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This article is a presentation of St. John Chrysostom’s social teaching on the value of work. This teaching is grounded in the Holy Scriptures. By describing Christ and certain biblical figures (e.g. St. Paul) as people of work, Chrysostom underscores the meaning and value of labor. He does so contrary to the opinion of the wealthy in the Antioch society, who despised both the physical labor and the people performing it. In the teaching of the Archbishop of  Constantinople, physical work is a cooperation with God in the effort of transforming the world. It is an element which ennobles a human being, provides him with the means necessary to support his life and enabling him to undertake the works of mercy. St. John also highlightsthe difficult situation of many peasants, craftsmen and merchants, and in this way he tries to direct the attention of the wealthy to this social problem. It can be deduced from Chrysostom’s writing that the life of slaves, which constituted a large portion of the late antique society, was generally modest and filled with work – especially the most onerous one. In giving instructions to slaves, St. John admonishes them to be submissive to their masters and do their work well. In speaking to the masters, however, he recommended that their relationships with slaves were humanitarian and shaped according to the Gospel. It is noteworthy to see that the element of love of one’s neighbor (philanthropy) and forgiving mercy brought new quality into the social structures of the time, especially between a master and a slave.

Wspólnota eucharystyczna, red.

This article takes the theme of the fight of the soul with the body and presents selected items of anthropology of St. John Chrysostom. John Chrysostom examines the human situation after original sin in the eschatological aspect and indicates that the body is not the cause of evil, because sin is the consequence of free choice man. Then presents the relationship between the body and the soul, and stresses that the body is subordinate to the soul, to whom falls the responsibility for the deeds of the body. The soul is immortal by the will of God and his dignity tran­scends the body. The Preacher explains that the worldly biological life doesn’t mean real life. John Chrysostom in teaching on man understands the word „spirit” not as a living soul, that is to say, the spiritual element of the man, but as the „Holy Spirit”, of course, without the recognition of the role of anything of the soul. Con­sequently, the struggle between body and spirit means the fight between earthy concern resulting from the inappropriate desires of the soul caused by an evil spirit, and the Holy Spirit, who is the giver of life. This is not the ontological fight between body and soul, but the moral struggle of life and death. In this respect, John Chrysostom says, that the hostility of the soul to the body is simply hostility of evil to the virtues, which in fact means the fight between the living (which aims to virtue) and the dead (in the broad people’s iniquity) soul.

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