Article — Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis
Article I. On the Effects of Mortal Sin
392. Several effects of mortal sin are indeed enumerated, but all are founded as in a root in the loss of sanctifying grace. That sanctifying grace is truly lost through mortal sin is of faith; for the Council of Trent defines:48 "It must be asserted that the grace of justification received is lost not only by infidelity, through which faith itself is lost, but also by any other mortal sin, although faith is not lost." Just as sanctifying grace was the cause of original justice and of the whole felicity of the first parents, so the loss of that grace through sin was the cause of all evils. With proportion preserved, sanctifying grace in the same way causes the nobility and happiness of any man, while on the contrary the loss of it brings a great misfortune upon any man. For sanctifying grace is a participation of the divine nature in the soul of the just man; through it man becomes a sharer of the divine nature,49 becomes the temple of God,50 becomes a co-heir of Christ,51 and receives all the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. All these things indeed are destroyed in the blink of an eye by one mortal sin. Hence, by enumerating individually, the following effects of mortal sin appear:
1. Loss of sanctifying grace.
2. Loss of the infused virtues, and also of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The reason is that the infused virtues receive their form, that is, direction, from charity. But sin is directly opposed to charity, since sin is essentially a grave offense against God. Charity and mortal sin destroy one another. Where charity is, there is no sin; but where mortal sin is, there is no charity. Faith and theological hope are not utterly destroyed by mortal sin; nevertheless they become, as theologians are accustomed to say, unformed, that is, their acts lack direction to the ultimate end.52 This loss of virtues and gifts is most grave, and to it can be applied those things which Jeremiah utters lamenting over Jerusalem, which is a type of the soul, destroyed: "How does the city sit alone, full of people!"53 Before sin is committed the soul is filled with most sweet inhabitants, namely the three divine persons dwelling in it, the three theological virtues, the four cardinal virtues, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit; but after sin is committed these inhabitants are violently cast out, and the soul remains alone and deserted.
3. Loss of all merits.
The soul by sinning mortally loses the merits which it acquired in its whole life, since "all his justices which he had done shall not be remembered."54 Jeremiah expresses this fittingly: "The enemy has put his hand to all her desirable things."55 From divine mercy these merits, mortified through sin, after grace has been recovered, live again.56 But all good works done in the state of mortal sin merit no eternal reward, because, charity being absent, the works of man are not accepted before God.
4. Most foul defilement of the soul.
Through sanctifying grace the soul obtains a most beautiful brightness and incomparable beauty. Therefore in the Canticle of Canticles the beauty of the bride, which is a figure of the just soul, is extolled with such great praises. But when grace is lost through sin, in place of that beauty the soul receives a foul stain; St. Thomas57 explains this in this way: "Stain is properly said in bodily things, when some bright body loses its brightness from contact with another body, as a garment and gold and silver. But in spiritual things, according to the likeness of this, stain must be spoken of. Now the soul of man has a twofold brightness: one indeed from the refulgence of the natural light of reason; ... but another from the refulgence of divine light, namely of wisdom and grace.... But there is, as it were, a certain touch of the soul, when it adheres to certain things through love. But when it sins, it adheres to certain things against the light of reason and of the divine law. Hence the very detriment of brightness arising from such contact is metaphorically called the stain of the soul." Jeremiah very forcefully describes this defilement of sin: "And from the daughter of Sion all her beauty has gone out";58 "He has killed everything that was beautiful to sight in the tabernacle of the daughter of Sion";59 "Their face has become blacker than coals, and they have not been known in the streets; their skin has adhered to their bones, it has dried up and has become like wood."60 With how great a foulness the soul is contaminated by mortal sin can in some way be understood from the following deduction. The common adage is: the corruption of the best is the worst; that is, the nobler a thing is, the worse is its corruption. Now the human soul, ennobled by sanctifying grace and as it were deified, obtains the first place among all sublunary creatures. Therefore its corruption caused by mortal sin will be worse and fouler than any other corruption. A corrupted stone is foul; a corrupted plant is fouler; the putrefying corpse of a dog is still fouler; the putrefying corpse of a man is still fouler; but the soul, and that one elevated to the supernatural order, if it is dead and putrefying through mortal sin, is the foulest of all. Therefore it is no wonder if St. Philip Neri, who by a special grace saw a soul in the state of mortal sin, exclaims that nothing is fouler in the whole world than a soul defiled by mortal sin. Briefly but forcefully Peter Chrysologus61 expresses this doctrine in these words: "When the soul departs, at once stench, corruption, putrefaction, worm, ashes, horror, and all things detestable to sight succeed to the body. When God departs, immediately there comes into the soul the stench of sins, the corruption of crimes, the putrefaction of vices, the worm of conscience, the ashes of vanities, the horror of infidelity, and there comes to be in the living sepulcher of the body the funeral of the soul already buried."
5. Remorse of conscience.
Because a) the natural law is indelibly inscribed in the heart of man; b) synderesis always dictates that good is to be done and evil is to be omitted; c) conscience is as it were the herald of God, crying out with a loud voice against the offender of God, hence in the soul of the sinner there arises a most painful struggle. Wherefore the words of Sacred Scripture are most true: "There is no peace for the impious,"62 and "We were threatened at our necks; to the weary no rest was given."63 - These remorses of conscience were represented by the ancient pagans under the likeness of the Furies, that is, of women whose hair was snakes or serpents.
6. The guilt of eternal punishment.
This guilt is the debt of punishment to be paid on account of the sin committed. For mortal sin is essentially an offense against God and the greatest disorder. But God, who established the best order in the whole universe, cannot permit that this order be wounded with impunity. Hence St. Thomas64 rightly teaches: "Whatever rises up against some order, it is consequent that it be depressed by that order itself or by the prince of the order, ... and this depression indeed is punishment." This punishment must in some way correspond to the disorder or fault committed. Moreover, sin brings in a quasi-infinite fault or malice, as was said above in n. 356. Therefore the punishment which is inflicted on sin must be infinite in some way. In fact that punishment is twofoldly infinite in some way, namely a) because an infinite good is lost, that is, the beatific vision; this punishment is graver and is called the punishment of loss; b) because the damned are punished in gehenna through a quasi-infinite duration, that is, through all eternity, both with the punishment of loss and the punishment of sense. Briefly but adequately this twofold punishment is expressed in the terrible words of Christ to come: "Depart from me [punishment of loss], accursed, into eternal fire [punishment of sense]."65 For fuller treatment of the punishments of gehenna, see the treatise on the other world or on the last things.
Not rarely mortal sins already committed are punished in this life by diverse grave punishments, for example diseases, loss of reputation, goods, peace, etc.; just as also sometimes God as a punishment withdraws assisting grace from the sinner, who thence from day to day perpetrates greater and more numerous sins.
From all things said thus far and very briefly indicated, it evidently follows that mortal sin is rightly and deservedly called a mystery of iniquity, and that too most fruitful, namely producing the most deadly effects.
48 Sess. 6, c. 15 de iustif. (Denz. n. 808).
49 Cf. 1 Petr. 1, 4.
50 Cf. 2 Cor. 6, 16; 1 Cor. 3, 16 and 17.
51 Cf. Rom. 8, 17.
52 Whether unformed faith is a true virtue will be said below in the treatise on faith. Theological hope also remains in some way after mortal sin (cf. S. theol. 1, 2, q. 65, a. 4).
53 Thren. 1, 1.
54 Ez. 18, 24.
55 Thren. 1, 10.
56 S. theol. 3, q. 89, a. 5.
57 S. theol. 1, 2, q. 86, a. 1.
58 Thren. 1, 6.
59 Thren. 2, 4.
60 Thren. 4, 8.
61 Sermo 19 (Migne, Patr. lat. 52, 252).
62 Is. 48, 22; 57, 21.
63 Thren. 5, 5.
64 S. theol. 1, 2, q. 87, a. 1 (ed. Leon.).
65 Matth. 25, 41.