Hi Folks,

Material on Cappadocian Fathers relating to charity and love of the poor.

The concern with charity (agape) and love of neighbor is an integral part of the theology and spirituality of the Cappadocian Fathers and St. John Chrysostom. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, SS. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom are venerated as the Three Hierarchs or Three Ecumenical teachers -- that is, they are honored as playing a singular role for their understanding,defense of and witness to Christian life and teaching. All of them stressed the necessity of charity towards others. All of them were very active in establishing hospitals, programs to feed the poor, etc. Here is one of the icons for the feast of the Three Hierarchs (L-R, SS. Basil, John and Gregory), which is celebrated Jan 30.

As I mentioned, I wanted to provide some primary and secondary literature dealing with this aspect of their spirituality, theology and philosophy. We will consider this material in seminar format at the last section dealing with the Cappadocian Fathers. St. John Chrysostom is not one of the Cappadocian Fathers but I will include texts from him in this discussion because of the centrality of his writings on this topic. I realize that I’ve given you far more material than you can read for one session. But that’s ok. You have at least a collection of some material on this theme if you are interested in further reading on this aspect of the Byzantine tradition.

I think this material is important because many scholars focus on other aspects of their work and often neglect their teachings on charity and love of the poor. Or, perhaps view it as a marginal aspect of their teaching. But it is not; it is vital. This material needs to be considered not only for its own sake but also in comparing the teachings of the Cappadocian Fathers with the many non-Christian sources that influenced them. These three were certainly influenced by the Platonic and Neo-platonic traditions. But there is nothing in the latter traditions that come close to the themes represented in the material I’m giving you.

Here is the material. I’ll send it over several emails for you.

First email:

St. Basil, Sermon on “I Will Pull My Barns Down (Luke 12:16-18)

St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 14, On the Love of the Poor

read secs 1, 4-18, 23-25, 27, 29-30

St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Love of the Poor 2: “On the saying: Whoever Has Done it to One of These Has Done it to Me.”(Matt. 25:40)

(provided for your interest. We won’t consider this during the seminar discussion)

Second email:

St. John Chrysostom -- selection from Homily 5 fromEight Homilies on Genesis.

(Archbishop) Anastasios Yannoulatos, Chapter 6, “The Dynamic of Universal and Continuous Change” from Facing the World

Third email:

(Fr.) Georges Florovsky, Chrysostom: Prophet of Charity

(Fr. Florovsky was one of the greatest Orthodox scholars/theologians in the 20th century)

John D. Jones, “Confronting Poverty and Stigmatization: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective”

This is a nearly completed draft of an article that I’m preparing for publication. The entire body of the text and the notes for section 1 are complete. The notes for section 2 have yet to be written. The first section is based primarily on St. Gregory the Theologian’s, Oration 14; the second section on the writings of St. John Chrysostom..

NOTE: All of thesereadings are framed in a predominantly theological framework. I’m not going to try to unpack the philosophical aspects of this material since I’m mainly interested in letting you see this side of the Byzantine tradition and not in including it as a ‘formal’ part of the curriculum for the course.

Please read what you can for the class. I’ll let you know next week what class will be devoted to this material when I get a sense of the pace for Unit II.

Dr. J