the ravines, though we have the sea! But
   this garden—yes, it will be delightful to me; and perhaps among these palms
   and cypresses and vines I may sometimes sit in the shadow and forget the
   crushing burdens of my new life. As for the fine gentlemen behind us, we
   must dismiss as many as possible of them with all convenient speed.’

   There was no difficulty about this, for when Philip ordered the simple meal
   of bread and vegetables and dates, with the commonest wine, which, thin as
   it was, Chrysostom scarcely ever touched, the servants, accustomed to the
   Salian banquets of Nectarius, were utterly disgusted. ‘Why,’ they said to
   each other, ‘we might as well go into monasteries at once. Only to think of
   having such a Patriarch! He is banausos!’

   But Chrysostom went into the room which he had selected, laid his head on
   his hands, and fairly sobbed. The day had been to him infinitely trying, and
   now a revulsion of feeling came over him like a flood, drowning his past
   excitement in despair. Why, oh! why had he been torn from the old scenes,
   the old ties, the home of his childhood, the happy and peaceful past? ‘Ah,
   Lord!’ he cried, ‘how many have wished for this high office, how many would
   be transported with delight to have it bestowed on them! Thou knowest I
   sought it not. I love it not. But if Thou hast put me to this work, oh, give
   me strength for it! I have but one prayer, O Lord; it is, ”

   Teach me to do the thing that pleaseth Thee, for Thou art my God; let Thy
   loving Spirit lead me into the land of righteousness.“’

   Philip would not interfere with his dark hour; but seeing him given up to
   uncontrollable sadness, he came with the gentleness of a son, and, laying
   his hand on his shoulder, he said:

   ‘Dear father, is it all so dark? Is not God at Constantinople as He was at
   Antioch? Will not He make your way plain before your face? I wish you many
   and happy days as Patriarch of the East.’

   ‘Not many, my Philip—and that, perhaps, is well—and certainly not happy.
   Mere paraphernalia of rank and wealth are hateful to me. Ever since I heard
   of this promotion, as they call it, a heaviness has been growing on my
   spirit. This great, wicked city seems to me like a haunt of the demons. How
   can I ever do the good which I desire, at which I must aim? My happy days
   are over, Philip, for ever. I shall have very few to love me. Try to support
   me with your true affection, my son, my son!’

   And again the new Patriarch of the East bent down his head, and wept in his
   splendid palace, till Philip once more came to him, and said:

   ‘My father, your meal is ready. Be comforted. Man cannot do the work of
   Providence, but he can do his best, and await all that God will send.’

   ‘You are right, my Philip,’ said the Archbishop; ‘I will, by God’s grace, at
   once shake off this despondency. No cross, no crown.’
     _________________________________________________________________

   [8] Claud., de Laud. Stil., ii. 88.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XIX

  GUESTS AT AN IMPERIAL BANQUET

     Sumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feasts.—Milton.

   The Patriarch had a few days of respite before his consecration would plunge
   him into the incessant, onerous, and intensely responsible duties of his new
   office. They were only broken by the banquet at the Palace.

   ‘What am I to wear among hundreds of bejewelled popinjays?’ he asked Philip
   in amazement. ‘I have no conception in what sort of costume Nectarius would
   have appeared. Fortunately, I shall henceforth imitate the great Nazianzen,
   and refuse all invitations.’

   Philip was equal to the occasion.

   ‘You have,’ he said, ‘the white robe which Anthusa embroidered for you in
   gold with calliculæ and gammadias that you might wear it at Count Lucian’s.
   That will do splendidly.’

   So he was conducted by some of the palace eunuchs to the banquet, looking
   more dignified by far in his simplicity than the glittering courtiers whom
   Arcadius and Eudoxia had invited.

   What a scene it was, and how distasteful to the simple Presbyter!

   He was led up stairs carpeted with crimson cloths of which the borders were
   stiff golden broideries, and between tall lamps in which fragrant flames
   were burning, and of which the pedestals were covered with wreaths and
   garlands. The tables were of thyine and other precious woods, and were laden
   with crystal and myrrhine vases which had once been carried in Roman
   triumphs, and were now crowned with the choicest Chian, Lesbian, and Thasian
   wines. Between them were large golden salvers heaped with the most delicious
   fruits, and there was no dainty of the earth, the air, or the sea which the
   thousand cooks of the Palace did not procure for the Emperor’s table. As for
   the richly dressed attendants, it seemed impossible to count the number of
   eunuchs and pages, of which the younger, specially chosen for their beauty,
   wore their hair in long, essenced curls. The whole spectacle was to
   Chrysostom inexpressibly distasteful. This materialism of luxury wearied and
   repelled him. The only thing which made it seem even excusable to his
   conscience was his reminiscence of Solomon feasting the Queen of Sheba in
   his halls of Lebanonian cedar, amid the dazzling display of gold and Tyrian
   purple, and slaves, and souls of men.

   He was led to a seat at the sigma, or crescent-shaped table of rich mosaic
   rimmed with silver, which was pre-eminently the seat of honour. The Emperor
   sat at the centre, on a dais, in a chair of gold, with the Empress at his
   right. Next to her sat Theophilus of Alexandria. Chrysostom was placed at
   the left of Arcadius, and next to him sat Eutropius. The only others
   admitted to the royal sigma were the four Prætorian Præfects, who were
   highest of all in official rank.

   Chrysostom barely touched either the dainties or the wines. Considerations
   of health, as well as his own tastes and wishes, made him habitually and to
   the highest degree abstemious; and, indeed, the chronic indigestion caused
   by the excess of his youthful austerities usually compelled him to take his
   meals alone. But all, or nearly all, of these assembled clarissimi and
   illustres were to be under his spiritual care, and he was interested in
   gazing round upon them.

   Arcadius had the misfortune, for a ruler, of being intensely shy. He was
   overpowered with self-consciousness. After one or two half-attempts at
   commonplaces, uttered with blinking eyes, he gave up the fatiguing effort to
   converse. But the liveliness of Eutropius, who was in great good-humour,
   helped to while away the time. He pointed out to Chrysostom the three famous
   widows—Marsa, Castricia, and Epigraphia—in their upper robes of gauze, woven
   in gold with scenes from the Gospels, their necklaces, their earrings, their
   hands hidden with rings, and their shimmer of numberless jewels. Chrysostom
   gazed at them with a look of disapproval, but in his own mind contrasted
   them most unfavourably with three others of the noblest ladies present, who
   were conspicuous for the severe and almost nun-like simplicity of their
   adornment. One of these was Olympias, once the betrothed of the Emperor
   Constans; another was the Princess Salvina; the third was the good Nicarete,
   who was—what was rare in ancient days—an old maid, and who found her sole
   delight—so Eutropius bore her witness—in deeds of kindness to the poor.

   Chrysostom looked longer at the male guests. He did not know Theophilus by
   sight, and asked the Chamberlain who that stately and richly clad
   ecclesiastic was.

   ‘That,’ said Eutropius, in a meaning tone, ‘is the Patriarch of
   Alexandria.’

   ‘Why does he scowl so heavily at me when he looks this way?’

   ‘Because of jealousy, defeated intrigue, envy, hatred, malice, and all
   uncharitableness.’

   ‘Impossible, surely!’ said Chrysostom. ‘I have never seen him before. How
   can I possibly have wronged him?’

   ‘I cannot tell you the whole story; but he wanted his presbyter, Isidore,
   elected instead of you. The man has a sinister and evil eye. May Christ
   protect you from it!’

   ‘Amen,’ muttered Chrysostom. ‘I will speak to him after the banquet in all
   friendliness. But will the Emperor like us to talk in this way, and neglect
   him?’

   ‘Oh!’ said Eutropius, laughing, ‘His Eter—— I beg your pardon, his
   Sublimity, is more than half-asleep already, and will be fast asleep soon.
   He will not notice.’

   ‘Well, then,’ said Chysostom, ‘tell me the names of those two Gothic
   warriors sitting near the top of the tables below us.’

   ‘The elder is Fravitta,’ said Eutropius. ‘Though he is a Pagan, as his
   fathers were, he is most friendly to the Empire, and can be absolutely
   trusted. Have you never heard how he saved the life of the Emperor
   Theodosius?’

   ‘No.’

   ‘When you have been here a little longer, and begin to understand the
   intricate wheelwork of our intrigues, you will learn that there are two
   factions of Goths. One is thoroughly loyal to the Empire. It is scanty in
   number, and would be almost impotent if it were not headed by that noble
   Fravitta, a man who rises above the faithlessness of many of his fellows.
   One day Theodosius, who was always kind to the Goths, invited some of them
   to a banquet, unaware that Eriulph, the head of the hostile Gothic faction,
   was plotting to overthrow the Empire. When Fravitta and Eriulph grew warm
   with wine they fiercely quarrelled, and Theodosius had to break up the
   banquet. Fravitta, fearing that Eriulph directly he left the palace would
   stir up a civil war, impetuously drew his sword, and, taunting him with
   treachery, stabbed him to the heart. A fierce tumult arose, and Fravitta
   would have been torn to pieces by Eriulph’s followers if he had not been
   saved by the Imperial Guards. It is more than lucky for us that the Goths
   are not at one.’

   ‘Do you foment their disagreements?’

   ‘On that subject,’ said Eutropius, smiling, ‘as Æschylus says, “A great ox
   hath passed upon my tongue.”’

   ‘This man,’ he thought to himself, ‘has no idea of diplomatic secrets. He
   divines everything by sheer force of honesty.’

   The Chamberlain was quite right, for Chrysostom replied:

   ‘I see you have not forgotten the old Roman secret of “Divide and rule.” But
   who is the other Goth?’

   ‘An entirely different kind of person. He is an Arian; and all the Goths are
   so devoted to the memory of their missionary, Wulfila, that I doubt their
   ever being converted to orthodoxy. You must have heard his name often, for
   he has played a great part in recent events. It was he who brought down
   God’s vengeance on the guilty head of Rufinus. It is Gaïnas.’

   Chrysostom did not like the bitter tone in which the words were spoken; but
   as he was silent Eutropius continued:

   ‘Do you not mark his discontented look? He is a conspirator, and will, I
   fear, create trouble from his influence over the army. Near him is his
   countryman, the barbarous Tribigild, and, if I am not much mistaken, they
   are at this moment hatching perilous plots.’

   ‘I see a group of bishops seated at yonder table.’

   ‘Yes, they are assembled under the presidency of Theophilus to settle some
   small ecclesiastical matter. Some of them have been here for weeks.
   Constantinople is constantly full of bishops. One cannot walk down the
   Chalkoprateia without stumbling across them. I see them very frequently at
   my humble abode,’ he added—his eyes and features all a-twinkle, as they
   always were when some mischievous fancy reminded him of men’s weaknesses.

   ‘I wish they would remain in their own dioceses,’ thought Chrysostom, with a
   sigh; but he only said; ‘It would be kind if you would tell me the names of
   one or two of them, that I may address them afterwards.’

   ‘Well, if I may lay aside formality in talking to your Beati—— Oh! I beg
   your pardon. Well, in talking about bishops, I will describe the one or two
   of them whom I know best. You see that ponderous—I had almost said
   elephantine—specimen of humanity? That is Maruthas, Bishop of Mesopotamia.
   The little, slim, highly venomous-looking personage——’

   Chrysostom looked reproof, and Eutropius, more and more convinced that his
   Patriarch was quite a new phenomenon at Constantinople, said:

   ‘Oh ! I mean nothing; but for freedom’s sake let me talk in my own way.
   After all, my dear Archbishop, I am simply telling you the bald truth about
   the man, and setting down nought in malice. You will be able, later on, to
   judge for yourself. Well, the small man is Cyrinus, Bishop of Chalcedon.
   That portly, handsome, florid ecclesiastic, who looks as if one of our
   thousand palace-barbers had arranged his curls as well as those of the
   pages, is Severian, Bishop of Gabala, who would be exceedingly glad—if he
   could—to be bishop of something else. I could tell you a good deal about
   him, but I do not wish to shock your charity. Lastly, not to weary you, the
   old gentleman who is so heartily enjoying his dinner is Acacius, Bishop of
   Berœa.’

   ‘I wish, Chamberlain, you would speak more respectfully of the bishops.’

   ‘I have caught a Hun, as Leo remarked,’ thought Eutropius. ‘He does nothing
   but reprove me. No other presbyter or bishop speaks to me like this.’

   ‘Seriously, and quite apart from all levity,’ he said, ’I wish I could. But,
   in sober truth, I have not found that even the most exalted pretensions
   always carry with them the most elementary Christian graces. Sadly I say it
   to you, I find their Religiosities just as worldly and ambitious, just as
   unfair and bitter, as any of us poor laymen. Like priest, like people.’

   ‘Yes,’ said Chrysostom, with a deep sigh, ‘but the reverse is also true.
   Priests are what people make them. But there is one ecclesiastic whose face
   and manner profoundly interests me, and you have not told me who he is.’

   ‘That,’ said Eutropius, laughing aloud, ‘is a very distinguished
   person—Synesius of Cyrene.’ [9]

   ‘I have heard of him. He is a brilliant writer. But why do you laugh?’

   ‘He is a great man,’ said the Chamberlain, ‘a poet, an orator, honest to the
   heart’s core, but the oddest mixture in the whole Church. I suppose he is an
   orthodox Christian, but he is a pupil and ardent admirer of the beautiful
   Pagan Neo-platonist, Hypatia. He is also a most enthusiastic sportsman,
   breeder of horses, and patriot. He is, moreover, a married man. He loves
   profane studies, is not very sure of the Resurrection, and——’

   ‘Then how did he become a bishop?’

   ‘You must ask Theophilus, who overcame his scruples, allows him to
   philosophise at home, and excused him from preaching what he calls
   “fables” abroad. But then, he has a genealogy of seventeen centuries, and
   much must be naturally excused to a lineal descendant of Hercules and the
   Spartan kings!’

   ‘What brought him to Constantinople?’ asked the Archbishop, without noticing
   the sarcasm.

   ‘He came as a sort of ambassador from Cyrene; and by the interest of his
   friends, to say nothing of the crown of gold which he brought to Arcadius,
   he was allowed to deliver a great oration on the “duty of kings” before the
   Emperor and his Court. I never heard such audacity in my life!’ (‘Even you
   would hardly have surpassed its boldness,’ he added mentally.) ‘In the
   plainest way he arraigned the Emperor and the whole official system, and
   even me! If his——if the Emperor had not been fast asleep long before he got
   to the middle, and if I had not been very tolerant, the strange bishop might
   have lost his head. But people do me injustice. I am a very kindly and
   merciful person.’

   ‘Why, what did he say?’

   ‘It is easier to tell you what he didn’t say, for he passed a sweepingly
   comprehensive condemnation on things in general. He represents what is
   called the Roman party. He called the Goths “Scythian fugitives”; openly
   blamed Theodosius for admitting them into the army and into dignities;
   denounced them for avarice and contempt of our civilisation, and compared
   them to the stone suspended over the head of Tantalus. He told the
   Emperor—most lucky for Synesius that he was asleep—that he ought to be like
   his predecessors, who were soldiers in fight, leaders in counsel, flying
   hither and thither to defend the Empire, and that he should entrust our
   defence to a native army, not to barbarian mercenaries, whom he ought either
   to reduce to the condition of helots or to drive back into the solitudes of
   Scythia. I expected to see Gaïnas or one of them send an arrow through his
   heart, but, luckily, most of them did not understand half he said.’

   ’Was the Emperor much influenced by his oration?’

   Eutropius laughed long and loud.

   ’I have told you he did not really hear it, and knew nothing about it,
   though it was the talk of all Constantinople. His only remark was that it
   was dull and very long. The next thing he did was to make Alaric the
   Visigoth Master-General of Illyricum. After all, what can Arcadius do? Have
   not our native troops become so slothful that, in the reign of Gratian, they
   actually laid aside their defensive armour because it bored them to wear it?
   Alas! we live in degenerate days. Our soldiers now wear neither helmet nor
   cuirass, nor carry broadsword, nor pilum, nor even shields! Most of them
   have sunk down to miserable bows.’

   ‘But to object to foreign mercenaries was hardly to attack the Emperor.’

   ‘No; but he went on to say that a king who knows nothing about soldiers is
   like a cobbler who knows nothing about shoes; and then—after the
   condescending remark, “Do not be vexed at what I say; the fault is not
   yours”—he actually declared that the ruin of the Empire was due to
   surrounding the king with a theatrical pomp and semblance of “Divine
   mystery.” “It reduces you” (this to the Emperor!) “to a sort of State
   prisoner. You see nothing, you hear nothing that can be of any use to you.
   Your only pleasures are sensual. You live the life of a sea anemone!“
   Imagine anyone saying this to a Theodosius! If he had said it to Valentinian
   he would have been flung to the bears in no time. Then he continued: “You
   think yourself great because you are arrayed in purple and gold; because you
   have gems from mountains and barbarous seas in your hair, your sandals, your
   robe, your girdle, your ears, your seats; and because, by walking on gold
   dust, you indulge the very soles of your feet in luxury. Things were far
   better when emperors were men with tanned faces, of simple habits, and in
   coarse dress.”’

   ‘But you were awake if the Emperor was not. Did he attack you?’

   ‘I should think he did!’ said Eutropius. ’He accused the Emperor of
   repelling the wise and noble, and admitting to his familiarity mere
   counterfeits of humanity. “You patronise men,” he said, “with small heads
   and scanty brains, with idiotic grins and equally idiotic tears, to relieve
   by buffoonery the cloud of tedium brought upon you by the unnatural
   character of your life.” But you see the satire was too ludicrous to hurt
   me; otherwise he should have had the fate of——’

   ‘Of——?’ asked Chrysostom.

   ’Never mind,’ said Eutropius.

   He was ashamed to blazon the wicked and ungrateful revenge which he had
   inflicted on Abundantius, who had first introduced him into the palace, and
   whom he had driven into beggary at Sidon; on the sausage-seller Bargus, whom
   he had used as his tool to defame and ruin the brave general, Timasius; and
   on Timasius himself, whom, by virtue of the forgeries of Bargus, he had got
   banished to Libya, where he was never heard of again. His widow Pentadia
   only saved herself by flying into sanctuary.

   But at this point Arcadius began to show signs of vitality, and dismissed
   the guests. Chrysostom was deeply troubled by much that he had seen and
   heard. He paid his homage to the Emperor and Empress, and took the earliest
   opportunity to retire to his home.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [9] I have ventured here on a slight anachronism. Synesius was at
   Constantinople for three years about this time, but he did not become a
   bishop till a.d. 410.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XX

  FIRST IMPRESSIONS

     And yet bubbles o’er like a city with gossip, scandal, and spite.

     Tennyson.

   On February 26, 398, the humble Presbyter of Antioch attained the dignity
   for which so many had longed, intrigued, and bribed, and which myriads of
   ecclesiastics would have regarded as uplifting them into the seventh heaven
   of gratified ambition and satisfied desires.

   The imposing ceremony took place in the cathedral of Constantinople, the
   great Church of St. Sophia. Its magnificence illustrated the altered
   fortunes of Christianity since Constantine had first placed the jewelled
   cross on the purple silk of his labarum. Its great doors were of shining
   bronze enriched with bas-reliefs; the windows were formed of thin slices of
   alabaster and other transparent marbles. The pillars and their capitals,
   carved with foliage, were all of porphyry or of Numidian giallo-antico. The
   floors were of lustrous and many-coloured marbles, with which also the walls
   were tessellated; the domes and architraves were inlaid with mosaic on a
   gold ground, and picked out with polychromes of blue and vermilion. [10] The
   Holy Table, which even then had begun by a false analogy to receive the
   unscriptural and unprimitive designation of ‘altar,’ stood in front of the
   apse, not against the wall, but in the middle of the chancel space. It was
   of gold decorated with precious stones, and between the columns which
   supported it hung curtains of silk, embroidered in gold with figures of our
   Lord, St. John the Baptist, and St. Paul. The iconostasis was of silver,
   with a frieze of medallions representing Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the
   Apostles. In the apse was the Throne of the Patriarch and the synthronus, or
   stalls of the presbyters, which were canopied and were of silver-gilt. The
   choir extended nearly as far as the ambo, or reader’s pulpit, which was of
   precious marbles with mosaics of lambs, doves, fishes, and peacocks, inlaid
   with gems. It was ascended by two flights of steps, one on the west side,
   one on the east, and the canopy above it rested on eight columns. The space
   below it, enclosed by railings, was occupied by the choir and the readers.
   The soleas, or division which marked off the seats of the clergy, was made
   of onyx. The tapestries which usually shrouded the sanctuary were drawn back
   for the service. The seats for the Emperor and Empress were on the south
   side; and not only were they present, but they came in their utmost pomp,
   attended with crowds of perfectissimi and illustres arrayed in their most
   brilliant robes.

   Chrysostom was consecrated Archbishop by the darkly scowling Theophilus, and
   was the reverse of happy. The rasping voice of the wicked and black-browed
   Patriarch of Alexandria was hoarse with antagonism. It almost made him
   shudder, by the same subtle instinct which makes the nobler animals tremble
   at the hiss of the serpent. He felt the man’s magnetic hatred, jealousy, and
   burning spirit of revenge in his very touch. But, besides this, he could not
   but mourn that God had called him to a work which he felt would be painful
   and stormy. He sighed for the love which had surrounded him in Antioch, and
   even more for the peaceful days of his monastery and mountain-cave. What
   were these rich carpets and gleaming floors to the grass that groweth on the
   mountains, and the lilies in the valleys of Mount Amanus? What were these
   crimson and gold-embroidered tapestries to the shadows of the blossoming
   trees on the banks of his loved Orontes? How could he ever acquire over this
   luxurious, turbulent, money-loving, pleasure-hunting, worldly throng of
   curious strangers, of whom so many were already inclined to hate him, the
   gentle influence which he had wielded over his former flock?

   With a heavy heart and a mind over which flitted many a sombre cloud of
   misgiving he uttered his enthronisation discourse. In it he touched on the
   various spheres of duty which he regarded as belonging to his place as
   Archbishop of this metropolitan see. As yet, of course, he could only speak
   generally. ‘There are still Pagans,’ he said, ‘in Constantinople: I will try
   to win them by setting a Christian example, and endeavouring to promote the
   true ideal of the Christian life. There are many Arians and other heretics:
   I will use no other weapon against them than the sword of the Spirit, which
   is the Word of God. I will be a bishop, not a gladiator. I hate as
   unchristian the bitter spirit of unfairness in theological controversy. I
   repudiate as execrable the use of violence in ecclesiastical propaganda.
   Rather than exacerbate differences, I will willingly incur the ignorant
   calumny aimed at the great Basil of Cæsarea, that his teaching was like a
   river avoiding rocks to hide itself in sands. Theological battles and
   ecclesiastical cabals are an incomparably poorer proof of orthodoxy than
   simple faithfulness. “The bees,” said Basil, “fly in swarms, and do not
   begrudge each other the flowers. It is not so with us. We are not at unity.
   More eager about his own wrath than his own salvation, each aims his sting
   against his neighbour.” And, because of this, Basil was called a heretic!
   But his only answer was: “I have determined to neglect no labour, to shun no
   humble word or deed, to excuse myself going no journey, to decline no
   burden, if I may obtain the reward of the peacemaker.”’ ’As for myself,’
   said Chrysostom, ‘I will, God helping me, boldly rebuke vice; I will make no
   agreements with death, no covenant with hell. In marshalling the hosts of
   righteousness to the Armageddon battle against sin, the trumpet in my hands
   shall give no uncertain sound. To wickedness and vice I must, by the very
   call of God, be an uncompromising enemy; but to the offenders themselves I
   would ever act in the spirit of compassion, and, as far as in me lies, will
   live peaceably with all men. But, beloved, man is nothing. God is
   all-in-all. Oh! help me by your sympathy! Oh! support me by your prayers!’

   The sermon was not one of Chrysostom’s greatest. There was but little of the
   cadenced rhetoric, little of the Asiatic luxuriance, nothing of the volcanic
   passion. Yet there was enough to show to the good that he was a good man,
   that he would not be one of those who mistake pride for dignity, or require
   people to speak to him out of the dust. But most of the fashionables in the
   audience were disappointed by what they regarded as the tameness of the
   discourse, and they said so to one another with little circumlocution.

   It is a merciful provision that preachers do not hear the remarks and
   criticisms of their dispersing congregations. At every door such remarks
   hover in the air, like flocks of ravens, to peck away any good seed which
   may chance to lie on the trodden road of men’s hearts.

   But Philip, who was not known by sight, did hear many of the remarks that
   were made, as he stood by the great bronze door, waiting for Chrysostom to
   come out, that he might conduct him home.

   A group of ladies passed by. ‘How very poor! How very tame! No dazzling
   metaphor; no flights of rhetoric!’

   ‘Ah!’ thought Philip, ‘it won’t be long before you, my fine ladies, will
   have eloquence enough for you. I hope it won’t singe your gay feathers too
   severely.’

   ‘I thought the fellow could speak,’ said an exquisite, who had intrigued and
   bribed in vain for Isaac the Monk. ’Why, he was as heavy as lead and as dull
   as ditch-water!’

   A group of bishops passed by, escorting Theophilus of Alexandria. They were
   talking in tones which showed that they did not in the least object to be
   heard.

   ‘I feel sure he is secretly unsound,’ said Cyrinus of Chalcedon, venomously.
   ‘Look how leniently he spoke of heretics.’

   ‘Yes,’ said Severian of Gabala, ‘he will be like Theramenes, whom the Greeks
   called ”Cothurnus,” because that buskin fits on either foot; or rather, as
   the proverb says, “more slippery than a slipper.”’

   ‘A regular trimmer, I fear,’ murmured Antiochus of Ptolemais;—and an alarmed
   titter, instantly suppressed, ran through the group, for everyone knew that
   ’Amphallax,’ or ’Trimmer,’ was a recognised nickname of Theophilus, and the
   black look which the Alexandrian turned on the speaker seemed as though he
   took an accidental slip for an intentional insult.

   ‘What does your Sanctity think?’ asked Isaac the Monk in a deferential tone.

   ‘I think,’ said Theophilus, savagely, ‘that if we give him enough rope he
   will soon hang himself.’

   ‘Who would have supposed,’ murmured the priest Elpidius, who had founded a
   cheap reputation for wit on vapid malignities, ‘that even as an orator we
   should so soon have to regret Nectarius?’

   Philip was literally boiling over with indignation as he watched the
   receding group. ‘These be your Christian bishops!’ he muttered. ‘It is
   almost enough to make one turn Pagan. What! more of them?’ he said, for
   another group of ecclesiastics was approaching.

   ‘Not one appeal to the clergy! Not one compliment to them!’ said a
   presbyter. ‘What a churl he must be! Look how Archbishop Gregory of
   Nazianzus publicly praised Maximus the Cynic.’

   ‘A most unlucky instance;’ said the Archdeacon Serapion, with much scorn,
   ‘seeing that Maximus turned out to be a rogue of the deepest dye.’

   ‘Hurrah!’ said Philip to himself, ‘the priestling did not get the best of
   that.’

   Next passed Eutropius, with Osius, Leo, and others of his parasites.

   ‘Surely, surely, Eutropius,’ said Osius, ‘he might have said at least one
   word of gratitude to you, who lifted him out of nothing.’

   ‘I did not expect it,’ said Eutropius. ‘He despises me, but I respect him.
   He is a true man.’

   ‘Well said, Chamberlain!’ thought Philip; ‘in spite of your crimes you
   are—or, if the baseness of the world would have let you, would have
   been—more of a man than the men who fool you to the top of your bent.’

   ‘He might at least have said something of his Eternity the Emperor and of
   the lovely, pious Empress,’ said the fat and waddling Leo.

   ‘I wonder whether a lion ever dies of asses’ kicks?’ muttered the young
   Antiochene, shaking his fist at Leo’s retreating back.

   ‘Ah! my young friend,’ said Aurelian, who at that moment was passing out of
   church with Amantius, and noticed the gesture, ‘your master is coming. Look
   after him. He will need all your care in the sink of virulence and vileness
   which he will find in Constantinople.’

   ‘I will, sir,’ said Philip. ‘In courage, in nobleness, in learning, he is a
   man of men; but in domestic matters he is a child.’

   ‘I have already noticed,’ said Amantius, ‘that he is but little versed in
   the world’s ways. You may be most useful to him, Philip. I am very glad that
   we let you come with him.’
     _________________________________________________________________

   [10] The Church of St. Sophia is described by Paul the Silentiary and
   others. The descriptions apply to the Church of Justinian, but are generally
   true of the other church also.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXI

  ANXIETIES AND TROUBLES, FRIENDS AND FOES

     Insomnes longo veniunt examine Curæ.

   Claud., In Ruf. i. 38.

   Chrysostom’s first care after his enthronisation was to arrange his
   household, and then to master the manifold duties—diocesan, social, and
   patriarchal—of his high station.

   His faithful servants had come from Antioch, and had brought with them the
   simple furniture of his paternal home. Old Phlegon was installed as porter
   at the Patriarcheion; and when he was vexed with the throngs of visitors and
   the incessant summonses which brought him out of his porter’s cell, he
   sighed for Singon Street as much as his master. Social duties lay on
   Chrysostom with a heavier weight than the work of his archiepiscopate.
   Nectarius had given frequent and superb entertainments, not only to the
   bishops who visited Constantinople from every quarter of the world and to
   the leading clergy, but also to the prætorian præfects, the great senators,
   and all the high Court officials. The Emperor himself had sometimes been his
   guest. It would have been profoundly distasteful to Chrysostom to undertake
   anything of the kind. Valuing all the intercourse of private life which
   might be used for high and noble ends, he shrank from the pleasures and
   unprofitable frivolities of society as from a dreary and barren Sahara. He
   was impatient of ‘the quotidian ague of frigid impertinences.’ This was soon
   discovered by the worldly, the dissipated, and the idle, the illustrious
   dandies, and the fine ladies. The very aspect of the Archbishop’s Palace
   became so severely simple that it kept them off.

   ‘Philip,’ said Chrysostom, ‘I cannot bear the sight of all these curtains
   and tapestries and gorgeous superfluities. The bishops tell me that there is
   no harm in them; that hospitality is a duty; that I have a position to keep
   up, and so forth. It may be so. I blame neither Nectarius nor anyone else;
   but as for me, these things always seem to reproach my hermit notions with
   the thought of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth, and of Him Who

   had not where to lay His head. Surely St. Peter or St. John had a position
   to keep up, yet did not need these outward splendours to help them? You must
   get rid of them all for me.’

   ‘But, your Beatitude——’ said Philip.

   ‘Nay, nay, my boy. If I must bear those tinsel titles from others, never
   call me by any other address than “Bishop” in public, and in private (as I
   told you) use the old, dear name of “father,” as at Antioch.’

   ‘Well, my father, my best happiness is to save you trouble in every way.’

   ‘And you do, dear Philip. Often, when I have a happy, quiet hour in my study
   or in the garden, with St. Matthew, or the Acts of the Apostles, or the
   works of Basil and Gregory on my table, I know that you are doing all kinds
   of necessary business for me, and sheltering me from needless worries in
   matters in which I am helpless. And I know that you do it all kindly,
   courteously, and with perfect tact.’

   That was quite true. Philip was Chrysostom’s controller of the household,
   master of the ceremonies, and factotum. He meddled, of course, with no
   ecclesiastical business, except in arranging mere outward details. All that
   was done by Serapion, the Archdeacon. Serapion’s position near Chrysostom
   was a misfortune to him. He was a true man, but was blunt and brusque; the
   mass of the clergy hated him because of his plain forthrightness and
   impatience of all shams. But Philip managed the servants, arranged all
   domestic matters, saw importunate beggars, deftly dealt with various genera
   of lunatics who came to the Patriarch with peculiar hobbies, inspirations,
   and discoveries about the Apocalypse; answered all merely business letters;
   kept an eye on tradesmen; fended his master from fussy intrusiveness; sifted
   the visitors who might or might not see the Patriarch; acted as an
   invaluable screen between the Archbishop and the irrelevancies, nonentities,
   and little nothings which would otherwise have wasted his time and worried
   his temper. And all this he did with consummate fidelity and grace. He might
   have abused his really important position in a thousand ways. Many tried to
   flatter, and even to bribe him, and to induce him to pull the wires for them
   and their interests as though he had been a Palace official. But though he
   was always bright, good-natured, and exquisitely courteous, he had rejected
   the overtures of party intriguers and slanderers with such contempt and
   indignation that it speedily became known that he was useless except for all
   honourable and disinterested ends, and had no sympathy with ‘prejudices,
   private interests, or partial affections.’

   ‘What am I to do with the grandeurs, father?’ he asked.

   ‘Sell them, and give the money to the poor.’

   ‘As to selling them, I can manage that, if you wish it. I have made a friend
   named Michael in the Chalkoprateia, who is the soul of honesty and holiness,
   and he can get that done for us easily. But on what principle will you give
   them to the poor?’

   ‘There are thousands of the poor in Constantinople, Philip. At every door of
   Dives there lie a multitude of starving Lazaruses, who watch the banquets
   and purple and fine linen. They even throng the church-doors.’

   ‘Yes, but the difficulty is to know the real Lazarus from all the sham ones.
   The impostures of the beggars are, as you know, sickening and endless. Some
   of them actually blind and maim their own children to make money by them.
   They terrify weak women by menaces or by adjurations, and are mixed up in
   many villainies.’

   ‘You are right, Philip. One must not encourage the wretched and wicked trade
   of mendicity, which makes not a few nominal beggars rich. We must never give
   without some inquiry.’

   ‘Even that does not always insure certainty,’ said Philip. ‘You know young
   Eutyches—that beautiful half-Gothic lad, left an orphan—the youth who looks
   as if he wore a nimbus when the sun shines through his light hair! Don’t you
   know him yet? Well, he is being trained for a reader, and the deacons
   sometimes send him on messages. The other day a woman had come to them in
   paroxysms of distress, saying that her husband was dead, leaving her with
   five young children, and that she had no money to bury him. They sent
   Eutyches to inquire. He heard some shuffling before he was admitted, but the
   woman told him that all her children were out, and pointed to the figure of
   her dead husband, who was laid out on a long bier, under a covering. When
   Eutyches returned to the deacon—the house was at a distance, near the Forum
   of Constantine—he found that he had forgotten his tablets. Coming back for
   them, and entering suddenly, he surprised the corpse in the act of reading
   his tablets and eating a large dish of sausages.’

   Chrysostom laughed, and then sighed.

   ‘I do not mean to lavish the money, as our saintly friend Olympias does. I
   mean to give it to found one or two greatly needed hospitals for lepers and
   others, as the Lady Fabiola has done in Rome, and as Basil did at Cæsarea. I
   shall want large funds. You must sell for me not only the magnificent
   furniture, but all those fine, pompous robes.’

   ‘What! the pontifical vestments?’

   ‘Yes. I cannot be pageanted about the cathedral as if I were some gaudy
   idol. Paul had but his one sea-stained cloak, for which he wrote to Troas;
   John had his garment of camel’s hair.’

   ‘But the High Priest had his golden robes and ardent Urim.’

   ‘We have no High Priest but Christ, Philip, nor are we Jews. Moreover, the
   High Priest only wore his robes for half an hour on one day in the whole
   year; ordinarily he dressed in simple white linen.’

   ‘You will offend the clergy.’

   ‘I would not willingly offend them. But these sacerdotal pomps are a thing
   of yesterday; they represent no needs, and real needs are clamorously
   urgent. The great Basil wore one old threadbare dress; Ambrose sold even his
   church plate to redeem captives; and I am told that my brilliant and saintly
   brother, Augustine, who three years ago was made Bishop of Hippo against his
   will, when a gorgeous cope is given him, declines to wear it, and sells it
   for the common good.’

   ‘They shall be sold,’ said Philip. ‘But, father, may I say something more,
   or are you too busy?’

   ‘You never waste my time, Philip.’

   ‘Well then, father, if I am to help you, I have really more to do than I can
   manage. May I have a fellow-secretary—or even two?’

   ‘Certainly you may, Philip. I have noticed lately that you seemed
   overworked.’

   ‘Thanks, father. Then give me Eutyches for one assistant. He is as good as
   he is beautiful; I never knew a whiter soul. And for the other——’ Philip
   paused and blushed.

   ‘Who is it?’

   ‘Father, it is the son of Michael, whom I mentioned. His name is David. He
   is seventeen, writes swiftly and exquisitely, is very clever, knows Latin
   and Hebrew, as well as Greek. He would make you a first-rate secretary and
   attendant.’

   ‘What! he knows Hebrew? Is he a Jew?’

   ‘No,’ said Philip, ‘a baptised Christian, and a real one, as his ancestors
   have been for nearly four centuries; but of Jewish race, and that,’ he added
   in an awestruck tone, ’the highest, the very, very highest.’

   ‘You interest me,’ said Chrysostom.

   ‘Father, you know that the Jews keep their genealogies most sacredly. Bishop
   Synesius says he is descended from Hercules. Well, my David is descended
   from King David; and more than that.’

   ‘More than that?’

   ‘Yes. You know that there was a family in Palestine called the Desposyni,
   because they were the earthly relatives of St. Joseph and the Blessed
   Virgin.’

   ‘I know it,’ said Chrysostom. ‘The Emperor Domitian, in jealousy, sent for
   them to Rome in a.d. 94, as though they were claimants for a kingdom. They
   told him that they were of the family of Nazareth, and had for years
   cultivated the little farm which they had inherited. And when he saw that
   their hands were hard and horny with labour, he dismissed them with
   contempt, as though they were insignificant peasants.’

   ‘The descendants of the family still exist. Father, Michael and David,
   though out of deepest reverence they never speak of it, are of the family of
   the Desposyni.’

   Chrysostom was awestruck. ‘But how did you discover the secret, Philip?’

   ‘I was in the Chalkoprateia when I saw people rushing away from a dog which
   was snapping and foaming, and was evidently mad. A little crying, half-naked
   child of five was in its path, and was in terrible danger. I rushed after
   the dog, and luckily seized it by the back of the neck. At the same moment I
   saw Michael spring out of his bronzesmith’s shop, and catch up the child in
   his arms. The great fountain is close by, and some good angel inspired me to
   hold the dog under water till it was drowned. I was frightened, and suppose
   I looked pale; and as I passed Michael’s shop David stepped out and invited
   me to come in. There they gave me some delicious libbân and pure wine. On
   the wall I saw a little simple painting of the youthful Christ, copied,
   Michael told me, from one in the catacomb of St. Callistus at Rome. It could
   only have been fancy, but David looked to me exactly like that picture—so
   happy, so pure. Michael seemed greatly pleased with my seizing the mad dog,
   and in talking he told me about his descent. He said I might tell you, but
   no one else. Then David and I took the little child to the deacon’s, who
   restored him to his home.’

   ‘You must ask Michael to bring David, and come to see me.’

   ‘I will. But, dear father, I would not conceal anything from you.’ Philip
   seemed embarrassed, and a still deeper blush mounted on his cheek. ’David
   has a very beautiful young sister. I saw her that day, and have seen her
   since.’

   ‘Philip, has Love lit his torch in your heart? I have ever hoped that you
   would some day be one of my presbyters.’

   ‘No, father, that can never be. I feel no vocation for that sacred work;
   and, to tell the honest truth, what I have seen of most of the clergy here
   does not make me wish to join them. When I hear their worldly plans and
   slanderous speeches—when (pardon my frankness, father!) I contrast their
   immense pretensions with their very scanty virtues—it almost seems to me as
   if a man like the Chamberlain Amantius or the tradesman Michael were far
   nearer than they are to the Kingdom of Heaven. Father, have I your sanction,
   if I can win Miriam’s love?’

   ‘Philip,’ said Chrysostom, ’your happiness is dearer to me than my own; but
   ah!——’

   He thought of the day when Philip must inevitably leave him, and he was too
   old to make new friends. But he would have been the last to let selfish
   feelings stand in the way of the happiness of a youth, or of anyone whom he
   loved.

   ‘I am sorry you cannot seek the priesthood, Philip,’ he said; ‘but God bless
   you! The callings of men are different, and many (I know) serve Him
   unspeakably better in the world than some do in the priesthood.’

   So Eutyches and David were duly installed with Philip as secretaries and
   acolytes. There was ample work for them to do, and it was not often that all
   three could be in the anteroom at one time, for there were constant messages
   to be taken, and visits paid, and details arranged. But they were happy of
   temperament and they were young and pure of heart, and in their presence and
   ready faithfulness Chrysostom found some of the scanty happiness of his
   troubled life.

   The room in which they sat communicated with Chrysostom’s study, and was
   curtained off from the large outer hall called Thomaites. If the Archbishop
   was engaged, visitors of importance often sat to wait in the room of the
   three youths, or on divans beyond the curtain.

   In the hall itself often sat Serapion, the Archdeacon, who saw the clergy,
   heard their petitions or complaints, and gave them any advice or assistance
   which did not necessitate the intervention or sanction of the Archbishop.

   Philip soon became well acquainted with such true friends of Chrysostom as
   had no private interests to serve, and were attracted rather than repelled
   by his unworldly simplicity. Among these was a group of noble and saintly
   ladies. The society ladies of Constantinople—the Marsas, Castricias, and
   Epigraphias—at first thought ‘the dear Archbishop’ on the whole piquant, and
   declared that they should like him; but soon found his sincerity alarming,
   and began to bewail their lost Nectarius, who never rebuked them, but was
   always ready to exchange courtly compliments. He, in his rare sermons,
   distressed no conscience, but steered triumphantly through the shallow waves
   of platitude. But there were some ladies who, themselves earnest and
   sincere, were drawn as with a powerful magnet by the unmistakable
   earnestness and sincerity of Chrysostom. Foremost among these was the
   beautiful, noble, and wealthy Olympias. Daughter of a count of the Empire,
   who left her the heiress of an immense fortune, she had been wedded in early
   youth to the young and handsome Nebridius, who, after two years, left her a
   childless widow. A widow she determined to remain, and to devote her life to
   good. She even braved the wrath of Theodosius by refusing to marry one of
   his kinsmen. Gregory of Nazianzus, while he was Patriarch, had loved her as
   a daughter, calling her ‘his own Olympias’. Gregory of Nyssa had dedicated
   to her his Commentary on the Song of Songs, written at her request. Her good
   deeds and austerities were known to the whole Church, and her palace was the
   constant home of bishops, who rarely left her without immense grants in aid
   of their dioceses. Her gifts were so lavish and so freely bestowed that
   ecclesiastics of the baser sort preyed on her credulity. Among these was
   Theophilus, who on one occasion prostrated himself before her in a burst of
   crocodile gratitude and kissed her knees, which so shocked her humility that
   she flung herself with tears at his feet. Nectarius had made her a
   deaconess, and, being entirely ignorant himself, frequently consulted her.
   She was now at the head of a little college of younger deaconesses. She
   became the almoner of Chrysostom, and helped him in his great missionary and
   other designs, both at home and abroad. It was his painful duty to warn her
   against the exploitations of Theophilus and other episcopal vultures. He
   told her that she was responsible to God for the use of her vast wealth,
   which should be not merely lavish, but also wise and well considered. Part
   of the many sources of fury against Chrysostom in the bad heart of
   Theophilus and other bishops was due to the fact that he had dried up a
   fountain of beneficence which was wasting itself in barren sands.

   Another devoted Church-worker was the virgin Nicarete. She was so humble
   that, in spite of a host of good deeds, she would never become a deaconess
   or accept the headship of the Consecrated Virgins, which the Patriarch
   pressed upon her. Her little foible was the belief that she was herself more
   skilled in healing than any professional physician. She went about with her
   little box of drugs and simples, which she pressed upon all with
   affectionate and confiding solicitude.

   ‘No, Lady Nicarete, no pills for me to-day, thank you,’ said Philip, as he
   laughingly ushered her into Chrysostom’s room; ‘I am in riotous health,
   which I do not wish to be disturbed.’

   ‘Foolish boy!’ said Nicarete, smiling. ‘But now, does not your young friend
   Eutyches want a little medicine? He looks pale.’

   ‘Pale!’ said Philip, ‘why there is a whole Daphne of roses on his cheeks!
   And, Nicarete, I really must interdict you from pressing any of the contents
   of your medicine-box on the Archbishop. He is not in riotous health, but his
   digestion is in a sufficient state of conflagration already, and he is so
   good-natured that he will destroy himself by taking all you give him.’

   ‘You naughty lad!’ said Nicarete; ‘how shall I punish your sauciness?
   Eutyches is much more polite.’

   ‘That is because he takes your prescriptions like an angel; but if you look
   in his drawer, you will find them all there, untouched.’

   ‘Don’t you mind what he says, Lady Nicarete,’ said Eutyches; ‘he laughs at
   us all.’

   Far different from Nicarete was the deaconess Salvina. She, too, was of the
   noblest rank—a daughter of the unhappy rebel, Gildo, Count of Africa, and
   the widow of the nephew of the Empress Flaccilla, who had been educated with
   Arcadius and Honorius. She had two children, and, young as she was,
   determined to remain a widow. She devoted herself to good works, and became
   the patroness of the Churches of the East, and of all the clergy who visited
   the Court of Arcadius. Such was her fame that even St. Jerome had from his
   cell at Bethlehem written her one of his anti-matrimonial letters, of which
   the tone would have been resented in our days as supremely distasteful. Her
   life was absorbed in the education of her son and daughter, the due
   management of her wealth, and the service of God in all holy works.

   And like her in ardent allegiance to Chrysostom was Pentadia, widow of the
   great Consul and Master of the Forces, Timasius. Eutropius—it was one of his
   basest crimes—had foully done the brave soldier to death by the agency of
   the ungrateful sausage-seller, Bargus, whom Timasius had befriended. The
   general and his son both disappeared—the victims, probably, of secret
   murder—in the oasis of Libya. Eutropius had marked out Pentadia also for
   destruction; but she fled to sanctuary, which, in spite of the efforts of
   the all-powerful Minister, the Archbishop would not allow to be violated.
   When it was safe for her to leave the asylum she became a recluse, rarely
   leaving her home except to go to the church, but helping in all sacred and
   charitable organization.

   These were Chrysostom’s friends, and, among the great men of the Court,
   officials of high character like Amantius and Aurelian. And the mass of the
   poorer population of Constantinople soon learnt to be devoted to him. They
   saw in him a sincere and holy man, who, whatever might be his faults, had
   not a single ignoble or personal aim, and whose one object it was to support
   the weak and to fight against oppression, robbery, and wrong. But among the
   clergy very few are mentioned among his friends. The quiet, indeed, and the
   good and the faithful, grappled him to their souls with hooks of steel; but
   those who usually arrogated to themselves the title of ‘the Church,’ and all
   their organs of public opinion, were fiercely antagonistic to him. They
   hesitated at no calumny, sneers, or falsehood, and as they were the noisy,
   the pushing, and the intriguing, they claimed to be the sole representatives
   of clerical public opinion. To them nothing that Chrysostom could do was
   tolerable, and nothing that he could say was right.

   It happened one day that two of the bishops, who from the first had set
   themselves most determinedly against the Patriarch, though as yet in secret,
   were seated in the great hall, which happened to be empty, except that the
   Archdeacon Serapion was sitting at a table there with papers before him.
   They lounged on the divan by the curtain, which was not drawn back, for
   Olympias was with Chrysostom, consulting about his new hospital. They were
   Cyrinus of Chalcedon and Antiochus of Ptolemais; and they began to indulge
   in the gossip about the Patriarch which was already current in all clerical
   circles. Serapion, an Egyptian by birth, was a hot-headed and yet a taciturn
   man. They did not know his unwavering loyalty, and assumed that he would be
   a sharer in the ordinary ecclesiastical opinion about his chief. At first
   the bishops conversed in low tones, and although they did not exclude
   Serapion from their discussion, they did not often address him. These
   bishops condemned what they were pleased to call the squalid niggardliness
   of the Patriarcheion under the present régime. They severely denounced
   Chrysostom’s intention of selling for the poor the splendid marbles which
   Nectarius had collected to decorate the Church of the Resurrection. They
   more than hinted at private peculation. To much of this conversation
   Serapion paid no attention, though he sometimes made a contemptuous nod of
   dissent when they appealed to him. But as the bishops lit up the smouldering
   fumes of each other’s malice they began to talk in louder and more excited
   tones.

   ‘He utterly neglects the duties of hospitality,’ said Cyrinus, ‘but they say
   that by himself he indulges in Cyclopean orgies.’

   ‘Yes,’ said Antiochus, ‘and it is very unseemly that he should be often
   closeted with ladies. Olympias is always with him. She is with him now. You
   really should call his attention to some of these things, Archdeacon.’

   These last remarks completely upset Serapion’s usual disdainful indifference
   to what people said. He usually followed the rule, ‘Get the thing done, and
   let them howl.’ He often compared the tittle-tattle of society to the
   whirring of idle grasshoppers in the fields or the monotonous croak of frogs
   in a malarious marsh.

   He rose from his seat in towering indignation, and, standing in front of the
   astonished prelates, he cried:

   ‘How can you talk in that way? Are you neither afraid nor ashamed to let
   your tongues rage like fires, and worlds of iniquity set aflame of hell, and
   thus to run riot in defaming and defacing your spiritual head, who is a
   saint of God, which you are not? Cyclopean orgies! You spend more over one
   of your meals, Cyrinus, than the Patriarch does in six months. And you,
   Antiochus, is it not an infamy too black even for you to hint your foul
   insinuations not only against Chrysostom, but also against a saint like
   Olympias? Fie on you! You are not worthy to be bishops, you are not worthy
   even to be exorcists of the lowest rank, since you have not yet cast the
   evil spirits out of your own hearts.’

   Had a thunderbolt fallen before the two bishops they could hardly have been
   more amazed than by this outburst. They were bishops, they lived amid the
   incense of flatteries and lordlinesses, and to be addressed thus—and by a
   mere deacon!

   ‘You forget yourself,’ said Antiochus, ‘and you forget who we are.’

   ‘I forget not,’ answered Serapion hotly. ‘I honour bishops who are bishops
   indeed. I honour not you; I honour not backbiters and slanderers.’

   ‘You shall smart for this—you and your master too,’ said Cyrinus.

   ‘I know that there are scorpions, and that they can sting. But if God be
   with the right, what has John to fear from you? He shall tread upon the
   adder and the dragon. Go, false bishops, and abase yourselves in the dust,
   if haply the wicked thoughts of your hearts may be forgiven!’

   ‘My cousin, the Patriarch of Alexandria, shall hear of this,’ said Cyrinus.

   ‘Let him!’ said Serapion. ‘I neither respect nor honour him. Go home to your
   neglected sees, you hireling shepherds. You have come here for your ambition
   and your greed, to air your rhetoric and fill your purses. I know you, and
   fear you not.’

   The storm was over. The bishops, without waiting any longer to see the
   Patriarch, swept out of the hall in fierce anger. Serapion’s wrath was
   honest, but he had gone too far in giving place to it. What he had said was
   true, but it was dangerous and unwise; and when he went to speak to Philip
   in the anteroom, still throbbing with suppressed passion, he told him what
   had occurred, and admitted that he had done wrong to put no curb upon his
   denunciation.

   ‘You certainly did not spare them, Archdeacon,’ said Philip. ‘Really, if I
   had heard such lies and such insinuations I should have found it hard not to
   seize them both by the neck and fling them out.’

   ‘Ah!’ said Serapion, ‘you are young, Philip; but I am older, and should have
   put more control upon my feelings.’

   ‘But into what a nest of hornets we have come!’ said Philip. ’“Cyclopean
   orgies” indeed!’ and then the ludicrousness of the accusation struck him,
   and as he thought of the crude apples and thin wine which too often
   constituted Chrysostom’s sole meal, he laughed till the room rang again.

   Not long after this Chrysostom asked Acacius, Bishop of Berœa, to dine with
   him. He had quite forgotten what Eutropius told him at the imperial banquet
   of the Bishop’s foible for good living, and he had given no special order
   for the meal. Acacius, who had been accustomed to sup with Nectarius, was
   mute with surprise. Such a scant meal! and not a single dainty! and no
   Thasian, nor even Chian wine! He waited for at least some dainty which
   should prove that Chrysostom had done honour to his episcopal dignity.
   Chrysostom, entirely unconscious of his feelings, was talking to him, not
   about dinners, but about hospitals, and missions to the Persians, and St.
   Paul’s visit to Berœa. Acacius got more and more sullen, and determined to
   go back and dine at home. So completely had he lost his equanimity that he
   exclaimed loudly as he passed through the hall, ’I’ll cook a dish for
   him!’

   Philip, who heard the remark, could hardly help laughing, for he was quick
   to see the ludicrous side of things.

   ‘Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ?’ he said, turning to David, with whom he had
   been reading Virgil.

   ‘Yes,’ said David, smiling, ‘but another Latin poet says:


   Longissima cœnæ

   Spes homini.’

   ‘Yet I am sorry, too,’ said Philip. ‘Here is one enemy more, and the
   Archbishop has enough already. We lived so simply at Antioch that I humbly
   confess my deficiencies as regards the kitchen department. What can one do,
   Eutyches? An epicure like you ought to be able to advise.’

   The others laughed too, as Eutyches was the most abstemious of the three;
   but he said:

   ‘I will tell you, Philip. You must speak to Olympias. You are no good; you
   let him starve himself, and other people, even me.’

   Philip shook his fist at him.

   ‘I let you off,’ he said, ‘only because of your good suggestion. Olympias
   will know all about it.’

   ‘And he?’—the youths often spoke of the Archbishop among themselves as
   ‘he’—’he must ask Acacius again, and give him a Salian banquet.’

   ‘Too late!’ said Philip, sighing. ‘The good Bishop will never again expose
   himself to so frightful a risk. When those red herrings came in, you should
   have seen his face!’

   They consulted Olympias, and from that time she looked after Chrysostom’s
   kitchen: saw that he had proper food, and that he did not starve himself;
   and that he kept a table for guests which, though in comparison with that of
   his predecessor it was only ‘as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto
   wine,’ yet was not so wholly inartistic as that which had so deeply stirred
   the wrath of the old Bishop of Berœa.

   But when Olympias mused over the story she was hardly surprised at the
   remark she read in St. Isidore of Pelusium, that there were very few bishops
   who inspired any respect for their holiness; or at what Chrysostom himself
   had said in one of his homilies, that he feared more bishops would be lost
   than saved.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXII

  MANIFOLD STRUGGLES

     Truth is cruel.—Père Hyacinthe.

   Every day brought upon Chrysostom the burden of new and incessant duties.
   The care of Constantinople and its diocese would have been enough to exhaust
   the energies of any man; but the affairs of many other dioceses, over which
   custom gave him a patriarchal jurisdiction, came before him; and besides his
   schemes of reformation and beneficence at home, he felt an intense eagerness
   to further the cause of the Gospel by missions among the Persians, the
   Phœnicians, and other nations. Meanwhile he was getting an insight into the
   general corruption and worldliness into which the Church had fallen, and was
   preparing to put in force every possible remedy. He saw on all sides of him
   a Christianity which was a Christianity in name alone; a Christianity
   passionately eager about theological shibboleths; a Christianity which
   plunged into all the vices and follies of the world, while it busied itself
   with all the functions and formulæ of the Church; a Christianity which
   relied for salvation on orthodoxies and amulets, while it neglected the
   weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and truth. What shocked him
   most was to find these false forms of a Christianity which had become hollow
   and nominal chiefly rife among the clergy. Their condition illustrated ’the
   eternal Pharisaism of the human heart.’ They said, and did not. No word was
   more common on their lips than the word ‘scandal.’ Every petty divergence
   from their own conventionality, every recognition that the river of the
   grace of God might be deeper and broader than their straight-dug ditches,
   every cordial sign of union with brethren whose opinions or organisation
   differed slightly from their own, was always a ‘scandal’. But the scandal of
   their own pettiness, narrowness, subterranean meanness, and total want of
   charity, was to them a source not of penitence, but of pride. The rottenness
   of dying superstitions and a feeble pretence at perverted intellectualism
   had half strangled Christianity with ever-new watchwords and ever-new
   creeds. Eyes blinded by immoral partisanship were incapable of recognising
   pure goodness. The thin dust on the balances of orthodoxy, and small
   ecclesiastical scrupulosities, had become more to them than the solid gold
   of righteousness and love. Strong in their opiniated self-satisfaction, they
   often yielded without a struggle to the coarsest temptations. Their
   hypocrisy became so ingenious that it even deceived themselves, and they
   voided the most envenomed virulence on those who repudiated their
   pretensions and loathed their habitual manœuvres.

   All this had been seen and had been bewailed already by some of the greatest
   and holiest of the saints of God. Chrysostom had read the views of St.
   Hilary, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. Isidore of
   Pelusium, and St. Nilus, the many letters to lapsed virgins and fallen
   monks, and the many stories of much-admired clerical adventurers; but he was
   slow to admit the reality of the sad condition of things which more and more
   was forcing itself upon his conviction. He would not act on impulse or in a
   hurry; he would wait, and watch, and pray, and discriminate, and use his
   private influence to the uttermost before he gave vent to any public
   utterance or struck any open blow.

   It was the Emperor’s custom to leave Constantinople in the summer, and
   retire to the voluptuous privacy of Ancyra. The plan had been devised by
   Eutropius, whose one object was so completely to absorb Arcadius in
   luxurious self-indulgence that he might leave all serious business in the
   hands of his Chamberlain. At Constantinople he kept him engaged day after
   day in the Hippodrome and the Circus, where he might see the runners, and
   the chariot-races, and the wrestlers, and the fighters, and excite himself,
   as far as his languor permitted, with the factions of the Blue and Green.
   Lolling and sleeping on soft silken cushions in the Kathisma, or Emperor’s
   box, Arcadius could occasionally diversify his satiated boredom by looking
   on while funambulists walked upwards and downwards on tight ropes, or
   gymnasts, to the stupefaction of the mob, balanced a pole on their
   foreheads, on the top of which a little boy would go through all sorts of
   antics. Sometimes a thrill of delicious sensation would pass through the
   audience when the funambulist missed his footing and was dashed dead on the
   orchestra, or the boy tumbled from his balanced pole and broke a leg. If
   such an accident tended to cause too much emotion, the jesters called
   moriones, or cordaces, were at hand, who acted the part of clowns, and soon
   set the audience in a roar of laughter.

   But lest monotony should jade the Imperial mind, especially during the
   burning heats of summer, Eutropius had provided the palace at Ancyra. The
   day of the journey was announced, and then the Chamberlain gratified the mob
   of the city with a gorgeous spectacle. On that occasion the Emperor always
   wore a crown of gold set with the most precious gems. His robes were of
   purple silk woven with golden dragons. He wore the most splendid of his
   earrings, and strings of orient pearls hung one below another over his
   breast. The attendant guards were decked with golden chains and armlets, and
   the heads of their lances were gilded, with silken streamers of purple
   pendent from them. The Palatini also carried dazzling shields with bosses of
   gold, round which were painted golden eyes. The chariot of the Emperor was a
   blaze of gold, and was covered with thin laminæ of flexile gold, which moved
   and glittered as it advanced. The white mules which drew it were shod with
   gold, their housings were blazoned with golden broidery, and the reins
   glittered with gems. Crowds of bedizened courtiers, and hundreds of
   attendant pages, and eunuchs of every age and of every race, walked in
   sumptuous procession before and behind, through streets thronged with
   thousands of sightseers, many of whom had been patiently waiting since the
   morning to see the palace gates flung open and the pomp issue forth. Yet, as
   one penetrates into the depths of a pyramid, to find at last only the ashes
   of a monkey or a cat, so the centre of universal interest was with the
   occupants of the chariot, and they were only a sallow, sleepy youth and a
   wrinkled, kotowing eunuch. Nevertheless


   the rich retinue long

   Of horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold,

   Dazzled the crowd and set them all agape.

   The procession wended its way to the harbour, where lay crowds of gilded
   barges to convey the Emperor and his Court to the other side of the
   Bosporus, whence they went by land to the soft climate of Phrygia. At Ancyra
   Eutropius amused and enervated the Emperor with banquets, and spectacles of
   dancing-girls, and with every costly diversion which the ingenious luxury of
   idleness could devise.

   Philip and his young friends had watched the Emperor’s departure with the
   curiosity and not ungenial cynicism of youth. As for Philip, he was an
   observer of human nature, and never missed the chance of seeing anything.
   Full of fun, he accused David of envying all the glory.

   ‘Why should I envy the bloom on the wings of butterflies?’ said David.

   ‘Oh yes, you are a philosopher, David. But you,’ he said to Eutyches, ’I
   confess that, in spite of your protesting look, you would give your eyes to
   be one of those processional gentlemen, and strut in gold amidst the cheers
   of the mob. I feel sure that you are saying to yourself, “Oh that I could be
   Eutropius for but one hour!”’

   Eutyches turned to him his laughing face. ’You know better,’ he said. ‘I
   greatly prefer to be a clerk at the Patriarch’s. As for Eutropius, if I had
   an enemy, and if I wanted to curse him——’

   ‘Two impossible suppositions for you, Eutyches,’ said David.

   ‘Well, if I had, and if I could, I should say, change lots with
   Eutropius!’

   ‘Curses wait round him open-eyed,’ said Philip, ‘but you would like to be
   Aurelian, now?’

   ‘What, with Typhos, that wicked brother of his, dogging his heels and
   secretly trying to devour him?’

   ‘All very fine, Eutyches; but you know you asked the Patriarch to come and
   see the show.’

   ‘And do you know what he called it?’

   ‘Vanity of vanities, probably,’ said Philip.

   ‘Well, something like it. He called it gilded misery and painted tears. But,
   Philip, you are the culprit. You are dying to enjoy an armlet and a gold
   collar, and so you accuse us!’

   ‘Perhaps,’ said Philip. ‘Who can tell?’

   An old man in the cloak of a philosopher had overheard them. ‘Ah! young
   man,’ he said, ‘Do you want riches, power, honour? Well, I have what you
   desire.’ And then he opened and shut his hand three times.

   ‘Is that a sort of incantation?’ asked Philip, laughing.

   ‘No,’ said the old man. ‘I have grasped the wind.’

   But though the Patriarch had not cared to leave his books and waste his time
   to stare at the procession, he had gone the day before to pay his farewell
   respects to Arcadius, and he had taken the opportunity of holding a very
   serious conversation with the powerful Chamberlain.

   Eutropius welcomed him almost effusively. His presence seemed to the
   favourite to give a touch of reality to a world of phantasms. Most of the
   insects who thronged about his noonday beam he utterly despised. He knew the
   value of the transports with which they kissed his hand or grovelled at his
   feet. He knew that their one object was self-interest, and that they would
   be ready to spit at and trample on him to-morrow if his fortunes fell. But
   among these spectres the presence of Chrysostom brought him in contact with
   a man who desired nothing from him, who neither feared nor flattered him,
   but who did deeply and genuinely care, if not for his temporal, yet for his
   supremest, interests.

   ‘I welcome the visit of your Beatitude,’ he said, after Chrysostom’s simple
   greeting, ‘though you constantly oppose my wishes and show little respect to
   my office. Why, præfects and patricians have barely left the room, every one
   of whom treated me almost as if I were Emperor, and you address me without
   the smallest approach to ceremony!’

   ‘Do not I thereby honour you? To me you are Eutropius, a soul for whom
   Christ died. To be a Præfect of the Sacred Chamber is little, is nothing,
   but to be a man is something; and if a man be but a beggar, and yet a true
   Christian, his dignity is more glorious than that of many an emperor.’

   ‘You have come, I see, to reprove me. I am a clarissimus; I am the greatest
   man under the Emperor. In farthest cities, to the remotest corners of the
   Empire, I wield the sacred power of Arcadius. Suppose I refuse to be
   reproved?’

   ‘You can refuse; but have you never heard the Word: “

   He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his heart shall suddenly be cut
   off, and that without remedy“?’

   ‘But what right have you to lord it over me, as though I were a culprit, and
   you my judge?’

   ‘Nay, nay,’ said Chrysostom. ‘As a man I am but your poor fellow-sinner; but
   regard me as the impersonal voice of your own slumbering conscience.’

   ‘I am not so black as I am painted,’ said Eutropius indignantly, as he began
   to pace to and fro. ’I am not one atom worse, perhaps I am not nearly so
   bad, as many of your bishops and clergy.’

   ‘Ah! how idle are all such comparisons!’ said Chrysostom. ’Ultimately, for
   each human being there are but two entities—God and his own soul. May I
   speak to you plainly, Eutropius, not in priestly arrogance, yet without
   subterfuge, without disguise? I speak not as a judge, nor as a Pharisee. I
   would only fain help you to see the eternal realities.’

   ‘Speak,’ said Eutropius. ‘You are the only living man from whom I would
   tolerate such freedom.’

   ‘I would ask you, then, To what end is this vast accumulation of wealth,
   this dishonourable traffic in high offices? You are old. How long have you
   to live? Can you carry with you your gold, your estates, your palaces?’

   ‘Wealth is power,’ he answered sullenly.

   ‘But how stable is your power? The Empress is your enemy. Gaïnas is your
   enemy. Your power rests only on a prince’s favour.

   Put not your trust in princes. Put not your trust in wrong and robbery. All
   these will fail you. God alone, if you seek Him, will fail you not.’

   ‘You speak to me very boldly,’ said the aggravated eunuch. ‘Look out into
   yonder square. You will see my statues in bronze and marble in every
   attitude. Go into the houses of the nobles, you will see my statuettes in
   gold and silver. I have but to touch this bell, and princes and senators
   will crowd in to flatter me. I sit in the theatre, and the nobles shout
   applause and the illustrious call me the Father of the Emperor, and the
   third founder of Constantinople after Byzas and Constantine.’

   ‘Does it make you happy?’

   ‘Happy?’ said Eutropius; ‘how could such an one as I, the victim of men’s
   brutalism, stupidity, and vileness—how could I be happy? Think of what my
   childhood, my boyhood, my youth were. Think how I have been trampled into
   the mire, insulted, taunted, by the very meanest of mankind. Is it nothing
   that now I sit among princes, and that all the world rings with the two
   names of Stilico and Eutropius?’

   ‘And yet, Eutropius, all this would be sold cheap for one self-approving
   hour. You are angry that I resisted you about the right of sanctuary. I did,
   and I will continue to do so. On whose behalf? Does the story of a lady like
   Pentadia awaken in you no stings of remorse? When you hear the name of the
   wronged Timasius, of the wronged Abundantius, do the Furies never shake
   their torches in your heart?’

   ‘Leave me!’ said Eutropius. ‘You have deeply wounded me.’

   ‘

   Faithful are the wounds of a friend,’ said Chrysostom. ’It is only the
   kisses of so many enemies which are deceitful and poisonous, Eutropius. I
   love thee better than thy flatterers: I who reprove thee, not in my own
   name, but in His whose thou art—care for thee far more than thy false
   friends. Oh! forgive me if I seem to have been hard on thee, and think on
   all these things before the fall of night!’

   ‘Too late! too late!’ said Eutropius, deeply moved. ’I have chosen my lot; I
   must follow it to the end.’

   ‘It is never too late to repent, never too late to be forgiven,’ said
   Chrysostom. ‘Nay, I will not let you part from me in anger. Farewell, and
   may God be merciful to me and thee!’

   How often did that warning ring in the memory of the unhappy Chamberlain!
   Next day, when he sat beside the Emperor in the blaze of splendour, men
   noticed that his face was very sad, though on those occasions it was usually
   wreathed in the blandest smiles. He was thinking of Chrysostom and his
   reproof.

   And so the days passed by, bringing their changes and their varied duties.
   That year was marked at Constantinople by the horror of unusual storms and
   earthquakes. A huge wave rolled over the Bosporus, and laid in ruins many of
   the houses nearest to the seashore. The quaking and yawning earth swallowed
   up others, and flames issued from the rent fissures. The distress was
   unspeakable, for supernatural fears added terror to these catastrophes, and
   while there were some who tremblingly anticipated that the end of all things
   was at hand, and plunged into the most slavish superstitions, others, in the
   mad defiance which always characterises such epochs of calamity, flung
   themselves into reckless debauchery, like sailors who break open the stores
   and drink themselves drunk when it is too late to save the foundering ship.

   Amid such scenes Chrysostom kept his strong heart uncowed, and many a time
   in St. Sophia he comforted and inspired the timorous throngs of his people,
   trying to calm them with that peace of God which can face all the perils of
   life, because it has no fear of death.

   But the Archbishop rarely had rest for long. When the earthquakes ceased the
   Arians began to give trouble. They had been a powerful party in
   Constantinople since the days of Valens, and they were strong in the
   adherence of so many of the warrior Goths of Gaïnas. By a decree of
   Theodosius they were not allowed to worship within the walls of
   Constantinople, but they still cherished the determination to get a church
   assigned to them. They began to inaugurate nightly processions, which
   marched through the streets and colonnades chanting in antiphon the strange
   theological hymns of Arius. Among these was one which had the taunting
   refrain:


   Where are now the men who say,

   In their enigmatic way—

   Who the riddle right can see?—

   ’Three are one, and one is three?’

   Having chanted such strains all the night, they retired at dawn to their
   church outside the walls.

   Chrysostom was the more vexed because, though his own conviction was
   unshakenly orthodox, he had always endeavoured to treat the Arians with
   courtesy and fairness. He consulted two very different persons—Michael, the
   humble Desposynos, and Serapion, the uncompromising archdeacon.

   Michael was not unfrequently summoned from his bronzesmith’s shop by his son
   David to come and talk to the Archbishop, who valued his counsel—though he
   hardly knew what to make of his immense liberality and his total
   indifference to ecclesiastical conventions. The favourite quotation of
   Michael was the saying of Tertullian, ’Christ is truth, not custom; truth,
   not tradition.’

   ‘How would you counsel me to deal with these noisy and troublesome
   Arians?’ asked Chrysostom.

   ‘I would humbly advise that you treat them with all gentleness, with all
   meekness, with all courtesy—nay, with all love.’

   ‘They are heretics,’ said Chrysostom. ‘It is necessary to be firm with
   them.’

   ‘I counsel meekness, Bishop, not weakness. Love is not weakness. Which do we
   need most, Catholics or saints?’

   ‘We must not betray to the Arians the true divinity of Christ,’ said
   Chrysostom.

   ‘No, nor yet to the Apollinarians His perfect humanity,’ answered Michael.
   ‘But oh! it was an evil day for Christianity when men began to hate each
   other for watchwords and definitions, instead of loving the Lord Jesus
   Christ, the Son of God, in sincerity and truth, and showing their love to
   Him by love to all for whom He died.’

   ‘But we cannot regard the Arians as Christians.’

   ‘The Goths have learned their Christianity from Bishop Wulfila. Was not he a
   saint of God?’

   The Patriarch was silent, for, like all men, he loved and honoured the
   memory of the holy Wulfila.

   ‘Did Christ come to affirm a creed, Bishop, or to create a character? Is not
   he a Christian who does the works of Christ? Did not Christ say,

   “If thou wouldst enter into life, keep the commandments”? Did not the
   Beloved Disciple say, “

   He that doeth righteousness is righteous,“ and ”

   He that doeth righteousness is born of God“? May we not be received into
   eternal life with many wrong opinions? The Arians, too, believe that Christ
   was Divine, though they err in the nature of His divinity. And when John
   said,

   “We forbade him because he followeth not us,” did not Christ say,

   “Forbid him not, for he who is not against us is on our side”?’

   ‘Yes, but did He not say also,

   “He who is not for us is against us”?’

   ‘Both principles are true in their proper perspective,’ said Michael. ‘The
   one does not falsify the other. No deadlier disservice could be done to the
   cause of Christ than the angry clashing of formulæ, in which love and
   humility are lost. How far better is meekness of wisdom, and the emulation
   of good works!’

   ‘What, then, would you advise?’

   ‘Send for the leaders and priests of the Arians. Reason with them kindly and
   forbearingly, not in wrath and strife. Point out to them that these nightly
   processions can but annoy and embitter their opponents, and disgrace their
   cause. Do this, and all will be well.’

   Philip had been present while they talked, and he ventured very modestly to
   express his earnest hope that the Patriarch would follow Michael’s advice.
   ’Shall I carry a message for you,’ he asked, ’to the Arian bishop?’

   ‘No, Philip, not yet. I must talk the matter over with Serapion.’

   Serapion, as usual, was unconciliatory and uncompromising. He never joined
   the suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re. He talked of betraying the
   cause of Christ, of seeming to favour heresy, of the need of severe
   repression; and he advised the getting up of counter-processions and
   counter-litanies.

   So the streets were rendered hideous with the harsh shouts of contending
   theologies. The processions swelled in numbers and attracted all the idlest
   riff-raff of the wicked city. Nothing was less devotional than hymns chanted
   in rivalry, by voices harsh with anger, amid jibes and jeers. The theatres
   parodied and ridiculed the animosities of Christians, and made the multitude
   roar with laughter at mock processions, singing lewd and fantastic songs.
   Then the Empress took up the matter, for at that time she was most anxious
   to use Chrysostom as a powerful ally against Eutropius;—and that was one
   reason why she bade Amantius lavish her treasures upon him for hospitals and
   churches, the designs of which she drew with her own hands. She furnished
   the processions of the Catholics with silver crosses; she paid for devices
   and banners, and she ordered her Chamberlain, Briso, himself to walk at the
   head of the procession. The result might have been predicted: the crowds
   increased, the Arians grew more and more irritated. Scuffles began to take
   place, then furious attempts of each party to break up or disorganise the
   procession of the other. At last there were sanguinary conflicts. Philip,
   David, and Eutyches, loyally went out with the processions, though they did
   not like them, and always exerted themselves to keep the peace. One dreadful
   night not a few were left dead in the streets, and many were wounded. Philip
   came home with a broken collar-bone, and both the other youths had been
   hurt. The august Briso himself was seriously wounded by a stone which had
   struck him on the head. After that the indignant Empress left Arcadius no
   peace till he had interfered by peremptorily forbidding all Arian
   processions, while he allowed those of the Orthodox to continue. But
   Chrysostom, grieving that the holy name of Christianity had thus been
   smirched and degraded by mutual hatreds, was sorry that he had not followed
   the advice of the humble Desposynos.

   One more event marked the close of the year 398. Chrysostom had received as
   a present from Synope the relics of the martyr Phokas; and Vigilius, Bishop
   of Trieste, had also sent him the remains of the martyrs Sisinnius,
   Martyrius, and Alexander. He announced that he would conduct them in a
   solemn procession at midnight to the Church of St. Thomas at Drypia, near
   the sea, a distance of nine Roman miles from the city. The huge procession
   was accompanied by a multitude of officers, and many illustres, spectabiles,
   and clarissimi were seen edifyingly commingled with the poor, and amicably
   walking with them side by side. More than all, the Empress Eudoxia in person
   walked the whole way on foot, in the simplest of robes, without a single
   ornament. She joined in the chants, and humbly held a fringe of the rich
   silken corporal which covered the relics. Although she had very little
   regard for righteousness, Eudoxia was genuinely superstitious, and
   Chrysostom, deceived as yet, took her superstition for true religion. He was
   carried away by the extravagance of his joy. He thought that the Empress
   would be indeed a protectress of the poor, a pillar of the true faith. When
   they reached the church his excited feelings found vent. ‘What shall I
   say?’ he cried. ’What shall I speak? I exult, I am beside myself with joy.
   See what an example the Empress has set! As though she were a maidservant,
   she, the wearer of the diadem and the purple, she whom not even all the
   officials of the Palace are allowed to see, has walked behind the holy
   relics. Blessed be thou, O Empress! Not we only, but all generations, shall
   proclaim thy blessedness. Thou hast been the hostess of the saints, the
   mother of Churches. Thy zeal almost equals that of the Apostles. We count
   thee among the saintly matrons, for in building sanctuaries, and upholding
   martyrs, and pulling down the errors of heretics, thou usest thine earthly
   royalty as a means for the attainment of everlasting felicity.’

   After the discourse the multitude streamed homewards, and criticisms, as
   usual, were rife.

   ‘Did you ever hear such a welter of Asiatic rhetoric?’ said Antiochus of
   Ptolemais, ’and such indecent fulsomeness of praise? “I dance, I am mad!”
   Did ever Patriarch disgrace his office by such trash?’

   ‘How different, how stately, how classic would have been your own chaste
   eloquence,’ said Severian of Gabala, who had made Antiochus his model, and
   determined to walk in his steps.

   Unluckily, Chrysostom’s youthful secretaries walked near the bishops, as the
   Patriarch’s attendants, and again Philip was forced to hear these
   unsympathetic and carping criticisms of the master whom he so fondly loved.
   Eutyches and David, though vexed, remained silent, and as they passed
   greeted the bishops with the usual demonstrations of profound respect. But
   Philip looked in the opposite direction, and would not bow.

   They were very angry. ‘Who is that rude young churl?’ asked the Bishop of
   Ptolemais.

   ‘Oh! an Antiochene whom the Archbishop says he has adopted,’ answered
   Severian.

   The next day Arcadius himself went to the Church of St. Thomas, accompanied
   by soldiers; and he, too, honoured the martyrs by laying aside his purple,
   his armour, and his diadem before their shrine. Chrysostom again delivered a
   discourse; but it was impossible to elevate the thin-blooded Arcadius into
   either a hero or a saint, and the language of his eulogy was much more
   measured.

   Next day Philip looked in to see Michael; for he rarely missed the chance of
   visiting the Desposynos, in the hope of seeing Miriam, whom, though silently
   as yet, he loved with an ever-deeper devotion, and whom he believed to be
   not indifferent to him. He had a powerful ally in David, who loved Philip so
   much that in the family they always called him Jonathan, and David was never
   weary of singing Philip’s praises.

   ‘Is it not delightful,’ said Philip, ‘to see their Sublimities taking so
   much interest in the festivals of the Church?’

   Michael smiled dubiously. ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘but I am sorry that ”he“, as you
   boys call the Patriarch, lends so much sanction to the rage for relics.’

   ‘Is it not natural to honour the mortal remains of saints and martyrs?’

   ‘To honour, if you will, though they are but dust. Yet their cult has been
   pushed to fatal extremes. It has led to such gross imposture that sham monks
   go about cheating silly women with the bones of Noah or Methuselah. St.
   Martin discovered that his people were worshipping the relics of an executed
   criminal, and Bishop Cœcilian had to reprove a wealthy lady for kissing and
   hugging a supposed martyr’s bone. It is twelve years since Theodosius had to
   pass a strong edict against this relic-worship, which seemed to him
   idolatrous and degrading. That is why the Pagans call us cinerarii
   (“worshippers of ashes ”).’

   ‘Everyone seems to approve of it,’ said Philip. ‘Is it not a Catholic
   custom?’

   ‘I fear that many things are called “Catholic” nowadays,’ said the
   Desposynos, ‘which are neither Scriptural, nor primitive, nor Christian, nor
   in any sense true. Your experience will soon teach you, Philip, that the
   current opinion of fashionable religiousness, however widespread it may
   seem, is often unspeakably shallow, as well as turbid. The life of the
   Apostles, of Athanasius—nay, of the Lord Christ Himself—proves to us that it
   is only one, with God, who is always in a majority. Many a true man has to
   cry with Elijah, ”

   I, even I only, am left.”’
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXIII

  FACE TO FACE WITH SHAMS


   Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le genti,

   Sta come torre ferma, che non crolla

   Giammai la cima per sofflar de’ venti.

   Dante, Purg., v. 13–15.

   The errors of Chrysostom were errors of judgment only. He might have been
   equally inflexible without producing so deadly an exacerbation. Ambrose had
   been no less masterful than he, and no less fearless; but the training of
   Ambrose in civil offices had taught him the art of dealing with men. Even in
   his most bold proceedings he displayed a certain tact. We are apt to despise
   tact as a petty accomplishment; but just as a trivial oversight may ruin the
   smooth working of complicated machinery, so trivial faults of tone and
   manner, or a little lack of conciliatoriness, which is something wholly
   different from unfaithful concession, may throw out of gear the movement of
   great societies.

   Certainly there had been little in the past experience of Chrysostom to
   bring this quality prominently forward. He had as little of it as
   Savonarola, whom he resembled more closely than any other historic parallel.

   His long years of ascetic, monastic, and eremitic solitude, while they
   revealed to him many abysses of the deceitful human heart, and burned into
   his conviction the indefeasible supremacy of the moral law, had but little
   fitted him to bear the infirmities of the weak. He was out of touch with his
   surroundings.

   Men are sometimes called upon to cleanse Augean stables without the
   Herculean strength by which alone the task can be accomplished. Men of
   unflinching honesty and flaming zeal are sometimes placed in the midst of
   societies hopelessly corrupt, and their heroic efforts only seem to
   precipitate their own destruction. Such a man was Gregory of Nazianzus, and
   Chrysostom, and Hus, and Luther, and Whitefield. Such men are forced, as it
   were, to dash themselves against barriers of adamant.

   And his experiences in the mountain-cave had done Chrysostom another
   disservice. By hopelessly ruining his health they had caused also a sort of
   irritability—not so much of feeling as of tone and manner—which was more a
   physical accident than a moral defect, but which made what he said seem less
   easy to bear than otherwise it might have been. To this we must add the fact
   that his inexhaustible vocabulary and impassioned style made his words smite
   their hearers like a storm of hail. He was himself unaware of the effect
   produced by his own utterances. It was often more tremendous than he had
   intended. Even a platitude, wrapped round in the lightning of his fervent
   rhetoric, sounded like a paradox and a defiance. Sometimes, when he had
   preached a sermon in which he only seemed to himself to have enunciated the
   most obvious moral certainties, he found to his astonishment that he had
   thrown all Constantinople into a ferment of agitation. If, for instance,
   oppressed by social problems and the glaring contrast between plethoric
   wealth and starving populations, he simply enunciated the plainest truths
   inculcated by Christianity and the Apostles, he found himself on the one
   hand besieged by applications from gross impostors who cursed him as a
   hypocrite if he refused their claims, while at the same time the upper
   classes were denouncing him as a dangerous Socialist and a reckless
   demagogue.

   ‘How is it, my son,’ he once said to Philip, ‘that over and over again I
   only utter truths which hundreds have said before me, yet when I say them
   they seem to rouse men to fury, and when others say the very same thing they
   are set down as commonplaces?’

   ‘There are ways of saying things, father,’ said Philip, smiling; ‘the gnats
   buzz, and the thunder roars, and the ultimate elements of sound are much the
   same, but they produce different effects.’

   ‘You odd boy!’ said Chrysostom—for their intercourse was always playful and
   unrestrained—’I think you must have learnt your style of talking at
   Antioch.’

   ‘I thought we were both Antiochenes,’ said Philip, demurely; ‘but as you
   don’t appreciate my simile, I will give you another. I shake this table, and
   no one notices it except a fly or two; but when an earthquake shakes things,
   even emperors and empresses get in a fright.’

   ‘You haven’t solved my perplexity, Philip. Gregory, Basil, Ambrose,
   Jerome—they are all every bit as much earthquakes as I am, but they didn’t
   shake everything round them into a chaos of hatred.’

   ‘Didn’t they?’ said Philip, innocently. ’Gregory had to leave
   Constantinople, shaking the dust off his feet, and comparing the Œcumenical
   Council to geese and cranes. Basil, I have heard you say, almost broke his
   heart at the savagery with which he was attacked, especially by bishops like
   Eusebius and Atarbius. Ambrose had to be defended in his church by the
   populace for days together. Jerome was driven from Rome by the rich, and by
   the monks, and by the clergy, and as he left Rome he called the city a
   purpurata meretrix, and compared her to Babylon.’

   ‘Nevertheless, Philip,’ said Chrysostom, ‘it remains true that when
   Severian, for instance, or Antiochus, say the very same things that I do,
   the air does not become full of flame. You don’t help me, Philip; I shall
   ask Serapion.’

   ‘It all comes to this, father,’ said Philip, ‘there are ways of saying
   things, and it makes a difference whether they are spoken from the heart, or
   through masks and cotton-wool. One man may steal a horse, another may not
   look over the hedge.’

   ‘You are as riddling as the Sphinx, Philip. Send Serapion to me; I will ask
   him.’

   Philip left the room laughing. He had but little experience of life to help
   his natural shrewdness, but he felt that what made Chrysostom’s enunciation
   of a truth sound so tremendous, when on the lips of a Severian or an Isaac
   the Monk it would seem like a mere dulcet platitude, was that the one meant
   and acted on what he said, whereas everyone knew that the others did not.

   But Chrysostom asked Serapion whether he spoke too strongly, and Serapion,
   akin to him in all his feelings, entirely repudiated the suggestion.

   ‘You have rebuked the luxury of the rich,’ he said. ’Have you said anything
   stronger than St. James? You have warned voluptuous women. Have you spoken
   more plainly than Isaiah?’

   Chrysostom had asked these opinions because he had long had it in his mind
   to summon in the Thomaites two large meetings—first, of the virgins, the
   widows, and the deaconesses; then of the monks and clergy; and while he felt
   it to be his duty to address them with the utter faithfulness which they
   needed, he was anxious to tell the truth in love and not willingly or
   needlessly to exacerbate or wound.

   The meeting of the ‘consecrated’ women took place first, and Chrysostom was
   grieved that he could not spare their vices. He was infected with the
   unscriptural and dangerous error of his times about the inherent sanctity of
   celibacy. Ignorant of marriage, and living at a period when, owing to the
   down-trodden position of most women in the East, the loftiest ideal of
   matrimony was but rarely realised, he could paint with caustic severity its
   trials and drawbacks, but did not fully recognise its supreme sanctity.

   So far as words were concerned he repudiated the Manichean notion of the
   inherent taint of matter, and maintained that outward chastity was worthless
   if accompanied by inward depravity; yet he looked on marriage as an inferior
   condition. He drew for himself the loveliest ideals of virginity and
   consecrated widowhood. In such a consecration of womanhood he saw the
   existence of a new and unsuspected force on the side of Christianity, such
   as had already baffled the Emperor Julian at Antioch, and might still stem
   the swelling tide of corruption. It was, then, infinitely painful to him to
   think that worldliness, frivolity, and corruption could so invade the inmost
   recesses of the sanctuary as to falsify the conditions which ought to have
   been a pattern to all mankind. An Olympias, a Salvina, a Pentadia, seemed to
   him to have attained a conception of life which, if it became more common,
   might regenerate the world. But to see virgins wearing their ostentatiously
   coarse robes with almost meretricious coquetry; to see them adopt a
   demeanour so piquant that the dress was actually adopted by the lowest of
   their sex to enhance their own fascinations; to see them use the freedom and
   emancipation gained from their position to overstep the bounds of modesty,
   to gad about in promiscuous assemblies, to be seen in questionable places of
   amusement; to see widows who were so far from being ‘widows indeed’ that,
   like the women whom Isaiah denounced, they ’

   sewed pillows to all armholes,’ and abounded in wimples and crisping pins;
   to see deaconesses at once bold and mincing, to see them forward,
   intriguing, uncharitable, slanderous—all this was as gall and wormwood to
   the burning sincerity of the Archbishop. And of all this he spoke to the
   seething throng of official religionism with a directness and power which
   made their cheeks blush and then hearts burn. The few of them who were
   sincere rejoiced to be reminded that position is one thing and character
   another; but the majority of them winced, and hated him with the
   quintessence of perverted femininity. He had carefully avoided what could be
   regarded as obvious personality, and spoke to classes, not to individuals;
   but his style was so picturesque, and his rebukes so unsparing, that not a
   few felt as if the masks as well as the veils had been torn off their faces,
   and their becoming religious costumes, which had fascinated so many
   sacerdotal eyes, had been torn and tattered on their backs. These were not
   in the smallest degree penitent; on the contrary, in their hearts they
   cursed and raged. They swelled with indignation, and their noses seemed more
   vengefully sharp than ever as they peered out of their hoods. Was it not
   monstrous that they, ‘the religious,’ they, so accustomed to veneration for
   saintliness, should be treated thus! How unlike their dear Nectarius was
   this Antiochene intruder! He was no bishop! They could only pray for better
   times. And so all the well-springs of ‘human vinegar, sour and cold’, were
   stirred up, and Chrysostom, who had hitherto had so little experience in
   that line, had to learn the ’Notumque furens quid femina possit!’
   Henceforward as he met these ladies in the street, young or old, not a few
   of them drew back their garment’s hem as though it were a pollution to touch
   him, and he was struck dead by forked lightnings from female eyes.

   Then came the meeting of the clergy. To them the Patriarch had to speak
   truths even more disagreeable, and again he did not spare. He began with
   denouncing their ambitious worldliness. What had they to do with idle
   luxuries, when they ought to be setting the pure example of plain living and
   high thinking? Had not the eremite of Bethlehem, one of the ablest writers
   of the West, warned even a bishop against giving sumptuous banquets, and
   feeling flattered by the sight of the lictors and guards of a consul hanging
   outside his doors? ‘You ought,’ said Chrysostom, ‘to live more frugally and
   more simply. It is painful to see presbyters of Christ indulging in
   parasitical flatteries to nobles who deserve their sternest rebukes. Do not
   tell me that you want to get money from them for your charities, or to
   intercede for poor criminals. Simplicity and sincerity would procure you an
   influence ten times more legitimate and ten times more availing. How can you
   rebuke extravagance when you practise it? and avarice when you are
   yourselves so deeply tainted with it? and luxury when you indulge in it? and
   ambition when the one aim of so many of you seems to be to induce some
   palace eunuch to get you a bishopric? I would not speak of myself, but have
   I not tried to set you an example in these respects? I do not give wasteful
   entertainments.’

   ‘No,’ whispered Antiochus to Severian; ‘witness the dinner he gave to the
   poor Bishop of Berœa, of which Acacius is never tired of complaining.’

   ‘No,’ hissed Cyrinus in the ear of one of his presbyters, ’but they say, at
   any rate, that he indulges in enormous feasts all by himself.’

   ‘Even in the palace of the Patriarch,’ continued Chrysostom, not noticing
   the whispering bishops, ‘I try still to live the life of a monk and an
   ascetic. I never so much as set foot in the Court of the Emperor unless I am
   summoned, or unless some great need of the Church demands my intervention.

   ‘But though these evils are bad enough, there are others which are worse.
   You are unmarried. Though the Council of Nicæa did not require this of the
   clergy, the Council of Eliberis demanded it, and so does the custom of the
   East. The Fathers of Nicæa allowed you to retain your wives, and listened to
   the impassioned appeal of the monk and hermit, Paphnutius, when he pleaded
   as St. Paul pleaded—and in accordance with the words of Him Who said that
   all men were not able to bear celibacy—that this burden should not be laid
   on your shoulders, and become a snare to you. But this celibacy has led to
   the all but universal adoption of a custom unseemly, nay, dangerous, nay,
   disgraceful, a custom which naturally and necessarily defames you,
   sometimes, not even rarely, with absolute criminality, but always with
   inevitable suspicion. It is a custom at which the very buffoons in the
   circus and the theatre aim their broadest sneers, amid the laughter of the
   multitude. The Council of Nice allowed you, if unmarried, to have your
   houses managed by a mother, a sister, or an aunt; but many have shamefully
   abused this rule. You live in the same narrow house with epeisactæ—with
   maidens who are no relations to you at all. You call them your “spiritual
   sisters,” and this has become an offence and a source of untold iniquity.
   You are either weak or strong. If you are weak, it becomes the most sacred
   of your duties to shun temptation, to beat it back as you would beat back
   with a redhot iron a raging beast; but you surround yourselves with
   temptation, you court temptation, you live in the very atmosphere of
   temptation. But if you are strong, then you have no excuse, for in
   encouraging others to follow an example, which you profess to be harmless to
   yourselves, so far from bearing the infirmities of the weak, you render them
   fatal. It were far better than this that you should marry outright. A
   married presbyter could not possibly diminish his influence so much as one
   who, living with a young, perhaps attractive, maiden as the manager of his
   house, either tampers with sacred chastity, or leads others to think that he
   does so, and to do so themselves. Heaven’s shame upon you!’

   As he thus poured out the lava stream of his moral indignation, scorching
   the consciences of most of his hearers—for there were very few who had not
   rendered themselves liable to this reproach—a deep murmur of wrath rose
   among the offended presbyters, and fierce exclamations were heard.

   Serapion started indignantly from his seat at Chrysostom’s right hand.
   ‘Bishop!’ he exclaimed, ‘you will never subdue these mutinous priests till
   you drive them all before you with a single rod.’

   ‘Nay, nay, Serapion,’ said Chrysostom, with a deprecatory gesture, ’I speak
   not of all. There are some, I know, who live alone, or only with their
   nearest relations, or with poor and aged women. But I speak of those whose
   rooms you cannot enter, though they profess to be celibate priests, without
   seeing the place strewn with caps and ribbons, and wool-baskets, and
   fashionable trumpery. Is it not monstrous to see such a man going to the
   silversmith’s to ask for his lady’s mirror, and thence to the perfumer’s for
   her scents, and thence to the haberdasher’s for her furbelows? Is it not
   even more distressing and unseemly to see them making room for these ladies
   in the very churches, and proudly stalking in front of them as though they
   were young dandies or gallants? Oh, my brethren, my brethren! when I see all
   this my heart bleeds and my spirit faints within me. And now, turning to you
   monks, I know not whether a still sharper pang does not strike into my soul
   when I see you—you who profess the sole Divine philosophy, you who should
   lead the angelic life—when I see you going about idle, oiled and curled,
   haunting the antechambers of the wealthy, whispering into the ear of painted
   matrons, begging in every direction for dubious objects, vending sham
   relics, merged in the black mud of ignorance, stirring up turbulent
   fanaticism, mixing yourselves with worldly intrigues, breaking your vows
   every day and in every direction. When I see this I feel inclined to cry,
   with Elijah,

   “Now, O Lord, take away my life!”’

   In the description of false monks Chrysostom had not intended to depict one
   person in particular. But it was characteristic of the pictorial character
   of his intellect that he always saw everything in the concrete, and that, in
   describing a class, some prominent representative of the class rose
   spontaneously before his view. There were many monks and clerical
   adventurers of the kind which he had denounced. Every great city of the
   Empire swarmed with them, and in country places there were whole sets of
   them—like the Remoboth—who were regarded as positive nuisances. Bonaventura
   tells us that even in the second generation of the Franciscans people fled
   from mendicant friars as from the pestilence; and Augustine and others had
   said much the same of the wandering monks who belonged to no definite
   community. But on the lips of Chrysostom all this sounded like a new and
   unheard-of attack. While he spoke many, with the facility which most men
   have of applying the sermon to the man in the next pew, and being keenly
   alive to the way in which he must feel it, had turned their glances towards
   Isaac, the Syrian monk. That portly and despicable personage, who went about
   Constantinopolitan society like a sort of saintly dandy, oozing over with
   unctuous nonentity, and with his hair gilded and essenced and carefully
   arranged in curls, answered in every particular to Chrysostom’s description.
   He thought that the harangue had been designedly and exclusively aimed at
   him. He left the hall with the rage of a demon in his false heart, a rage
   which, with his access to all the great officials, ecclesiastics, and Court
   ladies, he felt sure that sooner or later he would be able to gratify to the
   full. The Church of the fourth century reeked—by the confession of her own
   best saints—with frightful phenomena, but the most portentous of them all
   were men like Isaac the Monk.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE CONSULSHIP OF EUTROPIUS


   This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth

   The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,

   And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;

   The third day comes a frost, a killing frost.

   Henry VIII., iii. 2.

   ’I have a piece of news for you,’ said Eutyches to his two young friends;
   ‘quite a first-rate piece of news. And I crow over Philip, who always
   fancies that he has the monopoly of news.’

   ‘Out with it,’ said Philip, ‘before you burst!’

   ‘Who do you think is to be the Consul for next year?’

   ‘Who? I don’t believe you know; it is mere gossip.’

   ‘But I do; and the news is certain.’

   ‘Well, who?’ said Philip.

   ‘No, no!’ said Eutyches, ‘I am not going to gratify your burning curiosity
   so cheaply.’

   ‘I’ll guess it in three guesses.’

   ‘No you won’t. I’ll give you fellows ten guesses between you. If Philip
   guesses right I’ll give him a picture of the Archbishop in gold on a blue
   ground, to stick up on his bedroom-wall; if David guesses right I’ll give
   him an earthenware vase full of roses from the flower-market; and if neither
   of you guess in ten guesses, what will you give me?’

   ‘Sly fellow!’ said Philip. ‘It’s a sort of bet. But if we don’t guess, I’ll
   go to the brass-market and get you a little bronze——’

   ‘Who’s the sly fellow now?’ said Eutyches. ’One word for me, and ever so
   many for yourself. We all know why Philip buys all his presents at the
   brass-market. We all know why the Archbishop’s bills at a certain shop are
   so extravagant——’

   ‘You young scoundrel!’ said Philip. ‘Whoever heard such impudence?’ Eutyches
   dodged the box on the ear, and Philip chased him round the room. Finally,
   when the boy was driven into a corner, he snatched up a chair and held it
   out with its legs towards Philip by way of fortification.

   Chrysostom was wondering what made his young friends so lively in the next
   room, but he was always pleased to think that they were merry and happy in
   the dull Patriarcheion.

   ‘What mischief are you boys about?’ he called out from his study.

   ‘It’s only that noisy Eutyches, sir,’ said Philip. ‘That young person is
   always up to his pranks.’

   ‘We all know how staid and quiet you are, Philip,’ said Chrysostom.

   ‘There now!’ said Eutyches. ‘You’ve disturbed him and maligned me. Now begin
   your guessing. You first, David.’

   ‘That’s to give him the best chance,’ said Philip, ‘because the roses will
   cost less than the picture I mean to win. But I see through you.’

   ‘As the washerwoman remarked when the bottom of her tub fell out,’ said
   Eutyches, keeping on the alert for another assault from Philip.

   ‘Well, if I don’t guess right,’ said David, ‘I’ll give you a little
   alabaster pen-tray. I guess Aurelian, the new Prætorian Præfect.’

   ‘He would be a first-rate Consul,’ said Eutyches; ‘but you’re wrong. Now
   Philip.’

   ‘Asterius, Count of the East.’

   ‘Wrong,’ said Eutyches.

   ‘Cæsarius, Master of the Offices,’ guessed David.

   ‘Wrong. Philip thinks he’s got it now.’

   ‘Yes,’ said Philip, ‘the excellent Anthemius. He’s young, and that is the
   reason why you are surprised.’

   ‘Ever so wrong!’ said Eutyches.

   ‘Hellebichus,’ guessed David.

   ‘Wrong again, David.’

   ‘I’ve got it!’ said Philip. ’Gaïnas the Goth. It’s no use guessing
   respectable people, as David does.’

   ‘Wrong, O master of wisdom! I shall get my bronze—whatever it is to be.
   There are five wrong guesses. Now try again.’

   ‘Arcadius himself,’ said David. ‘It will be his fifth Consulship.’

   ‘Wrong. Now, Philip, try number seven.’

   ‘Leo the Paunch,’ said Philip. ‘That would account for your excitement.’

   ‘What! Ajax?’ laughed Eutyches. ‘Ajax the ex-weaver, whose huge body holds
   such a little mind? No.’

   ‘I’ll try no respectability this time,’ said David; ’Osius.’

   ‘Osius the ex-cook! No, David, you’re quite out of it.’

   ‘I have it,’ said Philip. ‘It’s Count John.’

   ‘What! the Empress’s handsome favourite? Wronger and wronger. Oh, you
   imbecilities! You’ve exhausted all your guesses. Philip, go straight to the
   Chalk——’

   ‘Take care,’ said Philip.

   ‘And buy me my bronze, whatever it is,’ said Eutyches. ’I believe you
   guessed wrong on purpose to get an excuse for going.’

   ‘Give me one guess more, to soothe my wounded vanity,’ said Philip.

   ‘Very well.’

   ‘It can’t be Eutr—— No, that would be altogether too absurd. Yet it must be
   somebody odd, or you wouldn’t make such a fuss about it. Let me see…. I have
   it! It must be that old Pagan, Fravitta the Goth.’

   ‘Hurrah!’ said Eutyches, clapping his hands. ‘Eleven guesses, and every one
   of them wrong. Never make the smallest pretence to political sagacity again,
   Philip.’

   ‘Do give me only one guess more, to make the round dozen.’

   ‘Oh you cheat!’ said Eutyches; ‘and then, perhaps, if you guess, you won’t
   be able to go and see Mir——.’

   ‘Look out!’ said Philip, seizing him by the collar.

   ‘I mean you won’t be able to go to the Chalkoprateia after all. Well, one
   guess more.’

   ‘Typhos, the demon brother of Aurelian.’

   ‘Wrong again; and you will be wrong ad infinitum,’ said Eutyches, ‘so I
   shall get my bronze what’s-his-name after all.’

   ‘Do tell us,’ said David; ‘we are wild with curiosity.’

   ‘What do you say to Eutropius himself?’

   ‘Eutropius!’ they both exclaimed, while


   Up went the hushed amaze of hand and eye!

   ’None other,’ said Eutyches.

   ‘Good Heavens!’ said Philip. ‘I had his name again and again on the tip of
   my tongue, and rejected it as too insanely preposterous. Arcadius must have
   been asleep, and have nominated him in a nightmare.’

   ‘Very likely; but the new Consuls are to be Eutropius for the East, and
   Mallius Theodorus for the West.’

   ‘What a contrast!’ said David. ’Theodorus is a scholar, a poet, a man of
   blameless integrity, who has written on Plato’s “Ideas” and on the origin of
   the world, whom men honour for his probity, to whom Augustine dedicated his
   treatise on the “Happy Life.” Eutropius is——’

   ‘You will have to leave Philip to express your feelings for you, David,’
   said Eutyches. ‘You are quite too gentle; you want a few years at Antioch to
   enrich your vocabulary.’

   ‘I will say it for him,’ said Philip, who was too deeply moved to notice the
   chaff of Eutyches. ’Eutropius is an insect of the harems, an incarnate
   rapacity, a whisperer of bedchambers, an old, bald, wrinkled creature only
   one remove above a monkey——’

   ‘Oh oh, Philip!’ said David. ‘Slack the bow a little.’

   ‘Well, but——’ said Philip. ‘That a fellow who has filled baths for
   house-slaves should sit on the curule chair! That a thing accustomed for
   years to flap fine ladies with peacocks’ fans should sway the world’s
   imperial fasces! Shades of the Decii! shades of the Camilli! have we come to
   this?’

   ‘You ought to have been born in Rome,’ said Eutyches. ’They would like to
   hear you declaim thus in the Senate. You will see that the East will stand
   it well enough. We are accustomed to the portentous spectacle of women and
   eunuch favourites who rule the world. But what will the West say?’

   ‘It is really an awful business,’ said Philip. ‘I wonder whether he will
   guess? Let’s ask him.’

   ‘Sir,’ he said to Chrysostom, going through the curtains, ’can you spare us
   a minute?’

   The kind-hearted Patriarch came in.

   ‘Eutyches, sir, has been gossiping in the Palace as usual, and——’

   ‘Philip never does so?’ said Eutyches, ‘though he’s as eager as an Athenian
   for news; only he’s rather jealous that I have forestalled him.’

   ‘Never mind him, Eutyches,’ said Chrysostom; ‘we all understand Philip.’

   ‘And he thinks he has found out who is to be the new Consul,’ said Philip,
   ‘and he wants you to guess, only he’s too shy to ask.’

   ‘He need never be shy with me!’ said Chrysostom.

   ‘We’ve guessed Aurelian, Asterius, Cæsarius, Hellebichus, Anthemius, Gaïnas
   the Goth, Count John, Leo, Osius, Arcadius himself, Fravitta the Goth, and
   Typhos, and all twelve guesses were wrong; so you will see, sir, that it
   must be a very odd appointment. Eutyches has been getting out of us all
   sorts of presents——’

   ‘Bronze things, and others,’ said Eutyches, demurely, while Philip kicked
   his shin under the table.

   ‘And no doubt wants to get one out of you, sir, unless you hit it off in
   five guesses.’

   ‘Very well,’ said Chrysostom, entering into their fun. ’I’ll give Eutyches a
   little ivory diptych if I don’t succeed; but after your experience perhaps I
   shall.’

   ‘Take my advice, sir, and guess the oddest persons you can think of.’

   ‘I will,’ said Chrysostom. ‘Is it Synesius?’

   ‘No.’

   ‘Saturninus, then?’

   ‘No.’

   ‘Perhaps it’s this new Count Tribigild, who has come here from the
   Gruthonges, and whose tribe has to be gratified?’

   ‘No.’

   ‘It cannot surely be Amantius, the Empress’s almoner?’

   ‘No; but you’re getting near it.’

   ‘Briso, then?’ said the Archbishop.

   ‘To make up for his broken head,’ said Philip, laughing. ’No, sir; and now
   Eutyches, who practically told us we were idiots for not guessing, will have
   to——’

   ‘How am I to stop his audacious tongue, sir?’ asked Eutyches.

   ‘You don’t really mean to say that the Emperor has ventured to nominate
   Eutropius?’

   ‘You have guessed it, sir,’ said Eutyches, clapping his hands, ’and they
   didn’t.’

   ‘Oh! this is serious indeed!’ said Chrysostom. ‘I fear the Chamberlain will
   have utterly destroyed himself by this insane ambition. It is dementation
   before doom.’

   Philip had rightly anticipated that the effects of the Emperor’s new
   stupidity would produce a far less intense impression upon the East than
   upon the West. The East received the strange intelligence with easy
   laughter, and contented itself with the cynical emphasis with which they
   called Eutropius the Father of the Emperor. But the first rumours which
   reached Rome and Milan were received with astonished incredulity, which, on
   the confirmation of the report, broke out in a thunder of indignation. The
   Consulship, it was true, was now mainly functional; it was shorn of any
   effective power. Nevertheless, the Consul stood at the summit of all
   official rank; he had unquestioned precedence; he gave his name to the year;
   he was the inheritor of centuries of heroic traditions. And that the honour
   should be bestowed on an obscure eunuch, born no one knew where, hawked
   about for sale by Armenian slave-sellers, subject to years of infamous
   degradations, a curler of women’s hair, who had at last been turned out of
   doors—as not worth selling, and as too ugly to be even ornamental—to beg his
   bread in nameless purlieus——! And that such a man was not only to be made a
   patrician, but to sweep through the streets in gorgeous paludaments,
   attended by lictors, and to hold the ivory sceptre at the meetings of
   Senators! It was a portent ominous of blighted harvests and prodigious
   births or absolute infecundity! It was an outrage on ten centuries of
   history and thrice three hundred triumphs! It was an omen of frightful
   decadence. It would make the Roman world the open gibe of hosts of brave
   barbarians! It must not, it should not be!

   The official confirmation reached Honorius in the Court at Milan as he and
   his warrior father-in-law, the brave Vandal, Stilico, were giving stately
   audience to an embassy of Germani and Suevi, who had been sent to ask for
   treaties of peace with promises of allegiance. Their presence was a proof
   that the glories of Rome were not yet dead, and that she could still boast
   of Saxons defeated, of Britain defended from the Picts, of subjugated races
   on the borders of the Danube and the Rhine. Crowds of Italians gazed with a
   thrill of pride on these stalwart barbarians in their mantles of skin, with
   their long red moustaches and lofty stature. And was it at such a moment
   that the dignity of Rome was to be humiliated by the association of her
   noble Consul, Mallius Theodorus, with a creature swept out of the scum of
   the Gynæceum? Claudian, the soldier-poet, whom Stilico had elevated into a
   military tribune, was present at this audience, and he became the
   impassioned voice of the indignation of the West.

   He appealed to the young Honorius. ‘You, O Prince!’ he cried, ‘you, the son
   of Theodosius the Great, have been four times Consul; and you, O Stilico,
   victor of a hundred battles, you have been Consul. Will you allow the
   Imperial fasti to be stained with this foul blot? Will you wage the wars of
   Rome under these womanish auspices? Are eunuchs to leave their fans and
   array themselves in the trabea? Are the hands which held umbrellas over
   dowagers to wield the axes of Latium? Spirits of the warrior dead—Bruti,
   Cornelii, Scipios, Claudii—start from your marble sepulchres, drive off this
   half-man who would wear your robes, would parade your insignia! Let the
   East, if it will, corrupted by the evil models of the Arsacidæ, accept the
   inert and slavish dominance of creatures who never drew a sword, who rarely
   stepped out of a bedchamber, who are only fit to fold up Tyrian robes and
   have the custody of secret jewel-boxes.’

   The sonorous lilt of Claudian’s hexameters echoed the wrath of the Western
   world, and Stilico and Honorius were not sorry to show their contempt for
   Arcadius and Constantinople by refusing to disgrace the Consular fasti with
   the eunuch’s name. The year 399, by the first precedent during twelve
   hundred years, was named after a single Consul. It was the consulship of
   Mallius Theodorus alone.

   Not many in the East could speak Latin; they were more Greeks than Romans.
   They did not read Claudian’s heroics, and were untouched by his thunderous
   wrath. On the Calends of January Mallius Theodorus was installed as Consul
   in the ivory chair in the Capitol at Rome; and Eutropius, in the imperial
   palace of the Cæsars, was seated in all his grandeur in an ample robe
   broidered with golden palms, and surrounded by all the nobles and servants
   and great officials, who were emulous to kiss his hands, or, if more highly
   favoured, his withered cheeks. And as they bowed the knee before him the
   hall rang with acclamations which saluted him as the safeguard of the laws
   and the saviour of his country. Then the palace doors were thrown open, as
   though it were the residence of Eutropius himself, and in rushed the eager
   crowd with jests and shouting. After the reception Eutropius, still wearing
   his palmata vestis, arose, and, surrounded by his lictors and an escort of
   palace soldiers, went in stately progress to the Curia of Constantine, where
   he was formally inaugurated. Then he paced all round the Forum with its fine
   porticoes, and with intoxicated vanity saw images of himself clad in toga or
   military harness, and equestrian statues of marble and gilded bronze, among
   those of warrior-benefactors and ancient deities. A host of paid claqueurs
   rent the air with venal shouts, repeating the pompous titles engraven on the
   pedestals, and hailing him as the third founder of Constantinople.

   How little he realised that he was seated on a razor’s edge! The frenzy of
   his superhuman success clouded the usual shrewdness of his intellect. It
   was, as Chrysostom had said, the irony of impending doom. From two opposite
   directions, little as he had dreamed of it, destruction was marching on him
   with mighty strides; and Destiny had placed these dazzling crowns upon his
   head only to smite upon it, with deadlier force, her wedges and her
   shattering club.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE GOTHS

     Rem Romanam alius circumsteterat metus totius Gothiæ.

   Amm. Marcell., xxx. 2.

   As Chrysostom began to understand the general condition of society and
   politics at Constantinople he found that there were three predominant and
   fiercely antagonistic parties. He was more or less concerned with the
   affairs of them all. In each of the three parties he had some friends; with
   each he had some points of sympathy. The result was that every trouble and
   agitation in Constantinople became more or less a trouble or agitation for
   him, and he had to suffer from


   Desperate currents of a whole world’s anguish,

   Forced through the channel of a single heart.

   First, there was the old Conservative Roman party, at the head of which
   stood his friend Aurelian, who, in spite of the desperate intrigues of his
   wicked brother, only known to history by the nickname of Typhos, was now in
   the high position of Prætorian Præfect. The literary exponent of this party
   was his friend Synesius. Although Constantinople was regarded as the capital
   of the East, it was called New Rome, and all of the old stock disdained to
   regard themselves in any other light than that of genuine Romans. They
   therefore looked with horror on the constant increase of Ostrogoths,
   Visigoths, Suevi, and Vandals, who now not only crowded the ranks of the
   Roman army, but constituted at least half of its numerical strength. They
   saw a fatal menace for the future in the fact that the three
   commanders-in-chief of the Roman forces—Stilico, Alaric, and Gaïnas—the
   three generals who were thought to monopolise the military genius of the
   day, were all barbarians. The object of the great oration of Synesius before
   Arcadius had been to arouse him to a sense of the immediate dangers and of
   the certain peril to the ultimate fortunes of the Empire involved in this
   state of things.

   Opposed to this Roman party was the Gothic party, headed at Constantinople
   by Gaïnas, formidable in arms, in numbers, in physical strength, in native
   manhood, and in military experience. [11] Even if they could have found none
   but barbarians to help their cause, it would have been difficult to resist
   them; but they were aided by the incessant intrigues of Romans like Typhos,
   who cared for nothing but their own pelf and advancement; and also by the
   intricate feminine intrigues of evil-living ladies like the wife of Typhos.
   If Gaïnas had even been such a man as Stilico, or, still more, such a man as
   Fravitta, who, though he still continued to be a Pagan, had married a Roman
   wife, and felt himself bound by laws of honour and loyalty, the Ostrogoths,
   who were the nominal defenders of Constantinople, would have constituted a
   less threatening factor in the problems of the day. But Gaïnas was a man of
   fierce, restless, unstable character. He was actuated by the passions of
   ambition and revenge which were common to him with most of his countrymen.
   He was discontented. He had helped Theodosius both against the usurper
   Maximus and the usurper Eugenius, and deemed himself inadequately rewarded,
   though he had received honours and donatives of which his fathers had never
   dreamed. Unhappily, too, the party of Gaïnas was not only the Gothic party,
   but the Arian party. The Arians, as we have seen, were still numerous. In
   the days of Nectarius they had even risen and burnt down the Patriarcheion.
   Fanatically devoted to their heresy, they were willing to make common cause
   with the Gothic chieftain, who fancied that even the diadem itself might not
   be beyond his reach. Arbogast, indeed, had thought that a barbarian could
   not venture to assume the purple, but things had advanced since the days of
   Arbogast. Arians had been emperors, and Goths had made emperors; why could
   not a Goth and an Arian elevate the glory of Wulfila even to the throne of
   Constantine?

   The third party was that of Eutropius: the party of civil officialism and
   palace favourites, the party of eunuchs and wirepullers. It derived its sole
   strength from the subservient ineptitude of the reigning emperor, but
   wielded an immense prestige from the fact that it could invariably command
   the influence of the Throne.

   Typhos, indignant at his brother’s elevation to the Præfecture, on which he
   had set his heart, began to intrigue secretly with Gaïnas, and the
   unscrupulous wife of Typhos with the wife of Gaïnas. The Goth, full of
   cunning and suspicion, was willing to utilise them both, but he was much too
   cautious to betray to them his own private plans.

   Those plans were now nearly ripe for action. A kinsman of the
   Goth—Tribigild, a military tribune and chieftain of the Gruthongs—had come
   to Constantinople partly to compliment Eutropius on his elevation to the
   Consulship, but in reality to plead for higher office for himself and larger
   subsidies for his warlike nation.

   Eutropius simply dallied with and fooled the Gruthongian chieftain. He
   despised his tribe as a distant section of the Ostrogoths too numerically
   feeble to be formidable. After manifold delays he snubbed Tribigild
   altogether, and sent him back without added pay, without presents, without
   even the cheap reward of empty titles. It was a fatal impolicy, due too the
   vertigo of his unwonted exaltation. No doubt such requests as those of
   Tribigild were an incessant worry to the Court; but Eutropius might have had
   sufficient foresight to see that a relation of Gaïnas, and a chief of high
   pretensions, could not be duped and insulted with impunity.

   What passed between Gaïnas and Tribigild is not known, but there seems to be
   little doubt that they concocted between them a disastrous conspiracy.

   Angry and dejected, his Scythian breast, as Claudian calls it, inflamed with
   want, his pride humiliated, his hand empty of gifts, the Gruthongian
   chieftain made his way home. His wife saw him approaching from a distance,
   and flew to meet him. She was one of those strong, and lofty-statured
   Teutonic women, by whose side the enervated Roman ladies looked so puny and
   slight-natured. She was clad in robes of fine linen, fastened at the breast
   with a jewelled brooch, and her long, fair tresses were confined by a band
   clasped with golden serpents. Joyously meeting him, and flinging her white
   arms round his neck, she asked what titles he had won, what presents he had
   brought for himself and her, what largesses for his tribe. Doubtless he had
   some necklace of orient pearls or emeralds for her, and some shield with its
   golden boss set round with gems to hang upon the wall of his
   banquet-chamber, and testify the admiration of Arcadius for a loyal chief?

   ‘Ask me not!’ he answered with sullen anger; ‘I bring nothing. My requests
   have all been refused. No larger subsidies are conceded. They have not given
   me the title of Count. I have been insulted—and by a eunuch.’

   Then, in all the old passion of a barbarian woman, his wife tore her cheeks
   with her nails and poured out her fierce taunts.

   ‘Back, then, to your plough,’ she said, ‘husbandman, unfit to be a warrior!
   Fling away the sword, and take to the harrow. Let your Gruthongs sink to the
   level of an earth-grubbing peasantry. Oh! why did fortune link me with a
   poltroon? There are other Gothic women whose husbands have not been content
   to sweat over spades, whose homes are adorned with the spoils of cities that
   their husbands have laid waste, who are waited on by fair Argive and
   Laconian maidens. But the chief of their clan was an Alaric, and not a
   Tribigild.’

   ‘My tribe is small,’ said Tribigild, ‘my warriors are few.’

   ‘Tush!’ she said; ‘war will give you allies, war will crowd your ranks.
   Fling off the half-Roman; be a true Goth once more. They have spurned your
   fidelity; let them dread your injuries.’

   No Goth could resist such appeals. Tribigild roused his tribe, and flew to
   arms. Multitudes of slaves and barbarians joined him. The rich plains of
   Phrygia lay before him, and its cities were only defended by walls which had
   long crumbled into decay. He devastated the whole country with fire and
   flame, and the terrified people appealed to Constantinople for protection
   from massacre and ruin.

   At first Eutropius affected to make light of the catastrophe which his
   levity had precipitated. ’It is but an incursion of brigands,’ he said to
   the frightened Emperor. ‘They want chains, not troops. I will send a Prætor,
   not a Tribune, to punish them.’ It was, as Claudian says, the policy of the
   ostrich, which hides its head in the sand, and thinks that its enemy will
   not see it. Secretly, however, he sent to negotiate with Tribigild.
   Experience had given him an immense belief in the omnipotence of bribes. In
   this instance they were vain. The Gruthong had already enriched himself with
   abundant spoil. He disdained to accept donatives wrung from fear. He
   affected to despise the honours which came from an eunuch. ‘What, then, do
   you want?’ said the emissaries.

   ‘I want neither a courtship, nor presents, nor a donative,’ he answered.

   ‘Will nothing content you?’

   ‘Yes! I want revenge. Send me the head of the eunuch and I grant you
   peace.’

   Gaïnas made matters much worse by doing his utmost to increase the general
   consternation. ‘My cousin Tribigild,’ he said, ‘is a first-rate general, and
   those Gruthongs are splendid fighters.’

   Eutropius was in despair. At last he summoned such advisers as he could
   trust. But he had few on whom to rely except dandy youths and loose old men,
   whose chief glory it was to discover new refinements of luxury for their
   banquets, and to have peacocks and green parrots among the entremets. The
   chief subject of their chatter was the description of dresses and the
   discussion of the rival merits of athletes. Their very rings and their silk
   dresses were a burden to their decrepit enervation, and their chief aim was
   to look effeminate and have a good supply of lewd witticisms, while they
   talked of the wrigglings of acrobats and the dancing of actresses. But now
   Eutropius told them that affairs were serious. What was he to do?

   They agreed that it would be unwise to send Gaïnas to suppress the
   rebellion. He was a Goth, and could not be trusted to put down Goths. His
   allegiance was more than suspected, and Tribigild was his cousin. No; there
   was nothing for it but to appoint Leo general.

   Even in that conclave of his creatures the suggestion of Eutropius was
   received with an ill-suppressed titter, in which his prime favourite, the
   Spanish ex-cook, Osius, joined. For Leo was a common joke. He was so fat
   that he could neither walk without waddling nor speak without panting. What
   soldiers, whether Gothic or Roman, could respect or would obey such a
   general? Yet he valiantly exclaimed that he would drag this upstart
   Tribigild and these Gruthongian deserters behind his chariot to
   Constantinople.

   So, while owls screeched their evil omens, he was sent forth to meet his
   doom, and to feed the Molossian vultures with the carcases of his soldiers.
   Never was there such a dissipated and ill-disciplined host. No one knew how
   to choose encampments. No scouts brought news of the enemy; no guides led
   them by the shortest routes; no sentries watched the vallum at night. Like a
   disorderly procession, the motley host marched towards the valleys and
   mountain-passes of the Taurus.

   Tribigild, by a pretence of alarm, lulled the Roman army into fatal
   demoralisation. Leo, with senseless ignorance, had chosen his camp at a spot
   where a vast marsh at his rear cut off all hope of retreat. His
   insubordinate army spent the night in revelry and drunkenness. At darkest
   midnight Tribigild and his Goths burst over the unguarded rampart, and
   massacred at their will the drowsy and drunken soldiers. There was no
   battle—only a slaughter and a rout. Leo mounted his horse, and fled headlong
   towards the marsh, in which thousands of his miserable soldiers were already
   floundering. The horse, covered with streaming sweat under the precipitate
   career and enormous corpulence of its rider, stumbled in the marsh, and
   flung Leo over its head. The wretched general tried in vain to crawl out on
   his belly through the mud and slush. Sunk down by his own weight, he died,
   partly of terror, and partly of suffocation. Tribigild could leave the
   wasted regions of Phrygia behind him, and burn and pillage at his will the
   rich plains of Pamphylia and Pisidia.

   Arcadius had now no choice but to leave Constantinople practically
   undefended, and to send Gaïnas to check the dangerous career of the rebel.
   He crossed the Bosporus, and ostensibly marched to crush the enemy. But ‘dog
   will not eat dog,’ and he practically did nothing. The Emperor was mocked by
   missives in which Gaïnas lauded Tribigild as the best general of the age,
   and the Gruthongs as the most invincible soldiers. He saw no hope of
   defeating them. But they were inclined to be loyal had they not been so
   grievously offended. If the Emperor would only grant Tribigild’s just demand
   for the head of the Chamberlain—Gaïnas would not call him Consul—the chief
   would lay down his arms and return to his own land. Was the safety of
   Eutropius to be preferred to the well-being of the entire Empire?

   Nor was this all. A new terror began to threaten Arcadius. Bahram IV., King
   of Persia, had been his friend and faithful ally; but now the anti-Roman
   party had succeeded in effecting the murder of Bahram, and the first act of
   his successor, Izdegerd, was to send an army to attack Syria. Surely the
   omen of the Consulship of Eutropius had been sinister, and even deadly. For
   worse was still behind. If there was one person whom Arcadius hated, it was
   Stilico; and if there was one person against whom he cherished a malignant
   jealousy, it was his brother Honorius, who, though he was such a poor
   specimen of humanity, was yet on the whole his superior. Honorius and
   Stilico had disdainfully refused to acknowledge his new Consul, and now it
   began to be openly rumoured that Stilico, impatient of the disgraces and
   disorders of the East, meditated the suppression of Arcadius altogether, and
   the union of the dissevered empires of the East and West under a single
   emperor. This was the news which, more than any other, made the pale blood
   of Arcadius run cold.

   ‘How will it be with me if I am dispossessed?’ asked Arcadius of himself.
   ‘How if I am rendered incapable of further rule, not only by imprisonment,
   but by akroteriasm?’

   The frightful meaning of that word haunted him. It meant the cutting off of
   his hands and feet. He pictured to himself an abject cripple lying mutilated
   in a foul dungeon; and that cripple was himself, while the hated Honorius
   and the hated Stilico revelled in the purple chambers of the Byzantine
   Palace.

   Harassed to misery by these sources of dread from many quarters, even
   Arcadius could hardly refrain from asking himself, ‘Can I not avert the
   worst of these catastrophes by the sacrifice of one wretched old man?’

   Whether his hesitation would otherwise have been broken down we cannot tell;
   but a sudden act of insane folly on the part of the eunuch called down the
   avalanche on his own head.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [11] The name Gaïnas is an abbreviation of Gaisananths, ‘spear-bold.’
   Zosimus writes it Gainēs, Socrates Gainas.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXVI

  THE FALL OF EUTROPIUS


   Tolluntur in altum

   Ut lapsu graviore cadant.

   Claudian.

   The mixture of dread, irritation, and intoxicated vanity which had come upon
   Eutropius as Patrician and Consul had clouded the usual keenness of his
   intellect and overthrown his shrewd judgment. He might have seen at some
   moments that, as a breath had made, so a breath could unmake him, and that
   the most ordinary common-sense dictated the advisability of his keeping on
   the best terms with the Imperial family. But of late Eudoxia had adopted
   towards him a tone almost of command, which he did not like. One day she
   spoke to him about the ravages of Tribigild, the insolence and probable
   treachery of Gaïnas, the certainty of a Persian war, and this intolerable
   menace of Stilico’s intervention. She gave him to understand that she did
   not think he had managed well, and blamed him for sending against the
   Gruthongs such a man as Leo, when he might have sent a man of proved valour
   like Aurelian, or a man of capacity like Count John.

   ‘Leave me to arrange these matters with the Emperor,’ he said curtly. ‘As
   for Aurelian, his appointment would have irritated Gaïnas; as for Count
   John—’ he shrugged his shoulders, and looked at Eudoxia.

   A blush mounted her cheeks, dyed them with crimson, and rose to the roots of
   her fair hair; but she disdained to notice what she regarded as an insolent
   innuendo.

   ‘At any rate,’ she said, ‘you need not have sent a mere fat, incompetent
   glutton like Leo.’

   ‘Leo was my friend, madam,’ he said. ‘You are no judge of his military
   aptness.’

   ‘He has shown it egregiously,’ retorted the Empress. ’Who ever heard of a
   Roman general suffocated in a scramble through the mud, as he galloped away
   in headlong flight?’

   ‘It was his misfortune, not his fault.’

   ‘Such misfortunes seem to come thick in your Consulship.’

   Eutropius could not stand this. Was he Consul and Patrician—had he broken
   his birth’s invidious bar—had he sold provinces and appointed præfects—had
   senators and nobles grovelled before him—had he made his name ring through
   the world side by side with Stilico’s, only to be mocked by a Frankish woman
   who owed her position exclusively to him?

   ‘Have a care, madam,’ he said rudely. ‘The same hand that raised you up can
   put you down.’

   Eudoxia flushed into angry tears at the insult. Starting from her seat, she
   waved him aside with an imperious gesture, and made her way straight to the
   Purple Chamber, where were her two children. She took the little Flaccilla
   by the hand, and snatched the baby Pulcheria, afterwards destined to play so
   memorable a part in history, into her arms. Then, heedless of all Court
   ceremonial, she burst unannounced into the room where the Emperor was
   sitting, and flung herself, still weeping, at his knees. She could not speak
   for shame and anger, and the beautiful little children, understanding
   nothing, but catching the contagion of their mother’s emotion, wept and
   wailed with her, while Arcadius, deeply disturbed, kept asking what was the
   matter.

   ‘Am I your wife,’ she cried, when she found voice to speak, ‘or am I not? Am
   I your empress, or a slave and puppet of eunuchs? Are these your children?
   and is their mother nothing to you?’

   ‘What is the matter? What is the matter?’ Arcadius kept repeating.

   ‘Eutropius,’ she sobbed—’he has insulted me. I know that it is only because
   of him that you have withheld from me the title of Augusta, though I have
   borne you two children. But that is nothing. He says I owe my place solely
   to him. He threatens to drag me down when he likes. Is he emperor, or are
   you?’

   Arcadius for more than a month had come to the slowly formed conviction that
   his supine abandonment of everything into the hands of his Chamberlain was
   likely to cost him dear. Nothing but the indolence which Eutropius had
   fostered, and the dread of innumerable worries from which the Minister had
   relieved him, had prevented him from taking some step for the general good.
   Eudoxia’s indignant fury was the last spark to fire the sluggish train. He
   would be a slave no longer to his own official. Eudoxia was now demanding
   his dismissal as the sole way to protect her from his insults, and, striking
   while the iron was hot, Arcadius acted on the impulse of a sudden
   resolution. He calmed Eudoxia’s passion by a promise that her wrongs should
   be redressed, and striking a silver gong with unwonted energy, bade the
   officer to go at once to Eutropius with the order to leave the Palace on
   pain of instant death.

   The officer was thunderstruck. Was he really to give this message to the
   Patrician, the Consul, the Grand Chamberlain, who but an hour ago had
   wielded absolute control of life and death, and had been the most powerful
   man in the whole Empire?

   He had not to carry his message far. Eutropius had marked the wild rage of
   the beautiful Empress. He recognised that he had gone too far; that she was
   not like one of those soft Roman and Eastern ladies who cared for nothing
   but scents and jewels. She was a Frank, the daughter of a Frank general, and
   felt herself capable of rule. The home from which she came had made her
   unfavourable to Eutropius, much as she owed to him. She had no intention to
   be his subordinate. He watched her go to the Purple Chamber, watched her
   hurry with her children into the presence of Arcadius, heard the tumult of
   cries and sobs, heard the voice of the Emperor raised to a tone which he had
   never heard before, heard him summon an officer. But even he did not
   anticipate the summariness and tremendous finality of his doom.

   The officer as he passed had mentioned to others the tenor of his
   heart-shaking message; attendants gathered round the door had overheard what
   the Emperor said. The news spread through the throng of sycophantic
   hangers-on in the Palace with the rapidity of lightning. In five minutes it
   was universally known. Eutropius received the mandate. He was informed that
   soldiers were coming to arrest him. He had not a moment to lose. The
   Emperor’s private passage spanned the Chalkoprateia, and led into the Church
   of St. Sophia. To reach it he had to walk through vast antechambers thronged
   with slaves, pages, soldiers, Court officials. Ten minutes earlier, if he
   had passed along, he would have been received with prostrations, and
   genuflexions, and hand-kissings, and titles of admiration, and wreathed
   smiles. Now he saw only scowls, and averted faces, and pointed fingers, and
   heard nothing but smothered curses and whispered jeers. The wretched man
   recognised that the sun of his fortune had suddenly plunged into deepest
   night. He hurried into the private passage, ran at full speed into the
   Cathedral, rushed up the steps among the astonished deacons and presbyters,
   and choosing for his asylum the most sacred and inviolable spot, he flung
   himself under the Holy Table, and grasped one of the gilded columns by which
   it was supported.

   And there, still in the palm-woven robes of his consular dignity, in the
   purple mantle of his patrician rank, with dust scattered over his bald head,
   and grey thin locks, he lay and sobbed and grovelled in the dust.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXVII

  IN SANCTUARY


   Illatas Consul pœnas, se consule, solvit…

   Sævit in auctorem prodigiosus honor.

   Claudian.

   Philip had been by accident in the Church of St. Sophia when Eutropius
   rushed into it down the private passage from the Palace which led into the
   Emperor’s gallery, and down the staircase from the gallery into the nave.
   Lost in astonishment, Philip saw the unhappy man speed in wild affright up
   the porphyry steps of the sanctuary and disappear behind the drawn curtain.
   Usually the new Patrician and Consul was never seen in public except when he
   paced to the Theatre or Circus between his lictors, or in the centre of a
   throng of soldiers, slaves, and sycophants, while everywhere the claque of
   paid adherents received hire with acclamations, as if he were a hero or a
   god. What could possibly be the meaning of the unwonted spectacle of the
   most powerful of living men, pale, terrified, dishevelled, ungreeted and
   ungreeting, unattended even by a single slave, running at full speed, though
   with his knees trembling under him, and often stumbling on the road?
   Something portentous must have happened, and without even guessing what it
   was, the youth’s shrewd and practical intellect instantly took in the
   importance of the occurrence. Whatever else it meant, it could only mean
   that Eutropius was taking sanctuary—was flying to the protection of that
   right of asylum of which he had endeavoured to rob the Church of Christ.

   But great men do not fall, any more than great trees fall crashing over the
   forest which they overshadow, without serious commotion; and Philip was far
   from sure that Eutropius would not become the victim of his own law, which
   had excepted the crime of læsa majestas from the right of ecclesiastical
   protection. He foresaw that in half an hour’s time, or less, when the news
   of the favourite’s ruin had spread, the church would be transformed into a
   scene of the wildest commotion. It was necessary that Chrysostom should be
   instantly informed of what had happened.

   The Patriarch’s palace stood opposite the wall of the Imperial precincts,
   and was but a minute’s distance from the eastern gate of St. Sophia. It
   faced the Milion and the line of statues which adorned the northern facade
   of the Hippodrome. While the few who were in the church were still lost in
   wonder, and were crowding up towards the presbytery to catch a glimpse of
   Eutropius when the curtains were drawn, Philip darted home, and passing
   straight into the Archbishop’s room, said:

   ‘Father, your presence is instantly needed in the Great Church! Eutropius
   has taken refuge in the sacrarium!’

   ‘Eutropius?’ exclaimed Chrysostom in amazement. ’He has fled to sanctuary?
   What has happened?’

   ‘I know nothing more,’ said Philip, ‘but I saw him flash by me as I stood in
   the nave. He looked as pale as death. Terror was stamped on every feature.
   His robes were in disorder; his head was defiled with dust. In a few moments
   there will be some terrible scene. There is not an instant to be lost!’

   ‘I will join you directly,’ said Chrysostom. ‘I have but to put on my
   pallium. Summon Bishop Palladius, Serapion, Tigrius, Cassian, Germanus, and
   all the clergy who may be in the Thomaites, to accompany me.’

   ‘Come, David and Eutyches,’ said Philip as he passed through the anteroom.
   ‘It is I who have strange news to-day, but it is beyond all jest. The
   Archbishop will join the clergy in the Hall directly. Leave your work and
   come to St. Sophia, where you will see a scene which will be memorable for
   all time.’

   The youths sprang up, and almost immediately Chrysostom came out, and,
   attended by his clergy and secretaries, walked rapidly to the Cathedral. The
   throng was already very large, and was momentarily increasing. The startling
   news had spread as though on wings of fire. It had reached the streets,
   where the crowds were yelling with savage satisfaction. It had reached the
   soldiers, who were in tumult. It had reached the Hippodrome, and passed as
   in a moment, none knew how, through its assembled thousands. Then a strange
   event happened. Of late Eutropius had spent whole days in the Theatre and
   the Hippodrome, seated in state, graciously unbending to gratify the
   multitude, scattering smiles and largesses, flattering and flattered, omnia
   serviliter pro imperio, to all appearance the assured favourite of the
   promiscuous inhabitants of Constantinople. Yet now—such is fame, such the
   worth of the applause of the multitude!—the whole assembled populace rose as
   one man, shouting, ‘Death to the eunuch!’

   Chrysostom was not a moment too soon. But for Philip’s swift resolution the
   hated Minister might ere now have been torn by rude hands from his place of
   shelter, and the sacredness of the shrine been polluted with the horror of
   bloodshed. Already there was tumult, and unwonted cries were heard in the
   holy place; but a hush fell on the people as the Patriarch came in sight in
   his pallium woven with crosses, and they made way before him as, in stately
   solemnity, he advanced towards the sacrarium with his attendant presbyters
   and deacons. They ascended the steps and passed through the curtain. It was
   there that Eutropius and Chrysostom met once more.

   There was no manliness, there was no dignity in the anguish of the fallen
   Chamberlain: it was abject, it was womanish; it was calculated to awaken
   contempt rather than pity. The memory of his crimes added to the degradation
   of his wretchedness. It was as though the spectres of Timasius and
   Abundantius towered over him, and pointed him out to the avenging Furies.
   The idol which had so suddenly crumbled to the dust was a mean and ugly one.
   This was no Marius, sitting hungry and unshorn in his wretched dungeon, but
   still clothed in the majesty of manhood; no Pompeius, grand even in the
   midst of his calamities. It was a wretched, gilded insect of the harem whom
   Destiny, in one of her most cruel and sarcastic jokes, had first elevated
   from the most degraded slavedom to more than imperial power, and then
   suddenly, as in a moment, had flung away her plaything, with utter scorn, to
   grinning infamy.

   The moment Eutropius saw the Archbishop he grovelled face downwards under
   the Holy Table, and wept and tore his hair; but at first his chattering
   teeth refused to frame a sound. Then he half rose, but hid his face in his
   robe, which was wet with tears and foul with dust.

   ‘Look at me!’ said Chrysostom.

   For an instant the eunuch turned to him the deplorable, wrinkled face of his
   dishonoured age, with a look of appeal which would have been infinitely
   pathetic but for the ludicrous dishevelment and paltriness of the man, which
   made even sorrow seem too lofty an emotion for such a spectacle. Yet
   Eutyches and David were deeply moved, and there were tears in Philip’s eyes.

   ‘Destiny is pitiless,’ said Chrysostom. ‘Pray to God, pray to Christ to help
   thee. I fear thou mayst be beyond the help of man. But He who outstretched
   His arms upon the cross has a heart compassionate enough to embrace all
   wretchedness, and even the deepest guilt, so it be penitent.’

   Eutropius could not answer. The Archbishop was thinking of the world beyond
   the grave; his own thoughts were all absorbed in the terror of the brief and
   passing present.

   Meanwhile, through the opened curtains of the presbytery the crowd caught
   sight of the crouching figure, and amid the tumult and the menacing cries,
   which rose louder and louder, the tramp of soldiers and the clang of armour
   made itself ever more distinctly heard.

   The sounds renewed the wildest alarm of the fugitive. ’Oh, save me!’ he
   cried, ‘save me!’ And as he spoke he snatched at the Archbishop’s robe, and
   kissed its hem.

   ‘I will save thee,’ said Chrysostom, ‘if man may at all save thee.’

   ‘Swear to me,’ said the wretched man.

   ‘Nay, a good man’s word needs no oath. Fear not. Leave the Holy Table.
   Serapion will take thee into the Chamber of the Holy Vessels.’

   Leaving the Archdeacon to attend to the eunuch and supply his needs,
   Chrysostom advanced to the front of the chancel, and ordered the curtains to
   be drawn behind him. He looked out on a wild scene. The armed Prætorians had
   forced their way through the dense mob to the front, and stood there
   shouting and brandishing their drawn swords, with cries of ‘The eunuch! give
   us up the eunuch! He is in hiding here. He shall die!’

   It was always in such scenes that Chrysostom rose to the fullest grandeur of
   his undaunted nobleness. Many a man will quail before a mad and mutinous mob
   who will face almost any other form of menace. But Chrysostom, as he looked
   on those gleaming eyes and furious faces, was as calm as if he had been
   talking to Philip in his own room. Not a pulse beat the quicker, and though
   his figure was not majestic, he seemed to dilate with the grandeur of his
   appointed task.

   ‘Silence!’ he called out in his clear, resonant voice, which was heard above
   the madness of the multitude; and once more, as they did not heed his
   command, he raised his arm in an attitude of authority and again cried,

   ‘Silence, ye people, and ye turbulent Prætorians! Silence!’ Astonished and
   overawed by the fearlessness of the man, which filled the disciplined
   soldiery with admiration, the crowd sank for an instant to silence.

   ‘What mean ye? What do ye desire?’ said the Patriarch, ’that ye fill with
   your lewd clamour the sacred silence of the church of Christ? Depart hence!
   The Hippodrome is the fitter scene for your shouts and tumults.’

   ‘The eunuch! he is hidden here! Death, death to the eunuch!’ they shouted.

   ‘He has taken sanctuary,’ said Chrysostom, with perfect calmness. ’He has
   flung himself on the protection of the Church. She spreads over him her
   mantle of mercy. Depart hence! your errand is in vain. He is inviolable
   here.’

   ‘Nay, but you are breaking the law,’ said the Tribune of the Prætorians. ‘He
   has been guilty of treason. By the edict of Arcadius, by the edict he
   himself demanded and carried, he has no right to protection. You must give
   him up.’

   ‘Never!’ said Chrysostom.

   ‘Nay, but we will have him; we will drag him out hence by the hair!’ shouted
   the soldiers.

   ‘You dare not!’ said Chrysostom.

   ‘We will soon see whether we dare,’ cried the boldest of them, who were
   Arian Goths, filled with special hatred of the fallen Minister; and some of
   them began to rush up the marble steps.

   ‘Back!’ said Chrysostom, advancing with uplifted hand and checking their
   menacing onrush; while Philip and his two friends, who were watching the
   scene with intense excitement and unbounded admiration for their master,
   eagerly sprang forward, to protect him if possible, to die with him if
   necessary.

   ‘This won’t do,’ shouted the Tribune. ‘We have the Emperor’s orders.’

   ‘The Emperor’s orders? What avail the Emperor’s orders in the sanctuary of
   God? He is an emperor over frail men; we are the servants of the Most High
   God. What!’ he cried, as he laid a firm hand on the cuirass of the foremost
   soldier, though he was brandishing his drawn sword over his head—’what! do
   you presume to violate the sanctuary of your Saviour?’

   ‘We don’t want to hurt you; but, we will have the eunuch!’

   ‘Then,’ said Chrysostom, spreading out his arms across the narrow space,
   ‘advance if you will; but if you do it must be over my body—yes, and over
   the bodies of these my presbyters;’ for now they were all standing round the
   Archbishop, prepared—all unarmed as they were—to defend the sanctuary, even
   with their lives.

   ‘Shame on you! shame on you, soldiers!’ cried young Eutyches, carried out of
   himself by the scene. ’Would you defile the Holy Place of God with the blood
   of His murdered ministers? And are you not afraid that the lightning will
   flash on you, or the floor be rent with earthquake to swallow you up quick,
   like Korah and all his company?’

   ‘Silence, you young cub!’ said a soldier, striking the boy on the cheek,
   while others still pressed forward, being almost forced on by the waves of
   the people who surged behind them.

   It was one of those crucial moments when the possibility of enormous crimes
   trembles, as it were, in the balance, and when there is but a hair’s-breadth
   between scenes such as history records for ever, or the averting of some
   dreadful catastrophe. At any moment one of those uplifted swords might
   descend on the head of the Archbishop; and then the soldiers and the mob,
   drunken with blood and fury, would have trampled down the presbyters, would
   have dragged Eutropius from his hiding-place, and hacked him to pieces at
   the very altar. The cheek of Eutyches was bleeding with the soldier’s blow,
   and Philip and David had climbed up the balustrade, their faces aflame with
   the very enthusiasm of martyrdom, and had taken their places close beside
   their master, ready to shield him with their bodies.

   The absolute calm of the Archbishop averted the peril. ’You have heard,’ he
   said, ‘as though God’s voice had spoken to you by a boy’s lips—you have
   heard the awfulness of the atrocity which you seem to be on the verge of
   committing. Pause ere you drown your souls for ever in destruction and
   perdition!’

   ‘Give us the eunuch!’ said a soldier, ‘and we will disperse this multitude
   with the flat of our swords, march out in peace, and close the
   church-gates.’

   ‘I will not give you the fugitive who has flung himself on Heaven’s
   protection. Listen to me. Let the Emperor decide. Take me to him here and
   now. Take me to him as your prisoner, if you will. Leave some of your
   number, pledged by the word of your Tribune to defend the sanctuary from
   rioters while I am absent, and hear whether the Emperor really bids you to
   desecrate the church of God.’

   ‘Not waiting for any consultation, Chrysostom quietly began to descend the
   steps. ‘I will walk,’ he said, ‘in the midst of you.’

   ‘Let us come with you, sir,’ said Philip, earnestly.

   ‘These are my young secretaries,’ said Chrysostom to the Tribune. ‘They are
   not formidable. Let them accompany us. They may be very useful in writing
   notes or taking messages. Your face bleeds, my poor lad,’ he said to
   Eutyches. ‘You might have dealt less roughly with the harmless boy,’ he said
   to the Prætorian who had struck him. The Goth actually blushed at his words,
   and shrank back as he would not have done from the sword of the strongest
   enemy.

   So the Tribune bade the soldiers form two lines and walk with uplifted
   lances or drawn swords on either side of the Patriarch to the Imperial
   Palace. The crowd in the church divided to let them pass; and in the streets
   they walked through myriads of spectators, struck with the unwonted
   spectacle of their Patriarch conducted into the presence of the Emperor by
   armed Trabantes, who did not abstain from cries of ‘Death to the eunuch! We
   demand the head of Eutropius!’

   As the streets were in a state of excitement, Aurelian, as Prætorian
   Præfect, had drawn up many soldiers as well as the Royal Guards before the
   gate, and through these the Patriarch and his escort passed in silence,
   until they had conducted him to the door of the Emperor’s room.

   Chrysostom briefly recounted all that had taken place, and Arcadius feebly
   pleaded that Eutropius, as a State criminal who had treasonably mismanaged
   affairs, and who had openly insulted the sacred majesty of the Empress,
   could not claim asylum from which the law exempted him.

   ‘It was a cruel, it was a wrong, it was an unjustifiable law,’ said
   Chrysostom. ’No doubt, if justice were perfect, if there were no officials
   to do deeds of oppression, robbery and wrong, the privilege of asylum might
   be abused, and might become dangerous and evil to the State. But it is not
   so. It may be that, here and there, it throws a shield over the guilty, but
   ten times more often it protects the innocent.’

   ‘Eutropius is not innocent,’ said the Emperor pettishly.

   ‘I said not that he was,’ said Chrysostom, ‘but in the days of his fortune,
   in the days when he was your all-honoured plenipotentiary, in the days when
   he wielded and abused all your power——’

   Arcadius winced.

   ‘In those days I resisted to his face the arbitrary injustice of invading
   the sacred privilege of the Church. I made him my enemy by doing so.’

   ‘Then why does your Beatitude protect him now?’

   ‘I protect him all the more, Emperor, ten times the more, because he was my
   enemy. The question is not of him: it is of the rights of Christ and of His
   Church.’

   ‘But he is guilty,’ reiterated the Emperor.

   ‘Granted, if you will. It does not affect the question. Think of others who
   were not guilty. Think of the innocent, the holy Pentadia, whom but for the
   rights of sanctuary Eutropius might have dragged into torture, or penury, or
   to share the death of her wronged and murdered husband, Timasius. Think of
   Lucian, Count of the East, whom, not for wrong-doing, but for an act of
   noble justice, your Minister Rufinus beat to death with leaded whips. Had he
   but foreseen his peril he might have been safe in the Church of Antioch.’

   ‘But I have passed an edict on the subject.’

   ‘Yes, or Eutropius passed one in your Majesty’s name.’

   Arcadius again winced, and almost summoned up sufficient energy to look
   angry.

   ‘But though your laws are decisive in all human questions, one who, like
   yourself, desires to be a pious emperor cannot pretend to interfere with the
   indefeasible laws of God. Human law, except so far as it is a part of the
   Divine law—what is it? It is, and it is not. It is passed to-day, it is
   destroyed to-morrow. But Divine law? Well has the Greek poet sung that it is
   not of to-day, or of yesterday, but lives for ever and ever, and none
   knoweth whence it was manifested. The laws even of emperors are invalid if
   they encroach upon the privilege of Christ. The wrath of man worketh not the
   righteousness of God.’

   The Emperor was overborne. He was timid and superstitious, and dreaded lest
   he should kindle the displeasure of Heaven.

   ‘What do you wish me to do?’ he said helplessly.

   ‘Nothing ignoble, nothing in any way unworthy of your sublime power: only
   one of those acts of mercy and of justice more glorious than the diadem.
   Come out with me, and bid Aurelian announce to his Prætorians that the
   sacred precincts shall not be violated.’

   Arcadius went out in purple and diadem, and when Aurelian genuflected before
   him, he said, ‘I must ask you to tell your Prætorians it is my will that the
   asylum of Eutropius should be respected.’

   ‘He spoke—and stood irresolute; for, regardless of his presence, the
   soldiers, who in the silence had heard his decision, broke into a wrathful
   murmur and cries of ’Death to the eunuch!’ which even Aurelian could not
   suppress. The emperor felt indefinitely strengthened by the presence of the
   Patriarch, but the most rigid law of Court ceremony forbade Chrysostom to
   speak. Arcadius, in halting, hesitating words, endeavoured to impress on the
   minds of his Guards what Chrysostom had been saying to him, but the
   arguments sounded very different on his lips. The soldiers paid no sort of
   regard to them.

   ‘Why are you so enraged against the Chamberlain?’ asked the Emperor. ‘If he
   has done some bad deeds, surely he has done some good ones, too?’

   ‘What good deeds has he done?’ asked a Prætorian rudely.

   ‘My father Theodosius sent him to John, the holy eremite of Egypt, and he
   brought back the prophecy of his victory and speedy death.’

   A coarse laugh from the soldiers was the only reply, and one of them said:
   ‘Why, any fool would have done as much as that.’ The cries of ‘Death to the
   eunuch!’ were redoubled, mingled with shouts of ‘Who murdered Timasius? Who
   put up Gildo? Who betrayed the army to Tribigild?’

   Things looked very ominous, for the soldiers began to leap in the air and
   shake their long spears. Had Arcadius thought of ordering either Aurelian or
   Chrysostom to address the mutineers, they would no doubt have brought them
   to their senses; but he did not, and the revolt might very speedily have
   become a revolution. But at that moment Arcadius was protected by his very
   helplessness. He simply burst into tears, and implored the soldiers for his
   sake to spare his disgraced Minister. They were unaccustomed to the sight of
   an emperor in tears, and they sullenly consented to abandon their demand.

   Chrysostom thanked the Emperor, and went back under escort through the
   raging mob to St. Sophia. The church was practically in a state of siege,
   and it was with difficulty that the soldiers secured his entrance. He
   brought to Eutropius the news of his immediate safety, which the eunuch
   received with transports of gratitude. He left him in charge of a number of
   the clergy, to whom Aurelian assigned the protection of a hundred soldiers;
   and then he returned home, deeply wearied with the adventures of the day,
   but thankful to God that he had saved the life of the suppliant, and
   successfully defended the prerogatives of the Church.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  INEVITABLE NEMESIS


   Ambition this shall tempt to rise,

   Then whirl the wretch from high,

   To bitter scorn a sacrifice,

   And grinning infamy.—Gray.

   The next morning was Sunday, and never—not even at the most sumptuous of
   Easter festivities—had so vast a congregation thronged the ample spaces of
   St. Sophia. Nave, tribunes, galleries, porticoes, were filled, till there
   was no standing-room—not so much by worshippers as by multitudes eager for
   new and powerful emotions. Virgins had quitted their chambers, women had
   left the Gynæceum empty, men had deserted the Forum and the Hippodrome. The
   Emperor and the Empress were present in the royal pew, in the centre of
   groups of betitled and bejewelled officials; scarcely a præfect, patrician,
   or illustris was absent; and soldiers in their glittering armour were
   mingled with the crowd.

   After the service Chrysostom advanced to the ambo, and seated himself for
   his discourse. In the dead silence he perused for a moment the sea of
   upturned faces. Many of them were fixed on him in bitter anger because he
   had snatched their enemy from destruction. On other faces gleamed and
   flickered the vulgar joy of the base at the fall of the great into calamity.
   Others showed only the idle curiosity which makes dread disasters the
   sources of pleasurable sensation, provided only that they fall on their
   neighbours, not upon themselves.

   It was just such a moment as that in Notre Dame when as vast a multitude
   watched Massillon mount the pulpit before which lay the coffin containing
   the mortal remains of Louis XIV., and when, after a pause, he began his
   sermon and melted all to tears by the simple words, ’God alone is great.’

   Chrysostom ordered the curtains of the presbytery to be thrown back, and
   there the assembled multitude beheld the man whom a single day had hurled
   from the summit of human eminence to the lowest deep of human misery. He was
   lying under the altar, a pitiable spectacle, pale as a corpse, clinging
   convulsively to one of its golden pillars. If he raised for a moment his
   miserable face, he saw the dense throng of soldiers who had formed part of
   his escort, of slaves to whom his nod was law, of citizens who had shouted
   applause to him for hours in public places. Higher up, in the gilded
   gallery, he saw the Empress whom he had elevated from insignificance, the
   Emperor whom he had treated like a tame animal. Then the voice of the sacred
   orator fell upon his ears, saying

   ‘”

   Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; vanity of vanities—all is vanity!“
   True always, it never seemed more true than now. Where now is the splendour
   of the Consulate? Where the gleaming of lamps and torches, the acclamations,
   the dances, the festivities, the joyous assemblies? Where are the crowns and
   Tyrian tapestries? The flattering murmur of the city, the greetings of the
   Circus, the flatteries of thousands of spectators—where are they now? All
   that is past. The hurricane has swept down upon the tree, and not only
   scattered all its leaves, but upturned it by the roots, and whirled it to
   the earth. Where are the false friends, the swarms of parasites, the tables
   laden with viands, the goblets crowned with luscious wines and passing all
   day long from hand to hand, the delicacies of banquets, the soft murmurs of
   the slaves of power? What has become of it all? It has vanished like a dream
   when one awakes; it has faded like a flower of the spring under the sirocco;
   it has disappeared like a shadow. It is scattered like a vapour, bursten
   like a bubble, torn like a spider’s web. Say, then, say ever, “Vanity of
   vanities; all is vanity!” Write it on your walls, on your garments, in your
   Forum, in your streets, on your houses, on your windows, on your gates.
   Write it most of all on your consciences, that it may be ever present to
   your thoughts. Reiterate it at all your banquets, and in worldly assemblies
   let each repeat it to his neighbour: “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!”

   ‘And thou,’ he cried, turning to Eutropius, ‘said I not to thee incessantly
   that

   riches make to themselves wings and flee away, and thou wouldst not listen?
   Said I not to thee that popularity was vain as the smoke and lukewarm water
   of mouth-friends, caring only for their own interests? Thou wouldst not
   believe me. And now experience hath shown thee that wealth is not only a
   thankless but a murderous slave. I became thine enemy because I told thee
   the truth; but said I not, “I am a truer friend to thee than they that
   flatter thee”? Warned I thee not that

   faithful are the wounds of a friend, deceitful the kisses of an enemy? Hadst
   thou borne my wounds thou hadst not been destroyed by their kisses. My
   wounds were health, their kisses death. Where now are the songs which
   welcomed thee? Where the army of slaves who cleared the way before thine
   omnipotence? They have deserted to thy foes, they deny thy favours. But I,
   whom thou couldst barely endure, have not abandoned thee, and now in thy
   fall it is I alone who support and solace thee. Thou foughtest against the
   Church, and the Church has opened her arms to receive thee; thou favouredst
   the theatres, and they are shrieking for thy head. When I warned thee not to
   tread thus gaily the road to ruin, thou, with a shrug of disdain, wouldst
   fly to the Circus. Lo! the Circus multitude, enriched by thy lavishness,
   whets the sword to slay thee; the Church, troubled by thy rage, is running
   hither and thither to snatch thee from thy misfortunes!’

   And then the thought seemed to strike the Archbishop that he had been too
   severe—that he had not sufficiently tempered his words with pity for the
   fallen. It was from no lack of tenderness and compassion; it was from the
   abstract impersonal light in which he regarded the whole scene. The poor
   fallen wretch had been the enemy of the Church, and he was no obscure
   criminal, to be either punished or pardoned, and then doomed to swift
   oblivion. He had played his part on the world’s most brilliant stage; he was
   a man whom God had smitten with His thunder, on whom in all his guilt God’s
   messenger was now ‘pronouncing the humiliation of pardon.’ The Archbishop
   had often reproved Eutropius for avarice, rapacity, injustice. The
   Minister’s fall could not alter the mean estimate Chrysostom had formed of
   his character, and he almost forgot the personal feelings of the sufferer,
   almost ceased to regard him as one that suffered, in the strangeness of the
   spectacle, and in the desire to point to the frovolous multitude of nominal
   Christians—above all to guilty, grasping, luxurious nobles and officials,
   and to the wealthy classes in general—the terrible object-lesson which, from
   the speaker’s point of view, their Saviour Himself had brought before their
   eyes. No doubt a man less inflexible of character, less rigid in his
   unsparing righteousness—man with more knowledge of the world, and trained in
   the midst of political affairs rather than by monks and hermits—would have
   managed the occasion with finer adaptability. His enemies declared that he
   had been merciless to the unfortunate. It was, indeed, the last thing which
   he had intended, and in the simpleness of his integrity he doubtless
   imagined that he had sufficiently proved the sincerity of his compassion by
   the generous sacrifice—by the sacrifice even of life itself—which he had
   been ready to make to protect the Church’s suppliant. Still, as the thought
   crossed his mind that haply his language might have seemed harsh, he paused,
   and said:

   ‘Nay, think not that I desire for a moment to insult a fallen man; my aim is
   to forewarn those who stand, and to bid them take heed lest they fall. I
   stand not here to fret the sores of the wounded, but to preserve the health
   of those who have no wounds; not to roll the billows over the head of the
   shipwrecked, but to point out the hidden reefs to those whose sails are
   swelled by the favouring wind as their prow cleaves the gleaming sea. Who
   was ever so great as this man? What living man in all the world could rival
   him in wealth? Consul, Patrician, Præfect of the Sacred Chamber—what honour
   was lacking to his Eminence? He was the envy of all men, and now he is as
   naked as the slave, indigent as the beggar. Drawn swords, and pits, and
   tortures, and the path that leads to execution, are ever before his eyes.
   These are the things, not the pleasures which he has exhausted, which crowd
   his vision. Why paint the picture which is before your very eyes? Behold
   him!

   ‘I say again I desire not to insult his misery, but to touch your hearts, to
   warn your consciences, to make of his misfortunes angels to speak
   trumpet-tongued to your carelessness. I know that there are some of you who
   reproach me for having sheltered him. Wherein am I to blame? He used, you
   say, to attack the Church. Yes! but now he has taken refuge there. Should we
   not thank God that the enemy of the Church has recognised her mercy and her
   power? Her power—for she has won the victory; her pity—for she has pardoned
   him, and folded over him the wings of her protection. Should not Jews and
   Pagans blush to see, in his presence here, the trophy of her greatness? He
   denied her privileges; he strove to deconsecrate her sanctuary. He has
   himself fled to that sanctuary, and, tenderly as a mother, she hides him
   under her inviolable veil from the resentment of the Emperor and the fury of
   the mob! Look at yonder Holy Table! It is adorned with gold and precious
   stones; but its richest ornament is the fugitive who crouches there.

   ‘An ornament? you cry. This man, so greedy, so rapacious, so unjust. How can
   this criminal adorn the altar which he strove to violate? Ah! silence!
   Should you not think of Him who suffered the harlot, out of whom he had cast
   seven devils, to wash His feet with her tears, and wipe them with the hairs
   of her head? Of Him Who, when brutal soldiers were nailing Him to the cross,
   still breathed the prayer,

   “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Murmur not that the
   man who would fain have closed our asylum should avail himself of it, for by
   so doing he has established its sacredness. The Church is as a monarch, who
   is not greatest when he sits on his throne in purple, with the circle of
   sovereignty upon his brow, but when barbarians, their hands bound behind
   their backs, lie vanquished at his feet. Come, then, let us now celebrate
   the Holy Mysteries, and afterwards we will go in a body to the Emperor to
   implore for Eutropius his pity and his pardon, and to lay the golden ears of
   the harvest of our compassion before his feet!’

   The scene was too memorably striking to be ever forgotten by those who
   witnessed it, and the discourse of Chrysostom was too impassioned not to
   leave the deepest impression. But the courage of the Patriarch and the
   protection of the Church were all in vain. So long as Eutropius lay hidden
   in the sanctuary St. Sophia continued to be almost in a state of siege, and
   the Forum outside was the scene of incessant tumults. The eunuch himself
   grew weary of his incarceration. Death itself seemed hardly less intolerable
   than the blank and impotent existence—dishonoured, aimless, unoccupied—to
   which he was now reduced. The perpetual moaning in his ears of chants and
   litanies; the sight of no one but presbyters, deacons, and acolytes in the
   small dim chambers behind the apse; the voices which insulted him; the eyes
   which glared fiercely upon him, if he stepped into the sacrarium; the days
   so deadly with unbroken ennui; the nights haunted with ghastly visions; the
   perpetual sense of the presence of religion without any of its consolations
   became altogether too much for the miserable man. His overwhelming
   misfortune presented a contemptible spectacle, because it was unredeemed by
   one touch of the dignity which it would have derived from repentance or
   resignation. The sole thing left him was bare life, and he clung to bare
   life, but not under the dreary conditions which now dazed and stunned him.
   On the Wednesday, as he was sitting in the sacrarium in infinite despair, he
   saw Typhos, the brother of Aurelian, beckoning to him. He stepped within
   hearing distance, and Typhos promised him that if he would give himself up
   without tumult or resistance his life would be spared, and he should be sent
   to the island of Cyprus. ’Give me,’ said Eutropius, ‘the Emperor’s oath that
   I shall not be slain, and I will give myself up.’

   Next day he received the Emperor’s sworn assurance, and in the dusk of
   evening, when the church was empty, he left the sanctuary. He was hurried in
   the darkness to a ship which lay by the quay in the Bosporus, and it at once
   spread sail for Cyprus.

   But the moment the news was known it became manifest that his enemies would
   not be content with any such deportation. Is this, they said, a sufficient
   punishment for his many crimes? and what guarantee have we that he may not
   creep back again, wind himself once more into the favour of the Emperor, and
   rule as he did before?

   In vain did Arcadius publish a decree of unexampled severity against him,
   which was to be affixed to the walls in public planes in every city of the
   Empire. The document is too curious an illustration of the times to be
   omitted. It ran as follows:

   ’The Emperors Arcadius and Honorius to Aurelian, Prætorian Præfect.

   ‘We have confiscated to our Treasury all the property of Eutropius, formerly
   our Præfect of the Sacred Chamber, having stripped him of his splendour, and
   delivered the Consulate from the foul stain of his tenure, and from the
   recollection of his name, and the base filth thereof; so that, all his acts
   having been repealed, all time may be dumb concerning him; and that the blot
   of our age may not appear by the mention of him; and that those who by their
   valour and their wounds extend the Roman borders, or guard the same by
   equity, may not groan over the fact that the divine guerdon of the
   Consulship has been befouled and defiled by a filthy monster. Let him learn
   that he has been degraded from the Consulate and all other dignities which
   he stained with the obliquity of his character; that all statues, images,
   and pictures of him, of every material and colour, be abolished everywhere,
   that they may not pollute the gaze of beholders as a brand of infamy on our
   age. Let him be taken under escort of your faithful guards to Cyprus, where
   let your Sublimity know that he has been banished, so that, being there
   watchfully guarded, he may be unable to work confusion by his mad designs.

   ‘Dated January 17, at Constantinople, in the Consulship of Theodorus, a most
   illustrious man.’ [12]

   It was a strange thing that Arcadius should be blind to the fact that it was
   he, and he alone, who had made Eutropius Consul, and that all this talk
   about the filth and pollution of his mere name redounded to the utter
   discredit of the Emperor, who was responsible for his entire career, and had
   until yesterday regarded him with boundless approval. But even this
   sanguinary proclamation did not suffice. Gaïnas and Tribigild refused to be
   satisfied with anything less than the head of Eutropius. The Western Empire
   still openly murmured that his punishment had been wholly inadequate to his
   crimes. True that the Emperor had pledged his oath that the eunuch’s life
   should be spared, but the oath must be got rid of by any chicanery. Arcadius
   was persuaded to salve his conscience with the unction that he had only
   promised him safety as long as he was in Constantinople, and that he could
   be executed on new charges, though not on the old ones. A ridiculous
   accusation was accordingly trumped up that Eutropius had sometimes placed
   insignia which were purely imperial among the ornaments of his consular
   dignity; and, still worse, that he had caused to be yoked to his own chariot
   the steeds of a peculiar breed and colour, called kosmoi, which were never
   used by anyone except the Emperor himself. On this trumpery pretext, which
   was probably an invention for the occasion, and may have had no existence
   except in the vengeful brain of the Empress Eudoxia and her intimates, the
   hapless eunuch was dragged back from Cyprus to Chalcedon, seeing on every
   side of him his own rent pictures and dismantled statues, and there, after
   the most hurried mockery of a trial, his head was placed under the axe, and
   a career was ended which, passing in full circle from nameless abjectness,
   through imperial splendour, to immeasurable degradation, is one of the most
   dramatically strange which History has ever recorded on her varied page.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [12] The date January 17 is obviously erroneous.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXIX

  EUTYCHES IS INDIGNANT


   Botoli trove poi…

   Tanto più trove, di can farsi lupi…


   Discesa poi per più pelaghi cupi

   Trove le volpi, si piene di froda

   Che non temono ingegno the le occùpi.

   Dante, Purg. xiv. 46–54.

   In all the later phases of his career Chrysostom had taken a noble and
   blameless part, unless a certain want of tact and of gracious versatility be
   attributed to him as a crime. Yet, as is so often the lot of the men to
   whose shining virtues the vicious pay the tribute of implacable hatred,
   Chrysostom was blamed and abused on every side. His moral brightness was, as
   his friend and biographer, Palladius, Bishop of Helenopolis, expressed it,
   like a lamp flashing in sore eyes. The enemies of Eutropius denounced the
   Archbishop for having sheltered him; the enemies of Chrysostom himself
   infamously pretended that he had betrayed him to the soldiers. Eutropius had
   not a single friend, but many who would not have let their little finger
   ache to save his life stormed at the prelate, who alone had pitied him, and
   who, at the risk of assassination, had stood between him and the swords of
   his assailants. He had been too hard and cruel for their delicate
   sensibilities! The incarnate vices of society united to sting to death the
   one man whose pure virtue was an embodied reproach to their wickedness. At
   Constantinople he


   Lived pilloried on Infamy’s high stage,

   And bore the pelting scorn of half an age.

   It happened a day or two after these events that Elpidius, one of the worst
   of the Constantinopolitan clergy, was walking on the wooded shores of the
   Bosporus with the Bishop of Chalcedon. Elpidius was in his way a man of note
   among the clergy, because, in spite of a character entirely despicable, he
   was a heated and unscrupulous partisan. He identified religion with his own
   personal views, and, though his intellect was mean, his blind party spirit
   acquired for him the position of a leader among the most heated
   controversialists. His notions of argument were those which have been
   prevalent in every age among such men as he. They consisted in loud and
   overbearing reiteration of assertions, supported by flimsy sophisms which
   had been over and over again refuted; in boundless vituperation of his
   opponents, which among similar characters passed for reasoning; in the
   ignoring of the proofs which had long undermined the sandy bases of his
   false and unscriptural orthodoxy; and in the glaring and habitual
   misquotation of the words of his opponents. Such controversy, deeply dyed in
   vulgarity, virulence, and venom, was of a kind which no good man could deign
   to notice. It was mere malice, meanness, and misrepresentation, adapted only
   to feed the most ignorant prejudices and worst passions of his partisans.
   ‘The Church’—a word for ever on his lips—meant, on the lips of Elpidius,
   himself and those who held his ‘views.’ It was the asserted authority for
   every superstitious accretion, for every Pagan development, for every
   soul-dwarfing falsity. The teaching and example of Christ, of the Apostles,
   and of the Christians of the first two centuries, were regarded as
   unimportant. Christ’s reprobation of errors which were now thrust forward as
   the be-all and the end-all of orthodox religiosity went for nothing; but if
   any isolated phrase in the New Testament could be distorted into the false
   semblance of an argument, whole systems were built on it, like pyramids upon
   their apex. In short, Elpidius was one of those ‘Churchmen,’ so common in
   every age, to whom shibboleths, ceremonial, and their own self-exaltation,
   were of infinitely more account than judgment, righteousness, and truth. He
   represented the practical supersession of Christianity pure and undefiled by
   a dead Pharisaism and a dead Judaism, mixed up with elements of Pagan
   superstition and Pagan ritual. If the decrees of Councils decided in his
   direction, they were infallible; if they traversed his views, they were a
   collection of obsolete canons. If bishops supported his party they were
   elevated into an apotheosis of sainthood, and adored with genuflexions; if
   they opposed him they were a disgrace and a ‘scandal,’ to be treated with
   the most contumelious indifference. The controversial methods of Elpidius
   consisted mainly in exalting his own clique, and blackening all who differed
   from him with boundless depreciation. His all-absorbing churchliness and
   supernatural claims of sacerdotal supremacy were in nowise incompatible with
   violations of the most ordinary courtesies of a gentleman, or the most
   rudimentary virtues of a Christian.

   Against Chrysostom Elpidius cherished one of those burning hatreds which, if
   opportunity be only favourable, stop short at no falsehood and no crime. He
   never spoke of the Archbishop without the hiss of the serpent being heard in
   every word. Nothing that Chrysostom could say was tolerable, nothing that he
   could do was right. Elpidius had been one of those who had been forced to
   wince under the Patriarch’s scathing denunciation of the worldliness which
   hung about the tables of the great, and of the underhand intrigues which
   thought all means lawful if they furthered a favourite ecclesiastical end.
   He was notoriously one of the auriscalpii, who abused their priestly
   position to lead captive silly women laden with lust; one of those who,
   having frightfully abused even the safeguarded office of a public confessor,
   which Nectarius abolished because of the iniquities to which it led, had
   used every influence to get the office restored. He was one of those who,
   sanctioned by the abuse of custom, had lived with a young and beautiful
   agapete, whom he called his ‘spiritual sister,’ and for whose richly dressed
   loveliness he always secured a prominent place in St. Sophia, until
   Chrysostom had threatened him with instant excommunication unless he
   reformed a style of living which injured the reputation of the Church. Since
   then he had hated Chrysostom with a hatred of which a bad layman might have
   envied, but certainly could not have surpassed, the unscrupulous intensity.
   He was animated by the one desire and object to blast, and undermine, and
   overthrow his thrice-detested ecclesiastical superior.

   A certain freemasonry of intuition made Elpidius and others of Chrysostom’s
   enemies aware of the venomous dislike and jealousy entertained against him
   by the Bishop of Chalcedon, although Cyrinus had never manifested it to the
   world in general, and had, for his own reasons, concealed it entirely from
   the Archbishop himself. Elpidius and he had been discussing the revolt of
   Tribigild and the fall of Eutropius, and sat down to rest on a bank,
   entirely heedless of the presence of two youths who were also resting but a
   few feet distant from them on the shingly beach. As the youths were but
   plainly dressed, and evidently did not belong to the ‘classes,’ but to the
   ‘masses,’ such exalted personages as the Bishop and the leading presbyter
   did not think it worth while to notice their existence, or to talk in lower
   tones because they were so near. The two youths were David and Eutyches. The
   affair of Eutropius had thrown an immense amount of extra work upon them,
   and the kindly Archbishop had told them to go to the shore and breathe a
   little of the fresh sea air, especially as the cheek of Eutyches was not yet
   healed, and he had been a little shaken by the fierce buffet of the Gothic
   soldier. Chrysostom wanted Philip to go, too, but as business might arise at
   any moment, Philip would not leave him; and besides, though Olympias had now
   made herself responsible for his being provided with proper meals,
   Chrysostom was as likely as not to forget all about them, and leave them
   untouched while he was absorbed in his work, unless Philip were at hand to
   see that he took them.

   ‘Were you present at St. Sophia when John delivered that sermon with
   Eutropius under the altar?’ asked the Bishop.

   ‘Present, my lord?’ answered Elpidius in a tone of disgust; ‘I should think
   I was!’

   ‘I am told that it was very fine,’ said Cyrinus tentatively.

   ‘Fine!’ answered Elpidius, raising his voice in a gust of anger. ‘I don’t
   know what they call fine. Eloquence? Turgid rhetoric I call it, empty
   bombast, the wind of platitudes; sound and fury, signifying nothing, It was
   shameful, it was infamous, it was a perfect scandal! John had no business
   whatever to break the law by giving shelter at all to such a criminal. But
   if he did, he had no right to insult him grossly, and browbeat and denounce
   him as he lay grovelling there. And afterwards, I am told, he betrayed him.
   Doubtless he got a good round sum, first for his protection, and then for
   his treachery which will add to the treasure of which he robs the Church
   daily, and which will supply the secret orgies of the Patriarcheion. What
   can you expect of a man like that—a cheat, a miser, a hypocrite, a liar, a
   man with a heart hard as a nether millstone and a fist close as that of a
   Harpagon?’

   Elpidius, as he gave place to the devil, and flung the reins on the neck of
   his envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, had spoken louder and
   louder, so that all the last part of his remarks had been poured forth
   upstanding, and with fierce gesticulations, in a hurricane of frenzied
   wrath.

   It was lucky that the fiery Philip was not there. There is no knowing how
   fiercely he might have rebutted so deadly an outrage on the character of his
   adopted father and benefactor. But such a tornado of brutalities and insults
   roused even the gentler spirit of Eutyches to indignant revolt. Before
   David—who would have seen the uselessness of any intervention—knew what he
   was about, Eutyches had advanced to the speaker. He was a very modest boy,
   and it was not till then that he recognised the Bishop of Chalcedon. The
   episcopal dignity overawed him, but after kneeling to kiss the Bishop’s
   hand, as was usual, he said:

   ‘My Lord Bishop, I know not who that presbyter may be, but suffer me to say
   that he has spoken to you the most shocking calumnies. The Archbishop gave
   shelter to Eutropius because, in defending the Church’s right to sanctuary,
   he would have done so to the meanest of mankind and the worst of his own
   enemies. So far from being cruel, I saw him offer his own unprotected breast
   to the naked swords of the Goths in his defence. It was he, and he alone,
   who pleaded for him to the Emperor. Eutropius gave himself up against the
   Archbishop’s will, and in spite of his warnings and remonstrances. To say
   that he either protected him for a bribe, or betrayed him for a bribe, is a
   wicked falsehood, whoever says it! Yes,’ he added, fixing his clear and
   innocent gaze on the face of Elpidius, ’as wicked a falsehood as that the
   Archbishop is a miser or a hypocrite. On the contrary, he is profoundly
   indifferent to gold, and is a saint of God, if ever there was one.’

   There was something in the words and bearing of Eutyches which overwhelmed
   Elpidius, and even Cyrinus, with confusion. His manner had been perfectly
   respectful, and as he stood there in all the glow of his ardent sympathy for
   the master to whom he was devoted, and all the bloom of his youthful
   innocence, Elpidius felt much as Milton makes Satan feel before the reproach
   of Ithuriel:


   So spake the cherub; and his grave rebuke,

   Severe in youthful beauty, added grace

   Invincible. Abashed the devil stood,

   And felt how awful goodness is, and saw

   Virtue in her form how lovely—saw, and pined

   His loss; but chiefly to find here observed

   His lustre visibly impair’d: yet seem’d

   Dauntless.

   Ashamed to have been thus openly rebuked by a boy, and especially in the
   presence of a bishop, Elpidius tried to assume a disdainful indifference.

   ‘Who is this impudent baby with a raw wound on his cheek who has been
   eavesdropping?’ he said in his most brutal tone.

   It was now David’s turn to be indignant, but he put strong control over his
   feelings. ‘This,’ he said very quietly, ‘is an orphan boy, one of the
   Patriarch’s secretaries, who will soon be ordained a reader. You can hardly
   wonder, my Lord, that he was deeply moved when he heard such shameless
   defamation of his beloved master and benefactor shouted to the four winds in
   a voice which might have been heard a hundred yards off. And for the wound
   on his cheek, it is the mark of a soldier’s blow, whom he was trying to keep
   from assailing the Patriarch while he was defending Eutropius at peril of
   his life.’

   Elpidius and the Bishop looked from speaker to speaker in silent
   astonishment. There was something in their aspect before which vulgar rage
   was, if not disarmed, yet rendered impotent. Eutyches, disfigured as he was
   at the moment, yet had the face of an angel. There had been nothing
   obtrusive, nothing unworthy of the respect due from youth to age, in the
   generous enthusiasm with which he had defended his master from wanton
   slanders. And now David stood by him, in the dress which marked his humble
   birth as the son of a tradesman, but with a face which showed the purest and
   loftiest type of the beauty of his race. David could never forget that he
   was by birth a Desposynos, that he came from the family of Joseph, which had
   once had their home at Nazareth, and which was also nearly akin to the
   family of the Virgin Mary. He had that type of countenance which dim
   tradition was already beginning to assign to the Son of Man—the perfectly
   oval face, the waved and wine-dark hair, the glowing complexion, the eyes
   whose depths seemed to be lighted by some holy spiritual flame within—of Him
   who had been fairer than the children of men. Besides this, his voice was
   full of melody, and the gravity of his demeanour was mixed with habitual
   sweetness and courtesy to all. The remembrance of his birth was to David a
   most sacred amulet. It was no source of pride, but rather of overwhelming
   responsibility, which would have humiliated him to the dust if ever ‘the
   reflexion of his own severe and modest eye upon himself could have seen him
   doing or imagining what was base, were it in the deepest secrecy.’ It was
   impossible, even for the wretched Elpidius, to resent words spoken with
   perfect calm and dignity, and with no shadow of anger or disrespect. Both he
   and the Bishop felt as if they had been suddenly rebuked by two good
   spirits. Conscious of themselves, and of the unhallowed feelings which too
   often ran riot in their hearts, they could not help glancing with a sense of
   uneasy humiliation on these two youths, whose very look and bearing were a
   silent rebuke to them. Elpidius turned away, and hated the burning hue of
   shame which, in spite of himself, mounted to the very roots of his hair. He
   would have liked to seize Eutyches by the neck, and cuff him on the face;
   but as it was he had to sit still, and feel for a few moments the pangs of
   Gehenna, as he kicked violently at a tough root of arum which happened to be
   growing beside his feet. Eutyches, half-amazed at his own forwardness, bowed
   low, and was about to walk away, but David ended the scene by taking his
   hand, and saying to Cyrinus:

   ‘My Lord, you are a Bishop; pardon us if we have offended, and, before we
   go, give us your blessing.’

   ‘You are strange youths,’ said Cyrinus, ‘and you should not listen to words
   not meant for your ears.’

   ‘My Lord, we listened not,’ said David respectfully. ’We would fain not have
   heard, but what this presbyter said might have been heard almost on the
   pier.’

   ‘Well, you may depart.’

   The Bishop gave them the Greek form of Benediction, in which the crossed and
   bent fingers stand for ICXC, or Jesus Christ; and they walked home almost in
   silence.

   They agreed not to tell Philip anything that had occurred, for it made him
   almost beside himself to know that the wicked world outside, and the almost
   more virulently malignant form of the world which called itself ’the
   Church,’ should ever be pouring on the stainless name of the Patriarch its
   oil of vitriol in endless calumnies.
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXX

  THE GOTHS AT CONSTANTINOPLE


   Bis domitum civile nefas, bis rupimus Alpes:

   Tot nos bella docent, nulli servire tyranno.

   Claud. In Ruf., ii. 389, 390.

   Rufinus, who, under the merely nominal emperor, had wielded the sceptre of
   the world, had been lynched under the very eyes of Arcadius by vengeful
   Goths; Eutropius, who succeeded him as the arbiter of the fortunes of the
   nations, had been also flung by their influence from the dizzy pinnacles of
   greatness into headlong infamy. Gaïnas the Goth was now the most formidable
   personage in the Eastern world. On him the inevitable doom was next to fall.
   The Empress Eudoxia was the inheritress of the influence of the two murdered
   Ministers; but for her also this ‘dread summit of Cæsarean power’ involved
   nothing better than a few years of storms, remorse, and torturing anxiety,
   to be followed by an early, miserable, and unregretted death.

   Thrown on his own helplessness by the fall of Eutropius, and feeling under
   the absolute necessity of being governed by someone, the fainéant Arcadius
   was thankful, rather than otherwise, to succumb to the more virile yoke of
   his haughty wife. But Eudoxia, in a State distracted by rival parties, not
   one of which could be neglected with impunity, felt the necessity of holding
   the balance between them. The Court party of slaves and officials had, for
   the time, been annihilated by the overthrow of the Chamberlain, and Eudoxia
   thought that she could herself represent the whole power of the Court if she
   formed against the Goths an alliance with the Roman party—the party of
   Aurelian, the friend of Chrysostom, and of Synesius, whose ideal object was
   the repression of the barbarian element which had recently sprung to such
   abnormal prominence, both in the East and in the West.

   She had, accordingly, procured the nomination of Aurelian to the great
   office of Prætorian Præfect, and of her favourite, Count John, to the
   position of Comptroller of the Sacred Largesses, while she also brought into
   power and influence the soldierly ex-Consul Saturninus, the husband of her
   friend Castricia.

   She had, however, to counterbalance the forces, not only of the Goths, but
   of the Arians. The majority of the Goths were Arians of the moderate school
   of their saintly apostle, Wulfila, to whom they owed the precious treasure
   of their vernacular Bible. But there were many other Arians in
   Constantinople, Greeks and Romans. In the days of Valens they completely
   outnumbered the Catholic party, and they had never acquiesced in the triumph
   gained by the orthodox Christians through the ability of Gregory Nazianzus
   and the repressive edicts of Theodosius. They were constantly plotting to
   regain their ascendency, which they hoped to do through the power of Gaïnas.

   At the head of these Arians, but more through policy than conviction, was a
   dark and dangerous conspirator, whose very name, by one of the curious
   accidents of history, remains unknown to us, but who is usually called by
   the nickname of Typhos, the Egyptian Satan, given to him in a narrative of
   this epoch, written in an allegorical form, by Synesius. This little romance
   is called ‘The Egyptians,’ and, not deeming it safe to describe actual
   events, the Bishop threw his reminiscences into the form of a story of the
   struggles between the good Osiris and the evil Typhos. Typhos was the
   brother of Aurelian, but hated him with a deadly hatred, and watched him
   with devouring envy.

   When Aurelian was made Prætorian Præfect and Consul-designate, Typhos, who
   had set his heart on the office, was sick with rage; and his no less evilly
   disposed wife, who had longed for the prestige of a more exalted rank, did
   her utmost to abet him. They represented the most abandoned class of
   aristocratic society, and their private entertainments were scenes of gross
   licentiousness. For some reason unknown to us, but connected either with
   contumacious blasphemy or coarse dissipation, Typhos had established the
   practice of snoring-matches, and highly honoured those of his base
   companions who excelled in producing what Synesius calls ‘the roundest
   snorts.’ His wife, who spent her days in the insatiable pursuit of
   excitement at the Theatre and in the Forum, devoted hours to the adornment
   of her person, and filled her assembly-rooms with women of abandoned
   character. The object, both of Typhos and his wife, seemed to be the
   enlisting of false religion, immoral pleasures, and ostentatious
   Philistinism into a league of contrast with, and defiance to, the literary
   culture, orthodox faith, and noble propriety of Aurelian and his consort.
   When Typhos was disappointed of his ambitious desire, he flung himself alike
   into reckless debauchery and deep-laid treason, for which he also was
   shortly to meet his doom. He and his party became the Arrabiati of
   Constantinople.

   To console his disappointment by yet more shameless luxury, he had a lake
   constructed in his garden, in which were artificial islands and warm baths.
   Here he and his adherents of both sexes abandoned themselves to shocking
   orgies. Meanwhile both he and his wife were in secret communication with the
   unworthy wife of Gaïnas, through whose means they ceaselessly endeavoured to
   seduce the Gothic chieftain from all semblance of allegiance. He was already
   the chief general of the Eastern Empire. The Goths accepted his sway, and
   the army under him was largely composed of German elements. He aspired to
   re-establish Arianism and to be the Stilico of the East—perhaps ultimately
   to wear the diadem, or at least to be the Consul, and king of his tribe, as
   Alaric was. Gaïnas was by no means contented with the scanty results which
   he had obtained from the ruin of Eutropius. So far from bringing him the
   additional honours which he had expected, it had only issued in the
   promotion and strengthening of the heads of the Roman party, whose
   opposition to all barbarian interests had found voice in the outspoken
   harangue of Synesius before the Emperor. The alliance with Typhos and his
   party seemed to put in his grasp the fulfilment of his wildest ambition.

   So he threw off the mask, and having up to this time been in secret
   communication with Tribigild, now openly joined him at Thyatira. The two
   Gothic contingents entered into a perfect understanding with each other.
   Gaïnas marched to Chalcedon, plundering as he went. Tribigild, with equal
   impunity, advanced to Lampsacus. At Chalcedon Typhos and his wife paid
   secret visits to the camp of Gaïnas, and encouraged him to undisguised
   rebellion. Inspired by them, Gaïnas insolently demanded that Arcadius should
   come to him in person at Chalcedon, and one of the terms upon which he chose
   to insist was that the unnatural hatred of Typhos to his noble brother
   should be gratified by Aurelian’s execution.

   Gaïnas accordingly sent to tell the Emperor that he did not choose to treat
   with inferior ambassadors, and that Arcadius must come in person to
   Chalcedon, that he might hear the conditions on which his life, his capital,
   and his empire would be spared.

   Arcadius had no choice but to submit. The Roman forces on which he could
   rely were few, and were scattered in garrisons throughout the Empire. He had
   no soldiers to oppose to the army of the Gothic chief. It seemed as if the
   worse fears of Synesius were about to be justified, and half of the once
   undivided Roman Empire was now to be enfeoffed to barbarian aliens.

   On the summit of a gentle hill near Chalcedon stood a Church of St.
   Euphemia, famous for its supernatural sacredness. Here the meeting was to
   take place, and here the helpless Arcadius had the humiliation of receiving
   the dictates of the rebel chieftain. Gaïnas was to be promised the
   Consulship; he was to be made Generalissimo of the East; he and Tribigild
   were to be permitted to cross the Bosporus unmolested. Worse than all, the
   Emperor was at once to deliver up Aurelian, the Consular Saturninus, and
   Count John, to be put to death, or to be kept as hostages, as the Goth
   should choose. Arcadius must consent to this, or—— Gaïnas emphasised the
   alternative by pointing to the hilt of his sword, and by a wave of his arm
   towards the camp of his army of 30,000 men.

   What could the wretched son of Theodosius do? To yield was infamy, to refuse
   was destruction. The concession of the other demands was inevitable. But how
   could he, without bitter shame, betray the lives of his blameless
   Consul-designate and Prætorian Præfect, at that moment the first man in his
   Court and capital, and of the Consular Saturninus, who had in 382 suppressed
   the forces of Athanaric, and was the husband of his wife’s kinswoman and
   most intimate friend? And what was the significance of the demand for the
   extradition of Count John? His rank and importance were purely official. He
   had no independent authority. He could not be regarded, like the two others,
   as a leader of the Roman party. Eudoxia saw, if Arcadius did not see, that
   this demand was simply aimed at her. Everyone except the Emperor knew that
   Count John was in a very special sense her favourite, and many believed that
   he was her accepted lover. She read in the inclusion of his name a sign that
   Gaïnas, with Typhos and his wife to help him, intended to strike her down as
   they had struck down her enemy, Eutropius.

   Her anger was intense, and she even ventured to taunt the wretched Emperor
   with his impotence.

   ‘Surely,’ she said, you will never consent to this insolently outrageous
   condition! You might as well take off your diadem, and place it on the brow
   of that gross barbarian.’

   ‘What can I possibly do?’ said Arcadius, as he sat in limpest attitude on
   his embroidered cushions.

   ‘Better abdicate,’ she said, ‘at once than give up at a breath one after
   another of your greatest and most faithful servants. Is this Goth a
   Cerberus, that at every bark he is to be pacified by flinging to him the
   head of your noblest subjects? Do you think that your father, Theodosius,
   would for a moment have tolerated such dictation? Is the Empire worth having
   if you are to sit in chains under the feet of a Scythian?’

   ‘How can I refuse the general of 30,000 men? Do you think that my handful of
   Silentiarii and Palatini could stand for five minutes against them?’

   ‘Then you will betray your noble servants?’ she said, rising from her seat
   with contemptuous indignation. ‘You are emperor in name alone! Would God I
   were emperor in your place! If the Archbishop John were emperor he would die
   a thousand times rather than yield.’

   Eudoxia stood up before him with her face aflame, and took no pains to veil
   the scorn which sat upon her beautiful lips.

   ‘What can I do?’ asked Arcadius again in querulous helplessness.

   ‘Do?’ she cried. ‘Be a man! You have millions of subjects. Appeal to their
   protection. Throw yourself on their loyalty. Why, even that half-man,
   Eutropius, would have shown more dignity and more courage!’

   ‘I should simply be murdered,’ he said.

   ‘Then die like a man!’ she answered. ’It were better not to be than not to
   be noble.’

   But as her words kindled no spark of generosity, she turned away with a
   gesture of proud despair, and left him.

   Arcadius simply collapsed into a dishevelled heap of imbecility. Not knowing
   what to do, and feeling equally incapable of thought or of action, he let
   things take their own course. He was not obliged to give an answer to Gaïnas
   as before the next day; meanwhile something might turn up.

   The terms which Gaïnas had laid down soon became known, and the crisis was
   terrible. Civil war seemed the least of possible alternatives, for before
   any Roman forces could be summoned and concentrated there was nothing to
   prevent the sack of the undefended city, full as it was of Goths and
   Arians—and perhaps the establishment of a new and barbarian dynasty.

   Under these circumstances Aurelian invited Saturninus and Count John to meet
   him at his house for consultation. He pointed out to them that the other
   conditions were inevitable, but that Arcadius could not hand them over
   against their will without infinite disgrace. And then he made a proposal
   worthy of the Decii. ‘Let us,’ he said, go voluntarily and secretly to
   Chalcedon, and there let us place ourselves in the hands of the Goth. He
   will throw us into prison. It is too probable that he will put us to death.
   But we shall have saved this distracted Empire—at any rate, we shall have
   given it a little breathing-space.’

   Saturninus readily accepted the noble proposition. Count John murmured and
   hesitated; but if such was the decision of two men so much greater than
   himself, he felt it impossible to refuse.

   They agreed to cross the Bosporus at once, and to be landed a little to the
   east of Chalcedon. Thence they advanced alone and unattended, and,
   announcing their name and rank, handed themselves over to the first Gothic
   sentries whom they encountered. By them they were conducted to the tent of
   Gaïnas. His eye gleamed with vengeful ferocity and gratified ambition as he
   informed them that by that day week he would decide their ultimate fate.
   They were manacled with heavy iron chains, and Aurelian, as he was led out
   of the presence of Gaïnas, was almost certain that through the partly open
   tent-folds of the inner room he caught sight of the dark eyes and malignant
   features of his brother. He was quite sure that, mingled with the tones of
   the wife of Gaïnas, he heard the shameless laugh of the wife of Typhos.

   News always spread with miraculous rapidity through the populace of
   Constantinople, and David soon heard in the Chalkoprateia, where he was
   visiting his father, of the glorious self-devotion of Aurelian and his
   colleagues. He hurried to convey the news to his two friends, who shared the
   tension of the general anxiety.

   ‘It is my turn now to be newsbearer,’ he said. ’Eutyches told us of the
   Consulship of Eutropius; you, Philip, of his fall. Neither of you deserved
   the rewards of good tidings; but I do. For the present we are saved. Philip,
   your friend Aurelian, and Saturninus, and Count John, voluntarily went to
   Chalcedon an hour ago, and gave themselves up to Gaïnas to save the
   Empire.’

   ‘A noble sacrifice!’ said Philip; but ”he“ must be told of it instantly.’

   He went into the Patriarch’s study, and told him. Chrysostom was struck with
   admiration at the heroic conduct of the doomed three, but he was also deeply
   moved. In the whole Court of Arcadius there was no one for whom he felt a
   warmer regard or a higher esteem than for Aurelian, the Prætorian Præfect.

   ‘I must,’ he said, ‘go to Gaïnas instantly, and intercede for their lives.
   You, Philip and Eutyches, come with me. I will leave our steady David to
   look after all business in our absence, and Heracleides and Serapion can
   attend to the visitors.’

   ‘But the Goths are all Arians,’ said Philip.

   ‘It matters not,’ said Chrysostom. ‘Am I not by my office the common father
   of all? And, though Arians, they are still Christians. Come, there is no
   time to be lost. Those barbarians are liable to sudden and perilous
   impulses.’

   They started immediately, and on landing the Archbishop, with his two
   youthful attendants, was conducted with great respect into the presence of
   the Gothic chieftain.

   Gaïnas was a Goth who had never really identified himself with the interests
   of the Empire. The veneer of civilisation which he had received was far more
   superficial than that which made the Romans accept the authority of Stilico,
   Vandal as he was; and, unlike Stilico, Gaïnas had married a Gothic wife. He
   was a barbarian whose nobler qualities had been almost obliterated by
   contact with culture, while the inherent vices of his race—ambition, avarice
   and revenge—had only been stimulated into excessive violence. He was a
   noble-looking Amal, like those whom Chrysostom had admired in the streets of
   Antioch, though the natural beauty and manliness of his countenance had been
   spoiled by the dominance of selfish passions.

   But, like all men who were really men, he felt a deep and genuine reverence
   for the Archbishop of Constantinople. He was struck by his natural dignity;
   and won by his transparent sincerity and straightforwardness. He
   distinguished between him and the ordinary mass of soft nobles and corrupt
   officials with whom he had to do. He recognised in him a prophet and a man
   of God. He felt that if there had been such a religious leader among the
   Arians his own religious convictions might have exercised a more real sway
   over his heart. Mentally, he always compared him to the Apostle of the
   Goths, as he had been described to him by his father, whom Wulfila had
   converted.

   And something of admiration, with more of pity, filled the heart of
   Chrysostom as he thought how different, under better influences, this tall,
   fair-haired barbarian might have become. Had he but been orthodox—had he but
   been thrown with true Christians, not with nominal professors of the
   faith—this noble specimen of humanity might have been one of the glories of
   the Gospel in the day when Christ made up His jewels.

   It was impossible to mistake the genuine reverence of the warrior’s manner
   as he rose to receive his visitor. In sign of deep humility he took the
   hands of Chrysostom, and laid them on his own eyes. Then he summoned his two
   sons, Thorismund and Walamir, from the neighbouring tent, and, leading them
   to Chrysostom, bade them kneel and embrace his holy knees, while he asked
   the Archbishop to bless them. Chrysostom laid his hand on the fair, short
   curls of each sunny head, and made over them the sign of benediction. Then
   the two youths advanced eagerly to Philip, who at once recognised them, as
   they recognised him, with cordial greeting, though several years had passed
   since they had met at Antioch during the visit of Rufinus. They had never
   seen Eutyches before, but looked with frank admiration at his winning face.

   While the youths stood apart the Archbishop told Gaïnas that he had not been
   commissioned to come to him either by the Emperor, or by Eudoxia, or by any
   official. He had come at the spontaneous instigation of compassion. Aurelian
   was a friend whom he highly esteemed, and Saturninus had been a worthy and
   valued servant of the Empire. Of Count John he knew less, but none of the
   three had ever injured Gaïnas, and it was unworthy of him to wreak on them a
   vague desire for vengeance.

   ‘They are the foes of my countrymen,’ said Gaïnas. ’The Roman party, of
   which Aurelian is the head, wants to sweep us back across the Ister. It was
   Aurelian who procured for Bishop Synesius the permission to deliver that
   oration before Arcadius in which he openly argued that we should be
   cashiered from all offices, and not even be suffered to serve in the
   army.’

   ‘I do not share those opinions,’ said Chrysostom. ‘I am one of those who
   have long thought that our race, weakened by luxury and indolence, needs the
   infusion of fresh blood. I have long looked forward to see Roman and Teuton
   united in one nobler nation. Yet, remember that the views of the Roman party
   are not unnatural. The Goths in the Empire are but of yesterday in a nation
   which has been dominant for a thousand years.’

   ‘Yes, and foully have we been treated,’ said the Goth. ’Consider how we are
   subjected to the infamous exactions of Lupicinus, the corrupt and greedy
   Governor of Valens in Thrace. Consider the massacre of our glorious youth in
   the cities of the East. Know you that my own eldest son was murdered in that
   foul butchery?’

   ‘I knew it not,’ said the Archbishop. ‘I grieve for thee. But there have
   been wrongs on both sides. It is needless now to enter into the terrible and
   chequered past—the massacre of Adrianople, the devastation of Elyria by
   Alaric, of Phrygia by Tribigild, your kinsman. Aurelian and the others are
   in nowise responsible for the old wrongs. Surely your sense of nobleness may
   be touched by the fearless loyalty with which they have, of their own
   accord, placed their lives at your disposal? Spare them, Gaïnas, and rise
   superior to your own lower self. Eutropius may have injured you; Aurelian
   never did.’

   ‘We still have bitter wrongs to avenge,’ said the warrior.

   ‘Which is nobler,’ said Chrysostom, ‘revenge or forgiveness? Revenge and
   wrong still bring forth fresh tiger-whelps which resemble their parents.
   Since I came to Constantinople I have learnt a little Gothic, that I might
   sometimes minister in the church of the orthodox Goths. Have you never read
   these words?’ He repeated from the version of the Lord’s Prayer by Wulfila
   the words:

   ’Yah aflet uns thatei skulans siyaima, swa swe yah weis afletain thaim
   skulam unseraim’ (‘And let off us that which debtors we are, so as also we
   let off our debtors’).

   ‘I cannot answer you now,’ said Gaïnas. ’Your eloquence and your presence
   bewitch me, and calm down the rancour in my heart. Come again, Patriarch; I
   love to talk to you. And, ere you go, bless me. I am not altogether the
   demon you take me for.’

   ‘A demon!—no!’ said the Patriarch. ‘Not a demon, Gaïnas, but a noble human
   being who has too much given place to the devil. But promise me you will
   take no step until you have told me of your decision.’

   ‘I promise,’ said Gaïnas.

   ‘Thorismund,’ said Philip to the Gothic youth, ‘intercede with your father
   for the life of Aurelian when we have gone. Aurelian is a noble fellow.’

   ‘Let that lad with the angel’s face make me the same request,’ said
   Thorismund. ‘I should like to hear his voice.’

   ‘I don’t wonder at that,’ said Philip, ‘for he is a chorister, and has the
   sweetest voice in Constantinople.’

   ‘What makes him look so unlike the Greeks and Romans here?’ asked
   Thorismund.

   ‘Is it your Gothic way to compliment each other?’ said Eutyches, blushing.
   ‘But I do beg you to intercede with your father. And you also, Walamir. And
   you must listen to me, for though my father was a Roman, my mother was a
   Gothic lady.’

   ‘Ah!’ said Thorismund, ‘I thought that you must have some Gothic blood in
   you, from the colour of your hair; you look too ingenuous for a Roman.’

   ‘Babai!’ exclaimed Philip; ‘that’s a poor compliment to me.’

   ‘Oh! you are a Syrian,’ said Thorismund; ‘but we will speak to our father
   for your friends.’
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXXI

  THE DOOMED THREE

     ’Old man, ‘tis not so difficult to die.’

     Byron, Manfred.

   ’Well, has John talked you over?’ asked Typhos, with a sneer, coming forward
   from another part of the tent when Chrysostom had left.

   ‘He has not,’ said Gaïnas.

   ‘Good!’ said Typhos. ‘Leave the little man to deal with his priests. They, I
   imagine, will give him enough to do ere long, and they all hate him like
   poison.’

   ‘Because he is the best among them all,’ said Gaïnas.

   ‘It may be so,’ said Typhos, with a shrug of his shoulders; ’but he has no
   right to come interfering with you.’

   He proceeded to undo all the good that the Patriarch had done by appealing
   to every evil passion in the warrior’s nature—pride, ambition, and revenge.
   Gaïnas almost decided to execute his three opponents, and so to sweep them
   out of the way. But when Typhos had gone his two sons came in.

   ‘Father,’ said Thorismund, ‘don’t behead those men. They behaved nobly in
   giving themselves up.’

   ‘What cause have we to love or to spare these Romans, Thorismund?’

   ‘Yet spare them, father! They are voluntary hostages in your hands. Their
   lives may serve you better than their deaths.’

   ‘Is it policy or compassion, son?’

   ‘Perhaps a little of both, father.’

   ‘And what says my Walamir?’ asked Gaïnas.

   ‘Spare them, father,’ said Walamir, who was his father’s favourite. ‘That
   boy who looked as if he had never done wrong in his life asked us both to
   intercede with you, and we promised—and he is half a Goth.’

   ‘I will think of it,’ said Gaïnas.

   While the fate of the three great officials yet hung in the balance, no day
   passed without a visit from the Archbishop to the tent of the Gothic chief.
   He would have carried his point almost from the first but for the
   countermining efforts of Typhos and of the chieftain’s wife, who had been
   won over by the wife of Typhos. And these, again, would have succeeded more
   easily but for the faithful influence of Thorismund and Walamir. So there
   was a struggle in the mind of the magister militum, between the impulse of
   the barbarian and the softening influence of his imperfect Christianity; and
   it was far from certain which would win the victory. Chrysostom was always
   accompanied by Philip, and generally by either Eutyches or David. While he
   was pleading with the chieftain, the Gothic youths took their friends round
   the camp, to repay Philip, Thorismund said, for his kindness to them at
   Antioch.

   One day, when Chrysostom told them that he should be detained by business
   for some hours at Chalcedon, and bade them come for him in the evening, they
   seized the opportunity to take the young Goths to the Patriarcheion at
   Constantinople, and to show them the chief sights of the city. There sprang
   up between them one of those warm friendships which often arise amid
   complete dissimilarity.

   At last the Archbishop triumphed. He received from Gaïnas the definite
   promise that the lives of Aurelian, Saturninus, and Count John should be
   spared. He begged that he might go to the tent where they still lay,
   fettered, under the close guard of Gothic sentries, and be the first to
   break to them the glad intelligence.

   ‘Nay,’ said Gaïnas, with a grim smile; ‘I have reasons of my own why that
   must not be. Farewell, Archbishop! Whatever happens in the future—and many
   things may happen—you at least I shall ever hold in honour, and I beg your
   prayers. Farewell, but leave those two youths here with my young wolf-cubs.
   They shall bear you news of what I do.’

   So Chrysostom went back over the Bosporus, and when Gaïnas saw his pinnace
   on its way, he told his boys to keep Philip and Eutyches with them at the
   end of the tent, and not to let them move, but at the same time not to be
   themselves alarmed by what they should see. Then, with a colossal Goth by
   his side, who leaned on a huge sword, and whom Thorismund knew to be the
   executioner, the chieftain ordered Aurelian to be brought into his presence.

   The noble Roman was led in, and neither his chains nor his untrimmed beard
   and hair, and the squalor of his imprisonment, detracted from a dignity of
   bearing worthy of the Prætorian Præfect and Consul-designate. He glanced at
   the executioner, but did not wince, and confronted the Gothic Amal with an
   undaunted look.

   ‘So you are the man,’ said Gaïnas, rudely, ‘who wants me to be ousted from
   all my offices? You are the man to whom all Goths are contemptible
   Scythians, little better than animals, who ought to be turned out of the
   Roman armies in a mass, and I suppose massacred, as some of them have been
   ere now, by you holy Romans.’

   ‘You wrong me, chieftain,’ answered Aurelian calmly, ’and you know that you
   wrong me. I have never despised your countrymen; there is much in them that
   I admire. As for massacre, I loathe and abhor it. Let there be Goths in
   Gothland, and Romans for the Empire, and let them be allies and friends. But
   it boots not to argue. I am ready for my fate.’

   ‘Prepare, then, to die,’ said Gaïnas. ‘Kneel at this block.’

   ‘One moment, and I am ready,’ he said. He folded his hands, turned his gaze
   heavenwards, and his lips moved in silent prayer. ‘Now strike,’ he said; ‘I
   am a Christian. A Christian does not fear to die.’

   He bowed his head, and the executioner raised his mighty sword. Eutyches
   trembled and turned deadly pale. An involuntary cry of anguish and despair
   had burst from the lips of Philip, and he would have sprung forward, but
   Thorismund held him back with a hand of iron, and, putting his other hand
   upon Philip’s lips, whispered, ‘Hush! Fear not! My father is not a Roman. He
   keeps his word.’

   Down swept the sword, and a rude laugh burst from the Gothic chieftain’s
   lips. For the descending glaive had but touched the neck of Aurelian. It had
   not made a scratch. It had not even drawn blood.

   ‘Rise, Aurelian,’ said Gaïnas, ‘and thank the Patriarch John that your life
   is spared.’

   It was a frightful experience. The sudden revulsion of feeling was
   infinitely trying, but the Roman was master of himself. Rising from the
   block, he bowed, and said nothing. Even Gaïnas was struck with admiration.
   ’Strike off his chains,’ he said, ‘and lead him away. Only keep him under
   guard.’

   ‘Let me go away,’ said Eutyches to Walamir. ‘This grim jest is cruel.’

   ‘Nay, you must see it, Eutyches, and tell the Patriarch,’ said Walamir; ‘but
   no blood will be shed.’

   Then Saturninus was led in; and he, too, did nothing common or mean, but
   bore himself worthily of a Consular of Rome.

   ‘Kneel, enemy of the Goths!’ said Gaïnas. ‘There is the block. Prepare to
   die.’

   ‘I have faced death many a time on the battlefields where I have defeated
   your countrymen. I am a soldier and a Roman. Slay me if thou wilt. There is
   a God in heaven who will avenge my blood.’

   Again the executioner lifted his two-handed sword; again he arrested the
   blow in mid-air, and only grazed the neck of the Consular.

   ‘Rise! Go!’ said Gaïnas; ‘you are not dead. Thank the Patriarch John for
   your life. Unchain him. Lead him away.’

   Count John was led in last. He was white as death. He trembled as he saw the
   huge executioner wiping his sword, as though from the stain of blood.

   ‘So you are the lover of the Empress,’ said Gaïnas, disdainfully, for he
   despised the man. ‘You are the father of the Emperor’s children. You are the
   man who weaves plots in the Gynæceum with hags like Marsa and Epigraphia.’

   Count John summoned up all the dignity and fortitude which he could command.
   ‘Kill me,’ he said with trembling lips, ‘if you will, but spare your brutal
   taunts, and do not slander the sacredness of your Empress.’

   ‘A Frankish woman, an adulteress; no Empress of mine,’ said Gaïnas, pointing
   to the block. ‘Kneel. You shall die.’

   Count John, who had been one of the gilded youth—one of the many handsome
   dandies of Constantinople who murmured at the weight of their own rings and
   silken dress—a lady’s man, and a debauchee, could not pretend to regard
   death lightly, as the Christian and the soldier had done. A blood-red mist
   seemed to sweep over his eyes. He stumbled piteously as he felt for the
   block.

   ‘Strike!’ said Gaïnas. The sword swished frightfully through the air, and
   inflicted on the Count’s neck a wound slight indeed, but a trifle deeper
   than the barely visible scratch which had been given to the others.

   ‘Rise,’ said Gaïnas, laughing once more. ‘You are not dead, coward.’

   But John rose not. Overcome with the horror of the moment, sensible that the
   sword had cut his skin, he had swooned away. Gaïnas sprang forward, a little
   alarmed. ’Has terror done the work of the glaive?’ he cried, seizing the arm
   of Count John. ‘No; his pulse beats. He has only fainted. Fling a bucket of
   cold water over him. Carry him away. Enough, Wolf, for the day,’ he said to
   the executioner. ‘There is a gold-piece for thee. Go!’

   Philip and Eutyches were deeply agitated by this stern spectacle. ‘Go back
   to the Patriarch, and tell him what you have witnessed,’ said Gaïnas. ‘Tell
   him I have kept my word; and though I have thoroughly frightened his three
   friends—and I really am sorry for Aurelian—I spare their lives, though so
   many in the city and in the camp have urged me night and day to slay them. I
   swore that they should kneel at the block, and they have done so. Tell him
   further, that for his sake I shall send them into banishment, that they may
   do me no more mischief; but I shall not even forfeit their goods. I am not a
   Rufinus; I am not a Eutropius.’

   ‘We will tell him, sir,’ said Philip.

   ‘My father, you see, has kept his word,’ said Thorismund to Philip.

   ‘Yes, Thorismund,’ said Philip, ‘but it was a grim and cruel jest.’

   ‘It was meant to be more than a jest,’ said, the young Goth. ’But it will
   not hurt them. They are men—at least two of them are.’

   The face of Eutyches had not recovered its colour. His intensely sympathetic
   character and quick imagination always made him suffer with those whom he
   saw suffer. He felt as if he, too, had knelt at the block, expecting instant
   death, and had heard the sword rush down. Walamir was still holding his
   hand, and swinging it uneasily, as though he would fain apologise to his
   wounded feelings.

   At last he said: ‘Do not think worse of us, Eutyches. We are altogether
   Goths, not Romans or half-Romans. Trained in raids, or battles and
   hardships, we think far less of scenes which seem terrible to you.’
     _________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER XXXII

  THREE YOUTHS SAVE CONSTANTINOPLE

     Now there was found in that city a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom
     delivered the city; yet no one remembered that same poor man.

     Eccl. ix. 15.

   After these events it really seems as if Gaïnas, to use a modern expression,
   had completely lost his head, or, to give the view of it taken by himself
   and his contemporaries, as if a demon had begun to trouble him; for his
   conduct became aimless and uncertain. Discontent, revenge, ambition, and
   evil counsels destroyed in him all capacity for wise and generous policy.
   Contact with the elements of a corrupting civilisation had deadened in him
   the savage virtues of his race, and gave nothing better to restore his moral
   balance.

   He and Tribigild carried their armies across the Bosporus into Europe, so
   that Constantinople found herself overshadowed by a host of 30,000 men, of
   whom the vast majority were Gruthongs and other tribes of Ostrogoths. The
   city had nothing to oppose to them at the moment but the insignificant
   handful of Palace troops who were responsible for the immediate safety of
   the Emperor. The gates, the barracks, the walls were all in the hands of
   barbarians, whose allegiance was wavering, and whose ultimate objects were
   uncertain. The year 400 opened with the worst and darkest omens of misery
   and fear.

   For the dominance of the Goths had rendered it necessary to fill the high
   office of Prætorian Præfect, from which Aurelian had been expelled, by the
   elevation of Typhos, his wicked and unnatural brother. And Typhos
   inaugurated a reign of terror more intolerable than that of Eutropius had
   ever been. He oppressed the provinces with frightful taxes; he sold the
   governorships to the highest bidder. Civil office could be purchased by the
   worst of reprobates, if they had enough of base skill or of ill-gotten gold
   to flatter or bribe the dissolute wife of the new Minister. Almost every
   independent voice was silenced. Synesius, with faithful friendship, did his
   utmost to support the cause of his friend Aurelian, and had even publicly
   pleaded in the presence of his brother. The only result was that Synesius
   himself was now kept under close surveillance, and was refused permission to
   return to his native Cyrene. Often in those bad days he sought the counsel
   of Chrysostom, and, though they were men of widely different sympathies,
   they had many an interesting discussion. But for the time being the
   Patriarch was personally powerless. The Empress, finding that she could not
   make him her tool, was already beginning to turn against him.

   Indeed, the times were very dark. ’Everything,’ said Chrysostom in a sermon
   delivered at this time, ’is full of fright, danger, mistrust, trembling and
   despair; no one trusts another, everyone is terrified of his neighbour; no
   friend seems sure, no brother trustworthy. The civil war raging in the midst
   of our society pervades not only all open, but all secret, relations.
   Everywhere are countless treacheries and dark concealments. Under the
   sheepskins are hidden a thousand wolves, so that we almost feel more
   confidence in the midst of open enemies than of semblable friends. They who
   greeted us yesterday with profound respect, and kissed our hands, to-day
   have flung away the guise of their masks, and have not only assumed the
   guise of enemies, but of our bitterest accusers.’

   So Gaïnas overshadowed the miserable city from without; and Typhos and his
   wife, and Eudoxia and her Court, caballed within; and the Arians, aided by
   barbarians and false Romans, resumed the high hopes which they once had had
   of winning back the East to the creed of the Council of Rimini.

   As for Tribigild, we hear no more of him. He went glimmering back into the
   night whence he had emerged. He died about this time, suddenly, and not
   without suspicious circumstances.

   But now Gaïnas was goaded to show his ascendancy by demanding from Arcadius
   the cession of one of the churches of Constantinople for the exclusive
   possession of the Arians. The only church at present assigned to them was
   outside the walls. ‘It is not reasonable,’ said Gaïnas to the Emperor, ‘it
   is an insult to my dignity, that I, the commander-in-chief of the forces of
   the East, and now the Consul-designate, should be forced to steal out of the
   city to worship outside the walls.’

   The Emperor, as usual, drifted impotently between ‘I would’ and ‘I dare
   not.’ He hated to say ‘Yes,’ yet how could he venture in the presence of
   superior force to say ’No’? Chrysostom, hearing of the Goth’s requisition,
   went to the Palace, and told Arcadius that under no circumstances must he
   comply with the demand; at whatever cost, he must peremptorily refuse. The
   helpless sovereign clutched at any straw. ’This,’ said he to Gaïnas, ‘is a
   religious question. The Patriarch desires to discuss it with you in person.
   Meet him at the Palace in my presence to-morrow.’

   Gaïnas was nothing loth. Strange to say, he prided himself on being an
   irresistible theologian. In earlier days he had maintained a lively
   controversy with the far-famed Egyptian eremite, St. Nilus, in which the
   Goth boasted, perhaps seriously imagined, that he had won the victory in
   argument in favour of the Arian as against the Catholic creed. He came to
   the Palace with some of the leading clergy of the Arian party, and
   Chrysostom came with some of his bishops. The interview did not, however,
   take the form of a theological controversy, for, in truth, Gaïnas felt
   himself quelled and dominated by the saintly dignity and fearlessness of the
   Archbishop. His genius felt rebuked in that holy presence, and he cowered
   before John as the birds cower and lie low when the eagle is in the air. He
   did not venture to cross swords with the eloquent Patriarch in questions of
   faith and dogmatic definition, but, taking an entirely different ground, he
   said:

   ‘I demand a church—one church only—for myself and my fellow-Arians. Is it
   just that I should be refused a church in the city I defend?’

   ‘Refused a church?’ said Chrysostom. ‘Every church alike in the city is
   freely open to you.’

   ‘But the opinions they represent are not mine.’

   ‘Is the Catholic Church to alter her opinions to suit you? Is she to cancel
   the canons at which her assembled Bishops and Fathers, headed by such men as
   Athanasius and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, deliberately arrived in the
   Œcumenical Councils of Nicæa and Constantinople? Are creeds to be abandoned
   and betrayed under the terror of armed forces?’

   ‘I have been treated,’ said Gaïnas, ‘with injustice and ingratitude. Am I
   not the protector of the East? Did I not help the Emperor Theodosius to
   defeat the usurper Maximus at the great battle of Siscia, and the usurper
   Eugenius at the great battle of the Frigidus?’

   ‘Treated with ingratitude, Gaïnas?’ said Chrysostom. ’You amaze me. Surely
   your services have been not only amply, but superabundantly, rewarded. You
   came over the Danube a fugitive Goth. You came in hunger, you came in rags,
   you came a suppliant for our mercy, you came in when the Huns were driving
   you before them like drift on the sea-wave. Were you not received into the
   pity and the Empire? Consider what you now are, and what you then were. You
   are standing here in the Palace, splendid in your armour, in the Consular
   ornaments and Magister Militum of the forces of the East talking face to
   face to the Emperor, and almost daring to address him on equal terms.’

   ‘I have the right to demand what I wish,’ said Gaïnas, sullenly.

   ‘How the right? Where is your solemn oath of allegiance to Theodosius? Where
   your fidelity?’

   ‘I can demand what I choose.’

   ‘Yes, if you are false to your allegiance; b