Augustine, Sermones 347-352 (Classis IV, de Diversis)

guilty of homicide, yet not in vain did he, repenting, cry out to the Lord from so monstrous and sheer a depth of crime, saying: Turn away Thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. By what merit, then, unless because he likewise says: I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is before me always? But what did he offer to the Lord by which he might make Him favourable to himself? For if Thou had wished, he says, a sacrifice, I would certainly have given it; in burnt offerings Thou will not take delight. A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit: a contrite and humbled heart God does not spurn (Ps. 50:11, 5, 18–19). So not only did he offer devoutly, but also by saying these things he showed what ought to be offered. For it is not enough to change one's ways for the better and to withdraw from evil deeds, unless satisfaction is also made to God for those things which have been done, through the sorrow of penitence, through the groaning of humility, through the sacrifice of a contrite heart, with almsgiving working together with these. For blessed are the merciful, since God will have mercy on them (Matt. 5:7). For it is not said only that we should abstain from sins: But for past ones also, it says, pray to the Lord, that they may be forgiven you (Sir. 21:1). And Peter was already one of the faithful; he had already baptized others in Christ. Look, then, at Peter: presuming, accused; fearing, wounded; weeping, healed. And even after the coming of the Holy Spirit from heaven, a certain Simon wished to buy that same Holy Spirit with money, contemplating a most wicked and impious traffic, though already baptized in Christ: and yet, rebuked by Peter himself, he received the counsel of penitence (Acts 8:13–22). The apostle Paul too, who was certainly sending his Epistles to the faithful, says: Lest when I come to you again, God humble me, and I mourn many of those who sinned before and have not done penance for the impurity and lewdness and fornication which they have committed (2 Cor. 12:21). We are surrounded, therefore, both by precepts for acting rightly and by examples not only of those who act rightly but also of penitents, for recovering the salvation that had been lost by sinning. But suppose it is uncertain whether God pardons. What does he lose by supplicating God, who did not hesitate to lose his salvation when he offended God? For who is certain that even an emperor will pardon? And yet money is poured out, seas are crossed, the uncertainties of storms are undergone; and almost, in order that death may be avoided, death itself is undertaken. Then a man is supplicated through men: these things are done without hesitation, although it is doubtful to what end they will turn out. And yet the keys of the Church are more certain than the hearts of kings: by which keys, whatever is loosed on earth is promised to be loosed also in heaven (Matt. 16:19). And far more honourable is the humility by which each one humbles himself to the Church of God: and a lesser labour is imposed, and eternal death is avoided with no danger of temporal death.

Sermon 352. On the usefulness of doing penance, II.

Chapter I. — 1. The occasion for the sermon given by the reading. The voice of a penitent is recognized in the words with which

we answered the one chanting: Turn away Thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities (Ps. 50:11). Hence, since we had not prepared a sermon for your Charity, we recognized that this was what we were to treat, at the Lord's command. For we wished today to leave you to ruminate, knowing how abundant a feast you have received. But because you receive wholesomely what is set before you, you hunger much every day. May the Lord our God Himself therefore grant both to us sufficiency of strength and to you a profitable hearing. For we are not unaware that we must serve your good and profitable will. Let us therefore be helped by you both with prayer and with zeal: with prayer to God, with zeal for the word; that we may say those things which He judges to be profitable for you, Who feeds you through us. In these words, then, the voice of a penitent is recognized: Turn away Thy face from my sins, and blot out all my misdeeds. Accordingly we are bidden by God to say something about penitence. For it was not we who commanded the reader to sing this psalm; but what He judged to be profitable for you to hear, this He commanded even to a boy's heart. Let us say something of the usefulness of penitence: especially since the holy anniversary day is now at hand, at whose approach it is fitting that souls be humbled and bodies subdued more earnestly.

2. Penitence is threefold. The first, that of those about to be baptized. Penitence before baptism enjoined upon the Jews. Now a threefold consideration of doing penitence is found in sacred Scripture. For no one comes rightly even to the Baptism of Christ, in which all sins are blotted out, except by doing penitence for his former life. For no one chooses a new life unless he repents of the old. And this too we ought to prove by the authority of the divine Books, whether those about to be baptized did penitence. When the Holy Spirit, promised beforehand, was sent, and the Lord fulfilled the pledge of His promise, the disciples, having received the Holy Spirit, as you know, began to speak in all tongues, so that among those who were present each recognized his own tongue. Terrified by this miracle, they sought counsel for their life from the Apostles. Then Peter proclaimed to them that He Whom they had crucified was to be worshipped, so that, now believing, they might drink His blood, which in their fury they had shed. And when our Lord Jesus Christ had been proclaimed to them, and they acknowledged their guilt, so that there was fulfilled in them what the prophet had foretold, I am turned in my distress, while the thorn is fixed fast; they were pierced to the heart. For they were turned into the distress of sorrow when the thorn of the remembrance of sin was fixed fast. For they had thought that they had done nothing evil; the thorn was not yet driven in. But when Peter spoke, so that you may recognize the thorn driven in, Scripture said, While Peter was speaking they were pierced to the heart. Accordingly in the same psalm, when it has been said, I am turned in my distress, while the thorn is fixed fast, there follows, I have acknowledged my sin, and my misdeed I have not covered. I said, I will declare against myself my offence to the Lord; and Thou hast forgiven the impiety of my heart (Ps. 31:4–5). When therefore, pierced by that thorn of remembrance, they said to the Apostles, What then shall we do? Peter said to them, Do penitence, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and your sins will be forgiven you (Acts 2:37). Meanwhile, therefore,

now, if any happen to be present from that number who are preparing to be baptized (for we believe that they are present at the word all the more eagerly, the nearer they are to pardon), we address these first with a few words, that they may raise their minds to hope. Let them love to become what they are not, let them hate what they have been. Let them already conceive by desire the new man who is to be born: whatever gnawed at them from their past life, whatever tormented their conscience, whatever at all, whether great or small, whether such as may be spoken of or such as may not be spoken of, let them not doubt that it can be forgiven; lest perhaps what the mercy of God wishes to forgive, human doubt should hold fast against itself.

3. Our figures in the things that befell the Israelites. The rock, a figure: Christ. The crossing of the Red Sea, Baptism. The manna a figure of Christ, the heavenly bread. How the Israelites took the same spiritual food and drink as we. The rock struck with the rod. Let each one also faithfully call to mind the example displayed in that first people. For the Apostle says: All these things were our figures, when he was speaking of such matters. For what had he said? For I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud; and all were baptized in Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed. But the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:1–4). He said that these were our figures, he whom no believer has ever contradicted. And though he enumerated many things, he explained one thing alone, in that he said, But the rock was Christ. By explaining one single thing, he set out the rest to be inquired into: but lest the inquirer, departing from Christ, should go astray, so that he might inquire steadfastly, founded upon the rock, The rock, he says, was Christ. He said that those were our figures, and all was obscure. Who would unroll those wrappings of figures? who would open them? who would dare to examine them closely? Amid, as it were, the densest thickets and thick shade he kindled a light: The rock, he says, was Christ. Now therefore, since light has been brought in, let us seek what the rest signify; what they mean, the sea, the cloud, the manna. For these he did not expound, but he showed what the rock was. The crossing through the sea is Baptism. But because baptism, that is, the water of salvation, is not of salvation unless consecrated in the name of Christ, Who shed His blood for us, the water is signed with His cross. That that baptism might signify this, the sea was Red. The manna from heaven is openly expounded by the Lord Himself. Your fathers ate, He says, manna in the desert, and died. For how would they live, when a figure could foretell life but could not be life? They ate, He says, manna, and died; that is, the manna that they ate could not free them from death: not because the manna itself was death to them, but because it did not free them from death. For He was to free them from death Who was figured by the manna. The manna certainly came from heaven; mark Whom it figured: I am, He says, the living bread, Who came down from heaven (John 6:49, 51). But as eager and well-watchful [hearers], attend to the Lord's words, that you may profit and may know how both to read and to hear. The same, he says, spiritual food they ate. What is the same, except that it was Him Whom we also [eat]?

I see that what I have undertaken to say is somewhat difficult to bring out and explain; but I shall be helped by your goodwill: may it obtain for me from the Lord the ability. The same, he says, spiritual food they ate. It would have been enough for him to say, They ate spiritual food. The same, he says. I do not find how I may understand "the same", except as that which we too eat. What then, someone says, was that manna this which I now receive? Then nothing has come now, if it already existed before. Then the scandal of the cross has been made void. How then "the same", except because he added "spiritual"? For those who received that manna in such a way that they thought only their bodily need was being satisfied, and their belly being fed, not their mind, ate nothing great; their need was satisfied. Some God fed, to others He announced something. Such as these ate bodily food, not spiritual food. Whom then does he say, our fathers, ate the same spiritual food? Whom do we think, brethren, except those who truly were our fathers? Indeed, they were not our fathers, but are. For all of them live. For thus the Lord says to certain of those unbelievers, Your fathers ate manna in the desert, and died. For what is "Your fathers", except those whom you imitate in unbelief, whose ways you follow by not believing and by resisting God? According to this sense He says to certain people, You are of your father the devil (John 8:44). For the devil neither created any man by his power, nor begot one by generating him; and yet he is called the father of the ungodly, not on account of generation, but on account of imitation. Just as, on the contrary, it is said of the good, Therefore you are the seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:29), though he is speaking to Gentiles, who did not draw the stock of their flesh from the race of Abraham. For they were sons, not by being born, but by imitating. But Abraham as father is taken away and estranged from the faithless, when the Lord says to them, If you were sons of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham (John 8:39). And so that the bad trees glorying in Abraham's fatherhood might be uprooted, sons of Abraham are promised from stones (Matt. 3:9). So then, just as in this place He says, Your fathers ate manna in the desert, and died, for they did not understand what they ate, and so, not understanding, they received nothing but bodily food; so too the Apostle says that our fathers, not the fathers of the unbelieving, not the fathers of the ungodly, who ate and died, but our fathers, the fathers of the faithful, ate spiritual food, and therefore the same. Our fathers, he says, ate the same spiritual food, and drank the same spiritual drink. For there were some there who understood what they were eating; there were some there to whom Christ in the heart was sweeter than manna in the mouth. Why speak of others? Of these was, first of all, Moses himself, the servant of God, faithful in all His house (Heb. 3:2), knowing what he was administering, and that at that time the things veiled in the present and open in the future had to be so administered. Briefly, then, I would say: whoever understood Christ in the manna ate the same spiritual food as we; but whoever sought from the manna only to be filled,

the fathers of the unbelievers ate, and they died. So also the same drink: for the Rock [was] Christ. The same drink, then, as we, but spiritual; that is, which was taken by faith, not which was drawn in by the body. You have heard "the same drink": the Rock was Christ; for it is not one Christ then and another now. That rock indeed was one (Exod. 17:6), another the stone which Jacob placed for himself at his head (Gen. 28:11): another the lamb slain that the Passover might be eaten (Exod. 12), another the ram caught in the briers to be sacrificed, when Abraham, being commanded, spared his son, whom being commanded he had offered (Gen. 22:13): one sheep and another sheep, one stone and another stone, yet the same Christ; therefore the same food, therefore the same drink. Further, the rock itself was struck with wood, that water might flow down: for it was struck with a rod (Exod. 17:5–6). Why with wood, not with iron, unless because the cross came to Christ, that it might give us grace to drink? The same food, then, the same drink, but to those who understand and believe. But to those who do not understand, that was only manna, that only water; the one food for the hungry man, this drink for the thirsty man; neither the one nor the other for the believer: but for the believer the same as now. For then Christ was to come, now Christ has come. "Is to come" and "has come" are different words, but the same Christ.

4. The doubting of Moses figurative. I wish also, since the matter has come up, to say something about the doubting of Moses, the servant of God. For this too was a figure of the ancient saints. Moses doubted at the water; when he struck the rock with the rod that water might flow, he doubted. But anyone reading of his doubting might perhaps pass over it and not understand, because he would not dare even to inquire. Yet that doubting displeased the Lord God, and He marked it, not only by rebuking but also by punishing. For on account of this doubting it is said to Moses, "You shall not lead the people into the land of promise" (Num. 20:12). "Go up into the mountain, and die" (Deut. 32:49). Here God certainly appears angry. What then of Moses, my brethren? All that labour of his, all his fervour for the people, and that charity which said, "If Thou forgivest them their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of Thy book" (Exod. 32:31–32), was it condemned by this sudden and abrupt doubting? And what of that with which the reader concluded when he read the Apostle, "Charity never fails" (1 Cor. 13:8)? While I was setting forth certain things to be resolved, your eagerness has made me set forth something else as well, which perhaps you would not ask. Let us see, then, and still try as far as we can to penetrate the mystery. God is angry, He says that he will not lead the people into the land of promise; He commands him to go up into the mountain and die. And yet He enjoins many things to be done on that same Moses: He commands what he is to do, how he is to order the people, how he is not to leave them scattered and neglected. Never would He deign to enjoin these things on a condemned man. Hear something more wonderful. Since it was said to Moses (for this pleased God for the sake of a certain mystery and dispensation) that he himself would not lead the people into the land of promise, another is chosen, Jesus Nave; and this man was not called by this name, he was called Auses (Num. 13:17). And when to him the people that was to be led in

Moses was commending, he called him, and changed his name, and named him Jesus: so that not through Moses but through Jesus, that is, not through the law but through grace, the people of God might enter into the land of promise. Now just as that Jesus was not the true one but a figure, so too that land of promise was not the true one but a figure. For that land was temporal for the first people; the one that has been promised to us will be eternal. But by temporal figures eternal things were promised and foretold. Just as, then, that man was not the true Jesus, nor that land the true land of promise, but a figure: so the manna was not truly heavenly food, but a figure; so that rock was not truly Christ, but a figure; and so with all things. What consideration, then, does the doubting of Moses demand for itself? Perhaps there too some figure has been expressed, and has hinted something to one who understands, and has stirred and roused the mind to inquire. For I see that even after that doubting, and after the wrath of God, and after the threats of death, and after his removal from leading the people into the land of promise, God says many things to Moses just as to a friend, in the way He used to speak before: so much so that to Jesus Nave himself an example of obedience is set forth from Moses, and God admonishes him to serve Him as Moses served; and so He promises that He will be with him as He was with Moses. Clearly, dearly beloved, God Himself constrains us not to censure the doubting of Moses at random, but to understand it. A figure is the rock lying there, a figure the rod striking, a figure the water flowing, a figure too Moses doubting. And he doubted there, where he struck. Hence the doubting of Moses arose when the wood came to the rock. The swift are already flying ahead; rather, let them patiently wait for the slow. Moses doubted when the wood came to the rock: the disciples doubted when they saw the Lord crucified. Moses bore the figure of these. He was a figure of that Peter who denied three times. Why did Peter doubt? Because the wood drew near to the rock. When the Lord foretold the manner of His death, that is, the cross itself, Peter himself was terrified: Far be it from Thee, Lord, this shall not be (Matt. 16:22). You doubt, because you see the rod hanging over the rock. Therefore the disciples then lost the hope that they had placed in the Lord: in a certain way it was cut off when they saw Him crucified, when they lamented Him slain. After the resurrection He found them speaking among themselves about this matter in sorrowful conversation; and holding their eyes so that He should not be recognized by them, not withdrawing Himself from them as believers, but holding them back as doubters, He joined Himself to their talk as a third partner in the conversation, and asked them what they were speaking of. They wonder that He alone does not know what had been done in the very One who was asking. Are you alone, they say, a stranger in Jerusalem? And they recount the things that had been done concerning Jesus. And straightway they now lay open the very marrow of their despair, and, though unknowing, show their wound to the physician: But we, they say, were hoping that in Him would be the redemption of Israel (Luke 24:13–21). Behold, the doubting took place, because the wood came to the rock: the figure of Moses was fulfilled.

5. Moses dying on the mountain: what he foreshadowed. Let us look at this one also: Go up into the mountain, and die. Through

the bodily death of Moses the death of that doubt itself was prefigured; but on the mountain. O wondrous mysteries! This, surely, once expounded and understood, how much sweeter is it than manna? At the rock the doubt was born, on the mountain it died. When Christ was lowly in His passion, He lay before their eyes like a rock: rightly was there doubt concerning Him, for that lowliness made a show of nothing great. Rightly by that very lowliness He became a stone of stumbling: but glorified by the resurrection He appeared great, now He is a mountain. Now therefore let that doubt, which had been born at the rock, die on the mountain. Let the disciples recognize their salvation, let them recall their hope. Observe how that doubt dies, observe how Moses dies on the mountain. Let him not enter into the land of promise: we do not want doubt there; let it die. Let Christ show it to us dying. Peter trembled: and he denied three times. For the rock was Christ. He rose again, He became a mountain: He strengthened Peter too. But the doubt dies. How does it die? Peter, do you love Me? The inspector of the heart, the knower of the heart asks; and He wishes to hear that He is loved, and once is too little. He asks this, He hears it almost with weariness on the part of Peter himself: for Peter wonders that he is asked by One who knows beforehand, but also that he is asked so many times when once would have been enough to answer even one who did not know. But it is as though the Lord were saying to you, I am waiting, let the lawful number be filled: let him confess a third time through love (John 21:15–17), because he had denied three times through fear (Matt. 26:69–74). So in that the Lord asked so many times, He was slaying that doubt on the mountain.

6. He invites to Baptism. The hands of Moses against Amalek now stretched out, now let down. What then, dearly beloved, if these things lie open? They were closed not for deception, but for delight. For they would not be grasped so sweetly if, being ready to hand, they grew cheap. Let him therefore who is about to seek Baptism, whom I had begun to address, look to his own business. The Red Sea was Baptism, the people in crossing were baptized: the crossing itself was Baptism, but in a cloud. For what was being foretold was still clouded over: what was being promised was still hidden. Now at last the cloud has withdrawn, the clear sky of manifest truth has come: for the veil too has withdrawn, through which Moses used to speak. This veil hung also in the temple, so that the secrets of the temple should not be seen: but at the cross of the Lord the veil was torn apart, so that they might lie open. Come therefore to Baptism: enter fearless upon the way through the Red Sea; do not be anxious about past sin as about the Egyptian following behind. Your sins were pressing you down with the heavy burden of slavery, but in Egypt, in the love of this world, in a far-off sojourn; they were compelling you to pursue earthly works, as it were to make bricks, you were working works of clay. Your sins press you down, come without care to Baptism: the enemy will be able to follow as far as the water, there he will die. Fear something from your past life, believe that something of your sins will remain, if any one of the Egyptians remained. I hear the voice of the sluggish: I, he says, am not afraid of past sins, all things for me in the holy water through the Church's charity also

I do not doubt are remitted; but I fear future sins. Does it please you, then, to remain in Egypt? Meanwhile escape the present enemy, who has already oppressed you and already subjugated you. Why do you devise enemies for yourself out of things to come? What you have already done will be, even if you would not have it so; what you think you will do will not be, if you so will. But the way is dangerous: for when I have crossed the Red Sea, I shall not at once be in the land of promise; that people was led through long deserts. Meanwhile be set free from Egypt. What then, do you think that He will be lacking to you as a helper on the way, He Who rescued you from the old captivity? Does He not restrain your new enemies, He Who set you free from the old foes? Only cross over undaunted, walk undaunted, be obedient: do not embitter that Moses whose figure the other bore in this obedience. I admit, enemies are not lacking. For just as there were not lacking those who pursued them as they fled, so there were not lacking those who hindered them as they walked. Truly, dearly beloved, they were figures of us. Meanwhile let there be nothing in you to sadden Moses: do not be the bitter water which that people could not drink after the Red Sea. For there too there was temptation. And yet when these things happen, when the people grows bitter, we show them Christ, what He bore for them, how He shed His blood for them: and they grow gentle, as though we were casting the wood into the water. Clearly you will have Amalek as an enemy opposing your journey. Then Moses prayed, then he stretched out his hands: and when he lowered his hands, Amalek grew strong; when he stretched out his hands, Amalek gave way. Let your hands too be stretched out; let Amalek give way, the tempter and hinderer of this journey: be watchful and sober in prayers, in good works, yet not apart from Christ, because that stretching out of the hands was the cross of Christ. On it the Apostle is stretched out when he says: The world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal. 6:14). Therefore let Amalek give way, let him be overcome, and let him not hinder the passage of the people of God. If you let your hands drop from good work, from the cross of Christ, Amalek will prevail. Yet do not by any means either think that you will be strong without interruption, or give way through utter despair. For that alternation of weakness and strength in the hands of Moses the servant of God was perhaps your own alternation. For sometimes in temptations you weaken, but you do not succumb. He lowered his hands a little; he did not altogether fall. If I said, My foot is moved; behold, Thy mercy, Lord, helped me (Ps. 93:18). Therefore do not fear: there is present on the journey a helper, Who was not lacking as deliverer in Egypt. Do not fear, set out on the way, be confident and secure. Sometimes he lowered his hands, sometimes he raised them; yet Amalek was conquered (Exod. 17:11–13). He could rebel; he could not prevail.

Chapter II.— 7. The second penitence, which belongs to all, and is daily. The medicine and the compact in the Lord's Prayer concerning the forgiving of debts. A brother is to be forgiven. And so we are now reminded to speak of the second penitence. For I proposed that a threefold consideration of it is found in holy Scripture. That first one belongs to the competentes and to those who thirst to come to Baptism: this one I have shown from the holy Scriptures. There is indeed another, a daily one. And where do we show that daily penitence? I do not have

where I could better show it than in the daily prayer, where the Lord taught us to pray, showed us what we should say to the Father, and set it down in these words: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt. 6:12). What debts, brothers? Since debts here cannot be understood except as sins: the debts which He forgave in Baptism, do we pray that He forgive them again? Certainly every Egyptian who was pursuing died. If nothing was left over of the pursuing enemies, what do we pray to have forgiven, except on account of the hands failing against Amalek? Forgive us, as we also forgive. He has established a medicine, He has confirmed a covenant. Here He dictates the prayers, there He answers the one who prays: He knows by what law the matter is conducted in heaven, how the things desired can be obtained. Do you wish to be forgiven? Forgive, He says. For what do you have that you could render to God, from Whom you wish something to be rendered to you? Is Christ the Saviour still walking on earth? Does Zacchaeus now receive Him into his house rejoicing (Luke 19:6)? Does Martha prepare hospitality and a meal for Him (Luke 10:40)? He needs none of these things; He sits at the right hand of the Father. But when you did it to one of the least of Mine, you did it to Me (Matt. 25:40). This is the stretching out of the hands under which Amalek failed. And indeed you pay out to a poor man when you give something to the hungry: perhaps you will have less by what you have given, but in your house, not in heaven. But here too on earth, He at Whose command you provided it Himself makes up what you gave. When the Apostle was speaking of this matter, he said: He Who supplies seed to the sower will also supply bread for food (2 Cor. 9:10). For you are God's labourer when you give to the needy: you sow in winter what you will reap in summer. Why then do you fear, unbeliever, that in this great house so great a householder will not feed His labourer? There will be [something] there too, but what suffices for you. God will give everything to need, not to greed. Work therefore fearlessly, stretch out your hands, let Amalek fail. But on this side, as I said, when you have given something in your house, you see less of what you used to see there: you do not see it there once you have given, until God gives again. Tell me, when you pardon from the heart, what do you lose? When you pardon him who sins against you, what will you have less of in your heart? For you let go from there, but you lose nothing. Rather indeed, a certain wave of charity was flowing in your heart, and was streaming as if from an inner vein: you hold hatred against a brother, you have stopped up the spring. Not only, then, do you lose nothing when you pardon; you are even watered more abundantly. Charity is not straitened. You put a stone of stumbling there, and you make straits for yourself. I will avenge myself, I will take revenge, I will show him, I will do it: you seethe, you toil, you who may by pardoning be secure, live secure, pray secure. For see, what are you about to do? You are about to pray. When, shall I say? Today you are about to pray. Or are you not about to pray? Filled with anger and hatred, you threaten vengeance: you do not forgive from the heart. See, you pray, see, the hour of praying comes, you begin either to hear or to say those words. When the earlier ones have been said and heard, you will come to this verse. Or if you will not come to it, where will you go? So as not to pardon your enemy, will you turn aside from Christ? Clearly, if in the prayer you turn aside so as to be unwilling to say, Forgive us our debts, because you cannot say, as we also forgive our debtors, lest you be answered quickly,

"I forgive in the way that you also forgive": therefore, since you cannot say this, and do not wish to forgive, you will turn aside from this verse, and pass it over, and say what follows, "Suffer us not to be led into temptation": there your creditor will catch you, whose face, as it were, you were avoiding. Just as anyone in a street, when he meets someone to whom he owes something, if a byway is at hand, leaves the way he was going, and goes off in another direction, so as not to see the face of his creditor. This is what you thought you had done in this verse: you avoided saying, "Forgive, as I forgive", lest He should forgive thus, that is, not forgive, because you do not forgive; and you refused to say it, avoiding the face of your creditor. Whom are you avoiding? who are you avoiding? Where will you go, where you could be and He not be? You are going to say, "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? and from Thy face whither shall I flee? If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; if I descend into hell, Thou art present." How far can a debtor flee from Christ, further than to go into hell? This creditor is present there too. What will you do, except what follows? "If I take up my wings straight forward, and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea" (Ps. 138:7–9): that is, in my hope I will meditate on the end of the age, I will live in Thy precepts, I will be lifted up on the two wings of charity. Fill out, therefore, the two wings of charity. Love your neighbour as yourself; and do not hold on to hatred, on account of which you would have to flee the creditor.

Chapter III. — 8. The third kind of penance, the mournful one, for deadly sins. The soul is suffocated by despair of pardon. There remains the third kind of penance, about which I shall say something briefly, so that with the Lord's help I may discharge what I proposed and promised. There is a penance heavier and more mournful, in which those in the Church are properly called penitents, removed even from partaking of the Sacrament of the altar, lest by receiving unworthily they eat and drink judgement to themselves. That penance, then, is mournful. The wound is grave: adultery perhaps has been committed, perhaps homicide, perhaps some sacrilege; a grave matter, a grave wound, lethal, deadly: but the Physician is almighty. Now, after the suggestion of the deed, and delight, and consent, and perpetration, he stinks as if four days dead: but not even him did the Lord abandon, but He cried out, "Lazarus, come forth." The mass of the tomb yielded to the voice of mercy: death yielded to life, the world below yielded to what is above. Lazarus was raised, he came forth from the tomb: and he was bound, as are men doing penance in the confession of sin. They have already come forth from death: for they would not confess, unless they were coming forth. To confess is itself to come forth from the hidden and the dark. But what [says] the Lord to His Church? "Whatever you shall have loosed," He says, "on earth, shall be loosed also in heaven" (Matt. 18:18). Accordingly, when Lazarus came forth, since the Lord had accomplished the good work of His mercy, to bring to confession the dead man lying hidden and stinking, the ministry of the Church now accomplishes the rest: "Loose him, and let him go" (John 11:39–44). But, dearly beloved, let no one set this kind of penance before himself, let no one prepare himself for this kind: yet if perhaps it should befall, let no one despair. Judas the traitor was made to perish utterly not so much by the crime which he committed as by despair of pardon. He was not worthy of mercy,

therefore no light shone for him in his heart, so that he might run to the indulgence of Him whom he had betrayed, as those did who had crucified Him; but by despairing he killed himself, and hanged himself with a noose, he suffocated himself. What he did in his body, this was done in his soul. For this wind of the air too is called spirit. Just as, then, those who bind their own neck thereby kill themselves, because the spirit of this air does not enter into them, so those who despair of the indulgence of God suffocate themselves inwardly by that very despair, so that the Holy Spirit cannot visit them.

9. Against the pagans who taunt that by the allowance of penance a licence to sin is given. On this point the pagans are accustomed to insult Christians concerning the penance which has been instituted in the Church; and against certain heresies the Catholic Church has held fast this truth concerning the doing of penance. For there were those who said that for certain sins penance should not be granted; and they were excluded from the Church, and became heretics. In whatever sins [they may be], holy Mother Church does not lose her tender heart. So then the pagans too are accustomed on this point, as it were, to insult us, not knowing what they say; because they have not yet come to the word of God, which makes the tongues of infants eloquent. 'You,' they say, 'make men sin, when you promise them pardon if they do penance. This is laxity, not admonition.' To this effect they heap up words, as much as each one can; with tongue either ringing or stammering, they are not silent: yet even when we speak to them, though they are overcome, they do not assent. Nevertheless, how they are overcome let your Charity briefly hear, since the mercy of the Lord has ordered everything excellently in His Church. They say that we give licence to sins, because we promise the harbour of penance. If the entrance to penance were closed, would not that sinner add sins to sins all the more, the more he despaired of being pardoned? For he would say to himself: 'Look, I have sinned, look, I have committed a crime, now there is no place of pardon for me; penance is fruitless, I am to be damned: why then do I not now live as I please? Since there I do not find charity, here at least I will feed my desire. For why should I abstain? There every place is closed to me; here whatever I do not do, I lose; because the life which is to come after this one will not be given to me. Why then do I not serve my lusts, so as to fill and sate them, and do whatever is not lawful but pleasing?' Perhaps it would be said to him: 'But, wretch, you will be caught, you will be accused, you will be tortured, you will be punished.' Wicked men know that these things are said by men, and observed among men; they notice many who live badly and criminally holding their sins unpunished: they can hide them, they can buy off what they cannot hide; they can buy off, right into old age, a wanton, blasphemous, sacrilegious, ruined life. They reckon up to themselves: 'What? Did that man who did so many things not die an old man?' Do you not notice that that sinner and criminal died an old man precisely so that God might show His patience in him, awaiting penance? Whence the Apostle says: Do you not know that the patience

of God leads you to repentance? But he, according to the hardness of his heart and his impenitent heart, has stored up for himself wrath on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgement of God, Who will render to each according to his works (Rom. 2:4–6). It is needful therefore that this fear possess our minds; it is needful that he who does not wish to sin should think of God as present to him, not in public only, but also at home; not at home only, but also in the bedchamber, at night, in his bed, in his heart. So if you take away the harbour of repentance, they will increase their sins through despair. See, those who think that sins are increased for this reason, because the harbour of repentance is set forth in the Christian faith, are saying nothing. What then? Ought not God to have provided from this side too, lest through that hope of pardon sins should be increased again? For just as He provided that they should not be increased by despairing, so He ought to have provided that they should not be increased by hoping. For just as he who has despaired truly increases his sins, so he too who has hoped for pardon can increase his sins, so as to say to himself, I will do what I want, God is good; when I turn, He will forgive me. By all means say to yourself, When I turn, He will forgive me, if tomorrow is certain for you. Does not Scripture warn you about this, saying: Do not delay to turn to the Lord, and do not put it off from day to day; for suddenly His wrath will come, and in the time of vengeance He will destroy you (Sir. 5:8–9)? See, the providence of God has kept watch on our behalf on both sides. Lest we increase our sins by despairing, the harbour of repentance has been set before us; again, lest we increase them by hoping, the day of death has been made uncertain.