be convinced that the papal authority as received at this day in the West, was then unknown.
It thus appears that the Romish theologians are without a show of reason when they cite the appeal of the Donatists as favourable to papal pretensions.
Let us now examine the case of St. John Chrysostom:
This great Bishop of Constantinople drew upon himself the hatred of the Empress Eudoxia and of many bishops and other ecclesiastics, by his firmness in maintaining the rules of the purest discipline.[1] His enemies were supported by Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria. This bishop had condemned some poor monks as Origenists. They had come to Constantinople to seek for redress. The famous question of Origenism was thus revived. Chrysostom did not think it profitable to examine it. But Eudoxia, who busied herself with theological questions more than was becoming in a woman, took the part of the monks against Theophilus, who was accordingly commanded to appear at Constantinople. But before Theophilus arrived there, Chrysostom incurred the hatred of the Empress, and she determined upon using Theophilus to avenge her of that great man, who had not known how to yield a servile submission to her caprices.
It was not long before Theophilus, who had been summoned to Constantinople under accusation of guilt, bore himself as the judge of that innocent archbishop, who out of respect for the canons, had refused to judge him. He conspired with certain bishops who were courtiers; and he corrupted sundry ecclesiastics by money and promises. Sustained by the court, he, with thirty-five other bishops assembled in a place called The Oak, near Chalcedon, (A.D. 403.) These bishops were at once
- ↑ The facts we are about to analyze all rest upon the authority of Palladius the historian, a disciple of St. John Chrysostom; the Ecclesiastical Histories of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret; the works of St. John Chrysostom; and upon the official documents inserted either in the work of Baronius or in the Collection of Councils by Father Labbe.
