pe, found more difficulty
in the thought of rising without a fire in winter, in the beginning of
his conversion, than he did in the greatest severities which he
afterwards practised. St. Chrysostom passed four years under the conduct
of a veteran Syrian monk, and afterwards two years in a cave as a
hermit. The dampness of this abode brought on him a dangerous distemper,
and for the recovery of his health he was obliged to return into the
city. By this means he was restored to the service of the church in 381,
for the benefit of innumerable souls. He was ordained deacon by St.
Meletius that very year, and priest by Flavian in 386, who at the same
time constituted him his vicar and preacher, our saint being then in the
forty-third year of his age.[9] He discharged all the duties of that
arduous station during twelve {237} years, being the hand and the eye of
his bishop, and his mouth to his flock. The instruction and care of the
poor he regarded as his first obligation: this he always made his
favorite employment and his delight. He never ceased in his sermons to
recommend their cause and the precept of alms deeds to the people.
Antioch, he supposed, contained at that time one hundred thousand
Christian souls: all these he fed with the word of God, preaching
several days in the week, and frequently several times on the same day.
He confounded the Jews and Pagans, also the Anomaeans, and other
heretics. He abolished the most inveterate abuses, repressed vice, and
changed the whole face of that great city. It seemed as if nothing could
withstand the united power of his eloquence, zeal, and piety.

Theodosius I., finding himself obliged to levy a new tax on his
subjects, on occasion of his war with Maximus, who had usurped the
Western empire in 387, the populace of Antioch, provoked at the demand,
mutinied, and discharged their rage on the emperor's statue, those of
his father, his two sons, and his late consort, Flavilla, dragged them
with ropes through the streets, and then broke them to pieces. The
magistrates durst not oppose the rabble in their excesses. But as soon
as their fury was over, and that they began to reflect on what they had
been guilty of, and the natural consequences of their extravagances,
they were all seized with such terror and consternation, that many
abandoned the city, others absconded, and scarce any durst appear
publicly in the streets. The magistrates in the mean time were filling
the prisons wit