St John Chrysostom – författare

John Chrysostom (d. 407) was first a priest in Antioch and later the short-lived archbishop of Constantinople. Although best known as a preacher, throughout his career he also wrote a number of letters and treatises, primarily to ascetic and clerical audiences. The Consolation to Stagirius is one of these treatises, written early in his career. Over three books, Chrysostom seeks to comfort his acquaintance, Stagirius, both for the suffered experienced at the hands of a demon – manifesting in nightmares and seizures – and for the melancholy he was experiencing due to estrangement with his father. The sources that Chrysostom draws on for this consolation are primarily biblical narratives: the lives of the scriptural saints. The first book comprises mainly arguments for God's providence over Stagirius' life and the lives of all the saints. Stagirius is to find comfort in the fact that God directs all things—including those that seem evil—for the benefit of those whom he loves. The second and third books are then extended narrations of the sufferings of the patriarchs and the prophets and, much more briefly, the apostles. Stagirius is to compare his sufferings to those who went before and to learn that suffering is no indication of a lack of God's providential care. This treatise thus contributes to our understanding of early Christian attitudes towards the problem of suffering and the means of God's providence in the lives of the saints.

This edition contains the 34 homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews.

This book contians the 88 homilies that Chrysostom gave on the Gospel of St. John.

These Homilies are often less complete in exposition than those on earlier books of the New Testament, and in literary excellence will not compare with the Homilies on the Statues, and many other discourses given at Antioch. But to the student of preaching, they are quite as instructive, if not really more so.Contents:Commentary On the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians.Homilies on the Epistle of St. Paul to the EphesiansHomilies on the Epistle of St. Paul to the PhilippiansHomilies on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians.Homilies on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians.Homilies on the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians.Homilies on the First Epistle of St. Paul to TimothyHomilies on the Second Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy.Homilies on the Epistle of St. Paul to Titus.Homilies on the Epistle of St. Paul to Philemon

The Homilies on the Epistles to the Corinthians have ever been considered by learned and devout men as among the most perfect specimens of his mind and teaching. They are of that mixed form, between exposition and exhortation, which serves perhaps better than any other, first, to secure attention, and then to convey to an attentive hearer the full purport of the holy words as they stand in the Bible, and to communicate to him the very impression which the preacher himself had received from the text. The date of these Homilies is not exactly known: but it is certain that they were delivered at Antioch, were it only from Hom. xxi. 9. ad fin. Antioch was at that time, in a temporal sense, a flourishing Church, maintaining 3,000 widows and virgins , maimed persons, prisoners, and ministers of the altar; although, St. Chrysostom adds, its income was but that of one of the lowest class of wealthy individuals.

St. Chrysostom''s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans in one of the closest and most argumentative of thse he has left us. The style of the Epistle itself called for this, being such as almost constantly to remind anattentive reader of the necessity of froming some notion of the views and feelings of the persons to whom it was orginally addressed. To this point St. Crysotom has paid much attention, and has consequently obtained a far clearer view of the doctinal bearing of the Epistle than most other commentators. His early rhetorical education would probably have given him even to strong a bias toward that kind of exposition, but for his supsequent course of severe discipline and ascetic devotion. As it is, the rhetorical element in his commentary is of ver great value. His ready apprehension of the effect intended to be prodcued by the style and wording of a sentence, is often the means of clearing up what minght othewise seem obscure of even inconsistent. An example of this occurs in the beginning of the seventh cahpter, which he expounds in the 12th Homily. The illustration of uor release from the Law of Moses by partaking in the Death of Christ, by the dissolution of marriage at deat, is so stated in the Epistle as to contain an apparent inconsistency, as though the death of the Law, and the death of the personn, were confounded. And the various readings only shift the difficulty, without removing it. This, however, he has very ably shown to be, in fact, an argument a priori. Other cases will strike other persons as they happen to have found difficulty in the Text.

As a commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, this Work stands alone among the writings of the first ten centuries. The Expositions of St. Clement of Alexandria (in the Hypotyposes), of Origen, of Diodorus of Tarsus, and St. Chrysostom''s teacher, Theodore of Mopsuestia, as well as of Ammonius and others whose materials are used in the Catena, have perished. Those who are acquainted with the characteristic qualities of St. Chrysostom''s exegesis, will perceive here also the same excellencies which mark his other expository works-especially the clear and full exposition of the historical sense, and the exact appreciation of the rhetorical momenta in the discourses of St. Peter, St. Stephen, St. James and St. Paul, as recorded in the Acts.

The Homilies of St. Chrysostom on St. Matthew were undoubtedly delivered at Antioch (see Hom. vii. p. 43) and probably in the latter part of the time during which he preached as a Presbyter. Montfaucon consideres his little mention of the sin of swearing a sign of his accomplished some reformation on that point by his previous exertions. In the Homilies delievered from 386 to 388, it is a constant topic; and the Homilies known to belong to that date are so numerous, as scarcely leave room for such a series as the present. These, however, contain very little to mark the period to which they belong. The argument from his reference to dissensions some time gone by, possible those between St. Meletius and Paulinus and Evagrius, in commenting on St. Matt. xxiii. 6. is not very conclusive.A modern reader must sometimes be struck with finding in St. Chrysostom a kind of criticism, which we are apt to thing belongs only to later times. Hist main object, however, is moral, and he searches out with diligence both the meaning and the applications of particular passages, usually concluding with an eloquent exhortation to some special virtue. Some of the most remarkable of these exhortations are on the subject of Alms-giving, which he seems to have pressed with some success at last. His calculation in Hom. lxvi as to what might be done, is somewhat curious. In the end of Hom. lxxxviii. he demands a reformation as the condition of his entering on the cntroversy with Infidels. In the next Homily he discusses the evidence of the Resurrection with nearly the same arguments as would still be used against an objector.

This compilation contains the following writings:Contents: Treatise on the Priesthood.An Exhortation to Theodore After His Fall.Letter to a Young Widow.Homilies on S. Ignatius and S. Babylas.Concerning Lowliness of Mind.Instructions to CatechumensThree Homilies Concerning the Power of Demons.Against Marcionists and Manichaeans.Homily on the Paralytic Let Down Through the Roof.Homily Against Publishing the Errors of the Brethren.On Eutropius, Patrician and Consul.A Treatise to Prove that No One Can Harm the Man Who Does Not Injure HimselfLetters to Olympias.Correspondence of St. Chrysostom with the Bishop of RomeHomilies Concerning the Statues.