rch committed to him by
God, unless forcibly compelled to leave it. The emperor sent troops to
drive the people out of the churches on Holy-Saturday, and the holy
places were polluted with blood and all manner of outrages. The saint
wrote to pope Innocent, begging him to declare void all that had been
done; for no injustice could be more notorious.[33] He also wrote to beg
the concurrence of certain other holy bishops of the West. The pope
having received from Theophilus the acts of the false council at the
Oak, even by them saw the glaring injustice of its proceedings, and
wrote to him, exhorting him to appear in another council, where sentence
should be given according to the canons of Nice, meaning by those words
to condemn the Arian canons of Antioch. He also wrote to St. Chrysostom,
to his flock, and several of his friends: and endeavored to redress
these evils by a new council: as did also the emperor Honorius. But
Arcadius and Eudoxia found means to prevent its assembling, the very
dread of which made Theophilus, Severianus, and other ringleaders of the
faction to tremble.

St. Chrysostom was suffered to remain at Constantinople two months after
Easter. On Thursday, in Whitsun-week, the emperor sent him an order for
his banishment. The holy man, who received it in the church, said to
those about him, "Come, let us pray, and take leave of the angel of the
church." He took leave of the bishops, and, stepping into the
baptistery, also of St. Olympias and the other deaconesses, who were
overwhelmed with grief and bathed in tears. He then retired privately
out of the church, to prevent a sedition, and was conducted by Lucius, a
brutish captain, into Bithynia, and arrived at Nice on the 20th of June,
404. After his departure, a fire breaking out, burnt down the great
church and the senate-house, two buildings which were the glory of the
city: but the baptistery was spared by the flames, as it were to justify
the saint against his calumniators; for not one of the rich vessels was
found wanting. In this senate-house perished the incomparable statues of
the muses from Helicon, and other like ornaments, the most valuable then
known: so that Zozimus looks upon this conflagration as the greatest
misfortune that had ever befallen that city. Palladius ascribes the fire
to the anger of heaven. Many of the saint's friends were put to the most
exquisite tortures on this account, but no discovery could be made. The
Isaurians plund