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In The Scarlet Letter, whose idea was it for Chillingworth to live with Dimmesdale, and why?
Quick answer:
It was Roger Chillingworth's idea for him to live with Reverend Dimmesdale. Although initially encouraged by the townspeople and Dimmesdale's friends to consult with Chillingworth for his health, the arrangement for them to live together was subtly suggested by Chillingworth himself. This allowed him to closely monitor Dimmesdale under the guise of providing medical care, while also serving his ulterior motives.
The people of Boston believe that the divine must have intervened to bring Roger Chillingworth to the town, and to Mr. Dimmesdale, especially in the clergyman's time of apparent medical need. In fact, a rumor begins to circulate
that Heaven had wrought an absolute miracle, by transporting an eminent Doctor of Physic from a German university bodily through the air and setting him down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale's study!
Although not absolutely everyone believed in this fortuitous coincidence of events as an example of the divine's involvement in their lives,
The elders, the deacons, the motherly dames, and the young and fair maidens of Mr. Dimmesdale's flock, were alike importunate that he should make trial of the physician's frankly offered skill.
At the very least, then, everyone in the town -- whether they believed Chillingworth's appearance to be miraculous or not -- encouraged a close relationship between...
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the reverend and the doctor. Finally convinced by these individuals to consult with Chillingworth, Dimmesdale meets with the doctor, and, over time, the two begin to spend a lot more time together. They visit one another at home, and they got to know and appreciate one another's perspectives. Then,
After a time, at a hint from Roger Chillingworth, the friends of Mr. Dimmesdale effected an arrangement by which the two were lodged in the same house; so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life-tide might pass under the eye of his anxious and attached physician.
Thus, it sounds as though the idea to move in together really originates with Chillingworth but is made possible by Dimmesdale's friends, those who insist on the arrangement for the sake of the minister's health.