Christian Doctrine

³³ Now if any one says that we need not direct men how or what they should teach, since the Holy Spirit makes them teachers, he may as well say that we need not pray, since our Lord says, “Your Father knows what things you have need of before ye ask Him;” or that the Apostle Paul should not have given directions to Timothy and Titus as to how or what they should teach others. And these three apostolic epistles ought to be constantly before the eyes of every one who has obtained the position of a teacher in the Church.

In the First Epistle to Timothy do we not read: “These things command and teach?” What these things are, has been told previously. Do we not read there: “Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father?” Is it not said in the Second Epistle: “Hold fast the form of sound words, which you have heard of me?” And is he not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth? And in the same place: “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine.” And so in the Epistle to Titus, does he not say that a bishop ought to “hold fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers?” There, too, he says: “But speak the things which become sound doctrine: that the aged men be sober,” and so on. And there, too: “These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority.

Let no man despise you. Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers,” and so on. What then are we to think? Does the apostle in any way contradict himself, when, though he says that men are made teachers by the operation of the Holy Spirit, he yet himself gives them directions how and what they should teach? Or are we to understand, that though the duty of men to teach even the teachers does not cease when the Holy Spirit is given, yet that neither is he who plants anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase? Wherefore though holy men be our helpers, or even holy angels assist us, no one learns aright the things that pertain to life with God, until God makes him ready to learn from Himself, that God who is thus addressed in the psalm: “Teach me to do Your will; for You are my God.” And so the same apostle says to Timothy himself, speaking, of course, as teacher to disciple: “But continue in the things which you have learned, and hast been assured of, knowing of whom you have learned them.” For as the medicines which men apply to the bodies of their fellow-men are of no avail except God gives them virtue (who can heal without their aid, though they cannot without His), and yet they are applied; and if it be done from a sense of duty, it is esteemed a work of mercy or benevolence; so the aids of teaching, applied through the instrumentality of man, are of advantage to the soul only when God works to make them of advantage, who could give the gospel to man even without the help or agency of men.