SURVEY OF CHRYSOSTOM’S THEOLOGICAL TEACHING—PRACTICAL TONE OF HIS WORKS—REASON OF THIS—DOCTRINE OF MAN’S NATURE—ORIGINAL SIN—GRACE—FREE-WILL—HOW FAR CHRYSOSTOM PELAGIAN—LANGUAGE ON THE TRINITY—ATONEMENT—JUSTIFICATION—THE TWO SACRAMENTS—NO TRACE OF CONFESSION, PURGATORY, OR MARIOLATRY—RELATIONS TOWARDS THE POPE—LITURGY OF CHRYSOSTOM—HIS CHARACTER AS A COMMENTATOR—VIEWS ON INSPIRATION—HIS PREACHING—PERSONAL APPEARANCE—REFERENCES TO GREEK CLASSICAL AUTHORS—COMPARISON WITH ST. AUGUSTINE.

The main characteristics of Chrysostom as a theologian and interpreter of Scripture, as well as a pastor and preacher, have, it is hoped, been already indicated in the course of the preceding narrative; but it may be desirable to supplement, by a fuller and more methodical survey, notices which were necessarily sometimes brief and incidental in the biographical chapters.667

Some evidence, therefore, of his theological teaching and method of interpretation will first of all be collected from his writings, and arranged under different heads. Two difficulties in the way of executing this task faithfully should be borne in mind: first, the voluminous bulk of Chrysostom’s works (as Suidas observed, that it belonged to God rather than man to know them all), which renders a successful search for the selection of what are really the most telling passages in illustration of each point far from easy; secondly, that Chrysostom, being a preacher rather than a writer, was of course liable to slip into inexact or exaggerated language, under the influence of excitement, or a desire to make an impression on the feelings of his hearers. An attentive perusal, however, of his writings leads the reader to the conclusion that he was very seldom carried away by the impulse of the moment into merely vague or rhetorical expressions, and that he was especially preserved from this failing by his habit of combining the expository with the practical and hortatory line of preaching. His discourses are careful commentaries as well as practical addresses. Week after week it was his custom to go through some book of Holy Scripture, verse by verse, clause by clause, almost word by word; endeavouring with all diligence and patience to ascertain the exact meaning of the passage before him, to place it clearly before his audience, and to base his practical exhortation upon it.

The remark has been so often repeated, as to have become almost a truism, that the theology of the East is distinguished from the theology of the West by its more speculative, metaphysical character. It deals more especially with the most profound and abstract mysteries—the being and nature of the Godhead, of angels, of the whole spiritual realm. It might, therefore, occasion some surprise to find the homilies of Chrysostom marked by such an eminently practical tone. But the apparent contradiction is easily explained. It is precisely because Greek philosophy and theology were chiefly concerned with the most abstract questions, that the Greek preacher, speaking on matters not abstract, but practical, relating to moral conduct, is especially free in his language from philosophical or technical terms. On the other hand, in the Western Church exactly the reverse occurs. The best intellectual powers of the Roman having been mainly exercised on jurisprudence, the mind of Roman theologians naturally turned most powerfully towards practical questions which had most affinity to that science with which they were chiefly conversant—such as the relation of man to God, the nature of sin, the means of discharging the debt owed by man, the problem of the free-will of man, and providence of God. Western theology is coloured by the language of Roman law, as Eastern theology is coloured by the language of Greek philosophy. “Merit,” “satisfaction,” “decrees,” “forensic justification,” “imputed righteousness,” are terms which do not occur in the writings of the Greek theologian, because they are the expressions of ideas in which he felt no interest. They are the offspring of the Roman mind, in which legal ideas were dominant. Hence the Western theologian is most technical and scientific in the region of practical questions; the Greek, on the other hand, is more entirely free from the influence of philosophy in that region than in any other.

In accordance with this distinction, we find that Chrysostom, in treating of those practical questions with which, as a preacher and pastor, he was mainly concerned—the nature and the work of Jesus Christ, providence, grace, the nature of man, sin, faith, repentance, good works, and the like—casts his thoughts into the most free, natural, untechnical, and therefore forcible language possible.

To consider first of all his exposition of man’s nature. The majority of the Oriental fathers made a triple division, into body, soul, and spirit—the soul (????) being equivalent to the animal life, the spirit (p?e?a or ???? ??????) to the reason. Chrysostom makes a twofold division only, into body and soul, and reserves the word “spirit” to designate the Holy Spirit.668 Man, when first created, came like a pure golden statue fresh out of the artist’s hands, destined, if he had not fallen, to enjoy a yet higher and nobler dignity than he then possessed.669 His being made “in the image of God” Chrysostom interprets to signify that dominance over the lower animals which God Himself exercises over the whole creation, and the peculiar superiority of man’s nature to theirs consists in his reasoning power, as well as in his endowment with the gift of immortality.670 Man fell through his own weakness and indolent negligence (?????a), and then became deprived of that immortality and divine wisdom with which he had been previously gifted; but his nature was not essentially changed, it was only weakened.671 Evil is not an integral part of man; it is not an inherent substantial force (d??a?? ???p?stat??):672 it is the moral purpose (p??a??es??) which is perverted when men sin. If evil was a part of our nature, it would be no more reprehensible than natural appetites and affections. If man’s will was not unfettered, there would be no merit in goodness and no blame in evil. There is no constraint either to holiness or to sin; neither does God compel to the one, nor do the fleshly appetites compel to the other.673 The body was not, as the ManichÆans erroneously maintained, the seat of sin; it was the creation of God equally with the soul; the whole burden, therefore, of responsibility in sin must be thrown on the “moral purpose.” Here was the root of all evil; the conception of necessity and immutability is bound up with the idea of nature. We do not try to alter that which is by nature (f?se?): sin therefore is not by nature, because by means of education, laws, and punishments we do seek to alter that.674 Sin is through the moral purpose which is susceptible of change, and till the moral purpose has come into activity sin cannot properly be said to exist: infants, therefore, and very young children, are free from sin.675 Our first parents fell through moral negligence (?????a); and this is the principal cause of sin now. They marked out a path which has been trodden ever since; they yielded to appetite, and the force of the will has been weakened thereby in all their posterity, who have become subject to the punishment of death; so that though sin is not a part of man’s nature, yet his nature is readily inclined to evil (?????ep?? p??? ?a??a?): but this tendency will be controlled by the moral purpose if that is in a healthy condition.676

Chrysostom would thus readily allow the expressions “hereditary tendency to sin,” “hereditary liability to the punishment of death,” but he shrinks from the expression “hereditary sin.” His anxiety to insist on the complete freedom of the human will was very natural in the earnest Christian preacher of holiness, who lived in an age when men were frequently encountered who, in the midst of wickedness, complained that they were abandoned to the dominion of devils or to the irresistible course of fate. They transferred all guilt from themselves to the powers of evil, all responsibility to the Creator Himself, who had withdrawn from them, as they maintained, the protection of His good providence. To counteract the disastrous effects of such philosophy, which surrendered the will to the current of the passions, like an unballasted ship cast adrift before the storm, it was indeed necessary to maintain very resolutely and boldly the essential freedom of the will, to insist on man’s moral responsibility, and the duty of vigilant, strenuous exertion. Chrysostom frequently exposes the absurdity as well as the moral evil of a doctrine of necessity. If human actions are necessary and preordained results of circumstances, then teaching and government become mere pieces of acting, destitute of any practical influence; they are also unjust, since you have no right to punish a person who has acted under compulsion. Such a theory ought, also, logically to paralyse human industry. If a plentiful harvest is predetermined by the decrees of fate, you may spare yourself the trouble of ploughing, sowing, and other laborious operations; or, if Clotho has turned her distaff in the other direction, all your exertions will fail to produce an abundant crop. Such a doctrine is repugnant to our natural sense, and contradicts our own consciousness and inward experience. We feel that we are free, and all human action proceeds on the principle of supposing man to be free. We teach and we punish. The plea of necessity would be rejected in a court of law as an impudent and futile excuse for crime. Such a theory is utterly at variance also with God’s mode of addressing man, which always implies freedom of volition; as, for instance, “If ye will hearken unto me, ye shall eat the fat of the land; but if ye will not hearken, the sword shall devour you.”677

Profoundly convinced, therefore, of a universal tendency to sin on the one hand, but of an essential freedom of the will on the other, Chrysostom sounds alternately the note of warning and of encouragement—warning against that weakness, indolence, languor of the moral purpose which occasions a fall; encouragement to the full use of those powers with which all men are gifted, and to avoid that despondency which will prevent a man from rising again when he has fallen. St. Paul repented, and, not despairing, became equal to angels; Judas repenting, but despairing, was hurried into self-inflicted death. Despair was the devil’s most powerful instrument for working the destruction of man.678 Chrysostom therefore earnestly combated any view of Christian life which daunted and discouraged man’s efforts, by winding them too high, or placing before them an unattainable standard. Men sometimes said we cannot be like St. Peter and St. Paul, because we are not gifted with their miraculous power. But, he replies, you may emulate their Christian graces: these are within the reach of all, and these are, by our Lord’s own declaration, the most important. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another;” the moral works of the Apostles, works of love, mercy, and faith, were far more instrumental in the conversion of the world than their merely miraculous powers.679

Urgently, however, as Chrysostom, in his desire to stimulate exertion and strengthen the moral life, insists on the absolute freedom of the will, he maintains no less clearly the insufficiency of man’s nature to accomplish good without the Divine assistance. No one has described in more forcible language the powerful hold of sin upon human nature. Sin is like a terrible pit, containing fierce monsters, and full of darkness.680 It is more terrible than a demon,681 it is a great demon;682 it is like fire; when once it has got a hold on the thoughts of the heart, if it is not quenched it spreads further and further, and becomes increasingly difficult to subdue;683 it is a heavy burden, more oppressive than lead.684 Christ saw us lying cast away upon the ground, perishing under the tyranny of sin, and He took compassion on us.685 In the infant weakness and liability to sin are inherent, though not sin itself. The moral nature of the infant is like a plant, which will grow healthily by a process of natural development, unless exposed to injurious influences; but it requires the protection of grace, “therefore we baptize infants to impart holiness and goodness, as well as to establish a relationship with God.” This passage is quoted by St. Augustine in his earnest vindication of Chrysostom from Pelagianism.686 But the passages on which Augustine mainly depends to prove Chrysostom’s adherence to the tenet of original sin are in his exposition of Romans v. 12-14:—“Death reigned from Adam to Moses. How reigned? In likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a figure of One to come. How a figure? Because, as he became a cause of death to those who were born from him, although they had not eaten of the tree, even so Christ has become to His posterity the procurer of righteousness, though they have not done righteousness, which He has bestowed upon us all through His cross.” Augustine quotes also his observation on Christ’s tears over the grave of Lazarus:—“He wept to think that men, who were capable of immortality, had been made mortal by the devil;” and his remarks on Genesis i. 28, about the subjection of the lower animals to man: “that man’s present dread of wild beasts was entirely owing to the Fall, and had not existed previous to that: it was inherited by all Adam’s posterity, because they inherited his degradation through the Fall.” All these passages, however, do not amount to more than the doctrine of a universally inherited tendency to sin, and therefore liability to its punishment, death. In his interpretation of the passage, “the free gift is of many offences unto justification,” this last word is plainly taken by him in the sense of making man righteous, not accounting him as such.687

His conception of the relation between the will and power of God on the one hand, and man’s freedom on the other, appears to be this:—All men, without exception, are through Christ called to salvation; predestination means no more than God’s original design, conceived prior to the Fall, of bringing all men to salvation. So, after the Fall, His redemptive plan or purpose embraces all men; but, on the other hand, it constrains no one. According to His absolute will all men are to be saved; but the accomplishment of His purpose is limited by the freedom of choice which He has Himself bestowed on man, whereby man may either accept the proffered favour and be eternally blessed, or reject it and be eternally condemned. God’s election of those who are called is not compulsory, but persuasive;688 hence, many of those who have been called perish through their rejection of grace: they, and not God, are the authors of their own condemnation. God knows beforehand what each man will be, good or bad; but He does not constrain him to be one or the other.689 The illustration of the potter in Romans ix. 20 must not be pressed too closely; St. Paul’s object simply is to enforce the duty of unconditional obedience. A vessel of wrath is one who obdurately resists God’s grace; he was never intended by God to be a vessel of wrath. “The vessels of mercy are said to have been prepared afore by God unto glory,” but the vessels of wrath to be fitted (not by God—He is not mentioned—but by sin) unto destruction.690 So again, he acutely observes that, in the account of the final judgment (St. Matt. xxv.), the destiny of the good only is referred to God. “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you;” but, “Depart, ye cursed” (not “of my Father”), “into everlasting fire, prepared” (not for you, but) “for the devil and his angels.”

On St. John vi. 44, he remarks, it is perfectly true that only they who are drawn and taught by the Father can come to Christ; but away with the paltry pretence that those who are not thus drawn and taught are emancipated from blame; for this very thing, the being led and instructed, depends on their own moral choice. Two factors, therefore, Divine grace which presents, and human will which appropriates, are co-efficients in the work of man’s salvation; God’s love and man’s faith must work hand in hand. God provides opportunities, encourages by promises, arouses by calls; and the moment these are responded to, the moment man begins to will and to do what is right, he is abundantly assisted by grace. But Chrysostom recognises nothing approaching the doctrine of final perseverance. St. Paul might have relapsed, Judas might have been saved (De Laud. Ap. Pauli, Hom. ii. 4). In his commentary on Phil. ii. 12-13, “It is God which worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure,” the spontaneity of man’s will is carefully maintained. It may be said, if God works the will in us, why does the apostle exhort us to work? for if God wrought the wish, it is vain to speak of obedience; the whole work is God’s from the beginning. No! Chrysostom says, what St. Paul means is, that if your will works, God will augment your will, and quicken it into activity and zeal. Hast thou given alms? you are the more prompted to give; hast thou abstained from giving? negligence will increase upon you. The histories of Abraham, Job, Elijah, St. Paul, and other saints, are frequently cited to prove his central principle, that God in the moral and spiritual sense helps those only who help themselves. “When He, who knows the secrets of our hearts, sees us eagerly prepare for the contest of virtue, He instantly supplies us with His assistance, lightening our labours, and strengthening the weakness of our nature. In the Olympian contests the trainer stands by as a spectator merely, awaiting the issue, and unable to contribute anything to the efforts of the contender; whereas our Master accompanies us, extends His hand to us, all but subdues our antagonist, arranges everything to enable us to prevail, that He may place the amaranthine wreath upon our brows.”691 God does not anticipate (f???e?) man’s own volitions (????se??), but when these are once bent in the right direction, God’s grace powerfully promotes them; and without this divine co-operation holiness is unattainable.692 But as, according to Chrysostom’s conceptions, the first movement towards good moral practice comes from the man himself, he often speaks of a man’s salvation depending on his own moral choice. He is not, therefore, in harmony with the mind of our Church as expressed in the Article, that “we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God preventing us, that we may have a good will;” but his language thoroughly concurs with the subsequent clause, “and working with us when we have that good will.” In the technical language of theology, he recognises assisting, but not prevenient, grace.

It has been well remarked by Mr. Alexander Knox (“Remains,” vol. iii. 79), that “the advocates for efficient grace have been too generally antiperfectionists, and the perfectionists, on the other hand, too little aware that we are not sufficient so much as to think anything as of ourselves, but that it is God which worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” The perfect conception of the true Christian standard of character could only be found, he thought, in a union of the systems of St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine. It must not be imagined, however, that Chrysostom regarded Divine grace as merely accessory or subsidiary to man’s own will and purpose. He fails not to represent it as indispensable to every human soul, however powerfully inclined of itself to good. The human will, weakened and depraved by evil, is not for a moment to rank as co-ordinate in its action with the work of the Holy Spirit: the real efficient force in the work of sanctification is the Holy Spirit. The beginnings, indeed (???a?), are our own, and we must contribute what we can, small and cheap though it be, because, unless we do our part, we shall not obtain the Divine assistance; but though the initiatory step is ours, the accomplishment of the work is altogether God’s, and, since the major part is His, we commonly say that the whole is His.693

He invariably speaks of the Old Dispensation as a period when Divine grace was given in less measure than under the Gospel, because then sin had not been blotted out, nor death vanquished. The achievements of holy men like Abraham and Job in this period were therefore deserving of peculiar praise, and their faults, on the other hand, were entitled to more indulgent judgment, because they laboured under disadvantages. When the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world had been slain, and the reconciliation between man and God had been effected, then spiritual gifts of a higher order were imparted as a sign and a pledge that the old hostility had ceased.694

Turning now to theology, strictly so called, to the being and nature of the Godhead, we find comparatively little said by Chrysostom, except incidentally, on a subject more congenial to the theologian and student than to the earnest, practical preacher. In opposition to the rationalistic doctrine of the Arians, who affected to comprehend the Divine Nature, he strenuously maintained, as we have seen,695 its inscrutability, and denounced any curious investigation of it as at once foolish and profane. God has condescended to appear to us in a form which is intelligible, and it is presumption to attempt to penetrate beyond the limits which He has placed to a knowledge of Himself. Chrysostom takes the dogma of the one substance (????s?a), established at Nice, as the basis of his position against the Arians, and seeks to prove it, not by speculative argument, after the manner of the Alexandrian school, but by reference to Holy Scripture. He uses the word “substance” (??s?a) to designate the essential nature and “person” (?p?stas??), the personality of the Godhead, and points out that words which relate to the ??s?a, as Lord and God, are applied to all the Persons; whereas the other terms—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—indicating distinction of personality, are each applied to one Person only in the Godhead. Yet the Persons are not related to the substance as parts to the whole: God the Son is to God the Father as a beam of the sun, inseparable from Him, identical with Him in substance, yet retaining His own personality.696 He is equally careful to guard the divinity of Christ against the rationalising school of Paul of Samosata, and the distinctness of His personality as against the Sabellians. St. Paul, he observes, does not dwell too much upon the abasement of Christ, lest Paul of Samosata should take advantage; neither does he dwell exclusively upon the exaltation, lest Sabellius should spring upon him.697

The equal divinity and distinct personality of the Holy Ghost are no less clearly and forcibly demonstrated by a collection and comparison of passages. St. Paul, for instance, in 1 Cor. xii. 6, speaks of God as “working all in all;” in verse 11 of the same chapter, he uses the same language of the Holy Spirit. Into any metaphysical, abstract discussion of the nature of the Godhead Chrysostom does not enter. He simply endeavours to guard the faith of the Church by a careful exposition of Holy Scripture, on which that faith was based, and by an exposure of the one-sided, or perverted, interpretations on which the current forms of heresy depended.

The union of the two natures in the person of our blessed Lord was, as is well known, a subject of constant speculation and of prolific error in the first five centuries. Here, again, the good sense of Chrysostom, united to his careful study of Holy Scripture, enabled him to hold the balance between two divergent methods—one which attended too exclusively to the humanitarian point of view, the other which brought out the divinity, but at the expense of the manhood. He earnestly maintains the veritable assumption of humanity by the Word. Our nature could not have been elevated to the divine if the Saviour had not really partaken of it; neither could He have brought help to our race if He had appeared in the unveiled glory of His Godhead, for sun and moon, earth and sea, and even man himself, would have perished at the brightness of His presence. Therefore He veiled his Godhead in flesh, and came not as the Lord in outward semblance, but in lowliness and abasement.698 And this very condescension enhanced His dignity and extended His dominion: before the Incarnation He was adored by angels only, but afterwards by the whole race of redeemed man.699 He assumed our nature, even in its liability to death, but not as contaminated by sin.700 There were in Him three elements—body and soul making up the human nature, and the Logos or Word making up the divine. These two natures were united but not fused. “We, indeed, are body and soul, but He is God and soul and body; remaining what He was, He took that which He was not, and having become flesh, He remained God, being the Word. The one He became He assumed; the other He was. Let us not then confound, neither let us divide; one God, one Christ the Son of God; and when I say one, I speak of union, not fusion” (???s?? ???? ?? s????s??).701 Jesus Christ was subject to death, susceptible of pain and all those emotions and sensations which belong to the human body, otherwise His would not have been a real body, but the weakness pertaining to human nature was entirely overruled by the constant operation of the Logos. If He is said to have been lowered or exalted, this was only as man, since the Godhead was incapable of either, being absolutely perfect. When the Holy Ghost is said to have descended upon Him at His baptism, this must be considered to refer to His human nature only; the manhood, not the Godhead, is anointed. Or when we read that He walked not in JudÆa, because the Jews sought to kill Him, and then, just afterwards, that He passed through the midst of His enemies unscathed, we have a direct manifestation, in close correspondence, of the Godhead and the manhood.702

In speaking of the redemptive work of our blessed Lord, Chrysostom’s language is too rapturously eloquent to be very precise. There are in him several traces of the idea which began with IrenÆus, and was developed by Origen, that the devil through the Fall acquired an actual right over man, and that a kind of pious fraud was practised upon him to deprive him of this right through the Incarnation and death of Jesus. By the noiseless, unostentatious manner in which our Saviour assumed humanity, veiling His Godhead under it, He, as it were, stole unawares upon the devil, who was not fully conscious of the majesty and might of his adversary. The devil assaulted Christ as if Christ had been merely man, and he was disappointed in his expectation. He was vanquished by his own weapons, his tyranny was destroyed by means of those very things which were his strength; the curse of sin and of death were his most trusted pieces: Christ submitted Himself to be bruised by them, and yet crushed them by His submission.703

On the other hand, we find also in Chrysostom the customary conception of a debt discharged, a ransom paid, a sacrifice offered once for all. “Adam sinned and died; Christ sinned not and yet died. Wherefore? that he who sinned and died might be able, through Him who died but sinned not, to throw off the grasp of death. This is what takes place also in money transactions. Often some one who is a debtor, not being able to pay, is detained in bonds; another, who owes nothing but is able to lay down the sum, pays it and releases the responsible person. Thus has it been in the case of man. Man was the debtor, was detained by the devil, and could not pay; Christ owed nothing, nor was He holden by the devil, but He was able to pay the debt. He came and He paid down death on behalf of him who was detained in bondage.704

From this point of view the person to whom the debt is due and is discharged is the devil; from another, the satisfaction is regarded as due to God, owing to the violation of man’s obedience, and is paid to Him through the sacrifice of a sinless life. “It was right that all men should fulfil the righteousness of God; but, since no one did this, Christ came and completely fulfilled it.”705 He was Himself both the sacrificer and the victim; the cross being the altar. He suffered outside the city that the prophecy, “He was numbered with the transgressors,” might be fulfilled, and also that the universality of the sacrifice might be proclaimed.706 Chrysostom is not careful to distinguish between the alienation of man from God, and of God from man through the Fall. He represents the hostility as in some sort existing on both sides. Christ did the work of a mediator by interposing Himself between the two parties, and reconciling each to the other. The references to such a fundamental verity are of course numerous, often full of beauty of expression and tenderness of feeling, and glowing earnestness. What he specially delights to dwell upon, as might be expected from his warm, affectionate disposition, is the exceeding love of Christ to man, and the hearty return which gratitude for such a benefit ought to draw forth from us. Like St. Paul, he often will break forth, in the midst of some argument or practical address, into a burst of rapturous and adoring praise. “What reward shall I give unto the Lord for all the benefits which He hath done unto me? Who shall express the noble acts of the Lord, or show forth all His praise? He abased Himself that He might exalt thee; He died to make thee immortal; He became a curse that thou mightest obtain a blessing.... When the world lay in darkness, the light of the Cross was held up like a torch shining in a dark place, and the light at the top of it was the Sun of Righteousness Himself.”707

Chrysostom’s doctrine of justification is naturally coloured by his ethics. Maintaining, as he did, that the corruption of man’s nature consisted in a weakness of the moral purpose, a crooked tendency of the will, rather than in any inherent indelible stain in that nature itself, his exhortations are directed rather to inculcate energetic action, a gradual process of improvement of the will with the Divine help, than that entire dependence through faith on the mercy of God which springs out of a deep conviction of the sinner’s own insufficiency. The logical tendency of the Augustinian view of the intense and radical depravity of man’s nature is to induce a total repudiation of the efficacy of personal effort, a total disavowal of all personal merit. Hence justification comes to be regarded as purely an act of acquittal on God’s part, a boon which the despairing sinner by an act of faith thankfully accepts. Such is not the position of Chrysostom, or of those who, like the Cambridge Divines of the seventeenth century, have trodden in his footsteps. With him the condition of a pardoned sinner consists rather in that renovation of the spiritual and moral life which is the result of long and laborious effort, aided of course by Divine grace, a succession of moral acts eventually producing “a new creature.” Faith is not so much regarded merely as the instrument or hand held out, by which God’s gift is appropriated, as the first in a row of good works, a fruitful source of all good action. “Abraham,” he says, “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Why? To prove that belief itself, in the first instance, and obedience to the call of God, come from our own good judgment (e?????s???); but as soon as the foundation of faith is laid, we require the alliance of the Holy Spirit, that it may remain constantly unshakable and inflexible.”708 “Faith is the mother of all good, the sure staff of man’s tottering footsteps, the anchor of his tempest-tossed soul, without which he would be like a ship cast adrift on the sea to the mercy of winds and waves.”709 “It is more stable and secure than reason, for it carries its own proof with it; the conclusions of reason may be diverted by counter-arguments, but faith stands above argument, and is not distracted by it.”710

He does not, indeed, shrink from a bold declaration of the value of good works, but he is far from teaching men to depend on them as efficient causes of salvation. They are to be stored up as a kind of viaticum for our journey to the other world. “As those who are in a foreign country, when they wish to return to their own land, take pains, a long time beforehand, to collect means sufficient for their journey, so surely ought we, who are but strangers and settlers on this earth, to lay up a store of provisions through spiritual virtue, that when our Master shall command our return into our native country, we may be prepared and may carry part of our store with us, having sent the other in advance.”711 On the other hand, he constantly insists that it is the favour and mercy of God alone which, in the end, bestows salvation on us. Faith and good works are necessary conditions, but not efficient causes of salvation. God has graciously willed that they who have faith and good works shall be saved: let no man therefore boast. We could not do good works without God’s assisting grace, nor could they in the end and at the best save us if it were not His merciful and gracious will.712 Therefore, let no one pride himself on his good works; above all things, let him cultivate a spirit of humility and modesty: St. Paul, after all his labours, confessed that he was not meet to be called an apostle, but was what he was by the grace of God.713 “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” “Tell me not I have sinned much, and how can I be saved? Thou art not able, but thy Master is able so to blot out thy sins that no trace even of them shall remain. In the natural body, indeed, though the wound may be healed, yet the scar remains; but God does not suffer the scar even to remain, but, together with release from punishment, grants righteousness also, and makes the sinner to be equal to him who has not sinned. He makes the sin neither to be nor to have been.... Sin is drowned in the ocean of God’s mercy, just as a spark is extinguished in a flood of water.”714

It was, no doubt, the trustful dependence of Chrysostom on Divine grace, coupled with his firm conviction of the free capacity of man to turn to what is good, which enabled him to pitch all his exhortations to Christian holiness in such a singularly cheerful, hopeful tone. To his sanguine temperament it seemed as if man’s natural capacities for good, aided by grace obtained through prayer, could accomplish anything. “The effect of prayer on the heart is like that of the rising sun upon the natural world; as the wild beasts come forth by night to prowl and prey, but the sun ariseth, and they get them away together and lay them down in their dens, so, when the soul is illuminated by prayer, the irrational and brutal passions are put to flight, anger is calmed, lust is extinguished, envy is expelled; prayer is the treasure of the poor, the security of the rich; the poorest of all men is rich if he can pray, and the rich man who cannot pray is miserably poor. Ahab without prayer was impotent amidst his splendour; Elijah with prayer was mighty in his coarse garment of sheepskin.”715 “It is impossible, impossible that a man who calls constantly on God with proper zeal should ever sin; his spirit is proof against temptation so long as the effect of his praying lasts, and when it begins to fail, then he must pray again. And this may be done anywhere, in the market or in the shop, since prayer demands the outstretched soul rather than the extended hands.”716 Long prayers were to be avoided; they gave great opportunities to Satan to distract the attention, which could not easily bear a lengthened strain. Prayers should be frequent and short; thus we should best comply with the direction of St. Paul to pray without ceasing.717

It remains to collect some notices of Chrysostom’s teaching with reference to the two Sacraments.

The number of those who, as Christian children of decidedly Christian parents, were baptized in infancy appears to have been small at this period, compared with those who, like Chrysostom himself, joined the ranks of the Church at a later epoch of life. There were many whose parents, or who themselves, hovered not so much between Christianity and any definite form of paganism, as between Christianity and worldliness. The sermons addressed by Chrysostom and his contemporaries to catechumens, and the frequent allusions to them, the minute directions respecting their instruction, their division into classes, the custom of calling the first part of the service to which they were admitted the Missa Catechumenorum, prove that numerous they must have been. I have failed to find any passages in which Chrysostom urgently inculcates infant baptism, and, considering his views respecting original sin, this is not surprising; but he earnestly denounces a custom of deferring baptism, prevalent among those who were already believers, or professing to be such. Often it was delayed till men believed themselves to be at the point of death—a practice which he especially deprecates, because at such a time “the recipient was often in a restless, suffering state of mind and body, most unfit to receive that holy sacrament; the entrance of the priest was regarded by the sorrowful attendants as a certain evidence of the approaching end; and when the sick man could not recognise those who were present, or hear a voice, or answer in those words by which he was to enter into a blessed covenant with our Lord, but lay like a log or a stone, what possible advantage could there be in the reception of the sacrament?”718 Again, it was often delayed till a man conceived that he had received a distinct call and intimation that it was the will of God. This Chrysostom regarded as being too often a mere cloak for moral indolence, a reluctance of men to bind themselves under the high responsibilities of the Christian vocation.719

He certainly considered baptism as being not merely a solemn initiation into the Christian covenant, and instrument of remission of sin, but also of moral renovation. This, however, is represented as a blessing naturally derivable from the entrance into the new and holy federal relation with God. In his comment on the passage, “and such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he observes that such words signify that they were not only purified from past uncleanness, but had become holy and righteous. “For such is the benevolence of the Divine gift; if an imperial letter consisting of a few lines discharges men from liability to punishment for any number of offences, and advances others to great honour, much more will the Holy Spirit of God, which can do all things, release us from all wickedness, bestow on us abundant righteousness, and fill us with much confidence.” The nature of the baptized was, therefore, like a vessel which had not only been cleansed from past defilements, but recast in the furnace so as to come out in a new shape.720 He is far, however, from regarding such a change as final. The virtue of baptism is effectual at the time, but the grace then given is as a trust to be carefully guarded; a talent to be traded with, a seed of righteousness to be diligently cultivated, the dawning of a light to shine more and more unto the perfect day. As Christ becomes at that time the clothing, the food, the habitation of the Christian, the recipient of these favours has to take care that he does not wrong this intimate relationship. Therefore he is ordered to say at baptism, “I renounce thee, Satan;” that is the declaration of a covenant with his Master. A firm determination to abandon past sin and eradicate evil habits—in a word, repentance—should take place previous to baptism. “Just as the painter freely alters the lineaments of his picture, when it is sketched in outline, by rubbing out or putting in, but when once he has added the colour, he is no longer at liberty to make alterations; in like manner erase evil habits before baptism, before the true colouring of the Holy Spirit has been thrown over the soul: take care when this has been received, and the royal image shines forth clearly, that you do not blot it out any more, and inflict wounds and scars on the beauty given thee by God.”721

In another place he contrasts the baptism of the Jews, of John the Baptist, and of Jesus Christ. “The first was only a cleansing of the body from ceremonial defilements, the second was a means of enforcing an exhortation to repentance, the third was accompanied by remission of sins: it releases and purges the soul from sin, and gives a supply of the Holy Spirit.”722 “When the merciful God saw the extremity of our weakness, and the incurable nature of our sickness, requiring a great work of healing, He conferred upon us that renovation which comes through the laver of regeneration, in order that, being divested of the old man, that is, of evil works, and having put on the new, we might go forward in the path of virtue.”723

In considering those passages which relate to the Holy Eucharist, it must be carefully borne in mind that Chrysostom lived in an age when that Sacrament had not become a battle-field of controversy. He was under no constraint in his language, because he did not feel that every word he used was liable to be criticised, or misunderstood, or torn to pieces in the strife of contending parties. He enjoyed because he disputed not. Filled with thankfulness and joy to overflowing for the unspeakable benefits derived from that Sacrament, he is not cautious or scrupulously precise in his expressions, but gives the freest rein to the enthusiasm of his feelings; his object being not to support any rigidly defined theory or system, but to infuse a certain spirit, to encourage a proper moral tone and temper in reference to the whole subject.

Three ideas, however, are apparent as dominant in his mind—a sacrifice, a presence of Christ, a reception of Christ. In several of the passages about to be presented, all the three points will appear in similar and simultaneous force. In one homily,724 where he severely censures the too prevalent custom of attending the Eucharist on great festivals only, and then behaving in a disorderly manner, the worshippers hustling and trampling on one another in their tumultuous haste to approach the holy table, and then hurrying out of church immediately after the reception, without waiting for the conclusion of the service—“What,” he exclaims, “O man, art thou doing? When Christ is present, and the angels are standing by, and the awe-inspiring table is spread before thee, dost thou withdraw?... If you are invited to a feast and are filled before the other guests, you do not dare to withdraw while the rest of your friends are still reclining at the table; and here, when the mysteries of Christ are being celebrated, and the holy feast is still going on, dost thou retreat in the middle?” Again: “Since, then, we are about to see this evening, as a lamb slain and sacrificed, Him who was crucified, let us approach, I pray you, with trembling awe. The angels, who surpass our nature, stood beside His empty tomb with great reverence; and shall we, who are about to stand beside, not an empty sepulchre, but the very table which bears the Lamb, shall we approach with noise and confusion?”725 Again: “It is now time to draw near the awe-inspiring table.... Christ is present, and He who arranged that first table, even He arranges this present one. For it is not man who makes the things which are set before us become the body and blood of Christ, but it is Christ Himself, who was crucified for us. The priest stands fulfilling his part (s??a) by uttering the appointed words, but the power and the grace are of God. ‘This is my body,’ He says. This expression changes the character (eta??????e?) of the elements, and as that sentence, ‘increase and multiply,’ once spoken, extends through all time, enabling the procreative power of our nature, even so that expression, ‘this is my body,’ once uttered, does at every table in the churches from that time to the present day, and even till Christ’s coming, make the sacrifice perfect.”726 Speaking of the sacrifice of Isaac, he observes that it was perfect so far as Abraham was concerned, because his intention did not fail, though the knife was not actually drawn across his son’s throat; “for a sacrifice is possible even without blood—the initiated (i.e. the baptized) know what I mean: on this account, also, that sacrifice was made without blood, since it was destined to be a figure of this sacrifice of ours.”727

Perhaps the most significant passage with reference to the sacrificial idea is one where, after contrasting the many and ineffective sacrifices of the Jews with the one perfect, efficacious sacrifice of Christ, he proceeds: “What then? do we not offer every day? We do offer certainly, but making a memorial of His death; and this memorial is one, not many. How one, not many? Because the sacrifice was offered once for all, as that great sacrifice was in the Holy of Holies. This is a figure of that great sacrifice as that was of this; for we do not offer one victim to-day and another to-morrow, but always the same: wherefore the sacrifice is one. Well, on this ground, because He is offered in many places, are there many Christs? Nay, by no means, but one Christ everywhere, complete both in this world and in the other; one body. As then, though offered in many places, He is but one body, so is there but one sacrifice. Our High Priest is He who offers the sacrifice which cleanses us. We offer that now which was offered then; which is indeed inconsumable. This takes place now for a memorial of what took place then: ‘Do this,’ said He, ‘for my memorial.’ We do not then offer a different sacrifice as the high priest formerly did, but always the same; or, rather, we celebrate a memorial of a Sacrifice.”728

There are other passages in which the idea, no less prominently set forth, is that of a holy feast. Elijah bequeathed his mantle and a double portion of his spirit to Elisha, “but the Son of God, when He ascended, left us His own flesh.... He who did not decline to shed His blood for all, and imparts to us again His flesh and blood, what will He refuse to do for our salvation?”729 Again: “Consider, O man, what kind of sacrifice thou art about to touch, what kind of table to approach; reflect that thou who art but dust and ashes receivest the body and blood of Christ.”730 The sedulous care with which he urges the duty of moral cleansing before venturing to approach the holy table proceeds chiefly from regarding it as a holy feast. “How shall we behold the sacred passover? How shall we receive the sacred feast? How partake of the adorable mysteries with that tongue whereby we trampled on the Law of God and defiled our soul? for if one would not touch a royal robe with defiled hands, how shall we receive the Lord’s body with an unclean tongue?”731

These passages, which are but a few specimens extracted from a large number on the same subject, are yet sufficient to show how easy it would be for the partisans of contending schools to press the language of Chrysostom into support of their own system. The truth is, that in the case of this, as of other subjects, we find in Chrysostom and his contemporaries the raw material, which has been wrought out by the toil and strife of later times into definite sharply chiselled dogmas. Nothing, therefore, can really be more unfair than to regard, as a direct friend or opponent, one who lived and wrote long before controversy had arisen on the subjects of which he treated. He might innocently employ expressions which we should deem it incautious to use, because we know the interpretation of which they are susceptible, or because we see in them incipient symptoms of an idea which in process of time grew into a mischievous error. It is instructive also to notice how harmless doctrines which afterwards became mischievous were when they were not pushed to an extremity, not made integral parts of a system of belief. It does not occur to us, for instance, for a moment to suppose that such invocation of saints as was manifestly approved by Chrysostom was the least detrimental to that free intercourse which ought to exist between the soul of man and God Himself. As Dr. Pusey has observed: “Through volumes of St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom there is no mention of any reliance except on Christ alone.”732 There is not the least approach to that system of stepping-stones or halting-places between God and man, which the Roman Church established by means of confession, saint-worship, and, above all, Mariolatry.

There is no trace in Chrysostom of priestly confession as an ordinance of the Church. When he speaks of the misery which ensues on the commission of sin, he urges the sinner to relieve his conscience by a free confession with repentance and tears. “And why are you ashamed to do so?” he proceeds, “for to whom do you confess? Is it to a man or a fellow-servant who might reproach or expose you? Nay, it is to the Lord, tender and merciful: it is to the physician that you show your wound.”733 Again, in speaking of prayer, he contrasts the freedom of access to God with the difficulties and impediments which encounter the delivery of a petition to some great man. “This last could be reached only through porters, flatterers, parasites; whereas God is invoked without the intervention of any one, without money, without expense of any kind.”734 This reads like a prophetical sarcasm on a Church which ultimately made a traffic of dispensing what cannot really be dispensed by man, because it is the free gift of God.

Nor is there any symptom in Chrysostom of a tendency to the theory of Purgatory. The condition of man after death is always represented by him as final and irrevocable. His tone, when exhorting to repentance, is always in harmony with the following passage: “For the day will come when the theatre of this world will be dissolved, and then it is not possible to contend any longer: this is the season of repentance, that of judgment; this of contest, that of crowning; this of labour, that of repose.”735

But of all medieval additions to the purer faith of primitive times, Mariolatry has grown to the most extraordinary dimensions.736 Of any tendency to this error there is in Chrysostom a remarkable absence. In fact, his notices of the Blessed Virgin, not very frequent, are on the whole, we might almost say, unnecessarily disparaging. In his commentary on the Marriage Feast at Cana, he suggests that the Virgin, in mentioning the failure of wine to our Lord, may have been anxious to draw out His miraculous powers, partly to place the guests under an obligation to Him, partly to enhance her own dignity through the display of her Son’s divine powers. He considers that the appeal sprang from the same feeling which prompted His brethren to say, “Show Thyself to the world;” and he proceeds to observe that our Lord, while never failing to manifest dutiful reverence and affectionate care towards His mother, has taught us, by His conduct and language to her, that the tie of mere earthly kindred entitled her not to higher privileges, and placed her in no more intimate spiritual relationship with Himself than any one might through love and obedience enjoy. “Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? and looking round about on His disciples, He said, Behold my mother and my brethren; for whosoever shall do the will of my Father, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.” “Heavens!” Chrysostom exclaims, “what honour! what reward! to what a pinnacle does He exalt those who follow Him! How many women have blessed the Holy Virgin and her womb, and have longed to be such mothers! What then prevents it? Behold, he opens a broad way for us: not women only, but men also are permitted to be placed in the same rank.” “The demand to see Him was made by His mother in an ambitious spirit: she wished to show to the people how much authority she possessed over Him; at any rate, the request was unreasonable and unseasonable. If she and His brethren desired to speak with Him on matters of doctrine, they might have done so in the presence of the others; but if on private matters, it was an ill-timed interruption to His discourse on weightier subjects.”737 Again: “When a woman in the company cried out, ‘Blessed is the womb that bare Thee!’ He instantly corrected her: ‘Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.’” It is possible that the general sentiment of the age may have regarded the Virgin with more veneration, but Chrysostom could not have ventured to use such language had the cultus been in any but its very earliest stage, if then. She is called holy by him; she intercedes738 for Eve, who is a type of herself, but of worship paid to her there is not the slightest evidence.739

It is almost superfluous to observe that Chrysostom knew and acknowledged nothing of papal supremacy, in the sense which those words conveyed to the minds of later generations. In common with the rest of Christendom, he paid great deference and respect to the metropolitan at Rome, and he was quite free from those feelings of jealousy which were entertained by the patriarchs of Constantinople, as time went on, owing to the increasing pretensions and exactions of the Roman See. If he respects Innocent, as occupying the chair of St. Peter, he equally respects Flavian, bishop of Antioch (who was not in communion with Rome), for the same reason; he calls him “our common father and teacher, who has inherited St. Peter’s virtue and his chair.” The letter written to Innocent during exile was addressed also to the Bishops of Milan and Aquileia. In his commentary on Galatians ii. he proves the equality of St. Paul with St. Peter. No doubt he assigns an eminent rank to St. Peter, speaking of him as “leader of the band” (????fa???) of apostles, and as intrusted with the “presidency” (p??stas?a?) of the brethren: but these words do not imply absolute authority, and the same appellations are applied to St. Paul also.

Scattered up and down the discourses of Chrysostom there are abundant references to the liturgical forms, and manner of using them, which were in vogue in his time. If we had no other authority, we could learn from him alone that the service consisted of two parts—the first, called Missa Catechumenorum, because the catechumens were permitted to be present at it, which included an opening salutation of “Peace be with you,” with the response, “And with thy spirit;” psalms sung antiphonally; appointed lessons according to the season or the day (as Genesis was read during Lent, the Acts of the Apostles in Pentecost, that is, during the fifty days between Easter and Whitsun Day); the sermon, frequently in Chrysostom’s case on the lesson for the day, the preacher usually sitting, and the people standing; then prayers, announced by the deacon, for the catechumens, the “possessed,” and the penitents; the benediction by the bishop, and dismissal by the deacon, who bade them “depart in peace.” The second part of the service then began, called Missa Fidelium, because the baptized only were permitted to be present. Chrysostom strongly denounces an increasing tendency on the part of many to remain during this second and more sacred portion without participating. He plainly declares that all those who were baptized should communicate, and tells them, if they were not worthy to receive the Eucharist, neither could they be worthy to join in the prayers which preceded the reception, and therefore they ought to quit the church, with the catechumens and penitents, when the deacon commanded all unbaptized, ungodly, and unbelieving persons to depart.740 The usual order of the Missa Fidelium was “the silent prayer” (e??? d?? s??p??), on part of the priest and people (which the latter too often abused, Chrysostom feared, to imprecate vengeance on their enemies741); then a prayer somewhat equivalent to our bidding prayer in form, and to our prayer for the Church Militant in substance, the deacon bidding or proclaiming the forms, and the people responding; then a prayer of invocation made by the bishop, which was also called “collecta,” because in it the prayers of the people were considered to be gathered or summed up; the oblations of the people presented by the deacons; the kiss of peace, the reading of the diptychs, the ablution of the priest’s hands, the bringing of the elements to the bishop at the altar, while the priests stood on each side, and deacons held large fans to drive away the flies; a secret prayer offered by the bishop; the benediction, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” etc., to which the people responded “And with thy spirit;” followed by “Lift up your hearts”—“We lift them up unto the Lord;” “Let us give thanks to our Lord God”—“It is meet and right so to do;” a long thanksgiving, terminating with the Ter Sanctus, in which the people joined; the consecration prayer, including the words of our Lord at the time of institution, and an invocation of the Holy Spirit to make the elements become the body and blood of Christ; a prayer for all members of the Church, living and dead; the doxology, the Creed; a prayer of the bishop for sanctification; the words pronounced by him, “Holy things for holy people” (t? ???a t??? ??????); the reception by the clergy and laity in both kinds, taking the elements into their hands; concluding prayers, and dismissal by the deacon proclaiming, “Go in peace.” Nearly all of the forms indicated in this sketch are more or less clearly referred to or quoted in Chrysostom’s works, and from these, with the aid of other contemporary writers and documents, we might construct a liturgy which would more nearly resemble that actually used by him than the liturgy called by his name resembles it.742 For in this, as in the so-called liturgy of Basil, it is impossible now to determine how much was actually composed by the Father who gave his name to it. It cannot be proved that Chrysostom actually corrected or improved at all the liturgy which he found in use at Constantinople. It may only have come to be called after him as being the greatest luminary who ever occupied the see. The statement, however, made in a tract ascribed to Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople in the fifth century, is not in itself improbable, that Chrysostom found the existing liturgy so long that many of the congregation, being men of business, and pressed for time, left before the service was concluded, or came in after it had begun, and therefore he abridged and otherwise altered it. In any case, many alterations were made by different churches and bishops in the course of time, as in other liturgies, so also in those which bear the name of Basil and Chrysostom; and hence, as Montfaucon, Savile, Cave, and others have remarked, you cannot find any two copies which are exactly alike.

A critical estimate of Chrysostom’s value as a commentator hardly falls within the scope of an essay on his life, but a few general observations on this head may not be deemed out of place here. The same fact was the cause in him of much excellence and some defect in this department. He was a preacher whose primary object was to convert souls. This earnest, practical aim, of which he never lost sight, helped to protect him from lapsing into idle, fanciful, mystical interpretations of Scripture; but, on the other hand, it hindered his entering so fully into all the historical, grammatical, or even doctrinal questions which might be raised about a passage as he would have done had he been exclusively a commentator. His dominant aim being to affect the heart and the moral practice of his hearers, he is content when he has elicited from the passage all that will be most useful for that purpose, and the continuity of the commentary is frequently marred by sudden digressions. His ignorance of Hebrew was of course fatal to his being an accurate interpreter of the Old Testament, since he was entirely dependent on the Septuagint translation. And even in Greek, though few would deny him the merit of fine scholarship on the whole, though his command of the language as an orator is masterly, his style luminous, his diction copious and rich without being offensively ornate or redundant, yet his hold upon the language for critical purposes is neither that of a man who spoke it when it was in its purest stage, nor that of a scholar who, living in a later age and speaking a different tongue, has made a careful, laborious study of it as a dead language.

But two invaluable qualifications for an interpreter Chrysostom did possess—a thorough love for the Sacred Book, and a thorough familiarity with every part of it. 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. He rebukes the silly vanity of rich people who prided themselves on possessing finely written and handsomely bound copies of the Bible, but who knew little about the contents. Study of the Bible was more necessary for the layman than the monk, because he was exposed to more constant and formidable temptations. The Christian without a knowledge of his Bible was like a workman without his tools. Like the tree planted by the water-side, the soul of the diligent reader would be continually nourished and refreshed. There were no difficulties which would not yield to a patient study of it. Neither earthly grandeur, nor friends, nor indeed any human thing, could afford in suffering such comfort as the reading of Holy Scripture, for this was the companionship of God.743

The honest, straightforward common sense which marks his practical exhortations was a useful quality to him also as an interpreter. One of his principles is, that sound doctrine could not be extracted from Holy Scripture but by a careful comparison of many passages not isolated from their context.744 Allegorical interpretations were by no means to be rejected, but to be used with caution; men too often made the mistake of dictating what Scripture should mean instead of submitting to be taught by it: they introduced a meaning instead of eliciting it.745 Thus, though he often accepts popular types—as Boaz and Ruth are figures of Christ and His bride the Church; and Noah, Joseph, Joshua, are all in different ways representative of our Lord; though sometimes particular expressions in Messianic prophecies are forced, for instance, in Isaiah’s description of Immanuel, the “butter and honey” there spoken of he supposes to be intended to indicate the reality of our Lord’s humanity746—yet his customary aim is to discover the literal sense and direct historical bearing of the passage. At the same time he fully recognises a general foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, and the complete fulfilment in Him ultimately of prophecies which immediately refer to persons and events nearly, if not quite, contemporaneous with the utterance. He fails not also to point out the moral aspect of prophecy as a system of teaching rather than prediction, as preparatory to the advent of Jesus Christ in the flesh, not only by informing men’s minds, but disciplining their hearts to receive Him.747 Hence the holy men who lived, under the Old Dispensation, in faith on God’s promises, knew Christ as it were by anticipation, and were to be reckoned as members of the one body.748

He had a clear conception of the essential coherence between the Old and New Testament. He observes that the very words “old” and “new” are relative terms: new implies an antecedent old, preparatory to it. The condition of the recipients, the circumstances and age in which they lived, being different, necessitated a difference in the treatment. A physician treated the same patient at different times by directly contrary methods; sometimes administering sweet, sometimes bitter medicines, sometimes using the lancet, sometimes cautery, but always with the same ultimate end in view—the health of his patient. So the Old and New Testaments were different, but not, as the ManichÆans maintained, antagonistic. The commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” attacked the fruit and consequence of vice; the precept, “Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause,” etc., struck at the root. This was an illustration in a small instance of the general truth that the New Dispensation was only a completion and expansion of the Old. Those, therefore, who rejected the Old Testament dishonoured the New, which was based upon it, and presupposes it.749

He is equally rational in his manner of accounting for the variations in the Gospel narratives. That they differ in details, but agree in essential matters, he regards as a powerful evidence of veracity. Exact and verbal coincidence in every particular would have excited in the minds of opponents a suspicion of concerted agreement.750 Authors might write variously without being at variance; if there had been ten thousand evangelists, yet the Gospel itself would have been but one.751 Each evangelist tells substantially the same tale, but varied according to the readers for whom he wrote, and the special object which he had in view. So St. Matthew wrote in Hebrew for the Jews, St. Mark for the disciples in Egypt, St. John to set forth the divine aspect of our Lord’s life. Thus we have variety in unity, and unity in variety.752

In his commentaries on the Epistles he is careful to consider each as a connected whole; and, in order to impress this on his hearers, he frequently recapitulates at the beginning of a homily all the steps by which the part under consideration has been reached. In his introductions to each letter he generally makes useful observations on the author, the time, place, and style of composition, the readers for whom it was intended, the general character and arrangement of its contents. He regarded the Bible as in such a sense written under the inspiration of God, that no passage, no word even, was to be despised;753 that men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, but not to the total deprivation of their own human understanding and personal character. The prophet was not like the seer who spoke under constraint, not knowing what he said; he retained his own faculties and style; only all his powers were quickened, energised by the Spirit to the utterance of words which unassisted he could not have uttered.754

Chrysostom’s influence as a preacher was not aided by any external advantages of person. Like so many men who have possessed great powers of command over the minds of others—like St. Paul, Athanasius, John Wesley—he was little of stature; his frame was attenuated by the austerities of his youth and his habitually ascetic mode of life; his cheeks were pale and hollow; his eyes deeply set, but bright and piercing; his broad and lofty forehead was furrowed by wrinkles; his head was bald. He frequently delivered his discourses sitting in the ambo, or high reading-desk, just inside the nave, in order to be near his hearers and well raised above them. But these physical disadvantages were more than compensated by other more important qualities. 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 the 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. Whether the sobriquet of Chrysostomos, “the golden mouth,” was given to him in his lifetime is extremely doubtful; at any rate, it seems not to have been commonly used till afterwards. John is the only name by which he is mentioned in the writings of historians who were most nearly contemporaneous, but the other was a well-known appellation before the end of the fifth century.755

The preservation of Chrysostom’s discourses we owe mainly to the custom, prevalent in the Eastern Church at that time, of having the sermons of famous preachers taken down by shorthand writers as they were spoken; but some of them Chrysostom published himself.756 To what extent they may have been written before preaching it is impossible to say. The expository parts were evidently the result of previous study and preparation; the actual diction of the practical portions he may have left to the suggestion of the moment, though the main subjects of his address had been always decided upon beforehand. Extempore remarks were frequently called forth by the behaviour of the congregation, or some passing incident. The discourse delivered after his return from exile we also know to have been purely impromptu; and Suidas observes that he “had a tongue which exceeded the cataracts of the Nile in fluency, so that he delivered many of his panegyrics on the martyrs extempore without the least hesitation.”757 His hearers were sometimes rapt in such profound attention that pickpockets took advantage of it:758 sometimes they were melted to tears, or beat their breasts and faces, and uttered groans and cries to Heaven for mercy; at other times they clapped their hands or shouted—marks of approbation frequently paid at that time to eloquent preachers, but always sternly reproved by Chrysostom.

Although his style is generally exuberantly rich, yet it is seldom offensively redundant, for every word is usually telling; and at times he is epigrammatically terse. A few instances will suffice:—“The fire of sin is large, but it is quenched by a few tears;” “Pain was given on account of sin, yet through pain sin is dissolved;” “Riches are called possessions (?t?ata) that we may possess them, not be possessed by them;” “You are master of much wealth, do not be a slave to that whereof God has made you master;” “Scripture relates the sins of saints, that we may fear; the conversion of sinners, that we may hope.” He refers to a visitation of Antioch by an earthquake, as God “shaking the city, but establishing your minds; making the city crumble, but consolidating your judgment.”

His familiarity with classical Greek authors is apparent sometimes in direct references. He speaks of “the smoothness of Isocrates, the weight of Demosthenes, the dignity of Thucydides, the sublimity of Plato.”759 He quotes the beginning of the “Apology,” to show that if Socrates did not put a high value on mere fine talking, how much less should the Christian.760 He illustrates the readiness of men to supply the wants of the monk by a passage from Plato, where Crito says that his money, and that of Cebes and many others, is at the disposal of Socrates; and, go where he will, he may rely on finding friends.761 Sometimes we detect a thought derived, it may have been unconsciously, from classical sources. When he compares the crowd of the congregation before him to the sea, and the play upon the surface of that sea of heads to the effect of a strong west wind stirring and bending the ears of corn,762 it is impossible not to think that the idea was suggested by the well-known simile in Homer (Il. ii. 147). Again, when, in speaking of David’s sin, he compares the body to a chariot and the soul to the charioteer, and says that, when the soul is intoxicated by passion, the chariot is dragged along at random, it can hardly be fanciful to see a reflection of Plato’s celebrated image of the charioteer and horses in the “PhÆdrus.”763

But whatever admiration Chrysostom may have retained of those authors whom he had studied in his youth, it was confined to their language, for with their ideas and modes of thought he had, so far as we can judge, abandoned all sympathy. Nor was this unnatural. Christianity existed in such close contact with Pagan corruption, and it had suffered so much from Pagan persecution, that the revulsion of earnest Christians from all things Pagan was total and indiscriminating. “The old order changeth, yielding place to new;” and the new, having fought a hard struggle with the old, is for a long time incapable of recognising merit in anything belonging to it. There are several allusions in Chrysostom to the “Republic” of Plato, but they are always depreciative. He fastens on a few points, such as the regulations about marriage and female work, and condemns it on these as absurd and childish, quite failing to consider the idea in its grandeur as a whole.764 Yet it is instructive to notice that he never hesitates to assign to Plato the first place among the heathen philosophers, dignifying him with the title of CoryphÆus.765 He often compares the failure of Plato’s teaching to regenerate men in every rank with the successful labours of St. Paul and the other apostles; but while he rejoices that the writings and doctrine of the philosopher were eclipsed by the tentmaker and fisherman, and well-nigh forgotten, he evidently regarded it as the most signal triumph which Christianity had achieved.766

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 Augustine 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 Augustine was the great teacher of efficient grace;767 rightly has it been remarked that, like FÉnÉlon, 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 Augustine 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.768 If Augustine has done more valuable service in building up the Church at large, Chrysostom is the more loveable to the individual, and speaks out of a heart overflowing with love 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 oratorical 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,769 and the comparative estimation in which he held St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom may be inferred from the number of pages in his History given to each: St. Augustine is favoured 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 pre-eminently the marks of a Christian saint. The cause for which he fought and died in a corrupt age was the cause of Christian holiness; and, therefore, by the great medieval poet of Christendom he is rightly placed in Paradise between two men who, widely different indeed in character and circumstances from him and from one another, yet resembled him in this, that they freely and courageously spoke of God’s “testimonies even before kings, and were not ashamed”—Nathan the Seer, and Anselm the Primate of all England:—