ridges of Mount Taurus, with a secret hope, perhaps, that he might be a
victim to the Isaurians on the march, or to the more implacable fury of
the monks. He arrived at his destination in safety; and the sympathies
of the people, which had roused them to fire the cathedral and
senate-house on the day of his exile, followed him to his obscure
retreat. His influence also became more powerfully felt in the
metropolis than before. In his solitude he had ample leisure for forming
schemes of missionary enterprise among Persians and Goths, and by his
correspondence with the different churches he at once baffled his
enemies and gave greater energy to his friends. This roused the emperor
to visit him with a severer punishment, though Innocent I. of Rome and
the emperor Honorius recognized his orthodoxy and besought his return.
An order was despatched for his removal to the extreme desert of Pityus;
and his guards so faithfully obeyed their instructions that, before he
reached the sea-coast of the Euxine, he expired at Comana in Pontus, in
the year 407. His exile gave rise to a schism in the church, and the
Johannists (as they were called) did not return to communion with the
archbishop of Constantinople till the relics of the saint were, 30 years
after, brought back to the Eastern metropolis with great pomp and the
emperor publicly implored forgiveness from Heaven for the guilt of his
ancestors. The festival of St Chrysostom is kept in the Greek Church on
the 13th of November, and in the Latin Church on the 27th of January.

In his general teaching Chrysostom elevates the ascetic element in
religion, and in his homilies he inculcates the need of personal
acquaintance with the Scriptures, and denounces ignorance of them as the
source of all heresy. If on one or two points, as, for instance, the
invocation of saints, some germs of subsequent Roman teaching may be
discovered, there is a want of anything like the doctrine of indulgences
or of compulsory private confession. Moreover, in writing to Innocent,
bishop of Rome, he addresses him as a brother metropolitan, and sends
the same letter to Venerius, bishop of Milan, and Chromatius, bishop of
Aquileia. His correspondence breathes a most Christian spirit,
especially in its tone of charity towards his persecutors. In exegesis
he is a pure Antiochene, basing his expositions upon thorough
grammatical study, and proceeding from a knowledge of the original
circumstances of composition