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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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