ary inhabitants of the desert, speculated with them on



222 CHRYSOSTOM.



the mystic theogonies of the East, discoursed with them
on the origin of evil, studied with them the Christian
mysteries, fasted with them, prayed with them, slept like
them on a bed of straw, denied himself his accustomed
luxuries, abandoning himself to alternate transports of
grief and sublime enthusiasm, now contending with the
demons who sought his destruction; then soaring to
comprehend the Man-God, the Word made flesh, the
incarnation of the divine Logos, and the still more
subtile questions pertaining to the nature and distinc-
tions of the Trinity.

Such were the forms and modes of his conversion,
somewhat different from the experience of Augus-
tine or of Luther, yet not less real and permanent.
Those days were the happiest of his life. He had
leisure and he had enthusiasm. He desired neither
riches nor honors, but the peace of a forgiven soul.
He was a monk without losing his humanity ; a philo-
sopher without losing his taste for the Bible ; a Chris-
tian without repudiating the learning of the schools.
But the influence of early education, his practical yet
speculative intellect, his inextinguishable sympathies,
his desire for usefulness, and possibly an unsubdued
ambition to exert a greater influence would not allow
him wholly to bury himself. He made long visits to
the friends and habitations he had left, in order to
stimulate their faith, relieve their necessities, and en-



SACRED ELOQUENCE. 223

courage them in works of benevolence; leading a life
of alternate study and active philanthropy, learning
from the accomplished Diodorus the historical mode
of interpreting the Scriptures, and from the profound
Theodorus the systems of ancient philosophy. Thus
did he train himself for his future labors, and lay the
foundation for his future greatness. It was thus he
accumulated those intellectual treasures which he after-
wards lavished at the imperial court.

But his health at last gave way ; and who can won-
der ? Who can long thrive amid exhausting studies on
root dinners and ascetic severities? He was obliged
to leave his cave, where he had dwelt six blessed years ;
and the bishop of Antioch, who knew his merits, pressed
him into the active service of the Church, and ordained
him deacon, for the hierarchy of the Church was then
established, whatever may have been the original dis-
tinctions of the clergy. With these we have nothing to
do. But it does not appear that he preached as yet to
the people, but performed like other deacons the hum-
ble office of reader, leaving to priests and bishops the
higher duties of a public teacher. It was impossible,
however, for a man of his piety and his gifts, his melo-
dious voice, his extensive learning, and his impressive
manners long to remain in a subordinate post. He
was accordingly ordained a presbyter, A. D. 381, by
Bishop - Flavian, in the spacious basilica of Antioch,



224 CHRYSOSTOM.



and the active labors of his life began at the age of
thirty-four.

Many were the priests associated with him in that
great central metropolitan church ; " but upon him was
laid the duty of especially preaching to the people,
the most important function recognized by the early
Church. He generally preached twice in the week,
on Saturday and Sunday mornings, often at break of
day, in consequence of the heat of the sun. And such
was his popularity and unrivalled power, that the
bishop, it is said, often allowed him to finish what
he had himself begun. His listeners would crowd
around his pulpit, and even interrupt his teachings by
their applause. They were unwearied, though they
stood generally beyond an hour. His elocution, his
gestures, and his matter were alike enchanting." Like
Bernard, his very voice would melt to tears. It was
music singing divine philosophy ; it was harmony
clothing the richest moral wisdom with the most glow-
ing style. Never, since the palmy days of Greece, had
her astonishing language been wielded by such a mas-
ter. He was an artist, if sacred eloquence does not
disdain that word. The people were electrified by the
invectives of an Athenian orator, and moved by the
exhortations of a Christian apostle. In majesty and
solemnity the ascetic preacher was a Jewish prophet
delivering to kings the unwelcome messages of divine




From the />'ii ntimj bij Pionibo, Venice



ST. CHEYSOSTOM



SACRED ELOQUENCE. 225

Omnipotence. In grace of manner and elegance of
language he was the persuasive advocate of the ancient
Forum ; in earnestness and unction he has been rivalled
only by Savonarola ; in dignity and learning he may
remind us of Bossuet ; in his simplicity and orthodoxy
he was the worthy successor of him who preached at the
day of Pentecost. He realized the perfection which
sacred eloquence attained, but to which Pagan art has
vainly aspired, a charm and a wonder to both learned
and unlearned, the precursor of the Bourdaloues and
Lacordaires of the Koman Catholic Church, but espe-
cially the model for "all preachers who set above all
worldly wisdom those divine revelations which alone
can save the world."

Everything combined to make Chrysostom the pride
and the glory of the ancient Church, the doctrines
which he did not hesitate to proclaim to unwilling
ears, and the matchless manner in which he enforced
them, perhaps the most remarkable preacher, on the
whole, that ever swayed an audience; uniting all
things, voice, language, figure, passion, learning, taste,
art, piety, occasion, motive, prestige, and material to
work upon. He left to posterity more than a thousand
sermons, arid the printed edition of all his works num-
bers twelve folio volumes. Much as we are inclined to
underrate the genius and learning of other days in this

our age of more advanced utilities, of progressive and

15



226 CHRYSOSTOM.



ever-developing civilization, when Sabbath-school
children know more than sages knew two thousand
years ago, and socialistic philanthropists and scientific
savans could put to blush Moses and Solomon and
David, to say nothing of Paul and Peter, and other re-
puted oracles of the ancient world, inasmuch as they
were so weak and credulous as to believe in miracles,
and a special Providence, and a personal God, yet we
find in the sermons of Chrysostom, preached even to
voluptuous Syrians, no commonplace exhortations, such
as we sometimes hear addressed to the thinkers of this
generation, when poverty of thought is hidden in pretty
expressions, and the waters of life are measured out in
tiny gill cups, and even then diluted by weak plati-
tudes to suit the taste of the languid and bedizened
and frivolous slaves of society, whose only intellectual
struggle is to reconcile the pleasures of material and
sensual life with the joys and glories of the world to
come. He dwelt, boldly and earnestly, and with mas-
culine power, on the majesty of God and the compara-
tive littleness of man, on moral accountability to Him,
on human degeneracy, on the mysterious power of evil,
by force of which good people in this dispensation are
in a small minority, on the certainty of future retribu-
tion ; yet also on the never-fading glories of immor-
tality which Christ has brought to light by his sufferings
and death, his glorious resurrection and ascension, and



SACRED ELOQUENCE. 227

the promised influences of the Holy Spirit. These truths,
so solemn and so grand, he preached, not with tricks of
rhetoric, but simply and urgently, as an ambassador of
Heaven to lost and guilty man. And can you wonder
at the effect ? When preachers throw themselves on the
cardinal truths of Christianity, and preach with earnest-
ness as if they believed them, they carry the people
with them, producing a lasting impression, and growing
broader and more dignified every day. When they seek
novelties, and appeal purely to the intellect, or attempt
to be philosophical or learned, they fail, whatever their
talents. It is the divine truth which saves, not genius
and learning, especially the masses, and even the
learned and rich, when their eyes are opened to the
delusions of life.

For twelve years Chrysostom preached at Antioch,
the oracle and the friend of all classes whether high or
low, rich or poor, so that he became a great moral force,
and his fame extended to all parts of the Empire. Sena-
tors and generals and governors came to hear his elo-
quence. And when, to his vast gifts, he added the
graces and virtues of the humblest of his flock, part-
ing with a splendid patrimony to feed the hungry and
clothe the naked, utterly despising riches except as a
means of usefulness, living most abstemiously, shunning
the society of idolaters, indefatigable in labor, accessible
to those who needed spiritual consolation, healing dissen-



228 CHRYSOSTOM.



sions, calming mobs, befriending the persecuted, rebuk-
ing sin in high places ; a man acquainted with grief in
the midst of intoxicating intellectual triumphs, rev-
erence and love were added to admiration, and no limits
could be fixed to the moral influence he exerted.

There are few incidents in his troubled age more
impressive than when this great preacher sheltered
Antioch from the vengeance of Theodosius. That
thoughtless and turbulent city had been disgraced by
an outrageous insult to the emperor. A mob, a very
common thing in that age, had rebelled against the
majesty of the law, and murdered the officers of
the Government. The anger of Theodosius knew no
bounds, but was fortunately averted by the entreaties
of the bishop, and the emperor abstained from inflict-
ing on the guilty city the punishment he afterwards
sent upon Thessalonica for a less crime. Moreover
the repentance of the people was open and profound.
Chrysostom had moved and melted them. It was the
season of Lent. Every day the vast church was crowded.
The shops were closed ; the Forum was deserted ; the
theatre was shut ; the entire day was consumed with
public prayers ; all pleasures were forsaken ; fear and
anguish sat on every countenance, as in a Mediaeval
city after an excommunication. Chrysostom improved
the occasion ; and perhaps the most remarkable Lenten
sermons ever preached^ subdued the fierce spirits of



SACRED ELOQUENCE. 229

the city, and Antioch was saved. It was certainly a
sublime spectacle to see a simple priest, unclothed
even with episcopal functions, surrounded for weeks
by the entire population of a great city, ready to obey
his word, and looking to him alone as their deliverer
from temporal calamities, as well as their guide in flee-
ing from the wrath to come.

And here we have a noted example of the power as
well as the dignity of the pulpit, a power which
never passed away even in ages of superstition, never
disdained by abbots or prelates or popes in the pleni-
tude of their secular magnificence (as we know from the
sermons of Gregory and Bernard) ; a sacred force even
in the hands of monks, as when Savonarola ruled the
city of Florence, and Bourdaloue awed the court of
France; but a still greater force among the Eeform-
ers, like Luther and Knox and Latimer, yea in all the
crises and changes of both the Catholic and Protestant
churches; and not to be disdained even in our utili-
tarian times, when from more than two hundred thou-
sand pulpits in various countries of Christendom, every
Sunday, there go forth voices, weak or strong, from
gifted or from shallow men, urging upon the people
their duties, and presenting to them the hopes of the
life to come. Oh, what a power is this ! How few
realize its greatness, as a whole ! What a power it is,
even in its weaker forms, when the clergy abdicate their



230 CHRYSOSTOM.



prerogatives and turn themselves into lecturers, or bury
themselves in liturgies ! But when they preach with-
out egotism or vanity, scorning sensationalism and vul-
garity and cant, and falling back on the great truths
which save the world, then sacredness is added to dig-
nity. And especially when the preacher is fearless and
earnest, declaring most momentous truths, and to people
who respond in their hearts to those truths, who are
filled with the same enthusiasm as he is himself, and
who catch eagerly his words of life, and follow his direc-
tions as if he were indeed a messenger of Jehovah,
then I know of no moral power which can be compared
with the pulpit. Worldly men talk of the power of
the press, and it is indeed an influence not to be dis-
dained, it is a great leaven; but the teachings of its
writers, when not superficial, are contradictory, and are
often mere echoes of public sentiment in reference to
mere passing movements and fashions and politics and
spoils. But the declarations of the clergy, for the most
part, are all in unison, in all the various churches
Catholic and Protestant, Episcopalian, Presbyterian,
Methodist and Baptist which accept God Almighty
as the moral governor of the universe, the great master
of our destinies, whose eternal voice speaketh to the
conscience of mankind. And hence their teachings, if
they are true to their calling, have reference to inter-
ests and duties and aspirations and hopes as far re-



SACRED ELOQUENCE. 231

moved in importance from mere temporal matters as
the heaven is higher than the earth. Oh, what high
treason to the deity whom the preacher invokes, what
stupidity, what frivolity, what insincerity, what inca-
pacity of realizing what is truly great, when he descends
from the lofty themes of salvation and moral accounta-
bility, to dwell on the platitudes of aesthetic culture,
the beauties and glories of Nature, or the wonders of a
material civilization, and then with not half the force
of those books and periodicals which are scattered in
every hamlet of civilized Europe and America !

Now it was to the glory of Chrysostom that he felt
the dignity of his calling and aspired to nothing higher,
satisfied with his great vocation, a vocation which can
never be measured by the lustre of a church or the
wealth of a congregation. Gregory Nazianzen, whether
preaching in his paternal village or in the cathedral of
Constantinople, was equally the creator of those opin-
ion-makers who settle the verdicts of men. Augustine,
in a little African town, wielded ten times the influence
of a bishop of Rome, and his sermons to the people of
the town of Hippo furnished a thesaurus of divinity
to the clergy for a thousand years.

Nevertheless, Antioch was not great enough to hold
such a preacher as Chrysostom. He was summoned by
imperial authority to the capital of the Eastern Empire.
One of the ministers of Arcadius, the son of the great



232 CHRYSOSTOM.



Theodosius, had heard him preach, and greatly admired
his eloquence, and perhaps craved the excitement of
his discourses, as the people of Rome hankered after
the eloquence of Cicero when he was sent into exile.
Chrysostom reluctantly resigned his post in a provincial
city to become the Patriarch of Constantinople. It was
a great change in his outward dignity. His situation as
the highest prelate of the East was rarely conferred ex-
cept on the favorites of emperors, as the episcopal sees of
Mediaeval Europe were rarely given to men but of noble
birth. Yet being forced, as it were, to accept what he
did not seek or perhaps desire, he resolved to be true
to himself and his master. Scarcely was he conse-
crated by Theophilus of Alexandria before he launched
out his indignant invectives against the patron who
had elevated him, the court which admired him, and
the imperial family which sustained him. Still the
preacher, when raised to the government of the Eastern
church, regarding his sphere in the pulpit as the loftiest
which mortal genius could fill. He feared no one, and
he spared no one. None could rob a man who had
parted with a princely fortune for the sake of Christ;
none could bribe a man who had no favors to ask, and
who could live on a crust of bread ; none could silence
a man who felt himself to be the minister of divine
Omnipotence, and who scattered before his altar the
dust of worldly grandeur.



SACRED ELOQUENCE. 233

It seems that Chrysostom regarded his first duty,
even as the Metropolitan of the East, to preach the
gospel. He subordinated the bishop to the preacher.
True, he was the almoner of his church and the director
of its revenues ; but he felt that the church of Christ had
a higher vocation for a bishop to fill than to be a good
business man. Amid all the distractions of his great
office he preached as often and as fervently as he did at
Antioch. Though possessed of enormous revenues, he
curtailed the expenses of his household, and surrounded
himself with the pious and the learned. He lived re-
tired within his palace ; he dined alone on simple food,
and always at home. The great were displeased that he
would not honor with his presence their sumptuous ban-
quets ; but rich dinners did not agree with his weak
digestion, and perhaps he valued too highly his precious
time to waste himself, body and soul, for the enjoyment
of even admiring courtiers. His power was not at the
dinner-table but in the pulpit, and he feared to weaken
the effects of his discourses by the exhibition of weak-
nesses which nearly every man displays amid the excite-
ments of social intercourse.

Perhaps, however, Chrysostom was too ascetic. Christ
dined with publicans and sinners ; and a man must un-
bend somewhere, or he loses the elasticity of his mind,
and becomes a formula or a mechanism. The convivial
enjoyments of Luther enabled him to bear his burden.



234 CHRYSOSTOM.



Had Thomas a Becket shown the same humanity as
archbishop that he did as chancellor, he might not
have quarrelled with his royal master. So Chrysos-
tom might have retained his favor with the court
and his see until he died, had he been less austere
and censorious. Yet we should remember that the
asceticism which is so repulsive to us, and with reason,
and which marked the illustrious saints of the fourth
century, was simply the protest against the almost uni-
versal materialism of the day, that dreadful moral
blight which was undermining society. As luxury and
extravagance and material pleasures were the prominent
evils of the old Eoman world in its decline, it was natu-
ral that the protest against these evils should assume the
greatest outward antagonism. Luxury and a worldly
life were deemed utterly inconsistent with a preacher of
righteousness, and were disdained with haughty scorn
by the prophets of the Lord, as they were by Elijah and
Elisha in the days of Ahab. " What went ye out in the
wilderness to see?" said our Lord, with disdainful irony,
" a man clothed in soft raiment ? They that wear
soft clothing are in king's houses," as much as to say,
My prophets, my ministers, rejoice not in such things.

So Chrysostom could never forget that he was a
minister of Christ, and was willing to forego the trap-
pings and pleasures of material life sooner than ab-
dicate his position as a spiritual dictator. The secular



SACRED ELOQUENCE. 235

historians of our day would call him arrogant, like the
courtiers of Arcadius, who detested his plain speaking
and his austere piety ; but the poor and unimportant
thought him as humble as the rich and great thought
him proud. Moreover, he was a foe to idleness, and sent
away from court to their distant sees a host of bishops
who wished to bask in the sunshine of court favor, or
revel in the excitements of a great city ; and they became
his enemies. He deposed others for simony, and they
became still more hostile. Others again complained
that he was inhospitable, since he would not give up
his time to everybody, even while he scattered his rev-
enues to the poor. And still others entertained towards
him the passion of envy, that which gives rancor to
the odium theologicum, that fatal passion which caused
Daniel to be cast into the lions' den, and Haman to
plot the ruin of Mordecai ; a passion which turns beau-
tiful women into serpents, and learned theologians into
fiends. So that even Chrysostom was assailed with
danger. Even he was not too high to fall.

The first to turn against the archbishop was the Lord
High Chamberlain, Eutropius, the minister who
had brought him to Constantinople. This vulgar-minded
man expected to find in the preacher he had elevated a
flatterer and a tool. He was as much deceived as was
Henry II. when he made Thomas a Becket archbishop of
Canterbury. The rigid and fearless metropolitan, instead



236 CHRYSOSTOM.



of telling stories at his table and winking at his infamies,
openly rebuked his extortions and exposed his robberies.
The disappointed minister of Arcadius then bent his
energies to compass the ruin of the prelate ; but, before
he could effect his purpose, he was himself disgraced at
court. The army in revolt had demanded his head, and
Eutropius fled to the metropolitan church of Saint Sophia.
Chrysostom seized the occasion to impress his hearers
with the instability of human greatness, and preached a
sort of funeral oration for the man before he was dead.
As the fallen and wretched minister of the emperor lay
crouching in an agony of shame and fear beneath the ta-
ble of the altar, the preacher burst out : " Oh, vanity of
vanities, where is now the glory of this man ? Where
the splendor of the light which surrounded him ; where
the jubilee of the multitude which applauded him ;
where the friends who worshipped his power; where
the incense offered to his image ? All gone ! It was
a dream : it has fled like a shadow ; it has burst like a
bubble ! Oh, vanity of vanity of vanities ! Write it
on all walls and garments and streets and houses :
write it on your consciences. Let every one cry aloud
to his neighbor, Behold, all is vanity ! And thou,
wretched man," turning to the fallen chamberlain,
"did I not say unto thee that money is a thankless
servant ? Said I not that wealth is a most treacherous
friend ? The theat re, on which thou hast bestowed honor,



SACRED ELOQUENCE. 237

has betrayed thee ; the race-course, after devouring thy
gains, has sharpened the sword of those whom thou hast
labored to amuse. But our sanctuary, which thou
hast so often assailed, now opens her bosom to receive
thee, and covers thee with her wings."

But even the sacred cathedral did not protect him.
He was dragged out and slain.

A more relentless foe now appeared against the pre-
late, no less a personage than Theophilus, the very
bishop who had consecrated him. Jealousy was the
cause, and heresy the pretext, that most convenient
cry of theologians, often indeed just, as when Bernard
accused Abelard, and Calvin complained of Servetus ;
but oftener, the most effectual way of bringing ruin on
a hated man, as when the partisans of Alexander VI.
brought Savonarola to the tribunal of the Inquisition.
It seems that Theophilus had driven out of Egypt a
body of monks because they would not assent to the
condemnation of Origen's writings ; and the poor men,
not knowing where to go, fled to Constantinople and
implored the protection of the Patriarch. He com-
passionately gave them shelter, and permission to say
their prayers in one of his churches. Therefore he
was a heretic, like them, a follower of Origen.

Under common circumstances such an accusation
would have been treated with contempt. But, unfor-
tunately, Chrysostom had alienated other bishops also.



238 CHRYSOSTOM.



Yet their hostility would not have been heeded had not
the empress herself, the beautiful and the artful Eudoxia,
sided against him. This proud, ambitious, pleasure-
seeking, malignant princess in passion a Jezebel, in
policy a Catherine de Medici, in personal fascination a
Mary Queen of Scots hated the archbishop, as Mary
hated John Knox, because he had ventured to reprove
her levities and follies ; and through her influence (and
how great is the influence of a beautiful woman on an irre-
sponsible monarch ! ) the emperor, a weak man, allowed
Theophilus to summon and preside over a council for
the trial of Chrysostom. It assembled at a place called
the Oaks, in the suburbs of Chalcedon, and was composed
entirely of the enemies of the Patriarch. Nothing, how-
ever, was said about his heresy : that charge was ridicu-
lous. But he was accused of slandering the clergy he
had called them corrupt ; of having neglected the duties
of hospitality, for he dined generally alone ; of having
used expressions unbecoming of the house of God, for
he was severe and sarcastic; of having encroached on
the jurisdiction of foreign bishops in having shielded