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Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom-Ascetic, Preacher Bishop. By J. N. D. KELLY. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995. x + 310 pp. $47.50.
With this new volume Kelly has given us the standard biography of John Chrysostom (349-407) for the next generation. Since the late 1920s scholars and students have depended upon the exhaustive and enthusiastic, if now dated, work of Chrysostomus Baur (Johannes Chrysostomus und seine Zeit [Munich: Huber,1929-1930], English translation by Sr. M. Gonzaga,John Chrysostom and His Time, 2 vols., [Westminster: Newman, 1959-1960]). Though Baur's master work will continue to be consulted, above all for its vast collection of specific citations to the works of Chrysostom and other patristic witnesses, Kelly's life of Chrysostom should now be the starting place for those seeking to understand this major patristic figure who rather paradoxically combined, as Kelly's subtitle suggests, the monastic, the oratorical, and the church-political vocations in his varied and fascinating career.
Kelly's new life of Chrysostom combines first-rate, detailed historical scholarship with a gift for lively narration. Kelly tells the story of John of Antioch, a young man destined for the secretariat in the civil service, son of Anthusa and student of the...