But if you resist and try to “repel force with force,” as the world generally does, to obtain redress for yourself, or if you have given just cause for offence, then it is no injury but a deserved punishment: you have earned as much. “You began it; the crime that originated with you falls back upon you. You have sinned; be still,” as Ambrose remonstrates with Cain in book 3 of On Abel and Cain.

Dionysius of Syracuse, during his exile, was kept waiting outside a door. “This must be borne patiently; perhaps we did something similar when we held an honoured position.” He wisely endured it and placed the blame where it belonged: on the pride and contempt he had formerly shown others in his prosperity.

Cicero’s maxim is that “people should not take most grievously those troubles they have brought upon themselves through their own fault.” As the saying goes, what you do comes back to you: they have themselves to thank.

For whoever does wrong must expect to be wronged in return. “Even a fly has a spleen, and an ant has its own bile”: the smallest fly has a spleen, and a little bee a sting.

An ass destroyed a goldfinch’s nest; the little bird pecked its chafed back in revenge. And the bumblebee in the fable threw the eagle’s eggs down from Jupiter’s lap.

In Plutarch, Brasidas put his hand into a mouse’s nest and hurt her young; she bit his finger. “I see now,” he said, “that no creature is so contemptible that it will not take revenge.”

This is the law of retaliation, and it is in the nature of all things to act so. If you want to live peacefully yourself, do no wrong to others; if someone wrongs you, bear it and endure it patiently.

For, as our apostle says, “This deserves approval: when someone, mindful of God, endures sorrow and suffers undeserved wrong. What credit is it if you patiently endure a beating for your faults? But if you do good, suffer wrong and bear it patiently, this finds favour with God; for this, indeed, is what we are called to.”

“Whoever does not bear wrongs bears witness against himself, by his impatience, that he is not good.” As Gregory maintains, a man who cannot endure injuries testifies against his own goodness. It is the nature of wicked men to inflict injuries, just as it is the character of all good men to bear them patiently.

“Wickedness yields to no kindness.” The wolf in the emblem suckled at the goat, as the shepherd wished, but kept a wolf’s nature all the same: a knave will remain a knave.

Injury, on the other hand, is a good man’s page, his “faithful Achates,” following him everywhere like a servant. Besides, “wretched is the fortune that has no enemy”: the man without enemies is in a miserable position. Enmity cannot be avoided, and therefore should be endured with all the more patience.

Cato the Censor—that upright Cato to whom Paterculus pays the honourable tribute, “he did right because he could not do otherwise”—was indicted and accused fifty times by his fellow citizens.

And, as Ammianus rightly puts it, “Who will be innocent if a private or public accusation is enough?” If merely accusing a man openly or privately is sufficient, who will escape?

Even if there were no other consideration beyond Christianity, religion and the like to induce people to be forbearing and patient, the nature of injury itself seems to me enough to keep them quiet. The disturbances, uproars, miseries, discontents, anguish, losses and dangers attending it might check the calamities of quarrelling. As with ordinary gamblers, whose winnings go to the gaming box, so with those who litigate: the lawyers get everything. If people would consider this—“other men’s dangers make us cautious”—the misfortunes of others in such matters and common experience might hold them back.

The more they quarrel, the further they become entangled in a labyrinth of woes; the final outcome is mutual destruction, as in Pliny’s contest between the elephant and the dragon. The dragon got beneath the elephant’s belly and sucked its blood until the elephant fell dead upon it, killing it in the fall: both were destroyed.

Contention is a Hydra’s head: the more people struggle, the more struggling remains. It is like Praxiteles and his mirror: seeing an ugly face in it, he smashed it, but in place of that one face he instantly saw many more equally ugly. For one injury they provoke another “with interest,” and twenty enemies in place of one.

“Do not stir up hornets”: do not set yourself against a multitude. If you have suffered a wrong, consider it wisely and, if you possibly can, compose yourself to bear it patiently. This is the safest course; you will find the greatest relief in remaining at peace.

I say the same of mockery, slander, insults, abuse, defamation, disparagement, satirical libels and the like, which may in any way bring us into disgrace. It is only opinion: if we could disregard or scorn them, or absorb them patiently, they would rebound upon those who first offered them.

A wise citizen, from I know not where, had a quarrelsome wife. When she scolded, he played his drum, which maddened her still more because she saw that he would not be disturbed.

When Diogenes was in a crowd, someone called him back and told him that the boys were laughing him to scorn. “I am not being laughed at,” he replied, and took no notice.

Aristophanes put Socrates on the stage and abused him to his face, but Socrates laughed as though it did not concern him. As Aelian relates, whatever good or bad event or fortune befell him, whether going in or coming out, Socrates always kept the same expression.

A Christian soldier should do the same: as Jerome describes him, “advance through ill repute and good repute towards immortality”—march on through good and bad reports towards immortality, unmoved.