Because Joshua first spoke of them, therefore some think they were heard sooner by him than by Moses — yet [they were] more truly and more sharply known and judged by Moses. The cause of the greater speed in hearing they lay to age — because Joshua was much younger than Moses, and therefore also more vigorous in sense; but that greater sharpness in judging those sounds, they say, was Moses’s on this ground, that when he had been warned of those sounds by Joshua, he attended more diligently, and, having gone forward a little, took them in more from nearby. So, roughly, Abulensis (after q. 25). But Moses seems to have perceived them just as quickly. For as soon as Joshua said “the howl of battle is heard,” at once, without even the least delay,
(col. 130)
…the same Moses replied: “I hear the voice of singers.” But it often happens that one man hears some thing just as quickly as another, and yet the other begins to speak of it sooner — because that other either judges the matter unworthy of speech, or reasons of it more carefully in silence with himself, or, finally, is more intent on certain other thoughts. Nor would I think Moses heard heavily on account of age, since, when he was passing his hundred-and-twentieth year, neither did his eyes grow dim nor his teeth totter (Deuteronomy 34). But the cause why — even though he heard those revels as soon as Joshua — he nevertheless kept silent about them, can be [this]: that, having previously perceived the Israelites’ crime from the Lord, he clung sorrowing in the thought and silent lamentation of that matter; that he was wont to enter upon the narration of others’ vices either not at all, or most slowly and almost by compulsion; that he would not give even one other [person] occasion of thinking about them; that he knew [that] Joshua would too quickly learn of them, and would take great sorrow. For the same causes, indeed, he also answered so sparingly — content with the mere denial of Joshua’s error, and the briefest indication of the truth — although he could, on this occasion at least, have opened, narrated, and detested that deed of the people. A silence worthy indeed [of imitation], which would put reins on the tongues of all who at times come to know others’ vices — whether they be inferiors or superiors — so that, unless some law of correction or charity at last demands otherwise, they use the utmost reticence, even among [their] intimates and very familiar [friends]. Furthermore, Moses had a better means of discerning and distinguishing those same sounds — and there clung in his mind, [placed there] by divine judgment, the anticipated knowledge of that very crime. For he who has some beginning of a cognition can judge of it more sharply than he who has none.