Letter 1104: The priesthood is a sacred trust, not a career.
Injustice is indeed an evil, but the injustice one inflicts is an evil that comes with a sentence attached, whereas the injustice one suffers is far less severe. For the first is a matter of the will and choice of the one who commits the wrong; the second, however, takes away nothing essential from the one wronged, and in fact confirms the injustice of the act. Therefore let us neither inflict injustice nor, if we happen to suffer it, return injustice for injustice.
On Paul's saying: "They profess to know God, but by their works they deny him." You are in danger, wise friend, of not knowing what everyone knows. For you have written: What does it mean, "They profess to know God, but by their works they deny him"? This is so plain that it scarcely needs explanation, yet since you ask, I shall explain. Those who say with their tongue that God exists, but by their manner of life demonstrate the opposite, are worse than those who openly deny him. For the open denier at least does not add the sin of hypocrisy to his impiety, whereas the one who confesses with his lips while denying with his deeds commits a double offense: he wrongs the truth, and he uses the pretense of piety as a cloak for wickedness. Such persons are like whitewashed tombs — outwardly beautiful but inwardly full of dead men's bones. Their profession of faith becomes their greater condemnation, because knowing the truth they refused to walk in it, and having received the light they chose to remain in darkness.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
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