nt of
the Eastern church.

[Footnote 43: The females of Constantinople distinguished themselves by
their enmity or their attachment to Chrysostom. Three noble and opulent
widows, Marsa, Castricia, and Eugraphia, were the leaders of the
persecution, (Pallad. Dialog. tom. xiii. p. 14.) It was impossible
that they should forgive a preacher who reproached their affectation to
conceal, by the ornaments of dress, their age and ugliness, (Pallad
p. 27.) Olympias, by equal zeal, displayed in a more pious cause, has
obtained the title of saint. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi p.
416-440.]

[Footnote 44: Sozomen, and more especially Socrates, have defined the
real character of Chrysostom with a temperate and impartial freedom,
very offensive to his blind admirers. Those historians lived in the next
generation, when party violence was abated, and had conversed with many
persons intimately acquainted with the virtues and imperfections of the
saint.]

[Footnote 45: Palladius (tom. xiii. p. 40, &c.) very seriously defends
the archbishop 1. He never tasted wine. 2. The weakness of his stomach
required a peculiar diet. 3. Business, or study, or devotion, often kept
him fasting till sunset. 4. He detested the noise and levity of great
dinners. 5. He saved the expense for the use of the poor. 6. He was
apprehensive, in a capital like Constantinople, of the envy and reproach
of partial invitations.]

[Footnote 46: Chrysostom declares his free opinion (tom. ix. hom. iii
in Act. Apostol. p. 29) that the number of bishops, who might be saved,
bore a very small proportion to those who would be damned.]

This ecclesiastical conspiracy was managed by Theophilus, [47]
archbishop of Alexandria, an active and ambitious prelate, who displayed
the fruits of rapine in monuments of ostentation. His national dislike
to the rising greatness of a city which degraded him from the second to
the third rank in the Christian world, was exasperated by some personal
dispute with Chrysostom himself. [48] By the private invitation of
the empress, Theophilus landed at Constantinople with a stou body of
Egyptian mariners, to encounter the populace; and a train of dependent
bishops, to secure, by their voices, the majority of a synod. The synod
[49] was convened in the suburb of Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak,
where Rufinus had erected a stately church and monastery; and their
proceedings were continued during fourteen days, or sessions. A bishop
and a deaco