Appendix to Augustine's Sermones: Sermones supposititii, Sermones 258-271

Sermon 258. On the same subject as above.

1. That the fallen should rise again quickly. How dangerous it is to heap sins upon sins. I beg you, dearest brothers, that if perhaps any one of you, as human frailty is, overcome by the cunning of the devil and entangled in capital crimes, has destroyed the temple of God in himself by violating it, as the Apostle says, he should not despair of God's mercy, but should quickly rise up from the evil of his iniquity, lest through the habit of sinning he bury himself in the very ruins. For it is not he who has sinned, but he who has persevered in sins, who will be hateful and abominable to God. For so that no one may distrust the divine pardon, the Lord consoles us through the prophet like a most loving father, saying, I do not will the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live (Ezek. 33:11); and that other saying, The impiety of the impious shall not harm him, in whatever day he is converted from his impiety (Ezek. 33:12). But although this mercy is so great, it nevertheless profits us only if we do not delay to be converted to the Lord, nor pile crimes

upon crimes. Finally, even in the very wounds or fractures of bodies we can recognize the infirmities of souls. For if someone's foot or hand is broken, it is usually restored to its former use with toil. But if those same limbs are broken a second and a third time, and still more often, in the same place, your Charity can understand with how great pains those wounds must be treated: and yet after long and many treatments it will scarcely come about that those limbs can be restored to their former state. A similar principle must be believed to hold in the fractures or wounds of souls. If someone has sinned once or a second time, and without any dissembling has fled for refuge to the remedies of penance, he will recover his former soundness without any delay. But if he has begun to add sins to sins, and has preferred to let the wounds of souls putrefy by covering or defending them rather than to heal them by confessing and doing penance, it is to be feared lest there be fulfilled in him what the Apostle said: Do you not know that the kindness of God leads you to penance? But you, according to the hardness of your heart and your impenitent heart, are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgement of God (Rom. 2:4–5).

2. That no one, however guilty, should despair of the mercy of God, but should hasten without delay to win it for himself. By the example of David. But perhaps someone thinks that he has committed sins so grave that he can no longer merit the mercy of God. Far be this from the minds of all sinners. O man, whoever you are, you consider the multitude of your sins, and you do not consider the omnipotence of the heavenly Physician. For since God is willing to have mercy because He is good, and is able because He is omnipotent, that man shuts the door of divine mercy against himself who believes that God either is unwilling or is unable to have mercy on him, and who distrusts that He is either good or omnipotent. Let no one, therefore, despair of the divine mercy, neither after a hundred sins nor after a thousand crimes. Yet let him so refrain from despair as to hasten without any delay to make God propitious to himself again: lest perhaps, if he has made a habit of sinning, he may no longer be able to free himself from the snares of the devil, even if he wishes to. For David, who by divine gift merited to become both king and prophet, after so great a grace was so overtaken that he not only committed adultery but also perpetrated homicide: yet he did not keep himself back for this, that he should flee to the remedies of penance in his old age; but at once, prostrate in sackcloth and sprinkled with ashes, doing penance with great roaring and groaning (2 Sam. 11:12), he fulfilled what he himself had said in the Psalms: I will wash my bed every night, I will water my couch with my tears (Ps. 6:7); and again: I ate ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping (Ps. 10:10). And because he did not put off doing penance through a deadly sense of security, he quickly called forth the mercy of God upon himself, so that he not only did not lose the kingdom, but also merited to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. But perhaps there is someone who says: I am placed in military service, I have a wife; and so how can I do penance? As if we, when we urge penance, were saying this: that each person should rather be eager to take away his hair, and not to put away his sins; and should rather pluck off his clothes than his habits. Let him who by this dissembling is trying rather to deceive himself than to excuse himself take note that neither the honour of his kingship nor the dignity of his clothing could hinder King David from doing penance (2 Sam. 12:13).

3. Likewise by the example of Ahab, of Manasseh, and of the harlot who washed the feet of the Lord. Ahab also, the sacrilegious king, of whom Scripture says that there was no other such who was sold so as to do evil against the Lord (1 Kgs. 21:20); after he had been perverted by his wife Jezebel

and had become abominable to God, having killed and stoned Naboth the Jezreelite when he wished to seize his vineyard, on being rebuked by the holy Elijah tore his garments, put on sackcloth, and with bowed head did penance. Because of this the word of God came at once to Elijah, saying, Have you seen Ahab humbled? Because, He says, he has humbled himself for My sake, I will not bring the evil in his days (1 Kgs. 21:29). Consider, brethren, that even he, sacrilegious as he was, did not put off doing penance until after a long time; but at once he did not delay to offer to God the sacrifice of a contrite and humbled heart. And certainly, if he had afterwards persevered in that humility in which he had begun, the mercy of God would never have departed from him. King Manasseh too, as we read in the Scriptures, was so sacrilegious and impious that it is written of him that he filled all Jerusalem with every iniquity: and yet after this, led into captivity and cast into prison, doing penance with great humility, he so obtained the grace of God that he merited afterwards to be numbered among the friends of God (2 Chron. 33:9, 13). That harlot too, who washed the Lord's feet with tears and wiped them with her hair, when she learned that the heavenly Physician had come, of her own accord thrust herself into a house where she had not been invited: and she who before had been brazen unto perdition afterwards became more brazen unto salvation; and therefore she merited to hear that all her sins had been forgiven her (Luke 7:47). Nor did she reserve herself for this, to do penance at the end of her life: but while she was still able to sin, she chose thus to forsake her sins; so that it was not impossibility but will that withdrew her from her adulteries.

4. Let him not blush to do penance who did not blush to commit things to be repented of. We could find many more in the divine Scriptures who, after countless crimes, by doing penance called forth upon themselves the mercy of God, and returned not only to their former state but even to a better one. But since it would take long for me to recount them all, these four whom we have named are fully and abundantly sufficient for us to recognize that our God, Who both pardoned David after so grave a sin, and spared Ahab the sacrilegious king, and counted among His friends Manasseh doing penance after innumerable sins, and forgave the whole to the harlot who had watered His feet with tears and wiped them with her hair; He Who gave pardon to sinners so great and of such a kind is ready also for us, if we are converted in truth, not only to forgive our sins but also to give eternal blessedness. Thinking on these things, therefore, dearest brethren, let us labour as much as we can, with the help of God, that no crimes or capital sins may creep in upon us. But if anyone should be laid low in this evil by the cunning of the devil, before the crimes themselves grow strong through habit, let him obtain a remedy for himself in the day of need, and with great roaring and groaning strive to reconcile God to himself. Let him not blush to do penance who did not blush to commit things to be repented of; but let him strive quickly to restore the image of God in himself by good works, so that he may merit to be acknowledged by the Father among His sons: lest, shut out from that eternal blessedness and cast out from the wedding feast, with hands and feet bound he be cast into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 22:13); but rather, called back to his former health by the medicines of penance, humility or compunction, and adorned with the pearls of good works, may he merit to hear, Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord (ibid. 25:23). Amen.

Sermon 259. An admonition that, since sins are always creeping in, penance should always be done for them, and that no one should, by a dangerous dissembling, reserve until the end of his life the receiving rather than the doing of penance.

1. Penance here ought to be given up by no one, since daily

we sin, and tender sins are more easily plucked out. I ask you, dearest brethren, that with fatherly custom, as you have been accustomed, you receive [this] not only patiently but also gladly: for you yourselves also know, by God's favour, that it is not for any earthly gain but out of perfect love towards you that I strive, with great humility and fear, to impress upon you what it profits me to say and behoves you to hear. And since not only small sins but also greater crimes try day and night to creep up on us, most beloved brethren, let us not reserve ourselves for that penance which is received at the end; but every day, as long as we live, let us be eager to do penance. This thing not only laymen and clerics, but even monks themselves and priests ought to practise continually. For let a bishop who does penance daily pray for me. But he who, presuming on his honour or holiness, neglects to do penance, let him seek for himself someone who ought to make supplication for him. For since we cannot pass a single day without sin, what reason is there that, while we little by little heap up small sins, we should make boundless whirlpools out of the tiniest drops? From a multitude of sins, which is heaped up over a long time, despair is begotten, according to what is written: The wicked man, when he has come into the depth of evils, will despise (Prov. 18:3). For you all know that we can more easily pluck out tender things than cut down sturdy ones.

2. Daily penance is urged by familiar examples. And that we may take an example from the things which we have daily before our eyes: who is found today so useless or idle that he does not every day have his house cleaned with brooms? Who is there who allows his horses always to stand upon their own dung? I ask you, brethren, infer great things from the least; and let it not seem unfitting to you that we make mention of sweeping a house: for concerning this very matter the Lord Himself said in the Gospel that that woman who had lost a drachma, when she had cleaned her house with brooms, at once merited to find the drachma which she had lost (Luke 15:8). By the drachma a coin is understood; in the coin the image of the emperor is recognized: just as, therefore, when the house is swept, the image of the emperor is found in the drachma, so the soul, when it is freed from the filth of vices through fruitful penance, the image of the emperor is recognized in it. Therefore, as I have already said above, dearest brethren, recognize that what I suggest is not hard or laborious: for this is what I ask, that just as we clean our house with brooms so that it may please the eyes of our friends, so with the help of God we may cleanse the soul from all sins, so that it may not displease the eyes of the Angels. To the house of our soul not only the Angels but even the Lord of the Angels deigns to come; as He Himself also said: Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone rises and opens to me, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me (Rev. 3:20); and that [saying]: I and my Father will come, and will make an abode with him (John 14:23). How happy is that soul which has been willing so to cleanse the house of its heart from the filth of sins, and to fill it with holy and just works, that it delights the Lord to dwell in it! Let it not irk us, then, to do in our souls what we order to be done in our houses or stables. For just as it is right that we have the stables cleaned daily, lest our horses suffer harm, so it is exceedingly unjust and quite cruel if we have greater care for animals than for our souls.

3. The fruit of that penance. The sinner cannot dwell within himself; hence he seeks wanderings; but thereby he increases his disquiet. Whereby he might more truly avert it. This too I suggest, and may your holy Charity not receive it with distaste: for I wish to give you a clear likeness from the very things of which we are speaking. For just as our houses or stables, if they are cleaned daily, cause us neither revulsion nor labour, so

lesser sins, if they are redeemed daily, will be able to produce neither despair nor grief. But if we are willing to be negligent about cleansing, then just as in stables which are not cleaned for a long time the dung itself so rots and gives off so horrible a stench that not only can men not live there, but not even the animals themselves can stand there, so whoever negligently is willing for a long time to gather the filth of sins into his soul by evil deeds, and neglects to amend it daily by good works, not only will God not deign to visit him, but the sinner himself will not be able to abide within himself. Indeed all the negligent, whose hearts are torn by many sins as if by certain wild beasts, and are pricked as if by most venomous thorns, are accustomed to say this to those like themselves: You know that we are sad or anxious; and so come, let us distract ourselves, going either to the circus or to the theatre, or playing at the gaming-board, or exercising ourselves in some hunts. Such people therefore seek the consolation of the world from outside, because they do not deserve to receive that which is given by God inwardly in the soul. For when they return from many false accusations or robberies, and from those unhappy spectacles and dangerous hunts, to their own consciences, since through that pursuit they have added sorrow rather than taken it away, they are utterly unable to dwell or rest within themselves, but are tossed about by the quarrels of their sins. For through pride they are torn as if by lions, through envy they are struck as if by the bite of vipers, through anger they are burnt up in a cruel fire, through cruelty they are rent apart by the bite of savagery; in robberies they are devoured as if by the teeth of wolves, in debaucheries and drunkenness they wallow as if in the filthiest sewers: and so, while they return from the most cruel theatres to more cruel consciences, as if from evil things to worse, they cannot have rest. But how much better would it be if, wearied by the goads of the vices, they devoted themselves to the divine readings, where they could find true distraction and complete consolation; if, frequenting also the thresholds of the saints, they begged help against those very sins of theirs; and if, persevering in fasts and prayers or almsgiving, they strove rather to punish than to nourish or add to those sins: so that, the most cruel army of vices having been put to flight from their hearts, they might run back with their whole heart to true rest, that is, to Christ, and might hear Him crying out to them with a most merciful voice, Come to Me, all you who labour and are burdened, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt. 11:28).

4. Even small sins must be carefully expiated. Those who are willing to do these things humbly and faithfully will be able to come from a grievous tempest to calm, and from the most cruel barbarian horde of vices to true peace. But if there are any who are confident that they are free from the evils mentioned above, and, because they do not commit capital crimes, boast with a dangerous security as if of innocence, let them fear lest the abundance of small sins, like a most harsh scab from flies or fleas, so afflict and torment them that they too cannot dwell within themselves. Therefore, just as we fear cruel and deadly beasts, which are accustomed to kill with a single bite, and also shudder at tiny little creatures, which can torment us, so with the help of God let us redeem both capital crimes and small sins, without which we cannot be, by daily almsgiving or prayers, especially when we love our enemies with our whole heart. For if we reserve ourselves until the last time of our life for doing penance or for redeeming sins or crimes, we ought to fear lest perhaps an unexpected death forestall us, and not allow us to reach that sudden time of penance for which we wish, with a deadly security, to reserve ourselves. And therefore let us fear what is written, Do not delay to turn to the Lord, and do not put it off from day to day (Ecclus. 5:8). O man, why do you put off