Chapter 15.—The Christian Teacher Should Pray Before Preaching.

32.  And so our Christian orator, while he says what is just, and holy, and good (and he ought never to say anything else), does all he can to be heard with intelligence, with pleasure, and with obedience; and he need not doubt that if he succeed in this object, and so far as he succeeds, he will succeed more by piety in prayer than by gifts of oratory; and so he ought to pray for himself, and for those he is about to address, before he attempts to speak.  And when the hour is come that he must speak, he ought, before he opens his mouth, to lift up his thirsty soul to God, to drink in what he is about to pour forth, and to be himself filled with what he is about to distribute.  For, as in regard to every matter of faith and love there are many things that may be said, and many ways of saying them, who knows what it is expedient at a given moment for us to say, or to be heard saying, except God who knows the hearts of all?  And who can make us say what we ought, and in the way we ought, except Him in whose hand both we and our speeches are?  Accordingly, he who is anxious both to know and to teach should learn all that is to be taught, and acquire such a faculty of speech as is suitable for a divine.  But when the hour for speech arrives, let him reflect upon that saying of our Lord’s as better suited to the wants of a pious mind:  “Take no thought how or what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.  For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.”251    Matt. x. 19, 20.  The Holy Spirit, then, speaks thus in those who for Christ’s sake are delivered to the persecutors; why not also in those who deliver Christ’s message to those who are willing to learn?

CAPUT XV. Orandus Deus doctori eccleciastico ante concionem.

32. Agit itaque noster iste eloquens, cum et justa et sancta et bona dicit, neque enim alia debet dicere; agit ergo quantum potest cum ista dicit, ut intelligenter, ut libenter, ut obedienter audiatur: et haec se posse, si potuerit, et in quantum potuerit, pietate magis orationum, quam oratorum facultate non dubitet; ut orando pro se, ac pro illis quos est allocuturus, sit orator antequam dictor. Ipsa hora jam ut dicat accedens, priusquam exserat proferentem linquam, ad Deum levet animam sitientem, ut eructet quod biberit, vel quod impleverit fundat. Cum enim de unaquaque re, quae secundum fidem dilectionemque tractanda sunt, multa sint quae dicantur, et multi modi quibus dicantur ab eis qui haec sciunt; quis novit quid ad praesens tempus, vel nobis dicere, vel per nos expediat audiri, nisi qui corda omnium videt? et quis facit ut quod oportet, et quemadmodum oportet, dicatur a nobis, nisi in cujus manu sunt et nos et sermones nostri (Sap. VII, 16)? Ac per hoc, discat quidem omnia quae docenda sunt, qui et nosse vult et docere; facultatemque dicendi, ut decet virum ecclesiasticum, comparet: ad horam vero ipsius dictionis, illud potius bonae menti cogitet convenire quod Dominus ait, Nolite cogitare quomodo aut quid loquamini; dabitur enim vobis in illa hora quid loquamini: non enim vos estis qui loquimini, sed Spiritus Patris vestri qui loquitur in vobis (Matth. X, 19, 20). Si ergo loquitur in eis Spiritus sanctus, qui persequentibus traduntur pro Christo, cur non et in eis qui tradunt discentibus Christum?