Doru Costache

Mario Baghos

This book comprises chapters by a group of eight scholars from Australia and two from abroad, aiming to offer fresh, interdenominational, and interdisciplinary perspectives on the life, thought, and legacy of one of the most influential preachers and theologians of early Christianity, John Chrysostom. The contributors to this volume utilise a range of methodologies pertaining to the fields of theology, history, hermeneutics, spirituality, hagiography, pastoral studies, and linguistics. The volume thus unveils the wide ranging significance for Western and Eastern Christianity of Chrysostom's various contributions, within the immediate and distant contexts of these contributions. This scholarly contribution to Chrysostomian, Early Christian, Late Antique, and Patristic studies, is of immediate relevance to the various Christian denominations in Australia and abroad which revere Chrysostom as a preacher, exegete, shepherd, and theologian of note.

Past, Present, Future

John Chrysostom

Philip Kariatlis

This volume brings together contributions exploring a range of aspects of the Alexandrian patristic tradition from the second half of the second century to the first half of the fifth century, a tradition whose complex and significant legacy is at times misunderstood and, in some quarters, wholly neglected. With contributions by both Australian and international scholars, the fourteen chapters here highlight that, behind the complexity of this tradition, one finds a vibrant Christian spirit – granted, one that has successfully put on the flesh of Hellenistic culture – and a consistent striving towards the reformation and transformation of the human being according to the gospel. Furthermore, this volume contributes a nuanced voice to the scholarly choir which already hums a new song about Christian Alexandria and its representatives. Indeed, these contributions are interdisciplinary in approach, combining methods pertaining to the fields of historiography, theology and philosophy, pastoral care, hermeneutics, hagiography, and spirituality. By way of this complex approach, this book brings together areas which currently evolve in separate scholarly universes, which is wholly befitting to the complexities entailed by the ever-challenging Alexandrian legacy.

A Critical Appraisal

Alexandrian Legacy

This book combines concepts from the history of religions with Byzantine studies in its assessments of kings, symbols, and cities in a diachronic and cross-cultural analysis. The work attests, firstly, that the symbolic art and architecture of ancient cities—commissioned by their monarchs expressing their relationship with their gods—show us that religiosity was inherent to such enterprises. It also demonstrates that what transpired from the first cities in history to Byzantine Christendom is the gradual replacement of the pagan ruler cult—which was inherent to city-building in antiquity—with the ruler becoming subordinate to Christ; exemplified by representations of the latter as the ‘Master of All’ (Pantokrator). Beginning in Mesopotamia, the book continues with an analysis of city-building by rulers in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, before addressing Judaism (specifically, the city of Jerusalem) and Christianity as shifting the emphasis away from pagan-gods and rulers to monotheistic perceptions of God as elevated above worldly kings. It concludes with an assessment of Christian Rome and Constantinople as typifying the evolution from the ancient and classical world to Christendom.

Mario Baghos

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