THE IMAGE OF MOSES IN JOHN CHRYSOSTOM’S VIEW OF JEWS AND JUDAISM

  • Demetrios E. Tonias
Keywords: John Chrysostom, Moses, Jews, Judaism, Exodus, encomium, diatribe

Abstract

Chrysostom was neither the first nor was he the last Christian exegete to
use Moses in shaping his view of Jews and Judaism. Notwithstanding the pastoral and
theological importance which Chrysostom attributed to key scriptural events such as the
Exodus, for him the scriptural figure of Moses was particularly useful in his effort to situate the
Christian and Jewish communities of his day within the wider Christian metanarrative. To put
matters directly, Chrysostom sought to define the ways in which Moses, whom he deemed as
“the greatest of the prophets,” was a thoroughly Christian rather than Jewish figure.
This paper examines Chrysostom’s presentation of Moses as part of his general
view of Judaism in which Gentiles who emerged out of the darkness of idolatry took
possession of the inheritance which Jews abandoned when they rejected Christ.
Chrysostom never hesitated to use personages from the Old Testament as part of an effort
to assert Christian ownership of the scriptural text. Chrysostom made hundreds of
references to this dominant figure of the second book of the Torah throughout his homilies
and treatises and he often used the figure of Moses in his diatribe against Jews and
Judaism. As Robert Wilken and others have demonstrated, Chrysostom was concerned that
members of his flock matriculated between church and synagogue on a regular basis. Such
concern, at least in part, fueled his diatribes on this matter, and scriptural figures like
Moses were useful tools in this regard.
Chrysostom used the conventions of sophistic rhetoric in which invective was
counterbalanced by praise. For Chrysostom, the image of Moses was a worthy model for
such an encomium in which a figure from antiquity was presented as a model of virtue
worthy of emulation. The paper demonstrates how the Antiochene preacher detached the
leader of the Israelite Exodus from his Jewish moorings in an effort to represent him as a
Christian prophet.
Furthermore, the paper illustrates the ways in which Chrysostom described Moses
as not only a thoroughly Christian personage but also as a key figure in a scriptural story
that the Antiochene homilist saw as both supporting Christian claims and indicting those
Jews who denied those claims. This investigation includes an examination of the references
Chrysostom made with regard to Moses in an effort to determine his theological conception
of Moses. In particular, this paper delves into the ways in which John Chrysostom viewed
the Mosaic Law and Sinai Covenant within his contemporary Christian context.
Chrysostom was no Marcionite and, at times, felt it necessary to defend both Moses and the
Mosaic Law. From John's writings, a coherent image of Moses emerges in which
Chrysostom gives us a Moses who is a model of humility and meekness whose teachings
were in line with the Christian Church and not with the Jewish synagogue with which John
Chrysostom was competing.

References

Amirav, Hagit. Rhetoric and Tradition: John Chrysostom on Noah and the Flood,
Tradition Exegetica Graeca. Leuven: Peeters, 2003.
Broadhurst, Laurence. "Melito of Sardis, the Second Sophistic, and 'Israel'." In
Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christianities, edited by Willi Braun. Ontario: Wilfrid
Laurier University Press, 2005.
Chrysostom, John. Discourses against Judaizing Christians. Translated by Paul
W. Harkins, The Fathers of the Church. Washington: Catholic University of America Press,
1979.
Chrysostom, John. On Wealth and Poverty. Translated by Catharine P. Roth.
Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984.
Chrysostom, John. St. John Chrysostom Commentary on the Psalms. Translated by
Robert C. Hill. 2 vols. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1998.
Chrysostom, John. St. John Chrysostom: On Repentance and Almsgiving.
Translated by Gus George Christo, Fathers of the Church. Washington, DC: Catholic
University Press, 1998.
Dryden, J. de Waal. Theology and Ethics in 1 Peter: Paraenetic Strategies for
Christian Character Formation, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen
Testament. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.
Jeffreys, Elizabeth. "Rhetoric in Byzantium." In A Companion to Greek Rhetoric,
edited by Ian Worthington. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
Malunowiczówna, Leokadia. "Les Éléments Stoïciens Dans La Consolation
Grecque Chrétienne." Studia Patristica 13 (1975): 35-45.
Mayer, Wendy, and Pauline Allen. John Chrysostom. Edited by Carol Harrison,
Early Church Fathers. London: Routledge, 1999.
Schaff, Philip, ed. A Select Library of Ante-Nicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene
Fathers of the Christian Church. 38 vols. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999.
Webb, Ruth. "Praise And persuasion: Argumentation and Audience Response in
Epideictic Oratory." In Rhetoric in Byzantium: Papers from the Thirty-Fifth Spring
Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Exeter College, University of Oxford, March 2001, edited
by Elizabeth Jeffreys, 127-36. Aldershot, Hants, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate
Publishing, 2003.
Wilken, Robert L. John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the
Late Fourth Century. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1983.
Published
2012-10-04