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

by W. R. W. Stephens

From beginning to end of his exile Chrysostom’s mind was occupied with organising such work as yet remained possible to him. It has been seen with what zeal he had planted a missionary settlement in Phœnicia. This project continued to the close of his life to be an object of his most solicitous interest. On July 3, the eve of his departure from Nicæa, he addressed a letter to a priest named Constantius,[624] apparently the superintendent of the missionary work in Phœnicia and the surrounding countries. He implores him to prosecute his labours for the extirpation of Paganism with zeal undiminished, and undismayed by the present afflicted state of the bishop and the see, to whom the mission owed its origin. “The pilot and the physician, far from relaxing their efforts when the ship and the patient are in peril, redouble their efforts to save them.” He begs Constantius to inform him year by year how many temples are destroyed, how many churches built, how many good Christians immigrate into Phœnicia. He had himself persuaded a recluse, whom he found at Nicæa, to go and place himself under the direction of Constantius in the missionary work. He had, he says, happily concluded, just about the time of his deposition, arrangements for the suppression of Marcionism, which was very prevalent at Salamis, in Cyprus. He begs Constantius to write to his friend Bishop Cyriacus, if still in Constantinople, and request him to carry these plans into effect. Finally, he implores the prayers of Constantius and all faithful people for the cessation of the present calamities of the Church, especially of the intolerable evils which had befallen it in Asia; alluding no doubt to the restoration of the simoniacal bishops.

On July 4 or 5 the exile started from Nicæa on his toilsome and perilous journey in the midsummer heat, across the scorching plains of Galatia and Cappadocia. He describes himself[625] as an object of great compassion to travellers whom he met coming from Armenia and the East, who stopped to weep and wail over his distress. His route lay in a diagonal line across the centre of Asia Minor, ascending first of all near the stream of the river Sangarius, which in its upper course winds through vast plains of black bituminous soil, scantily cultivated, but supplying pasture to great herds of cattle. Chrysostom had always been an ascetic liver, but he had not a robust frame, and he had been accustomed to wholesome food and the frequent use of the bath. Continuous travelling by night as well as day, the scorching sun, hot dust, hard bread, brackish water, and deprivation of the bath, threw him into a fever; but either from fear of the Isaurians, or of Leontius, bishop of Ancyra, in Galatia, one of his most virulent enemies, the journey was pursued without intermission till he arrived, more dead than alive, at Cæsarea, in Cappadocia.

He has left us a detailed account of the perils which befell him here, and a melancholy picture indeed it is of the ferocity and cunning of which bishops and monks were capable under the influence of fanatical partisanship.[626] Having escaped, he says, from the Galatian (probably meaning Leontius), he was met, as he approached Cæsarea, by several persons, who informed him that Pharetrius the bishop was eagerly expecting him, and preparing to welcome him with affectionate hospitality. He confesses that he himself mistrusted these specious offers, but he kept his suspicions to himself. On his arrival at Cæsarea, in a state of extreme exhaustion, Pharetrius did not appear, but he was enthusiastically received by the people as well as some monks and nuns. The extreme kindness and skill of physicians (one of whom declared his intention of accompanying him to the end of his journey), wholesome food, and the use of the bath, so much renovated his strength and diminished his fever, that he became anxious in a day or two to resume his journey. But just at this juncture the city was thrown into consternation by tidings that a large body of Isaurians was ravaging the neighbourhood, and had already burned a town with much slaughter. All the available troops in Cæsarea were marched out, and the whole male population, including old men, turned out to man the walls. During this time of suspense, the house in which Chrysostom lodged was besieged by a large body of monks, who with furious cries and gestures demanded his surrender. The prætorians who guarded him were terrified by the fierce behaviour of these fanatics, and declared that they would rather face the Isaurians than fall into the hands of these “wild beasts.” The governor of the city succeeded in protecting the person of Chrysostom, but not in quelling the fury of the monks, who renewed their assault still more hotly on the following day. The Bishop Pharetrius was very generally suspected to be the instigator of these attacks, and an appeal was made to him to interpose his authority, that the Archbishop might at least enjoy a few days’ repose, which the state of his health greatly needed. But the envy of Pharetrius was embittered by the popularity of Chrysostom, and the great kindness and compassion which his hardships had elicited from clergy and people. He refused to interfere; but Chrysostom’s friends took advantage of a brief lull in the hostile visits of the monks to convey him in a litter outside the town, amidst the lamentations of the attendant people, and imprecations on the author of the malevolent assaults. When he was once outside the town several of the clergy joined him, and besought him not to think of trusting himself to Pharetrius; it would be worse, they declared, than falling into the hands of the Isaurians: “only escape from our hands, and wherever you fall you will fall safely.”

At this crisis a lady named Seleucia, the wife of Rufinus, a man of rank and a friend of Chrysostom, entreated him to accept a lodging at her country house, about five miles out of the city. He accepted the offer; but, unknown to him, Pharetrius, whose rage was inflamed by the rescue of his prey, visited the house, and threatened to take vengeance on the mistress if her guest was not surrendered. This demand was refused, and the lady gave orders to her steward, in the event of any attack by monks, to collect all the labourers on the estate and repel the assault by force. But her courage at last gave way under the pressure of incessant menaces from Pharetrius, and it was resolved to remove the Archbishop, not less for his own safety than for that of the person whose roof had afforded him shelter. In the dead of night, when Chrysostom was sleeping, unconscious of impending danger, he was roused by a companion, the priest Evethius, who told him that he must instantly prepare for flight. It was midnight, and the sky murky and moonless; but they dared not light torches for fear of attracting the observation of their enemies. The road was rugged and rocky; the mule which carried the Archbishop’s litter fell, and he was thrown out. Evethius took him by the hand and led, or rather dragged, him along. In such a pitiable plight, faint with fatigue and fever-stricken, did the bishop of the second see in Christendom stumble and totter in the darkness along the Cappadocian mountain path. “Were not these calamities,” he writes to Olympias, “sufficient to blot out many sins, and suggest to me a hope of future glory?”

Of the remainder of his journey to Cucusus we possess no detailed narrative. He only speaks in general terms of his sufferings for thirty days from fever, aggravated by the want of a bath, and by deficient accommodation of every kind in a journey made along a rough road, through a desolate mountainous country, liable to an attack at any moment from Isaurian bandits.[627] Desolate though the region was, however, he speaks of monks and nuns occasionally meeting him in large numbers, and loudly bewailing his calamities, exclaiming that it “had been better the sun should have hidden his rays, than that the mouth of Chrysostom should have been closed.”[628] About seventy days[629] after his departure from Constantinople, that is, about the end of August or beginning of September, Cucusus was reached. After the fatigues and dangers of his journey, it was a haven of rest to the exhausted exile, though he describes it as in itself the most desolate place in the world; a mere village high up in the eastern range of Taurus, on the confines of Lesser Armenia, Cilicia, and Cappadocia.[630] But it was protected from the Isaurians by a strong garrison, and it contained many warm-hearted friends of the Archbishop, who emulated one another in showing him attention. Several had sent invitations to him, before he left Cæsarea, to accept a lodging at their houses, but more especially one whom he calls “my Lord Diodorus,” who had known him in Constantinople. This generous personage not only placed his whole house at the disposal of Chrysostom, betaking himself to a country villa to make room for his guest, but furnished it with every possible defence against the cold of the approaching winter, in that altitude very severe. The Bishop of Cucusus not only received him with great civility, but was even desirous that his own throne should be occupied by the illustrious exile, that his flock might profit by the eloquence of the greatest teacher and preacher of the day; but Chrysostom thought it prudent to decline the honour.[631]

Many of his friends in Constantinople and other places, who owned property near Cucusus, directed their stewards to provide in various ways for the comfort of the exile, and some of his friends actually came to share his fortunes in person. The aged deaconess, Sabiniana, arrived from Constantinople with the fixed determination of accompanying him to his final place of exile, whatever that might be. Constantius, the presbyter of Antioch, whom the people had wished to make bishop, also took up his abode at Cucusus, as well to escape from the persecution of Porphyry as from his zealous attachment to Chrysostom.[632] Thus the natural disadvantages of the place, the want of good physicians and of a plentiful market, the severity of the heat in summer and cold in winter, were largely compensated by the enjoyment of freedom, rest, and the kind attention of friends. He warns his supporters in Constantinople, who were endeavouring to procure a change of destination for him, to be careful that he was not removed to a place worse than Cucusus, where he possessed all substantial necessaries and comforts of life. If, however, they thought there was a chance of obtaining Cyzicus or Nicomedia, they were not to desist from their efforts; but he was convinced that another long and fatiguing journey to a spot as remote and desolate as Cucusus would kill him.[633]

The leisure of the exile was profitably employed in writing letters to every variety of friends—men of rank, ladies, deaconesses in Constantinople, bishops, clergy, missionary monks, and his kind acquaintances in Cæsarea, especially the physician Hymnetius, who had attended him there with affectionate care. As might be expected, none of his letters describe his condition so minutely or pour forth so unrestrainedly his fears and hopes, his causes of distress or joy, as those written to Olympias. The style in which she is usually addressed is at once respectful, affectionate, and paternal: “To my lady, the most reverend and religious deaconess Olympias, Bishop John sends you greeting in the Lord.” They are seventeen in number, written at different stages of his exile; nor is it possible to determine precisely the date of each. The first three seem to have been written from Cucusus, and are mainly devoted to the aim of consoling her under the present calamities of the Church; to dissipating, as he expresses it, that cloud of sorrow which surrounded her.[634] “Come now, let me soften the wound of your sadness, and disperse the sad cogitations which compose this gloomy cloud of care. What is it which upsets your mind, and occasions your grief and despondency? Is it the fierce and lowering storm which has overtaken the Churches and enveloped all with the darkness of a moonless night, which is growing to a head every day, and has already wrought many lamentable shipwrecks? All this I know; it shall not be gainsaid: and, if you like, I can form an image of the things now being done so as to represent the tragedy more distinctly to thee. We behold a sea heaved up from its lowest depths, some sailors floating dead, others struggling in the waves, the planks of the vessel breaking up, the masts sprung, the canvas torn, the oars dashed out of the sailors’ hands, the pilots, seated on the deck, clasping their knees with their hands, and crying aloud at the hopelessness of their situation; neither sky nor sea clearly visible, but all one impenetrable gloom, and monsters of the deep attacking the shipwrecked crew on every side. But why attempt further to describe the indescribable? Yet, when I see all this, I do not despair, when I consider who is the Disposer of this whole universe—One who masters the storm, not by the contrivance of art, but can calm it by His nod alone. He does not always destroy what is terrible in its beginning, but waits till it has come to its consummation; and then, when most men are in despair, He works marvels and does things beyond all expectation, displaying a power which belongs to Him alone. Wherefore, faint not, for there is only one thing, Olympias, which is really terrible, there is only one real trial—and that is sin. All things else, whether they be insidious assaults of foes, or hatred, or calumny, or abuse, or confiscation of goods, or exile, or the sharpened sword, and war raging throughout the world, are but as a tale; they endure but for a season, they are perishable, and have their sphere in a mortal body, and do no injury to the vigilant soul.”... “Why, then, do you fear temporal things, which flow away like the stream of a river?”... “Let none of these things which happen vex you; cease to entreat the help of this person or that, but continually beseech Jesus Christ, whom you serve, merely to bow the head, and all these troubles will be dissolved; if not in an instant of time, that is because He is waiting till wickedness has grown to a height, and then he will suddenly change the storm into a calm....”

He enters into an eloquent review of the sufferings and persecution to which our blessed Lord was subjected from His birth to His death, in order to prove that apparent failure is a fallacious test of the truth and real value of man’s character and work.

“Why are you troubled because one man has been expelled and another introduced into his place? Christ was crucified, and the life of Barabbas, the robber, was asked. How many must have been shocked and repelled by this ignominious termination to a life of miracles! But in every stage of His life there was much to surprise and offend and try the faith. His birth was the cause of death to many innocent children in Bethlehem; poverty, danger, exile, marked His infancy. He was misunderstood and suspected throughout His ministry. ‘Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil;’ ‘He deceiveth the people;’ ‘He casteth out devils through the chief of the devils;’ ‘He was a gluttonous man and winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.’ His discernment of purity and goodness was questioned, because He permitted the sinful woman to approach Him; ‘neither did His brethren believe on Him.’ You speak of many having been frightened out of the straight path by the present calamities. How many of Christ’s disciples stumbled at the time of His crucifixion! One betrayed Him, another denied Him, the others fled, and He was led to trial bound and alone. How many, think you, were offended when they beheld Him, who a little while ago was raising the dead, cleansing the lepers, expelling devils, multiplying loaves, now bound, forlorn, surrounded by coarse soldiers, followed by a crowd of tumultuous priests? How many when He was being scourged, and they saw Him torn by the lash, and standing with bleeding body before the governor’s tribunal? How many, again, when He was mocked, now with a crown of thorns, now with a purple robe, now with a reed in His hand? How many when He was smitten on the cheek, and they cried, ‘Prophesy, who is he that smote Thee?’ and dragged Him hither and thither, consuming a whole day in jesting and revilement in the midst of the throng of Jewish spectators? How many when He was led to the cross with the marks of the scourge upon His back? How many when the soldiers divided His raiment among themselves? How many when fastened to the cross and crucified?” And, after our Lord’s Ascension, what had been the lot of the early Church? Calamity, persecution, discomfiture, weakness, the offence of many and the defection of many. Yet the truth of Jesus Christ’s Gospel had not been obscured; it had shone more and more brightly: God had wrought out the triumph of His Church.