Quod Christo serviat qui improbos corripit amore justitiae
The True Source of Authority
Correction must flow from love of justice and divine vengeance, not private hatred, since all authority comes from God and exists to restrain evil and reward good conduct.
Because even when discipline is brought to bear on the wicked and perverse, it should not serve Christ out of personal hatred's resentment or one's own vengeful spite, but out of the love of justice and of divine vengeance — blessed Augustine himself makes this point when he says in his letter (to Vincent, epistle 48):12 48, ad Vinc.)3 "When truth is preached to those who are going astray, it is a useful warning to the wise-hearted, but a useless trouble to the senseless.4 There is no authority except from God.5 And whoever resists authority resists God's ordinance.6 Rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to evil.7 Do you want not to fear authority?8 Do good, and you will have praise from it. (Romans9
The Test of Right Intention
Whether correction brings praise depends on its alignment with truth, and the heart of monastic discipline is examining not whether one feels passion but why — anger, grief, and fear are blameless when ordered toward another's salvation.
XIII, 1-3). For if a position of authority, favoring truth, corrects someone, the one who has been corrected gains praise from it; but if it rages against someone, hostile to truth, the one who has conquered gains praise from it. (Book IX on The City of God of God, ch. 5.) In our discipline, the question isn't so much whether a devout mind becomes angry, but why it becomes angry; not whether it's sad, but what makes it sad; not whether it fears, but what it fears. For being angry at a sinner so that he may be corrected, grieving for the afflicted so that he may be set free, fearing for the one in peril so that he may not perish — I don't know whether anyone in their right mind would reprove these things.
Mercy, the Crown of Virtue
True mercy surpasses Stoic censure and is praised even by Cicero; it is a compassionate impulse of the heart that aids others' misery while serving reason and preserving justice.
For the mercy of the Stoics is accustomed to censure, but how much more honorably would that Stoic be moved by mercy in freeing a man than by the fear of shipwreck! "It is far better and more humane, and more suited to the feelings of the devout," Cicero said in his praise of Caesar, where he says (Orat. for Quintus Ligarius , chapter 12): "Concerning your virtues there is nothing more admirable and nothing more pleasing than mercy. What indeed is mercy, except a certain compassion in our heart for another's misery, by which we are compelled, whenever we can, to come to their aid? But this impulse serves reason, when mercy is offered in such a way that justice is preserved — whether when it is bestowed on the needy, or when it is forgiven to the penitent. "
Read the original Latin
Quia etiam disciplinam exercendo in improbos et perversos, non odii sui rancore, vel vindictae suae livore, sed amore justitiae et divinae vindictae Christo serviat, idem beatus Augustinus demonstrat dicens (epist. 48, ad Vinc.) : « Quando veritas praedicatur errantibus, cordatis utilis admonitio est, insensatis inutilis afflictio. Non est autem potestas nisi a Deo. Qui autem resistit potestati, Dei ordinationi resistit. Principes enim non sunt timori bono operi, sed malo. Vis autem non timere potestatem? bonum fac, et habebis laudem ex illa (Rom.
XIII, 1-3). Sive enim potestas veritati favens aliquem corrigat, laudem habet ex illa qui fuerit emendatus: sive inimica veritati in aliquem saeviat, laudem habet ex illa qui victor fuerit coronatus. (Lib. IX de Civit. Dei, c. 5.) In disciplina nostra non tam quaeritur utrum pius animus irascatur, sed quare irascatur; nec utrum sit tristis, sed unde sit tristis; nec utrum timeat, sed quid timeat. Irasci enim peccanti ut corrigatur, contristari pro afflicto ut liberetur, timere periclitanti ne pereat, nescio utrum quisquam sana consideratione reprehendat.
Nam et misericordiam Stoicorum est solere culpare, sed quanto honestius ille Stoicus misericordia perturbaretur hominis liberandi quam timore naufragii! » Longe melius et humanius, et piorum sensibus accommodatius Cicero in Caesaris laude locutus est, ubi ait (Orat. pro Q. Lig. , c. 12): « De virtutibus tuis nec admirabilior, nec gratior misericordia est. Quid est autem misericordia, nisi alienae miseriae quaedam in nostro corde compassio, qua utique si possumus subvenire compellimur? Servit autem motus iste rationi, quando ita praebetur misericordia ut justitia conservetur, sive cum indigenti tribuitur, sive cum ignoscitur poenitenti. »
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin plays on vindicta (divine vengeance/justice) as the motive that purifies correction of personal rancor (rancor, livor). Keeping 'divine vengeance' preserves the theological distinction from private spite.
- 2 ↩The Latin is a single period; broken into a main clause plus an extended quotation introduction for readability. The sense is preserved.
- 3 ↩Abbreviated reference to Augustine's Epistle 48 ad Vincentium; citation preserved as in source.
- 4 ↩Augustine's contrast between cordatis (wise-hearted/discerning) and insensatis (senseless) is preserved; the same truth either converts or hardens depending on the hearer's disposition.
- 5 ↩Quotation of Romans 13:1; autem rendered as connective 'and/but' absorbed into the English existential construction for naturalness.
- 6 ↩Quotation of Romans 13:2.
- 7 ↩Quotation of Romans 13:3.
- 8 ↩Continuation of Romans 13:4a, phrased as a rhetorical question.
- 9 ↩Quotation of Romans 13:4a (second half).
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