CHYSOSTOM, ST JOHN, a celebrated patriarch of Constantinople, and one of the most admired fathers of the Christian church, was born of a noble family at Antioch, about the year 347. He studied rhetoric under Libavins, and philosophy under Andragathus, after which he spent some time in solitude in the mountains near Antioch; but the austerities he endured having impaired his health, he returned to Antioch, where he was ordained deacon by Meletius, Flavian, Meletius's successor, raised him to the office of presbyter five years after: when he distinguished himself so greatly by his eloquence, that he obtained the surname of Golden Mouth. Nectarius patriarch of Constantinople dying in 397, St Chrysostom, whose fame was spread throughout the whole empire, was chosen in his room by the unanimous consent of both the clergy and the people. The emperor Arcadius confirmed this election, and caused him to leave Antioch privately, where the people were very unwilling to part with him. He was ordained bishop on the 26th of February 398; when he obtained an order from the emperor against the Eunomians and Montanists; reformed the abuses which subsisted amongst his clergy; retrenched a great part of the expenses in which his predecessors had lived, in order to enable him to feed the poor and build hospitals, and preached with the utmost zeal against the pride, luxury, and avarice of the great. But his pious liberty of speech procured him many powerful enemies. He differed with Theophilus of Alexandria, who got him deposed and banished; but he was soon recalled. After this, declaiming against the dedication of a statue erected to the empress, she banished him into Cucusus in Armenia, a most barren inhospitable place; afterwards, as they were removing him from Petyus, the soldiers treated him so roughly, that he died by the way, A.D. 407. The best edition of his works is that published at Paris in 1718, by Montfaucon.