I like how you think I'm the one accusing him of violence. He advocated for it himself! I quoted the verse several times. It's great that he denounced violence in other works, but he still advocated for it in this one.

Where did he advocate violence? He makes the point several times that in the history of the Jewish nation bad things - including war, death - happen to them when they abandon God. Not because He caused it but because He did not prevent it.

Their slaughter at the hands of the Romans and the destruction of the temple were events that St John repeatedly points to as consequences of the crucifixion. This is what happened, they grew fit for slaughter. Past tense.

And all the people said, "His blood shall be on us and on our children."......

You are not correctly understanding that.

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Let me get the start on you by saying this now, so that each of you may win over his brother. Even if you must impose restraint, even if you must use force, even if you must treat him ill and obstinately, do everything to save him from the devil's snare and to free him from fellowship with those who slew Christ.

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This is the third time I've posted this quote on this thread, and I've referenced it even more.

As you so eloquently pointed out earlier that passage is about fellow Christians, not Jews.

And seriously? That's your big gotcha? Oh no St John said to use force if necessary to keep a brother from sinning.

Saying that is violence is like saying a lifeguard is taught violence when they're told to slap someone who is hysterically flailing in the water.

St John says in Homily IV:
Many a time a sick man tears the physician's clothes. But the physician does not let this stop him from trying to cure his patient. It is normal, then, for physicians to show such concern for their patients' bodily health. When so many souls are perishing, is it right for us to slacken our efforts and to think we are suffering no terrible harm, even if our own members are rotting with disease? Paul did not think so. What did he say? "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?" See to it that you catch this fire.

Suppose you see your brother perishing. Even if he reviles you, if he insults you, if lie strikes you, if he threatens to become your foe, if lie menaces you in any other way, show your courage and endure all these insults so that you may win his salvation. If he should become your foe, God will be your friend and will give you in return many great blessings on that day.


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Wow what evil violence he's advocating. Give me a break.

I know this is completely personal for you, so maybe I'll let St. John address you in his own words.

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Let me say what Elijah said against the Jews. He saw the unholy life the Jews were living: at one time they paid heed to God, at another they worshipped idols. So he spoke some such words as these: "How long will you limp on both legs? If the Lord our God is with you, come, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him." Let me, too, now say this against these Judaizing Christians. If you judge that Judaism is the true religion, why are you causing trouble to the Church? But if Christianity is the true faith, as it really is, stay in it and follow it. Tell me this. Do you share with us in the mysteries, do you worship Christ as a Christian, do you ask him for blessings, and do you then celebrate the festival with his foes? With what purpose, then, do you come to the church?

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I never said he advocated violence against Jews. I said he advocated use of force and worse against Christians like me and according to Socrates many people condemned the "violence" he used against other church leaders.

And yes, I think a saint advocating for use of force and "ill treatment" against people like me is pretty awful. My observance, and those of these Christians, doesn't hurt anyone. Keeping Biblical holidays is not sin. Most Jews and most people like me don't aggressively try to push people into our worship style.

The man was a zealot and a bully. Jews were better off in Constantinople during his time than many other places, but they were still a minority and second class citizens. They had to pay a Jewish tax and couldn't hold office. By the time he wrote this homily, he has already deposed all the Quartodecimians (who I still contend were Torah keepers despite our disagreement). Either way no one like me had any major power in the church either. So why did he feel the need to last out against them so vehemently?

John had a very narrow view of what it meant to be a proper Christian, which is probably why he is so popular among the Orthodox. As soon as he had the power, he sought to aggressively conform the Church to this narrow view.

He had a duty before God to care for his flock which included the majority of the East. He argued for Christian unity - yes, even for quartodecimians. He eschewed persecution of heretics and certainly didn't want people to be harmed.

How easy you have it today, sitting behind your keyboard denigrating him. Here's a man who is passionately saying he would die to correct what he views as a sinful mistake in your life. And you look back through a tainted historical lens to call him a bully, an antisemite, and a zealot.

His service to God cost him his life as a monk, a life he preferred to being a bishop. And the stands he took had him exiled twice, the first on trumped up charges from enemies saying things like he wouldn't dine with other bishops (which you're referring to as if they were gospel) and the second becaus he offended the empress. He died in exile. He was a great man, my better and yours by far.

I think you should take your own advice from the previous thread and attempt to meet him in a real discussion. Rather than insult him and offer af hominems, why don't you prove to yourself and us that his demonstration that the Jews are not following the Law is wrong? Can you face his scripture and find his error?

But he wouldn't be bothered by your insults. You know how I know? He said so in the same homilies that offend you so much. See?

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Suppose you see your brother perishing. Even if he reviles you, if he insults you, if he strikes you, if he threatens to become your foe, if he menaces you in any other way, show your courage and endure all these insults so that you may win his salvation. If he should become your foe, God will be your friend and will give you in return many great blessings on that day.

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He clearly thought you are in the wrong. Can you show why it's his error and not yours?

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Therefore, let us not shrink back from the task but, with all the zeal and desire we possess, let us go hunting for our brothers. Even though they be unwilling, let us drag them into our own houses, let us sit down with them at table and put a meal before them.

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What a bully! Go out and grab them and make them eat with you!

I'll never understand the veneration and adoration of saints. John was a flawed many who fell short of the perfect of love Christ, just like you and just like me. He is not better than either of us, and we need nothing more than his own words to determine this. It still boggles my mind that anyone, especially a devout Christian, would so ardently defend his homily against jews.

In your mind, he is a wonderful saint and none of his actions deserve any criticism once placed "in context". To you he was wrongfully convicted twice and died in unjust exile for political reasons, and he was a fantastic model of Christian life.

To me he was a zealot with an incredible passion for God, Christ, the Church and the Scriptures. However, the very zeal reflected in his coercive use of authority and his intolerance of any variance from his narrow ideal. This caused the enimity of so many other church leaders that he was finally stripped of his authority.

I'll give you the same advice you gave me. Take off the Orthodox-colored glasses and just try and take an honest, unbiased look at the man. I'm not anti-Orthodox or anti-Church Father. There's just things about him I don't like

ramblin_ag02 said:

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I'll never understand the veneration and adoration of saints. John was a flawed many who fell short of the perfect of love Christ, just like you and just like me. He is not better than either of us, and we need nothing more than his own words to determine this.

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You don't have any role models?

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For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church

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Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you

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You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit

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Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.

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Whatever you have learned and received and heard from me, and seen in me, put these things into practice.

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Not that we lack this right, but we wanted to offer ourselves as an example for you to imitate.

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...nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.

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Saints and bishops as role models is a NT teaching.

St John certainly was a flawed sinner. He'll tell you himself in the communion prayer he wrote.

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O Lord my God, I know that I am not worthy nor sufficiently pleasing that Thou shouldst come under the roof of the house of my soul for it is entirely desolate and fallen in ruin and Thou wilt not find in me a place worthy to lay Thy head. But as Thou didst humble Thyself from on high for our sake, so now humble Thyself to my lowliness.

As Thou didst deign to lie in a cavern, in a manger of dumb beasts, so now deign to enter in to the manger of my beastly soul, and into my soiled body.

And as Thou didst not disdain to enter and to eat with sinners in the house of Simon the leper, so now be pleased to enter into the house of my soul, humble and leprous and sinful.

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That doesn't mean he is not worthy of imitation. If I can struggle to his level of Christian life, I will be surprised.

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It still boggles my mind that anyone, especially a devout Christian, would so ardently defend his homily against jews.

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You seem to vacillate about what offends you. Sometimes its your PC sensibilities, sometimes its because he is saying mean things about Jews, sometimes it's because he is criticizing your blend of Jewish Christianity, sometimes it is because he is telling people in his flock that they should do whatever it takes to keep you from this error. I invited you to show the error in his critique. You've been conspicuously silent.

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In your mind, he is a wonderful saint and none of his actions deserve any criticism once placed "in context". To you he was wrongfully convicted twice and died in unjust exile for political reasons, and he was a fantastic model of Christian life.

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Yes, he was a wonderful saint, and a great man. I didn't say he was above reproach. He had a way of making enemies, whether that was because he didn't care for the lavish lifestyle of those around him or because he was sharp with people is debatable. He certainly seemed to mellow out later in life. But I'm willing to receive him in the context of the times, and after exposure to many hours of his sermons, books, and letters. Not on one thing read with, as that article noted earlier, "intellectual and historiographical simple-mindedness".

If conviction records and exiles are the measure of depravity, what about these saints?

St Theophylact
St Basil the Confessor
St Michael the Confessor
Hieromartyr Theodoretus
St Euthymius, Bishop of Sardis who was exiled three times and was scourged to death
St Daniel
St Meletius
St Barses
St Paul the Confessor
St Athanasius who was exiled five different times by four different emperors
Saint Martin the Confessor
St Maximos the Confessor

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To me he was a zealot with an incredible passion for God, Christ, the Church and the Scriptures. However, the very zeal reflected in his coercive use of authority and his intolerance of any variance from his narrow ideal. This caused the enimity of so many other church leaders that he was finally stripped of his authority.

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You need to look deeper than the fact that the man made powerful enemies. You're entitled to your own opinions, but not to the facts. I don't think the historical record really reflects the story you're painting. *shrug*

Abraham was a moon worshipper who foisted his wife off twice for a king/pharoah. He made more than one pretty terrible mistake...and yet.