Qx:Still recovering from the . . . shocking . . . sentence above.
I guess that would explain:
Matthew 5:18
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Qx:Still recovering from the . . . shocking . . . sentence above
Please don't be shocked, Q. God never wrote a single jot or tittle. Not for Noah, not for Job, not for Abraham, not for Jacob, nor for Moses, not for the Apostles...not for the pure in heart.
He prefers to reveal to those He finds acceptable in words and not in writing. The Old and New Covenants started and grew from oral teachings, which God revealed to the saints as unwritten tradition, some of which was later, much later, reduced to writing for you and me.
Just so everyone understands what +John Chrysostomos was writing about, here are the next three paragraphs of his Homily I on Matthew:
"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 anything in writing, but instead of written words He promised that He would give them the grace of the Spirit: for "He," saith our Lord, "shall bring all things to your remembrance."3 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, putting my laws into their mind, and in their heart I will write them," and, "they shall be all taught of God."4 And Paul too, pointing out the same superiority, said, that they had received a law "not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart."5
But since in process of time they made shipwreck, some with regard to doctrines, others as to life and manners, there was again need that they should be put in remembrance by the written word.
2. Reflect then how great an evil it is for us, who ought to live so purely as not even to need written words, but to yield up our hearts, as books, to the Spirit; now that we have lost that honor, and are come to have need of these, to fail again in duly employing even this second remedy. For if it be a blame to stand in need of written words, and not to have brought down on ourselves the grace of the Spirit; consider how heavy the charge of not choosing to profit even after this assistance, but rather treating what is written with neglect, as if it were cast forth without purpose, and at random, and so bringing down upon ourselves our punishment with increase.6 But that no such effect may ensue, let us give strict heed unto the things that are written; and let us learn how the Old Law was given on the one hand, how on the other the New Covenant."
The great homilist's point is that our souls should be as the pages of a book upon which the Holy Spirit will write The Truth. We are called to be like God, to be in the "likeness of God". In such a state, the eye of the soul can clearly, instead of "as through a glass darkly", perceive the uncreated Light of God (as the apostles did at the Theophany) and "know" God. When I say "know", I do not mean that one can quote chapter and verse of scripture, though that is a possible manifestation of the knowledge I am speaking of, or put another way, it is a possible rung on the ladder to knowledge of the Divine. Certainly, knowing the Commandments of God and living them are a sine qua non of true noetic knowledge.
The knowledge we should all hope to attain, as opposed to human or natural knowledge is explained thusly:
"Knowledge that is occupied with visible things and receives instruction concerning them through the senses, is called natural. But knowledge that is occupied with the noetic power that is within things and with incorporeal natures is called spiritual, since perception in this case is received by the spirit and not by the senses. In both of these kinds of knowledge matter comes to the soul from without to give her comprehension. But that knowledge which is occupied with Divinity is called supranatural, or rather, un-knowing and knowledge-transcending."