"You are perturbed over Christ's injunction in Matthew 5, "Do not resist evil, but make friends with your accuser; and if any one should take your coat, let him have your cloak as well." ... The sophists in the universities have also been perplexed by these texts. ... In order not to make heathen of the princes, they taught that Christ did not demand these things but merely offered them as advice or counsel to those who would be perfect. So Christ had to become a liar and be in error in order that the princes might come off with honor, for they could not exalt the princes without degrading Christ—wretched blind sophists that they are. And their poisonous error has spread thus to the whole world until everyone regards these teachings of Christ not as precepts binding on all Christians alike but as mere counsels for the perfect."
Supererogation

January 1, 1970

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Original Language: English