Injustice strikes the unjust. A two-membered maxim, each clause turned inward: TERMthe one who errs (ὁ ἁμαρτάνων) errs "against himself" (ἑαυτῷ); the unjust is unjust "to himself." The proof is in the closing participle: ἑαυτὸν TERMκακὸν ποιῶν — "making himself bad." The real damage of a wrong is borne not by the victim (only "indifferents" — his body, his goods — are touched) but by the doer: he spoils the one thing truly his own — the ruling part — turning himself into a κακός.

The reverse of invulnerability. This is the paired theorem to DOGMA"the virtuous cannot be harmed": if the external cannot make me bad without my assent, then what harms a person is only what makes him worse — and that is his own vice alone. Hence neither envy of the "successful" scoundrel nor anger at a wrongdoer: he is already punished by having become unjust (cf. 8.55 — κακία harms only its bearer; 4.26; and 2.1 — the wrongdoer errs through ignorance of good and evil, and one can neither be angry with him nor hate him; 2.13 — such ignorance moves pity). The governing discipline is action (justice), the sustaining one assent (to place rightly where harm lives).