Scotus Academicus, Tomus decimus: De Baptismo, De Poenitentia, De Extrema Unctione

The remarkable and truly divine efficacy of the virtue of penance, as St. Chrysostom excellently commends in his sermon On Penance, where among other things he exclaims: “O penance, which, when God is merciful, remit sins and open Paradise; heal the contrite, cheer all sadness, recall life from destruction, restore one’s state, renew honor, give confidence, renew strength, and pour back grace in greater abundance! You loose everything bound, preserve everything loosed, soften every adversity, heal all that is contrite, make clear everything confused, and revive all that is in despair. Through you, O penance, David, afflicted and contrite, became holy; through you the prodigal son merited his father’s embrace; through you Peter, after denying the Lord, received pardon; through you, O penance, Christ suddenly snatched the thief into the eternal kingdom,” etc. Since all these praises of its dignity especially concern the remission of sins, this Section will therefore speak chiefly of penance’s efficacy in the general remission of all sins: first, concerning the remission of all mortal sins; second, concerning the remission of venial sins; third, concerning the payment and release of the punishment due for those sins. To these we shall append the fifth Question, on the return of sins remitted through penance, and the sixth, on the return of merits extinguished through sins.

NOTE 1. Around the present Question there have been chiefly five erroneous opinions. The first error was that of the Novatians, who asserted that sins after Baptism are altogether irremissible, and hence that Penance is of no assistance whatever to sinners, as St. Cyprian reports, bk. 1, ep. 1; Jerome, ep. To Marcella; and Eusebius, bk. 6, Church History, ch. 33. But since those heretics chiefly attacked the efficacy of Penance as a Sacrament, we shall begin to relate and refute their error where we treat of the efficacy of the Sacrament of Penance. The second error was that of certain Jews who asserted that a third sin after receiving the grace of remission is remissible, but not a fourth or any subsequent sin. They supported this from Amos 1–2, where God repeatedly declares that He will pardon the third sin but not the fourth. The third error was that of Armachanus, bk. 9, On the Questions of the Armenians, ch. 27, where he teaches that some wayfarers are so hardened in wickedness that, according to the ordinary disposition, they cannot make a saving repentance, just as the Apostles, confirmed in grace, could not sin mortally at all. The fourth error is that of certain others who assert that there is a fixed number of sins, and that whoever completes it cannot obtain pardon under the ordinary prescribed laws of divine justice and mercy, even though he has not completed the course of this life or the state of a wayfarer, unless perhaps God’s surpassing mercy comes to his aid. The fifth error, finally, was that of the impious Luther, who taught that all our works are sins, by God’s will and consent, yet are not imputed for punishment except for the single sin of unbelief. Against all these, then, let us set out Catholic teaching.

NOTE 2. The subject here is not Sacramental Penance, which consists chiefly in absolution from sins confessed by the penitent, but Penance as a virtue, which the Holy Fathers call Penance of the heart. This is customarily distinguished as twofold: imperfect and perfect. The former is called attrition; it is called imperfect Penance not because it is evil, but because outside the Sacrament of Penance it is insufficient for the perfect remission of sin. Perfect Penance is called contrition: it suffices for remission of sin together with the vow and purpose of making confession and receiving absolution, since the time of the Law of the Gospel. Whether this Penance is necessary and effective for the remission of any sin, however grave, Luther denies both points, as is clear from the articles condemned by the sacred faculty of Paris and by Leo X, Supreme Pontiff. For Luther is condemned there, first, for asserting that to remit sin it is enough to begin a new life, without any Penance or detestation of sins; second, for teaching, as just said, that only the sin of unbelief is counted for punishment.

NOTE 3. Some sinners are so hardened in evil that Penance, though not impossible for them, is nevertheless very difficult to perform. This difficulty arises both from the sinner and from God. It arises from the sinner when, through habitual wrongdoing, he has become hardened, according to Proverbs 38¹: “When the sinner has come into the depth of evils, he will despise”—that is, sin; for through excessive habit of sinning, his crimes seem to him lighter offenses. Hence he no longer feels shame for his sins, according to Jeremiah 3: “You have acquired the forehead of a harlot; you would not blush.” Since a habit formed from repeated acts impresses something like a new nature, sinners are carried into sin as if by a natural impulse, like natural agents, and can scarcely turn away from it, according to Jeremiah 13: “If the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots, then you too will be able to do good, once you have learned evil.” The difficulty also arises from God, who justly punishes sinners and often denies them special helps to repent. St. Paul speaks of both difficulties in Acts 13: when he saw the Jews’ faithlessness and obstinacy in rejecting God’s word, he said: “It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you; but since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.”

With these points laid down, two matters remain to be determined: first, whether every sin, however grave, can be remitted through Penance; second, whether one mortal sin can be remitted without another.

First conclusion. — NO SIN IS SO GRAVE THAT IT CANNOT BE WIPED AWAY BY PERFECT PENANCE. This is a matter of faith, and

This is gathered first from the testimonies of Scripture, in which remission of all sins is promised without any limitation or restriction to those who are truly contrite and repentant. Thus Wisdom 11: “You have mercy on all, because you can do all things, and you overlook the sins of all for the sake of Penance.” And Ezekiel 18: “If the wicked man does Penance for all his sins, I will remember none of his iniquities.” He immediately adds: “Is it My will that the wicked should die, says the Lord God, and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” And in ch. 33: “As I live, says the Lord, I do not will the death of the wicked”—that is, I will the death of no wicked person, whatever his wickedness.

Second, it is proved by the authority of Councils, especially the Fourth Lateran Council under Innocent III, as cited in ch. Firmiter, On the Supreme Trinity, where it says: “If anyone after receiving Baptism falls into sin, he can always be restored through true Penance.” It is also proved from Trent, sess. XIX, can. 2, which decrees that all sins committed after Baptism can be remitted through Penance.

The Holy Fathers support the same doctrine with the clearest testimonies. Chrysostom, hom. 33 on Matthew: “There is no sin that does not yield to the power of Penance.” And hom. 9 on Psalm 50: “Have you sinned? Repent. Have you sinned a thousand times? Repent a thousand times.” Likewise St. Ambrose, bk. 2, On Penance, ch. 5: “So great,” he says, “is God’s reconciliation toward men that Judas could have been excluded from pardon had he done Penance not among the Jews but before Christ.” He writes that Judas was unworthy of pardon because he did not repent with inward conversion and did not diligently do Penance; for “Christ is so compassionate that He would have granted him pardon if Judas had hoped in His mercy.” St. Augustine says in the Enchiridion, ch. 65: “Even in the remission of these crimes, however great, those who do Penance in the holy Church according to the measure of each one’s sin must not despair of God’s mercy.” St. Peter Chrysologus clearly draws the same truth from the parable of the prodigal son, Serm. 3: “The power of love does not see offenses, and therefore the father redeemed his son’s sins with a kiss and enclosed him in an embrace. Surely, if we have departed, if we have squandered all the Father’s substance in wantonness, if ever we have committed any crime or offense, if we have come to the brink of impiety and fallen into utter ruin, let us at last rise and, invited by such an example, return to such a Father.”

This is also supported by reason. If some sin could not be wiped away through Penance, it would be either because the sinner could not repent of it, as is the case with demons and the damned, who are exceedingly displeased by the punishment they suffer for sin but, since their will is hardened in evil, cannot grieve for sin with true Penance that includes hope of pardon; or because Penance could not wipe away some sin. But while we live the mortal life of this way, no sin can be called irremissible in either sense. Not in the first sense: as long as a man is a wayfarer, his free will remains pliable toward good and evil, and divine grace can bend the heart of any sinner, however hardened, to true Penance. Hence St. Augustine says admirably, Hom. 50 from the Fifty Homilies: “Perhaps you say: ‘I have already been baptized in Christ, by whom all my past sins were forgiven. I have become exceedingly vile by repeating my ways, like an abominable dog in the Lord’s sight, returned to its vomit. Where shall I go from His spirit, and where shall I flee from His presence?’ Where, brother, except to His mercy by repenting, the power of which you had scorned by sinning? No one rightly flees from Him except to Him, from His severity to His goodness. What place will receive the fugitive, where His presence will not find you? If you ascend to Heaven, He is there; if you descend to hell, He is present. So spread your wings straight before you and dwell in hope at the end of this world; for there His hand will lead you, and His right hand will bring you. Whatever you do, whatever sins you commit, you are still in this life, from which God would wholly remove you if He did not wish to heal you. Why then do you not understand that God’s patience leads you to Penance? He who persuaded you by crying out not to depart now cries out by sparing you, that you may return.” — These are St. Augustine’s words, clearly signifying that there is absolutely no sin whose pardon we cannot obtain through true Penance as long as we lead this mortal life. — Nor can a sin be called irremissible in the second sense: that would be contrary to the eternal Father’s divine love for mankind, who “so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him may not perish,” and who, as the Apostle says in Romans 8, “did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.” For how would He have delivered His Son up for us all, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, if all sins could not be wiped away through true conversion to Christ? Second, it would contradict divine mercy, of which Joel 2 says that God “is gracious and merciful, patient and of great mercy, and ready to relent from evil”; for in a certain way man would overcome God if man wished a sin to be wiped away which God did not wish to wipe away. It would also detract from the power of Christ’s Passion and His abundant redemption, from which no mortal, however sinful, is excluded, and to which it belongs to be the universal Redeemer of all sins. Hence St. John, 1 John 2, declares without qualification: “If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just, and He is the propitiation for our sins—not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.” Therefore, since God expresses His will for the sinner’s conversion and salvation, and promises him pardon if he converts, it follows that every sin in this life can be wiped away through Penance.

THEY OBJECT 1. The Novatians cite 1 Samuel 2: “If a man sins against a man, God can be reconciled to him; but if a man sins against the Lord, who will pray for him?” Therefore sins directly against God cannot in any way be pardoned. — I DENY the consequence. One may answer, first, that these words are not the Prophet’s but Eli the Priest’s, rebuking his sons for their grave sins, which, since they caused public scandal, were turning the Israelites away from sacrifices and divine worship. Second, one may say that a distinction is drawn there between sins that directly offend God and those that directly offend one’s neighbor; the latter are lighter, and some just man can readily be found to obtain through his prayers both pardon from God, offended by the sin, and the grace of conversion for the sinner. But sins committed directly against God are graver, and it may be very difficult to find someone who can obtain pardon for them from God. Thus the interrogative “who” does not mean the same as “no one,” as St. Ambrose aptly notes, bk. 1, On Penance, ch. 8: “For it is not written, ‘No one will pray for him,’ but ‘Who will pray for him?’ The question is who can pray in such a case; the possibility is not excluded. Thus Psalm 14 says: ‘Lord, who will dwell in Your tabernacle, or who will rest on Your holy mountain?’ Not ‘no one’ will dwell there, but a proven man; nor does it say that no one rests there, but that the elect do. And Psalm 23 says: ‘Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord, or who will stand in His holy place?’ That is, not just anyone from the crowd, nor some person of common lowliness, but a man of eminent life and singular merit. For it was not just anyone from the crowd who prayed for the people of the Jews, but Moses prayed, merited, and obtained. Therefore the question ‘Who will pray for him?’ requires only a man of outstanding holiness and singular life to pray for one who has sinned directly against the Lord, especially by open and manifest sacrilege, as were the sins of Eli’s sons. For it is said there that they “lay with the women who kept watch at the door of the tabernacle,” and that they took by force the meat from those offering animals in sacrifice before they were sacrificed to the Lord; hence it concludes: “The sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for they were turning people away from the sacrifice of the Lord.”

THEY OBJECT 2. In 2 Maccabees 9, King Antiochus, after committing many crimes, was struck by a grave and deadly illness and did Penance: humbled before the Lord, he testified “that it is just for man to be subject to God, and that a mortal should not think himself equal to God”; he acknowledged his crimes, grieved for them, and promised to make restitution to the Jews for what had been taken, “to adorn with the best gifts the holy Temple which he had previously despoiled, to multiply the holy vessels, and to provide from his revenues the expenses pertaining to the sacrifices; moreover, to become a Jew and travel through every place on earth, proclaiming God’s power.” Yet it says there: “This wicked man prayed to the Lord, from whom he was not to obtain mercy.” — I answer: Antiochus’s repentance was fruitless because it was imperfect and merely natural. He grieved for his past guilt because of the severity of his illness, not because he had offended God. This is indicated by the author of Maccabees in the same place. After recounting God’s vengeance falling upon him and the bitter pain of his body—“so that,” he says, “worms swarmed from the body of the impious man, his flesh flowed away while he still lived in pain, the army was burdened by his stench and foul odor, and the man who shortly before thought he touched the stars of heaven could not be carried by anyone because of the intolerable stench”—he immediately adds: “Thus, brought down from his great pride, he began to come to knowledge of himself,” etc. By this he signifies that his affliction, not offense against God, caused his repentance; so it is no wonder that his repentance was useless and ineffective, since its motive was wholly natural.

THEY OBJECT 3. God’s oracle in Proverbs 1 warns sinners who neglected God’s counsel and reproofs by delaying Penance: “When sudden calamity rushes in,” He says, “and destruction comes like a storm; when tribulation and distress come upon you, then they will call upon Me and I will not hear; though they rise early, they will not find Me.” Jeremiah 14 says likewise: “When they fast, I will not hear their prayers; and if they offer holocausts and victims, I will not receive them.” And Ecclesiastes 7: “Consider the works of God, for no one can correct what God has despised.” Therefore some sins cannot be expiated by Penance. — I deny the consequence: all these oracles concern only sinners who, after long scorning God’s warnings, turn to Him to avert temporal punishments more than from inward conversion of heart. For the most part such people invoke God only out of self-love, to escape punishments, not with true humility or sincere displeasure at sin, that is, repentance. If they truly convert and grieve for having offended God, God receives them when they return, however atrocious or numerous their sins. Isaiah 1 says: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow; and though they be red as crimson, they shall become white as wool.”

THEY OBJECT 4. Three testimonies of the Apostle seem to teach that in Christ’s Church there is no remedy by which sins committed after Baptism can be expiated and wiped away. The first is in Hebrews 6, where the Apostle says: “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, have tasted the heavenly gift, become partakers of the Holy Spirit, tasted the good word of God and the powers of the coming age, and then fallen away, to be renewed again to Penance, since they crucify the Son of God again for themselves and expose Him to contempt.” The second is from ch. 10 of the same epistle: “If we sin willfully after receiving knowledge of the truth, there is no longer left a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a zeal of fire which will consume the adversaries.” The third is from ch. 12: “Know that even afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, although he had sought it with tears.” — I answer the first: the Apostle speaks of Penance which adults must do before Baptism, not of the Penance necessary after Baptism for the justification of a sinful man. An adult’s Penance is twofold: one precedes Baptism, of which St. Peter speaks when he says, “Do Penance, and let each of you be baptized”; this Penance is never repeated, just as Baptism is not repeated. The other follows Baptism, and it is the one we are discussing; St. Paul himself did not reject it, since he did not hesitate to absolve the incestuous Corinthian, though he had sinned after Baptism. St. Peter also approved and urged it when he said to the already baptized Simon Magus in Acts 8: “Do Penance, therefore, for this wickedness of yours, and pray to God, if perhaps this thought of your heart may be forgiven you,” etc. Indeed, St. Peter himself was already baptized and ordained a priest when he denied Christ three times; nevertheless, through tears and Penance he was reconciled. The Council of Trent mentions this twofold Penance, sess. VI, ch. 14: “Hence it must be taught that the Penance of a Christian after a fall is very different from baptismal Penance, and consists not only in ceasing from sin and detesting sins, or in a contrite and humbled heart, but also in their sacramental confession, at least by vow and to be made in due time, and in priestly absolution, and likewise in satisfaction through fasts, alms, prayers, and other pious exercises of the spiritual life—not for eternal punishment, which is remitted together with guilt either by the Sacrament or by the vow of the Sacrament, but for temporal punishment, which, as the sacred Scriptures teach, is not always remitted in the same way as in Baptism for those who, ungrateful for the grace of God they received, have grieved the Holy Spirit and have not feared to violate God’s temple”—as if to say: those who “tasted the heavenly gift, became partakers of the Holy Spirit, and fell away.” “Of this Penance it is written: ‘Remember from where you have fallen; do Penance and do your first works.’” And again: “Godly sorrow works Penance unto lasting salvation”; and again: “Do Penance.” — That the holy Apostle spoke of baptismal Penance is clear from the context of the whole passage. In the preceding words he says: “not laying again the foundation of Penance from dead works and of faith in God, the doctrine of baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.” He understood the second passage in the same way. This is also gathered from the words “those who have once been enlightened, to be renewed again,” which show that the whole statement refers to Baptism, which the Fathers of the earlier centuries called the Sacrament of illumination and renewal, as is clear from St. Gregory Nazianzen’s Oration On the Holy Lights and other ancient writers. The words “crucifying the Son of God again for themselves” show the same: in Baptism we are conformed to Christ crucified; therefore, just as Christ cannot be crucified forever, Baptism cannot be repeated. Whoever attempts it crucifies the Son of God again for himself, that is, for the renewal he hopes to receive from another Baptism. St. Ambrose explains this passage of the Apostle in the same way, bk. 2, On Penance, ch. 2: “That it was said of Baptism is shown by the very words, by which he signified that those who have fallen cannot be renewed to Penance. For through the washing we are renewed, through which we are born, as the Apostle Paul himself says: ‘We were buried with Him through Baptism into death, so that just as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.’ Thus he teaches one Baptism, as elsewhere: ‘one faith, one Baptism.’ He also makes clear that in it the Son of God is crucified in the one who is baptized, because our flesh could not abolish sin unless it had been crucified in Christ Jesus. Finally it is written: ‘As many of us as have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death,’ etc. Therefore, when he says in this epistle to the Hebrews that it is impossible for those who have fallen to be renewed to Penance, crucifying the Son of God again and triumphing in a display, he means that we should understand this as spoken of Baptism, in which we crucify the Son in ourselves, so that through Him the world may be crucified to us. For in a certain display we triumph when we assume the likeness of His death, He who displayed and triumphed over principalities and powers on His cross, so that in the likeness of His death we too may triumph over the principalities whose yoke we lay down. Christ was crucified once and died once, and therefore there is one Baptism, not many.” — St. Augustine interprets the passage in the same way in his unfinished exposition of the Epistle to the Romans: “We say that those who have already been baptized are better cured through Penance, not renewed; for renewal takes place in Baptism, where Penance indeed operates, but as on a foundation. While the foundation remains, the building can be repaired; but if anyone tries to lay the foundation again, the whole building must be overturned. Therefore he says this to the Hebrews, who seemed to be turning from the New Testament back to the old priesthood. So he says: ‘Let us leave the beginning of Christ’s word and look to its completion. Let us not lay again the foundation of Penance from dead works and of faith in God, the doctrine of washing, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.’ All these things are handed down in Baptism, which he says must not be repeated in the consecration of the faithful.” Let St. John Damascene, bk. 1, On the Orthodox Faith, ch. 10, also be consulted.

The second passage is resolved in the same sense: “For those who sin willfully, no sacrifice for sins remains”—that is, no other death and Passion of Christ to be represented through Baptism and applied again for the full remission of guilt and all punishment. For St. Paul there seems to speak of Jews wavering in the faith and wishing to join the Law of Moses to Christ; he declares to them that no sacrifice for sin remains, because neither could the sacrifice offered on the altar of the cross benefit those defecting to Moses instead of Christ, nor could the legal sacrifices, since they had already been abolished and annulled by the sacrifice of Christ the Lord. St. Chrysostom also explains this passage in this way, in his homily on Hebrews 10: “For he did not say, ‘There is no more Penance, nor is there any more remission,’ but ‘There is no more sacrifice’; that is, there is no more cross, for this is what he calls the sacrifice.” St. Augustine likewise explains the passage in his unfinished exposition of the Epistle to the Romans: “Those who treat the passage in Hebrews more carefully understand it thus: what is said, ‘There still remains a sacrifice for sins,’ is not to be understood of a sacrifice contributed through Penance of the heart, but of the sacrifice of which the Apostle was speaking, namely, the holocaust of the Lord’s Passion, which each person offers for his sins at the time when he is dedicated by faith in that same Passion and is imbued with the name of Christian believers by Baptism. The Apostle meant to signify that one who has sinned cannot thereafter be cleansed again by being baptized. This interpretation does not exclude a place for repentance, provided we admit that those who have been baptized have not yet received full knowledge of the truth. Hence everyone who has received knowledge of the truth is understood to have been baptized; but not everyone baptized has received knowledge of the truth, because some later make progress while others are miserably negligent. Yet that sacrifice of which he spoke, the holocaust of the Lord, which is offered in a certain way for each person when he is marked with His name in Baptism, cannot be offered again if he sins. Those once baptized cannot be baptized again, even if they have sinned after Baptism through ignorance of the truth.” I answer the third: the Apostle uses “repentance” there not for sorrow over sins committed, but for a change in an accomplished act, purpose, or disposition of mind toward some act. In this sense God is said to repent, as St. Augustine explains on Psalm 109: “Repentance signifies a change of things. When you repent of something, you grieve over what you did; when God changes something contrary to men’s expectation—that is, contrary to what men expect—He is said to repent, so much so that He repents of our punishment if we repent of our evil life.” He teaches the same in Serm. 10: “Does God repent as if He were in error? Repentance is spoken of God as a change in created things, while He Himself remains unchanging.” In this sense the Apostle said in Romans 11, “The gifts of God are without repentance,” that is, God does not change His purpose of doing good once He has formed it. Thus, when the Apostle says Esau found no place for repentance, he means the repentance of his father Isaac, that is, the revocation of the blessing given to Jacob, which Esau could not obtain though he sought it with tears. For we read in Genesis 27 that when Isaac had given his blessing to Jacob, whom he thought was his firstborn, “Esau heard his father’s words, roared with a great cry, and, dismayed, said: ‘Bless me too, my father.’” — I answer secondly: even if “repentance” there were understood properly, it is no wonder that Esau’s was fruitless, since it was joined to a wicked disposition of mind, namely, the intent to kill his brother. For Genesis 27 says: “Esau always hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and he said in his heart: ‘The days of mourning for my father will come, and I will kill my brother Jacob.’” Therefore before the words quoted in the objection the Apostle had written: “Pursue peace with all and holiness, without which no one will see God; take care that no one fail of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up may hinder and through it many be defiled, that no fornicator or profane person be found, like Esau, who for one meal sold his birthright,” etc.

THEY OBJECT 5. The saying of Christ the Lord in Matthew 12: “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven; and whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” Therefore Penance does not wash away every sin. — The consequence is proved by the authority of the Fathers, who interpret these words of Scripture literally and according to the sense they immediately convey. Thus St. Athanasius, in his book on that Gospel passage, admits that some crime is irremissible: “But those who think they possess knowledge of the Law, such as the Pharisees of that time who had gone mad, wholly deny the Word who is in the heart and attribute the works of the Divinity to the devil and his demons; they justly suffer an unappealable punishment for such impiety, since they take the devil for God and believe that the one true God does nothing more than a demon. The Jews of that time, and among the Jews the Pharisees, had fallen into this sort of impiety.… Hence our Savior shows that they blasphemed inexcusably.” St. Pacian likewise interprets the passage in ep. 3, To Sympronian the Novatian: “You have above what is written: when the Lord drove out demons by a word and performed many mighty works, the Pharisees said, ‘This man does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the prince of demons.’ This was to sin against the Holy Spirit, to blaspheme against the works done through the Holy Spirit. In other sins we slip through error, are broken by fear, or are overcome by the weakness of the flesh. This is blindness: not to see what one sees, and to assign the works of the Holy Spirit to the devil, calling the devil’s power that glory of the Lord by which the devil himself is overcome. This, then, is what will not be forgiven; all the rest is granted to good penitents, brother Sympronian.” — St. Ambrose says the same, bk. 2, ch. 4: “The Lord’s answer to the Pharisees’ blasphemy was that He denied them the grace of His power, which brings remission of sins, because they claimed that His heavenly power was supported by the devil; He also says that those who divide the Church of God use a devilish spirit, thereby including heretics and schismatics of every age, to whom He denies pardon, since what one sin is among individuals, this sin is among all. For they alone seek to undo the grace of Christ, who have torn apart the members of the Church, for which the Lord Jesus suffered and the Holy Spirit was given to us. Finally, so that you may know He speaks of those who scatter, we read: ‘He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.’ And so that we might know He spoke of these people, He immediately added: ‘Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven men.’ By saying ‘therefore I say to you,’ did He not plainly wish us to understand that this was meant above all?” — Finally St. Hilary writes in canon 12 on Matthew: “He condemns with the severest judgment the opinion of the Pharisees and of those who share their perversity, promising pardon for all sins and denying forgiveness for blasphemy against the Spirit. For while other words and deeds are released by generous pardon, there is no mercy if God is denied in Christ; and where one sins without pardon, He offers the kindness of repeated admonition, so that sins of every kind are to be remitted, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not to be remitted. For what is farther from pardon than to deny in Christ that He is God and to remove from Him the substance of the Father’s Spirit dwelling in Him?” — I answer first, distinguishing: I deny that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is irremissible in itself, and with respect to God’s mercy and the Church’s power of the keys. I grant that it is irremissible accidentally, either because the sinner perseveres in it to his last breath, or because that blasphemy is nothing other than final impenitence itself. This explanation of the passage cited in the objection is St. Augustine’s, as is clear from his ep. 50, To Boniface, where he writes against the Donatists, who interpreted Christ’s words about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit perversely: “Let them understand, then, that not every sin, but some particular sin against the Holy Spirit was signified as wholly irremissible. For when He said, ‘If I had not come, they would not have sin,’ He surely did not mean every sin, since they were full of many great sins, but some particular sin which, if they did not have it, would allow all their other sins to be forgiven: namely, that they did not believe in Him who had come. They would not have had this sin if He had not come. So too, when He spoke of those who sin against the Holy Spirit, or speak a word against the Holy Spirit, He did not mean every sin against the Holy Spirit by deed or word, but some definite and particular sin. This is the hardness of heart by which a man refuses, until the end of this life, to receive remission of sins within the unity of the Body of Christ, which the Holy Spirit gives life to. For after saying to the disciples, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit,’ He immediately added: ‘Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; whose you retain, they are retained.’ Whoever resists and opposes this gift of God’s grace, or in any way remains alienated from it until the end of this temporal life, will not be forgiven in this age or the next of this very great sin, by which all sins are held bound. It cannot be proved that anyone has committed it until he has departed from the body; for as long as he lives here, God’s patience, as the Apostle says, leads him to Penance. But if by his own most grievous wickedness, as the Apostle goes on to say, ‘according to the hardness of his heart and impenitent heart he stores up wrath for himself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of God’s just judgment,’ he will not be forgiven in this age or the next.” And in the Enchiridion, ch. 82: “Whoever does not believe that sins are forgiven in the Church, and scorns so great a generosity of the divine gift, and ends his life in this obstinacy of mind, is guilty of that irremissible sin against the Holy Spirit, in whom Christ forgives sins.” Finally, in Serm. 11, On the Lord’s Words, where he carefully examines this question of irremissible blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, after first saying that Christ’s words cannot be understood of every blasphemy, lest hope of remission be taken from pagans, Jews, heretics, and every kind of person who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit through diverse errors and contradictions, if they correct themselves, he adds in ch. 12: “This blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which according to Christ’s words can never be forgiven, is final impenitence. The impenitent heart speaks against this gift, against this grace of God. Therefore impenitence itself is blasphemy against the Spirit, which will not be forgiven in this age or in the age to come. This impenitence, for we may use a single name for it, and call it both blasphemy and a word against the Holy Spirit, has no remission forever.… This impenitence has no remission in this age or in the age to come, because Penance obtains remission in this age that avails in the next. But this impenitence, or impenitent heart, cannot be judged in anyone as long as he lives in this flesh. For we must despair of no one as long as God’s patience leads him to Penance.” After much more he concludes: “There is therefore one refuge to keep blasphemy from being irremissible: let the impenitent heart be guarded against, and let no one think Penance useful except by holding fast to the Church; remission of sins is given, and fellowship in the Spirit is kept in the bond of peace.” — The Fathers cited in the objection are to be understood in this way. They all mean that those who sin against the Holy Spirit have no excuse for sin, such as ignorance or weakness in most other crimes. “I obtained mercy,” says the Apostle, “because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.” And the Royal Psalmist says, “God knows our nature; He remembers that we are dust.” That this was St. Athanasius’s opinion is clear from his book On the Common Essence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, fol. 392, where he plainly says that no sin, not even blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, is wholly irremissible: “There are others who stumble against the Holy Spirit and thus speak blasphemies against the divinity of Christ, namely, that He cast out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. Of these it must be understood that He said, ‘It will not be forgiven in this age or the next.’ Yet one must also observe that Christ did not say that forgiveness would not be given to one who blasphemes and does Penance, but to one who blasphemes and remains in blasphemy, since no sin is irremissible before God for those who truly, sincerely, and as they ought, do Penance.” — As for St. Pacian, I say that he does not absolutely deny that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit can be remitted. In the preceding words of the same passage, he presses the Novatian to whom he writes: “After this,” he says, “you propose that the Lord wrote: ‘Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men; but whoever sins against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either here or in the next age.’ Either I am mistaken, or this example is against you. For if every sin and blasphemy is forgiven, you see that pardon is not denied to penitents. Therefore every sin, and therefore blasphemy itself too. Luke adds: ‘Whoever sins against the Son of Man will be forgiven.’ What could be more than this in the clemency of the Judge?” — As for St. Ambrose, the reading of the whole context alone makes his meaning plain. The words cited against us are these: “It has been reported to us,” he says, “that you also customarily object that it is written: ‘Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven,’ etc. By this example your whole claim is destroyed and undone, for it is written, ‘Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men.’ Why then do you not forgive? Why do you bind bonds you do not loose? Why do you tie knots you do not untie? Forgive the others, and let us discuss those whom you think are eternally bound by Gospel authority as sinners against the Holy Spirit; let us consider whom it binds.… ” Finally, Peter said to Simon, who, corrupted by the practice of magic, thought that he could buy Christ’s grace through the laying on of hands and the infusion of the Holy Spirit: “‘You have no part or share in this faith, because your heart is not right before God. Do Penance, therefore, for this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord, if perhaps this thought of your heart may be forgiven you.’ You see that apostolic authority condemns this man, who blasphemed against the Holy Spirit through magical delusion, all the more because he did not have a pure conscience of faith; yet it did not cut off his hope of pardon, since it invited him to Penance.” After the words cited in the objection, where he seems to declare two crimes irremissible—those of the Pharisees who likened the devil to Christ, and of schismatics who tear apart Christ’s Church—he adds, lest anyone think he was taking away hope of pardon from such people: “Therefore return to the Church, you who have impiously separated yourselves. For He promises pardon to all who convert, since it is written: ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ Finally, even the Jewish people who said of the Lord Jesus, ‘He has a demon; He casts out demons by Beelzebub,’ and who crucified the Lord Jesus, were called by Peter’s preaching to Baptism, so that they might lay aside the guilt of so great a crime.” — St. Hilary’s words are to be taken in the same sense. Though they seem harsher at first, they do not mean that the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is never forgiven or is absolutely irremissible, since he says in the same place that pardon, by which every sin is to be remitted, is stored in the secret of God’s indulgence. Rather, they only indicate that Jews who blasphemed in this way were more unworthy of pardon than Gentiles to whom Christ had preached neither His Gospel nor performed miracles. St. Hilary shows this by the comparison with the divinities and the Queen of Sheba which Christ presses in the same chapter of Matthew 12: “The comparison heaps up the accusation,” he says, “and leaves the Jews without excuse through the faith of the Gentiles: though they believed those prophets, Jonah and Solomon, they do not believe Christ, who is greater than Jonah and Solomon. And therefore they will judge them at the resurrection, because fear of God was found in those to whom the Law had not been preached; the Jews are more unworthy of pardon because they are faithless though they have the Law, whereas greater faith was found in those who did not know the Law.”

YOU WILL PRESS: Blasphemy by which God’s works are attributed to the devil is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; but this is absolutely irremissible; therefore final impenitence alone is not the irremissible blasphemy. The minor premise is proved from St. Jerome’s ep. 149 to Marcella, in which he explains what sin Christ called irremissible and proves against the Novatians that denying Christ out of fear of torture is not an inexpiable sin. “Hence,” he says, “he must be convicted from the whole order of Scripture: the blasphemy was not called irremissible for those who, compelled by tortures and racked by various torments, denied the Lord, but for those who, seeing God’s works in miracles, slander them and cry out that they are the devil’s power, and say that all the signs performed belong not to divine majesty but to the devil.… Let the Novatian prove that anyone who was compelled to sacrifice before a judge’s tribunal replied that all the things written in the Gospel were performed not by the Son of God but by Beelzebub, the prince of demons; then he will be able to establish that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is irremissible.” And below: “It is clear that sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven because it contains blasphemy: when you see God in miracles, you slander His deeds as Beelzebub. Let him prove, then, that any denier called Christ Beelzebub, and I will gladly concede that a denier cannot obtain pardon after his fall; for it is one thing to yield to torments and deny oneself to be a Christian, another to call Christ the devil, as Scripture itself and its context, read more attentively, could show you.” From this I infer that St. Jerome held the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit he explained to be inexpiable in the same sense in which the Novatian claimed that denying Christ under force or fear of torture was irremissible. But the Novatian claimed that denial of Christ was wholly irremissible, not merely difficult to expiate. Therefore St. Jerome thought that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, as he explained it, is absolutely irremissible. — I ANSWER: I distinguish the major: St. Jerome uses a figure of concession to show that Christ’s words about irremissible blasphemy against the Holy Spirit do not favor the Novatians, I grant; that he granted this absolutely, I deny. The Novatians contended that any sins committed by Christians after Baptism were inexpiable, especially denial of Christ and the Christian name, on this argument: the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is irremissible; but denial of Christ and the Christian name, and idolatry, are sins against the Holy Spirit; therefore they are irremissible. This argument troubled Marcella, a most devout, learned, and illustrious woman, and she could not answer it. So she consulted St. Jerome. What does he say? First, he denies that idolatry and denial of Christ and the Christian name are blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, since otherwise there would be no distinction between blasphemy said to be against the Son of Man and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Second, he proves that the blasphemy of those who deny Christ can be remitted by the example of St. Peter, whose sin of denial was forgiven. Finally, setting aside the question which he says he cannot then examine because he is occupied with other studies and concerns—whether blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is absolutely irremissible—he says that even if he granted this to the Novatians, they would not have proved their claim: granting, I say, but not conceding, that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit were absolutely and by its nature irremissible, it would not follow that all mortal sins of the baptized are irremissible, since they are not blasphemies against the Holy Spirit. For blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is said to occur only when someone sees Christ in His powers, that is, His miracles, and slanders Him as Beelzebub in His deeds, that is, attributes God’s works to the devil, as the Jews did when they said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons.” This is clear from the context of the whole epistle. That St. Jerome did not write everything needed to resolve that question, but only what sufficed to dissolve the Novatians’ argument, is clear from the end of the epistle: “I should indeed have discussed the matter at greater length,” he says, “but I cannot deny my presence to friends who have gathered at our lodging, and it seemed arrogant not to answer you at once; so I have compressed a broad discussion into a brief reply.”

YOU WILL PRESS: Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will not be forgiven in this age or the next, is any mortal sin committed by the baptized; therefore no crime of the baptized can be expiated by Penance. The antecedent is proved by the authority of Origen and Theognostus, whom St. Athanasius praises in his book On That Gospel Passage: “‘Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man,’ etc. By these words, then, the men of old, among them Origen, a man of extensive learning and great diligence, and that admirable and most studious Theognostus, teach us that this is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: when those who have been deemed worthy of the gifts of the Holy Spirit through Baptism return to sins, and hence do not obtain remission.”

I ANSWER: Origen and Theognostus called the crimes of the baptized irremissible not absolutely, but in comparison with the sins of pagans. Perhaps this is the more hidden sense which St. Athanasius says should be sought in their words: “I think both opinions require further inquiry and examination, to see whether there is some more hidden and profound meaning in their words.” Certainly Origen did not hold that sins committed after Baptism were irremissible, as is clear from the countless passages in which he exhorts the faithful to Penance and confession of sins. A notable passage proving this is in bk. 3 of Against Celsus: “How severe,” he says, “is our discipline toward sinners, especially those stained by lust, whom our community expels, even though Celsus makes them out to be like worthless charlatans. The venerable school of the Pythagoreans set up cenotaphs for deserters from its discipline, evidently considering them dead; our people, however, mourn as lost and dead to God those overcome by lust or some similar vice, but again receive those who come to their senses as if they had returned from the dead, finally after a longer proof of a better disposition than when they were first admitted to learn the religion, yet on this condition: since they have fallen, they are henceforth excluded from all ecclesiastical honors and offices.” Later, when Celsus objects that Christians think an unjust man is received by God if he humbles himself because of his misery, Origen answers that they do not teach it is enough for the unjust man to acknowledge his misery to be received by God; rather, God receives the man who condemns his former life and turns to a better way. Finally, in the same book he teaches that God raises no evil man unless he turns to virtue: “But those who condemn their sins with their whole heart,” he says, “and bewail and mourn for themselves as rightly lost because of their misdeeds, and then choose the change befitting those who come to their senses—these, at last, He pardons their past errors because their mind has changed for the better, while the virtue that has succeeded to the vices driven from the soul obtains forgetfulness of past things.” All this plainly shows that Origen thought sins committed after Baptism are remitted by God and the Church. — But whatever Origen and Theognostus thought about this, though they spoke more harshly before the rise of the Novatian heresy, the opinion attributed to them is false: it is false, I say, that the unremitted blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is any sin committed by the baptized, as St. Athanasius proves by many arguments in the book cited above. First, the Holy Trinity is undivided, and therefore whoever sins against the Son and blasphemes necessarily sins against the Father and the Holy Spirit. Second, Baptism is given in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; hence those who transgress after Baptism would again have to blaspheme against the holy and undivided Trinity. Third, Christ’s words, “Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the next,” were spoken not of the baptized but of the Pharisees; hence this saying cannot apply to those who transgress after Baptism, especially since He rebuked them not for sins in general but for blasphemy. The difference is that one who sins transgresses the Law, while one who blasphemes acts impiously against the very Godhead, says St. Athanasius. Fourth, if this was said of those who sin after Baptism, why did Paul restore the repentant man at Corinth to communion, asks Athanasius? Why did he travail over the Galatians who turned back until Christ was formed in them again, since in the word again one may discern even their first initiation in the Holy Spirit? Or why should we be angry with Novatus for abolishing Penance and saying that those who sin after the washing obtain no pardon?

THEY OBJECT 6. From the Epistle of St. John, ch. 5: “Whoever knows his brother to sin a sin not unto death, let him ask, and life will be given him for a sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death; I do not say that anyone should ask for it.” Therefore that sin cannot be remitted. — I DENY the consequence: that sin unto death admits various interpretations. First, many sacred interpreters understand by it final impenitence and final persistence in evil, as St. Augustine also interprets it, bk. On Correction and Grace, ch. 12. After prefacing the Apostle’s words, he adds: “Since that sin is not specified, many different things may be thought of it; but I say that it is the sin of abandoning until death the faith that works through love.” This impenitence is rightly called irremissible, because it is a rejection of Penance and the sin of a man already outside the state of a wayfarer; consequently, praying for him would be no less futile than praying for the sin of demons, as the same St. Augustine teaches, bk. 21, City of God, ch. 24. He writes: “If the Church were so certain about certain people that it knew who they were, and knew that although still living this life they were predestined to go into eternal fire with the devil, it would no more pray for them than for the devil himself; but since it is certain of no one, it prays for all men, even its enemies living in this body, though it is not heard for all of them.” But if the sin unto death is understood as some particular sin distinct from final impenitence itself, St. John says that it is not fitting for anyone to pray for it, because no ordinary petitioner suffices to obtain pardon for such a sin unto death; an intercessor of outstanding holiness is required to obtain its pardon. For Scripture mentions two kinds of sin: some may be called not unto death because they are easily cured, such as those which extinguish neither faith nor the desire for salvation, for which the Apostle advises prayer and promises pardon. Other sins are cured with great difficulty, such as positive unbelief, especially among heresiarchs. Although the Apostle does not forbid prayer for such sins, he does not dare advise that anyone pray for them, because unless such prayer is exceedingly effective, it will fail of its purpose. — St. Ambrose, bk. 1, On Penance, ch. 9, clearly shows that this was indeed St. John’s meaning. In answer to the Novatians’ objection just cited, he says: “John was not speaking to Moses and Jeremiah, but to the people, who should appoint another sinner for their own sins, one who would consider it enough to pray to God for lighter offenses and reserve pardon for graver ones to the prayers of the just. For how could John say that one should not pray for a graver offense, when he had read that Moses prayed and obtained what he asked where there was willful transgression, and knew that Jeremiah had also prayed? How could John say that one should not pray for a sin unto death, when he himself wrote in the Apocalypse the command to the angel of the Church at Pergamum: ‘You have there those who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat and commit fornication; so you also have those who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent in like manner, or I will come to you quickly’? Do you see that God, who demands Penance, promises pardon? Finally, there too He says: ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches: To the victor I will give the hidden manna.’ Had not John himself known that Stephen had prayed for his persecutors, who could not bear to hear the name of Christ, when he said of those stoning him, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’? We see the effect of his prayer in the Apostle: Paul, who guarded the garments of those stoning Stephen, soon afterward by Christ’s grace became an Apostle, though he had been a persecutor.” These are St. Ambrose’s words, by which he plainly teaches that there is no sin so grave that we cannot obtain pardon for it through saving Penance.

YOU WILL PRESS: St. Augustine, bk. 1, On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, ch. 22, says: “I think a sin unto death occurs when, after knowing God through Christ’s grace, someone attacks the brotherhood and is driven into the jaws of envy against that very grace. So great is the stain of that sin that he cannot submit to the humility of entreaty, even if the sinner is compelled by much reflection of conscience and admonition”; therefore he thinks there is some sin that can in no way be removed by Penance. — I ANSWER: St. Augustine means nothing other than that this sin cannot easily be cured or washed away by human powers with God’s ordinary help, not that it cannot be cured absolutely by God’s extraordinary power. For St. Augustine himself teaches that even the most abandoned sinners can be converted by God, explaining the words of Psalm 76, “In the depth of the sea”: “He converts,” he says, “those who lie submerged in the depths of this world under the weight of sins, in order to free those who are most desperate sinners.”

YOU WILL OBJECT 7: From Clement of Rome, bk. 2, Apostolic Constitutions, ch. 23, who says: “If anyone deserts the battle line, tempting God as if the wicked man were not pursued by punishments, he will not obtain pardon, even if he says to himself, ‘May God make this turn out well for me, for I will walk in the integrity of my heart,’” etc. Therefore some sin is irremissible.

I ANSWER: As was proved in vol. I, the Apostolic Constitutions are neither by the Apostles nor by Clement of Rome. But whoever their author may be, I deny that he recognized any sin as absolutely and by its nature irremissible. The words cited in the argument do not prove this; they only say that a man so wickedly disposed to the end of his life that he can see God’s judgment will not obtain pardon. This is clear from the same author’s teaching in ch. 24 of the same book, where he is very angry with those who deny Penance to sinners. “Let the bishop,” he says, “preserve his people as far as he can, so that those who have not sinned remain outside sin; and let him receive those who have sinned when they turn back from their sins, applying medicine. But if he cruelly refuses Penance, he will sin against the Lord his God, justifying himself above His justice and not receiving the man whom God receives through Christ.… Those who do not receive penitents provoke Him to anger.”

YOU WILL OBJECT 8: From St. Cyprian, in On the Lapsed, who says that Moses, Daniel, and Job prayed for sinners but did not obtain their request, citing the Lord’s words: “Even if these three men, Noah, Job, and Daniel, were in their midst, they would not deliver sons or daughters, but they alone would be saved.” Therefore the prayers of the saints do not obtain pardon for sinners, and consequently their sins are irremissible.

I ANSWER: The Novatians abused this testimony of St. Cyprian and twisted his words to a perverse meaning, as St. Pacian shows in ep. 5, To Sympronian. “For when he compelled the lapsed to do Penance, they did not wish to repent, saying that they had received peace from confessors or martyrs. He taught and showed that not even those patriarchs obtained it for the unrepentant. For who can free one unwilling? Who can humble himself for the proud, or obtain pardon for the unrepentant? In saying this, he was compelling them to the remedies of Penance. That man of such gravity and merit did not say anything contrary to himself; rather, he taught sinners to pour forth prayers and to cherish public confession.” Pacian proves this from the very examples Cyprian used: “Do you not see for whom Moses did not obtain what he asked? When he returned to the people, what did he hear in the camp? The voices of drunkards and the songs of idol worship rang out. The people still persisted in wickedness, still remained in the very crime, and did not know how to repent. Yet who among us told you that Moses did not obtain his request? God had indeed said to him, ‘He has sinned before Me; I will erase him from the book.’ He had said this with the authority of a judge and the power of the Lord; but see how quickly He reversed the sentence pronounced against the people’s wickedness. Hear the Prophet there at once: ‘Moses prayed in the sight of the Lord his God: Why, Lord, are You so angry with Your people?’… ‘And the Lord was moved to mercy concerning the evil He had said He would do to His people.’ Do you see God’s anger softened? Do you see the offense appeased? But you say Noah, Daniel, and Job could not deliver sons and daughters. This is the same case: if they pray for those who do not pray, if they intercede for those persisting in crime, if they defend not individuals or a few but many thousands. Besides, Noah saved his household from public ruin; Job received all that he had lost; and Daniel by prayer turned aside the sword that threatened Babylon’s wise men. Certainly Lot prayed for the safety of the town, and Paul for the ship’s officers. Thus the just obtain acquittal for those who know how to repent. Finally, I also consider the written words, ‘They alone will be saved.’ Who are they? Surely those who intercede for sinners; they may safely plead for such people. Why then do you condemn the Church? Why do you forbid intercession for penitents, if it is lawful to ask even for those for whom one cannot obtain pardon? Read my Cyprian more carefully, then. Read the whole letter On the Lapsed; read the other one he wrote to Antonianus, where the Novatian is challenged by all the examples, and you will know what he declares about the healing of penitents.” These are St. Pacian’s words.

Second conclusion. — ONE MORTAL SIN CANNOT BE REMITTED THROUGH PENANCE IN THE ORDINARY COURSE WITHOUT ANOTHER, THOUGH IT COULD BE THROUGH GOD’S EXTRAORDINARY WILL AND POWER. This conclusion consists of two parts, of which

The first is common among theologians and is gathered from sacred Scripture, which repeatedly insists that remission of all mortal sins occurs through Penance. Thus Ezekiel 18: “When the wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed, and does judgment and justice, he will give life to his soul. For if he considers and turns away from all his iniquities which he has committed, he will live and not die.” But he could not live, that is, have full and perfect life, if he were partly in the state of death and partly in the state of grace, with one sin present and another expiated. For St. James 2 warns: “Whoever keeps the whole Law but stumbles in one point has become guilty of all; for He who said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘You shall not kill.’ If you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the Law.” Each mortal sin brings death to the soul itself, according to Ezekiel 18: “The soul that sins shall itself die.” Hence the Council of Trent rightly says, sess. V, in its decree on original sin: “If anyone denies that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in Baptism, the debt of original sin is remitted, or even asserts that not all that has the true and proper character of sin is taken away, but says that it is only scraped off or not imputed, let him be anathema”; for “in those reborn God hates nothing, because there is no condemnation for those who have truly been buried with Christ through Baptism into death,” etc. Therefore all mortal sins are remitted and pardoned together.

Innocent III thus explains and proves this truth, as is reported in ch. Maiores, On Baptism. Asking why original sin is not remitted in Baptism to the insane and sleeping, at least as it is to infants, he says: “The answer must be given in this way: the Lord, who made the whole man well on the Sabbath, does not know an imperfect work, and remits this sin not in part but entirely.” He adds another reason: “Moreover, the punishment for original sin is deprivation of the vision of God, while the actual punishment of sin is the torments of everlasting hell. Thus, if the first were remitted to someone while the other was not, he would not be deprived of the vision of God on account of original sin, which was remitted, and yet would be tormented forever in hell on account of the debt of actual sin. But these things, as incompatible, do not tolerate one another at all; rather, they are mutually opposed.” These are Innocent’s words, which most clearly support our assertion, especially because remission of sin does not occur without infusion of justifying grace. In fact, justifying grace is altogether incompatible in the present order with any mortal sin, since through it a man is formally constituted a friend and son of God and heir of eternal life, as the Council of Trent teaches, sess. VI, ch. 7: “Justification itself follows this disposition or preparation; it is not merely remission of sins, but also sanctification and renewal of the inner man through the voluntary reception of grace and gifts. Thus a man from unjust becomes just, and from an enemy a friend, so that he may be an heir according to the hope of eternal life.” But every mortal sin makes a man an enemy of God and a child of hell, and therefore cannot coexist with the infusion of sanctifying grace by which a man is constituted a son and friend of God.

The same assertion is admirably explained and proved by whoever the author of bk. 9 of On True and False Penance may be. Having said that Christ never healed anyone without freeing him completely from every infirmity, he concludes: “For it is a kind of impiety of unbelief to hope for half a salvation from Him who is just and is justice.”

YOU WILL SAY 1: In fact, God sometimes remits one sin without another, as He indicates through the Prophet Amos, ch. 1, saying: “I rained upon one city and did not rain upon another; one part was rained upon, and the part on which it did not rain withered.” St. Gregory explains these words in hom. 16 on Ezekiel: “When the man who hates his neighbor corrects himself of other vices, one and the same city is watered in part and remains dry in part, because there are those who cut away certain vices while persisting grievously in others.” Therefore, according to St. Gregory’s meaning and the sense of Scripture, one sin is remitted without another. — I DENY the consequence. Regarding St. Gregory, I say that some people do indeed cut away one vice in the sense that they cease the act, but not in the remission of guilt: a man who was accustomed to commit several sins may abandon one but not another, and thus does not attain remission of guilt.

YOU WILL SAY 2: Sins are remitted in people chiefly through charity; but some penitents have a more excellent act of love of God than others; therefore they obtain remission of more sins than others, as Christ the Lord indicates in Luke 7, saying: “To whom less is forgiven, he loves less.” Consequently, according to the intensity or remission of love, more or fewer sins are remitted. — I DISTINGUISH the major: sins are remitted through charity that is more or less intense as regards the intensity or remission of punishment, I grant; as regards guilt, I deny. Thus, the more fervent the act of love with which the penitent loves God, the greater the remission of the punishment due for sins he obtains. The debt of guilt is otherwise: it can be wiped away by any act of perfect contrition or of love of God for His own sake and above all things.

The second part—namely, that by His absolute power and extraordinary disposition God can remit one sin without another—has already been amply proved in the treatise On Grace, disp. 3, art. 2, q. 4, where from the Subtle Doctor we proved that God can remit sin by a merely extrinsic and gratuitous pardon, without any infusion of sanctifying grace. We also proved in the preceding conclusion that by absolute power sanctifying grace can coexist with sin. From these points one may reason as follows: whoever can remit a sin by extrinsic pardon alone and preserve grace together with sin can remit one sin without remitting another; but God can do both; therefore, etc. Thomists readily admit the major, and rightly so: that extrinsic pardon is wholly discretionary and may, at the pardoner’s pleasure, extend either to every offense altogether or only to part of it. Even if matters were not as we have shown them to be—which we have proved to be entirely true—and even if, as the Thomists maintain, remission of sin could not occur without infusion of grace, nevertheless, since God, as we proved, can in the extraordinary course preserve grace together with sin, it is clear that He can infuse the grace necessary for remitting one sin, say adultery, while preserving, or not remitting, another sin, for example murder, committed by the same adulterer. Since all this has already been proved most fully in the places cited above, there is no need to dwell on it further here.

NOTE 1. It is certain that every sin, even the slightest, must necessarily be cleansed before the attainment of eternal happiness, for nothing defiled shall enter the kingdom of heaven, nor shall anyone ascend the Lord’s mountain or rest upon his holy mountain unless innocent in hands and pure in heart; hence, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” But theologians dispute by what means and remedies lesser sins, called venial, can be cleansed and forgiven. For the Council of Trent most plainly teaches that they can be expiated in many ways, sess. XIV, ch. 5, where it says: “Venial sins, by which we are not excluded from grace and into which we fall more frequently, although they are rightly and usefully confessed without any presumption, as the practice of devout persons shows, may nevertheless be omitted without fault and expiated by many other remedies.” Since the Council does not specify what those remedies are, theologians have taken occasion to put forward various ways by which they think such sins can be blotted out and forgiven.

NOTE 2. There are three principal and chief remedies by which venial sin is held especially capable of expiation: namely, the virtue of penance; frequent reception of the sacraments, especially penance and the Eucharist; and certain sacred actions which theologians call sacramentals, ten in number according to the older theologians: namely, the common confession usually made at the beginning of Mass and at the end of Compline; striking the breast as a sign of sorrow and penance; sprinkling with holy water; an act of interior sorrow for sins; prayer, especially the Lord’s Prayer; making the sign of the cross; eating blessed bread; giving alms; extreme unction; patiently enduring punishment; and works of mercy. All these are included in the following verses:

I confess, I strike, I sprinkle, I grieve, I pray,
I am washed, I eat, I give; by these I remove venial sins:
Unction, light punishment, compassion shown to the needy.

Other theologians, especially more recent ones, count only six such sacred actions that remit venial sin, which are contained in the following verse:

Praying, sprinkled, eating, confessing, giving, blessing.

These signify, first, the Lord’s Prayer, in which we pray that our daily faults be forgiven; second, holy water, which, as we said in the first Disputation, has various effects, especially the efficacy of remitting venial sins by the work of the one acting; third, blessed bread; fourth, general confession; fifth, the giving of alms; sixth, the blessing of a bishop or a consecrated abbot. The question, then, is whether venial sin is remitted not only through the virtue of penance, whether specifically or generally understood, and through reception of the sacraments, but also through such sacramentals.

NOTE 3. According to the Doctor, In IV Sent., d. 21, q. 1, n. 8, venial sin, besides an obligation to punishment, leaves in the soul some stain, or debt of guilt. For after saying at n. 6 that there are two opinions about the remission of venial sin, the first being “that the remission of venial guilt is nothing other than payment of the temporal punishment due for it—for after the passing act, the guilt that remains is nothing other than a debt to the punishment due; and this venial debt is only to temporal punishment,” he adds at n. 8: “But this account does not please, because the Saints seem to distinguish between the remission of the guilt of any sin and of its punishment, and especially between remission of guilt and payment of the punishment due for that guilt.” This truth is plainly gathered a posteriori from the universal practice of the Church, which imposes sacramental penance for venial sins alone when confessed and remitted as to guilt through absolution. The a priori reason is that venial sin is a true and real offense against God, in keeping with the Apostle James, ch. 3: “In many things we all offend.” Therefore, just as mortal sin, because it is a grave offense, leaves behind a grave habitual stain, so by the same reasoning venial sin, because it is a slight offense, leaves behind a slight habitual stain. Both, then, displease God, since by either God’s law is violated and hence there is a certain virtual contempt of God, which cannot but truly and really displease him, though unequally. The question is how this debt of venial guilt can be cleansed both in this life and after death.

First conclusion. — VENIAL SIN IS REMITTED IN THIS LIFE AS TO THE DEBT OF GUILT AND OF PUNISHMENT, NOT ONLY THROUGH AN ACT OF FORMAL OR VIRTUAL PENANCE, BUT ALSO THROUGH RECEPTION OF THE SACRAMENTS AND EVERY MERITORIOUS WORK, AND THEREFORE ALSO THROUGH SACRAMENTALS. This conclusion has four parts, of which

The first is proved: namely, that venial sin is remitted through an act of formal or virtual penance. For venial sin can be remitted by that by which mortal sin can be blotted out; but an act of penance suffices to blot out mortal sin, not only formal but also virtual, as was said in the preceding Question. Therefore an act of either kind of penance will suffice all the more for this. Furthermore, that suffices for remitting venial sin which is opposed to it; but virtual penance is sufficiently opposed to virtual sin. For in venial sin there is a turning away, not from friendship—which only mortal sin dissolves—but from familiarity with God, because this sin is some disordered turning toward a creature. In virtual penance, however, such as an act of charity, there is a turning away from the creature and an approach to familiarity with God. Therefore virtual penance suffices to expiate this kind of sin.

YOU WILL SAY: Venial sin is removed only by what is opposed to it; but virtual penance is not opposed to it. For if any act is an act of virtual penance, it is most of all an act of fervent charity; but this is not opposed to venial sin, both because it can coexist with it, and because devotion toward divine things and a joking lie have no opposition: for truth, not devotion, is opposed to a lie. Therefore, etc. — I DENY the minor premise. In answer to its proof I say that, although an act of most fervent charity or devotion is not formally opposed to venial sin, it is opposed to it virtually and according to its generic character. For both of those virtues tend readily toward God, and with alacrity of spirit; consequently they are opposed to the delay, or languor, in the movement’s tendency toward God which venial sin brings about.

The second part is proved: namely, that venial sin can be remitted through reception of the sacraments of the New Law. First, all the sacraments of the New Law, by the primary intention of Christ the Lord who instituted them, are directed as remedies for mortal sin. For the removal of that sin, two are instituted above all: baptism and penance; the rest are directed toward preventing it, as we said at the beginning of this Treatise. Since venial sins are far more easily remitted than mortal sins, it follows that venial sins can be remitted through reception of these sacraments. Second, all the sacraments apply to us the fruit of Christ’s Passion and were instituted to sanctify souls and dispose them perfectly for attaining eternal glory; therefore they also remove every impediment that can delay that attainment. Since venial sins delay it, it follows that they can be remitted through the sacraments. Furthermore, each sacrament has a special power and efficacy concerning remission of venial sin. For baptism, being spiritual rebirth, completely transforms a person from the state of sin to the state of grace. Hence the Council of Florence says that the effect of this sacrament is remission of every guilt, both original and actual; venial sin is included under actual guilt. The same is clear of the sacrament of penance, which is directed above all to blotting out mortal sins; therefore, with stronger reason, it is directed to remitting venial sins. Hence the Council of Trent teaches that venial sins are sufficient matter for sacramental absolution, as we shall explain below when treating confession. The same is evident of confirmation, whose proper power is directed especially to conferring an increase of spiritual life and consequently to removing what is opposed to such increase and perfection, as venial sins are. The same is also clear of the Eucharist, instituted as spiritual food and nourishment, whose proper power is to restore what is lost through the heat of concupiscence and thus to cleanse venial sins, which assail this spiritual life. Add that the proper effect of this sacrament is to stir up the fervor of charity, and hence to remove venial sins, which diminish that fervor. Thus the Council of Trent, sess. XIII, ch. 2, calls this sacrament “an antidote by which we are freed from daily faults and preserved from mortal sins.” Finally, the same is evident of the other sacraments, which confer a special holiness of soul and spiritual vigor, not only for avoiding but also for cleansing lesser offenses opposed to the perfection and preservation of such life.

The third part, namely that venial sin can be remitted through every meritorious work, is taught by the Doctor at n. 8, cited above, where he says: “It can be said in another way that venial sin can be remitted in this life not only through interior or exterior punishment, since that is not necessary for this, but through some act more acceptable to God than venial sin is displeasing to him; and this act may either be directed by the one acting toward remitting this venial sin or not directed by that person, but accepted by God in relation to it.” By these words the Doctor means that venial sin can be forgiven not only through an act of penance, whether interior or exterior, but also through any good and meritorious act more acceptable to God than the act of venial sin was hateful to him. This opinion of the Doctor is proved, first, because if any good work did not suffice for this, it would be especially because an actual or virtual act of penance would be required for it. But that is not so. It is proved: if actual or virtual penance were necessarily required beforehand for the remission of venial sin, it would follow that venial sin was remitted no more easily than mortal sin. For mortal sin can be removed and forgiven through an act of charity, and also through martyrdom, without any prior formal detestation. Why, then, can it not likewise be expiated through any meritorious work proceeding from outstanding charity? Furthermore, venial sin is not blotted out by actual or habitual contrition; therefore formal or virtual penance is not required for its expiation. The consequence is clear. The antecedent is proved: a sin is not remitted by contrition if it can coexist with contrition; but venial sin can coexist with an act of contrition. Therefore, etc. The major premise is established: sin is removed by penance precisely insofar as the act of penance is opposed to it and cannot coexist with it. The minor premise is proved: sin is not removed so long as the sinner takes pleasure in it; but one who elicits an act of contrition by which he obtains remission of mortal sin can call to mind some venial sin without a purpose of amendment; consequently venial sin can coexist with an act of contrition. Therefore, etc. Finally, whatever contrition confers outside the sacrament, attrition joined to the sacrament of penance can confer; but not all venial sins are always blotted out through attrition, as the Council of Trent teaches, sess. XIV, ch. 5, in the words cited by us in the first Note, where it indicates that venial sins may be omitted in confession without fault, “and expiated by many other remedies.” These remedies, distinct from confession and penance, must have the efficacy of blotting out those sins, and this can only be through satisfaction and, consequently, the offering of some work equivalent toward their remission. But an equivalent work can belong to the matter of any virtue, for example faith, almsgiving, prayer, or fasting, since these works are satisfactory, as is clear from Scripture; and the Fathers and Doctors count fasting, almsgiving, and prayer among the parts of satisfaction. Indeed, any good work can have this effect. Therefore it can do so especially for slight sins. To make any meritorious act effective for blotting out venial sins, it must be elicited and offered as satisfaction and compensation for that end. For if an act of penance and contrition, and also of love of God, is insufficient to blot out venial sin when it is not directed implicitly or explicitly toward that end, as was just said, then any other good act of lesser rank and worth will have that efficacy all the less. Add that if, in order to offer satisfaction for a person’s own sin through fasting, it is necessary that the fast—which could be undertaken for various ends—be directed toward intending such satisfaction, so too, for a satisfactory work to be effective for remitting venial sins, it must be performed with that intention. This intention does not give the good work its value, but applies it.

Finally, the fourth part is proved: namely, that sacramentals have the power to remit venial sin. For not only theologians but also supreme pontiffs and the holy Fathers say that these sanctify and cleanse through the Church’s blessing; but they do not cleanse from mortal sins. Therefore they must cleanse from venial sins. The minor premise is established: if they cleansed from mortal sins, they would confer first grace and so would possess the true and complete character of a sacrament. The minor premise has already been proved regarding holy water and blessed bread in the final question, article 1, of the preceding Treatise. — Their power is proved for the rest, first of all for the Lord’s Prayer. For St. Augustine in the Enchiridion, ch. 71, and the Fourth Council of Toledo following him, ch. 9, say: “Daily prayer of the faithful makes satisfaction for the daily, brief, and slight sins without which this life is not lived; for it belongs to them to say, ‘Our Father, who art in heaven,’ etc. This very prayer entirely blots out the smallest and daily sins.” It is no answer to say with Vazquez that this should be understood of a prayer accompanied by a movement of contrition and penance; that answer is wholly contrived. Otherwise such remission of slight sins would be attributed to the Lord’s Prayer no more than to other prayers by which contrition can be stirred up, for example the Psalm Have mercy on me, O God, and the other penitential Psalms. Add that this remission is attributed not to contrition but to this petition: “Forgive us our debts.” St. Augustine makes this especially clear in On Correction and Grace, ch. 5, where from those words of the Lord’s Prayer he proves that no one is without sin, and confirms this by the authority of St. Cyprian, who, explaining this passage of the Lord’s Prayer, says: “How necessarily, prudently, and salutarily we are admonished that we are sinners, since we are compelled to pray for our sins, so that, while forgiveness is sought from God, the mind may recall its own conscience. Lest anyone please himself as though innocent and perish more through exalting himself, he is instructed and taught that he sins daily, since he is commanded to pray daily for his sins. Thus, too, John says in his epistle: ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’” — The same is clear of general confession, which is customarily made at the beginning of Mass and Compline. For this public and general accusation of sins has the efficacy, when made with sincere devotion and religious feeling, of remitting not only venial sin but also of making satisfaction for forgiven mortal sins, as St. Augustine teaches in bk. 50, Homilies, final homily, ch. 9, and ep. 108. — The giving of alms also contributes greatly to this, as St. Jerome teaches admirably on Daniel ch. 4, where among other things he says: “We should know that if pardon is promised to Nebuchadnezzar for doing good works, it is promised much more to those who have committed lesser sins.” — Finally, episcopal blessing contributes to this, as theologians commonly teach. — It should be known, however, that such sacramentals do not have this efficacy of remitting venial sin unless they are preceded or accompanied by a movement of the soul on the part of the person to whom they are applied. For they must be applied to us through our faith and religious worship, since they are sacred ceremonies whose use must be religious and performed in a human manner. Thus, perhaps, they do not have this effect in the insane or those asleep, although they have other effects in infants, such as driving away demons and the like.

YOU WILL ASK: Whether sacramentals remit venial sin by the work performed or by the work of the one acting? — I ANSWER that if remitting sin by the work performed means effecting it not only in view of the dignity and merit of the act elicited by the one acting but also through the merit of another that lends its aid, sacramentals can in this sense be said to bring about that remission by the work performed. For they have this efficacy insofar as the holiness of the Church is morally applied to them through prayers by which she obtains this effect for them from Christ the Lord. — But if it is said that an effect is brought about by the work performed when it is given or produced from another’s merits as a matter of condign merit and infallibly, then these sacramentals cannot be said to act by the work performed. For then the Church obtains this efficacy for them only through her prayers, insofar as she beseeches God to confer certain supernatural helps for eliciting supernatural acts by which a person formally or virtually takes displeasure in venial sins and retracts them. For they are held to remit venial sins insofar as they are sacred ceremonies whose religious use stirs in us either attrition or devotion, that is, the fervor of charity, by which the sins themselves are remitted. For since venial sins are opposed to the fervor of charity and diminish its ardor, and since no privation can be removed except by the presence of the opposed form, sacramentals seem to remit venial sin in no other way than by obtaining, through Christ’s merits and the Church’s prayers, certain supernatural helps by which a person is stirred and assisted to elicit fervent acts of charity or penance, through which such sins are formally or virtually repudiated. Hence their application perhaps would not have this efficacy of remitting venial sins in adults who are insane or asleep, although in infants they have other effects, such as driving away demons and preventing demonic infestations.

YOU WILL SAY: If sacramentals remitted venial sin only by stirring up the fervor of charity, it would follow that there is no difference between them and sacred images, since those images too stir pious movements and the fervor of charity in us. But this seems absurd; therefore the former point from which it follows is absurd as well. — I DENY the consequence of the major premise. In answer to its proof, I say that this is the difference between sacramentals and sacred images: the latter stir up the fervor of charity in us only objectively, insofar as seeing them calls to mind the merits and virtues of those whom they represent; sacramentals, however, also bring this about effectively, insofar as through Christ’s merits and the Church’s prayers they obtain from God supernatural helps by which a person elicits fervent acts of charity.

Second conclusion. — HABITUAL GRACE IS REQUIRED BEFOREHAND, BUT NOT FORMALLY, FOR THE REMISSION OF VENIAL SIN; ACTUAL GRACE, HOWEVER, IS REQUIRED CONCOMITANTLY. This conclusion has three parts, of which

The Subtle Doctor indicates the first when he says, d. 15, q. 1, n. 7: “By his ordained power God has not decreed to give first grace to any sinner except through the merit of the one who was without sin, namely Christ. For, as was touched on above, he did not decree to reconcile an enemy except through a service more pleasing than the offense was displeasing to him; and such a service is Christ’s Passion or his merit. And just as he did not decree to give grace to a sinner without the Passion, without which grace no satisfaction can exist at all that reconciles, since it is in no way equivalent, nor so in itself or in divine acceptance, so much more is it impossible by God’s ordained power to make satisfaction to God for sin except through the power of Christ’s Passion.” By these words the Doctor means that satisfaction cannot be made and reconciliation with God cannot occur except through the benefit and application of the blood of Jesus Christ. Although he speaks only of reconciliation and satisfaction made on account of mortal sin, the same can be said, with due proportion, of venial sin. For it accords with piety and religion to believe that venial sins are remitted only by grace and in view of Christ’s merits. St. John indicates this clearly enough in his First Epistle, ch. 1: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Immediately afterward he adds the means of remission for these sins, saying: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all iniquity.” That this remission occurs on account of Christ he indicates in the following chapter, saying: “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just, and he is the propitiation for our sins.”

The Apostle indicates this truth when he says, 1 Corinthians 13: “If I deliver up my body so that I burn, but have not charity, it profits me nothing.” From this one may infer that a person cannot make satisfaction for the debt of venial guilt, which suffices to impede and delay the attainment of eternal life. Otherwise he could profit greatly by being able to offer that satisfaction outside charity.

NOR IS IT AN OBJECTION that, as we shall say below, a person can make satisfaction for temporal punishment without charity; from this it seems to follow that something can be profitable without charity. — I ANSWER that the one who pays what the law has established for temporal punishment does not profit much. For just as release from punishment is a good, an equivalent payment is an evil; it does not profit a thief much to be hanged, even though by hanging he makes satisfaction for temporal punishment, or rather suffers enough. Although, therefore, the state of mortal sin does not remove the ability to make satisfaction for temporal punishment, it does remove reconciling satisfaction for guilt, because this is grace and mercy through Christ, which ought not to be granted except to one who through sanctifying grace is a living member of Christ.

St. Bonaventure explicitly teaches this assertion, In IV Sent., d. 21, p. 1, a. q. 1: “It should be said that some have held that venial sins can be blotted out without sanctifying grace, through freely given grace. They wished to show this on the ground that venial sin is not opposed to sanctifying grace but to freely given grace, and does not offend the divine Majesty, because in that sin nothing is loved above God, but something is loved somewhat disorderly beneath God. Therefore, just as mortal sin can be blotted out through grace, because it is opposed to grace, and because grace reconciles one who has offended God, and because it makes one love above all the God whom one had scorned, so venial sin can be blotted out through freely given grace, which removes that slight disorder and takes from the soul that occasion for loving God less; and there need not be grace elevating the soul to love God above all, since through venial sin nothing is loved above God. But this position, although it may seem probable, nevertheless deviates from the truth upon examination. For every sin, by the very fact that it is sin, defiles the soul in some way and disorders it in some way; and it must therefore displease God in some way. Since, then, even the slightest mark of displeasure that can exist without a habit restoring complacency and friendship cannot be removed, it must be held absolutely of every sin in general that none can be blotted out without sanctifying grace. For divine mercy has thus decreed to heal us. The Saints say this, and Scripture teaches the same, since it especially presents grace as necessary for blotting out sins.” Thus far the Seraphic Doctor. He confirms his opinion by the authority of St. Augustine, The City of God, bk. 21, ch. 27, where he says: “Yet not even grave sins, from which one must wholly depart by changing one’s conduct for the better, are forgiven those who pray unless what is said there is done: ‘As we also forgive our debtors.’ For if even the smallest sins, without which even the life of the just is not lived, are not otherwise remitted, how much more do those entangled in many and grave crimes, even if they have now ceased to commit them, obtain no pardon if they are inexcusable in forgiving others whatever anyone has sinned against them, since the Lord says: ‘If you do not forgive men their sins, neither will your Father forgive you.’” From this the Seraphic Doctor infers that one who does not forgive an offense received from a brother cannot hope for God’s pardon of the offense inflicted upon him for no other reason than that one unwilling to forgive is in a state of mortal sin, in which he merits no remission so long as he takes pleasure in it.

The second part is proved: namely, that a new infusion of habitual and sanctifying grace is not formally required for the remission of venial sin. For that is formally required which is required as the form removing a privation that was previously present; but sanctifying grace is not the form that removes the stain of venial sin, since venial sin can coexist with it in a wayfarer. Consequently, an infusion of sanctifying grace is not necessary for remission of venial sin.

YOU WILL ASK: Whether, at least concomitantly or consequently, that remission of venial sins requires a special infusion of sanctifying grace? — I ANSWER that this is not necessary, since the person whose venial sin is remitted already possesses sanctifying grace; consequently it need not be newly infused into him.

YOU WILL SAY: Venial sin diminishes the fervor of charity; therefore, for it to be remitted, that fervor must be restored. But it cannot be restored except through habitual grace; therefore some degree of that grace must be infused for the remission of this sin. — I DENY the minor premise. For the grace sufficient to restore that ardor of charity is actual grace, which recalls a person who clings in a disordered way to temporal things away from them and turns him toward God through an act of love.

The third part is proved: namely, that actual grace is necessary for the remission of venial sin, because 1 John 1 says: “The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin.” Therefore it cleanses from venial as well as mortal sin. But the blood of Christ does not act without grace. 1 John 2: “If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father.” And the Second Council of Orange, can. 4: “We are cleansed from sin through the operation of the Holy Spirit,” because, according to Solomon, “The will is prepared by the Lord,” and according to the Apostle: “God is the one who works in us both to will and to accomplish according to his good will.” And canon 7: “Whoever says that by the vigor of nature we can think or choose, as is fitting, any good pertaining to the salvation of eternal life without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit does not understand the voice of the Lord saying in the Gospel, John 15, ‘Without me you can do nothing,’ nor that of the Apostle: ‘We are not capable of thinking anything of ourselves, as of ourselves,’ 2 Corinthians 3.” Canon 14: “No wretched person is freed from any misery unless he is anticipated by God’s mercy,” as it is said in Psalm 78: “May your mercies, O Lord, quickly go before us,” and in Psalm 52¹: “My God, his mercy shall go before me.” Canon 22: “No one has anything of his own except falsehood and sin. If any man has truth and justice, it is from that fountain for which we must thirst in this wilderness, lest we fail on the way.”

YOU WILL OBJECT AGAINST THE FIRST PART: Venial sin does not include deprivation of grace and coexists with grace; therefore habitual grace is not required for its remission. — I DISTINGUISH the consequent: habitual grace is not required as a formal, physical, or moral cause, I grant; as a disposition required beforehand, I deny. For, as we said, to be worthy of obtaining remission of venial sin as to the debt of guilt, a person must be acceptable to God and therefore must be in the state of sanctifying grace.

YOU WILL OBJECT 2. Venial sins are remitted through sacramentals; but these are applied equally to the just and to sinners, as is clear of holy water and blessed bread, which are given to both the just and sinners. Therefore habitual grace is not required beforehand for the remission of venial sin. — I DISTINGUISH the minor premise: sacramentals are applied to both the just and sinners, by the Church’s intention, for remission of venial sin as though they belonged equally to both, I deny; for other benefits that sinners can receive from the application of such sacramentals, I grant. For, for example, sprinkling with holy water can benefit them by driving away and removing the assaults of demons and sorcerers.

YOU WILL OBJECT 3. Venial sin is remitted in hell, since the punishment due for venial sins is relaxed for the damned; but the damned have no habitual grace. Therefore this is not required beforehand for remission of venial sin. — I DISTINGUISH the major premise: it is remitted as to the debt of guilt, I deny; as to the debt of punishment, for the reasons to be set out in the following question, I grant.

YOU WILL OBJECT 4. Remission of venial sins that occurs together with remission of mortal sins does not presuppose habitual grace, since the latter does not precede that remission of mortal sins. Therefore remission of venial sins does not necessarily require habitual grace. — I DISTINGUISH the consequent: it does not require it with priority of time and duration, since habitual grace need not be in the sinner before his sins are forgiven, I grant; it does not require it by necessity and simultaneous existence, I deny. For in the ordinary course a sin cannot be remitted unless habitual grace is present, through which we are restored to friendship with God and to the right to the eternal inheritance.

YOU WILL OBJECT 5. Against the final part: one contrary is removed by another; venial sin is a natural act often contrary to some natural virtue, as a joking lie is contrary to truthfulness, and excess in food and drink to temperance. — I DENY the minor premise. In the state in which we live, being advanced toward the supernatural order of grace and glory, venial sin is opposed not only to natural perfection but also to supernatural perfection, for example the fervor of charity and familiarity with God. Therefore it cannot be removed except through the fervor of divine charity and a supernatural act by which that familiarity with God is restored.

YOU WILL OBJECT FINALLY: Venial sin is merely an excessive attachment to creatures; but a person can naturally and without helps of grace remove this excessive attachment, namely by an act of love for God as Creator. Therefore a person can naturally, without the help of divine grace, obtain remission of venial sins. The major premise is established: venial sin does not overturn the order toward the ultimate end; through it the sinner only clings too much to a creature while preserving that end. The minor premise is also clear: in the state of pure nature, which we said in volume V, p. 69, was possible, there could have been venial sins; in that state, however, they could have been cleansed in no other way than through an act of love of God as Creator. — I DENY the minor premise. For that excessive attachment to creatures and delay in attaining the ultimate end is opposed not only to natural virtue but also to some supernatural perfection, namely the fervor of charity and a person’s familiarity with God. Consequently it cannot be removed except through some fervor of charity or another supernatural act that in some way turns a person away from creatures and toward God; and this turning cannot occur except through some supernatural help. In answer to its proof, I say, first, that it is doubtful whether there could truly have been any venial sins in the state of pure nature, for that state is called such especially because it is free from all sin and from the help of grace. Second, I say that if venial sins were perhaps committed in that state, they would have been of a different character from ours, since they would not then have been opposed to the fervor of charity and familiarity with God, as those committed now in the state of nature elevated to the supernatural order are. Therefore they could have been remitted through natural love of God as Creator or through an act of any natural virtue.

Third conclusion. — VENIAL SIN IS REMITTED EITHER AFTER DEATH OR AT THE INSTANT OF DEATH, IN VIEW OF PREVIOUS MERITS, BUT NOT BY REASON OF A MERITORIOUS ACT ELICITED ANEW.

This conclusion has three parts. The first is that venial sin can truly be remitted as to the debt of guilt in purgatory, after death, or at the instant of death; the second, that this remission occurs by reason of a preceding meritorious work; the third, that it does not occur in view of a meritorious act newly elicited.

The first part is taught not only by all theologians but also by the holy Fathers, and the Doctor expressly teaches it in the Reportata, d. 21, q. 1, n. 2: “In this question,” he says, “the conclusion is certain: some sin can be forgiven after death, not only as to punishment, because the punishment due for that sin was not paid here, but also as to the guilt itself. This is proved as follows: no one will be saved with any sin; but a person who remains with some venial sin can fall asleep and die while asleep, and likewise someone can sin venially up to the final instant in which the soul leaves the body. It is clear that this venial sin was never forgiven for a person dying in this way. Therefore either he would enter glory without remission of the guilt of such venial sin, or it will be remitted for him there. But he will not enter glory without remission of such venial sin, for ‘nothing defiled shall enter it,’ Revelation 21. Therefore it will be remitted for him there.”

The Master of the Sentences gathers the same opinion in bk. 1, d. 21, from Christ’s words in Matthew 12: “Whoever speaks” (a word) “against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this world or in the world to come.” From this, he says, it is understood, as the holy Doctors teach, that some sins will be forgiven in the world to come: some faults are remitted in this world, and some lesser ones in the future, which indeed burden people after death but are forgiven if they are worthy and have merited through good acts in this life that they be forgiven. Those Doctors are chiefly the holy Fathers, especially St. Augustine, The City of God, ch. 24, where he says: “For it would not truly be said of certain sins that they are not forgiven either in this world or in the world to come, unless there were some sins which, although not in this world, are nevertheless forgiven in the world to come.” St. Gregory the Great gathers the same in bk. 1 of the Dialogues, ch. 39, where, considering the aforesaid words of St. Matthew, he says: “In this statement it is understood that some faults can be loosed in this world, and others in the world to come. For from the denial concerning one kind, the consequent understanding is clear: it is granted concerning some.” St. Isidore teaches the same in Ecclesiastical Offices, ch. 18, as does St. Bernard, Sermon 16 on the Song of Songs, etc.

YOU WILL SAY 1: No just person can sin after death; therefore neither can he rise from the debt of sin. The antecedent is clear. The consequence is proved: both because the reason is the same for the power to sin and to rise from sin; both because it is easier to fall than to rise; and finally because rising from sin does not seem to belong to one who cannot merit, while one who cannot fall in any state cannot merit either. Therefore, etc. — The Doctor denies the consequence, In IV Sent., d. 21, q. 1, n. 11: “Understanding ‘rise’ to mean ‘be freed from sin.’” As to the first proof, he says that there is no likeness between being able to sin and rising from sin, because sinning is acting freely and pertains to the state of the way (understand this of sin that incurs demerit). For the Doctor teaches, In IV Sent., d. 2, q. 1, that “the damned will to sin, although through that sin they incur no new demerit; but rising, that is, becoming free from sin, does not require free action even in the state of the way, because according to the first opinion it is nothing other than paying a punishment, which is to suffer it; or, according to the second, it is nothing other than guilt now being forgiven through merits previously acquired in the state of the way and then accepted for this purpose.” Regarding the second proof of the consequence, he says: “I grant that it is easier to fall than to rise, insofar as rising denotes an act properly within the power of one who rises; but ‘rising’ is not understood in this way in this remission of venial sin.” Regarding the third proof, he says it falsely assumes that rising then occurs through a meritorious act of the will that is present at that time, whereas it occurs through a meritorious act that was previously present in life, according to the second opinion, or through no meritorious act at all, but only by suffering a punishment proportionate to that sin, according to the first opinion.

YOU WILL SAY 2: No mortal sin can be remitted after this life; therefore neither can venial sin. The consequence is clear: the reason for mortal and venial sin seems to be the same, since they differ only in degree, more or less. — The Doctor denies the consequence, n. 12: “Because merits acquired in life cannot be accepted at the instant of death so as to blot out mortal sin through them, since God ordained that mortal sin not be blotted out except through voluntary reception of a sacrament or through some disposition, as a merit of congruity, inhering at the time or up to the time when the sin is blotted out. It is otherwise for one who departs in mortal sin.” In answer to the proof of the consequence he responds that, although mortal and venial sin are sometimes opposed to the same virtue and deprive one of the same goodness in the order of nature or custom—physical or moral goodness—they do not deprive one of the same theological moral goodness. For by divine ordinance mortal sin is opposed to justifying grace and deprives one of divine friendship; venial sin is otherwise. Therefore it is no wonder if one is remitted after death but not the other.

YOU WILL SAY 3: Venial sin can be remitted through any punishment, and especially through the punishment of death; therefore none remains to be forgiven after death. — The Doctor responds, n. 13, that one may well grant that death voluntarily accepted is a sufficient punishment in place of the punishment for any venial sin, and perhaps in place of a large part of the punishment due for forgiven mortal sins. Nor is it an objection that death is a necessary punishment, since one can voluntarily accept what is necessary. This accords with what was said in the second opinion, that venial sin is blotted out at the instant of death. Hence he adds in the Reportata, final number, that death could be imposed on a thief as sacramental satisfaction: “And I believe,” he says, “that if the thief endured it willingly, his contrition and sorrow could be so great that he would fly up to heaven at once.”

The Doctor proves the second part, n. 8: “For,” he says, “one who dies in charity, although after death his meritorious works are not referred to the venial sin in which he dies, so that it may be remitted, and although he himself has no new meritorious act by which that venial sin is blotted out, nevertheless those works done earlier can be referred by God to the remission of this venial sin after death.” He proves this as follows: “An impedible cause, while impeded, does not produce its effect, but when it is not impeded, it does; but the merits of this person dying in charity would be a sufficient cause for blotting out his venial sins, either as referred to this by him or as accepted by God for this end. Yet they are impeded while he lives, if he continually remains in the act of venial sin; after death they are no longer impeded, because then he does not contract an act of venial sin. Therefore through those merits venial sins will be blotted out after this life, that is, at the instant of the soul’s separation.” From this he infers two things: “First, that venial sins are remitted at the instant of death, because then the act of venial sin no longer remains and consequently the impediment ceases. Second, that every venial sin of one dying in charity is remitted in this life unless he continues the act of venial sin up to death or to the instant of death.” By all this the Doctor means that, just as a just person merits glory through good works if he dies in grace, so too, if he departs in grace, he merits pardon for his slight offenses, without which he cannot attain the glory he merits. Therefore, by the merits acquired earlier in this life, he has a right to have his venial sins remitted after death or at the instant of death, provided that while he lives he does not take pleasure in them.

Finally, the third part is proved from Ecclesiastes, ch. 11: “If a tree falls to the south or to the north, wherever it falls, there it will be.” This signifies that after death there is no further place for merit or demerit, as all theologians who affirm that the state of this life alone is set apart for merit or demerit readily acknowledge. Hence the opinion of St. Thomas is refuted: in question 7 of On Evil, a. 11, he asserts that venial sins are remitted in purgatory through acts of contrition or charity by which the soul detests and retracts those sins. For it would follow that souls suffering in purgatory could still merit, the contrary of which theologians commonly teach.

NOTE 1. It is certain that when the guilt of mortal sin is remitted through penance, the debt, or obligation, to undergo eternal punishment is also always remitted. For mortal guilt is never remitted in the ordinary way without sanctifying grace being infused, through which a person is justified. “Justification itself,” says the Council of Trent (sess. VI, ch. 7), “is not remission of sins alone, but also sanctification and the renewal of the inner person through the voluntary reception of grace and gifts; hence a person becomes just from being unjust, and a friend from being an enemy, so as to be an heir according to the hope of eternal life.” But it is repugnant, at least under the ordinary law, for anyone to be an heir of the heavenly kingdom and at the same time subject to eternal punishment; otherwise that person would at once be worthy of eternal life and eternal death. It is therefore equally repugnant that, when the guilt of mortal sin is remitted through penance, the debt of eternal punishment should remain in the justified person.

NOTE 2. A controversy arises between Catholics and heretics as to whether, when the guilt of both mortal and venial sin has been remitted through penance, some obligation to undergo temporal punishment remains. All Catholic Doctors affirm that it does, together with the Council of Trent, in the same place, ch. 14. There, after asserting that sinners can be justified again through penance—which the holy Fathers aptly called “the second plank after the shipwreck of lost grace”—the Council adds that those sins can be expiated by the satisfaction that must be undergone: “Not, indeed, for eternal punishment, which is remitted along with guilt either by the sacrament or by the desire for the sacrament; but for temporal punishment, which, as the sacred Scriptures teach, is not always wholly remitted, as it is in baptism, for those who, ungrateful for the grace of God they received, have grieved the Holy Spirit,” etc. The heretics of our time, however, defend the negative position, especially the Calvinists with their abominable leader, who, in bk. III of the Institutes, ch. 4, n. 25, having first stated the Catholic view that payment is due for remitted sins, impudently adds: “Such lies are set against the gratuitous remission of sins, which Scripture proclaims more clearly than anything else. For what is remission but a gift of sheer liberality? A creditor is not said to remit when a receipt certifies that the money has been paid to him; rather, he remits when, without any payment, he freely cancels the debt by his generosity. Why, then, is ‘freely’ added, unless to remove every notion of satisfaction? With what confidence, then, do they still set up their satisfactions, when they are struck down by so mighty a thunderbolt?”

NOTE 3. There are three opinions among the Doctors concerning the punishment due for venial sin. Some, with Alexander of Hales, Summa, part II, q. 121, memb. 9, hold that eternal punishment is due to it per se, but temporal punishment per accidens. Others, with the Angelic Doctor, q. 102, q. 87, a. 5, and the Seraphic Doctor, In II Sent., d. 12, a. 2, q. 2, affirm that temporal punishment is due per se, but eternal punishment per accidens, namely when someone dies with both mortal and venial sin; for then venial sin joined to mortal sin is punished forever, since there is no redemption in hell. But the Subtle Doctor, d. 21, n. 6, having refuted both preceding opinions, maintains that eternal punishment is due to venial sin neither per se nor per accidens. Two points, then, must be established here: first, that once the debt of guilt is remitted, temporal punishment generally still remains to be paid through satisfaction; second, that venial sin is not to be punished with eternal punishment.

First conclusion. — WHEN THE DEBT OF GUILT FOR BOTH MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN IS REMITTED THROUGH PENANCE, THE PENITENT VERY OFTEN STILL OWES TEMPORAL PUNISHMENT.

This is a matter of faith, determined by the Council of Florence in the Decree of Eugene, where it is decreed that the third part of penance is satisfaction for sins according to the priest’s judgment, chiefly made through prayers, fasts, and almsgiving; consequently, this presupposes that some punishment survives the remission of guilt. The Council of Trent defines it most clearly, sess. VI, can. 130¹: “If anyone says that, once the grace of justification has been received, the guilt is remitted and the debt of eternal punishment erased for every repentant sinner in such a way that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be paid, either in this age or in the future in purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema.” Hence, sess. XIV, ch. 8: “The holy Synod declares it wholly false and alien to the word of God that guilt is never remitted by the Lord without the whole punishment also being forgiven: for clear and striking examples are found in the sacred Scriptures by which, beyond divine Tradition, this error is most plainly refuted.” These divine oracles confirming this truth are drawn chiefly from Exodus 32, where God remits the sin of the Israelites who had fallen into worship of the golden calf, at Moses’ prayers. For it is said there: “The Lord was appeased, and did not do the evil he had spoken against his people.” Nevertheless, it is also said there that God reserved a punishment to inflict on that people for the offense; for it continues: “On the day of vengeance I will visit this sin upon them”; and, “The Lord struck the people for the guilt of the calf which Aaron had made.” — Likewise, in Numbers 13 and 14, God spared those same Israelites, who had fallen into the sin of murmuring, at Moses’ intercession; for he said, “I have forgiven them according to your word.” Yet vengeance was reserved for all who had come out of Egypt, for it continues: “Nevertheless, all the men who saw my majesty and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who have now tested me ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall not see the land I swore to their fathers; none of those who have reviled me shall see it.” Hence Psalm 94: “To whom I swore in my anger: They shall not enter my rest.” The same punishment is decreed there, in ch. 20, against Moses and Aaron for their sin at the waters of contradiction. For we read: “Because you did not believe me, to sanctify me before the children of Israel, you shall not lead these peoples into the land I will give them.” And below: “Let Aaron go to his people; for he shall not enter the land I gave the children of Israel, because he was unbelieving toward my word at the waters of contradiction.” His death is described there immediately afterward. To Moses, in Deuteronomy 32, God says: “Go up this mountain of Abarim, that is, of crossings, to Mount Nebo … and when you have climbed it, you shall join your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people: because you transgressed against me … at the waters of contradiction in the wilderness of Sin, and you did not sanctify me among the children of Israel. You shall see the land, but you shall not enter it, the land I will give the children of Israel.” Yet it is certain that Moses and Aaron obtained pardon for that sin. “Far be it,” says Augustine, Contra Faustum, bk. XVI, ch. 16, “that we should believe Moses to have been alienated from God, since he was deemed worthy to stand with Saint Elijah beside Christ in his glory.” — The same truth is evident from 2 Kings, ch. 12, where God remits to the penitent David the sin of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. For when David said to the prophet Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord,” Nathan immediately replied, “The Lord has also taken away your sin; you shall not die.” By these words God undoubtedly remitted the whole guilt of the sin. Hence St. Ambrose, in his First Apology for David, ch. 2, says: “The Lord was moved by the pain of his inmost feeling, so that Nathan said: ‘As you have repented, the Lord has taken away your sin.’ The immediacy of the pardon therefore revealed the depth of the king’s penance, which had carried off the offense of so great an error.” Nevertheless, David paid the temporal punishment for these crimes through the death of the son conceived in adultery; for Nathan says there: “Nevertheless, because you have caused the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, because of this word the son born to you shall die.” By these words he signifies that David was punished not merely so that he might take care in the future, or to terrify others, or to exercise virtue and patience, as the heretics invent, but because of the sin and the scandal given. To inflict punishment on a sinner because he has sinned is properly to punish the sin, not merely to inflict medicinal punishments. Hence St. Augustine says in Psalm 50: “You have loved truth: that is, you have not left unpunished even those whose sins you forgive.”

To blunt these divine testimonies, Calvin replies in nn. 31 and 32 that God does sometimes, after remitting the debt of guilt, inflict punishment on a justified sinner, not in vengeance but for correction. For, he says, one must distinguish two kinds of judgment: one of vengeance, the other of chastisement. “Moreover,” he says, “God is to be understood as avenging his enemies by a judgment of vengeance in such a way that he exercises his anger against them, confounds them, scatters them, and reduces them to nothing. Let that, then, be properly called God’s vengeance, where punishment is joined with his indignation. In a judgment of chastisement he does not rage in this way or become angry; nor does he avenge so as to destroy or hurl a thunderbolt to ruin. Hence it is not properly a penalty or vengeance, but correction and admonition. One belongs to a judge, the other to a father. For when a judge punishes a criminal, he takes action against the offense itself and exacts a penalty for the crime itself. When a father corrects his son more severely, he does not do so to avenge or punish him, but rather to teach him and make him more cautious in the future. Chrysostom somewhere uses a somewhat different comparison, which comes to the same thing: ‘A son is beaten, and a servant is beaten too; but the latter is punished as a slave because he has sinned, while the former is chastised as a free person and a son in need of discipline. For him the correction serves as a test and amendment; for the other it means blows and penalties.’ To hold this familiar point briefly and plainly, let this be the first distinction between the two: wherever punishment is for vengeance, there the curse and anger of God are manifested, which he always restrains from the faithful. Chastisement, by contrast, is both God’s blessing and a sign of his love, as Scripture teaches. This distinction is often marked sufficiently by the word of God. For whatever afflictions the wicked suffer in this present life are depicted for us as a sort of vestibule of hell, from which they already glimpse their eternal damnation from afar; and so far are they from being corrected by them or gaining any fruit, that such foretokens prepare them for the most terrible Gehenna that awaits them at last.” — But this reply of Calvin’s is mere evasion and deception. How perversely and improperly he interprets divine Scripture is evident from the divine oracles cited above, which plainly signify that God inflicts blows and calamities on people already restored to grace in vengeance and retribution for their remitted crimes, not merely for correction and the exercise of patience. No reason for this truth can be given a priori, since it depends solely on God’s ordination: just as he always freely remits eternal punishment together with mortal guilt, so, if he wished, he could always remit every punishment. The holy Fathers nevertheless offer several fitting reasons for this divine ordinance. First, that the gravity of sin might become more evident, and that the sinner might be deterred from offending by fear of the punishment to be undergone. St. Augustine supplies this reason in Tractate 124 on John, saying: “Lest the sin be thought small if its punishment ended along with it, he willed the punishment to last longer than the sin; for he holds back temporally in punishment one whom guilt no longer holds liable to damnation.” — Second, that the sinner might pay the satisfaction due to God and understand how kindly God had pardoned eternal punishment. St. Augustine explains this clearly in Contra Faustum, bk. XXII, ch. 67, where he says: “When David, corrected by the prophet, said, ‘I have sinned,’ he immediately deserved to hear the further word that he had received pardon. To what end, unless for eternal salvation? For the discipline of a father’s rod was not omitted in him, according to God’s threat: so that, having confessed, he might be freed forever, and, having been afflicted, might be punished temporally. It was no slight strength of faith, nor a small indication of a gentle and obedient spirit, that, when he had heard from the prophet that God had forgiven him, and yet what God had threatened had duly come to pass, he did not say that he had been deceived by the prophet’s lie, nor murmur against God as if he had declared a false indulgence of sins. For that deeply holy man understood, lifting his soul not against God but to God, how worthy his sins were of eternal punishments, for which he was being chastened by temporal corrections, unless God were merciful to one who confessed and did penance. He saw that pardon remained toward him, while discipline was not neglected.” — Third, to restrain the license to sin, which would certainly be much greater if every punishment were remitted together with guilt. St. Chrysostom gives this reason in his Homily on Penance, saying: “Lest sinners who remain unpunished become worse, he did not remit our penalty, but clearly saw that not being punished is no less harmful than the sins themselves; and for this reason he imposes a penalty.” — Fourth, it was fitting that we undo, by contrary acts, the vicious habits acquired through evil living; this could not be done more effectively than by undergoing temporal punishment. Hence St. Augustine, On the Merits and Remission of Sins, bk. II, ch. 34, says: “For this reason Adam, expelled from Paradise, dwelt opposite Eden, that is, opposite the seat of delights, to signify that the flesh of sin, which did not keep obedience amid delights, had to be trained through labors contrary to delights.” — Finally, it was fitting that there be a certain proportion between the members and the head. Since Christ therefore underwent the harshest temporal torments for our sins, it was fitting by the same reasoning that we should suffer some punishment for such sins.

The Council of Trent explains all these reasons most eloquently, sess. XIV, ch. 8, in these words: “Indeed, the order of divine justice also seems to require that those who sinned through ignorance before baptism be received into grace by God in one way, but those who, once freed from the slavery of sin and the devil, have not feared knowingly to violate God’s temple and grieve the Holy Spirit given to them, be received in another. And it befits divine clemency that sins not be forgiven us without any satisfaction, lest, seizing the occasion, we regard sins as lighter and, injuring and insulting the Holy Spirit, fall into graver ones, storing up wrath for ourselves on the day of wrath.” For these satisfactory punishments undoubtedly greatly turn us away from sin, “and, as it were, restrain us with a certain bridle, making penitents more cautious and watchful in the future”; they also heal the remnants of sins and remove, by contrary acts of virtue, vicious habits acquired through evil living. … “To this is added that, while suffering in satisfaction for our sins, we are made conformable to Jesus Christ, who made satisfaction for our sins, from whom all our sufficiency comes; and from this we also have a most certain pledge that, if we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified with him.”

HERETICS OBJECT 1: God testifies in Ezekiel 18 that he will utterly forget the sins of the one who has done penance: “I will remember none of his iniquities.” Likewise, in ch. 33: “The wickedness of the wicked shall not harm him on whatever day he turns from his wickedness.” The Apostle agrees in Romans 8: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” But God would undoubtedly remember the sinner’s iniquities, his wickedness would harm him, and some condemnation would remain for those in Christ Jesus, if, after guilt were remitted, temporal punishment still remained to be paid. Therefore, once the debt of guilt is remitted, no debt of punishment remains to be paid. — I deny the minor premise; and concerning the first two passages of Scripture I say that, for God to forget the sinner’s iniquities, it is enough that he receive him into his friendship and forgive him eternal punishment. In this way God forgot Adam’s rebellion, since Wisdom 10 says that he led him out of his offense, and yet reserved the punishment of death for him and his descendants. In Numbers 10² he absolved Miriam, Moses’ sister, at his prayer, from the sin of murmuring, and yet ordered her to be separated outside the camp for seven days. Likewise, in 3 Kings 13 the man of God, or prophet of the Lord, was killed by a lion because of disobedience; nevertheless, he seems to have obtained pardon for his sin beforehand through repentance. For, as proof of his holiness, the lion touched neither his corpse nor the donkey, and another prophet, an old man who had foretold this death to him at Bethel, carried his body to his own tomb, mourned him, and wished to be buried beside him when he died. I answer secondly: in those oracles the prophet is making a comparison between the just and the wicked with respect to eternal life. Their meaning, then, is that just as, if a just person turns away from his justice, it will not profit him toward eternal happiness—so that God seems to forget him—so the sinner, when he does penance, since through the restoration of habitual grace he obtains a right to eternal life, seems not to be remembered by God for that iniquity, nor will it harm him with respect to attaining beatitude, although he remains liable to temporal punishment to be paid. — As to the Apostle’s text, I say that although, after guilt and the debt of eternal punishment have been remitted through penance, the debt of temporal punishment sometimes remains, there is nevertheless no condemnation in the justified. Temporal punishment to be paid is so far from ordering them to damnation that it instead turns them away from it, since it restrains license to sin and makes the sinner more cautious, lest he rush headlong into sin again.

Calvin presses the point by adducing other passages of Scripture, in which God is said no longer to take account of sins once remitted, but to cast them behind his back, in Isaiah 38³; to blot them out like a cloud: “I have blotted out your iniquities like a cloud, and your sins like a mist”; to cast and sink them into the depths of the sea, as in Micah 7: “He will take away our iniquities and cast all our sins into the depths of the sea”; and finally not to impute them and to cover them, as in Psalm 31: “Blessed are those whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin.” Hence he concludes: if God punishes sins, he imputes them; if he avenges them, he remembers them; if he summons them to judgment, he has not covered them; if he examines them, he has not cast them behind his back; if he looks upon them, he has not blotted them out like a mist; if he sifts them, he has not cast them into the depths of the sea. “And in this way,” he says, “Augustine interprets the matter in Psalm 52, writing: ‘If God has covered sins, he did not wish to notice them; if he did not wish to notice them, he did not wish to take action against them; if he did not wish to take action against them, he did not wish to punish them, did not wish to acknowledge them, but preferred to ignore them.’” — I answer: he appeals to these texts improperly and foolishly in defense of his error. For by these and similar oracles God signifies nothing other than that he remits sins upon seeing penance in such a way that he no longer brings them back to mind or view for the sinner’s damnation, nor as a debt of guilt and eternal punishment. We readily acknowledge this.

HERETICS OBJECT 2: Sins are remitted in penance through the power and merit of Christ’s Passion, as the Apostle testifies in Romans 3, saying: “God set him forth as an expiation through faith in his blood, to demonstrate his justice because of the remission of former sins.” But in his Passion Christ made the fullest satisfaction for all sins, not only for the debt of guilt but also for every punishment due for sin. Therefore every satisfaction of ours is superfluous. For Calvin says in n. 30: “What, I ask, would Christ have accomplished for us if punishment were still exacted for sins? For when we say that he bore all our sins in his body upon the tree, we mean nothing other than that he died under the punishment and vengeance due for our sins.” — I distinguish the minor premise: he made the fullest satisfaction, and a sufficient remission of all sins with respect to guilt and punishment, in dignity and power, I grant: for Christ’s merit suffices to discharge the whole debt of every sin. With respect to its application and the manner in which a person shares in it, I distinguish further: he made the fullest satisfaction with respect to the manner of application on certain occasions, as happens through baptism and martyrdom, I grant; for the baptized person wholly shares in the power of Christ’s Passion, dying with Christ to sins through water and the Spirit, and thereby being reborn to eternal life. The same should be said of martyrdom, with due proportion. But that he always made it in this way through the ordinary application of that Passion, as occurs in penance, I deny: Christ indeed made satisfaction for us as a universal cause to be applied to each person through that person’s own cooperation, and in proportion to that cooperation, especially in penance. The manner proportionate to a free nature is this: just as a person freely and by his own will sinned in committing an actual sin, so he should freely apply to himself the cause of satisfaction and remission of sin.

HERETICS OBJECT 3: When the cause is removed, the effect is removed. But the debt of guilt is the cause of the debt of punishment; for someone is worthy of punishment because he has committed a sin. Therefore, when the debt of guilt is removed through penance, the debt of punishment is also taken away. — I distinguish the major premise: if that cause is truly the cause of a thing’s being and continuing to exist, as form is with respect to a composite—for example, the rational soul with respect to a human being—I grant; if it is only a cause of its coming to be, as a builder is the cause of a building, I deny. And, once the minor premise is distinguished in the same way, I deny the inference: for the debt of guilt is indeed the cause of the debt of punishment coming to be, but not of its continuing to exist. Hence a moral punishment can remain after the guilt is removed, just as a building stands after its builder has died.

HERETICS OBJECT 4: All the punishments the just suffer are exercises of virtue and their contests, not satisfactions for sin, as St. Augustine teaches in Psalm 138: “May he scourge us in these infirmities and deliver us. All this misery of the human race, in which the world groans, is a medicinal pain, not a penal sentence.” And in On the Merits and Remission of Sins, bk. II, after saying in ch. 33 that people cleansed of sins are nonetheless, by God’s sentence, condemned to punishment, which he proves from the example of Adam eating bread by the sweat of his brow and Eve bearing her children in pain, he adds in ch. 34: “Before remission, these are punishments for sins; after remission, however, they are contests and exercises of the just.” Therefore the punishments the just must pay after sins are remitted are not satisfactory, but only medicinal or meritorious of eternal life. — I deny the inference, and concerning the antecedent I say that although St. Augustine does not mention satisfaction there, elsewhere he teaches repeatedly that the punishments endured are not only exercises of the just but also satisfactions. Thus in City of God, bk. XIII, ch. 6, he says: “Whatever it is in the dying that, with a grave sensation, admits sensation, when it is piously and faithfully endured, increases the merit of patience but does not remove the name of punishment. Thus, since by the perpetual succession from the first human being the death of one who is born is undoubtedly a punishment, if it is borne for piety and justice it becomes the glory of one reborn; and though death is the retribution for sin, it sometimes obtains that nothing be retributed to sin.” He says that the miseries and calamities of the human race are rather medicinal pain than a penal sentence because the pain of medicine tends toward the patient’s good, whereas a penal sentence imposed by a judge tends toward the evil and loss of the condemned. Those calamities are therefore called medicinal because through them a person, making satisfaction to God, prepares a way to eternal happiness; consequently, they turn to the patient’s good, not harm.

YOU WILL PRESS: Those calamities cannot be satisfactory unless they are inflicted under the aspect of punishment. But that is not so except materially, since God assigns them both to sinners and to the justified and innocent. Yet calamities, with respect to the innocent and those in whom both the debt of punishment and the debt of guilt have been remitted, cannot have the character of punishment or penalty. Therefore, etc. — I distinguish the minor premise: if those calamities are not inflicted because of guilt, I grant; if they are, I deny. It is certain, however, that God prescribes such calamities for justified people because of their remitted sins, as Calvin himself also admits when he applies to the just Psalm 89: “I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with scourges.” But correction, rods, and scourges signify punishments properly so called; consequently, whether he wishes it or not, Calvin is compelled to admit that punishment, retribution, and vengeance still survive the remission of sin.

Second conclusion. — ETERNAL PUNISHMENT IS DUE TO VENIAL SIN NEITHER PER SE NOR PER ACCIDENS. This is the Doctor’s position in the passage cited above, n. 6, where he says: “I say, then, that to venial sin, whether it is punished here, in hell, or elsewhere, only temporal punishment is due, neither per se nor per accidens; for in itself it is an offense of such a kind that in itself it is punished by a sufficient temporal punishment. Nor is it unreasonable for the punishment due for venial sin to have an end in hell: for a person who truly repents, first fulfills a part of the penance imposed, then relapses into mortal sin before completing it all, and dies in that mortal sin, will pay in hell the remaining part of the penance—but only temporal punishment. For since, in the earlier remission of sins, the debt of eternal punishment is changed into a debt of temporal punishment, that person is never a debtor for those sins to anything but temporal punishment; and consequently, once the whole punishment has been paid, he will be free of them. Yet there is no redemption in hell for that sin, namely the one for which he is damned, because the debt of eternal punishment for that sin was never changed into a debt of temporal punishment. Therefore that debt always remains, since that punishment can never be paid in full.” By these words the Doctor consistently affirms that the punishment due for venial sin is not eternal, either per se or per accidens, but is fixed by its own nature and ends when the term of suffering, or of suffering enough, has been completed. He proves this from the axiom most widely accepted among theologians, namely that “God always punishes less than is deserved and rewards beyond what is deserved.” But by its nature only temporal punishment is due for venial sin, because, as he says in q. 3, eternal punishment is incompatible with charity. For if the obligation to undergo eternal punishment could coexist with charity, someone would at once be worthy of eternal life and eternal punishment, since everyone who has charity is worthy of eternal life. This is plainly contradictory: no one can be liable to punishment at the very instant at which he is destined for glory, since then glory and some punishment could coexist. Yet venial sin coexists with charity, not only when it is erased after the act, but also when it is actually committed, as the Doctor proves in n. 4: “For,” he says, “mortal sin exceeds every venial sin immeasurably in the character of malice. For even if there were infinitely many venial sins, they would not equal one mortal sin in the character of offense, since they would not all turn a person away from the last end as one mortal sin does. Consequently, the punishment that justice assigns to mortal sin immeasurably and infinitely exceeds the punishment due for venial sin—not in intensity, since any punishment exceeds or is exceeded by another only to a finite degree in intensity. Therefore it exceeds it in extent and duration; and consequently eternal punishment is not due for venial sin.” The Doctor confirms this in n. 5: “Suppose that God simply punished with strict rigor up to the measure deserved: it would be wholly unjust to inflict eternal punishment for what in itself deserves temporal punishment. But only temporal punishment is due for venial sin, since its malice is much less than that of mortal sin and it must consequently be punished with a lesser penalty. Nor does it matter that it is joined to mortal sin. However much it is joined to another sin, the Doctor says, this does not make it exceed infinitely in gravity or cease to be the kind of guilt that venial sin is. Therefore punishment that exceeds it infinitely does not justly correspond to it either.”

The Thomists, with Cajetan, reply that no punishment other than temporal punishment is due to venial sin per se, but that eternal punishment is due per accidens because of the condition of the subject and its union with mortal sin. For, they say, venial sin is not judged separately when someone is condemned, but together with mortal sin, to which eternal punishment is due. Therefore, since the subject, namely the condemned person, is destined to undergo eternal punishment on account of mortal sin, that person must undergo the same punishment on account of venial sin as well. — But against this: the worthiness for punishment, or the debt of punishment, arises not from the condition of the subject but only from transgressing a law and precept. Therefore, venial sin in itself does not merit eternal punishment because of the subject’s state and condition.

They reply secondly that eternal punishment is indeed not due to venial sin with respect to the subject considered alone, but that it is due insofar as the sin is in a subject who also has mortal sin; and consequently venial sin merits eternal punishment through its union and accompaniment with mortal sin. — But Hiquaeus makes a subtle objection against this: “Nothing,” he says, “imposes a new debt of punishment unless it aggravates the sin precisely as sin, since punishment and its debt are measured according to sin insofar as it is sin. But the mortal sin on account of which someone is condemned to hell and perpetual punishment is neither a circumstance of the venial sin nor does it contribute in any way to its malice. Therefore,” etc. The minor premise is proved: mortal sin can be separate from venial sin, and can precede or follow it by many years without any order of one to the other in operation, knowledge, or intention, as is obvious. But nothing aggravates malice except what is a circumstance of the act, the matter, or the manner of acting. Therefore punishment is not aggravated either. Yet by the law’s ordinance and by its nature only temporal and terminable punishment is due for venial sin. Therefore, etc. He confirms this: the temporal punishment due for venial sin in this life is not increased by its conjunction with mortal sin in this life; therefore the same punishment is not increased in the next life by association with that sin. The inference is clear by parity; the antecedent is beyond dispute. He confirms it a second time: the punishment for venial sin does not increase in intensity in hell; therefore it does not increase in duration either. The inference is clear, since no reason appears why it should increase more extensively than intensively, whether considered in relation to the subject or in relation to God’s vindictive justice, which is expressed in law. For just as, by justice, the punishment due for venial sin is light in intensity compared with the punishment for mortal sin (as the guilt itself is light), so that any excess beyond the established limit would be severe and unjust, so the same punishment also has a limit in duration, such that, viewed according to the law and in itself, it is temporal. Therefore its conjunction with mortal sin in hell does not extend it beyond that limit of duration, just as it does not increase its intensity beyond the proportionate limit.

So Hiquaeus.

YOU WILL OBJECT 1. Every sin is an offense against God; but every offense against God merits eternal punishment. First because every offense against God merits annihilation; therefore it is all the more worthy of eternal punishment, which is a much lesser evil than annihilation. Second because sin committed against God offends an infinite person; consequently, it has infinite malice and is therefore worthy of eternal punishment. — I deny the minor premise, as well as its two proofs, which are altogether false. The first fails because an offense against God merits annihilation only insofar as it turns a person away from the last end; for whoever removes himself from God, the source of all beings, deserves to pass into nothingness. But this turning away does not occur through venial sin, only through mortal sin. The second proof fails as well: as we said when treating the gravity of sin, even mortal sin itself does not have infinite malice. For worthiness or malice is not taken absolutely from the person offended or from the object toward which the act is directed, with respect to its quality alone, but also from the manner in which the act reaches its object. That manner, like the power from which sinful acts are elicited, is finite.

YOU WILL OBJECT 2. So long as guilt remains, punishment always remains, because the debt of punishment is inseparably connected with guilt, since it is established against the disorder of guilt. But the debt of guilt always remains in hell. Therefore punishment to be paid also remains. — I deny the major premise, and distinguish its proof: punishment is inseparably connected with guilt in coming to be, so that punishment must be inflicted on no one in retribution unless on account of a sin committed, I grant; in the state of being, I deny. For punishment to be paid does not always presuppose guilt presently existing in the one who pays the punishment. For subjects and children are often punished for the sins of rulers and parents, although they themselves are entirely innocent. Moreover, even after sins have been remitted through the virtue or sacrament of penance, temporal punishment is often due as satisfaction. Therefore punishment and guilt are not connected in the state of being, either by the nature of the thing or by the requirement of punitive justice, if the punishment is terminable by law, as is temporal punishment due for remitted mortal sin and also for venial sin that persists.

YOU WILL PRESS: The damned not only persist in a past venial sin in its completed state, but also newly take pleasure in it, and thus continually sin in act. Therefore they continually owe punishment. The inference is proved by the authority of St. Fulgentius, On the Faith to Peter, bk. I, where, speaking of the damnation of demons, he says: “That part of the angels, which had been blessed by the sole good, departed in wholly voluntary aversion; by the judgment of supernal equity it found the beginning of its damnation in the very aversion of its will, so that beginning already to be punished was nothing other than being deprived of love for that beatifying good. God ordained that this should remain wholly in eternal punishment, and also prepared eternal fire for it; in it all those transgressing angels could never be without an evil will or without punishment. But while the evil of their unjust aversion remains in them, the eternal damnation of just retribution also remains.” By these words he signifies that the evil angels are punished continually because they have a continuously perverse will. — I answer first that it is not certain whether the damned take a new pleasure in past venial sin; for this seems morally impossible, especially if there are many sins, since amid those pressing punishments the intellect and will can scarcely attend to them. I say secondly that even if this pleasure remains, the damned person does not thereby merit a new punishment, as the Doctor teaches in In II Sent., d. 7, q. 1, where he says: “Just as the substantial reward is fixed at the first instant in which an angel is blessed, and does not increase thereafter, because the good acts that follow are not meritorious, although they are good, so also, in the case of a condemned angel, a definite punishment is determined at the first instant of his damnation, and it does not increase in intensity. Yet his evil acts are not unpunished, just as the good acts of a good angel will not go unrewarded. Those good acts are included in the first act, because they proceed from the perfection of the beatific act; but as regards the accidental reward they may have, each act is its own reward. In the same way, those evil acts that a condemned person elicits are included in the first punishment, determined for him with certainty; and each act, which could have its own accidental punishment, has the person himself as its punishment. ‘You commanded, Lord,’ Augustine says in the Confessions, ‘and so it is, that every sinner is a punishment to himself’ (the genuine text is: ‘You commanded, and so it is, that every disordered soul is a punishment to itself,’ Confessions, bk. I, ch. 12). For the chief and greatest punishment is deprivation of the greatest good, which is formally present in an evil act, the malice of guilt turning the sinner away from God (he is speaking of a mortal act). Their punishment therefore increases infinitely in extent, as does their malice, but neither increases in intensity.”

“And if you OBJECT that a second evil act is demeritorious, and therefore a punishment of its own corresponds to it: — I answer that, even if it can be granted to be a fault, it is not properly demeritorious, because it is not elicited by a wayfarer, to whom alone it belongs to merit or demerit. Rather, it may be called more properly a condemning act, or an act of the condemned, just as, on the other side, the act of a blessed person, although acceptable to God, is not properly meritorious, but is better called a beatific act, an act of the blessed, or an act proceeding from beatitude.” Thus far the Doctor. Let it be so, then, that the damned continually sin, not only mortally but also venially through taking pleasure in past venial sins. I say that by this pleasure they do not merit any new punishment; rather, if one wishes, this pleasure is itself their punishment, and that punishment is eternal if the sin is eternal. But our assertion does not concern this punishment; it concerns only punishment distinct from the debt of guilt and inflicted on account of that debt. Such punishment cannot increase in the state of damnation, since acts elicited in that state, although evil, are not demeritorious.

YOU WILL OBJECT 3. There is no redemption in hell; therefore there is no payment of punishment either. — The Doctor distinguishes the antecedent, n. 6: with respect to the debt of eternal punishment for unremitted mortal sin, which has not been changed into a debt of temporal punishment, he grants it; for just as that debt always remains, so the punishment to be paid will never come to an end. With respect to the debt of temporal punishment to be paid for venial sin or remitted mortal sin, he denies it; for since God’s vindictive justice inflicts punishments proportioned to sins, he ought not to inflict eternal punishment for venial sin, for which only temporal punishment is due.

YOU WILL PRESS: Temporal punishment cannot be remitted unless satisfaction for it has been fully made; but in hell there is no satisfaction. Therefore cessation of the punishment due for sin is impossible as well. — I distinguish the minor premise: there is no reconciling satisfaction, I grant; there is no vindictive satisfaction, I deny. I acknowledge indeed that if satisfaction means the reconciliation of a person who has offended God with the God offended, by which the person is received into God’s friendship and grace, then it is true that no such satisfaction exists in hell, just as there is no remission or reconciliation of the damned person with God. There is, however, satisfaction with respect to vindictive justice, which requires equality between punishment and sin according to the prescription of the law and the will of God the lawgiver, who established that even in hell punishments should differ according to the difference of sins. This is gathered from Revelation 18: “As much as she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so much give her torment and mourning”; and also from Deuteronomy 17: “The measure of the offense shall be the measure of the blows.”

YOU WILL INSIST: Even punitive satisfaction is neither performed nor completed unless divine mercy intervenes and the merits of the Lord Christ are applied. But mercy does not intervene in hell, where only divine justice rages; nor do Christ’s merits avail there, where even vindictive satisfaction cannot exist. — I deny the major premise: these things are required only for reconciling satisfaction. For mercy does not intervene on the creditor’s part when the debtor pays him just what is owed. Nor does the Lord Christ offer his merits for vindictive satisfaction, but only for reconciling satisfaction: for he is the mediator and propitiator through whom God reconciled to himself the things in heaven and on earth, as St. Paul says in Romans 5 and Hebrews 10. Every reconciling satisfaction, then, is through Christ; rigorous satisfaction is not. The latter is the pure effect of justice and of the Law avenging sins, and satisfaction is made to it by undergoing punishment, which by its nature comes to an end—not through the intervention or regard of the Mediator or his works, but by the statute and agreement of the Lawgiver who so ordained it.

NOTE 1. The works that a human being can elicit in relation to the supernatural end fall into four different kinds. Some are living, arising from a vital principle, namely grace and charity. Others are dead: by their kind and proper object they are indeed good, but because they are performed by a person in the state of mortal sin, they lack every principle of spiritual life. Still others are deadly: by depriving the soul of grace, they inflict death upon it. For grace stands to the soul in relation to supernatural life as the soul stands to the body in relation to natural life. As St. Augustine says, Sermon 5, On the Words of the Lord: “As the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul; and as the body expires when it gives up the soul, so the soul expires when it loses God.” Finally, other works are called mortified. Though good in themselves, insofar as they were elicited by grace and charity, they are said to be mortified by a subsequent sin, because they are prevented from having the power and efficacy to advance people toward eternal life. They are called mortified by a metaphor drawn from the limbs of an animal body, which are said to be mortified when they are prevented from exercising their functions.

NOTE 2. Penance has two principal effects: the remission of sins and the revivification of merits. The first belongs to it directly and in itself; the second by concomitance and accidentally. For penance is in itself ordered to wiping away sins; once these are expunged and removed, works previously mortified revive and again have a right to the reward of eternal blessedness, due to them by justice as recompense. For when “the just man turns away from his justice and commits iniquities according to all the abominations that the wicked are accustomed to commit,” God says through Ezekiel, ch. 18, “all his righteous deeds that he had done will not be remembered; in the transgression by which he transgressed, and in the sin that he committed, in them he will die.” That is, the meritorious works he had previously performed will count for nothing before God in relation to the reward of grace and glory. Likewise, “when the wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and does judgment and justice, he will give life to his soul,” says the Lord there, v. 27. He gives life not only to the soul, but also to works previously mortified through salutary penance, as will be clear from what is said in the first conclusion.

NOTE 3. A person has a right to glory under two titles: the title of inheritance and the title of recompense. The title of inheritance is founded on sanctifying grace, through which we become partakers of the divine nature and receive adoption as sons: “If sons, then heirs, heirs indeed of God,” and so forth, says the Apostle. The title of recompense, however, is founded on good works done in grace and from grace, on the presupposition of God’s promise and his prior covenant, as the Council of Trent teaches, sess. VI, ch. 16: “Eternal life is to be proposed to those who work well to the end and hope in God both as grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Jesus Christ and as a reward faithfully to be rendered, in accordance with God’s own promise, for their works and merits.” It should further be observed that a justified person merits by his good works not only an increase of glory but also an increase of grace, as the Council of Trent expressly defines, sess. VI, can. 32. The question, then, is whether one who revives through penance receives the same grace that was lost and a right to the same degrees of glory. Four principal opinions of authors arise in resolving this question. The first is that of Alexander of Hales, p. I, q. 57, and St. Bonaventure, In IV Sent., d. 11, a. 2, q. 1, followed by several more recent authors: grace lost through sin is restored by penance only according to the degree of the penitent’s contrition. Thus, if the act of contrition is most fervent, grace is restored in a greater degree; if that act is less fervent, lesser grace is granted. On this view, mortified works revive only in the sense that the same essential reward corresponding to the grace conferred through contrition is granted under several titles, namely in view of present contrition and antecedent merits; though one must allow an accidental reward, that is, greater joy on account of meritorious works elicited before the sin. The second opinion is that of Ockham, In IV Sent., q. 8, and of other Nominalists, who teach that by virtue of penance a person revives not only to the grace and glory corresponding to present contrition, but also to as many degrees of grace and to a right to as many degrees of glory as he would have had through his preceding merits had they not been mortified. The third is that of St. Thomas, III, q. 88, aa. 3 and 5, followed by several of his disciples, who assert that one rising from sin receives some new degree of grace and consequently a right to a new degree of essential glory on account of preceding merits, but does not receive all the grace he had before he sinned. The fourth opinion, finally, is that of the Doctor, d. 22, n. 9: mortified merits do indeed revive through penance with respect to the right to the same degree of glory due to them before sin, but not with respect to greater grace. Their revival is thus to the glory corresponding to the merits themselves, not to the glory corresponding to grace.

Three things, then, must be established here: first, that mortified works truly revive through penance; second, that they revive with respect to the essential glory due to them, but not with respect to accidental glory; third, that the same grace that was lost does not return.

First conclusion. — MERITORIOUS WORKS MORTIFIED BY SIN TRULY REVIVE THROUGH PENANCE. This is the common teaching among theologians, who regard this assertion as so certain that they consider its opposite erroneous.

This is proved first by the authority of Sacred Scripture, especially from Ezekiel 18, where God testifies: “If the wicked man does penance for all his sins that he has committed, and keeps all my precepts and does judgment and justice, he will surely live and not die. I will remember none of all the iniquities he has committed; he will live in the justice he has practiced.” And later: “Turn, and do penance for all your iniquities, and iniquity will not be your ruin.” But God would remember the iniquities, and iniquity would be the sinner’s ruin, if on their account he were deprived forever of the effect and fruit of his preceding merits. The same is proved by Cardinal Hugh from Jeremiah, ch. 2: “I remembered you, showing mercy to your youth and the love of your betrothal.” For what does it mean, he says, that God mercifully remembers our youth and love, except that he does not consign to oblivion our earlier works done in charity and mortified by sin? The same truth is suggested by Joel, ch. 2, where God says: “I will repay you for the years that the locust, the cankerworm, and the mildew consumed.” Commenting on this text, St. Ambrose writes: “Penance is an excellent thing, which restores all deficiencies to perfection.” All the other holy Fathers interpret this oracle in the same way, especially St. Jerome: God wished to signify that he would repay the recompense and reward of good works consumed by the locust, cankerworm, and mildew of sins. It is also proved from the Apostle in Galatians 3: “Have you suffered so many things in vain? If indeed in vain.” St. Jerome explains these words as follows: the person who, after enduring labors for Christ, falls into sin is said to have suffered in vain; but he does not lose those labors if he returns to his former faith and former devotion. And Anselm says: “You have suffered in vain if you persist in this error, but not in vain if you come to your senses.” Indeed, the Apostle confirms this truth more clearly in Hebrews 7¹, where he says: “We are confident of you, beloved, of better things and things nearer to salvation, even though we speak thus; for God is not unjust, that he should forget your work and the love you have shown in his name, in that you have ministered to the saints and still minister”—that is, to Christians in need. By these words the Apostle consoles the Hebrews, whom he had earlier frightened by saying, “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened and have fallen away to be renewed again to penance.” He consoles them, I say, by saying that God will act kindly toward them if they rise from sin through penance, since he will repay their earlier good works with the reward of eternal life. The Council of Trent also explains this, sess. VI, ch. 16, where it says: “For this reason these words of the Apostle are to be proposed to justified people, whether they have always preserved the grace received or have recovered it after losing it: ‘Abound in every good work, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord; for God is not unjust,’” and so forth. The Council thereby signifies that two classes of people must be admonished: one comprises those who have preserved grace, to whom the Apostle’s words in I Corinthians 15, “Abound in every good work,” are to be proposed in view of the promised reward for their labors; the other comprises those who have recovered lost grace, to whom the later passage from the Apostle in Hebrews applies.

The conclusion is also proved from the Council of Trent cited above, for after the quoted words it adds: “Nothing further is to be believed to be² lacking to justified people, so that they may be considered truly to have fully satisfied the divine Law, for the state of this life, by those works which are done in God, and to have truly merited eternal life, to be attained in its time, provided they die in grace.” The Council establishes the same in canon 32: “If anyone says that the justified person does not truly merit by the good works performed by him through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, an increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of eternal life itself, provided he dies in grace, as well as an increase of glory, let him be anathema.” By all this the Council signifies that three conditions are required for our works to be meritorious and for us to attain eternal life: namely, that they be the works of a justified person, performed through the grace and help of God, and that the one who performed them die in grace. Mortified merits possessed the first two conditions before sin; they obtain the third through penance, by which they receive the habit of sanctifying grace, in which a person can depart this life.

The conclusion is finally proved by an argument supplied by the Doctor, d. 22, n. 6, where he teaches that the revival of merits is a work of divine mercy, not only insofar as God freely grants effective help to do true penance, but also insofar as God willed always to repay them with a reward unless the recipient is indisposed by a new fault. From this one may argue as follows: a cause that lacks one of its effects precisely because of an impediment ought to obtain that effect as soon as the impediment is removed; thus a stone suspended by a rope, preventing it from falling to the ground, immediately falls to it as soon as the rope is removed. But merits are prevented by a subsequent sin, as by an impediment, from obtaining their effect, namely, having a right to eternal life. Therefore, when that impediment is removed through penance, they ought to revive to the very right to glory they formerly possessed.

The Doctor confirms this, n. 7: “A good example pertinent to the matter is found among jurists: someone retains a right, although an action does not remain to him or is not available to him because of some impediment. So a person with good merits in divine acceptance, though they have been mortified by mortal sin, retains the whole right corresponding to those merits to eternal life; but the action does not remain while he is an enemy. If he remains an enemy forever, that action lapses. When, however, the enmity contracted through a new mortal sin ceases, no new right returns, but the action is available under the former right.” In these words the Doctor admirably explains how a sinner, although God’s enemy, nevertheless still has, by reason of meritorious works previously elicited, some right to the blessedness due to those good works as recompense, even if he cannot legally demand it from God while he remains in sin, since in that state he is unworthy of it as God’s enemy. But when he is reconciled to God through penance, he then begins, by reason of the prior right, to have an action—that is, a right to claim that eternal recompense.

YOU WILL SAY 1: What wholly perishes and dies cannot revive; but good works wholly perish and are destroyed through a subsequent sin; therefore they cannot revive through penance. The major premise is established by an argument from parity. For sins remitted through penance do not return precisely because they are wholly extinguished and destroyed by it, at least with respect to the debt of guilt. The minor premise is also established: for by the same reasoning that God said in Ezekiel 18, v. 17³, “When the wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and does judgment and justice, he will give life to his soul,” he also affirms there, v. 17⁴: “When the just man turns away from his justice and commits iniquities according to all the abominations the wicked are accustomed to commit, will he live? None of all his righteous deeds that he had done will be remembered; in the transgression by which he transgressed and in the sin he committed, in them he will die.” Just as sins once remitted through penance do not return, so good works once killed by a subsequent sin cannot later revive. — I deny the major premise, as well as the major premises of the proof; the Doctor gives the reason for the difference in n. 7. First, on the side of divine mercy: “Good works,” he says, “always live in the acceptance of the superabundant divine goodness and mercy, and a reward would always be rendered to them unless the recipient were indisposed by a new fault. The case is otherwise with evil deeds and sins, which are completely removed, so that they remain neither in the divine intellect nor in the divine will in relation to vengeance, once they have been expunged through penance.” Second, he finds the same difference on the side of divine justice: “Sin is remitted only when at least the debt of eternal punishment is commuted into a debt of temporal punishment. Once this commutation is made, ordinarily that fault is never remitted unless that punishment is paid, either in itself or by an equivalent punishment. Consequently, when mortal sin itself has first been remitted and its punishment paid, no right remains by which any punishment for that sin could be exacted from the person. It is otherwise with meritorious works. For after a merit worthy of eternal life, that worthiness for an eternal good is never commuted, according to justice, into a temporal good. Therefore that right never expires until the eternal good has been paid; but that is not paid to a wayfarer while he is a wayfarer. Therefore that right always remains, though it is extinguished through mortal sin, because then the execution of his right is not available to him. Thus the reward of mortified merits is not like the return of remitted sins, not only because of God’s mercy—which is indeed true—but also because of this justice, which there commutes the eternal into the temporal, whereas it does not do so here, namely with respect to mortified good works.”

YOU WILL PRESS: Evil works stand in relation to punishment and vengeance as good works do to reward and recompense; but, as conceded, evil works do not revive in relation to punishment; therefore neither do good works revive in relation to recompense. — “The Doctor denies the major premise and gives this reason for the difference: evil works can be punished temporally, and sufficiently, if eternal punishment has been commuted into temporal punishment; but good merits cannot be sufficiently rewarded by such a temporal commutation, and consequently cannot be rewarded unless the eternal reward itself is conferred. This is never done while one is a wayfarer, and therefore the right to the glory acquired through those merits always remains intact.” Other reasons for the difference may also be given. First, God is more inclined to do good and show mercy than to punish; moreover, he is the author of merits, but not of sins. It is therefore no wonder if merits mortified by sin remain in divine acceptance and revive when the sin that impeded their effect is removed, whereas remitted sins do not remain in the divine intention so as to return formally, with respect to guilt or eternal punishment, through a subsequent mortal sin. Second, the remission of sins is principally God’s work, whereas the mortification of preceding merits is the human being’s work. A person cannot by his own action simply undo God’s work, though he can prevent that work from benefiting him. Therefore, by frequently sinning, he cannot erase the remission of preceding sins; but by his own action he can undo what was done through him, and so, with the help of grace, he can entirely undo the mortification of preceding merits through subsequent merits. Third, Scripture speaks differently of merits and sins. It nowhere says that the merits of a just person are abolished after a fall, cast into the depths of the sea, or the like, as it says of sins remitted through penance.

YOU WILL SAY 2: Sin stands in relation to meritorious works as death and the separation of the soul stand to the human body. For, as we said in the preceding question, just as the body’s life consists in the soul’s union with it, so the life of the soul and the virtues consists in the soul’s union with God through grace. But a dead body cannot revive without a miracle; therefore mortified works cannot revive without a miracle. — I distinguish the major premise: in one respect, I grant it, for as death impedes the body’s movement, effects, and operations, so sins impede the fruit and effect of good works; in a perfect likeness, I deny it, for works done in charity are not mortified in themselves, but because of an impediment supervening on the part of the agent, whereas the body dies in itself, insofar as it is deprived of its principle of life.

Second conclusion. — MORTIFIED WORKS ALWAYS REVIVE THROUGH THE POWER OF PENANCE WITH RESPECT TO ESSENTIAL GLORY, NOT MERELY WITH RESPECT TO ACCIDENTAL GLORY. This is the Doctor’s teaching in the passage cited above, n. 9, where he says: “Universally, every merit is owed not merely some accidental reward, but also an essential one.”

The conclusion is proved from the Council of Trent cited above, where it says: “Eternal life is to be proposed both as grace mercifully promised to the sons through Christ Jesus and as a reward faithfully to be rendered, in accordance with God’s own promise, for their good works and merits.” Now the reward for good works is not merely accidental but essential, and it must be proposed to those who have recovered the grace of God they lost. These are the people in whom works mortified by sin revive through penance. Therefore, and so forth.

The conclusion is proved by an argument: mortified works are said to revive through penance because, when sin is removed, they recover their efficacy to lead the person who performed them to eternal life. For to give them life means nothing other than to have them accepted for glory through grace. But eternal life signifies not merely accidental joy, but an essential reward; accidental joy is rather an appendage of eternal life than eternal life itself. Further, good works are restored to the life they previously had; but life is the substance of a thing, not an accident. Therefore, if merits revive in relation to eternal life, they undoubtedly revive to a substantial reward. Finally, to revive only to accidental glory, or an accidental reward, is merely to confer a right to special joy on account of mortified works. But this is not peculiar to mortified works: it also belongs to works that died before penance was performed, since the blessed will have accidental joy over good works that died—that is, were elicited in the state of mortal sin. For perhaps in view of these works God gave them a spirit of compunction and penance. Indeed, God is often moved by those works, at least by way of congruity, to bestow the grace by which those sinners are drawn to penance; and consequently the blessed will have accidental joy on account of those works. Moreover, these things are true not only of outstanding merits but also of less fervent ones, as the Doctor proves, n. 11, where, having said that glory corresponds not only to grace under the title of inheritance but also to merits under the title of recompense, he adds: “This view, holding that an essential degree of glory corresponds to merit, accords with Scripture, which in many places asserts this principle of divine justice: that he will render to each according to his works, in Psalm 61 and Romans 2; nowhere, however, does it say that he will render to each according to his habit. It also accords with observance of the divine law, since according to it it is useful continually, as far as possible, to perform meritorious works, even if less fervently, so that grace is not immediately increased by them; for a determinate degree of glory corresponds to each merit in God’s acceptance. Nor is it as expedient to preserve grace as to perform a less fervent work by which grace is not increased. For even if the one acting less fervently does not have greater grace through his work than the one sleeping, in whom grace is preserved without such a work, he does not act in vain nor in no way surpass the one who dozes; rather, by what he does, he is already worthy of some eternal good, of which the other is not worthy.” So says the Doctor, teaching that glory corresponds not only to habitual grace but also to merits, and not only to outstanding good works but also to less fervent ones, although a person is not immediately worthy of glory except by reason of sanctifying grace. Hence he infers first that someone worthy of greater glory, speaking of the glory corresponding to merits and of worthiness that is not immediate but remote—as, for example, a right that is suspended—is damned, while another, worthy of far less glory in this way, is saved. This is because the latter has immediate worthiness, since his right is not suspended; he is also worthy of that other glory corresponding to grace, of which the damned person is not worthy. No one is granted what corresponds to merits without what corresponds to grace.

If, moreover, what corresponds to merit is of the same kind as what corresponds to grace, and every merit increases the latter in divine acceptance, then finite merits will correspond to no more glory than what corresponds to that grace. Someone possessing it at a determinate degree would therefore be saved, while someone possessing all these merits, but mortified, would be damned. Thus a person is damned who is worthy, but whose worthiness is remote and suspended; one worthy of far greater glory is therefore damned, while one whose worthiness is immediate and whose glory is far lesser is saved. Nor is this surprising, since while an enemy remains an enemy, no past good works suffice to obtain a reward. He infers secondly that works to which a great degree of glory corresponds cannot, while mortified, merit even the least grace; otherwise someone who had fallen after many merits would already have merited rising from that fall through the first grace to be conferred on him on account of those merits. Nevertheless, I do not think that mortified merits contribute absolutely nothing to God’s acceptance of this fallen person for the gift of first grace. For even if, according to strict justice, this enemy of God is not immediately worthy of any grace or glory, God’s abundant mercy, because of preceding merits, although mortified, grants grace more quickly for rising again. Thus, just as I believe a more perfect degree of grace is lost because of greater ingratitude, so, other things being equal, I believe he rises again more quickly because of the goodness⁵ that in some measure accepts those merits for this purpose. I once heard of a man who had previously been very perfect and afterward fell very deeply; when he had been condemned to death for his crimes, he was most mercifully visited, and the most perfect penance was suddenly inspired in him. This ought strongly to encourage everyone to act meritoriously at all times to the best of his ability, since whether he remains upright or falls, his works will not be wholly forgotten before God. The Doctor’s point is: first, that a degree of glory is owed to less fervent works just as it is to more fervent ones; second, that this debt is only remote if those works are considered apart from sanctifying grace, since glory is immediately owed only to one who departs this life with sanctifying grace. Hence it can happen that someone with only mortified merits preserved in divine acceptance is damned, if he departs this life in mortal sin, and accordingly that a person damned on account of those mortified works has a remote right to glory. Conversely, an adult with a lesser right to glory can be saved if he dies with sanctifying grace, having only less fervent merits. Third, mortified works, however numerous and outstanding, cannot avail to merit first grace de condigno, but only de congruo. For since those mortified works always endure and remain in divine acceptance, God may be attracted and moved by them to confer that first grace, so that those merits may revive through the sinner’s conversion and thus receive the eternal reward due to them.

Third conclusion. — IT IS PROBABLE THAT THROUGH PENANCE THE LOST GRACE DOES NOT REVIVE OR GET RESTORED. This seems to be the Doctor’s view in In IV Sent., d. 22, nn. 9 and 10. For he says: “Setting aside that in glory which corresponds to merits, and calling it B, and separating it from that which corresponds to grace, and calling that A, perhaps A exceeds B. When this person rises again, because all his previous merits live in God’s acceptance, the right and worthiness to all of B return to him; but the right and worthiness to A do not return. Thus the merits revive, but the former grace does not revive, since it had been possessed before; and this is quite consonant with justice, because grace was only God’s gift, whereas merits were in some way the person’s own works.” Therefore those merits are always preserved in God’s acceptance, but grace is not, so as to be ordered through it to some reward; rather, it is so ordered only through grace if he has it now. In these words the Doctor signifies, first, that glory is owed to a person under two titles: as an inheritance by reason of sanctifying grace, and as a reward by reason of good works. Thus, for merits to have an immediate right to glory, the present state of sanctifying grace is sufficient; it is not necessary that the sanctifying grace through which those meritorious works were elicited also be present. Hence it can happen that a person with greater merits and less sanctifying grace obtains greater enjoyment of God than another who had equal grace and lesser merits, since merit establishes a title of its own with respect to glory, distinct from the title of habitual grace. This is gathered from Scripture, which often testifies that glory is promised to good works. Thus Romans 2: “He will render to each according to his works”; Romans 4, v. 4: “To the one who works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace but according to debt”; Hebrews 6, v. 10: “For God is not unjust, that he should forget your work”; Ecclesiasticus 16, v. 15: “Every mercy will make room for each according to the merit of his works.” Scripture very often uses this kind of expression elsewhere. “All divine Scripture,” says Scotus in Reportatio (latest edition), d. 21, single q., n. 8, “cries out that the measure of reward corresponds to meritorious works and not to habits. For, according to the Philosopher, Ethics I, 5, the wretched person is not distinguished from the happy, nor the sleeper from the wakeful, by a habit; but in the Creed it is said that those who have done good will go into eternal life.” Indeed, the promise of the kingdom was made to a person on account of works, not habits: “If you would enter into life, keep the commandments,” says Christ, the Truth, Matthew 19, v. 17; and Matthew 5, v. 3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and so forth. Therefore a work is accepted by God for eternal life on its own account, and not only on account of grace, although it is not accepted unless grace is present. “Supposing,” says the Doctor above in Reportatio, “that a meritorious work could be accepted without grace, so that an act of its kind as an act were acceptable to God, an essential reward and glory would still correspond to it. For every such work would be meritorious and rewardable with eternal life; consequently, a degree of reward corresponds to each degree of meritorious work, and a greater and more intense glory and recompense to a greater degree of merit. As things stand, however, for our works to be acceptable to God and worthy of the reward of eternal life, charity and grace are required, since without them it is impossible to please God. The reward corresponds not to the intention but to the meritorious work elicited according to its inclination. Hence one who has charity alone, without merits and good works, will have as much essential glory and reward as one who has less charity together with many merits and good works. Yet one who has great charity alone, without meritorious works, will not have as much glory as with them, because the reward principally corresponds to them.” This is the Doctor’s teaching.

His opinion can be confirmed by the fact that meritorious works have a special right to eternal glory, distinct from habitual grace. For if those works had that right only from grace and only by reason of it, and were accepted by God in relation to the reward of eternal life, this would occur either through first grace—and this is not so, because first grace is a gift of God and does not confer a right to glory as a reward, as is clear in infants who die with baptismal grace alone—or they would be accepted through second grace, that is, an increase of grace. But this cannot be said, since that increase is a secondary reward of the works themselves, so that through those works grace, once accepted, is preserved and brought to completion. Therefore it is not impossible for someone to have many merits in divine acceptance, and consequently a right to greater glory, even though in fact he does not have, and perhaps will not have after death, more intense grace. For a right founded on good works can remain with respect to glory not yet granted, even if the same right does not remain to grace that was given and lost through sin. Although the execution of the right to glory is impeded by the absence of grace, it returns through even the least degree of grace, since the Council of Trent, sess. VI, can. 33, requires only this condition: “If he dies in grace.” From all this one may infer that the whole right can be recovered—that is, the entire claim to the former right to the glory owed, whether as recompense for good works or as inheritance to be repaid on account of sanctifying grace—without restoring grace once lost.

It is confirmed again: if lost grace had necessarily to be restored when good works revive, this would be chiefly because grace is required for glory either as a prior disposition, or so that a person may be said to be accepted by God in order to obtain this reward, or insofar as charity or grace is a means of attaining the reward. But none of these considerations proves that merits cannot revive with respect to the essential reward alone, even if lost grace is not restored. Not as a disposition, since the grace owed to a merit that revives is not a disposition antecedent to the merit, but rather an effect that follows it. Nor is it an objection that an increase of that grace is granted before glory is bestowed: that increase is granted earlier because it must be given to a wayfarer, whereas glory is granted only after death. Nor must that grace be restored so that mortified works may first become acceptable to God, since nothing else is required for this than that those works were done in grace and have grace joined to them, through which a person becomes acceptable to God. This can happen without restoring the grace that was lost, since the sanctifying grace obtained by the penitent suffices both for mortified works to revive and for them to be accepted by God in relation to eternal life.

I said in the conclusion that this is probable, not certain, although the Doctor seems to lean more toward this assertion. For the opposite opinion is not without probability: namely, that through penance not only do meritorious works revive in relation to glory, but the habitual grace previously lost is also restored. All the Scriptural oracles by which we proved above that meritorious works revive support this opinion, especially Ezekiel 33: “The wickedness of the wicked man will not harm him on whatever day he turns away from his wickedness.” It would harm him greatly, however, if through penance, while the right to glory owed for good works was restored, all the lost sanctifying grace were not also restored, under whose title as inheritance that very glory had been promised. The same may be gathered from the words of Joel 2: “I will repay you for the years that the locust, the cankerworm, the mildew, and the caterpillar consumed.” Commenting on these words, St. Jerome says: “God did not allow the years you had lost within yourselves through the disturbances—that is, the sins—that formerly ruled, when the locust, cankerworm, and caterpillar consumed your works, to perish.” A little later he says: “If after penance God promises such abundance of all things, what will Novatian say, who denies that sinners can do penance and be restored to their former state if they perform works of penance worthily? “For God receives penitents to such an extent that he calls them his people and by no means says that they will be put to shame,” and so forth. They would not be restored to their former state if even the least grace previously possessed were not restored. The parable of Luke 15, “About the Prodigal Son,” can serve the same purpose: when the son comes to his senses, the father commands that the first robe be given back to him. “The father said to his servants: ‘Quickly bring out the first robe,’” and so forth, v. 22. The Fathers understand the robe to mean grace, and “first” to mean the grace he had before sin. For St. Chrysostom says in Homily 4 on Luke: “Then immediately he orders the first robe, or his former glory, to be brought to him, which he had lost when stripped by the devil’s seduction; and at the same time the ring, or seal of the saving symbol, or rather the sign of the dispensation and pledge of those nuptials by which Christ espouses the Church, since every repentant soul is joined to Christ by the ring of faith.”

YOU WILL OBJECT 1. It is unfitting, says the Doctor, n. 9, that everyone rising from mortal sin should rise with greater and more abundant grace than the grace he lost by sinning. But that would be so if the lost grace were restored together with the new grace required for justification and rising from sins. Therefore, and so forth. The Doctor will prove the major premise in two ways. First, if lost grace were restored and a person received it along with new grace in justification, it would follow that whenever he sinned again, he would always sin more gravely, since he would fall from a more exalted state and lose greater graces. Second, he says that first grace can be greater or lesser and, consequently, minimal; but first grace is acquired through penance; therefore it can happen that minimal grace is restored through penance, and consequently a person rising again with the grace received through penance does not necessarily recover all the grace lost. — I ANSWER that the major premise can be denied, since the Doctor put this forward not assertively but only as a doubt; he says, “It seems unfitting,” and so forth. Hence the first argument for his major premise can be denied: it would not follow from it that one who sins again sins more gravely, because the gravity of sin is not derived precisely from the dignity and greater holiness of the sinner, but from the sinful act itself, insofar as it is opposed to a nobler virtue, rectitude, conformity, and tendency toward a more excellent end or object. The Doctor himself teaches this in In II Sent., d. 37, q. 1, n. 9, where he says: “That sin is graver in kind which is opposed to a better rectitude; and that rectitude is better which is more immediately directed to the end, other things being equal … Speaking, however, of the same kind of mortal sin, that sin is graver in which the will sins with greater lust,” and so forth. Add that one may deny that it is unfitting for a person to sin more gravely every time he falls into sin, on account, for example, of the circumstance of greater ingratitude, as we shall say in the following question. Regarding the second argument, I say that one may grant that the grace restored through penance could be minimal insofar as it is obtained through penance; this is not so, however, if we are speaking of grace that is partly acquired anew and partly restored. Given this, a disciple of the Subtle Doctor may, without injury to so great a Master, defend either side: either the affirmative, namely that all habitual grace lost is restored through penance, as many more recent Scotists also teach, especially Bosco, disp. 6, sect. 7, n. 71; or the negative, toward which the Doctor seems to lean more, and which is followed by Durandus, In III Sent., d. 31, q. 2; Almain, d. 22, q. 1; and all the more ancient Scotists, among whom Hiquaeus especially agrees in his Commentary on d. 22, n. 67.

The two opposing opinions could nevertheless, as I conjecture, be reconciled by saying that lost grace is restored, not in its physical being—that is, as a quality and habit constituting us participants in the divine nature and adopted children of God—but in its moral being, or as grace, insofar as through it a just person is accepted for glory by means of good works, whether present or past, that remain in divine acceptance. Thus, when works revive, grace is said to increase, not as a supernatural quality that becomes greater and more intense through the addition of lost grace, as every quality becomes more intense through the addition of another of the same species, but only insofar as it has the formal character of grace—that is, insofar as it makes a person pleasing to God, who accepts his merits in relation to eternal glory to be conferred as a reward and recompense. The Doctor indeed suggests this in the same d. 22, n. 9, where he says: “Grace is not immediately increased by every merit, nor is one who has more merits always in greater grace. Therefore, even if grace alone suffices for some glory, still some degree of glory corresponds to merits at least. Although greater glory corresponds to greater grace without merits than to lesser grace, nevertheless, at any same degree of grace, when merit is added, even if grace is not immediately intensified by it, a degree of glory corresponds to that merit beyond the degree that would correspond precisely to that grace.” So says the Doctor. He thereby signifies that grace can increase in the character of grace, that is, insofar as it makes a person acceptable to God by reason of good works joined to it, even if it is not intensified as a supernatural quality through the addition of further degrees of like grace. The Angelic Doctor teaches the same, I-II, q. 114, a. 8, ad 3, where he says: “By every meritorious act a person merits an increase of grace, just as he merits the consummation of grace, which is eternal life. But just as eternal life is not given immediately, but in its own time, so neither is grace increased immediately, but in its own time, namely when someone has been sufficiently disposed to an increase of grace. From this it is clear that one who has more merits always has greater grace in the order of grace—that is, of acceptance—but not in the order of quality.”

YOU WILL SAY: Whiteness cannot be intensified as whiteness without being intensified as a quality. Therefore grace cannot be increased as grace without also being increased under the aspect of quality. Consequently, if lost grace is restored and becomes greater upon revival under the aspect of grace, then it will be restored and become greater under the aspect of quality as well. — I DENY THE PARITY. The reason for the difference is that the quality by which a person becomes just and pleasing to God does not have this effect by its own nature, but only by divine ordination. Hence a person who has one degree of habitual grace can be accepted by God, either by his sheer divine liberality or in view of meritorious works, for ten degrees of glory. The case is otherwise with whiteness, which by its own nature makes a subject white.

YOU WILL INFER: Therefore an increase of grace in the order of quality is granted in vain, since by reason of one degree of grace God can accept a person for a hundred degrees of glory. — I DENY THE INFERENCE. For grace serves not only to make a person pleasing to God and to render his works pleasing and acceptable in relation to glory, which indeed depends on divine ordination and institution; it also affects the soul, making it more powerful and vigorous for acting, especially for eliciting supernatural acts, which could in no way be elicited without the help and support of such grace. Moreover, grace is an inner splendor of the soul that adorns and illuminates it. Thus, although one degree of grace may be as effective as ten with respect to divine acceptance and glory, it is not so with respect to the power of acting and the soul’s beauty: the more degrees of grace the soul receives, the more powerful it becomes for eliciting supernatural acts, and the more nobly it is illuminated and adorned.

NOTE 1. It can be conceived that sins once remitted return in two ways: first, with respect to their physical entity, if, that is, the very same sinful act numerically, now entirely destroyed, is reproduced; second, with respect to moral deformity and imputation, if, namely, on account of a subsequent sin, God revokes the preceding pardon and remission, so that he calls the sins already remitted back into view and judgment, inasmuch as on their account he regards the sinner with hatred and decrees the punishment due for all those sins, even though remitted. Again, it can be conceived in two ways that a sin already remitted returns with respect to moral deformity: simply, so that the subsequent sin virtually contains in itself all the deformity and debt, both as to guilt and as to punishment, of the earlier offenses; and in a qualified sense, because the subsequent sin becomes more grievous in view of the preceding remission and by reason of the aggravating circumstance of ingratitude. It is certain, however, that a person cannot recall past sinful acts, nor consequently renew past sins with the very same physical entity numerically, and therefore not even with the very same moral deformity that follows upon such an act. Indeed, even this last seems impossible by God’s absolute power. For although God could reproduce the very same entity numerically of a sinful act, just as he could a color or any accident whatever, nevertheless, since he cannot be the author of sin insofar as it is sin, it is evident that through him the same moral deformity and wickedness extinguished by penance cannot be restored. It remains, then, to determine whether it can return virtually, or with respect to imputation, and also with respect to the obligation to undergo punishment.

NOTE 2. Two things are distinguished in mortal sin: turning away from God and turning toward creatures. Turning away from God is common in itself to all mortal sins, because by every mortal sin a person is separated and turned away from God. Hence the stain that arises from the privation of grace, and that brings eternal punishment, belongs to all mortal sins. It is otherwise with turning toward creatures, for mortal sins differ by reason of it: one is the movement of the will by which a person is carried toward a creature through the affection of lust, another that by which he tends toward it through the affection of avarice, envy, and so on. Hence, insofar as turning toward a creature is concerned, a subsequent mortal sin does not restore those earlier sins erased through penance; otherwise, through the sin of avarice a person would be restored to the habit and disposition of prodigality, and thus one contrary would be the cause of its contrary, which is naturally impossible. But as regards what pertains to turning away, it seems to return through a subsequent sin, because through it a person is deprived of God’s grace and becomes liable to eternal punishment, as he was before receiving remission. In this sense St. James said, ch. 3¹: Whoever sins in one thing has become liable for all. Since, however, turning away from God in mortal sin seems to be caused by turning toward a creature—not that it takes its malice and deformity from that turning, since there can be a turning toward a creature without any deformity or defect, when it is not against the divine law and will, but because the aforesaid turning is the matter or occasion of turning away from God—those things that pertain to this turning away are in some way made diverse by comparison with different turnings, as with different causes. Thus the turning away and stain, or the debt, are different according to that different turning and the diversity of the sinful act. Hence it is asked whether the stain and debt of eternal punishment, insofar as they arose from acts of sins previously remitted, return through a subsequent mortal sin that follows pardon and remission, so that someone who had obtained remission through penance for a theft he committed, if he later falls again into the mortal sin of drunkenness, is to be condemned not only for his present drunkenness but also for the theft already remitted.

NOTE 3. As regards the definition of the present controversy, the theologians’ opinions are varied and manifold. For some of the older theologians held that remitted sins return virtually with respect to moral deformity and the debt of guilt and punishment. Hugo of St. Victor seems to subscribe to this view, On the Sacraments, bk. 1, part 2, ch. 9. Some, as the Seraphic Doctor reports, In IV Sent., d. 22, a. 1, q. 1, taught—especially a certain Praepositivus—that sins previously remitted return not through every sin in general, but only through four kinds of sin: hatred of a brother, apostasy from the faith, contempt for confession, and revocation of past penance, that is, when someone regrets having repented. Hence they composed this couplet:

He hates his brothers, becomes an apostate, and scorns to confess;
He regrets having repented; his former guilt returns.

Their reason, says the Seraphic Doctor, is that the Lord remits guilt under four conditions: that the person forgive his neighbor, persevere in the faith, confess his guilt, and detest forever the guilt he committed. Since the agreement is broken when the condition is not met, they say guilt returns when someone sins in one of these ways. Gratian, in Distinction 4, On Penance, examines this question on both sides, though he leans more toward the affirmative. The Master of the Sentences, in Distinction 2, puts forward arguments on both sides and says that authoritative Doctors favor either side; hence he does not dare decide anything. For he says: And so, prejudging neither side, I leave the judgment to the diligent reader, adding that it will be safe for me, and close to salvation, to eat the crumbs under the Lord’s table. The more common opinion among theologians now, however, is that sins once remitted never return with respect to guilt absolutely and simply, but only in a qualified sense, namely, by reason of the circumstance of ingratitude. Therefore two things must be established here: first, that sins truly do not return with respect to guilt; second, that they return by way of an aggravating circumstance.

First conclusion. — SINS ONCE REMITTED THROUGH PENANCE DO NOT RETURN SIMPLY, WITH RESPECT TO THE DEBT OF GUILT AND PUNISHMENT, THROUGH ANY SUBSEQUENT MORTAL SIN. This is the more common and truer opinion. No reason for it can be offered a priori other than that God has so ordained; this divine ordinance is certainly inferred from Scripture and from the common opinion of the Doctors. The Subtle Doctor, who understood this well, says in In IV Sent., d. 22, n. 6: “I say that God ordained that the sins of a penitent be covered after penance, according to St. Augustine’s exposition of Psalm 31: Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered; that is, they are no longer seen for vengeance.”

Again, the Doctor proves this from Nahum 1, where the Vulgate has: The first affliction shall not rise again. The Septuagint renders it: The Lord will not take vengeance twice on the same thing in affliction. Although this testimony is understood literally of the Jewish people, whom God had afflicted by handing the Ten Tribes over to the power of the Assyrians while reserving the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin, to whom God promises that he will not hand them over to the Assyrians, nevertheless the Holy Fathers commonly interpret it of the punishment of sins. Thus St. Jerome, Remigius, Cyril, and Rupert, whom St. Cyprian preceded in his sermon On the Passion of the Lord, where he says: For God does not judge twice for the same thing, but he himself judges and condemns the impatient; the penitent, however, since he receives those judged by themselves, he absolves, and the justice of heaven adds nothing to the judgment pronounced by the severity of human penance. To this end are directed the prayers of the faithful, who ask that their sins be punished in this life, lest they be kept for punishment in the next. Hence St. Paul, in Corinthians 11: When we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened, so that we may not be condemned with this world.

This opinion can be confirmed from those passages of Scripture by which it was proved in the preceding Questions that sins are wholly erased through penance and completely abolished, and that God remembers them no longer. Pope Gelasius also plainly teaches this truth, as reported in Distinction 4, On Penance, final chapter, where he says: Divine clemency does not allow remitted sins to return again for vengeance. St. Prosper also expressly teaches it in his reply to the second objection of the Gauls, where he says: “Every person who, believing in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is governed in baptism is absolved both from his own sins, which he contracted by an evil will, and from original sin, which he contracted from his parents. But one who, after baptism, falls back into infidelity and impious conduct denies that he was cleansed of original sin, and thinks as falsely as one who claims that the same person is not to be condemned to eternal death. For one who departs from Christ and, estranged from grace, ends this life—what does he fall into if not perdition? Yet he does not fall back into what has been remitted, nor will he be condemned for original sin; nevertheless, because of his final crimes he will suffer the death that was due to him on account of those things that were remitted.” These are St. Prosper’s words. From them the conclusion is not only clearly established, but its certainty can also be inferred, since he says that denying this is no less false than denying that an apostate from the faith is to be condemned. Therefore he seems to place both claims at the same level of certainty.

Reason also supports this: what has been wholly extinguished and abolished cannot in any way return; but sins are wholly extinguished and abolished through penance, as was said; therefore they cannot return. — Furthermore, if sins remitted through penance were to return again through a subsequent sin, whenever a person confessed any mortal sin he would also be bound to confess at once all the mortal sins committed throughout his life. For a sinner cannot obtain absolution and remission of sins unless he has confessed them. But the consequence is absurd and was condemned by Benedict XII in the Extravagant Inter cunctos. For there he defines that it is absurd for anyone to have to confess again sins remitted through penance, and for a debtor who has been released to remain bound to pay. — Finally, if actual sins remitted through penance could return, original sin removed by baptism would also return, since the same reasoning applies to original sin as to actual sins. But this cannot be said. For if original sin returned, it would have to be removed by some sacrament, either penance or baptism. Neither can be said: not by penance, since this was instituted as a remedy not for original sin but only for actual sins committed after baptism; nor by baptism, since baptism must not be repeated. Therefore that sin would have to remain indelible, which is absurd.

YOU WILL OBJECT 1. There are various passages of Scripture that signify that sins come back to life and are restored again, especially Psalm 108: Let the iniquity of his fathers return to the memory of the Lord. Explaining this Psalm as referring to Judas the traitor, St. Augustine says: If Judas had held fast to that to which he was called, in no way would the iniquity of his past or of his parents have pertained to him. But because he did not hold fast to his adoption into the family of God, but to the iniquity of his ancient stock, the iniquity of his parents returned to the memory of the Lord, so that he himself too might be punished in him. Likewise, in 1 Kings, ch. 17, the woman of Zarephath says to Elijah: What have I to do with you, man of God? Have you come to me so that my iniquities might be remembered and you might kill my son? — I ANSWER, these and similar oracles of Scripture signify nothing other than that the iniquities of parents return to God’s memory in the sight of God for the sake of their children—not as regards guilt, but as regards temporal punishment, by which God is accustomed to visit and chastise the sins of parents in their children. Hence Tobias, ch. 3, prayed: Lord, remember me, and do not take vengeance for my sins; do not remember my offenses or those of my parents. The passage, however, does not speak of sins returning with respect to the debt of guilt and eternal punishment.

YOU WILL OBJECT 2. The parable recounted in Matthew 18: although the Lord had forgiven the wicked servant his entire debt, afterward, upon hearing of his cruelty to his fellow servant, he revoked that forgiveness and handed the servant over to be sent to prison and tortured, saying: Let him not come out from there until he has paid the entire debt. Therefore, since the Lord himself testifies there, “So will my heavenly Father do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your hearts,” it follows that at least through the sin of cruelty committed, the other sins return with the same imputation and obligation to punishment. This is confirmed by St. James, who says in ch. 2: Whoever sins in one thing has become liable for all. — I ANSWER, first, that in parables only those features are to be applied to the matter at hand that their purpose requires. In this parable Christ intends only to make clear that those who refuse to grant forgiveness to a neighbor who begs for it are wrong to ask God for forgiveness of sin. For it is certain that not everything expressed in the parable can apply to God, since that lord is said to be unaware of his servant’s cruelty toward his fellow servants, which certainly cannot be said of God. Hence through that parable Christ the Lord meant only to signify that God is gravely offended by someone unwilling to forgive offenses committed against him, and that the sin of mercilessness is to be punished most severely, in keeping with St. James’s words: Judgment without mercy for the one who does not show mercy. — I answer secondly with the Doctor that, if this parable is understood to concern the return of sin, that debt must be understood as damnation with respect to the duration of punishment, which revives equivalently through the subsequent sin, since the punishment due to it is eternal in duration. The punishment due to earlier sins, already remitted, does not return in its intensity, so that the man is tortured more severely on account of the remitted sins. As the Doctor says in d. 22, n. 20: “He handed him over to the torturers until he should pay the entire debt”: I understand this as bearing on the present point, because he would not then pay the entire debt except by paying the punishment of damnation, for which he is sent into that prison of the damned. Thus, for the present point, the one who falls again is sentenced to the same punishment of damnation that he would have had on account of his earlier, previously remitted sins, equal in duration, since it lasts until he pays, etc.; but it does not follow that it is equal in intensity.” To the confirmation he replies in the same way, n. 21. In his words, St. James’s authority is to be understood “with respect to damnation, which is the general punishment for all mortal sins. Or, alternatively, he has become liable for all with respect to turning away from the ultimate end, which turning away is indeed common to every mortal sin; but it is not to be understood that he has become liable for all with respect to the gravity of each individual sin”.

YOU WILL OBJECT 3. All those authorities of the Holy Fathers that the Master of the Sentences adduces in favor of the affirmative opinion. The first is St. Ambrose’s commentary on the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, where he says: Forgive one another, if one sins against another; otherwise God reclaims what he has forgiven. For if he is scorned in these matters, he will without doubt revoke the sentence by which he was to show mercy, as is read in the Gospel about the wicked servant who was found to be cruel toward his fellow servant. St. Augustine teaches the same in Homily 15, On the Words of the Lord: “The Lord said, ‘Forgive, and you will be forgiven.’ If I forgave first, forgive afterward too; for if you do not forgive, I will recall you, and whatever I had forgiven you, I will exact from you again.” And in bk. 1, On Baptism, against the Donatists, ch. 12: The Gospel story of the servant to whom the Lord forgave everything when he begged, after finding him to owe ten thousand talents, but then ordered him, because he had not pitied his fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii, to repay what had been forgiven him, teaches most plainly that remitted sins return where brotherly charity is absent. St. Gregory likewise subscribes to this, bk. 4, Dialogues, final chapter: It is clear from the Gospel sayings that if we do not forgive from the heart what is done against us, what we rejoiced had already been forgiven us through penance is exacted again. Likewise Bede, bk. 4, On Luke, ch. 48, explaining the words of the demon who says, “I will return to my house,” etc., says: That little verse is to be feared, not explained, lest the guilt we believed extinguished in us overwhelm us while we are idle through carelessness. — THE DOCTOR REPLIES in the place cited just above that the Holy Fathers are to be understood as speaking of sins returning with respect to the duration of eternal punishment, which is aggravated by reason of the circumstance of ingratitude arising from earlier remitted sins. Or I say that the Holy Fathers speak of sins returning with respect to the circumstance of ingratitude, or with respect to equivalent guilt and punishment, because through a subsequent sin a similar eternal punishment of sense and loss is incurred.

YOU WILL OBJECT 4. If someone, contrite for a sin, later scorns to confess, either the same sin remitted through contrition returns—and so the point is established—or it does not return, and then the sin will have been remitted without the second and third parts of penance, which is inadmissible. — The Doctor replies, n. 21, in two ways: “First, he says, it can be said that if someone who was previously contrite later scorns to confess, he sins by a new mortal sin in that scorn. Nevertheless, the guilt remitted through contrition does not return; I say, it does not return as to malice or as to the debt. Only the temporal punishment due to that sin remains, although the punishment of damnation is due for the new mortal sin. In another way, it could be said that the punishment for the sin is considered complete; understand “complete” with respect to the three parts of penance: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Then the punishment of damnation has been changed into temporal punishment. It is not so, however, in the case of a sin for which one has contrition without the other two parts of penance.” — Behold the two replies: “But the first, the Doctor says, is more fitting, because the sin is simply erased in contrition, so that nothing remains but the obligation to temporal punishment. If contempt for satisfaction or confession follows afterward, it is a new mortal sin, aggravated on account of the earlier guilt remitted through contrition.”

YOU WILL OBJECT FINALLY: Sins are spiritual darknesses in the mind; but the very same darknesses numerically can return, because a privation is distinguished numerically according to the distinction of the habit or form of which it is the privation, or of the subject in which it inheres. But subsequent darknesses have the same subject as the preceding darknesses, and are privations of the very same light numerically, for the same light numerically would remain if there were no darknesses; therefore, etc. — The Doctor denies the minor, n. 22: “For the same darkness numerically cannot return, at least by nature, because the same negation cannot exist, just as neither can the same affirmation, when there is an interruption on either side. To the proof I say that the unity of the subject and of the opposed habit is not sufficient for the unity of a privation; rather, the unity of continuity of the same thing in the subject is required, in the way in which it can have being in the subject. This is clear by analogy: the unity of an affirmation is not sufficient for the unity of a negation, since not-Socrates, which is the negation of one affirmation numerically, can be not only many things numerically but also many things in species and in genus, as many as there are beings that are not Socrates. So too, a privation can be of the same form and yet not be the same; it can also be multiplied in the same subject if there is an interruption, just as its habit would be multiplied if it inhered in that subject with an interruption. Whether it be positive, privative, or negative, to restore the same thing numerically belongs to the infinite power of God alone, to whom be glory, etc.”.

Second conclusion. — SINS ONCE REMITTED RETURN IN A QUALIFIED SENSE ON ACCOUNT OF A SUBSEQUENT SIN, BY REASON OF AN AGGRAVATING CIRCUMSTANCE. This is the more common opinion among theologians, and it

The Doctor explains and proves in d. 22, n. 14. First, because a subsequent sin has attached to it the circumstance of ingratitude, by reason of which it is more grievous: for ingratitude is a vice in itself. The more vices, or circumstances of vices, concur in an act of sin, the more grievous the sin is and the greater the punishment by which it must be punished. Moreover, one who sins after receiving the grace of remission is truly ungrateful. For, as Seneca says, bk. 3, On Benefits: He is ungrateful who denies that he has received a benefit; ungrateful who conceals it; ungrateful who does not repay it; most ungrateful of all is the one who has forgotten it. But one who falls into sin again not only fails to repay the good for the benefit of remission; he also repays it with evil. Consequently, he sins more grievously on account of ingratitude for the remission received. The Doctor proves the minor premise: “Because, he says, the greater the benefit someone receives from another, the more undeserved it is for him, the more he is bound by the law of gratitude, even if the benefit received is small; and consequently all the more so if the benefit is equal. But God owes nothing to someone in mortal sin except punishment. Therefore, if he bestows grace on him, this will be a gift given most graciously and freely, especially if it is grace equal to that bestowed on another innocent person. Therefore, by the law of gratitude this man is specially bound to God on account of this freely bestowed gift; and consequently, if he later offends him, he sins more grievously against him through ingratitude.” — Second, the Doctor repeats that the greater gravity arises from a more notable transgression: “Because, he says, the more obligations someone is bound by to do something, the more grievously he sins if he transgresses. But whenever a penitent repents worthily, he binds himself at least by a vow not to sin in the future, since without such a purpose his penance is not worthy; and besides this, he is bound not to sin by the same law as an innocent person. Therefore, if he sins afterward, he will transgress two laws obliging him not to transgress: the general law by which we are all bound not to sin, and this special one of keeping a promise, which is especially binding when the promise is made to God and concerns something pertaining to God’s honor.” By these arguments the Doctor explains why a sinner who falls again sins more grievously: not only because he is forgetful of the benefit received, but also because he is unfaithful and inconstant in keeping the promise he made when he repented, namely, that he would sin no more. By the term promise, however, the Doctor does not mean a vow properly so called; otherwise every mortal sin after penance would be sacrilege. Rather, he means the obligation founded on the purpose not to sin again. The penitent is bound to observe this promise by the law of fidelity, or of keeping faith with God, at least by the constancy and firmness to be maintained. The reason for this requires a person to remain constant in a good purpose and to remain the same in himself against all difficulties that arise, for as long as reason dictates. Since, then, remission of sin does not take place without that purpose not to sin thereafter, and reason dictates that one must never depart from this purpose, it follows that one who falls again after penance sins against the virtue of constancy through the sin of inconstancy—something by which he did not sin when he first fell from the innocence restored through baptism.

THE DOCTOR OBJECTS: That which, even if it did not exist—or indeed if its opposite were posited—would leave the sin equally grave, or even more grave, does not aggravate it. But if a person had never repented and had always preserved his innocence, he would sin more gravely by losing his innocence than he sins after receiving remission in penance. Therefore, etc. The major premise is established. The Doctor proves the minor premise, n. 15: “Because, he says, one who falls from a state of innocence sins more gravely than one who falls from a state of penance: first, because an innocent person has less occasion to fall; second, because the one to whom God preserved innocence receives a greater benefit than the one to whom he granted penance after sin.” — THE DOCTOR REPLIES that preserving innocence and preventing someone from falling into sin is indeed simply a greater benefit than granting pardon after a fall. Hence, he says, God conferred a greater benefit on his Mother by preserving her from every sin than on Magdalene by giving her penance; and among the Blessed, the singular glory and adornment that come from the benefit of innocence are not possessed by the others who were saved through penance. In reply to the argument, then, he denies the major premise: “Because, he says, it is possible for a sin to have now one aggravating circumstance and now another, and the one that aggravates in that case can be graver than the one that aggravates in this case. That is, a homicide, for example, committed after innocence or after penance can in either case have an aggravating circumstance, although one is greater than the other and both cannot subsist together. For one who falls from innocence through homicide does not fall from the state of grace received through penance, because the grace of remission and the grace of penance cannot exist together: innocence does not coexist with penance, nor penance with innocence. For one who is innocent does not need penance, and one who needs penance is not innocent. Although homicide in either case shares the circumstance of ingratitude, since in both a person offends God his benefactor, and through the subsequent sin assails and destroys the benefit both of innocence and of remission from sin, nevertheless, since the grace of preserved innocence is a far greater benefit than the grace of justice restored through penance, it follows that one who falls from innocence sins more gravely. Therefore the major premise is false.”

THE DOCTOR PRESSES against the preceding solution from the parable in Luke 7, where Christ the Lord, addressing Simon the leper on the occasion of the penitent Magdalene, says: Two debtors owed something to a certain moneylender: one owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty. Since they had nothing with which to repay, he forgave both. Which of them, then, will love him more? Simon answered, “I suppose the one to whom he forgave more.” Christ approved this answer and added: You have judged rightly. “But, the Doctor says, God forgives nothing in this way to an innocent person, whereas he forgives much to a sinner. Therefore the sinner is more indebted to God; thus, when he falls again, he is simply more ungrateful.” — THE DOCTOR REPLIES, n. 16, that the word forgive is equivocal and can be understood in two ways: “To give, he says, can be understood absolutely, as an act of a will freely imparting something; or “to give” can mean to pardon or remit, as it is understood when one says, “he forgave sins.” In the first sense it is true that the one who is given more is more indebted to the giver; and in this sense I say that God gave a greater gift to the innocent than to the one whose sin he remits. In the second sense he gives more to the penitent than to the innocent, because the innocent has nothing to be remitted to him. And if the major premise is added—that the one to whom more is given, that is, remitted, is bound to love more—this is true when comparing two people, one of whom is forgiven fewer things and the other more, and that is so if no other benefit has been given except this one, namely, forgiving or remitting. But there is no one to whom God forgives little because he committed little, without his also having been given another benefit greater than forgiving, that is, remitting, more sins: namely, preserving him from other sins into which he could have fallen and would have fallen had God not preserved him.” This is most aptly confirmed by two authorities of St. Augustine. The first is drawn from bk. 2 of the Confessions, ch. 7, where he says: I attribute to your grace and your mercy, speaking to God, that you melted my sins as if they were ice. I attribute to your grace, too, whatever evil I did not do. For what could I not have done, when I even loved a freely committed crime? I acknowledge that all my sins were forgiven me, both the evil things I did of my own accord and those I did not do with you as my guide. Who among human beings, reflecting on his own weakness, dares to attribute his chastity and innocence to his own strength, so as to love you less, as though your mercy, by which you forgive the sins of those who turn to you, had been less necessary to him? And a little later: And therefore let him love you just as much, indeed more, because through the one by whom he sees me freed from such great sicknesses of sin, he sees himself kept from becoming entangled in such great sicknesses of sin. The second authority is found in bk. 50, Homily 23: Your God says this to you: I was guiding you for myself, I was keeping you for myself, so that you would not commit adultery. The tempter was absent, and I brought it about that the tempter was absent. Place and time were lacking, and I brought it about that they were lacking. The tempter was present, and neither place nor time was lacking; I held you back so that you would not consent. Acknowledge, then, the grace of the one to whom you owe even what you did not commit. This man (the sinner) owes me what you saw committed and forgiven; you too (the one preserved from sin) owe me what you did not commit. For there is no sin committed by one human being that another human being could not commit, if the Ruler by whom the human being was made were absent.

The Doctor confirms this with an example: “If someone, he says, freely grants one person all his possessions, to use them as he pleases, but lends another only some things and later, when he must return them, remits the debt, which of them loves him more? I say, the first, because he received the greater benefit, even though more is remitted to the other. But the fact that the first has nothing to be remitted to him comes from the benefit of the one who freely granted him everything. Hence the proposition, ‘The more one is forgiven, the more one loves the forgiver,’ is not simply true, unless it is about a forgiver whose benefit is not the reason why this person is not bound as much as the other.”

St. Cyprian clearly explains that the preservation of innocence is truly a far nobler and greater gift than its restoration and repair through penance, in Epistle 85, where among other things he says: The first degree of blessedness is not to sin; the second is to recognize sins and repent of them. In the former, entire and unstained innocence perseveres; in the latter, a remedy that heals comes afterward. And Hugo of St. Victor, bk. 2, On the Sacraments, part 11, ch. 4: If it is a great thing, he says, to rise at some time, it is certainly greater never to have fallen. If it is good to be holy, it is better never to have been corrupted.

Reason also supports this: to be preserved from sin is a special benefit from God, because it contributes more to the fruit and salvation of the one preserved, joins him more perfectly to the end, and contains more perfectly the effect of the grace of penance, namely, preservation from sin. This is clear from the example of the most blessed Virgin, whose distinguished and singular prerogative was not to sin and, through God’s exceptional protection and fullness of grace, to be preserved from every sin, both original and actual. It is also clear from the example of the Blessed, whose greatest perfection is to be free from every sin and entirely unable to sin, at least proximately. As a result, they draw nearer to divine perfection and reflect the divine characteristics more nobly by adumbrating holiness. Likewise, innocence joins a person far more perfectly to the end, because through it a person is placed not only in a state, but also in the actuality of merit, when he is preserved. For he is not merely recalled from a fall, as from an impediment that removes him from the end; he also has the fruit of his justice as regards the merit of grace and glory. Since, that is, he has nothing that could remove him from union with God, it follows that an innocent person can be advanced to the enjoyment of God more easily than a penitent.

YOU WILL SAY 2: Ingratitude, unfaithfulness, and inconstancy are sins distinct from the others. Therefore, if the sin of falling again has ingratitude and inconstancy attached to it, the remitted sin returns not only in a qualified sense but also simply. Moreover, it follows that the subsequent sin is not one sin but several. But this is false; otherwise, whenever someone confesses a sin, he would also have to confess ingratitude and inconstancy, or unfaithfulness toward God. This is not done; consequently, it is not true that the sin of falling again has the sin of ingratitude, etc., attached to it.

I ANSWER, ingratitude can be considered in two ways. First, insofar as someone sins with the intention of scorning a benefit or inflicting an injury on a benefactor—for example, if someone were so corrupt in his morals that he sinned with the intention of offending God and doing him an injury. In this respect ingratitude is a special sin. Second, ingratitude is considered when someone sins against a benefactor from whom he received a benefit, but not with the intention of scorning the benefit received or the benefactor; rather, he does so to satisfy his own lust. Hence I distinguish the major premise: ingratitude taken in the first sense is a special sin, I grant; in the second sense, I deny it. As the Doctor says, n. 18, ordinarily “one does not sin by the sin of ingratitude in the first sense, because the sinner ordinarily desires nothing except pleasure, albeit in a disordered way, and would wish that pleasure were not accompanied by so many prohibitions. In this way disobedience, contempt, hatred of God, ingratitude, and the like are joined to every sin—not because the sinner then has an elicited act pertaining to each one of these, but implicitly, insofar as he wills something to which all these things are in some way concomitant. I therefore grant that one who falls again can sin by a single sin.”

“And when you infer, ‘Therefore he could have sinned just as gravely the first time, when he fell from innocence,’ I grant this with respect to the circumstance of ingratitude and the greater number of obligations; nevertheless, at that time he would have sinned more gravely with respect to another circumstance, because someone who falls from innocence is more ungrateful than someone who falls after penance.” To the second part of the inference, the Doctor replies, n. 19, that although it is permissible and perhaps useful to confess earlier sins on account of aggravating circumstances, “It does not seem necessary, he says, to confess those sins specifically, because insofar as they aggravate they can be sufficiently expressed in confession without specifically stating those previously remitted sins: one can say, ‘I repented of many and great sins before, and I believe God had forgiven me; therefore I was more ungrateful in sinning now.’”

THE DOCTOR PRESSES: If a subsequent sin is more grievous by reason of ingratitude and inconstancy, it follows that if someone has sinned several times—for example, ten times—and repented each time, then if he falls into sin again, that eleventh sin will be ten times graver than the first. “Because, he says, on account of each remitted sin he is bound not to fall, and there is a particular ingratitude in each fall; consequently the last sin is far graver than the others. But this is absurd; therefore, etc.”

THE DOCTOR REPLIES BY distinguishing the major premise: that it is more grievous by reason of ingratitude as though this were a distinct sin, on account of an increase in that malice, I deny; that it is more grievous by reason of the circumstance, I grant. “No circumstance, he says, can have such great malice that it equals the malice of some particular mortal sin. Yet it can become greater as a circumstance of ingratitude, since it concerns a greater benefit. For it is a greater benefit to grant pardon to a sinner ten times than five or six times, because the more often a sinner offends God, the less worthy of pardon he shows himself to be, and consequently the greater the mercy needed for pardon to be granted to him.”

THE DOCTOR PRESSES: “If a circumstance aggravates a sin, it follows that it confers some malice on it; therefore, through repeated ingratitude, this malice can be increased so much that it equals the malice of a particular sin. The consequence is evident, because a circumstance that changes the species sometimes aggravates a sin in its species more than the object itself does.” — I ANSWER, denying the consequence: for a circumstance is related to a sin as an accident in its own genus, which cannot be compared with the substance of the act it presupposes, and whose malice grows by reason of the circumstance. But a circumstance that changes the species, although it is such with respect to the person acting—inasmuch as, for another end, for example, homicide, he killed someone whom he knew to be a priest—nevertheless regards that act insofar as it is the matter of a proper virtue, such as Religion. Although it comes in indirectly with respect to the murderer’s intention, it falls directly upon the matter by its own prohibition, which includes the sacred person and his immunity.