Chrysostom against unbelief: with words, not violence

      In the second year of the Der Lutheraner, before the Missouri Synod was born, there appeared a short blurb that caught my attention by its title.  It was a translation from a sermon by Chrysostom. a noted early church father. The quote struck me for its Christian character. From DL vol. 2, April 18, 1846, p. 68 [EN]: 

The Fight against Unbelief.

“We are led into the battlefield against the unbelievers, not to strike down those who are standing there, but to raise up those who are lying down. For this is the nature of the war we wage. He does not kill the living, but raises the dead and makes them alive, because He is full of gentleness and goodness. I do not persecute with violence but with words, not the heretic but the heresy. I do not abhor man, but I hate error; I seek to destroy it. I do not wage war with the creature, for the creature is a work of God, but I seek to amend the soul that the devil has corrupted. Thus a physician who heals a sick person does not attack the body, but the infirmity of the same, with the intention of healing it. So when I make war with the unbelievers, I do not make war with the persons, but I only want to expel the error and save them from the corruption. It is customary for me to suffer persecution, but not to persecute, to be oppressed, but not to oppress. Thus Christ overcame.” — Chrysostom in his Homily against the Anomœans of the year 404 A.D. — G.  [J. J. Gönner?]

May this blog serve the aims as set forth by Chrysostom.