October 14
“The virtue of patience endures trouble for good reasons but it becomes a vice when it descends into stubbornness. Stubbornness imitates patience; indeed, it is its close neighbor. Just as a person who cannot be forced to do evil is better than one who weakens under the pressure, so too a person who stubbornly cannot be turned away from evil is worse than one who can. Stubbornness prevents a person from ceasing his or her evil or foolish course of action even by the threat of the direst consequences. What shall we say of such a person who refuses to yield to pressure? Rather than describing such a one as having great patience we should recognize that he or she is just a hard-headed stubborn person.”
Sermon 283, 7
