The Cathedral Close

Today, in a lengthy selection from Book II, Chapter 4 of St. Gregory the Great’s treatise entitled Pastoral Care. This section exhorts the “ruler” to be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech. Perhaps it is best summed up in the aphorism attributed to the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, that it is, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” Likewise, there is a warning to the bishop or priest who fails to speak the truth, particularly to curry favor with others.
Finally, St. Gregory cautions against the clergyman who preaches without knowledge. All of these things tear down the community of the faithful. It seems that, in the life of the Church, the more things change the more they stay the same.

I have taken the liberty of placing emphasis on the portions of the tract that seem particularly germane in light of pronouncements made in various corners of Christendom great and small.

The ruler (bishop or priest) should be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech, unless he either say what ought to be suppressed or suppress what he ought to be saying.

As incautious speaking leads into error, so indiscreet silence leaves in error those who might have been instructed. Too often improvident rulers, fearing to lose human favour, shrink timidly from speaking freely the things that are right. According to the voice of the Truth, they serve the flock by no means with the zeal of shepherds, but in the way of hirelings. (John 10:12) since they fly when the wolf comes if they hide themselves under silence.

So it is that the Lord through the prophet upbraids them, saying, “Dumb dogs, that cannot bark.” (Isaiah 56:10. Again He complains, saying, “You have not gone up against the enemy, neither opposed a wall for the house of Israel, to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord.” (Ezekiel 13:5) Now to go up against the enemy is to go with free voice against the powers of this world for defense of the flock; and to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord is out of love of justice to resist bad men when they contend against us.

For a shepherd to have feared to say what is right, what else is it but to have turned his back in keeping silence? But surely, if he puts himself in front for the flock, he opposes a wall against the enemy for the house of Israel. Hence again to the sinful people it is said, “Your prophets have seen false and foolish things for you: neither did they discover your iniquity, to provoke you to repentance.” (Lamentations 2:14)

In sacred language teachers are sometimes called prophets, in that, by pointing out how fleeting are present things, they make manifest the things that are to come. Such the divine discourse convinces of seeing false things, because, while fearing to reprove faults, they vainly flatter evil doers by promising security. Similarly, they do not at all discover the iniquity of sinners, since they refrain their voice from chiding.

The language of reproof is the key of discovery, because by chiding it discloses the fault of which even he who has committed it is often himself unaware. Thus, St. Paul says, “That he may be able by sound doctrine even to convince the gainsayers.” (Titus 1:9)
Likewise, through Malachi it is said, “The priest’s lips keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth. (Malachi 2:7) Again, through the prophet Isaiah the Lord admonishes, saying, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet.” (Isaiah 58:1)

It is true that whosoever enters on the priesthood undertakes the office of a herald, so as to walk, himself crying aloud, before the coming of the judge who follows terribly. Wherefore, if the priest knows not how to preach, what voice of a loud cry shall the mute herald utter? So it is that the Holy Spirit sat upon the first pastors under the appearance of tongues (Acts 2:3); because whomsoever He has filled, He himself at once makes eloquent.

So it is that it was enjoined on Moses that when the priest goes into the tabernacle he shall be encompassed with bells. (Exodus 28:33); that is, that he shall have about him the sounds of preaching, lest he provoke by his silence the judgment of Him Who beholds him from above. For it is written, “That his sound may be heard when he goes in unto the holy place before the Lord and when he comes out, that he die not.” (Exodus 28:35)For the priest, when he goes in or comes out, dies if a sound is not heard from him, because he provokes the wrath of the hidden judge, if he goes without the sound of preaching.

Aptly also are the bells described as inserted in his vestments. For what else ought we to take the vestments of the priest to be but righteous works; as the prophet attests when he says, Let Your priests be clothed with righteousness Psalm 131:9? The bells, therefore, are inherent in his vestments to signify that the very works of the priest should also proclaim the way of life together with the sound of his tongue.

When the ruler prepares himself for speaking, let him bear in mind with what studious caution he ought to speak, lest, if he be hurried inordinately into speaking, the hearts of hearers be smitten with the wound of error and, while he perchance desires to seem wise he unwisely sever the bond of unity. For on this account the Truth says, “Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.” (Mark 9:49)

By salt is denoted the word of wisdom. Let him, therefore, who strives to speak wisely fear greatly, lest by his eloquence the unity of his hearers be disturbed.
So it is that St. Paul says, “Not to be more wise than behooves to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety.” Romans 12:3. Thus, in the priest’s vestment, according to Divine precept, to bells are added pomegranates. (Exodus 28:34) For what is signified by pomegranates but the unity of the faith? For, as within a pomegranate many seeds are protected by one outer rind, so the unity of the faith comprehends the innumerable peoples of holy Church, whom a diversity of merits retains within her.

So, then, a ruler should be unadvisedly hurried into speaking, the Truth in person proclaims to His disciples this which we have already cited, “r3Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. (Mark 9:49) It is as though He should say in a figure through the dress of the priest: Join pomegranates to bells, that in all you say you may with cautious watchfulness keep the unity of the faith.

Rulers ought also to guard with anxious thought not only against saying in any way what is wrong, but against uttering even what is right overmuch and inordinately; since the good effect of things spoken is often lost, when enfeebled to the hearts of hearers by the incautious importunity of loquacity; and this same loquacity, which knows not how to serve for the profit of the hearers, also defiles the speaker. So, it is well said through Moses, “The man that has a flux of seed shall be unclean Leviticus (15:2) For the quality of the speech that is heard is the seed of the thought which follows, since, while speech is conceived through the ear, thought is engendered in the mind. Consequently, also by the wise of this world the excellent preacher was called a sower of words (seminiverbius). (Acts 17:18)

So it is that he that suffers from a flux of seed is pronounced unclean, because, being addicted to much speaking, he defiles himself by that which, had it been orderly issued, might have produced the offspring of right thought in the hearts of hearers. While he incautiously spends himself in loquacity, he sheds his seed not so as to serve for generation, but unto uncleanness. Thus, St. Paul also, in admonishing his disciple to be instant in preaching, says, “I charge you before God and Christ Jesus, Who shall judge the quick and the dead by His appearing and His kingdom, preach the word, be instant opportunely, importunely.’” (II Timothy 4:1) In truth importunity mars itself to the mind of the hearer by its own very cheapness, if it knows not how to observe opportunity.