Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/396

 376 THE DECLINE AND FALL Eudoxia herself, had a much larger share of guilt to divide among a smaller proportion of criminals. The personal applications of the audience were anticipated, or confirmed, by the testimony of their own conscience ; and the intre])id preacher assumed the dangerous right of exposing both the offence and the offender to the public abhorrence. The secret resentment of the court encouraged the discontent of the clergy and monks of Constanti- nople, who were too hastily reformed by the fervent zeal of their archbishop. He had condemned, from the pulpit, the domestic females of the clergy of Constantinople, who, under the name of servants or sistere, afforded a perpetual occasion either of sin or of scandal. The silent and solitary ascetics who had secluded themselves from the world were intitled to the warmest approbation of Chrysostom ; but he despised and stig- matized, as the disgrace of their holy profession, the crowd of degenerate monks, who, from some unworthy motives of pleasure or profit, so frequently infested the streets of the capital. To the voice of persuasion the archbishop was obliged to add the terrors of authority ; and his ardour, in the exercise of ecclesias- tical jurisdiction, was not always exempt from passion ; nor was it always guided by prudence. Chrysostom was naturally of a choleric disposition.'^ Although he struggled, according to the precepts of the gospel, to love his private enemies, he indulged himself in the privilege of hating the enemies of God and of the church ; and his sentiments were sometimes delivered with too much energy of countenance and expression. He still maintained, from some considerations of health or abstinence, his former habits of taking his repasts alone ; and this inhospi- table custom,^^ which his enemies imputed to pride, contributed, their attachment to Chrysostom. Three noble and opulent ^^dovs, Marsa, Castricia, and Eugraphia, were the leaders of the persecution (Pallad. Dialog, tom. xiii. p. 14). It was impossible that they should forgive a preacher who re- proached their affectation to conceal, by the ornaments of dress, their age and ugli- ness (Pallad. p. 27). Olympias, by equal zeal, displayed in a more pious cause, has obtained the title of saint. See Tillemont, M(5m. Eccl^. tom. xi. 416-440. ■"Sozomen, and more especially Socrates, have defined the real character of Chrysostom with a temperate and impartial freedom, very offensive to his blind admirers. Those historians lived in the next generation, when party violence was abated, and had conversed with many persons intimately acquainted with the virtues and imperfections of the saint. 45 Palladius (tom. xiii. p. 40, S:c.) very seriously defends the archbishop: i. He never tasted wine. 2. The weakness of his stomach required a peculiar diet. 3. Business, or study, or devotion, often kept him fasting till sunset. 4, He de- tested the noise and levity of great dinners. 5. He saved the expense for the use of the poor. 6. He was apprehensive, in a capital like Constantinople, of the envy and reproach of partial invitations.