[De veritate dicenda aut tacenda]

that in every congregation, both of seculars and spirituals, every corruption of morals proceeds primarily from this: that those who preside, out of the aforementioned affection, or out of ignorance or fear of displeasing their subjects, and out of a vicious love of pleasing them, do not execute the truth by teaching, exhorting, correcting, and duly chastising vices. A witness to this is the Philosopher Aristotle in the fifth book of the Politics, saying that every polity is preserved through the instruction and habituation of laws, because customary things are transferred into nature, and all natural things are delightful, and all delightful things are easy. Likewise, testimony of this kind is had from Jerome upon Jeremiah, and it is contained transitionally in the canon, dist. 45. But that thing is not to be passed over: that by one person sinning, the wrath of God comes upon all the people, as happened when Achan sinned. For this frequently occurs when priests who preside want to seem benevolent toward those who are delinquent, and they fear the tongues of sinners, unmindful of priestly severity; they do not want to fulfill what is written: "Argue those who sin before all, so that the others may have fear," and again, "Remove the evil from among you." And after a little while, when they spare one, they contrive the ruin of the entire Church. What kind of goodness is this? What kind of mercy is this—to spare one and bring all into danger? For the entire flock is infected by one sinful sheep. And if we wish to examine the root of this evil more closely, we find the danger of ambition to be in such men, so that through their dissimulation, their dignity might stand more firmly, while they desire to appear benevolent toward their subjects and to be estimated as more pleasing and gentle. But under the color of a poisoned virtue, the tainted shoot is often hidden, for according to the Philosopher in the sixth book of the Politics, when they give laws according to the delight of the flesh,