himself to the charms of literary composition and letters to his
friends. No murmurs escaped him. He did not languish, as Cicero did in
his exile, or even like Thiers in Switzerland. Banishment was not
dreaded by a man who disdained the luxuries of a great capital, and who
was not ambitious of power and rank. Retirement he had sought, even in
his youth, and it was no martyrdom to him so long as he could study,
meditate, and write.
So Chrysostom was serene, even cheerful, amid the blasts of a cold and
cheerless climate. It was there he wrote those noble and interesting
letters, of which two hundred and forty still remain. Indeed, his
influence seemed to increase with his absence from the capital; and this
his enemies beheld with the rage which Napoleon felt for Madame de Staël
when he had banished her to within forty leagues of Paris. So a fresh
order from the Government doomed him to a still more dreary solitude, on
the utmost confines of the Roman Empire, on the coast of the Euxine,
even the desert of Pityus. But his feeble body could not sustain the
fatigues of this second journey. He was worn out with disease, labors,
and austerities; and he died at Comono, in Pontus,--near the place where
Henry Martin died,--in the sixtieth year of his age, a martyr, like
greater men than he.
Nevertheless this martyrdom, and at the hands of a Christian emperor,
filled the world with grief. It was only equalled in intensity by the
martyrdom of Becket in after ages. The voice of envy was at last hushed;
one of the greatest lights of the Church was extinguished forever.
Another generation, however, transported his remains to the banks of the
Bosporus, and the emperor--the second Theodosius--himself advanced to
receive them as far as Chalcedon, and devoutly kneeling before his
coffin, even as Henry II. kneeled at the shrine of Becket, invoked the
forgiveness of the departed saint for the injustice and injuries he had
received. His bones were interred with extraordinary pomp in the tomb of
the apostles, and were afterwards removed to Rome, and deposited, still
later, beneath a marble mausoleum in a chapel of Saint Peter, where they
still remain.
Such were the life and death of the greatest pulpit orator of Christian
antiquity. And how can I describe his influence? His sermons, indeed,
remain; but since we have given up the Fathers to the Catholics, as if
they had a better right to them than we, their writings are not so well
known as they ought to be,--as they will be, when we become broader in
our views and more modest of our own attainments. Few of the Protestant
divines, whom we so justly honor, surpassed Chrysostom in the soundness
of his theology, and in the learning with which he adorned his sermons.
Certainly no one of them has equalled him in his fervid, impassioned,
and classic eloquence. He belongs to the Church universal. The great
divines of the seventeenth century made him the subject of their
admiring study. In the Middle Ages he was one of the great lights of the
reviving schools. Jeremy Taylor, not less than Bossuet, acknowledged his
matchless services. One of his prayers has entered into the beautiful
liturgy of Cranmer. He was a Bernard, a Bourdaloue, and a Whitefield
combined, speaking in the language of Pericles, and on themes which
Paganism never comprehended and the Middle Ages but imperfectly
discussed.
The permanent influence of such a man can only be measured by the
dignity and power of the pulpit itself in all countries and in all
ages. So far as pulpit eloquence is an art, its greatest master still
speaketh. But greater than his art was the truth which he unfolded and
adorned. It is not because he held the most cultivated audiences of his
age spell-bound by his eloquence, but because he did not fear to deliver
his message, and because he magnified his office, and preached to
emperors and princes as if they were ordinary men, and regarded himself
as the bearer of most momentous truth, and soared beyond human praises,
and forgot himself in his cause, and that cause the salvation of
souls,--it is for these things that I most honor him, and believe that
his name will be held more and more in reverence, as Christianity
becomes more and more the mighty power of the world.
AUTHORITIES.
Theodoret; Socrates; Sozomen; Gregory Nazianzen's Orations; the Works of
Chrysostom; Baronius's Annals; Epistle of Saint Jerome; Tillemont's
Ecclesiastical History; Mabillon; Fleury's Ecclesiastical History; Life
of Chrysostom by Monard,--also a Life, by Frederic M. Perthes,
translated by Professor Hovey; Neander's Church History; Gibbon; Milman;
Du Pin; Stanley's Lectures on the Eastern Church. The Lives of the
Fathers have been best written by Frenchmen, and by Catholic historians.
SAINT AMBROSE.
* * * * *
A.D. 340-397.
EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY.
Of the great Fathers, few are dearer to the Church than Ambrose,
Archbishop of Milan, both on account of his virtues and the dignity he
gave to the episcopal office.
Nearly all the great Fathers were bishops, but I select Ambrose as the
representative of their order, because he was more illustrious as a
prelate than as a theologian or orator, although he stood high as both.
He contributed more than any man who preceded him to raise the power of
bishops as one of the controlling agencies of society for more than a
thousand years.
The episcopal office, aside from its spiritual aspects, had become a
great worldly dignity as early as the fourth century. It gave its
possessor rank, power, wealth,--a superb social position, even in the
eyes of worldly men. "Make me but bishop of Rome," said a great Pagan
general, "and I too would become a Christian." As archbishop of Milan,
the second city of Italy, Ambrose found himself one of the highest
dignitaries of the Empire.
Whence this great power of bishops? How happened it that the humble
ministers of a new and persecuted religion became princes of the earth?
What a change from the outward condition of Paul and Peter to that of
Ambrose and Leo!
It would be unpleasant to present this subject on controversial and
sectarian grounds. Let those people--and they are numerous--who believe
in the divine right of bishops, enjoy their opinion; it is not for me to
assail them. Let any party in the Church universal advocate the divine
institution of their own form of government. But I do not believe that
any particular form of government is laid down in the Bible; and yet I
admit that church government is as essential and fundamental a matter as
a worldly government. Government, then, must be in both Church and
State. This _is_ recognized in the Scriptures. No institution or State
can live without it. Men are exhorted by apostles to obey it, as a
Christian duty. But they do not prescribe the form,--leaving that to be
settled by the circumstances of the times, the wants of nations, the
exigencies of the religious world. And whatever form of government
arises, and is confirmed by the wisest and best men, is to be sustained,
is to be obeyed. The people of Germany recognize imperial authority: it
may be the best government for them. England is practically ruled by an
aristocracy,--for the House of Commons is virtually as aristocratic in
sympathies as the House of Lords. In this country we have a
representation of the people, chosen by the people, and ruling for the
people. We think this is the best form of government for us,--just now.
In Athens there was a pure democracy. Which of these forms of civil
government did God appoint?
So in the Church. For four centuries the bishops controlled the infant
Church. For ten centuries afterwards the Popes ruled the Christian
world, and claimed a divine right. The government of the Church assumed
the theocratic form. At the Reformation numerous sects arose, most of
them claiming the indorsement of the Scriptures. Some of these sects
became very high-church; that is, they based their organization on the
supposed authority of the Bible. All these sects are sincere; but they
differ, and they have a right to differ. Probably the day never will
come when there will be uniformity of opinion on church government, any
more than on doctrines in theology.
Now it seems to me that episcopal power arose, like all other powers,
from the circumstances of society,--the wants of the age. One thing
cannot be disputed, that the early bishop--or presbyter, or elder,
whatever name you choose to call him--was a very humble and unimportant
person in the eyes of the world. He lived in no state, in no dignity; he
had no wealth, and no social position outside his flock. He preached in
an upper chamber or in catacombs. Saint Paul preached at Rome with
chains on his arms or legs. The apostles preached to plain people, to
common people, and lived sometimes by the work of their own hands. In a
century or two, although the Church was still hunted and persecuted,
there were nevertheless many converts. These converts contributed from
their small means to the support of the poor. At first the deacons, who
seem to have been laymen, had charge of this money. Paul was too busy a
man himself to serve tables. Gradually there arose the need of a
superintendent, or overseer; and that is the meaning of the Greek word
[Greek: episkopos], from which we get our term _bishop_. Soon,
therefore, the superintendent or bishop of the local church had the
control of the public funds, the expenditure of which he directed. This
was necessary. As converts multiplied and wealth increased, it became
indispensable for the clergy of a city to have a head; this officer
became presiding elder, or bishop,--whose great duty, however, was to
preach. In another century these bishops had become influential; and
when Christianity was established by Constantine as the religion of the
Empire, they added power to influence, for they disbursed great
revenues and ruled a large body of inferior clergy. They were looked up
to; they became honored and revered; and deserved to be, for they were
good men, and some of them learned. Then they sought a warrant for their
power outside the circumstances to which they were indebted for their
elevation. It was easy to find it. What sect cannot find it? They
strained texts of Scripture,--as that great and good man, Moses Stuart,
of Andover, in his zeal for the temperance cause, strained texts to
prove that the wine of Palestine did not intoxicate.
But whatever were the causes which led to the elevation and ascendency
of bishops, the fact is clear enough that episcopal authority began at
an early date; and that bishops were influential in the third century
and powerful in the fourth,--a most fortunate thing, as I conceive, for
the Church at that time. As early as the third century we read of so
great a man as the martyr Cyprian declaring "that bishops had the same
rights as apostles, whose successors they were." In the fourth century,
such illustrious men as Eusebius of Emesa, Athanasius of Alexandria,
Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Martin of Tours, Chrysostom of
Constantinople, and Augustine of Hippo, and sundry other great men whose
writings swayed the human mind until the Reformation, advocated equally
high-church pretensions. The bishops of that day lived in a state of
worldly grandeur, reduced the power of presbyters to a shadow, seated
themselves on thrones, surrounded themselves with the insignia of
princes, claimed the right of judging in civil matters, multiplied the
offices of the Church, and controlled revenues greater than the incomes
of senators and patricians. As for the bishoprics of Rome,
Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Milan, they were great
governments, and required men of great executive ability to rule them.
Preaching gave way to the multiplied duties and cares of an exalted
station. A bishop was then not often selected because he could preach
well, but because he knew how to govern. Who, even in our times, would
think of filling the See of London, although it is Protestant, with a
man whose chief merit is in his eloquence? They want a business man for
such a post. Eloquence is no objection, but executive ability is the
thing most needed.
So Providence imposed great duties on the bishops of the fourth century,
especially in large cities; and very able as well as good men were
required for this position, equally one of honor and authority.
The See of Milan was then one of the most important in the Empire. It
was the seat of imperial government. Valentinian, an able general, bore
the sceptre of the West; for the Empire was then divided,--Valentinian
ruling the eastern, and his brother Gratian the western, portion of
it,--and, as the Goths were overrunning the civilized world and
threatening Italy, Valentinian fixed his seat of government at Milan. It
was a turbulent city, disgraced by mobs and religious factions. The
Arian party, headed by the Empress Justina, mother of the young emperor,
was exceedingly powerful. It was a critical period, and even orthodoxy
was in danger of being subverted. I might dwell on the miseries of that
period, immediately preceding the fall of the Empire; but all I will say
is, that the See of Milan needed a very able, conscientious, and
wise prelate.
Hence Ambrose was selected, not by the emperor but by the people, in
whom was vested the right of election. He was then governor of that part
of Italy now embraced by the archbishoprics of Milan, Turin, Genoa,
Ravenna, and Bologna,--the greater part of Lombardy and Sardinia. He
belonged to an illustrious Roman family. His father had been praetorian
prefect of Gaul, which embraced not only Gaul, but Britain and
Africa,--about a third of the Roman Empire. The seat of this great
prefecture was Treves; and here Ambrose was born in the year 340. His
early days were of course passed in luxury and pomp. On the death of his
father he retired to Rome to complete his education, and soon
outstripped his noble companions in learning and accomplishments. Such
was his character and position that he was selected, at the age of
thirty-four, for the government of Northern Italy. Nothing eventful
marked his rule as governor, except that he was just, humane, and able.
Had he continued governor, his name would not have passed down in
history; he would have been forgotten like other provincial governors.
But he was destined to a higher sphere and a more exalted position than
that of governor of an important province. On the death of Archbishop
Auxentius, A.D. 374, the See of Milan became vacant. A great
man was required for the archbishopric in that age of factions,
heresies, and tumults. The whole city was thrown into the wildest
excitement. The emperor wisely declined to interfere with the election.
Rival parties could not agree on a candidate. A tumult arose. The
governor--Ambrose--proceeded to the cathedral church, where the election
was going on, to appease the tumult. His appearance produced a momentary
calm, when a little child cried out, "Let Ambrose our governor be our
bishop!" That cry was regarded as a voice from heaven,--as the voice of
inspiration. The people caught the words, re-echoed the cry, and
tumultuously shouted, "Yes! let Ambrose our governor be our bishop!"
And the governor of a great province became archbishop of Milan. This is
a very significant fact. It shows the great dignity and power of the
episcopal office at that time: it transcended in influence and power the
governorship of a province. It also shows the enormous strides which the
Church had made as one of the mighty powers of the world since
Constantine, only about sixty years before, had opened to organized
Christianity the possibilities of influence. It shows how much more
already was thought of a bishop than of a governor.
And what is very remarkable, Ambrose had not even been baptized. He was
a layman. There is no evidence that he was a Christian except in name.
He had passed through no deep experience such as Augustine did, shortly
after this. It was a more remarkable appointment than when Henry II.
made his chancellor, Becket, archbishop of Canterbury. Why was Ambrose
elevated to that great ecclesiastical post? What had he done for the
Church? Did he feel the responsibility of his priestly office? Did he
realize that he was raised in his social position, even in the eye of an
emperor? Why did he not shrink from such an office, on the grounds of
unfitness?
The fact is, as proved by his subsequent administration, he was the
ablest man for that post to be found in Italy. He was really the most
fitting man. If ever a man was called to be a priest, he was called. He
had the confidence of both the emperor and the people. Such confidence
can be based only on transcendent character. He was not selected because
he was learned or eloquent, but because he had administrative ability;
and because he was just and virtuous.
A great outward change in his life marked his elevation, as in Becket
afterwards. As soon as he was baptized, he parted with his princely
fortune and scattered it among the poor, like Cyprian and Chrysostom.
This was in accordance with one of the great ideas of the early Church,
almost impossible to resist. Charity unbounded, allied with poverty, was
the great test of practical Christianity. It was afterwards lost sight
of by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, and never was recognized
by Protestantism at all, not even in theory. Thrift has been one of the
watchwords of Protestantism for three hundred years. One of the boasts
of Protestantism has been its superior material prosperity. Travellers
have harped on the worldly thrift of Protestant countries. The Puritans,
full of the Old Testament, like the Jews, rejoiced in an outward
prosperity as one of the evidences of the favor of God. The Catholics
accuse the Protestants, of not only giving birth to rationalism, in
their desire to extend liberality of mind, but of fostering a material
life in their ambition to be outwardly prosperous. I make no comment on
this fact; I only state it, for everybody knows the accusation to be
true, and most people rejoice in it. One of the chief arguments I used
to hear for the observance of public worship was, that it would raise
the value of property and improve the temporal condition of the
worshippers,--so that temporal thrift was made to be indissolubly
connected with public worship. "Go to church, and you will thrive in
business. Become a Sabbath-school teacher, and you will gain social
position." Such arguments logically grow out from linking the kingdom of
heaven with success in life, and worldly prosperity with the outward
performance of religious duties,--all of which may be true, and
certainly marks Protestantism, but is somewhat different from the ideas
of the Church eighteen hundred years ago. But those were unenlightened
times, when men said, "How hardly shall they who have riches enter into
the kingdom of God."
I pass now to consider the services which Ambrose rendered to the
Church, and which have given him a name in history.
One of these was the zealous conservation of the truths he received on
authority. To guard the purity of the faith was one of the most
important functions of a primitive bishop. The last thing the Church
would tolerate in one of her overseers was a Gallio in religion. She
scorned those philosophical dignitaries who would sit in the seats of
Moses and Paul, and use the speculations of the Greeks to build up the
orthodox faith. The last thing which a primitive bishop thought of was
to advance against Goliath, not with the sling of David, but with the
weapons of Pagan Grecian schools. It was incumbent on the watchman who
stood on the walls of Zion, to see that no suspicious enemy entered her
hallowed gates. The Church gave to him that trust, and reposed in his
fidelity. Now Ambrose was not a great scholar, nor a subtle theologian.
Nor was he dexterous in the use of dialectical weapons, like Athanasius,
Augustine, or Thomas Aquinas. But he was sufficiently intelligent to
know what the authorities declared to be orthodox. He knew that the
fashionable speculations about the Trinity were not the doctrines of
Paul. He knew that self-expiation was not the expiation of the cross;
that the mission of Christ was something more than to set a good
example; that faith was not estimation merely; that regeneration was not
a mere external change of life; that the Divine government was a
perpetual interference to bring good out of evil, even if it were in
accordance with natural law. He knew that the boastful philosophy by
which some sought to bolster up Christianity was that against which the
apostles had warned the faithful. He knew that the Church was attacked
in her most vital points, even in doctrines,--for "as a man thinketh,
so is he."
So he fearlessly entered the lists against the heretics, most of whom
were enrolled among the Manicheans, Pelagians, and Arians.
The Manicheans were not the most dangerous, but they were the most
offensive. Their doctrines were too absurd to gain a lasting foothold in
the West. But they made great pretensions to advanced thought, and
engrafted on Christianity the speculations of the East as to the origin
of evil and the nature of God. They were not only dreamy theosophists,
but materialists under the disguise of spiritualism. I shall have more
to say of these people in the next Lecture, on Augustine, since one of
his great fights was against the Manichean heresy. So I pass them by
with only a brief allusion to their opinions.