Adamantius

Rivista del Gruppo Italiano di Ricerca su

Origene e la tradizione alessandrina
*
Journal of the Italian Research Group on
Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition
19
(2013)










Per Maria Ignazia Danieli

156
What the Bishop Wore to the Synod:
John Chrysostom, Origenism,
and the Politics of Fashion at Constantinople
di
Susanna Elm
First among the factions, [the Blues] changed their hair to a completely new style. They had it cut and
shaped very differently from all other Romans. They did not alter the beard or mustache in any way,
but took care to grow them as long as possible, like the Persians. But the hair on the head they cut right
back to the temples, allowing the long growth to fall down behind to its full length in a mangled mess,
like the Massagetai. That is why they call this fashion the Hun Style. Then [] they all think it right
to wear rich clothing, putting on styles too ostentatious for their proper status [] their capes and
pants were also in the Hun style
1
.
John Chrysostoms ill fated tenure as bishop of Constantinople between 398 and 404 has
attracted significant scholarly attention seeking to answer the question why Chrysostom, who
had been so successful at Antioch, failed so spectacularly in the capital
2
. This is a vexed problem.
Even though we posses abundant sources chronicling these years, they paint a conflicting and
contradictory picture of the protagonists and the events leading to John Chrysostoms
condemnation at the synod of the Oak in 403, his subsequent recall, renewed exile in 404, and
his spectacular posthumous rehabilitation
3
.
In fact, sources favorable to Johns position have dominated modern scholarship until recently,
so that the true extent of the controversy is coming into focus only slowly
4
. Revisions, however,
continue apace, readjusting the picture of Johns Constantinopolitan years
5
. Old enemies such as
the empress Eudoxia and Theophilus of Alexandria can no longer simply be brushed aside as a
Jezebel redux and overbearing Egyptian Pharao
6
. The tensions among the Constantinopolitan

1
Procop. H. arc. 7,8-14. Trans. B. SHAW, Sacred Violence. African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age
of Augustine, Cambridge 2011, 24-25; A. CAMERON, Circus Factions. Blues and Greens at Rome and
Byzantium, Oxford 1976, 74-104. I thank Rebecca Lyman for helping me clarify my thoughts, as always.
2
C. TIERSCH, Johannes Chrysostomus in Konstantinopel 398-404, Tbingen 2002; J.N.D. KELLY, Golden
Mouth: the Story of John Chrysostom: Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop, London 1995. The majority of recent and
forthcoming books focus on Chrysostoms Antiochene period, e.g. M. ILLERT, Johannes Chrysostomus und
das antiochenisch-syrische Mnchtum, Zurich 2000; B. LEYERLE, Theatrical Shows and Ascetic Lives. John
Chrysostom`s Attack on Spiritual Marriage, Berkeley 2001; A. HARTNEY, John Chrysostom and the
Transformation of the City, London 2004, though she also addresses Constantinople; J. MAXWELL,
Christianization and Communication. John Chrysostom and his Congregation in Antioch, Cambridge 2006;
I. SANDWELL, Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greek, Jews, and Christians in Antioch, Cambridge 2007;
and the forthcoming works of D. Kalleres and C. Shepardson, to name but a few.
3
W. MEYER, John Chrysostom: Deconstructing the Construction of an Exile, ThZ 62 (2006) 248-258.
4
F. VAN OMMESLAGE, Que vaut le tmoignage de Pallade sur le procs de Saint Jean Chrysostome?, AnBoll 95
(1977) 389-413; Oratio funebris in laudem sancti Iohannis Chrysostomi. Epitaffio attribuito a Martirio di
Antiochia, ed. and trans. M. WALLRAFF C. RICCI, Spoleto 2007, 10-27; D.S. KATOS, Palladius of
Hellenopolis: the Origenist Advocate, Oxford 2011.
5
W. MAYER, Progress in the Field of Chrysostom Studies (1984-2004), in Giovanni Crisostomo. Oriente e
occidente tra IV e V secolo, Roma 2005, 9-35, esp. 19-20; and esp. EAD., The Homilies of John Chrysostom:
Provenance, Reshaping the Foundations, Roma 2005.
6
W. MAYER, Doing Violence to the Image of an Empress: the Destruction of Eudoxia`s Reputation, in Violence
in Late Antiquity. Perception and Practices, ed. H. A. DRAKE et al., Aldershot 2006, 205-213; F. FATTI, Trame
SUSANNA ELM What the Bishop Wore to the Synod
157
elite during that crucial period can no longer be neatly subsumed as hellenophiles versus pro-
barbarians
7
. Johns opponents can no longer be characterized as merely power-hungry, decadent
clergy and intriguing monks conspiring to destroy an upright reformer
8
. The many nuances and
readjustments that recent scholarship has introduced have, however, only increased the
complexity of Johns Constantinopolitan years. Whereas before we had a comparatively
straightforward narrative, in which John Chrysostom emerged heroically as a victim of those
aligned against him, we now confront multiple layers of competing and contending factions, so
intractable that one might despair of ever finding a convincing answer as to why John
Chrysostom failed so spectacularly at Constantinople.
One explanation has, however, increasingly gained ground, namely that John was deposed by
the synod of the Oak because he had been accused of being an Origenist and these accusations
were of sufficient severity to make them stick. It is this last aspect that I will address in the
following
9
. What did Origenism mean in the case of John Chrysostom, the avowed champion of
the Nicene cause, and why were his accusers in Constantinople so successful in convincing a
sizeable enough constituency that these accusations (combined with others involving
administrative and canonical legal violations) warranted his deposition? Few sources provide
answers to this question. Therefore, I will approach this complex situation from an admittedly
oblique angle by asking what role fashion might have played in facilitating the alliance of those
who wanted to oust John as bishop. More specifically, I want to focus on asceticism and
monasticism at Constantinople at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century as
part of fashion, display, and ostentation.
Ostentatious display through fashion, as a number of social historians have pointed out,
increases in significance during times of stress. The greater the level of stress and competition
within a given society or among a group within that society, the greater the need to mark the
boundaries between the competitors distinctly and symbolically through increasing ostentation
and ever more elaborate display, causing what Ian Morris has called veritable style wars
10
. The
martial metaphor is not accidental; there are quite few famous examples of persons and the
groups with which they were associated that fell victim to such style wars
11
.
Perhaps John Chrysostom was one of them. Ecclesiastics and especially ascetics were of course
part of this culture of competition and display. I do not propose that a focus on fashion will cut

mediterranee: Teofilo, Roma, Constantinopoli, Adamantius 12 (2006) 105-139; N. RUSSELL, Theophilus of
Alexandria, Abingdon 2007.
7
J.H.W.G. LIEBESCHUETZ, Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and
Chrysostom, Oxford 1990; A. CAMERON J. LONG, Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius, Berkeley
1993; T. SCHMITT, Die Bekehrung des Synesios von Kyrene, Munich 2001.
8
D. CANER, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late
Antiquity, Berkeley 2006.
9
See especially P. VAN NUFFELEN, Theophilus against John Chrysostom: The Fragments of a Lost liber and the
reasons for John`s Deposition, in this volume.
10
I. MORRIS, Death-ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge 1922, 28, 128-155;
I. HODDER, The Domestication of Europe, Oxford 1990, 3; P. VEYNE, Propaganda Ausdruck Knig, Bild Idol
Orakel, in ID., Die rmische Gesellschaft, Munich 1995, 300-327; see also G. PEERS, Object Relations:
Theorizing the Late Antique Viewer, in The Oxford Handbook on Late Antiquity, ed. S. JOHNSON, Oxford
2012, 970-993.
11
A point well conveyed by C. WEBER, Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution,
London 2007, 3-10. Other examples include John Wesley preaching in fields in silk stockings, and the
Quakers refusing to remove their hats.
ADAMANTIUS 19 (2013)
158

the Gordian knot of Johns Constantinopolitan years nor do I imagine for a moment that
fashion trumpets the hard facts, to wit the competition between Theophilus and John, between
Alexandria, the preeminent episcopal seat of the East and the increasingly important
Constantinople
12
, the affair of the Tall Brothers, or Johns role in the affair of Heracleides of
Ephesus, to name but a few bones of contention
13
. However, Johns tenure at Constantinople
occurred at a critical juncture where fashion and stress played their role. Constantinople between
398 and 403 experienced intense battles between the military and senatorial civilian leadership of
the court which included the use of deadly force. Writing during these events and shortly
thereafter, John and his contemporary authors display a great deal of sensitivity to ostentation
and public deportment, leaving no doubt that fashion was highly controversial
14
. However, such
heightened sensitivity to fashion was not caused by an increase in distinction between competing
groups, but rather by a greater homogeneity of elite male fashion that made signaling
associations more difficult, especially when marking oneself as Nicene or Arian, to stick with the
polemical labels of the time. Here, philosophers, ascetics, and monks come into play, because to
patronize them could signal what dress alone could not. Ascetics and monks, themselves highly
conscious of their forms of ostentation and display and associated with key military and civilian
players and the court, were pivotal in the ouster of the bishop, who had managed to be so
divisive that his fervent supporters faced an equally fervent opposition, united, however divided
in other ways, by their common dislike of the bishop. Perhaps his ostentatious insistence on his
form of display was the wrong move at the wrong time.
1. The Constantinopolitan Elites, Barbarians, and Style Wars
By the end of the fourth century, gold had become the standard defining the new elites. Ever
since Constantine had introduced the gold solidus as a means to assure the loyalty of his elites
and had begun to pay the military and the imperial administration in gold, there ensued an
even more extravagant passion for spending gold [] which means that the houses of the rich
were crammed full and their splendor increased to the detriment of the poor
15
.
Constantinople was particularly affected by the impact of this new gold. It was a new city
whose residents had increased nearly tenfold between 330 and 400 to about 300,000, and
many who belonged, by 400, to its elites were new men or the sons of new men, members
of the administration and the army who had come to the city from elsewhere, especially the
Eastern provinces, had risen in rank and fortune as a result of imperial patronage, and had
amassed staggering amounts of wealth expressed in references to centenaria of gold
16
.

12
Hier. Ep. contra John. Hier. 37 indicates that Theophilus had the care of all the Churches.
13
E. CLARK, The Origenist Controversy. The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate, Princeton
1992, 86-121; F. FATTI, Eretico condanna Origene! Conflitti di potere ad Alessandria nelle tarda antichit,
ASEs 20 (2003) 383-435; KATOS, Palladius of Hellenopolis, cit., 71-77.
14
As evident in Chrysostoms numerous references and allusions to the theater and to spectacle. B. LEYERLE,
Theatrical Shows and Ascetic Lives: John Chrysostom`s attack on Spiritual Marriage, Berkeley 2001;
CH. JACOB, Das geistige Theater. sthetik und Moral bei Johannes Chrysostomus, Mnster 2010, 94-141, 154-
170; both focus on Antioch.
15
An. de rebus bell. 2,1-2, ed. and trans. E.A. THOMPSON, A Roman Performer and Inventor, Oxford 1952, 94;
J. BANAJI, Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity: Gold, Labor, and Aristocratic Dominance, Oxford 2001, 46-49,
56-65; F. CARL, L`oro nella tarda antiquit: Aspetti economici e sociali, Torino 2009, 125-131.
16
J.-P. CALLU, Le centenarium` et l`enrichissement montaire au Bas-Empire, Ktma 3 (1978) 301-316; for
populations figures J. DURLIAT, De la ville antique la ville byzantine: le problme des subsistances, Paris
SUSANNA ELM What the Bishop Wore to the Synod
159
a. Clothes maketh the Man
With new wealth came a new style of dress. As an important recent study by Philip von
Rummel, based on archaeological evidence has shown, for men this new fashion was military
17
.
Elite male dress absorbed the military style and was designed to show-case wealth, regardless
of the military or civilian status of the one who displayed it. All wished to glitter with the
splendor of gold and colors
18
. Elite male dress consciously crossed the military-civilian divide
and thus gave visual impact to the fact that the imperial administration, which attracted so
many members of the elite especially from the Eastern, Greek provinces to Constantinople,
styled itself as the militia officialis. The military proper, however, was dominated by
barbarians. After Valens defeat at Adrianople in 378, the reconstituted Eastern army consisted
to a very significant degree of Gothic, Alan, and Hunnic troops under the leadership of
Gothic, Alan, and Armenian commanders
19
. Thus, the military style that now set elite fashion
was barbarian
20
.
Because male fashion was increasingly military in style and de facto softened the difference
between the civilian and the military elites, and because that military style echoed barbarian
fashion, elite dress elided the difference between Roman and barbarian men
21
. Courtiers,
powerful civilian administrators, and military leaders alike favored (barbarian) tight tunics
with silken panels over colorful embroiders trousers, contrasted with colorful capes held in
place by golden, bejeweled fibula brooches
22
. Womens fashion was more straightforward. It
displayed wealth through extraordinary jewelry and silk fabrics interwoven with gold, without
any barbarian leanings except for the fact that for its critics all luxury was by definition
barbarous
23
. In practice, civilian, military, and barbarian style had merged into a new late
Roman imperial elite style of remarkable consistency, characterized by intense colors, tightly

1990, 250-257; P. HEATHER, New Men for New Constantines? Creating an Imperial Elite in the Eastern
Mediterranean, in New Constantines: The Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzantium, 4
th
-13
th
centuries, ed.
P. MAGDALINO, Aldershot 1994, 11-34, esp. 18-25.
17
P. VON RUMMEL, Habitus Barbarus. Kleidung und Reprsentation sptantiker Eliten im 4. und 5.
Jahrhundert, Berlin 2007.
18
Amm. 31,10,14; M. HARLOW, Clothes Maketh the Man: Elite Male Dress in the Later Roman Empire, In
Gender and the Transformation of the Roman World, edd. L. BRUBAKER J. SMITH, Cambridge 2004, 44-69;
for the significant civil part of the militia, C. KELLY, Ruling the later Roman Empire, Cambridge 2004.
19
Zos. 4,30; Eun. Frag. 60,1 (Blockley); M. KULIKOWSKI, The Notitia Dignitatum as Historical Source, Hist.
49 (2000) 358-377; LIEBESCHUETZ, Barbarians and Bishops, cit., 26-31.
20
To cite HARLOW, Clothes Maketh the Man, cit., 68-69: New men had absorbed and transformed the
dominant modes or representations of masculinity in their own image. Where the earlier Roman fought to
obscure outside influences, later Roman man embraced them and, in so doing, accepted a transformation
both in the individuals who held power and the way they expressed that power in dress code.
21
Significantly, recent archaeological research, including von Rummels, has shown that many of the
jewelry used earlier to identify barbarian, Gothic, Hunnic, Vandal graves had in fact been manufactured in
Constantinople; B. ARRHENIUS, Merovingian Garnet Jewelry. Origins and Social Implications, Stockholm
1985, 120-126, 196-198; I thank Peter Brown for this reference. Indeed, the flow of gold reached well beyond
the frontiers to allow for such homogenization of elite display, P. GUEST, Roman Gold and Hun Kings: The
Use and Hoarding of Solidi in the late fourth and fifth centuries, in Roman Coins outside the Empire, edd.
A. BURSCHE R. CIOLEK R.WOLTERS, Wetteren 2008, 295-307.
22
RUMMEL, Habitus Barbarus, cit., 376-394.
23
Life of Melania 19 and 21; Amm. 14,6,10; R. DELMAIRE, Le vtement, symbole de richesse et de pouvoir,
d`aprs les textes patristiques et hagiographiques du Bas-Empire, in Costume et socit dans l`Antiquit et le haut
Moyen Age, edd. F. CHAUSSON H. INGLEBERT, Paris 2003, 85-98, esp. 89.
ADAMANTIUS 19 (2013)
160

fit tunics, showy swords, jeweled brooches, and cloaks that flowed like theater curtains to
display the lavish use of silks and the art of weaving
24
.
While elite male fashion reflected the actual merging of military, barbarian and civilian style,
literary sources demonstrate that this process caused intense anxiety on the part of our authors
and was subject to harsh controversy: external display, after all, reflected manly virtue, and
barbarians, especially those from the north, were not traditionally symbols of such virtues.
The more barbarian the fashion, then, the greater the difficulty of expressing moral fiber
through clothes alone.
Ammianus famous description of the beardless Huns, ugly as eunuchs and clad in tattered
mouse-skins, stands paradigmatic for the negative characteristics associated with barbarians
25
.
Not surprisingly, late Roman authors, for the most part members of the civilian elites such as
Synesius, who had arrived in Constantinople from Cyrene almost at the same time as John,
criticized barbarian fashion as signifying a dangerous preponderance of military power to the
detriment of the civilian one. These authors noted everything barbarian about the new
military-civilian fashion with an eagle eye and with the rhetorical deploys of age-old
ethnographic topoi
26
.
One ought to eject [the Goths] from the senate and block their access to the senatorial honor, those
persons who can only deride what Romans have since ancient times considered the most honorable.
I think that today ... the Goddess of the Senate and the God of the army would cover their head
when the man in sheepskins [i.e. Alaric] commands soldiers in the chlamys. Afterwards, he exchanges
the sheepskin for a toga, and discusses, seated next to the consuls [] the politics of the day. But as
soon as [the Goths] leave the senate, the throw on their pelts again and laugh about the toga, which
impedes, so they say, the quick drawing of the sword
27
.
Here, the culprit was Alaric, an unreliable Gothic military commander. But Rufinus, an Eastern
praetorian prefect of no discernible barbarian ethnicity, could equally be described as barbarian if
his conduct elicited displeasure: His exterior displays his mind-set. He, who had [] held the
power of the consul in his hands, is not ashamed to take on Gothic customs [dressed in yellow
skins, in fulvas pelles]
28
. At stake was not the actual composition of the army and the ethnicity of
its commanders, but the intense competition of men of different background over influence at
court and in the realm.
The imperial family and its fashion, its choice of representation, also played an important role.
According to some of our civilian authors, the imperial family displayed, ceremonially, the elite,
military, barbarian fashion to general detriment, thereby displaying an undue dependence on its
soldiers. I argue that nothing in the past has harmed the affairs of the Romans more than the
scene and theater surrounding the emperors body, now hidden from us, as if that would make it
holy, and then presented [to us] in a barbarian fashion
29
. Phrased differently, Arcadius, Eudoxia,

24
Amm. 22,4,5; also 14,6,9; R. MACMULLEN, Some Pictures in Ammianus Marcellinus, ArtB 46 (1964) 435-
56, esp. 436; RUMMEL, Habitus Barbarus, cit., 388.
25
Amm. 31,2,1-6; RUMMEL, Habitus Barbarus, cit., 109-128, 143-148.
26
M. MAAS, Barbarians: Problems and Approaches, in The Oxford Handbook on Late Antiquity, 60-91;
RUMMEL, Habitus Barbarus, cit., 65-82.
27
Syn. De regno 22.
28
Claud. Carm. 5 (against Rufinus), 78-85; cf. Claud. Carm. 26; RUMMEL, Habitus Barbarus, cit., 143-148 on
the pelt topos.
29
Syn. De Regno 14,29.
SUSANNA ELM What the Bishop Wore to the Synod
161
and the imperial household at Constantinople participated in these style wars in their own
fashion, because they too were altering imperial ceremonial and display
30
.
John Chrysostoms years as bishop of Constantinople coincided with a period of signal importance
in the ideological and real competition between military leaders, such as Gainas, Tribigild, and
Fravitta, of Gothic origin yet thoroughly Romanized, civilian leaders who also at times
commanded the army such as Caesarius, Aurelian, Eutychianus, Saturninus, or the comes John, and
high ranking courtiers such as the barbarian eunuch Eutropius, who had yielded military command
and had become consul as the first eunuch ever to reach such dizzying heights; a highly unsettling
spectacle for many contemporary observers. The period between 398 and 403 witnessed the fall of
Eutropius, who had been instrumental in making John bishop, the rise and fall of Gainas, the
military leader of Arian Goths, the taking hostage by Gainas of Aurelian, Saturninus, and John,
confidants of the empress Eudoxia and holders of the highest offices in the realm, the massacre of
several thousand Goths, most of them civilians, in a burning church in the city, the revolt of
Tribigild, and the weakness of Arcadius. These short years decided who would dominate the
Eastern empire from then on out: the army command or the high ranking members of the
senatorial elite and the civilian administration. The latter carried the day in Constantinople, but, as
the Western example shows, things could easily have gone in favor of the military commanders
31
.
More to the point, during the years between 398 and 403 the outcome was far from certain.
In a situation of such intense actual pressure and real danger, the external cues by which those
in power and command displayed visually their loyalties were of particular relevance. Every
nuance of display mattered, especially when fashion per se had lessened the difference between
the competing groups. Because actual fashion had been homogenized, literary allusions
demonstrate how nuances in the forms of display could be read and willfully misread to
express alliances and oppositions. Wearing Gothic sheepskins and ostentatious silks reflected
an attitude and a mindset rather than denoting ethnic character, as Claudians description of
Rufinus shows. The same was true of the chlamys and the toga, the habitus Romanus (though
the chlamys was Greek, of course)
32
. A thoroughly Romanized military leader such as Fravitta
wore symbolically true Roman, or rather Greek, dress even if in reality he was resplendent in
his barbarian military style clothes
33
. And just as clothes can easily be changed, references to
barbarian and Roman clothes and the mind-set those references evoked could be adjusted,
depending on the circumstances, the occasion, and the opinion of the person making that
reference: one persons sheepskin wearing Goth was anothers toga-clad Roman.
John Chrysostom knew exactly how to employ the complexities of the symbolic significance
of dress. In a sermon he held just after Gainas had been expelled and numerous Goths
massacred in the burning church in July 400, he expressed them as follows:

30
For imperial representation TIERSCH, Johannes Chrysostomus, cit., 193-228; MAYER, Doing Violence, 212-13;
P. VAN NUFFELEN, Playing the Ritual Game in Constantinople (379-457), in Two Romes: Rome and
Constantinople in Late Antiquity, edd. L. GRIG G. KELLY, Oxford 2012, 183-200, esp. 195-199; RUMMEL,
Habitus Barbarus, cit., 386-394.
31
Eun. Frag. 66 (Blockley); LIEBESCHUETZ, Barbarians and Bishops, cit., 134-42; CAMERON LONG,
Barbarians, cit., 309-323, 333-336; J. MATTHEWS, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, AD 364-425,
Oxford 1975, 109-114.
32
RUMMEL, Habitus Barbarus, cit., 83-96; S. ELM, Isis` Loss: Gender, Dependence, and Ethnicity in Synesius`
De Providentia or Egyptian Tale, Journal of Ancient Christianity 1 (1997) 96-115.
33
Zos. 5,20; the Gothic general Modares received a similarly positive description, Zos. 4,25; Greg. Naz. Ep.
136 calls him barbarian in a positive sense: in his case, the difference between Greek and barbarian was
merely physical, and not one of character and soul.
ADAMANTIUS 19 (2013)
162

Let us make an end to this war, let us overthrow these enemies [] let us establish peace in our
city. We have within us a city [] with many citizens and aliens, but let us drive out the aliens so
that our own people may not be ruined [] If we catch sight of a bad thought (logismos), let us
hand it over to the ruler, our mind, that thought that is a barbarian dressed up as a citizen. For there
are within us many thoughts of that kind, by nature enemies though clad in sheeps skins. Just like
Persians when they take off the tiara and trousers and barbarian shoes and put on clothes that are
usual with us and shave themselves close and converse in our tongue, but still conceal war under
their outer garb
34
.
Display signals thoughts and attitudes, and such attitudes could be visualized as clothes. John
made clear what he meant by barbarian thoughts hiding beneath sheeps skins in a succinct
formulation addressed to his Constantinopolitan audience after he had returned from a failed
expedition to Gainas, then in Thrace, to negotiate the release of Aurelian, Saturninus, and the
comes John. On every side there are a thousand disguises and many sheep-skins everywhere
concealing numerous wolves
35
. John knew whereof he spoke. It is well-documented that he
had been in frequent contact with Goths in Constantinople, had ordained Gothic clergy, and
had preached to Goths with the help of translators
36
. He had assigned them a church inside
the city, probably the very same that subsequently burned, and had sought to persuade many
Goths, most of whom were Arian, to convert to his orthodoxy. Hence it is no wonder that the
imperial palace elicited Johns support in negotiating with Gainas, even though Chrysostom
had resisted Gainas demands for an Arian Gothic church in the city. John was, or should
have been, attuned to the complex role of thoughts and clothes, elite display and the
ideological connotation of barbarian dress: his mission elicited a predictable response. To
some, Johns failed efforts to reach Gainas signaled a noble effort to rescue hostages, while
others saw it as acquiescence to the realms worst enemies, Arian barbarians
37
.
Johns patronage of Gothic presbyters, deacons, and readers, efforts that included a letter to
the bishop of Ancyra asking him to recommend suitable men, indicates another way in which
competing members of the elite could signal their status and their allegiances: through the
persons they sponsored
38
. Given that dress alone was no longer sufficient to signal clearly what
an elite man or woman stood for, that message could be augmented and clarified by the kinds
of persons members of the elite sponsored and patronized. Those with whom one associated
oneself as patron formed part of ostentation and display, showcasing their benefactors
thoughts in ways that aided his other means of public presentation. This is particularly true if
those sponsored were literary men, philosophers, ascetics, and monks. This was a two-way
street. Members of the elite sponsored philosophers, ascetics, and monks to show-case their
positions and alliances, to add to their display, but philosophers, ascetics, and monks also used
ostentation and display to attract the attention of donors and sponsors.

34
Io. Chrys. In acta apost. hom 37 (PG 60, 267); CAMERON LONG, Barbarians, cit., 96-99.
35
Io. Chrys. Hom. cum Saturninus et Aurelianus etc., PG 52,415; TIERSCH, Johannes Chrysostomus, cit., 281-
308, with further bibliography; see also SCHMITT, Die Bekehrung, cit., 315-331, esp. n. 243.
36
Theod. h.e. 5,30.
37
Ps. Martyr. Or. fun. 47-51; Socr. h.e. 6,5,5; Soz. h.e. 8,4-10; praises Johns efforts, describing Gainas as
dressed in the clothes of sin; TIERSCH, Johannes Chrysostomus, cit., 281-296 for the Arian church and 297-
308 for the negotiations regarding Aurelius and his fellow-hostages and reactions to them.
38
Theod. h.e. 5,31.
SUSANNA ELM What the Bishop Wore to the Synod
163
b. Monks maketh the Man (or Woman)
Synesius, for example, arrived in Constantinople from Cyrene with two companions in 397 to
petition the court for tax relief on behalf of his native Pentapolis. In contrast to his two
fellow-emissaries, he did not return once that mission had been accomplished, in 398 or so,
but stayed on until after the massacre of the Goths in the summer of 400
39
. His aim was to
attract the attention of a major patron, not because Synesius required financial support, but
because he wanted to use connections to a great man and a great house to further his own
career
40
. Synesius literary prowess burnished the reputation and prestige of a powerful man,
who in turn would introduce Synesius to the pinnacle of the Constantinopolitan elite.
Synesius first attracted the attention of a Paeonius, a military man who distinguished himself,
according to Synesius, by being a rare combination of philosopher and career soldier (as
Cameron has shown, a popular compliment)
41
. Synesius did not know Paeonius well, but well
enough to introduce himself with a spectacular gift, a silver astrolab of dubious utility except
as an item of ostentatious erudition. A literary show-piece, de Dono, accompanied the
mechanical one, and the gambit worked. Paeonius introduced Synesius to Aurelian, who
became praetorian prefect in the summer of 399 and consul in 400, when he was taken
hostage by Gainas. In 398, while Aurelians foe Eutropius was at the height of his power,
Synesius wrote his De regno for Aurelians benefit, signaling with his anti-barbarian, that is,
anti-Eutropian invective his own loyalty to Aurelian and those allied with him
42
.
Among those who enjoyed Aurelians patronage was also the monk Isaac. Isaac, a one-time
soldier and firm adherent of the Nicene version of Christianity, had come to Constantinople
from Syria during the time of Valens, when the city was dominated by homoians, that is,
Arians. There he had foretold rather spectacularly to the emperors face Valens impending
death at Adrianople
43
. Under Theodosius, Isaacs divinatory, ascetic, and doctrinal credentials,
in line with those of the new emperor, garnered him the patronage of two high ranking
military men, Saturninus, consul in 383 and later hostage of Gainas, and Victor, consul in 369.
Having risen to prominence under Valens, they saw the new Nicene theological light soon
and clearly: Isaac was well-positioned to reflect his patrons new attitudes in public and at
court. Neither Saturninus nor Victor would go up to the palace, until they had come to the
holys site before dawn
44
. To showcase their impeccable Nicene credentials (and perhaps to
assure easy early morning access to Isaac), Victor and Saturninus competed in offering him
sites on their suburban estates. Isaac chose that of Saturninus, where he was joined by a
member of the imperial guard, Dalmatius, who eventually became the leader of the
community. The success of this monastic settlement patronized by military men with high
civilian credentials made it also attractive to Aurelian
45
.

39
SCHMITT, Die Bekehrung, cit., 243-261.
40
A. CAMERON, Wandering Poets. A Literary Movement in Byzantine Egypt, Hist. 14 (1965) 470-509, esp. 470.
41
Syn. De dono 1,132-134; CAMERON -LONG, Barbarians, cit., 84-91.
42
Syn. Ep. 154; De regno 20 for the anti-Eutropian barbarian topoi; SCHMITT, Die Bekehrung, cit., 275-288.
43
Soz. H.E. 6,40,1; Theod. H.e. 4,34,1-3; N. LENSKI, Valens and the Monks: Cudgeling and Conscription as a
Means of Social Control, DOP 58 (2004) 93-117, esp. 107-113.
44
Life of Isaac 4,15; CANER, Wandering, Begging Monks, cit., 191-194.
45
Life of Dalmatius 5; LENSKI, Valens, cit., 109, n. 92.
ADAMANTIUS 19 (2013)
164

Victor had become well-versed in the political capital ascetics especially from far-away places
represented for their sponsors early on
46
. He had married the daughter of Mavia, an Arabian
leader who had attacked Rome under Valens. Mavia had made that marriage and the
ordination as bishop of Moses, an ascetic she favored, a condition of her peace treaty in 378.
Closer to Constantinople, other prominent women also sponsored their own ascetics and
monastics. Olympias is the best known example. She and several of her elite female friends
and relatives with close ties to the court sponsored John Chrysostom, but they also extended
their hospitality and considerable financial resources to his opponents, especially if these were
prominent ascetics and bishops
47
.
Many of those thus sponsored were new-comers to Constantinople from elsewhere, and our
sources give the distinct impression that to be from a far-away province or city added to the allure
of those sponsored, perhaps because Constantinople itself was new. Marsa, later among Johns
opponents, and her husband, the general Promotus, patronized (presumably Nicene) Gothic
ascetics and monks on their estates
48
. In fact, Eunapius of Sardis, no friend of Christians regardless
of their ethnicity, observed cynically that some Goths, knowing how fond Constantinopolitan
elites were of sponsoring exotic monks, disguised themselves as such to gain entry into the realm
49
.
Gainas, interestingly, though he fought for a church for his Arian Gothic followers inside the city,
only to further his prestige as a hostile source maintains, stood in contact with the Greek elite
ascetic Nilus of Ancyra, a stern opponent of the ascetic life represented by the monk Isaac,
sponsored by Gainas nemesis Aurelian. For Nilus, Isaac was the embodiment of a parvenu, an
ostentatious pigeon-dove at the beck and call of his patrons
50
.
Members of the elites extended their patronage to ascetics, monastics and bishops for their own
reasons (of display). In part they did so to establish their own orthodox or Arian credentials.
However, in keeping with elite Roman custom, a varied circle of friends enhanced the impact of a
patrons magnificence
51
. It could also bolster against the vagaries of an ever changing environment
at court. Though Theodosius and his son Arcadius were staunch defenders of the Nicene faith, as
exemplified in their laws regarding religion, close analysis reveals that in fact their attitudes toward
Arians was carefully calibrated and prudent, and that means also less predictable
52
.
For example, it was only discovered by accident in 388 and 389, several years after the famous edict
that made Nicene orthodoxy the religion of the realm, that many of Theodosius most influential
court eunuchs supported the ascetic and bishop Eunomius, a well-known extreme Arian or an-

46
Ruf. H.E. 11,6; G. BOWERSOCK, Mavia, Queen of the Saracenes, in Studien zur antiken Sozialgeschichte.
Festschrift F. Vittinghoff, Kln 1980, 477-495.
47
Pall. Dial. 4. Many of these women, Olympias included, became ascetics in their own right, often in the
context of intense pressures and real physical and financial threats they had suffered as a result of the
tensions between 398 and 403; W. MAYER, Constantinopolitan Women in Chrysostom`s Circle, VigChr 53
(1999) 265-288, for details.
48
Pall. Dial. 25; Iohan. Chrys. ep. 207, written from his exile.
49
Eun. Frag. 48,2 (Blockley).
50
Ps. Martyr, Or. fun. 49; Nilus, Ep. 1,70, 79, 114-16, 205-6, 286; Nilus, De monachorum preastantia 26 (PG
79, 1092B); CANER, Wandering, Begging Monks, cit., 184-190.
51
For Julians circle at court and additional bibliography S. ELM, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church:
Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus and the Vision of Rome, Berkeley 2012.
52
C. Theod. 16,1,2; N. MCLYNN, A Self-made Holy Man: The Case of Gregory Nazianzen, JECS 6 (1998) 463-
483, esp. 480-482; and above all ID., Genere Hispanus`: Theodosius, Spain and Nicene Orthodoxy, in Hispania
in Late Antiquity: Current Perspectives, edd. K. BOWLES M. KULIKOWSKI, Leiden 2005, 77-120, esp. 79-88,
100-120.
SUSANNA ELM What the Bishop Wore to the Synod
165
homoian. The precursor to that discovery, made while Theodosius, newly married to an Arian
princess, was actually in Milan, had been Arian disturbances in Constantinople, caused by rumors
that Theodosius had been defeated by an usurper, leading to the burning of the bishops
residence
53
. Two edicts, issued by Arcadius acting for his absent father, promptly prohibited
nonnullos Arrianorum to assemble if they indented to break the peace
54
. The really sharp
punishment, however, was reserved only for the Eunomiani spadones, accusing them effectively of
treason
55
. But even that law did not break the supporters of Eunomius: it was rescinded in 394,
restored and rescinded three month later in 395, and that concession reaffirmed in 399, this time,
however, without mentioning court eunuchs
56
. Indeed, by 398 the most powerful eunuch,
Eutropius, had made his sponsorship of a well-known Nicene ascetic very public by making him
bishop of Constantinople
57
.
The empress Eudoxia, daughter of the Frankish general Flavius Bauto, made her own choices of
whom to patronize. Together with Eutropius she had supported John Chrysostom in 398, against
well-known opposition, but dropped Eutropius in 399 and John in 402
58
. Her circle was wide
ranging, and by 402, included the fifty or so monks who had fled Theophilus of Alexandria. I only
mention them here as an example of the efficacy of ascetic ostentation and display to attract high-
level sponsorship. Ammonius, leader of these monks, the Tall Brothers, had previously branded
himself with wounds and cut off his ear to protest Theophilus. Such feats were known in
Constantinople, where those monks were soliciting the powerful, as Theophilus well knew, and
helped to attract the empresses attention when the monks petitioned her while she was on her way
to visit a church
59
. In fact, Daniel Caner has demonstrated the extent to which ascetics and
monastics in Constantinople where at that time engaged in intense battles how to display proper
ascetic comportment
60
. John Chrysostom was a key player in those battles. For John, the local
ascetics (who had come from elsewhere earlier) were nothing but give me guys and they soon
resented him as irascible, gloomy, and overbearing
61
.
2. John Chrysostom on Display
When Eutropius and Eudoxia chose to sponsor John as bishop of Constantinople, they had their
own expectation of what he would represent once in their presence. What exactly these

53
Sulp. Dial. 1,6,2; V. Mart. 20,1-8; Soc. h.e. 5,13,1-14; Soz. h.e. 7,14,5; Fasti Vindobonenes priores ad annum
388; Theodosius married Galla, sister of Valentianian, which raised eyebrows, Theod. h.e. 5,15,3; Ruf. h.e.
11,17.
54
Amb. Ep. 74,13,147-156; C. Theod. 16,5,15, 4,2, dated June 14 and 16 388.
55
C. Theod. 16,5,17; 16,7,1; 16,5,40; R. VAGGIONE, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution, Oxford
2000, 354-355.
56
C. Theod. 16,5,23, 25, 27, 36.
57
For Johns election as bishop see TIERSCH, Johannes Chrysostomus, cit., 31-41.
58
TIERSCH, Johannes Chrysostomus, cit., 206-228; MAYER, Doing Violence, cit., 205-213.
59
Hier. Ep. 98,23; Pall. Dial. 26; LIEBESCHUETZ, Barbarians and Bishops, cit., 204; TIERSCH, Johannes
Chrysostomus, cit., 331-336.
60
CANER, Wandering, Begging Monks, cit., 83-205; W. MAYER, Monasticism at Antioch and Constantinople
in the Late Fourth Century: A Case of Exclusivity or Diversity?, in Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church,
edd. P. ALLEN R. CANNING L. CROSS, Everton Park 1998, 275-288; ILLERT, Johannes Chrysostomus, cit.,
focuses on Antiochene monasticism, though as Mayer, Monasticism, cit., points out, the differences
between Constantinopolitan and Antiochene ascetic practice may not have been that significant: the
debates what constituted right monasticism raged empire-wide.
61
Pall. Dial. 19; Soz. h.e. 8,8.
ADAMANTIUS 19 (2013)
166

expectations were cannot be recovered, but they involved, first, a staunch defense of Nicene
orthodoxy, and second, display
62
. Arians were famous for their lavish processions, and John enlisted
the empresss support in staging his own, even more lavish counter processions. Style wars ensued,
one of the empresss eunuchs was wounded and Arian processions forbidden
63
. Precisely such a
nine mile long procession from the Great Church to a suburban martyrium, bearing relics, and
abundant in silver crosses and torches, gave John an opportunity to comment on the fashion of the
empress. He did so, again, in an ambiguous way. Eudoxias simple clothes stood in stark contrast to
the fashion of the day, so extreme that women will soon adopt the form of monsters by seeking to
have hair made from real gold
64
. The empress, usually wearing the imperial crown and dressed in
purple was now walking behind the relics dressed as a servant girl. Suppressing all vanity, she
allowed herself to be seen by the crowd at the midst of a vast spectacle. Her very repudiation of
imperial fashion was the spectacle, according to Chrysostom, and thus, in his formulation, a
criticism of that very fashion. By casting off her clothes made of gold, her jeweled diadem, and her
purple stole, she, the sponsor of ascetics, became the wealth of the church. More importantly, by
shedding her imperial clothes, Eudoxia united all in the city, whether Syrian, Greek, Roman, or
barbarian: the grace of the moment flows through her body into her clothes, into her shoes, and
then into her shadow, to be shared by all. See how many sheep are here now and not a wolf in
sight
65
.
For John, then, the display of the wealthy and powerful was divisive, whereas the wealth of the
church, displayed by radically simple clothes, united. This wealth was embodied by the right kind
of monks, whose way of life, including their dress, should be emulated by all: instead of the golden
collars of wealth, golden chains that would bind them in the hereafter, all should don the iron
collar of the true monk and ascetic, the true turtle dove from the mountain, and not the pigeon-
dove ascetic of the city. Such true monks wore sack-cloth, ashes, and yes, sheeps skins, but their
skins spoke of true thoughts and did not hide any wolves
66
.
The accusations leveled at John Chrysostom make it clear that he did not unite. His criticism of
elite forms of display and ostentation did not make him many friends. His attempts to align
monasticism at Constantinople with the bishop, that is, himself, for example through consolidating
the financial support of ascetics under his control, alienated the monks and their elite patrons
67
.
His own life-style was seen as lacking decorum. To eat alone, as he did, was an affront and also
impeded social exchange between elites, ascetics, and bishops
68
. Further, his efforts to unite, for
example by preaching to the Goths directly, combined with the persons who were his most
prominent sponsors aspects of his display in short had left Johns display open to contrasting
interpretations and the possibility of misreading and misrepresenting his cues quite deliberately
and successfully
69
.

62
TIERSCH, Johannes Chrysostomus, cit., 22, 111-124, 206-228.
63
Soc. h.e. 6,8; Soz. h.e. 8,8; probably C. Theod. 16,5,30.
64
Iohan. Chrys. Hom. 7 in Col. 5 (PG 62, 350).
65
Iohan. Chrys. Hom. 2.3. Dicta postquam rel. (PG 63, 467-472, esp. 469, 470, 472).
66
Iohan. Chrys. Hom.13 in Eph. 3 (PG 62,97); Hom. 69 in Math. 2-3; Hom. 10,5 in Col (PG 62, 376);
MAXWELL, Christianization and Communication, cit., 126-133, 161-164; LEYERLE, Theatrical Shows, cit., 196-
205 and passim; HARTNETT, Transformation, cit., 132-149.
67
CANER, Wandering, Begging Monks, cit., 169-177, 190-199; TIERSCH, Johannes Chrysostomus, cit., 135-182;
LIEBESCHUETZ, Barbarians and Bishops, cit., 208-222.
68
Soz. H.E. 8,10; Pall. Dial. 12; KATOS, Palladius of Hellenopolis, cit., 54-59, 64-71.
69
See also KATOS, Palladius of Hellenopolis, cit., 82-91.
SUSANNA ELM What the Bishop Wore to the Synod
167
3. Between a Rock and a Hard Place - John and Origenism
What role, then, might display have played in John Chrysostoms downfall? Peter van Nuffelens
analysis, in this volume, of the accusations leveled against Chrysostom in 403, highlights that John
was condemned because he had violated both canonical law and the tenets of orthodoxy
70
.
According to the summary of the acts of the Synod of the Oaks, the monk Isaac, sponsored by
Aurelian, and a leader of Nicene monks in the city, accused John Chrysostom of sympathy with
the so-called Origenists, for whose benefit he had even thrashed another monk, also called John
(accusation 1 and 2). Isaac further noted that for Chrysostom Christs prayer to God could not be
heard because Christ did not pray the right way (accusation 7)
71
. Both accusations suggest that
John was theologically unreliability, and they were serious. Theophilus of Alexandria, one of Johns
principal opponents, further enhanced these charges in his correspondence with the bishop of
Rome immediately after the synods conclusion, intended to win support for his views in the West.
Theophilus stressed that John sympathized with the Origenists, represented by the Tall Brothers,
whom he had condemned, and had even ordained some of them. In sum, Origenist leanings were a
significant cause of Johns downfall
72
.
But of what exactly did Johns Origenism consist, especially from the vantage point of his main
accusers, Isaac, the monk, Theophilus, the bishop of Alexandria, and his opponents in
Constantinople? Theophilus had condemned Origenism, but it was not an official heresy, and
many others at the time were quite supportive of Origen and his teachings. Theophilus anti-
Origenism, furthermore, had been an Egyptian affair, caused by intense debates about ascetic and
monastic life, centered on the question whether or not to conceive of God in human form was
permissible, that is, on how deep one considered the ontological divide that separated man from
the divine, created from uncreated, generated from ingenerated
73
. In the course of these debates,
Theophilus accused those ascetics and monastics who opposed him, the Tall Brothers among them,
of following Origen, whom he interpreted as having argued, for example, that the Son is less than
the Father, that the Word did not assume a human body, that we should not pray to the Son but
only to the Father, that resurrected bodies are corruptible, that Father and Son are not
consubstantial, and of denying the reality of the Eucharist
74
.
The trajectory is obvious: Some have dared to call Origen a doctor of the church. It is right to
tolerate such people? If Origen is a doctor of the church, Arians and Eunomians take heart and so
do pagans. The former blaspheme the Son and the Spirit, the latter are like them in their impiety

70
VAN NUFFELEN, Theophilus against John Chrysostom; KATOS, Palladius of Hellenopolis, cit., 86-91.
71
The minutes of the synod are only preserved as summarized by Photius, Bibliothque Cod. 59, ed.
R. HENRY, Paris 1960, 52-57.
72
Though the charge of ordination reflects a violation of canonical procedure. For the role of Origenism in
the condemnation see J.M. LEROUX, Jean Chrysostome et la querelle origniste, in Epektasis. Mlanges
patristiques offerts au cardinal Jean Danilou, edd. J. FONTAINE C. KANNENGIESSER, Paris 1972, 336-337;
RUSSELL, Theophilus, cit., 33; KATOS, Palladius of Hellenopolis, cit., 58, and passim for Palladiuss counter-
strategy, which has won over scholarship for many decades; S. ELM, The Dog that Did not Bark. Doctrine
and Patriarchal Authority in the Conflict between Theophilus of Alexandria and John Chrysostom of
Constantinople, in Christian Origins. Theology, Rhetoric, and Community, Edd. L. AYRES G. JONES,
London 1998, 68-93.
73
Theophilus, Letter Written at Constantinople, frag. 7.
74
Theophilus, Synodal Letters in RUSSELL, Theophilus, cit., 91-94, 97, see also M. RICHARD, Nouveaux
fragments de Thophile d`Alexandrie, Gttingen 1975, 11; CLARK, The Origenist Controversy, cit., 118-119.
ADAMANTIUS 19 (2013)
168

and deride the resurrection as well
75
. For Theophilus, those who sympathized with Origen, as he
read him, were Arians and Eunomians. As Isaacs accusations against John Chrysostom reveal, he
accused John of precisely such misdemeanors by questioning the efficacy prayer to Christ. Another
source voices doubts regarding Johns stance vis--vis the eucharist
76
. To accuse John of Origenist
sympathies meant, then, to accuse him of sympathy with Arians and Eunomians. That was
precisely Isaac and Theophilus accusation: Arians and Eunomians delight in the blasphemies of
John against Christ [] not only is John no Christian, but he is worse than the king of Babylon
77
.
Whatever the degree of polemic virulence, these accusations struck a sufficient cord to effect Johns
deposition as bishop of Constantinople, especially in their combination with accusations of
administrative misconduct. A sufficient number of persons assembled at the synod were convinced
and, furthermore, certain that they would find enough support in the city to allow them to label
John as so dangerously close to Eunomian and Arian teachings as to warrant his removal. To
orchestrate such a consensus in Constantinople cannot have been a small feat. How could one even
imagine that labels such as Eunomian and Arian, albeit disguised as Origenist, could ever be made
to stick with a figure such as John Chrysostom?
In one of his very first sermons after his arrival as bishop in Constantinople John had, after all,
attacked the teachings of Eunomius and his supporters
78
. Eunomians were, in fact, an obvious and
easy target, since they had been so clearly defamed by imperial law. But the law rescinding that they
be punished for treason was rescinded again in 399 without mentioning the court eunuchs as its
original version had done. Eunuchs had supported Eunomius; Eutropius was a staunch Nicene,
but he was also a eunuch, and he had supported John Chrysostom. When Eutropius fell in 399, he
was hiding behind the altar fearing for his life in Johns church, when the bishop chastised him for
amassing worldly power and all its magnificent trappings, not recognizing that wealth is like a
runaway slave. All knew that it had been the eunuch Eutropius who had made John bishop, and
many among the elites considered Johns protestations too harsh, displaying the lack of decorum
that signified a disloyal friend
79
. What then was Johns relation to still powerful eunuchs, known to
count supporters of Eunomius among them? What aspect of Johns relation to the most prominent
eunuch of them all would one want to highlight?
Eunomians were a special case: they were not Arian per se, they had suffered severe condemnation,
but condemnations were intensely contested, especially at court. By 403, the supporters of
Eunomius had by no means disappeared. But what about accusations that John Chrysostom
sympathized with Arians? Such accusations are easier to explain, if one considers Arians not
primarily as those defending the homoousios, but Arianism as perhaps the predominant form of
Christianity in the military and among its command: Arians were Goths. Chrysostom had
preached to Goths, had given them a church in the city, soon considered to have in fact been

75
Theophilus, Letter to the Saints in Scetis in RUSSELL, Theophilus, cit., 100; Frag. 12, 3 and 5 in RICHARD,
Nouveaux fragments, cit., 62-63; KATOS, Palladius of Hellenopolis, cit., 88-89.
76
Hier. Ep. 114,2 (to Theophilus); Facundus d`Hermiane. Dfense des trois chapitres ( Justinien) 6,5,17, ed.
J.M. CLMENT - R. VANDER PLAETSE (SC 471, 478-479, 499), Paris 2000-2006: oblationes sacrilegas
offerentem; see VAN NUFFELEN, Theophilus against John Chrysostom.
77
Fac. 6,5,21; Pelagii diaconi ecclesiae romanae in defensione trium capitulorum, ed. R. DEVREESSE, Citt del
Vaticano 1932, 71,16; VAN NUFFELEN, Theophilus against John Chrysostom.
78
C. Theod. 16,5,34; Iohan. Chrys. Hom. 11 (Jean Chrysostom, Sur l`galit du pre et du fils: contre les
Anomoens hom. VII-XII, ed. A.-M. MALINGREY, Paris 1994, 286-357); MAYER, The Homilies, cit., 538.
79
Soc. H.e. 6,5,6; Iohan. Chrys. Hom. Eutr. (Giovanni Crisostomo, Omelie per Eutropio, Ed. F. CONTE
BIZZARRO R. ROMANO, Napoli 1987).
SUSANNA ELM What the Bishop Wore to the Synod
169
Arian
80
, had accused everyone of harboring thoughts in Gothic sheeps skins under their very
own chlamys, had gone to Gainas to free Aurelian, Saturninus, and John, and had failed. John had
supported orthodox Goths, but Goths they were, and others had different views of how the
military should function in relation to the civil authorities, Aurelian, Saturninus, and Isaac
evidently among them
81
.
This has been an attempt to shift the angle away from John and Theophilus, Palladius and the
author of Johns funeral oration to others, who played a crucial role in Johns down-fall but whose
views we do not possess. By focusing on the complexities of elite display, through ostentation in
dress and through patronage of philosophers, ascetics, and monastics, I wanted to highlight the
intensity of the competition among different groups in the city, who were all engaged in claiming
their own, considerable stakes at that very moment. We do not visualize Origenists or Arians, but
in the capital clothes could shift with religious and political commitments, or could be read as such,
and small nuances were understood, just as a pontifex emeritus now wears simple black shoes and no
longer red ones. Engaging Arian Gothic military leaders and their followers as John had done
might have had a very different outcome at a different time, had it not been for the clat provoked
by Gainas. Gainas provoked Eutropius fall, but a eunuch as consul created its own, extreme
tensions. As Synesius makes clear, the competition between military and civilian was at a high
pitch. Ascetic and monastic life and its forms of display was in flux. Johns positions may sound
clear and utterly Nicene to us, but they were evidently open to numerous interpretations, intensely
favorable and hostile at the same time: Isaac was Nicene and completely opposed to John, whereas
Arian Goths were on his side. What could John have worn, then, that would not have offended
someone? Surely something, but as our difficulty in imagining how a Gainas or Fravitta may have
dressed as opposed to an Aurelian and Saturninus indicates, it was hard for John to dress in a way
that made him look unequivocally Nicene.
Susanna Elm
University of California at Berkeley Dept. of History
3229 Dwinelle Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-2550
<elm@berkeley.edu>
Abstract
John Chrysostoms failure as bishop of Constantinople, following as it did on his successful Antiochene
career, continues to puzzle scholars. Increasingly, accusations of Origenism emerge as one of the many
factors that led to the bishops down-fall, initiated at the Synod of the Oaks. But what did Origenism
mean to those who accused Chrysostom? How was it defined? And, more importantly, how can we
assess the attitudes of those in power, instrumental in toppling the bishop of the capital, who left no
written record, namely the members of the imperial elite? This paper uses elite male fashion and display,
including forms of display achieved through the public sponsoring of ascetics in and near the city, to
address some of these questions. Here, the fact that Johns alleged Origenism was linked, rhetorically, to
Arianism and Eunomianism gains particular relevance, not least because some of the elites involved in
the conflicts that led to Chrysostoms downfall, were themselves Gothic Arians.


80
Iohan. Chrys. Hom. to the Goths (PG 63, 499-510); Theod. H.E. 5,31.
81
LIEBESCHUETZ, Barbarians and Bishops, cit., 222.