The Dark Ages Collection. David Hume
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from the Senate-house by Theodosius to be brought back, a momentary concession to the fears of the Roman pagans. And it is very probably due to superstitious fears that the work of restoring the walls of Rome was now taken in hand.93
When Stilicho went to Rome to enter upon his consulship,94 Claudian accompanied him, and his verses richly deserved the statue which was erected at the instance of the senate in the Forum of Trajan “to the most glorious of poets,” although (the inscription runs) “his written poems suffice to keep his memory eternal.”95
§ 5. John Chrysostom
It was during the interlude in which Gaïnas and Typhos were supreme that Eudoxia, who had borne Arcadius two daughters, was crowned Augusta (January 9, A.D. 400).96 Notwithstanding her German descent, she had no sympathies with the German party, though she had independently helped them to compass the fall of Eutropius. It is significant that of the hostages whom Gaïnas had demanded, John was notoriously her favourite and Saturninus was the husband of her intimate friend Castricia. The Empress was a woman of forceful character and impulsive temper,97 and after the eunuch’s fall she won unbounded influence over her weak and sluggish husband. Her historical importance centres in the conflict into which she was drawn with Chrysostom, a drama which was to settle the future relations between the Imperial and the Patriarchal authority. No critical collision had occurred before. With the exception of Valens no Emperor had resided constantly at Constantinople before Arcadius, who never left the capital except for a summer holiday at Ancyra. Moreover, the see had only recently attained to the first rank in the Eastern Empire (A.D. 381), and its primacy was hotly disputed by Alexandria. That the collision between Emperor and Patriarch occurred at this time was due principally to the aggressive and uncompromising character of Chrysostom.
John, the “golden-mouthed” preacher, was in his forty-sixth or forty-seventh year when he became bishop of Constantinople (February 26, A.D. 398).98 He was an independent and austere man, who in his own habits carried asceticism to excess, and his ways were rough and uncourtly. At Constantinople he found himself confronted by a superb court under the sway of Eudoxia. There is no reason to suppose that it was particularly vicious, but it was at least frivolous and embodied for him the pride of life and the pomps and vanities of the world.
Chrysostom stands alone among the great ecclesiastics of the later Empire in that his supreme interest lay not in controversial theology but in practical ethics. His aim was the moral reformation of the world, and as his work lay in two rich cities, Antioch and Constantinople, he conceived it to be one of his chief duties to strive against the flaunting luxury of the rich classes, and denounce the lavish expenditure of wealth on personal gratification, wealth which in his eyes should have been devoted to alleviating the lot of the poor. Thus we learn from his sermons, whether at Constantinople or at Antioch, many details as to the luxurious life of the higher classes. Many rich nobles possessed ten or twenty mansions and as many private baths; a thousand, if not wellnigh two thousand, slaves called them lord, and their halls were thronged with eunuchs, parasites, and retainers.99 In their gorgeous houses doors were of ivory, the ceilings lined with gold, the floors inlaid with mosaics or strewn with rich carpets; the walls of the halls and bedrooms were of marble, and wherever commoner stone was used the surface was beautified with gold plate. Nude statues, to the scandal of strict ecclesiastics, decorated the halls. Spacious verandahs and baths adjoined the houses, which were surrounded by gardens with fountains. The beds were made of ivory or solid silver, or, if on a less expensive scale, of wood plated with silver or gold. Chairs and stools were usually of ivory, and the most homely vessels were often of the most costly metal; the semicircular tables or sigmas, made of gold or silver, were so heavy that two youths could hardly lift one. Oriental cooks were employed; and at banquets the atmosphere was heavy with all the perfumes of the East, while flute girls, whose virtue was as easy as in the old days of Greece and Rome, entertained the feasters.
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.100 Their 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.101 It 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.102 The 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.103 The 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.104 Deaconesses, 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