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THE THIRD MONTH IN THE NAME
OF THE FATHER AND THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT, On this day is commemorated the translation of the body of the
saint who is honored in all the ends of the world, John the Mouth of Gold
(Chrysostom), Archbishop of the city of Constantinia (Constantinople).
Now Saint John excommunicated the Empress Eudoxia because of the
property of a widow, which she had taken from her by violence.
And the empress made an excuse for herself, saying, “Kings have
always been in the habit, if when they have been going about among estates
they have seen any property which they wanted, of taking it, and giving
the owner the value thereof, and I will give this widow the value of her
estate”; now the widow did not wish to part with her estate.
For this reason Saint John excommunicated the Empress Eudoxia, and
he forbade her to enter the church, because she had not obeyed his command
and let the property of the widow alone.
And Satan came upon her, and she swelled with pride, and became
furiously angry, and she gathered together to her the bishops whom Saint
John had excommunicated because of their evil works and wicked faith.
And they conspired together against him, and the empress drove him
into exile to the island of the mountains ‘Adrakes.
After a few years (days?) he returned to his office, and then the
bishops gathered together and drove him into exile in the country of
Armenia; and from there [he went] to a far city in the desert where he
died. When Theodosius the
Less, the son of Arcadius, reigned, he sent messengers and had the body of
Saint John the Mouth of Gold (Chrysostom) brought to the city of
Constantinia with great honor, and much singing, and music, five and
thirty years after he was exiled, and it arrived on the twenty-second day
of the month Genbot (May-June), according to what is said in the second
volume of the Coptic Synopsis, and on the twenty-second day of the month
Yakatit (Feb-March), according to the Greek books.
And it is said that they laid the body in a coffer of afras stone,
that is to say, marble, in the sanctuary, and great signs and wonders were
made manifest through his body. Salutation
to the translation of thy body, O John the Mouth of Gold (Chrysostom). Now the Book of the Exposition of Alexandria, and the Exposition
which Abba John, Bishop of the city of Keft, wrote, and the Exposition of
the Melchites agree together in stating that the death of John the Mouth
of Gold (Chrysostom) took place on the seventeenth day of the month Khedar.
The Exposition of the Jacobites saith that he died on the
fourteenth day of the month Elul, that is to say, the seventeenth day of
the month of Maskaram, and that, because of the festival of the Cross they
changed it to the seventeenth day of Khedar.
The old books record that his death took place on the twelfth day
of the month Genbot, but I think that it was the carrying of his body up
to the city of Constantinia which took place on that day, and behold it is
[here] written on the seventeenth day of the month of Khedar. Glory
be to God Who is glorified in His Saints.
Amen. |
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