At the Feet of the Fathers: St. John Chrysostom on Knowing Christ, not Satan, is in Control

At the Feet of the Fathers

Monday, September 19, 2022

St. John Chrysostom

John Chrysostom, (c. AD  347 – 14 September AD 407), was an important early Church father who served as archbishop of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey). He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his stand against abuses both among secular authorities as well as in the church, and his Divine Liturgy, used to this day in Eastern Orthodoxy. The name Chrysostom means "golden-mouthed" in Greek and was given him for his celebrated eloquence. Chrysostom was one of the most prolific authors in the early Christian Church.

Remember: God, Not Satan, is in Control

The sun is not more obvious than the providence of God. Nevertheless, some people dare to say that demons can control our affairs.

What can I say? You have a loving Master. He chooses to be blasphemed by these words, rather than hand your affairs over to the demons, and show you by real experience how demons govern. Then you would really know how wicked they are by experiencing it yourself.

But I can show you by a little example. Certain men who were possessed by demons came out from the tombs to meet Christ, and the demons kept begging him to be allowed to enter the herd of swine. And he allowed them, and they went away, and immediately drove them off a cliff (Matthew 8:28-34).

That’s how demons govern! And yet the swine were of no real importance to them. But with you there is always war without truce, and an implacable fight, and undying hatred. And if they would not even allow creatures with whom they had nothing in common a brief breathing space in time, why wouldn’t they have done if they had got us into their power—us their enemies, who are always stringing them? What incurable evil would they not have accomplished?

This is why God let them fall on that herd of swine: so that you could learn their wickedness from what they did to the bodies of irrational animals. It’s obvious to everyone that they would have done to the possessed what they did to the swine, if the demoniacs in their very madness had not experienced the providence of God. So now when you see a man provoked by a demon, worship the Master.

-St. John Chrysostom, Homily 1 on the Power of Demons, 6