Seeing Sanctity: John Chrysostom's Use of Optics in His Homilies on the Saints

Abstract

This article analyzes John Chrysostom's discursive use of ancient medicophilosophical theories of optics in his homilies on the saints. In his homilies on Saints Meletius, Babylas, Julian, Drosis, Ignatius, and the Maccabean Martyrs, inter alia, Chrysostom uses technical optical terminology and concepts to describe the psycho-somatic effects of the saints' relics upon those who merely look at them. By drawing on cultural assumptions about how bodies and visual perception function, Chrysostom attempts to convince his listeners that going to the shrines and viewing the relics will bring them physical and emotional benefits. Using the optical theories of Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Galen, Chrysostom describes the material transfer of the relics' power through the visual process. Chrysostom describes the bodies of the saints as containers of undiminishing power, which is transferred across space to strike the eyes of viewers, enter their minds, and form impressions on their souls, much as optic theorists described the physiological process by which the colors and qualities of visible objects acted upon those who looked at them. These material interactions result in demonstrable emotional, bodily, and behavioral alterations that render a person more visibly Christian within their religious landscape. Thus, Chrysostom uses optics to construct the embodied sanctity of people, places, and communities in the midst of Antiochene and Constantinopolitan religious competition. Rather than considering the power of the saints' relics a matter of belief, Chrysostom appeals to sensory perception as a vehicle for religious experience, thus assuring his audience that they can know with their bodies God's power working through the relics.