John Chrysostom´s attack on spiritual marriage. This book provides an original and rewarding context for understanding the prolific fourth-century Christian theologian John Chrysostom and the religious and social world in which he lived. Blake Leyerle analyzes two highly rhetorical treatises by tis early church father attacking the phenomenon of "spiritual marriage". It was an ascetic practice with a long history in which a man and a woman lived together in an intimate relationship without sex.