CHAPTER XXIII.

SURVEY OF CHRYSOSTOM’S THEOLOGICAL TEACHING—PRACTICAL

TONE OF HIS WORKS—REASON OF THIS—DOCTRINE OF

MAN’S NATURE—ORIGINAL SIN—GRACE—FREE-WILL—HOW

FAR CHRYSOSTOM PELAGIAN—LANGUAGE ON THE

TRINITY—ATONEMENT—JUSTIFICATION—THE TWO SACRAMENTS—NO

TRACE OF CONFESSION, PURGATORY, OR MARIOLATRY—RELATIONS

TOWARDS THE POPE—LITURGY OF CHRYSOSTOM—HIS CHARACTER AS A

COMMENTATOR—VIEWS ON INSPIRATION—HIS PREACHING—PERSONAL

APPEARANCE—REFERENCES TO GREEK CLASSICAL

AUTHORS—COMPARISON WITH ST. AUGUSTINE.

The main characteristics of Chrysostom as a theologian and interpreter

of Scripture, as well as a pastor and preacher, have, it is hoped, been

already indicated in the course of the preceding narrative; but it may

be desirable to supplement, by a fuller and more methodical survey,

notices which were necessarily sometimes brief and incidental in the

biographical chapters.[667]

Some evidence, therefore, of his theological teaching and method of

interpretation will first of all be collected from his writings,

and arranged under different heads. Two difficulties in the way of

executing this task faithfully should be borne in mind: first, the

voluminous bulk of Chrysostom’s works (as Suidas observed, that it

belonged to God rather than man to know them all), which renders a

successful search for the selection of what are really the most

telling passages in illustration of each point far from easy;

secondly, that Chrysostom, being a preacher rather than a writer, was

of course liable to slip into inexact or exaggerated language, under

the influence of excitement, or a desire to make an impression on the

feelings of his hearers. An attentive perusal, however, of his writings

leads the reader to the conclusion that he was very seldom carried

away by the impulse of the moment into merely vague or rhetorical

expressions, and that he was especially preserved from this failing by

his habit of combining the expository with the practical and hortatory

line of preaching. His discourses are careful commentaries as well as

practical addresses. Week after week it was his custom to go through

some book of Holy Scripture, verse by verse, clause by clause, almost

word by word; endeavouring with all diligence and patience to ascertain

the exact meaning of the passage before him, to place it clearly before

his audience, and to base his practical exhortation upon it.

The remark has been so often repeated, as to have become almost a

truism, that the theology of the East is distinguished from the

theology of the West by its more speculative, metaphysical character.

It deals more especially with the most profound and abstract

mysteries—the being and nature of the Godhead, of angels, of the whole

spiritual realm. It might, therefore, occasion some surprise to find

the homilies of Chrysostom marked by such an eminently practical tone.

But the apparent contradiction is easily explained. It is precisely

because Greek philosophy and theology were chiefly concerned with the

most abstract questions, that the Greek preacher, speaking on matters

not abstract, but practical, relating to moral conduct, is especially

free in his language from philosophical or technical terms. On the

other hand, in the Western Church exactly the reverse occurs. The

best intellectual powers of the Roman having been mainly exercised on

jurisprudence, the mind of Roman theologians naturally turned most

powerfully towards practical questions which had most affinity to that

science with which they were chiefly conversant—such as the relation

of man to God, the nature of sin, the means of discharging the debt

owed by man, the problem of the free-will of man, and providence of

God. Western theology is coloured by the language of Roman law, as

Eastern theology is coloured by the language of Greek philosophy.

“Merit,” “satisfaction,” “decrees,” “forensic justification,” “imputed

righteousness,” are terms which do not occur in the writings of the

Greek theologian, because they are the expressions of ideas in which

he felt no interest. They are the offspring of the Roman mind, in

which legal ideas were dominant. Hence the Western theologian is most

technical and scientific in the region of practical questions; the

Greek, on the other hand, is more entirely free from the influence of

philosophy in that region than in any other.

In accordance with this distinction, we find that Chrysostom, in

treating of those practical questions with which, as a preacher and

pastor, he was mainly concerned—the nature and the work of Jesus

Christ, providence, grace, the nature of man, sin, faith, repentance,

good works, and the like—casts his thoughts into the most free,

natural, untechnical, and therefore forcible language possible.

To consider first of all his exposition of man’s nature. The majority

of the Oriental fathers made a triple division, into body, soul, and

spirit—the soul (ψυχή) being equivalent to the animal life, the spirit

(πνεῦμα or ψυχὴ λογική) to the reason. Chrysostom makes a twofold

division only, into body and soul, and reserves the word “spirit” to

designate the Holy Spirit.[668] Man, when first created, came like

a pure golden statue fresh out of the artist’s hands, destined, if

he had not fallen, to enjoy a yet higher and nobler dignity than he

then possessed.[669] His being made “in the image of God” Chrysostom

interprets to signify that dominance over the lower animals which God

Himself exercises over the whole creation, and the peculiar superiority

of man’s nature to theirs consists in his reasoning power, as well as

in his endowment with the gift of immortality.[670] Man fell through

his own weakness and indolent negligence (ῥᾳθυμία), and then became

deprived of that immortality and divine wisdom with which he had been

previously gifted; but his nature was not essentially _changed_, it

was only weakened.[671] Evil is not an integral part of man; it is not

an inherent substantial force (δύναμις ἐνυπόστατος):[672] it is the

moral purpose (προαίρεσις) which is perverted when men sin. If evil was

a part of our nature, it would be no more reprehensible than natural

appetites and affections. If man’s will was not unfettered, there would

be no merit in goodness and no blame in evil. There is no constraint

either to holiness or to sin; neither does God compel to the one, nor

do the fleshly appetites compel to the other.[673] The body was not,

as the Manichæans erroneously maintained, the seat of sin; it was the

creation of God equally with the soul; the whole burden, therefore, of

responsibility in sin must be thrown on the “moral purpose.” Here was

the root of all evil; the conception of necessity and immutability is

bound up with the idea of nature. We do not try to alter that which is

by nature (φύσει): sin therefore is not by nature, because by means of

education, laws, and punishments we do seek to alter that.[674] Sin

is through the moral purpose which is susceptible of change, and till

the moral purpose has come into activity sin cannot properly be said

to exist: infants, therefore, and very young children, are free from

sin.[675] Our first parents fell through moral negligence (ῥᾳθυμία);

and this is the principal cause of sin now. They marked out a path

which has been trodden ever since; they yielded to appetite, and the

force of the will has been weakened thereby in all their posterity, who

have become subject to the punishment of death; so that though sin is

not a part of man’s nature, yet his nature is readily inclined to evil

(ὀξυῤῥεπὴς πρὸς κακίαν): but this tendency will be controlled by the

moral purpose if that is in a healthy condition.[676]

Chrysostom would thus readily allow the expressions “hereditary

tendency to sin,” “hereditary liability to the punishment of death,”

but he shrinks from the expression “hereditary sin.” His anxiety to

insist on the complete freedom of the human will was very natural

in the earnest Christian preacher of holiness, who lived in an age

when men were frequently encountered who, in the midst of wickedness,

complained that they were abandoned to the dominion of devils or to the

irresistible course of fate. They transferred all guilt from themselves

to the powers of evil, all responsibility to the Creator Himself,

who had withdrawn from them, as they maintained, the protection of

His good providence. To counteract the disastrous effects of such

philosophy, which surrendered the will to the current of the passions,

like an unballasted ship cast adrift before the storm, it was indeed

necessary to maintain very resolutely and boldly the essential freedom

of the will, to insist on man’s moral responsibility, and the duty

of vigilant, strenuous exertion. Chrysostom frequently exposes the

absurdity as well as the moral evil of a doctrine of necessity. If

human actions are necessary and preordained results of circumstances,

then teaching and government become mere pieces of acting, destitute

of any practical influence; they are also unjust, since you have no

right to punish a person who has acted under compulsion. Such a theory

ought, also, logically to paralyse human industry. If a plentiful

harvest is predetermined by the decrees of fate, you may spare yourself

the trouble of ploughing, sowing, and other laborious operations; or,

if Clotho has turned her distaff in the other direction, all your

exertions will fail to produce an abundant crop. Such a doctrine is

repugnant to our natural sense, and contradicts our own consciousness

and inward experience. We feel that we are free, and all human action

proceeds on the principle of supposing man to be free. We teach and we

punish. The plea of necessity would be rejected in a court of law as

an impudent and futile excuse for crime. Such a theory is utterly at

variance also with God’s mode of addressing man, which always implies

freedom of volition; as, for instance, “If _ye will_ hearken unto me,

ye shall eat the fat of the land; but if _ye will not_ hearken, the

sword shall devour you.”[677]

Profoundly convinced, therefore, of a universal tendency to sin

on the one hand, but of an essential freedom of the will on the

other, Chrysostom sounds alternately the note of warning and of

encouragement—warning against that weakness, indolence, languor of

the moral purpose which occasions a fall; encouragement to the full

use of those powers with which all men are gifted, and to avoid that

despondency which will prevent a man from rising again when he has

fallen. St. Paul repented, and, not despairing, became equal to angels;

Judas repenting, but despairing, was hurried into self-inflicted death.

Despair was the devil’s most powerful instrument for working the

destruction of man.[678] Chrysostom therefore earnestly combated any

view of Christian life which daunted and discouraged man’s efforts, by

winding them too high, or placing before them an unattainable standard.

Men sometimes said we cannot be like St. Peter and St. Paul, because

we are not gifted with their miraculous power. But, he replies, you

may emulate their Christian graces: these are within the reach of all,

and these are, by our Lord’s own declaration, the most important. “_By

this_ shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one

to another;” the moral works of the Apostles, works of love, mercy, and

faith, were far more instrumental in the conversion of the world than

their merely miraculous powers.[679]

Urgently, however, as Chrysostom, in his desire to stimulate exertion

and strengthen the moral life, insists on the absolute freedom of

the will, he maintains no less clearly the insufficiency of man’s

nature to accomplish good without the Divine assistance. No one has

described in more forcible language the powerful hold of sin upon human

nature. Sin is like a terrible pit, containing fierce monsters, and

full of darkness.[680] It is more terrible than a demon,[681] it is a

great demon;[682] it is like fire; when once it has got a hold on the

thoughts of the heart, if it is not quenched it spreads further and

further, and becomes increasingly difficult to subdue;[683] it is a

heavy burden, more oppressive than lead.[684] Christ saw us lying cast

away upon the ground, perishing under the tyranny of sin, and He took

compassion on us.[685] In the infant weakness and liability to sin are

inherent, though not sin itself. The moral nature of the infant is like

a plant, which will grow healthily by a process of natural development,

unless exposed to injurious influences; but it requires the protection

of grace, “therefore we baptize infants to impart holiness and

goodness, as well as to establish a relationship with God.” This

passage is quoted by St. Augustine in his earnest vindication of

Chrysostom from Pelagianism.[686] But the passages on which Augustine

mainly depends to prove Chrysostom’s adherence to the tenet of original

sin are in his exposition of Romans v. 12-14:—“Death reigned from Adam

to Moses. How reigned? In likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is

a figure of One to come. How a figure? Because, as he became a cause

of death to those who were born from him, although they had not eaten

of the tree, even so Christ has become to His posterity the procurer

of righteousness, though they have not done righteousness, which He

has bestowed upon us all through His cross.” Augustine quotes also his

observation on Christ’s tears over the grave of Lazarus:—“He wept to

think that men, who were capable of immortality, had been made mortal

by the devil;” and his remarks on Genesis i. 28, about the subjection

of the lower animals to man: “that man’s present dread of wild beasts

was entirely owing to the Fall, and had not existed previous to that:

it was inherited by all Adam’s posterity, because they inherited his

degradation through the Fall.” All these passages, however, do not

amount to more than the doctrine of a universally inherited tendency

to sin, and therefore liability to its punishment, death. In his

interpretation of the passage, “the free gift is of many offences unto

justification,” this last word is plainly taken by him in the sense of

making man righteous, not accounting him as such.[687]

His conception of the relation between the will and power of God on

the one hand, and man’s freedom on the other, appears to be this:—All

men, without exception, are through Christ called to salvation;

predestination means no more than God’s original design, conceived

prior to the Fall, of bringing all men to salvation. So, after the

Fall, His redemptive plan or purpose embraces all men; but, on the

other hand, it constrains no one. According to His absolute will all

men are to be saved; but the accomplishment of His purpose is limited

by the freedom of choice which He has Himself bestowed on man, whereby

man may either accept the proffered favour and be eternally blessed, or

reject it and be eternally condemned. God’s election of those who are

called is not compulsory, but persuasive;[688] hence, many of those who

have been called perish through their rejection of grace: they, and not

God, are the authors of their own condemnation. God knows beforehand

what each man will be, good or bad; but He does not constrain him to be

one or the other.[689] The illustration of the potter in Romans ix. 20

must not be pressed too closely; St. Paul’s object simply is to enforce

the duty of unconditional obedience. A vessel of wrath is one who

obdurately resists God’s grace; he was never _intended_ by God to be a

vessel of wrath. “The vessels of mercy are said to have been prepared

afore by God unto glory,” but the vessels of wrath to be fitted (not by

God—He is not mentioned—but by sin) unto destruction.[690] So again,

he acutely observes that, in the account of the final judgment (St.

Matt. xxv.), the destiny of the _good_ only is referred to God. “Come,

ye blessed _of my Father_, inherit the kingdom prepared _for you_;”

but, “Depart, ye cursed” (not “of my Father”), “into everlasting fire,

prepared” (not for you, but) “for the devil and his angels.”

On St. John vi. 44, he remarks, it is perfectly true that only they

who are drawn and taught by the Father can come to Christ; but away

with the paltry pretence that those who are not thus drawn and taught

are emancipated from blame; for this very thing, the being led and

instructed, depends on their own moral choice. Two factors, therefore,

Divine grace which presents, and human will which appropriates, are

co-efficients in the work of man’s salvation; God’s love and man’s

faith must work hand in hand. God provides opportunities, encourages

by promises, arouses by calls; and the moment these are responded to,

the moment man begins to will and to do what is right, he is abundantly

assisted by grace. But Chrysostom recognises nothing approaching

the doctrine of final perseverance. St. Paul might have relapsed,

Judas might have been saved (De Laud. Ap. Pauli, Hom. ii. 4). In his

commentary on Phil. ii. 12-13, “It is God which worketh in us both to

will and to do of his good pleasure,” the spontaneity of man’s will

is carefully maintained. It may be said, if God works the will in us,

why does the apostle exhort us to work? for if God wrought the wish,

it is vain to speak of obedience; the whole work is God’s from the

beginning. No! Chrysostom says, what St. Paul means is, that if your

will works, God will augment your will, and quicken it into activity

and zeal. Hast thou given alms? you are the more prompted to give;

hast thou abstained from giving? negligence will increase upon you.

The histories of Abraham, Job, Elijah, St. Paul, and other saints,

are frequently cited to prove his central principle, that God in the

moral and spiritual sense helps those only who help themselves. “When

He, who knows the secrets of our hearts, sees us eagerly prepare for

the contest of virtue, He instantly supplies us with His assistance,

lightening our labours, and strengthening the weakness of our nature.

In the Olympian contests the trainer stands by as a spectator merely,

awaiting the issue, and unable to contribute anything to the efforts of

the contender; whereas our Master accompanies us, extends His hand to

us, all but subdues our antagonist, arranges everything to enable us to

prevail, that He may place the amaranthine wreath upon our brows.”[691]

God does not anticipate (φθάνει) man’s own volitions (βουλήσεις),

but when these are once bent in the right direction, God’s grace

powerfully promotes them; and without this divine co-operation holiness

is unattainable.[692] But as, according to Chrysostom’s conceptions,

the first movement towards good moral practice comes from the man

himself, he often speaks of a man’s salvation depending on his own

moral choice. He is not, therefore, in harmony with the mind of our

Church as expressed in the Article, that “we have no power to do

good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God

_preventing_ us, that we may have a good will;” but his language

thoroughly concurs with the subsequent clause, “and working with us

when we have that good will.” In the technical language of theology, he

recognises assisting, but not prevenient, grace.

It has been well remarked by Mr. Alexander Knox (“Remains,” vol. iii.

79), that “the advocates for efficient grace have been too generally

antiperfectionists, and the perfectionists, on the other hand, too

little aware that we are not sufficient so much as to think anything

as of ourselves, but that it is God which worketh in us both to will

and to do of His good pleasure.” The perfect conception of the true

Christian standard of character could only be found, he thought, in a

union of the systems of St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine. It must not

be imagined, however, that Chrysostom regarded Divine grace as merely

accessory or subsidiary to man’s own will and purpose. He fails not to

represent it as indispensable to every human soul, however powerfully

inclined of itself to good. The human will, weakened and depraved by

evil, is not for a moment to rank as co-ordinate in its action with

the work of the Holy Spirit: the real efficient force in the work of

sanctification is the Holy Spirit. The beginnings, indeed (ἀρχαί), are

our own, and we must contribute what we can, small and cheap though it

be, because, unless we do our part, we shall not obtain the Divine

assistance; but though the initiatory step is ours, the accomplishment

of the work is altogether God’s, and, since the major part is His, we

commonly say that the whole is His.[693]

He invariably speaks of the Old Dispensation as a period when Divine

grace was given in less measure than under the Gospel, because then sin

had not been blotted out, nor death vanquished. The achievements of

holy men like Abraham and Job in this period were therefore deserving

of peculiar praise, and their faults, on the other hand, were entitled

to more indulgent judgment, because they laboured under disadvantages.

When the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world had been slain,

and the reconciliation between man and God had been effected, then

spiritual gifts of a higher order were imparted as a sign and a pledge

that the old hostility had ceased.[694]

Turning now to theology, strictly so called, to the being and nature

of the Godhead, we find comparatively little said by Chrysostom,

except incidentally, on a subject more congenial to the theologian

and student than to the earnest, practical preacher. In opposition to

the rationalistic doctrine of the Arians, who affected to comprehend

the Divine Nature, he strenuously maintained, as we have seen,[695]

its inscrutability, and denounced any curious investigation of it as

at once foolish and profane. God has condescended to appear to us in

a form which is intelligible, and it is presumption to attempt to

penetrate beyond the limits which He has placed to a knowledge of

Himself. Chrysostom takes the dogma of the one substance (ὁμοουσία),

established at Nice, as the basis of his position against the Arians,

and seeks to prove it, not by speculative argument, after the manner of

the Alexandrian school, but by reference to Holy Scripture. He uses the

word “substance” (οὐσία) to designate the essential nature and “person”

(ὑπόστασις), the personality of the Godhead, and points out that words

which relate to the οὐσία, as Lord and God, are applied to all the

Persons; whereas the other terms—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—indicating

distinction of personality, are each applied to one Person only in the

Godhead. Yet the Persons are not related to the substance as parts

to the whole: God the Son is to God the Father as a beam of the sun,

inseparable from Him, identical with Him in substance, yet retaining

His own personality.[696] He is equally careful to guard the divinity

of Christ against the rationalising school of Paul of Samosata, and the

distinctness of His personality as against the Sabellians. St. Paul,

he observes, does not dwell too much upon the abasement of Christ,

lest Paul of Samosata should take advantage; neither does he dwell

exclusively upon the exaltation, lest Sabellius should spring upon

him.[697]

The equal divinity and distinct personality of the Holy Ghost are no

less clearly and forcibly demonstrated by a collection and comparison

of passages. St. Paul, for instance, in 1 Cor. xii. 6, speaks of God as

“working all in all;” in verse 11 of the same chapter, he uses the same

language of the Holy Spirit. Into any metaphysical, abstract discussion

of the nature of the Godhead Chrysostom does not enter. He simply

endeavours to guard the faith of the Church by a careful exposition of

Holy Scripture, on which that faith was based, and by an exposure of

the one-sided, or perverted, interpretations on which the current forms

of heresy depended.

The union of the two natures in the person of our blessed Lord was, as

is well known, a subject of constant speculation and of prolific error

in the first five centuries. Here, again, the good sense of Chrysostom,

united to his careful study of Holy Scripture, enabled him to hold

the balance between two divergent methods—one which attended too

exclusively to the humanitarian point of view, the other which brought

out the divinity, but at the expense of the manhood. He earnestly

maintains the veritable assumption of humanity by the Word. Our nature

could not have been elevated to the divine if the Saviour had not

_really_ partaken of it; neither could He have brought help to our race

if He had appeared in the unveiled glory of His Godhead, for sun and

moon, earth and sea, and even man himself, would have perished at the

brightness of His presence. Therefore He veiled his Godhead in flesh,

and came not as the Lord in outward semblance, but in lowliness and

abasement.[698] And this very condescension enhanced His dignity and

extended His dominion: before the Incarnation He was adored by angels

only, but afterwards by the whole race of redeemed man.[699] He assumed

our nature, even in its liability to death, but not as contaminated

by sin.[700] There were in Him three elements—body and soul making up

the human nature, and the Logos or Word making up the divine. These

two natures were _united_ but not _fused_. “We, indeed, are body and

soul, but He is God and soul and body; remaining what He was, He took

that which He was not, and having become flesh, He remained God, being

the Word. The one He became He assumed; the other He was. Let us not

then confound, neither let us divide; one God, one Christ the Son of

God; and when I say one, I speak of union, not fusion” (ἕνωσιν λέγω

οὐ σύγχυσιν).[701] Jesus Christ was subject to death, susceptible of

pain and all those emotions and sensations which belong to the human

body, otherwise His would not have been a real body, but the weakness

pertaining to human nature was entirely overruled by the constant

operation of the Logos. If He is said to have been lowered or exalted,

this was only as man, since the Godhead was incapable of either, being

absolutely perfect. When the Holy Ghost is said to have descended

upon Him at His baptism, this must be considered to refer to His human

nature only; the manhood, not the Godhead, is anointed. Or when we read

that He walked not in Judæa, because the Jews sought to kill Him, and

then, just afterwards, that He passed through the midst of His enemies

unscathed, we have a direct manifestation, in close correspondence, of

the Godhead and the manhood.[702]

In speaking of the redemptive work of our blessed Lord, Chrysostom’s

language is too rapturously eloquent to be very precise. There are

in him several traces of the idea which began with Irenæus, and was

developed by Origen, that the devil through the Fall acquired an actual

right over man, and that a kind of pious fraud was practised upon him

to deprive him of this right through the Incarnation and death of

Jesus. By the noiseless, unostentatious manner in which our Saviour

assumed humanity, veiling His Godhead under it, He, as it were, stole

unawares upon the devil, who was not fully conscious of the majesty

and might of his adversary. The devil assaulted Christ as if Christ

had been merely man, and he was disappointed in his expectation. He

was vanquished by his own weapons, his tyranny was destroyed by means

of those very things which were his strength; the curse of sin and of

death were his most trusted pieces: Christ submitted Himself to be

bruised by them, and yet crushed them by His submission.[703]

On the other hand, we find also in Chrysostom the customary conception

of a debt discharged, a ransom paid, a sacrifice offered once for all.

“Adam sinned and died; Christ sinned not and yet died. Wherefore? that

he who sinned and died might be able, through Him who died but sinned

not, to throw off the grasp of death. This is what takes place also in

money transactions. Often some one who is a debtor, not being able to

pay, is detained in bonds; another, who owes nothing but is able to lay

down the sum, pays it and releases the responsible person. Thus has it

been in the case of man. Man was the debtor, was detained by the devil,

and could not pay; Christ owed nothing, nor was He holden by the devil,

but He was able to pay the debt. He came and He paid down death on

behalf of him who was detained in bondage.[704]

From this point of view the person to whom the debt is due and is

discharged is the devil; from another, the satisfaction is regarded

as due to God, owing to the violation of man’s obedience, and is paid

to Him through the sacrifice of a sinless life. “It was right that

all men should fulfil the righteousness of God; but, since no one did

this, Christ came and completely fulfilled it.”[705] He was Himself

both the sacrificer and the victim; the cross being the altar. He

suffered outside the city that the prophecy, “He was numbered with the

transgressors,” might be fulfilled, and also that the _universality_ of

the sacrifice might be proclaimed.[706] Chrysostom is not careful to

distinguish between the alienation of man from God, and of God from man

through the Fall. He represents the hostility as in some sort existing

on both sides. Christ did the work of a mediator by interposing Himself

between the two parties, and reconciling each to the other. The

references to such a fundamental verity are of course numerous, often

full of beauty of expression and tenderness of feeling, and glowing

earnestness. What he specially delights to dwell upon, as might be

expected from his warm, affectionate disposition, is the exceeding

love of Christ to man, and the hearty return which gratitude for such

a benefit ought to draw forth from us. Like St. Paul, he often will

break forth, in the midst of some argument or practical address, into a

burst of rapturous and adoring praise. “What reward shall I give unto

the Lord for all the benefits which He hath done unto me? Who shall

express the noble acts of the Lord, or show forth all His praise? He

abased Himself that He might exalt thee; He died to make thee immortal;

He became a curse that thou mightest obtain a blessing.... When the

world lay in darkness, the light of the Cross was held up like a torch

shining in a dark place, and the light at the top of it was the Sun of

Righteousness Himself.”[707]

Chrysostom’s doctrine of justification is naturally coloured by his

ethics. Maintaining, as he did, that the corruption of man’s nature

consisted in a weakness of the moral purpose, a crooked tendency

of the will, rather than in any inherent indelible stain in that

nature itself, his exhortations are directed rather to inculcate

energetic action, a gradual process of improvement of the will with

the Divine help, than that entire dependence through faith on the

mercy of God which springs out of a deep conviction of the sinner’s

own insufficiency. The logical tendency of the Augustinian view of the

intense and radical depravity of man’s nature is to induce a total

repudiation of the efficacy of personal effort, a total disavowal

of all personal merit. Hence justification comes to be regarded as

purely an act of acquittal on God’s part, a boon which the despairing

sinner by an act of faith thankfully accepts. Such is not the position

of Chrysostom, or of those who, like the Cambridge Divines of the

seventeenth century, have trodden in his footsteps. With him the

condition of a pardoned sinner consists rather in that renovation of

the spiritual and moral life which is the result of long and laborious

effort, aided of course by Divine grace, a succession of moral acts

eventually producing “a new creature.” Faith is not so much regarded

merely as the instrument or hand held out, by which God’s gift is

appropriated, as the first in a row of good works, a fruitful source of

all good action. “Abraham,” he says, “believed God, and it was counted

to him for righteousness. Why? To prove that belief itself, in the

first instance, and obedience to the call of God, come from our own

good judgment (εὐγνωμοσύνη); but as soon as the foundation of faith is

laid, we require the alliance of the Holy Spirit, that it may remain

constantly unshakable and inflexible.”[708] “Faith is the mother of all

good, the sure staff of man’s tottering footsteps, the anchor of his

tempest-tossed soul, without which he would be like a ship cast adrift

on the sea to the mercy of winds and waves.”[709] “It is more stable

and secure than reason, for it carries its own proof with it; the

conclusions of reason may be diverted by counter-arguments, but faith

stands above argument, and is not distracted by it.”[710]

He does not, indeed, shrink from a bold declaration of the value of

good works, but he is far from teaching men to depend on them as

efficient causes of salvation. They are to be stored up as a kind of

viaticum for our journey to the other world. “As those who are in a

foreign country, when they wish to return to their own land, take

pains, a long time beforehand, to collect means sufficient for their

journey, so surely ought we, who are but strangers and settlers on this

earth, to lay up a store of provisions through spiritual virtue, that

when our Master shall command our return into our native country, we

may be prepared and may carry part of our store with us, having sent

the other in advance.”[711] On the other hand, he constantly insists

that it is the favour and mercy of God alone which, in the end, bestows

salvation on us. Faith and good works are necessary conditions, but not

efficient causes of salvation. God has graciously willed that they who

have faith and good works shall be saved: let no man therefore boast.

We could not do good works without God’s assisting grace, nor could

they in the end and at the best save us if it were not His merciful

and gracious will.[712] Therefore, let no one pride himself on his

good works; above all things, let him cultivate a spirit of humility

and modesty: St. Paul, after all his labours, confessed that he was

not meet to be called an apostle, but was what he was by the grace of

God.[713] “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” “Tell me

not I have sinned much, and how can I be saved? _Thou_ art not able,

but thy Master is able so to blot out thy sins that no trace even of

them shall remain. In the natural body, indeed, though the wound may

be healed, yet the scar remains; but God does not suffer the scar

even to remain, but, together with release from punishment, grants

righteousness also, and makes the sinner to be equal to him who has

not sinned. He makes the sin neither to be nor to have been.... Sin is

drowned in the ocean of God’s mercy, just as a spark is extinguished in

a flood of water.”[714]

It was, no doubt, the trustful dependence of Chrysostom on Divine

grace, coupled with his firm conviction of the free capacity of man to

turn to what is good, which enabled him to pitch all his exhortations

to Christian holiness in such a singularly cheerful, hopeful tone.

To his sanguine temperament it seemed as if man’s natural capacities

for good, aided by grace obtained through prayer, could accomplish

anything. “The effect of prayer on the heart is like that of the rising

sun upon the natural world; as the wild beasts come forth by night to

prowl and prey, but the sun ariseth, and they get them away together

and lay them down in their dens, so, when the soul is illuminated by

prayer, the irrational and brutal passions are put to flight, anger is

calmed, lust is extinguished, envy is expelled; prayer is the treasure

of the poor, the security of the rich; the poorest of all men is

rich if he can pray, and the rich man who cannot pray is miserably

poor. Ahab without prayer was impotent amidst his splendour; Elijah

with prayer was mighty in his coarse garment of sheepskin.”[715] “It

is impossible, impossible that a man who calls constantly on God with

proper zeal should ever sin; his spirit is proof against temptation so

long as the effect of his praying lasts, and when it begins to fail,

then he must pray again. And this may be done anywhere, in the market

or in the shop, since prayer demands the outstretched soul rather than

the extended hands.”[716] Long prayers were to be avoided; they gave

great opportunities to Satan to distract the attention, which could not

easily bear a lengthened strain. Prayers should be frequent and short;

thus we should best comply with the direction of St. Paul to pray

without ceasing.[717]

It remains to collect some notices of Chrysostom’s teaching with

reference to the two Sacraments.

The number of those who, as Christian children of decidedly Christian

parents, were baptized in infancy appears to have been small at this

period, compared with those who, like Chrysostom himself, joined the

ranks of the Church at a later epoch of life. There were many whose

parents, or who themselves, hovered not so much between Christianity

and any definite form of paganism, as between Christianity and

worldliness. The sermons addressed by Chrysostom and his contemporaries

to catechumens, and the frequent allusions to them, the minute

directions respecting their instruction, their division into classes,

the custom of calling the first part of the service to which they were

admitted the Missa Catechumenorum, prove that numerous they must have

been. I have failed to find any passages in which Chrysostom urgently

inculcates infant baptism, and, considering his views respecting

original sin, this is not surprising; but he earnestly denounces a

custom of deferring baptism, prevalent among those who were already

believers, or professing to be such. Often it was delayed till men

believed themselves to be at the point of death—a practice which he

especially deprecates, because at such a time “the recipient was

often in a restless, suffering state of mind and body, most unfit to

receive that holy sacrament; the entrance of the priest was regarded

by the sorrowful attendants as a certain evidence of the approaching

end; and when the sick man could not recognise those who were present,

or hear a voice, or answer in those words by which he was to enter

into a blessed covenant with our Lord, but lay like a log or a stone,

what possible advantage could there be in the reception of the

sacrament?”[718] Again, it was often delayed till a man conceived that

he had received a distinct call and intimation that it was the will

of God. This Chrysostom regarded as being too often a mere cloak for

moral indolence, a reluctance of men to bind themselves under the high

responsibilities of the Christian vocation.[719]

He certainly considered baptism as being not merely a solemn initiation

into the Christian covenant, and instrument of remission of sin, but

also of moral renovation. This, however, is represented as a blessing

naturally derivable from the entrance into the new and holy federal

relation with God. In his comment on the passage, “and such were some

of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified

in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he observes that such words

signify that they were not only purified from past uncleanness, but had

become holy and righteous. “For such is the benevolence of the Divine

gift; if an imperial letter consisting of a few lines discharges men

from liability to punishment for any number of offences, and advances

others to great honour, much more will the Holy Spirit of God, which

can do all things, release us from all wickedness, bestow on us

abundant righteousness, and fill us with much confidence.” The nature

of the baptized was, therefore, like a vessel which had not only been

cleansed from past defilements, but recast in the furnace so as to

come out in a new shape.[720] He is far, however, from regarding such

a change as final. The virtue of baptism is effectual at the time, but

the grace then given is as a trust to be carefully guarded; a talent to

be traded with, a seed of righteousness to be diligently cultivated,

the dawning of a light to shine more and more unto the perfect day. As

Christ becomes at that time the clothing, the food, the habitation of

the Christian, the recipient of these favours has to take care that he

does not wrong this intimate relationship. Therefore he is ordered to

say at baptism, “I renounce thee, Satan;” that is the declaration of a

covenant with his Master. A firm determination to abandon past sin and

eradicate evil habits—in a word, repentance—should take place previous

to baptism. “Just as the painter freely alters the lineaments of his

picture, when it is sketched in outline, by rubbing out or putting

in, but when once he has added the colour, he is no longer at liberty

to make alterations; in like manner erase evil habits before baptism,

before the true colouring of the Holy Spirit has been thrown over the

soul: take care when this has been received, and the royal image shines

forth clearly, that you do not blot it out any more, and inflict wounds

and scars on the beauty given thee by God.”[721]

In another place he contrasts the baptism of the Jews, of John the

Baptist, and of Jesus Christ. “The first was only a cleansing of the

body from ceremonial defilements, the second was a means of enforcing

an exhortation to repentance, the third was accompanied by remission

of sins: it releases and purges the soul from sin, and gives a supply

of the Holy Spirit.”[722] “When the merciful God saw the extremity of

our weakness, and the incurable nature of our sickness, requiring a

great work of healing, He conferred upon us that renovation which comes

through the laver of regeneration, in order that, being divested of the

old man, that is, of evil works, and having put on the new, we might go

forward in the path of virtue.”[723]

In considering those passages which relate to the Holy Eucharist, it

must be carefully borne in mind that Chrysostom lived in an age when

that Sacrament had not become a battle-field of controversy. He was

under no constraint in his language, because he did not feel that every

word he used was liable to be criticised, or misunderstood, or torn

to pieces in the strife of contending parties. He enjoyed because he

disputed not. Filled with thankfulness and joy to overflowing for the

unspeakable benefits derived from that Sacrament, he is not cautious

or scrupulously precise in his expressions, but gives the freest rein

to the enthusiasm of his feelings; his object being not to support

any rigidly defined theory or system, but to infuse a certain spirit,

to encourage a proper moral tone and temper in reference to the whole

subject.

Three ideas, however, are apparent as dominant in his mind—a sacrifice,

a presence of Christ, a reception of Christ. In several of the

passages about to be presented, all the three points will appear in

similar and simultaneous force. In one homily,[724] where he severely

censures the too prevalent custom of attending the Eucharist on

great festivals only, and then behaving in a disorderly manner, the

worshippers hustling and trampling on one another in their tumultuous

haste to approach the holy table, and then hurrying out of church

immediately after the reception, without waiting for the conclusion of

the service—“What,” he exclaims, “O man, art thou doing? When Christ

is present, and the angels are standing by, and the awe-inspiring

table is spread before thee, dost thou withdraw?... If you are invited

to a feast and are filled before the other guests, you do not dare to

withdraw while the rest of your friends are still reclining at the

table; and here, when the mysteries of Christ are being celebrated, and

the holy feast is still going on, dost thou retreat in the middle?”

Again: “Since, then, we are about to see this evening, as a lamb slain

and sacrificed, Him who was crucified, let us approach, I pray you,

with trembling awe. The angels, who surpass our nature, stood beside

His empty tomb with great reverence; and shall we, who are about to

stand beside, not an empty sepulchre, but the very table which bears

the Lamb, shall we approach with noise and confusion?”[725] Again: “It

is now time to draw near the awe-inspiring table.... Christ is present,

and He who arranged that first table, even He arranges this present

one. For it is not man who makes the things which are set before us

become the body and blood of Christ, but it is Christ Himself, who

was crucified for us. The priest stands fulfilling his part (σχῆμα)

by uttering the appointed words, but the power and the grace are of

God. ‘This is my body,’ He says. This expression changes the character

(μεταῤῥυθμίζει) of the elements, and as that sentence, ‘increase

and multiply,’ once spoken, extends through all time, enabling the

procreative power of our nature, even so that expression, ‘this is my

body,’ once uttered, does at every table in the churches from that time

to the present day, and even till Christ’s coming, make the sacrifice

perfect.”[726] Speaking of the sacrifice of Isaac, he observes that it

was perfect so far as Abraham was concerned, because his _intention_

did not fail, though the knife was not actually drawn across his son’s

throat; “for a sacrifice is possible even without blood—the initiated

(_i.e._ the baptized) know what I mean: on this account, also, that

sacrifice was made without blood, since it was destined to be a figure

of this sacrifice of ours.”[727]

Perhaps the most significant passage with reference to the sacrificial

idea is one where, after contrasting the many and ineffective

sacrifices of the Jews with the one perfect, efficacious sacrifice of

Christ, he proceeds: “What then? do we not offer every day? We do offer

certainly, but making a memorial of His death; and this memorial is

one, not many. How one, not many? Because the sacrifice was offered

once for all, as that great sacrifice was in the Holy of Holies. This

is a figure of that great sacrifice as that was of this; for we do not

offer one victim to-day and another to-morrow, but always the same:

wherefore the sacrifice is one. Well, on this ground, because He is

offered in many places, are there many Christs? Nay, by no means, but

one Christ everywhere, complete both in this world and in the other;

one body. As then, though offered in many places, He is but one body,

so is there but one sacrifice. Our High Priest is He who offers the

sacrifice which cleanses us. We offer that now which was offered then;

which is indeed inconsumable. This takes place now for a memorial

of what took place then: ‘Do this,’ said He, ‘for my memorial.’ We

do not then offer a different sacrifice as the high priest formerly

did, but always the same; _or, rather, we celebrate a memorial of a

Sacrifice_.”[728]

There are other passages in which the idea, no less prominently set

forth, is that of a holy feast. Elijah bequeathed his mantle and a

double portion of his spirit to Elisha, “but the Son of God, when He

ascended, left us His own flesh.... He who did not decline to shed

His blood for all, and imparts to us again His flesh and blood, what

will He refuse to do for our salvation?”[729] Again: “Consider, O man,

what kind of sacrifice thou art about to touch, what kind of table to

approach; reflect that thou who art but dust and ashes receivest the

body and blood of Christ.”[730] The sedulous care with which he urges

the duty of moral cleansing before venturing to approach the holy table

proceeds chiefly from regarding it as a holy feast. “How shall we

behold the sacred passover? How shall we receive the sacred feast? How

partake of the adorable mysteries with that tongue whereby we trampled

on the Law of God and defiled our soul? for if one would not touch a

royal robe with defiled hands, how shall we receive the Lord’s body

with an unclean tongue?”[731]

These passages, which are but a few specimens extracted from a large

number on the same subject, are yet sufficient to show how easy it

would be for the partisans of contending schools to press the language

of Chrysostom into support of their own system. The truth is, that

in the case of this, as of other subjects, we find in Chrysostom and

his contemporaries the raw material, which has been wrought out by

the toil and strife of later times into definite sharply chiselled

dogmas. Nothing, therefore, can really be more unfair than to regard,

as a direct friend or opponent, one who lived and wrote long before

controversy had arisen on the subjects of which he treated. He might

innocently employ expressions which we should deem it incautious to

use, because we know the interpretation of which they are susceptible,

or because we see in them incipient symptoms of an idea which in

process of time grew into a mischievous error. It is instructive also

to notice how harmless doctrines which afterwards became mischievous

were when they were not pushed to an extremity, not made integral

parts of a system of belief. It does not occur to us, for instance,

for a moment to suppose that such invocation of saints as was

manifestly approved by Chrysostom was the least detrimental to that

free intercourse which ought to exist between the soul of man and God

Himself. As Dr. Pusey has observed: “Through volumes of St. Augustine

and St. Chrysostom there is no mention of any reliance except on

Christ alone.”[732] There is not the least approach to that system of

stepping-stones or halting-places between God and man, which the Roman

Church established by means of confession, saint-worship, and, above

all, Mariolatry.

There is no trace in Chrysostom of priestly confession as an ordinance

of the Church. When he speaks of the misery which ensues on the

commission of sin, he urges the sinner to relieve his conscience by a

free confession with repentance and tears. “And why are you ashamed to

do so?” he proceeds, “for to whom do you confess? Is it to a man or

a fellow-servant who might reproach or expose you? Nay, it is to the

Lord, tender and merciful: it is to the physician that you show your

wound.”[733] Again, in speaking of prayer, he contrasts the freedom of

access to God with the difficulties and impediments which encounter the

delivery of a petition to some great man. “This last could be reached

only through porters, flatterers, parasites; whereas God is invoked

without the intervention of any one, without money, without expense of

any kind.”[734] This reads like a prophetical sarcasm on a Church which

ultimately made a traffic of dispensing what cannot really be dispensed

by man, because it is the free gift of God.

Nor is there any symptom in Chrysostom of a tendency to the theory of

Purgatory. The condition of man after death is always represented by

him as final and irrevocable. His tone, when exhorting to repentance,

is always in harmony with the following passage: “For the day will come

when the theatre of this world will be dissolved, and then it is not

possible to contend any longer: this is the season of repentance, that

of judgment; this of contest, that of crowning; this of labour, that of

repose.”[735]

But of all medieval additions to the purer faith of primitive times,

Mariolatry has grown to the most extraordinary dimensions.[736] Of any

tendency to this error there is in Chrysostom a remarkable absence.

In fact, his notices of the Blessed Virgin, not very frequent, are

on the whole, we might almost say, unnecessarily disparaging. In his

commentary on the Marriage Feast at Cana, he suggests that the Virgin,

in mentioning the failure of wine to our Lord, may have been anxious

to draw out His miraculous powers, partly to place the guests under

an obligation to Him, partly to enhance her own dignity through the

display of her Son’s divine powers. He considers that the appeal sprang

from the same feeling which prompted His brethren to say, “Show Thyself

to the world;” and he proceeds to observe that our Lord, while never

failing to manifest dutiful reverence and affectionate care towards His

mother, has taught us, by His conduct and language to her, that the

tie of mere earthly kindred entitled her not to higher privileges, and

placed her in no more intimate spiritual relationship with Himself than

any one might through love and obedience enjoy. “Who is my mother, and

who are my brethren? and looking round about on His disciples, He said,

Behold my mother and my brethren; for whosoever shall do the will of my

Father, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.” “Heavens!”

Chrysostom exclaims, “what honour! what reward! to what a pinnacle does

He exalt those who follow Him! How many women have blessed the Holy

Virgin and her womb, and have longed to be such mothers! What then

prevents it? Behold, he opens a broad way for us: not women only, but

men also are permitted to be placed in the same rank.” “The demand

to see Him was made by His mother in an ambitious spirit: she wished

to show to the people how much authority she possessed over Him; at

any rate, the request was unreasonable and unseasonable. If she and

His brethren desired to speak with Him on matters of doctrine, they

might have done so in the presence of the others; but if on private

matters, it was an ill-timed interruption to His discourse on weightier

subjects.”[737] Again: “When a woman in the company cried out, ‘Blessed

is the womb that bare Thee!’ He instantly corrected her: ‘Yea, _rather_

blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.’” It is

possible that the general sentiment of the age may have regarded the

Virgin with more veneration, but Chrysostom could not have ventured

to use such language had the cultus been in any but its very earliest

stage, if then. She is called holy by him; she intercedes[738] for Eve,

who is a type of herself, but of worship paid to her there is not the

slightest evidence.[739]

It is almost superfluous to observe that Chrysostom knew and

acknowledged nothing of papal supremacy, in the sense which those

words conveyed to the minds of later generations. In common with

the rest of Christendom, he paid great deference and respect to the

metropolitan at Rome, and he was quite free from those feelings of

jealousy which were entertained by the patriarchs of Constantinople,

as time went on, owing to the increasing pretensions and exactions of

the Roman See. If he respects Innocent, as occupying the chair of St.

Peter, he equally respects Flavian, bishop of Antioch (who was not in

communion with Rome), for the same reason; he calls him “our common

father and teacher, who has inherited St. Peter’s virtue and his

chair.” The letter written to Innocent during exile was addressed also

to the Bishops of Milan and Aquileia. In his commentary on Galatians

ii. he proves the equality of St. Paul with St. Peter. No doubt he

assigns an eminent rank to St. Peter, speaking of him as “leader of the

band” (κορυφαῖος) of apostles, and as intrusted with the “presidency”

(προστασίαν) of the brethren: but these words do not imply absolute

authority, and the same appellations are applied to St. Paul also.

Scattered up and down the discourses of Chrysostom there are abundant

references to the liturgical forms, and manner of using them, which

were in vogue in his time. If we had no other authority, we could learn

from him alone that the service consisted of two parts—the first,

called Missa Catechumenorum, because the catechumens were permitted

to be present at it, which included an opening salutation of “Peace

be with you,” with the response, “And with thy spirit;” psalms sung

antiphonally; appointed lessons according to the season or the day (as

Genesis was read during Lent, the Acts of the Apostles in Pentecost,

that is, during the fifty days between Easter and Whitsun Day); the

sermon, frequently in Chrysostom’s case on the lesson for the day,

the preacher usually sitting, and the people standing; then prayers,

announced by the deacon, for the catechumens, the “possessed,” and the

penitents; the benediction by the bishop, and dismissal by the deacon,

who bade them “depart in peace.” The second part of the service then

began, called Missa Fidelium, because the baptized only were permitted

to be present. Chrysostom strongly denounces an increasing tendency

on the part of many to remain during this second and more sacred

portion without participating. He plainly declares that all those

who were baptized should communicate, and tells them, if they were

not worthy to receive the Eucharist, neither could they be worthy to

join in the prayers which preceded the reception, and therefore they

ought to quit the church, with the catechumens and penitents, when

the deacon commanded all unbaptized, ungodly, and unbelieving persons

to depart.[740] The usual order of the Missa Fidelium was “the silent

prayer” (εὐχὴ διὰ σιωπῆς), on part of the priest and people (which the

latter too often abused, Chrysostom feared, to imprecate vengeance on

their enemies[741]); then a prayer somewhat equivalent to our bidding

prayer in form, and to our prayer for the Church Militant in substance,

the deacon bidding or proclaiming the forms, and the people responding;

then a prayer of invocation made by the bishop, which was also called

“collecta,” because in it the prayers of the people were considered

to be gathered or summed up; the oblations of the people presented

by the deacons; the kiss of peace, the reading of the diptychs, the

ablution of the priest’s hands, the bringing of the elements to the

bishop at the altar, while the priests stood on each side, and deacons

held large fans to drive away the flies; a secret prayer offered by the

bishop; the benediction, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” etc.,

to which the people responded “And with thy spirit;” followed by “Lift

up your hearts”—“We lift them up unto the Lord;” “Let us give thanks

to our Lord God”—“It is meet and right so to do;” a long thanksgiving,

terminating with the Ter Sanctus, in which the people joined; the

consecration prayer, including the words of our Lord at the time of

institution, and an invocation of the Holy Spirit to make the elements

become the body and blood of Christ; a prayer for all members of the

Church, living and dead; the doxology, the Creed; a prayer of the

bishop for sanctification; the words pronounced by him, “Holy things

for holy people” (τὰ ἅγια τοῖς ἁγίοις); the reception by the clergy and

laity in both kinds, taking the elements into their hands; concluding

prayers, and dismissal by the deacon proclaiming, “Go in peace.”

Nearly all of the forms indicated in this sketch are more or less

clearly referred to or quoted in Chrysostom’s works, and from these,

with the aid of other contemporary writers and documents, we might

construct a liturgy which would more nearly resemble that actually used

by him than the liturgy called by his name resembles it.[742] For in

this, as in the so-called liturgy of Basil, it is impossible now to

determine how much was actually composed by the Father who gave his

name to it. It cannot be proved that Chrysostom actually corrected or

improved at all the liturgy which he found in use at Constantinople.

It may only have come to be called after him as being the greatest

luminary who ever occupied the see. The statement, however, made

in a tract ascribed to Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople in the

fifth century, is not in itself improbable, that Chrysostom found the

existing liturgy so long that many of the congregation, being men of

business, and pressed for time, left before the service was concluded,

or came in after it had begun, and therefore he abridged and otherwise

altered it. In any case, many alterations were made by different

churches and bishops in the course of time, as in other liturgies, so

also in those which bear the name of Basil and Chrysostom; and hence,

as Montfaucon, Savile, Cave, and others have remarked, you cannot find

any two copies which are exactly alike.

A critical estimate of Chrysostom’s value as a commentator hardly

falls within the scope of an essay on his life, but a few general

observations on this head may not be deemed out of place here. The

same fact was the cause in him of much excellence and some defect

in this department. He was a preacher whose primary object was to

convert souls. This earnest, practical aim, of which he never lost

sight, helped to protect him from lapsing into idle, fanciful, mystical

interpretations of Scripture; but, on the other hand, it hindered

his entering so fully into all the historical, grammatical, or even

doctrinal questions which might be raised about a passage as he would

have done had he been exclusively a commentator. His dominant aim

being to affect the heart and the moral practice of his hearers, he

is content when he has elicited from the passage all that will be

most useful for that purpose, and the continuity of the commentary is

frequently marred by sudden digressions. His ignorance of Hebrew was of

course fatal to his being an accurate interpreter of the Old Testament,

since he was entirely dependent on the Septuagint translation. And

even in Greek, though few would deny him the merit of fine scholarship

on the whole, though his command of the language as an orator is

masterly, his style luminous, his diction copious and rich without

being offensively ornate or redundant, yet his hold upon the language

for critical purposes is neither that of a man who spoke it when it was

in its purest stage, nor that of a scholar who, living in a later age

and speaking a different tongue, has made a careful, laborious study of

it as a dead language.

But two invaluable qualifications for an interpreter Chrysostom did

possess—a thorough love for the Sacred Book, and a thorough familiarity

with every part of it. There is no topic on which he dwells more

frequently and earnestly than on the duty of every Christian man and

woman to study the Bible; and what he bade others do, that he did

pre-eminently himself. He rebukes the silly vanity of rich people who

prided themselves on possessing finely written and handsomely bound

copies of the Bible, but who knew little about the contents. Study of

the Bible was more necessary for the layman than the monk, because he

was exposed to more constant and formidable temptations. The Christian

without a knowledge of his Bible was like a workman without his tools.

Like the tree planted by the water-side, the soul of the diligent

reader would be continually nourished and refreshed. There were no

difficulties which would not yield to a patient study of it. Neither

earthly grandeur, nor friends, nor indeed any human thing, could afford

in suffering such comfort as the reading of Holy Scripture, for this

was the companionship of God.[743]

The honest, straightforward common sense which marks his practical

exhortations was a useful quality to him also as an interpreter. One

of his principles is, that sound doctrine could not be extracted

from Holy Scripture but by a careful comparison of many passages not

isolated from their context.[744] Allegorical interpretations were by

no means to be rejected, but to be used with caution; men too often

made the mistake of dictating what Scripture should mean instead of

submitting to be taught by it: they _introduced_ a meaning instead of

_eliciting_ it.[745] Thus, though he often accepts popular types—as

Boaz and Ruth are figures of Christ and His bride the Church; and

Noah, Joseph, Joshua, are all in different ways representative of our

Lord; though sometimes particular expressions in Messianic prophecies

are forced, for instance, in Isaiah’s description of Immanuel, the

“butter and honey” there spoken of he supposes to be intended to

indicate the reality of our Lord’s humanity[746]—yet his customary aim

is to discover the literal sense and direct historical bearing of the

passage. At the same time he fully recognises a general foreshadowing

of Jesus Christ, and the complete fulfilment in Him ultimately of

prophecies which immediately refer to persons and events nearly, if

not quite, contemporaneous with the utterance. He fails not also to

point out the moral aspect of prophecy as a system of teaching rather

than prediction, as preparatory to the advent of Jesus Christ in the

flesh, not only by informing men’s minds, but disciplining their hearts

to receive Him.[747] Hence the holy men who lived, under the Old

Dispensation, in faith on God’s promises, knew Christ as it were by

anticipation, and were to be reckoned as members of the one body.[748]

He had a clear conception of the essential coherence between the Old

and New Testament. He observes that the very words “old” and “new”

are relative terms: _new_ implies an antecedent _old_, preparatory

to it. The condition of the recipients, the circumstances and age in

which they lived, being different, necessitated a difference in the

treatment. A physician treated the same patient at different times by

directly contrary methods; sometimes administering sweet, sometimes

bitter medicines, sometimes using the lancet, sometimes cautery, but

always with the same ultimate end in view—the health of his patient. So

the Old and New Testaments were different, but not, as the Manichæans

maintained, antagonistic. The commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,”

attacked the fruit and consequence of vice; the precept, “Whosoever is

angry with his brother without a cause,” etc., struck at the root. This

was an illustration in a small instance of the general truth that the

New Dispensation was only a completion and expansion of the Old. Those,

therefore, who rejected the Old Testament dishonoured the New, which

was based upon it, and presupposes it.[749]

He is equally rational in his manner of accounting for the variations

in the Gospel narratives. That they differ in details, but agree in

essential matters, he regards as a powerful evidence of veracity. Exact

and verbal coincidence in every particular would have excited in the

minds of opponents a suspicion of concerted agreement.[750] Authors

might write variously without being at variance; if there had been

ten thousand evangelists, yet the Gospel itself would have been but

one.[751] Each evangelist tells substantially the same tale, but varied

according to the readers for whom he wrote, and the special object

which he had in view. So St. Matthew wrote in Hebrew for the Jews,

St. Mark for the disciples in Egypt, St. John to set forth the divine

aspect of our Lord’s life. Thus we have variety in unity, and unity in

variety.[752]

In his commentaries on the Epistles he is careful to consider each

as a connected whole; and, in order to impress this on his hearers,

he frequently recapitulates at the beginning of a homily all the

steps by which the part under consideration has been reached. In his

introductions to each letter he generally makes useful observations

on the author, the time, place, and style of composition, the readers

for whom it was intended, the general character and arrangement of

its contents. He regarded the Bible as in such a sense written under

the inspiration of God, that no passage, no word even, was to be

despised;[753] that men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,

but not to the total deprivation of their own human understanding and

personal character. The prophet was not like the seer who spoke under

constraint, not knowing what he said; he retained his own faculties and

style; only all his powers were quickened, energised by the Spirit to

the utterance of words which unassisted he could not have uttered.[754]

Chrysostom’s influence as a preacher was not aided by any external

advantages of person. Like so many men who have possessed great powers

of command over the minds of others—like St. Paul, Athanasius, John

Wesley—he was little of stature; his frame was attenuated by the

austerities of his youth and his habitually ascetic mode of life;

his cheeks were pale and hollow; his eyes deeply set, but bright

and piercing; his broad and lofty forehead was furrowed by wrinkles;

his head was bald. He frequently delivered his discourses sitting in

the ambo, or high reading-desk, just inside the nave, in order to

be near his hearers and well raised above them. But these physical

disadvantages were more than compensated by other more important

qualities. A power of exposition which unfolded in lucid order, passage

by passage, the meaning of the book in hand; a rapid transition from

clear exposition, or keen logical argument, to fervid exhortation,

or pathetic appeal, or indignant denunciation; the versatile ease

with which he could lay hold of any little incident of the moment,

such as the lighting of the lamps in the church, and use it to

illustrate his discourse; the mixture of plain common-sense, simple

boldness, and tender affection, with which he would strike home to the

hearts and consciences of his hearers—all these are not only general

characteristics of the man, but are usually to be found manifested

more or less in the compass of each discourse. It is this rare union

of powers which constitutes his superiority to almost all the other

Christian preachers with whom he might be, or has been, compared.

Savonarola had all, and more than all, his fire and vehemence, but

untempered by his sober, calm good sense, and wanting his rational

method of interpretation. Chrysostom was eager and impetuous at times

in speech as well as in action, but never fanatical. Jeremy Taylor

combines, like Chrysostom, real earnestness of purpose with rhetorical

forms of expression and florid imagery; but, on the whole, his style

is far more artificial, and is overlaid with a multifarious learning

from which Chrysostom’s was entirely free. Wesley is almost his match

in simple, straightforward, practical exhortation, but does not rise

into flights of eloquence like his. The great French preachers, again,

resemble him in his more ornate and declamatory vein, but they lack

that simpler common-sense style of address which equally distinguished

him. Whether the sobriquet of Chrysostomos, “the golden mouth,” was

given to him in his lifetime is extremely doubtful; at any rate, it

seems not to have been commonly used till afterwards. John is the only

name by which he is mentioned in the writings of historians who were

most nearly contemporaneous, but the other was a well-known appellation

before the end of the fifth century.[755]

The preservation of Chrysostom’s discourses we owe mainly to the

custom, prevalent in the Eastern Church at that time, of having the

sermons of famous preachers taken down by shorthand writers as they

were spoken; but some of them Chrysostom published himself.[756]

To what extent they may have been written before preaching it is

impossible to say. The expository parts were evidently the result of

previous study and preparation; the actual diction of the practical

portions he may have left to the suggestion of the moment, though the

main subjects of his address had been always decided upon beforehand.

Extempore remarks were frequently called forth by the behaviour of the

congregation, or some passing incident. The discourse delivered after

his return from exile we also know to have been purely impromptu; and

Suidas observes that he “had a tongue which exceeded the cataracts of

the Nile in fluency, so that he delivered many of his panegyrics on

the martyrs extempore without the least hesitation.”[757] His hearers

were sometimes rapt in such profound attention that pickpockets took

advantage of it:[758] sometimes they were melted to tears, or beat

their breasts and faces, and uttered groans and cries to Heaven for

mercy; at other times they clapped their hands or shouted—marks of

approbation frequently paid at that time to eloquent preachers, but

always sternly reproved by Chrysostom.

Although his style is generally exuberantly rich, yet it is seldom

offensively redundant, for every word is usually telling; and at times

he is epigrammatically terse. A few instances will suffice:—“The fire

of sin is large, but it is quenched by a few tears;” “Pain was given

on account of sin, yet through pain sin is dissolved;” “Riches are

called possessions (κτήματα) that we may possess them, not be possessed

by them;” “You are master of much wealth, do not be a slave to that

whereof God has made you master;” “Scripture relates the sins of

saints, that we may fear; the conversion of sinners, that we may hope.”

He refers to a visitation of Antioch by an earthquake, as God “shaking

the city, but establishing your minds; making the city crumble, but

consolidating your judgment.”

His familiarity with classical Greek authors is apparent sometimes

in direct references. He speaks of “the smoothness of Isocrates, the

weight of Demosthenes, the dignity of Thucydides, the sublimity of

Plato.”[759] He quotes the beginning of the “Apology,” to show that

if Socrates did not put a high value on mere fine talking, how much

less should the Christian.[760] He illustrates the readiness of men

to supply the wants of the monk by a passage from Plato, where Crito

says that his money, and that of Cebes and many others, is at the

disposal of Socrates; and, go where he will, he may rely on finding

friends.[761] Sometimes we detect a thought derived, it may have been

unconsciously, from classical sources. When he compares the crowd of

the congregation before him to the sea, and the play upon the surface

of that sea of heads to the effect of a strong west wind stirring and

bending the ears of corn,[762] it is impossible not to think that the

idea was suggested by the well-known simile in Homer (Il. ii. 147).

Again, when, in speaking of David’s sin, he compares the body to a

chariot and the soul to the charioteer, and says that, when the soul

is intoxicated by passion, the chariot is dragged along at random, it

can hardly be fanciful to see a reflection of Plato’s celebrated image

of the charioteer and horses in the “Phædrus.”[763]

But whatever admiration Chrysostom may have retained of those authors

whom he had studied in his youth, it was confined to their language,

for with their ideas and modes of thought he had, so far as we can

judge, abandoned all sympathy. Nor was this unnatural. Christianity

existed in such close contact with Pagan corruption, and it had

suffered so much from Pagan persecution, that the revulsion of earnest

Christians from all things Pagan was total and indiscriminating.

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new;” and the new, having

fought a hard struggle with the old, is for a long time incapable

of recognising merit in anything belonging to it. There are several

allusions in Chrysostom to the “Republic” of Plato, but they are always

depreciative. He fastens on a few points, such as the regulations

about marriage and female work, and condemns it on these as absurd

and childish, quite failing to consider the idea in its grandeur as a

whole.[764] Yet it is instructive to notice that he never hesitates

to assign to Plato the first place among the heathen philosophers,

dignifying him with the title of Coryphæus.[765] He often compares

the failure of Plato’s teaching to regenerate men in every rank with

the successful labours of St. Paul and the other apostles; but while

he rejoices that the writings and doctrine of the philosopher were

eclipsed by the tentmaker and fisherman, and well-nigh forgotten, he

evidently regarded it as the most signal triumph which Christianity had

achieved.[766]

Unquestionable as the intellectual genius of Chrysostom was, yet it

is rather in the purity of his moral character, his single-minded

boldness of purpose, and the glowing piety which burns through all

his writings, that we find the secret of his influence. If it was

rather the mission of Augustine to mould the minds of men so as to

take a firm grasp of certain great doctrines, it was the mission of

Chrysostom to inflame the whole heart with a fervent love of God.

Rightly has he been called the great teacher of consummate holiness,

as Augustine was the great teacher of efficient grace;[767] rightly

has it been remarked that, like Fénélon, he is to be ranked among

those who may be termed disciples of St. John, men who seem to have

been pious without intermission from their childhood upwards, and of

whose piety the leading characteristics are ease, cheerfulness, and

elevation; while Augustine belongs to the disciples of St. Paul, those

who have been converted from error to truth, or from sin to holiness,

and whose characteristics are gravity, earnestness, depth.[768] If

Augustine has done more valuable service in building up the Church at

large, Chrysostom is the more loveable to the individual, and speaks

out of a heart overflowing with love to God and man, unconstrained by

the fetters of a severe and rigid system. Yet it is precisely on this

account that he has not been so generally appreciated as he deserves.

His tone is too catholic for the Romanist, or for the sectarian

partisan of any denomination. “It would be easy to produce abundant

instances of his oratorical abilities; I wish it were in my power to

record as many of his evangelical excellencies.” Such is the verdict

of a narrow-minded historian,[769] and the comparative estimation in

which he held St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom may be inferred from the

number of pages in his History given to each: St. Augustine is favoured

with 187, Chrysostom with 20. But he whose judgment is not cramped by

the shackles of some harsh and stiff theory of Gospel truth will surely

allow that Chrysostom not only preached the Gospel but lived it. To the

last moment of his life he exhibited that calm, cheerful faith, that

patient resignation under affliction, and untiring perseverance for

the good of others, which are pre-eminently the marks of a Christian

saint. The cause for which he fought and died in a corrupt age was the

cause of Christian holiness; and, therefore, by the great medieval

poet of Christendom he is rightly placed in Paradise between two men

who, widely different indeed in character and circumstances from him

and from one another, yet resembled him in this, that they freely and

courageously spoke of God’s “testimonies even before kings, and were

not ashamed”—Nathan the Seer, and Anselm the Primate of all England:—

“Natan profeta, e’l metropolitano

Crisostomo, ed Anselmo....”[770]

APPENDIX.

[_Vide ante_, p. 415 note.]

ON THE LETTER TO CÆSARIUS (CHRYS. OP. vol. iii. p. 755).

The history of this letter, and the controversy connected with it, are

curious and interesting. Peter Martyr transcribed a Latin translation

of it, which he found in a manuscript at Florence, carried it with him

to England, and deposited it in the library of Archbishop Cranmer.

After Cranmer’s death, and the dispersion of his library, the letter

disappeared. Peter Martyr had not stated the source from which he

had derived it, and, therefore, when the assailants of the doctrine

of Transubstantiation wished to make use of it, their opponents

always maintained that it did not exist. In 1680, however, Emericus

Bigotius discovered a copy in the library of St. Mark’s Convent, at

Florence, probably the same which Peter Martyr, himself a Florentine,

had transcribed. Emericus appended it to his edition of Palladius’s

“Life of Chrysostom,” and in his preface endeavoured to vindicate its

authenticity; but the Doctors of the Sorbonne suppressed the letter,

and such portions of the preface as related to it. Emericus, however,

had retained in his own possession some of the entire copies after

they were printed, before they came into the licenser’s hands. The

translation was published by Stephanus Le Moyne in 1685, by Jacob

Basnage in 1687, and in 1689 by Harduin, a Jesuit, who strenuously

maintained the Roman Catholic interpretation of the passage on the

Eucharist. Montfaucon adopted Harduin’s version of it, annexing a few

fragments in the Greek, picked out of Anastasius and John Damascene.

John Damascene, Anastasius, and Nicephorus refer to the letter as

authentic, nor does Harduin venture to dispute it; but there are

several points of evidence which seem to mark it as belonging to a

later age than that of Chrysostom. It is not quoted before Leontius, in

the latter part of the sixth century, although it might usefully have

been employed against the Eutychians. There are expressions in it which

were not in common use till after Cyril of Alexandria had employed

them against Nestorius. The language generally is that of one who had

lived in the midst of the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies, and

the style of the Greek fragments, as well as the tone of the Latin

translation, are extremely unlike Chrysostom’s manner: the sentences

are abrupt and rugged, and a kind of scholastic, dogmatic tone pervades

the whole composition. The general scope of the letter is clear: it is

to maintain the doctrine of the two natures under one person in Jesus

Christ, against the heresy of the Apollinarians; or, if we accept the

theory of Montfaucon, the intention of the author, living in the time

of the Eutychian heresy, was to strike a blow at that by forging a

letter supposed to be addressed by Chrysostom to a friend, warning

him against Apollinarian errors, which had much in common with the

Eutychian. The passage in which the writer illustrates his position by

a reference to the Holy Eucharist has been construed by Roman Catholics

and Protestants in a sense agreeable to their own views on the subject.

The writer has been labouring to prove that there were two distinct

natures in the one person of God the Son Incarnate, and he proceeds as

follows:—“Just as the bread before consecration is called bread, but

when the Divine grace sanctifies it through the agency of the priest it

is liberated from the appellation of bread, and is regarded as worthy

of the appellation of the Lord’s body, although the nature of bread

remains in it, and we speak not of two bodies, but one body of the Son;

so here, the Divine nature being seated in the human body, the two

together make up but one Son, one Person.”

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the case of Savonarola such a want has now been fairly well

supplied by Villari and other writers. For a good portrait of Erasmus,

see “Erasmus, his Life and Character,” by Robert Blackley Drummond,

B.A. 2 vols., 1873.

[2] “That godly clerk and great preacher” is the description of him in

the English Homilies, Hom. i.

[3] “Remains,” vol. iii. Letters to Dr. Woodward and Mrs. Hannah More.

[4] Wall, on _Infant Baptism_, endeavours to prove that she was a

Pagan, in order to account for the delay in Chrysostom’s baptism, but

his reasons are far from convincing.

[5] De Sacerdot. lib. i. c. 5.

[6] Julian: Misopogon, p. 363.

[7] Epist. 1057.

[8] Epist. ad viduam jun., vol. i.

[9] Ibid. p. 601.

[10] Adv. Oppug. Vit. Monast. lib. iii. c. 11.

[11] Liban. de fortuna sua, pp. 13-137.

[12] See concluding Chapter.

[13] See concluding Chapter.

[14] Quoted by Isidore of Pelusium, lib. ii. ep. 42.

[15] Sozomen, viii. c. 2.

[16] Isidore Pel., lib. ii. ep. 42; De Sacerdot. i. c. 4.

[17] Gibbon, iii. 52, note; Milman’s edition.

[18] Gibbon, iii. 53; for an account of the character of lawyers at

this period see Amm. Marcellinus, lxxx. c. 4.

[19] As Socrates, book vi. chap. 3, has done.

[20] De Sacerdot. lib. i. c. 1.

[21] De Sacerdot. c. iii.

[22] See references in Bingham, vol. iii. b. xi. Wall, vol. ii.

[23] Basil: Exhort. ad Baptismum; Greg. Nazianz. Orat. 40 de Bapt.;

Nyssen, de Bapt.; Chrysost. in Acta Apost. vol. ix. hom. i. _in fine_,

and in Illumin. Catechesis, vol. ii. p. 223.

[24] Philostorgius, ii. 7; Socrates, i. 23; Theod. i. 21.

[25] Socr. i. 24; Theod. i. 22.

[26] Athanas. Hist. Arian. 20, 21; Theod. ii. 9, 10.

[27] Socr. ii. 26; he had been deposed from the rank of presbyter

because he was a eunuch, in accordance with the provision of the

Council of Nice, c. i. Labbe, i. p. 28.

[28] Sozom. iii. 20; Theod. ii. 24.

[29] Sozom. iv. 12-16; Theod. ii. 26. In consequence of an earthquake

at Nice, it was removed to Seleucia in Isauria.

[30] Rufin. i. 21; Socr. ii. 36, 37; Sozom. iv. 19; Jerome c. Lucif.

18, 19.

[31] Socr. ii. 42, 43.

[32] Sozom. iv. 28.

[33] Theod. ii. 31; Sozom. iv. 28.

[34] Socr. ii. 45.

[35] The Arian Bishop George having been murdered by the Pagan

population, Socr. iii. 5.

[36] Rufin. i. 27; Socr. iii. 6; Sozom. v. 12.

[37] Chrysost. Hom. in Matt. 85, vol. vii. p. 762.

[38] Chrysost. Hom. in Melet.

[39] Tillemont, viii. 374.

[40] Greg. Nazian., Orat. de Bapt. 40; Chrysost. Ep. 132, ad Gemellum.

[41] Tertullian is the first who mentions it; de Prescript. c. 41.

[42] Just. Nov. cxxiii. c. 13.

[43] Quoted in Bingham, vol. i. p. 378.

[44] Conc. Carth. iv. c. 8; Labbe, vol. ii.

[45] _Vide_ quotations in Suicer, Thesaur. _sub verbo_ φιλοσοφία.

[46] De Sacerdot. i. c. 4.

[47] Ibid. c. 3.

[48] Ibid. c. 5.

[49] For the oppressive manner in which taxes were collected see

Gibbon, iii. 78 _et seq._, Milman’s edit.

[50] De Sacerdot. i. c. 6.

[51] Ibid. vi. c. 12.

[52] Socr. vi. c. 3.

[53] Ibid. vi. 3.

[54] In Facund. Hermiana, Pro Def. trium capit., lib. iv. c. 2, in

Gall. and bibl. patr. xi. p. 706.

[55] Chrysost. Hom. in Diodor., vol. iii. p. 761.

[56] Socr. vi. 3.

[57] Niceph. σειρά, vol. i. pp. 524 and 436.

[58] Ibid. vol. i. p. 80.

[59] Leont. Byzant. contra Nestor., et Eutych. lib. iii., in Basnage,

Thesaur. monum. i. 592.

[60] C. 2-5.

[61] I. c. 8, 9.

[62] C. 9.

[63] C. 10.

[64] Theod. i. c. 11, _in initio_.

[65] C. 11.

[66] C. 13.

[67] C. 14.

[68] C. 17.

[69] C. 16 and 19.

[70] C. 19.

[71] C. 3.

[72] C. 5.

[73] Tillemont maintains that the Theodore to whom the first letter is

addressed must have been a different person from the fellow-student of

Chrysostom and eventual Bishop of Mopsuestia, but he stands alone in

this opinion, and his reasons for it seem inadequate.—Till. xi. note

vi. p. 550.

[74] Possid. Vit. August. c. iv.

[75] Sulp. Sever. Vit. St. Martin. lib. i. p. 224. The affectation of

reluctance to be consecrated became a fashion in the Coptic Church.

The patriarch-designate of Alexandria is at this day brought to Cairo,

loaded with chains, as if to prevent his escape.—Stanley, Eastern

Church, lect. vii. p. 226.

[76] C. 5. This word may refer to the bishops or the people. Ambrose

calls the people his “parentes,” because they had elected him

bishop.—Comment. in Luc. l. viii. c. 17.

[77] μειράκια; _vide_ note at end of Chapter.

[78] I. c. 5.

[79] C. 7.

[80] C. 6.

[81] C. 8.

[82] C. 9.

[83] The words _priest_ and _bishop_ are employed, in the following

translations and paraphrases, to correspond with ἱερεὺς and ἐπίσκοπος,

which are used in the original without much apparent distinction.

Chrysostom is speaking of the _priesthood generally_, and it is not

easy to say which Order he has in his mind at any given moment.

[84] II. c. 2.

[85] III. c. 1, 2, 5.

[86] III. c. 4.

[87] III. 5.

[88] III. 9, 10.

[89] Lamprid. Vita Alex. Sev. c. 45. Paris edit.

[90] Cyprian, Epis. 52.

[91] Ammian. Marcell. lib. xxvii. c. 3. Socrat. lib. iv. c. 29. See a

multitude of evidence carefully collected on this subject in Bingham,

vol. i. b. iv. ch. 2.

[92] III. 15.

[93] Comp. in Act. Apost. Hom. iii. 5. “Men now aim at a bishopric like

any secular office. To win glory and honour among men we peril our

salvation.... Consuls and prefects do not enjoy such honour as he who

presides over the Church. Go to court, or to the houses of lords and

ladies, and whom do you find foremost there? no one is put before the

bishop.”

[94] III. c. 14.

[95] III. 16.

[96] III. 17.

[97] IV. c. 3-5 and c. 9.

[98] V. c. 1-4.

[99] V. c. 5.

[100] V. c. 6, 7.

[101] V. c. 8.

[102] VI. c. 1.

[103] VI. c. 4.

[104] VI. c. 6-8.

[105] VI. c. 12.

[106] VI. c. 13.

[107] Which is the date assigned by Socrates, vi. 3.

[108] As stated by Palladius, at least in the Latin translation by

Ambrose Camaldulensis.

[109] Zosimus, lib. iv. 13-15. Ammian. Marcell. xxix. c. i.

[110] In Act. Apost. Hom. 38, _in fine_.

[111] Cyril. Catech. x. n. 19. Athanas. Synopsis.

[112] Euseb. lib. vi. c. 11. Clemens Alex., Hom., Quis Dives salvetur?

[113] Vide Epiphan. 69. Hæres. n. i., whence it appears that Laura, or

Labra, was the name of an ecclesiastical district in Alexandria.

[114] Theod. Lector. II. l. c. col. 102-104.

[115] Jerome, Ep. 77, 5; Ambrose, de Virgin. i. 10, 11.

[116] Baron. 398, 49-52; Giesel. I. 251.

[117] Sozom. iii. 14; Sulp. Severus.

[118] At Stridon, on the frontiers of Pannonia and Dalmatia.

[119] Sozom. iii. 14. Palladius, Hist. Lausiaca, 38.

[120] In Matt. Hom. 8, p. 87.

[121] The custom of one monk reading the Scriptures aloud during

dinner was first adopted, according to Cassian, in the Cappadocian

monasteries.—Cass. lib. iv. c. 17; Sozom. iii. 14; Jerome’s translation

of the rule.

[122] But sometimes later.

[123] Hom. in Matt. 55, vol. vii. p. 545.

[124] Sozom. iii. 14, 15; Cassian., de Cœnob. Instit. iv. x. 22.

[125] Cod. Theod. ix. 40. 16.

[126] _Vide_ Müller de Antiq. Antioch. c. 3.

[127] Chrysost. in Matt. Hom. 69, vol. vii. p. 652.

[128] In Matt. Hom. 68, c. 3. When they received the Eucharist, which

they did twice a week, on Sundays and Saturdays, they threw off their

coats of skin, and loosened their girdles.—Sozom. iii. 14.

[129] In Matt. Hom. 68, c. 3; 69, c. 3; in 1 Tim. Hom. 14, c. 4, 5.

[130] In Matt. Hom. 72, vol. vii. p. 671.

[131] In 1 Tim. Hom. 14, c. 5.

[132] In Joh. Hom. 44, c. 1.

[133] De Compunct. i. c. 6.

[134] De Compunct. i. c. 1.

[135] C. 2.

[136] C. 3.

[137] C. 4, 5.

[138] C. 7.

[139] C. 8.

[140] C. 9.

[141] De Compunct. ii. 1-3.

[142] C. 5.

[143] ἔχθρα ἀκήρυκτος, lib. i. c. 5.

[144] Lib. i. c. 4.

[145] The word in the decree is “militare,” but this term appears to be

applied to civil duties as well as military. _Vide_ Suicer, _sub v._

στρατεύειν. The Egyptian monks, however, do seem to have been specially

forced into the army. De Broglie, v. 303; Gibbon, iv.; Milman, History

of Christianity, iii. 47.

[146] Adv. Oppug. Vitæ Mon., lib. i. c. 1-3.

[147] C. 4.

[148] C. 5-7.

[149] C. 8.

[150] Lib. ii. c. 1, 2.

[151] C. 2-5.

[152] C. 6-10.

[153] Lib. iii. c. 6.

[154] Compare similar remarks by Thucydides, book iii., in his account

of the Corcyræan sedition, on the misapplication of names to vices.

[155] Lib. iii. c. 6, 7.

[156] C. 8, 9.

[157] Lib. iii. c. 14, 15.

[158] C. 18, 19.

[159] Pallad. Dial. c. v.

[160] Ad Stag. a Dæm. vex., vol. i. lib. i. c. 1.

[161] Ibid. lib. ii. c. 1.

[162] Ad Stag., vol. i. lib. ii. c. 1.

[163] Ibid. c. 5-9.

[164] See _ante_, Chapter II.

[165] See preface to his Orat. xliii.

[166] The bishops of Egypt and the West generally adhered to Paulinus,

Sozom. vii. 11, till by the united efforts of Chrysostom and Theophilus

the universal acknowledgment of Flavian was obtained in A.D. 398.

[167] So Jerome, Ep. xxvii.

[168] Conc. Nic., can. 18. (Hefele, p. 426.)

[169] Tertull. de Bapt. cxvii. Jerome Dial. contr. Lucif.

[170] Chrysost. Hom. ii. in 2 Cor.

[171] Constit. Apost. lib. viii. c. 10.

[172] Constit. Apost. lib. ii. c. 57. Chrysost. Hom. xxiv. in Act.

[173] Constit. Apost. lib. ii. c. 31, 32. Cyprian, Ep. xlix.

[174] Conc. Nic., can. 18. (Hefele, p. 426.)

[175] Jerome, Epist. lxxxv. ad Evang.

[176] Chrysost. vol. ii. p. 591.

[177] Ibid. vol. vii. p. 762.

[178] Ibid. p. 629.

[179] Euseb. Vita Const. iii. 50. Chrysost. vol. iii. p. 160 and vol.

xi. p. 78. _Vide_ also Müller de Antiq. Antioch., p. 103.

[180] This description of Antioch is mainly collected from Müller’s

admirable and exhaustive work on the Antiquities of Antioch, or from

the authorities referred to therein.

[181] See Socrates vi. 1, and Montfaucon’s preface to “De Sacerdotio.”

[182] Ad vid. jun. c. 5.

[183] C. 4.

[184] Ad vid. jun., c. 3.

[185] C. 4. Executed in 371 in the reign of Valentinian, Valens, and

Gratian; Ammian. Marcell. xxix. 1, who calls him a Gaul, not, as

Chrysostom, a Sicilian.

[186] Constans by Magnentius.

[187] Constantine the younger.

[188] Jovian.

[189] Gallus Cæsar by Constantius. The two who died natural deaths were

Constantine the Great and his son Constantius.

[190] The widow of Jovian, whose son Varronian was deprived of an eye.

See Gibbon, vol. iv. p. 222.

[191] Doubtful; possibly first wife of Valentinian I., divorced from

him and sent into exile.

[192] Constantia, wife of Gratian.

[193] Flacilla, wife of Theodosius. Compare this mournful list of

tragic deaths of sovereigns with the splendid passage in Shakespeare’s

Richard II.:—

“For Heaven’s sake let’s sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of

the death of kings,” etc.

[194] De Virginitate, c. 15.

[195] C. 14-22.

[196] De Virginitate, c. 57.

[197] τὴν μάλιστα πάντων ἀγαπωμένην, c. 52.

[198] De Virginitate, c. 52.

[199] C. 62, 63.

[200] C. 66, 67.

[201] De Virginitate, c. 83.

[202] Gibbon, iv. p. 111.

[203] Strabo, p. 750.

[204] As Verus, Pescennius Niger, Macrinus, and Severus

Alexander.—Herodian, ii. 7, 8, v. 2, vi. 7.

[205] De S. Babyla, c. 14-16.

[206] Hom. in Matt. vol. vii. p. 762.

[207] To the establishment of parochial divisions with separate pastors

in Alexandria we have the direct testimony of Epiphanius, Hæres. 69;

Arian. c. 1. In Rome, however, and Constantinople, though the churches

were numerous, the clergy seem to have been more or less connected with

the mother Church.—_Vide_ Bingham, chap. viii. 5, book ix.

[208] μειρακίσκος εὐτελὴς καὶ ἀπεῤῥιμμένος—applied by rather a strong

rhetorical licence to a man forty years old.

[209] μηδέπω πρότερον. This seems to prove that he had not preached

during his diaconate.

[210] Ecclus. xv. 9.

[211] Hom. xi. in Act. Apost. _in fine_.

[212] Vol. ii. p. 515.

[213] C. 3.

[214] See the Monitum to these Homilies, vol. i. p. 699.

[215] See Newman’s Arians, chap. i. sect. i.

[216] Arius, in a letter to Eusebius, addresses him as συλλουκιανιστά,

“fellow Lucianist,” Theod. i. 5.

[217] I. c. 6, 7.

[218] C. 3.

[219] I. c. 4.

[220] II. c. 3, 4.

[221] II. c. 4, 5; III. 3, 4, 5, 6.

[222] IV. 4.

[223] V. 2, 3.

[224] VII. c. 3, 4.

[225] VII. c. 6, 7.

[226] III. c. 6.

[227] III. c. 6, _in fine_.

[228] IV. _in fine_.

[229] The colours represented the seasons, and according as one or

other was victorious a plentiful harvest or prosperous navigation was

indicated.

[230] Contra Anom. vii. c. i.

[231] De Laz. vii. c. 1.

[232] De Anna, iv. 1.

[233] De Laz. vii. c. 1.

[234] It is a treatise, because too long for a homily, though mutilated

of its proper conclusion. It must belong to the first two years of his

priesthood, because it promises a more ample discussion of several

points, which promise we find redeemed in the homilies against the

Jews, and these homilies, again, can be proved, by internal evidence,

to have been delivered not later than A.D. 387. See Montfaucon’s

Monitum, vol. i. pp. 811 and 839.

[235] C. 1.

[236] See a singular parallel to this thought in the Emperor Napoleon

I.’s remarks on Christianity: “Table Talk and Opinions of Napoleon I.”

[237] C. 9.

[238] C. 9.

[239] C. 12.

[240] C. 13.

[241] C. 2.

[242] C. 2-5.

[243] C. 6.

[244] C. 7.

[245] C. 3.

[246] See Perowne, vol. i. _in loco_; Ps. lxxii. 6; and Delitzsch in

Isa. lx. 17.

[247] Milman’s History of the Jews, vol. ii. book xix.

[248] Basnage’s Hist. des Juifs, vi. 41. Newman’s Arians, ch. i. sect.

i.

[249] V. _in fine_; robbers may possibly be used in a figurative sense.

[250] I. c. 7. They seem early to have claimed medical skill. When

Simon Ben Jochai went to Rome as ambassador, in the reign of Antoninus

Pius, to obtain the abrogation of persecuting edicts, he won the favour

of the Emperor by curing his sick daughter—Milman, ii. 443.

[251] II. 3; vii. _in initio_; i. c. 3, 4.

[252] I. c. 6.

[253] i. c. 7. So the idle youth of Rome turned for amusement into the

Synagogue. Horace, Sat. ix. 69.

[254] ἐπιγινώσκετε ἀλλήλους. i. 4. This admonition “Discern one

another” was uttered just at the close of the Missa Catechumenorum,

when all but the baptized had to depart.

[255] Newman’s Arians, ch. i. p. 16. Hefele, pp. 305, 306.

[256] In Jud. iii. c. 6, iv. c. 4.

[257] According to Theod. iii. 20, the Jews had ceased to offer

sacrifices by the reign of Julian, and when he inquired the reason,

said, because it was unlawful except on the site of the Temple; and

this was one chief reason why Julian commanded the Temple to be

restored.

[258] In Jud. v. c. 1.

[259] Ibid. c. 4-7.

[260] He punished the captives by cutting off their ears. It is

singular that there is no record of this rebellion in history.

[261] For a full relation of this singular event, see Milman’s Jews,

book xx.

[262] Hom. viii. 4, and _in fine_.

[263] Hom. de Anathemate, delivered soon after the discourses against

the Anomœans. See Monitum, vol. i. 944.

[264] The former chiefly in the Hom. de Philog. vol. i. 752; the latter

in the Hom. in Nat. Diem Christi, vol. ii. p. 552.

[265] De Beato Philog. vol. i. p. 753.

[266] In Nat. Christi, vol. ii. p. 560.

[267] De Bapt. Christi, c. 4.

[268] In Kalend. c. 2.

[269] In Ephes. Hom. vi. c. 4.

[270] Perhaps that convulsive twitching which we call “quick blood.”

[271] In Ephes. Hom. xii. c. 3. In Hom. viii. and xii. on 1 Cor. he

rebukes the heathenish ceremonies performed at the birth of a child.

One was, to give it that name which was attached to the candle that

burned longest out of a row of candles.

[272] He was executed at Carthage in A.D. 376.

[273] See Gibbon, c. xxvi. xxvii.

[274] Cod. Theod. xvi. 1, 2.

[275] Sozom. vii. c. 12; Gibbon, c. xxvii.; De Broglie, “L’Église et

l’Empire,” vi. p. 93.

[276] Cod. Theod. xvi. v. 7, lib. 1, 2.

[277] Cod. Theod. xvi. v. 10, lib. 7, 9. Sozomen informs us (vii. 22)

that Eugenius, the usurper, after the death of Valentinian II., was

persuaded by divinations to take up arms.

[278] Sozomen, vii. 15. Theod. v. 21.

[279] The most distinguished scholar, and orator, and one of the most

upright statesmen of his time—quæstor, prætor, and proconsul of Africa.

[280] Fragments of his speeches preserved in Mai’s collection, vol. i.

[281] Ambrose, Op. vol. ii. Ep. 18.

[282] Libanius: Pro templis non exscind. The oration was certainly not

spoken before the Emperor, and probably not even sent to him.

[283] Cod. Theod. xii. 104-115.

[284] Theodor. v. 19. A funeral oration on her and the infant was

pronounced by Gregory Nyssen, Op. vol. iii. pp. 515, 527, 533.

[285] Libanius, Or. 12, pp. 391-395.

[286] Probably the prætorium built in the reign of Constantine for

the Count of the East, who from that time resided in Antioch; _vide_

Müller, Antiq. Antioch., ii. 16.

[287] Liban. Or. 12, p. 395, and 21, p. 527. Theod. vii. 20. Sozom.

vii. 23. Zos. iv. 41.

[288] Chrys. Hom. de Stat. iii. 1; xxi. 1. Zosimus (iv. 41) sends

Libanius also to Constantinople, but this is a palpable error. There is

no trace of his having gone, either in his own Orations or in any other

historian.

[289] Socrat. vi. 5. The most common practice was for the preacher to

sit, the people to stand.

[290] Hom. ii. 2.

[291] iii. 6.

[292] iii. 1, 2.

[293] ii. 5.

[294] iii. 3.

[295] iii. 4, 5.

[296] xvi. 6.

[297] iii. 7.

[298] xiv. 1.

[299] v. 7.

[300] xx. 9. A passage in another homily on this subject is curious,

as proving that just the same jugglers’ feats were performed in

Antioch in the fourth century as at the fairs and races of the present

day:—“Persons pretended it was next to impossible to conquer an

inveterate habit: this was a paltry excuse, perseverance could conquer

any difficulty. To unlearn a habit of swearing could not be more

impossible than to acquire the art of throwing up swords, and catching

them by the handle, or balancing a pole on the forehead with two boys

at the top of it, or dancing on a tightrope.”—Hom. in Dom. Serv.

[301] iv. 1.

[302] iv. 2.

[303] v. 3. τὸ σῶμα τῇ ψυχῇ περίκειται καθάπερ ἱμάτιον. Comp.

Shakespeare: “When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.”

[304] v. 3.

[305] ix. 3, 4.

[306] x. 2, 4.

[307] xiii. 2.

[308] xii. 2.

[309] x. 3.

[310] xii. 2-4; xiii. 3. Comp. Aristotle’s distinction between

natural and conventional law or justice, Eth. v. 7.1: φυσικόν and

νομικόν δίκαιον. Compare also his description of προαίρεσις as the

ἀρχὴ κινήσεως in b. iii., and of φρόνησις (nearly = Butler’s

“Conscience”) in b. vi.

[311] Comp. again what Aristotle says of the necessity of _training_ to

improve the _natural_ gifts, b. x. 9, and of the formation of _habits_

by repeated _acts_. Comp. Chrys. Hom. xiii. 3, with Arist. Eth. ii. 4,

5.

[312] xiii. 4.

[313] xvi. 1.

[314] Liban. Or. 21, in Helleb. and 20, 517.

[315] Theodor. v. 20.

[316] xvii. 1, 2.

[317] Liban. Orat. 20. De Broglie, vi. 150, 151. Chrys. Hom. xvii. 2.

[318] xvii. 2. The colonnades, especially of the great street which ran

through the city from east to west; the περιπάτους or promenades were

lined by colonnades with seats.—_Vide_ Müller, Antiq. Ant. ii. 12.

[319] xvii. 2.

[320] xx. 5, and xviii. _in fine_.

[321] Liban. Or. 21, p. 536.

[322] xxi. 1.

[323] It was the custom to signalise the great festivals by acts of

mercy. “The oil of mercy glistens on the Festivals of the Church,” says

Ambrose, Serm. 14, on Ps. cxviii. 7. Leo the Great also, Serm. 39,

alludes to the custom. But, to prevent any abuse of the practice, it

was enacted by Theodosius in A.D. 384-385, that it should apply only

to those accused of petty offences: the grosser crimes of robbery,

adultery, magic, murder, sacrilege, were to be excepted from claims to

this indulgence.

[324] xxi. 1-4.

[325] xxi. 4.

[326] Hom. i. de Anna, vol. iv. c. 1, where he recapitulates the

arguments which he had used in the Homilies on the Statues.

[327] Hom. de Anna, i. 1.

[328] Called κυριακὴ τῆς ἐπισωζομένης, this last word being the name

of Ascension Day among the Cappadocians, possibly because Christ’s

work on earth for man’s redemption was completed by his return into

heaven. (_Vide_ Leo Allatius, quoted in Suicer, Thesaur., _sub verbo_

“Episozomene,” and Bingham, Antiq. b. xx. sect. 5.)

[329] Hom. de Stat. xix. 1, vol. ii.

[330] Euseb. de Vita Constant. lib. iv.

[331] Chrys. Hom. xl. in Juvent.

[332] Hom. de Cæmet. et Cruce, vol. ii. c. i. in Ascens. Christi, vol.

ii., and de Sanct. Martyr. vol. ii. p. 705. The Sunday corresponding to

the present Trinity Sunday was kept as a kind of All Saints’ Day. See

Bingham, b. xx. c. 7, sect. 14.

[333] Aug. Hom. xxvi. Gelas. Decret. in Grabe, vol. i. The word

“legend” is perhaps derived from these Acts of the Saints, which were

to be read—“legenda.”

[334] Adv. Judæos viii. c. 7.

[335] Hom. in Juvent. et Maxim. vol. ii. p. 576.

[336] De Bern. et Prosd. vol. ii. p. 640.

[337] See the letter in Euseb. lib. iv. c. 15.

[338] Aug. de Vera Relig. c. 55.

[339] Aug. contra Faustum, lib. xx. c. 21.

[340] De Droside, vol. ii. p. 685.

[341] Flavian caused the remains of some much-revered saints who were

buried beneath the pavement of the church to be taken up, and placed

in another separate grave, because the people were distressed that the

reliques of such venerated personages should repose in the same vaults

with the remains of less saintly, if not heretical, characters.—Hom. in

Ascen.

[342] De S. Babyla, c. 12. De Stat. i. 2, and viii. 2. Quod Christus

sit Deus, c. 7. De Stat. v. 1.

[343] In S. Ignat. Mart. c. 4.

[344] In Juvent. et Maxim. c. 1.

[345] Hom. in Martyres, vol. ii. p. 663.

[346] In Sanct. Jul. vol. ii. p. 673.

[347] Aug. cont. Faustum, lib. xx. c. 21.

[348] Aug. Confess. lib. vi. 2. Epist. 64, ad Aurel. Conc. Carth. iii.

c. 30.

[349] Basil. Regul. Major., quæst. 40.

[350] See Dr. Hessey’s Bampton Lectures, “on Sunday.”

[351] Whether it was a regular custom for the rustic population to

visit Antioch on this day, or whether it was the first great influx for

trade and legal business after the recent suspension of all business,

does not appear.

[352] Ambr. Ep. xx.

[353] Ambr. Ep. xx. p. 854.

[354] Sozomen, vii. 13. Ruf. ii. 16.

[355] Ambr. Ep. xxi. Sermo contra Aux. p. 868.

[356] Ignatius is said to have first introduced antiphonal singing at

Antioch, Flavian and Diodorus to have established it there; Socr. v. 8;

Theod. ii. 19. Basil refers to it as a common practice, but Ambrose is

generally allowed to have introduced it to the Western Church, and on

this occasion. _Vide_ Suicer.

[357] Aug. Conf. ix. 7, and preceding books.

[358] Ambr. Ep. xxi.

[359] Ambr. Ep. xxii. Aug. Conf. ix. 7.

[360] Ambr. Ep. xl. and xli.

[361] Cod. Theod. iv. v. 4, lib. 2. De Broglie, vi. 257.

[362] Sozom. vii. 25. Theod. v. 17. Ambr. Ep. li. De Broglie, vi. 302,

etc.

[363] Theod. v. 18. De Broglie, vi. 302 _et seq._

[364] Sozom. vii. 15. Socr. v. 15. Ambr. Ep. lvi. Theod. v. 23.

[365] Ambr. de ob. Val.

[366] Theod. v. 24. Socr. v. 25. Sozom. vii. 24. De Broglie, vi. 8.

[367] Ambr. Ep. lxi. lxii.

[368] Socr. v. 26. Sozom. vii. 29. Ambrosii Vita a Paul. scripta, de

obit. Theod.

[369] Of course I do not forget that the idea and name of Roman Emperor

and Roman Empire lived on for centuries more, but the elevation of

Charles the Great was a revolt against the old order of things. He can

hardly be regarded as a successor of Theodosius so truly as Theodosius

was a successor of Augustus.

[370] Claud. de Bello Gild. 293.

[371] Claud. in Ruf. i. v. 137.

[372] Philostorg. xi. 3. For much assistance in his notices of

Rufinus and Eutropius, the writer must pay his acknowledgments to the

admirable work by Amédée Thierry: “Les trois ministres des fils de

Théodose”—Rufin, Eutrope, Stilicon.

[373] Gibbon, iii. 67. Zosim. iv. 51.

[374] Claud. in Ruf. i. v. 220.

[375] See references in Thierry, p. 19.

[376] De Laud. Stil. ii. v. 379.

[377] “Noster Scipiades Stilicho.” De Consulat. Stilic. præf. v. 21.

[378] Claud. de Nupt. Honor. et Mariæ.

[379] Zosim. v. 3.

[380] Symmach. Ep. iv. 15 and 16.

[381] Possibly alluded to by Chrysostom in Hom. iv. de Penitentia,

c. 2, where he mentions “incursions of enemies” among other recent

calamities. These homilies were probably delivered in A.D. 395.

[382] Thierry, pp. 35-78. Claud. in Ruf. lib. ii.

[383] In Eutrop. i. v. 104, 105.

[384] “Contemptu jam liber erat.”—Claud. in Eutrop. i. v. 132.

[385] Claud. in Eutrop. i. v. 148, 149.

[386] Sozom. vii. 22.

[387] Philostorg. xi. 5.

[388] Claud. in Eutrop. i. 427, etc.; ii. 97, etc.

[389] Thierry, pp. 97-126. Zosim. v. 5. Claud. in Eutrop. ii.

[390] Zosim. v. 8, 9, 12.

[391] Sozom. viii. 7.

[392] Claud. in Eutrop. i. 235, etc.

[393] Synes. de Regno, p. 16.

[394] Claud. in Eutrop. ii. 95. Thierry, p. 162, etc.

[395] Socr. vi. 2.

[396] See Chrysostom’s own remarks in De Sacerdotio, lib. iii., cited

above in Ch. iv., and in Act. Apost. Hom. iii. 5.

[397] Epist. xxi. ad Valerium.

[398] Socrat. vi. 2. Sozom. viii. 2.

[399] Lib. iii. c. 15, 17.

[400] Pallad. Dial. c. 5.

[401] Socr. vi. 2. Sozom. viii. 2. Pallad. Dial.

[402] Socr. vi. 2. Sozom. viii. 2.

[403] Pallad. Dial. c. 5.

[404] Sozom. viii. 2. Pallad. Dial. 5.

[405] Socr. vi. 2.

[406] Bingham, b. ii. c. 11, sec. 8.

[407] The title Patriarch is occasionally used in the following pages,

although it does not appear to have been a formally recognised title

till fifty years later. Socrates (A.D. 440 about) uses it (_vide_

c. 8), but the first occurrence of it in any public document is in

the acts of the Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451, where it is applied

especially to Leo i. of Rome.—Can. 28. Labbé, vol. iv.

[408] Hom. xi. in Anom. vol. i. p. 795.

[409] De Sacerd. lib. vi. c. 6-8, quoted above, p. 53.

[410] Soc. vi. 3. Sozom. viii. 9.

[411] Pallad. Dial. c. v. p. 20.

[412] Lib. xxvii. c. 3.

[413] Epist. ii. ad Nepotianum.

[414] Pallad. Dial. c. v. and xii.

[415] See Hefele, p. 131, and on the date of this synod.

[416] Stanley, Eastern Church, lecture v. Socr. i. 11. Sozom. i.

23. The truth of the story has been disputed, but apparently on

insufficient grounds. _Vide_ Hefele, p. 436.

[417] Can. 3. Hefele, p. 379.

[418] Jerome, Ep. xxii. ad Eustoch. Epiphan. Hær. 63.

[419] See references in Bingham, b. vi. c. ii. 13.

[420] Contra eos, etc., vol. i. p. 495.

[421] Ibid. c. 3, 4.

[422] Ibid. c. 7.

[423] Contra eos, etc., c. 9.

[424] Ibid. c. 10.

[425] Ibid. c. 10.

[426] Socr. vi. 4.

[427] Vol. xii. p. 468.

[428] Vol. xii. p. 485.

[429] Contra Lud. et Theat. vol. vi. p. 269, _in fine_.

[430] Ibid. c. 1.

[431] Contra Lud. et Theat. c. 2.

[432] From this and what follows it would appear that communicants went

within the rails to receive, and close to the altar. This was the most

primitive custom. Sometimes the recipients stood; _vide_ passages cited

in Bingham, b. viii. ch. 6, sec. 7.

[433] Vol. xii. Hom. ix.

[434] In Coloss. Hom. vii., vol. xi. p. 350.

[435] Hom. xviii. in Genes., vol. iv. p. 150.

[436] The use of silk seems from its first introduction into the

Empire to have been regarded as the _ne plus ultra_ of luxury. It

was condemned by Pliny, vi. 20, xi. 21. Elagabalus was the first

_man_ as well as the first Emperor who ventured to wear a material

hitherto confined to female dress. See Gibbon, vol. vii. c. 40, and his

interesting account of the introduction of silk-worms from China to

Constantinople by some Persian monks in the reign of Justinian.

[437] In Matt. Hom. xlix., vol. vii. p. 501

[438] In Psalm. xlviii., vol. v. p. 514.

[439] Hom. i. de Lazaro, c. 8.

[440] In Gen. Hom. xli., p. 382.

[441] In Joan. Hom. lxii., p. 340, and Hom. lxix., p. 380.

[442] In Act. Apost. p. 147 _et seq._

[443] Hom. xx. in Act. Apost. p. 162. This set of fifty-five Homilies

on the Acts of the Apostles, of which much use is made in this chapter,

was delivered in A.D. 400, between Easter and Whitsuntide, in which

interval it was customary to read through the Acts in the Lessons for

the day: _vide_ Bingham, vol. iv. These homilies are among the least

polished of Chrysostom’s productions. Erasmus, who translated them into

Latin, was thoroughly disappointed and out of humour with them, and

even doubts their authenticity. In a letter to Tonstal, Bp. of Durham,

he declares that he could have written better matter himself even when

“ebrius ac stertens.” But most persons familiar with Chrysostom’s

productions will agree with Montfaucon and Savile that these homilies

could have flowed only from that golden vein, though the ore is not

so much refined as usual, and that some passages are in his very best

style. None of his homilies, except those on the Statues and St.

Matthew, contain more curious revelations of the manners and customs of

the age.

[444] In Act. Apost. pp. 74 and 98.

[445] In Act. Apost. p. 256.

[446] See Villari’s Life of Savonarola, b. i. c. 3.

[447] In Act. Apost. p. 191.

[448] Hom. in Inscrip. Altaris, i. _in initio_.

[449] In Act. Apost. pp. 189, 190.

[450] Vol. xii. Hom. vi. adv. Cath. pp. 143 and 491.

[451] Vol. xii. Hom. i., “Quod frequenter,” etc. Socrates, vi. 22. If

we may estimate the man from the account by Socrates, his admirer, who

relates a number of his so-called witticisms, the book is no great loss.

[452] Greg. de Vita sua, pp. 585-1097. Orat. xxii., xxvii., xxxii.

[453] _Vide_ Gibbon, v. p. 30.

[454] Socrates, vi. 8. _Vide_ Dean Stanley, Eastern Church, pp. 131,

132, for specimens of these Thalia; _e.g._ one commences, “Where are

those who say that the Three are but one power?”

[455] Sozom. viii. 3. Socrat. v. 15.

[456] Epist. xiv. vol. iii.

[457] Vol. xii. Hom. viii.

[458] Theod. v. 30.

[459] Epist. xiv. and ccvii.

[460] Theod. v. 29. Tillemont, xi. p. 155.

[461] Marc. Diac. ap. Baron, an. 401, 49.

[462] Vol. xii. 471. The titles “mother of churches,” “nurse of monks,”

“staff of the poor,” etc., were not bestowed till after his return

from his first exile, vol. iii. p. 446. M. Thierry has erroneously

introduced them into this earlier stage of his life.

[463] Claud. in Eutrop. lib. i. The pathetic appeal is by Claudian

put into the mouth of an allegorical impersonation of the city.

Claudian was the intimate friend and companion of Stilicho, and may not

improbably have assisted at this audience. He is a valuable guide to

the history of this period, and especially as an indicator of public

opinion on the great events of his day.

[464] Gibbon, vol. v. p. 361. Claudian, De Consul. Mall. Theod.

[465] In Eutrop. ii. 39, 136.

[466] Claud. in Eutrop. ii. 187 _et seq._

[467] In Eutrop. ii. 377.

[468] The above account is taken from Zosimus, lib. v.; Claudian in

Eutrop. ii. Thierry, “Trois Ministres; Eutrope.”

[469] Zosim. v. 17.

[470] Claud. in Eutr. ii. 474 and 534, etc.

[471] Philostorg. xi. 6. Zosim. v. 18.

[472] Stanley, (Appendix,) “Memorials of Westminster.”

[473] Cod. Theod. lib. ix. tit. 45.

[474] Ibid.

[475] The altar was sometimes called ἄσυλος τράπεζα (Synesius, Ep.

lviii.)

[476] Claud. Prolog. in Eutrop. ii. 25. Chrysost. in Eutrop., c. 3.

vol. iii.

[477] Chrysost. in Eutrop. c. 2.

[478] De Capto Eutrop. vol. iii.

[479] In Eutrop. i.

[480] De Capto Eutrop. c. 4.

[481] In Eutrop. c. 3.

[482] Socrat. vi. 5.

[483] In Eutrop. c. 1.

[484] In Eutrop. c. 2-4.

[485] Zosimus, v. 18, ἐξαρπάσαντες.

[486] De Capto Eutrop. c. 1.

[487] Zosim. v. 18.

[488] Zosim. v. 18. Cod. Theod. ix. 40, 17. Philostorg. xi. 6.

[489] Zosim. v. 18.

[490] Zosim. v. 18. Socrat. vi. 6. Sozom. viii. 4.

[491] Hom. cum Saturn. et Aurel. vol. iii.

[492] Socr. vi. 6. Sozom. viii. 4. Theod. v. 31.

[493] Sozom. viii. 4. Theod. v. 32.

[494] Nili Mon. Epist. i. 70, 79, 114, 116, 205, 206, 286.

[495] Sozom. viii. 4. Socr. vi. 6. Theod. v. 32.

[496] Sozom. viii. 4. Socr. vi. 6. Zosim. v. 19.

[497] Eunap. Sard. Fragm. 60. Sozom. viii. 4.

[498] _Vide_ c. 21.

[499] Sozom. viii. 4. Socr. vi. 6.

[500] The Alexandrian Chronicle is precise in fixing Dec. 23, A.D. 400,

as the date of his defeat on the Hellespont, and Jan. 3, A.D. 401,

as the day on which his head was brought into Constantinople. This

certainly leaves a very insufficient interval for the events recorded

in Zosimus.

[501] _Vide_ c. 33.

[502] Palladius, author of the Dialogue prefixed to Migne’s edition

of Chrysostom’s works. On the debated question whether this Palladius

was the same Bishop of Hellenopolis who wrote the Lausiaca, _vide_

Tillemont, xi. “Vie de Pallade.”

[503] There was in fact what might be called a floating synod of this

kind always in existence in Constantinople; the Patriarch being _ex

officio_ President.—Tillemont, xv. 703, 704.

[504] We are in the summer of A.D. 400, and the capture and death of

Gaïnas occurred in Jan. A.D. 401.

[505] σοῦ τὴν τιμιότητα; sometimes we have ὁσιότητα, “your Holiness.”

[506] Pallad. Dial. c. 14 and 15.

[507] See, on this whole subject, Bingham, viii. 13. 6; and Robertson,

i. pp. 187 and 318, and the authorities there cited.

[508] Pallad. Dial. c. 14, 15. Sozomen (viii. 6) says that Chrysostom

deposed thirteen bishops of Asia, Lycia, and Phrygia. This is possible,

as the synod may have inquired into other simoniacal cases beyond the

original six.

[509] Sozom. viii. 6.

[510] Tillemont, xi. p. 170.

[511] Labbé, ii. p. 947. It must always be borne in mind that Diocese

was the name of the largest _civil_ division of the Roman Empire. Each

diocese contained several provinces, _e.g._ Thrace, six; Asia, ten;

Pontus, eleven. The whole Empire was divided into thirteen dioceses,

and about one hundred and twenty provinces. The Ecclesiastical

divisions followed more or less the plan of the civil. An archbishop

was bishop of the metropolis of a Province, a Patriarch of one or more

_Dioceses_.

[512] Can. xxviii.; and Can. ix. Chalced. in Labbé, iv. pp. 769 and 798.

[513] Comp. Keble, Christian Year, for Easter Day:—

“Sundays by thee more glorious break, An Easter Day in every week.”

[514] Vol. iii. p. 421.

[515] Socrat. vi. 11. Sozom. viii. 10.

[516] Vol. iii. p. 424 _et seq._

[517] Pallad. Dial. c. 18, pp. 62 and 67.

[518] Socrat. vi. 4.

[519] Sozom. viii. c. 9.

[520] Pallad. Dial. c. 19.

[521] Greg. Naz. Epp. lvii. lviii.

[522] Greg. Naz. Ep. lvii.

[523] Theophilus is said to have fallen down before her and kissed

her knees, an obeisance prompted by avaricious hopes on his part, and

repelled by genuine humility on hers.

[524] Pallad. Dial. c. 16, 17. Sozom. viii. 9.

[525] Pallad. Dial. c. 6. Tillemont xiv. p. 219 _seq._: ἐγὼ αὐτῷ ἀρτύω

χύτραν.

[526] Pallad. Dial. c. 5, 6, 18, 19.

[527] Jerome in Ruf. lib. ii. c. 5. Ep. xxxi. p. 203.

[528] Tillemont, xi.: Vie de Theophile.

[529] Euseb. Hist. vi. 3, 19.

[530] Jerome declared that Origen had composed more books than most men

would find time to copy.—Epist. xxix.

[531] The Paschal Letter was a circular addressed to clergy and monks

throughout the diocese soon after the Epiphany; the primary object

was to announce the date of the first day of Lent and of Easter Day,

whence the name; but other matters were, as in the present instance,

frequently introduced. See Tillemont, xi. 462.

[532] Socrat. vi. 7. Sozom. viii. 11, 12.

[533] Jerome in Ruf. iii.; and Ep. lxi.

[534] In Ruf. iii. 33.

[535] The contest for precedence was eventually decided in favour of

Jerusalem. The see was made a Patriarchate in the reign of Theodosius

II., and its jurisdiction fixed to the three Palestines by the Council

of Chalcedon, A.D. 451.

[536] Jerome, Ep. xxxviii.

[537] Jerome, Ep. xxxviii.

[538] Jerome, Ep. cx.

[539] Ibid. Ep. xxxviii. and xxxix.

[540] Jerome, Ep. xxxviii.

[541] Ibid.

[542] Pallad. Lausiaca, p. 901. Tillemont, vol. xi.

[543] Pallad. Dial. c. 6. Other causes of the enmity of Theophilus

are mentioned by Socrates, vi. 9, and Sozomen, viii. 12, but not

incompatible with the account of Palladius.

[544] Socrat. vi. 7.

[545] Pasch. Epist. of Theoph. quoted in Tillemont, xi. p. 470. Pallad.

Dial. 6. Sozom. viii. 12.

[546] Sulpic. Sever. lib. i. c. 3.

[547] Pallad. Dial. c. 7.

[548] Sozom. viii. 13.

[549] Jer. Ep. lxx.

[550] Jer. Ep. lxxviii. in Ruf. Epp. lxvii. lxxiii.

[551] Socrat. vi. 9. Sozom. viii. 14.

[552] Socrat. (vi. c. 13) says that the writings only of Origen, not

the man himself, were condemned.

[553] Ep. lxxviii.

[554] Pallad. Dial. c. 8.

[555] Sozom. viii. 13. Pallad. Dial. c. 8.

[556] Ep. xvi.

[557] Socrat. vi. c. 12.

[558] Socrat. vi 12. Sozom. viii. 14.

[559] Sozom. viii. 14 and 26.

[560] Socrat. vi. 14.

[561] Sozom. viii. 14.

[562] Sozom. c. 15.

[563] Socrat. vi. 15. Sozom. viii. 15.

[564] Socrat. vi. 15. Sozom. viii. 16.

[565] Pallad. Dial. c. 2 (Epist. of Chrys. to Innocent), and c. 8.

[566] See Tillemont, vol. xi. ch. 71.

[567] _Vide_ ante, Ch. XIII.

[568] So Palladius, c. 8, on the whole the most trustworthy authority.

Photius, Biblioth. (c. 59), says there were forty-five.

[569] The language is not very clear in this passage, but such is, I

conceive, the drift of it.—c. 8.

[570] This must have been a slight exaggeration, but the members do

seem to have been mainly Egyptian.

[571] Pallad. Dial. c. 8.

[572] Phot. c. 59. Chrys. Ep. 125 ad Cyr., where he indignantly repels

the charge:—“had he done so, might his name be blotted out from the

roll of bishops;” but at the same time he deprecates the treatment of

such an offence (had it been committed) with extreme severity: for had

not our Lord Himself instituted that holy feast, and had not St. Paul

baptized without previously fasting? Chrysostom shrinks in horror from

the supposition of such a gross violation of ecclesiastical rule as

the act in his case would have been, but refuses to place it on the

same footing with the commission of a flagrant moral crime, or direct

disobedience to any command of Christ. There are, however, some doubts

whether this letter is genuine. See _infra_, p. 317, and note.

[573] Pallad. Dial. 8. Socr. vi. 15. Soz. viii. 17.

[574] Tillemont, vol. xi.

[575] It contains the celebrated passage: “Herodias again dances and

demands the head of John;” which recurs as the exordium of another and

spurious homily (vol. viii. p. 485), and also an indignant repudiation

of the offence of administering baptism after eating.—vol. iii. 427.

Socrates, vi. 16. Sozom. viii. 17, 18.

[576] The authenticity of which has been questioned. The style is

perhaps not quite worthy of Chrysostom; but in one of his sermons after

his return from exile he apparently alludes to some quotations from Job

made in this discourse.

[577] More strictly speaking, “the Hieron,” “the sacred spot” where

the Argonauts were supposed to have offered sacrifice to Zeus on their

return from Colchis.

[578] Sozom. viii. 18, 19. Socrat. vi. 16, 17. Zosim. v. 23.

[579] Theod. v. 34. Chrys. vol. iii. p. 446.

[580] Socr. vi. 16. Soz. viii. 18. Chrys. Ep. ad Innoc. in Dial. Pall.

p. 10.

[581] It appears from subsequent events that Theophilus had not yet

actually quitted Constantinople, but he and his partisans had retired

for the time discomfited from the field of active opposition; and

this would justify the language of Chrysostom, who is speaking under

excitement.

[582] Sermones 1 and 2, post red. ab exsil. vol. iii.

[583] Socrat. vi. 17. Sozom. viii. 19.

[584] Ep. ad Innoc. in Pallad. Dial. p. 10.

[585] As distinguished from the Forum of Constantine, which was

elliptical in shape.

[586] Cod. Theod. vi. 102.

[587] The celebrated exordium of a homily supposed to be directed

against Eudoxia—“Again Herodias rages, again she demands the head of

John”—if actually spoken with reference to John the Baptist, may easily

have been represented by the malevolent as aimed at the Empress. But

the whole homily has been pronounced spurious by Savile and Montfaucon,

and on perusal of it their verdict seems reasonable. The discourse

is the production of a thorough misogynist, describing with much

coarseness and acrimony the misery and trouble caused by the wickedness

of women. Most will agree with Savile, that it is “scarcely worth

reading, and quite unworthy emendation.”—Vol. viii. p. 485.

[588] Pallad. Dial. c. 9.

[589] Sozom. viii. 20. Socrat. vi. 18. Pallad. Dial. c. 9.

[590] Pallad. Dial. c. 9.

[591] Pallad. Dial. c. 9.

[592] Pallad. Dial. c. 9. Chrysostom (Ep. ad Innoc. vol. iii.) speaks

of more than forty friendly bishops.

[593] Vol. iii. p. 533.

[594] Pallad. Dial. c. 9.

[595] Pallad. Dial. c. 9. Sozom. viii. 21.

[596] Pallad. Dial. 10. Sozom. viii. 21, 22. Socrat. vi. 18.

[597] Pallad. Dial. c. 10.

[598] Pallad. Dial. c. 10. Zosim. v. 24. Sozom. viii. 2.

[599] Pallad. Dial. c. 11.

[600] Ep. ad Episcop. vol. iii. pp. 541 and 673.

[601] C. 11.

[602] Epist. cxxv.

[603] Epist. ccxii.

[604] Sozom. viii. 24. Pallad. Dial. c. 20.

[605] Epist. ad Olymp. vi.

[606] Epp. xciv. and civ.

[607] Pallad. Dial. cc. 1, 2, 3.

[608] Ep. cxiii.

[609] Epp. clxviii. clxix. _et aliæ_.

[610] Pallad. Dial. c. 3.

[611] Sozom. viii. 26.

[612] One previous letter we possess in Chrys. vol. iii. p. 539, in

which he expresses his horror at the late outrages in the Church of St.

Sophia, and at the gross violation of justice and law in the recent

so-called trial of Chrysostom.

[613] Pallad. Dial. c. 4.

[614] Nilus, 2 Epp. cclxv. and cclxxix. Sozom. viii. 25.

[615] Pallad. Dial. 20.

[616] Sozom. viii. 27. Pallad. Dial. 20.

[617] Ep. ad eos qui scandalizati sunt, c. 19.

[618] Pallad. Dial. cc. 15 and 16.

[619] Theod. v. 34.