Let us pass, I pray you, through your country: we will not pass through the fields, or through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go by the king's highway, we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed your borders.
Read Chapter 20
Gregory the Theologian
AD 390
So in the case of one of us, if he leans to either side, whether from vice or ignorance, no slight danger of a fall into sin from vice or ignorance, no slight danger of a fall into sin is incurred, both for himself and those who are led by him. But we must really walk in the king’s highway and take care not to turn aside from it either to the right hand or to the left, as the Proverbs say. For such is the case with our passions, and such in this matter is the straight path of the good shepherd, if he is to know properly the souls of his flock, and to guide them according to the methods of a pastoral care which is right and just and be worthy of our true Shepherd. Oration (In Defense of His Flight to Pontus)