but cannot compose anything to deliver. Now, if such men
CHAP. XXIX.] ELOQUENCE WITHOUT WISDOM VAIX. 169 bishop ought to be : " that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and convince the gainsayers"?^ To strive about words is not to be careful about the way to overcome error by truth, but to be anxious that your mode of expression should be preferred to that of another. The man who does not strive about words, whether he speak quietly, temperately, or vehemently, uses words with no other purpose than to make the truth plain, pleasing, and effective ; for not even love itself, which is the end of the commandment and the fulfilling of the law,^ can be rightly exercised unless the objects of love are true and not false. For as a man with a comely body but an ill-conditioned mind is a more painful object than if his body too were deformed, so men who teach lies are the more pitiable if they happen to be eloquent in speech. To speak eloquently, then, and wisely as w^ell, is just to express truths which it is expedient to teach in fit and proper words,—words which in the subdued style are adequate, in the temperate, elegant, and in the majestic, forcible. But the man who cannot speal^ both eloquently and wisely should speak wisely without elo-j quence, rather than eloquently without wisdom.
Chap. xxix.—It is permissiblefor a preacher to deliver to the people ivhat has been written by a more eloquent man than himself.
If, however, he cannot do even this, let his life be such as shall not only secure a reward for himself, but afford an example to others ; and let his manner of living be an eloquent sermon in itself.
63. There are, indeed, some men who have a good delivery, but cannot compose anything to deliver. Now, if such men take what has been written with wisdom and eloquence by others, and commit it to memory, and deliver it to the people, they cannot be blamed, supposing them to do it without deception. For in this way many become preachers of the truth (which is certainly desirable), and yet not many teachers for all deliver the discourse which one real teacher has composed, and there are no divisions among them, j^or are such men to be alarmed by the words of Jeremiah the prophet, through whom God denounces those who steal His words every one from his neighbour.^ For those who steal take what
Tit. i. 9. 2 1 Tim. i. 5 and r.cm. xiii. 10. ^ Jcr. xxiii. 30.
170 ON CHRISTIAN DOCTrJNE. [BOOK IV.
/ does not belong to tliem, hut the word of God belongs to all who obey it ; and it is the man who speaks well, but lives badly, who really takes the words that belong to another. For the good things he says seem to be the result of his own thought, and yet they have nothing in common with his manner of life. And so God has said that they steal His words who would appear good by speaking God's words, but are in fact bad, as they follow their own ways. And if you look closely into the matter, it is not really themselves who say the good things they say. For how can they say in words what they deny in deeds ? It is not for nothing that the apostle says of such men : " Tliey profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him."^ In one sense, then, they do say the things, and in another sense they do not say them ; for both these statements must be true, both being made by Him who is the
Truth. Speaking of such men, in one place He says, " Wliatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do ; but do not ye after their works;"—that is to say, what ye hear from their lips, that do ; what ye see in their lives, that do ye not ;—" for they say and do not." ^ And so, though they do not, yet they say. But in another place, upbraiding such men, He says,
" O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things ?"^ And from this it would appear that even what they say, when they say what is good, it is not themselves who say, for in will and in deed they deny what they say. Hence it happens that a Avicked man who is eloquent may compose a discourse in which the trutli is set forth to be delivered by a good man who is not eloquent ; and when this takes place, the former draws from himself what does not belong to him, and the latter receives from another what really f belongs to liimself. Lut when true believers render this service to true believers, both parties speak what is their own, for God is tlieirs, to whom belongs all tliat they say ; and even those who could not composi; what they say make it their own by composing their lives in liarmony witli it.
Chat. xxx.— Tlie preacher should commence his discourse trilh prayer to God.
Go. r.ut whether a man is going to address the people or to
i. IG. 2 Matt, xxiii. 3. » Matt. xii. 34.