David Hume - The Dark Ages

To Chrysostom the contrast between the life of the higher classes and the miseries of the toiling populace was such a painful spectacle, that he was almost a socialist. If he inveighs against the men for their banquets, he is no less severe on the women for their sumptuous mule-cars, their rich dresses, their jewellery, their coquettish toilettes. 100Their extravagance often involved their husbands in expenses which they could not afford. He denounces the use of silk and brocade. All “evils” which Chrysostom describes are characteristic — allowance being made for difference of environment — of all wealthy societies, pagan or christian. His passionate denunciations of the rich have the same import and value as the denunciations of modern European plutocrats by socialists.

The problem of marriage interested him, and he preached the unpopular doctrine that the two partners in marriage are equal, the woman having the same rights against an unfaithful husband as the man against an unfaithful wife. We should hardly require the express evidence with Chrysostom supplies, to know that marriages for money were frequent. He complains that children were excessively indulged, and that their fathers too often gave their sons the worst possible moral education. 101It is interesting to learn from his homilies that the treatment of slaves was still often marked by much of the old brutality. People passing in the street might often hear the furious outbreaks of an angry mistress beating her maid. Chrysostom describes vividly how a wife summoned her husband to aid her in punishing an offending servant. 102The girl is stripped, tied to the foot of the bed, whipped by the master, while the mistress exhausts her vocabulary of abuse. The offence was probably quite trivial, perhaps an awkwardness in assisting at the mistress’s toilette. 103The condition of domestic slaves had in some respects changed little more than human nature since the days of Juvenal. But harsh and brutal treatment was not more universal than in those days. There were many masters (as other passages of Chrysostom show) who took the deepest interest in the well-being of their slaves. And there was also another side to the question. The servants were often trying and maleficent, slandering and spying upon their owners. The troubles which were caused by the lying tongues of maidservants are actually urged by Chrysostom as an argument against marriage.

Christianity had not yet succeeded in abolishing all the old pagan customs from the celebrations of funerals and marriages. In the reign of Arcadius the usage was still maintained of hiring female mourners to sing dirges over the dead. Chrysostom considered it idolatry, and even threatened to excommunicate those who practised it. He also stigmatised the pagan practice of ablutions after the funeral ceremony, which were intended to purify from contact with the dead. The expense and ostentation which marked the funerals of the rich also earned his censure. More scandalous in the eyes of austere Christians were the survivals of pagan manners on the occasion of weddings. The Church had introduced an ecclesiastical ceremony in the presence of the bishop, but as soon as this was completed, the wedding was celebrated in the old way. The bride was conducted in procession at nightfall from the house of her father to that of the bridegroom. The procession was followed by troops of actors and actresses and dancing-girls, who were admitted to the house, where they danced indecently and sang indelicate songs. The epithalamia and the odes which Claudian composed on the occasions of the marriages of Honorius may give some idea of the licence which was still fashionable.

Chrysostom fought not only against the extravagance of the rich but also against the sensuality, gluttony, and avarice of the clergy and the monks, to whom his austerity was, in the words of his biographer, “as a lamp burning before sore eyes.” Women were introduced into the monasteries or shared the houses of priests as “spiritual sisters,” a practice which if often innocent was always a snare. 104Deaconesses, unable to adopt the meretricious apparel that had become the mode, arranged their coarse dresses with an immodest coquetry which made them more piquant than professional courtesans.

The Patriarch had his own devoted female admirers. The most distinguished was the deaconess Olympias, a rich lady, who in her early girlhood had been a favourite of Gregory Nazianzene. Her bounty to the poor won the heart of Chrysostom, to whom she proved a most unselfish and devoted friend. Another of his friends was Salvina, daughter of the Moor Gildo, whom Theodosius had given in marriage to Nebridius his wife’s nephew. In “A Letter to a Young Widow” Chrysostom contrasts the peaceful happiness of her life at Constantinople with the unrest of her father’s turbulent career. A deacon named Serapion was the Patriarch’s trusted and devoted counsellor, but his influence was not always wisely exerted. He had no judgment, and instead of trying to restrain the impetuous temper of Chrysostom, encouraged or incited him to rash acts.

With the common people the Patriarch enjoyed great popularity. He was no respecter of persons, and he interpreted Christianity in a socialistic sense which has not generally been countenanced or encouraged by the Church. Though it was not political but social inequality that he deprecated, and nothing was further from his thoughts than to upset the established order of things, the spirit of his teaching certainly tended to set the poor against the rich. On the occasion of an earthquake he said publicly that “the vices of the rich caused it, and the prayers of the poor averted the worst consequences.” It was easy for his enemies to fasten upon utterances like this and accuse him of “seducing the people.” His friendships with Olympias and other women whom he sometimes received alone supplied matter for another slander. Having ruined his digestive organs by excessive asceticism, he made a practice of not dining in company, and in consequence of this unsocial habit he was suspected of private gluttony.

For three years Chrysostom and Eudoxia were on the best of terms. Chrysostom owed his see, Eudoxia her throne, to Eutropius, and they both refused to be his creatures. But early in A.D. 401 she did something which evoked a stern rebuke from the Archbishop, and the consequence of his audacity was that he was not received at Court. We learn of this in connexion with an episode which reveals Eudoxia herself in an amiable light.

Porphyrius, the bishop of Gaza, with other clergy of that diocese, visited Constantinople in the spring of A.D. 401, to persuade the government to take strong measures for the suppression of pagan practices. For the citizens of Gaza still obstinately held to the worship of their old deities, Aphrodite, the Sun, Persephone, and above all Marnas, the Cretan Zeus. When the clergy reached the capital and secured lodgings, their first act was to visit Chrysostom. “He received us with great honour and courtesy, and asked us why we undertook the fatigue of the journey, and we told him. And he bade us not to despond but to have hope in the mercies of God, and said, ‘I cannot speak to the Emperor, for the Empress excited his indignation against me because I charged her with a thing which she coveted and robbed. And I am not concerned about his anger, for it is themselves they hurt and not me, and even if they hurt my body they do the more good to my soul… . To-morrow I will send for the eunuch Amantius, the castrensis (chamberlain) of the Empress, who has great influence with her and is really a servant of God, and I shall commit the matter to him.’ Having received these injunctions and a recommendation to God, we proceeded to our inn. And on the next day we went to the bishop and found in his house the chamberlain Amantius, for the bishop had attended to our affair and had sent for him and explained it to him. And when we came in, Amantius stood up and did obeisance to the most holy bishops, inclining his face to the ground, and they, when they were told who he was, embraced him and kissed him. And the archbishop John bade them explain orally their affair to the chamberlain. And Porphyrius explained to him all the concealment of the idolaters, how licentiously they perform the unlawful rites and oppress the Christians. And Amantius, when he heard this, wept and was filled with zeal for God, and said to them, ‘Be not despondent, fathers, for Christ can shield His religion. Do ye therefore pray, and I will speak to the Augusta.’