Question VI

GRATIAN. PART I. But that penance cannot be done unless another’s property is restored Augustine testifies in letter [LIV] to Macedonius.

If another’s property, on account of which sin was committed, can be returned and is not returned, penance is not done but feigned. But if penance is truly done, the sin will not be remitted unless what was taken is restored—if, as I have said, it can be restored. For often one who takes loses what he took, whether by suffering other evil persons or by living evilly himself, and he has nothing else from which he may make restitution. § 1. To him we certainly cannot say, “Return what you took,” unless we believe that he has it and denies it. In such a case, indeed, if he suddenly undergoes certain torments while he is thought to have what he should return, there is no iniquity, because, even if he has nothing from which to return the money taken, nevertheless, while he is compelled by bodily afflictions to return it, he pays the penalties of the sin by which it was taken evilly. § 2. But it is not inhuman to intercede even for such persons, not so that another’s property should by no means be restored, but lest man rage against man in vain. And a little later: § 3. But I would say this most confidently: one who intervenes for a man so that he does not restore things evilly taken, and one who does not compel a person fleeing to him to make restitution, insofar as he honorably can, is an associate in the fraud and crime. For we more mercifully withdraw our help from such persons than expend it upon them. For one who helps another to sin does not furnish help; indeed, he does not help but resists by overthrowing and suppressing. § 4. But surely we neither can nor ought on that account either to exact or to hand him over to be exacted from? We act insofar as episcopal ability grants, threatening sometimes human judgment but especially and always divine judgment. But those unwilling to make restitution whom we know both to have taken evilly and to have the means from which they may restore, we accuse, rebuke, and adjure—some privately, some publicly—according as the diversity of persons appears able to receive a diverse medicine. PART II. GRATIAN. But if anyone has consecrated another’s property, he ought to restore not that same thing but its assessed value. Hence Gregory, [book VII, indiction 2, letter 58, to Fantinus the Defender]:

We have discovered that no cause existed on account of which their goods could reasonably have been occupied, and that they were consecrated without counsel and rashly. Therefore we command your Experience that, because what has once been consecrated cannot any longer be restored to them, it be the object of your diligence that the bishop himself ought to give the price. PART III. GRATIAN. But the church ought to intercede before princes for evil persons, not defend them with rash daring. Hence Gregory to Romanus the Defender, [book VII, indiction 2, letter 24]:

Let those who are implicated in public thefts not appear to be defended unjustly by us, lest by the daring of an indiscriminate defense we in any way transfer to ourselves the reputation of evildoers; but, insofar as befits the church, by admonishing and by employing a word of intercession, succor those whom you can, so that you both bring help to others and do not stain the reputation of holy church.

PART IV. GRATIAN. But theft is considered not so much in the quantity of the thing as in the disposition of the thief. Hence Jerome in the letter to Titus, [at c. 2]:

A thief is judged not only in greater but also in lesser things. For not what was taken by theft but the mind of the thief is considered. Just as in fornication the fornication is not different on this account—whether the woman is beautiful or deformed, a maidservant or freeborn, poor or wealthy—but, whatever sort she may have been, there is one fornication, so in theft, however much anyone has taken, he incurs the crime of theft.