Abstract
In recent years, there has been significant scholarly focus on John Chrysostom’s appropriation of ancient psychagogy, demonstrating that he was a skilled Christian physician of the soul who sought to promote the somatic and psychological health of his congregation by proposing preaching and various ascetic disciplines as medical treatments. In these studies, however, relatively little attention has been devoted to his use of philosophical therapy in relation to almsgiving. To address this, this book aims to take a closer look at Chrysostom’s view of almsgiving and soul therapy within the context of ancient philosophical therapy. Ancient philosophers identified passions (πάθη), desires, and distorted thought as the diseases of the soul and developed various kinds of cognitive and behavioural remedies to cure these. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach between Greco-Roman philosophy and social ethics in early Christianity, particularly in the tradition of the Greek Fathers, what follows pursues a giver-centered analysis which has largely been ignored in the previous receiver-oriented research.
After an introductory chapter, chapter 1 looks at how almsgiving heals the diseases of the soul, demonstrating that it cures the sick soul and maintains its health. Chapter 2 analyses the psychagogical role of eschatology within Chrysostom’s discourse of psychic-therapeutic almsgiving. Gentle and harsh therapeutic speeches of reward and punishment arouse both hope and fear, which results in regaining peace of the mind in harmonious combination with almsgiving. The last chapter explores Chrysostom’s idea of a Christianised psychic-therapeutic almsgiving. The integrated scope of Christian therapy provides a broader vision of salvation from the accomplishment of happiness to participation in the divine life.
On the basis of findings from the close analysis of Chrysostom’s homiletic series on Matthew and John, this book argues that for Chrysostom almsgiving is one of the most powerful remedies for healing sick souls, and that the concept of Christianised soul therapy is a new key framework for understanding his approach to almsgiving as well as his homilies on this topic, holistically and systematically. These findings suggest that the Christianised therapy of the soul is a vital interpretative methodology which has the potential to offer a new reading of the discourse on almsgiving in late antiquity. Chrysostom still gives the same message to modern audiences as he did in the past: “give alms and your soul will be healed.”