Chapter I: Character Sketches (3)

"At length burst forth a mighty storm, bringing
a mighty flood of tears; and to indulge it to the full
even unto cries, in solitude, I rose up from Alypius, ... 25
who perceived from my choked voice how it was with
me. He remained where we had been sitting, in deep
astonishment. I threw myself down under a fig tree, I
know not how, and allowing my tears full vent, offered
up to Thee the acceptable sacrifice of my streaming eyes. 30

"And I cried out to this effect: 'And Thou, O Lord,
how long, how long, Lord, wilt Thou be angry?
Forever? Remember not our old sins!' for I felt that they
were my tyrants. I cried out, piteously, 'How long?
how long? to-morrow and to-morrow? why not _now_? 5
why not in this very hour put an end to this my vileness?'
While I thus spoke, with tears, in the bitter contrition
of my heart, suddenly I heard a voice, as if from a house
near me, of a boy or girl chanting forth again and again,
'TAKE UP AND READ, TAKE UP AND READ!' Changing 10
countenance at these words, I began intently to think
whether boys used them in any game, but could not
recollect that I had ever heard them. I left weeping and
rose up, considering it a divine intimation to open the
Scriptures and read what first presented itself. I had 15
heard that Antony had come in during the reading of the
Gospel, and had taken to himself the admonition, 'Go,
sell all that thou hast,' etc., and had turned to Thee at
once, in consequence of that oracle. I had left St.
Paul's volume where Alypius was sitting, when I rose 20
thence. I returned thither, seized it, opened, and read
in silence the following passage, which first met my eyes,
'_Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and
impurities, not in contention and envy, but put ye on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in 25
its concupiscences_.' I had neither desire nor need to
read farther. As I finished the sentence, as though the
light of peace had been poured into my heart, all the
shadows of doubt dispersed. Thus hast Thou converted
me to Thee, so as no longer to seek either for wife or 30
other hope of this world, standing fast in that rule of
faith in which Thou so many years before hadst revealed
me to my mother."--viii. 26-30.

The last words of this extract relate to a dream
which his mother had had some years before, 35
concerning his conversion. On his first turning
Manichee, abhorring his opinions, she would not
for a while even eat with him, when she had this
dream, in which she had an intimation that where
she stood, there Augustine should one day be
with her. At another time she derived great 5
comfort from the casual words of a bishop, who,
when importuned by her to converse with her
son, said at length with some impatience, "Go
thy ways, and God bless thee, for it is not possible
that the son of these tears should perish!" 10
would be out of place, and is perhaps unnecessary,
to enter here into the affecting and well-known
history of her tender anxieties and persevering
prayers for Augustine. Suffice it to say, she saw
the accomplishment of them; she lived till 15
Augustine became a Catholic; and she died on her way
back to Africa with him. Her last words were,
"Lay this body anywhere; let not the care of it
in any way distress you; this only I ask, that
wherever you be, you remember me at the Altar 20
of the Lord."

"May she," says her son, in dutiful remembrance of
her words, "rest in peace with her husband, before and
after whom she never had any; whom she obeyed, with
patience bringing forth fruit unto Thee, that she might 25
win him also unto Thee. And inspire, O Lord my God,
inspire Thy servants, my brethren,--Thy sons, my
masters,--whom, in heart, voice, and writing I serve,
that so many as read these confessions, may at Thy altar
remember Monica, Thy handmaid, with Patricius, her 30
sometime husband, from whom Thou broughtest me into
this life; how, I know not. May they with pious affection
remember those who were my parents in this
transitory light,--my brethren under Thee, our Father,
in our Catholic Mother,--my fellow-citizens in the
eternal Jerusalem, after which Thy pilgrim people sigh
from their going forth unto their return: that so, her 5
last request of me may in the prayers of many receive
a fulfillment, through my confessions, more abundant
than through my prayers."--ix. 37.

* * * * *

CHRYSOSTOM

INTRODUCTORY

I confess to a delight in reading the lives, and
dwelling on the characters and actions, of the
Saints of the first ages, such as I receive from none
besides them; and for this reason, because we
know so much more about them than about most 5
of the Saints who come after them. People are
variously constituted; what influences one does
not influence another. There are persons of
warm imaginations, who can easily picture to
themselves what they never saw. They can at 10
will see Angels and Saints hovering over them
when they are in church; they see their
lineaments, their features, their motions, their
gestures, their smile or their grief. They can go
home and draw what they have seen, from the 15
vivid memory of what, while it lasted, was so
transporting. I am not one of such; I am touched
by my five senses, by what my eyes behold and
my ears hear. I am touched by what I read
about, not by what I myself create. As faith 20
need not lead to practice, so in me mere
imagination does not lead to devotion. I gain more
from the life of our Lord in the Gospels than from
a treatise _de Deo_. I gain more from three verses
of St. John than from the three points of a
meditation. I like a Spanish crucifix of painted wood
more than one from Italy, which is made of gold.
I am more touched by the Seven Dolors than by
the Immaculate Conception; I am more devout 5
to St. Gabriel than to one of Isaiah's seraphim.
I love St. Paul more than one of those first
Carmelites, his contemporaries, whose names and acts
no one ever heard of; I feel affectionately towards
the Alexandrian Dionysius, I do homage to St. 10
George. I do not say that my way is better than
another's; but it is my way, and an allowable
way. And it is the reason why I am so specially
attached to the Saints of the third and fourth
century, because we know so much about them. 15
This is why I feel a devout affection for St.
Chrysostom. He and the rest of them have
written autobiography on a large scale; they
have given us their own histories, their thoughts,
words, and actions, in a number of goodly folios, 20
productions which are in themselves some of their
meritorious works....

The Ancient Saints have left behind them just
that kind of literature which more than any other
represents the abundance of the heart, which 25
more than any other approaches to conversation;
I mean correspondence. Why is it that we feel
an interest in Cicero which we cannot feel in
Demosthenes or Plato? Plato is the very type
of soaring philosophy, and Demosthenes of 30
forcible eloquence; Cicero is something more than
an orator and a sage; he is not a mere ideality, he
is a man and a brother; he is one of ourselves.
We do not merely believe it, or infer it, but we
have the enduring and living evidence of
it--how? In his letters. He can be studied, 5
criticised if you will; but still dwelt upon and
sympathized with also. Now the case of the Ancient
Saints is parallel to that of Cicero. We have their
letters in a marvelous profusion. We have
above 400 letters of St. Basil's; above 200 of 10
St. Augustine's. St. Chrysostom has left us
about 240; St. Gregory Nazianzen the same
number; Pope St. Gregory as many as 840....

A Saint's writings are to me his real "Life;"
and what _is called_ his "Life" is not the outline 15
of an individual, but either of the _auto-saint_ or
of a myth. Perhaps I shall be asked what I
mean by "Life." I mean a narrative which
impresses the reader with the idea of moral unity,
identity, growth, continuity, personality. When 20
a Saint converses with me, I am conscious of the
presence of one active principle of thought, one
individual character, flowing on and into the
various matters which he discusses, and the
different transactions in which he mixes. It is 25
what no memorials can reach, however skillfully
elaborated, however free from effort or study,
however conscientiously faithful, however
guaranteed by the veracity of the writers. Why
cannot art rival the lily or the rose? Because the 30
colors of the flower are developed and blended
by the force of an inward life; while on the other
hand, the lights and shades of the painter are
diligently laid on from without. A magnifying
glass will show the difference. Nor will it
improve matters, though not one only, but a dozen 5
good artists successively take part in the picture;
even if the outline is unbroken, the coloring is
muddy. Commonly, what is called "the Life,"
is little more than a collection of anecdotes brought
together from a number of independent quarters; 10
anecdotes striking, indeed, and edifying, but
valuable in themselves rather than valuable as parts
of a biography; valuable whoever was the
subject of them, not valuable as illustrating a
particular Saint. It would be difficult to mistake 15
for each other a paragraph of St. Ambrose, or of
St. Jerome, or of St. Augustine; it would be very
easy to mistake a chapter in the life of one holy
missionary or nun for a chapter in the life of
another. 20

An almsgiving here, an instance of meekness
there, a severity of penance, a round of religious
duties,--all these things humble me, instruct
me, improve me; I cannot desire anything
better of their kind; but they do not necessarily 25
coalesce into the image of a person. From such
works I do but learn to pay devotion to an
abstract and typical perfection under a certain
particular name; I do not know more of the real
Saint who bore it than before. Saints, as other 30
men, differ from each other in this, that the
multitude of qualities which they have in
common are differently combined in each of them.
This forms one great part of their personality.
One Saint is remarkable for fortitude; not that
he has not other heroic virtues by _concomitance_, 5
as it may be called, but by virtue of that one gift
in particular he has won his crown. Another is
remarkable for patient hope, another for
renunciation of the world. Such a particular virtue
may be said to give form to all the rest which are 10
grouped round it, and are molded and modified
by means of it. Thus it is that often what is
right in one would be wrong in another; and, in
fact, the very same action is allowed or chosen
by one, and shunned by another, as being 15
consistent or inconsistent with their respective
characters,--pretty much as in the combination of
colors, each separate tint takes a shade from
the rest, and is good or bad from its company.
The whole gives a meaning to the parts; but it 20
is difficult to rise from the parts to the whole.
When I read St. Augustine or St. Basil, I hold
converse with a beautiful grace-illumined soul,
looking out into this world of sense, and leavening
it with itself; when I read a professed life of him, 25
I am wandering in a labyrinth of which I cannot
find the center and heart, and am but conducted
out of doors again when I do my best to penetrate
within.

This seems to me, to tell the truth, a sort of 30
pantheistic treatment of the Saints. I ask something
more than to stumble upon the _disjecta
membra_ of what ought to be a living whole. I
take but a secondary interest in books which
chop up a Saint into chapters of faith, hope,
charity, and the cardinal virtues. They are too 5
scientific to be devotional. They have their
great utility, but it is not the utility which they
profess. They do not manifest a Saint, they
mince him into spiritual lessons. They are
rightly called spiritual reading, that is just what 10
they are, and they cannot possibly be anything
better; but they are not anything else. They
contain a series of points of meditation on
particular virtues, made easier because those points
are put under the patronage and the invocation 15
of a Saint. With a view to learning real
devotion to him, I prefer (speaking for myself) to have
any one action or event of his life drawn out
minutely, with his own comments upon it, than
a score of virtues, or of acts of one virtue, strung 20
together in as many sentences. Now, in the
ancient writings I have spoken of, certain
transactions are thoroughly worked out. We know all
that happened to a Saint on such or such an
occasion, all that was done by him. We have a view 25
of his character, his tastes, his natural infirmities,
his struggles and victories over them, which in
no other way can be attained. And therefore it
is that, without quarreling with the devotion of
others, I give the preference to my own. 30

Here another great subject opens upon us,
when I ought to be bringing these remarks to
an end; I mean the endemic perennial fidget
which possesses us about giving scandal; facts
are omitted in great histories, or glosses are put
upon memorable acts, because they are thought 5
not edifying, whereas of all scandals such
omissions, such glosses, are the greatest. But I am
getting far more argumentative than I thought
to be when I began; so I lay my pen down, and
retire into myself. 10

I

John of Antioch, from his sanctity and his
eloquence called Chrysostom, was approaching
sixty years of age, when he had to deliver himself
up to the imperial officers, and to leave
Constantinople for a distant exile. He had been the great 15
preacher of the day now for nearly twenty years;
first at Antioch, then in the metropolis of the
East; and his gift of speech, as in the instance of
the two great classical orators before him, was to
be his ruin. He had made an Empress his enemy, 20
more powerful than Antipater,--as passionate,
if not so vindictive, as Fulvia. Nor was this all;
a zealous Christian preacher offends not
individuals merely, but classes of men, and much more
so when he is pastor and ruler too, and has to 25
punish as well as to denounce. Eudoxia, the
Empress, might be taken off suddenly,--as
indeed she was taken off a few weeks after the
Saint arrived at the place of exile, which she personally, 30
in spite of his entreaties, had marked out
for him; but her death did but serve to increase
the violence of the persecution directed against
him. She had done her part in it, perhaps she
might have even changed her mind in his favor; 5
probably the agitation of a bad conscience was,
in her critical condition, the cause of her death.
She was taken out of the way; but her partisans,
who had made use of her, went on vigorously
with the evil work which she had begun. When 10
Cucusus would not kill him, they sent him on his
travels anew, across a far wilder country than he
had already traversed, to a remote town on the
eastern coast of the Euxine; and he sank under
this fresh trial. 15

The Euxine! that strange mysterious sea,
which typifies the abyss of outer darkness, as
the blue Mediterranean basks under the smile of
heaven in the center of civilization and religion.
The awful, yet splendid drama of man's history 20
has mainly been carried on upon the
Mediterranean shores; while the Black Sea has ever been
on the very outskirts of the habitable world,
and the scene of wild unnatural portents; with
legends of Prometheus on the savage Caucasus, 25
of Medea gathering witch herbs in the moist
meadows of the Phasis, and of Iphigenia
sacrificing the shipwrecked stranger in Taurica; and
then again, with the more historical, yet not more
grateful visions of barbarous tribes, Goths, Huns, 30
Scythians, Tartars, flitting over the steppes and
wastes which encircle its inhospitable waters.
To be driven from the bright cities and sunny
clime of Italy or Greece to such a region, was
worse than death; and the luxurious Roman
actually preferred death to exile. The suicide 5
of Gallus, under this dread doom, is well known;
Ovid, too cowardly to be desperate, drained out
the dregs of a vicious life on the cold marshes
between the Danube and the sea. I need scarcely
allude to the heroic Popes who patiently lived on 10
in the Crimea, till a martyrdom, in which they
had not part but the suffering, released them.

But banishment was an immense evil in itself.
Cicero, even though he had liberty of person, the
choice of a home, and the prospect of a return, 15
roamed disconsolate through the cities of Greece,
because he was debarred access to the
senate-house and forum. Chrysostom had his own
_rostra_, his own _curia_; it was the Holy Temple,
where his eloquence gained for him victories not 20
less real, and more momentous, than the
detection and overthrow of Catiline. Great as was
his gift of oratory, it was not by the fertility of
his imagination, or the splendor of his diction
that he gained the surname of "Mouth of Gold." 25
We shall be very wrong if we suppose that fine
expressions, or rounded periods, or figures of
speech, were the credentials by which he claimed
to be the first doctor of the East. His oratorical
power was but the instrument by which he 30
readily, gracefully, adequately expressed--expressed
without effort and with felicity--the
keen feelings, the living ideas, the earnest
practical lessons which he had to communicate to his
hearers. He spoke, because his heart, his head,
were brimful of things to speak about. His 5
elocution corresponded to that strength and
flexibility of limb, that quickness of eye, hand, and
foot, by which a man excels in manly games or
in mechanical skill. It would be a great mistake,
in speaking of it, to ask whether it was Attic or 10
Asiatic, terse or flowing, when its distinctive
praise was that it was natural. His unrivaled
charm, as that of every really eloquent man, lies
in his singleness of purpose, his fixed grasp of his
aim, his noble earnestness. 15

A bright, cheerful, gentle soul; a sensitive
heart, a temperament open to emotion and
impulse; and all this elevated, refined, transformed
by the touch of heaven,--such was St. John
Chrysostom; winning followers, riveting 20
affections, by his sweetness, frankness, and neglect
of self. In his labors, in his preaching, he
thought of others only. "I am always in
admiration of that thrice-blessed man," says an able
critic,[29] "because he ever in all his writings puts 25
before him as his object, to be useful to his
hearers; and as to all other matters, he either
simply put them aside, or took the least possible
notice of them. Nay, as to his seeming ignorant
of some of the thoughts of Scripture, or careless of 30
entering into its depths, and similar defects, all
this he utterly disregarded in comparison of the
profit of his hearers."

[29] Photius, p. 387.

There was as little affectation of sanctity in his
dress or living as there was effort in his eloquence. 5
In his youth he had been one of the most austere
of men; at the age of twenty-one, renouncing
bright prospects of the world, he had devoted
himself to prayer and study of the Scriptures.
He had retired to the mountains near Antioch, 10
his native place, and had lived among the monks.
This had been his home for six years, and he had
chosen it in order to subdue the daintiness of his
natural appetite. "Lately," he wrote to a friend
at the time,--"lately, when I had made up my 15
mind to leave the city and betake myself to the
tabernacle of the monks, I was forever
inquiring and busying myself how I was to get a
supply of provisions; whether it would be possible
to procure fresh bread for my eating, whether 20
I should be ordered to use the same oil for my
lamp and for my food, to undergo the hardship
of peas and beans, or of severe toil, such as
digging, carrying wood or water, and the like; in
a word, I made much account of bodily comfort."[30] 25
Such was the nervous anxiety and fidget of mind
with which he had begun: but this rough
discipline soon effected its object, and at length, even
by preference, he took upon him mortifications
which at first were a trouble to him. For the 30
last two years of his monastic exercise, he lived
by himself in a cave; he slept, when he did sleep,
without lying down; he exposed himself to the
extremities of cold. At length he found he was
passing the bounds of discretion, nature would 5
bear no more; he fell ill, and returned to the
city.

[30] Ad Demetrium, i. 6.

A course of ascetic practice such as this would
leave its spiritual effects upon him for life. It
sank deep into him, though the surface might 10
not show it. His duty at Constantinople was to
mix with the world; and he lived as others,
except as regards such restraints as his sacred
office and archiepiscopal station demanded of
him. He wore shoes, and an under garment; 15
but his stomach was ever delicate, and at meals
he was obliged to have his own dish, such as it
was, to himself. However, he mixed freely with
all ranks of men; and he made friends,
affectionate friends, of young and old, men and women, 20
rich and poor, by condescending to all of every
degree. How he was loved at Antioch, is shown
by the expedient used to transfer him thence to
Constantinople. Asterius, count of the East, had
orders to send for him, and ask his company to a 25
church without the city. Having got him into
his carriage, he drove off with him to the first
station on the highroad to Constantinople, where
imperial officers were in readiness to convey him
thither. Thus he was brought upon the scene of 30
those trials which have given him a name in history,
and a place in the catalogue of the Saints.
At the imperial city he was as much followed, if
not as popular, as at Antioch. "The people
flocked to him," says Sozomen, "as often as he
preached; some of them to hear what would 5
profit them, others to make trial of him. He
carried them away, one and all, and persuaded
them to think as he did about the Divine Nature.
They hung upon his words, and could not have
enough of them; so that, when they thrust and 10
jammed themselves together in an alarming way,
every one making an effort to get nearer to him,
and to hear him more perfectly, he took his seat
in the midst of them, and taught from the pulpit
of the Reader."[31] He was, indeed, a man to make 15
both friends and enemies; to inspire affection,
and to kindle resentment; but his friends loved
him with a love "stronger" than "death," and
more burning than "hell;" and it was well to be
so hated, if he was so beloved. 20

[31] Hist. viii. 5.

Here he differs, as far as I can judge, from his
brother saints and doctors of the Greek Church,
St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen. They were
scholars, shy perhaps and reserved; and though
they had not given up the secular state, they were 25
essentially monks. There is no evidence, that I
remember, to show that they attached men to
their persons. They, as well as John, had a
multitude of enemies; and were regarded, the
one with dislike, the other perhaps with contempt; 30
but they had not, on the other hand,
warm, eager, sympathetic, indignant, agonized
friends. There is another characteristic in
Chrysostom, which perhaps gained for him this great
blessing. He had, as it would seem, a vigor, 5
elasticity, and, what may be called, sunniness of
mind, all his own. He was ever sanguine,
seldom sad. Basil had a life-long malady, involving
continual gnawing pain and a weight of physical
dejection. He bore his burden well and 10
gracefully, like the great Saint he was, as Job bore his;
but it was a burden like Job's. He was a calm, mild,
grave, autumnal day; St. John Chrysostom was
a day in spring-time, bright and rainy, and
glittering through its rain. Gregory was the full 15
summer, with a long spell of pleasant stillness, its
monotony relieved by thunder and lightning.
And St. Athanasius figures to us the stern
persecuting winter, with its wild winds, its dreary
wastes, its sleep of the great mother, and the 20
bright stars shining overhead. He and
Chrysostom have no points in common; but Gregory was
a dethroned Archbishop of Constantinople, like
Chrysostom, and, again, dethroned by his
brethren the Bishops. Like Basil, too, Chrysostom was 25
bowed with infirmities of body; he was often ill;
he was thin and wizened; cold was a misery to
him; heat affected his head; he scarcely dare
touch wine; he was obliged to use the bath;
obliged to take exercise, or rather to be 30
continually on the move. Whether from a nervous or
febrile complexion, he was warm in temper; or
at least, at certain times, his emotion struggled
hard with his reason. But he had that noble
spirit which complains as little as possible; which
makes the best of things; which soon recovers 5
its equanimity, and hopes on in circumstances
when others sink down in despair....

II

Whence is this devotion to St. John
Chrysostom, which leads me to dwell upon the thought of
him, and makes me kindle at his name, when so 10
many other great Saints, as the year brings round
their festivals, command indeed my veneration,
but exert no personal claim upon my heart?
Many holy men have died in exile, many holy
men have been successful preachers; and what 15
more can we write upon St. Chrysostom's
monument than this, that he was eloquent and that he
suffered persecution? He is not an Athanasius,
expounding a sacred dogma with a luminousness
which is almost an inspiration; nor is he 20
Athanasius, again, in his romantic life-long adventures,
in his sublime solitariness, in his ascendency over
all classes of men, in his series of triumphs over
material force and civil tyranny. Nor, except
by the contrast, does he remind us of that 25
Ambrose who kept his ground obstinately in an
imperial city, and fortified himself against the
heresy of a court by the living rampart of a
devoted population. Nor is he Gregory or Basil,
rich in the literature and philosophy of Greece,
and embellishing the Church with the spoils of
heathenism. Again, he is not an Augustine,
devoting long years to one masterpiece of thought, 5
and laying, in successive controversies, the
foundations of theology. Nor is he a Jerome, so dead to
the world that he can imitate the point and wit
of its writers without danger to himself or
scandal to his brethren. He has not trampled upon 10
heresy, nor smitten emperors, nor beautified the
house or the service of God, nor knit together the
portions of Christendom, nor founded a religious
order, nor built up the framework of doctrine, nor
expounded the science of the Saints; yet I love 15
him, as I love David or St. Paul.

How am I to account for it? It has not
happened to me, as it might happen to many a man,
that I have devoted time and toil to the study of
his writings or of his history, and cry up that 20
upon which I have made an outlay, or love what
has become familiar to me. Cases may occur
when our admiration for an author is only
admiration of our own comments on him, and when
our love of an old acquaintance is only our love 25
of old times. For me, I have not written the
life of Chrysostom, nor translated his works, nor
studied Scripture in his exposition, nor forged
weapons of controversy out of his sayings or his
doings. Nor is his eloquence of a kind to carry 30
any one away who has ever so little knowledge
of the oratory of Greece and Rome. It is not
force of words, nor cogency of argument, nor
harmony of composition, nor depth or richness of
thought, which constitute his power,--whence,
then, has he this influence, so mysterious, yet so 5
strong?

I consider St. Chrysostom's charm to lie in his
intimate sympathy and compassionateness for
the whole world, not only in its strength, but in
its weakness; in the lively regard with which he 10
views everything that comes before him, taken
in the concrete, whether as made after its own
kind or as gifted with a nature higher than its
own. Not that any religious man--above all,
not that any Saint--could possibly contrive to 15
abstract the love of the work from the love of
its Maker, or could feel a tenderness for earth
which did not spring from devotion to heaven;
or as if he would not love everything just in that
degree in which the Creator loves it, and 20
according to the measure of gifts which the Creator
has bestowed upon it, and preëminently for the
Creator's sake. But this is the characteristic
of all Saints; and I am speaking, not of what St.
Chrysostom had in common with others, but what 25
he had special to himself; and this specialty, I
conceive, is the interest which he takes in all
things, not so far as God has made them alike,
but as He has made them different from each
other. I speak of the discriminating 30
affectionateness with which he accepts every one for what is
personal in him and unlike others. I speak of his
versatile recognition of men, one by one, for the
sake of that portion of good, be it more or less,
of a lower order or a higher, which has severally
been lodged in them; his eager contemplation of 5
the many things they do, effect, or produce, of
all their great works, as nations or as states;
nay, even as they are corrupted or disguised by
evil, so far as that evil may in imagination be
disjoined from their proper nature, or may be 10
regarded as a mere material disorder apart from
its formal character of guilt. I speak of the
kindly spirit and the genial temper with which
he looks round at all things which this
wonderful world contains; of the graphic fidelity with 15
which he notes them down upon the tablets of
his mind, and of the promptitude and propriety
with which he calls them up as arguments or
illustrations in the course of his teaching as the
occasion requires. Possessed though he be by 20
the fire of Divine charity, he has not lost one
fiber, he does not miss one vibration, of the
complicated whole of human sentiment and affection;
like the miraculous bush in the desert, which, for
all the flame that wrapt it round, was not thereby 25
consumed.

Such, in a transcendent perfection, was the
gaze, as we may reverently suppose, with which
the loving Father of all surveyed in eternity that
universe even in its minutest details which He 30
had decreed to create, such the loving pity with
which He spoke the word when the due moment
came, and began to mold the finite, as He
created it, in His infinite hands; such the watchful
solicitude with which he now keeps His
catalogue of the innumerable birds of heaven, and 5
counts day by day the very hairs of our head and
the alternations of our breathing. Such, much
more, is the awful contemplation with which He
encompasses incessantly every one of those souls
on whom He heaps His mercies here, in order 10
to make them the intimate associates of His own
eternity hereafter. And we too, in our measure,
are bound to imitate Him in our exact and vivid
apprehension of Himself and of His works. As to
Himself, we love Him, not simply in His nature, 15
but in His triple personality, lest we become mere
pantheists. And so, again, we choose our patron
Saints, not for what they have in common with
each other (else there could be no room for choice
at all), but for what is peculiar to them severally. 20
That which is my warrant, therefore, for particular
devotions at all, becomes itself my reason for
devotion to St. John Chrysostom. In him I
recognize a special pattern of that very gift of
discrimination. He may indeed be said in some sense to 25
have a devotion of his own for every one who
comes across him,--for persons, ranks, classes,
callings, societies, considered as Divine works and
the subjects of his good offices or good will, and
therefore I have a devotion for him. 30

It is this observant benevolence which gives to
his exposition of Scripture its chief characteristic.
He is known in ecclesiastical literature as the
expounder, above all others, of its literal sense.
Now in mystical comments the direct object which
the writer sets before him is the Divine Author 5
Himself of the written Word. Such a writer
sees in Scripture, not so much the works of God,
as His nature and attributes; the Teacher more
than the definite teaching, or its human
instruments, with their drifts and motives, their courses 10
of thought, their circumstances and personal
peculiarities. He loses the creature in the glory
which surrounds the Creator. The problem
before him is not what the inspired writer directly
meant, and why, but, out of the myriad of 15
meanings present to the Infinite Being who inspired him,
which it is that is most illustrative of that Great
Being's all-holy attributes and solemn dispositions.
Thus, in the Psalter, he will drop David and Israel
and the Temple together, and will recognize 20
nothing there but the shadows of those greater truths
which remain forever. Accordingly, the
mystical comment will be of an objective character;
whereas a writer who delights to ponder human
nature and human affairs, to analyze the 25
workings of the mind, and to contemplate what is
subjective to it, is naturally drawn to investigate
the sense of the sacred writer himself, who was the
organ of the revelation, that is, he will investigate
the literal sense. Now, in the instance of St. 30
Chrysostom, it so happens that literal exposition
is the historical characteristic of the school in
which he was brought up; so that if he commented
on Scripture at all, he anyhow would have
adopted that method; still, there have been
many literal expositors, but only one 5
Chrysostom. It is St. Chrysostom who is the charm of
the method, not the method that is the charm
of St. Chrysostom.

That charm lies, as I have said, in his habit and
his power of throwing himself into the minds 10
of others, of imagining with exactness and with
sympathy circumstances or scenes which were
not before him, and of bringing out what he has
apprehended in words as direct and vivid as the
apprehension. His page is like the table of a 15
_camera lucida_, which represents to us the living
action and interaction of all that goes on around
us. That loving scrutiny, with which he follows
the Apostles as they reveal themselves to us in
their writings, he practices in various ways 20
towards all men, living and dead, high and low,
those whom he admires and those whom he weeps
over. He writes as one who was ever looking
out with sharp but kind eyes upon the world of
men and their history; and hence he has always 25
something to produce about them, new or old,
to the purpose of his argument, whether from
books or from the experience of life. Head and
heart were full to overflowing with a stream of
mingled "wine and milk," of rich vigorous thought 30
and affectionate feeling. This is why his manner
of writing is so rare and special; and why, when
once a student enters into it, he will ever
recognize him, wherever he meets with extracts from
him.

LETTERS OF CHRYSOSTOM, WRITTEN IN EXILE

"TO OLYMPIAS

"Why do you bewail me? Why beat your breast, 5
and abandon yourself to the tyranny of despondency?
Why are you grieved because you have failed in
effecting my removal from Cucusus? Yet, as far as your own
part is concerned, you have effected it, since you have
left nothing undone in attempting it. Nor have you any 10
reason to grieve for your ill success; perhaps it has seemed
good to God to make my race course longer that my
crown may be brighter. You ought to leap and dance and
crown yourself for this, viz., that I should be accounted
worthy of so great a matter, which far exceeds my merit. 15
Does my present loneliness distress you? On the
contrary, what can be more pleasant than my sojourn here?
I have quiet, calm, much leisure, excellent health. To
be sure, there is no market in the city, nor anything
on sale; but this does not affect me; for all things, as if 20
from some fountains, flow in upon me. Here is my lord,
the Bishop of the place, and my lord Dioscorus, making
it their sole business to make me comfortable. That
excellent person Patricius will tell you in what good
spirits and lightness of mind, and amid what kind 25
attentions, I am passing my time."--_Ep._ 14.

The same is his report to his friends at Cæesarea,
and the same are his expressions of gratitude
and affection towards them. The following is
addressed to the President of Cappodocia 30

TO CARTERIUS

"Cucusus is a place desolate in the extreme; however,
it does not annoy me so much by its desolateness as it
relieves me by its quiet and its leisure. Accordingly, I
have found a sort of harbor in this desolateness; and
have set me down to recover breath after the miseries 5
of the journey, and have availed myself of the quiet to
dispose of what remained both of my illness and of the
other troubles which I have undergone. I say this to
your illustriousness, knowing well the joy you feel in
this rest of mine. I can never forget what you did for 10
me in Cæsarea, in quelling those furious and senseless
tumults, and striving to the utmost, as far as your powers
extended, to place me in security. I give this out
publicly wherever I go, feeling the liveliest gratitude to you,
my most worshipful lord, for so great solicitude towards 15
me."--_Ep._ 236.

"TO DIOGENES

"Cucusus is indeed a desolate spot, and moreover
unsafe to dwell in, from the continual danger to which
it is exposed of brigands. You, however, though away,
have turned it for me into a paradise. For, when I 20
hear of your abundant zeal and charity in my behalf,
so genuine and warm (it does not at all escape me, far
removed as I am from you), I possess a great treasure
and untold wealth in such affection, and feel myself
to be dwelling in the safest of cities, by reason of the 25
great gladness which bears me up, and the high
consolation which I enjoy."--_Ep._ 144.

Diogenes was one of the friends who sent him
supplies, he writes in answer:

"You know very well yourself that I have ever been 30
one of your most warmly attached admirers; therefore
I beg you will not be hurt at my having returned your
presents. I have pressed out of them and have quaffed
the honor which they did me; and if I return the things
themselves, it has been from no slight or distrust of you,
but because I was in no need of them. I have done the
same in the case of many others; for many others too,
with a generosity like yours, ardent friends of mine, have 5
made me the same offers; and the same apology has set
me right with them which I now ask you to receive. If
I am in want, I will ask these things of you with much
freedom, as if they were my own property, nay with
more, as the event will show. Receive them back, then, 10
and keep them carefully; so that, if there is a call for
them some time hence, I may reckon on them."--_Ep._ 50.

As a fellow to the above, I add one of his
letters:

"TO CARTERIA

"What are you saying? that your unintermitting 15
ailments have hindered you from visiting me? but you
_have_ come, you are present with me. From your very
intention I have gained all this, nor have you any need
to excuse yourself in this matter. That warm and true
charity of yours, so vigorous, so constant, suffices to 20
make me very happy. What I have ever declared in
my letters, I now declare again, that, wherever I may be,
though I be transported to a still more desolate place
than this, you and your matters I never shall forget.
Such pledges of your warm and true charity have you 25
stored up for me, pledges which length of time can never
obliterate nor waste; but, whether I am near you or far
away, ever do I cherish that same charity, being
assured of the loyalty and sincerity of your affection for
me, which has been my comfort hitherto."--_Ep._ 227. 30

"TO OLYMPIAS

"It is not a light effort," he says (_Ep._ 2), "but
it demands an energetic soul and a great mind to
bear separation from one whom we love in the
charity of Christ. Every one knows this who
knows what it is to love sincerely, who knows
the power of supernatural love. Take the blessed
Paul: here was a man who had stripped himself 5
of the flesh, and who went about the world
almost with a disembodied soul, who had
exterminated from his heart every wild impulse, and
who imitated the passionless sereneness of the
immaterial intelligences, and who stood on high 10
with the Cherubim, and shared with them in their
mystical music, and bore prisons, chains,
transportations, scourges, stoning, shipwreck, and every
form of suffering; yet he, when separated from
one soul loved by him in Christian charity, was 15
so confounded and distracted as all at once to
rush out of that city, in which he did not find the
beloved one whom he expected. 'When I was
come to Troas,' he says, 'for the gospel of Christ,
and a door was opened to me in the Lord, I had 20
no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus
my brother; but bidding them farewell, I went
into Macedonia.'

"Is it Paul who says this?" he continues;
"Paul who, even when fastened in the stocks, 25
when confined in a dungeon, when torn with
the bloody scourge, did nevertheless convert and
baptize and offer sacrifice, and was chary even
of one soul which was seeking salvation? and
now, when he has arrived at Troas, and sees the 30
field cleansed of weeds, and ready for the sowing,
and the floor full, and ready to his hand,
suddenly he flings away the profit, though he came
thither expressly for it. 'So it was,' he answers
me, 'just so; I was possessed by a predominating
tyranny of sorrow, for Titus was away; and this 5
so wrought upon me as to compel me to this
course.' Those who have the grace of charity
are not content to be united in soul only, they
seek for the personal presence of him they love.

"Turn once more to this scholar of charity, and 10
you will find that so it is. 'We, brethren,' he
says, 'being bereaved of you for the time of an
hour, in sight, not in heart, have hastened the
more abundantly to see your face with great
desire. For we would have come unto you, I, 15
Paul, indeed, once and again, but Satan hath
hindered us. For which cause, forbearing no
longer, we thought it good to remain at Athens
alone, and we sent Timothy.' What force is
there in each expression! That flame of charity 20
living in his soul is manifested with singular
luminousness. He does not say so much as
'separated from you,' nor 'torn,' nor 'divided,'
nor 'abandoned,' but only 'bereaved'; moreover
not 'for a certain period,' but merely 'for the 25
time of an hour'; and separated, 'not in heart,
but in presence only'; again, 'have hastened
the more abundantly to see your face.' What!
it seems charity so captivated you that you
desiderated their sight, you longed to gaze upon 30
their earthly, fleshly countenance? 'Indeed I
did,' he answers: 'I am not ashamed to say so;
for in that seeing all the channels of the senses
meet together. I desire to see your presence;
for there is the tongue which utters sounds and
announces the secret feelings; there is the 5
hearing which receives words, and there the eyes
which image the movements of the soul.' But
this is not all: not content with writing to them
letters, he actually sends to them Timothy, who
was with him, and who was more than any letters. 10
And, 'We thought it good to remain alone;'
that is, when he is divided from one brother,
he says, he is left alone, though he had so many
others with him."