Is it fitting for the shepherd to compliment the people at the expense of their salvation?
Q533 · The Church: House of Salvation
Origen absolutely opposes this principle. He says, “Can I throw the pearls’ of the word of God to your deaf and averted ears?”1079 Again he says, “Perhaps I seem rather harsh to you, but I cannot ‘whitewash’ a falling ‘wall.’?”1080
1077 Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah 4:3 (FOTC 97:34); Joseph Wilson Trigg, Origen (London: Routledge, 2002): pp. 177–178.
1078 Origen, Homilies on Genesis 10.1 (FOTC 71:157); Carl A. Volz, Pastoral Life and Practice in the Early Church (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1990): p. 115.
1079 Origen, Homilies on Genesis 10:1 (FOTC 71:158).
1080 Origen, Homilies on Genesis 10:1 (FOTC 71:158).