John Offends the Powerful, and the Fall of Eutropius

As long as John was in conflict only with the clergy, the schemes against him were completely powerless. But when he went on to rebuke many of those in public office too, with excessive vehemence, the tide of ill will began to run against him with far greater force. As a result, many stories were told to discredit him, and most of them found listeners who paid attention and believed them. This growing prejudice was increased not a little by a speech he gave at that time against Eutropius. Eutropius was the chief eunuch of the emperor’s bedchamber, and the first of all eunuchs to be admitted to the rank of consul. [a]

Wanting to take revenge on certain people who had taken refuge in the churches, he persuaded the emperors to pass a law that shut offenders out of the right of sanctuary and allowed those who had sought shelter in the holy buildings to be seized. But its author was punished for it almost at once. Hardly had the law been published when Eutropius himself fell out of the emperor’s favor and fled to the church for protection. So, while Eutropius lay trembling with fear under the altar table, the bishop went up into the pulpit, from which he usually spoke to the people so as to be heard more clearly, and delivered a tirade against him. Because of this he seemed to some to give even greater offense, since he not only refused pity to a man in misfortune but added insult to cruelty. By the emperor’s order, however, Eutropius was beheaded for certain crimes he had committed, though he held the consulship, and his name was struck from the list of consuls. Only the name of Theodore, his colleague, was allowed to stand as consul for that year.

It is said that John later used the same freedom toward Gainas too, who was then commander in chief of the army. He treated him with his usual rudeness, because Gainas had presumed to ask the emperor to give the Arians, whose beliefs he shared, one of the churches inside the city. Many others of high rank, for a variety of reasons, he rebuked with the same unceremonious freedom, and in this way he made many powerful enemies. So Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, began plotting John’s downfall immediately after John’s ordination. He laid his plans in secret, both with the friends around him and by letter with those far away. For what troubled Theophilus was not so much the boldness with which John lashed whatever displeased him, as his own failure to set his favorite presbyter Isidore in the bishop’s chair of Constantinople. Such was the state of John the bishop’s affairs at that time. Trouble was already threatening him at the very start of his time as bishop. But we will go into these things more fully as we go on.