Excerpt from The Homilies of S. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Vol. 1 IT were indeed meet for us not at all to require the aid of the written Word, but to exhibit a life SO pure, that the Grace Of the Spirit should be instead Of books to our souls, and that as these are inscribed with ink, even so should our hearts be with the Spirit. But, since we have utterly put away from us this Grace, come, let us at any rate embrace the second best course. For that the former was better, God hath made manifest, both by His words, and by His doings. Since unto Noah, and unto Abraham, and unto his Offspring, and unto Job, and unto Moses too, He discoursed not by writings, but Himself by Himself, finding their mind pure. But after the whole people Of the Hebrews had fallen into the very pit Of wickedness, then and thereafter was a written word, and tables, and the admonition which is given by these. And this one may perceive was the case, not of the Saints in the Old Testament only, but also Of those in the New. For neither to the Apostles did God give any thing in writing, but instead of written words He promised that He would give them the grace Of the Spirit: for He 1, saith our Lord, shall bring all things to your remembrance. And that thou mayest learn that this was far better, hear what He saith by the Prophet: I will make a new covenant with you. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.