Saint John Chrysostom, His Life and Times / A sketch of the church and the empire in the fourth century

by W. R. W. Stephens

In tracing to its starting-point the interference of Theophilus with the affairs of Chrysostom, we have to unravel a curious and tangled skein of controversy. The doctrines of Origen were as much an occasion of strife a hundred and fifty years after his death, as he himself had been during his life. With one hand holding on to the philosophy of the past, and with the other firmly grasping the Christianity of the present, he was persecuted by Pagans, yet never universally accepted and cordially trusted by the Church.[529] So with his system of doctrine; it became a sort of debatable ground for the possession of which contending parties strove. The prize was worth the struggle; for the genius of Origen could not be questioned, but the quantity of his writings being enormous,[530] and the range of his doctrine wide and many-sided, narrow-minded partisans, grasping only a part of it, condemned or extolled him unfairly on a single issue. The mystical element in his teaching was carried by some of his admirers to extremes of fanciful, allegorical, interpretation of Scripture, such as he himself would never have devised or approved. To others of a more prosaic, material cast of thought this same mystical vein was repugnant, and was denounced by them with characteristic coarseness. Men of larger minds, who had patience to peruse his voluminous works, and ability to criticise them, admired his genius, recognised his great services to Christianity, heartily embraced much of his teaching, questioned some portions, and rejected others. Such were Gregory Nazianzenus, Basil, Chrysostom, and Jerome, who would never have been so great as writers, or commentators, had they not been students of Origen. As a general statement, it may be true to say that he was less acceptable to the colder, more practical, more realistic mind of the Western Church, than to the lively imagination and speculative spirit of Oriental churchmen. The most controverted points, indeed, in his system were of a kind with which the Western mind did not naturally concern itself. The pre-existence of souls; their entrance into human bodies after the fall as the punishment of sin; their emancipation from the flesh in the resurrection; the ultimate salvation of all spirits, including Satan himself,—these are questions singularly congenial to Oriental, singularly alien from Western, thought. The Origenistic controversy fell into abeyance before the engrossing interest and importance of the Arian contest; but when that wave had spent itself, it revived, and just at this period all the greatest names of the day became engaged on one side or the other. As usual, the real questions at issue were too often forgotten amidst the personal jealousies, intrigues, angry recriminations to which the discussion of them gave birth.

In spite of his doubtful orthodoxy, the Egyptian Church could not fail to be proud of so distinguished a son as Origen, and Theophilus was at first his earnest defender. Some of the more illiterate Egyptian monks had recoiled from Origen’s highly spiritual conception of the Deity into an opposite extreme. Interpreting literally those passages of Scripture where God is spoken of as if possessing human emotions and corporeal parts, they altogether humanised His nature; they conceived of Him as a Being not “without body, parts, or passions;” they obtained, in consequence, the designation of “Anthropomorphites.” Against this humanising, material conception Theophilus, in a paschal letter, directed argument and proof.[531] It was received by many of the monks with dismay, sorrow, and resistance. Serapion, one of the most aged, burst into tears when informed that the mind of the Eastern Church concurred, on the whole, with the doctrine of Theophilus, and exclaimed, “My God is taken away, and I know not what to worship.”[532]

Rufinus, a monk of Aquileia, and for a time the ardent friend of Jerome, was, during a visit to Egypt, initiated by Theophilus into the doctrines of Origen, conceived a warm admiration for them, extolled him as the light of the Gospel next to the Apostles, and imparted some of his own enthusiasm to John, bishop of Jerusalem, whom he soon afterwards visited. Jerome fully appreciated the merits of Origen, though his larger mind and more extensive knowledge were not blind to his defects.

Such were the amicable relations between the leading churchmen of the East in A.D. 395, when a visitor from the West threw among them the apple of discord. This was Aterbius, a pilgrim, who had a reputation as a subtle theologian, and appears, immediately on his arrival in Jerusalem, to have applied himself to the business of detecting heresy. He entered into friendly intercourse for a short time with the bishop and Rufinus, and then suddenly included Jerome with them both in a public denunciation as Origenists, and declared the whole diocese of Jerusalem to be infected with that heresy. Jerome immediately and indignantly repudiated the charge; he declared that he was not an Origenist, for that he merely read the works of Origen with reservations, as he might those of a heretic.[533] Rufinus would not condescend to make any defence, oral or written, but shut himself up in his cloister in sullen silence till Aterbius had quitted Jerusalem, fearing, so Jerome affirms, to condemn what he really approved, or to incur the reproach of heresy by an open resistance.[534] John of Jerusalem was equally indignant at the accusation, but displeased with Jerome for publicly exculpating himself independently of his bishop. In fact, the episcopal pride of the Bishop of Jerusalem was severely wounded at this time, both by the pre-eminence of the metropolitan see of Cæsarea,[535] and by the reputation of Jerome’s monastic establishment at Bethlehem, which attracted visitors from all parts of Christendom.

When the minds of all were thus ruffled, a second and far more mischievous visitor arrived in the person of Epiphanius, the octogenarian Bishop of Constantia, Metropolitan of Cyprus. He was one of those men who, joining some erudition and a high reputation for rigid orthodoxy to a narrow mind and impulsive temper, figure prominently in theological warfare as the very personifications of discord. Shocked at the intelligence of the heretical tendency in Palestine, and vexed that it should have been detected by a stranger rather than by himself, who was a native of Palestine, and the visitor of a monastery between Jerusalem and Hebron, he lost not a moment in setting out for the Holy City. He accepted the hospitality of the Bishop John, and spent the evening in all amity with him, nor was the obnoxious subject of dispute mentioned between them.[536]

A strange scene took place on the following day.

In the church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the presence of a large congregation, Epiphanius fulminated a discourse against Origen, his doctrines, and all who favoured them. Bishop John and his clergy expressed their contempt by grimaces, sneers, and impatient scratchings of their heads. At last an archdeacon stepped forward, and required Epiphanius, in the name of the bishop, to desist from his discourse. The assembly was dissolved, but met again in the afternoon, largely augmented, in the church of the Holy Cross. This time Bishop John discoursed, and denounced the Anthropomorphites, or Humanisers, under which opprobrious name the partisans of Origen endeavoured to include all their opponents. Pale and trembling, and in a voice quivering with passion, the bishop directed his discourse, and turned his body, towards Epiphanius, who sat motionless in his chair. The invective being concluded, the aged Bishop of Constantia rose and pronounced these words with solemn deliberation: “All that John, my brother in the priesthood, my son in age, has just said against the heresy of the Anthropomorphites I thoroughly approve; and as we both condemn that absurd belief, it is only just that we should both denounce the errors of Origen.”[537] A general laugh and acclamation on the part of the assembly proclaimed their sense of this speech as a successful hit. John made one more effort to right himself. He preached again in the church of the Holy Cross, this time on the chief verities of the faith, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the condition of souls before and after this life. It was intended to be a grand and convincing display of his orthodoxy, and at the moment Epiphanius expressed even approbation. On subsequent reflection, however, the aged critic thought he discovered that it teemed with error. He abruptly quitted Jerusalem, repaired to Bethlehem, resisted the solicitation of Jerome and his friends to be reconciled, and addressed a circular letter to all the monasteries of Palestine, requiring them to break off communion with the Bishop of Jerusalem.

Rufinus ranged himself immediately on the side of Bishop John; but Jerome, though with somewhat balanced feelings, sided on the whole with Epiphanius. Then the pent-up jealousy of John towards the monasteries of Bethlehem burst forth; they were placed under interdict, and the church of the Holy Manger closed against them. They were in despair for want of a priest to celebrate the Eucharist; but Epiphanius provided one through a forcible ordination. The young Paulinian had always steadfastly declined holy orders, though considered eminently qualified by his learning and virtue. He was now on a visit to the monastery of Epiphanius, near Eleutheropolis. When Epiphanius was celebrating the Eucharist, the young man was seized by the deacons, dragged to the steps of the altar, and there made to kneel. Epiphanius approached, cut off some of his hair, ordained him deacon, and obliged him to assist in the celebration on the spot. At a fresh sign from the bishop he was a second time seized, gagged to prevent his adjuring the bishop in the name of Jesus Christ, and when he rose from his knees he was declared to be a priest.[538] The joy which filled the monasteries of Bethlehem was only to be equalled by the indignation of their opponents at Jerusalem. John actually applied (not without money, it is said) to Rufinus at Constantinople, then Prætorian Prefect, and even procured a decree of banishment against Jerome;[539] but, the murder of Rufinus taking place soon afterwards, the governor of Cæsarea evaded the execution of the decree. Jerome retaliated by one of those fierce, nervous philippics which exhibit more command of language than of temper. The governor of Palestine made a praiseworthy but ineffectual effort to bring about a reconciliation. John had determined to invite an arbitrator, from whom he expected a strong partiality for his own cause. He appealed to Theophilus, from whom Rufinus, the monk, had derived his first acquaintance with Origen. Jerome indignantly complained of this invocation of a foreign jurisdiction. Was not Cæsarea the metropolitan see of Palestine? why this contempt of ecclesiastical law?[540] Theophilus, however, had no scruples in accepting the appeal. It was just one of those recognitions of pre-eminence which the Patriarch of Alexandria, like the Bishops of Rome, joyfully welcomed. The gratification of ambition was pleasantly disguised from others, and perhaps from themselves, under the semblance of peacemaking. Theophilus despatched Isidore as his legate to Palestine. His arrival was preceded by two letters, one intended for the Bishop of Jerusalem, the other for Vincentius, the presbyter and friend of Jerome at Bethlehem.

Unfortunately the letter intended for the bishop was delivered to Vincentius, and he and Jerome read with indignation assurances of sympathy and friendship towards John, and expressions of contempt for Jerome and his party, the language, in short, of an accomplice rather than of an arbitrator. It set forth in flowery oriental terms the confidence of the legate in the success of his mission; “as smoke disperses in the air, as wax melts before the fire, so will these enemies, who always resist the faith, and seek to disturb it now, by means of simple ignorant men be dispersed on my arrival.”[541] The legate took up his abode at Jerusalem, and spent his time in familiar intercourse with the bishop and Rufinus. To Bethlehem he paid occasional visits, where he conducted himself with dictatorial haughtiness. Jerome and the monks plainly perceived that the so-called arbitrator was committed to one side—which was not theirs.