orators—Bossuet, Massilon, Bourdaloue—have taken him for their model, even in his faults, the flattery of living persons. Villemain praises him as the greatest orator who combined all 23 the attributes of eloquence.39 Hase calls his eloquence “Asiatic, flowery, full of spirit and of the Holy Spirit, based on sound exegesis, and with steady application to life.”40 English writers compare him to Jeremy Taylor. Gibbon (who confesses, however, to have read very few of his Homilies) attributes to him “the happy art of engaging the passions in the service of virtue, and of exposing the folly as well as the turpitude of vice, almost with the truth and spirit of a dramatic representation.” Dean Milman describes him as an “unrivalled master in that rapid and forcible application of incidental occurrences which gives such life and reality to eloquence. He is at times, in the highest sense, dramatic in manner.” Stephens thus characterizes his sermons:41 “A power of exposition which unfolded in lucid order, passage by passage, the meaning of the book in hand; a rapid transition from clear exposition, or keen logical argument, to fervid exhortation, or pathetic appeal, or indignant denunciation; the versatile ease with which he could lay hold of any little incident of the moment, such as the lighting of the lamps in the church, and use it to illustrate his discourse; the mixture of plain common sense, simple boldness, and tender affection, with which he would strike home to the hearts and consciences of his hearers—all these are not only general characteristics of the man, but are usually to be found manifested more or less in the compass of each discourse. It is this rare union of powers which constitutes his superiority to almost all other Christian preachers with whom he might be, or has been, compared. Savonarola had all, and more than all, his fire and vehemence, but untempered by his sober, calm good sense, and wanting his rational method of interpretation. Chrysostom was eager and impetuous at times in speech as well as in action, but never fanatical. Jeremy Taylor combines, like Chrysostom, real earnestness of purpose with rhetorical forms of expression and florid imagery; but, on the whole, his style is far more artificial, and is overlaid with a multifarious learning, from which Chrysostom’s was entirely free. Wesley is almost his match in simple, straightforward, practical exhortation, but does not rise into flights of eloquence like his. The great French preachers, again, resemble him in his more ornate and declamatory vein, but they lack that simpler common-sense style of address which equally distinguished him.” 39 Tableau, etc., p. 154: “Ce sont ces qualités plus hautes, ou plutot c’est la réunion de tous les attributs oratoires, le naturel, le pathétique et la grandeur, qui’ ont fait de saint Jean Chrysostome le plus grande orateur de l’église primitive, le plus éclatant interprète de cette mémorable époque.” 40 “Seine Beredtsamkeit ist asiatisch, bilderreich, geistvoll und H. Geistes voll, auf gesunder Schriftauslegung, mit steter Anwendung auf’s Leben, in seinen Forderungen an Andere sittlich ernst ohne asketische Ueberspan- nung.”—Kirchengeschichte, I. 511. 41 St. Chrysostom, p. 426 sq. 35 Chrysostom as a Preacher.