THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
one away with their pathos and the energy of their condensed diction. IJut finally the sententious unrest, the compression, the avoidance of the simple, and the presence of much that is obscure or grotesque induce tedium in the reader. Yet throughout a great talent is recognizable, and much which would otherwise be repulsive is useful to the historian. In his sermons, gathered by Felix, archbishop of Ravenna (d. Nov. 25, 724), his by-name does not appear; it is found first in Agnellus (chap. 47), and seems to have been given him in order that the Western Church also might have its Chrysostom. What Agnellus knows of his life is taken partly from local tradition; how uncertain this had become in 400 years is proven by the mass of chronological errors and the confusion among the Peters, the bishops of Ravenna. That modern biographers know as much of Chrysologus is due to the fact that they take the Roman Breviary (Dec. 4) as a reliable source. The year of his birth and that of his death are equally uncertain (by Oct. 24, 458, Neo, bishop of Ravenna, appears). He was named Peter by his parents in anticipation of future greatness (cf. MPL, lii. 497), but that he was educated in a monastery can not be inferred from sermon 107. Agnellus says that Sixtus III. (432- 440) made him bishop contrary to the wishes of Ravenna. It is doubtful whether all the sermons in the edition by Felix are genuine. The title " s. Joannis episcopi " which some of them bear in various manuscripts is strange, and may have been due to the copyist's confounding Chrysologus with Chrysostom, and a help to the confusion is the fact that the former used the latter's sermons liberally. Sermon 149 is undoubtedly a translation of the speech of Severianus of Gabala delivered in the year 401 (cf. MPL, lii. 599a, with Neander, ChrysostoTOM.s,ii., 3d edition, Berlin, 1848, p. 114). How much of this absorption of foreign matter into his sermons is due to Chrysologus himself is impossible to determine; but the principal matter is undoubtedly authentic. As a dogmatician, Chrysologus wrestled with the problem of a theodicy (sermon 101); in spite of his letter to Eutyches, he leaned strongly toward Monophysitism, attacked Pelagianism, was dependent upon Augustine (sermons 11 and 30), sympathized with Paulinism (sermons 108-116), " and at the feasts of the Saints preached more of faithful endurance than of works " (sermon 12§). In his polemics he never named his adversary, but combated Arians, Pelagians, Nestorians, Novatians, and Manicheans. Sermon 6 was highly prized by the ancients, sermon 35 seems to have been used by Fulgentius, sermons 50, 142, 143 found a place in the Roman Breviary, while sermons 67-72 are valuable for the history of catechetics. In sermon 34 (MPL, lii. 299a) Chrysologus combated the conditional immortality of the Stoics from the text 1 Cor. XV. 52; in sermon 61 he touched upon the same subject, and the conclusion of sermon 62 asserted that the resurrection has the character of eternity because it is accomplished through the eternal Christ, which is better rhetoric than logic.
(F. Arnold.)
Bihliographt: The Sermons, together with the authoritative hfe by Agnellus, were pubhshed Venice, 1750, re-
printed in MPL, lii.; German select transl. by M. Held, Kempten, 1874. The life is also in MGH, Script, rer. Langob., 1878, pp. 307-375. New material is gathered by F. Liverani, in Spicilegium Liberianum, pp. 125-203, Florence, 1863. Consult: H. Dapper, Der heilige Petrus Chrysologus, Cologne, 1867; the biographical sketch by Held is in his transl., ut sup.; L. S. Tillemont, Memoires ecclesiastiques, xv. 184-195, 864-867; Ceillier, Auteurs sacres, x. 6-16; J. Fessler, Institutiones patrologice, ed. B. Jungmann, ii. 2, pp. 240-256, Innsbruck, 1896; DCB, i. 517-518; KL, ix. 1898-1900.
CHRYSOSTOM, cris'es-tom.
Life to 398 (§1).
Patriarch of Constantinople, 398 (§ 2). His Opponents and Controversies (§ 3). The Synod ad Quercum (§4). Chrysostom Banished (§ 5). Writings (§ 6).
His Significance and Doctrine (§ 7).
John Chrysostom (Joannes Chrysostomos, " John the Golden-mouthed"), patriarch of Constantinople, was born at Antioch, probably c. 345 or 347; d. near Comana, in Pontus, Sept. 14, 407. The name " Chrysostom," borrowed from Dion of Prusa, was given to him soon after his death. He came of a rich patrician family, and his father, Secundus, died soon after his son's birth; the boy was brought up by his mother Anthusa. At twenty he was among the pupils of the rhetorician Libanius at Antioch, and attended the lectures of the philosopher Andragathius. He intended at first to follow the law, but the details of the life displeased him, and he decided to leave the world entirely, finding a companion in his fellow student Basil, of whom nothing more is known. He busied
I. Life to himself now with the Scriptures, and 398. prepared for baptism, which he received three years later from Meletius, bishop of Antioch (c. 368, certainly before 370, in which year Meletius left Antioch). Almost immediately after, he seems to have been ordained as a reader. His teachers in this period were Diodorus of Tarsus and a certain Karterius, of whom nothing more is known; his friends were Maximus, later bishop of Seleucia, and Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia. He himself tells of the strictness of the ascetic life which he now led in his mother's house. Declining a bishopric about 373, on his mother's death a year or two later he betook himself to a mountain solitude near Antioch, where he spent four years in ascetic exercises with an old Syrian monk, and two more alone in a cave, until need of medical treatment brought him back to Antioch about 380. Probably in the early part of the next year, he was ordained deacon by Meletius, and priest by his successor Flavian at the beginning of 386. In this capacity he labored in Antioch for twelve years, laying the foundations of his fame as a preacher and teacher and distinguishing_himself by the holiness of hisjjfe.
When~Nectarius, the successor of Gregory Nazianzen in the episcopal see of Constantinople, died on Sept. 27, 397, intrigue was busy with the new choice. The weak emperor Arcadius was entirely in the hands of his chamberlain Eutropius, for whom the choice was interesting only as subserving his political plans. Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, more diplomat than bishop, endeavored to