Therefore, hearing the word from my mouth, thou shalt announce it to them from me. But if thou seest the sword coming, and thou announce it not, that the wicked man may turn back from his way, that wicked man indeed shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thy hand. But if thou announce it and he be not turned back, he indeed shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. It befits a bishop, therefore, who is set as watchman of all, to attend diligently to sins, and after he has attended, to correct them by word if he can and by deed; and if he cannot, according to the rule of the Gospel, to shun the workers of crimes. For if, he says in the Gospel, thy brother sin against thee, reprove him between thee and him alone.
If he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother; if he hear thee not, take with thee yet one or two witnesses, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand; if he hear them not, tell it to the church; if he hear not the church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican. By such order is he to be expelled who has refused to cling to any teacher or bishop. And he who has been expelled by such order ought not to be received by any other teacher or bishop. Of the priest it is written in the law: He shall not take a widow or one that is repudiated for a wife. He therefore who receives one excommunicated by a catholic, without that catholic's permission, acts against the statutes of Scripture and exceeds the laws of the holy priesthood, into which the race of Christians has been chosen.
In this manner ought a bishop to be toward those over whom he is set in watch. But of what sort he ought to be in himself, the Apostle Paul sets forth: that coming to the grade of the episcopate he be sober, prudent, chaste, wise, modest, hospitable, having his children subject with all chastity, having a good testimony from those who are without, preferring the faithful word of doctrines, having before the episcopate no more than one wife; no striker, no double-tongued, no drunkard, no neophyte, that through these things he may first show in work what he teaches others in the word of doctrine. Let negligent bishops therefore beware of that which, in the time of vengeance, the Lord complains through the prophet:
The dumb shepherds have destroyed my people, and the shepherds did not feed my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves. But rather let these provide, in that to which the Lord has appointed them over his household, to give them their food in due season, the measure of wheat, namely pure and approved doctrine, so that when the Lord comes they may deserve to hear: Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. A PEOPLE WITHOUT DISCIPLINE. The eleventh grade of abuse is a people without discipline: for while it does not serve the exercises of discipline, it binds itself with the common snare of perdition; for it does not escape the wrath of the Lord without the rigour of discipline.
And therefore it is proclaimed to the undisciplined people in the words of the psalmist: Embrace discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry. Discipline, moreover, is the ordered correction of conduct and the observance of the rules of the elders who have gone before. Of which discipline the Apostle Paul speaks thus, saying: Persevere in discipline; God offers himself to you as to sons. But if you are outside discipline, whereof all have been made partakers, then are you adulterers and not sons. Those therefore who are adulterers and without discipline do not receive the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom; but sons bear the corrections of their father's discipline, and do not despair of being able at length to receive the inheritance.
Of which discipline also Isaiah preaches to that same undisciplined people, saying: Cease to act perversely, learn to do well. And to the same the psalmist sings in harmonious voice, saying: Turn away from evil and do good. Unhappy, therefore, is he who casts off discipline. For he dares something outside the soldiers, who, though those crucifying the Lord did not cut his tunic, cuts the discipline of the Church of Christ. For just as by the tunic the whole body is covered except the head, so discipline is over all in the Church except Christ. He therefore who is under discipline in the Church is protected and adorned. But that tunic was woven from above throughout, because the same discipline of the Church is bestowed and made whole by the Lord from heaven.
Of which the Lord, when he had ascended to the Father after he rose from the dead, spoke to his apostles: But sit you in the city, until you be endued with power from on high. The tunic of the body of Christ, therefore, is the discipline of the Church; but he who is outside discipline is estranged from the body of Christ. Let us not, then, rend it, but let us cast lots for it; let us not loose anything of the commandments of Christ, but let each one, in that wherein he was called, abide therein with God. A PEOPLE WITHOUT LAW. The twelfth grade of abuse is a people without law, who, while they despise the sayings of God and the decrees of the laws, run into the same snare of perdition through the diverse ways of errors.
Of which ways the prophet, under the person of the transgressing people, thus laments the human race: But we, like sheep, have gone astray; everyone has turned aside into his own way. Of which the same Wisdom also speaks through Solomon: There are many ways that seem right to men, but their ends lead to death. Which many ways of perdition are then trodden, when the one royal way, namely the law of God, which turns aside neither to the right nor to the left, is deserted through negligence. Of which way the Lord Christ, who is the end of the law unto justice to everyone that believes, declares: I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me. To which way he invites all men in common, saying:
Come to me all you that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. For there is no respect of persons with God, where there is neither Jew nor Greek, male and female, slave and free, barbarian and Scythian, but Christ is all in all: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Since, therefore, Christ is the end of the law, those who are without the law become without Christ. Therefore a people without law is a people without Christ.
It is therefore an abuse that in the times of the Gospel a people should become without Christ, when to the apostles the freedom of preaching to all nations has been given, when the thunder of the Gospel has resounded through all parts of the world, when the nations that did not follow after justice have laid hold of justice, when those who were far off have been made near in the blood of Christ, who were once not a people, but now a holy people in Christ, when it is the acceptable time and the day of salvation and the times of refreshing in the sight of the Most High, when every nation has a witness of the resurrection, when the Lord protests: Behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the age.