Letter 1616: Virtue must be practiced with all one's strength — not merely admired from a distance.
To Hierax the Deacon. Patience is the queen of virtues, not because it is the most spectacular but because it is the most necessary. Without patience, courage becomes recklessness, justice becomes harshness, wisdom becomes arrogance, and love becomes sentimentality. Patience is the moderating virtue, the balancing force that keeps all the other virtues in their proper proportion and prevents any one of them from becoming an excess and therefore a vice. The patient person endures suffering without bitterness, delay without anxiety, provocation without anger, and injustice without retaliation. He waits upon God's timing rather than demanding his own, and he trusts in God's wisdom rather than relying on his own understanding. Cultivate this virtue above all others, Hierax, and you will find that all other virtues grow naturally in its shelter, like flowers in a garden that is protected from the wind. 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AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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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