In his homily On the Calends, or First Day of the Year, (t. 1, p. 697,) he inveighs with great zeal against rioting and revels usual in that season, and strongly exhorts all to spend that day in works of piety, and in consecrating the year to God. As builders raise a wall by a ruler or plummet, that no unevenness may spoil their work, so must we make the sincere intention of the divine glory our rule in our prayers, fasts, eating, drinking, buying, selling, silence, and discourse. This must be our great staff, our arms, our rampart, our immense treasure: wherever we are, and whatever we say or do, we must bear this motto always written on our heart: "To the glory of God;" ever glorifying God, not barely in words, but by all our actions in the sincere affections of our hearts, that we may receive glory from him who says: "Those who glorify me, I will crown with glory," (p. 697.)
In seven discourses, On Lazarus and the Rich Man, he shows that a life of sensuality and pleasures is condemned by Christ; laments that any Christian should abandon himself to debauchery, and declares he will never cease to pursue sinners by his exhortations, as Christ did Judas, to the last moment: if any remain obstinately incorrigible, he shall esteem it a great happiness if he reclaim but one soul, or even prevent but one sin; at least that he can never see God offended and remain silent. (Hom. 1.) He sets off the advantages of afflictions, which are occasions of all virtue, and even in the reprobate, at least abate the number of their sins, and the torments of another life. In the seventh homily, he severely condemns the diversions of the circus, and expresses the most tender grief that any Christian should so far forget God as to frequent them. He paternally exhorts all such to repentance; proves afflictions and the cross to be the portion of the just in this life, and says, "That they whom God does not visit with tribulations, ought at least to afflict themselves by the labors of penance, the only path which can conduct us with Lazarus to God," (p. 736.)
In the second tome, we have the holy doctor's twenty-one sermons to the people of Antioch, or, On the Statues; the following discourses, to the number of sixty, in the old editions not being genuine, but patched up by modern Greeks, chiefly out of several works of this father. The great sedition happened at Antioch on the 26th of February, 387, just after the saint had preached the first of the sermons, in which he spoke against drunkenness and blasphemy, pressing all persons to expel their company any one who should blaspheme. After the sedition, he was silent, in the general grief and consternation, for seven days: then made his second sermon, in which he tells the people that their confusion and remorse is itself a greater punishment than it was in the power of the emperor to inflict; he exhorts them to alms-deeds, and to hope in the mercy of Christ, who, leaving the earth, left us his own flesh, which yet he carried with him to heaven, and that blood which he spilt for us, he again imparted to us. After this, what will he refuse to do for our salvation? The third sermon being made in the beginning of Lent, the preacher inculcates the obligation of fasting: from his words it is clear that Christians then abstained from wine and fish no less than from fowls and all flesh. He insists chiefly on the moral fast of the will from all sin, and of all the senses by self-denials in each of them. Detraction he singles out as the most common sin, and exhorts us to abhor, with the royal prophet, every one who secretly detracts another; to say to such, "If you have any thing to say to the advantage of another, I will hear you with pleasure; but if you have only ill to tell me, this is what I cannot listen to." If detracters were thoroughly persuaded that by their evil speeches they rendered themselves more odious than those of whom they speak ill, they would be effectually cured of this pestilential habit. The saint draws an inference from what the people then saw before their eyes, and represented to them that if emperors punish with extreme rigor those who injure their statues, with what severity will God revenge the injury done by the detracter to his living image, and that offered by the blasphemer to his own adorable name. In the fourth homily, he speaks on the usefulness of afflictions, which withdraw men from many dangers of sin, and make them earnestly seek God. In the fifth, he continues the same subject, and shows that they ought not to fear death, if they prepare themselves for it by sincere penance. Their conversion he would have them begin by correcting the habit of swearing, which had taken deep root among many of them. This victory, he says, would be easy if every one who had contracted such a habit would enjoin himself some penance for every oath which should escape him, as the loss of a meal. "Hunger and thirst," says the saint, "will put you in mind always to watch over yourself, and you will stand in need of no other exhortation." In the sixth, he shows that death is desirable to a Christian, who, by a penitential life, in imitation of the holy anchorets, is dead to the world and himself. {261} In the fourteenth, he describes the dreadful consternation with which the whole city was filled at the sight of new troops, and of a tribunal erected; and, to awake sinners to a sincere repentance, he sets before their eyes the terrors of the last judgment. In the twentieth, he exhorts them to redouble their fervor in preparing their souls for the Paschal communion, the nearer that time approached; especially by forgiving all injuries. In the twenty-first, which was spoken on Easter-day, after the return of the patriarch, he recites great part of Flavian's speech, and the emperor's gracious answer, whose clemency he elegantly extols, with a pathetic exhortation to the people never to forget the divine mercy. From the mention he makes of Flavian's speech, (Hom. 3, p. 35,) it appears that our saint had concerted it with him. He preached every day this Lent; but only these twenty-one have reached us: and only two catechetical discourses, out of many others which he made about Easter that year to the catechumens. In the first he censures those who defer baptism, and explains the names and fruits of that great sacrament; in the second, he exhorts them always to bear in mind, and to repeat to themselves, on every occasion, those solemn words, "I renounce thee, Satan;" and to make it the study of their whole lives to be ever faithful to this most sacred engagement. He next puts them in mind, that they ought to pray without intermission, and always to have God before their eyes, at work, in the shop, abroad, sitting, or whatever else they were doing.
About the year 392, Diodorus, bishop of Tarsus, formerly St. Chrysostom's master, happened to preach at Antioch, and in his sermon highly commended our saint, whom he called John the Baptist, the voice of the church, and the rod of Moses. The people, by loud acclamations, testified how agreeable these encomiums of their preacher were to them: only St. Chrysostom heard them with grief and confusion, and ascribed them to the fondness of a good master, and the charity of the people. Afterwards, ascending the pulpit, he said that every word of the discourse had struck him to the heart, and made him sigh within himself: for praises sting the conscience no less than sins, when a soul is conscious to herself how far she is from what is said of her: they only set before her eyes the last day, in which, to her greater confusion, all things will appear naked and as they are; for we shall not be judged by the masks which are put on us by other men. T. 3, F. 747.
In three sermons On the Devil, he shows that the divine mercy has restored us more by grace in our redemption, than the devil has robbed us of by the sin of Adam; and that the punishment itself of that sin served to set forth the excess of the divine mercy and goodness, (Hom. 1, de Diabolo, t. 2, p. 246;) that temptations and the devil's malice are occasions of great advantage, if we make a good use of them: that temporal calamities are sent by God: we fall into sin only by our own malice: the devil has no power against us but by the divine permission, and all his efforts are weak, unless by our sloth we give him power over us. He draws a parallel between Adam sinning in paradise by his free will, and Job victorious by patience on his dunghill under his sufferings, of which he gives a lively description, showing them to have been far more grievous than all the calamities under which we so easily lose our patience and crown.
In nine homilies On Penance, he extols its efficacy, and invites all sinners to repentance. Hom. 6, p. 316, he vehemently condemns stage entertainments, which he calls the school of pleasure, the seat of pestilence, and the furnace of Babylon. Hom. 3, he calls alms the queen of virtues, and charity and compassion the key of the divine mercy. Hom. 9, p. 347, he presses all to assist assiduously at the divine mysteries, but with attention, awe, and trembling.
In two homilies On the Treason of Judas, (p. 376,) he recommends meekness towards persecutors, and the pardon of injuries, by which we reap from them, without trouble of expense, the most precious of all advantages, grace and the pardon of our sins. Speaking on the holy eucharist, he says, that Christ gives us in it the same body which he delivered to death for us, and that he refused not to present to Judas the very blood which that traitor sold. (Hom. 1, de proditione Judæ, t. 2, p. 383.) He repeats the same thing, (Hom. 2, ib. p. 393.) He observes, that as God, by his word, (Gen. i. 28,) propagates and multiplies all things in nature to the end of the world, so it is not the priest, but Christ, by the words pronounced by the priest, and by virtue of those which he spoke at his last supper, saying, "This is my body," who changes the offering (or bread and wine) in every church from that to this time, and consummates the sacrifice till his coming. (Hom. 1, ib. p. 383.)
In two homilies, On the Cross, and on the Good Thief, preached on Good Friday, he makes many excellent reflections on the conversion of the latter, and on the precept of our forgiving injuries, by which we become true imitators of Christ, and inherit the privileges of his disciples. The cross he commends as the instrument of Christ's glorious triumph, and of our happiness.
In a homily On the Resurrection of the Dead, he proves this article to be the foundation, both of our faith, and of our morals. In that On the Resurrection of our Lord, he tells his flock, that on that day (which was the solemnity of Easter) they were no longer obliged to drink only water, to abstain from the bath, to live on herbs and pulse, and to fast as in Lent; but that they were bound to shun intemperance: he speaks against drunkenness, {262} and says the poor have equal reason for joy and thanksgiving with the rich on that solemnity, the advantages which it brings consisting in spiritual graces, not in feasting or pomp. In the first homily, On Whitsunday, he proves, that though the descent of the Holy Ghost is no longer manifested by miracles, since the faith had been sufficiently established by them, it was not less real, though made in an invisible manner in our souls, by his grace and peace. In the second, on the same feast, he calls Whitsunday the accomplishment of all the mysteries of our faith; and teaches that the Holy Ghost delayed his descent, that he might not come upon the apostles in vain, or without having been long and earnestly desired; and that he manifested his descent by the emblem of tongues of fire, to represent that he consumes like fire the thorns of our souls, and that his principal gift is charity. His seven homilies On St. Paul, are standing proofs of his singular veneration for that great apostle, and admiration of his divine virtues. In the third, speaking of that apostle's ardent love of God, which made ignominies and torments for his sake a triumph, and a subject of joy and pleasure, he seems to surpass himself, (p. 481.) In the sixth, he speaks of miracles wrought at the relics of St. Babylas at Daphne, and says, that the devil trembled at the name of Christ, and fled whenever it was pronounced. In many other homilies he speaks in raptures on the admirable virtues of St. Paul, whose spirit he had imbibed and studied in his writings and example. The miracles of St. Babylas are the subject of a panegyric, which St. Chrysostom has left us on that holy martyr, (ib. p. 531.) We have his panegyrics or homilies on St. Meletius, St. Lucian, SS. Juventinus and Maximin, St. Pelagia, St. Ignatius, St. Eustathius, St. Romanus, the Maccabees, SS. Bernice, Prosodoche, and Domnina, St. Drosis, St. Phocas, &c., in which he frequently and strongly recommends the most devout veneration for their relics. See that on St. Ignatius, p. 593, &c. In homily 1, On the Martyrs, (p. 650,) he says that the very sight of their relics more strongly moves to virtue than the most pathetic sermons, and that their shrines are more precious than the richest earthly treasures, and that the advantages which these relics afford, are not diminished by their division, but multiplied. Some being surprised that in this discourse he had compared the crime of an unworthy communion to that of the Jews, who crucified Christ, he made another under this title, That we are not to preach to please Men; in which he repeats and enforces the same comparison; but adds a serious exhortation to frequent communion, after a sincere repentance, and the distinct confession of every sin; "For it is not enough to say, I am a sinner, but every kind of sin is to be expressed," (p, 667.) Though some circumstances aggravate a sacrilegious communion beyond the crime of Judas and that of the crucifiers of Christ; the last was doubtless, as St. Thomas Aquinas shows, far more enormous in itself; an injury offered to Christ in his own natural form differing from an insult which he receives hid under sacramental veils, though it is hard to imagine that any crime into which a Christian can fall since the death of Christ, can be more enormous than an unworthy communion. St. Chrysostom, in his second sermon On the Martyrs, (p. 668,) bids the faithful remain a long time in prayer at their tombs, and devoutly kiss their shrines, which abound with blessings. In that On the Martyrs of Egypt, (p. 699,) he calls their relics dispersed in different places, "the ramparts of the cities," &c. In that On the Earthquake, he expresses a deep and tender concern for the public calamity, but rejoices at the spiritual advancement of the people, saying, that this scourge had wrought such a change in them, that they seemed to be become angels. Two books On Prayer, bear the name of St. Chrysostom: if they are not mentioned by the ancients among his works, that most important subject is treated in them in a manner not unworthy his pen. This book is made use of in many pious schools as a Greek classic, with another On the Education of Children, full of excellent maxims, ascribed to our saint; but unjustly, for it is a compilation, made without much method, out of several of his sermons and other works.
The first part of the third tome, in the Benedictin edition, presents us thirty-four elegant sermons of this saint on divers texts of holy scripture, and on various Christian virtues and duties. Those on forgiving injuries, humility, alms, prayer, widowhood, and three on marriage, particularly deserve attention. That On Alms he took occasion to preach from the extreme miseries under which he saw the beggars groan, lying abandoned in the streets as he passed through them coming to the church; whence it is inferred by Tillemont and others, that it was spoken extempore, or without preparation. He says, that water does not so easily wash away the spots of our clothes, as alms blot out the stains of our souls. On Marriage, he proves that state to be holy, and will not have it dishonored by profane pomps, which no custom can authorize; as by them God is offended. Christ is to be invited to give the nuptial blessing in the persons of the priests, and what many throw away on musicians, would be a grateful sacrifice to God if bestowed on the poor. Every one ought to be ambitious to set the example of so wholesome and holy a custom, which others would imitate. What incomparable advantages does a wife bring to a house, when she enters it loaded with the blessings of heaven? This is a fortune far beyond all the riches of the world. In the third discourse, he speaks of the inviolable precept of mutual tender love which the husband and wife are bound constantly to bear each other, and of forgetting one another's faults, as {263} a man in engaging in this state seeks a companion for life, the saint observes that nothing is busier than for him to make it an affair of traffic, or a money job. A wife with a moderate fortune usually brings more complaisance and submission, and blesses a house with peace, union, and friendship. How many rich men, by marrying great fortunes, in seeking to increase their estates, have forfeited the repose of their minds for the rest of their lives. A virtuous wife gives every succor and comfort to a family, by the virtuous education of her children, by possessing the heart of her husband, and by furnishing supplies for every necessity, and comfort in every distress. Virtue was the only quality and circumstance which Abraham was solicitous about in the choice which he made of a wife for his son. Among the letters of the saint, which, with certain scattered homilies, fill up the latter part of this volume, the seventeen addressed to St. Olympias, both by the subjects and style, deserve rather the title of treatises than of epistles.