2. We therefore, being anxious to imitate
his reverence for God, and not without justification in dispensing
grace, deliver to you as to children those things which the Spirit of
Wisdom has imparted to him, and which have been made clear to us
through him, and learnt by sight and by example. For we can no
longer now escape from the duty of teaching which the needs of the
priesthood have laid upon us, though we tried to avoid it: Paulinus, in his
Life of St. Ambrose, relates various expedients that he tried,
to enable him to avoid the office to which he had been called; e.g. how
he caused torture to be applied to prisoners, contrary to his usual
practice, in the hope that this might lead to his rejection. More
than once, also, he endeavoured to escape the honour by
flight. “For God gave some, apostles; and
some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and
teachers.” Eph. iv. 11.