This volume offers a translation of sixteen homilies by the most famous preacher in Christian antiquity, John Chrysostom. These homilies on Paul’s letter to the Philippians constitute the most comprehensive ancient surviving commentary on the letter in any language. The homilies have a direct and conversational style in which examples from daily life abound: children, the elderly, food, agriculture, seafaring, money, commerce, building, furniture, weather, illness, good health, animals, and slavery. Friendship themes, based on Paul’s relationship with the church at Philippi, and Christology also figure largely in these homilies. This volume, with Greek text and English translation on facing pages, situates Chrysostom’s homilies on Paul’s letter to the Philippians in their historical, homiletical, rhetorical, and liturgical contexts.

Pauline Allen is a Professor and Foundation Director of the Centre for Early Christian Studies at Australian Catholic University in Brisbane and a Research Associate in the Department of Ancient Languages at the University of Pretoria. She is the author of numerous works, including Sophronius of Jerusalem and Seventh-Century Heresy: The Synodical Letter and Other Documents (Oxford), and the co-author of ‘Let Us Die That We May Live’: Greek Homilies on Christian Martyrs from Asia Minor, Palestine and Syria c. AD 350–AD 450 (Routledge) and The Life of Maximus the Confessor. Recension 3 (St. Paul’s Publications).