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The Dialogue Of Palladius Concerning The Life Of Chrysostom by Herbert Moore

The Deputation from Rome

SO the holy bishops Æmilius of Beneventum and Cythegius, and Gaudentius, with the priests Valentianus and Bonifacius and others, took charge of the letters of Innocent and the Italian bishops, Chromatius of Aquileia and Venerius of Milan and the rest, and of a memorandum from the synod of the whole of the west, and were despatched to Constantinople at public expense, accompanied by Bishops Cyriacus, Demetrius, Palladius, and Eulysius. The memorandum was to the effect that John ought not to come up for judgment until his Church and rights of communion were restored to him; so that he might take his place in the synod of his own free will, without any excuse for ignoring the summons.

The Despiteful Treatment of the Delegates

They arrived safely at Constantinople, but returned after four months, reporting proceedings which recalled Babylonian oppression. “We coasted Greece,” they said, “and reached Athens; where we were detained by some wretched officer, who at once put us under the guard of a centurion, and forbad us to proceed to Thessalonica,” where they proposed to commence their mission by presenting the letters to Bishop Anysius. “So he embarked us,” the narrator continued, “in two ships, and sent us off. A violent storm from the south came on, and we were three days without food, crossing the Ægean Sea and the straits, and at the twelfth hour of the third day anchored before the city, near the suburb of Victor. Here we were arrested by the harbour masters, by whose orders we did not know, and taken to the outskirts of the city. We were confined in a fortress in Thrace, called Athyra, near the sea, to our absolute torture; the Roman envoys together in one small building, Cyriacus and his companions in others, without even a slave to wait upon us. We were asked for our letters, but refused to surrender them, maintaining that it was impossible for us as delegates to present the letters of the king and the bishops to other than the king himself. As we persisted in our refusal, we were visited first by Patricius, a notary, then by various others, and last of all by a company captain named Valerianus, a Cappadocian, who broke the thumb of Bishop Marianus, and carried off the sealed letter of the king, with the other letters.

“On the following day, messengers were sent to us (whether by members of the royal court, or by Atticus, who was reported to have leaped upon the throne of the Church, we do not know), offering us three thousand cash, and urging us to accept their offer, and to communicate with Atticus, and say no more about the case of John. We refused the offer, and continued in prayer, that if we could do nothing to bring about peace, we might at least return in safety to our Churches—such was the ferocity we observed in them. That this should be so, God the Saviour made clear to them by various revelations. Paul, the deacon of the holy Emmelius, a very gentle and sensible man, while on the ship, saw a vision of Paul the apostle, saying to him, ‘Take heed how ye walk, not as fools, but as wise, knowing that the days are evil.’ The dream was a warning against their various unprincipled efforts to persuade us to pervert the truth, by bribes and flattery.”

Return of the Delegates

“Captain Valerianus came again,” our informant said, “and placed us on board a very poor vessel, with a guard of twenty soldiers drawn from different ranks, after bribing the skipper, so it was rumoured, to get rid of his episcopal passengers, and packed us from Athyra at a moment’s notice. So we sailed for a long distance, and were like to lose our lives, when we moored off Lampsacus; there we were transhipped, and on the twentieth day brought up at Hydrun in Calabria. As to the whereabouts of the blessed Bishop John, or where were the Bishops Demetrius, Cyriacus, Eulysius, and Palladius, who had accompanied our bishops upon their mission, they could tell us nothing.”

The Authors of the Mischief

Bish. Come now, you have had your say, most reverent sir. Now give me your attention, and listen carefully to what I have to tell you; and I will make known to you point by point the public disturbances, worthy of a company of satyrs, which have characterized the whole tragedy, and the sources from which the delirium arose, and the point at which our enemies expected to stop—but they have not stopped yet. Well, the fountain-head and beginning of all the troubles, I suppose one must say, was the devil, the hater of good, who always opposes the reasonable flocks of Christ, pitilessly harassing the experienced shepherds with various kinds of torments, just as the King of Egypt treated the male children of the Jews, and seducing the impostors, the false shepherds, with the deceits of earthly pleasures. The channels conveying the foul effluence, as all the round world knows, are Acacius, Antiochus, Theophilus, and Severianus, who are called what they are not, and really are what they cannot bear to be called; and some of the clerical order, two priests and five deacons, some of them gathered from the unclean, some from the malicious—I do not know if one can safely call such people priests or deacons. Then there are two, or at the most three, from the royal court, who strengthened Theophilus’ party, lending them the support of the military; and three women, besides those who are well known, widows, left wealthy, possessed of money made by extortion, to the loss of their own salvation, husband-baiters and disturbers of the peace. The three are Marsa, wife of Promotus, Castricia, wife of Saturninus, and Eugraphia, an absolute maniac. For very shame, I will say no more. These are the men and the women, sluggard-hearted in the matter of the faith, who have formed themselves into a kind of drunken regiment, united in their hatred of Christian teaching, and have organized a flood of destruction against the peace of the Church.

Theodorus desires the Truth, and Nothing but the Truth

Deac. I understand. Now then, father, I beg you to tell us, as in the presence of God, why they hated Bishop John, and what grounds he had for persistently vexing such highly placed people; and let us know where he began his career, and how he reached the episcopal throne of Constantinople, and how long he held office, and his character, and how he came to his death, if it is true that, as we hear, he has fallen asleep. True, the man is universally held in respect and honourable memory; still, I make it a rule not to believe hastily in rumours, until their truth is confirmed by those who have sufficient knowledge to bestow blame or praise.

The Tests of Truth

Bish. I commend your love of accuracy, most truth-loving gentleman and man of God, Theodorus, but I do not accept your distinction. You ought to have been satisfied (excuse a personal remark) by the sight of my white hairs, and by the office I hold, that you had the truth laid before you; but as you have not done so, but a second time call God to be my judge, do promise me an unprejudiced hearing, at least from now, and let me not pipe my chants to no purpose. I know what is written in the divine law—“The Lord shall destroy all them that speak leasing,” and in the apostle John, “He who speaketh a lie is not of God,” and again in David, “For the mouth of them that speak lies is stopped.” It is true that a liar does harm to the man who believes him; but it is also true that he who believes him does wrong to the liar, by being ready to trust him. As both are equally guilty, let neither of us do wrong to his neighbour. It is a virtue in a speaker, to speak the truth, and a virtue in a hearer, to test unrighteous statements; for the Scripture says, “Be ye reliable money-changers,” rejecting the spurious from among the genuine coins. We are not to receive everything we hear merely because it rings true, but to weigh it by the testimony of the facts, whether it be spoken or written, with a good conscience, and in the fear of God. Grave is the danger from ears and tongue; this is why God, the good artificer, has caused the tongue to be guarded by two lips, and fixed the rampart of the teeth within, as a secure defence to moderate its activity (as it is written, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, a door of confinement about my lips, that I offend not with my tongue”), while He has bored the channel of the ears in spiral form. The significance of this shape is, that words do not enter too quickly, as the time occupied by their winding course is sufficient to deposit the crass matter of falsehood, and the sludge of malice, which are left upon the walls of the orifice. Not that these were the only organs upon which He bestowed His care, as though they were the only ones that trip; we find that He has set veils before the eyes, like window curtains, to keep them from admitting the death of licentiousness, to which the prophet bears witness in the words, “Death ascended through the doors.”

Grey Hair no Criterion of Truth

Deac. If our inquiry dealt with ordinary matters, most holy father, your appearance would have been enough to guarantee the truth of your account; but as we are in quest of the truth, in a matter which involves no small blame in this world, and condemnation in the next, when rulers and peoples are gathered before the awful tribunal, pardon me, my dear sir, if I do not accept your white hairs as evidence. Many bad men have reached old age, men who have not whitened their souls with virtue, but wrinkled their bodies with the lapse of time; such as were the false priests at Babylon, and Ephraim, in Jeremiah, of whom the Word cries in reproof, “Ephraim is a silly dove, having no heart; grey hairs have blossomed forth upon him, but he himself knoweth it not.” And again, more severely, “Ephraim is a cake not turned, and strangers have devoured his strength.”

And I must add, at the risk of being prolix, who is whiter, or more amiable, than Acacius of Berea, whom you and your friends accuse of being the rebel chief, and the leader of the revolutionaries in misbehaviour? Yet his very nostrils bore a crop of long white hairs, when he visited Rome to bring the formal announcement of the ordination of John.

Bish. Now I know for certain, that you are a reliable money-changer; you are not content with the look of the tent-skins, but insist upon full knowledge of the man who lives inside. The temples of the Egyptians, we know, are very large, and glory in the magnificence of their stones, but have within them apes, and ibises, and dogs, which pass as gods; while our Lord and God, in making known to Samuel His will as to the appointment of a ruler for Israel, instructs him not to look upon the condition and moulding of the body of clay, with the words, “God seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh upon the countenance, but God upon the heart.” Hence those who follow the example of God, in everything search out what lies beneath the surface. So I gladly trust myself to you, now that I have found that your scales are free from bias. Those two Babylonians, who were old in body, but perfect infants in their clownish minds, if they had believed in the resurrection of the dead, would have been fortified in wisdom against falling in love with Susanna, the wife of another man; and further, if they had possessed the fear of God, they would not have interwoven false accusations with their licentiousness. The misuse of youth is a sure proof of dishonour in old age.








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