Chapter 2.—It is Lawful for a
Christian Teacher to Use the Art of Rhetoric.
3. Now, the art of rhetoric being
available for the enforcing either of truth or falsehood, who will
dare to say that truth in the person of its defenders is to take
its stand unarmed against falsehood? For example, that those who
are trying to persuade men of what is false are to know how to
introduce their subject, so as to put the hearer into a friendly,
or attentive, or teachable frame of mind, while the defenders of
the truth shall be ignorant of that art? That the former are to
tell their falsehoods briefly, clearly, and plausibly, while the
latter shall tell the truth in such a way that it is tedious to
listen to, hard to understand, and, in fine, not easy to believe
it? That the former are to oppose the truth and defend falshood
with sophistical arguments, while the latter shall be unable either
to defend what it true, or to refute what is false? That the
former, while imbuing the minds of their hearers with erroneous
opinions, are by their power of speech to awe, to melt, to enliven,
and to rouse them, while the latter shall in defence of the truth
be sluggish, and frigid, and somnolent? Who is such a fool as to
think this wisdom? Since, then, the faculty of eloquence is
available for both sides, and is of very great service in the
enforcing either of wrong or right, why do not good men study to
engage it on the side of truth, when bad men use it to obtain the
triumph of wicked and worthless causes, and to further injustice
and error?