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

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.