Hearers
Charles Spurgeon's Illustration Collection [1]
Jedidiah Buxton, the famous peasant, who could multiply nine figures by nine in his head, was once taken to see Garrick act. When he went back to his own village, he was asked what he thought of the great actor and his doings. 'Oh!' he said, 'he did not know, he had only seen a little man strut about the stage, and repeat 7,956 words.' Here was a want of the ability to appreciate what he saw, and the exercise of the reigning faculty to the exclusion of every other. Similarly our hearers, if destitute of the spiritual powers by which the gospel is discerned, fix their thoughts on our words, tones, gestures, or countenance, and make remarks upon us which from a spiritual point of view are utterly absurd. How futile are our endeavors without the Holy Spirit!
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [2]
(audientes), a name given to a class of catechumens in the early Church who were admitted to hear sermons and scriptures read in the church, but were not allowed to share in the prayers. The Apostolical Constitutions (lib. 8, c. 5) orders the deacon to dismiss them with the words Ne quis audientium, ne quis infidelium ("Let none of the hearers, let none of the unbelievers, be present"), before the proper liturgy began. See Bingham, Orig. Eccles. bk. 8 c. 4 bk. 10 ch. 2 bk. 18 ch. 1.
