Letter 1505: The priesthood is a sacred trust, not a career.

To Leontios [the recipient's name is uncertain in the manuscript]. On the text: "And as for you, if you have warned the lawless man, and he does not turn back from his lawlessness, the lawless man shall die in his lawlessness; but you shall deliver your own soul." [Ezekiel 33:9] The wicked, being many and noising about their slander, have often made those who reprove vices grow numb, so that they no longer check faults with frankness. One must therefore mix gentleness with frankness, and blend love into rebuke, and admonish in this way. But if even so those people are not helped, but instead vilely revile those who are worthy of the greatest crowns, and who are in every way proclaimed by God and counted worthy of acceptance among the discerning, let those who correct the wicked bear it nobly, and let them grieve not on their own account, that they have gained nothing but the appearance of being defiled, but rather over the perversion and madness of those others, because they are so incurably sick that they slander even the physicians.

Εἰς τό. « Καὶ σὺ ἐὰν διαστείλῃς τῷ ἀνόμῳ, καὶ μὴ ἀναστρέψῃ ἀπὸ τῆς ἀνομίας αὐτοῦ, ὁ ἄνομος ἐν τῇ ἀνομίᾳ αὐτοῦ ἀποθανεῖται· σὺ δὲ τὴν ψυχήν σου ῥύσῃ. » Τοὺς ἐπιτιμητὰς (47) τῶν κακιῶν οἱ μοχθηροί, πλείους ὄντες, καὶ διηχοῦντες κακῶς, ἀποναρκῆσαι πολλάκις πεποιήκασι πρὸς τὸ μὴ τῇ παρρρησίᾳ ἀναστέλλειν τὰ πταίσματα. Χρὴ τοιγαροῦν μιγνύναι τῇ παρρησίᾳ τὴν προσήνειαν, καὶ τῷ ἐλέγχῳ κιρνᾶν τὴν ἀγάπην, καὶ οὕτω νουθετεῖν. Εἰ δὲ μηδ’ οὕτως ὠφελοῦνται ἐκεῖνοι, ἀλλὰ καὶ κακῶς ἀπαγορεύσειαν (48) τοὺς μεγίστων στεφάνων ἀξίους, καὶ πάντως καὶ παρὰ Θεοῦ κηρυττομένους καὶ παρὰ τοῖς συνετοῖς ἀποδοχῆς ἀξιωθησομένους (49), γενναίως φερέτωσαν οἱ σωφρονισταὶ τῶν κακῶν, καὶ λυπέσθωσαν, μὴ τὰ καθ’ ἑαυτοὺς ἐννοοῦντες, ὅτι μηδὲν ἕτερον, ἢ τὸ δοκεῖν μιαροὺς περιγέγονεν, ἀλλ’ ὑπὲρ τῆς ἐκείνων διαστροφῆς καὶ μανίας, ὅτι ἀνίατα οὕτως νοσοῦσιν, ὡς καὶ τοὺς ἰατροὺς κακηγορεῖν.