Preaching Bondage : John Chrysostom And The Dis... Apr 2026

It analyzes how the slave's body was viewed as "fungible property" and how this shaped ancient Christian views on education, household discipline, and sexuality.

De Wet coins this term to describe the "discourse of slavery"—the specific ways slavery was spoken about, ritualized, and integrated into Christian identity and power structures. Preaching bondage : John Chrysostom and the dis...

Reviewers from the Journal of Early Christian Studies and the Journal of Global Slavery have praised the work as a groundbreaking contribution to the cultural history of late antiquity. It is often used to show how Christian thought "Christianized" rather than abolished ancient Roman slaveholding practices. It analyzes how the slave's body was viewed

You can find more detailed summaries or purchase the book at the University of California Press or Amazon. St. John Chrysostom - FaithND - University of Notre Dame It is often used to show how Christian

The book explores how Chrysostom used slavery as a metaphor for the human condition, arguing that while institutional slavery was a "fruit of sin," divine bondage (being a "slave to God") was the only true form of freedom.

Paradoxically, by "moralizing" slavery—focusing on the "slavery of the soul" to sin—Chrysostom’s preaching often reinforced the physical structures of institutional slavery, leading to its passive acceptance in early Christian society. Scholarly Context