Dialogue on the Life of John Chrysostom 11

Deacon: Then, Father, while these things were being done, where was the blessed John staying, and the rest of the bishops?

Bishop: Of the rest of the bishops, some were shut up, some were even dragged off, others went into hiding. John, with Cyriacus and Eulysius, [was held] by soldiers of the prefect … on the charge of burning the church. Later Cyriacus and Eulysius were brought in chains together [to trial and released]; but the holy John, besides his other bold words, sent them this last one: ‘Even if in other matters you have given me no opportunity to defend myself, at least let me be heard on the matter of the church, whether I was the cause of the burning, as you say.’ Not heard even on this, he is sent by soldiers to a most desolate little town of Armenia, besieged night and day by the Isaurians, to be slaughtered: this is Cucusus. Arsacius, the brother of the blessed Nectarius, was brought in to the place of John, a man who revealed the holy mysteries, though Arsacius was more voiceless than a fish and more inactive than a frog. (For there are times when action too speaks, especially when it is done for the sake of the good itself.) He kept his life for fourteen months and then dies, having perjured himself on the Gospels; for he had sworn to his brother Nectarius never to accept ordination to a bishopric, when Nectarius reproached him for refusing to become bishop in Tarsus, as though he were watching for his brother's death. The causes of his perjury were, first, vainglory, through which he was courting, so to speak, his brother's wife; and afterwards shame, his brother's reproofs having come upon him like a prophecy. After him [came Atticus, one of the presbyters], a craftsman of every device against John. Seeing none of the Eastern bishops in communion with him, nor any of the people of the city, because of what had followed so lawlessly and against all rule, he contrives, ignorant though he is of the divine Scriptures, [to obtain imperial rescripts] … The rescript against the bishops contained this threat: ‘If any of the bishops does not communicate with Theophilus, Porphyrius and Atticus, let him be expelled from the Church and stripped of his own property.’ Thereupon some, weighed down by the burden of their possessions, communicated even against their will; the poorer, and those weaker in sound faith, were drawn into communion by promises of gifts; but others, disregarding family, property, homeland, perishable glory and bodily affliction, preserved the nobility of their souls by flight, keeping in mind the saying of the Gospel, ‘If they persecute you in this city, flee to the other’, and repeating to themselves the word of Proverbs, ‘Possessions will not help in the day of wrath.’ Some reached Rome, others were kept safe in the mountains, others in the retreats of the ascetics, from the Jewish wickedness. The rescript against the laity ran: those in office to lose the rank of their office; soldiers to be deprived of their belts; the rest of the populace and artisans to be fined heavily in gold and sent into exile. Nevertheless, though this was being done, the prayers of the zealous were performed in the open air with much hardship, out of love for the Saviour who said, ‘I am the way and the truth’, and again, ‘Take courage; I have overcome the world.’

The blessed John lived one year at Cucusus, feeding very many of the poor of Armenia not so much with grain as with the word; for a great famine had struck that country at that time. Envious of him for this too, the brother-killers move him to [Arabissus], [hoping] he might leave this life; and there again he shone not a little by his virtues (for a city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor a brightly burning lamp be covered by a wooden bushel); for he roused, as from sleep, toward the ray of the word, those from all the surrounding country who were deeply stupefied by unbelief. Burning more fiercely with the flame of envy, Severian, Porphyrius and certain other bishops of Syria contrive to have him moved from there too. For he was a burden to them not only in what was thought to be his prosperity but far more in his adversity, since they were ill-equipped to understand the nature of trials, and did not remember the divine oracle given to the Apostle in his afflictions: ‘My grace is sufficient for you; for my power is [made perfect in weakness].’ [Seeing people going] from Antioch to Armenia, and from there back to Antioch, and John's grateful philosophy being sung everywhere, they prayed even that he might be cut off from life … first, as though whipped by the reports … (such is envy, that hates the good); so that those of the clergy who followed them, seeing it, said in wonder: ‘Look, a dead man frightening the living, and bogeys too!’ Bah! Men clothed with worldly power, wrapped in the wealth of the Church with authority and with the government of affairs as well, fear the priest who is alone, without a city, weak in the flesh, an exile, and grow pale and writhe. No longer able to keep the serpent hidden in the tent, they send to the capital and obtain another, severer rescript with a penalty: that within a short time he should be moved to Pityus, an utterly desolate place of the Tzani lying on the shore of the Pontic Sea. The soldiers of the praetorian prefect who conducted him hurried him along the road, saying that their orders were such that if he died on the way they would be rewarded with higher rank. One of them, caring less for his present service, showed some kindness in secret; the other was so harsh and surly that he took the courtesies offered him by those they met, who hoped he would spare the saint, as insults, caring only that John should die a hard death. When there was heavy rain he set out regardless, so that streams of water ran down his back and chest; and again he treated the fierce heat of the sun as a luxury, knowing that the blessed man's bald head, like Elisha's, suffered in it. In a city or village where there was the comfort of a bath, the wretch would not allow a moment's halt. Walking that most painful road for three months amid all this, the saint remained like a shining star, his poor body like an apple on the tips of the branches reddened by the sun.

When they came near Comana they passed it as though it were a bridge, and stayed outside the walls at the martyr's shrine, five or six miles away. That night the martyr of that place stood by him, Basiliscus by name, who was martyred at Nicomedia under Maximian while bishop of Comana, together with Lucian, a presbyter of Antioch, in Bithynia; and he said: ‘Take courage, brother John; for tomorrow we shall be together.’ They say that he had told the presbyter of the place beforehand: ‘Prepare the place for brother John; for he is coming.’ John, trusting the oracle, begged them the next day to stay until the fifth hour. They would not be persuaded, and drove on; but after going about thirty stades they turn back again to the place of the shrine from which they had set out, since he was gravely ill. Having come there, he asks for bright garments worthy of his life, takes off his former clothes and puts these on, sober, changing even his shoes; the rest he distributed to those present. And having communicated [in the symbols of the Lord, he made his last] prayer before those present, saying his usual words, ‘Glory [to God for all things]’, and, [signing himself] at the last Amen, he stretched out his feet, which had run beautifully for the salvation of those who chose repentance and for the reproof of those who richly cultivated sin. If his reproofs did not help the wicked, that was not the weakness of the one who spoke freely, but the recklessness of those who would not bear them. Added to his fathers, having wiped off the dust, and having passed over to Christ, as it is written, ‘You will come to your grave like ripe grain [gathered] in its season.’ So great a swarm of virgins and ascetics and of those known for holiness of life was present from Syria, Cilicia, Pontus and Armenia that most people thought they had come by appointment. [After the rites of burial,] his poor body, like a victorious athlete's, is buried with Basiliscus in the same martyr's shrine.

[Chapter 12] [Theodore, amazed at what he had heard,] asked, quoting the Scripture: ‘Since it is written, “Do not miss the discourse of the elders; for they too learned from their fathers”, tell us without hesitation the reason why he ate alone, and whether he really ate alone, as people say.’

[Bishop:] It is admitted that he ate alone. But I did not want you, most excellent Theodore, to inquire into the concerns of gluttonous children. Being a man, you ought to look for the virtues of men: how he stood as to fearlessness, money, self-control, gentleness and justice, almsgiving, prudence and courage, forgetfulness [of wrongs] or remembrance. For food will not commend us to God, neither if we eat nor if we do not eat; but knowledge put to work in action does. He ate alone, as far as I know, for these reasons. First, he did not drink wine, because of the heat in his head, except sometimes in hot weather, when he used [a drink] made with roses. Second, his stomach was out of order from some illness, [so that he often found the food prepared for him distasteful] and asked for what was not available. Then there were times when he forgot to eat, fasting until evening, partly drawn off by the business of the Church, partly absorbed in spiritual contemplation; for he strove to be at a loss over nothing in the divine Scriptures; and such things tend to bring either fasting or light eating. And it is the habit of diners, if [the servant] does not bring them the cup lukewarm on his fingertips …, to turn the friendliness of the table into an accusation. But above all, I think, and more truly, he was sparing toward those who came for the sake of luxury, considering spending on such people sacrilege; at the same time he cut off opportunities for theft from the stewards, so that they could not multiply tenfold the prices of provisions in the accounts and appropriate the portions of the poor. Besides, considering the size of the city, he reflected that as Christ's steward he must either grant this honour to every man of rank or offer it to no one. Looking at the uproar of dinner tables and the number of …, he bade a long farewell to such evil talk, chanting to himself the word of Acts: ‘Men and brothers, it is not right for us to serve tables; but let us appoint devout men for this need; we will devote ourselves to the word and to prayer.’ For as a racehorse … the teacher [who shirks] discourses on virtue puts forward the door of the dining room; and would that it were at least for the hungry and needy, from whom one might gain the Master's blessing, ‘I was hungry and you fed me’; but it is only for the rich, for the sake of good report, or of fading glory, or to be invited back; or, if none of these, so as not to be ill spoken of; not remembering the Lord's woe, which says, ‘Woe to you when all men speak well of you.’ He did not say ‘the poor’, but ‘men’. For so their fathers did to the [false prophets]. Let us not seek, then, [the reputation of false prophets], as the vain[glorious do]. For John [came] neither eating nor drinking, in the way of righteousness, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ [The Son of Man came] eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard.’

[Theodore:] [It was not] as one finding fault with or attacking such asceticism, excellent Father, that I put my question to your precision; for I knew the man's [good sense] both from his fame itself and from his writings that have reached us, homilies or letters; but [I asked] so that, having learned his purpose, I might imitate the practice. For who is so utterly foolish as not to know that the loss from the table is greater than the gain, unless there is need, in necessity, to entertain saints?

Bishop: [Nor did I say this] disparaging the virtue of the fathers, especially hospitality. For it is one of the other virtues that contribute to piety, by which the lords patriarchs too, the one caught the Saviour God at his table, the other entertained the angels, the one finding a son in old age as his wage, the other salvation from Sodom with his daughters; of whom the Apostle too speaks, urging us to imitation: ‘[Do not neglect] hospitality.’ … the hospitable man [must] have the prudence of the serpent and the innocence of the dove, obeying two sayings, ‘Give to everyone who asks you’, and ‘Do not bring every man into your house’, lest, receiving a wolf instead of a sheep, or a bear instead of an ox, he sell his gain for loss. He ought [to consider] first the place where one is stationed, whether a desert or a crowded city; then his own suitability, whether he is able to bear strange manners; then to discern the one who ought to be helped, whether he is rich or poor, healthy or sick, in need of food or of clothing; for in these things practical mercy is accomplished. For the blessed Abraham did not entertain consuls or generals or the eminent men of this earthly world, among whom horses … with bit or bridle … belching out the din of arrogance; but, living in a desert place, he welcomed those who came there. And those crossing the desert came to the patriarch either for virtue's sake or because of extreme beggary and poverty. (For poverty is a mean between the excess of wealth and the deficiency of beggary.) Likewise Lot, living in a city worse than the desert, rightly welcomed the strangers who came there, because of the ways of its inhabitants. But if one lives in a most law-abiding city, such as Constantine's, in which everyone is hospitable, [it is] superfluous …; lest perhaps one of the presbyters, leaving the ministry of the word, …, obliterating pure knowledge with distraction of thoughts, [earn the prophet's reproach, ‘Your innkeepers] mix the wine with water.’ For how far teaching surpasses hospitality! The one benefits those of its own time, the other those who come after as well; the one profits only those present, the other the absent too, those present through the tongue, the absent through writings. Such was the Saviour in the flesh: he fed five thousand with loaves, not in a city but in the desert; he taught those present by his tongue; and he saved the world by the written Gospels. Such above all are the words of those who bear the Spirit. Do not marvel, Theodore, if someone fills the hungry with food, but if someone frees a soul from some ignorance. For one who satisfies the belly, by a gift of silver or bread or vegetables, is easily found to supply the need; but the nourisher of the word is rarely found, and when he is found he is either not believed or believed with difficulty, since the evil spirits always work against the salvation of souls. This famine of the word of teaching the Master God threatened to bring as a punishment, saying through the prophet: ‘I will bring a famine on them, not a famine of bread and water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord.’ As for bodily famine, one can leave the city or country in need and be saved in another, as the holy patriarchs went down from Palestine to Egypt; but of the famine of the mind, which [comes from the lack] of teachers, another prophet said: ‘They will run about from east to west seeking the word of the Lord, and they will not find it.’ For what good does not spring from teaching? And what untimely thing is not found to come from untimely food or banqueting? Diseases, quarrels, the outrages below the belly, and all that follows.

When was Eve driven out of paradise? Was it not when she listened to the serpent and ate of the tree, not content with the food appointed? When did Cain commit the pollution of fratricide? Was it not when he tasted the firstfruits first, keeping the first share for his own gluttony? When did Job's children find the table an improvised grave? Was it not when they were eating and drinking? When did [Esau] fall from the blessing? Was it not when he served his belly, deceived by the meal? When did Saul fall from the kingdom? Was it not when he ate the finest of the sheep against the law? When did the people of Israel provoke God? Was it not when they craved the Egyptian table, demanding meat and pots from their teacher? Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, why were they killed in one hour in battle? Was it not because they snatched with forks from the cauldrons the meat that belonged to the sacrifice? And why did Jacob, the blameworthy one, kick? Was it not because he was filled, and grew fat, and grew thick, and grew broad? When did Sodom [perish]? [Was it not when] they corrupted their minds with banquets, [as is said] by Ezekiel: ‘In fullness of wine and abundance of bread they lived in luxury, she’, that is, the city, ‘and her daughters’, that is, the villages, which always share the law of the city? And when was the reasoning of self-control relaxed in the ancient people? Was it not when they likewise grew old on their couches, the prophet lamenting: ‘Those who eat kids from the flocks and suckling calves from the herds, drinking strained wine and anointing themselves with the finest perfumes, living in luxury on their beds, and grieved not at all at the ruin of Joseph’? On whom did Isaiah bring his woe? Was it not on those who rise early for banquets? He says: ‘Woe to those who rise early and pursue strong drink, who wait till evening; for wine will inflame them; for with [lyre and harp] they drink wine, but do not regard the works of the Lord.’ When were the priests of Bel put to shame by Daniel? Was it not when the ashes convicted them, catching them out through food and drink? And what need is there to speak of those who choose to walk the broad way and revile the narrow? The saving word suffices me to refute the chasers of kitchen smells, where it shows the nameless rich man, feasting splendidly every day in this present life, longing for crumbs and a drop from poor Lazarus and missing them. Let us look also at the chorus of the saints of old, and learn fully what stamp of teaching they used: that of a holy life and a straight word, or that of banquets and feasting. First, was Enoch translated by faith or by a banquet? Then Noah preserved the race of the world by faith in the ark, when the [flood came]… : was it … and continual impure works, or by fasting and prayers? [And when] after so great a flood [he took a little relief in wine, do not] the Scriptures proclaim [his disgrace]? Did the blessed Abraham overcome the five kings at Sodom by faith and righteousness, or by food and drink, when he rescued Lot?

And Theodore said: If you bring Abraham into the discussion, then hear from me too: anyone will tell you that he overcame in war by faith, but caught God by a table.

[Bishop:] Bah! Since Abraham caught God by a table, shall we all then abandon faith and the other virtues and love banquets? [We shall then differ in] nothing [from innkeepers and caterers,] who have fortified [the streets with buildings] for this very purpose, for the sake of gain. Then let the virgins too, who strive to be holy in body and spirit for the glory of God, give birth, since Mary bore Christ; but if they do so, they will [differ] in nothing from courtesans. If teachers lay tables because of Abraham, let virgins also give birth because of Mary. Away with that, most honoured man: what was done well in its own time, or is done …, as advantage dictates. Then, did the wrestler [Jacob] carry off Laban's goods by asceticism or by presiding over banquets, when he said, ‘I was burned by the heat and by the frost of the night, and sleep fled from me’, and asked in his prayer for nothing more than bread and a garment, saying, ‘If you give me bread to eat and a garment to wear, of all that you give me I will give you a tenth’? He did not say, ‘I will spend it on tables.’ Moses, the interpreter of God and his faithful servant, what table did he prepare when he assembled the people at the mountain? What bowls of drink did he have? He who struck the rock with his rod because of the people's unbelief, [the leader] of a people of six hundred thousand, [did he provide] bowls clear as air, sows' wombs, birds from the Phasis, fish from the deep sea, strained wine from Tyre and fine washed loaves … for those he taught, or the word?

[Theodore:] But someone will object to this, Father: ‘Give me too manna and that water, and I ask for nothing more.’

Bishop: And who is so tiresome as to prefer bodily manna and running water to spiritual teaching? Then Samuel, the teacher of the people for twenty-five years at Ramathaim: whom did he ever turn from idols by a table and not by the word? When did the king who was also prophet and psalmist set a table of luxury, he who said, ‘I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink [with weeping]’? [The] maker of a [world-wide] fast, who brought the gluttons against their will to three years and six months without food, by what table did he free them from sin, Elijah the Tishbite? What cooks did he have? Did he not receive his daily bread by ravens? The wise Daniel, eyewitness of things to come, by what table did he instruct the Assyrians? Was it not by fasting and prayer that he destroyed the dragon, overturned Bel, muzzled the lions, and persuaded the king to deny his ancestral gods by confessing the truly existing God? What tables, what fine fare did the chorus of the other prophets and apostles enjoy? Were they not teachers? Were they not entrusted with the [world] under heaven? Are we not their successors? Does not the word wish us to be their imitators, attending to their ways, as Paul teaches when he says, ‘Considering the outcome of their way of life, imitate their faith’? What honey-cakes did John the Baptist, the herald of repentance, have in the desert, who not only prepared no banquets for those who came to him, but offered even his company as something bitter, with rebuke? For not only with his sharp look did he [pierce] their defiled conscience, but with his very dress, and much more with his word, cutting the abscesses of their souls as with a sword: ‘Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not rely only on baptism, or on being children of Abraham.’ What of the teacher of the nations, the abolisher of circumcision so as to establish the circumcision of faith, the vessel of election, Paul? Is he ever found with leisure for the table, he who more than all owed this, and who, since he was dealing with unbelieving gentiles, should have made his approach first through the table? And what does he write to Timothy, bishop of Ephesus? ‘Attend to the munificence of the table’, or ‘to reading, to exhortation, to teaching’? In these the blessed John was especially unhesitating and vigorous. ‘Be urgent in season and out of season.’ [Let no one complain of the] Word's charge to him, that two things are bitter and only one gentle, as though [the Apostle] added even that sparingly: ‘Convince, rebuke’ are bitter …, [then comes] ‘exhort’, and not ‘[flatter]’; which, done skilfully, is more bitter to those … than the reproofs. For there, perhaps, the soul resisting from some anger is insensible to the words of reproof; but here it is [worn down] quietly and little by little by gentle words joined with truth. And what does he remind him of? Banquets and feasts, or the noble record of afflictions? He says: ‘For you have followed my conduct, how I was set in purpose to do everything for the glory of God, [my] persecutions.’ In his reproofs of error is there anywhere a mention of a table? And let us see what he writes again to Titus, the bishop of Crete: about food and drink, or about reproofs and teaching? He says: ‘For this reason I left you in Crete, so that you might [set in order what remains] …; not to teach other doctrine, nor to attend to myths and endless genealogies’, adding also the manner of reproof: ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies.’ Let the belly-worshippers, the table-giants and the women-hawks who blame John's asceticism go through the Old and New Testaments and tell us where they found a banquet praised, except perhaps toward foreigners, and that to make peace by the law of the table among beasts and barbarians. [What banquet has not been the beginning] of sin? Why do I say sin? Perhaps even of the greater sins of idolatry and fratricide, as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’ Play is the offspring of drunkenness: ‘Come, let us make gods who will go before us.’ For those who had been shaken by wine sought gods that move, abandoning him who is unshakable and fills all things without walking. And what does the prophet say? ‘The lips of the priest shall study banquets, for they will seek dinners and lunches from him’? Or, ‘The lips of the priest [shall guard] knowledge, and they shall seek the law from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord’, and not a cook? And the tower in Chalanne, when was it built? Before wine or after wine? Was it not after wine, when Noah planted the vine and was the first to [suffer] the disgrace [of drunkenness]? If so, it was not because of the drinking or the planting, but because of the excess. When was Joseph sold by his brothers? When they were shepherding the sheep and busy with them, or when, slaughtering the best and eating at leisure, they plotted their envy against him at a banquet? Where did they hand over John the Baptist's head on a platter to the little harlot? In an assembly of wisdom, or in a banquet of lawlessness? Did the blessed Paul prolong his speech until midnight while drinking and eating, or while fasting and teaching and leading to faith those who did not know God? Jesus Christ himself, the corrector of human error, where is he found eating in a city, except at the Passover, which was the fulfilment of the mysteries? And what is he found saying to the disciples when they were anxious: about food or about readings? ‘Work,’ he says, ‘not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures.’ So let the good John too say with the Lord: ‘My banquet is the teaching and distribution of the word, for which I was chosen, for the salvation of the people. For food will not commend us to God, neither if we eat nor if we do not eat.’ For this is the custom of the pagans: to deceive with tables those they entice, since they cannot persuade by word, saying, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ To them the Apostle applies correction more sharply, saying, ‘Do not be deceived; bad company corrupts good morals’, calling ‘bad company’ (literally, ‘bad conversations’) the talk that revolves around such things.