There is one that shows wisdom in words, and is hated: he shall be destitute of all food.
Read Chapter 37
Rabanus Maurus
AD 856
With this statement, malicious discourse is reproved and the malice of heretics condemned. In fact, the arts of debate and calculation are not referred to the senses of the body but to the rational faculty of the soul. Through these arts the truth is piously sought by those who fear God, who find it with profit, but the art of debate is useful for deepening and resolving every sort of question found in the holy Scriptures. One must merely avoid the desire to argue and the puerile ostentation of deceiving one"s adversary. There are many arguments called sophisms, that is, deductions based on false reasoning, that so closely imitate true reasoning that they deceive not only the obtuse but also those who, gifted with intelligence, do not give them the necessary attention. Someone, for example, says to another, "You are not what I am." And he responds that he agrees (which is in part true). But since the one was treacherous and the other a simpleton, the first added, "I am a man." And when the second said that he agreed, the first added, "Then you are not a man." I think that the Scripture condemns this kind of captious conclusion when it says, "One who has recourse to sophisms in discourse is hated," but also discourse that, though not being deceptive, is contorted by making use of more twists and turns of words than is appropriate to seriousness. This way of speaking by sophisms is characteristic of heretics, who do everything so as to seduce others with captiousness and malice. They are detestable to God and to all virtuous people. - "On Ecclesiasticus 8.12"
