Letter 1132: Anger is a fire: useful when controlled, devastating when unleashed.

To Zosimos. On what kinds of sins the Law granted forgiveness through sacrifices. For those that seemed to be sins, the Law furnished forgiveness, either through sacrifices, or through almsgiving, or through purifications; but for those that truly were sins, it did not. For the offenses too great for pardon it condemned to death. For it commanded that those who committed such things be destroyed by every means, not so that we ourselves might do the same things, and so that anyone, unobserved, might fling a stone against the one caught; but rather so that those who are clean of the unpardonable faults might carry out the punishment against the offenders. For it is most absurd and exceedingly dreadful to overlook the many who commit the greater offenses but escape notice, while stoning the one who has offended in a lesser matter but has been detected.

Ποίων ἁμαρτημάτων ἄφεσιν ἐδίδου ὁ νόμος διὰ θυσιῶν. Τῶν μὲν δοκούντων εἶναι ἁμαρτημάτων, ὁ νόμος ἄφεσιν, ἢ διὰ θυσιῶν, ἢ δι’ ἐλεημοσύνης, ἢ διὰ καθαρσίων, παρεῖχε· τῶν δὲ ὄντων οὐχί. Τὰ γὰρ συγγνώμης μείζονα, κατεδίκαζε θανάτῳ. Καταλύεσθαι (49) γὰρ παντὶ τρόπῳ τοὺς ταῦτα δρῶντας προσέταττεν, οὐχ ἵνα τὰ αὐτὰ δρῶμεν· λαθὼν (50) δὲ λίθον ἀκοντίσαι κατὰ τοῦ ἁλόντος· ἀλλ’ ἵνα οἱ τῶν ἀσυγγνώ- στῶν πταισμάτων καθαρεύοντες, τὴν τιμωρίαν κατὰ τῶν πταιόντων ἀποφέροιεν. Ἀτοπώτατον γὰρ ἐστι καὶ λίαν δεινότατον, τοὺς μείζονα πολλοὺς πταίοντας μὲν, λανθάνοντας δὲ, παρορᾷν· καταλιθοῦν δὲ τὸν ἐπὶ ἐλάττονι μὴν πταίσαντα, φωραθέντα δέ.