Edition ausblenden
De Paenitentia

V.

[1] Hoc enim dico, paenitentiam, quae per dei gratiam ostensa et indicta nobis in gratiam nos domino revocat, semel cognitam atque susceptam numquam posthac iteratione delicti resignari oportere. [2] Iam quidem nullum ignorantiae praetextum patrocinatur tibi, quod domino adgnito praeceptisque eius admissis, denique paenitentia delictorum functus, rursus te in delicta restituis. [3] Ita in quantum ab ignorantia segregaris, in tantum contumaciae adglutinaris; nam si idcirco te deliquisse paenituerat quia dominum coeperas timere, cur quod metus gratia gessisti rescindere maluisti nisi quia metuere desisti? [4] Neque enim timorem alia res quam contumacia subvertit. Cum autem etiam ignorantes dominum nulla exceptio tueatur a poena, quia deum in aperto constitutum et vel ex ipsis caelestibus bonis conprehensibilem ignorari non licet, quanto cognitum despici periculosum est? [5] Despicit porro qui, bonorum ac malorum intellectum ab illo consecutus, quod intellegit fugiendum quodque iam fugit resumens intellectui suo id est dei dono contumeliam facit: respuit datorem, cum datum deserit; negat beneficium, cum beneficum non honorat! [6] Quemadmodum ei potest placere cuius munus sibi displicet? Ita in dominum non modo contumax sed etiam ingratus apparet.

[7] Ceterum non leviter in dominum peccat qui, cum aemulo eius diabolo paenitentia sua renuntiasset et hoc nomine illum domino subiecisset, rursus eundum regressu suo erigit et exultationem eius semetipsum facit, ut denuo malus recuperata praeda sua adversus dominum gaudeat. [8] Nonne — quod dicere quoque periculosum est, sed ad aedificationem proferendum [est] — diabolum domino praepones? Conparationem enim videtur egisse, qui utrumque cognoverit, et iudicato pronuntiasse eum meliorem, cuius se rursus esse maluerit! [9] Ita qui per delictorum paenitentiam instituerat domino satisfacere, diabolo per aliam paenitentiae paenitentiam satisfaciet eritque tanto magis perosus deo quanto aemulo eius acceptus.

[10] Sed aiunt quidam satis dominum habere, si corde et animo suscipiatur, licet actu minus fiat; itaque se salvo metu et fide peccare, hoc est salva oastitate matrimonia violare, salva pietate parenti venenum temperare. [11] Sic ergo et ipsi salva venia in gehennam detrudentur, dum salvo metu peccant. [12] Pro mirum exemplum perversitatis: quia timent delinquunt; opinor non delinquerent, si non timerent! [13] Igitur qui deum nolet offensum, nec revereatur omnino, si timor offendendi patrocinium est! Sed ista ingenia de semine hypocritarum pullulare consuerunt, quorum individua cum diabolo amicitia est, quorum paenitentia numquam fidelis.

Übersetzung ausblenden
On Repentance

Chapter V.--Sin Never to Be Returned to After Repentance. ¹

For what I say is this, that the repentance which, being shown us and commanded us through God's grace, recalls us to grace ² with the Lord, when once learned and undertaken by us ought never afterward to be cancelled by repetition of sin. No pretext of ignorance now remains to plead on your behalf; in that, after acknowledging the Lord, and accepting His precepts ³ --in short, after engaging in repentance of (past) sins--you again betake yourself to sins. Thus, in as far as you are removed from ignorance, in so far are you cemented ⁴ to contumacy. For if the ground on which you had repented of having sinned was that you had begun to fear the Lord, why have you preferred to rescind what you did for fear's sake, except because you have ceased to fear? For there is no other thing but contumacy which subverts fear. Since there is no exception which defends from liability to penalty even such as are ignorant of the Lord--because ignorance of God, openly as He is set before men, and comprehensible as He is even on the score of His heavenly benefits, is not possible ⁵ --how perilous is it for Him to be despised when known? Now, that man does despise Him, who, after attaining by His help to an understanding of things good and evil, often an affront to his own understanding--that is, to God's gift--by resuming what he understands ought to be shunned, and what he has already shunned: he rejects the Giver in abandoning the gift; he denies the Benefactor in not honouring the benefit. How can he be pleasing to Him, whose gift is displeasing to himself? Thus he is shown to be not only contumacious toward the Lord, but likewise ungrateful. Besides, that man commits no light sin against the Lord, who, after he had by repentance renounced His rival the devil, and had under this appellation subjected him to the Lord, again upraises him by his own return (to the enemy), and makes himself a ground of exultation to him; so that the Evil One, with his prey recovered, rejoices anew against the Lord. Does he not--what is perilous even to say, but must be put forward with a view to edification--place the devil before the Lord? For he seems to have made the comparison who has known each; and to have judicially pronounced him to be the better whose (servant) he has preferred again to be. Thus he who, through repentance for sins, had begun to make satisfaction to the Lord, will, through another repentance of his repentance, make satisfaction to the devil, and will be the more hateful to God in proportion as he will be the more acceptable to His rival. But some say that "God is satisfied if He be looked up to with the heart and the mind, even if this be not done in outward act, and that thus they sin without damage to their fear and their faith:" that is, that they violate wedlock without damage to their chastity; they mingle poison for their parent without damage to their filial duty! Thus, then, they will themselves withal be thrust down into hell without damage to their pardon, while they sin without damage to their fear! Here is a primary example of perversity: they sin, because they fear! ⁶ I suppose, if they feared not, they would not sin! Let him, therefore, who would not have God offended not revere Him at all, if fear ⁷ is the plea for offending. But these dispositions have been wont to sprout from the seed of hypocrites, whose friendship with the devil is indivisible, whose repentance never faithful.