Table of Contents

Introduction
I. Background and Forerunners
1: The classical roots of Christian asceticism
2: The classical roots of Christian outspokenness
II. Ambrose
3: Ambrose, writer and preacher
4: Early thoughts of Ambrose on the position of the emperor and the duties of the clergy
5: Ambrose in action
III. Chrysostom
6: Asceticism in Syria and Mesopotamia
7: The sources for the early life of Chrysostom
8: The early life of Chrysostom
9: Chrysostom: early writings
10: Chrysostom, from monk to priest: the De sacerdotio
11: Chrysostom preaches on women and marriage
12: Chrysostom, priest and teacher: asceticism for all
13: Chrysostom's attitude to the classical city
14: Chrysostom's views on Church and State
15: Chrysostom's relations with the imperial court
IV. Conclusion
16: Ambrose and Chrysostom compared
17: The influence of Ambrose and Chrysostom

About the Author

J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz is Professor Emeritus, University of Nottingham.

Reviews

This book contributes to current scholarship on bishops in Late Antiquity. L. convincingly argues that these two famous Church Fathers were products of their times in their asceticism, their advice for laypeople, and their complex relationships with imperial authorities.
*Jaclyn Maxwell, Journal of Roman Studies*

The book brings together the biographies of an outstanding Roman and an outstanding Greek, making up a comparative composition, a specific syncrisis in which the author compares the protagonists. Finally, it has once again been proved that the composition concept known since ancient times, so brilliantly implemented by Plutarch, can be an attractive model to be copied even in modern scholarly writing.
*Przemyslaw Nehring, Eos*