Chapter 7 No.7

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,

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....