Father Baur is undoubtedly the greatest living authority of St. John Chrysostom, and this definitive biography was hailed as a masterpiece when it first appeared in German. With profound and exhaustive scholarship, Father Baur gives a complete history of the Church in Antioch in the second half of the fourth century, thereby giving a full, stimulating and highly readable background to Chrysostom's life. The social and political background of his times, so inseparably linked with Byzantine Christianity, are also comprehensively described.