Acknowledgements
This book began as a dissertation eight years ago in the Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University. The impetus was a course I took with Matthew Thiessen on rabbinic and early Christian exegesis that resulted in a paper on early and late antique interpretations of Prov. 10:2 and 11:4. I am indebted to Matthew for introducing me to key rabbinic texts, as well as secondary works on almsgiving by scholars of Judaism. After further research and under the guidance of my dissertation director, Peter Martens, I eventually narrowed my topic to John Chrysostom’s view of almsgiving. Peter’s insightful critique, along with that of Jeffrey Wickes and Wendy Mayer, helped me to refine my thesis and develop the project further. I am grateful to each of these individuals for their expert guidance, encouragement, and generosity with their time. This work is also indebted to Wendy’s previous scholarship on John Chrysostom and her expansive knowledge of his corpus. Of course, any remaining errors and imperfections are solely my own.
In the process of reading and critiquing my work, Wendy introduced me to two other people working on John Chrysostom, her doctoral student, Junghun Bae, and Maria Verhoeff. Both Junghun and Maria graciously shared their dissertations with me, and Junghun’s work was recently published by Brill as John Chrysostom on Almsgiving and the Therapy of the Soul.
Ron Crown, the research librarian for Theological Studies at Saint Louis University merits individual mention for helping me to obtain dissertations and other sources vital to this project that were not easily accessible. Special thanks also to Marjolein van Zuylen, David Runia, Gerard Rouwhorst, and Louise Schouten at Brill; Joel Elowsky who put me in contact with these wonderful people; and anonymous reviewers of this manuscript.
Finally, I appreciate the loyal support and encouragement of my family, especially my mom, Carolyn, whose support throughout my career transition from a physical therapist to an academic has been unwavering.