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1. How great is the skill required for the teacher in contending
earnestly for the truth, has been sufficiently set forth by us. But
I have to mention one more matter beside this, which is a cause of
numberless dangers, though for my own part I should rather say that
the thing itself is not the cause, but they who know not how to use it
rightly, since it is of itself a help to salvation and to much good
besides, whenever thou findest that earnest and good men have the
management of it. What then, do I mean by this? The expenditure of
great labor upon the preparation of discourses to be delivered in
public. For to begin with, the majority of those who are under the
preachers' charge are not minded to behave towards them as towards
teachers, but disdaining the part of learners, they assume instead the
attitude of those who sit and look on at the public games; and just as
the multitude there is separated into parties, and some attach
themselves to one, and some to another, so here also men are divided,
and become the partisans now of this teacher, now of that, listening
to them with a view to favor or spite. And not only is there this
hardship, but another quite as great. For if it has occurred to any
preacher to weave into his sermons any part of other men's works, he
is exposed to greater disgrace than those who steal money. Nay, often
where he has not even borrowed anything from any one, but is only
suspected, he has suffered the fate of a thief. And why do I speak
of the works of others when it is not permitted to him to use his own
resources without variety? For the public are accustomed to listen not
for profit, but for pleasure, sitting like critics of tragedies, and
of musical entertainments, and that facility of speech against which we
declaimed just now, in this case becomes desirable, even more than in
the case of barristers, where they are obliged to contend one against
the other. A preacher then should have loftiness of mind, far
exceeding my own littleness of spirit, that he may correct this
disorderly and unprofitable pleasure on the part of the multitude, and
be able to lead them over to a more useful way of hearing, that his
people may follow and yield to him, and that he may not be led away by
their own humors, and this it is not possible to arrive at, except by
two means: indifference to their praise, and the power of preaching
well.
2. For if either of these be lacking,the remaining one becomes
useless, owing to its divorce from the other, for if a preacher be
indifferent to praise, and yet cannot produce the doctrine
"which is with grace seasoned with salt," he becomes despised by the
multitude, while he gains nothing from his own nobleness of mind; and
if on the other hand he is successful as a preacher, and is overcome by
the thought of applause, harm is equally done in turn, both to himself
and the multitude, because in his desire for praise he is careful to
speak rather with a view to please than to profit. And as he who
neither lets good opinion influence him, nor is skillful in speaking,
does not yield to the pleasure of the multitude, and is unable to do
them any good worth mentioning, because he has nothing to say, so he
who is carried away with desire for praise, though he is able to render
the multitude better service, rather provides in place of this such
food as will suit their taste, because he purchases thereby the tumult
of acclamation.
3. The best kind of Bishop must, therefore, be strong in both
these points, so that neither may supplant the other. For if when he
stands up in the congregation and speaks words calculated to make the
careless wince, he then stumbles, and stops short, and is forced to
blush at his failure, the good of what he has spoken is immediately
wasted. For they who are rebuked, being galled by what has been told
them, and unable to avenge themselves on him otherwise, taunt him,
with jeers at this ignorance of his, thinking to screen their own
reproach thereby. Wherefore he ought, like some very good
charioteer, to come to an accurate judgment about both these good
things, in order that he may be able to deal with both as he may have
need; for when he is irreproachable in the eyes of all, then he will
be able, with just so much authority as he wishes, both to correct and
to remit from correction all those who are under his rule. But without
this it will not be easy for him to do so.
But this nobleness of soul should be shown not only up to the limit of
indifference to praise, but should go further in order that the gain
thus gotten may not in its turn be fruitless.
4. To what else ought he then to be indifferent? Slander and envy.
Unseasonable evil speaking, however (for of course the Bishop
undergoes some groundless censure), it is well that he should neither
fear nor tremble at excessively, nor entirely pass over; but we
ought, though it happen to be false, or to be brought against us by
the common herd, to try and extinguish it immediately. For nothing so
magnifies both an evil and a good report as the undisciplined mob. For
accustomed to hear and to speak without stopping to make inquiry, they
repeat at random everything which comes in their way, without any
regard to the truth of it. Therefore the Bishop ought not to be
unconcerned about the multitude, but straightway to nip their evil
surmisings in the bud; persuading his accusers, even if they be the
most unreasonable of all men, and to omit nothing which is able to
dispel an ill-favored report. But if, when we do all this, they who
blame us will not be persuaded, thenceforward we should give them no
concern. Since if any one be too quick to be dejected by these
accidents, he will not be able at any time to produce anything noble
and admirable. For despondency and constant cares are mighty for
destroying the powers of the mind, and for reducing it to extreme
weakness. Thus then must the Priest behave towards those in his
charge, as a father would behave to his very young children; and as
such are not disturbed either by their insults or their blows, or their
lamentations, nor even if they laugh and rejoice with us, do we take
much account of it; so should we neither be puffed up by the promises
of these persons nor cast down at their censure, when it comes from
them unseasonably. But this is hard, my good friend; and perhaps,
methinks, even impossible. For I know not whether any man ever
succeeded in the effort not to be pleased when he is praised, and the
man who is pleased at this is likely also to desire to enjoy it, and
the man who desires to enjoy it will, of necessity, be altogether
vexed and beside himself whenever he misses it. For as they who revel
in being rich, when they fall into poverty are grieved, and they who
have been used to live luxuriously cannot bear to live shabbily; so,
too, they who long for applause, not only when they are blamed without
a cause, but when they are not constantly being praised, become, as
by some famine, wasted in soul, particularly when they happen
themselves to have been used to praise, or if they hear others being
praised. He who enters upon the trial of preaching with desires of
this kind, how many annoyances and how many pangs dost thou think that
he has? It is no more possible for the sea to be without waves than
that man to be without cares and grief.
5. For though the preacher may have great ability (and this one
would only find in a few), not even in this case is he released from
perpetual toil. For since preaching does not come by nature, but by
study, suppose a man to reach a high standard of it, this will then
forsake him if he does not cultivate his power by constant application
and exercise. So that there is greater labor for the wiser than for
the unlearned. For there is not the same degree of loss attending
negligence on the part of the one and the other, but the loss is in
exact proportion to the difference between the two possessions. For
the latter no one would blame, as they furnish nothing worth
regarding. But the former, unless they are constantly producing
matter beyond the reputation in which all hold them, great censure
attends on all hands; and besides these things, the latter would meet
with considerable praise, even for small performances, while the
efforts of the former, unless they be specially wonderful and
startling, not only fail to win applause, but meet with many
fault-finders. For the audience set themselves to be critics, not so
much in judgment of what is said as of the reputation of the speaker,
so that whenever any one excels all others in oratorical powers, then
especially of all others does he need laborious study. For this man is
not allowed to avail himself of the usual plea which human nature
urges, that one cannot succeed in everything; but if his sermons do
not throughout correspond to the greatness of the expectations formed,
he will go away without having gained anything but countless jeers and
censures; and no one takes this into consideration about him, that
dejection and pain, and anxiety, and often anger, may step in, and
dim the clearness of his thoughts and prevent his productions from
coming from him unalloyed, and that on the whole, being but a man, he
cannot be constantly the same, nor at all times acquit himself
successfully, but naturally must sometimes fall short of the mark, and
appear on a lower level of ability than usual. None of these things,
as I said, are they willing to take into consideration, but charge
him with faults as if they were sitting in judgment on an angel; though
in other cases, too, a man is apt to overlook the good performances of
his neighbor, though they be many and great, and if anywhere a defect
appears, even if it be accidental, even if it only occur at long
intervals, it is quickly perceived, and always remembered, and thus
small and trifling matters have often lessened the glory of many and
great doings.
6. Thou seest, my excellent friend, that the man who is powerful in
preaching has peculiar need of greater study than others; and besides
study, of forbearance also greater than what is needed by all those
whom I have already mentioned. For thus are many constantly springing
up against him, in a vain and senseless spirit, and having no fault to
find with him, but that he is generally approved of, hate him; and he
must bear their bitter malice nobly, for as they are not able to hide
this cursed hatred, which they so unreasonably entertain, they both
revile, and censure, and slander in private, and defame in public,
and the mind which has begun to be pained and exasperated, on every one
of these occasions, will not escape being corrupted by grief. For
they will not only revenge themselves upon him by their own acts, but
will try to do so by means of others, and often having chosen some one
of those who are unable to speak a word, will extol him with their
praises and admire him beyond his worth. Some do this through
ignorance alone, some through ignorance and envy, in order that they
may ruin the reputation of the other, not that they may prove the man
to be wonderful who is not so, and the noble-minded man has not only
to struggle against these, but often against the ignorance of the whole
multitude; for since it is not possible that all those who come
together should consist of learned men, but the chances are that the
larger part of the congregation is composed of unlearned people, and
that even the rest, who are clearer headed than they, fall as far
short of being able to criticize sermons as the remainder again fall
short of them; so that only one or two are seated there who possess
this power; it follows, of necessity, that he who preaches better
than others carries away less applause, and possibly goes home without
being praised at all, and he must be prepared to meet such anomalies
nobly, and to pardon those who commit them in ignorance, and to weep
for those who acquiesce in them on account of envy as wretched and
pitiable creatures, and not to consider that his powers have become
less on either of these accounts. For if a man, being a
pre-eminently good painter, and superior to all in his art, sees the
portrait which he has drawn with great accuracy held up to ridicule, he
ought not to be dejected, and to consider the picture poor, because of
the judgment of the ignorant; as he would not consider the drawing that
is really poor to be something wonderful and lovely, because of the
astonishment of the inartistic.
7. For let the best artificer be himself the critic of his own
designs, and let his performances be determined to be good or poor,
according as the mind which designed them gives sentence upon them.
But let him not even consider the opinion, so erroneous and
inartistic, of the outside world. Let, therefore, the man who
undertakes the strain of teaching never give heed to the good opinion of
the outside world, nor be dejected in soul on account of such persons;
but laboring at his sermons so that he may please God, (For let this
alone be his rule and determination, in discharging this best kind of
workmanship, not acclamation, nor good opinions,) if, indeed, he
be praised by men, let him not repudiate their applause, and when his
hearers do not offer this, let him not seek it, let him not be
grieved. For a sufficient consolation in his labors, and one greater
than all, is when he is able to be conscious of arranging and ordering
his teaching with a view to pleasing God.
8. For if he be first carried away with the desire for indiscriminate
praise, he will reap no advantage from his labors, or from his power
in preaching, for the mind being unable to bear the senseless censures
of the multitude is dispirited, and casts aside all earnestness about
preaching.
Therefore it is especially necessary to be trained to be indifferent to
all kinds of praise. For to know how to preach is not enough for the
preservation of that power, if this be not added: and if any one would
examine accurately the man who is destitute of this art, he will find
that he needs to be indifferent to praise no less than the other, for
he will be forced to do many wrong things in placing himself under the
control of popular opinion. For not having the energy to equal those
who are in repute for the quality of their preaching, he will not
refrain from forming ill designs against them, from envying them, and
from blaming them without reason, and from many such discreditable
practices, but will venture everything, even if it be needful to ruin
his own soul, for the sake of bringing down their fame to the level of
his own insignificance. And in addition to this, he will leave off
his exertions about his work; a kind of numbness, as it were,
spreading itself over his mind. For much toil, rewarded by scanty
praise, is sufficient to cast down a man who cannot despise praise,
and put him into a deep lethargy, since the husbandman even when he
spends time over some sorry piece of land, and is forced to till a
rock, quickly desists from his work, unless he is possessed of much
earnestness about the matter, or has a fear of famine impending over
him. For if they who are able to speak with considerable power, need
such constant exercise for the preservation of their talent, he who
collects no materials at all, but is forced in the midst of his efforts
to meditate; what difficulty, what confusion, what trouble will he
experience, in order that he may be able at great labor to collect a
few ideas! and if any of those clergy who are under his authority, and
who are placed in the inferior order, be able in that position to
appear. to better advantage than he; what a divine mind must he have,
so as not to be seized with envy or cast down by despondency. For,
for one to be placed in a station of higher dignity, and to be
surpassed by his inferior in rank, and to bear this nobly, would not
be the part of any ordinary mind, nor of such as my own, but of one as
hard as adamant; and if, indeed, the man who is in greater repute be
very for-bearing and modest, the suffering becomes so much the more
easily borne. But if he is bold and boastful and vainglorious, a
daily death would be desirable for the other; he will so embitter his
life, insulting him to his face, and laughing at him behind his back,
wresting much of his authority from him, and wishing to be everything
himself. But he is possessed of the greatest security, in all these
circumstances, who has fluency in preaching, and the earnest attention
of the multitude about him, and the affection of all those who are
under his charge. Dost not thou know what a passion for sermons has
burst in upon the minds of Christians now-a-days? and that they who
practice themselves in preaching are in especial honor, not only among
the heathen, but among them of the household of the faith? How then
could any one bear such disgrace as to find that all are mute when he is
preaching, and think that they are oppressed, and wait for the end of
the sermon, as for some release from work; while they listen to
another with eagerness though he preach long, and are sorry when he is
about to conclude; and almost angry when it is his purpose to be
silent. If these matters seem to thee to be small, and easily to be
despised, it is because of thine inexperience. They are truly enough
to quench zeal, and to paralyze the powers of the mind, unless a man
withdraw himself from all human passions, and study to frame his
conduct after the pattern of those incorporeal powers, who are neither
pursued by envy, nor by longing for fame, nor by any other morbid
feeling. If then there be any man so constituted as to be able to
subdue this wild beast, so difficult to capture, so unconquerable, so
fierce; that is to say, public fame, and to cut off its many heads,
or rather to forbid their growth altogether; he will easily be able to
repel these many violent assaults, and to enjoy a kind of quiet haven
of rest. But he who has not freed himself from this monster, involves
his soul in struggles of various kinds, and perpetual agitation, and
the burden both of despondency and of other passions. But why need I
detail the rest of these difficulties, which no one will be able to
describe, or to learn unless he has had actual experience of them.
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