PUNISHMENT & DELIVERANCE

Chastisement, punishment, The trimming of the luxuriant branches of a tree or vine to improve it and make it fruitful. The act of clipping or pruning-restriction, restraint, reproof, check, chastisement. The kind of punishment which tends to the improvement of the criminal is what the Greek philosophers called kolasis or chastisement, correction. Pruning, checking, punishment, chastisement, correction. Do we want to know what was uppermost in the minds of those who formed the word for punishment? The Latin poena or punio, to punish, the root pu in Sanscrit, which means to cleanse, to purify, tells us what the Latin derivation was originally formed, not to express mere striking or torture, but cleansing, correcting, delivering from the stain of sin! For the natural or accidental evils of others no one gets angry, or admonishes, or teaches, or punishes (kolazei) them, but we pity those afflicted with such misfortune * * * for if O Sacrates, if you will consider what is the design of punishing (kolazein) the wicked, this of itself will show you that men think virtue something that may be acquired; for no one punishes (kolazei) the wicked, looking to the past only simply for the wrong he has done-this is, no one does this thing who does not act like a wild beast; desiring only revenge, without thought. Hence, he who seeks to punish for the sake of the past wrong deed, * * * but for the sake of the future, that neither the man himself who is punished may do wrong again, nor any other who has seen him chastised. And he who entertains this thought must believe that virtue may be taught, and he punishes (kolazei) for the purpose of deterring from wickedness!