Martyrdom According to John Chrysostom: "To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain"

A thesis submitted to the Theological Faculty of the University of Durham and directed by the Orthodox scholar George Dragas, this book examines martyrdom and martyrs as they are discussed in the writings of John Chrysostom.

Chapter 1 (pp. 1–27) offers a survey of ideas and literature about early Christian martyrdom prior to Chrysostom. This chapter draws mostly on standard secondary sources but is serviceable nonetheless. The large second chapter (pp. 29–153) then provides a comprehensive survey and examination of Chrysostom’s teaching about martyrdom and martyrs. The author divides his analysis up into major and minor nuances in Chrysostom’s teaching on martyrdom. The former include martyrdom as an imitation of Christ’s baptism in death, of his suffering, and of his saving and expiatory sacrifice. Minor nuances in Chrysostom’s teaching on martyrdom include martyrdom as an emigration into Heaven, as a call to a better and more spiritual life, as a change from corruptibility to incorruptibility, and as a spiritual wedding with Christ. The rest of the chapter explores a host of ideas and themes associated with martyrdom in Chrysostom’s voluminous writings, including the moral dispositions of the martyr, the roles played by God and demonic forces in martyrdom, and the veneration of martyrs’ relics. Chapter 3 (pp. 155–94) explores secondary themes associated with martyrdom in Chrysostom, chiefly asceticism and virginity. A summarizing conclusion in Chapter 4 (pp. 195–97) follows this. There are two appendices, one a somewhat hagiographical biographical sketch of Chrysostom, again based on standard secondary sources, and the other a list of all the sources in Chrysostom used in Christo’s analysis. There is also an index of names.

Although Christo lists several well-known studies on martyrdom and the cult of the saints in his bibliography, these are rarely referred to in the bulk of his analysis. Christo has instead devoted himself to the identification, translation, and systematization of a comprehensive body of primary texts, especially from Chrysostom’s homilies, on the subject of martyrdom and martyrs, and this is the strength of this book. This reader particularly commends Christo’s detailed treatment of Chrysostom’s views on the cult of the martyrs’ relics (pp. 120–54), which would be of great interest and use to all students of popular religion and the cult of the saints in late antiquity. Both the translations and analysis in the book are well-written and comprehensible. Some more historical information about the particular martyrs discussed in Chrysostom’s homilies might have enriched Christo’s analysis for the reader unfamiliar with figures such as St. Babylas and St. Bernice. Given the high cost of this volume, it will probably be acquired predominantly by libraries, but is recommended to all students and scholars interested in Chrysostom, in the theology of martyrdom in early Christianity, and, as noted above, in the cult of the saints.