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

NOTE 1. Satisfaction is an action by which an inequality arising from an injury inflicted on another is repaired. In this it differs from restitution, by which an inequality arising from another’s property being taken against its owner’s will is repaired, and from satispassion, which is a kind of undergoing punishment prescribed and inflicted by someone else. Hence a defendant, when he undergoes the punishments prescribed for him by a judge, does not so much make satisfaction as have satisfaction exacted from him. But when a sinner offends God, he creates a twofold inequality: one by making a creature his ultimate end, thereby incurring liability to eternal punishment; the other by indulging his own will too much and taking disordered pleasure in possessing and enjoying a creature. The first inequality is removed either through contrition or through attrition together with the sacrament of penance; the second remains to be repaired through due satisfaction.

NOTE 2. Satisfaction in general is the payment of a debt. The Subtle Doctor defines it in In I Sent., d. 3, n. 4, as “the voluntary rendering of an equivalent, otherwise not owed”; the Doctor explains the particulars of this definition there. First, it is called rendering both to distinguish it from a simple gift—for rendering is not a simple gift but the payment of a debt—and also to signify that satisfaction is an act of justice directed toward another, since properly no one renders something to himself. Second, it is called voluntary both because it is an act of the virtue of justice, and every act of a moral virtue must be voluntary, and because every rendering that is not voluntary is more properly called satispassion than satisfaction. Third, it is called an equivalent, for what is rendered through satisfaction must have a certain equality with the debt, either according to geometrical proportion, by which distributive justice requires greater satisfaction to a more worthy person who has been injured than to one less worthy, or according to arithmetical proportion, by which commutative justice gives as much for as much—for example, one hundred gold coins are paid for an equal debt. When satisfaction has all these conditions, it is called perfect. When equality is lacking, it is called de congruo (“by fittingness”), because the creditor is not bound in justice to accept it, but only by liberality and fitness. When it is made equal, but from goods granted by the creditor, it is called ex condigno (“by condignity”), because although what is rendered comes from the creditor’s grace, the price rendered truly is equivalent to the debt.

NOTE 3. Satisfaction for sins is generally divided into two kinds: sacramental and non-sacramental. According to the Council of Trent, sess. XIV, ch. 8, the former “is an action by which, in the sacrament of penance, we render God some compensation for sins, according to the prescription and judgment of the priest.” The latter is an action by which a person tries to make satisfaction to God for sins committed against Him, either by prescribing punishments for himself or by steadfastly enduring those imposed by the Church. The Doctor defines both, d. 15, q. 1, n. 11, as follows: “Satisfaction is an arduous exterior or penal operation, voluntarily undertaken to punish a sin committed by oneself and thereby to appease the offense against God; or it is a suffering, or punishment, voluntarily endured for that end.”

Moreover, we are speaking here of both kinds, inquiring whether it is necessary and useful to make satisfaction to God for sins. The Lutherans and Calvinists, together with the founders of their heresies, defend the negative position. For Luther, in many places but especially in his sermon On Indulgences, delivered in 1518, asserts that it cannot be gathered from any Scripture that divine justice requires penance or satisfaction from the sinner, and that medicinal and satisfactory punishments are a human invention and nonsense. In On the Babylonian Captivity, speaking of Catholics, he says: “They do not understand what true satisfaction is, and so exalt it that they leave no place for faith in Christ, while they most miserably torment the consciences of the people: one running to Rome, another here, another there; one to a Carthusian house, another to some other place; one scourging himself with rods, another killing his body with vigils and fasts. What monsters, Roman See, must we thank you for? You have ruined the whole world in this way: a person thinks he can make satisfaction to God for sins by works, when satisfaction is made by faith alone.”

His followers think the same: Melanchthon in the Apology, and Chemnitz in his Examination of the Council of Trent, on ch. 8. Calvin likewise says in book 3 of the Institutes, ch. 1, nn. 25–30, after spewing many insults with a venomous tongue against the Doctors of Theology for defending satisfaction for sins, in n. 27: “Now you are close to their pestilential stronghold: God alone works in the first remission of sins, but if we fall afterward, our works cooperate in obtaining a second pardon. If this is allowed, do the things attributed above to Christ remain intact for Him?” He says how vastly different it is “to say that our iniquities were laid upon Christ so that they might be expiated in Him, and that they are expiated by our works; to say that Christ is the propitiation for our sins, and that God is propitiated by works.” In n. 28, showing that satisfaction for all sins is impossible, he says: “Whom, then, do they think they can find to make satisfaction amid such a heap of sins? If one day’s satisfaction were required for one sin, while they are considering that, they entangle themselves in many more; for not a day passes, even for the most righteous person, without his slipping several times. But when they set about making satisfaction for these, they will pile up numerous, or rather innumerable, sins. Their confidence in making satisfaction has already been cut off; why do they hesitate? How dare they still think of making satisfaction?”

Against all these errors, two points must be established in this Question: first, that satisfaction for sins is necessary; second, that it is useful for remitting the eternal punishment and the temporal punishment due for sins after guilt has been remitted.

First conclusion. — IT IS INDEED NECESSARY FOR A PERSON TO MAKE SATISFACTION TO GOD FOR SINS THROUGH GOOD AND AFFLICTIVE WORKS.

This truth is established and confirmed by countless declarations of Scripture, in which the holy Prophets and Apostles exhort people to expiate their sins through meritorious and satisfactory works. Thus Daniel, ch. 4, admonished Nebuchadnezzar: Redeem your sins with almsgiving, and your iniquities with mercy toward the poor. Thus in Matthew 3, St. John the Baptist, addressing the Sadducees and Pharisees who came to his baptism, said: Brood of vipers, who showed you how to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore produce fruits worthy of penance. And in Acts 26 the Apostles announced to Jews and Gentiles that they should do penance and turn to God, performing works worthy of penance. There are many similar declarations in the sacred Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testaments, in which, beyond conversion of mind and a new way of life, satisfactory and afflictive works are required, such as fasting, weeping, and mourning; and penitents are admonished to clothe themselves in sackcloth, cover their heads with ashes, and mortify their limbs.

The Council of Trent proves this truth in several ways, sess. XIV, ch. 8: “Especially because it is fitting to divine clemency that sins should not be forgiven us without any satisfaction, lest, taking the occasion, we should think sins lighter and, showing contempt and irreverence toward the Holy Spirit, fall into graver sins, thus storing up wrath for ourselves on the day of wrath. For these satisfactory punishments undoubtedly draw us back from sin in a powerful way and restrain us, as if by a kind of bridle; they make penitents more cautious and vigilant for the future, heal the remnants of sins, and remove vicious habits acquired through bad living by means of contrary acts of virtue. Nor has any safer way ever been thought to exist in the Church of God for averting the punishment impending from the Lord than that people frequently perform these works of penance with true sorrow of heart. In addition, when we suffer in making satisfaction for sins, we are conformed to Jesus Christ, who made satisfaction for our sins, and from whom all our sufficiency comes; and from this we also have the surest pledge that, if we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified with Him. Nor is this satisfaction of ours, which we discharge for our sins, so ours that it is not through Jesus Christ. For we can do nothing of ourselves, as of ourselves, but with the cooperation of Him who strengthens us, we can do all things. Thus a person has no ground for boasting, but all our glorying is in Christ, in whom we live, in whom we merit, in whom we make satisfaction, as we produce fruits worthy of penance, which derive their power from Him, are offered to the Father by Him, and are accepted by the Father through Him. Therefore the priests of the Lord ought, as the spirit and prudence suggest, to impose salutary and fitting satisfactions according to the kind of offenses and the means of the penitents, lest, if they connive at sins and deal too indulgently with penitents by imposing very light works for very grave offenses, they become participants in the sins of others. They should keep in view that the satisfaction they impose is not only for the preservation of new life and as a remedy for weakness, but also for the vengeance and chastisement of past sins; for the ancient Fathers both believe and teach that the keys of priests were granted not only for loosing but also for binding. Nor did they therefore think the sacrament of penance a tribunal of wrath or punishments; just as no Catholic has ever thought that the power of merit and satisfaction of our Lord Jesus Christ is obscured or in any way diminished by such satisfactions of ours. The Innovators refuse to understand this, and teach that the best penance is a new life in such a way as to abolish all the force and use of satisfaction.” Thus the Council commends not only the necessity but also the usefulness of satisfaction: first, because it draws us back from sin; second, because it appeases and reconciles the Lord, who is angered at us; third, because it obtains for us the merit of the Passion of Christ our Lord and conforms us to Christ in His suffering; fourth, because, offered with Christ and through Christ to God the Father, it moves Him to show us mercy; fifth, because it serves not only to preserve new life and remedy weakness, but also to avenge and chastise past sins.

The same is proved from the Church’s constant and perpetual practice, as can be gathered from Tertullian, On Penance, ch. 9, where he says: “The business of this second and only penance is all the more arduous the more restricted it is, and its proof must therefore be all the more laborious, so that it is not displayed by conscience alone but also carried out by some action. This action, expressed and commonly used more by its Greek name, is exomologesis, by which we confess our offense to the Lord—not as though He were unaware, but because satisfaction is arranged through confession, penance arises from confession, and God is appeased by penance. Thus exomologesis is the discipline of prostrating and humbling a person, enjoining conversion and enticing mercy. It prescribes even his clothing and food: to lie in sackcloth and ashes, to darken the body with filth, to cast down the soul with grief, to change by a sorrowful discipline those things through which he sinned; moreover, to know no pure food or drink, not for the belly’s sake, of course, but for the soul’s; often to nourish prayers with fasts, to groan, weep, and cry aloud to the Lord your God day and night, to prostrate oneself before priests, kneel before God’s beloved, and charge all the brethren with carrying one’s petitions. All these things commend the penitent’s exomologesis: through fear of danger it honors the Lord, and, pronouncing judgment upon the sinner, itself serves in place of God’s indignation; by temporal affliction it does not merely frustrate but cancels eternal punishments. For when it casts a person down, it raises him up more; when it makes him filthy, it renders him cleaner; when it accuses, it excuses; when it condemns, it absolves. Believe that in the measure in which you have not spared yourself, God will spare you.” Origen teaches the same in homily 15 on Leviticus, where he calls afflictive works “the price by which sins are redeemed.” St. Cyprian likewise says in his sermon On the Lapsed, among other things: “Let each confess his offense while the one who sinned is still in this world, while his confession can still be received, while satisfaction and remission performed through priests are pleasing to the Lord. Let them turn to the Lord with their whole mind, express their penance for the offense with true sorrow, and implore God’s mercy; let the person prostrate his soul before Him, satisfy Him with grief, and place his hope in Him. He Himself tells us how we ought to pray: ‘Turn to me,’ He says, ‘with your whole heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts and not your garments.’ Let us return to the Lord with our whole heart; let us appease His anger and offense with fasts, weeping, and mourning, as He Himself admonishes. And further: ‘As great as our offenses have been, so greatly let us weep; let careful and long-lasting medicine not be lacking for a deep wound; let penance not be less than the offense. Do you think you can appease the Lord, whom you denied with deceitful words, to whom you preferred your estate, whose temple you violated by sacrilegious defilement? Do you think He will easily show mercy to you, when you said that you did not belong to Him? We must pray more earnestly and entreat Him, spend the day in mourning, pass the nights in vigils and tears, occupy all our time with tearful lamentations, lie prostrate on the ground in ashes, roll in sackcloth and filth; after losing Christ’s garment, no longer desire any clothing here; after the devil’s food, prefer fasting; devote ourselves to righteous works by which sins are cleansed; persist in almsgiving, by which souls are freed from death.’” The holy Chrysostom, Ambrose, Eligius, Augustine, and many others flourishing in every age teach the same, as is already clear from what we have said: the essence of penance consists especially in the disposition of justice that avenges and punishes sin through afflictive and penal works.

HERETICS REPLY that afflictive works are indeed commended both by Scripture and by the Fathers, but not for their own sake; rather, they are commended on account of the charity, faith, and piety they presuppose in order to be pleasing and acceptable to God. Second, they say that the Fathers spoke hyperbolically, and therefore extolled satisfactory works more than was fitting, in order to stir the people more strongly to penance. Third, they say that the practices of penance commended by the Fathers are nothing other than prayers and petitions by which God must be entreated and moved to grant pardon for sins committed, and are not true and legitimate compensations. — But how futile these evasions are is clear. For although good afflictive and satisfactory works presuppose faith and charity, from which they obtain their merit, nevertheless the holy Fathers consistently call them prices by which sins are redeemed and compensations for sins. To the second I say that if the sayings of the holy Fathers may so easily be twisted into a hyperbolic sense, nothing certain can be drawn from their teaching to confirm and explain the dogmas of the faith. To the third I say that it is sufficiently clear from the passages of the holy Fathers we have cited that such satisfactory works are called compensations and acts of justice; consequently, the heretics’ reply is false and foolish.

CALVIN OBJECTS: This assertion about satisfaction detracts from the merit of Christ’s Passion and satisfaction: “For what, I ask, would Christ have accomplished for us,” he says, n. 30, ch. 4, “if punishment were still exacted for sins? For when we say that God bore all our sins in His body upon the cross, we mean nothing other than that He died with the punishment and vengeance that our sins deserved.” Moreover, this doctrine implies that people are not justified freely but in view of their satisfactory works, which plainly conflicts with many declarations of sacred Scripture that testify that we are justified freely. Finally, this assertion of ours about satisfaction smacks of Pelagianism, since it attributes our salvation to our own works and exalts them too much. — I answer the first objection by denying the antecedent: this satisfaction is so far from detracting in any way from the satisfaction that Christ the Lord offered for us to the Eternal Father on the cross that, on the contrary, as the Council of Trent says in the place cited above, when we suffer in making satisfaction for sins, “we are conformed to Jesus Christ, who made satisfaction for our sins, and from whom all our sufficiency comes, and we have from this the surest pledge that, if we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified with Him.” (By this it signifies that all our satisfaction has its power and efficacy solely from the merit of Christ’s Passion applied to us through it; nor does it follow that Christ’s satisfaction is deficient. In itself, it is entirely sufficient, but it must be applied to us through our own satisfactions. Heretics cannot oppose this doctrine, since they themselves teach that Christ’s merits are applied to believers through faith, yet do not think that faith nullifies the merit of Christ’s satisfaction.) To the second and third I say that it is false that our satisfaction attributes too much to our own works, since the merit of our satisfaction is wholly referred back to the grace of Christ our Lord. For, as the Council of Trent says, “This satisfaction of ours, which we discharge for our sins, is not so ours that it is not through Jesus Christ. For we can do nothing of ourselves, as of ourselves, but with the cooperation of Him who strengthens us, we can do all things. Thus a person has no ground for boasting, but all our glorying is in Christ, in whom we live, in whom we merit, in whom we make satisfaction, as we produce fruits worthy of penance, which derive their power from Him, are offered to the Father by Him, and are accepted by the Father through Him.”

CALVIN OBJECTS A SECOND TIME: It is impossible to make satisfaction to God for all sins. First, because the offense against God is infinite, whereas a person’s satisfaction, however great and prolonged, will always be finite and therefore disproportionate to what is rendered to God to compensate for the injury inflicted. Second, he says in n. 27, even if it be granted that some sins can be redeemed by satisfaction, what will people do when they are overwhelmed by so many sins that a hundred lifetimes, even if devoted entirely to this, would not suffice for their satisfactions? Third, because a person is God’s servant; but a servant cannot make satisfaction to his master, since he can offer nothing except what he already owes. Therefore, a person can in no way make satisfaction for sins. — I deny the consequence. To the first I say that satisfaction by a person can be infinite for the same reason that the offense against God is considered infinite—namely, by an extrinsic infinity and in virtue of its object—since satisfaction is directed toward an infinite object. We also explained this in the seventh Volume, when treating the satisfaction that a mere human being could have made for cleansing all human sins, if God had so decreed and ordained. To the second I say that although a person’s sins are numerous, especially venial sins, they are not so many that they cannot be expiated and compensated by fitting satisfaction. For Christ has given us daily remedies for daily sins. Among these, the Lord’s Prayer has a chief place: Forgive us our debts. For, as St. Augustine says in Enchiridion, ch. 7, “For the brief and light daily sins without which this life is not lived, the daily prayer of the faithful makes satisfaction.” Almsgiving and works of mercy hold second place. For, as the same St. Augustine says in Letter 89, “Whoever, aided by God’s mercy and grace, abstains from all sins, including those called crimes, and does not neglect to cleanse by works of mercy and devout prayers those sins without which one does not live here, will deserve to depart from this life without sin”; although while living here he had some sins, since, just as these were not absent, so too remedies “by which they might be cleansed were at hand.” The third place belongs to forgiving injuries, as Christ the Lord says: Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Hence St. Augustine, Homily 27, after distinguishing penance into daily, mournful, and that of those preparing for baptism, asserts that the foundation of daily penance consists chiefly in these words of Christ the Lord, Matthew 6: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; and immediately adds: “He established a remedy, confirmed an agreement; here He dictates the prayers, there He answers the sinner. He knows by what law the matter is conducted in heaven and how the things desired can be obtained. ‘We forgive’; ‘Forgive,’ He says. For what do you have to offer God, from whom you wish something to be offered to you?” etc. — To the third I say that although a person is God’s servant and bondsman, nevertheless, since he is made in God’s image, he shares in some measure of God’s freedom, insofar as he is master of his own actions through free choice. Therefore he can make satisfaction to God through what he does by free choice. Although free choice is under God’s beneficence and dominion, it was nevertheless entrusted to the person by God for him to use freely. For this reason, a person also has a certain dominion over his own works and can consequently offer them in compensation and satisfaction for his offenses.

Second conclusion. — A PENITENT, AIDED BY DIVINE GRACE, CAN INDEED MAKE SATISFACTION TO GOD FOR TEMPORAL PUNISHMENT. This was defined by the Council of Trent, sess. XIV, canon 13: “If anyone says that for sins, with respect to temporal punishment, no satisfaction is made to God through the merits of Christ by punishments inflicted by Him and patiently endured, or imposed by a priest, or even voluntarily undertaken, such as fasts, prayers, almsgiving, or other works of piety, and that therefore the best penance is merely a new life, let him be anathema.”

The sacred Scriptures also prove this in all those passages where satisfactory and penal works, which are joined to contrition or follow it, are said to remit sin, as well as in those declarations by which people are said to avoid and flee divine punishment and condemnation through fruits of penance. Thus in Matthew 3, St. John the Baptist addressed the Pharisees, saying: Who showed you how to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore produce fruits worthy of penance. And St. Paul says in I Corinthians 11: If we judged ourselves, we would not be judged; but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord so that we may not be condemned with this world.

The holy Fathers teach the same consistently, especially St. Cyprian, Letter 55: “They take care that sins be remitted through just satisfactions and lamentations, that wounds be washed by tears; the true peace is taken away by the deceit of a false peace,” etc. In these words he attacks Fortunatus and Felicissimus, who granted peace to the lapsed before satisfaction had been completed. St. Chrysostom says in homily 6 on II Timothy: “See how great is God’s clemency: He did not grant you to see temporal death, but eternal death.” St. Ambrose says the same in many places, book 1 of On Penance, ch. 4, where he says: “He awaits our groans, but temporal ones, in order to forgive; He awaits our tears in order to pour out His mercy.... He awaits our conversion so that He too may return to grace.” — Similarly, St. Augustine says in Sermon 34, On Various Matters: “All past sins, then, are forgiven those who are converted; but the remaining sins of this life, some grave and deadly, are not remitted unless through the most intense affliction of humiliation of heart, contrition of spirit, and the tribulation of penance. These are remitted through the keys of the Church. For if you begin to judge yourself, if you begin to displease yourself, God comes to show mercy; if you wish to punish yourself, He will spare you. But the person who does penance well is himself his own punisher. Yet he must be severe toward himself so that God may be merciful toward him.” And in To a Fallen Virgin, ch. 8: “Be content to undergo any affliction, any hardship and disgrace, provided that you are freed from eternal punishments.” After describing the afflictions and hardships she must undergo in doing penance, he adds: “If such a life, such an act of penance, perseveres, it will dare to hope, if not for glory, at least for release from punishment.” Finally, he concludes: “If a sinner has not spared himself, God spares him; and if in this brief span of life he has compensated for the future chief punishments of hell, he frees himself from eternal judgment.” In the final chapter of book 5 of Hexameron: “Look upon us also, Lord Jesus, so that we too may acknowledge our own errors, pay for our guilt with devout tears, and deserve pardon for our sins.” — St. Prosper agrees in book 2 of On the Contemplative Life, ch. 7, concerning laypeople who confess their crimes of their own accord and willingly undertake penance for them: “If they become their own judges and, as avengers of their own iniquity, inflict on themselves here a voluntary punishment of the severest chastisement, they will exchange eternal torments for temporal punishments and, with tears flowing from true compunction of heart, restrain the flames of eternal fire.” Later, concerning clerics who do the same, he says: “Separated from the altar at which they ministered, not in spirit but in office, they mourn their life as though it were dead, certain that, when God has been reconciled to them through the fruits of effective penance, they will not only recover what they lost, but, having become citizens of the heavenly city, will also attain everlasting joys.” — Likewise St. Caesarius, bishop of Arles, says in homily 1: “By present mortification the future sentence of death is forestalled; while the author of guilt is humbled, guilt is consumed; while outward affliction is imposed by voluntary discipline, the offense against the dread Judge is appeased; and slight labor pays great debts, which eternal fire would scarcely have consumed.” When you hear the holy Fathers say that eternal punishment is remitted through our satisfactions, do not understand them to think that, after sins have been remitted through penance, eternal punishment is still owed; this is false. Rather, they mean that the punishment which would have been eternal is paid, if the sin had not been erased with respect to the liability of guilt.