john Chrysostom

Do Not Steal: Dr Laura and Her Rabbi Stewart Vogel on Ten Commandments, and Excuses People Make
Command 7 Do Not Steal

Do Not Steal and Excuses People Make: Dr Laura and Her Rabbi Stewart Vogel on Ten Commandments

Bruce Strom 0

Dr Laura opens this reflection: “People spend a lot of time redefining stealing in order to increase their comfort zone as they assert themselves in a world of needs, wants, possessions, power struggles, fame, fortune, desire, envy, loss, hurt, greed, and antisocial personalities.” This observation implies that many people steal because they feel that they are being taken advantage of, or they themselves were the target of loss, hurt, and greed, and they want to get even with the world, though she does not develop this thought in depth. […]

St John Climacus on Gluttony in Ladder of Divine Ascent, Eating for Health: DASH Diet
Ladder of Divine Ascent

St John Climacus on Gluttony and Fasting, Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 14, and Eating for Health: DASH diet

Bruce Strom 1

Earthly passions, if we do not control them, can lead us to selfishness, can lead us away from selflessness, can cloud the way to our salvation, and can prevent us from loving our neighbor as ourselves. St John Climacus teaches us that the primary passion is gluttony, the gluttony that keeps us from eating a healthy diet, that keeps us from eating in moderation. […]

St Neilos the Ascetic, Philokalia
Morality

St Neilos on Ascetic Discourses in the Philokalia

Bruce Strom 0

St Neilos contrasts the holy men “who live for the soul alone, turning away from the body and its wants,” the holy men who have no need to flatter the wealthy because they live simply, to those of us who, “instead of courageously struggling against our difficulties, come fawning to the wealthy, like puppies wagging their tails in the hope of being tossed a bare bone or some crumbs. To get what we want, we can them benefactors and protectors of Christians, attributing every virtue to them, even though they may be utterly wicked.” […]

St Nicodemus, Do not Slander
Command 8 Do Not Bear False Witness

St Nicodemus the Hagiorite, Do Not Bear False Witness, Do Not Slander

Bruce Strom 1

What are we taught by our teachers? Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Except that this is not true, St Nicodemus teaches us that King David, in his Psalms, feared slander more than sticks and stones, and for good reason, for words harm our reputation, which sticks and stones can never touch. Wounds heal, but suspicions linger. […]

AntiSemitism

John Chrysostom, Justin Martyr, and the Church Fathers Preach Against the Judaizers and the Jews

Bruce Strom 0

John Chrysostom is the most strident of the early Church writers in his writings opposing the Judaizers where he warned his flock that Christians should not adopt Jewish customs and practices, that Christians needed to celebrate the Church festivals rather than the Jewish festivals, that Christians should not attend services at the synagogue. His work “Against the Judaizers” is so polemic that it is far more anti-Semitic than the writings of Barnabas and St Justin Martyr and many other church fathers, it is painful for us modern readers to read, we who remember the horrific events of the Holocaust. This work is not in the standard collection of the works of the Nicene and Anti-Nicene Fathers, but it was widely read in medieval times and afterward, and unfortunately was used to justify the European and Russian pogroms and persecutions against the Jews.[2]

One scholar who has pondered the problems posed polemic stands against the Judaizers by St John Chrysostom and also St Cyril is Robert Wilken. In this book “John Chrysostom and the Jews,” he explores the history of the early church to better understand the world of the early Church Fathers. We cannot totally excuse the errors in the teachings of the early Church Fathers, but neither can we blindly judge and condemn them for not knowing the lessons of the Holocaust. There is nothing wrong with reading the Church Fathers as they apply to our modern world, but particularly in this case we should also let the Church Fathers in their ancient historical context, we need to do both lest we have a distorted understanding of the history of our faith. […]

Morality

St Mark the Ascetic, No Righteousness By Works

Bruce Strom 2

We should always search our heart for upright and humble motives. St Mark the Ascetic warns that “some, without keeping the commandments, think they are keeping the faith, while others, keeping the commandments, expect to receive the kingdom as a reward owed to them. Both are deprived of the kingdom.” Our reward lies in our humble obedience, our salvation is our striving to live a more godly life.

Salvation is not a transaction, salvation is not bartering, salvation is a gift by grace, unearned. St Mark the Ascetic teaches us, “when the Scriptures say, ‘God will reward each person according to his works,’ the Scriptures are not saying that works deserve hell or the kingdom, but rather that works are done out of faith or lack of faith in Him. Christ repays each person not as a businessman fulfilling his contracts but as God, our Creator and Redeemer,” out of love for us, not out of bartered obligations. […]