That We Should Beware of Jocose and Ridiculous Expressions, and Saying Smart and Witty Things

THE blessed St. Basil says: “Beware of jocose and ridiculous expressions, of words of buffoonery, of going about frisking and playing the fool, because these are the amusements of children, and he who is aiming at perfection ought in conscience to give up being a child and play the man.” The saint goes on to say that these fooleries and amusements make one remiss and negligent in the things of the service of God and banish devotion and compunction of heart. Especially, he says, one should beware of saying witty and facetious things, because that means turning oneself into a merry-andrew and a mountebank— a thing most unworthy of anyone aiming at perfection. St. Bernard treats this point very seriously: “Among seculars, nonsense is nonsense; in the mouth of a priest”—and of a religious—“‘it is blasphemy. You have consecrated your mouth to the Gospel. To open it to such nonsensical things is unlawful; to accustom it to them a sacrilege—as it would be to turn to profane uses a temple consecrated to God”—inter saeculares nugae sunt, in ore sacerdotis blasphemiae. The lips of a priest shall keep wisdom, and they shall seek the law from his mouth (Mal. ii. 7), certainly not nonsense, idle stories and buffooneries. Not content with a religious’ being far from uttering such words, St. Bernard would have him also be far from listening to them and taking pleasure in them. Verbum scurrille, quod faceti urbanive nomine colorant, non sufficit peregrinari ab ore; procul et ab aure relegandum est. Scurrility, though some people call it facetiousness or wit, is to be banished from our hearing. When others say such things in our presence, he would have us behave as when we hear detraction, making it a point to interrupt the speaker and change the conversation with some profitable remark, and showing a severe countenance. If we should blush to hear such things and to have them said in our presence, what must it be to say them ourselves? “It is an unseemly thing,” he says, “to burst out laughing, still more unseemly to move others to loud laughter” over such things. Foede ad cachinnos moveris, foedius moves. Clement of Alexandria, who was Origen’s master, says, with St. Bernard and St. Bonaventure: “Since all words proceed from the thought and character of the speaker, it is impossible for ridiculous speeches to be uttered without their proceeding from an equally ridiculous character.” From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh (Matt. xii. 34). Thus he who utters vain and frivolous words shows the vanity and frivolity of his heart. As from the sound you can tell whether a bell or vessel is sound or cracked, full or empty; so from the voice and tone of the words it is easy to see at once that the interior is full or empty, sound or cracked. He who says these things in conversation sounds empty. On the text: Let no evil speech come forth from your mouth (Eph. v. 4), St. Chrysostom observes: “As each one’s heart is, so are the words that he utters and the deeds that he does.” The holy martyr Ignatius in the midst of his torments kept repeating time after time the name of Jesus and, being asked the reason, replied: ‘‘Because I have it written in my heart and therefore cannot help often repeating it.” And when he was dead, they took out his heart and divided it and they found in every part the name of Jesus written in letters of gold. He who says witty and facetious things has not the name of Jesus written on his heart, but the world and its vanity, and that is what springs from his mouth. ‘Thus we see that men who pride themselves on saying witty things and making others laugh with their facetious sayings are not only not spiritual men, but are not good religious.

Father Master Avila interpreted to this effect the saying of the Apostle: Scurrility, that is not to the point (Eph. v. 4). Witty speeches and buffooneries, he said, are not only not in keeping with religious modesty, but not even with the gravity and practice of Christian life. And we read in his life that no witticism was ever found in his mouth. And of St. John Chrysostom, Metaphrastes relates that he never said funny things, nor consented to others’ saying them. The ancient Fathers made such a point of this, that the penance which St. Basil enjoined on anyone who spoke such words was separation from the community for a week. That was a sort of excommunication that the monks practised, separating such people from conversation and intercourse with the rest of the religious, that they might not infect them nor give them the itch, and that they might be ashamed of themselves and understand that he does not deserve to be among the rest of the religious who does not converse and talk like a religious.

In the Life of St. Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, Surius tells of an archbishop of Toulouse, named Duranus, who was fond of hearing and saying witty things and idle words. St. Hugh rebuked him sundry times, as he had been once a monk of his monastery, telling him that if he did not amend he would have special purgatory on that account. The archbishop died a few days afterwards, and appeared to a monk named Siguin, and showed his face much swollen and his lips full of sores, and begged him with tears to ask Hugh’s prayers for him, for that he suffered cruel torment in purgatory for his witticisms and idle words, of which he had not corrected himself. Siguin related this to the holy Abbot Hugh, who commanded seven monks to keep silence for seven days in satisfaction for this fault. Of these, one broke silence. The archbishop appeared to Siguin and complained that his cure was delayed for that monk’s disobedience. Siguin carried this to Hugh, who found that it was true and enjoined another monk to keep silence for seven days, at the end of which the archbishop appeared for the third time and thanked the abbot and his monks. He showed himself in his pontifical robes, with his face healthy and very cheerful, and thereupon disappeared.

Especially it should be observed here that we ought to beware of stinging pleasantries—little words uttered sometimes in fun, and taken for wit, but apt to wound another, because covertly they reflect on his birth or on his understanding and somewhat dull wit or other defect. These pleasantries are more grievous and evil than those mentioned above, inasmuch as they are often offensive to persons, and that all the more, the funnier they are, since they make a more lasting impression on the hearers and stick in their memory more. Even there in the world, where funny men, whom they call wags, know how to do this without personal offense or hurting anyone’s feelings, they go down and are reckoned good company among men in the world, and they say of them: “He is a wag, but after all his droll sayings do not hurt anyone.” But when they sting with their sarcasm, they are greatly disliked, and generally even come to an ill end, because there does not fail to be someone to give them their due. But of this and other manners of speech contrary to fraternal charity, we have spoken in the Fourth Treatise.