John Chrysostom on Divine Pedagogy: The Coherence of his Theology and Preaching by David Rylaarsdam

Abstract

Reviewed by: John Chrysostom on Divine Pedagogy: The Coherence of his Theology and Preaching by David Rylaarsdam Paul R. Kolbet David Rylaarsdam John Chrysostom on Divine Pedagogy: The Coherence of his Theology and Preaching Oxford Early Christian Studies Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 Pp. xxvi + 317. $105.00. One of the more welcome developments of the last decade or so in early Christian studies has been the sustained attention sermons long neglected have received. After all, this is a vast body of ancient literature that has been overlooked too often or only consulted as evidence confirming what has been discovered elsewhere. David Rylaarsdam’s monograph marks a significant advance not only in our understanding of John Chrysostom, but also of early Christian sermons in [End Page 635] general, and of the strategies employed by Christian leaders as they made their own the practices of Greco-Roman philosophers and rhetoricians. Rylaarsdam’s analysis yields a strongly sympathetic and positive reading of Chrysostom. It is not a skeptical account that draws heavily on evidence produced by Chrysostom’s powerful enemies. As with any true believing martyr, which Chrysostom no doubt was, it is not always evident what exactly it was that was so important that it was judged at the time to be worth dying for. This is a truly useful book for establishing Chrysostom’s intellectual horizon and recovering his best intentions. Rylaarsdam seeks to correct and overturn what he takes to be a mistaken and too common picture of John Chrysostom as an “anti-intellectual” scolding moralist whose fate resulted from an unfortunate combination of a “prickly personality” and “political naïveté” (10, 282). He accomplishes this by tracing the theological use of specific Greek terms found in the Hellenistic rhetorical and philosophical tradition through an impressively broad swath of Chrysostom’s writings. Synkatabasis (“accommodation” or “adaption”) does the most work here as an essential aspect of classical psychagogy (“soul-leading”). One of the great virtues of this approach is that it is not burdened by an unfounded opposition between Hellenism and Christianity. Instead, we have here a Chrysostom who masters his Hellenistic inheritance and uses it for Christian purposes with little or no ambivalence about that. Rylaarsdam challenges historicist readings of Chrysostom to take greater account of his theology and theologians to include Chrysostom within theological discussions as a legitimate intellectual. The slogan here is “neither theology nor rhetoric alone” (117). Rylaarsdam’s own theological fluency is evident in several passages, but that in no way prevents him from working carefully with original texts in their historical contexts on their own terms. What others have seen as a lack of theology, Rylaarsdam describes as an out-working of Chrysostom’s psychagogic theory where—following Paul “becoming all things to all people” (1 Cor 9.22)—Chyrsostom adapts his speech pastorally to the level and needs of his all too ordinary audience (214–15). Where others have seen superficial, chiding moralism, Rylaarsdam sees a fully worked out theology that implies its own ethics as a fully formed way of life (148). Where others have seen unvarnished hate speech directed at Jews, dissenting Christians, and any number of other people, Rylaarsdam finds the “frank speech” specified by the philosophical manuals for the moral reform of the most recalcitrant minds (274–82). In searching for Chrysostom’s theology, Rylaarsdam finds characterizations of his thinking as “Antiochene” to be remarkably uninstructive and overly simplistic (133, 140). Much to be preferred is the close reading of the many context specific adapted performances enshrined in Chrysostom’s texts. Shining through the—at times, murky—evidence is, according to Rylaarsdam, a coherent theology of the incarnation where the unknowable, incorporeal God reveals himself by becoming in Christ all things to all people in forms that we can understand (continuing to extend beyond Christ’s human flesh to encompass liturgy, words, sacraments, images, saints’ lives, and relics). Rhetorical norms, as a consequence, are not just the shaping influence of how Christ presented his own ideas or of how he was to be presented by his followers, but govern how Chrysostom construes [End Page 636] the infinite God’s self-presentation to finite creatures. Chrysostom’s theology is...