Eudoxia
Wife of the eastern emperor Arcadius. The church historians make her resentment of John Chrysostom’s preaching a cause of his two banishments. She died in October 404, a few months after his final exile.
Eudoxia was the wife of the emperor Arcadius, who ruled the East from Constantinople after the death of Theodosius I (Socrates, Church History 6.1). Socrates says that she took a sermon of John Chrysostom against the vices of women as aimed at herself, complained to the emperor, and so brought about the synod that deposed him (Socrates, Church History 6.15). Sozomen tells the same story but adds that he could not establish whether the sermon was meant for her (Sozomen, Church History 8.16). Among the charges the synod sent to the emperor was that John had called the empress Jezebel (Palladius, Dialogue 8).
When John afterwards denounced the games held around her silver statue near the church, she again moved against him, and he was exiled for the second time in June 404 (Socrates, Church History 6.18). She died that autumn, four days after a hailstorm on 30 September which John’s supporters took as a sign of divine anger (Socrates, Church History 6.19). Theodoret relates that her son, the emperor Theodosius II, later prayed over John’s coffin for the pardon of his parents (Theodoret, Church History 5.36). See John Chrysostom, Preacher and Exile.
In the timeline
- AD 398 to AD 407, firm dateJohn Chrysostom, Preacher and Exile
John, a presbyter of Antioch known for his preaching, is made bishop of Constantinople in 398. His reforms and his plain speaking make enemies among the clergy and at court. A synod deposes him, the emperor banishes him twice, and he dies in exile in 407.