It were impiety to be wanting in respect for the
verities which the Spirit of God has revealed; but it were no less
impiety of another sort to be wanting in contempt for the falsities
which the spirit of man opposes to them.
For, fathers (since you will force me into this argument), I
beseech you to consider that, just in proportion as Christian truths
are worthy of love and respect, the contrary errors must deserve
hatred and contempt; there being two things in the truths of our
religion: a divine beauty that renders them lovely, and a sacred
majesty that renders them venerable; and two things also about errors:
an impiety, that makes them horrible, and an impertinence that renders
them ridiculous. For these reasons, while the saints have ever
cherished towards the truth the twofold sentiment of love and fear-
the whole of their wisdom being comprised between fear, which is its
beginning, and love, which is its end- they have, at the same time,
entertained towards error the twofold feeling of hatred and
contempt, and their zeal has been at once employed to repel, by
force of reasoning, the malice of the wicked, and to chastise, by
the aid of ridicule, their extravagance and folly.
Do not then expect, fathers, to make people believe that it is
unworthy of a Christian to treat error with derision. Nothing is
easier than to convince all who were not aware of it before that
this practice is perfectly just- that it is common with the fathers of
the Church, and that it is sanctioned by Scripture, by the example
of the best of saints, and even by that of God himself.
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