Historical Dialogue

HISTORICAL DIALOGUE OF PALLADIUS, BISHOP OF HELENOPOLIS, WITH THEODORE, DEACON OF THE ROMAN CHURCH, CONCERNING THE LIFE AND CONVERSATION OF THE BLESSED JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, BISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

^A Cap. I. — The gifts of God, most excellent brother Theodore, are in some respects, it seems, common and undivided; but in others, common and divided. A third class of these consists of those which are neither common, nor divided, nor undivided, but personal, given according to a special grace to those to whom they are given.

Deacon. Come, tell us the order of each kind; for you have prefaced this plausibly.

Bishop. Those natural goods, without which life is grievous and impious, are common and undivided.

Deacon. How so, Father?

Bishop. First of all, the God of the universe, with His only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit, is common and undivided; for it is permitted to every one who wills it, without any trouble, to embrace Him entirely in contemplation. Then, after God, the divine Scriptures and the supermundane powers. Furthermore, the heaven, the sun, the moon, and all the choir of the stars, and the very air are common and undivided, as being all things for all. Within these, the class of undivided things remains for us. At one time the earth was also common and undivided, along with the flowing of the waters; but from the time when the fervor of avarice occupied the minds of the voluptuous, the heavier elements of earth and water were divided.

Deacon. What you have said is very clear; but complete the account of the second kind, the divided things.

Bishop. It is necessary that the context of the argument should not be left incomplete. Gold, therefore, and silver and all metallic nature, and moreover timber materials, and to say it in one word, whatsoever things are intermediate, are indeed common, but yet divided; for they are not entirely in the power of any one as he pleases.

Deacon. This statement is also still evident. But I fear that you may fail in the demonstration of the third kind of special gifts, having promised to show that there are some things which are neither common nor divided, but personal, according to the privilege of those who have been worthy of that gift. But having put an end to this discourse, tell us whence you came, and the things the truth of which we desire to know.

Bishop. If it lies with me, and if I have knowledge of the things which you wish to know, I will not refuse, nor conceal anything; I will discharge the debt of the promised discourse as far as I am able. Therefore, you will find virginity and the rest of chastity to be undivided; for they are not of the class of common or divided things, since not every one who wishes keeps virginity, but he who can; for most of those who are joined in matrimony desire it indeed, but do not attain it, because they are preoccupied by marriage. Just as in the Olympic games the herald calls him who wishes to compete, but he crowns him who has conquered, so also is it in chastity, as the Gospel says. For when Peter had answered the Savior: "If such is the cause of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry" (Matt. 19. 10, 11), the Savior said to this: "Not all can receive this word, but those to whom it is given." Do you see that it is not for all, but for those to whom it is given?

Deacon. I thought you would have difficulty in explaining what the special gifts are, but you have persuaded us surely and strongly by the testimony of Scripture.

Bishop. If these things are clear to you, I will adorn my discourse with remaining testimonies, so that those who are depraved in mind, being persuaded by these, may cease to snatch at what they could not take. For we find that the priesthood also in the divine Scriptures is neither common nor divided, but proper to those who are worthy of it, as that man of exalted mind, Paul, admonishes the Hebrews, ^B saying: "For no one takes the honor to himself, but he who is called by God" (Hebr. 5. 4). So also, he says, Aaron did not pride himself in being high priest. For when there were six hundred thousand men, and many of them had a zeal for God, Aaron alone was declared high priest, whom God had assumed to be pontiff, as the miracle of the rod, which produced nuts, persuaded the multitude (Num. 17. 8). But many, ignorant of all goods, struck by the goad of vain glory, having opined that the priesthood is among common and divided things, chosen by themselves, seize that thing—having found a end worthy of their madness—while they make the very land of their synagogue a witness to their rashness. For Dathan and Abiron (Num. 16. 32), when with meretricious eyes they had coveted the dignity of the priesthood, perished swallowed by the earth with all their followers, having found for their synagogue an impromptu sepulcher. After these, Oza, unmindful of higher things, seized by the same greed, sought that thing. For when one day the ark was being carried in a wagon (2 Reg. 6. 6), it happened by chance that the calf which was drawing it disturbed it, causing it to shake. Oza, therefore, who was following, caught it with his hand, not suffering it to be overturned. But when God saw this, and it did not please Him—since from that a custom might arise for the rash to handle the Ark—He prohibited it, Oza being struck dead, teaching those who came after to desist from similar rashness. And at length, after a long intervening time, after the advent of Christ, Simon Magus from the village of Githon, an artificer of doctrines adverse to the truth, that crafty one in wickedness, fearing the punishments of those above, handles wickedness with art, that if he had sown similar things, he might reap equal ones. Therefore, covering the wolf with a sheep's skin, he approaches the apostles blandly (Act. 8), with gold coins, so that he might not seem to seize what he was most wickedly striving to buy: saying things which both He and all who imitate him,

^A should properly speak. “Take,” he said, “this money, and give me the power of your dignity, so that whomever I lay my hands upon may receive the Holy Spirit.” Moreover, he had been baptized in the name of Jesus. To him the body of the apostles answered: “Begone, O man; the grace of God cannot be sold.” And when he continued to knock at their doors with such speeches, they said again: “Why do you buy what you will find gratis, if you live worthily?” But when he considered the labors of life and the sluggishness of his own mind, and the uncertain outcome of the matter, he again brought gold forth from his purse, thinking that he would ensnare the disciples of the Savior with this enticement. At this, that One who grasps the wise in their own craftiness was indignant, and spoke through the mouth of Peter, saying: “Thy money be with thee into perdition, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money” (Act. viii, 20). To this he imposed the remedy of penance, preparing him in patience, “Repent,” he said (ibid., 22 and 23), “if perchance the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee. For I see thee to be in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” For God, the lover of souls, does not desire the death of the sinner (Ezech. xviii, 32). Having demonstrated to the best of my ability all those things which I had spoken, O Theodore of great name, and minister of the mysteries of truth, hear now those things which you preferred to know from us. ^B DIAC. From where do you now come to us? BISH. From the East, clearly; for I see Rome now for the first time. DIAC. What cause especially led you? BISH. The sole love of your peace. DIAC. Is it, then, another from yours? BISH. Not another, indeed, but clearly the same which the Savior gave from heaven, saying to the apostles: “My peace I give unto you” (Joan. xiv, 27). For the confirmation of a firmer grace He said again: “My peace I leave with you”; referring this word, “I give,” to Himself, but that word, “I leave,” to the Holy Spirit, so that in the Spirit, through Christ, they might reveal the knowledge of the Father to the nations. But just as in paralyzed limbs the operations of the soul recur to the sounder parts of the members, so the unhappy Church of the East suffers. For its members being paralyzed, and not being able to perform their duties on account of broken harmony, many of us who are unencumbered and inflamed by a desire for it, wander as exiles from our country, we who cannot dwell in our foster-mother [Church] without danger and tranquility on account of the love of truth, so that in whatever way we might live the few days of life that still remain to us among you according to the Gospel. DIAC. As it seems, venerable Father, by divine providence, as you see, you have been sent; for I find your grief to be in sympathy with our own anxieties. I believe, moreover, that you are of the company of John of Constantinople. ^C BISH. It is as you have said. DIAC. I ask that, with God as your witness, you tell us truly those things which we greedily desire to know one by one; certain of this, that if you report to us anything beyond the truth, you will have God as your investigator and judge; you shall also be refuted by us who have received [the account] differently: for it is not one or another, or three, or ten, or men of any sort who have told us what happened at Constantinople, but more, and of those, some were bishops, others presbyters, and some of the order of monks. But if you wish, I will briefly set forth what has reached the Roman Church. The first of all to come to us was an Alexandrian reader with the letters of Pope Theophilus, in which he reported that he had deposed John. When these were read, the blessed Pope Innocent ^D was only a little away from being horrified by condemning the temerity and pride of Theophilus, because he had written alone, and had not sent a clear notification of the matter, or why, or with what companions assumed, he had deposed John. To this he remained in doubt of mind, not wishing to write back on account of the frivolity of the acting party. Meanwhile, a certain Eusebius, deacon of the Constantinopolitan Church, who was then at Rome for the sake of ecclesiastical business, approached Pope Innocent and gave suppliant appeals, adjuring him to wait a short time: for it would be, that in a short while he would see the faction exposed. In the meantime, after three days, there arrived four bishops from the parts of John, religious men, Pansophius of Pisidia, Pappus of Syria, Demetrius of Galatia the Second, Eugenius of Phrygia, who delivered three letters: one indeed from Bishop John, another from forty bishops concerning the communion of John, the third truly from the clergy of John: all agreeing among themselves, and signifying the tumult of certain lawless men. But the context of the letter of John was as follows:

CHAP. II. To my lord, venerable and most holy Bishop Innocent, John in the Lord sends greetings.

^A unable to find the cause of this unjust hostility, nevertheless performed what was on our part, doing what was fitting for ourselves, and continually beseeching him to meet with us and state the reason why he had ignited a war from the very beginning and scandalized such a great city. But as he did not even then wish to state the cause, and those accusing him pressed on, the most pious Emperor summoned us and ordered us to go across to where he was staying and to hear the matter concerning him. For they were alleging fear, massacres, and ten thousand other things. But we, both reverencing and honoring the laws of the fathers as well as the man himself, and holding his own letters, that cases should not be dragged outside of one's own region, but that matters of the provinces should be trained in the provinces themselves, did not accept the trial, but with much forbearance declined the heavy-handedness. ^B Yet he, as though striving for his former goals, having called my archdeacon with great authority, as if the Church were already widowed and had no bishop, through him transferred the entire clergy to himself. And the churches were thrown into upheaval, as the clerics in each were led away, and were prepared to provide libels against us, and were anointed for the accusation. And having done these things, he sent and called us to a tribunal, not yet having stripped off the charges against himself; which was most contrary to the canons and to all laws. But we, knowing that we were not coming before a judge (for we would have arrived a thousand times over), but before an enemy and an adversary, just as his preceding and subsequent actions showed, sent bishops to him—Demetrius of Pisinuntum, Eulysius of Apamea, and Luppicianus of Apparia—and the presbyters Germanus and Severus; answering with the moderation befitting us, and saying that we did not refuse judgment, but refused an enemy and a manifest adversary. For he who had not yet received the libels, and had done such things from the beginning, and had torn himself away from the Church and from communion and from prayer, and was anointing accusers, and transferring the clergy, and leaving churches desolate, how could he be fit to ascend the judge's throne, having no claim to it from any quarter? For it was not consistent for one from Egypt to judge in Thrace, and one who was held liable for charges, and an enemy and an adversary. ^C But he, nevertheless, reverencing none of these things, but hurrying to fulfill what he desired—when we declared that we were ready, even with a hundred or a thousand bishops present, to strip away the accusations and to show ourselves clean, just as we truly are—did not endure it; but while we were absent, and appealing for a synod, and seeking a trial, and not fleeing a hearing, but a manifest hostility, he received accusers, and released those who had been bound by me, and while even those same persons had not yet stripped off the charges, he accepted libels, and engaged in proceedings—all of which were contrary to custom, to the canon, and to the order of things.

and were driven out by the violence of that harsh persecution; nor were they even allowed the decorum befitting women. ^A Many who had received wounds were cast out, the pools were filled with blood, and the sacred waters were reddened with gore. Nor did the evil stop even there: they burst into the places where the holy things were kept—some of whom, as we have learned, were not even initiated—and saw all that was within. And the most holy blood of Christ, in the midst of such a tumult, was poured out upon the garments of the aforementioned, and all things happened as if in a barbarian captivity. ^B The people were driven out into the wilderness, and the whole population fled outside the city; the churches were left empty of people during such a great feast, and more than forty bishops who were in communion with us, along with the laity, were driven out rashly and for no cause. Everywhere were wailing, lamentations, weeping, and fountains of tears in the marketplaces, in the houses, and in the wildernesses; and every part of the city was filled with these calamities. For because of the magnitude of such iniquity, ^C not only those who were suffering, but even those who were suffering no such thing, sympathized with us; not only Catholics, but even heretics, Jews, and pagans—and as if the city had been taken by force, so were all things in tumult, perturbation, and outcry. And these things were done contrary to the will of the most religious emperor, while night was falling, arranged by bishops who were not ashamed to have Campiductores going before them like deacons. But when the day dawned, the whole city moved outside the walls, like sheep dispersed, celebrating the feast day under the trees and in the woods. ^D You may judge from these things all that followed; for, as I said before, it is impossible to relate what was done item by item. And what is most distressing is that such and so great evils have not even now come to an end, nor is there any hope of an end; but the evil is increased day by day, and we have become a laughingstock to many—or rather, no one laughs, even if he were of the utmost wickedness; all weep, as I have said, at the climax of evils, this unheard-of iniquity. Now who could recount the disturbances of the remaining Churches? For this evil did not stop here, but reached even unto the East. ^A For as the remaining members are corrupted when a foul humor is poured out from the head, so, from the evils that have sprung up in this great city, as from a fountain, the tumults have progressed everywhere, and clergy have risen up against bishops everywhere, and the peoples are some already torn apart, others about to be torn apart very soon; and everywhere there is an expectation of evils and the subversion of the whole world. Therefore, my most venerated and religious lords, when you have learned that these things are so, I beseech you to show the fortitude and zeal that becomes you, so that such great iniquity which has invaded the Churches may be restrained. ^B For if this custom prevails, and if it shall be allowed to anyone to invade the provinces of others—and that at such great intervals—and to cast out whomsoever one wishes, doing whatever one pleases by one's own authority, you know that all things will go to ruin, and an inexpiable war will descend upon the whole world, with everyone casting out everyone else and being cast out in turn. Lest, therefore, such great confusion should invade all the earth under heaven, I ask that you declare by letter that those things which were done so iniquitously by one part, in our absence and without our declining a trial, have no force, just as they have none by their own nature; and that those who have dared such things be subjected to the penalties of ecclesiastical law. ^C We, therefore, who have been neither convicted nor accused nor shown to be guilty, ask to be granted the enjoyment of your letters and your charity, as before. But if those who have perpetrated such things wish now also to bring charges for which they have unjustly cast us out, then, by giving us the acts, and when the libels and accusers have appeared, we shall plead our cause before incorrupt judges and show that we are without fault in those matters of which we are accused, as indeed we are. For what was done by them is contrary to all order, contrary to all laws and ecclesiastical canons; neither in the judgments of the pagans, nor truly in any barbarian tribunal, have such things ever been done; ^D indeed, not even Scythians or Sarmatians have ever judged in such a way, passing judgment from one side, in the absence of the accused, when he was not declining judgment but was calling for countless judges, claiming he was innocent, and was ready to clear himself of the charges before the whole world and to show himself guiltless in all things. Reflecting on all these things, then, when you have clearly learned them from my most pious brothers the bishops, I beseech you to join your zeal to theirs. Thus you will deserve well not only of us, but also of the common state of the Churches, and you will receive a reward from God, who continually does all things for the peace of the Churches. This same letter was also written to Venerius, bishop of Milan, and to Chromatius, bishop of Aquileia. Farewell in the Lord.

CAP. III

impossible for us to unreasonably depart from the communion of John. If, therefore, you trust in the tribunal, appear at the synod which is being formed according to Christ; and there, having examined the causes under the witness of the canons of Nicaea (for the Roman Church admits no other canon), you will have irrefutable security.»

A short time later, a presbyter of Constantinople named Theotecnus appeared, delivering letters from the synod of John’s twenty-five bishops, or thereabouts; in which they explained that John had been expelled from the city by military aid and had been sent into exile at Cucusus, and that the church had been burned. ^A And, having given him letters of communion for John the bishop and for those who were in communion with him, he exhorted them with tears to be patient, being unable to help them because some who held the power were opposing them. After a short time, a certain man appeared, deformed in appearance and malignant in mind, Paternus by name, claiming to be a presbyter of the Church of Constantinople; who himself, being altogether stirred up and demonstrating his enmity by his very countenance, and pouring out many insults against the bishop John, delivered letters from a few bishops—Acacius, Paul, Antiochus, Cyrinus, Severian, and certain others—in which they slandered John, saying he had burned the church. So false did the report seem to us, that John did not even deign to give an apology concerning this at the illustrious synod; regarding which the Pope Innocent, having spat upon it, did not even deign to write a reply.

THE BISHOP. Deign, therefore, to lend me your ear, that I may narrate to you detail by detail; for truly, as Elihu says to Job, “The spirit of the belly constrains me,” referring to the intellect as a belly filled with words (Job 32:18).

THE DEACON. It is necessary for me, excellent Father, to fulfill the precision of those things which have reached us, so that I may thus begin my questioning of you.

Again, therefore, after some days, the bishop Cyriacus appeared, having no letters, but being capable of a harmonious narrative; who said that he had fled because of the threat of the imperial edict, which contained that: “If anyone does not communicate with Theophilus, Arsacius, and Porphyrius, let such a one be excluded from the episcopacy; and let him furthermore be stripped of any property of money or lands that he seems to have.” After Cyriacus arrived Eulysius, the bishop of Apamea in Bithynia, delivering letters from fifteen bishops of John’s synod, and of the venerable Anysius, the bishop of Thessalonica, in which the former explain the plunder that had occurred and was occurring throughout entire Constantinople; and the latter explains how he remains in the judgment of the Romans. This Eulysius himself also narrated things identical to Cyriacus. ^B After a month of days had passed, Palladius, the bishop of Helenopolis, appeared without letters, having himself—as he said—fled the madness of the authorities; but he narrated it to us more pointedly, having shown a copy of an edict containing that: “Whoever hides a bishop or cleric, or generally receives a communicant of John in his house, let his house be confiscated.” After Palladius, Germanus the presbyter, together with Cassianus the deacon—men who were pious—arrived, delivering letters from all of John’s clergy; where they write that their Church had suffered violence and tyranny, their bishop having been cast out by military aid and sent into exile through the machinations of Acacius of Beroea, Theophilus of Alexandria, Antiochus of Ptolemais, and Severian of Gabala; in which the aforementioned also displayed a list, where they surrender the treasures under witness to the judges Stundius, the prefect of the city, and Eutychianus, of the praetorian guard, and John, the count of the treasuries, and Eustathius, the quaestor, and the tabularius, in gold, silver, and vestments, thus turning away the slander from the bishop John. ^C After him, Demetrius came a second time, the bishop of the Pessinuntians, having traversed the East and preached the communion of the Romans which was with the bishop John, along with letters from Pope Innocent; he also brought letters from the bishops of Caria, where they greet the communion of John, and from the presbyters of Antioch, where they draw to themselves the good order of the Romans and lament the ordination of Porphyrius, which had been done unlawfully and uncanonically. After them all arrived the presbyter Domitianus, the steward of the Constantinopolitan Church, and a certain Vallagas, a presbyter of Nisibis, narrating the lamentation of the monasteries in Mesopotamia, delivering also the memorials of a certain Optatus, the prefect, where modest women of senatorial birth are brought to public view before him—deacons of the Constantinopolitan Church—being compelled either to communicate with Arsacius or to give two hundred pounds of gold to the fiscal counts. But regarding the ascetics and virgins, what need is there even to speak? They were showing the scraping of their sides upon the wooden rack and the torture of their backs; so that Pope Innocent, no longer able to endure it, sent to the pious Emperor Honorius, attaching to the letters the power of the situation. ^D Being moved by this, his piety commands a synod of the Westerners to be assembled, and that sharing a single vote, they should report it to his piety. Who, the bishops of Italy having gathered, beseech the Emperor to write to his own brother and co-emperor Arcadius, to command a synod to be held at Thessalonica, so that it might be easy for both parts, of the East and of the West, to run together; so that the synod, having been made perfect, not in quantity of number but in quality of opinion, might bring forth an indisputable vote. From which, being inflamed, his piety writes to the bishop of Rome to send five bishops, and two presbyters of Rome, and one deacon, so as to convey his letter to his brother; which letter contained this power: “I write for the third time to your gentleness, requesting that the matters concerning the machinations against the bishop John of Constantinople might obtain correction, and as it seems, it has not been accomplished. Whence I have again written through the bishops and presbyters, altogether caring for the ecclesiastical peace, through which also our empire is kept in peace, that you might deign to command the bishops of the East to gather at Thessalonica. And indeed our bishops of the West, having chosen men unshakable against wickedness and falsehood, have sent five bishops, and two presbyters, and one deacon of the greatest Church of the Romans. Whom, deign to care for with all honors, so that if they are persuaded [of the truth]..."

if the bishop John was justly expelled, let them teach me to withdraw from his communion; or if they shall prove that the bishops of the East are of their own accord evil, ^A let them turn you away from their communion. For what the opinion of the Westerners is concerning bishop John, I have appended two of all the letters written to me, to show they are of the same sentiment as the others: one from the bishop of Rome, the other from the bishop of Aquileia. Furthermore, this I beg of your clemency before all else: that you bid Theophilus, the bishop of Alexandria, to appear, even if he be unwilling—he who is said to be the chief author of all these evils—so that the synod of bishops who are present may not be hindered, but may establish a peace suitable to our times.

CHAPTER IV

The Savior God declared the same thing to us by various revelations, so that the blessed apostle Paul appeared in a ship to the deacon Paul of the holy Emmelius, a man most mild and prudent, saying to him: "See how you walk, not as fools, but as wise, seeing that the days are evil" (Eph. V, 15, 16); the dream signifying their manifold fraud, and how they used gifts and flatteries to adulterate the truth. Therefore, the same tribune Valerian, pressing us, cast us into a most vile ship—the captain having been given a bribe, as rumor has it, to destroy the bishops sailing—together with twenty soldiers of various ranks; ^C and immediately he expelled us from Athyra. When we had sailed many stadia and were already about to perish, we arrived at Lampsacus; and thence, changing ships, on the twentieth day we reached Hydrus in Calabria. They could no longer tell us in what state the blessed bishop John was, nor where the bishops Demetrius, Cyriacus, Eulysius, and Palladius were, who had set out as legates with our bishops.

BISHOP. Come now, O most sacred one, give me your attention, listening to those things which shall be clearly spoken; and I will subsequently declare to you the public, satirical tumults of the entire tragedy, whence this drunkenness had its beginning, and how long they have seemed to cease, though they have not yet desisted. The source and principle of all evils, as one might say, is the God-hating demon, ever lying in wait like a wolf for the rational flocks of Christ, atrociously infesting every skilled shepherd with various evils, just as the king of the Egyptians did to the male children of the Jews, while fattening the feigned and false shepherds with the deceits of earthly pleasures. Now the channels of this worst fountain, as the whole world knows, are Acacius, Antiochus, Theophilus, and Severianus—who are called indeed what they are not, but are what they cannot bear to be called; and from the order of the clergy, two presbyters and five deacons, gathered partly from the impure, partly from the number of the wicked—though I know not if it be secure to call such men presbyters or deacons. But from the Emperor’s court there were only two or three, who strengthened Theophilus, bringing him aid with a military guard: of the women, besides those who are commonly known, there were three—widows indeed, but made rich by their husbands, possessing much money from rapine to the ruin of their own salvation; the exciters of tumults and seditions: Marsa, the wife of Promotus; Castricia, the wife of Saturninus; and a certain Eugraphia, who is mad in every way; but it causes shame to speak of the rest. ^D Now these men and these women, being of slow heart in the faith, like a phalanx drunk with fury, were gathered into one intent of hatred toward the doctrine, and stirred up a torrent of destruction against the peace of the Church.

DEACON. May you, therefore, Father, and may you willingly, speak to us before God: whence arose their hatred against John, and what was the stubbornness of bishop John that offended such great powers? At the same time, declare to us whence he began his life, and in what manner he was elevated to the bishopric of Constantinople, and how long a time he held it, and what his character was, and what was the end of his life, if indeed he is dead, as we hear. Even if the wonderful and holy fame of that man is spread most widely through all, yet I have been accustomed not to believe rumors so easily, before I have [heard] from...

^A to be slow to believe rumors, until I have learned with certainty from those who know how to censure and praise correctly. ^B THE BISHOP: We praise your precision, but I do not accept your standard of judgment, most truth-loving man and man of God, Theodore; for you ought to have been satisfied, in proof of the truth, by my white hair itself—if I may boast—and by my rank. But since you have not done this, and twice judge me, grant me hereafter a hearing without prejudice, that the channels of our words may not be in vain. For I know what is written in the divine law: "The Lord shall destroy all those who speak a lie" (Ps. 5.7); and by the apostle John: "He that speaks a lie is not of God" (John 8.44); and again by David: "For the mouth of those who speak unjust things has been stopped" (Ps. 62.12). For in truth, he who is deceived does an injustice to the one he persuades; and he who is persuaded does an injustice to the one who is lying, by believing too easily. Since therefore both are equally at fault, let neither of us do an injustice to his neighbor. For this is virtue: for the speaker, to speak the truth; and for the hearer, to test unjust things. ^C For "Be," says the Scripture, "approved money-changers, casting away the counterfeit from the genuine"; not so that, having boasted, we may receive the sound, but so that, having weighed all that is spoken or written with the fear of God and with an upright conscience, we may receive it with the witness of the facts. The danger of the ear and the tongue is great: wherefore the artisan God has made them such that they are guarded by two lips, placing an outer defense of teeth, that the fortress, existing in safety, may discipline its rashness, according to what is written: "Set, O Lord, a watch on my mouth, and a door of enclosure about my lips, that I may not sin with my tongue" (Ps. 140.3); and He has made the hole of the ear winding, hinting through the shape that the word should not enter too quickly, so that, winding for a longer time, it may leave behind all the dross of the lie with the filth of wickedness, being thoroughly strained out. And He not only took care of these organs, as if they alone were stumbling; but He has also placed curtains, like windows, over the pupils of the eyes, so that they might not admit the death of licentiousness, as the prophet bears witness, saying: "Death has climbed up through the windows" (Jer. 9.21). ^D THE DEACON: If the inquiry were about ordinary matters, Most Holy Father, the appearance of the person would suffice to prove the words; but since it brings not a small condemnation now, and hereafter a judgment, with rulers and peoples gathered before the fearful tribunal, and it is the truth that is being sought, grant me pardon, noble sir, for not putting forward a white beard as a witness; for even the wicked have aged, not whitening their souls with virtue, but wrinkling their bodies with the length of time; such as were the false elders in Babylon, and in Jeremiah, Ephraim, concerning whom the Word cries out in reproach: "Ephraim is a silly dove, having no heart; gray hairs have blossomed upon him, and he did not know it" (Hos. 7.11). And He says more sharply elsewhere: "Ephraim has become a cake of bread not turned, and strangers have devoured his strength" (Ibid. v. 8-9). And I will add this, even if I prolong the discourse: who is whiter-haired or who is more respectable in appearance than Acacius of Beroea, whom you now accuse as a ringleader of disorder and a chief of this riotous wrongdoing? Yet even his own nostrils trailed white hairs when he stood at Rome, having brought the decree for the ordination of Bishop John. THE BISHOP: Now I have known clearly that you are an approved money-changer, not being persuaded by the leather tent, but seeking out the wisdom of him who dwells within. For even the temples of the Egyptians, being very large and boasting in the beauty of their stones, have apes and ibises and dogs inside instead of gods; but our Lord and God, in signifying to Samuel regarding the appointment of a leader of Israel, warns him not to look at the appearance and formation of a clay body, saying: "God does not see as man sees; for man looks on the face, but God looks on the heart" (I Reg. 16.7). Wherefore the imitators of God investigate the deeper side in every matter. Whence I willingly yield myself, having tested your scales that do not lean to one side at all. Yet the Babylonians, old in body but complete infants in soul through their lack of sense, if they had believed in the resurrection of the dead, previously, having had sound wisdom, they would not have lusted after another man's wife; and then, if they had had the fear of God, they would not have joined slander to their licentiousness. The dishonor in old age is the proof of the peddling of youth.

CHAPTER V

deacon by Meletius after he had served the altar for five years. But as his ability to teach already began to shine forth, and the people grew sweeter from the bitterness of the age through his conversation, he was ordained presbyter by Flavian the bishop. And when he had shone for twelve years in the Church of Antioch, the exact norm of his life illuminated the Antiochene clergy: seasoning some with the salt of wisdom, illuminating others with doctrine, and watering others with the streams of the Holy Spirit. ^A While these things were proceeding excellently toward the governing of Christ’s faithful, blessed Nectarius, bishop of the Constantinopolitan Church, dies. Then some gather who were not sought, soliciting the episcopate—men who were by no means men, presbyters in dignity, but unworthy of the priesthood: some wearying the praetorium, others corrupting with gifts, others indeed even falling on their knees before the plebs. Because of these things, the crowd of the orthodox is disturbed, soliciting the Emperor, seeking one skilled in the priesthood. Now Eutropius the eunuch, the chamberlain of the sacred cubiculum, held the helm of affairs. Since he desired to place John over the city (for his virtue had been known to him when the Emperor's business had taken him to the inner East), he himself brings it about that the Emperor writes letters to the Count of the East, so that, without noise, disturbing nothing in Antioch, he might send John away. He, as soon as the letters were received, exhorts him to station himself outside the city as far as the Martyria, next to the road called the Roman, and entrusts him, put into a public carriage, to the eunuch sent for that purpose with the soldier of the Magister. ^B Thus brought, he is ordained bishop of the Constantinopolitan Church. From the beginning, therefore, Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, when he had come for his ordination, seeing his unreproachable freedom of speech, was struck silent by his ordination. For he is crafty from his very appearance: for to discern the secret counsel and mind of every man. Diac. Wait, Father, for I will object a few things. Episc. But what is this, most of all? Diac. If Theophilus is such that he perceives all things by the keenness of his mind at a mere glance, how did he not know that, with John expelled, the whole world would be thrown into confusion by him? Episc. This is not to be wondered at, most excellent one. For indeed the demons, who declared the coming of the Savior, did not know that they were to be constrained by the single state of Christ's faithful. Diac. But where did they declare the coming of the Savior? Episc. When they cried out: "We know thee, who thou art, the Holy One of God; why did you come before the time to torment us?" (Matt. 8.29). You see how they knew before not only that he was holy, but also the judge. But why do I speak of demons? Unhappy harlots discern chaste men from the state of their eyes and avoid them; just as a sick eye [avoids] the ray of the sun, and a vulture ointment. But whence do sinners know religion is an abomination, if they did not know it? So also Theophilus, from the moment he found in John’s appearance nothing that responded to his own eyes or was pleasing, conjectured—not by certain knowledge—the opposite. Diac. You have said wonderful things, Father. Why, indeed, did he resist his ordination? Episc. His custom was such that he would not ordain the good and sober-minded, unless his conjecture had failed him, desiring to rule over all as if they were dull-witted, judging it better to rule over the foolish than to obey the wise. He was, however, ^C overcome by wholesome providence, whether he liked it or not. Thus ordained, John begins the care of affairs, setting out to prove the sheep through the rational pipe. But rarely applying also the rebukes of the rod, he directs his speech against the faked society of life—as they call them—but in truth against the shameless and wicked life with those women who are called

the subintroductae (those brought in)

and on all sides the Church flowering for the better, and the entire city transformed unto godliness, with souls radiant in temperance and psalmody, the hater of good, the devil, could not bear the flight of those held by him whom the word of the Lord had removed through the teaching of John: such that those who were mad for horses and spectators of the theater, abandoning the courts of the devil, would run with haste to the fold of the Savior, in love of the pipe of the shepherd who loves his sheep.

CAPUT VI. Envy forestalls the thoughts of mercenary shepherds who are refuted by comparison.

Unable to overcome him, because they did not call upon the Savior who is the destroyer of envy, they weave calumnies against John, twisting some of his homilies into struggles against the Empress and others in the emperor’s court. It happened at that time that Acacius, the bishop of Beroea, had arrived in Constantinople and, as he said, had not found a good inn; being grieved at this, he was puffed up with anger as though having been scorned by John. Overcome by unrestrained thoughts, he brings forth absurd speech from the abundance of his heart, worthy of his own mind, saying to certain of John’s clergy: "I am preparing a pot for him." Straightway joined with Severian and Antiochus, and Isaac the Syrian, a vagrant, a leader of false monks, who was always worn out in slanders against bishops, they consider arming themselves (ostensibly against John, but in truth against the glory of the Savior). They sent first to Antioch, seeking out the failings of his youth. And when they failed after searching out searches (Ps. LXIII, 7) and found nothing, they sent to Alexandria to the craftiness of Theophilus, who was called "The Buskin," who was skilled in engineering such matters; who, straightway opening the books of his own mind with much treacherous quiet, searched, looking for a way of pretense, even a trifling one.

DIAC. Stay, Father, the swiftness of your words, before I forget, so that I may tell you the cause that crossed over from Alexandria to us and was bruited about. For they say that John received into communion clerics deposed by Theophilus, having grieved Theophilus, which he ought not to have done; and that from this, having been alienated, he proceeded against John.

EPISC. Let us grant that the aforementioned rumor is true; and is it for a bishop to cure an evil with an evil? And where is that evangelical saying: *Let not the sun go down upon your wrath* (Eph. IV, 26)? And where is the apostolic: *Overcome evil with good* (Rom. XII, 21)? And where is the prophetic: *If I have repaid those who repay me with evils* (Ps. VII, 5)? Was it not, then, more disputatious to say, accusing him before reverent bishops: "Brother John, it has escaped you that you have done such-and-such," and for John to have answered that he was ignorant of the matter?

DIAC. Truly you have spoken, if indeed there was any good will in him, and he was not masking the cause of the clerics to satisfy his own anger.

EPISC. By the fear of God, therefore, who rules over the infinite worlds, I will not tell you otherwise, but as the nature of the matter stands regarding these clerics you spoke of. A certain Isidore, a priest already from the time of the ordination of the blessed Athanasius the Great, eighty years of age (whom most Romans know since he had invaded it on account of ecclesiastical matters, as a host of Alexandria—and you yourself know the man, when he came with Acacius and brought the communion of Flavian to Theophilus, which had been broken off for twenty years on account of the blessed Evagrius, who had undergone many struggles in ecclesiastical labors)—to this Isidore a certain widow of the magnates gives a thousand gold pieces, having urged him against the table of the Savior, to purchase linens to clothe the poorer women of Alexandria, not sharing the knowledge with Theophilus, so that he, having taken them, might not expend them on stones—for a certain Pharaonic stone-madness possesses him for buildings, which the Church has no need of. And let such things as these lie in second place; but hear the thing that is urgent regarding Isidore. Having taken the coins, then, Isidore expends them upon the needy and the widows. Theophilus learned of it from somewhere (for nothing of what was done or spoken anywhere escaped him, having "work-spies" and "word-spies," if I may not put it otherwise), and he calls Isidore, inquiring with moderation if these things are so. Not denying, he confessed the administration of the matter. Having heard this, he changes the scene, and he who was but a moment before moderate and seemed-gentle in his questioning, swelled up entirely after the discourse, changing his expression upon the entry of Isidore's answer. And having been quiet for a small time, like a skulking dog, after two months he brings forth a document, having convened the priesthood, and with Isidore present, saying: "This I received eighteen years ago, Isidore, against you, and since I was very busy, I gave the matter to oblivion; but now, searching for other papers, I have found this document about you; make your defense against it." Now the document contained a crime of sodomy. Against these things Isidore, answering, says to Theophilus: "Let us grant it to be true, that you also received the document and it escaped your notice; was there not he who gave the petition, so that he might be demanded a second time?" Against this Theophilus said: "But the boy was not there, being a sailor." And Isidore: "He was not there at once, as you say, Papa; was he not there after the voyage? Was he not there in the second year, nor the third? And if he is present now, order the man to stand." Against this Theophilus, being about to become contemptible by the truth itself, delays it to another day. And having importuned a certain youth with many promises, he anointed him for accusation against Isidore, having given him, as they say, fifteen gold pieces, which he straightway brings to his mother. And she, in part did not accept it because of the unswerving eye [of God], and in part was overturned by the fear of the laws, pondering lest Isidore, having been slandered, appeal to the governor of the districts; so, coming, she confesses the drama-making to Isidore, showing him the coins which she said she had received from the sister of Theophilus as a wage against the innocent. And she, indeed, for many reasons, but especially for this, having paid the penalty worthy of her deed, dies, being operated on for her breasts. Against these things Isidore remained at home, supplicating God. But the youth, fearing the laws, partly . . .

if he should fail in his target, fled to the church, a useful ^A bulwark, clinging to the altar. Thus Theophilus, with justice silent, eliminates Isidore from the Church, having spread abroad abominable things, masking his injustice with gravity. Thereafter Isidore, fearing lest Theophilus, urged on by a heavier wrath, might meditate snares for his own safety (for he is accustomed to progressing even to these lengths, they say), with speed seeks the mountain of Nitria to the order of monks, where he had tarried as a youth: and sitting in his cell, he prayed, calling upon the most patient God. Conscious of a victory lacking in decency and certainty, Theophilus sends letters to the neighboring bishops, and orders that certain of the primariis be expelled from the mountain and from the inner desert, and these the principal monks, without any cause alleged. When these monks with the elders had descended to Alexandria, they besought Theophilus to state ^B the cause for which they had been condemned and cast out. He, however, looking with bloodshot eyes like a dragon, glared with a fierce, bull-like manner; now indeed livid, now pale, now again smiling bitterly, carried away by immoderate wrath, with his own hands he casts the omophorion around the neck of Ammonius, a man of advanced age, after he had inflicted lashes upon his cheeks and bloodied his nostrils with punches, crying out with these words: "Heretic, anathematize Origen," when nothing regarding Origen had been proposed except the petition for the sake of Isidore. For such is wrath, like dogs, it brings forth blind words and deeds. Therefore, thus blood-stained, and having returned without an answer to their own monasteries, they pursued the intended institution of their lives, sharpening their genius with the knowledge of Scriptures, through which salvation is acquired, caring the less for his insanity because they were conscious to themselves of no evil.

CAP. VII

Theophilus changed his hatred toward them, he eagerly seized the matter, admonishing them to hide the cause of their arrival in religious silence until he should send word to his brother, Theophilus. And having given them lodging for their rest in the church called Anastasia, he himself did not provide what was necessary for their use, but religious women provided for their sustenance, as they themselves also contributed something from the work of their hands. It happened, then, at that time, that certain clerics of Theophilus were in Constantinople, purchasing in advance the promotions of magistrates who were designated to govern in the Egyptian administration, procuring favors for him to the destruction of those who were annoying him. John, therefore, having called them, inquired if they knew the monks who were present. They bore witness to the men with love of truth, saying to John, "We know them, and they have endured great violence; and if it pleases you, master, do not share spiritual communion with them, so as not to grieve the Pope, but show them kindness in other ways, for it befits you as a bishop." Thus, John did not receive them into communion, yet he wrote, entreating Theophilus: "Grant me this favor as to your son and brother," having embraced the men. In addition to this, Theophilus did not grant the favor to John, but he sent some who were practiced in logical contests, about whom we spoke above, and he prepared them to submit petitions which he himself had habitually dictated, containing confessed falsehood, but clothed in the multifaceted slander of matters invisible, having nothing of their life to accuse. And he prepared them to be pointed out in the palace like sorcerers. When the monks saw that they were not only not correcting him, but were stirring him to greater anger, bringing many supporters to him, along with anathematizing every false doctrine, they submitted suppliant petitions to John, having explained the types of tyranny, along with certain chapters which I am ashamed to mention for the time being before the simpler ones, so as not to drive them away from the faith, perhaps not even being believed by the more perfect. Again, both by himself and by other bishops, John exhorted them to cease from the accusation against him because of the hardship from the trial, having written to Theophilus that "They have been driven to such a degree of grief as to accuse you in writing; henceforth, write back what seems good to you, for they do not endure to withdraw from the camp at my request." At this, Theophilus, having been wholly inflamed, also barred the brother of the monks, Dioscorus the bishop, from his own Church, who had grown old in the Church; and he wrote to Bishop John: "I believe you are not unaware of the decree of the canons at Nicaea, where they stipulate that a bishop should not judge a case outside his own territory; but if you are unaware, having learned it, abstain from the petitions against me. For even if it were necessary for me to be judged, it should be by the Egyptians, and not by you, who are at a distance of a seventy-five-day journey from here."

Chapter VIII – Latin

^A Having received the letter, John read it and kept it by himself, but he spoke to the monks of both parties about matters of peace. When both parties heard this, they were ashamed, the one as having been tyrannized, the other as not having the authority for peace without Theophilus, because they had submitted the petitions of slander by his command. Thus, John, having given them an answer, dismissed them from his own mind. In addition to this, the monks of the injured party departed and composed petitions of many lines, having written against the monks as slanderers, and against Theophilus things pertaining to Theophilus—to say no more—as many as each one knew; and having entreated the Augusti, they approached the shrine of Saint John, begging the Empress that the petition of the opposing monks be examined before the prefects, and that Theophilus, made to appear even against his will, be judged before John. The petition was enacted, having this decision: that Theophilus, having been made to appear by the Magister, even willing or unwilling, should stand trial before John; and that the monks of Theophilus should take a stand for themselves regarding the crimes of which they had accused the holy elders, or else suffer the penalties of slanderers. Thus, therefore, Elaphius, the one who is now among the princes, was sent to Alexandria to bring Theophilus, and the prefects carried out the rest of the imperial decision. While the trial was being conducted and was ending in a dead end, the laws indeed stood by, baring the sword; but those wretches, fearing the outcome, refer ^B the matter to Theophilus, as if he had suborned them and dictated the petitions. Thus the tactical order casts them into prison until the arrival of Theophilus, not enduring to accept bail in such a case. And of these, some died in custody, having wasted away because of the slowness of Theophilus, while others, after the arrival of Theophilus, who had smoothed over the matter with money, were condemned by the laws in the final examination to inhabit Proconnesus as slanderers. Thus Theophilus, having appeared, just like a dung beetle ^C laden with the dung of the finest things from Egypt and from India itself, pouring forth fragrance in place of stinking envy, entered Constantinople at the sixth hour, on the fifth day of the Sabbath, being held fast by the naval throng, bearing away the shameful glory, about which the Apostle foretold, whose glory is in their shame, adding: "Who mind earthly things" (Philipp. 3. 19); and he is lodged in the dwellings of the unrighteous, having fled the Church, forgetful of that saying of David: "I have chosen to be cast aside in the house of my God rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners" (Psal. 83. 11); being barred from the church by his own conscience. Having spent three weeks of days, he encountered neither Bishop John, according to the custom of bishops, nor did he approach the church at all, but he remained struggling night and day, having attached the new hatred to the old, so that he might drive Bishop John out not only of the Church, but even of life itself. This he did partly by profligately bribing with gold the superstitious among those in power against the truth, and partly by enslaving the gluttonous with a luxurious table, and partly also by flattery and by promises of greater status attracting the sycophants among the clergy. Having bound all these without a rope with pleasures as if ^D

^A by a seductive demon, and having bewitched their capacity for judgment, he sought a demonic appearance for the service of his drama, which he also attained. For when two deacons had been ejected from the Church by Bishop John on account of enormous crimes, he abused the levity of these men and persuaded them to present formal complaints against John, promising that he would restore them to the place of their ministry (their crimes were, for the one, adultery, and for the other, homicide); and this he did. For after the exile of John, he replaced them in their posts, when they had indeed presented the petitions—which he himself had dictated, containing nothing of truth, save this one thing, that he warned everyone after communion to partake of water or a small cake, so that they might not, by a slip of saliva or phlegm, unintentionally eject something from the sacramental symbol; for he himself was the first to do this, and he instructed those who wished to observe such religion and reverence. Having received the petitions, he gathered in the house of Eugraphia with Severianus, Antiochus, Acacius, and the others who were hostile to John because of his modest admonitions. For that blessed man, following the example of Paul, was accustomed to preach what is honest and decent both publicly and in private, especially rebuking such women as these: "Why, being already aged, do you force your bodies to look young again, carrying locks of hair on your forehead like harlots, and offering insult even to the honest women who remain, and deceiving those who converse with you, and that to widows?" But they, being gathered together, were seeking how they might orchestrate a trial. One, however, of ^B those who were present suggested that they should give the petitions to the Emperor and compel John, even against his will, to come to the assembly. This, therefore, was done, just as formerly among the Jews, with gold making all things smooth and easy. We were forty bishops with Bishop John, sitting in the dining hall of the bishop's residence, wondering how it was that he who was the accused, and who had been ordered to come to the Palace alone because of impious charges, had arrived accompanied by so many bishops, and how he had so quickly changed the opinions of the princes and magistrates, while most of the clergy had been stirred to the worse. But while we were wondering, John, inspired by the Spirit of God, said to all: "Pray, brothers, and if you love Christ, let no one on my account desert His Church; for I am already being poured out, and the time of my departure is at hand" (2 Tim. 4:6), according to Paul, whose words these are; "and having suffered many afflictions, I am, as I see, about to leave life." For I know the snares of Satan, in that he can no longer endure the weight of my words against him. Thus may you obtain mercy. In your prayers, be mindful of me. Seized, therefore, with incredible grief, some indeed were weeping, others were departing from the assembly, kissing his eyes and his sacred head and his eloquent and blessed mouth, dissolved in tears and sobs. But when John had entreated them to return to the assembly, fluttering here and there like bees buzzing around their hives, he said: "Sit, brothers, and cease weeping, no longer softening me. For *to me to live is Christ and to die is gain*" (Phil. 1:21). For it had spread abroad that he was to be beheaded because of his excessive freedom of speech. "And if you remember, call to mind your own memories, for I have always said to you: 28 ^C The present life is a way, through which the happy and the vexatious things pass; and the present age is a market: we buy, we sell, and we depart. Are we better than the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, that this immortal life should remain for us?" Then one of those who were present, lamenting, said: "But we lament our abandonment, the widowhood of the Church, the subversion of the sacred laws, the ambition of those who do not fear the Lord and who invade the helms of the Church, the poor who are destitute of all aid, and the scarcity of sound doctrine." But when he had struck the palm of his left hand with his index finger (for John, being a lover of Christ, was accustomed to do this when he was thoughtful), he said to the one addressing him: "It is enough, brother, speak no more, but what I have said, do not abandon your Churches. For the ministry of preaching did not begin with me, nor did it cease with me. Was not Moses dead? And was not Joshua found? Did not Samuel decease? And was not David anointed? Jeremiah left this life, did not Baruch arise? Elijah was taken up, did not Elisha prophesy? Paul's head was cut off, did not he leave Timothy, Titus, Apollo, and other countless men?" After these words, Eulysius, bishop of Apamea in Bithynia, said: "It is necessary for us who hold our Churches to be compelled and to communicate and to subscribe." The holy John said: "Communicate indeed, so that you do not rend the Church, but do not subscribe. For I am conscious of no wickedness of mine for which I deserve to be deposed." When these things were so, it was announced that those who had been sent by Theophilus were present. He orders them to enter; having entered, he asks them of what rank they were: they say, "Bishops." He prays them to sit and to say for what cause they are present. They, however, say: "We have only these ^D documents to be read: order them, therefore, to be read." John orders them to be read. Then they command the boy of Theophilus to read those dictates; and he read. The text, however, was of this sort: "The holy Synod gathered at the Oak (the place is so called across the sea, a suburban estate of Rufinus, in which they were gathered) to John (they omitted that which was there, 'Bishop'. For a blinded mind is usually not accustomed to see rightly, but to imagine for itself those things which its own passion suggests to it). We have received petitions against you, containing infinite crimes. Be present, therefore, bringing with you Sarapion and Tigrius the presbyters; for there is need of them." Now those who had come to him were Dioscorus and Paul, who had lately been ordained in Libya, young men. When the papers were read, the bishops who were with the blessed John contradict, denouncing to Theophilus through three bishops, Lupicinus, Demetrius, and Eulysius, and two presbyters, Germanus and Severus, all indeed holy men and worthy of faith: "Do not subvert the affairs of the Church, nor rend the Church for which God descended into flesh. But if you are subverting the Nicene canons of the three hundred and eighteen bishops in an orderly manner, and are judging a case beyond your bounds: do you cross over to us into the city founded by the best laws, not provoking Abel to the field after the manner of Cain, so that we may hear you first. For we have against you petitions of seventy chapters, containing manifest sins, and we are more numerous than your Synod, gathered by the grace of God."

for your synod, gathered by the grace of God, not for the overthrow of the Church, but in peace. For you yourselves are thirty-six from one province; we, however, are forty from different provinces, among whom there are also seven Metropolitans, and it is consequential that the minority should be judged by the majority and the more distinguished according to the canons. For we have your letter, through which you advise our fellow-minister John that he ought not to admit extraterritorial cases. Therefore, obeying the ecclesiastical laws, exhort your accusers, either to desist from the accusation against you, or to come to him for audience.” ^B Moved by these words, John said to the bishops of his party: “As it seems right to you, declare it; it is fitting for me to respond to what has been declared to me.” And to those around Theophilus he sent back the following: “If anyone has anything to say against me, I have never known of it until now; but if anyone has spoken against me and you wish me to be present, cast these manifest enemies of mine, who have been turned to malice against me out of their own negligence, out of your gathering; and I do not dispute the place where I ought to be judged, even though it were most fitting for it to be in the city. There are those whom I refuse, Theophilus, whom I convict of having said, both in Alexandria and in Lycia, ‘I am setting off to the *comitatus* to depose John.’ And it is true, from the fact that when he arrived he neither met with me nor communicated with me. Whoever, therefore, before the hearing has finished the work of enemies, what might he do after the judgment? Similarly, I also convict Acacius for what he said: ‘I am preparing a pot for him.’ And regarding Severian and Antiochus, whom divine justice will soon overtake, what is there even to say, whose innovations and secular theaters are sung of? Therefore, you are entreated, if in truth you wish me to come, [to do so regarding] these four; if as judges, cast them out of the council; if as accusers, place them at the judgment, that I may know how to prepare myself, whether as against adversaries or as judges; and I will certainly come, not only to your charity, but to a synod of the whole inhabited world. So then, know that if you send to me ten thousand times, you will hear nothing more from me.”

When these had departed, a *notarius* stood at his feet holding a royal letter, in which they had petitioned that he be compelled to come to the judgment against his will, and he urged him toward the trial. After the reply to the *notarius*, two presbyters of John were announced, a certain Eugenius, who received the episcopal see of Heraclea as a wage for the plot against Bishop John, and the hesychast Isaac, that I may not speak otherwise, saying: “The synod has declared to you; cross over to us, to answer the charges.” To this John sent back word through other bishops: “By what consistency do you judge, you who have neither expelled my enemies nor summoned me through my own clergy?” But they, having seized the bishops, beat the one, and tore the garments of another, and placed irons upon the neck of the third, which they had prepared for the saint, so that he might be thrown into a ship in this way and sent to an unknown place; the demon having made them as savage as lions. And the holy man, knowing their shameless intent, restrained himself. But those noble fellows, having made records weaker than a spider’s web for the sake of appearance, pronounce judgment against the blessed one, those who neither saw his face nor heard his voice, in one day completing the malice that had been woven over much time; for the demonic impulse is unstoppable, not waiting for consideration. And having sent a report to the emperor, they prefixed: “Since John, having been accused of certain evils, and being conscious of it, did not wish to appear, the laws depose such a one as this”; which is indeed what he suffered. The libels also contain a charge of *lèse-majesté*. “Command, therefore, your piety, that he be driven out even against his will, and give account for the *lèse-majesté*, since it is not permitted for us to examine these things.” O thrice-wretched men, what you think and do! Be ashamed to do these things, fearing or reverencing not God, but men. And the *lèse-majesté* was the abuse against the queen, as they reported it, that he said she was Jezebel. And those wonderful men, having desired to see his death by the sword, reported it thus; but God also revealed the malice dwelling within them, and softened the heart of the rulers; just as it happened in the case of Daniel in Babylon. ^C For there the lions were tamed, sparing Daniel, but the men were turned to savagery, not sparing the prophet, and God shamed those who had been turned to unnatural savagery by those who were tamed against nature.

Chapter IX

communed with John, that they might not commit the same things as before. When the leaders learned of this, they were annoyed at their communion with John. And Theodore, indeed, the bishop of Tyana, a distinguished man, ^A having understood the conspiracy from the things that reached his ears, so that he might not follow the rashness of Theophilus, left everyone uninvited, and returned to his own Church, saying a long farewell to the Comitatus, and walling off his province with the rampart of piety, persevering to the end in the communion of the faithful Romans; of whom Paul testifies: "Your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world" (Rom. 1:8). Pharetrius, moreover, the bishop of Caesarea by Argaeus, fearing in excess—like children at masks—not even having gone out of his city, agreed by letter with the adversaries of John, although not called into the midst, acting ineptly in the episcopate, from ignorance of better things. Finally, Leontius, the bishop of Ancyra in Galatia, was joined with Ammonius, bishop of Laodicea the Burnt, and rendered the Church burnt. These men, not only defeated by the threats of the princes, but on the contrary deceived by the hope of imperial gifts, suggested to the second Synod an evil opinion against Acacius and Antiochus, that the unjuridical judgment of Theophilus might prevail, and that by no means should a place for defense be given to John, on the allegation of the canons sent by Theophilus, which forty of the communion of Arius had composed, which stand thus: "If any bishop or presbyter, properly or improperly deposed, returns of himself to the Church without a Synod, such a one shall no longer have a place for defense, but shall be absolutely expelled." And this canon, as one impious, brought forth by the impious, was abrogated in the Council of Sardica by the Romans, Italians, Illyrians, Macedonians, and Greeks, as thou, O great-named Theodore, knowest better than I, when Liberius or Julius, during the reign of Constans, admitted Athanasius into communion, as well as Marcellus the Galatian, for whose sake this canon had also been made. ^B Yet Ammonius and Leontius, a wonderful pair, joined with Acacius, Antiochus, Cyrinus of Chalcedon, and Severian, went in to the Emperor, intending to advise that ten bishops should be summoned from John’s side (though there were more than forty), to bring authority to the canons; with some indeed contending that they were of the orthodox, but others demonstrating that they were of the Arians. Now, Elpidius, bishop of Laodicea in Syria, an old man in mind and gray hair, and Tranquillus, entered, and persuaded the Emperor that it was not right for John to be cast out with his case unheard. For he had not been deposed before, but cast out by the Count, nor had he returned of himself, but by the command of thy piety, a notary having been sent for that purpose: "And the canons which they now bring forth, we show to be those of heretics." But when John's adversaries persisted in arguing disorderly, others indeed with a more contentious voice, others agitated impudently by the tumultuous shaking of their chests before the Emperor: Elpidius, most learned and observant of the canons, after a moderate quiet had been made, as if in a calm, said gently to the Emperor: "Emperor, let us not vex thy clemency any longer, but let this one thing be done; let our brothers Acacius and Antiochus subscribe that they are of the same faith as those who edited the canons, which they propose as if edited by the orthodox: and the controversy is solved." The Emperor, having observed the simplicity of the proposal, smiling, said to Antiochus: "Nothing seems to me more useful than this." But the Emperor was unaware of all the things that had been done, with others changing things that had been well constituted. Driven therefore by vertigo, and turned within themselves, they who were with Severian, like unstable water, because of that which had been prudently said by Elpidius and approved by the Emperor’s judgment, held their peace, their faces turning pale: yet constrained by the tightness of the place, even unwillingly they promised to subscribe. Having thus gone out, they do not fulfill the promise, as it was involuntary, fearing that they might be vanquished; but they were machinating by what means John might be expelled. While these things and others were being done otherwise, nine or ten months passed, while Bishop John, with forty-two bishops added to him, held meetings, and the people enjoyed his teaching with great alacrity of spirit. For a mind free of vainglory is accustomed, in afflictions, to pour forth a more pleasant and powerful sermon. Meanwhile, the Dominical fast flourished, arriving like spring after a year. ^C Having entered therefore privately with his own men, Antiochus spoke thus to the Emperor about John, as if he were already defeated, that he might order him to be cast out with the approach of Pascha. The Emperor, when he was urged by them, necessarily placed faith in them as bishops. For whoever is truly a presbyter or bishop does not know of falsehood. For those names are of the heavenly region, since there is nothing older to God, nothing which He inspects more watchfully: for God inspects and contemplates all things. Therefore, a bishop or presbyter ought to be a partaker of the things as well as of the names. John, therefore, the Emperor notifies to depart from the Church. He replies: "I have received this Church from God the Savior, that I may take care of the salvation of the people, and I cannot abandon it. If, however, thou willest (for the city pertains to thee), cast me out by force, that I may have thy authority as an excuse for the abandoned order." So, with a certain bashfulness, sending [him] out of the palace, when they had cast him out, ordering him meanwhile to remain in the house of the episcopate, awaiting some event of divine wrath: so that, if anything sad should happen to them, they might the more quickly return him to the Church, and appease God: if not, that they might again weave snares, like Pharaoh against Moses. Meanwhile, there came the day of the great Sabbath, on which the Savior, having been crucified, despoiled hell: and again they notify him to depart from the Church. He writes back things that were consistent. ^D Moreover, the Emperor, fearing the sanctity of the day and the turmoil of the city, summons Acacius and Antiochus, saying to them: "What is the need of being done? See that you have not counseled rightly." Then those generous and more than magnanimous men said to the Emperor: "Emperor, let the deposition of John be upon our head." A final aid: the forty bishops who were with John, equal in number to the days of the holy fast, approached the Augustus and the Augusta in the martyr-shrines, beseeching with tears that they might spare the Church of Christ, especially because of Pascha.

those who were to be regenerated and had already been initiated ^A into the mysteries, having received their priest. They were not listened to in this; so that the holy Paul, bishop of Cratia, said with fearless candor: “Eudoxia, fear God, and show mercy to your children; do not profane the feast of Christ by the shedding of blood.” The forty bishops having returned, kept watch in their lodgings, some with tears, others with grief, while others were seized by an invincible stupor of mind, just as each one’s passion governed him.

The presbyters of John, however, who had the fear of God, having gathered the people in the public bath called Constantianae, kept the vigil, some reading the divine Scriptures, others baptizing the catechumens, as was fitting for Easter. These same things the mischief-makers and deceivers—those around Antiochus, Severianus, and Acacius—brought back to their patrons, asking that the people be prevented from the assembly there. The prefect at the time refused, saying: “It is night, and there is a great multitude; let no reckless incident occur.” Those around Acacius replied: “No one remained in the churches, and we fear that the Emperor, entering the church and finding no one, will perceive the favor of the people toward John, and condemn us as envious, especially since we have told him that there is absolutely no one who willingly attends to him, as a man devoid of peace.” Thus the prefect, having protested to them about what would happen, provides a certain Lucius, a Gentile as they said, a leader of the number of the targeteers, commanding him to go and moderately call the people back into the church. Having gone and not being heard, he returns to those around Acacius, describing the intensity and density of the people. After this, they earnestly entreat him, persuading him with golden words and the promise of greater advancement, so that he might hinder the glory of the Lord, instructing him either to persuade them with words to go to the church, or by wrath and disturbance to stop the meeting of the feast. He, having immediately taken with him clergy of the party of Acacius, went out at the second watch of the night, for the purpose for which he was sent. For they keep the people in our districts even until the first cockcrow, having four hundred newly recruited Thracian swordsmen, like Esau, excessively shameless, and he leaped suddenly into the night with the clergy who were pointing them out and the soldiers, recklessly, like a wolf, having cut through the crowds with glittering iron. Having moved inside the holy fonts to prevent those being initiated into the resurrection of the Savior, and having been boldly thrust against the deacon, he pours out the symbols; and having struck the presbyters, who were already somewhat aged, on the head with clubs, he stained the font with blood. Then it was possible to see that angelic night, in which even demons fall down in terror, transformed into a labyrinth. For women, naked with men, were fleeing in terror of being butchered or disgraced, embracing an ugly flight; another, having been struck in the hand, went off lamenting; another dragged a virgin after tearing her clothes; but all, having plundered the treasures, were claiming them for themselves. Thus, those of the presbyters and deacons who were captured were thrown into prison; the others, among the people ^B of the great city, were cast out of the church. Edicts were posted one after another in different places, containing various threats for the refusal of communion with John. But yet, even these things happening, the so-called bishops competed in doing more from the outside; and the assembly of the lovers-of-instruction, or rather the lovers-of-God, was not disbanded; but according to what is said in Exodus, the more they killed them, the more they multiplied.

The next day, in any case, the Emperor, having gone out to exercise in the nearby field, saw the untilled land around the Fifth [milestone] shining white, and being amazed at the sight of the flower of the newly-baptized (for they were about three thousand), he asked his guards: “Who is this gathering of those collected there?” Having misled him, they say: “They are the heterodox,” so as to provoke the Emperor’s anger. When the middlemen and patrons of this envy recognized it, they send back the most reckless of their followers for the scattering of the hearers and the capture of the teachers. Those who came, again seized a few of the clergy, but more of the laity. And Theodore said: “O most blessed Father, and with them being so many, as there were three thousand newly-baptized alone, how did a few soldiers master them, having disbanded the assembly?” THE BISHOP: “This is no sign of scarcity, nor a proof of indifference, but an advantage of piety and a demonstration of the care of the teachers, constantly rectifying the unconquerable nature of the mind.” And Theodore said: “You have spoken excellently; for it was not fitting that those learning prudence and gentleness from the holy John should defend him foolishly and tumultuously.”

Chapter X

THE BISHOP: Having been pleased at this, I pray, do not interrupt the words which have been born from evil events; for events are wont, for the most part, to give birth to words. Along with the clergy and laity who were seized, women of distinguished men were also captured. And there were those whose headscarves they snatched; and they even pulled off others’ earrings along with the lobe of the ear; as, for instance, seeing the wife of a certain Eleutherius, who was very fortunate, having abandoned her own headscarf and having changed into the apparel of a servant, she rushed into the city for the salvation of her modesty. For she was, as you might expect, wearing a beautiful form and a naturally graceful build. In this way, then, the prisons of the various officials were filled and turned into churches; and hymns and the offerings of the mysteries were performed in the prisons, while lashes and tortures and fearful oaths were contested in the churches, for the anathema of John, who until death had been an enemy to the malice of the devil. When Pentecost was completed, after five days, those around Acacius, and Severianus, and Antiochus, and Cyrinus having entered to the Emperor, say to him: “O King, you represent God to us, not being under any authority, but having authority over all, it is permitted to you to do what you will. Do not become softer than presbyters, and less holy than bishops; we said to you before all: John’s deposition is upon our own head. Do not, therefore, spare one man, having spared none of us.” By Jewish words, and perhaps, too, by deeds, having persuaded the Em-

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CHAPTER X

...commending him to God, leave the Church." Thus, Bishop John, following an open and undisguised order, departed from the episcopal residence with the bishops, saying to everyone: "Come, let us pray and bid farewell to the angel of the Church," joyful indeed because of the actual events, but grieving because of the sorrow of the people. Immediately, one of the pious nobles signaled these things to John: "Since Lucius, a man who is bold and shameless in his appearance, is ready in the public bathhouse with his soldiers to drag you out and expel you—even if you should contradict or delay—and since the city's populace is being stirred up, hurry to depart secretly, lest the people, in defending you, join battle with the soldiers." Then John, kissing some of the bishops with tears (for his grief would not allow him to kiss the rest), said farewell to the others in the sacrarium: "Remain here for now," he said, "so that I may depart and rest a little."

Having entered the baptistery, he called for Olympias, who would not depart from the Church, and likewise for Pentadia and Procla the deaconesses, and for Silvina, the wife of the blessed Nebridius, who adorned her widowhood with honor and modesty; and he said to them: "Come here, daughters, listen to me. Things relating to me have reached their end, as I see; I have finished my course, and perhaps you will no longer see my face. This is the one thing I ask: that none of you be distracted from your customary goodwill toward the Church; and whoever is brought to ordination against his will, with the consent of all, do not seek it for yourself; submit your head to him as to John, for the Church cannot exist without a bishop. Thus may you obtain mercy, and be mindful of me in your prayers." They, bathed in tears, cast themselves at his feet. Then, gesturing to one of the venerable presbyters, he said: "Take them away from here, lest they disturb the people." Thus, having been held back for a little while, they seemed to acquiesce.

And so he went toward the eastern part (for there was nothing western about him). In the western part, however, where the great vestibule of the Church is, he ordered the beast of burden which John was accustomed to ride to stand before the gate, so that he might disperse the people who were waiting for him from that part. Together with him went out the angel of the Church, unable to endure the desolation of the Church, which wicked leadership and powers had caused, displaying the appearance of a theater of iniquities. For there was, as in a theater, the hissing of the impious as they hissed and mocked, of the Jews and Gentiles deriding and jeering immoderately; but as in a prison, there were blows and tortures inflicted upon the viscera by the soldiers, and the tension of all the mental faculties, as much on account of the removal of the teacher as the blasphemy against God. For where there should be the remission of sins, there occurred the shedding of blood.

After that ineffable and inexplicable darkness, a flame from the middle of the seat upon which John was accustomed to sit—like a heart in the middle of a body, as it were, interpreting the Lord's oracles to the other members—seemed to be seeking the interpreter of the Word of God, and, not finding him, it consumed the seat, and rising on high, crept through the chains even to the roof, and like a viper, its belly wasted away, it was carried to the back of the church building, God rendering the reward of injustice as it were defined as a punishment for that, for the correction and admonition of those who do not know how to repent unless they see evils sent by God. Nor was it only for that reason, but in order to leave a monument to that wild Synod. Nor is this a wonder regarding the church, when the [36] Senate, which is called "that of the outsiders," many paces distant and opposite the church to the south, that fire, having wisely bypassed the intervening multitude of people like a bridge, laid it waste; not first the part of the church nearby, so that we might not ascribe that damage to the proximity, but the part closest to the Emperors' palace, so that it might prove by the miracle of the thing that it was wisely done by God. For it was possible to see, between two mountains of fire, the people safe and sound, going about their own business.

In this way, therefore, the fire, flying around and surging like a sea tossed by a violent south wind, moving as if by a signal, seized the neighboring houses round about without discrimination, and spared only the small chamber in which a supply of sacred vessels was stored—not out of reverence for the gold or the rest of the silver furnishings, but so that he would not give those who slandered him room to lie against the just man, as if he himself had claimed the most beautiful things for his own. Thus the fire, stirred up, reflected backward, investigating the envy of those who had perpetrated these things, to the convicting of Theophilus’s madness, in that he concocts that he had expelled John on account of the sacred vessels. And indeed, no one's soul perished in such and so great a tumult, neither man nor animal; rather, the filth of those there living wickedly was washed away by the power of the fire from the sixth hour to the ninth, with the work of many years destroyed in three daylight hours.

CHAPTER XI

DIAC. And while these things were happening, Father, where at last was the blessed John or the rest of the bishops? EPISC. The rest of the bishops were either detained in confinement, or were being dragged away, or others had hidden themselves. Furthermore, John, together with Cyriacus and Eulysius, was held in bonds in Bithynia by the prefect's soldiers, who were threatening punishment on account of the burning of the church. Afterward, Cyriacus and Eulysius were brought in chains with the rest of the clergy and, having been declared innocent, were released. But the holy John, to the rest of the confidence which he had always used before, added this last, writing to them these words: "If in other things you did not give me a place for defense, at least let me be heard in the affairs of the Church, whether I be the author, as you say, of its burning." Thus, not heard even in that, he was led night and day by the soldiers into a most desolate little town of Armenia, Cucusus by name, surrounded by the Isaurians, so that he might be slaughtered. Arsacius, brother of the blessed Nectarius, was substituted in the place of John, the great interpreter of sacred things, a man more mute than a fish, and less fit for doing things than a frog. For sometimes action itself speaks, when a good work has been done for its own sake. When he had prolonged his life for fourteen months, he died, having violated his oath on the Gospels. For he had sworn to his brother Nectarius that he would never admit the ordination of any bishopric, when Nectarius had reproached him for not wishing to be placed over the Tarsian Church, as if he were watching for his death. The cause of the perjury was first of all vanity, for which he was ambitious, so that he might thus...

one might say, betroth his brother's wife; and afterwards it was shame, since the rebukes brought upon him by his brother were prophetic. ^A In place of this Arsaces, Atticus is introduced from among the presbyters, a craftsman of every engine against John. Since he saw that none of the Eastern bishops were in communion with him, nor indeed the people of the city, because of the events that had followed so lawlessly and uncanonically, and since he was unskilled in the divine Scriptures, he brought it about that those who were not in communion were compelled by imperial rescripts. The rescript against the bishops had this threat: "If any bishop does not communicate with Theophilus, Porphyry, and Atticus, let him be cast out of the Church, and let him be thrown out of the possession of his own property." Hence, some who were weighed down by the burden of their possessions communicated even against their will; others, who were poorer and weaker in sound faith, were dragged into communion by the promises of certain gifts; others, however, ^B despising lineage, and possessions, and country, and ephemeral glory, and bodily affliction, preserved the nobility of the soul by flight, having in memory that evangelical saying: "If they persecute you in this city, flee into the other" (Matt. 10:23); and citing for themselves that saying of the Proverbs: "Possessions shall not profit in the day of wrath" (Prov. 11:4). Some reached Rome, others were saved ^C in the mountains, and others in the retreats of the ascetics, away from the Jewish wickedness. The rescript against the laity contained this: that those who were in offices should fall from their dignity according to their ranks, that the soldiers should lose their belts, and that the remaining commoners and craftsmen, being assessed at a heavy weight of gold, should be subjected to exile. Nevertheless, even these things were done, and the prayers of the faithful were performed in the open air with much hardship, in love for the Savior who said, "I am the way and the truth" (John 14:6), and again, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). And the blessed John, having lived in Cucusus ^D for one year, fed a great many of the poor of Armenia, not so much with bread as with the word; for a great famine had reached that country at that time. But the fratricides, envying him even for this, transferred him to Arabissus, subjecting him to various hardships, so that he might leave this life. Even there he shone not a little in his virtues (for "a city cannot be hidden if built upon a hill, nor can a candle burning brightly be hidden by a wooden bushel"); for as it were from the sleep of ignorance, he awakened those who were utterly stupefied by unbelief from the entire surrounding region to the ray of the word. But being burned more intensely by the flame of envy, those around Severianus and Porphyry and certain other bishops of Syria brought it about that he should be moved from there too; for he was burdensome to them not only in the comforts they supposed he had, but much more in his hardships, as they were unaptly disposed toward the nature of temptations, not remembering the divine oracle to the Apostle when he was in tribulations: "My grace is sufficient for you; for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). For seeing that the thanks for John was being sung, after his migration from the Antiochians to the Armenians, and from there again to the Antiochians, they prayed to destroy his life, ^A being tormented as if by the lashes of the tales—for such is hateful envy—so that those who saw the clergy accompanying him, marveled and said: "Behold the terrible dead man, terrifying the living and those in power, just as ghosts terrify children." Amazing! Those who are clothed with worldly powers and ecclesiastical wealth, with authority and with the rule of affairs, are afraid of the priest, the lone man, the man without a city, the man infirm in body, the exile; they grow pale and tremble. No longer able, therefore, to endure hiding the snake in their dwelling, they sent word to the military camp and procure again a stricter rescript with a fine: that within a short deadline he be moved to Pityus, a desolate place of the Tzani, situated on the shore of the Pontic Sea. ^B The soldiers of the Praetorian Prefect who were escorting him pressed him so hard along the road, saying they had orders that if he died on the way, they would be rewarded with higher ranks. One of them, having less concern for the present service, showed some small human kindness by stealth; but the other was so cruel and difficult that he considered the flatteries made toward him by those who happened by, out of pity for the holy man, to be insults, caring only that John should die a hard death. For when there was a torrential rain, he would go out without any concern, so that the streams of water were carried across his back and chest. ^C And he considered the intense heat of the sun to be a delight, knowing that in this the Elisha-like skull of the blessed one would be troubled. To any city or village where there was the comfort of a bath, the wretch would not allow him to stop even for a moment. And in all these things, while walking for three months that most grievous road, the holy man remained shining like a star, having his little body like an apple reddened by the sun on the tips of the branches. ^D Having approached Comana, they passed it by like a bridge, staying outside the wall in the martyrium five or six miles away. On that very night, the martyr of that place stood by him, Basiliscus by name, who was martyred while being Bishop of Comana under Maximian in Nicomedia, along with Lucian, who was a presbyter of Antioch in Bithynia, saying: "Be of good courage, brother John; for tomorrow we shall be together." They say he had also previously said to a resident presbyter: "Prepare the place for brother John; for he is coming." John, having faith in the oracle, on the next day begged them to stay there until the fifth hour. They, however, did not listen, and drove him on; but having come about thirty stades, they turn back again to the place of the martyrium from which they had set out, since he held himself to be in a bad way. Having returned thus, he sought the bright garments worthy of his life, and having stripped off the former ones, he put on fresh ones, having changed even his shoes; and he distributed the rest to those present. And having partaken of the Master's mysteries, he made his final prayer in the presence of those there, saying the customary phrase: "Glory to God for all things," and having sealed it at the end with "Amen," he stretched out his feet, which had run beautifully for the salvation of those who had chosen repentance, and for the rebuke of those who had richly cultivated sin. If the rebukes did not benefit the wicked, this was not due to the weakness of him who spoke with boldness, but to the stubbornness of those who did not endure it. Adding to those of the

to his fathers, and having shaken off the dust, he passed to Christ, as it is written: Thou shalt come to thy grave as ripe corn, which is reaped in due time: but the souls of the impious shall die untimely (Job V, 26). Such a multitude of virgins, and ascetics, and of those who bore testimony of holiness, was present from Syria and Cilicia and Pontus and Armenia, that the most part thought they had arrived as if by a signal. Being prepared therefore for burial, and honored with festive celebration, like a victorious athlete, he is buried together with Basiliscus in the same martyr’s chapel.

^B CAP. XII. — In addition to these things, Theodorus, marveling, asked, using the words of Scripture: Since it is written, said he, Do not fail in the discourse of the elders; for they also learned of their fathers (Eccli. VIII, 9): tell us willingly what was the cause, why he alone took food, and whether he truly ate alone, as they say. ^C EPISC. It is confessed, indeed, that he ate alone: but I would not, most pleasing Theodorus, that thou shouldst have inquired into the things of gluttonous infants. For since thou art a man, thou oughtest to seek out the virtues of men: how he might be fearless, how he was concerning money, in temperance, in meekness and justice, in almsgiving, in prudence and fortitude, and in forgetfulness or memory. For food does not commend us to God, neither if we eat, nor if we do not eat, but knowledge working with action. But he ate alone, as I know in part, for these causes. First indeed he did not drink wine because of the heat of his head, unless perhaps during the heat he used rose-water: secondly, because his stomach was disordered by a certain infirmity, so that well-prepared dishes might seem unpleasant to him, and he required others that were not at hand. Then sometimes he would forget to eat, putting it off until evening; being partly occupied by ecclesiastical cares, partly abstracted by divine contemplations. For he struggled so that no part of the divine Scriptures might be unpassable to him; and such things love either starvation, or light food. Furthermore, it is the custom among guests, unless one sweats with them, or sips, or giggles with an indecent laugh, carrying a warm cup with the tips of his fingers, to turn the friendliness of the table into a curse. ^D To sum up, however, as I think, and more truly, he was very sparing toward luxurious guests, deeming it sacrilege that expenses should be made on such; and at the same time cutting off from the stewards opportunities for theft, lest they should decuple the prices of provisions in their books, claiming the needs of the poor for themselves. Furthermore, considering the multitude of the city, he saw that he must either honor all with such honor, as being the steward of Christ, or provide that thing to none. Looking also to the tumults of the table and the magnitude of the expenses for the poor, he shuddered at that thing, bidding a long farewell to such sorts of mischief; echoing to himself that which is in the Acts of the Apostles: Men and brethren, it is not for us to minister to tables, but we will appoint religious men for this work; but we will give ourselves to preaching and to prayer (Acts VI, 2, 4). For just as a circus horse, which can no longer run the stadium, is relegated to the mill, gyrating in an endless cycle; so having thus retired, the doctor spreads the table as if it were nets to catch men: and would that it were at least for the hungry and needy! whence it is permitted to gain the blessing of the Lord: I was hungry, and you gave me to eat (Matth. XXV, 35): but for the rich only, so that he may be well spoken of, either for the sake of fading glory, or that he may be invited back by them, or if none of these things, so that he may not be ill spoken of; unmindful of the curse of the Lord saying: Woe to you when all men shall bless you (Luc. VI, 26). He did not say, Poor, but, Men. For similarly were their fathers doing to the false prophets. Let us not seek therefore, as those who are eager for vainglory, O Theodorus, the glory of the false prophet. For John came, neither eating nor drinking, in the way of righteousness; and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine, a friend of publicans and sinners (Matth. XI, 18, 19). DIAC. Not that I would altogether find fault, excellent Father, or insect such severity of life, have I interposed this questioning to thine exact narration: for I knew both from the fame itself and from his writings which have reached us, and from his homilies or epistles, the purpose of that man; but so that, having discovered his purpose, I might emulate that thing. For who is so stolid in every respect as to be ignorant that the loss from the table is greater than the gain, unless there be need to receive the saints in necessity? EPISC. These things also I said, O most truth-loving Theodorus, not extenuating the virtue of our fathers, especially hospitality. For out of the other virtues which tend toward piety, that one is the first through which the masters of the patriarchs, one indeed found the Savior God as a guest, another had angels as hosts; one indeed [obtained] a son in old age, another truly found salvation from Sodom with his daughters: concerning whom both the Apostle speaks, stirring us to imitation, Be not forgetful of hospitality: for by this some have received angels into hospitality when they knew it not (Hebr. XIII, 2). It behooves the receiver of guests, however, to have both the prudence of the serpent and the simplicity of the dove, obeying the two dictates of the Lord: to this one, Give to every one that asketh thee (Luc. VI, 30); and to this one, Do not introduce every man into thy house (Eccli. XIV, 31), lest admitting a wolf for a sheep, or a bear for an ox, thou shouldst exchange gain for loss. First, however, one ought to test the place in which one is constituted, whether it be desert, or frequented; then his own genius, whether he can tolerate absurd mores; then to discern who ought to be affected by the benefit, whether he be rich or poor, whether sound or infirm, whether he is in need of food or clothes: for in these is active mercy occupied. For the blessed Abraham did not receive consuls, nor dukes, nor men preeminent of this worldly age, among whom there might be horses flashing with gold or bit, or rattling with bronze bells, far off emitting a noise of pride; but inhabiting a desert place, he received those who came together there. But those who were passing through the desert, either on account of virtue came to the patriarch, or on account of mendicancy, which is the final poverty. For poverty is the medium between excess and defect: excess indeed of riches, but defect of mendicancy.

^A inhabiting a city of the desert, might justly welcome the travelers arriving there, on account of the mores of the inhabitants. But if someone, dwelling in a very well-regulated city, such as that of Constantine, in which all are hosts, perhaps one of the presbyters should superfluously abandon the ministry of the Word, employing himself in taking care of provisions, he deceives himself, deeming a tavern-keeper to be instead of a teacher, and by the dilution of his thoughts causes the pure knowledge to vanish, reaping the prophetic reproach: "Your tavern-keepers mix wine with water" (Isai. 1. 22). For by as much as wine excels water for those who are weak, by so much does the teaching of the Word excel hospitality. For the one benefits those who are with him, but the other benefits also those who come after him; and the one profits not only those who are present, but also the absent—the present through the tongue, the absent through what is written. Such was the Savior in the flesh, who, having fed five thousand with loaves, not in a city, but in a desert, taught those who were present through his tongue, and saved the world through the written Gospels. For such especially are the words of the Spirit-bearing ones. And do not marvel, Theodore, if someone fills a hungry man with food, but rather if someone delivers a soul from some impurity. For he who fills the belly, either by a gift, or by money, or by bread, or by herbs, is easily found providing for the need; but the feeder of the Word is rarely found, and when found, he is either not believed, or is barely believed, since the evil spirits always oppose the salvation of souls. This famine of the teaching of the Word, threatening to bring it in the form of punishment, the Lord God said to the prophet: "I will bring upon them a famine, not a famine of bread and water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord" (Amos 8. 11). And concerning the sensible famine, it is possible for one who has abandoned a city or region in need to be saved in another, just as the holy patriarchs who descended from Palestine into Egypt; but concerning the famine of the mind, it happens to the Churches from nothing else but the shortage of teachers, as another prophet said: "They shall run to and fro from sunrise to sunset seeking the word of the Lord, and shall not find it" (Ib. v. 12). For what good does not grow out of teaching? And what untimeliness is not found out of untimely nourishment or ^B feasting? Diseases, fights, insults arising from the belly, and the things that follow from these. When was Eve cast out of paradise? Was it not that she listened to the serpent and ate of the tree, not being content with the appointed food? When did Cain commit the stain of fratricide? Was it not when he first tasted the first-fruits, reserving the first place for his own gluttony? When did the children of Job find the table to be an impromptu grave? Was it not when they were eating and drinking? When did Esau fall from his blessings? Was it not when he served his belly, deceived by the food? When did Saul fall from his kingdom? Was it not when he ate the best of the sheep against the law? When did the people of Israel provoke God? Was it not when they desired the Egyptian table, seeking meat and pots from the teacher? Why were Ophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, put to death in one hour in the war? Was it not because they snatched with flesh-hooks from the cauldrons the meat that belonged to the sacrifice? And Jacob, that rebuked man, why did he kick? Was it not because he was filled, and grew fat, and grew thick and wide? And when did the ^C Sodomites commit acts against nature? Was it not when they corrupted their minds with continuous banquets, being recorded by Ezekiel for their insolence, saying: "In abundance of wine and satiety of bread they luxuriated" (Ezech. 16. 49), that is, the city, and its daughters, that is, the villages, always following the custom of the city? And when did the thought of temperance fail the ancient people? Was it not when they lived luxuriously on mats similarly; the prophet lamenting: "Who eat the kids from the flocks, and the sucking calves from the herds, drinking refined wine and anointing themselves with the first ointments, luxuriating on their beds, and suffering nothing over the destruction of Joseph" (Amos 6. 4-6)? Upon whom did Isaiah bring the lament? Was it not upon those rising early for banquets? saying thus: "Woe to those who rise up in the morning, and follow strong drink; who wait until the evening: for wine will burn them up: for they drink wine with harp and psaltery; but they do not look upon the works of the Lord" (Isai. 5. 11. 12). When were the priests of Bel put to shame by Daniel? Was it not when the ashes exposed them, having hunted them through foods or drinks? And what need is there for me to speak about those who ^D have chosen to walk the broad way, and revile the narrow? The Savior's word is sufficient for me for the rebuke of those who pursue the smell of meat: where he shows the nameless rich man, luxuriously feasting every day in the present life, desiring and missing the crumbs and the drop of the poor Lazarus. But let us also behold the choir of the saints of old, and let us learn at last with what character of teaching they used, with that of a dignified life and virtuous word, or with that of banquets and luxury. Was Enoch the first translated by faith, or by a banquet? Then did Noah save the generation of the habitable world by faith in the ark, when the earthly world was being cleansed from the continuity of banquets and impure deeds, or by fasting and prayers? Do not the Scriptures proclaim his shame, and not his glory, through the fact that he was undone by a drink from such a great storm? Was the blessed Abraham victorious over the five kings in Sodom by faith and righteousness, or by food and drink, having called Lot to mind? And Theodore said: If you bring Abraham into the middle, then hear also from me; for any person will tell you that he overcame the war by faith, but he hunted God through the table, as you yourself previously suggested. BISHOP: Hurrah! Since Abraham hunted God with a table, shall we all then, abandoning faith and the other virtues, cherish banquets? differing nothing from tavern-keepers or innkeepers who have fortified for themselves the highways for the sake of this very gain. And so, the virgins, who are struggling to be holy in body and spirit to the glory of God, since Mary gave birth to Christ, let them also give birth; for if they do this, they will not differ from prostitutes. For if the teachers, on account of Abraham, prepare tables, and the virgins, on account of Mary, let them give birth. Far be it, most honorable one, that we should insult things well done or being done in their own proper time; for each man’s conscience, if it wishes, suggests what is advantageous. Then did the wrestler Jacob gain the things of Laban by asceticism or by banquet-mastering?

^A No, he sought nothing else in his prayer except bread and clothing, saying: If you will give me bread to eat and clothing with which I may be covered, all that you give me, I will give you a tithe of it (Gen. 28:20). He did not say, "I will spend it on banquets." That interpreter of God and faithful servant, Moses, with what sort of furnished table did he assemble the people on the mountain? What craters, what cups did he have? He who drew forth the rock with a rod because of the people's infidelity, who governed six hundred thousand men, who carried the tablets of the law for the amendment of the people: did he produce translucent phials, or the breasts of swine, or birds of Phasis, or fish from the sea, or wine strained from Tyre, and set out sumptuous loaves for those who were being instructed, or did he provide doctrine? ^B

DIAC.

BISHOP.

not bound, and the fat you slaughtered; you ate, concerning whom Paul writes: For you endure it if someone enslaves you, if someone devours you, if someone takes from you (2 Cor. 11:20); even though you wore wool, you did not tend the sheep. And in Jeremiah he says concerning idle shepherds: Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard (Jer. 12:10). The Deacon says: He could surely have cared for them at certain times and looked after ecclesiastical matters, so that he might not appear to be ill-spoken of, being great in other respects. Bishop: This is precisely what is required of a priest, that he be not ill-spoken of, but rather that he liberally provide the word, care, zeal, and the rest of the priestly disposition. Ah, but you know, venerable Theodorus, that even in the case of wrong accusation, a blessing has been determined by the Lord when He says along with the other beatitudes: Blessed are you when they revile you and say every evil word against you (Matt. 5:11). But woe to you when all men shall speak well of you: for so did their fathers behave towards the prophets (Luc. 6:26). How could one who is trained in the divine oracles, and whose ear is accustomed to hear divine utterances, have endured the talkativeness of the table, when the Lord says: No man can serve two masters; and then, You cannot serve God and mammon (Matt. 6:24)? Let us ask, therefore, what is "mammon," lest we be found serving not two masters, but only mammon. For by "mammon" He does not now mean the devil, but the empty labor of this world, from which the Word has led away His own disciples.

Chapter XIII - Deacon/Bishop Dialogue

Deacon: Return, O most sacred Father, to narrating the other matters, since the argument concerning the table has been sufficiently demonstrated. And do not be angry with me for the objections raised; for, wishing to learn something more, I questioned your great learning more thoroughly. Bishop: Let this be said to you more clearly by me, most studious Theodorus (for I myself have become one of those who are eager to please crowds through the table), that a bishop, especially of a great city, who has abandoned the ministry of the word, who does not have the books of the law in his hands by night and by day, and who does not perform the care of the poor by himself, but through others, will be far from those who said: Behold, we have forsaken all and followed you; what then shall we have? (Matt. 19:27). He will be numbered among those who said: Lord, have we not in thy name done such and such things? (Matt. 7:22). He will hear with them: Depart from me, you cursed; I do not know you, from where you are (Luc. 13:27). For the Word does not acknowledge those who are unskilled laborers; for His eye is pure so as not to see evil. For many of those who are called bishops, while they desire to cut away their own neglect of spiritual things, they exchange one passion for another—avarice for vanity—wronging others with one hand for shameful gain, and with the other hand fashioning tables, and erecting pillars of lofty buildings, so that by these appearances they might seem good and industrious, reaping honor instead of dishonor, not remembering the Preacher who both built and hated, and clearly forbade such things when he wrote: I made for myself houses and gardens, and the rest; and behold, all is vanity; and I hated all my labor which I laboured under the sun (Eccl. 2:5, 11, 17). He did not say, Above the sun,

not to injure intellectual labors. I say these things, not including those who build or repair churches for a just cause and necessity; but for the sake of those who consume the goods of the poor in hanging porticoes, and reservoirs of rainwater on third floors, and the indecent baths of effeminate men in hidden places, both to scrape together more money, and to be loved by buffoons and mimes, who for their own benefit repay this one reward, that they permit everything for the pleasure of those who sin. Far be it from me, Theodore, a man of great name, to ever please the wicked: for I will not please them from any other quarter than from those things which do not please Christ. ^B *Diac.* Upon this, the wondrous Theodorus asked, saying: Since these things have been spoken so naturally, and there is no room for contradiction, if you know anything of those things which were done in Asia by Saint John, of whom our discourse is now, communicate it to us. *Episc.* And entirely so. *Diac.* Did you know it as a present witness? or did you receive it from another? *Episc.* But I was not wanting in the slightest part of this trial. *Diac.* What, then, were the things that followed, and what end did they receive, and from where did they have their beginning, show me in detail: since most especially Theophilus, wishing to honor or cover up his own rashness, says in his book that the blessed John, moved by the lust of power, had deposed sixteen bishops in one day, and ordained his own men in their place. *Episc.* That wondrous man did nothing alien to his own character, both when he wrote against John, and when he wrote falsehoods. For from those things from which he thinks he will hide his own foulness, from those same things he exposes it the more, even unwillingly adorning the innocence of John, after the manner of Balaam. For if, when he had deposed [them], there was no need of a document, nor of exile, since the deposition itself suffices for the confusion of those who are deposed; but since one endowed with virtue cannot be deposed, and, though defeated, he brings back the victory, envy remains, reaping ruin from an unjust victory, swelling like a bubble; and shattered in itself, writing and inscribing that of Isaiah the prophet, drawing upon himself that "woe," while he both does, and says, and writes all falsehoods. For "Woe," says Isaiah, "to those who write: for they write iniquity" (Isa. X, 1). But concerning those who were deposed in Asia, not sixteen, but only six bishops, so that I may speak before God the judge, I will subtract nothing from the quantity of the number, I will add nothing to the quality of the matters, but as the truth stands, so will I explain it to you. In the thirteenth indiction, the Asian bishops came to Constantinople for the sake of certain necessities: these were staying with us, with other bishops also present from Scythia, namely Theotimus, and from Thrace Ammon the Egyptian, and from Galatia Arabianus, all metropolitans and elders, up to the number of twenty-two bishops. And when all were gathered, and were communicating, a certain Eusebius from the Cilbian hills, bishop of Valentinopolis, having watched for the gathered Synod, coming on one Sabbath, delivered libels to the Synod, having prefixed, as was consequent, the name of John, against Antoninus, the bishop of Ephesus, inserting seven chapters. The first, indeed, that having melted down sacred vessels, he had made silver for the use of his son; ^C the second, that he had brought marble from the entrance of the baptistery into his bath: thirdly, that he had set up ecclesiastical columns, which had been lying for many years, in his own dining-hall: the fourth, that his boy had committed murder, whom he still kept in his service unblamed: the fifth, that he had sold the estates of the Church left by Basilina, the mother of the Emperor Julian, and claimed them for himself: the sixth, that having dismissed his own wife, he had again associated with her, and had procreated children from her: the seventh, that he held it as a law and statute to sell the ordinations of bishops according to the ratio of their revenues. There are present both those who gave and those who were ordained, and he himself who received: and besides these, I have proofs.

CAPUT XIV.

*Diac.* Contract this narration, I pray, Father: for those here present are hurt, with bishops recounting these things, much more with them committing them. *Episc.* Woe is me, who have been reserved for these days in which the Priesthood is sold for money, if indeed it is a priesthood. For I have acted foolishly in recounting these things, since the detractors of John have driven us to it. But I beseech you to bear with me patiently, so that from this also you may admire the moderation of John, who with his zeal quieted for the time, said to Eusebius: "Eusebius, brother, since it often happens that accusations which are made from perturbation of mind do not have easy proofs, I beseech you to be persuaded to cease to accuse brother Antoninus in writing, while we correct the causes of the trouble." To this, inflamed with anger, he used harsher words, carrying himself entirely against Antoninus, and persisting in the accusation. John exhorts Paul, the bishop of Heraclea (for he seemed to favor Antoninus), to compel them into friendship. And rising up, he entered the church, together with the bishops; for it was the time of the sacrifice: and having prayed for peace for the people according to custom, he sat with the remaining bishops. But the accuser Eusebius, having slipped in secretly, offers another libel before all the people and the bishops containing the same things: adjuring John with horrid oaths, by which he also embraced the safety of the Emperors, with much perturbation: so that the people, terrified by his imprudence, thought that he was asking John to procure his life for him from the Emperor. But John, as he saw the man's insistence, desiring to keep the people imperturbed, received the libel, and when the divine oracles had been read, he prays Pansophius, the bishop of Pissidia, to offer the divine gifts: he himself went out with the remaining bishops. For he did not want to perform the sacrifice with a troubled mind, obeying these things of the Gospel: "When you offer your gift" (Matt. V, 23), and the rest. And after the dismissal of the people, considering with himself, and sitting in the baptistery with the remaining bishops, he calls for the accuser before everyone, saying to him: "Again I say the same to you, that many, compelled by grief or anger, both say and write many things which they cannot prove. If, therefore, you know clearly the things of which you wish to accuse him (for we do not repel you if you can; nor do we drag you if you cannot), before the libel is read, choose what is expedient: for after it has been read, and has come into the ears of all, with the record of acts completed, it will no longer be permitted, since you are a bishop, to ask for an acquittal." After these things, he again ^D

^A bids them read the bill: the aforementioned chapters were read. The senior bishops, having heard the substance of the book, say to John: "Even if, in the maximum sense, one chapter is impious and forbidden on all sides by the sacred laws, still, so that we may not appear to have wasted all our leisure on the allegations, let the inquiry begin with the most fearful one. For if that is found to be true, there is no contradiction possible for the remaining chapters, since the root of that one chapter bears every kind of wickedness, according to the One who said: 'The root of all evils is avarice' (1 Tim. 6:10). For he who took gifts from the innocent, and thought to sell the distribution of the Holy Spirit for silver, how will he still spare the sacred vessels, or stones, or lands of the Church?" Then John begins the inquiry, saying to Antoninus: "What do you say to these things, brother Antoninus?" He denied it of necessity. For how was it possible for him, from the very outset, to confess his own shame? Those who had given were interrogated, and they too denied it. ^B As the inquiry was conducted diligently upon these matters until the eighth hour, the trial began to take shape from certain evidence. At last, as is to be expected, it arrived at the witnesses, before whom they had given and he had received. The witnesses were not present; there was a need for their appearance. John, looking at the laboriousness of their appearance, was eager for the cleansing of the Church and for the sake of sparing the witnesses, intending to go to Asia himself to carry the inquiry to its conclusion. Antoninus, seeing the diligence and incorruptibility of John, as one conscious of his own guilt, approached one of the dignitaries, who also looked after his lands in Asia, and begged him to have John detained, so that he should not go to Asia, promising the production of the witnesses. This man immediately prepared a message to be declared from the palace to Bishop John, as follows: "It is an absurd thing, that you, being a bishop and a guardian of our souls, at such a time of expecting an uproar, should abandon the city and ^C undertake a journey to Asia, when the witnesses can easily be brought." Now the expected uproar was Gainas the barbarian. And, what more? So that I may not be long-winded, he is persuaded to remain, being concerned both for the trial and for the destruction of the witnesses. For a godsend to the accused was the postponement regarding the witnesses, whom he was able to make flee either by money or through authority. John, having foreseen these things, considers with the present synod that some of the bishops present should be sent to Asia for the interrogation of the witnesses. Therefore, three bishops were immediately appointed to go down: Synclitius, metropolitan of Trajanopolis, Hesychius of Parium, and Palladius of Helenopolis, the synod having declared in the minutes that whoever within two months did not appear and stand by his rights in Hypaepa, a city of the Asians, because those being refuted and the remaining bishops required to judge together with those around Synclitius were neighbors, this man should be held excommunicate. In addition to these, the appointed Synclitius and Palladius went down to Smyrna—for Hesychius, being a friend of Antoninus, feigned illness; ^D and they immediately wrote and signaled their arrival to both parties, so that by running together to the appointed city, they might fulfill their promises. But they, having persuaded one another, one with money and another with an oath, became friends before the arrival of the judges. Coming together in the guise of the Hypaepians, they thought to mock the judges regarding the postponement of the witnesses once again, as having left for various needs. In addition to these, the judges asked the accuser: "Are you then managing to bring them within these days? And we shall await them." Thinking that they were departing because they were distressed by the harshness of the weather (for it was in the pure intensity of the summer season), he promised in writing that within forty days he would either bring the witnesses or suffer the penalties of the canons. Having been released for the search for the witnesses, he left the matter and reached Constantinople, secretly hiding there. The judges awaited the forty days, as is to be expected; and when he appeared nowhere, they sent to the bishops throughout all Asia, making him excommunicate, as either a deserter or a slanderer. After this they waited another thirty days, and as he appeared nowhere, they departed and came to Constantinople; and happening upon him there, they rebuked him for his audacity. He again, feigning bodily infirmity, promised the witnesses. While they were thus wasting time, Antoninus dies, with whom Eusebius had the lawsuit. Again, a decree comes from Asia, this one from the clergy of the Church of the Ephesians, and this one from the bishops, to John, containing a request with a fearful oath: "Since in previous times both the institutions and we ourselves were led and governed in confusion, we request your honor to descend and impose a God-given pattern upon the Church of the Ephesians, which has been afflicted for a long time, partly by those who think the things of Arius, and partly by those who, with avarice and self-love, boast that they are Catholics: because many lie in wait, as grievous wolves, hastening to seize the throne through money." John, in such bodily infirmity and in the winter season, setting nothing painful before his eyes, for the sake of the restoration of the things of the whole Asian diocese, which were diseased due to inexperience or the lack of shepherds, strengthened by eagerness, entered a ship and departed from the city. But a violent northern wind having arisen, the sailors, fearing lest they be cast upon Proconnesus, having set the sail to the wind that was driving them, they slipped under the mountain of Triton; and having cast anchors there, they remained awaiting the south wind, so that they might arrive at Apamea. Having therefore remained two days fasting and tossed in the ship, on the third they went out to Apamea, in which Paul and Cyrinus and Palladius the bishops were waiting; for these John had taken as his companions. And having traversed the way by foot, they fall into Ephesus; and having gathered the bishops of Lydia and Asia and Caria, amounting to seventy men, they perform the ordination, with many coming together from voluntary eagerness, especially the Phrygians, for the enjoyment of the wisdom of his mouth, according to what is said: "Wisdom is praised in the exits" (Prov. 1:20); that is, in those who speak; "and she speaks with confidence in the streets" (Prov. 1:21 LXX); that is, in hearts that have been widened through various afflictions, according to that: "In affliction you widened me" (Ps. 4:2). For wisdom is cramped in those who cultivate weeds, and they choke the word.

As the ordination of those others was performed by Peter and John with fasting, prayer, trial of the clergy, and fear, these men on the contrary acted with gluttony and drunkenness and shameful gifts—abortions of humanity, who were worthy neither of irrational swine nor of dogs, according to him who prophesied concerning Job from the person of the Savior: "Whom I deemed not worthy to be with the dogs of my flock, who lived under thorns" (Job 30:1). But to those who live among mimes and Jews, as friends of the Savior, the mysteries of the priesthood are entrusted by those who claim wisdom; on account of whom even the orthodox crowds flee the oratories. For there reached us that new and most frivolous crime of the Ephesian Church—and why not, since Ephesus is a maritime city and easily carries rumors along? For into that place—or rather, into the place of John who wrote the Gospel and leaned faithfully upon the breast of Wisdom, concerning whom it is written: "Whom Jesus loved" (John 21:20), to whom Timothy, the disciple of Paul, to whom two of the Apostle’s Epistles are addressed, succeeded—there succeeded the "abomination of desolation." For after having a eunuch ordained by those of Victor the tribune, they placed him in the bishop’s seat. And the man who had been established by the seventy bishops, they have kept in prison to this very day, a man well-trained in circular disciplines and learned in the divine Scriptures, who had lived the monastic life in the desert and had been a deacon for three years. And would that the eunuch who was ordained had lived a decent life, and this evil had been, as it were, halved! But now, a worm of the earth, a slave to his belly, insane with a love for women, impudent, drunken, lecherous, venal, illiberal, and avaricious, cursed from his very birth; neither man nor woman; furious, and who, as I have heard often, carried theatrical girls on his shoulders during satyric banquets, with his head crowned with ivy, carrying a mixing bowl in his hand and pouring wine in the guise of the mythical Bacchus. And he did all these things not before he was initiated into Christ, but after his baptism—showing by these things that he does not believe in the resurrection. For he who subverts the foundation of the resurrection, how does he believe in it? And he who does not believe in the resurrection, in what way will he be a preacher of the resurrection, according to him who said: "How then shall they preach, if they have not believed?" (Rom. 10:14). This man is chaste by no merit of his own, being cut with iron, but otherwise he raves fruitlessly through his own filth. These are the things which were done in Asia, about which you asked, because Theophilus wrote that sixteen bishops had been deposed by John. You may be certain that there were six. The acts of the flower are also extant, which are preserved by us with the subscriptions of the twenty-two bishops who heard the case from the beginning, and [the seventy] of those who deposed them and finished the case. ^A

DIAL. CHAPTER XV.

CAP. XVI.

^A their wickedness, not only do not feel remorse for what has been done, but they even pray that their evil dealings should remain firm and unshaken. For those who were not afraid to set the Gospel upon a degraded head, upon which the unbridled [feet] of women danced—to whom else shall they be numbered, if not to those who placed the crown of thorns upon the Son of God? Moreover, if you know the manner of the ordination of Porphyrius of Antioch, or those who ordained him, or the past life of the man—whether he was obscure or notable—and his doctrines—whether true or false—declare them to us, especially since he has even written to the Church of the Romans and was not deemed worthy of a reply. THE BISHOP: The same will be my discourse on the truth; for I shall not forget the voice of the Master saying: *For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account in the day of judgment* (Matt. 12: 36). But I, having added this boldly, would say it also concerning every idle hearing. And so do you also secure yourself; if you do not perceive me to be speaking the truth, do not be overcome by my gray hairs, but by the nature of the facts themselves. For what profit would there be for me, having lied about things said today or yesterday, to be put to shame forever before the exact judgment? And how shall I bear the millstone of slander upon the neck of my mind, being dragged down into the depth of Gehenna for those who took scandal ^B through my lies? This Porphyrius spent time in the Church, and having served as deacon and having performed the priesthood in the presbytery, while bearing a character foreign to the times, he proved of no spiritual use to the Church at any time. Being always in opposition to the neighboring pious bishops, as one who was of a very great city and had the magistrates in his power, he made a trade of the matter. Plotting against the sacred ordinations, he would steal in, with the cleverness of his ways, upon the bishops of the time, as one might say, dragging them even against their will and leading them to wind-blown ordinations. For stubbornness ^C is terrible, according to the comic poet Menander, woven together with perversity, as he says: *Hard is it, Pamphile, for a free woman to contend with a harlot; she knows more, she does more evil; she respects no one, she flatters rather.* And according to the wise Solomon, *the words of the flatterers are soft, but they strike into the inner chambers of the belly* (Prov. 26: 22). For he is not only a stranger to temperance regarding carnal pleasures, but even an enemy, like a vulture to myrrh, so that a report of his Sodomitic madness gained strength. For since laws and measures and walls had been laid down by nature regarding pleasures, as the many say, he, having trampled the wall, and smashed the measure, and outraged the law, brought forth this reputation, that he should take the lead and feast with conjurers and charioteers and those showing the ancient [plays] with unseemly movement and twisting of the leg. For he did not shrink from competing with conjurers and associating with them in a friendly manner, so that charges were even recorded in the official records of various magistrates, not having read the maxim: *What you ought not to do, do not even suspect that you should do.* ^D Because of whom the mediator was killed by blows, and the finder was exiled, and the conjurer was banished. They say that in addition to the aforementioned evil deeds, after the ordination he melted down the sacred vessels and squandered them upon the magistrates, so that he might seem to rule, not by reason, but by tyranny over those who miserably fell into his hands. For it was at the time of John’s exile to Armenia that the death of Flavianus, the bishop of Antioch, coincided. Porphyrius, having seen both the men’s and women’s quarters hanging with longing upon the neck of Constantius the presbyter, who had served the Church from his tenderest years—a man, as the Judges say, of both hands—for even his supposedly left hand was better than the right hand of others—he who, having first served in correspondence, was found faultless of shameful gain and gifts—but later, having reached [the rank of] reader and deacon, he conquered without struggle the pleasure of the women who reigned among men, as the Proverb-writer says: *The hand of the elect shall rule easily.* For to rule is perhaps [possible] even for those who are wicked, who by fear or shame prevent the operation of the body with much necessity; but not to be overcome by the desire for those on high, [in comparison] to those below, is something peculiar to the lovers of God, whom also Scripture named the elect, saying, *The hand of the elect shall rule easily.* For he is gentle, if any other is, an ascetic, perceptive, sharp to understand, slow to punish, contemplative, always hinting at the skeptical, merciful, free from the love of money, just in his judgments, long-suffering in the face of insults, vigorous in persuading, having often extended [his] fast until evening in order to deliver those being oppressed, solemn in appearance, piercing in his gaze, quick in his gait, unmarried, as is likely, preserving the blooming smile upon his face even in the midst of his very sicknesses. Therefore, he prepares to have such a man as this banished by means of money in this way: Having sent to the camp to those who held power over the bishops, he causes him to be exiled by imperial letter to Oasis as a disturber of the people. He, knowing it immediately, is saved by his friends to Cyprus. But Porphyrius himself, having placed those around Cyriacus and Diophantus the presbyters, and the remaining clergy, under his own order, watches for a time in which the whole city was shifting toward the suburbs of the city, having with him those around Acacius and Severianus and Antiochus hidden—one of the famous festivals among the Gentiles being celebrated at an interval of four years, of the Heraclean games, called the Olympians, in which, so to speak, even the swarms of women are stirred up along with the common people to Daphne for the spectacle of those contending. Having dashed into the church with the aforementioned bishops and a few clergy, he is ordained in secret, with doors locked, with much haste, so that they might not even finish the prayer, for fear of being caught. For such is adultery, both sowing and begetting and watching. Those around Severianus, having received the sufficient [fee], fled through mountains and pathless places, having escaped human fear, but having fallen into the divine [fear], which they did not know. When the public theater was dissolved and the people had entered into the city, the incident concerning Porphyrius and the drama concerning Acacius was announced to them. Having therefore endured through that evening until the next day, as having been struck by the adultery, they rose up in a body and flowed together with fire and brushwood, wishing to annihilate Porphyrius with the rooms. But Porphyrius, not being ignorant [of the fact that he is hated with intense hatred], having abandoned God, flees to the prefect of the army, and having filled his hands, he wages war against...

^A the hearers of the Savior, turning him away from the Isaurian war. And the Isaurians, indeed, being the greatest pirates, were ravaging Rhosus and Seleucia; but Porphyrius and Valentinus the Count, with armed men, were plundering the church of the orthodox; they were taking the fearful sign of the cross, which they carried as a master in numbers, and performing litanies on uncultivated ground, trampling it with their own feet. After a few days, he sends in haste to the Comitatus, and arranges with such magistrates that a certain green and raw old man, of perverse, crooked morals, might be created Prefect of the Night Watch ^B, so that, having license to calumniate whomsoever he wished, he might hold the city in his hand, imitating the manners of Nero, the enemy of God. For it is not given to him to persuade by speech, but to vex by irrationality and savagery. Indeed, he did not have as his aim to please God, by leading back wandering souls, but to fill the belly of the serpent that moves upon its breast. The people, therefore, though reluctant, gather in the church in appearance, for fear of blows, but in reality, they execrate their own life and await the vengeance of God. At these things, Theodore, being stunned, said: "Beyond nature and reason, Father, you say one resists. For ^C mostly, those who are eager for vainglory desire to please men, and they are found to be sycophants, and they prepare sumptuous tables, that they may be loved and heard well, often enduring even spitting. How, therefore, did Porphyrius, or some other, exercise threats and punishments and exiles, I do not know." Bishop. "This, however, is worthy of admiration, Theodore, that they broke forth into such an excess of wickedness, that they not only do not strive to please men, but also do not care in the least about the confusion of their own misdeeds: for malice promotes malice into malice. For then malice produces vainglory, when it hopes to rule over the foolish with its flatteries: but when those who are being captured have been found to be superior to flatteries and feasts, it brings forth threats and punishments ^D, that those whom it could not ensnare with flatteries and feasts, it might strike with savagery and terror; just as happened to the holy martyrs. For there both were expended, the cunning snare of gifts and goods, capturing those gaping after vainglory, and threats of punishments, frying pans, and torture racks, and victims, and whatever things are suitable for moving great pains, preparing, exhibiting the brave and those who love God." The more distinguished clergy of Antioch collect the people in secret, not even approaching the walls of the church, and likewise the whole distinguished society of women, on account of whom the money-greedy shepherds are especially insane. But concerning affairs at Constantinople, what does it matter to say how great a multitude has retreated from the church? Gathering in the open air, as we have said above, so that those who are in charge of ecclesiastical affairs do not have as many hearers—even of their silence; for nowhere among them is there any speech. Deacon. "You have freed my doubting and suspended mind, Father, by having subjected the things themselves to my eyes. For the consistency of the words and the unfictionalized narrative have made me more certain about the truth of the deeds. For it cannot be that a false speech should everywhere be consistent. Do not, therefore, feel burdened, if you know anything, to tell us those things which concern Olympias." Bishop. "What quality is she of? For there are many of that name." Deacon. "The deaconess of the church of Constantinople, who was once the wife of Nebridius the ex-prefect." Bishop. "That person, indeed, I know very well." Deacon. "What quality of woman is she?" Bishop. "Do not, I pray, say what quality of woman, but what quality of human being; for she is a man beyond the habit of the body." Deacon. "In what?" Bishop. "In life, in labors, in knowledge, and in patience regarding tribulations." Deacon. "Why, therefore, did Theophilus revile her?" Bishop. "Who is that?" Deacon. "The Alexandrian bishop." Bishop. "You seem to me, Theodore, to have given so many reaches of the conversation to oblivion." Deacon. "In what respect?" Bishop. "He who did not spare the truth, but trampled it down, as the previous conversation proved; and he who did not honor the Church which is under heaven, for the sake of which the Only-Begotten, as it is said, labored, that He might unite it, but wounded it with his own dress—could he spare a widow woman who consumes her life in prayer? Dissect and see if he ever reproved any wicked person, he who is always an enemy of probity. But why do you not also conjecture from his letters, how they are repugnant among themselves? For he who had treated with insults the blessed Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in Cyprus, who presided over the Church for thirty-six years, as a heretic or schismatic, under Damasus or the blessed Siricius; afterwards, in his letter to Pope Innocent, while vituperating the blessed John, he names Epiphanius 'most holy.' How many times, do you think, he has also kissed the knees of Olympias, out of hope for money, whom he now reviles? When she fell to the ground on account of that matter and poured forth tears, nonetheless that bishop was doing these things. But in what matter did he revile her?" Deacon. "Because she received the monks who had been cast out by him." Bishop. "Is it permitted for a bishop, or is it fitting, to throw out any of his disciples, or any Christian at all, to say nothing of a monk?" Deacon. "If they injured him, or cursed him." Bishop. "Ought he to have fulfilled his own anger, being anxious over a curse? How will he still seek for himself the insults of Christ, who is sailing for the sake of his own glory? But why at all did he not imitate the teacher Paul, saying: 'Being reviled, we bless' (1 Cor. 4:12)?" Deacon. "What, therefore, if those monks were heretics?" Bishop. "And yet it was altogether necessary to correct them and persuade them, and not to cast them out." Deacon. "And if he had done so, they would not have obeyed, who were stubborn." Bishop. "It was necessary to execute that apostolic saying: 'A heretical man, after one and a second correction, avoid, knowing that he who is such is subverted' (Tit. 3:10, 11); but not to expel, and to plunder goods, and to cast them out of the fatherland with the threats of magistrates." Deacon. "You relate to me the duty of a perfect man, and one who loves God, and who is patient of injuries." Bishop. "And certainly it is not a great praise to endure an inferior. But unless he is perfect, as far as is fitting, how is he a bishop of such a kind? For an imperfect man will not consult for the imperfect. But how is he also called 'Theophilus,' a man who does not love God, for whose sake he ought to have patiently borne the injuries of men? If indeed he does not love God, not even himself; but he who is an enemy to himself, how finally will he love others? It is not, therefore, a wonder if he hated Olympias, as one who had received the monks." Deacon. "In confessed indeed"

...or whether they were orthodox or heretical. Yet should the deaconess not have received them? ^B BISHOP: What then did you think? Did she act rightly, or wrongly? DEACON: I said that she acted wrongly. BISHOP: And is benevolence ever judged? DEACON: Yes, absolutely, when it is practiced toward the wicked who deserve no good. BISHOP: Who, then, were the five thousand whom the Savior fed with five barley loaves? Were they good or bad? DEACON: Obviously good, as being fed by the Savior. BISHOP: Why then were they fed with barley, if they were good? DEACON: Through a scarcity of wheat, perhaps, or a famine. BISHOP: How then are they reproached for unbelief? Were they good or bad? DEACON: If they are reproached, it is as wicked, obviously. BISHOP: And can the same people be both good and bad? DEACON: Absolutely. BISHOP: How? DEACON: ^C Good in relation to those who are worse, but bad in relation to those who are better. BISHOP: You have spoken wonderfully. In this way, then, the monks were both good and bad. The most faithful woman received them as good, but the wonderful man cast them out as bad, which he ought not to have done. DEACON: But he will say: "You received my enemies to my grief." BISHOP: It is an utter defeat for him that he even calls them enemies, when he is a debtor of insults, as if he were an imitator of Christ. DEACON: Where are the five thousand even reproached by the Savior, as you say? For they are not mentioned as being so. BISHOP: When, having gathered together, they came a second time to Jesus, hearing: ^D "You seek me, not because you saw signs and wonders, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled" (John 6:26). Theodore said: That is most clear. BISHOP: And he who is rebuked is, in this regard, bad. DEACON: Indeed so. BISHOP: Did the Savior then feed the bad or the good? DEACON: It is admitted that he fed the bad: "For those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Luke 5:31). BISHOP: What then? Has Olympias done something wrong, having imitated her own Lord, who makes his sun rise on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt. 5:45)? Even if the Pharisees reproach the disciples, saying: "Your teacher eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners" (Ibid. 9:11). DEACON: As it seems, contrary to the understanding of the many, the solemn is slandered, and the base is loved. BISHOP: To what does this speech of yours refer, most truth-loving Theodore? DEACON: That if you had not laid bare the argument for me, having explained it syllogistically, I would have been carried away to a senseless opinion, paying no heed to the goal of freedom, but to the babble of Theophilus. BISHOP: Therefore, if those holy men are shown to be not only not bad, but even to have brought many from wickedness to virtue, it will be clear that their persecutor is worthy not of being pursued, but of being pitied, as he always injures the good and accepts the bad. DEACON: It is as you have said. For even if those men are not proven to be saints, as the many say, Olympias will be beyond blame because of the preceding syllogisms, having shown the imitation of the Savior. BISHOP: And what greater testimony of deeds do you see—that of the Gospel, or that of Theophilus? DEACON: Away with that, I beg you. For it is confessed by all that those men were left by him out of some anger and desire for power, and that he insulted them out of superstition and hatred, having used the monks as a pretext. For having failed in his servile flatteries, because he received nothing from her beyond food or gifts, he turned to insults; for this is his habit toward everyone.

CHAPTER XVII

^A in the place determined by nature, he wrote his confession. And it was possible to see the wrath sent down by God, waging war with various punishments. For those who had exacerbated the physician and soother of souls, and had removed the interpreter of God from the dispensary of salvation, were delivered to the physicians of bodies for torment: who increased the pain with their ordinary remedies, but did not bring about salvation. For who shall heal him who is punished by God? As the prophet says: "Shall the physicians raise him up, and shall they confess thee?" (Ps. LXXXVII, 11). Thus all the adversaries of the peace of Thy Church perished, O Lord. ^B It is said, moreover, that the tomb of the monk Ammonius expels the horror of fever. He was buried, however, across the sea in the martyrium of the Apostles. Furthermore, Bishop Dioscorus, who, as they say, had prayed much to God that he might either see the peace of the Churches or die, was held worthy of death, since the world was not worthy of peace: and he was buried in the martyrium that is before the gate; so that very many women, omitting the oaths made by the holy martyr, swore by the prayers of Dioscorus. ^C About the other monks a great deal of our conversation would be spent in the telling, and you perhaps are hastening to other things, O man of your name, Theodore. DIAC. And who is so unhappy as not to allow place for discourses about virtue? Say then, I pray you, and with whatever reasonable discourse draw my mind away from secular thoughts. EPISC. There is, then, another Hierax, called by a profane name, but adorned with spiritual habits: who first indeed had withdrawn alone into the Porphyrite mountain outside all Egypt and the Thebaid, and indeed without any breath of man, he persevered for four years, content with virtues alone for solace; afterwards he spent twenty-five years in the solitude of Nitria with the aforementioned Fathers. To him, the demons pressing in, as he himself told us, promising a long life, were striving to move him from his proposed hope, transforming themselves into angels of light, saying: "You are to live yet fifty years: how will you endure in the desert?" But he wisely replied through faith, saying: "You have saddened me, saying the time of my purpose is shorter; for I had prepared in the desert an equipment for two hundred years." Which when they heard, they departed howling. And this very man, whom the demons had not moved by promising him a long time of life, so as to drag him into sloth, ^D Pope Theophilus, by the edict of the Prince, ordered to move, and reduced him to such necessity that he had to go to the Comitat; who now, after the death of Ammonius, has again returned to the most desolate solitude, fearing the parable of the evangelical plow (Luc. IX, 62). Another again, a presbyter named Isaac, a disciple of Macarius, who was a disciple of Antonius, most fond of solitude, spending fifty years, holding all Scripture by memory, carrying cerastes snakes in his hands without danger, from his mother's womb a virgin, when he had begun to inhabit the solitude at seven years of age, after forty years, with the aforementioned, was shaken out like a sieve by Pope Theophilus. Another Isaac, a presbyter, and himself a disciple and successor of Cronius the presbyter, a disciple of the same Antonius, and himself skilled in the Scriptures as much as any, hospitable if any other, so that for the sake of supreme humanity ^A he built an inn in the desert for the refreshment of sick monks and pilgrims arriving there to visit the blessed Fathers (it is said, however, that he was alien from all anger); when he had spent his thirtieth year in seclusion, he was vexed along with these. Of these, however, Isaac the elder had a hundred and fifty monks under him; whose disciples Theophilus constituted as seven or eight bishops, while Theophilus—that is, the "lover of God"—was [favorable]; the other had two hundred and ten; whose disciples also very many were numbered among the bishops. These are they whom we mentioned the day before yesterday, cast out of the desert by Pope Theophilus for the sake of Isidore the presbyter. These are they whom priests and deacons despised; and whom a manly woman received, for the confusion of men, and a woman deacon received into hospitality for the condemnation of bishops; whose praise is celebrated in the Churches for the sake of many things; imitating that Samaritan, whoever he may be, who finding one wounded by robbers, half-dead in the descent to Jericho, placed him on his own beast, and brought him as far as the inn, and mingling the oil of humanity with astringent wine, made medicine for his wounds. And these things indeed may have been said about them. ^B But how great an abundance of money and estates she distributed to the poor, it is not for me to say, but for those who received the benefit; for being an exile, I was not a burden to her. But hear what is more excellent regarding her. Orphaned of parents, when she had been joined to a husband, so God willing, who is foreknowing of all things and foreseeing human events, she served the pleasure of the flesh, which commands all, for scarcely twenty months, when her husband had quickly paid his debt to nature. It is said, however, that she is even now a virgin. For she was able to serve the apostolic law: "I wish the younger widows to marry, to be mothers of families" (I Tim. V, 14); yet while she was adorned with wealth and knowledge of many sciences, and not least with liberal talent and beauty and the flower of her age, she, like a doe, boldly leapt over the snares of a second marriage. "For the law is not laid down for the just, but for those who reject the yoke, the profane, and those who cannot be satisfied by lust" (I Tim. I, 9). It happened, however, by a certain satanic envy, that her premature widowhood reached the ears of Emperor Theodosius, who desired to give her in marriage to a certain Elpidius, his kinsman, a Spaniard. ^C He, when he had greatly entreated her, and had obtained nothing from her, was affected with grief, she signifying: "If my King had wished me to live with a husband, he would not have taken my husband from me; since, however, he recognized me as by no means fitted for the married life, and that I could not please a husband, he both freed him from the bonds of the body, and snatched me from the most heavy yoke and from the slavery of a man, imposing his own sweet yoke of chastity upon my mind." After this answer, Theodosius orders the Prefect of the city that her goods should be preserved until she had completed thirty years of age. Who, immediately after the Emperor's mandate, vexed her to such a degree, incited by Elpidius, that not even the ability

^A to converse with bishops of significant rank remained for her, nor the ability to approach the church, so that from the anguish of her soul she fell into the desire for marriage. But she, on account of this, rejoiced all the more, and giving thanks to God, announced these things to the Emperor: "In me, a humble woman, you have shown, O Master, the virtue becoming and appropriate to an Emperor, in that you ordered the preservation of my most heavy burden, about which I was anxious as to how it might be administered; and you will do something greater if you order it to be scattered among the needy and the churches. For I have long since prayed to avoid the vainglory resulting from its distribution, so that I might not neglect the wealth of my soul by entangling myself in material things." He, having returned from the war against Maximus, ordered her to have power over her own affairs, having heard of the intensity of her asceticism. Deac. Rightly, then, did John honor her, thus disciplining herself. Bish. For she abstains from animal products, and for the most part does not bathe; but if necessity arises because of illness (for she suffers constantly in her stomach), she descends into the waters with her tunic, being ashamed even of herself, as they say. Deac. It is said, too, that she greatly attended to the blessed John. Bish. And what ^B is worthy of his virtue that she showed toward him? Unless it be that she provided for the freedom from distraction of his daily bread; which is no small thing for the laborers of Christ, who night and day are anxious for the things of Christ; as Paul says, greeting Persis, this same thing perhaps to Olympias as she labored: "Greet," writing, "Persis the beloved, who labored much in the Lord. For all seek their own, and not the things of Christ." I know that she attended to the blessed Nectarius even more, so that he was persuaded by her even in ecclesiastical matters. And Amphilochius, and Optimus, and Gregory, and Peter the brother of Basil, and Epiphanius of Cyprus, the holy ones, what need is there even to mention, to whom she gifted both landed estates and money? And when Optimus was dying in Constantinople, she even closed his eyes with her own hands. Besides these, she refreshed the miserable not moderately in all things—Antiochus, and Acacius, and Severianus, and simply, in part, all the clergy who were residing there, and numberless ascetics and virgins. John, however, since he was, so to speak, a pattern sent to later bishops ^C as to how they ought to live—according to Paul, to preach repentance while in his own hire, touching nothing of the Church’s—he took only the food of the day, always fleeing such an administrative care. It is said, too, that he seemed to be ashamed when partaking of sensible food. For just as with apples, when they ripen to the extreme, they cannot bear to remain on the branch, seeking the Master's hand; so also with the saints, when they have fallen supernaturally in love with the beauty of heavenly things, they hasten to obtain the promise before their appointed departure—just as also with the master’s children, for they are often sharpened in their expectation of sweets [for their food], refraining from the set meals in caution of their appetite, so that they might be filled with the expected sweetness. May those who have stepped onto the same path of the spiritual journey recognize these words; for "if a wise man hears a wise word, he will praise it, and add to it."

Chapter XVIII

^A trust with tears, and he adds: "Who will give to my head water, and to my eyes a fountain of tears? And I will weep day and night for my people." And again, "Who will give me the ultimate lodging-place in the wilderness? And I will abandon my people and depart from them, because they all are adulterers" (Jer. 9.1-2), calling the assembly of transgressors a conventicle of false prophets and priests. Just as elsewhere he addresses God—not that He is ignorant, but so that we might imitate Him—"O Lord, if I have sat in the council of those who laugh, yet I was reverent before Thy face: I sat alone, for I was filled with bitterness" (Jer. 15.17). David also speaks in harmony with these things: "I have not sat with the council of vanity, and I will not enter with those who do iniquity." And explaining this, he adds, "I have hated the church of the malignant, and I will not sit with the impious. I will wash my hands among the innocent"—that is, my active faculties—"and I will go round Thine altar, O Lord" (Ps. 25.4-6). But those who have less care for the altar and turn their backs upon it—not by their intention, but by their life—not only with unwashed and blood-stained hands, through the giving and receiving of bribes and by false accusations, but trampling upon it with muddy feet, they shall yield this [account]. Concerning whom the prophet Ezechiel, prefiguring them, says: "He brought me to the entrance of the courtyard, and I saw, and behold, one hole in the wall. And He said to me, ‘Dig, son of man.’ And I dug, and I saw, and behold, one door. And He said to me, ‘Enter, and see the worst abominations which they do here.’ And I entered, and behold, every likeness of reptile and beast, and empty idols, abominations. And He said to me, ‘Hast thou seen, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel do in the darkness, in the chamber?’—alluding to their mind. ‘Therefore they have said, The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.’ And He said to me, ‘Thou shalt yet see greater abominations which they do.’ And He led me into another place, and showed me; and behold, ^B women were sitting there, weeping for Thambus. And again: ‘He brought me into the inner house of the Lord, and behold, there were twenty-four elders, and their faces and their backs were toward the altar.’ And He said to me, ‘Is it a light thing, this that the house of Israel does?’" We have been forced to call this chapter of the prophet to mind, on account of the more impudent ones who think themselves to be something, and who dement themselves and disturb the ecclesiastical peace, because they turn their backs upon the table of the Lord, "for whom judgment does not cease, and their perdition does not slumber" (2 Pet. 2.3), who savor earthly things, of whom Judas, the brother of James, says: "These are spots in your feasts, banqueting without fear, feeding themselves: clouds without water, which are carried about by winds; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusions; wandering stars, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever" (Jude v. 12, 13). But when he called them clouds without water, he signified their evil hail, the adversary of the vineyard; when he called them wandering stars, he designated the traps for the ship—which ship and vineyard is the Church. But what are those things which must of necessity follow such men? Hear again the same prophet Ezechiel narrating: "And He showed me, and behold, men were coming from the way of the upper gate, which looks toward the North, and every man’s axe was in his hand. And one man in the midst of them was clothed in a long robe, and a sapphire belt was on his loins. And they entered and stood beside the bronze altar; and the glory of the God of Israel went up from the Cherubim that was upon them to the atrium of the house. And He called the man who was clothed in the long robe, who had the belt upon his loins. And the Lord said to him, ‘Pass through the midst of the city of Jerusalem, ^C and give a mark upon the foreheads of the men who are groaning and grieving over all the abominations that are done in the midst of them.’ And to those He said—to the six, that is, who had the axes—‘Hearkening to me, go into the city, following him—that is to say, him who placed the signs upon the foreheads—and strike, and do not spare with your eyes, nor have pity: kill the old man, the youth, the virgin, the little ones, and the women, until they are destroyed. But upon all on whom is the sign, do not approach, and begin from My holy places.’ They began therefore from the elder men who were in the house of the Lord" (Ezech. 9.1-6). But if any man thinks that these things are predicted only concerning the Jews, he seems to be ignorant of the Savior’s advent; for Ezechiel did not exercise the priesthood before the captivity. For he was led into captivity while still quite a child with the tribe of Levi; by God’s dispensation, he was held worthy of the vision of future things in his thirtieth year, a priest within the very captivity, as he himself narrates: "And it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth of the month; and I was in the midst of the captivity by the river Chobar" (Ezech. 1.1). And again, a little after: "The word of the Lord came unto Ezechiel, the son of Buzi, the priest in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chobar" (Ibid. v. 3). But if anyone, brought to straits by this, should say to us: "Since the Savior has gone before, who also gave the sign of the cross upon the forehead, why is not the Savior considered to have arrived—He who, in the time of Vespasian the Roman Emperor, destroyed the synagogue forty years later, which had committed iniquitous deeds?" We have indeed received the one who thinks such things, but we pray that he, as a son of the New Testament, may have faith in Paul, the teacher of such men, who says concerning all books of this sort: "Now these things happened to them by way of figure; but they were written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come" (1 Cor. 10.11). Now I say these things, in no way praying that an iron sword may come upon the enemies of God—far from it. For the prophet does not speak of an iron sword, but of another certain punishing power, concerning which Ezechiel says: "The land upon which I shall bring the sword"—that is, "I shall permit"—"and if the people of the land take one man, and set him a watchman, and the watchman sees the sword coming, and the trumpet sounds, and he gives a sign to the people, and he who hears does not take heed; and the coming sword takes someone: I will require his blood from him, because he did not hear the voice of the trumpet." And again: "If, however, the watchman sees the sword coming, and the trumpet does not sound, nor does he signify it to the people; and the coming sword takes someone: I will require his blood from the hand of the watchman, because ^D when he saw the sword, he did not sound the trumpet" (Ezech. 33.2-6). Having this sort of danger before his eyes—not sleeping with the sleep of infidelity, nor sluggish with the sloth of pleasure—the blessed John cried out more loudly with the trumpet, not emitting an obscure sound, but a clearly open knowledge

of the devil's sword, and exhorted all to flee. And those who had a pure conscience like a seal upon the forehead of their soul were, by the grace of God, saved along with you faithful Romans; but those who again had it defiled, incited the peoples and priests to mutual contention, so that by common evils they might shadow over their own. ^A DIAC. You have spoken wonderfully. But it is conceded that it is an impossible thing for a man to be found blameless and perfect in this worldly life, as Scripture says in many places: *Who shall boast that he has a clean heart? or who shall be bold to be pure from sin?* Yet nevertheless, the blessed John did not know how to make use of the time; for it is not right to undertake things against those who are in power. ^B BISHOP. You seem to me, good Theodore, to be crafty. For having from the beginning proposed sympathy to us, as befitted you, with a certain contrition, by degrees you are found to be a mocker; for not even those who were thought to be his enemies so dreadfully disparaged his actions. DIAC. Why were you annoyed, Father, at hearing a lover of truth? Because I said: The blessed John did not pay attention to the time? The Scripture saying: *In the places of rulers do not stand*; and again, *Redeeming the time*, especially with those who do not accept encouragement or benefit. ^C BISHOP. Blessed are you for thus interpreting the Scriptures; for that which is in Ecclesiastes, *In the places of rulers do not stand*, is spoken to those who are unworthy and incapable of the priesthood, that they may not snatch it. For by "rulers" he means the teachers according to virtue; first the apostles, who were rulers, clothed with the spirit of power, then their imitators. And "to redeem the time" is of this sort, not that we should play the hypocrite, running with thieves and placing our portion with adulterers, but that during the time of sin we may, through virtue, buy back the time, not selling it to sin. ^D Now he who by little and little redeems time in this way, has redeemed his whole life, having set aside the pleasant things of life in order to find those that are beyond this life. Just as the martyrs have done, having given their bloody life, they inherited incorruptibility, they themselves truly redeeming the time. But if these things are not understood thus, then those around Moses and Elias and Micaiah and Daniel and John the Baptist and Isaiah and Peter and Paul, not to mention more, will be found to have been ignorant of their own time; since the one procures his own salvation by flight, on account of a reproof against someone, pasturing sheep on a gentile mountain; and another, being pressed by grief under a stupor, fell into sleep, finding neither the shadow of a wall nor a stone, but under a juniper-tree, which even itself scarcely covers ^A him; and another was sawn asunder; and another was let down into a den of lions for the sake of piety; and another was kept bound in a prison, namely in some dungeon, condemned to receive the bread of affliction and limited water, so that by being wasted away for a long time, he might forcibly end his life on account of his boldness towards a certain king. But what will you tell me about John, the peerless among those born of women? Did he not know how to make use of the time, since on account of the unveiled reproof of Herod’s adultery he had his head cut off, caring for Herod as a physician cares for one suffering from an incurable disease, either by cauterizing or by cutting? By this reasoning, John, pitying or loving, reproved the sick. If then the Baptist did not know the time, how did he recognize the craftsman and maker of the ages, saying: *Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world*? And how did Paul and Peter not know the time, they who are the pillars of the Church, who even after death close and open the times of repentance to those who wish and who knock? Since ^B especially the one is crucified head downwards, signaling the journey to heaven, and the other is beheaded on account of his boldness in Christ, that he might not fall from the true Head. Do not therefore accept those who, under the pretext of concern, disparage the boldness of the saints. For this is the habit of gentiles and conceited men, who love life and mock the fearlessness of the martyrs. For neither should a sword be dull, nor boldness be without effect. And as fragrance is inseparable from myrrh, so is goodwill from boldness. And if the reproofs were made privately in the case of servants or friends or one's own people, in which even to blush is burdensome, the one using boldness might perhaps be accused, as having known neither time nor place; but if, ^C as in a marketplace, the praises of those who do well and the censures of those who are negligent are made in the Church, why are we irritated at the reproofs which are made to us anonymously and beneficially, obscuring the causes, not obeying him who said: *Eat everything sold in the marketplace, asking no questions*? But if this is not the case, the saints will again be found to have scandalized some cities or regions by their reproofs, and to have subverted others by their praises. First the holy Job, criticizing a certain region of Phoenicia, as drawing on itself the Satan who was warring against him, as he says: *But the Phoenician nations part him*. Then Moses and the prophets disparaging Egypt, and calling it an iron furnace and darkness, and praising Palestine and calling it the land of promise, ^D finding Egypt to be, for the diligent man, the land of promise, and for the sluggard, Palestine not only an iron furnace but also outer darkness due to unbelief; since it is not places that are blameworthy or praiseworthy, but practices. But what need is there for me to extend the speech at length, and not to begin from the brief points? Is it that Paul, calling the Cretans liars, and the Galatians foolish, and the Corinthians puffed up, and others other things, he was indulgent to the passions of these alone, as if having brought the reproof to them alone, or to all? Or conversely, calling the Romans faithful and the Ephesians saints, to whom he writes more loftily, and the Thessalonians brothers-in-love, did he describe the praises to them alone? Not at all; but as one filled with the Spirit, he set down both censures and praises, so that the one worthy of praises, having recognized it, might be braced in his zeal, and the other, having encountered it, might be pained by the admonition, shaking off the cause of the censure. Neither therefore are the Galatians alone foolish, nor the Cretans liars, nor the Corinthians arrogant; for everything is everywhere, because the nature that sins and the nature that does well is one, and both this and that is in it, by its own will. Thus, therefore

John in the Church spoke freely; nay rather, he distributed the food of virtue to the hungry, exterminating sin with manifest rebukes and obeying Paul who says: "Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may have fear" (1 Tim. 5:20). Furthermore, if any who are laboring under the disease of pride or insanity wish to bring forward their own pleasures along with praise, the servants of God do not have this custom. For those who are indignant because their avarice, fornication, or any other foul lust is vituperated, are in reality saying nothing else than that such a pernicious virus should be permitted.

CHAPTER XIX.

DIAC. I have the greatest gratitude, Father, for this most kind arrival of yours to us; for it has been useful and salutary to us, and a memorial of life. But when Theodore had ceased after his lengthy praises, one of those standing by broke into this voice: "How then," he said, "being adorned with such great gifts, was he proud?"

EPISC. Did you yourself, being present, catch him being proud, or did someone else tell you?

He answered: "I do not know the man," he said, "but I heard from a certain tanner who was relating that he rarely made himself available, except in church, and that he took it ill to converse for a long time with those who wished to. But this is a sign of pride and arrogance, to flee the congress of those who desire it."

EPISC. And whose business was it to vituperate the wisdom of John, other than a tanner, who embraces the stench of his own workshop as if it were familiar? But if to flee the crowds is a sign of pride, then John the Baptist will also be proud, according to your speech, who withdrew into the desert; the Savior will also be, for it is written: "And seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up into a mountain; and when he was seated, his disciples came unto him" (Matt. 5:1), but not the multitudes. And again: "Seeing the multitudes, he withdrew apart" (Ibid. 8:18). Imitating him according to his strength, the excellent John was also withdrawing himself from the crowds, and was most delighted with those who were truly willing to learn something.

DIAC. You persuade me well with the examples of the Scriptures. But what will you say to this, that he is said to have been insulting, and not only to have fled the multitude, but even one or two?

EPISC. Well indeed; even one who is useless and a mountebank is a crowd; such was he who said to Christ: "Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest" (Ibid. vv. 19-20). Did not the Savior, fleeing the crowd, say: "The foxes have holes," and the rest? But you cannot prove to me that John, from the time he was baptized, ever swore, or adjured anyone, or cursed, or lied, or invoked a curse, or endured pleasantries.

DIAC. I indeed do not say any of these things, but that he insulted.

EPISC. O best of men, how could he who committed none of these things be insulting, by no means sparing his own tongue? For sin is a sin in a small matter, just as in a great one.

DIAC. What is it then, I pray, that men say? And when will they cease to speak?

EPISC. Hear then concerning each, and do not follow such trifles any longer; for you will never obtain any pardon. Men who do not live rightly cannot think rightly; they always effuse things rashly, and spend their time on this, and most of all now, when no one dares to hiss against anything. For even concerning the Savior, who was God and lived and spoke and acted above a man and any prophet, they spoke absurdities, heaping these things upon him like pigs and flies; for those times demanded that. For some were saying: "He deceiveth the world" (John 7:12); others: "He casteth out demons" (Luke 11:15); others: "Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber" (Matt. 11:19); others: "He is a Samaritan and hath a demon" (John 8:48). And what does it matter to me to collect and recite their inanities? So much so that the Savior himself, knowing these things, says to the apostles: "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" (Matt. 16:13-14). To whom the disciples answered, bringing back better opinions about him: Some indeed say Elias, others Jeremias, others John the Baptist; suppressing, of course, the sayings of the most wicked. Whom he again questions, separating them from the men (for they were no longer men in mind and thought, but sons of God: "For the Word gave us power to become sons of God" [John 1:12]): "But whom say ye that I am?" They answer, not all, but Peter alone, interpreting the minds of all: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Proving the rectitude of which response, the Savior pronounced, saying: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock," that is, this confession, "I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). In this character you will find even now, not only in John, but in all, both vituperations and praises. And just as at that time the Ephesians spoke evil of Christ and the apostles, crying: "These are they that have turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6), but now they have ceased to speak evil, as they are glorified; so you will find after this generation that John will be honored as a martyr, with those dead who opposed his praises; and whoever are swinish or doggish will say, "He deceiveth the world," and the rest; but whoever are disciples truly and knowingly seek him, saying, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." But if under the Savior Christ, among so many thousands of men, twelve were found at the beginning who knowingly recognized Christ, while most all even now are delirious; why do we discuss John anxiously, a man who did not reach to the spittle of Christ? But what do I say, to his spittle? Not even to his hem. "For all nations," as Isaiah says, "as a drop of a bucket, and shall be counted as saliva" (Isa. 40:15). But in what way you said he committed an insult, is of this sort: first indeed, he was never accustomed to be facetious and urbane to anyone he met, much less to insult; but if he saw some of his genuine disciples, or clerics, or bishops, being proud on account of the abstinence of some thing, or on account of a right work of some bodily virtue; rebuking them, he called them by contrary names: such as an ebriose water-drinker, and a lover of having more for one who possesses nothing, and a merciful thief. For this is a gracious form of instruction toward true disciples, to approve the things that are present through those that are not present. Otherwise, this is certain: he valued a temperate young man more than an intemperate old man, and an old man eager to learn more than...

PALLADIUS’ DIALOGUE

^A...an uneducated man, and a poor ignorant one, over a learned lover of money, or a virtuous worldly man over an idle monk; those who seek after honors perhaps call these things insults. Yet Scripture takes even insults as having their place; John saying to those who came to be instructed: "Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Luke 3:7). Paul again saying to the high priest in the Acts of the Apostles: "God is about to strike you, you whitewashed wall" (Acts 23:3). And the Savior saying in one place to the Jews: "An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign" (Matt. 12:39); and in another to all the apostles: "O foolish ones and slow of heart" (Luke 24:25); and in another calling Peter, Satan: "Get behind me, Satan, for you are a stumbling block to me" (Matt. 16:23). There was no grave cause for which these insults were made. Thus we embrace the love of learning in silence, being unable to judge the spiritual ones. For they do not commit insults out of hatred, nor do they seclude themselves out of pride, but perform everything useful out of love.

For this reason, all those whom we have recorded in the sacred writings as virtuous were found to avoid and turn away from the crowd of the uneducated, lest by the passage of time, through habituation, they diminish something of their virtue or be infected by their wickedness. Sarah first advised her husband Abraham to banish the son of the bondwoman from their common hearth while he was still very young; for she disdained his playing with her son Isaac, fearing that through such familiarity he might be led astray into his practices and habits. Jacob himself sought his salvation in flight, undertaking a journey to Mesopotamia. Lot too was urged by the angels to remove himself from the impious Sodomites. But also Moses, as I said before, having become great and having refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, ensured his separation from the tyrant and his guards, and urged those who were like-minded to depart with him and take care of the exodus. Even the prophets, avoiding the throng of the wicked, lived for the most part in deserts; concerning whom the Apostle says: "Wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes of the earth" (Heb 11:38). ^B This was because of the mingling with the lawless, and also because they knew how sufficient habit is to deceive and drag those who live together into the same practices—not only that, but that such intercourse is in itself blameworthy, ruinous, and moreover disgraceful.

For it is not in the nature of that which is not pleased by something to endure it, even if one spends but a short time with it; for like is always dear to like, as it is said: "Every animal loves its like," while the unlike is hostile and alien (Eccl. 13:19). For who will ever persuade the seed-eating pigeon or turtle-dove to associate with kites or carnivorous ravens, or the grass-eating lamb and crane to herd with bone-gnawing vultures? For what partnership has light with darkness, or virtue with vice, or the evil with the good?

DEACON: How then does the Apostle say: "I have become all things to all men; to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak; to those without the law as without the law, that I might win those without the law"?

BISHOP: This testimony, my excellent friend, does not contribute to the things being said. For Paul did not say: "I became negligent to the negligent," or "a babbler to the babblers," or "a lover of money to the lovers of money," or any such thing; but, "I became *as* [the] Jew," not "[the] Jew." For "as" is not the same as "[the]." Such is the meaning of what was done by the Apostle: his condescension, even if it did not produce a great gain, at least did not provide harm. For "I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might win the Jews." Although he was from the Jews, being circumcised, why then does he say "as a Jew," and not "a Jew"? Because he was often found keeping the Sabbath and fasting with them, not corrupting the dogmas of the Savior, in order that by habit and companionship he might draw them to a more perfect knowledge; just as physicians do not always stay with the sick, nor partake of the same disease, nor rage with the same desires.

For this conduct is becoming to a teacher: not to waste time with the crowds, but to abide quietly and inquisitively, seeking after the discernment of diverse characters, just as also in the case of skilled physicians. For those men, by spending much time with their books, both predict the causes of diseases and hand down the cures, approaching the sick only so much as to discover the malady and provide the medicine, not playing or dining with them. For the task of medical virtue is not to eat or play with them, but to lead the sufferer back to health. Cease, therefore, I beg you, and do not torment yourself with these same matters, since virtue is never conquered by the slanders of the loose-tongued. But rather accept my advice, and station a porter at the doors of your ears, so that they may not admit every word and allow the things that disturb your mind to enter the inner chamber. As for me, permit me to complete the remainder of the narrative, for I am eager to finish my journey.

And Theodore said: "What of the bishops who were sent with ours, Eulysius, and Palladius, and Cyriacus, and Demetrius? For we heard vaguely that they were sent into exile."

BISHOP: If the first things about the blessed John that you heard from us appeared clear to you, containing no falsehood, and if you remember these, I shall relate also the things regarding which you inquire.

CAP. XX.—DEACON: I am as fully confident as if I had been present at the places. Let the attention to what has been said be sufficient proof of my conviction, the memory of which I have engraved in my mind, and perhaps I shall commit it to writing on parchment, inscribed in ink, for the memory of our generation and the benefit of those who seek the episcopacy, so that they may become like saintly John, or like you who have emulated the life of the martyrs for the truth, or else desist from bearing a burden beyond their own strength, embracing the life of a layman, which is without danger. For it is better, having paid the fare to experienced pilots, to be saved as passengers, than to take the place of the pilot and, in sinking the vessel by the weight of the cargo, perish with it. Having then narrated the things concerning the blessed John, how he exercised himself, and how he shone forth in the Churches, both that of the Antiochenes and that of the Constant[inopolitans...]

and how he was promoted, and how many snares he suffered, and all the bitter things meanwhile, which have been painstakingly worked out by the wicked, saying both those things concerning Porphyry and the Eunuch who was bishop of Ephesus; relate, I pray, the remaining things to us. And who among those in the prison have died; who have been driven into exile among those who communicated with John: for it is just to make mention even of these for the purpose of inciting the fervour of the living. For if in these worldly matters servants, who are cast into prison on behalf of their masters, or are beaten, or tormented, enjoy benevolence and liberty from them: how much more are those who are afflicted with punishments for the sake of Christ worthy of ecclesiastical honor and benevolence? Of whom the Apostle says: "Having compassion on those in bonds, as being bound with them" (Heb. X, 34), and with those who were vexed, as being fellow-sufferers, as being themselves also constituted in a body. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints" (Ps. CXV, 15). ^B EPIS. You have spoken well: hear therefore. The bishops, indeed, as the report at first spread, were submerged in the sea: but as the truth stands, they were driven into long-distance exile in barbarian regions, and there even now they are guarded by public slaves. For when a certain deacon arrived, who had made the journey together with them, he reported that Cyriacus of Emesa is at Palmyra, in a castle of the Persians, eighty thousand paces beyond Emesa: Eulysius likewise, the bishop of Bostra, three days’ journey further in a castle of the Arabs, called Mis; this, as I said, being adjacent to the Saracens: Palladius the bishop is guarded in the vicinity of the Blemmyes or the Ethiopians, in the town called Syene: Demetrium is deeper in the Oasis, near the Mazices; for there are also other Oases: Serapion, however, after ten thousand calumnies without any proof, was beaten with the greatest cruelty of the judges, to the point of the knocking out of his teeth, as the report is, and they relegated him to his own country. Hilarius, a holy man and an old man, was driven into the furthest part of Pontus, cut with stripes, not by the judge, but by the clergy: who for eighteen years ^C from that time has not tasted bread, eating only greens or boiled grain. Antonius shut himself up in the caves of Palestine: Timotheus of Maronea, and John, bishops of Lydia, are said to be in Macedonia: Rhodon, bishop of Asia, went off to Mitylene: Gregorius, bishop of Lydia, is said to be in Phrygia: Brisson, however, the brother of Palladius, having of his own accord abandoned his Church, dwells in his own little field, digging the earth with his own hands. Lampetius indeed, as they say, in a town of Lydia being helped by a certain Eleutherus, is free for readings: Eugenius is in his fatherland: Elpidius, that great bishop of Laodicea in Syria, and Pappus, for three whole years did not descend from the stairs of their house, being free for prayers: Heraclidas the Ephesian has now for four years been included in prison at Nicomedia. The remaining bishops of the communion of John, with every hope cast away, some indeed communicated with Atticus, and were transferred into other Churches of Thrace; but others lie hidden. They say Anatolius is in the Gauls. Furthermore, of the presbyters some were banished into ^D Arabia and Palestine: Tigrius was relegated to Mesopotamia: Philippus died in exile in Pontus: Theophilus dwells in Paphlagonia: John, the son of Athrius, built a monastery at Caesarea: the Isauri snatched Stephanus, who had been relegated to Arabia, from the hands of the guards, and sent him off to the Taurus: they say Sallustius is in Crete. I heard that Philippus the monk, and a presbyter of the Schools, are sick in Campania. Sophronius the deacon is detained in the prison of the Thebaid. Paulus the deacon, the assistant of the steward, is said to be staying in Africa: another Paulus, a deacon of Anastasia, lives in Jerusalem: Helladius, a presbyter of the Palace, leads his life in his own farm in Bithynia. More, however, lie hidden in Constantinople: others have departed into their own fatherlands. Silvanus, a holy bishop, fishes in Troas, and lives by fishing: Stephanus the monk, who brought the letters of the Romans, for that very reason was beaten, and lived for ten months in prison in Constantinople. But when communion was proposed to him, and he had not agreed, with his sides and chest torn by the violence of the claws—of which matter I myself was an eyewitness—preserved by the providence of Christ perhaps for second contests, after the tenth month of his care, he was relegated to Pelusium. A certain provincial soldier, from the Palatine Schools, accused as a supporter of John, after various kinds of stripes and most atrocious lacerations, was sent into exile to the Petrae. But the servant of the presbyter Elpidius, bribed with fifty, as they say, gold pieces, to kill the holy John by guile, when he was caught having three swords, struck seven of those who had apprehended him, one by one: four of whom were buried immediately, but the other three, after long medical care, escaped safely, the murderer being acquitted. Blessed Eutropius, pure from women, a cantor, beaten with stripes, and so lacerated on his sides and forehead that even his eyebrows were plucked out, finally with torches placed on both sides against the bared bones, filled with oil, he expired on the very rack, and was buried in the middle of the night by the clerics who had brought this about; since God had offered testimony to his death by a vision of those chanting, on account of the conformity to the Savior's passion. But the deacon who returned from the bishops reported that by the soldiers of the Prefect, who led them, they were so vexed by the command of certain persons, that they wished to die and refused to live. For the monies, which they had taken for themselves for the expenses of the journey, they were completely snatched away and divided among themselves, and throwing them onto lean beasts of burden, they performed a two-days' journey in one day: bringing them into inns late in the night, and leading them back early in the morning before light, so that their stomachs could not even retain miserable scraps of food. Besides, they did not refrain from attacking them with base and dishonorable words. They also took away the servant from Palladius, using force against him, so that he might put down his tablets. But one of the escorts vexed Demetrius so much that he arrived at Bizya late in the night; who immediately, tortured by the heaviest pains throughout his whole body, made an end of living: so that all who venerated God recognized that it was the punishment for the injuries: since Palladius had foretold it to him, as a returning fellow-soldier recounted: You shall not walk another path, but you shall die miserably. For in the Churches

they would not allow them to approach at all, turning aside either to inns, where there was a multitude of harlots, or to the synagogues of the Samaritans or Jews, and especially at Tarsus, and there they were so confined that they were compelled to consider another thing which was not at all intended. One of the bishops said: "Why are we troubled about the inns? For is it for us to decide where to stay, so that by acting indecently of our own will, we might pay the penalty? Or do you not know that all these things have already happened and will happen, with God being glorified in all things? How many of those harlots, having forgotten God, or never having known Him from the beginning, upon seeing us thus troubled, came to the fear and contemplation of God, perhaps having turned to the better, or even if to the worse, not having collapsed further? For it is not a small thing for a rational soul that is troubled by passion to have even a little respite, which is a spark of self-control: as the hierophant Paul said, having endured these things: *We are to God the fragrance of Christ in those who are being saved and in those who are perishing*, because we *have become a spectacle to angels and to men* (1 Cor. 4:9). To such a degree of cruelty did the bishops of those regions, the associates of Theophilus throughout the whole East, proceed, as the monk who returned reported, that most of them not only did not show the due kindness to our brethren, but even by giving bribes induced the Praetorian soldiers to drive them out of the cities. Those who especially did this were the bishops of Tarsus and Antioch, and Eulogius of Caesarea in Palestine; before all of them the bishop of Ancyra, and Ammonius of Pelusium, partly by gifts, partly by threats, more and more exasperating the soldiers against them, so that they did not even allow the laymen who wished to receive them to do so; just as the blessed John writes to Gaius in his Catholic [Epistles] ^A against a certain bishop, commending Gaius for his hospitality, and urging him not to imitate the wicked ones among the bishops. The text is as follows: *To Gaius the beloved, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that you may prosper and be in health, just as your soul prospers. For I rejoiced greatly when some came and testified to me of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth. I have no greater joy than this* (3 John 1-4). And he adds: *I wrote to the Church; but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us, prating against us with malicious words; and not content with this, he himself does not receive the brethren, and forbids those who wish to do so, and casts them out of the church* (Ibid. v. 9-10). Then later he urges, saying: *Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God* (Ibid. v. 11). We have mentioned the whole text of the ancient malice, in order that we might exhibit the mind of the Diotrephes of this time. He praised and admired the bishops of the Second Cappadocia, as having sympathized greatly with tears for the exiled bishops, especially the most gentle Theodore of Tyana, and Bosporius of Colonia, who was in the ^B forty-eighth year of his episcopate, and Serapion of Ostracine, who was in the forty-fifth year of his episcopal service. And Theodore, having been silent for a long time, said: "What then shall we say to these things, Father? Is the hour now the latest, and is the apostasy, according to Paul, receiving its entry through these things, so that the son of perdition, the adversary, may at last be revealed? (2 Thess. 2:3). For the fact that the wicked prosper, and perform these things, and endure and prevail, and the good are oppressed and plundered, brings me to horror that he is drawing near." ^C The Bishop said: "Most indeed, O wisest one, the end is near, according to Him who said: *Little children, it is the last hour* (1 John 2:18); and according to the passage: *The master of the house went out about the eleventh hour to hire laborers for his vineyard* (Matt. 20:1); but the twelfth hour is the last. And if it was said by the Apostle four hundred years ago to be the last, much more now because of all these things. And then these things have been happening from the beginning by the permission of the Lord for the training of the saints, the devil demanding them, as the saving word says: *Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail* (Luke 22:31-32). Nor did Christ pray only for Peter, but for all who have the faith of Peter: the sieve signifying nothing else than the terrestrial ^D circle, full of pleasures and pains, through which, as if through holes, those of an earthen nature fall from the life-giving wheat to Hades, as if separated through holes: some flowing out as if through the hole of gluttony, whose god is their belly (Philipp. 3:19); others through the enticements of pleasures, of whom the prophet says: *They have been led astray by a spirit of fornication: for neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, will inherit the kingdom of God* (1 Cor. 6:9-10); others because of avarice: specifically those who have betrothed to themselves the spouse of idolatry; others through wrath and anger, those who have loved the beastly darkness, of whom John says: *He who hates his brother is in darkness even until now* (1 John 2:9). For anger, says the author of Proverbs, destroys even the wise (Prov. 15:1); others through sloth and forgetfulness, not continuing in the wakefulness of memory, and needing the saying: *My soul has slumbered because of sloth* (Ps. 118:28). Whom the Word chides, saying: *Woe to you who have lost patience! And what will you do when the Lord shall visit?* (Eccli. 2:16-17); others because of mindless ostentation, of whom the Psalmist predicted: *For God has scattered the bones of those who please men* (Ps. 52:5); others through arrogance and pride, which is superciliousness, whom the prophet blames as deserters: *The proud have transgressed exceedingly; yet I have not declined from Your law* (Ps. 118:51). And to each of these vices follow more; to pride, envy, to avarice, hatred, illiberality, falsehood; to anger, wrath or outbursts, insults, envies; to fornication, forgetfulness, numbness, sloth, lack of zeal, profitless wakefulness; to vainglory, meddlesomeness, bribery, phantasies, hypocrisies, partiality, deceits; to arrogance, madness, cruelty, impiety, loss of mind; and to others others, so that I may not say more, burdening the discourse, the aforesaid being easily demonstrable. In each of these evils, God...

provided ^A a contrary virtue: for instance, to wantonness, chastity; to gluttony, temperance; to avarice, justice; to anger, lenity; to sadness, joy; to forgetfulness, memory; to cowardice, patience; to folly, prudence; to sloth, fortitude; to vanity, humility; and to others others. To all these, He gave the divine Scripture. But to pride alone, He gave no contrary virtue, on account of the excess of the vice, reserving it for Himself, as He said: *God resisteth the proud* (Jas. 4:6); as also the prophet himself prays, saying: *Lift up thy hands upon their pride in the end* (Ps. 73:3); and again, ^B *Render a retribution to the proud* (Ps. 94:2). And just as a tree is known by its fruit, as the Lord says: *By their fruits you shall know them* (Matt. 7:16), so is each of men, whether they be saints or are called such. Yet the prosperities of the wicked are everywhere unshaken, while God acts patiently toward them. For this very thing is fitting; so that the saints proclaimed this very thing from the person of those who are vexed, for the consolation of all us who now suffer. The first son of patience, Job, what does he say after many things? For what is it? *Is my reprehension from men?* signifying that he is blameless. ^C *And why shall I not be angry?* You who look upon me, marvel, placing your hand upon your cheek. *For if I remember, I have lived religiously, and pains seize my flesh. Why do the wicked live, and have grown old in riches? Their seed is according to their soul, and their children are in their eyes: their houses abound, but fear is nowhere: the scourge of God is not upon them. Their ox has not brought forth untimely: it has been kept from the heat, and having in the womb, it has not proved abortive. They remain like perpetual sheep. ^D Their infants play, holding the psaltery and the harp, and they rejoice at the sound of the psalm: they have finished their life in good things, and in the rest of hell they have slept.* He says moreover to the Lord: *Depart from me, I desire not to know thy ways* (Job 21:4–14). To this, the herald of evils endured and of divine judgments, David, consonant, says, according to that: *I will sing mercy and judgment to thee, O Lord. How good is God to Israel to them that are of a right heart* (Ps. 100:1; 72:1). *But my feet were almost moved, my steps have been slipping* (Ps. 72:2). Why? *Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the peace of sinners.* And elsewhere again, condemning their wealth, he says: *Their oxen are fat, their sheep are fruitful, abounding in their goings out: their storehouses full, flowing out of this into that: their daughters decked out, adorned as the likeness of a temple* (Ps. 143:14, 13, 12). But admiring also their evil concord and peace, he adds: *There is no outcry in their streets, nor ruin of a wall in their houses* (Ibid. v. 14, 15). Then, vituperating the corrupt opinion of the people, he says: *They have called the people blessed that hath these things.* And he adds: *Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord, Jacob his helper.* And lest, stopping the testimonies there, I should do so that the imperfect discourse is endangered, hear again Habakkuk with a certain lamentation over such, indignant and saying: *How long, O Lord, shall I cry, suffering injury, and thou wilt not hear?* (Hab. 1:2–4); for he called the injuries of his neighbor his own. And the lover of his brethren adds: *I shall cry out to thee, and thou wilt not save. Why hast thou shown me labors and sorrows to see into toil and impiety? Judgment is made against me, and the judge takes it away. Therefore the law is rent, and judgment is not brought to the end, because the wicked prevails against the just* (Hab. 1:3–4). By the same spirit also the most merciful of the saints, Jeremiah, hesitating above others, cries out: *Thou art just, O Lord, because I shall institute a defense before thee: yet I will speak judgments to thee, O Lord. Why does the way of sinners prosper? They abound, all who transgress transgressions. Thou hast planted them, and they have taken root* (that is, they live freely), *and they have made fruit* (not the spirit’s clearly): *thou art near to their mouth, and far from their reins* (Jer. 12:1–2). To these, however, the wise prophet Sophonias [or Malachias] is entirely parallel, blaming men as calumniators, who accuse the providence of God and call the saints wretched, and from the person of the Lord he says: *You have burdened your words over me, says the Lord, and you have said: In what have we spoken against thee? You have said: Vain is he who serves God. And what more for us, because we have kept his commands, and because we have walked as suppliants before the face of the Lord almighty? And now we call ourselves blessed, and all are built up who do injustices, and they have resisted God, and they have been saved. These things spoke they who fear the Lord, each to his neighbor* (Mal. 3:13–16). To whom the herald of piety, Paul, brings things similar: *But evil men and seducers will grow worse, erring, and driving into error* (2 Tim. 3:13). Then, designating the vileness of the saints, he says: *For I think that God has shown us the apostles last, as destined for death: because we have been made a spectacle to the world and to angels and to men. For until this hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and are unstable and labor working with our own hands* (1 Cor. 4:9–12), enumerating bodily toils. *We are reviled, and we bless; we suffer persecution, and we sustain it; we are blasphemed, and we beseech; we have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all even until now* (1 Cor. 4:12–13); since God, being good and just, according to certain arcane reasons, has unfolded the world as a stadium, and has made us self-determining, so that, undertaking the matter by our own will, we may pay just penalties, as the Law says: *I have set before thy face life and death: choose what thou wilt* (Eccl. 15:18). Why, however, He set them, it is not of this time to say, except that He set them. For it would not have been of wisdom for us to have been made unchangeable, with no prizes proposed and with the mind not rightly moving: for to be unchangeable belongs to the eternal God alone. DIAC. You have met this excellently and wisely, Father, illuminating the eyes of the mind to present things, which through ignorance of the Scriptures are always stumbling, and because, for a long time, the Church was a training-ground, showing its own victors, men and women, in past times, not having eaten the flesh of Christ for nothing. But your instability, or the persecution, and the subversion of the Churches, saddens us. EP. I marvel at you, most honorable of men, Theodore, who, having confessed a manifold utility, speak once more the opposite. For while proclaiming us blessed as victors, you call us miserable as

having been deprived of ecclesiastical places. ^A You behave towards me like the rustics who watch the Olympic games: for they gape with pleasure at the prizes, but cry pitifully at the wounds of the contestants. But for me, it is better to traverse glens and forests and seas with the truth, than to possess great glory from the currently perceived prosperity while remaining subject to falsehood. ^B For possessing the truth, I possess all things; for all things are handmaids to it. But possessing falsehood, I possess not even myself, not existing in the truth. Yet having the truth, I do not simply wish to have it as a mistress, a servant, or a neighbor, but as a sister; and if it be possible, even as a spouse, enjoying her pleasure and afterward inheriting her as my own wife. For she is the daughter of the Truth which truly is, of whom the diligent man is the son-in-law. For he who holds this seal blossoms, is ageless and unfading, having a zeal hotter than fire, ^C a word sharper than a sword, a life lighter than any eagle. He runs swiftly, as if toward his home-keeping mother, the meditation of the Scriptures; he thrives perpetually in freedom from grief, is not mastered by fear, exults in fearlessness, is ecstatic with enthusiasm, loves no one, pities those who use their life poorly, calls blessed those who work their own path with self-sufficiency, and is grieved by the grief of the Spirit because of the negligence of the priests; concerning whom the Apostle said: "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption" (Eph. 4:30); but he grieves the Spirit who gives it his back in negligence. And (what is the sum of it?) he ends with boldness, ^D having grieved no one, except the demons and those who are their neighbors. Time abounds for him; he has not trafficked away his days in misdeeds; he doubled the given money and sent forward the interest of good works, in a short time fulfilling long years. He does not write a will of material goods; living and in his right mind, he has overcome it. Death knocked at the door of his flesh; before seeing him standing outside, he cries out, "Let us depart from here," chanting: "Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged!" (Ps. 119:5). And were it not for the Master who sent him, he would have exacted penalty from death, that it came too slowly. He is glad at last to be released from the much-suffering flesh—as from a dilapidated lodging that threatens collapse—having bent his ear toward the One saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matt. 25:21), to hear the rest as well. Let the density of these words be proof to you of what I speak; for "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Ibid. 12:34).

But he who lives with falsehood has a life that is troubled, at one time rejoicing immoderately in an increase of silver, or a tiny bit of glory, or a little gain of wealth, or the misfortune of his enemies; at another he is grieved even unto death, dreaming of fluctuations and uncertainties; he has sleepless or ill-sleeping nights; he suspects treacheries even from his own kindred, trusting not even himself, disbelieving everyone as liars. Such a man, being what he is, is cowardly as a hare, bold as a swine, a liar as a chameleon, a deceiver as a partridge, unmerciful as a wolf, savage as an animal. He is an enemy to himself, unceasingly envious, punishing himself by necessity without being aware of it; for in thinking evil against another, he is the first to suffer ill at his own hands. Death pricked him, he gives all, that he may remain a little longer, loving life; he wasted the time given him in vain; the denarius, over and above his talents, he did not double, nor did he keep it safe. He trembles perpetually like a leaf, not wishing to grow old; he endures the delirium of old age, he fears death like a god; for the visible world is a god to him. And why say more? He grows pale, shudders, is anxious, forestalling the judgment of God; he punishes himself, with his conscience tormenting him mercilessly, and reminding him of each one of his transgressions, suffering things more terrible than those who have their own bodies scourged with lashes; he submits to the powers of the time in a servile manner, he flatters the world shamefully; he has ten thousand masters instead of one Lord, so that he might not be a slave to the Truth; he is afraid to be, because he fears everyone. Let these things be said to you from us to the best of our ability. And if anyone, speaking more truthfully and gracefully, should correct our nothingness, we will gladly accept him as a corrector and brother-lover, and we will offer thanks to the Savior for all things. But you, in return, provide me with the knowledge of the purpose of the Western Synod, and seal my words, if they please you, as having been spoken to good effect.

The Synod of the West

After the narrator had finished, Theodore said these things: "May the Lord grant you, who have narrated these things, to find mercy on that day, both because you have turned aside from the communion of such men, and because you have clearly narrated them to us; and may the Lord be mindful of every sacrifice of John, since even unto death he did not betray his freedom of speech. The purpose of the Roman Church, however, is this: not to hold communion with the Oriental bishops until the end, especially with Theophilus, until the Lord shall provide a place for an ecumenical synod, which will heal the rotting limbs of those who have perpetrated these things. For even if the blessed John has fallen asleep, the truth is awake, through which the inquiry will take place. I would gladly have met those who have perpetrated these things in the Church, face to face, saying: Where is the priesthood? Where is the holiness? Where is the gentleness and the commonality of our nature? Where are the commandments of the Savior? Where is that, 'If you offer your gift, and remember that your brother has something against you, go, first be reconciled to your brother, and then offer your gift' (Matt. 5:23-24)? Where is that, 'If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also' (Ibid. v. 39)? Where is the meditation of the Scriptures? And that, 'Behold, what is good or what is pleasant, than for brothers to dwell together in unity?' (Ps. 132:1). Where is that, 'Let brothers be useful in necessities'? Why have you turned it around and made it, 'A brother helped by a brother, as a fortified city'? You have done the reverse! 'A brother slandered or plundered by a brother'—as a piteous and unwalled city. Why, therefore, have you undertaken to treat the matter as something unmixable, you wretched men—three times, not just once? And by what reasoning, as if against an enemy, did you not restrain yourselves from causing his ruin? How did it come about that you were so enraged against one another? Whence did you demonstrate such a change, so as to transform from the tame to the untamed and savage?

^A I am astounded and struck with terror, beholding the whole situation so violently disturbed. Why, carried away by such audacity, have you treated with insults and lacerated the Church of God, which gives suck and nourishes you, like a fruitful womb? So that for you the prophetic word might be fulfilled: "For which they pursued their brother with the sword, and corrupted her womb upon the earth" (Amos 1:11). The divine and saving Word dwelt with this womb and sowed you and him together, and planted you in countless good and useful deeds. For when you ought to have been helping one another toward what was appropriate, what is the cause of your deciding not to be at peace and live quietly, even for the future? Created, therefore, for utility and mutual assistance, why have you neglected that grace, not only not relieving the labor of your brother, but even repelling him and cutting him off from his own kindred? When the prophet cries to you: "Is there not one Father of us all? Did not one God create us?" (Mal. 2:10). But you will say to me: "He sinned against the law." Which one? The one which you yourselves trampled underfoot, dissipating it through wickedness. Where, then, is the law of nature to correct ^B with gentleness? Why, I ask, acting against the law of enemies, do you pursue, while you deliberate and do things that are contrary and worthy of enmity? How much better it would have been to live together and dwell as one, sharing common and good counsels with one another, for the glory and grace of your Father! For the virtue and harmony of children is very pleasant to parents, who seek nothing else from their children than that. And you know this well, that the bond of friendship and benevolence is nothing other than to strive and do everything that pleases the Father, the author of birth, education, and preservation. Treating him as a madman in your contempt, you kindled wars in the Church, according to the prophet who says: "They have fixed insanity in the house of the Lord" (Osea 9:8); whereas you ought to have been exciting and exhorting one another—then, against the mind and will of the Father, carrying on implacable wars among yourselves. I add that it also greatly astounds and moves both God and all who approach Him—His children, indeed, but your brothers—and does not permit one to be silent; for He is not neglectful of the utility of His children, nor devoid of concern. Therefore, bearing your madness with difficulty, and the oppression ^C of those who suffer injury, He does not think it just that you should escape unpunished, as it began. For it is neither decorous for Him, nor safe for you: and your disease is not tolerable, nor susceptible to any care. For He sees that even when punished with blows and countless weals, you have become worse. For a great deal of insensitivity and inflexibility abounds in you, having transformed brothers, kin, and companions—moreover, even confederates and participants of the same table and bed, and of one and the same lineage—into such shameful hatred, that you have even driven them from their own borders and common hearth and cast them far away, without city or home; in short, as exiles, as far as lay in your power, and having done these things, not limiting the exile to some time, but as far as you could, even to infinity, through cruelty and the excessive agitation of your mind. ^D Which you did in these matters and to the blessed John, re-igniting internal hatred, and like an acute sword even to this day launching the tongue against him, you embrace wrath instead of useful doctrine, pouring forth insult in the Church to the defilement of the hearers. And let these things be said to those whom the Lord in mercy and lenity repaid according to their works.

But as for you, blessed John, with what words shall I weave and place upon you an unfading crown, not fearing to praise you after the exit from the stadium of this life? For you have escaped the storm. Or shall I weave a crown of those Mosaic flowers which He gave, who blessed the active Joseph and the contemplative Levi the priest? For in you I see both. "In the blessing of the Lord is your land, and from the mountains of heaven and dew and the abyss of the fountains beneath, and at the time of the produce, the sun's turnings and the meeting of the months, from the summit of the mountains of the beginning, and from the summit of the eternal hills, shall they be upon the head of Joseph (and if there is anyone like Joseph), and upon the summit of his brothers over whom he presided, glorified, the firstborn among brothers. His beauty is that of a bull, his horns, the horns of a unicorn: with them he shall push the nations together even to the ends of the earth" (Deut. 33:13-17). And Levi said (and if anyone has imitated him): "Give to Levi his manifestations, and his truth to the holy man, whom they tested in temptation, they cursed him at the waters of contradiction. Who said to his father and mother: I have not seen you; and did not acknowledge his brothers, he kept your oracles, and your covenant he observed: he manifested your justifications to Jacob, and your law to Israel. He shall set incense always at your feast upon your altar. Bless, O Lord, his strength, and accept the works of his hands: strike the brow of the enemies rising up against him, and let those who hate him not rise again" (Ibid. 8-11). I, however, would add this: Those who love him, Jesus Christ, let them not be confounded: for Your empire is unto the ages. Amen.

[Bishop:] And this is a proof of your intelligence, Theodore, searcher of thoughts, to bring forth from the treasure of your mind, as the Savior says, "new and old": the old, indeed, documents of human wisdom; the new, however, the oracles of the Holy Spirit. From which treasures you have bestowed upon both parties what was fitting. It is indeed of your prudence to speak what was appropriate for sinners, and to weave for John the crown due from the Mosaic blessing: who, having performed the priesthood without affection, truly ignored father and mother and consanguineous kin because of the excellence of justice, but knew only the lovers and workers of the divine word. Furthermore, those who in our time are seen as bishops have brought the earthen kind into pursuits, and militias, and dignities, having violated the law which says: "The priests shall not give their sons into princes and strollers for the king" (Lev. 18:23): but they consume spiritual men with snares, hardships, guards, and exiles, and drink pure ignorance, thinking from these that they de-honor the friends of virtue, concerning whom the Savior predicted: "The days shall come in which those who kill you will think they are rendering a service to God" (John 16:2). Nor, evidently, did He say it concerning the Gentiles, because He would have said "gods": which signify many and not one. But because He named one and alone, He shows those who now [index: entries preserved]

^A under the guise of the Church are plundering her. For, having veiled their own wickedness and envy, they pretend in word to care for her, whom they have ruined by their deeds. But even if they sophistically reason thus, the outcome of what has happened will refute them as having served the one who boasted: "I shall not be shaken from generation to generation without evil." For since the inventor of lawlessness and the cultivator of the most wicked desire, the serpent, could not yet find a species of newer heresy, he has driven the leaders of the Church into mutual slaughter, through a passion for position and preeminence, by which they have brought about the schism. For if there had been the harmony of the Spirit of God among the bishops, then, as the author of the crime, or as unworthy of the priesthood, or, as Theophilus says, as liable to pride, John should have been restrained. The omnipotent wisdom of God could have rightfully restrained him from the priesthood, or found a way by which he could have been cast out without disturbance and without tears—namely by death, or by paralysis, or by loss of voice, as we know some of his adversaries have suffered, and some are yet to suffer. But since so many deeds ^B unworthy of the Savior followed, and yet he was not deposed, but sent into exile, it is evident that the drama is the devil's—whose kingdom was being destroyed by John's preaching. I certainly know that John deposed six who were rightly judged as buyers of the priestly dignity, of whom I spoke above. Who wept? Whose nostrils dripped blood? What spider was torn apart? Who went out of his house? Who was fined a bit of small change? Or what charlatan of Asia, or craftsman, or farmer, or cobbler, or common man did not rejoice at what was done for the retribution of the sacred laws, applauding: "How great are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you have made them all"? For where God works, all things are done in wisdom; but where the evil-hating demon works, all things are in folly. And strange things follow folly: envies, murders, strife, zeal, angers, contentions, divisions, clamor, the noise of the unlearned, the boiling over of authorities, racks, scourging, lamps, streams of blood, intolerable losses, confiscations, the dissolution of divine laws, contempt for laws, the setting aside of temperance, the schism of the inhabited world, watchers of earth and sea, naval, cavalry, and infantry machinations for the obstruction of those who go into exile for the sake of the truth. How, therefore, do they dare to say: "John has been cast out by the dispensation of God"? Let those who interpret these things tell me: Could the omnipotent wisdom of God, as I said before, ^C by an invisible power, cause John to cease if he were unworthy? Or persuade those who disagree with him, without much necessity of rulers, to bear the matter dispassionately? For if it is the same God who cooperated with Moses for the liberty and obedience of Israel, while Pharaoh was openly shouting: "I do not know God, and I will not release Israel," how then, in the case of John, has He stood in need of the help of earthly rulers, as if He were aged, or as if He were weak, or as if He were at a loss? Furthermore, he who made the adulteries of some, and the pederasties of others, and the sorceries of still others public, was he at a loss to refute John? Or, conversely, he who caused the tongue of this one to swell with a confession in writing, and allowed that one to fall into a deadly paralytic seizure, or he who embalmed another with a generation of worms, keeping him speechless on his bed for nearly an entire year, or he who brought those terrible fears upon another along with the companion gout, or he who caused whom he wished to swell in the legs, or he who snatched that one away with a foul death quickly—things that all know—was he weak, as you say, in the case of John, who was a sacrilegious person, so as to be unable to effect one of these things, but required this one and that one so that, having disgraced him, he might thrust out John, having by this means glorified him much more? Therefore they are deceived, not knowing the command of the Word. For a sacrilegious person is not strictly one who distributes gold, or silver, or silken garments—the food of moths—to the poor; but one who, with money and flattery and feasting, sells the doctrines and the precepts of the Savior; then, he who maltreats a holy man, adorned in life and word, through whom the Savior, as through a chalice or a treasure, was dispensing to the lovers of the Word the things conducive to salvation. Let those, therefore, be called sacrilegious who have plundered the apostolic Church, having deprived her of such teachers, and who sell ordinations for money, whom divine justice will now pursue for the correction of their own ^D wickedness. For if those who had violated the law of Moses through excessive negligence were cast out of the temple by the Savior with a scourge, and that a rope-whip, because they were selling doves inside—what will they suffer, then, who traffic in the priesthood of the New Testament, unless it be that they are to be shattered by an iron rod by the Chief Shepherd? As the Apostle says: "Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you think, will he be judged worthy who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has considered the blood of the Covenant in which he was sanctified as common, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" For we know the one who said: "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But may God, who has glorified this pious and holy shepherd and luminary of justice, grant us to find a portion or inheritance with him on His fearful day of just judgment; to whom is due glory, honor, majesty, and magnificence, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.