Book I, Chapter 43

CHAPTER XLIII. On salutary penance according to the various opinions, and on the power of the keys. 1

After these matters it seems we must deal with the justification of the unjust and with salutary penance. Many opinions revolve around it, but chiefly two. One is that of the Pelagians, who hold that the sinner first repents naturally, and through this secondly merits, receives and has grace and justification. The other is that of certain others, who say that God first, naturally and freely, pours grace into the sinner, and that the sinner himself secondly repents in a salutary way. 2 The first of these is varied in two ways. Some of the Pelagians affirm that grace naturally precedes justification; others affirm the contrary. The former posit that the sinner first repents naturally, secondly receives grace through this, and thirdly is justified through that grace. The others, on the contrary, say that the sinner first repents naturally, secondly is justified through this, and so thirdly receives grace. These latter are again divided in two ways. Some think that the sinner alone purges his sin through contrition, and so justifies himself. Others think that God does this, but on account of the merit of a contrition that precedes it in time and in nature. The opinion of the Pelagians, then, is in general only one, but in particular threefold. They labour to establish these opinions of theirs, the common one and the particular ones, with many testimonies of Holy Scripture and others. For such things, as Augustine reports in On Grace and Free Choice, the eleventh chapter, the Pelagians gather from Scripture. For example: "Turn to me, E1 and I will turn to you," that according to the merit of our turning to God his grace may be given us, by which he too may turn to us. Likewise: "And the Lord is with you, when you are with him"; and "If you seek him, you will find him"; and the like. Augustine also writes in On the Predestination of the Saints, 13, as follows: "When it is said," the Pelagians say, "'If you believe, you will be saved,' one of these is demanded and the other offered. What is demanded lies in man's power; what is offered lies in God's power."

And who, as they say, does not know that penance is the remission of sins, and the cause of the justification of the unjust, and of reconciliation and divine acceptance? It is therefore prior, in time or in nature, to the remission of sin, the justification of the unjust, and divine acceptance. For this the Old Testament and the New commonly show, as do all the Catholic Doctors who treat of penance, and the divine, canon and human laws. Hence Jeremiah 18: "Suddenly," says the Lord, "I will speak against a nation and against a kingdom, to root out and to pull down and to destroy it. If that nation does penance for its evil, which I have spoken against it, I too will repent of the evil that I thought to do to it." Likewise Jonah 3: "God saw their works, that they had turned from their evil way, and God had pity over the evil which he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it." The Gloss: A1 "Every day God threatens the peoples, that they may do penance; but if they have turned, he too changes his sentence, and is altered by the people's conversion." Hence also Augustine, on that verse of Psalm 50 [51], "The uncertain and hidden things of your wisdom you have made known to me": "In the face of this uncertainty the Ninevites did penance, and deserved a sure mercy." The same, in On True and False Penance, 1, 3 speaks thus: "How greatly the grace of penance is to be desired, every authority cries out, and the whole life of the blessed strives to show. For it heals illnesses, cures lepers, raises the dead, increases the health which it preserves; to the lame it gives their step, to the withered abundance, to the blind it restores sight; it puts vices to flight, adorns the virtues, fortifies and strengthens the mind; it heals all things, restores all things, gladdens all things; it tempers successes, checks onslaughts, moderates excesses; the one who is ignorant of himself recognizes himself through it, and the one who seeks it always finds it; it is that which leads men to the angels, and gives the creature back to the Creator. It showed the lost sheep to the one who sought it, and offered the tenth drachma to the one who searched anxiously; it brought the squandering son back to his father, and kept the man wounded by robbers for the keeper to cure; in it all good is found, by it all good is preserved; it puts darkness to flight, brings in light, refines all things, itself a consuming fire."

Again, medicine comes before the one medicated; and penance is a medicine, as is clear from the authority of Augustine just cited. He also says below, in 13: "Let the penitent believe, namely, that this penance is a medicine." And in On Penance, 1, he says, "How useful and necessary is the medicine of penance," etc. And below, in 8, he says that "sins are dried up by the medicine of penance." Hence also the whole Church prays: C1 "Heal me, Lord, with the medicine of penance, O God." Again, Ambrose, as cited in the Gloss on that verse of Luke 5, "I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance": "Usurpers of justice," he says, "are not called to grace. For if grace comes from penance, then surely the one who disdains penance renounces grace." C2 Again, Chrysostom, as cited in the Gloss on that verse of Luke 3, "Preaching a baptism of penance": "John came," he says, "urging them to do penance, so that, made better and contrite through penance, they might strive to receive pardon. Aptly, then, when he had said that he came preaching a baptism of penance, he added 'for the remission of sins,' as if to say: 'He therefore urged them to repent, so that believing in Christ they might more easily obtain the pardon that followed.' For unless they were led by penance, they would by no means ask for grace." C3 Again the Psalmist: "I said, I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord, and you forgave the impiety of my sin" (Psalm 31 [32]). 4 He first said it in his heart, and resolved to confess; and afterwards, in time or in nature, and on account of this, the impiety of his sin was forgiven. D1 Hence Augustine, expounding this: "It is a great thing," he says. "I said, I will declare. He did not say, 'I declared,' and you forgave; he said, I will declare, and you forgave. For by the very fact that he said 'I will declare,' he shows that he had not yet declared with his mouth; but in his heart he had declared. To say this very thing, 'I will declare,' is to declare; therefore you forgave the impiety of my heart." Cassiodorus agrees with this, expounding the same verse. And John Chrysostom says, as cited in the Canon on penance, dist. 1, Nunc autem: "If you recall your sins, and often declare them in God's sight, and beg his clemency for them, you will blot them out the sooner." Again, as cited above, in the same place, and in the Sentences 4, dist. 17: "No one," he says, "can receive the grace of God unless he has been purged of every stain of sin, or of every sin, through the confession of penance, through the gift of saving baptism, or even through baptism." Again Ezekiel 18: "If," says the Lord, "the wicked man does penance for all his sins, etc., he shall surely live"; and below, "When the wicked man turns away from his wickedness, etc., he will give life to his own soul; for considering and turning away from all his iniquities which he has wrought, he shall surely live." Again the Prophet: "I will wash my bed," he says, "every night with my tears" (Psalm 6). On this Augustine says: "He will wash his bed every night, so that with so many tears he may obtain from God's mercy a most effective medicine." Again Psalm 84 [85] says most plainly: "Justice will go before him, and will set his steps in the way." Augustine expounds this: "Justice," he says, "is that which is in the confession of sins; for it is truth itself. For you ought to be just in yourself, so as to punish yourself. This is man's first justice, that you punish yourself as evil, and God make you good. Since this, then, is man's first justice, it becomes a way for God, that God may come to you. There make a way for him, in the confession of sins."

Hence also John, when he baptized in the water of penance and wished those coming to him to repent of their former deeds, said this: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths." "You were pleased with yourself in your sins, O man; be displeased with what you were, so that you may be what you were not. 'Prepare the way of the Lord': let this justice come first, that you confess your sins; he will come and visit you, because he will set his steps in the way. For there is a place where he may set his steps, there is a place where he may come to you. But before you confessed your sins, you had shut off from yourself the way of God; there was no way by which he could have come to you. Confess your life 5 and you open the way, and Christ will come, and will set his steps in the way, to form you by his footprints." Again Psalm 103 [104]: "You have put on confession and beauty": confession first, and through it beauty second, as Augustine's exposition also attests. And who does not know that most famous Gospel story of Magdalene, the most fortunate sinner? It maintains that by fervent love and abundant tears she deserved the remission of her sins, and pardon, and divine friendship. Hence Luke 7: "Her many sins," says the Lord, "are forgiven her, because she loved much." And below: "And he said to the woman, Your faith has saved you; go in peace." "In peace," says Theophilus, "that is, in justice; for justice is man's peace with God." Hence also the Apostle, Romans 2: "The doers of the law will be justified." And James 2: "You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone."

Again Peter, 6 Sentences 4, dist. 14: "Penance," he says, "is necessary for those placed far from God, that they may draw near." There he also cites Jerome, that penance is the second plank after shipwreck, because if anyone by sinning corrupts the garment of innocence received in baptism, he can restore it by the remedy of penance. The first plank is baptism, where the old man is put off and the new put on; the second is penance, by which after a fall we rise again, while the old state that has returned is driven off and the lost newness is taken up again. Those who have fallen after baptism can be renewed through penance, but not through baptism. Peter adds that of penance it is said that it is both a sacrament and a virtue of the mind. For penance is interior and exterior; the exterior is a sacrament, the interior is a virtue of the mind, and each is a cause of salvation and of justification. Reason also seems to confirm this. For if justifying grace were given freely before contrition and penance, in time or in nature, the sinner would not need to be contrite any further, nor to repent any further, since he would already be justified and just. Again, if God justifies one sinner not for any preceding merit but purely gratuitously, why not another, and another, and so all? Again, if God now justified anyone purely gratuitously, why rather now than at another time, later or earlier? Again, in particular for the second opinion it plainly follows: "This man has grace, therefore he is without mortal sin"; and this does not convert, 7 because someone could be without sin without grace, as perhaps the angels and the first men were at their creation. This is therefore naturally prior to that. Again, if having grace were naturally prior to the deletion of sin, it could exist without that deletion; therefore a sinner can be in grace and in mortal sin at the same time. The thirty-fifth chapter and those following set right and lead back this general error of the Pelagians, for they show that no one can merit first grace in any way.

Again, whoever is contrite and repents of his sins does so either justly, well, meritoriously and laudably, as he ought, or otherwise. If otherwise, he does not merit justification nor the friendship of the just God. If justly and well, he already has beforehand justice, charity and justifying grace. From this, as from an efficient cause naturally preceding and as from an original root, such a just act proceeds and sprouts, as is established from the thirty-ninth, fortieth and forty-first chapters. It is established especially from the words of Anselm, On Concord 9 and On Truth 12, and of Augustine, To Simplicianus 24; and again from Anselm, On the Fall of the Devil 17 and 12, and On Concord 9 and the last, and from Augustine's On Faith to Peter, 8 18 and 21, with 39 of this book premised. The same Augustine, on that verse of Psalm 110 [111], "Confession and magnificence is his work," speaks thus: "What is more magnificent than to justify the impious? But perhaps a man's work anticipates this magnificence of God, so that when he has confessed his sins he may merit to be justified. 'Not from works,' he says, 'lest anyone boast.' For we are his handiwork, created in Christ in good works. For a man does not work justice unless he has been justified. But believing in him who justifies the impious, he begins from faith, so that good works may show it, not by preceding, as something he has merited, but by following, as something he has received." It was also plainly shown in 40 of this book that no fruit is good which does not spring from the root of charity. Hence also Hosea, the last chapter: "From me," says the Lord, "your fruit has been found." The Gloss: "Every work, and the observance of both the Old and the New Testament, proceeded from my gift." And Augustine says, on that verse of Psalm 50 [51], "And take not your Holy Spirit from me": "The Holy Spirit is in the one who confesses. Now it belongs to the gift of the Holy Spirit that what you have done displeases you. To the unclean spirit sins are pleasing; to the holy one they are displeasing. Although, then, you are still begging pardon, yet on the side on which the evil you have committed displeases you, you are joined to God. For what displeases you displeases him as well. Now there are two of you for overcoming your fever, you and the physician. Since, then, the confession of sin, and the punishment of sin by oneself in a man, when each is angry with himself and displeased with himself, cannot exist without the gift of the Holy Spirit, it is not so; 9 nor does he say, 'Give me your Holy Spirit,' but 'Do not take it away from me.'"

Again, whoever repents repents either out of love of justice, or out of fear of punishment, or for some other cause. If out of love of justice, that is, out of gratuitous love of God above all things for God's sake, he already has, beforehand in nature, charity and grace, whence he will love God, as was argued just above. If out of fear of punishment or for another cause, for instance his own advantage, and not out of the aforesaid love of justice, how does he by this merit God's justification and friendship, as was taught more fully, philosophically and theologically, in 39? For a right intention makes the work right, and, according to the Philosopher, Ethics 6, 10, 10 virtue makes the intention itself right. But no virtue is right without charity and grace, which make a man pleasing to God, 11 as ‖A1 the same 39 shows. For who doubts that the whole law and the Prophets depend on gratuitous love of God above all things for his own sake, and of neighbour for God's sake, since the Truth bears witness to this in Matthew 22? Hence also the Apostle says, "The end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned"; and 1 Timothy 1. Hence also Augustine, Enchiridion, next to last: "The end," he says, "of every commandment is charity, that is, every commandment is referred to charity. But what is done, whether out of fear of punishment or from some carnal intention, in such a way that it is not referred to that charity which the Holy Spirit pours out in our hearts, is not yet done as it ought to be done, although it seems to be done. For this charity is of God and of neighbour; and surely on these two commandments hangs the whole law and the Prophets. Add the Gospel, add the Apostles; for this voice comes from nowhere else: the end of the commandment is charity. Whatever God commands, therefore, and whatever things are not commanded but urged by a special counsel, are rightly done then, when they are referred to the love of God, and of the neighbour for God's sake." His authority plainly attests this also in the first book Against Pelagius and Caelestius, On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin, 22, which the thirty-seventh chapter of this book has. He also says in On the Spirit and the Letter, 13: "A commandment, if it is done out of fear of punishment, not out of love of justice, is done servilely, not freely, and therefore is not done. For it is not good fruit that does not spring from the root of charity. But if faith is present which works through love, a man begins to delight in the law of God according to the inner man; and this delight is the gift not of the letter but of the Spirit, even if another law in the members still fights against the law of the mind, until the whole old nature, changed into newness, which is increased from day to day in the inner man, passes over, the grace of God freeing us from the body of this death." From this passage, it seems, was taken that legal rule at the end of the fifth book of the Decretals, which is ascribed to Augustine and says: "He who does a commandment out of fear does otherwise than he ought, and therefore does not do it."

Again, whoever repents salutarily does this out of a love of God that is pleasing to him and that naturally precedes. For he does it for some end. If for God, he loves God gratuitously for his own sake, which he cannot do unless charity is already possessed, as is clear from 39. If for another end, he does not repent salutarily, nor does he merit life, as is clear from the same 39 and the other premises. Again, by Corollary 41 of this book, 12 God works and pre-works in man every good work, and by the same Corollary he does this through grace freely infused, working naturally prior to the human will; and therefore every salutary contrition and penance as well. Again, if someone, as they say, merits through contrition the remission of mortal sin, he likewise merits the remission of the eternal penalty owed for the sin, either as a whole or in a part of it infinite in duration; for at the least he merits the commutation of that eternal penalty into some temporal penalty. And if he merits this in a single instant or brief moment, namely by repenting once, then, if at another instant or time, namely another time, he repents in like manner, he will merit full remission of any temporal penalty whatever, since any temporal penalty is incomparably less than the eternal. And so the penance that is usually imposed on penitents in the Church in the present life would be superfluous, and likewise the purgatorial fire after this life. It follows also that any contrition, however remiss or brief, takes away all venial guilt and all penalty owed for a venial sin, or even for any venial sins whatever. For it suffices to take away all mortal guilt and the eternal penalty owed for a mortal sin, or some infinite portion of it, and these are incomparably greater than those. No one fails to know that this is contrary to reason and to Catholic truth. Indeed it evidently follows that any contrition, however lukewarm and remiss, provided it is supported by the due circumstances, merits full remission of mortal sin of any magnitude, as to guilt and as to any penalty whatever, eternal and even temporal. That any contrition, however small, accompanied by due circumstances, deletes or excludes every mortal sin as to guilt, the Pelagians themselves and others commonly confess, and it could be shown in many ways, by reasons as well as by authorities. But since hardly anyone doubts this, let it suffice to prove it with a single reason and a single, indeed threefold, testimony. For every such contrition proceeds from charity and grace, which destroys and excludes every mortal sin.

John Chrysostom also, in On the Restoration of the Fallen, cited in the Canon, On Penance, dist. 3, Talis, 13 and in Peter's Sentences 4, dist. 14, Talis, says: "Such, believe me, is God's kindness toward men; he never spurns penance, if it is offered to him sincerely and simply. Even if someone has reached the height of evils, and yet wishes to return from there to the way of virtue, he receives him gladly, embraces him, does everything to recall him to his former state. And what is still more excellent and eminent: even if someone could not fulfil the whole order of satisfaction, yet penance done, however little and in however brief a time, he does not reject; he receives even that, and does not suffer him to lose the reward of even the slightest conversion."

Moreover, 14 it also follows against them that any contrition, however small, deletes every mortal sin fully as to the penalty. For let it be posited that Peter has a sin A, for which an eternal penalty B is owed, and that through contrition C he merits remission of A as to guilt, and as to the penalty D, an infinite part of B, and not as to the whole of B. And let it be posited that Paul has two similar sins, or more, and is likewise contrite for his many sins as Peter for his one. Then Paul by his contrition merits that one infinite part of one eternal penalty equal to B, owed for one of his sins, be remitted to him, and another infinite part of another eternal penalty equal to B, owed for another of his sins. These two parts joined together exceed, indeed in a way infinitely exceed, the whole of B. If, then, Paul by his contrition ‖A1 merits so great a remission for himself, and Peter by his own equal contrition, much more reasonably and worthily does he merit for himself the remission of the whole of B, which is far less, especially since Peter is more innocent and better disposed to merit.

To show this same thing more briefly and clearly, let this known truth be supposed: of any two penalties, uniform and alike in species, having a beginning and no end, unequal in intensity and in duration, the more intense one, however much and by whatever amount it is less or shorter in duration, is nevertheless simply greater. Yet lest anyone say that this supposition is not notorious enough, here is a brief demonstration of it. Let K be one uniformly intense penalty of fire, beginning at the future instant L, to last without end; and M another, similar, uniform, more remiss penalty, beginning at the present instant N, to remain eternally. K, therefore, is not equal to M, nor less; therefore it is greater. For if the adversary says that K is equal to M, let O be a part of M, beginning at L and lasting eternally from then, and P the remaining part of it; and let Q be an intensive part of K, imaginary or real as some hold, equal to O, and R the remaining part of K. Since then K and M are equal, if equals are taken away from them, namely O and Q, the remaining parts are equal, as is evident to anyone by itself, and Euclid supposes this as manifest in the first book of his Elements. 15 P and R are therefore equal. No one fails to know that this is utterly false, since P is finite in every way, while R is infinite in duration and uniform throughout, as follows lucidly from the premises; and that it is false can also be shown easily. For either P and R are of equal intensity or not. If so, P is wholly equal to a finite part of R as long in duration as P is; for it is similar in species, and equal to it intensively, and likewise extensively. Hence that part of R is also equal to its whole, since they are equal to a third, namely P. If, however, P and R are not of equal intensity, one of them is more intense. If R is remitted to equality with P, or P is intensified to equality with R, then they will not be equal, but R will be greater than P, as was just taught; so much the more, then, is R now greater. If, however, P is the more intense, this is not infinitely but only finitely. Let it therefore be posited, for example, that it is so (that is, that P is the more intense) in some multiple proportion, say tenfold, or a hundredfold, or in another, as one pleases. Let P be divided into equal intensive parts according to the number of the denomination of the given proportion, say into ten or a hundred. Then each of them will be of equal intensity with R. Let them be joined one after another lengthwise in duration, and let T be the whole uniform penalty assembled from them. Then T is simply finite in duration, as is clear, and of equal intensity with R, therefore less than R, as was shown above; and this can also be demonstrated very easily in permanent continuous quantities.

Perhaps more perceptibly, to the same end, thus. To an intense penalty P there can be equated, all things weighed, some penalty similar in species, more remiss but longer, yet finite in duration before and after. For some such penalty can be greater in painfulness, more punishing and more to be shunned than it, simply, namely all things weighed; and hence also some penalty can be equal to it, namely one that, in proportion as it is lighter through remission, becomes heavier through duration. To this second penalty also, more remiss or longer, by like reasoning some third penalty, more remiss than this second but longer, yet finite in duration before and after, can likewise be equated. If it is posited, it is necessarily equal to P itself, since both are posited equal to the second penalty. To this third penalty again a fourth, more remiss but longer, equal in like manner, can be taken; and to this fourth a fifth, and so on, until one comes to some penalty as intense as, indeed even less intense than, the penalty R, and finite in time on either side. According to the premises it will necessarily be equal to P, and less than R; hence P too is proved necessarily likewise less than R. If, however, the falsifier 16 does not cease to be insolent, saying that P does not exceed R in some multiple proportion, but in some other whatever, let P be intensified or R remitted until a multiple proportion arises between them, etc., as above. If, however, it is said at the outset that K is less than M, and M greater than K, let K be intensified, or M uniformly remitted, until the penalties are equal, the quantity of duration being kept as before, etc., as before.

For no one doubts that K can, by intensification alone, become a greater penalty, simply, than M is, and M, by remission alone, a lesser one than K is. For some uniform intensification through the whole of K increases K more than a wholly finite extension through a single time finite at both ends, as is clear from what precedes. But some finite extension of K, say from L to N or beyond, increases K beyond M, as is most certain to everyone. Hence some intensification likewise increases it. If, then, K is now a lesser penalty than M, and can by intensification alone become a greater penalty, it can likewise become an equal one; and the same holds of M by remission, and by cutting back to L or beyond. Again, otherwise, to the same effect, thus. If K is a lesser penalty than M, let its first intensity and uniformity be preserved, and let it be extended continuously toward N until it is simply an equal penalty with M, all things equated; for it can do this. For it can thus become a greater penalty by extension alone toward N. If it is extended thus to N, who does not see that K is a greater penalty than M, since it is equal extensively and greater intensively? Let K, then, be extended with its former intensity and uniformity to some definite instant, such that it thus becomes an equal penalty with M, all things weighed. Then that instant cannot be posited at N, nor before N, because then K would manifestly be greater than M, as was just taught; nor can it be posited between N and L, as was demonstrated above. The supposition accepted beforehand is thus plain.

It can also be demonstrated briefly in a direct way thus. K is composed precisely of Q and R, and M of O and P. Q is equal to O, and R is greater than P, as no one fails to know, and as was also shown above. The whole of K is therefore greater than the whole of M. For there is a part of K equal to M, namely that composed of Q and one part of R equal to P. This shines out to everyone's eyes, and is evident through that common principle known through itself, "If you add equals to equals, the wholes will be equal," which Euclid accordingly enumerates among the common conceptions of the mind in the first book of his Elements. If, then, a part of K is equal to M, and K is greater than that part, as that familiar principle, "Every whole is greater than its part," lucidly manifests, K is likewise greater than M, as is clear to all. The 7th of the 5th of Euclid's Elements 17 also clearly demonstrates this, saying: "If two equal quantities are compared to any third, there will be one proportion of them to it; also of it to both one proportion." The truth stated beforehand is therefore clear.

Keeping, then, the case premised concerning Peter, and his sin A, and his eternal penalty B, and his contrition C, and D, the infinite part *C1 of B, remitted through C, let it be posited that Paul has E, a sin greater than A, for which an eternal penalty F, similar in species to B but more intense, and so greater, is also owed; and that by G, a contrition equal to C, he merits remission H of an infinite part of F. By the truth premised, therefore, H is a greater penalty than B. If, then, Paul by contrition G merits what is greater, namely the remission of H, much more does Peter by an equal contrition C merit what is less, namely the remission of the whole of B, an exceedingly great penalty, since he is better, more innocent, and more fit to merit. For what just creditor, whether lord or judge, refuses from his debtor that which is offered for payment of a smaller debt, which suffices not by grace but by right for payment of a greater, and which he also accepts from other debtors, not by grace but by right, as full payment of a greater, a greater, I say, 18

not by the least amount, but by as much as you care to imagine, as can easily be shown. Likewise, let it be supposed that a penalty is owed to Peter for some sin, equal to that part of the penalty which was remitted to Paul through his contrition, and that Peter is equally contrite. Then Peter by his contrition merits the full remission of his penalty. Therefore any contrition whatever suffices for the full remission of any guilt and penalty whatever. Likewise, the intensive half of contrition C in Peter, and any small part of it, or another contrition however much more remiss, supported by the required circumstances, would merit the deletion of A as to guilt, and as to an infinite part, B, though a smaller one, D 19. So the other half of C in Peter, or the whole contrition C, which is twice that half, or one however much more intense and better than that more remiss contrition just mentioned, much more merits the remission of the small remaining part of B, indeed even something great beyond it. Otherwise, indeed, that whole contrition is not fully rewarded by God, nor even any part of it. For the half of any designated part would merit remission of A as to guilt, and as to an infinite part, B, and why does one half not merit as much as the other? Why, then, does it not merit remission of the small remaining part of the penalty, and something beyond, by as much as the remission of A as to guilt, and of the infinite part of the penalty remitted, exceeds the remaining part of the penalty? But who would presume to say that God does not fully reward every good act, against the thirty-first part of the first Corollary of this work? Hence the Lord himself says, "Everyone who has left house, etc., for my name's sake," E1 "shall receive a hundredfold": Matt 9 20 and Mark 10: "There is no one who has left house, etc., for me, who will not receive a hundred times as much now in this time"; and Luke 6: "Give, and it will be given to you; a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and overflowing, they will give into your lap." E2 And the Wise Man says, "In few things troubled, in many they shall be well disposed"

Wis 3, which the course of both Testaments also plainly shows. Now it follows against these men not only that God does not fully reward every good act, but even that He cannot. For if *A1 He could, let God fully reward Peter's contrition C. Then either He does this by remitting to him the whole guilt A and the whole penalty B or D, and by giving him glory infinite extensively and intensively alike, or something less than this, or some lesser things. It is not the whole of this, as no one is unaware; and because Peter would still, by a more remiss act, have merited just as much, since more could not be had, and so act C would not be rewarded in full. Moreover, all who merit eternal life would likewise merit infinite glory, extensively and intensively alike, and so the difference of the heavenly mansions would perish; nor is the difficulty any less if the other course is taken 21. For let it be said that he merits remission of guilt A, and of penalty B or D, and glory O, infinite extensively but finite intensively. Then glory O is either more good and desirable than A and B, or D, are evil and to be shunned, or equally so, or less. If more, and not infinitely but only finitely, let it be said, for the sake of example, that it is a hundredfold, and let C be divided into several imaginary intensive parts, say a thousand. According to what was shown before, one of those parts by itself alone would merit the full remission of guilt A and of some infinite penalty. Hence another, equal part would merit at least the remission of the remaining temporal penalty, and each of the others, by like reasoning, would merit infinite glory extensively, as good and desirable as the guilt and penalty remitted were evil and to be shunned. All these parts, therefore, concurring virtually, merit infinite glory extensively, more intense than O; and so, by further division of C into more and more parts, one can proceed beyond any assignable intensity of glory. From this it also plainly appears that O cannot be posited equal to A and B, or D, nor less. Likewise, according to these men any contrition, however tiny, merits the full remission of any venial sins whatever, and of any temporal penalties owed. For if not, let A be a contrition that merits none of this, and let B be another, smaller contrition. Then, according to what was shown before, B in a sinner in mortal sin merits the remission of mortal sin as to guilt, and as to the infinite part of the penalty owed; and these incomparably exceed any venial sins whatever and any temporal penalties whatever. But what justice, what equity, what law dictates that one accept some price for the just, lawful and full payment of the greatest debt, and refuse a greater price for the full payment of the smallest debt? Likewise, still according to these men, any contrition merits the full remission of all guilt and penalty. For any mortal guilt, and perhaps venial guilt too, is worse and more to be shunned than any penalty of sense or of loss that does not include guilt, as the thirtieth part of the first Corollary teaches. And any contrition merits the full remission of every mortal sin, and of any mortal sins whatever, as to guilt, and therefore likewise as to penalty. For let Peter be guilty of two mortal sins, or of any number, and Paul of only one, less than any sin of Peter's, and of one penalty owed for it. Then if Peter repents, he merits the remission of two, or of however many more and greater evils (since so many mortal sins), than those two evils of Paul's. Why, then, does Paul, likewise repenting, not merit the full remission of all his guilt and penalty? Likewise, according to these men any contrition is of infinite efficacy and infinite merit. For however many mortal sins a man has, and however grievous, worthy of however many and however great infernal penalties, with any contrition he merits the remission of all mortal sins as to guilt, and the cutting off of an infinite part from each of the infernal penalties owed. Likewise, it follows similarly against these men that every good act proceeding in grace and from grace is of infinite merit. For every good act proceeding in grace and from grace is better, or at least as good and meritorious, as a similar act without grace and not done from grace; and some such act, for example contrition preceding grace, is of infinite merit, as has just now been argued. Likewise, if someone merits by contrition the first grace after sin, it seems that he merits as great a grace as he previously had and lost by sinning, if he had grace before the sin. For otherwise repentance would heal and give life to the penitent only partially and not perfectly, nor would it fully reconcile him to God, but God would reproach him with his preceding sin, by withholding a portion of the preceding grace, contrary to that text of James 1: "He gives to all abundantly, and does not reproach." Otherwise, too, such a man, if he died in that state, would be punished eternally in heaven with the penalty of loss, namely by the withholding of a portion of the grace and glory previously owed to him. Indeed, however long he lived and merited, he would still be eternally punished in heaven with such a penalty of loss; for he would always have less than one working in the same way would otherwise have had, and this on account of his preceding sin. It also seems, if he rises again in a lesser grace than he lost by falling, that his sin is not fully remitted. For he sinned by losing so great a grace, and in a way withdrawing it from God and his Lord, a grace which he always ought to have kept, and even to have returned with interest; nor is he released from that obligation on account of his sin, since if he had not sinned he would not have been released. Nor is it fitting that from his sin he should carry off profit

and greater freedom. But it is certain that sin is not fully remitted until what was taken away is fully restored, A1 especially if the obligation is not discharged. Hence Matthew 5: "Be agreeable to your adversary quickly, while you are in the way with him, lest the adversary hand you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Amen I say to you, you will not go out from there until you pay the last farthing"; and Luke 12: "You will not go out until you pay even the last mite." And Augustine writes to Macedonius, A2 as it is cited in the Canon, 14, last Question, Si res, that sin is not remitted unless what was taken away is restored 22. And below: "This I would say with the utmost confidence: he who intervenes on behalf of a man to the end that he not restore what was wrongly taken, and who does not compel to restitution, as far as he honorably can, the man who has fled to him, is a partner in the fraud and the crime." In the following chapter Gregory is also cited there, A3 strictly commanding that if the thing taken away cannot be restored, its price be given. So Anselm too, in the first book of Cur Deus homo, in the twentieth chapter: "Hold," he says, "most certainly that without satisfaction, that is, without voluntary payment of the debt, God cannot let sin go unpunished, nor can the sinner come to beatitude, or to such a state as he had before he sinned"; and in the twenty-first: "The satisfaction must be according to the measure of the sin"; and in the twenty-fourth, in dialogue form, he writes thus: "Look to strict justice, and judge according to it, whether a man makes satisfaction to God in equal measure to his sin, unless by conquering the Devil he restores that very thing which, by allowing himself to be conquered by the Devil, he took from God; so that, just as by his being conquered the Devil seized what was God's and God lost it, so by his conquering the Devil may lose it and God recover it." B. "Nothing stricter or more just can be thought." A. "Do you suppose, then, that supreme justice can violate this justice?" B. "I dare not think so." A. "In no way, then, is it fitting, or possible, that man receive from God what God has purposed to give him, if he does not ‖B1 return to God the whole of what he took from Him, so that, as God lost through him, so through him He may recover" 23. Indeed it seems that he must return more than the simple thing taken away, namely something by way of satisfaction for the contempt and injury inflicted. So also in the divine law, namely, C1 Exod 22, it is commanded that whoever has stolen something shall return it, according to the case, fivefold, fourfold, C2 or double; and the civil law agrees with this. In Leviticus 5 also it is ordered that if anyone has done damage to things consecrated to the Lord, or to the things of his neighbor, he shall restore everything in full, and over and above shall offer a fifth part also to the priest, according to the measure and estimate of the sin. C3 So Anselm too, in the first book of Cur Deus homo, chapter 11: "As long," he says, "as the sinner does not pay what he took, he remains in guilt; nor is it enough merely to return what was taken away, but for the insult inflicted he owes more than he took." Nor can anyone say that inability to repay excuses him from restoring the whole lost grace. For he has not discharged the obligation of having grace and of repaying it, as was shown above; and in that way any damned man and the Devil would be excused from debt C4 and sin. Anselm proves the same in the first book of Cur Deus homo, chapter 25, clearly and at length. Moreover, considering more subtly, a new inability to pay the old debt perhaps excuses from new and continuing sin, taking sin properly, so that by not paying he does not sin properly, newly and continually, with one sin after another, as Augustine speaks in On Free Choice 3, 30, and as is the case with damned men and demons; but it does not thus excuse or relieve the man unable to pay from his old debt. For who ‖D1 does not know that, according to all laws, divine and human alike, an inability that arises from guilt in no way excuses, but perhaps rather aggravates, especially when the guilt has not been remitted but itself remains? And how is guilt remitted justly and fully except through full preceding satisfaction, as all laws also dictate? And if someone says that guilt is sometimes forgiven out of the grace and mercy of the Lord, this does not help the Pelagians, who say that men merit the remission and pardon of sins, and thus, consequently, the grace and mercy of the Lord, and that the remission of sins does not come about through grace. And if someone perhaps wanted to inquire more deeply, it would seem that God cannot fully remit sin as to guilt unless satisfaction has first been made fully for it as to guilt. For, as can be had from the twenty-sixth of this work, and as all the Doctors agree, sin properly is not something positive but only privative; but a privation cannot be removed except by the positing of a habit that precedes it, at least in nature; nor can such and such a privation be fully removed without the preceding positing of such and such a habit. For if a lesser habit is posited, and not so great, that whole privation is by no means fully removed, but some portion of it remains, as is plainly evident in natural things, in artificial things, and in moral things 24. God therefore cannot, as it seems, remit and take away ‖E1 fully sin as to guilt, unless He first, in the order of nature, fully posits the habit which he took away, or is taking away. Nor is it always true that one who rises again in a lesser grace than he lost is unable to repay so great a grace; for by living long and acting well he can merit so great a grace, as the Pelagians themselves admit. Therefore, to a sinner now contrite for mortal sin, and so meriting,

and repaying, a lesser grace than he lost, his mortal sin is not fully remitted as to guilt; nor is it remitted until he has fully merited so great a grace, and has merited, and has fully repaid so great a one 25. And so mortal guilt and grace will again stand together, and so someone would at once be pleasing and dear to God, and not pleasing nor dear, but an enemy of God and held in hatred by God, living and dead, a son of the eternal kingdom and of eternal perdition. If, then, according to what has been said, one who rises again to grace rises to as great a grace as that from which he fell through sin, then any contrition, however small, merits grace, and consequently glory, however great. And so every contrition, however tiny and remiss, would be in a way of infinite efficacy and infinite merit, since a man could at once merit by it any amount of grace and glory whatever; for by sinning he can lose any amount whatever. Let it be supposed also that Peter, having a small grace, by sinning mortally in a small way lost that grace, and at once, after a short delay in sin, in which he was still disposing himself to repent, repents very intensely and fervently, and so merits grace. Either, then, he thus merits grace infinite intensively, or only finite. If infinite, then by the same reasoning any penitent does, since Peter's repentance does not infinitely exceed another's repentance. If only finite, let that grace be A, and let it be supposed further that Paul, having grace B, as great as you like, greater than A, by sinning mortally more gravely lost grace B, and remained in sin for a very long time, and, ‖B1 by making himself indisposed to the utmost of his powers, has always heaped crimes upon crimes, and at last repents very remissly and tepidly, yet with the appropriate circumstances. Paul, therefore, according to the premises, who at the beginning sinned most gravely and persisted longest in sin, and continually made himself indisposed to repentance and to grace with his whole heart, always, as far as he could, heaping crime upon crime, merits, at the slightest contrition, that grace B, the greatest, be restored to him. Why, then, does Peter, who at the beginning sinned less, remained less in sin, did not add sin upon sin, but disposed himself to repentance and grace to the utmost, repenting most fervently and most perfectly, merit a lesser grace and not so great? What reason, what equity, what justice would dictate this? Rather the contrary would seem to be the case, since all the evil circumstances of repentance, those that detract from grace, are much smaller in Peter, and the good circumstances too, those that promote repentance and grace, are much greater. It will perhaps be said that this circumstance is better in Paul's case, that he first had a fuller grace. But beyond doubt that circumstance aggravates his sin rather than lightening it. For who, unless perhaps an ungrateful man, would deny that the natural law of gratitude indissolubly binds the one benefited and loved to repay his benefactor and lover in like measure, and the one more benefited and loved to be the more strictly bound to this? And so he sins so much the more if he does not repay the good of gratitude, and far more if he returns the evil of ingratitude, and incurs a graver offense. Hence the Philosopher, Politics 7, 7: "Toward intimates," he says, C1 "and toward friends the spirit is raised up more than toward strangers, when it thinks itself slighted; on account of which Archilochus, complaining fittingly of friends, argues with his spirit: for not from friends, from spears, the piercings" 26.

And further on Aristotle himself says: "Men of great spirit are by nature not savage, except toward those who act unjustly; but they feel this still more toward familiars, if they think they are being unjustly treated. This happens according to reason: for from those from whom they think kindness is owed them, they think themselves both harmed and deprived of that kindness. Hence it was said: 'Savage are the enemies of brothers; and these love beyond measure, while these also hate beyond measure.'" And the Prophet says: "If my enemy had cursed me, D1 I would surely have borne it; and if he who hated me had spoken great things against me, I might perhaps have hidden myself from him; but you, a man of one mind, my guide and my familiar," and so on. Ps 54. Augustine likewise, in On True and False Penance 14 27 (cited in the Canon, On Penance, dist. 5, "Consideret" D2; and in the Sentences of Peter, book 4, dist. 16), says: "He proves ungrateful who, full of virtues, has not feared God at all: for in this every sinner becomes the more culpable, the more acceptable he is to God. Adam, for instance, sinned the more because he abounded in a greater good, indeed in every good." And if anyone should still say that when one who is a greater friend and more pleasing sins, the fault is greater, yet if he repents he is nonetheless received into his former friendship, and a fuller one: then either this comes from the gratuitous grace of him who receives such a penitent, or from debt and preceding merit. If from grace, this does not help the Pelagians in any respect, who reject gratuitous grace and peddle it as a debt of merit. If from debt, and the worth of merit, it seems far more that the man who has sinned less and repents more fervently merits so great a grace and friendship. It also seems above all unworthy of perfect reconciliation that one who was the closest of friends, and departed by sinning as the bitterest of enemies, should seek, through the least and coldest contrition, perfect reconciliation and the greatest friendship that went before. For if he were seeking this as he ought, he would reasonably have to repent in proportion to the magnitude of the offense and of the preceding friendship, or more if he could. This man, then, repenting so very coldly, seems to make far too light of the offense, and of the loss of the friendship which he seeks.

Hence the Philosopher too, in his Rhetoric 2, 4 28, showing by what means the angry grow mild and gentle, says: "Let gentling, then, be the laying aside and quieting of anger." If, then, people are angry at those who make light of them, and making light of another is voluntary, it is manifest that they are gentle both toward those who do none of these things, or do them involuntarily, and toward those who confess and repent: for, as though having satisfaction in the very act of bearing witness concerning what was done, they cease from anger. But satisfaction must be according to the quality and quantity of the sin, as was touched on above. In agreement with this John the Baptist says: "Brood A1 of vipers, who has shown you how to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits, then, worthy of penance" (Luke 3), as if to say, "There is no other way of flight." On this Gregory, as cited in the Gloss, says: "He does not only warn that fruits of penance are to be made; for the fruit of a good work is not said to be equal for him who has offended less and him who has offended more, or for him who has fallen into no crimes and him who has fallen into some. By this, then, the conscience of each is summoned to seek, through penance, gains of good works as much the greater as the graver the losses it has brought on itself through guilt." In the Sentences of Peter, book 4, dist. 16, it is also written in this manner: "Satisfaction is commanded by John, where he says, 'Bear fruits worthy of penance,' namely that the quality and quantity of the punishment be according to the quality and quantity of the guilt: for the fruit of a good work ought not to be equal for him who has sinned not at all or less, and for him who has fallen more gravely."

Even if that circumstance, namely that Paul's penance had somewhat greater grace beyond Peter's penance, ‖B1 be bettered, worsened, or lessened 29 by that much or more through the remission of the penitential act in Paul, beneath the intensity of the penitential act in Peter, the argument returns. Furthermore, if a sinner falling from the greatest grace merits all that grace suddenly, as soon as he repents, much more would he have done so had he remained without sin in his grace. And any just man persevering in so great a grace, by loving God above all things, and for His sake avoiding sin, and doing similar things, merits so great a grace at each single instant or moment, especially since he has other circumstances more suited to meriting; and thus in a very short time anyone will merit infinite grace in intensity. The same can likewise be argued of a penitent who continues the act of penance he began, or continually intensifies it: that in any very short time he will merit infinite grace. For since at the beginning he suddenly merited so great a grace, and at any instant or particle of time following merited so great a grace anew again, then, because the act is penitential, it was always equally or more meritorious. Furthermore, how much grace, then, does a sinner who was never in grace immediately merit, now that he is contrite? It is certain that he merits some, since now through contrition he becomes pleasing to God. If you say a great grace, or a small one, according as his contrition was great or small, then by some contrition, say by A, he can immediately merit a grace of degree B, which is either less than baptismal grace (let that be C), or equal, or greater. Not less: for then an adult who had actually merited by himself would, in that case, depart with less grace and pass to a lesser glory than an infant merely baptized. How then will God render to each according to his works, as both Testaments often attest?

On this view, moreover, would it not also seem possible that someone could merit so remissly that he would have in the future life a lesser glory in intensity than a single tiny delight in the present, say to see or taste something minimally delightful, which no Christian or even profane person would reject, when, according to the Philosophers and the Theologians, happiness and beatitude are a sufficient and perfect good? D1 For according to the Philosopher, Ethics 1, 9 30, happiness is the perfect and self-sufficient good, which makes life lacking in nothing. And Boethius says in On Consolation 3, second prose, that beatitude is the good which, once obtained, one can desire nothing further. It is the highest of all goods, containing all goods within itself; if anything were lacking to it, it could not be the highest, since something would be left outside that could be wished for. It is clear, therefore, that beatitude is the state made perfect by the gathering together of all goods. And the Prophet says: D2 "You will fill me with joy with your countenance; delights are at your right hand forever." Ps 15. And further on, Ps 16: ‖D3 "I shall be satisfied when your glory appears." Hence also Apoc 7: "They shall not hunger, nor thirst any more"; and 1 Cor 2: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him." But if it is said that B is equal to C, it follows that in such a case an adult who has actually merited by himself would be rewarded equally with an infant merely baptized, who has never merited anything. How then will God reward each one according to his works and merits? Again, suppose someone who never had grace is contrite with a contrition smaller than A; then, by the hypothesis, he merits a grace smaller than B or C, which was just now refuted. But if it is said that B is greater than C, that is, in some definite finite proportion: suppose then that someone is contrite with a contrition smaller than A in that proportion, or less; then, according to the hypothesis, he will merit a grace equal to C or less, each of which had already been demolished.

But if it is said first that any contrite man of this kind merits at least as much grace as baptismal grace is, then either he always merits exactly that much, or always more, or sometimes that much and sometimes more, but never exactly that much, as was shown above 31. And since then those repenting unequally would merit equal grace, which is repugnant to all justice, above all where no gratuitous liberality is mixed in (as is the case in the justification of the unjust according to the Pelagians' hypothesis stated above), it must always be more. But if by a certain contrition, say by A, a grace B, greater than C, the baptismal grace, would be merited, why should not E merit a grace equal to C or less by a contrition D that is smaller than A in proportion, as C is smaller than B, or less still? Rewards must therefore always be rendered in proportion to merits, as all justice, human and divine alike, dictates, above all where pure rewards are repaid and nothing is given freely out of grace. Again, a man who by sinning most gravely lost the greatest grace, and immediately after, having sinned most gravely 32, merits the greatest grace by the least contrition: why then does not he who never had grace, and did not practise such great ingratitude 33, merit by a greater contrition so great a grace or a greater, and so any grace whatever, even infinite? Again, if every penitent of this kind, as soon as he merits, merits a grace greater than baptismal grace, why, if he continues that act, or continually intensifies it, will he not merit infinite grace in any however short time? Why, moreover, does not any just man established in grace, by any act of his equally good with this penitent's act, or better by as much as you please, merit so great a grace or greater, and so, in any particle of time whatever, infinite grace? as was argued above. And the same can likewise be argued of the excess of grace which he merits beyond baptismal grace. But if anyone wishes to be altogether obstinate against the foregoing, saying that one falling from great grace through sin never rises again, by any contrition however small, always to so great a grace, but always, or at times, to a lesser one: then, besides the reasons given above which show the opposite, he can also be specially corrected by what has just been said. For such a man rises again either to a grace less than baptismal grace, or equal, or greater, and so on, as before.

Furthermore, how can a dead man obtain life for the dead, and in a way raise the dead, another or himself? For he would do this either by a living work or by a dead one. Not by a dead one, as everyone knows; if by a living one, he naturally has life first. For every operation naturally presupposes the form from which it proceeds, as 39 shows. Therefore it is not through his living work that he gives the dead man the spiritual life of grace. For as a tree does not first, by nature, bear living fruit and afterwards, naturally and therefore, live, but the reverse, so too man, who is called by the philosophers an upturned tree. Hence the Saviour in John 15 says: "As the branch C1 cannot bear fruit of itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine and you are the branches; he who remains in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing," that is, nothing good, without my grace working. C2 On this Augustine, part 2, sermon 27, or 81 of the whole 34, says: "When the branch has been cut off, another can sprout from the living root; but one that has been cut off cannot live without a root." Finally he adds, and says: "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. A great commendation of grace, my brothers: it instructs the hearts of the humble, it stops the mouths of the proud. Here is the one they must answer, if they dare, who, ignorant of the justice of God and wishing to establish their own, are not subject to the justice of God; here is the one they must answer, who please themselves, and do not think God necessary to themselves for doing good works. Do not men corrupt in mind, reprobate concerning the faith, resist this truth? They answer back and speak iniquity, saying, 'From God we have that we are men, but from ourselves that we are just.' What do you say, you who deceive yourselves, not defenders but hurlers headlong of free choice, from the height of pride, through the emptiness of presumption, into the depths of submersion? Indeed your cry is that man of himself makes justice: this is the height of your pride. But see what follows you, and, if there is any sense in you, shudder."

"For he who thinks he bears fruit from himself is not in the vine; he who is not in the vine is not in Christ; he who is not in Christ is not a Christian: these are ‖387E·1 the depths of your submersion. Consider again and again what the Truth adds further, and says: 'I am the vine, you are the branches; he who remains in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing.' Lest anyone think that the branch could of itself bear at least some small fruit, when he had said 'This one bears much fruit,' he does not say, 'because without me you can do little,' but 'you can do nothing.' Whether little, then, or much, it cannot be done without him, without whom nothing can be done. For even if the branch has borne a little, the Husbandman prunes it, that it may bear more; yet unless it remains in the vine and lives from the root, it cannot bear any fruit from itself, however great or small. And although Christ would not be the vine unless he were man, yet he would not provide this grace to the branches unless he were also God." On this Alcuin too, as cited in the Gloss, says: 388E·1 "All 35 A1 fruit of a good work proceeds from that root which freed us by its grace and brings us forward by its help, that we may be able to bear more fruit."

With this agrees that saying of Matthew 7: "A bad tree cannot bring forth good fruits" 36. A2 On this Augustine, On the Sermon on the Mount 2, 36, says: "The tree is the soul itself, that is, the man himself; the fruit is the works of the man. A bad man, then, cannot do good works, nor a good man bad ones. If a bad man, then, wishes to do good works, let him first become good." Similar to these is the example of earth, seed, rain, and heat. For it is not because the seed is quickened and grows that the earth is good, nor is it for that reason that it receives rain and heavenly heat. Rather, first, naturally, the earth is good, having moisture and heat from Heaven, and therefore, and afterwards, naturally brings forth good fruit, and for that reason the seed sown in it is quickened and grows. So too with the arid earth of our heart, and the seed of God's word sown in the sinner's soul, according to the parable and the Lord's exposition, set out more fully in Matthew 13 and Luke 8, concerning the rain of grace and the heat of charity coming down heaven-sent from Heaven. Yet I do not separate grace and charity in essence, but join them, so that both grace and charity are warm and moist, having virtually warmth and moisture, which are the principles of life, in which life also consists, as both the natural philosophers and the physicians attest. That charity is indeed a heavenly heat and a certain divine fire, who doubts? Who does not feel it? Hence also the dearest Author of charity says: B1 "I came to cast fire on the earth, and what do I wish but that it be kindled?" Luke 12. Therefore the Holy Spirit too was sent upon the disciples in the form of fire, as the history of Acts 2 testifies. B2 Gregory, treating the first of these in Homily 5 of book 1 on Ezekiel, says: "When a carnal mind receives the Holy Spirit, set alight with spiritual love it laments the evil it has done; and the earth burns when, with conscience accusing it, the sinner's heart is burned and consumed in the sorrow of penance. Hence again it is written, 'Your God is a consuming fire': for because our Creator renders clean of the rust of sins the mind which he has filled, he is called both fire and consuming." The same Gregory, on the Gospels, Homily 30, says: "The Holy Spirit came upon the disciples with a sudden sound, and changed the minds of carnal men into love of himself; and while fiery tongues appeared outwardly, the hearts within were made aflame, for while they received God in the vision of fire, they burned sweetly through love." And further on: "God is fire, as Paul attests: 'Our God is a consuming fire.' God is called fire because by him the rust of sins is consumed. Of this fire the Truth says, 'I came to cast fire on the earth; and what do I wish but that it burn?' For earthly hearts have been called earth; while they ever heap up the lowest thoughts within themselves, they are trampled by malign spirits. But the Lord sends fire on the earth when with the breath of the Holy Spirit he sets alight the hearts of the carnal."

Charity, moreover, is called not only fire, C1 but also water, as the Truth testifies, John 4, saying, "If you knew the gift of God," and so on, "he would have given you living water"; and further on: "The water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." C2 Here Chrysostom, as cited in the Gloss, says: "Scripture calls the grace of the Holy Spirit sometimes fire, sometimes water, showing that these names do not represent a substance but an action. By the name of fire it hints enigmatically at grace's power to lift up and warm, and to consume sins; by the designation of water it shows the cleansing that comes from the Spirit, and the great refreshment for the minds that receive him." Here Theophilus too, likewise cited in the Gloss, called the grace of the Holy Spirit living water, that is, life-giving, refreshing, and moving: for the grace of the Holy Spirit always moves the one who works the good, disposing assents in his heart. But what better expositor is there than the holy Evangelist, who reclined on the Lord's breast at supper? Later, in chapter seven, having recited the saying of Christ, "He who believes in me, from his belly shall flow rivers of living water," he adds in exposition: "But this he said of the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive." That charity is called water, or waters, Augustine shows at fairly full length on that verse of Psalm 103, "Who covers its upper parts with waters," in the first and second sermon. That grace too is designated by the name of rain, moisture, dew, and the like, Holy Scripture and the holy Doctors often make clear:

For the Prophet says: "A voluntary rain you will set apart, O God, for your inheritance; and it was weakened, but you perfected it." Psalm 67. E2 "You," he says, "not it by itself, but you perfected it," that is, you healed it by the medicine of this rain. On this Augustine, adding a second exposition to the one already given, says: "Much more fittingly is grace itself understood as the voluntary rain, because it is given freely 37, with no preceding merits of works. For if it is grace, it is not from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. 'For I am not worthy,' he says, 'to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God; but by the grace of God I am what I am.' This is the voluntary rain; for voluntarily he begot us by the word of truth: this is the voluntary rain. This voluntary rain, then, God set apart for his inheritance with no preceding merits of good works; and it was weakened; for it knew that it was nothing of itself, not by its own strength, but by ascribing to the grace of God that it is what it is." Hence also the Apostle, who had said that the law was weakened through the flesh, because the flesh does not fulfill what is fulfilled through the Spirit, that is, through spiritual grace, himself likewise says: "that the justice of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit." This, then, is "But you perfected it," because the fullness of the law is charity, and the charity of God has been poured out in our hearts, not through ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. He also says further on, in Psalm 146, of God: "He prepares rain for the earth," that is, grace for earthly hearts; and adding the effect of this rain: "He who," he says, "brings forth" (or, according to Augustine's text 38, "makes to spring up") "on the mountains hay and grass for the service of men." He who, I say, brings forth principally on the mountains, that is, in men formerly earthly through sin, but after this rain made heavenly and lofty; or on the mountains, that is, in men lifted up, hay and grass for the service of men, that is, good fruits that will be of value to men. On this Augustine says: "Behold the fruits of the rain, who makes to spring up," and so on.

Similar to this is that saying of Psalm 84: "The Lord will give kindness" (or "sweetness," according to Augustine's text), "and our earth will give its fruit." The Lord, I say, will give the kindness of his grace first, and our earth will give its fruit second. On this Augustine says: "Think about the word you have heard, lest the birds snatch the seed, so that what has been sown may be able to sprout there. But unless God sends rain, what good is it that it is sown? That is: the Lord will give sweetness, and our earth will give its fruit; let the rain of God come, and let what was sown there bear fruit." With this agrees that saying of Isaiah 55: B1 "The rain and snow come down from heaven, and return no more thither, but soak the earth and water it, and make it sprout, and give seed to the sower and bread to the eater." This rain of grace, then, makes the seed of the word of God sprout in those who hear. Robert of Lincoln 39 also says, B2 as is cited in the neighbouring chapter: "God, and the grace of God, and also our will, makes the good in us, as grain sprouts by a certain inner germinative force, and by the sun's heat, with the moisture of the earth." Hence Peter too, in the second book of the Sentences, dist. 27, says: B3 "As the earth is watered by rain so that it may sprout and bear fruit, so freely upon the earth of our mind, that is, upon the choice of the will, the rain of divine blessing is poured, that is, grace is breathed in (which God alone does, not man with him), by which the will of man is watered that it may sprout and bear fruit, that is, is healed and prepared to will the good, according to which it is called operating, and is helped to do the good, according to which it is called cooperating. And that grace is not unfittingly named a power, because it heals and helps the weak will of man."

And further on: "From the grace that goes before and heals man's choice, a good affection, or good motion of the mind, is begotten in the soul from that very choice; and this is the first good merit of man." All this is fittingly figured in that rod of Jesse, the blessed Virgin, who before she bore the fruit of salvation is declared full of grace, as the history teaches, Luke 1. Foreseeing this order, Isaiah says: "Drop down dew, you heavens, from above, C1 and let the clouds rain the just one; let the earth be opened, and bring forth a Saviour," Isaiah 45. All this, moreover, that most salutary fruit, true salvation and truth, which sprang from this earth, truly attests. For he, in Matthew 13, as was touched on above, speaking in parable about the seed, says: D1 "Others fell on good ground, and gave fruit." Because, then, the seed fell on good ground, therefore it gave fruit, not the reverse. The ground, then, was first, naturally, good, which cannot be without charity and grace. For any earth that lacks this power is sterile and bad, as no theologian is ignorant, as the Apostle also plainly teaches in 1 Corinthians 13. For charity divides between the sons of the eternal kingdom and the sons of eternal perdition, as Augustine attests in On the Trinity 15, 18. Charity also is the proper fountain of the good and the holy, of which it is said, "Let no stranger share it with you," as Augustine likewise attests on that verse of Psalm 103, "Who covers its upper parts with waters," sermon 1. This earth, therefore, naturally had charity first, before it had borne good fruit. Therefore he says that others fell on good ground, not that they made the ground good. The ground, then, was good D2 before the seed fell into it.

Hence also Luke 8: "But that on good ground are those who, hearing the word with a good and the best heart, retain it and bear fruit." Therefore also Matthew 12: "Make the tree good," he says, "and its fruit good"; the good tree first, the good fruit second; therefore he adds: "For the tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers, how can you speak good things," that is, speak well, "when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks; the good man brings forth good things from his good treasure." But what is that good treasure of the good man, if not charity, which alone makes man good? Hence Augustine, On the Words of the Lord, Sermon 12: "The Lord admonishes us," he says, "to be good trees, that we may be able to have good fruits; for he says, 'Either make the tree good,' and so on. Where he says, 'Either make the tree good,' and so on, this is surely a salutary precept, to which obedience is necessary. But what he says, 'Or make the tree bad,' and so on, is not a precept that you should make it so, but a warning that you beware; for he spoke against those who think that, being evil, they can speak good things or have good works. This the Lord Jesus says cannot be: for first the man must be changed, that the works may be changed. Let each one, then, be a good tree; let him not suppose he has good fruits if the tree remains bad; the fruit will not be good unless it is of a good tree. Change the heart, and the work will be changed; root out cupidity, plant charity: for as cupidity is the root of all evils, so charity is the root of all goods."

Therefore also Anselm, On Concord 10, says: A1 "As the earth, without any care of man, brings forth innumerable herbs and trees, without which human nature is not nourished, or by which it is even destroyed, but those most necessary to us for nourishing life it brings forth not without great labor and a cultivator, nor without seeds, so human hearts, without teaching, without effort, spontaneously as it were sprout thoughts and wills useless for salvation, or even harmful; but those without which we do not advance toward the soul's salvation, they conceive or sprout in no way without the seed of their own germ and laborious cultivation. Hence the Apostle calls the men on whom such cultivation is expended God's agriculture. Now the seed of this agriculture is the word of God, or rather not the word, but the sense that is perceived through the word; for sound without sense establishes nothing in the heart. Nor is it only the sense of the word, but every sense, or understanding of rectitude, since 40 the human mind, whether through hearing, or through reading, or through reason, or in any other way, conceives, is the seed of right willing. For no one can rightly will what he has not first conceived in the heart; and to will to believe what is to be believed is to will rightly. As for what the Apostle says, that faith comes from hearing, it is to be understood that faith comes from what the mind conceives through hearing. It is not that the mind's conception alone makes faith in man, but that faith cannot be without conception. For when rectitude of willing is added to the conception, faith comes about through grace, because he believes what he hears." And further on: "But sending, preaching, hearing, understanding are nothing unless the will wills what the mind understands; and the will cannot do this unless it has received rectitude. For it wills rightly when it wills what it ought. So what the mind conceives from hearing the word is the seed of the preacher, and rectitude is the increase that God gives, without whom neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God who gives the increase." And lower down: "Let us see by examples how the word becomes seed. When those to whom it is said, 'If you are willing, and listen to me,' understand and think that this means that they should will to hear, that is, to obey; for he who hears and does not obey is said not to hear; but they cannot obey unless they will; and to will to obey is to will rightly; but no one can will rightly unless he has rectitude of will, which no man has save through grace. And so what is said, 'If you are willing,' and so on, is a seed, in no way of itself germinating any fruit without the addition of rectitude." From this it can also be evident that rectitude of will is twofold, habitual and actual: namely the habit of grace, and the act proceeding from it. This can also appear by a fitting example. It is prior by nature to have a sound ear than to hear soundly, and the former is the cause of the latter, not the reverse; but the spiritual ear of the human heart cannot be sound without the medicine of charity and grace. Therefore also our saving Physician

When he was about to heal the deaf man, he first put his fingers into his little ears, which signifies the bestowal of grace, and second said to him ‖D1 Euphata, that is, "Be opened," and so at once his ears were opened, as is recounted in Mark 7. Pointing to this fittingly, after his parabolic discourse on the sower, the seed, etc., in Matthew 13, he at once added, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," and likewise in Luke 8. So too in John 8 he said to the wicked Jews, "He who is of God hears the words of God; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God." He who is of God first, I say, hears the words of God afterward; and above, in the same chapter: "Why do you not recognize my speech? Because you cannot hear my word." D2 On this Chrysostom, as he is cited in the Gloss: "The power must first be obtained, then, that may give ear to the divine word, since as long as someone has not been cured in his own hearing, he cannot perceive by hearing the word that is said to the deaf man, 'Be opened.'" And below, 18 41: "Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice"; he who is of the truth first, I say, for this reason hears my voice afterward, D3 not the other way round. On this Augustine, on John, second part, Sermon 61, sentence 115 of the whole, says 42: "As to what He says, 'Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice,' He commended grace, by which He calls according to His purpose; of this purpose the Apostle says, 'We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose,' the purpose, that is, of the one who calls, not of those called; which is put more openly elsewhere thus: 'Labor together with the Gospel according to the power of God, who saves us and calls us by his holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace.' For if we consider the nature in which we were created, since the Truth created all, who is not of the truth? But it is not all to whom it is granted by that Truth itself to hear the truth and to believe, with no merits, doubtless, preceding, lest grace should not be grace. For if

"he had said, 'Everyone who hears my voice is of the truth,' he would be thought to be 'of the truth' for the reason that he obeys the truth. But he did not say this; he said, 'Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice,' and by this it is not because he hears its voice that he is of the truth, but he hears because he is of the truth, that is, because this gift has been conferred on him from the truth." Hence the 376th proposition of Prosper's Sentences too is excerpted. The same thing is plainly attested also by the authorities of Augustine, On Faith to Peter 64, and the 15th of the City of God, 6, of Gregory, Moralia 11, 5, and of Bede, 2 on Luke 4, as the 38th more fully relates 43. This also seems to be hinted by that passage of Luke 10: A1 "Into whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house,' and if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him." It is not, therefore, because their peace rests upon him that he is made a son of peace, but the reverse. Hence Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace 73: A2 "It was not said," he says, "'Upon whomever your peace rests, he will become a son of peace,' but 'If a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him,' or upon that house. Even before this peace was announced to him, then, he was already a son of peace, or was there." From these things it is clearly recognized ‖B1 that in that sacred Scripture, which the Father sanctified and sent into the world, of which not one iota or single stroke will pass away, the order of the words is not idle, nor that of the deeds, but the whole is full of deep causes and very many mysteries.

The same can be shown in another way thus: it is prior in nature that a man receive medicine than that he be healed of his infirmity; for it is not because he is healed that he receives medicine, but the reverse; and it is prior in nature that a man be sound than that he do the works of health, by a like reasoning. But grace alone is the medicine of the languishing soul, as is clear from what was said before; and Augustine says, On the Words of the Apostle, Sermon 13: "Grace is medicine; B2 it is prior in nature, then, to receive grace than to be healed, and to be healed than to exercise sound works, or works of health." Hence Augustine on that verse of Psalm 31 [32], "Blessed are those, etc.": "Let all of it," he says, "be credited to his grace, not to our merits: 'Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.' ‖B3 Let God, then, cover the wounds; do not you; for if you wish to cover them, the physician, blushing, will not cure. Let the physician cover and cure: for he covers with a plaster; under the physician's covering the wound is healed, under the wounded man's covering the wound is concealed."

This priority too of heavenly grace, freely given to the ungrateful, the sick and sinners, toward the remission of sin and the doing of good, the Lord Jesus Christ hints to us mystically 44 when, healing the deaf and dumb man, he put his fingers into his ears, and spitting touched his tongue, and looking up to heaven groaned, and said Euphata, that is, "Be opened," and at once his ears were opened, and the bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke rightly, as is recounted in Mark 7. Behold: first, by the laying on of hands, the grace of the Holy Spirit is poured into the sick man; second, he is healed by it; and third, being healed, he does sound works. This mystical understanding can be confirmed from the deed itself, and the manner and order of doing it, with many other similar things in Scripture taken into account; and the expositions of the Saints ratify it. With this also agrees that passage of Matthew 12: "There was brought to him one possessed by a demon, blind and mute, C1 and he cured him, so that he spoke and saw." First he cured the sick man; second, the cured man did sound works.

Hence Luke too says, D1 "When he had cast out the demon, the mute man spoke," Luke 11; on which Bede, as he is cited in the Gloss: "This demoniac, according to Matthew, is related to have been not only mute but blind as well. Three signs, then, were performed at once in one man: the blind man sees, the mute man speaks, the possessed man is freed from the demon; this is fulfilled daily in the conversion of believers, so that, the demon first being cast out, they may behold the light of faith, and then mouths silent before may be loosened to the praises of God." This too is most beautifully shown in that woman who had a spirit of infirmity for 18 years, and was bent over, and could not look up at all; when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your infirmity," and laid hands on her, and at once she was made upright, and she glorified God 45, as is recounted in Luke 13. What is this woman so infirm, then, if not the sinful soul, or human nature, over a long time, namely three times six years, that is, before the law, under the law, and in the time of grace, for all the years, because six is a perfect number 46, as is clear in Boethius, Arithmetic 1, 22, pressed down by the heavy burden of sin and unable of itself to look upward to God by desire? Yet Jesus the Saviour saw this woman neither weeping nor begging nor putting forward any merit, he who came unsought to seek and to save what had perished; he saw her, I say, with the gaze of inward compassion, and called her to himself, freely inspiring free grace, and so healed her; here operating grace is clearly indicated. But because even so this woman cannot raise herself up to any good work without her physician further helping her in a special way, cooperating, nay even operating beforehand, and first raising her in the order of nature, he first laid hands on her, and at once she was made upright for working well, and second she glorified God; hence it is well said, "she was made upright" rather than "she raised herself": for she is raised first and rather by the hand of God than she raises herself, where cooperating grace too is plainly shown. With this mystical understanding the expositions of the Saints agree. Hence Augustine too, On the Words of the Lord, Sermon 31, says thus: "What of that woman who had eighteen years in infirmity? Six

"days God completed his works; three times six make eighteen: with the fig tree, this eighteen years 47; in that woman, namely the human race, before the law, under the law, and under grace, was bent over, could not look upward, because she heard 'Hearts on high' in vain; but the Lord raised her up. There is hope, then, but for the children, until the day of judgment comes; man gives himself much; and what is a just man, a man? A man is something great; but when the just man is a just man by the grace of God (for what is man, except that you are mindful of him?) 48." This is also openly shown in the cure of the paralytic, to whom the Saviour said first, "Man, your sins are forgiven you," and second, "Rise, take up your pallet, A1 and go," as the Gospel history relates in Luke 5; and it can likewise be shown in many other curative miracles of the Gospel similar to these. Very many other Catholic authorities make the same plain. For the Lord says through Isaiah 43: A2 "You did not call upon me, Jacob, nor did you labor for me, Israel; you did not offer me the ram of your burnt offering, and with your sacrifices you did not glorify me. I did not make you serve with an offering, nor did I give you labor in incense;

you did not buy me sweet cane with silver, and with the fat of your sacrifices you did not make me drunk. But you have made me serve in your sins, you have given me labor in your iniquities. I, I am he who blot out your iniquities for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Bring me to remembrance, and let us be judged together: tell, if you have anything, that you may be justified." "I am he," he says, "who blot out your iniquities for my own sake," that is, for my own sake, for my mercy, freely, not for your prior merits. Hence he adds, "Bring me to remembrance, and let us be judged together; tell, if you have anything, that you may be justified"; as if to say, you have nothing by which you could merit justification; or, according to the Septuagint translation, "Say your iniquities first, that you may be justified," and then he speaks ironically; and it amounts to the same as if he said plainly, "You can say nothing." For what did you have by way of justifications, except iniquities, by which you in no way merited justification? Hence the Apostle also says, "Justified freely by his grace," Romans 3. On this the Gloss, which is principally Augustine's from On the Spirit and the Letter 8: B1 "They are justified freely, that is, without preceding merits,

and this by his grace, that is, by gratuitous gifts. For the grace of God is a gift of God; and the greatest gift is the Holy Spirit himself. They were not justified, then, by the law, nor by their own will, but by the grace of Christ; not that it happens without our will, but our will is shown to be weak through the law, so that grace may heal the will, and the healed will may fulfil the law, not set under the law and not needing the law. This, then, is the grace by which the ungodly is justified, that is, he becomes just who before was ungodly; and therefore no merits precede the receiving of this grace, because to the merits of the ungodly punishment is owed, not grace. Nor would it be grace, if it were not given freely; and it is given freely because we had done nothing good beforehand by which we might merit it, because nothing had preceded in our merits except that for which we ought to be condemned. It found, then, no merits of the good, but merits of punishments. Therefore they are justified freely, because they had done nothing through his grace." C1 The same Augustine, in On the Spirit and the Letter 20: "When the Apostle says," he says, "that man is justified freely through faith without works of the law, he wishes nothing else to be understood in his saying 'freely' than that works do not precede justification.

For he says plainly elsewhere, 'If by grace, then no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.'" D1 The same Apostle, to Titus 3: "The kindness and humanity of our Saviour God appeared, not from works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that, justified by his grace, we might be heirs according to the hope of eternal life." The same, to Romans 3: D2 "From the works of the law no flesh will be justified before him. Where, then, is your boasting? It is excluded. Through what law? Of works? No, but through the law of faith. For we reckon that man is justified without works of the law." But someone will perhaps say that this must be understood of legal works, sacramental and ceremonial, which had been customary in the old law, not of the moral works of the Decalogue, which both laws admit. Yet the course of that epistle, together with other things, evidently shows another understanding, showing that the Apostle wishes to speak also

of the works of the Decalogue just mentioned. For the Apostle intends, as the course of the epistle and the Catholic expositions attest, to refute Jews and Greeks, and all Gentiles converted to the justice of the Christian faith, who quarrel with each other and exalt themselves over each other: the Jews, on the one hand, saying that they had merited this justice by the observance and works of their law, while the Gentiles themselves merited nothing but gravely offended by worshipping idols; the Greeks and Gentiles, on the contrary, asserting that they had worshipped idols out of simple ignorance, and had at once received with joy the very faith of Christ preached by the Apostles, whereas the Jews, having the Law and the Prophets, had sinned all the more gravely by killing Christ, to whom the Law and the Prophets bore witness, and by despising his Apostles. But how would he truly contradict the Jews in saying, "From the works of the law no flesh will be justified before him," unless he understood universally that from no works,

nor from any work of the law, will any flesh be justified, whether sacramental, ceremonial or moral, of whatever sort, but through the law of Christian faith; of faith, I say, not dead, or unformed or bare, but alive through grace and charity, formed and clothed? The Apostle's words indicate this plainly too. For when he had first said, "From the works of the Law no flesh will be justified before him," he immediately adds, "For through the Law is the knowledge of sin"; which, explaining more clearly below, in 7, he says: "I did not know sin except through the Law; for I did not know covetousness, unless the Law said, 'You shall not covet.'" But what and what kind of Law is it that forbids covetousness? Is it not that of the Decalogue, and moral? Hence also above, in the same chapter: "Let us serve," he says, "in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter," because, as he himself also says, "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life," 2 Corinthians 3, which is understood of the letter, not of the understanding of the Old Testament in its sacramental and ceremonial matters, according to the surface of the letter and according to the spiritual and mystical understanding, but of the ten moral Commandments of the Decalogue, handed to Moses on tablets of stone,

and promulgated to the people through Moses. Hence he immediately adds that if the ministry of death, engraved on stones, was in glory, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily on the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which is passing away, how much more is the ministry of the spirit in glory? What the Apostle says, then, "From the works of the law no flesh will be justified, but through the law of faith," this is "the letter kills; but the Spirit gives life," namely the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is not from works done according to the letter of the law: B1 for according to the same Apostle, 1 Corinthians 12, "the Holy Spirit distributes to each as he wills"; as he wills, I say, freely and gratuitously, not as he owes, from anyone's merits. This understanding of the Apostle, from the authorities recited and others like them, Augustine teaches most diligently in On the Spirit and the Letter, almost throughout, and he proves it by the Apostle's words as above, as is clear in the many chapters there. Where also, in chapter 12, after a great inquiry, he concludes thus: "With these things considered, therefore, we gather that man is not justified by precepts of good life except through faith in Jesus Christ, that is, not by the law of works but of faith, not

by the letter but by the spirit, not by the merits of deeds but by gratuitous grace. And below, in the twenty-fourth: 'The law of faith,' he says, 'is charity, written and poured out in the heart; it is brought to perfection in those who hope in him, so that the healed soul may do good not from fear of punishment but from love of justice.'" The same Augustine, on Psalm 31 [32], in the first treatise, clearly teaches the same understanding and the same view; hence he begins his discourse thus: "The Psalm of the grace of God and of our justification, with none of our merits preceding but the mercy of the Lord our God going before us, commended above all by the Apostle's mouth, is to be treated, taken up by our slenderness"; the Psalm, I say, commended by the Apostle's mouth in Romans 4, where the Apostle treats this subject. For there he says thus: C1 "David speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness without works: 'Blessed are those, etc.'" The Gloss: "'Credits': that is, acceptably, that is, freely 'brings,' as though to one powerless to approach he brings righteousness, that is, forgiveness of sins and good works, and this without preceding works." Augustine also, on the aforesaid Psalm, in the place cited before: "We ought," he says, C2 "to put no works before faith,

that is, so that before faith anyone should be said to do them well. For the works themselves that are said to be before faith, though they seem praiseworthy to men, are empty. They seem to me like great strength and the swiftest running off the road. Let no one, then, count up his good works before faith; where faith was not, there was no good work; for the intention makes the work good, and faith directs the intention; do not look closely at what a man does, but at what he has in view when he does it, to what end he directs the arms of the best steering." And he speaks there of faith not dead or unformed but formed by charity, according to that saying of the Apostle in Galatians 5, "Faith which works through charity," as his discourse shows more fully. Hence he also says: "Faith, taking up hope and love, begins to work well." Where Augustine also asks thus: "How is man justified by faith without works? The Apostle himself would answer: 'I said this to you for this reason, O man, lest you should seem to presume as if on your works, and to have received the grace of faith by the merit of your works.' Do not presume, then, on works before faith; know that faith found you a sinner; and if faith, given you, made you just, it found ungodly

the one it would make just. 'For those who believe,' he says, 'in him who justifies the ungodly, their faith is reckoned to righteousness.' If the ungodly is justified, from ungodly he becomes just: if from ungodly he becomes just, what are the works of the ungodly? Let even the ungodly boast of his works, and say, 'I give to the poor, I take nothing from anyone, I do not covet another man's wife,' and the like; let him say all these things, I ask: is he godly or ungodly? You are ungodly, and your works are nothing; but believe in him who justifies the ungodly, so that your works too may be good works. For I should not call those works good so long as they do not proceed from a good root. And below: You have done nothing good, and the forgiveness of sins is given you. Your works are examined, and are found to be evil works; if God were to render what is owed to these works, he would surely condemn; for 'the wages of sin is death.' What is owed to evil works but damnation? And what is owed to good ones? The reward, the kingdom of heaven; but you have been found in evil works; if what is owed were rendered to you, you would have to be punished. What then happens? God does not render you the penalty owed,

but gives undeserved grace; he owed vengeance, he gives forgiveness. You begin, therefore, to be in faith through forgiveness. Now that faith, taking up hope and love, begins to work well." Hence also the Gloss on that passage of Romans 3, cited above, "We reckon that man is justified by faith without works of the law," says thus: "We Apostles reckon that any man, even a Gentile, is justified by faith without carnal works of the law, that is, without circumcision and new moons, or the veneration of the Sabbath; or without any works of the law whatever, even moral ones; but this is to be understood of works preceding faith, not following it, without which faith is empty, as James says, 'Faith without works is dead,' and Paul himself says, 'If I have all faith, but have not charity, I am nothing.' Well, then, the Apostle, preaching faith to the Gentiles, to show that faith is not reached by the merit of good works, but good works follow faith, says, 'Man is justified by faith without works of the law'; not that the believer should not afterward have to work through love, as Abraham, too, was willing to sacrifice his son;

for works follow the one who has been justified, they do not precede the one who is to be justified, but by faith alone, without preceding works, a man is made just." The Prophet seems to hint at the same when he says, "Repay your servant, give me life; and I shall keep your words," Psalm 118 [119]. On this Augustine: "If he asked that good be repaid to him for good, he had already kept the words of God. But he did not say, 'Repay your servant because I have kept your words,' as if he were demanding a good wage for the good of obedience, but he said, 'Repay your servant, let me live, and I shall keep your words.' What is that other than to say that the dead cannot keep them, the unbelievers, of course, of whom it is said, 'Let the dead bury their dead'? Therefore, if we understand the dead as the unbelievers and the living as the believers, since 'the just man lives by faith,' and the words of God cannot be kept except through faith, which works through love, the one who says, 'Repay your servant, let me live and I shall keep your words,' asks this for himself. And since before faith nothing is owed to man but evil for evil, but God by undeserved grace repays good for evil, the one who says, 'Repay

your servant, let me live and I shall keep your words,' asks for this repayment. For there are four repayments: either evil is repaid for evil, as God will repay everlasting fire to the ungodly; or good for good, as he will repay an everlasting kingdom to the just; or good for evil, as Christ by grace justifies the ungodly; or evil for good, as Judas by malice persecuted Christ. Of these four repayments the first two pertain to justice, so that evil is repaid for evil and good for good; the third pertains to mercy, that good be repaid for evil; the fourth God does not know: for he repays evil for good to no one. But this one, which he put in third place, is necessary first of all. For unless God repaid good for evil, there would be in no way any to whom he might repay good for good. Look at that Saul, later Paul: 'Not from the works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us'; and again, 'I give counsel, as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord to be faithful,' that is, to live, because 'the just man lives by faith.' He was dead, therefore, through his own injustice, before

he lived through God's grace. God repaid him, then, good for evil, that is, life for death, the very repayment that is asked here, 'Repay your servant, let me live.' But this man, who is already praying and saying, 'Repay your servant, let me live,' would not pray if he were already utterly dead; he has received from him the beginning of good desire, from whom he asks the life of obedience. For they had some faith who said, 'Lord, increase our faith'; but that other both confessed his unbelief and did not deny faith 49; asked whether he believed, he said, 'I believe, Lord; help my unbelief.' Surely the one who, believing, prays for obedience is already beginning to live and asks for life, not as a reward for obedience kept, but as help that it may be kept: for as life grows, the man who is renewed from day to day comes to life every day." Likewise Job 33: "He will look upon men, and will say, 'I have sinned.'" He will look, I say, first with the gaze of gratuitous compassion, inspiring grace freely, and the sinful man, second, pricked by grace, will say "I have sinned," that is, will repent of his sins. Hence also Gregory, Moralia 24, 5, expounding this saying: "He would not," he says,

"know himself to be a sinner if he did not have righteousness: for no one perceives his own crookedness unless he has begun to be upright; for one who is wholly perverse cannot even see this, what he is; but one who understands himself a sinner has already begun to be just in some part, and what he had done as not just he accuses from the fact that he is just, and by this self-accusation he begins to cling to God, while, bringing a right judgment against himself, he condemns in himself what he feels displeases him. His righteousness having been received, therefore, this man will say, 'I have sinned.'" And it should be noted that first it says, "He will look upon men," and then is added, "and will say, 'I have sinned.'" Hence also below, 40, the Lord said to Job: "I will question you, and tell me, if you have an arm like God, and thunder with a like voice; looking at every arrogant man, humble him; look on all the proud

and confound them, etc. And I will take counsel that your right hand can save you" 50, as if to say, man cannot do this, but God. On this Gregory, Moralia 32, 7: "'Looking,' etc., as if he said, 'as I do'; in two ways each sinner is looked upon by the Lord, when he is either turned from sin or punished for sin: for the look of conversion is meant where it is said that the Lord looked upon Peter, and Peter remembered and wept bitterly; and again the look of vengeance is meant where it is said, 'The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to destroy their memory from the earth.' In both ways the arrogant man is laid low in humility, for either by repenting he knows his fault, or by perishing he perceives his punishment. And below, on the words 'And I will take counsel,' etc., as if saying openly: 'If you can do these things that I have set forth, I ascribe to you, and not to myself, all the good things you have done; but if you cannot, it is plain that you cannot by your own power free yourself from the guilt of wickedness.' Behold, by the divine voice it is said to blessed Job that he is not saved by his own power, and yet some of mankind, who are far from the strength of this man, despising the help of God, trust that they can be saved by their own fortitude; for whom what else

ought we to pray, except that, if they have already received the gifts of good works, they may receive this gift too, that they may learn from whom they received them?" With this also agrees that passage of Habakkuk 3: "He looked, and dissolved the nations, and the mountains of the world were crushed." The Prophet seems to teach a similar meaning when he says, "Who looks upon the earth and makes it tremble, who touches the mountains and they smoke," Psalm 103 [104]. For then the earth trembles, and the mountains smoke, when the sinner, cold and dry, proud and hard, pricked by God's regard, sends forth a boiling shower of steaming tears. Moreover, according to these and other places of Scripture, it seems that God is compared to the Sun, and God's regard to the ray of the Sun: for as the Sun and the solar ray are luminous and warm effectively 51, so too are God and the divine regard. For he himself is the Sun of understanding, enlightening the intellect; he himself is the Sun of justice, inflaming and directing the affection 52. The ray of this Sun, or regard, falling into the mind of the sinner, drives off the darkness of ignorance, and makes manifest the infinite multitude of sins and the infinite horrid circumstances; just as the ray of the other sun makes manifest

an infinite multitude of atoms 53; and this ray or regard, reflecting back from the sinner upon God, lifts up the sinner's eyes, and draws him and turns him, that he may look upon that most bright Sun from which he was greatly turned away, though in its very sight he committed so many and such filthy deeds; and so this regard, or ray of punishment, beyond the horrid and dense cloud of sin that deprives him of the Sun's brightness and warmth, hurls and produces the terrible lightning and thunder of divine offence and threatening; and so, a spirit of compunction and fear having been conceived beneath the sinful earth, an earthquake arises, which, hastening to go out through the sinner's mouth as through some passage of the earth, bursts forth into confession; and thus at last that cloud of sin is dissolved into a rain of tears, cleansing of all filth and whitening the sinful soul above snow. This rain, received by heavenly power, by raining upon the sinner's earth, cursed, parched and barren, sanctifies it, waters it and makes it fertile; and having so rained upon it, the ray of the divine regard does not abandon it, but warms it and warms it again, makes it bear fruit in wonderful ways, brings it to ripeness, and this very earth

…wonderfully altered at last, it draws up and leads into heaven. After a storm of this kind and a rain of tears, it pours in serenity of conscience and manifold consolation. A devout soul, experiencing this, says: "After the storm you make a calm, and after weeping and lamentation you pour in exultation." It warms again by exhaling the sweet vapor of meditation, of love returned, and of heavenly and sincere prayer. Hence at times an abundant rain of tears is sent back, so that the generation of this rain becomes circular. At other times a heavenly dew of heavenly savor and heavenly sweetness is sent, feeding and sweetly inebriating those who taste it: here is the Manna, here the water of refreshment, here the drunkenness of the house of God. Through this ray, or look, frozen things are melted, muddy and slippery things are firmed up, withered things grow green again, and dead things come back to life. This ray makes the earth fruitful by inspiring grace, the mother and nurse of good works. It brings the earth to ripeness by granting perseverance. Then this earth, wonderfully altered by heavenly power and emptied of earthly heaviness and grossness, is changed into a heavenly nature, like a shell filled with heavenly dew, and the ray draws it up, lifts it, and leads it into heaven. Since, then, God's look is of such efficacy and power, it is no wonder that the Church of God so often longs for it, and so often implores it 54. Let it suffice to have moralized these things briefly.

395E·1 The Gospel story of Luke 22 agrees with what has been set out: Peter's sin, the Lord's look at him, and Peter's bitter weeping. "The Lord, turning," it says, "looked at Peter, and Peter remembered, etc., and going out he wept bitterly." The order of the words must be noted: "The Lord, turning," it says, "looked at Peter." See that the Lord, by showing mercy, turns to the sinner before the sinner turns to him. See that he looks upon the sinner by inspiring gratuitous grace before the sinner repents of his sins. On this Bede, as cited in the Gloss, says: "To look upon him," E2 he says, "is to have mercy, because God's mercy is necessary not only while repentance is being done, but in order that it be done." 396E·1 55 On this passage Augustine too, in the Harmony of the Evangelists, as

is likewise cited there: "This look," he says, "seems to me to have been made by divine action. As it was said, 'Look upon me and hear me, and turn, O Lord, free my soul,' so I judge it was said here, 'The Lord turned and looked at Peter.'" The same in the Hypognosticon 50: "If a sinner presumes to be cleansed by his own will alone, he cannot; indeed he is not even pricked in the heart. For had the Lord not looked at Peter, Peter would never have been moved by repentance to weep bitterly." Repentance, then, is a thing most excellent and perfect, which recalls all defects to perfection; but "every best gift," says the Apostle James, "and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." Blessed Ambrose too, in the ninth book on Luke, as Augustine recites him in book 1 Against Pelagius and Coelestius, on the Grace of Christ and on Original Sin, speaks thus: "Good are the tears that wash away guilt; indeed, those whom Jesus looks upon weep. Peter denied the first time, and did not weep, because the Lord had not looked at him. He denied the second time, and did not weep, because the Lord had not yet looked at him. He denied also a third time; Jesus looked, and Peter wept most bitterly. Let those people read the Gospel, and see that the Lord Jesus

was then inside, when he was being heard by the chief priests, and that the apostle Peter was outside and below in the courtyard with the servants, at the fire 56, now sitting, now standing, as is shown by the most truthful and most harmonious narrative of the Evangelists. Hence it cannot be said that the Lord looked at him with bodily eyes, warning him visibly. Therefore what is written there, 'The Lord looked at him,' was done inside, in the mind, in the will. The Lord's mercy secretly came to his aid, touched his heart, recalled his memory, and visited Peter with his inward grace; it moved the feeling of the inner man, and brought it forth even to outward tears." And Isidore says, in book 2 On the Highest Good, chapter 12: B1 "Whoever is pricked by the memory of his sins to lamentation, let him know that he is then visited by the presence of God. For then Peter wept, when Christ looked at him. Hence also in the Psalms: 'He looked, and the earth was shaken, and trembled.' The steps of God are in the heart of the inner man, when good desires arise so that evils may be trampled." It is clear, therefore, that God's mercy and grace precede repentance, as an efficient cause precedes its effect. B2

Hence also Jer 31, in the person of the converted sinner: "After you converted me," he says, "I did repentance." The Gloss on after: "not before, not through me." "And after you showed me, I struck my thigh; I was confounded and blushed." Gloss: "after, not before, not through me." Likewise Lam, last chapter: "Convert us, O Lord, to you, and we shall be converted." Gloss: "Convert us by grace, and we shall be converted, as far as lies in us, by the choice of freedom." Hence: "By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace in me was not void." For the grace of the one who calls precedes and arouses the freedom of the will. Ours it is that we fall, God's that we rise again. "For men are flesh, a spirit that goes and does not return." "For it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy." It must be noted, however, that we are not converted by the grace of God unless we are also converted by our own will. C1 Was not the Lord showing this same thing to Moses, Exod 33, when he said, "I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it has pleased me"? He does not say, "I will have mercy and be merciful to whomever shall have deserved it by repenting," but "on whom I will freely, and to whom it shall have pleased me freely." The Apostle gives authority to this

exposition in Rom 9, disputing about grace and the gratuitous will of God: "To Moses," he says, "he says: 'I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.' Therefore it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy." And further on: "Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens." D1 Does not the Lord also bear witness to this in the last chapter of Hosea, when he says: "I will heal their wounds, I will love them freely"? Gloss: "by mercy alone, because he first loved us." Is it not this too that the Lord says to the sinful people in Isa 52: "You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money"? Gloss: "without money, by no merit of yours, but by God's gratuitous benefit." And what else did the Prophet mean in saying to God, "For nothing you will save them," Ps 55 [56]? "For nothing" means: with no merit preceding, but by your grace alone. Hence Augustine, expounding that verse, says: "With none of their merits preceding you will save them. I who was formerly a blasphemer," he says, "and a persecutor, and insolent, but I obtained mercy. He received letters from the priests, so that wherever

he found Christians he might bind them and bring them." No good merits of his, then, had gone before. Rather, such things had gone before as would damn him; he brought nothing good, and was saved. "For nothing you will save them." They would not bring goats, rams, or bulls; they would not bring gifts and ornaments to your temple; they pour over nothing of good conscience as a libation. Everything in them is foul, everything harsh, everything to be detested; and since they bring you nothing by which they might be saved, "for nothing you will save them," that is, by grace freely given. The same Augustine, in On Grace and Free Choice 49, says: "Through the Holy Spirit he works good things in the hearts of the elect, he who has worked so that the hearts themselves would be good instead of evil." And it follows, 50: "Let men suppose whatever good merits they think precede, so that they may be justified through God's grace. They do not understand that when they say this, they are doing nothing other than denying grace." What else does the Truth himself say: "No one can come to me unless

the Father who sent me has drawn him," John 6? A1 But according to those people the sinner, by first repenting meritoriously, would rather draw the Father and the Son to himself than the reverse. What else did the Apostle mean when he said: "Do you not know that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?" A2 (Rom 2). The goodness of God, then, precedes repentance, brings it about, and brings it forth. And 2 Tim 2: A3 "Perhaps God may give them repentance" 57. God, then, gives repentance through preceding grace. Augustine, treating these matters in Against Julian 5, 5, says: "He chooses no one worthy, A4 but by choosing makes him worthy; yet he punishes no one unworthy. 'The Apostle says,' you say, 'The goodness of God leads you to repentance.' That this is true is agreed; but he leads the one whom he has predestined. The other, for his part, by his hardness and impenitent heart, so far as concerns himself, treasures up for himself wrath on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works. For however much patience he shows, unless he himself has given repentance, who will do it? Have you forgotten that the same Doctor says: 'Perhaps God may give them repentance to know the truth,

and they may recover their senses out of the snares of the Devil'? But his judgments are like a great abyss." The same Augustine, in On True and False Repentance, 16, says: "Since fruitful repentance is the work not of man but of God, he can inspire it whenever he wishes by his mercy, and reward by mercy those whom he can condemn by justice." The Gloss on the passage to Timothy cited above bears the plainest witness to this too. Hence also, at the end of the book of Saint Prosper, For the Preachers of the Grace of God, against Cassian's Book, thirteen chapters are recited, excerpted from the proceedings held against the heretic Pelagius and from his other writings condemned in the Synod of Palestine. The last of them asserted that repentance is not given according to the grace and mercy of God, but according to the merit and labor of those who by repentance have become worthy of mercy. There, accordingly, among the thirteen decrees destroying those thirteen heresies, the thirteenth speaks thus: "That he confess that pardon is given to the penitent according to the mercy and grace of God, not according to their merit, since the Apostle too said that repentance itself is a gift of God, where he says of certain people: 'Perhaps God may give them

repentance.'" From these things, then, the refutation of the whole opinion of Pelagius is clear, in general and especially of its first part. But now we must proceed against the two remaining parts, first in general.

For both parts assert that the remission of sin and the justification of the unjust precede grace in time or in nature. But according to what can be had from the twenty-sixth of this, and according to all philosophical and theological writers, evil, or malice itself, and sin, and the malice of sin, is not something positive but merely privative. But no privation is driven out of a subject except by the positing of a habit in the subject, and this habit naturally preceding. For the induction and positing of a habit is the cause of the expulsion and removal of the opposite privation. A privation cannot in any way be removed except by the positing of an opposing habit, while the subject remains capable of either. For how will death be removed except by life, blindness except by sight, darkness except by ‖C1 light, nakedness except by clothing, or how will ignorance be taken away except by

knowledge? How, then, will privative malice be removed, except by the positing of a habit of goodness, causally and therefore naturally preceding it? But charity, or grace, alone is a habit of goodness of this kind, or the one that restores it after mortal sin and preserves it, as is clear from what has been said before. Sin also is uncleanness, and the privation of due cleanness. Therefore it cannot be removed except by the positing of a preceding habit of cleanness, of charity and of grace. For it cannot be removed by an act of repentance without such a habit, because the act of repentance of itself by no means opposes it, and because, once the act ceased, the uncleanness of sins would return. Hence also the Lord, in Ezek 36, hinting at this order of cleansing, says: "I will pour out D1 upon you clean water, and you will be cleansed; and I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in your midst, and I will take the stony heart out of your flesh." Gloss: D2 "Note that he gives a new heart and a new spirit after the pouring out of the water." Isaiah expresses the same order of cleansing from sin by a fiery stone, or fire, by which charity is figured.

"One of the Seraphim," he says, "flew to me, and in his hand a stone 58" (where the Septuagint has "carbuncle"), "which he had taken from the altar with tongs; and he touched my mouth and said: 'Behold, I have touched your lips with this, and your iniquity will be taken away, and your sin will be cleansed,'" Isaiah, chapter six. E1 On this the Gloss says that the one who flew thus is Christ, sent by the Father, who alone forgives sins, which the whole Trinity forgives; and that the stone, or carbuncle, is charity. It says also that this Altar is the Altar that John saw in the Apocalypse, which is full of fiery stones by which sins can be purged. And note the order clearly expressed: "I have touched," he says, "with this," namely with charity, "your lips," and that is first according to nature; "and your iniquity will be taken away, and your sin will be cleansed" comes later, that is, according to nature. For this reason he fittingly says, "will be taken away." Sin also is ugliness, and the privation of due beauty; therefore it is not removed

except by the positing of an opposing habit of beauty; but charity and grace is the beauty of the soul, or that which restores it. Hence also Augustine, on Psalm 103 [104], in the first discourse, treating that verse of the Song of Songs according to the old translation, "Who is this that comes down whitened?", says: "Whitened, because not white of herself." And he adds: "Formerly," he says, "I was a blasphemer"; and again: "For we also were once by nature children of wrath, like the rest. Grace comes, illuminating and whitening. At first you were black, but you have been made white by his grace; for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord." The same could be argued in like manner, because sin is injustice, infirmity, and the death of the sinning soul, while grace is the justice, health, and life of the spiritual soul, or that which brings it back.

Further, and specifically against the first of these, which says that a man cleanses himself from sin by himself: this is done either by a clean act or by an unclean one. If by a clean act, he himself is already clean, as appears from what was premised. Hence also Matt. 23: Woe to you, etc., who clean the outside of the cup and dish, while within you are full of plunder and uncleanness? Blind Pharisee, first clean what is within the cup and dish, so that what is outside may become clean. And the Apostle says in Titus 1: To the clean all things are clean, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is clean; their mind and their conscience are defiled. Nor can it be done by an unclean act. For how could an unclean man purge the unclean by his own uncleanness? Hence also Ecclesiasticus 34: What will be cleansed by the unclean? And what truth will be spoken by a liar? But such a man, who ‖B1 amends himself59 of his sins by himself, and so merits grace, has no place to pray with the other children of the Church, Have mercy on me, God, according to your great mercy. He must say instead, Lord, render me justice according to what my merits demand. Nor can he go on to say, And according to the multitude of your mercies; he must say, according to your acts of justice, blot out my iniquity. Indeed he cannot reasonably ask for this at all, since it is not God but he himself who blots out his iniquities, as he says. So neither can he consistently pray,

Wash me still more, etc. You will sprinkle me, Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed, etc. Such a man likewise need not claim any share in the blessed blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed for many for the remission of sins, as the Gospels and the whole Church of God bear witness; for he can cleanse himself by himself. But the Lord himself does not think so, not so at all, when he says through Isaiah 43, I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities. I am, he says, I am he, that is, in the discriminating sense,60 as the Grammarians attest: I, and no one else, who blot out your iniquities. For he himself is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, John 1, and the sins of the world, as the whole Church sings.

C1 Hence also Theophilus, as cited in the Gloss: Why, he says, did he not say "the sins of the world" but "the sin"? Evidently so that by saying "sin" he would seem to signify sin universally, as we are accustomed to say that man was cast out of paradise, meaning the whole human race. And Augustine, on that passage, Sermon 4, teaches that both of these, Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world, must be taken in the discriminating way just stated. He also says, as cited in the Canon de Consecrat. dist. 4, Nemo,61 and in Lombard's 4 Sentences, dist. 18: No one takes away the sins of the world except Christ, who is the Lamb taking away the sins of the world. Similar to this is the text below, in the same place, This is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. Augustine there, in Sermon 5, understands this likewise, as do the Scholastic History and other Doctors: this one, namely, and no other, but this one alone. With them agrees Acts 15: God who knows hearts bore witness, giving them the Holy Spirit, etc., purifying their hearts by faith; and many other places. Hence also Augustine in the sermon on the remission of sins, as cited in Can. 1, q. 1: That the Lord might show plainly, he says, that sins are forgiven by the Holy Spirit, whom he gave to his faithful, and not by the merits of men, in one place he says, Receive the Holy Spirit, and immediately added, If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven him, that is, the Holy Spirit forgives, not you. The same, on that text of John 20, Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose you retain, they are retained, part 2, homily

67, or 121 of the whole,62 says thus: The charity of the Church, which is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, forgives the sins of those who are partakers of it; but of those who are not its partakers, it retains them. Therefore, after he had said, Receive the Holy Spirit, he at once added this about the remission and retention of sins. Hence also the Prophet says, Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you will renew the face of the earth, Psalm 103. On this Augustine says: The poor in spirit refused to have their own spirit; they shall have the Spirit of God. For this is what he said: For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. You will send forth your spirit and they shall be created: for we are his handiwork, says the Apostle, created in good works. From his spirit we have received grace, that we may live for righteousness, because it is he who justifies the ungodly. You will take away their spirit, and they will fail; you will send forth your spirit and they shall be created, and you will renew the face of the earth, that is, by new men confessing that they have been justified, and not that they are just of themselves, so that the grace of God may be in them. See what kind of men they are, for whom the face of the earth has been renewed. Paul says: I have labored more than all of them. What is this, Paul? Consider whether you are your own spirit. Not I, he says, but the grace of God with me. What then? It is that when he takes away our spirit, we are turned into our dust, usefully looking upon our weakness, so that, receiving his spirit, we may be recreated. The Prophet also says: You have blessed your land, Lord, you have turned away the captivity of Jacob, you have forgiven the iniquity of your people, you have covered all their sins, Psalm 84. In agreement with this Augustine, on that text of Psalm 31, Blessed are they whose, etc., says: The title of the psalm is called "of Understanding."63 The first understanding, then, is that you may know yourself a sinner; the consequent understanding is that, when from faith through love you have begun to work well, you may ascribe this not to your own strength but to the grace of God, because everything is ascribed to his grace, not to our merits. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; if God covered sins, he did not wish to take notice of them. Jerome says the same: Those whose sins God forgives, he covers.

Peter, in 4 Sentences, dist. 18, having recited these authorities, says: From these it is plainly shown that God himself looses the penitent from the debt of punishment, and looses him at the time when he illuminates him within, inspiring true contrition of heart. Reason supports this view, and authorities attest it. For no one is truly pricked at heart for sin, having a contrite and humbled heart, except in charity; but he who has charity is worthy of life; and no one is at once worthy of life and of death; therefore he is not then bound by the debt of eternal death. For he ceases to be a son of wrath from the moment he began to love and to repent. God alone, therefore, cleanses a man within from the stain of sin and looses him from the debt of eternal punishment, he who says through the Prophet, I alone blot out the iniquities and sins of the people. And further on, after reciting the varied opinion of the Doctors, he says: See how various are the things handed down by the Doctors; and amid so great a variety, what is to be held? This we can surely say and think, that God alone forgives and retains sins,

and yet he has conferred on the Church the power of loosing and binding. But he himself looses or binds in one way, and the Church in another. For he himself, through himself alone, forgives sin in such a way that he both cleanses the soul from all interior stain and looses it from the debt of eternal death. And he adds further on: It has been shown, he says, how priests forgive or retain sins, and yet God has kept for himself a certain singular power of forgiving or retaining, because he himself alone, through himself, looses the debt of eternal death and purges the soul within. Such a man, moreover, has no need of another Savior or physician, namely Jesus Christ; for he can save himself and heal himself. Indeed this physician does not save or heal anyone from sin, but each man himself. In vain, then, did he come to seek, C1 and to save, what had perished, Luke 19. In vain was his name called Jesus, that is, Saving or Savior, since he is the cause of salvation for no one, but each man for himself. Such a man therefore strives to extinguish or pervert the name of Christ. Not so, not so! Let him rather change his own name, and let him who was a Pelagian become a Christian; let him who was a disciple of Pelagius, shipwrecked in the sea of perfidy,64 C2

become a disciple of Jesus Christ, who delivers from the sea of sin. Hence the angel of the Lord also said to Joseph: You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save the people from their sins, Matt. 1. In agreement with this, Peter also, filled with the Holy Spirit, said of the Lord Jesus Christ that there is salvation in no other; for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved, Acts 4. The Prophet saw this well too: You are, he says, my King himself, D1 and my God, who command the salvations of Jacob, Psalm 43; and above, 26: The Lord, he says, is my light and my salvation. And further on, 40: Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you; and further down, 102: who heals all infirmities. So also Jeremiah 17: Heal me, he says, Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved. Many similar texts occur very often in Scripture. Likewise, as was touched on above: How can one dead give life to one dead? or one dead raise one dead? For no one can do a work of life unless he first has life, but every sinner in mortal sin is spiritually dead. And what man presumes so much of himself that he could raise a bodily dead man bodily?

Who, then, will presume that he can raise a spiritually dead man spiritually, since this is as great a task or greater, just as spirit and spiritual life are as great as or greater than body and bodily life? Hence Anselm, On Free Choice 10: When the free will, he says, abandons rectitude, it is a slave to sin through the impossibility of recovering it by itself. Thus it becomes a spirit going and not returning, since he who commits sin is a slave of sin. For just as no will, before it had rectitude, could receive it without God's giving it, so when it has abandoned what it had received, it cannot take it back unless God restores it. And I judge it a greater miracle when God restores to the will the rectitude it has abandoned than when he restores to a dead man the life he has lost. For the body, by dying of necessity, does not sin, so that it should never receive life again; but the will, by itself abandoning rectitude, deserves always to be in want of it. The same, in book 2 of Cur Deus homo, chapter 16: More wondrously, he says, God restored

human nature than he established ‖A165 it (for both are equally easy for God). But before man existed, he did not sin so as not to be made; whereas after he was made, by sinning he merited to lose both what he had been made and that for which he had been made. God therefore restored him all the more wondrously than he established him, in that he did the one for a sinner and against merit, the other not for a sinner nor against merit. Chrysostom also, as cited in the Gloss on Luke 5: Which is easier to say, Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Rise and walk? It is plain, he says, that to make the body whole is easier; for as much as the soul is nobler than the body, so much more excellent is the absolution of crimes. But since you do not believe that, because it lies hidden, I shall add what is less, yet more evident, so that by it what is more hidden may be demonstrated. With this Augustine agrees, on that text of Psalm 9, I will tell all your wonders: He tells, he says, all the wonders of God, who sees that they are done not only openly in bodies, but invisibly indeed in souls, yet far more sublimely and excellently. For earthly men, given to their eyes, marvel more that Lazarus the dead man rose again in body

than that Paul the persecutor rose again in soul. B1 The Prophet also says, speaking to God: Will he work wonders for the dead, or will physicians raise them, and will they confess to you?66 Will anyone tell your mercy in the tomb, and your truth in destruction? Will your wonders be known in the darkness, and your justice in the land of forgetfulness? Psalm 87. What else do these words seem to signify, except that God alone works wonders spiritually, raising the dead and buried, the lost and forgotten, by his prevenient grace? Hence Augustine, expounding the first of these verses, says: The physicians of the Church, although they do not heal out of their own resources, since neither do physicians of the body heal out of their own, yet however much they help health by faithful ministry, can cure the living; they cannot rouse the dead, of whom it was said, Will he work wonders for the dead? For the grace of God is exceedingly hidden, by which the minds of men in a way come back to life, so that they can hear from any of his ministers the precepts of health. This grace he commends in the Gospel, saying, No one

can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and shortly after, For this reason I said to you that no one can come to me unless it be given him by my Father. He had said before, But there are some among you who do not believe; and, as though explaining the cause of this, he says, For this reason I said to you that no one can come to me unless it be given him by my Father, to show that even faith itself, by which the soul believes and from the death of its heart comes back to life, is given to us by God. However much, then, out of faith itself,67 outstanding preachers of the word, and persuaders of the truth even by miracles, may act as great physicians with men, if they are dead and have not come back to life by your grace: Will you work wonders for the dead, or will physicians raise them again, and will those whom they rouse confess to you? For this confession shows the living. For, as is written elsewhere, From the dead, as from one who is not, confession perishes. Augustine also expounds the following verses to the same sense; on the third he speaks thus: Nor will physicians raise the ungodly that they may confess to you, in whom your hidden grace does not work, by which they might be drawn to believe, because no one comes to me,

unless you have drawn him. Peter, moreover, in 4 Sentences, dist. 18, says that the purging of the soul from the stain of sin is done by God alone, who alone raises the soul and illuminates it, which priests cannot do, though they are physicians of souls. Hence the Prophet: Will physicians raise them and will they confess to you? Likewise Ecclesiasticus 17: From the dead, as from nothing, confession perishes; or, according to another translation, From the dead, as from one who is not, confession perishes. He, then, who confesses sin is alive, not because he confesses. For a dead man cannot do the work of life; but he is first alive, at least by nature, and therefore performs the work of life. The exposition of St. Augustine cited above also strengthens this view. He also says, in Sermon 8 on the words of the Lord: They confess, he says, whether praising God or accusing ourselves. Each confession is devout, whether when you reproach yourself, who are not without sin, or when you praise him who cannot have sin. And if we think well, is your reproach of yourself not his praise?

Why do you now confess, in the accusation of your sin, in the accusation of yourself? Why do you confess, unless because from a dead man you have been made a living one? For Scripture says, "From the dead, as from one who is not, confession perishes." If confession perishes from the dead man, then he who confesses is alive; and if he confesses sin, he has surely come back to life from death. If the confessor of sin has come back to life from death, who raised him? No dead man is the raiser of himself. Who raised him? Only he who, once the stone was removed, cried out, saying, "Lazarus, come forth." And what is it to come forth, if not to bring out what was hidden? He who confesses comes forth. He could not come forth unless he lived, E1 and he could not live unless there were the call of God. And Bernard says, in On Grace and Free Choice 23: The Apostle says, "What do you have that you have not received?" You are created, healed, saved. Which of these, O man, is from yourself? Which of these is not impossible for free choice? You could not create yourself who were not, nor justify yourself as a sinner, nor raise yourself as one dead,68 to pass over the other goods, which are either necessary for those to be healed or laid up for those to be saved. What we say of the first and the last is plain; but of the middle too no one doubts, save one who, ignorant of the justice of God and wishing to establish his own, is not subject to the justice of God. For why do you acknowledge the power of the Creator and the glory of the Savior, and yet ignore the justice of the Healer? "Heal me," he says, "and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise." He acknowledged the justice of God,69 from whom he hoped as much to be saved from sin as to be freed from misery; and so he declared Him, and not himself in his merit, to be his praise. Who is it, who is it that is ignorant of the justice of God?70 Who justifies himself? Who is it that justifies himself? He who presumes for himself merits from anywhere other than grace. Moreover, He who made what He would save also gives the means by which He saves. He gives the merits, I say, who made those to whom He would give them. And it continues, 24: Those, therefore, who are rightly wise confess a threefold working, not indeed of free choice, but of divine grace in it, or upon it: the first, creation; the second, reformation; the third, consummation.

For what was not had to be created in Him; what was, to be reformed through the form that conforms to God; and the members could not be perfected except together with the head. From this it is clear that God alone gives life, and through grace raises those dead through sin. The Prophet, noting this well, says, "You will give us life, and we will call upon your name," Psalm 79 [80]. "You will give us life": thus God alone, by breathing in the life of grace, and this first; and "we, given life, will call upon your name" with a living invocation, second. And further on, Psalm 84 [85]: "God, you, turning" (or, according to another reading, "turning"), "you will give us life": you, I say, singularly, and with discrimination turned toward us through the benefit of grace, or turning, "you will give us life." And further on, Psalm 118 [119]: "In your equity give me life": in your equity, I say, not mine; where Augustine's text has, "In your justice give me life." On which he says: B1 "Not in my justice, but in your justice give me life, that is, in charity; for in myself I had whereby I should die, but whereby I may live I find only in you." And further on: "According to your mercy give me life, and I will keep the testimonies of your mouth": according to your mercy, not according to the justice of my merits, give me life, and this first; and I will keep the testimonies of your mouth, second.

Hence also our Physician, our salvation and life: "As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will," John 5. Here, then, he raises the dead spiritually; the dead do not raise themselves, etc.71 This he does by gratuitous will, not for any preceding merit of those raised: "The Son," he says, "gives life to whom he will," not to those who deserve to be given life. For God alone can raise up sons of Abraham from stones, from stony men, cold, dry, and hard, as can be known from Matthew and Luke 3. The third of the aforesaid errors, then, is sufficiently rectified by what has been said above.

The second principal opinion, affirming that grace naturally precedes the remission of sin and the justification of the unjust, is divided in two ways. Some say that grace, according to what it is absolutely, precedes the remission of sin and the justification of the unjust, but not insofar as it is grace, but that as grace it follows the one and the other. Others posit that grace, insofar as it is grace, naturally precedes them. The first of these differs little in words from the principal opinion of Pelagius that was recited, and agrees with it in reality; so it can be corrected as that one was, by taking "grace" and the other terms required with reduplication,72 in accordance with the mind of canonical Scripture and of the Doctors. It could also be brought back to the truth by very many other ways; but since it seems too childish, it need not be resisted manfully, for riper age and a more mature understanding will put it to flight. Those, however, who have a more digested understanding and judgment, and who posit that grace insofar as it is grace precedes the remission of sin and the justification of the unjust, vary in two ways: for some say that grace precedes justification mediately, others immediately. The first of these affirm that God first, naturally, freely infuses grace into the sinner, and that the sinner, in the second order of nature, elicits some act purgative of sin, and so through an act of this kind, as intermediary, merits and obtains remission of sin. And these, differing among themselves about that intermediate act, are further divided into five special sects. The first holds that that intermediate purgative act is contrition of heart; the second, confession of mouth; the third, absolution; the fourth, satisfaction by deed; the fifth, sacramental penance, such as is celebrated whole and complete in the Church, for they do not think any single part alone suffices. The first of these, which seems subtler than the rest, holds that God first, naturally, freely gives grace to the sinner; that the sinner in the second order of nature freely loves God; that third he naturally repents, and through these merits the remission of sin, of the divine offense, of eternal punishment, divine friendship, and eternal life. And so in the fourth natural order he receives the dismissal of sin, in the fifth the remission of the divine offense, in the sixth the relaxation of eternal punishment, in the seventh reconciliation and divine friendship, in the eighth eternal life, although all these come about at the same time, or rather in the same instant of time. Very many Doctors seem to profess this opinion, and the Glossator of the Decretum73 seems to agree with them, where he treats this matter on the beginning of the first distinction on penance. For he says that grace precedes contrition as cause, and contrition likewise precedes remission as cause. And further on: "Note," he says, "that all these are simultaneous in time (justification, contrition, love, remission), but some of them nevertheless precede naturally and are prior by nature. For I must understand that someone has grace before he is contrite. Grace therefore precedes; love follows, since he who has grace loves; contrition follows love, for he who loves is contrite; remission follows, for he who is contrite has it remitted." Moreover, very many authorities, which Gratian recites in that first distinction on penance, and Peter in Sentences 4, dist. 17 (some of which are recited above on behalf of the Pelagians), seem plainly to testify that sins are remitted through contrition alone.

Reason also supports them: ‖A1 otherwise it would seem superfluous to be contrite for sins, since indeed to repent is within a man's free choice, and he could, having received grace, not repent, and so be justified and just without any penance, whether after or before. But this opinion seems to be corrected by the reasons by way of merit premised against the first opinion of the Pelagians. The reasons by way of life and death, health and sickness, goodness and badness of a tree or of land, and other similar ones brought against the Pelagians, also correct it.

For love and contrition, by which the sinner merits the remission of sin, are living, healthy, good works; therefore he himself is by nature prior living, healthy, and good, as was more fully deduced above, and as Anselm, On Concord 9, and Augustine, book 1, ‖B1 To Simplicianus 24, clearly attest, as was touched on above, and the thirty-ninth chapter cited more fully. Again, as is clear from the twenty-sixth of this book, and from all the Doctors in agreement, sin, or the malice of sin, is not something positive but only privative, and not the privation of contrition, nor of any act whatever, because then, with actual contrition ceasing, or that other act, whatever it might be, sin would return at once. It is therefore the privation of some habit which is positively opposed to it, and this immediately, in a disposed subject, as light and darkness are. But the habit immediately opposed to sin is grace, or it is supplied through grace, or grace necessarily restores it immediately to the sinner; for otherwise someone could be at once in grace and in mortal sin, which conflicts with what was shown before. Therefore, with grace infused, sin is immediately deleted, as darkness is immediately removed by light; or else grace at once restores the habit immediately opposed to sin, which of itself immediately removes sin, and so grace removes sin only by means of that habit, as the Sun removes the darkness of the air only by means of its ray. It is not, then, that an act of love or of contrition mediates, causally and naturally. Again, grace is naturally prior to contrition, and contrition is not its necessary effect, nor does it necessarily and inseparably follow it; for then everyone receiving and having grace would always necessarily repent, which is evidently false of the holy Angels, of men before the fall, of baptized infants after the fall, of holy adults in this life who always have the grace of God but do not always grieve, and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore grace infused into a sinner can for that moment be without an act of contrition in him, as also afterward, just as other infused habits, which can also be infused, can exist without their own acts (intellectual and moral habits, for instance), especially since contrition is a spontaneous act of the free will. Moreover, grace and contrition are two effects of God in a contrite heart, grace prior in nature, contrition posterior and not inseparably following it. If this is posited as actual, then since by hypothesis sin is not removed except through an act of contrition, the sinner will be at once in grace and in mortal sin. Or if in this case sin is removed without an act of contrition, that is, through some habit immediately opposed to sin, which is grace, or which is immediately brought by grace, as was touched on above, then it was removed in the same way earlier too: for a habit once immediately opposed, per se and essentially, to some privation is always similarly opposed to it, as can be had from the second of this book. But suppose someone replies that grace is not that habit immediately opposed to sin, and does not restore it immediately, but does so by some medium mediating. That other thing is either a habit or an act. It is not an act, on account of the premises; and because this response defends the one who says, in the case premised, that sin is deleted without contrition and without a prior act of the sinner. Nor can it reasonably be said that it is a habit; for what habit would it be? That habit, moreover, either necessarily and inseparably follows grace, or contingently and separably. If contingently and separably, then it is possible that grace be infused without it, and that the sinner be at once in grace and in mortal sin, as was argued above. If necessarily and inseparably, then by the same reasoning it should have been said from the start that the habit immediately opposed to sin immediately follows grace; for by this the difficulty is in no way diminished but rather increased, as is easy to see.

Again, any form and any habit, natural, moral, or intellectual, immediately denominates what it forms and habituates, inasmuch as it is immediately opposed to the privation of this form or habit in its disposed subject: light the luminous, justice the just, wisdom the wise, and so for all the rest. Why, then, do grace and charity not immediately denominate anyone pleasing and dear,74 especially since being pleasing and not being pleasing, or being not pleasing, or unpleasing, like dear and undear, in a disposed subject, namely in a rational creature, are immediately opposed as privatives? Why also does grace, or charity, which is the spiritual life, health, and beauty of the one who has it, not immediately denominate him spiritually living, healthy, and beautiful, as the life, health, and beauty of any natural thing denominates it naturally such? Why also does grace not immediately make and denominate grown persons pleasing, as it does baptized infants, as also the first men (if they were created in grace, or if before sin they had grace), as also the Angels, since according to that common saying of the Philosopher, "The one, insofar as it is one, is naturally apt always to make one"? Again, upon the induction of mortal sin the expulsion of grace immediately follows; so likewise, in the converse, by like reasoning. The authorities premised also rectify this opinion, saying that the sinner is justified through the grace of God freely, not by the works or the preceding merits of the sinner; to which both the authorities and very many reasons premised against the opinions of the Pelagians concordantly attest. This same opinion, because of its many other assertions, could also be chastised in many other ways.

The second of the said sects rests on this reasoning: if sins are remitted before confession of the mouth, it is not necessary to confess. For by what reason is a man bound to confess sins which he does not doubt are remitted? Why also would a baptized adult not likewise be bound to confess anew the sins remitted in baptism, which no one doubts is false? Wherefore the Lord also commands, "Tell first your iniquities, B1 that you may be justified," Isaiah 43, according to the Septuagint translation, as the Gloss there recites.

Augustine also, on that verse of Psalm 74 [75], "We will confess to you, O God, we will confess, and we will call upon your name," says: "Confess, and call. For by confessing you cleanse yourself, so that He may come when called. Before the invocation confession precedes; your confession cleanses you." The same, on that verse of Psalm 95 [96], "Confession and beauty are in his sight," says: "You love beauty? You wish to be beautiful? Confess. He did not say 'beauty and confession,' but 'confession and beauty.' Were you foul? Confess, that you may be beautiful. Were you a sinner? Confess, that you may be just; 'confession and beauty in his sight.' Let them confess their sins, let them vomit the evils they had greedily devoured, let them not return to their vomit like an unclean dog, and there will be confession and beauty. We love beauty; let us first choose confession, that beauty may follow." The exposition of Augustine on that verse of Psalm 103 [104], "You have put on confession and splendor" *C1,75 C2 plainly bears witness to this opinion too, as does that on that verse of Psalm 84 [85], "Justice will walk before him," etc., recited above. And Ambrose says in the book On Paradise, as is cited in On Penance, dist. 1, where others are cited to the contrary,76 and in Peter's Sentences 4, dist. 17: "No one can be justified from sin unless he has first confessed." The same, in the Lenten sermon, as is likewise cited in the same places: "Confession," he says, "frees the soul from death, confession opens paradise, confession gives hope of salvation." Again Augustine, On True and False Penance 13,77 also cited in the places mentioned: "In this, that the penitent himself speaks to the Priest, and overcomes shame by fear of the offended one, pardon of the crime comes about; for what was criminal in the doing becomes venial through confession." In each of the aforesaid places many similar authorities are recited.

But the correction of this sect follows evidently from the correction of the former sect. For if contrition of heart, proceeding from grace, does not precede the deletion of sin, much less does confession of the mouth, since this is later. By the same means by which the first sect was brought back, the second can also be brought back. For sin is only a certain privation, and not a privation of confession, nor of any act, because then, with confession or that act ceasing, sin would return. It is therefore the privation of some habit, which is either grace or is restored through grace, as was shown above; and this before confession not only in nature but in time, when grace is freely infused into the graceless78 and he is contrite for his sins, as the things already stated also make plain. Again, if mortal sin were not deleted before confession of the mouth in a sinner who receives gratuitous grace and is contrite, and wishes to confess, and is diligently and for a long time seeking a Confessor, then grace and mortal sin would stand together for a long time, which was rejected above. What Catholic, moreover, doubts that in a sinner who by grace already infused duly repents, and wishes to confess, and diligently seeks confession, sins are remitted before confession, and that he is saved if he dies on the way toward the Priest? And if to this man, thus dead, sins are remitted before confession, why not likewise if he had lived until he came to the Priest? Why not likewise for another like him who does not die on the way but lives on until after confession? What is the reason for the difference? What is the cause of the variance, other things being equal, in these cases?79

The ten lepers make this plain too: they were cleansed while they were going, at the Lord's command, to seek priests to whom they might show themselves, as Luke 17 relates. The leper whom the Lord first touched with his hand and cleansed shows it evidently as well. Afterward the Lord commanded him to show himself to the priests and to offer what Moses commanded to be offered to them as a testimony, as Matthew 8 and Mark 1 recount more fully. He was to show himself, I mean, by oral confession, and to offer what Moses commanded through satisfaction in deed, which the law prescribes.

Who, moreover, doubts that an unbelieving adult who has been converted in heart by a believer's preaching, who believes in Christ, wishes to be baptized and diligently seeks the baptizer, is baptized from all mortal sins by the baptism of the Spirit80 even before the baptism of water? And if he departs thus, is he not saved, as is sufficiently shown in Peter's Sentences IV, dist. 4, and in the Extra, "On Baptism and its effect: Debitum"?81 Why then not likewise in the baptism of saving penance? The same is proved in many ways in De poenitentia, dist. 1, through the aforesaid lepers, and by authorities and very many effective arguments. Yet it is true that Gratian argues for and against, and affirms neither side but leaves it to the Reader's judgment,82 as is clear from the next-to-last chapter. The authorities and arguments adduced there for the first opinion prove it effectively. Of those adduced for the opposite, some prove our proposition the more if they are examined closely, and some are directed against those who neglect or despise oral confession and the purpose of confessing, as is all plain there from the Gloss and from Peter, Sentences IV, dist. 17, where he both proves and holds this opinion.

The third sect83 grounds itself in the power of the keys. For not falsely or in vain did the Lord say to Peter, B1 "I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatever you bind on earth will be bound also in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in Heaven" (Matthew 16). More generally he said to the disciples when they were gathered, B2 "Those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven, and those whose sins you retain, they are retained" (John 20). What Christian, moreover, is ignorant that the vicar of Christ on earth, and other lesser prelates and minor priests, by the power of these keys absolve penitents from their sins, bind some with the bond of excommunication and loose others? Otherwise too, as it argues, it would be superfluous to be absolved.

But this sect cannot stand on its adherents' understanding of it. For if neither contrition of heart nor confession of mouth precedes the blotting out of sin, as was shown above, much less does the priest's absolution, since this, if it is done lawfully, comes after those. C1 This sect too can be corrected, as the one before it was corrected. Hence Peter also, Sentences IV, Dist. 18, proves and holds that sins have been blotted out before the absolution imparted by the priest. Again, if sins are remitted in the priest's absolution, either the priest remits them by his absolution, or God does so at his absolution. But the priest does not properly blot out sins; C2 God alone does, as was shown above. Hence Ambrose also, as he is cited in Sentences IV, Dist. 18 of Peter, and in De poenitentia, Dist. 1. "Others, on the other side."84 "The word of God," he says, "remits sins; the priest is the judge; the priest indeed performs his office, but exercises the rights of no power."

D1 Jerome too says, as he is cited in the Gloss on that text of Matthew 16, "Whatever you bind," etc., and in Peter's Sentences IV, dist. 18: "Bishops and presbyters, not understanding this passage, take on something of the haughtiness of the Pharisees, so that they think they can either condemn the innocent or release the guilty, whereas before God it is not the sentence of priests but the life of the guilty that is sought. We read in Leviticus about lepers, where they are commanded to show themselves to the priests, and if they have leprosy, they are then made unclean by the priest. It is not that priests make lepers and unclean persons; it is that they have knowledge of what is leprous and not leprous, and can discern who is clean and who unclean. As the priest there makes the leper unclean, so here the bishop or presbyter binds or looses."

Who, moreover, will even slightly suppose that the priest, by absolving outwardly, creates inwardly in the sinner's soul a grace that purges sins, as was shown above? Hence the Lord also commanded through Moses that Aaron and his sons were to say: "Thus you shall bless the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord show you his face and have mercy on you; may the Lord turn his countenance to you and give you peace. And they shall invoke my name over the children of Israel, and I will bless them" E1 (Numbers 6). "I," he says, that is, I alone, "will bless them"; that is, I will give them inwardly the effect of the blessing, namely grace, or an increase of grace.

Nor does God always bestow grace, or remit sins, at the priest's absolution. For such bearers of these heavenly keys can sometimes go astray: they bind, that is, putatively and in their own judgment, some who in truth and in God's judgment have been loosed from the bond of sin, and in the same way they loose some E2 who are truly bound. Hence Origen too, as Peter cites him, Sentences IV, Dist. 18, says: "Someone has departed from charity, from faith, from truth; by this he has departed from the camps of the Church,

even if he is not cast out by the voice of a bishop; and conversely, someone is sent outside by an unjust judgment, but if he has done nothing to deserve going out, he is not harmed at all. For sometimes the one who is sent outside is inside, and the one who is outside is seen to be held within." Jerome, cited above, plainly testifies to this too. Hence Peter also, Sentences IV, distinct. 16, immediately after reciting Jerome's saying, adds: "It is openly shown here that God does not follow the judgment of the Church, which sometimes judges by subreption85 and sometimes through ignorance; but God always judges according to the truth, both in remitting and in retaining faults."

Innocent III agrees with him: Extra, "On the sentence of excommunication": A nobis saepe quaesitum. "The judgment of God," he says, "always rests on the truth, which neither deceives nor is deceived; but the judgment of the Church sometimes follows opinion, which it often happens both to deceive and to be deceived. For this reason it sometimes happens that one who is bound before God is loosed before the Church, and one who is free before God is bound by an ecclesiastical sentence." This can also be drawn from below, in the same title, Inquisitioni tuae, and from above, in "On the restitution of the despoiled," Literas. There it is plainly laid down that if one of the spouses, after the marriage has been celebrated, discovers for certain a lawful impediment which he nevertheless cannot prove, by reason of which they cannot unite carnally without mortal sin, then however much, at the instance of the other spouse, he is judicially compelled by ecclesiastical censures to render the conjugal debt, he must by no means do it, but rather humbly bear the sentence of excommunication for the whole time of his life.

The fourth sect seems to be founded on that common saying cited above: "Sin is not forgiven unless what was taken away is restored," and many similar sayings set down there support it likewise. Hence Pope Leo also, B1 as he is cited in De poenitentia, distinct. 1, and in Peter's Sentences IV, dist. 17: "Christ," he says, "handed over this power to the leaders of the Church, that they should give to those who confess the satisfaction of penance, and, when these same had been cleansed by salutary satisfaction, admit them through the gate of reconciliation to the communion of the sacraments." Hence too Raphael, in Tobit 12: "Almsgiving," he says, "frees from death, and it is that which purges sins, B2 and makes one find eternal life." Hence also Proverbs 15:86 "By mercy and faith sins are purged,"

and the Savior, Luke 11: "Give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you." Many similar sayings about fasting, prayer, and the like occur frequently in the Scriptures. This sect too can be corrected in the same way as the others have been corrected. It is also plain from what precedes that no one's almsgiving, or any works whatever, are dear, pleasing, or acceptable to God87 as long as that person is in mortal sin, outside charity and grace: not dear, not pleasing, and not accepted by him. Hence Proverbs 15: "The sacrifices of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord; the vows of the just are acceptable." C1 And Ecclesiasticus 34: "The Most High does not approve the gifts of the wicked, nor does he look upon the offerings of the unjust, nor will he be propitiated for sins by the multitude of their sacrifices." And Isaiah 1: "Do not offer sacrifice any more in vain, says the Lord. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbaths and other feasts I will not bear. Your assemblies are wicked. Your Kalends and your solemnities my soul hates. They have become burdensome to me; I am weary of bearing them. And when you stretch out

your hands, I will turn my eyes away from you, and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear; for your hands are full of blood." Hence also Genesis 4: D1 "The Lord," it says, "looked upon Abel and upon his gifts." Upon Abel, that is, upon the one who offered or gave, first, and upon his gifts second, and on account of the giver upon the gifts, not the reverse.

Hence also blessed Gregory, Moralia 22.11, on that text of Job 31, "My door lay open to the traveller": D2 "A gift," he says, "is not accepted from the hand by Almighty God if it is brought forth with a heart bound in malice. For the mind of the one who offers alms must first be cleansed, because everything that is given to God is weighed by the mind of the giver. Every stain of malice must therefore be wiped away from our inner man by a change of thought, because an offering cannot placate the Judge's anger unless it pleases by the cleanness of the one who offers. Hence it is written: 'God looked upon Abel and upon his gifts; but upon Cain and his gifts he did not look.' For the sacred utterance does not say, 'He looked upon the gifts of Abel, and did not look upon the gifts of Cain,' but first says that he looked upon Abel, and then adds 'and upon his gifts'; and again it says that he did not look upon Cain, and then adds 'nor upon his gifts': for what is given is received from the heart of the giver. Therefore Abel did not please by his gifts; rather the gifts offered pleased because of Abel. For it is read that the Lord looked first upon him who gave, before the things he gave."

He too, as Gratian recounts, 14, question 5, Scriptum, speaks thus: "It is written, 'The sacrifices of the wicked are abominable to God, and the vows of the just are acceptable.' For in God's judgment it is not what, but by whom, it ‖405E·1 is given that is regarded. Hence it is that it is written: 'God looked upon Abel and upon his gifts; but upon Cain and upon his gifts he did not look.' For when he was about to say that the Lord looked upon the gifts, he took care to say first that he looked upon Abel; from which it is plainly shown that the one who offered did not please by his gifts, but the gifts pleased by the one who offered. For the Most High does not approve the gifts of the wicked, nor look upon their offerings, nor will he be propitiated for their sins by the multitude of sacrifices." Again, Augustine, On true and false penance, 14: "Let the penitent offer," he says, 406E·1

"to God his mind and contrition of heart; then also what he can from his possessions; then let him offer in safety what he offers." "The Lord looked upon Abel and upon his gifts," but it says "upon Abel" before "upon the gifts": for taking the mind, which he knew to be humble and pure, he rewarded the gifts of its generosity. The same author, Enchiridion 59,88 says: "Whoever wishes to give alms in due order must begin with himself and give the alms to himself first, and cleanse his interior, as it is read elsewhere: 'Cleanse what is within, and what is outside will be clean.' The Lord, admonishing about this almsgiving, says: 'But as for what remains, give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.'" Peter, Sentences IV, dist. 15, citing this in substance, says: "By this almsgiving, which a man owes first to himself, the interior things are cleansed; urging this, Christ says: 'Cleanse what is within.' For to the unclean nothing is clean, but their mind and conscience are polluted." Of fasting, prayer, and the like, the same judgment must be made for the same reason.

The fifth sect fortifies itself by this: that there is a penance that remits sin, as had been alleged at the beginning, a penance that is practiced in the Church more worthily than that acceptable penance which proceeds from grace,89 and which is a most salutary sacrament. Hence Peter also, Sentences IV, dist. 1, defining a sacrament, says: "That is properly called a sacrament which is so a sign of the grace of God and a form of invisible grace that it bears its image and exists as its cause." And Augustine says, as he is cited in Sentences IV of Peter, dist. 17, and in De poenitentia, dist. 1: "Do penance such as is done in the Church. Let no one say to himself: 'I do it in secret; I do it before God; God, who pardons me, knows that I do it in my heart.' Then it was said without cause, 'Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven'; then the keys of the Church were given without cause; we even make void the word of Christ." For this reason Peter also, Sentences IV, dist. 14, says that outward penance is a sacrament and a cause of salvation and justification, as was more fully alleged above. Moreover, if penance is a sacrament, it is the sign of a sacred thing; for so a sacrament is commonly defined, and this can be had from Augustine, City of God 10.11,90 and Peter recites it in Sentences IV, dist. 1.

But what could signify anything holier than the sanctification of the profane sinner and the amendment of sin? Otherwise it would also seem that the whole of sacramental penance would be superfluous, or at least some part of it. Men of this sect, too, can be restrained by the very things by which others also are restrained 91. Moreover, who doubts that the penitent, before the whole penance has been completed, has been cleansed from sin as to guilt, that is, from the stain of sin, though not yet released from the liability to punishment? What would otherwise become of one who is duly penitent, confessing, accepting penance, duly beginning and continuing it, but who dies before the penance has been fully completed? Who does not know that such a man passes to the fire of purgatory? If he were to die in mortal sin, he would go down to hell, where there is only punishment of sins, not purgation. What, too, are we to think of those who repent late, at the point of death, in the last gasping breath, and who do not complete the penance due in the present life? Do such men depart with their mortal sins? God forbid, God forbid! He who says this sins mortally, as no Christian doubts. Who, moreover, does not know that a priest who is doing long penance for a mortal sin can lawfully celebrate Mass before the penance is completed? And who doubts that no one in mortal sin can lawfully celebrate? For these reasons, then, and others like them touched on beforehand, the last opinion seems to me true: that grace precedes justification immediately, with no act of the justified man intervening, whether temporally or naturally; that the justification of the unjust man itself precedes, according to nature, his acts and his just works; and moreover that in any adult, justification is always in fact followed naturally by some just acts, for example love and contrition, and inseparably accompanied by them. Furthermore, according to what was set out in the twenty-third and twenty-fifth of this, I believe that God intrinsically (that is, as to the act or intrinsic affection of the will) has always, wholly and equally, equally freely, equally dearly, loved, loves, and will love whoever is to be justified or has been justified, for example Paul, before his conversion, in it, and after it.

I believe also, according to what was set out in many chapters, that this eternal love of God is purely gratuitous, since it was anticipated by no merits of the creature. And accordingly, so that I may be ungrateful in nothing for the most gratuitous and most ample grace of my most liberal and most magnificent Lord God, but may repay him full thanks 92 for all that he has freely granted me, at least by acknowledging his benefits in general, generally, in accordance with what has been shown before and against the opinions set out above, I confess my God 93. As he loved me eternally and freely, and eternally determined, at the time pleasing in his sight, freely to confer on me justifying grace, so, when the pleasing time comes, he freely pours justifying grace into me, unjust as I am. He freely justifies me, freely washes away my injustices, freely raises me up and heals me, freely remits to me the debt of eternal punishment and freely turns it into temporal punishment, and freely makes me a son of the kingdom. He does this himself, not I: through himself and through his grace, not through me but in me and from me, doing it purely freely. Further, according to Corollary 41 of this: through him, and through his grace freely infused into me, and through me at once and in me, consequently in nature and inseparably, by those gratuitous benefits he has recalled, he freely makes me myself freely love God and repent of all my offences. Come then, "Bless the Lord, my soul, and all that is within me, his holy name; bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget all his recompenses." The holy Church of God also seems to bear witness to this, singing thus: "From on high the Lamb is sent to release the debt freely. Let us all with tears raise our voice for pardon." "To release," it says, "freely," not on account of any preceding merit, the debt of mortal guilt and of the eternal punishment due. Whence it also fittingly adds: "Let us all with tears raise our voice for pardon." That is, for pardon of the aforesaid guilt and punishment, already naturally granted beforehand, let us raise our voice, namely the inner voice of love, with tears, that is, with the bitterness of contrition and, after that, the act of penance. A1 This the Lord also foretold through Isaiah 45, saying of Cyrus, under the type of Christ: "He releases my captivity, not for a price, nor for gifts."

Wherefore Peter 94 also, in Sentences 4, Dist. 18, says: "Just as B1 God has kept to himself the power of baptism, so also that of penance; and so, as he inwardly enlightens the soul by his grace, so at the same time he relaxes the debt of eternal death. For he himself, by himself, covers the sins of the penitent, and he covers them when he does not reserve them for punishment. Therefore he covers them when he releases the debt of eternal punishment." That he himself covers them Augustine says plainly, expounding that place in the Psalm: "Blessed B2 are they whose sins are covered," that is, hidden and forgotten. "For if God has covered over ‖B3 sins 95, he did not will to attend to them; and if he did not will to attend, he did not will to take notice of them, that is, to punish, but to forgive. He therefore says 'covered by God' meaning that God does not see, that is, does not punish eternally. For God's seeing sins is imputing them to punishment, and turning his face away from sins means not reserving them for punishment." Likewise Jerome: "Those whose sins God forgives, he covers, lest they be revealed in judgment." B4 Likewise Cassiodorus: "Those who have grave sins: to some God imputes them, to others through mercy he does not impute them." From these it is plainly shown that God himself releases the penitent from the debt of punishment, and releases him when he enlightens him within, by inspiring true contrition of heart, namely habitual contrition, that is, a habit of charity or of grace productive of contrition, and itself at that same time producing it. Hence he immediately adds: "Reason supports this opinion, and authorities attest it. For no one is truly pricked in conscience over sin, having a contrite and humbled heart, except in charity; but he who has charity is worthy of life; and no one is at once worthy of life and of death; he is therefore not then bound by the debt of eternal death." For he ceases to be a son of wrath from the moment he began to love and to repent. I say, from the moment he began to love and repent habitually, that is, from the moment he received charity, which is the habit productive of love and of penance, and which then simultaneously produces both the one and the other. And here he hints at the argument against the opinion last mentioned before: wherefore he adds immediately after: "From then on, therefore, he is released from the wrath, which does not abide upon him who believes in Christ, but upon him who does not believe." This cannot be understood except of believing habitually, that is, of having faith as baptized infants believe, and sleeping adults, who do not have the act of faith. Where he also straightway infers: "It is not, therefore, afterwards through the priest to whom he confesses that he is freed from eternal wrath, from which he has already been freed by the Lord from the moment he said 'I will confess'." That is, from that instant of time in which he resolved to confess, or from that instant of nature in which he said habitually, "I will confess," that is, received charity, or the grace which is the habit of speaking so. Likewise it can also be shown that once the habit of charity is received, a man is not freed from wrath and from the debt of eternal punishment naturally earlier through the act of penance, since by that habit he had already been naturally freed from it, as has been more fully argued above against the opinion last mentioned. Hence he adds, concluding at the end: "God alone, therefore, cleanses a man inwardly from the stain of sin, and releases him from the debt of eternal punishment, who says through the Prophet: 'I alone blot out the iniquities and sins of the people.'" In the justification of an adult sinner, however, although he is justified by the habit of charity or grace, naturally antecedent to the act of love or salutary penance, an act of this kind is nevertheless required as an accompaniment in the justified man, according to the law established. It is a kind of gratuitous consequence of an antecedent so gracious, a holy fruit proceeding from a tree previously dead, barren and accursed, but now quickened, made fruitful and sanctified. It is also a kind of spontaneous conversion of the sinner to God, from whom by sinning he spontaneously turned away; and further a kind of spontaneous sorrow of the sinner in his reconciliation to God, whom he had earlier offended with spontaneous delight. Wherefore in Jeremiah 31, in the person of the converted sinner, he speaks thus: "Convert me, and I shall be converted, for you are the Lord my God: 407E·1 for after you converted me, I did penance." He says also in Lamentations, last chapter: "Convert us, Lord, E2 to you, and we shall be converted," which the Gloss alleged above also attests lucidly. Wherefore Augustine, too, in On the words of the Apostle, sermon 15 96: "God made you without you; for you applied no consent that God should make you. How were you consenting, who did not exist? He, then, who made you without you does not justify you without you."

"Therefore he made one who did not know; he justifies one who is willing; yet he himself justifies, ‖408E·1 lest the justice be yours." Bernard agrees with this, in On grace and free choice 24 97. He says: "Those who think rightly confess a threefold working, not indeed of free choice, but of divine grace in it, or concerning it: the first, creation; the second, reformation; the third is consummation. Since, then, the consummation is to be brought about concerning us, or even in us, but not by us, and creation was accomplished even without us, only reformation, which in a way is with us because of our voluntary consent, will be reckoned to us as merit. Reformation itself is our fasts, vigils, continence, and works of mercy, and the other exercises of the virtues, through which it is surely established that our inner man is renewed from day to day. Meanwhile the intention, bent down by earthly cares, rises little by little from the depths to higher things; the affection, languishing among the desires of the flesh, gradually grows strong in the love of the Spirit; and the memory of the old men 98, soiled by foulness, made bright by new and good acts, grows more illustrious day by day. In these three, then, the inward renewal consists: in rectitude of intention, purity of affection, and recollection of good working, through which the memory, well aware of itself, shines out." But these, since it is certain that they are continually carried on in us ‖B1 by the divine Spirit, are gifts of God; yet since they are done with the assent of our will, they are our merits. "For it is not you," he says, "who speak, but the Spirit of your Father, who speaks in you." Augustine also, in On penance 2 99: "Everyone," he says, "who is already established as the arbiter of his own will, when he comes to the sacrament of the faithful, ‖B2 unless he repents of his old life, cannot begin the new. From this penance, when he is baptized, only infants are exempt 100. For they cannot yet use free choice, and for their consecration and the remission of original sin the faith of those by whom they are offered avails, so that whatever stains of offences they have contracted through others, from whom they were born, they may be cleansed also by the questioning and the answering of others. Of other men, none passes to Christ so as to begin to be what he was not, unless he repents of having been what he was. This first penance is enjoined on the Jews when the Apostle Peter says: 'Do penance, and let each one of you be baptized.'" The same author, in On true and false penance 10, says: "He who has sinned by himself has, through his own sorrow and through the faith of the Church, obtained pardon; this, through baptism, so renders a man clean and new that nothing remains that may displease God. Without penance baptism has profited no one who sinned spontaneously." And above, in 2: "He who is converted necessarily grieves to have what he rejoices to lose." The faith of the universal Church also steadfastly holds that voluntary sins in adults are in no way remitted without penance; and they are not remitted through an act of penance that causally and naturally precedes justifying grace or the remission of mortal sins as to guilt, as was shown above. They are remitted, therefore, together with an act of penance that follows grace and a remission of that kind, as the foregoing also make plain.

Corollary

A corollary: that what is prior according to nature, or naturally prior to another, is that which is the cause of it; that anything from which to another the consequence of subsisting holds 101, and not conversely, is prior to that according to nature. Whence also that not everything from which the consequence of subsisting is not converted is prior according to nature, but [prior] according to superiority or universality according to consequence, or according to any other such mode; that not whatever is prior to another according to nature can be without it; nor again is whatever can be without another, and not conversely, prior to that according to nature, but according to some other mode so called; unless perhaps "prior according to nature" is said equivocally in three modes.

From these, however, certain sparks of truth shine forth, of no small use to logicians, philosophers, theologians, and all lovers of truth: namely, that what is prior according to nature, or naturally prior to another, is that which is the cause of it. This seems to be meant of the efficient, material, and formal cause, albeit according to different special modes 102. Of the final cause, however, it does not so much seem so; rather the opposite seems the case, that it is naturally posterior to the action, or thing, of which it is the final cause. Likewise, that something from which to another the consequence of subsisting holds, and not conversely, is prior to that according to nature. Whence also, that not everything from which the consequence of subsisting is not converted is prior according to nature, but prior according to superiority, or universality, according to non-consequence 103, or according to any other such mode. Likewise, that not whatever is prior to another according to nature can be without it; nor again is whatever can be without another, and not conversely, prior to that according to nature, but according to some other mode already mentioned, unless perhaps "prior according to nature" is said equivocally in many modes.

The first part of this appears from what has been set out. Since it is useful in teaching and is scarcely doubted by anyone, it was fitting rather to recall it than to prove it. Logic, natural science, and divine science concordantly attest it, as do theology and theologians; from their abundance I will take a few things, for the sake of testimony. The Philosopher, indeed, in the Categories 104, having set out four modes of the Prior, adds: "But there seems, besides those that have been mentioned, to be another mode of the Prior. For of those things that are convertible according to the consequence of existence, that which is in any way the cause of the other is deservedly said to be prior to it by nature; that there are some things of this kind is plain. For a man's being is convertible, according to the consequence of existence, with the true statement about him. For if there is a man, the statement by which it is said that he is a man is true; and if the statement by which it is said that he is a man is true, then it follows that there is a man. Yet the true statement is in no way the cause of the thing's existing, while the thing seems in some way to be the cause of the statement's being true. For while the thing is, or is not, the statement must be called either true or false. And so one is said to be prior to another according to five modes." Who, moreover, in natural science or in metaphysical wisdom would doubt that causes are prior and superior in nature to things caused, as the simple to the composite, the generator to the generated, the agent to the thing done, and universally the mover to the moved? For how else would they demonstrate that God is the first and highest of all things according to nature? What theologian, moreover, does not know that God truly and really preceded the world and time, yet not temporally, nor according to any successive duration, long, true and real, but only according to cause and nature, as the premises show in the 34th part of the first corollary of this? Boethius attests the same, in the fifth book of the Consolation of Philosophy, in the last prose; Augustine, in Confessions 12, 28, as the same part alleges; and Anselm, in On truth, 12, as is plain from the thirty-ninth. How many testimonies, too, set out copiously in the thirty-fifth and earlier, show that grace precedes our good works, which must be understood not temporally but causally and naturally? Wherefore Peter also, in Sentences 2, Dist. 26, says: "Faith precedes a good will, not in time, but in cause and nature." Who, moreover, would deny that God is the first of causes, and himself causally prior, and therefore naturally prior, in acting in a common action, as the craftsman is prior to the instrument, as is also plain from the next of this? The remaining particles of this first part will easily appear through these and similar considerations.

The first particle of the second part follows evidently from this first. For it follows: "God raises this man spiritually or bodily, therefore he lives correspondingly," and it is not convertible; "He lives spiritually or bodily, therefore God raises him thus or thus." For when he has lived long and continuously, the antecedent will be true and the consequent plainly false, because God by no means continually raises one already living, but raised him in a single instant. Some also live naturally whom God does not naturally raise, nor has naturally raised, such as those who were never naturally dead. Some also live spiritually whom God does not so raise, nor has raised, such as the holy Angels, Christ, and perhaps the Mother of Christ. God also lives, who was never raised; wherefore from this living it by no means follows that God raises this, but the reverse. Suppose, therefore, that God now spiritually raises this man, previously spiritually dead, by inspiring the life of grace. Then it follows very well: "God raises this man, therefore he is alive," and it is not convertible, as was shown above. And yet God's raising this man is prior according to nature to his being alive, for it is the cause of it; for because God raises him, therefore he is alive, and not the reverse. Similarly, it follows very well: "God wills to raise this man now, therefore he is alive," by the tenth of this, and it is not convertible, as the foregoing make plain. And yet God's willing to raise this man now is prior in nature to his being alive; for it is [the cause] of that, an efficient cause. Similarly, it follows very well: "God creates this, or wills to create this now, therefore this is," and it is not convertible; for he does not create created things continually, but conserves them. And yet this (the creating) is prior in nature to that (the being), because it is the cause of it. Similarly it follows very well: "This man has grace, therefore he is clean from mortal sin," and it is not convertible. For someone could be clean from mortal sin and not have grace, as perhaps, according to some, was the case with our first parents before the fall, for some little while, that they had neither grace nor guilt; or at least it could have been so. And yet having grace is prior in nature, because it is the cause of that; for grace purges mortal sins, as was shown above. The second particle of this second [part] follows most clearly from this first; and these being evident, the third is plain enough. It is perhaps objected that the Philosopher, in the Categories, setting out the modes of the prior and assigning the second, says that that is prior according to nature from which the consequence of subsisting is not converted.

It is not so. For the Philosopher says that that is prior which is not converted according to the consequence of subsisting, and from which it is not converted in that it is a consequence; yet he does not say that it is prior by nature, but rather says the contrary. For he says that there are five modes of the Prior, as was recited above, namely according to time, according to non-conversion of consequence, order, honour, and according to nature. If, however, the second were the same as the fifth, there would be only four modes. The first particle of the third part of the corollary just mentioned follows evidently from the first particle of the second part of it. For according to that, something is prior to another according to nature if from it to that other the consequence of subsisting holds; it cannot therefore subsist without that. This can also be shown otherwise. For God's ‖A1 willing to bring into grace one who is out of grace (ingratum), to justify the unjust, to give him grace and justice and make him pleasing (gratum) and just, is prior naturally, because causally, to his being pleasing and just, as the preceding have taught 92. God's willing created grace to exist, or any creature, and creating it, is also prior in nature to its being, because it is the cause of it, as the ninth of this shows; and yet these cannot be without those, as the tenth of this proves and mutual relation makes plain. Prior also in nature is giving than receiving, acting than being acted upon, moving than being moved; and yet they cannot be separated.

Similarly, prior naturally, because causally, is this man's receiving and having grace than the blotting out of sins, as was shown above. Just so it is prior naturally, because causally, for the air to receive and have light than to put darkness to flight, and for the Sun to be than to shine within or without, every requisite disposition being supposed. This also seems universally true of all things upon which some proper passion, or some proper attribute, some action, or some effect, necessarily and inseparably follows. But if anyone should object that this is one most common rule and general maxim, "Whatever is prior to another according to nature can exist without it," it seems to me not. Nor does any reason occur to me, nor any authority, on which it could safely be grounded when understood so generally. It could, however, be verified with certain exceptions, like the rules of the jurists, by excepting, namely, the cases touched on and others as is fitting. The second particle of this third follows evidently from the second particle of the second part. Plato, Aristotle and Averroes, the philosophers named, seem to hold the opposite. For Aristotle, in Metaphysics 5, 16 105, having set out many modes in which things are called prior and posterior, adds: "Others [are called prior] according to nature and substance, whatever can be without others, while those others cannot be without them; which definition Plato used 106; with whom Averroes also agrees in his commentary." It can be said that this is to be understood according to common repute rather than according to truth, and according to the opinion of Plato; or otherwise, that it can be understood like another similar rule already given. The third particle of this third part will easily be shown through the third particle of the second. But it can also be said otherwise that many equivocate in the priority of nature. Some, speaking more properly and profoundly, call "prior according to nature" what is so according to causality, as in the first particle of the first part of the corollary mentioned. Others, however, by common repute and custom rather than truly, call it so according to non-conversion of consequence, or according to consequence; still others according to the possibility of being without another and not conversely, as appears from the foregoing. Still others call "prior according to nature" what is earlier intended by nature, and so the whole is said to be prior to the part, and the end to that which is for the end. Whence the Philosopher, in Politics 1, 1 107, says that the city is prior by nature to the household and to each individual. Moreover, "prior according to nature" can, not improbably, be said to mean "more perfect according to nature." These distinctions extricate, free and safeguard us from many traps of the sophists, many mousetraps of the Pelagians, many snares of many men, in this matter and in many others.

So that all the pestilential arrows prepared in the quiver of the Pelagians may be the more easily blunted, it must be noted further that "penance" is taken in two ways, as also "to repent," as also "to believe," and many similar words. For such words sometimes signify an action, or act, sometimes a habit, or aptitude for acting. They signify action or act properly and in the most usual way; but by transference, according to that metaphor and that species of trope by which the name of an effect is sometimes transferred to its cause, they signify the habit productive of such action, or the aptitude for acting. This is a fairly frequent way of speaking, among the common people and among experts in the various sciences alike. For we commonly say, and authors likewise say: "The eagle sees keenly," "The horse runs swiftly," "Man laughs," "The dog barks," and so of others, even though they be wholly asleep or at rest, intending not the act but the habit or aptitude. This is found very often in the books On the History of Animals.

Wherefore the Philosopher also, in Ethics 2, 6 108, defining virtue and showing its definition, says: "It must be said that every virtue, of whatever it is the virtue, both perfects that which has it in good condition and renders its work well. For example, the virtue of the eye makes both the eye good and its work; for by the virtue of the eye we see well. Similarly the virtue of a horse also makes the horse good, and good for running, and for carrying its rider, and for awaiting the enemy." If, then, this holds in all cases, man's virtue also will be the habit by which a man becomes good and by which he renders his work well. In agreement with this the Apostle also says: "Charity is patient, is kind, A1 bears all things," etc., 1 Cor. 13. Wherefore Augustine also, in On the good of marriage 37 and after, teaches diffusely in many chapters that continence, patience, and the like, which properly sound as an act, are sometimes, and in some persons, in the work or in the use, but sometimes, and in others, in the habit, not in the act. Thus, too, the Truth itself speaks, saying: "He who has believed and been baptized will be saved; but he who has not believed will be condemned," Mark 16. This seems to be understood of believing habitually, namely A2 having faith, that is, having the habit of faith, on account of baptized infants, who do not believe actually but only habitually, that is, do not have the act of faith but only the habit, and are not condemned.

Wherefore Innocent III also, writing to the Bishop of Arles, as is recited in the Extra, A3 On baptism and its effect, in the chapter Maiores 109, relates, approving it, what some concede: that infants believe, not by use but by the habit of faith which we ‖B1 receive in baptism, just as many other words, in the common usage of speech, are referred not to act but to ‖B2 aptitude. Augustine agrees with this, as is alleged in De consecratione, distinction 4, Quis autem: "Who," he says, "does not know that in infants to believe is ‖B3 to be baptized, and not to believe is not to be baptized?" The same Augustine, in Epistle 14 110 to Boniface, who asked whether, when a baptized infant is asked "Does he believe in God?" and the answer is made that he believes, this should be taken as for the time then or for the future (namely, that he will believe at a greater age), answers thus: "To believe is nothing other than to have faith; and therefore, when it is answered that the infant believes, who has not yet the disposition of faith, it is answered that he has faith on account of the sacrament of faith, and that he turns to God on account of the sacrament of conversion." He holds the same of the other answers given on behalf of the infant, and of his other works. Nor is it strange if the name of act is transferred to habit, since sometimes a similar transference occurs the other way round, as is plain from the thirty-ninth.

It is plain, therefore, from the foregoing, by the topic from the similar, that "to repent" and "penance," "to be contrite" and "contrition," and the like, sometimes signify an act or use. Sometimes they signify the habit productive of such an act or use, and itself actually bringing it about, namely the habit of charity and grace given freely to the sinner. Hence he loves God freely, well, justly and meritoriously, and on account of him repents of his sins. Wherefore Peter also, in Sentences 4, dist. 14, says: "To put off minds steeped in vices, and to amend them, belongs to perfect virtue and to heavenly grace; and so penance can rightly be defined thus: Penance is a virtue, C1 or grace, by which we lament and hate the evils committed, with the purpose of amendment, and are unwilling to commit further what is to be lamented." The very many authorities, therefore, affirming that penance blots out sins, heals infirmities, raises the dead, and the like, or that these things come about through penance, can, according to what has been set out, be fittingly understood of the habitual penance spoken of, which is the cause of actual penance. Wherefore the Gloss also on the beginning of the distinction on penance, alleged above for the contrary opinion, says: "The remission of sins precedes contrition of heart. For no one can truly be contrite unless he first has faith working through love." Sins are said, then, to be forgiven through contrition, that is, through that which produces contrition of heart, namely, through charity.

Actual penance, moreover, is in one case formed, in another unformed; in one meritorious, in another preparatory 111. Of unformed penance it is said in Wisdom 5: "Then they will say within themselves, doing penance," etc.; and in Matthew 27: D1 "Then Judas, moved by penance, brought back the thirty pieces of silver," etc.; and many similar passages meet these in Scripture. Actual penance is formed and meritorious when it proceeds from charity and grace, and is formed by them. Unformed and preparatory penance is a certain sadness over sin, out of fear of punishment, fear of harm, servile fear, preceding grace temporally and preparing the sinner for the remission of sin, for doing good, and for the reception of grace and salutary penance, as was taught in the thirty-seventh. Such penance, in adults, always or for the most part, as I believe, precedes grace, justification, and true penance. Of this kind also is every displeasure,

horror, abomination, detestation, and disapproval of sins that precede justifying grace and true penance. Such penance commonly arises from fear of the punishment of hell, from fear of harm, from servile fear. So the Lord also impresses this fear on sinners as useful to them, and does so by repetition, saying: "Fear him who can destroy both body and soul in gehenna" (Matt 10 and Luke 12). "Fear him who, after he has killed, has power to cast into gehenna; yes, I tell you, fear him." Hence also Proverbs 15 112: "By the fear of the Lord everyone departs from evil." And above, in 1: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Bede, expounding this, as Peter cites him in Sentences 3, dist. 34 113, says: "There are two fears of the Lord: servile fear, which is the beginning of wisdom, and friendly fear, which accompanies the perfection of wisdom. Servile fear is the beginning of wisdom, because one who begins to be wise after his errors is seized first by the fear of God, lest he be punished; but perfect charity casts this fear outside; in its place succeeds the holy fear of the Lord, abiding for ever and ever."

Blessed Augustine also, expounding that verse of Psalm 127 114, "Blessed are all who fear the Lord," speaks of this double fear. One of them is chaste and remains for ever and ever; the other is driven out by charity. He says: "Some fear only for this reason, lest they suffer some evil on earth, lest sickness ‖A1 befall them, lest loss, lest bereavement, lest the loss of someone dear, lest exile, lest sentence to prison, lest some tribulation. For that reason they fear and tremble; so far this fear is not chaste. Listen further: another fears to suffer, not in this land, but fears gehenna. Hence the Lord also terrified, as you heard when the Gospel was read, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. People hear this and, because these things will truly come upon the wicked, they fear and keep themselves from sin; they fear indeed, but they do not love righteousness. But when through fear they hold themselves back from sin, a habit of righteousness is formed, and what was hard begins to be loved, and God grows sweet, and a man now begins to live justly on that account, not because he fears punishments but because he loves eternity. Fear has therefore been shut out by charity, but chaste fear has succeeded; for what is chaste fear? According to it, my brothers, we ought to understand what was said: 'Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways.'"

He also, expounding the first Epistle of John, homily 9, says: "Let fear begin, since the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord: fear, as it were, prepares a place for charity. But when charity has begun to dwell there, the fear that prepared the place is driven out. For just as we see a thread drawn in by a bristle when something is being sewn 115; the bristle enters first, and unless it comes out the thread does not follow; so fear first occupies the mind, but fear does not remain there; it entered for this reason, to bring charity in." The authorities, then, that seem to assert that penance precedes and effects justification and the purging of sins can be understood of unformed and preparatory penance. It does this because it moves and stirs, disposes and prepares, so that these things may come about. All these, and things like them (for instance, whence the beginning of change, the adviser, the doctor, and universally everything that changes), are reduced to the third kind of cause, which is commonly called the efficient, as the Philosopher makes plain in Physics 2, 29 and 31, and Metaphysics 5, 2 116.

Such, it seems, was the baptism of penance which John preached for the remission of sins, as is related in Luke 3. On this saying Chrysostom, as it is recited in the Gloss and as the Pelagians partly objected above, says: "Since the victim had not yet been offered, nor the Spirit descended, how was remission to be made? What then is it that Luke says, 'for the remission of sins'? The Jews, indeed, were ignorant, and did not weigh their own faults. Since therefore this was the cause of their evils, that they did not recognize their sins so as to seek a redeemer, John came urging them to do penance, so that, made better and contrite by penance, they might be eager to receive pardon. ‖C1 Aptly, then, having said that he came preaching a baptism of penance, he added 'for the remission of sins,' as if to say: He urged them to repent for this reason, that believing in Christ they might more easily obtain the pardon that was to follow. For unless they were led by penance, they would never have demanded grace. Hence that baptism had no other cause than that it was preparatory to faith in Christ." Blessed Gregory holds the same, and other Catholic writers. So also Peter, Sentences 4, dist. 2, says: "John foretold the baptism of Christ by his own baptism; he is read to have baptized first, but in water, not in the Spirit, as he himself says, 'I baptize you in water for penance': for he washed only bodies, but did not cleanse from sins. John's baptism was for penance, not for remission; Christ's baptism was for remission. For John, in baptizing, called men to penance, and taught those he baptized to repent, according to that saying, 'They came to John in the Jordan, confessing their sins'; but in John's baptism there was not given the remission of sins which is given in Christ's baptism. To what purpose, then, since it did not confer grace, was John's baptism useful? Because by the practice of baptizing it prepared men for the baptism of Christ."

So likewise Augustine, on that verse of Psalm 110, "Confession and magnificence is his work," showing how such authorities are to be understood, says: "What is more magnificent than to justify the ungodly? But perhaps a man's work precedes this magnificence

of God, so that when he has confessed his sins he may deserve to be justified. For the tax collector went down from the temple justified rather than that Pharisee; because he did not dare even to lift his eyes to heaven, but struck his breast, saying, 'Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.' This is the magnificence of the Lord, the justification of a sinner, since 'he who humbles himself will be exalted, and he who exalts himself will be humbled.' This is the magnificence of the Lord, since 'to whom most is forgiven, he loves most.' This is the magnificence of the Lord, since 'where sin abounded, grace has superabounded'; but perhaps this is from works? 'Not,' he says, 'from works, lest anyone be exalted; for we are his handiwork, created in Christ, in good works.' For a man does not work righteousness unless he has been justified; but one who believes in him who justifies the ungodly has begun from faith, so that good works may show not what precedes, as having merited it, but what follows, as having received it. Whence then that confession? It is not yet a work of righteousness, but disapproval of the offense."

Behold then, according to Augustine, that the confession of sin which precedes the justification of the sinner is not a work of righteousness but only disapproval of the offense, abomination and detestation of sins, which never occurred without displeasure, sorrow, and similar penance. But lest any of the Pelagians dare to claim even this confession for himself as preparatory and unformed, he immediately adds: "But neither in this may you glory in yourself, O man, so that he who glories may glory in the Lord. For what do you have that you did not receive? So it is not only the magnificence by which the ungodly is justified, but the confession also and the magnificence that are his work. What then shall we say? That he has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills 117? Is there injustice with God? Far from it." Actual penance also, formed and meritorious, can be understood in two ways as justifying the unjust and deleting sins: namely antecedently and naturally, or concomitantly and subsequently according to the established law. Antecedently, so that it naturally precedes justification and the deletion of sin, is false, as was shown above:

concomitantly and subsequently, so that in every justification of an adult sinner such actual penance inseparably accompanies the deletion of his sin according to the present law, and naturally follows it, is true, as was shown above. Blessed James the Apostle speaks in this way in his epistle, chapter 2, where the Pelagians cited him above. He says that a man is justified not by faith alone but also by outward works, which are rather called works because a man is not justified without them; that is, he does not remain just *B1 by faith alone without works, when there is opportunity or necessity to work, because faith then dies without works through the departure of charity, which is the life and form of Christian faith, and which always works when there is work to be done, as what has gone before makes plain on both points. Hence, according to him, faith is perfected through works and kept alive, and the just man is saved. For he intends there chiefly to refute the heresy of certain persons, perhaps occasioned by that word of the Lord, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved," or by that apostolic saying cited above, that no one is justified by works. They said that everyone baptized and believing in Christ is just and to be saved, even without any good works whatever.

So he says: "What will it profit, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? And if a brother or sister is naked and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' yet does not give them what is necessary for the body, what will it profit? So also faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself. You believe that God is one; you do well; the demons also believe and shudder. But do you wish to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is idle, or, according to another reading, dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, offering his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith cooperated with his works, and by works faith was completed; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him to righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.' You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone." But who, reading the history of Genesis, does not know that Abraham was just, and an intimate friend of God, before he offered his son, or rather was willing to offer him? He was not justified antecedently by this work, therefore, but only concomitantly and subsequently: by this work, that is, following upon his faith and righteousness, when necessity demanded it, he was kept faithful and just in his faith and righteousness, which he would otherwise have lost, D1 by despising the Lord's command.

So also Augustine, On Psalm 31, first treatise, wishing to reconcile the saying of Paul in Romans 4, "If Abraham was justified by works, he has glory, but not before God; for what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him to righteousness," with the saying of James just mentioned, by objection and reply, says: "'You see,' says the heretic, 'that Abraham was justified not by works but by faith. I will therefore do whatever I like, because even if I have no good works and only believe in God, it is reckoned to me for righteousness.' I reply, then,

as though against the Apostle, and I say of Abraham himself what we find also in the epistle of the other Apostle, who wanted to correct people who had misunderstood this Apostle. For James in his epistle, against those who refused to do good, presuming on faith alone, commended the work of Abraham himself; Paul, his faith. The Apostles are not opposed to each other; and he mentions a work known to all: Abraham offered his son to God to be sacrificed. A great work, but from faith: I praise the superstructure of the work, but I see the foundation of faith; I praise the fruit of the good work, but in faith I recognize the root. But if Abraham did this apart from right faith, it would profit him nothing, whatever sort of work it was. Again, if Abraham held faith in such a way that, when God commanded him to offer his son to him to be sacrificed, he said within himself, 'I do not do it, and yet I believe, because God sets me free even though I despise his commands,' then faith without works would be dead, and like a root without fruit would remain barren and dry. What then? Should we put no works before faith, that is, so that anyone is said to work well before faith? Therefore, brothers, Abraham was justified by faith; but if works did not precede faith, they nevertheless followed. For will your faith be barren, if you are not barren? It is not barren itself; keep to the faith, you who are going to work. For the same Apostle speaks of the faith that works through love."

The same Augustine, in On the Spirit and the Letter, 20 118, reconciles that saying of the Apostle cited above by the Pelagians, "The doers of the law will be justified" (Romans 2), with another saying of his, "We reckon that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law" (Romans 3). "Nor," he says, "would he contradict himself in what he says, 'The doers of the law will be justified,' as though they were justified by works and not by grace, when he says that a man is justified freely 119 by faith without the works of the law; wishing nothing else to be understood by his saying 'freely' except that works do not precede justification. For plainly elsewhere he says, 'If by grace, then no longer by works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.' But 'The doers of the law will be justified' is to be understood in this way, so that we may know that they are not otherwise doers of the law unless they are justified,

not so that justification may be added to the doers, but so that justification may precede the doers. For what else is it to be justified than to be made just, by him namely who justifies the ungodly, so that from ungodly he becomes just? For if we were to speak so as to say, 'Men will be set free,' this would be understood of those who were already men, that liberation comes to them; but if we said, 'Men will be created,' it would certainly not be understood that those who already existed are created, but that by creation itself men come to be. So if it were said, 'Doers of the law will be honored,' we would rightly understand only that honor comes to those who already were doers of the law; but when it is said, 'Doers of the law will be justified,' what else is said than 'The just will be justified'? For doers of the law are certainly just; and so it is as if it were said, 'Doers of the law will be created,' not those who already were, but that they may be, so that the Jews also, hearers of the law, might thus understand that they need the grace of the justifier in order to be able to be doers."

In like manner sins are said to be forgiven through oral confession, as the second sect of the Mediators 120 showed. This, however, cannot be understood as antecedent either in time or in nature; so that oral confession would precede, in time or in nature, the remission of mortal sins as to guilt, as was also shown against that sect. It must be understood concomitantly and subsequently according to the established law: namely, for the justification of the unjust man and the preservation of righteousness, it is required by the law of the Church, if opportunity allows, that oral confession follow. Otherwise, because of the contempt, sins previously deleted in contrition and in the purpose of confessing return. They return, I say, truly or by imputation; that is, with equal weight as to guilt, or even with greater weight because of the aggravation of the new contempt added. In the same way sins in adults are said to be remitted through baptism. For what Catholic doubts that all sinners, great and small, are commonly baptized for the remission of sins, as baptism has commonly been instituted for the remission of sins? Who does not profess the Nicene Council, which says for the whole Church of Christ and for each of its sons, "I confess one baptism for the remission of sins"? Yet many adults, before the baptism of water or river, in the baptism of the Spirit 121, by believing in Christ, and in the baptism of penance, have been cleansed from all sins, as was shown above against the second sect of the Mediators. These, then, are baptized for the remission of sins, not antecedently, but subsequently, in the ways stated.

Further, the statement that actual penance justifies the unjust and deletes sins can have a twofold sense: namely effectively, or ostensively, that is, manifestatively or even significatively. For actual penance, and especially such as is celebrated in the Church, shows, manifests, and is a sign that the penitent is justified and that his sins have been deleted. So we say commonly and Catholically that sins are forgiven through oral confession and the power of the keys, namely the absolution of the priest, as the second sect and the third of the Mediators demonstrated. This, however, cannot be understood properly and effectively, as was shown above against the same, but manifestatively and significatively: for they manifest, and are signs in the forum of the Church, that sins have been forgiven to those who have confessed and been absolved according to the laws of the Church established. So also in the treatise On Penance, dist. 1 122, after it has been strongly proved that sins are forgiven through grace before confession, it is added: "Confession is therefore made to show penance, not to obtain pardon; and as circumcision was given to Abraham as a sign of righteousness, not as a cause of justification, so confession is offered to the priest as a sign of pardon received, not as a cause of remission to be received." So also the Gloss on the beginning of that first distinction, having recited the opinion which says that contrition of heart alone does not delete sins where a priest is available, adds: "But whatever he may say, say you that sins are forgiven neither by contrition of heart nor by oral confession, but only by the grace of God; yet contrition of heart is itself a sign that the sins have been forgiven, as outward satisfaction is a sign of contrition of heart." In agreement with this also

Peter, Sentences 4, dist. 17, says: "Confession is the testimony of the conscience of one who fears God." A1 With this agrees also what was cited above: that Christ commanded the cleansed leper to show himself to the priests, and to offer for his cleansing, not as yet to be obtained but already had, what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them. He did not say "for effecting," but "for a testimony," and as a sign of cleanness attained. So also, fittingly, in Leviticus 14, where the rite of cleansing a leper is set out, it is commanded that the leper who is to be cleansed be brought to the priest; and when he has found that the leprosy has been cleansed, he is to command him to offer this and that, so that thus one who is clean may be rightly purified. But how is he newly cleansed or purified whose leprosy had already been cleansed before, and was found cleansed, unless it is that the one who has been cleansed, or is clean and purified, or pure, is shown to be so by the priest's judgment? For it is certain that the legal priests by no means cleansed lepers miraculously and effectively; they only declared that those cleansed beforehand were clean. The words of the law plainly express this: "When," says the law just mentioned, "the priest finds that the leprosy has been cleansed, he shall do this and that."

This manner of speaking is found, more expressly and more often, earlier in chapter 13 of the same book. There laws are laid down about someone who appears, but is doubted, to be a leper: that he must be brought to the priest and be reputed clean or unclean according to his judgment. In the case where he will be judged clean, it sometimes says that the priest will cleanse him, that is, will judge him clean; sometimes that such a one will be cleansed, that is, will be judged clean, as is plain, and the Gloss testifies. So the text also, explaining itself quite plainly in the case mentioned, sometimes says that the priest will examine him and decide that he is clean, sometimes that he will pronounce him clean. And in the case where he must be judged unclean, it sometimes says that the priest will contaminate him, that is, according to the Gloss, will judge him contaminated; sometimes it says more expressly that he will judge such a one to be held by leprosy, and sometimes that he will be polluted by the priest's judgment and reputed among the unclean. The authority of blessed Jerome, cited against the third sect, plainly bears witness to this too.

So also Peter, Sentences 4, distinction 18: "Otherwise," he says, B1 "God looses or binds, otherwise the Church. For he by himself alone forgives sin in this way, because he cleanses the soul from every interior stain and looses it from the debt of eternal death; but he has not granted this to priests, to whom he has nevertheless given the power of binding and loosing, that is, of showing that men are bound and loosed. Hence the Lord also first restored the leper to health by himself, then sent him to the priests, by whose judgment he would be shown to be cleansed. Likewise he presented Lazarus, already brought to life, to the disciples to be loosed, because even if someone is loosed in the sight of God, yet he is not held to be loosed in the face of the Church except through the priest's judgment. In loosing or retaining guilts, then, the evangelical priest works and judges just as the legal priest once did with those who were contaminated by leprosy, which prefigures sin; and the evangelical priests have the same right and office that the legal priests once had under the law in treating lepers. These therefore forgive or retain sins, in that they judge or show them to be forgiven or retained by God."

Augustine speaks similarly, in On the Spirit and the Letter 20, where, having set down one exposition of that apostolic saying to the Romans, "The doers of the law will be justified," recited above, he adds a second and says: D1 "Or surely it is said, 'They will be justified,' as if it were said, 'They will be held just, they will be reckoned just,' as it is said of a certain man, 'But he, wishing to justify himself,' that is, to be held and reckoned just. Hence we say one thing when we say, 'God sanctifies his saints,' and another when we say, 'May your name be sanctified.' The former, because he makes those holy who were not holy; the latter, so that what is always holy in itself may also be held holy by men, that is, be holily feared." In a similar manner of speaking, then, it can fittingly be said that contrition or actual penance justifies the ungodly and deletes sins, namely ostensively, manifestatively, or even significatively, though not properly effectively. Further, the statement that actual penance deletes sin can be understood as to guilt, or as to the penalty, that is, the satisfaction owed or appointed. For who is ignorant that a sinner who is duly penitent, and loosed from sin by the authority of the keys, is by the same authority bound to the penalty and to satisfaction? Although therefore the sinner

is justified at once, immediately, by the infusion of grace, and is purged of sin as to guilt or stain, he nevertheless remains bound to temporal penalty and to making fitting satisfaction. Now contrition and penance, interior and exterior (namely confession, blushing, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving), is a part of this penalty and satisfaction. Contrition and interior penance, however, could be so great, so vehement, so intense, that it would by itself fully suffice, without any other penance or outward satisfaction to be performed. It can therefore reasonably be said that contrition and actual penance justify the unjust and delete sins, as to the payment of the penalty and satisfaction owed for sin. For a sinner is said to be justified and purged from sin through satisfaction and works of satisfaction, such as fasting, prayers, almsgiving, and the like, as the fourth sect of the Mediators recites, although it is certain that sin as to guilt and stain has been forgiven beforehand, as was shown against the same sect; so this must be understood in the way described.

The law speaks in this way (or rather the Lord in the law), Leviticus 4 and 5, often saying: "If anyone sins in this way or that, let him offer this or that, and the priest shall pray for him, and it shall be forgiven him." Where also in the first chapter it is commanded that the soul that has sinned in such a way do penance for the sin, and offer this or that; and the priest shall pray for him and for his sin, and it shall be forgiven him. Further on it is more expressly commanded that the soul which does damage in things sanctified to the Lord, or in the goods of its neighbor, restore everything taken in full, and in addition a fifth part, and offer to the priest a spotless ram from the flocks, according to the measure and assessment of the sin; and he shall pray for him, and it shall be forgiven him for each thing in which he sinned by his act. With this agrees also that those who are contrite, confessed, and absolved, and so perfectly cleansed of the guilts and stains of sins, still, for the satisfaction imposed on them by priests, by frequently saying the Lord's Prayer, pray to the heavenly Father, saying, "Forgive us our debts," or, as Luke 11 relates, "forgive us our sins." "Forgive," we say, "our debts or sins," namely as to your offense and anger, as to the punishment and satisfaction, which you have previously forgiven as to the stain or guilt.

So also Anselm, Why God Became Man, 1, 20, in dialogue says: "What is it that we say to God, 'Forgive us our debts,' and that every people prays the God in whom it believes to forgive it its sins? For if we pay what we owe, why do we pray that he forgive? Is God unjust, that he should demand again what has been paid? But if we do not pay, why do we pray in vain that he do what, because it is not fitting, he cannot do? Or he who does not pay says 'forgive' in vain; B1 but he who pays supplicates, since this very supplicating belongs to the payment." With this also agrees what blessed Gregory relates in Homily 34 on the Gospels about a certain man named Victorinus 123. He was a man of ample wealth and a sinner, but, stung with compunction at the thought of his guilt, he rose up against himself, left behind everything of this world, and sought a monastery. In that monastery he showed such humility and such strictness toward himself that all the brothers there, who had trained themselves for the love of the Godhead, were compelled to despise their own life when they saw his penance. For he strove with all the effort of his mind to torment his flesh, to break his own wills, to seek secret prayers, to wash himself daily with tears, to seek contempt of himself, to fear the veneration offered by the brothers. So he used to anticipate the nightly vigils of the brothers; and because the mountain on which the monastery stands projected, on one side, in a more secluded part, he had made it his custom to go out there before the vigils, so that each day in the weeping of penance he might sacrifice himself the more freely the more secretly. For he contemplated the strictness of his coming judgment, and, already agreeing with that judge, punished in tears the guilt of his crime. Now one night, while the abbot was watching and observing, Victorinus lay long prostrate in prayer in a secret side of the mountain; light was suddenly poured from heaven upon him, and such brightness spread there that the whole part of that region grew bright from it. A voice also came at the same time, saying, "Your sin has been forgiven you." Next, following the distinction laid down above, another sense can be drawn out in consequence. Penance, indeed,

that justifies the unjust can be understood either as to the deletion of the stain of sin or guilt, or as to full reconciliation with the offended God and the full restoration of his state. For when sin has been forgiven to someone as to guilt, God still remains angry with him; for he still wills for him punishment, or satisfactory penalty, for the sin. For the anger of God, as was said in 25 of the first, and the throng of Doctors testifies, is not any commotion or disturbance of him, but only the will to punish, and its effect, namely the punishing itself, or penalty. The Prophet, noting this well and lamenting, says: "Turn us, O God," etc. "Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry at the prayers of your servant" (that is, one already converted)? "You will feed us with the bread of tears, and give us drink in tears in measure," Psalm 79. "In measure," that is, of penalty against the measure of guilt, as is said in Isaiah 27, and the preceding verses show. So also Augustine, expounding the verse of the Psalm that precedes, concerning the anger of God, says: "You were angry at the prayer of your enemy, and you are still angry

at the prayer of your servant. You have converted us, we have acknowledged it, and still you are angry at the prayer of your servant. So plainly you are angry as a Father, correcting, not as a judge, condemning. Do not think that the anger of God has already passed because you have been converted. The anger of God has passed from you in the sense that he will not condemn you for ever; but he scourges, he does not spare, for he scourges every son whom he receives. But how long will you be angry at the prayer of your servant, no longer of your enemy? How long will you feed us thus, and the rest of what was said above?" Nor does the sinner, when his sin has been forgiven, at once have the full restoration of his state, as plainly follows from what has been said; he still remains a debtor of the penalty and of the satisfaction owed for sin. For the most part he has also a certain weakness contracted from sin, namely a facility for evil and a difficulty for good. For obtaining full restoration, therefore, contrition and penance, interior and exterior, avail the penitent, as follows from what has been premised, as Bernard also testifies in On Grace and Free Choice, A1 24, cited above.

So also Augustine, On True and False Penance, 17 124: "Let each one," he says, "strive to correct his offenses, so that after death he need not bear punishment. For there are certain sins that are mortal, and in penance become venial, but are not at once healed. For often a sick man who would die if he were not treated is not healed at once; he who was going to die languishes, being about to live." And above, 13: "A sin that was criminal in the doing becomes venial through confession; and if it is not at once purged, yet what was committed as mortal becomes venial." And Anselm says, Why God Became Man, 1, 25, that blessedness ought to be given to no one except one whose sins have been entirely forgiven, and that this forgiveness is not made unless the debt owed for sin is repaid according to the magnitude of the sin. He therefore plainly implies that sin is forgiven to some extent, but not entirely: partially, not totally, in diminished form, not fully, before the full payment of the whole debt for sin. By these things and the like, with divine grace inspiring, the authorities premised and others similar,

…which seem to oppose this view will be brought back to agreement, all the subtleties of the Pelagians will be dissolved, and every other objection will be laid to rest. Furthermore, although sin is blotted out, as to guilt and stain, by the infusion of grace (which is naturally prior125 to contrition, confession, absolution, and full satisfaction), as was shown above, the sinner nevertheless remains obligated to full and due satisfaction for his sin, as was also shown above. But contrition, confession, absolution (or the due seeking of absolution), its reception, and every work of satisfaction are in some way satisfactory, since they make satisfaction for sin partially or wholly. They also avail for merit, for humility, for guarding against sin, and for subduing the warring flesh. None of these is therefore superfluous, useless, or idle, as was objected above. Hence Augustine also says, in On True and False Penance 13: "Shame itself has a share in remission. For the Lord commanded this out of mercy, that no one should repent in secret. For in the very act of telling it to the priest himself, and of overcoming shame through fear of the One he has offended, forgiveness of the crime comes about. For what was criminal in the doing is made venial through confession; and if it is not at once purged, still what he committed as mortal is made venial. For he has offered much satisfaction who, mastering his shame, has denied to the messenger of God nothing of what he has committed. And since shame is a great punishment, he who is ashamed for Christ's sake becomes worthy of mercy." From this it is clear that the more people he confesses to the foulness of his crime, in hope of pardon, the more easily he will obtain the grace of remission. For the priests themselves can do more good, and can show more leniency to those who confess, those whose crime the Lord remits. For this reason Peter126 also says, Sentences 4, dist. 17, last chapter: "If it is asked what confession is for, since sin has already been blotted out in contrition, we say that it is a kind of punishment, like satisfaction by work. Through confession the priest also understands how he ought to judge of the crime, and through it the sinner too becomes more humble and more cautious." In agreement with him is the Gloss127 at the beginning of the distinction On Penance. It asks what exterior penance and confession are needed for, since sin has already been remitted before through confession or through contrition, and it answers: "This is done for the sake of humility and for the exercise of justice, and so that he may make satisfaction to the Church which he has wounded, and so that he himself and others may be made more cautious." And it adds: "But if it is looked at subtly, the remission of sins is to be attributed to the grace of God, not to contrition." From this it is evident that the Glossator does not say, according to his own subtle opinion, what was alleged above for the opposing side from this Gloss; and also that he would then plainly contradict himself, as the preceding passages make clear. He speaks rather according to the common opinion of others, the one made famous among all who speak in the common way. And let no theologian, I beg, reproach me because I treat this little gloss, which is not theological, in this manner. For the Pelagians object it to me. What harm, then, is there in striking them back with their own sword? "I have become a debtor to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish too,"128 and I am not unaware that what is foolish in God is wiser than men, and what is weak in God is stronger than some men at some times. But let him who thinks otherwise speak wisdom among the perfect himself, and give solid food to those who have advanced. It is very well with me if I give milk to Christ's little ones, if the explanation of my words gives light and gives understanding to the little ones. Would that I might become all things to all, so that I might win all for the truth. As to what was argued above, that since repenting is in a man's free ‖E1 power, he can, once grace has been received, fail to repent at all, and so be justified and just without any penance, after or before: perhaps he concludes well as to absolute power. For almighty God could perhaps justify an adult in this way through habit without act, as he justifies infants who are baptized and sanctified in the womb. But he does not conclude it according to the law now laid down. The reason for this, I think, is that the act of contrition is not brought about by man alone, nor by man antecedently with God, but by God antecedently with man, as the forty-first corollary teaches. For God, "magnificent in holiness," whenever he inspires an adult sinner with the habit of charity and grace, also breathes in the act, which by his unfrustratable will, as the tenth of this work

…teaches, he works in man and with man, but prior by nature to man, irresistibly and unfailingly. This view also in no way empties out the power of the keys. For their power and use extend to many great matters in private and public forum. First, to the indication and notification of the true absolution from sin granted by God, as was said above, provided it be done in conformity with the divine absolution and the judgment of the Church Triumphant, and also in agreement with the condition or merit of the person absolved, as the preceding passages make clear. Hence Augustine too says, in On True and False Penance129 13: "The Lord said, Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven; that is, I, God, and all the orders of the heavenly court, and all the saints in my glory praise with us and confirm those whom you bind and loose. He did not say, 'those whom you think to bind and loose,' but those against whom you exercise the work of justice and mercy; other works of yours against sinners I do not recognize." And Gregory says, in Homily 26 on the Gospel, expounding the passage of John cited above, Whose sins you forgive, etc.: "It often happens that one who holds the place of judgment either condemns the undeserving, or, being himself bound, looses others. Often in loosing and binding subjects he follows the impulse of his own will, and not the merits of the cases. Hence it comes about that he deprives himself of this very power of binding and loosing, who exercises it according to his own wishes and not according to the conduct of those subject to him. It often happens that a pastor is moved toward some neighbor by hatred or by favor. But those cannot judge worthily of their subjects who in the cases of their subjects follow their own hatreds or their favor. Hence it is rightly said through the Prophet, They put to death souls that do not die, and gave life to souls that do not live. For he puts to death one who is not dying who condemns the just, and he strives to give life to one who will not live who tries to free the guilty from punishment. The causes, then, are to be weighed, and only then is the power of binding and loosing to be exercised. One must see what the fault was, or what penance followed upon the fault, so that almighty God may have the pastor's sentence absolve those whom he visits through the grace of compunction. For the absolution of the one presiding is then true, when it meanwhile130 follows the judgment of the Judge. This is well signified by that raising of the man four days dead, which shows that the Lord first called the dead man and gave him life, saying, Lazarus, come out, and afterwards he who had come out alive was loosed by the disciples, as it is written: And when he who had been bound with bands had come out, he then said to the disciples, Loose him and let him go. Behold, the disciples loose him already living, whom the Master had already raised from the dead. For if the disciples were to loose a dead Lazarus, they would show his stench rather than any power. From this consideration it must be seen that we ought to loose by pastoral authority those whom we know our Author gives life to through raising grace; and this giving of life is indeed already recognized, before the working of rectitude, in the very confession of sin." Therefore Peter also says, Sentences 4, dist. 18: "How is it true that whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven, and whatever you bind," etc.? "For sometimes priests declare to be loosed or bound persons who are not such

before God." And he answers: "But this must be understood of those whose merits demand that they be loosed or bound. For the sentence of the priest is approved and confirmed by the judgment of God and of the whole heavenly court when it proceeds from discretion, so that the merits of the guilty do not contradict it." Those, therefore, whom they loose or bind, applying the key of discretion, are loosed or bound in heaven by the merits of the guilty, that is, before God, because in the divine judgment the priest's sentence, so issued, is approved and confirmed. Second, ecclesiastical priests truly bind and loose some, namely by barring the notoriously criminal from communion in the Church's Sacraments, and by admitting the same persons, once reconciled, to those Sacraments. For although such a man, anticipated by God's grace, repents and is truly absolved from all sins before God, he will nevertheless not be received to the Church's Sacraments unless he has been cleansed and absolved by the judgment of a priest. This is quite evident in those who sin publicly and so do penance publicly: at the head of the fast131 they are openly cast out of the Church, and when the penance is completed they are taken back on the Lord's Supper. This was also well prefigured in Lazarus, notoriously dead and buried, whom the Lord first raised by himself, and then commanded

the disciples to loose still bound and let him go (John 11). This evidently shows that one notoriously dead through sin, although he comes back to life through grace at Christ's call, ought nevertheless to come forth through the door of the mouth by confessing, and to be loosed, that is, absolved, from the bond by which he was held before the Church, and to be permitted to depart freely, with the freedom of the Church Militant. Hence Augustine, in the first part of his sermon 49 on John,132 expounding this passage, says: "What does this signify? When you disdain, you lie dead; you lie buried; when you confess, you come forth. What is it to come forth, except to be made manifest, as if by going out from hidden things? But that you confess, God brings about, crying out with a great voice, that is, calling with great grace. Therefore when the dead man came forth, still bound, confessing and still guilty, the Lord said this, so that his sins might be loosed by ministers: Loose

him and let him go. What is Loose, and let him go? What you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." The same Augustine, in the eighth sermon On the Words of the Lord, after showing by the example of Lazarus that the confessing sinner has first been raised by the Lord, as is more fully recited above, adds, objecting and answering:133 "Someone will say, then, 'What good does the Church do, if the confessor now comes forth raised by the Lord's voice? What good does the Church do to one who confesses, to whom the Lord says, What you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven?' Look at Lazarus himself. When he came forth with the bonds, he was already living by confessing, but he did not yet walk free, being caught in the bindings. What then does the Church do, to whom it was said, What you loose will be loosed, except what the Lord said at once to the disciples, Loose him and let him ‖A1 go?" And Alcuin says, as is recited in the Gloss on John 11: "Christ therefore raises, because inwardly he gives life through himself; the disciples loose, because those made alive are absolved through the ministry of priests." Third, ecclesiastical priests can truly bind by the bond of excommunication, and loose, in the Church Militant, by separating from, and reconciling to, communion in the Sacraments and communion with the faithful. This holds to such an extent that, even though it be established for the Church concerning some excommunicate that he truly repented, that it was not through any fault of his that he was not reconciled to ecclesiastical unity, and that he died so, and therefore also that he has been truly absolved before God and in the Church Triumphant, he is not to be held a son of the Church Militant until he has been absolved by her. Pope Innocent teaches this expressly, in the Extra, On the Sentence of Excommunication, A nobis est saepe quaesitum.134 Writing there of such an excommunicate who has died, he says: "It happens at times that one who is bound before God is loosed before the Church, and one who is free before God is bound by the Church's sentence. The bond, then, by which the sinner is bound before God is dissolved in the remission of guilt. But that by which he is bound before the Church is relaxed when the sentence is remitted. The Gospel account makes this clear in the raising of Lazarus, whom the Lord first raised, and then commanded the Apostles to loose, once raised. Hence, however much someone, having sworn an oath to obey the Church's command, has taken care to humble himself, and however many signs of penance have preceded, if nevertheless he is overtaken by death and could not obtain the benefit of absolution, then although he is believed to have been absolved before God, he is not yet to be held absolved before the Church. Yet he can and ought to be helped by the Church's benefit, if the penance of that very man while living is established by evident signs, so that the benefit of absolution is bestowed even on the deceased." Fourth, ecclesiastical priests can truly bind and loose penances of various kinds: by imposing graver or lighter ones on penitents, by mitigating or commuting those imposed, and perhaps, through Indulgences from the Church's immense treasury, by mercifully relaxing all exterior penance. They can perhaps also, from the Lord's most ample mercy, absolve penitents from all penance, and from all extrinsic punishment owed for sin in the present or in the future. Hence Augustine too says, in On True and False Penance 13: "The priests themselves can ‖C1 spare those who confess, those whose crime the Lord remits. For he has already raised Lazarus from the tomb, and presented him to the disciples to be loosed, showing by this the power of loosing granted to the priest. For he said, Whatever

you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven; that is, I, God, and all the orders of the heavenly court, and all the saints in my glory praise with us and confirm those whom you bind and loose; he did not say, 'those whom you think to bind and loose,' but those against whom you exercise the work of justice and mercy; other works of yours135 against sinners I do not recognize." Fifth, ecclesiastical priests truly absolve from the obligation by which a sinner, when opportunity is granted, is bound by the law established in the Church to confess his sins to a priest and be absolved by him; for once this has been done, he is not bound to do so again regarding the same sins. Sixth, ecclesiastical priests absolve truly and, in a way, finally from sins. For according to what has been said, although sins are blotted out by the infusion of grace before confession and the absolution obtained, nevertheless, unless the sinner, once he has the opportunity, afterwards confesses and is absolved, they in a way return and are imputed anew; indeed they are made heavier because of contempt for the keys. Seventh, the power of the keys, the priest's absolution, and the Sacrament of penance avail for obtaining an increase of grace, and this ought to stir everyone not a little to confess very often. For this, according to Augustine, as Peter recites in Sentences 4, dist. 1, is the difference between the Sacraments of old and the new: that the former only promised and signified, while the latter give salvation. The same seems to hold of the baptism of penance as of the baptism of water; but the baptism of water confers on an adult previously baptized in the Holy Spirit, and approaching in grace, an increase of grace and of virtues, as Jerome says, as Peter alleges in Sentences 4, dist. 4: "The faith which makes believers is given, or nourished, in the waters of baptism, because it is given there to one who does not have it, and to one who already has it so that he may have it more fully." Peter holds this expressly there. Hence, eighth, this power avails for the diminution and repression of concupiscence and of the tinder of sin. For Augustine teaches in the Enchiridion, next to last chapter, and in many other places: "As charity grows, cupidity is diminished and decreases." In one who has been baptized first with the baptism of the Spirit,136 when he afterwards receives baptism in water, the tinder of sin is weakened,

as is taught in Sentences 4 of Peter, dist. 4. Why then should we not judge likewise of the baptism of penance? This effect too ought to stir us not a little to confess very frequently. As to what was argued above, that if penance is a Sacrament, it is a sign of a sacred thing that follows it: some answer, as Peter recites in Sentences 4, dist. 23, that this is not true of the Sacrament of penance, just as it is not always true in other Sacraments, which effect what they signify. Peter himself agrees with them, asking and answering in the same dist. 4, and says: "If it is asked of what thing that baptism is the Sacrament which is given to one already just, we say that it is the Sacrament also of the thing which has gone before, that is, of the remission given beforehand through faith. And do not wonder that the thing sometimes precedes the Sacrament, since sometimes it also follows long after, as in those who approach insincerely, to whom, when they afterwards repent, baptism begins to be of benefit; in them baptism was the Sacrament of this sanctification which they have by repenting." But it can be said otherwise, and perhaps more truly in accordance with what has gone before, that the Sacrament of penance is a sign of a sacred thing always conferred through it, namely the increase of the grace that preceded. The thirty-fifth and twenty-first chapters of this book also expound and resolve certain authorities and arguments objected by the Pelagians.