XL. That We are Not to Be Implacable to Him Who Has Once or Twice Offended.

But yet do not thou, O bishop, presently abhor any person who has fallen into one or two offences, nor shalt thou exclude him from the word of the Lord, nor reject him from common intercourse, since neither did the Lord refuse to eat with publicans and sinners; and when He was accused by the Pharisees on this account, He said: "They that are well have no need of the physician, but they that are sick."¹ Do you, therefore, live and dwell with those who are separated from you for their sins; and take care of them, comforting them, and confirming them, and saying to them: "Be strengthened, ye weak hands and feeble knees."² For we ought to comfort those that mourn, and afford encouragement to the fainthearted, lest by immoderate sorrow they degenerate into distraction, since "he that is fainthearted is exceedingly distracted."³