“Better in the Hands of the Isaurians than in the Hands of Bishop Pharetrius…”

Saint John Chrysostom describes to the deaconess Olympias what he suffered at Caesarea at the hands of Bishop Pharetrius:

We were about to enter Cappadocia, having at last escaped the hands of the bishop of Galatia, who had threatened us with death. Then many people came to meet us, saying: ‘Pharetrius is anxiously awaiting you and keeps coming and going, worried that you might pass by without his having a chance to meet you. He has even roused all the monasteries, both men’s and women’s, to welcome you, and is doing everything he can to see you, embrace you, and show you all his love.’ I heard all this, of course, but in truth I believed none of what they said. My only thought was that the very opposite surely awaited me. Yet I said nothing of what was in my mind to those who brought me these reports.

When we finally reached Caesarea, I was burning with a very high fever, exhausted and suffering almost to the point of death. At last I found lodging on the outskirts of the city. Immediately afterward, I made an effort to find a doctor who could help extinguish the furnace of fever consuming me. The tertian fever was at its height, aggravated by the hardships of the journey,…