the like arguments," he had observed many of them to smite upon their face and breast, and mourn bitterly, and lift up their hands to heaven, and ask God pardon for such unlawful prayers. Which made him at the same time lift up his own eyes to heaven, and give God thanks, that the word of his doctrine had so quickly produced fruit in them." In another place,' says he, "What do your praises advantage me, when I see not your progress in virtue? Or what harm shall I receive from the silence of my auditors, when I behold the increase of their piety? The praise of the speaker is not the sporos, the acclamations of his hearers, but their zeal for piety and religion; not their making a great stir in time of hearing, but shewing diligence at all other times. Applause, as soon as it is out of the mouth, is dispersed into the air, and vanishes; but when the hearers grow better, this brings an incorruptible and immortal reward both to the speaker and the hearers. The praise of your acclamations may render the orator more illustrious here, but the piety of your souls will give him great confidence before the tribunal of Christ. Therefore if any one love the preacher or if any preacher love his people let him not be enamoured with applause, but with the benefit of the hearers." It were easy to transcribe many other such passages out of Chrysostom, where he shews a great contempt of such popular applauses in comparison of their obedience. I will only relate one passage mcre, where he gives a severe rebuke to all preachers, who made this the only aim of their discourses. "Many," says he," appear in public, and labour hard, and make long sermons, to gain the applause of the people, in which they rejoice as much as if they had gained a kingdom; but if their sermon ends in silence, they are more tormented about that silence than about the pains of hell. This is the ruin of the Church, that seek to hear such sermons, as are apt, not to move ye compunction, but pleasure, hearing them as you would hear a musician or singer, with a tinkling sound and composition of words. And we act miserably and coldly,

Chrys. Hom. xvi. tom. v. p. 220.

2 Chrys. Hom. xxx. in Act.

whilst we indulge our own affections, which we ought to discard. We curiously seek after flowers of rhetoric, and composition, and harmony, that we may sing to men and not profit them; that we may be had in admiration by them, and not teach them: that we may raise delight, and not godly sorrow; that we may go off with applause and praise, and no ways edify them in their morals. Believe me for I would not otherwise say it, when I raise applause in preaching, I am then subject to human infirmity, for why should not a man confess the truth? I am then ravished and highly pleased. But when I go home and consider, that my applauders are gone away without fruit, though they might have done otherwise, I weep, and wail, and lament that they perish in their acclamations and praises, and that I have preached all in vain: and I reason thus with myself, what profit is there in all my labours, if my hearers reap no fruit from my words? I have often thought of making it a law to forbid such acclamations, and to persuade you to hear in silence." By this it appears, that St. Chrysostom could rather have wished to have had this custom wholly banished out of the Church, because it was so frequently abused by vain and ambitious spirits, who regarded nothing else but to gain the applause of their hearers: to which purpose they sometimes suborned men to applaud them in the church, as is complained of Paulus Samosatensis by the Council of Antioch:1 and sometimes affected to preach in such a manner upon abstruse subjects, as neither the people, nor themselves understood, only to be admired by the ignorant multitude, who, as St. Jerom complains in this very case, are commonly most prone to admire what they do not understand. For which reason, it was the care of all pious preachers, to shew a tender regard to the understandings of men; and, whether it gained applause or not, to speak usefully, and as far as might be, to the capacities and apprehensions of their hearers; and by all the powers of divine eloquence, and proper arts of edification and persuasion, incline them to obedience and an

Ap. Euseb. lib. vii. cap. 30.

2 Hieron. Ep. ii. ad Nepotian.

heavenly temper. Without which they imagined the success and event of their preaching, however eloquent and pleasing to the ear, was not better received than that of the prophet, complained of, Ezek. xxxiii. 32, "Thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a very pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they will not do them."

SECT. 29.-Sermons anciently penned by the Hearers.

There is one thing more must be taken notice of with relation to the hearers, because it expressed a great deal of zeal and diligence in their attention: which is, that many of them learned the art of notaries, the Greeks call them Οξυγράφοι and Ταχογράφοι, ready writers, that they might be able to take down in writing the sermons of famous preachers, word for word, as they delivered them. By this means some of their extempore discourses were handed down to posterity, which otherwise must have died with the speaking. As has been observed before out of Eusebius,1 concerning some of Origen's, which he preached in his latter years. St. Austin makes the same observation* concerning his own sermons upon the Psalms, that it pleased the brethren not only to receive them with their ears and heart, but with their pens likewise: so that he was to have regard, not only to his auditors, but to his readers also.3 Socrates says the same of Chrysostom's sermons, that some of them were published by himself, and others by notaries, who took them from his mouth as he spake them. But they did not thus honour all preachers, but only those that were most celebrated and renowned. For Sozomen observes of the sermons of Atticus, that they were so mean, after he gave himself to preach extempore, when he was bishop of Constantinople, that the notaries did not think fit to write

Euseb. lib. vi. cap. xxxvi. et Pamphil. sect. 11. 2 Aug. in Psal. li. p. 201. aure et corde, sed et stylo excipienda quæ tum, sed et lectorem cogitare debeamus. 4 Sozom. lib. viii. cap. 27.

Apol. pro Orig. cited before Placuit fratribus, non tantum dicimus: ut non auditorem tan3 Socrat. lib. vi. cap. 4.

them. These notaries were some of them allowed by the preacher himself, and were therefore a sort of public notaries appointed for this purpose: but others did it privately according to their inclination and discretion. This difference is hinted by Eusebius, when he says, Origen allowed no notaries to take his sermons, till he was sixty years old; and by Gregory Nazianzen in his farewell sermon, where he thus takes his leave of his Church, "farewell ye lovers of my sermons, and ye pens' both public and private." In which he plainly alludes to the two sorts of notaries that wrote his sermons in the church. The public notaries were generally allowed by the author's consent to publish what they wrote: in which case, it was usual for the preacher to review his own dictates, and correct such mistakes, and supply such deficiencies, as might be occasioned by the haste of the scribe, or some things not so accurately spoken by themselves in sudden and extempore discourses. This is evident from what Gregory the Great says of his preface to his Homilies upon Ezekiel, "That those Homilies were first taken from his mouth, as he spake them to the people, and after eight years he collected them from the papers of the notaries, and reviewed, and corrected, and amended them." So again in his preface upon Job, he says, "Some of his Homilies were composed by himself, and others taken by the notaries, and those which were taken by the notaries, when he had time, he reviewed, adding some things, and rejecting others, and leaving many things as he found them, and with such emendations he composed them into books, and published them." But many times the notaries published what they had written,

1 Naz. Orat. xxxii. p. 528. Χαίρετε γραφίδες φανερὰι καὶ λανθάνεσαι. 2Greg. Præfat. in Ezek. Homilias, quæ in Beatum Ezekielem Prophetam, ut coram populo loquebar, exceptæ sunt, multis curis irruentibus in abolitione reliqueram. Sed post annos octo, petentibus fratribus, notariorum schedulas requirere studui, easque favente Domino transcurrens, in quantum, ab angustiis tribulationum licuit, emendavi, &c.

Id. Præfat. in Job. Cumque mihi spatia largiora suppeterent, multa augens, pauca subtrahens, atque ita ut inventa sunt nonnulla derelinquens, ea, quæ me loquente excepta sub oculis fuerant, per libros emendando composui, &c.

1

without the author's knowledge and consent. In which case, we sometimes find them remonstrating against this, as a clandestine practice. Thus Gaudentius says, "He did not own those Homilies, which were first taken by the notaries latently and by stealth, and then published by others imperfectly, and only by halves, with great chasms and interruptions in them. He would not acknowledge them for his discourses, which the notaries had written in extreme haste, and published, without giving him any opportunity to supervise and correct them.' And probably, there may be reason for the same complaint in other writers. However it shews a great diligence and attention in the hearers of those days, and a great respect and honour paid to their teachers, that they would be at so much pains to treasure up and preserve their pious instructions.

SECT. 30.-Two Reflections made by the Ancients upon some of their corrupt Auditors. First. The negligent and profane Hearers.

These things may be justly spoken to their honour, and it is no reflection on them, or diminution of their good character, that there were some others in those times (as there will be in all times) who deserved a contrary character, either for their deficiency and want of zeal in this matter, or for their indiscreet and intemperate zeal, in placing all religion in a sermon, and speaking contemptuously of prayer, or other parts of divine service without it. The two errors in the contrary extremes, the one in excess, the other in defect, the Ancients had sometimes occasion to rebuke, and they did it with a becoming sharpness. Though St. Chrysostom was so much admired, that the people generally said, when he was sent into banishment, that it was better the sun should withdraw his rays, than his mouth be shut up in silence; yet he was often forced with grief to

1 Gaudent.

Præfat. ad Benevolum. Bibl. Patr. tom. ii. p. 3. De illis verò Tractatibus, quos notariis, ut comperi, latenter adpositis, proculdubio interruptos et semiplenos otiosa quorundam studia colligere præsumpserunt, nihil ad me attinet. Mea jam non sunt, quæ constat præcipiti excipientium festinatione esse conscripta.

? Chrys. Ep. 125. ad Cyriacum.