“That [thing],” says Origen (in the cited homily 7), “must not be run through idly — that, with one sinning, wrath comes upon the whole people. This happens in this way, when priests, who preside over the people, wish to seem benign toward offenders, and, fearing the tongues of sinners — lest perhaps they speak ill of them, [being] unmindful of priestly severity — are unwilling to fulfill what is written: ‘Reprove the sinner before all, that the rest may have fear’; and again: ‘Take away the evil from among your own selves.’ Nor, kindled with the zeal of God, do they imitate the Apostle saying: ‘I have handed over such a man to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved.’ Neither do they strive to fulfill that [precept] of the Gospel — that, if they have seen [someone] sinning, first they meet [him] secretly, afterward too with two or three witnesses. But if he has despised [this], and after these [things] has not been amended by the Church’s correction, let them hold [him], expelled from the Church, as a Gentile and a publican. And, while they spare one, they contrive the destruction of the whole Church. What [kind of] goodness is that? what mercy is it, to spare one and bring all into peril? For a people is polluted by one sinner, just as by one diseased sheep the whole flock is infected; so too, with one fornicating, or committing whatever else of crime, the whole [flock] is polluted. And therefore let us watch one another, and let each one’s conduct be known — most of all to the priests and ministers. Nor let them think they rightly say, ‘what does this concern me, if another acts ill?’ This is [for] the head to say to the feet, ‘what does it pertain to me if they ache? If my feet are ill, it is no interest of mine, provided the head endure in health.’ Or if the eye should say to the hand, ‘I need not thy work, what does it pertain to me if thou grievest? if thou art wounded? Shall I, the eye, be disturbed by the sickness of the hand?’ Such, then, is [what] they do who preside over the Churches, not thinking that we are all one body, [we] who believe, having one God, [and] Christ, who binds and holds us together in unity — of whose body thou, who presidest over the Church, art the eye — [placed there] surely for this, that thou mayest look round upon all things, survey all things, [and] foresee even things to come. Thou art a Shepherd; thou seest the little sheep of the Lord, ignorant of peril, borne through precipices, and tending through steep places — dost thou not run to meet [them]? dost thou not recall [them]? dost thou not at least restrain [them] by [thy] voice, and deter [them] by the cry of correction? So [ill] art thou mindful of the Lord’s sacrament, that — whereas He, the ninety-nine left in the heavenly places, on account of one little lost sheep which had wandered, descended to the earth, and
(col. 917)
and, [when it was] found, thou didst carry it on thy shoulders to heaven — [that] we in nothing at all follow the example of the master, the Pastor, in the caring for the little sheep? We do not say these [things] for this, that anyone be cut off for a light fault: but if perhaps someone, admonished and corrected for an offense once and again and a third time, has shown nothing of amendment, let us use the physician’s discipline. If we have anointed [it] with oil, if we have soothed [it] with plasters, if we have softened [it] with a poultice, and yet the hardness of the tumor does not yield to the medicines, the sole remaining remedy is [that] of cutting [it] off. For so the Lord says: If thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. Does then the hand of our body ever scandalize us? or, of this hand of the body does the Gospel say: Cut it off and cast it from thee? This is what he says: that I, who seem to thee to be a right hand, and am called a Presbyter, and seem to preach the word of God — if I do anything against Ecclesiastical discipline and the rule of the Gospel, so that I make a scandal of the Church to thee, let the whole Church, conspiring in one consent, cut me off [as] its right hand, and cast [me] from itself. For it is expedient for thee, O Church, to enter into the kingdom of heaven without me [as] thy hand — [me] who by acting ill made a scandal — than to go with me into gehenna. These [things] we have said for this reason, because we have seen [it] related in the sacred scriptures, that on account of one sinner the sons of Israel were made anathema, so that they were conquered by [their] enemies.” Arnobius (bk. 4): “Whoever suffers a sinner to sin, he ministers strength to [his] audacity.”