ne is
speaking. For when he says: "They can sing hymns to God even while
working with their hands; like the craftsmen who give tongue to fable
telling without withdrawing their hands from their work," it is clear
that he cannot refer to those who sing the canonical hours in the
church, but to those who tell psalms or hymns as private prayers.
Likewise what he says of reading and prayer is to be referred to the
private prayer and reading which even lay people do at times, and not
to those who perform public prayers in the church, or give public
lectures in the schools. Hence he does not say: "Those who say they
are occupied in teaching and instructing," but: "Those who say they
are occupied in reading." Again he speaks of that preaching which is
addressed, not publicly to the people, but to one or a few in
particular by way of private admonishment. Hence he says expressly:
"If one has to speak." For according to a gloss on 1 Cor. 2:4,
"Speech is addressed privately, preaching to many."

Reply Obj. 4: Those who despise all for God's sake are bound to work
with their hands, when they have no other means of livelihood, or of
almsgiving (should the case occur where almsgiving were a matter of
precept), but not otherwise, as stated in the Article. It is in this
sense that the gloss quoted is to be understood.

Reply Obj. 5: That the apostles worked with their hands was sometimes
a matter of necessity, sometimes a work of supererogation. It was of
necessity when they failed to receive a livelihood from others. Hence
a gloss on 1 Cor. 4:12, "We labor, working with our own hands," adds,
"because no man giveth to us." It was supererogation, as appears from
1 Cor. 9:12, where the Apostle says that he did not use the power he
had of living by the Gospel. The Apostle had recourse to this
supererogation for three motives. First, in order to deprive the
false apostles of the pretext for preaching, for they preached merely
for a temporal advantage; hence he says (2 Cor. 11:12): "But what I
do, that I will do that I may cut off the occasion from them," etc.
Secondly, in order to avoid burdening those to whom he preached;
hence he says (2 Cor. 12:13): "What is there that you have had less
than the other churches, but that I myself was not burthensome to
you?" Thirdly, in order to give an example of work to the idle; hence
he says (2 Thess. 3:8, 9): "We worked night and day . . . that we
might give ourselves a pattern unto you, to imita