John Chrysostom on Christianity as a Factor in the Dissolution and Aggregation of Community in the Ancient World
John Chrysostom on Christianity as a Factor in the Dissolution and Aggregation of Community in the Ancient World

Summary/Abstract: In a polemical and engaged manner, John Chrysostom often evoked in his homilies and exegeses two of Christianity’s multiple facets: on the one hand, its role in undermining and breaking down the traditional values (social, family, moral, cultural, religious) of antique communities, and, on the other hand, its constructive ability to transform and bring together these communities around new values, to create new identities, to shape new behaviours. The first part of article examines the domains whose existence was undermined by Christianity (state, communities, ethno-religious groups, juridical and political entities, socio-political and professional categories, family, kinship, civil law, customs, habits, traditional religion with its entire underlying structure) and the lexicon employed by John Chrysostom for underlining the subversive action of the new religion. The second part of this study concerns the opposite phenomenon: the ways by which Christianity— once officially established—reconstructed the unity and identity of communities around new values, practices and behaviours. The following rhetoric is found in the works of John Chrysostom: a constant emphasis on the Christian identity of Antioch; implementing a true peri-urban sacred topography through the celebration of feasts, particularly of martyrs, in the churches of the khôra; the constant instructing of the believers to avoid profane gatherings and areas, particularly the theatre and the hippodrome; incessant advice to the public to constantly attend church; the sustained study of the Scriptures, as a weapon “against pagans, and against Jews, and against many heretics”; finally, an exhortation to believers to embrace a conduct guided by the two fundamental values of Christianity: love and peace.

• Details
• Contents