Letter 112: You are doing something like a man with an incurable disease who, having been given freedom to do whatever he...

Isidore of PelusiumUnknown|c. 393 AD|Isidore of Pelusium
friendship

Eusebios. Whatever we say we priests should do. In church you teach with fair words, oh but it were rather so in act. For you resemble someone throwing stones into the air and aiming at the directness of their fall and (thereby) bringing them down upon himself. For if the refutation of sins is perceived amongst us as denying its words by its acts, not only do we fail to prevent hearers from acting badly, but we also incur mockery teaching one thing yet doing another.

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.

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