During the absence of Flavian all the powers of Chrysostom as an orator, a pastor, and a citizen, were called forth in attempting to calm the fears and revive the deeply-dejected spirits of the people. Perseveringly did he discharge this anxious and laborious task; almost every day, for twenty-two days, that small figure was to be seen either sitting in the Ambo, from which he sometimes preached on account of his diminutive stature, or standing on the steps of the altar, the preacher’s usual place;[289] and day after day, the crowds increased which came to listen to the stream of golden eloquence which he poured forth. With all the versatility of a consummate artist, he moved from point to point. Sometimes a picture of the city’s agony melted his hearers to tears, and then again he struck the note of encouragement and revived their spirits by bidding them take comfort from the well-known clemency of the Emperor, the probable success of the mission of Flavian, and, above all, from trust in God.
“The gay and noisy city, where once the busy people hummed like bees around their hive, was petrified by fear into the most dismal silence and desolation; the wealthier inhabitants had fled into the country, those who remained shut themselves up in their houses, as if the town had been in a state of siege. If any one ventured into the market-place, where once the multitude poured along like the stream of a mighty river, the pitiable sight of two or three cowering dejected creatures in the midst of solitude soon drove him home again. The sun itself seemed to veil its rays as if in mourning. The words of the prophet were fulfilled, ‘Their sun shall go down at noon, and their earth shall be darkened in a clear day’ (Amos viii. 9). Now they might cry, ‘Send to the mourning women, and let them come, and send for cunning women that they may come’ (Jer. ix. 17). Ye hills and mountains, take up a wailing, let us invite all creation to commiserate our woes, for this great city, this capital of Eastern cities, is in danger of being destroyed out of the midst of the earth, and there is no man to help her, for the Emperor, who has no equal among men, has been insulted; therefore let us take refuge with the King who is above, and summon Him to our aid.”[290]
The chief reason of the people’s extreme dejection was, that the governor and magistrates, probably to disarm any suspicion at court of their own complicity in the sedition, were daily seizing real or supposed culprits, and punishing them with the utmost rigour. Even those who might have been pardoned on account of their tender age were mercilessly handed over to the executioner. Chrysostom speaks of some even having been burnt, and others thrown to wild beasts. The weeping parents followed their unhappy offspring at a distance, powerless to help but fearing to plead, like men on shore beholding with grief shipwrecked sailors struggling in the water, but unable to rescue them.[291]
But the object of Chrysostom was, not to utter ineffectual lamentations. He aimed at rousing the people from their profound dejection, and printing, if possible, on their hearts, humbled and softened by distress, deep and lasting impressions of good. He told them that there was everything to be hoped for from the embassy of Flavian. “The Emperor was pious, the bishop courageous, yet prudent and adroit; God would not suffer his errand to be fruitless. The very sight of that venerable man would dispose the royal mind to clemency. Flavian would not fail to urge how especially suitable an act of forgiveness was to that holy season, in which was commemorated the Death of Christ for the sins of the whole world. He would remind the Emperor of the parable of the two debtors, and warn him not to incur the risk of being one day addressed by the words, ‘Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt; shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servants?’ He would represent that the outrages had not been committed by the whole community, but chiefly by some lawless strangers. He would plead that the inhabitants, even had they all offended, had already undergone sufficient punishment in the anxiety and alarm which they endured. It would be unreasonable to visit the crime of a few by the extirpation of a whole city, a city which was the most populous capital of the East, and dear to Christians as the place where they had first received that sweet and lovely name.”[292]
Meanwhile he earnestly calls upon the people to improve this season of humiliation by a thorough repentance and reformation in respect of the prevailing vices and follies. The words of St. Paul in writing to the Philippians, “To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, and for you it is safe,” might be aptly applied to Chrysostom. He is never tired of denouncing special sins and exhorting to the renunciation of them in every variety of language. Ostentatious luxury, sordid avarice, religious formalism, a profane custom of taking rash oaths, were the fashionable sins against which he waged an incessant and implacable warfare.
His exhortations are generally based on some passage read in the lesson of the day. “What have we heard today? ‘Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded.’ He who says ‘the rich in this world’ proves thereby that there are others rich in regard to a future world, like Lazarus in the parable.” Wealth of this world was a thankless runaway slave, which, if bound with thousands of fetters, made off, fetters and all. Not that he would quarrel with wealth; it was good in itself, but became evil when inordinately desired and paraded, just as the evil of intoxication lay not in wine itself, but in the abuse of it. The Apostle did not charge those who were rich to become poor, but only not to be high-minded. “Let us adorn our own souls before we embellish our houses. Is it not disgraceful to overlay our walls with marbles and to neglect Christ, who is going about unclothed? What profit is there, O man, in thy house? Wilt thou carry it away with thee? Nay, thou must leave thy house; but thy soul thou wilt certainly take with thee. Lo! how great the danger which has now overtaken us: let our houses, then, be our defenders; let them rescue us from the impending peril;—but they will not be able. Be those witnesses to my words who have now deserted their houses, and hurried away to the wilderness as if afraid of nets and snares. Do you wish to build large and splendid houses? I forbid you not, only build them not upon the earth; build yourselves tabernacles in heaven—tabernacles which never decay. Nothing is more slippery than wealth, which to-day is with thee and to-morrow is against thee; which sharpens the eyes of the envious on all sides; which is a foe in your own camp, an enemy in your own household. Wealth makes the present danger more intolerable; you see the poor man unencumbered and prepared for whatever may happen, but the rich in a state of great embarrassment, and going about seeking some place in which to bury his gold, or some person with whom to deposit it. Why seek thy fellow-servants, O man? Christ stands ready to receive and guard thy deposits—yea, not only to guard, but also to multiply and to return with rich interest. No man plucks out of His hand; men, when they receive a deposit from another, deem that they have conferred a favour upon him; but Christ, on the contrary, declares that He receives a favour, and, instead of demanding a reward, bestows one upon you.”[293]
He entreated them to make the present Lent a season of spiritual renovation. Lent fell in the spring, when the stream of industry which the winter had frozen began to flow again. The sailor launched his vessel, the soldier furbished his sword, the farmer whetted his scythe, the traveller set out confidently on his long journey, the athlete stripped for the contest. “Even so let this fast be to us a spiritual spring-tide; let us polish our spiritual armour, let us breast the waves of evil passions, set out like travellers on our journey heavenwards, and prepare like athletes for the combat. For the Christian is both husbandman, and pilot, and soldier, and athlete, and traveller. Hast thou seen the athlete? hast thou seen the soldier? if thou art an athlete thou must strip to enter the lists; if thou art a soldier thou must put on armour before taking thy place in the ranks. How then to the same man can both these things be possible? How, dost thou ask? I will tell thee. Strip thyself of thy worldly business, and thou hast become an athlete; clothe thyself with spiritual armour, and thou hast become a soldier. Strip thyself, for it is a season of wrestling; clothe thyself, for we are engaged in a fierce warfare with devils. Till thy soul, and cut away the thorns; sow the seed of piety, plant the good plants of philosophy, and tend them with much care, and thou hast become a husbandman, and St. Paul will say to thee, ‘The husbandman which laboureth must first be a partaker of the fruits.’ Whet thy sickle which thou hast blunted by surfeiting; sharpen it, I say, by fasting. Enter on the road which leads to heaven, the rugged and narrow road, and travel along it. And how shalt thou be able to set out and travel? By buffeting thy body and bringing it into subjection; for where the road is narrow, obesity, which comes from surfeiting, is a great impediment. Repress the waves of foolish passions, repulse the storm of wicked imaginations, preserve the vessel, display all thy skill, and thou hast become a pilot.”[294] The originator and instructor of all these arts was abstinence; not the vulgar kind of abstinence, not abstinence from food only, but also from sins. “If thou fastest, show me the results by thy deeds. What deeds, do you ask? If you see a poor man, have pity on him; if an enemy, be reconciled; if a friend in good reputation, regard him without envy. Fast not only by thy mouth, but with thine eyes, thine ears, thy hands, thy feet; avert thine eyes from unlawful sights, restrain thy hands from deeds of violence, keep thy feet from entering places of pernicious amusement, bridle thy mouth from uttering, and stop thine ears from listening to tales of slander.” This kind of fast would be acceptable to God, only it should be co-extensive with life. To spend a few days in penance and then to relapse into the former course of life was only an idle mockery.[295] He disparaged that rigorous kind of fasting which some had carried to the extent of taking no food but bread and water. Many boasted of the number of weeks they had fasted; this excessive abstinence was likely to be followed by a reaction. Let them seek rather to subdue evil passions and habits; let one week be devoted to the suppression of swearing, another of anger, a third of slander, and so gradually advancing they might at last attain the consummation of virtue, and propitiate the displeasure of God.[296] “Let us not do now what we have so often done, for frequently when earthquakes, or famine, or drought have overtaken us, we have become temperate for three or four days, and then have returned to our former ways of life. But, if never before, now at least let us remain steadfast in the same state of piety, that we may not again require to be chastised by another scourge.”[297]
Almost all the homilies are concluded by an admonition against the sin of swearing, and the greater portion of some is devoted to this topic. The passionate impetuous people of Antioch seem to have been constantly betrayed into the folly of binding themselves by rash oaths. The master, for instance, would take an oath to deprive his slave of food, or the tutor his scholar, till a certain task was accomplished, a threat which it was of course often impossible to enforce. Hence perjury on the part of a superior, and loss of respect on the side of the subordinate. Chrysostom himself had often dined at a house where the mistress swore that she would beat a slave who had made some mistake, while the husband would with another oath forbid the punishment. Thus one of the two would be inevitably involved in perjury.[298] He frequently exhorted his hearers to form a kind of Christian club amongst themselves for the suppression of this vice. In one place he suggests a stern remedy: “When you detect your wife or any of your household yielding to this evil habit, order them supperless to bed, and if you are guilty impose the same penalty on yourself.”[299] Near the close of Lent he declares that he will repel from the holy Table at Easter those whom he detects still addicted to this vice.[300]
On the whole, the eager and earnest pastor may be said to have rejoiced at the grand opportunity afforded by the humiliation of the city, to effect a reformation in the moral life of the people. He observed with great satisfaction, that if the forum was deserted the church was thronged, just as in stormy weather the harbour is crowded with vessels.[301] Many an intemperate man had been sobered, the headstrong softened, or the indolent quickened into zeal. Many who once assiduously frequented the theatre now spent their day in the church. Meanwhile they must abide God’s pleasure for the removal of their affliction. He had sent it for the purpose of purifying and chastening them; He was waiting till He saw a genuine, an unshakeable repentance, like a refiner watching a piece of precious metal in a crucible, and waiting the proper moment for taking it out.[302] As for those who said what they feared was not so much death, as ignominious death by the hand of the executioner, he protested that the only death really miserable was a death in sin. Abel was murdered and was happy, Cain lived and was miserable. John the Baptist was beheaded, St. Stephen was stoned, yet their deaths were happy. To the Christian there was nothing formidable in death itself. To dread death but not to be afraid of sin was to act like children who are frightened by masks whilst they were not afraid of fire. “What, I pray you, is death? It is like the putting off of a garment, for the soul is invested with a body[303] as it were with a garment, and this we shall put off for a little while by death, only to receive it again in a more brilliant form. What, I pray you, is death? It is but to go a journey for a season, or to take a longer sleep than usual.” Death was but a release from toil, a tranquil haven. “Mourn not over him who dies, but over him who, living in sin, is dead while he liveth.”[304]
Chrysostom’s own calmness, and his skill in diverting the thoughts of his flock from present alarm, are manifested by the power and ease with which he dilates on such grand topics as the creation, Divine Providence, the nature of man, and his place in the scale of created beings. His best thoughts, expressed in his best style on these subjects, are to be found in the homilies now under consideration.