The Antioch Years (386–397)
From his ordination as priest in 386 until his removal to Constantinople in 397, St. John Chrysostom served the great city of Antioch as preacher and pastor. These eleven years produced the bulk of his finest preaching: the twenty-one Homilies on the Statues, delivered in the terror that followed the riot of 387; the baptismal catecheses that open a window onto fourth-century Christian initiation; and the homilies On the Incomprehensible Nature of God, his apophatic answer to the rationalism of the Anomoeans.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)
This section covers the decade in which Chrysostom became Chrysostomos, the “Golden-Mouth.” Ordained presbyter by Bishop Flavian in 386, he was the preaching voice of Antioch under his aged bishop, and the city’s pulpit was one of the most demanding in the Christian world. What emerged was a body of homilies unmatched in scale and vividness in Greek Christian antiquity.
Two strands define the period. The first is the crisis of 387, when a tax revolt boiled over into the destruction of the imperial statues and the whole city waited in dread for the emperor’s vengeance; the Homilies on the Statues transmuted public terror into the most concentrated season of catechesis of his Antiochene ministry. The second is the steady labor of forming Christians: the baptismal instructions that narrate the rites of initiation, and the doctrinal homilies that defended Nicene faith against the Eunomian claim to comprehend the essence of God.
Navigation
| File | Subject |
|---|---|
| Homilies on the Statues | The riot of 387, the city’s terror, the twenty-one Lenten homilies, Flavian’s embassy, and the imperial pardon |
| The Catechetical Homilies | The baptismal catecheses and their 20th-century rediscovery, the rites of initiation, and the Anomoean homilies On the Incomprehensible Nature of God |
See Also
- Foundations: St. John Chrysostom — the formation and ordination that preceded these years
- On the Priesthood (De Sacerdotio) — the treatise of the same Antiochene period
- The Holy Trinity — the Trinitarian doctrine the Anomoean homilies defend
References
- Kelly, J. N. D. Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom — Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
- Chrysostom, John. Homilies on the Statues. Trans. W. R. W. Stephens. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 9. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1889.
- Chrysostom, John. Baptismal Instructions. Trans. Paul W. Harkins. Ancient Christian Writers 31. Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1963.
- Chrysostom, John. On the Incomprehensible Nature of God. Trans. Paul W. Harkins. Fathers of the Church 72. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1984.