Suffering Captured by Christ Jesus

Humility as Divine Passion and the Passive Condition of Man Saved by Christ in the Interpretation of Phil. 3:12 by St. Basil the Great (HHum [20]) and St. John Chrysostomus (Hom. XI in Epist. ad Philipp. and Exp. in Ps. 143)

Abstract

Phil. 3:12  is a relatively rarely commented text in Eastern patristic exegesis. If sometimes its interpretation is given very little space (Theodoret of Cyrus), very often he is simply overlooked, to the detriment of the verses before or after him, which are interpreted in an eminently ascetic key. Not so much an exegesis as a moral reflection about him offers St. Basil the Great in Homily XX on humility as a theological virtue and human condition restored in Christ. Unlike him, St. John Chrysostom offers an anthropological-epistemological interpretation of the text, which finally leads to a moral reflection on the passivity of this human condition restored by the Savior.