Letter 1552: Virtue must be practiced with all one's strength — not merely admired from a distance.
To Zosimus the Presbyter. I write to you yet again, though I have little hope that my words will penetrate the fortress of your obstinacy. You are like a patient who, having been told by every physician that his habits will kill him, continues to indulge in those very habits and then complains that the physicians are too harsh. My harshness, as you call it, is the only kindness available to me, for gentle words have had no effect upon you, and silence would make me complicit in your destruction. The truth is medicine, and medicine sometimes burns — but it burns in order to heal, not to destroy. If you would accept the temporary pain of correction, you would avoid the permanent agony of condemnation. But you prefer the comfortable darkness of your vices to the painful light of truth, and so you perish not from lack of warning but from refusal to heed it. May God grant you, even now, the grace of repentance, before it is too late. Consider how the great men of Scripture handled similar situations. Moses, confronted with the rebellion of Korah, did not seek compromise but judgment. Elijah, faced with the priests of Baal, did not propose dialogue but a contest of truth. Paul, dealing with the Corinthian disorders, did not mince words but spoke with apostolic authority. These examples teach us that there are times when gentleness is cruelty and severity is the highest form of love. This is such a time, and I pray that you will receive my words in the spirit in which they are offered.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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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