Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 65–87

But not even regarding crimes, however great, which are to be remitted in the holy Church, is the mercy of God to be despaired of by those who do penance according to the measure of each one's sin. In the act of penance, however, where such a thing has been committed that he who committed it is also separated from the body of Christ, it is not so much the measure of time that is to be considered as the measure of sorrow. For “a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” But since the sorrow of one heart is usually hidden from another, and does not come to the knowledge of others through words or any other signs, though it is before him to whom it is said, “My groaning is not hidden from you,” times of penance are rightly appointed by those who preside over the churches, so that satisfaction may be made also to the Church, in which the sins themselves are remitted; for outside it they are not remitted. For it is the Church that has properly received the pledge of the Holy Spirit, without whom no sins are remitted in such a way that those to whom they are remitted obtain eternal life.

For the forgiveness of sins takes place more with a view to the future judgment. In this life, however, what is written holds so far, “A heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day of their coming out of their mother's womb to the day of their burial in the mother of all,” that we see even infants, after the washing of regeneration, tormented by the affliction of various evils; so that we may understand that all that is done by the saving sacraments pertains more to the hope of future goods than to the keeping or gaining of present ones. Many things also seem to be overlooked here and punished by no penalties; but their punishments are reserved for later. For not in vain is that day properly called the day of judgment, when the judge of the living and the dead is to come. Just as, on the contrary, some things are punished here, and yet, if they are remitted, they will certainly do no harm in the world to come. Therefore, speaking of certain temporal punishments which are inflicted in this life on sinners whose sins are blotted out so that they may not be reserved for the end, the apostle says: “For if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged by the Lord; but when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened, so that we may not be condemned with this world.”

Some believe, however, that even those who do not abandon the name of Christ, and are baptized with his washing in the Church, and are not cut off from it by any schism or heresy, in whatever great crimes they live, which they neither wash away by penance nor redeem by almsgiving, but persist in them most stubbornly to the last day of this life, will be saved through fire: punished, it is true, according to the greatness of their crimes and shameful deeds, by a long-lasting but not eternal fire. But those who believe this, and yet are catholics, seem to me deceived by a certain human kindness; for divine Scripture, when consulted, answers otherwise. I have written a book on this question, whose title is On Faith and Works, in which I showed, as far as I could with God's help, according to the holy Scriptures, that the faith which saves is that which the apostle Paul expressed clearly enough, saying, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.” But if it works evil and not good, without doubt, according to the apostle James, it is dead in itself. He says again: “If someone says he has faith but does not have works, can faith save him?” Further, if a wicked man will be saved through fire because of faith alone, and this is how the blessed Paul's words are to be taken, “But he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire,” then faith will be able to save without works, and what his fellow apostle James said will be false; false also will be what the same Paul himself said: “Do not be deceived,” he says; “neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who lie with males, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will possess the kingdom of God.” For if, even persisting in these crimes, they will still be saved because of faith in Christ, how will they not be in the kingdom of God?

But since these most manifest and plain apostolic testimonies cannot be false, what was said obscurely about those who build on the foundation, which is Christ, not gold, silver, and precious stones, but wood, hay, and straw (for of these it was said that they will be saved through fire, because by the merit of the foundation they will not perish), must be understood in such a way that it is not found contrary to these manifest testimonies. For wood and hay and straw can not unreasonably be taken as such desires for worldly things, though lawfully granted, that they cannot be lost without grief of mind. But when this grief burns, if Christ has the place of the foundation in the heart, that is, so that nothing is preferred to him, and the man who is burned by such grief would rather lack the things he so loves than Christ, he is saved through fire. But if in time of temptation he prefers to hold such temporal and worldly things rather than Christ, he did not have him as the foundation, because he held these in the first place, since in a building nothing comes before the foundation. For the fire of which the apostle spoke in that place must be understood to be such that both pass through it, that is, both he who builds on this foundation gold, silver, and precious stones, and he who builds wood, hay, and straw. For having said this, he added: “The fire will test what sort of work each one's is. If anyone's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” Not of one of them, then, but of both will the fire test the work. There is a certain fire, the trial of tribulation, of which it is written plainly in another place: “The furnace tests the potter's vessels, and the trial of tribulation tests just men.” This fire meanwhile, in this life, does what the apostle said, if it befalls two of the faithful: one who thinks of the things of God, how he may please God, that is, who builds on the foundation, Christ, gold, silver, and precious stones; the other who thinks of the things of the world, how he may please his wife, that is, who builds on the same foundation wood, hay, and straw. For the work of the first is not burned, because he has not loved the things whose loss would torment him; but the work of the second is burned, since things possessed with love do not perish without grief. But since, given the choice between the two, he would rather lack them than Christ, and does not desert Christ for fear of losing such things, though he grieves when he loses them, he is indeed saved, yet so as through fire, because grief for the loss of the things he had loved burns him; but it does not overthrow or consume him, protected as he is by the stability and incorruptibility of the foundation.

It is not incredible that something of the kind takes place even after this life, and whether it is so can be asked, and either found out or left hidden: namely, that some of the faithful are saved through a certain purgatorial fire, more slowly or more quickly according as they have loved perishing goods more or less; not, however, those of whom it was said that they will not possess the kingdom of God, unless those same crimes are remitted to them when they do fitting penance. I said “fitting” so that they may not be barren in almsgiving, to which divine Scripture attributes so much that the Lord foretells that he will reckon to those on his right only the fruit of alms, and to those on his left only their barrenness in alms, when he will say to the former, “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom,” but to the latter, “Go into the eternal fire.”

Certainly one must beware lest anyone think that those unspeakable crimes whose doers will not possess the kingdom of God may be committed daily and redeemed daily by alms. For life is to be changed for the better, and through alms God is to be propitiated for past sins, not bought, as it were, so that it may always be permitted to commit them with impunity. For he has given no one license to sin, although in his mercy he blots out sins already done, if fitting satisfaction is not neglected.

For the daily, brief, and light sins, without which this life is not lived, the daily prayer of the faithful makes satisfaction. For it is theirs to say, “Our Father who are in heaven,” who have already been reborn to such a Father of water and the Spirit. This prayer entirely blots out the smallest and daily sins. It blots out also those from which the life of the faithful departs, even life once lived wickedly but changed for the better by repentance, if, as it is truly said, “Forgive us our debts,” since there is no lack of things to be forgiven, so it is truly said, “as we also forgive our debtors,” that is, if what is said is done; for to pardon a man who asks forgiveness is itself also an alms.

And therefore what the Lord says applies to everything done in useful mercy: “Give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.” So not only he who gives food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, hospitality to the traveler, refuge to the fugitive, a visit to the sick or imprisoned, ransom to the captive, support to the weak, guidance to the blind, consolation to the sad, healing to the unwell, the way to the wanderer, counsel to the one deliberating, and whatever is necessary to each one in need; but also he who gives pardon to the sinner gives alms; and he who corrects with blows one over whom power is given him, or restrains him with some discipline, and yet forgives from the heart the sin by which he was hurt or offended by him, or prays that it may be forgiven him, gives alms not only in that he forgives and prays, but also in that he rebukes and punishes with some corrective penalty, because he shows mercy. For many good things are bestowed on the unwilling, when their benefit is consulted, not their will; because they are found to be their own enemies, while those whom they think enemies are rather their friends; and by erring they return evil for good, when a Christian ought not to return evil even for evil. There are, then, many kinds of alms, by doing which we are helped to have our sins forgiven.

But none is greater than that by which we forgive from the heart what anyone has sinned against us. For it is a lesser thing to be benevolent, or even beneficent, toward one who has done you no evil; it is much greater, and belongs to the most magnificent goodness, that you love even your enemy, and always wish good, and do it when you can, to him who wishes you evil and does it if he can, hearing God saying, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you.” But these things belong to the perfect sons of God, toward which every believer ought indeed to stretch himself, and to bring the human mind to this disposition by praying to God and by dealing and struggling with himself. Yet, because this so great good does not belong to so great a multitude as we believe are heard when they say in prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors,” without doubt the words of this pledge are fulfilled if a man who has not yet advanced so far as to love his enemy still, when he is asked by a man who has sinned against him to forgive him, forgives from the heart; since he certainly wishes to be forgiven himself when he asks, when he prays and says, “as we also forgive our debtors,” that is, “So forgive our debts when we ask, as we also forgive our debtors when they ask.”

Now he who asks the man against whom he has sinned, if he is moved by his sin to ask, is no longer to be counted an enemy, so that it would be difficult to love him, as it was difficult when he was carrying on enmity. But whoever does not forgive from the heart one who asks and repents of his sin, let him in no way think that his own sins are forgiven by the Lord, since the Truth cannot lie. And what hearer or reader of the Gospel does not know who said, “I am the truth”? He, having taught the prayer, strongly commended this sentence placed in it, saying: “For if you forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your sins. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive your sins.” Whoever is not awakened at so great a thunder is not asleep but dead; and yet he is able to raise even the dead.

Certainly those who live most wickedly and take no care to correct such a life and conduct, and yet amid their very crimes and shameful deeds do not cease to give alms frequently, flatter themselves in vain because the Lord says, “Give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.” For they do not understand how far this extends. But that they may understand, let them consider to whom he said it. For in the Gospel it is written thus: “As he was speaking, a certain Pharisee asked him to dine with him; and he went in and reclined. But the Pharisee began to say, reasoning within himself, why he had not washed before dinner. And the Lord said to him: Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but what is inside you is full of robbery and iniquity. Fools, did not he who made what is outside make also what is inside? Nevertheless, as for what remains, give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.” Are we to understand this to mean that for Pharisees who do not have the faith of Christ, even if they have not believed in him nor been reborn of water and the Spirit, all things are clean, provided only that they give alms as these men think alms should be given? For all are unclean whom the faith of Christ does not cleanse, of which it is written, “cleansing their hearts by faith”; and the apostle says, “But to the unclean and unbelieving nothing is clean, but both their mind and conscience are defiled.” How, then, would all things be clean to the Pharisees if they gave alms and were not believers? Or how would they be believers if they refused to believe in Christ and to be reborn in his grace? And yet what they heard is true: “Give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.”

For he who wishes to give alms in due order ought to begin with himself and give it first to himself. For almsgiving is a work of mercy; and it is most truly said, “Have mercy on your soul, pleasing God.” For this we are reborn, that we may please God, to whom what we contracted by being born is rightly displeasing. This is the first alms, which we have given to ourselves, since through the mercy of a merciful God we have sought ourselves out in our wretchedness, confessing his just judgment by which we were made wretched, of which the apostle says, “The judgment was from one to condemnation,” and giving thanks for his great love, of which the same herald of grace says, “But God commends his love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”; so that we too, judging truly of our wretchedness and loving God with the love which he himself has given, may live piously and rightly. While the Pharisees passed over this judgment and love of God, they nevertheless tithed even the smallest of their fruits for the alms they gave; and so they did not give alms beginning with themselves and first showing mercy to themselves. Because of this order of love it is said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” When, then, he had rebuked them because they washed themselves outwardly while inwardly they were full of robbery and iniquity, warning them to be cleansed inwardly by a certain alms which a man owes first to himself, he said, “Nevertheless, as for what remains, give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.” Then, to show what he had warned them of and what they took no care to do, lest they think he was ignorant of their alms, he said, “But woe to you Pharisees,” as if he were saying: “I have indeed warned you that alms must be given through which all things may be clean for you; but woe to you who tithe mint and rue and every herb” (for I know these alms of yours, so do not think I have now warned you about them) “and pass over the judgment and love of God,” an alms by which you could be cleansed from all inner defilement, so that even the bodies you wash would be clean for you. For this is “all things,” namely both the inner and the outer, as we read elsewhere, “Cleanse what is inside, and what is outside will be clean.” But lest he seem to have rejected those alms which are made from the fruits of the earth, he says, “These you ought to have done,” that is, the judgment and love of God, “and not to have left those undone,” that is, the alms of earthly fruits.

Let them not deceive themselves, then, who think that by any alms whatever, however lavish, of their fruits or of any money, they buy impunity to remain in the monstrousness of crimes and the wickedness of shameful deeds; for not only do they do these things, but they so love them that they would always wish to live in them, if only they could do so with impunity. But “he who loves iniquity hates his own soul”; and he who hates his own soul is not merciful to it but cruel; for by loving it according to the world he hates it according to God. If, then, he wished to give it the alms by which all things would be clean for him, he would hate it according to the world and love it according to God. But no one gives alms of any kind unless he receives what to give from him who needs nothing; therefore it was said, “His mercy will go before me.”

But which sins are light and which grave must be weighed not by human but by divine judgment. For we see that some things have been granted by way of indulgence even by the apostles themselves, such as what the venerable Paul says to married people: “Do not deprive one another, except by agreement for a time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; and come together again, lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” This might be thought not to be a sin, namely to have intercourse with one's spouse not for the sake of procreating children, which is the good of marriage, but also for carnal pleasure, so that the weakness of the incontinent may avoid the deadly evil of sexual immorality, or adultery, or any other uncleanness which it is shameful even to name, into which lust can drag them when Satan tempts. It might therefore, as I said, be thought not to be a sin, had he not added: “But I say this by way of concession, not of command.” But who would deny that it is a sin, when he admits that pardon is granted by apostolic authority to those who do it? Something similar is where he says: “Does any of you, having a matter against another, dare to go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?” And a little later: “If, then, you have worldly cases, appoint those who are least esteemed in the Church. I say this to your shame: is there not among you anyone wise who can judge between his brothers? But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers!” For here too it might be thought that to have a case against another is not a sin, but only to wish it to be judged outside the Church, had he not gone on to add: “Already it is altogether a fault that you have lawsuits among you.” And lest anyone excuse this by saying that he had a just cause, but was suffering injustice which he wished removed by the sentence of judges, he at once meets such thoughts or excuses and says: “Why do you not rather suffer injustice? Why are you not rather defrauded?” So that we return to what the Lord says, “If anyone wishes to take your tunic and go to law with you, let him have your cloak too”; and in another place, “Whoever takes away your goods, do not ask for them back.” He forbade his own, therefore, to have lawsuits with other men about worldly things; and on the basis of this teaching the apostle says it is a fault. Yet when he allows such cases to be settled in the Church between brothers with brothers judging, but outside the Church forbids it terribly, it is plain here too what is conceded by way of indulgence to the weak. Because of these and similar sins, and others less than these which happen through offenses of words and thoughts (as the apostle James confesses, saying, “For in many things we all offend”), we must daily and often pray to the Lord and say, “Forgive us our debts,” and not lie in what follows, “as we also forgive our debtors.”

There are some things which would be thought very light, if they were not shown in the Scriptures to be graver than they are thought. For who would think that one who says to his brother, “Fool,” is liable to Gehenna, if the Truth did not say so? Yet he at once applied a remedy to this wound, adding the precept of brotherly reconciliation; for he soon says, “If then you offer your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,” and so on. Or who would think how great a sin it is to observe days and months and years and seasons, as those observe them who are willing or unwilling to begin something on certain days or months or years because, following the vain teachings of men, they think the times lucky or unlucky, unless we weighed the greatness of this evil from the fear of the apostle, who says to such people, “I fear for you, lest perhaps I have labored among you in vain”?

Add to this that sins, however great and horrible, when they have become customary, are believed to be small or none; so much so that they seem not only not to be hidden but even to be proclaimed and published abroad, when, as it is written, “The sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does iniquity is blessed.” Such iniquity is called in the divine Books a cry. As you have in the prophet Isaiah about the bad vineyard: “I waited,” he says, “for it to do judgment, but it did iniquity; and not righteousness, but a cry.” Hence also that in Genesis: “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has multiplied.” For not only were those shameful deeds no longer punished among them, but they were publicly practiced as though by law. So in our times so many evils, even if not such as those, have now come into open custom that for them we dare not only not excommunicate any layman, but not even degrade a cleric. Hence when some years ago I was expounding the Letter to the Galatians, at the very place where the apostle says, “I fear for you, lest perhaps I have labored among you in vain,” I was compelled to cry out: “Woe to the sins of men, at which we shudder only when they are unusual! But the usual ones, for the washing away of which the blood of the Son of God was shed, though they are so great as to cause the kingdom of God to be wholly closed against them, by often seeing we are compelled to tolerate them all, and by often tolerating we are compelled even to commit some! And would, O Lord, that we do not commit all those that we have been unable to prevent!” But I shall consider whether immoderate grief compelled me to say something incautiously.

This I will say now, which indeed I have often said already in other places of my works. We sin for two reasons: either by not yet seeing what we ought to do, or by not doing what we already see ought to be done; of these two the first is the evil of ignorance, the second of weakness. Against these it is fitting for us to fight; but we are surely overcome unless we are helped by God, so that we not only see what is to be done but also, as health is added, the delight of righteousness overcomes in us the delights of those things for which, by desiring to have them or by fearing to lose them, we sin knowingly and with open eyes; no longer only sinners, as we were even when we sinned through ignorance, but also transgressors of the law, when we do not do what we already know is to be done, or do what we know is not to be done. Therefore we must ask, not only that he may pardon if we have sinned, for which we say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors,” but also that he may guide us so that we may not sin, for which we say, “Lead us not into temptation,” him to whom it is said in the Psalm, “The Lord is my light and my salvation”: so that the light may remove ignorance and the salvation weakness.

For even penance itself, when there is a worthy reason for doing it according to the custom of the Church, is often not done because of weakness; for shame too is a fear of displeasing, while the esteem of men delights more than the righteousness by which each humbles himself in doing penance. Hence God's mercy is necessary not only when penance is done, but also in order that it may be done. Otherwise the apostle would not say of certain people, “lest perhaps God grant them repentance.” And before Peter wept bitterly, the evangelist first put, “The Lord looked at him.”

But he who, not believing that sins are remitted in the Church, despises so great a bounty of the divine gift, and ends his last day in this obstinacy of mind, is guilty of that unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit, in whom Christ forgives sins. I have discussed this difficult question as carefully as I could in a little book written for this purpose alone.

But as to the resurrection of the flesh, not as some have come back to life and died again, but to eternal life, as the flesh of Christ himself rose, I do not find how I can discuss it briefly and satisfy all the questions that are usually raised on this matter. Yet a Christian ought in no way to doubt that the flesh of all men who have been born or will be born, and have died or will die, will rise again.

Hence the first question that occurs concerns aborted fetuses, which have indeed been born in their mothers' wombs, but not yet so as to be able to be reborn. For if we say that they will rise, what is said can somehow be tolerated concerning those already formed; but who would not more readily think that unformed abortions perish, like seeds that have not been conceived? But who would dare deny, though he would not dare affirm, that the resurrection will bring it about that whatever was lacking of form is filled up? And so the perfection will not be lacking which was to come with time, just as there will be no defects that had come with time; so that nature is neither cheated of what was apt and fitting that the days were going to bring, nor disfigured by what was adverse and contrary that the days had brought; but what was not yet whole will be made whole, as what had been vitiated will be restored.

And therefore it can indeed be most scrupulously inquired into and disputed among the most learned, though I do not know whether it can be found out by man, when a human being begins to live in the womb: whether there is a certain hidden life which does not yet show itself in the movements of a living being. For to deny that those fetuses lived which are cut out limb by limb and removed from the wombs of pregnant women, lest the mothers too be killed if they are left there dead, seems too great an impudence. But from the time a human being begins to live, from then certainly he can die. And once dead, wherever death could befall him, I cannot find how he would not belong to the resurrection of the dead.

Nor will monstrous births that are born and live, however quickly they die, be denied to rise again, or be believed to rise as they were, rather than with nature corrected and amended. For far be it that we should think that that two-bodied man who was recently born in the East, of whom both most faithful brothers who saw him have reported and the presbyter Jerome of holy memory has left a written account; far be it, I say, that we should think one double man, and not rather two, as would have been the case if twins had been born, will rise. So other births, which are called monsters through having something more or less than each individual has, or through some excessive deformity, will be brought back in the resurrection to the shape of human nature, so that individual souls will possess their own individual bodies, none of them joined together even if they were born joined, but each bearing for itself its own members, by which the integrity of the human body is completed.