The Overbold and the Fainthearted

Admonition 9. The overbold are to be admonished in one way, and the fainthearted in another. The overbold rely on themselves too much and look down on everyone who corrects them; the fainthearted are all too aware of their own weakness and usually fall into despondency. The overbold count everything they do as outstanding beyond all others; the fainthearted think what they do is utterly contemptible, and so they are broken down into despondency. Therefore whoever corrects the overbold must sift their works finely, so that they may be shown to displease God in the very things in which they please themselves. [a] For we correct the overbold best when we show that what they believe they did well was done badly, so that a wholesome shame may come from the very place where they believe they won glory. But sometimes, when they are not at all aware that they are guilty of the vice of overboldness, they come to correction more quickly if they are put to shame by someone else’s more obvious guilt, brought in from the side. In this way, from what they cannot defend, they may be made aware that they are wrong to hold on to what they do defend. [b]

That is why, when Paul saw the Corinthians overboldly puffed up against one another, so that one said he belonged to Paul, another to Apollos, another to Cephas, and another to Christ, he brought forward the crime of incest, which had not only been committed among them but had also gone uncorrected. He said, “It is commonly reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such immorality as is not found even among the Gentiles, that a man should have his father’s wife. And you are puffed up, and have not mourned instead, so that the one who has done this deed might be removed from among you.” It is as if he said plainly, “Why do you say in your overboldness that you belong to this man or to that one, when the looseness of your negligence shows that you belong to none of them?”

On the other hand, we bring the fainthearted back to the path of doing good more fittingly if we look, on the side, for some good points in them; so that while we attack some things in them with our reproof, we may embrace others with our praise. In this way the praise they hear may nourish the tenderness that the rebuke of their fault chastises. And we usually do them more good if we also mention their good deeds; and if, where they have done something wrong, we do not find fault with it as already done, but, as it were, forbid it as something that ought not to be done. So the favor we show may increase the things we approve, and our modest exhortation may do more with the fainthearted against the things we blame. [c]

That is why the same Paul, when he learned that the Thessalonians, who stood firm in the preaching they had received, were troubled by a certain faintheartedness, as though the end of the world were close at hand, first praises the point where he sees them strong, and afterward, with careful admonition, strengthens what was weak. For he says, “We are bound to thank God always for you, brothers, as is fitting, because your faith is growing greatly, and the love of every one of you for one another abounds; so that we ourselves boast of you in the churches of God for your patience and faith.” But after first setting out these flattering praises of their life, a little later he added, “Now we beg you, brothers, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, not to be quickly shaken in mind or troubled, whether by spirit, or by word, or by letter as if sent by us, as though the day of the Lord were at hand.” For the true teacher went about it like this. First they were to hear, in being praised, what they could gratefully acknowledge; and afterward, in being exhorted, what they should follow. So the praise that came first would steady their minds, and keep the admonition added after it from shaking them. And though he knew they had been disturbed by the suspicion that the end was near, he did not reprove them for having been so. Instead, as if he knew nothing of the past, he forbade them to be disturbed in the future. He did this so that, believing their preacher did not know even of the lightness of their alarm, they would fear being open to blame as much as they feared his knowing of it.