Saint John Chrysostom

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St. John Chrysostom, detail of a 12th-century mosaic; in the Palatine Chapel, Palermo, Sicily, … (credit: Anderson — Alinari/Art Resource, New York)

(born 347, Antioch, Syria — died Sept. 14, 407, Comana, Helenopontus; Western feast day September 13; Eastern feast day November 13) Early Church Father, biblical interpreter, and archbishop of Constantinople. He was raised as a Christian and lived as a hermit until his health gave way, after which he returned to Antioch and was ordained a priest. He earned a reputation as a great preacher (Chrysostom means "golden-mouthed"). Against his wishes, he was appointed archbishop of Constantinople in 398. He angered the wealthy with his concern for the poor and his criticisms of the misuse of riches. A synod convened in 403 by Theophilus of Alexandria condemned him on 29 charges and banished him to Armenia. He died en route to a more distant exile on the Black Sea. In 438 his relics were brought to Constantinople, and he was rehabilitated by the church.

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John Chrysostom (347–407), archbishop of Constantinople. Born the son of an army officer at Antioch, John was brought up by his widowed mother and received the best education which Antioch could offer, both in oratory and law. From c.373 he became a monk in a mountain community not far from the city and nearly ruined his health through austerities and the damp conditions of his cave hermitage. He returned to Antioch in 381, was ordained deacon, and served the local church until his ordination as priest in 386. He then became the bishop's special assistant, particularly for the temporal care and the spiritual instruction of the numerous Christian poor of the city. He soon became famous as a preacher and commentator on the Epistles of Paul and the Gospels of Matthew and John. He insisted in the Antiochene tradition on the literal meaning of Scripture and its practical application to the problems of the time. Hence much of his work has relevance today also.

He obtained political fame too in his twenty-one sermons on ‘The Statues’ (387): these had been broken in a riot against the emperor's taxes, and they represented the Emperor Theodosius himself and his father, sons, and dead wife. Reprisals were expected, but an amnesty was obtained by the aged bishop Flavian; Chrysostom's sermons also were important in furthering the cause of peace and understanding.

In 397 after the death of the archbishop of Constantinople, Emperor Arcadius wished John Chrysostom to be chosen in his place and sent an envoy to detach him from Antioch, secretly for fear of popular opposition. Theophilus, archbishop of Alexandria (uncle of the future Cyril of Alexandria), a disappointed rival, consecrated him in 398. At once he started to reform the corrupt morals of court, clergy, and people. He reduced the customary spending of his own household in favour of the poor and the hospitals. He enacted severe discipline for the clergy; this and his attacks on the Jews have been rightly criticized. He also attacked the behaviour, the clothes, and the make-up of the women at court and those Christians who had been to the races on Good Friday and to the games in the stadium on Holy Saturday. The Empress Eudoxia regarded his drive for moral reform as a personal attack on herself: matters were not improved when a silver statue of her was set up outside his cathedral of Santa Sophia and dedicated with public games, an occasion for superstition and immorality. Meanwhile Theophilus made common cause with the empress and organized a cabal of bishops which assembled at Chalcedon, condemned Chrysostom unheard on a series of more or less false charges, accused him also of treason for calling Eudoxia ‘Jezebel’, and asked for his banishment. Chrystostom was exiled, but an earthquake in Constantinople terrified Eudoxia and he was recalled. He resumed his plain speaking which again enraged her; Theophilus intrigued against him with appeals to an Arian council of Antioch, and Chrysostom was again banished, this time for resuming the duties of a see from which he had been ‘lawfully deposed’. This took place in 404; although his own people, the pope, and many western bishops supported him, he was exiled, first to Cucusus in Armenia and then to Pontus where he was killed by enforced travel in bad weather, on foot and in spite of repeated pleas of exhaustion. The date of his death was 14 September.

Thirty-one years later his body was taken back to Constantinople and reburied in the church of the Apostles. In the West he is invoked as one of the Four Greek Doctors (with Athanasius, Basil, and Gregory of Nazianzus), in the East as one of the Three Holy Hierarchs and Universal Teachers. The exegetical works and the treatise on the Priesthood are his most famous: the establishment of the ‘Liturgy of St. Chrysostom’ is most probably not due to him; its general use is caused by the influence of Constantinople and its present form is much more recent than his time. Feast: in the West, 13 September; in the East, 13 November.

Bibliography
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• AA.SS. Sept. IV (1753), 401–709; Life by Palladius also in critical edn. by P. R. Coleman-Norton (1928); see also Socrates, H.E., vi. 2–23 and vii. 25–45, Sozomen, H.E., viii. 2–28. Modern Lives by A. Moulard (1941), D. Attwater (1959), and especially C. Baur (2 vols., 1929–30, Eng. tr. 1959–60); see also B. H. Vandenberghe, Saint Jean Chrysostome et la parole de Dieu (1961). Works in P.G., xlvii–lxiv, in S.C. (1966– ); Eng. tr. in N.P.N.C.F., first series ix–xiv. See also J. D'Alton, Selections from St. John Chrysostom (1940); F. Halkin, Douze récits byzantins sur S. Jean Chrysostome (1977)