es of
grace?

It was Cardinal Newman who first entered a protest against "minced"
saints, against the pious and popular custom of chopping up human
records into lessons for the devout. He took exception to the
hagiological licence which assigns lofty motives to trivial actions.
"The saint from humility made no reply." "The saint was silent out
of compassion for the ignorance of the speaker." He invited us to
approach the Fathers of the Church in their unguarded moments, in
their ordinary avocations, in their moods of gayety and depression;
and, when we accepted the invitation, these figures, lofty and remote,
became imbued with life. It is one thing to know that Saint Chrysostom
retired at twenty-three to a monastery near Antioch, and there spent
six years in seclusion and study. It is another and more enlightening
thing to be made aware, through the medium of his own letters, that
he took this step with reasonable doubts and misgivings,--doubts
which extended to the freshness of the monastery bread, misgivings
which concerned themselves with the sweetness of the monastery oil.
And when we read these candid expressions of anxiety, Saint
Chrysostom, by virtue of his healthy young appetite, and his distaste
(which any poor sinner can share) for rancid oil, becomes a man and
a brother. It is yet more consoling to know that when well advanced
in sainthood, when old, austere, exiled, and suffering many
privations for conscience' sake, Chrysostom was still disposed to
be a trifle fastidious about his bread. He writes from Caesarea to
Theodora that he has at last found clean water to drink, and bread
which can be chewed. "Moreover, I no longer wash myself in broken
crockery, but have contrived some sort of bath; also I have a bed
to which I can confine myself."

If Saint Chrysostom possessed, according to Newman, a cheerful
temper, and "a sunniness of mind all his own," Saint Gregory of
Nazianzus was a fair humourist, and Saint Basil was a wit. "Pensive
playfulness" is Newman's phrase for Basil, but there was a speed
about his retorts which did not always savour of pensiveness. When
the furious governor of Pontus threatened to tear out his liver,
Basil, a confirmed invalid, replied suavely, "It is a kind intention.
My liver, as at present located, has given me nothing but
uneasiness."

To Gregory, Basil was not only guide, philosopher, and friend; but
also a cherished target for his jests. It has been wisely said that
we