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 of the Council of the Oaks.  He was now more popular and powerful than before.  But not more prudent.  For a silver statue of the empress having been erected so near to the cathedral that the games instituted to its honor disturbed the services of the church, the bishop in great indignation ascended the pulpit, and declaimed against female vices.  The empress at this was furious, and threatened another council.  Chrysostom, still undaunted, then delivered that celebrated sermon, commencing thus:  “Again Herodias raves; again she dances; again she demands the head of John in a basin.”  This defiance, which was regarded as an insult, closed the career of Chrysostom in the capital of the Empire.  Both the emperor and empress determined to silence him.  A new council was convened, and the Patriarch was accused of violating the canons of the Church.  It seems he ventured to preach before he was formally restored, and for this technical offence he was again deposed.  No second earthquake or popular sedition saved him.  He had sailed too long against the stream.  What genius and what fame can protect a man who mocks or defies the powers that be, whether kings or people?  If Socrates could not be endured at Athens, if Cicero was banished from Rome, how could this unarmed priest expect immunity from the possessors of absolute power whom he had offended?  It is the fate of prophets to be stoned.  The bold expounders of unpalatable truth ever have been martyrs, in some form or other.

But Chrysostom met his fate with fortitude, and the only favor which he asked was to reside in Cyzicus, near Nicomedia.  This was refused, and the place of his exile was fixed at Cucusus,—­a remote and desolate city amid the ridges of Mount Taurus; a distance of seventy days’ journey, which he was compelled to make in the heat of summer.

But he lived to reach this dreary resting-place, and immediately devoted himself to the charms of literary composition and letters to his friends.  No murmurs escaped him.  He did not languish, as Cicero did in his exile, or even like Thiers in Switzerland.  Banishment was not dreaded by a man who disdained the luxuries of a great capital, and who was not ambitious of power and rank.  Retirement he had sought, even in his youth, and it was no martyrdom to him so long as he could study, meditate, and write.