Michael Tishel: "Suddenly We Have Become Saints and Sons:" The Centrality of 'To Exaiphnes' (The Sudden) in John Chrysostom's Homilies on Romans

The role of 'to exaiphnes' (the sudden) has been explored within the realm of both ancient and contemporary philosophy by the likes of Kierkegaard and Heidegger, and by more recent scholars such as John Mannousakis, where it is discussed in relation to the concept of the 'augenblick' (blink of an eye) and kairos (timelessness). Furthermore, It has been examined in the realm of patristic theology and by scholars such as Andrew Louth and Alexander Golitzin primarily in reference to Denys the Areopagite. In reading John Chrysostom's Homilies on Romans, however, it becomes clear that 'to exaiphnes' and its terminological and conceptual cognates play a central role in Chrysostom's existential theology--linking divine self-manifestation and the phenomena of purification, communion, and adoption into a single, unexpected, momentary yet life-altering in-breaking of the eternal into the temporal. This paper will draw from central passages in Homilies on Romans, in order to demonstrate that Chrysostom's treatment of 'to exaiphnes' unlocks a subtle qualitative element of his theological system of thought that has heretofore been dismissed as muted and moralizing. His description of the immediacy and unexpected nature of divine revelation, as well as its capacity to unite, purify, sanctify, and adopt the individual in an unmediated bond with the Divine, connect him to a tradition of Platonic and Neoplatonic thought, as well as the retrieval of this tradition in modern existentialist philosophy. Chrysostom's treatment of 'to exaiphnes' shows his astute ability to grapple with high-level philosophical theology in its uniquely qualitative dimensionality.