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Saint John Chrysostom's Rhetorical Use of the Socratic Distinction between Kingship and Tyranny
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
Extract
The voluminous writings of St. John Chrysostom reflect the influence of the important movements and controversies of the fourth century: the spread of monasticism, the final conflict between Christianity and paganism, and the struggle between Nicene orthodoxy and Arianism, which came to an end, at least in the Eastern Empire, with Theodosius the Great and the first Council of Constantinople in 381. Each of these Christian groups — monks, Arians, and Nicene orthodox — had, as George Huntston Williams has clearly shown, its own distinctive attitude towards the imperial state.
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References
1 George Huntston Williams, ‘Christology and Church-State Relations in the Fourth Century,’ Church History 20 (1951) September, pp. 3–33, December, pp. 3–26. Google Scholar
2 De laudibus Constantini 5 (PG 20.1336). Cf. Setton, Kenneth M., Christian Attitude towards the Emperor in the Fourth Century (New York 1941) 50.Google Scholar
3 Setton, , op. cit. 213: cf. 107. Rather, the Fathers fell back again upon the Socratic distinction. Setton, to whose study I am greatly indebted, does not seem fully to have realized the widespread and sometimes subtle applications of this distinction in the fourth century.Google Scholar
4 Sermo contra Auxentium 36 (PL 16.1061B).Google Scholar
5 Xenophon, , Memorabilia 2.1.7, 3.9.10, 4.6.12; Oeconomicus 21.12. Plato, Republic IX; Politicus 276e. Dio Chrysostom, Orat. 3 (the third on kingship) 29–42.Google Scholar
6 Kingship: Tyranny:Google Scholar
1) self-control 1) slavery to passion
2) according to law 2) not according to law
3) by persuasion 3) by force
4) over willing subjects 4) over unwilling subjects
5) for the common good 5) for the tyrant's advantage
7 Adversus oppugnatores vitae monasticae 3.9-10 (PG 47.363–4).Google Scholar
8 PG 47.387–392. Dom Chrysostomus Baur suggests (rightly, I believe) that this is Chrysostom's earliest extant work: Der heilige Iohannes Chrysostomus und seine Zeit I (Munich 1929) 93. Google Scholar
9 PG 47.388. St. John Chrysostom on Kingship and Tyranny Google Scholar
10 Ibid. 389.Google Scholar
11 Ibid. 390.Google Scholar
12 PG 60.615. Google Scholar
13 A view widely held among the early Fathers; see Wilfrid Parsons, S.J., ‘The Influence of Romans XIII on Pre-Augustinian Christian Political Thought,’ Theological Studies 1 (1940) 337–364.Google Scholar
14 PG 61.509–510. Google Scholar
15 Ibid. 508.Google Scholar
16 See, for example, Ad populum Antiochenum homil. 21.3 (PG 49.216). Google Scholar
17 As Valentinian implied of Ambrose in the controversy over the basilica for the Arians: ‘Si tyrannus es, scire volo, ut sciam quemadmodum me adversum te praeparem’ (quoted in Ambrose, Epistula 20.22 [PL 16.1013A]). Cf. Setton, op. cit. 149. Google Scholar
18 In Genesin serm. 4.2 (PG 54.596); Ad populum Antiochenum homil. 6.1 (PG 49.81–82); In Epistulam ad Romanos homil. 23,2 (PG 60.616–617); for the history of this view see Wilfrid Parsons, S.J., ‘Lest Men, Like Fishes …,’ Traditio 3 (1945) 380–388.Google Scholar
19 De sacerdotio 2.3 (PG 48.634).Google Scholar
20 In illud: Vidi Dominum homil. 4.5 (PG 56.126).Google Scholar
21 De Babyla S. contra Iulianum (PG 50.537); see also De Droside S. martyre (PG 50.686). Google Scholar
22 ‘ Byzantinism,’ ‘theocratic ideal,’ and ‘tolerance’ are used here with the technical meanings they have in Hendrik Berkhof's Kerk en Kaiser (Amsterdam 1946), with which I am acquainted in the German translation of Gottfried Locher, Kirche und Kaiser (Zurich 1947). See also the work of George Huntston Williams cited in the first note of this article.Google Scholar