Chapter 4 The Reason for the Feast: John Chrysostom’s Scriptural Explanations of Antiochene Liturgical Practices

In: Fresh Perspectives on St John Chrysostom as an Exegete
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Robert G.T. Edwards
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Abstract

John Chrysostom’s sermons delivered at the dominical festivals are among the earliest surviving Christian festal sermons. This essay investigates one aspect of these sermons: Chrysostom’s explanations of the “reasons for the feasts” and their associated liturgical practices. After briefly comparing pagan panegyrical orations and other early Christian festal sermons, it turns to a discussion of the kinds of reasons or etiologies that Chrysostom provides—namely, scriptural ones, whether prooftexts or longer discussions. While Chrysostom is aware of liturgical traditions that do not stem from the Bible (but from “the fathers”), he always explains them with recourse to Scripture.

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