For the things are not to be loved for places; but the
places for good things. Therefore what things thou choosest as pious,
good, and right from each of sundry churches, these gather thou
together, and settle into a custom in the mind of the English nation.
Asked by Augustine: I pray thee, what punishment shall he
suffer--whosoever takes away anything by stealth from a church?
Answered by Gregory: This may thy brotherliness determine from the
thief's condition, how he may be corrected. For there are some who have
worldly wealth, and yet commit theft; there are some who are in this
wise guilty through poverty. Therefore need is that some be corrected by
waning of their worldly goods, some by stripes; some more sternly, some
more mildly. And though the punishment be inflicted a little harder or
sterner, yet it is to be done of love, not of wrath nor of fury; because
through the throes of this is procured to the man that he be not given
to the everlasting fires of hell-torments. For in this manner we ought
to punish men, as the good fathers are wont [to do] their fleshly
children, whom they chide and swinge for their sins; and yet those same
whom they chide and chastise by these pains they also love, and wish to
have for their heirs, and for them hold their worldly goods which they
possess, whom they seem in anger to persecute and torment.
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