TO ACT WELL OF GREATER CONSEQUENCE THAN TO SPEAK WELL.
Wherefore the Saviour, taking the bread, first spake and blessed. Then
breaking the bread, He presented it, that we might eat it, according to
reason, and that knowing the Scriptures we might walk obediently. And
as those whose speech is evil are no better than those whose practice
is evil (for calumny is the servant of the sword, and evil-speaking
inflicts pain; and from these proceed disasters in life, such being the
effects of evil speech); so also those who are given to good speech
are near neighbours to those who accomplish good deeds. Accordingly
discourse refreshes the soul and entices it to nobleness; and happy is
he who has the use of both his hands. Neither, therefore, is he who
can act well to be vilified by him who is able to speak well; nor is
he who is able to speak well to be disparaged by him who is capable of
acting well. But let each do that for which he is naturally fitted.
What the one exhibits as actually done, the other speaks, preparing,
as it were, the way for well-doing, and leading the hearers to the
practice of good. For there is a saving word, as there is a saving
work. Righteousness, accordingly, is not constituted without discourse.
And as the receiving of good is abolished if we abolish the doing of
good; so obedience and faith are abolished when neither the command,
nor one to expound the command, is taken along with us. But now we are
benefited mutually and reciprocally by words and deeds; but we must
repudiate entirely the art of wrangling and sophistry, since these
sentences of the sophists not only bewitch and beguile the many, but
sometimes by violence win a Cadmian victory.[885] For true above all
is that psalm, “The just shall live to the end, for he shall not see
corruption, when he beholds the wise dying.”[886] And whom does he call
wise? Hear from the Wisdom of Jesus: “Wisdom is not the knowledge of
evil.”[887] Such he calls what the arts of speaking and of discussing
have invented. “Thou shalt therefore seek wisdom among the wicked, and
shalt not find it.”[888] And if you inquire again of what sort this is,
you are told, “The mouth of the righteous man will distil wisdom.”[889]
And similarly with truth, the art of sophistry is called wisdom.
But it is my purpose, as I reckon, and not without reason, to live
according to the Word, and to understand what is revealed; but never
affecting eloquence, to be content merely with indicating my meaning.
And by what term that which I wish to present is shown, I care not. For
I well know that to be saved, and to aid those who desire to be saved,
is the best thing, and not to compose paltry sentences like gewgaws.
“And if,” says the Pythagorean in the _Politicus_ of Plato, “you
guard against solicitude about terms, you will be richer in wisdom
against old age.”[890] And in the _Theætetus_ you will find again,
“And carelessness about names, and expressions, and the want of nice
scrutiny, is not vulgar and illiberal for the most part, but rather the
reverse of this, and is sometimes necessary.”[891] This the Scripture
has expressed with the greatest possible brevity, when it said, “Be
not occupied much about words.” For expression is like the dress on
the body. The matter is the flesh and sinews. We must not therefore
care more for the dress than the safety of the body. For not only a
simple mode of life, but also a style of speech devoid of superfluity
and nicety, must be cultivated by him who has adopted the true life, if
we are to abandon luxury as treacherous and profligate, as the ancient
Lacedæmonians abjured ointment and purple, deeming and calling them
rightly treacherous garments and treacherous unguents; since neither
is that mode of preparing food right where there is more of seasoning
than of nutriment; nor is that style of speech elegant which can please
rather than benefit the hearers. Pythagoras exhorts us to consider the
Muses more pleasant than the Sirens, teaching us to cultivate wisdom
apart from pleasure, and exposing the other mode of attracting the
soul as deceptive. For sailing past the Sirens one man has sufficient
strength, and for answering the Sphinx another one, or, if you please,
not even one.[892] We ought never, then, out of desire for vainglory,
to make broad the phylacteries. It suffices the gnostic[893] if only
one hearer is found for him. You may hear therefore Pindar the Bœotian,
who writes, “Divulge not before all the ancient speech. The way of
silence is sometimes the surest. And the mightiest word is a spur to
the fight.” Accordingly, the blessed apostle very appropriately and
urgently exhorts us “not to strive about words to no profit, but to the
subverting of the hearers, but to shun profane and vain babblings, for
they increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat as doth a
canker.”[894]