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The Monk as Christian Saint and Exemplar in St John Chrysostom’s Writings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
Extract
By the time Augustine read the Life of Antony in 386, the biography had already become an international best seller in the Roman Empire. Translated twice into Latin and read in places as far off as Milan and Syrian Antioch, the Egyptian Life also proved to be a significant influence upon hagiographical writing in the late fourth century, the most notable example being the Lives of St Jerome. Consequently, scholars have often taken it to represent the dominant paradigm for sainthood in fourth-century Christianity and the centuries that followed. But is this assumption tenable? The Life of Antony would in all likelihood be read only by the educated elite or by ascetic circles in the Church, and was hardly accessible to the ordinary Christian. More importantly, hagiographical discourse in the fourth century was not restricted to biographies, but pervaded all sorts of Christian literature. This is certainly the case with the writings of St John Chrysostom (c. 349—407), who often presents the Christian monk as a saintly figure in his monastic treatises and his voluminous homilies. Indeed, what emerges from his writings is a paradigmatic saint who is significantly different from that portrayed in the biographies, and yet equally influential among his lay and ascetic audiences. To be sure, Chrysostom’s monastic portraits share some common features with that provided by Athanasius’s Life. Nevertheless, there are also stark differences between the two, and these are the focus of this paper.
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References
1 The biography’s influence, as Leclercq observes, was to endure until the Middle Ages: Augustine, Confessions 8.6.15; Chadwick, Owen, John Cassian, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1968), 3Google Scholar; Leclercq, Jean, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, trans. Misranhi, C. (New York, 1974), 125.Google Scholar
2 White, Carolinne, Early Christian Lives (London, 1998), 73, 87Google Scholar; Gregory of Nazianus, Oratio in laudem Basilii 21.5; Palladius, Historia Lausiaca 8; John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Matthaeum [hereafter Hom. Matt.] 8; Jerome, De viris illustribus 88.
3 Clebsch, William A., Preface to Athanasius: The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, trans, and intro. Gregg, Robert C., CWS (Mahwah, NJ, 1980), xiv.Google Scholar
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5 His reforms as a bishop, as Kelly points out, were shaped by his ascetic ideals and evidently unpopular among some clergy in the church of Constantinople: ibid. 211–17.
6 The genuine homilies of Chrysostom number more than eight hundred, making him the most prolific author of the Eastern Church: Wendy Mayer, The Homilies of St John Chrysostom — Provenance: Reshaping the Foundations, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 273 (Rome, 2005), 26.
7 This paradigmatic or symbolic feature, as Cunningham suggests, is one of the most important features of saints in general: Athanasius, Vita Antonii [hereafter Vit. Ant.] 3, 14–15; John Chrysostom, Comparatio regis et monachi [hereafter Comp. reg. mon.] 4; idem, Adversus oppugnatores vitae monasticae [hereafter Oppugn.] 2.6, 2.8, 3; Cunningham, Lawrence S., The Meaning of Saints (San Francisco, CA, 1980), 65, 73.Google Scholar
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11 Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 55.6.
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13 Chrysostom, Hom. Gen. 14.8, 12.
14 Indeed, as Hill remarks, rathumia, in Chrysostom’s theology, is the cause for Adam’s Fall: Chrysostom, Hom. Gen. 14.12, 16.13 (trans. Hill, 186–7).
15 Chrysostom, Comp. reg. mon. 3; ET in A Comparison between a King and a Monk / Against the Opponents of the Monastic Life, trans. Hunter, David G., Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 13 (Lewiston, NY, 1988), 72–3.Google Scholar
16 Clebsch, Preface to Athanasius, xv.
17 Jerome, Vita S. Hilarionis eremitae 3, 33–8.
18 Chrysostom, Comp. reg. mon. 2.
19 Chrysostom, Oppugn. 3.18 (trans. Hunter, Comparison / Opponents, 168).
20 Chrysostom, Ad Demetrium de compunctione 1.6.
21 Chrysostom, Adhortationes ad Thedorum Lapsum [hereafter Thdr.] 1.4; 1.6.22.
22 Ibid. 1.18-19.
23 There are ample references to the monk as a teacher in his monastic treatises. However, in none of them are these narratives used as a means of communicating monastic teachings and wisdom: cf. Chrysostom, Oppugn. 3.12. The Life of Antony, in contrast, devotes at least 29 chapters to the teachings of Antony: Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 16–44.
24 For example, his perceptive discussion of the value of fasting is found not in such portraits but in one of his homilies on Genesis: Chrysostom, Hom. Gen. 10.2.
25 Robert C. Gregg, Introduction to Athanasius: Life of Antony and Letter to Marcellinus, 5.
26 Kelly, Golden Mouth, 7–8.
27 Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 67.3.
28 Ibid. 67.4.
29 An ekphrasis is a detailed description of a person, thing, occasion or place that is commonly used in Greek rhetoric to enhance the ‘visual’ impact and therefore the plausibility of the subject portrayed.
30 Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 69.4.
31 Ibid. 49.4 (NPNF I 10, 424–5).
32 Ibid. 69.4 (NPNF I 10, 425).
33 Ibid.