{"id":717,"date":"2011-04-19T10:06:33","date_gmt":"2011-04-19T15:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/?p=717"},"modified":"2011-04-19T15:13:27","modified_gmt":"2011-04-19T20:13:27","slug":"sojourn-in-the-eternal-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/sojourn-in-the-eternal-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Sojourn in the Eternal City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jeff W. Childers, Carmichael-Walling Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University, offers some reflections on his recent trip to the Vatican Library in Rome:<\/em><\/p>\n

Sojourn in the Eternal City<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Romipetae<\/strong><\/em> they called them\u2014\u2018Rome-seekers:\u2019<\/strong> determined pilgrims crossing land and sea to reach the Eternal City, in hopes of receiving some benefit by visiting its holy places and communing with its sacred relics. Such a traveler was I.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Jeff in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City<\/p><\/div>\n

In April 2011 I went to Rome, seeking the relics of John Chrysostom\u2014but not the great preacher\u2019s old bones, entombed in the Chapel of the Choir in St. Peter\u2019s Basilica on Vatican Hill. Instead, I sought a different sort of relic, yards away from the Basilica. I wanted to get closer to the Golden Voice itself, by reading the words of Chrysostom preserved in ancient manuscripts housed in the Pope\u2019s own library.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Exterior of the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana<\/p><\/div>\n

Boasting the world\u2019s greatest collection of ancient Christian texts, the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV) reopened in September 2010 after a three-year closure for restoration work. The reopening cleared the way for me to request access to the Syriac manuscripts of Chrysostom\u2019s works archived among the Library\u2019s many treasures. Following on the heels of my sojourn at St. Catharine\u2019s Monastery<\/a> in February, my journey to Rome in April was the second leg of a quest to gather the surviving textual data of Chrysostom\u2019s 5th-century Commentary on the Gospel of John<\/em> in Syriac and prepare them for publication.<\/p>\n

Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, still in use today but flourishing especially in Christian communities in the Middle East during the 3rd\u201313th centuries. Among the many Syriac texts that survive, manuscripts with the Syriac version of Chrysostom\u2019s Commentary on John<\/em> are very old but have never been edited, translated, or published. The goal of my project is to make these texts available to a wider readership, but first I must visit the various libraries where these literary relics now reside, study the manuscripts, and collect the texts. The support of ACU and the Loeb Classical Foundation has provided me the time and financial resources I need to make these pilgrimages.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Reading Room, BAV<\/p><\/div>\n

The restored BAV is a lovely place to work, providing a marvelous environment in which to meditate on the eloquent words of the Golden Mouth as he explicates scripture. \u2018Great is the profit from the divine scriptures and unending help comes from them,\u2019 opens one of his homilies partly preserved in the manuscript Vatican Syriac<\/em> 253, \u2018for the divine sayings are a treasury of all sorts of medicines.\u2019 As Chrysostom goes on to examine the account of the paralytic\u2019s healing in John 5, he celebrates the beauty of the passage and administers its pastoral benefits to his audience\u2014including one late-comer, a 21st-century researcher from the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Leaf from 6th-7th century Syriac manuscript of Chrysostom<\/p><\/div>\n

Chrysostom\u2019s exegeses and preaching are marked by his devotion to Christ\u2019s example, by passionate indictment against those who abuse authority, whether political or ecclesiastical, and by a relentless insistence that wealth pleases God only to the extent that it is used to relieve suffering and restore peace. At his affluent church in Constantinople, the capital of the emerging Byzantine Empire, these themes caused trouble for John among the rich and powerful. Largely due to his fiery preaching, he was banished from the pulpit, dying in exile as he journeyed to far-off Georgia in 407. He certainly never traveled to Rome\u2014at least, not until manuscripts bearing his words made their way to the city, words destined to long outlive the deeds of his persecutors.<\/p>\n

More than the remains of his mortal body, carried to Rome after Crusaders pinched them from Constantinople in 1204, I find the manuscript relics of Chrysostom\u2019s teaching better preserve the force of his passion. He deserves the widest possible audience. Soon I hope to be able to expand his hearing by making available these remarkable texts in their Syriac version.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Jeff and his wife Linda tour Ancient Rome<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jeff W. Childers, Carmichael-Walling Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University, offers some reflections on his recent trip to the Vatican Library in Rome: Sojourn in the Eternal City ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Romipetae they called them\u2014\u2018Rome-seekers:\u2019 determined pilgrims crossing land and sea to reach the Eternal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1505,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[64100,2967,2964,467,2965,64101,2767,64103,2966],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-history","tag-library","tag-manuscripts","tag-research","tag-rome","tag-sabbatical","tag-syriac","tag-translation","tag-vatican"],"yoast_head":"\nSojourn in the Eternal City - ACU Graduate School of Theology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/sojourn-in-the-eternal-city\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sojourn in the Eternal City - ACU Graduate School of Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Jeff W. Childers, Carmichael-Walling Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University, offers some reflections on his recent trip to the Vatican Library in Rome: Sojourn in the Eternal City ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Romipetae they called them\u2014\u2018Rome-seekers:\u2019 determined pilgrims crossing land and sea to reach the Eternal […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/sojourn-in-the-eternal-city\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ACU Graduate School of Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-19T15:06:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-04-19T20:13:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/files\/2011\/04\/IMG_9529_2-241x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeff Childers\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeff Childers\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/sojourn-in-the-eternal-city\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/sojourn-in-the-eternal-city\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jeff Childers\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/#\/schema\/person\/caeeb41cc95bc32fb43779e7515dc301\"},\"headline\":\"Sojourn in the Eternal City\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-19T15:06:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-04-19T20:13:27+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/sojourn-in-the-eternal-city\/\"},\"wordCount\":743,\"commentCount\":16,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/sojourn-in-the-eternal-city\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/files\/2011\/04\/IMG_9529_2-241x300.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Church History\",\"Library\",\"Manuscripts\",\"Research\",\"Rome\",\"Sabbatical\",\"Syriac\",\"Translation\",\"Vatican\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/sojourn-in-the-eternal-city\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/sojourn-in-the-eternal-city\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/sojourn-in-the-eternal-city\/\",\"name\":\"Sojourn in the Eternal City - 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