The Work
John Chrysostom's Homilies on Matthew comprise a series of ninety sermons delivered in Antioch during the late 380s, most likely between 386 and 397 AD, representing the most sustained and influential Greek patristic exposition of any Gospel. Preached to the large and socially diverse congregation of Antioch - a city whose population included wealthy merchants, slaves, the urban poor, and a substantial Jewish community - these homilies combine meticulous grammatical analysis of the Greek New Testament text with urgent social application to the realities of fourth-century city life. They were preserved, copied, and translated throughout the Byzantine world and exercised an influence on Eastern Orthodox preaching that continues to the present day.
The Greek text was edited by Bernard de Montfaucon and published in the eighteenth century; the standard English translation by George Prevost was revised by M.B. Riddle for the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series (volume 10, 1888), which remains the most accessible English edition. Chrysostom's homiletical method is consistently twofold: grammatical exposition of the Greek text followed by practical moral exhortation, often of considerable length and rhetorical intensity.
Biblical Engagement
Chrysostom approaches Matthew's Gospel as a unified theological narrative, not a collection of isolated proof-texts, and his engagement with the text is correspondingly comprehensive. His treatment of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) in Homilies 15-24 is the most extended patristic commentary on these chapters, and his reading of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-11) emphasizes their social implications with remarkable force. Matthew 5:3 ('Blessed are the poor in spirit') is interpreted not as a spiritualized abstraction but as a concrete posture of humility before God and neighbor, and Chrysostom draws explicit connections between this posture and the voluntary dispossession of wealth.
Matthew 25:40 ('Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me') is the text that Chrysostom returns to most often across the homilies and in his other writings. He uses it with specific polemical force against the wealthy Christians of Antioch who built lavish churches while ignoring the beggars at their doors: 'You have decorated the floors, the walls, the capitals of the pillars, and you have neglected your brother who is living and breathing, this very living temple.' This identification of the poor with Christ - the 'two thrones' of which Chrysostom speaks - is the most influential single element of his social theology and has shaped Christian social teaching from his own day to the present.
Matthew 6:19 ('Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth') is the occasion for Chrysostom's most systematic treatment of wealth and poverty. His argument - that surplus wealth is not neutral property but theft from the poor - represents the strongest statement of social radicalism in patristic literature. Drawing on Acts 4:32 (the Jerusalem community of goods) and Luke 16 (Dives and Lazarus), he argues that the wealthy man who refuses to share is not merely failing in generosity but is actively committing injustice.
Matthew 28:19-20 (the Great Commission) provides the ecclesiological frame for the entire series: the homilies are themselves an act of obedience to the command to teach all nations, and Chrysostom consistently presents preaching as the church's primary obligation.
Author and Context
John Chrysostom ('Golden-mouth') was born around 347 AD in Antioch to a Christian family of moderate means. He received a superb rhetorical education under Libanius, the most celebrated pagan rhetorician of the age. After Libanius's death, Chrysostom studied theology under Diodore of Tarsus, the founding figure of the Antiochene school, which emphasized the literal-historical interpretation of Scripture against the allegorical method of Alexandria. He was baptized around 368 AD, lived as an ascetic for several years, was ordained deacon in 381 and presbyter in 386, and served as the primary preacher of the Great Church of Antioch for twelve years (386-397) before being elevated, against his will, to the archbishopric of Constantinople.
The Antiochene school to which Chrysostom belonged held that the primary meaning of Scripture was its plain historical sense, and that allegory should be used only sparingly. This gave Chrysostom's homilies their characteristic combination of close textual attention - he regularly notes variant readings and discusses Greek syntax - with direct social application. He was not interested in speculative theology for its own sake; his goal was always the moral and spiritual transformation of his congregation.
The Antiochene Method
The Antiochene school of biblical interpretation, developed by Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodore of Tarsus and transmitted by Chrysostom to the entire Eastern tradition, is characterized by three features that distinguish it from the Alexandrian school of Origen and Clement: first, the primacy of the grammatical and historical sense of the text over allegorical interpretation; second, the use of the broader biblical context to interpret specific passages; and third, the concern with the practical moral implications of the text for the congregation.
Chrysostom's homilies embody all three. His interpretation of the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), for example, begins with a careful account of the parable's historical context in Jesus's teaching, proceeds to explain its meaning within Matthew's eschatological framework, and concludes with a direct application to the congregation: each Christian has been given gifts (abilities, wealth, time, position) for which they will be held accountable at the Last Judgment.
Reception History
The homilies' immediate reception was one of extraordinary enthusiasm. Chrysostom's congregation at Antioch responded to his preaching with applause, shouts of acclamation, and weeping - responses that Chrysostom himself repeatedly discouraged as incompatible with the practical transformation he sought to produce. He was more interested in changed lives than in homiletical appreciation.
Through the Byzantine period, the homilies were the standard reference for Greek-speaking preachers approaching Matthew's Gospel. They were translated into Latin, Syriac, Armenian, and Georgian, spreading Chrysostom's influence throughout the Eastern and Near Eastern Christian world. Thomas Aquinas in the West cited Chrysostom more frequently than any other Greek father, and the homilies on Matthew provided Aquinas with consistent access to the Antiochene interpretive tradition when constructing his own commentary on the Gospel.
The Protestant Reformers, particularly Calvin and Luther, cited Chrysostom's social interpretation of Matthew 25 and his anti-wealth rhetoric with approval, finding in him a patristic warrant for their critiques of church wealth and clerical luxury.
Theological Significance
The homilies' theological significance lies in three areas: their establishment of the literal-historical method as the primary mode of Christian biblical interpretation; their development of a social theology grounded in Matthew 25's identification of Christ with the poor; and their model of preaching as a comprehensive act of communal formation that integrates intellectual rigor with pastoral urgency.
Chrysostom's social theology - his insistence that the poor are 'the living icons of Christ' and that sharing wealth is not optional generosity but obligatory justice - has been consistently invoked by liberation theologians, Catholic social teaching (from Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum onward), and evangelical social action movements.
Legacy
Chrysostom remains the most cited Greek father in Eastern Orthodox liturgical and homiletical practice. The Divine Liturgy used throughout the Orthodox world is attributed to him (in its current form it postdates him, but his liturgical theology shapes it). His feast day is January 27 (Roman) and November 13 (Orthodox). Pope John Paul II declared him a Doctor of the Universal Church. His influence on Western Christianity through the Latin translations made available in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series has made him a figure read across denominational lines by preachers seeking patristic grounding for their expository practice.
Reading Alongside Scripture
Readers should work through Matthew 5-7 (Sermon on the Mount), Matthew 25 (the judgment of the nations), Matthew 28 (Great Commission), Luke 16 (Dives and Lazarus), Acts 4:32-37 (community of goods), and 1 Corinthians 12-13 (the body of Christ and love). These are the passages Chrysostom returns to most often and develops most fully.
Further Reading
- Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen, John Chrysostom (2000) - the best modern introduction to Chrysostom's life and preaching. - J.N.D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom (1995) - the standard English-language biography. - Margaret Mitchell, The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation (2000) - an essential study of his hermeneutical method.