“And not in fine public monuments, nor yet somewhere out of sight, did He deposit His…”
And not in fine public monuments, nor yet somewhere out of sight, did He deposit His laws; not pillars of brass did He raise up, and engrave letters thereon, but twelve souls raised He up for us, the souls of the Apostles, and in their minds has He by the Spirit inscribed this writing.
John Chrysostom · Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles · NPNF1 XI, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily V (on Acts II. 14)
Chrysostom contrasts the way empires publish their laws with the way Christ published his: not cut into brass, but written by the Spirit into twelve minds. The succession this dataset traces is that claim taken literally.
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 V on Acts. 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