Saint Chrysostom

“ They did not say, “such a one is dead,” but, “he has been perfected” (τετελείωται) , and he was carried forth to burial amidst hymns of praise, thanksgiving for his release, and the prayers of his companions that they too might soon see the end of their labours and struggles, and be permitted to behold Jesus Christ.131 Such was the simple and industrial kind of monastic body to which Chrysostom for a time attached himself; and to the end of his life he regarded such communities with the greatest admiration and sympathy. ”

“ VII. Chrysostom, and the contemporary fathers of the Eastern Church, naturally seem very remote from us; but, in fact, they are nearer to us in their modes of thought than many who in point of time are less distant. They were brought up in the study of that Greek literature with which we are familiar. Philosophy had not stiffened into scholasticism. The ethics of Chrysostom are substantially the same with the ethics of Butler. So, again, Eastern fathers of the fourth century are far more nearly allied to us in theology than writers of a few centuries later. ”

“ Chrysostom observes, “to be regarded as sources of consolation. If death were a final and total destruction, then indeed it would have been reasonable to lament the extinction of one so benevolent, so gentle, so humble, prudent, and devout, as her late husband. But if death was only the landing of the soul in a tranquil haven, only a transition from the worse to better, from earth to heaven, from men to angels and archangels, and to Him who is the Lord of angels, then there was no place left for tears. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here, again, the good sense of Chrysostom, united to his careful study of Holy Scripture, enabled him to hold the balance between two divergent methods—one which attended too exclusively 403to the humanitarian point of view, the other which brought out the divinity, but at the expense of the manhood. He earnestly maintains the veritable assumption of humanity by the Word. Our nature could not have been elevated to the divine if the Saviour had not really partaken of it ”

“ Chrysostom cries, “when Christ is present, and the angels are standing by, and this awe-inspiring Table is spread before you, and your brethren are still partaking of the mysteries, will you hurry away?” Too often they who thronged the church on these great occasions led worldly and even vicious lives; they hurried away before the sacred feast was ended, like Judas, to do the devil’s work.267 Such is one among many examples which may be elicited from Chrysostom’s works of that Pagan grossness and superstition which was mingled with the faith and the most solemn observances of Chris136tianity. ”

“ It is worth making such extracts as these, because they enable us to see how widely remote Chrysostom was from the mind and taste of our own times in some points, although in others he seems so nearly congenial. There is another vein of thought in this letter which is still more alien. “If,” he says, “in addition to the rewards of her chastity, her fasts, her vigils, her prayers, her boundless hospitality, she wishes to enjoy the sight of her adversaries, those iniquitous and blood-stained men undergoing punishment for their crimes, that pleasure also shall be hers. ”

“ A half Oriental, half Greek, partly Jewish population, like that of Antioch, whose purer feelings and nobler reason were seriously impaired by habits of licentiousness and luxury, was naturally liable to superstitious terrors, and addicted to superstitious practices of all kinds. Chrysostom is frequently reproving his people for being anxious and afraid where there was no cause, while they abandoned themselves to vice, the only worthy cause for fear, without scruple or alarm. ”

“ Out of these monastic schools, after years of discipline and prayer, and study of the Word, there issued many a pastor and preacher, well-armed champions of the truth, strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might; like Chrysostom himself, instant in season and out of season; stern denouncers of evil, even in kings’ courts; holding out the light of the Gospel in the midst of a dark and crooked generation. ”

“ God has condescended to appear to us in a form which is intelligible, and it is presumption to attempt to penetrate beyond the limits which He has placed to a knowledge of Himself. Chrysostom takes the dogma of the one substance (ὁμοουσία) , established at Nice, as the basis of his position against the Arians, and seeks to prove it, not by speculative argument, after the manner of the Alexandrian school, but by reference to Holy Scripture. ”

“ Paul, those who have been converted from error to truth, or from sin to holiness, and whose characteristics are gravity, earnestness, depth.768 If Augustine has done more valuable service in building up the Church at large, Chrysostom is the more loveable to the individual, and speaks out of a heart overflowing with love to God and man, unconstrained by the fetters of a severe and rigid system. ”

“ A kind of passion for listening to preaching possessed, he says, both Pagans and Christians at this time; hence it was very mortifying for a man to see a congregation looking forward to the termination of his discourse, while to his rival they listened with the utmost patience and attention, and were vexed only when his sermon had come to an end.”101
In the sixth book, Chrysostom enlarges on the dangers and trials which beset the priest as compared with the 53tranquillity and security of the monk—that life to which he still felt himself powerfully attracted. ”

“ Paul, for instance, in 1 Cor. xii. 6, speaks of God as “working all in all;” in verse 11 of the same chapter, he uses the same language of the Holy Spirit. Into any metaphysical, abstract discussion of the nature of the Godhead Chrysostom does not enter. He simply endeavours to guard the faith of the Church by a careful exposition of Holy Scripture, on which that faith was based, and by an exposure of the one-sided, or perverted, interpretations on which the current forms of heresy depended. ”

“ The letter written by Chrysostom in A.D. 406 to Innocent is full of grateful acknowledgments for all the efforts which 385he had made, and was still making, on his behalf. “Though separated by so vast a length of journey, yet are we near your Holiness, beholding with the eye of the soul your courage, your genuine, inflexible firmness, and we derive constant and abiding consolation from you. For the higher the waves are lifted up, the more numerous the rocks and reefs, the more does your untiring vigilance increase.... ”

“ Messengers were sent across the Bosporus to seek him, for the exact place of his retreat appears to have been unknown. Briso, the Empress’s chamberlain, a man of Christian piety and a personal friend of Chrysostom, discovered him at Prænetum. He was the bearer of a humble, we might say abject, letter of self-exculpation from the Empress. “Let not your holiness (ἡ ἁγιωσύνη) imagine that I was cognisant of what has been done. I am guiltless of thy blood. Wicked and corrupt men have contrived this plot. I remember the baptism of my children by thy hands. God whom I serve is witness of my tears.” ”

“ Hard by his villa, or rather palace, in the suburb of Chalcedon, called the Oak, a spot which afterwards acquired a melancholy notoriety in the history of Chrysostom, he had built a church and a monastery attached to it. This church he now determined to dedicate with great pomp, and at the same time to be baptized himself. For this purpose he assembled nineteen Eastern bishops, chiefly metropolitans, and a number of Egyptian hermits; strange-looking figures, who, with their raiment of skins, their flowing beards and long hair, excited much superstitious reverence. ”

“ The goodness of the soul within overflowed into all her outer actions.199 From this rapturous description of a highly spiritual kind of life, Chrysostom passes, with versatile quickness, to a somewhat ludicrous picture of the petty cares of life in the world. “The worldly lady thinks it a fine thing to drive round the Forum; how much better to be independent, and use her feet for the purpose for which God gave them! ”

“ For three days and nights the flock incessantly guarded their beloved pastor. Under their protection he passed to and from the palace and the church. On the second day he delivered a discourse to them in the cathedral. The first portion of it is in all respects worthy of Chrysostom; the conclusion, involved and rugged, seems to have been added by another hand, and extracts will not be made from it here.575
“Many are the billows, and terrible the storms, which threaten us; but we fear not to be overwhelmed, for we stand upon the rock. Let the sea rage, it cannot dissolve the rock ”

“ The logical tendency of the Augustinian view of the intense and radical depravity of man’s nature is to induce a total repudiation of the efficacy of personal effort, a total disavowal of all personal merit. Hence justification comes to be regarded as purely an act of acquittal on God’s part, a boon which the despairing sinner by an act of faith thankfully accepts. Such is not the position of Chrysostom, or of those who, like the Cambridge Divines of the seventeenth century, have trodden in his footsteps. ”

“ Chrysostom meanwhile maintained before the Emperor his lofty tone of authority in vindication of the Church’s right of asylum. Human laws could not weigh in the balance against divine; the very man who had assailed the Church’s divine right was now forced, in his day of distress, to plead in favour of it. The Emperor was moved, as he always was by any one who possessed some of that force of character which he himself lacked. Some feelings of compassion also for his late minister’s humiliation may have mingled themselves with superstitious dread of incurring Divine wrath. ”

“ The less learned and less able priests were appointed to the less responsible duties of visiting the sick and the poor, and administering the sacraments. The vocation of Chrysostom, however, was especially that of a teacher. It will be readily acknowledged how difficult, how delicate an office preaching was, in an age when Christianity and Paganism were still existing side by side, and when the opinions of many men were floating in suspense between the old faith and the new, and were liable to be distracted from a firm hold upon the truth by Judaism and heresies of every shade. ”

“ These main characteristics of the people are abundantly illustrated in detail, as will be seen hereafter, in the homilies of Chrysostom. He is ever, in them, labouring with indefatigable industry and earnestness to lift the Christians above the frivolity and vices of the rest of the population. His opportunities for investigating the condition of the Christian community were great during his diaconate. ”

“ Chrysostom energetically vindicates the dignity of the festival and the correctness of the date.264 It was the metropolis, so to say, of all other festivals, and as such it was the most solemn and awful. For the incarnation of Christ was the necessary condition of all the succeeding events of His career on earth, and in the profundity of its mystery it exceeded them all. That Christ should die was a natural consequence of human nature once assumed; but that He, being God, should have stooped so low as to assume that nature, was a mystery unfathomable to the mind of man! ”

“ The second is the corrective of the first; where the disease is desperate, the remedies must be violent. Chrysostom, as will be perceived throughout his life, was never carried to fanatical extremes; a certain sober-mindedness and calm practical good sense eminently distinguished him, though mingled with burning zeal. ”

“ When the 404 Holy Ghost is said to have descended upon Him at His baptism, this must be considered to refer to His human nature only; the manhood, not the Godhead, is anointed. Or when we read that He walked not in Judæa, because the Jews sought to kill Him, and then, just afterwards, that He passed through the midst of His enemies unscathed, we have a direct manifestation, in close correspondence, of the Godhead and the manhood.702
In speaking of the redemptive work of our blessed Lord, Chrysostom’s language is too rapturously eloquent to be very precise. ”

“ Chrysostom exclaims, “what honour! what reward! to what a pinnacle does He exalt those who follow Him! How many women have blessed the Holy Virgin and her womb, and have longed to be such mothers! What then prevents it? Behold, he opens a broad way for us: not women only, but men also are permitted to be 418placed in the same rank.” “The demand to see Him was made by His mother in an ambitious spirit: she wished to show to the people how much authority she possessed over Him ”

“ Those who were firmly persuaded that their cause was the cause of truth and of Jesus Christ read the words, “Blessed are ye when ye are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” or, “Happy are ye when men revile you and persecute you,” as if spoken directly to themselves; and they really did “rejoice in that day, and leap for joy.” Such are the texts which Chrysostom cites for the consolation of his suffering friends. ”