any account censurable. Nay, the Greek father goes further than this-he involves the officiating bishops in the same charge of dissimulation, for he expressly says that Basil was inveigled into their midst under some other pretext than that of consecration; that when he discovered the ruse he exclained against the violence that was attempted to be done him; and that his opposition was finally overcome by some one crying out, that if he waited for Chrysostom, his friend, to encourage him to submission, that friend of his had already bowed his head beneath the hand of the consecrating bishop, and was a priest of God. When good men did such things as these, and counted them religion, we may well hesitate to receive a fourthcentury Christianity as the most correct interpretation of the sacred records and most vital apprehension of the mind of Christ. Those who would see the transaction described will find it in the "Treatise on the Priesthood" (book i. chap. 3).

Chrysostom was now twenty-seven years of age: his mother, the admirable Anthusa, was dead, and with her died his chief attraction to Antioch, and the only hindrance which lay in the way of his adopting the seclusion of the monastic life. His own personal views of religion decidedly leant towards retirement, and these received confirmation from the troubles of the times. The Arian heresy was in the ascendant throughout the Ronian Empire, and wrought wrong upon the orthodox in Antioch with especial virulence. Short as his life had been up to this period, Chrysostom had, nevertheless, seen strange changes in the religious polity of the successive emperors, and almost every change was evil. Had these civil rulers but confined themselves to their own province-the civil government of the state; extending their protecting arm alike over Jew, pagan, and Christian: and where professing Christianity themselves, lending it rather the weight of their moral influence than the patronage of their position-at the least refraining from the persecution of all those who did not profess its creed-it had been well. But, mistaking their function, Constans, a declared Arian, emperor at the time of Chrysostom's birth, pursued the orthodox with his displeasure; Julian, apostate from Christianity, favoured the pagans; Jovian, indeed, gave the churches a brief interval of rest; but Valentinian and Valens were now ravaging their borders with utmost fury, and breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the saints. It is not to be wondered at that under such circumstances Chrysostom should virtually cry, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away, and be at rest." He acted in strict accordance with such an aspiration, and withdrew to the solitude of the mountains, consulting his own safety, and the salvation of his soul. Partly

from stress of circumstances, and partly from superstition, there was early in the history of the Church a very remarkable development on the side of monasticism, but not in the earliest age, that of our Lord himself, and of his apostles. The system of religious seclusion was not that of the immediate followers of Christ, for they were the apostles of the city and the synagogue, of the sea-shore and the highway-side, of the market-place and of Mars' Hill. They were the salt of the earth, to be diffused; the light of the world, to be disclosed; and they understood their mission. But unhealthy hypochondriasm, nursed by the climate and fed by superstition, for it was nothing new either to Judaism or the Oriental paganism, soon shrank from "the clash, the hum, the shock of men," and consigned itself to a living tomb in the desert. Men resigned their higher function-that of being ambassadors of heaven-to others, for the more narrow and selfish office of working out their own salvation. They thus became apostles of the crag, the cavern, the torrent, and the forest, peopling the wild with inhabitants, and vocalizing the silence with prayer, but left human nature uncared for, or only benefited by distant intercessions.

Yet were many of these "the excellent of the earth," mistaken but sincere, of willing spirit but infirm of flesh. The case of Chrysostom is one in point. He then, as ever, had but one chief inquiry to make, "Lord! what wilt thou have me to do?" and his life and spirit, whatever the tortuosities of either, had but the single aim-to answer it aright. He certainly thought himself acting in obedience to that will, when escaping from Antioch, then under the heel of the persecuting despot, Valens, he threw himself into one of the three hundred monasteries which at that period had their existence in the mountains of Antioch and Syria. His object was seclusion and safety, not idleness and repose. To the most austere practices-among which we may name the absurd one of preventing sleep by pulling himself up out of bed by means of a rope suspended over his head, every time he found himself dropping into elumber he added the diligent study of the Holy Books under such able teachers as Diodorus, Bishop of Tarsus, and Carterus, whom Gregory of Nazianzum eulogizes as a master of divine

science.

At the instance of his fellow-cenobites, who looked upon him with admiration as a man apart, he wrote one of his treatises, after a two years' residence among them, namely, that upon "Compunction," taking for his text our Saviour's words, "Woe unto you that laugh now; for ye shall mourn and weep!" His work, in two parts, was highly valued and commended; but he soon had occasion to use his pen in a case of greater

emergency, and of more painful complexion. A young monk and early friend of his, grew weary of his life of solitude, violated his monastic vows, and, after indulging in open debauchery, married a person of no repute, called Hermione. To this Theodorus, Chrysostom addressed a series of letters, of which only two have survived to our day, and these breathe the very fire of religious fervour, and the soul of pathos and affection. In no productions of the great orator's pen do his moral qualities appear to greater advantage. Though the effect of these touching effusions did not appear at first, they told upon the mind and heart of Theodorus, and led him ere long to re-embrace the service of God in the priesthood. At the close of some years, he became Bishop of Mopsuestia-led an edifying life, and died a Christian death, but was unfavourably known as holding the heresy of two persons in Christ. He died in A.D. 428, and his writings were condemned in the fifth general council held in Constantinople, A.D. 553.

The next service of the same kind to which Chrysostom was called was the defence of the monastic institution itself. However highly the monks may have thought of it, their lofty selfappreciation was not shared by three very numerous classes: one, the haughty and adverse officials of the government; the second, the Arian party, in all its ramifications and connexions; the third, a large body of the orthodox themselves, who could not recognise the utility of an unmanly seclusion from the cares and conflicts of life on the part of their brethren. To all these Chrysostom addressed his treatise in three parts, as "The Opponents of Monastic Life." Part I. is directed against opposition to the monastic life in general. Part II. condemns the pagan parent who refuses to sanction his child who wished to make a profession. Part III. bespeaks the favour of Christian parents to the institution. This general characterization is all we feel incumbent upon us to furnish of his essay, beyond the quotation from St. Matthew in favour of voluntary poverty, as the quotation is made by the Abbé Bergier in his life of Chrysostom. The citation is represented as the words of our Saviour, "Happy the voluntary poor, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs." After an attempt at leading the life of a solitary in a dreary cavern, which issued in the injury of his health, Chrysostom found himself obliged to return to public life in Antioch.

The persecutor, Valens, perished in an engagement with the Huns and Vandals, and Gratian, his nephew, who had succeeded him, gave peace to the long-suffering Church. The orthodox party were restored to their sees, and Theodosius, who was friendly to them, associated in the empire with

Gratian. Chrysostom, at his return to Antioch, found the exiled Meletius in possession of his diocese, and was admitted to the order of the diaconate by that venerable bishop in A.D. 381. Along with the instruction of the catechumens, to which he now devoted himself with a burning zeal, he completed at this period his work on the "Priesthood," his "History of St. Babylas," and his work against the "Clergy residing in the same house with women." This also is the period of the composition of his treatise on "Providence," in three books, addressed to the afflicted Stagyras. At the close of five years, namely, in 386, Chrysostom was ordained a priest by Flavian, the successor of Meletius. Next day, from the tribune of the church, he preached his first sermon, in which strangely enough he says, that from humility he will not speak in it of the perfections of God, but turns it into a eulogium of Flavian, his servant. This was but the beginning of a course of diligent preaching, which he pursued for twelve years, delivering a sermon every day in Lent, and preaching two or three times a week at other periods of the year. As in the population of Antioch were pagans, Jews, Arians, and undevout believers, he addressed himself in turns to these several classes. view to the conversion of the pagans, he passed in review the absurd fables and innumerable follies of the heathen mythology; unveiled its ridiculous tenets, its profound immorality, its brutalizing principles, together with the cruelties and infamies of its social life, consecrated by the example of its heroes and gods; to all this he opposed the beauty and simplicity of the religion of Jesus, the sublimity of its doctrines, the pureness of its morality, the miracles which attested its divinity, the charity of its saints, the courage of its martyrs, the accomplishment of its prophecies, and the other evidences of its heavenly origin.

With a

Of the Jews, there were many in this city which bordered so closely on Palestine, and which was so devoted to that life of merchandise in which the Jews have ever excelled. Judaizing Christians, too, laboured there, true to their character in Apostolic times (Acts xv.); who continued to frequent the synagogues, observe the new moons and the feast of trumpets, and with special solemnity the three grand festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Against this union of Jewish and Christian observances, Chrysostom launched his most unmeasured denunciations, calling the synagogues temples of Satan, and threatening with the loss of their souls all those who frequented them. Homily upon homily the preacher devoted to this theme. In the fourth century the heresies of Sabellius, Eunomius, Arius, the Tritheists, and the Anomeans, were rife on every hand; and against these, in one form or other, Chrysostom directs

twelve of his homilies. He requires humility in the discussion of the Divine nature, and shows how incomprehensible it was even to the mind of angels. Marcionites, Valentinians, Gnostics, Manicheans, Macedonians, and all the current heretics of the day come impartially under the preacher's lash, and are discussed in the extant homilies of Chrysostom with his usual power.

Amongst Christians, to allay their schisms and correct their vices was his daily task, with how little encouragement let this passage show:

"The evils which now-a-days prevail in the Church are not less, nay, are much greater than those which assailed it in preceding ages. I dwell not here upon superstitious practices, auguries, divinations, horoscopes, signs, ligatures, enchantments, sortileges, magical operations, nor a hundred similar practices to which Christians addict themselves; but I look among the sheep of the flock for true Christians, and I find none. Where are those who do not injure their brother, who envy not, who yield not up themselves to hatred and vengeance, who abandon not themselves to impurity or avarice. What gross wickedness in youth! What utter carelessness in old age! No one cares for the religious training of the young. The pagans watch our proceedings attentively; the holiness of our life ought to convert them and lead them to God; but alas! it is not so."

In A D. 387, occurred the circumstance of the insurrection in Antioch which occasioned the overthrow of the statues of the Emperor Theodosius, and led to the delivery of those homilies which were addressed thereon to the people of Antioch. In a moment of frenzy, the inhabitants with their magistracy had revolted against a new and heavy imposition of taxes which the exigences of the war against Maximus demanded, and had shown their disgust at the demand, and resentment against the sovereign, by the outrages just named. But the fury of the populace spent itself soon after this outburst of impotent anger, and fears of imperial retribution took place of resentment in their bosoms. Flavian, the venerable bishop, was deputed to visit Constantinople and appease the displeasure of Theodosius, who threatened to plough up the city from its foundations to glut his imperial ire. During this period of universal consternation, the inhabitants crowded the basilica to listen to the solemn and impassioned reproofs and tender consolations of their favourite orator. In twenty homilies delivered before them on this occasion, this great master of eloquence seems almost to have exceeded himself in the mingled pathos and power of his address.

Meanwhile, the political horizon was charged with indignation. Antioch was degraded from the rank of metropolis, which was