" St. Chrysostom and St. Cyril likewise observe
upon this that "he deserved to be ridiculed in this manner."
You may learn from this, fathers, that should it so happen, in our
day that persons who enact the part of "masters" among Christians,
as Nicodemus and the Pharisees did among the Jews, show themselves
so ignorant of the first principles of religion as to maintain, for
example, that "a man may be saved who never loved God all his life,"
we only follow the example of Jesus Christ when we laugh at such a
combination of ignorance and conceit.
I am sure, fathers, these sacred examples are sufficient to
convince you that to deride the errors and extravagances of man is not
inconsistent with the practice of the saints; otherwise we must
blame that of the greatest doctors of the Church, who have been guilty
of it- such as St. Jerome, in his letters and writings against
Jovinian, Vigilantius, and the Pelagians; Tertullian, in his Apology
against the follies of idolaters; St. Augustine against the monks of
Africa, whom he styles "the hairy men"; St. Irenaeus the Gnostics; St.
Bernard and the other fathers of the Church, who, having been the
imitators of the apostles, ought to be imitated by the faithful in all
time coming; for, say what we will, they are the true models for
Christians, even of the present day.
In following such examples, I conceived that I could not go far
wrong; and, as I think I have sufficiently established this
position, I shall only add, in the admirable words of Tertullian,
which give the true explanation of the whole of my proceeding in
this matter: "What I have now done is only a little sport before the
real combat.
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