St. John Chrysostom: “Has [Eutropius] inflicted great wrongs and insults on you? I will not deny it. Yet this is the season not for judgment but for mercy; not for requiring an account, but for showing loving-kindness; not for investigating claims but for conceding them; not for verdicts and vengeance, but for mercy and favor. Let no one then be irritated or vexed, but let us rather beseech the merciful God to grant him a respite from death, and to rescue him from this impending destruction, so that he may put off his transgression, and let us unite to approach the merciful emperor, beseeching him for the sake of the church, for the sake of the altar, to concede the life of one man. … God says, ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice,’ and throughout the scriptures you find him always enquiring after this, and declaring it to be the means of release from sin.”