But John speedily renounced this and all worldly renown. He practised a most strictly ascetic life, and gave himself up to the study of the Christian religion. He was a pupil of that Diodorus, afterwards bishop of Tarsus, who was then held in high repute as a Scripture commentator. He was also under St. Meletius, patriarch of Antioch. From him he received baptism in 369, at the age, therefore, of twenty-two years; and the minor order of Lector three years later. The bishops who met at Antioch in 373 designated him, with his friend Basil, for the episcopal dignity. In his humility he took flight to the anchorets who dwelt in the mountains near Antioch. With them he spent four years, and two years after that in a cavern, until his health failed, and he was obliged to return to Antioch. Here the patriarch Meletius made him a deacon in 380; and his successor Flavian gave him the priesthood in 386, in his fortieth year, and named him to be preacher in the cathedral. Then during ten years the great see of the East wondered at the eloquence, the teaching, and the zeal of the greatest preacher it had known. In her sorest time of need he was at hand to comfort and support the city of his birth. When a great riot broke out, and led the citizens in their haste and anger to insult the statues of the emperor Theodosius and his wife, the most pious Flaccilla, and Antioch trembled lest this act of treason should be followed by summary destruction; when her patriarch Flavian hurried across the five hundred miles to Constantinople, that if possible he might soften the wrath of the emperor before the bolt was launched, St. Chrysostom preached some of his most famous sermons, those entitled, ‘On the Statues’. He kept up the courage of the fainting people, and when Flavian returned with a pardon which left untouched the privileges of the city, the preacher shared with the patriarch the gratitude of those who were saved.