BOOK ONE. CHAPTER ONE. I cannot express in words, dearest Euthymius, how greatly I rejoice with you in your zeal: that not only, placed in your own house, do you give your mind to the heavenly Scriptures, but you also with watchful heart frequent the holy church, so that when the outer hearing of the body is struck by the divine words, the inner affection of your soul may be nourished. For it is recognized as the work of divine grace, that in the house of God you spiritually enjoy the conversation of those whom you know to be fervent in the love of the divine law;
nor do you delight, as some do, to mingle in useless talk — those who come together to the life-giving banquet of the heavenly word without profit to themselves, and, according to the truthful word of the reproving apostle Paul, indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but are turned unto fables (II Tim. IV, 4). Whom not undeservedly I would call like to those whose stomach, overcome by a deadly loathing, is found to delight rather in fasting than in food; and on this account they perceive in vain that medicinal riches are set before them; which, while they refuse to receive, they gain from them nothing of virtue or of health; and in the house of the physician, spurning the antidote of spiritual healing offered them, they enter with their infirmities only to depart the more grievously sick.
To whom nevertheless the Lord is able to grant delight and knowledge of His word, so that they may be inflamed by the examples of the good. Being admonished by these, may they cast off the negligence of their delay, and seek the effect of salvation in the wholesome precepts of the physician Himself: so that with those who, searching the testimonies of the Lord, seek Him out, they too may not cease to seek for their own salvation that which can be found by those who seek. CHAPTER II. And so the letter which you sent me, although it made known to us nothing unknown from your heart, nevertheless supplied to our heart a great increase of gladness in the Lord.
For it is known to us that divine grace mercifully works in you, and that you often and much think upon the remission of sins. Yet I said that our gladness had grown for this reason: because you so desire to obtain the remission of sins, that you frequently and vigilantly inquire into the effect of that same remission. You say, therefore, that a question has arisen among you, which, although you yourself recall it, I have nevertheless preferred to insert into this little work the very words that are contained in your letter, in the very order in which they were set down by you: so that not only may you recognize them from your own dictation, but also whoever else shall read may, while he is imbued by the inquiry of knowledge, be more conveniently instructed unto the understanding of the answer.
You ask, therefore, whether the Lord, the Maker of all things, remits sins in this world only to those whom He wills, and so anyone departs hence absolved; or whether, by His omnipotence, He remits to those to whom He did not remit in the present world, when they depart from the body before the day of judgment, or on that very day of the world to come. These very words which I have set down you surely recall to be, as I have already said, your own. CHAPTER III. In the resolution of this question I see you demanding the opinion of our littleness. Wherefore I hope in the abundance of the goodness of God, by which He is always so rich that thereby our poverty too can be enriched, and out of which He so gives to others as much as He wills, that He remains the more fully Himself in it;
for He will deign to pour into our heart spiritually such things as may profit both us to speak and you to hear. For the discourse which we minister to you in the grace of God then profits us also, if what we speak outwardly to you in word and pen for your salvation, we inwardly hear as meek and humble. For not in vain does the most holy David say: I will hear what the Lord God shall speak in me (Ps. LXXXV, 9). Which hearing properly pertains to the humble. Wherefore in another place the same prophet says: To my hearing thou shalt give joy and gladness, and the bones that have been humbled shall rejoice (Ps. LI, 10). In another place the Majesty itself speaks thus: Upon whom shall my Spirit rest, but upon the humble and the quiet, and him that trembleth at my words (Isa. LXVI, 2)?
Nor indeed does this Spirit of God so rest upon the humble and quiet as though He Himself did not make him quiet and humble, but as though He should find him already humble and quiet in order to rest upon him. For in this He deigns to rest upon the humble and quiet, because upon whom He rests, him He makes quiet and humble. This therefore the Holy Spirit works: that He may expel the vice of pride and unquietness from the man in whom He rests; and so, by the operation of the Holy Spirit going before and mercifully changing the will of man, the freely-given remission of sins may loose every bond of past human iniquity. CHAPTER IV.
We therefore treat of no small matter, nor do we seek anything worthless, when we discuss the remission of sins, as far as the divine bounty aids us. For through this those are rescued from the power of darkness whom God will transfer into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Col. I, 13). Through it they are freed from eternal punishment, that they may enjoy eternal gladness. Through it is laid down the burden, whether the one that vicious birth has dragged along, or the one that the iniquity of vicious youth has added. Through it Christ refreshes those who labour and are burdened, coming to Him, upon whom He imposes the mild yoke and the light burden of His charity (Matt. XI, 28–30). Through it the ungodly is freely justified,
so that his faith is reckoned unto righteousness. Through it he lacks the evil life in which he had been entangled; and freely receives a good one, of which he was unworthy. Through it, it comes to pass that thereafter, in a good life, being enlightened by the gift of preceding mercy, he walks, and led into it, perseveres by the gift of following mercy: so that undeserved grace may begin in man the gift of living well, the remission of sins being granted; which it may perfect by the virtue of perseverance conferred. Through the remission of sins men are freely distinguished from those who shall be tormented forever with the devil, and are joined to those who shall reign without end with Christ. [Scripture] opened the one; but the other the Lord Himself indicated.
For when Mary His mother had been espoused to Joseph, and, as the evangelist testifies, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit, the cause of that conception was announced by the angel in these words to Joseph, who knew it not: Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. For He shall save His people from their sins (Matt. I, 18ff.). But what else is it to save from sins, but to remit sins? For our Saviour Himself, who came to save that which had perished (Matt.
XVIII, 11), testifies that He came for this, to call sinners to repentance. CHAPTER V. Now the principal benefit of this calling to repentance is the free remission of sins. For which our same Redeemer, after the banquet of the paschal supper was accomplished, declares that His blood is to be poured out. Drink, He says, of this, all of you. For this is my blood of the new Testament, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins (Matt. XXVI, 28). This therefore, as I think, either all, or almost all who are in any way called by the Christian name, desire to find; but it matters where each one, or when, or how he seeks it.
For one cannot attain to the remission of sins, if he either does not hold the true faith, or neglects the office of good work, or, forestalled by deadly vanity, despises the time divinely granted for right belief and good work. For these three things, that is, faith, work, and time, are so together necessary to men in this life, that if any one of these three should be lacking to anyone in the present world, he cannot be a partaker of eternal life; and hence neither will he obtain the remission of sins, through which one comes to the reward of eternal life. This it is necessary, with the Lord's help, that we show by the attestation of the divine testimonies. CHAPTER VI.
Before all things, therefore, we must hold with firm belief that the Lord our God is merciful and just. For hence it can easily appear to those who inquire, to what kind of persons God remits sins, where He remits, when He remits. Which things being known, let no one retain a perverse opinion concerning God, nor neglect his own conversion, nor depart from the Catholic Church; or if anyone has departed, let him speedily return;
nor let anyone wish to flatter himself concerning time with foolish thought, if anyone, unwilling to be converted to God in this life and serving iniquities even to death, should believe that after this life he will obtain the remission of sins, when already, prejudged, [he falls] into the time of tribulation — [the enemy] whose incessant zeal is this, that to the fellowship of his own torment he may, as far as he can, either drag the crowd of the wretched enticed, or compel it unwilling. For he makes not a few, casting aside consideration of the divine justice, to think of God's mercy alone; so that they neglect their conversion, supposing that, even if they lead a criminal life to the very end, they will obtain the benefit of remission. But others
he compels or entices, the bosom of the Catholic Church being abandoned, to pass over to heresies or schisms in the blindness of a depraved heart. Whose minds he ensnares by the deception of a false promise, so that they either think themselves upheld by right doctrine, or hope that the benefit of remission will come to them for the mere belief of the heart, even though, with a feigned mind, for either the convenience or the fear of the time, they are held bound in the deadly fellowship of heretics even to death; too little considering that sentence of our Saviour who says: Whosoever shall confess Me before men, I also will confess him before My Father who is in heaven; and whosoever shall deny Me before men, I also will deny him before My Father who is in heaven (Matt. X, 32–33).
And in another place: Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, of him the Son of Man shall be ashamed, when He shall come in His majesty, and that of the Father, and of the holy angels (Luke IX, 26). But to very many the enemy of the human race contrives to bring in the remembrance of their sins for this end, that he may cast desperation of remission upon the hardened, and shut them out from the remedy of conversion. But all these things he ever does, cloaked in fraudulent deceit, for no other reason than that he may take away the opportunity of the time in which remission can be granted to the converted; and so, as far as pertains to his malignity, that, if it could be, no one may come to salvation.
For he knows that God is merciful and just, nor is he ignorant that only the heart's true conversion can elicit from God the remission of sins. He knows too that nowhere but in the sole bosom of the Catholic Mother can sins be remitted to the converted; nor is it hidden from him that only in the present world can the remission of all sins be granted to the converted: where the human race, by the order divinely appointed through the departure of the dying and the succession of those being born, is not unjustly bound by the bond of carnal birth, and is freely loosed by spiritual birth:
where also conversion either looses every guilt, or renders it insoluble — whether the neglect nourished by vain hope, or the wickedness of a hardened heart, strengthened by despair and retained even to the end. CHAPTER VII. But now the urgency of the work undertaken compels me to teach thoroughly, by due discussion and by the attestation of the holy Scriptures, all the things I have indicated above. For indeed the truthful series of both Testaments is not silent about all the things that pertain to the achievement of human salvation; so that there may be nothing which the despiser, to be condemned hereafter, may plead in excuse.
Principally, therefore, all Scripture divinely inspired proclaims the one true and only God, that is, the Trinity, namely the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to be as merciful as He is just. For to Him it is said in the person of the Church: Mercy and judgment I will sing to thee, O Lord (Ps. CI, 1). Of Him also it is sung: Merciful is the Lord and just, and our God shall have mercy (Ps. CXVI, 5). In another place also: For the Lord is just, and hath loved justice; His countenance hath beheld equity (Ps. XI, 8). Again it is said: All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth (Ps. XXV, 10). And again: For the Lord loveth mercy and truth (Ps. LXXXIV, 12).
In the first precept of the decalogue also the same Lord makes Himself known as just and merciful, thus indeed: I am the Lord thy God, a jealous God, who repay the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation, of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of thousands to them that love and keep My precepts (Exod. XX, 5–6). Wherefore Moses says: The Lord God, indulgent and merciful, patient and of much mercy and true, keeping justice and mercy unto thousands, taking away iniquities and injustices and sins. And He will not clear the guilty, bringing the sins of the fathers upon the children of the children unto the third and fourth generation (Exod. XXXIV, 6–7).
Through Isaiah also the Lord commemorates His mercy and justice, saying: I am God, and there is no other besides Me, just, and a saviour: there is none besides Me. Be converted to Me, and you shall be saved (Isa. XLV, 21–22). CHAPTER VIII. By these, therefore, and by innumerable testimonies of this kind, whereby the Lord our God is proclaimed merciful and just, it is shown how greatly His mercy is to be loved, and how greatly His justice is demonstrated to be feared. For the merciful and compassionate Lord, patient and of much mercy and true, as He knows how to remove punishment from the converted, so in him who is unwilling to be converted He in no way suffers sin to remain unavenged.
Therefore, if there be any whom in the present world the pious goodness of God does not free from the dominion of sin, these His just severity condemns in the world to come. Hence it is that by the divine words the wicked are unceasingly and wholesomely admonished, that they may not remain in the servitude of sin, but may seek the mercy of the just God while they are in this life. To the good also it is commanded (Ps. II, 11–12), that serving the Lord in fear, and rejoicing unto Him with trembling, they may lay hold of discipline; lest at any time the Lord be angry, and they perish from the just way.
God himself, therefore, who is both merciful and just, even as he warns that for justice and mercy's sake he should be feared and loved by the wicked—so that when they are converted they may escape the punishment which justice threatens and receive the pardon which mercy promises—so too he warns that for justice and mercy's sake he should be loved and feared by the good, in order that those who by his prevenient mercy are good may be able both, through love of mercy, to persevere in good works, and, through fear of justice, carefully to guard themselves from sins; and, instructed by consideration of their own weakness, may never trust in their own strength, but may continually and humbly beg the help of the divine power.
The good and the wicked alike, therefore, ought both to love mercy and to dread justice: lest either the good, in loving God's mercy, should fail to fear his justice and so fall into the snares of the seducing devil; or the wicked, considering only the severity of justice, should fail to seek—when by conversion they are able to find it—the benefit of mercy, and so, being hardened, not only deny themselves the remission of sins but even cease not to multiply their sins. For with this twofold snare the devil frequently takes the incautious captive: so that either, dulled by the empty hope of a future remission, they refuse to be converted through the fear of justice;
or, despairing utterly of remission, they neglect conversion, and, giving free rein to their iniquities, while they despair of pardon, run headlong into hell. And thus that cunning enemy of the human race casts some down by the rashness of despair, while others he trips up by the deception of a false hope. For this reason blessed Paul, in whom Christ spoke (2 Cor. 13:3), writing to those who live well, so commends their obedience that with fear and trembling he bids such men keep watchfulness in the work of salvation. For he says to the Philippians: 'Therefore, my dearly beloved, as you have always obeyed, not only as in my presence,'
'but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will' (Phil. 2:12–13). By these words blessed Paul intimates that God is indeed just, since he commanded that fear and trembling be kept by the faithful in their good works. He also proclaims him merciful, whom he says works in them both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will. For he would not be justly feared by those who do well, if he were not just; nor would he himself work in them every good of will and of deed, if he were not merciful. This fear of the divine justice the apostle Paul again vehemently impresses upon the just with a terrifying proclamation, saying:
'He that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall' (1 Cor. 10:12). And again: 'Brethren, if a man be overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted' (Gal. 6:1). To the apostles themselves also, with heavenly teaching, their own weakness is announced, when the watchfulness of a fitting fear is shown to be kept in humility of heart, the Lord saying: 'Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak' (Matt. 26:41). CHAPTER X. Nevertheless, since all things that are contained in the divine oracles are spoken for the guarding or the restoring of human salvation,
the divine discourse provided that, while the fear of the divine equity is proclaimed to the just, there should not, on the contrary, arise in sinners a deadly despair—if, I say, hope were not turned toward conversion. Therefore the apostle Paul, in the Epistle which he wrote to the Romans, just as he terrifies the faithful and the good with the intimation of the divine severity, so he invites the unbelieving and the wicked to conversion with the most certain hope of the supernal goodness; namely, so that both the good might learn not to be high-minded but to fear, and the wicked might be able to obtain the remedy of eternal salvation without any impediment of doubt. Thus, therefore, says the most blessed Paul: 'Behold then the goodness and the severity of God: towards them indeed that are fallen, the severity;'
'but towards thee, goodness, if thou abide in goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not in unbelief, shall be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in again' (Rom. 11:22–23). Therefore, since the Apostle says that he who abides not in goodness must be cut off, and he who abides not in unbelief must be grafted in—what just man, struck with dread, would not fear justice; or what wicked man, confirmed in the mercy of God, would not run to it? Who would not be constrained—so that any impious man, if he be converted with his whole heart, should not dare to despair of any good—since the heavenly medicine, by its salutary precepts, provides equally for the healthy and the sick; to the former enjoining the fear of justice, as a guardian of the salvation received;
to the latter promising the benefit of mercy, so that, lifted up by the remedy of hope, they may receive back the soundness they had lost. For the fear of justice is enjoined upon one who has been healed, to whom it is said: 'Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee' (John 5:14). The hope of mercy also is shown to the sick, when it is said: 'They that are well need not a physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance' (Luke 5:31–32). The prophetic word also ceases not to commend the mercy and the justice of God, God so saying through the prophet Ezekiel:
'If the wicked man turn himself away from all his iniquities which he hath committed, and keep all my commandments, and do justice and mercy, living he shall live, and shall not die. All his transgressions whatsoever he hath done shall not be in remembrance. In his justice which he hath wrought, he shall live. Is it my will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord, and not rather that he should turn from his evil way and live?' (Ezek. 18:21–23).
And so, when the benefit of the divine long-suffering and kindness has been shown for the converting of the impious, the prophetic word is likewise directed to the deterring of the just: 'But when the just man shall turn himself away from his justice, and shall commit iniquity according to all the iniquities which the wicked man committed, all his justices which he hath done shall not be in remembrance. In his trespass by which he hath trespassed, and in his sins by which he hath sinned, in these he shall die' (Ezek. 18:24). CHAPTER XI.
Innumerable are the testimonies of the divine Scriptures by which God is proclaimed merciful and just, nor is there anything else that all the text of the heavenly oracle brings about, than that every wicked man, fearing the equity of God, should run to the mercy of his just goodness, and that every just man, rejoicing in the mercy of God, should not neglect the judgment of his most benign equity. For where mercy and justice are perfect, the just man can neither show favor to sins, nor can the merciful deny pardon to the converted. From this, therefore—that he is proclaimed just and merciful—it is most easily recognized that remission of sins is granted only to the converted, and that the punishment of eternal damnation is inflicted only on those who remain in sin.
For this reason the Psalmist thus sings: 'Except you be converted, he hath brandished his sword, he hath bent his bow and made it ready, and in it he hath prepared the instruments of death' (Ps. 7:13–14). Through Isaiah also, a sentence not unlike is found pronounced by the divine mouth against the stubborn and the despisers of the divine clemency, in which it is recognized that neither does anyone obey the divine commands in vain, nor does anyone remain in iniquities with impunity. So then he says: 'Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the wickedness of your souls from before mine eyes; cease from your evil deeds, learn to do good, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, and defend the widow; and come, let us reason together, saith the Lord.'
'And if your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow. And if they be red like crimson, I will make them white as wool. And if you be willing and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land. But if you will not, and will not hearken to me, the sword shall devour you. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it' (Isa. 1:16 ff.). Who, I ask, is so hard or so utterly stupid, that in this discourse of the heavenly admonition, if he be not invited to conversion by the delight of the promise, is not at least compelled by the terror of the punishment? For the despiser of the divine word salvation shall not receive, but the sword shall devour him. Hence it is that in another place, in the volume of the same prophet, it is shown that no one shall come to salvation except through conversion.
For thus it is said: 'If thou be converted and groan, thou shalt be saved' (Isa. 30:15, according to the Septuagint). In this conditional testimony God uses both a precept and a promise. For in saying, 'If thou be converted and groan, thou shalt be saved,' he shows that the promise of salvation depends entirely upon the condition of conversion. This, then, is the covenant between God and man—that is, between the Lord who commands and the servant who asks, between the judge who bestows mercy not without justice, and the sinner who awaits the mercy of the one who judges justly. Therefore this Lord, merciful and just, severe and holy, says: If thou do this, this thou shalt have; if thou keep what I say, I will give what thou askest;
I command thee conversion, thou askest of me salvation; if thou obey the precept, thou shalt enjoy the benefit; if I see my commands fulfilled, I will grant thy petitions: 'If thou be converted and groan, thou shalt be saved.' CHAPTER XII. When, therefore, it is said to the sinner who desires to receive the benefit of salvation, that if he be converted and groan, he shall be saved; it is consequently understood that, EVEN IF HE GROAN, yet is not converted, he shall not be saved. For not in vain has the divine word joined both together, save that we might recognize these two, namely conversion and groaning, to be necessary for obtaining the effect of salvation.
For some, terrified by the consideration of their own crimes, do indeed groan in prayer over their iniquities, yet do not depart from iniquitous conduct. They confess that they have done evil, yet will put no end to their evil deeds. They humbly accuse in God's sight the sins by which they are held oppressed, and those very sins which by humility of speech they accuse, with a perverse heart they defiantly heap up. The pardon which they beg with tearful groans, they themselves take from themselves by their depraved works. They ask a remedy of the physician, and to their own ruin they supply aid to the disease. And thus in vain do they seek with words to appease the just judge, whom by their iniquitous deeds they rather provoke to wrath.
For such men never wash away their sin by groaning, because they do not cease to sin after the groaning. For they groan over their crimes, and after the groaning they return to the crimes. Of such the divine Scripture speaks thus in the book of Ecclesiasticus: 'He that washeth himself after touching a dead body, and toucheth it again, what doth his washing avail? So a man that fasteth for his sins, and doth the same things again, what doth his humbling himself profit? Who will hear his prayer?' (Ecclus. 34:30–31). Most rightly, therefore, does God say to man: 'If thou be converted and groan, thou shalt be saved.'