On the Lapsed 25–36

Hear what happened in my own presence and with me as witness. Some parents, as it happened, fleeing in panic and taking too little thought, left their little daughter in the care of a wet nurse. The nurse took the abandoned child to the magistrates. There, before the idol where the people were flocking, because she could not yet eat meat on account of her age, they gave her bread mixed with wine, which was itself also left over from the sacrifice of those who were perishing. Afterward the mother took her daughter back. But the girl could no more speak of and disclose the crime committed than she had been able before to understand or prevent it. So it happened through ignorance that the mother brought her in with her while we were offering the sacrifice. But the girl, mixed with the saints, impatient of our prayer and supplication, was now shaken with weeping, now tossed about fluctuating in agitation of mind; as if under the compulsion of a torturer, her untaught soul, still in its simple years, confessed by whatever signs it could the consciousness of the deed. And when, the solemn rites completed, the deacon began to offer the cup to those present, and, as the others received, her turn came, the little one, by an instinct of the divine majesty, turned her face away, pressed her mouth shut with tightened lips, and refused the cup. The deacon persisted, however, and, though she resisted, poured in some of the sacrament of the cup. Then there followed sobbing and vomiting. The Eucharist could not remain in a violated body and mouth; the drink sanctified in the Lord's blood burst out of the polluted inward parts. So great is the Lord's power, so great his majesty: the secrets of darkness were uncovered under his light, and not even hidden crimes deceived the priest of God.

This happened with an infant, who had not yet reached the age to speak of another's crime committed upon her. But a woman of advanced age, in her more adult years, who secretly crept in while we were sacrificing, taking not food but a sword for herself and admitting as it were deadly poisons into her throat and breast, began afterward to be choked and stifled, her soul in turmoil; and, suffering the oppression no longer of persecution but of her own sin, she fell down, quivering and trembling. The crime of her concealed conscience did not remain long unpunished or hidden. She who had deceived man felt God as avenger. And when another woman tried with unclean hands to open her box in which was the holy thing of the Lord, she was frightened off from daring to touch it by fire rising from it. And another man, who, himself also stained by sacrifice, dared secretly to receive a part with the others when the priest had celebrated, could not eat or handle the holy thing of the Lord; on opening his hands he found he was holding ashes. By the evidence of one it was shown that the Lord withdraws when he is denied, and that what is received does not profit the undeserving for salvation, since saving grace is changed into ashes as the holy thing flees. How many are daily filled with unclean spirits, how many are shaken out of their senses by the fury of madness, even to insanity of mind! Nor is it necessary to go through the ends of each, since, through the manifold ruins throughout the world, the punishment of sins is as varied as the multitude of sinners is numerous. Let each consider not what another has suffered but what he himself deserves to suffer; nor let him think he has escaped if punishment has meanwhile put him off, since he whom the wrath of God the judge has reserved for itself ought to fear the more.

Nor let those flatter themselves as needing less to do penance who, though they did not defile their hands with the abominable sacrifices, have yet defiled their conscience with certificates. That too is the profession of one who denies, the attestation of a Christian renouncing what he had been. He said that he had done whatever another committed by doing it; and, though it is written, “You cannot serve two masters,” he served a worldly master, he obeyed his edict, he listened to human command rather than to God. Let him see whether he has published what he did before men with less disgrace or guilt; yet he will not be able to flee and escape God as judge, since the Holy Spirit says in the Psalms, “Your eyes have seen my imperfect being, and in your book all will be written”; and again, “Man sees the face, God the heart”; and the Lord himself also forewarns and prepares us, saying, “And all the churches shall know that I am the searcher of the reins and the heart.” He sees through what is hidden and secret and considers what is concealed; nor can anyone escape the eyes of God, who says, “I am a God at hand and not a God from afar. If a man is hidden in hidden places, shall I then not see him?” He sees the hearts and breasts of each, and, being about to judge not only our deeds but also our words and thoughts, he looks on the minds and conceived intentions of all in the very hiding places of a still closed breast.

In short, how much greater in faith and better in fear are those who, though bound by no crime of sacrifice or certificate, yet, because they merely thought of it, confess this very thing to the priests of God sorrowfully and simply, make the confession of their conscience, lay open the burden of their mind, and seek a saving remedy even for slight and modest wounds, knowing that it is written, “God is not mocked.” God cannot be mocked and circumvented, nor deluded by any deceiving cunning. Indeed, he sins more who, thinking of God as of a man, believes that he escapes the penalty of his crime if he has not committed the crime openly. Christ says in his precepts, “Whoever is ashamed of me, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him”; and does he think himself a Christian who is either ashamed or afraid to be a Christian? How can he be with Christ who either blushes or fears to belong to Christ? He will have sinned less, certainly, by not looking on the idols, by not profaning the holiness of the faith under the eyes of a people standing round and insulting, by not polluting his hands with deadly sacrifices nor staining his mouth with wicked foods. This serves to make the guilt less, not the conscience innocent. He can more easily attain to pardon for his crime, yet he is not immune from crime. Let him not cease from doing penance and entreating the Lord's mercy, lest what seems less in the quality of the sin be heaped up by neglect of satisfaction.

Let each one confess his sin, I beg you, brothers, while he who has sinned is still in this world, while his confession can be admitted, while satisfaction and remission through the priests are pleasing to the Lord. Let us turn to the Lord with our whole mind and, expressing penance for our crime with true sorrow, entreat God's mercy. Let the soul prostrate itself before him; let grief make satisfaction to him; let all hope rest on him. He himself tells us how we ought to ask. “Return to me,” he says, “with your whole heart, and with fasting and weeping and mourning, and tear your hearts and not your garments.” Let us return to the Lord with our whole heart; let us appease his anger and offense with fastings, weeping, and mournings, as he himself advises.

Do we think that he laments with his whole heart and entreats the Lord with fastings, weeping, and mournings who from the first day of his crime frequents the baths daily; who, fed on lavish banquets and swollen with too rich a diet, belches out his indigestion the next day, and does not share his food and drink with the need of the poor? How does one who goes about merry and cheerful weep over his own death? And, though it is written, “You shall not mar the appearance of your beard,” he plucks his beard and dresses up his face. Is he now eager to please anyone, who displeases God? Or does she groan and lament who has time to put on the adornment of costly clothing, and does not think of the garment of Christ which she has lost; to receive costly ornaments and elaborate necklaces, and does not weep for the loss of divine and heavenly adornment? Though you put on foreign garments and silken robes, you are naked; though you adorn yourself with gold and pearls and gems, without the adornment of Christ you are ugly. And you who dye your hair, stop now at least in your sorrows; and you who paint the outline of your eyes with a line of black powder, now at least wash your eyes with tears. If you had lost someone dear to you by death, you would groan sorrowfully and weep; with face unkempt, clothes changed, hair neglected, countenance clouded, looks downcast, you would show the signs of grief. You have lost your own soul, wretched woman; spiritually dead, you have begun to survive yourself here, and, walking about, to carry your own funeral; and do you not lament bitterly, do you not groan continually, do you not hide yourself for shame of your crime or in constant lamentation? See, these are still worse wounds of sinning; see, these are greater offenses: to have sinned and not make satisfaction, to have offended and not weep for the offenses.

Ananias, Azarias, and Mishael, illustrious and noble youths, did not refrain from making confession to God even amid the flames and the blaze of the burning furnace. With a good conscience, and having often deserved well of the Lord by the obedience of faith and fear, they did not cease to keep humility and make satisfaction to God even amid the very glorious martyrdoms of their virtues. The divine Scripture speaks: “Standing,” it says, “Azarias prayed, and opened his mouth, and made confession to God together with his companions in the midst of the fire.” Daniel too, after the manifold grace of his faith and innocence, after the Lord's favor often shown toward his virtues and praises, still strove to win God's favor by fasting; he rolled in sackcloth and ashes, making confession sorrowfully and saying, “O Lord God, great and strong and to be feared, who keep covenant and mercy for those who love you and keep your commands, we have sinned, we have committed wickedness, we have been impious, we have transgressed and forsaken your precepts and your judgments; we have not listened to your servants the prophets, what they spoke in your name to our kings and to all the nations and to all the earth. To you, O Lord, to you belongs righteousness, but to us confusion.”

These things the meek, the simple, the innocent did to win the favor of God's majesty; and now those who have denied the Lord refuse to make satisfaction to the Lord and to pray! I beg you, brothers, submit to the saving remedies, obey the better counsels; join your tears with our tears, unite your groans with our groans. We ask you, so that we may be able to ask the Lord for you; we turn first to you the very prayers with which we pray God for you that he may have mercy. Do full penance; prove the sorrow of a grieving and lamenting soul!

Nor let the thoughtless error or empty stupor of some move you, who, though held in so grave a crime, have been struck with such blindness of mind that they neither understand their sins nor lament them. This is a greater blow of the indignant God, as it is written: “And God gave them a spirit of stupor”; and again: “They did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And therefore God sends them the working of error, that they may believe a lie, that all may be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness.” Unrighteously pleased with themselves and demented by the estrangement of a stupefied mind, they despise the Lord's precepts, neglect the remedy for their wound, refuse to do penance. Thoughtless before committing the crime, obstinate after it, neither steadfast before nor suppliant afterward, when they ought to have stood they fell; when they ought to lie down and prostrate themselves before God, they think they stand. They have taken peace for themselves of their own accord, with no one giving it; seduced by a false promise and joined to apostates and the faithless, they accept error for truth, count valid the communion of those who are not in communion, and believe men against God, they who did not believe God against men.

Avoid such people as much as you can; shun with salutary caution those who cling to pernicious contacts. Their speech creeps like a cancer; their conversation leaps across like a contagion; their harmful and poisonous persuasion kills worse than persecution itself. There, penance remains to make satisfaction; but those who take away penance for the crime close the road of satisfaction. So it happens that, while through the rashness of some a false salvation is either promised or believed, the hope of true salvation is taken away.

But you, brothers, whose fear of the Lord is ready, and whose mind, though set in ruin, is mindful of its evil: in penitence and sorrow examine your sins, acknowledge the very grave crime of your conscience, open the eyes of your heart to understand your offense, neither despairing of the Lord's mercy nor yet claiming pardon as already yours. As much as God, with a father's love, is always indulgent and good, so much is he to be feared with a judge's majesty. As greatly as we have sinned, so greatly let us weep. For a deep wound let careful and long treatment not be lacking; let penance not be less than the crime. Do you think God can quickly be appeased, whom you disowned with faithless words, to whom you preferred your property, whose temple you violated with sacrilegious contagion? Do you think he will easily have mercy on you, whom you said was not yours? You must pray and ask more earnestly, spend the day in mourning, pass the nights in vigils and weeping, occupy all your time with tearful lamentations, lie stretched on the ground and cling to ashes, roll in sackcloth and filth; after losing the garment of Christ, want no clothing now; after the devil's food, prefer fasting; apply yourselves to just works, by which sins are purged; give yourselves frequently to almsgiving, by which souls are freed from death. What the adversary was taking away, let Christ receive; nor should property now be held or loved, by which one was both deceived and conquered. It is to be avoided by its possessors as an enemy, fled from as a robber, feared as a sword and poison. Let what has remained be useful only for this, that crime and guilt may be redeemed by it. Let the work of charity be done without hesitation and generously; let all wealth be spent for the healing of the wound; let us lend with our riches and means to the Lord, who is to judge us. So faith flourished under the apostles; so the first people of believers kept Christ's commands: they were ready, they were generous; they gave everything to be distributed by the apostles, and they were not redeeming such sins.

If one prays with his whole heart, if he groans with the laments and tears of true penance, if he bends the Lord to pardon of his sin by just and continual works, he who has shown his mercy can have mercy on such, saying, “When you have turned and groaned, then you will be saved and will know where you have been”; and again, “I do not desire the death of the dying, says the Lord, so much as that he return and live.” And the prophet Joel declares the Lord's tenderness at the Lord's own prompting: “Return,” he says, “to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and kind and patient and of great mercy, and one who turns aside his sentence against the evil inflicted.” He can grant indulgence; he can turn aside his sentence. To one who repents, works, and asks he can mercifully pardon; he can credit to his account whatever the martyrs have asked and the priests have done on behalf of such. Or if anyone has moved him more by his own satisfactions, if he has appeased his anger and the offense of his indignation by just entreaty, he gives again arms with which the conquered may be armed; he restores and strengthens the powers by which renewed faith may be invigorated. The soldier will resume his contest, he will repeat the battle, he will challenge the enemy, made indeed stronger for the fight through his grief. He who has made satisfaction to God in this way, who by penance for his deed, by shame for his sin, has conceived more virtue and faith from the very grief of his fall, heard and helped by the Lord, will make glad the church which he had lately saddened, and will deserve not only God's pardon but a crown.