{"id":22180,"date":"2024-01-07T20:07:47","date_gmt":"2024-01-08T04:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/?p=22180"},"modified":"2024-01-07T20:07:47","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T04:07:47","slug":"jerome-on-the-art-of-rhetoric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/jerome-on-the-art-of-rhetoric\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerome On the Art of Rhetoric"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rhetoric in Classical Writers<\/h4>\n

Read, I beg of you, Demosthenes or Cicero, or (if you do not care for pleaders whose aim is to speak plausibly rather than truly) read Plato, Theophrastus, Xenophon, Aristotle, and the rest of those who draw their respective rills of wisdom from the Socratic fountain-head. Do they show any openness? Are they devoid of artifice? Is not every word they say filled with meaning? And does not this meaning always make for victory? <\/p>\n

Rhetoric in Christian Writers<\/h4>\n

Origen, Methodius, Eusebius, and Apollinaris write at great length against Celsus and Porphyry. Consider how subtle are the arguments, how insidious the engines with which they overthrow what the spirit of the devil has wrought. Sometimes, it is true, they are compelled to say not what they think but what is needful; and for this reason they employ against their opponents the assertions of the Gentiles themselves. I say nothing of the Latin authors, of Tertullian, Cyprian, Minutius, Victorinus, Lactantius, Hilary, lest I should appear not so much to be defending myself as to be assailing others. <\/p>\n

Rhetoric in Paul’s writings<\/h4>\n

I will only mention the Apostle Paul, whose words seem to me, as often as I hear them, to be not words, but peals of thunder. Read his epistles, and especially those addressed to the Romans, to the Galatians, and to the Ephesians, in all of which he stands in the thick of the battle, and you will see how skilful and how careful he is in the proofs which he draws from the Old Testament, and how warily he cloaks the object which he has in view. His words seem simplicity itself: the expressions of a guileless and unsophisticated person\u2014one who has no skill either to plan a dilemma or to avoid it. Still, whichever way you look, they are thunderbolts. His pleading halts, yet he carries every point which he takes up. He turns his back upon his foe only to overcome him; he simulates flight, but only that he may slay. <\/p>\n

He, then, if any one, ought to be calumniated; we should speak thus to him: \u201cThe proofs which you have used against the Jews or against other heretics bear a different meaning in their own contexts to that which they bear in your epistles. We see passages taken captive by your pen and pressed into service to win you a victory which in the volumes from which they are taken have no controversial bearing at all.\u201d May he not reply to us in the words of the Saviour: \u201cI have one mode of speech for those that are without and another for those that are within; the crowds hear my parables, but their interpretation is for my disciples alone\u201d? The Lord puts questions to the Pharisees, but does not elucidate them. To teach a disciple is one thing; to vanquish an opponent, another. \u201cMy mystery is for me,\u201d says the prophet; \u201cmy mystery is for me and for them that are mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

References<\/h4>\n