Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 53

But since very often, when the languor of two vices rushes in, this presses more lightly, that perhaps more heavily; assuredly that vice is more rightly succoured with speed through which one is hastened to destruction. And if this cannot be restrained from near death unless that also which is contrary grow, it is to be tolerated by the preacher that by his exhortation, with skilful moderation, he suffer the one to grow, that he may be able to hold back the other from near death. And when he does this, he does not aggravate the disease, but preserves the life of his wounded one, to whom he applies the medicament, that he may find a fitting time for seeking health.

For often someone, by no means restraining himself from gluttony of foods, is now well-nigh pressed by the stings of overcoming lust; who, terrified by the fear of this struggle, while he strives to restrain himself by abstinence, is wearied by the temptation of vainglory: so that, wonderfully, the one vice is by no means extinguished unless the other be nourished. What plague, therefore, is to be pursued more ardently, save that which presses more perilously? It is never to be tolerated that through the virtue of abstinence, in the meantime, arrogance grow against the living man, lest lust utterly extinguish him from life through gluttony. Hence it is that Paul, when he weighed his weak hearer, either still willing to do depraved things, or rejoicing over an upright action by the retribution of human praise, says:

'Wilt thou not fear the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from the same' (Rom. XIII, 3). For good deeds are not to be done merely so that no earthly power may be feared, nor that the glory of transitory praise may thereby be seized. But since he weighed that a weak mind could not rise to so great a strength as to shun wrongdoing and praise together at once, the excellent preacher, in his admonition, offered something and took something away. For by granting what was easy, he withdrew what was harsher; so that, because the soul would not rise up to forsake all things at once, while it is left familiarly in a certain fault of its own, it might be lifted, without effort, out of another fault of its own.

But the preacher must know that he should not draw the mind of his hearer beyond its strength, lest, so to speak, while it is stretched more than it can bear, the string of the mind be snapped. For all lofty things ought to be veiled before the many who hear, and scarcely opened to a few. For thus does Truth itself say through its own mouth: 'Who, thinkest thou, is a faithful and prudent steward, whom the lord hath set over his household, to give them their measure of wheat in season?' (Matt. XXIV, 45; Luke XII, 42). For by the measure of wheat is expressed the due proportion of the word, lest, when something too great to be contained is bestowed upon a narrow heart, it be poured out beyond it. Hence Paul says: 'I could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal.'

'As unto babes in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat' (1 Cor. III, 1). Hence Moses, coming forth from the secret place of God, veils his shining face before the people (Exod. XXXIV, 33), because assuredly he did not disclose to the crowds the hidden things of that inward brightness. Hence through him it is commanded by the divine voice (Ibid. XXI, 33) that whoever digs a cistern, if he has neglected to cover it, should pay the price when an ox or an ass falls into it; because one who, arriving at the deep streams of knowledge, does not there veil these things before the brute hearts of his hearers, is held guilty of the penalty, if through his words a mind, whether clean or unclean, be taken in a stumbling-block. Hence it is said to blessed Job: 'Who gave the cock understanding?' (Job XXXVIII, 36).

For the holy preacher, while he cries out in a dark season, is like a cock crowing in the night, when he says: 'It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep' (Rom. XIII, 11). And again: 'Awake, ye righteous, and sin not' (1 Cor. XV, 34). Now the cock is wont to give forth loud crowings in the deeper hours of the night; but when the morning time is already at hand, it forms small and subdued notes; because assuredly he who rightly preaches cries out things that are plain to hearts still in darkness, and makes known nothing of hidden mysteries, so that his hearers may then hear the more subtle things of heavenly matters when they draw near to the light of truth.