Apologist (Fathers of the Church Patristic Series)

Apologist is the English translation of two of Chrysostom's treatises, written about 378 and 382, aimed at provoking the divinity of Jesus Christ. In Discourse in Blessed Babylas and Against the Greeks, Chrysostom responds to specific attacks on Christianity by such philosophers as Porphyry, using historical narrative and the arguments of fulfilled prophecies to prove Christ's divinity. Chrysostom relates the story of St. Babylas, bishop and martyr, who defended the Church against an evil emperor and whose relics produced sobriety at Daphne and silenced the oracle of Apollo. Although a product of Christianized sophistic rhetoric, the discourse on Babylas furnishes interesting new material on the development of the veneration of relics and church-state relations in the third and fourth centuries. Schatkin's translation is based on her critical edition prepared for Sources Chrétiennes. The Demonstration Against the Pagans that Christ Is God is one of Chrysostom's earlier works and one of his basic contributions to apologetics. Chrysostom argues for Christ's divinity in the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and in Christ's own prophecies--particularly those on the phenomenal growth of the Church--to provide proof of a power that can be only divine. Harkins' translation is based on the unpublished critical edition of Norman G. McKendrick.