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| Chapter II. Manifold dangers are incurred by speaking; the remedy for which Scripture shows to consist in silence.
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Chapter II.
Manifold dangers are incurred by speaking; the remedy
for which Scripture shows to consist in silence.
5. Now what ought
we to learn before everything else, but to be silent, that we may be
able to speak? lest my voice should condemn me, before that of another
acquit
me; for it is
written: “By thy words thou shalt be
condemned.”35
What need is
there, then, that thou shouldest hasten to undergo the danger of
condemnation by speaking, when thou canst be more safe by keeping
silent? How many have I seen to fall into sin by speaking, but
scarcely one by keeping silent; and so it is more difficult to know how
to keep silent than how to speak. I know that most persons speak
because they do not know how to keep silent. It is seldom that
any one is silent even when speaking profits him nothing. He is
wise, then, who knows how to keep silent. Lastly, the Wisdom of
God said: “The Lord hath given to me the tongue of
learning, that I should know when it is good to speak.”36
Justly, then, is he wise who has
received of the Lord to know when he ought to speak. Wherefore
the Scripture says well: “A wise man will keep silence
until there is opportunity.”37
6. Therefore the saints of the Lord loved to
keep silence, because they knew that a man’s voice is often the
utterance of sin, and a man’s speech is the beginning of human
error. Lastly, the Saint of the Lord said: “I said, I
will take heed to my ways, that I offend not in my
tongue.”38
For he knew
and had read that it was a mark of the divine protection for a man to
be hid from the scourge of his own tongue,39
and
the witness of his own conscience. We are chastised by the silent
reproaches of our thoughts, and by the judgment of conscience. We
are chastised also by the lash of our own voice, when we say things
whereby our soul is mortally injured, and our mind is sorely
wounded. But who is there that has his heart clean from the
impurities of sin, and does not offend in his tongue? And so, as
he saw there was no one who could keep his mouth free from evil
speaking, he laid upon himself the law of innocency by a rule of
silence, with a view to avoiding by silence that fault which he could
with difficulty escape in speaking.
7. Let us hearken, then, to the master of
precaution: “I said, I will take heed to my ways;”
that is, “I said to myself: in the silent biddings of my
thoughts, I have enjoined upon myself, that I should take heed to my
ways.” Some ways there are which we ought to follow; others
as to which we ought to take heed. We must follow the ways of the
Lord, and take heed to our own ways, lest they lead us into sin.
One can take heed if one is not hasty in speaking. The law
says: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God.”40
It said not: “Speak,”
but “Hear.” Eve fell because she said to the man what
she had not heard from the Lord her God. The first word from God
says to thee: Hear! If thou hearest, take heed to thy ways;
and if thou hast fallen, quickly amend thy way. For:
“Wherein does a young man amend his way; except in taking heed to
the word of the Lord?”41
Be silent
therefore first of all, and hearken, that thou fail not in thy
tongue.
8. It is a great evil that a man should be
condemned by his own mouth. Truly, if each one shall give account
for an idle word,42
how much more for
words of impurity and shame? For words uttered hastily are far
worse than idle words. If, therefore, an account is demanded for
an idle word, how much more will punishment be exacted for impious
language?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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