YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY Gift of ROLAND H. BAINTON 'COPIED FROM A FRONTISPIECE TO THE EDITION BY FRONTO DUC/EUS, A. D. 1636, OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM'S WORKS (IN THE CATHEDRAL LIBRARY, CHICHESTER). THE ORIGINAL IS STATED TO HAVE BEEN ENGRAVED FROM AN ElKON OF GREAT ANTIQUITY, AT CONSTANTINOPLE, AND AGREES WITH THE NOTICES OF CHRYSOSTOM'S APPEARANCE BY GREEK WRITERS, WHO DESCRIBE HIM AS SHORT, WITH A LARGE HEAD, AMPLE, WRINKLED FORE HEAD, EYES DEEP-SET BUT PLEASING, HOLLOW CHEEKS, AND A SCANTY GREY BEARD.' SAINT CHRYSOSTOM HIS LIFE AND TIMES A SKETCH OF THE CHUBCH AND THE EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY By- Eev. W. E. W. STEPHENS, M.A. BALLIOL COLL. OXON. ; VICAR OP MID-LAVAKT, SUSSEX a ISoxlrail LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1872 Yaie Divinity Library New Haven, Conn. The right of translation is reserved LONDON : FEINTED BY BrOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STEEET SQUASH AND PAELIAIIENT STEEET TO HIS UNCLE WILLIAM PAGE BAEON HATHEELEY LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OP GREAT BRITAIN AND TO HIS FATHER-IN-LAW THE YEEY EEY. W. F. HOOK, D.D. F.E.S. DEAN OP CHICHESTER UNITED TO EACH OTHER BY A LOVING FRIENDSHIP MAINTAINED UNINTERRUPTED AND UNIMPAIRED FROM BOYHOOD TO THE PRESENT DAY SCIjxs Woinmz is gebkaisfc BY THE WRITER WITH FEELINGS OF THE WARMEST AFFECTION AND MOST PROFOUND RESPECT PREFACE. The considerations which moved me to undertake the preparation of this monograph are mentioned in the in troductory chapter. How far the design there indicated has been satisfactorily fulfilled, it is for others to decide. I am of course conscious of defects, for every workman's ideal aim should be higher than what he can actually accomplish. The work has incurred a certain risk fiom having been once or twice suspended for a considerable period ; but I have always returned to it with increased interest and pleasure, nor can I charge myself with having wittingly bestowed less pains on one part than another. I have endeavoured to make it a trustworthy narrative by drawing from the most original sources to which I could gain access ; and where, as in those portions which touch on secular history, the lead of general his torians, such as Gibbon or De Broglie, has been followed, I have, as far as possible, consulted the authorities to which they refer. To modern authors from whom I have derived valuable assistance for special parts of the work, such as M. Amedee Thierry and Dr. Foerster, my obli gations are acknowledged in their proper place. Neander's life of St. Chrysostom has, of course, through out been frequently consulted. It is marked by the cus tomary merits and defects of that historian. It is full of research, information, thought, and refined religious sentiment ; but he fails to bring out strongly the person ality of his subject. We have abundance of Chrysostom's sayings and opinions, but somehow too little of Chrysos- vi PREFACE. tom himself. The fact is that Neander seems always to be thinking more of those views and theories about the growth of Christian doctrine and the church, which he wishes to impress upon men's minds, than of the person about whom he is writing. Thus, the subject of his biography becomes too much a mere vehicle for convey ing Neander's own opinions, and the personality of the character fades away in proportion. Some passages in the life of his subject are related at inordinate length; others, because less illustrative of Neander's views, are imperfectly sketched, if not omitted. In extracts from the works of Chrysostom, the some what difficult question of the comparative advantages of translation and paraphase has been decided, on the whole, in favour of the latter. The condensation of matter gained by a paraphrase is an important, indeed necessary, object, if many specimens are to be given from such a very voluminous author as Chrysostom. A careful en deavour, at the same time, has been made to render faith fully the general sense of the original ; and wherever the peculiar beauty of the language or the importance of the subject seemed to demand it, a translation has been given. From an early date in the sixteenth century down to the present time the works of Chrysostom have occupied the attention of learned editors. The first attempts, after the invention of printing, were mainly confined to Latin translations of different portions. (1) The first edition which was issued in Greek of the 'Commentaries on the New Testament' came from the press of Commelin, a printer at Heidelberg, in a.d. 1602. (2) In 1612 appeared a magnificent edition of the whole works, in eight thick folio volumes, printed at Eton, and prepared by Sir Henry Savile. Savile, born in 1549, was equally distinguished for his knowledge of mathe matics and Greek, in which he acted for a time as tutor to Queen Elizabeth. He became Warden of Merton in PREFACE. vii 1585, and Provost of Eton in 1596. Promotion in Church and State was offered to him by James I., but declined, though he accepted a knighthood in 1604. His only son died, about that time, and he devoted his fortune henceforth entirely to the promotion of learning. The Savilian pro fessorships of Geometry and Astronomy in Oxford were founded by him, and a library furnished with mathematical books for the use of his professors. He spared no labour or expense to make his edition of St. Chrysostom hand some and complete. He personally examined most of the great libraries in Europe for MSS., and, through the kindness of English ambassadors and eminent men of learning abroad, his copyists were admitted to the libraries of Paris, Basle, Augsburg, Munich, Vienna, and other cities. He used the Commelinian edition as his printer's copy, carefully compared with five MSS., the various readings of which are marked (by a not very distinct plan) in the margin. The chief value of the work consists in the prefaces and notes, contributed some of them by Casaubon and other learned men, though by far the best are Savile's own. The whole cost of bringing out this grand edition is said to have been 8,000Z. Savile's wife was so jealous of her husband's attachment to the work that she threatened to burn it. (3) Meanwhile, Fronton le Due, a French Jesuit, had been labouring independently, but in most amicable inter course with Savile, not only to edit the works of Chry sostom complete, but accompanied by a Latin translation, which he supplied himself for those pieces of which he failed to find any good one already existing. His death arrested the work, which was taken up, after a time, by the two brothers, Frederick and Claude Morel, and com pleted by the latter in 1633. It was published in Paris in 1636, in twelve large folio volumes. The Commelinian was again used as the printer's copy, with fewer alterations than in the edition of Savile. viii PREFACE. (4) We now come to the great Benedictine edition, prepared under the care of Bernard de Montfaucon, who deserted the profession of arms at the age of twenty to become, as a member of the brotherhood of St. Maur, one of the most marvellously industrious workers in literature that the world has ever seen. In 1698, when the Bene dictines had completed their editions of SS. Augustine and Athanasius, they began to prepare for an edition of Chrysostom, which they had intended to do for more than thirty years. Montfaucon was sent to Italy, where he spent three years in examining libraries; and, on his return, obtained leave from the presidents of the congregation to employ four or five of the brethren in collating MSS. in the Royal Library at Paris, and in those of Colbert and Coislin. Their labours extended over thirteen years; more than 300 MSS., containing different portions of Chry- sostom's works, having been discovered in those libraries. Montfaucon, meanwhile, corresponded with learned men in all parts of Europe, in order to procure materials and further collations. His correspondents in England were Potter, Bishop of Oxford, Bentley, and Needham ; and in Ireland, Godwin, Bishop of Kilmore. The result was that, after more than twenty years of incessant toil, Mont faucon produced an edition, in which several pieces saw the light for the first time, and others, imperfect in previous editions, were presented entire. The text after all is the least satisfactory part of the work. Mr. Field has discovered that the eight principal MSS. employed were not very carefully collated, and that, though Savile's text is extremely praised, that of Morel, by a curious in consistency, is most closely followed, which is little more than a reproduction of the original Commelinian. The main value of the edition consists in the prefaces, written by Montfaucon to every set of homilies and every treatise, in which the chronology, contents, and character of the composition are most fully and ably discussed. The PREFACE. ix chronological arrangement also of the pieces is a great improvement on the editions of Savile and Fronton le Due, who had made no attempt of that kind. The last volume, the thirteenth, contains a life of St. Chrysostom, a most copious index, and dissertations on the doctrine, discipline, and heresies prevalent in his age, illustrated by notices collected from his works. On the whole, the edition must be pronounced a marvellous monument of ability and industry ; especially when it is considered that at the date of its completion, 1738, Montfaucon was eighty-three years of age, and had been engaged for upwards of fifty years in literary work of a most laborious description. He died in 1741. (5) The last edition, which leaves little or nothing to be desired, is that which I have used in preparing this volume — the Abbe Migne's, in 13 vols., Paris, 1863. It is substantially a reproduction of the Benedictine, in a rather less cumbrous size, and embodies some of the best corrections, notes, and prefaces of modern commenta tors, especially those of Mr. Field to the Homilies of St, Matthew, and some by the learned editor himself. Such is a brief sketch of the several forms in which Chry- sostom's works have appeared. It seemed an appropriate introduction to the history of the man himself. If the perusal of that history shall afford to readers half as much interest, pleasure, and instruction as I have myself derived from the composition of it, I shall feel amply rewarded for my labour ; and I gladly take this oppor tunity of expressing my gratitude to my father-in-law for originally suggesting a work of this kind, and to many friends, and especially my wife, for constant encourage ment, without which a mixture of indolence and diffidence might have prevented the completion of my design. Denswokth Cottage, Chichester : All Saints Day, 1871. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Introductory 1 CHAPTER II. From his "Birth to his Appointment to the Office of Reader, a.d, 345 or a.d. 347 to a.d. 370 CHAPTER III. Commencement of ascetic Life — Study under Diodorus — Formation of an ascetic Brotherhood — The Letters to Theodore, a.d. 370 . . 26 CHAPTER IV. Chrysostom evades forcible Ordination to a Bishopric— The Treatise ' On the Priesthood.' a.d. 370, 371 . 43 CHAPTER V. Narrow Escape from Persecution — His Entrance into a Monastery — The Monasticism of the East. a.d. 372 61 CHAPTER VI. Works produced during his monastic Life — The Letters to Demetrius and Stelechius — Treatises addressed to the Opponents of Monasticism— 7 Letter to Stagirius ..... .... 73 CHAPTER VII. Ordination as Deacon — Description of Antioch — Works composed during his Diaconate. a.d. 381-38G 90 PAGE xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. Ordination to the Priesthood by Flavian— Inaugural Discourse in the Cathedral — Homilies against the Arians— Animadversions on the Chariot Races, a.d. 386 108 CHAPTER IX. Homilies against Pagans and Jews— Condition of the Jews in Antioch —Judaising Christians— Homilies on Christmas Day and New Year's Day — Censure of pagan Superstitions, a.d. 386, 387 . . • • 127 CHAPTER X. Survey of the first Decade of the Reign of Theodosius— His Character— His Efforts for the Extirpation of Paganism and Heresy— The Apo logies of Symmachus and Libanius. a.d. 379-389 .... 146 CHAPTER XI. The Sedition at Antioch — The Homilies on the Statues — The Results of the Sedition, a.d. 387 . .... . 157 CHAPTER XII. Illness of Chrysostom — Homilies on Festivals of Saints and Martyrs — Character of these Festivals — Pilgrimages— Reliques — Character of peasant Clergy in Neighbourhood of Antioch. a.d. 387 . ¦ .185 CHAPTER XIII. Survey of Events between a.d. 387 and a.d. 397 — Ambrose and Theo dosius — Revolt of Arbogastes — Death of Theodosius — The Ministers of Arcadius — Rufinus and Eutropius . . . . 194 CHAPTER XIV. Death of Nectarius, Archbishop of Constantinople — Eager Competition for the See — Election of Chrysostom — His compulsory Removal from Antioch — Consecration — Reforms — Homilies on various Subjects — Missionary Projects . ... 221 CHAPTER XV. The Fall of Eutropius— His Retreat to the Sanctuary of the Church- Right of Sanctuary maintained by Chrysostom— Death of Eutropius— Revolt of Gothic Commanders Tribigildand Gainas— Demand of Gainas for an Arian Church refused by Chrysostom— Defeat and Death of Gainas. a.d. 399-401 . . 050 CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTER XVI PAGE Chrysostom's Visit to Asia — Deposition of six simoniaeal Bishops — Legi timate Extent of his Jurisdiction — Return to Constantinople — Rup ture and Reconciliation with Severian, Bishop of Gabala — Chrysostom's increasing Unpopularity with the Clergy and wealthy Laity — His Friends — Olympias the Deaconess — Formation of hostile Factions, which invite the Aid of T&eapMlus, Patriarch of Alexandria, a.d. 400, 401 .276 CHAPTER XVII. Circumstances which led to the Interference of Theophilus with the Affairs of Chrysostom — Controversy about the Writings of Origen — Persecution by Theophilus of the Monks called ' The Tall Brethren '—Their Flight to Palestine — To Constantinople — Their Reception by Chrysostom — Theophilus summoned to Constantinople, a.d. 395-403 . . . 298 CHAPTER XVIII. Theophilus arrives in Constantinople — Organises a Cabal against Chry sostom — The Synod of the Oak — Chrysostom pronounced contumacious for Non-appearance and expelled from the City — Earthquake — Recall of Chrysostom — Ovations on his Return — Flight of Theophilus. A.D. 403 319 CHAPTER XIX. An Image of Eudoxia placed in Front of the Cathedral — Chrysostom de nounces it — Anger of the Empress — The Enemy returns to the Charge — Another Council formed — Chrysostom confined to his Palace — Violent Scene in the Cathedral and other Places — Chrysostom again expelled, a.d. 403, 404 ... . . .... 340 CHAPTER XX. Fury of the People at the Removal of Chrysostom— Destruction of the Cathedral Church and Senate House by Fire — Persecution of Chry sostom's Followers — Fugitives to Rome — Letters of Innocent to Theo philus — To the Clergy of Constantinople — To Chrysostom — Deputation of Western Bishops to Constantinople repulsed — Sufferings of the Eastern Church— Triumph of the Cabal, a.d. 404, 405 .. . 356 CHAPTER XXI. Chrysostom ordered to be removed to Cucusus — Perils encountered at Csesarea — Hardships of the Journey — Reaches Cucusus — Letters written there to Olympias and other Friends, a.d. 404 376 xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXII. PAGE Chrysostom's Sufferings from the winter Cold — Depredations of the Isaurians— The Mission in Phoenicia— Letters to Innocent and the Italian Bishops— Chrysostom's Enemies obtain an Order for his Re moval to Pityus — He dies at Comana, a.d. 407 — Reception of his Reliques at Constantinople, a.d. 438 ...... 396 CHAPTER XXIII. Survey of Chrysostom's Theological Teaching — Practical Tone of his Works — Reason of this — Doctrine of Man's Nature — Original Sin — Grace — Free-will — How far Chrysostom Pelagian — Language on the Trinity — Atonement — Justification — The two Sacraments — No Trace of Confession, Purgatory, or Mariolatry — Relations towards the Pope — Liturgy of Chrysostom — His Character as a Commentator — Views on Inspiration — His Preaching — Personal Appearance — References to Greek Classical Authors — Comparison with St. Augustine . . 407 Appendix . . . 451 Index . . 453 Errata. Page 7, line 1 from top, instead of ' Ambrose, only two — Augustine and Chry sostom — survived into the fifth century,' read 'Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Chrysostom, the last three alone survived into the fifth century.' „ 8, line 9 from top, the words • of Mariolatry ' should be omitted. LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM CHAPTEE I. INTRODUCTORY. I. Thebe are many great names in history which have been familiar to us from almost our earliest years, but of the personal character, the actual life of those who bore them, we are comparatively ignorant. We know that they were men of genius ; industrious energetic workers, who, as statesmen, reformers, warriors, writers, speakers, exercised a vital influence for good or ill upon their fellow-men. They have achieved a reputation which will never die ; but from various causes their personality does not stand out before us in clear and bold relief. We know some thing about some of the most important passages in their life, a few of their sayings, a little of their writings ; but the men themselves we do not know. Frequently the reason of this is, that though they occupy a place, perhaps an important place, in the great drama of history, yet they have not played one of the foremost parts; and general history cannot spare much time or space beyond what is necessary to describe the main pro gress of events, and the actions and characters of those B 2 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. I. who were most prominently concerned in them. Other men may have been greater in themselves; they may have been first-rate in their own sphere, but that sphere was too much secluded or circumscribed to admit of the exten sive and conspicuous public influence of which alone his tory takes much cognisance. They are to history what those side or background figures in the pictures of great mediaeval painters are to the grand central subject of the piece: they do but help to fill up the canvas, yet the picture would not be complete without them. They are notable personages, well worthy of being separately de picted, though in the large historical representation they play a subordinate part. To take out one of these side figures of history and to make it the centre of a separate picture, grouping round it all the great events and characters among which it moved, is the work of a biographer. And by many it will be felt that nothing invests the general history of any period with such a living interest as viewing it through the light of some one human life. How was this indi vidual soul affected by the movement of the great forces with which it was surrounded or brought into contact? How did it affect them, in its turn, wherever in its pro gress it impinged upon them? This one consideration will confer on many details of history an importance and freshness of which they seemed too trivial or too dull to be susceptible. II. Among these side characters in history, characters of men in themselves belonging to the first rank, men whose names will be renowned and honoured to the end of time, but precluded, by disposition or circumstances, from taking the foremost place in the larger canvas of general history, must be reckoned many of the great ecclesiastics of the first four or five centuries of Christianity. Every one recognises as great such names as Origen, Tertullian, Ch. L] INTRODUCTORY. 3 Cyprian, Basil, the two Gregories, and many more. Every one would admit that the Church owes them a debt, but it may be safely affirmed that here the acquaintance of many with these eminent men begins and ends. A few scraps from their writings quoted in commentaries, one or two remarkable acts or sayings which have been thought worthy to be handed down, a few passages in which their lives flit across the stage of general history, complete the knowledge of many more. Such men, indeed, as Athanasius and Ambrose are to some extent exceptions. The magnitude of the principles for which they contended, the energy and ability which they displayed in the con test, were too conspicuous to be passed over by the general historian, civil or ecclesiastical. The proverbial expression 'Athanasius contra mundum' attests of itself the pre eminent greatness of the man. But with other luminaries of the Church, whose powers were perhaps equally great but not exercised on so public a field or on behalf of such apparently vital questions, history has not dealt, perhaps cannot consistently with its scope deal, in any degree com mensurate with their merits. Nor does this remark apply entirely to civil history. Ecclesiastical history, also, is so much occupied with the consideration of subjects on a large scale and covering a large space of time, — the course of controversies, the growth of doctrines, the relations between Church and State, changes in discipline, in liturgies, in ritual, — that the history of those who lived among these events, and who by their ability made or moulded them, is comparatively lost sight of. The out ward operations are seen, but the springs which set them going are concealed. How can general history, for instance, adequately set forth the character and the work of such men as Savonarola or Erasmus, both in their widely-different ways men of such incomparable genius and incessant activity ? It does not ; it only supplies a B 2 4 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. I. glimpse, a sketch which make us long for a fuller vision, a more finished picture.1 III. It is designed to attempt, in the following pages, such a supplementary chapter in ecclesiastical history. An endeavour will be made not merely to chronicle the life and estimate the character of the great preacher of Antioch and Constantinople, but to place him in the centre of all the great movements, civil as well as religious, of his time, and see what light he and they throw upon one another. The age in which he lived was a troublous one. The spectacle of a tempestuous sea may in itself excite our interest and inspire us with awe, but place in the midst of it a vessel containing human life, and how deeply is our interest intensified ! What was the general character and position of the clergy in the fourth century ? What was the attitude of the Church towards the sensuality, selfishness, luxury, of an effete and debased civilisation on one hand, and the rude ferocity of young and strong barbarian races on the other ? To what extent had Christianity leavened, or had it appreciably leavened at all, popular forms of thought and popular habits of life ? What was the existing phase of monasticism? what the ordinary form of worship in the Catholic Church? what the established belief respecting the sacraments and the great ^verities of the Christian faith? In answer to such enquiries and to many more, much useful information may be extracted from the works of so prolific a writer and preacher as Chrysostom. Being concerned also as a preacher with moral practice more than with abstract theology, his homilies reflect, like the writings of satirists, the manners of the age. The habits of private life, the fashionable amusements, the absurdities of dress, all the petty foibles, as well as the more serious vices of the society by which he was surrounded, are v*z ui man , tne lite of Erasmus remains to be written. Ch. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 5 dragged out without remorse, and made the subjects of solemn admonition, or fierce invective, or withering sar casm, or ironical jest. IY. Nor does secular history, from which not a single chapter in ecclesiastical history can without injury be dissociated, want for copious illustration. Not only from the memorable story of the sedition at Antioch, and from the public events at Constantinople, in which Chrysostom played a conspicuous part, but from many an allusion or incidental expression scattered up and down his works, we may collect rays of light on the social and political con dition of the empire. We get glimpses in his pages of a large mass of the population hovering mid- way between paganism and Christianity; we are conscious of an op pressive system of taxation, a widely-spread venality in the administration of public business, a general insecurity of life arising from the almost total absence of what we understand by police regulations, a depressed agriculture, a great slave population, a vast turbulent army as dan gerous to the peace of society as the enemies from whom it was supposed to defend it, the presence of barbarians in the country as servants, soldiers, or colonists, the con stantly-impending danger from other hordes ever hovering on the frontier, and, like famished wolves, gazing with hungry eyes on the plentiful prey which lay beyond it. But in the midst of the national corruption we see great characters stand out; and it is remarkable that they belong, without exception, to the two elements which alone were strong and progressive in the midst of the general debility and decadence. All the men of commanding., genius in this era were either Christian or barbarian. ^ A young and growing faith, a vigorous and manly race ; these were the two forces destined to work hand in hand for the destruction of an old and the establishment of a new order of things. The chief doctors of Christianity in the fourth century— Augustine, Chrysostom, Ambrose— are 6 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. I. incomparably greater than their contemporary advocates of the old religion and philosophy, Symmachus or Libanius ; even as the Gothic Alarie and Eravitta, and the Vandal Stilicho, were the only generals who did not disgrace the Eoman arms. V. Some remarks on the theology of Chrysostom will be found in the concluding chapter. The appellation of preacher,1 by which he is most generally known, is a true indicator of the sphere in which his powers were greatest. It was in upholding a pure and lofty standard of Christian morality, and in denouncing unchristian wickedness, that his life was mainly spent, rather, than, like Augustine's, in constructing and teaching a logical system of doctrine. > The rage of his enemies, to which he eventually fell a victim, was not bred of the bitterness of theological con troversy, but of the natural antagonism between the evil and the good. And it is partly on this account that neither the remoteness of time, nor difference of circum stances which separate us from him, can dim the interest with which we read his story. He fought not so much for any abstract question of theology or point of ecclesiastical discipline, which may have lost its meaning and impor tance for us, but for those grand principles of truth and justice, Christian charity, and Christian holiness, which ought to be dear to men equally in all ages. VI. But there is also in the struggle of Chrysostom with the secular power an ecclesiastical and historical interest, as well as a moral one. We see prefigured in his deposition the fate of the Eastern Church in the Eastern capital of the Empire. As the papacy grew securely by the retreat from the old Eome of any secular rival, so the patriarchate of the new Eome was constantly, increasingly depressed by the presence of such a rival. Of all the great churchmen who flourished in the fourth century, Athanasius, Basil, En'gii^HoS.^Homl. ^ ^^ ' » ^ *"«**» * *¦» in the Ch. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 7 the Gregories, Ambrose, only two — Augustine and Chry sostom— survived into the fifth century. But the glory of the Western Church was then only in its infancy ; the glory of the Eastern culminated in Chrysostom. Erom his time the patriarchs of Constantinople fell more and more into the servile position of court functionaries. The work ing out of that grand idea, a visible organised Catholic Church, uniform in doctrine and discipline, an idea which grew more and more as the political disintegration of the Empire increased, was to be accomplished by the more commanding, law-giving spirit of the West. Intrepid in spirit, inflexible of purpose, though Chrysostom was, he could not subdue, he could only provoke to more violent opposition, the powers with which he was brought into collision. Ineffectual was his contest with ecclesiastical cor ruption and secular tyranny, as compared with a similar contest waged by his Western contemporary, Ambrose ; in effectual also were the efforts, after his time, of the Church which he represented to assert the full dignity of its position. VII. Chrysostom, and the contemporary fathers of the Eastern Church, naturally seem very remote from us ; but, in fact, they are nearer to us in their modes of thought than many who in point of time are less distant. They were brought up in the study of that Greek literature with which we are familiar. Philosophy had not stiffened into scholasticism. The ethics of Chrysostom are substantially the same with the ethics of Butler. So, again, Eastern fathers of the fourth century are far more nearly allied to us in theology than writers of a few centuries later. If we are to look to ' the rock ' whence our Anglican liturgy ' was hewn,' and ' to the hole of the pit ' whence Anglican reformed theology ' was digged,' we must turn our eyes, above all other directions, to the Eastern Church and the Eastern fathers. It was observed by Mr. Alexander Knox,1 that the earlier days of the Greek Church seem resplen- 1 ' Remains,' vol. iii. Letters to Dr. Woodward and Mrs. Hannah More. 8 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. I. dent with a glow of simple, fervent, piety, such as in a Church, as a whole, has never since been seen ; and that this condition is strikingly in harmony with our own liturgy, so overflowing with sublime aspirations, so Catho lic, so free, not bearing the impress of any one system of theology, but containing what is best in all — holding dogma firmly, but not inculcating it in a hard, dogmatic spirit. We may detect in Chrysostom the germ of me diaeval corruptions, of Mariolatry, of invocation of saints, of a sensuous conception of the change effected in the holy elements in the Eucharist; but these are the raw material of error, not yet wrought into definite shape. The Bishop of Eome is recognised, as will be seen from Chrysostom's correspondence with Innocent, as a great potentate, whose intercessions are to be solicited in time of trouble and difficulty, and to whose judgment much deference is to be paid, but by no means as a supreme ruler in Christendom. Thus, the tone of Chrysostom's language is far more congenial to that of our own Church than of the mediaeval or present Church of Eome. In his habit of referring to Holy Scripture as the ultimate source and basis of all true doctrine, ' so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man as an article of faith ; ' in his careful endeavour to ascertain the real meaning of Scripture, not seeking for fanciful or mystical interpretations, or supporting preconceived theories, but patiently labouring, with a mixture of can dour, reverence, and common sense, to ascertain the exact literal sense of each passage ; — in these points, no less than in his theology, he bears an affinity to the best minds of our own reformed Church, and fairly represents that faith of the Catholic Church before the disruption of East and West in which Bishop Ken desired to die ; while his fervent piety, and his apostolic zeal as a preacher of righteousness must command the admiration of all earnest Christians, to whatever country, age, or Church, they may belong. CHAPTEE II. FEOM HIS BIETH TO HIS APPOINTMENT TO THE OFFICE OF EEADEE, A.D. 345 OE A.D. 347 TO A.D. 370. It has been well remarked by Sir Henry Savile, in the preface to his noble edition of Chrysostom's works, pub lished in 1612, that, as with great rivers, so often with great men, the middle and the close of their career are dignified and distinguished, but the primary source and early progress of the stream are difficult to ascertain and trace. No one, he says, has been able to fix the exact date, the year, and the consulship of Chrysostom's birth. This is true ; but at the same time his birth, parentage, and education are not involved in such obscurity as sur rounds the earliest years of some other great luminaries of the Eastern Church ; his own friend, for instance, Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia, and yet more notably, the great Athanasius. There is little doubt that his birth occurred not later than the year a.d. 347, and some probability that it should be placed two years earlier ; l and there is no doubt that 1 The date may be approximated was in banishment from 370 to 378, by the following landmarks. He was and died during the Council of Con- about twenty when he attended the stantinople in 381. If, then, he or- lectures of Libanius (Epist. ad Vid. dained Chrysostom reader just before Jun. vol. i. p. 601). We may allow his banishment in 370, and deacon two years for his study there, and just before his departure for Con- beginning to practise as a lawyer. stantinople, we get 345 for the year He was then three years a catechumen of Chrysostom's birth. He was five under the Bishop Meletius (Pallad. years a deacon {Pallad. c. v.), which Dial. c. v.) : after this, six years were brings us to 386, and twelve years a spent in monastic retirement, return- priest, which brings us to 398, the ing from which he was ordained year in which he was elected to the deacon by Meletius. Now Meletius see of Constantinople. If we accept 10 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. II. Antioch in Syria was the place of his birth, that his mother's name was Anthusa, his father's Secundus, and that both were well born. His mother was, if not ac tually baptised, very favourably inclined to Christianity,1 and, indeed, a woman of no ordinary piety. The father had attained the rank of 'magister militum' in the Im perial army of Syria, and therefore enjoyed the title of ' illustris.' He died when his son John was an infant, leaving a young widow, about twenty years of age, in comfortable circumstances, but harassed by the difficulties and anxieties of her unprotected condition as mistress of a household in days when servants were slaves, and life in large cities altogether unguarded by such securities as are familiar to us. Greatly did she dread the responsibility of bringing up a son in one of the most turbulent and dissolute capitals of the empire. Nothing, she afterwards 2 declared to him, could have enabled her to pass through such a furnace of trial but a consoling sense of divine support, and the delight of contemplating the image of her hus band as reproduced in his son. How long a sister older than himself may have lived we do not know; but the conversation between him and his mother when he was meditating a retreat into a monastery, seems to imply that he was the only surviving child. All her love — all her care— all her means and energies, were concentrated on the boy destined to become so great a man, and exhi biting even in childhood no common ability and aptitude for learning. . But her chief anxiety was to train him in pious habits, and to preserve him uncontaminated from the pollutions of the vicious city in which they resided. 347 for the year of his birth, no in- vours to prove that she was a Pagan, terval is allowed between his going to in order to account for the delay in the school of Libamus and becoming Chrysostom's baptism, but his reasons a catechumen (vide Tillemont, vol. xi. are far from convincing. P- 547>' 2 De Sacerd. 1. i. u. 5'. 1 Wall, on Infant Baptism, endea- Ch. IL] CHRISTIAN WOMEN AT ANTIOCH. 11 She was to him as Monica to Augustine, as Nonna to Gregory Nazianzum. The great influence, indeed, of women upon the Chris tianity of domestic life in that age is not a little remark able. The Christians were not such a pure and single- minded community as they had been. The refining fires of persecution which burnt up the chaff of hypocrisy or indifference were now extinguished ; Christianity had a recognised position ; her bishops were in kings' courts. The natural consequences inevitably followed this attain ment of security ; there were more Christians, but not more who were zealous ; there were many who hung very loosely to the Church — many who fluctuated between the Church and Paganism. In the great Eastern cities of the Empire, especially Alexandria, Antioch, Constanti nople, the mass of the so-called Christian population was largely infected by the dominant vices — inordinate luxury, sensuality, selfish avarice, and display. Christianity was in part Paganised long before it had made any appreci able progress towards the destruction of Paganism. But the sincere and ardent piety of many amongst the women kept alive in many a home the flame of Christian faith which would otherwise have been smothered. The Em peror Julian imagined that his efforts to resuscitate Paganism would have been successful in Antioch but for the strenuous opposition of the Christian women. He complains ' that they were permitted by their husbands to take anything out of the house to bestow it upon the Galilseans, or to give away to the poor, while they would not expend the smallest trifle upon the worship of the gods.' : The efforts also of the Governor Alexander, who was left in Antioch by the Emperor to carry forward his designs of Pagan reformation, were principally baffled through this female influence. He found that the men 1 Julian Misopogon, p. 363. 12 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. H. would often consent to attend the temples and sacrifices, but afterwards generally repented and retracted their ad herence. This relapse Libanius the sophist, in a letter J to the Governor, ascribes to the home influence of the women — ' When the men are out of doors,' he says, ' they obey you who give them the best advice, and they ap proach the altars ; but when they get home, their minds undergo a change ; they are wrought upon by the tears and entreaties of their wives, and they again withdraw' from the altars of the gods.' Anthusa did not marry again ; very possibly she was deterred from contracting a second marriage by religious scruples which Chrysostom himself would certainly have approved.2 The Pagans themselves admired those women who dedicated themselves to a single life, or abstained from marrying again. Chrysostom himself informs us that when he began to attend the lectures of Libanius, his master inquired who and what his parents were ; and on being told that he was the son of a widow who at the age of forty had lost her husband twenty years, he ex claimed in a tone of mingled jealousy and admiration : c Heavens ! what women these Christians have ! ' 3 What instruction he received in early boyhood, beside his mother's careful moral and religious training ; whether he was sent, a common custom among Christian parents in that age,4 to be taught by the monks in one of the neigh bouring monasteries, where he may have imbibed an early taste for monastic retirement, we know not. He was designed, however, not for the clerical but for the legal profession, and at the age of twenty he began to attend the lectures of one of the first sophists of the day, capable of giving him that secular training and learning which would best enable him to cope with men of the world. ' Epist 1057 4 Advers_ 0ppug Vite Monastic_ Epist. ad Viduam Jun. vol. i. lib. iii. ell. " Ibid. p. 601. Ch.'IL] THE SCHOOL OF LIBANIUS. 13 Libanius had achieved a reputation as a teacher of general literature, rhetoric, and philosophy, and as an able and eloquent defender of Paganism, not only in his native city Antioch, but in the Empire at large. He was the friend and correspondent of Julian, and on amicable terms with the Emperors Valens and Theodosius. He had now re turned to Antioch after lengthened residence in Athens (where the chair of rhetoric had been offered to him but declined), in Nicomedia, and in Constantinople.1 In at tending daily lectures at his school, the young Chrysostom became conversant with the best classical Greek authors, both poets and philosophers. Of their sentiments he in later life retained little admiration,2 and to the perusal of their writings he probably seldom or never recurred for profit or recreation, but his retentive memory enabled him to the last to point and adorn his arguments with quota tions from Homer, Plato, and the Tragcedians. In the school of Libanius also he began to practise those nascent powers of eloquence which were destined to win for him so mighty a fame, as well as the appellation of Chrysostomos, or the Golden Mouth, by which, rather than by his proper name of John, he will be known to the end of time.3 Libanius, in a letter to Chrysostom, praises highly a speech composed by him in honour of the emperors, and says they were happy in having so excellent a panegyrist.4 The Pagan sophist helped to forge the weapons which were afterwards to be skilfully employed against the cause to which he was devoted. When he was on his death-bed, he was asked by his friends who was in his opinion ca pable of succeeding him ? ' It would have been John,' he replied, ' had not the Christians stolen him from us.' 5 But it did not immediately appear that the learned advo- 1 Liban. de fortuna sua, p. 13-137. ' Quoted by Isidore of Pelusium, 2 See concluding chapter. 1. 2, Ep. 42. " Ibid. 5 Sozomen viii. c. 2. 14 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. H. cate of Paganism was nourishing a traitor ; for Chrysostom had not yet been baptized, and began to seek an opening for his powers in secular fields of activity.1 He commenced practice as a lawyer ; some of his speeches gained great admiration, and were highly commended by his old master Libanius. A brilliant career of worldly ambition was open to him. The profession of the law was at that time the great avenue to civil distinction. The amount of litigation was enormous. One hundred and fifty advocates were re quired for the court of the Praetorian Prefect of the East alone. The display of talent in the law courts frequently obtained for a man the government of a province, whence the road was open to those higher dignities of vice-prefect, prefect, patrician, consul, which were honoured by the title of ' illustrious.' 2 But the pure and upright disposition of the youthful advocate recoiled from the licentiousness which corrupted society ; from the avarice, fraud, and artifice which marked the transactions of men of business ; from the chicanery and rapacity that sullied the profession which he had en tered.3 He was accustomed to say later in life that ' the Bible was the fountain for watering the soul.' If he had drunk of the classical fountains in the school of Libanius, he had imbibed draughts yet deeper of the spiritual well- spring in quiet study of Holy Scripture at home. And like many another in that degraded age, his whole soul re volted from the glaring contrast presented by the ordinary life of the world around him to that standard of holiness which was held up in the Gospels. He had formed also an intimate friendship with a young man his equal in station and age, by whose influence he > Isidore Pel. 1. 2 Ep. 42 ; De ¦ Ibid iii. 53 ; for an account of the Sacerdot i. c. 4. character of ,awyerg ftt ^ Gibbon m. 52, note, Milman's see Amm. Marcellinus lxxx. „ 4 edition. Ch. IL] FRIENDSHIP WITH BASIL. 15 was diverted more and more from secular life, and even tually induced altogether to abandon it. This was Basil, who will come before us in the celebrated work on the priesthood. He must not be confounded with the great Basil,1 Bishop of Csesarea, in Cappadocia, who was some fifteen years older than Chrysostom, having been born in a.d. 329, nor with Basil, Bishop of Seleucia, who was pre sent at the Council of Chalcedon in a.d. 451, and must therefore have been considerably younger. Perhaps he may be identified with a Basil, Bishop of Eaphanea in Syria, not far from Antioch, who attended the Council of Constantinople in a.d. 381. Chrysostom has described his friendship with Basil in affecting language:2 'I had many genuine and true friends, men who understood and strictly observed the laws of friendship ; but one there was out of the many who exceeded them all in attachment to me, and strove to leave them all behind in the race, even as much as they themselves surpassed ordinary acquaintances. He was one of those who accompanied me at all times; we en gaged in the same studies, and were instructed by the same teachers ; in our zeal and interest for the subjects on which we worked we were one. As we went to our lec tures or returned from them, we were accustomed to take counsel together on the line of life it would be best to adopt ; and here, too, we appeared to be unanimous.' Basil early determined this question for himself in favour of monasticism; he decided, as Chrysostom ex presses it, to follow the 'true philosophy.' This occa sioned the first interruption to their intercourse. Chry sostom, soon after the age of twenty, had embarked on a secular career, and could not immediately make up his mind to tread in the footsteps of his friend. 'The balance,' he says, 'was no longer even'; the scale of 1 As Socrates, b. vi. c. 3, has done. * De Sacerdot. 1. i. c. i. 16 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. II. Basil mounted, while that of Chrysostom was depressed, by the weight of earthly interests and desires.1 But the decisive act of Basil made a deep impression on his mind ; separation from his friend only increased his attachment to him, and his aversion from life in the world. He began to withdraw more from ordinary occupations and pleasures, and to spend more of his time in the study of Holy Scripture. He formed acquaintance with Meletius, the deeply respected Catholic Bishop of Antioch, and after three years, the usual period of probation for cate chumens, was baptized by him. A natural question arises, why was he not baptized before, since his mother was a Christian, and there is abundant evidence that infant baptism was and had been the ordinary practice of the Church ? 2 In attempting a solution of the difficulty, it will be proper to mention first certain reasons for delaying baptism which were prevalent in that age, and which may partially have influenced the mind of Chrysostom's mother or himself. It may sound paradoxical to say that an exaggerated estimation of the import and effect of baptism contributed in two ways to its delay. But such appears to have been the case. It was regarded by many as the most complete and final purgation of past sin, and the most solemn pledge of a new and purified life for the future. To sin, therefore, before baptism was comparatively harmless, if in the waters of baptism the guilty stains could be washed away; but sin after the reception of that holy sacrament was almost, if not altogether, unpardonable— at least fraught with the most tremendous peril. Hence some would delay baptism as many now delay repentance, from a secret or conscious reluctance to take a decisive step and renounce the pleasures of sin; and under the comfort- 'DeSaCerd0t'C-iii- ^ee references in Bingham, b. xi. vol. m. Wall, vol. ii. Ch. II.] REASONS FOR DELAY OF BAPTISM. 17 able persuasion that some day, by submitting to baptism, they would free themselves from the responsibilities of their past life. Others, again, were deterred from binding themselves ¦ under so solemn a covenant by a distrust of their ability to fulfil their vows, and a timorous dread of the eternal consequences if they failed. Against these misconceptions of the true nature and proper use of the sacrament, the great Basil, the two Gregories, and Chry sostom himself contend ] with a vehemence and indigna tion which proves them to have been common. Many parents thought they would allow the fitful and unstable season of youth to pass before they irrevocably bound their children under the most solemn engagements of their Christian calling. The children, when they grew up, inherited their scruples, and so the sacrament was indefinitely deferred. It is not impossible that such feelings may have in fluenced Chrysostom's mother and himself; but consider ing the natural and healthy character of his piety, which seems to have grown by a gentle and unintermitting pro gress from his childhood, they do not seem very probable in his case. A more cogent cause for the delay may perhaps be found in the distracted state of the Church in Antioch, which lasted, with increasing complications, from a.d. 330, or fifteen years prior to Chrysostom's birth, up to the time of his baptism by Meletius, when a brighter day was beginning to dawn. The vicissitudes of the Church in Antioch during that period form a curious, though far from pleasing, picture of the inextricable difficulties, the deplorable schisms, into which the Church at large was plunged by the Arian con troversy. Two years after the Council of Nice, a.d. 327, i * Basil exhort, ad Baptismum ; Apost. vol. ix. hom. i. in fine, and in Grog. Nazianz. Orat. 40 de Bapt. ; Illumin. Catechesis, vol. ii. p. 223. Nyssen de Bapt. ; Chrysost. in Acta C 18 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. II. the Arians, through the assistance of Constantia, the Emperor's sister, won the favour of Constantine. He lost no time during this season of prosperity in procuring the deposition of Catholic bishops. Eminent among these was Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch. He was ejected by a synod held in his own city on false charges of Sabellianism and adultery.1 An Arian bishop, Euphronius, was ap pointed, but the Catholic congregation indignantly with drew to hold their services in another quarter of the town, on the opposite side of the Orontes.2 The see remained for some time entirely in the hands of the Arians. When the Council of Sardica met in a.d. 342, and the Arian faction seceded from it to hold a Council of their own in Philipopolis, Stephen, Bishop of Antioch, was their president. He was deposed in a.d. 349 by the Emperor Constantius, having been detected as an accomplice in an infamous plot against some envoys from the Western Church.3 But ' uno avulso non deficit alter; ' he was suc ceed by another Arian, the eunuch Leontius.4 He tried to conciliate the Catholics by an artful and equivocating policy, of which his manner of chanting the doxology was an instance. The Arian form of it was ' Glory be to the Father bt the Son in the Holy Ghost ' ; this the bishop was accustomed to slur in such an indistinct voice that the prepositions could not be clearly if at all heard, while he joined loudly in the second part of the hymn where all were agreed.5 He died towards the close of a.d. 357, when the see was fraudulently seized by Eudoxius, Bishop of Germanicia. He favoured the extreme Arians so openly that the Semi-Arians appealed to the Emperor 1 Philostorgius ii. 7 ; Socrates i. 23 ; from the rank of presbyter because he Theod. i. 21. was a eunuch, in accordance with the 2 Socr. i. 24 ; Theod. i. 22. provision of the Council of Nice, c. i. 3 Athanas. Hist. Arian. 20, 21 ; Labbe i. p. 28. Theod. ii. 9, 10. 5 Sozom. iii. 20 ; Theod. ii. 24. 4 Socr. ii. 26: he had been deposed Ch. IL] ARIAN BISHOPS OF ANTIOCH. 19 Constantius to summon a General Council. Their request was granted ; but the Arians, fearing that the Catholics and Semi-Arians would coalesce to overwhelm them, art fully suggested that Eimini, the place proposed for the Council, was too distant for the Eastern prelates, and that the Assembly should be divided, part meeting at Eimini, and part at Nice.1 Their suggestion was accepted, and the result is well known. Partly by arguments, partly by artifices and delays which wore out the strength and patience of the members, the Arians completely carried the day ; the creed of Eimini was ordered by the Emperor to be everywhere signed, and in the words of Jerome, ' the world groaned and found itself Arian.' 2 An Arian synod sat at Constan - tinople. Macedonius the archbishop, being considered too moderate, was deposed, and Eudoxius, the usurper of Antioch, was elevated to the see in his stead ; 3 and Meletius,- Bishop of Sebaste, in Armenia, was translated to the vacant see of Antioch, a.d. 361. But in him the Arians had mistaken their man. He was one of those who attended more to the practical moral teaching than to the abstract theology of Christianity ; and, being not perhaps very precise in his language on doctrinal points, he had been reckoned an Arian.4 After his elevation to the see of Antioch, he confined himself in his discourses to those practical topics on which all could agree. But this was not allowed to last long. The Emperor Con stantius paid a visit to Antioch soon after the appoint ment of Meletius, and he was instigated by the Arians to put the bishop to a crucial test. He was commanded to preach on Proverbs viii. 22. ' The Lord possessed me ' 1 Sozom. iv. 12-16 ; Theod. ii. 26. 2 Rutin, i. 21; Socr. ii. 36,37; Sozom. In consequence of an earthquake at iv. 19; Jerome c. Lucif. 18, 19. Nice, it was removed to Seleucia in 3 Socr. ii. 42, 43. Isauria. 1 Sozom. iv. 28. c 2 20 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. II. (Septuagint iiertas, that was the fatal word) ' in the begin ning,' &c. The interpretation put on the word ' formed ' (s „. ions it ; de Prescript, c. 41. , Quoted in Bingham> ^ . p> m Ch. H] HIS ORDINATION AS A READER. 25 these words : ' Take thou this book and be thou a reader of the word of God, which office if thou discharge faith fully and profitably thou shalt have part with those who have ministered the word of God." 1 Counc. Carth. iv. c. 8. Labbe, vol. ii. 26 LIFE AND THALES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. IH. CHAPTEE III. COMMENCEMENT OF ASCETIC LIFE — STUDY UNDER DIODORUS — FOR MATION OF AN ASCETIC BROTHERHOOD THE LETTERS TO THEO DORE. A.D. 370. The enthusiasm of minds newly awakened to a full per ception of Christian holiness, and a deep sense of Christian obligations, was in early times seldom contented with any thing short of complete separation from the world. The oriental temperament especially has been at all times inclined to passionate extremes. It oscillates between the most abandoned licentiousness and intense asceticism. The second is the corrective of the first ; where the disease is desperate the remedies must be violent. Chrysostom, as will be perceived throughout his life, was never carried to fanatical extremes ; a certain sobermindedness, and calm, practical good sense eminently distinguished him, though mingled with burning zeal. But in his youth especially he was not exempt from the spirit of the age and country in which he lived. He irresistibly gravitated towards that kind of life which his friend Basil had already adopted— a life of retirement, contemplation, and pious study—' the philosophy ' of Christianity, as it was called at that time.1 It does not appear that Basil had actually joined any monastic community, but merely that he was leading a life of seclusion, and practising some of the usual monas tic austerities. Chrysostom, indeed, distinctly asserts that, previous to his own baptism, their intercourse had 1 Vide quotations in Suicer Thosirar. sub verbo QiXoo-ofii,. Ch. HI.] PROJECT FOR RETIRING INTO SECLUSION. 27 not been entirely broken off ; only that it was impossible for him, who had his business in the law courts and found his recreation in the theatre, to be so acceptable to one who never entered public places, and who was wholly devoted to meditation, study, and prayer.1 Their inter course was necessarily more rare, though their friendship was substantially unshaken. ' When, however, I had myself also lifted my head a little above this worldly flood, he received me with open arms ' (probably referring here to his baptism or preparation for it) ; ' but even then I was not able to maintain my former equality, for he had the advantage of me in point of time, and having mani fested the greatest diligence, he had attained a ver}' lofty standard, and was ever soaring beyond me.'2 This disparity, however, could not diminish their natural affection for one another; and Basil at length obtained Chrysostom's consent to a plan which he had frequently urged — that they should abandon their present homes and live together in some quiet abode, there to strengthen each other in undisturbed study, meditation, and prayer. But this project of the young enthusiasts was for a time frustrated by the irresistible entreaties of Chrysostom's mother, that he would not deprive her of his protection, companionship, and help. The scene is described by Chrysostom himself,3 with a dramatic power worthy of Greek tragedy. It reminds the reader of some of those long and stately, yet elegant and affecting, narratives of the messenger who, at the close of the play, describes the final scene which is not represented. Certainly it bespeaks the scholar of a man who had made his pupils familiar with the best classical writers in Greek. ' When she knew that we were meditating this course, my mother took me by the right hand and led me into her own cham ber, and there, seating herself near the bed on which she 1 De Sacerd. i. c. 4. 2 Ibid. c. 3. 3 Ibid. c. o. 28 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. III. had given birth to me, wept fountains of tears ; to which she added words of lamentation more pitiable even than the tears themselves. "I was not long permitted to enjoy the virtue of thy father, my child ;— so it seemed good to God. My travail pangs at your birth were quickly succeeded by his death ; bringing orphanhood upon thee, and upon me an untimely widowhood, with all those mise ries of widowhood which those only who have experienced them can fairly understand. Eor no description can ap proach the reality of that storm and tempest which is undergone by her who having but lately issued from her father's home, and being unskilled in the ways of the world, is suddenly plunged into grief insupportable, and compelled to endure anxieties too great for her sex and age. Por she has to correct the negligence, to watch against the ill-doings of her slaves, to baffle the insidious schemes of kinsfolk, to meet with a brave front the impu dent threats and harshness of tax collectors." ' ' She then describes minutely the expense, and labour, and constant anxiety which attended the education of a son ; how she had refrained from all thoughts of second marriage, that she might bestow her undivided energies, time, and means upon him ; how amply it had all been rewarded by the delight of his presence, recalling the image of her husband. And now that he had grown up, would he leave her absolutely forlorn ? ' In return for all these my services to you,' she cried, ' I implore you this one favour only — not to make me a second time a widow, or to revive the grief which time has lulled. Wait for my death — perhaps I shall soon be gone ; when you i have committed my body to the ground, and mingled my| bones with your father's bones, then you will be free to embark on any sea you please.' Such an appeal to his 1 For the oppressive manner in which taxes were collected see Gibbon, iii. 78, et seq., Milman's edit. Ch. III.] CHARACTER OF ASCETIC BROTHERHOOD. 29 sense of filial gratitude and duty could not be disregarded. Chrysostom yielded to his mother's entreaties ; although Basil did not desist from urging his favourite scheme.1 At the same time he assimilated his life at home as much as possible to the condition of a monk. He entirely withdrew from all worldly occupations and amusements. He seldom went out of the house ; he strengthened his mind by study, his spirit by prayer, and subdued his body by vigils and fasting, and sleeping upon the bare ground. He maintained an almost constant silence, that his thoughts might be kept abstracted from mundane things, and that no irritable or slanderous speech might escape his lips. Some of his companions naturally lamented what they regarded as a morose and melancholy change.2 But the intercourse between him and Basil was more frequent than before ; and two other young men, who had been their fellow students at the school of Libanius, were persuaded to adopt the same kind of secluded life. These two were Maximus, afterwards Bishop of Seleucia, in Isauria; and Theodore, who became Bishop of Mop- suestia, in Cilicia.3 This little fraternity formed, with some others not named, a voluntary association of youthful ascetics. They did not dwell in a separate building, nor were they in any way established as a monastic commu nity, but (like Wesley and his young friends at Oxford) they lived by rule, and practised monastic austerities. The superintendence of their studies and general conduct they submitted to Diodorus and Carterius, who were pre sidents of monasteries in the vicinity of Antioch.4 In addition to his own intrinsic merits and eminence, Dio dorus claims our attention, because there can be no doubt that he exercised a great influence upon the minds of his two most distinguished scholars, Chrysostom and Theo- 1 De Sacerd. i. c. 6. 3 Socr. vi. u. 3. 2 Ibid. vi. c. 12. ' Ibid. vi. 3. 30 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. III. dore. Indeed, judging from the fragments of his works, and the notices of him by historians, it is not too much to say that he was the founder of a method of Biblical inter pretation of which Chrysostom and Theodore became the most able representatives. He was of noble family, and the friend of Meletius, who confided to him and the priest Evagrius the chief care of his diocese during his second exile under Valens about a.d. 370. And one of the first acts of Meletius, on his return in a.d. 378, was to make Diodorus Bishop of Tarsus. His writings in defence of Christianity were sufficiently powerful and notorious to provoke the notice of Julian, who, in a letter to Photinus, attacks him with no small asperity.1 The Emperor finds occasion for ridi cule in the pale and wrinkled face and the attenuated frame of Diodorus, wasted by his severe labours and ascetic practices ; and represents these disfigurements as punishments from the offended gods against whom he had directed his pen. Being well known as a warm friend of Meletius, Diodorus was exposed to some risk from the Arian party during the exile of the bishop from a.d. 370-378. But he was not deterred from frequenting the old town on the south side of the Orontes, where the congregation of Meletius held their assemblies, and dili gently ministering to their spiritual needs. He accepted no fixed stipend, but his necessities were supplied by the hospitality of those among whom he laboured.2 Of his voluminous writings, a commentary on the Old and New Testament is that most frequently quoted by ecclesiastical writers. They expressly and repeatedly affirm that he adhered very closely to the literal and historical meaning of the text, and that he was opposed to those mystical ¦ In Facund. Hermian. pro def. . Chrysost. Hom. in Diodor. vol. iii. triun. capit. lib. iv. c. 2 in Gall, and p. 761. bibl. patr. xi. p. 706. 3 gocr_ T; „ Cn. HI.] THEOLOGY OF DIODORUS. 31 and allegorical interpretations of Origen and the Alex- drian school, which often disguised rather than elucidated the true significance of the passage.1 One evil of the allegorical method was, that it destroyed a clear and critical perception of the differences between the older Eevelation and the New. The Old Testament was regarded as a kind of vast enigma, containing implicitly the facts and doctrines of the New. To detect subtle allusions to the coming of our Saviour, to the events of his life, to his death and resurrection, in the acts, speeches, and gestures of persons mentioned in the Old Testament, was regarded as a kind of interpretation no less satisfactory than it was ingenious. To believe indeed that the grand intention running through Scripture from the beginning to the end, is to bring men to Jesus Christ ; that the history of the fall of man is given to enable us to appre ciate the need of a Eestorer, and to estimate his work at its proper value ; that the history of a dispensation based on law enables us to accept with more thankfulness a dispensation of spirit ; to recognise through the history of the Jewish system of sacrifices the immeasurable superior ity of the one great Sacrifice as the substance of previous shadows, the fulfilment of previous types ; to see, in fact, in the general course of Old Tesbament narrative, and in the voices of the prophets, intimations and hints, and sig nificant parallels of the subsequent history to which they lead on and lead up ; — this may be reasonable, profitable, and true : but it can be neither profitable nor true to see allusions, prophecies, and parallels in every minute and trivial detail of that earlier history. From this vital error Diodorus appears to have eman cipated himself and his disciples. He perceived, as we shall see Chrysostom perceived, a gradual development in Eevelation : that the knowledge, and morality, and faith of men under the Old Dispensation were less advanced than 1 Socr. vi. 3. 32 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. HI. those of men who lived under the New. One instance must suffice. He remarks that the Mosaic precept, di recting the brother of a man who had died childless to raise up posterity to his brother by marrying his wife, was given for the consolation of men who had as yet re ceived no clear promise respecting a resurrection from the dead.1 There is an approach to what some might deem rationalistic criticism, when he affirms that the speech of God to men in the Old Testament was not an external voice, but an inward spiritual intimation. When, for instance, it is said that God gave a command to Adam, it is evident, he says, that it was not made by a sound audible to the bodily ear, but that God impressed the knowledge of the command upon him according to His own proper energy, and that when Adam had received it his condition was the same as if it had come to him through the actual hearing of the ear. And this, he observes, is what God effected also in the case of the prophets.2 A similar rationalistic tendency is observable in his explanation of the relation between the Divine and human elements in the person of our blessed Lord. His language, in fact, on this subject is Nestorian : a distinc tion was to be made between Him who, according to his essence, was Son of God — the Logos — and Him who through Divine decree and adoption became Son of God. He who was born as Man from Mary was Son according to grace, but God the Logos was Son according to nature. The Son of Mary became Son of God because He was selected to be the receptacle or temple of God the Word. It was only in an improper sense that God the Word was called Son of David ; the appellation was given to Him merely because the human temple in which He dwelt belonged to the lineage of David.3 It is clear that ' Niceph. „«prf, vol. i. p. 524 and 3 Leont Byzant contra ^^ ^ « tv.-j i ¦ _>„ Eutych. lib. iii. in Basnage thesaur. 2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 80. monum. i. 592. Ch. HI.] RETREAT OF THEODORE. 33 Diodorus would have objected equally with Nestorius to ' apply the title of ' God-bearer ' (®sotokos) to the blessed Virgin. Sixty years later, in a.d. 429, the streets of Con- , stantinople and Alexandria resounded with tumults ex cited by controversy about the subject of which this was the watchword. But Diodorus happily lived too early for these dreadful conflicts, and his scholar Theodore was not personally disturbed; though long after his death, in a.d. 553, his writings were condemned by the Fifth (Ecu menical Council, because the Nestorians appealed to them in confirmation of their tenets, and revered his memory. The practical element in Diodorus, his method of literal and common-sense interpretation of Holy Scripture, was inherited chiefly by Chrysostom ; the intellectual vein, his conceptions of the relation between the Godhead and Manhood in Christ, his opinions respecting the final resto ration of mankind, which were almost equivalent to a denial of eternal punishment, were reproduced mainly by Theodore. It was inevitable that sometimes those who, in an access of religious fervour, had renounced the world and subjected themselves to the sternest ascetism, found that they had miscalculated their powers. The passionate enthusiasm which for a time carried them along the thorny path would begin to subside ; a hankering after a more natural, if not more worldly life ensued ; and occasionally the reaction was so violent, the passions kept down in unnatural con straint reasserted themselves with such force, that the ascetic flew back to the pleasures and sometimes to the sins of the world, with an appetite which was in painful contrast to his previous abstinence. The youthful Theodore was for a time an instance, though far from an extreme in stance, of such reaction : the strain was too great for him ; he relapsed for a season into his former habits of life ; he retired from the little ascetic brotherhood to which Chry- d 34 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. HI. sostom and Basil belonged. There is no evidence that he fell into any kind of sin ; he simply returned to the occu pations and amusements of ordinary life. He was in love with and desirous of marrying a young lady named Her- mione. But Chrysostom was at this period such an ardent ascetic ; he was so deeply impressed with the evil of the world, and regarded an austere and absolute separation from it as so indisputably the highest form of Cliristian life, that to him any divergence from that path, when once adopted, seemed a positive sin. The relapse of Theodore called forth two letters of lamentation, remonstrance, and exhortation from his friend. They are the earliest of his extant works, and exhibit a command of language which does credit to the training of Libanius as well as to his own ability, and an intimate acquaintance with Holy Scripture, which proves how much time he had already spent in diligent and patient study. Since these epistles have been justly considered among the finest of his pro ductions, and represent his opinions at an early stage of his life respecting repentance, a future life, the advan tages of ascetism and celibacy, some paraphrases from them will be presented to the reader. He begins his first letter by quoting the words of Jeremiah, ' Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears.' ' If the prophet uttered that lamentation over a ruined city, surely I may express a like passionate sorrow over the fallen soul of a brother. That soul which was once the temple of the Holy Spirit now lies open and defence less to become the prey of any hostile invader. The spirit of avarice, of arrogance, of lust, may now find a free pas sage into a heart which was once as pure and inaccessible to evil as heaven itself. Wherefore I mourn and weep, nor will I cease from my mourning until I see thee again in thy former brilliancy. For though this may seem im- Ch. IH.] CHRYSOSTOM'S LETTERS TO THEODORE. 35 possible to men, yet with God it is possible, for He it is who lifteth the beggar from the earth and taketh the poor out of the dunghill, that He may set him with the princes, even with the princes of his people.' An eminent charac teristic of Chrysostom is that he is always hopeful of human nature ; he never doubts the capacity of man to rise, or the willingness of God to raise him. Theodore himself appears to have been stricken with remorse, and to have drooped into despondency, to rouse him from which and lead him to repose more trustfully on the good ness of God, was one main purpose of Chrysostom's let ters. ' Despair was the devil's work;' ' it is he who tries to cut off that hope whereby men are saved, which is the support and anchor of the soul, which, like a long chain let down from heaven, little by little draws those who hold tightly to it up to heavenly heights, and lifts them above the storm and tempest of these worldly ills. The devil tries to extinguish that trust which is the source and strength of prayer, which enables men to cry, " as the eyes of a maiden look unto the hand of her mistress, even so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until He have mercy upon us." Yet if man will only believe it, there is never a time at which any one, even the most abandoned sinner, may not turn and repent and be accepted by God. For God being impassible, his wrath is not a passion or an emotion ; He punishes not in anger, since He is unsus ceptible by nature of injury from any insult or wrong done by us, but in mercy, that He may bring men back to Him self. 1 The many instances of God's mercy ; his relenting towards the Jews, and even to Ahab, when he humbled himself; the repentance of Manasseh — of the Ninevites — of the penitent thief — all accepted, although preceded by a long course of sin, prove that the words " to-day if ye will hear his voice" are applicable to anytime: — it is 1 C 2-5. D 2 36 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. m. always " to-day " as long as a man lives ; repentance is estimated not by length of time, but by the disposition of the heart.' He acutely observes that ' despondency often conceals moral weakness ; a secret though perhaps uncon scious sympathy with the sin which the man professes to deplore and hate.' ^' To fall is natural, but to remain fallen argues a kind of acquiescence in evil, a feebleness of moral purpose which is more displeasing to God than the fall itself.' ' But although he speaks in the most hopeful, encouraging language of the efficacy of repentance, however late, if sincere, in this life, no one can assert more strongly the impossibility of restoration when the limits of this present existence have once been passed. In this respect he differs alike from Origen, Diodorus, and his fellow- student Theodore, and from believers in the later developed doc trine of purgatory. ' As long as we are here, it is possible, even if we sin ten thousand times, to wash all away by repentance ; but when once we have been taken to that other world, even if we manifest the greatest penitence, it will avail us nought, but however much we may gnash with our teeth, and beat our breasts, and pour forth entreaties, no one will be able even with the tip of his finger to cool us in the flame ; we shall only hear the same words as the rich man : " between us and you there is a great gulf fixed." ' 2 Nothing is more remarkably characteristic of Chrysostom's productions, especially the earlier, than a frequent recurrence to this truth : the exist ence of a great impassable chasm between the two abodes of misery and bliss. Heaven and hell were no distant dream lands to him, but realities so nearly and vividly present to his mind that they acted as powerful motives, encouraging to holiness, deterring from vice. He paints the two pictures in glowing colours, and submits them to the 1 I. c 8, 9. . C. 9. Ch. HI.] THE LETTERS TO THEODORE. 37 contemplation of his friend. 'When you hear of fire think not that the fire in that other world is like it ; for this earthly fire burns up and consumes whatever it lays hold of, but that burns continually those who are seized by it and never ceases, wherefore it is called unquenchable. For sinners must be clothed with immortality, not for honour, but merely to supply a constant material for this punishment to feed upon ; and how terrible this is, a description would indeed never be able to present, but from our experience of small sufferings it is possible to form some little conception of those greater miseries. If you should ever be in a bath which has been overheated, then I pray you consider the fire of hell ; or if ever you have been parched by a severe fever, transfer your thoughts to that flame, and you will be able clearly to distinguish the difference. For if a bath or a fever so distress and agitate us, what will be our condition when we fall into that river of fire which flows past the terrible Judge's throne.'1 'Heaven is, indeed, a subject which transcends the powers of human language, yet we can form a dim image of what it is like. It is the place " whence sorrow and sighing shall flee away " (Is. xxxv. 10) ; where poverty and sickness are not to be dreaded ; where no one injures or is injured, no one provokes or is provoked ; no one is harassed by anxiety about the necessarjr wants, or frets over the loftier ambitions of life ; it is the place where the tempest of human passions is lulled ; where there is neither night nor cold nor heat, nor changes of season, nor old age ; but everything belonging to decay is taken away, and incorruptible glory reigns alone. But far above all these things, it is the place where men will continually enjoy the society of Jesus Christ, together with angels and archangels and all the powers above.' 2 ' Open your eyes,' he cries in a transport of feeling, ' and 1 C. 10. s Theod. i. c. 11 in initio. 38 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. HI. contemplate in imagination that heavenly theatre crowded not with men such as we see, but with those who are nobler than gold or precious stones or sunbeams, or any brilliant thing that can be seen ; and not with men only, but angels, thrones, dominions, powers ranged about the King whom we dare not describe for his transcendant beauty, majesty, and splendour. If we had to suffer ten thousand deaths every day ; nay, if we had to undergo hell itself, for the sake of beholding Christ coming in his glory, and being numbered among the band of saints, would it not be well to submit to all these things ? 1 " Master, it is a good thing for us to be here " : if such an exclamation burst from St. Peter on witnessing a partial and veiled manifestation of Christ's glory, what are we to say when the reality shall be displayed, when the royal palace shall be thrown open and we shall see the King Himself; no longer by means of a mirror, or as it were in a riddle, but face to face ; no longer through faith, but actual sight.'1 He passes on to some remarks upon the soul, which are Platonic in character : ' Man cannot alter the shape of his body, but God has conceded to him a power, with the assistance of Divine grace, of increasing the beauty of the soul. Even that soul which has become deformed by the ugliness of sin, may be restored to its pristine beauty. No lover was ever so much captivated ' by the beauty of the body as God loves and longs for the beauty of the human soul.2 Tou who are now transported with admiration of Hermione's beauty' (the girl whom , Theodore wished to marry) 'may, if you will, cultivate a beauty in your own soul as far exceeding hers as heaven surpasses earth. Beauty of the soul is the only true and permanent kind, and if you could see it with the eye, you would admire it far more than the loveliness of the rainbow and of roses, and other flowers which are eva- 1 c- "• ¦' c. 13. Ch. HI.] THE LETTERS TO THEODORE. 39 nescent, and feeble representations of the soul's beauty.' [ He tells some curious stories of men who had relapsed from monastic life and subsequently been reclaimed to it. One, a young man of noble family and heir to great wealth, had thrown up all the splendour which he might have commanded, and exchanged his riches and his gay clothing for the poverty and mean garb of a recluse upon the mountains, and had attained an astonishing degree of holiness. But some of his relations seduced him from his retreat, and once more he might be seen riding on horse back through the forum followed by a crowd of attendants. But the holy brethren whom he had deserted ceased not to endeavour to recover him; at first he treated them with haughty indifference, when they met and saluted him as he proudly rode through the streets. But at last, as they desisted not day by day, he would leap from his horse when they appeared, and listen with downcast eyes to their warnings ; till, as time went on, he was rescued from his worldly entanglements, and restored to his desert and the study of the true philosophy, and now, when Chrysostom wrote, he bestowed his wealth upon the poor, and had attained the very pinnacle of virtue.2 Earnestly, therefore, does he implore Theodore to recover his trust in God, to repent and return to the brotherhood which was buried in grief at his defection. 'Now the un believing and the worldly rejoice, but return to us and our sorrow and shame will be transferred to the adversary's side.' 'It was the beginning of penitence which was arduous; the devil met the penitent at the door of the city of refuge, but if defeated there, the fury of his assaults would diminish.' He warned him against an idle confes sion of sinfulness not accompanied by any honest effort to amend. ^ ' Such was no true confession, because not joined with the tears of contrition, or followed by altera- 1 C. 14. 2 C. 17. 40 LIFE AND TDIES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. III. tion of life.' l But of Theodore he hoped better things ; as there were different degrees of glory reserved for men, implied in our Lord's mention of ' many mansions,' and his declaring that everyone should be rewarded according to his works, he trusted that Theodore might still obtain a high place ; that he might be a vessel of silver if not of gold or precious stone in the heavenly house.2 In the second epistle Chrysostom expresses more dis tinctly his view respecting the solemn obligations of those who joined a religious fraternity. ' If tears and groanings could be transmitted through a letter, this of mine would be filled with them ; I weep that you have blotted your self out of the catalogue of the brethren, and trampled on your covenant with Christ.' ' The devil assaulted him with peculiar fury, because he was anxious to conquer so worthy an antagonist ; one who had despised delicate fare and costly dress, who had spent whole days in jthe study of Holy Scripture, and whole nights in prayer, who had regarded the society of the brethren as a greater honour than any worldly dignity. What, I pray you, is there that appears blessed and enviable in the world ? The prince is exposed to the wrath of the people and the irrational out bursts of popular feeling — to the fear of princes greater than himself— to anxieties about his subjects ; and the ruler of to-day is to-morrow a private man : for this pre sent life no way differs from a stage ; as on that, one man plays the part of a king, another of a general, a third of a common soldier ; but when evening has come, the kino- is no king, the ruler no ruler, the general no general ; so will it be in that day ; each will receive his due reward, not according to the character which he has enacted, but according to the works which he has done.' 3 Theodore had clearly expressed his intention of honourably marrv- ing Hermione ; but though Chrysostom allows that mar- 1 C. 16 and 19. 3 C. 19. 3 q 3 Ch. IH.] • THEODORE RETURNS. 41 riage is an honourable estate, yet he boldly declares that for one who like Theodore had made such a solemn renun ciation of the world, it was equally criminal with fornica tion. He had wholly dedicated himself to the service of God, and he had no right to bind himself by any other tie : to marry would be as culpable as desertion in a soldier. He points out the miseries, the anxieties, the toils, often fruitless, which accompanied secular life, espe cially in the married state. From all such ills the life of the brotherhood was exempt : he alone was truly free who lived for Christ ; he was like one who, securely planted on an eminence, beholds other men below him buffetting with the waves of a tumultuous sea. For such a high vantage ground Chrysostom implores Theodore to make. He begs him to pardon the length of his letter ; ' nothing but his ardent love for his friend could have constrained him to write this second epistle. Many indeed had discouraged what they regarded as a vain task and sowing upon a rock ; but he was not so to be diverted from his efforts : he trusted that by the grace of God his letters would accomplish something ; and if not, he should at least have delivered himself from the reproach of silence.' ' These letters are the productions of a youthful enthu siast, and as such, allowances must be made for them. They abound not only in eloquent passages, but in very fine and true observations upon human nature — on peni tence — on God's mercy and pardon. It is only the appli cation of them to the case of Theodore which seems overstrained. At a later period Chrysostom's views on ascetic and monastic life were modified ; but in early life, though never fanatical, they were what we should call ex treme. His earnest efforts for the restoration of his friend were crowned with success. Theodore abandoned the world once more and his matrimonial intentions, and re- 1 C. 5. 42 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. HI. tired into the seclusion of the brotherhood. Some twenty years later, in a.d. 394, he was made Bishop of Mopsuestia, which is pretty nearly all we know about him, but the extant fragments of his voluminous writings prove him to ' have been a man of no ordinary ability, and a powerful commentator of the same sensible and rational school as Chrysostom himself. We may be disposed to say what of Hermione ? Had she no claims to be considered ? But the ascetic line of life was regarded by the earnest-minded as so indisputably the noblest which a Christian could adopt, that her disappointment would not have been al lowed to weigh in the balance for a moment against what was considered the higher call.1 1 Tillemont maintains that the Theo- Mopsuestia, but he stands alone in dore to whom the first letter is ad- this opinion, and his reasons for it dressed must have been a different seem inadequate. — Till. xi. note vi. person from the fellow-student of p. 550. Chrysostom and eventual Bishop of 43 CHAPTEE IV. CHETSOSTOM EVADES FORCIBLE ORDINATION TO A BISHOPRIC — THE TREATISE ' ON THE PRIESTHOOD.' A.D. 370, 371. We now come to a curious passage in Chrysostom's life ; one in which his conduct, from our moral stand-point, seems hardly justifiable. Yet for one reason it is not to be regretted, since it eventually drew forth from him his treatise ' De Sacerdotio ; ' one of the ablest, most instruc tive, and most eloquent works which he ever produced. Bishop Meletius had been banished in a.d. 370 or 371. The Arian Emperor Valens, who had expelled him, was about to take up his residence in Antioch. It was de sirable therefore, without loss of time, to fill up some vacant sees in Syria. The attention of the bishops, clergy, and people was turned to Chrysostom and Basil, as men well qualified for the episcopal office. According to a custom prevalent at that time, they might any day be seized and compelled, however reluc tant, to accept the dignity. So St. Augustine was dragged, weeping, by the people before the bishop, and his imme diate ordination demanded by them, regardless of his tears.1 So St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, was torn from his cell, and conveyed under a guard to his ordination.2 The two friends were filled with apprehension and alarm. Basil implored Chrysostom that they might act in concert at the 1 Possid. Vit. August, c. iv. designate of Alexandria is at this day 8 Sulp. Sever. Vit. St. Martin. 1. i. brought to Cairo, loaded with chains, p. 224. The affectation of reluctance as if to prevent his escape. — Stanley, to be consecrated became a fashion in Eastern Church, lect. vii. p. 226. the Coptic Church. The patriarch 44 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. IV. present crisis, and together accept or together evade or resist the expected but unwelcome honour. Chrysostom affected to consent to this proposal, but in reality determined to act otherwise. He regarded himself as totally unworthy and incompetent to fill so sacred and responsible an office ; but considering Basil to be far more advanced in learning and piety, he resolved that the Church should not, through his own weakness, lose the services of his friend. Accordingly, when popular report proved correct, and some emissaries from the electing body were sent to carry off the young men (much, it would seem from Chrysostom's account, as policemen might arrest a pri soner), Chrysostom contrived to hide himself. Basil, less wary, was captured, and imagined that Chrysostom had already submitted ; for the emissaries acted with subtlety when he tried to resist them. They affected surprise that he should make so violent a resistance, when his com panion, who had the reputation of a hotter temper, had yielded so mildly to the decision of the Fathers.1 Thus Basil was led to suppose that Chrysostom had already sub mitted; and when he discovered too late the artifice of his friend and his captors, he bitterly remonstrated with Chrysostom upon his treacherous conduct. ' The cha racter of them both,' he complained, was compromised ' by this division in their counsels.' ' Tou should have told us where your friend was hidden,' said some, ' and then we should have contrived some means of capturing him,' to which poor Basil was ashamed to reply that he had been ignorant of his friend's concealment, lest such a con fession should cast a suspicion of unreality over the whole of their supposed intimacy. ' Chrysostom, on his side, was accused of haughtiness and vanity for declining so great a * C. 5. This word may refer to the had elected him bishop.— Comment. bishops or the people. Ambrose calls in Luc. 1. viii. c. 1 7. the people his ' parentes,' because they Ch. IV.] BASIL REMONSTRATES WITH CHRYSOSTOM. 45 dignity ; though others said that the electors deserved a still greater dishonour and defeat for appointing over the heads of wiser, holier, and older men, mere lads,1 who had been but yesterday immersed in secular pursuits ; that they might now for a little while knit their brows, and go arrayed in sombre robes and affect a grave countenance.' 2 Basil begged Chrysostom for an explanation of his motives in this proceeding. ' After all their mutual protestations of indivisible friendship, he had been suddenly cast off and turned adrift, like a vessel without ballast, to encounter alone the angry tempests of the world. To whom should he now turn for sympathy and aid in the trials to which he would surely be exposed from slander, ribaldry, and insolence ? The one who might have helped him stood coldly aloof, and would be unable even to hear his cries for assistance.' J We may be strongly disposed to sympathise with the disconsolate Basil. But the conscience of Chrysostom appears to have been quite at ease from first to last in this transaction. He regarded it as a ' pious fraud.' ' When he beheld the mingled distress and displeasure of his friend he could not refrain from laughing for joy, and thanking God for the successful issue of his plan.' * In the ensuing discussion he boldly asserted the principle that deceit claims our admiration when practised in a good cause and from a good motive. The greatest successes in war, he argues, have been achieved through stratagem, as well as by fair fighting in the open field ; and, of the two, the first are most to be admired, because they are gained without bloodshed, and are triumphs of mental rather than bodily force.5 But, retorts poor Basil, I was not an enemy, and ought not to have been dealt with as such. ' True, my excellent friend,' replies Chrysostom, ' but this 1 ixeipdicia; vide note at end of chapter. 2 I. c. 5. a C. 7. ' C. 6. « C. 8. 46 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. IV. kind of fraud may sometimes be exercised towards our dearest acquaintance.' ' Physicians were often obliged to employ some artifice to make refractory patients submit to their remedies. Once a man in a raging fever resisted all the febrifugal draughts administered to him, and loudly called for wine. The physician darkened the room, steeped a warm oyster shell in wine, then filled it with water, and put it to the patient's lips, who eagerly swallowed the draught, believing it, from the smell, to be wine.' • In the same category of justifiable stratagem he places, not very discriminatingly, the circumcision of Timothy by St. Paul, in order to conciliate the Jews, and St. Paul's observance of the ceremonial law at Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 26), for the same purpose. Such contrivances he calls instances, not of treachery, but of ' good manage ment' (otKovofila). There is something highly Oriental, and remote from our Western moral sense, in the sophis tical tone of this whole discussion. If Basil really sub mitted to such arguments, he was easily vanquished. He says, however, no more about the injustice of his treat ment, but apparently accepting Chrysostom's position that for a useful purpose deceit is justifiable, he begs to be informed ' what advantage Chrysostom thought he had procured for himself or his friend by this piece of manage ment, or good policy, or whatever he pleased to call it.' The remaining books on the Priesthood are occupied with the answer to this enquiry. The line which Chry sostom takes is to point out the pre-eminent dignity, difficulty, and danger of the priestly office, and then to enlarge upon the peculiar fitness of his friend to discharge its duties.2 ' What advantage could be greater than to C- 9- the original without much apparent * The words priest and bishop are distinction. Chrysostom is speaking employed in the following translations of the priesthood generally, and it is and paraphrases, to correspond with not easy to say which Order he has in Updis and Mskottos, which are used in his mind at any given moment. Ch. IV.] DIGNITY, ETC. OF THE PRIESTLY OFFICE. 47 be engaged in that work which Christ had declared with his own lips to be the special sign of love to Himself. For when He put the question three times to the chieftain of the apostles (/copvtpalos), "Lovest thou me?" and had been answered by a fervent asseveration of attachment, he added each time, " Feed my sheep," or " Feed my lambs." " Lovest thou me more than these ? " had been the question, and the charge which followed it had been always, "Feed my sheep"; not, If thou lovest Me, practise fasting, or incessant vigils, and sleep on the bare ground, or protect the injured and be to the orphans as a father, and to their mother as a husband ; no, he passes by all these things, and says, " Feed my sheep." Could his friend, therefore, complain that he had done ill in com passing, even by fraud, his dedication to so glorious an office ? ' As for himself, it was obvious that he could not have refused so great an honour out of haughty contempt or disrespect to the electors. On the contrary, it was when he considered the exceeding sanctity and magnitude of the position, and its awful responsibilities — the heavenly purity, the burning love towards God and man, the sound wisdom and judgment, and moderation of temper required in those who were dedicated to it — that his heart failed him. He felt himself utterly incompetent and unworthy for so arduous a task. If some unskilled person was sud denly to be called upon to take charge of a ship laden with a costly freight, he would immediately refuse ; and in like manner he himself dared not risk, by his present inexperience, the safety of that vessel which was laden with the precious merchandise of souls.' Vain-glory, in deed, and pride would have induced him not to reject, but to covet so transcendent a dignity. The office of priest was discharged indeed on earth, yet it held a place among heavenly ranks. And rightly ; for neither man, nor angel, 1 II. c. 2. * III. t_. 1, 2, 5. 48 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. IV. nor archangel, nor created power of any kind, but the Paraclete Himself, ordained this ministry. Therefore, it became one who entered the priesthood to be as pure as if he had already taken his stand in heaven itself among the powers above/ ' " When thou seest the Lord lying slain, and the priest standing and praying over the sacrifice, when thou seest all sprinkled with that precious blood, dost thou deem thyself still among men, still standing upon this earth ; art thou not rather transported imme diately to heaven, and, every carnal imagination being cast out, dost thou not, with soul unveiled and pure mind, behold the things which are in heaven ? 0 miracle ! 0 the goodness of God ! He who is sitting with the Father is yet at that hour held in the hands of all, and gives Himself to be embraced and grasped by those who desire it. And this all do through the eye of faith. Do these things seem to you to merit contempt ? does it seem pos sible to you that anyone should be so elated as to slight them?"1 0 ' Human nature possessed in the priesthood a power which had not been committed by God to angels or arch angels ; for to none of them had it been said, " Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth or loose on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven." Was it possible to conceive that any one should think lightly of such a gift ? Away with such madness !— for stark madness it would be to despise go great an authority, without which it was not possible for man to obtain salvation, or the good things promised to him. For if it were impossible for anyone to enter into the kingdom of heaven, except he were born again of water and the Spirit ; and if he who did not eat the flesh of the Lord and drink his blood was ejected from life - eternal, and if these things were administered by none but the consecrated hands of the priest, how would any- 1 III. c. 4. Ch. IV.] MODE OF ELECTING TO BISHOPRICS. 49 one, apart from them, be able to escape the fire of hell, or obtain the crown laid up for him ? ' ' There are, perhaps, no passages elsewhere in Chrysostom expressed in such a lofty sacerdotal tone ; but it must be remembered that on any supposition as to the date of this treatise, he was young when it was composed, holding therefore, as on the subject of monasticism, more enthu siastic, highly -wrought opinions than he afterwards enter tained ; and moreover, that the whole treatise is written in a somewhat vehement and excited style, as by one who was maintaining a position against an antagonist. Having proved that his evasion of the episcopal office could have, arisen from no spirit of pride, but from a con sciousness of his infirmity and incapacity, he proceeds to point out the manifold and peculiar dangers which en compassed it. ' Vain-glory was a rock more fatal than the Syrens. Many a priest was shipwrecked there, and torn to pieces by the fierce monsters which dwelt upon it — wrath, despondency, envy, strife, slander, falsehood, hypocrisy, love o'f praise, and a multitude more. Often he became the slave and flatterer of great people, even of women who had most improperly mixed themselves up with ecclesiastical affairs, and especially exercised great influence in the elections.' 2 The scenes, indeed, which often took place about this period at the elections to bishoprics, occasioned much scandal to the Church. In earlier times, when the Chris tians were less numerous, more simple in their habits, more unanimous ; when liability to persecution deterred the indifferent, or pretenders, from their ranks, the epis copal office could be no object of worldly ambition. The clergy and the people elected their bishop ; and the fair ness and simplicity with which the election was usually conducted, won the admiration of the Emperor Alexander 1 III. 5. 2 III. 9, 10. 50 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. IV. Severus.1 But when Christianity was recognised by the State, a bishopric in towns of importance became a posi tion of high dignity; and warm debates, often fierce tumults, attended the election of candidates. Up to the time of Justinian at least, the whole Christian population of the city or region over which the bishop was to preside possessed a right to elect. Their choice was subject to the approval of the bishops, and the confirmation of the metropolitan of the province; but, on the other hand, neither the bishops nor the metropolitan could legally obtrude a candidate of their own upon the people. A charge brought against Hilary of Aries was, that he or dained several bishops against the will and consent of the people. A just and legitimate ordination, according to Cyprian, was one which had been examined by the suf frage and judgment of all, both clergy and people. Such, he observes, was the election of Cornelius to the see of Eome in a.d. 251. 2 If the people were unanimous, there were loud cries of agios, dignus ; di agios, indignus, as the case might be ; but if they were divided, it was usual for the metropolitan to give the preference to the choice of the majority ; or, if they appeared equally divided, the metro politan and his synod selected a man indifferent, if pos sible, to both parties. Occasionally, also, as in the case of Nectarius, the predecessor of Chrysostom in the see of Constantinople, the Emperor interposed, and appointed one chosen by himself. Sanguinary often were the tumults which attended contested elections. The greater the city, the greater the strife. In the celebrated contest for the see of Eome in a.d. 366, between Damasus and Ursicinus, there was much hard fighting and copious bloodshed. Damasus, with a furious and motley mob, broke into the Julian Basilica, where Ursicinus was being con secrated by Paul, Bishop of Tibur, and violently stopped 1 Lamprid. Vita Alex. Sev. ch. 45. Paris edit. » Cyprian Epis. 52. Ch. IV.] VIOLENCE AT ELECTIONS. 51 the proceedings. Frays of this kind lasted for some time. On one occasion, one hundred and thirty dead bodies strewed the pavement of the Basilica of Licinnius, till Damasus was eventually triumphant. It is especially mentioned that the ladies of Eome favoured his side.1 It seems scarcely possible to doubt that as these events must have been fresh in Chrysostom's recollection, he must be specially referring to them when, insisting on freedom from ambition as one grand qualification for the priest hood, he says, ' that he will pass by, lest they should seem incredible, the tales of murders perpetrated in churches, and havoc wrought in cities by contentions for bishop rics ; ' and when also he alludes indignantly to the inter ference of women in the elections. ' The elections,' he says, ' were generally made on public festivals, and were disgraceful scenes of party feeling and intrigue. The clergy and the people were never unanimous. The really important qualifications for the office were seldom consi dered. Ambitious men spared no arts of bribery or flat tery by which to obtain places for themselves in the Church, and to keep them when obtained. One candidate for a bishopric was recommended to the electors because he belonged to a distinguished family; another because he was wealthy, and would not burden the funds of the Church.' * The provocations to ambition and worldly glory were so great, both in the acquisition and in the possession of the episcopal office, that Chrysostom says, he had ' determined partly for these reasons to avoid the snare.3 He shrunk also from many other trials incident 1 Ammian. Marcell. 1. xxvii. c. 3. any secular office. To win glory and Socrat. 1. iv. c. 29. See a multitude honour among men we peril our sal- of evidence carefully collected on this vation. . . Consuls and prefects do subject in Bingham, vol. i. b. iv. not enjoy such honour as he who pre- ch. 2. sides over the Church. Go to court, 2 III. 15. * or to the houses of lords and ladies, 3 Comp. in Ac. Apost. Hom. iii. 5. and whom do you find foremost there ? ' Men now aim at a bishopric like no one is put before the bishop.' E 2 52 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. IV. to the office. There were always persons ready to detect and magnify the slightest mistake or transgression in a priest. One little error could not be retrieved by a mul titude of successes, but darkened the man's whole life. For a kind of immaculate purity was exacted by popular opinion of a priest, as if he was not a being of flesh and blood, or subject to human passions. Often his brethren, the clergy, were the most active in spreading mischievous reports about him, hoping to rise themselves upon his ruin ; like avaricious sons waiting for their father's death. Too often St. Paul's description of the sympathy between the several parts of the Christian body was inverted. " If one member suffered, all the others rejoiced ; if one member rejoiced, the others suffered pain." A bishop had need be as impervious to slander and envy as the three children in the burning fiery furnace.1 What a rare and difficult combination of qualities was required for the efficient discharge of his duties in the face of such diffi culties ! " He must be dignified, yet not haughty ; for midable, yet affable ; commanding, yet sociable ; strictly impartial, yet courteous; lowly, but not subservient; strong, yet gentle ; promoting the worthy in spite of all opposition, and with equal authority rejecting the un worthy, though pushed forward by the favour of all; looking always to one thing only— the welfare of the Church ; doing nothing out of animosity or partiality." 2 The behaviour also of a priest in ordinary society was jealously criticised. The community was not satisfied ; unless he was constantly paying calls. Not the sick only, but the sound desired to be " looked after" {iTria-Koirs7a0ai), ! —not so much from any religious feeling, as because the reception of such visits gratified their sense of their own importance. Yet if a bishop often visited the house of a wealthy or distinguished man to interest him in some ' ln- c 14. ' in. 16. Ch. IV.] QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE PRIESTHdOD. 53 design for the advantage of the Church, he would soon be stigmatised as a parasitical flatterer. Even the manner of his greetings to acquaintance in the streets was criti cised: "He smiled cordially on Mr. Such-an-one, and talked much with him ; but to me he only threw a com monplace remark." ' 1 It is amusing and instructive to read these observa tions. They prove what important personages bishops had become. The interests of the people were violently excited oyer their elections. They were subjected to the mingled reverence, deference and court, criticism, scandal, and gossip, which are the inevitable lot of all persons who occupy an exalted position in the world. In the fourth book Chrysostom speaks of some of the more mental qualifications indispensable for a priest. Foremost among these was a power of speaking : ' That was the one grand instrument which enabled him to heal the diseases of the body entrusted to his care. And in addition to this, he must be armed with a prompt and versatile wit, to encounter the various assaults of heretics. Jews, Greeks, Manichseans, Sabellians, Arians, all were narrowly watching for the smallest loophole by which to force a breach in the walls of the Church. And, unless the defender was very vigilant and skilful, while he was keeping out the one he would let in the other. While he opposed the blind deference of the Jews to their Mosaic Law, he must take care not to encourage the Manichseans, who would eliminate the Law from the Scriptures. While he asserted the Unity of the Godhead against the Arians, there was danger of slipping into the Sabellian error of confounding the Persons ; and, while he divided the Persons against the Sabellians, he must be careful to avoid the Arian error of dividing the substance also. The line of orthodoxy was a narrow path hemmed in by steep rocks 1 III. 17. 54 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. IV. on either side. Therefore it was of the deepest importance that the priest should be a learned and effective speaker ; that he might not fall into error himself or lead others astray. For, if he was seen to be worsted in a contro versy with heretics, many became alienated from the truth, mistaking the weakness of the defender for a weak ness in the cause itself.' ¦ ' But there was yet another task fraught with peril, — the delivery of sermons, The performances of a preacher were discussed by a curious and critical public Hke those of actors. Congregations attached themselves to their favourite preachers. Woe to the man who was detected in plagiarisms. He was instantly reprobated like a com mon thief. ' To become an effective preacher two things were necessary, — first, indifference to praise; secondly, power of speech ; two qualities, the one moral, the other intel lectual, which were rarely found coexisting. If a man possessed the first only, he became distasteful and despi cable to his congregation. For if he stood up and at first boldly uttered powerful words which stung the consciences of his hearers, but as he proceeded began to blush and hesitate and stumble, all the advantage of his previous remarks would be wasted. The persons who had secretly felt annoyed by his telling reproofs would revenge them selves by laughing at his embarrassment in speaking. If, on the other hand, he was a weighty speaker, but not indifferent to applause, he would probably trim his sails to catch the popular breeze, and study to be pleasant rather than profitable, to the great detriment of himself and of his flock.' * He makes some remarks eminently wise and true on the necessity of study for the preparation of sermons. ' It might seem strange, but in truth study was even more 1 IV. c. 3-5 and c. 9, ? y. c. 1_i- Ch. IV.] REMARKS ON PREACHING. 55 indispensable for an eloquent than for an ordinary preacher. Speaking was an acquired art, and when a man had at tained a high standard of excellence he was sure to decline unless he kept himself up by constant study. The man of reputation was always expected to say something new, and even in excess of the fame which he had already acquired. Men sat in judgment on him without mercy, as if he was not a human being subject to occasional de spondency, or anxiety, or irritation of temper ; but as if he was an angel or some infallible being, who ought always to remain at the same high level of excellence. The mediocre man, on the other hand, from whom much was not expected, would obtain a disproportionate amount of praise if he said a good thing now and then.1 The number of persons, however, in any congregation, who , were capable of appreciating a really learned and power ful preacher, was very small ; therefore a man ought not to be much disheartened or annoyed by unfavourable criti cisms. He should be his own critic, aiming in all his work to win the favour of God. Then, if the admiration of men followed, he would quietly accept it ; or, if with held, he would not be distressed, but seek his consolation in honest work and in a conscience void of offence.2 But if a priest was not superior to the love of admiration, all his labour and eloquence would be wasted : either he would sacrifice truth to popularity, or, failing to obtain so much applause as he desired, he would relax his efforts. This last was a common defect in men whose powers of preaching were only second-rate. Perceiving that even the highly-gifted could not sustain their reputation with out incessant study and practice, while they themselves, by the most strenuous efforts, could gain but a very slender . meed of praise, if any, they abandoned themselves to in- . dolence. 0 The trial was especially great when a man was.; . » V. c. 5. 2 C 6, 7 56 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. IV. surpassed in preaching by one who occupied an inferior rank in the hierarchy, and who perhaps took every oppor tunity of parading his superior powers. A kind of passion for listening to preaching possessed, he says, both Pagans and Christians at this time ; hence it was very mortifying for a man to see a congregation looking forward to the termination of his discourse, while to his rival they list ened with the utmost patience and attention, and were vexed only when his sermon had come to an end.' ' In the sixth book, Chrysostom enlarges on the dangers and trials which surrounded the priest as compared with the tranquillity and security of the monk, — that life to which he still felt himself powerfully attracted. ' Who watch for your souls as they that must give an account.' ' The dread of the responsibility implied in that saying, constantly agitated his mind. For if it were better to be drowned in the sea than to offend one of the little ones of Christ's flock, what punishment must they undergo who destroyed not one or two but a whole multitude ? 2 Much worldly wisdom was required in the priest ; he must be conversant with secular affairs, and adapt himself with versatility to all kinds of circumstances and men ; and yet he ought to keep his spirit as free, as unfettered by worldly interests and ambitions as the hermit dwelling on the mountains.' 3 The trials, indeed, which beset the priest, so far ex ceeded those of the monk, that Chrysostom considered ,' the monastery, on the whole, a bad school for active clerical life. 'The monk lived in a calm; there was little to oppose or thwart him. The skill of the pilot could not be known till he had taken the helm in the open sea amidst rough weather. Too many of those who had passed from the seclusion of the cloister to the active sphere of the priest or bishop, proved utterly inadequate 1 V- c- 8- * VI. e. 1. i yi. c. 4. Ch. IV.] REASONS FOR DECLINING BISHOPRIC. 57 to cope with the difficulties of their new situation. They lost their head (ikvyyiwaiv) and, often, instead of adding to their virtue, were deprived of the good qualities which they already possessed. Monasticism often served as a screen to failings which the circumstances of active life drew out, just as the qualities of metal were tested by the action of fire.' J Chrysostom concludes by saying that he was conscious of his own infirmities ; the irritability of his temper, his liability to violent emotions, his susceptibility to praise and blame. All such evil passions could, with the help of God's grace, be tamed by the severe treatment of the monastic life ; like savage beasts who must be kept on low fare. But in the public life of a priest they would rage with incontrollable fury, because all would be pampered to the full — vain-glory by honour and praise, pride by au thority, envy by the reputation of other men, bad temper by perpetual provocations, covetousness by the liber ality of donors to the Church, intemperance by luxurious living.2 He bids Basil picture the most implacable and deadly contest between earthly forces which his imagina tion could draw, and declares that this would but faintly express the conflict between the soul and evil in the spiritual warfare of the world. ' Many accidents might put an end to earthly combat, at least for a time — the approach of night, the fatigue of the combatants, the necessity of taking food and sleep. But in the spiritual conflict there were no breathing spaces. A man must always have his harness on his back, or he would be sur prised by the enemy.' 3 It is not surprising that Basil, after the fearful respon sibilities and perils of his new dignity had been thus powerfully set before him, should lament that his trouble 1 VI. c. 6-8. 2 C. 12. » C. 13. 58 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. IV. now was not so much how to answer the accusers of Chrysostom as to defend himself before God. He be sought his friend to promise that he would continue to support and advise him in all emergencies. Chrysostom rephed that as far as it was possible he would do so ; but that he doubted not Christ, who had called Basil to this good work, would enable him to discharge it with bold ness. They wept, embraced, and parted. And so Basil went forth to the unwelcome honours and trials of his bishopric, while Chrysostom continued to lead that monastic kind of life which was only a preparatory step to the monastery itself. His friendship with Basil is curious and romantic. Their intercourse was brought to a singular conclusion by the stratagem of Chrysostom. Basil may have, according to his own earnest request, continued to consult his friend in any difficulty or distress. But he is never mentioned again. Although so intimately bound up with this passage in Chrysostom's life, there is something indistinct and shadowy about his whole exist ence. He flits across the scene for a few moments, and then disappears totally and for ever. The books on the Priesthood may be regarded as con taining partly a real account of an actual conversation between the two friends. But, as in the dialogues of Plato, far more was probably added by the writer, so that in parts the dialogue is only a form into which the opinions of the author at the time of composition were cast. It is impossible to decide with certainty the exact time at which the treatise may have been written. It is not likely to have been later than his diaconate in 381,1 but more probably 2 the work may be assigned to the six years of leisure spent in the seclusion of the monastery ' Which is the date assigned by the Latin translation by Ambrose Socrates vi. 3. Camaldulensis. 2 As stated by Palladius, at least in Ch. IV.] DATE OF BOOKS ON PRIESTHOOD. 59 and mountains — that is, to the period between Basil's election to the bishopric, and his own ordination as deacon. The treatise reads like the production of one who had acquired considerable experience of monastic life, who had deliberately calculated its advantages on the one hand ; and on the other had keenly observed and seriously considered the temptations and difficulties which attended the more secular career of priest or bishop. It is a more mature work than the Epistles to Theodore, and is free from such rapturous and excessive praise of the ascetic life as they contain. Note to foeegoino Chapteb. It may excite surprise that men so young as Chrysostom and Basil, the former at least being not more than 25 or 26, and not as yet ordained deacon, should have been designated to the highest office in the Church. The Council of Neocsesarea (about a.d. 320 — vide Hefele, vol. i. Clark's transl. p. 222) fixed 30 as the age at which men became eligible for the priesthood. The same age, then, at least must have been required for a bishop. The Constitutions called Apostolical fix the age at 50, but add a clause which really lets in all the exceptions, ' unless he be a man of singular merit and worth, which may compensate for the want of years.' And, in fact, there are numerous instances of men, both before and after the time of Chrysostom, who were consecrated as bishops under the age of 30. The Council of Nice was held not more than twenty years after the persecu tion of Maximian, which Athanasius (' Epist. ad Solitar.,' p. 382, Paris edition) says he had only heard of from his father, yet in five months after that council he was ordained Archbishop of Alexandria. Rhemigius of Rheims was only 22 when he was made bishop in A.d. 471. In like manner, though it was enacted by the Council of Sardica 343-344, that none should rise to the 60 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. IV. Episcopal throne per saltum, yet there are not a few examples that this rule was transgressed. Augustine, when he created a bishopric at Fassula, presented Antonius, a reader (the very position Chrysostom now filled) to the Primate, who ordained him without scruple on Augustine's recommendation. Aug. Ep. 261 (ad Caslest.) Cyprian, Ambrose, and Nestorius are celebrated instances of the consecration of laymen to bishoprics. Gl CHAPTEE V. NAEEOW ESCAPE FROM PEESECUTION — HIS ENTEANCE INTO A MONASTERY — THE MONASTICISM OF THE EAST. A.D. 372. About this time, 372-373, while Chrysostom was still residing in Antioch, he narrowly escaped suffering the penalties of an imperial decree issued by Valentinian and Valens against the practisers of magical arts, or possessors even of magical books. A severe search was instituted after suspected persons ; soldiers were everywhere on the watch to detect offenders. The persecution was carried on with peculiar cruelty at Antioch, where it had been provoked by the detection of a treasonable act of divi nation. The twenty-four letters of the alphabet were arranged at intervals round the rim of a kind of charger, which was placed on a tripod, consecrated by magic songs and frequent ceremonies. The diviner, habited as a heathen priest, in linen robes, sandals, and with a fillet wreathed about his head, chanted a hymn to Apollo, the god of prophecy, while a ring in the centre of the charger was slipped rapidly round a slender thread. The letters in front of which the ring successively stopped indicated the character of the oracle. The ring on this occasion was supposed to have pointed to the first four letters in the name of the future Emperor, © E O A. Theodorus, and probably many others who had the misfortune to own the fatal syllables were executed. There were, of course, multitudes of eager informers, and zealous judges, who strove to allay the suspicious fears of the Emperors, and to procure favour for themselves by vigorous and whole- 62 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. V. sale prosecutions. Neither age, nor sex, nor rank were spared ; women and children, senators and philosophers, were dragged to the tribunals and committed to the prisons of Eome and Antioch from the most distant parts of Italy and Asia. Many destroyed their libraries in alarm — so many innocent books were liable to be repre sented as mischievous or criminal ; and thus much valu able literature perished.1 It was during this dreadful time, when suspicion was instantly followed by arrest, and arrest by imprisonment, torture, and probably death, that Chrysostom chanced to be walking with a friend to the Church of the Martyr Babylas outside the city. As they passed through the gardens by the banks of the Orontes, they observed fragments of a book floating down the stream. Curiosity led them to fish it out ; but, to their dismay, on examining it, they found that it was inscribed with magical formulae, and, to increase their alarm, a soldier was approaching at no great distance. At first they knew not how to act ; they feared the book had been cast into the river by the artifice of an informer to entrap some unwary victim. They determined, however, to throw their dangerous discovery back into the river, and happily the attention or suspicions of the soldier were not roused. Chrysostom always gratefully looked back to this escape as a signal instance of God's mercy and protection.2 It must have been soon after this incident and previous to the edict of persecution against the monks issued by Valens in 373, that Chrysostom exchanged what might be called the amateur kind of monastic life passed in his own home for the monastery itself. Whether his mother was now dead or had become reconciled to the separation, or whether her son's passionate enthusiasm for monastic retirement became irresistible, it is impossible to deter- 1 Zosimus, 1. iv. 13-15. Ammian. - In Ac. Apost. Hom. 38, in fine. Marcell. xxix. u. i. Ch. V.] RISE OF MONASTICISM. 63 mine. His mother is not mentioned by him in his writings after this point, except in allusion to the past, which is a strong presumption that she was no longer living. Bishop Meletius would probably have endeavoured to detain him for some active work in the Church, but he was now in exile ; and to Flavian, the successor of Meletius, Chrysostom was possibly not so intimately known . During the first four centuries of the Christian era, the enthusiasm for monastic life prevailed with ever-increasing force. We are, perhaps, naturally inclined to associate monasticism chiefly with the Western Christianity of the Middle Ages. But the original and by far the most pro lific parent of monasticism was the East. There were always ascetics in the Christian Church ; yet asceticism is the product not so much of Christianity as of the East ; of the oriental temperament, which admires and cul tivates it ; of the oriental climate, which makes it tolera ble even when pushed to the most rigorous extremes. Asceticism is the natural practical expression of that deeply-grounded conviction of an essential antagonism between the flesh and spirit which pervades all oriental creeds. Even the monastic form of it was known in the East before Christianity. The Essenes in Judsea, the Therapeutse in Egypt, were prototypes of the active and contemplative communities of monks. The primitive ascetics of the Christian Church were not monks. They were persons who raised themselves above the common level of religious life by exercises in fasting, prayer, study, alms-giving, celibacy, bodily privations of all kinds. These habits obtained for them great admi ration and reverence. Such persons are frequently desig nated by writers of the first three centuries as ' an ascetic,' ' a follower of the religious ascetics.' ¦ But they did not form a class distinctly marked off by dress and habitation 1 Cyril. Catech. x. n. 19. Athanas. Synopsis. 64 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. V. from the rest of the world, like the monks or even the anchorites of later time. They lived in the cities or wherever their home might be, and were not subject to any rules beyond those of their own private making. Eusebius calls them tnrovSaioi, ' earnest persons ; ' and Clemens Alexandrinus kickzicTwv s-cXeicTOJspoi ' more elect than the elect.' ' Midway between the primitive ascetic and the fully-developed monk must be placed the an chorite or hermit, who made a step in the direction of monasticism by withdrawing altogether from the city or populous places into the solitudes of mountain or desert. Persecution assisted the impulse of religious fervour. Paul retired to the Egyptian Thebaid during the perse cution of Decius in a.d. 251, and Antony during that of Maximin in a.d. 312. They are justly named the fathers or founders of the anchorites, because, though not actually the first, they were the most distinguished; and the fame of their sanctity, their austerities, their miracles, produced a tribe of followers. The farther Antony re tired into the depths of the wilderness, the more nu merous became his disciples. They grouped their cells around the habitation of the saintly father, and out of the clusters grew in process of time the monastery. A number of cells ranged in lines like an encampment, not incorporated in one building, was called a 'Laura' or street.8 This was the earliest and simplest kind of monastic establishment. It was a community, though without much system or cohesion. The real founder of the Ccenobia or monasteries in the East, was the Egyptian Pachomius ; he was the Benedict of the East. His rule was that most generally adopted, not only in Egypt but throughout the oriental portions 1 Euseb. 1. vi. c. 11. Clemens whence it appears that Laura, or Labra, Alex. Hom. Quis Dives salvetur? was the name of an ecclesiastical dis- 2 Vide Epiphan. 69. Haercs. n. i., trict in Alexandria. Ch. V.] PROGRESS OF MONASTICISM. 65 of the empire. He and Antony had now been dead about twenty years, and Hilarius, the pupil and imitator of Antony, had lately introduced monasticism on the Pacho- mian model into Syria. In about fifty years more, the nomadic Saracens will gaze with veneration and awe at the spectacle of Simeon on his pillar, forty miles from Antioch. Thousands will come to receive baptism at his hands ; his image will have been placed over the entrance of the shops in Eome.1 The spirit had been already caught in the West. The feelings of abhorrence with which the Italians first beheld the wild-looking Egyptian monks who accompanied Athanasius to Eome had soon been exchanged for veneration. The example of Mar- cellina, and the exhortations of her brother Ambrose of Milan, had converted multitudes of women to take vows of celibacy.2 Most of the little islands on the coasts of the Adriatic could boast of their monasteries or cells.3 St. Martin built his religious houses near Poitiers and Tours, and was followed to his grave by two thousand brethren.4 But St. Jerome, perhaps, more than' anyone else, promoted the advance of monasticism in the West. Born on the borders of East and West,5 he mingled with the Eastern Church at Antioch and Constantinople, and in the desert of Chalcis had inured himself to the most severe forms of oriental asceticism, and returned to Eome eager and able to impart to others a kindred spirit of enthusiasm for the ascetic life. A little later, early in the fifth century, John Cassianus, president of a religious establishment in Marseilles, propagated monastic insti tutions of an oriental type in the south of France, and made men conversant with the system by his work on the • Theod. Lector. II. 1. c. col. 102- 3 Baron. 398,49-52 ; Giesel, I.ii. 251. 104. 4 Sozom. III. 14; Sulp. Severus. 2 Jerome, Ep. 77, 5; Ambrose de 5 At Stridon, on the frontiers of Virgin, i. 10, 11. Pannonia and Dalmatia. 66 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. V. rules of the cloister. These were the scattered forces which in the West awaited the master mind and strong hand of Benedict to mould and discipline them into a mighty system. The nearest approach in the West to the Egyptian system of Pachomius was among the Bene dictines of Camaldoli. There is every reason to suppose on general grounds, and the supposition is corroborated by notices in the writings of Chrysostom, that the monasteries near Antioch, like the rest of the Syrian monasteries, were based on the Pachomian model. Pachomius was a native of the Thebaid, born in a.d. 292. He began to practise ascetism as a hermit, but, according to the legend, was visited by an angel, who commanded him to promote the salvation of other men's souls besides his own, and presented him with a brazen tablet, on which were inscribed the rules of the Order which he was to found. He established his first community on Tabennae, an island in the Mle, which became the parent of a numerous offspring. Pachomius had the satisfaction in his lifetime of seeing eight monas teries, containing in all 3,000 monks, acknowledging his rule ; and after his death, in the first half of the fifth century, their numbers had swelled to 50,000. ' Chry sostom exulted with Christian joy and pride over the spectacle of ' Egypt, that land which had been the mother of pagan literature and art, which had invented and propagated every species of witchcraft, now despising all her ancient customs, and holding up the Cross, in the desert no less if not more than in the cities : ... for the sky was not more beautiful, spangled with its hosts of stars, than the desert of Egypt studded in all directions with the habitations of monks.' 2 By the Pachomian rule no one was admitted as a full 1 Sozom. iii. 14. Palladius, Hist. 2 In Matt. Hom. 8, p. 87. Lausiaca. 38. Ch. V.] PACHOMIAN MONASTERIES. 67 monk till after three years of probation, during which period he was tested by the most severe exercises. If willing, after that period, to continue the same exercises, he was admitted without further ceremony beyond making a solemn declaration that he would adhere to the rules of the monastery. That no irrevocable vow was taken by the members of the monastery near Antioch which Chry sostom joined, seems proved by his return to the city after a residence in the monastery of several years' duration. According to Sozom en, the several parts of the dress worn by Pachomian monks had a symbolical meaning. The tunic (a linen garment reaching as far as the knees) had short sleeves, to remind the wearers that they should be prompt to do such honest work only as needed no con cealment. The hood was typical of the innocence and purity of infants, who wore the same kind of covering ; the girdle and scarf, folded about the back, shoulders, and arms, were to admonish them that they should be per petually ready to do active service for God. Each cell was inhabited by three monks. They took their chief meal in a refectory, and ate in silence,1 with a veil so arranged over the face that they could see only what was on the table. ISTo strangers were admitted, except travel lers, to whom they were bound, by the rule of their Order, to show hospitality. The common meal or supper took place at 3 o'clock,2 up to which time they usually fasted. When it was concluded, a hymn was sung, of which Chry sostom gives us a specimen, though not in metrical form.3 ' Blessed be God, who nourisheth me from my youth- up, who giveth food to all flesh : fill our hearts with joy and gladness, that we, having all sufficiency at all times, may abound unto every good work, through Jesus Christ our 1 The custom of one monk reading Cass. 1. iv. e. 17; Sozom. iii. 14; the Scriptures aloud during dinner Jerome's translation of the rule. ; was first adopted, according to Cassian, 2 But sometimes later, vide p. 63. in the Cappadocian monasteries.—- s Hom. in Matt. 55, voL vii. p. 545. f 2 68 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. V. Lord, with Whom be glory, and honour, and power to Thee, together with the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever, Amen. Glory to Thee, O Lord ! Glory to Thee, Holy One ! Glory to Thee, King, who hast given us food to make us glad ! Fill us with the Holy. Spirit, that we may be found well pleasing in thy sight, and not ashamed when Thou rewardest every man according to his works.' The whole community in a Pachomian monastery was divided into twenty-four classes, distinguished by the letters of the Greek alphabet; the most ignorant, for instance, under class Iota, the more learned under Xi or Zeta, such letters being in shape respectively the simplest and the most complicated in the alphabet. Those hours which were not devoted to services or study were occupied by manual labour, partly to supply them selves with the necessaries of life, partly to guard against the incursion of evil thoughts. There was a proverbial saying attributed to some of the old Egyptian fathers, that ' a labouring monk was assaulted by one devil only, but an idle one by an innumerable legion.' They wove baskets and mats, agriculture was not neglected, nor even, among the Egyptian monks, ship-building. Palladius, who visited the Egyptian monasteries about the close of the fourth century, found, in the monastery of Panopolis, which contained 300 members, 15 tailors, 7 smiths, 4 car penters, 12 camel-drivers, 15 tanners. Each monastery in Egypt had its steward, and a chief steward stationed at the principal settlement had the supervision of all the rest. All the products of monkish labour were shipped under his inspection on the Nile for Alexandria. With the proceeds of their sale, stores were purchased for the monasteries, and the surplus was distributed amongst the sick and poor.1 A monastery founded on this model might be fairly 1 Sozom. iii. 14, 15; Cassian de Coenob. Instit. iv. x. 22. Cn. V.] EASTERN AND WESTERN MONKS. 69 described as a kind of village containing an industrial and religious population ; and had the Eastern monks adhered to this simple and innocent way of life, such communities might have become more and more schools of learning, centres of civilisation, and homes of piety. But they were increasingly forgetful of the wholesome saying of Antony, that a monk in the city was like ' a fish out of water.' Instead of attending exclusively to their pious and industrial exercises, they mixed themselves up with the theological and political contests which too often con vulsed the cities of the Eastern Empire. Their influence or interference was frequently the reverse of peace-making, judicious, or Christian. They would rush with fanatical fury into the city, to rescue the orthodox, or with equal violence to attack those whom they considered heretical. The evil had grown to such a height by the reign of Arcadius, that a law was passed by which monks were strictly forbidden to make such outrages on civil order, and bishops were commanded to prosecute the authors of such attempts.1 Eastern monasticism, in fact, partook of the character which distinguished the Eastern Church as a whole, and which we may regard as one principal cause of its corruption and decay. A certain stability, sobriety, self-control, a law-making and law-respecting spirit, as it is the peculiar merit of the Western, so the want of it is the peculiar defect of the Oriental temperament. Hence a curious co-existence of extremes ; the passions, unnaturally repressed at one outlet by intense asceticism, burst forth with increased fury at another. He who had subdued his body in the wilderness or on the mountains by fastings and macerations, entertained the most impla cable animosity towards pagans and heretics, and fought them like a ruffian (the word is not too strong for truth), when some tumult in an adjacent city afforded him an i Cod. Theod. ix. 40, 16. 70 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. V. opportunity for this robust mode of displaying and defend ing his orthodoxy.. Western monasticism, on the other hand, is distinguished by more gravity, more of the old Eoman quality, a love of stern discipline. It did not run to such lengths of fanatical asceticism, and consequently was exempt from such disastrous reactions. It never produced such a caricature of the anchorite as Simeon Stylites, or such savage zealots as the monkish bands who dealt their sturdy blows in the religious riots of Constan tinople and Alexandria. From the notices scattered up and down Chrysostom's writings of the monasteries in the neighbourhood of Antioch, it appears that they conformed in all essential respects to the Pachomian model. We might anticipate, indeed, that where such a man as Diodorus was president or visitor, they would be con ducted on a simple and rational system. South of Antioch were the mountainous heights of Silpius and Casius, whence rose the springs which in a variety of channels found their way into the city, pro vided it with a constant and abundant supply of the purest water, and irrigated the gardens for which it was celebrated.1 In this mountain region dwelt the communi ties of monks, in separate huts or cells (/ea\v/3cu2), but subject to an abbot, and a common rule. Chrysostom has in more passages than one furnished us with a description of their ordinary costume, fare, and way of life. He is fond of depicting their simple, frugal, and pious habits, in contrast to the artificial and luxurious manners of the gay and worldly people of the city. They were clad in , coarse garments of goat's hair or camel's hair, sometimes of skins, over their linen tunics, which were worn both by night and day.3 Before the first rays of sunlight, the , 1 Vide Miiller de Antiq. Antioch. s In Matt. Hom. 68, c. 3. When «¦ 3. they received the Eucharist, which ' '¦ Chrysost. in Matt. Hom. G9, p. 652. they did twice a week, on Sundays \ Ch. V] DAILY LIFE OF THE MONKS. 71 abbot went round, and struck those monks who were still sleeping with his foot, to wake them. When all had risen, — fresh, healthy, fasting, they sang together, under the precentorship of their abbot, a hymn of praise to God. The hymn being ended, a common prayer was offered up (again under the leadership of their abbot), and then each at sunrise went to his allotted task, some to read, others to write, others to manual labour, by which they made a good deal to supply the necessities of the poor. Four hours in the day, the third, the sixth, the ninth, and some time in the evening, were appointed for prayers and psalms. When the daily work was concluded, they sat down, or rather reclined, on strewn grass, to their common meal, which was sometimes eaten out of doors by moonlight, and consisted of bread and water only, with occasionally, for invalids, a little vegetable food and oil. This frugal repast was followed by hymns, after which they betook themselves to their straw couches, and slept, as Chrysostom observes, free from those anxieties and apprehensions which beset the worldly man. There was no need of bolts and bars, for there was no fear of robbers. The monk had no possession but his body and soul, and if his life was taken he would regard it as an advantage, for he could say that to live was Christ, and to die was gain.1 Those words ' mine and thine,' those fertile causes of in numerable strifes, were unknown.2 No lamentations were to be heard when any of the brethren died. They did not say, such a one is dead, but, he has been perfected (tsts- XsicoTai), and he was carried forth to burial amidst hymns of praise, thanksgiving for his release, and the prayers of his companions that they too might soon see the end of their labours and struggles, and be permitted to behold and Saturdays, they threw off their ' In Matt. Hom. 68, c. 3 ; 69, c. 3 • coats of skins and loosened their in 1 Tim. Hom. 14, c. 4, 5. girdles.— Sozom. iii. 14. 2 In Matt. Hom. 72, vol. vii. p. 671. 72 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. V. Jesus Christ.1 Such was the simple and industrial kind of monastic body to which Chrysostom for a time united himself ; and to the end of his life he regarded such com munities with the greatest admiration and sympathy. But he never failed to maintain also the duty of work against those who represented the perfection of the Christian life to consist in mere contemplation and prayer. Such a doctrine of otiose Christianity he proved to be based on a too exclusive attention to certain passages in the New Testament. If, for instance, our blessed Lord said to Martha, ' Thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful ' ; or again, ' Take no thought for the morrow'; or, ' Labour not for the meat that perisheth' — all such passages were to be balanced and harmonised by others, as, for example, St. Paul's ex hortation to the Thessalonians to be ' quiet and to do their own business,' and ' let him that stole steal no more, but labour with his hands that which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.' He points out that the words of our Lord do not inculcate total absti nence from work, but only censure an undue anxiety about earthly things, to the exclusion or neglect of spiritual concerns. The contemplative form of monas ticism, based on misconception of Holy Scripture, had, he observes, seriously injured the interests of Christianity, causing it to be derided as a source of indolence.2 1 Da Ep. 1 Tim. Hom. 14, c. 5. 2 In Joh. Hom. 44, c. 1. 73 CHAPTEE VI. WORKS PRODUCED DURING HIS MONASTIC LIFE — THE LETTERS TO DEMETRIUS AND STELECHIUS — TREATISES ADDRESSED TO THE OP PONENTS OE MONASTICISM — LETTER TO STAGIRIUS. Several treatises were composed by Chrysostom during his monastic life. Among the first must be placed two books addressed to Demetrius and Stelechius. Of these the former was evidently written soon after the com mencement of his retreat, for he speaks of having recently determined to take the step, and of the petty anxieties about food and other personal comforts which had at first unsettled his purpose a little. But he had soon conquered these hankerings after the more luxurious life which he had abandoned. It seemed to him a disgrace that one to whom heaven and celestial joys were offered, such as eye had not seen nor ear heard, should be so hesitating and timorous, when those who undertook the management of public affairs did not shrink from dangers and toil, and long journeys, and separation from wife and children, and perhaps unfavourable criticism, but only enquired whether the office was honourable and lucrative.1 The scope of the books is to animate torpid characters to a warmer piety, first by drawing a lively picture of the depravity of the times, secondly by a glowing descrip tion of the fervent energy of apostles and apostolic saints, and insisting that those lofty heights of Christian holiness were not unattainable by the Christian of his own day, if 1 De Compunct. i. c. 6. 74 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch*. VT. he bent the whole energy of his will, aided by Divine grace, to the attempt. ' So great,' he observes, ' was the depravity of the times, that if a stranger were to compare the precepts of the Gospel with the actual practice of society, he would infer that men were not the disciples, but the enemies of Cbrist. And the most fatal symptom was their total unconscious ness of this deep corruption. Society was like a body which was outwardly vigorous, but concealed a wasting fever within ; or like an insane person who says and does all manner of shocking things, but, instead of being ashamed, glories in the fancied possession of superior wisdom.'1 Chrysostom applies the test of the principal precepts of morality in the Sermon on the Mount to the existing state of Christian morals. Everyone of them was_shamelessly violated. A kind of regard, superstitious or hypocritical, was paid to the command in the letter which was broken in the spirit. Persons, for instance, who scrupled to use the actual expressions 'fool' or ' Eaca,' heaped all kinds of opprobrious epithets on their neighbours.2 So the command to be reconciled with a brother before approaching the altar was really broken though formally kept. Men gave the kiss of peace at the celebration of Holy Communion when admonished by the deacon so to do, but continued to nourish resentful feelings in the heart all the same.3 Vainglory and ostentation robbed prayer, fasting and almsgiving of their merit ; and as for the precept ' Judge not,' a most un charitable spirit of censoriousness pervaded every class of society, including monks and ecclesiastics.4 Contrast with this false and hollow religion of the world the condition of one in whom a deep compunction for sin, and a genuine love of Jesus Christ, was awakened. The whole multitude of vain frivolous passions was dispersed like dust before 1 C. 1. " C. 2. - c. 3. * c. 4, 5. Cn. VI.] EPISTLE TO DEMETRIUS. 75 the wind. So it was with St. Paul. Having once turned the eye of his soul towards heaven, and being entranced by the beauty of that other world, he could not stoop to earth again. As a beggar, in some gloomy hovel, if he saw a monarch glittering with gold and radiant with jewels, might altogether for a time forget the squalor of his dwelling-place in his eagerness to get inside the palace of the king, so St. Paul forgot and despised the poverty and hardship of this present world because the whole energy of his being was directed to the attainment of that heavenly city.1 But men objected to the citation of apostolic examples. Paul and Peter, they said, were superhuman characters ; models beyond our limited powers. ' Nay,' Chrysostom replies, ' these are feeble excuses. The Apostles were in all essential points like ourselves. Did they not breathe the same kind of air ? eat the same kind of food ? were not some of them married men ? did they not follow mechanical trades? nay more, had not some of them deeply sinned? Men at the present day did not indeed receive grace at baptism to work miracles, but they received enough to enable them to lead a good and holy Christian life.2 And the highest blessing of Christ — his invitation to those who were called " blessed children " to inherit the kingdom prepared for them — was addressed, not to those who had wrought miracles, but to those who had ministered to himself through feeding the hungry, entertaining the stranger, visiting the sick and the prisoners, who were his brethren. But grace, though undoubtedly given by God, required man's own co operation to become effectual. Otherwise, since God is no respecter of persons, it would have resided in equal measure in all men ; whereas we see that with one man it remains, from another it departs ; a third is never affected by it at all.'3 The second book on the same i C. 7. z C. 8. 3 C 9. 76 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VI. subject, addressed to another friend, named Stelechius, is an expression of more rapturous and highly-wrought feeling, and is more rhetorical in style. His description in the beginning of the blessed freedom of the monk's life from secular vanities and cares, his remarks on David and St. Paul,1 two of his most favourite characters, and still more his masterly enumeration of the manifold ways in which God manifests his providential care for man,2 well deserve to be read. They are too long to be translated here in full, and a paraphrase would very inadequately represent such passages of which the peculiar beauty consists in the language more even than in the ideas. One special interest of these books, written immediately after his retirement from the world, is that they put clearly before us what it was which drove him and many another to the monastic life. It was a sense of the glaring and hideous contrast between the Christianity of the Gospel and the Christianity of ordinary society. A kind \ of implacable warfare,3 as he expresses it, seemed to be waged in the world against the commands of Christ ; and he had therefore determined, by seclusion from the world, to seek that kind of life which he saw exhibited in the Gospels, but nowhere else.4 ° But the largest and most powerful work which Chry sostom produced during this period was occasioned by the decree of the Emperor Valens in a.d. 373 — a decree which struck at the roots of monasticism. It directed that monks should be dragged from their retreats, and com pelled to discharge their obligations as citizens, either by serving in the army, or performing the functions of any civil office to which they might be appointed.5 The edict 1 C. 1, 2, 3. 2 C. 5. Vide Suicer sub v. o-TpaTeieiv. The s exfya anl\pvKTos, lib. i. u. 5. Egyptian monks, however, do seem to 4 Lib. i. c. 4. have been specially forced into the 0 The word in the decree is' militare,' army. De Broglie, v. 303 ; Gibbon, but this term appears to be applied iv. ; Milman, iii. 47, ' History of to civil duties as well as military. Christianity.' Ch. VI.] PERSECUTION OF MONKS BY VALENS. 77 is said to have been enforced with considerable rigour, and in Egypt this seems to have been the case. But it was evidently far from complete or universal in its opera tion. None of Chrysostom's brethren appear to have been compelled to return to the city ; certainly he himself was not. But they were liable, of course, to the persecu tion which, under the shelter of the decree, all the enemies of their order directed against them. These enemies of monasticism were of several kinds. There were the zealous adherents of the old paganism; men like Libanius, who were opposed to Christianity on principle, and espe cially to the monastic form of it, as encouraging idleness, and the dereliction of the duties of good citizens. There were also the more worldly-minded Christians, who had adopted Christianity more from impulse or conformity than from conviction, and who disliked the standing pro test of monastic life against their own frivolity. They were irritated also by the influence which the monks often acquired over their wives and children, sometimes alluring the latter from that lucrative line of worldly life which their fathers had marked out for them. And lastly, there were those who regretted that some men should have taken up a position of direct antagonism to the world, instead^ of mingling with it, and infusing good leaven into the mass of evil. The treatise of Chrysostom addressed ' to the assailants of monastic life ' was intended to meet most of these objections. A friend had brought the terrible tidings to his retreat of the authorised persecution which had just broken out. He heard it with indescribable horror. It was a sacrilege far worse than the destruction of the Jewish Temple. That an Emperor (an Arian, indeed, yet professing him self Christian) should organise the persecution, and that some actually baptised persons should take, as his friend informed him, a part in it, was an intolerable aggravation 78 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VI. of the infliction. He would rather die than witness such a calamity, and was ready to exclaim with Elijah, ' Now, 0 Lord, take away my life ! ' His friend roused him from this state of despondency by suggesting that, instead of giving way to useless lamentations,, he should write an admonitory treatise to the originators and abettors of this horrible persecution. At first Chrysostom refused, partly from a feeling of incompetency, partly from a dread of exposing to the pagans by his writings some of the in ternal corruptions, dissensions, and weaknesses of the Church. His friend replies that these were already but too notorious; and as .for the sufferings of the monks, they formed the topic of public conversation, too often of public jest. In the market-place and in the doctors' shops the subject was freely canvassed, and many boasted of the part which they had taken against the victims. ' I was the first to lay hands on such a monk,' one would cry, ' and to give him a blow ; ' or, ' I was the first to dis cover his cell ; ' or, ' I stimulated the judge against him more than any one.' Such was the spirit of cruelty and profanity by which even Christians were animated ; and, as for the pagans, they derided both parties. Eoused by these dreadful communications, the indignation of Chry sostom no longer hesitated to set about the task.1 His pity, he says, was excited chiefly for the persecu tors ; they were purchasing eternal misery for themselves, while the future reward of their victims would be in pro portion to the magnitude of their present sufferings, since 'Blessed were those whom men should hate, persecute, and revile for Christ's sake, and great was to be their reward in heaven.' 2 To persecute monks was to hinder that purity of life to J which Christ attached so deep an importance. It might i be objected, Cannot men lead lives uncontam mated at 1 C. 1-3. 2 q 4 Ch. VI.] MONASTICISM : "WHY NECESSARY. 79 home? to which Chrysostom replies that he heartily wishes they could, and that such good order and morality might be established in cities as to make monasteries un necessary. But at present such gross iniquity prevailed in large towns, that men of pious aspirations were com pelled to fly to the mountain or the desert. The blame should fall, not on those who escaped from the city, but on those who made life there intolerable to virtuous men. He trusted the time might come when these refugees would be able to return with safety to the world.1 i If it was objected that on this principle of reasoning the mass of mankind was condemned, he could only reply, in the words of Christ himself, ' Narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.' We must not honour a multitude before truth. If, all flesh was once destroyed except eight persons, we cannot be surprised if the number of men eventually saved shall be few. ' I see,' he says, ' a constant perpetration of crimes which are all condemned by Christ as meriting the punishment of hell — adultery, fornication, envy, anger, evil speaking, and many more. The multitude which is engaged in this wickedness is unmolested, but the monks who fly from it themselves, and persuade others to take flight also, are persecuted without mercy.' So much for the Christianity of the world.2 In Book II. he expresses his astonishment that fathers should so little understand what was best for their sons as to deter them from studying 'the true philosophy.' But in combatting this error he will put forward all that can be urged on their side. He imagines the case of a pagan father, possessed of great worldly distinction and wealth. He has an only son, in whom all his pride and hopes are centred ; one whom he expects to surpass him self in riches and honour. Suddenly this son becomes ' C. 5--7. 2 C 8. 80 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VI. converted to monasticism ; this rich heir flies to the mountains, puts on a dress coarser than that of the meanest servant, toils at the menial occupations of gardening and drawing water, becomes lean and pale. All the schemes of his father for the future are frustrated, all past efforts for his education seem to have been squandered. The little vessel which was his pride and pleasure is wrecked at the very mouth of the harbour from which it was setting out on the voyage of life. The parent has no longer any pleasure in life ; he mourns for his son as for one already dead.1 Having thus stated the case on his adversary's side as strongly as possible, Chrysostom begins his own defence by asking which would be best, that a man should be subject to thirst all his life, or wholly exempt from it ? Surely to be exempt from it. Apply this to the moral appetites — love, avarice, and the rest. The monk is exempt from them ; the man of the world is distracted by them, if not overwhelmed. Again, if the monk has no wealth of his own, he exercises a powerful influence in directing the wealth of others. Eeligious men will part with much of their riches according to his suggestions ; if one refuses, another will give. The resources, in fact, of the monk are quite inexhaustible ; many will subscribe to supply his wants or to execute his wishes, as Crito said that he and his friends would subscribe for Socrates. It is impossible to deprive the monk of his wealth or of his home ; if you strip him of everything he has, he rejoices, and thanks you for helping him to live the life which he . desires ; and as for his home, the world is his home ; one ! place is the same as another to him; he needs nothing but the pure air of heaven, wholesome streams, and herbs. As for high place and rank, history suffices to teach us that the desert does not destroy, and the palace does not 1 C. 1, 2. Ch. VI.] INFLUENCE. OF THE MONK. 81 give, true nobility. Plato — planting, watering, and eating olives — was a far nobler personage than Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily, amidst all the wealth and splendour of a monarch. Socrates — clad in a single garment, with his bare feet and his meagre fare of bread, and dependent upon others for the mere necessaries of life— was a far more illustrious character than Archelaus, who often in vited him, but in vain, to court. Eeal splendour and dis tinction consisted not in fine raiment, or in positions of dignity and power, but only in excellence of the soul and in philosophy.1 He then proceeds to maintain that the influence of the monk was more powerful than that of the man of the world, however distinguished he might be. If he de scended from his mountain solitude, and entered the city, the people flocked round him, and pointed him out with reverence and admiration, as if he were a messenger from heaven. His mean dress commanded more respect than the purple robe and diadem of the monarch. If he was required to interfere in matters of public interest, his influence was greater than that of the powerful or wealthy ; for he could speak before an emperor with bold ness and freedom, and without incurring the suspicion of self-interested or ambitious motives. He was a more effectual comforter of the mourners than any one in a prosperous worldly condition was likely to be. If a father had lost his only son, the sight of other men's domestic happiness only revived his grief; but the society of the monk, who disdained the ties of home and family, and who talked to him of death as only a sleep, soothed his grief. Thus the man who wished his son to possess real honour and power would permit him to become a monk ; for monks who were once mere peasants had been visited in their cells and consulted by kings and ministers of state. 1 C. 2-5. o 82 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. XI. Chrysostom concludes this book by relating the history of one of his own brethren in the monastery, who, when first he desired to become a monk, had been disowned by his father, a wealthy and distinguished pagan, who threatened him with imprisonment, turned him out of doors, and allowed him almost to perish with hunger. But, finding him inflexible in his purpose, the father at last relented, and, at the time when Chrysostom wrote, honoured, he might say venerated, that son, considering the others, who occupied distinguished positions in the world, scarcely worthy to be his servant.1 As the second book was intended to meet the objections of a pagan father, so the third contains admonitions to one who was professedly Cliristian, but worldly-minded, on the duty of parents in regard to the moral and religious education of their children. It appeared to him that the fathers of that day gave their sons none but worldly counsel, inculcated none, but worldly industry and prudence, and encouraged to the emulation of none but worldly examples.2 The force of habit was intensely strong, especially when pleasure co operated with it, and parents, instead of counteracting habits of worldliness, promoted them by their own ex ample. God led the Israelites through the wilderness as a kind of monastic training, to wean them from the luxu rious and sensual habits of an Egyptian Hfe; yet even then they hankered after the land of their bondage. How, then, could the children of parents who left them in the midst of the Egypt of vice, escape damnation ? If they achieved anything good of themselves, it was speedily crushed by the flood of worldly conversation which issued from the parent. All those things which were condemned by Christ — as wealth, popularity, strife, an evil eye, divorce — were approved by parents of that day, and they 1 C. 6-10. * C. 6. Ch. VI.] WORLDLINESS OF PARENTS. 83 threw a veil over the ugliness of these vices, by giving them specious names. Devotion to the hippodrome and theatre was called fashionable refinement ; wealth was called freedom ; love of glory, high spirit ; folly, boldness ; prodigality, benevolence ; injustice, manliness. Virtues, on the contrary, were depreciated by opprobrious names : temperance was denominated rusticity ; equity, cowardice ; justice, unmanliness ; modesty, meanness ; endurance of injury, feebleness. He truly remarks, that nothing con tributes so much to deter men from vice as calling vices plainly by their proper names.1 ' How can children escape moral ruin, when all the labour of their fathers is bestowed on the provision of superfluous things — fine houses, dress, horses, beautiful statues, gilded ceilings — -while they take no pains about the soul, which is far more precious than any ornament of gold ? ' And there were worse evils behind — vice too monstrous and unnatural to be named, but to which he was constrained to allude, because he felt that it was poisoning with deadly venom the very vitals of the social body. ' Well,' but worldly men reply, ' Would you have us all turn philosophers, and let our worldly affairs go to ruin ? Nay, says Chrysostom, it is the want of the philo sophic spirit and rule which ruins everything now ; it is your rich men — with troops of slaves and swarms of para sites, eager for wealth and ambitious of distinction, build ing fine houses, adding field to field, lending money at a usurious rate of interest — who propagate the strife and litigation, and envy, and murder, and general confusion, by which life is distracted. These are they who bring down the vengeance of Heaven, in the shape of droughts, and famines, and inundations, and earthquakes, and sub mersion of cities, and pestilences. It is not the simple 1 Compare similar remarks by Thu- Corcyrsean sedition on the misappliea- cydides, book iii., in his account of the tion of names to vices. 2 C. 6, 7. o 2 84 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VI. monk, or the philosophic Christian, who is contented with a humble dwelling, a mean dress, a little plot of ground. These last, shining like bright beacons in a dark place, hold up the lamp of philosophy on high, and endeavour to guide those who are tossing on the open sea in a dark night into the haven of safety and repose.' ' ' In spite of law, disorder prevailed to such an extent, that the very idea of God's providence was lost. Men assigned the course of events to fate, or to the stars, or to chance, or to spontaneous force. God did, indeed, still rule ; but He was like a pilot in a storm, whose skill in managing and conducting the vessel in safety was not perceived or appreciated by the passengers, owing to the confusion and fright caused by the raging of the elements. In the monastery, on the other hand, all was tranquillity and peace, as in a community of angels. He strenuously combatted the error of supposing that sin was more par donable in a man of the world than in a monk. Anger, uncleanness, swearing, and the like, were equally sinful in all. Christ made no distinctions, but propounded one standard of morality for all alike. Nothing had inflicted more injury on the moral tone of society than the sup position that strictness of life was demanded of the monk only.' 2 He strongly urges the advantage of sending youths for education to monasteries, even for so long a period as ten or twenty years. Men consented, he says, to part with their children, for the purpose of learning some art or trade, or even so low an accomplishment as rope- dancing ; but when the object was to train their souls for Heaven, all kinds of impediments were raised. To object that few attained through residence in a monastery that perfection of spiritual life which some expected of them, was a mere excuse. In the case of worldly things, on which men's hearts were set, they thought of getting as 1 C. 8, 9. ' C 14, 15. Ch. VI.] CHARACTER OF THE TREATISES. 85 much as they could, not of reaching absolute perfection. A man did not prevent his son from entering military ser vice because the chances of his becoming a prefect were small ; why, then, hesitate to send your son to a monastery because all monks do not become angels ? ' These treatises are remarkable productions, and deserve to be read, not only because they exhibit Chrysostom's best power of argument and style, but also because they throw light upon the character of the man and the times in which he lived. He pleads his cause with the inge nuity, as well as eloquence, of a man who liad been trained for the law courts. We find, indeed, that his opinions on the advantages of the monastic life were modified as he grew older; but that bold condemnation of worldliness, that denunciation of a cold secularised Christianity, as contrasted with the purity of the Gospel standard, the deep aspirations after personal holiness, the desire to be filled with a fervent and overflowing love of Christ, the firm hold on the idea of a superintending Providence, amidst social confusion and corruption ; these we find, as here, so always, conspicuous characteristics of the man, and principal sources of his influence. Erom the frightful picture here drawn of social de pravity, we perceive the value — we might say, the neces sity — of monasteries, as havens of refuge for those who recoiled in horror from the surrounding pollution. It is clear also that the influence of the monks was considerable. Monasteries were recognised places of education, where pious parents could depend on their children being virtu ously brought up. The Christian wife of a pagan or worldly husband could here find a safe home for her boy, where he could escape the contamination of his father's influence or example. Chrysostom relates, in C. 12, how a Christian lady in Antioch, being afraid of the wrath of 1 C. 18, 19. 86 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. XI. a harsh and worldly-minded husband if she sent away her son to school at the monastery, induced one of the monks, a friend of Chrysostom's, to reside for a time in the city, in the character of pedagogue. The boy, thus subjected to his training, afterwards joined the society of the monks; but Chrysostom, fearing the consequences both to the youth and to the monastic body, should his father detect his secession, persuaded him to return to the city, where he led an ascetic life, though not habited in monkish dress. Out of these monastic schools, after years of discipline and prayer, and study of the Word, there issued many a pastor and preacher, well-armed champions of the truth, strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might ; like Chrysostom himself, instant in season and out of season ; stern denouncers of evil, even in king's courts ; holding out the light of the Gospel in the midst of a dark and crooked generation. The foregoing extracts and paraphrases from these treatises prove also that among zealous Christians the monastic form of life was regarded as the highest ; that as philosophy was considered the highest flight in the intellectual culture of the pagan, so was asceticism re garded as the highest attainment in the Christian's life ; it was to the education of the soul what philosophy was to the education of the mind, and hence it was called by the same name — 'philosophy.' Possessed by this idea, Chrysostom threw himself at this period of his life into the system with all the ardour of his nature. If asce ticism was good, it was right to carry it as far as nature could bear it. He adopted the habits of an old member of the brotherhood, named Syrus, notorious for the se verity of his self-inflicted discipline. The day and greater part of the night were spent in study, fastings, and vigils. Bread and water were his only habitual food. At the end of four years he proceeded a step farther. He withdrew Ch. VI.] EPISTLE TO STAGIRIUS. 87 from the community to one of those solitary caves with which the mountains overhanging Antioch on its southern side abounded. In fact, he exchanged the life of a monk for that of an anchorite. His frame endured this addi tional strain for nearly two years, and then gave way. His health was so much shattered that he was obliged to abandon monastic life, and to return to the greater comfort of his home in Antioch.1 Meanwhile a friend of his, Stagirius by name — a person of noble birth, who, in spite of his father's opposition, had embraced monasticism — was reduced to a more de plorable condition. While Chrysostom was confined to his house by illness, a friend common to him and Stagirius brought him the sad intelligence that Stagirius was affected with all the symptoms of demoniacal possession — wringing of the hands, squinting of the eyes, foaming at the mouth, strange inarticulate cries, shiverings, and frightful visions at night.2 We shall perhaps find little difficulty in accounting for these distressing affections, as the consequence of excessive austerities. The young man,' who formerly lived a gay life in the world, and in the midst of affluence, had in the monastery fared on bread and water only, often kept vigil all night long, spent his days in prayer and tears of penitence, preserved an absolute silence, and read so many hours continuously, that his friends and brother monks feared that his brain would become disordered.3 Very probably it was, and hence his visions and convulsions ; but those were not days in which men readily attributed any strange pheno mena, mental or bodily, to physical causes. We may believe in the action of a spirit world on the inhabitants of this earth; but we require good evidence that any violent or strange affection of mind or body is due to a 1 Pallad. Dial. c. v. lib. i. c. i. 2 Ad Stag, a Daem. vox., vol. i., 3 Lib. ii. c. 1. 88 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VI. directly spiritual agency, rather than to the operation of God according to natural law. The cases of demoniacs in the Gospel stand apart. Our Lord uses language which amounts to a distinct affirmation that those men were actually possessed by evil spirits. To use such expres sions as ' come out of him,' ' enter no more into him,' and the like, if there was no spirit concerned in the case at all, would have been, to say the least, a mere unmean ing piece of acting, of which it would be shocking to suppose our Lord capable. But to admit the direct agency of spirit, when confirmed by such authoiitative testimony, is widely different from the hasty ascription to spiritual agency by an uncritical and unscientific age, of every thing which cannot be accounted for by the most super ficial knowledge and observation. Chrysostom, of course, not being beyond his age in such matters, did not for a moment dispute the supposition that Stagirius was actu ally possessed by a demon, but he displays a great deal of good sense in dealing with the case. As the state of his own health did not permit him to pay Stagirius a visit in person, he wrote his advice instead. He perceived the fatal temptation to despair in a man who imagined that the devil had got a firm hold upon him, and that every evil inclination proceeded directly from this demoniacal in vader. He will not allow that the suggestion to suicide, of which Stagirius complained, came direct from the demon, but rather from his own despondency,1 with which the devil had endeavoured to oppress him, that he might under cover of that, work his own purposes more effectu ally, just as robbers attack houses in the dark. But this was to be shaken off by trust in God ; for the devil did not exercise a compulsory power over the hearts of men ; there must be a co-operation of the man's own will. Eve fell partly through her own inclination to sin: 'When she saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to 1 Lib. ii. c. ]. Ch. VI.] CONSOLES STAGIRIUS. 89 the eyes, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat ; ' and if Adam was so easily persuaded to participate in her sin, he would have fallen even had no Devil existed. Chrysostom endeavours also to console his friend by going through the histories of saints, in all times who have been afflicted. His sufferings were not to be com pared to those of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and St. Paul. ' These afflictions were sent for remedial, purgatorial purposes — that the soul might be saved in the day of the Lord. It was not easy to say why such a person was tried by this or that form of suffering, but if we knew exactly God's motives, there would be no test of faith. The indispensable thing was, to be firmly convinced that whatever God sent was right. Some men were dis turbed because the good were often troubled, and the wicked prosperous ; but such inequality in the distribution of reward and punishment in this life, suggested a future state, where they would be finally adjusted. The wicked who had here received his good things, would there receive his evil.1 Stagirius had not been attacked by any demon when he was living in carelessness and worldly pleasure, but when he had buckled on his armour and appeared as an antagonist, then the devil descended to the assault. Hence he had no need to be ashamed of his affliction ; the only thing to be ashamed of was sin, and it was owing to his renunciation of sin that the devil assailed him. The real demoniacs were those who were carried away by the impulses of unregulated passions.' His summaries of the lives of the Old Testament saints, which fill the rest of the second book and most of the third, are very masterly, and display most intimate ac quaintance with Holy Scripture in all its parts. A powerful mind and retentive memory had profited by six years of retirement largely devoted to study. 1 Lib. i. c. 5-9. 90 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VH. CHAPTEE VII. ORDINATION AS DEACON — DESCRIPTION OE ANTIOCH — WORKS COMPOSED DURING HIS DIACONATE. A.D. 381-386. Probably one of the last acts of Bishop Meletius before he left Antioch to attend the Council of Constantinople in 381, was to ordain Chrysostom a deacon. The bishop never returned. He died during the session of the council of which he was president, leaving both that and the see of Antioch distracted by the most deplorable factions: It will be remembered1 that the Catholics of Antioch had, ever since the ill-judged mission of Lucifer of Cagliari, been divided between allegiance to Paulinus, a priest of the old Eustathian party, who had been consecrated bishop by Lucifer, and Meletius, bishop of the more moderate party. With the laudable purpose of healing this schism, it is said that several of the clergy at Antioch, who were considered most likely to succeed to a vacancy, bound themselves under an oath, that in the event of either bishop dying, they would decline the offer of the see, if made, and acknowledge the survivor. But on the death of Meletius, their plan was frustrated. Either the Asiatics, who generally favoured Meletius, refused to submit to the authority of Paulinus, because he had been ordained by a Western prelate, or the Eustathians who acknowledged Paulinus were unwilling on their side to admit Meletians into their fold. In any case, the earnest endeavours of Gregory of Nazianzum, now President of the Council, to 1 See ante, Chapter II. Ch. VH.] DUTIES OF A DEACON. 91 unite the two factions under one prelate were unsuccess ful.1 The Meletians elected Flavian to be their bishop, one of the very priests who had, under oath, renounced their pretensions to the see. This appointment of course exposed Flavian to the imputation of perjury, but we may hope that, like Gregory, he yielded to a pressing necessity only, and to a conviction that the dissension would have been aggravated and protracted if he had obdurately refused.2 At any rate, as will hereafter ap pear, his conduct, wherever it comes before us, is worthy of all admiration, and Chrysostom must have filled the office of deacon with happiness under his administration. A greater contrast than the initiation of Chrysostom into clerical life, and that of a young deacon in modern times, can scarcely be imagined. He was in his thirty-seventh year, and had supplemented the good liberal education of his youth by several years of devotion to close study of Scripture, to rigorous mortification of the body, to prayer and meditation, and to every means of promoting the culture of the soul. After this long and careful training, he enters the subordinate ranks of the clergy, not to dis charge, like a modern deacon, duties as laborious and often as responsible, as those which pertained to the priest, but such light and irresponsible tasks as were suitable to men who might be young, and were necessarily inexperienced in pastoral work. The deacons were some times called the Levites of the Christian Church.3 It was their office, to take care of the holy table and its furniture, to administer the cup to the laity, but not to a priest or a bishop, and occasionally to read the Gospel.4 They were 1 See preface to his Orat. 43. universal acknowledgment of Flavian 2 The bishops of Egypt and the was obtained in a.d. 398. AVest generally adhered to Paulinus, 3 So Jerome, Ep. xxvii. Sozom. vii. 11, till by the united efforts 4 Nice Coune. Can. 18. (Hefele, of Chrysostom and Theophilus the p. 426.) 92 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VH. in most churches permitted to baptize.1 But their pecu liar duty in the services of the Church was to call the attention of the people to every fresh movement, to use a musical expression, in the progress of the service. Thus at the close of the sermon, the deacon's voice was heard crying, ' let the hearers (i.e. the second order of catechu mens who were permitted to hear the sermon, but not the conclusion of the Eucharistic service) and the unbelievers depart ! ' 2 Then he bid the remaining orders of the catechumens, i.e. the energumens, the competentes, and the penitents, to pray for one another, and the people also to pray for them ; sktsvoos hsrjdmfiBv, ' let us ardently pray for them ' ; such was the form. Again, when they were dismissed by the command airokvsaOs, 'disperse,' the faithful were invited by the deacon to pray for the whole state of Christ's Church.3 Thus the deacons were the sacred criers or heralds of the Church ; they ' proclaimed or bid prayer,' they announced each part as it was un folded in the sacred drama of the Liturgy. The frequent recurrence in our own Liturgy without much apparent significance, of the form ' Let us pray,' is a remnant of these old diaconal invitations. The deacons were not permitted to preach except by a special direction of the bishop. Their duty in part corresponded to that of our churchwardens ; they were to reprove any improper be haviour during divine service,4 to bring cases of poverty and sickness before the notice of the bishop, to distribute the alms under his direction, and also to report to him grave moral offences.5 They were essentially, as the name implies, ministers to the bishops and priests, and were often styled, in symbolical language, ' the bishop's eyes,' or ' ears,' or ' right hand.' The attitude of respect, which 1 Tertull. de Bapt. cxvii. Jerome ' Constit. Apost. lib. ii. c. 67. Dial, contr. Lucif. Chrysost. Hom. xxiv. in Act. 2 Chrysost. Hom. ii. in 2 Cor. 5 Constit. Apost. lib. ii. c. 31, 32. 1 Constit. Apost. 1. viii. c. 10. Cyprian. Ep. xlix. Ch. VH.] CHRYSOSTOM AS A DEACON. 93 they were bound to maintain in church towards bishops and priests, was in keeping with the servatorial character of their office as a whole. While the priests had their chairs ranged on either side of the central chair of the bishop in the choir, the deacons stood humbly by, as if ready to receive and execute the directions of their supe riors.1 Even the Eoman deacons, who rose rather above the natural lowliness of their office, did not presume to sit in the church.2 The duties of the diaconate must have brought Chry sostom into constant intercourse with the Christian popu lation of Antioch, and especially with the poorer portion of it. The whole population of the city amounted, according to Chrysostom's statement, to 200, 000,3 and the Christians to 100, 000,4 of whom 3,000 were indigent, and mainly supported by the bounty of the Church.5 The deacon's function of searching out and relieving the necessitous by distribution of alms must have been peculiarly congenial to him. There is no Christian duty on which he more constantly and earnestly insists than that of almsgiving, not only in order to alleviate the sufferings of poverty, but as a means of counteracting the inordinate avarice and selfish luxury which were the prevailing vices in the higher ranks of society, both in Antioch and Constanti nople. His hold upon the affections of the common people, partly no doubt through his sympathy with their needs, partly by his bold denunciation of the vices of the wealthy, partly by his affectionate and earnest plain-speak ing of Christian truth, was remarkably strong throughout his life. As during the secluded leisure of his monastic life he had acquired a profound intimacy with Holy Scripture, so in the more active labours of his diaconate 1 Cone. Nie. c. 18. Hefele, p. 426. * Vol. vii. p. 762. 2 Jerome, Epist. 85 ad Evang. s Ibid. p. 629. s Chrysost. vol. ii. p. 591. 94 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. ATI. he enlarged his knowledge of human nature, and stored up observations on the character and manners of the people among whom he moved; qualifications no less important for the formation of a great and effective preacher. It may not be uninteresting to take a brief glance at the character of the city and its inhabitants among whom he was destined to labour for the next seventeen years of his life. Both nature and art combined to make Antioch one of the most delectable and luxurious residences in the world. The advantages of its situation, in some most important respects, could scarcely be exceeded. The river Orontes, connecting it with the sea about three miles distant, was the throat through which the city was fed with merchandise from all parts of the world. The wooded shores of the large lake of Antioch some miles above the city, supplied the inhabitants with fuel, and its waters yielded fish, in great abundance. The hills which impended over the town on the southern side, sent down numerous and copious streams, whose water, unsurpassed in purity, bubbled up through the fountains whieh stood in the court of every house. Northwards extended a fertile plain between the Orontes and Mount Coryphaeus. The northern winds were occasionally keen and searching, but the prevailing western breezes coming up from the sea were so delicately soft yet refreshing, that the citizens delighted in summer to sleep upon the flat roofs of their dwellings. These advantages, however, were in some degree balanced by a liability to inundations and earth quakes. Those hill-streams, the blessing and delight of the inhabitants in summer, were sometimes swollen in Winter by excessive rains into torrents of incontrollable fury, and caused much damage to the buildings which were situated near their course. But far more destructive were Ch. VH.] DESCRIPTION OF ANTIOCH. 95 the earthquakes. More than once, indeed, especially in the reigns of Caligula, Claudius, and Trajan, the whole city was almost shattered to pieces ; but on each occasion, through public and private exertions, it arose from its ruins in new and, if possible, increased magnificence. The peculiar glories of Antioch were its gardens, and baths, and colonnaded streets. As in its population, and religion, and customs, so also in its architecture, it pre sented, as time went on, a remarkable mixture of Asiatic, Greek, and Eoman elements. The aim of each Greek king and Eoman emperor was to leave it more beautiful than he had received it from the hands of his predecessor. Each marked his reign by the erection of a temple or basilica, or bath, or aqueduct, or theatre, or column. The. church in which Chrysostom officiated, usually called ' the great Church,' to distinguish it from the smaller and older church, called the Church of the Apostles, was com menced by Constantine, and finished by Constantius. In the main principles of structure, we may find some parallel to it in St. Vitale at Eavenna. It stood in the centre of a large court, and was octangular in shape ; chambers, some of them subterranean, were clustered round it ; the domed roof, of an amazing height, was gilded on the inside ; the floor was paved with polished marbles ; the walls and columns were adorned with images, and glis tened with precious stones ; every part, indeed, was richly embellished with bronze and golden ornament.1 Among the principal wonders of Antioch was the great street constructed by Antiochus Epiphanes, nearly four miles in length, which traversed the city from east to west ; the natural inequalities of the ground were filled up, so that the thoroughfare was a perfect level from end to end ; the spacious colonnades on either side were paved with red 1 Euseb. Vita Const, iii. 50. Chry- Vide also Miillor de Antiq. Antioch, sost. vol. iii. p. 160 and vol. xi.p. 78. p. 103. 96 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. YK granite. From the centre of this magnificent street, where stood a statue of Apollo, another street, similar in character, but much shorter, was drawn at right angles, leading northwards in the direction of the Orontes. Many of the other streets were also colonnaded, so that the inhabitants, as they pursued their errands of business or pleasure, were sheltered alike from the scorching sun of summer, or the rains of winter. Innumerable lanterns at night illuminated the main thoroughfares with a brilliancy which almost rivalled the light of day, and much of the business, as well as the festivity, of the inhabitants was carried on by night.1 The character of the inhabitants partook of the various elements — Asiatic, Syrian, Greek, Jewish, Eoman — which composed the whole population. But the impulsive ori ental temperament, subject at times to fits of gloomy despondency, and to outbursts of wild ferocity, was un doubtedly the most dominant. When not driven under the pressure of excitement to either of these extremes, they abandoned themselves very freely to those voluptuous recreations for which the character of their city and climate afforded every facility and inducement. The bath, the circus, the theatre, were the daily amusements of the citizen ; the Olympic games (instituted in the time of Commodus), which were celebrated in the grove of Daphne, and the festivities held at particular seasons in honour of different deities, were the greater occasions to which he looked forward with all the eagerness of a pleasure-loving nature. These main characteristics of the people are abun dantly illustrated ih detail, as will be seen hereafter in the homilies of Chrysostom. He is ever, in them, labour- 1 This description of Antioch is 'Antiquities of Antioch,' or from the mainly collected from Miiller's ad- authorities referred to therein. mirable and exhaustive work on the Ch. VH.] LETTER TO A YOUNG WIDOW. 97 ing with indefatigable industry and earnestness to lift the Christians above the frivolity and vices of the rest of the population. His opportunities for investigating the con dition of the Christian community were great during his diaconate. He did not as yet preach; but by observa tions on life and manners, he laid up copious materials for preaching. And he was not idle in the use of his pen, for to this period may be assigned the treatise ' On Virginity,' a letter addressed to a young widow ; a book on the Martyr Babylas ; and, perhaps, though this cannot certainly be determined, the six books on the Priest hood.1 The letter to a young widow must have been written soon after the destruction of the Emperor Valens and his army by the Goths in a.d. 378, since it contains a re ference to that event as a recent occurrence,2 yet it must have been antecedent to the crushing defeats inflicted on them by Theodosius in a.d. 382, because the writer im plies that at the time of composition the Goths were overrunning large tracts of the empire with impunity, and mocking the helplessness and timidity of the im perial troops.3 The whole book is penetrated with that profound sense of the misery and instability of things human, which the corruption of society and recent cala mities of the empire impressed with peculiar force on the minds of reflecting persons ; which produced among pagans either melancholy or careless indifference, but made Christians cling with a more earnest and tenacious trust to the hopes and consolations of the Gospel. Therasius, the husband of the young widow, had died after five years of married life. He is described by Chrysostom as having been distinguished in rank, in ability, and above all, in virtue ; as having held a high 1 See Socrates vi. 1, and Mont- 2 Ad vid. jun. c. 5. faucon's preface to ' De Sacerdotio.' J C. 4. H 98 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VH position in the army, with a reasonable expectation of soon becoming a prefect. But these very excellencies and brilliant prospects, which seemed to aggravate the sense of his loss, ' ought,' Chrysostom observes, ' to be regarded as sources of consolation. If death were a final and total destruction, then, indeed, it would have been reasonable to lament the extinction of one, so benevolent, so gentle, so humble, prudent, and devout, as her late husband. But if death was only the landing of the soul in a tranquil haven, only a transition from the worse to better, from earth to Heaven, from men to angels and archangels, and to Him who is the Lord of angels, then there was no place left for tears. It was better that he should depart and be with Christ, his true King, serving Whom in that other world, he would not be exposed to the dangers and animosities which attended the service of an earthly monarch. They were, indeed, separated in body, but neither length of time nor remoteness of place could sunder the friendship of the soul. Endure patiently for a little time, and you will behold again the face of your desire ; perhaps even now in visions, his figure will be permitted to visit you.1 If it was the loss of the prefecture that she specially deplored, let her think from what dangerous ambitions her husband had been pre served ; think of the fate of Theodoras, who was tempted by his high station to lay a plot against the Emperor, and suffered capital punishment for his treason.2 The loftier a man's ambitions in life, the more probable a disastrous fall. Look at the tragical fate of the Emperors in the course of the past fifty years. Two only, out of nine, had died natural deaths ; of the other seven, one had been killed by a usurper,3 one in battle,4 one by a sedition 1 0. 3. calls him a Gaul, not, as Chrysostom. 2 C. 4. Executed in 371 in the a Sicilian. reign of Valentinian, Valens, andGra- 3 Constans by Magnentius. tian. Ammian. Marcell. xxix. 1 , who 4 Constantine the younger. Ch. VH.] FATE OF EMPERORS. 99 of his domestic guards,1 one by the man who had invested him with the purple.2 Julian had fallen in battle in the Persian expedition. Valentinian I. died in a fit of rage, and Valens had been burnt, together with his retinue, in a house to which the Goths set fire. And of the widows of these Emperors, some had perished by poison, others had died of despair and broken hearts. Of those who yet survived, one was trembling for the safety of an orphan son,3 another had with difficulty obtained permission to return from exile.4 Of the wives of the present Emperors, one was racked by constant anxiety on account of the youth and inexperience of her husband,5 the other was subject to no less anxiety for her husband's safety, who ever since his elevation to the throne had been engaged in incessant warfare with the Goths.6 Human ambition was a hard task-mistress, who employed arrogance and avarice as her agents ; ' do not, then, mourn that your husband has been emancipated from her tyranny.' Most of the wisest and noblest characters even of the pagan world had resisted the allurements of ambition, — Socrates, Epaminondas, Aristides, Diogenes, Crates. Shall the Christian then complain, if God takes one away from these temptations ? He who cared least about glory, who was natural and modest, and unambitious, often acquired most glory, whereas he who was most eager and anxious to secure it, often obtained nothing but derision and reproach. She believed that her husband might have obtained the pre- 1 Jovian. 4 Doubtful ; possibly first wife of 2 Gallus Csesar by Constantius. Valentinian I., divorced from him and The two who died natural deaths sent into exile. were Constantine the Great and his 5 Constantia, wife of Gratian. son Constantius. e Flacilla, wife of Theodosius. Com- 3 The widow of Jovian, whose son pare this mournful list of tragic deaths Varronian was deprived of an eye. of sovereigns with the splendid pas- See Gibbon, vol. iv. p. 222. sage in Shakespere's Eichard II. : — ' For Heaven's sake let's sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings,' &c. n 2 1 00 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VH feeture ; it was a reasonable hope, but there is maiiy a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, and he who was king to-day was dead to-morrow. Strive, then, to equal and even sur pass your husband in piety and goodness, that you may be admitted into the same home, and reunited to him in a bond far more lovely and enduring than that of earthly wedlock.' In the long treatise ' De Virginitate,' Chrysostom boldly pronounces his preference for celibacy, but at the same time he exposes and denounces the mischievous error of Marcionites and Manichseans, who condemned marriage altogether as positive sin. ' They were mistaken in supposing that abstinence from marriage would pro*- cure them a high place in Heaven, because, even if it were granted that marriage was a positive sin, it must be re membered tbat not those who abstained from sin, but those who did positive good would receive "the highest rewards ; not one who abstained from calling his brother ' Baca,' but he who loved his enemies. The celibacy •of heretics, such as the Manichseans, was based on the false conception that all created matter was evil, and that the Creator Himself was an inferior being to the Supreme Deity. Hence their celibacy was the work of the devil ; they belonged to those mentioned only to be condemned in 1 Tim. iv. 1-3 ' as forbidding to marry.' ' Chastity of body was worthless, if the soul within was depraved ; but celibacy rightly cultivated to preserve the purity of the soul towards God was better than marriage, better as Heaven was better than earth, and angels better than men. He confronts the common objection, if all men embrace celibacy, how would the race be propagated? Myriads of angels inhabit Heaven, yet we believe they were not propagated by matrimony, and it was only by the special provision and will of God, that matrimony 1 Ch. i.-v. Ch. VH] TREATISE ON CELIBACY. 101 itself produced offspring. Sarah was barren till God vouchsafed her Isaac. Marriage was the inferior state to conduct us to the higher ; it was to celibacy as the Law to the Gospel, it was a crutch to support those who would otherwise fall into sin, but to be dispensed with when possible. Let those, then, who reproached and derided celibacy, put a restraint upon their lips, lest like Miriam, or the children who mocked Elisha, they should be severely punished for pouring contempt on so holy a state.' ' We are enabled to understand from this work why tbe best Christianity in the East was so disparaging of the married state. The woman had not attained her proper place in society. She seems to have been ill-educated, to have been kept, especially before marriage, in a state of unnatural seclusion, which she broke when she could, and was too often treated by the husband like a slave, with severity and distrust. This degrading position was partly a remnant of the pagan state of society, but partly seems natural to oriental manners. Christianity perceived the evil, but had not effected much towards a remedy. In stead of endeavouring to elevate, to soften, and refine the relation of one sex to the other, it encouraged rather a total separation. The treatise now under notice presents curious pictures of domestic life, if such it can be called, in that age. Matrimonial matches were arranged entirely by the parents, the attentions of the suitors were paid to the parents, not to the maiden herself. She suffered an agony of suspense, while the favourite of yesterday was supplanted by the superior charms of some rival of to-day, who in his turn was superseded by a third. Sometimes, on the very eve of marriage, the suitor whom she herself preferred was dismissed, and she was finally handed over to another whom she disliked. The suitors also, on their 1 C. 14-22. 102 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. VH. side, were racked by anxiety ; for it was difficult to ascer tain what the real character, personal appearance, and manners were of the maiden, who was always kept in the strictest seclusion. Then there was often great difficulty in getting the dowry paid by the father-in-law, which was an annoyance to each of the newly-married pair.1 He draws a highly- wrought picture, with some caustic humour, of the miseries of jealous wives and husbands. When a man constantly suspects ' his dearest love,' 2 for whom he would willingly sacrifice life itself, what can console him ? By day and night he has no peace, and is irritable to all. Some men have even slain their wives, without succeeding in cooling their own jealous rage. The trials of the wife were more severe ; her words, her very looks and sighs were watched by slaves, and reported to her husband, who was too jealous to distinguish false tales from the true. The poor woman was reduced to the wretched alternative of keeping her own apartment, or, if she went out, of rendering an exact account of her pro ceedings. Untold wealth, sumptuous fare, troops of servants, distinguished birth, amounted to nothing when placed in the balance against such miseries as these. If it was the woman who was jealous, she suffered more than the man, for she could not keep him at home, or set the servants to watch him. If she remonstrated with him, she would be told that she had better hold her tongue, and keep her suspicions to herself. If the husband insti tuted a suit against the wife, the laws were favourable to him, and he could procure her condemnation, and even death ; but if she were the petitioner, he would escape.3 It was very natural that the woman, who, before marriage, was cooped up like a child in the parental home, should break out afterwards into extravagance, dissipation, and frivolity, if not worse. An inordinate 1 C. 67. ! t_)i/ ftaAiffTct navTuni ayairaliii/rji', c. 52. ' C. 52. Ch. VH.] TRIALS OF MARRIED LHE. 103 amount of time and money was bestowed upon dress, though perhaps not more than by the fashionable ladies of modern times. Women loaded themselves with orna ments, under the delusion that these added to their charms, whereas, Chrysostom observes, if the woman was naturally beautiful, the ornaments only concealed and de tracted from her charms. ' If she was ugly, they only set off her ugliness by the glaring contrast, and the effect on the spectator was ludicrous or painful. But the adorn ment of the virgin who had dedicated herself to God was altogether spiritual. She arrayed herself in gentleness, modest}', poverty, humility, fasting, vigils. Incorporeal graces and incorporeal beauty were the objects of her love and contemplation. She treated enemies with such perfect courtesy and forbearance, that even the depraved were put to shame in her presence. The goodness of the soul within overflowed into all her outer actions.' ¦ From this rapturous description of a highly spiritual kind of life, Chrysostom passes, with versatile quickness, to a somewhat ludicrous picture of tbe petty cares of life in the world. ' The worldly lady thinks it a fine thing to drive round the Forum ; how much better to be independent, and use her feet for the purpose for which God gave them ! There was always some difficulty about the mules : she and her husband wanted them at the same time ; one or both were lame or turned out to grass. A quiet and modestly-dressed woman needed no carriage and attend ants to protect her in her passage through the streets, but might walk through the Forum, free from any annoyance. Some might say it was pleasant to be waited on by a troop of handmaids ; but, on the contrary, such a charge was attended with much anxiety. Not only had the sick to be taken care of, but the indolent to be chastised, mischief, quarrels, and all kinds of evil doings to be cor- ' C. 62, 63. 104 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VH. rected; and if there happened to be one distinguished by personal beauty, jealousy was added to all these other cares, lest the husband should be so captivated by her charms as to pay more attention to her than to her mis tress.1 If it was replied to all these objections against married life, that Abraham and other saints in the Old Testament were all married men, it must be remembered that a much higher standard was required under the New Dispensation. There were degrees of perfection. When Noah was said to be " perfect in his generation," it meant relatively to that age in which he lived, for what is per fect in relation to one era becomes imperfect for another. Murder was forbidden by the Old Law, but hatred and wrath under the New. A larger effusion of the Holy Spirit rendered Christian men fully grown as compared with the children of the Old Dispensation. Degrees of virtue, impossible then, were attainable now, and as the moral standard under the Old Dispensation was lower, so the rewards of obedience were less exalted. The Jews were encouraged to obedience by the promise of an earthly country, Christians by the prospect of Heaven. The Jews were deterred from sin by menaces of temporal calamity ; the Christian, of eternal punishment. Let us, therefore, not spend our care upon money-getting and wives and luxurious living, else how shall we ever become men rather than children, and live in the spirit ? for when we have taken our journey to that other world, the time for contest will have past, then those who have not oil in their lamps will be unable to borrow it from their neigh bours, or he who has a soiled garment to exchange it for another robe. When the Judge's throne has been placed, and He is seated upon it, and the fiery stream is " coming forth from before Him " (Dan. vii. 10), and the scrutiny of past life has begun : though Noah, Daniel, and Job were » C. GO, 67. Ch.VH] DESCRIPTION OF DAPHNE. 105 to implore an alteration of the sentence passed upon their own sons and daughters, their intercession would not avail.'1 The long treatise ' de S. Babyla contra Julianum et Gentiles,' presents several interesting subjects for con sideration. In the history of the grove of Daphne Ave have a singular instance of the way in which Grecian legend was transplanted into foreign soil. Daphne, the daughter of the Grecian river god Ladon, was, according to the Syrian version of the myth, overtaken by Apollo near Antioch. Here it was, on the banks, not of the Peneus, but of the Orontes, that the maiden prayed to her mother earth to open her arms and shelter her from the pursuit of the amorous god, and that the laurel plant sprang out of the spot where she disappeared from the eyes of her disappointed lover. The horse of Seleucus Nicator, founder of the Syrian monarchy, was said to have struck his hoof upon one of the arrows which Apollo had dropped in the hurry of his chase ; in consequence of which the king dedicated the place to the god. A temple was erected in his honour, ample in proportions, and sumptuous in its adornments ; the interior walls were resplendent with polished marbles, the lofty ceiling was of cypress wood. The colossal image of the god, enriched with gold and gems, nearly reached the top of the roof; the draped portions were of wood, the nude portions of marble. The fingers of the deity lightly touched the lyre which hung from his shoulders, and in the other hand he held a golden dish, as if about to pour a libation on the earth, ' and supplicate the venerable mother to give to his arms the cold and beauteous Daphne.' 2 The whole grove became consecrated to pleasure, under the guise of festivity in honour of the god. A more beautiful com bination of delights cannot well be conceived. The grove J C. 63. " Gibbon iv. p. 111. 106 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VH. was situated five miles to the south-west of Antioch, among the outskirts of the hills, where many of the limpid streams, rushing down towards the valley of the Orontes, mingled their waters. The road which con nected the city with this spot was lined on the left hand with large gardens and groves, baths, fountains, and resting-places; on the right were villas with vineyards and rose-gardens irrigated by rivulets. Daphne itself was, according to Strabo,1 eighty stadia, or about ten miles, in circumference. It contained everything which could gratify and charm the senses ; the deep impene trable shade of cypress trees, the delicious sound and coolness of falling waters, the fragrance of aromatic shrubs. Such a combination of all that was voluptuous told with fatal and enervating effect upon the morals of a people who were at all times disposed to an immoderate indulgence in luxurious pleasures. Eoman troops, and even Eoman emperors, fell victims to the allurements of the spot.2 The annual celebration of the Olympian games instituted by Commodus, which took place here, was espe cially the occasion of shocking excesses of every kind. But by the order of Gallus Csesar, an attempt was made to introduce a pure association into the spot hitherto con taminated by the licentiousness of pagan rites. The remains of Babylas, the Bishop of Antioch, who had suf fered martyrdom in the reign of Decius, were transferred from their resting-place in the city to the grove of Daphne. The chapel or martyry erected over the bones of the Christian saint stood hard by the temple of the pagan deity. Here it confronted the Christian visitor, as a warning to him not to take part in pagan and licentious rites, abhorrent to the faith for which the Bishop had died. But the remains of the martyr were not permitted ' Strabo, p. 750. crinus and Severus Alexander. — Hero- 2 As Verus, Pescennius Niger, Ma- dian ii. 7, 8, v. 2. vi. 7. Ch. VH.] DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE. 107 to rest in peace. When Julian visited Antioch, he con sulted the oracle of Apollo at Daphne respecting the issue of the expedition which he was about to make into Persia. But the oracle was dumb. At length the god yielded to the importunity of repeated prayers and sacrifices so far as to explain the cause of his silence. He was disturbed by the proximity of a dead body : ' Break open the sepulchres, take up the bones, and remove them hence.' The demand was interpreted as referring to the remains of Babylas, and the wishes of the crestfallen oracle were complied with.1 But the insult done to the Christian martyr was speedily avenged. Soon after the accom plishment of the impious act, a violent thunderstorm broke over the temple, and the lightning consumed both the roof of the building and the statue of the deity. At the time when Chrysostom wrote, some twenty years after the occurrence, the mournful wreck was yet standing; but the chapel again contained the relics of the saint and martyr, and conferred blessings on the pilgrims who resorted thither in crowds. The ruined and deserted temple, side by side with the carefully-preserved church of the martyr, thronged by devotees, presented a striking emblem of the fate of paganism, crumbling, and vanishing away before the presence of the new faith, blasted by the lightning flash of a mightier force. A great portion of the treatise of Chrysostom is occupied by an analysis of his old master Libanius's elegy over the fate of the stricken shrine of pagan worship. The affected and inflated tone of the sophist's composition deserves the sarcasm and scorn which his pupil un sparingly pours upon it. 1 C. 14-16. 108 LIVES AND TD1ES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VIII. CHAPTEE VHI. ORDINATION TO THE PRIESTHOOD BT FLAVIAN — INAUGURAL DISCOURSE IN THE CATHEDRAL — HOMILIES AGAINST THE ARIANS — ANIMADVER SIONS ON THE CHARIOT RACES. A.D. 386. Chkysostom had used the office of a deacon well. The lofty tone of Christian piety, the boldness, the ability, the command of language manifested in his writings, marked him out as eminently qualified for a preacher. His treatises, indeed, are distinguished by an eagerness and energy of style, which belongs more to the fervour of the orator than to the calmness of the writer. No doubt also men had not forgotten the talent for speaking which he had displayed when he began to practise, nearly twenty years before, as a lawyer. The Bishop Flavian ordained him a priest in 386, and immediately appointed him to be one of the most frequent preachers in the church. The bishop of a see like Antioch at that time more resembled in his relations to the city, the rector of a large town parish, than the bishop of modern times. He resided in Antioch, and discharged the duties of a chief pastor, assisted by his staff of priests and deacons. Where the whole Christian population amounted to not more than 100,000 souls, as in Antioch,1 that division into distinct districts, such as were formed in Alexandria,2 Eome, and Constantinople, with separate churches, served 1 Horn, in Matt. vol. vii. p. 762. Constantinople, though the Churches 2 To the establishment of parochial were numerous, the clergy seem to divisions with separate pastors iu have been more or less connected with Alexandria we have tho direct testi- the mother Church. — Vide Bingham, mony of Epiphanius, Uteres. 69. chap. viii. 5, book ix. Arian c. 1. In Rome, however, and Ch. Vin.] CHRYSOSTOM'S FIRST SERMON. 109 by members of the central staff in rotation, or by pastors especially appropriated to them, does not seem to have taken place. Chrysostom officiated and preached in the great church, where the bishop also officiated. The less learned and less able priests were appointed to the less responsible duties of visiting the sick and the poor, and administering the sacraments. The vocation of Chrysos tom, however, was especially that of a teacher. It will be readily acknowledged how difficult, how delicate an office preaching was, in an age when Christianity and paganism were still existing side by side, and when the opinions of many men were floating in suspense between old forms of faith and the new, and were liable to be dis tracted from a firm hold upon the truth by Judaism and heresies of every shade. Either on the occasion of his ordination, or very soon after it, Chrysostom preached an inaugural discourse, in the presence of the bishop. It is distinguished by that flowery and exaggerated kind of rhetoric which he occa sionally displays in all its native oriental luxuriance, and which is due to the school in which he was brought up, rather than to the man. On such a public and formal occasion, he appears less as the Christian teacher than as the scholar of Libanius the Ehetorician. His self- disparagement at the opening of his discourse, and his flattering encomiums on Flavian and Meletius at the close, would to modern, certainly at least to English, ears, sound intolerably affected. No doubt, however, they were acceptable to the taste of his audience at Antioch ; and, indeed, the whole discourse contains nothing more over strained or ornate than is to be found in some of the most celebrated performances of the great French preachers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A few paraphrases will suffice to illustrate the cha racter of his discourse. 110 LIVES AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VIII. ' He could scarcely believe what had befallen him, that he, an insignificant a.nd abject youth,1 should find himself elevated to such a height of dignity. The spectacle of so vast a multitude hanging in expectation on his lips, quite unnerved him, and would have dried up fountains of eloquence, had he possessed such. How, then, could he hope that his little trickling stream of words would not fail, and that the feeble thoughts which he had put together with so much labour, would not vanish from his mind ? ' Wherefore he besought them to pray earnestly that he might be inspired with courage to open his mouth boldly in this hitherto unattempted work.2 He wished to offer the first-fruits of his speech in praise to God. As the tiller of the ground gave of his wheat, grapes, or olives, so he would feign make an offering in kind ; he would " praise the name of God with a song, and magnify it with thanksgiving." But the consciousness of sin made him shrink from the task, for as in a wreath, not only must the flowers be clean but also the hands which wove it, so in sacred hymns not only must the words be holy but also the soul of him who composed them. The words of the wise man who said " praise is not becoming in the mouth of a sinner," 3 sealed up his lips, and when David invited all creation, animate and inanimate, visible and invisible, to "praise the Lord of Heaven, to praise him in the height," he did not include the sinner in the invitation. He would rather therefore dilate on the merits of some of his fellow-men who were worthier than himself. The mention of their Christian virtues would be an indirect way, legitimate for a sinner, of paying glory and honour 1 nzipattiaKos tinz\)}s KaX anre^tju- 2 jUTjSe'ira) irpSrcpov '. this seems to ixiuos, applied by rather a strong rhe- prove that he had not preached during torical licence to a man forty years his diaconate. old. s Ecclus. xv. 9. Ch. VIII.] CHRYSOSTOM'S FIRST SERMON. Ill to God himself. And to whom should he address his praises first but to their bishop, whom he might call the teacher of their country, and through their country of the world at large ? To enter fully, however, into his manifold virtues was to dive into so deep a sea that he feared he should lose himself in its profundities. To do justice to the task would require an inspired and apostolic tongue. He must confine himself to a few points, f Although reared in the midst of affluence, Flavian had surmounted the difficulties which impeded the entrance of a rich man into the kingdom of heaven. He had been distinguished from youth by perfect temperance and control over the bodily appetites, by contempt of luxury and a costly table. Though untimely deprived of parental care and exposed to the temptations incident to wealth, youth, and good birth, yet had he triumphed over them all. He had assiduously cultivated his mind, and had put the bridle of fasting on his body sufficient to curb excess, without impairing its strength and usefulness ; and though he had now glided into the haven of a calm old age, yet he did not relax the severity of this personal discipline. The death of their beloved father Meletius had caused great distress and perplexity to the Church, but the appearance of his successor had dispersed it, as clouds vanished before the sun. When Flavian mounted the episcopal throne, Meletius himself seemed to have risen from his tomb.' All that can be collected from history respecting Flavian's character, confirms and justifies these eulogiums, though English taste would prefer them to have been uttered after his death than in his actual presence. Chrysostom concludes by saying that he had prolonged his address beyond the bounds which became his position, but the flowery field of praise had tempted him to linger. 'He would conclude his task by asking their prayers; prayers that their common mother the 'Church might 112 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VIII. remain undisturbed and stedfast, and that the life of their father teacher, spiritual shepherd and pilot, might be prolonged ; prayers finally that he the preacher, might be strengthened to bear the yoke which was laid upon him, might in the great day restore safely the deposit which his master had committed to his trust, and obtain mercy for his sins through the grace and goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, and power, and worship for ever and ever.' We now enter on a period of ten years, during which Chrysostom constantly resided in Antioch, and was oc cupied in the almost incessant labour of preaching. The main bulk of those voluminous works which have been preserved to our times belongs to this period ; yet there can be no doubt that, numerous as are the extant works, they represent but a fraction of the discourses which he actually delivered. For we know on his own authority, that he frequently preached twice, occasionally oftener in the course of a week.1 It does not fall within the scope of this essay to de termine how many of the homilies which we possess were delivered in each year, or to enter into a critical examina tion of every set. But an attempt will be made to extract from them whatever seems to throw light upon the life and times of their author, upon events in which he played a conspicuous part, or which were of great public im portance ; whatever also illustrates the special condition of the Church, — her general practice, her merits and de fects, the dangers and difficulties with which, from dis sension within, or heresy without, she had at this era to contend. The field of subjects on which the preacher was called to exercise his powers was varied and extensive. Chris tianity was imperilled by corruption of morals and cor- 1 Horn. xi. in Ac. Apost. in fine. Ch. VHL] SERMON ON MELETIUS. 113 ruption of faith. Not the laity only, but the clergy also, at least in the great towns, had become deeply infected by the prevalent follies and vices of the age. Again, between the orthodox Christian and the Pagan, every variety of heresy intervened. The Arian, the Manichsean, the Marcionite, the Sabellian, the Jew, — all were, so to say, touching and fraying the edge of pure Christianity ; the danger was, lest they should gradually so wear it away as to injure the very vitals of the faith. Such were the evils, such the enemies which Chrysostom bent his energies courageously, perseveringly to redress or repel. He is alternately the champion of a pure morality and of a sound faith. Among the discourses which belong to the first year of his priesthood, falls one delivered in commemoration of Bishop Meletius, the predecessor of Flavian.1 He had died at Constantinople about the end of May a.d. 381, and Chrysostom in the commencement of his homily remarks, that five years had now elapsed since the bishop had taken his journey to the ' Saviour of his longings.' The tone of the discourse illustrates a characteristic of the times; a passionate devotion to the memory of de parted saints which was rapidly passing into actual ado ration ; a subject on which more will be said hereafter. The shrine which contained the reliques of Meletius was placed in the sight of the preacher and the congregation, who swarmed round it like bees.2 When Chrysostom looked at the great multitude assembled ' he congratulated the holy Meletius on enjoying such honour after his death, and he congratulated the people also on the endurance of their affection to their late spiritual father. Meletius was like the sound root which though invisible proved its strength by the vigour of its fruit. When he had re turned from his first banishment the whole Christian popu- 1 Vol. ii. p. 515. » C. 3. 1 114 LIFE AND TFMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. VIII. lation had streamed forth to meet him. Happy those who succeeded in clasping his feet, kissing his hand, hearing his voice. Others who beheld him only at a distance felt that they too had obtained a blessing from the mere sight. A kind of spiritual glory emanated from his holy person, even as the shadows of St. Peter and St. John had healed the sick, on whom they fell.' ' Let us all, rulers and ruled, men and women old and young, free men and slaves, offer prayer, taking the blessed Meletius into part nership with this our prayer (since he has more confidence now in offering prayer, and entertains a warmer affec tion towards us), that our love may be increased and that as now we stand beside his shrine, so one day we may all be permitted to approach his resting-place in the other world.' The discourses of Chrysostom against Arians and Jews, fall within the first year of his priesthood.1 They are among the finest of his productions, and deserve perusal on account of their intrinsic merit no less than of the im portant points of doctrine with which they are concerned. Antioch, indeed, may in some sort, be regarded as the cradle of Arianism. Paul of Samosata, who was deposed from the see of Antioch in a.d. 272, advocated doctrines of a Sabellian character, but that sophistical dialectical school of thought of which the Arians were the most conspicuous representatives, may be traced to him. His original calling had been that of a sophist, and he was therefore by training more fitted to attack established doctrines than to build up a definite system of his own. Hence it is not surprising that, though his own tendency was to Sabellian opinions, Lucian, his intimate friend and fellow-countryman, held doctrines diametrically opposite, or what were afterwards called Arian.2 Lucian, when 1 See the Monitum to these Homi- 2 See Newman's Arians, chap. i. lies, vol. i. p. 699. sect. i. Cn. VUL] ARIANISM AT ANTIOCH. 115 presbyter at Antioch, was the teacher of Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, of Leontius, the Arian Bishop of Antioch, and perhaps also of Arius himself.1 Aetius, and his pupil Eunomius, originators of the most extreme and undis guised form of Arianism, resided in the beginning of their career at Antioch. Eunomius, in fact, was the founder of a sect which was called Eunomian after him ; or sometimes Anomcean, because it denied not only equality but even similarity (ofjtotoTrjs) between the Father and the Son in the Holy Trinity. It was the most materialistic phase which Arianism developed. Mystery was to be eliminated from revelation as much as possible, sacramental grace was little recognised, asceti cism disparaged. Adherents of this school seem to have existed still in some force at Antioch. A system marked by so much of cold intellectual pride was especially repug nant to the fervid and humble faith of Chrysostom. Yet in his assaults upon it he was neither precipitate nor harsh. In his first homily ' On the incomprehensible Nature of God,' he says that having observed several persons who were infected by this heresy listening to his discourses, he had abstained from attacking their errors, wishing to gain a firmer hold upon their interest before engaging with them in controversy. But having been invited by them to undertake the contest, he could not decline it, but would endeavour to conduct it in a spirit of gentleness and love, since ' the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle towards ' all, as well as ' apt to teach.' He urges all disputants to remember our Lord's answer when He was buffetted, ' If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil ; but if well, why smitest thou me?'2 He dilates on the arrogance of the Anomceans in pre- 1 Arius, in a letter to Eusebivus ' fellow Lucianist,' Theod. i. 5. addresses him as o-v\\ouKiayurTa, 2 I. c. 6, 7. 1 2 116 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. \TH. tending to understand and to define the exact nature of God. 'Professing themselves wise they only discovered their folly. Imperfect knowledge on so profound a subject was an inevitable part of the imperfection of our human state. The condition of our present knowledge was this — we know many things about God, but we do not know how they are or take place. For example, we may know that He is everywhere and without beginning or end, but how He is thus, we know not. We know that he begat the Son, and that the Holy Spirit proceeded from Him, but how these things can be we are unable to tell. This is analogous to our knowledge of many things which are called natural. We eat various kinds of food, but how they nourish us and are transmuted into the several humours of the body we do not understand.' • ' Again, if the wisest and holiest men have confessed themselves incompetent to fathom the purposes and dis pensations of God, how far more inscrutable must his essence be ! If David exclaims ' such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for me, I cannot attain unto it ; ' and St. Paul, ' Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, how un traceable his ways;' if the very angels do not presume to discuss the nature of God, but humbly adore Him with veiled faces, crying ' Holy, Holy, Holy,' how monstrous is the conceit and irreverence of those who curiously in vestigate and pretend to define the exact nature of the Godhead.' 2 He proceeds to dwell upon the littleness and feebleness of man, as contrasted with the amazing and boundless power of God. The Eunomians maintained that man could know the nature of God as much as God Himself knew it. ' What mad presumption was this ! the Prophets exhaust all available metaphors to express the insignifi- 1 C. 3. 2 I. v.. 4. CH.VHL] HOMILIES AGAINST ARIANS. 117 cance of man, as compared with God. Men are " dust and ashes," " grass," and the " flower of grass," " a vapour," " a shadow." Inanimate creation acknowledges the irre sistible supremacy of his power ; " if He do but touch the hills they shall smoke," " He shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble " (Job ix. 6) .' ' Seest thou not yon sky, how beautiful it is, how vast, spangled with what a choir of stars? Five thousand years and more has it stood, yet length of time has left no mark of old age upon it : like a youthful vigorous body it retains the beauty with which it was endowed at the beginning. This beautiful, this vast, this starry, this ancient firmament, was made by that God into whose nature you curiously pry, was made with as much ease as a man might for pastime construct a hovel : " He esta blished the sky like a roof, and stretched it out like a tent over the earth " (Isa. xl. 22). The solid, durable earth He made, and all the nations of the world, even as far as the British isles, are but as a drop in a bucket ; and shall man, who is but an infinitessimal part of this drop, presume to enquire into the nature of Him who made all these forces and whom they obey ? ' J ' God dwells in the light which no man can approach unto. If the light which surrounds Him be inaccessible, how much more God Himself who is within it ? St. Paul rebukes those who presume to question the dispensation of God. ' Nay but, 0 man, who art thou, that repliest against God ? shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus ? ' How much more, then, would he have reproved dogmatic assumption respecting the nature of the great Dispenser ? 2 The declaration of St. John that no man had seen God at any time might appear at variance with the descriptions in the prophets of visions of the Deity. As : "I saw the Lord sitting on 1 II. c. 3, 4. 2 II. c. 4, 6 ; III. 3, 4, 5, 6. 118 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VOL his throne high and lifted up " (Isa. vi. 1). "I saw the Lord standing above the altar" (Amos ix. 1). "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit whose garment was white as snow," &c. (Dan. vii. 9). But the very variety of forms under which God is said to have appeared, proves that these manifestations were merely condescensions to the weakness of human nature, which requires something that the eye can see and the ear can hear. They were only manifestations of the Deity adapted to man's capacity ; not the Divine Nature itself which is simple, incomposite, devoid of shape. So, also, when it is said of God the Son that He' is " in the bosom of the Father," when He is described as standing, or sitting on the right hand of God, these expressions must not be interpreted in too material a sense ; they are expressions accommodated to our understandings, to con vey an idea of such an intimate union and equality between the two Persons as is in itself incomprehensible.' ' And this leads him on to consider the second error of the Arians — their denial of absolute equality between the three Persons in the Godhead. His arguments are based, as usual, entirely on an appeal to Holy Scripture. He makes a skilful selection and combination of texts to prove his point, that the titles ' God ' and ' Lord ' are common to the first two Persons in the Trinity — the names Father and Son being added merely to distinguish the Personality. Had the Father alone been God, then it would have been superfluous to add the name Father at all : ' there is one God ' would have been sufficient. But, as it was, the titles ' God ' and ' Lord ' were applied to both Persons to prove their equality in respect of God- he.ad. That the appellation of Lord no way indicated inferiority was plain, because it was frequently applied to the Father. ' The Lord our God is one Lord,' Exod. 1 iv. t. Ch. VEL] HOMILIES AGAINST ARIANS. 119 xx. 2. ' Great is our Lord and great is his power,' Psa. cxlvii. 5. On the other hand, Christ is frequently entitled God, e.g. ' Immanuel — God with us.' ' Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever.' In some instances the Father and the Son are both called Lord, or both God in the same passage ; as, for example, ' The Lord said unto my Lord '....' thy throne, 0 God (the Son), is for ever and ever' .... 'wherefore God (the Father), even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness,' &C.1 ' The reason why Christ sometimes acted and spoke in a manner which implied human infirmity, and inferiority to the Father, was twofold. First, that men might be con vinced that He did really, substantially exist in the truth ' of_our human nature ; that He was not a mere phantom — the error of Marcion, Manes, and Valentinus — an error which would have been still more prevalent had He not so clearly manifested the reality of his humanity. On the other hand, He was reserved and cautious in declar ing the highest mystery — his divine union and equality with the Father — out of condescension to the weakness of man's intellect, which recoiled from the more recondite mysteries. When He told them that " Abraham rejoiced to see his day," that "before Abraham was He was," " that the bread from heaven was his flesh, which He would give for the life of the world," that " hereafter they should see the Son of Man coming in the clouds," they were in variably offended. But, on the contrary, He was chiefly accepted when He spoke words implying more humiliation — for example, " I can of my own self do nothing, but as my Father taught me, even so I speak." " As He spake these words," we are told, " many believed on Him."2 ' Two other reasons might be assigned for this language of self-abasement. One was, that He came to teach us 1 V. 2, 3. 2 VII. t-. 3, 4. 120 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VHI. humility, — " learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart." He " came not to be ministered unto but to minister." He who bids others be lowly must first and pre-eminently be lowly Himself. Therefore He performed such acts as washing his disciples' feet ; and the In carnation itself was no sign, as the Arian maintained, of inferiority, but only the highest expression of that great principle of self-sacrificing love which He came to teach. Lastly, by such language He directs our minds to the apprehension of a clear distinction between the Persons in the Godhead. If his sayings about Himself had all resembled such as " I and my Father are one," the Sabellian error of confounding the Persons would have become yet more prevalent than it was. Thus, we find throughout our Lord's life, in his acts and language, a careful mixture and variation of character in order to present the two elements — the human and divine — in equal proportions. He predicts his own sufferings and death, yet quickly afterwards He prays the Father that He might be, if possible, spared undergoing them. In the first act is pure divinity; in the second humanity shrinking from that pain which is abhorrent to human nature.'1 This very fact, however, of our Lord's praying, was laid hold of by the Arians to prove the inferiority of his nature. This argument Chrysostom meets in Homi lies IX. and X. The raising of Lazarus had been read in the gospel for the day. 'I perceive,' he says, 'that many of the Jews and heretics will find an excuse in the prayer offered by Christ before performing this miracle, to impugn his power, and say He could not have done it without the Father's assistance.' But this fell to the ground, because on most other occasions our Lord wrought his miracles without any prayer at all. To the 1 VII. c. 6, 7. Ch.VHL] HOMILIES AGAINST ARIANS. 121 dead maiden he simply said, ' Talitha Cumi,' and she arose; the woman with an issue of blood was healed without any word or touch from Him. In the case of Lazarus He prayed, as He Himself declared, for the sake of the people, that they might perceive that God heard his prayers — that there was a perfect unanimity between the Father and the Son. Martha, in fact, had asked for a prayer, ' I know whatsoever thou shalt ask of God God will give it thee,' therefore He prayed ; just as when the centurion said, ' Speak the word only,' He spake the word and the servant was healed. If He had needed help He would have invoked it before all his miracles. In fact there was no kind of sovereign power which He hesitated to exercise. ' Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee ;'....' the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins ; ' — to an evil spirit, ' I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him ;'...' to them of old it was said, Thou shalt not kill, but I say, whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause,' &c. He repre sents Himself as saying on the final day, 'Come, ye blessed ; ' or ' Depart, ye cursed.' Thus He claims authority to absolve, to judge, to legislate. Homilies XI. and XII. against the Anomoeans were deli vered some ten years later at Constantinople, but as they contain no special references to the events of that time the continuity of this subject maybe maintained by extracting from them the argument there employed to prove the equality of the Son with the Father. It is based on the pas sage, ' My Father worketh hitherto, and I work ' (St. John v. 17); by which our Saviour justified Himself from the accusation of breaking the Sabbath when He healed the paralytic. The words ' My Father worketh,' Chrysostom observes, refer to the daily operations of God's providence, by which He sustains in being those things which He commanded into existence. 122 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VHI. This upholding energy, our Lord declares, is active at all times and on all days alike ; and if it were not, the fabric of the universe would fall to pieces. He claims a similar right to providential rule, which implies equality with the Father. ' My Father worketh, and I work.' If the Son had been inferior, such a method of justifying Himself would only have added force to the charges of his enemies. If a subject of the Emperor were to put on the imperial diadem and purple, it would be no excuse to say that he wore them because the Emperor wore them — ' the Emperor wears them and I wear them ; ' — on the contrary, it would augment the offensiveness of his presumption and arro gance. If Christ were not equal with the Father, it was the height of presumption to use those words, ' My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' In dealing with such lengthy homilies, it has been impossible to do more than give specimens in a very condensed form of the main lines of argument which Chry sostom adopts. They vary greatly in value ; but two points cannot fail to arrest the 'notice of anyone who reads these homilies through. First, the profound acquaintance of their author with Holy Scripture ; extending apparently with equal force to every part of the sacred volume. Old and New Testament and Apocrypha, are almost equally employed for argument, illustration, adornment : he is at home everywhere. Secondly, upon Scripture all his argu ments are based : in none of his controversial homilies does Chrysostom take his stand upon the platform of existing tradition, or rely on the authority of the Church alone ; ' to the law and to the testimony ' is always the way with him. And this was a test at that time uni versally accepted. The dispute with the most rationalistic and critical Arians seems never to have turned on the authority, but only on the interpretation of Scripture. Scripture is appealed to as the supremo court for trying Cn. Vm.] CONGREGATION REBUKED. 123 all their differences ; the only question was, as to the exact meaning of its decisions. Again, we cannot fail to be struck by the ease aud rapidity with which he glances off from the most contro versial and theological parts of his discourse to practical reproof and exhortation. Nothing provoked him more than to see the bulk of that large concourse of people who had been listening with profound attention to his address leave the church just as the celebration of the Eucharist was about to commence. ' Deeply do I groan to perceive that when your fellow-servant is speaking, great is your earnestness, strained your attention, you crowd one upon another, and stay till the very end, but that when Christ is about to appear in the holy mysteries the church is empty and deserted. ... If my words had been laid up in your hearts they would have kept you here, and brought you to the celebration of these most solemn mysteries with greater piety; but as it is, my speech seems as fruitless as the performance of a lute-player, for as soon as I have finished you depart. Away with the frigid excuse of many, I can say prayers at home, but I cannot at home hear homilies and doctrine. Thou deceivest thyself, 0 man ; you may, indeed, pray at home, but it is impossible to pray in the same manner as at church, where there is so large an assembly of your spi ritual fathers, and the cry of the worshippers is sent up with one accord ; where there is unanimity and concert in prayer; and where the priests preside, that the weaker supplications of the multitude being supported by theirs, which are more powerful, may ascend together with these to heaven. First prayer, then discourse; so say the Apostles. ' But we will give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.'1 Again, as frequently in other discourses, he reproves the ' III. c. 6. 124 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VTH, congregation for testifying their admiration of his words by applause. ' You praise what I have said, you receive my exhortation with tumults of applause : but show your approbation by obedience : that is the praise which I seek, the applause which comes through deeds.'1 His hearers, in fact, were so closely packed, and so much absorbed in listening to his discourse, that pick pockets often practised on them with some success. Chrysostom advises them, therefore, to bring no money or ornaments about their persons to church. It was a device of the devil, who hoped by means of this annoy ance to chill their zeal in attending the services, just as he stripped Job of everything, not merely to make him poor but to rob him if possible of his piety.2 But the most inveterate enemy with which Chrysostom had to contend was the circus. Against this he declaims with all the vehemence of Evangelical invectives against horse-racing in modern times. The indomitable passion for the chariot-races, and the silly eagerness displayed about them by the inhabitants of Eome, Constantinople, and Antioch, are among the most remarkable symptoms of the debased and vitiated character of society, under the later Empire. The whole populace was divided into factions distinguished by the different colours adopted by the cha rioteers, of which green and blue were the two chief favourites. The animosity, the sanguinary tumults, the superstitions,3 folly, violence of every kind, which were mixed up with these popular amusements, well deserved the unsparing severity with which they were lashed by the great preacher. A few specimens shall be collected here from other 1 III. c. 6, in fine. sons, and according as one or other was 2 IV. in fine. victorious a plentiful harvest or pros- 3 The colours represented the sea- perous navigation was indicated. Ch. Vm.] CENSURE ON CHARIOT RACES. 125 homilies, as well as from those immediately under con sideration. ' Again we have the horse-races ; again our assembly is thinned. But he cared not so much for the loss of the leaves, the scum in fact, of the congregation, provided that the sound and genuine portion of it remained.1 Sometimes, however, the church was deserted by those of whom he had expected more fidelity. He felt disheartened, like a sower who had scattered good seed plentifully, but with no adequate result. Gladly and eagerly would he continue his exertions could he see any fruit of his labours ; but when, forgetful of all his exhortations and warnings, and solemn remindings of the terrible' doom, the un quenchable fire, the undying worm, they again abandoned themselves to the diabolical exhibitions of the race-course, with what heart could he return to the unthankful task ? They manifested, indeed, by applause, the pleasure with which they heard his words, and then they hurried off to the circus, and, sitting side by side with Jew or Pagan, they applauded, with a kind of frenzied eagerness, the efforts of the several charioteers ; they rushed tumul- tuously along, jostling one another, and shouting, " that horse didn't run fairly," " that was tripped up, and fell," and the like.2 Various excuses were pleaded for absence from church — the exigencies of business, poverty, ill health, lameness ; but these impediments never prevented attendance at the Hippodrome. In the church the chief places even were not always all occupied, but there old and young, rich and poor, crowded every available space for standing or sitting; pushing, and squeezing, and trampling on one another's feet, while the sun poured down on their heads: yet they appeared thoroughly to enjoy themselves, in spite of all these discomforts ; while 1 VII. contra Anom. p. i. -, ' De Laz. vii. c. 1. ]26 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. VIII. in the church the length of the sermon, or the heat, or the crowd were perpetual subjects of complaint.' ' Such are a few illustrations of one, but perhaps the most notable, form among many in which the impulsive ness and frivolity of the people of Antioch were displayed. ' The building which the preacher had so laboriously and industriously reared in the hearts of his disciples was thus cruelly dashed down and levelled to the very ground by a few hours of dissolving pleasure and iniquitous frivolity.'2 Truly, indeed, might the lamentation of the prophet over the evanescent piety of Ephraim and Judah have been applied to these people : ' Your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away ' (Hos. vi. 4). 1 De Anna iv. 1. '-' De Laz. vii. c. 1. 127 CHAPTEE IX. HOMILIES AGAINST PAGANS AND JEWS — CONDITION OF THE JEWS IN ANTIOCH — JUDAISING CHRISTIANS— HOMILIES ON CHRISTMAS DAY AND NEW YEAR'S DAY— CENSURE OE PAGAN SUPERSTITIONS. A.D. 386, 387. In dealing with the Arians, the contest mainly turned, as has been pointed out in the previous chapter, on the inter pretation of Scripture, but in doing battle with Pagans and Jews, with the former especially, Chrysostom had of course to take up a different attitude. The method which he adopts towards the Jew is to demonstrate the fulfil ment of Old Testament prophecy in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and to insist on the consequent abroga tion of the Jewish dispensation. The ground on which he mainly relies against the Pagan is the miraculous establishment and progress of Christianity in the face of unprecedented opposition, as an evidence of its divine origin. The treatise addressed to Jews and Gentiles combined, exhibits a powerful application of both these methods.1 ' He would first of all enter the lists against the Pagan. And here caution was requisite. He would not say, when the Pagan asked how the divinity of Christ was to be proved, that Christ created the world, raised the dead, healed the sick, expelled demons, promised a resurrection and a heavenly kingdom, because these were the very 1 It is a treatise, because too long promise we find redeemed in the homi- for a homily, though mutilated of its lies against the Jews, and these homi- proper conclusion. It must belong to lies, again, can be proved, by internal the first two years of his priesthood, evidence, to have been delivered not because it promises a more ample later than a.d. 387. See Montfaucon's discussion of several points, which ' Monitum,' vol. i. pp. 811 and 839. 128 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. IX. questions upon which they joined issue. But he would start from a ground which even the Pagan would accept ; no one would venture to deny that the Christian religion was founded by Jesus Christ, and from this simple fact he would undertake to prove that Christ could be no less than God. No mere man could, in so short a time, with such feeble instruments, and in the face of such opposition arising from inveterate custom and forms of faith, have subdued so many and such various races of mankind.1 How contrary to the common course of events, that He who was despised, weak, and put to an igno minious death, should now be honoured and adored in all regions of the earth ! Emperors who have made laws, altered the constitution of states, who have ruled nations by their nod, in whose hands was the power of life and death, pass away, their images are in time destroyed, their actions forgotten, their adherents despised, their very names buried in oblivion : — present grandeur is succeeded by nothingness. In the case of Jesus Christ, all is re versed. During his lifetime, all seemed failure and degra dation, but a career of glory and triumph succeeded his death.2 Before his death Judas betrayed Him, St. Peter denied Him ; after his death, St. Peter and the rest of the Apostles traversed the world to bear witness to his truth, and thousands of people have died, rather than utter what the chief of the Apostles once uttered from j fear of a maid servant's taunts. " His rest shall be I glorious:" — this was true, not only of the Master but also \ of his disciples. In that most royal city of Eome monarchs, prefects, generals, flocked to the sepulchres of the fisherman and the tent-maker ; and in Constantinople they who wore the diadem were content to lay their bones 1 0. 1. remarks on Christianity : ' Table Talk 2 See a singular parallel to this and Opinions of Napoleon I.' thought in the Emperor Napoleon I.'s Ch. IX.] POWER OF THE CHURCH 129 in the porch of the Apostle's Church, and to become as it were the door-keepers of humble fishermen.1 Christ had made the most ignominious death, and the instrument of it, glorious. It was written, " cursed is he that hangeth on a tree," yet the cross had become the object of desire and love ; it was more honourable than the whole world, for the imperial crown itself was not such an ornament to the head : princes and subjects, men and women, bond and free, all delighted to wear it imprinted on the brow. It was conspicuous on the Holy Table, and in the ceremony of ordaining priests ; in houses, in market-places, by the wayside, and on mountain sides, on couches and on garments, on ships, on drinking vessels, in mural decora tions, the cross was depicted. Whence all this extra ordinary honour to a piece of wood, unless the power of Him who died upon it was divine 9 ' 2 Christ had declared that the gates of hell should not prevail against his Bock-founded Church. How far had this prediction been verified ? In a short space of time Christianity had abolished ancestral customs, plucked up deeply-rooted habits, overturned altars and temples, caused unclean rites and festivals to vanish away. Christian altars had been erected in Italy, in Persia, in Scythia, in Africa. ' What say I ? even the British Isles, which lie outside the boundaries of our world and our sea, in the midst of the ocean itself, have experienced the power of the Word, for even there churches and altars have been set up.' Thus the world had been, so to say, cleared of thorns, and purified to receive the seed of godli ness. What a proof of superhuman power ! The progress of the Church had been encountered by customs which were not only venerated but pleasant ; yet these tradi tions, handed down through long lines of ancestors, were abandoned for a religion far more severe and laborious, a ' C. 9. 2 Ibid. K 130 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. LX. religion which substituted fasting for enjoyment, poverty for money-getting, temperance for lasciviousness, meek ness for wrath, benevolence for ill-will. Men who had long been enervated by luxury, and accustomed to the broad way, had been converted into the narrow rugged path, not by tens or twenties, but by multitudes under the whole heaven. By whose agency had these mighty results been wrought ? By a few unlearned obscure men, without illustrious ancestors, without money, without eloquence.1 And all this in the teeth of opposition of the most varied kind. For where the new doctrine penetrated it excited divisions and strife ; children were set at variance with parents, brother with brother, husband with wife, master with servant. Yet, in spite of persecution and disruption of social ties, the new faith grew and flourished. How could such unprecedented marvels have come to pass but through the divine power, and in obedience to that Word of God which is creative of actual results ? Just as, when He said, c Let the earth bring forth grass ' the wilderness became a garden, so when the expression of his purpose had gone forth, ' I will build my Church,' straightway the process began, and though tyrants and people, sophists and orators, custom and reli gion, had been arrayed against it, yet the Word going I forth like fire, consumed the thorns, and scattered the ' good seed over the purified soil.2 In attempting to convince the Jews of the divinity of Jesus Christ by proving the exact fulfilment of Old Tes tament prophecy in his person and work, Chrysostom displays that intimate familiarity with every part of Scripture which is his eminent characteristic. The passages are, on the whole, most judiciously selected; some corresponding passage from the New Testament being placed, if possible, against each, with 1 C 12. i C. 13. Ch. IX.] HOMILIES AGAINST JEWS. 131 a careful attention even to verbal parallelism. For instance, against the passage in Isaiah, ' The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,' he places the verse from St. John i. 32, 'I beheld the spirit descending like a dove, and it abode upon him.' ' He refers each event in Christ's life, His Incarnation, His rejection by the Jews, His betrayal, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, the descent of the Holy Ghost, and the beginning of the Apostolic labours to some corresponding prediction.1 He sometimes, however, falls into the error, less common in him than in other patristic interpreters, of seeing direct references to the Messiah and the Messianic kingdom, to the almost total exclusion of any other meaning. For instance, such passages as 'Their sound is gone out into all lands,' ' That thou mayest make princes in all lands,' are cited as if exclusively predictive of the propagation of Christianity. In such words as, ' The virgins that be her fellows shall bear her company,' he sees a distinct foreshadowing of the honour to be paid to virginity under Christianity.' In other passages, again, he is misled by ignorance of the Hebrew, and a too literal adherence to the Septuagint translation. In the passage, 'I will make thy officers peace,' thine ' exactors ' being rendered in the Septuagint bishops or overseers, he extracts from this word a direct reference to the Christian priesthood.4 ' He shall descend like rain into a fleece of wool ' is interpreted as significant of the extreme secrecy of Christ's birth, and the noise less gentleness with which his kingdom was founded.5 Whereas the strict translation being ' like rain upon new- mown grass,' it is rather illustrative of the fruitful results of Christ's advent, if indeed, a Messianic reference is to be admitted at all.6 Such occasional defects, however, will not prevent us 1 C. 2. ' C. 2-5. » C. 6. « C. 7. « C. 3 » See Perowne, vol. i. in loco. Ps. bom. 6, and Delitzseh in Isai. lx.' ] 7. K 2 132 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. LX. from according the praise due to the great skill with which, on the whole, he has worked out this method of argument, and the noble vindication of Christianity in this treatise has seldom if ever been surpassed by Chry sostom elsewhere. The several parts of his argument are unfolded in orderly procession, and expressed with an eloquence at once luminous and earnest, and which, though at times copious and ornate, does not degenerate into the mere redundancy, still less into the affectations and flowery artifices of rhetoric ; he is always real and earnest, he is sometimes sublime. Closely connected with this treatise in subject, and not far distant in time of composition, are the Homilies directed against Jews and Judaising Christians. The Jews, ever since the time of Antiochus the Great, were a considerable body in Antioch, and over the Christian population exerted a seriously pernicious influence. Their position, indeed, in the Empire at large, had been in creasingly favourable from the reign of Hadrian to Con stantine. Though they were not permitted to approach Jerusalem, yet the worship in their synagogues was freely tolerated; they were permitted to circumcise their own children though not the children of proselytes ; and their religious organisation in the Empire was held together under the sway of the Patriarch of Tiberias.1 After the recognition of Christianity by the Empire, the Jews, as a natural consequence, were less favourably treated. The statutes of Constantine and Constantius were severe. Those Jews who attempted the life of a Christian were to be burned. No Christians were to become Jews, under pain of punishment. Jews were forbidden to marry Christian women or to possess Christian slaves. The national character of the Jew seems to have deteriorated, as the race became more widely dispersed, and as their 1 Milman's ' History of the Jews,' vol. ii. book xix. Ch. LX.] CHARACTER OF THE JEWS. 133 wealth and importance increased. They were no longer indeed so morosely and sullenly proud as when they gloried in the possession of a holy city and distinct re ligious ordinances and a geographical position which isolated them from the rest of mankind, but neither were their faith or morals so pure. Self-indulgence, sensualism, and low cunning, corrupted their life, a superstitious and material cast of thought depraved their faith. Their habits harmonised too well with that propensity to luxury and licentiousness which was the besetting vice of the people of Antioch ; their materialism worked hand in hand with the prevailing Arianism, if, indeed, Arianism may not be regarded as in some sort its product. Cer tainly, whenever popular insurrections caused by religious dissensions occurred either in Antioch or in Alexandria, the Jews ranged themselves on the Arian side, as if, though not identical in faith, the spirit and character of the Arian sect, were the most congenial to their own,1 among the conflicting parties. Allowing for some exaggerations in the preacher, car ried away by the impulse of the moment, the invectives of Chrysostom must be permitted to prove that the Jewish residents in Antioch were of a low and vicious order. They seem to have been regarded by the common people with a mixture of dislike and awe ; the age was super stitious, and the Jews availed themselves of superstitious terrors to make a livelihood, especially through a kind of quackery in medicine. Their quarters are denominated by Chrysostom as dens of robbers and habitations of demons.2 ' A whole day would not suffice to tell the tale of their extortions, their thefts, their deceptions, their base methods of traffic, such as the sale of amulets and 1 Basnage's 'Hist, des Juifs,' vi. 41. 2 V. in fine ; robbers may possibly Newman's ' Arians,' ch. i. sect. i. be used in a figurative sense. 134 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. LX. charms.1 Their priests were no better than counterfeits, because they had not gone through all the elaborate rites of consecration. They had no sacred ephod, no Brim and Thummim, no altar, no sacrifice, no prophecy.' ' The Festival of Trumpets was a scene of great de bauchery, more iniquitous than the proceedings in the theatre. Any catechumen who was detected attending that festival was to be excluded from the porch of the church ; any communicant so detected was to be denied access to the Holy Table. The booths erected at the Feast of Tabernacles were like taverns, crowded with flute- players and ill-conditioned women. The synagogues were' frequented by the most abandoned characters of both sexes, and dancers, actors, and charioteers were largely drawn from the Jewish population. In spite of this, many Christians were seduced to attend the Jewish festivals and fasts, and even to swear Jewish oaths in the synagogues, under the superstitious impression that such were more solemn and binding than any Christian forms. He had himself, only three days ago, rescued a woman being dragged off, against her will, to take an oath of this kind, by a man who professed himself a Christian.' On stopping to rebuke him in the sternest language, Chrysostom was shocked to learn that the practice was extremely common among Christians. He passionately exhorts the faithful to reclaim their deluded brethren from these pernicious ways : ' If twelve Apostles had con verted the larger part of the world, it would be a shame that the Christians, who were the majority in the popu lation of Antioch, should fail to allay the plague of Judaism. What treason ! what inconsistency, that they, 1 I. c. 7. They seem early to have to obtain the abrogation of perse- claimed medical skill. When Simon cuting edicts, he won the favour of the Ben Jochai went to Eome as ambas- Emperor by curing his sick daughter. sador, in the reign of Antoninus Pius, —Milman, ii. 443. Ch. IX.] JUDAISING CHRISTIANS. 1 35 who worshipped the Crucified One, should associate with the race which crucified Him.' ' The synagogue ought not to be an object of reverence because it contained the Books of the Law and the Prophets, but rather of abhor rence, because those who possessed the-Prophets refused to recognise Him of whom their writings spoke. Was the temple of Serapis holy because it contained the Septua gint, deposited there by Ptolemy Philadelphus ? 2 Christians seem to have attended Jewish services much in that spirit of curiosity with which Protestants some times go to Eoman Catholic churches, to be entertained by music, incense, and a grand ritual. They maintained that the effect was solemnising ; but, observes Chrysostom, the value of the offering to God depends not on the nature of the offering, but on the heart of the offerers. The worshippers sanctify the temple, not the temple the worshippers. You would not touch or address the murderer of your own son, and will you court the society of those who slew the Son of God ? 3 Let them consider that cry uttered by the deacon from time to time in the cele bration of the holy mysteries, ' discern one another.' 4 So let them do. ' If you discern anyone Judaising, hold him fast and expose him, that you may not yourself parti cipate in the danger.' ' In military camps, if any soldier be detected sympa thising with the barbarian or the Persian, not only does he himself run a risk of his life, but also any of his com rades who were conscious of his defection, but did not represent it to the general. Since, then, you are the army of Christ, search diligently whether any stranger ^ II. 3 ; vii. in initio ; i. „. 3, 4. « inyiviiaKere IlWJKovs. I. 4. This B ' c- 6' admonition ' discern one another' was ' I. c. 7. So the idle youth of uttered just at the close of the Missa Rome turned for amusement into the Catechumenorum, when all but the Synagogue. Horace, Sat. ix. 1. 69. baptized had to depart 136 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. FX. has intruded into your camp, and expose him, not that we may put him to death, but that we may punish him, deliver him from his error and impiety, and render him wholly our own ; but if you willingly conceal him, be well assured that you will sustain the same punishment with nim.' This homily is concluded by a solemn adjura tion : ' In the words of Moses, I call Heaven and earth to record against you this day, that if any of you now present or absent, attend the Feast of Trumpets, or enter a synagogue, or observe a fast, or a sabbath, or any Jewish rite whatever, I am guiltless of your blood. These discourses will rise up for both of us in the great day of our Lord : if you shall have obeyed them, they wi]l give you confidence ; but if otherwise, they will stand as severe accusers against you.' Therefore he implored them to institute the most rigorous search after the Judaising brethren. ' When their mother the Church had lost a child, it was criminal to conceal either the captor or the cap tured ; let the men seek out the men, the women the women, the slave his fellow-servant, and present the culprit to him before the next assembly.' Another Judaising practice, which he condemns in the severest language, was the custom of keeping Easter on the 14th day of the month, according to Jewish calculation, irrespective of the week day on which it might fall ; thus sometimes feasting when the rest of the Church was fast ing, or fasting when the rest was feasting. The existence of such a practice at this time was a remarkable instance of the increasing influence of the Jews in Antioch and the neighbouring regions. For up to the year a.d. 276, the Antiochene patriarchate had observed Easter in con formity with the Catholic usage ; the adoption of the Jewish calculation was made after that date, when most of the rest of Christendom had dropped it, and was therefore the subject of special condemnation at the Cn. IX.] QUARTO-DECIMANS. 137 Council of Nice.1 Such a discrepancy in practice was regarded as a most serious rent in the unity of the Church. Chrysostom denounces it especially as a contumacious disregard of the Council of Nice, which had distinctly ordained by the mouths of 300 bishops, that Easter should be kept at one and the same time throughout Christen dom. He implores the Judaisers to desist from the idle enquiry into the exact dates of seasons ; to follow the Church, and to place harmony and charitable peace before all things. It was impossible, in fact, to hit the actual day on which Christ rose ; therefore let them observe that day which the Church through her bishops had prescribed. It was a less offence to fast on the wrong day than to rend the unity of the Church. ' How long halt ye between two opinions ; ' if Judaism be true, embrace it altogether, and ' cease to annoy the Church ; if Christianity be true, abide in it, and follow it.' 2 The Jews themselves could not, in Chrysostom's opi nion, legally perform sacrifices, or observe festivals of any kind. Jerusalem was the only place in which such ob servances were commanded ; and Jerusalem being de stroyed, they became void.3 They had been suspended during the Captivity, to be resumed when the people returned to the holy soil. If the Jews of the present day also expected restoration, let them likewise suspend their rites ; but, in fact, this never would occur. The Temple never would be rebuilt, and restoration was a vain hope. Jerusalem was to be trodden down of Gentiles till the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled ; and by the fulfilment of those times Chrysostom understood the end of the 1 Newman's • Arians,' ch. i. p. 16. quired the reason, said, because it was Hefele, pp. 305, 306. unlawful except on the site of the S Iu Jud' >»• 6> "• 4. Temple ; and this was one chief reason ' According to Theod. iii. 20. The why Julian commanded the Temple to Jews had ceased to offer sacrifices by be restored. the reign of Julian, and when he en- 138 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. LX. world.1 All four Captivities of the Jews — their subjection to the Egyptians, Babylonians, Antiochus, and Eomans — had been distinctly foretold. To each of the first three prophecy had assigned a limit ; but to the last none — it reached into all time ; there was no sign or intimation of any probable cessation.2 The revolt of the Jews under Hadrian, and under Constantine,3 had ignoniiniously failed ; the attempt of Julian to rebuild the Temple had been frustrated by portents : fire issuing from the founda tions had consumed some of the workmen, and scared the spectators ; the naked substructions left just as they were when the work was abandoned, presented a visible monu ment of the divinely arrested work.4 The eager exhortation reiterated in his last homily, that the faithful would seek out their brethren who had been caught in the Jewish snare, is a powerful rush of indig nant eloquence, and a wholesome admonition on the re sponsibility of all for the spiritual welfare of their fellow men. ' Say not within thyself, I am a man of the world ; I have a wife and children ; these matters belong to the priests and the monks. The Samaritan in the parable did not say, Where are the priests ? where are the Pharisees ? where are the Jewish authorities ? but seized the opportu nity of doing a good deed, as if it was a great advantage. In like manner, when you see anyone requiring bodily or spiritual care, say not within thyself, Why did not this or that man attend to him ? — but deliver him from his in firmity. If you find a piece of gold in your path, you do not say, Why did not some other person pick it up ? but you eagerly anticipate others by seizing it yourself. Even so, in the case of your fallen brethren, consider that you have found a treasure in the attention necessary for their 1 V. 1. that there is no record of this rebel - * V. c. 4-7. lion in history. 1 Who punished the captives by * For a full relation of this singular cutting off their ears. It is singular event, see Milman's ' Jews,' book xx, Cn. IX.] MISCHIEVOUS INFLUENCE OF JEWS. 139 wants.' He besought them not to proclaim the calamity of the Church by idly gossiping about the numbers of those who had observed some Jewish custom, but to search them out ; and, if necessary, to enter their houses, tax them with their guilt, and solemnly warn them against the iniquity of consorting with the enemies of Jesus Christ. ' Listen not to any excuses which they may plead on the ground of cures effected by the Jews ; expose their impostures, their incantations, their amulets, their charms, their drugs.' ' Even if they really effected cures, it would be better to die and save the soul, than resort to the enemies of Christ to heal the body. Let them rather appeal to the assistance of the martyrs and saints who were His friends, and had great confidence in addressing Him.' 'Why did the Son of Man Himself enter the world ? Was it not to seek and to save wandering sheep ? This do thou, according to thy ability. I will not cease to speak, whether you hear or whether you forbear. If you heed not, I shall do it, but with grief; if you listen and obey, I shall do it, but with joy.' ' It is difficult for us, in our altered position towards Jews and heretics of all kinds to sympathise with the vehe mence of Chrysostom's feelings and language. Yet there can be no doubt that such dabbling, if the word may be used, in the customs, the observances, the ritual of an obsolete dispensation, and a debased people, did seriously imperil purity of faith and morals, and unity of discipline, in the Christian Church. It was beheld by the staunch Catholic with somewhat of the same dismay and horror with which the moderate Anglican witnesses any recur rence to mediaeval and pre-reformation ceremonial and dogma. Towards dissentient Christians, not infected by Judaism, Chrysostom adopts a milder tone, and indeed restrains 1 Horn. viii. 4, and in fine. 140 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. IX. the immoderation of party feeling in others with whole some censure. He laments 1 the distracted state of the Church in Antioch, which was now divided into the three sections of Meletians, Eustathians, and Arians ; but he denounces the practice of anathematising. It was un charitable and presumptuous. St. Paul anathematised once only; the casting off of a heretic ought to be as painful as plucking out an eye or cutting off a limb. A holy man before their times, one of the successors of the Apostles, and judged worthy of the honour of martyrdom, used to say, that to assume the right to anathematise was as great a usurpation of Christ's authority as for a subject to put on the Imperial purple. In dealing with erring brethren, the Christian should ' in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.' ' If a man accepts your counsel and confesses his error, you have saved him, and dehvered your own soul also ; but if he will not, do you nevertheless continue to testify with longsuffering and kindness, that the Judge may not re quire his soul at thy hand. Hate him not ; turn not from him ; persecute him not, but catch him in the net of sin cere and genuine charity. The person whom you anathe matise is either living or dead ; if living, you do wrong to cut off one who may still be converted ; if dead, much more you do wrong ; " to his own Master he standeth or falleth ; " and " who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor ? " You may anathema tise heretical dogmas, but towards the persons who hold them show the greatest possible forbearance, and pray for their salvation.' In the winter of 386, Chrysostom preached a sermon on Christmas Day, which, though not distinguished by 1 Horn, de Anathemate, delivered soon after the discourses against the Anomajans. See Monitum. vol. i. 914. Cu, IX.] SERMON ON CHRISTMAS DAY 141 any unusual merit, possesses an interest of its own. We learn from it, that this festival was not originally cele brated in the Eastern Church ; it had been adopted from the West, and, in Antioch at least, less than ten years before the year of Chrysostom's discourse. It had gra dually increased in popularity, and this year Chrysostom rejoiced to observe that the church was crowded to over flowing. Eome had fixed the observance of the 25th of December, and this was the day kept throughout Chris tendom from Thrace to Gades ; but the propriety of the date was much debated in the Eastern Churches, and the observance of the festival at all was considered by some as a questionable innovation. Chrysostom energetically vindicates the dignity of the festival and the correctness of the date.1 It was the metropolis, so to say, of all other festivals, and as such it was the most solemn and awful. For the incarnation of Christ was the necessary condition of all the succeeding events of his career on earth, and in the profundity of its mystery it exceeded them all. That Christ should die was a natural consequence of human nature once assumed ; but that He, being God, should have stooped so low as to assume that nature, was a mystery unfathomable to the mind of man ! ' Wherefore I speciaUy welcome and belove this day, and desire to make you partakers in my affection. I pray and implore you all to come with zeal and alacrity, every man first purging his own house, to behold our Lord wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger ; for if we come with faith we shall, indeed, behold Him lying in the manger ; for this Table supplies the place of the manger, and here also the Jjody_of the Lord will lie, not wrapped in swaddling clothes, but invested on all sides by the Hob/Spirit. The initiated (or the baptized) understand 1 The former chiefly in the Hom. the Hom. in Nat. Diem Christi, vol. ii. de Philog. vol. i. 752 ; the latter in p. 552. 142 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. LX. what I mean.' : But he warns his hearers against crowd ing in a tumultuous and disorderly manner to partake of the holy feast. ' Approach with fear and trembling, with fasting and prayer, not making an uproar, hustling and jostling one another: consider, O man, what kind of sacrifice thou art about to handle ; consider that thou, who art dust and ashes, dost receive the body and blood of Christ.'2 This irreverent conduct at the reception of the Eucharist frequently provoked the indignation and censure of Chrysostom. It occurred especially at the greater festivals, because on those days multitudes re ceived the Eucharist who did not enter the church at other times. (I ' How,' he cries in the homily on the Epi phany, ' shall we teach you what is necessary concerning your soul, immortality, the kmgdom of heaven, the long- suffering and mercy of God, and a future judgment, when you come to us only once or twice in the year?' Many of those who pushed and kicked one another in the eagerness of each to get foremost to the holy Table, withdrew from the church before the final thanksgiving. / ' What,' Chrysostom cries, ' when Christ is present, and the angels are standing by, and this awe-inspiring Table is spread before you, and your brethren are still partaking of the mysteries, will you hurry away ? ' Too often they who thronged the church on these great occasions led worldly and even vicious lives ; they hurried away before the sacred feast was ended, like Judas to do the devil's work.3 Such is one among many examples which may be elicited from Chrysostom's works of that pagan grossness and superstition which was mingled with the faith and the most solemn observances of Christianity. The vitality of superstitious customs, the subtlety with which they have grafted themselves upon and become mixed up with Chris- 1 De Beato Philog. vol. i. p. 753. 2 In Nat. Christi, vol. ii. p. 360. 8 DeBapt. Christi, c. 4. Ch. LX.] PAGANISM AT ANTIOCH. 143 tianity, or the tenacity with which they have clung to men in spite of it late into modern times, is indeed ex traordinary; but for centuries their existence and in fluence were not appreciably if at all affected by Chris tianity. A half Oriental, half Greek, partly Jewish population, like that of Antioch, whose purer feelings and nobler reason were seriously impaired by habits of licen tiousness and luxury, was naturally liable to superstitious terrors, and addicted to superstitious practices of all kinds. Chrysostom is frequently reproving his people for being anxious and afraid where there was no cause, while they abandoned themselves to vice, the only worthy cause for fear, without scruple or alarm. If Christmas Day was observed as a Christian festival, though without becoming reverence, New Year's day was given up to riotous festi vity, thoroughly Pagan in character. The houses were festooned with flowers, the inns were scenes of the most disgraceful intemperance ; men and women drinking un diluted wine there from an early hour in the morning ; auguries and omens were consulted by which the horo scope of the year was cast. Good luck in the coming year was supposed to depend (how is not clearly stated) on the manner in which the first day was spent. This is the theme of the preacher's righteous indignation : ' The real happiness of the year was determined not by the observation of particular feasts, but by the amount of goodness which we put into it. Sin was the only real evil, virtue the only real good ; therefore, if a man practised justice, almsgiving, and prayer, his year could not fail to be propitious ; for he who had a clean conscience, carried about with him a perpetual holy day, and without this, the most brilliant and joyous festival was obscured by darkness.' ' When thou seest the year completed, thank God that He has brought thee safely to the conclusion of the cycle : prick thine heart, reckon up the time of thy 144 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. IX. life, and say to thyself, The days are hurrying along, the years are being fulfilled, I have advanced far on the road, the judgment is at the doors, my life is pressing on towards old age : well ! what good have I done ? shall I depart hence destitute and empty of all righteousness ? ' * There is a fuller notice in some of his homilies on the Epistle to the Ephesians of the many gross and senseless forms of superstition which prevailed even among the communicants in the Christian Church. He laments the decay of discipline by which a more rigorous scrutiny was once instituted into the characters of those who came to the holy feast. ' If you were to examine the lives of all those who partake of the mysteries on Easter Day, you would find amongst them persons who consulted auguries, who used drugs, and omens, and incantations ; even the adulterer, curser, and drunkard, dared to par take. Iniquitous men had crept into the Church, the highest places of command were bought and sold, till the pure livers had betaken themselves to the mountain tops to escape from the contamination.' 2 Some of the vulgar superstitions of the day were ludicrously puerile. ' This or that man was the first to meet me as I walked out ; consequently innumerable ills will certainly befall me : that confounded servant of mine, in giving me my shoes, handed me the left shoe first ; this indicates dire cala mities and insults : as I stepped out, I started with the left foot foremost ; this too is a sign of misfortune : my right eye twitched upwards as I went out ; this portends tears.'3 To strike the woof with the comb in a particular way, the braying of a donkey, the crowing of a cock, a sudden sneeze, — all these were indications of something or other. ' They suspect everything, and are more in bondage than if they were slaves many times over. But 1 In Kalend. c. 2. 3 Perhaps thatconvulsive twitching 8 In Ephes. hom. vi. c. 4. which wc call ' quick-blood.' Ch. LX.] PAGAN SUPERSTITIONS. 145 let not us, brethren, fear such things, but laughing them to scorn as men who live in the light, and whose citizen ship is in Heaven, and who have nothing in common with this earth, let us regard one thing only as terrible, namely, to sin and offend God.' l 1 In Ephes. hom. xii. c. 3. In hom. it that name which was attached to viii. and xii. on 1 Cor. he rebukes the the candle that burned longest out of heathenish ceremonies performed at a row of candles. the birth of a child. One was, to give 146 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. X. CHAPTEE X. SURVEY OP THE FIRST DECADE OP THE REIGN OP THEODOSIUS — HIS CHARACTER — HIS EFFORTS FOE THE EXTIRPATION OF PAGANISM AND HERESY — THE APOLOGIES OF SYMMACHUS AND LIBANIUS. A.D. 379-389. Before Chrysostom had laboured two full years in ' con firming the souls of the disciples ' at Antioch, that city became the scene of events memorable in history ; and events in which the great preacher played an honourable and distinguished part. The foremost man of the age, not only by position but also to a great extent in character, was Theodosius the Emperor ; Theodosius the Great, deservedly so called in spite of one prevailing defect in character, and a few glar ing misdeeds which tarnish his reputation. The military exploits of his father, Theodosius the elder, had provoked the jealousy of the court ! and cost him his life, and the son, who had manifested ability almost equal, in serving under him both by land and sea against Scots and Saxons, Moors and Goths, was glad to escape a similar ungrateful return for his services, by retiring to the obscurity of his native village in Spain. He was disgraced when the Empire had been liberated from danger by the exertions of his father and himself; but in the hour of its utmost jeopardy, and direst distress, he was recalled to more than his former position. The total defeat and death of Valens, and the almost extermination of his army before Hadrianople in a.d. 378, placed the Empire at the mercy of victorious barbarians within, and on the edge of the 1 He was executed at Carthage in a.d. 376. Ch. X.] THEODOSIUS MADE EMPEROR. 147 horizon more storm clouds of Gothic or Hunnish inva sion were lowering. There was but one person to whom the mind of Gratian, the young Emperor of the West, and his advisers, overwhelmed by the prospect of impend ing calamity, instinctively turned as capable of saving the state in this crisis. For three years, Theodosius had been occupied with the cultivation of his farm between Valladolid and Segovia, when he was summoned to accept the title of Augustus, together with all the responsibilities and perils which attended the possessor, at such a time, of that venerable name. He was equal to the situation ; handsome with a manly beauty, courageous and deter mined of purpose, just and politic in intention if not always in act, he was endowed with some of the noblest qualities of a soldier and a statesman, by which to rescue and reorganise a panic-stricken and crumbling state. This is not the place to narrate the military achievements of Theodosius. The original materials for information respecting them are scanty ; but they have been collected and arranged by that historian whose indefatigable in dustry brings order out of confusion, and whose luminous style lights up with interest even the darkest and most meagre annals.1 It is sufficient to remind the reader of Gibbon, that Theodosius subdued the Goths, not in any one or two great battles, but by frequent and skilfully contrived engagements on a smaller scale. He thus gradually revived the drooping courage and discipline of the imperial troops, and wore out the enemy. The several tribes, on their submission, were settled in the waste tracts of country, which they were to occupy free of taxation, on the wise condition that they kept the land in a state of cultivation. So a numerous colony of Visigoths was established in Thrace, of Ostrogoths in Phrygia and Lydia. The ability of Theodosius is demonstrated more by the 1 See Gibbon, ch. xxvi. xxvii. n 2 148 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. X. results of his energy than by anything that we know of the manner in which he accomplished them. He not only vanquished the Goths, but arrested the progress of the usurper Maximus in the West, who was leading his vic torious legions to Italy, flushed with success after the igno minious flight and assassination of Gratian. Theodosius was not in a position, surrounded as he was by half- vanquished barbarians, to dispute the passage of the con queror ; but by assuming a firm tone in negotiations, he secured for Valentinian, Gratian's brother and suc cessor, the sovereignty of Italy, Africa, and Western Illyricum, surrendering for the present to the usurper the regions north of the Alps. Theodosius was a Christian; as a Spaniard he was a Trinitarian, and as a soldier he was anxious to establish one uniform type of religious faith and ecclesiastical dis cipline throughout the Empire. But such a task proved more impracticable than the reduction of military foes. Neither Paganism nor Arianism could be extinguished in a few years by suppressive edicts. Theodosius himself had been baptized in the first year of his reign, a.d. 380, when his life was threatened by a severe illness, and he had then annnounced his will and pleasure that his own solemn declaration of faith should be accepted as that of his subjects also. That faith which was ' professed by the Pontiff Damasus and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria,' was to be the faith of the Empire. ' Let us believe the sole deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, under an equal majesty and a pious Trinity. We authorise the followers of this doctrine to assume the title of Catholic Christians, and as we judge that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of heretics.'1 Their places of assembly were not to enjoy the title of churches, and they themselves were to expect severe civil 1 Cod. Theod. xvi. 1, 2. Ch. X.] HIS LAWS AGAINST HERETICS. 149 penalties as well as the Divine condemnation. Damophilus, the Arian Bishop of Constantinople, preferred exile to signing the creed of Nice ; and Gregory of Nazianzum was conducted by the Emperor in person through the streets of Constantinople (though hot without a strong guard) to occupy the episcopal throne. A project for another general council (after the Council of Constan tinople, a.d. 381,) was entertained but abandoned, for the factious demeanour of the several prelates and their par tisans on their arrival did not augur a very successful settlement of differences by that method. The Emperor fell back, for the accomplishment of his object, on his own authority. On July 25, a.d. 383, an edict was posted in Constantinople, prohibiting all the heretics therein named, Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, and Mani chseans, from holding any kind of assembly, public or private, either in the cities or in the country. Any ground J or building used for such illegal purpose was to be confis cated to the state; and the penalty of banishment was pronounced against those who allowed themselves to be ordained priests or bishops of the heretical sects. His torians concur in the opinion that few of these penalties were actually enforced. The heretical sects were not animated by a spirit of martyrdom ; the intimidation was generally sufficient.1 The hypocrite or the indifferent conformed, the more conscientious retired into obscurity. There seem to have been few if any Arian prelates of great and commanding ability. All the leading ecclesiastics of the day — Chrysostom, Jerome, Basil, the two Gregories, and Ambrose — were by conviction on the side of the Em peror, and added all the weight of their influence to his decrees. When measures had been taken for the suppression of 1 Sozom. vii. c. 12 ; Gibbon, ch. xxvii. ; De Broglie, ' L'Eglise et L'Empire,' vi. p. 93. 150 LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. X. heresy, it was the Pagan's turn to suffer. The spectacle of temples standing open for worship side by side with Christian churches, was a painful incongruity in the eyes of Theodosius, with his soldier-like ideas of uniformity and discipline. The first blow was directed against those dis loyal sons of the Church who had seceded to Paganism. They were deprived of the power to make wills or to receive bequests.1 The second step was absolutely to prohibit all sacrifices in those temples which were still open. Nearly twenty years before, the sacrifice of animals had been forbidden by Valentinian and Valens, owing to their connection with arts of divination, which were used for political purposes. As long as such sacrifices were permitted, the priests could not refrain from consulting the entrails of the victims, and pretending to read therein future events : the death of this Emperor, the elevation of that, the success or failure of expeditions, and the like, were intimated to the people, always eager to know what is beyond the limits of human knowledge. Such divinations encouraged a restless spirit in the subjects, and often dis affected them towards the ruling power. That these laws of Valentinian were renewed by Theodosius in 381, and again in a.d. 385, proves that they had been imperfectly obeyed.2 They were followed up by a yet more decisive step in a.d. 392. Cynegius, the Praetorian Prefect of the East, the Counts Jovinus and Gaudentius in the West, were com missioned to shut up the temples, to destroy their contents, images, and vessels, and to confiscate their property. In many instances the executors of the edict, aided by the fanatical fury of monks, seem to have exceeded their instructions. The great temple of Jupiter, at Apamea, in 1 Cod. Theod. xvi. v. 7, 1. 1, 2. Eugenius, the usurper, after the death z Cod. Theod. xvi. v. 10, 1. 7, 9. of Valentinian II., was persuaded by Sozomen informs us (vii. 22) that divinations to take up arms. Ch. X.] AND AGAINST PAGANS. 151 Syria, of which the roof was supported on sixty massive columns, fell, but not unavenged; for the Bishop Mar cellus, who headed the assailants, fell a victim to the rage of the exasperated rustics who defended it.1 The safety of the universe was represented by Pagans to depend on the preservation of the colossal gold and silver image of Serapis, at Alexandria. Even Christians beheld with some trepidation an audacious soldier deal a blow with a battle-axe on the cheek of this awful deity ; but as the only result of the gash was the issue of a swarm of rats who had harboured in the sacred head, instead of the avenging thunders which had been expected, a revulsion of feeling was experienced. The huge idol was hewn to pieces, the limbs were dragged through the streets, and the remains of the carcase burned in the amphitheatre, amidst the derision of the populace. These were shattering blows to Paganism. But the religion of sentiment and custom long survives the ex tinction of more solid if not reasonable convictions. Chrysostom's homily on New Year's day is only one among many illustrations of the way in which Pagan rites and superstitions lingered, especially in connection with public festivals. All the Pagan concomitants of these festivals in the country districts — hymns, libations, gar lands, incense, lights — were strictly prohibited, under heavy penalties, by Theodosius in a.d. 392, but, in the West especially, the extirpation was very incomplete. The Bishops of Verona and of Brescia protested, but in vain, against the proprietors of land indulging their tenantry in these practices. Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia, were strongholds of Paganism as late as a.d. 600. Sacrifices were offered to Apollo on Monte Casino till the estab lishment of St. Benedict's monastery in a.d. 529. The riotous populace of towns, and the simple country 1 Sozomen vii. 15. Theod. v. 21. 152 LLFE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. X. folk attached to old customs, thus evinced some spirit in their resistance to repressive enactments. But the hold which Paganism retained upon intellectual people was feeble indeed. Two apologists only, with any pretensions to ability, stepped forward to plead for the sinking cause : Symmachus l in the West, and Libanius in the East ; and their intercessions are addressed to sentiments of affection for antiquity, and compassion for oppressed weakness, rather than to the reason. Symmachus, as is well known, pleaded twice for the retention of the altar and statue of Victory in the senate house at Eome. Eloquent and touching, his appeal is directed to patriotic feeling and a sense of political expediency, not to religious conviction. He does not profess to believe in the Pagan deities, but regards with a philosophic eye the various kinds of faith in the world as so many forms of homage to the great unknown Being who presides over the universe. ' It is right to recognise that what all adore can be at bottom but one Being only. We contemplate the same stars ; the same sky covers us ; the same universe incloses us. What matters it by what reasonings each seeks the truth ? a single path cannot conduct us to the grand secret of nature. As an individual, a man may be a worshipper of Mithras, or of Christ, but as a citizen it is his duty to conform to that worship which is bound up with the his tory and glory of his country ; to part from it is heartless and disloyal.' 2 The memorial of Symmachus got into the hands of Ambrose, and was rather rudely treated by him. He subjects it to a stern test of facts. ' Had the national gods indeed protected the Eomans from disaster ? It was maintained that by their aid the conquest of Italy by 1 The most distinguished scholar tor, praetor, and proconsul of Africa. and orator, and one of the most up- 2 Fragments of his speeches pre- right statesmen of his time — (pises- served in Mai's collection, vol. i. Ch. X.] SYMMACHUS AND AMBROSE. 153 Hannibal had been averted. Why then did they permit the invader to inflict such ravages as he had done ? Would not the Gauls also have captured the Capitol, but for the timely cry of the goose? Where was Jupiter then? but perhaps he was speaking through the goose. The Carthaginians worshipped some of the same deities as the Eomans. If then the gods conquered with the Eomans they yielded with the Carthaginians. Paganism declined, notwithstanding support ; the Church flourished, in spite of opposition. As to the abandonment of ancient customs, was not progress the law of improvement ? The glimmering dawn gradually brightened into the full and perfect day ; the riches of harvest and vintage came in the maturity of the year ; even so the faith of Christ had gradually planted itself on the ruins of a worn-out creed, and was now reaping an abundant harvest among all nations of the earth.' ¦ The whole reply of Ambrose is pitched in the positive, confident, authoritative tone of one who speaks from a conviction that he stands on the platform of absolute truth, and that his cause is therefore inevitably destined to win. If the appeal of Symmachus was addressed to the sen timent of reverence for national antiquity, that of Libanius was directed to a sentiment of attachment to classical an tiquity. The citizen mourns over the suppression of a worship which was bound up with the history and the glory of his country ; the scholar sighs over the degrada tion of that which was connected with what was most beautiful in the literature and life of the olden time with the poetry of Homer and the tragedians—with the festive song and dance— with the hills, and fountains, and groves of Greece. He clings to the past with the love of the antiquarian. Though his actual belief in the myths of the classical era may not have been very deep or earnest, 1 Ambrose Op. vol. ii. Ep. 18. 154 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. X. there is no doubt that he entertained a genuine animosity towards the new faith which was usurping their place. A flowery description of the origin and antiquity of the honour paid to the gods, is followed by a vehement invec tive against the monks, ' those black-robed creatures, more voracious than elephants, who rush upon the temples, armed with stones, wood, and fire ; who break up the roofs, destroy the walls, throw down the statues, raze the altars.' ' They glaringly exceeded the edicts of the Emperor, which had forbidden the offering of sacrifice in the temples, not the actual destruction of the buildings.' ] Tliere is real feeling also in his description of the distress caused in country districts by the demolition of the temples. ' They were the centres round which human habitations and civili sation grew; in them the labourer placed all his hopes; to them he commended his wife, his children, his planta tion, his crops. Deprived of the gods, from whom he ex pected the rewards of toil, he felt as if henceforth his labours would be vain. Sometimes the very land was wrested from them on the pretext that it had been conse crated to gods ; if the poor despoiled owners sought redress from the pastor (i.e. the bishop) of the neighbouring town (falsely called pastor, since there was no gentleness in his nature), he praised the robber and dismissed the com- plainers.' No doubt to a great extent this was a true picture, and such harshness and injustice must have retarded (as is ever the case when the attempt is made to coerce opinion) the cause of Christianity, which the law was intended to promote. Theodosius, however, was in principle far too upright to treat the Church with a blind partiality. Cynegius, the Prefect, was ordered to enforce the law at Alexandria with full rigour against those despicable beings who sought to 1 Liban. pro templis non exscind. before the Emperor, and probably not The oration was certainly not spoken even sent to him. Ch. X.] THE EMPRESS FLACILLA. 155 make traffic by informing against Pagans. Constantine had exempted the clergy from serving in curial offices ; Theodosius compelled them to pay for substitutes, and renounce their claims to patrimony. They were to enjoy immunity from torture when brought to trial, but if de tected in falsehood were to be visited with penalties of peculiar severity, because they had abused the shelter of the law which favoured them.1 Such was Theodosius — a prudent and skilful general, a firm and upright ruler ; a sincere and simple-minded believer in Christianity, who did his best, as head at once of the army, the civil government, and the Church, to consolidate the fabric of the Empire. The barbarians were repelled, or held down, taxes were collected with honest exactitude ; some of the most burdensome were taken off; Paganism and heresy languished, however far from being extinguished, and the Emperor fondly hoped that uniformity in faith and discipline would soon be established throughout Christendom. The good genius of his life was the Empress Flacilla ; she was a Christian of a pure and noble type ; imperial state had not corrupted the simplicity or hardened the kindliness of her disposition. She was accustomed to visit the hospitals in Constantinople not attended by a single slave or waiting-woman; administered food and medicine to the patients, and dressed their wounds with her own hands. She was wont to remind her husband of the great change in their worldly position, as a motive to humility and gratitude to God. ' It behoves thee to con sider what thou wert and what thou hast become ; by constantly reflecting on this thou wilt not be ungrateful to thy benefactor, but wilt guide the kingdom which thou hast received with a due regard to law, and by so doing wilt pay homage to Him who gave it thee.' 1 Cod. Theod. xii. 104-115. 156 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. X. She, we may well believe, restrained the impulses of that choleric temper which was the principal defect in the Emperor's character, and which occasionally after her death burst forth into acts of deplorable violence. This wise and pious monitress was taken from him in a.d. 385. She died at a watering-place in Thrace, whither she had gone to recover her health after the shock caused by the death of the infant Princess Pulcheria. Her body was brought back to Constantinople on a melancholy day in autumn, when the skies poured down a gentle rain, as if mingling their tears with those of the disconsolate people.1 This condensed survey of the character and work of Theodosius, during the first ten years of his reign, will assist us in forming a proper estimate of his conduct in that memorable occurrence which brings his life into connection with the life of Chrysostom. 1 Theodor. v. 19. A funeral oration by Gregory Nyssen. Greg. Nyss. Op. on her and the infant was pronounced vol. iii. pp. 515, 527, 533. 157 CHAPTEE XL THE SEDITION AT ANTIOCH — THE HOMILIES ON THE STATUES — THE RESULTS OF THE SEDITION. A.D. 387. The wise counsel and softening influence of the Empress were removed from her husband at an inopportune season. Political storms were approaching, and the passionate temper of Theodosius was soon to be subjected to a most severe trial. The year 388 would have completed the first decade of his reign. The year 387 was the fifth of the reign of his son Arcadius, whom he had nominally associated with himself in the government. The celebration of these two events Theodosius, from motives of prudent economy and convenience, resolved to combine. The army on such occa sions claimed a liberal donative, five gold pieces to each man. It was obviously desirable, therefore, to avoid, if possible, the repetition of such a donative within a short space of time. It was always a strain on the royal treasury, and at the present juncture, the strain was increased, for the Goths were assuming a menacing atti tude on the Danubian frontier. It was necessary to mass troops in that direction, and with a view to provide for these expenses, it was proposed to raise a special subsidy from the opulent cities of the Eastern empire. But the inhabitants of Alexandria and Antioch were loth to part with any of the wealth which they had accumulated during nearly ten years of peace, and exemption from onerous taxation. Large meetings were held by the citizens of Alexandria in the theatres and other public places ; inflam- 158 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. XI. matory and seditious speeches were made. ' If we are to be treated thus,' they cried, ' a simple remedy is open, we will appeal to Maximus in the West ; he knows how to shake off a troublesome tyrant.' Fortunately the Prefect Cynegius was a man of firmness and promptitude ; he made some arrests of o the most conspicuous leaders of the mutinous faction, and enforced an immediate payment of the tribute, and by these decisive measures public order was restored. Either the people of Antioch were more deeply disaffected, or no such energetic officer was in that city to suppress the spirit of rebellion in the bud. It is said that the inhabitants entertained a grudge against the Emperor, because he had never visited their city, which had been frequently graced by the royal presence in previous reigns.1 The edict which enjoined the levying of the tribute was proclaimed by a herald on February 26. Large numbers of the people assembled on the spot, collected chiefly into groups, amongst which were some persons of distinction, senators and other civic functionaries, noble ladies, and retired soldiers. An ominous silence succeeded the an nouncement of the edict. The crowd then dispersed, but reassembled about the prsetorium, where the governor resided.2 There they stood in gloomy silence, save that the women, from time to time, raised a wailing lamenta tion, crying that the ruin of the city was determined, and that since the Emperor had abandoned them, God alone from henceforth could come to their succour. At last a little band detached itself from the mass, shouting that they must go and seek the Bishop Flavian, and constrain him to intercede with the Emperor on their behalf. Flavian, by accident or design, was absent from the epis- 1 Libanius Or. 12, pp. 391-395. of the East, who from that time re- 8 Probably the prsetorium built in sided in Antioch. V. Miiller ' Antiq. the reign of Constantine for the Count Antioch,' ii. 1 6. Ch. XL] DESTRUCTION OF ROYAL STATUES. 159 copal residence, and the mob returned to the prsetorium, crying that the governor must do them justice. The people appear to have been excited to violence chiefly by those turbulent foreign adventurers who abounded in Antioch, sordid venal creatures, often hired by actors to get up applause in the theatres, or by great men not over popular to raise cheers when they appeared in public places. But however stimulated, the passions of the mob were thoroughly roused, and their fury vented itself in a tumultuous rush into one of the great public baths, where they soon tore everything to pieces. Having completed this work of destruction, they hurried back once more to the hall of the unfortunate governor. Here they were kept at bay by a guard for a sufficient time to enable the governor to escape by a back door, and when they at last succeeded in bursting in, the vacancy of the place aggra vated their rage. The governor was not seated in the judicial chair, but they found themselves face to face with the statues of the imperial family, which as emblems of authority were ranged above it. They paused for a few moments ; highly excited as they were, imperial majesty, even so represented, had some deterrent influence over their passions. But, unfortunately, there were boys in the crowd ; the love of stone-throwing without respect of persons was as ardent in boy nature fifteen hundred years ago as it is now. A stone was cast by one of these juvenile hands, which hit one of the sacred statues. The momentary feelings of reverence which had arrested the people were dissipated. The images were mutilated, almost battered to pieces, and the fragments dragged through the streets. Other images of the imperial family with which the city was adorned were treated in the same manner; the equestrian statue of Count Theodosius, father of the Emperor, was dislodged from its pedestal and hacked 160 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. XI. about, amidst derisive shouts of ' Defend thyself, grand cavalier ! ' ' The unrestrained fury of the people was inflamed by success ; they began to bring up torches and actually set fire to one of the principal buildings of the city, when the governor, who had escaped their hands, returned at the head of a company of archers. As usual with disorderly mobs, however furious, they were unable to face the dis cipline of military force ; the soldiers were no sooner drawn up and preparing to fix their weapons than rage turned to panic, and the mob, lately so formidable, melted away. The whole tumult had not lasted more than three hours ; before noon, every one had returned to his home, the streets and squares were empty, and a death-like stillness pervaded the city. Eemorse was mingled with great terror respecting the consequences of the outrage which had been perpetrated. The Emperor, indeed, was humane and forgiving of wrongs which concerned himself alone, but how would he brook the insults done to the memory of his father and his tenderly beloved Empress ? One hope remained : Flavian, the bishop, was a favourite at court, his intercessions might avail; the people be sought him with tears to stand their friend in this dis tress. From Antioch to Constantinople was a long and perilous journey of 800 miles, and the winter was not yet ended. Flavian was old, his only sister was seriously ill, and the approaching season of Lent required his presence at Antiocb, but a sense of the emergency prevailed over all these obstacles. Animated by the spirit of the Good Shepherd who was ready to lay down his life for his flock, the intrepid old man set out upon his errand of mercy, with all possible speed, in the hope of overtaking the messengers who had started before him, but had ' Liban. Or. 12,p. 395 and 21, p. 527. Theod. vii. 20. Sozom. vii. 23. Zos.iv.41. Cn. XL] HOMILIES ON THE STATUES. 1G1 been detained at the foot of Mount Taurus by a fall of snow.1 During the absence of Flavian all the powers of Chry sostom as an orator, pastor, and a citizen, were called forth in attempting to calm the fears and revive the deeply-dejected spirits of the people. Perseveringly did he discharge this anxious and laborious task ; almost every day for twenty-two days, that small figure was to be seen either sitting in the Ambo, from which he some times preached, on account of his diminutive stature, or standing on the steps of the altar, the preacher's usual place ; s and day after day, the crowds increased which came to listen to the stream of golden eloquence which he poured forth. With all the versatility of a consum mate artist, he moves from point to point. Sometimes a picture of the city's agony melts his hearers to tears, and then again he strikes the note of encouragement and revives their spirits by bidding them take comfort from the well-known clemency of the Emperor, the probable success of the mission of Flavian, and above all, from trust in God. ' The gay and noisy city, where once the busy people hummed like bees around their hive, was petrified by fear into the most dismal silence and desolation ; the wealthier inhabitants had fled into the country, those who remained shut themselves up in their houses, as if the town had been in a state of siege. If anyone ventured into the market-place, where once the multitude poured along like the stream of a mighty river, the pitiable sight of two or three cowering, dejected creatures in the midst of solitude soon drove him home again. The sun itself seemed to j Chrys. Hom. de Stat. III. i. own orations or in any other his- xxi. i. Zosimus (iv. 41), sends Li- torian. banius also to Constantinople, but » Socrat. vi. 5. The most common this is a palpable error. There is no practice -was for the preacher to sit, trace of his having gone, either in his the people to stand. M 162 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. XI. veil its rays as if in mourning. The words of the prophet were fulfilled, " Their sun shall go down at noon, and their earth shall be darkened in a clear day" (Amos viii. 9). Now they might cry, " Send to the mourning women, and let them come, and send for cunning women that they may come" (Jer. ix. 17). Ye hills and mountains take up a wailing, let us invite all creation to commiserate our woes, for this great city, this capital of Eastern cities, is in danger of being destroyed out of the midst of the earth, and there is no man to help her, for the Emperor, who has no equal among men, has been insulted ; there fore let us take refuge with the King who is above, and summon Him to our aid.' • The chief reason of the people's extreme dejection was, that the governor and magistrates, probably to disarm any suspicion at court of their own complicity in the sedition, were daily seizing real or supposed culprits, and punishing them with the utmost rigour. Even those who might have been pardoned on account of their tender age, were mercilessly handed over to the executioner. Chrysostom speaks of some even having been burnt, and others thrown to wild beasts. ' The weeping parents followed their un happy offspring at a distance, powerless to help but fearing to plead, like men on shore beholding with grief ship wrecked sailors struggling in the water, but unable to rescue them.'2 But the object of Chrysostom was, not to rest in ineffec tual lamentations, but partly to rouse the people from their profound dejection, partly to print, if possible, on their hearts, humbled and softened by distress, deep and lasting impressions of good. He told them that there was every thing to be hoped for from the embassy of Flavian. 'The Emperor was pious, the bishop courageous, yet prudent and adroit ; God would not suffer his errand to ' Horn. II. 2. 2 III. c. 6. Cn. XL] MISSION OF FLAVIAN. 163 be fruitless. The very sight of that venerable man would dispose the royal mind to clemency. Flavian would not fail to urge how especially suitable an act of forgiveness was to that holy season, in which was commemorated the Death of Christ for the sins of the whole world. He would remind the Emperor of the parable of the two debtors, and warn him not to incur the risk of being one day addressed by the words, "Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servants ? " He would re present that the outrages had not been committed by the whole community, but chiefly by some lawless strangers. He would plead that the inhabitants, even had they all offended, had already undergone sufficient punishment in the anxiety and alarm which they endured. It would be unreasonable to visit the crime of a few by the extirpation of a whole city, a city which was the most populous capi tal of the East, and dear to Christians as the place where they had first received that sweet and lovely name.'1 Meanwhile he earnestly calls upon the people to improve this season of humiliation by a thorough repentance and reformation in respect of the prevailing vices and follies. The words of St. Paul in writing to the Philippians, ' to write the same things to you, to me, indeed, is not griev ous, and for you, it is safe,' might be aptly applied to Chrysostom. He is never tired of denouncing special sins and exhorting to the renunciation of them in every variety of language. Ostentatious luxury, sordid avarice, religious formalism, a profane custom of taking rash oaths were the fashionable sins against which he waged an in cessant and implacable warfare. His exhortations are generally based on some passage read in the lesson of the day. ' What have we heard to day? « Charge them that are rich in this world, that they 1 III. c. 1, 2. M 2 164 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. XI. be not high-minded." He who says "the rich in this world," proves there by that there are others rich in regard to a future world, like Lazarus in the parable.' 'Wealth of this world was a thankless runaway slave, which, if bound with thousands of fetters, made off, fetters and all. Not that he would quarrel with wealth ; it was good in itself, but became evil when inordinately desired and paraded, just as the evil of intoxication lay not in wine itself, but in the abuse of it. The Apostle did not charge those who were rich to become poor, but only not to be high-minded. Let us adorn our own souls before we embellish our houses. Is it not disgraceful to overlay our walls with marbles and to neglect Christ, Who is going about unclothed? What profit is there, 0 man, in thy house ? Wilt thou carry it away with thee ? Nay, thou must leave thy house; but thy soul thou wilt certainly take with thee. Lo ! how great the danger which has now overtaken us : let our houses, then, be our defenders ; let them rescue us from the impending peril ; — but they will not be able. Be those witnesses to my words who have now deserted their houses, and hurried away to the wilderness as if afraid of nets and snares. Do you wish to build large and splendid houses ? I forbid you not, only build them not upon the earth ; build yourselves tabernacles in heaven— tabernacles which never decay. Nothing is more slippery than wealth, which to-day is with thee and to-morrow is against thee ; which sharpens the eyes of the envious on all sides ; which is a foe in your own camp, an enemy in your own household. Wealth makes the present danger more intolerable ; you see the poor man unencumbered and prepared for what ever may happen, but the rich in a state of great embar rassment, and going about seeking some place in which to bury his gold, or some person with whom to deposit it. Why seek thy fellow-servants, 0 man? Christ stands Ch. XL] HOW TO KEEP LENT. 165 ready to receive and guard thy deposits — yea, not only, to guard, but also to multiply and to return with rich inte rest. No man plucks out of his hand ; men, when they receive a deposit from another, deem that they have con ferred a favour upon him ; but Christ, on the contrary, declares that He receives a favour, and instead of demand ing a reward, bestows one upon you.' " He entreated them to make the present Lent a season of spiritual renovation. ' Lent fell in the spring, when the stream of industry which the winter had frozen began to flow again. The sailor launched his vessel, the soldier furbished his sword, the farmer whetted his scythe, the traveller set out confidently on his long journey, the athlete stripped for the contest.' ' Even so let this fast be to us a spiritual spring-tide ; let us polish our spiritual armour, let us breast the waves of evil passions, set out like travel lers on our journey heavenwards, and prepare like athletes for the combat. For the Christian is both husbandman, and pilot, and soldier, and athlete, and traveller. Hast thou seen the athlete ? hast thou seen the soldier ? if thou art an athlete thou must strip to enter the lists ; if thou art a soldier thou must put on armour before taking thy place in the ranks. How then to the same man can both these things be possible ? ' ' How, dost thou ask ? I will tell thee. Strip thyself of thy worldly business and thou hast become an athlete; clothe thyself with spiritual armour and thou hast become a soldier. Strip thyself, for it is a season of wrestling ; clothe thyself, for we are en gaged in a fierce warfare with devils. Till thy soul, and cut away the thorns; sow the seed of piety, plant the good plants of philosophy, and tend them with much care, and thou hast become a husbandman, and St. Paul will say to thee " the husbandman which laboureth must first be a partaker of the fruits." Whet thy sickle which thou hast 1 II. 5. 166 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. XI. blunted by surfeiting; sharpen it, I say, by fasting. Enter on the road which leads to heaven, the rugged and narrow road, and travel along it. And how shalt thou be able to set out and travel ? By buffeting thy body and bringing it into subjection ; for where the road is narrow, obesity, which comes from surfeiting, is a great impediment. Eepress the waves of foolish passions, repulse the storm of wicked imaginations, preserve the vessel, display all thy skill, and thou hast become a pilot.' ¦ The originator and instructor of all these arts was abstinence ; not the vulgar kind of abstinence, not abstinence from food only, but also from sins. ' If thou fastest, show me the results by thy deeds. What deeds, do you ask ? If you see a poor man have pity on him, if an enemy be reconciled, if a friend in good reputation, regard him without envy. Fast not only by thy mouth, but with thine eyes, thine ears, thy hands, thy feet ; avert thine eyes from unlawful sights, restrain thy hands from deeds of violence, keep thy feet from entering places of pernicious amusement, bridle thy mouth from uttering and stop thine ears from listening to tales of slander.' ' This kind of fast would be acceptable to God, only it should be co-extensive with life. To spend a few days in penance and then to relapse into the former course of life, was only an idle mockery.' * He disparaged that rigorous kind of fasting which some had carried to the extent of taking no food but bread and water. ' Many boasted of the number of weeks they had fasted ; this ex cessive abstinence was likely to be followed by a reaction. Let them seek rather to subdue evil passions and habits ; let one week be devoted to the suppression of swearing, another of anger, a third of slander, and so gradually advancing they might at last attain the consummation of virtue, and propitiate the displeasure of God.'3 ' Let us not do now what we have so often done, for frequently when 1 III. 3. J III. d, 5. ¦" XVI. 6. Ch. XL] AGAINST RASH OATHS. 167 earthquakes, or famine, or drought have overtaken us, we have become temperate for three or four days and then have returned to our former ways of life. But, if never before, now at least let us remain stedfast in the same state of piety, that we may not again require to be chas tised by another scourge.' ¦ Almost all the homilies are concluded by an admonition against the sin of swearing, and the greater portion of some is devoted to this topic. The passionate impetuous people of Antioch seem to have been constantly betrayed into the folly of binding themselves by rash oaths. The master, for instance, would take an oath to deprive his slave of food, or the tutor his scholar, till a certain task was accomplished, a threat which it was of course often impossible to enforce. Hence perjury on the part of the superior and loss of respect on the side of the subordinate. Chrysostom himself had often dined at a house where the mistress swore that she would beat a slave who had made some mistake, while the husband would with another oath forbid the punishment. Thus one of the two would be inevitably involved in perjury.2 He frequently exhorted his hearers to form a kind of Christian club amongst them selves for the suppression of this vice. In one place he suggests a stern remedy : ' When you detect your wife or any of your household yielding to this evil habit, order them supperless to bed, and if you are guilty impose the same penalty on yourself.' 3 Near the close of Lent he declares that he will repel from the holy Table at Easter those whom he detects still addicted to this vice. 4 1 III. 7. * XIV. 1. pretended it was next to impossible '• ?• to conquer an inveterate habit : this 4 XX. 9. A passage in another was a paltry excuse, perseverance homily on this subject is curious, as could conquer any difficulty. To un- proving that just the same juggler's learn a habit of swearing could not feats were performed in Antioch in be more impossible than to acquire the fourth century as at the fairs and the art of throwing up swords, and races of the present day. ' Persons catching them by the handle, or bal- 168 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Cn. XI. On the whole the eager and earnest pastor may be said to have rejoiced at the grand opportunity afforded by the humiliation of the city, to effect a reformation in the moral life of the people. He observed with great satisfaction, that if the forum was deserted the church was thronged, just as in stormy weather the harbour is crowded with vessels. 1 Many an intemperate man had been sobered, the headstrong softened, or the indolent quickened into zeal. Many who once assiduously frequented the theatre now spent their day in the church. Meanwhile they must abide God's pleasure for the removal of their affliction. He had sent it for the purpose of purifying and chastening them; He was waiting till He saw a genuine an un- shakeable repentance, like a refiner watching a piece of precious metal in a crucible, and waiting the proper mo ment for taking it out. 2 As for those who said what they feared was not so much death as ignominious death by the hand of the executioner, he protested that the only ' death really miserable was a death in sin. Abel was mur dered and was happy, Cain lived and was miserable. John the Baptist was beheaded, St. Stephen was stoned, yet their deaths were happy. To the Christian there was nothing formidable in death itself. To dread death but not to be afraid of sin was to act like children who are frightened by masks whilst they were not afraid of fire. What, I pray you, is death ? It is like the putting off of a garment, for the soul is invested with a body 3 as it were with a garment, and this we shall put off for a little while by death, only to receive it again in a more brilliant form.' ' What, I pray you, is death ? It is but to go a journey for a season, or to take a longer sleep than usual.' Death was but ancing a pole on the forehoad with ! IV. 2. two boys at the top of it, or dancing a V. 3. to o-S^otj? ^"xS irepf/rtirai on a tight rope.' — Hom. in Dom. KaSdinp Ifidrioi'. Compare Shakspere : Serv. ' When we have shuffled off this mortal 1 IV. 1. coil.' Cn. XL] SIGNS OF A CREATOR. 169 a release from toil, a tranquil haven. Mourn not over him who dies, but him who living in sin is dead while he liveth.' ¦ Chrysostom's own calmness, and his skill in diverting the thoughts of his flock from present alarm, are mani fested by the power and ease with which he dilates on such grand topics as the creation, Divine Providence, the nature of man, and his place in the scale of created beings. His best thoughts, expressed in his best style on these subjects, are to be found in the homilies now under con sideration. ' The size and beauty of the universe, but still more the perfect regularity with which the system worked, pro claimed a designing power. The succession of day and night, the series of the seasons, like a band of maidens dancing in a circle, the four elements of which the world was composed, mingling in such exquisite proportions that they exactly balanced one another, the sun tempering the action of water, the water that of the sun, the sea unable to break its bounds or reduce the earth to a mass of clay ; who could contemplate all these forces at work and suppose that they moved spontaneously, instead of adoring Him who had arranged them all with a wisdom commensurate with the results ? As the health of the body depended on the due balance of those humours of which it was com posed, if the bile increased fever was produced, or if the phlegmatic element prevailed many diseases were engen dered, so was it in the case of the universe ; each element observed its proper limits, restrained, as it were, with a bridle by the will of the Maker ; and the struggle between these elements was the source of peace for the whole system. As the body failed, languished, died, in propor tion as the soul was withdrawn from it, so if the regulatino- and life-giving power of God's providence were removed from the earth, all would go to rack and ruin, like a vessel deserted by her pilot.' 2 1 V. 3. * IX. 3, 4. 170 LHE AND TIMES OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [Ch. XI. In treating this subject, he manifests a keen appre ciation of natural beauties. 'The infinite varieties of flowers and herbs, trees, animals, insects, and birds — the flowery fields below, the starry fields above — the never- failing fountains — the sea receiving countless streams into its bosom, yet never overflowing, — all proclaimed a Creator and an Upholder, and drew from man the exclamation, " How manifold are Thy works ; in wisdom hast Thou made them all ! " Yet, lest they should be worshipped instead of the Maker, conditions of change, as decay or death, were imposed upon all.' ' His observation of nature appears in some of his similes. The poor female relatives hovering about the courts of justice, when the culprits of the outrage on the statues were being tried, he compares to parent birds, which wildly flutter round the hunter who has stolen the young from their nest, in an agony of grief, but impotent from weakness and fear.2 He perceives in some of the lower animals characteristics to be imitated or avoided, and describes them with a kind of humour. ' The bee especially was a pattern for imitation, not merely because it was industrious, but because it toiled with an unconscious kind of self-sacrifice for the benefit of others as well as itself. It was the most honourable of insects ; the spider, on the contrary, was the most ignoble, because it spread its fine weh for its own selfish gratification only. The innocence of the dove, the docility of the ox, the light-heartedness of birds, were all examples for imitation. The ferocity, or the cunning of other animals or insects, were examples for avoidance. The good which brutes had by nature man might acquire by force of moral purpose ; and the sovereign of the lower animals ought to comprise in his nature all the best qualities of his subjects.3 The plumage of the peacock excelling in variety and beauty all 1 X. 2, 4. 2 XIII, 2. s XII. 2. Cn. XL] ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 171 possible art of the dyer, evinced the superhuman power of the Maker of all things.' ' His ethical doctrine bears singular resemblance to that of Butler. God has bestowed on man a faculty of discerning right from wrong ; He has impressed upon him a natural law, the law of conscience. Hence some commands are delivered without explanation; for in stance, the prohibition to kill, or to commit adultery, because these merely enjoin what is already evident by the light of the natural law. On the other hand, for the command to observe the Sabbath, a reason is assigned, because this was a special and temporary enactment. The obligation of the law of conscience was universal and eternal. As soon as Adam had sinned, he hid himself, a clear evidence of his consciousness of guilt, although no written law existed at that time. The Greeks might attempt to deny the universality of this inherent law, but to what other origin could they ascribe the laws which had been made by their own an cestors concerning respect for life, the marriage bond, covenants, trusts, and the like ? They had indeed been handed down from generation to generation ; but whence did the first promulgators derive the idea of them, if not from this moral sense? To the law of conscience was added the energy of a moral purpose, irpoalpeais, which enabled man to practise what conscience prescribed : con science informs man that temperance is right; moral purpose enables him to become temperate. God had also endowed man with some natural virtues : indignation at injustice, compassion for the injured, sympathy with the joys and sorrows of our fellow men.2 At the same time 1 X- 3- pare also his description of irpoai'pecris 2 XII. 2-4. XIII.. 3. Comp. Aris- as the apxh Ktvi\ v