Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Sozomen/Book VIII/Chapter 18
Chapter XVIII.—Sedition of the People against Theophilus; and they traduced their Rulers. John was recalled, and again came to the See.
The people of Constantinople were made acquainted with the decree of the council towards the evening; and they immediately rose up in sedition.[1]
At the break of day they ran to the church, and shouted, among many
other plans, that a larger council ought to be convened to take
cognizance of the matter; and they prevented the officers, who had been
sent by the emperor to convey John into banishment, from carrying the
edict into execution. John, apprehensive lest another accusation should
be preferred against him, under the pretext that he had disobeyed the
mandate of the emperor, or excited an insurrection among the people,
when the multitude was dispersed, secretly made his escape from the
church at noon, three days after his deposition. When the people became
aware that he had gone into exile, the sedition became serious, and
many insulting speeches were uttered against the emperor and the
council; and particularly against Theophilus and Severian, who were
regarded as the originators of the plot. Severian happened to be
teaching in the church at the very time that these occurrences were
taking place; and he took occasion to commend the deposition of John,
and stated that, even supposing him guiltless of other crimes, John
deserved to be deposed on account of his pride; because, while God
willingly forgives men all other sins, he resists the proud. At this
discourse the people became restive
under the wrong, and renewed their wrath, and fell into unrestrainable
revolt. They ran to the churches, to the market-places, and even to the
palace of the emperor, and with howls and groans demanded the recall of
John. The empress was at length overcome by their importunity; and she
persuaded her husband to yield to the wishes of the people. She quickly
sent a eunuch, named Briso, in whom she placed confidence, to bring
back John from Prenetus, a city of Bithynia; and protested that she had
taken no part in the machinations that had been carried on against him,
but had, on the contrary, always respected him as a priest and the
initiator of her children.
When John, on his journey homeward, reached the suburbs belonging to the empress, he stopped near Anaplus; and refused to re-enter the city until the injustice of his deposition had been recognized by a larger synod of bishops; but as this refusal tended to augment the popular excitement, and led to many public declamations against the emperor and the empress, he allowed himself to be persuaded to enter the city. The people went to meet him, singing psalms composed with reference to the circumstances; many carried light wax tapers. They conducted him to the church; and although he refused, and frequently affirmed that those who had condemned him ought first to reconsider their vote, yet they compelled him to take the episcopal throne, and to speak peace to the people according to the custom of the priests. He then delivered an extemporaneous discourse, in which, by a pleasing figure of speech, he declared that Theophilus had meditated an injury against his church, even as the king of Egypt had contemplated the violation of Sarah, the wife of the patriarch Abraham, which is recorded in the books of the Hebrews: he then proceeded to commend the zeal of the people, and to extol the emperor and the empress for their good will to him; he stirred the people to much applause and good acclaim for the emperor and his spouse, so that he had to leave his speech half ended.
Footnotes
edit- ↑ Soc. vi. 16; Pallad. Dialog. ibid., and Chrysostom’s Ep. ad Innocentem; Chrys. Sermones antequam iret in Exsilium; Sermo cum iret in Exsilium; orationes et sermones post Reditum ab Exsilio, iii. 427–448. Soz., while guided by the order of Soc., works the material in a different form. Cf. Zos. v. 25.