CHAPTER VII

CONCERNING EUTROPIUS, CHIEF OF THE EUNUCHS, AND THE LAW ENACTED BY HIM. MURMURS AGAINST JOHN

EUTROPIUS was originally the chief of the eunuchs, and was the first and only person of that rank who attained the consular and patrician dignity. When he was raised to power, he thought not of the future, nor of the instability of human affairs, but caused those who sought an asylum in churches to be thrust out. He treated Pentadia, the wife of Timasus, in this manner. Timasus was a general in the army, possessed of considerable influence; but Eutropius procured an edict for his banishment to Pasis in Egypt, under the pretext that he aspired to tyranny. I have been informed that Timasus fell a victim to thirst or the cruelty of his enemies, and was found dead among the sands of the desert. Eutropius issued a law enacting that no one should seek refuge in churches, and that the asylums should be violated if any one should attempt to avail himself of them. He was, however, the first to transgress this law; for not long after its enactment, he offended the empress, and immediately left the palace and fled to the church. While he was lying beneath the altar, John pronounced a discourse in which he reprehended the pride of power, and directed the attention of the people to the instability of human greatness. The enemies of John hence took occasion to east reproach on him, because he had rebuked instead of compassionating one who was suffering under the calamities of adverse fortune. Eutropius soon after paid the penalty of his impiety, and was beheaded; and the law which he had enacted was effaced from the public inscriptions. The wrath of God having been thus promptly visited on the injustice that had been perpetrated, prosperity was I restored to the church, and the people of Constantinople were hence more sedulous than before in attendance at the singing of the morning and the evening hymns.