Complete Works of Saint Cyprian

we refresh our eyes with the pleasing prospect, and the gaze simultaneously instructs and feeds the soul. Although for you, the only grace and the only care now is the discourse; having despised the allurements of a sensuous vision, you have fixed your eyes upon me, and you are entirely a listener both in voice and mind, with that love with which you cherish me.

2 But how great or what is that which comes into your heart from me? The narrow mediocrity of my meager talent produces very thin fruits; it does not weigh heavy with the summits of a fertile field. Yet I shall proceed with the ability I possess, for the subject matter of the discourse aids me. In trials, in the assembly before the rostra, let opulent eloquence be tossed about with voluble ambition; when the voice is about the Lord and about God, the pure sincerity of the voice relies not on the strengths of eloquence for the arguments of faith, but on the facts themselves. Therefore, receive not flowery words, but strong ones; not adorned with a cultivated style for the allurement of popular audience, but simple with unrefined truth for the preaching of divine indulgence. Receive what is felt before it is learned, and is not gathered through the delays of time with long recognition, but is drained in a compendium of ripening grace.

Critical apparatus notes: Details variant readings for uidemus (we see), amoenamus (we make pleasant), auditor es (you are a listener), and editorial interventions regarding the phrasing of qua ore, qua mente (with what mouth, with what mind) by Gronovius and others.