Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 19

Amid these things also it is necessary that the ruler watch skillfully, lest the desire of pleasing men strike him; lest, while he studiously penetrates inner things and providently supplies outer things, he seek rather to be loved by his subjects than to seek the truth; lest, while, supported by good deeds, he seems a stranger to the world, his own love render him a stranger to his Author. For he is an enemy of the Redeemer who, through the right works which he does, covets to be loved by the Church in the Redeemer's stead; since he is guilty of an adulterous thought, if the servant desires to please the eyes of the bride, through whom the Bridegroom sent gifts. Which self-love indeed, when it has seized the mind of the ruler, sometimes drags it inordinately to softness, and sometimes to harshness.

For out of his self-love the mind of the ruler is turned to softness; because, when he beholds his subjects sinning, he does not presume to reprove them, lest their affection toward him grow cold; nay, sometimes he even soothes with flatteries the errors of his subjects which he ought to have rebuked. Whence it is well said through the prophet, 'Woe to them that sew cushions under every elbow of the hand, and make pillows under the head of persons of every age, to catch souls' (Ezek. 13:18). For to place cushions under every elbow of the hand is to cherish with soft flattery souls falling from their uprightness and reclining themselves in the delight of this world. For as it were by a cushion the elbow, or by pillows the head of one lying down is received, when the hardness of correction is withdrawn from the sinner,

and the softness of favor is applied to him, so that he may lie softly in his error, whom no harshness of contradiction strikes. But these things rulers who love themselves show without doubt to those by whom they fear they can be harmed in the pursuit of temporal glory. For those whom they perceive to have no power against them, these indeed they press with the harshness of rigid and constant invective; they never gently admonish, but, forgetting pastoral meekness, they terrify by the right of domination. Whom the divine voice rightly rebukes through the prophet, saying, 'But ye ruled over them with rigor and with power' (Ezek. 34:4). For loving themselves more than their Author, they boastfully raise themselves over their subjects, and attend not to what they ought to do, but to what they are able to do;

they fear nothing of the coming judgment, they wickedly glory in temporal power; it pleases them both to do unlawful things freely, and that none of their subjects should contradict them. He therefore who both studies to do wicked things, and yet wishes the rest to keep silent about these, is himself a witness to himself that he desires to be loved more than the truth, rather than that he is unwilling to be defended against. For there is no one who so lives as not in some measure to offend. He, therefore, desires the truth to be loved less than himself, who wishes himself to be spared by none against the truth. For hence Peter gladly accepted the reproach of Paul (Gal. 2:11); hence David humbly heard the correction of his subject (2 Sam. 12:7);

because good rulers, while they know not how to love themselves with private love, believe the word of free purity from their subjects to be an obedience of humility. But amid these things it is necessary that the care of governance be so tempered with the art of moderation, that the mind of subjects, when it has been able to perceive something rightly, may so come forth into freedom of speech that yet the freedom may not break out into pride; lest, while perhaps freedom of tongue is granted them too immoderately, the humility of life be lost by them. It must also be known that good rulers ought to desire to please men, but so that,

by the sweetness of their esteem they may draw their neighbors into the affection of truth, not that they may desire to be loved themselves, but that they may make their love as it were a certain way, through which they may lead the hearts of the hearers into love of the Creator. For it is difficult that a preacher, however rightly announcing, who is not loved, should be gladly heard. He therefore who presides ought both to study to be loved, that he may be able to be heard, and yet not to seek his own love for its own sake, lest he be found secretly rebelling, by the tyranny of hidden thought, against Him whom he is seen to serve through his office. This Paul well insinuates, when he manifests to us the hidden things of his zeal, saying, 'As I also please all men in all things' (1 Cor. 10:33). Who yet again says:

'If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ' (Gal. 1:10). Paul therefore both pleases and does not please, because in that he seeks to please, he desires not to please men through himself, but through himself desires that the truth please men.