Stanfill, J. P. (2019) - John Chrysostom and The Rebirth of Antiochene Mission in Late Antiquity. Church History, 88 (4), 899-924

Church History 88:4 (December 2019), 899–924.
© American Society of Church History, 2019

doi:10.1017/S0009640719002506
John Chrysostom and the Rebirth of Antiochene

Mission in Late Antiquity
JONATHAN P. STANFILL
There is surprisingly little evidence to suggest that bishops played a major role in
initiating and overseeing missionary endeavors between the second and fourth
centuries CE. John Chrysostom (d. 407), who directed a number of missionary
enterprises as the bishop of Constantinople, represents one well-established
exception. This article argues that Chrysostom cultivated his distinctive approach to
mission during his formative years in Antioch by tracing the key features of
Chrysostom’s mission strategy back to the activities of his episcopal mentors in
Antioch, especially their efforts to promote the Christianization of the surrounding
rural areas and their assertion of jurisdictional claims over regions beyond the
Roman Empire. In conjunction with these activities, Chrysostom developed his own
scriptural justification for mission during this period in which he advocated for
emulation of the apostle Paul, who was, in his estimation, Christianity’s missionary
exemplar.
I
N many respects, the work of Christian mission began when Jesus instructed
the Twelve to go among “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” and proclaim
the coming of the kingdom of heaven with accompanying miraculous
signs.1 Elsewhere in the Gospels, he dramatically expanded the scope of this
mission by commanding his disciples to spread the faith to the ends of the
earth.2 In the ensuing decades, both celebrated apostles like Paul and
unnamed missionaries responded by venturing throughout the Roman
Empire and perhaps beyond it.3 Yet, the spotty record of deliberate
missionary activity between the second and fourth centuries CE has
I am especially grateful to Wendy Mayer, George Demacopoulos, Tera Lee Hendrick, Andrea
Sterk, and two anonymous Church History reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions
at various stages of this essay’s evolution. I must also thank Catherine Osborne for her editorial
support. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own. And, of course, any remaining
shortcomings are my own as well.
1
Matt. 10:5–15; Mark 6:7–13; and Luke 9:1–6.
2
Matt. 28:19–20; and Mark 16:15.
3
For an example of unnamed missionaries, see Acts 19:11–12. For the subsequent appeal to the
missionary efforts of the apostles to justify claims of apostolic foundations by Syriac churches, see
Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent, Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches
(Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), 17–71.
Jonathan P. Stanfill is Visiting Instructor of Theology at the University of Portland.
899
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900 CHURCH HISTORY
prompted a growing number of scholars to question the extent to which

subsequent generations of Christians were committed to this task.4 Even as
the bishops of this era claimed descent from the apostles, there is
surprisingly little evidence that they sponsored missions.5 Nicene bishops, in
particular, seem to have been remarkably ambivalent about missionary
endeavors during the late fourth century, especially with respect to the
barbarian peoples beyond the borders of the empire.6 In fact, much of the
evidence for Christian mission during this period has been rightfully
characterized as “mission from below”—that is, conducted by freelance
individuals, including slaves, prisoners, soldiers, traders, and wandering
ascetics, who have been aptly described as “missionaries without a mission
as such.”7
4
For example, see E. A. Thompson, “Christianity and the Northern Barbarians,” Nottingham
Medieval Studies 1, no. 1 (1957): 3–21; W. H. C. Frend, “The Missions of the Early Church,
180–700 AD,” in Miscellanea historiae ecclesiasticae 3: Colloque de Cambridge, 24–28
septembre 1968, ed. Derek Baker (Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1970),
3–23; Einar Molland, “Besaß die Alte Kirche ein Missionsprogramm und bewußte
Missionsmethod?” in Die Alte Kirche, ed. Heinzgünter Frohnes and Uwe W. Knorr (München:
Kaiser, 1974), 51–67; Martin Goodman, Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Religious
History of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994); John Curran, “The Conversion of
Rome Revisited,” in Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity, ed. Stephen Mitchell and Geoffrey
Greatrex (London: Duckworth, 2000), 103–115; Sergey A. Ivanov, “Religious Missions,” in The
Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c. 500–1492, ed. Jonathan Shepard (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008), 305–332; and Sergey A. Ivanov, “Pearls Before Swine”:
Missionary Work in Byzantium, trans. Deborah Hoffman (Paris: Association des amis du Centre
d’histoire et de Civilization de Byzance, 2015), 21–42.
5
I define episcopally organized mission as an intentional and organized effort, overseen by a
bishop, to promote the Christianization of a specific people. These undertakings would have
encompassed a wide range of activities, such as the evangelization of non-Christians, the
discipleship of Christians, and the maintenance of orthodoxy (Pauline Allen and Wendy Mayer,
“Through a Bishop’s Eyes: Towards a Definition of Pastoral Care in Late Antiquity,”
Augustinianum 40, no. 2 [2000]: 345–397, esp. 377–378). But I also argue that what constitutes
these activities as “mission” is their employment in a setting that entails a degree of boundary
crossing (e.g., geographical, ethnic, linguistic, or cultural). I am influenced here by the trend in
missiology to frame “mission” in terms of contextualization (i.e., accommodating the Christian
faith to a local culture). See Andrew James Prince, Contextualization of the Gospel: Towards an
Evangelical Approach in the Light of Scripture and the Church Fathers (Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf
and Stock, 2017). For similar definitions of “mission” in late antiquity, see Ian N. Wood, The
Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe, 400–1050 (Harlow: Longman, 2001),
3–4; Andrea Sterk, “Mission from Below: Captive Women and Conversion on the East Roman
Frontiers,” Church History 79, no. 1 (March 2010): 2n3; and Ivanov, Pearls Before Swine, 9.
6
On the absence of missionary undertakings, especially to the barbarians, see Thompson,
“Christianity and the Northern Barbarians,” 9–10; Frend, “Missions of the Early Church,” 13;
and Thomas S. Burns, Rome and the Barbarians, 100 B.C.–A.D. 400 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2003), 369.
7
On “mission from below,” see Christopher Haas, “Mountain Constantines: The Christianization
of Aksum and Iberia,” Journal of Late Antiquity 1, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 101–126; and Sterk,
“Mission from Below,” 1–39. Ivanov characterizes these freelance individuals as accidental
missionaries in “Religious Missions,” 307.
CHRYSOSTOM AND REBIRTH OF ANTIOCHENE MISSION 901
In this climate of relative episcopal disinterest, John Chrysostom stands apart
for his support of a number of missionary endeavors as the bishop of
Constantinople (circa 397–404 CE). To the north, he promoted the
Christianization of the Goths by sending missionaries across the Danube,
overseeing the appointment of Gothic bishops beyond the Crimean
peninsula, and even establishing a Gothic parish in the capital.8 To the east,
he concerned himself with the progress of missionary efforts in Persia.9
Finally, during his exile, he devoted significant energy and resources to
orchestrate a mission in Phoenicia.10 It should be noted, however, that
Chrysostom did not designate his endeavors as “mission” or his agents as
“missionaries,” for the simple reason that such terminology was not extant
among Greek-speaking Christians at this time.11 Instead, he spoke in terms
of activities related to the propagation of Christianity (for example,
conversion of pagans, construction of churches, and so on) and referred to
the local leader of a mission as its “manager” (oikonomos), while other
missionaries were variously identified as presbyters, monks, and brothers.12
And yet, the striking absence of similar efforts by his peers highlights his
exceptional behavior. This peculiar willingness to initiate and oversee
missionary endeavors has long been explained as the product of
Chrysostom’s “pure religious enthusiasm.”13 J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz
further diagnosed his “missionary zeal” as “the expression of a personality
exceptionally determined not to be swayed by the cultural (not racial)
prejudice which induced the educated inhabitants of the Empire to despise
8
See Jonathan Stanfill, “Embracing the Barbarian: John Chrysostom’s Pastoral Care of the
Goths,” (PhD diss., Fordham University, 2015), 146–275.
9
John Chrysostom, Epistle 9.5 (hereafter all epistles are abbreviated Ep.); ps-Martyrius, Oratio
funebris in laudem sancti Iohannis Chrysostomi 25 (hereafter cited as Orat. funeb.); and Theodoret,
Sermones quinque in Iohannem Chrysostomum hom. 5.
10
This is addressed further below in section VI.
11
On the challenges of using “mission” and “missionary” in the context of earliest Christianity,
see Reidar Hvalvik, “In Word and Deed: The Expansion of the Church in the Pre-Constantinian
Era,” in The Mission of the Early Church to Jews and Gentiles, ed. Jostein Ådna and Hans
Kvalbein (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 265–273.
12
For Chrysostom’s expectations of what mission work entailed, see pages 922–923. He uses
“manager” in reference to the Phoenician mission twice: Chrysostom, Ep. 51 (Patrologiae
cursus completus, series graeca, 161 vols. [Paris: Migne, 1857–1866], 52:636.46–47 [hereafter
cited as PG]); and Chrysostom, Ep. 221 (PG 52:732.46–47). The missionaries in Phoenicia are
variously described as monks, presbyters, and brothers: Ep. 123 (PG 52:676–78); and Ep. 126
(PG 52:685.43–45, 686.7–8).
13
Chrysostomus Baur, John Chrysostom and His Time, trans. M. Gonzaga (Westminster, Md.:
Newman, 1959), 2:388; J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom-Ascetic,
Preacher, Bishop (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995), 143; and J. H. W. G.
Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and
Chrysostom (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 169. Some studies, however, simply do not discuss his
motivation, e.g., Walt Stevenson, “John Chrysostom, Maruthas and Christian Evangelism in
Sasanian Iran,” Studia Patristica 47 (2010): 301–306.
902 CHURCH HISTORY
mere barbarians.”14 But such a characterization prompts an important question:

were there no other fourth-century bishops with comparable religious zeal?
Besides the fact that “zeal” is nearly impossible to accurately assess, the
enormous output of contemporary theological literature and pastoral activity
makes this claim highly dubious. It is, therefore, insufficient to claim that
Chrysostom’s religious zeal in and of itself explains his missionary activity.
This essay argues, instead, that John Chrysostom developed his distinctive
outlook on mission during his formative years as a young presbyter in
Antioch. The first section introduces Chrysostom’s life in Antioch, during
which he moved up through the ranks of the clergy and cultivated unusually
close relationships with his episcopal mentors. The following three sections
examine how these men sought to rekindle the see of Antioch’s missionary
aspirations. The missionary legacy of Antioch had begun, of course, with the
city’s role as a vital base of operations for the mission to the Gentiles during
the apostolic age.15 While in the centuries that followed the city was hardly
known as a bastion of such activity, the Christians of Antioch remained well
aware of the prestige of their missionary past. For instance, with the city
poised to lose its metropolitan status following the Riot of the Statues in
387, Chrysostom reassured Antiochene Christians that their dignity was not
derived from this title, but rather from their city’s apostolic heritage,
embodied in their role in spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth.16
And, as we shall see, Chrysostom’s mentors undertook efforts to promote the
Christianization of the Syrian countryside and asserted jurisdictional
authority over regions outside of the Roman Empire.17 These Antiochene
endeavors also coincided with, and perhaps served as the impetus for,
Chrysostom’s promotion of the apostle Paul as Christianity’s missionary
exemplar.18 The next section, therefore, explores Chrysostom’s presentation
of a scriptural rationale for mission, in which his unceasing desire to emulate
Paul functioned as the mechanism that justified mission in his own day.
14
Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, 170.
15
Acts 11:19–30, 13:1–3, 14:21–28, and 18:23.
16
John Chrysostom, De statuis hom. 17.10 (hereafter cited as De stat.) (PG 49:176.17–177.19).
17
Regarding the Christianization of the Syrian countryside, Frans van de Paverd claims it was not
“a purely missionary situation” in St. John Chrysostom, The Homilies on the Statues: An
Introduction (Rome: Pontificio Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1991), 278. But a construal of
mission and pastoral care as separate categories is unwarranted. Rather, as noted above,
“mission” should be understood as a variety of pastoral activities employed in situations that
require some kind of boundary crossing. By this definition, the efforts of Chrysostom’s
Antiochene bishops to promote the Christianization of the rural Syrian population surely
constitute a mission.
18
Throughout this essay, I refer to these activities as representing an “Antiochene” approach to
mission without presuming (or seeking to establish) that it was an intentionally unified strategy and
entirely distinctive to this see. Rather, it suffices as a shorthand descriptor of the collective pastoral
efforts of Chrysostom’s bishops.
I conclude with a case study of Chrysostom’s oversight of a mission in
Phoenicia, examining the extent to which he put these Antiochene
missionary strategies into practice as a bishop himself.
I. THE YOUNG APPRENTICE: JOHN CHRYSOSTOM AND THE SEE OF

ANTIOCH
Born in the bustling metropolis of Antioch around 350, for most of his life,
John Chrysostom served the city’s bishop in one capacity or another. Or,
more precisely, he served one of its bishops. The Christian community in
Antioch fractured into several factions during Chrysostom’s youth; when he
was baptized (circa 368), he had to choose which of the city’s three bishops
would receive his allegiance.19 He cast his lot with the Nicene Meletius, and
the bishop soon enlisted the teenager as his personal aide.20 Chrysostom
served in this capacity for three years until he joined the ranks of the
Antiochene clergy with his appointment as a lector (circa 371). The two
were separated when Meletius was exiled again (circa 371–378), and at the
same time, Chrysostom withdrew from the city to live as a monk in the
nearby mountains. According to Palladius, Chrysostom’s failing health
eventually forced him back to the city.21 But it is perhaps not coincidental
that his return was simultaneous with Meletius’s.22 Chrysostom resumed his
duties as lector, and after several years, Meletius promoted him to the
diaconate (circa late 380/early 381).23 The elderly bishop passed away later
that year at the Council of Constantinople. The full extent of Chrysostom’s
ecclesiastical responsibilities during this period remains murky, but the
longevity of his service and his close proximity to Meletius speaks to the
sizable influence that the bishop would have exerted on Chrysostom’s
formation.
19
The divisions began after Eudoxius, the city’s bishop, was transferred to Constantinople in 360.
Meletius, who hailed from Armenia, was installed as his successor. But he was abruptly exiled once
the Homoian imperial court discovered his sympathies for the Nicene cause. The Homoian Euzoius
then assumed the episcopal throne, while the Eustathian separatist faction consecrated Paulinus.
Meletius returned in 362 and, with the exception of the Eustathians, enjoyed the support of the
Nicene Christians in Antioch. However, the Meletian faction was forced to meet outside of the
city during Chrysostom’s early years because it did not gain control of the city’s churches until
378. In the 370s, the city even briefly gained a fourth bishop, Vitalis, who led an Apollinarist
faction.
20
Palladius, Dialogus de vita s. Iohannis Chrysostomi 5 (hereafter cited as Dial.). The
responsibilities that came with this position remain unknown.
21
Palladius, Dial. 5.
22
Kelly, Golden Mouth, 37–38.
23
Chrysostom’s role as a deacon entailed both liturgical and administrative responsibilities (Baur,
John Chrysostom, 1:152–160) and required working in intimate proximity to his bishop
(Constitutiones Apostolorum 2.44).
904 CHURCH HISTORY
Chrysostom’s tutelage was subsequently taken up by Flavian, who was

consecrated as Meletius’s successor. The new bishop had also been a faithful
servant of Meletius, as well as an ascetic.24 Therefore, it comes as no
surprise that Chrysostom warmly embraced him.25 Flavian was likewise fond
of Chrysostom and eventually ordained him to the priesthood (circa 386).
The bishop and the presbyter then labored closely together for twelve years
until the latter was promoted to the see of Constantinople.26 During his
tenure as presbyter, Chrysostom was tasked with a range of typical liturgical
duties, including teaching, preaching, and officiating the Eucharistic liturgy
(especially if the bishop was absent), as well as various administrative tasks
akin to those he had performed as a deacon. However, his pastoral
responsibilities differed from his peers insofar as Flavian apparently selected
him to serve as his personal assistant and the main preacher for the Nicene
community in the city.27 The particulars of his service, such as his specific
congregational assignments (if any), remain debated. Yet one enticing
possibility deserves mention. As a presbyter in Antioch, Chrysostom may
have assisted to some extent with a mission in Phoenicia. This mission, its
probable Antiochene origins, and Chrysostom’s possible involvement will be
addressed in the final section of the essay.28 For now, however, I will turn to
the activities of his episcopal mentors, who were, in their own ways, seeking
to rejuvenate the missionary ambitions of the see of Antioch.
II. CHRISTIANIZING THE SYRIAN COUNTRYSIDE: THE SEE OF ANTIOCH’S

MISSIONARY ASCETICS
Chrysostom’s preference for employing ascetics as missionaries has long been
recognized.29 Likewise, the significant contribution made by ascetics to the
conversion of the rural areas of the Roman Empire is well established.30 But,
24
Flavian was ordained to the priesthood by Meletius in the early 360s and, along with Diodore
(another teacher of Chrysostom), served as the “soul and backbone” of the Meletian community in
Antioch (Baur, John Chrysostom, 1:92).
25
John Chrysostom, De s. Meletio 3.
26
For Chrysostom’s relationship with Flavian, see Baur, John Chrysostom, 1:390–395.
27
Kelly, Golden Mouth, 57; however, Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen, John Chrysostom
(London: Routledge, 2000), 6–7 calls attention to the speculative nature of this claim.
28
For a thorough discussion of this possibility, along with other possible explanations for
Chrysostom’s involvement with this mission, see pages 919–920.
29
Ivo Auf der Maur, Mönchtum und Glaubensverkündigung in den Schriften des hl. Johannes
Chrysostomus (Freiburg: Universitäts, 1959), esp. 124–141.
30
W. H. C. Frend, “The Winning of the Countryside,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 18, no. 1
(April 1967): 1–14; and J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, “Problems Arising from the Conversion of
Syria,” in The Church in Town and Countryside, ed. Derek Baker (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1979), 17–24.
in the latter case, these ascetics were, more often than not, engaged in freelance
activity. Why, then, did Chrysostom prefer to utilize monks? Ivo Auf der Maur
attributed this to the bishop’s distinctive theology, which held that monastic
spirituality culminated in missionary service.31 But it seems doubtful that
Chrysostom would have affirmed that missionary service, rather than pastoral
ministry, was the apex of ascetic devotion. Moreover, Auf der Maur overlooks
how Chrysostom’s partiality for ascetic missionaries mirrors the behavior
of his Antiochene episcopal mentor. Chrysostom followed in the footsteps of
Flavian, who utilized ascetics as rural clergy to implement the Canons of
Antioch’s prescriptions for the Christianization of the countryside.
The Canons of Antioch, traditionally attributed to the Dedication Council in
341, provide an important window into the efforts of fourth-century bishops to
address mission-related issues.32 In particular, the issues of mission, episcopal
jurisdiction, and pastoral expectations for the Christianization of rural districts
are addressed in the eighth, ninth, and tenth canons, which concern rural clergy,
especially country bishops (chorepiskopoi). These canons did not create some
new type of rural clergy but operated under the assumption that such offices
already existed.33 Taken together, they signaled the council’s intent to clarify
the responsibilities, both pastoral and jurisdictional, of those participating in
the countryside’s Christianization. For instance, whatever provincial bishops
had previously thought about their obligations to neighboring rural districts,
the ninth canon firmly established that their office now required them to
“take charge of the whole region.”34 Moreover, this canon not only clarified
rural bishops’ power over their districts, but also reasserted the authority of
the metropolitan over the provinces. As a result, the see of Antioch’s central
role in managing the Christianization of the entire diocese was further
inscribed.
31
Auf der Maur, Mönchtum und Glaubensverkündigung, 142–179, 180–181.
32
For the traditional dating of the canons, see Charles Joseph Hefele, A History of the Councils of
the Church: From the Original Documents (1896; repr., New York: AMS, 1972), 2:56–66. For the
consensus view, which maintains that the canons belong to a synod in Antioch around 330, see
Hamilton Hess, The Canons of the Council of Sardica A.D. 343: A Landmark in the Early
Development of Canon Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1958), 145–150. Christopher W. B. Stephens,
however, has argued the canons belong to an Antiochene synod in 338 in Canon Law and
Episcopal Authority: The Canons of Antioch and Serdica (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2015), 11–82. The reception of the canons is discussed in Hefele, Councils of the Church, 2:59.
It is significant that, regardless of the creedal affinities of the bishops in attendance at the
council, the canons were widely recognized as authoritative in antiquity.
33
The presence of country bishops is well attested throughout the eastern half of the empire
during this period. See, for example, E. Kirsten, “Chorbischof,” Reallexikon für Antike und
Christentum 2 (1954): 1105–1114; and Clemens Scholten, “Der Chorbischof bei Basilius,”
Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 103, no. 2 (1992): 149–173.
34
Canon 9 (translated in Hefele, Councils of the Church, 2:69).
906 CHURCH HISTORY
These canons also reflected some anxiety about the rural clergy insofar as the
eighth and tenth canons sought to rein in their autonomous power and
privileges. But these efforts to restrict rural clergy should not be construed as
an effort to abolish them. In fact, by tasking the chorepiskopoi with
overseeing their rural churches and giving them the ability to appoint
readers, subdeacons, and exorcists, the tenth canon confirms how much the
council believed rural clerics were critical to the Christianization of the
countryside.
While it is difficult to assess how these particular canons were treated in
other jurisdictions, there is evidence to suggest that the see of Antioch
implemented them during Chrysostom’s formative years. Frans van de
Paverd first teased out this activity from a pair of Chrysostom’s homilies
addressing the noticeable presence of Syriac-speaking Christians in the midst
of the urban Greek-speaking congregation.35 In these homilies, it seems
fairly clear that these men “who have streamed into our assembly from the
country . . . and [speak a] barbarous tongue” were some kind of Syrian
clergy who lived the “angelic life.”36 Yet they were not the monks who lived
in close proximity to the city, because Chrysostom describes how these
individuals had undertaken a long journey to join them.37 The homilies
provide no further details about their identity or the purpose of their visits.
That said, van de Paverd compellingly argues that the ninth canon of
Antioch provides the best explanation for their presence: these visitors were,
according to this interpretation, country bishops and presbyters from the
surrounding region tasked by Flavian with carrying out the Christianization
of the rural districts under his jurisdiction.38 Moreover, van de Paverd
proposes that these visits likely occurred on an annual basis, because each
visit seems to coincide with a martyr festival.39 Since the tenth canon
obliged the rural clergy to bring new candidates for ordination to the bishop,
as well as to discuss any ecclesiastical matters with him, it makes sense that
they would undertake trips to Antioch on a regular basis.
By employing these rural clerics to manage the Christianization of the Syrian
countryside, Flavian (and possibly Meletius before him) appears to have
implemented the localized mission strategy expressly mandated by the
Canons of Antioch during Chrysostom’s formative years in Antioch. Of
course, neither the Canons of Antioch nor Chrysostom’s homilies provide an
35
Van de Paverd, Homilies on the Statues, 277–288. See also John Chrysostom, Catecheses ad
illuminandos 8 (hereafter cited as Cat.); and Chrysostom, De stat. 19.
36
Chrysostom, Cat. 8.1–4, translated in Paul W. Harkins, Baptismal Instructions, Ancient
Christian Writers 31 (New York: Paulist, 1963), 119–121.
37
Chrysostom, Cat. 8.1.
38
Van de Paverd, Homilies on the Statues, 281–288.
39
Van de Paverd, Homilies on the Statues, 286.
explanation for Flavian’s decision to utilize these individuals for this task, but it
probably stemmed from the intensity of the ascetics’ loyalty to the bishop,40
their ability to interact with fellow Syrians in the rural districts, and the
asceticization of pastoral care in Antioch. Their selection was significant
because it provided the template for missionaries that Chrysostom himself
would later adopt: ascetics (often ordained as well41) who exhibited loyalty
to the bishop in charge of the mission and possessed the necessary language
skills to interact with the local population.
III. DESACRALIZING THESYRIAN LANDSCAPE: THE ANTI-TEMPLE

CAMPAIGN OF THE 380S
As bishop of Constantinople, Chrysostom appears to have supported the
destruction of pagan temples as an integral part of mission work.42 And, as
we shall see, he probably instructed his missionaries in Phoenicia to destroy
temples and build churches in their place. At first glance, this seems rather
conventional, as the discourse of Christian mission in late antiquity
frequently promoted the desacralization of the pagan landscape—that is, the
destruction of temples—as a requisite first step in the Christianization of
physical space. Numerous hagiographical accounts reframe the violence of
the missionary saints toward these places of traditional worship as the
triumphant purging of demonic occupying forces.43 This discourse has been
so compelling that the narrative of an early and decisive campaign of
eradication in the fourth and fifth centuries remains well-ensconced
orthodoxy in modern scholarship.44 But the reality of such activity has
40
These missionaries were loyal insofar as they maintained a relationship with the bishop and,
more importantly, followed his directives. In other words, they were not operating as freelance
ascetics.
41
While Auf der Maur downplayed the significance of ordination for Chrysostom’s missionary
monks (Mönchtum und Glaubensverkündigung, 181), the fact remains that many of the monks
involved in Chrysostom’s Phoenician and Gothic missions were also ordained, which further
highlights the connection between Antioch’s use of ascetics as rural clergy and Chrysostom’s
later practice.
42
Ps-Martyrius, Orat. funeb. 26; and Theodoret, Historia ecclesiastica 5.29 (hereafter cited as
Hist. eccl.). Proclus of Constantinople also attests to Chrysostom’s involvement with the
destruction of temples as the bishop of Constantinople in Oration 20.3 (PG 65:832).
43
See, for example, Sulpicius Severus, “On the Life of St. Martin,” trans. Alexander Roberts in A
Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff and
Henry Wace, 2nd ser., vol. 11 (repr. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997); Besa, The Life of
Shenoute, trans. David N. Bell (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian, 1983); and Mark the Deacon, The
Life of Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza, trans. G. F. Hill (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913).
44
See, for example, Garth Fowden, “Bishops and Temples in the Eastern Roman Empire AD
320–435,” Journal of Theological Studies 29, no. 1 (April 1978): 53–78; Frank R. Trombley,
Hellenic Religion and Christianization: c. 370–529, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1993); Eberhard W.
Sauer, The Archaeology of Religious Hatred in the Roman and Early Medieval World
908 CHURCH HISTORY
recently come into question, especially as new archaeological findings are

published. We are discovering that, contrary to this triumphal narrative,
fourth-century paganism had already begun to neglect and abandon many of
its temples without any connection to the rise of Christianity. More
importantly, the actual destruction of pagan temples by Christians appears to
have been rare and often much later than the narrative suggests.45 Yet, if the
eradication of pagan temples was not widely practiced, why did Chrysostom
seem to think it was an essential part of missionary activity? Once again, his
Antiochene formation may have played a significant role. More specifically,
he would have learned firsthand from Flavian, who allegedly supported an
outbreak of temple destruction in the Antiochene countryside, about the
importance of eradicating pagan temples from one’s episcopal jurisdiction.46
(Charleston, S.C.: Tempus, 2003); Michael Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ:
Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005);
and Thomas Sizgorich, Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and
Islam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).
45
On the alienation of pagan temples, see Luke Lavan and Michael Mulryan, eds., The
Archaeology of Late Antique “Paganism” (Leiden: Brill, 2011). For the lack of archaeological
evidence for temple destruction by Christians, including subsequent conversion to churches, see
Richard Bayliss, Provincial Cilicia and the Archaeology of Temple Conversion (Oxford:
Archaeopress, 2004); Johannes Hahn, Stephen Emmel, and Ulrich Gotter, eds., From Temple to
Church: Destruction and Renewal of Local Cultic Topography in Late Antiquity (Boston: Brill,
2008); and Bryan Ward-Perkins, “The End of Temples: An Archaeological Problem,” in
Spätantiker Staat und religiöser Konflikt: imperiale und lokale Verwaltung und die Gewalt
gegen Heiligtümer, ed. Johannes Hahn (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 187–199. This is not to say
that Christians in the fourth century never attacked pagan temples, but rather, the archaeological
record has significantly undermined the narrative of a widespread campaign. There were
certainly instances of this destructive behavior, as we shall see shortly. Moreover, this revisionist
assessment still needs to be reconciled with the evidence of increased hostility toward pagans
and their temples during Constantine’s reign provided by Palladas, whose epigrams have been
convincingly redated to ca. 259–340 in Kevin W. Wilkinson, “Palladas and the Age of
Constantine,” Journal of Roman Studies 99 (2009): 36–60, esp. 51–54.
46
The veracity of Libanius’s account of destruction continues to be widely accepted. See, for
example, Hahn, Emmel, and Gotter, From Temple to Church, 9; Sizgorich, Violence and Belief,
86–91; and Luke Lavan, “The End of the Temples: Towards a New Narrative?,” in Lavan and
Mulryan, The Archaeology of Late Antique “Paganism,” xxi. Douglas Watson rejects the
historicity of the campaign on the basis of his analysis of archaeological surveys carried out in
the twentieth century in “Black-Robed Fury: Libanius’ Oration 30 and Temple Destruction in
the Antiochene Countryside in Late Antiquity” (master’s thesis, University of Ottowa, 2012),
51–60; but he fails to address the recently discovered archaeological evidence that attests to six
temple conversions in the Antiochene countryside dating from the late fourth and early fifth
centuries, discussed in Frank R. Trombley, “Christian Demography in the territorium of Antioch
(4th–5th c.): Observations on Epigraphy,” in Culture and Society in Later Roman Antioch:
Papers from a Colloquium London, 15th December 2001, ed. Isabella Sandwell and Janet
Huskinson (Oxford: Oxbow, 2004), 63–64.
According to the pagan orator Libanius, a gang of thuggish monks, who
called themselves a rural police force,47 conducted a widespread campaign
of terror and destruction against the pagan temples and their estates in the
countryside surrounding Antioch. Besides laying waste to the temples and
assaulting pagan priests,48 Libanius claims these monks ransacked estates,
robbed peasants, plundered stores, stole livestock, and sometimes even
confiscated the property itself.49 Since he views the monks as the main
culprits, Libanius understandably focuses on them. But he also scathingly
targets two other complicit individuals. First, he criticizes an unnamed
official whom he derides as “a scoundrel hated of the gods.”50 Second, he
declares that the destructive activity of these monks was endorsed, and
possibly even orchestrated, by Flavian.51
After the attacks had begun, some of the victims apparently sought justice
and recompense in the episcopal court in Antioch. Yet, according to
Libanius, Flavian not only ignored their pleas but even praised the looting
monks.52 The orator does not explain why these individuals tried to make
use of the episcopal court, but it is reasonable to assume that they did so
because they recognized some kind of association between the bishop and
those who had wronged them. Perhaps they thought the bishop held some
sway over them or believed he was responsible for the monks’ travesties
and, as a result, owed them recompense. This alleged relationship may be of
47
Libanius, Oration 30.12 (hereafter cited as Or.); on σωwρονισταί, see A. F. Norman, Libanius:
Selected Orations, Loeb Classical Library 452 (hereafter cited as LCL 452) (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1977), 112.
48
Libanius, Or. 30.8.
49
Libanius, Or. 30.9–11.
50
Libanius, Or. 30.46–50. The “scoundrel” is most often identified as Cynegius, who sought the
closure of temples during his tenure as the praetorian prefect of the East: Rene van Loy, “Le ‘Pro
Templis’ de Libanius,” Byzantion 8 (1933): 19, 403; Paul Petit, “Sur la date du ‘Pro Templis’ de
Libanius,” Byzantion 21, no. 2 (1951): 294–309; J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Antioch: City and
Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 238; Norman,
Libanius, 143; and Raffaella Cribiore, Libanius the Sophist: Rhetoric, Reality, and Religion in
the Fourth Century (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2013), 196n65. Alternatively, Neil
McLynn proposes Libanius was referring to “a lower-ranking official who could nevertheless
claim to enjoy the emperor’s friendship . . . [possibly] a provincial administrator of the res
privata,” in his chapter “‘Genere Hispanus’: Theodosius, Spain and Nicene Orthodoxy,” in
Hispania in Late Antiquity: Current Perspectives, ed. Kimberly Diane Bowes and Michael
Kulikowski (Boston: Brill, 2005), 111–113; followed by Pater van Nuffelen, “Not the Last
Pagan: Libanius Between Elite Rhetoric and Religion,” in Libanius: A Critical Introduction, ed.
Lieve Van Hoof (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 308. On the confiscation of
land, especially temple lands, by the res privata, see A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire,
284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1986), 411–427.
51
This is not to say that the see of Antioch alone supported the destruction of temples. However,
given the archaeological reassessment of this activity across the empire, it appears to stand out as
unusual.
52
Libanius, Or. 30.11, 15.
910 CHURCH HISTORY
further significance for the nature of the monks’ campaign. At several points,
Libanius acknowledges that the activity demonstrated a remarkable degree of
strategy and organization.53 It is, of course, possible that they were
responsible for their own planning and coordination. But there is little
question that the bishop, with his considerable clout and vast institutional
support system, would have been an ideal candidate to supervise the monks’
campaign. There is also the curious fact that Libanius’s thuggish monks were
operating in the same rural districts as Flavian’s missionary ascetics, raising
the distinct possibility that they were one and the same. If so, Flavian would
have necessarily exercised some measure of control over their activities.
Finally, in the religious context of Antioch, which included multiple bishops
with competing claims to authority, this campaign would have provided
Flavian with the perfect opportunity to flex his muscles as the bishop of
Antioch, just as Porphyry of Gaza purportedly used the destruction of pagan
temples to show “both a new city image and the ascendancy of different
benefactors who used new paradigms of prestige and authority.”54 Given the
circumstances, it seems unlikely that the monks described by Libanius would
have been operating independently of Flavian. It is, therefore, doubtful that
the bishop was merely an indifferent judge.
In the end, Libanius clearly wanted the emperor to know that Flavian was at
least unwilling to stop the monks and thus, at a minimum, complicit in the
destruction. The circumstances further suggest that the bishop actively aided
the monks in their efforts to obliterate what Libanius considered “the soul of
the countryside.”55 But even if Flavian only offered his public endorsement
of the monks’ campaign, the episode still reveals that Chrysostom’s
episcopal mentor supported the desacralization of the pagan landscape
during the presbyter’s formative years. And in light of the current
reassessment of Christian attitudes toward pagan temples during this period,
Flavian’s embrace of the monks’ campaign offers a compelling explanation
for why Chrysostom’s own mission strategy would have entailed this
possibly peculiar activity.
IV. EXPANDING INFLUENCE ABROAD: MISSION AND THE SECOND CANON

OF CONSTANTINOPLE (381)
One of the most surprising aspects of the missionary endeavors supported by

Chrysostom in Constantinople is that many of them were extra-jurisdictional
53
Libanius, Or. 30.8–9, 12.
54
Raymond Van Dam, “From Paganism to Christianity at Late Antique Gaza,” Viator 16, no. 1
(1985): 19.
55
Libanius, Or. 30.9 (LCL 452:109).
—that is, mission work carried out beyond the provincial boundaries of an
episcopal see or, more importantly, beyond the boundaries of the Roman
Empire. Panteleimon Rodopoulos has suggested that Chrysostom’s
motivation for this type of mission was driven by his desire to realize the
primacy of the see of Constantinople as envisioned in 381 by the third canon
of the Council of Constantinople.56 While this canon may have functioned
as a catalyst, it was the second canon that provided the critical mechanism
for undertaking such endeavors.57 More specifically, it established that
mission was one of the only canonically acceptable instruments for exerting
episcopal influence beyond established provincial boundaries. The
significance of the second canon for Chrysostom’s outlook on mission
emerges from the canon’s possible Antiochene formulation and, more
importantly, its subsequent use by the bishops of Antioch.
At the conclusion of the council’s proceedings in 381, the bishops submitted
four canons to Theodosius for his approval, including a reaffirmation of the
Nicene Creed, a clarification of episcopal jurisdiction, the elevation in
episcopal ranking of the bishop of Constantinople to second behind Rome,
and a complete renunciation of Maximus the Cynic’s brief episcopate in
Constantinople. These canons, with the exception of the first, demonstrate
how the bishops assembled in Constantinople were chiefly concerned with
clarifying the parameters of episcopal jurisdiction in order to halt the
ongoing problems caused by bishops interfering in other provinces. In
particular, these canons censured the bishop of Alexandria for his meddling,
especially his recent and unwarranted participation in Maximus the Cynic’s
scandalous election.58 In an attempt to prevent any further controversies,
the bishops established a policy for jurisdictional boundary maintenance. The
second canon demonstrates that the eastern bishops continued to adopt the
56
Panteleimon Rodopoulos, “Primacy of Honor and Jurisdiction (Canons Two and Three of the
Second Ecumenical Synod),” in La Signification et l’actualité du IIe Concile Oecuménique pour le
monde chrétien d’aujourd’hui, ed. Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat oecuménique (Chambésy:
Éditions du Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat oecuménique, 1982), 382.
57
There is nothing in the third canon to insinuate any new missionary prerogatives. Rather, it
addresses the evolving influence of the see of Constantinople in the post-Constantinian age. The
danger of Rodopoulos’s hypothesis is anachronistically reading the third canon in light of the
twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon (ca. 451), which placed the barbarian bishops in the dioceses
of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace under the bishop of Constantinople.
58
For an anti-Alexandrian reading of the canons, see Peter L’Huillier, The Church of the Ancient
Councils: The Disciplinary Work of the First Four Ecumenical Councils (Crestwood, N.Y.:
St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996), 118; and Rodopoulos, “Primacy of Honor and
Jurisdiction,” 379–381. However, Neil McLynn disputes the anti-Alexandrian thesis in “Two
Romes, Beacons of the Whole World,” in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late
Antiquity, ed. Lucy Grig and Gavin Kelly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 351–352.
But even if the canon was not initially designed to censure the bishop of Alexandria,
Chrysostom did level this same accusation at Theophilus of Alexandria in Ep. 1 ad Innocentum;
see also Palladius, Dial. 2.
912 CHURCH HISTORY
principle of accommodation, with ecclesiastical organization modeled after the

political organization of the Roman Empire.59 Furthermore, as shown by the
final clause, the bishops recognized that, in employing such an
organizational structure, they also needed to address the anomalies created
by the presence of barbarian churches. Thus the canon concluded: “But the
churches of God among barbarian peoples must be administered in
accordance with the custom in force at the time of the fathers.”60
Some have posited that this “barbarian clause” signals the bishops’
begrudging acceptance of Gothic Homoian Christianity, especially within the
empire, as the status quo.61 But such a claim is problematic on two counts.
First, the perceived need to accept Gothic Homoian Christianity is largely
predicated on the belief that all Goths were Homoian, which was not the
case.62 With an ongoing competition between Homoian and Nicene factions
over Gothic souls, it seems unlikely that these Nicene bishops would have
ceded the field at this point. Second, although the bishops did not identify
the locations of these barbarian churches, and increasing numbers of
barbarians had settled within the bounds of the empire, this clause
necessarily addressed the barbarian churches located outside of the Roman
Empire. Otherwise, as Vlassios Pheidas has noted, it would have created
chaos by contradicting the preceding instructions for respecting jurisdictional
boundaries.63
The barbarian churches in question were not only beyond the political
boundaries of the empire but also associated irregularly with Roman bishops.
And without established rules, jurisdictional crises followed. For example, in
the 370s, the king of Armenia sought a new bishop from Anthimus of Tyana
instead of from Basil of Caesarea, even though the Armenian church had
been overseen by the bishop of Caesarea for decades.64 The “barbarian
clause,” therefore, attempted to avoid further problems by directing bishops
59
On the principle of accommodation, see Francis Dvornik, The Idea of Apostolicity in
Byzantium and the Legend of the Apostle Andrew (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1958), 3–38; and Francis Dvornik, Byzantium and the Roman Primacy (New York: Fordham
University Press, 1966), 31–36.
60
“Constantinople I: 381,” trans. Robert Butterworth, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed.
Norman P. Tanner, vol. 1, Nicaea I to Lateran V (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press,
1990), 31–32. Since this matter was not addressed at Nicaea, the reference to “the fathers” seems to
appeal to whatever precedent existed in each situation: Ralph W. Mathisen, “Barbarian Bishops and
the Churches ‘in Barbaricis Gentibus’ during Late Antiquity,” Speculum 72, no. 3 (July 1997): 668–
669.
61
Maurice Wiles, Archetypal Heresy: Arianism Through the Centuries (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996), 45; and Stanislav Doležal, “Joannes Chrysostomos and the Goths,”
Graecolatina Pragensia 21 (2006): 170.
62
Stanfill, “Embracing the Barbarian,” 78–145.
63
Vlassios Pheidas, “Les critères canoniques des décisions administratives du IIe Concile
oecuménique,” in Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat oecuménique, IIe Concile Oecuménique, 394–396.
64
Mathisen, “Barbarian Bishops,” 668.
to adhere to the established custom. Yet, since it did not explicitly enumerate
what that entailed, it appears that whatever relations were first established
between a bishop within the Roman Empire and a barbarian church,
however unusual, should be maintained as the status quo.
Ralph Mathisen has suggested that the barbarian clause “may have resulted
in opportunism by other ambitious Roman patriarchs.”65 But the significance of
the clause represents more than mere opportunism. The explosion of fourth-
century councils that dealt with episcopal jurisdiction by restricting extra-
jurisdictional influence and activity demonstrates the serious and persistent
problems caused by bishops failing to respect the rules of jurisdiction.66 One
possible exception to this policy of boundary conservatism, however,
appears to have been established in this clause. In other words, the creation
of new relations with barbarians outside of the empire functioned as one of
the only canonically acceptable instruments for extending episcopal
influence beyond the territorial bounds of a see.67 Because of the
acknowledged abnormality of the relationship between a barbarian church
and its Roman episcopal overseer, in these situations, Roman bishops were
exempted from the normal restrictions against extra-jurisdictional activity so
often prohibited in the fourth-century canons. Furthermore, a bishop’s ability
to extend his influence was not dictated by whether or not his province was
contiguous with the barbarian territory where he sought to establish a mission.
This canon, and its barbarian clause, is also significant for the rebirth of
Antiochene mission in two other ways. First, it was, in all likelihood, shaped
by a distinctively Antiochene attitude toward mission. Even though Meletius
died during the council and Nectarius probably oversaw the final publication
of the canons, the former appears to have exerted his influence on the
formulation of this canon prior to his death.68 In fact, Socrates records that
Meletius was still alive and presiding over the council when it grappled with
the matters of jurisdiction.69 It is also unlikely that any policy with such
65
Mathisen, “Barbarian Bishops,” 669.
66
For example, see Elvira (306) Canon 19; Ancyra (314) Canon 18; Nicaea (325) Canon 16;
Antioch (338) Canon 13; and Serdica (343) Canon 11, 15, 18 (Latin).
67
It is worth noting that these relations often seem to have been cultivated only after freelance
missionaries converted a foreign ruler (who then requested a bishop) rather than by proactive
efforts initiated by bishops within the empire. See, for example, the anonymous captive woman
who converted the king of Iberia and then advised him to request clerics from Constantine
(Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica 10.11) and similar situations in Armenia, Axum, and Yemen
(Sterk, “Mission from Below,” 8–11).
68
On their publication, see Leo Donald Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787):
Their History and Theology (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1990), 120.
69
Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 5.8 (hereafter cited as Hist. eccl.). The likelihood of Meletius’s
involvement in drafting the second canon is further supported by Davis’s argument that the bishop
was also responsible for crafting the fourth canon in The First Seven Ecumenical Councils, 128.
914 CHURCH HISTORY
wide-ranging implications for jurisdiction could have been formulated without

the presiding bishop’s approval, which suggests that this new policy for
regulating relations with barbarian churches would have been at least tacitly
endorsed by Meletius. Moreover, if Meletius proposed this canon, it would
represent an attempt to inscribe an Antiochene approach to mission on the
wider church while simultaneously protecting the extra-jurisdictional
ambitions of the see of Antioch. For these reasons, we cannot ignore the
possibility that Meletius was involved in the formulation of the second
canon. Second, the bishops of Antioch had already, for all intents and
purposes, put the basic principle of the barbarian clause into practice through
their claims of episcopal authority over regions outside of their immediate
jurisdiction. More specifically, during Chrysostom’s formative years, the
bishops of Antioch sought to gain control over the entire diocese of the
Orient and even asserted jurisdictional claims over Persia and Arabia.70
Therefore, since Chrysostom honed his pastoral craft under bishops who
used—and possibly even formulated—the second canon to increase the reach
of their jurisdiction, he would have arrived in Constantinople armed with the
conviction that his episcopal prerogatives entailed the expansion of his
authority over barbarian regions beyond the empire.
V. JUSTIFYING MISSION IN ANTIOCH: CHRYSOSTOM’S PROMOTION OF

PAULINE MISSION
Chrysostom’s sense of obligation to engage in mission was further influenced
by his desire to emulate the apostle Paul as a missionary—a conviction that he
notably articulated as a young presbyter in Antioch. Although his admiration of
Paul has been recognized as a defining feature of his theology and pastoral care,
Chrysostom’s portrayal of the apostle as the exemplary Christian missionary,
and the significance of this portrayal, remains largely overlooked.71 His
70
The Antiochene claim over Persia is widely recognized, but little studied. See, for example,
Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils, 127–128; Mathisen, “Barbarian Bishops,” 669;
and Stevenson, “Christian Evangelism in Sasanian Iran,” 301–306. Chrysostom recognizes
Antiochene jurisdiction over Arabia in Ep. 221 (PG 52:733.20–23), which is striking because he
does not view it as a new development but rather a reflection of the status quo at that time.
71
For brief treatments of Chrysostom’s view of Paul as a missionary, see Auguste Piédagnel,
Panégyriques de S. Paul, Sources chrétiennes 300 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1982), 39–43; and
Margaret Mitchell, The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline
Interpretation (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 75–78. On Chrysostom’s overall
fascination with Paul, see also Pak-Wah Lai, “John Chrysostom and the Hermeneutics of
Exemplar Portraits” (PhD diss., Durham University, 2010), 130–172; Andreas Heiser, Die
Paulusinszenierung des Johannes Chrysostomus: Epitheta und ihre Vorgeschichte (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2012); and David Rylaarsdam, John Chrysostom on Divine Pedagogy: The
Coherence of His Theology and Preaching (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 157–193.
conception of Pauline mission is especially significant in light of the pervasive
absence of a scriptural imperative for mission within early Christianity. In fact,
despite the modern proclivity to construe Jesus’s apostolic commission to
spread the faith to the ends of the earth as an ongoing obligation for all
Christians, early Christian writers did not see this obligation as ongoing.72
Instead, the prevailing view was that the apostles had already fulfilled this
task by successfully delivering the message of salvation to the nations.73 The
number of non-missiological interpretations of the apostolic commission
texts, such as those offered by Tertullian, Cyprian, Epiphanius, and
Eusebius, further confirms this belief.74
Chrysostom’s own view of apostolic mission appears, at first glance, to
conform to this consensus. He embraced the notion that “twelve poor and
uneducated men” had proclaimed the message of salvation to the whole
world, even to those living at the ends of the earth.75 He also offered a non-
missiological interpretation of the apostolic commission in Matthew,
emphasizing Jesus’s command to teach.76 Yet Chrysostom’s theology of
apostolic mission was much more robust and expansive than the status quo.
For example, he employed the Matthean commission text to argue that if his
congregation were to participate in the ongoing conversion of the nations,
then God would remain faithful to them, because the promise of divine
fidelity was made not only to the twelve apostles but also to those who
follow after them.77 Nowhere is his divergence from the prevailing view
more apparent than in his conviction that Paul’s missionary adventures ought
to inspire new mission work in his own day.
72
While the origins of the “Great Commission” (that is, reading Matt. 28:18–20 as a command
for all Christians to engage in evangelism) remains debated, this interpretation has been popularized
by Protestant evangelical missions: Martin Klauber and Scott M. Manetsch, eds., The Great
Commission: Evangelicals and the History of World Missions (Nashville, Tenn.: B and H,
2008); see also Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 2003), 278.
73
See, for example, Kerygma Petrou 4; Justin Martyr, 1 Apologeticus 39.3; Irenaeus, Adversus
haereses 3.1.1; Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem 5.19; Tertullian De praescriptione haereticorum
20; Tertullian Adversus Judaeos 5; 7; and Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 8.
74
Goodman, Mission and Conversion, 106–107; see also Reidar Hvalvik, “In Word and Deed,”
277–279, who argues that the apostolic commission texts were never used to encourage missionary
activity during this period. This is not to say that Chrysostom’s episcopal contemporaries did not
engage in mission precisely because there was no scriptural mandate. Instead, early Christian
biblical interpretation had not produced a universal mandate for mission.
75
John Chrysostom, In Acta apostolorum hom. 1 (hereafter cited as In Act. apost. hom.) (PG
60:19.28–29): δώδεκα πτωχῶν καὶ ἀγραμμάτων ἀνθρώπων. See also Chrysostom, In
Matthaeum hom. 75 (hereafter cited as In Mattaeum hom.); Chrysostom, In Matt. hom. 90; and
Chrysostom, In Act. apost. hom. 5.
76
John Chrysostom, In epistulam ad Ephesios hom. 4.
77
John Chrysostom, In epistulam II ad Thessalonicenses hom. 5 (hereafter cited as In 2 Thess.
hom.). See also Chrysostom, In Matt. hom. 25; and John Chrysostom, In epistulam ad Romanos
hom. 1 (hereafter cited as In Rom. hom.).
916 CHURCH HISTORY
This distinctive appraisal of Paul can be found throughout Chrysostom’s

homiletic corpus. For example, he describes Paul as one who had been
commissioned just like the other apostles,78 juxtaposes Paul’s missionary
success against the failure of the Greek philosophers to convert anyone,79
and invites his congregation to imagine the scope of the twelve apostles’
mission work in light of what Paul accomplished by himself: “Do you see
him running from Jerusalem to Spain? And if he took so large a portion,
consider what the rest also wrought!”80 But his most vivid portrayal of Paul
as a missionary can be found in his seven homilies in praise of Paul.81 These
homilies, which were delivered in Antioch around 390, offer a striking
portrait of the apostle’s mission and enable the presbyter to justify a
contemporary commitment to mission.82
Chrysostom frames Paul as the Christian missionary par excellence because,
whereas “angels are given charge of different nations,” the entire world was
bestowed upon Paul. The apostle’s missionary legacy reverberates centuries
later because “not a single one of them [that is, the angels] so managed the
nation with which he was entrusted as Paul did the whole world.”83
Chrysostom also repeatedly affirms that Paul’s scope was not merely limited
to the known world of the empire. The apostle spread Christianity to “all
the land upon which the sun casts its gaze”84 and “set straight, not just the
civilized world, but also the uninhabited territory; not just Greece, but the
barbarian land, as well.”85 This triumph was especially impressive because
he “led the entire human race—Romans, Persians, Indians, Scythians,
Ethiopians, Sauromatians, Parthians, Medes and Saracenes—singly to the
truth; and in less than thirty years at that!”86 Furthermore, whereas emperors
and their armies could not defeat the barbarians abroad, Paul, whom
Chrysostom describes as no more than an unskilled, poor, and
undistinguished preacher with a non-alluring, scandalous message addressed
78
Chrysostom, In Matt. hom. 69.
79
Chrysostom, In Rom. hom. 2.
80
Chrysostom, In Matt. hom. 75 (PG 58:689.1–4): Καὶ ὁρᾷς αὐτὸν ἀπὸ Ἱερουσαλὴμ εἰς
Σπανίαν τρέχοντα. Εἰ δὲ εἷς τοσοῦτον μέρος κατέλαβεν, ἐννόησον καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ πόσα
εἰργάσαντο.
81
De laudibus sancti Pauli hom. 1–7 (PG 50:473–514).
82
Piédagnel proposes that these homilies were likely delivered over a span of several years due to
the noticeable development of the rhetoric in the later homilies, but still near the beginning of his
presbyterate in Antioch (thus ca. 390): Panégyriques de S. Paul, 19–20.
83
John Chrysostom, De laudibus s. Pauli hom. 2.8 (hereafter cited as De laud. Paul. hom.),
translated in Mitchell, Heavenly Trumpet, 451.
84
Chrysostom, De laud. Paul. hom. 1.4, translated in Mitchell, Heavenly Trumpet, 443.
85
Chrysostom, De laud. Paul. hom. 1.13, translated in Mitchell, Heavenly Trumpet, 446; see also
Chrysostom, De laud. Paul. hom. 1.15.
86
to a bunch of nobodies, managed to conquer the whole world.87 Even the
opposition to Paul’s mission was more daunting than what anyone else had
faced. For instance, while Abraham confronted savage barbarians when he
sought to rescue his nephew and several cities, Paul had to save “the whole
world, not from barbarians, but from the very hand of the demons.”88 For
this reason, the fruit of Paul’s missionary work was truly astonishing:
“Taking on board wolves, he made them sheep, and taking on hawks and
jackdaws, he completely transformed them into doves.”89
Although Chrysostom celebrated Paul’s mission as a resounding success, he
still believed the work was not yet finished. By explicitly associating Paul’s
missionary activities with an appeal to emulate the apostle, Chrysostom
demonstrated to his congregation that apostolic mission was not simply a
thing of the past.90 According to Chrysostom, contemporary mission-minded
emulation would also benefit from an ascetic faith, as he portrayed Paul’s
own asceticism as a key feature of his preparation for global mission.91
However, a miraculous faith was not required. Chrysostom, in fact, reassured
his Antiochene audience that the imitation of Paul would not necessarily
entail supernatural endeavors: “Now don’t speak to me of the dead he raised,
nor the lepers he cleansed. God will not demand any of these things from
you.”92 Instead, he admonished them, it was more important to embrace
Paul’s virtue and love for all humanity.93
What did Chrysostom seek to accomplish with these homilies? Although the
circumstances of their delivery and the makeup of the audience remain murky,
several possibilities can be ventured.94 Since the renewal of the see of
Antioch’s missionary ambitions coincided with the delivery of these
homilies, this unusual promotion of Pauline mission appears to represent
Chrysostom’s leverage of the pulpit into support for Antiochene missionary
endeavors. On a more personal level, his portrait of Paul may reflect
Chrysostom’s need to justify his own commitment to mission. For, as
Margaret Mitchell has convincingly argued, Chrysostom’s use of Pauline
portraiture is an exercise in self-presentation.95 Put another way, what
87
88
89
90
Chrysostom, De laud. Paul. hom. 2.10, 3.10.
91
Chrysostom, De laud. Paul. hom. 1.3–4. Even John Mark had been left behind because he
lacked the sufficient, presumably ascetical, training to handle the suffering that was part and
parcel of mission work: Chrysostom, De laud. Paul. hom. 6.12.
92
Chrysostom, De laud. Paul. hom. 3.10, translated in Mitchell, Heavenly Trumpet, 456–457.
Chrysostom does, on occasion, still emphasize the importance of Paul’s miraculous ministry:
Mitchell, Heavenly Trumpet, 291–295.
93
94
Piédagnel, Panégyriques de S. Paul, 19.
95
Mitchell, Heavenly Trumpet.
918 CHURCH HISTORY
Chrysostom says about the apostle is really what he wants to say about himself.
But why would he need to justify such a commitment to mission at this point?
The homilies could represent a simple demonstration of solidarity with his
bishop. Yet it is entirely possible that Chrysostom had been personally
involved with the administration of one or more Antiochene missionary
endeavors. Given his role as Flavian’s special assistant, it would make sense
that his responsibilities included helping with the important missionary
activities being overseen by his bishop. Moreover, as I will discuss next, it is
possible that Chrysostom’s exilic support for the mission in Phoenicia
stemmed from his earlier involvement with it as an Antiochene presbyter.
Finally, Chrysostom’s efforts to recruit missionaries for his Phoenician and
Gothic missions further suggest that these homilies could have additionally
functioned as an appeal to the members of his Antiochene community,
especially fellow clerics and those with ascetic sensibilities, to volunteer for
the missionary endeavors supported by the see of Antioch.96
VI. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM’S MISSION IN PHOENICIA

Among the various missions that Chrysostom helped administer as the bishop
of Constantinople, the well-documented mission in Phoenicia offers an ideal
case study for examining his own approach to mission.97 Roughly a dozen
of the bishop’s exilic letters help to illuminate the enterprise, and it is also
described in Theodoret’s Ecclesiastical History. Yet the two sources are
difficult to harmonize. According to Theodoret, after the bishop of
Constantinople learned about the persistence of paganism in Phoenicia, he
organized and dispatched a group of missionary monks, armed with imperial
rescripts and funded by wealthy women, to destroy temples in the region.98
But this report raises more questions than it answers. Was Theodoret
describing events that occurred during Chrysostom’s tenure in
Constantinople (and prior to his exile), for which we have no other
corroboration? And if so, why would the bishop initiate a mission clearly
outside of his jurisdictional authority? Alternatively, if the ecclesiastical
historian was describing events that took place during Chrysostom’s exile,
would the emperor have really issued such an edict on behalf of a bishop
with a history of jurisdiction issues and whom he had recently exiled for the
96
On his recruitment efforts for the Phoenician mission, see pages 920–921. For Chrysostom’s
efforts to generate support for the Gothic mission, see Chrysostom, Ep. 9.5, 206–207. See also his
aforementioned admonishment to become involved in mission in Chrysostom, In 2 Thess. hom. 5.
97
Although Chrysostom was deposed from his episcopal see during his oversight of this mission,
he still conducted himself as if he were the rightful bishop. For this reason, his behavior can be
viewed as representative of his conduct when he occupied the see of Constantinople.
98
Theodoret, Hist. eccl. 5.29. There is no evidence for any imperial decree for this endeavor.
second time? Theodoret’s version of events was probably informed by
Chrysostom’s exilic correspondence, while also drawing upon his
expectation that the destruction of Phoenician temples would have been
imperially mandated and his awareness that Chrysostom oftentimes
depended upon female patrons.99 As a result, the exiled bishop’s
correspondence must be privileged and uncorroborated details in Theodoret’s
account should be treated with caution.
Why did Chrysostom, as an exiled bishop (of Constantinople, no less),
concern himself with this mission in the first place? Contrary to Theodoret’s
depiction, it is highly unlikely that Chrysostom established the mission
himself, because it was obviously outside of his jurisdiction. Instead,
Chrysostom’s correspondence indicates that the mission was already well
underway when he became involved. While he fails to mention its origins,
the circumstances suggest that it was originally an Antiochene mission.
Thus, Chrysostom’s involvement appears to have been sparked by the desire
to help his former Antiochene faction maintain its control over the endeavor.
According to Epistle 221, Chrysostom believed the Antiochene presbyter
Constantius should have been in charge of the mission, presumably because
Constantius was supposed to become the bishop of Antioch after Flavian’s
death.100 But Chrysostom’s enemies had thwarted his election.101 And
neither could Chrysostom trust the bishops of Phoenicia after Antiochus of
Ptolemais joined the cabal responsible for his first deposition.102 As a result,
Chrysostom likely viewed his unusual intervention as a necessary measure to
help safeguard the mission for his beleaguered ally.103 Of course, it is a
tantalizing possibility that this Antiochene mission had been established
before Chrysostom departed the city for the imperial capital; alas, we do not
know. But if the mission had predated his episcopal promotion, Chrysostom
would have undoubtedly known about it. It is even possible, given the nature
99
Chrysostom did enlist women to fund other projects (Wendy Mayer, “Constantinopolitan
Women in Chrysostom’s Circle,” Vigiliae Christianae 53, no. 3 [August 1999]: 265–288), but
his correspondence related to this mission mentions only male patrons. In fact, these letters are
addressed exclusively to men.
100
In this letter, Chrysostom charges Constantius with supervising not only Phoenicia, but also
the diocese of the Orient, Arabia, and Cyprus. Curiously, he does not mention Persia. Since
these regions belong to the jurisdiction of the see of Antioch, it seems as though Chrysostom is
effectively treating Constantius as the rightful bishop of Antioch, without naming him as such.
101
Palladius, Dial. 16.
102
Baur, John Chrysostom, 2:388. Phoenicia had its own bishops, as twelve were listed at Nicaea.
The hostility between Chrysostom (and his allies) and the bishops of Phoenicia appears to have
been a recent development, since the latter had backed Flavian as the rightful bishop of Antioch
in 381 (Socrates, Hist. eccl. 5.10; and Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 7.11). We have no
knowledge about whether any Phoenician bishops had previously assisted with this Antiochene
mission.
103
Such action tellingly mirrors Chrysostom’s efforts to prevent his own successor in
Constantinople from “corrupting” (i.e., taking over) the Gothic mission in Ep. 9.5.
920 CHURCH HISTORY
of his service to both Meletius and Flavian, that Chrysostom had been tasked
with helping to facilitate the mission. In fact, the exiled bishop may have
attributed the administration of the mission to Constantius if the Antiochene
presbyter had inherited this responsibility from Chrysostom seven years
earlier.104 Furthermore, such an assignment would help to explain
Chrysostom’s promotion of Pauline mission during his tenure as an
Antiochene presbyter. Either way, Chrysostom had obviously learned about
the mission by the time of his exile, and as we shall see, he devoted
considerable energy to overseeing it.
Shortly after Chrysostom’s second and final deposition in June 404, he wrote
a letter to Constantius, a presbyter in Antioch, addressing an ongoing mission
in Phoenicia.105 The bishop was worried the work might be derailed by pagan
resistance and encouraged Constantius to continue his oversight. He did not
explain precisely where these missionaries were operating, but with at least
twelve bishops in the region, it stands to reason that the mission was
targeting smaller towns and rural villages. In this letter, the bishop’s
enthusiasm for the project is particularly evident in a description of his
recruitment to the cause of a hermit-monk living outside of Nicaea.106 Three
months later, Chrysostom sent three additional letters related to the mission.
In the first, he thanked Nicoloas, a presbyter and monk in Zeugma, for
sending extra monks to join the mission and recommended that the presbyter
Gerontius be dispatched as well.107 Given this request, it is understandable
that he also beseeched Gerontius—the addressee of the second letter—to
recruit additional men for the mission and informed him of Constantius’s
support.108 In the third letter, Chrysostom encouraged the presbyters and
monks who were working in Phoenicia and assured them that the requisite
supplies for the mission would be dispatched.109 The bishop also noted that
104
Mayer and Allen, John Chrysostom, 45. Wendy Mayer, “Patronage, Pastoral Care and the
Role of the Bishop at Antioch,” Vigiliae Christianae 55, no. 1 (2001): 69 also notes this
possibility. This scenario would make Chrysostom’s later instructions to Constantius even more
significant. That is, Chrysostom’s expectation that Constantius would facilitate the delivery of
supplies and coordinate the deployment of missionaries to the region may have stemmed from
the possibility that Flavian had tasked him with these responsibilities as well.
105
Chrysostom, Ep. 221 (PG 52:732–733). For its date (4 July 404), see Roland Delmaire, “Les
‘lettres d’exil’ de Jean Chrysostome, etudes de chronologie et de prosopographie,” Recherches
Augustiniennes 25 (1991): 120.
106
Chrysostom, Ep. 221 (PG 52:733.31–34).
107
Chrysostom, Ep. 53 (PG 52:637–638). For its date (mid-September 404), see Delmaire, “Les
‘lettres d’exil,’” 144. While Nicolaos is only referred to as a presbyter in this letter, he is addressed
as a “monk and presbyter” (along with Theodotus and Chaereas) in Chrysostom, Ep. 146 (PG
52:698–699).
108
Chrysostom, Ep. 54 (PG 52:638–639). For its date (early September 404), see Delmaire, “Les
‘lettres d’exil,’” 130.
109
Chrysostom, Ep. 123 (PG 52:676–678). For its date (beginning of September 404), see
Delmaire, “Les ‘lettres d’exil,’” 121. For another letter of encouragement to carry out mission
he had made arrangements for the presbyter John, who presumably was taking
over the local administration of the mission, to join them.110 Later that winter,
Chrysostom wrote to a wealthy layman named Alphius, who was probably
from Antioch or Zeugma, in order to thank him for sending the
aforementioned John and funding the presbyter’s undertaking.111 At the
same time, the bishop wrote to Symeon and Mares, who were presbyters in
charge of a monastery in Apamea, in the hope that they might be able to
recruit additional monks for the mission in Phoenicia currently being led by
John.112 The mission subsequently suffered a setback when, according to
Chrysostom, there was an outbreak of pagan violence against the
missionaries and several were killed.113 To prevent the mission from falling
into further disarray, Chrysostom sought additional support in the summer of
405. He urged the presbyter Rufinus to depart at once for Phoenicia to
restore order to the mission and seemed to think that the presbyter could
quell the pagan hostility in the area.114 He also wrote to another wealthy
layman named Diogenes and requested that Aphraat (presumably a monk
and/or presbyter) be dispatched to help with the management of the
mission.115 Chrysostom later revealed that the presbyter John had departed
Phoenicia and joined him near the end of 405, and he thanked Nicoloas for
his efforts on behalf on the Phoenician mission the following spring.116 But,
after this point, there is no further evidence that Chrysostom undertook any
actions on behalf of the mission.
Drawing on this correspondence, we can ascertain several features of
Chrysostom’s mission strategy. First, he clearly exhibits a preference for
employing monks and presbyters (oftentimes ascetics as well) as the primary
work, see Ep. 28 (PG 52:627), dated to fall or early winter 404 in Delmaire, “Les ‘lettres d’exil,’”
114. In this letter, Chrysostom applauds the presbyter Basilius for his enthusiasm for converting
pagans, but it is unclear where Basilius was located.
110
Chrysostom, Ep. 123 (PG 52:678.6–9).
111
Chrysostom, Ep. 21 (PG 52:624). For its date (early winter 404/405), see Delmaire, “Les
112
Chrysostom, Ep. 55 (PG 52:639–640). For its date (winter 404/405), see Delmaire, “Les
113
Chrysostom, Ep. 126 (PG 52:685.43–45).
114
Chrysostom, Ep. 126 (PG 52:685–687). For its date (near the end of 405), see Delmaire, “Les
‘lettres d’exil,’” 136, 157.
115
Chrysostom, Ep. 51 (PG 52:636–637). For its date (sometime in 405), see Delmaire, “Les
116
On John’s return, see Chrysostom, Ep. 148 (PG 52:700.14–19). For its date (beginning of
406), see Delmaire, “Les ‘lettres d’exil,’” 88–89. Concerning his gratitude toward Nicoloas, see
Chrysostom, Ep. 69 (PG 52:646.52–55), dated to spring of 406 in Delmaire, “Les ‘lettres
d’exil,’” 144.
922 CHURCH HISTORY
agents of mission.117 It is unclear if there were any language barriers between these
missionaries and the Phoenician population, but Chrysostom’s Gothic mission
demonstrates that he did prioritize sending missionaries with the requisite
language skills when necessary.118 The missionaries in Phoenicia were also
managed by a presbyter, while the bishop centrally orchestrated the mission’s
affairs. As the overall leader, Chrysostom was responsible for the coordination
of the mission’s administration (including selection of its managers), the
recruitment of suitable missionaries, and the procurement of financial backing
from wealthy lay patrons. It may be further significant that, despite Theodoret’s
suspect claim, the Phoenician mission (as well as Chrysostom’s other
missionary endeavors) appears not to have had imperial support.
The correspondence offers few specifics about the activities of these
missionaries. Yet there are some notable descriptions of what Chrysostom
expected of them. The bishop was primarily concerned with the construction
of churches. In addition to his request that Constantius keep him apprised of
such progress,119 Chrysostom also implored Aphraat (via Diogenes) and
Rufinus to finish the churches’ roofs before the coming winter.120 This
architectural urgency may have been prompted by Chrysostom’s
arrangements with Otreius, bishop of Arabissos, to send martyrs’ relics to
Phoenicia around that time, presumably to be interred in these churches.121
Additionally, Chrysostom tasked his missionaries with “the demolition of
paganism.”122 He did not clarify the meaning of this phrase when he asked
for an update on its progress, so it may be nothing more than his way of
describing the work of converting pagans in the region. However, it
probably referred more specifically to the destruction of pagan temples.
Indeed, such activity better explains the outburst of pagan violence directed
at the missionaries. Of course, the request for a report does not necessarily
117
Interestingly, Frend posited a connection between Chrysostom’s use of ascetics for the
Phoenician mission and the Syrian monks involved in the aforementioned anti-temple campaign
of the 380s in “Winning of the Countryside,” 7–8. But he did not elaborate further on it. This
connection between Chrysostom’s own practice and that of his episcopal mentor also helps to
explain why he would depend so heavily on monks as missionaries even after his considerable
conflict with the monks of Constantinople.
118
See, for example, Homilia habita postquam presbyter Gothus (PG 63:499.54–56); and
Theodoret, Hist. eccl. 5.30.
119
Chrysostom, Ep. 221 (PG 52:733.1–2).
120
Chrysostom, Ep. 51 (PG 52:636.53); and Chrysostom, Ep. 126 (PG 52:687.18–19).
121
Chrysostom, Ep. 126 (PG 52:687.8–15). The identity of these relics remains unknown: Wendy
Mayer, The Cult of the Saints: Select Homilies and Letters, Popular Patristics Series 31(Crestwood,
N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2006), 259–260. Before Chrysostom arrived in the Armenian
village of Arabissos on his exilic trek, he sent the presbyter Terentius ahead to facilitate their
shipment to Phoenicia (PG 52:687.10–13). Moreover, it is unclear why he sought these relics—
unless Otreius had previously offered them—because there should have been sufficient relics
from the martyred missionaries in Phoenicia.
122
Chrysostom, Ep. 221 (PG 52:732.47–733.1): τοῦ Ἑλληνισμοῦ τὴν καθαίρεσιν.
imply an endorsement of such destruction. Yet ps-Martyrius, who had been a
close companion of the bishop, reported that the bishop also dispatched “the
chosen soldiers of Christ to distant parts to wage war against them through
the destruction of temples and idols and through the planting of churches,
for he knew that they were waging war equally on both fronts.”123 It is
feasible that this rendering of Chrysostom was motivated by the
hagiographical topos of the holy bishop who triumphed over paganism, but
it seems more likely that ps-Martyrius was reporting his firsthand knowledge
of Chrysostom’s instructions to his missionaries. Therefore, given the nature
of Chrysostom’s request to his missionaries and ps-Martyrius’s recollection
of the bishop’s missionary endeavors, it appears that Chrysostom envisioned
the destruction of pagan temples as part and parcel of the undertaking of
Christian mission.
It is also important to recognize how Chrysostom’s missionary undertakings
related to matters of jurisdictional authority. Put another way, did the bishop
expand his jurisdictional authority via mission? His involvement in
Phoenicia was a bit unusual since it was likely predicated on his desire to
help the displaced Constantius maintain control of the mission. Thus, this
particular mission did not necessarily require the assertion of extra-
jurisdictional claims, at least in the terms laid out in the second canon of
Constantinople. At the same time, it would have been highly unusual for a
bishop of Constantinople to exercise any kind of authority in the diocese of
the Orient. Furthermore, looking beyond the Phoenician mission,
Chrysostom’s interest in the progress of mission work in Persia and, more
importantly, his tireless efforts to promote the Christianization of the Goths
outside of the empire clearly reflect a keen interest in the expansion of his
extra-jurisdictional authority via mission.
VII. CONCLUSION
Given the spotty record of deliberate missionary activity orchestrated by
Nicene bishops in the late fourth century, Chrysostom’s missionary
endeavors are peculiar and warrant explanation. To this end, I have focused
123
Ps-Martyrius, Orat. funeb. 26, translated in Timothy David Barnes and George Bevan, The
Funerary Speech for John Chrysostom, Translated Texts for Historians 60 (Liverpool: Liverpool
University Press, 2013), 54. While the identity of ps-Martyrius has been debated, he is widely
believed to have been a close companion of Chrysostom: Timothy D. Barnes, “The Funerary
Speech for John Chrysostom (BHG3 871 = CPG 6517),” Studia Patristica 37 (2001): 328–345
(argues for Cosmas, one of the bishop’s deacons); and Martin Wallraff, ed., Oratio funebris in
laudem sancti Iohannis Chrysostomi: Epitaffio attribuito a Martirio di Antiochia (BHG 871,
CPG 6517) (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, 2007), 13–17 (argues for
Philip of Side, a priest and close associate of the bishop).
924 CHURCH HISTORY
on Chrysostom’s formation in Antioch and its influence on his subsequent

approach to mission as the bishop of Constantinople. What is most telling is
that the key features of Chrysostom’s mission strategy bear the hallmarks of
the activities of his episcopal mentors in Antioch, who devoted themselves
in varying ways to the rebirth of the see’s missionary aspirations. First,
Chrysostom’s preference for missionary monks mirrors Flavian’s
employment of ascetically inclined, Syriac-speaking clergy to implement the
Canons of Antioch, which expressly laid out the parameters for the oversight
and administration of rural regions. Second, Chrysostom’s promotion of the
destruction of pagan temples emulates Flavian’s own endorsement, and
possible orchestration, of the monks’ campaign to obliterate the temples
dotting the Syrian countryside, as described by Libanius. While our sources
do not explicitly link these two strategies, Chrysostom’s behavior suggests
that his episcopal mentors operated under the assumption that
Christianization entailed the interrelated tasks of tearing down paganism
(spiritually and physically) and building up churches (in terms of converts
and buildings). Such a conclusion is even more inescapable if Libanius’s
thuggish monks were the same rural clergy controlled by Flavian. Third, we
can see glimpses of Antiochene antecedents in Chrysostom’s use of
presbyters to oversee the local administration of a mission while he managed
its overall coordination, including recruitment and fundraising, although the
dearth of evidence prevents further elaboration on this point. Fourth,
Chrysostom’s desire to expand his own extra-jurisdictional authority as the
bishop of Constantinople, especially with his mission to the Goths, parallels
the ambitions of his episcopal mentors. Finally, these various Antiochene
efforts pivotally coincided with Chrysostom’s promotion of mission, which
entailed urging others to emulate the apostle Paul. All told, this overall
assessment is significant for the broader study of John Chrysostom because,
along with the work of Wendy Mayer and Justin Stephens, it further
supports privileging Chrysostom’s formative experiences in Antioch as we
seek to understand his later actions as the bishop of Constantinople.124
Ultimately, Chrysostom’s peculiar commitment to mission did not stem
merely from his religious enthusiasm, but rather was the product of his
Antiochene formation as well as of his own unparalleled commitment to
emulation of the apostle Paul, who was, in his estimation, Christianity’s
missionary exemplar.
124
See, for example, Wendy Mayer, “John Chrysostom as Bishop: The View from Antioch,”
Journal of Ecclesiastical History 55, no. 3 (July 2004): 455–466; and Justin Stephens, “Religion
and Power in the Early Thought of John Chrysostom,” in The Power of Religion in Late
Antiquity, ed. Andrew Cain and Noel Lenski (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2009), 181–188.

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Church History 88:4 (December 2019), 899–924.

© American Society of Church History, 2019

John Chrysostom and the Rebirth of Antiochene

Jonathan P. Stanfill is Visiting Instructor of Theology at the University of Portland.

prompted a growing number of scholars to question the extent to which

mere barbarians.”14 But such a characterization prompts an important question:

I. THE YOUNG APPRENTICE: JOHN CHRYSOSTOM AND THE SEE OF

Chrysostom’s tutelage was subsequently taken up by Flavian, who was

II. CHRISTIANIZING THE SYRIAN COUNTRYSIDE: THE SEE OF ANTIOCH’S

III. DESACRALIZING THESYRIAN LANDSCAPE: THE ANTI-TEMPLE

recently come into question, especially as new archaeological findings are

IV. EXPANDING INFLUENCE ABROAD: MISSION AND THE SECOND CANON

One of the most surprising aspects of the missionary endeavors supported by

principle of accommodation, with ecclesiastical organization modeled after the

wide-ranging implications for jurisdiction could have been formulated without

V. JUSTIFYING MISSION IN ANTIOCH: CHRYSOSTOM’S PROMOTION OF

This distinctive appraisal of Paul can be found throughout Chrysostom’s

VI. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM’S MISSION IN PHOENICIA

on Chrysostom’s formation in Antioch and its influence on his subsequent

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