John Chrysostom: Homilies on Paul

John Chrysostom's homilies on Paul are the largest surviving body of ancient verse-by-verse preaching on the Apostle, and the most important patristic window onto how the early Church read, interpreted, and venerated him. They are not a source for new facts about Paul's life; their value is as evidence for his *reception* — how, some three centuries after his death, a celebrated preacher in Paul's own mission region expounded his letters line by line and held up his character as a model. For a careful reference, they belong to the history of Paul's memory, clearly distinguished from the first-century documentary record in the Acts of the Apostles and Paul's own letters.

What it is

John Chrysostom — the surname is a later epithet, Greek for "golden-mouthed," earned by his eloquence — was born at Antioch in Syria about AD 349 and died in exile in AD 407. (Scholarship) He served for years as a preacher at Antioch and was afterward made archbishop of Constantinople. Antioch matters here: it is the city where, Acts reports, "the disciples were first named Christians" (Acts 11:26, Douay-Rheims), and the operational base from which Paul's missionary journeys set out (Acts 13:1–3). (Scripture) Chrysostom preached where Paul's memory was still close at hand.

He left full homily series — running, chapter-by-chapter expositions delivered from the pulpit and taken down by stenographers — on Acts, Romans, both letters to the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and the remainder of the Pauline corpus. (Scholarship) Alongside these he composed seven short panegyrics, *De laudibus sancti Pauli* ("On the praises of Saint Paul"), the classic ancient encomium of the Apostle's zeal and love. Taken together they form the most extensive treatment of Paul by any single ancient author.

Authorship and dating

Unusually for an ancient text, there is little authorship debate: the homilies are securely Chrysostom's own, preserved through stenographic records of his live preaching rather than transmitted anonymously. (Scholarship) They are generally dated to about AD 386–398, spanning his Antiochene years and the start of his time at Constantinople. Individual series are placed within that span on internal and circumstantial grounds rather than fixed to exact years, so any single date should be read as approximate. (Scholarship)

A caution belongs with the text itself. The great expository series survive in reliable public-domain English in the nineteenth-century *Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers* translation, and that is what this article links. The seven panegyrics *On Saint Paul* are a different case: there is no clean, freely reproducible public-domain English translation of them in common circulation. A modern English rendering exists but remains under copyright; the securely public-domain text of the panegyrics is the Greek (with Latin) preserved in Migne's *Patrologia Graeca* 50. Where this reference draws on Chrysostom, it does so from the public-domain expository homilies, and points readers there.

What it tells us — reception, not new facts

Chrysostom adds no verifiable biographical detail to what Acts and the letters already supply; he neither corrects nor extends the record of Paul's birth in Tarsus, his citizenship, or his death. What he preserves is a fourth-century Antiochene reading of Paul — how the letters were understood, applied, and loved in a living Greek-speaking Church. (Scholarship) That is its own kind of historical evidence: not for the first century, but for the depth and character of Paul's authority by the fourth.

His portrait of Paul is famously affectionate. The panegyrics dwell on the Apostle's endurance and the intensity of his attachment to Christ, taking as their keynote such verses as "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians 2:20, Douay-Rheims). (Scripture) The catalogue of Paul's hardships in 2 Corinthians 11 — imprisonments, floggings, shipwrecks — supplied Chrysostom with the raw material for an image of the Apostle as a tireless labourer, an image that shaped Christian devotion for centuries after. Read against the first-century sources, this is interpretation and homage; it should be received as such and not mistaken for reportage.

Why it matters for this reference

For a reference anchored in Tarsus and Paul's world, Chrysostom is valuable for three reasons. First, he is a native of Antioch, the Syrian metropolis bound up with Paul's own story, and so a witness from within the geography of the mission. Second, his homilies show that by the late fourth century Paul's letters were being read publicly, in full, verse by verse — evidence for how thoroughly the Pauline corpus had become the Church's shared inheritance. Third, his encomia are among the earliest and most influential statements of the *veneration* of Paul, the tradition of honour that, in a distant way, the pilgrimage to his birthplace continues to express. See our reference on the Apostle Paul for the documentary life, and why Tarsus for why that birthplace is honoured today.

Key texts

The Homilies on Romans (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 11) are the most celebrated of the series and the natural starting point; the Homilies on Acts, in the same volume, run through the narrative that frames Paul's career. The homilies on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Vol. 12) and on Galatians through Philemon (Vol. 13) complete the corpus. The seven panegyrics *On Saint Paul* are the classic character-study, but — given the copyright status of the modern English translation — are best approached for now through the public-domain Greek of Migne. Short answers to common questions are gathered on the questions and answers page.