Orthodoxbridge: The Cause of All Evils According to John Chrysostom

Sunday, 21 November 2021

The Cause of All Evils According to John Chrysostom

In the Confession of Dositheus The Orthodox Church absolutely forbids the laity to read the Scriptures in the vernacular. Does this reflect the "phronema" of the Church? Not at all. For Chrysostom the cause of all evils is not knowing the Scriptures. And how is one to know them? By listening to sermons? No. By reading the Scriptures.

Tarry not, I entreat, for another to teach you; you have the oracles of God. No man teaches you as they; for he indeed oft grudges much for vainglory's sake and envy. Hearken, I entreat you, all you that are careful for this life, and procure books that will be medicines for the soul. If you will not any other, yet get you at least the New Testament, the Apostolic Epistles, the Acts, the Gospels, for your constant teachers. If grief befall you, dive into them as into a chest of medicines; take thence comfort of your trouble, be it loss, or death, or bereavement of relations; or rather dive not into them merely, but take them wholly to you; keep them in your mind.
This is the cause of all evils, the not knowing the Scriptures. We go into battle without arms, and how ought we to come off safe? Well contented should we be if we can be safe with them, let alone without them.
Homilies on Colossians, 9, Chrysostom

Here Chrysostom calls the Scriptures the oracles of God and says, "No man teaches you as they." Then he instructs his listeners to procure and read them. "Dive into them as into a chest of medicines; take thence comfort of your trouble" he says. He does not direct his listeners to the liturgy or to a confessor or to a priest but to the scriptures.

One wonders what Chrysostom would have to say to those who recite his liturgy and, instead of directing their hearers to the scriptures, read a single portion and parade the Gospels encased in a large golden book.