St. John Chrysostom: On Repentance and Almsgiving
2000; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 82; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2163-6214
Autores Tópico(s)Archaeology and Historical Studies
ResumoSt. John Chrysostom: On Repentance and Almsgiving. Translated by Gus George Christo. The Fathers of Church, Vol. 96. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1998. xviii + 159 pp. $27.95 (cloth). There no complete translation of Chrysostom in any language, but large portions of his writings have been rendered into English over last century or so. The most extensive selection to be found in series, AnteNicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff and Alexander Roberts (1886-1900), Chrysostom occupying volumes IX-XIV of first series of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. More recently, Fathers of Church Series, of which present volume under review volume 96, has taken lead in providing significant translations of some of Chrysostom's writings, including all 88 Homilies on John (by Sister Thomas Aquinas Goggin, S.C.lH., in volumes 33 and 41); De incomprehensibili Dei natura (by Paul Harkins in vol. 72); and 67 Homilies on Genesis (by Robert Hill, in volumes 74, 82, and 87). In this brief consideration, two other translations deserve mention. Graham Neville's revision of T. A. Moxon's translation of Nairn's edition of De sacerdotio, published originally by SPCK (1964) and subsequently by St.Vladimir's Seminary Press, has attained status of a small classic. And Paul Harkins's extremely useful volume 31 in Ancient Christian Writers series, St. John Chrysostom: Baptismal Instructions (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, and London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1963), puts into hands of English-speaking reader discovery of Stavronikita MS and its consequences for study of Chrysostom's text. The standard has therefore been set extremely high, not least by Fathers of Church Series. These translations ordinarily contain an extensive critical introduction as well as up-to-date bibliographies, and here we must begin with our first disappointment with Volume 96: Christo's comparatively brief (8-page) Introduction may be more accurately described as hagiographical than scholarly, and he does his subject a great disservice thereby. Christo's treatment of Repentance: An Overview (pp. xiii-xv) not, for example, particularly satisfactory. Given centrality in Chrysostom's thought of the life well lived, this subject of primary significance both in understanding Chrysostom and in making judgements about these texts. Christo mentions five Greek words that relate to repentance, nwtarnelonwi, metastrophe, metathesis, nwtamorphosis, and atetanoia, and here we could have used a thorough examination of a complicated subject. Instead there no critical reflection, and none of his definitions contains references to these words or ideas as they are used by John himself. Even his biblical references are thin. For example, Christo remarks (p. xiii), quite correctly, that metamelomai probably carries with it a sense of remorse at Mt. 27:3. Yet he neglects to say that this verb can have a much less highly charged meaning, as it does a few chapters earlier in same Gospel, where at Mt. 21:30 and 32 it means simply one's mind. Nor it clear what Christo means when he says that rnetastrophe is a drastic and dynamic about-face from a previous despised way of life to a conscious decision to change (p. …
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