CHRYS'OSTOM, JOHN (Gr. Chrysostomos, golden-mouth; so named from the splendor of his eloquence), was b. at Antioch in 347 A.D. His mother Anthusa was a pious woman, wholly devoted to her son, who grew up under her loving instructions into an earnest, gentle, and serious youth, passing through, as Neander significantly observes, none of those wild, dark struggles with sinful passions which left an ineffaceable impress on the soul of Augustine, and gave a somber coloring to his whole theology. He studied oratory under Libanius,'a heathen rhetorician; soon excelled his teacher; and, after deyoting some time to the study of philosophy, retired to a solitary place in Syria, and there read the Holy Scriptures. The ascetic severity of his life and studies brought on an illness which forced him to return to Antioch, where he was ordained deacon by bishop Meletius in 381, and presbyter by bishop Flavianus in 386. The eloquence, ear nestness, and practical tone of his preaching excited the attention of Jews, heathens, and heretics, and secured for him the reputation of the chief orator of the eastern church. In 397, the eunuch Eutropius, minister of the emperor Arcadius, who had been struck by the bold and brilliant preaching of C., elevated him to the episcopate of Constanti nople. C. immediately began to restrict the episcopal expenditure in which his prede cessors had indulged, and bestowed so large a portion of his revenues on hospitals and other charities, that he gained the surname of "John the Almoner." IIe also endeav ored to reform the lives of the clergy, and sent missionaries into Scythia, Persia, Pales tine, and other lands. His faithful discharge of his duties, especially in reproof of vices, excited the enmity of the patriarch Theophilus and of the empress Eudoxia, who succeeded in deposing and banishing him from the capital. Ile was soon recalled, to be banished again shortly afterwards. He now went to Nictea, in Bithynia; but was from thence removed to the little town of Cucusus, in the desert parts of the Taurus moun tains. Even here his zeal was not abated. He labored for the conversion of the Persians and Goths in the neighborhood, and wrote the seventeen letters (or rather moral essays) to Olympias, to whom he also addressed a treatise on the proposition—" None can hurt the man who will not hurt himself." The emperor, enraged by the general sympathy expressed towards C. by all true Christians, gave orders that he should he more remotely banished to a desolate tract on the Euxine, at the very verge of the eastern Roman empire. Accordingly, the old man was made to travel on foot, and with his bare head exposed to a burning sun. This cruelty proved fatal. C. died on the way at Comanum, in Pontus, Sept. 14, 407 A.n., blessing God with his dying lips. The news of his death excited much sorrow among all pious Christians, for C. was a man who drew the hearts
of his fellows after him; a lovable, manly Christian, hating lies, worldliness, hypocrisy, and all manner of untruthfulness, with that honest warmth of temper which all vigorous people relish. A sect sprang up after his death, or martyrdom as thay conceived it,. called Johannists, who refused to acknowledge his successors; nor did they return to the• general communion till 438, when the archbishop Proclus prevailed on the emperor Theodosius II. to bring back the body of the saint to Constantinople, where it was sol emnly interred, the emperor himself publicly imploring the pardon of heaven for the crime of his parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia. The Greek church celebrates the festival of C. on the 13th of Nov.; the Roman, on the 27th of January. In his/king/es (Thomas Aquinas said he would not give in exchange those on St. Matthew for the whole city of Paris) C. displays superior powers of exegesis. In general, he rejects the allegorical system of interpretation, and adheres to the grammatical, basing his doctrines and sen timents on a rational apprehension of the letter of Scripture. He is, however, far from being a bibliolater. He recognized the presence of a human .element in the Bible as well as a divine; and instead of attempting, by forced and artificial hypotheses, to reconcile what he thought irreconcilable in Scripture statements, he frankly admitted the existence of contradictions, and shaped his theory of inspiration accordingly. But his greatest and noblest excellence lay in that power, springing from the fervor and holiness of his heart, by which the consciences of the proud, the worldly, and the prof ligate were awakened, and all were made to feel the reality of the gospel message. The surname C. was first applied some time after his death, and, as it is supposed, by the sixth oecumenical council in 680. C.'s works are very numerous, and consist of, 1st, Homilies, on parts of Scripture and points of doctrine; 2d, Commentaries, on the whole Bible (part of which has perished); 3d, Epistles, addressed to various people; 4th, Trea. tises, on different subjects (such as Providence, the Priesthood, etc.); and 5th, Liturgies. Of these the most valuable, as well as the most studied, are the Homilies, which are held to be superior to everything of the kind in ancient Christian literature.
The most correct Greek edition of C.'s works is that by Henry Savil (8 vols., Eton, 1613); and the most complete Greek and Latin edition is that by Montfaueou (13 vols., Par. 1718-38; republished in 1834-40). The best authority in regard to C. is Nean der, who, besides treating of his life and labors in his Eirchengeschtate, published a life of this eminent father.