St. John Chrysostom
The
ambiguity and intrigue surrounding John, the great preacher (his name
means "golden-mouthed") from Antioch, are characteristic of the life of
any great man in a capital city. Brought to Constantinople after a dozen
years of priestly service in Syria, John found himself the reluctant
victim of an imperial ruse to make him bishop in the greatest city of
the empire. Ascetic, unimposing but dignified, and troubled by stomach
ailments from his desert days as a monk, John became a bishop under the
cloud of imperial politics.
If his body was weak, his tongue was powerful. The content of his
sermons, his exegesis of Scripture, were never without a point.
Sometimes the point stung the high and mighty. Some sermons lasted up to
two hours.
His lifestyle at the imperial court was not
appreciated by many courtiers. He offered a modest table to episcopal
sycophants hanging around for imperial and ecclesiastical favors. John
deplored the court protocol that accorded him precedence before the
highest state officials. He would not be a kept man.
His zeal led
him to decisive action. Bishops who bribed their way into office were
deposed. Many of his sermons called for concrete steps to share wealth
with the poor. The rich did not appreciate hearing from John that
private property existed because of Adam's fall from grace any more than
married men liked to hear that they were bound to marital fidelity just
as much as their wives were. When it came to justice and charity, John
acknowledged no double standards.
Aloof, energetic, outspoken,
especially when he became excited in the pulpit, John was a sure target
for criticism and personal trouble. He was accused of gorging himself
secretly on rich wines and fine foods. His faithfulness as spiritual
director to the rich widow, Olympia, provoked much gossip attempting to
prove him a hypocrite where wealth and chastity were concerned. His
actions taken against unworthy bishops in Asia Minor were viewed by
other ecclesiastics as a greedy, uncanonical extension of his authority.
Theophilus, archbishop of Alexandria, and Empress Eudoxia were
determined to discredit John. Theophilus feared the growth in importance
of the Bishop of Constantinople and took occasion to charge John with
fostering heresy. Theophilus and other angered bishops were supported by
Eudoxia. The empress resented his sermons contrasting gospel values
with the excesses of imperial court life. Whether intended or not,
sermons mentioning the lurid Jezebel (1 Kings 9:1—21:23) and
impious Herodias (Mark 6:17-29) were associated with the empress, who
finally did manage to have John exiled. He died in exile in 407.
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