Errors Of Speech

Ne dederis os tuum ut peccare facias carnem tuam... Hic tertio prohibet locutionem erroneam, et dehortatur locutionis errorem, et deinde subdit rationem, et post manifestat erroris radicem. Locutionis errorem dehoratatur dicens: Ne dederis os tuum, ut peccare facias carnem tuam, id est, non loquaris erroneam locutionem, ex qua praecipiteris in peccatis. Et exprimit, de qua locutione intelligit, subdicens: Neque dicas coram Angelo: non est providentia, id est, non dicas, neque in secreto neque in occulto, quia in occulto audiunt Angeli, qui sunt ad custodiam deputati, unde infra decimo: In cogatione tua regi ne detrahas, et in secreto cubili tuo ne malexdixeris diviti, quia aves caeli portabunt vocem tuam. Et subditur ratio exhortationis: Ne forte iratus Dominus dissipet opera tua, id est, reddat inutilia; iratus, non per animi commotionem, sed per culpae rigidam punitionem. Sic iratus est super sermones Rabascis et omnia opera regum Assyriorum per Angelum nocte destruxit; Isaiae trigesimo septimo: Si quo modo audiat Domnis Deus verba Rabascis, quem misit rex Assyriorum ad blasphemandum Deum viventem; Proverbiorum vigesimo: Dissipat impios rex sapiens etc. Et subditur huius locutionis origo: quia non oritur a recta ratione, sed a somniorum illusione; propter quod dicit: Ubi multa sunt somnia , plurimae sunt vanitates, quia somnium vantias; Isaiae vigesimo nono: Somniat esuriens et comedit, et postea, cum expergefactus fuerit, vacua est anima eius. Et sermones innumeri, hi sequuntur ad somnia, quia nihil certum ex eis potest sciri; quia Ecclesiastici trigesimo quarto: Divinatio erroris et auguria mendacia et somnia malefacinetium vanitas est. Et ideo de talibus non est curandum, sed de Deo, unde subdit: Tu vero time Deum, quia ipse solus est, qui potest nos perdere et salvare, non somnia, non auguria; Lucae duodecimo: Ostendam vobis, quem timeatis: timete eum qui postquam occiderit, habet potestatem mittere in gehennam. Sanctus Boneventura, Commentarius In Ecclesiasten, Caput V Source: Here, p43

'Do not give your mouth over that you make your flesh sin...' 1 Here he gives a threefold warning against erroneous speech; he dissuades from the errors of speech, and then he gives the reason, and after that reveals the root of the error. He dissuades from the errors of speech saying: 'Do not give your mouth over that you make your flesh sin.' That is, do not speak erroneous speech by which you rush into sin. And he expresses what he understands concerning this speech, saying: 'Lest you say before an angel: It was not foreseen.' That is, do not speak so, even as a secret or unobserved, because angels hear in secret, they who are appointed to guard, whence it says below in the tenth chapter: 'In your thoughts do not abuse the king, and in the seclusion of your room do not curse the Divine, because the birds of heaven will carry off your voice.' 2 And after that he gives the reason: 'Lest perhaps the Lord be angered and scatter all your works.' That is, He render them useless. And this angering is not a troubling of the soul, but a needful punishment of fault. So He was angered by the words of Rabshakeh, and by an angel in the night He destroyed all the works of the king of Assyria. Chapter thirty seven of Isaiah says: 'If somehow the Lord God hears the words of Rabshakeh whom the king of Assyria sent to blaspheme the living God.' 3 The twentieth chapter of Proverbs says: 'The wise king scatters the impious.' 4 And after he gives the cause of such speech: because it does not arise from right reason but from the illusion of dreams. On account of which he says: 'Where there are many dreams they are many vanities,' 5 because a dream is a vanity. In the twenty ninth chapter of Isaiah it reads: 'Hungry he dreams that he eats and afterward, when he has woken, his soul is empty.' 6 And innumerable words lead to dreams, because nothing certain is able to be known from them, as Ecclesiasticus says in the thirty fourth chapter: 'Divination is error, and augury a lie, and the dreams of evildoers a vanity.' 7 And therefore one must not care for such things, but only for God, whence it is said below: 'You, however, fear God.' 8 Because He alone is able to destroy and save, not dreams, not augury. In the twelfth chapter of Luke it says: 'I shall show you whom you should fear: fear Him who after He was killed, has the power to place you in hell.' 9 Saint Bonaventura, Commentary On Ecclesiastes, Chapter 5 1 Eccles 5.5 2 Eccles 10.20 3 Isaiah 37.4 4 Prov 20.26 5 Eccles 5.6 6 Isaiah 29.8 7 Sirach 34.5 8 Eccles 29.8 9 Lk 12.5