Falling With Open Eyes

Tu autem, fili hominis, audi quaecunque loquor ad te, et noli esse exasperans, sicut domus exasperatrix est. Id est, mala quae fieri conspicis, ipse non facias, ne hoc quod prohibere mitteris ipse committas. Omnis etenim praedicator intenta semper debet mente pensare ne qui missus est lapsos erigere ipse in pravitate operis cum lapsis cadat, et Pauli hunc sententia feriat dicentis: In quo alterum judicas teipsum condemnas. Unde Balaam Dei spiritu repletus ad loquendum, sed tamen in carnali vita suo spiritu detentus, de semetipso loquitur, dicens: Dixit auditor sermonum Dei, qui novit doctrinam Altissimi, et visiones omnipotentis videt, qui cadens apertos habet oculos. Cadens apertos oculos habuit, qui rectum quod diceret vidit, sed recte vivere contempsit. Cadens videlicet in perverso opere, et apertos habens oculos in sancta praedicatione. Sanctus Gregorius Magnus, In Ezechielem Prophetam, Liber Primus, Homilia IX Source: Migne PL 76.881d-882a

But you, son of man, hear whatever I say to you, and do not be exasperating, like this house is exasperating. 1 That is, do not do the evil that you see, lest that which you are sent to prohibit you yourself do. Indeed every preacher should always be attentive with a thoughful mind lest he who has been sent to lift up the fallen himself falls into wicked deeds with the fallen. Paul conveys this sense where he says, 'In what you judge another you condemn yourself.' 2 And Balam filled by the spirit of God to speak, and yet snared in the carnal life by his own spirit, said concerning himself: 'One who heard spoke the speech of God, he who knew the teaching of the Most High, and who saw visions of the Almighty, he who is falling with his eyes open.' 3 He falls with his eyes open who sees the rightness of what is said, but scorns to live righteously. That is, he falls into evil deeds, even when he has had his eyes opened by holy preaching. Saint Gregory the Great, On the Prophet Ezekiel, Book 1, from Homily 9 1 Ezek 3.14 2 Rom 2.1 3 Numb 24.14