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We regret that the Spiritus Asperi and Lenes and the Iotas Subscripta,

are in some places wanting, and that in others they have been erroneously

placed.

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JOHN, surnamed Chrysostom on account of his eloquence, was born at Antioch, about A. D. 347. On his mother's side, he was descended from a wealthy and distinguished family. His father, Secundus, held an important situation in the staff of the Chief Military Governor of the eastern provinces of the Roman empire. The place of his nativity was one of the four great capitals of the civilized world, or of the Roman empire,2 inferior only to Old and New Rome,3 and of equal rank with Alexandria; the head and mother, as Chrysostom himself designates her, of all Roman Asia; favoured by nature and by art, the seat of institutions devoted to science, and the resort of men from all quarters of the globe.5 2 της οικεμενης.

1 Magister militum orientis. 3 Constantinople.

4 Hom. de Statius or ad populum Antiochen. III. § 1. πολέων των υπο την έω κειμενων κεφαλη και μητηρ The city contained according to Chrysostom, two hundred thousand inhabitants. Hom. in Ignat. § 4. ed. Montafacon, vol. II. p. 597.

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They came hither," says Libanius in his Antiochicus, which contains a very descriptive panegyrick of this city,

B

ANTIOCH.

But there was much iniquity in a city where the wealth and oriental pomp of the great,' the poverty and idleness of men met together from different countries, the luxuriance of nature, and a climate which stimulated the passions, contributed to promote every species of crime. Thus was Antioch, like other great cities, a centre of moral corruption,2 where the rising youth, whose education in those times was much neglected, were particularly exposed to the contagion of vice.

In these great capitals the female part of the community, although not entirely free from a love o famusement and show, often formed a sanctuary

"partly to enjoy the beautiful climate, partly from a love of luxury, partly to carry on commerce, or in any way to enrich themselves.' 66 Every one," says he, " may find countrymen among us. He who sitteth down in our market place may learn the manners of all cities." He names p. 333, Antioch and Athens, as the two principal cities, between which all the riches of the Greeks were in his time divided; the one the seat of literature for Europe, the other for Asia.

1 Chrysostom represents both this wealth and pomp in different passages of his sermons delivered at Antioch. For example, Hom. Matt. LXIII. § 4. "Thou indeed countest so many acres of land; ten, twenty, or more houses; as many baths; one or two thousand servants; and chariots, covered with silver and gold." The slaves of the principal Antiochians were covered with gold; even their beds were of ivory, inlaid with silver and gold. Vid. Hom. 1 Cor. XXI. § 6. and Concio 1. de Lazaro, § 7. He says, Hom. Matt. LXVI. § 3. The rich form one tenth part of the citizens, and the poor, who have nothing, another tenth. The remainder are of the middle class.'

It

Chrysostom says, Hom. Act. Ap. XXXVII. § 2. “ is not strange, that in the greater cities the people should be more depraved. Indeed it is natural, that it should be thus, where the occasions of temptation are more frequent. For so in the human body the disease is more violent, the more matter and food it have to nourish it. I have translated this passage according to what I conceived to be a necessary alteration: 66 καθαπερ γαρ εν σωματι ἡ νοσος χαλεπωτερα, όταν πλείονα έχει την ύλην.

""

MATERNAL EDUCATION.

for Christianity; and there were among the higher classes, not only persons given up to the pursuits of vanity, but women, whose hearts were deeply penetrated by the truths of the Gospel. The heathen were well aware, that by means of these women Christianity was maintained in families, and they inveighed against the influence, which they exercised over the minds of their husbands. The heathen Rhetorician Libanius reproached the Antiochians of rank, because they suffered themselves to be governed by those whom they ought to govern; and he asked them, why they did not profess the religion of Plato and of Pythagoras, instead of appealing to the authority of their mothers and their wives? And, thus it often happened, that while fathers, eager after wealth, distinction, and pleasure, either entirely neglected the education of their children, or regarded with indifference their religious and moral acquirements,2 Christian mothers animated by the spirit of the Gospel sacrificed the ruling passions of their sex to a life of retirement within the bosom of their families; meritoriously exerted themselves in the education of their sons, and anxiously sought by the aid of religion to guard their tender years from the contamination of surrounding vice. Many of the holy men who illumined the church during that age would not have acquired their high distinction, if pious mothers had not implanted in their opening minds the first seeds of that religion, which influenced the whole of their subsequent lives. We allude to the influence, which such women, as the 1 Vid. Liban. ed. Reiske, vol. i. p. 502.

2 Read the complaints of Libanius concerning those fathers, who either paid no attention to the bad lives of their children, or went so far as to praise them on that account, and encourage them in their evil ways. Liban. vol. III. p. 443.

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