Antioch pulled down the emperor's statues. Then it waited.
The riot lasted about three hours. The waiting lasted all spring. Here is what the old records say.
About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of a Byzantine wall mosaic of glass and stone tesserae, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait of Saint John Chrysostom of Antioch (Hagios Ioannis Chrysostomos), Hagia Sophia (Anonymous Byzantine mosaicist, 9th century, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul) View source artwork.
Three hours in February
ANTIOCH, Roman Syria, this spring, 387 AD — On February 26 a herald read out an order in Antioch. The city had to pay a heavy new tax. The money was to mark the emperor’s years in power. In 388 AD the Emperor Theodosius would finish his tenth year as emperor.
The crowd had come to hear the order. Instead it turned on the statues of the emperor’s family. They knocked the statues of Theodosius and of his dead wife Flacilla off their stands. They dragged the bronze one of the empress over a great part of the town.
Roman law did not call that damage to property. An emperor’s statue stood for the emperor. Smashing it was an offence against the emperor’s own person, close to treason.
The riot lasted about three hours. The governor came back with a company of archers. The crowd melted away before the soldiers had even finished lining up.
The city waits
Then Antioch waited to find out whether the emperor would destroy it.
The waiting was not quiet. Before Theodosius had heard anything about the riot, the city’s own officials began punishing people. Saint John Chrysostom, a priest of Antioch, spoke in church while it was happening. He told the people that citizens were being put to death a few streets away as he spoke.
When the news reached the emperor, he took away Antioch’s rights as a city. He gave its rank to Laodicea, the city next door. Laodicea had been Antioch’s rival for hundreds of years.
Saint Flavian, the bishop of Antioch, set off for the emperor’s court at Constantinople to plead for the city. The road ran eight hundred miles. Winter wasn’t over, and the bishop was old. His only sister was dying. He went anyway.
Twenty-one sermons
For seven days after the riot St. John Chrysostom said nothing from the pulpit. Then he broke the silence. “Suffer me to mourn over our present state,” he told them. “We have been silent seven days, even as the friends of Job were.”
After that he preached almost every day in the Old Church by the river Orontes. He gave twenty-one sermons. The people listening did not expect to be alive at Easter. To people who thought they would be put to death, he said that death “is nothing more than a sleep, a journey, a migration, a rest, a tranquil haven.”
He ended almost every sermon with the same request. The people of Antioch swore rash oaths all day long, and he asked them to stop. He told them he would ask again the next day, and the day after.
What a monk said to the emperor’s men
About the middle of Lent two men sent by the emperor arrived with soldiers to put the city on trial. They were Hellebichus and Caesarius. Monks came down from the mountains above the city and stood in front of the judges.
St. John Chrysostom told the people in church what one of those monks had said to the emperor’s men. “The Statues which have been thrown down are again set up, and have resumed their proper appearance… but if ye put to death the image of God, how will ye be again able to revoke the deed!”
The sentences were put on hold until the emperor could be asked. Caesarius rode the eight hundred miles to Constantinople in a week.
Home on Easter morning
The emperor’s men told him what had been said to them for the city, and his anger cooled. He did not destroy Antioch. He sent back a letter explaining why he had been angry.
St. Flavian had reached the court a week before Caesarius. He came home to Antioch on Easter Day with a full pardon for the city.
St. John Chrysostom preached the last of the twenty-one sermons that morning: “Blessed be God, Who has granted us this day to celebrate this holy Feast with much joy and gladness; and has restored the head to the body, the shepherd to the sheep.”
About this story
Catholic Saints News tells the lives of the saints as news from their own time and place. This story was written with AI from the historical record, and we read and approved it before it ran.
The Saints' words. This newspaper will never make a saint say something the historical record does not preserve.
Junior Report. Written for readers ten to twelve, from the same sources and under the same rules as the rest of the paper. The words are shorter, hard terms are explained, and the question at the end is for the reader to think over.
Read more
- · John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Statues (New Advent)
- · Theodoret of Cyrus, Ecclesiastical History V.19, on the sedition of Antioch (New Advent)
Image. AI-generated image, in the manner of a Byzantine wall mosaic of glass and stone tesserae, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait of Saint John Chrysostom of Antioch (Hagios Ioannis Chrysostomos), Hagia Sophia (Anonymous Byzantine mosaicist, 9th century, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul) — see the original.
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Sources for this story
Listed by paragraph.
- Paragraph 1
- Paragraph 2
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, PREFACE TO THE BENEDICTINE EDITION. ¶2
- documented Theodoret of Cyrus (trans. Blomfield Jackson), Ecclesiastical History, Book V, Chapter 19. Of the sedition of Antioch. ¶2
- Paragraph 3
- Paragraph 4
- attested W. R. W. Stephens, Saint John Chrysostom: His Life and Times — a sketch of the Church and the Empire in the fourth century, CHAPTER XI
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, PREFACE TO THE BENEDICTINE EDITION. ¶2
- Paragraph 5
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, Chapter VI.--Chrysostom as Deacon, Priest and Preacher at An ¶9
- attested Herbert Moore, The Dialogue of Palladius concerning the Life of St. John Chrysostom — Introduction by Herbert Moore, I. The Subject of the Memoir ¶4
- Paragraph 6
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, PREFACE TO THE BENEDICTINE EDITION. ¶24
- attested W. R. W. Stephens, Saint John Chrysostom: His Life and Times — a sketch of the Church and the Empire in the fourth century, CHAPTER VIII. ¶2
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, PREFACE TO THE BENEDICTINE EDITION. ¶23
- attested W. R. W. Stephens, Saint John Chrysostom: His Life and Times — a sketch of the Church and the Empire in the fourth century, CHAPTER XI. ¶10
- Paragraph 7
- Paragraph 8
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, PREFACE TO THE BENEDICTINE EDITION. ¶23
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, Homily XXI. ¶4
- documented John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Statues, Homily 21 — On the return of Flavian the Bishop, Homily 21 on the Statues ¶4
- Paragraph 9
- Paragraph 10
- attested W. R. W. Stephens, Saint John Chrysostom: His Life and Times — a sketch of the Church and the Empire in the fourth century, CHAPTER XI. ¶8
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, Chapter VI.--Chrysostom as Deacon, Priest and Preacher at An ¶9
- attested Herbert Moore, The Dialogue of Palladius concerning the Life of St. John Chrysostom — Introduction by Herbert Moore, I. The Subject of the Memoir ¶4
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, Homily VII. ¶2
- Paragraph 11
- attested W. R. W. Stephens, Saint John Chrysostom: His Life and Times — a sketch of the Church and the Empire in the fourth century, CHAPTER XI
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, PREFACE TO THE BENEDICTINE EDITION. ¶26
- Paragraph 12
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, PREFACE TO THE BENEDICTINE EDITION. ¶40
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, Homily XVII. ¶1
- Paragraph 13
- tradition John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, Homily XVII. ¶5
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, Homily XVII. ¶5
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- attested W. R. W. Stephens, Saint John Chrysostom: His Life and Times — a sketch of the Church and the Empire in the fourth century, CHAPTER XI
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, PREFACE TO THE BENEDICTINE EDITION. ¶44
- documented John Chrysostom; ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9: St. Chrysostom — On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, Chapter VI.--Chrysostom as Deacon, Priest and Preacher at An ¶13
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