A signal instance of the passionate attachment of the people to the Circensian and theatrical exhibitions occurred about the close of the first year of his episcopate.[429] A violent rain had half inundated the fields and almost destroyed the growing crops; solemn processional litanies were made to the churches of the Apostles on both sides of the Bosporus; yet two days later the majority of that multitude, which had just been invoking the intercession of saints and supplicating the mercy of God, poured into the circus, and might be seen wildly applauding and cheering on the chariots; and from that they hastened to witness with eager eyes the indecent performances of the theatre: “while I,” said the archbishop, “sitting at home and hearing your shouts, suffered worse agonies than those who are tossed by storms at sea.”[430]... “What defence will you be able to make when you have to render an account of that day’s work? For thee the sun rose, the moon lit up the night, choirs of stars spangled the sky; for thee the winds blew, and rivers ran, seeds germinated, plants grew, and the whole course of nature kept its proper order: but thou, when Creation is ministering to thy needs, thou fulfillest the pleasure of the devil.”[431]... “Say not that few have wandered from the fold; though it were but five or two or one, the loss would be great. The shepherd in the Gospel left the ninety-and-nine, and hastened after the one, nor did he return till he had made up the complete number of the flock by its restoration. Though it be only one, yet it is a soul for which this visible world was created, for which laws and statutes and the diverse operations of God have been put in motion, yea, for whose sake God spared not His only Son.”... “Therefore I loudly declare that if any one after this admonition shall desert the fold for the pestilent vice of the theatre, I will not admit him inside these rails.[432] I will not administer to him the holy mysteries or allow him to touch the holy table, but expel him as shepherds drive out the diseased sheep from the fold lest they should contaminate the rest.”
The iniquity of the people’s defection had been aggravated on this occasion by the fact that the days on which they had rushed in such crowds to the circus and theatre were Good Friday and Holy Saturday. On the Sunday following Easter Day the church was fully thronged. An aged Galatian bishop, being present, was requested, according to a polite custom of that time, to preach. But the congregation expressed their disapproval by shouts of dissent, and by withdrawing in large numbers. They wanted to hear what more their eloquent castigator had to say on the subject on which he had so vehemently declaimed on Easter Day. Chrysostom was so much gratified and encouraged by the alacrity which the people had thus manifested to listen to his objurgations that his censures of the chariot races, the next time he preached, were milder than usual. He contents himself with observing that the shocking accident of the day before, when a young man about to be married had been run over in the course and cut to pieces by the chariot wheels, was a damning proof of the wild folly and wickedness of these spectacles. Nor does he rebuke them very sharply for their discourtesy to the Galatian prelate.[433] They always resented the preaching of a stranger; on several occasions Chrysostom had to appeal to their feelings of respect for the custom of the Church, or enlarge on the reverence due to the preacher, either on account of his age or his great virtues, before they would listen patiently.
It is impossible to determine in the case of every homily or set of homilies whether they were delivered at Antioch or Constantinople, but the character of society seems to have been in its main features so similar in the two cities that it may be allowable to collect into one place notices on various social subjects scattered up and down Chrysostom’s works.
The extremes of wealth and poverty, barbaric splendour, and abject beggary, existed side by side in hideous and glaring contrast. The passion for the use of the precious metals was amazing. Vessels for the meanest purposes were made of silver; superfluous display without regard to utility prevailed everywhere. “If it were in their power, I verily believe that some men would have the ground they walk on,[434] the walls of their houses, and perhaps even the sky and air, made of gold.” Clothes were in the opinion of Chrysostom a memorial of man’s fall from that state of innocence in which they had been unnecessary, and were therefore to be made of as little consequence as possible. “Say, ye who indulge in such grandeur as to discard all woollen garments and array yourselves in silk only, and have even advanced to such a height of madness as to weave gold into your robes (for most women do this), to what purpose do you deck out your persons in these things, not perceiving that the covering of dress was devised for us after the transgression in the place of a severe punishment?”[435]
The particular make of shoes worn by the fashionable young ladies and gentlemen of the day seems to have excited his special indignation. “To put silk threads into your boots, how disgraceful, how ridiculous![436] Ships are built, sailors hired, pilots appointed, the sails are spread, the sea crossed, wife, children, and home left behind, the country of the barbarian entered, and the life of the merchant exposed to a thousand perils, in order that after it all you may trick out the leather of your boots with these silken threads: what form of madness can be worse?”... “He who ought to bend his thoughts and eyes heavenwards casts them down upon his shoes instead. His chief care, as he walks delicately through the Forum, is to avoid soiling his boots with mire or dust. Will you let your soul grovel in the mire while you are taking care of your boots? Boots were made to be soiled; if you cannot bear this, take them off and wear them on your head instead of on your feet. You laugh when I say these words, but I rather weep for your folly.”[437] Again, “You may see one sitting in his chariot with haughty brow, touching as it were the clouds in the senseless pride of his heart; but think him not really lofty, for it is not the sitting up in a chariot drawn by mules, but only virtue mounting to the vault of heaven which really elevates a man. Or if you see another on horseback, attended by a troop of lictors driving the multitude out of his way in the Forum, call him not happy on that account. How ridiculous! why, prithee, do you drive your fellow-creatures before you? Were you made a wolf or a lion? Your Lord Jesus Christ raised man to heaven; you do not condescend to share even the market-place with him. When you put a gold bit on your horse, a gold bracelet on your slave’s arm, when your clothes even to your shoes are gilded, you are feeding that most ferocious of monsters, avarice; you are robbing the orphan, denuding the widow, and acting as the common enemy of all. When your body is committed to the ground the memory of your ambition will not be buried with you, for each passer-by, as he contemplates the height and size of your grand mansions, will say to himself or his neighbour, ‘How many tears did it cost to build that house! how many orphans were left naked! how many widows wronged! how many persons deprived of wages!’ Thus the exact contrary of what you expected comes to pass: you desired to obtain glory during your life, and lo! even after death you are not delivered from accusers.”[438]
Such are the natural expressions of indignation on the part of one trained in a monkish school of piety and austere simplicity of life, when brought into practical contact with a corrupt civilisation. Every denunciation of inordinate luxury is coupled with an exhortation to the relief of distress. Almsgiving is represented as the one certain method of laying up treasure in heaven, and the true riches are increased in proportion as this world’s goods are given away. He lived in the days when social science and political economy did not exist; he only perceived the moral wrong of profuse luxury and extreme destitution side by side, and the only method which he could suggest for rectifying the evil was to impress on the wealthy the duty of almsgiving on a large scale. Beggars swarmed in the streets, and thronged the entrances of the churches and public baths;[439] and he is for ever exhorting his congregations to relieve these unfortunate people. All honour to his simple Christian charity! though of course he could not have given worse advice with a view to curing the evil which he deplored. The man who wore shoes inwoven with silk or gold threads may have been a ridiculous fop, and yet have done more good by buying his finery, the produce of honest labour, than did the pious member of Chrysostom’s congregation who flung his money to the beggars congregated at the church doors.
The luxurious habits and extravagant dress of the ladies were especial objects of Chrysostom’s attack; but he draws a charming picture, on the other side, of the influence which good Christian wives might, and which many did, exercise upon their husbands. The close of the exhortation in our own “Marriage Service” seems almost as if suggested by a passage in which he quotes Sarah the wife of Abraham as a pattern of dutiful obedience to her husband, as adorned with virtue, instead of the outward adorning of “plaiting the hair and putting on of apparel.”[440] “The good wife, as she remains more at home than the man, and has more leisure for ‘pious contemplation’ (φιλοσοφία), can calm and soothe the husband when he returns harassed by business, cut off his superfluous cares, and so send him back free of the troubles contracted in the Forum, and carrying with him the good lessons which he has learned at home.”... “No influence is more potent than that of a careful and discreet wife to harmonise and mould the soul of a man.”... “I could mention many hard, intractable men who have been softened in this manner.” And this influence would be in proportion to the Christian purity and simplicity of her own life. “When thy husband shall see thee modest, not a lover of ornament, not demanding an unnecessary allowance, then he will listen to thy counsel. When you seek not gold or pearls, or costly array, but modesty, temperance, and benevolence, in proportion as you manifest these virtues yourself, you may demand them of him; these are the ornaments which never fail to attract; this is the adornment which old age does not dissolve or disease destroy.”... “When your husband sees you laying aside luxury, he will lay aside the love of gain, and will be more inclined to deeds of charity. With what face, O ye wives, can you exhort your husbands to almsgiving, when you consume the largest portion of his means on the decoration of your own persons?”[441]
He urgently represents to the wealthy proprietors of land in the country the solemn duty incumbent on them of providing for the spiritual welfare of the people on their estate, by building a church and maintaining a pastor among them. “There are many who possess farms and fields, but all their anxiety is to make a bath-house to their mansion, to build entrance courts and servants’ offices; but how the souls of their dependants are cultivated they care not.”... “If you see thorns in a field, you cut them down and burn them; but when you see the souls of your labourers beset with thorns and cut them not down, tell me, do you not fear when you reflect on the account which will be exacted from you for these things? Ought not every Christian estate-holder to build a church and to make it his aim before all things else that his people should be Christian?”... “Therefore I exhort, I supplicate as a favour, or rather I affirm it as a principle, that no one should be seen in possession of an estate which is not provided with a church.” He concludes by drawing a pleasing picture of the benefit derived from the residence of a pastor in the quiet country village; the softening, humanising, civilising effect of his presence; the relief given to the needy, the comfort to the sick and dying; the pleasant repose which the proprietor may enjoy when he withdraws for a time from the turmoil of city life, and worships among his grateful people in the church which he has founded, and where his name will be blessed for many future generations. “And think of the reward in heaven; Christ said, ‘If thou lovest me feed my sheep.’ If you were to see any of the royal sheep or horses destitute of shelter and exposed to attack, and were to house them, provide stabling for them, and appoint some one to tend them, with how great a gift would the sovereign requite you. And think you that, if you fold Christ’s flock and set a shepherd over them, He will not do some great thing for you?”[442]
The responsibility indeed of every Christian man to promote the spiritual welfare of his brethren is one of the topics on which Chrysostom most constantly and earnestly dilates. “Nothing can be more chilling than the sight of a Christian who makes no efforts to save others. Neither poverty, nor humble station, nor bodily infirmity can exempt men and women from the obligation of this great duty. To hide our Christian light, under pretence of weakness, is as great an insult to God as if we were to say that He could not make His sun to shine.”[443]
The practice of swearing deep oaths about trifles appears to have been as prevalent at Constantinople as at Antioch, and equally to have excited the indignation of the Archbishop. He would not cease to denounce this devilish habit, and that vehemently, lest he should incur the condemnation pronounced on Eli, who rebuked, but not with sufficient severity. He would unsparingly repel from the threshold of the Church any who persisted in this pernicious vice, were he emperor or prince. Men might deride his vehemence, but they forgot that he was only the servant of Jesus Christ; their mockery fell on the Master rather than the minister. Let them laugh and jest as much as they would; he was placed there to suffer it. “Obey my voice or depose me from this my office. I cannot consent to mount this throne unless I accomplish something great. If I cannot do this, it were better for me to stand below. As long as I sit here I cannot refrain, not so much out of fear of punishment to myself as on account of your salvation, which I earnestly desire.”[444]