Great was the joy of the people on his arrival, great the mortification and consternation of the rival candidates. Theophilus loudly declared that he would take no part in the ordination. “You will ordain him,” said Eutropius, “or take your trial on the charges contained in these documents;” producing certain papers of accusations brought against him from various quarters, at the sight of which Theophilus turned pale. His opposition was effectually silenced, though he nourished his revenge for a future day.[405] And we may presume that he took the lead, by virtue of his rank, in the ceremony of consecration—that is, that he pronounced the consecration prayer and blessing, while two other bishops held the gospels over the head, and the other prelates who were present laid their hands on the head of the recipient of consecration.[406] The ceremony took place on February 26, A.D. 398, in the presence of a vast concourse of people, who came, no doubt, not only to witness the spectacle, but to hear from the lips of one so famed for eloquence the “Sermo enthronisticus,” or homily on the lesson for the day, which was delivered by the new Patriarch[407] after he had been conducted to his throne, and which was regarded as a test of his powers. This discourse has not been preserved, but Chrysostom alludes to it in the homily numbered xi. against the Anomœans, which was the second discourse he delivered as archbishop. He there reminds his hearers how in his first discourse he had promised, in his warfare with heretics, to trust, not in the carnal weapons of human dialectic, but in the spiritual armour of Holy Scripture, even as David had confronted and prevailed over the Philistine with weapons which the warrior despised, but which were crowned with success because blessed by God.[408] In the review already taken of his discourses against Arians and other heretics, it has been seen how faithfully he adhered to this principle.
The disadvantages of a monastic, secluded training, in one who was called upon to occupy a large and important see, have been pointed out by no one better than by Chrysostom himself,[409] and he now experienced the truth of his own observations. His genius was not of that practical order which displays itself in great discernment of character and tact in the management of men; and his virtues were of that austere kind, the virtues of the monk rather than of the Christian citizen, joined to a certain irritability of temper and inflexibility of will, which were ill calculated to first conciliate and then delicately lead on to a purer way of life the undisciplined flock committed to his care.[410] If Nectarius had been too much the man of the world, his successor was, for the position in which he was placed, too much the saint of the cloister. The new wine burst the old bottles. He began immediately to reform with an unsparing hand—first of all within the limits of his own palace. The costly store of silken and gold-embroidered robes, the rich marbles, ornaments, and vessels of various kinds which his courtly predecessor had accumulated, were sold in exchange for homelier articles, and the surplus was applied to the aid of hospitals and the relief of the destitute.[411] The bishop, and many of the clergy of Constantinople, had been accustomed to entertain and be entertained by the wealthy and the great. Ammianus Marcellinus contrasts the luxurious style of living affected by the bishops of great cities, who “rode about in their carriages, elaborately dressed, and gave princely banquets,” with the frugal fare, the cheap clothing, the modest deportment of the provincial bishops.[412] The admonition of Jerome also to an episcopal friend demonstrates the tendency at this period to an immoderate and worldly hospitality on the part of the clergy. “Avoid,” he says, “giving great entertainments to the laity, and especially to those who occupy high stations; for it is not very reputable to see the lictors and guards of a consul waiting outside the doors of a priest of Jesus Christ, nor that the judge of a province should dine more sumptuously with you than in the palace. If it be pretended that you do this only to be able to intercede with him for poor criminals, there is no judge who will not pay greater respect to a frugal priest than to a rich one, and show more deference to your piety than to your wealth.”[413] Chrysostom, like Jerome, was an uncompromising ascetic in his views on clerical life. He ate in solitude the spare and simple diet of a monk, and declared that he would never set foot at Court except on pressing affairs concerning the welfare of the Church. When one considers what the character of that Court was, it must be confessed that the resolution highly became a Christian bishop.[414] His own seclusion might have been easily tolerated if he had not exacted the same severe simplicity of life in his clergy. He denounced their parasitical flatteries, and their propensity to seek entertainments at the tables of the wealthy, and insisted that their stipends must be quite sufficient to supply them with the necessaries of life. He suspended many from their cures on account of worldly or immoral conduct, and repelled others from the Eucharist. Several of these became the most active organisers of hostile cabals.
But there was another cause of the archbishop’s unpopularity with his clergy, which arose from his vigorous assaults upon a deep and apparently most prevalent evil.
Celibacy appears never to have been made obligatory on the clergy of the Eastern Church. The Synod of Elvira, which enjoins celibacy, was a purely Spanish synod;[415] and the decree of Pope Siricius to the same effect, in A.D. 385, could not affect any countries beyond Italy, Spain, and perhaps Southern Gaul. That decree is a remarkable instance of the law-giving spirit of the Western Church, which hardened tendencies into binding statutes. But sentiment and opinion were quite as strong in favour of clerical celibacy in the East as in the West. It was proposed at the Council of Nice that a canon should be passed enforcing it upon every order of the clergy; a proposal which was defeated only by the influence of the aged Egyptian monk Paphnutius, who, though he had never been married, and had always lived an ascetic life, earnestly deprecated the imposition of a burden upon all men which some men only were able to bear. The result was that the clergy were permitted to retain their wives whom they had married before ordination, but were forbidden to marry after ordination. And this is called “the ancient tradition of the Church.”[416] There can be no doubt, however, that a profound conviction possessed the minds of all the most earnest Christians in Eastern Christendom that the unmarried life was inherently better than the married; and, consequently, clerical celibacy was honoured and encouraged, though marriage was allowable. On the other hand, there grew up, side by side with the practice of celibacy, a custom which broke it in the spirit while it was preserved in the letter. The same Council of Nice which by one canon freely granted to the clergy the society of their lawful wives, by another prohibits unmarried clergy of every rank to have any woman dwelling under the same roof who was not their mother, sister, or aunt.[417] It was the transgression of this canon which was indignantly complained of by several writers[418] and at councils[419] in or near the time of Chrysostom, as well as by Chrysostom himself. Under the name of spiritual sisters, young women, often consecrated virgins of the Church, lived, as they maintained, in all innocent and sisterly affection with unmarried priests. But the risk to the morals of both was imminent, and the scandal which it brought upon the clergy in the eyes of the world was certain. Chrysostom denounces the custom on both these grounds. Whether two treatises, one addressed to the men, the other to the women, were composed at Constantinople, or, as Socrates says, during his diaconate, they embody his views on the whole subject, and afford a curious insight into clerical life in the great cities at this epoch.[420]
He places the offenders on the horns of a dilemma. “If you are weak, the temptation to evil is so great, that for your own sake you ought to avoid it; if you are strong, you ought to abandon the practice for the sake of those who are weak.” They brought a great scandal on the Church and opened the mouths of adversaries. An isolated sin would be less severely visited than one which, though comparatively small in itself, caused others also to offend. They should imitate the wisdom of St. Paul, who would not do a thing in itself desirable or harmless, if the evil resulting to some exceeded any possible advantage to others.[421] A pretext for the reception of these unmarried women was made on the ground that they were orphans who had no protectors. But this became a great snare both to the women and the clergy: they were occupied with the management of property instead of devoting themselves to spiritual concerns. It would be far better that a maiden should marry, than, by abstaining from marriage, involve herself and others in worldly business who ought to be free from it. If poor, it was better she should remain poor and friendless, than be received into a home where the danger incurred by the soul would far exceed the advantages procured for the body. There were many aged women who were poor, friendless, maimed, or diseased; the city was full of them. These were the most deserving objects of clerical charity, and on them it could be exercised without fear of reproach.[422] These “spiritual sisters” appear from Chrysostom’s account to have often lived very much like fine ladies of fashion. “How incongruous and ludicrous,” he says, “when you enter the house of one who calls himself a single man, to see articles of female dress and instruments of female occupation lying about—girdles, head-gear, wool-baskets, spindles, distaffs!” In the elaboration of their dress these companions often surpassed actresses; they were gossips and match-makers. The man who ought to have renounced all worldly calls might be seen inquiring at the silversmith’s if his lady’s mirror was ready, her casket finished, her flask returned; from the silversmith’s he hurried to the perfumer’s to see about her scents; from the perfumer to the linen-draper, and so on upon a round of shopping. All this business and worldly worry made them harsh to the servants, who retaliated by secretly abusing their master and mistress.[423] This was bad enough, but the clergy were not ashamed to display their servile attachment to these women even in the churches. They received them at the doors, forced others to make way for them, and walked in front of them with a proud air, when they ought not to have been able to lift up their heads for shame.[424]
Chrysostom implores the clergy as a suppliant, to free themselves from these disgraceful and degrading connections. “Christ would have them be strenuous soldiers and combatants. He did not arm them with spiritual weapons to help women sew and weave, but to engage with the invisible powers, to put to flight the forces of Satan, and to lead captive the rulers of spiritual darkness. If a soldier who was fully equipped were to run in-doors and sit down with the women just at the moment of the enemy’s attack, when the trumpet summoned every one to the combat, would you not run your sword through the craven on the spot? How much more would God be offended with the Christian soldier who evaded the combat with the spiritual enemy?”[425]
The rigour with which Chrysostom pressed reformation upon the clergy in these and many other points, not being tempered by a conciliatory manner or genial way of life, excited a vehement spirit of opposition. He was encouraged in his severity by his Archdeacon Serapion, who on one occasion had said, in the hearing of a large body of clergy: “You will never subdue these mutinous priests, my Lord Bishop, till you drive them all before you as with a single rod.”[426] In fact, a large body of the more worldly clergy seem to have regarded the archbishop and his deacon with much the same mingled feelings of fear and aversion which unruly schoolboys entertain towards an austere master.
The rigorous discipline exacted from the clergy was probably by no means distasteful to the people or the Court, and by the eloquence of their new bishop they were entranced so long as his declamations were poured forth against the vices and follies of society in general. The Empress and archbishop stood for a time high in each other’s favour. She conducted with him a vast torchlight procession in which the reliques of some martyrs were conveyed to the martyry of St. Thomas in Drypia, a considerable distance outside the city. A rapturous homily was delivered by Chrysostom when they reached the chapel at dawn of day. “What shall I say? I am verily mad with joy; yet such a madness is better than even wisdom itself. Of what shall I most discourse?—the virtue of the martyrs, the alacrity of the city, the zeal of the Empress, the concourse of the nobles, the worsting of the demons?”... “Women, more delicate than wax, leaving their comfortable homes, emulated the stoutest men in the eagerness with which they made this long pilgrimage on foot. Nobles, leaving their chariots, their lictors, their attendants, mingled in the common crowd. And why speak of them when she who wears the diadem, and is arrayed in purple, has not consented along the whole route to be separated from the rest even by a little space, but has followed the saints like their handmaid, with her finger on the shrine and upon the veil covering it—she, visible to the whole multitude, whom not even all the chamberlains of the palace are usually permitted to see?” The mixture of races in Constantinople is indicated in one passage, where, comparing the Empress to Miriam leading the chorus of triumphant Israelites, he says: “She, indeed, led forth a people of one language only, but thou innumerable bands, chanting the Psalms of David, some in the Roman, some in the Syrian, some in a barbarian, some in the Greek tongue.” The procession moved along like a stream of fire, or continuous golden chain; the moon shone down upon the crowd of the faithful, and in the midst the Empress, more brilliant than the moon itself; for what was the moon compared to a soul adorned with such faith? He called her blessed, for the ends of the earth would hear of and extol this glorious act of piety. If the deed of the poor sinful woman in the Gospel, who anointed our Lord’s feet, was to be proclaimed throughout the world, how much more that of a modest, dignified, chaste woman, who displayed such piety in the midst of imperial state. And there is much more of the same Oriental, rhapsodical, rhetoric.[427]
The Emperor made a pilgrimage on the following day to the shrine, accompanied by all the great officials of the Court; and another discourse, similar in tone though not quite so extravagantly rapturous, was delivered by the archbishop.
As in Antioch, so also and with still greater vehemence in Constantinople, the voice of Chrysostom was incessantly lifted up against those vices which specially beset a large mixed population living under a corrupt despotism. Here, as there, the avarice and luxury of the wealthy are the themes of his indignant invective; the wrongs and pitiable poverty of the poor the occasions of his pathetic appeal. One day lamenting the paucity of worshippers, he exclaims: “O tyranny of money which drives the greater part of our brethren from the fold! for it is nothing but that grievous disease, that never-quenched furnace, which drives them hence; this mistress, more ferocious than any barbarian or wild beast, fiercer than the very demons, taking her slaves with her, is now conducting them round the Forum, inflicting upon them her oppressive commands, nor suffers them to take a little breath from their destructive labours.”... “May you derive great good from the zeal with which you listen to these words, for your groanings and the smitings of your foreheads prove that the seed which I have sown is already bearing fruit.”[428]