Traduction Masquer
An Address to Demetrianus

1.

I had frequently, Demetrianus, treated with contempt your railing and noisy clamour with sacrilegious mouth and impious words against the one and true God, thinking it more modest and better, silently to scorn the ignorance of a mistaken man, than by speaking to provoke the fury of a senseless one. Neither did I do this without the authority of the divine teaching, ¹ since it is written, "Speak not in the ears of a fool, lest when he hear thee he should despise the wisdom of thy words;" ² and again, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him." ³ And we are, moreover, bidden to keep what is holy within our own knowledge, and not expose it to be trodden down by swine and dogs, since the Lord speaks, saying, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." ⁴ For when you used often to come to me with the desire of contradicting rather than with the wish to learn, and preferred impudently to insist on your own views, which you shouted with noisy words, to patiently listening to mine, it seemed to me foolish to contend with you; since it would be an easier and slighter thing to restrain the angry waves of a turbulent sea with shouts, than to check your madness by arguments. Assuredly it would be both a vain and ineffectual labour to offer light to a blind man, discourse to a deaf one, or wisdom to a brute; since neither can a brute apprehend, nor can a blind man admit the light, nor can a deaf man hear.

Edition Masquer
Ad Demetrianum [CSEL]

§ 1

Oblatrantem te et aduersus Deum qui unus et uerus est ore sacrilego et uerbis impiis obstrepentem frequenter, Demetriane, contempseram uerecundius et melius existimans errantis inperitiam silentio spernere quam loquendo dementis insaniam prouocare. nec hoc sine magisterii diuini auctoritate faciebam, cum scriptum sit: in aures inprudentis noli quicquam dicere, ne quando audierit inrideat sensatos sermones tuos, etiterum¹: noli respondere inprudenti ad inprudentiam eius ne similis fias illi, etsanctumquoque² iubeamur intra conscientiam nostram tenere nec inculcandum porcis et canibus exponere loquente Domino et dicente: ne dederitis sanctum canibus neque miseritis margaritas uestras ante porcos, ne inculcent eas pedibus suis. nam cum ad me saepe studio magis contradicendi quam uoto discendi uenires et clamosis uocibus personans malles tua inpudenter ingerere quam nostra patienter audire, ineptum uidebatur congredi tecum, quando facilius esset et leuius turbulenti maris ³⁴[P. 352] concitos fluctus clamoribus retundere quam tuam rabiem tractatibus coercere. certe et labor inritus et nullus effectus offerre lumen caeco, sermonem surdo, sapientiam bruto, cum nec sentire brutus possit nec caecus luipen⁵ admittere nec surdus audire.