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It remains to reply to those who maintain that those only shall burn in
eternal fire who neglect alms-deeds proportioned to their sins,
resting this opinion on the words of the Apostle James, "He shall
have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy." Therefore,
they say, he that hath showed mercy, though he has not reformed his
dissolute conduct, but has lived wickedly and iniquitously even while
abounding in alms, shall have a merciful judgment, so that he shall
either be not condemned at all, or shall be delivered from final
judgment after a time. And for the same reason they suppose that
Christ will discriminate between those on the right hand and those on
the left, and will send the one party into His kingdom, the other
into eternal punishment, on the sole ground of their attention to or
neglect of works of charity. Moreover, they endeavor to use the
prayer which the Lord Himself taught as a proof and bulwark of their
opinion, that daily sins which are never abandoned can be expiated
through alms-deeds, no matter how offensive or of what sort they be.
For, say they, as there is no day on which Christians ought not to
use this prayer, so there is no sin of any kind which, though
committed every day, is not remitted when we say, "Forgive us our
debts," if we take care to fulfill what follows, "as we forgive our
debtors." For, they go on to say, the Lord does not say, "If ye
forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you
your little daily sins," but "will forgive you your sins."
Therefore, be they of any kind or magnitude whatever, be they
perpetrated daily and never abandoned or subdued in this life, they can
be pardoned, they presume, through alms-deeds.
But they are right to inculcate the giving of aims proportioned to past
sins; for if they said that any kind of alms could obtain the divine
pardon of great sins committed daily and with habitual enormity, if
they said that such sins could thus be daily remitted, they would see
that their doctrine was absurd and ridiculous. For they would thus be
driven to acknowledge that it were possible for a very wealthy man to
buy absolution from murders, adulteries, and all manner of
wickedness, by paying a daily alms of ten paltry coins. And if it he
most absurd and insane to make such an acknowledgment, and if we still
ask what are those fitting alms of which even the forerunner of Christ
said, "Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance,"
undoubtedly it will be found that they are not such as are done by men
who undermine their life by daily enormities even to the very end. For
they suppose that by giving to the poor a small fraction of the wealth
they acquire by extortion' and spoliation they can propitiate Christ,
so that they may with impunity commit the most damnable sins, in the
persuasion that they have bought from Him a license to transgress, or
rather do buy a daily indulgence. And if they for one crime have
distributed all their goods to Christ's needy members, that could
profit them nothing unless they desisted from all similar actions, and
attained charity which worketh no evil He therefore who does
alms-deeds proportioned to his sins must first begin with himself.
For it is not reasonable that a man who exercises charity towards his
neighbor should not do so towards himself, since he hears the Lord
saying, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and again,
"Have compassion on thy soul, and please God." He then who has
not compassion on his own soul that he may please God, how can he be
said to do alms-deeds proportioned to his sins? To the same purpose
is that written, "He who is bad to himself, to whom can he be
good?" We ought therefore to do alms that we may be heard when we
pray that our past sins may be forgiven, not that while we continue in
them we may think to provide ourselves with a license for wickedness by
alms-deeds.
The reason, therefore, of our predicting that He will impute to
those on His right hand the alms-deeds they have done, and charge
those on His left with omitting the same, is that He may thus show
the efficacy of charity for the deletion of past sins, not for impunity
in their perpetual commission. And such persons, indeed, as decline
to abandon their evil habits of life for a better course cannot be said
to do charitable deeds. For this is the purport of the saying,
"Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it
not to me." He shows them that they do not perform charitable actions
even when they think they are doing so. For if they gave bread to a
hungering Christian because he is a Christian, assuredly they would
not deny to themselves the bread of righteousness, that is, Christ
Himself; for God considers not the person to whom the gift is made,
but the spirit in which it is made. He therefore who loves Christ in
a Christian extends alms to him in the same spirit in which he draws
near to Christ, not in that spirit which would abandon Christ if it
could do so with impunity. For in proportion as a man loves what
Christ disapproves does he himself abandon Christ. For what does it
profit a man that he is baptized, if he is not justified? Did not He
who said, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he
shall not enter into the kingdom of God," say also, "Except your
righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and
Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven?" Why do
many through fear of the first saying run to baptism, while few through
fear of the second seek to be justified? As therefore it is not to his
brother a man says, "Thou fool," if when he says it he is indignant
not at the brotherhood, but at the sin of the offender, for otherwise
he were guilty of hell fire, so he who extends charity to a Christian
does not extend it to a Christian if he does not love Christ in him.
Now he does not love Christ who refuses to be justified in Him.
Or, again, if a man has been guilty of this sin of calling his
brother Fool, unjustly reviling him without any desire to remove his
sin, his alms-deeds go a small way towards expiating this fault,
unless he adds to this the remedy of reconciliation which the same
passage enjoins. For it is there said, "Therefore, if thou bring
thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath
aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy
way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy
gift." Just so it is a small matter to do alms-deeds, no matter how
great they be, for any sin, so long as the offender continues in the
practice of sin.
Then as to the daily prayer which the Lord Himself taught, and which
is therefore called the Lord's prayer, it obliterates indeed the sins
of the day, when day by day we say, "Forgive us our debts," and
when we not only say but act out that which follows, "as we forgive
our debtors;" but we utter this petition because sins have been
committed, and not that they may be. For by it our Saviour designed
to teach us that, however righteously we live in this life of infirmity
and darkness, we still commit sins for the remission of which we ought
to pray, while we must pardon those who sin against us that we
ourselves also may be pardoned. The Lord then did not utter the
words, "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Father will also
forgive you your trespasses," in order that we might contract from
this petition such confidence as should enable us to sin securely from
day to day, either putting ourselves above the fear of human laws, or
craftily deceiving men concerning our conduct, but in order that we
might thus learn not to suppose that we are without sins, even though
we should be free from crimes; as also God admonished the priests of
the old law to this same effect regarding their sacrifices, which He
commanded them to offer first for their own sins, and then for the sins
of the people. For even the very words of so great a Master and Lord
are to be intently considered. For He does not say, If ye forgive
men their sins, your Father will also forgive you your sins, no
matter of what sort they be, but He says, your sins; for it was a
daily prayer He was teaching, and it was certainly to disciples
already justified He was speaking. What, then, does He mean by
"your sins," but those sins from which not even you who are justified
and sanctified can be free? While, then, those who seek occasion
from this petition to indulge m habitual sin maintain that the Lord
meant to include great sins, because He did not say, He will forgive
you your small sins, but "your sins," we, on the other hand,
taking into account the character of the persons He was addressing,
cannot see our way to interpret the expression "your sins" of anything
but small sins, because such persons are no longer guilty of great
sins. Nevertheless not even great sins themselves, sins from which we
must flee with a total reformation of life, are forgiven to those who
pray, unless they observe the appended precept, "as ye also forgive
your debtors." For if the very small sins which attach even to the
life of the righteous be not remitted without that condition, how much
further from obtaining indulgence shall those be who are involved in
many great crimes, if, while they cease from perpetrating such
enormities, they still inexorably refuse to remit any debt incurred to
themselves, since the Lord says, "But if ye forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses?" For
this is the purport of the saying of the Apostle James also, "He
shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy." For we
should remember that servant whose debt of ten thousand talents his lord
cancelled, but afterwards ordered him to pay up, because the servant
himself had no pity for his fellow-servant, who owed him an hundred
pence. The words which the Apostle James subjoins, "And mercy
rejoiceth against judgment," find their application among those who
are the children of the promise and vessels of mercy. For even those
righteous men, who have lived with such holiness that they receive into
the eternal habitations others also who have won their friendship with
the mammon of unrighteousness, became such only through the merciful
deliverance of Him who justifies the ungodly, imputing to him a reward
according to grace, not according to debt. For among this number is
the apostle, who says, "I obtained mercy to be faithful."
But it must be admitted, that those who are thus received into the
eternal habitations are not of such a character that their own life
would suffice to rescue them without the aid of the saints, and
consequently in their case especially does mercy rejoice against
judgment. And yet we are not on this account to suppose that every
abandoned profligate, who has made no amendment of his life, is to be
received into the eternal habitations if only he has assisted the saints
with the mammon of unrighteousness, that is to say, with money or
wealth which has been unjustly acquired, or, if rightfully acquired,
is yet not the true riches, but only what iniquity counts riches,
because it knows not the true riches in which those persons abound, who
even receive others also into eternal habitations. There is then a
certain kind of life, which is neither, on the one hand, so bad that
those who adopt it are not helped towards the kingdom of heaven by any
bountiful alms-giving by which they may relieve the wants of the
saints, and make friends who could receive them into eternal
habitations, nor, on the other hand, so good that it of itself
suffices to win for them that great blessedness, if they do not obtain
mercy through the merits of those whom they have made their friends.
And I frequently wonder that even Virgil should give expression to
this sentence of the Lord, in which He says, "Make to yourselves
friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that they may receive you
into everlasting habitations;" and this very similar saying, "He
that receiveth a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall receive a
prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man, in the name
of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward." For
when that poet described the Elysian fields, in which they suppose
that the souls of the blessed dwell, he placed there not only those who
had been able by their own merit to reach that abode. but added.-
"And they who grateful memory won By services to others done;" that
is, they who had served others, and thereby merited to be remembered
by them. Just as if they used the expression so common in Christian
lips, where some humble person commends himself to one of the saints,
and says, Remember me, and secures that he do so by deserving well at
his hand. But what that kind of life we have been speaking of is, and
what those sins are which prevent a man from winning the kingdom of God
by himself, but yet permit him to avail himself of the merits of the
saints, it is very difficult to ascertain, very perilous to define.
For my own part, in spite of all investigation, I have been up to
the present hour unable to discover this. And posssibly it is hidden
from us, lest we should become careless in avoiding such sins, and so
cease to make progress. For if it were known what these sins are
which, though they continue, and be not abandoned for a higher life,
do yet not prevent us from seeking and hoping for the intercession of
the saints, human sloth would presumptuously wrap itself in these
sins, and would take no steps to be disentangled from such wrappings by
the deft energy of any virtue, but would only desire to be rescued by
the merits of other people, whose friendship had been won by a
bountiful use of the mammon of unrighteousness.
But now that we are left in ignorance of the precise nature of that
iniquity which is venial, even though it be persevered in, certainly
we are both more vigilant in our prayers and efforts for progress, and
more careful to secure with the mammon of unrighteousness friends for
ourselves among the saints.
But this deliverance, which is effected by one's own prayers, or the
intercession of holy men, secures that a man be not cast into eternal
fire, but not that, when once he has been cast into it, he should
after a time be rescued from it. For even those who fancy that what is
said of the good ground bringing forth abundant fruit, some thirty,
some sixty, some an hundred fold, is to be referred to the saints, so
that in proportion to their merits some of them shall deliver thirty
men, some sixty, some an hundred, even those who maintain this are
yet commonly inclined to suppose that this deliverance will take place
at, and not after the day of judgment. Under this impression, some
one who observed the unseemly folly with which men promise themselves
impunity on the ground that all will be included in this method of
deliverance, is reported to have very happily remarked, that we should
rather endeavor to live so well that we shall be all found among the
number of those who are to intercede for the liberation of others, lest
these should be so few in number, that, after they have delivered one
thirty, another sixty, another a hundred, there should still remain
many who could not be delivered from punishment by their intercessions,
and among them every one who has vainly and rashly promised himself the
fruit of another's labor. But enough has been said in reply to those
who acknowledge the authority of the same sacred Scriptures as
ourselves, but who, by a mistaken interpretation of them, conceive of
the future rather as they themselves wish, than as the Scriptures
teach. And having given this reply, I now, according to promise,
close this book.
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