105[105] A ...and the remaining, thirty-fourth, in the fourth year. His style, along with its customary clarity and purity, manifests also that which is brilliant and fluent, revealing both the fertility of his thoughts and a most appropriate abundance of examples. Yet, it is perhaps weaker than the style found in the Acts, insofar as the interpretation of the Apostle and furthermore the commentaries on the Psalter remain inferior to the Acts. For everywhere in his discourses, he crafts that which is pure, brilliant, and clear together with what is pleasant, 979 and here in particular he excels in these, even as in his abundance of examples, in the richness of his enthymemes, and, if need be, in intensity; and simply, in diction, in composition, in method, in thoughts, and in all other organization, he established these writings in the best possible manner. But the works on the Apostle [106] can be recognized from those very texts themselves—which of them were prepared during his stay in Antioch, which are more distinct, and which were produced during his episcopacy; but as regards the Psalms, we have not yet known them as far as history is concerned; unless one, admiring the power and the other virtue of the discourse, might say that he fashioned them while more at leisure, and not while nourished by public affairs.
But if he did not carefully pursue some of the expressions, or those things requiring a slower contemplation, one ought not to be surprised. For whatever the capacity of the hearers admitted, and which contributed to their salvation and benefit, he never and nowhere omitted anything. Therefore it always occurs to one to admire that thrice-blessed man, because always and in all his discourses he made this his goal: the benefit of the hearers; of the others he cared not at all, or as little as possible. But even for the sake of appearing to lower some of his thoughts, and for not attempting to penetrate into deeper things, and if there be anything of that sort, for the sake of the benefit of the hearers he was entirely indifferent.
Readings from Chrysostom on the Holy Paul.
Paul came again to Antioch, and cultivated such a multitude of the faithful, that the designation of "Christians" first flourished there at that time. Having received this occasion then from the inscription of the altar, our spiritual orator introduces his own teaching, confirming the truth from the devil's own writings. "You have set up an altar through the inscription, as if there is another God, unknown; this one I have come preaching. O, what paradoxical things! You have made the devil's altar an advocate for Christ; the inscription of error spoke on behalf of truth; the monument of deceit set up the deceit." Since the things of the prophets were difficult for the Athenians to accept, the altar and the writings of the demons preached piety through the wisdom of Paul. The devil stood weeping, seeing his own sophistries speaking on behalf of Christ; he grieved as he watched his own champion Paul serving as general against him, and defeating him with his own weapons. Readings from Chrysostom, having the title: "Scholion on Death," twenty-two short discourses, and in the same discourse, similar ones on the Ascension of the Lord, twenty-four, and further, on Pentecost, likewise six discourses.
A Synod unjustly gathered against the holy John.
A Readings were read concerning the synod which was illegally convened against John Chrysostom, who is among the saints. In which were presiding: Theophilus of Alexandria, Acacius of Beroea, Antiochus of Ptolemais, and Severianus of Gabala, and Cyrinus of Chalcedon, who were most hostilely disposed toward the man; who were at once all these things: judges, accusers, and witnesses. And these things were done in thirteen acts; but twelve were against the saint, while the thirteenth contains the matters concerning Heraclides, whom he had ordained to Ephesus; whose deposition, however, they were not able to complete, because others hindered them. The accuser of Heraclides was a bishop of the city of the Magnetes, named Macarius; but the manifest enemy and first accuser of the blessed John was his own deacon, John. He accused Chrysostom, first, that he wronged him by excommunicating him, because he struck his own servant, the boy Eulalius; second, that a certain monk named John, by order of Chrysostom, was struck, as he says, and dragged, and was in chains together with those possessed by demons; third, that he sold a great multitude of church treasures; fourth, that the marbles of Holy Anastasia, which Nectarius had set aside for the ornamenting of the church, this man sold; fifth, that he reviles the clergy as dishonored, corrupt, self-indulgent, and worthless; sixth, that he called the holy Epiphanius a dotard and goat-demon; seventh, that he made a conspiracy against Severianus, having incited the deans against him; eighth, that he also prepared a slanderous book against the clergy; ninth, that having gathered a council of all the clergy, he set up three deacons—Acacius, Edaphius, and John—accusing them of stealing his maophorion, saying, lest they had taken it for some other purpose; tenth, that he ordained as bishop a man proven to be a grave-robber, Antonius; eleventh, that he himself denounced John the Count during the sedition of the soldiers; twelfth, that he neither prayed when going out into the church, nor when entering; thirteenth, that he performed the ordinations of deacons and presbyters without an altar; fourteenth, that he made four bishops in one ordination; fifteenth, that he receives women, turning everyone else out; sixteenth, that he sold the inheritance left by Thecla through Theodulus; seventeenth, that no one knows where the revenues of the church went; eighteenth, that he ordained Sarapion as presbyter while he was under accusation; nineteenth, that he disregarded those who were in communion with the world, who had been imprisoned according to his will and died in prison, and he did not even deem it worthy to escort their bodies; twentieth, that he insulted the most holy Acacius, and did not grant him any words; twenty-first, that he handed over Porphyrius the presbyter to Eutropius to be exiled; twenty-second, that he also handed over Venerius the presbyter with much insult; twenty-third, that a bath is heated for him alone, and after he has bathed, Sarapion closes the access, so that none of the others may bathe; twenty-fourth, that he ordained many without witness; twenty-fifth, that he eats alone, living prodigally like the life of the Cyclopes; twenty-sixth, that he himself accuses, he himself testifies, he himself passes judgment (and this is clear from what they say concerning Martyrius the archdeacon, and from the reports concerning Proaeresius, whom they call the bishop of Lycia); twenty-seventh, that he gave a fist-blow to Memnon in the [church of the] Apostles, and while the blood was flowing from his mouth, he offered the mysteries; twenty-eighth, that he undresses and dresses upon the throne and eats a pastille; twenty-ninth, that he even gives money to the bishops ordained by him, so that through them he may oppress the clergy. These, then, are the counts against the saint. But he, having been called for the fourth time, did not appear, having made known to those calling him that, "If you remove the manifest enemies from the rank of the judges, I am ready both to appear and to make my defense, if anyone accuses me of anything; but if you do not wish to do this, as often as you send, nothing more will be accomplished." And they examined, as they thought, the first and second of these counts. Then they began to examine concerning the bishops Heraclides and Palladius of Helenopolis; and the monk John (whom John the deacon mentioned in the accusations against Chrysostom) again submitted a libel, complaining against Heraclides, that he is an Origenist, and that he was caught as a thief in Caesarea of Palestine, stealing cloths from the deacon Aquilinus; and that he...