Chrysostom and the Apostle

No one in the Christian tradition read Paul more closely or loved him more ardently than St. John Chrysostom (c. 349–407), whose continuous homilies on every Pauline letter are the supreme patristic commentary on the apostle, and whose seven sermons On the Praises of St. Paul are the most fervent tribute one saint ever paid to another. This file surveys Chrysostom’s Pauline homilies, his panegyrics, his pastoral and ethical method of interpretation, and his reading of grace, virtue, and the person of “the apostle” — the backbone of the Eastern reading of Paul.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Lover of Paul

Chrysostom’s devotion to Paul was famous in his own lifetime and became part of his legend. He preached verse-by-verse homilies on the whole Pauline corpus, returned to Paul constantly in his other sermons, and composed seven discourses De laudibus sancti Pauli (“On the Praises of St. Paul”) that are sustained, soaring panegyrics on the apostle’s virtue, labors, and love (Chrysostom, De laudibus sancti Pauli, Hom. 1–7; ed. and trans. Mitchell, The Heavenly Trumpet, 2000). In these he calls Paul’s heart “the heart of Christ” and the apostle himself a man who “surpassed” the angels in love, holding up his life as the demonstration of what human nature, seized and aided by grace, can become. The later tradition preserved the picture of Chrysostom reading Paul so intently that the apostle appeared to him to converse — a hagiographical motif first attested in the Greek Lives of Chrysostom [Disputed: the legend that the Apostle Paul appeared to Chrysostom while he wrote, whispering in his ear, is a later hagiographical tradition (found in the Byzantine Lives and George of Alexandria’s Life of Chrysostom) and is reported here as such, not as fact, per the attestation rule]. Whatever the legend, the documented reality is that Chrysostom’s preaching made Paul live for the Greek-speaking Church as for no other tradition (see St. John Chrysostom).

The Pauline Homilies

Chrysostom’s homiletic commentaries cover the entire corpus: the Homilies on Romans (32 homilies), on First Corinthians (44) and Second Corinthians (30), on Galatians (a continuous commentary rather than discrete homilies), on Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, the Pastorals, Philemon, and Hebrews — the great body of which is translated in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vols. 11–14 (the Pauline volumes proper being 11–13). These homilies are the fullest patristic engagement with Paul in existence, and they set the standard for Orthodox Pauline exegesis: the Homilies on Romans in particular are regarded as Chrysostom’s exegetical masterpiece (translated in NPNF I/11).

His method is the Antiochene method — attentive to the literal and historical sense, to the flow of Paul’s argument, to the occasion and the audience — joined to a relentless ethical and pastoral application. Chrysostom expounds the text closely and then turns it on his hearers: every doctrine is pressed toward repentance, almsgiving, humility, and the practice of virtue. He reads Paul not as a quarry of abstract propositions but as a living pastor whose every word is freighted with love for his churches (Mitchell, The Heavenly Trumpet, 2000; Hill, introduction to Theodoret’s Commentary, 2001).

Grace and Synergy in Chrysostom’s Paul

On the central Pauline themes Chrysostom is the classic Eastern voice. Expounding Romans 3–5, he insists that justification is the lavish gift of God, surpassing mere acquittal: God “not only freed us from punishment but also made us righteous,” supplying righteousness and life as a gift to the undeserving (Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 7, on Rom. 3:24–27; Hom. Rom. 10, on Rom. 5; trans. NPNF I/11; see Grace and Righteousness). Yet Chrysostom equally insists on human cooperation: grace does not coerce, and the believer must respond, labor, and persevere. He holds together, without strain, the priority of grace (“not of works, lest any man should boast,” Eph. 2:9) and the necessity of free response (Phil. 2:12–13) — the synergeia of grace and will that is characteristic of the Greek Fathers. Paul himself is his proof: the persecutor made apostle by grace, who then “laboured more abundantly than they all” (1 Cor. 15:10), is for Chrysostom the very picture of grace received and grace cooperated with (Chrysostom, De laudibus 1–2; Mitchell 2000; see Persecutor to Apostle).

The Apostle’s Person as Argument

A distinctive feature of Chrysostom’s Pauline interpretation is that he reads the apostle’s person — his sufferings, his love, his humility, his zeal — as itself a sermon. The catalogue of hardships in 2 Corinthians 11, the “thorn in the flesh” and the power perfected in weakness (2 Cor. 12:7–10), the tears and travail for his churches, the willingness to be “accursed from Christ” for his kinsmen (Rom. 9:3) — Chrysostom dwells on all of these as the living embodiment of the gospel Paul preached. For Chrysostom, Paul’s life is his theology made visible: the cross, the new creation, the love that “beareth all things” (1 Cor. 13:7) are seen in the apostle himself. This is why the panegyrics are not mere praise but exegesis: by displaying Paul’s virtue, Chrysostom expounds the transforming power of the grace Paul preached (Mitchell, The Heavenly Trumpet, 2000).

Chrysostom’s Legacy as Interpreter

Chrysostom’s homilies became the lens through which the Byzantine and Orthodox world read Paul. They were excerpted into the catenae (chains of patristic comment), translated and imitated, and made the staple of liturgical and monastic reading; later Byzantine commentators such as Oecumenius and Theophylact of Ohrid drew heavily upon him. To this day the Orthodox Church reads Paul substantially through Chrysostom’s eyes — pastorally, ethically, and with that ardent love for the apostle that the golden-mouthed preacher embodied. He is, in the Orthodox memory, not merely a commentator on Paul but the apostle’s truest disciple in the art of preaching the gospel of grace (see The Eastern Reading of Paul; on Chrysostom himself, St. John Chrysostom).

See Also

• The Eastern Reading of Paul — the broader patristic stream Chrysostom crowns
• Grace and Righteousness — Chrysostom’s reading of justification and grace
• Persecutor to Apostle — Paul as the paradigm of grace in Chrysostom’s panegyrics
• St. John Chrysostom — the interpreter himself
• The Church Fathers — the patristic tradition of interpretation

References

• John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans, Homilies on First and Second Corinthians, Commentary on Galatians, and homilies on the other Pauline letters. Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vols. 11–13. Buffalo: Christian Literature Company, 1889.
• John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Praises of St. Paul (De laudibus sancti Pauli). Trans. and ed. Margaret M. Mitchell, The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000.
• Hill, Robert Charles. Introduction to Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on the Letters of St. Paul. Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001.