CHAPTER FIVE: Repentance (part 3 of 3)
We shall signify all punishments generally by the word judgment, which we shall divide into two kinds. We shall call the first a judgment of vengeance and the second a judgment of correction.
By the judgment of vengeance, the Lord punishes his enemies in such a manner that he displays his wrath against them in order to ruin, destroy, and bring them to nothing. Therefore, it is properly called God’s vengeance when the punishment he sends is joined with his wrath.
By the judgment of correction, he does not punish as one enraged, nor does he chastise in order to destroy or confound. Therefore, properly speaking, it ought not to be called vengeance, but admonition and correction.
The one belongs to a judge, the other to a father. For when a judge punishes an evildoer, he punishes his fault and crime. But when a father corrects his son, he does not aim to take vengeance upon his fault. Rather, he seeks to instruct him and make him more cautious for the future.
Chrysostom uses this comparison somewhat differently, though he arrives at the same point:
“The son is beaten, and so is the servant. But the servant is punished because he has sinned and receives what he deserves; the son is chastened by loving discipline.”
Therefore, chastisement is administered to the son in order to amend him and restore him to the right way, while the servant receives what he has deserved because the master is indignant against him.
But to understand the whole matter more easily, we must make two distinctions. The first is that wherever punishment aims at vengeance, the wrath and curse of God are revealed, which he never directs against his believers. Correction, on the contrary, is a blessing from God and a testimony of his love, as Scripture says:
“Blessed is the man whom God corrects.”
And again:
“My son, do not despise the Lord’s correction, for the Lord corrects the one whom he loves.”
—Proverbs 3:11–12; Hebrews 12:5–6
This difference is frequently noted. For all the afflictions the wicked endure in this world are to them like a gateway and entrance to hell, from which they perceive their everlasting condemnation as though from afar. So far are they from being amended or receiving any benefit from them that by these afflictions the Lord rather prepares them to receive the horrible punishment that must finally come upon them.
The Lord also chastises his servants, but not to deliver them over to death. Therefore, when struck by his rods, they recognize that this turns to their good and instruction. Thus, just as we see that believers have always received such chastisements patiently and with a peaceful heart, so they have always regarded with horror those punishments in which God’s wrath is displayed against them.
Jeremiah says:
“Correct me, Lord, but for my amendment and not in your wrath, lest I be brought to nothing. Pour out your fury upon the nations that do not know you and upon the kingdoms that do not call upon your name.”
Likewise, David says:
“Lord, do not rebuke me in your fury or correct me in your wrath.”
—Psalm 6:1; 38:1
Nor is this contradicted by the fact that the Lord is often said to be angry with his servants when he punishes and chastises their faults. Thus Isaiah says:
“I will praise you, Lord, for you were angry with me; but your fury has turned away, and you have comforted me.”
Likewise, Habakkuk says:
“When you are angry, remember mercy.”
For by the same manner of speaking God is said to profane his inheritance, although we know that he will never truly profane it. Such language therefore does not refer to God’s will or to the purpose he has in chastising his people, but to the intense pain experienced by all those toward whom he displays some rigor or severity.
Indeed, he sometimes not only pricks his servants with small goads but wounds them so deeply that they imagine themselves not far from hell. In doing this, he warns them that they have deserved his wrath, yet at the same time he assures them more fully of his clemency than of his severity.
For the covenant which he once made with Jesus Christ and his members remains as he promised and can never be broken:
“If his children forsake my Law and do not walk in my judgments, if they transgress my commandments and do not keep my ordinances, I will visit their iniquities with the rod and their sins with discipline. Nevertheless, I will not withdraw my mercy.”
Indeed, to make us more certain of this, he says that the rods with which he will strike us will be the rods of men. By this expression, signifying that he will treat us gently and graciously, he shows that those whom he should strike with the full force of his hand could only be utterly overwhelmed and confounded.
The gentleness he exercises toward his people is likewise shown by the Prophet:
“I have refined you in the fire, but not as silver.”
For otherwise they would have been entirely consumed. That is, although the tribulations he sends upon his people are occasioned by their sins and faults, he nevertheless moderates them so that they do not destroy them beyond measure.
The second distinction is that when the wicked are struck by the scourges of God in this world, they already begin to endure the severity of his judgment. Although they will not be excused for failing to profit from these warnings of God’s wrath, they are nevertheless not punished for their amendment, but only to make them understand that they have a Judge who will not allow them to escape without repaying them according to their deserts.
Believers, on the contrary, are struck not to make satisfaction for God’s wrath or to pay what is owed to his judgment, but so that they may advance in repentance and return to the right way. We therefore see that such chastisements relate more to the future than to the past.
I prefer to express this in the words of Chrysostom rather than my own:
“The Lord punishes us for our faults, not to obtain some compensation for our sins, but to make us more cautious for the future.”
According to this distinction, when God deprived Saul of his kingdom, he punished him in vengeance; but when he took David’s child from him, he corrected David for his amendment.
We must understand Saint Paul’s words in this manner:
“When the Lord afflicts us, he corrects us so that we may not be condemned with the world.”
That is, the afflictions he sends us are not punishments intended to destroy us, but chastisements intended to instruct us.
Saint Augustine also agrees very well with us when he says that we must consider differently the chastisements by which our Lord visits his elect and the reprobate:
“For the former, after they have obtained grace, they are exercises; for the latter, without grace, they are condemnation.”
He then cites the examples of David and others, saying that the Lord had no other purpose in chastising them than to exercise them in humility.
Nor should we infer from Isaiah’s statement that the iniquity of the Jewish people was forgiven because they had received full correction from the Lord’s hand that the forgiveness of our sins depends upon the chastisements we receive for them.
Rather, the meaning is as though God had said:
“I have punished and afflicted you enough, so that your heart has been entirely oppressed with sorrow and anguish. It is therefore time that, upon receiving the message of mercy, your hearts should be restored to joy.”
Believers must arm themselves with this thought amid the bitterness of their afflictions:
“The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God.”
What would believers do if they regarded the tribulation they endure as God’s vengeance upon them? For whoever, when struck by God’s hand, regards him as a judge punishing him cannot conceive of him otherwise than as angry and hostile. He cannot but detest God’s rod as a curse and condemnation.
In short, whoever thinks that God is so disposed toward him that he still intends to punish him can never persuade himself that God loves him. We cannot profit from his discipline unless, while recognizing that he is displeased with our sins, we nevertheless regard him as gracious toward us and as bearing us an affection of love.
Nor does it make any difference whether the punishment is everlasting or temporal. For wars, famines, pestilences, and diseases are just as truly curses of God as the judgment of everlasting death when our Lord sends them for the purpose of using them as instruments of his wrath and vengeance against the wicked.
Everyone can see, I think, the purpose of God’s correction of David. It was to teach him how grievously murder and adultery displease God, since he displayed such wrath against them, and to warn him not to dare commit such an act again in the future. It was not a punishment by which David made some compensation to God for his fault.
We must judge in the same way concerning that other correction by which God afflicted the Jewish people with a terrible pestilence because of David’s disobedience in numbering the people. For he forgave David the guilt of the offense. But because it was necessary, both as an example for every age and for David’s humiliation, that such an act should not remain unpunished, our Lord chastised him severely with his rod.
The universal curse which our Lord pronounced upon the whole human race serves the same purpose. For when, even after obtaining grace, we still bear the miseries imposed upon our father Adam for his transgression, our Lord thereby warns us how greatly the transgression of his Law displeases him, so that, humbled and cast down by recognizing our poverty, we may aspire with more ardent desire toward true blessedness.
If anyone were to say that all the calamities we endure in this mortal life are compensations made to God for our faults, he would rightly be regarded as lacking understanding.
This, it seems to me, is what Saint Chrysostom intended when he wrote:
“If the reason God chastises us is to prevent us from continuing in evil or remaining hardened, then once he has brought us to repentance, punishment no longer has any place.”
Therefore, according as he knows what is suitable to each person’s nature, he treats some more severely and others more gently. Nevertheless, because there is none of us who does not wander and because we all need chastisement, this good Father, desiring our profit, visits us all without exception with his rods.
It is astonishing that they fix their attention upon the single example of David and are unmoved by so many examples demonstrating the free forgiveness of sins.
We read that the publican went down from the Temple justified, and no punishment followed. Saint Peter obtained pardon for his sin. As Saint Ambrose says:
“We read of his tears; we do not read of any satisfaction.”
It was said to the paralytic:
“Rise; your sins are forgiven.”
And no punishment was imposed upon him. All the absolutions mentioned in Scripture are described to us as free. The rule ought to be drawn from this multitude of examples rather than from that one instance which contains something peculiar to itself.
In exhorting Nebuchadnezzar:
“Redeem your sins by righteousness and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor,”
Daniel did not mean that righteousness and mercy were a propitiation before God or a redemption from punishments. For there has never been any other ransom than the blood of Christ. But in speaking of redeeming, Daniel refers it to men rather than to God, as though he had said: “O King, you have exercised an unjust and outrageous dominion. You have oppressed the weak, plundered the poor, and treated your people wickedly and unjustly. In return for the robberies, oppressions, and acts of violence you have committed against them, now render mercy and justice to them.”
Likewise, when Solomon says that a multitude of sins is covered by love, he does not mean before God, but among men. For the whole statement reads:
“Hatred stirs up contentions, but love covers all iniquities.”
Here Solomon, according to his customary manner, compares by way of contrast the evils produced by hatred with the fruits of love. His meaning is this: those who hate one another bite, rebuke, and insult one another, turning everything into fault and reproach. Those who love one another overlook, tolerate, and forgive many things between themselves—not because one approves the other’s faults, but because he bears with them and seeks to remedy them by admonition rather than aggravating them by accusations.
Nor should we doubt that Saint Peter cited this passage in the same sense, unless we wish to charge him with corrupting and misapplying Scripture.
When Solomon says that sins are forgiven through mercy and kindness, he does not mean that they are compensated for before God so that, being satisfied and contented, he remits the punishments he would otherwise have sent. Rather, according to Scripture’s common manner of speaking, he means that all who forsake their evil life and turn to God in holiness and good works will find him gracious to them. It is as though he said that God’s wrath ceases and is appeased when we cease to do evil. This manner of speaking has been treated elsewhere.
As for the passage in Saint Luke, those who read our Lord’s parable there with sound judgment will raise no controversy against us. The Pharisee thought within himself that our Lord did not know the sinful woman, since he had so readily allowed her to approach him. For he imagined that Christ would never have received her if he had known her to be the sinner she was. From this he inferred that Christ was not a prophet, since he could be so mistaken.
Our Lord, to show that she was no longer to be regarded as a sinner after her sins had been forgiven, presented this comparison:
“A creditor had two debtors. One owed him fifty francs and the other five hundred. He forgave the debt of both. Which of them ought to be more grateful to him?”
The Pharisee answered:
“Certainly, the one whose greater debt was forgiven.”
Our Lord replied:
“From this understand that many sins have been forgiven this woman, since she has loved much.”
As is plainly evident, by these words he does not make the woman’s love the cause of the forgiveness of her sins, but only its proof. For they are drawn from the comparison of the debtor whose five hundred francs had been forgiven. He does not say that they were forgiven because the debtor loved much, but that the debtor ought to love much because they had been forgiven.
The words must therefore be applied to the comparison in this manner: “You regard this woman as a sinner, but you ought to recognize her as otherwise, since her sins have been forgiven. The forgiveness of her sins ought to have been evident to you from her love, by which she gives thanks for the blessing bestowed upon her.”
This is an argument drawn from subsequent effects, by which we demonstrate something from the signs that follow it. Finally, our Lord expressly testifies by what means this woman obtained pardon for her sin:
“Your faith has saved you.”
We therefore obtain forgiveness through faith; by love we give thanks and acknowledge the Lord’s liberality.
I am not greatly surprised by the statements concerning satisfaction found in the writings of the ancient Fathers. To speak truthfully, I see that some of them—and nearly all whose works have come down to us—either erred at this point or spoke too harshly.
But I will not concede that they were so crude and ignorant as to have written what they said in the sense now imposed upon their words by these modern advocates of satisfaction. Chrysostom speaks in this manner in one passage:
“When mercy is sought, it is so that a man’s sin may not be examined, that he may not be treated according to the rigor of justice, and that all punishment may cease. For where there is mercy, there is no longer Gehenna, examination, rigor, or punishment.”
However they may attempt to evade these words, they can never be reconciled with the doctrine of the Scholastics.
Furthermore, in the book entitled De Dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis, which is attributed to Saint Augustine, it is said in the fifty-fourth chapter:
“The satisfaction of repentance consists in removing the causes of sin and no longer yielding to its suggestions.”
From this it is evident that in those days the opinion that past offenses must be compensated for by satisfactions was rejected. For all satisfaction is there directed toward guarding oneself for the future and abstaining from evil.
I shall not cite Chrysostom’s statement that the Lord requires nothing else from us except that we confess our faults before him with tears, since such statements are frequently repeated by the ancient Fathers.
Saint Augustine does indeed, in one place, call works of mercy toward the poor remedies for obtaining pardon from God. But so that no one should be confused or entangled by this, he explains his meaning more fully elsewhere:
“The flesh of Christ is the true and only sacrifice for sins—not only for those forgiven us in baptism, but also for those which afterward arise from the infirmity of the flesh, for which the Church prays daily, ‘Forgive us our debts.’ Indeed, they are forgiven through this one sacrifice.”
Most often, however, the ancient Fathers used the word satisfaction not for a compensation rendered to God, but for a public declaration by which those who had been disciplined through excommunication, when they came to be restored to the communion of the Church, gave the company of believers evidence of their repentance.
For certain fasts and other observances were appointed for them, by which they demonstrated that they truly and sincerely repented of their former life—or rather, by which they erased the memory of their evil conduct. Thus they were said to make satisfaction, not to God, but to the Church.
From this ancient custom have descended the confessions and satisfactions now in use. They are truly a serpentine brood which has so completely suffocated everything that was good in that ancient practice that not even its shadow remains.
I know well that the ancient Fathers sometimes speak rather crudely, and, as I said a little earlier, I do not wish to deny that they may occasionally have erred. But their books, which were only marked by a few small stains, are entirely defiled when handled by these swine.
And if the matter is to be decided by the authority of the ancient Fathers, what ancient Fathers do they set before us? The greater part of the statements with which Peter Lombard, their captain, filled his book were drawn from the fantasies of I know not what foolish monks, circulated under the names of Saint Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Chrysostom.
In the present matter, for example, he borrows nearly everything he says from a book entitled On Repentance. This book, confusedly stitched together by some ignorant person from good and bad authors, is attributed to Saint Augustine, though it is such a work that a moderately learned man would not condescend to acknowledge it as his own.
Likewise, let them no longer trouble our heads with their purgatory, which has been cut down, demolished, and uprooted by this axe. For I do not approve the opinion of those who think we ought to pass over this point in silence and refrain from mentioning purgatory because, as they say, it gives rise to great controversies and produces little edification.
Certainly, I also would advise leaving such nonsense behind if it did not carry such serious consequences with it. But since purgatory is constructed from many blasphemies, is daily supported by still greater ones, and gives rise to great scandals, it must not be passed over in silence.
Perhaps it might have been overlooked for a time that it was invented without the Word of God through foolish and audacious rashness; that it was received on the authority of I know not what revelations fabricated by Satan’s cunning; and that certain passages of Scripture were wickedly corrupted to confirm it.
Nevertheless, our Lord does not regard it as a light offense when human audacity rashly intrudes into the secrets of his judgments. He has strictly forbidden men to seek truth from the dead while despising his voice, nor does he permit his Word to be treated so irreverently.
Yet let us grant that all these things could be tolerated for a time as though they were of little importance. But when the cleansing of sins is sought anywhere other than in Christ, and satisfaction is transferred elsewhere than to him, it is dangerous to remain silent.
We must therefore cry aloud that purgatory is a pernicious fiction of Satan which casts intolerable reproach upon the mercy of God, makes the cross of Christ of no effect, and dissipates and overthrows our faith.
For what is their purgatory except a punishment suffered by the souls of the departed in satisfaction for their sins? Thus, if the notion of satisfaction is removed, their purgatory immediately collapses.
Now, if what we have previously argued makes it more than evident that the blood of Christ is the only cleansing, offering, and satisfaction for the sins of believers, what remains except that purgatory is a pure and horrible blasphemy against Jesus Christ?
I pass over the many falsehoods and sacrileges by which it is daily maintained and defended, the scandals it produces in religion, and the innumerable other evils that have flowed from this source of impiety.
Nevertheless, we must tear from their hands those testimonies of Scripture which they customarily and falsely claim for themselves. They say:
“When the Lord declares that the sin against the Holy Spirit will be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come, he indicates that certain sins will be forgiven in the world to come.”
In reply, I ask whether it is not evident that the Lord is speaking there of the guilt of sin. If so, it contributes nothing to their purgatory, for they say that punishment is suffered there for sins whose guilt was forgiven in this mortal life.
Nevertheless, to stop their mouths completely, I shall give them an even clearer answer. Because the Lord intended to remove every hope of obtaining pardon for so execrable a crime, he was not content merely to say that it would never be forgiven. For greater emphasis, he used this division, placing on one side the judgment which each person’s conscience feels in the present life, and on the other the final judgment that will be publicly revealed on the day of resurrection.
It is as though he had said: “Beware of fighting against God with deliberate malice, for such rebellion brings everlasting death. Whoever deliberately endeavors to extinguish the light of the Spirit presented to him will obtain pardon neither in this life, which is appointed for sinners to be converted, nor on the final day, when God’s angels will separate the lambs from the goats and cleanse the Kingdom of God from every stumbling block.”
They also bring forward this parable from Saint Matthew:
“Come to terms with your adversary, lest he bring you before the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and the officer cast you into prison, from which you will not depart until you have paid the last farthing.”
I answer that if in this passage the judge signifies God, the adversary the Devil, the officer an angel, and the prison purgatory, then I concede that they have won.
But if it is evident that Christ intended to show how many dangers those expose themselves to who would rather pursue their quarrels and lawsuits to the bitter end than settle them amicably, thereby warning us always to seek peace with everyone, where will purgatory be found here? In short, let the passage be examined and understood in its plain meaning, and nothing they claim will be found in it.
They also draw a proof from Saint Paul’s words:
“Every knee shall bow before Christ, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth.”
They take it as settled that those under the earth cannot mean those who are in everlasting death. Therefore, they conclude that these must be the souls in purgatory.
Their argument would not be bad if by the bending of the knee the Apostle meant the true worship believers render to God. But since he teaches simply that Jesus Christ has received from the Father sovereign dominion over every creature, what is wrong with understanding those under the earth as the devils? They will certainly appear before the Lord’s throne and acknowledge their Judge with terror and trembling.
Saint Paul himself explains this prophecy in another place:
“We shall all appear before Christ’s judgment seat. For the Lord says that every knee shall bow before him.”
They will reply that the words in Revelation cannot be explained in this manner:
“I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the sea saying, ‘Praise, honor, glory, and power forever and ever to him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb.’”
I readily grant them this. But what creatures do they suppose are spoken of here, since even those without soul or understanding are included? Nothing else is signified except that every part of the universe, from the summit of heaven to the center of the earth, each in its own place, magnifies the glory of its Creator.
I shall give no answer to what they produce from the history of the Maccabees, lest I appear to acknowledge that book as canonical.
But they claim to possess an invincible fortress in Saint Paul when he says:
“If anyone, in building upon this foundation, lays gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or stubble, each man’s work will be revealed by the day of the Lord, because it will be disclosed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; yet he himself will be saved, though through fire.”
“What fire,” they ask, “could Saint Paul mean except purgatory, by which our stains are washed away so that we may enter the Kingdom of God purified?”
I answer that many even among the ancient Fathers interpreted it differently, understanding fire as the cross and tribulation by which the Lord tests his people in order to cleanse them from all their uncleanness. This is certainly far more plausible than imagining a purgatory.
Nevertheless, I do not accept this interpretation because I believe I have one that is more certain and clear. First, we see that the Apostle uses a metaphor or comparison, calling doctrines invented in the human mind hay, wood, and stubble. The reason for this comparison is evident: just as wood is consumed as soon as it is brought near the fire, so such human doctrines cannot endure when they are brought under examination. It is also evident that this examination is made by the Holy Spirit.
Thus, to carry the comparison through and make each part correspond to the other, he calls the examination of the Holy Spirit fire. For just as gold and silver are more surely tested the nearer they are brought to the fire, so that their purity may be known, so the truth of God, the more diligently it is considered by spiritual examination, is thereby more firmly confirmed in its authority. Just as wood, stubble, and hay, when cast into the fire, immediately catch flame and are reduced to ashes, so all human inventions that are not established upon the Word of God cannot endure the examination of the Spirit without being destroyed and brought to nothing.
In short, if invented doctrines are compared to wood, stubble, and hay because, like wood, stubble, and hay, they are burned by fire and reduced to nothing; and if they are destroyed and scattered only by the Spirit of God, it follows that the Spirit is the fire by which they are tested. Saint Paul calls this testing the Day of the Lord, according to the usage of Scripture, which speaks in this way whenever the Lord in any manner manifests his presence to men. Now his face shines upon us chiefly when his truth is made clear to us.
We have already proved that fire in Saint Paul signifies nothing other than the examination of the Holy Spirit. It remains to understand how those who suffer the loss of their work will be saved through this fire. This will not be difficult if we consider the kind of men of whom he is speaking. For he refers to those who, in seeking to build up the Church, retain the right foundation but add to it material of a different kind that does not correspond to it. That is, they do not turn aside from the principal and necessary articles of the faith, yet they err in certain matters by mingling human dreams with the truth of God.
Such men, therefore, must suffer the loss of their work—that is, whatever they have added of their own to the Word of God must perish and be trampled underfoot. Their persons, meanwhile, will be saved—not because their error and ignorance are approved by God, but because our Lord, by the grace of his Spirit, withdraws and delivers them from these things.
Therefore, all those who have defiled the sacred purity of Scripture with this filth and ordure of purgatory must allow their work to perish.