1. I suppose no one will be disposed to question the extreme improbability of the "sermons" in the Apostolic are having been written discourses: if, however, this be considered doubtful, I am willing to argue the point, and be set right if I am wrong in thinking it unquestionable.
2. I believe it is almost as improbable, that in what Professor Brunt calls the "post-Apostolic" times sermons were written, not only from the complete silence of the Apostolic Fathers on the point—for that would really prove next to nothing,—but because it seems quite incredible that no vestige of any such sermon should have come down to us; no forgery of one, no legend or tradition of the existence of one if the practice of writing sermons had prevailed at all.
3. In the Apologies of Justin and Tertullian [Justin, ed. Otto, i. 270.; Tertullian, Ap. ch. xxxix.] there is a description of the addresses delivered in the congregations of their times, which appears to me to prove that they knew of no such practice as reading a sermon and the passage from Origen contra Cels., which De la Cerda gives in his note on Tertullian, though it is only quoted in the Latin, surely shows the same (vol. i. p. 190.). I came across something of the sort in Cyprian about two years ago and, if I may dare trust my memory, it appeared to me at the time to be more satisfactory than the passages above referred to; but I made no note of it,—and I was hunting for other game when I met with it. Still, if your querist is going into the subject as a student into a matter of history, I dare stay I could find the paragraph.
4. I have really no acquaintance with the post-Nicene fathers, the mere desultory reading out of some few of the works of the Arian period counting for something less than nothing; but, as far as secondary sources are to be trusted, I certainly never met with anything that would lead me to conclude that sermons were ever read in the fourth or fifth centuries. [I shall come to the only shadow of an argument in favour of such a practice having prevailed so early, presently.] Certainly, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, were extempore preachers by Bingham's showing. Gregory the Great, much later, for all that appears to the contrary, never wrote his sermons at all, and even preached his homilies on Ezekiel almost without any preparation. Indeed the prevalence of that most abominable system of applauding the preacher, which St. Chrysostom protests against in the magnificent sermon on 1Cor.xiv.38., could scarcely have been universal where sermons were read.
5. I come now to the argument which Bingham deduces from a passage in Sidonius Apollinaris; where, in speaking of Faustus, Bishop of Riez, he says that he was "raucus plausor," while hearing "tuas prædicationes, nunc repentinas, nunc, cum ratio poposcisset, elucubratas." Until I had turned up the passage itself, I thought there was no doubt that Bingham was right in explaining it as referring partly to extempore, partly to written-and-read sermons; but taking the passage as it stands, I would submit that the "prædicationes elucubratas" were not at all read sermons, though prepared and studied beforehand, and that the "prædicationes repentinas" were such as St. Augustine sometimes delivered, viz., on a text which suggested itself to him during the time of service, or in consequence of some unforeseen event having happened just before his ascending the pulpit.
6. I have as yet dealt only with the negative evidence; but the positive testimony against the reading, and in favour of the reciting or preaching sermons, is far from small. I should look upon man as crazy who ventured to speak slightingly of Bingham, and should as soon think of setting up myself against that great man as of challenging Goliah of Gath to fisty-cuffs; but I can never get rid of the thought that Bingham had a strong prejudice against extempore preaching, and treated the history of sermons somewhat unfairly: e.g., in his 22nd section of that 4th chap. of the xivth book (with which chap. I take it for granted my readers are acquainted), he somewhat roguishly misrepresents Mabillon and the Council of Vaison; and as to every other passage he quotes or refers to, every one asserts that the sermons were to be preached or recited, not one says a word about reading.
The Council of Vaison is, of course, that which was held in A.D. 529, and at which Cæsarius of Arles presided: but the 2nd canon does not say a word about reading; so far from it, it commands that the homilies which the deacons preached should be recited [recitentur, Labbe, iv. p 1679.], as though the practice of reading a sermon were not known. So, with regard to the other passages from St. Augustine, there is not a hint about reading: if a man could not make his own sermons, he was to take another's; but to take care to commit it to memory, and then deliver it.
I should be glad to furnish you with a few "more last words" on this subject, but I fear that these remarks have already proceeded to too great a length: still, if you give me any encouragement, I should like to take up the matter again.
I should be glad to be informed whether it be true, as I have heard, that the practice of learning their sermons by heart is universal and avowed by the preachers in Germany; and whether it be really a common thing for a preacher there to deny himself on a Saturday, on the plea that he is getting his sermon by heart?
AJAX.