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30. And so much labor has been spent by men on the beauty of
expression here spoken of, that not only is it not our duty to do, but
it is our duty to shun and abhor, many and heinous deeds of wickedness
and baseness which wicked and base men have with great eloquence
recommended, not with a view to gaining assent, but merely for the
sake of being read with pleasure. But may God avert from His Church
what the prophet Jeremiah says of the synagogue of the Jews: "A
wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land: the prophets
prophesy falsely, and the priests applaud them with their hands; and
my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end
thereof?" O eloquence, which is the more terrible from its purity,
and the more crushing from its solidity! Assuredly it is "a hammer
that breaketh the rock in pieces." For to this God Himself has by
the same prophet compared His own word spoken through His holy
prophets. God forbid, then, God forbid that with us the priest
should applaud the false prophet, and that God's people should love
to have and so. God forbid, I say, that with us there should be
such terrible madness! For what shall we do in the end thereof? And
assuredly it is preferable, even though what is said should be less
intelligible, less pleasing, and less persuasive, that truth be
spoken, and that what is just, not what is iniquitous, be listened to
with pleasure. But this, of course, cannot be, unless what is true
and just be expressed with elegance.
31. In a serious assembly, moreover, such as is spoken of when it
is said, "I will praise Thee among much people," no pleasure is
derived from that species of eloquence which indeed says nothing that is
false, but which buries small and unimportant truths under a frothy
mass of ornamental words, such as would not be graceful or dignified
even if used to adorn great and fundamental truths. And something of
this sort occurs in a letter of the blessed Cyprian, which, I
think, came there by accident, or else was inserted designedly with
this view, that posterity might see how the wholesome discipline of
Christian teaching had cured him of that redundancy of language, and
confined him to a more dignified and modest form of eloquence, such as
we find in his subsequent letters, a style which is admired without
effort, is sought after with eagerness, but is not attained without
great difficulty. He says, then, in one place," Let us seek this
abode: the neighboring solitudes afford a retreat where, whilst the
spreading shoots of the vine trees, pendulous and intertwined, creep
amongst the supporting reeds, the leafy covering has made a portico of
vine." There is wonderful fluency and exuberance of language here;
but it is too florid to be pleasing to serious minds. But people who
are fond of this style are apt to think that men who do not use it, but
employ a more chastened style, do so because they cannot attain the
former, not because their judgment teaches them to avoid it.
Wherefore this holy man shows both that he can speak in that style,
for he has done so once, and that he does not choose, for he never
uses it again.
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