Letter 215: On "heap burning coals on his head" [Romans 12:20]: repaying evil with good is not merely a clever strategy for...

To Peter. The Maker set a limit within nature, and the law threatened dread against those who busy themselves with evil. Those, then, who abide within the limits have honored nature; but those who thrust the law aside have received the dread. Having broken down the limits of nature, they were schooled by the fear of the law to be temperate.

Ὅρον τῇ φύσει ὁ Πλάστης ἐνέθηκε, καὶ φόβον ὁ νόμος τοῖς κακοσχόλοις ἠπείλησεν. Ὅσοι τοίνυν (64) τοῖς ὅροις ἐμμένουσιν, τὴν φύσιν ἐτίμησαν· ὅσοι δὲ τὸν νόμον παρώσαντο, τὸν φόβον ἐδέξαντο. τῆς φύσεως ὅρων καταλυτήσαντες, τῷ φόβῳ τοῦ νόμου σωφρονεῖν ἐπαιδεύθησαν.