“As severity is ready to punish the faults which it may discover, so charity is reluctant…”

As severity is ready to punish the faults which it may discover, so charity is reluctant to discover the faults which it must punish.

Augustine of Hippo · Letters · NPNF1 I, Letters, Letter CCXI (to the nuns of Hippo), 1

The first sentence of the letter to the convent his sister had led, explaining why he had stayed away while they quarrelled: he did not want to see what he would then have had to punish.

How this is known

These words were matched, word for word, against this project’s own copy of the volume cited.

Read in Cunningham, NPNF series 1 vol. 1 (1886) · J. G. Cunningham, M.A.

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Augustine of Hippo every saying recorded of this person, and their page