November 6, 2022 - "St. Peter Chrysologus"

This week we look at St. Peter Chrysologus who was named a Doctor of the Church in 1729 by Pope Benedict XIII.  We really know very little about him.  He was born at Imola in northern Italy, probably around 380.  He became the Archbishop of Ravenna around 430.  At that point in time Ravenna was the capital of the Western Empire as well as the residence of Emperor Valentinian III and his mother Galla Placida.  Several of his sermons were delivered in the imperial presence.
 
Like St. Augustine, Peter Chrysologus was well schooled in the Latin rhetorical tradition.  His writings show that he was familiar with Cicero, Seneca, and Vergil.  Two collections of his sermons have come down to us—about 180 in all (although there are still disputes about the authenticity of some of the sermons attributed to him).  It seems likely that Peter composed a brief work entitled Explanation of the Creed.  Peter’s preaching was both liturgical and biblical.  In this he followed the pattern of other Fathers of the Church in the fourth and fifth centuries.  Peter’s sermons were organized around striking images, often taken from the Bible.  These sermons would engage the imagination of the hearers and would serve to lock the mysteries of the faith deep in their hearts.  His preaching would emphasize the saving work of Christ and brings us close to the problems of everyday life in the difficult days of the declining Roman Empire in the West.  Peter put his considerable rhetorical skill to good effect in his presentation of the orthodox faith on Christology.
 
We don’t find original doctrinal formulations in the writings of Peter Chrysologus.  But his writings do give us a good picture of catechesis (religious instruction) in late antique Christianity.  For Peter, as for other Latin fathers, the spiritual interpretation of the liturgical readings is what is essential to good preaching.  He addresses this specifically in his Sermon 36: “The historical narrative should always be raised to a higher meaning and the mysteries of the future should become known through the figures of the present.”  Peter presents a striking commentary on St. Paul’s exhortation to present our bodies as sacrifices to God (Romans 12:1) in his Sermon 108: “Let Christ be the covering of your head.  Let the cross remain as the helmet of your forehead.  Cover your breast with the mystery of heavenly knowledge.  Keep the incense ever burning before you as your perfume.  Take up the sword of the spirit.  Set up your heart as an altar.  Free from anxiety, move your body forward in this way to make it a victim to God.”
 
We’ll end this column with one final story about Peter Chrysologus.  In 448, Eutyches, the head of a monastery near Constantinople, wrote a circular letter to the most important bishops of the Roman Empire in which he sought support for his Christological views. 

Peter, as the archbishop of Ravenna, wrote a response at Christmas that year, reminding Eutyches of the dangers associated with speculating on divine mysteries and counseling him to depend on the faith of the bishop of Rome.  “In all things, honorable brother, we exhort you to attend in obedience to what the Most Blessed Pope of the city of Rome has written, because St. Peter lives and presides in his own see and offers the truth of faith to those who seek it” (Letter 25 in the collection of the Letters of Pope Leo I).  Appropriately enough, it was Leo’s famous Letter, or Tome, setting out the doctrine of the two natures united in the one Person of Christ, that played a major role in Eutyches’ condemnation at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
 
Until next week,
Fr. John