The Nature of the Gospel.

        Saint John does not anywhere take up the Gospel as a systematic topic of discussion. We must glean his ideas about the Gospel from various parts of his writings. An analysis of his understanding of the nature of the gospel will show that he moves within three related concentric circles dealing with the following major subjects: (a) Scripture as the word of God, (b) the earthly ministry of Christ as recorded in the Gospels, and the person of Christ Himself, the Incarnate Word of God, who is the supreme revelation of truth and life. Each of these invites closer examination.

        An appreciation of Chrysostom's convictions about the Gospel must begin widely with his view of divine revelation as a whole. The patristic perspective on the unity of revelation made it possible for the Antiochean Father to link the Church's saving message with both the Old and the New Testaments. In its widest scope, therefore, according to Chrysostom, the good news of salvation is associated with the word of God, a salvific word of truth and life, expressed everywhere in Holy Scripture. Insofar as Scripture is the recorded revelation of divine truth, it constitutes the richest and most authoritative source of salvific truth for humanity.

        Chrysostom draws an interesting distinction between oral and recorded revelation, the unwritten and written word of God. The great biblical figures of revelation such as Abraham and Moses were, according to Chrysostom, living bearers of revelation because of their privileged direct communication with God. Their intimacy with God excluded the need of books. So, too, the apostles, on the day of Pentecost became “living books and laws” (biblia kai nomoi empsychoi), pouring forth treasures of teachings and gifts to the world. However, subsequent generations of both Jews and Christians lost the purity of teaching and life of their spiritual leaders and had to receive God's truth in written words now recorded in the Old and New Testaments^[5]. This concept of oral and written revelation is traditional among the Church Fathers and goes back to Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish biblical interpreter and philosopher of the first century AD. According to this view, Holy Scripture is an expression of God's condescension or accommodation to human weakness. A corollary insight is that the highest mode of knowledge of God is not dependent on books but charismatic leaders of the people of God who are in intimate communion with God.

        However, according to Saint John Chrysostom, the nature of Scripture as an accommodation to human weakness diminishes neither the truth nor the authority of God's written word. For Saint John what the Evangelist Matthew wrote in his Gospel is not his own but belongs to Christ.^[6] All of recorded revelation, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is God's word. This authoritative view of the Bible is the basis for Chrysostom's numerous exhortations about the primacy of hearing and reading the Bible as the divine, all-sufficient source of truth and healing. To quote him:

Let us then also learn therefore to consider all things secondary (parerga) to the

hearing the word of God, and to deem no season unseasonable. . . Let food and

baths and dinners and the other things of this life have their appointed time; but

let the teaching of the heavenly philosophy have no separate time, but let every

season belong to it.^[7]

And again:

Great is the profit of the divine Scriptures, and all-sufficient is the aid which comes

from them. . . For the divine oracles are a treasury of all manner of medicines, so

that whether it be needful to quench pride, to lull desire to sleep, to tread under

foot the love of money, to despise pain, to inspire confidence, to gain patience — from

them one may find abundant resource.^[8]

Secondly, while Chrysostom views all of the Bible as a source of truth and a treasure of heavenly blessings, he associates the Gospel more closely with the four written Gospels and the ministry of Christ. According to Saint John the title “evangelist,” properly speaking, applies to the authors of the Gospels who have recorded the Lord's salvific ministry. Although Saint Paul as a proclaimer of the good news can also be called an evangelist, he is primarily an apostle, whereas Matthew is preeminently an evangelist.^[9] Of course, for Saint Paul the two terms, evangelist and apostle, were closely related. As an apostle he was called and sent out precisely to be an evangelist — to preach the Gospel (1 Cor. 1:16). Nevertheless, Chrysostom and the Christian tradition were correct to stress the importance of the Gospels as primary sources of the good news. The Gospel is grounded in the historical ministry of Jesus. The fullness of the good news as saving truth for humanity embraces the entire life of Christ from incarnation to ascension. This view is behind the Antiochean Father’s point that the preeminent evangelists are the Gospel writers.

        Saint John celebrates the Gospel in terms of two elements: its blessings and essential truths. In terms of its blessings, he asks the question: Why did Matthew call his work good news (euangelion)? The answer is because of its spiritual benefits. The Antiochean Father enumerates these blessings as follows: removal of punishment, remission of sins, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, adoption, inheritance of heaven, and an intimate closeness to the Son of God (syggeneian pros ton uion tou Theou). He goes on waxing eloquent about the blessings flowing from Christ's earthly ministry:

God on earth, humanity in heaven; all mingled together, angels joining the choirs

of humanity and humanity having fellowship with angels. . . reconciliation between

God and our nature, the devil brought to shame, demons in flight, death destroyed,

paradise opened, the curse blotted out, sin put out of the way, error driven off,

truth returning, the word of godliness everywhere sown, and flourishing in its

growth, . . . and hope abundant touching future things.^[10]

All these constitute good news because they are secure blessings and undeserved gifts given on account of God's great love toward humanity. Chrysostom further comments: “For [it is] not by laboring and sweating, not by fatigue and suffering, but merely as being beloved of God, [that] we received what he have received.”^[11] Although the Saint emphasizes the role of free will and moral striving in the attainment of virtue, he never forgets that all are part of God’s gifts, all are dependent on grace.

        In terms of the contents of the Gospel, Chrysostom draws a distinction between the variety of incidental descriptions and the essential features of Christ's ministry. He concedes that the plurality of the canonical Gospels displays a certain discordance in the details (en mikrois diaphonia) pertaining to time, place and exact wording. But such discrepancies actually carry positive implications. For one thing they dispel any suspicion of pernicious collusion on the part of the sacred authors. For another they underscore the veracity of the essentials of Jesus' ministry on which the Gospels agree and on which Christian life and the good news are grounded (en tois kephalaiois tois synechousin hemon ten zoen kai to kerygma synkrotousin). What are these central truths that form the foundation of Christian life and preaching? Saint John states:

That God became man, that He performed miracles, that He rose, that He

ascended, that He will judge, that He has given saving commandments, that He

has introduced a law not contrary to [but in fulfilment of] the Old Testament,

that He is a Son, only-begotten, a true Son, that He is of the same essence with

the Father, and as many other truths as are like these.^[12]

While St. John wisely does not try to compile a definitive list of agreed essentials, nevertheless the distinction is extremely significant. It provides a way of appreciating the diversity of the Gospels apparent to any careful reader but also affirms their unity based on the essential aspects and events of Christ’s ministry.

        Thirdly, Chrysostom identifies the Gospel with the living Christ Himself. The person of Christ is ultimately the essence of the Gospel in terms of both its content and blessings. Among many passages which express this truth, two may be cited, one from his Homilies on First Corinthians and one from his Homilies on the Gospel of John. The Antiochean offers a magnificent extended exhortation based 1 Cor. 3:11, combining the images of Christ as the Foundation and the Vine, as follows:

Upon this then let us build, and let us be connected to this foundation, as a

branch to a vine; and let there be no interval between us and Christ. For if there

be any interval, immediately we perish. For the branch by its adherence draws in

the richness, and the building stands because it is cemented together. Since, if it

stand apart it perishes, having nothing whereon to support itself. Let us not then

merely keep hold of Christ, but let us be cemented (kollethomen) to Him, for if

we stand apart, we perish.^[13]

In the same homily Chrysostom continues to expound lyrically on the theme of intimate unity between Christ and Christians. He writes:

He [Christ] brings us into unity be means of many images . . . He is the Head,

we are the body; . . . He is the Foundation, we the building; He the Vine, we

the branches; He the Bridegroom, we the bride; He the Shepherd, we the sheep;

He is the Way, we they who walk therein; again, we are the temple, He the

Indweller (enoikos); He the First-begotten, we the brothers; He the Heir, we the

co-heirs; He the Life, we the living; He the Resurrection, we those who rise; He

the Light, we the illuminated. All these things indicate unity; and they allow no

void interval, not even the smallest. For he who removes himself but a little, will

go on till he has become very far distant.^[14]

The other reference is a reflection on Jn 1:29 and Nathaniel's jubilant confession to Christ: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel!” The Antiochean Father, appealing rhetorically to his hearers, comments on Nathaniel's eager acclamation and connects it with one of his favorite themes — seeing Christ in the face of the poor and the needy:

Do you see how his soul is filled at once with exceeding joy, and embraces Jesus

with words? . . . How he leaps and dances with delight? So ought we also to

rejoice, who have been thought worthy to know the Son of God; to rejoice, not

in thought alone, but to show it also by our actions . . . When He is hungry, let

us feed Him; when He is thirsty, let us give Him drink; though you give Him but

a cup of cold water, He receives it; for He loves you, and to one who loves, the

offerings of the beloved, though they be small, appear great.^[15]

For Chrysostom it is the person of Christ who provides the secure ground of the unity of the Gospel. The written Gospels are many, yet the Gospel is one, and is centered on Christ, His incarnation, death and resurrection. For the Antiochean Father this same gospel was anticipated and proclaimed by human and angelic beings in the Old and New Testaments:

For the sum of the written Gospels had its origin hence, from God having

become man and having been crucified and having risen. This gospel also Gabriel

preached to the Virgin, this also the prophets preached to the world, this also the

apostles all of them preached to the world.^[16]

In his work on the Epistle to the Galatians, Chrysostom presents the same truth in another striking way. Does not Saint Paul state that there can be no other Gospel except the one which he preached (Gal. 1:7)? How then can there be four Gospels? St. John knew and rejected the position of the Marcionites who had taken these words of Saint Paul literally and had canonized only the Gospel of Luke, and that expurgated of what Marcion regarded as Jewish elements. Saint Paul, so Chrysostom counters, had in view not the number of written Gospels but the discrepancy of doctrines circulating among the Galatians. Saint John concludes:

We assert, therefore, that, although a thousand Gospels would be written, if

the contents of all were the same, they would still be one, and their unity no wise

infringed by the number of writers . . . For the oneness of a work depends not on

the number of its authors, but on the agreement or contradictoriness of its contents. Therefore it is clear that the four Gospels are one Gospel; for, as the four say the

same thing, its oneness is preserved by the harmony of the contents and not impaired

by the difference of persons.^[17]

Saint John Chrysostom’s words presuppose a perspective which is especially significant for the Orthodox theological tradition. The Gospel as a saving message is finally not to be tied in a literalistic way to the Bible alone or even to the Gospels. Rather it constitutes the central Christian good news which can be proclaimed and celebrated in its integrity by others means, too, such as the creed, the liturgical texts, and the writings of the Church Fathers.