The Living Tradition An Orthodox Archive of the Church Fathers and Early Church

Theme

Christian conduct

Almsgiving, wealth, forgiveness and the shape of Christian conduct.

  • Received Orthodox teachingTaught consistently and received throughout the Orthodox Church, though not necessarily formulated in a conciliar definition. This is not a claim that no Father ever wrote differently.
  • Pastoral applicationHow a teaching is ordinarily applied in practice, under the guidance of a priest and bishop. Never a substitute for that guidance.

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The Didache opens with the Two Ways, and the moral teaching of the early Church is remarkably consistent: care for the poor, refusal of violence and revenge, sexual restraint, honesty in business, and hospitality.

Chrysostom's treatment of wealth is the sharpest in the tradition. What is superfluous belongs to the poor; almsgiving is restitution rather than generosity. This is not a modern reading imposed on him — it is what the homilies say.

Canon XVII of Nicaea forbids clergy to lend at interest, in a world where interest rates could ruin a household. Reading it well means asking what it was protecting, not only what it prohibited.

Follow this theme through the archive

  • The Didache

    An anonymous early Christian church order, giving moral instruction, baptismal and eucharistic directions and rules for travelling teachers. Read and valued in the early Church; never received as Scripture.

    Father or writer

  • John Chrysostom

    Preacher at Antioch and archbishop of Constantinople, exiled for preaching against the powerful, whose homilies on Scripture and on the care of the poor are the largest body of pastoral writing from the ancient Church.

    Father or writer

  • Canon XVII of Nicaea

    Clergy who lend at interest are to be deposed and struck from the clergy list.

    Canon

  • The moral life

    Wealth, forgiveness, honesty and the shape of Christian conduct in the earliest sources.

    Lesson

Sources for this page

  1. Tier C The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church Henry R. Percival (ed.); Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (series eds.) The Seven Ecumenical Councils annotated edition of conciliar texts Source record

Tiers are explained in the methodology. No page on this site has been reviewed or approved by any bishop, priest, synod or seminary.