The frailties of ‘basileia’ according to John Chrysostom: some remarks on the treatise ‘A comparison between a king and a monk’

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Gilvan Ventura da
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Antíteses
• Texto Completo: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/antiteses/article/view/22575
• topic: Late antiquity; Antioch; Basileia; Monasticism; John Chrysostom; Subject History; Antiguidade tardia; Antioquia; Basileia; Monacato; João Crisóstomo.; História do cristianismo antigo

Living in a society under the threat of Persians and Barbarians, John Chrysostom, differently from his predecessors, like Eusebius of Cesarea, did not devise the Graeco-Roman basileia as an institution that bore any special religious meaning. As for him, the Roman Empire was just a gathering of humans governing other humans due to an election; a government that did not arise from a natural basis and did not exhibit any mystical, supernatural capacity, for such government was not geared to linger on. In his works, John Chrysostom seldom mentions the Imperium Chistianum and the emperors of his time, subjects which did not attract his attention. Truth to tell, according to the author, the basileus did not represent a Christian model that should be followed by his contemporaries. Such honor should be bestowed on the monks instead. In light of these remarks, we intend to discuss, in this article, some characteristics of the monarchy in the Late Antiquity, a time span when we witness the flourishing of the monasticism as well. In order to do that, we deal with one of John’s first works: the treatise A comparison between a king and a monk, written in Antioch, John’s homeland, in the first years of the decade of 370 A. D.