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St. John Chrysostom
00:22:08
From Antioch, the political center of the fifth-century world, arose a golden-tongued preacher and bishop: St. John Chrysostom. Listen to Dr. Carl Vennerstrom and Mary McGeehan discuss the life and preaching of this great doctor of the Church who gave us countless powerful prayers and homilies.
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A
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live and share their faith.
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B
Hi. Welcome to Catholic Saints. This episode, we are going to dive into the life of St. John Chrysostom. My name is Mary McGeehan. I work here at the Guts Institute. And this is Dr. Carl Fennerstrom, professor here at the Guts Institute. Thanks for giving us your expertise today.
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C
I'm very glad to be here.
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B
Happy to have you. So this episode, we want to learn more about the life of St. John Chrysostom and learn more about him as wisdom for ourselves on this journey, this journey of holiness. So what do we need to know about St. John Chrysostom in his early life? What time was. Where was he born? What time period did he grow up in, et cetera?
- [01:04]
C
Yeah, yeah. So St. John Chrysostom or Chrysostom. I talked about this earlier. I don't really care about pronunciation, but yeah, just get out all the syllables. He was born in 347. So this is the fourth century, a sort of heady time for the Church, I guess. So born in the same century as St August in. He was born in Antioch, which. Which you'll remember from the Acts of the Apostles, of course, the first place where the followers of Jesus were called Christians. And he was born into a kind of well to do Christian family. He was trained in rhetoric by truly the sort of best rhetorician in the world, or at least in the Roman Empire. His name was Libanius.
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B
Okay.
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C
And there's a story about Libanius. I'm already kind of taking a sidetrack, but on his deathbed, apparently he said that Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, would have succeeded him as the sort of like teacher in this school if he hadn't had become a Christian. So. So. Or if he hadn't sort of chosen monasticism and the priesthood over the life of a red religion.
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B
What little did he know, though, that he was going to be one of the doctors.
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C
But yeah, but I mean, for Libanius, it was sort of an antagonism because Libanius was a pagan. And so, yeah, this was not like a happy conclusion, but yeah, which actually maybe brings us back to his name, Chrysostom or Chrysostom, which means golden tongued. So he wasn't first name John, last name Chrysostom, son of Mr. And Mrs. Chrysostom. But yeah, this is like a title that was given to him because he was such an Incredible speaker.
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B
Okay. Was it given once he became a priest or was it.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Was it his.
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C
I think this. It was during his lifetime. Yeah. Um, yeah. And it's. It's kind of interesting because I think when we think of entertainment, we think of like movies or TV or maybe like watching sports.
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B
Yeah.
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C
But in antiquity, especially in this period, in the place of like the theater or like the gladiatorial games, like entertainment, was going to watch someone give a speech. Wow. And so he did this as a preacher, but he sort of like gained the respect of everybod for his abilities.
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B
But interesting. Which also makes you said St. Augustine, the century of Augustine. And he's also an incredible preacher speaker. So articulate. So similar time period culture. Makes sense.
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C
Yeah. The story of two rhetoricians.
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B
Yes.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And you said, was he a noble family, A poor family, and whom did he first receive the faith from?
- [04:15]
C
Yeah, yeah. So he came from a wealthy family. His father was sort of highly placed in the military bureaucracy. And he makes special. In this work called on the Priesthood, which is partly autobiographical, he makes special mention of his mother as an important influence. It was after her death that he went into monastic life. But he. And he received baptism at the age of 20, sort of.
- [04:43]
B
Oh, okay.
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C
When he decided to not go into the sort of. Not to go into the legal profession and lean on his rhetorical skills, but to become a monk. He at least partially attributes this. Well, to meeting a monastically minded person, but also to the faithful influence of his mother.
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B
Of his mother. Okay, beautiful.
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C
But yeah. So then he is a monk for. In a monastery for four years, and then he's a hermit for two years. And the rigorous regime of fasting was difficult for him. So he sort of returns to the city, he's ordained a deacon, and then he assists the bishop in Antioch for a while.
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B
Was he known for fragile health throughout his life? Was it just the life of the hermit wasn't for him?
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C
Yeah, I think more the austerity ladder. Yeah. And. But I mean, it is kind of interesting. Often, like, even people who have good health in antiquity, like, they're always complaining about having like, their teeth, killing them or whatever. I mean, if you can imagine, like, if you've ever like really needed to go to the dentist to have like a tooth fixed, but there was no dentist. This is like a lot of.
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B
It was rough times.
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C
It was rough times. Yeah. Until pretty recently. Yeah. But yeah, then he eventually is ordained the bishop of Constantinople. So he's a sort of patriarch of Constantinople in398 and this is the capital of the Roman Empire. So this is the very sort of center of the world. And he did not want this position at all, and he protested a lot. This is sort of common with, like, all the best bishops from antiquity. They all, like, didn't want to be bishop. And when you look at the pope.
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B
So many of them were killed, you know, in their papacy, so.
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C
Yeah, right. Yeah. And he knew. Well, yeah, it doesn't turn out well for St. John Chrysostom, at least, like, physically, to be the patriarch of Constantinople, because. So what's interesting is, so since it's the Patriarchate of Constantinople, since it's sort of the political center of the world, this position comes with a lot of wealth and privilege and a lot of honor attached to it. And he comes in a person sort of trained as a monk, I mean, also trained as a rhetorician from noble family, but very attached to poverty and to humble living. And so he sort of, like, strips the. The headquarters of the bishop of, like, all of the gold and sells it and gives it to hospitals and the poor and then starts preaching. And so we have, like, a ton of preaching from. From Chrysostom, these homily cycles on different books of the Bible. And so this is one of the great heritages of John Chrysostom that we have all these homilies that are saved and commentaries, which are often a part.
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B
Of the divine office, the Liturgy of the Hours.
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C
That's right, yeah. Yeah. So if you read the Liturgy of the Hours, often the reading from a saint or a figure from the tradition will be from John Chrysostom. Wonderful. Yeah. So he's a very powerful speaker, but then it's still even powerful in written form. And actually, I have here one place you might encounter a homily of St. John Chrysostom would be on Easter. This is more common in the Eastern Churches with the Eastern Orthodox, or I think sometimes, too, with Eastern Catholics, when they celebrate Pascha, which is the word which we use, we use the word Easter. Actually, the rest of the world, like, I mean, even in, like, France, like, Catholics call Easter Pascha, which is like the sort of ancient name. Anyways, if you're in an Eastern Orthodox church at Pascha, you would hear the priest read this short homily, which I think of kind of along the lines of the Gettysburg Address. It's very short but very powerful. There's not a word wasted. So just a little selection from the homily. He says, come, you all enter into the joy of the Lord. You first and you last. You who have kept the fast of Lent he's talking about, and you who have not, rejoice today. The table is richly loaded. Enjoy its royal banquet. The calf is a fatted one. Let no one go away hungry. All of you enjoy the banquet of faith. All of you receive the riches of his goodness. Let no one grieve over his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one weep over his sins, for pardon has shown from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the death of our Savior has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it. He has despoiled Hades by going down into his kingdom. He has angered it by allowing it to taste of his flesh. Okay, so it goes on. But, yeah, it's a very powerful homily, and it's indicative of sort of his sort of rhetorical skills, but also his insight into Scripture and his ability to.
- [10:19]
B
Reach his quick side note. I just think it's remarkable that we still have his homilies and some of his writings from so long ago that even today in the life of the Church, you know, we have captured his preaching. And I guess I'm just. I'm curious.
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C
How.
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B
How is it. How has it been captured for so long? Or how, as Catholics, do we still have that gift where we've preserved his homies for such a long time?
- [10:45]
C
Well, I guess, yeah, there's, like, a few ways you can answer that question. One is just that pretty soon after his death and during his life, but in the decades after his death, there's some controversy about his death we can talk about, but he was recognized as basically this, like, pillaring figure in the Church. So he sort of rose above everyone else as a homilistic. And so that recognition meant that sort of, like, from very early on, which is kind of the most crucial period for preserving writings, he was recognized as, like, this really important person. And so pretty quickly then, it's like this chain of over a thousand years. Like, I mean, for the most part, it's monks copying these texts, like, in the. In the East. Um, like, and then reading it until it starts to, like, fade away and then copying it again. And then. Yeah. So over and over and over again.
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B
Thank you.
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C
Yeah. People reflecting on this and dedicating themselves to passing it on. So, yeah, it is. It is a really beautiful thing. I mean, with anything from antiquity that we still have, there's this kind of miracle of, like, these thousand little events of, like, people thinking it's important and.
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B
Copying the preservation of it.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And then Just the wonder and awe of how it's still so relevant to my life today.
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C
Yeah.
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B
That it just still rings true. So.
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C
Yeah, it's remarkable.
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B
Yeah. Did you want to talk about the controversy over his death?
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C
Yeah. Yeah. So this is kind of interesting. So, as I was kind of mentioning with him being in the capital, he was surrounded by a lot of wealth. He was not very interested in wealth, and he was interested in denouncing it. And so he falls afoul of the empress. Her name was Eudoxia.
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B
Okay.
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C
So he sort of preaches against her, either sort of subtly or not too subtly. And so he does that. He also takes in some monks who are exiled from Egypt. There's this bishop, Theophilus, and that becomes sort of the pretext for Eudoxia to have this sort of campaign against St. John.
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B
Do we know what he did to offend her so greatly? I mean, I know it's never a good idea to offend that empress, but.
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C
Yeah, well, I mean, he, like, just preached against her sort of, like, wealth and ostentation and, like, lack of generosity. He gave this one homily about Jezebel upon his, like, this return that he had to Constantinople. So this was sort of maybe implicitly against her. Yeah. I mean, he also preached against clericalism. Like, there was this practice of having, like, celibate priests, having spiritual sisters live with them, and just priests having a lot of wealth. And so all this was kind of of a piece. But the Empress Eudoxia was the person with political power to punish John Chrysostom.
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B
But it's helpful to also just know the other main topics of what he was very. Preaching the truth on.
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C
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, he preached really powerfully against immorality of all kinds. And so this included, at the level of his parishioners, all the way up to the empress. So. So he preached against immoral priests and lay people and then. Yeah, the royal house. Yeah. So they try to. Yeah. Basically there's like, a theological pretext for this other controversy that St. John Chrysostom wasn't involved in at all. And this pretext is used by the empress to send him into exile up north in Tapontis. And he. He actually dies on his. His way into exile. So it's this very sad ending to his. His saintly life. And it becomes kind of embarrassing a little while later when. When eventually his honor is sort of restored in the church, it becomes embarrassing for the. For the emperor especially to say, like, yeah, he was right.
- [15:16]
B
He was right. So just to clarify, when you said he was, you know, en route to exile. Was he misunderstood in the Church himself of the time, or was it, like, the secular powers of being that had exiled him?
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C
Yeah, it was a mix of both. So he. He was an equal opportunity offender, so.
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B
Got it.
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C
He was willing to offend priests who are living in a moral life and even, like, powerful priests in the hierarchy. And so, yeah, he was sort of teamed up on. Yeah. And then, like, he made an enemy of Theophilus, not because of these issues, but for sort of other issues anyways. Yeah.
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B
That's awful.
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C
Yeah. So it was a kind of mixture of, like, crooked people within ecclesiastical structures and then the political power of the royal family.
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B
Okay, okay. Not an easy position to be in.
- [16:14]
C
Yeah, that's right.
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B
What would you say, you know, besides his incredible homilies that we still have access to and preaching, are some legacies of St. John Chrysostom today or lessons from him that we look at?
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C
Yeah, I think one is he has this great reflection at the end of this work that's called on the Priesthood, which itself has a lot of beautiful things in it, including this really stunning description of the Eucharistic liturgy. But one thing he talks about at the end is the difference between a monk and a priest. And so he says that a priest deserves more honor because it's much more difficult to attain holiness as a priest. And the reason for this is that he thinks that if you're a monk, you can live a life which is free of a lot of the distractions and temptations that you might find as a priest with a parish and a flock and people depending on you and people bothering you all the time, but also presenting you with temptations, which he.
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B
Was seeing rampant of his time.
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C
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And which he, you know, probably experienced as a bishop, these, like, temptations, but that you should be very wary of taking a role that would entail this kind of leadership. And so it's kind of a trope in antiquity that monks are trying to avoid ordination. And so there's this sort of call. It's the opposite of what we have today. It's like, don't be a leader, which. Okay, you have to sort of temper that. It's not exactly what he says, but, I mean, if you look at, like, what the top books are on Amazon or something, it's like, all about, like, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership. And part of that is probably that there's just, like, this absence of true leadership in our culture. But then we do maybe have a kind of unhealthy obsession with leadership that if you're a successful human being and if you're holy and you're good, you're going to be in charge of other people and you should want that. And it's like. Well, that's like you should accept, you should possibly accept these positions of leadership if you're given them. But he's a good reminder that your first responsibility as a human being is your salvation. And so you should avoid things that put that possibly in jeopardy, if you can.
- [19:01]
B
That makes sense. Yes. And a purification of what is your motive for leadership? Is it for that self aggrandizement or is it a gift that the Lord is inviting you into and will provide the grace for with the great trials that come and the great responsibilities?
- [19:20]
C
Yeah, yeah. So it's also a good reminder for people who do have positions of leadership that, um, there's a. This is a separate thing, but in The Rule of St. Benedict, there's a beautiful reflection on the role of the abbot. And so you just have to have a lot of true fear of like your, your, your responsibility, that you do totally depend on God for the grace to be successful and not to fall into the various temptations and sins which could easily accompany such a position.
- [19:52]
B
Makes sense. Yes. And being the bishop of Constantinople, I'm sure he's also a patron of leaders, those in power, of pressure situations. Is there Anything else about St. John Chrysostom? Chrysostom, Yeah.
- [20:09]
C
I guess the last thing is he's the doctor of the church and he's one in the East. He's remembered as one of the three Holy Hierarchs. So he shares that with St. Gregory of Nazianzus, who's also called the theologian, and then St. Basil the Great.
- [20:25]
B
Okay. And a quick primer on how do you become a doctor, is it? Yes.
- [20:29]
C
Yeah. So there have been sort of various processes for this in history, but there's like a more sort of regular process now, at least in the west, that people are usually are always declared doctors of the Church by the Pope. And it's a recognition of the sort of purity and effectiveness of and reliability of that figure's teaching. So there are now, you know, not many, but a good number of doctors. Yeah. Traditionally in the west, it was St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory the Great, but many more have been added as well.
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B
Fascinating. Wonderful. Well, thank you.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Interesting. Thank you for joining us on this life of the saint in St. John Chrysostom. Pray for us.
- [21:24]
C
Pray for us.
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B
Thanks for joining.
- [21:26]
C
Thank you.
- [21:28]
A
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