Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1921. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 7).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1944. / "Select bibliography": p. vi.

This study aims to establish the semantic range of πίστις (‘faith’) in fourth century Christian discourse using the preaching of John Chrysostom as a source base. Against previous scholarship which sees πίστις as primarily a cognitive or propositional term referring to belief, this study uses a close examination of Chrysostom’s preaching to argue that the relational nature of the term was central to its significance for fourth century preaching as Christians considered their own faith and biblical texts. Chrysostom uses the reciprocal, relational character of πίστις to emphasise loyalty, trust and obedience to God through metaphors based upon the military, economic and household contexts of late antiquity. This study further shows that Chrysostom in turn uses these aspects of πίστις to seek to influence the everyday life of his congregation, whether to support existing behaviour (such as obedience to the emperor, or husbands, or the bishop) or to seek to transform behaviour (such as encouraging the rich to give to the poor, or masters to treat slaves better). This contextual understanding of πίστις therefore sheds light on how the relationship with God both informed and was informed by the everyday human relationships of the congregation. The study overall demonstrates the necessity of understanding Chrysostom’s view of πίστις as belonging within a reciprocal relationship, enabling a new view of Chrysostom’s preaching, faith and late antiquity to emerge.

M.Litt. et Phil. / From this study it comes to light that although Saint Chrysostom was a strict ascetic, he was a great theologian on love and marriage, and he confronted the different themes pertaining to marriage with great love and philanthropy.

Since the mid 20th century, scholars have paid increasing attention to the anti-Judaism inherent in early Christian writings, identifying John Chrysostom's fourth-century homilies as a particularly hostile example of that heritage. As a "doctor of the church" and an important contributor to Christian orthodoxy as it developed in late antiquity, John is particularly well known for his eight sermons "Against the Jews," which invoke the apostle Paul as a central voice of authority for his thoroughly anti-Judaic Christianity. Yet, as is clear from his broader corpus, he encountered in Paul not only a fellow preacher who warned against Judaizing Christians, but also a self-identified Israelite who preached in Jewish places, observed elements of the Jewish law, and cried out for the salvation of Israel. In this dissertation, I argue that John's engagement with Paul's complex relationship to Judaism offers an especially productive, yet untapped, source for insight into John's anti-Judaic rhetoric. By offering a fresh analysis of John's sermons on Acts and the Pauline epistles, I place John's interpretation of Paul within a trajectory of classical moral philosophy wherein rhetoric was perceived as philosophical therapy for the soul. John frames Paul's persistent participation in Jewish places and practices and amiable rhetoric about his fellow Jews as strategic therapies deployed in order to manage Jewish emotions (pathe) and thus to guide diseased Jewish souls out of Judaism. Paul's own Jewishness is therefore mobilized to bolster a characterization of Jews as diseased and of Paul himself as an exemplary model of non-Jewish Christian orthodoxy. Attention to John's interpretations of Paul's "therapy of the soul" points to a more subtle and pervasive anti-Judaism than previously detected, one that stakes a claim to Christian orthodoxy, and therefore Christian identity more broadly, on the purportedly loving disavowal of Judaism by the apostle himself.

Concerns regarding political ‘enslavement’ and imperial constraints on free speech are especially palpable in the literature that follows the emperor Domitian’s assassination in 96 C.E. Under his successors, Nerva and Trajan, authors worked to differentiate the post-Domitianic age from the prior era of metaphorical enslavement and suppressed speech. Scholars have studied some of the ways in which Neronian and Flavian authors employed literary accounts of the Saturnalia, a festival characterized by temporary license and the notional transformation of social roles, to criticize individual rulers and thematize issues of imperial control. Yet they have not fully appreciated the pervasive use of literary Saturnalia in Flavian and post-Flavian political discourse. I examine the Saturnalia as a political metaphor in five texts: Martial’s Domitianic Epigrams 5 and Nervan Epigrams 11, Pliny’s Trajanic Epistles and Panegyricus, and Dio Chrysostom’s Trajanic fourth Oration. In Epigrams 5, Martial thematizes the circumscription of Saturnalian freedom to highlight limits to his poetic expression under Domitian. Later, in his Epigrams 11, Martial’s presentation of the Nervan regime as an age of ‘Saturnalia,’ a festival whose freedoms are inherently temporary, signifies anxiety about whether post-Domitianic freedom from imperial ‘enslavement’ will be short-lived. In the Panegyricus, Pliny praises Trajan for reasserting the social hierarchies that had become troublingly eroded under the dystopic ‘Saturnalia’ of Domitian. Through Pliny’s depiction of domestic Saturnalian celebrations in Epistles 2.17, the senator proves that the perverse ‘Saturnalia’ that plagued imperial life before Trajan are no more. Finally, in Orations 4, Dio Chrysostom uses circumscribed Saturnalian freedom not only as a metaphor for the limited political authority available to Greeks, but also to valorize his own Greek wisdom as essential to Trajan’s correction of shameful ‘Saturnalian’ rule. The authors in this study, although writing from different personal and generic perspectives, depict metaphorical Saturnalia to articulate the distressing limits of freedom under imperial rule or—in the case of Pliny and Dio—to burnish the image of the anti-Saturnalian ruler Trajan. My dissertation demonstrates that literary representations of the Saturnalia occupy a far more important role in imperial Greek and Roman understandings of autocracy than has been previously appreciated.

This work attempts to bring the information about St. John Chrysostom liturgy. It deals with its formation, evolution and with the way it is used in the practice of the Exarchate of Greek-Catholic Church in the Czech Republic. It speaks also about the Exarchate as such and about traditions it is based on. Using St. John Chrysostom liturgy this work shows the richness of the Catholic Church rite, unity in diversity.

No description available.

The name of John Chrysostom has historically been held in high esteem by the Christian Church. John was born, circa A.O. 350, in the Syrian city of Antioch. His rhetorical career led him to the apex of religious power as bishop of Constantinople. As a result of his verbal harangues of the political and religious leaders, he was sent into exile, where he died in A.O. 407. During his life time he was recognized both for his eloquence and his controversial style. Since the fifth century he has been remembered by the epitaph "Chrysostom," a tribute to his oratorical abilities, which translated means "the golden mouthed."

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity International University, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 238-254).