Preaching at Epiphany: Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom on Baptism and the Church

1997 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Everett Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Preliminary Preparation ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Church

From as early as 200 C.E., the church made the spring paschal celebration its primary occasion for baptizing new converts. A week of intense preparation climaxed for the candidates in their reception of baptism early on Easter Sunday. During the fourth century, the preliminary preparation of candidates during Lent included attendance at lectures that gave doctrinal instruction. The catechumens who were ready to receive baptism at the coming Pasch turned in their names to be enrolled for the period of teaching. This registration for the final period of catechetical instruction occurred near the beginning of the year, not long after the feast of Epiphany on 6 January—celebrated in the Eastern church since the fourth century as the feast of the baptism of Christ. The proximity of these two events—a celebration of Christ's baptism and the enrolling of candidates for baptism at the next Pasch—made the time around Epiphany a propitious time for preaching sermons on baptism. Since many catechumens in the fourth century delayed their baptism until old age, many of these sermons took the form of exhortations to baptism in order to encourage the hearers not to postpone baptism but to enroll for the immediate season.

Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-Century Christian Authors

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morwenna Ludlow
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Active Response ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Shared Practice ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Literary Techniques ◽  
Applied Arts

Ancient authors commonly compared writing with painting. The sculpting of the soul was a common philosophical theme. This book takes its starting-point from such figures to recover a sense of ancient authorship as craft. The ancient concept of craft (ars, technē) spans ‘high’ or ‘fine’ art and practical or applied arts. It unites the beautiful and the useful. It includes both skills or practices (like medicine and music) and productive arts like painting, sculpting, and the composition of texts. By using craft as a guiding concept for understanding fourth-century Christian authorship, this book recovers a sense of them engaged in a shared practice which is both beautiful and theologically useful, which shapes souls but which is also engaged in the production of texts. It focuses on Greek writers, especially the Cappadocians (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa) and John Chrysostom, all of whom were trained in rhetoric. Through a detailed examination of their use of two particular literary techniques—ekphrasis and prosōpopoeia—it shows how they adapt and experiment with them, in order to make theological arguments and in order to evoke an active response from their readership.

The Monk as Christian Saint and Exemplar in St John Chrysostom’s Writings

2011 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 19-28
Author(s):  
Pak-Wah Lai
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Significant Influence ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Common Features ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Church ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

By the time Augustine read the Life of Antony in 386, the biography had already become an international best seller in the Roman Empire. Translated twice into Latin and read in places as far off as Milan and Syrian Antioch, the Egyptian Life also proved to be a significant influence upon hagiographical writing in the late fourth century, the most notable example being the Lives of St Jerome. Consequently, scholars have often taken it to represent the dominant paradigm for sainthood in fourth-century Christianity and the centuries that followed. But is this assumption tenable? The Life of Antony would in all likelihood be read only by the educated elite or by ascetic circles in the Church, and was hardly accessible to the ordinary Christian. More importantly, hagiographical discourse in the fourth century was not restricted to biographies, but pervaded all sorts of Christian literature. This is certainly the case with the writings of St John Chrysostom (c. 349—407), who often presents the Christian monk as a saintly figure in his monastic treatises and his voluminous homilies. Indeed, what emerges from his writings is a paradigmatic saint who is significantly different from that portrayed in the biographies, and yet equally influential among his lay and ascetic audiences. To be sure, Chrysostom’s monastic portraits share some common features with that provided by Athanasius’s Life. Nevertheless, there are also stark differences between the two, and these are the focus of this paper.

John Chrysostom on Paul as Founder of Churches

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 303-315
Author(s):  
Chris L. de Wet
Keyword(s):  
Social Protection ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Group Boundaries ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Discursive Formation ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to examine John Chrysostom’s view of Paul as founder of churches. The article is written in dialogue with the research done by James Hanges on Paul as a founder-figure. The study argues that by the fourth century, especially in the works of Chrysostom, we a have a vision of Paul as founder ofthechurch that has become interwoven with the very substance of the (orthodox) church’s subjectivity – a very different dynamic that was present in the first two centuries at least. Being a Christian, being part of the church, for Chrysostom, also means embodying something of the subjectivity of Paul. Paul was more than a hermeneutical bridge between the Old and the New Testament. Paul and Paulinomorphism became the very language of ecclesiastical power, a rhetoric with an impetus on correction, discipline and social protection. The fourth-century Chrysostomic reconstruction of Paul, the founder of churches andthechurch, operated as a central discursive formation in the reproduction of Christian identity. The appellations of Paul as builder, physician and father formed part of an interconnected web of power-language with the capacity to ramify group boundaries and also to pathologize heretical groups. The power-language of Paul also sustained orthodox Christian identity in its curative and corrective measures.

The Two Bodies of Christ: Communion Frequency and Ecclesiastical Discourse in Pre–Vatican II Australian Catholicism

2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-409
Author(s):  
Gavin Brown
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Church ◽  
Two Bodies

Today, most Catholics attending Mass come forward to receive communion as a matter of course. But this fact actually belies a very long history of low communion frequency and an institution's often losing struggle to have Catholics regularly receive the body of Christ. Already by the end of the fourth century, communion frequency in the Church, both East and West, had declined rapidly. Thereafter, outside small circles of especially devout communicants, communion at Mass remained for most Catholics an infrequent act. Yet during the mid-twentieth century, in the space of just a few decades, this situation showed signs of quite dramatic reversal. In the nineteenth century in Australia, average communion frequency among most practising Catholics was relatively nominal—perhaps three or four times a year was typical. On the eve of the Second Vatican Council, however, most Catholics in Australia were partaking of communion fortnightly and even weekly. Why this shift? What happened in the course of a generation which turned around a situation spanning many centuries in the Church's tradition of eucharistic worship?

scholarly journals The Lost Fresco Paintings of the Inkerman Cave Churches (“Temple with Baptistery”, “Church of Geography”, Monastery of Saint Sophia)

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 31-51
Author(s):  
Yurii Mogarichev ◽  
◽  
Alena Ergina ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
13Th Century ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Cyril Of Alexandria ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Traditional Scheme ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Southwestern Crimea ◽  
The Temple ◽  
The Church ◽  
Mountainous Crimea

Introduction. Among the “cave towns” of Mountainous Southwestern Crimea, there are monuments located in the lower reaches of the Black River valley. There are no less than 9 rock-cut monastic complexes which include about 30 temples. Methods. Some churches of the 13th–15th centuries were decorated with fresco paintings. Today, frescoes have been preserved only in one church. Sources of the 18th–20th centuries indicate traces of paintings in more than five temples. Frescoes inside the “temple with baptistery”, “Church of Geography (Eugraphy)”, and the Monastery of St. Sophia have not survived. Archival materials that expose the plots and compositions are published in this work. Analysis. The frescoes of the “temple with baptistery” date back to the 13th century. The Deesis composition is reconstructed in the apse conch. In the “Church of Geography (Eugraphy)” (the 13th century), on each side of the throne, four figures of saints are depicted (The Holy Fathers composition). This is probably: John Chrysostom, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius of Alexandria and two more saints from among the Cappadocian Fathers. One of them is obviously St. Blaise. This painting in general terms repeats the traditional scheme of the lower register of the painting of the apses of the cave temples of the mountainous Crimea. The monastery of St. Sofia should be dated back to the 14th–15th centuries. During the period of the monastery’s functioning, there were fresco paintings in the Main Church and Church no. 3, but all the attempts to attribute them were unsuccessful. Results. The analyzed frescoes show themes of Deesis and the Great Cappadocians. They are common for altar compositions in cave temples in South-West Crimea. In the interiors of the cave temples of Inkerman, there are: simple linear ornaments, complex plant reports, linear ornaments with complex weaving and plant elements.

A Church and Its Charms

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 639-677
Author(s):  
Sarah F. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Black And White ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
The Church ◽  
Geometric Designs

Meletios was exiled for 13 of his 20 years as bishop of Antioch, and at times as many as three other bishops claimed the Antiochene episcopacy during his tenure. Still, in an encomium for Meletios delivered in 386, his protegé John Chrysostom claimed that Meletios managed to enchant the whole city: “Blessed is that man, because he was strong enough to cast such a love charm (ϕίλτρον) on all of you.” John delivered this encomium in a large cruciform church that Meletios campaigned to build. In the church were burials: probably Babylas, a martyr bishop who had died in the Decian persecution about 150 years before, and Meletios himself, interred either in the same grave or a neighboring one. The next year, Dorys the presbyter would fund the pavement of the church’s floors, carpeting them in rich geometric designs and clean black-and-white dedicatory inscriptions. Using Sara Ahmed’s work on “the cultural politics of emotion,” this article analyzes the cruciform church through three different modes: its architecture, an encomium delivered there, and its mosaic program. The Meletian faction forged alliances with material and space to produce and manage affects of security, love, and pleasure in their communities. These spatial, discursive, and material enchantments encouraged the more decisive affiliation of fourth-century Antiochene Christians with Meletios’s community instead of with his competitors’ communities.

St Bernard of Clairvaux and Jerusalem

1994 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 169-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Raedts
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Holy Places ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The City ◽  
Mary Of Egypt ◽  
The Church

Although Jesus wept while mourning the inevitable destruction of the city (Luke 19. 41), and St Paul taught the Christians of Galaria to look for it not on earth, but in heaven (cf. Gal. 4.25-6), the Christian imagination has always been haunted by the city of Jerusalem. As early as the second century Melito of Sardis travelled to Jerusalem to see for himself ‘the place where these things were preached and done’. And as soon as Christianity became a licensed religion under the protection of the Emperor, Christians from all parts of the Empire began to flock to Jerusalem to see for themselves the holy sites ubi steterunt pedes eius, where once his feet stood (Ps. 132. 7) Churches were built to mark all the places mentioned in the Gospels, monasteries were founded to receive the pilgrims, and stories began to circulate about the spectacular conversions which happened to pilgrims while visiting the Holy Places, such as that of St Mary of Egypt who turned from a nymphomaniac into a desert mother on the very doorstep of the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Quite soon earnest Church Fathers like St Jerome and St Gregory of Nyssa, both of them pilgrims to Jerusalem, had to issue dire warnings that true Christianity was a matter of the heart and not of geography, and that a trip to Palestine might perhaps be helpful but certainly not necessary in order to find Christ.

Bishops and Presbyters at Alexandria

1955 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Waldram Kemp
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

At the end of the fourth century a theory is found in the works of several writers to the effect that the episcopate and the presbyterate are essentially one order, differentiated only by the presiding function of the bishop and the reservation to him of the right of ordination. In the East this view is expressed in the homilies of St. John Chrysostom on I Timothy where he says:‘Discoursing of bishops, and having described their character, and the qualities which they ought to possess, and having passed over the order of presbyters, he proceeds to that of deacons. The reason of this omission was, that between presbyters and bishops there was no great difference. Both had undertaken the office of teachers and presidents in the Church, and what he has said concerning bishops is applicable to presbyters. For they are only superior in having the power of ordination, and seem to have no other advantage over presbyters.’

I ministeri ecclesiastici ed il rapporto tra “temporale” e “spirituale” nell’opera di Giovanni Crisostomo

Augustinianum ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-446
Author(s):  
Americo Miranda ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Secular Institutions ◽  
The Church ◽  
Conver Gence

Ministers of the Church, whose characters were well defined in the second half of the fourth century, were more and more identified as the perfect believers. In the texts of John Chrysostom several models of “spiritual man” emerge on the basis of his personal experience and the evolution of his works: the monk, the presbyter, and the bishop. One notes that the relation of the Church to secular institutions is of greater importance in the works of Chrysostom, paying as he does particular attention to the autonomy of the Church. In an original way he refrains from criticizing political institutions, preferring to express a balanced view. He holds that a coexistence with political authorities is possible, and he urges a moral conver-gence with them. Ecclesial ministries find a more solid basis in the Chrysostom’s complex and sometimes pained statements, both in their ideal expressions and in their concrete effects on the society of the fourth century.

scholarly journals Terminologia dotycząca pokory i pychy w pismach greckich Ojców Kościoła IV wieku

Vox Patrum ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 327-342
Author(s):  
Mariusz Szram
Keyword(s):  
Saint Paul ◽  
Natural State ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Philosophy And Literature ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church

The aim of the presented paper is to analize the terminology describing humil­ity and pride that appears in the writings of the Greek Fathers of the Church of the 4th century (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom). To describe a humility they used the traditional terms that derived from ancient philosophy and were also well known in the Septuagint and in the New Testament writings; and used in the letters by Saint Paul and Saint Peter. The ancient Greek thought didn’t know a virtue of humility, so the philosophers didn’t use the last of these terms. However, the first two were used in the ancient Greek literature, but usually in a pejora­tive sense and meant „smallness”, „weakness”, „misery”. In the works of Greek Fathers of the Church the adjective and the substantive had a wider semantic field than the substantive „virtue of humil­ity”. They could have meant the virtue of humility, as well as a natural state of abasement of man as a created being; or a humiliation caused by the sin, and even all lowliness in the world of spirit and matter. The terms associated with the pride, used by the Greek Fathers of the Church, remained unchanged since the time of ancient Greek philosophy and literature, which devoted to this fault not less space than later Christianity.

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