The Cult of Saints: Homilies
Reviewed by Eighth Day Books
Feast of St John Chrysostom
Anno Domini 2020, November 13
The Cult of the Saints: Homilies by St John Chrysostom, translated by Wendy Mayer with Bronwen Neil
Since ancient times, the Eastern Christian and Roman Catholic churches have preserved the tradition of offering the Lord’s Eucharist on an altar sanctified by holy relics. Despite its antiquity however, the veneration of the saints, their place in our corporate worship, and the incorporation of their relics in the piety of the church is a topic misunderstood and therefore often neglected by modern scholarship. These thirteen homilies on martyrs’ lives (Meletius, Eustathius, Ignatius, the Maccabees, and others) translated from St. John’s works, along with other relevant letters and encomia on the suffering Christians of the earliest centuries, connect our current fidelity to tradition with a fresh understanding of how this tradition has been preserved. Translator Wendy Mayer introduces her important work with an investigation of “the liturgical, topographical, and pastoral aspects that marked the martyr cult at Antioch and Constantinople in John’s time,” demonstrating that “in some parts of the world, [veneration of saints] is observed in ways that differ little from those which were established at its very beginning.”
288 pp. paper $21.00
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