Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XII/Gregory the Great/The Book of Pastoral Rule/Part III/Chapter 7

Chapter VII.

How the impudent and bashful are to be admonished.

(Admonition 8).&#160; Differently to be admonished are the impudent and the bashful.&#160; For those nothing but hard rebuke restrains from the vice of impudence; while these for the most part a modest exhortation disposes to amendment.&#160; Those do not know that they are in fault, unless they be rebuked even by many; to these it usually suffices for their conversion that the teacher at least gently reminds them of their evil deeds.&#160; For those one best corrects who reprehends them by direct invective; but to these greater profit ensues, if what is rebuked in them be touched, as it were, by a side stroke.&#160; Thus the, openly upbraiding the impudent people of the Jews, saying, There is come unto thee a whore&#8217;s forehead; thou wouldest not blush (Jerem. iii. 3).&#160; But again He revives them when ashamed, saying, Thou shalt forget the confusion of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood; for thy Maker will reign over thee (Isai. liv. 4).&#160; Paul also openly upbraids the Galatians impudently sinning, when he says, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you (Galat. iii. 1)?&#160; And again, Are ye so foolish, that, having begun in the Spirit, ye are now made perfect in the flesh (Ibid. 3)?&#160; But the faults of those who are ashamed he reprehends as though sympathizing with them, saying, I rejoiced in the greatly, that now at the last ye have flourished again to care for me, as indeed ye did care, for ye lacked opportunity (Philipp. iv. 10); so that hard upbraiding might discover the faults of the former, and a softer address veil the negligence of the latter.