Banquet with Boethius: Right Pursuits and Right Education

This was originally delivered as a banquet speech at the annual Wyoming District Tell the Good News about Jesus Convocation on February 10, 2023. Watch at this link: youtu.be/eXTFBp5QgqA

The world in which we live is utterly ridiculous. Consider the things for which it strives and on which it sets its hope: riches, honor, power, fame, pleasure.¹ Now to be clear, none of these things is inherently evil. They are good things, and they find their ultimate good in Christ, of whom the angels sing, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12). If these things are ultimately good in Christ, then the temporal things that we call riches, honor, power, fame, pleasure are but shadows of a greater reality, and the man who chases after the earthly versions of them finds himself merely chasing shadows.

Pursuit of Riches

It is the year of our Lord 523. Boethius sits in prison in Pavia, Italy. He had been a favorite of Emperor Theodoric I, had been very rich, had been able to enjoy the finest things in life, had received the honor of having both his sons appointed as consuls in the previous year, and had himself held the office of Magister Officiorum, one of the highest offices in the Roman government. But then his political enemies falsely accused him of being involved in a plot against the emperor. Theodoric had Boethius exiled, and there Boethius sits in prison.

Boethius was more than a rich statesman. He was a philosopher. And during the months he spent in prison before his execution he wrote one of the greatest works of literature the world has seen: The Consolation of Philosophy. In this book he pictures Lady Philosophy coming to him and conversing with him, teaching him to look at his change of fortune rightly. Not long before, Boethius was wealthy. Now he has nothing, and he has become despondent. Lady Philosophy talks some sense into him, and I’ll summarize their conversation. She asks him, “When you were wealthy, were you ever anxious about anything?” “Certainly I was,” Boethius says. “ I can’t think of a time when my mind was completely free of worry.” “And what was your worry about?” Lady Philosophy asks. “Was it not that you either didn’t have something that you wanted or did have something that you didn’t want?” “Yes, that’s it exactly.” “And we would say that if a man desires something, then he lacks it?” “Certainly, for who desires what he already has?” “And would we not also say that whoever lacks something is not self-sufficient?” “Yes, that’s true.” And then Lady Philosophy concludes, “Then riches cannot make a man lacking nothing nor sufficient of himself, and this is what they seemed to promise.”² She then goes on to show that since money can be taken away by lawsuits or thieves, the person with money actually needs more than the person without it, for the man who has money needs something to keep his money safe. “Now then,” she says, “the matter is fallen out quite contrary; for riches, which are thought to suffice of themselves, rather make men stand in need of other helps.”³ Thus the pursuit of money leaves one chasing a shadow, longing for true riches, but only finding more needs the longer the chase goes on. The world pursues money. The world is ridiculous.

But the pursuit of money is not only frustrating, in that it doesn’t lead where people hope. It is also dangerous. To follow this thread further, we travel 1,500 miles from Pavia, Italy to a town in the province of Cappadocia. There sits John Chrysostom, the Archbishop of Constantinople and one of the greatest preachers the Church has known. He likewise is in exile, and, like Boethius would do 120 years later, he is writing a theological and philosophical treatise. His is called A Treatise to Prove That No One Can Injure the Man Who Does Not Injure Himself, and is similar to Boethius’ later work. Chrysostom likewise considers that losing wealth has ultimately lost him nothing. He writes:

For wherefore, O man, do riches seem to thee worthy of such diligent pursuit? Is it on account of the pleasure which no doubt is derived from the table? or on account of the honor and the escort of those who pay court to thee, because of thy wealth? is it because thou art able to defend thyself against those who annoy thee, and to be an object of fear to all? For you cannot name any other reasons, save pleasure and flattery, and fear, and the power of taking revenge; for wealth does not generally tend to make anyone wiser, or more self-controlled, or more gentle, or more intelligent, or kind, or benevolent, or superior to anger, or gluttony or pleasure: it does not train anyone to be moderate, or teach him how to be humble, nor introduce and implant any other piece of virtue in the soul.⁴

Chrysostom desires virtue. He desires what is pleasing to God, and shuns what hinders devotion. Therefore he sees wealth as a hindrance to the Christian, something that must be managed like a wild animal. St. Ambrose, another one of the Church Fathers, spoke this way, “Many who buy lions do not master the lions, but are mastered; so that if they see them restlessly ‘shaking the collars from their neck’ they run and hide. Therefore money makes no difference, for money generally buys masters for itself.”⁵

We see that the world is ridiculous. Not only do people chase money under the delusion that money will give them self-sufficiency, only to find that money only makes them need more, but then they throw themselves into danger by pursuing money, ensnaring themselves. As the Apostle Paul writes, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim. 6:10).

Pursuit of Honor and Power

These dreadful things are not only the result of pursuing riches. Dissatisfaction, danger, and despair await with the world’s other pursuits. Consider honor and power. And let’s return to Boethius to do so, because the world needs more people who hang out with dead Christian philosophers and personified abstract concepts. Boethius had held high office and exercised a great amount of power in the Roman Empire. He has lost those things too. “But what sufficiency or certainty is there in earthly honor?” Lady Philosophy asks. “Take a man who has been a Roman consul many times and put him among the barbarians. What do they care about the office of consul? If the worldly honor of holding a high office were an ultimate good, certainly that good would be of benefit and recognized everywhere on earth. But it’s not.”⁶

And do kings, who wield power on earth, have true happiness from the possession of power? Just think of King Belshazzar in Daniel 5, who thought he was secure in his kingdom and was enjoying a great party and was conquered by the Persians that very night. Think of King Ahab who boldly went into battle and was killed by a randomly fired arrow (1 Kgs. 22). Lady Philosophy continues, “But both former and present times are full of examples that many kings have changed their happiness with misery. O excellent power, which is not sufficient to uphold itself!… Kings would willingly have lived securely, but could not, and yet they brag of their power. Do you think him mighty whom you see desire that which he cannot do? Do you think him mighty who dares not go without his bodyguard, who fears others more than they fear him?”⁷ And when Lady Philosophy puts it that way, the world’s power suddenly starts to sound like impotence.

But the world’s impotence goes even further. What would we say of the man who is the mayor of a city, the governor of a state, the president of a country, who was a slave to his own passions? If he were a glutton, a drunkard, a fornicator, if he easily lost his temper or spoke without thinking or looked lustfully at women and simply couldn’t control himself, would we say that man has power? Brace yourselves. You’ve changed time zones and centuries several times already this evening, and you’re about to do it again. But this is part of the fun of a classical education. It’s the 9^th century AD, and Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxons, has something to say about power. He ruled a great kingdom, he translated The Consolation of Philosophy into Anglo-Saxon, and he was a poet. Here’s a poem that he wrote about true power:

He that wishes power to win,
First must toil to rule his mind,
That himself the slave to sin
Selfish lust may never bind:…
Though from this, far Thule’s isle,
Even to the Indian East,
One should rule the world awhile
With all might and power increas’d,
How shall he seem great or strong,
If himself he cannot save,
Word and deed against all wrong,
But to sin is still a slave?⁸

The people of the world are eager to control others, but cannot even control themselves. They are slaves to their own passions and cannot resist their own impulses, and then they set out to exercise governance in all the wrong places. This is the sort of foolish power that the world pursues. The world is ridiculous.

Pursuit of Fame and Pleasure

And what about fame? The world wants to be known and adored and affirmed by all. I can recall a certain feast at which men were clambering for the highest seats so that they could puff themselves up with the esteem of other people. Scripture has a word for this esteem: κενοδοξία (kenodoxía)in Greek, a combination of two words, together meaning “empty opinion” or “vain glory.” And that’s truly all it is: a bunch of hot air. Jesus told them all a parable about humility and true exaltation, yet they loved their vainglory (Lk. 14).

But why did they love it so much? What is man’s opinion really worth? Boethius formerly had the esteem of men, was known by many and respected. Yet Lady Philosophy tells him, “Many have often been much spoken of through the false opinions of the common people. What can be imagined more vile than that?… Though this glory be gotten by deserts, yet what does it add to a wise man’s conscience who measures his own good not by popular rumors, but by his own certain self-knowledge?”⁹ There was once a philosopher in Athens in the 4^th century BC, and I apologize for not even giving you time to put on a seat belt before we traveled 800 years and 900 miles from Boethius, but we should keep moving. Diogenes was a bit of an odd duck, to say the least. One day a group of people was making fun of him. Someone said, “Diogenes, these folk are ridiculing you,” and he said, “But I am not ridiculed.”¹⁰ In other words, “What do I care what they say? Should I think their opinion is worth something?” Or if we stay in the same city of Athens and go back just a hundred years—you don’t even have to put your wine glass down for this jump—a statesman named Pericles is being loudly harassed by one of his detractors as he’s trying to conduct business in the marketplace. Pericles ignores him and conducts his business. Pericles starts on his way home, and the man follows him through the streets, loudly insulting him, calling him names, and trying to ruin his reputation. Pericles ignores him and continues on his way. Pericles arrives home, by this time it’s dark, and the man is still there, standing on his doorstep, and yelling at him. Pericles calmly tells one of his slaves, “Take a torch, go along, and see this man safely home.” And then Pericles goes inside as if nothing happened.¹¹ The world doesn’t make pagans like it used to. Both Diogenes and Pericles understood what Lady Philosophy told Boethius: “I think popular favor not worth speaking of, which neither proceeds from judgment, nor ever endures.”¹²

And yet the world courts popular favor, whether it’s celebrities in the media vying for headlines, or the everyman on Facebook yearning for likes and shares. The Greeks had a wise saying: γνῶθι σεαυτόν, “know thyself.” This self-knowledge is of infinitely more value than the opinion of the masses. Yet people avoid this self-knowledge. They tend to hate what they see in the mirror and would rather see a distorted reflection through the vainglory that others can offer. But where does this lead? We see it all around us: the quest for vainglory leads to insecurity. The very thing that promised to lift man up to the heavens leaves him wallowing in self-doubt like a pig in the mud. The pursuit of vainglory is vanity and a chasing after the wind. Yet the world chases it anyway. The world is ridiculous.

And here I’ll briefly touch on the world’s pursuit of pleasure, because it has a similar conclusion to the world’s pursuit of fame, namely despair. Lady Philosophy doesn’t spend much time on the topic because of the obvious harm that comes from living for one’s passions, but she does touch on the topic: “Now what should I say about bodily pleasures, the desire of which is full of anxiety, and the enjoying of which breeds repentance?… I know not what sweetness their beginnings have, but whosoever will remember his lusts shall understand that the end of pleasure is sadness.”¹³ And she’s really just following the reasoning of St. Paul in Romans 6, “What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death” (Rom. 6:21). Perhaps in this area most of all we see the world overexerting itself only to harm itself. The world is ridiculous.

The World’s Education

Riches, honor, power, fame, pleasure. These are the world’s pursuits. And the education that the world offers is rather obviously going to serve these pursuits. Ask your average person, “Why go to school?” “So I can get a job.” “Why get a job?” “So I can make money.” “Why make money?” “So I can have what I want.” “And what do you want? That’s the question. Is it an ultimate good that no one can steal or destroy? Is it a sufficient good that does not leave you lacking anything or longing for more? Or is it something transient that will leave you dissatisfied, bitter, and despairing? Are you merely chasing shadows?”

The world doesn’t really stop to ask these questions. It’s been taught not to. Dead Christian philosophers and personified abstract concepts are no longer welcome in the schools. The Consolation of Philosophy is one of the most widely read books in the history of the world. King Alfred, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Queen Elizabeth I all took the time to translate it into various forms of English. Dante drew heavily from it for his Divine Comedy and J.R.R. Tolkien did likewise for The Lord of the Rings. Other connections to the literature and thought of the Western world are too many to list. After the Bible, it has arguably had more influence on the shape of Western Civilization than any other book. And, just like the Bible, it has disappeared from modern education. Why?

To answer that question we’ll need to get into the history of the American education system, which I really don’t want to do, because it’s a depressing story, and because it also means traveling all the way from Pavia, Italy to the New World and making our biggest jump of the evening, 1,300 years or so. So take a sip of wine and resist the urge to put on a tinfoil hat, and I promise I’ll keep this part as brief as possible. Remember, it’s always darkest before dawn.

Modern American education as we know it traces back to people who had attained the worldly goals of riches, honor, power, fame, and pleasure (as much as they can be attained) and wanted to make education reforms, not for the good of those who would receive such education, not even so that all people could pursue riches, honor, power, fame, or pleasure, but for the purpose of a greater social good. This really meant that those who already had riches, honor, power, fame, and pleasure could have more of it. I’ll give some of the details.

At the end of the 19^th century and into the 20^th, there were several important businessmen whose industries depended on there being a large working class. Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, J. D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford all fall into this category, though they certainly weren’t alone. The Rockefeller Foundation was formed, which had as one of its main goals the steering of education in America. In 1906 Rockefeller’s General Education Board put forward a document called Occasional Letter Number One, which says:

In our dreams…people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple…we will organize children…and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way…¹⁴

Don’t you feel like a grateful and responsive folk for this education that was foisted on you? And this sentiment had support not only from a group of personally interested businessmen, but from the American government. Woodrow Wilson gave a speech to businessmen before the First World War, in which he said, “We want one class to have a liberal education [by which he meant the liberal arts]. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”¹⁵ Now the goal of making factory workers may have changed, but the goal of education in America has not. As Ellwood P. Cubberley, a very influential educator from Stanford, put it in the early 20^th century, “The nature of the national need must determine the character of the education provided.”¹⁶ As might be expected, that term “national need” does not refer to the actual needs of real human beings, but the perceived needs of a certain elite, usually needs that serve their own purposes of acquiring more riches, honor, power, fame, or pleasure.

Well, I said I would keep this part short, and I intend to, if for no other reason than keeping my supper down. But start digging into the web of John Dewey, Columbia Teachers College, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Education Association, the Humanist Manifestos, and the movers and shakers of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and you can forget about conspiracy theories, because you’ll see the evidence of a real, actual, successful conspiracy.

Christian Pursuits

The world’s education is not for our Christian children. We don’t pursue the same things the world does, nor do we want to be pawns in its pursuits. We seek Christ. We desire our Savior. And why? Because we realize what we really need. Γνῶθι σεαυτόν, “know thyself.” My problem is not that I don’t have enough dollars in my bank account. My problem is not that I’m not in charge of enough. My problem is that I am a sinner who has transgressed the Law of God, a Law that He gave me for my own good, out of His love for me, and in exchange for such great love I made myself a rebel and brought on myself wrath. My problem is that I was destined for hell, that I could not look on God, my God, in the land of the living. I needed more than a check or a compliment or some good physical feeling, which would only make me more worthy of the punishment that I already had coming. I needed redemption. I needed a Savior. I needed the blood of God to atone for my sins. I needed righteousness before the Judge of the living and the dead. And then Jesus redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.

Zacchaeus loved his wealth and cheated people and stockpiled as much money as he could, and yet he was lacking something and he knew it. Jesus came to him and received him graciously, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” And suddenly Zacchaeus had what he had lacked. “Look, Lord,” he says, “I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” Riches didn’t matter to him anymore. He had Jesus.

A blind man belonged to the synagogue and, even if he was a blind beggar, he nevertheless had the social honor of belonging to the right group. Then Jesus came and healed his sight. He saw his God face to face, the Savior come at last to suffer and die and rise. The blind man sided with that Savior, and it meant siding against those from whom he would have had honor. But what did it matter if they threw him out of their blasphemous club and dishonored him? The Jews ridiculed him when he spoke of Christ, “You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?” But he was not ridiculed. What was the world’s vainglory to him? He had the glory of Christ. They cast him out, but He had a Lord who would never cast him out. He had Jesus.

A centurion had power and could command this soldier, “Go,” and he would go and another, “Come,” and he would come, and another, “Do this,” and he would do it. And he was willing to consider his power nothing. He was willing to consider his power but a shadow of the true power that Jesus has, and by his knowledge of the shadow the centurion fled from the shadow to the reality. He said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.” What did he need to gloat in his own power for? He had Jesus.

John the Baptist had become famous in the land of Judea. Yet he did not care about this fame. He pointed people to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He said of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” He didn’t need fame. He had Jesus. Stephen chose pain over pleasure and prayed, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin,” because he knew he had something better than earthly pleasure. He knew that in one brief moment of steadfastness and pain he would enter into the eternal pleasure of His Savior. Earthly pleasure didn’t matter to him. He had Jesus. In him are all riches and honor and power and fame and pleasure. And those are not the shadows, but the reality.

The world is to be pitied as it chases its shadows. Even men like Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller, and Ford are to be pitied. They and their ilk are not to be feared, but pitied. They thought they had life figured out and knew what it was all about. And yet they lacked, and they desired, and they still sought in vain. Their riches, honor, power, fame, and pleasure left them empty in the end. Contrast this with Boethius. By the end of The Consolation of Philosophy he is ready to die. He recognizes that earthly shadows are nothing and that God alone can satisfy all the longings of man. Boethius was a devout Christian, as we see from his other writings, and though he died lacking everything in the world, he did not die lacking the one true God, and therefore he had everything. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want” (Ps. 23:1). I have the Lord; therefore, I lack no good thing.

It’s easy for us to forget this, because the world around us is so loud, and as a compensation for its insecurity, it acts with an overconfidence that sometimes shakes us. But Christ has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9), and the world is just acting and doesn’t really know what it’s talking about. Therefore we say with the Apostle Paul, “Indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith” (Phil. 3:8-9).

Christian Education

What we pursue, what we desire, namely Christ, is going to determine how we educate. It is not enough to adopt a model of education that the world devised to serve its pursuits and then add a religion class. Christian education must teach, in all its subjects, proper theological and philosophical thinking. We want our children to think like Boethius did and St. Paul before him and be content to lose all the things of this world and count them as rubbish, because the ultimate reality of any good that we can conceive of on earth exists only in Christ. John Chrysostom in one of his sermons on Ephesians calls us away from thinking of the things of earth when we consider the education of our children and calls us to think of the true wisdom given in the Scriptures:

How long are we going to be mere flesh? How long are we going to hunch over the earth? Let all things stand in the second place for us when compared with taking forethought for our children and bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. If he learns to be a lover of wisdom from the first, he has acquired riches greater than all riches, and a mightier glory. You will accomplish nothing so great by teaching him a craft, and the outward training through which he will acquire possessions, than if you teach him a craft through which he will despise possessions. If you want to make him rich, do it like that. For the rich man is not he who binds himself with many possessions and surrounds himself with many things, but he who has need of nothing.

Discipline your son in this, teach him this—this is the greatest wealth. Do not seek how you will make him renowned in outward lessons, and make him glorious, but consider how you will teach him to despise the glory that is in this life. Thence he would become more radiant and more glorious. These things are possible both for the poor man and the rich man to do. One does not learn these things from a teacher, nor through craft, but through the divine sayings. Do not seek how he will live a long life here, but how he will live a boundless and endless life there. Give him the great things, not the little things.¹⁷

Give him the great things, not the little things. “The world abideth not; / Lo, like a flash ’twill vanish; / With all its gorgeous pomp / Pale death it cannot banish; / Its riches pass away, / And all its joys must flee; / But Jesus doth abide— / What is the world to me?” (TLH 430).

All of this highlights the importance of having Christian schools and homeschools. This is why we’re starting Luther Classical College, which will teach young men and women to know the Scriptures, and good Lutheran hymns, and the Catechism, and the Greek and Roman classics, and great medieval and modern literature. If it’s not presumptuous to say, it will teach children to speak and to think the way you’ve heard me speak tonight. Rockefeller didn’t want to make philosophers, and the schooling system he helped form doesn’t make philosophers. But we do want to make philosophers, and for obvious reasons. We want our children to remain faithful to Christ and the Scriptures and not be led astray by the world’s empty pursuits and ideals.

Such education does not have as its goal cloistering ourselves off from the world. Rather we recognize that by bringing our children up with such an education, we are providing the world with exactly what it needs. I’ve been saying the world is ridiculous. The word ridiculous means laughable. You don’t fear what you laugh at. We don’t fear the world. We pity it. And so we raise up our children in the nurture and education of the Lord, and we make them spend time with dead Christian philosophers and personified abstract concepts and most of all the Scriptures, both because we love them and want them to know Christ and because we pity the world and want it to know Christ. John Chrysostom in that same sermon on Ephesians speaks of the great blessing a child is who has been brought up in true Christian philosophy and education and then enters into the world, and I’ll close with his words:

Think, then, how great your son is, going in there like the best physician: entering with the instruments that are able to reduce the inflammation of each, and approaching each one and conversing, and making the sick body healthy, applying the medicines from the Scriptures and pouring out the words of philosophy.¹⁸

¹ cf. Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Bk. III.2
² Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Bk. III.3; translated by H. F. Stewart in Loeb Classical Library No. 74, pg. 237, translation altered. Opes igitur nihilo indigentem sufficientemque sibi facere nequeunt et hoc erat quod promittere videbantur.
³ Ibid., pg. 239
⁴ Chrysostom, A Treatise to Prove That No One Can Injure the Man Who Does Not Injure Himself, §7; NPNF1-09, pg. 276, translation altered
⁵ Ambrose, Letter 7, §13; quoted in From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought, ed. Oliver O’Donovan and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan, pg. 81.
⁶ cf. Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Bk. III.4
⁷ The Consolation of Philosophy, Bk. III.5; pg. 243, 245, translation altered
⁸ King Alfred’s Poems: Now First Turned into English Metres by Martin F. Tupper (London: 1850), pgs. 63-64
⁹ The Consolation of Philosophy, Bk. III.6; pg. 247, 249, translation altered
¹⁰ Plutarch, Life of Fabius Maximus, X; translated by Bernadotte Perrin in Loeb Classical Library No. 65, pg. 149. Διογένης ὁ σοφός, εἰπόντος τινὸς πρὸς αὐτόν˙ “Οὗτοι σοῦ καταγελῶσιν,” “Ἀλλ᾽ ἐγώ,” εἶπεν, “οὐ καταγελῶμαι.”
¹¹ Plutarch, Life of Pericles, V
¹² The Consolation of Philosophy, Bk. III.6; pg. 249, translation altered
¹³ The Consolation of Philosophy, Bk. III.7; pg. 251, translation altered
¹⁴ Occasional Letter Number One (1906); quoted in The Underground History of American Education, Vol. 1 by John Taylor Gatto (2017), pg. 109
¹⁵ Quoted in The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto, pg. 99
¹⁶ Ibid., pg. 107
¹⁷ Chrysostom, Ephesians, Homily XXI; translated by the author from Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 62, col. 151. Τὰ μεγάλα αὐτῷ χαρίζου μὴ τὰ μικρά.
¹⁸ Ibid., col. 152. …φάρμακα ἐπιτιθέντα τὰ ἀπὸ τῶν Γραφῶν, καὶ τοὺς περὶ φιλοσοφίας ἐκχέοντα λόγους. Chrysostom uses the word “philosophy” here in the sense of “Christian worldview.”