On the Duties of the Clergy 1.1–1.12

I do not think I shall seem arrogant if, among my sons, I take up the desire to teach, since the very master of humility said: “Come, children, hear me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” In this one may see both the modesty of his humility and his grace. For in saying “the fear of the Lord,” which seems to be common to all, he expressed a mark of modesty. And yet, since this fear is itself the beginning of wisdom and the producer of blessedness (for those who fear God are blessed), he plainly showed himself to be a teacher of wisdom that must be learned and a guide to blessedness that must be gained. We too, then, eager to imitate his modesty, and not usurping to ourselves the grace he conferred, hand on to you as to our children the things of wisdom that the Spirit poured into him, things made known to us through him and learned by sight and example; for we can no longer escape the duty of teaching, which the obligation of the priesthood laid upon us when we shrank from it: “For God gave some to be apostles, some prophets, others evangelists, and others pastors and teachers.” I do not, then, claim for myself the glory of the apostles. For who could claim it, except those whom the Son of God himself chose? Not the grace of the prophets, not the power of the evangelists, not the watchfulness of the pastors; I desire only to attain the attention and diligence about the divine Scriptures which the Apostle placed last among the offices of the saints, and this very thing I desire, that by the effort of teaching I may be able to learn. For there is one true Master, who alone did not learn what he taught to all; but men first learn what they are to teach, and receive from him what they hand on to others. Not even this has happened to me. For I was snatched from the courts and the insignia of public office into the priesthood, and I began to teach you what I myself had not learned. So it came about that I began to teach before I began to learn. I must therefore learn and teach at the same time, since I had no leisure to learn beforehand.

What ought we to learn before everything else but to be silent, so that we may be able to speak, lest my own voice condemn me before another’s acquits me? For it is written: “By your words you will be condemned.” What need is there, then, to hurry into the danger of condemnation by speaking, when by keeping silent you can be safer? I have seen very many fall into sin by speaking, hardly anyone by keeping silent; and so to know how to be silent is harder than to know how to speak. I know that most people speak because they do not know how to be silent. It is rare for anyone to be silent, even when speaking does him no good. He is wise, then, who knows how to be silent. Indeed the Wisdom of God said: “The Lord has given me a tongue of learning, to know when I ought to speak a word.” Rightly, then, is he wise who receives from the Lord the knowledge of when he should speak. Hence Scripture says well: “A wise man will keep silent until the right time.” So the Lord’s saints, knowing that a man’s voice is often the herald of sin, and that a man’s speech is the beginning of human error, loved to be silent. Indeed the Lord’s saint says: “I said, I will guard my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue.” For he knew and had read that it is a sign of divine protection that a man is hidden from the scourge of his own tongue and from the witness of his own conscience. For we are scourged by the silent reproach of our thought and by the judgment of conscience; we are scourged also by the lash of our own voice, when we say things by whose sound our soul is struck and our mind wounded. But who is there that has a heart clean of the filth of sins, or does not sin with his tongue? And so, because he saw that no one could keep his mouth holy from impurity of speech, he imposed on himself by silence a law of innocence, so that by keeping silent he might avoid the fault which he could scarcely escape by speaking. Let us hear, then, the master of caution: “I said, I will guard my ways”; that is, “I said to myself”: by a silent command of thought I charged myself to guard my ways. There are some ways we ought to follow, others we ought to guard: we ought to follow the ways of the Lord and guard our own, lest they lead into guilt. And you can guard them if you do not speak hastily. The Law says: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God.” It did not say “Speak,” but “Hear.” Eve fell because she said to her husband what she had not heard from the Lord her God. The first word of God says to you: “Hear.” If you hear, you guard your ways; and if you have slipped, you quickly correct it. For “wherein does a young man correct his way, but in keeping the words of the Lord?” Be silent first, then, and listen, that you may not sin with your tongue. It is a grievous evil for anyone to be condemned by his own mouth. For if everyone will render an account for an idle word, how much more for a word of impurity and shamelessness! Words of rashness are more serious than idle ones. So if an account is demanded for an idle word, how much more will punishment be exacted for a word of impiety!

What then? Ought we to be mute? Not at all. For “there is a time to keep silent and a time to speak.” Further, if we render an account for an idle word, let us take care that we do not also render one for an idle silence. For there is also an active silence, such as Susanna’s, who accomplished more by keeping silent than if she had spoken. For by keeping silent before men she spoke to God, and she found no greater proof of her chastity than silence. Her conscience spoke where her voice was not heard; she did not seek men’s judgment on her behalf, since she had the Lord’s testimony. By him, then, she wished to be acquitted, whom she knew could in no way be deceived. The Lord himself in the Gospel worked the salvation of men while keeping silent. Rightly, then, David imposed on himself not perpetual silence but a guard. Let us, then, guard our heart; let us guard our mouth; for both are written: here, that we should guard our mouth; elsewhere it is said to you: “Keep your heart with all watchfulness.” If David kept guard, will you not? If Isaiah had unclean lips, who said: “O wretched I, for I am pricked to the heart, because I am a man and have unclean lips”; if the Lord’s prophet had unclean lips, how do we have clean ones? And to whom but to each of us is it written: “Hedge your possession with thorns … and bind your silver and your gold, and make a door and a bar for your mouth, and a yoke and a balance for your words”? Your possession is your mind; your gold is your heart; your silver is your speech: “The words of the Lord are pure words, silver tried in the fire.” A good mind, too, is a good possession. Indeed a pure man is a precious possession. Hedge, then, this possession, wall it round with thoughts, fortify it with thorns, that is, with cares, lest the irrational passions of the body rush in upon it and lead it captive, lest violent impulses attack it, lest those who pass along the way plunder its vintage. Guard your inner man. Do not neglect or despise him as worthless, for he is a precious possession. And rightly precious, since his fruit is not perishable and temporal but belongs to a stable and eternal salvation. Cultivate, then, your possession, that you may have fields. Bind your speech, lest it run riot and grow wanton and by much talking gather sins to itself. Let it be more restrained and kept within its banks. A river that overflows quickly gathers mud. Bind your sense; let it not be slack and loose, lest it be said of you: “There is no plaster to put on, nor oil, nor bandage.” The sobriety of the mind has its reins, by which it is ruled and governed. Let there be a door to your mouth, that it may be shut when it should be, and let it be barred carefully, lest anyone rouse your voice to anger and you repay insult with insult. You heard read today: “Be angry and do not sin.” So even if we are angry, since this is a movement of nature and not in our power, let us not bring an evil word out of our mouth, lest we fall into guilt; but let there be a yoke and a balance for your words, that is, humility and measure, so that your tongue may be subject to your mind. Let it be held back by the bonds of the rein, let it have its own bridle by which it can be recalled to measure; let it bring out words weighed on the scale of justice, so that there may be gravity in the thought, weight in the speech, and measure in the words.

If anyone keeps these rules, he becomes gentle, meek, and modest. For by guarding his mouth and restraining his tongue, and by not speaking before he has questioned, weighed, and examined his words—whether this should be said, whether it should be said against this man, whether this is the time for this speech—he truly practises modesty, meekness, and patience, so that he does not burst into speech from indignation and anger, gives no sign of any passion in his words, does not show the flame of lust burning in his speech or the goads of anger in what he says; so that speech, which ought to commend what is within, does not in the end lay bare and betray some vice in his character. For the adversary lies in wait most of all when he sees passions arising in us: then he stirs the tinder, then he sets snares. Hence not without reason, as you heard read today, the Prophet says: “For he himself has delivered me from the snare of the hunters and from the harsh word.” Symmachus rendered it “a word of provocation,” others “of disturbance.” Our speech is the adversary’s snare, but it is itself no less our adversary. We often say what the enemy seizes on, and he wounds us, as it were, with our own sword. How much more tolerable it is to perish by another’s sword than by our own! So the adversary examines our weapons and brandishes his own darts. If he sees me moved, he plants his stings, to stir up the seeds of quarrels. If I let slip an unseemly word, he draws his snare tight. Sometimes he puts before me the possibility of revenge as a kind of bait, so that while I long to avenge myself, I thrust myself into the snare and tighten the noose of death upon myself. So if anyone feels this adversary to be present, he ought then to set a stronger guard on his mouth, so as not to give place to the adversary; but not many see him.

But that one too must be guarded against who can be seen: whoever provokes, whoever incites, whoever exasperates, whoever suggests incentives to luxury or lust. So when anyone reviles us, harasses us, provokes us to violence, or calls us to a quarrel, then let us practise silence, then let us not blush to become mute. For he who provokes us and does us injury is a sinner, and wants us to become like him. Indeed, if you are silent, if you pretend not to notice, he usually says: “Why are you silent? Speak, if you dare. But you do not dare; you are dumb; I have left you speechless.” So if you are silent, he bursts with rage all the more: he thinks himself beaten, mocked, slighted, and made a fool of. If you answer, he thinks he has come off the better, because he has found an equal. For if you are silent, people will say: “That man reviled him; this one despised him.” If you return the insult, they will say: “Both reviled each other.” Both are condemned; neither is acquitted. So his aim is to provoke, so that I may say and do things like his; but it belongs to the just man to pretend not to notice, to say nothing, to hold fast the fruit of a good conscience, to entrust himself more to the judgment of the good than to the insolence of the slanderer, and to be content with the gravity of his own character. For this is “to keep silent even from good things,” because one who is conscious of doing well ought not to be moved by false charges, nor think there is more weight in another’s abuse than in his own testimony. So it comes about that he also keeps humility. But if he does not want to seem the lesser, he turns such things over and says within himself: “Is this man to despise me and say such things against me to my face, as if I could not open my mouth against him? Why should I not also say things that can grieve him? Is this man to wrong me as if I were not a man, as if I could not avenge myself? Is this man to accuse me, as if I could not put together worse charges against him?” He who says such things is not meek and humble, is not free from temptation. The tempter stirs him up; he himself plants such thoughts in him. Often the evil spirit employs a man and sets him up to say these things to him; but you, keep your foot fixed on the rock. Even if a slave speaks abuse, the just man is silent; even if a weak man insults him, the just man is silent; even if a poor man accuses him, the just man does not answer. These are the arms of the just man: to conquer by yielding, as those skilled in throwing the javelin often conquer by yielding and, in flight, wound their pursuer with heavier blows.

For what need is there to be moved when we hear abuse? Why do we not imitate him who says: “I was dumb and was humbled, and kept silent even from good things”? Or did David only say this and not also do it? No, he also did it. For when Shimei the son of Jemini reviled him, David was silent; and though surrounded by armed men, he did not return the abuse or seek revenge, so much so that when the son of Zeruiah told him he wanted to take vengeance on the man, he did not allow it. He went on, then, as one dumb and humbled; he went on in silence and was not moved when he was called a man of blood, for he was conscious of his own gentleness. He was not moved by abuse, then, because he had in abundance the consciousness of good works. So he who is quickly moved by an injury makes himself seem to deserve the insult, while he wants to be proved not to deserve it. Better, then, is he who despises an injury than he who grieves over it; for he who despises it looks down on it as if he did not feel it, while he who grieves is tormented as if he had felt it.

Not without forethought, in writing to you, my sons, have I used the opening of this psalm. This psalm the prophet David gave to holy Idithun to sing; I urge you to hold fast to it, for I am delighted by its deep meaning and the force of its sentences. For we notice from the parts we have briefly touched on that this psalm teaches the patience of keeping silent and the right moment for speaking, and, in what follows, contempt of riches, which are the chief foundations of the virtues. While I was considering this psalm, then, it came into my mind to write on duties. Although some devoted to philosophy have written about them, such as Panaetius and his son among the Greeks and Tully among the Latins, I did not think it foreign to our office that I too should write. And as Tully wrote to instruct his son, so I too write to form you, my sons; for I love you whom I begot in the Gospel no less than if I had had you in marriage. For nature is not stronger in loving than grace. Certainly we ought to love more those whom we think will be with us for ever than those who are born only for this world, who are often degenerate and disgrace their father. You we chose first, so that we might love you. So they are loved out of necessity, which is not a sufficiently fit or lasting teacher of loving perpetually; you are loved by judgment, by which a great weight of love is added to the force of loving: to approve those you love and to love those you have chosen.

Since, then, the persons are suited to it, let us see whether the subject itself is suited to it, namely to write on duties, and whether this word belongs only to the school of the philosophers or is also found in the divine Scriptures. Beautifully, then, while we were reading the Gospel today, the Holy Spirit, as though urging us to write, offered us a passage by which we might be assured that among us too one can speak of “duty.” For when Zechariah the priest had become dumb in the temple and could not speak, “It came to pass,” it says, “when the days of his duty were completed, that he went away to his house.” We read, then, that “duty” can be spoken of by us. Nor is reason itself against it, since we think that officium (duty) is so called from efficere (to accomplish), as if it were efficium, but with one letter changed for the sake of euphony it is called officium; or at any rate it is so called because you are to do the things that harm (officiant) no one and benefit all.

They thought that duties are derived from the virtuous and the useful, and that one must choose which of the two is preferable; then, that it may happen that two virtuous things or two useful things come into conflict, and the question is asked which is more virtuous and which more useful. First, then, duty is divided into three parts: the virtuous, the useful, and which is preferable. Then they divided these three into five kinds: two virtuous, two useful, and the judgment of choice. The first, they say, belong to the seemliness and virtue of life, the second to the advantages of life—resources, wealth, means—and over the choice among these the judgment presides. So they. But we measure nothing at all as seemly and virtuous except by the standard of things to come rather than of things present; and we define nothing as useful except what profits towards the grace of that eternal life, not what serves the enjoyment of the present. Nor do we place any advantages in means and abundance of wealth; rather we think them disadvantages if they are not cast off, and think that they should be reckoned a burden while they are kept rather than a loss when they are paid out. Our work of writing, then, is not superfluous, because we judge duty by a different rule from theirs. They count the advantages of this world among goods; we count them even among losses, since he who receives good things here, like that rich man, is tormented there, and Lazarus, who endured evils here, found consolation there. Further, those who do not read their books will read ours if they wish: those who seek not the furniture of words or the art of speaking but the simple grace of the matter itself.

We are instructed and taught that what is seemly (in Greek it is called πρέπον) holds the first place in our Scriptures, when we read: “Praise befits you, O God, in Zion,” or in Greek: Σοὶ πρέπει ὕμνος, ὁ θεός, ἐν Σιών. And the Apostle says: “Speak the things that befit sound doctrine.” And elsewhere: “For it befitted him, for whom and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the leader of their salvation perfect through suffering.” Was Panaetius earlier, was Aristotle, who also discussed duty, earlier than David? when even Pythagoras, who is recorded to be older than Socrates, followed the prophet David in giving his disciples a law of silence? But he did so to forbid his disciples the use of speech for five years; David, not to diminish a gift of nature, but to teach watchfulness in uttering speech. Pythagoras did so to teach speaking by not speaking; David, so that by speaking we might learn the better how to speak. For how is there teaching without practice, or progress without use? He who wants to master the discipline of war exercises daily with arms, and as though drawn up for battle he rehearses the fight and takes aim as though the enemy stood before him; and for skill and strength in throwing the javelin he either tests his own arms or dodges his adversaries’ blows and escapes them with a watchful eye. He who is eager to steer a ship at sea with the rudder or to drive it with oars first practises on a river. Those who aim at sweetness in singing and excellence of voice first rouse the voice gradually by singing. And those who seek a crown by bodily strength and the lawful contest of wrestling harden their limbs by daily use of the wrestling-school, nourish endurance, and accustom themselves to toil. Nature herself teaches us this in little children, who first practise the sounds of speech so that they may learn to speak. So sound is a kind of exercise and wrestling-school of the voice. So, then, let those who wish to learn caution in speaking not deny what belongs to nature, but practise what belongs to watchfulness, as those who are on a watchtower stay alert by watching, not by sleeping. For everything grows by its own proper and familiar exercises. David, then, was silent not always but at the right time; not continually nor to everyone; but he did not answer the adversary who provoked him or the sinner who challenged him. And, as he says elsewhere, he did not hear, as though deaf, those who spoke vanity and devised deceit, and as one dumb he did not open his mouth to them; for elsewhere too you have: “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you become like him.” The first duty, then, is measure in speaking. By this the sacrifice of praise is paid to God, by this reverence is shown when the divine Scriptures are read, by this parents are honoured. I know that most people speak because they do not know how to be silent. It is rare for anyone to be silent even when speaking does him no good. The wise man, before he speaks, first considers many things: what he is to say, to whom, in what place, and at what time. There is, then, a measure both in keeping silent and in speaking; there is also a measure in action. It is a fine thing, then, to keep the measure of duty.

Every duty is either “middle” or “perfect,” which we can likewise prove by the authority of the Scriptures. For we have in the Gospel that the Lord said: “If you wish to enter into eternal life, keep the commandments.” He said: “Which?” And Jesus said to him: “You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness; honour father and mother; and, you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” These are the middle duties, which lack something. Then the young man says to him: “All these I have kept from my youth; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all your goods and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” And earlier it is written, where he says that we must love our enemies, pray for those who slander and persecute us, and bless those who curse us, that we ought to do this if we wish to be perfect like our Father who is in heaven, who bids the sun pour its rays over the good and the evil, and makes the lands of all grow rich with rain and dew without any distinction. This, then, is the perfect duty, which the Greeks called κατόρθωμα (right action), by which all things are set right that could have any lapses. Mercy too is good, and it also makes men perfect, because it imitates the perfect Father. Nothing so commends a Christian soul as mercy: first towards the poor, so that you judge the produce of nature to be common, since nature brings forth the fruits of the earth for the use of all; so that you give to the poor man what you have and help your fellow, who shares your form. You give a coin; he receives life. You give money; he reckons it his whole substance. Your denarius is his fortune. Besides, he gives more to you, since he is your debtor for salvation. If you clothe the naked, you clothe yourself with righteousness. If you bring the stranger under your roof, if you take in the needy, he gains for you the friendship of the saints and eternal dwellings. That is no small grace. You sow bodily things and reap spiritual ones. Do you wonder at the Lord’s judgment on holy Job? Wonder at the virtue of the man who could say: “I was an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame. I was the father of the weak; their shoulders were warmed by the fleeces of my lambs. The stranger did not lodge outside, but my door was open to everyone who came.” Blessed indeed is he from whose house a poor man never went away with an empty lap; for no one is more blessed than he who considers the need of the poor and the hardship of the weak and needy. In the day of judgment he will have salvation from the Lord, whom he will have as debtor for his mercy.

But many are drawn back from the duty of dispensing mercy, because they think that the Lord does not care about men’s actions, or does not know what we do in secret and what our conscience holds; or that his judgment does not seem just at all, when they see sinners abounding in riches, rejoicing in honours, health, and children, while the just live in poverty, without honour, without children, weak in body, in frequent mourning. Nor is this a small question, since those three kings, Job’s friends, pronounced him a sinner because they saw him made poor from rich, bereaved of children after being a fruitful parent, covered with sores, rough with weals, and furrowed with wounds from head to foot. To them holy Job puts this statement: “If I suffer these things because of my sins, why do the wicked live? They have grown old, and their seed is in riches according to their will, their children before their eyes, their houses abound; there is no fear anywhere, and the scourge from the Lord is not upon them.” Seeing these things, the weak in heart is agitated and turns his zeal away. Before he was to speak this man’s words, holy Job first said: “Bear with me, and I will speak; then laugh at me. For even if I am rebuked, I am rebuked as a man. Bear, then, the burden of my words.” For I am about to say what I do not approve, but I shall bring forward unjust words to refute you. Or certainly, because the verse runs thus: “What then? Am I rebuked by a man?” That is, a man cannot refute me on the ground that I have sinned, even if I deserve to be rebuked; for you rebuke me not from evident guilt, but judge the merit of my offences from my injuries. Seeing, then, the unjust abounding in prosperous successes and himself crushed, the weak man says to the Lord: “Depart from me; I do not want to know your ways. What profit is it that we have served him, or what use that we have come before him? In their hands are all good things, but he does not look upon the works of the wicked.” Plato is praised because in his Republic he made the one who had taken the part of arguing against justice ask pardon for words he did not approve, and say that he had taken that role on himself for the sake of finding the truth and examining the argument. Tully approved this so far that he himself, in the books he wrote On the Republic, thought it should be argued on that side. How much older than they was Job, who first found this out and thought it should be set forth first, not to adorn eloquence but to prove the truth? And at once he himself untied the knot of the question, adding that the lamp of the wicked is put out and that their overthrow is to come; that God, the guide of wisdom and discipline, is not deceived, but is the judge of truth; and that therefore the blessedness of each is to be judged not by outward abundance but by the inner conscience, which distinguishes the merits of the innocent and the wicked, the true and incorrupt arbiter of punishments and rewards. The innocent man dies in the strength of his simplicity, in the abundance of his own will, bearing a soul as though filled with fat. But the sinner, though he abounds outwardly, wallows in delights, and is fragrant with perfumes, spends his life in bitterness of soul and closes his last day bringing back nothing good of all he feasted on, taking away with him nothing but the wages of his crimes. Thinking on this, deny if you can that divine judgment gives recompense. The one is blessed in his own feeling, the other wretched; the one acquitted by his own judgment, the other guilty; the one glad at his departure, the other mourning. How can he be acquitted who is not innocent even to himself? “Tell me,” he says, “where is the protection of his tents? Its sign will not be found.” For the life of the wicked is like a dream. He opened his eyes: his rest passed away, his delight vanished—though the very rest of the wicked, which seems to be rest while they live, is in hell; for they go down alive into hell. You see the sinner’s banquet: question his conscience. Does it not stink worse than any tomb? You look at his gladness and admire the health of his body, his children, and his abundance of wealth: look into the sores and weals of his soul and the grief of his heart. As for his riches, what shall I say, since you have read: “For his life is not in abundance”? since you know that though he seems rich to you, he is poor to himself, and his own judgment refutes yours? As for the number of his children and his freedom from pain, what shall I say, since he mourns over himself and judges that he will be without an heir, since he does not want his imitators to be his successors? For the sinner has no inheritance. So the wicked man is his own punishment, but the just man is his own grace; and to each the reward of good or evil works is paid out of himself.