Chapter XXXIV: Preface (17)

The public concerns of the state often called on the saint to afford the spiritual succors of his zeal and charity. Eutropius was then at the head of affairs. He was a eunuch, and originally a slave, but had worked himself into favor with the emperor Arcadius. In 395 he was instrumental in cutting off Rufinus, the chief minister, who had broke out into an open rebellion, and he succeeded the traitor in all his honors: golden statues were erected to him in several parts of the city, and what Claudian, Marcellinus in his chronicle, Suidas, and others, represent as the most monstrous event that occurs in the Roman Fasti, was declared consul, though a eunuch. Being placed on so high a pinnacle, a situation but too apt to turn the strongest head, forgetful of himself and the indispensable rules of decency and prudence, it was not long before he surpassed his predecessor in insolence, ambition, and covetousness. Wholesome advice, even from a Chrysostom, served only to exasperate a heart devoted to the world, and open to flatterers, who added continually new flames to its passions. In the mean time, the murmurs and indignation of the whole empire at the pride and avarice of Eutropius were a secret to him, till the pit was prepared for his fall. Gainas, general of the auxiliary Goths in the imperial army, was stirred up to revenge an affront which his cousin Trigibildus, a tribune, had received from the haughty minister. At the same time the empress Eudoxia, having been insulted by him, ran to the emperor, carrying her two little babes in her arms, and cried out for justice against the insolent servant. Arcadius, who was as weak in abandoning, as he was imprudent in choosing favorites, gave orders that the minister should be driven out of the court, and his estates confiscated. Eutropius found himself in a moment forsaken by all the herds of his admirers and flatterers, without one single friend, and fled for protection to the church, and to those very altars whose immunities he had infringed and violated. The whole city was in an uproar against him; the army called aloud for his death, and a troop of soldiers surrounded the church with naked swords in their hands, and fire in their eyes. St. Chrysostom went to the emperor, and easily obtained of him that the unhappy criminal might be allowed to enjoy the benefit of sanctuary; and the soldiers were prevailed upon, by the tears of the emperor and the remonstrances of the bishop, to withdraw. The next day the people flocked to behold a man whose frown two days before made the whole world to tremble, now laying hold of the altar, gnashing his teeth, trembling and shuddering, having nothing before his eyes but drawn swords, dungeons, and executioners. St. Chrysostom on this occasion made a pathetic discourse on the vanity and treachery of human things, the emptiness and falsehood of which he could not find a word emphatical enough to express. The poor Eutropius could not relish such truths a few days ago, but now found his very riches destructive. The saint entreated the people to forgive him whom the emperor, the chief person injured, was desirous to forgive: he asked them how they could beg of God the pardon of their own sins if they did not pardon a man who then, by repentance, was perhaps a saint in the eyes of God. At this discourse not a single person in the church was able to refrain from tears, and all things seemed in a state of tranquillity.[25] Some days after, Eutropius left the church, hoping to escape privately out of the city, but was seized, and banished into Cyprus.[26] He was recalled a few months after, and being impeached {245} of high-treason was condemned and beheaded, chiefly at the instigation of Gainas; in compliance with whose unjust demands the weak emperor consented to the death of Aurelianus and Saturninus, two principal lords of his court. But St. Chrysostom, by several journeys, prevailed with the barbarian to content himself with their banishment, which they underwent, but were soon after recalled. As unjust concessions usually make rebels the more insolent, Gainas hereupon obliged the emperor to declare him commander-in-chief of all his troops. Yet even when his pride and power were at the highest, St. Chrysostom refused him the use of any Catholic church in Constantinople for the Arian worship. And when, some time after, he laid siege to that capital, the saint went out to him, and by kind expostulations prevailed on him to withhold his design and draw off his army. He was afterwards defeated in passing the Hellespont; and fleeing through the country of the Huns, was overthrown, and slain by them in 400.

This same year, 400, St. Chrysostom held a council of bishops in Constantinople; one of whom had preferred a complaint against his metropolitan Antoninus, the archbishop of Ephesus, which consisted of several heads, but that chiefly insisted on was simony.[27] All our saint's endeavors to discuss this affair being frustrated by the distance of places, he found it necessary, at the solicitation of the clergy and people of Ephesus, to go in person to that city, though the severity of the winter season, and the ill state of health he was then in, might be sufficient motives for retarding this journey. In this and the neighboring cities several councils were held, in which the archbishop of Ephesus and several other bishops in Asia, Lycia, and Phrygia, were deposed for simony. Upon his return after Easter, in 401, having been absent a hundred days, he preached the next morning,[28] calling his people, in the transports of tender joy, his crown, his glory, his paradise planted with flourishing trees; but if any bad shrubs should be found in it, he promised that no pains should be spared to change them into good. He bid them consider if they rejoiced so much as they testified, to see him again who was only one, how great his joy must be which was multiplied in every one of them: he calls himself their bond-slave, chained to their service, but says, that slavery was his delight, and that during his absence he ever had them present to his mind, offering up his prayers for their temporal and spiritual welfare.

It remained that our saint should glorify God by his sufferings, as he had already done by his labors: and if we contemplate the mystery of the cross with the eyes of faith, we shall find him greater in the persecutions he sustained than in all the other occurrences of his life. At the same time we cannot sufficiently deplore the blindness of envy and pride in his enemies, as in the Pharisees against Christ himself. We ought to tremble for ourselves: if that passion does not make us persecute a Chrysostom, it may often betray us into rash judgments, aversions, and other sins, even under a cloak of virtue. The first open adversary of our saint was Severianus, bishop of Gabala, in Syria, to whom the saint had left the care of his church during his absence. This mart had acquired the reputation of a preacher, was a favorite of the empress Eudoxia, and had employed all his talents and dexterity to establish himself in the good opinion of the court and people, to the prejudice of the saint, against whom he had preached in his own city. Severianus being obliged to leave Constantinople at the saint's return, he made an excellent discourse to his flock on the peace Christ came to establish on earth, and begged they would receive again Severianus, whom they {246} had expelled the city. Another enemy of the saint was Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, whom Sozomen, Socrates, Palladius, St. Isidore of Pelusium, and Synesius, accuse of avarice and oppressions to gratify his vanity in building stately churches; of pride, envy, revenge, dissimulation, and an incontrollable love of power and rule, by which he treated other bishops as his slaves, and made his will the rule of justice. His three paschal letters, which have reached us, show that he wrote without method, and that his reflections and reasonings were neither just nor apposite: whence the loss of his other writings is not much to be regretted. These spiritual vices sullied his zeal against the Anthropomorphites, and his other virtues. He died in 412, wishing that he had lived always in a desert, honoring the name of the holy Chrysostom, whose picture he caused to be brought to his bedside, and by reverencing it, showed his desire to make atonement for his past ill conduct towards our saint.[29] This turbulent man had driven from their retreat four abbots of Nitria, called the tall brothers, on a groundless suspicion of Origenism, as appears from Palladius, though it was believed by St. Jerom, which is maintained by Baronius. St. Chrysostom admitted them to communion, but not till they had juridically cleared themselves of it in an ample manner.[30] This however was grievously resented by Theophilus: but the empress Eudoxia, who, after the disgrace of Eutropius, governed her husband and the empire, was the main spring which moved the whole conspiracy against the saint. Zozimus, a heathen historian, says, that her flagrant avarice, her extortions and injustices, knew no bounds, and that the court was filled with informers, calumniators, and harpies, who, being always on the watch for prey, found means to seize the estates of such as died rich, and to disinherit their children or other heirs. No wonder that a saint should displease such a court while he discharged his duty to God. He had preached a sermon against the extravagance and vanity of women in dress and pomp. This was pretended by some to have been levelled at the empress; and Severianus was not wanting to blow the coals. Knowing Theophilus was no friend to the saint, the empress, to be revenged of the supposed affront, sent to desire his presence at Constantinople, in order to depose him. He obeyed the summons with pleasure, and landed at Constantinople in June, 403, with several Egyptian bishops his creatures, refused to see or lodge with John, and got together a packed cabal of thirty-six bishops, the saint's enemies, in a church at Chalcedon, calling themselves the synod at the Oak, from a great tree which gave name to that quarter of the town. The heads of the impeachment drawn up against the holy bishop were: that he had deposed a deacon for beating a servant; that he had called several of his clergy base men; had deposed bishops out of his province; had ordained priests in his domestic chapel, instead of the cathedral; had sold things belonging to the church; that nobody knew what became of his revenues; that he ate alone; and that he gave the holy communion to persons who were not fasting: all which were false or frivolous. The saint held a legal council of forty bishops in the city at the same time; and refused to appear before that at the Oak, alleging most notorious infractions of the canons in their pretended council. The cabal proceeded to a sentence of deposition, which they sent to the city and to the emperor, to whom they also accused him of treason, for having called the empress Jezabel, a false assertion, as Palladius testifies. The emperor hereupon issued out an order for his banishment, but the execution of it was opposed by the people, who assembled about the great church to guard their pastor. {247} He made them a farewell sermon,[31] in which he spoke as follows: "Violent storms encompass me on all sides; yet I am without fear, because I stand upon a rock. Though the sea roar, and the waves rise high, they cannot sink the vessel of Jesus. I fear not death, which is my gain: not banishment, for the whole earth is the Lord's: nor the loss of goods; for I came naked into the world, and must leave it in the same condition. I despise all the terrors of the world and trample upon its smiles and favor. Nor do I desire to live unless for your service. Christ is with me: whom shall I fear? Though waves rise against me: though the sea, though the fury of princes threaten me, all these are to me more contemptible than a spider's web. I always say: O Lord, may thy will be done: not what this or that creature wills, but what it shall please thee to appoint, that shall I do and suffer with joy. This is my strong tower: this is my unshaken rock: this is my staff that can never fail. If God be pleased that it be done, let it be so. Wheresoever his will is that I be, I return him thanks." He declared that he was ready to lay down a thousand lives for them, if at his disposal, and that he suffered only because he had neglected nothing to save their souls. On the third day after the unjust sentence given against him, having received repeated orders from the emperor to go into banishment, and taking all possible care to prevent a sedition, he surrendered himself, unknown to the people, to the count, who conducted him to Praenetum in Bithynia. After his departure his enemies entered the city with guards, and Severianus mounted the pulpit, and began to preach, pretending to show the deposition of the saint to have been legal and just. But the people would not suffer him to proceed, and ran about as if distracted, loudly demanding in a body the restoration of their holy pastor. The next night the city was shook with an earthquake. This brought the empress to reflect with remorse on what she had done against the holy bishop. She applied immediately to the emperor, under the greatest consternation, for his being recalled; crying out: "Unless John be recalled, our empire is undone:" and with his consent she dispatched letters the same night, inviting him home with tender expressions of affection and esteem, and protesting her ignorance of his banishment. Almost all the city went out to meet him, and great numbers of lighted torches were carried before him. He stopped to the suburbs, refusing to enter the city till he had been declared innocent by a more numerous assembly of bishops. But the people would suffer no delay: the enemies of the saint fled, and he resumed his functions, and preached to his flock. He pressed the emperor to call Theophilus to a legal synod: but that obstinate persecutor alleged that he could not return without danger of his life. However, Sozomen relates that threescore bishops ratified his return: but the fair weather did not last long. A silver statue of the empress having been erected on a pillar before the great church of St. Sophia, the dedication of it was celebrated with public games, which, besides disturbing the divine service, engaged the spectators in extravagances and superstition. St. Chrysostom had often preached against licentious shows; and the very place rendered these the more criminal. On this occasion, fearing lest his silence should be construed as an approbation of the thing, he, with his usual freedom and courage, spoke loudly against it. Though this could only affect the Manichaean overseer of those games, the vanity of the empress made her take the affront to herself, and her desires of revenge were implacable.[32] His enemies were invited back: Theophilus {248} durst not come, but sent three deputies. Though St. John had forty-two bishops with him, this second cabal urged to the emperor certain canons of an Arian council of Antioch, made only to exclude St. Athanasius, by which it was ordained that no bishop who had been deposed by a synod, should return to his see till he was restored by another synod. This false plea overruled the justice of the saint's cause, and Arcadius sent him an order to withdraw. He refused to forsake a church committed to him by God, unless forcibly compelled to leave it. The emperor sent troops to drive the people out of the churches on Holy-Saturday, and the holy places were polluted with blood and all manner of outrages. The saint wrote to pope Innocent, begging him to declare void all that had been done; for no injustice could be more notorious.[33] He also wrote to beg the concurrence of certain other holy bishops of the West. The pope having received from Theophilus the acts of the false council at the Oak, even by them saw the glaring injustice of its proceedings, and wrote to him, exhorting him to appear in another council, where sentence should be given according to the canons of Nice, meaning by those words to condemn the Arian canons of Antioch. He also wrote to St. Chrysostom, to his flock, and several of his friends: and endeavored to redress these evils by a new council: as did also the emperor Honorius. But Arcadius and Eudoxia found means to prevent its assembling, the very dread of which made Theophilus, Severianus, and other ringleaders of the faction to tremble.

St. Chrysostom was suffered to remain at Constantinople two months after Easter. On Thursday, in Whitsun-week, the emperor sent him an order for his banishment. The holy man, who received it in the church, said to those about him, "Come, let us pray, and take leave of the angel of the church." He took leave of the bishops, and, stepping into the baptistery, also of St. Olympias and the other deaconesses, who were overwhelmed with grief and bathed in tears. He then retired privately out of the church, to prevent a sedition, and was conducted by Lucius, a brutish captain, into Bithynia, and arrived at Nice on the 20th of June, 404. After his departure, a fire breaking out, burnt down the great church and the senate-house, two buildings which were the glory of the city: but the baptistery was spared by the flames, as it were to justify the saint against his calumniators; for not one of the rich vessels was found wanting. In this senate-house perished the incomparable statues of the muses from Helicon, and other like ornaments, the most valuable then known: so that Zozimus looks upon this conflagration as the greatest misfortune that had ever befallen that city. Palladius ascribes the fire to the anger of heaven. Many of the saint's friends were put to the most exquisite tortures on this account, but no discovery could be made. The Isaurians plundered Asia, and the Huns several other provinces. Eudoxia ended her life and crimes in childbed on the 6th of October following, five days after a furious hail-storm had made a dreadful havoc in the city. The emperor wrote to St. Nilus, to recommend himself and his empire to his prayers. The hermit answered him with a liberty of speech which became one who neither hoped nor feared any thing from the world. "How do you hope," said he, "to see Constantinople delivered from the destroying angel of God, after such enormities authorized by laws? after having banished the most blessed John, the pillar of the church, the lamp of truth, the trumpet of Jesus Christ!"[34] And again: "You have banished John, the greatest light of the earth:--At least, {249} do not persevere in your crime."[35] His brother, the emperor Honorius, wrote still in stronger terms,[36] and several others. But in vain; for certain implacable court ladies and sycophants, hardened against all admonitions and remorse, had much too powerful an ascendant over the unhappy emperor, for these efforts of the saint's friends to meet with success. Arsacius, his enemy and persecutor, though naturally a soft and weak man, was by the emperor's authority intruded into his see. The saint enjoyed himself comfortably at Nice: but Cucusus was pitched upon by Eudoxia for the place of his banishment. He set out from Nice in July, 404, and suffered incredible hardships from heats, fatigues, severity of guards, almost perpetual watchings, and a fever which soon seized him with pains in his breast. He was forced to travel almost all night, deprived of every necessary of life, and was wonderfully refreshed if he got a little clear water to drink, fresh bread to eat, or a bed to take a little rest upon. All he lamented was the impenitence of his enemies, for their own sake: calling impunity in sin, and honor conferred by men on that account, the most dreadful of all judgments.[37] About the end of August, after a seventy days' journey, he arrived at Cucusus, a poor town in Armenia, in the deserts of Mount Taurus. The good bishop of the place vied with his people in showing the man of God the greatest marks of veneration and civility, and many friends met him there, both from Constantinople and Antioch. In this place, by sending missionaries and succors, he promoted the conversion of many heathen countries, especially among the Goths, in Persia and Phoenicia. He appointed Constantius, his friend, a priest of Antioch, superior of the apostolic missions in Phoenicia and Arabia. The letters of Constantius are added to those of St. Chrysostom. The seventeen letters of our saint to St. Olympias might be styled treatises. He tells her,[38] "I daily exult and am transported with joy in my heart under my sufferings, in which I find a hidden treasure: and I beg that you rejoice on the same account, and that you bless and praise God, by whose mercy we obtain to such a degree the grace of suffering." He often enlarges on the great evils and most pernicious consequences of sadness and dejection of spirit, which he calls[39] "the worst of human evils, a perpetual domestic rack, a darkness and tempest of the mind, an interior war, a distemper which consumes the vigor of the soul, and impairs all her faculties." He shows[40] that sickness is the greatest of trials, a time not of inaction, but of the greatest merit, the school of all virtues, and a true martyrdom. He advises her to use physic, and says it would be a criminal impatience to wish for death to be freed from sufferings. He laments the fall of Pelagius, whose heresies he abhorred. He wrote to this lady his excellent treatise, That no one can hurt him who does not hurt himself. Arsacius dying in 405, many ambitiously aspired to that dignity, whose very seeking it was sufficient to prove them unworthy. Atticus, one of this number, a violent enemy to St. Chrysostom, was preferred by the court, and placed in his chair. The pope refused to hold communion with Theophilus or any of the abettors of the persecution of our saint.[41] He and the emperor Honorius sent five bishops to Constantinople to insist on a council, and that, in the mean time, St. Chrysostom should be restored to his see, his deposition having been notoriously unjust.[42] But the deputies were cast into prison in Thrace, because they refused to communicate with Atticus. The persecutors saw that, if the council was held, they would be inevitably condemned and deposed by it, therefore they stuck at nothing to prevent its meeting. The incursions of the Isaurian plunderers obliged St. Chrysostom to take shelter in the castle of Arabissus, on{250} Mount Taurus. He enjoyed a tolerable state of health during the year 406 and the winter following, though it was extremely cold in those mountains, so that the Armenians were surprised to see how his thin, weak body was able to support it. When the Isaurians had quitted the neighborhood, he returned to Cucusus. But his impious enemies, seeing the whole Christian world both honor and defend him, resolved to rid the world of him. With this view they procured an order from the emperor that he should be removed to Arabissus, and thence to Pytius, a town situated on the Euxine sea, near Colchis, at the extremity of the empire, on the frontiers of the Sarmatians, the most barbarous of the Scythians. Two officers were ordered to convey him thither in a limited number of days, through very rough roads, with a promise of promotion, if, by hard usage, he should die in their hands. One of these was not altogether destitute of humanity, but the other could not bear to hear a mild word spoken to him. They often travelled amidst scorching heats, from which his head, that was bald, suffered exceedingly. In the most violent rains they forced him out of doors, obliging him to travel till the water ran in streams down his back and bosom. When they arrived at Comana Pontica, in Cappadocia, he was very sick; yet was hurried five or six miles to the martyrium or chapel in which lay the relics of the martyr St. Basiliscus.[43] The saint was lodged in the oratory of the priest. In the night, that holy martyr appearing to him, said, "Be of good courage, brother John; to-morrow we shall be together." The confessor was filled with joy at this news, and begged that he might stay there till eleven o'clock. This made the guards drag him out the more violently; but when they had travelled four miles, perceiving him in a dying condition, they brought him back to the oratory. He there changed all his clothes to his very shoes, putting on his best attire, which was all white, as if he meant it for his heavenly nuptials. He was yet fasting, and having received the holy sacrament, poured forth his last prayer, which he closed with his usual doxology: Glory be to God for all things. Having said Amen, and signed himself with the sign of the cross, he sweetly gave up his soul to God on the feast of the exaltation of the holy cross, the 14th of September, as appears from the Menaea, in 407, having been bishop nine years and almost seven months.[44]

His remains were interred by the body of St. Basiliscus, a great concourse of holy virgins, monks, and persons of all ranks from a great distance flocking to his funeral. The pope refused all communion with those who would not allow his name a place in the Dyptics or registers of Catholic bishops deceased. It was inserted at Constantinople by Atticus, in 417, and at Alexandria, by St. Cyril, in 419: for Nestorius tells him that he then venerated the ashes of John against his will.[45] His body was translated to Constantinople in 434, by St. Proclus, with the utmost pomp, the emperor Theodosius and his sister Pulcheria accompanying St. Proclus in the procession, and begging pardon for the sins of their parents, who had unadvisedly persecuted this servant of God. The precious remains were laid in the church of the apostles, the burying-place of the emperors and bishops, on the 27th of January, 438; on which day he is honored by the Latins: {251} but the Greeks keep his festival on the 13th of November.[46] His ashes were afterwards carried to Rome, and rest under an altar which bears his name in the Vatican church. The saint was low in stature; and his thin, mortified countenance bespoke the severity of his life. The austerities of his youth, his cold solitary abode in the mountains, and the fatigues of continual preaching, had weakened his breast, which occasioned his frequent distempers. But the hardships of his exile were such as must have destroyed a person of the most robust constitution. Pope Celestine, St. Austin, St. Nilus, St. Isidore of Pelusium, and others, call him the illustrious doctor of churches, whose glory shines on every side, who fills the earth with the light of his profound sacred learning, and who instructs by his works the remotest corners of the world, preaching everywhere, even where his voice could not reach. They style him the wise interpreter of the secrets of God, the sun of the whole universe, the lamp of virtue, and the most shining star of the earth. The incomparable writings of this glorious saint, make his standing and most authentic eulogium.

In the character which St. Chrysostom has in several places drawn of divine and fraternal charity and holy zeal, we have a true portraiture of his holy soul. He excellently shows, from the words of our Lord to St. Peter,[47] that the primary and essential disposition of a pastor of souls is a pure and most ardent love of God, whose love for these souls is so great, that he has delivered his Son to death for them. Jesus Christ shed his blood to save this flock, which he commits to the care of St. Peter. Nothing can be stronger or more tender than the manner in which this saint frequently expresses his charity and solicitude for his spiritual children.[48] When he touches this topic, his words are all fire and flame, and seem to breathe the fervor of St. Peter, the zeal of St. Paul, and the charity of Moses. This favorite of God was not afraid, for the salvation of his people, to desire to be separated from the company of the saints, provided this could have been done without falling from the love of God; though he knew that nothing would more closely unite him forever to God, than this extraordinary effort of his love. The apostle of nations desired to be an anathema for his brethren, and for their salvation;[49] and the prince of the apostles gave the strongest proof of the ardor of his love for Christ, by the floods of tears which he shed for his flock. From the same furnace of divine love, St. Chrysostom drew the like sentiments towards his flock, joined with a sovereign contempt of all earthly things; another distinguishing property of charity, which he describes in the following words:[50] "Those who burn with a spiritual love, consider as nothing all that is shining or precious on earth. We are not to be surprised if we understand not this language, who have no experience of this sublime virtue. For whoever should be inflamed with the fire of the perfect love of Jesus Christ, would be in such dispositions with regard to the earth, that he would be indifferent both to its honors and to its disgrace, and would be no more concerned about its trifles than if he was alone in the world. He would despise sufferings, scourges, and dungeons, as if they were endured in another's body, not in his own; and would be as insensible to the pleasures and enjoyments of the world; as we are to the bodies of the dead, or as the dead are to their own bodies. He would be as pure from the stain of any inordinate passions, as gold perfectly refined is from all rust or spot. And as flies beware of falling into the flames, and keep at a distance, so irregular passions dare not approach him."

Footnotes:
1. S. Chrys. ad Vid. jun. t. 1, p. 340.
2. Sozom. l. 8, c. 22.
3. Liban. ep. ad Joan. apud S. Isidor. Pelus. l. 2, ep. 42.
4. L. 3, de Sacerd. c. 14, p. 390.
5. L. 3, de Sacerd. c. 14.
6. Hom. 72 (ol. 73) and 69 (ol. 69,) in Matt. Hom. 14, in 1 Tim. t. 11,
pp. 628, 630, {}3, contra vitup. vita Mon. c. 14.
7. Lib. de Compunct. p. {1}32.
8. Lib. 1, de Compunct. &c.
9. Flavian I. was a native of Antioch, of honorable extraction, and
possessed of a plentiful estate, which he employed in the service of
the church and relief of the poor. He was remarkably grave and
serious, and began early to subdue his flesh by austerities and
abstinence, in which he remitted nothing even in his old age. Thus
was his heart prepared to receive and cherish the seeds of divine
grace, the daily increase of which rendered him so conspicuous in
the world, and of such advantage to the church. The Arians being at
that time masters of the church of Antioch, Flavian and his
associate Diodorus, afterwards bishop of Tarsus, equally
distinguished by their birth, fortune, learning, and virtue, were
the great supports of the flock St. Eustathius had been forced to
abandon. In 348, they undertook the defence of the Catholic faith
against Leontius, the Arian bishop, who made use of all his craft
and authority to establish Arianism to that city; one of whose chief
expedients was to promote none to holy orders but Arians. The
scarcity of Catholic pastors, on this account called for all their
zeal and charity in behalf of the abandoned flock. The Arians being
in possession of the churches to the city, these two zealous laymen
assembled them without the walls, at the tombs of the martyrs, for
the exercise of religious duties. They introduced among them the
manner of singing psalms alternately, and of concluding each psalm
with _Glory be to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; as it was,_ &c.,
which pious custom was soon after spread over all the eastern and
western churches. Theodoret (l. 2, c. 19) says, that Flavian and
Diodorus were the first who directed the psalms to be sung in this
manner by two choirs: though Socrates (l. 6, c. 8) attributes its
institution to St. Ignatius the martyr: who having, as he there
relates, heard angels in a vision singing the divine praises
alternately, instituted that manner of singing in the church of
Antioch; but this might have been disused. Pliny's famous letter to
Trajan shows, that singing was then in use among the Christians In
Bithynia; and it appears from Philo, that the Therapeuts did the
same before that time. Leontius stood so much in awe of Flavian and
Diodorus while they were only laymen, that in compliance with their
demands he deposed Aetius that most impious and barefaced blasphemer
of all the Arians, from the rank of deacon.

St. Meletius, on his being promoted to the see of Antioch, about the
year 361, raised these both to the priesthood, and they took care of
that church, as his delegates, during his banishment by Constantius.
Thus they continued together their zealous labors till Diodorus was
made bishop of Tarsus. In 381, St. Meletius took Flavian with him to
the general council which was assembled at Constantinople; but dying
in that capital, Flavian was chosen to succeed him. His life was a
perfect copy of the eminent episcopal virtues, and especially of the
meekness, the candor, and affability of his worthy predecessor.

Unhappily the schism, which for a long time had divided the church
of Antioch, was not yet extinguished. The occasion was this: after
the death of St. Eustathius, they could not agree in the choice of
his successor; those who were most attached to this holy prelate,
with St. Athanasius and the West, followed Paulinus: the
Apollinarists declared for Vitalis: and the greatest body of the
orthodox of Antioch, with Flavian, Diodorus, and all the East,
adhered to St. Meletius, who, as we have seen already, was succeeded
by Flavian. Paulinus, bishop of that part of the Catholics called
Eustathians, from their attachment to that prelate, though long
since dead, still disputed that see with Flavian; but dying in 383,
the schism of Antioch must have ended, had not his abettors kept
open the breach by choosing Evagrius in his room; though it does not
appear that he had one bishop in communion with him, Egypt and the
West being now neuter, and the East all holding communion with
Flavian. Evagrius dying in 395, the Eustathians, though now without
a pastor, still continued their separate meetings, and kept up the
schism several years longer. St. Chrysostom being raised to the see
of Constantinople, in 398, labored hourly to abolish this fatal
schism, which was brought about soon after by commissioners
constituted for this purpose by the West, Egypt, and all the other
parties concerned, and the Eustathians received Flavian as their
bishop. In the year 404, when St. Chrysostom was banished, Flavian
testified his indignation against so unjust a proceeding, and wrote
upon that subject to the clergy of Constantinople. But he did not
live to be witness of all the sufferings his dear friend was to meet
with, dying about three years before him, in 404. The general
council of Chalcedon calls him blessed, (Conc. t. 4, p. 840,) and
Theodoret (l. 5, c. 232) gives him the titles of the great, the
admirable saint. St. Chrysostom is lavish in his praises of him.
Flavian's sermons and other writings are all lost except his
discourse to Theodosius, preserved by St. Chrysostom. No church or
Martyrology, whether among the Greeks or Latins, ever placed Falvius
I. of Antioch in the catalogue of the saints. Whence Chatelain, in
his notes, speaking of St. Meletius, February the 12th, p. 630; and
on St. Flavian of Constantinople, February the 17th, p. 685,
expresses his surprise at the boldness of Baillet and some others,
who, without regard to the decrees of Urban VIII., presumed to do it
of their own private authority, and without any reason, have
assigned for his feast the 21st of February. Chatelain, in his
additions to his Universal Martyrology, p. 711, names him with the
epithet of venerable only, on the 26th of September. He is only
spoken of here, to answer our design of giving in the notes some
account of the most eminent fathers of the church who have never
been ranked among the saints. On St. Flavian II. of Antioch,
banished by the emperor Anastasius with St. Elias of Jerusalem, for
their zeal in defending the council of Chalcedon against the
Eutychians, see July {} 4th, on which these two confessors are
commemorated in the Roman Martyrology.
10. St. Chrys. Hom. 21, ad Pap. Antioch. seu de Statius. t. 2.
11. Sozom. l. 8, c. 2, &c.
12. Socrat. c. 2. See Stilting, Sec.35, p. 511.
13. St. Chrys. l. Quod regulares foeminae, t. 1, p. 250.
14. Stilting, Sec.41, p. 526.
15. Phot. Cod. 59. Socr. l. 6, c. 21. Stilting, Sec.40, p. 523.
16. [Greek: Kai sunegores elambanomen]. Chrys. Serm. contra ludos et
spect. t. 6, p. 272. Ed. Ben. [Greek: Andreas Paulon kai Timotheon].
17. Mich. vi. 3. Jer. ii. 5.
18. Hom. 13, in Ephes. t. 11, p. 95
19. Pallad in Vit. Chrysost. Item S. Chrysost. Hom. in 1 Tim. v. 5, l.
3, de Sacerd. c. 8, and l. ad V{}oior. Stilting, Sec.67, p. 603.
20. [Greek: Ioannes hu tes eleemosunes]. Pallad. c. 12.
21. Hom. 2, & 25, in Acta. Hom. 14, in Hebr. Pallad. in Vit. S. Chrys.
22. S. Procl. Or. 22. p. 581.
23. L. 2, Ep. 294, p. 266.
24. L. 3, de Sacerd.
25. Stilting, Sec.43, p. 530, et seq.
26. About this time the poet Claudian wrote his two books against
Eutropius, as he had done before against Rufinus.
27. Pallad. Dial. {} 127. Stilting, Sec.47, p. 542.
28. T. 3, p. 411.
29. S. Joan. Damasc. Orat. 3, de Imaginibus, p. 480, {} Billii. See F.
Sollier in Hist. Chronol. Patriarch Alexand. in Theophilo, p. 52.
30. See Stilting, Sec.54, 55, 5{}, p. 567.
31. T. 3, p. 415.
32. Socrates and Sozomen say that he preached another sermon against the
empress, beginning with these words: Herodias is again became
furious. But Montfaucon refutes this slander, trumped up by his
enemies. The sermon extant under that title is a manifest forgery,
t. {}n spuriis, p. 1. See Montfaucon, and Stilting, Sec.63, p. 503.
33. {}p t. 3, p. 515. Pallad. Dial. Stilting, Sec.58, p. 578.
34. S. Nilus, l. 2, ep. 265.
35. L. 3, ep. 279.
36. T. 3, p. 525.
37. Ep. 8.
38. Ep. 8, p. 589.
39. Ibid. 3, p. 552.
40. Ibid. 4, p. 570.
41. Pallad. Theodoret, l. 5, c. 34.
42. Pallad. Sozom. l. 8. c. 28.
43. The passage of Palladius, in which St. Basiliscus is called bishop
of Comana, is evidently falsified by the mistake of copiers, as
Stilting demonstrates; who shows this Basiliscus to have suffered
not at Nicomedia, but near Comana, in the country where his relics
remained; the same that is honored on the 2d of March. It is without
grounds that Tillemont, Le Quien, &c., imagine there were two
martyrs of the same name, the one a soldier, who suffered at Comana
under Galerius Maximian; the other, bishop of that city. T. 5, in S.
Basilisc. note 4. See Stilting, Sec.83, p. 665.
44. Sir Harry Saville is of opinion that he was only fifty-two years
old: but he must have been sixty-three, as born in 344.
45. Nestorius, Or. 12, apud Marium Mercat. par. 2, p. 86, ed. Gamier.
Stilting, Sec.88, p. 685.
46. Jos. Assemani. Comm. In Calend. Univ. t. 6. p. 105, and Stilting.
47. Joan. xxi. 17. St. Chrys. l. 2, de Sacred. c. 1.
48. Hom. 3 & 44, in Act. et alibi saepe.
49. See St. Chrys. hom. 16, in Rom.
50. Hom. 52, in Acta.

{252}

ON THE WRITINGS

OF

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.

IN the Benedictine edition of his works given by Dom Montfaucon, we have in the first tome his two Exhortations to Theodorus; three books against the Adversaries of a Monastic Life; the Comparison between a King and a Monk; two books on Compunction; three books to Stagirius the monk, on Tribulation and Providence; against those Clergymen who harbor Women under their roof to serve them; another treatise to prove that Deaconesses, or other Regular Women, ought not to live under the same roof with men; On Virginity; To a Young Widow; On the Priesthood; and a considerable number of scattered homilies. Theodorus, after renouncing the advantages which high birth, a plentiful estate, a polite education, and an uncommon stock of learning offered him in the world, and having solemnly consecrated himself to God in a monastic state, violated his sacred engagement, returned into the world, took upon him the administration of his estate, fell in love with a beautiful young woman named Hermione, and desired to marry her. St. Chrysostom, who had formerly been his school-fellow, under Libanius, and been afterwards instrumental in inducing him to forsake the world, and some time his companion in a religious state, grievously lamented his unhappy fall; and by two most tender and pathetic exhortations to repentance, gained him again to God. Every word is dictated by the most ardent zeal and charity, and powerfully insinuates itself into the heart by the charm of an unparalleled sweetness, which gives to the strength of the most persuasive eloquence an irresistible force. Nothing of the kind extant is more beautiful, or more tender, than these two pieces, especially the former. The saint, in the beginning, borrows the most moving parts of the lamentations of Jeremy, showing that he had far more reason to abandon himself to bitter grief than that prophet; for he mourned not for a material temple and city with the holy ark and the tables of the law, but for an immortal soul, far more precious than the whole material world. And if one soul which observes the divine law is greater and better than ten thousand which transgress it, what reason had he to deplore the loss of one which had been sanctified, and the holy living temple of God, and shone with the grace of the Holy Ghost: one in which the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost had dwelt; but was stripped of its glory and fence, robbed of its beauty, enslaved by the devil, and fettered with his bolts and chains. Therefore the saint invites all creatures to mourn with him, and declares he will receive no comfort, nor listen to those who offer him any, crying out with the prophet: _Depart from me: I will weep bitterly: offer not to comfort me_. Isa. xxii. 4. His grief, he says, was just, because he wept for a soul that was fallen from heaven to hell, from grace into sin: it was reasonable, because by tears she might yet be recovered; and he protests that he would never interrupt them, till he should learn that she was risen again. To fortify his unhappy friend against the temptation of despair, he shows by the promises, examples, and parables of the Old and New Testaments, that no one can doubt of the power or goodness of God, who is most ready to pardon every sinner that sues for mercy. Observing that hell was not created for man, but heaven, he conjures him not to defeat the design of God in his creation, and destroy the work of his mercy by persevering in sin. The difficulties which seemed to stand in his way, and dispirited him, the saint shows would be all removed, and would even vanish of themselves, if he undertook the work with courage and resolution: this makes the conversion of a soul easy. He terrifies him by moving reflections on death, and the divine judgments, by a dreadful portraiture which he draws of the fire of hell, which resembles not our fire, but burns souls, and is eternal; lastly, by the loss of heaven, on the joys of which kingdom he speaks at large; on its immortality, the company of the angels, the joy, liberty, beauty, and glory of the blessed, adding, that such is this felicity, that in its loss consists the most dreadful of all the torments of the damned. Penance averts these evils, and restores to a soul all the titles and advantages which she had forfeited by her fall: and its main difficulty and labor are vanquished by a firm resolution, and serious beginning of the work. This weakens and throws down the enemy: if he be thoroughly vanquished in that part where he was the strongest, the soul will pursue, with ease and cheerfulness, the delightful and beautiful course of virtue upon which she has entered. He conjures Theodorus, by all that is dear, to have compassion on himself; also to have pity on his mourning friends, and not by grief send them to their graves: he exhorts him resolutely to break his bonds at once, not to temporize only with his enemy, or pretend to rise by degrees; and he entreats him to exert his whole strength in laboring to {253} be of the happy number of those who, from being the last, are raised by their fervor to the first rank in the kingdom of God. To encourage him by examples, he mentions a young nobleman of Phoenicia, the son of one Urbanus, who, having embraced with fervor the monastic state, insensibly fell into lukewarmness, and at length returned into the world, where he enjoyed large possessions, lived in pomp, and abandoned himself to the pursuit of vanity and pleasures; till, opening his eyes upon the remonstrances of certain pious friends, he distributed his whole estate among the poor, and spent the rest of his life in the desert with extraordinary fervor. Another ascetic, falling by degrees, in an advanced age, committed the crime of fornication; but immediately rising, attained to an eminent degree of sanctity, and was honored with the gift of miracles. The disciple of St. John, who had been a captain of a troop of robbers and murderers, became an illustrious penitent. In like manner, our saint exhorts and conjures this sinner to rise without delay, before he was overtaken by the divine judgments, and to confess his sins with compunction of heart, abundant bitter tears, and a perfect change of life, laboring to efface his crimes by good works, to the least of which Christ has promised a reward.

St. Chrysostom begins his second Exhortation to Theodorus, which is much shorter than the first, by expressing his grief as follows: (t. 1, p. 35:) "If tears and groans could have been conveyed by letters, this would have been filled. I grieve not that you have taken upon you the administration of your affairs; but that you have trampled under your feet the sacred engagement you had made of yourself to Christ. For this I suffer excessive trouble and pain; for this I mourn; for this I am seized with fear and trembling, having before my eyes the severe damnation which so treacherous and base a perfidiousness deserves." He tells him yet "that the case is not desperate for a person to have been wounded, but for him to neglect the cure of his wounds. A merchant after shipwreck labors to repair his losses; many wrestlers, after a fall, have risen and fought so courageously as to have been crowned; and soldiers, after a defeat, have rallied and conquered. You allege," says he, "that marriage is lawful. This I readily acknowledge; but it is not now in your power to embrace that state: for it is certain that one who, by a solemn engagement, has given himself to God as his heavenly spouse, if he violates this contract, he commits an adultery, though he should a thousand times call it marriage. Nay, he is guilty of a crime so much the more enormous as the majesty of God surpasses man. Had you been free, no one would charge you with desertion; but since you are contracted to so great a king, you are not at your own disposal." St. Chrysostom pathetically shows him the danger, baseness, and crime of deferring his repentance, sets before him hell, the emptiness of the world, the uneasiness and troubles which usually attend a married life, and the sweetness of the yoke of Christ. He closes this pressing exhortation by mentioning the tears and prayers of his friends, which they would never interrupt, till they had the comfort of seeing him raised from his fall. St. Chrysostom wrote these two exhortations about the year 369, which was the second that he spent in his mother's house at Antioch when he led there an ascetic life. The fruit of his zeal and charity was the conversion of Theodorus, who broke his engagements with the world, and returned to his solitude. In 381 he was made bishop of Mopsuestia. In opposing the Apollinarist heresy, he had the misfortune to lay the seeds of Nestorianism in a book which he composed on the Incarnation, and other writings. He became a declared protector of Julian the Pelagian, when he took refuge in the East; wrote an express treatise against original sin; and maintained the Pelagian errors in a multitude of other works, which were all condemned after his death, though only fragments of them have reached us, preserved chiefly in Facundus, Photius, and several councils. He died in 428, before the solemn condemnation of his errors, and in the communion of the Catholic church. See Tillemont, t. 12.