The Covenants of Christ

A saint’s own writings, as Saint John Henry Newman once professed, give the “real” Life of that saint, expressing his or her “moral unity, identity, growth, continuity, personality.” Of all the Greek Church Fathers, none left to posterity a written legacy as expansive and eloquent as did Saint John Chrysostom; thus none is more readily knowable than this pastoral theologian of the fourth century. His commentaries and homilies on Scripture; his discourses against heretics; his instructions in morality and piety; his pane­gyrics for saints; his dogmatic works on such topics as the divinity of Christ, Divine Providence, and the priesthood; and his hundreds of letters from exile, all exhibiting an unreserved trust in God—by means of these, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, Saint John “passed on the Church's tradition and reliable doctrine in an age of theological controversies,” and “reaffirmed the discovery that God loves each one of us with an infinite love and therefore desires salvation for us all.”

Compiled and translated by Mary H. Allies, Covenants of Christ: Selected Writ­ings comprises forty-six of Saint John Chrysostom’s homilies (some whole, others in part) as well as eleven of his letters, and shows that the lessons of the Golden-mouthed remain both timely and profoundly instructive.

Paperback. 246 pages.