Proverbs 21:22

"The wise man occupied fortified cities and destroyed the stronghold in which the impious trusted." Do you suppose that, when Solomon said these things, he wished to teach us this — that "the wise man captured cities and destroyed strongholds" built of stones? Or does it rather indicate that the city and the walls are the dogmas of the impious and the syllogisms of the philosophers, by which they construct all manner of impious things contrary to the divine law, which are observed among the pagans or the barbarians? But those things too must be reckoned among these, and to be "fortified cities" and set upon mountains, which the heretics place in their assertions from the Scriptures as though upon high mountains. These "cities," then, every "wise man" who preaches the word of truth "has destroyed," and he has overthrown the cities of falsehood with the battering-ram of truth, just as the Apostle Paul also said: "destroying reasonings and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God."

The wise man ascends the city of the mighty, etc. The city of the mighty, he calls the world, which once, subjected to the tyranny of evil spirits, foolishly served, having confidence in the worship of those who are not gods, but the works of human hands (Psalm 115). This city was entered by the one born in the flesh, who is the power of God, and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24). He destroyed through his preachers the worship of the gods, in whom they had trusted, ignorant of the truth, and taught that confidence should be placed in heavenly things, which could never be destroyed. But every day the wise man ascends the city of the mighty, and destroys the strength of its confidence, when any faithful teacher refutes the arguments of philosophers or heretics, or even the obstinate contradictions of carnal brothers, by which they strive to defend and alleviate their crimes, by the assertion of faith and the discipline of ecclesiastical correction, and, laying bare, annuls them.