Letter 484

To Hymetius the Bishop. Nothing leads so surely to inescapable punishment as to make many people zealous imitators of one's own evils. For the ruin [that proceeds] from a bishop who is hated [the text here is corrupt; the sense is a sinning or hated bishop] becomes an addition of punishment for the man who has taught wickedly in the church and who openly does the things that stand condemned; and through those who have refused such conduct as shameful to imitate, there comes upon him no small condemnation, namely, that the bishop has become a teacher of evils, the learning of which the prudent, judging it a matter of reproach, have fled by employing reason.

Οὐδὲν οὕτως εἰς κόλασιν ἀπαραίτητον ἄγει, ὡς τὸ πολλοὺς ζηλωτὰς τῶν οἰκείων ποιεῖσθαι κακῶν. Γίνεται γὰρ τὸν ἐπίσκοπον ὑμισημένον ἀπώλεια, προσθήκη τιμωρίας τῷ κακῶς διδάξαντι ἐπὶ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, καὶ κατεγνωσμένα ἀναφανδὸν πράττοντι, καὶ διὰ τῶν παραιτησαμένων ὡς αἰσχρὰν τὴν μίμησιν κατάγνωσις οὐ μικρὰ, ὅτιπερ διδάσκαλος κακῶν γέγονεν ὁ ἐπίσκοπος, ὧν τὴν μάθησιν ἐπονείδιστον κρίναντες πεφεύγασιν οἱ σώφρονες χρησάμενοι λογισμῷ.