COMMENCEMENT OF ASCETIC LIFE—STUDY UNDER
DIODORUS—FORMATION OF AN ASCETIC BROTHERHOOD—THE LETTERS
TO THEODORE. A.D. 370.
The enthusiasm of minds newly awakened to a full perception of
Christian holiness, and a deep sense of Christian obligations, was in
early times seldom contented with anything short of complete separation
from the world. The Oriental temperament especially has been at all
times inclined to passionate extremes. It oscillates between the most
abandoned licentiousness and intense asceticism. The second is the
corrective of the first; where the disease is desperate, the remedies
must be violent. Chrysostom, as will be perceived throughout his life,
was never carried to fanatical extremes; a certain sober-mindedness and
calm practical good sense eminently distinguished him, though mingled
with burning zeal. But in his youth especially he was not exempt from
the spirit of the age and country in which he lived. He irresistibly
gravitated towards that kind of life which his friend Basil had already
adopted—a life of retirement, contemplation, and pious study—“the
philosophy” of Christianity, as it was called at that time.[45]
It does not appear that Basil had actually joined any monastic
community, but merely that he was leading a life of seclusion, and
practising some of the usual monastic austerities. Chrysostom,
indeed, distinctly asserts that, previous to his own baptism, their
intercourse had not been entirely broken off; only that it was
impossible for him, who had his business in the law-courts and found
his recreation in the theatre, to be so acceptable as formerly to one
who now never entered public places, and who was wholly devoted to
meditation, study, and prayer.[46] Their intercourse was necessarily
more rare, though their friendship was substantially unshaken. “When,
however, I had myself also lifted my head a little above this worldly
flood, he received me with open arms” (probably referring here to
his baptism or preparation for it); “but even then I was not able to
maintain my former equality, for he had the advantage of me in point of
time, and having manifested the greatest diligence, he had attained a
very lofty standard, and was ever soaring beyond me.”[47]
This disparity, however, could not diminish their natural affection
for one another; and Basil at length obtained Chrysostom’s consent
to a plan which he had frequently urged—that they should abandon
their present homes and live together in some quiet abode, there to
strengthen each other in undisturbed study, meditation, and prayer.
But this project of the young enthusiasts was for a time frustrated
by the irresistible entreaties of Chrysostom’s mother, that he would
not deprive her of his protection, companionship, and help. The scene
is described by Chrysostom himself,[48] with a dramatic power worthy
of Greek tragedy. It reminds the reader of some of those long and
stately, yet elegant and affecting, narratives of the messenger who,
at the close of the play, _describes_ the final scene which is not
represented. Certainly it bespeaks the scholar of a man who had made
his pupils familiar with the best classical writers in Greek. “When
she knew that we were meditating this course, my mother took me by the
right hand and led me into her own chamber, and there, seating herself
near the bed on which she had given birth to me, wept fountains of
tears; to which she added words of lamentation more pitiable even than
the tears themselves. ‘I was not long permitted to enjoy the virtue of
thy father, my child: so it seemed good to God. My travail-pangs at
your birth were quickly succeeded by his death; bringing orphanhood
upon thee, and upon me an untimely widowhood, with all those miseries
of widowhood which those only who have experienced them can fairly
understand. For no description can approach the reality of that storm
and tempest which is undergone by her who having but lately issued
from her father’s home, and being unskilled in the ways of the world,
is suddenly plunged into grief insupportable, and compelled to endure
anxieties too great for her sex and age. For she has to correct the
negligence, to watch against the ill-doings, of her slaves, to baffle
the insidious schemes of kinsfolk, to meet with a brave front the
impudent threats and harshness of tax-collectors.’”[49]
She then describes minutely the expense, and labour, and constant
anxiety which attended the education of a son; how she had refrained
from all thoughts of second marriage, that she might bestow her
undivided energies, time, and means upon him; how amply it had all been
rewarded by the delight of his presence, recalling the image of her
husband;—and now that he had grown up, would he leave her absolutely
forlorn? “In return for all these my services to you,” she cried, “I
implore you this one favour only—not to make me a second time a widow,
or to revive the grief which time has lulled. Wait for my death—perhaps
I shall soon be gone; when you have committed my body to the ground,
and mingled my bones with your father’s bones, then you will be free to
embark on any sea you please.” Such an appeal to his sense of filial
gratitude and duty could not be disregarded. Chrysostom yielded to
his mother’s entreaties, although Basil did not desist from urging his
favourite scheme.[50]
At the same time he assimilated his life at home as much as possible
to the condition of a monk. He entirely withdrew from all worldly
occupations and amusements. He seldom went out of the house; he
strengthened his mind by study, his spirit by prayer, and subdued his
body by vigils and fasting, and sleeping upon the bare ground. He
maintained an almost constant silence, that his thoughts might be kept
abstracted from mundane things, and that no irritable or slanderous
speech might escape his lips. Some of his companions naturally lamented
what they regarded as a morose and melancholy change.[51]
But the intercourse between him and Basil was more frequent than
before; and two other young men, who had been their fellow-students
at the school of Libanius, were persuaded to adopt the same kind
of secluded life. These two were Maximus, afterwards Bishop of
Seleucia, in Isauria; and Theodore, who became Bishop of Mopsuestia,
in Cilicia.[52] This little fraternity formed, with some others not
named, a voluntary association of youthful ascetics. They did not
dwell in a separate building, nor were they in any way established
as a monastic community, but (like Wesley and his young friends at
Oxford) they lived by rule, and practised monastic austerities. The
superintendence of their studies and general conduct they submitted
to Diodorus and Carterius, who were presidents of monasteries in the
vicinity of Antioch.[53] In addition to his own intrinsic merits and
eminence, Diodorus claims our attention, because there can be no doubt
that he exercised a great influence upon the minds of his two most
distinguished scholars, Chrysostom and Theodore. Indeed, judging from
the fragments of his works, and the notices of him by historians, it
is not too much to say that he was the founder of a method of Biblical
interpretation of which Chrysostom and Theodore became the most able
representatives.
He was of noble family, and the friend of Meletius, who confided to
him and the priest Evagrius the chief care of his diocese during his
second exile under Valens about A.D. 370. And one of the first acts
of Meletius, on his return in A.D. 378, was to make Diodorus Bishop
of Tarsus. His writings in defence of Christianity were sufficiently
powerful and notorious to provoke the notice of Julian, who, in a
letter to Photinus, attacks him with no small asperity.[54] The Emperor
finds occasion for ridicule in the pale and wrinkled face and the
attenuated frame of Diodorus, wasted by his severe labours and ascetic
practices; and represents these disfigurements as punishments from the
offended gods against whom he had directed his pen. Being well known
as a warm friend of Meletius, Diodorus was exposed to some risk from
the Arian party during the exile of the bishop from A.D. 370-378. But
he was not deterred from frequenting the old town on the south side of
the Orontes, where the congregation of Meletius held their assemblies,
and diligently ministering to their spiritual needs. He accepted no
fixed stipend, but his necessities were supplied by the hospitality
of those among whom he laboured.[55] Of his voluminous writings,
a commentary on the Old and New Testament is that most frequently
quoted by ecclesiastical writers. They expressly and repeatedly
affirm that he adhered very closely to the literal and historical
meaning of the text, and that he was opposed to those mystical and
allegorical interpretations of Origen and the Alexandrian school,
which often disguised rather than elucidated the true significance
of the passage.[56] One evil of the allegorical method was, that it
destroyed a clear and critical perception of the differences between
the Older Revelation and the New. The Old Testament was regarded as a
kind of vast enigma, containing _implicitly_ the facts and doctrines
of the New. To detect subtle allusions to the coming of our Saviour,
to the events of his life, to his death and resurrection, in the acts,
speeches, and gestures of persons mentioned in the Old Testament,
was regarded as a kind of interpretation no less satisfactory than
it was ingenious. To believe indeed that the grand intention running
through Scripture from the beginning to the end is to bring men to
Jesus Christ; that the history of the fall of man is given to enable
us to appreciate the need of a Restorer, and to estimate his work at
its proper value; that the history of a dispensation based on law
enables us to accept with more thankfulness a dispensation of spirit;
that the history of the Jewish system of sacrifices is intended to
conduct us to the one great Sacrifice as the substance of previous
shadows, the fulfilment of previous types; that, alike in the law and
the prophets, intimations and hints and significant parallels of the
subsequent history to which they lead on are to be discerned;—this may
be reasonable, profitable, and true: but it can be neither profitable
nor true to see allusions, prophecies, and parallels in every minute
and trivial detail of that earlier history.
From this vital error Diodorus appears to have emancipated himself and
his disciples. He perceived, as we shall see Chrysostom perceived, a
gradual development in Revelation: that the knowledge, and morality,
and faith of men under the Old Dispensation were less advanced than
those of men who lived under the New. One instance must suffice. He
remarks that the Mosaic precept, directing the brother of a man who had
died childless to raise up posterity to his brother by marrying his
wife, was given for the consolation of men who had as yet received no
clear promise respecting a resurrection from the dead.[57] There is
an approach to what some might deem rationalistic criticism, when he
affirms that the speech of God to men in the Old Testament was not an
external voice, but an inward spiritual intimation. When, for instance,
it is said that God gave a command to Adam, it is evident, he says,
that it was not made by a sound audible to the bodily ear, but that
God impressed the knowledge of the command upon him according to his
own proper energy, and that when Adam had received it his _condition_
was the same _as_ if it had come to him through the actual hearing of
the ear. And this, he observes, is what God effected also in the case
of the prophets.[58] A similar rationalistic tendency is observable
in his explanation of the relation between the Divine and human
elements in the person of our blessed Lord. His language, in fact, on
this subject is Nestorian: a distinction was to be made between Him
who, according to his essence, _was_ Son of God—the Logos—and Him who
through Divine decree and adoption _became_ Son of God. He who was
born as Man from Mary was Son according to grace, but God the Logos
was Son according to nature. The Son of Mary became Son of God because
He was selected to be the receptacle or temple of God the Word. It was
only in an improper sense that God the Word was called Son of David;
the appellation was given to Him merely because the human temple in
which He dwelt belonged to the lineage of David.[59] It is clear that
Diodorus would have objected equally with Nestorius to apply the title
of “God-bearer” (Θεοτόκος) to the blessed Virgin. Sixty years later,
in A.D. 429, the streets of Constantinople and Alexandria resounded
with tumults excited by controversy about the subject of which this was
the watchword. But Diodorus happily lived too early for these dreadful
conflicts, and his scholar Theodore was not personally disturbed;
though long after his death, in A.D. 553, his writings were condemned
by the Fifth Œcumenical Council, because the Nestorians appealed
to them in confirmation of their tenets, and revered his memory. The
practical element in Diodorus, his method of literal and common-sense
interpretation of Holy Scripture, was inherited chiefly by Chrysostom;
the intellectual vein, his conceptions of the relation between the
Godhead and Manhood in Christ, his opinions respecting the final
restoration of mankind, which were almost equivalent to a denial of
eternal punishment, were reproduced mainly by Theodore.
It was inevitable that those who, in an access of religious fervour,
had renounced the world and subjected themselves to the sternest
asceticism, should sometimes find that they had miscalculated their
powers. The passionate enthusiasm which for a time carried them
along the thorny path would begin to subside; a hankering after a
more natural, if not more worldly, life ensued; and occasionally the
reaction was so violent, the passions kept down in unnatural constraint
reasserted themselves with such force, that the ascetic flew back
to the pleasures and sometimes to the sins of the world, with an
appetite which was in painful contrast to his previous abstinence.
The youthful Theodore was for a time an instance, though far from an
extreme instance, of such reaction: the strain was too great for him;
he relapsed for a season into his former habits of life; he retired
from the little ascetic brotherhood to which Chrysostom and Basil
belonged. There is no evidence that he fell into any kind of sin; he
simply returned to the occupations and amusements of ordinary life. He
was in love with and desirous of marrying a young lady named Hermione.
But Chrysostom was at this period such an ardent ascetic; he was so
deeply impressed with the evil of the world; and regarded an austere
and absolute separation from it as so indispensable to the highest
standard of Christian life, that to him any divergence from that path,
when once adopted, seemed a positive sin. The relapse of Theodore
called forth two letters of lamentation, remonstrance, and exhortation
from his friend. They are the earliest of his extant works, and exhibit
a command of language which does credit to the training of Libanius
as well as to his own ability, and an intimate acquaintance with Holy
Scripture, which proves how much time he had already spent in diligent
and patient study. Since these epistles have been justly considered
among the finest of his productions, and represent his opinions at
an early stage of his life respecting repentance, a future life, the
advantages of asceticism and celibacy, some paraphrases from them will
be presented to the reader.
He begins his first letter by quoting the words of Jeremiah: “Oh that
my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears!”
“If the prophet uttered that lamentation over a ruined city, surely I
may express a like passionate sorrow over the fallen soul of a brother.
That soul which was once the temple of the Holy Spirit now lies open
and defenceless to become the prey of any hostile invader. The spirit
of avarice, of arrogance, of lust, may now find a free passage into
a heart which was once as pure and inaccessible to evil as heaven
itself. Wherefore I mourn and weep, nor will I cease from my mourning
until I see thee again in thy former brilliancy. For though this may
seem impossible to men, yet with God it is possible, for He it is
who lifteth the beggar from the earth and taketh the poor out of the
dunghill, that He may set him with the princes, even with the princes
of his people.” An eminent characteristic of Chrysostom is that he
is always hopeful of human nature; he never doubts the capacity of
man to rise, or the willingness of God to raise him. Theodore himself
appears to have been stricken with remorse, and to have drooped into
despondency, to rouse him from which and lead him to repose more
trustfully on the goodness of God, was one main purpose of Chrysostom’s
letters. “Despair was the devil’s work;” “it is he who tries to cut
off that hope whereby men are saved, which is the support and anchor
of the soul, which, like a long chain, let down from heaven, little
by little draws those who hold tightly to it up to heavenly heights,
and lifts them above the storm and tempest of these worldly ills. The
devil tries to extinguish that trust which is the source and strength
of prayer, which enables men to cry, ‘as the eyes of a maiden look unto
the hand of her mistress, even so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God
until He have mercy upon us.’ Yet if man will only believe it, there
is never a time at which any one, even the most abandoned sinner, may
not turn and repent and be accepted by God. For God being impassible,
his wrath is not a passion or an emotion; He punishes not in anger,
since He is unsusceptible by nature of injury from any insult or wrong
done by us, but in mercy, that He may bring men back to Himself.[60]
The many instances of God’s mercy; his relenting towards the Jews, and
even to Ahab, when he humbled himself; the repentance of Manasseh—of
the Ninevites—of the penitent thief—all accepted, although preceded by
a long course of sin, prove that the words ‘today if ye will hear his
voice’ are applicable to any time:—it is always ‘to-day’ as long as a
man lives; repentance is estimated not by length of time, but by the
disposition of the heart.” He acutely observes that “despondency often
conceals moral weakness; a secret though perhaps unconscious sympathy
with the sin which the man professes to deplore and hate.” “To fall is
natural, but to remain fallen argues a kind of acquiescence in evil, a
feebleness of moral purpose which is more displeasing to God than the
fall itself.”[61]
But although he speaks in the most hopeful, encouraging language of
the efficacy of repentance, however late, if sincere, in _this life_,
no one can assert more strongly the impossibility of restoration when
the limits of this present existence have once been passed. In this
respect he differs alike from Origen, Diodorus, and his fellow-student
Theodore, and from believers in the later developed doctrine of
purgatory. “As long as we are here, it is possible, even if we sin
ten thousand times, to wash all away by repentance; but when once we
have been taken to that other world, even if we manifest the greatest
penitence, it will avail us naught, but however much we may gnash
with our teeth, and beat our breasts, and pour forth entreaties, no
one will be able even with the tip of his finger to cool us in the
flame; we shall only hear the same words as the rich man: ‘between us
and you there is a great gulf fixed.’”[62] Nothing is more remarkably
characteristic of Chrysostom’s productions, especially the earlier,
than a frequent recurrence to this truth: the existence of a great
impassable chasm between the two abodes of misery and bliss. Heaven
and hell were no distant dreamlands to him, but realities so nearly
and vividly present to his mind that they acted as powerful motives,
encouraging to holiness, deterring from vice. He paints the two
pictures in glowing colours, and submits them to the contemplation of
his friend. “When you hear of fire, think not that the fire in that
other world is like it; for this earthly fire burns up and consumes
whatever it lays hold of, but that burns continually those who are
seized by it and never ceases, wherefore it is called unquenchable.
For sinners must be clothed with immortality, not for honour, but
merely to supply a constant material for this punishment to feed upon;
and how terrible this is, a description would indeed never be able to
present, but from our experience of small sufferings it is possible to
form some little conception of those greater miseries. If you should
ever be in a bath which has been overheated, then I pray you consider
the fire of hell; or if ever you have been parched by a severe fever,
transfer your thoughts to that flame, and you will be able clearly to
distinguish the difference. For if a bath or a fever so distress and
agitate us, what will be our condition when we fall into that river of
fire which flows past the terrible Judge’s throne.”[63] “Heaven is,
indeed, a subject which transcends the powers of human language, yet
we can form a dim image of what it is like. It is the place ‘whence
sorrow and sighing shall flee away’ (Is. xxxv. 10); where poverty and
sickness are not to be dreaded; where no one injures or is injured, no
one provokes or is provoked; no one is harassed by anxiety about the
necessary wants, or frets over the loftier ambitions, of life; it is
the place where the tempest of human passions is lulled; where there is
neither night nor cold nor heat, nor changes of season, nor old age;
but everything belonging to decay is taken away, and incorruptible
glory reigns alone. But far above all these things, it is the place
where men will continually enjoy the society of Jesus Christ, together
with angels and archangels and all the powers above.”[64] “Open
your eyes,” he cries in a transport of feeling, “and contemplate in
imagination that heavenly theatre crowded not with men such as we see,
but with those who are nobler than gold or precious stones or sunbeams,
or any brilliant thing that can be seen; and not with men only, but
angels, thrones, dominions, powers ranged about the King whom we dare
not describe for his transcendent beauty, majesty, and splendour. If we
had to suffer ten thousand deaths every day; nay, if we had to undergo
hell itself, for the sake of beholding Christ coming in his glory, and
being numbered among the band of saints, would it not be well to submit
to all these things? ‘Master, it is a good thing for us to be here:’
if such an exclamation burst from St. Peter on witnessing a partial and
veiled manifestation of Christ’s glory, what are we to say when the
reality shall be displayed, when the royal palace shall be thrown open
and we shall see the King Himself; no longer by means of a mirror, or
as it were in a riddle, but face to face; no longer through faith, but
actual sight.”[65] He passes on to some remarks upon the soul, which
are Platonic in character: “Man cannot alter the shape of his body,
but God has conceded to him a power, with the assistance of Divine
grace, of increasing the beauty of the soul. Even that soul which has
become deformed by the ugliness of sin may be restored to its pristine
beauty. No lover was ever so much captivated by the beauty of the
body as God loves and longs for the beauty of the human soul.[66] You
who are now transported with admiration of Hermione’s beauty” (the
girl whom Theodore wished to marry) “may, if you will, cultivate a
beauty in your own soul as far exceeding hers as heaven surpasses
earth. Beauty of the soul is the only true and permanent kind, and
if you could see it with the eye, you would admire it far more than
the loveliness of the rainbow and of roses, and other flowers which
are evanescent and feeble representations of the soul’s beauty.”[67]
He tells some curious stories of men who had relapsed from monastic
life and subsequently been reclaimed to it. One, a young man of noble
family and heir to great wealth, had thrown up all the splendour which
he might have commanded, and exchanged his riches and his gay clothing
for the poverty and mean garb of a recluse upon the mountains, and had
attained an astonishing degree of holiness. But some of his relations
seduced him from his retreat, and once more he might be seen riding on
horseback through the forum followed by a crowd of attendants. But the
holy brethren whom he had deserted ceased not to endeavour to recover
him; at first he treated them with haughty indifference, when they met
and saluted him, as he proudly rode through the streets. But at last,
as they desisted not day by day, he would leap from his horse when
they appeared, and listen with downcast eyes to their warnings; till,
as time went on, he was rescued from his worldly entanglements, and
restored to his desert and the study of the true philosophy, and now,
when Chrysostom wrote, he bestowed his wealth upon the poor, and had
attained the very pinnacle of virtue.[68] Earnestly, therefore, does he
implore Theodore to recover his trust in God, to repent and return to
the brotherhood which was buried in grief at his defection. “Now the
unbelieving and the worldly rejoice; but return to us, and our sorrow
and shame will be transferred to the adversary’s side.” “It was the
beginning of penitence which was arduous; the devil met the penitent
at the door of the city of refuge, but, if defeated there, the fury of
his assaults would diminish.” He warned him against an idle confession
of sinfulness not accompanied by any honest effort to amend. “Such was
no true confession, because not joined with the tears of contrition or
followed by alteration of life.”[69] But of Theodore he hoped better
things; as there were different degrees of glory reserved for men,
implied in our Lord’s mention of “many mansions,” and his declaring
that every one should be rewarded according to his works, he trusted
that Theodore might still obtain a high place; that he might be a
vessel of silver, if not of gold or precious stone, in the heavenly
house.[70]
In the second epistle Chrysostom expresses more distinctly his view
respecting the solemn obligations of those who joined a religious
fraternity. “If tears and groanings could be transmitted through a
letter, this of mine would be filled with them; I weep that you have
blotted yourself out of the catalogue of the brethren, and trampled
on your covenant with Christ.” “The devil assaulted him with peculiar
fury, because he was anxious to conquer so worthy an antagonist; one
who had despised delicate fare and costly dress, who had spent whole
days in the study of Holy Scripture, and whole nights in prayer, who
had regarded the society of the brethren as a greater honour than any
worldly dignity. What, I pray you, is there that appears blessed and
enviable in the world? The prince is exposed to the wrath of the people
and the irrational outbursts of popular feeling—to the fear of princes
greater than himself—to anxieties about his subjects; and the ruler of
to-day is to-morrow a private man: for this present life no way differs
from a stage; as on that, one man plays the part of a king, another of
a general, a third of a common soldier; but when evening has come the
king is no king, the ruler no ruler, the general no general; so will
it be in _that_ day; each will receive his due reward, not according
to the character which he has enacted, but according to the works
which he has done.”[71] Theodore had clearly expressed his intention
of honourably marrying Hermione; but though Chrysostom allows that
marriage is an honourable estate, yet he boldly declares that for one
who like Theodore had made such a solemn renunciation of the world, it
was equally criminal with fornication. He had wholly dedicated himself
to the service of God, and he had no right to bind himself by any other
tie: to marry would be as culpable as desertion in a soldier. He points
out the miseries, the anxieties, the toils, often fruitless, which
accompanied secular life, especially in the married state. From all
such ills the life of the brotherhood was exempt: he alone was truly
free who lived for Christ; he was like one who, securely planted on
an eminence, beholds other men below him buffeting with the waves of
a tumultuous sea. For such a high vantage-ground Chrysostom implores
Theodore to make. He begs him to pardon the length of his letter:
“nothing but his ardent love for his friend could have constrained him
to write this second epistle. Many indeed had discouraged what they
regarded as a vain task and sowing upon a rock; but he was not so to
be diverted from his efforts: he trusted that by the grace of God his
letters would accomplish something; and if not, he should at least have
delivered himself from the reproach of silence.”[72]
These letters are the productions of a youthful enthusiast, and
as such, allowances must be made for them. They abound not only
in eloquent passages, but in very fine and true observations upon
human nature—on penitence—on God’s mercy and pardon. It is only the
application of them to the case of Theodore which seems harsh and
overstrained. At a later period Chrysostom’s views on ascetic and
monastic life were modified; but in early life, though never fanatical,
they were what we should call extreme. His earnest efforts for the
restoration of his friend were crowned with success. Theodore abandoned
the world once more and his matrimonial intentions, and retired into
the seclusion of the brotherhood. Some twenty years later, in A.D.
394, he was made Bishop of Mopsuestia, which is pretty nearly all we
know about him, but the extant fragments of his voluminous writings
prove him to have been a man of no ordinary ability, and a powerful
commentator of the same sensible and rational school as Chrysostom
himself. We may be disposed to say, What of Hermione? Had she no claims
to be considered? But the ascetic line of life was regarded by the
earnest-minded as so indisputably the noblest which a Christian could
adopt, that her disappointment would not have been allowed to weigh
in the balance for a moment against what was considered the higher
call.[73]