“Just as the night-time prayer of Paul and Silas opened the gates of the prison, so the…”
Just as the night-time prayer of Paul and Silas opened the gates of the prison, so the night-time prayer of Christians opens the gates of heaven.
attributed to John Chrysostom
A close paraphrase of the way Chrysostom really ends the homily, and not his sentence. He does draw exactly this contrast between the prison and heaven — which is why the paraphrase has travelled so well — but he draws it in the words recorded beside this one.
How this is known
No volume this project holds carries these words.
This project holds the volume the saying is attributed to, NPNF series 1 vol. 11, and these words are not in it; the build checks that too, in both directions. What Chrysostom preaches at the close of Homily XXXVI on Acts is 'we shall open for ourselves—not a prison, but—heaven', recorded here as chrysostom-prayer-opens-heaven. The substance is his and the wording is not.
Also by
- John Chrysostom every saying recorded of this person, and their page