Reading Scriptures in Unbelief is More Godless than Martyring the Martyrs

Why do I speak about the books and the synagogues? In time of persecution, the public executioners lay hold of the bodies of the martyrs, they scourge them, and tear them to pieces. Does it make the executioners' hands holy because they lay hold of the bodies of holy men? Heaven forbid! The hands which grasped and held the bodies of the holy ones stay unholy. Why? Because those executioners did a wicked thing when they laid their hands upon the holy. And will those who handle and outrage the writings of the holy ones be any more venerable for this than those who executed the martyrs? Would that not be the ultimate foolishness? If the maltreated bodies of the martyrs do not sanctify those who maltreated them but even add to their blood-guilt, much less could Scriptures, if read without belief, ever help those who read without believing. The very act of deliberately choosing to maltreat the Scriptures convicts them of greater godlessness. Fathers of the Church, St. John Chrysostom, Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, translated by Paul W. Harkins, Discourse I, section V, paragraph 5 (pp. 19-20)