The Narrative Shape of Emotion in the Preaching of John Chrysostom

Blake Leyerle. The Narrative Shape of Emotion in the Preaching of John Chrysostom. Oakland: University of California Press, 2020.

In her learned monograph, The Narrative Shape of Emotion in the Preaching of John Chrysostom, Leyerle demonstrates what made Chrysostom such a renowned homilist: his diligent attention to emotion through scriptural narrative. She argues that in his homilies Chrysostom explores the emotions of biblical characters to model the regulation and cultivation of these emotions in his listeners. Weaving together studies of emotion, homiletics, and biblical exegesis, this work offers an important analysis of a recurrent theme in Chrysostom’s preaching.

In addition to an introduction and conclusion, the book includes four chapters, each attending to Chrysostom’s discussions of a particular emotion: anger, grief, fear, and zeal. The introduction situates her work within Chrysostom studies, particularly Wendy Mayer’s influential analysis of Chrysostom as a “medico-philosophical psychic preacher” in her article “Shaping the Sick Soul: Reshaping the Identity of John Chrysostom.”[1] It also contextualizes her project within studies of emotions across the humanities and ancient conceptions of emotion and narrative. The first three chapters explore the way in which Chrysostom conducts his emotional program through homilies inspired by both biblical narrative and Aristotelian and Stoic perspectives on emotions. The fourth and final chapter turns to Chrysostom’s efforts not to regulate feelings, but to stimulate enthusiasm in listeners. Assuming that indifference is the fundamental human sin, Chrysostom both incites unpleasant emotions to rouse his audience and inspires zeal through exemplary figures. Leyerle ends each chapter with an extended analysis of John’s commentary on a biblical narrative to guide his listeners through self-discernment of their emotions, wherein she expertly navigates the contours of his biblically and philosophically based arguments.

Taking her chapter on anger as an example will demonstrate the richness of Leyerle’s work. She begins with a philological analysis of his vocabulary, and she explains the philosophical and social contexts that inform Chrysostom’s view of the emotion. Aristotle claimed that anger resulted from an undeserved slight toward oneself or someone dear to one. Furthermore, he stated that a person can only experience anger toward a social equal or, more often, a social inferior because it is a pleasurable emotion founded on the possibility of revenge and restoration of one’s status—aims which only someone of superior social rank to the offender could accomplish. She then demonstrates Chrysostom’s adherence to these principles through his commentary on Jesus and the fig tree (Mk 11:12-25). Jesus could not have been angry at the tree, John claims, because there was no insult—Jesus knew it was not the season for figs; rather, Jesus wanted to show his disciples his power to take revenge—his capacity to be angry—although he was not actually mad.

Leyerle continues by exploring John’s various strategies for subduing anger: creating disgust through the grotesque visualization of unbridled wrath, using discourses of slavery and effeminacy to describe loss of control, honest reflection on the deservedness of the insult, and tracing the sign of the cross on one’s breast, inter alia. Chrysostom deploys the contentious story of Cain and Abel, the Canaanite woman’s acceptance of insult, and Abraham’s mildness with Sarah for the situations of interpersonal anger they pose and the characters’ examples of rage and restraint. Then Leyerle turns to John’s efforts to cultivate useful anger: Moses’ anger led him to protect his kinsman when he killed the Egyptian, and Paul’s anger at the Corinthians rightly caused him to correct their error. Thus, “although Chrysostom rejects anger as a response to an undeserved slight, he is prepared to grant it a role in the protection of the community” (p. 50). Leyerle concludes with a commentary on the emotional aspects of John’s homilies on David and Saul. John illustrates that whereas Saul is prone to angry outbursts, raging when there is no true insult and unable to practice self-control, David, whom Saul repeatedly slights, consistently restrains his anger, an emotional exemplar that John urges his listeners to emulate.

Leyerle’s approach to emotion advances the study of ancient rhetoric around emotions as well as the study of Chrysostom’s corpus. First, while nodding to modern emotion studies as an influence on her work, she does not linger over contemporary philosophies of emotion and affective sciences. Rather, she succinctly states that the ancient Greek term pathē does not correspond exactly with our term “emotions,” nor does any given ancient emotion correspond precisely with its modern counterpart. She therefore contextualizes Chrysostom’s discussions of various emotions within their ancient social, philosophical, and historical milieux to capture the particular resonances of the Greek terms. In particular, she examines how social status and gender were integral to ancient conceptualizations of emotions. One could only experience anger, for example, toward a social equal or inferior because it involved the possibility of retaliation. And because women were responsible for public funerary mourning in the ancient Greek world, Chrysostom characterizes excess grief as feminine and moderation of sorrow as masculine.

Furthermore, Leyerle takes a balanced approach to the influences undergirding Chrysostom’s emotional directives. She attends to the medical and philosophical regimes that Chrysostom deploys, although she concludes that “the depth of his engagement with these systems remains elusive, and his precise commitments hard to pin down” (p. 185). She underscores Chrysostom’s deep commitment to scripture as paramount, “form[ing] the core of his teaching and constitute(ing) much of what is distinctive about his approach” (p. 185). She argues that John’s emotional program cannot be reduced to that of the ancient Greek physicians and philosophers—it is unique because of its scriptural foundation.

The Narrative Shape of Emotion is erudite and beautifully written. The author engages an impressive range of Chrysostom’s homily collections, moral and doctrinal treatises, and correspondence. She distributes her analysis of Chrysostom’s emotional curriculum among exemplary citations, descriptions of brief didactic sections from his preaching, and running commentary on his extended emotional explanations of scriptural narratives. This final mode of engagement brings each chapter to a close by offering a masterful interpretation of Chrysostom’s reasoning about emotional situations and comportment in biblical stories. Engaging and balanced in their description, contextualization, and analysis, the conclusions to each chapter offer important insights into the ancient experiences of preaching and listening. Readers interested in John Chrysostom, homiletics, scriptural interpretation, and the history of emotions alike will find ample insights in this book. Well-framed, clearly organized, and expansive in its reach, Leyerle has made an important contribution to our understanding of late ancient Christian preaching.

[1] Wendy Mayer, “Shaping the Sick Soul: Reshaping the Identity of John Chrysostom,” in Christians Shaping Identity from the Roman Empire to Byzantium, ed. Wendy Mayer and Geoffrey D. Dunn (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 140-164.

Michelle Freeman is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She may be reached at mcfreeman@unc.edu.