In the fourth century, both John Chrysostom, a priest in Antioch, and Cyril of Jerusalem delivered a series of baptismal orations in their roles as catechetical instructors for the lenten catechumenate. This eight week baptismal program involved candidates in ascetic practices, credal instruction and daily exorcisms. John and Cyril declare that the greater cosmological warfare between Christ and Satan had divided the earth's population into two groups: the daemonically contaminated and divinely cleansed. Christian speech practices (baptismal and credal formulae) had the power to banish daemons, who inhabited the unbaptized populations. By employing such weaponry in the city streets, baptized Christians fulfilled their new roles as "soldiers of Christ." This dissertation focuses on the strategies of oral weaponry which John and Cyril advocated with a view towards marginalizing religious alterity. The key issues are the following: (1) In what ways did John and Cyril portray certain ritual speech practices as anti-daemonic in their baptismal theology? (2) What were the processes of inculcating candidates in the strategies of antidaemonic speech? (3) What was the anthropological significance of this training? (4) What was the purpose for training candidates in speech practices that purportedly banished the Devil and daemons? In socio-political terms, against whom was the candidate to employ credal and baptismal formulae for exorcistic effect?;This study falls into six chapters, balanced between John Chrysostom and Cyril of Jerusalem. Chrysostom identifies the synagogue as the locus of the daemonic in Antioch; it was a place where his congregants forged oaths. Chrysostom instructed Christians to rescue these wayward Christians by exorcising their Jewish daemons with Christian formulae. Conversely, Cyril insinuates that his Metropolitan Acacius of Caesarea and his supporters were the false prophets prophesied to appear in Jerusalem before the Second Coming. By declaring the correct credal articles---in particular, the article involving the Crucifixion, Christians could exorcise the antichrist's daemonic spirits, which controlled a Christian's credal opponents. These various speech practices had efficacy in a given socio-historical situation. Oral weaponry is prevalent in contexts of religious competition: the very context in which John and Cyril worked to marshal "soldiers of Christ".
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