CHRYSOSTOM IS NEITHER A
PROTESTANT NOR A HERETIC
In all of this, twenty-first
century Protestants tend to hear all Chrysostom believes people have to earn
their salvation. That is not all the case. We hear this because Protestants
have been trained to reject anything at all that sounds like salvation is about
anything other than completely unearned grace because of the particular doctrines
and behaviors Martin Luther was rejecting in the sixteenth-century Catholic Church.
This misunderstanding becomes especially acute, as I noted above, when
Chrysostom’s language of worthiness comes in.
Chrysostom’s articulation of
salvation was completely normal in his time and among his contemporaries. Yes,
Chrysostom tells his people that they have to contribute to their salvation
with their faith and virtue, and that not adding those things to Christ’s work
will see them suffering the greatest torments in hell, but this is not to say
that anyone is “earning” their salvation. In fact, Luther would have agreed
with this much, since he thought that people could end up in hell also, based
on what they believed. Chrysostom insists that God’s work is prior to
the human’s work and more significant. Without Christ’s death and
resurrection, there is no salvation for anyone. This is the necessary
condition, and it must precede any human action.
Chrysostom uses the phrase “up to
us” and “our part and “what we bring or contribute” to salvation, suggesting
that though God has done the major work, there is something for humanity to do
as well, in addition or in response to that work. Further, Chrysostom says that
God designed salvation this way so that human beings could show their effort
and, more importantly, so God would respect human freedom and
self-determination, with which he created them in the first place. In this way,
God is just because any punishment or reward is just, since the human being
made a choice for himself. For God to save unilaterally would not be just, in
Chrysostom’s understanding.
Since Christ’s work is the
primary and major component, Chrysostom is not suggesting that a person can
earn her salvation, certainly not on her own. Christ has already offered
salvation to everyone, regardless of how virtuous they are. In fact, in his
baptismal homilies, Chrysostom is vivid in his description of how unworthy of
salvation human beings are. He uses the metaphor of marriage to explain baptism,
and he says that Christ marries the Christian even though the Christian is a
hideously ugly bride, soiled in all kinds of ways. (For instance, this passage:
Cathec. illum. 1.3 [SC 50:110) It is Christ’s choice of the hideous
bride while in the condition of her unworthiness that implies neither ability nor
need to make oneself worthy. Christ makes one worthy, and then the Christian
must keep herself worthy by means of her virtue. So Chrysostom insists a person
must participate in his salvation and has need to contribute to his salvation,
but these are not the same as earning one’s salvation. (Samantha L. Miller, John
Chrysostom: An Introduction to His Life and Thought [Cascade Companions;
Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2026], 114-16)
