This is a well-researched and well-written monograph which examines in some detail how John Chrysostom presents almsgiving in his many extant sermons delivered at Antioch and Constantinople. Becky Walker seeks to establish what the sermons reveal about the practice of almsgiving, understood as ‘any act of mercy done on behalf of those in need’ (p. 12), but also, more importantly, what is distinctive in John’s presentation compared with the writings of earlier or near-contemporary churchmen, its significance in the context of his ministry in both cities and what might explain his distinctive emphases.
An introduction sets the study in the context of earlier scholarship, not only that on almsgiving in general during late antiquity, or on so-called ‘redemptive’ almsgiving in particular, but also more recent research which has sought to establish in what sense, if any, Chrysostom should be thought of as a social reformer, and his understanding of sin and salvation. The latter research includes Raymond Laird’s 2012 book Mindset, moral choice and sin in the anthropology of John Chrysostom, and Junghun Bae’s 2021 study John Chrysostom on almsgiving and the therapy of the soul. Walker aims to build on this work in part by identifying ‘key social factors that led John to emphasise almsgiving over other virtues and ascetic practices and to make stronger statements than many of his Christian contemporaries regarding almsgiving’s ability to eradicate sin’ (p. 10).
After looking in chapter i at the practice of almsgiving in Antioch and Constantinople, Walker sets out in chapter ii what she persuasively argues are Chrysostom’s ‘unparalleled claims’ for what almsgiving could achieve. She details how John often ‘ranks almsgiving above virginity’ (p. 46), how he frames the practice as a ‘sacramental and sacrificial act similar to the Eucharist’ (p. 46) and how it is not only one among several forms of repentance that undo the harm of post-baptismal sin, but is the ‘principal herb’ that ‘gives strength to the medicine of repentance’ (p. 49). Walker notes that John uses such medical imagery at least eighteen times in the extant sermons (p. 52). Where other preachers had drawn on Tobit and Luke xi.41 to argue for the cleansing power of almsgiving, John alone claims that almsgiving can cleanse all sins (pp. 54–5). Walker shows how Chrysostom on several occasions interprets the parable of the wise and foolish virgins in Matthew xxv to set out the relative value of almsgiving and virginity: ‘While John holds that virginity is certainly the more challenging of the two virtues, he maintains that the lamp of virginity will go out without a continuous supply of the oil of almsgiving’ (p. 61).
Chapters iii to vi seek to understand why Chrysostom gives such an exalted place to almsgiving. The first sets out the benefits John claims for almsgiving in addition to the forgiveness of post-baptismal sin by the donor, or how John makes almsgiving more appealing to reluctant donors. Almsgiving is presented as winning for donors and their children the renown and honour they desire (p. 79), as making their prayers more effective (p. 82), as making one like God ‘through an imitation of God’s mercy’ (p. 85) and as clarifying the donors’ spiritual vision and thereby gaining a better sense of what wealth is for (p. 87). Alms are properly given to benefit the dead, and especially catechumens whose names could not be recited in the eucharistic prayers (pp. 89–91). Almsgiving brings the Christian community together and offers an appealing testimony to non-Christians (pp. 92–3).
In chapter iv, Walker argues that almsgiving held a prominent place in Chrysostom’s preaching because it met a need for an effective means of reconciling penitents who were known to have committed grave sin at a period when Antioch and Constantinople seemingly lacked a formal penitential process of exclusion from communion, ritual expressions of repentance and gradual reconciliation. While Sozomen, Jerome, Pope Innocent and Ambrose reveal the existence of some such discipline in fourth- and fifth-century Italy, and other sources attest to the existence of penitents categorised as ‘mourners’, ‘hearers’, ‘kneelers’ and ‘standers’ in Cappadocia, Walker notes first that the Didascalia, Apostolic constitutions and Apostolic canons suggest that many Eastern churches probably had a somewhat simpler penitential discipline. One group of penitents was excluded from the church, either temporarily or permanently, and another group was ‘present for the scripture readings and homily, but were required to leave before the Eucharist’ (p. 108). Furthermore, as Socrates and Sozomen recorded, Bishop Nectarius had abolished the office of a superintendent presbyter for penitents in 391, a move adopted by many other Eastern bishops. In such circumstances, known sinners could still be excluded from communion, or from the whole liturgy, as evidenced from John’s sermons at Antioch, but there was no formal public means for them to express contrition, or for priests and bishops to determine a time for readmission. Almsgiving was then of value as one of six ‘roads’ of repentance listed by Chrysostom at De paenitentia 2–3 alongside confession to God in the church, mourning, humility, praying and weeping (p. 121).
Chapter v looks at how Chrysostom portrays almsgiving by avowed ascetics: on the one hand, the practice is required of them as much as others; on the other hand, a monastic common life models the brotherly love, the abolition of social ranks and other social virtues that lay people should imitate in their almsgiving (p. 134). Almsgiving bonds the diverse members of the Church; and the needy, who are otherwise seen as contemptible, thereby offer others a precious service (p. 142). Finally, Walker turns in chapter vi to how John’s presentation of almsgiving figures in the civic and ecclesiastical negotiation of patronage and honour. John disparages the traditional civic benefactors to play up the value of Christian almsgiving as the proper means to assuage his rich congregants’ ‘thirst for honour’ (p. 153). In discussing Chrysostom’s Homily on Thessalonians 6.1, where the bishop criticises monks who sought alms rather than undertaking manual labour, Walker differs from Daniel Caner in not thinking that Isaac’s monks are the intended target (p. 167). Walker also notes how John depended on Olympias’s alms for personal support even in his exile, but how he was unable to control what to his mind was her indiscriminate almsgiving (p. 171). The book closes with a very brief summary of what has emerged in the previous chapters, and with suggestions for future research into ‘the possible influence of Cyprian and Ambrose on John’, on ‘the relation between John’s view of almsgiving, his hamartiology, and soteriology’ and on the relationship of almsgiving in Chrysostom to deification and virtue (pp. 176–7).
There are other topics which might have been touched upon in the book: where references to almsgiving tend to occur within a given sermon, or, when ascertainable, the topic’s relation to the occasion of its delivery; and, also, whether John’s defence of the poor in promoting almsgiving contributed to the popular support at Constantinople which led to his swift recall from his first exile. Was episcopal almsgiving dwarfed or upstaged by imperial almsgiving, and did the bishop’s sermons pay scant regard to the generosity displayed by the imperial court? Yet, Walker’s book is a welcome and accessible contribution to what is now a rich collection of studies on Chrysostom’s sermons.
