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,
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.