John Chrysostom (347–407)

John Chrysostom, known as the "golden orator," was a master communicator, certainly one of the two or three greatest preachers in the church's history. He was a follower of the Antiochian method of biblical exegesis. This tradition rejected the Platonic allegorizing of the Alexandrian school in favor of a concern for a grammatical, historical, theological method of interpretation. Chrysostom's Educational Background John, afterward surnamed Chrysostom ("golden-mouthed," so-named for his preaching), was younger by fifteen or twenty years than Basil and the Gregories. He was of a distinguished and wealthy family in Antioch and, under the devoted care of a widowed mother, received every possible educational advantage. The great teacher Libanius had now returned to his native Antioch and found in John a favorite pupil, whom he would have wished to make his successor as professor of rhetoric and kindred subjects. In the great city John saw the world and sharpened that penetrating knowled…