Distinction I

GRATIAN. PART I. Let us return to whether anyone can satisfy God by contrition of heart alone and secret satisfaction, without confession of the mouth. For there are those who say that anyone can merit pardon for a crime without confession to the Church and priestly judgment, according to that saying of Ambrose on Luke, [at chapter 22]:

“Peter grieved and wept because, as a human being, he erred. I do not find what he said; I know that he wept. I read of his tears; I do not read of a satisfaction.”

“Tears wash away the fault that shame prevents one from confessing with the voice.”

“A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; a contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise.”

“I said, I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord, and you remitted the impiety of my sin.” Augustine, explaining this, says:

“Great is God’s loving-kindness, that he remitted sins upon the promise alone. § 1. He does not yet pronounce it with his mouth, and nevertheless God already hears it in his heart, because the very act of saying it is a kind of pronouncement. For the vow is accounted as the work.”

PART II. “If anyone has dared—I will not say to seize, but merely to attempt—to join most sacred virgins in marriage, he shall be struck with capital punishment.”

“Let no one enter the association of advocates either in the forum of Your Magnitude, in a provincial court, or before any judge, unless he has been imbued with the sacred mysteries of the Catholic religion. But if anything shall have been done or attempted in any manner or by some contrivance, the office of Your Sublimity shall sustain the loss of one hundred pounds of gold by way of condemnation.”

“But whoever shall have dared, contrary to the provident decree of Our Serenity, to seize the office of advocacy by subreption and shall have furnished prohibited patronage, removed from the offices of advocacy, shall especially sustain the sentence of proscription and perpetual exile. The governors of the provinces are also to know that he under whose administration anything of this kind shall have been attempted will sustain proscription of half his goods and the punishment of exile for five years.”

“Whoever has plotted with soldiers—for the laws wished the will to commit a crime to be punished with the same severity as its accomplishment.”

[GRATIAN.] Likewise under the Cornelian Law concerning assassins: “He who has gone about with a weapon for the purpose of killing a human being, just like him who has killed a human being, or by whose evil fraud the deed was committed, shall be restrained by the penalty of the Cornelian Law concerning assassins.”

“If any man or woman has undertaken the abomination of killing an infant, let that person know that he or she is to be punished with capital punishment.”

“If perhaps a woman is found to have prepared snares of death for her husband, or to have had the will to kill him in any other way, or perhaps a husband pursues his wife in that manner, in the same examination under torture inquiry is to be made, without anyone’s protection, not only of the entire slave-household of the husband but also of the wife—of those, however, who were then present in the house.”

“If anyone has attempted to render either a male or a female, whether freeborn or freed, unchaste, he will be liable for insult. § 1. But even if the chastity of a slave has been assailed, insult has place. § 2. Chastity is said to be assailed when the object is that a chaste person be made unchaste. § 3. Not only is he who inflicted the insult—that is, he who struck—liable for insult, but he also is included who maliciously caused or arranged that someone’s jaw should be struck with a fist.”

“If anyone indeed was not struck, but hands were raised against him and he was repeatedly frightened as though he were about to be beaten, although he was not struck, the other is liable under an action for insult.”

PART III. To the contrary, in the same book under the title On Punishments:

“Let no one suffer punishment for thought.”

“Solicitors of the marriages of others, and likewise interrupters of marriages, although they cannot obtain the accomplishment of the crime, are punished extraordinarily on account of the will of destructive lust. § 1. He who has persuaded a boy to debauchery, after his companion has been led away or corrupted, or has solicited a woman or girl, or has done anything for the sake of unchastity, furnished a house, or given a price by which another might persuade him, is punished capitally if the disgraceful act was completed, and is deported to an island if it was incomplete. Corrupted companions are afflicted with the supreme punishment.”

“It is a common question whether he who took a measure from a heap of grain commits theft of the whole thing, or only of what he took. Ofilius thinks him a thief of the whole heap. For Trebatius says that he who touched someone’s ear is also regarded as having touched his whole person. Consequently, one who opened a cask and took a little wine from it seems to have committed theft of the whole. But it is true that he is liable under the action for theft to the extent of what he took. For if anyone opened a cabinet that he could not carry away, handled all the things that were in it, and departed in this way, then returned and took one of them, and was caught before he withdrew to the place for which he had set out, he will be both a manifest and a non-manifest thief of the same thing. But also, if anyone cuts a crop before dawn and handles what he cuts, he is a manifest and a non-manifest thief.”

“But these words, ‘What one who presides over a jurisdiction shall have established,’ we understand with accomplishment, not merely in words. Therefore, if he was prevented when he wished to establish it and the decree did not have effect, the edict does not apply. For the word ‘established’ signifies a completed thing and a consummated injury, not one begun.”

“Punishments,” as is read in the Digest under the title On Punishments, “are to be softened rather than made harsher by interpretation of the laws.”

[GRATIAN.] And therefore they do not extend beyond their own case. But the things said concerning the seizure of virgins, advocates, the crime of treason, or assassins were introduced out of favor for religion and faith and the ruler’s hatred of assassins. A person can, however, become guilty of insults in many ways according to their variety. The variety of crimes therefore introduces a variety of punishments. Hence in the Digest under the title On Punishments:

[PART IV.] “Either deeds are punished, such as thefts and killings; or words, such as abusive speech and faithless advocacy; or writings, such as forgeries and defamatory writings; or counsels, such as conspiracies or complicity with robbers, and in whatever other cases advising and admonishing is equivalent to the crime. § 1. But these four kinds are to be considered in seven ways: cause, person, place, time, quality, quantity, and outcome. § 2. Cause, as in beatings, which are unpunished when inflicted by a teacher or parent because they are seen to be applied with the intention of correction, not for the sake of insult. They are punished when someone is struck by a stranger in anger. § 3. Person is considered in two ways: that of the one who acted and that of the one who suffered. For slaves are punished differently from free persons for the same offenses; and one who dared something against a master or parent is punished differently from one who did so against a stranger, and one who dared it against a magistrate differently from one who did so against a private person. In considering this matter, account is also to be taken of age. § 4. Place causes the same act to be either theft or sacrilege, and to be expiated either capitally or by a lesser punishment. § 5. Time distinguishes an absentee from a deserter, and a housebreaker or thief by day from one by night. § 6. By quality a deed is either more atrocious or lighter, as manifest thefts are customarily distinguished from non-manifest thefts, a brawl from violent assaults, pillaging from thefts, and wantonness from violence. On this matter Demosthenes, the greatest orator among the Greeks, speaks thus. § 7. Quantity distinguishes a thief from a cattle-rustler. For one who steals one pig will be restrained as a thief; one who steals a herd, as a cattle-rustler. § 8. The outcome is considered, even in deeds done by the most merciful person; although the law punishes no less the one who is found with a weapon for the purpose of killing a human being than the one who has killed. And therefore among the Greeks fortuitous cases were expiated by voluntary exile, as is written in the foremost of the poets.”

PART V. Thought does not merit punishment under civil law when it is contained within its own bounds. Those acts that by law require an effect are nevertheless distinguished from crimes. For in these nothing but the judgment of the mind is considered. Hence in the Digest under the title On Repudiations:

“A divorce—that is, marital separation—is not real unless it is made with the intention of establishing perpetual dissension. Therefore, whatever is done or said in the heat of anger is not otherwise valid unless it becomes apparent from perseverance that it was the judgment of the mind. And therefore, if a repudiation was sent in that heat but the wife returned in a short time, she is not regarded as having been divorced—that is, separated from the marriage.” Hence also in the Canons:

“If anyone in anger has cast a charge against someone, etc.”

PART VI. [GRATIAN.] Augustine proves that someone is liable on account of counsel just as on account of a deed, saying thus:

They dangerously deceive themselves who think that only those who kill a human being with their hands are murderers, and not rather those through whose counsel, fraud, and exhortation human beings are destroyed. For the Jews by no means killed the Lord with their own hands, as it is written: “It is not lawful for us to kill anyone.” Nevertheless, the Lord’s death is imputed to them because they killed him with their tongue, saying: “Crucify him, crucify him.” Hence one Evangelist says that the Lord was crucified at the third hour, another at the sixth, because the Jews crucified him with their tongue at the third hour and the soldiers with their hands at the sixth. Therefore, he who handed a human being over killed him, as the Lord says: “He who handed me over to you has the greater sin.” Hence in the Psalm: “The sons of men—their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.” Therefore, let those by whose counsel blood is shed subject themselves to penance if they wish to merit pardon.

Likewise from the letter of Clement, [the first to James]. Blessed Peter used to say that there are three kinds of homicide, and he said that their punishment would be equal. For just as he declared the killers of brothers to be murderers, so he declared their detractors and those who hate them to be murderers, because he who kills his brother, he who hates him, and he who detracts from him are alike shown to be murderers.

Likewise Jerome on Isaiah, [c. 33]. Every iniquity, oppression, and injustice is a judgment of blood; and although you do not kill with the sword, you nevertheless kill by the will.

Likewise Cyprian, [Treatise IV, On Mortality]. Had Cain killed his brother when he offered a gift to the Lord? And nevertheless the provident God condemned beforehand the parricide conceived in his mind. Just as there an evil thought and destructive conception were foreseen by God’s providence, so also among God’s servants, in whom martyrdom is contemplated and conceived in the mind, a mind devoted to the good is crowned by God the judge. It is one thing for the mind to be wanting to martyrdom, another for martyrdom to have been wanting to the mind. As the Lord finds you when he calls, so also he judges you, when he himself testifies and says: “And all the churches shall know that I am the searcher of reins and heart.”

Likewise Augustine, [Tractate XLII on John 8]. Do not think that you are not a murderer when you persuade your brother to evil. If you persuade your brother to evil, you kill. And that you may know that you kill, hear the Psalm: “The sons of men—their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.”

The same, [Book XIX Against Faustus, c. 23]. Homicide forbidden by the law was thought to be nothing other than the killing of the body. The Lord therefore disclosed that every unjust movement toward harming one’s brother is reckoned in the class of homicide.

Likewise Augustine, [Book of Fifty Homilies, homily 28]. If you do not commit theft for this reason, that you fear lest you be seen, inwardly, in your heart, you have committed it; you are liable for theft, and you have taken nothing.

The same, On Free Choice, [Book I, c. 3]. If someone does not even obtain the opportunity to lie with another’s wife, but it is nevertheless in some way plain that he desires it and would do it if the ability were given, he is no less guilty than if he were caught in the act itself.

Likewise, as authority testifies: § 1. The will is rewarded, not the work. The will, moreover, is in contrition of heart, while the work is in confession of the mouth.

GRATIAN. It is established more clearly than light that sins are remitted through contrition of heart, not confession of the mouth.

“Furthermore, those whose sins lie hidden from human knowledge, neither confessed by themselves nor made public by others, if they are unwilling to confess or amend them, will have God, whom they have as witness, also as avenger. And what does it profit them to avoid human judgment when, if they remain in their evil, they will go, by God’s retribution, into eternal punishment? But if they make themselves their own judges and, as though avengers of their own iniquity, exercise here upon themselves the voluntary punishment of the most severe chastisement, they will exchange eternal torments for temporal punishments, and with tears flowing from true compunction of heart they will extinguish the conflagrations of eternal fire.”

“Those will more easily reconcile God to themselves who, not convicted by human judgment, voluntarily acknowledge the crime; who either disclose it by their own confessions or, while others do not know—for they are hidden—pronounce upon themselves a sentence of voluntary excommunication, and, separated from the altar at which they ministered not in spirit but in office, mourn their life as though dead, certain that, once reconciled to themselves by the fruits of effective penance, they will not only receive back from God what they lost but, also made citizens of the heavenly city, will attain everlasting joys.”

PART VII. [GRATIAN.] This same point is proved by that prophetic authority: “At whatever hour the sinner shall have been converted and shall have groaned.” For it does not say: shall have confessed with the mouth, but only: “shall have been converted and shall have groaned; he shall live with life and shall not die.” Hence the prophet Joel says:

“Rend your hearts and not your garments.”

[GRATIAN.] Showing that sins are remitted through contrition of heart, which is understood in its rending, not through confession of the mouth, which is part of exterior satisfaction, which he called the rending of garments, understanding the whole from the part. Hence also through the same prophet the Lord says:

“Turn to me, and I will turn to you.”

[GRATIAN.] Conversion is so called as though it were the turning of the heart from every side. But if our heart is turned from evil to God from every side, it immediately merits the fruit of its conversion, so that God, turned from wrath to mercy, grants indulgence for the sin for which he was first preparing vengeance. Hence it is given to be understood that we can obtain pardon even while the mouth is silent. Hence also those lepers whom the Lord commanded to show themselves to the priests were cleansed on the way, before they came to the priests. From this deed it is surely given to be understood that, before we show our mouths to the priests—that is, confess our sins—we are cleansed from the leprosy of sin. Hence also Lazarus came forth alive from the tomb. He was not first led out of the tomb and afterward raised by the Lord; rather, when the stone by which the tomb was closed had been removed, he came back to life in the sepulcher and came forth alive.

§ 1. Hence also, in order that the Lord might show that the sinner is cleansed not by priestly judgment but by the generosity of divine grace, he cleansed the leper by touching him and afterward commanded him to offer the sacrifice according to the law to the priest. For the leper is touched when the sinner’s mind, enlightened by a regard of divine loving-kindness, is pierced with compunction. Hence after his threefold denial Peter, when the Lord looked upon him, poured forth bitter tears, by which he washed away the guilt of his denial. The leper presents himself to the priest when the penitent confesses his sin to the priest. He offers the sacrifice according to the law when he carries out in deeds the satisfaction imposed upon him by the judgment of the Church. But he is cleansed before he comes to the priests, when pardon of sin is granted through contrition of heart before confession of the mouth.

Hence also physicians are denied the power to raise anyone so that the one raised may confess, when it is said through the prophet: “Will physicians raise them, and will they confess to you?” Likewise: “From the dead man, as authority says, as from one who does not exist, confession perishes.” Hence that penitent who, terrified by fear of the eighth [day], had cried out, “O Lord, do not rebuke me in your fury,” afterward said in supplication: “Save me for the sake of your mercy, because in death there is no one who is mindful of you; but in hell no one will confess to you.” If, therefore, no one confesses unless raised, while no one who is a child of eternal Gehenna and worthy of perpetual condemnation lives, it is plain that before anyone confesses a sin, through the grace of inward compunction that person is absolved from the guilt of the transgression for which eternal torments were owed.

§ 2. Likewise, if before anyone confesses that person is raised by the Lord, either the person raised lives while confessing, or after being raised has died again and confesses. But just as the dead person could not confess before being raised, so after the resurrection a dead person is unable to confess. It remains, therefore, that the person raised lives while confessing the sin. Thus that person has the one who raised him present to him and dwelling in him. For, as Augustine says on Psalm 62:

“One raised in the body lives while the one who raised him is absent. But it is not so with one raised in the soul.”

[GRATIAN.] For since God is the life of the soul, while the soul is the life of the body, just as the body cannot live when the soul is absent, so the soul cannot live unless God is present. Therefore, the soul that, living, confesses its sin has God present to it through grace, and the life that is God inhabits it, making it live by inhabiting it. But if he inhabits it, then it has been made a temple of the Holy Spirit; then it has been enlightened; then it has been cleansed from the darkness of sins; then it has ceased to be a temple of the devil—it that comes to the light, whose gaze puts darkness to flight. For, as the Apostle says, there is no agreement of Christ with Belial, no participation of light with darkness, no communion of justice and iniquity, no accord of the temple of God with idols.

Likewise, as Christ says: “Everyone who hates evil acts in the light.” But one who acts in the light works with God, as Augustine says. And one who works in Christ is proved to be his son. For everyone is declared to be the son of the one whose works he does. Hence the Lord says to certain persons: “If you are sons of Abraham, do the works of Abraham.” Likewise: “You are from your father the devil, because you wish to do the works of your father.” But no one can be a son of God and of the devil at the same time. “For no one,” as he himself says, “can serve two lords.” Likewise, as John says in his epistle, [I, chapter 3]:

“He who is born of God does not sin.”

[GRATIAN.] Therefore he is not a son of the devil either. For only through sin are we sons of the devil. Therefore we have been transferred from his kingdom into the kingdom of the love of the Son of God, and we have been rescued from the power of darkness and made sons of light. Therefore, since before confession, as has been proved, we are raised through grace and made sons of light, it appears most evidently that through contrition of heart alone, without confession of the mouth, sin is remitted.

“Everyone who does not love remains in death.”

[GRATIAN.] Therefore, if he lives, he also loves; if he loves, love is in him. But love is not in an evil person. For it is the proper fountain of good things, in which a stranger does not share. Therefore this person has been made good through grace before confession of the sin; thus he is not evil, for someone cannot be good and evil at the same time. But if he is not evil, he is proved not to be a member of the devil; therefore, neither is he worthy of Gehenna, which is owed only to the devil and his members, just as eternal beatitude is prepared only for the members of Christ. Therefore the sin is not remitted in confession, because it is proved already to have been remitted. Confession is therefore made for the manifestation of penance, not for obtaining pardon, just as circumcision was given to Abraham as a sign of justice, not as a cause of justification. Thus confession is offered to the priest as a sign of pardon received, not as a cause of remission to be received.

PART II. § 11. Others, on the contrary, testify, saying that without confession of the mouth and satisfaction in deed no one can be cleansed from sin if that person has had time to make satisfaction. Hence the Lord says through the prophet: “Speak your iniquities, so that you may be justified.”

“No one can be justified from sin unless the sin has first been confessed.”

“Behold, the acceptable time is now at hand, in which confession frees the soul from death; confession opens paradise; confession gives the hope of being saved. Hence Scripture says: ‘Speak your iniquities, so that you may be justified.’ By these words it is shown that one who is unwilling to confess one’s sins during one’s life does not merit to be justified. That confession frees you which is made with penance.

§ 1. True penance is grief of heart and bitterness of soul for the evils that each person has committed. Penance is both to lament past evils and not to commit again deeds that must be lamented.”

“Perfect penance compels the sinner willingly to suffer all things. § 1. In that person’s heart is contrition, in the mouth confession, in the work complete humility: this is fruitful penance.”

“No one can receive the grace of the heavenly God unless that person has been purified from every stain of sin through the confession of penance, through the gift of saving baptism.”

“No one receives pardon from a graver punishment that is owed unless that person has paid some punishment, even if far less than is owed. For the generosity of mercy is imparted by God in such a way that the justice of discipline is not abandoned.”

“Do not think that anyone can pass from error to truth, or from any sin, whether small or great, to correction without penance.”

“Do penance of the kind that is done in the Church, so that the Church may pray for you. Let no one say to himself: I do it secretly; I do it before God; God, who pardons me, knows because I do it in my heart. Was it therefore said without cause: ‘What you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven’? Were the keys therefore given to the Church of God without cause? We make void God’s Gospel; we make void the words of Christ; we promise you what he denies—do we not deceive you? Job says: ‘If I was ashamed to confess my sins in the sight of the people.’ And therefore, if you were unable or unwilling to possess either marital chastity or continence, and you wandered from your purpose, whether from the bond of marriage or the devotion of continence, let there be in you the humility and grief of penance. I speak more openly: let no one say, I did not understand. Because after your wives you stained yourselves by illicit intercourse, if besides your wives you lay with any woman, do penance, etc.”

PART II. “‘And Aaron came,’ he says, ‘and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law in the sight of God.’ Therefore all things that the saints do, they do in the sight of God; but the sinner flees from the sight of God. Finally, it is written that Adam, after he sinned, fled from the sight of God and, when questioned, replied: ‘I heard,’ he says, ‘your voice, and I hid myself because I was naked.’ But Cain also, condemned by God for fratricide, ‘went out,’ he says, ‘from the face of God and dwelt in the land of Naim.’ Therefore one who is unworthy of his sight goes out from the face of God. But the saints eat and drink in the sight of God, and all things that they do, they do in the sight of God.”

“Examining the present passage still further, I see that those who receive a fuller knowledge of God and are more fully imbued with divine disciplines—even if they do evil—do it before God and in his sight, like him who said: ‘Against you alone have I sinned, and I have done evil before you.’ What advantage, then, does one who does evil before God have? He immediately repents and says: I have sinned. But one who departs from the sight of God does not know how to be converted and to purge sin by repenting. This, therefore, is the difference between doing evil before God and the sinner’s having departed from the sight of God.”

“And immediately he who had said, ‘I will make you like Admah and like Zeboiim’—two cities that from their proximity to Sodom drew partnership in a like destruction—says: ‘My heart is turned; my soul is troubled within me; I will not act according to the anger of my fury.’ Does it not therefore appear that the Lord Jesus is indignant with us when we sin in order to convert us by the terror of his indignation? His indignation, therefore, is not an execution of vengeance but rather an operation of absolution.”

“‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ The fault that is followed by an acknowledgment of offenses is pardonable. Therefore the woman who did not keep silent before God but rather confessed the sin was not despaired of. How healing was the sentence that followed! It is good to be condemned in sin and scourged for an offense, so that we may be scourged with human beings. Finally Cain, who wished to deny his crime, was judged unworthy to be punished in his sin, but was sent away without a prescribed punishment, perhaps not so much on account of the greater crime of parricide—for he committed that against his brother—as of sacrilege, because he believed that God could be lied to, saying: ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ And therefore the accusation was reserved for his accuser, the devil, so that he might be scourged with his angels, he who was unwilling to be scourged with human beings.

§ 1. For that shepherd in the Gospel is read to have carried the sheep that had fallen, not cast it away, and Solomon says: ‘Do not be excessively just.’ For moderation ought to temper justice. For how is someone to present himself to you to be cured whom you regard with disgust, who thinks that he will be an object of contempt, not compassion, to his physician?”

“I willingly pardon; I readily grant indulgence; I prefer mercy to sacrifice, because through sacrifice a just person is commended, but through mercy a sinner is redeemed. ‘I did not come to call the just, but sinners to penance.’ In the law there is sacrifice; in the Gospel there is mercy. The law was given through Moses; grace through me.”

“The manifold mercy of God comes to the aid of human lapses in such a way that the hope of eternal life is restored not only through the grace of baptism but also through the medicine of penance, so that those who had violated the gifts of regeneration might, by condemning themselves through their own judgment, arrive at remission of crimes. Thus the safeguards of the divine will have been ordained so that God’s indulgence cannot be obtained except through the supplications of priests. For the mediator of God and human beings, the man Christ Jesus the Lord, delivered this power to the prelates of the Church: that they should give the satisfaction of penance to those confessing and, when they had been purified by this saving satisfaction, admit them to the communion of the sacraments through the gate of reconciliation.”

And a little later: § 1. “But if any of those for whom we supplicate the Lord, intercepted by some obstacle, should depart from the present life without the gift of indulgence and should end temporal life by the human condition before coming to the appointed remedies, that which he did not receive while remaining in the body he will not be able to obtain when stripped of the flesh.”

And after some things: § 2. “But to those who, at a time of necessity and under the pressure of urgent danger, implore the aid of penance and immediately afterward reconciliation, neither satisfaction is to be prohibited nor reconciliation denied, because we can neither place measures upon God’s mercy nor define times for it, with whom conversion suffers no delays in pardon.”

And likewise: § 3. “Necessity, therefore, is to be aided in such a way that neither the performance of penance nor the grace of communion is denied to them if they are proved to seek it, even after the function of speech has been lost, through indications of unimpaired understanding. But if they have been so burdened by some sickness that they cannot signify in the present what they sought a little earlier, the testimony of the faithful standing around them ought to benefit them, so that they may obtain at the same time the benefit both of penance and of reconciliation. Nevertheless, the rule of the paternal canons is to be preserved concerning the persons of those who sinned by defecting from the Lord’s faith.”

PART III. “No one can do penance well unless that person has hoped for indulgence. But they deny that communion ought to be restored to those who have fallen by transgression. § 1. God, however, excepted no one’s crime, he who forgave all sins.”

“The Word of God remits sins; the priest is the judge. The priest indeed performs his office and exercises the rights of no power.”

And a little later: § 1. “The Lord wished the right both of loosing and of binding to be equal, for he permitted both upon an equal condition. Therefore, one who does not have the right of loosing does not have that of binding either.”

And below: § 2. “It is certain that both are permitted to the Church; heresy has neither. For this right was permitted to priests alone. Rightly, therefore, does the Church claim this, which has true priests; heresy cannot claim it, which does not have God’s priests.”

PART IV. “It can happen that someone, overcome by tortures, denies with speech and worships in the heart. Is the case of one who denies voluntarily the same as that of one whom torments bent toward sacrilege? No. But how unworthy it is, when the favor due to a contest has force among human beings, for it to be asserted not to have force with God! For often in this secular contest of athletes the crowd of human beings has been accustomed to crown together with the victors even the defeated whose contests were proven, especially those whom it saw perhaps robbed of victory by deceit or fraud. And will Christ permit his athletes, whom he has seen yield for a short time to grave torments, to remain without pardon? Will one who also cast some down not have the reward of his labor?”

And below, [c. 6]: § 1. “You say to Peter, when he makes an excuse lest you wash his feet: ‘Unless I wash your feet, you will have no part with me.’ What fellowship, then, can those have with you who do not receive the keys of the kingdom, denying that they ought to remit sins? They indeed confess this rightly concerning themselves. For those who do not have Peter’s see, which they tear apart by an impious division, do not have Peter’s inheritance.”

And a little later: § 2. “Sickness of the flesh repels sin, but luxury of the flesh nourishes guilt. The devil is therefore mocked, so that he wounds himself with his own bite and arms against himself the one whom he thought was to be weakened.”

And below: § 3. “What harms the body helps the spirit.”

And a little later: § 4. “Just as Christ was sacrificed once for all, so, as often as sins are forgiven, we receive the sacrament of his body so that remission of sins may be given through his blood. Therefore it was most evidently commanded by the Lord’s preaching that even those guilty of the gravest crime, if they perform penance with their whole heart and with manifest confession of the sin, are to be bathed in the grace of the heavenly sacrament.”

PART V. “However great the stench of the dead man may be, it is all abolished when the sacred ointment has given forth its fragrance, and the dead man rises; the bonds of him who is still in sin are ordered to be loosed; the veil is removed from his face that obscured the truth of the grace he had received. But because pardon was given, he is ordered to reveal his face, to uncover his countenance. For one whose sin has been remitted has nothing of which to be ashamed. For when, amid so great a grace of the Lord and so great a miracle of the divine gift, all ought to have rejoiced, the impious were disturbed and gathered a council against Christ; they also wished to kill Lazarus. Do you not recognize that you are deservedly their successors, whose hardness you inherit? For you too are indignant and gather a council against the Church because you see the dead coming back to life in the Church and being raised by indulgence of sins. And thus, so far as lies in you, through envy you again wish to kill those raised. But Jesus does not revoke his benefits; indeed, he enlarges them by an increase of freedom. The one raised comes back to life solicitously, and, joyful because the grace of resurrection has been celebrated, comes to the supper.”

“He denies to these the grace of his power, which is in the remission of sins, who by a diabolical spirit separate his heavenly power from the Lord’s Church, so that he might include the heretics and schismatics of all times, to whom he denies indulgence because every sin concerns individuals and all together.”

And below, [c. 5]: § 1. “What wonder is it if you deny salvation to others, you who refuse your own?—although those who seek penance from you differ in nothing from you. For I think that even Judas could not have been excluded from pardon by so great a compassion of the Lord if he had performed penance not among the Jews but before Christ.”

And a little later: § 2. “One who does penance ought not only to wash away sin with tears but also to cover and conceal former offenses with amendments, so that sin may not be imputed to that person.”

PART VI. “Some seek penance for this reason, that they wish communion to be restored to them immediately. These do not so much desire to loose themselves as to bind the priest. For they do not so much desire to strip their own conscience as to clothe the priest, to whom it was commanded: ‘Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine’; that is: participation in sacred communion is not readily to be granted to unclean spirits.”

“There are those who think that this is penance: if they abstain from the heavenly sacraments. These are harsher judges against themselves, who prescribe punishment if they decline the remedy; it was fitting for them to grieve on account of the punishment because they were being deprived of heavenly grace.”

And a little later: § 1. “You more easily find one who has preserved innocence than one who has fittingly performed penance for sin. Where is there ambition for dignity to be acquired? Where an outpouring of wine? Where the use of the marital union itself? The world is to be renounced, and less is to be indulged even to sleep than nature demands; it is to be interrupted by groans, broken off by sighs, separated by prayers. One must live in such a way as to die to this use of life; a human being must deny oneself and be changed entirely.”

And below, [c. 11]: § 2. “No one situated in sins ought to arrogate to oneself the authority or usurpation of the sacraments, because it is written: ‘Have you sinned? Be still.’”

(And a little later): § 3. “We say, therefore, that penance is to be done, and to be done at that time when the guilt of luxury cools, and that those situated in captivity to sin ought to be more reverent, not usurpers. For if it is said to Moses when he desires to approach nearer, so that he might drink in knowledge of the heavenly mystery, ‘Loose the shoe from your feet,’ how much more ought we to strip the feet of our soul from bodily bonds and to release its steps from the fetter of this world?”

And below: § 4. “There is nothing that is a matter of such great grief as when each person, situated under captivity to sin, remembers from what state one fell and from what state one descended, and that one flowed down to bodily and earthly things from that beautiful and fair intention of the divine creation.”

“But I marvel that some are so obstinate that they think penance should not be given to the fallen, or think pardon should be denied to penitents, when it is written: ‘Remember from where you have fallen, and do penance, and perform the former works.’ This is certainly said to one who is established to have fallen and whom the Lord exhorts to rise again through works, because it is written: ‘Alms deliver from death’—certainly not from that death which Christ’s blood extinguished once and from which saving baptism and the grace of our Redeemer freed us, but from that which afterward creeps in through offenses.”

“The importunate woman in the Gospel at last merited to be heard, and when the door had been shut with the servants, although it was the middle of the night, a friend received bread from a friend. God himself, who cannot be overcome within himself by any powers, is overcome by the prayers of the publican. The city of Nineveh, which perished through sin, stood firm through weeping. To what end have these things been repeated with so long a beginning? Clearly, so that, though great, you may look upon the small; so that, a rich shepherd, you may not despise a diseased sheep. Christ brought the robber from the cross into paradise, and lest anyone ever think conversion too late, he made the punishment for homicide a martyrdom. Christ, I say, joyfully embraces the returning prodigal son, and, when the ninety-nine animals have been left, the one little sheep that had remained is carried upon the shoulders of the good shepherd. § 1. But where a sinner, understanding the wound, hands himself over to the physician to be cured, there a rod is not necessary, but the spirit of gentleness.”

PART III. [GRATIAN.] But that pardon is promised to every sinner by Ambrose’s authority seems false. For pardon is denied to some either because of the magnitude of the sin or because of the grade of their office. Hence John says in his epistle: “There is a sin unto death: who will pray for it?” Elsewhere it is also read: “Who will heal an enchanter wounded by a serpent?”

“If a priest has sinned, who will pray for him?”

[GRATIAN.] But questions of this kind do not always introduce a negation; rather, they denote difficulty or rarity, as in that saying of the Gospel: “Who, do you think, is the faithful and prudent servant, etc.?” Hence also Ambrose: “God, who will be like you?” Certainly not no one, because the Son is the image of the Father. “Who will pray for him?” is to be understood similarly; that is, someone of singular life ought to pray for the one who has sinned in the Lord. “For how would John say that one should not pray for a graver offense, when he had read that Moses prayed and obtained his request where there was voluntary transgression, and when he knew that Jeremiah also prayed?”

§ 1. That saying of John—“There is a sin unto death, etc.”—can also be understood otherwise, according to Augustine, so that there is no contradiction between it and the foregoing. For he says: “‘There is a sin unto death; I do not say that anyone should pray for it.’ Concerning what sin, because it is not expressed, many different things can be thought. But I say that this is the sin: to abandon unto death the faith that works through love.” This is also the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that the Lord asserted in the Gospel is to be remitted neither in this age nor in the future. Whether through delight in sin or despair of pardon someone perseveres in sin unto death, it is just that one who has sinned without end be punished without end. Hence Gregory, [Pope, Book IV of the Dialogues, c. 43]:

“The wicked would have wished, if they had been able, to live without end so that they could sin without end. Those who never cease to sin while they live show that they desire always to live in sin. It therefore belongs to the great justice of the judge that those who in this life never wished to be without sin should never be without punishment.”

PART IV. [GRATIAN.] From these things, therefore, it appears that sin is not remitted without confession of the mouth and satisfaction in deed. For if it is necessary that we speak our iniquities so that we may afterward be justified; if no one can be justified from sin unless the sin has first been confessed; if confession opens paradise and acquires pardon; if only that confession is useful which is made with penance—in which it is noted that confession is one thing and penance another, whether penance is understood as interior or exterior; if one who promises pardon to a person doing penance secretly before God, not before the Church, makes void the Gospel and the keys given to the Church, and also promises the offender what God denies; if no one can obtain pardon unless that person has paid some punishment for the sin, however small and even if less than is owed; if the power of binding and loosing was delivered by God to priests alone; if no one receives pardon unless one strives to obtain it by the supplications of the Church: it is therefore concluded that no one abolishes the guilt of sin before confession of the mouth and satisfaction in deed.

§ 1. Finally, that it may appear plainly that no one is cleansed from sin without confession, let us take our beginning from the very beginning of the human race. The first parents, corrupted by the sin of transgression, were questioned by the Lord concerning their guilt, so that by confessing they might destroy the sin that they had committed by transgressing. But the serpent was not questioned concerning the guilt, because it was not being called back to life through confession. Cain also, when he had added fratricide to the first transgression, was similarly questioned by the Lord concerning his guilt when it was said to him: “Where is your brother Abel?” But because, being proud, he was unwilling to confess his sin and rather attempted by a mendacious denial to deceive the Lord, saying, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” he was judged unworthy of pardon. Hence, plunged into the depth of despair when he said, “My iniquity is greater than that I should merit pardon,” he went out, a wanderer and fugitive, from the face of the Lord, signifying that those who conceal their sin instead of confessing it are held unworthy of a regard of divine compassion.

The kings also who, led by ignorance, had offended against Abraham merited to be healed only when he prayed. In this it is figured that the passions of conduct are healed only by the prayers of the Church. The Lord also commanded Moses that if leprosy appeared, whether in skin, in a house, or in a garment, it should be shown to the priest and, separated according to his decision, should by his judgment be declared contaminated or cleansed. Saul also, when he was tormented by an evil spirit, could not return to the function of a sound mind unless David first took up the psaltery and played before him, and in this way the devil ceased from tormenting him. In this it is shown mystically that whoever is handed over to the devil on account of sin cannot be rescued from his dominion unless David—that is, the Church—takes up the psaltery and plays before him; that is, makes him a participant in spiritual grace by admonishing him savingly, praying devoutly for him, and presenting to him examples of good work, and thus restrains the devil from invisibly tormenting him.

David also, when he had committed adultery and homicide, did not hear from the prophet, “The Lord has removed your sin from you,” before he confessed the sin itself. For he first confessed the sin when the prophet rebuked him, and afterward he heard: “The Lord has removed your sin from you.” Ahab also, when he heard the sentence of God threatening him for the shedding of innocent blood, clothed himself with sackcloth, making satisfaction to God through penance. Hence the Lord said to Elijah: “Because Ahab has revered my face, I will not bring evil in his days.” When the Ninevites heard, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown,” they performed penance by decree of the king and princes, saying: “Who knows whether God may turn and pardon and leave a blessing after him?” Through this humility of satisfaction they merited to escape the imminent overthrow. By their examples it is evidently shown that no one obtains pardon from God unless one first makes satisfaction to him through penance. Nebuchadnezzar, changed from a rational mind into a bestial disposition on account of his pride and departing as a fugitive from his kingdom, did not regain the kingdom before, having been converted, he proclaimed God. Finally the Israelite people, handed over to captivity for the guilt of their transgression, did not merit to be freed before, confessing their sins, they received pardon through the prayers of Daniel and the other saints.

§ 2. In the Gospel also, those coming to John to be baptized by him with the baptism of penance first confessed their sins, showing that each person ought, by condemning one’s sins, to confess them and promise the renewal of a better life if one desires to receive the grace of regeneration. Christ also is read to have raised some from the dead, cleansed others from leprosy, enlightened others, and strengthened the limbs of others that were loosened by paralysis. Nevertheless, the petition of their own voice or that of friends is read to have preceded the healing of them all. For, from Luke’s account, we learned that he was first asked concerning Peter’s mother-in-law before he restored her to health. But that leper whom the Lord cleansed as he descended from the mountain first cried out to him: “Lord, if you will, you can cleanse me”; afterward he cleansed him by touching him. When the blind man cried out to him, “Have mercy on me, Son of David,” Jesus asked him: “What do you wish me to do for you?” He said: “Rabboni, that I may see the light.” He also heard concerning three dead persons, whom he restored to life when others prayed. He also heard of a fourth when a disciple reported it; but because there were no living persons to pray for him, he did not merit to be raised.

§ 3. By these examples it is most evidently given to be understood that one whom the stain of graver guilt infects cannot be healed unless confession from that person’s own mouth or the intercession of the Church assists. Hence that penitent who had first merited to be scourged by keeping silent about his sins afterward, when corrected, said: “Because I kept silent, my bones grew old while I cried out all day.” Hence Christ says in the person of his members: “Let not the depth swallow me, nor let the pit press its mouth over me.” Augustine explains this, saying: “The pit is the depth of human iniquity. If you fall into it, it will not close its mouth over you if you do not close your mouth. Therefore confess and say: From the depths I have cried to you, O Lord, and you will escape. It will close over the one who in the depth despises, from whom, being dead as though nonexistent, confession perishes.” Hence the same prophet says: “Enter his gates in confession,” showing that someone can reach the gates of mercy only through confession of sin.

§ 4. Hence also blessed John the Baptist and our Savior took the beginning of their preaching from penance, saying: “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven will draw near,” showing that no one can reach the heavenly kingdoms unless one first takes care to make satisfaction to God through penance. Hence also in the Acts of the Apostles it is read that believers came to the Apostles, announcing their deeds.

§ 5. From all these things it is easily shown that without confession no one can merit pardon. Hence also Pope Leo says, [Letter LXXVIII, otherwise LXXX, to the bishops of Campania]:

“For a penitent, confession suffices, which is offered first to the Lord and then to the priest, who approaches as an intercessor for the offenses of penitents.”

“Penance that has been delayed is not to be denied when it has been sought more earnestly, so that in this way the wounded soul may come to the medicine of indulgence.”

“It does not suffice to change one’s conduct for the better and to withdraw from past evils unless satisfaction is also made to the Lord for those things that were done, through the grief of penance, through the groan of humility, through the sacrifice of a contrite heart, with alms and fasts cooperating.”

“God knows how to change a sentence if you know how to amend an offense.”

“It is indeed one thing to demand back just things that are owed, another to despise one’s own things from love of perfection. One seeking pardon for unlawful things ought also to abstain from many lawful things, as the Apostle says: ‘All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient.’ Hence, if a penitent has a case that perhaps ought not to be neglected, that person will better seek an ecclesiastical judgment than a forensic one.”

“Let him who is a holy priest and eats the Lord’s Passover be girded with the belt of chastity, and let him hear with the Apostles: Let your loins be girded, and lamps burning in your hands. But let one who is a sinner and whom his own conscience bites be girded with sackcloth, and let him lament either his own offenses or those of the people, and let him enter the church from which he had gone out on account of sins, and let him lie down or sleep in sackcloth, so that by austerity of life he may compensate for the past delights through which he had offended God.”

“If we do penance, he too will repent of his sentence. Again, according to the same Jeremiah, he promises prosperous things if we do penance. But if we are dissolved by negligence, he will also repent of his promise and will change the things promised. Of this matter we can have Samaria and Jerusalem as an example, of whom some were freed from imminent punishments, while others lost the things that had been promised to their fathers.”

“‘Therefore, let my counsel be pleasing to you, and redeem your sins with alms and your iniquities with mercies toward the poor, if perhaps God may pardon your offenses.’ If he foretold a sentence that cannot be changed, how does he exhort him to alms for the poor and mercy so that God’s sentence may be altered? This is easily solved by the example of King Hezekiah, whom Isaiah said was to die, and of the Ninevites, to whom it had been said: ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.’ And nevertheless, at the prayers of Hezekiah and Nineveh, God’s sentence was changed. Again, he asserts that he promises indulgence to one doing good, and elsewhere in Jeremiah God says that he threatens evils over a nation and, if it does good, changes the threats through clemency. Again he asserts that he promises to one acting, and, if that person does evil, he says that he changes his sentence, not toward human beings but toward works that have been changed. For God is not angry with human beings but with vices, and when these are not in a human being he by no means punishes what has been changed.”

“Let us also speak otherwise. Nebuchadnezzar therefore performed mercies toward the poor according to Daniel’s counsel, and for that reason the sentence against him was delayed until the twelfth month. But because afterward, walking in the palace of Babylon, he boasts and says, ‘Is this not great Babylon, which I built as a house of the king by the strength of my power and for the glory of my name?’ he lost the good of mercy through the evil of pride. ‘Perhaps God may pardon your offenses.’ Since blessed Daniel, foreknowing future things, doubts concerning God’s sentence, those who boldly promise pardon to sinners do a rash thing. And nevertheless it is to be known that pardon is promised in return to Nebuchadnezzar when he does good works.”

“See the kindly Lord mixing mercy with severity and weighing the measure of the punishment itself with a just and merciful balance. He did not hand over the offenders forever, but for as much time, he says, as they served Chushan-rishathaim, that is, eight years. Learn this also, O hearer, whoever you are who are conscious to yourself of some error: for as much time as you know that you erred, for as much time as you offended, humble yourself to God for no less time and make satisfaction to him in the confession of penance. Do not wait for Chushan-rishathaim to humble you and for necessity to extort penance from you against your will; rather, anticipate the hardness of that torturer yourself, because if you amend yourself, if you correct yourself, the Lord is loving and merciful, and tempers vengeance from one who anticipates it by repenting.”

“But let us also consider that, as long as those who had been handed over for their offenses served Chushan-rishathaim and did not cry out to the Lord, no one was raised who could save them. But when they cried out to the Lord, then the Lord raised a savior of Israel and saved them.”

“The Church of Christ is that which has neither spot nor wrinkle nor anything of this kind. Therefore, one who is a sinner and stained by some filth cannot be called of the Church of Christ or be said to be subject to Christ. But it is possible that, just as the Church that formerly had wrinkle, spot, and uncleanness was afterward restored, so also the sinner may run to the physician—because the healthy have no need of a physician, but those who are ill—so that they may cure his wounds and he may become of the Church, which is the body of Christ.”

“‘For three crimes of Damascus and for four, I will not convert it.’ According to tropology we can say this. The first sin is to have thought things that are evil. The second is to have assented to perverse thoughts. The third is to have completed in deed what you decreed in the mind. The fourth is not to do penance after sin and to be pleased with oneself in one’s offense.”

“The second plank after shipwreck is to confess one’s guilt simply. You imitated the one erring; imitate also the one corrected. We erred as young men; let us be amended as old men. Let us join groans and couple tears.”

“Because the divine nature is merciful and loving and more inclined toward indulgence than toward vengeance, because it does not will the death of the sinner but that the sinner be converted and live, if anyone after a lapse into sins converts oneself to true penance, that person will quickly obtain pardon from the merciful judge.”

“Lest perhaps, mindful of sin, they return more slowly, he says, ‘Yet I will cause you to dwell in tabernacles as in the days of festivity,’ so that what baptism does, penance may do, and they may dwell in the tabernacles of the Savior, that is, in the Church.”

“Jeremiah had foretold seventy years of the desolation of the temple, after which the people would return again to Judea and the temple and Jerusalem would be built there. This does not make Daniel negligent but rather provokes him to pray, so that what God promised through his clemency he may fulfill through their prayers, lest negligence beget pride and pride beget offense. § 1. Finally, in Genesis we read that one hundred and twenty years were appointed for penance before the flood. Because for so much time—that is, for one hundred years—they were unwilling to do penance, he by no means waits for the other twenty to be completed, but brings on earlier what he had threatened for later. Hence it is said to Jeremiah on account of the hardness of the heart of the Jewish people: ‘Do not pray for this people, because I will not hear you.’ And to Samuel: ‘How long do you mourn over Saul? I have rejected him.’ Therefore, in ashes and sackcloth he asks that what God had promised be fulfilled, not because he was unbelieving concerning future things, but lest security prepare negligence and negligence prepare offense.”

Likewise Ambrose in the sermon for the Sunday concerning Abraham. “The medicine of mercy takes away great sins.” We have many aids by which we redeem our sins. You have money: redeem your sin. The Lord is not for sale, but you yourself are for sale. You were sold by your sins; redeem yourself by your works, redeem yourself by your money. Money is cheap, but mercy is precious. § 1. “Alms,” he says, “deliver from sin.”

GRATIAN. Crimes, therefore, are redeemed by alms.

“This is the stronger medicine, which works most powerfully in penance. Just as in the precepts of medicine a remedy indeed receives many herbs but one most dominant herb, so also in penance this herb is more dominant and more powerful, and itself effects the whole. For hear what divine Scripture said: ‘Give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.’”

“God draws no boundary, who promised his mercy to all and granted to his priests permission to release without any exception. But let one who has aggravated the guilt aggravate the penance. For greater crimes are washed away by greater weeping.”

“Let mother Church weep for you and wash away your guilt with tears. Let Christ see you grieving and say: ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for you will rejoice.’ He loves that many pray for one. Finally, in the Gospel, moved by the widow’s tears, because very many were weeping for her, he raised her son.”

“God cast Adam out of paradise immediately after the guilt. He did not delay, but immediately separated him from delights so that he might do penance. He immediately clothed him with a tunic of skins, not silk.”

PART V. “There are three acts of penance, which Your Learning recognizes with me. One is that which gives birth to the new human being, until through saving baptism the washing away of all past sins takes place. For everyone who has already been established as master of one’s own will, when coming to the sacraments of the faithful, cannot begin a new life unless that person repents of the old life. From this penance infants alone are immune when they are baptized. For they cannot yet use free choice. Nevertheless, for their consecration and remission of original sin, the faith of those by whom they are offered benefits them.

§ 1. But the second penance is that whose performance is to be undertaken through this whole life, which we pass in mortal flesh, with perpetual humility of supplication. First, because no one desires eternal, incorruptible, and immortal life unless that person repents of this temporal, corruptible, and mortal life. For someone is not born into new life through the sanctification of baptism in such a way that, just as there one puts away all past sins, so one also immediately puts away the mortality and corruption of the flesh itself.

§ 2. The third is the act of penance that is to be undertaken for those sins that the law of the Decalogue contains and concerning which the Apostle says: ‘For if we judged ourselves, we would certainly not be judged by the Lord.’”

And below: § 3. “There is also the daily penance of humble and good faithful persons, in which we strike our breasts, saying: ‘Forgive us our debts, etc.’ Nor do we wish those things to be forgiven us which we do not doubt were forgiven in baptism, but certainly those that, although small, nevertheless frequently creep in through human frailty. If these were gathered against us, they would so burden and oppress us as one great sin. For what difference does it make to shipwreck whether a ship is covered and overwhelmed by one great wave, or whether water gradually creeping into the bilge and abandoned and disregarded through negligence fills and sinks the ship? On account of these things fasts, alms, and prayers keep watch. In these, when we say, ‘Forgive us, as we also forgive,’ we manifest that we have something to be forgiven us; and, humbling our souls in these words, we do not cease to perform daily penance, as it were.”

PART VI. “If the Lord removed so detestable a sin of David, why is it that after all the things that were said to him afterward by the Lord through the prophet concerning the same sin, he endured so much? But without doubt the Lord does not leave an offense without vengeance. For either the penitent person punishes it in oneself, or God strikes it while taking vengeance together with the person. Therefore sin is by no means spared, because it is in no way released without vengeance. Thus David merited to hear after confession, ‘The Lord has removed your sin,’ and nevertheless, afterward afflicted by many torments and fleeing, he discharged the guilt of the fault that he had perpetrated. In the same way we are absolved from the fault of the first human being by the water of salvation. Nevertheless, even after being absolved, washing away the guilt of that same fault, we still die carnally, because he cuts away our offenses either through us or through himself even when he releases them. For he strives by temporal affliction to wipe away from his elect the stains of iniquities that he does not wish to see in them perpetually.”

“Just as the first human beings, by afterward living justly, are rightly believed to have been freed through the Lord’s blood from the last judgment, yet by that life did not merit to be recalled to paradise, so also the flesh of sin, even if, after sins have been remitted, a human being has lived justly in it, does not immediately merit not to undergo that death which it drew from the propagation of sin. Something of this kind has been intimated to us concerning the patriarch David in the Book of Kings. When the prophet had been sent to him and threatened him with evils that would befall him because of the sin he had committed, he merited pardon by confession of the sin, the prophet replying that that shameful crime and deed had been remitted to him; and nevertheless the things with which God had threatened him followed, so that he was thus humbled by his son. And now, therefore, it is asked: if God had threatened him because of that sin, why, after the sin was remitted, did he fulfill what he had threatened him with? The only answer—most rightly—is that the remission of that sin was made so that the man would not be hindered from receiving eternal life; but that example of the threat followed so that the man’s piety might be exercised and proved in that humiliation. Thus also God inflicted bodily death upon the human being because of sin, and after the remission of sins he did not take it away, for the sake of exercising justice.”

The same in a homily on penance. PART VII. In performing penance, where an offense of such a kind has been committed that the one who committed it is separated even from the body of Christ, the measure not so much of time as of sorrow is to be considered: “For God will not despise a contrite and humbled heart.” But because the sorrow of one heart is very often hidden from another and does not come to the knowledge of others except through words or any other signs, although it is before him to whom it is said, “My groaning is not hidden from you,” times of penance are rightly established by those who preside over churches, so that satisfaction may also be made to the church in which those sins are remitted. For outside it they are not remitted. Therefore, when the wound of sin and the attack of disease are so great that the medicines of the Lord’s body and blood must be deferred, each person ought, by the authority of the bishop, to remove oneself from the altar in order to perform penance, and by the same authority to be reconciled.

Let a person judge oneself voluntarily while one can, and change one’s conduct for the better, lest, when one will no longer be able, one be judged by the Lord against one’s will. And when one has pronounced against oneself the sentence of the most severe but most useful medicine, let one come to the bishops through whom the keys are administered to that person in the church; and, as a son now beginning to be good, with the order of the mother’s members preserved, let one receive from the prelates of the sacraments the measure of one’s satisfaction, devout and suppliant in offering the sacrifice of a troubled heart. Yet let one do what profits not only that person for receiving salvation, but also others as an example, so that, if one’s sin is not only to that person’s grave harm but also to so great a scandal of others, and the bishop judges this expedient for the church’s welfare, one should not refuse to perform penance in the knowledge of many or before the multitude of the whole people, nor resist, lest through shame one add swelling to a lethal and deadly wound.

§ 1. For many are corrected, like Peter; many are tolerated, like Judas, etc.

Likewise Jerome. The canons do not therefore prescribe the measure of time in performing penance sufficiently openly for each crime, so as to say concerning every one how each is to be amended; rather, they establish that it is to be left to the judgment of an understanding priest, because before God not so much the measure of time as that of sorrow avails, nor so much abstinence from foods as the mortification of vices. For this reason they command that the times of penance be shortened in accordance with the faith and manner of life of penitents, and they judge that they are to be prolonged in accordance with negligence. Nevertheless, measures of penance have been imposed for certain faults.

Who has ever seen a cleric quickly performing penance? And if, when detected, he humbles himself, he does not therefore grieve because he sinned, but is confounded because he lost his glory.

PART VII. GRATIAN. By these authorities it is asserted that no one can be cleansed from sins without penance and confession by one’s own voice. Hence the foregoing authorities, by which it seemed to be proved that pardon is granted by contrition of heart alone, are to be interpreted otherwise than they are expounded by those persons. For the satisfaction of tears and a threefold confession of love for the Lord followed Peter’s denial, by which he wholly blotted out the sin of the threefold denial. A determinate satisfaction for sin was therefore not necessary for him, whose entire lifetime was being spent in obedience to his Creator. For he imitated that prophetic saying, “Turn away from evil and do good,” and that saying of Isaiah, “Let the impious abandon his way, and the iniquitous man his thoughts, etc.” Beyond these things nothing is required from a sinner. Therefore, by that authority of Pope Leo the satisfaction of penance is not denied to be necessary for every delinquent, but only for the one who, imitating blessed Peter, utterly renounces this world and wholly mortifies within oneself the tinder of all vices.

§ 1. Likewise, that saying of John Chrysostom, “Tears wash away the fault that shame prevents one from confessing with the voice,” and that other saying which he writes in the letter to the Hebrews, “I do not tell you to betray yourself publicly, nor to accuse yourself before others; rather, I wish you to obey the prophet who says, ‘Reveal your way before the Lord.’ Therefore confess your sins; pronounce your offenses before the true Judge with prayer, not with the tongue but with the memory of your conscience, and only then hope that you can obtain mercy. If you have your sins continually in mind, you will never harbor evil in your heart against your neighbor,” are not to be understood as saying that sins are remitted without confession of the mouth, but without public satisfaction. For secret sins are purged by secret confession and hidden satisfaction, nor is it necessary that we confess anew the things that we have once confessed to the priest; but with the tongue of the heart, not of the flesh, we ought continually to confess them before the true Judge. Hence the same John Chrysostom also says: “But now, if you remember your sins, frequently pronounce them in God’s sight, and implore his clemency for them, you will blot them out more quickly. But if you now forget your sins, then you will remember them unwillingly, when they are made public in the whole world and brought forth in the sight of all—of both your friends and your enemies, and of the holy angels and the heavenly powers. For it was not to David alone that he said, ‘You did it in secret; I shall make it manifest to all’; rather, this is also said to all of us.”

§ 2. The saying of Prosper is understood similarly: “Those who of their own accord acknowledge their crime and either disclose it by their own confessions, or, while others do not know, as hidden persons, etc.” “While others do not know,” that is, while they confess their sin to these persons by a hidden confession and do not manifest it publicly. Likewise that saying of the prophet, “I said, I shall confess, and you remitted”—that is, you judged remissible—“the impiety of my sin.” Thus also that saying of Augustine is understood: “Great is the piety of God, that he remitted sins upon the promise alone,” that is, judged them remissible. Likewise: “A vow is accounted as the deed when the capacity for the deed is lacking.” Hence the vow of confession is accounted as the deed of the voice when the capacity for confession is lacking. Likewise: “The will is rewarded, not the deed,” is understood thus: the will makes the deed rewardable; the deed does not make the will rewardable. Likewise that saying, “In whatever hour the sinner shall be converted”: one is said to be converted who is turned wholly; one is turned wholly whose deed, voice, and thought labor in the mortification of sin just as they previously served iniquity. Thus also that saying is understood: “Be converted to me, etc.” Likewise, “Rend your hearts and not your garments,” is said to those who trust that they can please God by exterior satisfaction alone, with no interior satisfaction preceding. Likewise all the things adduced concerning the cleansed lepers or the raised Lazarus are to be referred to contrition of heart, not to the pardon of remission. For obstinacy of mind and contempt for confession are a certain death of impiety and leprosy of pride, from which each person revives when, through grace, sorrow for the fault and a vow of confession are inspired in that person.

§ 3. To this article also pertain those things that have been said concerning persons who live, or walk in the light, or possess the love of God, or have been made dwellings of the Holy Spirit: namely, so that each person is said to have attained all these things by the contrition of heart that one has, not by the full remission of sin that one has not yet found. For just as in baptism sin is remitted and nevertheless its punishment is reserved, so through contrition of heart each person is said to be raised by God, although still held by the guilt of sin. Therefore no one is proved by the foregoing authorities or arguments to be cleansed from sin without confession of the mouth and satisfaction of deed.

PART II. § 4. On the contrary, that authority of John Chrysostom and Prosper seems to be wrested against the author’s meaning. For it is not said, “I do not tell you to accuse yourself publicly,” but, “I do not tell you to accuse yourself before others.” So also Prosper does not say “while everyone does not know,” but simply “while others do not know.” Hence it is most evidently given to be understood that sins can be blotted out without confession of the mouth. But those things said as an exhortation to penance and confession do not seem contrary to this opinion. For either they are words of exhortation, not command, such as, “Confess your sins to one another,” or, if any were spoken as commands, they are to be referred not to confession of the mouth but of the heart, not to exterior but to interior satisfaction.

§ 5. For one penance is interior, another exterior. Interior penance is that of which Augustine says, “Everyone who has been established as master of one’s own will cannot begin a new life unless that person repents of the old life.” Likewise Peter is read to have said concerning the same thing in the Acts of the Apostles, “Perform penance, and let each one of you be baptized.” This is understood to have been said concerning interior, not exterior, penance. But concerning exterior penance Ambrose says on the letter to the Romans: “The grace of God in baptism does not require groaning or weeping, nor any work, but confession of the heart alone, and freely pardons all things.” Therefore, whatever things have been said as commands concerning penance are to be referred, as we said, not to exterior but to interior penance, without which no one was ever able to be reconciled to God.

§ 6. But that saying of Augustine by which someone is denied to obtain pardon unless that person has first discharged however small a punishment for sin is not found contrary to this opinion. For no one is asserted to be cleansed from sin unless that person has suffered the punishment of sin. But it is one thing to confess sin to a priest and to make satisfaction for the sin at his judgment, and another to confess to God in the heart and to punish the sin within oneself by secret satisfaction. For penance is, as Augustine says, sorrow of heart by which each person punishes in oneself what one has transgressed. Concerning this satisfaction the same again says, expounding Psalm 50: “Because I know my iniquity. Do not punish it, because I punish it; forgive, because I acknowledge it and do not dissemble.” And below: “God so gives mercy that he preserves truth, so that the sins of the one whom he forgives are not unpunished. For he forgives the one who punishes oneself. It is mercy that the person is freed; truth, that the sin is punished.” The same on Psalm 84: “Truth springs from the earth, that is, confession from a human being, so that the person may accuse oneself; and thus justice has looked down from heaven, so that the publican, confessing, returned justified. Justice looks down, as though God said: Let us spare this one, because this one does not spare oneself; let us forgive, because this one acknowledges. Therefore justice looked down from heaven, that is, justification was given by God to the penitent.”

§ 7. Therefore this secret satisfaction for light or hidden crimes is to be offered to God, and the things believed to be expiated in this way are proved not to be released without punishment. But those things said concerning public satisfaction or confession of the mouth are to be understood concerning public and manifest crimes. For the sins of Nebuchadnezzar, which the prophet counseled to be redeemed by works of mercy and alms, and also the sins of the Ninevites, which were expiated by public satisfaction, were known to all. And a public offense, as Augustine testifies, needs a public remedy.

§ 8. Therefore, by the foregoing authorities, manifest satisfaction and confession of the mouth are proved to be offered for manifest crimes. But hidden sins are not proved necessarily to be confessed to a priest and expiated at his judgment.

PART III. § 9. On the contrary, the things said in assertion of this opinion are supported in part by truth and in part lack weight. For it is supported by the firmest reasoning that no sin can be remitted without contrition of heart, and that hidden sins ought to be expiated by secret satisfaction and public sins by manifest penance. But that any grave offense is expiated without confession of the mouth, if the opportunity of confessing was not lacking, is proved altogether contrary to authority. For how, according to the authority of Pope Leo, can indulgence not be obtained without the supplications of priests, if we can be cleansed from sin without confession of the mouth? For who will supplicate for a sin that one does not know?

§ 10. Likewise, how, according to Augustine, does the one who performs penance without the judgment of a priest frustrate the keys of the church, if one obtains indulgence for a crime without confession of the mouth?

§ 11. Likewise, how, according to Ambrose, is the right of binding and loosing believed to have been permitted by the Lord to priests alone, if each person at one’s own judgment binds oneself by sinning, or, by secret penance according to Prosper, pronounces against oneself a sentence of excommunication, and after satisfaction reconciles oneself to God or to his altar without priestly judgment?

§ 12. These things do not accord with the foregoing authorities, but are proved contrary by the examples of many. For the Lord raised the ruler of the synagogue’s daughter after the crowds had been cast out; nevertheless, she was not restored to life except in the presence of the girl’s mother and father, and also Peter, James, and John. In this we are instructed morally that secret sins, which are understood through the girl’s death, are believed to be remitted by the Lord only by the supplications of the church, which is designated through the girl’s mother and father, and by the ministry of priests, who are understood through Peter and the others.

§ 13. Likewise in Leviticus: “One who has consecrated one’s house or field to the Lord by a vow cannot redeem it except by the shekel of the sanctuary, and with the priest, not the person oneself, computing the number of years until the jubilee.” In this we are similarly taught that whoever has wished through penance to offer to the Lord the house of conscience or field of conduct, and by the price of good works to redeem oneself from the vain conduct of one’s life, cannot do this except by the shekel of the sanctuary, that is, by the works of penance prescribed by sacred Scripture. Hence blessed John, to the crowds coming to him, did not say simply, “Perform penance,” or “fruits of penance,” but added “worthy,” so that, namely, a quality of good works may be offered in proportion to the quality of sins. For the fruit of the good work of one who has transgressed nothing or little ought not to be equal to that of one who has committed great things. The former, as conscious of no crime, grants oneself the use of lawful things; the latter, as burdened by many, ought to abstain even from lawful things. In the jubilee full remission was granted. Hence through it perfect remission of sin is figured. Therefore the priest computes the number of years until the jubilee when the times of penance are determined at his judgment, through which each person may find full remission of sin. For, as Hesychius says on the same passage, each person is not fully cleansed from sin immediately after the penance has been determined.

§ 14. Therefore, since, as is gathered from the foregoing, the times of penance are determined at the priest’s judgment, it appears most evidently that sins are not remitted without confession by one’s own voice. For who will prescribe times of penance for anyone unless that person has first taken care to manifest one’s sins to him?

§ 15. Likewise, silence concerning sin arises from pride of heart. For each person desires to conceal one’s sin so that one’s iniquity may not become manifest to others, so that one may not be regarded outwardly among human beings as such as one has already exhibited oneself in the divine sight. No one doubts that this arises from the fountain of pride; for it is a species of pride to wish to seem just when one is a sinner. And the one who, in imitation of the first parents, either strives to lighten one’s sins by evasion in words or, like Cain, seeks wholly to suppress one’s sin by keeping silent is convicted as a hypocrite. But where pride or hypocrisy reigns, humility cannot have a place. Without humility, however, it is not permitted to hope for pardon. Therefore, where there is silence of confession, pardon for the crime is not to be hoped for. This same thing is proved by the authority of Augustine, who says in the Book on Penance, [c. 10]:

“Let the one who repents repent altogether, and show sorrow by tears; let that person present one’s life to God through a priest; let one forestall God’s judgment by confession. For the Lord commanded those who were to be cleansed to show their faces to the priests, teaching that sins must be confessed by bodily presence, not manifested through a messenger, not through writing. For he said, ‘Show your faces,’ and ‘all,’ not one for all. Do not appoint another as a messenger to offer for you the gift established by Moses; rather, you who sinned through yourselves, you yourselves also blush. For shame itself has a share in remission. The Lord commanded this out of mercy, so that no one should repent in secret. For in this, that the person speaks through oneself to the priest and conquers shame by fear of the one offended, pardon of the crime comes to pass. For through confession what was criminal in action becomes venial; and, even if it is not purified immediately, nevertheless what one had committed as mortal becomes vital. For one who, mastering shame, denied to God’s messenger none of the things committed has offered much satisfaction. For God, who is merciful and just, just as he preserves mercy in justice, so also justice in mercy. It is a work of mercy to remit sins to one who sins, but it is necessary that the just one have mercy justly. For it is necessary that he consider not only what the person grieves over but in what manner, whether the person is worthy, I do not say of justice, but of mercy. For justice alone condemns; but the one who seeks grace by spiritual labor is worthy of mercy. For the mind labors by suffering shame; and because modest shame is a great punishment, one who blushes for Christ becomes worthy of mercy. Hence it is clear that the more persons to whom one confesses the baseness of the crime in hope of pardon, the more easily one obtains the grace of remission. For the priests themselves can now profit more, can spare those confessing more. For those whom they remit, God remits. For Lazarus, already raised from the tomb, he offered to the disciples to be loosed, showing through this the power of loosing granted to the priest. For he said, ‘Whatever you loose upon earth will be loosed also in heaven’; that is: I, God, and all the ranks of the heavenly host, and all the saints in my glory praise and confirm with you those whom you bind and loose. He did not say ‘those whom you think you bind and loose,’ but ‘those upon whom you exercise a work of justice or mercy.’ But I do not acknowledge your other works against sinners.

§ 1. Therefore, one who wishes to confess sins so as to find grace should seek a priest who knows how to bind and loose, lest, when he has proved negligent concerning himself, he be neglected by the one who mercifully admonishes and seeks him, and lest both fall into the pit which the fool refused to avoid.

§ 2. Accordingly, the power of confession is so great that, if a priest is lacking, one should confess to one’s neighbor. For it often happens that a penitent cannot be ashamed before a priest, since neither place nor time yields one to the person desiring him. And although the one to whom the person confesses does not have the power of loosing, nevertheless the one who confesses the baseness of the crime to a companion becomes worthy of pardon because of the desire for a priest. For the lepers were cleansed while they were going to show their faces to the priests, before they reached them. Hence it is clear that God looks to the heart when necessity prevents persons from reaching the priests. Indeed, often they seek them while healthy and joyful; while they seek, they die before they arrive. But God’s mercy is everywhere, which knows how to spare even the just, although they would not be loosed so quickly as by a priest.

§ 3. Therefore, one who confesses altogether should confess to the better priest whom one can find. If the sin is hidden, let it suffice to bring it to the knowledge of the priest, so that the offering of the gift may be pleasing. For few who might see were present at the raising of the ruler’s daughter. For she had not yet been buried, had not yet been carried outside the gate of the city, had not yet been carried outside the house into public knowledge. He raised inwardly the one whom he found inwardly, after leaving only Peter, James, and John, and the girl’s father and mother, in whom the priests of the church are figuratively contained. But as for those whom he found outside, it must be considered how he raised them. For a crowd was weeping after the widow’s son. Martha and Mary were weeping, supplicating for their brother. The crowd that had followed Mary was also weeping, moved by Mary’s tears. In this we are taught that, for those sinning publicly, not their own merit but the merit of the church suffices.”

Likewise Pope Leo, [letter LXXVIII, otherwise LXXX]. PART IX. Although the fullness of faith that, because of fear of God, does not fear to blush before human beings seems laudable, nevertheless, because not everyone’s sins are of such a kind that those whose sins demand penance do not fear to publish them, let the objectionable custom be removed, lest many be kept from the remedies of penance while they either blush or fear to disclose their deeds to their enemies, by which they could be struck down under the provision of the laws. For that confession suffices which is offered first to God, then also to the priest, who approaches as an intercessor for the offenses of penitents. For then more persons can be provoked to penance if the conscience of the one confessing is not published to the ears of the people.

GRATIAN. We have briefly set forth openly the authorities and supports of reasons upon which each opinion concerning confession and satisfaction rests. But to which of these one should rather adhere is reserved to the reader’s judgment. For each has wise and religious men as supporters. Hence Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, says in his Penitential:

“Some say that sins ought to be confessed to God alone, as the Greeks do. Others judge that they are to be confessed to priests, as almost the whole holy church does. Each is done within the holy church not without great fruit, provided only that we confess our sins to God, who is the remitter of sins—and this belongs to the perfect—and say with David, ‘I made my offense known to you, and I did not hide my injustice. I said, I shall confess against myself my injustice to the Lord, and you remitted the impiety of my sin.’ Nevertheless, the Apostle’s institution is to be followed by us: that we confess our sins to one another and pray for one another, so that we may be saved. Therefore the confession made to God alone, which belongs to the just, purges sins. But that which is made to the priest teaches how those sins are to be purged. For God, the author and giver of salvation and holiness, very often supplies this medicine of his penance by an invisible administration, and very often by the activity of physicians.”