The Death of John Chrysostom

Innocent, bishop of Rome, was very eager, as his earlier letter shows, to bring about John’s recall. He sent five bishops and two presbyters of the Roman church, together with the bishops who had come to him as envoys from the East, to the emperors Honorius and Arcadius, to ask that a council be called and to request them to name the time and place. John’s enemies at Constantinople brought a charge that all this was done to insult the eastern emperor, and they had the envoys sent away in disgrace, as if they had intruded into a foreign government. At the same time John was sentenced by an imperial edict to a more distant place of exile, and soldiers were sent to take him to Pityus. The soldiers soon arrived and carried out the removal. It is said that on this journey Basiliscus the martyr appeared to him at Comani in Armenia and told him the day of his death. Seized with pain in his head, and unable to bear the heat of the sun, he could not continue his journey, but ended his life in that town. [a]