PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

This second half of the sermon is not always directly related to the subject-matter
of the first. Instead it can be occasioned by some concern which happens to be
close to John’s mind at the time or he may continue a theme which was initially
addressed in other sermons preached before the same audience. 3
Frances Young elaborates on the ethical applications of Chrysostom’s homilies:
It is reckoned that in his ninety homilies on Matthew Chrysostom spoke on
almsgiving forty times, poverty thirteen times, avarice more than thirty times and
wealth wrongly acquired or used about twenty times…. Often he sounds like the
typical hectoring moralist, as these themes keep recurring, creeping in on the
barest of pretexts where they seem hardly relevant. 4
Elsewhere Young explains:
It has often been noted that on the whole these exegetical homilies fall into two
parts: the first follows the text providing commentary, then, after a certain time,
Chrysostom abandons the text and develops a long exhortation on one of his
favourite themes, the latter bearing precious little relation to the text or
commentary preceding it. 5
However, if we limit our exegetical interest to the “expository” portion of each homily we
are, as Margaret M. Mitchell rightly points out, “evading what their author thought most
important”. 6
3
Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen, John Chrysostom (ECF; London: Routledge, 2000),
30.
4
Frances Young, “They Speak to Us Across the Centuries 3. John Chrysostom,” ExpT
109/2 (1997): 38-41; 40.
5
Frances Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), 249.
6
Mitchell, The Heavenly Trumpet, xvii.
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