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The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints

A >> Alban Butler >> The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints




Footnotes:
1. S. Chrys. ad Vid. jun. t. 1, p. 340.
2. Sozom. l. 8, c. 22.
3. Liban. ep. ad Joan. apud S. Isidor. Pelus. l. 2, ep. 42.
4. L. 3, de Sacerd. c. 14, p. 390.
5. L. 3, de Sacerd. c. 14.
6. Hom. 72 (ol. 73) and 69 (ol. 69,) in Matt. Hom. 14, in 1 Tim. t. 11,
pp. 628, 630, {}3, contra vitup. vita Mon. c. 14.
7. Lib. de Compunct. p. {1}32.
8. Lib. 1, de Compunct. &c.
9. Flavian I. was a native of Antioch, of honorable extraction, and
possessed of a plentiful estate, which he employed in the service of
the church and relief of the poor. He was remarkably grave and
serious, and began early to subdue his flesh by austerities and
abstinence, in which he remitted nothing even in his old age. Thus
was his heart prepared to receive and cherish the seeds of divine
grace, the daily increase of which rendered him so conspicuous in
the world, and of such advantage to the church. The Arians being at
that time masters of the church of Antioch, Flavian and his
associate Diodorus, afterwards bishop of Tarsus, equally
distinguished by their birth, fortune, learning, and virtue, were
the great supports of the flock St. Eustathius had been forced to
abandon. In 348, they undertook the defence of the Catholic faith
against Leontius, the Arian bishop, who made use of all his craft
and authority to establish Arianism to that city; one of whose chief
expedients was to promote none to holy orders but Arians. The
scarcity of Catholic pastors, on this account called for all their
zeal and charity in behalf of the abandoned flock. The Arians being
in possession of the churches to the city, these two zealous laymen
assembled them without the walls, at the tombs of the martyrs, for
the exercise of religious duties. They introduced among them the
manner of singing psalms alternately, and of concluding each psalm
with _Glory be to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; as it was,_ &c.,
which pious custom was soon after spread over all the eastern and
western churches. Theodoret (l. 2, c. 19) says, that Flavian and
Diodorus were the first who directed the psalms to be sung in this
manner by two choirs: though Socrates (l. 6, c. 8) attributes its
institution to St. Ignatius the martyr: who having, as he there
relates, heard angels in a vision singing the divine praises
alternately, instituted that manner of singing in the church of
Antioch; but this might have been disused. Pliny's famous letter to
Trajan shows, that singing was then in use among the Christians In
Bithynia; and it appears from Philo, that the Therapeuts did the
same before that time. Leontius stood so much in awe of Flavian and
Diodorus while they were only laymen, that in compliance with their
demands he deposed Aetius that most impious and barefaced blasphemer
of all the Arians, from the rank of deacon.

St. Meletius, on his being promoted to the see of Antioch, about the
year 361, raised these both to the priesthood, and they took care of
that church, as his delegates, during his banishment by Constantius.
Thus they continued together their zealous labors till Diodorus was
made bishop of Tarsus. In 381, St. Meletius took Flavian with him to
the general council which was assembled at Constantinople; but dying
in that capital, Flavian was chosen to succeed him. His life was a
perfect copy of the eminent episcopal virtues, and especially of the
meekness, the candor, and affability of his worthy predecessor.

Unhappily the schism, which for a long time had divided the church
of Antioch, was not yet extinguished. The occasion was this: after
the death of St. Eustathius, they could not agree in the choice of
his successor; those who were most attached to this holy prelate,
with St. Athanasius and the West, followed Paulinus: the
Apollinarists declared for Vitalis: and the greatest body of the
orthodox of Antioch, with Flavian, Diodorus, and all the East,
adhered to St. Meletius, who, as we have seen already, was succeeded
by Flavian. Paulinus, bishop of that part of the Catholics called
Eustathians, from their attachment to that prelate, though long
since dead, still disputed that see with Flavian; but dying in 383,
the schism of Antioch must have ended, had not his abettors kept
open the breach by choosing Evagrius in his room; though it does not
appear that he had one bishop in communion with him, Egypt and the
West being now neuter, and the East all holding communion with
Flavian. Evagrius dying in 395, the Eustathians, though now without
a pastor, still continued their separate meetings, and kept up the
schism several years longer. St. Chrysostom being raised to the see
of Constantinople, in 398, labored hourly to abolish this fatal
schism, which was brought about soon after by commissioners
constituted for this purpose by the West, Egypt, and all the other
parties concerned, and the Eustathians received Flavian as their
bishop. In the year 404, when St. Chrysostom was banished, Flavian
testified his indignation against so unjust a proceeding, and wrote
upon that subject to the clergy of Constantinople. But he did not
live to be witness of all the sufferings his dear friend was to meet
with, dying about three years before him, in 404. The general
council of Chalcedon calls him blessed, (Conc. t. 4, p. 840,) and
Theodoret (l. 5, c. 232) gives him the titles of the great, the
admirable saint. St. Chrysostom is lavish in his praises of him.
Flavian's sermons and other writings are all lost except his
discourse to Theodosius, preserved by St. Chrysostom. No church or
Martyrology, whether among the Greeks or Latins, ever placed Falvius
I. of Antioch in the catalogue of the saints. Whence Chatelain, in
his notes, speaking of St. Meletius, February the 12th, p. 630; and
on St. Flavian of Constantinople, February the 17th, p. 685,
expresses his surprise at the boldness of Baillet and some others,
who, without regard to the decrees of Urban VIII., presumed to do it
of their own private authority, and without any reason, have
assigned for his feast the 21st of February. Chatelain, in his
additions to his Universal Martyrology, p. 711, names him with the
epithet of venerable only, on the 26th of September. He is only
spoken of here, to answer our design of giving in the notes some
account of the most eminent fathers of the church who have never
been ranked among the saints. On St. Flavian II. of Antioch,
banished by the emperor Anastasius with St. Elias of Jerusalem, for
their zeal in defending the council of Chalcedon against the
Eutychians, see July {} 4th, on which these two confessors are
commemorated in the Roman Martyrology.
10. St. Chrys. Hom. 21, ad Pap. Antioch. seu de Statius. t. 2.
11. Sozom. l. 8, c. 2, &c.
12. Socrat. c. 2. See Stilting, Sec.35, p. 511.
13. St. Chrys. l. Quod regulares foeminae, t. 1, p. 250.
14. Stilting, Sec.41, p. 526.
15. Phot. Cod. 59. Socr. l. 6, c. 21. Stilting, Sec.40, p. 523.
16. [Greek: Kai sunegores elambanomen]. Chrys. Serm. contra ludos et
spect. t. 6, p. 272. Ed. Ben. [Greek: Andreas Paulon kai Timotheon].
17. Mich. vi. 3. Jer. ii. 5.
18. Hom. 13, in Ephes. t. 11, p. 95
19. Pallad in Vit. Chrysost. Item S. Chrysost. Hom. in 1 Tim. v. 5, l.
3, de Sacerd. c. 8, and l. ad V{}oior. Stilting, Sec.67, p. 603.
20. [Greek: Ioannes hu tes eleemosunes]. Pallad. c. 12.
21. Hom. 2, & 25, in Acta. Hom. 14, in Hebr. Pallad. in Vit. S. Chrys.
22. S. Procl. Or. 22. p. 581.
23. L. 2, Ep. 294, p. 266.
24. L. 3, de Sacerd.
25. Stilting, Sec.43, p. 530, et seq.
26. About this time the poet Claudian wrote his two books against
Eutropius, as he had done before against Rufinus.
27. Pallad. Dial. {} 127. Stilting, Sec.47, p. 542.
28. T. 3, p. 411.
29. S. Joan. Damasc. Orat. 3, de Imaginibus, p. 480, {} Billii. See F.
Sollier in Hist. Chronol. Patriarch Alexand. in Theophilo, p. 52.
30. See Stilting, Sec.54, 55, 5{}, p. 567.
31. T. 3, p. 415.
32. Socrates and Sozomen say that he preached another sermon against the
empress, beginning with these words: Herodias is again became
furious. But Montfaucon refutes this slander, trumped up by his
enemies. The sermon extant under that title is a manifest forgery,
t. {}n spuriis, p. 1. See Montfaucon, and Stilting, Sec.63, p. 503.
33. {}p t. 3, p. 515. Pallad. Dial. Stilting, Sec.58, p. 578.
34. S. Nilus, l. 2, ep. 265.
35. L. 3, ep. 279.
36. T. 3, p. 525.
37. Ep. 8.
38. Ep. 8, p. 589.
39. Ibid. 3, p. 552.
40. Ibid. 4, p. 570.
41. Pallad. Theodoret, l. 5, c. 34.
42. Pallad. Sozom. l. 8. c. 28.
43. The passage of Palladius, in which St. Basiliscus is called bishop
of Comana, is evidently falsified by the mistake of copiers, as
Stilting demonstrates; who shows this Basiliscus to have suffered
not at Nicomedia, but near Comana, in the country where his relics
remained; the same that is honored on the 2d of March. It is without
grounds that Tillemont, Le Quien, &c., imagine there were two
martyrs of the same name, the one a soldier, who suffered at Comana
under Galerius Maximian; the other, bishop of that city. T. 5, in S.
Basilisc. note 4. See Stilting, Sec.83, p. 665.
44. Sir Harry Saville is of opinion that he was only fifty-two years
old: but he must have been sixty-three, as born in 344.
45. Nestorius, Or. 12, apud Marium Mercat. par. 2, p. 86, ed. Gamier.
Stilting, Sec.88, p. 685.
46. Jos. Assemani. Comm. In Calend. Univ. t. 6. p. 105, and Stilting.
47. Joan. xxi. 17. St. Chrys. l. 2, de Sacred. c. 1.
48. Hom. 3 & 44, in Act. et alibi saepe.
49. See St. Chrys. hom. 16, in Rom.
50. Hom. 52, in Acta.


{252}

ON THE WRITINGS

OF

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.

IN the Benedictine edition of his works given by Dom Montfaucon, we have
in the first tome his two Exhortations to Theodorus; three books against
the Adversaries of a Monastic Life; the Comparison between a King and a
Monk; two books on Compunction; three books to Stagirius the monk, on
Tribulation and Providence; against those Clergymen who harbor Women
under their roof to serve them; another treatise to prove that
Deaconesses, or other Regular Women, ought not to live under the same
roof with men; On Virginity; To a Young Widow; On the Priesthood; and a
considerable number of scattered homilies. Theodorus, after renouncing
the advantages which high birth, a plentiful estate, a polite education,
and an uncommon stock of learning offered him in the world, and having
solemnly consecrated himself to God in a monastic state, violated his
sacred engagement, returned into the world, took upon him the
administration of his estate, fell in love with a beautiful young woman
named Hermione, and desired to marry her. St. Chrysostom, who had
formerly been his school-fellow, under Libanius, and been afterwards
instrumental in inducing him to forsake the world, and some time his
companion in a religious state, grievously lamented his unhappy fall;
and by two most tender and pathetic exhortations to repentance, gained
him again to God. Every word is dictated by the most ardent zeal and
charity, and powerfully insinuates itself into the heart by the charm of
an unparalleled sweetness, which gives to the strength of the most
persuasive eloquence an irresistible force. Nothing of the kind extant
is more beautiful, or more tender, than these two pieces, especially the
former. The saint, in the beginning, borrows the most moving parts of
the lamentations of Jeremy, showing that he had far more reason to
abandon himself to bitter grief than that prophet; for he mourned not
for a material temple and city with the holy ark and the tables of the
law, but for an immortal soul, far more precious than the whole material
world. And if one soul which observes the divine law is greater and
better than ten thousand which transgress it, what reason had he to
deplore the loss of one which had been sanctified, and the holy living
temple of God, and shone with the grace of the Holy Ghost: one in which
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost had dwelt; but was stripped of its glory
and fence, robbed of its beauty, enslaved by the devil, and fettered
with his bolts and chains. Therefore the saint invites all creatures to
mourn with him, and declares he will receive no comfort, nor listen to
those who offer him any, crying out with the prophet: _Depart from me: I
will weep bitterly: offer not to comfort me_. Isa. xxii. 4. His grief,
he says, was just, because he wept for a soul that was fallen from
heaven to hell, from grace into sin: it was reasonable, because by tears
she might yet be recovered; and he protests that he would never
interrupt them, till he should learn that she was risen again. To
fortify his unhappy friend against the temptation of despair, he shows
by the promises, examples, and parables of the Old and New Testaments,
that no one can doubt of the power or goodness of God, who is most ready
to pardon every sinner that sues for mercy. Observing that hell was not
created for man, but heaven, he conjures him not to defeat the design of
God in his creation, and destroy the work of his mercy by persevering in
sin. The difficulties which seemed to stand in his way, and dispirited
him, the saint shows would be all removed, and would even vanish of
themselves, if he undertook the work with courage and resolution: this
makes the conversion of a soul easy. He terrifies him by moving
reflections on death, and the divine judgments, by a dreadful
portraiture which he draws of the fire of hell, which resembles not our
fire, but burns souls, and is eternal; lastly, by the loss of heaven, on
the joys of which kingdom he speaks at large; on its immortality, the
company of the angels, the joy, liberty, beauty, and glory of the
blessed, adding, that such is this felicity, that in its loss consists
the most dreadful of all the torments of the damned. Penance averts
these evils, and restores to a soul all the titles and advantages which
she had forfeited by her fall: and its main difficulty and labor are
vanquished by a firm resolution, and serious beginning of the work. This
weakens and throws down the enemy: if he be thoroughly vanquished in
that part where he was the strongest, the soul will pursue, with ease
and cheerfulness, the delightful and beautiful course of virtue upon
which she has entered. He conjures Theodorus, by all that is dear, to
have compassion on himself; also to have pity on his mourning friends,
and not by grief send them to their graves: he exhorts him resolutely to
break his bonds at once, not to temporize only with his enemy, or
pretend to rise by degrees; and he entreats him to exert his whole
strength in laboring to {253} be of the happy number of those who, from
being the last, are raised by their fervor to the first rank in the
kingdom of God. To encourage him by examples, he mentions a young
nobleman of Phoenicia, the son of one Urbanus, who, having embraced with
fervor the monastic state, insensibly fell into lukewarmness, and at
length returned into the world, where he enjoyed large possessions,
lived in pomp, and abandoned himself to the pursuit of vanity and
pleasures; till, opening his eyes upon the remonstrances of certain
pious friends, he distributed his whole estate among the poor, and spent
the rest of his life in the desert with extraordinary fervor. Another
ascetic, falling by degrees, in an advanced age, committed the crime of
fornication; but immediately rising, attained to an eminent degree of
sanctity, and was honored with the gift of miracles. The disciple of St.
John, who had been a captain of a troop of robbers and murderers, became
an illustrious penitent. In like manner, our saint exhorts and conjures
this sinner to rise without delay, before he was overtaken by the divine
judgments, and to confess his sins with compunction of heart, abundant
bitter tears, and a perfect change of life, laboring to efface his
crimes by good works, to the least of which Christ has promised a
reward.

St. Chrysostom begins his second Exhortation to Theodorus, which is much
shorter than the first, by expressing his grief as follows: (t. 1, p.
35:) "If tears and groans could have been conveyed by letters, this
would have been filled. I grieve not that you have taken upon you the
administration of your affairs; but that you have trampled under your
feet the sacred engagement you had made of yourself to Christ. For this
I suffer excessive trouble and pain; for this I mourn; for this I am
seized with fear and trembling, having before my eyes the severe
damnation which so treacherous and base a perfidiousness deserves." He
tells him yet "that the case is not desperate for a person to have been
wounded, but for him to neglect the cure of his wounds. A merchant after
shipwreck labors to repair his losses; many wrestlers, after a fall,
have risen and fought so courageously as to have been crowned; and
soldiers, after a defeat, have rallied and conquered. You allege," says
he, "that marriage is lawful. This I readily acknowledge; but it is not
now in your power to embrace that state: for it is certain that one who,
by a solemn engagement, has given himself to God as his heavenly spouse,
if he violates this contract, he commits an adultery, though he should a
thousand times call it marriage. Nay, he is guilty of a crime so much
the more enormous as the majesty of God surpasses man. Had you been
free, no one would charge you with desertion; but since you are
contracted to so great a king, you are not at your own disposal." St.
Chrysostom pathetically shows him the danger, baseness, and crime of
deferring his repentance, sets before him hell, the emptiness of the
world, the uneasiness and troubles which usually attend a married life,
and the sweetness of the yoke of Christ. He closes this pressing
exhortation by mentioning the tears and prayers of his friends, which
they would never interrupt, till they had the comfort of seeing him
raised from his fall. St. Chrysostom wrote these two exhortations about
the year 369, which was the second that he spent in his mother's house
at Antioch when he led there an ascetic life. The fruit of his zeal and
charity was the conversion of Theodorus, who broke his engagements with
the world, and returned to his solitude. In 381 he was made bishop of
Mopsuestia. In opposing the Apollinarist heresy, he had the misfortune
to lay the seeds of Nestorianism in a book which he composed on the
Incarnation, and other writings. He became a declared protector of
Julian the Pelagian, when he took refuge in the East; wrote an express
treatise against original sin; and maintained the Pelagian errors in a
multitude of other works, which were all condemned after his death,
though only fragments of them have reached us, preserved chiefly in
Facundus, Photius, and several councils. He died in 428, before the
solemn condemnation of his errors, and in the communion of the Catholic
church. See Tillemont, t. 12.

During St. Chrysostom's retreat in the mountains, two devout servants of
God desired of him certain instructions on the means of attaining to the
virtue of compunction. Demetrius, the first of these, though he was
arrived at a high degree of perfection in an ascetic life, always ranked
himself among those who crawl on the earth, and said often to St.
Chrysostom, kissing his hand, and watering it with tears, "Assist me to
soften the hardness of my heart." St. Chrysostom addressed to him his
first book on Compunction, in which he tells him that he was not
unacquainted with this grace, of which he had a pledge in the
earnestness of his desire to obtain it, his love of retirement, his
watching whole nights, and his abundant tears, even those with which,
squeezing him by the hand, he lead begged the succor of his advice and
prayers, in order to soften his dry, stony heart into compunction. With
the utmost confusion for his own want of this virtue, he yielded to his
request, begging in return his earnest prayers for the conversion of his
own soul. Treating first on the necessities and motives of compunction,
he takes notice that Christ pronounces those blessed who mourn, and says
we ought never to cease weeping for our own sins, and those of the whole
world, which deserves and calls for our tears so much the more loudly,
as it is insensible of its own miseries. We should never cease weeping,
if we considered how much sin reigns among men. The saint considers the
sin of rash judgment as a general vice among men, from which he thinks
scarce any one will be found to have lived always free. He {254} says
the same of anger; then of detraction; and considering how universally
these crimes prevail among men, cries out: "What hopes of salvation
remain for the generality of mankind, who commit, without reflection,
some or other of these crimes, one of which is enough to damn a soul?"
He mentions also, as general sins, swearing, evil words, vain-glory, not
giving alms, want of confidence in divine providence, and of resignation
to his will, covetousness, and sloth in the practice of virtue. He
complains that whereas the narrow path only leads to heaven, almost all
men throw themselves into the broad way, walking with the multitude in
their employs and actions, seeking their pleasure, interest, or
convenience, not what is safest for their souls. Here what motives for
our tears! A life of mortification and penance he prescribes, as an
essential condition for maintaining a spirit of compunction; saying that
water and fire are not more contrary to each other, than a life of
softness and delights is to compunction; pleasure being the mother of
dissolute laughter and madness. A love of pleasure renders the soul
heavy and altogether earthly; but compunction gives her wings, by which
she raises herself above all created things. We see worldly men mourn
for the loss of friends and other temporal calamities. And are not we
excited to weep for our spiritual miseries? We can never cease if we
have always before our eyes our sins, our distance from heaven, the
pains of hell, God's judgments, and our danger of losing Him, which is
the most dreadful of all the torments of the damned.

In his second book On Compunction, which is addressed to Stelechius, he
expresses his surprise that he should desire instructions on compunction
of one so cold in the divine service as he was; but only one whose
breast is inflamed with divine love, and whose words are more
penetrating than fire, can speak of that virtue. He says that
compunction requires in the first place, solitude, not so much that of
the desert, as that which is interior, or of the mind. For seeing that a
multitude of objects disturbs the sight, the soul must restrain all the
senses, remain serene, and without tumult or noise within herself,
always intent on God, employed in his love, deaf to corporeal objects.
As men placed on a high mountain hear nothing of the noise of a city
situated below them, only a confused stir which they no way heed; so a
Christian soul, raised on the mountain of true wisdom, regards not the
hurry of the world; and though she is not destitute of senses, is not
molested by them, and applies herself and her whole attention to
heavenly things. Thus St. Paul was crucified and insensible to the
world, raised as far above its objects as living men differ from
carcasses. Not only St. Paul, amid a multiplicity of affairs, but also
David, living in the noise of a great city and court, enjoyed solitude
of mind, and the grace of perfect compunction, and poured forth tears
night and day, proceeding from an ardent love and desire of God and his
heavenly kingdom, the consideration of the divine judgments, and the
remembrance of his own sins. Persons that are lukewarm and slothful,
think of what they do or have done in penance to cancel their debts; but
David nourished perpetually in his breast a spirit of compunction, by
never thinking on the penance he had already done, but only on his debts
and miseries, and on what he had to do in order to blot out or deliver
himself from them. St. Chrysostom begs his friend's prayers that he
might be stirred up by the divine grace to weep perpetually under the
load of his spiritual evils, so as to escape everlasting torments.

The saint's three books, On Providence, are an exhortation to comfort,
patience, and resignation, addressed to Stagirius, a monk possessed by
an evil spirit. This Stagirius was a young nobleman, who had exasperated
his father by embracing a monastic state: but some time after fell into
lukewarmness, and was cruelly possessed by an evil spirit, and seized
with a dreadful melancholy, from which those who had received a power of
commanding evil spirits were not able to deliver him. St. Chrysostom
wrote these books soon after he was ordained deacon in 380. In the
first, he shows that all things are governed by divine providence, by
which even afflictions are always sent and directed for the good of the
elect. For any one to doubt of this is to turn infidel: and if we
believe it, what can we fear whatever tribulations befall us, and to
whatever height their waves ascend? Though the conduct of divine
providence, with regard to the just, be not uniform, it sends to none
any tribulations which are not for their good; when they are most heavy,
they are designed by God to prepare men for the greatest crowns.
Moreover, God is absolute master to dispose of us, as a potter of his
clay. What then have we to say? or how dare we presume to penetrate into
his holy counsels? The promise of God can never fail: this gives us an
absolute security of the highest advantages, mercy, and eternal glory,
which are designed us in our afflictions. St. Chrysostom represents to
Stagirius that his trials had cured his former vanity, anger, and sloth,
and it was owing to them that he now spent nights and days in fasting,
prayer, and reading. In the second book, he presses Stagirius
strenuously to reject all melancholy and gloomy thoughts, and not to be
uneasy either about his cure, or the grief his situation was likely to
give his father, but leaving the issue to God, with perfect resignation
to ask of him this mercy, resting in the entire confidence that whatever
God ordained would turn to his greatest advantage. In the third book, he
mentions to Stagirius several of his acquaintance, whose sufferings,
both in mind and body, were more grievous than those with which he was
afflicted. He bids him also pay a visit to the hospitals and prisons;
for he would there see that his cross was light in comparison of what
many others endured. {255} He tells him that sin ought to be to him the
only subject of grief; and that he ought to rejoice in sufferings as the
means by which his sins were to be expiated. A firm confidence in God, a
constant attention to his presence, and perpetual prayer, he calls the
strong ramparts against sadness.

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