Durham E-Theses Marriage and virginity according to St. John Chrysostom

262 Pages·2011·12.89 MB·English

Durham E-Theses
Marriage and virginity according to St. John
Chrysostom
Trenham, Josiah B.
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Trenham, Josiah B. (2003) Marriage and virginity according to St. John Chrysostom, Durham theses,
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Reverend Josiah B. Trenham
Marriage and Virginity
according to St. JolIn Cllrysostom
A copyright of this thesis rests
with the author. No quotation
from it should be published
~W"'. ...
without his prior written consent
and information derived from it
should be acknowledged.
Dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
(Ph.D.)
Deptartment of Theology
University of Durham, England
Reverend Professor Andrew Louth, Supervisor
Submitted December 2003
? ] JUN 2004
I
Declaration.
I confirm that no part of the material offered has previously been submitted by me for a
degree in this or in any other University.
Signe
Date:
..
II
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Introduction. 1
Chapter One. Early Church Teaching Prior to St. John Chrysostom. 4
Chapter Two: Terrestrial Angels. Marriage and Virginity in Paradise. 72
Chapter Three. From Earthly Ambitions to Heavenly Acquisitions: 103
Marriage and Virginity in the Old and New Covenants.
Chapter Four. Spiritual Marriage, Monastic Family, and Domestic Church. 152
Chapter Five. Barren Intercourse: Contraception in the Teaching 188
of St. John Chrysostom.
Chapter Six. Celestial Bodies and Spiritual Consortship: 208
Marriage and Virginity in the Eschaton.
Conclusion. 239
Appendix 1. Illustration of the Crucified Monk. 241
Bibliography. 242
ii j
Introduction.
St. John Chrysostom (A. D. 347?- 407), the great and holy hierarch, received of
God many and diverse gifts, and as a good and faithful servant increased the talents given
him. In the prayer at the conclusion of the Akathist Hymn composed in his honor we
pray, "Thou wast truly a teacher of the whole world, for people of every age and every
calling were taught by thee." He has inspired generations of Christians from every walk
of life for more than sixteen hundred years. His writings have been treasured and pored
over by the faithful, both clergy and laity, both monastic and married, in search of
edification of soul, and they have found in him an inspiring guide to the authentic
Christian life. In his homilies we find the instruction of a man of God whose passion was
to sanctifY the city. His intimate knowledge of city life in the world, combined with a
profound spiritual vision of the potential of the Christian life to be lived in the midst
thereof, has made him only more relevant in this age of urbanization, when the desert has
become exceedingly more remote.
What theology was it that undergirded the practical counsels of Chrysostom? It is
the aim of this dissertation to answer that question with regard to St. John's teaching on
marriage and virginity. We will see that a single grand and consistent conception of the
Christian calIing inspired Chrysostom throughout his ministry, and provided his rudder in
delivering his priestly teaching and pastoral counsel to married and monastic alike. In
propounding this calling Chrysostom relied upon the labors of the Fathers who had gone
before him, and in Chapter One we explore a substantial portion of his theological
inheritance. All of the Fathers sought to root their anthropology in protology, and the
same is true for Chrysostom. His anthropological vision is rooted in the original creation
of Man as a terrestrial angel in the Garden of delights, and it is this paradisal vision, in all
its grandeur as conceived by St. John, that serves as a touchstone for both the monastic
life and truly Christian marriage. Throughout his ministry he will never cease appealing
to his flock to strive for a return to the angelic life of Paradise. This is the subject of
Chapter Two: Terrestrial Angels. In Chapter Three, From Earthly Ambitions to
Heavenly Acquisitions, we examine carefully Chrysostom's teaching on the progress of
redemption, as it applies to marriage and virginity and their transformation, in covenantal
history. Chapter Four, Spiritual Marriage, Monastic Family and the Domestic Church,
explores St. John's teaching on the nature and practice of authentic Christian marriage.
This chapter is designed to demonstrate the exceedingly high calling of marriage in
Christ as Chrysostom conceives it. It is also designed to arrange a large amount of
homiletical material, scattered in small pieces throughout various portions of St. John's
corpus, in such a way as to reveal the coherence of his teaching and the monastic
paradigm that underlies his marital counsels. Chapter Five, Barren Intercourse:
Contraception in the Teaching of St. John Chrysostom, examines this one aspect of
marital ethics. We have offered this chapter for several reasons. First, Chrysostom is
often invoked by contemporary ethicists as virtually the only Church Father whose
teaching accords with the use of artificial contraception. I hope to show, on the contrary,
that Chrysostom, as an educated man with a particular interest in medicine, was well
aware of artificial contraception, and clearly forbade it in his teaching. Second,
Chrysostom does establish a marital paradigm and ethical grid that diverges to a
noticeable degree from what many later Western and Eastern Fathers would promote. In
the ethical quagmire that contemporary Christians find themselves, particularly in the
2
area of marriage and human sexuality, Chrysostom provides, I believe, an understandable
and acceptable Christian marital ethic. Chapter Six, Celestial Bodies and Spiritual
Consortship, explores St. John's teaching on the Resurrection and the coming
transfiguration of marriage and virginity in the Kingdom. Here we will find his sublime
teachings on both the eradication of the marriage bond, and the continuance, indeed
solidification, of spousal soul union in Christ.
The cpeoJ)'YJlka of the Church, expressed over the centuries, has borne witness to the
fact that Chrysostom's vision was from the Holy Spirit. This is not suprising since St.
John was such a humble and devoted student of Holy Scripture, having virtually
memorized the entirety of the Scripture as a young man, and equally of the writings of
the Holy Fathers before him.
If this dissertation assists faithful Christians, who perhaps know Chrysostom from
various of his teachings and sayings, to understand the larger theological worldview of
the saint, which unifies and gives context to his particular counsels, it will have been a
worthy labor. Yet, should I die today and this dissertation never see the light of day, I
will have no regret for I, at least, have had the immense pleasure and benefit of standing
before the icon of St. Chrysostom and searching his texts as his disciple during these
years of study, and could say with my last breath, as Chrysostom did with his, "Glory to
God for all things."
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Chapter 1
Early Church Teaching on Marriage and Virginity
Introduction.
This chapter designed to serve as a general introduction to the theme of a
IS
Patristic approach to marriage and virginity prior to the time of St. John Chrysostom.
Toward that end I have attempted to provide a basic overview of the major heretical
currents touching our subject, since so much of the writings of the Fathers on our theme
is in response to teaching out of harmony with the Church's rule of faith. Following this
I have provided an overview of the works of six very influential pre-Chrysostomian
Church teachers on the subject of marriage and virginity. These six are: Tertullian, St.
Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St. Methodios of Olympus, St. Athanasios the Great, and
St. Ephrem the Syrian. With the knowledge of both the heretical teachings and those of
I
six of the great Christian lights that preceded Chrysostom we can better appreciate
Chrysostom's own unique and monumental contributions to the defining of Christian
positions on marriage and virginity.
Heretical Attacks on Marriage and False Notions of Virginity.
) Besides this introductory chapter, throughout the dissertation references to these authors will be made to
document positions relevant to Chrysostom's. These six theologians represent a wide selection of Greek,
Latin, and Syriac Christianity of the early centuries of the Church, and demonstrate the essential harmony
of opinion throughout the Church in the early centuries on the subject of marriage and virginity. The reader
will notice the conspicuolls absence of the Cappadocian Fathers: Ss. Gregory the Theologian, Basil the
Great, and Gregory of Nyssa. Each of these Fathers had much to say about marriage and virginity, and
profollndly influenced Chrysostom. A paper dedicated to Chrysostom's Cappadocian inheritance wonld be
a worthy endeavor. Apart from the Cappadocians, neither do we examine the influence of St. Irenaens,
upon whom Ss. Clement of Alexandria and Methodios of Olympus so depend. For a helpful examination
of the contribution of St. Irenaeus to the subject of marriage and virginity see Behr (2000).
Much Patristic ink on the subject of marriage and virginity was elicited by the
erroneous teachings of heretics and schismatics, who were defaming marriage and
advocating ascetical paradigms rooted in heretical teaching and motivated by false
aspirations. St. Paul the Apostle had warned St. Timothy that, even in the Apostolic age,
2
false teachers would arise, who would attack marriage, and so it was. In the coming
centuries there was a continual stream of false teachers, who undermined marriage both
from the right and from the left. Chief among these opponents of Christian marriage
were the so-called "Gnostics."
"Gnosticism,,3 is an umbrella word, something of an ideological topos, possessing
a broad semantic range and used as a rhetorical tool. Attempting a definition of
Gnosticism is not a simple work. This is the case not only because Gnosticism itself is a
4
relatively novel scholarly construct and not a Patristic category of definition, and
because not one of these so-called Gnostic groups actually self-designated in this fashion,
but also because it is virtually impossible to produce a Gnostic theological grid,
adherence to which would classifY someone as a Gnostic. Commonly, Gnosticism is
used to describe any religious-philosophical system that posits a secret or special gnosis,
possessed only by the elect few, i.e.- those who are spiritual. This special knowledge,
which itself saves, reveals that the created world is the work of angelic powers or aeons
arising from the divinity. On this common theme many particular brands of Gnosticism
2 I St. Timothy 4:3.
Jonas (1958), p. 32.
J
4 The Fathers did not actually call these groups by the collective tenn "Gnosticism," but rather addressed
each sect individually, sometimes applying the term "Gnostic:' and usually designating the group by the
name of its founder. The Fathers dealt with these "Gnostic" groups primarily as Christian heresies. Only a
few sects expressly called themselves "Gnostics," but SI. Irenaeus collectively used the name "gnosis:
falsely so-called" to describe groups that shared certain cosmological and epistemological presuppositions.
arose, but, though propounding many different and extravagant systems, these sects have
often been thought to possess a common ideological commitment to the idea that the
physical universe was not the creation of the Supreme God, but of lesser deities, and, as
such, the cosmos and matter are evil and are not capable of redemption.5 The body is
thought of as a prison, and as 'the filthy and unclean garb of the soul.,6 This effort to
define Gnosticism and to group together a large number of religious movements of the
nd rd
2 and 3 centuries under this category has been decisively critiqued by recent
scholarship.7 The origin of Gnosticism is shrouded in darkness. There are four basic
sources commonly suggested as contributing to the rise of Gnostic teachings:
Zoroastrianism, apocalyptic Judaism, heterodox Christianity, and Hellenistic philosophy.8
It does not appear that anything definitive can be affirmed at this point.
Much of our contemporary knowledge of sects commonly referred to as Gnostic
derived from the many Patristic refutations penned over the early centuries of the
IS
Church. Chief amongst these works is St. lrenaeus' Against Heresies: On the Detection
and Refutation of Gnosis Falsely So-Called. This work of St. lrenaeus depended on a
9
5 Grant (1961), p. 15.
Hymn of the Pearl in the Gnostic Acts of Thomas from the 3rd century and probably reflecting a late
h
Valentinian doctrine. Ibid., p. 116.
7 Williams (1995), Rethinking Gnosticism: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category, seems to me
to provide a devastating critique of the traditional way that scholarship in the last several centuries has tried
to deal with a large number of religious movements in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, which often share many
commonalities, but resist, Williams shows, any consistent categorization.
s Grant (1961), p. 18. Little can be said for any substantive contribution for Greek philosophy, beyond
terminology. The Christian influence can be markedly detected in the Gnostic redeemer imagery. Cf. Jonas
(1958), p. 33. Mandaeanism is an acknowledged, but very complex, source, and is the only ancient fonn of
Gnostic religion still in practice today. Sects remain today in Iraq, particulary in Baghdad and Basra,
where they are said to dominate the precious metals market. The name "Mandaean" comes from the
Aramaic "manda" which means knowledge. The Mandaeans are literally "Gnostics." Rudolph (1977), pp.
343ff.
Sources Clm!tiennes has published the critical text, Irhu!e de Lyon: Contre les lu'n:sies. in nine \olumes:
'I.
SC 100, 151. 152, 210, 211, 263, 26-l, 293. and 29-l.
6