Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom

On the same principle, John reproved his patients, from pity or from affection. If the Baptist did not know the opportunity, how is it that he recognized the Artificer and Maker of the ages, when he said, "Behold the Lamb of God, who beareth the sin of the world "? And how is it that Paul and Peter did not know the opportunity; those pillars of the Church, who even after their deaths shut and open the opportunities of repentance to those who desire it, and knock at the door? I suppose they were specially ignorant, as one was crucified with feet in air, as a sign of his heavenward journey, the other beheaded, because of his bold speaking in Christ; that he might not fall away from the Head Who is Head indeed. Do not then listen to those who criticize and revile the bold speaking of the saints. This is the practice of the Gentiles, and of those who think themselves clever, to whom life, and scurrilous jests at the courage of the saints are dear.

No, the sword must not be blunt, and the bold word must not be left unspoken. Kindness and bold speaking are as inseparable as scent and perfume. I will admit that if reproofs were offered personally, before a man's own household, or friends, or relatives, in whose presence he would not like even to blush, the bold speaker would be open, possibly, to the charge of ignorance of the right opportunity or place; but if the Church is like a butcher's shop, in which praise is given to those who do well, and blame to those who are careless, why should we be vexed at reproofs given without names being mentioned, and for our good? That means feeding our faults, instead of obeying him who said, "All that is sold in the shambles eat, asking no questions." Otherwise, we shall again find the saints to have been the occasion of stumbling to some cities and countries through their reproofs, and to have ruined others by their praises. .

Job is the first instance in point; he censures the land of Phoenicia, for inviting his enemy, Satan; as he says, "The peoples of the Phoenicians part him among themselves." Next, Moses and the prophets censure Egypt, and call it an iron furnace, and darkness, while they praise Palestine, and call it a land of promise; yet Egypt proves to be a land of promise to the good, and Palestine, not only an iron furnace, but outer darkness, through unbelief, to the sluggard. It is not the places that are blamed or praised, but the practices of their inhabitants. However, I need not elaborate my argument at length; it will serve for a beginning, briefly to suggest instances. When Paul calls the Cretans liars, and the Galatians foolish, and the Corinthians puffed up, and so on, was he thinking only of the faults of these particular peoples, and reproving them alone, or of those of men in general? Or again, when he calls the Romans faithful, and the Ephesians, to whom he writes in a loftier strain, enlightened, and the Thessalonians, lovers of the brethren, was his commendation intended only for those peoples? Certainly not; guided by the Spirit, he bestowed praise and blame, that the man who is worthy of praise may know it, and be strengthened in his zeal, while he who is otherwise may be distressed as he reads, and purge himself from the .cause of blame. So the Galatians are not the only foolish people, the Cretans the only liars, the Corinthians the only proud; for all these are universal failings, because the human nature which sins and works righteousness is one, and in one and the same matter tends to sinfulness or to righteousness, according to the man's conscious choice.

This was the principle of John's boldness of speech in the Church; it would be more true to say, that to the hungry he gave their portion of the meat of virtue, and banished sin with open reproofs, in obedience to him who said, "Him who sins, reprove before all, that the rest also may fear." But if some people are so grievously afflicted with pride or folly, that they wish the pleasures in which they indulge to be commended, the servants of God have no such custom. You see, those who are indignant at reproof given to covetousness, and fornication, and other foul pleasures, virtualfy declare simply that these offences, however poisonous, ought to be accepted (as Christian).

CHAPTER XIX. A DEFENCE AGAINST THE CHARGES OF PRIDE AND INSOLENCE

Deac. Very many thanks, father, for the visit of your brotherly love; it has been helpful to us, and a remembrance for all our lives.

After these high compliments, Theodorus held his peace; but one of the company burst in with:

Well then, how do you account for his being haughty, if he was adorned with all these excellencies?

Bish. Did you know him to be haughty by personal experience, or did some one tell you that he was so?

The speaker answered:

I do not know the man; but I heard the remark made by a certain tanner, that it was rare for him to enter into company, except in the Church, and that he chafed at lengthy interviews with persons who wished for them. It is a proof of conceit and pride, to avoid intercourse with those who desire it.

Bish. Ah, a tanner; a man who takes the stench of his workshop home to live with him. Quite the right man to find fault with John's philosophy. If it is a proof of conceit to avoid crowds, according to your argument, John the Baptist must have been a conceited man, when he retired into the deserts. One step further, and it will be the Saviour Himself; for it is written, "Jesus, seeing the multitudes, went up into a mountain, and when he was set, his disciples came unto him" —not the multitudes—and again, "Seeing the multitudes, he withdrew apart." It was to follow His example, so far as he could, that good Bishop John too withdrew from the multitudes, while he delighted in the company of those who really wished to learn.

Deac. A good argument from scripture proofs. But what have you to say to the charge that he was insolent, when he kept himself in retirement not only from large gatherings, but even from the society of one or two individuals?

Bish. A single person can be a particularly unprofitable and misleading crowd. Such was the man who said to Jesus, "Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." Do you not see that the Saviour was escaping from the crowd, when He said, "Foxes have holes," etc.? But you cannot convince me, that after his baptism John ever swore, or made another swear, or slandered, or lied, or cursed, or indulged in frivolities.

Deac. No, I make no assertion of this sort; only that he was insolent.

Bish. My excellent friend, how was it possible for the man who was guilty of none of these things to be insolent, and lose control over his tongue? A small sin defiles as much as a great one.

Deac. Well then, tell me, what do these popular statements mean? And when will they cease?

Bish. Hear the whole story, and do not pay attention to idle reports; you will never find an excuse for doing that. People whose lives are not upright never have upright thoughts; they are for ever gossiping, and have no time for anything else, especially if no one dares to disagree with them. Why, they made all sorts of monstrous statements about the Saviour—God Himself, Who in life, and speech, and act, was above man, above prophet. They heaped insult upon insult, as thick as a herd of swine or a swarm of flies; such was the manner of the time. Some said, "He deceives the world;" others, "He casts out devils in Beelzebul, chief of the devils;" others, "Behold a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber;" others again, "He is a Samaritan, and has a devil." What would be the good of my gathering all their vapourings together? The Saviour Himself knew what was going on, when He said to His apostles, "Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" The disciples replied by mentioning the most complimentary of the current ideas about Him: "Some say Elias, some Jeremias, others, John the Baptist;" they do not quote the language of the vilest of men. So He asked them again, distinguishing them from the "men" of whom He had spoken before (and rightly; for in mind they were not men, but the sons of God, for to us the Word "gave power to become children of God"), "But whom say ye that I am?" Then Peter, expressing the mind of them all, answered, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." The Saviour accepted the correctness of this answer, and declared, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock," that is, "the confession," I will build my Church, and gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."

You will find the same characteristics in the blame or praise given not only to John, but to all. Just as at that time all the work of Christ and His apostles was being reviled—the Ephesians shouted, "These are they that have turned the world upside down," —but all that has ceased now, and they are glorified; so you will find it when this generation has passed. John will be honoured as a martyr, when those who are set against his good reputation are brought to dust; people on the level of pigs or dogs will say, "He deceives the world," etc., while disciples will honestly and cautiously inquire into his conduct, and say, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And if, in the case, of the Saviour Christ, among so many thousands of men only twelve were found at first to recognize Jesus, while the majority even to this day talk nonsense about Him; why need we be so particular as to what is said about John, a man who was not fit to be compared with the spittle of Christ? With the spittle, do I say? Not with the hem of His garment. "All the nations," says Esaias, "shall be counted as a drop from a bottle, and as spittle."

As for what you said about his being insolent, the facts are these. In the first place, it was impossible for him to grant favours, much less to be insolent, to everybody; but in dealing with any of his genuine disciples, or clergy, or bishops, if he noticed them boasting of their abstinence from anything, or of their correctness in the practice of bodily discipline, he playfully rallied them, by giving them nicknames expressing the opposite. For instance, he would call the teetotaller a drunkard, the man living in holy poverty covetous, the charitable man a thief. It is a kindly method of instruction for true men, to strengthen qualities which they possess, by speaking of qualities which they do not possess. The truth is, that he used to honour a self-restrained youth more than a licentious senior, a studious senior more than an ignorant junior, a layman who had embraced holy poverty more than a trained scholar who was covetous, a virtuous man living in the world more than an idle monk.

Perhaps people who are always on the look-out for honours call this insolence; but John says to those who came to put themselves under his instruction, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" And Paul, in the Acts, says to the chief priest, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall;" and the Saviour in one place says to the Jews, "A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign," and in another, to all the apostles, "O fools and slow of heart." In yet another He calls Peter, Satan—" Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou art an offence unto me." Yet there was no grave offence, which called for these severe expressions.

Let us then make the love of learning our delight in silence, as we cannot judge spiritual persons. They are not insolent to us because they hate us, nor do they love solitude because they are puffed up with pride; their one aim is service springing from love. This again is why we find all those that are described to us in the holy records as good men, declining and turning away from ignorant persons, for fear that they may in time become used to their ways through familiarity, and so adopt a lower standard of virtue, or acquire their failings. Let Sarah be our first instance. She urged her husband Abraham to banish from the domestic hearth the son of the bond-maid, while he was still quite a child; for she objected to his playing with her son Isaac, for fear that if they amused themselves together, he might be demoralized by Ishmael's behaviour and manners. Then Jacob secured his safety by flight, and set out for Mesopotamia, to sojourn there. Next, Lot was warned by the angels to move from among the impious men of Sodom; yes, and Moses, as I said before, when he grew up, and had refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, determined to separate himself from the tyrant and his men-at-arms, and warned those who were of the same mind as himself to start off with him, and make the exodus their first care. The prophets, too, shunned the worthless crowd, and generally lived in the deserts; the apostle said of them, "They wandered in deserts, and mountains, and caves, and the holes of the earth." This was to avoid mingling with the lawless, and because they knew that association has power to deceive, and reduce to a common level those who spend their days together, and more, that such intercourse is of itself blameworthy and poisonous, and even disgraceful. It is against nature to put up with a thing one dislikes, or even to tolerate it for a short time; for like always attracts like (as the saying is, "Every beast loveth his like;" but the unlike is hostile and alien). Who in the world can train a grain-eating dove or pigeon to feed with carnivorous martens or ravens? Or the herbivorous goose or crane to herd with vultures that pick bones? For what communion hath light with darkness, or virtue with vice, or the bad with the good?

Deac. How then is it that the apostle says, "I became all things to all men, to the Jews as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to the weak as weak, that I might gain the weak; to them that are without law as without law, that I might gain them that are without law"?

Bish. This quotation, my dear sir, does not support your contention; for Paul did not say, I became careless to the careless, or frivolous to the frivolous, or covetous to the covetous, or anything of the sort, but, "I became as this or that"—not, "I became this." For "I became as this" is not the same as "I became this." The words and deeds of the apostle are "such as" (those of others). His condescension possibly did no great good, but it certainly did no harm; "I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might gain Jews." And yet he was of the Jews, for he was circumcised; in what sense then does he say, "As a Jew," not, "I became a Jew"? He was often to be found keeping the Sabbath, and fasting, with Jews, without detriment to the teachings of the Saviour, in hopes of leading them on to a more perfect knowledge, through familiarity and companionship with him; just as physicians do not always stay with their patients, or surfer from the same complaints or the same delirious cravings as they. The manner of life which befits a teacher requires that he does not spend much time among crowds, but that he keeps quiet, and investigates the differences between various characters by careful research. This is the method of scientific physicians. They devote themselves mostly to their books, and so can diagnose the causes of complaints, and prescribe the remedies for them; they only come near to the sick so far as is necessary to discover the mischief, and administer the medicine, and do not play, or take meals, with them. Medical skill does not profess to be able to eat or play with patients, but to restore the sick to health.

Have done then, I beg, and do not keep worrying me with the same objections. Virtue is never vanquished by the cavils of chatterers. Instead of that, accept my view, and set a guard at the doors of your cars, to keep them from reporting everything they hear, and receiving it into the store-room, to the disturbance of your mind. And now allow me to tell the rest of my story; for I must hasten on my way.