CHAPTER XVIII

SEDITION OF THE PEOPLE AGAINST THEOPHILUS AND THE MEMBERS OF HIS COUNCIL. RE-INSTALLATION OF JOHN IN THE BISHOPRIC

THE people of Constantinople were made acquainted with the decree of the council towards the evening, and they immediately rose up in sedition. At the break of day they ran to the church, and shouted 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, 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 assumed a more formidable aspect than before, 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 sentence that had been enacted against 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 all other sins, He resists the proud. This discourse excited the anger of the people to such a pitch, that their impetuosity could no longer be repressed. They ran to the churches, to the market-places, and even to the palace of the emperor, and with loud vociferations demanded the restoration of their bishop. The empress was, at length, overcome by their vehemence and importunity; and she persuaded the emperor to yield to the wishes of the people. She sent a eunuch, named Brison, in whom she placed the utmost confidence, to bring back John without delay from Prenetes, a small city of Bithynia, whither he had been banished; 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 as the administrator of baptism to her children.

When John, on his journey homeward, reached the suburbs belonging to the empress, he stopped near Anaples, and refused to re-enter the city until the injustice of his deposition had been recognised 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 forth to meet him, bearing lighted torches, and singing psalms in honour of his return. They conducted him to the church, and although he at first objected to enter the edifice until the sentence enacted against him had been revoked, yet they compelled him to take the episcopal seat, and to bestow the benediction of peace, as usual, upon the people. 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; and his praises of these august personages so excited the admiration of his auditors, that the discourse was interrupted by their acclamations.