{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-5000","native_reference":{"book_number":330,"chapter_from":3,"chapter_to":3,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":18,"verse_to":18},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: You have frequently heard in the holy Scriptures in what great danger bishops are placed, if they are unwilling to carry out what the apostle urges on them.… But when we reprove someone, if the person we reprove is bad, he fixes his attention on the one he is being reproved by and happily and more readily acknowledges what has to be put right in his reprover than in himself. And if he can find something true to say against the one who is reproving him, he is delighted. How much better to rejoice about his own healthy condition when he has been put right than about another person's illness when he is rebuked!<br/><i>— SERMON 387:1</i></p><p><b>Basil of Caesarea</b>: It is of the greatest importance that the superior [in a religious community] be convinced that if he fails to offer his brother the proper guidance, he will draw on himself heavy and inescapable wrath, for his blood will be required at his hands.<br/><i>— THE LONG RULES 29</i></p><p><b>Caesarius of Arles</b>: Whenever we preach something hard, we do not do so because we believe that you have done something of the sort, but we denounce things that you have not done, in order to be able to cure those matters in which you may have been overcome. It often happens that we fear to do great wrongs but more quickly fail to guard against slight ones.<br/><i>— SERMONS 57:2</i></p><p><b>Caesarius of Arles</b>: It is necessary for us to rebuke, either in secret or in public, those who are careless. Now if the one whom we reprove is wicked, when we do so he will notice by whom he is rebuked, and he will more readily recognize what is being corrected in the one who is reproving him than in himself.<br/><i>— SERMONS 145:1</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: In these words, what should we note, what should we carefully consider, except that the subject does not die because of the fault of the superior, nor is the superior without fault when, not hearing the words of life, the subject dies by his own fault? For death is owed to the impious, but the way of life must be announced to him by the watchman, and his impiety must be rebuked. But if the watchman is silent, the impious man himself will die in his iniquity, because it was the merit of his impiety that he was not worthy for the watchman's word to reach him. But the Lord requires his blood from the hand of the watchman, because he himself killed him, because by remaining silent he betrayed him to death. In both of these cases, we must weigh how closely connected are the sins of subjects and superiors, because where the subject dies by his own fault, there the one who is in charge, because he was silent, is held guilty of death. Consider therefore, dearest brothers, consider, because the fact that we are not worthy pastors is also due to your fault, over whom we have been placed as prelates. And if at times you slide into iniquity, this is also due to our guilt, since you do not have us resisting and crying out against your wicked desires. Therefore you spare both yourselves and us if you cease from wicked work. We spare both you and ourselves when we do not keep silent about what displeases. Oh how free from the blood of those committed to him was that excellent preacher who said: I am clean from the blood of all; for I did not shrink from announcing to you the whole counsel of God. For if he had not announced it, he would not be clean from blood. But because he strove to announce the whole counsel of God to them, he was clean from their blood. By this voice we are summoned, we are bound, we are shown to be guilty, we who are called priests, who on top of the evils that are our own also add the deaths of others, because we kill as many as we see going to death daily while we remain lukewarm and silent.</p><p>But when it is said: \"His blood I will require at your hand,\" if by the name of blood in this passage the death of the body is designated, our fear regarding our silence is greatly increased, because if he who is set over others as a watchman is held so gravely guilty even for the bodily death of those who will someday die anyway, by what guilt is he bound for the death of the soul of his subjects, which could have lived forever if it had heard words of correction? But sins can better be signified by the name of blood. Whence a certain one, when he was lamenting the sins of the flesh, said: \"Deliver me from bloodguilt, O God, God of my salvation.\" Therefore the blood of the dying is required at the hand of the watchman, because the sin of the subject is imputed to the fault of the superior if he has remained silent. There is therefore something he can do, so that even when his subject dies he may render himself free. Let him rise up, keep watch, oppose evil deeds, as it is written: \"Run about, make haste, rouse your friend; give no sleep to your eyes, nor let your eyelids slumber.\"<br/><i>— Homilies on Ezekiel, Book 1, Homily 11</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: (Verse 18, 19.) If I say to the wicked, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to warn him from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. There are two wicked or iniquitous persons, as the Septuagint has translated. One who hears nothing as a viewer, and dies in his impiety; whose blood is sought by the hands of the viewer. Another, to whom the viewer announces, and he, despising to hear, dies due to his own fault: in such a way that the viewer is innocent of the fault. From which we understand that the Lord threatens the impious one, and says: 'You will die by death', so that he may turn away from his impious way, and live. For the threat is not against humans, but against sins, and not against those who turn away from vices, but against those who persist in sin. And there is a great danger in keeping silent on the words of God for three reasons: either out of fear, or out of laziness, or out of flattery. Hence Isaiah says: Woe is me, for I have kept silent (Isaiah 6:5). And what follows, You have freed your soul, signifies the same as the saying of the Apostle: If anyone's work burns, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire (1 Corinthians 3:14), so as to prove whether an external observer was the cause of his death or whether he was guilty. For the work of the master is the well-being of the disciple.<br/><i>— Commentary on Ezekiel</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"69dc83d1c2696e1cca3547768743a9134636fc73754094196efe20e3b8c1bde3","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":5000,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"12dbc300e4d56893626ccf5fbbcd41aaf6e7a54fa08554091a46fde1581de4e0","translator":null,"work":null}