thirty days after their condemnation. Happy indeed were those days, when bishops dared to admonish sovereigns of their duty to God and to His Church; and still more happy, when emperors were not ashamed to acknowledge their sins, and to manifest their contrition in the sight of all the world. The great Theodosius was thenceforward the friend of St. Ambrose; and when he felt himself about to depart from this life, he sent for that venerable bishop, and placed his children in his hands. St. Ambrose composed many eloquent and pious books, and died A.D. 397.

ST. JOHN, called CHRYSOSTOM (the goldenmouthed) for his eloquence, was originally intended for the bar; but forsaking the path of worldly honour, he retired from the world to devote himself to prayer and the study of Scripture; and afterwards, being appointed presbyter of Antioch, he became the most celebrated preacher of his age; so that in 397, when the see of Constantinople was vacant, the Emperor Honorius sent for him, and caused him to be ordained bishop by a great synod of bishops. The sanctity and severity of doctrine and practice which had made him so remarkable at Antioch, led him to exercise a vigilant and unpopular strictness of discipline in the imperial city; and his zeal displayed itself further in visiting the neighbouring province, and removing unworthy bishops. The people of Constantinople heard his sermons eagerly and insatiably; and the crowds were so great that their lives were endangered by the multitude, all endeavouring to press nearer to him, that they might hear more accurately; while he himself, sitting in the midst of the church, taught them from the desk of the reader. But the severity of his discipline, and his condemnation of vice, raised against him many enemies; and having taken the part of some

monks who had been oppressed by Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, that prelate, availing himself of the assistance of the empress, whom Chrysostom had offended by a sermon, in which he spoke of women with but little respect, came to Constantinople and held a synod, in which Chrysostom was deposed by his enemies. But when the people heard it, they assembled in the church, required a larger synod to be held, resisted the imperial officers who were sent to take their bishop into exile; and when, at length, he was removed, they broke into insurrection, and surrounded the palace with cries and lamentations, demanding the recall of Chrysostom, which the emperor was obliged to grant. Restored to his see by a synod of sixty bishops, Chrysostom again, ere long, fell under the imperial displeasure in consequence of his objections to the erection of a statue of the Empress Eudoxia. He was then driven forth into exile in Armenia, where he died in 407; and the eastern and western Churches were for some time divided on his account, as the former maintained the lawfulness of his expulsion, while the latter regarded him as a saint.

St.

ST. JEROME and ST. AUGUSTINE, the most learned of all the fathers, now adorned the Church. The former spent the greater part of his life in the monastic state, in Palestine, and died in 420. Augustine was born in Africa, and in his early life fell into vices, and adopted the Manichæan heresy ; but being at Milan, he became an attendant on the ministry of Ambrose, while his pious mother Monica prayed continually for his conversion. One day, a Christian, named Pontitian, coming to visit him, saw on his table the epistles of St. Paul, and learned, to his great joy, that Augustine devoted much of his time to the study of Scripture. The conversation gradually turned on the life of St. Antony and the

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Egyptian and eastern monks, of whom Augustine had never heard before. When Pontitian had described all their piety, and self-denial, and zeal, and also mentioned the effect which the recital had produced on two officers of the emperor at Treves, who, on hearing it, had forsaken the world, and embraced a religious life, St. Augustine was deeply moved by the comparison of his own life and conduct with what he had heard, and went forth into the garden in the greatest agitation and compunction, where, having wept a long time, and prayed to God, he heard from a neighbouring house the voice of a child often repeating these words,-"Take-read;" and regarding it as a sort of heavenly admonition, he returned to the house, and took up the epistles of St. Paul, when the first verse he read was, "Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." His mind was now completely changed: he received baptism from St. Ambrose, and returned to Africa, where he gave himself up to retirement, prayer, meditation, and the composition of books against the Manichæan heresy. He sold all his possessions and gave them to the poor, and was made presbyter, and afterwards bishop of Hippo, where he lived in the monastic state. His life was devoted to the maintenance of the truth against heathens, heretics, and schismatics, especially against the Pelagians and the Donatists; and his various writings made him celebrated in all parts of the world. When seized with fever, and lying on his death-bed, this eminent saint caused the seven penitential psalms to be recited; and having desired them to be fixed up before him, he read them continually with many tears. He commanded that he should

never be disturbed, and spent his whole remaining time in prayer, until at length he calmly and peacefully expired, in the presence of all his friends, A.D. 430.

I have already spoken of Sr. CYRIL of Alexandria, and ST. LEO the Great, bishop of Rome, as the great opponents of the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies in the fifth century: both of these eminent prelates left many writings, which are still extant. ST. BENEDICT, a man of eminent piety and zeal, in 529 founded the monastery of Mount Casino, in Italy; and his rule was adopted for many centuries by all the monasteries in the western Church; but they very soon relaxed the strictness of its observance, and the conduct of the monks too frequently reflected disgrace on their profession.

CHAPTER IX.

UNITY AND DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH.

A.D. 320-680.

HMONG the Christian Churches throughout the world, the Church of the imperial city of Rome had obtained an early distinction. Seated in the capital of the world, abounding in wealth and in numbers, remarkable for a munificence which was felt by the distressed and afflicted in all parts, endowed with a firmness of faith which opposed a steady and formidable resistance to every heresy, and founded by the holy apostles Peter and Paul, the Roman Church stood conspicuous amongst Christian communities; and even in the third cen

tury, the neighbouring Churches in Italy, Sicily, and the adjoining islands, placed themselves under its jurisdiction. The first oecumenical synod of Nice approved of this jurisdiction, which constituted the patriarchate of Rome; but the bishop of Rome had no ordinary jurisdiction beyond his patriarchate. The appeals of St. Athanasius and the other orthodox bishops, when persecuted by the Arians, to Julius of Rome, and the support which they received from that bishop, led the great synod of Sardica, in 341, to give the Roman bishop the power of ordering the causes of bishops to be re-heard, in cases where it appeared to him that they were unjustly condemned. This decree was indeed never received in the eastern or the African Church; and only gradually, after the lapse of some centuries, in the western Church; but it laid a foundation, on which the Roman see began to build its pretensions. In the latter part of the fourth century, the spirit of encroachment began to work in that Church; its bishops now extended their jurisdiction beyond the ancient limits approved by the synod of Nice, and invested the bishop of Thessalonica with the title of "Vicar of the Apostolical See" in Illyricum, with the view of bringing, by this means, that province and Greece under their ecclesiastical sway. In the following century, the bishops of Arles and of Seville were declared vicars for Gaul and Spain: in the sixth, Augustine was made vicar for Britain. The principal bishops in each country were thus engaged in the interests of Rome, and were encouraged gradually to make inroads on the liberties of the Churches. These vicars were appointed chiefly under the pretence that the Roman bishop was bound by his station to see that the ancient discipline of the Church, and the law of Christ, were duly observed; and this notion was confirmed, if not cre