Paperback: This meditational book contains more than 90 excerpts from the sermons of Saint John Chrysostom, a major spiritual thinker of the early Church.
Robert Van de Weyer has selected thematic passages from the written record of these sermons in order to inspire, challenge, remind, and reassure a new generation of readers.
John Chrysostom was a spell-binding preacher and the leader of the Church of Constantinople during the fourth century. He chastised the rich for failing to share their wealth with the less fortunate, and he described generosity to another not as gift-fiving but as a required repayment of a debt. He viewed the goal of marriage as companionship on the journey to heaven.
On Living Simply (1996) brings these and other views across the centuries in a message whose modernity, bluntness, and vigour is undimmed by time. On Living Simply was originally published by Arthur James Ltd Publishers under the title John Chrysostom: The Golden Voice of Protest.
About the author: The ambiguity and intrigue surrounding John (c 349 - 407), the great preacher (his name means “golden-mouthed”) from Antioch, are characteristic of the life of any great man in a capital city. Brought to Constantinople after a dozen years of priestly service in Syria, John found himself the reluctant victim of an imperial ruse to make him bishop in the greatest city of the empire. Ascetic, unimposing but dignified, and troubled by stomach ailments from his desert days as a monk, John became a bishop under the cloud of imperial politics.
If his body was weak, his tongue was powerful. The content of his sermons, his exegesis of Scripture, were never without a point. Sometimes the point stung the high and mighty. Some sermons lasted up to two hours.
His lifestyle at the imperial court was not appreciated by many courtiers. He offered a modest table to episcopal sycophants hanging around for imperial and ecclesiastical favours. John deplored the court protocol that accorded him precedence before the highest state officials. He would not be a kept man.
His zeal led him to decisive action. Bishops who bribed their way into office were deposed. Many of his sermons called for concrete steps to share wealth with the poor. The rich did not appreciate hearing from John that private property existed because of Adam’s fall from grace any more than married men liked to hear that they were bound to marital fidelity just as much as their wives were. When it came to justice and charity, John acknowledged no double standards.
Aloof, energetic, outspoken, especially when he became excited in the pulpit, John was a sure target for criticism and personal trouble. He was accused of gorging himself secretly on rich wines and fine foods. His faithfulness as spiritual director to the rich widow, Olympia, provoked much gossip attempting to prove him a hypocrite where wealth and chastity were concerned. His actions taken against unworthy bishops in Asia Minor were viewed by other ecclesiastics as a greedy, uncanonical extension of his authority.
Theophilus, archbishop of Alexandria, and Empress Eudoxia were determined to discredit John. Theophilus feared the growth in importance of the Bishop of Constantinople and took occasion to charge John with fostering heresy. Theophilus and other angered bishops were supported by Eudoxia. The empress resented his sermons contrasting gospel values with the excesses of imperial court life. Whether intended or not, sermons mentioning the lurid Jezebel and impious Herodias were associated with the empress, who finally did manage to have John exiled. He died in exile in 407. (Franciscan Media)
About the compiler: Robert Van de Weyer is an Anglican priest and the founder of the modern-day spiritual center which is patterned after an earlier community established in 1626 at Little Gidding, near Cambridge, England, by Nicholas Ferrar. Like the earlier foundation, the community attracts both families and singles who follow a simple rule and practice of prayer. He also lectured for twenty five years in Cambridge on economics, philosophy and religion, and has written and edited over 50 books on those subjects.
Among the many works that Robert Van de Weyer has compiled are Daily Readings with Søren Kierkegaard; Daily Readings with Blaise Pascal; The HarperCollins Book of Prayers: A Treasury of Prayers Through the Ages; Feasts and Fasts: A Cycle of Readings for Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and Pentecost; and Revelations to the Shepherd of Hermas: A Book of Spiritual Visions.
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