44. We must not regard what the Church's teachers are in themselves, but what they have become through grace. — Heretics are wont to boast in the exaltation of their own righteousness against us, and to vaunt their own works with the inflation of ostentation, and to accuse us, as we have said, of being or having been wicked. Therefore, through most humble confession and truthful defence, the holy man speaks against them, saying: 'Iron is taken out of the earth' (Job XXVIII, 2). As if he plainly said: Strong men, who with the sharpest swords of their tongues become iron in this battle line of defending the faith, were once earth in their lowest actions. For to sinning man it was said: 'Earth thou art, and unto earth thou shalt go' (Genesis III, 19). But iron is taken out of the earth,
when the strong defender of the Church is separated from the earthly manner of life which he formerly held. Therefore whatever he was ought not to be despised in him who has already begun to be what he was not. Was not Matthew found in the earth, who, entangled in earthly business, served the uses of the toll-booth (Matthew IX, 9)? But, taken up out of the earth, he grew strong into the strength of iron, with whose tongue, as with a most sharp sword, the Lord, by the ministry of the Gospel, pierced through the hearts of unbelievers; and he who before was weak and despised through earthly business, was afterward made strong for heavenly preachings. Whence there is further subjoined: