thousand sermons, or homilies, has authorized the critics* of succeeding times to appreciate the genuine merit of Chrysostom. They unanimously attribute to the Christian orator, the free command of an elegant and copious language; the judgment to conceal the advantages which he derived from the knowledge of rhetoric and philosophy; an inexhaustible fund of metaphors and similitudes, of ideas and images, to vary and illustrate the most familiar topics; the happy art of engaging the passions in the service of virtue; and of exposing the folly, as well as the turpitude, of vice, almost with the truth and spirit of a dramatic representation. His admi and de -403. The pastoral labours of the archbishop of nistration Constantinople provoked, and graduallly united fects. against him, two sorts of enemies; the aspiring A.D. 598 clergy, who envied his success, and the obstinate sinners who were offended by his reproofs. When Chrysostom thundered, from the pulpit of St. Sophia, against the degeneracy of the Christians, his shafts were spent among the crowd, without wounding, or even marking, the character of any individual. When he declaimed against the peculiar vices of the rich, poverty might obtain a transient consolation from his invectives: but the guilty were still sheltered by their numbers; and the reproach itself was dignified by some ideas of superiority and enjoyment. But as the pyramid rose towards the summit, it insensibly diminished to a point; and the magistrates, the ministers, the favourite eunuchs, the ladies of the court," the empress As I am almost a stranger to the voluminous 'sermons of Chrysostom, I have given my confidence to the most judicious and moderate of the ecclesiastical critics, Erasmus (tom. 3.p. 1344.) and Dupin: (Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. 3. p. 38.) yet the good taste of the former, is sometimes vitiated by an excessive love of an tiquity; and the good sense of the latter is always restrained by prudential considerations. "The females of Constantinople distinguished themselves by their enmity or their attachment to Chrysostom. Three noble and opulent widows, Marsa, Castricia, and Eugraphia, were the leaders of the persecution. (Pallad. Dialog. tom. 13 p. 14.) It was impossible that they should forgive a preacher, who reproached their affectation to conceal, by the ornaments of dress, their age and ugliness. (Pallad. p. 27.) Olympius, by equal zeal, displayed in a more pious cause, has obtained the title of saint. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. 11. 416-446. Eudoxia herself, had a much larger share of guilt, to divide among a smaller proportion of criminals. The personal applications of the audience were anticipated or confirmed, by the testimony of their own conscience; and the intrepid preacher assumed the dangerous right of exposing both the offence, and the offender, to the public abhorrence. The secret resentment of the court encouraged the discontent of the clergy and monks of Constantinople, who were too hastily reformed by the fervent zeal of their archbishop. He had condemned, from the pulpit, the domestic females of the clergy of Constantinople, who, under the names of servants, or sisters, afforded a perpetual occasion either of sin, or of scandal. The silent and solitary ascetics, who had secluded themselves from the world, were entitled to the warmest approbation of Chrysostom; but he despised and stigmatized, as the disgrace of their holy profession, the crowd of degenerate monks, who, from some unworthy motives of pleasure or profit, so frequently infested the streets of the capital. To the voice of persuasion, the archbishop was obliged to add the terrors of authority: and his ardour, in the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, was not always exempt from passion; nor was it always guided by prudence. Chrysostom was naturally of a choleric disposition. Although he struggled, according to the precepts of the gospel, to love his private enemies, he indulged himself in the privilege of hating the enemies of God, and of the church; and his sentiments were sometimes delivered with too much energy of countenance and expression. He still maintained, from some considerations of health, or abstinence, his former habits of taking his repasts alone; and this inhospitable custom,' which his enemies im Sozomen, and more especially Socrates, have defined the real character of Chrysostom with a temperate and impartial freedom, very offensive to his blind admirers. Those historians lived in the next generation, when party violence was abated, and had conversed with many persons intimately acquainted with the virtues and imperfections of the saint. y Palladius (tom. 13. p. 40, &c.) very seriously defends the archbishop. 1. He puted to pride, contributed at least, to nourish the infirmity of a morose and unsocial humour. Separated from that familiar intercourse, which facilitates the knowledge and the dispatch of business, he reposed an unsuspecting confidence in his deacon Serapion; and seldom applied his speculative knowledge of human nature to the particular characters, either of his dependants, or of his equals. Conscious of the purity of his intentions, and perhaps of the superiority of his genius, the archbishop of Constantinople extended the jurisdiction of the imperial city, that he might enlarge the sphere of his pastoral labours; and the conduct which the profane imputed to an ambitious motive, appeared to Chrysostom himself in the light of a sacred and indispensable duty. In his visitation through the Asiatic provinces, he deposed thirteen bishops of Lydia and Phrygia; and indiscreetly declared, that a deep corruption of simony and licentiousness had infected the whole episcopal order. If those bishops were innocent, such a rash and unjust condemnation must excite a well-grounded discontent. If they were guilty, the numerous associates of their guilt would soon discover, that their own safety depended on the ruin of the archbishop; whom they studied to represent as the tyrant of the eastern church. Chrysos secuted by the empress Eu This ecclesiastical conspiracy was managed tom is per- by Theophilus, archbishop of Alexandria, an active and ambitious prelate, who disdoxia. played the fruits of rapine in monuments of A. D. 403. ostentation. His national dislike to the rising greatness of a city, which degraded him from the se never tasted wine. 2. The weakness of his stomach required a peculiar diet. 3. Business, or study, or devotion, often kept him fasting till sunset. 4. He detested the noise and levity of great dinners. 5. He saved the expense for the use of the poor. 6. He was apprehensive in a capital like Constantinople, of the envy and reproach of partial invitations. Chrysostom declares his free opinion, (tom. 9. hom. 3. in Act. Apostol. p. 29.) that the number of bishops who might be saved, bore a very small proportion to those who would be damned. a See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. 11. p. 441-500. cond to the third rank in the Christian world, was exasperated by some personal disputes with Chrysostom himself. By the private invitation of the empress; Theophilus landed at Constantinople, with a stout body of Egyptian mariners, to encounter the populace; and á train of dependent bishops, to secure, by their voices, the majority of a synod: The synod was convened in the suburb of Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak, where Rufinus had erected a stately church and monastery; and their proceedings were continued during fourteen days, or sessions. A bishop and a deacon accused the archbishop of Constantinople; but the frivolous of improbable nature of the forty-seven articles which they presented against him, may justly be considered as a fair and unexceptionable panegyric. Four successive summons were signified to Chrysostom; but he still refused to trust either his person, or his reputation, in the hands of his implacable enemies, who, prudently declining the examination of any particular charges, condemned his contumacious disobedience, and hastily pronounced a sentence of deposition. The synod of the Oak imme diately addressed the emperor to ratify and execute their judgment, and charitably insinuated, that the penalties of treason might be inflicted on the audacious preacher, who had reviled, under the name of Jezebel, the empress Eudoxia herself. The archbishop was rudely arrested, and conducted through the city, by one of the imperial messengers, who landed him, after a short navigation, near the entrance of the Euxine; from whence, before the expiration of two days, he was gloriously recalled. b I have purposely omitted the controversy which arose among the monks of Egypt, concerning Origenism and Antropomorphism; the dissimulation and violence of Theophilus; his artful management of the simplicity of Epiphanius; the persecution and flight of the long, or tall, brothers; the ambiguous support which they received at Constantinople from Chrysostom, &c. &c. Photius (p. 53-60.) has preserved the original acts of the synod of the Oak; which destroy lhe false assertion, that Chrysostom was condemned by no more than thirty-six bishops, of whom twenty-nine were Egyptians. Forty-five bishops subscribed his sentence. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. 11. p. 595. Constan Popular The first astonishment of his faithful people tumults at had been mute and passive: they suddenly rose tinople. with unanimous and irresistible fury. Theophilus escaped; but the promiscuous crowd of monks and Egyptian mariners were slaughtered without pity in the streets of Constantinople. A seasonable earthquake justified the interposition of Heaven; the torrent of sedition rolled forwards to the gates of the palace; and the empress, agitated by fear or remorse, threw herself at the feet of Arcadius, and confessed, that the public safety could be purchased only by the restoration of Chrysostom. The Bosphorus was covered with innumerable vessels; the shores of Europe and Asia were profusely illuminated; and the acclamations of a victorious people accompanied, from the port to the cathedral, the triumph of the archbishop; who, too easily, consented to resume the exercise of his functions, before his sentence had been legally reversed by the authority of an ecclesiastical synod. Ignorant, or careless, of the impending danger, Chrysostom indulged his zeal, or perhaps his resentment; declaimed with peculiar asperity against female vices; and condemned the profane honours which were addressed, almost in the precincts of St. Sophia, to the statue of the empress. His imprudence tempted his enemies to inflame the haughty spirit of Eudoxia, by reporting, or perhaps inventing, the famous exordium of a sermon, Herodias is again furious; Herodias again dances; she once more requires the head of John; an insolent allusion, which, as a woman and a sovereign, it was impossible for her to forgive. The short interval of a perfidious truce was em Palladius owns, (p. 30.) that if the people of Constantinople had found Theophilus, they would certainly have thrown him into the sea. Socrates mentions (lib. 6. c. 17.) a battle between the mob and the sailors of Alexandria, in which many wounds were given, and some lives were lost. The massacre of the monks is observed only by the Pagan Zosimus, (lib. 5. p. 324.) who acknowledges that Chrysostom had a singular talent to lead the illiterate multitude, ny yag o aveganos άλογον όχλον υπαγαγε σθαι δεινος. *See Socrates, lib. 6. c. 18. Sozomen, lib. 8. c. 20. Zosimus (lib. 5. p. 324. 327.) mentions, in general terms, his invectives against Eudoxia. The homily, which begins with those famous words, is rejected as spurious. Montfaucon, tom. 13. p. 151. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. 11. p. 603. |