The Variety Needed in the Art of Preaching

The following are to be admonished differently: [a] Men and women. The poor and the rich. The joyful and the sad. Prelates and those under them. Servants and masters. The wise of this world and the dull. The shameless and the bashful. The overbold and the fainthearted. The impatient and the patient. The kindly and the envious. The simple-hearted and the insincere. The healthy and the sick. Those who fear the scourge and therefore live innocently; and those who have grown so hard in wickedness that not even the scourge corrects them. Those who are too silent, and those who spend their time in much talking. The sluggish and the hasty. The meek and the hot-tempered. The humble and the haughty. The obstinate and the fickle. The gluttonous and the abstinent. Those who give of their own out of mercy, and those who would like to seize what belongs to others. Those who neither seize the things of others nor are generous with their own; and those who give away the things they have, and yet do not stop seizing the things of others. Those who are at odds with one another, and those who are at peace. Lovers of strife and peacemakers. Those who do not rightly understand the words of the sacred law; and those who do understand them rightly, but speak them without humility. Those who, though able to preach worthily, hold back through excessive humility; and those whom imperfection or age bars from preaching, and yet rashness drives to it. Those who prosper in what they desire in worldly matters; and those who do indeed covet the things of the world, and yet are worn down by the hardships of adversity. Those who are bound by marriage, and those who are free from the ties of marriage. Those who have had experience of sexual intercourse, and those who have none. Those who lament sins of deed, and those who lament sins of thought. Those who weep over their misdeeds, yet do not give them up; and those who give them up, yet do not weep over them. Those who even praise the unlawful things they do; and those who condemn what is wrong, yet do not avoid it. Those who are overcome by sudden passion, and those who are bound in guilt by deliberate choice. Those whose unlawful deeds are slight, yet who commit them often; and those who keep themselves from small sins, but are now and then overwhelmed by graver ones. Those who do not even begin what is good, and those who utterly fail to finish the good they have begun. Those who do evil in secret and good in public; and those who hide the good they do, and yet by some things done in public let evil be thought of them.

But what use is it to us to run through all these, gathered together in a list, unless we also set out, as briefly as we can, how each of them is to be admonished?

Men, then, are to be admonished in one way, and women in another: heavier tasks are to be laid on men and lighter ones on women, so that men may be trained by great things, and women won over gently by light ones. [b] The young are to be admonished in one way, and the old in another, because for the most part severity of admonition steers the young toward improvement, while gentle remonstrance disposes the old to better deeds. For it is written, “Do not rebuke an elder, but appeal to him as a father.” [c]