ties; austerities and labors accomplished too soon their work. Even
saints are not exempted from the penalty of violated physical laws.
Pascal died at thirty-seven. Paula lingered to her fifty-seventh year,
worn out with cares and vigils. Her death was as serene as her life was
lofty; repeating, as she passed away, the aspirations of the
prophet-king for his eternal home. Not ecstasies, but a serene
tranquillity, marked her closing hours. Raising her finger to her lip,
she impressed upon it the sign of the cross, and yielded up her spirit
without a groan. And the icy hand of death neither changed the freshness
of her countenance nor robbed it of its celestial loveliness; it seemed
as if she were in a trance, listening to the music of angelic hosts, and
glowing with their boundless love. The Bishop of Jerusalem and the
neighboring clergy stood around her bed, and Jerome closed her eyes. For
three days numerous choirs of virgins alternated in Greek, Latin, and
Syriac their mournful but triumphant chants. Six bishops bore her body
to the grave, followed by the clergy of the surrounding country. Jerome
wrote her epitaph in Latin, but was too much unnerved to preach her
funeral sermon. Inhabitants from all parts of Palestine came to her
funeral: the poor showed the garments which they had received from her
charity; while the whole multitude, by their sighs and tears, evinced
that they had lost a nursing mother. The Church received the sad
intelligence of her death with profound grief, and has ever since
cherished her memory, and erected shrines and monuments to her honor. In
that wonderful painting of Saint Jerome by Domenichino,--perhaps the
greatest ornament of the Vatican, next to that miracle of art, the
"Transfiguration" of Raphael,--the saint is represented in repulsive
aspects as his soul was leaving his body, ministered unto by the
faithful Paula. But Jerome survived his friend for fifteen years, at
Bethlehem, still engrossed with those astonishing labors which made him
one of the greatest benefactors of the Church, yet austere and bitter,
revealing in his sarcastic letters how much he needed the soothing
influences of that sister of mercy whom God had removed to the choir of
angels, and to whom the Middle Ages looked as an intercessor, like Mary
herself, with the Father of all, for the pardon of sin.
But I need not linger on Paula's deeds of fame. We see in her life,
pre-eminently, that noble sentiment which was the first development in
woman's progress from the time that Christianity snatched her from the
pollution of Paganism. She is made capable of friendship for man without
sullying her soul, or giving occasion for reproach. Rare and difficult
as this sentiment is, yet her example has proved both its possibility
and its radiance. It is the choicest flower which a man finds in the
path of his earthly pilgrimage. The coarse-minded interpreter of a
woman's soul may pronounce that rash or dangerous in the intercourse of
life which seeks to cheer and assist her male associates by an endearing
sympathy; but who that has had any great literary or artistic success
cannot trace it, in part, to the appreciation and encouragement of those
cultivated women who were proud to be his friends? Who that has written
poetry that future ages will sing; who that has sculptured a marble that
seems to live; who that has declared the saving truths of an
unfashionable religion,--has not been stimulated to labor and duty by
women with whom he lived in esoteric intimacy, with mutual admiration
and respect?
Whatever the heights to which woman is destined to rise, and however
exalted the spheres she may learn to fill, she must remember that it was
friendship which first distinguished her from Pagan women, and which
will ever constitute one of her most peerless charms. Long and dreary
has been her progress from the obscurity to which even the Middle Ages
doomed her, with all the boasted admiration of chivalry, to her present
free and exalted state. She is now recognized to be the equal of man in
her intellectual gifts, and is sought out everywhere as teacher and as
writer. She may become whatever she pleases,--actress, singer, painter,
novelist, poet, or queen of society, sharing with man the great prizes
bestowed on genius and learning. But her nature cannot be half
developed, her capacities cannot be known, even to herself, until she
has learned to mingle with man in the free interchange of those
sentiments which keep the soul alive, and which stimulate the noblest
powers. Then only does she realize her aesthetic mission. Then only can
she rise in the dignity of a guardian angel, an educator of the heart, a
dispenser of the blessings by which she would atone for the evil
originally brought upon mankind. Now, to administer this antidote to
evil, by which labor is made sweet, and pain assuaged, and courage
fortified, and truth made beautiful, and duty sacred,--this is the true
mission and destiny of woman. She made a great advance from the
pollutions and slaveries of the ancient world when she proved herself,
like Paula, capable of a pure and lofty friendship, without becoming
entangled in the snares and labyrinths of an earthly love; but she will
make a still greater advance when our cynical world shall comprehend
that it is not for the gratification of passing vanity, or foolish
pleasure, or matrimonial ends that she extends her hand of generous
courtesy to man, but that he may be aided by the strength she gives in
weakness, encouraged by the smiles she bestows in sympathy, and
enlightened by the wisdom she has gained by inspiration.
AUTHORITIES.
Butler's Lives of the Saints; Epistles of Saint Jerome; Cave's Lives of
the Fathers; Dolci's De Rebus Gestis Hieronymi; Tillemont's
Ecclesiastical History; Gibbon's Decline and Fall; Neander's Church
History. See also Henry and Dupin. One must go to the Catholic
historians, especially the French, to know the details of the lives of
those saints whom the Catholic Church has canonized. Of nothing is
Protestant ecclesiastical history more barren than the heroism,
sufferings, and struggles of those great characters who adorned the
fourth and fifth centuries, as if the early ages of the Church have no
interest except to Catholics.
CHRYSOSTOM.
* * * * *
A.D. 347-407.
SACRED ELOQUENCE.
The first great moral force, after martyrdom, which aroused the
degenerate people of the old Roman world from the torpor and egotism and
sensuality which were preparing the way for violence and ruin, was the
Christian pulpit. Sacred eloquence, then, as impersonated in Chrysostom,
"the golden-mouthed," will be the subject of this Lecture, for it was by
the "foolishness of preaching" that a new spiritual influence went forth
to save a dying world. Chrysostom was not, indeed, the first great
preacher of the new doctrines which were destined to win such mighty
triumphs, but he was the most distinguished of the pulpit orators of the
early Church. Yet even he is buried in his magnificent cause. Who can
estimate the influence of the pulpit for fifteen hundred years in the
various countries of Christendom? Who can grasp the range of its
subjects and the dignity of its appeals? In ages even of ignorance and
superstition it has been eloquent with themes of redemption and of a
glorious immortality.
Eloquence has ever been admired and honored among all nations,
especially among the Greeks. It was the handmaid of music and poetry
when the divinity of mind was adored--perhaps with Pagan instincts, but
still adored--as a birthright of genius, upon which no material estimate
could be placed, since it came from the Gods, like physical beauty, and
could neither be bought nor acquired. Long before Christianity declared
its inspiring themes and brought peace and hope to oppressed millions,
eloquence was a mighty power. But then it was secular and mundane; it
pertained to the political and social aspects of States; it belonged to
the Forum or the Senate; it was employed to save culprits, to kindle
patriotic devotion, or to stimulate the sentiments of freedom and public
virtue. Eloquence certainly did not belong to the priest. It was his
province to propitiate the Deity with sacrifices, to surround himself
with mysteries, to inspire awe by dazzling rites and emblems, to work on
the imagination by symbols, splendid dresses, smoking incense,
slaughtered beasts, grand temples. He was a man to conjure, not to
fascinate; to kindle superstitious fears, not to inspire by thoughts
which burn. The gift of tongues was reserved for rhetoricians,
politicians, lawyers, and Sophists.
Now Christianity at once seized and appropriated the arts of eloquence
as a means of spreading divine truth. Christianity ever has made use of
all the arts and gifts and inventions of men to carry out the concealed
purposes of the Deity. It was not intended that Christianity should
always work by miracles, but also by appeals to the reason and
conscience of mankind, and through the truths which had been
supernaturally declared,--the required means to accomplish an end.
Therefore, she enriched and dignified an art already admired and
honored. She carried away in triumph the brightest ornament of the Pagan
schools and placed it in the hands of her chosen ministers. So that the
Christian pulpit soon began to rival the Forum in an eloquence which may
be called artistic,--a natural power of moving men, allied with learning
and culture and experience. Young men of family and fortune at last,
like Gregory Nazianzen and Basil, prepared themselves in celebrated
schools; for eloquence, though a gift, is impotent without study. See
the labors of the most accomplished of the orators of Pagan antiquity.
It was not enough for an ancient Greek to have natural gifts; he must
train himself by the severest culture, mastering all knowledge, and
learning how he could best adapt himself to those he designed to move.
So when the gospel was left to do its own work on people's hearts, after
supernatural influence is supposed to have been withdrawn, the
Christian preachers, especially in the Grecian cities, found it
expedient to avail themselves of that culture which the Greeks ever
valued, even in degenerate times. Indeed, when has Christianity rejected
learning and refinement? Paul, the most successful of the apostles, was
also the most accomplished,--even as Moses, the most gifted man among
the ancient Jews, was also the most learned. It is a great mistake to
suppose that those venerated Fathers, who swayed by their learning and
eloquence the Christian world, were merely saints. They were the
intellectual giants of their day, living in courts, and associating with
the wise, the mighty, and the noble. And nearly all of them were great
preachers: Cyprian, Athanasius, Augustine, Ambrose, and even Leo, if
they yielded to Origen and Jerome in learning, were yet very polished,
cultivated men, accustomed to all the refinements which grace and
dignify society.
But the eloquence of these bishops and orators was rendered potent by
vastly grander themes than those which had been dwelt upon by Pericles,
or Demosthenes, or Cicero, and enlarged by an amazing depth of new
subjects, transcending in dignity all and everything on which the
ancient orators had discoursed or discussed. The bishop, while he
baptized believers, and administered the symbolic bread and wine, also
taught the people, explained to them the mysteries, enforced upon them
their duties, appealed to their intellects and hearts and consciences,
consoled them in their afflictions, stimulated their hopes, aroused
their fears, and kindled their devotions. He plunged fearlessly into
every subject which had a bearing on religious life. While he stood
before them clad in the robes of priestly office, holding in his hands
the consecrated elements which told of their redemption, and offering up
to God before the altar prayers in their behalf, he also ascended the
pulpit to speak of life and death in all their sublime relations. "There
was nothing touching," says Talfourd, "in the instability of fortune, in
the fragility of loveliness, in the mutability of mortal friendship, or
the decay of systems, nor in the fall of States and empires, which he
did not present, to give humiliating ideas of worldly grandeur. Nor was
there anything heroic in sacrifice, or grand in conflict, or sublime in
danger,--nothing in the loftiness of the soul's aspirations, nothing of
the glorious promises of everlasting life,--which he did not dwell upon
to stimulate the transported crowds who hung upon his lips. It was his
duty and his privilege," continues this eloquent and Christian lawyer,
"to dwell on the older history of the world, on the beautiful
simplicities of patriarchal life, on the stern and marvellous story of
the Hebrews, on the glorious visions of the prophets, on the songs of
the inspired melodists, on the countless beauties of the Scriptures, on
the character and teachings and mission of the Saviour. It was his to
trace the Spirit of the boundless and the eternal, faintly breathing in
every part of the mystic circle of superstition,--unquenched even amidst
the most barbarous rites of savage tribes, and in the cold and beautiful
shapes of Grecian mould."
How different this eloquence from that of the expiring nations! Their
eloquence is sad, sounding like the tocsin of departed glories,
protesting earnestly--but without effect--against those corruptions
which it was too late to heal. How touching the eloquence of
Demosthenes, pointing out the dangers of the State, and appealing to
liberty, when liberty had fled. In vain his impassioned appeals to men
insensible to elevated sentiments. He sang the death-song of departed
greatness without the possibility of a new creation. He spoke to
audiences cultivated indeed, but divided, enervated, embittered,
infatuated, incapable of self-sacrifice, among whom liberty was a mere
tradition and patriotism a dream; and he spoke in vain. Nor could
Cicero--still more accomplished, if not so impassioned--kindle among the
degenerate Romans the ancient spirit which had fled when demagogues
began their reign. How mournful was the eloquence of this great patriot,
this experienced statesman, this wise philosopher, who, in spite of all
his weaknesses, was admired and honored by all who spoke the Latin
tongue. But had he spoken with the tongue of an archangel it would have
been all the same, on any worldly or political subject. The old
sentiments had died out. Faith was extinguished amid universal
scepticism and indifference. He had no material to work on. The
birthright of ancient heroes had been sold for a mess of pottage, and
this he knew; and therefore with his last philippics he bowed his
venerable head, and prepared himself for the sword of the executioner,
which he accepted as an inevitable necessity.
These great orators appealed to traditions, to sentiments which had
passed away, to glories which could not possibly return; and they spoke
in vain. All they could do was to utter their manly and noble protests,
and die, with the dispiriting and hopeless feeling that the seeds of
ruin, planted in a soil of corruption, would soon bear their wretched
fruits,--even violence and destruction.
But the orators who preached a new religion of regenerating forces were
more cheerful. They knew that these forces would save the world,
whatever the depth of ignominy, wretchedness, and despair. Their
eloquence was never sad and hopeless, but triumphant, jubilant,
overpowering. It kindled the fires of an intense enthusiasm. It kindled
an enthusiasm not based on the conquest of the earth, but on the
conquests of the soul, on the never-fading glories of immortality, on
the ever-increasing power of the kingdom of Christ. The new orators did
not preach liberty, or the glories of material life, or the majesty of
man, or even patriotism, but Salvation,--the future destinies of the
soul. A new arena of eloquence was entered; a new class of orators
arose, who discoursed on subjects of transcending comfort to the poor
and miserable. They made political slavery of no account in comparison
with the eternal redemption and happiness promised in the future state.
The old institutions could not be saved: perhaps the orators did not
care to save them; they were not worth saving; they were rotten to the
core. But new institutions should arise upon their ruins; creation
should succeed destruction; melodious birth-songs should be heard above
the despairing death-songs. There should be a new heaven and a new
earth, in which should dwell righteousness; and the Prince of Peace--
Prophet, Priest, and King--should reign therein forever and ever.
Of the great preachers who appeared in thousands of pulpits in the
fourth century,--after Christianity was seated on the throne of the
Roman world, and before it had sunk into the eclipse which barbaric
spoliations and papal usurpations, and general ignorance, madness, and
violence produced,--there was one at Antioch (the seat of the old
Greco-Asiatic civilization, alike refined, voluptuous, and intellectual)
who was making a mighty stir and creating a mighty fame. This was
Chrysostom, whose name has been a synonym of eloquence for more than
fifteen hundred years. His father, named Secundus, was a man of high
military rank; his mother, Anthusa, was a woman of rare Christian
graces,--as endeared to the Church as Monica, the sainted mother of
Augustine; or Nonna, the mother of Gregory Nazianzen. And it is a
pleasing fact to record, that most of the great Fathers received the
first impulse to their memorable careers from the influence of pious
mothers; thereby showing the true destiny and glory of women, as the
guardians and instructors of their children, more eager for their
salvation than ambitious of worldly distinction. Buried in the blessed
sanctities and certitudes of home,--if this can be called a
burial,--those Christian women could forego the dangerous fascination of
society and the vanity of being enrolled among its leaders. Anthusa so
fortified the faith of her yet unconverted son by her wise and
affectionate counsels, that she did not fear to intrust him to the
teachings of Libanius, the Pagan rhetorician, deeming an accomplished
education as great an ornament to a Christian gentleman as were the good
principles she had instilled a support in dangerous temptation. Her son
John--for that was his baptismal and only name--was trained in all the
learning of the schools, and, like so many of the illustrious of our
world, made in his youth a wonderful proficiency. He was precocious,
like Cicero, like Abélard, like Pascal, like Pitt, like Macaulay, and
Stuart Mill; and like them he panted for distinction and fame. The most
common path to greatness for high-born youth, then as now, was the
profession of the law. But the practice of this honorable profession did
not, unfortunately, at least in Antioch, correspond with its theory.
Chrysostom (as we will call him, though he did not receive this
appellation until some centuries after his death) was soon disgusted and
disappointed with the ordinary avocations of the Forum,--its low
standard of virtue, and its diversion of what is ennobling in the pure
fountains of natural justice into the turbid and polluted channels of
deceit, chicanery, and fraud; its abandonment to usurious calculations
and tricks of learned and legalized jugglery, by which the end of law
itself was baffled and its advocates alone enriched. But what else could
be expected of lawyers in those days and in that wicked city, or even in
any city of the whole Empire, when justice was practically a marketable
commodity; when one half of the whole population were slaves; when the
circus and the theatre were as necessary as the bath; when only the rich
and fortunate were held in honor; when provincial governments were sold
to the highest bidder; when effeminate favorites were the grand
chamberlains of emperors; when fanatical mobs rendered all order a
mockery; when the greed for money was the master passion of the people;
when utility was the watchword of philosophy, and material gains the end
and object of education; when public misfortunes were treated with the
levity of atheistic science; when private sorrows, miseries, and
sufferings had no retreat and no shelter; when conjugal infelicities
were scarcely a reproach; when divorces were granted on the most
frivolous pretexts; when men became monks from despair of finding women
of virtue for wives; and when everything indicated a rapid approach of
some grand catastrophe which should mingle, in indiscriminate ruin, the
masters and the slaves of a corrupt and prostrate world?
Such was society, and such the signs of the times, when Chrysostom began
the practice of the law at Antioch,--perhaps the wickedest city of the
whole Empire. His eyes speedily were opened. He could not sleep, for
grief and disgust; he could not embark on a profession which then, at
least, added to the evils it professed to cure; he began to tremble for
his higher interests; he abandoned the Forum forever; he fled as from a
city of destruction; he sought solitude, meditation, and prayer, and
joined those monks who lived in cells, beyond the precincts of the
doomed city. The ardent, the enthusiastic, the cultivated, the
conscientious, the lofty Chrysostom fraternized with the visionary
inhabitants of the desert, speculated with them on the mystic
theogonies of the East, discoursed with them on the origin of evil,
studied with them the Christian mysteries, fasted with them, prayed with
them, slept like them on a bed of straw, denied himself his accustomed
luxuries, abandoning himself to alternate transports of grief and
sublime enthusiasm, now contending with the demons who sought his
destruction; then soaring to comprehend the Man-God,--the Word made
flesh, the incarnation of the divine Logos,--and the still more subtile
questions pertaining to the nature and distinctions of the Trinity.
Such were the forms and modes of his conversion,--somewhat different
from the experience of Augustine or of Luther, yet not less real and
permanent. Those days were the happiest of his life. He had leisure and
he had enthusiasm. He desired neither riches nor honors, but the peace
of a forgiven soul He was a monk without losing his humanity; a
philosopher without losing his taste for the Bible; a Christian without
repudiating the learning of the schools. But the influence of early
education, his practical yet speculative intellect, his inextinguishable
sympathies, his desire for usefulness, and possibly an unsubdued
ambition to exert a greater influence would not allow him wholly to bury
himself. He made long visits to the friends and habitations he had left,
in order to stimulate their faith, relieve their necessities, and
encourage them in works of benevolence; leading a life of alternate
study and active philanthropy,--learning from the accomplished Diodorus
the historical mode of interpreting the Scriptures, and from the
profound Theodorus the systems of ancient philosophy. Thus did he train
himself for his future labors, and lay the foundation for his future
greatness. It was thus he accumulated those intellectual treasures which
he afterwards lavished at the imperial court.