" He must not indeed despise the approving demonstrations of men ; but as little must he court them, nor trouble himself when his hearers withhold them. True and imperturbable comfort in his labors he finds only in the con- sciousness of having his discourse framed and wrought out to the approval of God." * Nevertheless the book as a whole is unsatisfactory. A comparison of it with the " Reformed Pas- tor " of Baxter, which is far deeper and richer in all that per- tains to subjective experimental Christianity and the proper ' Hieron. ad Eustochium, and especially ad Nepotianum, de vita clericorum et monachorum (Opera, ed. Vail. torn. i. p. 252 sqq.). Yet neither does he spare the monks, but says, ad Nepot. : "Nonnulli sunt ditiores monachi quam fuerant secula- res et clerici, qui possident opes sub Christo paupere, quas sub locuplete et fallaci Diabolo non habuerant." ^ Lib. xxvii. c. 3, sub ann. 3G7. ' Uep\ Upcuffvin]^, or De Sacerdotio libri sex. The work has been often published separately, and several times translated into modern languages (into German, for example, by Hasselbach, 1820, and Ritter, 1821 ; into English by HoUier, 1740, Buwce, 1759 ; Hohler, 1837 ; Marsh, 1844 ; and best by B. Harris Cowper, London, 1866). Comp. the Ust of twenty-three different separate editions and translations in Lomler: Job. Chrysost. Opera praestantissima Gr. et Lat. Rudolph. 1840, p. viii, ix. * De Sacerdotio, lib. vi. cap. 2-8. * nphs dpisKiiav rov @fov, lib. v. c. 7. 254 THIRD PERIOD. A.D.' 311-590. care of souls, would result emphatically in favor of the English Protestant church of the seventeenth century.' We must here particularly notice a point which reflects great discredit on the moral sense of many of the fathers, and shows ihut they had not wholly freed themselves from the chains of heathen ethics. The occasion of this work of Clirys- ostoni was a ruse, by which he had evaded election to the bishopric, and thrust it upon his friend Basil." To justify this conduct, he endeavors at large, in the fifth chapter of the first book, to prove that artifice might be lawful and useful ; that is, when used as a means to a good end. " Manifold is the potency of deception, only it must not be employed with knavish intent. And this should be hardly called deception, but rathei" a sort of accommodation (oIkovo/mlo), wisdom, art, or sagacity, by which one can find many ways of escape in an exigency, and amend the errors of the soul." He appeals to biblical examples, like Jonathan and the daughter of Saul, who by deceiving their father rescued their friend and hus- band ; and, unwarrantably, even to Paul, who became to the Jews a Jew, to the Gentiles a Gentile, and circumcised Timo- thy, though in the Epistle to the Galatians he pronounced circumcision useless. Chrysostom, however, had evidently learned this loose and pernicious principle respecting the obli- gation of truthfulness,