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1 Not everything is to be required of everyone, brothers, just as not everything is to be conceded to everyone; but whatever, if let fall, brings loss upon what is essential, this we must hold to with hand and foot, as the saying goes, and exact without fail, like a kind of tribute, knowing that its payment brings no small profit to our affairs. But whatever does not do great harm by its loss—even if it might be forced through to some gain—would do the greatest harm if pressed; such things a discerning man, one who knows the laws of this business, will leave as they are, sacrificing something small for what is great, rather than the greatest for the sake of the smallest.

2 So too I see physicians judge in the healing of bodies: when the brain, the heart, or the liver is affected, they bring every care to bear, both in the manner of diet and in the use of remedies; but sometimes, when their art’s own reasoning accomplishes nothing, they turn to natural antipathies, mutter half-barbarous incantations, and apply to the sufferer some hodgepodge of substances of every kind—not so much hanging these on the patient as hanging their own hopes on the help such things give. And if they see some less vital part harmed by such treatment, they take little or no account of it, though otherwise they would very much wish that part too to be well; but if both cannot be had, they choose the lesser evil over the greater. They keep the same judgment even in the initial afflictions of less vital organs: if, in treating one of these while diseased, they perceive that a more vital organ is being harmed thereby, they cease the treatment at once.

3 The same rule must be kept, by those who care for it, over the fair body of the Church. Where the faith and its doctrines are badly affected, I hold that every effort must be brought to their healing, opposing the causes that breed the disease both in word and in deed; and, along with contributing our own part—or rather, even before that—we must beg from above the true antipathy, and repeat the all-powerful incantation, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who took up our infirmities and bore our sicknesses, and healed every weakness—who is the Word of God, and Wisdom, and Power, and the right hand and the arm, and whatever other names belong to divine knowledge and strength.

4 But if such treatment does not succeed, because of the disease’s stubbornness and malignity — what Paul calls gangrene, lest the evil word find further pasture — then the iron of excommunication or of anathema must be taken up, working either cautery or amputation, so that it does not take hold of what has so far remained healthy. This is how that skillful physician handled the gangrenes of his own time, delivering some over to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme, and subjecting to anathema others who preached contrary to his own teaching, even if they seemed to be pillars and held a more exalted rank. This is exactly what the angel introduced into that discourse means.