CHAPTER TWO

 

The Antiochene tradition: of Ignatius to John Chrysostom[1]

 

    

1. Introdution

 

In this and the following chapter I intend to present some patristic texts relating to the formation of priests.

I will limit myself out of necessity to a few examples, among the many possible,[2] referring in this chapter to the “Antiochene tradition” and it the next to the “Alexandrine tradition”.

It is a choice that puts some order in the exposition, and on the other hand helps to overcome the image of a “theology of the Fathers” that is as rigid and compact as a monolith. In fact, the variety of the antique “schools” of Antioch, Alexandria, Edessa… and of their respective historical-cultural roots establishes different positions and sensitivities in the patristic texts.

The orientations of the antique traditions of Antioch and Alexandria are well known.

On the one hand, Antioch seems to incarnate the more evident characteristics of the so-called Asiatic “materialism”, sustainer of the letter in exegesis and of the humanity of the Son in Christology; while Alexandria seems to take the two instances – respectively complimentary – of allegory in exegesis and of the divinity of the Word in Christology.[3]

 

 

2. From the Letters of Ignatius (+ 107)[4]

 

The custom of considering Luciano, teacher of Ario, as the founder of the “school” of Antioch is widespread.

However, Ignatius, in the first half of the second century, already anticipates some characteristic traits, especially in the marked realism of the referrals to Christ’s humanity. He “is truly of the lineage of David” writes Ignatius to the Smyrnese church, “he was truly born of a virgin…, was truly nailed to a cross for us”.[5]

Ignatius employs the same realism also when referring to the Church. In particular he often alludes to the ecclesiastical hierarchy, speaking of the bishops, presbyters and deacons.[6]

“It is proper that you”, he writes to the Ephesians, “act in agreement with the will of the bishop; and this you do. In fact, your presbytery, which is a credit to its name, is a credit to God; for it is as closely tied to the bishop as the strings to a harp. Therefore, your accord and harmonious love is a hymn to Jesus Christ. Yes, one and all, you should form yourselves into a choir, so that in perfect harmony and taking your pitch from God, you may sing in unison and with one voice”.[7] And after having advised the Smyrnese not “to do anything that has to do with the Church without the bishop’s approval”,[8] he confides to Polycarp: «I offer my life for those who are obedient to the bishop, the presbyters and the deacons. Along with them may I get my share of God’s reward! Work together, one for the other, struggle together, run together, suffer together, go to bed and get up together, as God’s stewards, assessors and servants. Try to please him in whose ranks you serve and from whom you get your pay. Let none of you prove a deserter. Let your baptism be your shield, your faith your helmet, your charity your spear and your patience your armor”.[9]

 

We can gather in the Letters of Ignatius a sort of constant and fruitful dialect between the two characteristic aspects of the Christian experience: certainly, the hierarchical structure of the ecclesial community, which we have already mentioned, but also the fundamental unity that binds all the faithful together in Christ.

Consequently, there is no possibility of a conflict of roles.[10] On the contrary, the insistence on communion and reciprocity among believers, continuously reformulated through images and examples (the harp, strings, intonation, concert...), appears as the conscious implication of the common identity of the faithful, whether or not they be ordained ministers.

 On the other hand, the responsibility of the deacons, presbyters and bishops in building the community is evident.[11] 

The invitation to love and unity is valid first of all for them. “Be one”, Ignatius writes to the Magnesians, referring to Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper: “one petition, one mind, one hope in love… Run off, all of you, to Jesus Christ as if to the one temple of God, to the one altar: he is one, and proceeding from the one Father, he remained united to Him, and in unity returned to Him”.[12]

Ignatius does not explicitly speak of the formative demands in relationship to the sacred ministries. However, that does not make them less evident. If we look, for example, at the passage from the Letter to the Trallians in which the bishop, gathering the teachings of Acts 6 (the ordination of the first deacons), he explains with frankness: “The deacons, who are at the service of Jesus Christ’s mysteries, must try to give complete satisfaction to everyone. For they are not merely servers of food and drink, but are servers (huper­étai: literally "oarsmen") of God’s Church. They must avoid every criticism as they would fire”.[13]

It would be useful to compare this passage from Ignatius with the identikit of the deacon that emerges from the story of the Acts of the Apostles.

Deacons, the story relates, are “reputable” men, or better, “people of tried witness” (martyrouménoi: Acts 6:3). As we can see, the word utilized is linked with the term “martyrs”. We could say, therefore, that the deacon must be a “martyr”, in the sense that the witness of his deaconate can never withdraw, at the cost – if necessary – of life itself. In this sense Ignatius says that deacons are servants of the Church and of God.

On the other hand, keeping with the Acts, the deacon must be “filled with the Spirit and wisdom” (6:3). It is a wisdom that comes from God: it is the “wisdom of the Spirit”, which requires profound intimacy with the Lord. Therefore, the service of charity – the so-called “service at table”, to which deacons are called – presupposes always, however, the primacy of the spiritual dimension in their life.

Returning to the words of Ignatius, they are not simple distributors of food and drink, but are at the service of the mysteries of Jesus Christ. If a minister is not formed in the contemplation of Christ’s holy mysteries, to the point of reaching “unity” with him, he cannot exercise the authentic ministry of charity and does not “bring ahead” God’s Church. 

 

 

3. John Chrysostom (+ 407)[14]

 

I pass now to another Antiochene Father, mystically in love with the priesthood.

Before any other consideration, I would like to present the pastor in action, “captured at the top” of his ministry.

I am referring to the famous Homilies on Matthew, and to the way in which Chrysostom in a pastoral sense faced burning issues, such as that of the rich and poor in the Christian community of Antioch.

Chrysostom’s homilies (approximately 350-407) On the Gospel of Matthew represent for us the oldest complete commentary on the first Gospel. They represent, moreover, an important witness to that homiletic activity that would assure Chrysostom the highest recognition among ecclesiastical orators. They date back to the years between 386 and 397 – in other words, between his ordination to the priesthood in Antioch and his election to the Patriarchal Cathedral of Constantinople -, a time in which Chrysostom was called to carry out various preaching assignments in the most important Antiochene churches. These assignments were particularly agreeable to John who, following a monastic and hermetic experience, had embraced the priesthood for an irresistible pastoral vocation,[15] and who especially through the preaching of Scriptures aimed at fulfilling that vocation: consistently his preaching and his exegesis – faithful to the fundamental directions of the “Antiochene school” – appear singularly sensitive to the concrete situations, problems and needs (also material ones) of its recipients.  

In particular – in Antioch in the second half of the fourth century, where the social and economic imbalances were enormous as a result of wars, latifundium, capitalism, the unjust tax regime… - Chrysostom is continuously made to deal with the many issues raised by the presence of both rich and poor within the community:[16] if you think that only in the homilies On the Gospel of Matthew the theme recurs not less than one hundred times!

 

Therefore, we would like to listen to “this very successful pastor” reading a few passages of his fiftieth homily On the Gospel of Matthew.[17]

As a whole, the homily comments on the final pericope of Matthew 14: but the last verse of the chapter – where we read that the inhabitants of Gennesaret brought Jesus their sick “and begged him to let them touch at least the hem of his garment” (Matthew 14:36) – allows Chrysostom a considerably autonomous parenthetical development, which alone occupies the second half of the homily.  

The development is justifiable thanks to the context of the Eucharistic liturgy, in which the homily is placed: “Let us also then touch the hem of his garment”, Chrysostom invites; “or rather, if we be willing, we have the entire Christ. His body, in fact, is here now before us”. And he continues: “Believe, therefore, that even now it is that supper, at which Jesus himself sat down”.[18]

According to Chrysostom, such certainty of faith questions decisively the responsibility of the faithful, since participation in the mass of the Lord does not allow for any inconsistencies whatever: “Let no Judas then approach this table!”, exclaims the homilist. And presenting oneself at the table with vessels of gold is not a sufficiently dignified criterion: “That table was not of silver nor that cup of gold, out of which Christ gave His disciples His own blood... Do you want to honor Christ’s body? Then do not allow him to be naked:  and do not honor him here in the church with silken garments, while allowing him to die outside from the cold and nakedness. He who said: “This is my body” also said: “I was hungry, and you gave me no food”; and: “What you did not do to one of these least ones, you did not do for me”. Let us learn, therefore, to be wise, and to honor Christ as he wishes, spending our riches on the poor. God has no need of golden vessels, but of golden souls. What profit is there if his table is full of golden cups, when he is dying of hunger? First fill him when he is hungry, and then use the means you have left to adorn his table!”.[19]

The expressions cited are enough to show his total identification of Christ with the poor. Chrysostom, in fact, is well aware that, there is a basic truth: he who serves the poor serves Christ; he who rejects the poor rejects Christ. On this we will be judged (Matthew 25: 31-46). However, Chrysostom is equally aware that this love of neighbor – to be truly that of Jesus – must be nourished by communion with God, by his love for us.

In his preaching, the bishop underlines with insistence the intimate relationship between the commandment of love and the life of God. The authentic witness of charity must be able to say, together with the apostle John: “What we have looked upon, that is, the Word of life, we have proclaimed to you!” (1 John 1-4).

In other words, to grow in authentic charity, the faithful, and all the more so the ordained ministers must know Jesus and enter into profound intimacy with him.[20]

Once again, the discussion returns to the “contemplative dimension” of the presbyter and to the quality of his meeting with the Lord in the Word and in the sacraments.

 

The famous Dialogue with Basil, composed around the year 390,[21] can also be read in this same perspective, there where John Chrysostom speaks of the “example” and the “word” as medicines of the presbyter: “Those who cure men’s bodies” he writes, “have an abundance of medicines at their disposal… In our case, besides our example, there is no other instrument or other healing method outside of the instruction which is carried out with the word”. [22]

In this same Dialogue Chrysostom speaks of the priesthood as “a life of courage and dedication”, because the ministry of the (true) pastor does not know the narrow limits of personal benefit, but redounds to the advantage of the entire flock.[23]

For Chrysostom, caring for the flock is the “sign of love”, it is the concrete proof that the minister truly loves the Lord: “If you love me, feed my sheep…”.

On that occasion, Chrysostom observes, the teacher asked the disciple if he loved him not because he wanted to know: why would he have to do so, he who scrutinizes and knows the heart of everyone? Neither did he “intend to show us how much Peter loved him: this was already obvious from many other facts; instead he wanted to show how much he (the Lord) loves his Church, and to teach Peter and all of us how much care we must lavish on this work”.[24]  

And this is where the overwhelming difference lies between the “mercenary” and the “pastor”: “the good Pastor gives his life for his sheep” (John 10:11).

 

 

4. Provisional conclusions

 

One has the impression that both Ignatius and John insist more on the identity and on the mission of the presbyter than on his formation path. For the most part, in fact, the formative demands remain only implicit.

In both Fathers, however, we were able to notice a strong emphasis on the necessary unity of the presbyter with Christ.

For the Anthiochenes, moreover, perfect unity with Christ and total dedication to the flock do not appear to be simply two constitutive characteristics of the presbyter (to which, consequently, every priestly formation plan will constantly be orientated). They make up a single reality. They are like two faces of the same coin. The one confirms the other, and there should never be the case of a priest that has one without the other. For the presbyter, complete dedication to the flock is the sign of his unity with Christ; on the other hand, complete dedication to the flock requires him to continuously “turn to Jesus Christ as to the one temple of God, as to the one altar”.

In the final analysis, the “realism” of the Antiochene Fathers invites the presbyter to a progressive synthesis of configuration to Christ (intimacy, union with him) and pastoral dedication (mission, service to the Church and the world), until the point that through one dimension the other speaks, and the ministers are never reduced to “simple distributors”, but may be “authentic witnesses” of the mysteries of Christ and his Church.

 

 


[1]Initial bibliography: L. PADOVESE, I sacerdoti dei primi secoli. Testimonianze dei Padri sui ministeri ordinati, Casale Monferrato 1992; F. RODERO, El sacerdocio en los Padres de la Iglesia. Grandeza, Pequeñez y Ascesis. Antología de Textos, Madrid 1993; G. HAMMANN, L'amour retrouvé. La diaconie chrétienne et le ministère de diacre du christianisme primitif aux réformateurs protestants du XVIe siècle (= Histoire), Paris 1994.

 

[2]A list of the more important patristic texts regarding holiness, to which the presbyter is called, can be found for example in A. TRAPÉ, Il sacerdote uomo di Dio al servizio della Chiesa. Considerazioni patristiche (= Collana Studi Agostiniani, 1), Rome 19852, pp. 41-42.

 

[3]For an elaboration of these questions cfr. E. DAL COVOLO (cur.), Storia della teologia, 1. Dalle origini a Bernardo di Chiaravalle, Bologna-Rome 1995, pp. 181-203 («Esegesi biblica e teologia tra Alessandria e Antiochia») e p. 520, note 11. In particular on the «Antiochene theology» cfr. D.S. WALLACE-HADRILL, Christian Antioch. A study of Early Christian Thought in the East, Cambridge 1982; S. ZINCONE, Studi sulla visione dell'uomo in ambito antiocheno (Diodoro, Crisosto­mo, Teodoro, Teodoreto) (= Quaderni di studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, 1), L'Aquila-Roma 1988.

[4]A good introduction to Ignatius is that of F. BERGAMELLI in G. BOSIO - E. DAL COVOLO - M. MARITANO, Intro­duzione ai Padri della Chiesa. Secoli I e II (= Strumenti della Corona Patrum, 1), Turin 19953, pp. 88-106 (with bibliography). For the subject of our interests also see C. RIGGI, Il sacerdozio ministeriale nel pensiero di Ignazio di Antiochia, in S. FELICI (cur.), La formazione al sacerdozio ministeriale..., pp. 39-57; M. SIMONETTI, Presbiteri e vescovi nella chiesa del I e II secolo, «Vetera Christianorum» 33 (1996), pp. 115-132.

 

[5]IGNAZIO, Smirnesi 1,1, ed. P.T. CAMELOT, SC 10, Paris 19694, p. 132.

 

[6]Anche J. COLSON, Ministre de Jésus-Christ ou le sacerdoce de l'Évangile. Étude sur la condition sacerdotale des ministres chrétiens dans l'Église primitive (= Théologie historique, 4), Paris 1966 - che pure vede «dans le Corpus ignacien la tendance à "spiritualiser" les valeurs cultuelles et sacerdotales» (ibidem, p. 332) -, deve riconoscere che il culto cristiano si incarna di fatto «dans une société, dirigée par une hiérarchie fortement constituée, qui en est l'organisme visible» (ibidem, p. 334).

 

[7]ID., Efesini 4,1-2, p. 60.

 

[8]ID., Smirnesi 8,1, p. 138.

 

[9]ID., Policarpo 6,1-2, pp. 150-152.

 

[10]Cfr. E. DAL COVOLO, Sacerdozio ministeriale e sacerdozio comune. La rilettura patristica di 1 Petri 2,9 nell'attuale dibatti­to sulle origini della distinzione gerarchica, in S. FELICI (cur.), La formazione al sacerdozio ministeriale..., pp. 255-266.

 

[11]Cfr. E. DAL COVOLO, Ministeri e missione alle origini della Chiesa, in E. DAL COVOLO-A.M. TRIACCA (curr.), La mis­sione del Redentore. Studi sull'Enciclica missionaria di Giovanni Paolo II, Leumann (Turin) 1992, pp. 123-136.

 

[12]IGNAZIO, Magnesi 7,1-2, pp. 84-86.

 

[13]ID., Tralliani 2,3, p. 96.

 

[14]For a good introduction to Chrysostom, cfr. O. PASQUATO in G. BOSIO - E. DAL COVOLO - M. MARITANO, Intro­duzione ai Padri della Chiesa. Secoli III e IV (= Strumenti della Corona Patrum, 3), Turin 19952, pp. 390-435 (with biblio­graphy).

 

[15]Cfr. O. PASQUATO, Ideale sacerdotale e formazione al sacerdozio del giovane Crisostomo: evoluzione o continuità?, in S. FELICI (cur.), La formazione al sacerdozio ministeriale..., pp. 59-93.

 

[16]Cfr. S. ZINCONE, Ricchezza e povertà nelle omelie di Giovanni Crisostomo, L'Aquila 1973, and now A. OLIVAR, I poveri alle porte delle chiese nella predicazione del IV secolo, in E. MANICARDI - F. RUGGIERO (curr.), Liturgia ed evangelizzazione nell'epoca dei Padri e nella Chiesa del Vaticano II. Studi in onore di Enzo Lodi, Bologna 1996, pp. 219-235.

 

[17]Cfr. E. DAL COVOLO, I Padri della Chiesa e la Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, in M. TOSO (cur.), Solidarietà. Nuovo nome della pace. Studi sull'Enciclica Sollicitudo Rei Socialis di Giovanni Paolo II, Leumann (Turin) 1988, pp. 15-27.

 

[18]GIOVANNI CRISOSTOMO, Sul vangelo di Matteo 50,2-3, PG 58, c. 507.

 

[19]Ibidem 50,3-4, PG 58, cc. 508-509.

 

[20]See for example the forty-sixth homily On the Gospel of John: «To become one body not by love only, but also in deed, we must unite ourselves to his flesh; this is accomplished by means of the food, which he gave us as a sign of his great love for us. He has mixed himself with us, to the point of forming a single body precisely for this reason; so that we might be one with him, just as the body united to the head is one. This is the sign of the greatest love of all”  (ID., Sul vangelo di Giovanni 46,3, PG 59, c. 260).

 

[21]See for example GIOVANNI CRISOSTOMO, Dialogo sul sacerdozio by G. Falbo (= Già e non ancora pocket, 33), Mi­lano 1978; F. MARINELLI, La carta del prete. Guida alla lettura del «Dialogo sul sacerdozio» di San Giovanni Crisostomo, Roma 1986; and above all M. LOCHBRUNNER, Über das Priestertum. Historische und systematische Untersuchung zum Priesterbild des Johannes Chrysostomus (= Hereditas. Studien zur Alten Kirchengeschichte, 5), Bonn 1993.

 

[22]GIOVANNI CRISOSTOMO, Dialogo sul sacerdozio 4,3,5-13, ed. A.M. MALINGREY, SC 272, Paris 1980, pp. 248-250.

 

[23]Ibidem 2,4,51-64, pp. 116-118: which especially refers to the expression ghennáia psyché, and the semantic pregnancy the adjective takes on in the Christian vocabulary and in particular in Chrysostom (see ibidem, p. 117, note 3).

 

[24]Ibidem 2,1,35-40, p. 102.