The Narrative Shape of Emotion in the Preaching of John Chrysostom

Blake Leyerle

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780520975729
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

John Chrysostom remains, along with Augustine, one of the most prolific witnesses to the world of late antiquity. Aspriest of Antioch and bishop of Constantinople, he earned his reputation as an extraordinary preacher.

In this first unified study ofemotions in Chrysostom's writings, Blake Leyerle examines the fourth-century preacher's understanding of anger, grief, and fear. These difficult emotions, she argues, were central to Chrysostom's program of ethical formation and were taught primarily through narrative means. In recounting the tales of scripture, Chrysostom consistently draws attention to the emotional tenor of these stories, highlighting biblical characters' moods, discussing their rational underpinnings, and tracing the outcomes of their reactions. By showing how assiduously Chrysostom aimed not only to allay but also to arouse strong feelings in his audiencesto combat humanity's indifference and to inculcate zeal, Leyerle provides a fascinating portrait of late antiquity's foremost preacher.

1

Anger

Although Chrysostom never wrote a treatise on the topic of anger, he had much to say about it in his homilies. Because anger, like desire, is more natural than any other passion—and thus exceedingly widespread—it exerts a truly tyrannical power.¹ To name it, he uses a range of Greek words. Occasionally, he invokes epic wrath (mēnis) and the quasi-medical cholos, but by far the most frequent terms are thymos and orgē.² Between these, there are differences in nuance—thymos can refer to temperament (what we would probably call “drive”) rather than to a specific feeling event—but the overlap is considerable; he often uses the two as synonyms.³

The central task of this chapter is to show how deeply and pervasively Chrysostom engages with the topic of anger and to lay out his general understanding of the emotion: its sensations, triggers, and exacerbating factors, as well as the methods he recommends for allaying it. The influence of Aristotle’s theory on his thinking as well as that of common Stoic and Epicurean therapeutic techniques is very apparent, but his commitments are scriptural rather than philosophical.⁴ It is always in light of biblical stories that he makes sense of feelings, and it is from them that he derives a strong sense of the ethical utility of anger. Of primary interest is the social logic of anger—the fact that it arises only in certain interpersonal contexts—and it is to this reality that his remarks return again and again.

THE ORIGIN OF RAGE

In response to the question of why people get angry, Chrysostom appears to have largely followed Aristotle, who put forward an answer beautiful in its clarity. Anger, he suggested, arises as a response to a slight (the Greek is oligōria) directed either at oneself or at those dear to one.⁵ Slights can take the form of contempt, spitefulness, or insult, but the central role of belittlement ensures that anger is always directed at a particular individual. Although one can certainly harbor intensely negative sentiments toward groups or types of people, the feeling in those situations is hatred rather than anger. Chrysostom’s allegiance to this view is evident throughout his works, and can be seen especially clearly in his comments on the gospel passage in which Jesus warns that anyone who insults his brother will be liable to punishment. The obscure Aramaic term Raka, he notes, “is an expression not of great insult (hybreōs), but rather of contempt (kataphronēseōs) and belittlement (oligōrias) on the part of the speaker.”⁶ For this reason, he acknowledges, many consider the gospel saying inappropriately severe: it seems intolerable to them that simply saying, “Idiot!” would make one liable to hell. But to this objection he replies that most acts of violence have their beginning in words. “There is nothing more unbearable than insult—absolutely nothing can bite a person’s soul so sharply.” Stung, a person retaliates, “Who are you to insult me?” And the other fires back, “A better man than you.”⁷ As anger rises, insults escalate and can lead to blows—even kicking and biting. “Such little things,” Chrysostom concludes, “have given birth to murder and overthrown whole cities.”⁸

Not all slights, however, trigger anger, but only those that are undeserved. If a belittling comment is warranted, Aristotle reasons, it cannot provoke an angry response, since “anger is not aroused by what is just.”⁹ Thus, if a person has in fact drunk too much, she should not feel enraged at someone calling her inebriated. But slights can also be undeserved when they come from someone from whom one expected better: a friend, for example, or more typically in the ancient world, a social inferior.¹⁰ For, as Aristotle observes, “men think that they have a right to be highly esteemed by those who are inferior to them in birth, power, and virtue.”¹¹ Thus it follows that anger depends upon an assessment not only of the truthfulness of the statement, but also of the relative standing of both parties. An awareness of this social logic deeply marks Chrysostom’s writings. He marvels that Hannah, praying at Shiloh, did not respond angrily to the suggestion that she was drunk. For not only was the belittling comment untrue, but it came from the mouth of “Eli’s slave.”¹² On similar grounds, he praises the tax collector’s reaction to the contemptuous words of the Pharisee. “He did not abuse or revile him in turn; he did not speak the words that many say: ‘Do you dare to comment on my life, to concern yourself with what I’ve done? Am I not better than you? Let me tell you your offenses, and I will ensure that you never enter these sacred doors again.’ He said none of these heartless words, with which we shower one another every day.”¹³ Because Chrysostom rejects the Pharisee’s claim to superior status, he considers it likely that the tax collector would have become enraged at the undeserved slight and retaliated in kind; his mildness is therefore unusual and impressive. For the same reason, the reaction of the merchants to Jesus’s cleansing of the Temple presents a puzzle. Having been publicly slighted by an outsider, who to all appearances had no status to call them thieves or overturn their tables, it would have been “reasonable for them to have been wildly enraged” (ekthēriōthēnai), but instead they only asked for a sign. In this instance, however, Chrysostom does not find mildness praiseworthy. Instead, he takes it as proof that their anger elsewhere in the gospel, purportedly elicited by ritual violations, was inauthentic; their reactions to Jesus were always spurred by malice.¹⁴

As the scene in the Temple makes clear, gesture can convey contempt as clearly as verbal insults. Chrysostom knew this well. In his early treatise On the Priesthood, he details the complaints of some, presumably elite, members of the congregation about the behavior of their priest. They felt slighted by his failure to make eye contact with them, and by his display of favor toward others: “‘He smiled broadly at that person,’ says one, ‘and addressed him with a cheerful face and hearty voice, but was less welcoming to me—indeed, quite offhand.’”¹⁵ Priests, for their part, had to guard against mounting anger in the face of listeners’ casual gestures of contempt, such as criticism of their homiletic efforts, obvious inattention, or even yawning at their words.¹⁶ The tendency to react angrily can be increased by a sense of need. Hunger, Aristotle suggested, is a case in point, and Chrysostom notes the same phenomenon. The Lenten fast made some irascible with their slaves, to the point that they interpreted a lack of speed in setting the table for dinner as a deliberate act of insolence. Flying into a rage, they overturned everything, “kicking, insulting, and reviling over just a little delay.”¹⁷ It was thus entirely to David’s credit that, “in a season of calamity,” when he was on the point of being exiled from his home and country and feared even for his own life, he did not respond angrily when “a vile and outcast soldier” threw rocks at him and crowed over his misfortune.¹⁸

The tight correlation between status and anger reveals a paradox at the heart of the emotion. As a reaction to injury, it is an undeniably painful sensation. Chrysostom acknowledges that insults can wound more deeply than stones and that even their memory can cause burning pain.¹⁹ But at the same time, as an assertion of status and power, anger is a pleasurable feeling. Its thrill stems from the prospect of revenge, of exacting immediate and direct retaliation for undeserved suffering. “What the injured man desires most to see,” Chrysostom notes, “is himself having the pleasure of revenge.”²⁰ And it is this implicit threat that makes the signs of anger frightening. For although a flushed face, protruding veins, clenched fists, and pressured speech cause no harm in themselves, they articulate an awareness of power and a will for revenge that rightly inspires fear. As a vigorous and expressive display of social status, anger is not only a feeling, but also an action.²¹ The exhilaration that accompanies anger springs directly from its ability to instill terror.

Where no possibility exists of exacting vengeance, there can be no anger. Lower status people may indeed feel strongly negative emotion toward abusive superiors, but since they lack any prospect of retaliation, Aristotle insists that their feeling is not anger, but rather hatred. Chrysostom agrees. He assumes that subordinated people, no matter how gravely insulted or how despitefully treated, cannot feel anger toward those above them.²² Reacting mildly in such circumstances is thus not particularly meritorious. As one’s social standing rises, however, so does the possibility of rage.²³ Chrysostom summarizes the gradient: if someone of superior status insults us, we certainly will not commend him, but we will not get angry either, but if someone of the same or lower status slights us, we are likely to fly into a rage and say that “he’s witless or . . . out of his mind.”²⁴ It is the difficulty of “submitting to abuse by those considered inferior” that makes it a sign of virtue.²⁵

Other social factors can exacerbate anger. Aristotle takes for granted that it is much more enraging to be insulted in public than in private, and Chrysostom draws attention to this same phenomenon. In the case of insults, he observes that: “Nothing pains us so much as the judgment passed by spectators; for it is not the same thing to be insulted in public as in private: we easily put up with the insults (hybreis) that we suffer in a deserted place, when no one is present to witness or know about them. . . . What is painful, then, is not in the nature of the insult, but in the judgment of the spectators, that one appears contemptible.”²⁶ If the on-lookers include people one respects or those by whom one would like to be honored, the pain is sharper and the likelihood of an angry response increases. When preaching on the scriptural verse that “Cain was very distressed (lelypēsai) and his countenance fell” (Gn 4:5), John adds that “his face darkened” (skythrōpos), a description that suggests anger as well as sorrow.²⁷ He attributes this reaction to the fact that he had been dishonored and his reputation diminished by his brother, who, as his younger sibling, should not only have treated him well, but also honored him.²⁸ But it is the setting of the insult—the fact that Abel diminished Cain in the sight of God—that was chiefly infuriating, since he had been slighted before someone he honored and by whom he would have liked to be admired.²⁹

Because anger effectively redresses belittlement by demonstrating one’s social significance, not reacting angrily was often assessed negatively as expressing a culpable lack of self-respect.³⁰ Heroic figures were particularly marked by their sensitivity toward any threat to their honor, and of these, the best known is Achilles, whose rage at being slighted by Agamemnon triggered the action of the Iliad.³¹ The metaphorical image associated with the warrior was that of the lion, a creature whose reputation for nobility was undergirded by its perceived propensity to rage.³² Chrysostom continues this association, by referring to lions as “the most wrathful of all things,” and by characterizing vengeance as “feeding these lions.”³³

Members of his congregation seem to have shared the opinion that it would be blameworthy not to respond angrily to insult offered either to themselves or to those they held dear. Many prided themselves on getting angry and were happy to be feared.³⁴ They admired those who took vengeance on enemies and were certain that no one with any self-respect would put up with others saying of him, “He’s an abject and pathetic person: everyone insults him, but he takes it; everyone walks all over him, but he doesn’t defend himself.” They were given to boasting, “No one who has harmed me, has laughed at me,” which was to say, as Chrysostom notes, “I had my revenge.”³⁵ To his advice advocating mildness, they retorted, “But he insulted my son! He called him a house slave!”³⁶ A failure to react to overt belittlement would be read as servile and stupid: a kind of tacit acquiescence that would encourage further insult.³⁷ The same logic was marshaled in defense of domestic violence. When Chrysostom objects to husbands hitting their wives, or to wives beating their female slaves, he imagines their swift rejoinder: “But the woman is insolent!”³⁸ A proper self-regard demanded a strong response.

Philosophers after Aristotle broadened the causes of anger. They were willing to accept that people might rage even against “the gods, wild beasts and soulless implements.”³⁹ Chrysostom acknowledges that people sometimes react ang...

Table of contents

• Subvention
• Imprint
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. The Narrative Shape of Emotion
• 1. Anger
• 2. Grief
• 3. Fear
• 4. Chrysostom’s Goal: Stimulating Zeal
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index