Today is St. John Chrysostom's feast day. Those of you who follow The Journey (our weekly Bible study) know that he's one of the Church fathers that pops up very regularly in our exploration of how the fathers interpreted Scripture. One of the reasons why there are a few names that keep coming up (his, St. Augustine, etc.) is that they are the Church fathers who preached a lot of sermons (which we still have) that get into interpreting specific biblical texts. Yes, even back then, pastors would get the idea to preach through a particular book in the Bible (the lectionary was not really a universal thing yet).
As some of you already know, soon I will begin a series I will call, "Meet the Parents" in which I will introduce you to the Church fathers (and mothers) one at a time, in chronological order. This will be a podcast, posted only to our Locals community (though I will use it to prepare for future episodes of the Way of the Fathers Podcast on XM Radio). But Meet the Parents will be just for our Locals community. In any case, I will eventually get around to an episode on St. John Chrysostom.
Until then, here's a little teaser. The "name" Chrysostom is not really his last name. It's a nickname, really, and it means "golden mouth" - because he had a reputation as a great preacher. He originally wanted to be a monk, but he ended up getting ordained a deacon, and then a priest, and for a while he was a priest in the city of Antioch, in Syria. Later he became the bishop of Constantinople. Everywhere he went, people either loved him or hated him. If you leaned toward the very strictest side of Christianity, you probably loved him. And in spite of the fact that he was a strong proponent of celibacy and monasticism, in his role as a pastor in Antioch he became a great advocate for marriage and family. But he ran into trouble in Constantinople when he openly criticized the empress for her sins (to be fair, her sins were equally public). In any case, it led to him being persecuted, and he eventually died as a result of this persecution. So the Church considers him a martyr, even though the government was supposedly Christian by this time.
As a biblical interpreter, he tends to favor the more historical interpretations, which makes sense given his connection with Antioch (as opposed to someone like the Alexandrian Origen, who always leans into the non-literal interpretations).
Today, one of the things I'll be working on is our Journey session for Saturday, and I already know Chrysostom's name is bound to come up. I've asked him to pray for me as I work on my notes. I hope you'll join me on Saturday.
Please feel free to post anything you might know about Chrysostom or like about him.
Here's a short (about a minute) video I took going around the Holy Column in the church of Santa Prassede. This is the column that Jesus was tied to when he was scourged by Pontius Pilate. They don't always have the barrier down, so you usually don't get to see it from all the way around. I wanted to get video of the whole thing all the way around because I ran across a note in an ancient document that said that those who made a pilgrimage (at that time to the Holy Land, since it was still in Jerusalem) could visit the Holy Column, and could see marks left from the hands of Jesus where he gripped it as he was being whipped. I assume that this is pious legend, but I figured since the column has that dark & light marble, maybe there's a place where the dark parts look like hands. I did not see it, but if you do, let me know!
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
Here is our next set of texts - as we get into John chapter 6, we first encounter Jesus feeding the multitudes - in this case 5,000 families!
Now, as you know, there is also an account o Jesus feeding 4,000, and so you may also know that some scholars might speculate that these are just different versions of the same story that circulated and were handed down orally, until they were written down. Even the fact that both stories occur in the same gospel would not stop that kind of speculation. So I thought the first question I would have to ask was whether the Church fathers thought this was one event or two - BUT (and you see where this is going) I forgot that Jesus himself makes reference to two separate events (in Matthew 16 and in Mark 8) so there is no question for the Church fathers - these are two separate events. So it seems that Jesus performed this sign (miracle) of the feeding of the multitudes on two occasions. It's not just one event told two different ways, and it's also ...
My voice was still recovering from a bad cold, so not sounding my best, but this was a great conversation about pilgrimage, for the Jubilee year - more of this coming in other interviews! (FYI, I think I was the third of three guests that day, so you will have to fast forward to find me)
It seems that one way or another we need to talk about different kinds, or different levels of heresy. What I have been calling heresy vs. heterodoxy, others call heresy on fundamental doctrines vs. heresy on less fundamental doctrines. In other words, Heresy with a capital H (over fundamental doctrines like the Trinity and christology) are the kinds of heresies that move one outside the boundaries of what Christianity is, and that's because the very definition of Christianity is defined according to these fundamental doctrines. To refuse to sign the Creed at the Council of Nicaea in 325, or the Council of Constantinople in 381 - and indeed to reject any of the contents of the Creed today - means that a person is NOT a Christian.
So are the non-chalcedonians, such as the miaphysites (including St. Gregory of Narek, and today's Coptic Christians) - are they heretics? Well, like it is with a lot of things, that depends on your definition of heresy. If you include in your definition of ...
