Introduction

In fourth-century Constantinople, the Arians introduced a new custom; they gathered by night and sang anti-Trinitarian hymns in a church. The bishop John Chrysostom decided to beat them at their own game. He took from the Arians the habit of singing hymns which, up to that point, was unknown in the Catholic community. He wrote new lyrics in accordance with the Christian orthodoxy and, in this way, used this heretical form to promote orthodox content. The story was told by the Polish Jesuit Jakub Wujek (who probably had found it in the Golden Legend) in the preface to the third part of his Postilla catholica (Catholic Postil). He used this example to build an analogy: according to Wujek, the reform movement was merely a repetition of the early Christian heresies, while the sixteenth-century defenders of Catholicism were the spiritual heirs of the Church Fathers; Jakub Wujek was a successor to John Chrysostom himself, and the postil genre, so popular among Protestants, corresponded to the Arian hymns.

This story is only one of many examples of how patristic writings served as an essential point of reference in the sixteenth century. During the Reformation period, the Church Fathers were at the centre of attention, both from Catholics and Protestants. Patristics belonged to the cultural code, common for all educated people. In the era of fierce confessional disputes, they were a polemical tool.