The Time Of Speaking

Et sicut providus explorator debet considerare status eorum et mores et consuetudines cum quibus confert, et prout viderit expedire saluti eorum sermones utiles proponere, et eos efficaciter exhortari. Quia ut ait quidam sapiens cum orator non aliter nisi orando probetur, philosophus non minus tacendo pro tempore quam loquendo pro tempore philosophatur. Est enim tempus tacendi et tempus loquendi, et ideo ait prius tacendi et postea loquendi , eo quod ille veraciter loqui novit qui prius bene tacere didicit, et quasi quoddam nutrimentum verbi est censura silentii ait Gregorius super Ezechielem libro primo omelia xi. Ubi enim non est auditus non effunda sermonem. Et nolite santum dare canibus, et primo libro saturnalium dicitur quod socrates grecus orator cum in convivio a sodalibus hortaretur ut aliquid in medio proponeret de fonte eloquentie inquit, Que presens locus et tempus exigit ego non calleo, quae ego calleo nec loco presenti sunt apta, nec tempori, ideo ibidem sequitur. Nihil tam cognatum philosophie quam locis temporibus aptare sermones, personas que aderunt in estimatione inviolata moderari in medium vocatas. Alios enim revocant exempla virtutum, alios beneficiorum, nonnullos modestie, et qui aliter agebant saepe auditis talibus ad emendationem venient. Hec ille. Regula ergo discretionis moderante prout viderit expedire pro loco et tempore proponat predicator divinus verba edificatoria implens illud. Verba prudentie statera ponderantur. Johannes Gallensis, Communiloquium sive Summa Collationum Source: here

And as a provident explorer should consider the state of the manners and customs of those with whom he encounters, even so let a man look to the words that will be useful to expedite salvation, and to effectively exhort men. Because as an orator is not judged capable unless he speaks, yet a philosopher not less by his silence than his speaking is a philosopher. 'There is a time for silence and a time for speaking.' 1 And he first says silence and then speaking because he knows truly what it is to speak who first teaches to be silent, a period of silence being as a certain nourishment of the word, as Gregory says in his eleventh homily in his first book on Ezekiel. 2 'When he is not heard, he must no pour forth words.' 3 'Do not give what is holy to dogs.' 4 And in the first book of the Saturnalia 5 it is said that the Greek orator Isocrates at a feast with friends was exhorted to propound something in their midst from his fount of eloquence and he replied that the present place and time pressed him not to speak, and what he would speak of was not apt for the present place, nor the time, therefore the same follows. Nothing so befits a philosopher as to speak aptly according to time and place, so that the persons addressed in untroubled appraisement come to be moderated before him. For some are inspired by examples of virtue, others by benefits, not a few by modesty, and they who are accustomed to act otherwise, hearing such things come to improvement. Thus moderated by the rule of discretion, in as much as he see it profits the place and time, let the holy preacher full of words of edification speak. 'Let words be weighed in the balance of prudence.' 6 John of Wales, The Communiloquium 1 Eccl 3.7 2 Greg Hom Ez 1.11.3 3 Sirach 32.4 4 Mt 7.6 5 Marcobius Saturnalia 7.1 5 Sirach 21.25