When it ought to be secret, when public.
Your Charity will soon see what we must do at times: but let us not be sluggish in doing it. Pay attention and see: If your brother sins against you, correct him between you and him alone. Why? Because he has sinned against you. What does it mean: He has sinned against you? You know that he has sinned. Because it was secret when he sinned against you; seek secrecy when you correct what he sinned. For if only you know that he has sinned against you, and you wish to accuse him before everyone; you are not a corrector, but a betrayer. Observe how the just man, Joseph, spared with great kindness the great disgrace he suspected about his wife, before he knew where she had conceived from: because he sensed she was pregnant and knew he had not approached her. Thus remained a certain suspicion of adultery: and yet because only he sensed it, only he knew it, what does the Gospel say about him? But Joseph, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example. The husband’s pain did not seek vengeance: he wanted to help the sinner, not to punish the sinning person. Though, he says, he did not want to make her a public example, he intended to dismiss her secretly. While he was considering these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream; and revealed what it was, since the man's bed was not violated, for she had conceived the Lord of both from the Holy Spirit. So your brother has sinned against you; if only you know it, then he has truly sinned against you alone. For if he wronged you in the presence of many, he has also sinned against those whom he made witnesses to his iniquity. For I say, dearest brothers, that you can recognize this within yourselves. When someone wrongs my brother in my presence, may it be far from me to consider that wrong as something foreign. He has absolutely wronged me too: even more so, he has wronged me, whom he thought he pleased by what he did. Therefore, those things that are sinned in the presence of all must be corrected in the presence of all: those things that are sinned secretly must be corrected secretly. Distribute the times, and Scripture agrees.
The manner of reproof, why it should be done in secret.
Let us act thus and it must be done thus, not only when we are sinned against, but when someone sins, so that it is unknown to others. We must rebuke in secret, argue in secret; so as not to expose the person while wanting to reproach publicly. We wish to rebuke and correct: what if the enemy seeks to hear what to punish? For the bishop knows some murderer, and no one else knows him. I want to rebuke publicly, but you seek to report him. Indeed, I neither expose nor neglect: I rebuke in secret; I place the judgment of God before his eyes; I terrify his bloody conscience; I persuade him to repent. We must be endowed with this love. Hence, sometimes men admonish us, as if we do not rebuke: either they think we know what we do not know, or they think we are silent about what we know. But perhaps what you know, I also know: but I do not rebuke in your presence because I wish to heal, not accuse. There are adulterers in their homes, they sin in secret; sometimes they are betrayed to us by their wives, often jealous, sometimes seeking the welfare of their husbands: we do not expose them publicly, but we rebuke in secret. Where the evil occurred, there the evil dies. Yet we do not neglect that wound; above all, showing the man established in such a sin and bearing a wounded conscience, that wound is deadly: because sometimes those who commit such things, by some perverse means, disdain it; and somehow they gather no and vain testimonies for themselves, saying, God does not care about carnal sins. Where is what we heard today: Fornicators and adulterers God will judge? Behold, pay attention, whoever suffers from such a disease. Hear what God says: not what your mind, favoring your sins, says to you, or your friend, tied by the same chain of iniquity with you, or rather your enemy and his. Therefore hear what the Apostle says: Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled. But fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
Life must quickly be corrected.
Therefore, brother, be corrected. Do you fear that your enemy might accuse you; and do you not fear that God might judge you? Where is faith? Fear when there is reason to fear. The day of judgment is indeed far off; but the last day of each person cannot be far off; because life is short. And because that shortness is always uncertain, you do not know when your last day will be. Correct yourself today, for the sake of tomorrow. Let correction benefit you now even in secret. For I speak openly, and in secret I reprove. I knock on the ears of all: but I address the consciences of some. If I were to say, You, adulterer, correct yourself: first, I might say what I do not know; perhaps what I had rashly heard, I might suspect. I do not say, You, adulterer, correct yourself; but, whoever among this people is an adulterer, correct yourself. Public correction, but secret correction. I know that he who will have feared, corrects himself.
The sins of the flesh are not to be despised.
Let him not say in his heart, "God does not care about the sins of the flesh." The Apostle says, "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you? Whoever destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. Let no one deceive himself." But perhaps someone might say, "My soul is the temple of God, not my body." He also added testimony, "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of flesh is as the flower of grass." What an unfortunate interpretation! A punishable thought! Flesh is called grass because it dies; but what dies for a time does not rise with sin. Do you want to know an even clearer meaning from this? The same apostle says, "Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?" (No longer despise bodily sins: see how even your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God.) Did you despise bodily sin, despise that you sin against the temple? Your very body is a temple of the Spirit of God within you. Now see what you do with the temple of God. If you chose to commit adultery in the church within these walls, would anything be more wicked? But now you yourself are the temple of God. You enter the temple, you leave the temple, you remain in the temple at your home, you rise in the temple. See what you do, see that you do not offend the inhabitant of the temple, lest he departs from you and you fall into ruin. The Apostle says, "Do you not know that your bodies (he was speaking from fornication, so they would not despise bodily sins) are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a great price." If you despise your body, consider your price.
Correction must not be delayed.
I know, and with me, every man who has considered a little more attentively, that no one who fears God does not correct himself under His words, except he who thinks he has more time to live. It is this very thing that has killed many, when they say: Tomorrow, tomorrow: and suddenly the door is closed. He remained outside with the voice of a raven, because he did not have the moan of a dove. Tomorrow, tomorrow; the voice of a raven. Groan like a dove, and strike your breast: but giving yourself blows to the chest, be corrected by the beating; lest it seem that you are not striking your conscience, but rather paving a bad conscience with blows, making it more solid, not more correct. Groan with a not empty groan. For perhaps you say to yourself: God has promised me forgiveness when I correct myself; I am safe: I read the divine Scripture: On the day that a wicked person turns from his wickedness and does justice, all his iniquities I will forget. I am safe; when I correct myself, God will give me forgiveness for my evils. And what am I to say? Will I voice a complaint against God? Will I say to God: Do not give him forgiveness? Will I say that this is not written, that God did not promise this? If I say these things, I say all falsehoods. You say well, you speak truly; God has promised forgiveness to your correction, I cannot deny it: but tell me, I beg you; look, I agree and I concede and I acknowledge that God has promised you forgiveness; but who has promised you tomorrow? Where do you read for me that you will receive forgiveness if you correct yourself; read there for me how long you will live. I do not read it, you say. Therefore, you do not know how long you will live. Be corrected and always ready. Do not fear the last day, as a thief who, while you are sleeping, digs through the wall: but stay awake, and correct yourself today. Why do you delay until tomorrow? There will be a long life. Let that long life be good. No one defers a good long meal, and yet you want to have a long bad life? Certainly, if it will be long, it is better that it be good: if it will be short, it is good that it be spent well. But men neglect their life so much that they do not want to have a bad life, except that. You buy an estate, you seek a good one; you want to marry, you choose a good wife; you want children to be born, you wish for good ones; you rent sandals, and you do not want bad ones: and you love a bad life! What has your life done to offend you, that you want only it to be bad, so that among all your good things, you alone may be bad?
The pastor ought to correct wrongdoings and carry the burden of his ministry.
Therefore, my brothers, if I wanted to correct one of you in private, perhaps he would listen to me: I correct many of you in public; everyone praises me; let someone listen to me. I do not love a praiser in voice, and a despiser in heart. For when you praise, and do not correct yourself, you are a witness against yourself. If you are evil and what I say pleases you, displease yourself: because if you, being evil, displease yourself, you will please yourself when corrected, which I said the day before yesterday, unless I am mistaken. In all my words, I propose a mirror. These words are not mine, but I speak at the Lord's command, by whose threat I do not keep silent. For who would not choose to remain silent and not to give an account of you? But we have already taken up a burden that we cannot and should not shake off from our shoulders. You have heard, my brothers, when the Epistle to the Hebrews was read: Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they keep watch over your souls, as those who will give an account: let them do this with joy and not with sorrow; for this would be unprofitable for you. When do we do these things with joy? When we see people making progress in the words of God. When does a worker rejoice in the field? When he looks at the tree and sees fruit; when he looks at the harvest and sees abundance of crops in the threshing floor: he did not labor in vain, he did not bend his back in vain, he did not wear out his hands in vain, he did not endure cold and heat in vain. This is what it means: let them do this with joy and not with sorrow; for this would be unprofitable for you. Did he say: it would be unprofitable for them? No; he said: it would be unprofitable for you. For when those leaders are saddened by your evil deeds, it is profitable for them; the sadness itself is beneficial for them: but it is not profitable for you. But we want nothing to be good for us that is not good for you. Therefore, together in the Lord's field, brothers, let us work well; so that together we may rejoice in the reward.