John Chrysostom

John was considered the greatest homiletic preacher of the Greek Church. He was the pupil of Libanius the sophist and Andragathius the philospher. John was going to enter a legal career but realized that life in the law courts was hectic and unjust. He moved to a more quiet life and applied his attention to reading the Scriptures. For several years John lived an ascetic, first at home, then in the mountains. After his health started to decline he returned home and became a priest. In 398, much against his will, he was made bishop of Constantinople, where he served in a corrupt court. He made enemies by his imposition of Church discipline and by his criticism. In 402 John gets exiled because of his enemies, but only to be called back the next time. In 404 he was exiled again for the second and final time where he died.

John's works are the most extensive among the Greek fathers. The preservation of his writings almost in their entirety, is due to the enormous respect in which he has always held in the Greek Church. He seemed to combine every theological, moral, and intellectual virtue known to the Christian tradition in personality with both strength and gentleness. The rhetorical form in which he excelled is the homily: the greatest bulk of his works are sermons on biblical texts. John says that Eloquence conduces to salvation when handled by good men, but is a source of danger as well, because it requires preachers to devote to much attention to composing their sermons. He said another problem also was allegations of plagiarism and the fact that successful sermons cannot be repeated, because people want to hear new treatments not content and instruction.

One of the most evident qualities of John,s preaching was his imagery, found in metaphor and simile. Some is drawn from the Bible, some from everyday life. He advocated allegorical interpretations because he believed that things meant what they said. Although John used the stylistics artifices of the sophists in his works, but he doesn't seek to imitate their structural forms and topics. An example of John's preaching is his Fourth Homily on First Corinthians, the text is central to the relationship of Christianity with classical philosophy and rhetoric.

McDaniel mgm4242