Concerning Repentance, Book I

He wishes, then, rather to know what is happening within you, so that when you expose your fault to the physician, he may administer to you the necessary antidote; for then you will be able to obtain the perfect benefit of medicine, if you do not hide from the physician the wounds of your conscience. But otherwise how will you be cured, you who do not disclose the things hidden within you? For I think, unless the physician is appealed to, the sick man is not cured. He waits, then, a long while for the causes of your pain to be shown to him, that you may know, once cured, the remedy of medicine; for you will weigh by just estimation what is owed the physician, if you have first come to know your own disease. And, not to detain you longer, your penitent confession is medicine, it itself cures you, it itself gives you life; nor does it allow your wound to keep its putrefaction, but as soon as you have groaned, brings upon it a knitted scar.

Today, if any bodily illness should afflict you, and you feel your limbs weighed down by internal languor, or perceive your wound gangrening with the labor and filth of putrefaction, you run at once to the physician, seek from his art a remedy, keep watch before the door of the sleeping man, and stand as an early morning greeter before his gates; you desire to pray with entreaties, to promise gifts, to offer presents, and to give up your whole patrimony for your health: and though often, through his lack of skill, the illness is either made worse, or at least deferred a long time, nevertheless you persevere in assiduous attendance: and you, a man, hope for slow remedies from a man, nor do you despair of help proving useful, though you do not yet feel the effect of any strengthening; and yet you do not run to your God, the gratuitous physician, the unbidden apothecary, who in curing the ailments of your soul knows no weariness, nor expects a reward from your healing, but rather desires to reward the one healed.

And indeed the temporal physician cures only that which pertains to the body, but God heals the soul, which sins have wounded: and he brings forth for the present remedies profitable. The other applies perpetual medicine. And yet man cannot even help himself as a physician, unless God comes to his aid; for often the cunning of medicine labors in vain, if God is unwilling to prolong for the sick man the time of living. Those whom we shall sometimes see not able to help even themselves, when, overtaken by bodily ills, they are cheated of the benefit of health. There will be no benefit of medicine, then, when medicine itself does not come to the aid of the physician. No one, believe me, restores you better than he who made you: nor does anyone else justify, save he who scourges and heals.

He alone knows how to mend the breaks of his own work, and to reform the shattered form of our clay into the substance of its original state, he himself saying through the prophet: As the clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand. Nor does he work this at any interval of time: as soon as you have spoken your fault, he at once bestows help too: between the imploring of aid and the bestowing of remedies almost no time intervenes: this alone he waits for, that you confess; there will be no delay in your being healed. Speak, he says, first your iniquities, that you may be justified. This the same Spirit promises to the unjust through the prophet Ezekiel: On whatever day the wicked man shall have turned from his injustice, and shall have done justice; on that same day all his injustices shall perish: in his injustice which he did, he shall not die; and elsewhere: When you have turned, and have groaned, then you shall be saved.

—But perhaps you may say: I have no accomplice, and the things I have committed are not manifest to anyone at all. What then, if you have no accomplice, do you not at least know that the foreknowing God is the inevitable witness of your conscience? And if no man knows your deeds, God surely foreknows your deeds and even those still future. For what does he not see, who sees everywhere and sees the whole, he himself saying to Job: Who could suppose that anything lies hidden from me? Give me a place in which God is not, who is wholly hidden; and you will be, in your deeds, hidden as well, as you suppose. But God is everywhere, and is wholly in the whole, he himself saying: Heaven is my seat, and the earth the footstool of my feet; and: I fill heaven and earth. Whence also the most blessed prophet David says: Where shall I go from thy Spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy face?

If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I descend into hell, thou art there. If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand, O Lord, lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. In vain, then, do you say that you have no accomplice, when you hear that God is wholly everywhere, and diffused through all things by the compass of his majesty, to whom is known whatever is thought hidden. But I have no accomplice, you will say. You would rightly have said this, if you did not have the example of Cain, the first of parricides. Impious fratricide had persuaded the pious brother to go with him into the field, and the young and untried brotherhood, thinking nothing needed to be guarded against from a brother, obeys his commands out of the goodness of simplicity.

The two brothers walk together in one company, and the ill-fated parricide, in order to accomplish the thought of his wicked crime, chose, as it were, a place without a witness. As if, indeed, if he had no human witness, something could lie hidden from the eyes of God; or as if he could conceal it by seeking solitude, when nothing is concealed from the gaze of the Author. But when the first author of that unspeakable crime judged the place fit for the perpetration of the outrage, he rushed into fury, and, at the devil’s instigation, slew his most patient brother, who offered no resistance at all. The deed indeed was evident in its effect, but as far as Cain supposed, it lay hidden, committed without a witness. And that most cruel of men believed that, without a witness, entrance to the crime would not be confessed, though by this very fact he acknowledged the crime which he wished to conceal.

But behold, the Lord of all things, to whom whatever is thought hidden is manifest, and from whom what is transacted in the secrets of thoughts cannot lie hidden—Scripture saying: The thought of man shall confess to thee; and again: Thine eyes did see my imperfect being, and in thy book all shall be written; and again: God who searches hearts and reins. Whence the same prophet David says: Thou hast seen my thoughts from afar—calls the parricide by the voice of one indignant. And knowing that he would deny the fierce spirit of the savage deed he had committed, in order to heap up the guilt of the impious parricide, God pretends, as it were, not to know what had been done. And the Lord said, it says, to Cain: Where is Abel thy brother? And Cain said: I know not; am I my brother’s keeper? O detestable madness! O singular audacity!

The faithless one denies what he had committed without a witness: and he believed that a crime could not be made public without an accomplice, though by the very act he betrayed his guilt all the more to his conscience. What are you doing, unhappy Cain? You have no human witness: behold, you have the shed blood as betrayer: it itself makes you public and accuses you. Its voice appeals against you to the Author, and the spilled blood creates the charge; lest vengeance pass by the hidden parricide. What, it says, hast thou done? Behold the voice of thy brother’s blood cries to me from the earth. But when the parricide perceived that what he thought hidden was betrayed, and, convicted by the witness of blood, that he had in vain feigned stubborn denials, he confesses the deed: he desires that a sharper judgment be pronounced against himself, since his conscience could not excuse the parricide he had committed.

But a more severe penalty is deferred meanwhile, so that a slow sentence might torment longer the author of so great a crime, and the swiftness of the inflicted punishment might not seem more a shortening for the condemned man: and so that what the deed of robbery would lessen by a quick death, might become long through the length of penal duration. Why then do you flatter yourself on this, that you have no accomplice, when you see that Cain was convicted and likewise punished by the testimony of innocent blood?

—But, you will say, I have no accomplice to divulge my deeds. I ask you, tell me, if you have no accomplice, do you not have the testimony of conscience? Or can you flee from yourself, and evade your conscience? Conscience, I say, before which nothing that we do dies, which accuses and judges us in our own deeds; which, though it has no use of speech, nevertheless does not know how to keep silence. An accomplice can be removed by death, the absence of a witness can help you for a time: but conscience is always with you, and is not without you: it clings to the breast, and never abandons you; and like a certain attendant, it departs from you by no interval of time: it holds you guilty, and always captive in its own power.

If at any time some happier turn of prosperous affairs distracts your mind, and joy begins to delight your senses with the pleasure of the deed; suddenly conscience goads you, strikes you to the marrow and interrupts your feeling, breaks in upon your joy, and disturbs the whole region of your breast with sorrowful sighs: and as though wounded and held by reproach, no remedy is found for the man by which he might be healed; for it is always offended, when another is chastised, and is itself struck first at another’s wound. Then do you wish to know how great is the severity of conscience? An accomplice can be corrupted with gold, can be bought with money: conscience admits no corruption, its testimony remains intact, fortified with the whole firmness of fidelity.

Indeed, patronage may even be hired against an accomplice, and arguments of cunning may be sought by the ingenuity of defense, and the truth of testimony may be perverted by the cleverness of shameless speech: the judge too may be bribed, so that the quality of the deed may be excused. All these things are of no avail where conscience is concerned: and although man dies, conscience certainly does not die, which after the death of the body is judged in the soul. And do you think it profits you not to have an accomplice, when you feel the daily and perpetual judgment of conscience? But clearly divine vengeance will not accompany him whom his own conscience has judged; for the power of the judge must necessarily be idle there, where the guilty man has stood as witness and accuser against himself.

For without doubt the cause of sin will be doubled, if a stubborn conscience refuses to confess its deeds; for then from a sinner he becomes impious, who has remained hardened in confessing his sins; so that a fitting sentence may strike his outrages, and his stubborn conscience may pay the penalty of its contumacy. For the judge’s indignation is broken, where the strenuous severity of retribution is softened by the assault of confession: the judgment brought forth in indignation is overcome by satisfaction, and the intention of the threatener is tempered by the modesty of most humble prayer. Learn this from the Ninevites, whose confession, though it did not diminish, nevertheless retained.—the sentence already pronounced was blotted out by confession, and the imminent wrath was turned away, lest the confessing penitence should prove vain. There hung over the wretched city a sentence already brandished from heaven, and the axe of divine chastisement pressed upon the necks of the unfortunate.

Already the celestial sword had been drawn from its sheath, and in vengeance for the crimes committed a vehement wrath was burning. The voice of the herald threatened the peoples with destruction, and the prophet's cry announced to all who were about to perish their imminent doom: After three days, he said, Nineveh shall be overthrown. Alas, what do you exact from God for your crimes, what do you purchase with your sins? You have anticipated the most merciful piety of our God, from whom you have exacted vengeance so imminent and so premature. I seem, then, to myself to see how great a distress constrained the wretched, and what necessity gripped them in trembling. Fear had lost counsel, despair had no remedy; for the swiftness of the time had so rushed forward, that not even the intervals allotted relaxed the dire suspicion of the crime. After three days, he says, Nineveh shall be overthrown. And what was that overthrow which was announced to those about to perish?

It certainly did not signify a hostile invasion, not the clash of arms nor the terrible blast of trumpets; against which perhaps the defenses of resisters might have availed, or by declared battles they might have joined combat of parties, or by the aid of flight they might have cast the lot of captives: but the destruction of divine indignation and heavenly vengeance is proclaimed, from which the one to be punished is neither withdrawn by flight, nor given the care of defending himself by warlike arts. For who could avoid the destruction inflicted, which the ethereal crash was beginning to pour forth?

—But behold, counsel does not desert the wretched in their fear, and despair finds a remedy out of danger. Returning to themselves, they question their consciences in place of a judge, they run to the stronghold of penitence, and with the shield of confession set against it they turn aside the arrow. All go for the healing of the crimes to be confessed, and the crowd, exposed to death, conspires together in the office of satisfaction. The dying decree for themselves a necessary fast, they chastise their souls in their very bodies with the scourge of humility: they put on sackcloth instead of clothing, and sprinkle themselves with ashes instead of ointments, and, prostrate on the ground, lick the dust. They bury their death with tears, and follow their life with lamentations: they publish their guilt with groans, and lay open the secret crimes of their deeds.

Every age and sex, without distinction, adapts itself to mournful duties: all adornment is laid aside, all ornament cast down: but plainly those filthy garments of the body were the ornaments of penitence, and the virtue of that condition was the highest glory of confession. Even food was denied to the very infants at the breast, and an age not yet stained by its own sins bore the burdens of others. The dumb beast hungered for its food, and the brute animal did not receive its natural fodder. One single wailing was heard throughout the walls of the city from creatures of different natures, and through all the roofs of the city the tearful laments of mourners resounded; and, to say it once, the earth sustained the groaning of those confessing, but even the stars themselves resounded with the voice of penitence. What is written was fulfilled: The prayer of him who humbles himself penetrates the clouds.

In short, thus he appeased the offended God, thus made the stern one gentle, thus soothed the wrathful one, and put back the sword of vengeance into its sheath: because conscience passed judgment upon itself. Confession snatched the guilty from punishment, and penitence claimed for itself those already given over to vengeance. Immediately the sentence of condemnation was blotted out by the tears of those confessing, and the confessed acknowledgment of the crime absolved those liable to punishment. The merciful God saw that the penitents had taken judgment upon themselves, and condemning the errors of their own conscience by that acknowledgment, he at once granted pardon to those whom he had destined for punishment, and immediately spared the afflicted, so that, freed from punishment, they might become gains of piety. The testimony of prophecy which we set forth a little above was proved true: I am he who blots out thy iniquities, and I will not remember them: but do thou not forget, and let us be judged.

Speak thou, it says, first thy iniquities, that thou mayest be justified; and again: When thou art converted, and dost groan, then shalt thou be saved; and again: Turn to the Lord your God; for he is merciful and gracious, patient and of great mercy, and one who turns aside the sentences inflicted against wickedness. Whence also the most blessed David says: My sin I have acknowledged, and my iniquity I have not covered. I said, I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord, and thou hast forgiven the iniquity of my sin; and again: For I know my iniquity, and my sin is ever before me. You see, then, that daily judgment is needed for the sinner against himself, by which, when conscience is stripped bare, it is covered; and when it is made public, it is covered.

And although everything we do is known to God, and is not hidden from his perception before it comes to pass; yet he prefers that you lay bare the secret of your heart, and betray your crimes to conscience, so that by the gift of his indulgence he may cover the nakedness of your shame. How does he wish to dismiss, stripped by pardon, one who confesses? Of such the most blessed Prophet sang, saying: Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Although this pertains more evidently to the reborn, whose iniquities and crimes alike are covered and concealed by baptism; for a faithful confession holds a faithful place of pardon, and the penitent conscience is safe, if it does not doubt the remission of indulgence.

—But on the contrary the heap of sin is raised up, if what is committed is denied: as we mentioned above in the deed of Cain, who, while he thought to deny the crime to his Maker, did not exempt himself, unforgiven, from punishment; so that his conscience, in the atrocity of his deed, frustrated for him, through denial, the public fruit of penitence. For he was convicted while denying, not confessing of his own will, and his contumacy was punished in his crime, because confessing penitence did not follow upon the interrogation. It is fitting, then, to unfold here step by step the sevenfold reckoning of that vengeance, and to show by proof of the evident matter for what cause it forced so harsh a sentence to be heaped up; lest, through the enormity of the vengeance, a path of calumny lie open to the suspicion of injustice: although the discovery of a new crime ought to be accompanied by a vehement punishment, since it would serve as an example to more distant posterity.

For he errs who thinks the parricide held by one crime only, since all crimes are found crowded together in the testimony of such wickedness; for I hear the Lord saying: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy strength: and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; whence on these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets. Since, then, all that belongs to the Law hangs upon these two precepts, and I see that Cain neither loved God, whose first handiwork he violated, nor loved his brother, whom by the instinct of impiety he slew, but rather hated him vehemently, it appears that he had already discharged the debt of vengeance, since in his deed all crimes are found to concur. And justly was a sevenfold punishment exacted upon him, in whom all crimes together held sway.

And yet I detect specifically seven offenses in him, to each of which single torments are assigned; for the first crime is that he did not divide rightly; that is, he ate first of the first-fruits of the earth before he offered them: the second is that, when it seemed fitting that his gift had received rejection, he conceived a contumacious spirit; and although there was no fault of the rejected offering on the part of his pious brother, the ill-fated man believed himself, as it were, avenged upon by the Maker, if he should seem to kill for this reason the brother approved by God: the third crime is that, suffused with the gall of envy, and poisoned with the bitterness of jealousy, he was jealous with savage animosity of his most innocent brother: the fourth is that he deceived by guile him who complied with him, that they might go together into the field, where the just man would begin his martyrdom under the simplicity of a sheep, while the unjust man stained the earth with parricide: the fifth is that the wicked author of cruelty slew his brother: the sixth, that when he had completed the crime, he further also denied it, and thought God ignorant of some deed, whom he had perceived to have already censured the secret of his own conscience, since He had fittingly reported a rejection in the reprobation of his offering: the seventh crime is that after the murder, being betrayed, he did not believe himself to be punished by parricide, since, because of the infamy of the crime now made public, he demanded for himself at that present time to be killed.

Deservedly, then, a sevenfold vengeance was exacted upon Cain, in whom as many torments were exacted as there were crimes. Upon him were inflicted as many wounds as there are causes numbered; so that justice might not exceed the measure of vengeance, nor a fitting vengeance pass over the number of the crimes. This I have set down again for this reason, lest the occasion of the exposition already begun should pass by.

I feel that I have long since strayed from the plan of the work begun, and turned aside into another quarter the swift course of my discourse: but there is an easy return to what has been omitted, and the path of the declined matter is quickly retraced, when the argument of the interposed proof does not stray from its bounds. My sin, then, he says, I have known, and my iniquity I have not covered. I said, I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord, and thou hast forgiven the iniquity of my sin; and again: For I know my iniquity, and my sin is ever before me. This he taught not only in words, but fulfilled also in deeds; because it is not enough for the consummation of spiritual wisdom to set forth virtue in words, unless the teaching be adorned from deeds; for then at last is fitting authority granted to a teaching, if it rests upon its own example.

Finally the Lord says in the Gospel: Whosoever shall do and so teach, shall be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven; so that teaching may be confirmed by deed, and the faith of deeds may receive testimony from teaching. Otherwise the teaching will not be founded on solid strength, which abuses the glory of virtue with the tinsel of words; for the tongue will be rich in eloquence, but the conscience will not be full of the riches of works, and he who enjoys another's privilege will be deprived of his own merit. Let us see, then, what he did who sang these things. At one time, then, two sins crept upon the king, and the license of the kingdom had enticed the prince into the perpetration of a crime; for while he wishes to cover the crime of adultery he falls into the crime of homicide.

Yet he committed both not by the violence of royal lineage, nor by the ambition of power; for although the adultery had come down from the license of incest, yet the homicide had not been perpetrated out of hatred. A prophet is therefore sent by the Lord, to plead before him the case of the adultery and likewise of the man slain, and under a certain guise of a composed fable to elicit judgment from one who did not know it concerned himself. But when the prophet had unfolded what he had proposed, the king, moved, pronounces against himself, under the guise of truth, a sentence not aimed at himself knowingly, and the unwitting judge exercises vengeance upon himself.

Then when the forestalled examiner saw himself struck by his own judgment, and the most just examiner approved himself guilty to himself, and perceived he could not escape the punishment of the judgment in which he himself, the judge, was held by the condition of the condemned, he seizes upon the most salutary counsel in so great a necessity of affairs: and since he could not appeal to the justice of the judgment, he takes refuge in the sanctuary of penitence. He knew his sin was betrayed, and covered his iniquity with no cloud of denial: he uttered forthwith testimony against himself, and, the voice of confession having been sent forth, he straightway obtained pardon of his sins: For I have sinned, he says here, against the Lord. But that prophet did not interpose delays of absolution, did not defer the effect of remission: as soon as the guilty man, made manifest, gave his confession, he brought forth indulgence for the crimes from God's will, saying: The Lord has taken away thy sin.

Thus was fulfilled that which he sang in the psalm, saying: My sin I have known, and my iniquity I have not covered. I said, I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord, and thou hast forgiven the iniquity of my sin.

Let us also lay open another example of penitence in holy David; for this outstanding king, of a life instituted for imitation, had devoted himself with faithful service to the divine cults, in such a way as to leave to us not mere examples but monuments of his character. For, against a prohibition, he had ordered the people to be numbered, and had wished to know the quantity of the whole army. His royal will was obeyed, and the numbered gathering of the whole host was reported back, and he began gloriously to know that which harmed him: he extolled his happiness in the increase of his people, and counted the gains of the multiplied army among his chief joys.

Presently another prophet is sent to him, and the cause of the sin is not subtly presented to him beforehand, as was done the first time, but a penal choice is now set forth for the deed already done: And the word of the Lord came to Gad the prophet, saying: Go to David, and speak: Thus says the Lord, three things I take up against thee, choose thee one of them, and I will do it to thee. And Gad came to David, and told him, saying: Choose thee which of the three thou wilt have done, whether famine for three years upon the land, or that thou flee three months from the face of thy enemies, that they pursue thee, or that there be death in the land for three days; and now know, and see what I shall answer to him who sent to thee the word. What, then, was the battle of counsel now stirred in his mind? What turmoil of thought was there in the choosing?

On one side the fear of enemies, on another the devastation of famine, on another the stroke of divine visitation terrified him. He would wish none of these to befall, but the offense could not remain unavenged. Amid these very straits of choice, hemmed in by the crisis of either danger, taught by the example of the preceding pardon, he chooses more keenly, in that very deliberation, the punishment, and betakes himself to the greater penalty, that he might be able to call forth clemency. For the rigor of justice is softened when mercy is presumed upon, and with the most clement Judge the first plea considered is that of piety; for He who forgives those confessing their errors does not condemn the obstinate out of willingness.

And therefore this devoted king, though he wavered in the storm of deliberation, did not let go the anchor of penitence; and trusting in earthly piety, did not dwell upon the greatness of the vengeance: And David said, it is written, to Gad: I am in great straits over these three things, but it is better for me to fall into the hands of the Lord; for His mercy is very great, than that I should fall into the hands of men. Vengeance follows at once upon his consent, and a placable punishment accompanies the placable choice: countless slaughter of the slain, and a multitude of the people is struck down by an angelic blow.

Seventy thousand of the army are struck, and the pitiable ruin of the camps pressed more bitterly upon his tender heart: he offers himself, the author of the deed, to the weapon of punishment, and puts on the breastplate of confession against the raging sword of justice, and, insisting rather that he himself be punished, cries out among those being punished, and desires the sentence to be turned upon himself, that he might be able to call back destruction from the people. Behold, it, he says, I the shepherd have sinned, and I have done wickedly: but this flock, what has it done? Turn thy hand against me, and against my father's house. Behold, the punishment is struck aside by the office of satisfaction, and indignation is warded off by the arms of confession; so that vengeance might proceed no further against him, and the shaking poured out from heaven upon the people might come to rest.

By one act of penitence he both purchased mercy for himself, and at once suspended vengeance from the people, so that, deservedly granted pardon, he might sing, saying: I said, I will confess against myself my iniquity to the Lord, and thou hast forgiven the impiety of my sin; since, though he stood under the desperation of one convicted, he deserved to be reckoned worthy to be cleansed. But the enormity of your sins presses upon you; and, captive to their dominion, you do not dare to lift your eyes to heaven. I approve indeed the fear of conscience, I do not praise the counsel: but I would rather have you in doubt over the attainment of pardon, than utterly despairing of the recovery of salvation.

—For a certain part of confession is held by the confusion of the suppliant, which, conscious of its own sins, does not doubt the Author's remission, but blushes at the greatness of its own wickedness; for to have acknowledged one's guilt is the beginning of confession, and that which the pricking of penitence stirs up becomes next to pardon. But you will say: the abundance of my sins drags me backward. Nay rather, the more you are burdened with the load of sins, the more you must press on with the duty of confession; so that what you are not worthy to demand through friendship, you may be able to obtain through importunity. For you hear in the Gospel that the Lord said that he to whom little is forgiven, loves less. Moreover, you make God unjust, if you think that He repudiates one who is converted, and denies affection to one returning, when you know that it is by the affection of compassion that He seeks out the lost.

This the Apostle proves, saying: And if we have shown ourselves unfaithful, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself (i.e. A similar text). Do you not know that the Lord, tempted nine times in the wilderness, deferred vengeance, and could not even at the tenth instance of temptation condemn their hardness, if the people, after the nine former faults, had done penance, He Himself saying: Behold, now they have provoked me ten times in this wilderness? Read the book of Judges, and you will find that the children of Israel did evil before the Lord innumerable times, and were delivered over to the incursions of the nations: but again the people, being converted, were delivered through chosen leaders from various captivities, nor could their offenses be avenged, if a fitting penitence followed so often the repeated deed; for although penal correction was not lacking, yet it was not the cutting off of ruin, but a plea for conversion.

For when a chastised son is received back into affection, it is plain that he has been admonished to the duty of satisfaction, not punished; nor does the correction seem to be of hatred, but of love, since, upon his return again after the scourge, the rights of piety are not denied him. Finally, hear the Lord through the prophet rebuking with such a scourge her that had played the harlot, and was given over to disgraceful things, and defiled with contagions, yet wishing by the right of conversion to claim her again for Himself: And I said, He says, after you have committed all these fornications, return to me; and you did not return, unruly Judah. The same the Lord shows in the Gospel, when He rebukes the hardened, saying: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kill the prophets, and stone those sent to you; how often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not?

Believe me, the Lord awaits the last act of our life, and in whatever state the final end finds us, in that He will judge; that is, if, hedged about with manifold errors, the shadows of your misdeeds coil above your head, if the darkness of crimes clouds your eyes, and the yoke of sin bows down your neck, and within the inmost chamber of conscience the reproach of your shameful deeds keeps festering the wound afresh: if you do not cast your soul down into the vileness of despair, when you have poured forth in confession but one word of the secret of your heart, He will not deny the remedy of pardon, He who came to save souls, not to destroy them; for He does not will the death of him who is dying, but persuades, without doubt, the one who is converted to life, the Lord Himself saying: The Son of man came not to destroy the souls of men, but to save them; and again:

For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. Unless you make the devil overpowerful, if you think that the Lord cannot snatch the captive from his jaws; or as if he watches always to destroy, while the Lord does not equally strive to acquire.

—In this trust, therefore, as of a present place, let the last confession of the thief lead you in; and let that final confession on the cross, of one desperate yet not despairing, grant the greatest hope. For that man had stained the whole conduct of his life with robberies, and had always acted in the world as the armor-bearer of diabolical savagery, never remembering God, having heard none of the commands of the Law, or certainly, if he had heard them, being more prone to crimes, he cared not, but set his whole hope in despair, and practiced cruelty after the manner of wicked henchmen; for this reason indeed condemned on the cross, he hung fastened to the wood along with his own crimes.

At last, though lost, he came to himself, and, set in the very punishment, purchased for himself great gain out of death: for he recognized God, with whom he was hanging; he trembled at the future judge to whom he clung; he published the crimes of his own conscience; he obtained forthwith the baptism of blood by its shedding, and entered paradise with the Lord as a confessor arrayed in purple. This is the true counsel of penitence, this is the chief and practical rule of confessing: if you believe the Son of God, whom you do not fail to know as Author, to be also Judge, He Himself saying: The Father judges no man, but has given all judgment to the Son; and, in order to grasp the hope of eternal salvation, not to take counsel for the present life, but to think of the future judgment.

For first, in the sight of the Judge, he, being condemned, exposed himself, and, confessing his crimes, fulfilled the office of a penitent: then, when he perceived the punishment of the cross, he understood that the judgment was common to the one fixed there, though not the cause; yet he then believed in God, when Judea persistently denied Him; and, not unmindful of the future judgment on the cross, he commended the memory of himself to the judgment of Him who was to reign. This the Gospel makes plain: But the other thief answering, rebuked him, saying: Do you not fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man has done no evil. And he said to Jesus: Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

But see at once what he merited, what he heard from the mouth of Truth, what he received of the grace of the Judge: Amen I say to you, this day you shall be with me in paradise.

—But you say to me: I have added sins to sins, and I, who had already been raised up when falling, have fallen again, and the wound of my conscience, already nearly healed, has broken open afresh through the ulceration of sin. Why do you tremble? Why do you fear? He who cured you before is always the same; you will not change your physician. He will not labor to explore the cause of your ailment, nor will he attempt to test upon you anew the power of the remedy; he will heal you with the known antidote. He who knows the origin of your languor does not wait for a trial of his help. From whence you were formerly cured, thence you will be cured again; nor need you be suspicious about the remedy of healing, nor the physician be uncertain about your recovery. He will indeed chastise your intemperance, and lash your impatience with hard rebuke: but he will not deny his aid, since he does not despise the sick.

Hear the Prophet saying: Shall not he that sleeps also rise again? Or does not he who has suffered shipwreck sail again likewise? Or does he who has lost his harvest, once despairing, not again plough or sow? This our course is tossed on a certain sea of the world: we must sail, and our sails must be spread amid the snares of evils. The storm rages, the wind rises, the tempest is furious: if you so hold the helm that you do not lose the moorings of your ship, you will make for port with your cargo unharmed; but if, dashed by adverse waves upon entangling rocks, and driven by the gales, you are shipwrecked amid the warring straits of the swollen flood, you must bring back ballast, refit the vessel first, buy new cargo, undergo the dangers again, and go over the causes of the past mishap; and, in order that you may repair what is lost, you will not hesitate to commit yourself to the old danger under uncertain hope.

For without doubt you will beg, if after shipwreck you refuse to return to the practice of trading: nor will you afterward be able to complain of your want and hardships, if, caught by the lot of shipwreck, you are reduced under the stupor of sloth to the calamity of a beggar. And if this is the care of the worldly merchant, that for the most part, after the loss of shipwreck, he does not despair of repairing his past losses by the profit of industry: nor, stripped by incursions, does he suffer his nakedness to be exposed, but studies rather to grow from a little into more, and by uncertain hopes hunts after greater gains, sin enticing him on; how much more ought you to consider the losses of your soul, and repair, on the very spot, its ruin, in which the losses of future hope are counted, and the gain of eternal life is unhappily lost!

—You must go to the strongbox of the fitting Bestower; and with the interest of penitence and satisfaction offered as usury, write out your bonds, send your notes, buy for yourself from Him gold tried by fire as the gift of God; fill your ship with goods, however common, if not precious; spend your wealth in purchasing that costly pearl, by which you may be able to adorn the disgrace of your soul; that when you have come, with your goods carried thither, to the great city, you may be the richer with more worthy gains and most blessed merchandise. For if the stupor of sluggishness should seize you, and the sloth of the body begin to rule your senses, and you seek no means for restoring your soul, you will be subjected to the torments of your creditor, and held bound to the debt.

That liberal sentence will be pronounced, which, conscious of yourself, you will not be able to escape, nor suspend by any voice of appeal: To everyone that has shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that has not, even that which he has shall be taken away from him; and: Cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. You will not be able to put on your tunic made of the vilest weaving of wool: your garment offends you, being deformed by a stain; and does your soul not offend you, which is defiled by the filth of sin and the pollution of crime?

Unless it be that you hasten to wash your tunic at the very moment, so that you may be able to wear it clean and without any spot of foulness: yet you do not desire to recover the whiteness of your soul, infected with the squalor of crimes; nor do you wish your conscience washed, which you know to be foul with the filth of shameful deeds and the contamination of crimes. Who, I ask, falls, and does not seek to rise? Who is sick, and does not desire to recover? Who is in danger, and does not wish to escape? Who, having become poor, does not desire to restore his patrimony? If the nature of things permits this, that in such emerging misfortunes someone may not be able to return to his former condition, then imitate the past ways in order to obtain worse things—let your hands fall, wrap your half-open eyes in stupidity, fall asleep never to awaken, lie down never to rise, and crush your dulled mind with the stupor of slumber.

You will repent afterward of your slowness, when you have thought of nothing that may profit your soul's advantage. You will always be lying sick, naked, worn out with poverty, and, so to speak, drunk with the intoxication of sleep, destined to hear that saying from which you will never be free: They have slept their sleep, and have found nothing. Arise, brother, arise; and drive away the torpor of an unhealthy counsel: watch, watch always, and be solicitous for your salvation, not that you may sleep in despair. Beware of the nocturnal thief, lest he dig through the wall of your house, and avoid the midday archer of the flying arrow; for careless security lies open to attacks, and one who sleeps is easily crept upon, so as to be fatally struck. In the watchful there is confidence, in the sleeping nothing is safe: it befits a sober mind to have sleep as a servant, not a master.

The enemy flees from him whom he does not find sleeping: And blessed shall that servant be, whom his lord, when he comes, shall find watching; for He says: Arise, you who sleep, arise from the dead; and lay hold on Christ.

—But, you will say, I do not dare to pray, because my conscience calls me back; for I have erred not once, but often and frequently. But I would say: If shame calls you back from praying, let the persistence of sinning cease, and what you fear will become a benefit of fear, not a cause of despair. For to revere the power of the Judge will not be shame, but modesty; because although the license of sinning be frequent, yet the conscience which timidity has borne in the recollection of sin becomes excusable. Let the example of Achab, that most impious king, teach you; for he had coveted the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, because it bordered on his own possession. He offers a price, or at least an equivalent quantity in exchange for the vineyard: he refused, asserting that he could by no reasoning transfer an inherited thing to another. Stung by this refusal, he returns home sad, because the desire of his lust had fallen through in vain.

Then his sacrilegious wife Jezabel asks the causes of her husband's sadness, and having learned them, she injects, as it were, into his wounded heart the tinder of consolation: by which art, having concocted many false calumnies by the counsel of the impure woman, innocent Naboth is stoned to death. The woman, having accomplished the deed of her deadly vow, enters like a victress to her husband, about to relate the joy of the destroyed man's death: and lest she alone should be held in the crime, she employed the cunning of the primeval woman, so that she might bind her husband to the knowledge of the crime, and bind both spouses, conscious together, with one chain of the deed. Arise, she says, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, who was unwilling to give it to you for a price; for behold, he is dead.

But he, grieving that he had furnished the occasion of death, shudders at the news of the crime, and buys off the cause of that man's death with tearful grief; for having torn his royal garments, he girds himself with funeral clothing, attesting not so much the guilt of conscience as the first thought of repentance. "And it came to pass," it says, "when Achab heard that Naboth the Jezreelite was dead, he rent his garments, and girded himself with sackcloth". Achab therefore might have been free from the guilt of shed blood; because he had done penance for the thing conceived, not for the murder, and impiety of homicide remained in the profane woman, who thought she ought to purchase the vineyard by a certain price of shed blood. But behold, as a dog returned to his vomit becomes hateful: Achab, forgetting his repentance, immediately laying aside mourning, goes to take possession of the vineyard of the slain man.

And he loses the merit of innocence, who, enticed by desire for the vineyard, entangled himself in consent to the murder of the slain man. Soon the venerable prophet Elias is sent to him, and the sentence is uttered against him with indignation, so that the repentance lately performed should be made void, and the doubled presumption of the crime should give occasion for vengeance. And Elias said to Achab: "Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will bring evil upon you, and I will cut off after you, and will destroy from Achab him that pisses against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel: and I will make the house of Achab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nabat, and like the house of Baasa the son of Ahia, for all the things wherewith you have provoked me, and made Israel to sin".

But he, since he could not escape the blow of the sentence, suddenly turned his counsel to his former repentance, confessed his guilt with weeping, cast down the royal power with sackcloth, put on the sack of penitence, and, revering the face of the common people, published his offense with silent groaning, and did not excuse his conscience. "And it came to pass," it says, "when Achab heard these words, he revered before the face of the Lord, and went weeping, and rent his garments, and girded himself with sackcloth. Then the Lord said to Elias: Have you seen how Achab has revered before my face? I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son's days I will bring it". Behold to what point reverence brought the timid man, and how great a movement of severity fear broke! Not pomp of prayer, not ornament of speech, nor abundance of eloquence pleased God: but many prayers of tears.

His mouth was silent, but his heart groaned: his eyes wept, but his conscience applauded, and piety praised the shame of repentance before its Author. It was little for the guilty one to have escaped due punishment, unless his reverence had received the testimony of approval. And he was proved in fear, who was condemned in crime: nor was that which he mourned as the death of the slain man in vain before; but he purged the repeated fault again and again by repeated lamentation.

—Nor is Manasses too, king, son of Ezechias, to be passed over in silence, who, surpassing the audacity of all profane men, stretched out impious hands against God, and, degenerating from his father's ways, raised up entirely a mad head in preference to divine worship over the worship of idols. This man, possessed by sacrilegious fury, established altars of execrable superstition in the house of God, defiled it with images of demons, filled the sacred altars of the temple with stone figures, cultivated groves, dedicated his sons to profane fire, sought after auguries, polluted his life with sorceries, led the people into the observances of idols, defiled them with ceremonies, enslaved them to the devil, and practiced beyond all insolence of a desperate mind all things which are forbidden by the divine laws.

For these so many and so great crimes, led away as plunder, and bound with chains, and weighed down with fetters, he endured the punishment of a captive, and, transported into Babylonia, paid the penalties of his impiety; that, being made subject, he might feel the divine vengeance, of which, hardened, he had never before been mindful. At length, corrected by a fitting scourge, he is converted, and, placed in punishment, acknowledged the God whom, placed in his kingdom, he had not sought before. Affliction profited the despairing man, and his wickedness was corrected into acknowledgment by the goad of correction. That vengeance was a medicine for his lost mind, and the chastisement contributed much to his salvation, which scourged the impious man for this purpose, that it might make him acceptable to God, whom the devil through impotence had made a stranger: and it profited the health of the soul, that which had been inflicted upon vanity.

This the faith of the Lord's Scripture admits: "And the Lord spoke," it says, "against Manasses and against the people, and they did not hearken: and the Lord brought upon them the princes of the host of the Assyrians, and they took Manasses, and bound him with chains and fetters, and brought him to Babylonia. And soon, being afflicted, he sought the Lord his God, and was greatly humbled before the face of the God of his fathers, and prayed to God, and the Lord heard him, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. And Manasses knew that the Lord himself is God." Behold how much, from a heart converted, sudden lamentation wept and washed away his sin, and wiped away with tears what wickedness had stained.

Yet he prayed conscious of his guilt; and he deserved to purchase pardon by satisfaction: to such a degree that he restored to their former veneration those sacred things which he had lately polluted by the contamination of a profane act, and put all things back into the worship of the fear of God. At the consummation of his conversion that prophetic oracle of the divine mouth was fulfilled: "When you are converted and groan, then you shall be saved".

—But why should I make mention of those kings whom the praiseworthy origin of their chosen race did not permit, by the worst persuasion, to depart from the city of sacred religion: when Nabuchodonosor, that savage and foreign ruler, was punished by divine animadversion; so that, through the correction of vengeance, he might be compelled to acknowledge him whom by sacrilege he had dared to deny, and to believe him possessed of powers whom before, through fierceness of spirit, he had not known: to such a degree that he who, lifted up with a stubborn spirit, had not before feared to be proclaimed as not fearing God, dared not afterward lie concerning his incomparable majesty; since, corrected by immense admiration at what had been done to him, he did not cease to confess with his whole heart, in proclaiming decrees, that God alone is true?

But if, being ill conscious of yourself, you are ashamed to pray, you have the teaching of the publican; even if you carry suspicion, lest, when you have prayed for your sins, you should not deserve to be heard. That man had entered the temple with his neck bowed down by the weight of his sins, and, the eyelids of his eyes pressed down by the grave disease of iniquity, he did not dare to look at heaven: he timidly draws his step back, and stations himself at the very last place, not so much of location as of the judgment of conscience: nor does he move his foot forward to supplicate irreverently with ready boldness, but withdraws measure from his footsteps; the publican, guilty, repeatedly recalls his shame by striking his breast, and bruises his conscious heart with the reminder of his fist. Not words but groans were heard from his mouth; and the whole confession was celebrated in only five words.

This the Lord manifests in the Gospel, that two men went up into the temple to pray: one was a Pharisee, and the other a publican: and the Pharisee, standing, prayed thus with himself, saying: God, I give thee thanks, that I am not as the rest of men, unjust, extortioners, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven; but struck his breast, saying: God be merciful to me a sinner But observe what reverent supplication drew forth from the Searcher of hearts: shame, by its generous reward, obtained God, whom it desired to have propitious. And immediately shame merited to be justified, being proved in confessed humility, the Lord saying: I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other; because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

—Where next do you set the example of that sinful woman, who seems to have set forth her sins not with words, but with tears, whose tongue, though silent in praying, confessed her conscience by the office of penitence. For in the house of a certain Pharisee the Lord was reclining, and he, as one inviting him as a man for a time, had prepared a banquet. Finding this, the prostituted woman boldly enters the Pharisee's house, and takes her place at the feet of the reclining Lord, washes his sacred footsteps with tears, wipes them with her hair, kisses his feet incessantly, and moistens his feet with precious ointment, and with almost all the members with which she had before sinned, she was expiating the stains of her crimes. Then the Lord, with whom our bones are counted apart, as the prophet says: "All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee"?

Rebukes the murmur of the carping Pharisee, praises the woman's hidden thought, but manifest faith, with admirable proof, and prefers the homage of the confessing woman to the preparations of the one inviting him, being more delighted with the woman's deed than with the meal, to whom it was more pleasing to be delighted with her conversion than to be fed; so that he who was led least of all by desire of food might be fed with the banquet of confession: "Do you see," he says, "this woman? I entered into your house, you gave me no kiss, and no water for my feet: but she, since she came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say to you, her sins, many as they are, are forgiven her, because she has loved much. And turning to the woman he said: Your sins are forgiven you Is this a small thing?

But afterward see what she hears: Daughter, your faith has made you safe, go in peace. Lately a sinner, presently absolved as daughter, and at once absolved and sent forth in the peace of the Lord, she who was being laid waste by the war of her own crimes. This is that prophetic oracle: "When you are converted and groan, then you shall be saved"; and: "Declare your iniquities first, that you may be justified". Since, then, by so many and such great examples you know that he delights in the sacrifice of penitence, and you should not fear that the reward of a contrite heart and humbled spirit perishes before the merciful Judge, Scripture saying: "A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit: a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise"; why do you not hasten to emerge from the depth of luxury, and from the whirlpool of worldly pleasure, and to take breath from drunken deeds to take up the duties of penitence?

Nor think that, because you have gone far from him, therefore his ear is closed to you: as soon as you knock, he will open the doors, and, taking pity, will enclose the pitiable one within the enclosures of his fold: only let the complaint of your grief bend him! The farther you had gone away, the more quickly he will draw near, the prophet saying: "The Lord is near to them that are troubled in heart, and he will save the humble of spirit". Of whom the Lord in the Gospel says: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted".

—But perhaps penitence seems harsh to you after the pleasures of the world. It is true, I perceive the flaw of your health, I see the sickness of your soul: but if you desire to be cured, do not dwell on the violence of the remedy, nor dread the medicine; when the surgeon's iron is applied to your wound, the cure by cutting is more quickly effected. For it is the worst kindness in healing to be gentle, when a festering corruption is not at once cut away. Bitter is the taste of the antidote, but it is vital and healthful, though unpleasant to the throat. The Lord heals us not as strangers; he keeps as his own whatever sinners he has healed, though they be estranged. Every hour, every day he is intent upon healing, nor is he delayed by time, nor hindered by any obstacle of delay.

Indeed his power is then hindered only when none is found who needs to be healed; for the Lord's kindness must needs stand idle when there is no one on whom to have mercy. Harsh is the chastisement of penitence, but it becomes milder if the measure of the fault be considered. Long ago the ambition of worldly pomp delighted you, and the tyranny of the world claimed you as its slave, now slackened in luxury, now sunk in wine-drinking. Some saw you intent on the practice of dice, others devoted to gluttony, others cast into harlotry, given over to brothels, smeared with ointments, drenched with perfumes, and they beheld you tainted with foreign habits before their eyes. You shone in garments, you glittered with gold, you were adorned with gems and the most precious pearls. Restore, then, exchange for exchange, and at least late repay time's compensation to time: divide your reciprocal life between the two courses with equal measure.

You were then the devil's; now be God's; nay rather, be at last your own, you who for long had been another's. And perhaps if you consider, you have squandered much time, so that what remains may be straitened into a short space. Give leisure now to yourself, not to time: leisure, I say, not that you may grow torpid, but that you may attend to the business of confession. Return to the way from whose paths you had strayed, undo what you had done, seek what you had been. First I have found you yourself, that you may find what you seek; and if you have found yourself, seek nothing more from yourself. Put on sackcloth, sprinkle ashes, pray always in fasting, fast in prayer. More precious are these things, by which the body is afflicted, that the beauty of the soul may be restored.

Humble clothing may seem repugnant, but this greatly becomes one, since it does not displease God: cheap is the adornment of the body, but it is itself the chief ornament of holiness. And do you still perhaps complain of the unworthiness of your garment, you who have lost the wedding robe? And though you appear deformed by the nakedness of your foulness, do you not consider how you might again be clothed? Fear not, I pray, lest, like him who entered the royal banquet when called, you be cast out from the feast of those reclining with like condemnation, and hear it said to you: Friend, how did you come in here, not having a wedding garment? And when you find no argument of excuse, let him say: Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And indeed that man, because he had not sought or received it, is said to be cast out; for he entered when called, but reclined unclothed.

If then he who never had it went out thus, because he had not sought it, how much more must he be punished who received the robe, and lost it, and could not be clothed again?

—But, I believe, you doubt whether a lost garment can be sought again, or whether it can be refused by him who had recently given it, when you have lost it. Behold in the Gospel the younger son, having squandered his inheritance, begging, brought so low that, driven by want, he desired to be a swineherd. He, worn down by utter want and need, when he was not even permitted to eat the swine's food, returning to the former soundness of his own mind, began to burn with longing for his earlier life, and, thinking of the abundance of his father's house, to condemn his own guilt by the judgment of conversion. Having then at last held penitent counsel, and having spoken within himself in the secret of satisfaction, he returns as though by right of restoration to his father's home, naked and an exile.

Then that father, who had seen the resolve in the heart of the one thinking it over, before the lost son could pour forth his words in confession, anticipates the feeling of the grieving one, and mercifully receives him as he returns. He falls upon his neck, reconciles him with kisses, and marvelously strengthens him, still trembling and saying nothing. But that most prudent penitent, and excellent confessor, secure of his father's promise, yet still uncertain of his own satisfaction meditated order of confession gives forth, and explains in words what he had ruminated in his heart: Father, he says, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired servants. The father, then, appeased by the prayers of the one confessing, orders the first robe to be brought, and commands that he, now naked, be clothed, his former garment having been lost.

He orders a ring also to be given, restores the seal of the token, encloses his feet with the protection of precepts, and orders the fatted calf to be slain in his honor, that a most acceptable gift be offered for the reconciled one, one which should be acceptable both to heaven and to the hosts of angels. Envious obstinacy had roused the brother's hatred against his kin, reproaching the crimes of the one received, and contradicting the father's hand. The command is not revoked, the father's love is not changed, his brother is affirmed, he is called son: and he who had a perfect resolve in repenting called forth the father's full affection upon himself. I have rejoiced, he says, and am glad; for this your brother was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and is found. You see, then, that to the returning son the former robe was restored as the reward of penitence, and that the father celebrated with every vow the return of the one confessing.

For the lost inheritance signifies the sacrament of baptism, in which all the buildings of the heavenly kingdoms are established. This the son—that is, the faithful Christian—having obtained his father's freedom, had lost through the contagion of lust and luxury, and being placed far from his God, had defiled himself with disgraceful deeds in utter foulness, and, enslaved to the devil, to whom he had given himself over in most ruinous conduct, began to exercise the pasturing of swine, that is, of unclean spirits; and since he was not permitted to be fed with their food—because through the pretext of the flesh he could not gorge himself on demonic husks—forsaken on both sides, and destitute on every side, he labored, worn out by want of good fruit. But having returned, he received at once all of which he had been deprived, and, his substance being reckoned in harmony with his father, he remained in possession of his former estate.

Return, therefore, you too, brother, return, and from being dead come to life again, and from being lost be restored.

—The good shepherd seeks his own straying sheep, and rejoices more over the one found than over the ninety-nine not lost. He carries it back on his shoulders, restores it to the fellowship of his flock, encloses it in the shelter of its former security: nor does he consider the number of those left behind, he who sought, by the restoration of one lost one, to complete the whole hundred. The woman diligently seeks the lost drachma, lights a lamp, sweeps the house clean, and invites her dear ones and neighbors alike to rejoice over the drachma found. And does anyone think that God does not rejoice over the restoration of the converted, when he sees the parable applied specifically to the person of the penitent? He himself saying: I tell you, so shall there be joy before the angels of God over one sinner doing penance.

Consider, finally, that singular saying of the Lord, in which he said: They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; for I came not to call the just, but sinners to repentance. The Lord, therefore, calls sinners to repentance, and our physician desires to profit the sick more than the healthy. But he does not for this reason pass over the just because he receives sinners: for the life of the just is itself a divine calling, just as he left the ninety-nine sheep in the mountains, he who sought the one that had strayed; rendering to those the due reward of justice, and about to confer on these the benefit of mercy. This the Apostle proves, saying: But to him that worketh not, yet believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness according to the purpose of the grace of God. Finally, hear with what darts the Lord in the Gospel strikes the hearts of sinners, and you will understand how greatly he esteemed the sacrament of penitence.

There were present, it says, some who told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. Then Jesus said to them: Think you that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and killed them, think you that they were sinners above all others who dwelt in Jerusalem? And he adds, for proof of the matter, an example by way of comparison, making mention of the fig tree, which, being fruitless and unfruitful, is ordered to be cut down; but by the intervention of the vinedresser, its destruction is allowed to be deferred, until, dug about with fitting cultivation, a basket of dung being applied, the bringing forth of the fruits of penitence be delayed.

Now if a tree which produced no fruit of its own kind was ordered to be cut down before its time, as though already to be felled by the axe, or hewn down by the hatchet—a tree overgrown with briers and choked with foreign thorns, which had received no cultivation for its restoration—how much more (does this apply to man)? For the example of the tree is a likeness of the faithful man, who, barren of the fruit of his faith, thought of nothing that might profit toward the gain of future hope; for he had been planted in a vineyard, which vineyard specifically designates the Church, in which that tree had been planted: but the cultivator of this vineyard seems to represent the person of that priest, who exercises the trench of the fruitless plant by the cultivation of the Lord's precepts: and the basket of dung designates the office of penitence.

But if fruit could not at all be found in it even after the delay of time, uprooted, it would wither away in the future—that is, cut off by future judgment, cast away as useless timber, made fuel it would burn in the eternal fire; although this may be understood both of Christ and of the Jewish people.

—I believe it has become clear enough and more than enough to your senses from these proofs, which we have brought forth with great study from things weak, to raise up and stir your spirit; that God, the fountain of mercy, so wills not the destruction of sinners, but rather has the wicked man corrected; that as many offenses as are numbered, so great may be the act of penitence. Let him not despair of the swift restoration of his return, who hears the Lord himself persuading the sinner to penitence. This is more expressly set forth in the Apocalypse of the most blessed John, in which he rebukes the angels of the churches, that, defrauded of their former errors, they may be bent to the lamentations of penitence; for it is proven thus that the Lord desires the ruin of no one, since he urges penitence upon the one who is falling.

To the angel, finally, of the church of Ephesus he says: Remember from whence thou art fallen, and do penance, and do the first works; but if not, I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, unless thou do penance. And yet, behold, he is called an angel, to whom the care of penitence and conversion is entrusted, and who is urged to perfect the first works, so that it may be understood that he has lost nothing of all his merits. Yet the admonition threatens more heavily one who does not do penance, if he should persist in hardened stubbornness; for the severity of vengeance will be inexcusable, if the first correction has not bent the untamed neck: and he will perish by his own fault, who, forewarned by the authority of the one threatening, does not subject his stubborn neck to the yoke of satisfaction. He indeed declares that he will return to his former state, who is corrected by worthy humility of confession so as to run the race of true life.

This is more fully declared a little later, when the angel of the church of Thyatira is chastised with the lash of rebuke. I have, he says, against thee many things, because thou permittest the woman Jezabel, who calls herself a prophetess, and teaches, and seduces my servants to commit fornication, and to eat of things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time that she might do penance, and she would not repent of her fornications: and I will cast her into a bed; and they that commit adultery with her shall be in great tribulation, unless they do penance for their deeds: and I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he that searcheth the reins and hearts, who render to every one according to his works. What indeed could be said more humane, more merciful? And I gave her, he says, time that she might do penance, and she would not repent.

You have nothing, sinner, you have nothing to excuse yourself with: there is no reason why you should doubt with cause, no reason why you should despair without cause; gird yourself for confession with these examples, arm yourself for penitence with these testimonies.

—For the Lord delays punishment, that he may find repentance: and using periods of postponement, he prolongs his patience; lest mercy lose what censure ought to have accomplished. He does not look upon past evils, nor count up wrongdoings, but praises what has been corrected. You have the promise of one urging you to repentance, who will impute it to you if you have not repented: And I gave her, he says, time that she might repent, and she was unwilling to repent. Like this is that prophetic saying: And I said, after she had committed all these fornications: Return to me, and she was unwilling to return to me.

But if you cast yourself, driven about by the enormity of your crimes, into the whirlpool of despair, or if you hesitate to root out the accumulated mass of your journey with a checked step, or if, through a lapse of a sinister mind, you draw your steps more steeply, through slippery exercise, toward things tending downward—at once the hope of recovery is taken from you, lost; the swallowing abyss of your misdeeds will seize you into the precipice; your eyes will be closed by the night of sin, lest they see the gleaming ray of the true light; the blindness of death will set itself against you, and deceiving angels will lead you about here and there as in a game. All your crimes will become pleasing to you, and license for sinning will altogether delight you: the devil will hold you bound under the hope of freedom; so that it will be free for you to sin, not to live.

Nor will he allow you to look back on what you had been before, once he has called you away with the blandishment of sinning, with the most seductive sweetness of crimes: so that, as I might say once for all, he will deceive you with the sweetness of perishing, so that it seems to you more delightful to perish than to return. For no sin is committed without its own delight, nor could it otherwise ensnare the mind, unless it should charm the one it has deceived with the sweetness of desire; for it is necessary that the deadly mixture be sweet, and the fatal compounding of the lethal cup be pleasant to the throat, lest the first taste of bitterness call back the one drinking.

Thus indeed it seemed to the first woman that the poison of that tree was good to look upon and sweet for food, whose sweetness, after it had lied to the one eating it in fabricated pleasure, the violent subtlety of the death-bringing draught infected—and extinguished what remained vigorous and alive; and, her desires falling back into the contrary through intemperance, it cast her out from the paradise of blessedness and the estate of security, into the exile of the world and the spectacle of the age.

—I beg you, brother, fearing these things, flee and be terrified; and do not allow the enemy to rejoice over your destruction, and to raise his brow as a victor in the sight of God. Beware the return of the seven unclean spirits, to whom the leader of all evils, the eighth, has joined himself. And since no one can endure one devil, who could bear the dominion of eight? The Lord saying: When an unclean spirit has gone out from a man, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and finding none, it says: I will return to my house from which I came out: and returning it finds it empty, swept, and adorned. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits worse than itself, and having entered they will dwell there: and the last state of that man will be worse than the first.

If a hostile band of seven had taken you in siege of war, and the urn of a barbarian raider had held you captive under attack, what weeping would you utter, what wailing would you give, what lamentations would you cast forth? You would sigh every day and night, you would not seek food, you would not desire drink; exhausted by thirst and consumed by hunger, only the roughness of dry skin and wrinkled emaciation would appear on you; your hair would stiffen, matted with filth, and your shaggy locks on a squalid scalp, and the limbs pressed under a long-grown beard would bristle; you would render up your patrimony to your ransomer under the sword, you would walk about, stripped, naked, poor, and deprived of all sense: you would have sought to escape, or if an opening for flight were offered, uncertain amid the greatest peril you would meditate on overcoming the danger.

The author of crimes holds you captive, not with iron bonds, but he holds you bound with chains of sins: he has imposed fetters of lust upon you, and hedged you in on every side with a stricter custody: he has given you a law, that you should think everything permitted which is not permitted: he has plunged you, though alive, into the pit of eternal death; and do you not groan over the loss of your salvation, the forfeiture of eternal hope, and the detriment of eternal life? You walk about adorned in fine clothing, you celebrate refreshments with opulent food, you are soaked in wine, you fatten your soul with daily feasts, and you do not cease to cultivate the gluttony of a well-fed body—that I may for the moment keep silent about your other crimes. Do you think, do you think this too is not a matter of divine notice, that you do not know how you ought to repent of your crimes?

As the Apostle proves, who says: Because they did not have God in their knowledge, he handed them over to a reprobate mind, to do things unfitting; and again: Because they did not receive the love of truth, that they might be saved, God sent them a working of error, that they might be judged who did not believe the truth. Of such indeed he fears, lest coming to Corinth he find many of those who have not repented of the uncleannesses which they have committed, and the fornications, and the lust.

—Think upon the sumptuous banquets of that rich man, and the abundant plenty of his ample feasts, the purple, the richer scarlet dye, and the sheen of woven silk enclosing him, all of it built on hope of the present time, taking no thought at all of the future. Hear what is stored up for him after all these things. After purple, flame; after feasting, want, so that he sought a drop of water—he who before had drunk a drop of precious nectar—and he sought from him, and yet did not receive, the comfort of a moistened fingertip, from him to whom in the world he had denied the crumbs of his own feasts. Confess, I beg, all things whereby you remember yourself guilty; confess, and go before the face of God with the service of satisfaction, humble your heart before him, and bend your neck in his sight: bend the knee, and prostrate yourself on the ground with face cast down.

That heavenly advocate will straightway take up your groaning, and will not fail to intercede for you with his Father, he who is accustomed to lend faithful patronage to those who repent. He will not plead his case with arguments in the prescribed manner of eloquence, about to obtain at once the benefit of pardon, he who expects no fee from the one he has overcome. This the Apostle proves, saying: Who shall accuse against the elect of God? God who justifies, who is he that shall condemn? Christ who died, yes and who also rose again, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. In agreement, the most blessed apostle John in his epistle sets down and says: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us: but if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity.

If we say that we do not sin, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin: and if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, and he pleads for our sins. Everything that the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life, has spoken, is law: and by his own example he taught what to do, which he commanded us in writing; for he would not wish anything to be done by us which either he himself had not done, or which would not be pleasing to him when we did it. Nor could what he himself had commanded be displeasing; because he who had commanded it had already done it beforehand.

For the teaching of a command would become empty, if the authority of the teacher did not go before in deed: but whatever the Lord both commanded and did will not be empty, which he commanded to be done in imitation of himself. The same Lord, then, set forth these things for his disciples to keep: Take heed to yourselves: If your brother sins against you, forgive him: and if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to you saying, I repent; forgive him, and it will be forgiven you. And when he had been consulted on the matter by the holy apostle Peter, who said: Lord, if my brother sins against me, how many times shall I forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus said to him: I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

He, then, who commands us to forgive up to seven times the debts owed to us by a brother sinning against us—does he not keep, with regard to us, the form of his own precept? Or he who said: I desire mercy more than sacrifice; can he deny us the treasury of mercy? This is what—pardon having first been sought—I would say, that one would believe the Lord Jesus had lied in all that he taught, if he were unwilling to keep, with regard to us, the form of his own precepts.

—And it is well that he immediately fits to this saying, by way of comparison, the parable of two little servants, of whom one, when because of a great debt, his money spent, he was ordered to be sold along with his wife and children, and, prostrate at his lord's feet, begged for patience, so that, given a period of time, he might have paid back the whole debt, and had deserved by the lord's mercy to have it all forgiven him: he, held bound to torments under such a condition, himself was unwilling to have mercy on his fellow-servant who owed him; because he had forgotten the kindness only just now bestowed on him: at once he is handed over to the torturers, and from his torments the same amount is exacted which had lately been forgiven.

Hence it is that the Lord set forth this order of prayer, saying: And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; so that you may know that so much can be forgiven you, as much as you yourself have forgiven your own debtor: indeed rather, so that you may seem to spare yourself, when, being besought, you have forgiven another. For without doubt you will be judged by your own judgment, if, yourself desiring to be forgiven, you have been unwilling to forgive another, the Lord saying: With what judgment you judge, with the same you will be judged: and with what measure you have measured, with the same it will be measured back to you. I would have you read attentively the beginning of the prophet Zechariah, and there you will find whereby you may be more strongly encouraged. The Lord, he says, was angry with our fathers with great wrath. Who, hearing this, would not tremble? Who would not grow pale, terrified by the thunder of this voice?

Or whose mind would not be troubled by this announced indignation? For what state of soundness could be maintained, where so vehement a wrath of the Author was proclaimed? And it was too little to say wrath, unless it were also proclaimed great, as though, unless it were great, a milder anger of his could be endured. But let us see what outcome so great a commotion pronounces. I believe, he said, I will disturb you with the tumults of war, and I will punish you with the harsh dominion of captivity, I will afflict you with famine, shake you with disease, consume you with death, unforeseen devastation of wild beasts will seize you, exile will drive you as fugitives scattered everywhere. For this is left to the understanding, that a more vehement vengeance follows great wrath. The Lord, he says, was angry with our fathers with great wrath, saying to them. Let us hear what he said: Turn to me, and I will turn to you. O indignation flowing from tenderness! O great wrath, which brings in mercy!

I ask, he who is thus angry, how does he show mercy? Or if he shows mercy thus, how is he indignant in anger? This another prophet declares: Return, Israel, to your Lord, because you have been weakened in your iniquities. Say to him: You are able to forgive our sins, not that you should receive iniquity, but that you should receive good things; and render to him the fruit of your lips, and your heart will feast on good things; and elsewhere: Return, he says, deserting children, says the Lord; and again: Return, returning children, and I will heal your affliction. In accord with these, blessed David sang the comforts of sinners, saying: Confess to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever.

—Nor would I say this, so as to seem to have given rather looser reins to license, and, under the pretext of pardon to be divinely granted, to have offered rather the tinder of sinning, than the Author's repentance; for by this discourse of mine I raise up the one who is falling, I do not push the one who is standing: nor do I prejudice innocence, in that I exhort the sinner to repentance. Since, as we have already said above, innocence demands from God the due reward of its own life: but repentance awaits the benefit of mercy; for not to sin is to fear, but to repent is more than to fear. For a secure happiness is very often subject to offenses: but he is made more cautious to avoid past faults, whom fear corrects; because he will always be more watchful who is on guard lest he fall again there where he has already fallen before.

Thus experienced dangers make a helmsman careful, and he sometimes fears to enter even harbors he has offended against, who has once, through carelessness, suffered shipwreck. Finally divine Scripture says: He who has not been tempted, what does he know? To show that through the occasion of temptation the one tempted is always made more cautious, and that he is corrected more by fear who beforehand had been careless through the knowledge of temptation. To such a degree, moreover, does the Lord desire to forgive sinners, he who does not will the death of the dying, but rather that he should return and live; that those whom he sometimes destines to punishment for their crimes, being entreated by repentance, he hastens at once to release: and that he may put back the sword into its sheath, he changes the sentence of chastisement for satisfaction.

—And although this has already been proved above from the deed of the Ninevites, yet receive also the testimony of the prophet Jeremiah concerning it, that the example may be more fully proved to you from testimonies. The word, he says, which came from the Lord to Jeremiah, saying: Arise, and go down into the potter's house, and there you shall hear my words. And I went down into the potter's house, and behold, he was doing a work upon the stones, and the vessel which he was making fell from his hands; and again he made it into another vessel, as it pleased him to make it. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Cannot I do with you as this potter, O house of Israel? Behold, as clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand: and if at any time I shall speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom, to pluck it up and to destroy it.

If that nation shall turn from its evil thoughts, I will repent of the evil which I thought to do to them, and will not do it. And if at any time I shall speak concerning a kingdom or a nation, that it be built up and planted; and it shall do evil in my sight, so that it does not hear my voice: I will repent of the good which I said I would do to them, and will not do it. And now say to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you. Let every one turn from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good Our potter, therefore, persuades us to be turned away from our worst ways and evil thoughts, that the conversion of penitence may reshape our fractures and vices into another vessel. And he wills that the substance of his work perish not in penitence; lest sentence hold guilty him whom confession excuses.

With this agrees the Wisdom of Solomon: But thou hast mercy, he says, O Lord, on all, because thou canst do all things, and overlookest the sins of men, for the sake of repentance; for it is in thy power when thou wilt, and since thou art Lord of all, thou makest thyself spare all. Let us then be converted and confess to the Lord, while we spend this passage of time in the world, and let us prepare for our Judge the provision of penitence for the journey. Let not the courses of our time be idle, nor let us be born to sin, but let us invite ourselves to act well. Or if we shall have been made subject to sin—since it cannot but be, in this theatre of the world, that we sin—let us remember ourselves, that we may desire to escape the precipice of hell. Let us then do penance from faith, let us pray from the heart, let us weep from the depths of our being.

And as the Prophet says: Let us adore and fall down and weep before the Lord who made us; for they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Happy, alas, all too happy the office of tears, by which rewards are gathered up for the time to come! And blessed the increase of the seed which is poured out in weeping, that it may be reaped in gladness! For it is written: Happy the man who recognizes his own wailing. Let us lift up our eyes to the mountains, whence help will come to us; for as the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters, and as the eyes of the handmaid are on the hands of her mistress: so are our eyes toward the Lord our God, until he have mercy upon us.

—Nor let us prolong the resolve of our conversion by the delights of time in such a way that, under the knowledge of sinning and the delight of perishing, we sink ourselves into the abyss of crimes even to our last age; since the limit which closes the use of living granted to us by divine condescension is held to be uncertain.

And perhaps this which is thought to be either the first or the middle period already sets the boundary of the imminent setting, and the due end may be the calling of the indignant Lord because of the slowness of conversion; since indeed, from the admonition to break off delays in conversion, the proposed oracle seems to be: Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and put it not off from day to day; for his wrath will come suddenly, and in the time of vengeance he will destroy thee; and again: Son, thou hast sinned, do not add again, but pray also concerning thy former sins, that they may be forgiven thee; and do not add sin upon sin, and say: The mercy of God is great; for mercy and wrath are from him.

Nor let us allow ourselves to become slaves until death, and give our bodies to the dominion of wickedness, but let us obey the Apostle who says: Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it; so that, since sins cannot fail to occur, they at least may not reign, that is, lest there be an unbridled license of sinning without regard to escape. Or certainly if anyone thinks that time remains for him to sin, and, having satiated his lust, when now the powers of the body have taken command of the mind, to then return to the judgment of repenting, let him tell me the last time of his life, by whose reckoning he has learned it, by whose intimation he has known it; that he may, so to speak, rightly flatter himself concerning the span of time.

But since the terminal end is unexpected for us, and the courses of our life are uncertain from ignorance of death, how does anyone suppose that time remains to him for confessing, who is ignorant of the time of his own time, since surely he hears the Scripture saying: While living and healthy thou shalt confess, and shalt praise God, and shalt go into the portion of the holy age with those living and giving confession. For let the delay of time create confession, and not generate despair; because damnation is aggravated in one who, with stubborn presumption of mind, thinks upon the divine patience as if delayed. This is shown to have come to pass in the days of holy Noah, when, patience being drawn out over a hundred years, he poured forth an implacable flood over the circuit of the world, with inundating judgment. Whence the blessed Apostle says: Or dost thou despise the riches of his goodness, and patience, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads thee to repentance?

But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up to thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his works.

I would have you tell me, what is the glory of present things, what are the fruits of this time, what the usefulness of things that pass away. The power of a kingdom, as I have said, is ended by death, the ambition of power is cut off by succession, abundance of riches is for the most part taken from us while we still live, the achieving of pleasure is corrupted by intervening sorrow, the delight of joys is violated by the dread of fear, and everything that is seized upon by desire—whether the body or the soul of the body desires it—is cut off by a false ending. Nor can that possess a perfect claim to blessedness which the boundlessness of eternity does not encompass; for that which is measured by inevitable necessity must needs be transient: it will without doubt remain liable and inconstant and weak, whose life a chance event sometimes cuts short. Since, then, all these things are ended by death, what is our own in death itself?

If we shall have nothing which is stored up in the conscience by the increase of good work, and if we could have nothing good from ourselves, what shall we carry with us as we return to our homeland? How naked and disfigured our soul will remain, if we do not at least cover it with the veils of penitence and the garments of confession! Unless it be that we hasten to hide bodily shame, and do not strive to cover the nakedness of the soul, whose beauty, though naturally invisible, will become visible in the deformity of the filth of sins.

Those are the dealings to be pursued, those the riches to be embraced, that the power to be sought after, which time does not snatch away, which place does not take from us, which no person carries off, which remains in perpetual state, which is kept by an eternal privilege, which is not subjected to an end, which is neither pressed nor driven by the yoke of death. For there goods are safe from conscience, where it will no longer be lawful to sin after the evils of the present age, where the devil has no access, where there is no place for darkness; but neither he who deceives, nor he who could be deceived, is found at all.

There all things are good, there all is happy, there all is prosperous: no day changeable by the growth of light, no sun appearing slower in its rising, brighter in its shining, dimmer in its setting: night will be wholly absent, there will be no moon, nor will the twinkling of stars glow more ardently: no one will feel hunger, tears will be wiped away, there will be no fear, dread will be from nothing, gladness will be everything, peace will be the whole, joy will possess whatever had been subject to sadness. The prophet Isaiah expounds all this clearly What then will be the glory of the happy there, what the punishments of the wretched, what the groans, what the sighs of sinners, what the blessedness of the saints?

To these, fellowship with God; those given over to be tormented by the flames of hell: these to enjoy incomparable refreshment, those to be slaughtered by an unquenchable fire: these to be delighted, unwearied, by the fountains of paradise and the tops of groves with their streams, those beset by the pool of fire and the flood of burning, and the darkness of black night, pressed by inexplicable punishments: to conclude, these to enjoy heavenly goods, those to be consumed by the devouring of all hell and eternal death?

If now, as regards this world, someone brought low by the ruin of poverty has not at hand anything with which he might sustain his famished hunger with any sort of food, and sees others load their tables with rich feasts, and drink from gems while stuffed with banquets, and prolong far and wide, with a display of ambition, feasts seasoned with exotic flavors, what sighs do you think he draws from the deepest part of his innards, what complaints does he utter with inward pain; sometimes even shedding tears, when he begins to be seized a little more by desire of what he has seen, and feels his ineffectual desire kindling more and more from that desire? What then will be the groans of the wretched, what the inconsolable grief in that comparison of torment, when they shall see the host of the blessed souls enjoying heavenly abundance and everlasting riches, and see themselves deprived even of the trickling drop from a moistened finger, and moreover enduring an inextinguishable flame, since they are reserved by no hope of pardon?

We cannot bear the heat of the sun, we scarcely tolerate the heat of baths, we feel the fires of furnaces, and withdraw far off; who could bear the surging of hell, and be able to endure the noise of the smoking abyss seething in the fires of Tartarus, and sustain the infernal masses of darkness; where alone is heard the wailing of those burning, and the lamentation of those cruelly punished resounds? These things, I beg, how much are they to be fled, how much to be guarded against, and shunned with all one's strength and with the whole soul and mind!

Since, then, the doors of pardon lie open, since a harbor of penitence is offered to those tossed and buffeted by the storm of crimes, since care is promised for languishing minds, and the willing physician promises a life-giving medicine for the wounded: since mercy is at hand, before justice draws the dagger to the hilt, let us take up the arms of penitence, and soften the rigor of the Judge by the office of satisfaction. For he has a sure gift of pardon, to whom it is permitted to repent; for without doubt he is not allowed to confess, for whom no mercy is preserved. This is proved by the condemnation of the inveterate serpent at the very origin of the world, whom an unheard-of thunderbolt of sentence struck down: and, without seeking pardon, absolute severity cast him down from the possession of his estate.

This the regions of Sodom and Gomorrah, burned up by heavenly fire, attest, for which, on account of the excess of their crimes, nothing of penitence was reserved; lest perhaps, being warned, they might have been able to decline the justice of vengeance. This the destruction of Pharaoh in Exodus proclaims, this the unexpected end of Core, Dathan, and Abiron attests, this the punishments of Antiochus and Herod declare, this the shipwreck of Ananias and Sapphira shows by sudden retribution: whom vengeance did not defer to a later time, and, pardon being denied, severity accompanied and cut them off. Let not the day of departure find us unprepared, nor let the time of that winter or of the sabbath enclose us within the devil's camp. Let us watch against the fraudulent snares and open threats of the ancient enemy; for against the converted he is roused more fiercely, and pursues his fugitives, as if mocked, more severely.

When he was deceiving, he had enticed with blandishments; now he disturbs with temptations and cruelties: then he had been as a friend, now he rages as an enemy; and through a fall he makes one more cautious, but he who has been thrown down sometimes is wont to throw down him who threw him. Let us flee the pompous enticements of the world, and give complete divorce to its ambitions. This the apostle John urges, saying: Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him; because all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the concupiscence of the world: and the world passes away, and the concupiscence thereof. But he who does the will of God abides forever; as God also abides forever.

Let us wash ourselves in the baptism of penitence, that we may be able with a clean heart to see the Lord: let us take away wickedness from our souls, from the sight of the eyes of God; let us learn to do justice; let us seek judgment, let us rescue the one suffering wrong, let us give judgment for the fatherless, let us justify the widow, and let us reason with the Lord. And if our sins be as scarlet, he will make them white as snow: but if they be as crimson, he will make them white as wool. And because he will sprinkle with hyssop, and we shall be cleansed, he will wash us, and we shall be whiter than snow.

There are three things which the Lord, by His own judgment, preserves as established toward us: I mean goodness, mercy, and justice. Goodness is that whereby we have begun to exist; mercy, whereby we are called to penitence; justice, whereby we shall be judged in time to come. These meanwhile keep among themselves the order of the times, past, present, and future: past, in which by the Lord's authorship we are created and born; present, in which by conversion we earn mercy; future, in which, according to our works, we shall be rewarded by the distribution of justice. Therefore, since we hold the kingdom of mercy in our hands, and the gifts of piety are placed within our own choice, let us here purge our consciences from every defilement, and henceforth fit ourselves with spiritual instruments through good conversion of life. Let us avoid the desires that war against our souls, and let us in no wise suffer a profane conscience.

We shall obtain all things which we believe by faith, if we compose ourselves by righteous deeds unto a blameless life. We shall merit the remission of all sins, we shall rise again unto eternal life in the resurrection of believers; and, that boldness of speech may presume yet further, we shall enter into the kingdoms of heaven with the just, with whom we have deserved to have a portion through penitence, Scripture saying: “But to those who repent He gave a portion of righteousness, and gathered together those who were failing to sustain them, and appointed them unto the lot of truth”.

These things, dearest brother, whereby I might exhort you together with myself to the practice of penitence, I have set down, so far as the mediocrity of my talent has been able to gather from the readings of the Lord. If now, as I suppose, you are pursuing them of your own zeal and by your own resolve, and, seated in the chariot of confession, are pressing on toward pardon, receive me as your companion in this thought, that, joined in common escort, we may hasten together to the goal of indulgence: or if, hindered by the sluggishness of indolence, I shall not be able to follow your swiftness, remember me: and when you shall have earned the reward from God's bounty, I beg that in your prayers no forgetfulness may overtake Victor.