§ 170. JOHN CHKY60ST0M. 93'i
the Trinitarian and tlie Christological controversies. He waa not therefore involved in any doctrinal controversy ex(;ept the Origenistic ; and in that he had a very innocent part, as his imspeculative turn of mind kept him from all share in the Origenistic errors. Had he lived a few decades later, he would perhaps have fallen under suspicion of Nestorianism ; for he belonged to the -Siime Antiochian school with his teacher Diodorus of Tarsus, his fellow-student Theodore of Mopsuestia, and his successor Nestorius. From this school, whose doctrinal development was not then complete, he derived a taste for the simple, sober, grammatico-historical interpretation, in opposition to the arbitrary allegorizing of the Alexandrians, while he remained entirely free from the rationalizing tendency which that school soon afterwards discovered. He is thus the soundest and worthiest representative of the Antiochian theology. In anthropology he is a decided synergist ; and his pupil Cassian, the founder of Semi-Pelagianisni, gives him for an authority." But his synergism is that of the whole Greek church ; it had no direct conflict with Augustinianism, for Chrysostom died several years before the opening of the Pelagian controversy He opposed the Arians and Novatians, and faithfully and constantly adhered to the church doctrine, so far as it was developed ; but he avoided narrow dogmatism and angry controversy, and laid greater stress on practical piety than on unfraitfnl orthodoxy."
Yaluable as the contributions of Chrysostom to didactic theology may be, his chief importance and merit lie not in this department, but in homiletical exegesis, pulpit eloquence, and pastoral care. Here he is unsurpassed among the ancient
' Julian of Eclanum had already appealed several times to Chrysostom against Augustine, as Augustine notes Contra Jul., and in the Opus imperfectum.
' NiEDNER (Geschichte der christl. Kirche, 1846, p. 323, and in his posthumous Lehrbuch, 1866, p. 303) briefly characterizes him thus : " In him we find a most complete mutual interpenetration of theoretical and practical theology, as well as of the dogmatical and ethical elements, exhibitivi mainly in the fusion of the exegetical and homiletical. Hence his exegesis was guarded against barren philology and dogma; and his pulpit discourse was free from doctrinal abstraction and empty rhetoric. The introduction of the knowledge of Christianity from the sources into the practical life of the people left him little time for the development of specia^ dogmas."
y38 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
fathers, whether Greek or Latin. By talent and culture he was peculiarly litted to labor in a great metropolis. At tha* time a bishop, as lie himself says, enjoyed greater honor at court, in the society of ladies, in the houses of the nobles, than the first dignitaries of the empire.' Hence the great danger of hierarchical pride and worldly conformity, to which so many of the prelates succumbed. This danger Chrysostom happily avoided. He continued his plain monastic mode of life in the midst of the splendor of the imperial residence, and applied all his superfluous income to the support of the sick and the stranger. Poor for himself, he was rich for the i)Oor. He preached an earnest Christianity fruitful in good works, he insisted on strict discipline, and boldly attacked the vices of the age and the hollow, worldly, hypocritical religion of the court. He, no doubt, transcended at times the bounds of moderation and prudence, as when he denounced the empress Eudoxia as a new Herodias thirsting after the blood of John; but he erred "on virtue's side," and his example of fearless devotion to duty has at all times exerted a most salutary influence upon clergymen in high and influential stations. Neander not inaptly compares his work in the Greek church with that of Spener, the practical reformer in the Lutheran church of the seventeenth century, and calls him a martyr of Christian charity, who fell a victim in the conflict with the worldly spirit of his age.'
In the pulpit Chrysostom was a monarch of unlimited power over his hearers. His sermons were frequently interrupted by noisy tlieatrical demonstrations of applause, which he indignantly rebuked as unwortliy of the house of God.' He had trained his natural gift of eloquence, which was of the first order, in the school of Demosthenes and Libanius, and ennobled and sanctified it in the higher school of the Holy
* The T<{n-apx<" and unapxoi, the piOjfecti pnctorio. Iloinil. iii. m Acta Apost. ' In his monograph on Chrysostom, vol. i. p. 5.
* This Greek custom of applauding the preacher by clapping the hands and stamping the feet (called Kporo^, from Kpovw) was a sign of the secularization of the churcii after its union witli the state. It is characteristic of his age that a powerfa sermon of Chrysostom against this abuse was most enthusiastically applauded b,; his hearers I