The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation. .

The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation. By Margaret M. Mitchell. Louisville, London: WestminsterJohn Knox, 2002. xxxiv and 564 pages. Paper. $44.95.

John Chrysostom, premier interpreter in the tradition of Antioch, admirer of Paul, gets a fitting interpreter in Margaret Mitchell, Associate Professor of New Testament at the University of Chicago. Chrysostom was trained in rhetoric by Libanius, the foremost rhetorician of his day. He uses these resources in his homilies and commentaries. Mitchell controls New Testament studies, is deeply immersed in classical rhetoric, well read in patristics, and knowledgeable in art history and late antiquity--all disciplines useful in interpreting John of the Golden Mouth.

Mitchell focuses on John's interpretation of Paul in a number of ways. After surveying the sources and modem literature on John in chapter 1, she discusses the ancient iconography of John and Paul (she includes six plates), in chapter 2. The following chapters detail the way in which John describes Paul, both in "miniature portraits of Paul" via epithets and in detailed descriptions, both somatic and psychic (encomiastic). She makes use of his commentaries, but above all of his seven encomiastic homilies on praise of Paul. (She provides a translation of them in an appendix.) In chapter 6 she describes how standard epideictic motifs are used in describing Paul's biography and virtues.

The final two chapters discuss John in contrast to other patristic views of Paul, for example Augustine's. John writes an encomium, not a life of Paul, treating Paul as the model of Christian virtues, while Augustine sees Paul as one struggling to arrive at a fully Christian existence. For him Paul is "neither a man of lust nor an angel of perfection." Mitchell finally points out how much modem scholars have to learn from Chrysostom; like John, modem interpreters are influenced by the culture around them as they produce their "portraits" of Paul. Thus Mitchell seeks to do more than patristic archaeology; her study of John raises hermeneutical issues that are relevant to contemporary scholarship.

This massive work of scholarship, heavily documented from ancient sources both literary and iconographic, is impressive. It should dominate the study of John as exegete for the next generation. Carefully structured, impressively argued, fully documented, and illuminated by clear and at times delightful writing, I hope many will turn to it who might otherwise think it belongs only to the specialized field of patristics. It is a significant contribution to Pauline studies.

Mitchell's work was originally published in hardcover as volume 40 of the series Hermeneutische Untersuchungenen zur Theologie (Tubingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2000) at a much higher price. We owe great thanks to the American publishers for making this affordable printing available.