he Inquisition. It seems that
Theophilus had driven out of Egypt a body of monks because they would
not assent to the condemnation of Origen's writings; and the poor men,
not knowing where to go, fled to Constantinople and implored the
protection of the Patriarch. He compassionately gave them shelter, and
permission to say their prayers in one of his churches. Therefore he was
a heretic, like them,--a follower of Origen.

Under common circumstances such an accusation would have been treated
with contempt. But, unfortunately, Chrysostom had alienated other
bishops also. Yet their hostility would not have been heeded had not
the empress herself, the beautiful and the artful Eudoxia, sided against
him. This proud, ambitious, pleasure-seeking, malignant princess--in
passion a Jezebel, in policy a Catherine de Medici, in personal
fascination a Mary Queen of Scots--hated the archbishop, as Mary hated
John Knox, because he had ventured to reprove her levities and follies;
and through her influence (and how great is the influence of a beautiful
woman on an irresponsible monarch!) the emperor, a weak man, allowed
Theophilus to summon and preside over a council for the trial of
Chrysostom. It assembled at a place called the Oaks, in the suburbs of
Chalcedon, and was composed entirely of the enemies of the Patriarch.
Nothing, however, was said about his heresy: that charge was ridiculous.
But he was accused of slandering the clergy--he had called them corrupt;
of having neglected the duties of hospitality, for he dined generally
alone; of having used expressions unbecoming of the house of God, for he
was severe and sarcastic; of having encroached on the jurisdiction of
foreign bishops in having shielded a few excommunicated monks; and of
being guilty of high treason, since he had preached against the sins of
the empress. On these charges, which he disdained to answer, and before
a council which he deemed illegal, he was condemned; and the emperor
accepted the sentence, and sent him into exile.

But the people of Constantinople would not let him go. They drove away
his enemies from the city; they raised a sedition and a seasonable
earthquake, as Gibbon might call it, and having excited superstitious
fears, the empress caused him to be recalled. His return, of course, was
a triumph. The people spread their garments in his way, and conducted
him in pomp to his archiepiscopal throne. Sixty bishops assembled and
annulled the sentence