Allowing for some exaggerations in the preacher, carried away by the impulse of the moment, the invectives of Chrysostom must be permitted to prove that the Jewish residents in Antioch were of a low and vicious order. They seem to have been regarded by the common people with a mixture of dislike and awe; the age was superstitious, and the Jews availed themselves of superstitious terrors to make a livelihood, especially through a kind of quackery in medicine. Their quarters are denounced by Chrysostom as dens of robbers and habitations of demons.249 A whole day would not suffice to tell the tale of their extortions, their thefts, their deceptions, their base methods of traffic, such as the sale of amulets and charms.250 Their priests were no better than counterfeits, because they had not gone through all the elaborate rites of consecration. They had no sacred ephod, no Urim and Thummim, no altar, no sacrifice, no prophecy.
The Festival of Trumpets was a scene of great debauchery, more iniquitous than the proceedings in the theatre. Any catechumen who was detected attending that festival was to be excluded from the porch of the church; any communicant so detected was to be denied access to the Holy Table. The booths erected at the Feast of Tabernacles were like taverns, crowded with flute-players and ill-conditioned women. The synagogues were frequented by the most abandoned characters of both sexes, and dancers, actors, and charioteers were largely drawn from the Jewish population. In spite of this, many Christians were seduced to attend the Jewish festivals and fasts, and even to swear Jewish oaths in the synagogues, under the superstitious impression that such were more solemn and binding than any Christian forms. He had himself, only three days ago, rescued a woman being dragged off, against her will, to take an oath of this kind, by a man who professed himself a Christian. On stopping to rebuke him in the sternest language, Chrysostom was shocked to learn that the practice was extremely common among Christians. He passionately exhorts the faithful to reclaim their deluded brethren from these pernicious ways:—If twelve Apostles had converted the larger part of the world, it would be a shame that the Christians, who were the majority in the population of Antioch, should fail to allay the plague of Judaism. What treason! what inconsistency, that they, who worshipped the Crucified One, should associate with the race which crucified Him.251 The synagogue ought not to be an object of reverence because it contained the Books of the Law and the Prophets, but rather of abhorrence, because those who possessed the Prophets refused to recognise Him of whom their writings spoke. Was the temple of Serapis holy because it contained the Septuagint, deposited there by Ptolemy Philadelphus?252
Christians seem to have attended Jewish services much in that spirit of curiosity with which Protestants sometimes go to Roman Catholic churches, to be entertained by music, incense, and a grand ritual. They maintained that the effect was solemnising; but, observes Chrysostom, the value of the offering to God depends not on the nature of the offering, but on the heart of the offerers. The worshippers sanctify the temple, not the temple the worshippers. You would not touch or address the murderer of your own son, and will you court the society of those who slew the Son of God?253 Let them consider that cry uttered by the deacon from time to time in the celebration of the holy mysteries: “Discern one another.”254 So let them do. “If you discern any one Judaising, hold him fast and expose him, that you may not yourself participate in the danger.”
“In military camps, if any soldier be detected sympathising with the barbarian or the Persian, not only does he himself run a risk of his life, but also any of his comrades who were conscious of his defection, but did not represent it to the general. Since, then, you are the army of Christ, search diligently whether any stranger has intruded into your camp, and expose him, not that we may put him to death, but that we may punish him, deliver him from his error and impiety, and render him wholly our own; but if you willingly conceal him, be well assured that you will sustain the same punishment with him.” This homily is concluded by a solemn adjuration: “In the words of Moses, I call heaven and earth to record against you this day, that if any of you now present or absent attend the Feast of Trumpets, or enter a synagogue, or observe a fast, or a sabbath, or any Jewish rite whatever, I am guiltless of your blood. These discourses will rise up for both of us in the great day of our Lord: if you shall have obeyed them, they will give you confidence; but if otherwise, they will stand as severe accusers against you.” Therefore he implored them to institute the most rigorous search after the Judaising brethren. When their mother the Church had lost a child, it was criminal to conceal either the captor or the captured; let the men seek out the men, the women the women, the slave his fellow-servant, and present the culprit to him before the next assembly.
Another Judaising practice, which he condemns in the severest language, was the custom of keeping Easter on the 14th day of the month, according to Jewish calculation, irrespective of the week-day on which it might fall; thus sometimes feasting when the rest of the Church was fasting, or fasting when the rest was feasting. The existence of such a practice at this time was a remarkable instance of the increasing influence of the Jews in Antioch and the neighbouring regions. For up to the year A.D. 276, the Antiochene patriarchate had observed Easter in conformity with the Catholic usage; the adoption of the Jewish calculation was made after that date, when most of the rest of Christendom had dropped it, and was therefore the subject of special condemnation at the Council of Nice.255 Such a discrepancy in practice was regarded as a most serious rent in the unity of the Church. Chrysostom denounces it especially as a contumacious disregard of the Council of Nice, which had distinctly ordained by the mouths of three hundred bishops that Easter should be kept at one and the same time throughout Christendom. He implores the Judaisers to desist from the idle inquiry into the exact dates of seasons; to follow the Church, and to place harmony and charitable peace before all things. It was impossible, in fact, to fix the actual day on which Christ rose; therefore let them observe that day which the Church through her bishops had prescribed. It was a less offence to fast on the wrong day than to rend the unity of the Church. “How long halt ye between two opinions?” if Judaism be true, embrace it altogether, and “cease to annoy the Church; if Christianity be true, abide in it, and follow it.”256
The Jews themselves could not, in Chrysostom’s opinion, legally perform sacrifices, or observe festivals of any kind. Jerusalem was the only place in which such observances were commanded; and Jerusalem being destroyed they became void.257 They had been suspended during the Captivity, to be resumed when the people returned to the holy soil. If the Jews of the present day also expected restoration, let them likewise suspend their rites; but, in fact, this never would occur. The Temple never would be rebuilt, and restoration was a vain hope. Jerusalem was to be trodden down of Gentiles till the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled; and by the fulfilment of those times Chrysostom understood the end of the world.258 All four Captivities of the Jews—their subjection to the Egyptians, Babylonians, Antiochus, and the Romans—had been distinctly foretold. To each of the first three prophecy had assigned a limit; but to the last none—it reached into all time; there was no sign or intimation of any probable cessation.259 The revolt of the Jews under Hadrian, and under Constantine,260 had ignominiously failed; the attempt of Julian to rebuild the Temple had been frustrated by portents: fire issuing from the foundations had consumed some of the workmen, and scared the spectators; the naked substructions, left just as they were when the work was abandoned, presented a visible monument of the divinely-arrested work.261
The eager exhortation reiterated in his last homily, that the faithful should seek out their brethren who had been caught in the Jewish snare, is a powerful rush of indignant eloquence, and a wholesome admonition on the responsibility of all for the spiritual welfare of their fellow-men. “Say not within thyself, I am a man of the world; I have a wife and children; these matters belong to the priests and the monks. The Samaritan in the parable did not say, Where are the priests? where are the Pharisees? where are the Jewish authorities? but seized the opportunity of doing a good deed, as if it was a great advantage. In like manner, when you see any one requiring bodily or spiritual care, say not within thyself, Why did not this or that man attend to him?—but deliver him from his infirmity. If you find a piece of gold in your path, you do not say, Why did not some other person pick it up? but you eagerly anticipate others by seizing it yourself. Even so, in the case of your fallen brethren, consider that you have found a treasure in them and give the attention necessary for their wants.” He besought them not to proclaim the calamity of the Church by idly gossiping about the numbers of those who had observed some Jewish custom, but to search them out; and, if necessary, to enter their houses, tax them with their guilt, and solemnly warn them against the iniquity of consorting with the enemies of Jesus Christ. “Listen not to any excuses which they may plead on the ground of cures effected by the Jews; expose their impostures, their incantations, their amulets, their charms, their drugs.” Even if they really effected cures, it would be better to die and save the soul, than resort to the enemies of Christ to heal the body. Let them rather appeal to the assistance of the martyrs and saints who were His friends, and had great confidence in addressing Him. “Why did the Son of Man Himself enter the world? Was it not to seek and to save wandering sheep? This do thou, according to thy ability. I will not cease to speak, whether you hear or whether you forbear. If you heed not, I shall do it, but with grief; if you listen and obey, I shall do it, but with joy.”262
It is difficult for us, in our altered position towards Jews and heretics of all kinds, to sympathise with the vehemence of Chrysostom’s feelings and language. Yet there can be no doubt that such dabbling, if the word may be used, in the customs, the observances, the ritual of an obsolete dispensation, and a debased people, did seriously imperil purity of faith and morals, and unity of discipline, in the Christian Church.
Towards dissentient Christians, not infected by Judaism, Chrysostom adopts a milder tone, and indeed restrains the immoderation of party feeling in others with wholesome censure. He laments263 the distracted state of the Church in Antioch, which was now divided into the three sections of Meletians, Eustathians, and Arians; but he denounces the practice of anathematising. It was uncharitable and presumptuous. St. Paul anathematised once only; the casting off of a heretic ought to be as painful as plucking out an eye or cutting off a limb. A holy man before their times, one of the successors of the Apostles, and judged worthy of the honour of martyrdom, used to say, that to assume the right to anathematise was as great a usurpation of Christ’s authority as for a subject to put on the Imperial purple. In dealing with erring brethren, the Christian should “in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.” “If a man accepts your counsel and confesses his error, you have saved him, and delivered your own soul also; but if he will not, do you nevertheless continue to testify with long-suffering and kindness, that the Judge may not require his soul at thy hand. Hate him not; turn not from him; persecute him not, but catch him in the net of sincere and genuine charity. The person whom you anathematise is either living or dead; if living, you do wrong to cut off one who may still be converted; if dead, much more you do wrong; ‘to his own master he standeth or falleth;’ and ‘who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?’ You may anathematise heretical dogmas, but towards the persons who hold them show the greatest possible forbearance, and pray for their salvation.”
In the winter of 386, Chrysostom preached a sermon on Christmas Day, which, though not distinguished by any unusual merit, possesses an interest of its own. We learn from it, that this festival was not originally celebrated in the Eastern Church; it had been adopted from the West, and, in Antioch at least, less than ten years before the year of Chrysostom’s discourse. It had gradually increased in popularity, and this year Chrysostom rejoiced to observe that the church was crowded to overflowing. Rome had fixed the observance of the 25th of December, and this was the day kept throughout Christendom from Thrace to Gades; but the propriety of the date was much debated in the Eastern Churches, and the observance of the festival at all was considered by some as a questionable innovation. 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! “Wherefore I specially welcome and belove this day, and desire to make you partakers in my affection. I pray and implore you all to come with zeal and alacrity, every man first purging his own house, to behold our Lord wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger; for if we come with faith, we shall indeed behold Him lying in the manger; for this Table supplies the place of the manger, and here also the body of the Lord will lie, not wrapped in swaddling clothes, but invested on all sides by the Holy Spirit. The initiated (or the baptized) understand what I mean.”265 But he warns his hearers against crowding in a tumultuous and disorderly manner to partake of the holy feast. “Approach with fear and trembling, with fasting and prayer, not making an uproar, hustling and jostling one another: consider, O man, what kind of sacrifice thou art about to handle; consider that thou, who art dust and ashes, dost receive the body and blood of Christ.”266 This irreverent conduct at the reception of the Eucharist frequently provoked the indignation and censure of Chrysostom. It occurred especially at the greater festivals, because on those days multitudes received the Eucharist who did not enter the church at other times. “How,” he cries in the homily on the Epiphany, “shall we teach you what is necessary concerning your soul, immortality, the kingdom of heaven, the long-suffering and mercy of God, and a future judgment, when you come to us only once or twice in the year?” Many of those who pushed and kicked one another in the eagerness of each to get foremost to the holy Table, withdrew from the church before the final thanksgiving. “What,” 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 Christianity. The vitality of superstitious customs, the subtlety with which they have grafted themselves upon Christianity, the tenacity with which they have clung to men in spite of it late into modern times, is indeed extraordinary; but for centuries their existence and influence were not appreciably if at all affected by Christianity. 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. If Christmas Day was observed as a Christian festival, though without becoming reverence, New Year’s Day was given up to riotous festivity, thoroughly Pagan in character. The houses were festooned with flowers, the inns were scenes of the most disgraceful intemperance; men and women drinking undiluted wine there from an early hour in the morning; auguries and omens were consulted by which the horoscope of the year was cast. Good luck in the coming year was supposed to depend (how is not clearly stated) on the manner in which the first day was spent. This is the theme of the preacher’s righteous indignation. The real happiness of the year was determined, not by the observation of particular feasts, but by the amount of goodness which we put into it. Sin was the only real evil, virtue the only real good; therefore, if a man practised justice, almsgiving, and prayer, his year could not fail to be propitious; for he who had a clean conscience carried about with him a perpetual holy day, and without this, the most brilliant and joyous festival was obscured by darkness. “When thou seest the year completed, thank God that He has brought thee safely to the conclusion of the cycle: prick thine heart, reckon up the time of thy life, and say to thyself, The days are hurrying along, the years are being fulfilled, I have advanced far on the road, the judgment is at the doors, my life is pressing on towards old age: well! what good have I done? shall I depart hence destitute and empty of all righteousness?”268
There is a fuller notice, in some of his homilies on the Epistle to the Ephesians, of the many gross and senseless forms of superstition which prevailed even among the communicants in the Christian Church. He laments the decay of discipline, by which a more rigorous scrutiny was once instituted into the characters of those who came to the holy feast. If any one were to examine the lives of all those who partake of the mysteries on Easter Day, he would find amongst them persons who consulted auguries, who used drugs, and omens, and incantations; even the adulterer, curser, and drunkard, dared to partake. Iniquitous men had crept into the Church, the highest places of command were bought and sold, till the pure livers had betaken themselves to the mountains to escape from the contamination.269 Some of the vulgar superstitions of the day were ludicrously puerile. “This or that man was the first to meet me as I walked out; consequently innumerable ills will certainly befall me: that confounded servant of mine, in giving me my shoes, handed me the left shoe first; this indicates dire calamities and insults: as I stepped out, I started with the left foot foremost; this too is a sign of misfortune: my right eye twitched upwards as I went out; this portends tears.”270 To strike the woof with the comb in a particular way, the braying of a donkey, the crowing of a cock, a sudden sneeze,—all these were indications of something or other. “They suspect everything, and are more in bondage than if they were slaves many times over. But let not us, brethren, fear such things, but laughing them to scorn as men who live in the light, and whose citizenship is in heaven, and who have nothing in common with this earth, let us regard one thing only as terrible,—and that is, sin.”271
CHAPTER X.
SURVEY OF THE FIRST DECADE OF THE REIGN OF THEODOSIUS—HIS CHARACTER—HIS EFFORTS FOR THE EXTIRPATION OF PAGANISM AND HERESY—THE APOLOGIES OF SYMMACHUS AND LIBANIUS. A.D. 379-389.
Before Chrysostom had laboured two full years in “confirming the souls of the disciples” at Antioch, that city became the scene of events memorable in history; and events in which the great preacher played an honourable and distinguished part.
The foremost man of the age, not only by position but also to a great extent in character, was Theodosius the Emperor; Theodosius the Great, deservedly so called in spite of one prominent defect in character, and a few glaring misdeeds which tarnish his reputation. The military exploits of his father, Theodosius the elder, had provoked the jealousy of the court272 and cost him his life, and the son, who had manifested ability almost equal, in serving under him both by land and sea against Scots and Saxons, Moors and Goths, was glad to escape a similar ungrateful return for his services, by retiring to the obscurity of his native village in Spain. He was disgraced when the Empire had been liberated from danger by the exertions of his father and himself; but in the hour of its utmost jeopardy, and direst distress, he was recalled to more than his former position. The total defeat and death of Valens, and the almost extermination of his army before Hadrianople in A.D. 378, placed the Empire at the mercy of victorious barbarians within the frontier, and on the edge of the horizon more storm-clouds of Gothic or Hunnish invasion were lowering. There was but one person to whom the mind of Gratian, the young Emperor of the West, and his advisers, overwhelmed by the prospect of impending calamity, instinctively turned as capable of saving the State in this crisis. For three years Theodosius had been quietly cultivating his farm between Valladolid and Segovia, when he was summoned to accept the title of Augustus, together with all the responsibilities and perils which attended the possessor, at such a time, of that venerable name. He was equal to the situation; handsome with a manly beauty, courageous and determined of purpose, just and politic in intention if not always in act, he was endowed with some of the noblest qualities of a soldier and a statesman, by which to rescue and reorganise a panic-stricken and crumbling State. This is not the place to narrate the military achievements of Theodosius. The original materials for information respecting them are scanty; but they have been collected and arranged by that historian whose indefatigable industry brings order out of confusion, and whose luminous style lights up with interest even the darkest and most meagre annals.273 It is sufficient to remind the reader of Gibbon, that Theodosius subdued the Goths, not in any one or two great battles, but by frequent and skilfully contrived engagements on a smaller scale. He thus gradually revived the drooping courage and discipline of the imperial troops, and wore out the enemy. The several tribes, on their submission, were settled in the waste tracts of country, which they were to occupy free of taxation, on the wise condition that they kept the land in a state of cultivation. So a numerous colony of Visigoths was established in Thrace, and of Ostrogoths in Phrygia and Lydia. The ability of Theodosius is proved more by the results of his energy than by anything that we know of the manner in which he accomplished them. He not only vanquished the Goths, but arrested the progress of the usurper Maximus in the West, who was leading his victorious legions to Italy, flushed with success after the ignominious flight and assassination of Gratian. Theodosius was not in a position, surrounded as he was by half-vanquished barbarians, to dispute the passage of the conqueror; but by assuming a firm tone in negotiations, he secured for Valentinian, Gratian’s brother and successor, the sovereignty of Italy, Africa, and Western Illyricum, surrendering for the present to the usurper the regions north of the Alps.
Theodosius was a Christian; as a Spaniard he was a Trinitarian, and as a soldier he was anxious to establish one uniform type of religious faith and ecclesiastical discipline throughout the Empire. But such a task proved more impracticable than the reduction of military foes. Neither Paganism nor Arianism could be extinguished in a few years by suppressive edicts. Theodosius himself had been baptized in the first year of his reign, A.D. 380, when his life was threatened by a severe illness, and he had then announced his will and pleasure that his own solemn declaration of faith should be accepted by his subjects also. That faith which was “professed by the Pontiff Damasus, and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria” was to be the faith of the Empire. “Let us believe the sole deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, under an equal majesty and a pious Trinity. We authorise the followers of this doctrine to assume the title of Catholic Christians, and as we judge that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of heretics.”274 Their places of assembly were not to enjoy the title of churches, and they themselves were to expect severe civil penalties as well as the Divine condemnation. Damophilus, the Arian Bishop of Constantinople, preferred exile to signing the creed of Nice; and Gregory of Nazianzus was conducted by the Emperor in person through the streets of Constantinople (though not without a strong guard) to occupy the episcopal throne. A project for another general council (after the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381) was entertained but abandoned, for the factious demeanour of the several prelates and their partisans on their arrival did not augur a very successful settlement of differences by that method. The Emperor fell back, for the accomplishment of his object, on his own authority. On July 25, A.D. 383, an edict was posted in Constantinople, prohibiting all the heretics therein named, Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, and Manichæans, from holding any kind of assembly, public or private, either in the cities or in the country. Any ground or building used for such illegal purpose was to be confiscated to the State; and the penalty of banishment was pronounced against those who allowed themselves to be ordained priests or bishops of the heretical sects. Historians concur in the opinion that few of these penalties were actually enforced. The heretical sects were not animated by a spirit of martyrdom; the intimidation was generally sufficient.275 The hypocrite or the indifferent conformed, the more conscientious retired into obscurity. There seem to have been few if any Arian prelates of great and commanding ability. All the leading ecclesiastics of the day—Chrysostom, Jerome, Basil, the two Gregories, and Ambrose—were by conviction on the side of the Emperor, and added all the weight of their influence to his decrees.
When measures had been taken for the suppression of heresy, it was the Pagan’s turn to suffer. The spectacle of temples standing open for worship side by side with Christian churches was a painful incongruity in the eyes of Theodosius, with his soldier-like ideas of uniformity and discipline. The first blow was directed against those disloyal sons of the Church who had seceded to Paganism. They were deprived of the power to make wills or to receive bequests.276 The second step was absolutely to prohibit all sacrifices in those temples which were still open. Nearly twenty years before, the sacrifice of animals had been forbidden by Valentinian and Valens, owing to their connection with arts of divination, which were used for political purposes. As long as such sacrifices were permitted, the priests could not refrain from consulting the entrails of the victims, and pretending to read therein future events: the death of this Emperor, the elevation of that, the success or failure of expeditions, and the like, were intimated to the people, always eager to know what is beyond the limits of human knowledge. Such divinations encouraged a restless spirit in the subjects, and often disaffected them towards the ruling power. That these laws of Valentinian were renewed by Theodosius in 381, and again in A.D. 385, proves that they had been imperfectly obeyed.277
They were followed up by a yet more decisive step in A.D. 392. Cynegius, the Prætorian Prefect of the East, the Counts Jovinus and Gaudentius in the West, were commissioned to shut up the temples, to destroy their contents, images, and vessels, and to confiscate their property. In many instances the executors of the edict, aided by the fanatical fury of monks, seem to have exceeded their instructions. The great temple of Jupiter, at Apamea, in Syria, of which the roof was supported on sixty massive columns, fell, but not unavenged; for the Bishop Marcellus, who headed the assailants, fell a victim to the rage of the exasperated rustics who defended it.278 The safety of the universe was represented by Pagans to depend on the preservation of the colossal gold and silver image of Serapis at Alexandria. Even Christians beheld with some trepidation an audacious soldier deal a blow with a battle-axe on the cheek of this awful deity; but as the only result of the gash was the issue of a swarm of rats who had harboured in the sacred head, instead of the avenging thunders which had been expected, a revulsion of feeling was experienced. The huge idol was hewn to pieces, the limbs were dragged through the streets, and the remains of the carcase burned in the amphitheatre, amidst the derision of the populace.
These were shattering blows to Paganism. But the religion of sentiment and custom long survives the extinction of more solid if not reasonable convictions. Chrysostom’s homily on New Year’s Day is only one among many illustrations of the way in which Pagan rites and superstitions lingered, especially in connection with public festivals. All the Pagan concomitants of these festivals in the country districts—hymns, libations, garlands, incense, lights—were strictly prohibited, under heavy penalties, by Theodosius in A.D. 392, but, in the West especially, the extirpation was very incomplete. The Bishops of Verona and of Brescia protested, but in vain, against the proprietors of land indulging their tenantry in these practices. Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia, were strongholds of Paganism as late as A.D. 600. Sacrifices were offered to Apollo on Monte Casino till the establishment of St. Benedict’s monastery in A.D. 529.
The riotous populace of towns, and the simple country folk attached to old customs, thus evinced some spirit in their resistance to repressive enactments. But the hold which Paganism retained upon intellectual people was feeble indeed. Two apologists only, with any pretensions to ability, stepped forward to plead for the sinking cause: Symmachus279 in the West, and Libanius in the East; and their intercessions are addressed to sentiments of affection for antiquity, and compassion for oppressed weakness, rather than to the reason. Symmachus, as is well known, pleaded twice for the retention of the altar and statue of Victory in the senate-house at Rome. Eloquent and touching, his appeal is directed to patriotic feeling and a sense of political expediency, not to religious conviction. He does not profess to believe in the Pagan deities, but regards with a philosophic eye the various kinds of faith in the world as so many forms of homage to the great unknown Being who presides over the universe. “It is right to recognise that what all adore can be at bottom but one Being only. We contemplate the same stars; the same sky covers us; the same universe encloses us. What matters it by what reasonings each seeks the truth? a single path cannot conduct us to the grand secret of nature. As an individual, a man may be a worshipper of Mithras, or of Christ, but as a citizen it is his duty to conform to that worship which is bound up with the history and glory of his country; to part from it is heartless and disloyal.”280
The memorial of Symmachus got into the hands of Ambrose, and was rather rudely treated by him. He subjects it to a stern test of facts. Had the national gods indeed protected the Romans from disaster? It was maintained that by their aid the conquest of Italy by Hannibal had been averted. Why then did they permit the invader to inflict such ravages as he had done? Would not the Gauls also have captured the Capitol, but for the timely cry of the goose? Where was Jupiter then? but perhaps he was speaking through the goose. The Carthaginians worshipped some of the same deities as the Romans. If then the gods conquered with the Romans they yielded with the Carthaginians. Paganism declined, notwithstanding support; the Church flourished, in spite of opposition. As to the abandonment of ancient customs, was not progress the law of improvement? The glimmering dawn gradually brightened into the full and perfect day; the riches of harvest and vintage came in the maturity of the year; even so the faith of Christ had gradually planted itself on the ruins of a worn-out creed, and was now reaping an abundant harvest among all nations of the earth.281 The whole reply of Ambrose is pitched in the positive, confident, authoritative tone of one who speaks from a conviction that he stands on the platform of absolute truth, and that his cause is therefore inevitably destined to win.
If the appeal of Symmachus was addressed to the sentiment of reverence for national antiquity, that of Libanius was directed to a sentiment of attachment to classical antiquity. The citizen mourns over the suppression of a worship which was bound up with the history and the glory of his country; the scholar sighs over the degradation of that which was connected with all that was most beautiful in the literature and life of the olden time—with the poetry of Homer and the tragedians—with the festive song and dance—with the hills, and fountains, and groves of Greece. He clings to the past with the love of the antiquarian. Though his actual belief in the myths of the classical era may not have been very deep or earnest, there is no doubt that he entertained a genuine animosity towards the new faith which was usurping their place. A flowery description of the origin and antiquity of the honour paid to the gods is followed by a vehement invective against the monks, “those black-robed creatures, more voracious than elephants, who rush upon the temples, armed with stones, wood, and fire; who break up the roofs, destroy the walls, throw down the statues, raze the altars.” They glaringly exceeded the edicts of the Emperor, which had forbidden the offering of sacrifice in the temples, but had not commanded the actual destruction of the buildings.282 There is real feeling also in his description of the distress caused in country districts by the demolition of the temples. “They were the centres round which human habitations and civilisation grew; in them the labourer placed all his hopes; to them he commended his wife, his children, his plantation, his crops. Deprived of the gods, from whom he expected the rewards of toil, he felt as if henceforth his labours would be vain. Sometimes the very land was wrested from them on the pretext that it had been consecrated to gods; if the poor despoiled owners sought redress from the pastor (i.e. the bishop) of the neighbouring town (falsely called pastor, since there was no gentleness in his nature), he praised the robber and dismissed the complainers.” No doubt to a great extent this was a true picture, and such harshness and injustice must have retarded (as always happens when an attempt is made to coerce opinion) the cause of Christianity, which the law was intended to promote.
Theodosius, however, was in principle far too upright to treat the Church with a blind partiality. Cynegius, the Prefect, was ordered to enforce the law at Alexandria with full rigour against those despicable beings who sought to make traffic by informing against Pagans. Constantine had exempted the clergy from serving in curial offices; Theodosius compelled them to pay for substitutes, and renounce their claims to patrimony. They were to enjoy immunity from torture when brought to trial, but if detected in falsehood were to be visited with penalties of peculiar severity, because they had abused the shelter of the law which favoured them.283
Such was Theodosius—a prudent and skilful general, a firm and upright ruler; a sincere and simple-minded believer in Christianity, who did his best, as head at once of the army, the civil government, and the Church, to consolidate the fabric of the Empire. The barbarians were repelled, or held down; taxes were collected with honesty and firmness,—some of the most burdensome were taken off; Paganism and heresy languished, however far from being extinguished, and the Emperor fondly hoped that uniformity in faith and discipline would soon be established throughout Christendom.
The good genius of his life was the Empress Flacilla; she was a Christian of a pure and noble type; imperial state had not corrupted the simplicity or hardened the tenderness of her disposition. She was accustomed to visit the hospitals in Constantinople, not attended by a single slave or waiting-woman; administered food and medicine to the patients, and dressed their wounds with her own hands. She was wont to remind her husband of the great change in their worldly position, as a motive to humility and gratitude to God. “It behoves thee to consider what thou wert and what thou hast become; by constantly reflecting on this thou wilt not be ungrateful to thy benefactor, but wilt guide the kingdom which thou hast received with a due regard to law, and by so doing wilt pay homage to Him who gave it thee.”
She, we may well believe, restrained the impulses of that choleric temper which was the principal defect in the Emperor’s character, and which occasionally after her death burst forth into acts of deplorable violence. This wise and pious monitress was taken from him in A.D. 385. She died at a watering-place in Thrace, whither she had gone to recover her health after the shock caused by the death of the infant Princess Pulcheria. Her body was brought back to Constantinople on a melancholy day in autumn, when the skies poured down a gentle rain, as if mingling their tears with those of the disconsolate people.284
This condensed survey of the character and work of Theodosius, during the first ten years of his reign, will assist us in forming a proper estimate of his conduct in that memorable occurrence which brings his life into contact with the life of Chrysostom.
CHAPTER XI.
THE SEDITION AT ANTIOCH—THE HOMILIES ON THE STATUES—THE RESULTS OF THE SEDITION. A.D. 387.
The wise counsel and softening influence of the Empress were removed from her husband at an inopportune season. Political storms were approaching, and the passionate temper of Theodosius was soon to be subjected to a most severe trial.
The year 388 would have completed the first decade of his reign. The year 387 was the fifth of the reign of his son Arcadius, whom he had nominally associated with himself in the government. The celebration of these two events Theodosius, from motives of prudent economy and convenience, resolved to combine. The army on such occasions claimed a liberal donative, five gold pieces to each man. It was obviously desirable, therefore, to avoid, if possible, the repetition of such a donative within a short space of time. It was always a strain on the royal treasury, and at the present juncture the strain was increased, for the Goths were assuming a menacing attitude on the Danubian frontier. It was necessary to mass troops in that direction, and, with a view to provide for these expenses, it was proposed to raise a special subsidy from the opulent cities of the Eastern empire. But the inhabitants of Alexandria and Antioch were loath to part with any of the wealth which they had accumulated during nearly ten years of peace and exemption from onerous taxation. Large meetings were held by the citizens of Alexandria in the theatres and other public places; inflammatory and seditious speeches were made. “If we are to be treated thus,” they cried, “a simple remedy is open: we will appeal to Maximus in the West; he knows how to shake off a troublesome tyrant.” Fortunately the Prefect Cynegius was a man of firmness and promptitude; he made some arrests of the most conspicuous leaders of the mutinous faction, and enforced an immediate payment of the tribute, and by these decisive measures public order was restored. Either the people of Antioch were more deeply disaffected, or no such energetic officer was in that city to nip the spirit of rebellion in the bud. It is said that the inhabitants entertained a grudge against the Emperor, because he had never visited their city, which had been frequently graced by the royal presence of his predecessors.285
The edict which enjoined the levying of the tribute was proclaimed by a herald on February 26. Large numbers of the people assembled on the spot, collected chiefly into groups, amongst which were some persons of distinction, senators and other civic functionaries, noble ladies, and retired soldiers. An ominous silence succeeded the announcement of the edict. The crowd then dispersed, but reassembled about the prætorium, where the governor resided.286 There they stood in gloomy silence, save that the women, from time to time, raised a wailing lamentation, crying that the ruin of the city was determined, and that since the Emperor had abandoned them, God alone from henceforth could come to their succour. At last a little band detached itself from the mass, shouting that they must go and seek the Bishop Flavian, and constrain him to intercede with the Emperor on their behalf. Flavian, by accident or design, was absent from the episcopal residence, and the mob returned to the prætorium, crying that the governor must do them justice. The people appear to have been excited to violence chiefly by those turbulent foreign adventurers who abounded in Antioch, sordid venal creatures, often hired by actors to get up applause in the theatres, or by great men not over popular to raise cheers when they appeared in public places. But however stimulated, the passions of the mob were thoroughly roused, and their fury vented itself in a tumultuous rush into one of the great public baths, where they soon tore everything to pieces. Having completed this work of destruction, they hurried back once more to the hall of the unfortunate governor. Here they were kept at bay by a guard for a sufficient time to enable the governor to escape by a back-door, and when they at last succeeded in bursting in, the vacancy of the place aggravated their rage. The governor was not seated in the judicial chair, but they found themselves face to face with the statues of the imperial family, which as emblems of authority were ranged above it. They paused for a few moments; highly excited as they were, imperial majesty, even so represented, had some deterrent influence upon their fury.
But, unfortunately, there were boys in the crowd; the love of stone-throwing without respect of persons was as ardent in boy nature fifteen hundred years ago as it is now. A stone was cast by one of these juvenile hands, which hit one of the sacred statues. The momentary feelings of reverence which had arrested the people were dissipated. The images were mutilated, almost battered to pieces, and the fragments dragged through the streets. Other images of the imperial family with which the city was adorned were treated in the same manner; the equestrian statue of Count Theodosius, father of the Emperor, was dislodged from its pedestal and hacked about, amidst derisive shouts of “Defend thyself, grand cavalier!”287
The unrestrained fury of the people was inflamed by success; they began to bring up torches and actually set fire to one of the principal buildings of the city, when the governor, who had escaped their hands, returned at the head of a company of archers. As usual with disorderly mobs, however furious, they were unable to face the discipline of military force; the soldiers were no sooner drawn up and preparing to fix their weapons than rage turned to panic, and the mob, lately so formidable, melted away.
The whole tumult had not lasted more than three hours; before noon, every one had returned to his home, the streets and squares were empty, and a death-like stillness pervaded the city. Remorse was mingled with great terror respecting the consequences of the outrage which had been perpetrated. The Emperor, indeed, was humane and forgiving of wrongs which concerned himself alone, but how would he brook the insults done to the memory of his father and his tenderly beloved Empress? One hope remained: Flavian, the bishop, was a favourite at court; his intercessions might avail; the people besought him with tears to stand their friend in this distress. From Antioch to Constantinople was a long and perilous journey of 800 miles, and the winter was not yet ended. Flavian was old, his only sister was seriously ill, and the approaching season of Lent required his presence at Antioch, but a sense of the emergency prevailed over all these obstacles. Animated by the spirit of the Good Shepherd the intrepid old man was ready to lay down his life for his flock, and set out upon his errand of mercy with all possible speed, in the hope of overtaking the messengers who had started before him, but had been detained at the foot of Mount Taurus by a fall of snow.288
During the absence of Flavian all the powers of Chrysostom as an orator, a pastor, and a citizen, were called forth in attempting to calm the fears and revive the deeply-dejected spirits of the people. Perseveringly did he discharge this anxious and laborious task; almost every day, for twenty-two days, that small figure was to be seen either sitting in the Ambo, from which he sometimes preached on account of his diminutive stature, or standing on the steps of the altar, the preacher’s usual place;289 and day after day, the crowds increased which came to listen to the stream of golden eloquence which he poured forth. With all the versatility of a consummate artist, he moved from point to point. Sometimes a picture of the city’s agony melted his hearers to tears, and then again he struck the note of encouragement and revived their spirits by bidding them take comfort from the well-known clemency of the Emperor, the probable success of the mission of Flavian, and, above all, from trust in God.
“The gay and noisy city, where once the busy people hummed like bees around their hive, was petrified by fear into the most dismal silence and desolation; the wealthier inhabitants had fled into the country, those who remained shut themselves up in their houses, as if the town had been in a state of siege. If any one ventured into the market-place, where once the multitude poured along like the stream of a mighty river, the pitiable sight of two or three cowering dejected creatures in the midst of solitude soon drove him home again. The sun itself seemed to veil its rays as if in mourning. The words of the prophet were fulfilled, ‘Their sun shall go down at noon, and their earth shall be darkened in a clear day’ (Amos viii. 9). Now they might cry, ‘Send to the mourning women, and let them come, and send for cunning women that they may come’ (Jer. ix. 17). Ye hills and mountains, take up a wailing, let us invite all creation to commiserate our woes, for this great city, this capital of Eastern cities, is in danger of being destroyed out of the midst of the earth, and there is no man to help her, for the Emperor, who has no equal among men, has been insulted; therefore let us take refuge with the King who is above, and summon Him to our aid.”290
The chief reason of the people’s extreme dejection was, that the governor and magistrates, probably to disarm any suspicion at court of their own complicity in the sedition, were daily seizing real or supposed culprits, and punishing them with the utmost rigour. Even those who might have been pardoned on account of their tender age were mercilessly handed over to the executioner. Chrysostom speaks of some even having been burnt, and others thrown to wild beasts. The weeping parents followed their unhappy offspring at a distance, powerless to help but fearing to plead, like men on shore beholding with grief shipwrecked sailors struggling in the water, but unable to rescue them.291
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. Flavian would not fail to urge how especially suitable an act of forgiveness was to that holy season, in which was commemorated the Death of Christ for the sins of the whole world. He would remind the Emperor of the parable of the two debtors, and warn him not to incur the risk of being one day addressed by the words, ‘Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt; shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servants?’ He would represent that the outrages had not been committed by the whole community, but chiefly by some lawless strangers. He would plead that the inhabitants, even had they all offended, had already undergone sufficient punishment in the anxiety and alarm which they endured. It would be unreasonable to visit the crime of a few by the extirpation of a whole city, a city which was the most populous capital of the East, and dear to Christians as the place where they had first received that sweet and lovely name.”292
Meanwhile he earnestly calls upon the people to improve this season of humiliation by a thorough repentance and reformation in respect of the prevailing vices and follies. The words of St. Paul in writing to the Philippians, “To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, and for you it is safe,” might be aptly applied to Chrysostom. He is never tired of denouncing special sins and exhorting to the renunciation of them in every variety of language. Ostentatious luxury, sordid avarice, religious formalism, a profane custom of taking rash oaths, were the fashionable sins against which he waged an incessant and implacable warfare.
His exhortations are generally based on some passage read in the lesson of the day. “What have we heard today? ‘Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded.’ He who says ‘the rich in this world’ proves thereby that there are others rich in regard to a future world, like Lazarus in the parable.” Wealth of this world was a thankless runaway slave, which, if bound with thousands of fetters, made off, fetters and all. Not that he would quarrel with wealth; it was good in itself, but became evil when inordinately desired and paraded, just as the evil of intoxication lay not in wine itself, but in the abuse of it. The Apostle did not charge those who were rich to become poor, but only not to be high-minded. “Let us adorn our own souls before we embellish our houses. Is it not disgraceful to overlay our walls with marbles and to neglect Christ, who is going about unclothed? What profit is there, O man, in thy house? Wilt thou carry it away with thee? Nay, thou must leave thy house; but thy soul thou wilt certainly take with thee. Lo! how great the danger which has now overtaken us: let our houses, then, be our defenders; let them rescue us from the impending peril;—but they will not be able. Be those witnesses to my words who have now deserted their houses, and hurried away to the wilderness as if afraid of nets and snares. Do you wish to build large and splendid houses? I forbid you not, only build them not upon the earth; build yourselves tabernacles in heaven—tabernacles which never decay. Nothing is more slippery than wealth, which to-day is with thee and to-morrow is against thee; which sharpens the eyes of the envious on all sides; which is a foe in your own camp, an enemy in your own household. Wealth makes the present danger more intolerable; you see the poor man unencumbered and prepared for whatever may happen, but the rich in a state of great embarrassment, and going about seeking some place in which to bury his gold, or some person with whom to deposit it. Why seek thy fellow-servants, O man? Christ stands ready to receive and guard thy deposits—yea, not only to guard, but also to multiply and to return with rich interest. No man plucks out of His hand; men, when they receive a deposit from another, deem that they have conferred a favour upon him; but Christ, on the contrary, declares that He receives a favour, and, instead of demanding a reward, bestows one upon you.”293
He entreated them to make the present Lent a season of spiritual renovation. Lent fell in the spring, when the stream of industry which the winter had frozen began to flow again. The sailor launched his vessel, the soldier furbished his sword, the farmer whetted his scythe, the traveller set out confidently on his long journey, the athlete stripped for the contest. “Even so let this fast be to us a spiritual spring-tide; let us polish our spiritual armour, let us breast the waves of evil passions, set out like travellers on our journey heavenwards, and prepare like athletes for the combat. For the Christian is both husbandman, and pilot, and soldier, and athlete, and traveller. Hast thou seen the athlete? hast thou seen the soldier? if thou art an athlete thou must strip to enter the lists; if thou art a soldier thou must put on armour before taking thy place in the ranks. How then to the same man can both these things be possible? How, dost thou ask? I will tell thee. Strip thyself of thy worldly business, and thou hast become an athlete; clothe thyself with spiritual armour, and thou hast become a soldier. Strip thyself, for it is a season of wrestling; clothe thyself, for we are engaged in a fierce warfare with devils. Till thy soul, and cut away the thorns; sow the seed of piety, plant the good plants of philosophy, and tend them with much care, and thou hast become a husbandman, and St. Paul will say to thee, ‘The husbandman which laboureth must first be a partaker of the fruits.’ Whet thy sickle which thou hast blunted by surfeiting; sharpen it, I say, by fasting. Enter on the road which leads to heaven, the rugged and narrow road, and travel along it. And how shalt thou be able to set out and travel? By buffeting thy body and bringing it into subjection; for where the road is narrow, obesity, which comes from surfeiting, is a great impediment. Repress the waves of foolish passions, repulse the storm of wicked imaginations, preserve the vessel, display all thy skill, and thou hast become a pilot.”294 The originator and instructor of all these arts was abstinence; not the vulgar kind of abstinence, not abstinence from food only, but also from sins. “If thou fastest, show me the results by thy deeds. What deeds, do you ask? If you see a poor man, have pity on him; if an enemy, be reconciled; if a friend in good reputation, regard him without envy. Fast not only by thy mouth, but with thine eyes, thine ears, thy hands, thy feet; avert thine eyes from unlawful sights, restrain thy hands from deeds of violence, keep thy feet from entering places of pernicious amusement, bridle thy mouth from uttering, and stop thine ears from listening to tales of slander.” This kind of fast would be acceptable to God, only it should be co-extensive with life. To spend a few days in penance and then to relapse into the former course of life was only an idle mockery.295 He disparaged that rigorous kind of fasting which some had carried to the extent of taking no food but bread and water. Many boasted of the number of weeks they had fasted; this excessive abstinence was likely to be followed by a reaction. Let them seek rather to subdue evil passions and habits; let one week be devoted to the suppression of swearing, another of anger, a third of slander, and so gradually advancing they might at last attain the consummation of virtue, and propitiate the displeasure of God.296 “Let us not do now what we have so often done, for frequently when earthquakes, or famine, or drought have overtaken us, we have become temperate for three or four days, and then have returned to our former ways of life. But, if never before, now at least let us remain steadfast in the same state of piety, that we may not again require to be chastised by another scourge.”297
Almost all the homilies are concluded by an admonition against the sin of swearing, and the greater portion of some is devoted to this topic. The passionate impetuous people of Antioch seem to have been constantly betrayed into the folly of binding themselves by rash oaths. The master, for instance, would take an oath to deprive his slave of food, or the tutor his scholar, till a certain task was accomplished, a threat which it was of course often impossible to enforce. Hence perjury on the part of a superior, and loss of respect on the side of the subordinate. Chrysostom himself had often dined at a house where the mistress swore that she would beat a slave who had made some mistake, while the husband would with another oath forbid the punishment. Thus one of the two would be inevitably involved in perjury.298 He frequently exhorted his hearers to form a kind of Christian club amongst themselves for the suppression of this vice. In one place he suggests a stern remedy: “When you detect your wife or any of your household yielding to this evil habit, order them supperless to bed, and if you are guilty impose the same penalty on yourself.”299 Near the close of Lent he declares that he will repel from the holy Table at Easter those whom he detects still addicted to this vice.300
On the whole, the eager and earnest pastor may be said to have rejoiced at the grand opportunity afforded by the humiliation of the city, to effect a reformation in the moral life of the people. He observed with great satisfaction, that if the forum was deserted the church was thronged, just as in stormy weather the harbour is crowded with vessels.301 Many an intemperate man had been sobered, the headstrong softened, or the indolent quickened into zeal. Many who once assiduously frequented the theatre now spent their day in the church. Meanwhile they must abide God’s pleasure for the removal of their affliction. He had sent it for the purpose of purifying and chastening them; He was waiting till He saw a genuine, an unshakeable repentance, like a refiner watching a piece of precious metal in a crucible, and waiting the proper moment for taking it out.302 As for those who said what they feared was not so much death, as ignominious death by the hand of the executioner, he protested that the only death really miserable was a death in sin. Abel was murdered and was happy, Cain lived and was miserable. John the Baptist was beheaded, St. Stephen was stoned, yet their deaths were happy. To the Christian there was nothing formidable in death itself. To dread death but not to be afraid of sin was to act like children who are frightened by masks whilst they were not afraid of fire. “What, I pray you, is death? It is like the putting off of a garment, for the soul is invested with a body303 as it were with a garment, and this we shall put off for a little while by death, only to receive it again in a more brilliant form. What, I pray you, is death? It is but to go a journey for a season, or to take a longer sleep than usual.” Death was but a release from toil, a tranquil haven. “Mourn not over him who dies, but over him who, living in sin, is dead while he liveth.”304
Chrysostom’s own calmness, and his skill in diverting the thoughts of his flock from present alarm, are manifested by the power and ease with which he dilates on such grand topics as the creation, Divine Providence, the nature of man, and his place in the scale of created beings. His best thoughts, expressed in his best style on these subjects, are to be found in the homilies now under consideration.
The size and beauty of the universe, but still more the perfect regularity with which the system worked, proclaimed a designing power. The succession of day and night, the series of the seasons, like a band of maidens dancing in a circle, the four elements of which the world was composed, mingling in such exquisite proportions that they exactly balanced one another, the sun tempering the action of water, the water that of the sun, the sea unable to break its bounds or reduce the earth to a mass of clay; who could contemplate all these forces at work and suppose that they moved spontaneously, instead of adoring Him who had arranged them all with a wisdom commensurate with the results? As the health of the body depended on the due balance of those humours of which it was composed, if the bile increased fever was produced, or if the phlegmatic element prevailed many diseases were engendered, so was it in the case of the universe: each element observed its proper limits, restrained, as it were, with a bridle by the will of the Maker; and the struggle between these elements was the source of peace for the whole system. As the body failed, languished, died, in proportion as the soul was withdrawn from it, so if the regulating and life-giving power of God’s providence were removed from the earth, all would go to rack and ruin, like a vessel deserted by her pilot.305
In treating this subject, he manifests a keen appreciation of natural beauties. The infinite varieties of flowers and herbs, trees, animals, insects, and birds—the flowery fields below, the starry fields above—the never-failing fountains—the sea receiving countless streams into its bosom, yet never overflowing,—all proclaimed a Creator and an Upholder, and drew from man the exclamation, “How manifold are Thy works; in wisdom hast Thou made them all!” Yet, lest they should be worshipped instead of the Maker, conditions of change, as decay or death, were imposed upon all.306 His observation of nature appears in some of his similes. The poor female relatives hovering about the courts of justice, when the culprits of the outrage on the statues were being tried, he compares to parent birds, which wildly flutter round the hunter who has stolen the young from their nest, in an agony of grief, but impotent from weakness and fear.307 He perceives in some of the lower animals characteristics to be imitated or avoided, and describes them with a kind of humour. The bee especially was a pattern for imitation, not merely because it was industrious, but because it toiled with an unconscious kind of self-sacrifice for the benefit of others as well as itself. It was the most honourable of insects; the spider, on the contrary, was the most ignoble, because it spread its fine web for its own selfish gratification only. The innocence of the dove, the docility of the ox, the light-heartedness of birds, were all examples for imitation. The ferocity, or the cunning of other animals or insects, were examples for avoidance. The good which brutes had by nature man might acquire by force of moral purpose; and the sovereign of the lower animals ought to comprise in his nature all the best qualities of his subjects.308 The plumage of the peacock, excelling in variety and beauty all possible art of the dyer, evinced the superhuman power of the Maker of all things.309
His ethical doctrine bears singular resemblance to that of Butler. God has bestowed on man a faculty of discerning right from wrong; He has impressed upon him a natural law, the law of conscience. Hence some commands are delivered without explanation: for instance, the prohibition to kill, or to commit adultery, because these merely enjoin what is already evident by the light of the natural law. On the other hand, for the command to observe the Sabbath a reason is assigned, because this was a special and temporary enactment. The obligation of the law of conscience was universal and eternal. As soon as Adam had sinned, he hid himself, a clear evidence of his consciousness of guilt, although no written law existed at that time.
The Greeks might attempt to deny the universality of this inherent law, but to what other origin could they ascribe the laws which had been made by their own ancestors concerning respect for life, the marriage bond, covenants, trusts, and the like? They had indeed been handed down from generation to generation; but whence did the first promulgators derive the idea of them, if not from this moral sense? To the law of conscience was added the energy of a moral purpose, προαίρεσις, which enabled man to practise what conscience prescribed: conscience informs man that temperance is right; moral purpose enables him to become temperate. God had also endowed man with some natural virtues: indignation at injustice, compassion for the injured, sympathy with the joys and sorrows of our fellow-men.310 At the same time Chrysostom fully allows the value of training and teaching as supplementary to and co-operating with all these natural gifts.311 If conscience grew languid, the admonition of parent and friend, and, in the case of public offences, the law, stepped in, to effect what conscience failed to do; and frequently God sent afflictions for the same remedial purpose.312