You see how he is moved against them, calling their art of logic—on which, those to whom this garrulous mischievous art is dear, whether Greeks or barbarians, plume themselves—a disease (νόσος). Very beautifully, therefore, the tragic poet Euripides says in the Phœnissæ,
"But a wrongful speech
Is diseased in itself, and needs skilful medicines."[1]
For the saving Word is called "wholesome," He being the truth; and what is wholesome (healthful) remains ever deathless. But separation from what is healthful and divine is impiety, and a deadly malady. These are rapacious wolves hid in sheep-skins, men-stealers, and glozing soul-seducers, stealing secretly, but proved to be robbers; striving by fraud and force to catch us who are unsophisticated and have less power of speech.
"Often a man, impeded through want of words, carries less weight
In expressing what is right, than the man of eloquence.
But now in fluent mouths the weightiest truths
They disguise, so that they do not seem what they ought to seem,"
says the tragedy. Such are these wranglers, whether they follow the sects, or practise miserable dialectic arts. These are they that "stretch the warp and weave nothing," says the Scripture;[2] prosecuting a bootless task, which the apostle has called "cunning craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive."[3] "For there are," he says, "many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers."[4] Wherefore it was not said to all, "Ye are the salt of the earth."[5] For there are some even of the hearers of the word who are like the fishes of the sea, which, reared from their birth in brine, yet need salt to dress them for food. Accordingly I wholly approve of the tragedy, when it says:
"son, false words can be well spoken,
And truth may be vanquished by beauty of words.
But this is not what is most correct, but nature and what is right;
He who practises eloquence is indeed wise,
But I consider deeds always better than words."
