reached the twenty-fourth homily; and since Chrysostom was raised to the Constantinopolitan see in the year 398, on the twenty-sixth day of February, it would follow from this that the said homily was [delivered] in the year 401. But besides the fact that this exact three-year period is not entirely certain, we have already often seen that Chrysostom does not record chronological notes with such precision. Be that as it may, it seems to be proven by another argument that this temporal note should be referred to the year 401. In the forty-first homily, Chrysostom says, col. 291, that in the previous year, A *perusi*—that is to say, God had shaken the entire city, and Constantinople had been stirred by an earthquake. Now this earthquake, which Synesius reports, ought to be assigned to the year 400, whence it follows that this homily, which is the forty-first in number, was delivered in the year 401; Baronius also referred it to this year. Tillemont, however, while he does not indeed reject Baronius's opinion, would nonetheless prefer to refer the earthquake to the year 399, and the forty-first homily to the year 400: for earthquakes were very frequent in Constantinople, nor are all that occurred recorded by the historians; but the one that happened in the year 400 is recorded only by Synesius and in a fragmentary manner. According to this opinion of Tillemont, we said in a note B in the bottom margin, ibid. col. 291, that that earthquake occurred in the year 399, and we advised that the matter had been discussed at greater length in the *Life of St. John Chrysostom*, which is placed at the beginning of the first volume. Therefore, this forty-first homily must be referred either to the year 400 or to the following year, 401. For that word *perusi*, "in the previous or last year," is not to be understood in such a way that Chrysostom wished to signify that an entire year had elapsed.
But in the same place and continuously, col. 291, Chrysostom uses the same expression, "in the previous year," to indicate another matter fragmentarily. "Who," he says, "was not astonished by those things that were done in the previous year regarding that Theodorus? And yet nothing further was done." Who that Theodorus was, or what happened to him, no writer, so far as I know, has taught. But C this one thing we can fish out from this: namely, that these words, "in the previous year" and "in the next year," *perusi*, which are used indiscriminately for the earthquake and for that great affair of Theodorus, signify the year immediately preceding in such a way that the orator did not care whether several or fewer months had intervened. Let it stand, therefore, as we said above, that the forty-first homily was delivered either in the year 400 or at the beginning of 401, until something more certain emerges.
He began the homilies, however, outside of Lent, as he himself says in the first homily, col. 25, and indeed at the Easter season, as it seems to be suggested in col. 22, namely of the year 400. In the moral exhortations, moreover, which occupy the final part of the discourses, he brings forth many useful things, and some pertaining to his own life, which will be commemorated in their proper place; but in the fifty-second [homily] he says he is called John. It has seemed proper to subjoin to these the judgment of Savile concerning Chrysostom's Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles.
SAVILE'S JUDGMENT ON CHRYSOSTOM ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
I see that there is a great controversy among the learned concerning the author of these Homilies on the Acts. Erasmus, in a certain letter D to Tunstall, a great ornament of England in his time, in the volume of the *Florides*, says: "I had translated three homilies of Chrysostom on Acts; I regretted my labor, since I saw nothing here of Chrysostom. Yet at your urging, I took the codex into my hand; but I have never read anything more unlearned. Drunk and snoring, I would write better things. It has frigid sentiments, nor can it explain them sufficiently well." Thus he, having used severity more than censorial. The same man, however, in the Preface prefixed to this book translated into Latin, not a little more mildly, [says] that he doubted whether the style had a certain concise and abrupt quality, which seemed alien to the phrase of Chrysostom: yet if learned men, he says, shall judge the work worthy of Chrysostom, he would willingly lay aside this suspicion, whatever it is, which nevertheless he did not seem to himself to have conceived rashly. And, that I may augment Erasmus's suspicion, I add that several perplexed and involved things are found here, for the most part rough and thorny, many solecisms, constant leaping rather than transition from one argument to another, the text more struck through than explained, that solemn refrain, *idōmen de anōthen ta eirēmena* ("let us look from above at what has been said"), or *ta anegnōsmena* ("what has been read"), inculcated six hundred times to the point of nausea. In sum, almost everything is destitute of those lights, of those ornaments of speech by which the most eloquent man Chrysostom earned his name among posterity. So far am I from agreeing with Jacques Billi, who, whether stimulated by hatred of Erasmus, or carried away by some other party-spirit, says that nothing more elegant can be fashioned than the Greek codex, and nothing that better represents the phrase of Chrysostom. How much more correctly does the most learned man Flaminius Nobilius [write]: "Altogether," he says, "these Commentaries on Acts are little able to satisfy a reader's mind. For they swarm with errors, and are ill-compacted, being from various writings, as I think, of copyists, who caught as best they could the sentiments of Chrysostom as he was speaking." To these may be added the authority of Photius, who indeed declares that Chrysostom did comment on Acts, but counts the homilies as no more than fifty, and judges them written much more elegantly than those on Genesis: *ēlat tōtai de homōs* ("but it is inferior, nonetheless"—namely, the phrase of the Homilies in
on the Acts), being brought down to a humbler level: which openly, as it seems to me, if you understand it of these things, is otherwise. And these are, in general, the arguments that may be brought forward for this view. Yet all these do not have such force as to persuade me, even in the slightest, to reject this work as genuine—even if, perhaps, it is less "beautiful"—from its genuine father. A And first, certain golden fragments appear here and there, which could not have flowed from any source other than that golden vein. But many things are leaden, you say. I reply that it is easier for our *chrysorrhēmon* (golden-toned one) to be found creeping on the ground in some places, and thus lying low, than for others to rise to his height; so that, because of some things admirably written, I would rather ascribe the author as Chrysostom than label another as the author because of some things that are more humble. Next, who is unaware that the same people are not all things at all times? The prince of Latin eloquence spoke differently as a young man, and differently now that he is a consul. And regarding our Chrysostom, Photius very truly says that he wrote much more accurately and with more refinement at Antioch, removed from public cares, than he did the same work while exercising the archiepiscopate at Constantinople: that these things which we have in our hands fell into this latter time is clearer than daylight. Regarding the Photian number, I reply that the same objection could be raised concerning the Homilies on Genesis, which are without doubt genuine and yet number no more than sixty-one according to Photius, even though all our manuscripts present sixty-seven, so that it is necessary either that Photius here and there suffered a lapse of memory, or fell upon manuscripts that were not complete, or that drowsy copyists here wrote B *v* instead of *vε'* due to an easy mistake. For that these which we now hold in our hands are the homilies on the Acts meant by Photius, his own words clearly declare: "For the homilies on the Acts are fifty, and they were spoken by him almost through the whole course of a year. For he did not discourse daily, but even beyond five (I would prefer 'three': for he referred to the passage in Homily 44, 'doing this frequently through three days or seven') and beyond seven, and more" (perhaps 'more' [plural]: for he is speaking of the days) "he used to discourse; which he himself makes plain, that he spoke them while occupying the archiepiscopate at the third year." The passage to which Photius referred is in Homily 44, page 856, line 39, where, taking the occasion from the words of Paul, *mnēmoneuontes, hoti trietian nykta kai hēmeran ouk epausamēn* (remembering that for three years, night and day, I did not cease), Acts 20:31, Chrysostom says of himself: *Idou tē chariti tou Theou kai hēmeis loipon trietian echomen* (Behold, by the grace of God, we too have henceforth a three-year period). And so that it may appear more liquidly that there is no other author of this book than our John, it will not be beside the point to have added these few things. I omit the many idioms of speech peculiar to our author, the little interrogations, the dialogisms, the moral digressions, the laws enacted against oaths, noted by Sixtus Senensis and by Erasmus himself. That in Homily C 1 he inveighs against those who reject baptism until their final breath; that in Homily 30 he establishes a law against those who raise applause for a bishop who is preaching; that he argues so often and so vehemently against Plato and the philosophers—do not these things sufficiently indicate that he is an ancient writer, who inveighs so keenly against vices now aged by many centuries since then? What of the fact that in Homily 11 he says, *ēkousa pote paterōn tōn hēmeterōn, legontōn, hoti kata ton diōgmon ton palaion ēn idein ontōs Christianous andras* (I heard once from our fathers, who said that during the old persecution it was possible to see truly Christian men), etc. From which it appears that the author of this book lived immediately after the times of persecution, he who could hear these things from his own fathers. What of the fact that in Homily 22 we read *speira, ho kaloumen nyn noumeron* (cohort, which we now call a *numerus*)? And that in Homily 46, *ho par' hēmin legousi kata tēn Rhōmaikēn synētheian, en tois signois auton embale* (which with us they call, according to Roman custom, having cast it into the standards), do not these things sufficiently betray their antiquity? But why do I chase after conjectures, when he himself openly in Homily 41 confesses himself contemporary with Julian? The passage is on page 839, line 7: *Idou gar epi tōn kairōn tōn hēmeterōn ta kata ton makarion Babylan gegone, ta kata ta Hierosolyma, ta kata tēn kathairesin tōn hierōn?* (For behold, in our own times, what concerns the blessed Babylas has happened, what concerns Jerusalem, what concerns the destruction of the temples?); of which the first two occurred under Julian, the third under Theodosius. D Now, that matter in Homily 38 regarding the magic book found in the river, when Chrysostom was still a *meirakion* (stripling), Cardinal Baronius correctly, as I think, refers to the times of Valens. From these things, it is clear that the writer was a contemporary of those times. And that he was a bishop will also be sufficiently clear. In Homily 3 he speaks of himself as a bishop. In Homily 9 he openly calls himself a bishop: *alla sy, phēsin, archōn ei kai episkopos* (but you, he says, are a ruler and a bishop). In Homily 8 he speaks of himself as a bishop in the *basileuousa* (royal city), which name, besides Rome and Constantinople, suited no other city (sprinkling certain suspicious things regarding his expulsion, *peri tēs heautou kathaireseōs*: such as are on page 655, 24: *ē kathairete me tautēs tēs archēs, ē menonta me mē periballete kindynois* (either remove me from this office, or if I remain, do not surround me with dangers). And on the following page, line 12: *hōs an en tō thronō kathezomai toutō, ouden proēsō tōn autou dikaiōmatōn. An me tis katabibasē, loipon aneuthynos eimi* (As long as I sit on this throne, I will concede nothing of its rights. If anyone deposes me, I am henceforth irresponsible). And in Homily 11 he speaks as in a city which, besides Jews and Gentiles, has more than one hundred thousand Christians. Homily 42, p. 848, l. 12: *Idou hēlikē polis hymin estin hē megalē hautē* (Behold how great a city this great one is to you). And what, I think, is found nowhere else in his works, in Homily 52, page 902, l. 40, he places his name directly: *Eimi tou makariou men ekeinou (Iōannou) homōnymos, ou mēn synōnymos. Ouk eimi Iōannēs, alla kaloumai* (I am a namesake of that blessed one [John], but not of the same name. I am not John, but I am called [Chrysostom]). Finally, there come also the testimonies of ancient writers concerning the author of this book. We have spoken of Photius above. Damascenus, book 3, chapter 15, "On the Orthodox Faith," cites a passage from the second homily on the Acts: which, however, whether by the lapse of the author or the copyist, is not found in the second homily, but in the first, page 610, line 48. Then the authors of the *Catenae*, Nicetas, Oecumenius, etc., did not weave their garlands from blossoms culled from other than this garden: so that it is now foolish, as it seems to me, to doubt any longer concerning the author of this book.
THE WORKS OF OUR HOLY FATHER JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
HOMILY I.
"The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen."
1. To many, this book is not even known, A nor is it known who wrote and composed it. Therefore, I have decided to set forth this discourse here, so as to instruct those who are ignorant and not to allow such a treasure to remain hidden and concealed. For it will be able to benefit us no less than the Gospels themselves; B it is filled with such philosophy, with such correctness of doctrine, and with such a demonstration of miracles, especially those wrought by the Spirit. Let us not, then, pass it by, but examine it with accuracy. For the predictions which Christ uttered in the Gospels, here one can see them going into effect, and from them C the truth of the matters shining forth, and the great change for the better in the disciples resulting from the Spirit coming upon them. For indeed, whatever they heard Christ saying—that every one who believes in me, the signs which I do, he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do; and that he foretold to the disciples that they would be led before governors and kings, and that in their D synagogues they would scourge them, and that they would suffer irreparable harm, and that they would overcome all, and that the Gospel would be preached in the whole world—all these things one can see fulfilled with all accuracy in this book, and even more than these, other things which He spoke to them while He was with them. And you shall see the apostles themselves here, like winged creatures traversing land and sea, and those fearful ones of that time...