The Epistle of Palladius

This is a letter of the monk Palladius, bishop of Lausus, to a prefect.

For polished words and sentences, or words strung together in admirable order, are not doctrine, for these things are for the most part found with evil-doers and sinners; but this is doctrine, which is the correction of the natural habits and disposition, and the leading of a life of spiritual excellence according to rule, by which I mean the possession of the faculty which shall make a man superior to affliction and to emotion, and to timidity, and to wrath; and which shall make him to possess freedom of speech before every man... And may God grant thee the gift of pursuing at all times the knowledge of Christ.