Improving the rhetorical skills of St. John Chrysostom (based on texts of various years)

Abstract

In the article, the author raises the problem of studying the rhetorical techniques used by St. John Chrysostom in his works, from the position of improving rhetorical skills. The author analyzes which rhetorical figures were popular during the life of the saint, which enjoyed special attention among the representatives of the «second sophistry», which were known to the speaker, and which were especially loved by St. John Chrysostom. The empirical base of the study included texts from different periods of the saint's work. The article examines technical tools of the saint, with the help of statistical methods, the frequency of using certain figures of speech in the works of John Chrysostom is studied, oratorical techniques are systematized and the number of appeals to certain rhetorical techniques is analyzed in dynamics. The analysis made it possible to draw conclusions about which figures of speech John Chrysostom most often used in his early speeches, which during his stay in Antioch, and which when he was in Constantinople. On the basis of this empirical research, the author draws conclusions about changes in the works of the saint and tries to explain the reasons for such changes.