man?  Where the splendor of the light which surrounded him; where the jubilee of the multitude which applauded him; where the friends who worshipped his power; where the incense offered to his image?  All gone!  It was a dream:  it has fled like a shadow; it has burst like a bubble!  Oh, vanity of vanity of vanities!  Write it on all walls and garments and streets and houses:  write it on your consciences.  Let every one cry aloud to his neighbor, Behold, all is vanity!  And thou, O wretched man,” turning to the fallen chamberlain, “did I not say unto thee that money is a thankless servant?  Said I not that wealth is a most treacherous friend?  The theatre, on which thou hast bestowed honor, has betrayed thee; the race-course, after devouring thy gains, has sharpened the sword of those whom thou hast labored to amuse.  But our sanctuary, which thou hast so often assailed, now opens her bosom to receive thee, and covers thee with her wings.”

But even the sacred cathedral did not protect him.  He was dragged out and slain.

A more relentless foe now appeared against the prelate,—­no less a personage than Theophilus, the very bishop who had consecrated him.  Jealousy was the cause, and heresy the pretext,—­that most convenient cry of theologians, often indeed just, as when Bernard accused Abelard, and Calvin complained of Servetus; but oftener, the most effectual way of bringing ruin on a hated man, as when the partisans of Alexander VI. brought Savonarola to the tribunal of the 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