A citation from the library

Augustine of Hippo — as excerpted in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 5:38-42

Patristic A.D. 430
Augustine of Hippo · A.D. 354–430
“(Epist. 185. 5.) But who that is of sober mind would say to kings, It is nothing of your concern who will live religiously, or who profanely? It cannot even be said to them, that it is not their concern who will live chastely, or who unchastely. It is indeed better that men should be led to serve God by right teaching than by penalties; yet has it benefitted many, as experience has approved to us, to be first coerced by pain and fear, that they might be taught after, or to be made to conform in deed to what they had learned in words. The better men indeed are led of love, but the more part of men are wrought on by fear. Let them learn in the case of the Apostle Paul, how Christ first constrained, and after taught him.”
Catena Aurea: Gospel of Matthew, as excerpted in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 5:38-42 PD · J. H. Newman (Oxford, 1841) ↗

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