prosecutors, witnesses, and judges. They had not dared to assemble at Constantinople, where the broad light of day would have fallen upon their calumnies, and where they had cause to fear the faithful people who venerated their pastor. Of the thirty-five bishops, twenty-nine were of Egypt. While the enemies of Chrysostom assembled at The Oak, the faithful bishops, forty in number, had gathered around Clirysostom, at the call of the Emperor, to judge Theophilus. Chrysostom was conferring with these bishops, when two messengers from the pseudo-council of The Oak came to summon him to appear there. The holy bishop refused to recognize his enemies as judges. They nevertheless proceeded to depose him, and wrote to the Emperor Arcadius, that it was his duty to banish him and even to punish him for the crime of high treason, in having in his sermons insulted the Empress Eudoxia. This amounted to a demand for his death. The whole people rose against the conventicle of The Oak in favour of Chrysostom, who would not leave the city without being forced to do so. The Emperor then commanded one of his counts to expel him, using violence even, if necessary. The saint took advantage of a moment when his faithful children had somewhat relaxed their vigilance, to leave his house, and give himself up to the soldiers commissioned to arrest him. He was put in ward until evening, and was conveyed by night to the port. But in spite of these precautions, the people found out that their pastor was taken from them. A great crowd followed him weeping. Chrysostom was put on board of a ship, and hurried off before daylight, and he was landed on the coast of Bithynia.
Such gross injustice gave universal umbrage. Several of the enemies of the saint repented of their calumnies; the people besieged the churches and filled them with their clamour. A dreadful earthquake at this time filled
