De Consideratione

13. ‘Very good’, you say, ‘but different customs now prevail, we live in other days, and men’s manners have changed; dangerous times are not only coming but have come. Deceit, and guile, and violence have grown strong upon the earth. Pettifoggers abound, a defender¹ of the right is rare, everywhere the strong oppress the poor; we dare not fail to succour the oppressed, we cannot refuse justice to the sufferers. Unless causes are pleaded, and both sides heard, how can judgement be given between the parties.’ My reply is this—Let the causes be pleaded, but in the proper way. For the prevalent practice is most execrable, and such as does not become even the forum, let alone the Church. It is a marvel to me how your religious ears can bear to listen to the disputes of advocates² of this class, and to their battles of words, which avail more to the subversion of the truth than to its discovery. Correct the corrupt custom, cut off the tongues that speak vanity, close the deceitful lips. These are they who have taught their tongue to utter lies ; they are clever in withstanding justice, learned in defending falsehood. They are wise to do evil, eloquent to assail the truth. These are they who venture to instruct their teachers, who invent their facts, blackmail the innocent, destroy the simplicity of truth, obstruct the ways of judgement. Nothing so easily brings virtue to light as a brief and simple narrative. So then, when cases must come before you—they need not by any means all come—I should like you to decide them with care, but summarily, and so cut short these dilatory adjournments which mean nothing but the hunting of the prey. Let the cause of the widow come unto you, the cause of the poor, and of him who hath nothing to give. You will be able to hand over many other causes to various persons to dispose of ; the vast majority you will not deem even worthy of a hearing. For what need is there to admit to your presence men whose sins clearly go before to judgement? So gigantic is the impudence of some men, that though their causes bear on their very face the swarming scabs of ambition, they do not blush to demand a hearing, thus revealing themselves to the consciences of the multitude, a tribunal before which they would, as in the judgement of even their own conscience, be confounded. There was no one to check their effrontery; so the numbers grew, and they lost all sense of shame. But, oddly enough, a vicious man does not shun the consciences of other vicious men, and where all are filthy, the stench of one is hardly noticed. For instance, when did an avaricious man ever blush for another avaricious man, the unclean for the unclean, the luxurious for the luxurious? The Church is full of ambitious men; the time has gone by for being shocked at the enterprising efforts of ambition; we think no more of it than a robber's cave thinks of the spoils of the wayfarers.