While preparing for next week’s conference, I was planning which speakers and topics I want to attend. Daniel Botkin is a name I’ve heard a number of times, but am not really familiar with, so I thought I’d do a little research. Turns out, besides being a gifted teacher and long-time Messianic Jew, he is also an artist. In cruising some of his work, I found this little gem that harkens back so some of our posts about Mr. “Golden Mouth.”
Botkin brilliantly captures the absurdities that came from the mouth of this ‘hero’ among the ‘church fathers.’ Following is the desription of this painting in Botkin’s own words explaining the text on the scrolls as well as the Hebrew around the perimeter:
John Chrysostom (349-407) was considered the greatest Christian preacher of his time. Chrysostom, a name given to him 150 years after his death, means “Golden Mouth.” From the same mouth he spoke wonderful things about God and terrible things about Jews. Greek text on left panel: “The Love Chapter,” 1 Corinthians 13. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal….” Greek text on right panel: Excerpts from Chrysostom’s sermon Against the Jews. “Such animals, when they are unfit for work, become fit for the slaughter. It was this fate, then, that the Jews suffered: In making themselves useless for work, they became fit for the slaughter… Do you have to join in greeting them, and exchange a scant word? Shouldn’t you turn away from them because they are the common corruption and disease of the whole world? …Do you see that demons dwell in their souls? …the Jews themselves are demons … Consequently we must hate both them and the synagogue all the more…” Hebrew text on frame: James 3:10-12. “Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be. Doth a fountain send forth from the same place sweet water and bitter water? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a vine bear figs? So can no fountain yield both salt water and fresh water.”
This painting, or copies thereof, is still available.
11:3 Restoration 