Demetrios Tonias's "Abraham in the Works of John Chrysostom" is the first comprehensive examination of John Chrysostom's view of the patriarch Abraham. By analyzing the full range of references to Abraham in Chrysostom's work, Tonias reveals the ways in which Chrysostom used Abraham as a model of philosophical and Christian virtue, familial devotion, philanthropy, and obedient faith.

"In this first comprehensive study of how the figure of Abraham functioned thematically for John Chrysostom, Demetrios E. Tonias paints a vivid portrait of the 'golden-mouthed' orator and the rhetorical world in which he lived. Chrysostom praises Abraham as a superlative model of virtue whom he encourages Christians to emulate as one of their own. Threatened by rival Jewish claims, Chrysostom also argues that Jews had forsaken their Abrahamic inheritance by failing to accept Christianity as the fulfillment of the promise God made to the patriarch to be the father of many nations. While insightfully and sympathetically presenting Chrysostom‰۪s pastoral brilliance, this volume simultaneously provides an invaluable window into the origins of Christian supersessionism in both the East and the West." ---Philip A. Cunningham, Saint Joseph‰۪s University