The Sins of Crowds

Ad negligentiam vitae, non nos negligentium turba persuadeat, nec ad damnum propriae salutis, alienis ducamur erroribus. Quid nobis in illo Dei judicio proderit multitudo; ubi singuli judicabuntur, ubi sola examinatio merilorum, actus quemque, non populus absolvent? Cessent, cessent solatia malesuada discriminis. Nimirum praestat vitam propagasse cum paucioribus quam perdidisse cum pluribus. Atque adeo, non nos ad incuriam peccatorum, sola peccantium numerositas pertrahat, neque hoc, quod sibi alii parum consulunt, quaedam nobis efficiatur auctoritas. Obsecro te, delictum alienum semper ut opprobrium respice, numquam ut exemplum. Sanctus Eucherius Lugdonensis, Epistola Paraenetica ad Valerianum Cognatum, de Contemptu Mundi

To the neglect of life let not the negligence of the crowd persuade us, nor to the loss of your own salvation let us be lead by the errors of another. How will the multitude profit us in that day of God’s judgement, when each separately will be sentenced, when his own deeds, not the people, will absolve him? Let them cease, let them cease, the evil leading comforts. Without doubt the superior life is to have spent it with the poor than to have been destroyed with the many. And, therefore, it is not the carelessness of sinners but the number of sins that drag one off; nor let those who counsel themselves so poorly be made an authority to us. I beseech you, always look upon the wrongs of others as a disgrace, never as an example. Saint Eucherius of Lyon, Epistle of Exhortation to his Kinsman Valerian, On the Contempt of the World