A time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
All Commentaries on Ecclesiastes 3:7 Go To Ecclesiastes 3
Jerome
AD 420
I believe that the Pythagoreans, whose discipline it was to remain silent for five years and to speak with erudition afterwards, drew their practice from this principle. We too should learn to be silent before opening our mouths to speak. Let us remain still for an established time, meditating on the words of the Teacher, for nothing should seem right to us except what we have learned. In this way, only after much silence will we be made teachers from the disciples. As it is currently, for the sake of those who are falling into the worst wickedness of the world, we daily teach in the churches what we do not know. And if we provoke the people’s applause by our choice of words or by the instigation of the devil, who is the patron of errors, we bear witness against our own conscience that we are doing the very thing against which we are able to warn others.
