And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
Ver. 1. Not with excellency] St Paul's speech was neque lecta, neque neglecta, neither curious nor careless. Politian could say, that it is an ornament to an epistle to be without ornaments. And yet he had so little grace as to prefer Pindar's Odes before David's Psalms. Hosius also, the cardinal, thought David's Psalms unlearned, applying that, Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim. Os durum! We write unlearned teachings and poems everywhere. Harsh speech. The Holy Scriptures have a grave eloquence, but lack those pompous and painted words that carnal rhetoricians hunt after. There is difference between a pedantic style and a majestic. Non Oratorum filii sumus, sed Piscatorum, We are not sons of orators but of Picatus, said that great divine to Libanius the rhetorician, that tickled his hearers with tinkling terms, and delighted to wit-wanton it with lascivious phrases of oratory.