Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 4.djvu/381

] 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. Very beautifully, therefore, the tragic poet Euripides says in the Phœnissæ,

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.

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; prosecuting a bootless task, which the apostle has called "cunning craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive." "For there are," he says, "many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers." Wherefore it was not said to all, "Ye are the salt of the earth." 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: