Venial Sin. 29
Psalm 118. Hence it is that Augustine says often that we need not say, "forgive us our trespasses," for the involuntary motions of our concupiscence, because he held them all forgiven in baptism (epist.
200 ad Asellec., lib. perfect. Justit., in Psal. 118, conc. 3).
4. Sometimes they speak of the external suggestions of Satan, and these indeed are no sins of ours, unless we give our assent unto them, so says Gregory (Moral., lib. 21, cap. 3).
Venial Sin 1. A venial sin which is beside God's law, and not against it, and its nature binds only unto the guilt of temporal punishment, was not known among the fathers for seven hundred years after Christ.
Afterwards it got entrance and patronage. "The reward," says Haimo (in epist. dominice 8, post pentacosten), "of sin is death, not of all sins, but only of those that are criminal, and whereof John says, it is a sin unto death."
2. The fathers acknowledge that all sin properly, and of its own nature, deserves eternal death by the just judgment of God. "There is a daily repentance of good and humble believers," says Augustine
(epist. 108), "when knocking our breasts we say, forgive us our trespasses; for we do not beg forgiveness for those which we know are forgiven in baptism, but for them which (though but sin all) yet are often incident unto human's frailty, and being drawn to a sum against us, would oppress us as much as another heavy sin. For what difference is it in shipwreck to be sunk with one furious billow, or to have the water enter by little and little and never respect it until it sink the ship?" And again (Tract. 12, in Joan.), "Many little, or small, sins, unregarded, kill the soul." Besides (Exposit. 1, in epist. Joan.),
"Many light sins make one heavy one." "All sin," says Nazianzene
(Orat. 31), "is the death of the soul." "And who is he," says the author Asceticorum, "that dare say this sin is little, whatever it be?" "I know not," says Jerome (epist. 14), "how we can call any sin light, which is done in contempt of God." "The reproving sentence of the severe
Judge," says Bede (in Samuel, lib. prim., cap. 10), "does not only condemn those fires of capital sins, wherein the devil's works are manifest, but even all little ones, and these also which men may hold slender or light." "Every sin," says Gregory (in Ezec., lib. 1, hom. 2),
"is heavy, because it withholds the soul from ascending." "To use "Idle speeches," says Sixtus III (De malis doct. & oper. fidei), "or to call a man a fool, seem small and slender faults," but he adds, "if he be guilty of hell that calls his brother fool, what sin can then be not deserving hell, I leave the reader to judge." "All sin," says Gerson (De vita spirit, lect. 1), "in that it is an offence to God, against His eternal law, is in its own nature and indignity, deadly, according to the rigor of justice, and severing a man from the life of glory." Again, "No offence is venial in itself, but only through God's mercy, who will not impute all offences expressly unto death, when as in justice He might, so that it is concluded that sin mortal and venial, in being so, are not intrinsically and essentially distinguished, but only in respect of the divine mercy, which imputes the one unto death, and not the other." And thus holds Roffenis (In refut. articul. 32 Lutheri). "That opinion," says Bajus, professor of Louvain, "is not to be reproved, which says, that even light sins, excluding Christ's blood, in their own nature bar us from heaven." This he proves by many texts of Scripture.
3. The fathers call sin venial, not because it is so in itself, but because it is in the person of the righteous, unto whom is given remission of sins in Christ through the grace of God. In this sense Bede
(comment. in 1 Johan. 5) says, "Here are some small sins, which
cannot take from the just the merit of their justice, nor diminish it."
"Sin," says Cyril (Catec. 2), "is heavy to the retainer, and light to the rejecter." And Cassianus (Collat. 22) says that such sins are pardonable unto the righteous.
4. Also that was called a venial sin which had pardon in the censure of the church. For greater sins were thought worthy of excommunication, and for those was public penance performed. But in these lighter, that is, venial sins, it was not so. And hereupon is venial so often opposed unto criminal. "There are some sins great and pernicious," says Tertullian (de pudicit.), "and other some that we daily run into, and to which we are so incident, that if they were not pardonable, no man could be saved, but for these there is pardon in Christ the Mediator." So Augustine (epist. 89) says, "There are some vices called crimes, and some, without which no man lives."
And Caesarius (Homil. 1): "Sin is either capital or small. Capital, as murder, sacrilege, etc." And Bede (in Psal. 3) opposes venial sin unto criminal, taking criminal for that which the magistrate punishes.
Now this that the fathers speak of sins after the manner and respect of men, the schoolmen have transferred unto God, and so have set down a kind of sin which needs not Christ's blood to purge it.
5. Third, that is called a venial sin which obtains pardon in the event and consequent, though it be mortal in itself. So Ambrose (lib. de parad., cap. 4): "That fault is pardonable, which a confession of sins follows." "There are some sins," says the author (de vera & falsa paenit. apud Aug, cap. 18), "that are in themselves mortal, but by repentance are made venial." "Now," says Augustine (de Civit. Dei, lib. 21, c. 27), "since we know not the measure of our venial iniquity
(though it continues in us), surely we take greater pains to profit in good, and be more fervent in prayer." And "The mortal sin hereunto opposed is the sin that leads unto death," so says Pacian (epist. 3, ad