“just as, if one's body were made of adamant, no iron, nor anything else, would have…”
just as, if one's body were made of adamant, no iron, nor anything else, would have power to hurt it, even so when the soul is firmly compact by almsgiving, nothing at all shall be able to overcome it.
John Chrysostom · Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles · NPNF1 XI, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily XXV (on Acts XI. 19)
Chrysostom answers each way a treasure can be lost — poverty, burglars, moths, envy, false accusation — and says almsgiving is the one form of wealth none of them reaches.
How this is known
These words were matched, word for word, against this project’s own copy of the volume cited.
Verbatim in the volume this project holds, checked against its bytes at Homily XXV. As with every saying from the Acts homilies, the text is a reporter's record the preacher never revised.
Read in Walker, Sheppard & Browne, NPNF series 1 vol. 11 (1889) · J. Walker, J. Sheppard and H. Browne, revised by George B. Stevens
Also by
- John Chrysostom every saying recorded of this person, and their page