[Cronos]

I'm not "rejecting" anything beside the contention in Schaff-Herzog that the 'reading' referred to by John Chrysostom is individual reading only. It could NOT have been for the reasons I outlined above.

What you say , how much be able to read one’s own copy of the Scriptures, in addition to being instructed, would overall be to their advantage. makes sense in a written world like ours where there are books, internet etc. available. But for a world before the invention of paper from wood (i.e. cheap books), it was not possible to teach people to read well enough to read the Bible -- and remember that a person can orally be very intelligent, but to read complex words and meanings and punctuation etc. can be difficult and if there is no other reading material, then this is not a viable option and was NOT a viable option especially in John Chrysostom's time.

The Patriarch would never exhort people who had no chance of learning to read to "go pick up a Bible and read it" -- instead he refers to HEARING, listening, READING aloud -- namely, if you are fortunate enough to know how to read, then help your fellow man, help your family learn scripture. Make them recite it and memorise it. That is what Chrysostom is saying.

[daniel1212]

We must disagree. I still see such as

“get you at least the New Testament, the Apostolic Epistles, the Acts, the Gospels, for your constant teachers...” for “the reading of the Scriptures and that not to be done lightly, nor in any sort of way, but with much earnestness,”

to be is an exhortation to personal study.

In any case, the real issue is that it is a good thing, if one has a Berean type heart, as is the necessity of the teaching magisterium, which values Berean type souls who thus examine them by the Scriptures if they have them.