Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, Sermons 114A.6 (Miscellanea Agostiniana, vol. 1, pp. 236-237; tr. Edmund Hill):

To get the point I'm making, dearly beloved, set before your eyes two people. There was a careless little boy wanting to sit where they knew there was a snake lurking in the grass. If he sat there, he would be bitten and die. The two people knew this. One said, "Don't sit there"; the child ignored him; he jolly well will go and sit there, go and perish. The other said, "This kid refuses to listen to us; we must speak severely to him, grab him, drag him away, give him a good slap; we must do whatever we can to avert the destruction of a human being." The first said, "Leave him alone, don't hit him, don't hurt him, don't harm him."

Which of these two is really kind? The one who spares him, to die of snake-bite, or the one who's rough with him, so that a human being is saved?

Constituite vobis, carissimi, ante oculos, ut planius intellegatis quod loquor, homines duo. Puerulus quilibet incautus volebat sedere, ubi noverant in gramine latere serpentem. Si sederet, morderetur, et moreretur: noverant hoc homines duo. Ait unus: Noli ibi sedere. Contemptus est; ibit sedere, ibit perire. Ait alter: Non vult nos iste audire; corripiendus, tenendus, avellendus, colapho est percutiendus: quidquid possumus faciamus, ne hominem perdamus. Ait alius: Dimitte, noli ferire, noli offendere, noli laedere.

Quis horum misericors? Parcens, ut homo a serpente moriatur; an saeviens, ut homo liberetur?

colaphus = κόλαφος, naturalized as early as Plautus and Terence.