Teaching Christianity (continued)
whom that result has not been produced by his admitting the truth of what has been demonstrated, even when this has been done in the most agreeable style.
14, 30. There are so many base and evil things that, so far from being practiced, should on the contrary be shunned and detested; and yet there are people who have spent so much effort upon this matter of an agreeable style that they have presented such things with the most persuasive eloquence to base and evil men, not for them to give them their consent, but simply and solely for the delectable pleasure of reading about them over and over again.[35] But may God spare his Church from experiencing what the prophet Jeremiah states about the synagogue of the Jews, when he says, Amazement and horrid things have come upon the land; prophets were prophesying iniquity, and priests clapped their hands in applause, and my people loved it thus. And what will you do in the future? (Jer 5:30–31). Oh what eloquence, all the more terrifying for being so simple, and all the more forcefully effective for being so down to earth! Oh indeed an axe splitting the rocks (Jer 23:29)! For that is what God himself, through this very prophet, said that his word is like, which he has pronounced through his holy prophets.
And so, far be it, far be it from us that priests should applaud those who utter iniquity, and that the people of God should love it thus. Far from us, I repeat, be such madness; for what shall we do in the future? And certainly, let the things that are said among us be less understood, less pleasing, less moving; but at least let things that are true and just be said, not iniquity be listened to gladly—which assuredly would not happen, if it were not put forward agreeably.
31. But a grave and serious-minded people, of whom it is said to the Lord, In a grave people I will praise you (Ps 35:18), will not even find delight in that kind of agreeable style, which is not indeed uttering iniquity, but is decking out slight and fragile goods with a frothy crest of words, of a kind that not even great and enduring matters should be decently and seriously embellished with. There is something of this sort in a letter of the most blessed Cyprian; and the reason I think it occurred, or was deliberately produced, was so that posterity might know precisely what great tongue had been recalled from this superfluous excess by the soundness of Christian teaching, and confined to a graver and more moderate eloquence, such as can be safely admired in his later letters, and religiously emulated, though achieved only with the greatest difficulty. So he says in one passage:
Let us occupy this seat; the neighboring arbors provide us with privacy; here, while the wandering loops of tendrils wind their way in drooping twists and knots round the canes that carry them, the leafy roof has made a porch of the vine.[36]
This is all said, to be sure, with a marvelously copious and fertile fluency, but it offends against proper gravity with its over-lavish profusion. Those who like this sort of thing, though, will automatically assume that authors who do not say things in this way, but speak in a more restrained manner, are unable to speak in this way, not that they show good judgment by avoiding the style. That is why this holy man both showed that he could speak like this, because he did so on one occasion, and also that he did not choose to, because he never did so again on any other.
Pray before preaching
15, 32. And so this eloquent speaker of ours is at pains, when he has just and good and holy things to say—he ought not, after all, to be saying anything else; so he is at pains to ensure as far as he can, when he says these things, that his listeners understand them, enjoy them, obey them. And he should not be in the slightest doubt that if he can ensure this, and to the extent that he can, it is more the piety of prayer than the ready facility of orators that enables him to do so; by praying then both for himself and for those he is about to address, let him be a pray-er before being a speaker.[37] At the very moment he steps up to speak, before he even opens his mouth and says a word, let him lift up his thirsty soul to God, begging that it may belch forth what it has quaffed, or pour out what it he has filled it with.
About any of the matters, after all, that have to be dealt with in terms of faith and love, there are many things that can be said, and many ways they can be said in by those who are well versed in such work; but who knows what is the right thing for us to say, or for someone to hear from us, at precisely this time, but the one who can see into the hearts of us all? And who can ensure that we say what is needed and in the way it is needed, but the one in whose hands are both we and our words (Wis 7:16)? This being so, by all means let the man, who wishes both to know and to teach, learn all the things that are to be taught, and acquire proficiency in speaking, as befits a man of the Church. But at the actual moment he is due to speak, let him reflect that what really suits the good mind much better is what the Lord said: Do not give thought to how or to what you are to speak; for it will be given to you in that hour what you are to speak; for it is not you who are speaking, but the Spirit of your Father who is speaking in you (Mt 10:19–20). So if the Holy Spirit is speaking in those who are handed over to the persecutors on Christ's account, why not also in those who are handing Christ over to the learners?
16, 33. But anyone who says that people do not need to be given rules about what or how they should teach, if the Holy Spirit is making them teachers, can also say that we do not need to pray either, because the Lord said, Your Father knows what you need before you ask it of him (Mt 6:8); or that the apostle Paul should not have instructed Timothy and Titus on how they were to instruct others—three letters of the apostle, by the way, which anyone charged with the role of teacher in the Church ought always to have before his eyes.
Do we not read in the First Letter to Timothy. Proclaim these things and teach them (1 Tm 4:11)? What they are, he had just said earlier on. Does this not occur there: Do not rebuke an elder, but entreat him like a father (1 Tm 5:1)? Is he not told in the second letter, Hold on to the form of sound words which you have heard from me (2 Tm 1:13)? Is he not also told there, Keep busy, presenting yourself to God as a reliable worker, with nothing to be ashamed of, handling the word of truth straightforwardly (2 Tm 2:15)? There too is this to be found: Preach the word, keep at it, in season, out of season; reprove, exhort, rebuke, with all long-suffering and teaching (2 Tm 4:2). And again, does he not say to Titus that a bishop ought to be persevering in teaching the faithful word, so that he may be well able in sound teaching also to confute those who gainsay it (Ti 1:9)? He also says there, You, though, speak as befits sound doctrine; that the old men are to be sober, and what follows (Ti 2:1–2). And again in that letter: Speak out about these things, and exhort and rebuke with all command. Let no one ignore you. Admonish them to be subject to rulers and authorities, etc. (Ti 2:15— 3:1). So what are we to think? Not, surely, that the apostle is taking up a position against himself, when after saying that teachers are made by the working of the Holy Spirit, he goes on himself to instruct them about what and how to teach? Or is it to be understood that even with the Holy Spirit giving bountifully to teachers in the things they have to teach, their functions as men are not canceled out; and yet all the same, neither the one who plants is anything, nor the one who waters, but the one who gives growth, which is God (1 Cor 3:7)? So it is, too, that from the ministrations of holy men, or even of holy angels, nobody can correctly learn what is involved in living with God, unless he has been made docile to God by God, who is asked in the psalm, Teach me to do your will, since you are my God (Ps 143:10). So it is, too, that the same apostle says to Timothy himself, teacher speaking of course to disciple, You, though, persevere in the things which you have learned and which have been handed over to you, knowing from whom you learned them (2 Tm 3:14). Medicines for the body, after all, which are provided for people by human beings, only do good to those whose health is restored by God; and he can cure without them, while they cannot do so without him, and yet they are still provided and applied—and if this is done out of kindness it is counted among the works of mercy, or as a good deed. So in the same way the assistance of sound doctrine provided by a human teacher is only then any good to the soul when God is at work to make it any good, seeing that he was able to give the gospel to man, even without its coming from men or through man.[38]
More advice from Cicero
17, 34. The man, therefore, who is striving by speaking to persuade people to do what is good, bearing in mind each of those three things, namely that he is meant to be teaching, delighting and swaying them, should pray, and take pains to ensure, as we said above,[39] that he is listened to with understanding, with enjoyment, and with obedience. When he does this in a fitting and suitable manner, he can be not undeservedly called eloquent, even if he does not win the assent of his audience. For to these three things, that is teaching, delighting and swaying, that other trio seems to have been attached, according to the mind of the great founder of Roman eloquence himself, when he said in similar vein, "That man therefore will be eloquent, who can talk about minor matters calmly, about middling ones moderately, about great matters grandly." [40] It's as if, were he to add those other three as well, he could set it all out in one and the same judgment by saying, "That man therefore will be eloquent who, in order to teach, can talk about minor matters calmly; in order to delight, about middling matters moderately; in order to sway, about great matters grandly."
18, 35. Now he could have illustrated these three modes, as stated by him, with instances taken from the law courts, but not from ecclesiastical occasions, which this man whom we wish to instruct will be concerned with in his public speaking. There, you see, those are minor matters in which a judgment is being sought in questions about money; great matters are those in which the welfare, even the life of persons is at stake, while occasions on which no such judgment has to be given, and nothing is done to get the listener to act or to make a decision, but only to delight him, they put in between the two, so to say, and thus called them middling.[41]
But in our sphere we have to refer everything we say, above all what we say from our higher position[42] to our congregations, to the welfare of persons, to their eternal, not merely temporal, welfare what's more, which also means warning them to beware of eternal perdition. So here everything we say is a great matter, to the extent that not even what the ecclesiastical teacher has to say about money and acquiring or losing it should be regarded as a minor matter, whether it's a minor or major sum of money involved. Justice, after all, is not a minor matter, and this of course we must maintain even where trifling sums are at stake, seeing that the Lord says, Anyone who is faithful in a minimal amount is also faithful in a great amount (Lk 16:10). So a minimal amount is certainly minimal, but being faithful in a minimal amount is a great thing. The essence of roundness, that is where the lines from the center to the edge are all equal, is the same in a large dish as in a tiny coin; in the same way, where minor matters are dealt with justly, this