The Power of the Gospel.

        The story of the expansion of Christianity in the ancient world is a story of a great triumph. The early Christian apostles and missionaries, as well as the later Church Fathers, such as Saint Ignatios of Antioch, Saint Justin Martyr, Saint Eirenaios, and others, were aglow with an amazing boldness that they possessed universal saving truth and had a sacred calling to proclaim and teach it to all. No human or demonic power could impede the progress of the Gospel of Christ. Even during the fourth century, when Arianism rocked the Church and when paganism was by no means dead, Christian authors seemed to be imbued with a spirit of confidence about the truth and power of the gospel which they saw as the primary reasons behind its success.

        For comparative purposes one might cite the case of Saint Athanasios. In his essay On the Incarnation of the Word, which C. S. Lewis has called a masterpiece, Saint Athanasios shines with confidence not only in expounding theological truth but also in demonstrating its power from historical evidence, including the ongoing triumph of Christianity during his own times. For example, after discussing the theological meaning of the resurrection, Saint Athanasios goes on to support its reality by pointing to what the risen Christ was doing in the very days of the Alexandrian Father:

The Savior is working mightily among people; every day He is invisibly persuading

numbers of people all over the world, both within and beyond the Greek-speaking

world, to accept His faith and be obedient to His teaching. Can anyone, in face

of this, still doubt that He has risen and lives, or rather that He is Himself the Life?^[18]

Toward the end of his work, after a sustained exposition on the success of the Christian faith over against various opposing forces, St. Athanasios sums up his whole argument with these words:

Since the Savior’s advent in our midst, not only does idolatry no longer increase,

but it is getting less and gradually ceasing to be. Similarly, not only does the

wisdom of the Greeks no longer make any progress, but that which used to be is

disappearing. And demons, so far from continuing to impose on people by their

deceits and oracle-givings and sorceries, are routed by the sign of the cross if they

as so much as try. On the other hand, while idolatry and everything else that

opposes the faith of Christ is daily dwindling and weakening and falling, see, the

Savior's teaching is increasing everywhere! Worship, then, the Savior, who is

above all and mighty, even God the Word, and condemn those who are being

defeated and made to disappear by Him. When the sun has come, darkness prevails

no longer; any of it that may be left anywhere is driven away. So also, now that the

divine epiphany of the Word of God has taken place, the darkness of idols prevails

no more, and all parts of the world in every direction are enlightened by His teaching.^[19]

We find similar sentiments in Saint John Chrysostom who may well have read Saint Athanasios.

        Saint John, too, is an heir of this glorious tradition of the triumph of Christianity. He is distinctly conscious of the victorious legacy of the Christian faith which he promotes with all his pastoral and rhetorical energies. He does not try to hide the failings of Christians. On the contrary, he untiringly seeks to expose and cure them like a skilful surgeon, to use one of his favorite images. However, neither the shortcomings of his flock, nor those of the Church at large, seem to have diminished either his assurance about the power of the Gospel or his ardor about preaching and teaching the good news. Just as in the case of Saint Athanasios, so also in the case of Saint John, we meet the glowing conviction that the success of the Christian faith is not the result of human talents or favorable historical circumstances, but rather the achievement of divine grace at work in history. St. John associates this achievement very closely with the proclamation of the Gospel. In a striking passage in his fourth homily In Praise of Saint Paul he echoes the words of Saint Athanasios and uses the same image of light dispelling darkness to celebrate the resounding success of the Gospel:

Just as the rays of the rising sun put darkness into flight, and make the wild beasts

seek shelter and rest, causing thieves to take to their heels, murderers to seek

refuge in caves, pirates to disappear, . . . and everything becomes bright and

luminous on earth and sea as the rays beam down from above the waters,

mountains, villages, and cities; so, too, in the clear light of the Gospel as it was disseminated by Paul, error was banished, truth introduced in its place . . . and

shameful practices associated with pagan rites in the temples came to a complete

standstill . . . The flame of truth rose in splendor over the ashes and towered to

to the heavens.^[20]

How did the Antiochean Father understand the workings of this divine power behind the triumph of the Gospel? In what ways was it evident in history and the lives of people? Answers to these questions are provided by Saint John's homilies on the Book of Acts and on 1 Corinthians.

        As he contemplates the scope of Acts, Saint John sees God's power manifested in two essential events, the resurrection of Christ and the pentecostal gift of the Spirit. These two direct experiences by the apostles, the assurance that Christ lives and the infusion of the Spirit, empowered them to conquer the world. For St. John the Book of Acts is, on the one hand, a great testimony to the truth of the resurrection. He writes:

For this, in fact, is just what this Book is: a demonstration of the resurrection.

This being once believed, the rest would come in due course. The subject then

and entire scope of this Book, in the main, is just what I have said [the resurrection].^[21]

On the other hand, it is also a Book of the Holy Spirit. The words and actions of the apostles are words and actions of the Holy Spirit. Just as Christ is the primary figure in the Gospels, so also the Spirit is the primary figure in the Book of Acts. Chrysostom states: “The Gospels, then, are a history of what Christ did and said; but the Acts, of what that other Comforter [the Holy Spirit] said and did.^[22]

        These twin foci of revelation, the resurrection of Christ and the gift of the Spirit, according to the Antiochean, are the sources of divine power at work in the proclamation of the Gospel, the mighty deeds of the apostles, and the whole triumph of Christianity. It is on these grounds that he argues with unbelievers in rhetorical fashion in his first homily on Acts. If Christ did not rise from the dead and so unequivocally convince his disciples, how could they possibly perform miracles, and most of all, the greatest miracle of the establishment of the Christian religion by poor and illiterate fishermen? It was not because of material wealth, human wisdom, or any such thing that the apostles prevailed. Objectors to Christianity must, even against their own will, admit that a divine power was at work in these men, for no human power could possibly account for such great results of mass conversions. In a later homily on Acts, St. John lifts up the example of the Apostle Peter speaking with great boldness to the crowds about the resurrection, the same Peter who formerly had cowered in fear at the question of the servant girl on the night of Jesus' passion. For Chrysostom only one explanation was adequate. Peter was now filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. “For wherever the Holy Spirit is present, He makes men of gold out of men of clay.”^[23]

        The theme of the divine power behind the work of the apostles and their proclamation of the Gospel receives greater attention in Saint John’s homilies on 1 Corinthians, especially the early chapters of this Epistle where Saint Paul writes about the foolishness and weakness of the Gospel centered on the crucified Lord (1 Cor. 1:18-2:5). Saint Paul does not concede that the Gospel of the crucified Christ lacks either power or wisdom, but only that it does so by the standards of the world. However, in Saint Paul's own view “Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). Nor does Saint Paul try to diminish the scandal of the cross. As he says, he himself came to Corinth, humanly speaking, in weakness, fear and trembling, resolved to know “nothing . . . except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). Yet, while not counting on rhetorical eloquence or philosophical wisdom, Saint Paul nevertheless preached the Gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit. The faith of the Corinthian Christians was grounded not in human skill or wisdom but in the power of God (1 Cor. 2:4-5).

        In his third homily on 1 Corinthians, Chrysostom comments at length on 1 Cor. 1:18 where Saint Paul states that Christ sent him to preach the Gospel “not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” According to Chrysostom, Saint Paul's intent behind these words was to deflate the pride of the Corinthians who argued and boasted about their spiritual gifts in a worldly manner. The fact that the apostles themselves did not claim human eloquence and wisdom, and that unlearned men established God's word in the world, are sufficient to check such arrogance and compel modesty. The reason that the apostles did not prove humanly wise was not because of any weakness of the gift but only that the Gospel, the heralding of the good news, might not be harmed or diminished in its own value. That Apollos was an eloquent Christian shows that God embraces everyone and does not discriminate against the learned of the world. Nevertheless, the basic fact remains that the apostles were what the Book of Acts tells of them: “uneducated and common men” (agrammatoi kai idiotai, Acts 4:13).^[24]

        But what of the Apostle Paul? Was he unlearned, too? Here Saint John presses a bit the point. Let no one say that even Paul was humanly wise, at least not in comparison with such philosophers as Plato. Saint John tells how he once had heard a Christian debating in a ludicrous way with a pagan about Paul and Plato. While the pagan argued that Paul was uneducated as compared to Plato, the Christian claimed that Paul was more eloguent than the philosopher, thus victory easily falling to the pagan. For Chrysostom, that Christian's point should have been the opposite because, if Paul was indeed unlearned and yet overcame Plato in results, the victory was brilliant. It showed that “the Gospel was the result not of human wisdom, but of the grace of God.” The Antiochean sings the praises of the unpolished and illiterate apostles in order to underscore the supernatural power (hyper physin ischyn) behind their glorious achievement. To quote him:

The fisherman, the tentmaker, the publican, the ignorant, the unlettered, coming

from the far distant country of Palestine, and having beaten off their own ground

the philosophers, the masters of oratory, the skilful debaters, alone prevailed against

them in a short space of time; in the midst of perils; against the opposition of

peoples and kings, the striving of nature itself, length of time, the vehement

resistance of inveterate custom, demons in arms, the devil in battle array and stirring

up all, kings, rulers, peoples, nations, cities, barbarians, Greeks, philosophers,

orators, sophists, historians, laws, tribunals, diverse kinds of punishments,

deaths innumberable and of all sorts.^[25]

How could the apostles think of and attempt such great things? If they had so little courage when Christ was with them during his earthly ministry, how could they take on the whole world if they knew that He was now dead? Would they not say to themselves, if our Master could not save Himself, how could He now defend us? From all this it is evident, so Chrysostom concludes, that Christ arose, spoke to the apostles and infused them with the courage to do things that they could not have imagined. Christ's resurrection is the great proof (megiste apodeixis) of the divine power behind the apostolic proclamation (kerygma) and mission.^[26]