Jeannette Kreijkes: Grace or Joy?: Chrysostom’s Contradictory Reception by Calvin in his Commentary on 2 Cor. 1:15 and Philem. 1:7

 The overarching goal of this paper is to contribute to discovering how John Chrysostom’s exegesis was appropriated in the sixteenth century. The two case studies consider the interpretation of 2 Cor 1:15 (‘Because I was confident of this, I wanted to visit you first so that you might benefit twice’) and Philem 1:7 (‘Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people’). Some manuscripts read χαρὰν (‘joy’) for χάριν (‘benefit’, ‘grace’) in 2 Cor 1:15. In the case of Philem 1:7, however, the situation is reversed: χάριν is an alternate reading for χαρὰν. Chrysostom explicitly argues that χάριν in 2 Cor 1:15 should read χαρὰν but he does not discuss the reading of the Greek of Philem 1:7. When it comes to Chrysostom’s preference for χάριν over χαρὰν in 2 Cor 1:15, the sixteenth-century reformer John Calvin is not convinced. However, when he comments on Philem 1:7, Calvin does in fact read χάριν as χαρὰν and supports his emendation by referring to Chrysostom’s interpretation of 2 Cor 1:15. The main question this paper intends to answer is: which interests and contextual factors might have coloured critical and positive sixteenth-century evaluations of Chrysostom’s understanding of the Greek Bible text by non-native speakers of Greek?