Letter 454: Two things are generally confused by those who hold authority: the power to command and the obligation to care.

To Timothy the Reader: Not only a false accusation, O vessel of God, but even a perfectly true one, if it is made against a father alone, breeds destruction for the one who strikes his father -- as the curse of Noah did for Ham. And you, having kept yourselves pure of this along with Shem and Japheth, your fellow-combatant and co-heir, and having covered the drunken outrage, shall rightly be deemed worthy of one and the same blessing. To Archias, against the Macedonians, that is, the Pneumatomachoi: If the Lord fulfilled his own promise not many days after his ascension, girding his disciples with the power from on high, and if the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus set us free from the law of sin and death, then the malice of the satanic Montanus is vain -- he who was blind to so great a truth and who fabricated the myth that something greater than this perfecting would yet come to those who believed him. One must keep the tongue reverent and dignified. But since it is necessary to rescue those who have been shipwrecked upon the very depths of vice, and since it seems most absurd that one wishing to raise others should himself fall, it would be right, insofar as one is able, to veil the shamefulness of the deeds with the dignity of the words -- lest in wishing to rebuke those persons one defile one's own tongue, and lest in wishing to cleanse another of stain one become stained oneself. But if you should say that it is impossible both to speak with dignity and to strike the conscience of the hearer, I would say that the one who despises a moderate rebuke will despise an immoderate and unvarnished one all the more. For if the gentleness of the speaker and the dignity of the expression do not benefit, much less will the bare recital of his deeds benefit him.

ΤΙΜΟΘΕΩ ΑΝΑΓΝΩΣΤΗ. Οὐ ψευδής [μόνη] κατηγορία, ὦ σκεῦος θεοῦ, ἀλλὰ καὶ κομιδῇ ἀληθὴς, εἰ κατὰ πατρὸς γένοιτο μό νον, ὅλεθρον τῷ πατραλοίᾳ ὠδίνει, ὡς τῷ Χὰμ, ἡ τοῦ Νῶε· ἧς καθαρεύσαντες Σὴμ καὶ Ἰάφεθ, καὶ οὺ ὁ ἐκείνων συναγωνιστὴς καὶ συγκληρονόμος, καὶ τὴν ἐκ μέθης σκεπάσαντες παροινίαν, μιᾶς καὶ ὁμοίας ἀξιωθήσεσθε εὐλογίας εἰκότως. ΥΘ. - ΑΡΧΙΑ. Κατὰ Μακεδονιανῶν, ἤτοι Πνευματομάχων. Εἰ τὴν ὑπόσχεσιν ἐπλήρωσε τὴν οἰκείαν ὁ Κύριος, οὐ μετὰ πολλὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ἑαυτοῦ ἀναλήψεως, τὴν ἐξ ὕψους δύναμιν περιζώσας τοὺς θιασώτας, καὶ ὁ νόμος τοῦ πνεύματος τῆς ζωῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ἠλευθέρωσεν ἡμᾶς ἐκ τοῦ νόμου τῆς ἁμαρτίας καὶ τοῦ θανάτου, ματαία [ἡ] τοῦ Σατανᾶ Μοντανοῦ κα[κό]νοια, πρὸς τοσαύτην ἀλήθειαν ἀβλεπτήσαντος, καὶ μεῖζόν τι τῆς τελειώσεως ταύτης τοῖς πεισθεῖσιν αὐτῷ προσγενήσεσθαι μυθοποιήσαντος. ΥΝΓ'. – ΤΟ ΑΥΤΟ. Εύφημον μὲν ἔχειν χρὴ καὶ σεμνὴν τὴν γλῶτ ταν· ἐπειδὴ δὲ τοὺς εἰς αὐτὸν τῆς κακίας τὸν πυθ- μένα νεναυαγηκότας ἀνιμᾶσθαι χρὴ, ἀτοπώτατον δὲ δοκεῖ τὸν ἄλλους ἀναστῆσαι βουλόμενον, αὐτὸν καταπίπτειν. Ὡς ἂν οἷός τε τυγχάνει, δίκαιος ἂν εἴη περιστέλλειν τὴν τῶν πραγμάτων αἰσχρότητα τῇ τῶν λέξεων σεμνότητι · ἵνα μὴ ἐπιστύψαι ἐκεί- νους βουλόμενος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γλῶτταν καταῤῥυπαίνοι· μηδὲ ἀπαλλάξαι μολυσμοῦ ἐθέλων, αὐτὸς μολύνοιτο, Εἰ δὲ φαίης ὅτι οὐ δυνατόν ἐστι καὶ σεμνὸν εἰ- πεῖν (41), καὶ καθάψασθαι τοῦ ἀκούοντος· φαίην, ὅτι ὁ τοῦ μετρίου ἐλέγχου καταφρονῶν, οὗτος καὶ τοῦ ἀμέτρου καὶ γυμνοῦ πλέον ὀλιγωρήσειεν. Εἰ γὰρ ἡ πραότης τοῦ λέγοντος, καὶ ἡ τῆς λέξεως σεμνότης οὐκ ὠφελεῖ, σχολῇ γε γυμνὴ τῶν πεπραγμένων αὐτῷ ἡ προφορὰ ὠφελήσει.