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   Title: NPNF1-09. St. Chrysostom: On the Priesthood; Ascetic Treatises;
   Select Homilies and Letters; Homilies on the Statutes
   Creator(s): Schaff, Philip (1819-1893)
   Print Basis: New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886
   Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All; Proofed; Early Church;
   LC Call no: BR60
   LC Subjects:

   Christianity

   Early Christian Literature. Fathers of the Church, etc.
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   A SELECT LIBRARY

   OF THE

   NICENE AND

   POST-NICENE FATHERS

   OF

   THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

   EDITED BY

   PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D.,

   PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW
   YORK.

   IN CONNECTION WITH A NUMBER OF PATRISTIC SCHOLARS OF EUROPE AND
   AMERICA.

   VOLUME IX

   SAINT CHRYSOSTOM:

   ON THE PRIESTHOOD; ASCETIC TREATISES; SELECT HOMILIES AND LETTERS;
   HOMILIES ON THE STATUES

   T&T CLARK

   EDINBURGH

   __________________________________________________

   WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

   GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN
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   PREFACE.

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   With this volume, we begin the Works of St. Chrysostom. It contains a
   sketch of his life and labors, the book on the priesthood, the letters
   to Theodore, the catechetical instructions, and a selection of ascetic
   treatises, special homilies, letters to Olympias and Innocent, and the
   twenty-one Homilies on the Statues.

   The translations are entirely new, or thoroughly revised, by the Rev.
   W. R. W. Stephens, whose services I was so fortunate as to secure. He
   has written the best biography of St. Chrysostom and is thoroughly at
   home in his writings. He has taken great pains, with the aid of two
   friends, the Rev. T. P. Brandram and Rev. R. Blackburn, and is
   responsible for the whole volume, with the exception of the
   Prolegomena, which I wrote myself, to correspond with the Prolegomena
   to the works of St. Augustin.

   The other volumes of St. Chrysostom in this series will be devoted to
   his exegetical Homilies on the greater part of the New Testament.

   Philip Schaff.

   New York, March, 1889.
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   Prolegomena.

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   The Life and Work of

   St. John Chrysostom.

   By Philip Schaff.

   Chapter I.--Literature.

   i. editions of chrysostom's works.

   S. Joannis Chrysostomi, archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani, Opera omnia
   quae exstant vel quae ejus nomine circumferuntur, ad mss. codices
   Gallicos, Vaticanos, Anglicos, Germanicosque castigata, etc. Opera et
   studio D.Bernardi de Montfaucon, monachi ordinis S. Benedicti e
   congregatione S. Mauri, opem ferentibus aliis ex codem sodalitio,
   monachis. Greek and Latin, Paris, 1718-'38, in 13 vols., fol. This is
   the best edition, and the result of about twenty years of the patient
   labor of Montfaucon (d. Dec. 21, 1741, 86 years old), and several
   assistants of the brotherhood of St. Maur. More than three hundred mss.
   were made use of, but the eight principal mss., as Field has shown,
   were not very carefully collated. Montfaucon, who at the date of the
   completion of his edition was 83 years old, prepared valuable prefaces
   to every treatise and set of homilies, arranged the works in
   chronological order, and added in vol. XIII. learned dissertations on
   the life, doctrine, discipline and heresies of the age of Chrysostom.

   The Benedictine edition was reprinted at Venice, 1734-'41, in 13 vols.
   fol.; at Paris, ed. by F. de Sinner (Gaume), 1834-'39, in 13 vols. (an
   elegant edition, with some additions); and, with various improvements
   and corrections, by J. P. Migne, Petit-Montrouge, 1859-'63, in 13 vols.
   The last is the most complete edition, but inferior in paper and type
   to that of Gaume. Migne uses the critical text of Field in Matthew and
   the Pauline Epp. He had previously edited a Latin Version, 1842, in 9
   vols.

   The edition of Sir Henry Savile (Provost of Eton), Etonae, 1612, in 8
   vols. fol., is less complete than the Benedictine edition, but gives a
   more correct Greek text (as was shown by F. Duebner from a collation of
   manuscripts) and valuable notes. Savile personally examined the
   libraries of Europe and spent -L-8,000 on his edition. His wife was so
   jealous of his devotion to Chrysostom that she threatened to burn his
   manuscripts.

   The edition of Fronton le Duc, a French Jesuit, and the two brothers,
   Frederick and Claude Morel, was published at Paris, 1636, in 12 vols.
   fol., Greek and Latin.

   A selection of Chrysostom's works (Opera praestantissima) in Greek and
   Latin, was edited by T. G. Lomler, Rudolphopoli (Rudolstadt), 1840
   (unfinished).

   The best edition of the Greek text of the Homilies on Matthew, and all
   the Pauline Epistles is by Dr. Frederick Field, of the Church of
   England (d. 1883), in the "Bibliotheca Patrum Ecclesiae Orientalis qui
   ante Orientis et Occidentis schisma floruerunt." The Homilies on
   Matthew appeared at Cambridge, 1839, 3 vols.; the Homilies on the
   Epistles of Paul and the Hebrews, Oxford, 1839-'62, in 7 vols.

   The treatise De Sacerdotio (peri hierosunes) was separately edited by
   Erasmus in Greek (Basel, 1525, from the press of Frobenius), by J.
   Hughes, in Greek and Latin (Cambridge, 1710), and by J. A. Bengel, the
   commentator, in Greek (Stuttgart, 1725, and repeatedly reprinted since
   at Leipzig, 1825, 1834, 1872, by C. Tauchnitz). Lomler (Chrys. Opera,
   pp. viii. and ix.) enumerates twenty-three separate editions and
   translations of the treatise on the Priesthood.

   ii. translations.--(a) german translations.

   The treatise on the Priesthood has been translated by Hasselbach, 1820;
   Ritter, 1821, and others. The Bibliothek der Kirchenvaeter (Rom.
   Cath.), published at Kempten in Bavaria, devotes ten small volumes to
   St. Chrysostom, including the Priesthood, ascetic Treatises, and
   Homilies, translated by Joh. Chrysostomus Mitterrutzner, 1869-'84.
   German translations of selected Homilies by J. A. Cramer (Leipzig,
   1748-'51, 10 vols.); Feder (Augsburg, 1786); Ph. Mayer (Nuernberg,
   1830); W. Arnoldi (Trier, 1835); Augusti (Predigten der Kirchenvaeter,
   vols. I. and II., Leipzig, 1839); Jos. Lutz (Tuebingen, 2d ed. 1859);
   Gust. Leonhardi (Leipzig, 1888, selected sermons and orations, in vol
   I. of Klassikerbibliothek der Christl. Predigtliteratur).

   (b) english translations.

   The work on the Priesthood was translated by Hollier (London, 1728);
   Bunce (London, 1759); Hohler (Cambridge, 1837); Marsh (London, 1844);
   Harris Cowper (London, 1866); and Stephens (N. York, 1888, prepared for
   this "Library").

   The Homilies on the Statues and on the New Testament were translated by
   several scholars for the "Oxford Library of the Fathers," 1839-'77, 16
   vols. The earlier parts (on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and
   on the Statues) are based on the text of Montfaucon and Savile, the
   later parts on the improved text of Field. The Oxford translation has
   been revised and annotated by American scholars for this "Library," and
   new translations of other works of St. Chrysostom have been added,
   namely, the treatise on the Priesthood, the Exhortation to the fallen
   Theodore, Letters, Tracts, and Special Homilies (in this first volume).

   iii. biographies and essays.

   Palladius (a friend of Chrysostom and bishop of Helenopolis in
   Bithynia, author of the Historia Lausiaca; according to others a
   different person): Dialogus historicus de vita et conversatione beati
   Joannis Chrysostomi cum Theodoro ecclesiae Romanae diacono (in the
   Bened. edition of the Opera, tom. xiii. pp. 1-89; in Migne's ed., tom.
   i., Pars prior, 5-84, in Greek and Latin). Hieronymus: De viris
   illustribus, c. 129 (a very brief notice, mentioning only the work De
   Sacerdotio). Socrates: Hist. Eccl. VI., 3-21. Sozomen: Hist. Eccl.
   VIII. 2-23. Theodoret: Hist. Eccl. V. 27-36. B. de Montfaucon: Vita
   Joannis Chrysost. (in his edition of the Opera, tom. xiii. 91-178; in
   Migne, I.I. 84-264): Testimonia Veterum de S. Joann. Chrys. scriptis,
   ibid. tom. xiii. 256-292. Tillemont: Memoires, vol. XI. pp. 1-405,
   547-626 (exceedingly minute and accurate from the works of Chrys.). F.
   Stilting: Acta Sanctorum, Sept. 14 (the day of Chrysostom's death),
   tom. iv. pp. 401-709; comp. Stilting's Compendium chronologicum
   gestorum et scriptorum S. Joh. Chrys., in Migne, tom. i. 264-272. Alban
   Butler: Lives of Saints, sub. Jan. 27 (the day of the translation of
   the remains of Chrys.). W. Cave: Lives of the Fathers, vol. III. p. 237
   sqq. J. A. Fabricius: Biblioth Gr., tom. viii. 454 sqq. Schroeckh:
   Kirchengeschichte, vol. X. p. 309 sqq. Gibbon: Decline and Fall, ch.
   xxxii. (a brilliant and appreciative sketch). Neander: Der heilige
   Chrysostomus, 1821-'22, in 3 vols., second ed. 1832, third ed. Berlin,
   1848, in 2 vols. (English translation of the same by J. C. Stapleton,
   vol. I., London, 1838, unfinished). The best monograph in the German
   language. Neander represents Chrysostom as a type of the Johannean
   tendency among the Fathers, as distinct from Augustin, the strongest
   type of the Pauline tendency. He gives a full account of the opinions
   and religious life of Chrysostom, but without a clear picture of his
   personality. (Hase says: "Neander hat uns das Lebensbild des Chrys.
   aufgestellt als ein Herzensverwandter, doch nicht ohne einige
   Abschwaechung seiner Kraft und seines Gegensatzes zur Regierung." K.
   Gesch. I. 511.) J. Pettersson: Chrys. homileta, Lund, 1833. C. Datt: S.
   Jean Chrys. comme predicateur, Strassb., 1837. A. F. Villemain: Tableau
   de l'eloquence chretienne au quatrieme siecle, Paris, 1849, new ed.
   1857. Perthes: Life of Chrysostom, Boston, 1854. P. Albert: St. Jean
   Chrysostome considere comme orateur populaire, Paris, 1858. Abbe E.
   Martin: Saint Jean Chrysostome, ses oeuvres et son siecle, Montpellier
   and Paris, 1861, 3 vols. Abbe Rochet: Histoire de S. Jean Chrysostome,
   Paris, 1866, 2 vols. Amedee Thierry: St. Chrysostome et l'imperatrice
   Eudoxie, 2d ed., Paris, 1874 (originally in the "Revue des deux
   Mondes"). Boehringer: Johann Chrysostomus und Olympias, in
   "Kirchengesch. in Biogr.," vol. IX. new ed. 1876. Th. Foerster:
   Chrysostomus in seinem Verhaeltniss zur Antiochenischen Schule, Gotha,
   1869. W. Maggilory: John of the Golden Mouth, Lond. 1871. W. R. W.
   Stephens: St. John Chrysostom, his Life and Times, London, 1872, 2d ed.
   1880, 3rd ed. 1883 (the best biography of Chr.). R. W. Bush, Life and
   Times of Chrysostom, London, Rel. Tract Soc., 1885.

   Canon E. Venables: in "Smith and Wace," I. 518-535 (a very good
   sketch). C. Burk: in Herzog, 2d ed., III. 225-231. E. Dandiran: in
   Lightenberger's "Encyclopedie," etc., III. 165-176. Schaff: Church
   Hist. III. 702 sqq., 933 sqq., 1036 sq. Hase: Kirchengesch.
   (Vorlesungen, 1885), I. 510 sqq. F. W. Farrar: Lives of the Fathers,
   London, 1889. Vol. II. 460-527.
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   Chapter II.--Chrysostom's Youth and Training, a.d. 347-370.

   "Almighty God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to
   make our common supplications unto Thee; and doest promise, that when
   two or three are gathered together in Thy name Thou wilt grant their
   requests: fulfil now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of Thy
   servants, as may be most expedient for them; granting us in this world
   knowledge of Thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting,
   Amen." [1]

   This beautiful and comprehensive prayer, which is translated from the
   Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, has made his name a household word wherever
   the Anglican Liturgy is known and used.

   John, surnamed Chrysostom ('IoEURnnes Chrusostomos) is the greatest
   pulpit orator and commentator of the Greek Church, and still deservedly
   enjoys the highest honor in the whole Christian world. No one of the
   Oriental Fathers has left a more spotless reputation; no one is so much
   read and so often quoted by modern preachers and commentators. An
   admiring posterity, since the close of the fifth century, has given him
   the surname Chrysostom (the Golden Mouth), which has entirely
   superseded his personal name John, and which best expresses the general
   estimate of his merits.

   His life may be divided into five periods: (1) His youth and training
   till his conversion and baptism, A.D. 347-370. (2) His ascetic and
   monastic life, 370-381. (3) His public life as priest and preacher at
   Antioch, 381-398. (4) His episcopate at Constantinople, 398-404. (5)
   His exile to his death, 404-407.

   John (the name by which alone he is known among contemporary writers
   and his first biographers) was born in 347, [2] at Antioch, the capital
   of Syria, and the home of the mother church of Gentile Christianity,
   where the disciples of Jesus were first called "Christians."

   His father, Secundus, was a distinguished military officer (magister
   militum) in the imperial army of Syria, and died during the infancy of
   John, without professing Christianity, as far as we know. His mother,
   Anthusa, was a rare woman. Left a widow at the age of twenty, she
   refused all offers of marriage, and devoted herself exclusively to the
   education of her only son and his older sister. She was probably from
   principle averse to a second marriage, according to a prevailing view
   of the Fathers. She shines, with Nonna and Monica, among the most pious
   mothers of the fourth century, who prove the ennobling influence of
   Christianity on the character of woman, and through her on all the
   family relations. Anthusa gained general esteem by her exemplary life.
   The famous advocate of heathenism, Libanius, on hearing of her
   consistency and devotion, felt constrained to exclaim: "Bless me! what
   wonderful women there are among the Christians." [3]

   She gave her son an admirable education, and early planted in his soul
   the germs of piety, which afterwards bore the richest fruits for
   himself and the church. By her admonitions and the teachings of the
   Bible, he was secured against the seductions of heathenism.

   Yet he was not baptized till he had reached the age of maturity. In
   that age of transition from heathenism to Christianity, the number of
   adult baptisms far exceeded that of infant baptisms. Hence the large
   baptisteries for the baptism of crowds of converts; hence the many
   sermons and lectures of Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem and other
   preachers to catechumens, and their careful instruction before baptism
   and admission to the Missa Fidelium or the holy communion. Even
   Christian parents, as the father and mother of Gregory Nazianzen, the
   mother of Chrysostom, and the mother of Augustin, put off the baptism
   of their offspring, partly no doubt from a very high conception of
   baptism as the sacrament of regeneration, and the superstitious fear
   that early baptism involved the risk of a forfeiture of baptismal
   grace. This was the argument which Tertullian in the second century
   urged against infant baptism, and this was the reason why many
   professing Christians put off their baptism till the latest hour; just
   as now so many from the same motive delay repentance and conversion to
   their death-bed. Chrysostom often rebukes that custom. The Emperor
   Constantine who favored Christianity as early as 312, and convened the
   Council of Nicaea in 325, postponed baptism till 337, shortly before
   his death. The orthodox Emperor Theodosius the Great was not baptized
   till the first year of his reign (380), when attacked by a serious
   illness.

   Chrysostom received his literary training chiefly from Libanius, the
   admirer and friend of Julian the Apostate, and the first classical
   scholar and rhetorician of his age, who after a long career as public
   teacher at Athens and Constantinople, returned to his native Antioch
   and had the misfortune to outlive the revival of heathenism under
   Julian and to lament the triumph of Christianity under his successors.
   He was introduced by him into a knowledge of the Greek classics and the
   arts of rhetoric, which served him a good purpose for his future labors
   in the church. He was his best scholar, and when Libanius, shortly
   before his death (about 393), was asked whom he wished for his
   successor, he replied: "John, if only the Christians had not stolen him
   from us." [4]

   After the completion of his studies Chrysostom became a rhetorician,
   and began the profitable practice of law, which opened to him a
   brilliant political career. The amount of litigation was enormous. The
   display of talent in the law-courts was the high-road to the dignities
   of vice-prefect, prefect, and consul. Some of his speeches at the bar
   excited admiration and were highly commended by Libanius. For some
   time, as he says, he was "a never-failing attendant at the courts of
   law, and passionately fond of the theatre." But he was not satisfied.
   The temptations of a secular profession in a corrupt state of society
   discouraged him. To accept a fee for making the worse cause appear the
   better cause, seemed to him to be taking Satan's wages.
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   [1] See the Greek original of this collect in Chrysostom's Liturgy, in
   Migne's edition, Tom. xii. 908; Daniel's Codex Liturgicus, tom. iv.;
   Fasc. II. p. 343 (comp. the foot-note in tom. iii. 358); and Fr.
   Procter's History of the Book of Common Prayer (11th ed. 1874), p. 245
   sq. The precise origin of this prayer is uncertain. It does not occur
   in the oldest mss. of Chrysostom's Liturgy, but in those of the Liturgy
   of St. Basil. It precedes the third anthem in the communion service,
   and was used since the ninth century or earlier in the exarchate of
   Caesarea and the patriarchate of Constantinople. In the Oriental
   churches the prayer is said silently by the priest. See Bjerring, The
   Offices of the Oriental Church, p. 43. In the Anglican Church, it was
   placed at the end of the Litany (by Cranmer), in 1544, and at the close
   of the daily Morning and Evening Prayer in 1661. In the English
   Homilies (Hom. I.), Chrysostom is called "that godly clerk and great
   preacher."

   [2] So Montfaucon, Tillemont, Neander, Stephens, Venables, and others.
   Baur (Vorlesungen ueber die Dogmengeschichte, Bd. I. Abthlg. II., p.
   50) and others erroneously state the year 354 or 355, Villemain assigns
   the year 344 as that of his birth.

   [3] Babai, hoiai para christianois gunaik(TM)s eisi. Chrysostom himself
   relates this of his heathen teacher (by whom, undoubtedly, we are to
   understand Libanius), though, it is true, with immediate reference only
   to the twenty years' widowhood of his mother, and adds: "Such is the
   praise and admiration of widowhood not only with us, but even with the
   heathen." Ad viduam juniorem (Opera, Bened. ed. Tom. i. 340; in Migne's
   ed. Tom. i., P. II., 601).

   [4] Sozomen, Ch. Hist., VIII. 2.
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   Chapter III.--His Conversion and Ascetic Life.

   The quiet study of the Scriptures, the example of his pious mother, the
   acquaintance with Bishop Meletius, and the influence of his intimate
   friend Basil, who was of the same age and devoted to ascetic life,
   combined to produce a gradual change in his character. [5]

   He entered the class of catechumens, and after the usual period of
   three years of instruction and probation, he was baptized by Meletius
   in his twenty-third year (369 or 370). From this time on, says
   Palladius, "he neither swore, nor defamed any one, nor spoke falsely,
   nor cursed, nor even tolerated facetious jokes." His baptism was, as in
   the case of St. Augustin, the turning point in his life, an entire
   renunciation of this world and dedication to the service of Christ. The
   change was radical and permanent.

   Meletius, who foresaw the future greatness of the young lawyer, wished
   to secure him for the active service of the church, and ordained him to
   the subordinate office of rector (anagnostes, reader), about A.D. 370.
   The rectors had to read the Scripture lessons in the first part of
   divine service (the "Missa Catechumenorum"), and to call upon the
   people to pray, but could not preach nor distribute the sacraments.

   The first inclination of Chrysostom after baptism was to adopt the
   monastic life as the safest mode, according to the prevailing notions
   of the church in that age, to escape the temptations and corruptions of
   the world, to cultivate holiness and to secure the salvation of the
   soul. But the earnest entreaties of his mother prevailed on him to
   delay the gratification of his desire. He relates the scene with
   dramatic power. She took him to her chamber, and by the bed where she
   had given him birth, she adjured him with tears not to forsake her. "My
   son," she said in substance, "my only comfort in the midst of the
   miseries of this earthly life is to see thee constantly, and to behold
   in thy features the faithful image of my beloved husband who is no
   more. This comfort commenced with your infancy before you could speak.
   I ask only one favor from you: do not make me a widow a second time;
   wait at least till I die; perhaps I shall soon leave this world. When
   you have buried me and joined my ashes with those of your father,
   nothing will then prevent you from retiring into monastic life. But as
   long as I breathe, support me by your presence, and do not draw down
   upon you the wrath of God by bringing such evils upon me who have given
   you no offense." [6]

   These tender, simple and impressive words suggest many heart-rending
   scenes caused by the ascetic enthusiasm for separation from the sacred
   ties of the family. It is honorable to Chrysostom that he yielded to
   the reasonable wishes of his devoted mother. He remained at home, but
   turned his home into a monastery. He secluded himself from the world
   and practiced a rigid asceticism. He ate little and seldom, and only
   the plainest food, slept on the bare floor and frequently rose to
   prayer. He kept almost unbroken silence to prevent a relapse into the
   habit of slander.

   His former associates at the bar called him unsociable and morose. But
   two of his fellow-pupils under Libanius joined him in his ascetic life,
   Maximus (afterwards bishop of Seleucia), and Theodore of Mopsuestia.
   They studied the Scriptures under the direction of Diodorus (afterwards
   bishop of Tarsus), the founder of the Antiochian school of theology, of
   which Chrysostom and Theodore became the chief ornaments. [7]

   Theodore was warmly attached to a young lady named Hermione, and
   resolved to marry and to leave the ascetic brotherhood. This gave rise
   to the earliest treatise of Chrysostom--namely, an exhortation to
   Theodore, in two letters. [8] He plied all his oratorical arts of sad
   sympathy, tender entreaty, bitter reproach, and terrible warning, to
   reclaim his friend to what he thought the surest and safest way to
   heaven. To sin, he says, is human, but to persist in sin is devilish;
   to fall is not ruinous to the soul, but to remain on the ground is. The
   appeal had its desired effect; Theodore resumed his monastic life and
   became afterwards bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia and one of the first
   biblical scholars. The arguments which Chrysostom used, would condemn
   all who broke their monastic vows. They retain moral force only if we
   substitute apostasy from faith for apostasy from monasticism, which
   must be regarded as a temporary and abnormal or exceptional form of
   Christian life.
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   [5] Socrates and Kurtz (in the 10th edition of his Kirchengeschichte,
   I. 223), confound this Basil with Basil the Great of Cappadocia, who
   was eighteen years older than Chrysostom and died in 379. Chrysostom's
   friend was probably (as Baronius and Montfaucon conjecture) identical
   with Basil, bishop of Raphanea in Syria, near Antioch, who attended the
   Council of Constantinople in 381. Comp. Stephens, l. c. p. 14; and
   Venables in Smith & Wace, I. 297.

   [6] De Sacerd. I. 5.

   [7] Socrates and Sozomenus represent Diodor and Karterius as abbots
   under whom Chrysostom lived as monk, but Neander (in the 3d ed. I. 29)
   thinks it more likely that Chrysostom was previously instructed by
   Diodor at Antioch.

   [8] Paraenesis ad Theodorum Lapsum, in Migne's ed. I., Pars I. 277-319.
   The second letter is milder than the first, and was written earlier. It
   is somewhat doubtful whether the first refers to the same case. Neander
   (I. 38 sq.) conjectures that the second only is addressed to Theodore.
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   Chapter IV.--Chrysostom Evades Election to a Bishopric, and Writes His
   Work on the Priesthood.

   About this time several bishoprics were vacant in Syria, and frequent
   depositions took place with the changing fortunes of orthodoxy and
   Arianism, and the interference of the court. The attention of the
   clergy and the people turned to Chrysostom and his friend Basil as
   suitable candidates for the episcopal office, although they had not the
   canonical age of thirty. Chrysostom shrunk from the responsibilities
   and avoided an election by a pious fraud. He apparently assented to an
   agreement with Basil that both should either accept, or resist the
   burden of the episcopate, but instead of that he concealed himself and
   put forward his friend whom he accounted much more worthy of the honor.
   Basil, under the impression that Chrysostom had already been
   consecrated, reluctantly submitted to the election. When he discovered
   the cheat, he upbraided his friend with the breach of compact, but
   Chrysostom laughed and rejoiced at the success of his plot. This
   conduct, which every sound Christian conscience must condemn, caused no
   offense among the Christians of that age, still less among the heathen,
   and was regarded as good management or "economy." The moral character
   of the deception was supposed to depend altogether on the motive, which
   made it good or bad. Chrysostom appealed in justification of laudable
   deception to the stratagems of war, the conduct of physicians in
   dealing with refractory patients, to several examples of the Old
   Testament (Abraham, Jacob, David), and to the conduct of the Apostle
   Paul in circumcising Timothy for the sake of the Jews (Acts xvi. 3) and
   in observing the ceremonial law in Jerusalem at the advice of James
   (Acts xxi. 26).

   The Jesuitical maxim, "the end justifies the means," is much older than
   Jesuitism, and runs through the whole apocryphal, pseudo-prophetic,
   pseudo-apostolic, pseudo-Clementine and pseudo-Isidorian literature of
   the early centuries. Several of the best Fathers show a surprising want
   of a strict sense of veracity. They introduce a sort of cheat even into
   their strange theory of redemption, by supposing that the Devil caused
   the crucifixion under the delusion that Christ was a mere man, and thus
   lost his claim upon the fallen race. Origen, Chrysostom, and Jerome
   explain the offense of the collision between Paul and Peter at Antioch
   (Gal. ii. 11 sqq.) away by turning it into a theatrical and
   hypocritical farce, which was shrewdly arranged by the two apostles for
   the purpose of convincing the Jewish Christians that circumcision was
   not necessary. Against such wretched exegesis the superior moral sense
   of Augustin rightly protested, and Jerome changed his view on this
   particular passage. Here is a point where the modern standard of ethics
   is far superior to that of the Fathers, and more fully accords with the
   spirit of the New Testament, which inculcates the strictest veracity as
   a fundamental virtue. [9]

   The escape from the episcopate was the occasion for one of the best and
   most popular works of Chrysostom, the Six Books On the Priesthood,
   which he wrote probably before his ordination (between 375 and 381), or
   during his diaconate (between 381 and 386). It is composed in the form
   of a Platonic dialogue between Chrysostom and Basil. He first
   vindicates by argument and examples his well-meant but untruthful
   conduct towards his friend, and the advantages of timely fraud; and
   then describes with youthful fervor and eloquence the importance,
   duties and trials of the Christian ministry, without distinguishing
   between the priestly and the episcopal office. He elevates it above all
   other offices. He requires whole-souled consecration to Christ and love
   to his flock. He points to the Scriptures (quoting also from the
   Apocrypha) as the great weapon of the minister. He assumes, as may be
   expected, the then prevailing conception of a real priesthood and
   sacrifice, baptismal regeneration, the corporal presence, the virtue of
   absolution, prayers for the dead, but is silent about pope and
   councils, the orders of the clergy, prayers to saints, forms of prayer,
   priestly vestments, incense, crosses and other doctrines and ceremonies
   of the Greek and Roman churches. He holds up St. Paul as a model for
   imitation. The sole object of the preacher must be to please God rather
   than men (Gal. i. 10). "He must not indeed despise approving
   demonstrations, but as little must he court them, nor trouble himself
   when they are withheld." He should combine the qualities of dignity and
   humility, authority and sociability, impartiality and courtesy,
   independence and lowliness, strength and gentleness, and keep a single
   eye to the glory of Christ and the welfare of the church.

   This book is the most useful or at least the best known among the works
   of Chrysostom, and is well calculated to inspire a profound sense of
   the tremendous responsibilities of the ministry. But it has serious
   defects, besides the objectionable justification of pious fraud, and
   cannot satisfy the demands of an evangelical minister. In all that
   pertains to the proper care of souls it is inferior to the "Reformed
   Pastor" of Richard Baxter.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [9] Comp. on the patristic views of accommodation, Neander, Geschichte
   der Christl. Ethik., p. 156 sqq.; and Wuttke, Christl. Sittenlehre, 3d
   ed. vol. II., 325 sq. Canon Venables of Lincoln (in Smith & Wace, I.
   519 sq.) justly condemns Chrysostom's conduct on this occasion "as
   utterly at variance with the principles of truth and honor."
     __________________________________________________________________

   Chapter V.--Chrysostom as a Monk. a.d. 374-381.

   After the death of his mother, Chrysostom fled from the seductions and
   tumults of city life to the monastic solitude of the mountains south of
   Antioch, and there spent six happy years in theological study and
   sacred meditation and prayer. Monasticism was to him (as to many other
   great teachers of the church, and even to Luther) a profitable school
   of spiritual experience and self-government. He embraced this mode of
   life as "the true philosophy" from the purest motives, and brought into
   it intellect and cultivation enough to make the seclusion available for
   moral and spiritual growth. [10]

   He gives us a lively description of the bright side of this monastic
   life. The monks lived in separate cells or huts (kEURlubai), but
   according to a common rule and under the authority of an abbot. They
   wore coarse garments of camel's hair or goat's hair over their linen
   tunics. They rose before sunrise, and began the day by singing a hymn
   of praise and common prayer under the leadership of the abbot. Then
   they went to their allotted task, some to read, others to write, others
   to manual labor for the support of the poor. Four hours in each day
   were devoted to prayer and singing. Their only food was bread and
   water, except in case of sickness. They slept on straw couches, free
   from care and anxiety. There was no need of bolts and bars. They held
   all things in common, and the words of "mine and thine," which cause
   innumerable strifes in the world, were unknown among the brethren. If
   one died, he caused no lamentation, but thanksgiving, and was carried
   to the grave amidst hymns of praise; for he was not dead, but
   "perfected," and permitted to behold the face of Christ. For them to
   live was Christ, and to die was gain.

   Chrysostom was an admirer of active and useful monasticism, and warns
   against the dangers of idle contemplation. He shows that the words of
   our Lord, "One thing is needful;" "Take no anxious thought for the
   morrow;" "Labor not for the meat that perisheth," do not inculcate
   total abstinence from work, but only undue anxiety about worldly
   things, and must be harmonized with the apostolic exhortation to labor
   and to do good. He defends monastic seclusion on account of the
   prevailing immorality in the cities, which made it almost impossible to
   cultivate there a higher Christian life.

   In this period, from 374 to 381, Chrysostom composed his earliest
   writings in praise of monasticism and celibacy. [11] The letters "to
   the fallen Theodore," have already been mentioned. The three books
   against the Opponents of Monasticism were occasioned by a decree of the
   Arian Emperor Valens in 373, which aimed at the destruction of that
   system and compelled the monks to discharge their duties to the state
   by military or civil service. Chrysostom regarded this decree as a
   sacrilege, and the worst kind of persecution.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [10] On the origin and character of early monasticism, see Schaff, Ch.
   Hist. vol. III., 147 sqq.

   [11] In the first volume, first part, of Migne's edition, col. 277-532.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Chapter VI.--Chrysostom as Deacon, Priest and Preacher at Antioch. a.d.
   381-398.

   By excessive self-mortifications John undermined his health, and
   returned to Antioch. There he was immediately ordained deacon by
   Meletius in 380 or 381, and a few years afterwards presbyter by Flavian
   (386).

   As deacon he had the best opportunity to become acquainted with the
   practical needs of the population, the care of the poor and the sick.
   After his ordination to the priesthood he preached in the presence of
   the bishop his first sermon to a vast crowd. It abounds in flowery
   Asiatic eloquence, in humble confession of his own unworthiness, and
   exaggerated praise of Meletius and Flavian. [12]

   He now entered upon a large field of usefulness, the real work of his
   life. The pulpit was his throne, and he adorned it as much as any
   preacher of ancient or modern times.

   Antioch was one of the great capitals of the Roman empire along with
   Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome. Nature and art combined to make
   it a delightful residence, though it was often visited by inundations
   and earthquakes. An abundance of pure water from the river Orontes, a
   large lake and the surrounding hills, fertile plains, the commerce of
   the sea, imposing buildings of Asiatic, Greek, and Roman architecture,
   rich gardens, baths, and colonnaded streets, were among its chief
   attractions. A broad street of four miles, built by Antiochus
   Epiphanes, traversed the city from east to west; the spacious
   colonnades on either side were paved with red granite. Innumerable
   lanterns illuminated the main thoroughfares at night. The city was
   supplied with good schools and several churches; the greatest of them,
   in which Chrysostom preached, was begun by the Emperor Constantine and
   finished by Constantius. The inhabitants were Syrians, Greeks, Jews,
   and Romans. The Asiatic element prevailed. The whole population
   amounted, as Chrysostom states, to 200,000, of whom one half were
   nominally Christians. Heathenism was therefore still powerful as to
   numbers, but as a religion it had lost all vitality. This was shown by
   the failure of the attempt of the Emperor Julian the Apostate to revive
   the sacrifices to the gods. When he endeavored in 362 to restore the
   oracle of Apollo Daphneus in the famous cypress grove at Antioch and
   arranged for a magnificent procession, with libation, dances, and
   incense, he found in the temple one solitary old priest, and this
   priest ominously offered in sacrifice--a goose! Julian himself relates
   this ludicrous farce, and vents his anger at the Antiochians for
   squandering the rich incomes of the temple upon Christianity and
   worldly amusements.

   Chrysostom gives us in his sermons lively pictures of the character of
   the people and the condition of the church. The prevailing vices even
   among Christians were avarice, luxury, sensuality, and excessive love
   of the circus and the theatre. "So great," he says, "is 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 Christ." Gibbon thus
   describes the morals of Antioch: [13] "The warmth of the climate
   disposed the natives to the most intemperate enjoyment of tranquility
   and opulence, and the lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended
   with the hereditary softness of the Syrians. Fashion was the only law,
   pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendor of dress and furniture was
   the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury
   were honored, the serious and manly virtues were the subject of
   ridicule, and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age
   announced the universal corruption of the capital of the East. The love
   of spectacles was the taste, or rather passion of the Syrians; the most
   skilful artists were procured from the adjacent cities. A considerable
   share of the revenue was devoted to the public amusements, and the
   magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was considered as
   the happiness and as the glory of Antioch."

   The church of Antioch was rent for eighty-five years (330-415) by
   heresy and schism. There were three parties and as many rival bishops.
   The Meletians, under the lead of Meletius, were the party of moderate
   orthodoxy holding the Nicene Creed; the Arians, headed by Eudoxius, and
   supported by the Emperor Valens, denied the eternal divinity of Christ;
   the Eustathians, under the venerated priest Paulinus, were in communion
   with Athanasius, but were accused of Sabellianism, which maintained the
   Divine unity and strict deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but denied
   the tri-personality except in the form of three modes of
   self-revelation. Pope Damasus declared for Paulinus and condemned
   Meletius as a heretic. Alexandria likewise sided against him. Meletius
   was more than once banished from his see, and recalled. He died during
   the sessions of the Council of Constantinople, 381, over which he
   presided for a while. His remains were carried with great solemnities
   to Antioch and buried by the side of Babylas the Martyr. Chrysostom
   reconciled Flavian, the successor of Meletius, with Alexandria and Rome
   in 398. Alexander, the successor of Flavian, led the Eustathians back
   into the orthodox church in 415, and thus unity was restored.

   Chrysostom preached Sunday after Sunday and during Lent, sometimes
   twice or oftener during the week, even five days in succession, on the
   duties and responsibilities of Christians, and fearlessly attacked the
   immorality of the city. He declaimed with special severity against the
   theatre and the chariot-races; and yet many of his hearers would run
   from his sermons to the circus to witness those exciting spectacles
   with the same eagerness as Jews and Gentiles. He exemplified his
   preaching by a blameless life, and soon acquired great reputation and
   won the love of the whole congregation. Whenever he preached the church
   was crowded. He had to warn his hearers against pickpockets, who found
   an inviting harvest in these dense audiences.

   A serious disturbance which took place during his career at Antioch,
   called forth a remarkable effort of his oratorical powers. The populace
   of the city, provoked by excessive taxes, rose in revolt against the
   Emperor Theodosius the Great, broke down his statues and those of his
   deceased excellent wife Flacilla (d. 385) and his son Arcadius, dragged
   the fragments through the streets, and committed other acts of
   violence. The Emperor threatened to destroy the whole city. This caused
   general consternation and agony, but the city was saved by the
   intercession of Bishop Flavian, who in his old age proceeded to
   Constantinople and secured free pardon from the Emperor. Although a man
   of violent temper, Theodosius had profound reverence for bishops, and
   on another occasion he submitted to the rebuke of St. Ambrose for the
   wholesale massacre of the Thessalonians (390).

   In this period of public anxiety, which lasted several months,
   Chrysostom delivered series of extempore orations, in which he
   comforted the people and exhorted them to correct their vices. These
   are his twenty-one Homilies on the Statues, so-called from the
   overthrow of the imperial statues which gave rise to them. They were
   preached during Lent 387. [14] In the same year St. Augustin submitted
   to baptism at the hands of St. Ambrose in Milan. One of the results of
   those sermons was the conversion of a large number of heathens. Thus
   the calamity was turned into a blessing to the church.

   During the sixteen or seventeen years of his labors in Antioch
   Chrysostom wrote the greater part of his Homilies and Commentaries; a
   consolatory Epistle to the despondent Stagirius; the excellent book on
   the martyr Babylas, which illustrates by a striking example the divine
   power of Christianity; a treatise on Virginity, which he puts above
   marriage; and an admonition to a young widow on the glory of widowhood,
   and the duty of continuing in it. He disapproved of second marriage,
   not as sinful or illegal, but as inconsistent with an ideal conception
   of marriage and a high order of piety. [15]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [12] Migne, III. 693 sqq.

   [13] Decline and Fall, ch. xxiv.

   [14] Montfaucon goes with tedious minuteness into the chronology of
   these sermons. The twentieth was delivered ten days before Easter, the
   twenty-first on Easter, after the return of Flavian from Rome with the
   Emperor's pardon. The first sermon was preached shortly before the
   sedition and has nothing to do with it, but is alluded to in the
   second. It is a temperance sermon, based on Paul's advice to Timothy, 1
   Tim. v. 23, where he emphasized the word "little" and the "often
   infirmities."

   [15] Neander (vol. I.) gives large extracts from these ascetic
   treatises with many judicious and discriminating observations.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Chapter VII.--Chrysostom as Patriarch of Constantinople. a.d. 398-404.

   After the death of Nectarius (successor to Gregory Nazianzen), towards
   the end of the year 397, Chrysostom was chosen, entirely without his
   own agency and even against his remonstrance, archbishop of
   Constantinople. He was hurried away from Antioch by a military escort,
   to avoid a commotion in the congregation and to make resistance
   useless. He was consecrated Feb. 26, 398, by his enemy Theophilus,
   patriarch of Alexandria, who reluctantly yielded to the command of the
   Emperor Arcadius or rather his prime minister, the eunuch Eutropius,
   and nursed his revenge for a more convenient season.

   Constantinople, built by Constantine the Great in 330, on the site of
   Byzantium, assumed as the Eastern capital of the Roman empire the first
   position among the episcopal sees of the East, and became the centre of
   court theology, court intrigues, and theological controversies. The
   second oecumenical council, which was held there in 381, under
   Theodosius the Great, the last Roman emperor worthy of the name (d.
   395), decided the victory of Nicene orthodoxy over the Arian heresy,
   and gave the bishop of Constantinople a primacy of honor, next in rank
   to the bishop of old Rome--a position which was afterwards confirmed by
   the Council of Chalcedon in 451, but disputed by Pope Leo and his
   successors.

   Chrysostom soon gained by his eloquent sermons the admiration of the
   people, of the weak Emperor Arcadius, and, at first, even of his wife
   Eudoxia, with whom he afterwards waged a deadly war. He extended his
   pastoral care to the Goths who were becoming numerous in
   Constantinople, had a part of the Bible translated for them, often
   preached to them himself through an interpreter, and sent missionaries
   to the Gothic and Scythian tribes on the Danube. He continued to direct
   by correspondence those missionary operations even during his exile.
   For a short time he enjoyed the height of power and popularity.

   But he also made enemies by his denunciations of the vices and follies
   of the clergy and aristocracy. He emptied the episcopal palace of its
   costly plate and furniture and sold it for the benefit of the poor and
   the hospitals. He introduced his strict ascetic habits and reduced the
   luxurious household of his predecessors to the strictest simplicity. He
   devoted his large income to benevolence. He refused invitations to
   banquets, gave no dinner parties, and ate the simplest fare in his
   solitary chamber. [16] He denounced unsparingly luxurious habits in
   eating and dressing, and enjoined upon the rich the duty of almsgiving
   to an extent that tended to increase rather than diminish the number of
   beggars who swarmed in the streets and around the churches and public
   baths. He disciplined the vicious clergy and opposed the perilous and
   immoral habit of unmarried priests of living under the same roof with
   "spiritual Sisters" (suneisaktai). This habit dated from an earlier
   age, and was a reaction against celibacy. Cyprian had raised his
   protest against it, and the Council of Nicaea forbade unmarried priests
   to live with any females except close relations. Chrysostom's
   unpopularity was increased by his irritability and obstinacy, and his
   subservience to a proud and violent archdeacon, Serapion. The Empress
   Eudoxia was jealous of his influence over Arcadius and angry at his
   uncompromising severity against sin and vice. She became the chief
   instrument of his downfall.

   The occasion was furnished by an unauthorized use of his episcopal
   power beyond the lines of his diocese, which was confined to the city.
   At the request of the clergy of Ephesus and the neighboring bishops, he
   visited that city in January, 401, held a synod and deposed six bishops
   convicted of shameful simony. During his absence of several months he
   left the episcopate of Constantinople in the hands of Severian, bishop
   of Gabala, an unworthy and adroit flatterer, who basely betrayed his
   trust and formed a cabal headed by the empress and her licentious court
   ladies, for the ruin of Chrysostom. On his return he used unguarded
   language in the pulpit, and spoke on Elijah's relation to Jezebel in
   such a manner that Eudoxia understood it as a personal insult. The
   clergy were anxious to get rid of a bishop who was too severe for their
   lax morals.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [16] Socrates (VI. 5) says that some justified this habit by his
   delicate stomach and weak digestion, others attributed it to his rigid
   abstinence. His enemies construed it as pride, and based upon it a
   serious accusation.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Chapter VIII.--Chrysostom and Theophilus. His First Deposition and
   Banishment.

   At this time Chrysostom became involved in the Origenistic
   controversies which are among the most violent and most useless in
   ancient church history, and full of personal invective and calumny.
   [17] The object in dispute was the orthodoxy of the great Origen, which
   long after his death was violently defended and as violently assailed.

   Theophilus of Alexandria, an able and vigorous but domineering,
   contentious and unscrupulous prelate, was at first an admirer of
   Origen, but afterwards in consequence of a personal quarrel joined the
   opponents, condemned his memory and banished the Origenistic monks from
   Egypt. Some fifty of them, including the four "Tall Brethren,"
   so-called on account of their extraordinary stature, fled to
   Constantinople and were hospitably received by Chrysostom (401). He had
   no sympathy with the philosophical speculations of Origen, but
   appreciated his great merits, and felt that injustice was done to the
   persecuted monks. He interceded in their behalf with Theophilus, who
   replied with indignant remonstrance against protecting heretics and
   interfering in another diocese.

   Theophilus, long desirous of overthrowing Chrysostom, whom he had
   reluctantly consecrated, set every instrument in motion to take
   revenge. He sent the octogenarian bishop Epiphanius of Salamis, a
   well-meaning and learned but bigoted zealot for orthodoxy, to
   Constantinople, as a tool of his hierarchical plans (402); but
   Epiphanius soon returned and died on the ship (403). Theophilus now
   traveled himself to Constantinople, accompanied by a body-guard of
   rough sailors and provided with splendid presents. He appeared at once
   as accuser and judge, aided by Eudoxia and the disaffected clergy. He
   held a secret council of thirty-six bishops, all of them Egyptians
   except seven, in a suburb of Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the
   Bosphorus, and procured in this so-called synod at the Oak, the
   deposition and banishment of Chrysostom, on false charges of immorality
   and high treason (403). Among the twenty-nine charges were these: that
   Chrysostom had called the saintly Epiphanius a fool and a demon, that
   he abused the clergy, that he received females without witnesses, that
   he ate sumptuously alone and bathed alone, that he had compared the
   empress to Jezebel.

   The innocent bishop refused to appear before a packed synod of his
   enemies, and appealed to a general council. As the sentence of
   banishment for life became known, the indignation of the people was
   immense. A single word from him would have raised an insurrection; but
   he surrendered himself freely to the imperial officers, who conveyed
   him in the dark to the harbor and put him on board a ship destined for
   Hieron at the mouth of the Pontus. Theophilus entered the city in
   triumph and took vengeance on Chrysostom's friends.

   The people besieged the palace and demanded the restoration of their
   bishop. Constantinople was almost in a state of insurrection. The
   following night the city was convulsed by an earthquake, which was felt
   with peculiar violence in the bedroom of Eudoxia and frightened her
   into submission. She implored the emperor to avert the wrath of God by
   recalling Chrysostom. Messengers were despatched with abject apologies
   to bring him back. A whole fleet of barks put forth to greet him, the
   Bosphorus blazed with torches and resounded with songs of rejoicing. On
   passing the gates he was borne aloft by the people to the church,
   seated in the episcopal chair and forced to make an address. His
   triumph was complete, but of short duration. Theophilus felt unsafe in
   Constantinople and abruptly sailed in the night for Alexandria. The
   feelings with which Chrysostom went into his first and second exile, he
   well describes in a letter to Bishop Cyriacus: "when I was driven from
   the city, I felt no anxiety, but said to myself: If the empress wishes
   to banish me, let her do so; `the earth is the Lord's.' If she wants to
   have me sawn asunder, I have Isaiah for an example. If she wants me to
   be drowned in the ocean, I think of Jonah. If I am to be thrown into
   the fire, the three men in the furnace suffered the same. If cast
   before wild beasts, I remember Daniel in the lion's den. If she wants
   me to be stoned, I have before me Stephen, the first martyr. If she
   demands my head, let her do so; John the Baptist shines before me.
   Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked shall I leave this world.
   Paul reminds me, `If I still pleased men, I would not be the servant of
   Christ.'"
     __________________________________________________________________

   [17] Schaff, Church History, III. 698 sqq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Chapter IX.--Chrysostom and Eudoxia. His Second Banishment, a.d. 403.

   The restored patriarch and the repentant empress seemed reconciled, and
   vied with one another in extravagant laudations for two months, when
   the feud broke out afresh and ended in perpetual exile and death.

   Eudoxia was a beautiful, imperious, intriguing and revengeful woman,
   who despised her husband and indulged her passions. Not content with
   the virtual rule of the Roman empire, she aspired to semi-divine
   honors, which used to be paid to the heathen Caesars. A column of
   porphyry with her silver statue for public adoration was erected in
   September, 403, on the forum before the church of St. Sophia, and
   dedicated amid boisterous and licentious revelry, which disturbed the
   sacred services.

   Chrysostom ascended the pulpit on the commemoration day of the
   martyrdom of John the Baptist, and thundered his righteous indignation
   against all who shared in these profane amusements, the people, the
   prefect, and the haughty woman on the throne. In the heat of his zeal
   the imprudent words are said to have escaped his lips: "Again Herodias
   is raging, again she is dancing, again she demands the head of John on
   a platter." [18] The comparison of Eudoxia with Herodias, and himself
   (John) with John the Baptist was even more directly personal than his
   former allusion to the relation of Jezebel and Elijah. Whether he
   really spoke these or similar words is at least doubtful, but they were
   reported to Eudoxia, who as a woman and an empress could never forgive
   such an insult. She demanded from the emperor signal redress. In the
   conflict of imperial and episcopal authority the former achieved a
   physical and temporary, the latter a moral and enduring victory.

   The enemies of Chrysostom flocked like vultures down to their prey.
   Theophilus directed the plot from a safe distance. Arcadius was
   persuaded to issue an order for the removal of Chrysostom. He continued
   to preach and refused to leave the church over which God had placed
   him, but had to yield to armed force. He was dragged by imperial guards
   from the cathedral on the vigil of the resurrection in 404, while the
   sacrament of baptism was being administered to hundreds of catechumens.
   "The waters of regeneration," says Palladius, "were stained with
   blood." The female candidates, half dressed, were driven by licentious
   soldiers into the dark streets. The eucharistic elements were profaned
   by pagan hands. The clergy in their priestly robes were ejected and
   chased through the city. The horrors of that night were long afterwards
   remembered with a shudder. During the greater part of the Easter week
   the city was kept in a state of consternation. Private dwellings were
   invaded, and suspected Joannites--the partisans of Chrysostom--thrown
   into prison, scourged and tortured. Chrysostom, who was shut up in his
   episcopal palace, twice narrowly escaped assassination.

   At last on June 5, 404, the timid and long hesitating Arcadius signed
   the edict of banishment. Chrysostom received it with calm submission,
   and after a final prayer in the cathedral with some of his faithful
   bishops, and a tender farewell to his beloved Olympias and her
   attendant deaconesses, he surrendered himself to the guards and was
   conveyed at night to the Asiatic shore. He had scarcely left the city,
   when the cathedral was consumed by fire. The charge of incendiarism was
   raised against his friends, but neither threats, nor torture and
   mutilation could elicit a confession of guilt. He refused to
   acknowledge Arsacius and Atticus as his successors; and this was made a
   crime punishable with degradation, fine and imprisonment. The clergy
   who continued faithful to him were deposed and banished. Pope Innocent
   of Rome was appealed to, pronounced the synod which had condemned
   Chrysostom irregular, annulled the deposition, and wrote him a letter
   of sympathy, and urged upon Arcadius the convocation of a general
   council, but without effect.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [18] According to the report of Socrates, VI. 18, and Sozomenus, VIII.
   20. A homily which begins with this exordium: pEURlin Erodias mainetai,
   pEURlin tarEURssetai, pEURlin orcheitai, pEURlin epi pinaki ten
   kephalen tou 'IoEURnnou xetei labein (comp. Mark vi. 25), is unworthy
   of his pen and rejected as spurious by Tillemont, Savile and
   Montfaucon. But it is quite probable that Chrysostom made some allusion
   to Eudoxia which might be construed by his enemies in that way. See
   Neander, II. 177 sq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Chapter X.--Chrysostom in Exile. His Death. a.d. 404-407.

   Chrysostom was conveyed under the scorching heat of July and August
   over Galatia and Cappadocia, to the lonely mountain village Cucusus, on
   the borders of Cilicia and Armenia, which the wrath of Eudoxia had
   selected for his exile. The climate was inclement and variable, the
   winter severe, the place was exposed to Isaurian brigands. He suffered
   much from fever and headache, and was more than once brought to the
   brink of the grave. Nevertheless the bracing mountain air invigorated
   his feeble constitution, and he was hopeful of returning to his
   diocese. He was kindly treated by the bishop of Cucusus. He received
   visits, letters and presents from faithful friends, and by his
   correspondence exerted a wider influence from that solitude than from
   the episcopal throne.

   His 242 extant letters are nearly all from the three years of his
   exile, and breathe a noble Christian spirit, in a clear, brilliant and
   persuasive style. They exhibit his faithful care for all the interests
   of the church and look calmly and hopefully to the glories of heaven.
   They are addressed to Eastern and Western bishops, presbyters, deacons,
   deaconesses, monks and missionaries; they describe the fatigues of his
   journey, give advice on a variety of subjects, strengthen and comfort
   his distant flock, urge the destruction of heathen temples in
   Phoenicia, the extirpation of heresy in Cyprus, and encourage the
   missions in Persia and Scythia. [19] Two letters are addressed to the
   Roman bishop Innocent I., whose sympathy and assistance he courted.
   Seventeen letters--the most important of all--are addressed to
   Olympias, the deaconess, a widow of noble birth, personal beauty and
   high accomplishments, who devoted her fortune and time to the poor and
   the sick. She died between 408 and 420. To her he revealed his inner
   life, upon her virtues he lavished extravagant praise, which offends
   modern taste as fulsome flattery. For her consolation he wrote a
   special treatise on the theme that "No one is really injured except by
   himself." [20]

   The cruel empress, stung by disappointment at the continued power of
   the banished bishop, forbade all correspondence and ordered his
   transfer by two brutal guards, first to Arabissus, then to Pityus on
   the Caucasus, the most inhospitable spots in the empire.

   The journey of three months on foot was a slow martyrdom to the feeble
   and sickly old man. He did not reach his destination, but ended his
   pilgrimage five or six miles from Comana in Pontus in the chapel of the
   martyr Basiliscus on the 14th of September, 407, in his sixtieth year,
   the tenth of his episcopate. Clothed in his white baptismal robes, he
   partook of the eucharist and commended his soul to God. His last words
   were his accustomed doxology, the motto of his life: "Glory be to God
   for all things, Amen." [21]

   He was buried by the side of Basiliscus in the presence of monks and
   nuns.

   He was revered as a saint by the people. Thirty-one years afterwards,
   January 27, 438, his body was translated with great pomp to
   Constantinople and deposited with the emperors and patriarchs beneath
   the altar of the church of the Holy Apostles. The young Emperor
   Theodosius II. and his sister Pulcheria met the procession at
   Chalcedon, kneeled down before the coffin, and in the name of their
   guilty parents implored the forgiveness of heaven for the grievous
   injustice done to the greatest and saintliest man that ever graced the
   pulpit and episcopal chair of Constantinople. The Eastern church of
   that age shrunk from the bold speculations of Origen, but revered the
   narrow orthodoxy of Epiphanius and the ascetic piety of Chrysostom.

   The personal appearance of the golden-mouthed orator was not imposing,
   but dignified and winning. He was of small stature (like David, Paul,
   Athanasius, Melanchthon, John Wesley, Schleiermacher). He had an
   emaciated frame, a large, bald head, a lofty, wrinkled forehead,
   deep-set, bright, piercing eyes, pallid, hollow cheeks, and a short,
   gray beard. [22]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [19] See Tom. iii. of the Bened. ed. (in Migne, III. 529 sqq.)

   [20] Comp. on Olympias the Memoirs of Tillemont, XI. 416-440; Stephens,
   l. c., 280, 367-373; and Venables in Smith & Wace, IV. 73-75. The
   letters to Olympias and Innocent are also published in Lomler's
   selection (pp. 165-252).

   [21] Doxa to theo pEURnton oeneken.

   [22] See the frontispiece in the edition of Fronto Ducaeus, and in the
   monograph of Stephens.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Chapter XI.--His Character.

   Chrysostom was one of those rare men who combine greatness and
   goodness, genius and piety, and continue to exercise by their writings
   and example a happy influence upon the Christian church. He was a man
   for his time and for all times. But we must look at the spirit rather
   than the form of his piety, which bore the stamp of his age.

   He took Paul for his model, but had a good deal of the practical spirit
   of James, and of the fervor and loveliness of John. The Scriptures were
   his daily food, and he again and again recommended their study to
   laymen as well as ministers. He was not an ecclesiastical statesman,
   like St. Ambrose, not a profound divine like St. Augustin, but a pure
   man, a practical Christian, and a king of preachers. "He carried out in
   his own life," says Hase, "as far as mortal man can do it, the ideal of
   the priesthood which he once described in youthful enthusiasm." He
   considered it the duty of every Christian to promote the spiritual
   welfare of his fellowmen. "Nothing can be more chilling," he says in
   the 20th Homily on Acts, "than the sight of a Christian who makes no
   effort to save others. Neither poverty, nor humble station, nor bodily
   infirmity can exempt men and women from the obligation of this great
   duty. To hide our light under pretense of weakness is as great an
   insult to God as if we were to say that He could not make His sun to
   shine."

   It is very much to his praise that in an age of narrow orthodoxy and
   doctrinal intolerance he cherished a catholic and irenical spirit. He
   by no means disregarded the value of theological soundness, and was in
   hearty agreement with the Nicene creed, which triumphed over the Arians
   during his ministry in Antioch; he even refused a church in
   Constantinople which the Arian Goths claimed. But he took no share in
   the persecution of heretics, and even sheltered the Origenistic monks
   against the violence of Theophilus of Alexandria. He hated sin more
   than error, and placed charity above orthodoxy.

   Like all the Nicene Fathers, he was an enthusiast for ascetic and
   monastic virtue, which shows itself in seclusion rather than in
   transformation of the world and the natural ordinances of God. He
   retained as priest and bishop his cloister habits of simplicity,
   abstemiousness and unworldliness. He presents the most favorable aspect
   of that mode of life, which must be regarded as a wholesome reaction
   against the hopeless corruption of pagan society. He thought with St.
   Paul that he could best serve the Lord in single life, and no one can
   deny that he was unreservedly devoted to the cause of religion. [23]

   He was not a man of affairs, and knew little of the world. He had the
   harmlessness of the dove without the wisdom of the serpent. He knew
   human nature better than individual men. In this respect he resembles
   Neander, his best biographer. Besides, he was irritable of temper,
   suspicious of his enemies, and easily deceived and misled by such men
   as Serapion. He showed these defects in his quarrel with the court and
   the aristocracy of Constantinople. With a little more worldly wisdom
   and less ascetic severity he might perhaps have conciliated and
   converted those whom he repelled by his pulpit fulminations. Fearless
   denunciation of immorality and vice in high places always commands
   admiration and respect, especially in a bishop and court preacher who
   is exposed to the temptations of flattery. But it is unwise to
   introduce personalities into the pulpit and does more harm than good.
   His relation to Eudoxia reminds one of the attitude of John Knox to
   Mary Stuart. The contrast between the pure and holy zeal of the
   preacher and the reformer and the ambition and vanity of a woman on the
   throne is very striking and must be judged by higher rules than those
   of gallantry and courtesy. But after all, the conduct of Christ, the
   purest of the pure, towards Mary Magdalene and the woman taken in
   adultery is far more sublime.

   The conflict of Chrysostom with Eudoxia imparts to his latter life the
   interest of a romance, and was over-ruled for his benefit. In his exile
   his character shines brighter than even in the pulpit of Antioch and
   Constantinople. His character was perfected by suffering. The
   gentleness, meekness, patience, endurance and devotion to his friends
   and his work which he showed during the last three years of his life
   are the crowning glory of his career. Though he did not die a violent
   death, he deserves to be numbered among the true martyrs, who are ready
   for any sacrifice to the cause of virtue and piety.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [23] Luther's intense aversion to monkery, although he himself passed
   through its discipline, must be taken into account in his unfavorable
   judgments of Chrysostom, Jerome and other Fathers except St. Augustin,
   whom he esteemed very highly. Of Chrysostom he must have read very
   little, or he could not have called him a "rhetorician full of words
   and empty of matter." He spoke well, however, of Theodoret's
   commentaries on the Pauline Epistles, which is an indirect testimony in
   favor of Chrysostom's exegesis. See Schaff, Church Hist. vol. VI. 536.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Chapter XII.--The Writings of Chrysostom.

   Chrysostom was the most fruitful author among the Greek Fathers. Suidas
   makes the extravagant remark that only the omniscient God could recount
   all his writings. The best have been preserved and have already been
   noticed in chronological order. They may be divided into five classes:
   (1) Moral and ascetic treatises, including the work on the Priesthood;
   (2) About six hundred Homilies and Commentaries; (3) Occasional, festal
   and panegyrical orations; (4) Letters; (5) Liturgy.

   His most important and permanently useful works are his Homilies and
   Commentaries, which fill eleven of the thirteen folio volumes of the
   Benedictine edition. They go together; his homilies are expository, and
   his commentaries are homiletical and practical. Continuous expositions,
   according to chapter and verse, he wrote only on the first eight
   chapters of Isaiah, and on the Epistle to the Galatians. All others are
   arranged in sermons with a moral application at the close. Suidas and
   Cassiodorus state that he wrote commentaries on the whole Bible. We
   have from him Homilies on Genesis, the Psalms, the Gospel of Matthew,
   the Gospel of John, the Acts, the Pauline Epistles including the
   Hebrews, which he considered Pauline. Besides, he delivered discourses
   on separate texts of Scripture, on church festivals, eulogies on
   apostles and martyrs, sermons against the Pagans, against the Jews and
   Judaizing Christians, against the Arians, and the famous twenty-one
   orations on the Statues.

   He published some of his sermons himself, but most of them were taken
   down by short-hand writers. [24] Written sermons were the exceptions in
   those days. The preacher usually was seated, the people were standing.

   Of the letters of Chrysostom we have already spoken.

   The Liturgy of Chrysostom so-called is an abridgment and improvement of
   the Liturgy of St. Basil (d. 379), and both are descended from the
   Liturgy of James, which they superseded. They have undergone gradual
   changes. It is impossible to determine the original text, as no two
   copies precisely agree. Chrysostom frequently refers to different parts
   of the divine service customary in his day, but there is no evidence
   that he composed a liturgy, nor is it probable. [25] The Liturgy which
   bears his name is still used in the orthodox Greek and Russian church
   on all Sundays, except those during Lent, and on the eve of Epiphany,
   Easter and Christmas, when the Liturgy of Basil takes its place.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [24] oxugrEURphoi, Socrates, VI. 5. The term occurs also in the
   Septuagint (Ps. xlv. 2) and in Philo. The Byzantine writers use the
   verb oxugraph(TM)o, to write fast, and the noun oxugraphia, the art of
   writing fast.

   [25] The liturgical references in Chrysostom's works are carefully
   collected by Bingham, in Bk. XV. of his Antiquities. Comp. Stephens, p.
   419 sqq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Chapter XIII.--His Theology and Exegesis.

   Chrysostom belonged to the Antiochian school of theology and exegesis,
   and is its soundest and most popular representative. It was founded by
   his teacher Diodor of Tarsus (d. 393), developed by himself and his
   fellow-student Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 429), and followed by
   Theodoret and the Syrian and Nestorian divines. Theodore was the
   exegete, Chrysostom the homilist, Theodoret the annotator. The school
   was afterwards condemned for its alleged connection with the Nestorian
   heresy; but that connection was accidental, not necessary. Chrysostom's
   mind was not given to dogmatizing, and too well balanced to run into
   heresy.

   The Antiochian school agreed with the Alexandrian school founded by
   Origen, in maintaining the divine inspiration and authority of the
   Scriptures, but differed from it in the method of interpretation, and
   in a sharper distinction between the Old and the New Testaments, and
   the divine and human elements in the same.

   To Origen belongs the great merit of having opened the path of biblical
   science and criticism, but he gave the widest scope to the allegorizing
   and mystical method by which the Bible may be made to say anything that
   is pious and edifying. [26] Philo of Alexandria had used that method
   for introducing the Platonic philosophy into the Mosaic writings.
   Origen was likewise a Platonist, but his chief object was to remove all
   that was offensive in the literal sense. The allegorical method is
   imposition rather than exposition. Christ sanctions parabolic teaching
   and typical, but not allegorical, interpretation. Paul uses it once or
   twice, but only incidentally, when arguing from the rabbinical
   standpoint.

   The Antiochian school seeks to explain the obvious grammatical and
   historical sense, which is rich enough for all purposes of instruction
   and edification. It takes out of the Word what is actually in it,
   instead of putting into it all sorts of foreign notions and fancies.

   Chrysostom recognizes allegorizing in theory, but seldom uses it in
   practice, and then more by way of rhetorical ornament and in deference
   to custom. He was generally guided by sound common sense and practical
   wisdom. He was more free from arbitrary and absurd interpretations than
   almost any other patristic commentator. He pays proper attention to the
   connection, and puts himself into the psychological state and
   historical situation of the writer. In one word, he comes very near to
   what we now call the grammatico-historical exegesis. This is the only
   solid and sound foundation for any legitimate use of the Scriptures.
   The sacred writers had one definite object in view; they wished to
   convey one particular sense by the ordinary use of language, and to be
   clearly understood by their readers. At the same time the truths of
   revelation are so deep and so rich that they can be indefinitely
   expanded and applied to all circumstances and conditions.
   Interpretation is one thing, application is another thing. Chrysostom
   knew as well as any allegorist how to derive spiritual nourishment from
   the Scriptures and to make them "profitable for teaching, for reproof,
   for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God
   may be complete, thoroughly furnished unto every good work." [27] As to
   the text of the Greek Testament, he is the chief witness of the
   Syro-Constantinopolitan recension, which was followed by the later
   Greek Fathers. [28] He accepts the Syrian canon of the Peshito, which
   includes the Old Testament with the Apocrypha, but omits from the New
   Testament the Apocalypse and four Catholic Epistles (2 Peter, 2 and 3
   John, and Jude); at least in the Synopsis Veteris et novi Testamenti
   which is found in his works, those five books are wanting, but this
   does not prove that he did not know them. [29]

   The commentaries of Chrysostom are of unequal merit. We must always
   remember that he is a homiletical commentator who aimed at the
   conversion and edification of his hearers. He makes frequent
   digressions and neglects to explain the difficulties of important
   texts. Grammatical remarks are rare, but noteworthy on account of his
   familiarity with the Greek as his mother tongue, though by no means
   coming up to the accuracy of a modern expert in philology. In the Old
   Testament he depended altogether on the Septuagint, being ignorant of
   Hebrew, and often missed the mark. The Homilies on the Pauline Epistles
   are considered his best, especially those to the Corinthians, where he
   had to deal with moral and pastoral questions. The doctrinal topics of
   Romans and Galatians were less to his taste, and it cannot be said that
   he entered into the depths of Paul's doctrines of sin and grace, or
   ascended the height of his conception of freedom in Christ. His
   Homilies on Romans are argumentative; his continuous notes on Galatians
   somewhat hasty and superficial. The eighty Homilies on Matthew from his
   Antiochian period are very valuable. Thomas Aquinas declared he would
   rather possess them than be the master of all Paris. The eighty-eight
   Homilies on John, also preached at Antioch, but to a select audience
   early in the morning, are more doctrinal and controversial, being
   directed against the Anomoeans (Arians). [30] We have no commentaries
   from him on Mark and Luke, nor on the Catholic Epistles and the
   Apocalypse. The fifty-five homilies on the Acts, delivered at
   Constantinople between Easter and Whitsuntide, when that book was read
   in the public lessons, contain much interesting information about the
   manners and customs of the age, but are the least polished of his
   productions. Erasmus, who translated them into Latin, doubted their
   genuineness. His life in Constantinople was too much disturbed to leave
   him quiet leisure for preparation. The Homilies on the Hebrews,
   likewise preached in Constantinople, were published after his death
   from notes of his friend, the presbyter Constantine, and the text is in
   a confused state.

   The Homilies of Chrysostom were a rich storehouse for the Greek
   commentators, compilers and epitomizers, such as Theodoret, Oecumenius,
   Theophylact, and Euthymius Zigabenus, and they are worth consulting to
   this day for their exegetical as well as their practical value.

   The theology of Chrysostom must be gathered chiefly from his
   commentaries. He differs from the metaphysical divines of the Nicene
   age by his predominantly practical tendency, and in this respect he
   approaches the genius of the Western church. He lived between the great
   trinitarian and christological controversies and was only involved
   incidentally in the subordinate Origenistic controversy, in which he
   showed a charitable and liberal spirit. He accepted the Nicene Creed,
   but he died before the rise of the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies.
   Speculation was not his forte, and as a thinker he is behind
   Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and John of Damascus. He was a
   rhetorician rather than a logician.

   Like all the Greek fathers, he laid great stress on free-will and the
   cooperation of the human will with divine grace in the work of
   conversion. Cassian, the founder of Semi-Pelagianism, was his pupil and
   appealed to his authority. Julian of Eclanum, the ablest opponent of
   Augustin, quoted Chrysostom against original sin; Augustin tried from
   several passages to prove the reverse, but could only show that
   Chrysostom was no Pelagian. We may say that in tendency and spirit he
   was a catholic Semi-Pelagian or Synergist before Semi-Pelagianism was
   brought into a system.

   His anthropology forms a wholesome contrast and supplement to the
   anthropology of his younger contemporary, the great bishop of Hippo,
   the champion of the slavery of the human will and the sovereignty of
   divine grace.

   We look in vain in Chrysostom's writings for the Augustinian and
   Calvinistic doctrines of absolute predestination, total depravity,
   hereditary guilt, irresistible grace, perseverance of saints, or for
   the Lutheran theory of forensic and solifidian justification. He
   teaches that God foreordained all men to holiness and salvation, and
   that Christ died for all and is both willing and able to save all, but
   not against their will and without their free consent. The vessels of
   mercy were prepared by God unto glory, the vessels of wrath were not
   intended by God, but fitted by their own sin, for destruction. The will
   of man, though injured by the Fall, has still the power to accept or to
   reject the offer of salvation. It must first obey the divine call.
   "When we have begun," he says, in commenting on John i. 38, "when we
   have sent our will before, then God gives us abundant opportunities of
   salvation." God helps those who help themselves. "When God," he says,
   "sees us eagerly prepare for the contest of virtue, he instantly
   supplies us with his assistance, lightens our labors and strengthens
   the weakness of our nature." Faith and good works are necessary
   conditions of justification and salvation, though Christ's merits alone
   are the efficient cause. He remarks on John vi. 44, that while no man
   can come to Christ unless drawn and taught by the Father, there is no
   excuse for those who are unwilling to be thus drawn and taught. Yet on
   the other hand he fully admits the necessity of divine grace at the
   very beginning of every good action. "We can do no good thing at all,"
   he says, "except we are aided from above." And in his dying hour he
   gave glory to God "for all things."

   Thus Augustinians and Semi-Pelagians, Calvinists and Arminians, widely
   as they differ in theory about human freedom and divine sovereignty,
   meet in the common feeling of personal responsibility and absolute
   dependence on God. With one voice they disclaim all merit of their own
   and give all glory to Him who is the giver of every good and perfect
   gift and works in us "both to will and to work, for his good pleasure"
   (Phil. ii. 12). [31]

   As to the doctrines which separate the Greek, Roman and Protestant
   churches, Chrysostom faithfully represents the Greek Catholic church
   prior to the separation from Rome. In addition to the oecumenical
   doctrines of the Nicene Creed, he expresses strong views on baptismal
   regeneration, the real presence, and the eucharistic sacrifice, yet
   without a clearly defined theory, which was the result of later
   controversies; hence it would be unjust to press his devotional and
   rhetorical language into the service of transubstantiation, or
   consubstantiation, or the Roman view of the mass. [32]

   His extravagant laudations of saints and martyrs promoted that refined
   form of idolatry which in the Nicene age began to take the place of the
   heathen hero-worship. But it is all the more remarkable that he
   furnishes no support to Mariolatry, which soon after his death
   triumphed in the Greek as well as the Latin church. He was far from the
   idea of the sinless perfection and immaculate conception of the Virgin
   Mary. He attributes her conduct at the wedding of Cana (John ii. 3, 4)
   to undue haste, a sort of unholy ambition for the premature display of
   the miraculous power of her Son; and in commenting on Matthew xii.
   46-49, he charges her and his brethren with vanity and a carnal mind.
   [33] He does not use the term theotokos, which twenty years after his
   death gave rise to the Nestorian controversy, and which was endorsed by
   the third and fourth oecumenical councils.

   As to the question of the papacy he considered the bishop of Rome as
   the successor of Peter, the prince of the Apostles, and appealed to him
   in his exile against the unjust condemnation of the Council at the Oak.
   Such appeals furnished the popes with a welcome opportunity to act as
   judges in the controversies of the Eastern church, and greatly
   strengthened their claims. But his Epistle to Innocent was addressed
   also to the bishops of Milan and Aquileia, and falls far short of the
   language of submission to an infallible authority. He conceded to the
   pope merely a primacy of honor (prostasia, /=rche), not a supremacy of
   jurisdiction. He calls the bishop of Antioch (Ignatius and Flavian)
   likewise a successor of Peter, who labored there according to the
   express testimony of Paul. In commenting on Gal. i. 18, he represents
   Paul as equal in dignity (,sotimos) to Peter. [34] He was free from
   jealousy of Rome, but had he lived during the violent controversies
   between the patriarch of new Rome and the pope of old Rome, it is not
   doubtful on which side he would have stood.

   In one important point Chrysostom approaches the evangelical theology
   of the Reformation, his devotion to the Holy Scriptures as the only
   rule of faith. "There is no topic on which he dwells more frequently
   and earnestly than on the duty of every Christian man and woman to
   study the Bible: and what he bade others do, that he did pre-eminently
   himself." [35] He deemed the reading of the Bible the best means for
   the promotion of Christian life. A Christian without the knowledge of
   the Scriptures is to him a workman without tools. Even the sight of the
   Bible deters from sin, how much more the reading. It purifies and
   consecrates the soul, it introduces it into the holy of holies and
   brings it into direct communion with God. [36]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [26] Allegorical interpretation makes the writer say something else
   than what he meant, ^llo msn /=goreuei, ^llo ds noei.

   [27] On the school of Antioch, see Schaff, Church Hist. II. 816-818;
   III. 612, 707, 937; Neander, Chrysost. I. 35 sqq.; Foerster,
   Chrysostomus in seinem Verhaeltniss zur Antioch. Schule (1869); Reuss,
   Geschichte des N. T., 6th ed. (1887), secs. 320, 518, 521; Farrar,
   History of Interpretation (1886), pp. 210 sqq., 220 sqq. Ruess pays
   this tribute to Chrysostom (p. 593): "The Christian people of ancient
   times never enjoyed richer instruction out of the Bible than from the
   golden mouth of a genuine and thoroughly equipped biblical preacher."
   Farrar calls Chrysostom "The ablest of Christian homilists and one of
   the best Christian men," and "the bright consummate flower of the
   school of Antioch."

   [28] Westcott & Hort, Gr. Test., II. 141 sqq.; Schaff, Companion to the
   Greek Test. (3rd ed.), p. 206.

   [29] Ruess, l. c. sec. 320 (p. 359); Holtzmann, Einleitung ins N.T.,
   ed. II. (1886), p. 171.

   [30] So called because they taught that the Son is unlike or dissimilar
   (/=nomoios) to the Father and of a different substance, in opposition
   to the Nicene doctrine of equal substance (homoousia), and the
   semi-Arian doctrine of like, or similar substance (homoiousia).

   [31] I add the remarks of Stephens on the difference between Chrysostom
   and Augustin (p. 430): "Unquestionable as the intellectual genius of
   Chrysostom was, yet it is rather in the purity of his moral character,
   his single-minded boldness of purpose, and the glowing piety which
   burns through all his writings, that we find the secret of his
   influence. If it was rather the mission of Augustin to mould the minds
   of men so as to take a firm grasp of certain great doctrines, it was
   the mission of Chrysostom to inflame the whole heart with a fervent
   love of God. Rightly has he been called the great teacher of consummate
   holiness, as Augustin was the great teacher of efficient grace; rightly
   has it been remarked that, like Fenelon, he is to be ranked among those
   who may be termed disciples of St. John, men who seem to have been
   pious without intermission from their childhood upwards, and of whose
   piety the leading characteristics are ease, cheerfulness and elevation;
   while Augustin belongs to the disciples of St. Paul, those who have
   been converted from error to truth, or from sin to holiness, and whose
   characteristics are gravity , earnestness, depth. If Augustin has done
   more valuable service in building up the church at large, Chrysostom is
   the more lovable to the individual, and speaks out of a heart
   overflowing to God and man, unconstrained by the fetters of a severe
   and rigid system. Yet it is precisely on this account that he has not
   been so generally appreciated as he deserves. His tone is too catholic
   for the Romanist, or for the sectarian partisan of any denomination.
   `It would be easy to produce abundant instances of his oratorial
   abilities; I wish it were in my power to record as many of his
   evangelical excellencies.' Such is the verdict of a narrow-minded
   historian [Milner], and the comparative estimation in which he held St.
   Augustin and St. Chrysostom may be inferred from the number of pages in
   his History given to each: St. Augustin is favored with 187, Chrysostom
   with 20. But he whose judgment is not cramped by the shackles of some
   harsh and stiff theory of gospel truth will surely allow that
   Chrysostom not only preached the gospel, but lived it. To the last
   moment of his life he exhibited that calm, cheerful faith, that patient
   resignation under affliction, and untiring perseverance for the good of
   others, which are preeminently the marks of a Christian saint. The
   cause for which he fought and died in a corrupt age was the cause of
   Christian holiness."

   [32] In his comments on Heb. ix. 26 (Hom. XVII. on Hebrews, in the
   Bened. ed. XII. 241 sq.; in the Oxford translation, p. 213), he
   expresses himself on the sacrificial aspect of the eucharist in these
   words: "Christ is our High Priest, who offered the sacrifice that
   cleanses us. That sacrifice we offer now also, which was then offered,
   which cannot be exhausted. This is done in remembrance of what was then
   done. For, saith He, `Do this in remembrance of Me.' It is not another
   sacrifice that we make (poioumen), as the High Priest of old, but
   always the same, or rather we perform a remembrance of a sacrifice
   (m'llon ds /=nEURmnesin ergazometha thusias)." The word remembrance
   would favor the Protestant rather than the Roman view, which demands an
   actual, though unbloody, repetition of the sacrifice of the cross in
   the mass. Other passages, however, are much stronger, though highly
   rhetorical, e.g., De Sacerd. III. 4: "When you behold the Lord slain,
   and lying there, and the priest standing over the sacrifice and
   praying, and all stained with that precious blood, do you then suppose
   you are among men, and standing upon earth? Are you not immediately
   transported to Heaven?" In another place he says, "Christ lies slain
   (tethum(TM)nos) upon the altar." And yet the people were so indifferent
   that Chrysostom laments: "In vain is the daily sacrifice, in vain stand
   we at the altar; there is no one to take part" (Third Hom. on
   Ephesians).

   [33] See his 21st Homily on John, and his 44th Homily on Matthew. Comp.
   Stephens, p. 417 sqq.

   [34] See his letter to Innocent I. and his comments on Gal. i. and ii.
   The passages of Chrysostom on Peter and his successors are collected in
   Berington & Kirk, The Faith of Catholics, ed. 3, vol. II. 32-35, 80,
   but the important passage from his Commentary on Galatians is omitted.
   See Treat, The Catholic Faith (1888), p. 396.

   [35] Stephens, p. 422.

   [36] Comp. the rich extracts from his writings bearing on the Bible, in
   Neander, I. 211-226.
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   Chapter XIV.--Chrysostom as a Preacher.

   The crowning merit of Chrysostom is his excellency as a preacher. He is
   generally and justly regarded as the greatest pulpit orator of the
   Greek church. Nor has he any superior or equal among the Latin Fathers.
   He remains to this day a model for preachers in large cities. He was
   trained in the school of Demosthenes and Libanius, and owed much of his
   literary culture to the classics. He praises "the polish of Isocrates,
   the gravity of Demosthenes, the dignity of Thucydides, and the
   sublimity of Plato." He assigns to Plato the first rank among the
   philosophers, but he places St. Paul far above him, and glories in the
   victory of the tent-maker and fishermen over the wisdom of the Greeks.
   [37]

   He was not free from the defects of the degenerate rhetoric of his age,
   especially a flowery exuberance of style and fulsome extravagance in
   eulogy of dead martyrs and living men. But the defects are overborne by
   the virtues: the fulness of Scripture knowledge, the intense
   earnestness, the fruitfulness of illustration and application, the
   variation of topics, the command of language, the elegance and rhythmic
   flow of his Greek style, the dramatic vivacity, the quickness and
   ingenuity of his turns, and the magnetism of sympathy with his hearers.
   He knew how to draw in the easiest manner spiritual nourishment and
   lessons of practical wisdom from the Word of God, and to make it a
   divine voice of warning and comfort to every hearer. He was a faithful
   preacher of truth and righteousness and fearlessly told the whole duty
   of man. If he was too severe at times, he erred on virtue's side. He
   preached morals rather than dogmas, Christianity rather than theology,
   active, practical Christianity that proves itself in holy living and
   dying. He was a martyr of the pulpit, for it was chiefly his faithful
   preaching that caused his exile. The effect of his oratory was enhanced
   by the magnetism of his personality, and is weakened to the reader of a
   translation or even the Greek original. The living voice and glowing
   manner are far more powerful than the written and printed letter.

   Chrysostom attracted large audiences, and among them many who would
   rather have gone to the theatre than hear any ordinary preacher. He
   held them spell-bound to the close. Sometimes they manifested their
   admiration by noisy applause, and when he rebuked them for it, they
   would applaud his rebuke. "You praise," he would tell them, "what I
   have said, and receive my exhortation with tumults of applause; but
   show your approbation by obedience; that is the only praise I seek."

   The great mediaeval poet assigns to Chrysostom a place in Paradise
   between Nathan the prophet and Anselm the theologian, probably because,
   like Nathan, he rebuked the sins of the court, and, like Anselm, he
   suffered exile for his conviction. [38] The best French pulpit
   orators--Bossuet, Massilon, Bourdaloue--have taken him for their model,
   even in his faults, the flattery of living persons. Villemain praises
   him as the greatest orator who combined all the attributes of
   eloquence. [39] Hase calls his eloquence "Asiatic, flowery, full of
   spirit and of the Holy Spirit, based on sound exegesis, and with steady
   application to life." [40] English writers compare him to Jeremy
   Taylor. Gibbon (who confesses, however, to have read very few of his
   Homilies) attributes to him "the happy art of engaging the passions in
   the service of virtue, and of exposing the folly as well as the
   turpitude of vice, almost with the truth and spirit of a dramatic
   representation." Dean Milman describes him as an "unrivalled master in
   that rapid and forcible application of incidental occurrences which
   gives such life and reality to eloquence. He is at times, in the
   highest sense, dramatic in manner." Stephens thus characterizes his
   sermons: [41]

   "A power of exposition which unfolded in lucid order, passage by
   passage, the meaning of the book in hand; a rapid transition from clear
   exposition, or keen logical argument, to fervid exhortation, or
   pathetic appeal, or indignant denunciation; the versatile ease with
   which he could lay hold of any little incident of the moment, such as
   the lighting of the lamps in the church, and use it to illustrate his
   discourse; the mixture of plain common sense, simple boldness, and
   tender affection, with which he would strike home to the hearts and
   consciences of his hearers--all these are not only general
   characteristics of the man, but are usually to be found manifested more
   or less in the compass of each discourse. It is this rare union of
   powers which constitutes his superiority to almost all other Christian
   preachers with whom he might be, or has been, compared. Savonarola had
   all, and more than all, his fire and vehemence, but untempered by his
   sober, calm good sense, and wanting his rational method of
   interpretation. Chrysostom was eager and impetuous at times in speech
   as well as in action, but never fanatical. Jeremy Taylor combines, like
   Chrysostom, real earnestness of purpose with rhetorical forms of
   expression and florid imagery; but, on the whole, his style is far more
   artificial, and is overlaid with a multifarious learning, from which
   Chrysostom's was entirely free. Wesley is almost his match in simple,
   straightforward, practical exhortation, but does not rise into flights
   of eloquence like his. The great French preachers, again, resemble him
   in his more ornate and declamatory vein, but they lack that simpler
   common-sense style of address which equally distinguished him."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [37] De Sacerd., IV. 6.

   [38] Paradiso, XII. 136-139: "Natan profeta e il metropolitano
   Chrisostomo, ed Anselmo, e quel Donato, Che alla prim' arte degno poner
   mano."

   [39] Tableau, etc., p. 154: "Ce sont ces qualites plus hautes, ou
   plutot c'est la reunion de tous les attributs oratoires, le naturel, le
   pathetique et la grandeur, qui' ont fait de saint Jean Chrysostome le
   plus grande orateur de l'eglise primitive, le plus eclatant interprete
   de cette memorable epoque."

   [40] "Seine Beredtsamkeit ist asiatisch, bilderreich, geistvoll und H.
   Geistes voll, auf gesunder Schriftauslegung, mit steter Anwendung auf's
   Leben, in seinen Forderungen an Andere sittlich ernst ohne asketische
   Ueberspannung."--Kirchengeschichte, I. 511.

   [41] St. Chrysostom, p. 426 sq.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   St. Chrysostom:

   treatise concerning the christian priesthood

   translated with introduction and notes by

   rev. w. r. w. stephens, m.a.,

   prebendary of chichester cathedral, and rector of woolbeding, sussex.
     __________________________________________________________________

   INTRODUCTION TO THE TREATISE ON THE PRIESTHOOD.

   The events recorded in this celebrated treatise on the Priesthood must
   have occurred when St. John Chrysostom was about twenty-eight years of
   age. His father had died when he was a young child; his mother was a
   devout Christian, but had not destined him for the clerical vocation.
   The great ability which he showed in early youth seemed to mark him out
   for distinction in one of the learned professions, and at the age of
   eighteen he began to attend the school of Libanius, the most celebrated
   sophist of the day, who had won a great reputation as a professor of
   philosophy and rhetoric, and as an eloquent opponent of Christianity,
   not only in his native city, Antioch, but also in Athens, Nicomedia,
   and Constantinople. The artificial character however of his writings
   indicates the decadence of literary power; he could skillfully imitate
   the style of ancient writers but he could not inform himself with their
   spirit; "his productions" says Gibbon [ch. xxiv], "are for the most
   part the vain and idle composition of an orator who cultivated the
   science of words."

   In the school of Libanius Chrysostom no doubt studied the best
   classical Greek authors, and although he retained little admiration for
   them in later life and probably read them but rarely, his tenacious
   memory enabled him to the last to adorn his homilies with quotations
   from Homer, Plato and the Tragedians. In the school of Libanius also he
   began to practice his nascent power of eloquence, and a speech which he
   made in honor of the Emperors is highly commended in an extant letter
   of his master. Thus the Pagan sophist helped to forge the weapons which
   were destined to be turned against his own cause. When he was on his
   death-bed being asked by his friends who was most worthy to succeed
   him, "it would have been John," he replied, "if the Christians had not
   stolen him from us."

   In due time Chrysostom began to practise as a lawyer; and as the
   profession of the law was reckoned one of the surest avenues to
   political distinction for a man of talent, and the speeches of
   Chrysostom excited great admiration, a brilliant and prosperous career
   seemed to lie before him. But the soul of the young advocate had drunk
   draughts from a purer well-spring than the school of Libanius could
   supply, and like many other Christians in that age when society, even
   Christian society, was deeply tainted by Pagan sentiments and habits of
   life, especially in a profligate city like Antioch, he recoiled from
   the contrast between the morality of the world in which he lived, and
   the standard of holiness which was presented in the Gospel. The
   chicanery and rapacity also prevalent in the profession which he had
   adopted became especially repugnant to his conscience. And these
   feelings were strengthened by the influence of his intimate friend
   Basil who had been a fellow pupil with him at the school of Libanius.

   The first book of the treatise on the Priesthood opens with a
   description of his friendship with Basil; how they studied the same
   subjects together under the same teachers, and how entirely harmonious
   they were in all their tastes, and inclinations [ci and ii.]
   Nevertheless when Basil decided to follow what Chrysostom calls the
   "true philosophy," by which he means a life of religious seclusion and
   study, Chrysostom could not immediately make up his mind to follow his
   example. The balance he says was no longer even between them; the scale
   of Basil mounted heavenward, while his own was depressed by the weight
   of earthly interests, and youthful ambitions. For a time he continued
   to practise in the law courts and to frequent the theatre, and other
   places of amusement. But gradually the study of Scripture, and saintly
   Bishop of Antioch so wrought upon his mind that he resolved to abandon
   his secular calling. And in the first place after the usual course of
   probation he was baptized. It may seem surprising that he had not been
   baptized in childhood; but a corrupt practice of delaying baptism
   (which Chrysostom himself often reprobates in his Homilies) was
   prevalent at that time. It was due in some persons to a notion that sin
   before Baptism was comparatively venial, in others to a dread of
   binding themselves or their children to the purity of life which was
   demanded by the Baptismal vows. In the case of Chrysostom it is
   possible, I think, that the distracted condition of the church in
   Antioch may have operated as a reason, perhaps the chief reason for the
   delay. At the date of his birth (about A.D. 345) and for sixteen years
   afterwards the See was occupied by Arian Bishops of the most worldly
   time-serving type. The good Catholic Bishop Meletius was appointed in
   361 and it was probably some seven or eight years later that Chrysostom
   was baptized by him, and ordained to the office of Reader in the
   Church.

   There can be no doubt that Baptism, from whatever cause delayed, must
   have come home to the recipient at last with all the more solemnity of
   meaning. It was often a decisive turning point in the life, the
   beginning of a definite renunciation of the world, and dedication of
   the whole man to God. To Chrysostom it evidently was this. For a time
   he became an enthusiastic ascetic; and then settled down into that more
   tranquil, but intense glow of piety which burned with unabated force to
   the close of his life. His baptism and the relinquishment of his
   secular calling are probably alluded to in the following treatise c. 3.
   where he speaks of "emerging a little from the flood of worldliness" in
   which he had been involved. His friend Basil who received him with open
   arms does not seem to have joined any monastic community, but merely to
   have been living in retirement and practising some of the usual
   monastic austerities. The two friends now formed a plan for withdrawing
   together to some quiet retreat, there to support one another in habits
   of study, meditation, and prayer. c. 4. The execution of the project
   was delayed for a time by the passionate entreaties of Chrysostom's
   mother that he would not deprive her of his companionship and
   protection. c. 5. He must have been a poor companion however, for we
   learn (vi. c. 12) that he rarely went outside the house, maintained an
   almost perpetual silence, and was constantly absorbed in study and
   prayer. He and Basil in fact formed with a few other friends a
   voluntary association of youthful ascetics who lived under a strict
   rule. We might compare it with the association or club formed by John
   Wesley and his brother at Oxford which first earned for them the
   nickname of "Methodists." Chrysostom and his friends placed the general
   regulation of their studies and religious life under Diodorus and
   Carterius the presidents of the two principal monastic communities in
   the neighborhood of Antioch. Diodorus was a man of learning and
   ability, opposed to those mystical and allegorical interpretations of
   Holy Scripture which often disguised rather than elucidated the real
   meaning of the sacred text, so that to his training probably we are
   largely indebted for that clear, sensible practical method of
   exposition in which Chrysostom so remarkably excels nearly all the
   ancient father of the Church.

   Not long after the two friends had adopted this course of life,
   probably about the year 374, they were agitated by a report that they
   were likely to be advanced to the Episcopate (c. 6.) By a custom which
   was then common in the Church they were liable if elected by the clergy
   and people to be forcibly seized and ordained however unwilling they
   might be to accept the dignity [see notes to chapters 6 and 7]. Basil
   entreated his friend that in this crisis of their lives they might act
   as in former times in concert, and together accept, or evade if
   possible the expected but unwelcome honor. Chrysostom affected assent
   to this proposal, but secretly resolved to entrap Basil into the sacred
   office for which he considered him to be as eminently fitted, as he
   deemed himself to be unworthy. The Church should not on account of his
   own feebleness be deprived if he could help it, of the able
   ministrations of such a man as Basil. Accordingly when some agents of
   the electing body [as to the composition of this body, see note 3, p.
   21] were sent to seize the two young men, Chrysostom contrived to hide
   himself. His language c. 6. seems to imply that he had some intimation
   of their coming which he purposely withheld from Basil who consequently
   was caught. He made at first a violent resistance, but the officials
   led him to suppose that Chrysostom had already submitted, and under
   this delusion he acquiesced. When he discovered the trick which had
   been played upon him he naturally reproached Chrysostom bitterly for
   his unkind treachery. But the conscience of Chrysostom seems to have
   been quite at ease throughout the transaction. He regarded it as a
   pious fraud and when he saw the mingled distress and anger of his
   friend he could not refrain, he says, from laughing aloud for joy, and
   thanking God for the success of his stratagem. The remainder of the 1st
   Book [chs. 8, 9] is occupied by Chrysostom's vindication of his
   conduct, the principle that deceit for a righteous end is often
   salutary and justifiable being maintained with an ingenuity and skill
   which bespeaks a man who had recently practised in the law-courts. His
   arguments indeed savor somewhat unpleasantly of casuistry, and it must
   be confessed that in his conduct on this occasion there is a tinge of
   something like oriental duplicity which is repugnant to our moral
   sense. On the other hand it must be borne in mind that neither in the
   East nor in the West, for many ages were "pious frauds" absolutely
   condemned by the conscience of Christendom; there was always an
   inclination to judge each case on its own merits, and to condone if not
   to approve those in which the balance of evidence was in favor of a
   righteous or holy purpose, and a beneficial result. And it must also be
   owned, in justice to Chrysostom, that one of the qualities most
   conspicuous in him throughout the whole of his subsequent career is
   fearless, straightforward honesty alike in act and in speech; and this
   under the pressure very often of strong temptation to dissemble and
   temporize.

   The remaining books on the Priesthood treat of the pre-eminent dignity,
   and sanctity of the priestly office and the peculiar difficulties and
   perils which beset it. They abound with wise and weighty observations
   instructive for all times, but they are also interesting from the light
   which they throw upon the condition of the Church and of society in the
   age when Chrysostom lived. It is to be noted that he is speaking of the
   priesthood generally and that it is not always easy to say in any given
   passage which of the first two orders in the ministry he has in his
   mind. In many instances perhaps he was not thinking of one more than
   the other. Where, as was very commonly the case, the jurisdiction of a
   bishop did not extend very far beyond the limits of the city in which
   his See was placed, his functions would more nearly resemble those
   which in our day are discharged by the incumbent of a large town parish
   than those which are performed by the modern Bishop of a large diocese.
   He was the chief pastor of the people, as well as the overseer of the
   clergy. Chrysostom's friend Basil has been confused by some with the
   great Basil, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, who was fifteen years
   older than Chrysostom, by others with Basil Bishop of Seleucia, who was
   many years younger. Nothing in fact is known about him beyond what is
   recorded in this treatise, but he has been conjecturally identified
   with Basil Bishop of Raphnea in Syria, not far from Antioch, who
   attended the Council of Constantinople in 381.
     __________________________________________________________________

   treatise on the priesthood.

   ------------------------

   Book I.

   1. I had many genuine and true friends, men who understood the laws of
   friendship, and faithfully observed them; but out of this large number
   there was one who excelled all the rest in his attachment to me,
   striving to outstrip them as much as they themselves outstripped
   ordinary acquaintance. He was one of those who were constantly at my
   side; for we were engaged in the same studies, and employed the same
   teachers. [42] We had the same eagerness and zeal about the studies at
   which we worked, and a passionate desire produced by the same
   circumstances was equally strong in both of us. For not only when we
   were attending school, but after we had left it, when it became
   necessary to consider what course of life it would be best for us to
   adopt, we found ourselves to be of the same mind.

   2. And in addition to these, there were other things also which
   preserved and maintained this concord unbroken and secure. For as
   regarded the greatness of our fatherland neither had one cause to vaunt
   himself over the other, nor was I burdened with riches, and he pinched
   by poverty, but our means corresponded as closely as our tastes. Our
   families also were of equal rank, and thus everything concurred with
   our disposition.

   3. But when it became our duty to pursue the blessed life of monks, and
   the true philosophy, [43] our balance was no longer even, but his scale
   mounted high, while I, still entangled in the lusts of this world,
   dragged mine down and kept it low, weighting it with those fancies in
   which youths are apt to indulge. For the future our friendship indeed
   remained as firm as it was before, but our intercourse was interrupted;
   for it was impossible for persons who were not interested about the
   same things to spend much time together. But as soon as I also began to
   emerge a little from the flood of worldliness, he received me with open
   arms; yet not even thus could we maintain our former equality: for
   having got the start of me in time, and having displayed great
   earnestness, he rose again above my level, and soared to a great
   height.

   4. Being a good man, however, and placing a high value on my
   friendship, he separated himself from all the rest (of the brethren),
   and spent the whole of his time with me, which he had desired to do
   before, but had been prevented as I was saying by my frivolity. For it
   was impossible for a man who attended the law-courts, and was in a
   flutter of excitement about the pleasures of the stage, to be often in
   the company of one who was nailed to his books, and never set foot in
   the market place. Consequently when the hindrances were removed, and he
   had brought me into the same condition of life as himself, he gave free
   vent to the desire with which he had long been laboring. He could not
   bear leaving me even for a moment, and he persistently urged that we
   should each of us abandon our own home and share a common dwelling:--in
   fact he persuaded me, and the affair was taken in hand.

   5. But the continual lamentations of my mother hindered me from
   granting him the favor, or rather from receiving this boon at his
   hands. For when she perceived that I was meditating this step, she took
   me into her own private chamber, and, sitting near me on the bed where
   she had given birth to me, she shed torrents of tears, to which she
   added words yet more pitiable than her weeping, in the following
   lamentable strain: My child, it was not the will of Heaven that I
   should long enjoy the benefit of thy father's virtue. For his death
   soon followed the pangs which I endured at thy birth, leaving thee an
   orphan and me a widow before my time to face all the horrors of
   widowhood, which only those who have experienced them can fairly
   understand. For no words are adequate to describe the tempest-tossed
   condition of a young woman who, having but lately left her paternal
   home, and being inexperienced in business, is suddenly racked by an
   overwhelming sorrow, and compelled to support a load of care too great
   for her age and sex. For she has to correct the laziness of servants,
   and to be on the watch for their rogueries, to repel the designs of
   relations, to bear bravely the threats of those who collect the public
   taxes, [44] and harshness in the imposition of rates. And if the
   departed one should have left a child, even if it be a girl, great
   anxiety will be caused to the mother, although free from much expense
   and fear: but a boy fills her with ten thousand alarms and many
   anxieties every day, to say nothing of the great expense which one is
   compelled to incur if she wishes to bring him up in a liberal way. None
   of these things, however, induced me to enter into a second marriage,
   or introduce a second husband into thy father's house: but I held on as
   I was, in the midst of the storm and uproar, and did not shun the iron
   furnace [45] of widowhood. My foremost help indeed was the grace from
   above; but it was no small consolation to me under those terrible
   trials to look continually on thy face and to preserve in thee a living
   image of him who had gone, an image indeed which was a fairly exact
   likeness.

   On this account, even when thou wast an infant, and hadst not yet
   learned to speak, a time when children are the greatest delight to
   their parents, thou didst afford me much comfort. Nor indeed can you
   complain that, although I bore my widowhood bravely, I diminished thy
   patrimony, which I know has been the fate of many who have had the
   misfortune to be orphans. For, besides keeping the whole of it intact,
   I spared no expense which was needful to give you an honorable
   position, spending for this purpose some of my own fortune, and of my
   marriage dowry. Yet do not think that I say these things by way of
   reproaching you; only in return for all these benefits I beg one favor:
   do not plunge me into a second widowhood; nor revive the grief which is
   now laid to rest: wait for my death: it may be in a little while I
   shall depart. The young indeed look forward to a distant old age; but
   we who have grown old [46] have nothing but death to wait for. When,
   then, you shall have committed my body to the ground, and mingled my
   bones with thy father's, embark for a long voyage, and set sail on any
   sea thou wilt: then there will be no one to hinder thee: but as long as
   my life lasts, be content to live with me. Do not, I pray you, oppose
   God in vain, involving me without cause, who have done you no wrong, in
   these great calamities. For if you have any reason to complain that I
   drag you into worldly cares, and force you to attend to business, do
   not be restrained by any reverence for the laws of nature, for training
   or custom, but fly from me as an enemy; but if, on the contrary, I do
   everything to provide leisure for thy journey through this life, let
   this bond at least if nothing else keep thee by me. For couldst thou
   say that ten thousand loved thee, yet no one will afford thee the
   enjoyment of so much liberty, seeing there is no one who is equally
   anxious for thy welfare.

   6. These words, and more, my mother spake to me, and I related them to
   that noble youth. But he, so far from being disheartened by these
   speeches, was the more urgent in making the same request as before. Now
   while we were thus situated, he continually entreating, and I refusing
   my assent, we were both of us disturbed by a report suddenly reaching
   us that we were about to be advanced to the dignity of the episcopate.
   [47] As soon as I heard this rumor I was seized with alarm and
   perplexity: with alarm lest I should be made captive against my will,
   and perplexity, inquiring as I often did whence any such idea
   concerning us could have entered the minds of these men; for looking to
   myself I found nothing worthy of such an honor. But that noble youth
   having come to me privately, and having conferred with me about these
   things as if with one who was ignorant of the rumor, begged that we
   might in this instance also as formerly shape our action and our
   counsels the same way: for he would readily follow me whichever course
   I might pursue, whether I attempted flight or submitted to be captured.
   Perceiving then his eagerness, and considering that I should inflict a
   loss upon the whole body of the Church if, owing to my own weakness, I
   were to deprive the flock of Christ of a young man who was so good and
   so well qualified for the supervision of large numbers, I abstained
   from disclosing to him the purpose which I had formed, although I had
   never before allowed any of my plans to be concealed from him. I now
   told him that it would be best to postpone our decision concerning this
   matter to another season, as it was not immediately pressing, and by so
   doing persuaded him to dismiss it from his thoughts, and at the same
   time encouraged him to hope that, if such a thing should ever happen to
   us, I should be of the same mind with him. But after a short time, when
   one who was to ordain us arrived, I kept myself concealed, but Basil,
   ignorant of this, was taken away on another pretext, and made to take
   the yoke, hoping from the promises which I had made to him that I
   should certainly follow, or rather supposing that he was following me.
   For some of those who were present, seeing that he resented being
   seized, deceived him by exclaiming how strange it was that one who was
   generally reputed to be the more hot tempered (meaning me), had yielded
   very mildly to the judgment of the Fathers, whereas he, who was
   reckoned a much wiser and milder kind of man, had shown himself
   hotheaded and conceited, being unruly, restive, and contradictory. [48]
   Having yielded to these remonstrances, and afterwards having learned
   that I had escaped capture, he came to me in deep dejection, sat down
   near me and tried to speak, but was hindered by distress of mind and
   inability to express in words the violence to which he had been
   subjected. No sooner had he opened his mouth than he was prevented from
   utterance by grief cutting short his words before they could pass his
   lips. Seeing, then, his tearful and agitated condition, and knowing as
   I did the cause, I laughed for joy, and, seizing his right hand, I
   forced a kiss on him, and praised God that my plan had ended so
   successfully, as I had always prayed it might. But when he saw that I
   was delighted and beaming with joy, and understood that he had been
   deceived by me, he was yet more vexed and distressed.

   7. And when he had a little recovered from this agitation of mind, he
   began: If you have rejected the part allotted to you, and have no
   further regard for me (I know not indeed for what cause), you ought at
   least to consider your own reputation; but as it is you have opened the
   mouths of all, and the world is saying that you have declined this
   ministry through love of vainglory, and there is no one who will
   deliver you from this accusation. As for me, I cannot bear to go into
   the market place; there are so many who come up to me and reproach me
   every day. For, when they see me anywhere in the city, all my intimate
   friends take me aside, and cast the greater part of the blame upon me.
   Knowing his intention, they say, for none of his affairs could be kept
   secret from you, you should not have concealed it, but ought to have
   communicated it to us, and we should have been at no loss to devise
   some plan for capturing him. But I am too much ashamed and abashed to
   tell them that I did not know you had long been plotting this trick,
   lest they should say that our friendship was a mere pretence. For even
   if it is so, as indeed it is--nor would you yourself deny it after what
   you have done to me--yet it is well to hide our misfortune from the
   outside world, and persons who entertain but a moderate opinion of us.
   I shrink from telling them the truth, and how things really stand with
   us, and I am compelled in future to keep silence, and look down on the
   ground, and turn away to avoid those whom I meet. For if I escape the
   condemnation on the former charge, I am forced to undergo judgment for
   speaking falsehood. For they will never believe me when I say that you
   ranged Basil amongst those who are not permitted to know your secret
   affairs. Of this, however, I will not take much account, since it has
   seemed agreeable to you, but how shall we endure the future disgrace?
   for some accuse you of arrogance, others of vainglory: while those who
   are our more merciful accusers, lay both these offences to our charge,
   and add that we have insulted those who did us honor, although had they
   experienced even greater indignity it would only have served them right
   for passing over so many and such distinguished men and advancing mere
   youths, [49] who were but yesterday immersed in the interests of this
   world, to such a dignity as they never have dreamed of obtaining, in
   order that they may for a brief season knit the eyebrows, wear dusky
   garments, and put on a grave face. Those who from the dawn of manhood
   to extreme old age have diligently practised self-discipline, are now
   to be placed under the government of youths who have not even heard the
   laws which should regulate their administration of this office. I am
   perpetually assailed by persons who say such things and worse, and am
   at a loss how to reply to them; but I pray you tell me: for I do not
   suppose that you took to flight and incurred such hatred from such
   distinguished men without cause or consideration, but that your
   decision was made with reasoning and circumspection: whence also I
   conjecture that you have some argument ready for your defence. Tell me,
   then, whether there is any fair excuse which I can make to those who
   accuse us.

   For I do not demand any account for the wrongs which I have sustained
   at your hands, nor for the deceit or treachery you have practised, nor
   for the advantage which you have derived from me in the past. For I
   placed my very life, so to say, in your hands, yet you have treated me
   with as much guile as if it had been your business to guard yourself
   against an enemy. Yet if you knew this decision of ours to be
   profitable, you ought not to have avoided the gain: if on the contrary
   injurious, you should have saved me also from the loss, as you always
   said that you esteemed me before every one else. But you have done
   everything to make me fall into the snare: and you had no need of guile
   and hypocrisy in dealing with one who was wont to display the utmost
   sincerity and candor in speech and action towards thee. Nevertheless,
   as I said, I do not now accuse you of any of these things, or reproach
   you for the lonely position in which you have placed me by breaking off
   those conferences from which we often derived no small pleasure and
   profit; but all these things I pass by, and bear in silence and
   meekness, not that thou hast acted meekly in transgressing against me,
   but because from the day that I cherished thy friendship I laid it down
   as a rule for myself, that whatever sorrow you might cause me I would
   never force you to the necessity of an apology. For you know yourself
   that you have inflicted no small loss on me if at least you remember
   what we were always saying ourselves, and the outside world also said
   concerning us, that it was a great gain for us to be of one mind and be
   guarded by each other's friendship. Every one said, indeed, that our
   concord would bring no small advantage to many besides ourselves; I
   never perceived, however, so far as I am concerned, how it could be of
   advantage to others: but I did say that we should at least derive this
   benefit from it: that those who wished to contend with us would find us
   difficult to master. And I never ceased reminding you of these things:
   saying the age is a cruel one, and designing men are many, genuine love
   is no more, and the deadly pest of envy has crept into its place: we
   walk in the midst of snares, and on the edge of battlements; [50] those
   who are ready to rejoice in our misfortunes, if any should befall us,
   are many and beset us from many quarters: whereas there is no one to
   condole with us, or at least the number of such may be easily counted.
   Beware that we do not by separation incur much ridicule, and damage
   worse than ridicule. Brother aided by brother is like a strong city,
   and well fortified kingdom. [51] Do not dissolve this genuine intimacy,
   nor break down the fortress. Such things and more I was continually
   saying, not indeed that I ever suspected anything of this kind, but
   supposing you to be entirely sound in your relation towards me, I did
   it as a superfluous precaution, wishing to preserve in health one who
   was already sound; but unwittingly, as it seems, I was administering
   medicines to a sick man: and even so I have not been fortunate enough
   to do any good, and have gained nothing by my excess of forethought.
   For having totally cast away all these considerations, without giving
   them a thought, you have turned me adrift like an unballasted vessel on
   an untried ocean, taking no heed of those fierce billows which I must
   encounter. For if it should ever be my lot to undergo calumny, or
   mockery, or any other kind of insult or menace (and such things must
   frequently occur), to whom shall I fly for refuge: to whom shall I
   impart my distress, who will be willing to succour me and drive back my
   assailants and put a stop to their assaults? who will solace me and
   prepare me to bear the coarse ribaldry which may yet be in store for
   me. There is no one since you stand aloof from this terrible strife,
   and cannot even hear my cry. Seest thou then what mischief thou hast
   wrought? now that thou hast dealt the blow, dost thou perceive what a
   deadly wound thou hast inflicted? But let all this pass: for it is
   impossible to undo the past, or to find a path through pathless
   difficulties. What shall I say to the outside world? what defence shall
   I make to their accusations.

   8. Chrysostom: Be of good cheer, I replied, for I am not only ready to
   answer for myself in these matt