INTRODUCTION

In the previous part we explored how Chrysostom and Libanius conceived of the relationship between religious identity and religious allegiance and other forms of social identity and social allegiance. We saw that Chrysostom sought to present Christian identity as all encompassing and as equivalent to political, civic and ethnic identity, whereby he could suggest that there was no alternative to being Christian and no sphere of life in which one's Christian identity should not be dominant. We saw that he presented the authority of the Church as superior to that of the state, ideally at least, and that he presented Christianity as a politeia that could replace both the politeia of the Roman state and that of the Jewish people. We also saw that he sought to align Christian identity with civic identity and citizenship of Antioch by suggesting that the city be totally Christianized or else rejected as demonic. Finally, we saw that Chrysostom also presented religious identity and ethnic identity as aligned. He presented Christianity as a form of ethnicity that should replace Greekness and presented Greekness in religious terms so that it was clear to his audiences that they could not be both Greek and Christian: they had to choose between the two. By closely associating religious identity with political, civic and ethnic identities he was allowing no room for neutral secular spheres of life in which people's Christian identity could matter less.