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61. Such a teacher as is here described may, to secure compliance,
speak not only quietly and temperately, but even vehemently, without
any breach of modesty, because his life protects him against contempt.
For while he pursues an upright life, he takes care to maintain a good
reputation as well, providing things honest in the sight of God and
men, fearing God, and caring for men. In his very speech even he
prefers to please by matter rather than by words; thinks that a thing
is well said in proportion as it is true in fact, and that a teacher
should govern his words, not let the words govern him. This is what
the apostle says: "Not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of
Christ should be made of none effect." To the same effect also is
what he says to Timothy: "Charging them before the Lord that they
strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the
hearers." Now this does not mean that, when adversaries oppose the
truth, we are to say nothing in defence of the truth. For where,
then, would be what he says when he is describing the sort of man a
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 well, 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 speak both eloquently and wisely should speak wisely without
eloquence, rather than eloquently without wisdom.
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