THE SEDITION AT ANTIOCH—THE HOMILIES ON THE STATUES—THE
RESULTS OF THE SEDITION. A.D. 387.
The wise counsel and softening influence of the Empress were removed
from her husband at an inopportune season. Political storms were
approaching, and the passionate temper of Theodosius was soon to be
subjected to a most severe trial.
The year 388 would have completed the first decade of his reign. The
year 387 was the fifth of the reign of his son Arcadius, whom he had
nominally associated with himself in the government. The celebration
of these two events Theodosius, from motives of prudent economy and
convenience, resolved to combine. The army on such occasions claimed
a liberal donative, five gold pieces to each man. It was obviously
desirable, therefore, to avoid, if possible, the repetition of such a
donative within a short space of time. It was always a strain on the
royal treasury, and at the present juncture the strain was increased,
for the Goths were assuming a menacing attitude on the Danubian
frontier. It was necessary to mass troops in that direction, and,
with a view to provide for these expenses, it was proposed to raise
a special subsidy from the opulent cities of the Eastern empire. But
the inhabitants of Alexandria and Antioch were loath to part with
any of the wealth which they had accumulated during nearly ten years
of peace and exemption from onerous taxation. Large meetings were
held by the citizens of Alexandria in the theatres and other public
places; inflammatory and seditious speeches were made. “If we are to be
treated thus,” they cried, “a simple remedy is open: we will appeal to
Maximus in the West; he knows how to shake off a troublesome tyrant.”
Fortunately the Prefect Cynegius was a man of firmness and promptitude;
he made some arrests of the most conspicuous leaders of the mutinous
faction, and enforced an immediate payment of the tribute, and by these
decisive measures public order was restored. Either the people of
Antioch were more deeply disaffected, or no such energetic officer was
in that city to nip the spirit of rebellion in the bud. It is said that
the inhabitants entertained a grudge against the Emperor, because he
had never visited their city, which had been frequently graced by the
royal presence of his predecessors.[285]
The edict which enjoined the levying of the tribute was proclaimed by
a herald on February 26. Large numbers of the people assembled on the
spot, collected chiefly into groups, amongst which were some persons
of distinction, senators and other civic functionaries, noble ladies,
and retired soldiers. An ominous silence succeeded the announcement
of the edict. The crowd then dispersed, but reassembled about the
prætorium, where the governor resided.[286] There they stood in gloomy
silence, save that the women, from time to time, raised a wailing
lamentation, crying that the ruin of the city was determined, and that
since the Emperor had abandoned them, God alone from henceforth could
come to their succour. At last a little band detached itself from the
mass, shouting that they must go and seek the Bishop Flavian, and
constrain him to intercede with the Emperor on their behalf. Flavian,
by accident or design, was absent from the episcopal residence, and
the mob returned to the prætorium, crying that the governor must
do them justice. The people appear to have been excited to violence
chiefly by those turbulent foreign adventurers who abounded in Antioch,
sordid venal creatures, often hired by actors to get up applause in
the theatres, or by great men not over popular to raise cheers when
they appeared in public places. But however stimulated, the passions
of the mob were thoroughly roused, and their fury vented itself in a
tumultuous rush into one of the great public baths, where they soon
tore everything to pieces. Having completed this work of destruction,
they hurried back once more to the hall of the unfortunate governor.
Here they were kept at bay by a guard for a sufficient time to
enable the governor to escape by a back-door, and when they at last
succeeded in bursting in, the vacancy of the place aggravated their
rage. The governor was not seated in the judicial chair, but they
found themselves face to face with the statues of the imperial family,
which as emblems of authority were ranged above it. They paused for a
few moments; highly excited as they were, imperial majesty, even so
represented, had some deterrent influence upon their fury.
But, unfortunately, there were boys in the crowd; the love of
stone-throwing without respect of persons was as ardent in boy nature
fifteen hundred years ago as it is now. A stone was cast by one
of these juvenile hands, which hit one of the sacred statues. The
momentary feelings of reverence which had arrested the people were
dissipated. The images were mutilated, almost battered to pieces, and
the fragments dragged through the streets. Other images of the imperial
family with which the city was adorned were treated in the same manner;
the equestrian statue of Count Theodosius, father of the Emperor, was
dislodged from its pedestal and hacked about, amidst derisive shouts of
“Defend thyself, grand cavalier!”[287]
The unrestrained fury of the people was inflamed by success; they began
to bring up torches and actually set fire to one of the principal
buildings of the city, when the governor, who had escaped their hands,
returned at the head of a company of archers. As usual with disorderly
mobs, however furious, they were unable to face the discipline of
military force; the soldiers were no sooner drawn up and preparing to
fix their weapons than rage turned to panic, and the mob, lately so
formidable, melted away.
The whole tumult had not lasted more than three hours; before noon,
every one had returned to his home, the streets and squares were empty,
and a death-like stillness pervaded the city. Remorse was mingled with
great terror respecting the consequences of the outrage which had been
perpetrated. The Emperor, indeed, was humane and forgiving of wrongs
which concerned himself alone, but how would he brook the insults
done to the memory of his father and his tenderly beloved Empress?
One hope remained: Flavian, the bishop, was a favourite at court; his
intercessions might avail; the people besought him with tears to stand
their friend in this distress. From Antioch to Constantinople was a
long and perilous journey of 800 miles, and the winter was not yet
ended. Flavian was old, his only sister was seriously ill, and the
approaching season of Lent required his presence at Antioch, but a
sense of the emergency prevailed over all these obstacles. Animated by
the spirit of the Good Shepherd the intrepid old man was ready to lay
down his life for his flock, and set out upon his errand of mercy with
all possible speed, in the hope of overtaking the messengers who had
started before him, but had been detained at the foot of Mount Taurus
by a fall of snow.[288]
During the absence of Flavian all the powers of Chrysostom as an
orator, a pastor, and a citizen, were called forth in attempting to
calm the fears and revive the deeply-dejected spirits of the people.
Perseveringly did he discharge this anxious and laborious task; almost
every day, for twenty-two days, that small figure was to be seen either
sitting in the Ambo, from which he sometimes preached on account of
his diminutive stature, or standing on the steps of the altar, the
preacher’s usual place;[289] and day after day, the crowds increased
which came to listen to the stream of golden eloquence which he poured
forth. With all the versatility of a consummate artist, he moved from
point to point. Sometimes a picture of the city’s agony melted his
hearers to tears, and then again he struck the note of encouragement
and revived their spirits by bidding them take comfort from the
well-known clemency of the Emperor, the probable success of the mission
of Flavian, and, above all, from trust in God.
“The gay and noisy city, where once the busy people hummed like
bees around their hive, was petrified by fear into the most dismal
silence and desolation; the wealthier inhabitants had fled into the
country, those who remained shut themselves up in their houses, as if
the town had been in a state of siege. If any one ventured into the
market-place, where once the multitude poured along like the stream of
a mighty river, the pitiable sight of two or three cowering dejected
creatures in the midst of solitude soon drove him home again. The
sun itself seemed to veil its rays as if in mourning. The words of
the prophet were fulfilled, ‘Their sun shall go down at noon, and
their earth shall be darkened in a clear day’ (Amos viii. 9). Now
they might cry, ‘Send to the mourning women, and let them come, and
send for cunning women that they may come’ (Jer. ix. 17). Ye hills
and mountains, take up a wailing, let us invite all creation to
commiserate our woes, for this great city, this capital of Eastern
cities, is in danger of being destroyed out of the midst of the earth,
and there is no man to help her, for the Emperor, who has no equal
among men, has been insulted; therefore let us take refuge with the
King who is above, and summon Him to our aid.”[290]
The chief reason of the people’s extreme dejection was, that the
governor and magistrates, probably to disarm any suspicion at court
of their own complicity in the sedition, were daily seizing real or
supposed culprits, and punishing them with the utmost rigour. Even
those who might have been pardoned on account of their tender age were
mercilessly handed over to the executioner. Chrysostom speaks of some
even having been burnt, and others thrown to wild beasts. The weeping
parents followed their unhappy offspring at a distance, powerless to
help but fearing to plead, like men on shore beholding with grief
shipwrecked sailors struggling in the water, but unable to rescue
them.[291]
But the object of Chrysostom was, not to utter ineffectual
lamentations. He aimed at rousing the people from their profound
dejection, and printing, if possible, on their hearts, humbled and
softened by distress, deep and lasting impressions of good. He told
them that there was everything to be hoped for from the embassy of
Flavian. “The Emperor was pious, the bishop courageous, yet prudent and
adroit; God would not suffer his errand to be fruitless. The very sight
of that venerable man would dispose the royal mind to clemency. Flavian
would not fail to urge how especially suitable an act of forgiveness
was to that holy season, in which was commemorated the Death of Christ
for the sins of the whole world. He would remind the Emperor of the
parable of the two debtors, and warn him not to incur the risk of
being one day addressed by the words, ‘Thou wicked servant, I forgave
thee all that debt; shouldest not thou also have had compassion on
thy fellow-servants?’ He would represent that the outrages had not
been committed by the whole community, but chiefly by some lawless
strangers. He would plead that the inhabitants, even had they all
offended, had already undergone sufficient punishment in the anxiety
and alarm which they endured. It would be unreasonable to visit the
crime of a few by the extirpation of a whole city, a city which was the
most populous capital of the East, and dear to Christians as the place
where they had first received that sweet and lovely name.”[292]
Meanwhile he earnestly calls upon the people to improve this season
of humiliation by a thorough repentance and reformation in respect of
the prevailing vices and follies. The words of St. Paul in writing
to the Philippians, “To write the same things to you, to me indeed
is not grievous, and for you it is safe,” might be aptly applied to
Chrysostom. He is never tired of denouncing special sins and exhorting
to the renunciation of them in every variety of language. Ostentatious
luxury, sordid avarice, religious formalism, a profane custom of
taking rash oaths, were the fashionable sins against which he waged an
incessant and implacable warfare.
His exhortations are generally based on some passage read in the lesson
of the day. “What have we heard today? ‘Charge them that are rich in
this world, that they be not high-minded.’ He who says ‘the rich in
this world’ proves thereby that there are others rich in regard to a
future world, like Lazarus in the parable.” Wealth of this world was
a thankless runaway slave, which, if bound with thousands of fetters,
made off, fetters and all. Not that he would quarrel with wealth; it
was good in itself, but became evil when inordinately desired and
paraded, just as the evil of intoxication lay not in wine itself, but
in the abuse of it. The Apostle did not charge those who were rich to
become poor, but only not to be high-minded. “Let us adorn our own
souls before we embellish our houses. Is it not disgraceful to overlay
our walls with marbles and to neglect Christ, who is going about
unclothed? What profit is there, O man, in thy house? Wilt thou carry
it away with thee? Nay, thou must leave thy _house_; but thy _soul_
thou wilt certainly take with thee. Lo! how great the danger which has
now overtaken us: let our houses, then, be our defenders; let them
rescue us from the impending peril;—but they will not be able. Be those
witnesses to my words who have now deserted their houses, and hurried
away to the wilderness as if afraid of nets and snares. Do you wish
to build large and splendid houses? I forbid you not, only build them
not upon the earth; build yourselves tabernacles in heaven—tabernacles
which never decay. Nothing is more slippery than wealth, which to-day
is with thee and to-morrow is against thee; which sharpens the eyes of
the envious on all sides; which is a foe in your own camp, an enemy in
your own household. Wealth makes the present danger more intolerable;
you see the poor man unencumbered and prepared for whatever may happen,
but the rich in a state of great embarrassment, and going about seeking
some place in which to bury his gold, or some person with whom to
deposit it. Why seek thy fellow-servants, O man? Christ stands ready
to receive and guard thy deposits—yea, not only to guard, but also to
multiply and to return with rich interest. No man plucks out of His
hand; men, when they receive a deposit from another, deem that they
have conferred a favour upon him; but Christ, on the contrary, declares
that He receives a favour, and, instead of demanding a reward, bestows
one upon you.”[293]
He entreated them to make the present Lent a season of spiritual
renovation. Lent fell in the spring, when the stream of industry
which the winter had frozen began to flow again. The sailor launched
his vessel, the soldier furbished his sword, the farmer whetted his
scythe, the traveller set out confidently on his long journey, the
athlete stripped for the contest. “Even so let this fast be to us a
spiritual spring-tide; let us polish our spiritual armour, let us
breast the waves of evil passions, set out like travellers on our
journey heavenwards, and prepare like athletes for the combat. For the
Christian is both husbandman, and pilot, and soldier, and athlete, and
traveller. Hast thou seen the athlete? hast thou seen the soldier? if
thou art an athlete thou must strip to enter the lists; if thou art a
soldier thou must put on armour before taking thy place in the ranks.
How then to the same man can both these things be possible? How, dost
thou ask? I will tell thee. Strip thyself of thy worldly business, and
thou hast become an athlete; clothe thyself with spiritual armour,
and thou hast become a soldier. Strip thyself, for it is a season of
wrestling; clothe thyself, for we are engaged in a fierce warfare with
devils. Till thy soul, and cut away the thorns; sow the seed of piety,
plant the good plants of philosophy, and tend them with much care, and
thou hast become a husbandman, and St. Paul will say to thee, ‘The
husbandman which laboureth must first be a partaker of the fruits.’
Whet thy sickle which thou hast blunted by surfeiting; sharpen it, I
say, by fasting. Enter on the road which leads to heaven, the rugged
and narrow road, and travel along it. And how shalt thou be able to set
out and travel? By buffeting thy body and bringing it into subjection;
for where the road is narrow, obesity, which comes from surfeiting,
is a great impediment. Repress the waves of foolish passions, repulse
the storm of wicked imaginations, preserve the vessel, display all
thy skill, and thou hast become a pilot.”[294] The originator and
instructor of all these arts was abstinence; not the vulgar kind of
abstinence, not abstinence from food only, but also from sins. “If thou
fastest, show me the results by thy deeds. What deeds, do you ask?
If you see a poor man, have pity on him; if an enemy, be reconciled;
if a friend in good reputation, regard him without envy. Fast not
only by thy mouth, but with thine eyes, thine ears, thy hands, thy
feet; avert thine eyes from unlawful sights, restrain thy hands from
deeds of violence, keep thy feet from entering places of pernicious
amusement, bridle thy mouth from uttering, and stop thine ears from
listening to tales of slander.” This kind of fast would be acceptable
to God, only it should be co-extensive with life. To spend a few days
in penance and then to relapse into the former course of life was only
an idle mockery.[295] He disparaged that rigorous kind of fasting which
some had carried to the extent of taking no food but bread and water.
Many boasted of the number of weeks they had fasted; this excessive
abstinence was likely to be followed by a reaction. Let them seek
rather to subdue evil passions and habits; let one week be devoted to
the suppression of swearing, another of anger, a third of slander, and
so gradually advancing they might at last attain the consummation of
virtue, and propitiate the displeasure of God.[296] “Let us not do now
what we have so often done, for frequently when earthquakes, or famine,
or drought have overtaken us, we have become temperate for three or
four days, and then have returned to our former ways of life. But, if
never before, now at least let us remain steadfast in the same state
of piety, that we may not again require to be chastised by another
scourge.”[297]
Almost all the homilies are concluded by an admonition against the
sin of swearing, and the greater portion of some is devoted to this
topic. The passionate impetuous people of Antioch seem to have been
constantly betrayed into the folly of binding themselves by rash
oaths. The master, for instance, would take an oath to deprive his
slave of food, or the tutor his scholar, till a certain task was
accomplished, a threat which it was of course often impossible to
enforce. Hence perjury on the part of a superior, and loss of respect
on the side of the subordinate. Chrysostom himself had often dined at
a house where the mistress swore that she would beat a slave who had
made some mistake, while the husband would with another oath forbid
the punishment. Thus one of the two would be inevitably involved in
perjury.[298] He frequently exhorted his hearers to form a kind of
Christian club amongst themselves for the suppression of this vice. In
one place he suggests a stern remedy: “When you detect your wife or any
of your household yielding to this evil habit, order them supperless to
bed, and if you are guilty impose the same penalty on yourself.”[299]
Near the close of Lent he declares that he will repel from the holy
Table at Easter those whom he detects still addicted to this vice.[300]
On the whole, the eager and earnest pastor may be said to have
rejoiced at the grand opportunity afforded by the humiliation of the
city, to effect a reformation in the moral life of the people. He
observed with great satisfaction, that if the forum was deserted the
church was thronged, just as in stormy weather the harbour is crowded
with vessels.[301] Many an intemperate man had been sobered, the
headstrong softened, or the indolent quickened into zeal. Many who once
assiduously frequented the theatre now spent their day in the church.
Meanwhile they must abide God’s pleasure for the removal of their
affliction. He had sent it for the purpose of purifying and chastening
them; He was waiting till He saw a genuine, an unshakeable repentance,
like a refiner watching a piece of precious metal in a crucible, and
waiting the proper moment for taking it out.[302] As for those who
said what they feared was not so much death, as _ignominious_ death by
the hand of the executioner, he protested that the only death really
miserable was a death in sin. Abel was murdered and was happy, Cain
lived and was miserable. John the Baptist was beheaded, St. Stephen was
stoned, yet their deaths were happy. To the Christian there was nothing
formidable in death itself. To dread death but not to be afraid of sin
was to act like children who are frightened by masks whilst they were
not afraid of fire. “What, I pray you, is death? It is like the putting
off of a garment, for the soul is invested with a body[303] as it were
with a garment, and this we shall put off for a little while by death,
only to receive it again in a more brilliant form. What, I pray you,
is death? It is but to go a journey for a season, or to take a longer
sleep than usual.” Death was but a release from toil, a tranquil haven.
“Mourn not over him who dies, but over him who, living in sin, is dead
while he liveth.”[304]
Chrysostom’s own calmness, and his skill in diverting the thoughts of
his flock from present alarm, are manifested by the power and ease
with which he dilates on such grand topics as the creation, Divine
Providence, the nature of man, and his place in the scale of created
beings. His best thoughts, expressed in his best style on these
subjects, are to be found in the homilies now under consideration.
The size and beauty of the universe, but still more the perfect
regularity with which the system worked, proclaimed a designing power.
The succession of day and night, the series of the seasons, like a
band of maidens dancing in a circle, the four elements of which the
world was composed, mingling in such exquisite proportions that they
exactly balanced one another, the sun tempering the action of water,
the water that of the sun, the sea unable to break its bounds or reduce
the earth to a mass of clay; who could contemplate all these forces at
work and suppose that they moved spontaneously, instead of adoring Him
who had arranged them all with a wisdom commensurate with the results?
As the health of the body depended on the due balance of those humours
of which it was composed, if the bile increased fever was produced, or
if the phlegmatic element prevailed many diseases were engendered, so
was it in the case of the universe: each element observed its proper
limits, restrained, as it were, with a bridle by the will of the Maker;
and the struggle between these elements was the source of peace for the
whole system. As the body failed, languished, died, in proportion as
the soul was withdrawn from it, so if the regulating and life-giving
power of God’s providence were removed from the earth, all would go to
rack and ruin, like a vessel deserted by her pilot.[305]
In treating this subject, he manifests a keen appreciation of natural
beauties. The infinite varieties of flowers and herbs, trees, animals,
insects, and birds—the flowery fields below, the starry fields
above—the never-failing fountains—the sea receiving countless streams
into its bosom, yet never overflowing,—all proclaimed a Creator and
an Upholder, and drew from man the exclamation, “How manifold are Thy
works; in wisdom hast Thou made them all!” Yet, lest they should be
worshipped instead of the Maker, conditions of change, as decay or
death, were imposed upon all.[306] His observation of nature appears
in some of his similes. The poor female relatives hovering about the
courts of justice, when the culprits of the outrage on the statues were
being tried, he compares to parent birds, which wildly flutter round
the hunter who has stolen the young from their nest, in an agony of
grief, but impotent from weakness and fear.[307] He perceives in some
of the lower animals characteristics to be imitated or avoided, and
describes them with a kind of humour. The bee especially was a pattern
for imitation, not merely because it was industrious, but because it
toiled with an unconscious kind of self-sacrifice for the benefit of
others as well as itself. It was the most honourable of insects; the
spider, on the contrary, was the most ignoble, because it spread its
fine web for its own selfish gratification only. The innocence of the
dove, the docility of the ox, the light-heartedness of birds, were all
examples for imitation. The ferocity, or the cunning of other animals
or insects, were examples for avoidance. The good which brutes had by
nature man might acquire by force of moral purpose; and the sovereign
of the lower animals ought to comprise in his nature all the best
qualities of his subjects.[308] The plumage of the peacock, excelling
in variety and beauty all possible art of the dyer, evinced the
superhuman power of the Maker of all things.[309]
His ethical doctrine bears singular resemblance to that of Butler.
God has bestowed on man a faculty of discerning right from wrong; He
has impressed upon him a natural law, the law of conscience. Hence
some commands are delivered without explanation: for instance, the
prohibition to kill, or to commit adultery, because these merely enjoin
what is already evident by the light of the natural law. On the other
hand, for the command to observe the Sabbath a reason is assigned,
because this was a special and temporary enactment. The obligation of
the law of conscience was universal and eternal. As soon as Adam had
sinned, he hid himself, a clear evidence of his consciousness of guilt,
although no written law existed at that time.
The Greeks might attempt to deny the universality of this inherent law,
but to what other origin could they ascribe the laws which had been
made by their own ancestors concerning respect for life, the marriage
bond, covenants, trusts, and the like? They had indeed been handed down
from generation to generation; but whence did the first promulgators
derive the idea of them, if not from this moral sense? To the law
of conscience was added the energy of a moral purpose, προαίρεσις,
which enabled man to practise what conscience prescribed: conscience
informs man that temperance is right; moral purpose enables him to
become temperate. God had also endowed man with some natural virtues:
indignation at injustice, compassion for the injured, sympathy with the
joys and sorrows of our fellow-men.[310] At the same time Chrysostom
fully allows the value of training and teaching as supplementary to
and co-operating with all these natural gifts.[311] If conscience
grew languid, the admonition of parent and friend, and, in the case
of public offences, the law, stepped in, to effect what conscience
failed to do; and frequently God sent afflictions for the same remedial
purpose.[312]
Thus day after day the indefatigable preacher sounded the note of
encouragement, or warning, or instruction. He not only held the
Christian flock together, but largely increased its numbers. His
eloquence frequently excited rapturous applause, which was invariably
repressed with sternness. On one occasion the congregation yielded
to a panic; a false rumour was circulated that a body of troops was
entering the city, to take vengeance on the inhabitants. The Prefect
entered the church to allay the fears of the affrighted people who
had fled thither, but Chrysostom was overwhelmed with shame, and
sharply upbraided them that a Christian congregation should owe the
restoration of calmness to a Pagan, whom they ought to have impressed,
like Paul before Agrippa, by a display of Christian firmness and
fortitude.[313]
About the middle of Lent, two commissioners, Hellebicus and Cæsarius,
arrived at Antioch, invested with full powers to inquire into the late
outrage. Their authority was backed by a considerable military force.
They were men not only of intelligence and humanity, but Christians
in faith; and they had many friends in Antioch. They entered the
city, surrounded by a large multitude, who turned weeping faces and
held out supplicating hands towards them. The commissioners were
moved, and in deep silence entered the lodging provided for them; but
it was necessary for them to perform their duty, which was in the
first place to announce that Antioch was degraded from the rank of
capital of Syria, and its metropolitan honours were transferred to
the neighbouring city of Laodicea. Secondly, all the public baths,
circuses, theatres, and other places of recreation, were to be closed
for an indefinite time. Thirdly, the commissioners were to revise the
trials already held by the local governor, and to inflict rigorous
sentences upon all the guilty, especially any persons of distinction.
These judicial proceedings were to begin on the following day.
The scene at the entrance of the court was a melancholy spectacle; the
wives and daughters of the accused hung around it in mean garments
sprinkled with ashes, and in attitudes of supplication or despair.
There were no lawyers to plead for the prisoners; they had run away
or concealed themselves, to evade the perilous duty. Libanius alone,
towards evening, crept timidly into the court. Cæsarius, to whom he was
known, observed him, beckoned him to approach, and placed him by his
side. In a low voice he bade him take courage; he and his colleague
would endeavour as much as possible to spare life. Libanius earnestly
thanked him, and promised if he kept his word to immortalise him by an
oration in his honour.[314]
An appeal, however, more effectual, was made to the mercy of the
commissioners, by persons widely different from Libanius. As they were
riding in state to the hall of justice on the second day, they saw
amongst the people a group of strange half-wild-looking beings, in
rough coarse garments, with long unkempt hair. These were hermits, who
had descended from their solitudes in the neighbouring mountains—some
who for years had not been seen in the streets of the city, but now
appeared to plead on behalf of the offending people. An old man,
diminutive in stature, whose clothing was in tatters, started forward
from the group as the commissioners passed by, seized the bridle of
one, and commanded them in a tone of authority to dismount. “Who is
this mad fellow?” inquired the commissioners. They were informed that
he was the revered hermit Macedonius, surnamed Crithophagus, or the
barley-eater, because barley was his only sustenance. Hellebicus and
Cæsarius immediately alighted, and, falling on their knees before him,
craved his pardon for having received him so rudely. “My friends,”
replied the solitary, “go to the Emperor and say, ‘You are an emperor,
but also a man, and you rule over beings who are of like nature with
yourself. Man was created after a Divine image and likeness; do not,
then, mercilessly command the image of God to be destroyed, for you
will provoke the Maker if you punish his image. For, consider that you
are doing this from displeasure at the injury inflicted on a statue
of bronze; and how far does a living rational creature exceed the
value of such an inanimate object! Let him consider that it is easy
to manufacture many statues in the place of those destroyed, but it
is wholly impossible for him to make a single hair again of those men
who have been put to death.’”[315] The other hermits declared that
they were all prepared to shed their blood and lay down their lives
for the culprits; that they would not withdraw from the city until
they were sent as ambassadors to the Emperor, or until the city itself
had been acquitted. The joy of Chrysostom at the courage displayed by
these hermits was extreme; their noble conduct compensated for the sad
pusillanimity lately exhibited by the congregation in the church. He
triumphantly contrasts them with the so-called philosophers of Antioch,
who appear to have displayed anything but philosophic calmness in the
hour of danger. “Where now are those long-bearded, cloak-wearing,
staff-bearing fellows—cynic refuse, more degraded than dogs licking
up the crumbs under the table, doing everything for their belly? Why,
they have all hurried out of the city and hidden themselves in caves
and dens, whilst those who inhabited the caves have entered the city,
and boldly walk about the forum as if no calamity had happened. Their
conduct illustrates what I have never ceased to maintain, that even
the furnace cannot injure one who lives in virtue. Such is the power
of philosophy introduced to man by Christ.”[316] The result of this
singular intercession was, that the commissioners consented to suspend
the execution of their sentence on those pronounced guilty, until an
appeal had been made to the Emperor. Meanwhile the prisoners were to
remain in confinement, and their property to be held by the State.
The hermits were anxious to repair to the court of Theodosius, but
the commissioners wisely refused, making the length of the journey
an objection, but perhaps really because they feared such excitable
zealots might frustrate the object of their embassy by imprudent
behaviour. It was finally decided that Hellebicus should remain to
preserve order in Antioch, while his colleague went to Constantinople,
carrying with him an intercessory letter signed by the hermits, and
declaring that they were ready to give their own lives in ransom for
the city.
Cæsarius departed amidst the blessings and acclamations of the
people.[317]
What had the energetic preacher, who had sustained the spirits of
the people so long, been doing, since the arrival of the Emperor’s
legates? It had been, indeed, a relief to find that the city was not
to be surrendered to the sword; but to a proud and luxurious people
the loss of metropolitan rank, and the closing of the public baths,
theatres, and public places of amusement, were severe blows. Loud and
general was the lamentation over their fallen grandeur and their lost
enjoyments. Chrysostom expostulated with them on their discontent.
The real dignity of a city did not consist in pre-eminence of rank
or vastness of population, but in the virtue of its citizens. What
constituted the noblest distinction of Antioch?—the fact that the
disciples there were the first to be called Christians—that they had
sent relief to the distressed brethren in Judæa in the time of the
famine (Acts xi. 28, 29)—that they had sent Paul and Barnabas to that
Council at Jerusalem which had emancipated the Gentile Christians from
Judaic bondage. These were honourable distinctions, which no other
city, not even Rome itself, could rival. They enabled Antioch to look
the whole Christian world in the face, for they proved how great had
been her Christian courage and her Christian love. These were her true
metropolitan honours; and, if these were in aught diminished, not by
the size or beauty of her buildings, not by her airy colonnades or
her spacious porticos and promenades,[318] not by the sacred Grove of
Daphne, not by the number and loftiness of her cypresses, not by her
fountains or her multitudinous population, or her genial climate,—not
by these could she recover her tarnished reputation, but by equity,
almsgiving, vigils, prayers, temperance. External size and beauty did
not constitute real greatness. David was little of stature, yet he
prostrated by a single blow a very tower of flesh. Away with these
womanish complaints! “I have heard many in the forum saying, ‘Woe to
thee, Antioch! what has become of thee? how art thou dishonoured!’ and
when I heard I laughed at the childish understanding of those who say
such things. It behoves you not to speak thus now; but, when you see
dancing, and drunkenness, and singing, and blaspheming, and swearing,
then utter the cry, ‘Woe to thee, O city! what has become of thee?’ but
when you see only a few equitable, temperate, and moderate men in the
forum, then call the city happy.”[319]
He remonstrates indignantly with them for their querulous complaints
of the prohibition to use the public baths. Bathing, indeed, was a
luxury so indispensable to the bodily health and comfort of the people,
that they now resorted to the river in large numbers, with very little
regard to decency. He reminds those who murmured over this deprivation
of their favourite indulgence, that a short time ago, when they were
daily expecting an incursion of soldiers, and were flying to the desert
and mountains, they would have been too thankful to escape with so
cheap a penalty. He urges the duty of reconciliation with enemies as
specially incumbent on them when such great efforts were being made
to obtain mercy for themselves. They should have one enemy alone, the
devil, with whom they should wage an implacable warfare.[320]
Thus the prophet, ever vigilant for the true welfare and honour of his
people, ceased not to lift up his voice.
Cæsarius travelled day and night, and in the course of a week
accomplished the eight hundred miles which separated Antioch from
Constantinople. But his arrival and his errand had been anticipated.
Flavian had reached the court a week before, and the pardon of Antioch
was already secured. The aged bishop returned to Antioch just in
time to celebrate Easter, and to augment the natural joyfulness of
the festival by the tidings which he brought. He had, however, been
preceded a few days by an express courier, who delivered the imperial
rescript to Hellebicus. When the contents were publicly proclaimed,
the pent-up feelings of the people burst forth into demonstrations of
almost frantic joy. Hellebicus was received with ovation wherever he
went. Libanius walked by his side, reciting passages from his orations,
in honour of Theodosius and praise of the two commissioners.[321] On
Holy Saturday, Flavian himself entered the city, partly attended,
partly borne along, by vast crowds of grateful people. On that night
the forum was decorated with garlands and illuminated by lanterns. On
the next morning, Easter Day, a vast concourse thronged the church,
and once more the well-known voice, which had exhorted and encouraged
and warned, during the days of their gloom, now poured forth in the
sunshine of their joy a pæan of thanksgiving and praise.
“Blessed be God, who hath vouchsafed us to celebrate this holy feast
with great joy and gladness, who has restored the Head to the body,
the Shepherd to the sheep, the Master to his disciples, the Pontiff to
the priests. Blessed be God, who hath done exceeding abundantly above
all that we ask or think, for it seemed to us sufficient to be for a
time released from the impending calamities; but the merciful God, ever
exceeding in His gifts our petitions, has restored to us our father
sooner than all our expectation. And not only has our beloved prelate
escaped all the perils incident to so long a journey in the winter
season, but has found his sister, whom he left on the point of death,
still living to welcome his return.”[322]
He then proceeds to describe the interview of Flavian with Theodosius,
as it had been related to him by an eye-witness. The bishop, when
introduced into the royal presence, stood at a distance, silently
weeping, bending low, and covering his face, as if he himself had been
the author of all the late offences. By this attitude he hoped to expel
emotions of anger, and introduce the emotion of pity into the Emperor’s
breast, before he undertook the actual defence of the city.
Theodosius was moved; he advanced to the bishop, and used no harsh
or indignant language, but only mildly reproached with ingratitude a
city which he had always treated with lenity, and had long desired and
intended to visit. Even had the people been able to accuse him of any
injury done to them, they might at least have respected the dead, who
could do them no harm (alluding to the destruction of his wife’s and
father’s images).
The aged prelate no longer remained silent. With a fresh flood of
tears, he poured forth his pathetic appeal to the Christian clemency
and forbearance of the Emperor. “He would not attempt to extenuate
the offence, the sense of their ingratitude caused them the deepest
distress, and they frankly confessed that it deserved the severest
chastisement which could be inflicted. Yet the noblest kind of revenge
which he could take was freely to forgive the insult; thereby he would
defeat the malice of those demons who had tried to work the ruin of
the people by seducing them from their allegiance. In like manner,
the devil had tried to compass the death of the human race, but his
malevolence had been frustrated by God, who offered even heaven to
those who had been excluded from paradise. A free pardon would secure
for him a station in the hearts of all his subjects, far more enduring
than those statues which had been broken down. He reminded him, how
once his great predecessor, Constantine, when urged to revenge some
insult done to one of his statues, passed his hand over his face,
and observed, with a quiet smile, that he did not feel the blow;—a
saying which had endeared him to his people more than his military
exploits. But why need he refer to Constantine? Theodosius himself, on
a previous Easter, had commanded a general release of prisoners, and
had nobly exclaimed, ‘Would that it were possible also for me to recall
the dead to life!’[323] Now he might in some sort realise that wish,
by restoring to life a whole city, which lay, as it were, dead under
remorse and fear. Such an act of clemency would both strengthen his
own throne and the cause of Christianity. Greeks, Jews, and barbarians
were waiting to hear his decision. If it was on the side of mercy,
all would applaud it, saying, ‘Heavens! how mighty is the power of
Christianity, which has restrained the wrath of a monarch who has not
his peer in the world.’ How noble a tale for posterity to hear, that
what the governor and magistrates of a great city dared not ask, had
been granted to the prayer of an old man, because he was the priest of
God, and from reverence to the Divine laws. He would solemnly remind
him of the words, ‘If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither
will your Father which is in heaven forgive you your trespasses.’ He
begged him to remember that there was a day coming in which all men
would render an account of their actions, and to imitate the example
of God, who, though daily sustaining insults from man, did not cease
to bestow blessings upon him. He concluded by declaring that he would
never return to Antioch unless he could take back the imperial pardon,
but would enrol himself in another city.”[324]
If Flavian’s intercession was thrown into the form of an oration at
all, it is clear that Chrysostom’s version of it, which has been here
greatly condensed from the original, must be his own, rather than the
speech actually delivered. If it had been only half as long, it could
not have been accurately related to him from memory, or faithfully
rehearsed by him afterwards. The excitement of addressing so large an
audience, on so great an occasion, would naturally stimulate him to
amplify and embellish.
There is, however, no reason to doubt that Chrysostom has furnished us
with an accurate description of Flavian’s conduct in the interview,
and given us the main substance of his arguments. The whole narrative
of the occurrence illustrates the difference between the Eastern and
Western character. Compare the demeanour of Ambrose and of Flavian.
The first speaks in a tone of majestic authority, which brooks no
disputing; the other, though far from deficient in courage, approaches
the Emperor with that deferential and submissive manner which the
Oriental is accustomed to adopt in the presence of a potentate. His
tone is that of an appeal, though based upon the highest grounds; not
of a command. There is something of the courtier in Flavian; in Ambrose
there is more of the pope.
To conclude Chrysostom’s account: the Emperor was deeply affected,
though, like Joseph, he refrained himself in the presence of
spectators. He declared his intention of granting a free pardon, in
language eminently Christian. “If the Lord of the earth, who became
a servant for our sakes, and was crucified by those whom He came to
benefit, prayed for the pardon of his crucifiers, what wonder was it
that a man should forgive his fellow-servants?” He begged Flavian to
return with all expedition, that he might release the people from the
agony of their suspense. The bishop entreated that the young prince
Arcadius might accompany him as a pledge of imperial favour to the
city. But Theodosius said that he designed to confer on Antioch a
greater honour. He requested the bishop to offer up prayers for the
termination of the present war, that he might ratify his pardon by a
visit to the city in person. The express courier was then despatched,
while Flavian followed at a pace more suitable to his dignity and
advanced age.
Chrysostom concludes his discourse by a moral exhortation suggested
by those festive demonstrations of joy already described. “Let the
lanterns and the chaplets be to them emblems of spiritual things. Let
them not cease to be crowned with virtue or to light up a lamp in their
soul by the diligent practice of good works; let them rejoice with holy
joy, and thank God not only for rescuing them from destruction, but for
sending them so wholesome a chastisement, the salutary effects of which
would, he trusted, extend to many generations.”[325]
Thus terminated the celebrated sedition of Antioch. It is a singular
and instructive picture of the times: the impulsive character of the
people in the great Eastern cities of the Empire, alternating between
frantic rage and abject despondency; the expectation of violent
imperial vengeance, nothing less than the extermination of the city;
the remarkable veneration paid to monks,—these are points which stand
out in vivid colours. But still more remarkably does this event supply
an example of the softening, humanising influence of Christianity, in
a fierce and heartless age. The issue reflects the greatest honour
on those who brought it to pass; and they were _all Christians_: the
intrepid old bishop, sacrificing comfort and risking life to intercede,
the generous Emperor who yielded to the persuasion of his Christian
arguments; the humane commissioners; and last, but not least, the
pastor and preacher, who with unwearied patience, invincible courage,
unfailing eloquence, sustained the fainting spirits of his flock, and
endeavoured to convert their calamity into an occasion of lasting good.
One great and happy result of the recent trouble was a large accession
of Pagans to the ranks of the Church. When the city lay under ban,
the baths, theatres, and circus were closed, and the panic-stricken
people had no heart to pursue their ordinary business. But one place
had been constantly open. All knew that in the church prayer was being
offered up day by day; and to the first portion of the service, up
to the end of the sermon, there was free admission for all without
respect of creed. Curiosity alone, if not any deeper feeling, would
lead many Pagans to turn into the church, to hear what consolations,
what encouragements, the Christian preacher had to offer in this
season of general distress and painful suspense. And what had they
heard? They had heard an unsparing exposure and denunciation of the
follies and vices which prevailed in that great and dissolute city, a
trumpet-call to repentance and reformation; they had heard the fleeting
nature of earthly honour and earthly riches, their impotence to satisfy
the heart or to save the life in the time of danger and distress
vividly contrasted with the Christian’s aim of laying up incorruptible
treasure in an imperishable world; they had heard of the Christian’s
faith that righteousness was the only permanent good, as sin was the
only real evil, that to a good man death was only the transition to
a more blessed life, and that affliction was useful in purifying and
elevating the soul. They had heard the proofs of a Creator, and of His
providential care for the things which he had made as evinced by the
majesty, beauty, and organisation of the universe, by the conscience
and moral faculties of man, as well as by the more direct testimony
of the written word.[326] There is no evidence as to the number of
converts reclaimed from Paganism. Chrysostom only informs us[327]
that he was occupied for some time after the return of Flavian with
confirming in the faith those who “in consequence of the calamity had
come to better mind and deserted from the side of Gentile error.”
The sermons themselves are lost.