Let him be so intent on the least things that he be not slothful in performing the greater. Whence through the Gospel the Truth says: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have left the weightier things of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith; these things you ought to have done, and not to have left those undone (Matt. XXIII, 23). For by judgment, mercy, and faith the greater finger of action is shown; but by mint, dill, and cumin the least finger is without doubt figured. These things therefore ought to be done, and those not omitted; because if we wish to measure our work by a palm, it is necessary that the least finger be so extended that the greater finger be not drawn back. 14.
Rightly, moreover, when the brims of the tables are measured and the measure of a palm is stated, there is added "of one," so that from the preaching of the doctors, just as unity is held in faith, so also unity of mind may be preserved in work, lest through the good work which one does, another break forth into the evil of discord. For we ought so to do good works that through them we may also, as far as we rightly can, preserve unanimity with those among whom we live—that is, not by abandoning what we are doing, but by anticipating with good persuasions the evil of discord which we fear. Thus, preserving the unity of the palm in his own works, Paul forbade discord to be engendered, when he saw that the Corinthians already wished to receive a certain man who had fallen and been cast out of the Church, saying:
If you have forgiven anything to anyone, I also. For I too, if I have forgiven anything, have forgiven it for your sakes in the person of Christ, that we may not be overreached by Satan (II Cor. II, 10). He who is wont to engender evils out of good things, and to draw into discord that which is done out of charity. Whence also he immediately added concerning this same one, saying: For we are not ignorant of his devices (Ibid., 11). But the doctor who by the good things he preaches forms right action in his hearers, if he does not bind the minds of those who work into unanimity, has indeed a palm in his brims, but does not have that unity of the palm which has been mentioned. 15. It must, moreover, be greatly weighed that it is said the brims of these same tables are turned back inward.
For then are the brims of the tables turned back inward, when the doctors recall to their conscience by silent reflection that which they say, when they subtly search themselves whether they do what they speak. Rightly, moreover, when the brims of the tables are said to be turned back inward, there is also added "round about," so that they may not consider themselves in one part only, and neglect to examine themselves in another, but may inspect themselves everywhere, and, as far as they prevail, strive to fulfill in deed each thing that they teach—lest, if while preaching they neglect to do good, they be their own destroyers while being cultivators of another's field.
O doctor, behold, now you are a table, now you bear vessels, now in the faithful vessels you sustain the weight of holocaust and victim; but turn the brim inward, that is, recall your discourse to your heart. Hear what you say, do what you preach. For if you neglect to fulfill what you preach, you sow a harvest for others, and you yourself fast from partaking of the grain. Whence it is written: Whose harvest the hungry man shall eat (Job V, 5). For the hungry man eats the harvest of the doctor who speaks good things but does not do them, because he who hungers after the bread of righteousness performs the commandments which he hears, while the man himself has no fruit who labored in the sowing. Hence Solomon says: The slothful man hides his hand under his armpit, and does not even bring it to his mouth (Prov. XII, 24, cf. XXVI, 15).
No one is so slothful as to reckon it a labor to bring his hand back to his mouth even in eating. But the slothful man does not bring his hand to his mouth, because he is unwilling even to do what he says. Hence again it is said concerning those who teach well but act ill: The sons of Ephraim, bending and shooting the bow, were turned back in the day of battle (Ps. LXXVII, 9). They bend the bow and shoot arrows who set forth the sentences of Holy Scripture and strike the vices of their hearers with right words; but they are turned back in the day of battle, because they return behind themselves in the temptation of vices, and are unwilling to set their breast against it, since in the contest of temptations they do not resist. Hence again it is said:
You have turned away the help of his sword, and have not aided him in battle (Ps. LXXXVIII, 44). For the sword of the leader is the word of God. Whence through Paul it is said: And the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God (Eph. VI, 17). Therefore Almighty God, when He beholds a doctor unwilling to do what he says, turns away the help of his sword in the day of battle, because in the contest of temptations He does not permit the words which He gave him to be a help to his teaching. He has, therefore, a sword, but God does not aid him with it in battle, because when the adversity of temptation breaks forth, he forgets the word which he was teaching.
Behold, perhaps the doctor's discourse is concerning patience, and by the mastery of his teaching he is constrained to say how, against inflicted injuries, against contumelies heard, patience is to be preserved. But when he himself has been provoked either by injury or by insult, forgetting what he had taught, he goes to excess either in wounding his neighbor or in returning insult more grievously. Among these things, therefore, let him consider that he is a table of God, let him turn the brim inward, let him keep what he preaches. For it is written: In your patience you shall possess your souls (Luke XXI, 19). And again it is written: The teaching of a man is known by his patience (Prov. XIX, 11). If, therefore, patience is the mark of teaching, each man is shown to be so much a leader as he has been patient.
For this is the reason that that good disciple who saw his master taken up into the air cried out, through the affection of great charity, saying: My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its charioteer (IV Kings II, 12). What is it, most beloved brethren, that Elijah is called the chariot of Israel and its charioteer, except that the charioteer drives and the chariot carries? Therefore the doctor who both sustains the manners of the people by patience and teaches them by the words of sacred eloquence is called both a chariot and a charioteer. A chariot, because by enduring he carries; a charioteer, because by exhorting he drives. A chariot, because he sustains evils; a charioteer, because he exercises the people with good admonitions. 16.
But perhaps the doctor's discourse is against vainglory, and while wondrously suggesting how it ought to be shunned, he seeks vainglory by those very words with which he disputes against that same vainglory. If, therefore, he desires to obtain that which he forbids, the table does not turn its brim inward. But then will the table of the Lord, built of squared stones, have its brim turned inward, if it has been zealous to heed what it says. For it is written: Let nothing be done through contention, nor through vainglory (Phil. II, 3). And again that same excellent preacher says: Nor seeking glory from men, neither from you, nor from others (I Thess. II, 6).
For to seek transitory praise from the labor of preaching—what else is it than to sell a great thing at a cheap price? But there is a grave peril in the words of teaching, because often the favors of the hearers follow the discourse of those who teach, and when the doctors are unwilling to appear less in their sayings than that for which they had been well esteemed, that word of teaching which they had begun out of love for Almighty God in order to win souls, they afterward labor at in order to win praises. And they who first sought spiritual gains in the words of God afterward pursue temporal favors.
Whence it comes to pass that whatever right works, or words of holy teaching, perish in the judgment of Almighty God, when through these anyone pants after transitory favors. For this is said through the prophet to Judea, which the incautious mind finds in itself, if only after its fault it cautiously searches out its own thoughts: The Lord called your name a plentiful olive tree, fair, fruitful, beautiful. At the voice of great speech a fire was kindled in it, and its branches were burned up (Jer. XI, 16).
The Lord calls a plentiful and fair olive tree, fruitful and beautiful, that one whose efficacy in action, or whose holy zeal in the words of knowledge, He approves. But at the voice of great speech a fire was kindled in it, because when a man begins to be praised, he perhaps blushes to seem less than what is said of him, and strives to be what he is called. For the voice of great speech is the favor of flatterers. Whence it is written: He who blesses his neighbor with a loud voice, rising up early in the night, is like one who curses (Prov. XXVII, 14). At the voice, therefore, of great speech a fire was kindled in it, because in the greatness of favor a flame is kindled in the heart from the love of praise.
But all the branches of the olive tree are burned up, because before the eyes of Almighty God, whatever things have been well done or wisely said perish, when they are done not out of love for the Lord, but with the intention of transitory praise. For thus often is a sinister thought joined to a good thought, so that scarcely does the mind itself, which engenders these thoughts, recognize it. Whence the excellent preacher, when speaking he subtly said: The word of God is living and effective, and more piercing than any two-edged sword, and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit (Heb. IV, 12), immediately added: of the joints also and the marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Ibid.). 17. For the word of God distinguishes joints and marrow.
Because it discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart. For by joints bones are joined to bones. And often, while we do something with a right thought, but suddenly decline into the love of praise, and do this for praise which we had first begun to do for the sake of truth—because thoughts are joined to thoughts, they become, as it were, certain joints in the spirit. But the bones which are joined in a joint have also marrow. Which the holy preacher more openly declared, when he added: a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Ibid.). For our joints are our thoughts, but the marrow are our intentions.
And often we think one thing, and it is another thing that we intend through the thought. For if someone should defend the cause of an orphan or a widow with a proposed reward of money, and, entering the church perhaps, should say to God in his prayers: You see that I defend the cause of the orphan and the widow—that man without doubt knows what he thinks, but is ignorant of what his thought intends. For he thinks one thing, and intends another. For he seeks not the defense of the orphan or the widow, but the reward of money. For take away the temporal reward, and he does not defend the orphan and the widow.
The word of God, therefore, is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart, because it looks not at what you think within yourself, but through the marrow of the joint—that is, through the intention of the thought—at what you seek to receive. It remains, therefore, that the doctor, when he speaks, as a table of God always turn the brim inward, lest either he begin to speak with an evil intention, or, when he has begun well, being seduced by favors, he decline into another appetite. 18. But perhaps the doctor's discourse is concerning the keeping of discipline. And often it also happens that he knows not how to hold the rule of discipline which he knows how to speak, because either, moved by too great a zeal, he tempers himself less by gentleness; or, being placid with too great gentleness, he inflames himself less against vices with the goad of zeal.
For with great consideration we ought to weigh what is written, that on the vessels of the temple, between crowns and wreaths, oxen and lions and cherubim were carved, and beneath the oxen and lions little cords hanging down (III Kings VII, 29). For crowns are a sign of victory, but wreaths signify the unanimity of concord; and cherubim are said to be the fullness of knowledge. For priests and doctors, between crowns and wreaths—that is, between the fortitude of good work by which they run to victory, and the concord of charity by which they do not disagree one from another—
were designated by oxen and lions and cherubim, because in the fullness of knowledge which they possess it is necessary that they hold both the gentleness of oxen and the fervor of lions, so that in the discipline which they preach they may be both kindled with holy zeal and tranquil with fatherly sweetness. Beneath these let little cords hang down, so that they may carefully bestow even upon their subjects the reins of their discipline by which they themselves are bound. For to have little cords hanging beneath them is to hold the bonds of custody warm for their subjects. And these are then rightly preserved, when neither the gentleness of oxen is lost in the fervor of zeal, nor the terror of lions declines into gentleness. For so great ought discretion to be, that neither discipline be excessive, nor mercy be remiss.
For if a fault is dismissed in a disorderly way, he who is culpable is more grievously bound in guilt; and again, if the fault is retained without moderation, he who is corrected becomes so much the worse, in that he considers that nothing is done toward him out of the grace of kindness. Harshness, therefore, is to be exhibited to the depraved in outward show, charity in the mind; so that both the harsh show may restrain the offender, and the guardianship of charity may not lose the reward of gentleness. 19. Behold, while I speak, Joseph strikes my soul, so that he himself may come as a witness to demonstrate what I say. Certainly, when he narrated to his brothers the dream which he had seen concerning his own advancement, by the very thing that he innocently related, he stirred up the goads of malice against himself (Gen. XXXVII, 5).
By those same brothers he was sold to the Ishmaelites (Ibid., 28), led into Egypt, and by the wondrous dispensation of the Almighty Lord was set over that same Egypt (Ibid., XLI, 41). And when a famine arose in the land of Canaan, the brothers came to Egypt, found Joseph set over Egypt, and, bowing their necks to the ground, adored him (Ibid., XLII, 6-7). And because they could not change God's counsel, him whom they had sold that they might not adore, they adored because they had sold him. Then that man of God, full of the spirit of discretion, recognized his brothers though he was not recognized. But mindful of the fault, yet remitting the injury, he neither strove to repay the evils of his brothers, nor to release them without purgation. For with a suspicious voice he straightway said: You are spies;
you have come to see the weaker parts of the land. Now at once I shall take a test of you. By the health of Pharaoh you shall not go forth hence (Gen. XLII, 9, 15). O javelin in the heart! They had come as strangers, they were fleeing danger by these means, they had not received the grain which they sought, and moreover they saw themselves struck by the charge of a crime. Amid these things they are led to prison, and, brought out after three days, are still terrified with the same harshness. Now the return to the heart is made, now the memory of the fault strikes the soul, and they say among themselves: Deservedly do we suffer these things, because we sinned against our brother, seeing the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we did not hear; therefore has this tribulation come upon us (Ibid., 21).
In these things, moreover, Joseph's heart is overcome by love, he seeks a place apart, he loosens by weeping what he owed to filial affection. He returns to his brothers severe, that their tormented soul might be freed from the fault. After this, one is bound in chains, the rest are dismissed with grain, that one brother might come whom they had said they had as the youngest (Ibid., 34, 20). The brother came afterward. Piety was overcoming his mind while the innocent brother seemed present; but harshness remained in the outward show, that the guilty brothers might be purged. Grain is given, a cup is hidden in the sack of the younger brother, and after them a charge of theft is raised (Gen. XLIV, 2). They are sent that the brothers may be brought back, and it is decreed that he with whom the cup should be found be condemned to servitude.
It is found in the sack of the last brother. Then Benjamin is brought back. All the brothers, clothed, follow. O torments of mercy! It tortures, and it loves. Returning therefore, prostrate on the ground with tears, they beg pardon. For mindful of what they had promised to the father concerning that boy, they were wasting away with intolerable grief. Then piety, no longer able to restrain itself, burst forth shut up to the midst and shook out the tears of charity from the countenance of severity (Gen. XLV, 1). The anger that appeared was wiped away, and was not; the mercy that was, though it did not appear, was shown. Thus the holy man both remitted and avenged the crime of his brothers. Thus he held clemency in vigor, so that toward his offending brothers he was neither merciful without vindication, nor severe without piety. 20.
Behold, this is the mastery of discipline: to know both how to spare faults with discretion, and to cut them away with piety. But those who do not have the spirit of discretion either so dismiss sins that they do not correct, or so strike as though correcting that they do not dismiss. The doctor, therefore, to whom it is necessary to speak concerning the moderation of discipline, let him know that he is a table of God, and let him turn the brim inward, so that what he speaks in teaching, this he may vigilantly perform under the spirit of discretion. Nor, if he considers that certain things are lacking to him, does it behoove him to fall silent from preaching them. For his position demands that he speak. Let him therefore correct himself by his own words; and if he does not speak because he acts, let him act because he is compelled to speak.
Wherever, therefore, he beholds himself fulfilling in deed what he says, there let him admonish his hearers, and kindle their souls to the zeal of good action. But wherever he sees that he has not yet fulfilled what he speaks, let him equally inflame himself as well toward the good things concerning which he admonishes his hearers, so that he himself may likewise learn in deed that which through him the Truth speaks in preaching. For often that which we know not how to do by living, being compelled by the utterance of teaching, we learn by speaking; and while from the reflection of our sloth guilt is born in the mind, a compunction suddenly arising pierces through that same mind, and, roused by its own voice, that which before was torpid in idleness without a voice, awakens into action.
Behold, moreover, when the brim of the table is stretched by a palm—that is, when through the mouth of the doctor there is disputation against vices, and the heart of the hearers is kindled to good works—many who hear his words recognize how many and how great evils they have committed; and they come confessing to him, and with tears beseech him to become an intercessor for their sins, that he by praying may blot out the faults which by preaching he makes manifest. Whence also it is subjoined: VERSE 43. And upon the tables the flesh of the oblation. 21. For the holy doctors, when they pour out prayers to the Almighty Lord for the compunct and confessing sinners, in that they ask pardon for their carnal life, bear the flesh of the oblation of the Lord's table.
In order, therefore, that there may be those for whom, being converted and weeping, they may pray, it is fitting that they first preach to these same while they are set in sin; and when they have already begun to forsake sins and to hasten toward innocence, it is necessary that the increases of preaching grow greater toward them in the mouth of the doctor, and that he insist upon certain ones with the word of his teaching so much the more vehemently, the more grievously he considers that they have fallen—knowing, namely, that he himself receives the reward of a great recompense in proportion as by his words he lifts others out of deeper sins. 22. It is pleasing meanwhile to bring forth into the midst the words of the holy Gospel, whose sacred history, by that which narrates a miracle that was done, announces the miracles which are daily wrought.
For when the people, weary and fasting, had gathered to the Lord, the Lord said to His disciples: I have compassion on the multitude, for behold they have now continued with me three days, and have nothing to eat; and if I send them away fasting to their homes, they will faint on the way; for some of them came from afar (Mark VIII, 2-3). The multitude continues with the Lord for three days, when the multitude of the faithful, declining by penance the sins which they had committed, converts itself to God in deed, in speech, and in thought. These the Lord is unwilling to send away fasting to their home, lest they faint on the way, because, namely, converted sinners faint on the way of the present life, if they are dismissed in their own conscience without the food of holy teaching.
Lest, therefore, they grow weary on the journey of this pilgrimage, they must be fed with holy admonition. But greatly to be weighed is the merciful sentence which proceeded from the mouth of the Truth, by which it is said: For some of them came from afar (Ibid.). There is, moreover, one who, having experienced nothing of fraud and nothing of carnal corruption, hastened to the service of Almighty God: he came not from afar, because through incorruption and innocence he was near. Another, defiled by no unchastity, by no crimes, but having experienced only marriage, is converted to spiritual ministry. Neither did this one come from afar, because, having used a conjunction that was permitted, he did not err through unlawful things.
But others, after the debaucheries of the flesh, others after false testimonies, others after committed thefts, others after inflicted violences, others after perpetrated murders, return to penance and are converted to the service of Almighty God: these, namely, come to the Lord from afar. For the more anyone has erred in depraved work, the farther has he withdrawn from the Almighty Lord. For the prodigal son also, who deserted his father, went into a far country, in which he fed swine, because he nourished vices (Luke XV, 13-16). Let food therefore be given also to those who come from afar, because to converted sinners the foods of holy teaching are to be furnished, that they may repair toward God the strength which they lost on their journeyings.
These it is often necessary that they be satisfied by the doctors with the more copious foods of teaching, the more weary they have come from greater vices. And when they have already begun to confess the evils which they have committed, and by confessing to forsake them and to punish them with tears, it is necessary that the holy doctors solicitously pray for their sins, so that they may bear the flesh of the oblation of the Lord's table. And as often as they do this, in that they intervene for the sins of others, they wipe away their own the more before the eyes of God, because by that very charity they justify themselves, by which, with wondrous piety, they slay themselves in lamentations for the iniquities of others.
Nor ought it to be laborious for doctors to pour out tears for converted sinners, since He too who created all things, being made man, poured out His blood on the cross for our iniquities—who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.