DEATH OF NECTARIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE—EAGER COMPETITION FOR THE SEE—ELECTION OF CHRYSOSTOM—HIS COMPULSORY REMOVAL FROM ANTIOCH—CONSECRATION—REFORMS—HOMILIES ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS—MISSIONARY PROJECTS.

Such was the political and social condition of the Empire in the year A.D. 397. In September of that year died Nectarius, Archbishop of Constantinople, a man of an easy, amiable disposition, who, not taking a very elevated or severe view of the duties of his position, had administered the see for sixteen years, without annoyance, but without distinction.395 A conscientious discharge, indeed, of episcopal duties was at this epoch beset by no small difficulties in the great cities of the Empire. Bishops of important sees now occupied a high social rank.396 This had to be assumed (in Constantinople at least) in the midst of an intriguing, factious court, a corrupt, frivolous people, and a demoralised, or at least secularised, clergy. “Nothing,” said St. Augustine, “can in this life, and especially at this time, be easier or more agreeable than the office of bishop, presbyter, or deacon, if discharged in a perfunctory and adulatory manner; nothing can in this life, and especially at this time, be more laborious and perilous than such an office, if discharged as our heavenly Commander bids us.”397 And the testimony of Chrysostom’s friend, Isidore, Abbot of Pelusium, is to the same effect: “True freedom and independence are not to be found in these distinguished positions: it is so difficult to rule some, and to submit to others; to direct some, and to be directed by others; to be complaisant to some and severe to others.” Into this difficult and delicate position the pious, single-minded, unworldly, but courageous preacher of Antioch was to be suddenly transplanted, and that in a city where the difficulties incident to such a position existed in peculiar force.

At the time of the decease of Nectarius, several bishops happened to be sojourning in Constantinople on business, and as tidings of the vacancy of the see got abroad, the number of episcopal visitors largely increased; some coming as candidates, others by the invitation of the Emperor, who wished to make the ceremony of consecration as dignified and august as possible.398 Constantinople became convulsed by all those factious disputes and dissensions which usually attended the election of a bishop to an important see, and which Chrysostom has so vividly described in his treatise on the priesthood.399 From dawn of day the places of public resort were occupied by the candidates and their partisans paying court, or paying bribes to the common people; canvassing the nobles and the wealthy not without the potent aid of rich and costly gifts, some statue from Greece or silk from India, or perfumes from Arabia.400 One of the most conspicuous candidates was Isidore, a presbyter of Alexandria. His claims were eagerly pushed by Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, who had a strong personal interest in securing his success. For Isidore was in possession of a rather awkward secret in the past history of Theophilus himself. When the war between Theodosius and the usurper Maximus was impending, Isidore had been despatched by the Archbishop to Italy with letters of congratulation to be presented to him who should prove the conqueror. Isidore waited till victory had declared itself in favour of Theodosius; presented the humble felicitations of the patriarch, and returned to Alexandria. But he was unable on his return to produce the other letter, designed for Maximus had he proved the victor. According to his own account, it had been abstracted by the reader who had accompanied him on the journey. Theophilus, however, suspected the fidelity of Isidore himself, and that some ugly stories which began to circulate respecting the affair had emanated from him. The see of Constantinople, if secured through his interest, would be an effectual means, he thought, of stopping the mouth of Isidore.401 But he was doomed to disappointment. While the several candidates and their patrons were exhausting all their arts on the spot to obtain the favour of the electors, the clergy and people, distracted by conflicting bribes and arguments, unanimously decided to summon a man from a distance who had not come forward at all. They submitted the name of Chrysostom to the Emperor, who immediately approved their choice.402 In fact, the election of Chrysostom was in all probability the suggestion of Eutropius. During a recent visit on public business to Antioch, he had heard and recognised the eloquence of the great preacher. Even if the heart of the man was not touched by the pungent warnings, or warmed by the kindling exhortations of Chrysostom, he had plenty of astuteness to perceive, if only such an eloquence could be employed in the service of the Government, what a powerful engine it would be.403 The appointment, at any rate, was certain to be welcomed by the people, and of popularity Eutropius stood greatly in need. By the people of Antioch indeed Chrysostom was so deeply and ardently beloved, that the question was how to remove him without causing a disturbance of the public peace. The excitable feelings of the populace at Antioch were at all times a train of powder which needed but the application of a spark to cause a serious explosion of tumult. The difficulty was solved by a mixture of force and fraud highly characteristic of the chief designer and executor of the project. Eutropius addressed a letter to Asterius, the Count of the East, who resided in Antioch, and who promptly acted on his instructions. He proposed to the unsuspecting Chrysostom that they should pay a visit together to one of the martyries outside the city walls. Well pleased to make this pious pilgrimage, the saintly preacher accompanied his captor through the Roman gate, and turned his back on his beloved native city, which he was destined never to revisit. At the martyry he was seized by some Government officials, and carried on to PagrÆ, the first station on the high road for Constantinople. Here a chariot and horses awaited them, together with one of the imperial chamberlains, a “magister militum,” and an escort of soldiers. The bewildered Chrysostom was hurried into the chariot, without any attention being paid to his remonstrances or inquiries; the horses were put into a smart gallop, and the pace well kept up to the next stage, where a similar equipage was in waiting. Such was the rapid, but, considering all the circumstances, undignified approach of the future archbishop to take possession of his see.404

Great was the joy of the people on his arrival, great the mortification and consternation of the rival candidates. Theophilus loudly declared that he would take no part in the ordination. “You will ordain him,” said Eutropius, “or take your trial on the charges contained in these documents;” producing certain papers of accusations brought against him from various quarters, at the sight of which Theophilus turned pale. His opposition was effectually silenced, though he nourished his revenge for a future day.405 And we may presume that he took the lead, by virtue of his rank, in the ceremony of consecration—that is, that he pronounced the consecration prayer and blessing, while two other bishops held the gospels over the head, and the other prelates who were present laid their hands on the head of the recipient of consecration.406 The ceremony took place on February 26, A.D. 398, in the presence of a vast concourse of people, who came, no doubt, not only to witness the spectacle, but to hear from the lips of one so famed for eloquence the “Sermo enthronisticus,” or homily on the lesson for the day, which was delivered by the new Patriarch407 after he had been conducted to his throne, and which was regarded as a test of his powers. This discourse has not been preserved, but Chrysostom alludes to it in the homily numbered xi. against the Anomoeans, which was the second discourse he delivered as archbishop. He there reminds his hearers how in his first discourse he had promised, in his warfare with heretics, to trust, not in the carnal weapons of human dialectic, but in the spiritual armour of Holy Scripture, even as David had confronted and prevailed over the Philistine with weapons which the warrior despised, but which were crowned with success because blessed by God.408 In the review already taken of his discourses against Arians and other heretics, it has been seen how faithfully he adhered to this principle.

The disadvantages of a monastic, secluded training, in one who was called upon to occupy a large and important see, have been pointed out by no one better than by Chrysostom himself,409 and he now experienced the truth of his own observations. His genius was not of that practical order which displays itself in great discernment of character and tact in the management of men; and his virtues were of that austere kind, the virtues of the monk rather than of the Christian citizen, joined to a certain irritability of temper and inflexibility of will, which were ill calculated to first conciliate and then delicately lead on to a purer way of life the undisciplined flock committed to his care.410 If Nectarius had been too much the man of the world, his successor was, for the position in which he was placed, too much the saint of the cloister. The new wine burst the old bottles. He began immediately to reform with an unsparing hand—first of all within the limits of his own palace. The costly store of silken and gold-embroidered robes, the rich marbles, ornaments, and vessels of various kinds which his courtly predecessor had accumulated, were sold in exchange for homelier articles, and the surplus was applied to the aid of hospitals and the relief of the destitute.411 The bishop, and many of the clergy of Constantinople, had been accustomed to entertain and be entertained by the wealthy and the great. Ammianus Marcellinus contrasts the luxurious style of living affected by the bishops of great cities, who “rode about in their carriages, elaborately dressed, and gave princely banquets,” with the frugal fare, the cheap clothing, the modest deportment of the provincial bishops.412 The admonition of Jerome also to an episcopal friend demonstrates the tendency at this period to an immoderate and worldly hospitality on the part of the clergy. “Avoid,” he says, “giving great entertainments to the laity, and especially to those who occupy high stations; for it is not very reputable to see the lictors and guards of a consul waiting outside the doors of a priest of Jesus Christ, nor that the judge of a province should dine more sumptuously with you than in the palace. If it be pretended that you do this only to be able to intercede with him for poor criminals, there is no judge who will not pay greater respect to a frugal priest than to a rich one, and show more deference to your piety than to your wealth.”413 Chrysostom, like Jerome, was an uncompromising ascetic in his views on clerical life. He ate in solitude the spare and simple diet of a monk, and declared that he would never set foot at Court except on pressing affairs concerning the welfare of the Church. When one considers what the character of that Court was, it must be confessed that the resolution highly became a Christian bishop.414 His own seclusion might have been easily tolerated if he had not exacted the same severe simplicity of life in his clergy. He denounced their parasitical flatteries, and their propensity to seek entertainments at the tables of the wealthy, and insisted that their stipends must be quite sufficient to supply them with the necessaries of life. He suspended many from their cures on account of worldly or immoral conduct, and repelled others from the Eucharist. Several of these became the most active organisers of hostile cabals.

But there was another cause of the archbishop’s unpopularity with his clergy, which arose from his vigorous assaults upon a deep and apparently most prevalent evil.

Celibacy appears never to have been made obligatory on the clergy of the Eastern Church. The Synod of Elvira, which enjoins celibacy, was a purely Spanish synod;415 and the decree of Pope Siricius to the same effect, in A.D. 385, could not affect any countries beyond Italy, Spain, and perhaps Southern Gaul. That decree is a remarkable instance of the law-giving spirit of the Western Church, which hardened tendencies into binding statutes. But sentiment and opinion were quite as strong in favour of clerical celibacy in the East as in the West. It was proposed at the Council of Nice that a canon should be passed enforcing it upon every order of the clergy; a proposal which was defeated only by the influence of the aged Egyptian monk Paphnutius, who, though he had never been married, and had always lived an ascetic life, earnestly deprecated the imposition of a burden upon all men which some men only were able to bear. The result was that the clergy were permitted to retain their wives whom they had married before ordination, but were forbidden to marry after ordination. And this is called “the ancient tradition of the Church.”416 There can be no doubt, however, that a profound conviction possessed the minds of all the most earnest Christians in Eastern Christendom that the unmarried life was inherently better than the married; and, consequently, clerical celibacy was honoured and encouraged, though marriage was allowable. On the other hand, there grew up, side by side with the practice of celibacy, a custom which broke it in the spirit while it was preserved in the letter. The same Council of Nice which by one canon freely granted to the clergy the society of their lawful wives, by another prohibits unmarried clergy of every rank to have any woman dwelling under the same roof who was not their mother, sister, or aunt.417 It was the transgression of this canon which was indignantly complained of by several writers418 and at councils419 in or near the time of Chrysostom, as well as by Chrysostom himself. Under the name of spiritual sisters, young women, often consecrated virgins of the Church, lived, as they maintained, in all innocent and sisterly affection with unmarried priests. But the risk to the morals of both was imminent, and the scandal which it brought upon the clergy in the eyes of the world was certain. Chrysostom denounces the custom on both these grounds. Whether two treatises, one addressed to the men, the other to the women, were composed at Constantinople, or, as Socrates says, during his diaconate, they embody his views on the whole subject, and afford a curious insight into clerical life in the great cities at this epoch.420

He places the offenders on the horns of a dilemma. “If you are weak, the temptation to evil is so great, that for your own sake you ought to avoid it; if you are strong, you ought to abandon the practice for the sake of those who are weak.” They brought a great scandal on the Church and opened the mouths of adversaries. An isolated sin would be less severely visited than one which, though comparatively small in itself, caused others also to offend. They should imitate the wisdom of St. Paul, who would not do a thing in itself desirable or harmless, if the evil resulting to some exceeded any possible advantage to others.421 A pretext for the reception of these unmarried women was made on the ground that they were orphans who had no protectors. But this became a great snare both to the women and the clergy: they were occupied with the management of property instead of devoting themselves to spiritual concerns. It would be far better that a maiden should marry, than, by abstaining from marriage, involve herself and others in worldly business who ought to be free from it. If poor, it was better she should remain poor and friendless, than be received into a home where the danger incurred by the soul would far exceed the advantages procured for the body. There were many aged women who were poor, friendless, maimed, or diseased; the city was full of them. These were the most deserving objects of clerical charity, and on them it could be exercised without fear of reproach.422 These “spiritual sisters” appear from Chrysostom’s account to have often lived very much like fine ladies of fashion. “How incongruous and ludicrous,” he says, “when you enter the house of one who calls himself a single man, to see articles of female dress and instruments of female occupation lying about—girdles, head-gear, wool-baskets, spindles, distaffs!” In the elaboration of their dress these companions often surpassed actresses; they were gossips and match-makers. The man who ought to have renounced all worldly calls might be seen inquiring at the silversmith’s if his lady’s mirror was ready, her casket finished, her flask returned; from the silversmith’s he hurried to the perfumer’s to see about her scents; from the perfumer to the linen-draper, and so on upon a round of shopping. All this business and worldly worry made them harsh to the servants, who retaliated by secretly abusing their master and mistress.423 This was bad enough, but the clergy were not ashamed to display their servile attachment to these women even in the churches. They received them at the doors, forced others to make way for them, and walked in front of them with a proud air, when they ought not to have been able to lift up their heads for shame.424

Chrysostom implores the clergy as a suppliant, to free themselves from these disgraceful and degrading connections. “Christ would have them be strenuous soldiers and combatants. He did not arm them with spiritual weapons to help women sew and weave, but to engage with the invisible powers, to put to flight the forces of Satan, and to lead captive the rulers of spiritual darkness. If a soldier who was fully equipped were to run in-doors and sit down with the women just at the moment of the enemy’s attack, when the trumpet summoned every one to the combat, would you not run your sword through the craven on the spot? How much more would God be offended with the Christian soldier who evaded the combat with the spiritual enemy?”425

The rigour with which Chrysostom pressed reformation upon the clergy in these and many other points, not being tempered by a conciliatory manner or genial way of life, excited a vehement spirit of opposition. He was encouraged in his severity by his Archdeacon Serapion, who on one occasion had said, in the hearing of a large body of clergy: “You will never subdue these mutinous priests, my Lord Bishop, till you drive them all before you as with a single rod.”426 In fact, a large body of the more worldly clergy seem to have regarded the archbishop and his deacon with much the same mingled feelings of fear and aversion which unruly schoolboys entertain towards an austere master.

The rigorous discipline exacted from the clergy was probably by no means distasteful to the people or the Court, and by the eloquence of their new bishop they were entranced so long as his declamations were poured forth against the vices and follies of society in general. The Empress and archbishop stood for a time high in each other’s favour. She conducted with him a vast torchlight procession in which the reliques of some martyrs were conveyed to the martyry of St. Thomas in Drypia, a considerable distance outside the city. A rapturous homily was delivered by Chrysostom when they reached the chapel at dawn of day. “What shall I say? I am verily mad with joy; yet such a madness is better than even wisdom itself. Of what shall I most discourse?—the virtue of the martyrs, the alacrity of the city, the zeal of the Empress, the concourse of the nobles, the worsting of the demons?”... “Women, more delicate than wax, leaving their comfortable homes, emulated the stoutest men in the eagerness with which they made this long pilgrimage on foot. Nobles, leaving their chariots, their lictors, their attendants, mingled in the common crowd. And why speak of them when she who wears the diadem, and is arrayed in purple, has not consented along the whole route to be separated from the rest even by a little space, but has followed the saints like their handmaid, with her finger on the shrine and upon the veil covering it—she, visible to the whole multitude, whom not even all the chamberlains of the palace are usually permitted to see?” The mixture of races in Constantinople is indicated in one passage, where, comparing the Empress to Miriam leading the chorus of triumphant Israelites, he says: “She, indeed, led forth a people of one language only, but thou innumerable bands, chanting the Psalms of David, some in the Roman, some in the Syrian, some in a barbarian, some in the Greek tongue.” The procession moved along like a stream of fire, or continuous golden chain; the moon shone down upon the crowd of the faithful, and in the midst the Empress, more brilliant than the moon itself; for what was the moon compared to a soul adorned with such faith? He called her blessed, for the ends of the earth would hear of and extol this glorious act of piety. If the deed of the poor sinful woman in the Gospel, who anointed our Lord’s feet, was to be proclaimed throughout the world, how much more that of a modest, dignified, chaste woman, who displayed such piety in the midst of imperial state. And there is much more of the same Oriental, rhapsodical, rhetoric.427

The Emperor made a pilgrimage on the following day to the shrine, accompanied by all the great officials of the Court; and another discourse, similar in tone though not quite so extravagantly rapturous, was delivered by the archbishop.

As in Antioch, so also and with still greater vehemence in Constantinople, the voice of Chrysostom was incessantly lifted up against those vices which specially beset a large mixed population living under a corrupt despotism. Here, as there, the avarice and luxury of the wealthy are the themes of his indignant invective; the wrongs and pitiable poverty of the poor the occasions of his pathetic appeal. One day lamenting the paucity of worshippers, he exclaims: “O tyranny of money which drives the greater part of our brethren from the fold! for it is nothing but that grievous disease, that never-quenched furnace, which drives them hence; this mistress, more ferocious than any barbarian or wild beast, fiercer than the very demons, taking her slaves with her, is now conducting them round the Forum, inflicting upon them her oppressive commands, nor suffers them to take a little breath from their destructive labours.”... “May you derive great good from the zeal with which you listen to these words, for your groanings and the smitings of your foreheads prove that the seed which I have sown is already bearing fruit.”428

A signal instance of the passionate attachment of the people to the Circensian and theatrical exhibitions occurred about the close of the first year of his episcopate.429 A violent rain had half inundated the fields and almost destroyed the growing crops; solemn processional litanies were made to the churches of the Apostles on both sides of the Bosporus; yet two days later the majority of that multitude, which had just been invoking the intercession of saints and supplicating the mercy of God, poured into the circus, and might be seen wildly applauding and cheering on the chariots; and from that they hastened to witness with eager eyes the indecent performances of the theatre: “while I,” said the archbishop, “sitting at home and hearing your shouts, suffered worse agonies than those who are tossed by storms at sea.”430... “What defence will you be able to make when you have to render an account of that day’s work? For thee the sun rose, the moon lit up the night, choirs of stars spangled the sky; for thee the winds blew, and rivers ran, seeds germinated, plants grew, and the whole course of nature kept its proper order: but thou, when Creation is ministering to thy needs, thou fulfillest the pleasure of the devil.”431... “Say not that few have wandered from the fold; though it were but five or two or one, the loss would be great. The shepherd in the Gospel left the ninety-and-nine, and hastened after the one, nor did he return till he had made up the complete number of the flock by its restoration. Though it be only one, yet it is a soul for which this visible world was created, for which laws and statutes and the diverse operations of God have been put in motion, yea, for whose sake God spared not His only Son.”... “Therefore I loudly declare that if any one after this admonition shall desert the fold for the pestilent vice of the theatre, I will not admit him inside these rails.432 I will not administer to him the holy mysteries or allow him to touch the holy table, but expel him as shepherds drive out the diseased sheep from the fold lest they should contaminate the rest.”

The iniquity of the people’s defection had been aggravated on this occasion by the fact that the days on which they had rushed in such crowds to the circus and theatre were Good Friday and Holy Saturday. On the Sunday following Easter Day the church was fully thronged. An aged Galatian bishop, being present, was requested, according to a polite custom of that time, to preach. But the congregation expressed their disapproval by shouts of dissent, and by withdrawing in large numbers. They wanted to hear what more their eloquent castigator had to say on the subject on which he had so vehemently declaimed on Easter Day. Chrysostom was so much gratified and encouraged by the alacrity which the people had thus manifested to listen to his objurgations that his censures of the chariot races, the next time he preached, were milder than usual. He contents himself with observing that the shocking accident of the day before, when a young man about to be married had been run over in the course and cut to pieces by the chariot wheels, was a damning proof of the wild folly and wickedness of these spectacles. Nor does he rebuke them very sharply for their discourtesy to the Galatian prelate.433 They always resented the preaching of a stranger; on several occasions Chrysostom had to appeal to their feelings of respect for the custom of the Church, or enlarge on the reverence due to the preacher, either on account of his age or his great virtues, before they would listen patiently.

It is impossible to determine in the case of every homily or set of homilies whether they were delivered at Antioch or Constantinople, but the character of society seems to have been in its main features so similar in the two cities that it may be allowable to collect into one place notices on various social subjects scattered up and down Chrysostom’s works.

The extremes of wealth and poverty, barbaric splendour, and abject beggary, existed side by side in hideous and glaring contrast. The passion for the use of the precious metals was amazing. Vessels for the meanest purposes were made of silver; superfluous display without regard to utility prevailed everywhere. “If it were in their power, I verily believe that some men would have the ground they walk on,434 the walls of their houses, and perhaps even the sky and air, made of gold.” Clothes were in the opinion of Chrysostom a memorial of man’s fall from that state of innocence in which they had been unnecessary, and were therefore to be made of as little consequence as possible. “Say, ye who indulge in such grandeur as to discard all woollen garments and array yourselves in silk only, and have even advanced to such a height of madness as to weave gold into your robes (for most women do this), to what purpose do you deck out your persons in these things, not perceiving that the covering of dress was devised for us after the transgression in the place of a severe punishment?”435

The particular make of shoes worn by the fashionable young ladies and gentlemen of the day seems to have excited his special indignation. “To put silk threads into your boots, how disgraceful, how ridiculous!436 Ships are built, sailors hired, pilots appointed, the sails are spread, the sea crossed, wife, children, and home left behind, the country of the barbarian entered, and the life of the merchant exposed to a thousand perils, in order that after it all you may trick out the leather of your boots with these silken threads: what form of madness can be worse?”... “He who ought to bend his thoughts and eyes heavenwards casts them down upon his shoes instead. His chief care, as he walks delicately through the Forum, is to avoid soiling his boots with mire or dust. Will you let your soul grovel in the mire while you are taking care of your boots? Boots were made to be soiled; if you cannot bear this, take them off and wear them on your head instead of on your feet. You laugh when I say these words, but I rather weep for your folly.”437 Again, “You may see one sitting in his chariot with haughty brow, touching as it were the clouds in the senseless pride of his heart; but think him not really lofty, for it is not the sitting up in a chariot drawn by mules, but only virtue mounting to the vault of heaven which really elevates a man. Or if you see another on horseback, attended by a troop of lictors driving the multitude out of his way in the Forum, call him not happy on that account. How ridiculous! why, prithee, do you drive your fellow-creatures before you? Were you made a wolf or a lion? Your Lord Jesus Christ raised man to heaven; you do not condescend to share even the market-place with him. When you put a gold bit on your horse, a gold bracelet on your slave’s arm, when your clothes even to your shoes are gilded, you are feeding that most ferocious of monsters, avarice; you are robbing the orphan, denuding the widow, and acting as the common enemy of all. When your body is committed to the ground the memory of your ambition will not be buried with you, for each passer-by, as he contemplates the height and size of your grand mansions, will say to himself or his neighbour, ‘How many tears did it cost to build that house! how many orphans were left naked! how many widows wronged! how many persons deprived of wages!’ Thus the exact contrary of what you expected comes to pass: you desired to obtain glory during your life, and lo! even after death you are not delivered from accusers.”438

Such are the natural expressions of indignation on the part of one trained in a monkish school of piety and austere simplicity of life, when brought into practical contact with a corrupt civilisation. Every denunciation of inordinate luxury is coupled with an exhortation to the relief of distress. Almsgiving is represented as the one certain method of laying up treasure in heaven, and the true riches are increased in proportion as this world’s goods are given away. He lived in the days when social science and political economy did not exist; he only perceived the moral wrong of profuse luxury and extreme destitution side by side, and the only method which he could suggest for rectifying the evil was to impress on the wealthy the duty of almsgiving on a large scale. Beggars swarmed in the streets, and thronged the entrances of the churches and public baths;439 and he is for ever exhorting his congregations to relieve these unfortunate people. All honour to his simple Christian charity! though of course he could not have given worse advice with a view to curing the evil which he deplored. The man who wore shoes inwoven with silk or gold threads may have been a ridiculous fop, and yet have done more good by buying his finery, the produce of honest labour, than did the pious member of Chrysostom’s congregation who flung his money to the beggars congregated at the church doors.

The luxurious habits and extravagant dress of the ladies were especial objects of Chrysostom’s attack; but he draws a charming picture, on the other side, of the influence which good Christian wives might, and which many did, exercise upon their husbands. The close of the exhortation in our own “Marriage Service” seems almost as if suggested by a passage in which he quotes Sarah the wife of Abraham as a pattern of dutiful obedience to her husband, as adorned with virtue, instead of the outward adorning of “plaiting the hair and putting on of apparel.”440 “The good wife, as she remains more at home than the man, and has more leisure for ‘pious contemplation’ (f???s?f?a), can calm and soothe the husband when he returns harassed by business, cut off his superfluous cares, and so send him back free of the troubles contracted in the Forum, and carrying with him the good lessons which he has learned at home.”... “No influence is more potent than that of a careful and discreet wife to harmonise and mould the soul of a man.”... “I could mention many hard, intractable men who have been softened in this manner.” And this influence would be in proportion to the Christian purity and simplicity of her own life. “When thy husband shall see thee modest, not a lover of ornament, not demanding an unnecessary allowance, then he will listen to thy counsel. When you seek not gold or pearls, or costly array, but modesty, temperance, and benevolence, in proportion as you manifest these virtues yourself, you may demand them of him; these are the ornaments which never fail to attract; this is the adornment which old age does not dissolve or disease destroy.”... “When your husband sees you laying aside luxury, he will lay aside the love of gain, and will be more inclined to deeds of charity. With what face, O ye wives, can you exhort your husbands to almsgiving, when you consume the largest portion of his means on the decoration of your own persons?”441

He urgently represents to the wealthy proprietors of land in the country the solemn duty incumbent on them of providing for the spiritual welfare of the people on their estate, by building a church and maintaining a pastor among them. “There are many who possess farms and fields, but all their anxiety is to make a bath-house to their mansion, to build entrance courts and servants’ offices; but how the souls of their dependants are cultivated they care not.”... “If you see thorns in a field, you cut them down and burn them; but when you see the souls of your labourers beset with thorns and cut them not down, tell me, do you not fear when you reflect on the account which will be exacted from you for these things? Ought not every Christian estate-holder to build a church and to make it his aim before all things else that his people should be Christian?”... “Therefore I exhort, I supplicate as a favour, or rather I affirm it as a principle, that no one should be seen in possession of an estate which is not provided with a church.” He concludes by drawing a pleasing picture of the benefit derived from the residence of a pastor in the quiet country village; the softening, humanising, civilising effect of his presence; the relief given to the needy, the comfort to the sick and dying; the pleasant repose which the proprietor may enjoy when he withdraws for a time from the turmoil of city life, and worships among his grateful people in the church which he has founded, and where his name will be blessed for many future generations. “And think of the reward in heaven; Christ said, ‘If thou lovest me feed my sheep.’ If you were to see any of the royal sheep or horses destitute of shelter and exposed to attack, and were to house them, provide stabling for them, and appoint some one to tend them, with how great a gift would the sovereign requite you. And think you that, if you fold Christ’s flock and set a shepherd over them, He will not do some great thing for you?”442

The responsibility indeed of every Christian man to promote the spiritual welfare of his brethren is one of the topics on which Chrysostom most constantly and earnestly dilates. “Nothing can be more chilling than the sight of a Christian who makes no efforts 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 Christian light, under pretence of weakness, is as great an insult to God as if we were to say that He could not make His sun to shine.”443

The practice of swearing deep oaths about trifles appears to have been as prevalent at Constantinople as at Antioch, and equally to have excited the indignation of the Archbishop. He would not cease to denounce this devilish habit, and that vehemently, lest he should incur the condemnation pronounced on Eli, who rebuked, but not with sufficient severity. He would unsparingly repel from the threshold of the Church any who persisted in this pernicious vice, were he emperor or prince. Men might deride his vehemence, but they forgot that he was only the servant of Jesus Christ; their mockery fell on the Master rather than the minister. Let them laugh and jest as much as they would; he was placed there to suffer it. “Obey my voice or depose me from this my office. I cannot consent to mount this throne unless I accomplish something great. If I cannot do this, it were better for me to stand below. As long as I sit here I cannot refrain, not so much out of fear of punishment to myself as on account of your salvation, which I earnestly desire.”444

Immoderate addiction to the pleasures of the table is a frequently recurring subject of censure. He depicts in lively terms the freshness, activity, and good health of the temperate man; the lethargy, the headaches, the cramps, the gout, the sickness of the glutton. Here is his portrait of a fat gourmand:—“To whom is not the man disagreeable who makes obesity his study, and has to be dragged about like a seal? I speak not of those who are such by nature, but of those who, naturally graceful, have brought their bodies into this condition through luxurious living. The sun has risen, he has darted everywhere his brilliant rays, he has roused every one to his work: the tiller has taken his hoe, the smith his hammer, each workman his proper tool; the woman sets to work to spin or weave; while he like a hog goes forth to the occupation of filling his stomach, seeking how to provide for a costly table. When the sun has filled the market-place, and other men have already tired themselves with work, he rises from his bed, stretching himself like a fatting pig. Then he sits a long time on his couch to shake off the drunkenness of the previous evening, after which he adorns himself and walks out a spectacle of ugliness, not so much like a man as a man-shaped beast.”... “Who might not justly say, ‘this fellow is a burden to the earth; he has come into the world in vain; nay, not in vain, alas! but to the injury both of himself and other people?’”445

Such passages as these prove that the power of Chrysostom to captivate his hearers consisted not always in eloquence or ornate rhetoric, but in a kind of bold and rough plain-speaking, which dragged out into broad daylight the most flagrant evils of the time, and painted them in strong coarse colours, to excite derision or disgust. But the fickleness and impulsiveness of the people were fatal obstacles to the retention of fixed and durable impressions. The population upon whom Chrysostom poured forth his torrents of exhortation or invective was more debased than that to which Savonarola preached; not so vigorous, not so homogeneous, not so much animated by a sentiment of citizenship, not under the refining influence of a taste for literature and art.446 It was a vast, disorderly medley of incoherent elements, destitute of those political privileges, and of that industrial commercial spirit, which inspire the character with manly energy and independence. A passionate, invincible love of pleasure, an abandoned devotion to such public amusements as in no way appealed to the intellect, and were calculated to debase and relax the finer moral feelings,—these were insuperable bars to the substantial success of the Christian reformer. A large proportion of his hearers seem to have listened to his discourses as pleasant exhibitions of bold satire and eloquent declamation; they applauded, they laughed, they wept, they were smitten with something like compunction; and Chrysostom confesses that at the moment he could not repress a natural feeling of gratification at the effect produced; but that when he went home, and reflected that the benefit which his hearers should have derived generally evaporated in empty applause, instead of manifesting itself in some solid improvement, he wept and groaned from vexation. What men learned in the church was undone in the theatre: “his work was like that of a man who attempted to clean a piece of ground into which a muddy stream was constantly flowing.”447

His letters to individuals, and the eulogia which he passes at the beginning of some of his homilies on the zeal, piety, and attention of his flock, prove indeed that there were bright exceptions, but the mass of the people remained irreclaimable. On grand festivals, such as Easter Day, vast crowds attended the church; the very precincts were thronged, and the multitude surged backwards and forwards like the waves of the sea. A large portion was composed of the fashionable and rich; but Chrysostom greatly preferred those smaller congregations, consisting chiefly of poor, who attended regularly, and on whose attachment to the Church he could depend. He enjoyed these quiet services, free from the bustle and disturbance of large crowds.448 The wealthy and the gay spared little time for the services of the Church, though they never pleaded business as an excuse for absence from the theatre. If they came now and then, they did so as a kind of condescension and favour shown to God and his priest. They lazily slumbered, or idly gossiped during the service; yet they boasted of their attendance afterwards.449

After the account in previous chapters of Chrysostom’s method of dealing with the prevalent heresies of the day at Antioch, there is no occasion to say much more. The same forms of error had to be encountered at Constantinople by much the same arguments. Only one, Novatianism, appears to have been more prominent in this city than at Antioch. The exclusive pretensions to purity of doctrine and moral life made by the Novatians excited his special indignation. “What arrogance! what boastfulness is this! Can you, being a man, call yourself clean? Nay, what madness is it? As well call the sea free from waves; for as waves never cease to move on the sea, so do sins never cease to work in us.”450 The harshness of the Novatians, in refusing the readmission of apostates on repentance, was peculiarly offensive to his merciful and hopeful view of human nature. Sicinnius, the Novatian bishop in Constantinople, wrote a book against him, in which he makes a handle of particular expressions in Chrysostom’s homilies detached from their context; such as, “Repent a thousand times, and enter the Church;” ... “let the unclean person, the adulterer, the thief, enter;” but omitting the words which follow—“that he may learn to do these things no more. I draw all, I throw my net over all, desiring to catch not those only who are sound, but those who are sick.”451 A hopefulness and love, which never despaired of the sinner, are eminently characteristic of Chrysostom; and the strong words of encouragement and comfort which he used were of course susceptible of a construction injurious to him, by those who prided themselves on enforcing a very rigid standard of moral and ecclesiastical discipline.

Twenty years had elapsed since Gregory Nazianzenus, with much reluctance and trembling, had accepted the See of Constantinople. The city was at that time a very stronghold of Arianism. Arians had held the see for nearly forty years. The services of the orthodox were held in a private house, and were at first exposed to violent disturbance from the populace, which, hounded on by the Arian clergy, hooted and threw stones at the worshippers. But the eloquence, combined with the holiness, of Gregory had subdued this violent opposition. The ranks of the orthodox were swelled, and the little house was enlarged into a noble church, under the name of Anastasia, as significant of the revival of the true faith.452 Imperial authority completed the work which Gregory had begun. The Arians and other sectaries were prohibited by various enactments from assembling for worship within the city walls;453 but in the time of Chrysostom they began again to molest the faithful. On Saturdays and Sundays they made a practice of assembling in colonnades and public places, and there loudly singing Arian songs—songs, that is, embodying Arian doctrine, like the Thalia composed by Arius; abstract statements of theology, very unpoetical in form, very incapable, as we should have supposed, of exciting popular feeling.454 This noisy singing went on during the greater part of the night; at dawn they marched through the streets singing antiphonally, and then held assemblies for worship outside the gates. Chrysostom, with more of zeal perhaps than wisdom, organised rival processions of antiphonal singers; the Empress supplied them with tapers mounted on silver crosses. Street frays were the inevitable consequence of these counter demonstrations; the Arians took to their old practice of stone-throwing; Briso, one of the Emperor’s chamberlains, was wounded by a stone in the forehead, and several persons killed on both sides, after which the Arian assemblies were suppressed by royal order.

The practical energy of Chrysostom was not confined within the limits of his own diocese. He did not forget his native city, but laboured, and laboured successfully, to heal the schism by which the Church of Antioch had been so long distracted. Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, consented at his earnest request to join with him in the despatch of an embassy to Rome, to supplicate the recognition of Flavian as sole bishop. Acacius, Bishop of Beroea, and Isidore, for whom Theophilus had striven to obtain the See of Constantinople, were selected to carry the petition, and they returned with a favourable answer from the Bishops of the West. It is a satisfaction to find Chrysostom united in this charitable work with those who afterwards became his most malignant enemies.455

His missionary efforts extended northwards to the Danube, and southwards to Phoenicia, Syria, and Palestine. He sought out men of apostolic zeal to evangelise some Scythian tribes on the banks of the Danube, and appointed a Gothic bishop, Unilas, who accomplished great things, but died in A.D. 404, when Chrysostom was in exile, and unable to appoint a successor.456 A novel spectacle was witnessed one day in the Church of St. Paul. A large number of Goths being present, Chrysostom ordered some portions of the Bible to be read in Gothic, and caused a Gothic presbyter to address his countrymen in their native tongue. The Archbishop, who preached afterwards, rejoiced in the occurrence as a visible illustration of the diffusion of the Gospel among all nations and languages, a triumph before their very eyes over Jews and Pagans, and a fulfilment of such prophecy as “Their sound is gone out into all lands;” “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.” “Where is the philosophy of Plato and Pythagoras? Extinguished. Where is the teaching of the tent-maker and the fisherman? Not only in JudÆa, but also among the barbarians, as ye have this day perceived, it shines more brilliantly than the sun itself. Scythians, and Thracians, Samaritans, Moors, and Indians, and those who inhabit the extremities of the world, possess this teaching translated into their own language; they possess such philosophy as was never dreamed of by those who wear a beard and thrust passengers aside with their staff in the Forum, and shake their wise locks, looking more like lions than men.”... “Nay! our world has not sufficed for these evangelists; they have betaken themselves even to the ocean, and enclosed barbarian regions and the British Isles in their net.”457 Chrysostom assigned a church in Constantinople for the use of the Scythian inhabitants (probably Gothic, for the Greek historians used the word Scythian very vaguely), ordained native readers, deacons, and presbyters, and frequently preached there himself through the medium of an interpreter.458 Some of his letters when in exile are addressed to Gothic monks, who occupied the house where Promotus had lived.459 They were staunch friends to him during his exile, and the monastic body established in this house existed in the seventh century.

Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza, wrote a letter to Chrysostom in A.D. 398, urging him to obtain an order from the Emperor for the destruction of Pagan temples in that city. Chrysostom did not cease to solicit Eutropius till he had procured an edict, not indeed for the destruction, but for the closing of the temples, and the demolition of the idols which they contained. In the following year, however, A.D. 399, an edict was issued addressed to Eutychianus, Prefect of the East, directing that the temples should be demolished throughout the country. This appears to have been obtained chiefly through the influence of Chrysostom; and large bodies of monks were sent by him into Phoenicia, where especially paganism prevailed, who were to use every effort to extirpate it, both by assisting in the destruction of temples, and by the propagation of Christian truth. The money required for this missionary expedition was supplied by the liberality of some ladies in Constantinople, rich not only in faith, but also in the wealth of this world. The welfare of these missionary projects continued, as will hereafter be seen, to engage his most anxious attention throughout his exile to the very close of his life.460