Letters 153.12–154.3

I, looking at your conduct, called you a good man. But you, looking at the words of Christ, say to yourself: "No one is good but God alone." Though this is true (for the Truth said it), I ought not therefore to be thought to have said that out of deceitful flattery and to have set myself against the Lord's words, calling you a good man when he says: "No one is good but God alone." For the Lord did not contradict himself when he said: "A good man brings good things out of the good treasure of his heart." God, then, is good in a unique way and cannot lose this; for he is good by participation in no other good, since the good by which he is good is himself; but a man, when he is good, is good from him, since he cannot be so from himself. For whoever become good become so by his Spirit, whom our nature was created capable of receiving through its own will. It belongs to us, then, in order to be good, to receive and to keep what he gives who is good of himself; neglecting him, each is evil of himself. Accordingly, insofar as a man acts rightly, that is, does good knowingly, lovingly, and piously, so far he is good; but insofar as he sins, that is, strays from truth, love, and piety, so far he is evil. Yet who in this life is without any sin? But we call him good whose good deeds prevail, and him best who sins least.

For this reason the Lord himself calls the same people good because of their participation in divine grace and also evil because of the faults of human weakness, until the whole of which we consist, healed of all viciousness, passes into that life where there will be no sin at all. For certainly it was the good, not the evil, whom he was teaching to pray when he commanded them to say: "Our Father, who are in heaven"; for they are good in this, that they are sons of God, not begotten by nature but made so by grace, as those to whom, when they received him, he gave power to become sons of God. This spiritual generation is also called adoption in the usage of the Scriptures, to distinguish it from that generation of God from God, of the coeternal from the eternal, of which it is written: "Who shall declare his generation?" Since, then, he showed that those were good whom he wished to say truthfully to God, "Our Father, who are in heaven," he nevertheless commanded them to say among other things in the same prayer: "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." Though it is clear that these debts are sins, he afterward declared it still more clearly, saying: "For if you forgive men their sins, your Father will also forgive you your sins." The baptized pray this prayer, and there is absolutely nothing of past sins that is not forgiven to the baptized in the holy church. But if afterward, living in this mortal frailty, they did not contract something needing forgiveness, they would not truly say: "Forgive us our debts." The good, then, insofar as they are sons of God, but insofar as they sin, which they attest by their truthful confession, are certainly evil.

Unless perhaps someone says that the sins of the good are one thing and those of the evil another, which is said not altogether implausibly. Yet the Lord Jesus without any ambiguity called the very same people evil whose Father he said God was. For in the same sermon in which he teaches that prayer, exhorting them in another place to pray to God, he says: "Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you; for everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened"; and a little later: "If you, then," he says, "though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" Is God, then, the Father of the evil? Far from it. How, then, is "your heavenly Father" said to those to whom it is said "though you are evil," except that the Truth shows both, what we are by God's goodness and what by human fault, commending the one and amending the other? Rightly does Seneca say, who lived in the times of the apostles and some of whose letters to the apostle Paul are also read: "He hates all, who hates the wicked." And yet the wicked are to be loved so that they may not be wicked, just as the sick are loved not that they may remain sick but that they may be healed.

Whatever sins we commit while remaining in this life after the abolition of all sins which takes place in baptism, even if it is not such as compels removal from the divine altars, is expiated not by sterile grief but by sacrifices of mercy. What we try to bring you to do when we intercede, then, know that you are offering to God for us. For you need the mercy that you show; and see who it was that said: "Forgive and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you." And even if we lived in such a way that there was no reason for us to say, "Forgive us our debts," the purer our mind was of wickedness, the fuller of clemency it ought to be, so that, if we were not pricked by the saying of the Lord, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her," we would follow the example of the very one who said this, who, though he was certainly without sin, said to the woman whom those men had left in terror: "Neither will I condemn you; go, from now on sin no more." For the sinful woman might have feared that, when those had gone away who had thought of their own sins so as to spare another's sin, he himself, who was without sin, would now condemn her most justly. But he, not fearful in conscience but full of clemency, when she answered that she had been condemned by no one, said: "Neither will I condemn you," as if to say: "If malice could spare you, why do you fear innocence?" And lest he should seem not the forgiver but the approver of offenses, he said: "Go, from now on sin no more," to show that he had spared the human being, not that the human being's fault had pleased him. You see now, therefore, that it comes down from religion, and that we are not bound by a share in crimes when we often intercede even for criminals, not criminals ourselves yet sinners for sinners, and (take this as said truthfully rather than insultingly) I think before sinners too.

Not that the power of the king, the right of the sword of the judge, the hooks of the executioner, the weapons of the soldier, the discipline of the master, and even the severity of a good father were instituted in vain. All these have their measures, causes, reasons, and uses. When these are feared, the wicked are held in check and the good live more quietly among the wicked; not that those who refrain from sin through fear of such things are to be declared good (for no one is good through fear of punishment but through love of justice), but human boldness is not uselessly held in check even by fear of the laws, so that innocence may be safe among the wicked, and in the wicked themselves, while their capacity is bridled by dread of punishment, the will may be healed when God is called upon. But the intercessions of bishops are not contrary to this ordering of human affairs; on the contrary, there would be no cause or occasion for interceding if these things did not exist. For the kindnesses of those who intercede and spare are the more welcome, the more just are the punishments of sinners. Nor, as far as I understand, did the vengeance of the law burn more severely in the Old Testament in the times of the ancient prophets for any other reason than to show that penalties were rightly appointed for the wicked, so that our being admonished by the indulgence of the New Testament to spare them may be either a remedy for salvation, by which our own sins also may be spared, or a commendation of gentleness, so that through those who spare, the truth preached may be not only feared but also loved.

It makes a very great difference, however, with what intention each person spares. For just as there is sometimes a mercy that punishes, so there is also a cruelty that spares. To give an obvious example, who would not more truly call cruel the man who spared a boy who was determined, most obstinately, to play with snakes? And who would not call merciful the one who, forbidding such things, corrected with blows one who despised his words? And for this reason discipline must not be extended as far as death, so that there may be someone whom it can benefit. Even when a man is killed by a man, it makes a great difference whether it is done from a desire to harm or to take something away unjustly, as by an enemy or a robber; or in the order of punishment or obedience, as by a judge or an executioner; or from the necessity of escaping or giving aid, as when a robber is killed by a traveler or an enemy by a soldier. And sometimes the one who was the cause of death is more to blame than the one who killed, as if someone were to deceive his surety and the surety were to pay the lawful penalty in his place. Yet not everyone who is the cause of another's death is guilty. For what if someone solicits illicit intercourse and, failing to obtain it, kills himself? What if a son, fearing his father's loving blows, perishes by throwing himself down a precipice? What if another kills himself because someone has been set free, or so that someone may not be set free? Because of these causes of others' deaths, must we either consent to a crime, or abolish the punishment of sin, even a father's, which is done not from a desire to harm but to correct, or restrain works of mercy? When these things happen, we owe them human grief; we do not, in order to prevent them, suppress the will to do what is right.

So too, when we intercede for a sinner who is to be condemned, things we do not want sometimes follow, either in the very man who is freed by our intercession, so that his boldness, unpunished, rages more savagely, enslaved to desire and ungrateful for leniency, and one man snatched from death kills many; or, while he himself is changed for the better by our kindness and amends his ways, another perishes by living wickedly and, setting before himself this man's impunity, commits similar or worse crimes. These evils, I think, are not to be imputed to us when we intercede, but rather those good things which we have in view and desire when we do it: namely, the commendation of gentleness to win love for the word of truth, and that those who are freed from temporal death may so live as not to incur eternal death, from which they could never be freed.

Your severity, then, is useful, by whose ministry our quiet too is assisted; and our intercession is useful, by whose ministry your severity too is tempered. Do not be displeased at being petitioned by the good, since the good are not displeased that you are feared by the wicked. For the apostle Paul too terrified human wickedness not only with the future judgment but also with your present axes, asserting that they too belong to the dispensation of divine providence. "Let every soul," he says, "be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power except from God, and those that exist have been ordained by God. Therefore whoever resists the power resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist bring judgment on themselves; for rulers are a terror not to good work but to evil. Do you wish not to fear the power? Do good and you will have praise from it; for it is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, fear; for it does not bear the sword in vain, for it is God's minister, an avenger for wrath on him who does evil. Therefore be subject of necessity, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. For this is why you also pay tribute; for they are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Render to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due, revenue to whom revenue, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Owe no one anything except to love one another." These words of the apostle show the usefulness of your severity. Accordingly, just as those who fear have been commanded to owe love to those who inspire terror, so those who inspire terror have been commanded to owe love to those who fear. Let nothing be done from a desire to harm, but all from the love that seeks the other's good, and nothing will be done savagely, nothing inhumanly. Thus the judge's punishment will be dreaded in such a way that the intercessor's religion is not despised, because both in punishing and in pardoning the only good aim is that people's lives be corrected. But if perversity and impiety are so great that neither discipline nor pardon can help to correct them, yet on the part of the good, in the intention and conscience which God sees, whether by severity or by leniency, nothing but the duty of love is fulfilled.

As for what follows in your letter, where you say: "But now, as our customs are, people want both to have the punishment of the crime remitted and to keep that for the sake of which the crime was committed," you mention the worst kind of people, for whom the medicine of repentance is of no benefit at all. For if another's property, on account of which the sin was committed, is not restored when it can be, repentance is not being done but feigned; but if it is truly done, the sin will not be forgiven unless what was taken is restored, but, as I said, when it can be restored. For very often the one who takes it loses it, either by suffering other wicked people or by living wickedly himself, and has nothing else from which to make restitution. To him we certainly cannot say, "Restore what you took," except when we believe he has it and denies it. In that case, if he endures some torments from the one reclaiming it while he is thought to have something to restore, there is no injustice, because even if he has nothing with which to repay the stolen money, he nevertheless deservedly pays the penalty of the sin by which it was wrongly taken while he is compelled through bodily distress to give it back. But it is not inhuman to intercede even for such people, as for those accused of crimes, not so that another's property may not be restored, but so that man may not rage in vain against man, especially the one who has already forgiven the fault but seeks the money and fears being defrauded, not seeking vengeance. In fact, in such cases, if we have been able to persuade people that those for whom we intervene do not have what is demanded, their harassment is at once relaxed for our sake. Sometimes, too, merciful people, even in doubt, are unwilling to inflict certain punishments on a man for uncertain money. To this mercy it is fitting that we too should challenge and exhort them: for it is better that you lose it, even if he has it, than that, if he does not have it, you either torture or kill him. But for such people it is more fitting to intercede with those who reclaim than with those who judge, lest the one who, having the power, does not compel restitution should himself seem to take it away; although in compelling he ought to use integrity in such a way as not to lose humanity.

This, however, I would say with full confidence: whoever intervenes for a man so that he need not restore what he wrongly took, and whoever does not compel one who takes refuge with him to make restitution, as far as he honorably can, is an accomplice in the fraud and the crime. For we withdraw our help from such people more mercifully than we give it; for he does not bring help who helps someone to sin, rather than overturning and crushing the sin. But can we or should we therefore either exact payment or hand people over to be made to pay? We act as far as the power of a bishop allows, threatening sometimes human judgment indeed, but chiefly and always divine judgment. Those whom we know both to have taken wrongly and to have the means to restore, if they refuse to restore, we rebuke, reprove, and denounce, some privately, some publicly, as the difference of persons seems able to receive different medicine and not to be provoked to greater madness to the ruin of others; and sometimes, if a matter needing greater care does not prevent it, we deprive them of communion at the holy altar.

But it often happens that they deceive us, either by denying that they took anything or by asserting that they have nothing from which to restore it; and often you too are deceived, thinking either that we are not working to make them restore or that they have the means to restore. And all, or almost all, of us love to call or to regard our suspicions as knowledge, when we are moved by credible signs, although some credible things are false, just as some incredible things are true. So, mentioning some who "want both to have the punishment of the crime remitted and to keep that for the sake of which the crime was committed," you added: "For these too your priesthood thinks it should intervene." For it can happen that you know what I do not know, and therefore I think I should intervene for someone; what could deceive me, though it could not deceive you, so that I do not believe he possesses what you know he possesses. So it happens that, although our judgment about the accused is not the same, neither of us is pleased that another's property is not restored. About the man, as men, we think differently, but in justice itself we are together. In the same way it can also happen that what I know someone does not have, you do not hold with full certainty that he has, but suspect it credibly, and on this account I seem to you to intervene for one who "wants both to have the punishment of the crime remitted and to keep that for the sake of which the crime was committed." In sum, then, neither before you, nor before such men as we rejoice that you are (if any are found), nor before those who with great eagerness seek others' property, which will profit them nothing and is often dangerous and ruinous, nor before my own heart, to which God is witness, would I dare to say, think, or decide that one should intervene for anyone so that he may keep what he took by crime with the crime unpunished, but rather that, the injury being pardoned, he may restore what he took injuriously, provided he has either what he took or something else from which to restore it.

Not everything, of course, that is taken from an unwilling person is taken injuriously. For many people do not want to pay a doctor his fee or a workman his wages; yet those who receive these from the unwilling do not receive them by injury; rather, it would be by injury that they were not given. But a judge ought not therefore to sell a just judgment, or a witness true testimony, because an advocate sells just pleading and a jurist true counsel; for the former are brought in between both parties for the examination, while the latter stand on one side. But when judgments and testimonies, which ought not to be sold even when just and true, are sold when unjust and false, the money is certainly taken far more wickedly, because it is taken wickedly even though given by willing parties. Yet the one who bought a just judgment usually reclaims the money as wrongly taken from him, since it ought not to have been for sale; whereas the one who gave money for an unjust judgment would indeed like to reclaim it, if he were not afraid or ashamed of having bought it.

There are other persons of lower rank who commonly receive from both parties, such as a court official, both from the one who sets his office in motion and from the one against whom it is set in motion. From these, what has been extorted through excessive dishonesty is usually reclaimed; what has been given according to tolerable custom usually is not, and we blame those who unusually reclaimed such things more than those who took them according to custom, since many persons necessary to human affairs are either attracted or retained by advantages of this kind. If these men change their way of life or ascend to a higher degree of holiness, they more readily give to the poor as their own what they acquired in this way than restore it as another's to those from whom it was received. But whoever has taken things contrary to the custom of human society, by theft, robbery, false accusation, oppression, or seizure, we judge ought rather to restore than to give away, following the gospel example of Zacchaeus the tax collector, who, when he had received the Lord as his guest, was suddenly changed into a holy life and said: "Half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone, I restore it fourfold."

Yet if justice is consulted more honestly, it would be more justly said to an advocate: "Restore what you received when you stood against the truth, supported iniquity, deceived the judge, crushed a just cause, and won by falsehood" (which you see many most honorable and eloquent men think they do not only with impunity but even with glory) than to anyone serving in any office: "Restore what you received when, at the judge's order, you held a man needed for some case, bound him so he would not resist, shut him up so he would not escape, and finally either produced him while the suit continued or released him when it was ended." But why this is not said to an advocate is obvious: a man does not want to reclaim what he gave his advocate so as to win wrongly, just as he does not want to return what he received from his opponent when he won wrongly. Where, in fact, is an advocate, or a former advocate, easily found who is so excellent a man as to say to his client: "Take back what you gave me when I wrongly supported you, and return to your opponent what you unjustly took through my pleading"? And yet one who most rightly repents of his former, not upright life ought to do even this, so that, if the one who litigated unjustly will not correct the injustice when admonished, he at least may not wish to keep the wages of that injustice; unless perhaps what is secretly taken by theft must be restored, and what is obtained in the very forum where sins are punished, by deceiving the judge and evading the laws, need not be restored! What shall I say of interest, which the laws and the judges themselves order to be paid? Or is he who filches or snatches something from a rich man crueler than he who butchers a poor man with usury? These and similar things are certainly possessed wrongly, and I wish they were restored; but there is no judge before whom they can be reclaimed.

Now if we consider wisely what is written, "To the faithful man the whole world is wealth, but to the unfaithful not even a penny," do we not prove that all who seem to themselves to rejoice in what they lawfully acquired and do not know how to use it possess what belongs to others? For certainly that is not another's which is possessed by right; and that is possessed by right which is possessed justly; and that justly which is possessed well. Everything, therefore, that is possessed badly belongs to another, and he possesses badly who uses badly. You see, then, how many ought to restore what belongs to others, though few may be found to whom it should be restored; and these, wherever they are, despise such things the more, the more justly they could have possessed them. For no one has justice badly, and whoever has not loved it does not have it. But money is both had badly by the wicked and had the better by the good, the less it is loved. Meanwhile, however, the iniquity of those who have badly is tolerated, and certain rights are established among them which are called civil, not with the result that they become good users, but that bad users may be less harmful, until the faithful and godly, to whom by right all things belong (whether they come from among those others or, living among them for a while, are not entangled by their evils but exercised by them), reach that city where the inheritance is eternity, where only the just man has a place, only the wise man has rule, where all who are there will possess what is truly their own. Yet even here we do not intercede so that, according to earthly customs and laws, others' property may not be restored, although we wish you to be placable toward the wicked, not that the wicked may please you or remain wicked, but because from among them come all who become good, and God is appeased by the sacrifice of mercy; and if the wicked did not have him propitious, there would be no good people. I have long seemed burdensome to your occupations by talking, when what you asked could have been resolved quickly for a sharp and learned man like you. I ought indeed to have finished long ago, if I thought you would read only what you demanded that I write in reply. May you live happily in Christ, dearest son.

I am wonderfully affected by your wisdom, both in what you have published and in what you do not mind sending when you intervene on behalf of people in trouble. For the former have so much sharpness, knowledge, and holiness that nothing could surpass them, and the latter so much modesty that, if I did not do what you ask, I would judge that the fault in the matter remained with me, my lord, deservedly venerable and father worthy to be honored. For you do not insist, as most men in this region do, on extorting whatever the troubled person wants; rather, what has seemed to you fit to ask of a judge bound by so many cares, you suggest with a deferential modesty, which among good men is the most effective means in difficult matters. Accordingly, I at once granted those you commended what they desired; for I had already opened the way to hope.

I have read your books; for they were not so languid or inert as to let me attend to anything but themselves. They laid hands on me, snatched me from other anxieties, and bound me with their own chains (so may God be gracious to me) so that I am in doubt what to admire more in them: the perfection of the priesthood, the doctrines of philosophy, the full knowledge of history, or the charm of eloquence, which can so attract even the unlearned that they do not stop until they finish, and when they have finished, still want more. For those who are shamelessly obstinate have been refuted: that ever since those good ages they recall, worse things befell because of the obscurity of the nature of things, and that all their prosperity, smeared with a certain sweetness, was false, leading them not to happiness but to precipices; whereas these precepts of ours and the mysteries of the one true God, besides the eternal life which they promise to the purest virtues, also mitigate these worldly events, which must necessarily befall us in the condition in which we were born. And you used the most powerful example of the recent calamity; though with it you fortified the cause most firmly, yet, had either course been possible, I would have wished it not to support you. But since the complaint of the foolish who were to be refuted had arisen from there, it was necessary to draw from there the arguments of truth.

I have written this in reply meanwhile, being occupied with other cares, which, though they are vain when we think of the end of things, are nevertheless as it were necessary because of the condition of our birth. If I have leisure and life remains, I shall write to you also from Italy, so that the work of such great learning may be repaid with due, if not adequate, services. May almighty God keep your Holiness safe and blessed for a very long age, my lord, deservedly venerable and truly father worthy to be honored.