exhibited its
characteristic traits of piety and unselfishness. In Constantinople,
though an intensely religious city, paganism for centuries continued to
exert a marked influence, and the type of woman there varied in
accordance with the proportions of the two ingredients--Christianity and
paganism--in the mental and spiritual aggregate of the individual woman.
Some, to avoid the vanities and temptations of the world, lived lives of
retirement in secluded monasteries; others, often of prominent social
position, partook not of the gay life of the city, but gave themselves
up to good works, ministering to the sick, providing for the poor,
uplifting the fallen; while others, chiefly in the court circles, knew
how to combine with their devotion to all the vanities and frivolities
of high life a strict attention to the external duties of Christianity.
The religious sisters of the day were an important factor in the society
of Constantinople, and the exercise of their spiritual duties often
brought them before the public in a manner inconsistent with the
prevailing ideas of female retirement. A popular priest or bishop became
the target of admiration on the part of enthusiastic women, who would
gather about him and espouse his cause in a way that was often more
embarrassing than helpful. As Jerome in Old Rome, so Chrysostom in New
Rome was the centre of such a spiritual circle.

These various types of Christian womanhood present themselves in the
reign of Arcadius, the first independent emperor of the Eastern Empire
so called, and we are indebted to the sermons of the patriarch
Chrysostom for many glimpses into their lives. Far more than in Old Rome
the influence of women made itself felt in the government at
Constantinople, and under almost every dynasty and throughout the
centuries of its existence we find remarkable ladies of the imperial
house playing a prominent part in politics as well as in religion.

The keynote of this new departure was struck by Eudoxia, empress of
Arcadius, and the influence of her personality and her example upon her
successors was marked. Hence, her career and that of the women of her
time constitute the initial stage in the prominence of Christian women
of the East.

Owing to the intellectual weakness of Arcadius, who inherited the
eastern half of the Empire upon the death of Theodosius the Great in
395, the administration really fell into the hands of his minister,
Rufinus, a vicious and a