Selected Homilies & Treatises E-Book

St. John Chrysostom

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1764

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

This compilation contains the following writings: Contents: Treatise on the Priesthood. An Exhortation to Theodore After His Fall. Letter to a Young Widow. Homilies on S. Ignatius and S. Babylas. Concerning Lowliness of Mind. Instructions to Catechumens Three Homilies Concerning the Power of Demons. Against Marcionists and Manichaeans. Homily on the Paralytic Let Down Through the Roof. Homily Against Publishing the Errors of the Brethren. On Eutropius, Patrician and Consul. A Treatise to Prove that No One Can Harm the Man Who Does Not Injure Himself Letters to Olympias. Correspondence of St. Chrysostom with the Bishop of Rome Homilies Concerning the Statues.

Leseprobe

Selected Homilies & Treatises

St. John Chrysostom

Contents:

John Chrysostom – A Biography

Selected Homilies & Treatises

Prolegomena - The Life and Work of St. John Chrysostom.

Treatise on the Priesthood.

Book I.

Book II.

Book III.

Book IV.

Book V.

Book VI.

An Exhortation to Theodore After His Fall.

Letter I.

Letter II.

Letter to a Young Widow.

Introduction to the Letter to a Young Widow.

Introduction to the Homilies on S. Ignatius and S. Babylas.

Homilies on S. Ignatius and S. Babylas.

Eulogy.

On the Holy Martyr, S. Babylas.

Concerning Lowliness of Mind.

Instructions to Catechumens

First Instruction.

Second Instruction.

Three Homilies Concerning the Power of Demons.

Homily I.

Homily II.

Homily III.

Against Marcionists and Manichaeans.

Homily on the Paralytic Let Down Through the Roof.

To Those Who Had Not Attended the Assembly.

Homily Against Publishing the Errors of the Brethren.

On Eutropius, Patrician and Consul.

Introduction to the Two Homilies on Eutropius.

Homily I.

Homily II.

Introduction to the Treatise that No One Can Harm the Man Who Does Not Injure Himself.

A Treatise to Prove that No One Can Harm the Man Who Does Not Injure Himself

Introduction to the Letters to Olympias.

Letters to Olympias.

To My Lady

To Olympias.

To Olympias.

To Olympias.

To Olympias.

To Castus, Valerius, Diophantus, Cyriacus

Correspondence of St. Chrysostom with the Bishop of Rome

Introduction to the Correspondence of St. Chrysostom, and the Church at Constantinople, with Innocent, Bishop of Rome.

Homilies Concerning the Statues.

Preface to the Benedictine Edition.

Homily I.

Homily II.

Homily III.

Homily IV.

Homily V.

Homily VI.

Homily VII.

Homily VIII.

Homily IX.

Homily X.

Homily XI.

Homily XII.

Homily XIII.

Homily XIV.

Homily XV.

Homily XVI.

Homily XVII.

Homily XVIII.

Homily XIX.

Homily XX.

Homily XXI.

Selected Homilies & Treatises, St. Chrysostom

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John Chrysostom – A Biography

John Chrysostom, a bishop, doctor, and saint of the eastern church, born in Antioch, according to the best authorities, Jan. 14, 347, died Sept. 14, 407. His name was only John, the appellation Chrysostom (Greek for "the golden-mouthed"), by which he is usually known, not having been given to him until the 7th century. His father, Secundus, who was magister militum Orientis, died while John was still in his infancy. Arethusa, his mother, left a widow in her 20th year, resolved to remain single in order to devote her whole life to her boy. Intending him to follow the legal profession, she sought for him the best school of eloquence, and placed him with the renowned Libanins, then teaching at Antioch. Libanius, who had formerly had among: his pupils the great Basil of Csesarea, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and his bosom friend Gregory Nazianzen, had also been the master of the emperor Julian, and his most ardent auxiliary in his endeavor to put down Christianity and restore the worship of the old gods. He welcomed John, soon discovered his genius, labored to develop it, and predicted the preeminence which his favorite pupil afterward attained. At the age of 18 he was practising at the bar, where even then more than one great success laid the foundation of his fame.

This, as well as his social position and the virtues of his mother, drew on him the eyes of Meletius, bishop of Antioch, who wished to secure as a member of his clergy one so full of promise. He instructed and baptized him, gave him his first lessons in ecclesiastical science, ordained him lector or reader, and assigned him a residence beneath his own roof. This was not what his mother had designed for him; she had set her heart on seeing him foremost in the race for worldly honors, and resisted with all her might his entrance on a career so different. She represented to him that for love of him she had in youth renounced all earthly joys, and that he must not think of forsaking her now when old age and its infirmities were fast approaching. It was all in vain. The same wave of ascetic fervor which was carrying away into solitude and the austerities of monastic life the very elite of Christian youth, bore John into the mountains which surrounded his native city. For six years, two of which were spent in a hermitage, he gave himself up to a life divided between the study of the Scriptures and prayer, mortifying his body meanwhile with such rigor that his limbs were nearly paralyzed.

The urgent solicitations of his friends at length drew him back to Antioch, where the pallor of his countenance and his extreme emaciation touched all beholders with pity or veneration. Several years passed before he was ordained deacon. In 381 Meletius died. A rival Christian faction, with Paulinus as its bishop, had divided the church at Antioch. John, while yet a deacon, strove in vain to heal the schism. Flavian, successor to Meletius, appreciated his learning, eloquence, and disinterestedness. So great, indeed, was the esteem in which he was held throughout Asia Minor, that even before his elevation to the priesthood the neighboring bishops sought to raise him to the episcopal office. He shrank from the honor and responsibility, but induced his friend Basil to accept the proffered rank. In 386 John became a priest, and commenced his course as a preacher. He was justly considered even then as the shining light of the eastern church. In 397 the see of Constantinople became vacant by the death of Nectarius. For three months rival candidates and contending factions sought to no purpose to fill the coveted see.

The eunuch Eutropius, then all-powerful at court, and who had heard John's preaching, submitted his name to the emperor Arcadius. The latter approved of the choice; and forthwith a messenger was sent to Asterius, prefect of the East, who resided at Antioch, bidding him to secure by some stratagem the person of the presbyter John, and send him to Constantinople. John was invited by Asterius to accompany him on a visit to a new church just erected outside of Antioch, and his chariot was driven amid an armed escort toward the Bosporus. After the first emotion of surprise and anger, John thought he saw in all this the hand of an overruling Providence, and submitted passively. The episcopal chair of Constantinople, in which John now found himself, had a few years before been adorned by Gregory Nazianzen. Nectarius, whom Theodosius chose as his successor, had not even been baptized when, to his dismay, he, in the midst of the second general council, saw himself raised to such an exalted rank. But he discharged his episcopal functions with a careful piety, charming Theodosius and his court by his majestic presence and graceful manners, and dispensing in the patriarchal residence a princely hospitality to the many churchmen whom business drew to the capital.

Chrysostom brought a new spirit to these halls. He resolved to make his household a model for every household of churchman and layman within his jurisdiction, and his own life a mirror in which every bishop and priest should see what they must be themselves in order to be true shepherds in Christ's flock. He made a monastic frugality preside over his table and all his domestic expenses. The rich furniture of his predecessors and their abundant wardrobe of silks and cloth of gold were sold at auction, and the proceeds given to the poor. Nectarius had purposed erecting a magnificent basilica, and collected a large quantity of precious marbles and other rare building material. John did not hesitate to sell them for the benefit of the needy classes. The very sacred vessels which he judged too costly for the altar were similarly disposed of. This displeased the clergy, while the people were taught to attribute these reforms to parsimony or avarice. But when the poorly clad archbishop appeared in the pulpit of St. Sophia, his hearers forgot everything but that they possessed a man of God in their midst. It is impossible to study his works without being impressed with his deep devotion to the people.

Hence, in Constantinople as at Antioch, whenever he preached the largest edifices could not contain the crowds who flocked to hear him. They surrounded him in the streets, pouring blessings on his head as he passed along; and when his liberty or his life was threatened at a later period, they watched night and day around his dwelling. "I love you," he one day exclaimed to the worshipping throng "I love you as you love me. What should I be without you? You are to me father, mother, brothers, and children; you are all the world to me. I know no joy, no sorrow, which is not yours." This popularity constituted one great source of his power, and he used it in his vain attempt at reform both in court and church. Eutropius, who had been mainly instrumental in his elevation, did not find favor with the archbishop, who denounced his tyranny and the corruption which he encouraged in every branch of the administration, He retaliated by having a law passed which repealed or abridged ecclesiastical immunities, and in particular limited the right of asylum granted to churches. John inveighed against the extravagance and licentiousness of the court.

Arcadius dreaded the remonstrances which tended to rouse him from his unmanly love of ease, and the empress Eudoxia hated the man who dared to reprove openly her illicit amours. The courtiers and ministers of state shared their master's enmity, and only waited for an opportunity to make the archbishop feel the weight of their resentment. Eutropius fell into disgrace and fled for his life to the church of St. Sophia, where Chrysostom gave him a shelter, and protected him against the united rage of the courtiers, the military, and the populace. But it was only for a time. Eutropius was induced to leave his asylum, and perished by the hands of Eudoxia's satellites. She now ruled with absolute sway both the emperor and the empire. Her avarice was equal to her ambition, and she went so far as to take open possession of a vineyard which the owner would neither sell nor give up to her. Chrysostom denounced her from the pulpit as a second Jezebel. This brought matters to a crisis. Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, who had himself aspired to the succession of Nectarius, found new matter of complaint as well as of hatred against Chrysostom in the toleration which the latter extended to some monks expelled from Egypt and excommunicated on account of their attachment to Origen and his doctrines.

This caused the accusation of heresy to be made against the archbishop, although at that time no council had condemned the opinions attributed to Origen. Chrysostom summoned before himself every member of his clergy in order to examine into the scandalous reports about their relations with deaconesses and other women. He reformed or rebuked wherever he found just cause; and thus there was wide-spread discontent among the clergy. It had been reported to him that the episcopal office was bought and sold in the provinces dependent on his patriarchate. In the midst of winter he set out, visiting every diocese, and before; he returned to Constantinople deposed 13 bishops convicted of simony and immorality. He even extended his visitation into provinces which owed him no obedience, and there exercised the same rigor against the guilty. This raised a great outcry against him, and gave the advantage to his enemies. Eudoxia and Theophilus joined hands; and in 403 a council of 36 bishops assembled at Chalcedon, a suburb of Constantinople. There Chrysostom was accused, among other crimes, of pride, oppression of the clergy, inhospitality, avarice, gluttony, undue familiarity with women, and high treason.

He refused to appear before his self-constituted judges until their president, Theophilus, and three other bishops, his declared enemies, had been excluded. Meanwhile he continued to give his usual homilies in the cathedral, and the people watched unceasingly his coming and going lest any evil should befall him. He was found guilty and deposed from his see, and a new bishop was appointed by the council and approved by the emperor. At length his house was surrounded in the night by soldiers, and himself borne off into exile at Nicaea. The people on hearing this rose and besieged the imperial palace, demanding his instant recall. An earthquake happened at this very moment, and seemed even to Eudoxia a manifest sign of the divine displeasure. She rushed into the presence of Arcadius and besought him to lose not one moment in bringing back the exiled archbishop. But his return did not cause the court to mend its morals, nor the city to lay aside its love of the most costly pleasures. The connection of the empress with the count John was now a subject of comment in every household, while the courtiers tried to cloak over the scandal by showing new honor to Eudoxia, and she endeavored to divert the attention of the populace by inventing for them new games in the circus.

The erection of a silver statue to her in the square adjoining the church of St. Sophia was made the occasion of the most extravagant festivities, at a time when the people were suffering from want. The archbishop publicly reproved the people for their love of dissipation, and as openly blamed those whose vanity had caused this display. The empress took mortal offence, and threatened a second exile. The courtiers, too, replied to the archbishop's denunciation by inaugurating a new feast, in which the honors paid to the statue verged on idolatry. Chrysostom was not to be intimidated. On appearing in the pulpit, he alluded in his commentary on the gospel to Herodias dancing, and demanding as a reward the head of John. The allusion was too transparent. This time the court resolved to take no half-way measures. A second assembly of bishops was summoned, more numerous than the first; and, although 42 among the number were faithful to Chrysostom, he was condemned. In 404, six years after he had been forcibly borne off from his native Antioch to assume the spiritual government of the capital, when every appeal to the Roman pontiff had only increased the rage of his enemies, and the efforts made to assemble a full council had proved abortive, ho was compelled to set out for a second exile.

Feeble in body, but unbroken in spirit, the high-souled old man traversed Asia Minor, and took up his abode in Cucusus, a town of the Armenian Taurus. Again the indignant populace arose to demand his recall; but, although in their fury they burned to the ground the senate house and the metropolitan church, the emperor firmly withstood all their clamor. The devoted adherents of the exiled archbishop would not acknowledge while he lived the jurisdiction of any other, and, under the name of "Johannites," they worshipped apart until his remains were brought to Constantinople in 438. For about 18 months Chrysostom resided in Cucusus, when an attack of the Isaurians compelled him to take refuge in the distant stronghold of Arabissus. In the latter place, as in the former, he continued to be the light and life of the Asiatic church. At length a new decree banished him to the remote desert of Pityus. On foot, bareheaded, beneath a burning sun, he was driven pitilessly along by his military escort, until he broke down on reaching Comana in Cappadocia. He felt that the end was at hand; and putting on a white robe, he dragged himself feebly a few miles further to the tomb of St. Basiliscus, where he laid himself down to rest for ever.

The surrounding country flocked to his obsequies, and honored his remains as those of a man of God. Thirty years later the entire population of Constantinople, headed by Theodosius II., welcomed the relics back with solemn pomp and rejoicing. Chrysostom was a voluminous writer. The best edition of his works is that of the Benedictines, in Greek, with a Latin translation (13 vols, folio, Paris, 1718-'38; reprinted in Venice, 1734-'41; in Paris, 1834-'39; and in Migne's Patrologia, 1859-'60). A translation into English of his homilies is contained in the "Library of the Fathers " (Oxford, 1842-'53). Most of his works are homilies and commentaries on the Bible. A minute analysis of his writings is contained in Butler's " Lives of the Saints." His biography has been written, among others, by Neander (2 vols., Berlin, 1821-'2; 3d ed., 1848), Perthes (English translation, Boston, 1854), Rochet (Paris, 1866), and Stephens (" St. Chrysostom, his Life and Times," London, 1872).

Selected Homilies & Treatises

Prolegomena- The Life and Work of St. John Chrysostom.

By Philip Schaff.   

Chapter I.—Literature.   

I. Editions of Chrysostom’s Works   

S. Joannis Chrysostomi, archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani, Opera omnia quae exstant vet quae ejus nomine circumferuntur, ad mss. codices Gallicos, Vaticanos, Anglicos, Germanicosque castigata, etc. Opera et studioD. Bernardi de Montfaucon, monachi ordinis S. Benedicti e congregatione S. Mauri, opem ferentibus aliis ex eodem sodalitio, monachis. Greek and Latin, Paris, 1718-’38, in 13 vole., fol. This is the best edition, and the result of about twenty years of the patient labor of Montfaucon (d. Dec. 21, 1741, 86 years old), and several assistants of the brotherhood of St. Maur. More than three hundred mss. were made use of, but the eight principal mss., as Field has shown, were not very carefully collated. Montfaucon, who at the date of the completion of his edition was 83 years old, prepared valuable prefaces to every treatise and set of homilies, arranged the works in chronological order, and added in vol. XIII. learned dissertations on the life, doctrine, discipline and heresies of the age of Chrysostom.

The Benedictine edition was reprinted at Venice, 1734-’41, in 13 vols. for.; at Paris, ed. by F. De Sinner (Gaume), 1834-’39, in 13 vols. (an elegant edition, with some additions); and, with various improvements and corrections, by J. P. Migne, Petit-Montrouge, 1859-’63, in 13 vols. The last is the most complete edition, but inferior in paper and type to that of Gaume. Migne uses the critical text of Field in Matthew and the Pauline Epp. He had previously edited a Latin Version, 1842, in 9 vols.

The edition of Sir Henry Savile (Provost of Eton), Etonae, 1612, in 8 vols. for., is less complete than the Benedictine edition, but gives a more correct Greek text (as was shown by F. Dübner from a collation of manuscripts) and valuable notes. Savile personally examined the libraries of Europe and spent £8,000 on his edition. His wife was so jealous of his devotion to Chrysostom that she threatened to burn his manuscripts.

The edition of Fronton Le Duc, a French Jesuit, and the two brothers, Frederick and Claude Morel, was published at Paris, 1636, in 12 vols. for., Greek and Latin.

A selection of Chrysostom’s works (Opera praestantissima) in Greek and Latin, was edited by T. G. Lomler Rudolphopoli (Rudolstadt), 1840 Unfinished).

The best edition of the Greek text of the Homilies on Matthew, and all the Pauline Epistles is by Dr. Frederick Field, of the Church of England (d. 1883), in the “Bibliotheca Patrum Ecclesiae Orientalis qui ante Orientis et Occidentis schisma floruerunt.” The Homilies on Matthew appeared at Cambridge, 1839, 3 vols.; the Homilies on the Epistles of Paul and the Hebrews, Oxford, 1839-’62, in 7 vols.

The treatise De Sacerdotio (periv iJerwsuvnh") was separately edited by Erasmus in Greek (Baser, 1525, from the press of Frobenius), by J. Hughes, in Greek and Latin (Cambridge, 1710), and by J. A. Bengel, the commentator, in Greek (Stuttgart, 1725, and repeatedly reprinted since at Leipzig, 1825, 1834, 1872, by C. Tauchnitz). Lomler (Chrys. Opera, pp. viii. and ix.) enumerates twenty-three separate editions and translations of the treatise on the Priesthood.

II. Translations.

(A) German Translations.

The treatise on the Priesthood has been translated by Hasselbach, 1820; Ritter, 1821, and others. The Bibliothek der Kirchenväter (Rom. Cath.), published at Kempten in Bavaria, devotes ten small volumes to St. Chrysostom, including the Priesthood, ascetic Treatises, and Homilies, translated by Joh. Chrysostomus Mitterrutzner, 1869-’84. German translations of selected Homilies by J. A. Cramer (Leipzig, 1748–51, 10 vols.Feder(Augsburg, 1786); Ph. Mayer (Nürnberg, 1830); W. Arnoldi (Trier, 1835); Augusti (Predigten der Kirchenväter vols. I. and II., Leipzig, 1839); Jos.Lutz(Tübingen, 2d ed. 1859); Gust. Leonhardi (Leipzig, 1888, selected sermons and orations, in vol I. of Klassikerbibliothek der Christl. Predigtliteratur).

(B) English Translations.

The work on the Priesthood was translated by Hollier (London, 1728); Bunce (London, 1759); Hohler (Cambridge, 1837); Marsh (London, 1844); Harris Cowper (London, 1866); and Stephens (N. York, 1888, prepared for this “Library”).

The Homilies on the Statues and on the New Testament were translated by several scholars for the “Oxford Library of the Fathers,” 1839-’77, 16 vols. The earlier parts (on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and on the Statues) are based on the text of Montfaucon and Savile, the later parts on the improved text of Field. The Oxford translation has been revised and annotated by American scholars for this “Library,” and new translations of other works of St. Chrysostom have been added, namely, the treatise on the Priesthood, the Exhortation to the fallen Theodore, Letters, Tracts, and Special Homilies (in this first volume).

III. Biographies and Essays.

Palladius(a friend of Chrysostom and bishop of Helenopolis in Bithynia, author of the Historia Lausiaca; according to others a different person): Dialogus historicus de vita et conversatione beati Joannis Chrysostomi cum Theodoro ecclesiae Romanae diacono (in the Bened. edition of the Opera, tom. xiii. pp. 1–89; in Migne’s ed., tom. i., Pars prior, 5–84, in Greek and Latin). Hieronymus: De viris illustribus, c. 129 (a very brief notice, mentioning only the work De Sacerdotio). Socrates: Hist. Eccl. VI., 3–21. Sozomen: Hist. Eccl. VIII. 2–23. Theodoret: Hist. Eccl. V. 27–36. B. De Montfaucon: Vita Joannis Chrysost. (in his edition of the Opera, tom. xiii.91–178; in Migne, I.I. 84–264): Testimonia Veterum de S. Joann. Chrys. scriptis, ibid. tom. xiii. 256–292. Tillemont: Mémoires, vol.XI. pp. 1–405, 547–626 (exceedingly minute and accurate from the works of Chrys.). F. Stilting: Acta Sanctorum, Sept. 14 (the day of Chrysostom’s death), tom. iv. pp. 401–709; comp. Stilting’sCompendium chronologicum gestorum et scriptorum S. Joh. Chrys., in Migne, tom. i. 264–272. Alban Butler: Lives of Saints, sub. Jan. 27 (the day of the translation of the remains of Chrys.). W. Cave: Lives of the Fathers, vol. III. p. 237 sqq. J. A. Fabricius: Biblioth Gr., tom. viii. 454 sqq. Schröckh: Kirchengeschichte, vol. X. p. 30g sqq. Gibbon: Decline and Fall, ch. xxxii. (a brilliant and appreciative sketch). Neander: Der heilige Chrysostomus, 1821-’22, in 3 vols., second ed. 1832, third ed. Berlin, 1848, in 2 vols. (English translation of the same by J. C. Stapleton, vol. I., London, 1838, unfinished). The best monograph in the German language. Neander represents Chrysostom as a type of the Johannean tendency among the Fathers, as distinct from Augustin, the strongest type of the Pauline tendency. He gives a full account of the opinions and religious life of Chrysostom, but without a clear picture of his personality.(Hase says: “Neander hat uns das Lebensbild des Chrys. aufgestellt als ein Herzensverwandter, doch nicht ohne einige Abschwächung seiner Kraft und seines Gegensatzes zur Regierung.”K. Gesch. I. 511.) J. Pettersson: Chrys. homileta, Lund, 1833. C. Datt: S. Jean Chrys. comme prédicateur, Strassb., 1837. A. F. Villemain: Tableau de l’éloquence chrétienne au quatrième siècle, Paris, 1849, new ed. 1857. Perthes: Life of Chrysostom, Boston, 1854. P. Albert: St. Jean Chrysostome considéré comme orateur populaire, Paris, 1858. Abbé E. Martin: Saint Jean Chrysostome, ses aeuvres et son siècle, Montpellier and Paris, 1861, 3 vols. Abbé Rochet: Histoire de S. Jean Chrysostome, Paris, 1866, 2 vols. AméDée Thierry: St. Chrysostome et l’imperatrice Eudoxie, 2d ed., Paris, 1874 (originally in the “Revue des deux Mondes”).Böhringer: Johann Chrysostomus Ed Olympias, in “Kirchengesch. in Biogr.,” vol. IX. new ed. 1876. Th. Förster: Chrysostomus in seinem Verhältniss zur Antiochenischen Schule, Gotha, 1869.W. Maggilory: John of the Golden Mouth, Land. 1871. W. R. W. Stephens: St. John Chrysostom, his Life and Times, London, 1872, 2d ed. 1880, 3rd ed. 1883 (the best biography of Chr.). R. W. Bush, Life and Times of Chrysostom, London, Rel. Tract Soc., 1885.

Canon E. Venables: in “Smith and Wace,” I. 518–535 (a very good sketch).C. Burk: in Herzog, 2d ea., III. 225–231. E. Dandiran: in Lightenberger’s “Encyclopédie,” etc., III. 165–176. Schaff: Church Hist. III. 702 sqq., 933 sqq., 1036 sq. Hase: Kirchengesch. (Vorlesungen, 1885), I. 510 sqq.F. W. Farrar: Lives of the Fathers, London, 1889. Vol. II. 46~527.

Chapter II.—Chrysostom’s Youth and Training, a.d. 347–370.

“Almighty God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto Thee; and doest promise, that when two or three are gathered together in Thy name Thou wilt grant their requests: fulfil now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of Thy servants, as may be most expedient for them; granting us in this world knowledge of Thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting, Amen.”

This beautiful and comprehensive prayer, which is translated from the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, has made his name a household word wherever the Anglican Liturgy is known and used.

John, surnamed Chrysostom (ÆIwavnnh" Crusovstomo") is the greatest pulpit orator and commentator of the Greek Church, and still deservedly enjoys the highest honor in the whole Christian world. No one of the Oriental Fathers has left a more spotless reputation; no one is so much read and so often quoted by modern preachers and commentators. An admiring posterity, since the close of the fifth century, has given him the surname Chrysostom (the Golden Mouth), which has entirely superseded his personal name John, and which best expresses the general estimate of his merits.

His life may be divided into five periods: (1) His youth and training till his conversion and baptism, A.D. 347–370. (2) His ascetic and monastic life, 370–381. (3) His public life as priest and preacher at Antioch, 381–398. (4) His episcopate at Constantinople, 398–404. (5) His exile to his death, 404–407.

John (the name by which alone he is known among contemporary writers and his first biographers) was born in 347, at Antioch, the capital of Syria, and the home of the mother church of Gentile Christianity, where the disciples of Jesus were first called “Christians.”

His father, Secundus, was a distinguished military officer (magister militum) in the imperial army of Syria, and died during the infancy of John, without professing Christianity, as far as we know. His mother, Anthusa, was a rare woman. Left a widow at the age of twenty, she refused all offers of marriage, and devoted herself exclusively to the education of her only son and his older sister. She was probably from principle averse to a second marriage, according to a prevailing view of the Fathers. She shines, with Nonna and Monica, among the most pious mothers of the fourth century, who prove the ennobling influence of Christianity on the character of woman, and through her on all the family relations. Anthusa gained general esteem by her exemplary life. The famous advocate of heathenism, Libanius, on hearing of her consistency and devotion, felt constrained to exclaim: “Bless me! what wonderful women there are among the Christians.”

She gave her son an admirable education, and early planted in his soul the germs of piety, which afterwards bore the richest fruits for himself and the church. By her admonitions and the teachings of the Bible, he was secured against the seductions of heathenism.

Yet he was not baptized till he had reached the age of maturity. In that age of transition from heathenism to Christianity, the number of adult baptisms far exceeded that of infant baptisms. Hence the large baptisteries for the baptism of crowds of converts; hence the many sermons and lectures of Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem and other preachers to catechumens, and their careful instruction before baptism and admission to the Missa Fidelium or the holy communion. Even Christian parents, as the father and mother of Gregory Nazianzen, the mother of Chrysostom, and the mother of Augustin, put off the baptism of their offspring, partly no doubt from a very high conception of baptism as the sacrament of regeneration, and the superstitious fear that early baptism involved the risk of a forfeiture of baptismal grace. This was the argument which Tertullian in the second century urged against infant baptism, and this was the reason why many professing Christians put off their baptism till the latest hour; just as now so many from the same motive delay repentance and conversion to their death-bed. Chrysostom often rebukes that custom. The Emperor Constantine who favored Christianity as early as 312, and convened the Council of Nicaea in 325, postponed baptism till 337, shortly before his death. The orthodox Emperor Theodosius the Great was not baptized till the first year of his reign (380), when attacked by a serious illness.

Chrysostom received his literary training chiefly from Libanius, the admirer and friend of Julian the Apostate, and the first classical scholar and rhetorician of his age, who after a long career as public teacher at Athens and Constantinople, returned to his native Antioch and had the misfortune to outlive the revival of heathenism under Julian and to lament the triumph of Christianity under his successors. He was introduced by him into a knowledge of the Greek classics and the arts of rhetoric, which served him a good purpose for his future labors in the church. He was his best scholar, and when Libanius, shortly before his death (about 393), was asked whom he wished for his successor, he replied: “John, if only the Christians had not stolen him from us.”

After the completion of his studies Chrysostom became a rhetorician, and began the profitable practice of law, which opened to him a brilliant political career. The amount of litigation was enormous. The display of talent in the law-courts was the high-road to the dignities of vice-prefect, prefect, and consul. Some of his speeches at the bar excited admiration and were highly commended by Libanius. For some time, as he says, he was “a never-failing attendant at the courts of law, and passionately fond of the theatre.” But he was not satisfied. The temptations of a secular profession in a corrupt state of society discouraged him. To accept a fee for making the worse cause appear the better cause, seemed to him tobe taking Satan’s wages.

Chapter III.—His Conversion and Ascetic Life.

The quiet study of the Scriptures, the example of his pious mother, the acquaintance with Bishop Meletius, and the influence of his intimate friend Basil, who was of the same age and devoted to ascetic life, combined to produce a gradual change in his character.

He entered the class of catechumens, and after the usual period of three years of instruction and probation, he was baptized by Meletius in his twenty-third year (369 or 370). From this time on, says Palladius, “he neither swore, nor defamed any one, nor spoke falsely, nor cursed, nor even tolerated facetious jokes.” His baptism was, as in the case of St. Augustin, the turning point in his life, an entire renunciation of this world and dedication to the service of Christ. The change was radical and permanent.

Meletius, who foresaw the future greatness of the young lawyer, wished to secure him for the active service of the church, and ordained him to the subordinate office of rector (anagnostes, reader), about A.D. 370. The rectors had to read the Scripture lessons in the first part of divine service (the “Missa Catechumenorum”), and to call upon the people to pray, but could not preach nor distribute the sacraments.

The first inclination of Chrysostom after baptism was to adopt the monastic life as the safest mode, according to the prevailing notions of the church in that age, to escape the temptations and corruptions of the world, to cultivate holiness and to secure the salvation of the soul. But the earnest entreaties of his mother prevailed on him to delay the gratification of his desire. He relates the scene with dramatic power. She took him to her chamber, and by the bed where she had given him birth, she adjured him with tears not to forsake her. “My son,” she said in substance, “my only comfort in the midst of the miseries of this earthly life is to see thee constantly, and to behold in thy features the faithful image of my beloved husband who is no more. This comfort commenced with your infancy before you could speak. I ask only one favor from you: do not make me a widow a second time; wait at least till I die; perhaps I shall soon leave this world. When you have buried me and joined my ashes with those of your father, nothing will then prevent you from retiring into monastic life. But as long as I breathe, support me by your presence, and do not draw down upon you the wrath of God by bringing such evils upon me who have given you no offense.”

These tender, simple and impressive words suggest many heart-rending scenes caused by the ascetic enthusiasm for separation from the sacred ties of the family. It is honorable to Chrysostom that he yielded to the reasonable wishes of his devoted mother. He remained at home, but turned his home into a monastery. He secluded himself from the world and practiced a rigid asceticism. He ate little and seldom, and only the plainest food, slept on the bare floor and frequently rose to prayer. He kept almost unbroken silence to prevent a relapse into the habit of slander.

His former associates at the bar called him unsociable and morose. But two of his fellow-pupils under Libanius joined him in his ascetic life, Maximus (afterwards bishop of Seleucia), and Theodore of Mopsuestia. They studied the Scriptures under the direction of Diodorus (afterwards bishop of Tarsus), the founder of the Antiochian school of theology, of which Chrysostom and Theodore became the chief ornaments.

Theodore was warmly attached to a young lady named Hermione, and resolved to marry and to leave the ascetic brotherhood. This gave rise to the earliest treatise of Chrysostom—namely, an exhortation to Theodore, in two letters. He plied all his oratorical arts of sad sympathy, tender entreaty, bitter reproach, and terrible warning, to reclaim his friend to what he thought the surest and safest way to heaven. To sin, he says, is human, but to persist in sin is devilish; to fall is not ruinous to the soul, but to remain on the ground is. The appeal had its desired effect; Theodore resumed his monastic life and became afterwards bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia and one of the first biblical scholars. The arguments which Chrysostom used, would condemn all who broke their monastic vows. They retain moral force only if we substitute apostasy from faith for apostasy from monasticism, which must be regarded as a temporary and abnormal or exceptional form of Christian life.

Chapter IV.—Chrysostom Evades Election to a Bishopric, and Writes His Work on the Priesthood.

About this time several bishoprics were vacant in Syria, and frequent depositions took place with the changing fortunes of orthodoxy and Arianism, and the interference of the court. The attention of the clergy and the people turned to Chrysostom and his friend Basil as suitable candidates for the episcopal office, although they had not the canonical age of thirty. Chrysostom shrunk from the responsibilities and avoided an election by a pious fraud. He apparently assented to an agreement with Basil that both should either accept, or resist the burden of the episcopate, but instead of that he concealed himself and put forward his friend whom he accounted much more worthy of the honor. Basil, under the impression that Chrysostom had already been consecrated, reluctantly submitted to the election. When he discovered the cheat, he upbraided his friend with the breach of compact, but Chrysostom laughed and rejoiced at the success of his plot. This conduct, which every sound Christian conscience must condemn, caused no offense among the Christians of that age, still less among the heathen, and was regarded as good management or “economy.” The moral character of the deception was supposed to depend altogether on the motive, which made it good or bad. Chrysostom appealed in justification of laudable deception to the stratagems of war, the conduct of physicians in dealing with refractory patients, to several examples of the Old Testament (Abraham, Jacob, David), and to the conduct of the Apostle Paul in circumcising Timothy for the sake of the Jews (Acts xvi. 3) and in observing the ceremonial law in Jerusalem at the advice of James (Acts xxi. 26).

The Jesuitical maxim, “the end justifies the means,” is much older than Jesuitism, and runs through the whole apocryphal, pseudo-prophetic, pseudo-apostolic, pseudo-Clementine and pseudo-Isidorian literature of the early centuries. Several of the best Fathers show a surprising want of a strict sense of veracity. They introduce a sort of cheat even into their strange theory of redemption, by supposing that the Devil caused the crucifixion under the delusion that Christ was a mere man, and thus lost his claim upon the fallen race. Origen, Chrysostom, and Jerome explain the offense of the collision between Paul and Peter at Antioch (Gal. ii. 11 sqq.) away by turning it into a theatrical and hypocritical farce, which was shrewdly arranged by the two apostles for the purpose of convincing the Jewish Christians that circumcision was not necessary. Against such wretched exegesis the superior morel sense of Augustin rightly protested, and Jerome changed his view on this particular passage. Here is a point where the modern standard of ethics is far superior to that of the Fathers, and more fully accords with the spirit of the New Testament, which inculcates the strictest veracity as a fundamental virtues

The escape from the episcopate was the occasion for one of the best and most popular works of Chrysostom, the Six Books On the Priesthood, which he wrote probably before his ordination (between 375 and 381), or during his diaconate (between 381 and 386). It is composed in the form of a Platonic dialogue between Chrysostom and Basil. He first vindicates by argument and examples his well-meant but untruthful conduct towards his friend, and the advantages of timely fraud; and then describes with youthful fervor and eloquence the importance, duties and trials of the Christian ministry, without distinguishing between the priestly and the episcopal office. He elevates it above all other offices. He requires whole-souled consecration to Christ and love to his flock. He points to the Scriptures (quoting also from the Apocrypha) as the great weapon of the minister. He assumes, as may be expected, the then prevailing conception of a real priesthood and sacrifice, baptismal regeneration, the corporal presence, the virtue of absolution, prayers for the dead, but is silent about pope and councils, the orders of the clergy, prayers to saints, forms of prayer, priestly vestments, incense, crosses and other doctrines and ceremonies of the Greek and Roman churches.

He holds up St. Paul as a model for imitation. The sole object of the preacher must be to please God rather than men (Gal. i. 10). “He must not indeed despise approving demonstrations, but as little must he court them, nor trouble himself when they are withheld.” He should combine the qualities of dignity and humility, authority and sociability, impartiality and courtesy, independence and lowliness, strength and gentleness, and keep a single eye to the glory of Christ and the welfare of the church.

This book is the most useful or at least the best known among the works of Chrysostom, and is well calculated to inspire a profound sense of the tremendous responsibilities of the ministry. But it has serious defects, besides the objectionable justification of pious fraud, and cannot satisfy the demands of an evangelical minister. In all that pertains to the proper care of souls it is inferior to the “Reformed Pastor” of Richard Baxter.

Chapter V.—Chrysostom as a Monk. A.D. 374–381.

After the death of his mother, Chrysostom fled from the seductions and tumults of city life to the monastic solitude of the mountains south of Antioch, and there spent six happy years in theological study and sacred meditation and prayer. Monasticism was to him (as to many other great teachers of the church, and even to Luther) a profitable school of spiritual experience and self-government. He embraced this mode of life as “the true philosophy” from the purest motives, and brought into it intellect and cultivation enough to make the seclusion available for moral and spiritual growth.

He gives us a lively description of the bright side of this monastic life. The monks lived in separate cells or huts (kavlubai), but according to a common rule and under the authority of an abbot. They wore coarse garments of camel’s hair or goat’s hair over their linen tunics. They rose before sunrise, and began the day by singing a hymn of praise and common prayer under the leadership of the abbot. Then they went to their allotted task, some to read, others to write, others to manual labor for the support of the poor. Four hours in each day were devoted to prayer and singing. Their only food was bread and water, except in case of sickness. They slept on straw couches, free from care and anxiety. There was no need of bolts and bars. They held all things in common, and the words of “mine and shine,” which cause innumerable strifes in the world, were unknown among the brethren. If one died, he caused no lamentation, but thanksgiving, and was carried to the grave amidst hymns of praise; for he was not dead, but “perfected,” and permitted to behold the face of Christ. For them to live was Christ, and to die was gain.

Chrysostom was an admirer of active and useful monasticism, and warns against the dangers of idle contemplation. He shows that the words of our Lord, “One thing is needful;” “Take no anxious thought for the morrow;” “Labor not for the meat that perisheth,” do not inculcate total abstinence from work, but only undue anxiety about worldly things, and must be harmonized with the apostolic exhortation to labor and to do good. He defends monastic seclusion on account of the prevailing immorality in the cities, which made it almost impossible to cultivate there a higher Christian life.

In this period, from 374 to 381, Chrysostom composed his earliest writings in praise of monasticism and celibacy. The letters “to the fallen Theodore,” have already been mentioned. The three books against the Opponents of Monasticism were occasioned by a decree of the Arian Emperor Valens in 373, which aimed at the destruction of that system and compelled the monks to discharge their duties to the state by military or civil service. Chrysostom regarded this decree as a sacrilege, and the worst kind of persecution.

Chapter VI.—Chrysostom as Deacon, Priest and Preacher at Antioch. A.D. 381–398.

By excessive self-mortifications John undermined his health, and returned to Antioch. There he was immediately ordained deacon by Meletius in 380 or 381, and a few years afterwards presbyter by Flavian (386).

As deacon he had the best opportunity to become acquainted with the practical needs of the population, the care of the poor and the sick. After his ordination to the priesthood he preached in the presence of the bishop his first sermon to a vast crowd. It abounds in flowery Asiatic eloquence, in humble confession of his own unworthiness, and exaggerated praise of Meletius and Flavian.

He now entered upon a large field of usefulness, the real work of his life. The pulpit was his throne, and he adorned it as much as any preacher of ancient or modern times.

Antioch was one of the great capitals of the Roman empire along with Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome. Nature and art combined to make it a delightful residence, though it was often visited by inundations and earthquakes. An abundance of pure water from the river Orontes, a large lake and the surrounding hills, fertile plains, the commerce of the sea, imposing buildings of Asiatic, Greek, and Roman architecture, rich gardens, baths, and colonnaded streets, were among its chief attractions. A broad street of four miles, built by Antiochus Epiphanes, traversed the city from east to west; the spacious colonnades on either side were paved with red granite. Innumerable lanterns illuminated the main thoroughfares at night. The city was supplied with good schools and several churches; the greatest of them, in which Chrysostom preached, was begun by the Emperor Constantine and finished by Constantius. The inhabitants were Syrians, Greeks, Jews, and Romans. The Asiatic element prevailed. The whole population amounted, as Chrysostom states, to 200,000, of whom one half were nominally Christians. Heathenism was therefore still powerful as to numbers, but as a religion it had lost all vitality. This was shown by the failure of the attempt of the Emperor Julian the Apostate to revive the sacrifices to the gods. When he endeavored in 362 to restore the oracle of Apollo Daphneus in the famous cypress grove at Antioch and arranged for a magnificent procession, with libation, dances, and incense, he found in the temple one solitary old priest, and this priest ominously offered in sacrifice—a goose! Julian himself relates this ludicrous farce, and vents his anger at the Antiochians for squandering the rich incomes of the temple upon Christianity and worldly amusements.

Chrysostom gives us in his sermons lively pictures of the character of the people and the condition of the church. The prevailing vices even among Christians were avarice, luxury, sensuality, and excessive love of the circus and the theatre. “So great,” he says, “is the depravity of the times, that if a stranger were to compare the precepts of the gospel with the actual practice of society, he would infer that men were not the disciples, but the enemies of Christ.” Gibbon thus describes the morals of Antioch: “The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most intemperate enjoyment of tranquility and opulence, and the lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the hereditary softness of the Syrians. Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendor of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury were honored, the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule, and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the capital of the East. The love of spectacles was the taste, or rather passion of the Syrians; the most skilful artists were procured from the adjacent cities. A considerable share of the revenue was devoted to the public amusements, and the magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was considered as the happiness and as the glory of Antioch.”

The church of Antioch was rent for eighty-five years (330–415) by heresy and schism. There were three parties and as many rival bishops. The Meletians, under the lead of Meletius, were the party of moderate orthodoxy holding the Nicene Creed; the Arians, headed by Eudoxius, and supported by the Emperor Valens, denied the eternal divinity of Christ; the Eustathians, under the venerated priest Paulinus, were in communion with Athanasius, but were accused of Sabellianism, which maintained the Divine unity and strict deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but denied the tri-personality except in the form of three modes of self-revelation. Pope Damasus declared for Paulinus and condemned Meletius as a heretic. Alexandria likewise sided against him. Meletius was more than once banished from his see, and recalled. He died during the sessions of the Council of Constantinople, 381, over which he presided for a while. His remains were carried with great solemnities to Antioch and buried by the side of Babylas the Martyr. Chrysostom reconciled Flavian, the successor of Meletius, with Alexandria and Rome in 398. Alexander, the successor of Flavian, led the Eustathians back into the orthodox church in 415, and thus unity was restored.

Chrysostom preached Sunday after Sunday and during Lent, sometimes twice or oftener during the week, even five days in succession, on the duties and responsibilities of Christians, and fearlessly attacked the immorality of the city. Ire declaimed with special severity against the theatre and the chariot-races; and yet many of his hearers would run from his sermons to the circus to witness those exciting spectacles with the same eagerness as Jews and Gentiles. He exemplified his preaching by a blameless life, and soon acquired great reputation and won the love of the whole congregation. Whenever he preached the church was crowded. He had to warn his hearers against pickpockets, who found an inviting harvest in these denseaudiences.

A serious disturbance which took place during his career at Antioch, called forth a remarkable effort of his oratorical powers. The populace of the city, provoked by excessive taxes, rose in revolt against the Emperor Theodosius the Great, broke down his statues and those of his deceased excellent wife Flacilla (d. 385) and his son Arcadius, dragged the fragments through the streets, and committed other acts of violence. The Emperor threatened to destroy the whole city. This caused general consternation and agony, but the city was saved by the intercession of Bishop Flavian, who in his old age proceeded to Constantinople and secured free pardon from the Emperor. Although a man of violent temper, Theodosius had profound reverence for bishops, and on another occasion he submitted to the rebuke of St. Ambrose for the wholesale massacre of the Thessalonians (390).

In this period of public anxiety, which lasted several months, Chrysostom delivered series of extempore orations, in which he comforted the people and exhorted them to correct their vices. These are his twenty-one Homilies on the Statues, so-called from the overthrow of the imperial statues which gave rise to them. They were preached during Lent 387. In the same year St. Augustin submitted to baptism at the hands of St. Ambrose in Milan. One of the results of those sermons was the conversion of a large number of heathens. Thus the calamity was turned into a blessing to the church.

During the sixteen or seventeen years of his labors in Antioch Chrysostom wrote the greater part of his Homilies and Commentaries; a consolatory Epistle to the despondent Stagirius; the excellent book on the martyr Babylas, which illustrates by a striking example the divine power of Christianity; a treatise on Virginity, which he puts above marriage; and an admonition to a young widow on the glory of widowhood, and the duty of continuing in it. He disapproved of second marriage, not as sinful or illegal, but as inconsistent with an ideal conception of marriage and a high order of piety.,

Chapter VII.—Chrysostom as Patriarch of Constantinople. A.D. 398–404.

After the death of Nectarius (successor to Gregory Nazianzen), towards the end of the year 397, Chrysostom was chosen, entirely without his own agency and even against his remonstrance, archbishop of Constantinople. He was hurried away from Antioch by a military escort, to avoid a commotion in the congregation and to make resistance useless. He was consecrated Feb. 26, 398, by his enemy Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, who reluctantly yielded to the command of the Emperor Arcadius or rather his prime minister, the eunuch Eutropius, and nursed his revenge for a more convenient season.

Constantinople, built by Constantine the Great in 330, on the site of Byzantium, assumed as the Eastern capital of the Roman empire the first position among the episcopal sees of the East, and became the centre of court theology, court intrigues, and theological controversies. The second Ecumenical council, which was held there in 381, under Theodosius the Great, the last Roman emperor worthy of the name (d. 395), decided the victory of Nicene orthodoxy over the Arian heresy, and gave the bishop of Constantinople a primacy of honor, next in rank to the bishop of old Rome—a position which was afterwards confirmed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, but disputed by Pope Leo and his successors.

Chrysostom soon gained by his eloquent sermons the admiration of the people, of the weak Emperor Arcadius, and, at first, even of his wife Eudoxia, with whom he afterwards waged a deadly war. He extended his pastoral care to the Goths who were becoming numerous in Constantinople, had a part of the Bible translated for them, often preached to them himself through an interpreter, and sent missionaries to the Gothic and Scythian tribes on the Danube. He continued to direct by correspondence those missionary operations even during his exile. For a short time he enjoyed the height of power and popularity.

But he also made enemies by his denunciations of the vices and follies of the clergy and aristocracy. He emptied the episcopal palace of its costly plate and furniture and sold it for the benefit of the poor and the hospitals. He introduced his strict ascetic habits and reduced the luxurious household of his predecessors to the strictest simplicity. He devoted his large income to benevolence. He refused invitations to banquets, gave no dinner parties, and ate the simplest fare in his solitary chamber. He denounced unsparingly luxurious habits in Eating and dressing, and enjoined upon the rich the duty of almsgiving to an extent that tended to increase rather than diminish the number of beggars who swarmed in the streets and around the churches and public baths. He disciplined the vicious clergy and opposed the perilous and immoral habit of unmarried priests of living under the same roof with “spiritual Sisters” (suneivsactai). This habit dated from an earlier age, and was a reaction against celibacy. Cyprian had raised his protest against it, and the Council of Nicaea forbade unmarried priests to live with any females except close relations. Chrysostom’s unpopularity was increased by his irritability and obstinacy, and his subservience to a proud and violent archdeacon, Serapion. The Empress Eudoxia was jealous of his influence over Arcadius and angry at his uncompromising severity against sin and vice. She became the chief instrument of his downfall.

The occasion was furnished by an unauthorized use of his episcopal power beyond the lines of his diocese, which was confined to the city. At the request of the clergy of Ephesus and the neighboring bishops, he visited that city in January, 401, held a synod and deposed six bishops convicted of shameful simony. During his absence of several months he left the episcopate of Constantinople in the hands of Severian, bishop of Gabala, an unworthy and adroit flatterer, who basely betrayed his trust and formed a cabal headed by the empress and her licentious court ladies, for the ruin of Chrysostom. On his return he used unguarded language in the pulpit, and spoke on Elijah’s relation to Jezebel in such a manner that Eudoxia understood it as a personal insult. The clergy were anxious to get rid of a bishop who was too severe for their lax morals.

Chapter VIII.—Chrysostom and Theophilus. His First Deposition and Banishment.

At this time Chrysostom became involved in the Origenistic controversies which are among the most violent and most useless in ancient church history, and full of personal invective and calumny. The object in dispute was the orthodoxy of the great Origen, which long after his death was violently defended and as violently assailed.

Theophilus of Alexandria, an able and vigorous but domineering, contentious and unscrupulous prelate, was at first an admirer of Origen, but afterwards in consequence of a personal quarrel joined the opponents, condemned his memory and banished the Origenistic monks from Egypt. Some fifty of them, including the four “Tall Brethren,” so-called on account of their extraordinary stature, fled to Constantinople and were hospitably received by Chrysostom (401). He had no sympathy with the philosophical speculations of Origen, but appreciated his great merits, and felt that injustice was done to the persecuted monks. He interceded in their behalf with Theophilus, who replied with indignant remonstrance against protecting heretics and interfering in another diocese.

Theophilus, long desirous of overthrowing Chrysostom, whom he had reluctantly consecrated, set every instrument in motion to take revenge. He sent the octogenarian bishop Epiphanius of Salamis, a well-meaning and learned but bigoted zealot for orthodoxy, to Constantinople, as a tool of his hierarchical plans (402); but Epiphanius soon returned and died on the ship (403). Theophilus now traveled himself to Constantinople, accompanied by a body-guard of rough sailors and provided with splendid presents. He appeared at once as accuser and judge, aided by Eudoxia and the disaffected clergy. He held a secret council of thirty-six bishops, all of them Egyptians except seven, in a suburb of Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, and procured in this so-called synod at the Oak, the deposition and banishment of Chrysostom, on false charges of immorality and high treason (403). Among the twenty-nine charges were these: that Chrysostom had called the saintly Epiphanius a fool and a demon, that he abused the clergy, that he received females without witnesses, that he ate sumptuously alone and bathed alone, that he had compared the empress to Jezebel.

The innocent bishop refused to appear before a packed synod of his enemies, and appealed to a general council. As the sentence of banishment for life became known, the indignation of the people was immense. A single word from him would have raised an insurrection; but he surrendered himself freely to the imperial officers, who conveyed him in the dark to the harbor and put him on board a ship destined for Hieron at the mouth of the Pontus. Theophilus entered the city in triumph and took vengeance on Chrysostom’s friends.

The people besieged the palace and demanded the restoration of their bishop. Constantinople was almost in a state of insurrection. The following night the city was convulsed by an earthquake, which was felt with peculiar violence in the bedroom of Eudoxia and frightened her into submission. She implored the emperor to avert the wrath of God by recalling Chrysostom. Messengers were despatched with abject apologies to bring him back. A whole fleet of barks put forth to greet him, the Bosphorus blazed with torches and resounded with songs of rejoicing. On passing the gates he was borne aloft by the people to the church, seated in the episcopal chair and forced to make an address. His triumph was complete, but of short duration. Theophilus felt unsafe in Constantinople and abruptly sailed in the night for Alexandria.  The feelings with which Chrysostom went into his first and second exile, he well describes in a letter to Bishop Cyriacus: “when I was driven from the city, I felt no anxiety, but said to myself: If the empress wishes to banish me, let her do so; ‘the earth is the Lord’s.’ If she wants to have me sawn asunder, I have Isaiah for an example. If she wants me to be drowned in the ocean, I think of Jonah. If I am to be thrown into the fire, the three men in the furnace suffered the same. If cast before wild beasts, I remember Daniel in the lion’s den. If she wants me to be stoned, I have before me Stephen, the first martyr. If she demands my head, let her do so; John the Baptist shines before me. Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked shall I leave this world. Paul reminds me, ‘If I still pleased men, I would not be the servant of Christ.’ ”

Chapter IX.—Chrysostom Owns Tacoma. His Second, Banishment, a.d. 401.

The restored patriarch and the repentant empress seemed reconciled, and vied with one another in extravagant laudations for two months, when the feud broke out afresh and ended in perpetual exile and death.