a few excommunicated monks ; and of being guilty of
high treason, since he had preached against the sins of
the empress. On these charges, which he disdained to
answer, and before a council which he deemed illegal,
he was condemned ; and the emperor accepted the sen-
tence, and sent him into exile.



SACRED ELOQUENCE. 239

But the people of Constantinople would not let him
go. They drove away his enemies from the city ; they
raised a sedition and a seasonable earthquake, as Gibbon
might call it, and having excited superstitious fears,
the empress caused him to be recalled. His return,
of course, was a triumph. The people spread their gar-
ments in his way, and conducted him in pomp to his
archiepiscopal throne. Sixty bishops assembled and
annulled the sentence of the Council of the Oaks. He
was now more popular and powerful than before. But
not more prudent. For a silver statue of the empress
having been erected so near to the cathedral that the
games instituted to its honor disturbed the services of
the church, the bishop in great indignation ascended the
pulpit, and declaimed against female vices. The empress
at this was furious, and threatened another council.
Chrysostom, still undaunted, then delivered that cele-
brated sermon, commencing thus : " Again Herodias
raves ; again she dances ; again she demands the head of
John in a basin." This defiance, which was regarded as
an insult, closed the career of Chrysostom in the capital
of the Empire. Both the emperor and empress deter-
mined to silence him. A new council was convened, and
the Patriarch was accused of violating the canons of the
Church. It seems he ventured to preach before he was
formally restored, and for this technical offence he was
again deposed. No second earthquake or popular sedition



240 CHRYSOSTOM.



saved him. He had sailed too long against the stream.
What genius and what fame can protect a man who
mocks or defies the powers that be, whether kings or
people ? If Socrates could not be endured at Athens, if
Cicero was banished from Rome, how could this unarmed
priest expect immunity from the possessors of absolute
power whom he had offended ? It is the fate of proph-
ets to be stoned. The bold expounders of unpalatable
truth ever have been martyrs, in some form or other.

But Chrysostom met his fate with fortitude, and the
only favor which he asked was to reside in Cyzicus, near
Nicomedia. This was refused, and the place of his exile
was fixed at Cucusus, a remote and desolate city amid
the ridges of Mount Taurus ; a distance of seventy days'
journey, which he was compelled to make in the heat of
summer.

But he lived to reach this dreary resting-place, and
immediately devoted himself to the charms of literary
composition and letters to his friends. No murmurs
escaped him. He did not languish, as Cicero did in his
exile, or even like Thiers in Switzerland. Banishment
was not dreaded by a man who disdained the luxuries
of a great capital, and who was not ambitious of power
and rank. Retirement he had sought, even in his youth,
and it was no martyrdom to him so long as he could
study, meditate, and write.

So Chrysostom was serene, even cheerful, amid the
blasts of a cold and cheerless climate. It was there he



SACRED ELOQUENCE. 241

wrote those noble and interesting letters, of which two
hundred and forty still remain. Indeed, his influence
seemed to increase with his absence from the capital; and
this his enemies beheld with the rage which Napoleon
felt for Madame de Stael when he had banished her to
within forty leagues of Paris. So a fresh order from the
Government doomed him to a still more dreary solitude,
on the utmost confines of the Koman Empire, on the coast
of the Euxine, even the desert of Pityus. But his feeble
body could not sustain the fatigues of this second jour-
ney. He was worn out with disease, labors, and austeri-
ties ; and he died at Comono, in Pontus, near the place
where Henry Martin died, in the sixtieth year of his
age, a martyr, like greater men than he.

Nevertheless this martyrdom, and at the hands of a
Christian emperor, filled the world with grief. It was
only equalled in intensity by the martyrdom of Becket
in after ages. The voice of envy was at last hushed ; one
of the greatest lights of the Church was extinguished for-
ever. Another generation, however, transported his re-
mains to the banks of the Bosporus, and the emperor
the second Theodosius himself advanced to receive them
as far as Chalcedon, and devoutly kneeling before his
coffin, even as Henry II. kneeled at the shrine of Becket,
invoked the forgiveness of the departed saint for the in-
justice and injuries he had received. His bones were
interred with extraordinary pomp in the tomb of the
apostles, and were afterwards removed to Eome, and



242 CHRYSOSTOM.



deposited, still later, beneath a marble mausoleum in a
chapel of Saint Peter, where they still remain.

Such were the life and death of the greatest pulpit
orator of Christian antiquity. And how can I describe
his influence? His sermons, indeed, remain ; but since
we have given up the Fathers to the Catholics, as if they
had a better right to them than we, their writings are
not so well known as they ought to be, as they will be,
when we become broader in our views and more modest
of our own attainments. Few of the Protestant divines,
whom we so justly honor, surpassed Chrysostom in the
soundness of his theology, and in the learning with which
he adorned his sermons. Certainly no one of them has
equalled him in his fervid, impassioned, and classic elo-
quence. He belongs to the Church universal. The
great divines of the seventeenth century made him the
subject of their admiring study. In the Middle Ages
he was one of the great lights of the reviving schools.
Jeremy Taylor, not less than Bossuet, acknowledged
his matchless services. One of his prayers has entered
into the beautiful liturgy of Cranmer. He was a Ber-
nard, a Bourdaloue, and a Whitefield combined, speak-
ing in the language of Pericles, and on themes which
Paganism never comprehended and the Middle Ages
but imperfectly discussed.

The permanent influence of such a man can only be
measured by the dignity and power of the pulpit itsel!



SACRED ELOQUENCE. 243

in all countries and in all ages. So far as pulpit elo-
quence is an art, its greatest master still speaketh. But
greater than his art was the truth which he unfolded
and adorned. It is not because he held the most culti-
vated audiences of his age spell-bound by his eloquence,
but because he did not fear to deliver his message, and
because he magnified his office, and preached to emperors
and princes as if they were ordinary men, and regarded
himself as the bearer of most momentous truth, and
soared beyond human praises, and forgot himself in his
cause, and that cause the salvation of souls, it is for
these things that I most honor him, and believe that
his name will be held more and more in reverence, as
Christianity becomes more and more the mighty power
of the world.



AUTHORITIES.

Theodoret ; Socrates ; Sozomen ; Gregory Nazianzen's Orations ; the
Works of Chrysostom ; Baronius's Annals ; Epistle of Saint Jerome; Tille-
mont's Ecclesiastical History ; Mabillon ; Fleury's Ecclesiastical History ;
Life of Chrysostom by Monard, also a Life, by Frederic M. Perthes,
translated by Professor Hovey; Neander's Church History; Gibbon;
Milman ; Du Pin ; Stanley's Lectures on the Eastern Church. The Lives
of the Fathers have been best written by Frenchmen, and by Catholic
historians.



SAINT AMBROSE.

EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY.
A. D. 340-397.



SAINT AMBROSE.



EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY.

the great Fathers, few are dearer to the Church
than Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, both on
account of his virtues and the dignity he gave to the
episcopal office.

Nearly all the great Fathers were bishops, but I
select Ambrose as the representative of their order,
because he was more illustrious as a prelate than as a
theologian or orator, although he stood high as both.
He contributed more than any man who preceded him
to raise the power of bishops as one of the controlling
agencies of society for more than a thousand years.

The episcopal office, aside from its spiritual aspects,
had become a great worldly dignity as early as the
fourth century. It gave its possessor rank, power,
wealth, a superb social position, even in the eyes of
worldly men. " Make me but bishop of Rome," said
a great Pagan general, "and I too would become a



248 SAINT AMBROSE.

Christian." As archbishop of Milan, the second city
of Italy, Ambrose found himself one of the highest
dignitaries of the Empire.

Whence this great power of bishops ? How hap-
pened it that the humble ministers of a new and per-
secuted religion became princes of the earth? What a
change from the outward condition of Paul and Peter
to that of Ambrose and Leo !

It would be unpleasant to present this subject on
controversial and sectarian grounds. Let those people
and they are numerous who believe in the divine
right of bishops, enjoy their opinion ; it is not for me
to assail them. Let any party in the Church universal
advocate the divine institution of their own form of
government. But I do not believe that any particular
form of government is laid down in the Bible ; and yet
I admit that church government is as essential and
fundamental a matter as a worldly government. Gov-
ernment, then, must be in both Church and State. This
is recognized in the Scriptures. No institution or State
can live without it. Men are exhorted by apostles to
obey it, as a Christian duty. But they do not prescribe
the form, leaving that to be settled by the circum-
stances of the times, the wants of nations, the exigen-
cies of the religious world. And whatever form of gov-
ernment arises, and is confirmed by the wisest and best
men, is to be sustained, is to be obeyed. The people



EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY. 249

of Germany recognize imperial authority : it may be
the best government for them. England is practically
ruled by an aristocracy, for the House of Commons
is virtually as aristocratic in sympathies as the House
of Lords. In this country we have a representation of
the people, chosen by the people, and ruling for the
people. We think this is the best form of government
for us, just now. In Athens there was a pure democ-
racy. Which of these forms of civil government did
God appoint?

So in the Church. For four centuries the bishops
controlled the infant Church. For ten centuries after-
wards the Popes ruled the Christian world, and claimed
a divine right. The government of the Church assumed
the theocratic form. At the Eeformation numerous
sects arose, most of them claiming the indorsement of
the Scriptures. Some of these sects became very high-
church; that is, they based their organization on the
supposed authority of the Bible. All these sects are
sincere ; but they differ, and they have a right to differ.
Probably the day never will come when there will be
uniformity of opinion on church government, any more
than on doctrines in theology.

Now it seems to me that episcopal power arose, like
all other powers, from the circumstances of society,
the wants of the age. One thing cannot be disputed,
that the early bishop or presbyter, or elder, whatever



250 SAINT AMBROSE.

name you choose to call him was a very humble and
unimportant person in the eyes of the world. He lived
in no state, in no dignity ; he had no wealth, and no
social position outside his flock. He preached in an
upper chamber or in catacombs. Saint Paul preached
at Home with chains on his arms or legs. The apostles
preached to plain people, to common people, and lived
sometimes by the work of their own hands. In a cen-
tury or two, although the Church was still hunted and
persecuted, there were nevertheless many converts.
These converts contributed from their small means to
the support of the poor. At first the deacons, who
seem to have been laymen, had charge of this money.
Paul was too busy a man himself to serve tables.
Gradually there arose the need of a superintendent, or
overseer ; and that is the meaning of the Greek word
eWo-o7ro9, from which we get our term bishop. Soon,
therefore, the superintendent or bishop of the local
church had the control of the public funds, the expendi-
ture of which he directed. This was necessary. As
converts multiplied and wealth increased, it became
indispensable for the clergy of a city to have a head ;
this officer became presiding elder, or bishop, whose
great duty, however, was to preach. In another cen-
tury these bishops had become influential ; and when
Christianity was established by Constantine as the
religion of the Empire, they added power to influence,



EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY. 251

for they disbursed great revenues and ruled a large
body of inferior clergy. They were looked up to; they
became honored and revered; and deserved to be, for
they were good men, and some of them learned. Then
they sought a warrant for their power outside the cir-
cumstances to which they were indebted for their eleva-
tion. It was easy to find it. What sect cannot find it ?
They strained texts of Scripture, as that great and
good man, Moses Stuart, of Andover, in his zeal for the
temperance cause, strained texts to prove that the wine
of Palestine did not intoxicate.

But whatever were the causes which led to the eleva-
tion and ascendency of bishops, the fact is clear enough
that episcopal authority began at an early date ; and
that bishops were influential in the third century and
powerful in the fourth, a most fortunate thing, as I
conceive, for the Church at that time. As early as the
third century we read of so great a man as the martyr
Cyprian declaring "that bishops had the same rights
as apostles, whose successors they were." In the fourth
century, such illustrious men as Eusebius of Emesa,
Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory
of Nyssa, Martin of Tours, Chrysostom of Constanti-
nople, and Augustine of Hippo, and sundry other great
men whose writings swayed the human mind until the
Reformation, advocated equally high-church preten-
sions. The bishops of that day lived in a state of



252 SAINT AMBROSE.

worldly grandeur, reduced the power of presbyters to
a shadow, seated themselves on thrones, surrounded
themselves with the insignia of princes, claimed the
right of judging in civil matters, multiplied the offi-
ces of the Church, and controlled revenues greater than
the incomes of senators and patricians. As for the
bishoprics of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Anti-
och, and Milan, they were great governments, and re-
quired men of great executive ability to rule them.
Preaching gave way to the multiplied duties and cares
of an exalted station. A bishop was then not often
selected because he could preach well, but because he
knew how to govern. Who, even in our times, would
think of filling the See of London, although it is Prot-
estant, with a man whose chief merit is in his elo-
quence ? They want a business man for such a post.
Eloquence is no objection, but executive ability is the
thing most needed.

So Providence imposed great duties on the bishops of
the fourth century, especially in large cities ; and very
able as well as good men were required for this position,
equally one of honor and authority.

The See of Milan was then one of the most important
in the Empire. It was the seat of imperial government.
Valentinian, an able general, bore the sceptre of the
West; for the Empire was then divided, Valentinian
ruling the eastern, and his brother Gratian the western,



EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY. 253

portion of it, and, as the Goths were overrunning
the civilized world and threatening Italy, Valentinian
fixed his seat of government at Milan. It was a
turbulent city, disgraced by mobs and religious fac-
tions. The Arian party, headed by the Empress Jus-
tina, mother of the young emperor, was exceedingly
powerful. It was a critical period, and even orthodoxy
was in danger of being subverted. I might dwell on
the miseries of that period, immediately preceding the
fall of the Empire ; but all I will say is, that the See
of Milan needed a very able, conscientious, and wise
prelate.

Hence Ambrose was selected, not by the emperor but
by the people, in whom was vested the right of election.
He was then governor of that part of Italy now em-
braced by the archbishoprics of Milan, Turin, Genoa,
Eavenna, and Bologna, the greater part of Lombardy
and Sardinia. He belonged to an illustrious Eoman
family. His father had been praetorian prefect of Gaul,
which embraced not only Gaul, but Britain and Africa,
about a third of the Eoman Empire. The seat of this
great prefecture was Treves ; and here Ambrose was born
in the year 340. His early days were of course passed
in luxury and pomp. On the death of his father he
retired to Eome to complete his education, and soon
outstripped his noble companions in learning and
accomplishments. Such was his character and posi-



254 SAINT AMBROSE.

tion that he was selected, at the age of thirty-four, for
the government of Northern Italy. Nothing eventful
marked his rule as governor, except that he was just,
humane, and able. Had he continued governor, his
name would not have passed down in history; he
would have been forgotten like other provincial gov-
ernors.

But he was destined to a higher sphere and a more
exalted position than that of governor of an important
province. On the death of Archbishop Auxentius,
A. D. 374, the See of Milan became vacant. A great
man was required for the archbishopric in that age of
factions, heresies, and tumults. The whole city was
thrown into the wildest excitement. The emperor
wisely declined to interfere with the election. Eival
parties could not agree on a candidate. A tumult
arose. The governor Ambrose proceeded to the
cathedral church, where the election was going on, to
appease the tumult. His appearance produced a mo-
mentary calm, when a little child cried out, " Let Am-
brose our governor be our bishop!" That cry was
regarded as a voice from heaven, as the voice of
inspiration. The people caught the words, re-echoed
the cry, and tumultuously shouted, " Yes ! let Ambrose
our governor be our bishop ! "

And the governor of a great province became arch-
bishop of Milan. This is a very significant fact. It



EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY. 255

shows the great dignity and power of the episcopal
office at that time : it transcended in influence and
power the governorship of a province. It also shows
the enormous strides which the Church had made as
one of the mighty powers of the world since Constan-
tine, only about sixty years before, had opened to organ-
ized Christianity the possibilities of influence. It shows
how much more already was thought of a bishop than
of a governor.

And what is very remarkable, Ambrose had not even
been baptized. He was a layman. There is no evi-
dence that he was a Christian except in name. He
had passed through no deep experience such as Augus-
tine did, shortly after this. It was a more remarkable
appointment than when Henry II. made his chancellor,
Becket, archbishop of Canterbury. Why was Ambrose
elevated to that great ecclesiastical post ? What had he
done for the Church? Did he feel the responsibility
of his priestly office ? Did he realize that he was raised
in his social position, even in the eye of an emperor ?
Why did he not shrink from such an office, on the
grounds of unfitness ?

The fact is, as proved by his subsequent administra-
tion, he was the ablest man for that post to be found
in Italy. He was really the most fitting man. If ever
a man was called to be a priest, he was called. He had
the confidence of both the emperor and the people.



256 SAINT AMBROSE.

Such confidence can be based only on transcendent char-
acter. He was not selected because he was learned or
eloquent, but because he had administrative ability;
and because he was just and virtuous.

A great outward change in his life marked his eleva-
tion, as in Becket afterwards. As soon as he was bap-
tized, he parted with his princely fortune and scattered
it among the poor, like Cyprian and Chrysostom. This
was in accordance with one of the great ideas of the
early Church, almost impossible to resist. Charity
unbounded, allied with poverty, was the great test of
practical Christianity. It was afterwards lost sight of
by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, and never
was recognized by Protestantism at all, not even in
theory. Thrift has been one of the watchwords of
Protestantism for three hundred years. One of the
boasts of Protestantism has been its superior material
prosperity. Travellers have harped on the worldly
thrift of Protestant countries. The Puritans, full of the
Old Testament, like the Jews, rejoiced in an outward
prosperity as one of the evidences of the favor of God.
The Catholics accuse the Protestants, of not only giving
birth to rationalism, in their desire to extend liberality
of mind, but of fostering a material life in their ambi-
tion to be outwardly prosperous. I make no comment
on this fact; I only state it, for everybody knows the
accusation to be true, and most people rejoice in it. One



EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY. 257

of the chief arguments I used to hear for the observance
of public worship was, that it would raise the value of
property and improve the temporal condition of the wor-
shippers, so that temporal thrift was made to be indis-
solubly connected with public worship. " Go to church,
and you will thrive in business. Become a Sabbath-
school teacher, and you will gain social position." Such
arguments logically grow out from Linking the kingdom
of heaven with success in life, and worldly prosperity
with the outward performance of religious duties, all
of which may be true, and certainly marks Protest-
antism, but is somewhat different from the ideas of the
Church eighteen hundred years ago. But those were un-
enlightened times, when men said, " How hardly shall
they who have riches enter into the kingdom of God."

I pass now to consider the services which Ambrose
rendered to the Church, and which have given him a
name in history.

One of these was the zealous conservation of the
truths he received on authority. To guard the purity of
the faith was one of the most important functions of a
primitive bishop. The last thing the Church would
tolerate in one of her overseers was a Gallic in religion.
She scorned those philosophical dignitaries who would
sit in the seats of Moses and Paul, and use the specula-
tions of the Greeks to build up the orthodox faith.

The last thing which a primitive bishop thought of was

17



258 SAINT AMBROSE.

to advance against Goliath, not with the sling of David,
but with the weapons of Pagan Grecian schools. It was
incumbent on the watchman who stood on the walls
of Zion, to see that no suspicious enemy entered her
hallowed gates. The Church gave to him that trust
and reposed in his fidelity. Now Ambrose was not a
great scholar, nor a subtle theologian. Nor was he
dexterous in the use of dialectical weapons, like Atha-
nasius, Augustine, or Thomas Aquinas. But he was
sufficiently intelligent to know what the authorities de-
clared to be orthodox. He knew that the fashionable
speculations about the Trinity were not the doctrines of
Paul. He knew that self-expiation was not the expia-
tion of the cross ; that the mission of Christ was some-
thing more than to set a good example ; that faith was
not estimation merely ; that regeneration was not a mere
external change of life; that the Divine government
was a perpetual interference to bring good out of evil,
even if it were in accordance with natural law. He
knew that the boastful philosophy by which some sought
to bolster up Christianity was that against which the
apostles had warned the faithful. He knew that the
Church was attacked in her most vital points, even in
doctrines, for " as a man thinketh, so is he."

So he fearlessly entered the lists against the heretics,
most of whom were enrolled among the Manicheans,
Pelagians, and Arians.



EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY. 259

The Manicheans were not the most dangerous, but
they were the most offensive. Their doctrines were too
absurd to gain a lasting foothold in the West. But they
made great pretensions to advanced thought, and en-
grafted on Christianity the speculations of the East as
to the origin of evil and the nature of God. They were
not only dreamy theosophists, but materialists under the