CHAPTER III.
COMMENCEMENT OF ASCETIC LIFE—STUDY UNDER DIODORUS—FORMATION OF AN ASCETIC BROTHERHOOD—THE LETTERS TO THEODORE. A.D. 370.
The enthusiasm of minds newly awakened to a full perception of Christian holiness, and a deep sense of Christian obligations, was in early times seldom contented with anything short of complete separation from the world. The Oriental temperament especially has been at all times inclined to passionate extremes. It oscillates between the most abandoned licentiousness and intense asceticism. 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. But in his youth especially he was not exempt from the spirit of the age and country in which he lived. He irresistibly gravitated towards that kind of life which his friend Basil had already adopted—a life of retirement, contemplation, and pious study—“the philosophy” of Christianity, as it was called at that time.45
It does not appear that Basil had actually joined any monastic community, but merely that he was leading a life of seclusion, and practising some of the usual monastic austerities. Chrysostom, indeed, distinctly asserts that, previous to his own baptism, their intercourse had not been entirely broken off; only that it was impossible for him, who had his business in the law-courts and found his recreation in the theatre, to be so acceptable as formerly to one who now never entered public places, and who was wholly devoted to meditation, study, and prayer.46 Their intercourse was necessarily more rare, though their friendship was substantially unshaken. “When, however, I had myself also lifted my head a little above this worldly flood, he received me with open arms” (probably referring here to his baptism or preparation for it); “but even then I was not able to maintain my former equality, for he had the advantage of me in point of time, and having manifested the greatest diligence, he had attained a very lofty standard, and was ever soaring beyond me.”47
This disparity, however, could not diminish their natural affection for one another; and Basil at length obtained Chrysostom’s consent to a plan which he had frequently urged—that they should abandon their present homes and live together in some quiet abode, there to strengthen each other in undisturbed study, meditation, and prayer. But this project of the young enthusiasts was for a time frustrated by the irresistible entreaties of Chrysostom’s mother, that he would not deprive her of his protection, companionship, and help. The scene is described by Chrysostom himself,48 with a dramatic power worthy of Greek tragedy. It reminds the reader of some of those long and stately, yet elegant and affecting, narratives of the messenger who, at the close of the play, describes the final scene which is not represented. Certainly it bespeaks the scholar of a man who had made his pupils familiar with the best classical writers in Greek. “When she knew that we were meditating this course, my mother took me by the right hand and led me into her own chamber, and there, seating herself near the bed on which she had given birth to me, wept fountains of tears; to which she added words of lamentation more pitiable even than the tears themselves. ‘I was not long permitted to enjoy the virtue of thy father, my child: so it seemed good to God. My travail-pangs at your birth were quickly succeeded by his death; bringing orphanhood upon thee, and upon me an untimely widowhood, with all those miseries of widowhood which those only who have experienced them can fairly understand. For no description can approach the reality of that storm and tempest which is undergone by her who having but lately issued from her father’s home, and being unskilled in the ways of the world, is suddenly plunged into grief insupportable, and compelled to endure anxieties too great for her sex and age. For she has to correct the negligence, to watch against the ill-doings, of her slaves, to baffle the insidious schemes of kinsfolk, to meet with a brave front the impudent threats and harshness of tax-collectors.’”49
She then describes minutely the expense, and labour, and constant anxiety which attended the education of a son; how she had refrained from all thoughts of second marriage, that she might bestow her undivided energies, time, and means upon him; how amply it had all been rewarded by the delight of his presence, recalling the image of her husband;—and now that he had grown up, would he leave her absolutely forlorn? “In return for all these my services to you,” she cried, “I implore you this one favour only—not to make me a second time a widow, or to revive the grief which time has lulled. Wait for my death—perhaps I shall soon be gone; when you have committed my body to the ground, and mingled my bones with your father’s bones, then you will be free to embark on any sea you please.” Such an appeal to his sense of filial gratitude and duty could not be disregarded. Chrysostom yielded to his mother’s entreaties, although Basil did not desist from urging his favourite scheme.50
At the same time he assimilated his life at home as much as possible to the condition of a monk. He entirely withdrew from all worldly occupations and amusements. He seldom went out of the house; he strengthened his mind by study, his spirit by prayer, and subdued his body by vigils and fasting, and sleeping upon the bare ground. He maintained an almost constant silence, that his thoughts might be kept abstracted from mundane things, and that no irritable or slanderous speech might escape his lips. Some of his companions naturally lamented what they regarded as a morose and melancholy change.51
But the intercourse between him and Basil was more frequent than before; and two other young men, who had been their fellow-students at the school of Libanius, were persuaded to adopt the same kind of secluded life. These two were Maximus, afterwards Bishop of Seleucia, in Isauria; and Theodore, who became Bishop of Mopsuestia, in Cilicia.52 This little fraternity formed, with some others not named, a voluntary association of youthful ascetics. They did not dwell in a separate building, nor were they in any way established as a monastic community, but (like Wesley and his young friends at Oxford) they lived by rule, and practised monastic austerities. The superintendence of their studies and general conduct they submitted to Diodorus and Carterius, who were presidents of monasteries in the vicinity of Antioch.53 In addition to his own intrinsic merits and eminence, Diodorus claims our attention, because there can be no doubt that he exercised a great influence upon the minds of his two most distinguished scholars, Chrysostom and Theodore. Indeed, judging from the fragments of his works, and the notices of him by historians, it is not too much to say that he was the founder of a method of Biblical interpretation of which Chrysostom and Theodore became the most able representatives.
He was of noble family, and the friend of Meletius, who confided to him and the priest Evagrius the chief care of his diocese during his second exile under Valens about A.D. 370. And one of the first acts of Meletius, on his return in A.D. 378, was to make Diodorus Bishop of Tarsus. His writings in defence of Christianity were sufficiently powerful and notorious to provoke the notice of Julian, who, in a letter to Photinus, attacks him with no small asperity.54 The Emperor finds occasion for ridicule in the pale and wrinkled face and the attenuated frame of Diodorus, wasted by his severe labours and ascetic practices; and represents these disfigurements as punishments from the offended gods against whom he had directed his pen. Being well known as a warm friend of Meletius, Diodorus was exposed to some risk from the Arian party during the exile of the bishop from A.D. 370-378. But he was not deterred from frequenting the old town on the south side of the Orontes, where the congregation of Meletius held their assemblies, and diligently ministering to their spiritual needs. He accepted no fixed stipend, but his necessities were supplied by the hospitality of those among whom he laboured.55 Of his voluminous writings, a commentary on the Old and New Testament is that most frequently quoted by ecclesiastical writers. They expressly and repeatedly affirm that he adhered very closely to the literal and historical meaning of the text, and that he was opposed to those mystical and allegorical interpretations of Origen and the Alexandrian school, which often disguised rather than elucidated the true significance of the passage.56 One evil of the allegorical method was, that it destroyed a clear and critical perception of the differences between the Older Revelation and the New. The Old Testament was regarded as a kind of vast enigma, containing implicitly the facts and doctrines of the New. To detect subtle allusions to the coming of our Saviour, to the events of his life, to his death and resurrection, in the acts, speeches, and gestures of persons mentioned in the Old Testament, was regarded as a kind of interpretation no less satisfactory than it was ingenious. To believe indeed that the grand intention running through Scripture from the beginning to the end is to bring men to Jesus Christ; that the history of the fall of man is given to enable us to appreciate the need of a Restorer, and to estimate his work at its proper value; that the history of a dispensation based on law enables us to accept with more thankfulness a dispensation of spirit; that the history of the Jewish system of sacrifices is intended to conduct us to the one great Sacrifice as the substance of previous shadows, the fulfilment of previous types; that, alike in the law and the prophets, intimations and hints and significant parallels of the subsequent history to which they lead on are to be discerned;—this may be reasonable, profitable, and true: but it can be neither profitable nor true to see allusions, prophecies, and parallels in every minute and trivial detail of that earlier history.
From this vital error Diodorus appears to have emancipated himself and his disciples. He perceived, as we shall see Chrysostom perceived, a gradual development in Revelation: that the knowledge, and morality, and faith of men under the Old Dispensation were less advanced than those of men who lived under the New. One instance must suffice. He remarks that the Mosaic precept, directing the brother of a man who had died childless to raise up posterity to his brother by marrying his wife, was given for the consolation of men who had as yet received no clear promise respecting a resurrection from the dead.57 There is an approach to what some might deem rationalistic criticism, when he affirms that the speech of God to men in the Old Testament was not an external voice, but an inward spiritual intimation. When, for instance, it is said that God gave a command to Adam, it is evident, he says, that it was not made by a sound audible to the bodily ear, but that God impressed the knowledge of the command upon him according to his own proper energy, and that when Adam had received it his condition was the same as if it had come to him through the actual hearing of the ear. And this, he observes, is what God effected also in the case of the prophets.58 A similar rationalistic tendency is observable in his explanation of the relation between the Divine and human elements in the person of our blessed Lord. His language, in fact, on this subject is Nestorian: a distinction was to be made between Him who, according to his essence, was Son of God—the Logos—and Him who through Divine decree and adoption became Son of God. He who was born as Man from Mary was Son according to grace, but God the Logos was Son according to nature. The Son of Mary became Son of God because He was selected to be the receptacle or temple of God the Word. It was only in an improper sense that God the Word was called Son of David; the appellation was given to Him merely because the human temple in which He dwelt belonged to the lineage of David.59 It is clear that Diodorus would have objected equally with Nestorius to apply the title of “God-bearer” (Θεοτόκος) to the blessed Virgin. Sixty years later, in A.D. 429, the streets of Constantinople and Alexandria resounded with tumults excited by controversy about the subject of which this was the watchword. But Diodorus happily lived too early for these dreadful conflicts, and his scholar Theodore was not personally disturbed; though long after his death, in A.D. 553, his writings were condemned by the Fifth Œcumenical Council, because the Nestorians appealed to them in confirmation of their tenets, and revered his memory. The practical element in Diodorus, his method of literal and common-sense interpretation of Holy Scripture, was inherited chiefly by Chrysostom; the intellectual vein, his conceptions of the relation between the Godhead and Manhood in Christ, his opinions respecting the final restoration of mankind, which were almost equivalent to a denial of eternal punishment, were reproduced mainly by Theodore.
It was inevitable that those who, in an access of religious fervour, had renounced the world and subjected themselves to the sternest asceticism, should sometimes find that they had miscalculated their powers. The passionate enthusiasm which for a time carried them along the thorny path would begin to subside; a hankering after a more natural, if not more worldly, life ensued; and occasionally the reaction was so violent, the passions kept down in unnatural constraint reasserted themselves with such force, that the ascetic flew back to the pleasures and sometimes to the sins of the world, with an appetite which was in painful contrast to his previous abstinence. The youthful Theodore was for a time an instance, though far from an extreme instance, of such reaction: the strain was too great for him; he relapsed for a season into his former habits of life; he retired from the little ascetic brotherhood to which Chrysostom and Basil belonged. There is no evidence that he fell into any kind of sin; he simply returned to the occupations and amusements of ordinary life. He was in love with and desirous of marrying a young lady named Hermione. But Chrysostom was at this period such an ardent ascetic; he was so deeply impressed with the evil of the world; and regarded an austere and absolute separation from it as so indispensable to the highest standard of Christian life, that to him any divergence from that path, when once adopted, seemed a positive sin. The relapse of Theodore called forth two letters of lamentation, remonstrance, and exhortation from his friend. They are the earliest of his extant works, and exhibit a command of language which does credit to the training of Libanius as well as to his own ability, and an intimate acquaintance with Holy Scripture, which proves how much time he had already spent in diligent and patient study. Since these epistles have been justly considered among the finest of his productions, and represent his opinions at an early stage of his life respecting repentance, a future life, the advantages of asceticism and celibacy, some paraphrases from them will be presented to the reader.
He begins his first letter by quoting the words of Jeremiah: “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears!”
“If the prophet uttered that lamentation over a ruined city, surely I may express a like passionate sorrow over the fallen soul of a brother. That soul which was once the temple of the Holy Spirit now lies open and defenceless to become the prey of any hostile invader. The spirit of avarice, of arrogance, of lust, may now find a free passage into a heart which was once as pure and inaccessible to evil as heaven itself. Wherefore I mourn and weep, nor will I cease from my mourning until I see thee again in thy former brilliancy. For though this may seem impossible to men, yet with God it is possible, for He it is who lifteth the beggar from the earth and taketh the poor out of the dunghill, that He may set him with the princes, even with the princes of his people.” An eminent characteristic of Chrysostom is that he is always hopeful of human nature; he never doubts the capacity of man to rise, or the willingness of God to raise him. Theodore himself appears to have been stricken with remorse, and to have drooped into despondency, to rouse him from which and lead him to repose more trustfully on the goodness of God, was one main purpose of Chrysostom’s letters. “Despair was the devil’s work;” “it is he who tries to cut off that hope whereby men are saved, which is the support and anchor of the soul, which, like a long chain, let down from heaven, little by little draws those who hold tightly to it up to heavenly heights, and lifts them above the storm and tempest of these worldly ills. The devil tries to extinguish that trust which is the source and strength of prayer, which enables men to cry, ‘as the eyes of a maiden look unto the hand of her mistress, even so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until He have mercy upon us.’ Yet if man will only believe it, there is never a time at which any one, even the most abandoned sinner, may not turn and repent and be accepted by God. For God being impassible, his wrath is not a passion or an emotion; He punishes not in anger, since He is unsusceptible by nature of injury from any insult or wrong done by us, but in mercy, that He may bring men back to Himself.60 The many instances of God’s mercy; his relenting towards the Jews, and even to Ahab, when he humbled himself; the repentance of Manasseh—of the Ninevites—of the penitent thief—all accepted, although preceded by a long course of sin, prove that the words ‘today if ye will hear his voice’ are applicable to any time:—it is always ‘to-day’ as long as a man lives; repentance is estimated not by length of time, but by the disposition of the heart.” He acutely observes that “despondency often conceals moral weakness; a secret though perhaps unconscious sympathy with the sin which the man professes to deplore and hate.” “To fall is natural, but to remain fallen argues a kind of acquiescence in evil, a feebleness of moral purpose which is more displeasing to God than the fall itself.”61
But although he speaks in the most hopeful, encouraging language of the efficacy of repentance, however late, if sincere, in this life, no one can assert more strongly the impossibility of restoration when the limits of this present existence have once been passed. In this respect he differs alike from Origen, Diodorus, and his fellow-student Theodore, and from believers in the later developed doctrine of purgatory. “As long as we are here, it is possible, even if we sin ten thousand times, to wash all away by repentance; but when once we have been taken to that other world, even if we manifest the greatest penitence, it will avail us naught, but however much we may gnash with our teeth, and beat our breasts, and pour forth entreaties, no one will be able even with the tip of his finger to cool us in the flame; we shall only hear the same words as the rich man: ‘between us and you there is a great gulf fixed.’”62 Nothing is more remarkably characteristic of Chrysostom’s productions, especially the earlier, than a frequent recurrence to this truth: the existence of a great impassable chasm between the two abodes of misery and bliss. Heaven and hell were no distant dreamlands to him, but realities so nearly and vividly present to his mind that they acted as powerful motives, encouraging to holiness, deterring from vice. He paints the two pictures in glowing colours, and submits them to the contemplation of his friend. “When you hear of fire, think not that the fire in that other world is like it; for this earthly fire burns up and consumes whatever it lays hold of, but that burns continually those who are seized by it and never ceases, wherefore it is called unquenchable. For sinners must be clothed with immortality, not for honour, but merely to supply a constant material for this punishment to feed upon; and how terrible this is, a description would indeed never be able to present, but from our experience of small sufferings it is possible to form some little conception of those greater miseries. If you should ever be in a bath which has been overheated, then I pray you consider the fire of hell; or if ever you have been parched by a severe fever, transfer your thoughts to that flame, and you will be able clearly to distinguish the difference. For if a bath or a fever so distress and agitate us, what will be our condition when we fall into that river of fire which flows past the terrible Judge’s throne.”63 “Heaven is, indeed, a subject which transcends the powers of human language, yet we can form a dim image of what it is like. It is the place ‘whence sorrow and sighing shall flee away’ (Is. xxxv. 10); where poverty and sickness are not to be dreaded; where no one injures or is injured, no one provokes or is provoked; no one is harassed by anxiety about the necessary wants, or frets over the loftier ambitions, of life; it is the place where the tempest of human passions is lulled; where there is neither night nor cold nor heat, nor changes of season, nor old age; but everything belonging to decay is taken away, and incorruptible glory reigns alone. But far above all these things, it is the place where men will continually enjoy the society of Jesus Christ, together with angels and archangels and all the powers above.”64 “Open your eyes,” he cries in a transport of feeling, “and contemplate in imagination that heavenly theatre crowded not with men such as we see, but with those who are nobler than gold or precious stones or sunbeams, or any brilliant thing that can be seen; and not with men only, but angels, thrones, dominions, powers ranged about the King whom we dare not describe for his transcendent beauty, majesty, and splendour. If we had to suffer ten thousand deaths every day; nay, if we had to undergo hell itself, for the sake of beholding Christ coming in his glory, and being numbered among the band of saints, would it not be well to submit to all these things? ‘Master, it is a good thing for us to be here:’ if such an exclamation burst from St. Peter on witnessing a partial and veiled manifestation of Christ’s glory, what are we to say when the reality shall be displayed, when the royal palace shall be thrown open and we shall see the King Himself; no longer by means of a mirror, or as it were in a riddle, but face to face; no longer through faith, but actual sight.”65 He passes on to some remarks upon the soul, which are Platonic in character: “Man cannot alter the shape of his body, but God has conceded to him a power, with the assistance of Divine grace, of increasing the beauty of the soul. Even that soul which has become deformed by the ugliness of sin may be restored to its pristine beauty. No lover was ever so much captivated by the beauty of the body as God loves and longs for the beauty of the human soul.66 You who are now transported with admiration of Hermione’s beauty” (the girl whom Theodore wished to marry) “may, if you will, cultivate a beauty in your own soul as far exceeding hers as heaven surpasses earth. Beauty of the soul is the only true and permanent kind, and if you could see it with the eye, you would admire it far more than the loveliness of the rainbow and of roses, and other flowers which are evanescent and feeble representations of the soul’s beauty.”67 He tells some curious stories of men who had relapsed from monastic life and subsequently been reclaimed to it. One, a young man of noble family and heir to great wealth, had thrown up all the splendour which he might have commanded, and exchanged his riches and his gay clothing for the poverty and mean garb of a recluse upon the mountains, and had attained an astonishing degree of holiness. But some of his relations seduced him from his retreat, and once more he might be seen riding on horseback through the forum followed by a crowd of attendants. But the holy brethren whom he had deserted ceased not to endeavour to recover him; at first he treated them with haughty indifference, when they met and saluted him, as he proudly rode through the streets. But at last, as they desisted not day by day, he would leap from his horse when they appeared, and listen with downcast eyes to their warnings; till, as time went on, he was rescued from his worldly entanglements, and restored to his desert and the study of the true philosophy, and now, when Chrysostom wrote, he bestowed his wealth upon the poor, and had attained the very pinnacle of virtue.68 Earnestly, therefore, does he implore Theodore to recover his trust in God, to repent and return to the brotherhood which was buried in grief at his defection. “Now the unbelieving and the worldly rejoice; but return to us, and our sorrow and shame will be transferred to the adversary’s side.” “It was the beginning of penitence which was arduous; the devil met the penitent at the door of the city of refuge, but, if defeated there, the fury of his assaults would diminish.” He warned him against an idle confession of sinfulness not accompanied by any honest effort to amend. “Such was no true confession, because not joined with the tears of contrition or followed by alteration of life.”69 But of Theodore he hoped better things; as there were different degrees of glory reserved for men, implied in our Lord’s mention of “many mansions,” and his declaring that every one should be rewarded according to his works, he trusted that Theodore might still obtain a high place; that he might be a vessel of silver, if not of gold or precious stone, in the heavenly house.70
In the second epistle Chrysostom expresses more distinctly his view respecting the solemn obligations of those who joined a religious fraternity. “If tears and groanings could be transmitted through a letter, this of mine would be filled with them; I weep that you have blotted yourself out of the catalogue of the brethren, and trampled on your covenant with Christ.” “The devil assaulted him with peculiar fury, because he was anxious to conquer so worthy an antagonist; one who had despised delicate fare and costly dress, who had spent whole days in the study of Holy Scripture, and whole nights in prayer, who had regarded the society of the brethren as a greater honour than any worldly dignity. What, I pray you, is there that appears blessed and enviable in the world? The prince is exposed to the wrath of the people and the irrational outbursts of popular feeling—to the fear of princes greater than himself—to anxieties about his subjects; and the ruler of to-day is to-morrow a private man: for this present life no way differs from a stage; as on that, one man plays the part of a king, another of a general, a third of a common soldier; but when evening has come the king is no king, the ruler no ruler, the general no general; so will it be in that day; each will receive his due reward, not according to the character which he has enacted, but according to the works which he has done.”71 Theodore had clearly expressed his intention of honourably marrying Hermione; but though Chrysostom allows that marriage is an honourable estate, yet he boldly declares that for one who like Theodore had made such a solemn renunciation of the world, it was equally criminal with fornication. He had wholly dedicated himself to the service of God, and he had no right to bind himself by any other tie: to marry would be as culpable as desertion in a soldier. He points out the miseries, the anxieties, the toils, often fruitless, which accompanied secular life, especially in the married state. From all such ills the life of the brotherhood was exempt: he alone was truly free who lived for Christ; he was like one who, securely planted on an eminence, beholds other men below him buffeting with the waves of a tumultuous sea. For such a high vantage-ground Chrysostom implores Theodore to make. He begs him to pardon the length of his letter: “nothing but his ardent love for his friend could have constrained him to write this second epistle. Many indeed had discouraged what they regarded as a vain task and sowing upon a rock; but he was not so to be diverted from his efforts: he trusted that by the grace of God his letters would accomplish something; and if not, he should at least have delivered himself from the reproach of silence.”72
These letters are the productions of a youthful enthusiast, and as such, allowances must be made for them. They abound not only in eloquent passages, but in very fine and true observations upon human nature—on penitence—on God’s mercy and pardon. It is only the application of them to the case of Theodore which seems harsh and overstrained. At a later period Chrysostom’s views on ascetic and monastic life were modified; but in early life, though never fanatical, they were what we should call extreme. His earnest efforts for the restoration of his friend were crowned with success. Theodore abandoned the world once more and his matrimonial intentions, and retired into the seclusion of the brotherhood. Some twenty years later, in A.D. 394, he was made Bishop of Mopsuestia, which is pretty nearly all we know about him, but the extant fragments of his voluminous writings prove him to have been a man of no ordinary ability, and a powerful commentator of the same sensible and rational school as Chrysostom himself. We may be disposed to say, What of Hermione? Had she no claims to be considered? But the ascetic line of life was regarded by the earnest-minded as so indisputably the noblest which a Christian could adopt, that her disappointment would not have been allowed to weigh in the balance for a moment against what was considered the higher call.73
CHAPTER IV.
CHRYSOSTOM EVADES FORCIBLE ORDINATION TO A BISHOPRIC—THE TREATISE “ON THE PRIESTHOOD.” A.D. 370, 371.
We now come to a curious passage in Chrysostom’s life; one in which his conduct, from our moral standpoint, seems hardly justifiable. Yet for one reason it is not to be regretted, since it was the originating cause of his treatise “De Sacerdotio;” one of the ablest, most instructive, and most eloquent works which he ever produced.
Bishop Meletius had been banished in A.D. 370 or 371. The Arian Emperor Valens, who had expelled him, was about to take up his residence in Antioch. It was desirable therefore, without loss of time, to fill up some vacant sees in Syria. The attention of the bishops, clergy, and people was turned to Chrysostom and Basil, as men well qualified for the episcopal office.
According to a custom prevalent at that time, they might any day be seized and compelled, however reluctant, to accept the dignity. So St. Augustine was dragged, weeping, by the people before the bishop, and his immediate ordination demanded by them, regardless of his tears.74 So St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, was torn from his cell, and conveyed under a guard to his ordination.75 The two friends were filled with apprehension and alarm. Basil implored Chrysostom that they might act in concert at the present crisis, and together accept or together evade or resist the expected but unwelcome honour.
Chrysostom affected to consent to this proposal, but in reality determined to act otherwise. He regarded himself as totally unworthy and incompetent to fill so sacred and responsible an office; but considering Basil to be far more advanced in learning and piety, he resolved that the Church should not, through his own weakness, lose the services of his friend. Accordingly, when popular report proved correct, and some emissaries from the electing body were sent to carry off the young men (much, it would seem from Chrysostom’s account, as policemen might arrest a prisoner), Chrysostom contrived to hide himself. Basil, less wary, was captured, and imagined that Chrysostom had already submitted; for the emissaries acted with subtlety when he tried to resist them. They affected surprise that he should make so violent a resistance, when his companion, who had the reputation of a hotter temper, had yielded so mildly to the decision of the Fathers.76 Thus Basil was led to suppose that Chrysostom had already submitted; and when he discovered too late the artifice of his friend and his captors, he bitterly remonstrated with Chrysostom upon his treacherous conduct. “The character of them both,” he complained, “was compromised by this division in their counsels.” “You should have told us where your friend was hidden,” said some, “and then we should have contrived some means of capturing him;” to which poor Basil was ashamed to reply that he had been ignorant of his friend’s concealment, lest such a confession should cast a suspicion of unreality over the whole of their supposed intimacy. “Chrysostom, on his side, was accused of haughtiness and vanity for declining so great a dignity; though others said that the electors deserved a still greater dishonour and defeat for appointing over the heads of wiser, holier, and older men, mere lads,77 who had been but yesterday immersed in secular pursuits; that they might now for a little while knit their brows, and go arrayed in sombre robes and affect a grave countenance.”78 Basil begged Chrysostom for an explanation of his motives in this proceeding. “After all their mutual protestations of indivisible friendship, he had been suddenly cast off and turned adrift, like a vessel without ballast, to encounter alone the angry tempests of the world. To whom should he now turn for sympathy and aid in the trials to which he would surely be exposed from slander, ribaldry, and insolence? The one who might have helped him stood coldly aloof, and would be unable even to hear his cries for assistance.”79
We may be strongly disposed to sympathise with the disconsolate Basil. But the conscience of Chrysostom appears to have been quite at ease from first to last in this transaction. He regarded it as a “pious fraud.” “When he beheld the mingled distress and displeasure of his friend, he could not refrain from laughing for joy, and thanking God for the successful issue of his plan.”80 In the ensuing discussion he boldly asserted the principle that deceit claims our admiration when practised in a good cause and from a good motive. The greatest successes in war, he argues, have been achieved through stratagem, as well as by fair fighting in the open field; and, of the two, the first are most to be admired, because they are gained without bloodshed, and are triumphs of mental rather than bodily force.81 But, retorts poor Basil, I was not an enemy, and ought not to have been dealt with as such. “True, my excellent friend,” replies Chrysostom, “but this kind of fraud may sometimes be exercised towards our dearest acquaintance.” “Physicians were often obliged to employ some artifice to make refractory patients submit to their remedies. Once a man in a raging fever resisted all the febrifugal draughts administered to him, and loudly called for wine. The physician darkened the room, steeped a warm oyster shell in wine, then filled it with water, and put it to the patient’s lips, who eagerly swallowed the draught, believing it, from the smell, to be wine.”82 In the same category of justifiable stratagem he places, not very discriminatingly, the circumcision of Timothy by St. Paul, in order to conciliate the Jews, and St. Paul’s observance of the ceremonial law at Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 26), for the same purpose. Such contrivances he calls instances, not of treachery, but of “good management” (οἰκονομία). There is something highly Oriental, and alien to our Western moral sense, in the sophistical tone of this whole discussion. If Basil really submitted to such arguments, he was easily vanquished. He says, however, no more about the injustice of his treatment, but, apparently accepting Chrysostom’s position that for a useful purpose deceit is justifiable, he begs to be informed “what advantage Chrysostom thought he had procured for himself or his friend by this piece of management, or good policy, or whatever he pleased to call it.”
The remaining books on the Priesthood are occupied with the answer to this inquiry. The line which Chrysostom takes is to point out the pre-eminent dignity, difficulty, and danger of the priestly office, and then to enlarge upon the peculiar fitness of his friend to discharge its duties.83 “What advantage could be greater than to be engaged in that work which Christ had declared with his own lips to be the special sign of love to Himself? For when He put the question three times to the leader of the apostles (κορυφαῖος), ‘Lovest thou me?’ and had been answered by a fervent asseveration of attachment, he added each time, ‘Feed my sheep,’ or ‘Feed my lambs.’ ‘Lovest thou me more than these?’ had been the question, and the charge which followed it had been always, ‘Feed my sheep;’ not, If thou lovest Me, practise fasting, or incessant vigils, and sleep on the bare ground, or protect the injured and be to the orphans as a father, and to their mother as a husband; no, he passes by all these things, and says, ‘Feed my sheep.’ Could his friend, therefore, complain that he had done ill in compassing, even by fraud, his dedication to so glorious an office?84 As for himself, it was obvious that he could not have refused so great an honour out of haughty contempt or disrespect to the electors. On the contrary, it was when he considered the exceeding sanctity and magnitude of the position, and its awful responsibilities—the heavenly purity, the burning love towards God and man, the sound wisdom and judgment, and moderation of temper required in those who were dedicated to it—that his heart failed him. He felt himself utterly incompetent and unworthy for so arduous a task. If some unskilled person were suddenly to be called upon to take charge of a ship laden with a costly freight, he would immediately refuse; and in like manner he himself dared not risk by his present inexperience the safety of that vessel which was laden with the precious merchandise of souls.85 Vain-glory, indeed, and pride would have induced him not to reject, but to covet, so transcendent a dignity. The office of priest was discharged indeed on earth, yet it held a place among heavenly ranks. And rightly; for neither man, nor angel, nor archangel, nor created power of any kind, but the Paraclete Himself, ordained this ministry. Therefore, it became one who entered the priesthood to be as pure as if he had already taken his stand in heaven itself among the powers above. ‘When thou seest the Lord lying slain, and the priest standing and praying over the sacrifice, when thou seest all sprinkled with that precious blood, dost thou deem thyself still among men, still standing upon this earth? art thou not rather transported immediately to heaven, and, every carnal imagination being cast out, dost thou not, with soul unveiled and pure mind, behold the things which are in heaven? O miracle! O the goodness of God! He who is sitting with the Father is yet at that hour held in the hands of all, and gives Himself to be embraced and grasped by those who desire it. And this all do through the eye of faith. Do these things seem to you to merit contempt? does it seem possible to you that any one should be so elated as to slight them?’86
“Human nature possessed in the priesthood a power which had not been committed by God to angels or archangels; for to none of them had it been said, ‘Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth or loose on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven.’ Was it possible to conceive that any one should think lightly of such a gift? Away with such madness!—for stark madness it would be to despise so great an authority, without which it was not possible for man to obtain salvation, or the good things promised to him. For if it were impossible for any one to enter into the kingdom of heaven, except he were born again of water and the Spirit; and if he who did not eat the flesh of the Lord and drink his blood was ejected from life eternal, and if these things were administered by none but the consecrated hands of the priest, how would any one, apart from them, be able to escape the fire of hell, or obtain the crown laid up for him?”87
There are, perhaps, no passages elsewhere in Chrysostom expressed in such a lofty sacerdotal tone; but it must be remembered that on any supposition as to the date of this treatise, he was young when it was composed, holding therefore, as on the subject of monasticism, more enthusiastic, highly-wrought opinions than he afterwards entertained; and moreover, that the whole treatise is written in a somewhat vehement and excited style, as by one who was maintaining a position against an antagonist.
Having proved that his evasion of the episcopal office could have arisen from no spirit of pride, but from a consciousness of his infirmity and incapacity, he proceeds to point out the manifold and peculiar dangers which encompassed it. “Vain-glory was a rock more fatal than the Sirens. Many a priest was shipwrecked there, and torn to pieces by the fierce monsters which dwelt upon it—wrath, despondency, envy, strife, slander, falsehood, hypocrisy, love of praise, and a multitude more. Often he became the slave and flatterer of great people, even of women who had most improperly mixed themselves up with ecclesiastical affairs, and especially exercised great influence in the elections.”88
The scenes, indeed, which often took place about this period at the elections to bishoprics occasioned much scandal to the Church. In earlier times, when the Christians were less numerous, more simple in their habits, more unanimous,—when liability to persecution deterred the indifferent, or pretenders, from their ranks,—the episcopal office could be no object of worldly ambition. The clergy and the people elected their bishop; and the fairness and simplicity with which the election was usually conducted won the admiration of the Emperor Alexander Severus.89 But when Christianity was recognised by the State, a bishopric in towns of importance became a position of high dignity; and warm debates, often fierce tumults, attended the election of candidates. Up to the time of Justinian at least, the whole Christian population of the city or region over which the bishop was to preside possessed a right to elect. Their choice was subject to the approval of the bishops, and the confirmation of the metropolitan of the province; but, on the other hand, neither the bishops nor the metropolitan could legally obtrude a candidate of their own upon the people. A charge brought against Hilary of Arles was, that he ordained several bishops against the will and consent of the people. A just and legitimate ordination, according to Cyprian, was one which had been examined by the suffrage and judgment of all, both clergy and people. Such, he observes, was the election of Cornelius to the see of Rome in A.D. 251.90 If the people were unanimous, there were loud cries of ἄξιος, dignus, ἀνάξιος, indignus, as the case might be; but if they were divided, it was usual for the metropolitan to give the preference to the choice of the majority; or, if they appeared equally divided, the metropolitan and his synod selected a man indifferent, if possible, to both parties. Occasionally also, as in the case of Nectarius, the predecessor of Chrysostom in the see of Constantinople, the Emperor interposed, and appointed one chosen by himself. Sanguinary often were the tumults which attended contested elections. The greater the city, the greater the strife. In the celebrated contest for the see of Rome in A.D. 366, between Damasus and Ursicinus, there was much hard fighting and copious bloodshed. Damasus, with a furious and motley mob, broke into the Julian Basilica, where Ursicinus was being consecrated by Paul, Bishop of Tibur, and violently stopped the proceedings. Frays of this kind lasted for some time. On one occasion, one hundred and thirty dead bodies strewed the pavement of the Basilica of Licinius till Damasus at last won the day. It is especially mentioned that the ladies of Rome favoured his side.91 It seems scarcely possible to doubt that as these events must have been fresh in Chrysostom’s recollection, he must be specially referring to them when, insisting on freedom from ambition as one grand qualification for the priesthood, he says “that he will pass by, lest they should seem incredible, the tales of murders perpetrated in churches, and havoc wrought in cities by contentions for bishoprics;” and when also he alludes indignantly to the interference of women in the elections. “The elections,” he says, “were generally made on public festivals, and were disgraceful scenes of party feeling and intrigue. The clergy and the people were never unanimous. The really important qualifications for the office were seldom considered. Ambitious men spared no arts of bribery or flattery by which to obtain places for themselves in the Church, and to keep them when obtained. One candidate for a bishopric was recommended to the electors because he belonged to a distinguished family; another because he was wealthy, and would not burden the funds of the Church.”92 The provocations to ambition and worldly glory were so great, both in the acquisition and in the exercise of the episcopal office, that Chrysostom says he had “determined partly for these reasons to avoid the snare.”93 He shrank also from many other trials incident to the office. There were always persons ready to detect and magnify the slightest mistake or transgression in a priest. One little error could not be retrieved by a multitude of successes, but darkened the man’s whole life; for a kind of immaculate purity was exacted by popular opinion of a priest, as if he were not a being of flesh and blood, or subject to human passions. Often his brethren, the clergy, were the most active in spreading mischievous reports about him, hoping to rise themselves upon his ruin; like avaricious sons waiting for their father’s death. Too often St. Paul’s description of the sympathy between the several parts of the Christian body was inverted. ‘If one member suffered, all the others rejoiced; if one member rejoiced, the others suffered pain.’ A bishop had need be as impervious to slander and envy as the three children in the burning fiery furnace.94 What a rare and difficult combination of qualities was required for the efficient discharge of his duties in the face of such difficulties! ‘He must be dignified, yet not haughty; formidable, yet affable; commanding, yet sociable; strictly impartial, yet courteous; lowly, but not subservient; strong, yet gentle; promoting the worthy in spite of all opposition, and with equal authority rejecting the unworthy, though pushed forward by the favour of all; looking always to one thing only—the welfare of the Church; doing nothing out of animosity or partiality.’95 The behaviour also of a priest in ordinary society was jealously criticised. The flock were not satisfied unless he was constantly paying calls. Not the sick only, but the sound desired to be ‘looked after’ (ἐπισκοπεῖσθαι),—not so much from any religious feeling, as because the reception of such visits gratified their sense of their own importance. Yet if a bishop often visited the house of a wealthy or distinguished man to interest him in some design for the advantage of the Church, he would soon be stigmatised as a parasitical flatterer. Even the manner of his greetings to acquaintance in the streets was criticised: ‘He smiled cordially on Mr. Such-an-one, and talked much with him; but to me he only threw a commonplace remark.’”96
It is amusing and instructive to read these observations. They prove what important personages bishops had become. The interests of the people were violently excited over their elections. They were subjected to the mingled reverence, deference, and court, criticism, scandal, and gossip, which are the inevitable lot of all persons who occupy an exalted position in the world.
In the fourth book Chrysostom speaks of some of the more mental qualifications indispensable for a priest. Foremost among these was a power of speaking: “That was the one grand instrument which enabled him to heal the diseases of the body intrusted to his care. And, in addition to this, he must be armed with a prompt and versatile wit, to encounter the various assaults of heretics. Jews, Greeks, Manichæans, Sabellians, Arians, all were narrowly watching for the smallest loophole by which to force a breach in the walls of the Church. And, unless the defender was very vigilant and skilful, while he was keeping out the one he would let in the other. While he opposed the blind deference of the Jews to their Mosaic Law, he must take care not to encourage the Manichæans, who would eliminate the Law from the Scriptures. While he asserted the Unity of the Godhead against the Arians, there was danger of slipping into the Sabellian error of confounding the Persons; and, while he divided the Persons against the Sabellians, he must be careful to avoid the Arian error of dividing the substance also. The line of orthodoxy was a narrow path hemmed in by steep rocks on either side. Therefore it was of the deepest importance that the priest should be a learned and effective speaker, that he might not fall into error himself or lead others astray. For, if he was seen to be worsted in a controversy with heretics, many became alienated from the truth, mistaking the weakness of the defender for a weakness in the cause itself.”97
“But there was yet another task fraught with peril—the delivery of sermons. The performances of a preacher were discussed by a curious and critical public like those of actors. Congregations attached themselves to their favourite preachers. Woe to the man who was detected in plagiarisms! He was instantly reprobated like a common thief.
“To become an effective preacher two things were necessary: first, indifference to praise; secondly, power of speech; two qualities, the one moral, the other intellectual, which were rarely found coexisting. If a man possessed the first only, he became distasteful and despicable to his congregation; for if he stood up and at first boldly uttered powerful words which stung the consciences of his hearers, but, as he proceeded, began to blush and hesitate and stumble, all the advantage of his previous remarks would be wasted. The persons, who had secretly felt annoyed by his telling reproofs would revenge themselves by laughing at his embarrassment in speaking. If, on the other hand, he was a weighty speaker, but not indifferent to applause, he would probably trim his sails to catch the popular breeze, and study to be pleasant rather than profitable, to the great detriment of himself and of his flock.”98
He makes some remarks eminently wise and true on the necessity of study for the preparation of sermons. “It might seem strange, but in truth study was even more indispensable for an eloquent than for an ordinary preacher. Speaking was an acquired art, and when a man had attained a high standard of excellence he was sure to decline unless he kept himself up by constant study. The man of reputation was always expected to say something new, and even in excess of the fame which he had already acquired. Men sat in judgment on him without mercy, as if he were not a human being subject to occasional despondency, or anxiety, or irritation of temper; but as if he were an angel or some infallible being, who ought always to remain at the same high level of excellence. The mediocre man, on the other hand, from whom much was not expected, would obtain a disproportionate amount of praise if he said a good thing now and then.99 The number of persons, however, in any congregation, who were capable of appreciating a really learned and powerful preacher, was very small; therefore a man ought not to be much disheartened or annoyed by unfavourable criticisms. He should be his own critic, aiming in all his work to win the favour of God. Then, if the admiration of men followed, he would quietly accept it; or, if withheld, he would not be distressed, but seek his consolation in honest work and in a conscience void of offence.100 But if a priest was not superior to the love of admiration, all his labour and eloquence would be wasted; either he would sacrifice truth to popularity, or, failing to obtain so much applause as he desired, he would relax his efforts. This last was a common defect in men whose powers of preaching were only second-rate. Perceiving that even the highly gifted could not sustain their reputation without incessant study and practice, while they themselves, by the most strenuous efforts, could gain but a very slender meed of praise, if any, they abandoned themselves to indolence. The trial was especially great when a man was surpassed in preaching by one who occupied an inferior rank in the hierarchy, and who perhaps took every opportunity of parading his superior powers. 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 tranquillity and security of the monk—that life to which he still felt himself powerfully attracted. “‘Who watch for your souls as they that must give an account.’ The dread of the responsibility implied in that saying constantly agitated his mind. For if it were better to be drowned in the sea than to offend one of the little ones of Christ’s flock, what punishment must they undergo who destroyed not one or two but a whole multitude?”102 “Much worldly wisdom was required in the priest; he must be conversant with secular affairs, and adapt himself with versatility to all kinds of circumstances and men; and yet he ought to keep his spirit as free, as unfettered by worldly interests and ambitions as the hermit dwelling on the mountains.”103
The trials, indeed, which beset the priest so far exceeded those of the monk, that Chrysostom considered the monastery, on the whole, a bad school for active clerical life. “The monk lived in a calm; there was little to oppose or thwart him. The skill of the pilot could not be known till he had taken the helm in the open sea amidst rough weather. Too many of those who had passed from the seclusion of the cloister to the active sphere of the priest or bishop proved utterly incapable of coping with the difficulties of their new situation. They lost their head (ἰλιγγιῶσιν), and, often, instead of adding to their virtue, were deprived of the good qualities which they already possessed. Monasticism often served as a screen to failings which the circumstances of active life drew out, just as the qualities of metal were tested by the action of fire.”104
Chrysostom concludes by saying that he was conscious of his own infirmities; the irritability of his temper, his liability to violent emotions, his susceptibility to praise and blame. All such evil passions could, with the help of God’s grace, be tamed by the severe treatment of the monastic life; like savage beasts who must be kept on low fare. But in the public life of a priest they would rage with incontrollable fury, because all would be pampered to the full—vain-glory by honour and praise, pride by authority, envy by the reputation of other men, bad temper by perpetual provocations, covetousness by the liberality of donors to the Church, intemperance by luxurious living.105 He bids Basil picture the most implacable and deadly contest between earthly forces which his imagination could draw, and declares that this would but faintly express the conflict between the soul and evil in the spiritual warfare of the world. “Many accidents might put an end to earthly combat, at least for a time—the approach of night, the fatigue of the combatants, the necessity of taking food and sleep. But in the spiritual conflict there were no breathing spaces. A man must always have his harness on his back, or he would be surprised by the enemy.”106
It is not surprising that Basil, after the fearful responsibilities and perils of his new dignity had been thus powerfully set before him, should declare that his trouble now was not so much how to answer the accusers of Chrysostom as to defend himself before God. He besought his friend to promise that he would continue to support and advise him in all emergencies. Chrysostom replied that as far as it was possible he would do so; but that he doubted not Christ, who had called Basil to this good work, would enable him to discharge it with boldness. They wept, embraced, and parted. And so Basil went forth to the unwelcome honours and trials of his bishopric, while Chrysostom continued to lead that monastic kind of life which was only a preparatory step to the monastery itself. His friendship with Basil is curious and romantic. Their intercourse was brought to a singular conclusion by the stratagem of Chrysostom. Basil may have, according to his own earnest request, continued to consult his friend in any difficulty or distress; but he is never mentioned again. Although so intimately bound up with this passage in Chrysostom’s life, there is something indistinct and shadowy about his whole existence. He flits across the scene for a few moments, and then disappears totally and for ever.
The books on the Priesthood may be regarded as containing partly a real account of an actual conversation between the two friends. But, as in the dialogues of Plato, far more was probably added by the writer, so that in parts the dialogue is only a form into which the opinions of the author at the time of composition were cast. It is impossible to decide with certainty the exact time at which the treatise may have been written. It is not likely to have been later than his diaconate in 381,107 but more probably108 the work may be assigned to the six years of leisure spent in the seclusion of the monastery and mountains—that is, to the period between Basil’s election to the bishopric, and his own ordination as deacon. The treatise reads like the production of one who had acquired considerable experience of monastic life; who had deliberately calculated its advantages on the one hand, and, on the other, had keenly observed and seriously weighed the temptations and difficulties which attended the more secular career of priest or bishop. It is a more mature work than the Epistles to Theodore, and is free from such rapturous and excessive praise of the ascetic life as they contain.
Note to foregoing Chapter.
It may excite surprise that men so young as Chrysostom and Basil, the former at least being not more than twenty-five or twenty-six, and not as yet ordained deacon, should have been designated to the highest office in the Church. The Council of Neocæsarea (about A.D. 320—vide Hefele, vol. i., Clark’s transl. p. 222) fixed thirty as the age at which men became eligible for the priesthood. The same age, then, at least, must have been required for a bishop.
The Constitutions called Apostolical fix the age at fifty, but add a clause which really lets in all the exceptions, “unless he be a man of singular merit and worth, which may compensate for the want of years.” And, in fact, there are numerous instances of men, both before and after the time of Chrysostom, who were consecrated as bishops under the age of thirty. The Council of Nice was held not more than twenty years after the persecution of Maximian, which Athanasius (Epist. ad Solitar., p. 382, Paris edition) says he had only heard of from his father, yet in five months after that Council he was ordained Archbishop of Alexandria. Remigius of Rheims was only twenty-two when he was made bishop, in A.D. 471. In like manner, though it was enacted by the Council of Sardica, A.D. 343-344, that none should rise to the Episcopal throne per saltum, yet there are not a few examples of this rule being transgressed.
Augustine, when he created a See at Fassula, presented Antonius, a reader (the very position Chrysostom now filled) to the Primate, who ordained him without scruple on Augustine’s recommendation (Aug. Ep. 261, ad Cælest.). Cyprian, Ambrose, and Nestorius are celebrated instances of the consecration of laymen to bishoprics.