# Unrecorded laughter is not unrecorded joy

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH09.P027](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH09.P027/#char=1288,1339): "and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth."

An earlier Christian reader drew a markedly different lesson from the same narrative silence. John Chrysostom's Homily 6 on Matthew, §8, notices Christ's tears over Lazarus and Jerusalem, then says the evangelists nowhere mention his laughter or even a slight smile. In §9 he qualifies the moral: he means to discourage dissipation, rather than prohibit every laugh. The inspected English witness is George Prevost's translation, revised by M. B. Riddle, in the 1888 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers volume, as reproduced by New Advent.

Chrysostom uses the silence to encourage penitential seriousness; Chesterton imagines joy so immense that it remains concealed. This is a comparison, not evidence of influence. It also requires distinguishing laughter from joy. Luke 10:21 explicitly represents Jesus rejoicing, while John 15:11 presents him communicating his joy to the disciples. Chesterton's ‘mirth’ therefore works most persuasively as a conjecture about the unshown fullness or expression of joy, not a claim that the Gospels never reveal joy in Christ. His cautious closing formula leaves that distinction open.

## Sources

- [John Chrysostom, Homily 6 on Matthew](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200106.htm), §§8–9, paragraph beginning ‘If you also weep thus’; edition information under ‘About this page’
- [The Bible, King James Version, Project Gutenberg ebook 10](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10), Luke 10:21–24; John 15:9–13

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