Abstract
During the fourth century, Christianity succeeded to change the morality of a fairly large number of individuals, but it still failed to transform the public morals of society. Evangelical morality was far from being experienced by the society of the late antiquity period. Hence the wish of preachers of those times to turn it into a reality, to change habits and to urge the people to practice Christian virtues. For this, preachers used forms, motifs and traditional techniques specific to pagan culture. These also include the metaphor.
As with many Greek and Latin ecclesiastical writers of the fourth century, and without diminishing the contents of the Gospel message, John Chrysostom often used in his sermons the metaphor of the ship in order to highlight the truths of Christian faith, to make them more accessible to the understanding of his hearers and to determine his listeners to change their immoral way of living. Therefore, this study aims to analyze ideas, facts, the Christian moral virtues, and also vices expressed in Chrysostom’s writings by the metaphor of the ship. These are: fasting, drunkenness, greed, virginity and celibacy as a „paradigm of salvation”, a stronger sense of solidarity inside the family, lust, and asceticism.