Clement of Alexandria

With reason, therefore, the noble apostle, depreciating these superfluous arts occupied about words, says, "If any man do not give heed to wholesome words, but is puffed up by a kind of teaching, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh contention, envy, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, destitute of the truth." You see how he is moved against them, calling their art of logic-on which, those to whom this garrulous mischievous art is dear, whether Greeks or barbarians, plume themselves-a disease. Very beautifully, therefore, the tragic poet Euripides says in the Phoenissae,- "But a wrongful speech is diseased in itself, and needs skilful medicines." For the saving Word is called "wholesome," He being the truth; and what is wholesome (healthful) remains ever deathless. But separation from what is healthful and divine is impiety, and a deadly malady.