He was baptized by Meletius, patriarch of Antioch; his chief friend was S. Basil, and Anthusa's earnest pleadings were required to counteract Basil's proposal that they should both retire into monastic life. Chrysostom, as we may most conveniently call him, could not resist his mother's appeal; he continued to live at home, but in the practice of monastic asceticism and the diligent reading of Scripture. He studied theology under Diodore, the companion of Flavian, who had been the champions of orthodoxy against Arianism, first as laymen, and afterwards as priests, in Antioch. Meletius, who had baptized John Chrysostom, was himself a confessor. It was probably about 372-374 that Chrysostom and Basil were spoken of as likely to be made bishops; and Chrysostom, by a singular artifice—the justification of which forms the least pleasing portion of his treatise "On the Priesthood,"—procured Basil's consecration while evading the burden himself.
For several years he carried out the plan which, during his mother's lifetime he had abandoned, living first in cenobitic "tabernacles," and afterwards as a hermit in a cave, until his health, never robust, gave way, and he was obliged to return to Antioch, where he entered the ministry.
Early in 387, an increase of taxes provoked the people of Antioch to sedition. They threw down the brazen statues of the Emperor Theodosius, and his deceased wife, the pious and charitable Flacilla. Flavian, who had been elected and consecrated patriarch, on the death of Meletius, set forth a little before Lent, to appease the emperor, and met the officers of the empire, sent from court to avenge the insult. His absence was well supplied by Chrysostom, who had recently received priest's orders, and who began to turn this trouble to account by a course of "Sermons on the Statues," as they are called. In these he endeavoured to allay the people's terror, and to convince them of their besetting sins—of which swearing was the chief—and so far succeeded, that the churches were thronged all day. The people of Antioch were pardoned by the emperor at the intercession of the patriarch.
S. Chrysostom had been five years deacon, and twelve years priest, when Nectarius, bishop of Constantinople died, in 397, after an episcopate which had relaxed the general tone of the clergy. "Then," says the biographer of S. Chrysostom, "there came together some who were not wanted, priests unworthy of the priesthood, besetting the palace gates, resorting to bribery, falling on their knees even, before the people." Disgusted by this scandalous eagerness for an office which saints were wont to dread, the faithful entreated Arcadius, the Emperor, to look out for one who could administer it worthily. Eutropius, the emperor's chamberlain, had learned by visiting Antioch to admire the character of Chrysostom. He made Arcadius write to the military commander at Antioch, desiring him to send the priest John to Constantinople, without causing any public excitement. The commander sent a message to Chrysostom, asking him to meet him "at the Church of the Martyrs, near the Roman Gate." Chrysostom complied; was placed in a public conveyance, and hurried away from the scene of his early life and priestly labours. Several bishops were summoned for the consecration. Theophilus of Alexandria had come to Constantinople to solicit the appointment for his priest Isidore. He was required to consecrate Chrysostom, but endeavoured to withdraw, reading the decision and earnestness of Chrysostom in his face, and disliking him, for he was a thoroughly worldly, self-seeking prelate. Eutropius showed him some papers, however, saying, "Choose between consecrating John, and undergoing a trial on the charges made against you in these documents." Theophilus could make no reply. He consecrated Chrysostom on Feb. 26th, a.d. 398; but he never forgave him for having been the cause of this severe mortification.
Over a city in which intrigue and adulation were practised as the royal road to honour, John Chrysostom, straight forward and outspoken, was set as patriarch. He came to be chief shepherd over a clergy given up to ease and sycophancy, flattering the rich and powerful, fawning on the emperor for place, and betraying their charge, the poor.
Chrysostom set to work at once as a reformer of abuses. He forbad the clergy frequenting the banquets of great men; he struggled against the practice of entertaining "spiritual sisters." Several clergy were deprived; Chrysostom drew upon himself the bitter dislike of many members of their body. He examined the accounts of the church-stewards, cut off superfluous expenses, and ordered the sum thus saved to be applied to the maintenance of hospitals. He scrutinized the lives of the widows receiving pension from the Church; he earnestly besought contributions to a fund for the poor; he exhorted the faithful to attend the nocturnal services, but to leave their wives at home with the children. He rebuked the rich for their pride and selfishness. So great was the charm of his "golden tongued" eloquence, and of the unmistakeable nobleness and sincerity of his character, that "the city put on a new aspect of piety;" and the worship of the Catholics became more real, and their lives more earnest and pure.
Among those of the higher classes in Constantinople who were offended by the uncompromising character of their new archbishop, was Eutropius, the chamberlain, who had raised him to the see. He desired to see the Church respectable and subservient, the patriarch pious and obedient, to the state. The Church, in his view, was a portion of the state organization, the clergy the moral police, always to be under the direction of the crown. But under Chrysostom's government it was becoming unmanageable and independent. To curtail its liberties, he procured a law to annul the right of asylum in the churches, which had been growing up during the century. But he was soon driven himself, by a revolution in the emperor's counsels, to clasp the altar as the safeguard of his life. Chrysostom violated the new law in defence of its author; and while Eutropius lay cowering in the sanctuary, bade the people take home this new lesson on the vanity of vanities. "The altar," said he, "is more awful than ever, now that it holds the lion chained." He called on his hearers to beg the emperor's clemency, or rather, to ask the God of mercy to save Eutropius from threatened death, and enable him to put away his many crimes. He bravely withstood the court in the cause of Christian humanity; but Eutropius himself quitted the church, and was condemned to exile.
At this time the Origenist controversy was raging with great acrimony. It is difficult to pronounce an opinion upon it. Origen had unquestionably published some heretical opinions, but some were also attributed to him which he did not hold. Theophilus of Alexandria had leaned strongly towards the Origenists, but he was not a man of principle, and he adopted that view which suited his purposes at the time. Finding it would answer his ends better to oppose Origenism, he denounced it in his Paschal letters, in 401. The monks and hermits of Egypt had been regarded with an evil eye by heathens, Arians, and insincere Christians. All the learned, the philosophers, and men of letters, among the pagans, were emulous in their protest. The impassioned activity of the monks against idolatry, their efforts, more and more successful, to extirpate it from the heart of the rural population, naturally exasperated the last defenders of the idols. The Arians were still more implacable than the Pagans. The tendency of these enemies of the Divinity of Christ was in everything to abuse, degrade, and restrain the spirit of Christianity. How should the monastic life, which was its most magnificent development escape their fury? The war between them and the monks was therefore long and cruel. The persecution which Paganism had scarcely time to light up to its own advantage under Julian, was pitiless under the Arian Constantius, and more skilful, without being more successful, under the Arian Valens. In the time of Constantius, entire monasteries, with the monks they contained, were burnt in Egypt, and in the frightful persecution under the Arian patriarch Lucius, raised in Alexandria, a troop of imperial soldiers ravaged the solitude of Nitria, and massacred its inhabitants. And now Lucius was succeeded by the worldly, ambitious, and utterly unspiritual Theophilus, who hated the poor monks of the desert as a living reproach upon his own self-seeking, and his aim to accommodate Christianity to worldliness. He soon quarrelled with S. Isidore the hospitaller, who had suffered under the Arian Lucius, and whom he now drove from Alexandria, hating him, as those holding to mammon always will hate those who hold to Christ. Isidore fled to Nitria. Theophilus brought the charge of Origenism against the monks there. The chief Nitrian monks were Dioscorus, Bishop of Nitria, Ammonius, Eusebius, and Euthymius; they were known as the "Tall Brothers." Theophilus ordered them to be expelled; when they came to remonstrate, his eyes flashed, his face became livid, he threw his episcopal pall round the neck of Ammonius, struck him on the face with open palm and clenched fist, and cried, "Heretic, anathematize Origen!" They returned to Nitria; the patriarch, in a synod, condemned them unheard, and proceeded by night to attack their monasteries, at the head of a drunken band. Dioscorus was dragged from his throne; the cells of the other three were burned, together with copies of both Testaments, and even the reserved portions of the Holy Eucharist. It was said that a boy perished in the flames. The brothers, with many of their companions, fled to Scythopolis in Palestine, hoping to support themselves in a place famous for palms, by their occupation of weaving palm-baskets. The enmity of Theophilus hunted them out of this refuge; they reached Constantinople, and fell at Chrysostom's feet, "Who is it," asked he with tears, "that has injured you?" They answered, "Pope Theophilus; prevail upon him, father, to let us live in Egypt, for we have never done aught against him or against our Saviour's law."
He lodged them in the church called Anastasia; allowed them to attend the service, but prudently, to avoid, if possible, a breach with their persecutor, debarred them from the communion. They had been condemned by their own patriarch, and it was not for him to admit them to communion without a fair investigation and authoritative exculpation. He wrote to Theophilus, in the tone of a "son and brother," praying him to be reconciled to the fugitives; but Theophilus, who disclaimed his right to interfere, defamed them as sorcerers and heretics. The Tall Brothers now appealed to the emperor and empress, who ordered Theophilus to be summoned, and the accusations against the brothers made by him to be examined. The accusations were soon proved to be groundless. Theophilus, who openly said he was "going to court in order to depose John," arrived in Constantinople in June, 402, with a load of gifts for the emperor, the empress, and the court, from Egypt and India. He at once assumed a tone of contumelious hostility towards S. Chrysostom. He would not visit or speak to him; he even abstained from entering the church.
While Chrysostom declined to hear judicially the complaints of the Tall Brothers, Theophilus was concocting a scheme for his deposition. All the courtiers among the bishops, and the worldly among the clergy desired it, for their tempers rebelled against godly discipline, and the example of his own self-denial was a standing protest against their self-indulgence. Acacius, Bishop of Berrhœa, had been provided with so homely a lodging by Chrysostom that he joined the malcontents, venting his spleen in the curious menace, "I will cook a dish for him!" Eudoxia, the empress, who had heard of a sermon in which Chrysostom had lashed the pride of women, took the side of his enemies, who determined to hold a council at a suburb of Chalcedon, called "The Oak." The bishops who attended were thirty-six. Twenty-nine charges were advanced against the patriarch. Some were of open violence; that he had beaten and chained a monk, had struck a man in church so as to draw blood, and then had offered the sacrifice. Others were of evil speaking; he had said his clergy "were not worth three-pence;" he had accused three deacons of having stolen his pall. He was also charged with misconduct in his office; he sold church furniture, had been careless in conferring orders; he was unsociable, gave women private interviews, was irreverent in church, and ate wafers while sitting on his throne. Some of these charges were gross exaggerations of that plain-spoken severity which knew no respect of persons. Others were inventions more or less malignant. One of the basest was the charge about disposing of church ornaments. Like other saints, he had done so for the sake of the suffering poor.