Apostolic Constitutions

Be careful, therefore, O bishop, to study the Word, that you may be able to explain everything exactly and that you may copiously nourish your people with much doctrine and enlighten them with the light of the law. For God says, “Enlighten yourselves with the light of knowledge, while we have yet opportunity.”

It is the bishop’s duty not to be silent in the case of offenders but to admonish them, to exhort them, to wrestle them down, to afflict them with fastings, that so he may strike a pious dread into the rest. For he is called to bring up the children of Israel in piety. For the bishop must be one who discourages sin by exhortations, who sets a pattern of righteousness, who proclaims those good things that are prepared by God, and who declares that wrath which will come at the day of judgment, lest he neglect the field of God and increase its condemnation. To avoid this carelessness, hear that which is said by Hosea: “Why have you held your peace at impiety? You have reaped the fruit of lies.”