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KELLY, J.N.D., Golden Mouth. The Story of John Chrysostom. Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop. Duckworth, London, 1995. X,310p. Original black cloth with paictorial dust wrps. Spine gilt titled. Dust wrps slightly edge worn. ‘Wit h this new volume Kelly has given s the standard biography of John Chrysostom (349-407) for the next generation. (…) Kelly’s life of Chrysostom should now be the starting place for those seeking to understand this major patristic figure who rather paradoxically combined, as Kelly’s subtitle suggests, the monastic, the oratorical, and the church-political vocations in his varied and fascinating career. Kelly’s new life of Chrysostom combines first-rate, detailed historical scholarship with a gift for lively narration. (…) Kelly’s readable and accessible account of Chrysostom’s life is based upon his impressive mastery of Chrysostom’s huge corpus of writings, and of a myriad of other historical and literary sources. The signal contributions of this new biography are due to two factors in particular: the intelligent incorporation of significant recent research and Kelly’s balanced perspective on his subject. Kelly ahs drawn upon the considerable advances in Chrysostom scholarship since Baur to great advantage here: reconstructions of the social history of Antioch and Constantinople in the fourth century, an improved understanding of Syrian monasticism, new critical editions of many of Chrysostom’s homilies, treatises, and letters, recently proposed interpretations of the ‘Life of John’ attributed to Maryrios of Antioch (…), and a fuller appreciation of the rhetorical conventions at work in John’s homilies and epistles. (…) Though Kelly happily avoids the hagiographic tones of Baur’s biography (…), his more crisply dramatic depiction of Chrysostom shows him unquestionably to be a remarkable figure, not only on the large scale of ancient church politics, but also in the eyes of the ordinary people to whom he preached, who cherished his memory and championed his eventual historical vindication. (MARGARETH M. MITCHELL in Church History, 1997, pp.85-87). € 65.00 (Antiquarian) ISBN: 9780715626436