Abstract
Saint Chromatius was Bishop of Aquileia from about 388 to about 407. In 1969 and 1971 a number of sermons and homilies of his were published that until then had been attributed to other people, thus opening up the possibilities of studying his writings. Nevertheless, since then there has been very little commentary on his writings from a point of view of morality.
We seek to observe the difference between what Saint Chromatius asks of the ordinary Christian and what he asks of the select few, namely the ascetics, who have made the big leap of leaving everything to follow Christ. This can be done by comparing Sermon 41 to Tract 17 on the Gospel of Matthew. Both of them are on the theme of the Beatitudes and both are complete but Sermon 41 is special in that Saint Chromatius is specifically addressing a group of ascetics.
We begin by considering Saint Chromatius' general vision of the Beatitudes; next we address Sermon 41 in particular and then we make a comparison between each Beatitude according to Sermon 41 and Tract 17.