“Since then we know this, let us practise humble-mindedness. For there is nothing so…”
Since then we know this, let us practise humble-mindedness. For there is nothing so powerful as it, since it is stronger even than a rock and harder than adamant, and places us in a safety greater than that of towers and cities and walls, being too high for any of the artillery of the devil.
John Chrysostom · Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans · NPNF1 XI, Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans, Homily XX (on Rom. XII. 1)
Having compared a reckless man to a bubble and a fire of dry sticks, Chrysostom ends by making humility the fortification: the one position the devil's artillery cannot reach.
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 XX on Romans. Unlike the Acts homilies in the same volume, the Romans homilies were written out carefully and carry no reporter's caveat — the Oxford preface calls them among the closest and most argumentative he left.
Read in Morris & Simcox, NPNF series 1 vol. 11 (1889) · J. B. Morris and W. H. Simcox, revised by George B. Stevens
Also by
- John Chrysostom every saying recorded of this person, and their page