Distinction III

GRATIAN. PART I. We have written these things briefly concerning charity because of those who deny that penance can be repeated, asserting that, just as charity once possessed is never lost, so penance once truly celebrated is stained by no subsequent fault; but if a criminal fault at some time follows it, it was not true penance and did not obtain pardon from the Lord. They strive to prove this from the definition of penance itself and from many authorities. For, as Ambrose says in a certain Lenten sermon:

“Penance is both to lament past evils and not to commit again things that must be lamented.”

“There are found those who think that penance is to be performed repeatedly, who indulge themselves wantonly in Christ. For if they truly performed penance in Christ, they would not think that it must afterward be repeated, because just as baptism is one, so penance is one. But we ought always to repent of past sin; yet this [concerns] lighter offenses. But I more easily find one who has rightly preserved innocence than one who has fittingly performed penance.”

“The satisfaction of penance is to cut away the causes of sins and not to grant entrance to their suggestions.”

“Penance is a certain vengeance of one grieving, punishing in oneself what one grieves to have committed.”

And below, [c. 19]: § 1. “One must grieve continually over sin; the very force of the expression declares this. For to repent is to hold punishment, so that one may always punish within oneself by avenging what one committed by sinning. For punishment is properly called an injury that punishes and avenges what each person committed. The one holds punishment who always avenges what one grieves to have committed.”

GRATIAN. Accordingly, penance is vengeance always punishing in oneself what one grieves to have committed.

“If the Apostle continually laments even sins remitted through baptism, what remains for us, placed upon the foundation of the Apostles, except to lament? What, except always to grieve in life? For where sorrow ends, penance also fails. But if penance ends, what remains of pardon? For let one rejoice and hope concerning grace for as long as one is sustained by penance. For the Lord says, ‘Go, and now sin no more.’ He did not say only, ‘Do not sin,’ but, ‘Let not even the will to sin arise in you.’ How will this be observed unless sorrow is continually guarded in penance? Hence let one always grieve and rejoice concerning sorrow; and if it happens, let one always grieve concerning the penance of sorrow. And let it not suffice that one grieves, but let one grieve from faith and grieve that one has not always grieved.”

“We cannot perform penance worthily unless we also know the measure of that penance. For to perform penance is both to lament evils perpetrated and not to perpetrate things that must be lamented. For one who so deplores some things that one nevertheless commits others either does not yet know how to perform penance or dissembles. For what does it profit if someone laments sins of lust and nevertheless still pants after the fires of avarice?”

The same, [book IX, letter 39, to Theoctista]: § 1. “But if they say that penance of a short time ought to suffice against sin, so that it may again be permitted to return to sin, the sentence of the first shepherd rightly strikes them; he says, ‘The dog returned to its vomit, and the washed sow to the wallowing place of mud.’ For the power of penance against sin is great, but only if someone perseveres in that penance.

§ 2. Truly to perform penance is to lament things committed, but to avoid things that must again be lamented.”

“The punishment is more prolonged than the fault, lest the fault be thought small if the punishment also ended with it. And through this, either for the demonstration of deserved misery, or for the amendment of a changeable life, or for the exercise of necessary patience, punishment temporally holds the person whom the fault no longer holds guilty for everlasting condemnation.

§ 1. God’s wrath is not like a human being’s, that is, a disturbance of an agitated mind, but the tranquil establishment of a just punishment.”

“Perfect penance compels the sinner willingly to suffer all things.” And below: “In that person’s heart is contrition, in the mouth confession, in the deed complete humility. This is fruitful penance.”

“That person performs penance worthily who so deplores past evils that one does not again commit future ones. For one who laments a sin and again admits a sin is like someone washing an unbaked brick: the more one washes it, the more mud one makes.”

“Penitents—if, nevertheless, you are penitents and not mockers—change your life, be reconciled to God, and you too will graze with a chain. With what chain, you ask? ‘The things you bind on earth will be bound also in heaven.’ You hear the binding and think that you can deceive God? You perform penance, bend your knees, and laugh; you mock God’s patience? If you perform penance, repent; if you do not repent, you are not a penitent. Therefore, if you repent, why do you do what you did evilly? If you repent of having done it, do not do it; if you still do it, certainly you are not a penitent.”

“One who still does what one repents of is a mocker, not a penitent, and does not seem to petition God as a subject, but to mock him as a proud person. A penitent returning to sin is a dog returning to vomit. For many shed tears without ceasing and do not cease to sin. I perceive some receiving tears for penance yet not possessing the disposition of penance, because through inconstancy of mind they now shed tears at the remembrance of sin, but now, when habit revives, by repeating they commit the things that they had lamented. Isaiah says concerning sinners, ‘Wash yourselves; be clean.’ The one is washed and clean who both laments past things and does not again admit things that must be lamented. The one is washed and is not clean who laments the things done but does not abandon them, and after tears repeats the things that had been lamented.”

“That penance which a subsequent fault defiles is empty. A wound inflicted again is healed more slowly; one who sins and mourns frequently scarcely merits pardon. Laments profit nothing if sins are repeated. It avails nothing to seek pardon from evils and to repeat the evils anew. Therefore persist in confession; be firmly confirmed in penance. Do not cease to hold the good life that you began; continually preserve the purpose of a good life.”

“Let those who lament the things admitted but nevertheless do not abandon them know to consider carefully that by weeping they vainly cleanse what by living wickedly they defile, since they wash themselves with tears for this purpose: that, clean, they may return to filth.”

“One who laments what was admitted but nevertheless does not abandon it subjects oneself to a graver punishment, because one despises the very pardon that one could have obtained by weeping.”

“‘Wash yourselves; be clean.’ For after washing, whoever does not preserve the innocence of life after tears neglects to be clean. Therefore, those who do not cease to weep for things committed but again commit things to be wept for are washed but are not clean.”

“The one who cleanses oneself from sin by tears is indeed washed from [contact with] a dead body; but one touches a dead body after washing who repeats faults after tears.”

“Indeed, a good thing is done in vain if it is abandoned before the end of life, because one who fails before reaching the goals also runs swiftly in vain.”

PART II. GRATIAN. But the words of the definition are referred not to different times but to the same time: namely, that during the time when the person laments the evils committed, one does not commit what it is still necessary for one to lament. This is given to be understood from the subsequent words of the same authority, when it is said: “For one who so deplores some things that one nevertheless commits others either does not yet know how to perform penance or dissembles.” Hence Augustine in the Enchiridion, [c. 70]:

“Certainly care must be taken lest anyone think that those unspeakable crimes, such that those who perform them will not possess the kingdom of God, are to be perpetrated daily and redeemed daily by alms. For life is to be changed for the better, and God is to be propitiated through alms concerning past sins; he is not, as it were, to be purchased for this purpose: that it may always be permitted to commit them with impunity. For he gave no one license to sin, although in showing mercy he blots out sins already committed, if fitting satisfaction is not neglected.”

“One who wishes to give alms in an ordered manner ought to begin with oneself and first give it to oneself. For the work of truest mercy is called alms, concerning which it is said, ‘Have mercy on your soul by pleasing God.’ For this purpose we are reborn: that we may please God.”

“For daily, brief, and light sins, without which this life is not lived, the daily prayer of the faithful makes satisfaction. For it belongs to those who have now been reborn to such a Father from water and the Holy Spirit to say, ‘Our Father, who are in heaven.’ This prayer utterly blots out the least daily sins; it also blots out those from which the life of the faithful, even if conducted criminally but changed for the better by repenting, withdraws, provided that, just as it is truthfully said, ‘Forgive us our debts,’ because things to be forgiven are not lacking, so it is truthfully said, ‘As we also forgive our debtors’; that is, let what is said be done, because to forgive altogether those seeking pardon is itself also alms.”

“It profits a person nothing to fast and pray and perform other works of religion unless the mind is recalled from iniquity.”

PART III. GRATIAN. From the person of a penitent of this kind is also understood that saying of Smaragdus, “That person performs penance worthily, etc.,” and that saying of Augustine, “Penitents, etc.,” and that saying of Isidore, “One is a mocker and not a penitent,” and that saying of Isaiah, “Wash yourselves; be clean.” Likewise also that saying of the Soliloquies, “Penance is empty.” Similarly also that saying of Gregory, “Those who lament the things admitted,” and, “One is washed from a dead body.” But that saying of Ambrose, “There are found, etc.,” is understood to have been said not according to the general but according to the special custom of the church concerning solemn penance, which among some is not repeated after it has once been celebrated. Hence Augustine writes to Macedonius, [letter LIV]:

“Although it was cautiously and salutarily provided that a place for that most humble penance be granted once in the church, lest a medicine made cheap be less useful to the sick—a medicine that is the more salutary, the less contemptible it is—nevertheless, who would dare to say to God, ‘Why do you still spare again this person who, after the first penance, binds oneself again with the snares of iniquity?’”

PART IV. GRATIAN. By this authority that saying of Ambrose is both qualified and it is shown that pardon is given through the first penance to one who will sin again; otherwise God, who had not yet spared the person, would by no means spare that person again. “The satisfaction of penance” also, and, “Go, and now sin no more,” have the same meaning as the definition. But what is said in the Book on Penance is to be understood concerning perfect penance. For just as one charity is beginning, another advancing, and another perfect, so one penance belongs to beginners, another to those advancing, and another to the perfect. But just as pardon of sins is given in baptism to charity, although not yet perfect, so that, although someone will afterward sin gravely, nevertheless that person is then understood to have been reborn not by water alone, as Jovinian handed down, but by water and the Spirit, as Jerome writes against him, so pardon is not denied to the penance of beginners. This penance can be called perfect according to one consideration, because it groans and grieves with the whole heart, although according to another consideration it can be called imperfect, because it will not endure to the end.

§ 1. According to the first manner of perfection is understood that saying of John Golden Mouth, “Perfect penance, etc.” According to the second manner of perfection is understood that saying of Augustine, “Penance is vengeance always punishing in oneself what one grieves to have committed.” But that saying, “If penance ends, nothing of pardon remains,” can be understood in two ways. For if, according to the opinion of certain persons, remitted sins return, it is easy to understand that nothing of pardon remains, because the sins that were previously remitted are repeated again. For just as one who is manumitted from a just servitude into freedom is meanwhile truly free, although afterward recalled into servitude because of ingratitude, so also sins are truly remitted to the penitent, although because of ingratitude for pardon the person is afterward to be entangled in the same sins. But if remitted sins do not return, it is said that nothing of pardon remains because nothing remains to the person of the purity of life and hope of eternal beatitude that one obtained with pardon. For just as nothing of its beauty remains to silver that has been perfectly purified if it is defiled by subsequent rust—although it is stained not by the first filth but by the subsequent one—so nothing of pardon is said to remain to one expiated through penance when one is defiled nevertheless not by sins already blotted out, but by sins still to be expiated.

PART V. § 2. But that sins are remitted through penance not only once but very often is proved by the authority of many.

For Jerome says to Rusticus concerning penance:

“‘Seven times the just person falls and rises again.’ If one falls, how is one just? If just, how does one fall? But one who always rises again through penance does not lose the name of just. And sins are pardoned not only to one transgressing seven times, but seventy-seven times, if the person is converted to penance. ‘The one to whom more is remitted loves more.’”

GRATIAN. David also obtained through penance pardon at once for adultery and killing. Concerning his penance Jerome says in the same book:

“The fiftieth psalm shows the whole penance of the sinner, when David entered to the wife of Uriah and, reproved by Nathan the prophet, replied, saying, ‘I have sinned,’ and immediately merited to hear, ‘And the Lord has taken your sin away from you.’ For he had joined killing to adultery and nevertheless, turned to tears, said, ‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy.’ For a great sin needs great mercy. Hence he joins and says, ‘Wash me greatly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, because I know my iniquity, and my sin is always against me. Against you alone have I sinned’—for, being king, he feared no other—‘and I have done evil before you, so that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged.’ For God enclosed all things under sin so that he might have mercy on all. And he advanced so far that one who had lately been a sinner and penitent passed into being a teacher: ‘I shall teach the iniquitous your ways, and the impious will be converted to you.’ For confession and beauty are before him, so that one who has confessed one’s sins and said, ‘My scars have become corrupted and putrefied,’ may change the foulness of wounds into the beauty of health.”

“That king, so great and powerful, did not permit the consciousness of the offense to remain with him even for a very small moment, but by prompt confession and immeasurable sorrow returned his sin to the Lord.”

And below: § 1. “Finally, the sorrow of his innermost affection moves the Lord, so that Nathan said, ‘Because you have repented, the Lord also has carried your sin away.’ Accordingly, the swiftness of pardon declared that the king’s penance was profound, since it carried away the offense of so great an error.”

And below: § 2. “Holy persons who desire to complete the pious contest and run the course of salvation, if perchance they fall anywhere as human beings, more through the frailty of nature than through a lust for sinning, rise again more keenly to run, renewing greater contests through the goad of shame, so that the fall may be judged not only to have brought no impediment but even to have accumulated incentives of speed. Therefore, if the course of runners is not broken when some perchance have fallen, nor the contest of wrestlers, but their contests remain uninjured—and indeed very many have conquered with greater grace after one or another fall—how much more ought those who entered the struggle of piety not to be censured by the offense of one fall, since blessed is the one who was able to restore oneself after a fall?”

And below, [c. 4]: § 3. “That he sinned belongs to his condition; that he supplicated, to correction. The fall is common, but the confession exceptional. Accordingly, to have fallen into guilt belongs to nature; to have washed it away belongs to virtue.”

And below, [c. 13]: § 4. “Sin is either pardoned, or blotted out, or covered. It is pardoned through grace, blotted out through the blood of the cross, covered through charity; similarly also iniquity, which is judged to be the disposition of an unjust mind, although John in his letter says that one who committed sin also committed iniquity. Sin is iniquity, because iniquity is in sin itself. Nevertheless, as it seems to us, sin is the work of iniquity, but iniquity is the worker of fault and offense. Therefore, it comes first that iniquity itself be blotted out, that the root and seedbed of sins be cut away. Accordingly, just as discipline entering the soul of a wise person takes away imprudence, and knowledge ignorance, so perfect virtue takes away iniquity, and the remission of sins blots out every sin.”

“But how wondrous is that, that he offered himself to the angel striking the people, saying, ‘What has this flock done? Let your hand be against me and against the house of my father.’ By this deed the one who might be judged unworthy of absolution was immediately judged worthy of sacrifice. Nor is it remarkable if by such an offering of himself on behalf of the people he obtained pardon for his sin, since Moses, by offering himself to the Lord for the people’s error, washed away sins. Therefore, did he cover his sins or not? But who would deny this, since the prophet himself taught that iniquities are remitted, sins are covered, and they are not imputed by the Lord? ‘I acknowledge my offense, and I have not covered my injustice. I said, I shall pronounce my injustice to the Lord, and you remitted the impiety of my heart.’ If he said, ‘I shall pronounce,’ and merited pardon before he pronounced, how much more, when he pronounced concerning himself, saying, ‘I acknowledge my iniquity, and my offense is always before me,’ was every sin remitted to him? Although Nathan the prophet replied specifically concerning this, ‘And the Lord has carried away your sin.’ Therefore he both merited remission of iniquity and covered his sins with charity and covered them with good works, and sin was not imputed to him, because in him there was no deceit of malice, but a fall of error. Finally, there was no heat of depravity but the shadow of a mystery; and nevertheless he confessed his offense, acknowledged his iniquity, saw the washing, both saw and believed; he loved much, so that he could cover any error with exceeding charity.”

PART VI. GRATIAN. Behold: the multitude of the people laid low shows how gravely the one whose penance is commended here and to whom pardon is shown to have been given even through the prophet afterward transgressed. Ahab also, as Jerome writes against Jovinian, a most impious king, obtained by fasting and sackcloth that he might escape God’s sentence and that the overthrow of his house might be deferred to his descendants. Concerning him the same Jerome writes to the same Rusticus, saying:

“Ahab, a most impious king, possessed Naboth’s vineyard by blood; and when, together with Jezebel, joined to him not so much in marriage as in cruelty, he is corrected by Elijah’s rebuke, the Lord says these things: ‘You have killed and possessed,’ and again, ‘In the place where the dogs licked Naboth’s blood, there they will lick your blood. And the dogs will eat Jezebel before the walls of Jezreel.’ When Ahab had heard this, he tore his garments, placed sackcloth over his flesh, fasted, and slept in haircloth. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying, ‘Because Ahab has reverenced my face, I shall not bring evil in his days.’ Ahab and Jezebel committed one crime; nevertheless, both the punishment of Ahab, converted to penance, is deferred to his descendants, and Jezebel, persevering in crime, is condemned by a present judgment.”

Likewise John Chrysostom on the restoration of the fallen, [letter V to the fallen Theodore]. “Such, believe me, such is God’s piety toward human beings; such piety never spurns penance if it is offered to him sincerely and simply. Even if someone reaches the summit of evils and nevertheless afterward wishes to return to the way of virtue, he receives the person and willingly embraces that person; he does all things so as to recall the person to the former state. And what is still more excellent and eminent, even if someone has not been able to complete the whole order of making satisfaction, he nevertheless does not spurn the least penance, however brief a time it was performed. He receives even that penance and does not permit the reward of even a very small conversion to be lost. For Isaiah indicates this to me, where he says certain such things concerning the people of the Jews: ‘Because of sin I troubled him a little and struck him, and turned my face away from him; and he was saddened and walked sorrowfully, and I healed him and consoled him.’ But that impious king will also give us a more evident testimony. He sought the prey of his cupidity through his wife’s wickedness, but, disturbed by the enormity of the crime itself, he repented and, clothed in sackcloth, wept for his deed. And he so provoked the Lord’s mercy toward himself that it absolved him from all sins. For thus God says to Elijah, ‘Have you seen how Ahab was pierced with compunction before my face? And because he wept in my sight, I shall not bring evils in his days.’”

“Just as the iniquitous King Ahab, reproved by the prophet, when he heard the divine sentence against himself, became terrified and was seized by great sorrow, so that the Lord said to his prophet, ‘Have you not seen Ahab humbled before me? Therefore, because he was humbled for my sake, I shall not bring evil in his days.’ In these words of the Lord it must be weighed how the sorrow of bitterness pleases him in his elect, who fear to lose God, if penance thus pleased him even in a reprobate who feared to lose the present world; or how pleasing to him is voluntary affliction for faults in those who please him, if this pleased him for a time even in one who displeased him.”

GRATIAN. The Ninevites also, whom the Lord commends in the Gospel, performed penance at Jonah’s preaching and, obtaining indulgence from the Lord’s mercy, merited to escape the destruction of the overthrow. But the text of the Book of Kings declares what sort of life Ahab lived after receiving pardon. Concerning him Ambrose also writes that his wife Jezebel, by whose judgment he was inflamed, turned his heart, made him execrable by excessive sacrileges, and revoked this disposition of his penance. But concerning the Ninevites Jerome writes at the beginning of Jonah:

“As Herodotus says, Nineveh was overthrown by the king of the Medes while Josiah was reigning among the Hebrews. Hence it is clear that, when Jonah preached, it merited pardon through penance, but because it afterward returned to its vomit, it was overthrown by God’s wrath.”

“The tradition of the Hebrews confirms that the prophet Nahum existed before the coming of the king of the Assyrians who transferred the people of Israel captive into his own regions. Indeed, at the end of this reading the same prophet is shown to announce the coming of the aforesaid king. But when the inhabitants of Nineveh, as Jonah preached the destruction of the city, performed penance for their sins and impiety so that they would not sustain the destruction announced by divine wrath, after receiving God’s mercy they entangled themselves in graver crimes. For this reason the aforesaid prophet, filled with the Holy Spirit and announcing God’s judgment, spoke thus: ‘God is jealous and the Lord avenges.’”

PART VII. GRATIAN. Likewise, that pardon is frequently granted to one frequently repenting is testified by Augustine in the Book on Penance, writing against certain heretics who said that penance was useful only once to those sinning after baptism. Against them Augustine writes, saying:

“Still the faithless press their case, because they are wise beyond what is proper—not sober, but exceeding the measure. For they say: Even if penance avails those who sin once after baptism, nevertheless repeated penance will not profit those who sin frequently; otherwise remission would be an incitement to sin. For they say: Who would not always sin if one could always return? For they say that God is an inciter of evil if he always comes to the aid of penitents, and that sins even please him, since grace is always ready for them. But they err; indeed, it is very evident that sins displease the one who is always ready to destroy them. For if he loved them, he would not always destroy them in this way, but would preserve them and cherish them as his gifts. He always destroys the sins he finds, lest what he created be dissolved, lest what he loved be corrupted. These hypocrites take occasion from the Lord’s deeds. Whom did he enlighten twice? Whom did he cleanse from leprosy twice? Whom did he raise from the dead twice? Not Lazarus, whom he loved; not the widow’s son, whom he pitied and restored to his mother. He is not read to have received the prodigal son twice, nor to have freed Abraham’s daughter from a demon twice. He repeated the deed in no person, teaching, as they say, that a remedy is not given frequently by the Lord. He said to many, ‘Go, and now sin no more, lest something worse happen to you,’ promising punishment, not further pardon.

§ 1. But the fact that he enlightened many blind persons and at different times, and strengthened many weak persons, shows that in those different persons the same sins are frequently remitted, so that the leper whom he first healed he enlightened as a blind person at another time. For this reason he healed so many lame, blind, and withered persons: so that the frequent sinner may not despair. For this reason it is not written that anyone was healed more than once: so that each person may fear to be joined to sin. Still today we see in the church those frequently feverish, frequently weak, frequently captured by sufferings, frequently freed, so that it may appear that the work of the one showing mercy occurs as many times as the confession of the penitent occurs. For how would he frequently heal the body, which is more vile and more unlike him, and not as often free the soul, which is more worthy and redeemed? He calls himself a physician, suitable not for the healthy but for those who are ill. But what sort of physician is this who would not know how to cure a repeated evil? For it belongs to physicians to cure one sick a hundred times a hundred times. He would be less than the others if he did not know things possible to others. He is mindful of himself who promised, ‘I do not desire the death of the sinner, but that the person be converted and live.’ For what sinner does he exclude? He who promised indulgence to all declares it by other promises. ‘Whoever confesses me before human beings’—everyone, however great and however frequent a sinner, of whatever order, even if that person were a priest—‘I also shall confess that person.’ For ‘whoever invokes the name of the Lord’—that is, according to the fact that he is named Lord, namely, whoever invokes him over oneself by serving and not contradicting him, as perhaps one often did—‘everyone’—that is, whoever that sinner may be—‘will be saved.’ For this promiser has satisfied every soul with good things, even those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, excepting no soul.

§ 2. That disciple understood this master who wished to correct the Corinthians through his letters and, as he himself testifies, corrected them three times in writing. For it was necessary that, as often as he saw them fall, so often he should help them rise. For he was mindful of the one who had said, ‘The sins of those whose sins you remit are remitted to them.’ But we know that both the first Fathers and, in every age, the church of God always remit sins up to seventy-seven times—which means always. These persons attempt to take this power away from the church. For the church that confesses that it sins ought to believe thus. For they deny that truth is in those seduced persons who dare to boast that they are without sin. For we all offend in many things, nor can an infant of one day be without sin upon earth. Therefore one who ever denies indulgence to penitents must be cast out of the church. For that person does not inquire what the Apostle meant when he said, ‘I am conscious of nothing in myself, but I am not justified in this.’ Perceiving that sins are accustomed to befall even the just, he did not affirm that he was without sin, although he knew that he had been joined to Christ by the indissoluble bond of charity. For unless he knew that the just frequently come to pardon, how would he doubt that he sinned, when he knew that he possessed the Spirit of God and served him with the purest intention? For why would the Lord have washed Peter’s feet and taught the church this same thing unless, because the offense is daily, it is fitting that remission also be daily? Why would he have taught those praying to say, ‘Forgive us our debts,’ unless he himself persevered as merciful, who does not wish us to cease from this petition?”

[Letter LIV.] “But human iniquity sometimes advances so far that even after penance has been performed, after reconciliation to the altar, persons commit either similar or graver things. And nevertheless God causes his sun to rise even upon such persons and grants the most abundant gifts of life and health no less than he had granted before. And although that place of penance is not granted to them in the church, nevertheless God does not forget his patience toward them. If anyone from their number should say to us, ‘Tell me whether it profits me at all toward the future life if in this life I have despised the allurements of most enticing pleasure; if by repenting I have tormented myself more vehemently than before; if I have groaned more pitiably; if I have wept more abundantly; if I have lived better; if I have supported the poor more generously; if I have blazed more ardently with charity, which covers a multitude of sins’—who among us is so foolish as to say to this person, ‘These things will profit you nothing hereafter; go, at least enjoy the sweetness of this life’? May God avert so empty and sacrilegious a madness.”

PART VIII. GRATIAN. Whether anyone says that only the first penance after baptism is useful, not a subsequent one, or anyone contends that pardon is given only to the last penance, not to a preceding one, nevertheless the person is always opposed to the authority that repeatedly promises pardon to one repenting. But what is the true penance to which pardon is never denied, and what is the false penance to which indulgence is never promised, Adamantius and Hesychius testify upon Leviticus. Adamantius:

“‘Among these things, the goat that had been offered, etc.’ Not to sin belongs to God alone; to amend belongs to the wise. But you will rarely find one who corrects oneself. Rare is confession of sin, rare is penance. Nature and shame resist, because all flesh is liable to fault, and each person is ashamed to confess sin while considering present things more than future ones. Moses wishes to find a soul empty of sin, so that it may lay aside the spoils of error and, naked of fault, depart without shame for itself. But an irrational impulse forestalls it, and the flame of a most rapid movement consumes the soul and burns up its innocence. For present things outweigh future ones, pleasant things serious ones, joyful things sorrowful ones, and things most hasty those that are slower. For iniquity is swift, because it supplies an occasion for doing harm; virtue is slow and delaying: before it begins, it judges what is becoming and what honorable; iniquity rushes all things headlong. Penance, therefore, is sluggish and ashamed, because it is weighed down by shame concerning present things. For it attends only to future things, whose hope is late and whose fruit slower.

“Meanwhile shamelessness runs ahead, and through hope of present things penance is shut out, and its disposition is burned up and abolished. The law seeks it and does not find it, for it has been burned up by the heat and smoke of iniquity. Hence it grows angry and says that penance ought to have been eaten in the Holy of Holies; it reproaches the priests as though they were negligent.

§ 1. “Aaron replies that priestly judgment ought to be provident and that this duty ought not readily to be entrusted to an unhealthy conscience, lest the later error become worse than the first. For either oil or wine is easily corrupted in a fetid vessel. But how could sin be burned away where there was strange fire, and in the sight of the Lord, to whom all things lie open? It is as though one who keeps injustice shut within the heart and declares oneself to perform penance does not please God. Strange fire is lust, avarice, and every depraved cupidity. This fire burns up; it does not cleanse. For if those in whom it exists make an offering in the sight of the Lord, heavenly fire consumes them, just as it consumed Nadab and Abihu together with the things that had been offered for sin.

§ 2. “Therefore, one who wishes to be cleansed should remove the strange fire and offer oneself to that fire which burns away the fault, not the human being. This fire dried up the flowing blood of the woman with the hemorrhage; this fire dried up the fault of the thief. For it is a consuming fire; it heals those who confess simply and purely. Judas said, ‘I have sinned by betraying just blood’; but he had a strange fire in his breast, by whose kindling he ran to the noose. He was unworthy of the remedy, because he did not repent with a pure mind. Therefore the priests do not take away the fault of one who deceitfully offers oneself, nor can they feast in that person, whose food is the remission of sins. Hence the true priest says, ‘My food is that I do the will of my Father,’ that is, that sinners who are converted and penitent may be saved. A sacrifice is not acceptable to God unless it is true and sincere.”

“‘Among these things, the goat that is offered, etc.’ Because every sin is destroyed through penance, and those who committed the aforesaid sin of foreign teaching and of blasphemy were not saved, the Lawgiver explains the cause of their death: ‘Among these things, the goat that had been offered, etc.’ For the sons of Aaron did not eat in the holy place what was for sin; that is, they did not cause penance for the sin committed to be performed in the church—those to whom this was commanded, whom Christ established as his vicars in the church. But he offered in the holy place, that is, in heaven, in the sight of the Father, the blood of his offering, which was offered for our blood. This sacrifice, however, ought to be eaten in the holy place, namely in the church, for the propitiation of sins. Hence he adds, ‘as it was commanded to me’: thus I commanded. Moses, therefore, bears the person of Christ. He found it burned up because they had sinned against the Holy Spirit; the offering for penance was taken away by the intelligible fire of the Holy Spirit. For those who sin voluntarily, no sacrifice for sin remains. For just as true penance merits pardon, so feigned penance provokes God, because the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee what is feigned. The holy Fathers, moreover, said that this is the unforgivable sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: to persevere in crimes until the end of life and to distrust the power and mercy of God and of the Redeemer.”

“Judas repented, but badly; for he hanged himself with a noose. Esau also repented; rather, the latter did not repent. For the tears were not those of penance, but of a violent spirit and infernal indignation. This is disclosed by his works.

§ 1. “Therefore, let us not deny our sins, nor let shamelessness make us hard. Let us punish ourselves voluntarily, lest we pay penalties involuntarily. Cain heard from God, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ and said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ You see how he committed a still greater sin by this. Did not his father act similarly? For when he too heard, ‘Adam, where are you?’ he said, ‘I heard your voice, Lord, and was afraid because I am naked, and I hid myself.’ It is a great thing for someone to acknowledge one’s sins and perseveringly to retain their memory. No remedy for offenses is found to be such as the continual memory of them.”

“‘On the willows,’ he says, ‘in its midst we hung up our instruments.’ How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? For if the flesh resists the mind and is not subjected to the governance of the soul and the command of the mind, it is a foreign land, which is not subdued by the cultivator’s exercise. It cannot bring forth the fruit of charity, penance, and peace. It is therefore better then to rest than to act; do not seek the works of penance, lest in penance itself there be done what afterward needs penance. If penance has once been usurped and not celebrated rightly, it neither obtains the fruit of the former penance nor permits the use of a later one. Certainly, even when the flesh resists, the mind ought to be intent upon God; and if works do not follow, let faith not depart; and if the enticements of the flesh or adverse powers attack, let the mind remain dedicated to God. For it is then most pressed when the flesh does not yield and there are those who bear down violently, seeking to take away every defense of the wretched soul. Hence there is that saying: ‘Empty it, empty it down to its foundation.’ Pitying it, David says, ‘Wretched daughter of Babylon.’ It is certainly a daughter of Babylon when it ceases to be a daughter of God; yet he invites a physician for it, saying, ‘Blessed is he who will seize your little ones and dash them against the rock’; that is, let one who has weak and slippery thoughts dash them against Christ, who diminishes all irrational movements by reverence for himself and by discretion.”

“It profited Judas nothing to have performed penance through which he could not correct his crime. If at any time a brother so sins against a brother that he is able to amend what he sinned, it can be divinely remitted to him; but if the works remain, penance is assumed by the voice in vain. This is what is said concerning him: ‘And let his prayer become sin,’ so that he was not only unable to amend the wickedness of the betrayal but added the crime of his own murder.”

“You proved more criminal than all and more unhappy, Judas; penance did not recall you to the Lord, but despair dragged you to the noose. Would that you had awaited the consummation of your crime and had delayed the hideous noose of death until Christ’s blood was poured out for sinners.”

PART IX. GRATIAN. By these authorities it is shown which penance is true and which false, and it is proved that no indulgence is given to false penance. In this is destroyed the opinion of those according to which it is asserted that one entangled in several offenses, through penance for one offense, obtains pardon of that offense from the Lord without penance for the other crime. They also endeavor to prove this by many authorities. The first of these is that saying of the prophet Nahum: “God will not judge twice for the same thing.” But the one whom a priest judges, God judges, whose person the priest bears in the church. Therefore, one who is punished once by a priest for a sin will not again be judged by God for the same sin.

“The Lord rained upon one city and did not rain upon another, and he rained upon one part of the same city and left another part dry. When one who hates a neighbor corrects oneself of other vices, one and the same city is rained upon in part and remains dry in part, because there are those who, while cutting away certain vices, gravely persist in others.”

“The first consolation is that God does not forget to have mercy; the second is through punishment, where, even if faith is lacking, punishment makes satisfaction and brings relief.”

GRATIAN. Likewise, an objection is raised from Jerome, who on Nahum seems to hold that, if an unbeliever were killed while committing adultery, he would not afterward be punished by God for the adultery. Likewise, if that was not satisfaction which he offered for homicide while living in adultery, when he has repented of the adultery, penance for both will have to be imposed upon him. This is proved alien to reason by ecclesiastical custom, which imposes penance twice upon no one for the same sin, unless it has been repeated.

§ 1. But that pardon for one sin is not granted to one who reserves another crime for oneself is proved not only by the foregoing authorities of Hesychius, Origen, Augustine, Smaragdus, Isidore, and Gregory, but also by another authority of the same Augustine in the Book on Penance. For he says:

“There are many who repent of having sinned, but not altogether, reserving for themselves certain things in which they may delight, not observing that the Lord freed one who was at once mute and deaf from a demon. Through this he teaches that we are never healed except of all sins. For if he had wished sins to be reserved in part, he could have made perfect the one who had seven demons after six had been expelled. But he expelled seven, so as to teach that all crimes must be cast out together. And when casting the legion out of another, he left no one of them to possess the person who had been freed, showing that, even if the sins should be a thousand, it is necessary to repent of them all. For the Lord was praised because, when the demon had been cast out, the mute person spoke. He never healed anyone whom he did not free altogether. For he healed the whole human being on the sabbath, both the body from infirmity and the soul from every contagion, indicating that penitents ought to grieve at once for every crime arisen in soul and body. For I know the Lord to be an enemy of every criminal person. How, then, would one who reserves one crime receive pardon for another? Would that person obtain pardon without love of God, without which no one has ever found grace? For that person is an enemy of God while persevering in offense. For it is a certain impiety of unbelief to hope for half a pardon from him who is just and is justice. Would one thus find grace without true penance? For true penance strives to lead the one confessing to the purity of baptism. It is right that one who repents should wash away whatever filth one contracted after purification, at least with the tears of the mind. But one whose bodily eyes cannot disclose the sorrow of the mind is sufficiently hard; and let one know oneself culpably hard who bewails temporal losses or the death of a friend and does not show sorrow for sin in tears. Therefore, no one who has at any time shown sorrow for temporal things with tears may excuse oneself by saying that one does not have a fountain of tears. Therefore, let one who repents repent altogether, etc.”

PART X. GRATIAN. That authority of the prophet Nahum, “God will not judge twice, etc.,” does not show that all things punished temporally are not afterward to be punished by God. For although Jerome, on the same passage, says that the Sodomites, the Egyptians, and the Israelites in the desert were punished temporally by God so that they would not be punished eternally, nevertheless this is not to be understood generally of everyone. Otherwise, it would be desirable for every criminal person to perish by divine action for one’s sins, struck by a thunderbolt from heaven, submerged in waters, or wounded by serpents, so that a brief and momentary penalty might put an end to eternal torments. That saying of the Apostle would also be false which, writing in the Letter to the Hebrews concerning those laid low in the desert, says, “Because of their unbelief they did not enter the land of promise.” There it is proved that, just as by the desert of their unbelief they lost that rest, so because of the same unbelief they in no way entered the true rest of eternal beatitude.

§ 1. Therefore, that saying of Jerome is understood only of those who performed penance amid the very scourges—penance which, although brief and momentary, God nevertheless did not reject. Likewise, that saying of the prophet, “God will not judge twice for the same thing,” must be understood only of those whom present punishments change, against whom a double tribulation will not arise. But those who amid scourges become harder and worse, like Pharaoh, who, when scourged by the Lord, was made harder, join eternal punishments to present ones, so that temporal punishment is for them the beginning of eternal condemnation. Hence Augustine on the Song of Deuteronomy:

“‘A fire has been kindled, etc.’ That is, vengeance will begin here and will burn unto the final condemnation.”

GRATIAN. This must be noted against those who say that “God will not judge twice for the same thing” pertains to all scourges, because some are amended or judged here by scourges, while others are punished both here and eternally, such as Antiochus and Herod.

§ 1. But what Jerome seems to hold on the same passage concerning an unbelieving adulterer is proved false from his own words. For, by the example of the one who had cursed the Israelites and the one who had gathered wood on the sabbath, he shows that small sins are purged by brief and temporal punishments, but great sins are reserved for lasting and eternal punishments. For he says, [on the first chapter of Nahum]:

“Someone may ask here: if a member of the faithful, caught in adultery, is beheaded, what happens to him afterward? For either he will be punished, and what is said—‘God will not judge twice for the same thing in tribulation’—is false; or he will not be punished, and it is desirable for adulterers that they be punished for the present by a brief penalty, so that they may frustrate eternal torments. To this we reply that God knows the measures both of all things and of punishments; that he is not forestalled by the sentence of a judge, nor is the power of afterward exacting punishment for sins taken away from him; and that a great sin is expiated by great and lasting torments. But if someone has been punished, like the one in the law who had cursed an Israelite and the one who had gathered wood on the sabbath, such persons are not punished afterward, because a light fault has been compensated by a present punishment.”

GRATIAN. That saying of Gregory, “The Lord rained upon one city, etc.,” is to be referred not to pardon of the crime but to detestation of it, so that a part of the city is said to have been rained upon because one begins to detest the crime that one had loved, not because one obtains pardon for it. The detestation of a crime is called rain because it is instilled into our heart from the fountain of divine grace, so that each person may at least thereby arrive at true penance, or be punished less by God because, by a more lasting delight in sin, one would have accumulated a greater punishment for oneself. But if the rain is referred to indulgence for the crime, it will seem to contradict the Gospel sentence.

For if, because of fraternal hatred, even those things that have been remitted are brought back for punishment, much more are those that have not been remitted proved to be reserved for vengeance.

§ 1. Likewise, if, according to Augustine, one who is master of one’s own will cannot begin a new life unless one repents of the old life, how will one who has not laid aside the oldness of hatred arrive at indulgence belonging to newness? Therefore, as has been said, that rain is proved to pertain to detestation of the crime, not to indulgence for it.

§ 2. Likewise, that saying of Ambrose, “Even if faith is lacking, punishment makes satisfaction,” is not understood of that faith concerning which it is said, “Faith without works is dead,” but of that of which the Apostle says, “Everything that is not from faith”—that is, everything done against conscience—“is sin.” Faith, therefore, is lacking when there is no consciousness of sin beneath it. But because no one understands all one’s offenses, sometimes there is in a human being a sin of which one has no consciousness. Hence the Apostle says, “I am conscious of nothing in myself, but I am not justified in this.” Therefore, for a sin of which consciousness is lacking, its punishment, if patiently borne, makes satisfaction and relieves the person burdened.

But the argument raised at the end—“If that was satisfaction, it obtained pardon; but if it did not obtain pardon, it was not satisfaction; and if it was not satisfaction, a punishment must still be imposed upon him”—does not follow. For it is satisfaction when the cause of that sin is cut off and access is not granted to its suggestions; but its fruit is not received, because it is impeded by the sin that has not yet been abandoned. It will, however, be received when penance for that sin has followed, just as one who approaches the washing of regeneration deceitfully receives the sacrament but is nevertheless not reborn in Christ; but one is reborn by the power of the sacrament that one had received when that deceit has departed from one’s heart through truthful penance. Hence Augustine also writes in the Book on Penance:

“It is pious to believe, and our faith demands this, that, when Christ’s grace has destroyed the former evils in a human being, it also rewards the good things, and, when it destroys what it did not find as its own, it loves and cherishes the good that it planted in the person while that person was sinning.”

That saying of Jerome also seems to have been spoken according to this meaning, [at c. 1 of Haggai]:

“If at any time you see someone, amid many works of sin, doing some things that are just, God is not so unjust that, because of the many evil things, he forgets the few good things.”

PART XI. GRATIAN. Although the remembrance of good things can be referred to present recompense, as Gregory writes in the homily on the rich man and Lazarus:

“We must beware lest, if perhaps we do some good thing, we receive its recompense in the present age, lest perhaps it be said to us, ‘They have received their reward.’ For unless that rich man had done some good thing for which he received recompense in the present age, Abraham would by no means have said to him, ‘You received good things in your life.’”

“Why, then, are we disturbed? Let no one be disturbed on seeing evil persons possess prosperity. Here there is no retribution for wickedness or for virtue; and if it sometimes happens that there is some retribution either for malice or for virtue, it is nevertheless not according to what is deserved, but merely as a certain foretaste of judgment, so that those who do not believe in the resurrection may be taught by such things. Accordingly, when we see an evil person become rich, let us not be overthrown; and when we see a good person suffer evils, let us not be disturbed. There are the crowns; there are the punishments. There is also another reason: an evil person cannot be evil in all things but has some good things, nor can a good person be good in all things but has some sins. Therefore, when an evil person has prosperity, it is to that evil person’s own harm. For when one receives recompense here for those few good things, one will afterward be punished there more fully.”

GRATIAN. The remembrance of good things can also be referred to receiving a milder punishment, so that good things done amid many evil things do not avail for obtaining the reward of the present or future life, but for undergoing a more tolerable punishment at the final judgment, as Augustine writes concerning faith and the other things that are possessed without charity in the Book on Patience, saying, [c. 26]:

“But if someone who does not have charity—which pertains to the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace by which the Catholic Church is gathered and joined together—being established in some schism, suffers tribulations, distresses, hunger, nakedness, persecution, dangers, prisons, chains, torments, the sword, flames, beasts, or the cross itself, lest one deny Christ, from fear of Gehenna and eternal fire, these things are in no way to be blamed. Indeed, patience is to be praised even here. For we shall not be able to say that it would have been better for that person to suffer none of those things by denying Christ than to suffer them by confessing him; rather, it must be judged that the judgment will perhaps be more tolerable for that person than if one had suffered none of those things by denying Christ. Thus the Apostle’s saying, ‘If I hand over my body so that I burn, but do not have charity, it profits me nothing,’ is understood to profit nothing for obtaining the kingdom of heaven, not for undergoing a more tolerable punishment at the final judgment.” And below, [c. 23]:

§ 1. “These things have been said because of charity, without which true penance cannot exist in us, because in good persons there is the charity of God, which endures all things.”

PART XII. GRATIAN. Therefore, as appears from the foregoing, penance is useful to no one who perseveres in sin; nevertheless, it is to be denied to no one, because one will perceive its fruit when one has performed penance for the other crime. Thus, therefore, the definition of penance and the other authorities consonant with it deny that one who perseveres in crime performs penance—that is, penance useful and fruitful to oneself.

§ 2. That saying of Ambrose, “Penance once undertaken, and not truly celebrated, both takes away the fruit of the former and loses the use of the following,” is understood of solemn penance. When solemn penance has not been truly celebrated, it both loses the fruit of the former—that is, of itself, which follows the preceding penance, because the person scorned the pardon that one could have obtained—and takes away the use of a following penance, according to the custom of certain churches among which the solemnity of penance is not repeated. Concerning this same penance that saying also is understood: “There is no second place for penance.”