TRANSISTORES JFET

The term γνώμη appears pervasively throughout John’s homilies,5

but scholarly analysis attending to the use of the term by patristic authors has been sparse.6

Fortunately, the recent work of Ray Laird offers a critical correction to this regretful omission.7

Laird’s work demonstrates that the term holds a central place in John’s understanding of the functioning of the psyche.8

The term γνώμη is variously translated outside of Laird’s Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies (ed. Laura Nasrallah and Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza; New York: Fortress Press, 2009), 228- 229.

5

The term γνώμη appears 2317 times throughout John’s homilies, with the more

commonly studied term προαίρεσις in its various forms appearing well under 1000 times (according to the TLG database); Raymond Laird’s work demonstrates its prevalence not only in the homilies on the Pauline epistles but throughout John’s homilies on Genesis and Matthew, his homilies against Judaizers, among others. See Raymond Laird, Mindset, Moral Choice and Sin in the Anthropology of John Chrysostom (Sydney: St. Pauls Publications, 2012), 20. Laird argues that John’s use of this term is firmly grounded in his broader context, offering a thorough discussion of the use of γνώμη language among John’s predecessors and contemporaries, particularly Libanius (Chapter 7), Greek paideia more broadly (Chapter 8), and fellow Antiochenes Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret of Cyrus (Chapter 9).

6

Laird, Mindset, Moral Choice and Sin, 21-23. Laird notes the sparse literature on this term in in both the study of ancient Christian writings in particular as well as within Classical scholarship more broadly. Laird notes that the possible reason for this omission is that scholars have focused instead on one of its companion terms προαίρεσις (free will).

7

Laird, Mindset, Moral Choice and Sin. More recently, Peter Moore’s work affirms Laird’s central observations, developing further how the concept of γνώμη undergirds John’s preaching method. Peter Moore, “Chrysostom’s concept of γνώμη: How ‘chosen life’s orientation’ undergirds Chrysostom’s strategy in preaching,” Studia Patristica 54 (2013): 351-358.

8

Laird approaches the concept of γνώμη in John’s work with an interest in how it contributes to an understanding of John’s position with respect to original sin. As Laird

work by the terms “intention,” “will,” “disposition,” “spirit,” “temper,” and “character,” with Laird offering the term “mindset.”9

While Laird notes that γνώμη is closely related to the faculties of the mind (νοῦς, διάνοιᾰ, etc.), John typically describes the γνώμη according to its vital relation to the psyche, depicting it variously as the “habit”,10 “motivating core,”11

“ruling power,”12

“critical faculty,”13

or “master,”14

of the psyche. As this ruling center, or “habitual inclination” of a person’s soul,15

the γνώμη controls and manages the pathe and reveals the soul’s deepest intentions and desires.16

The concept thus evades static English translation and I will retain the Greek term itself, γνώμη, most frequently in this chapter, allowing the reader to fill in the range of meanings and

resonances listed above.

For a psychic therapist, the γνώμη is the key site of therapeutic intervention.17 As summarizes in his conclusion – “The question basic to this investigation is: in

Chyrsostom’s anthropology, or more specifically his psychology, what faculty of the soul is held responsible for sin? This question, formulated against the background of the differences in understanding of original sin between the eastern orthodox and the

traditional western position, has led to an examination of the γνώμη, which I interpret to refer to the mindset and its various functions.” (Ibid., 257).

9

Peter Moore offers the translation “chosen life’s orientation,” pointing to John’s ascetic context and John’s emphasis that the γνώμη is freely chosen. Moore, “Chrysostom’s concept of γνώμη,” 351-358.

10

Laird, Mindset, Moral Choice and Sin, 28. 11 Ibid., 41. 12 Ibid., 73. 13 Ibid., 72. 14 Ibid., 191. 15 Ibid., 28. 16 Ibid., 41. 17

As discussed in chapter 1, John presented one of the rhetorical tasks of a preacher to be the discernment and management of a hearer’s pathe in order to lead him closer to

reception, and thus to correction. It is evident that John perceived of this task as including the shaping, straightening, or correcting of the control center of those pathe, that is, the γνώμη (Laird, Mindset, Moral Choice and Sin, 124). John frequently remarks on the way

discussed in previous chapters, the psychagogue works to discern and manage the pathe of his hearers, and thus, according to John’s anthropology, he must discern the condition of the γνώμη in order for the psyche to be properly known, shaped, and judged.18

Indeed, whether or not the psychagogue’s therapy is successful depends precisely on the γνώμη and the positive reception of this therapy results in its transformation. In a homily on Matthew, for example, John suggests that the positive reception of the gospel would alter the human race “from harshness of γνώμη to much gentleness and tenderness.”19 Notably, the γνώμη is the critical site for the acceptance or rejection of the Gospel, and thus for judgment, because, according to John, it is the autonomous engine of free will (προαίρεσις).

Teasing out the etiology of psychic illness, John emphasizes that this sickness originates neither from the nature of the soul nor of the flesh, but from free will (προαίρεσις).20

He reasons that while God is responsible for the nature of souls and of bodies, free will “is a motion from ourselves towards whatever we please to direct it”21 that Paul prepares the γνώμη as part of his rhetorical strategy, for example, in a homily on Romans: “This he does to take down the objector’s unseasonable inquisitiveness, and excessive curiosity, and to put a check upon it... So when he has made this preparatory step in his hearers has hushed and softened down τὴν γνώμην, then with great felicity he introduces the answer, having made what he says easy of admittance with him

(εὐπαράδεκτον αὐτῷ ποιήσῃ τὸ λεγόμενον). On Romans hom. 16 (PG 60:558.29-53). 18

Laird, Mindset, Moral Choice and Sin, 220. 19

In Matt hom. 10 (PG 57:188.4-10). John’s reference in this case is Isaiah 11:6 (“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”), but see Chapter 3 of this dissertation for a discussion of how John more broadly characterizes gentleness as representing virtue and philosophia and how this informs his interpretation of Paul’s preaching on Jews and Judaism.

20

On Romans hom. 13 (PG 60:510.19-25). 21

and not just “ourselves” broadly, but as John goes on to specify, from “τῆς γνώμης ἡμῶν.”22

While scholarship on the notion of choice and free will in patristic writings has focused on the term προαίρεσις and largely ignored the role of the γνώμη, 23

the two appear nearly inseparable in John’s homilies. Moreover, as John posits in the quote above, the γνώμη directs the motion of προαίρεσις, and thus, as Laird reasons, it is the “ruling principle to which the προαίρεσις is subject.”24 _{As John summarizes, if one} succumbs to vice rather than virtue, “then you are made a partaker of the ruin therein, not owing to the nature of the soul and the flesh, but owing to that γνώμη which has the power of choosing either [vice or virtue].”25

God, while omniscient of the condition of each γνώμη, thus bears no responsibility for the success or failure of a healing

intervention, John asserts, since “having contributed the appropriate drugs, God allows everything to rest on the γνώμη of the one who is ill.”26

While each person, specifically each γνώμη, thus bears individual responsibility for conduct, John typically depicts a γνώμη as collectively shared (such as in the

πρὸς ὅπερ ἂν αὐτὴν βουληθῶμεν ἀγαγεῖν.

22

On Romans hom. 13 (PG 60:510.28-29). Ἡ μὲν γὰρ βούλησις, ἔμφυτον καὶ παρὰ Θεοῦ·ἡ δὲ τοιάδε βούλησις, ἡμέτερον καὶ τῆς γνώμης ἡμῶν. For a discussion of this passage, see Laird, Mindset, moral Choice and Sin, 75, 107.

23

In his study on John’s homilies on Romans, Demetrios Trakatellis argues that

προαίρεσις is the core of his understanding of the anthropos. He notes how frequently the γνώμη appears in relation to προαίρεσις but obscures the importance of the γνώμη in its own right, not acknowledging, for example, in his analysis of John’s definition of προαίρεσις that John depicts it as deriving directly from the γνώμη. Demetrios

Trakatellis, “Being Transformed: Chrysostom’s exegesis of the Epistle to the Romans,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 44 (1999), 163-176.

24

Laird, Mindset, Moral Choice and Sin, 111. 25 Homily on Romans 13 (PG 60:518.24-27): ἂν τῷ χείρονι πάλιν, τῆς ἐνταῦθα ἀπωλείας κατέστης κοινωνὸς, οὐ παρὰ τὴν φύσιν τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ τῆς σαρκὸς, ἀλλὰ παρὰ τὴν γνώμην τὴν κυρίαν ἀμφότερα ταῦτα ἑλέσθαι. 26 In Gen. hom. 19 (PG 53:159.4).

Matthew quote cited above, which depicts the human race moving “from harshness of γνώμη to much gentleness and tenderness”).27

The notion of such a collective γνώμη is evident throughout John’s homilies. Notably, for example, John describes Paul as guiding his hearers to be normalized according to an apostolic γνώμη that expresses itself

externally in the visible practices of virtue. 28

Just as John groups those who align themselves with Paul as sharing a collective healthy γνώμη, John depicts those outside this proper apostolic alignment as sharing a γνώμη of the opposite orientation, one that is unhealthy and expresses itself externally with vice. John uses two cognates of γνώμη - εὐγνωμοσύνη and ἀγνωμοσύνη – to differentiate these opposing groups based on the health of the γνώμη; the term εὐγνωμοσύνη describes those sharing a γνώμη that is in proper control of the pathe and oriented towards God, while the term ἀγνωμοσύνης depicts those sharing a γνώμη that is without control of the pathe, and thus oriented away from God.29

These opposing cognates, and language of the γνώμη more broadly, are vital to John’s characterization of Jews in his homilies on Romans, serving as a key way that John diagnoses and displays Jewish disease and difference.

27

I have not found an instance where the plural form of γνώμη is used when referring to a group of people.

28

Laird notes that in the context of a student-teacher relationship “to be kata γνώμη with someone is to have settled one’s life into the master’s form of teaching,” to take on not only a teacher’s ideas but also their praxis. Laird, Mindset, Moral Choice and Sin, 115 - 116.

29

For a full discussion of these cognates, see Laird, Mindset, Moral Choice and Sin, 57- 62.