Faith and Works

SAINTAUGUSTINE

FAITH AND WORKS

TRANSLATION BY: SOUZA CAMPOS, EL DE TEODORO

EDITOR NITERÓI - RIO DE JANEIRO - BRAZIL

2018

Refutation of three errors to which the author opposes the following three propositions:

1) Every type of person must be admitted indiscriminately to baptism; tolerance for sinners must be reconciled in the Church with the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline.

2) It is necessary to initiate catechumens into the mysteries of the faith, together with the duties of the Christian life.

3) One who has received baptism is incapable of reaching eternal salvation by faith alone, if he does not correct his criminal habits.

Introduction ¹

I received from some brothers — laymen, it is true, but applied to the study of the divine scriptures — some writings that separated Christian faith from good works, to the point of maintaining that one could not arrive at eternal life without the first and that one could without the second.

I answered them in a book entitled Faith and Works. In it I show not only how those who have been regenerated by the grace of Jesus Christ should live, but also how they should be to be admitted to the baptism of regeneration.

1 Of the Reviews. Book II, chap. XXXVIII.

Chapter 1

Should all public sinners be admitted to baptism?

According to the opinion of some people, all people must be admitted indifferently to the sacred bath that regenerates us in Jesus Christ, even those who would not consent to reform their lives stained with crimes and the most notorious infamies and who would affirm their resolve to persevere. in your disorders.

For example, a person who lives in adultery. In the opinion of those people, baptism should be conferred on this adulterer without asking him to sever this criminal relationship. Even if he perseveres in this situation, if he takes pleasure in it and even publicly boasts that he remains in this situation, he must be admitted to baptism and allowed to become a member of Jesus Christ the man who wants to remain in relationship with a prostitute ² . It is hoped that by being baptized he will understand the enormity of his sin and the means of correcting his ways.

According to this opinion, to teach someone to live as a Christian before he is baptized is to reverse and confuse the order of things.

First it is necessary to confer the sacrament and then inculcate the rules of Christian morality.

If they are faithfully observed, one will act according to their interest. If not, keeping the Christian faith — without which one is condemned to eternal death — but persevering in all kinds of infamy, one is saved as if by going through fire. He is saved as he who built on the true foundation—that is, on the doctrine of Jesus Christ—a building, not of gold, silver, or precious stones, but of wood, hay, and straw ³ . In other words, works not of justice and purity, but of injustice and shamelessness.

2 Cf. 1 Corinthians 6:15.

3 Cf. 1 Corinthians 2:11-16.

Chapter 2

The scandal of adulterers and public sinners.

These people seem to have raised this controversy because they regret the refusal of baptism to men and women who, after being divorced, remarried. Such a union, in fact, is not a marriage, but an adultery, as Our Lord Jesus Christ formally declares ⁴ .

Not being able to deny adultery, so openly recognized by the Truth itself in these types of unions, and wanting, however, to admit to baptism, by the weight of their suffrages, the sinners they see so blindly caught in the chains of rottenness and who, if they If baptism were refused, they would rather live and even die without any sacrament, than free themselves from the bonds of adultery, these people were moved by an all-human compassion to devote themselves to the cause of these unfortunates, and with such zeal that they thought they should admit it. them in baptism, and with these sinners, the criminals and the libertines, without giving them any warning, without correcting them with any reprimand, without transforming them through penance. They believed that these people would meet eternal death without baptism, while, through the grace of baptism, they would be saved by fire, despite their obstinacy in living in their unruliness.

4 Cf. Matthew 19:9.

Chapter 3

The salvation of the baptized by the Catholic faith and the tolerance of the wicked in the Church. Testimonies of the Scriptures: Moses and St. Paul.

I reply to these people and declare first that passages where Scripture points out in the present or foretells for the future a mixture of the good and the bad in the Church should not be interpreted in the sense of relaxing or even destroying discipline in its rigor. and in its purity. In this way we would no longer be being enlightened by the Holy Scriptures, but deceived by its proper meaning. Moses, the servant of God, doubtless tolerated with infinite patience this mixture in the primitive people, but not for this did he fail to condemn with the sword a great number of the guilty. The priest Phinehas surprised adulterers and immediately pierced them with the avenging iron ⁵ .

Degradation and excommunication are the symbols of these punishments in the current discipline of the Church, which has returned the visible sword to its sheath.

The holy Apostle contented himself with mourning in the midst of false brethren ⁶ . He allowed some preachers to proclaim Jesus Christ ⁷ , in spite of diabolical envy, whose thorn troubled them, but he did not admit any tolerance towards the Christian who married his father's wife and ordered the Church to assemble and hand him over to Satan, for the death of his flesh and with the objective that his soul would be saved on the day of the Last Judgment of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who also delivered several to Satan, so that they would learn not to blaspheme ⁸ .

Were it not so, the following words would have no meaning: In my letter I wrote you not to be familiar with the immodest. However, I did not refer in an absolute way to all the immodest in this world, the greedy, the thieves or the idolaters, for in that case you should leave this world. But I simply wanted to tell you not to have communication with him who, calling himself a brother, is unclean, covetous, idolatrous, slanderer, drunkard, thief. With such individuals you must not even eat. For what have I to judge those who are outside? Is it not the inside that you must judge? It is God who will judge those who are outside... Put the wicked out of your midst ⁹ .

With the words of your midst, some understand the obligation we all have to snatch from ourselves sin or, in other words, to become good. But, whether understanding that it is necessary to hand over the wicked to the severity of the Church and inflicting on them the penalty of excommunication, or seeing in this passage the duty of every believer to extirpate sin from his heart through penance and change of life, there is no doubt in the words in which the Apostle prescribes that one should have no intercourse with brethren tainted by the vices he enumerates, that is, with persons notoriously fallen and lost.

As for the spirit of charity which should temper this merciful severity, it is not only shown in the passage where the Apostle says: In order that your soul may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus ¹⁰ but it manifestly appears also in this passage: If whoever does not obey what we command by this letter, take note of him and, lest he be ashamed, cease to be acquainted with him. However, you must not consider him as an enemy, but rebuke him as a brother ¹¹ .

5 Cf. Numbers 25: 5-8.

6 Cf. 1 Corinthians 5:1-5.

7 Cf. Philippians 1:16-18.

8 Cf. 1 Timothy 1:20.

9 1 Corinthians 5:9-13.

10 1 Corinthians 5:5.

11 2 Thessalonians 3:14 and 15.

Chapter 4

The example of Christ.

The Lord himself offers us an incomparable model of patience. He suffered to the point of passion with a devil in the midst of the twelve Apostles.

He said: By pulling out the tares, you risk pulling out the wheat also.

Let them grow together until the harvest. At harvest time, I will say to the reapers: First pull out the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them.

Then I gathered the wheat in my barn ¹² .

In the parable of the net — a symbol of the Church, which extends to the shore, that is, to the end of the world — he says that it involves both the good and the bad fish.

Lastly, in many other passages, he spoke expressly, or in parables, of the mingling of the good with the bad.

However, did he ever command not to maintain Church discipline? Far from it. He warns us to follow the rules, when he says, If your brother has sinned against you, go and rebuke him between you and him alone; if he listens to you, you will have won your brother. If he does not listen to you, take one or two people with you, so that the whole matter can be resolved by the decision of two or three witnesses. If you refuse to listen to them, tell the Church. And if he refuses to listen also to the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican ¹³ .

He still adds this passage, in which he gives severity this fearful sanction: Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will also be loosed in ^heaven .

He also forbids us to give holy things to dogs ¹⁵ .

When the Apostle says: Rebuke those who fail in their duties before all, so that others also may be afraid ¹⁶ he does not contradict the words of the Lord: he rebukes him between you and him alone. This is, in effect, a double precept that must be applied with a view to the different diseases of sinners that we want to cure and save and not lose; the remedy varies from person to person. The rule is therefore different; sometimes it is necessary to tolerate the wicked with indulgence, sometimes to rebuke and correct them, sometimes to drive them away and cut off communication with the faithful.

12 Matthew 13:29 and 30.

13 Matthew 18:16-18.

14 Matthew 18:19.

15 Cf. Matthew 7:6.

16 1 Timothy 5:20.

Chapter 5

Dogmatic errors.

To fall into error is not to maintain a fair middle ground; it is when only one side of the truth is seen and it is allowed to go to a point where one no longer thinks about the other witnesses of religious authority, that are able to interrupt this precipitation and lead back to the center of the truth, which is in agreement with all the testimonies among them.

This is a source of error not only in the question we are dealing with at the moment, but in a large number of other questions as well. For example, some, considering that the testimonies of the Scriptures imply that one must worship one God, have confused the Father and the Holy Spirit with the Son. Others, afflicted, so to speak, by a completely opposite disease, only pay attention to the passages that reveal the Trinity and, not being able to understand that the unity of God is reconciled with the distinction of persons, believe that they are based on recognizing various substances in God. .

Some, admiring the praise of holy virginity in the Scriptures, condemned marriage, and others, on the contrary, following the testimonies that praise holy matrimony, equated virginity with nuptials.

Another error: some, faced with the passage Good is not to eat meat, nor drink wine, or anything else that for your brother could be an occasion of fall ¹⁷ and similar ones, declared all foods that they liked to be unclean in divine creation.

Still others, reading: Everything that God created is good and there is nothing objectionable, when used with thanksgiving ¹⁸ , they adopted a system of sensuality and excesses that made them incapable of avoiding a fault without falling into another equal or even even more serious.

17 Romans 14:21.

18 1 Timothy 4:4.

Chapter 6

pastoral errors

Hence, the origin of the debate that concerns us. Some, only considering the strict precepts which command us to repress the disturbers, not to give the dogs holy things, to regard the critic of the Church as a pagan, to remove from the body of the faithful the member who scandalizes and disturbs the peace of the Church; these people go so far as to strain to pull out the tares before the harvest, blinded by their pre-judgment and not feeling that they themselves separate themselves from the unity of Jesus Christ.

This is what we held against the Donatists. And not against those who know that Ceciliano has been exposed to accusations as false as they are slanderous, and that only a fatal feeling of human respect prevents them from renouncing his pernicious opinion. But against those to whom I address these words: even if those who gave the pretext to your schism had been evil, you should remain faithful to the Church, bearing with the sinners you had no power to correct or excommunicate.

Others have fallen into an entirely opposite error and are only touched by passages where the mixing of the good and the bad in the Church is pointed out and predicted. They only learned the precepts that recommend patience, without thinking that these precepts are destined to give us faith and to keep faith and charity, despite the chaff that we see in the Church and to prevent us from leaving it, under the pretext that we only observe the chaff in it. Thus removed, they think that Church discipline should be abolished. They want to inspire those who govern them with a false security and reduce their function to preaching what must be done or what must be avoided, quietly letting everyone follow their instincts.

Chapter 7

One must not abandon the Church because of the wicked, nor neglect discipline against the wicked themselves.

We believe that true doctrine consists in basing our conduct and our thoughts on the testimonies of Scripture, tempering one another. Dogs must be tolerated in the Church, in order to ensure the peace of the Church itself, and to refuse holy things to dogs, when the rest of the Church is not disturbed.

Does it happen that - through the negligence of superiors, through the natural force of things or by surprise - sinners are found in the Church to whom we cannot apply the censures or penalties of ecclesiastical law? Let us avoid opening our hearts to impious thinking, inasmuch as it is dangerous to separate ourselves from them to avoid the contagion of their sins and to want to drag disciples behind us, as if they were models of innocence and holiness and to bind them to unity, under the pretext of freeing them from the influence of vices.

Let us remember the parables of Scripture. The divine oracles have at least the infallible examples that show and predict that the evil will be mixed with the good in the Church until the end of the world and until the final judgment, without their participation in the sacraments ever harming the righteous, who do not will be involved with their sins.

Church leaders have, on the contrary, the power to exercise their authority against the wicked and criminals without disturbing the peace. So, if we don't want to fall into apathy and indolence, we must stick to the precepts concerning severity. In this way, we guide our steps in the Way of the Lord, following the path that the different passages of the Scriptures trace for us, without hiding our lukewarmness under the veil of tolerance or disguising our rigor under the appearance of zeal.

Chapter 8

When should baptism be admitted to the incorrigible adulterer and sinner.

Let us then examine, observing the just moderation which holy doctrine commands, the question whether we should admit to baptism, without taking any precaution not to give dogs holy things, and whether we should shun tolerance to the point of deeming them worthy of receiving a so august sacrament those who openly live in adultery and even affirm their resolve to remain in it.

It is beyond doubt that they would not be admitted if, on the days that they must receive this grace and that, by inscribing themselves, they purify themselves in abstinence, fasting and exorcisms, they are seen sharing a bed, even with a legitimate wife and who they refuse to observe, in that solemn moment, the continence to which they are not subjected for the rest of the time.

In what situation, then, could the adulterer who refuses to correct himself be admitted to this sacrament, when the married man who does not consent to temporary celibacy is refused?

Chapter 9

The need for instruction prior to baptism.

Let him be baptized first, they say, and then teach the rules of morals.

Undoubtedly, when a person is suddenly in danger of death, an act of faith is made to him, with certain formulas that bring together all the dogmas in abbreviated form, and baptism is conferred on him, so that, if he comes to die, do not be under the blow of the accusation that would drag your past faults.

But if this sacrament is asked in full health and with time for instruction, there is a more favorable moment to teach how to become and remain a Christian than when it is requested with the attention and expectation provoked by one's own religion, the sacrament intended to strengthen the faith?

Have we lost our memory to the point where we do not remember the attention and emotion that the teaching of the catechists excited in us when we asked for baptism and received the designation of postulants?

Do we not also see, every year, the spirit of those who come to be regenerated in the holy water, submitting to instructions, exorcisms, examinations of conscience? What recollection, what fervent zeal, what anxiety mixed with hope! If this is not the time to learn the secret of bringing your conduct into harmony with the grandeur of the sacrament you wish to receive, when will it be? Will it be when, having already received the sacrament and obstinately in the most serious faults, even after baptism, will we be faced with an old guilty rather than a renewed being?

There is, of course, a strange contradiction in beginning by saying: “Put on the new man”, and then adding: “Strip off the old man”, when the Apostle, following the natural order of things, says: You have put off the old man with Lord ¹⁹ himself cries out: No one puts a patch of new cloth on an old garment, for he would tear off a part of the garment and the tear would be worse. Neither new wine is put into old wineskins; otherwise, the wineskins burst, the wine spills, and the wineskins are lost. However, the new wine is placed in new wineskins, and thus both are preserved ²⁰ .

What good is the time in which one has the title and rank of catechumen, if not to learn what the faith and conduct of a Christian consist of, so that, having proved himself, he may present himself to eat at the Lord's table? and to drink from your cup?

Let each one examine himself and so eat of this bread and drink of this cup. He who eats and drinks it without distinguishing the body of the Lord, eats and drinks his own condemnation21.

If these maxims are followed throughout the time wisely fixed in the Church, in order to keep among the catechumens those who want to take the name of Christ, vigilance and zeal intensify even more on these days when the title of postulant is received, after application to be baptized.

19 Colossians 3:9 and 10.

20 Matthew 9:16 and 17.

21 1 Corinthians 11:28 and 29.

Chapter 10

A virgin who has married, ignorantly, to a married man must be considered an adulteress.

But—they insist—what if a woman unknowingly marries a married man?

Well then! If she continues to ignore this bigamy, she will never be an adulteress. But if she learns of bigamy, she becomes an adulteress the very moment she becomes aware of this illegitimate relationship.

It is like the rural code, in which one is considered a squatter in good faith, when one unconsciously holds the possession of someone else's property. But the moment one becomes aware that the property belongs to someone else, one becomes considered a squatter in bad faith and deserves the qualification of unfair.

Far be it from us, I do not say all human compassion, but the illusion that would make us deplore the censure of infamy as an attack on marriage. Especially when we are in the city of God, on the holy mountain ²² ; in other words, in the Church where marriage is not only a union, but also such an august sacrament that a husband has no right to cede his wife to another, as Cato did, in the Roman city, when he gave an example that provoked, not a scandal, but public applause, in the words of historians ²³ .

It would be useless to continue this discussion, because our opponents do not dare to maintain that there is no sin in this matter, much less deny that there is adultery there, lest they put themselves in flagrant contradiction with the Lord himself and the holy Gospels.

Continuing, whether we are to admit these sinners to the Saviour's baptism and table, notwithstanding his clearly confessed resolution to reject all censure; what I say? That it is necessary to avoid directing them any reproach on this subject and to postpone their instruction, to consider them of good grain, if they submit to the observation of the rules and the correction of their faults and to tolerate them as the tares, if they are rebels.

Continuing, I say, this opinion shows us well that one is unwilling to defend such profligacy or to regard them as amenities or peccadilloes. And what is the Christian, moved by sincere hope, who would consent not to overlook adultery or to mitigate it?

22 Cf. Psalm 47:2 and 3.

23 PLUTARCH. Biography of Cato de Utica.

Chapter 11

The false interpretation of Scripture.

It is believed, however, to have deduced from the holy Scriptures the rule which it teaches, either to correct or to tolerate these faults in one's neighbour, when the example of the apostles is cited. Some passages of their letters are reproduced where it is observed that they, in fact, initiated in the mysteries of the faith before teaching the rules of morals.

We want to conclude from this that it is necessary to limit ourselves to transmitting to catechumens the principle of faith and only to provide instructions capable of reforming their customs after baptism.

Well then! Were some of the apostles' letters addressed to those who were prepared to receive baptism, exclusively devoted to the question of faith, and others to those who were baptized, with no other purpose than the precepts to avoid sins and to correct their customs? Now, if it is indisputable that his letters are addressed to already baptized Christians, why did they contain at the same time an exposition of dogma and morality? Would it be said that it is necessary to divide this teaching before baptism and then communicate it as a whole?

If this consequence is absurd, it must be recognized that the apostles, in their letters, imprinted this double feature on their teaching. If, commonly, they initiated the faith before expounding the rules of morality, it is because faith necessarily precedes an honest life in human beings.

For every good deed performed by a human being deserves this qualification only in so far as it is linked to the piety that has God as its object.

If some people carry simplicity and ignorance to the point of believing that the apostles addressed these letters to the catechumens, they are forced to recognize that it is necessary at the same time to expose to those who are preparing for baptism the dogma and the moral rules that flow from it. Otherwise, his argument would have the strict consequence of condemning us to read to the catechumens the beginning of the letters in which the apostles expound the dogma to the faithful and the end, where they retrace the duties of the Christian life. Nothing would be more irrational than such a pretense.

Thus, no evidence can be taken from the letters of the apostles to support the opinion that baptism should be conferred without any other justification than faith and the moral instructions sent after baptism, on the pretext that, at the beginning of their letters, the apostles insisted on the dogma and ended, naturally, with the exhortation to the faithful to live well. For even if this double teaching is made, one at the beginning and the other at the end, it is generally necessary to transmit it in its entirety to catechumens, as to the faithful; both to those who are willing to be baptized, and to those who have already received it; both to instruct them, and to revive their remembrance; both to teach them to confess the faith, and to confirm it; so requires holy and exact doctrine.

Let us then add to the letter of Peter that of John, from which some testimonies are quoted; Paul's letters and that of the other apostles.

In this way one can see his methods of exposing dogma and subordinating it to morality. Method that I have already explained very clearly, if I'm not mistaken.

Chapter 12

Saint Peter preaches faith together with penance to those who are going to be baptized.

But in the Acts of the Apostles, they add, Peter, addressing those who, after having received his word, were baptized, a total of three thousand in one day, only preaches to them faith in Jesus Christ.

When they asked: What shall we do, brethren? Peter answered them: Do penance and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit ²⁴ .

Why then not observe the order Do penance? For penance consists in putting off the old life to put on, in baptism, a new life. Now, what will be gained by doing penance for the works of death, if one does not renounce adultery and all the criminal lusts involved in the love of the world?

Chapter 13

The penance that Saint Peter preaches is not only for the conversion of infidelity, but also for changing the past life.

Saint Peter did not want only to make them renounce unbelief with penance. It is a strange prejudgment—not to use a harsher expression—to want to apply the words Do penance only to unbelief. For it is necessary to change the past life for a new life, according to the doctrine of the Gospel, to which the passage of the Apostle is added, conceived in the same sense: Whoever was a thief must not steal again ²⁵ and a large number of other texts , which teaches in detail how to undress the old human being and put on the new one.

St. Peter's own expressions would suffice to convince, if there was a willingness to reflect on them carefully. After having quoted the words Do repentance and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, and for your children, and for all who hear from afar the appeal of the Lord our God, the holy writer immediately adds In many other words he exhorted them, saying, Save yourselves from the midst of this perverse generation. !

They received these words with fervor, believed in them and were baptized. There were about three thousand people that day who joined the apostles ²⁶ .

How can we not see here that Peter made a long speech, abbreviated by the narrator, to get them out of this perverse generation? For the principle to which he clung in his long speeches to get into minds, is only hinted at.

The essential idea is formulated in these terms: Save yourselves from the midst of this perverse generation! and, to have her adopted, Peter devoted himself to a long exhortation. In it he condemned the works of death, to which sinners bound for the present are devoted, and made to feel the perfection of the pure life, to which those who are separated from this ungodly generation are faithfully bound.

Let us now try to prove that faith in Jesus Christ is enough to save one from this perverse world, even while remaining immersed in all kinds of turpitude and even in notorious adultery! And since such an opinion is impious, it must be recognized that catechumens are obliged to learn not only what it is necessary to believe, but also that it is necessary to practice in order to save themselves from the errors of the world, for in order to achieve this they must learn to conform your conduct to your belief.

24 Acts 2: 37 e 38. What shall we do, men and brothers? But Peter said to them: Do penance, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins: and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

25 Ephesians 4:28.

26 Cf. Acts 2:41.

Chapter 14

The eunuch baptized immediately after profession of faith is not a good example.

The eunuch whom Philip baptized, it is said, hardly uttered these words: I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and with this declaration he was immediately baptized.

Is it to be concluded from this that it suffices to give the same answer to be baptized immediately? The catechist must remain silent and not demand any profession of faith concerning the Holy Spirit, the Holy Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the dead and limit himself to saying that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, not to mention his incarnation in the womb of a virgin, of his passion, of his death on the cross, of his ascension into heaven, where he is seated at the right hand of the Father?

If the eunuch's reply, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, was, in Philip's opinion, a sufficient reason to immediately admit him to baptism, why not imitate his example? Why don't we also suppress the conditions that we see as indispensable for baptizing, even in case of need? I mean the questions about the Mysteries, which catechumens must answer, even if they do not have the time to commit them to memory.

But if the Scriptures passed in silence and left us the task of supplying Philip with what was necessary to prepare the eunuch for baptism, they clearly showed us with the words Philip baptized the eunuch ²⁷ , that all conditions were fulfilled. Conditions which, because they are not mentioned in Scripture due to the need to abbreviate, are none the less obligatory, as we know from tradition.

We must interpret in the same way the passage where it is said that Philip announced the Lord Jesus to the eunuch. There is no doubt that he revealed to him all the principles of the catechism which have a bearing on the conduct and customs of every believer in Jesus Christ.

What is to announce Jesus Christ? It is not just saying that it is necessary to believe, but that it is necessary to practice, if you want to become one of its members. And more: it is to teach all the dogmas concerning Jesus Christ. Not only his divine sonship, his birth after the flesh, the pains and causes of his passion, the effects of his resurrection, the promise and bestowal of the Holy Spirit which he made to the faithful. It is also the virtues that he wants to find in the members of which he is the leader, to seek them, form them, love them, set them free and lead them to the glory of eternal life.

Let us reveal these truths, either with precision and brevity, or in abundance and in detail. Let us proclaim Jesus Christ. In fact, let us not omit anything concerning the faith and conduct of the faithful.

27 Acts 8:35-38.

Chapter 15

St. Paul confesses that he knows nothing but Jesus Christ.

Rationally, the same can be done with the following passage from Saint Paul, also quoted in this controversy: I thought I should not know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ crucified ²⁸ .

In the understanding of our brothers, this text only implies one thing: to baptize first and then teach the rules of the Christian life. This was amply enough, they say, for that Apostle, who, however, told them that, even if they had ten thousand teachers in Jesus Christ, they would not yet have several fathers in Jesus Christ, for it was he alone who generated in Jesus Christ, through the Gospel ²⁹ .

Do they claim that the one who begat them in Jesus Christ, although he gives thanks to God that he did not baptize any of them, apart from Crispus, Gaius and Stephanas ³⁰ , only taught them the crucifixion of Jesus? But if he only preached to them the crucifixion of Jesus, why did he say, I handed on to you first of all what I myself had received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; he was buried, and he rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures ³¹ .

If they do not thus understand the text and pretend that these dogmas form a whole with the dogma of Jesus crucified, then let them know that the mystery of Jesus crucified includes a great number of teachings; above all this: Our old man was crucified with him, that the body (once) subject to sin might be reduced to impotence, and that we might no longer be slaves to sin ³² .

Hence it also follows that, speaking of himself, the Apostle says: As for me, I never intend to glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified to me and I to the world. .

May they reflect and understand how the mystery of Jesus crucified is taught and learned. Let them see well that, as members of his body, we are ourselves crucified to the world on the cross. In other words: we put a brake on the disorders of concupiscence and, consequently, that openly confessed adultery cannot be tolerated in those who are formed by the cross of the Savior.

The apostle Peter also develops this mystery of the cross, that is, of the Passion of Jesus Christ, and recommends that those who have been consecrated by it not sin.

He expresses himself thus: In the same way, therefore, as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind: whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so that in the remaining time for the body, he may no longer live. according to human passions, but according to the will of God34.

He then shows that, according to this principle, because he belongs to Jesus crucified, that is, because he suffered in his flesh, it is necessary to crucify the desires of the flesh in his body and conform his conduct to the Gospels.

28 1 Corinthians 2:2.

29 Cf. 1 Corinthians 4:15.

30 Cf. 1 Corinthians 1:14 and 16.

31 1 Corinthians 15:3 and 4.

32 Romans 6:6.

33 Galatians 6:14.

34 1 Peter 4:1 and 2.

Chapter 16

False application of the double commandment of love.

Shall I add, that they see a proof of their opinion in the two precepts which, according to the Lord, contain the Law and the Prophets? As it is said: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your spirit. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second, similar to this, is: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

In these two commandments the whole law and the prophets 35 are summed up, they believe that the first, where it is prescribed to love God, applies to catechumens, while the second, which seems to have relation to human society, to those who have already received the baptism.

They do not remember that it is also written: He who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, is incapable of loving God, whom he has not ^seen .

In the same letter of Saint John we also read: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him ³⁷ .

Now, are not all the filthiness of an infamous conduct connected with the love of the world? Consequently, the first commandment — which according to them only concerns catechumens — cannot be observed independently of good morals.

I do not want to insist on this further, but, on closer examination, these two precepts are joined by a very close bond, for love of God cannot be found in one who does not love his neighbor, nor love of neighbor in one who does not love God. It would be going off topic, insisting longer on these two commandments.

35 Matthew 22:37 to 40.

36 1 John 4:20.

37 1 John 2:15.

Chapter 17

The Israelites first crossed the sea, then received the law.

But, they object, the people of Israel first crossed the Red Sea, which is the figure of baptism, and only later did they receive the Law which would establish their duties. Why then do we teach the symbol to catechumens and require them to recite it? For nothing like this was asked of those whom God took out of the hands of the Egyptians through the waves of the Red Sea.

But if they had the sense to see that the preparation for baptism was represented by the mysteries that preceded the passage through the Red Sea—the blood of the lamb marked on the gates, the unleavened bread of truth and sincerity ³⁸ —why don't they also see that the departure from Egypt represented the renunciation of sin, to which catechumens commit themselves?

This is what Peter has in view in the passage already quoted: Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit ³⁹ .

He seems to say, "Leave Egypt and cross the Red Sea."

The Apostle also, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, cites, among the elementary principles that a catechumen must follow, penance for the works of the body. For he says this: Wherefore, transposing the elementary teachings of the doctrine of Christ, let us seek to reach its fullness. We do not now want to insist on the fundamental notions of conversion, renunciation of sin, faith in God, the doctrine of various baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment ⁴⁰ . All these elementary principles therefore enter—according to the clear and precise testimony of the Scriptures—in the initiation of catechumens.

Now, what is it to do penance for the works of death, if it is not to die to all sins in order to live? And shall not adultery and fornication be counted among the works of death? It is not enough to commit to renounce all these disorders; it is necessary that all past sins, which seem to follow in our footsteps, be blotted out in the bath of regeneration. Just as it would have been useless for the Israelites to leave Egypt, if the mass of enemies who pursued them had not been decimated in the very waves that broke before God's people and secured their freedom. Declaring that one does not want to renounce adultery, can one enter the Red Sea, since one refuses to leave Egypt?

Moreover, they do not observe by what commandment the law which was given to the Hebrews after the passage of the Red Sea is opened: Thou shalt not make for thyself any sculpture, nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or on earth below, or in the waters, under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them ⁴¹ . And the sequel, where this commandment develops.

Let our opponents go against their own assertion and recognize that it is necessary to teach at the same time the worship of one God and contempt for idolatry, not to catechumens, but only to baptized Christians. Let them no longer maintain that it is necessary to be content with initiating faith in God before baptism and reserving for after baptism the instructions on morals, as well as on the second commandment concerning love of neighbor.

The law that the people received after passing through the Red Sea, symbol of baptism, comprises these two points at the same time.

The precepts are not there divided into two parts, one destined to teach the people contempt for idolatry, before the passage through the Red Sea, and the other dedicated to teaching them afterwards the obligation to honor their father and mother, to avoid adultery. , murder, in short, all the principles that establish honesty and security in human relationships.

38 Exodus 12-14.

39 Acts 2:38.

40 Hebrews 6:1 and 2.

41 Exodus 20:4 and 5.

Chapter 18

The inconsistency of the contrary opinion.

Let us suppose a person who asks for baptism, declaring that he will not renounce the worship of idols, unless perhaps later, when he sees fit. Then, with this disposition, she requests the immediate granting of baptism, and aspires to become the temple of the living God, in spite of her idolatry and her resolve to persevere in this abominable sacrilege.

I ask my opponents if they would consent to receive such a person as a catechumen.

They will say — I have no doubt — that it is impossible to receive such a person. Your heart cannot inspire anything else. Let them then explain, according to the testimonies of Scripture capable of authorizing their opinion, on the basis that they dare to fight and refuse the request of a person who protests against them saying: “I know and adore Jesus Crucified. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Don't make me wait any longer. Don't ask me for anything else."

“The Apostle only imposed one condition on those he would regenerate through the Gospel: to recognize Jesus crucified. The eunuch, faced with the simple answer that he believed that Jesus was the Son of God, received baptism from Philip without further ado. Why, then, forbid the worship of idols, instead of marking me with the sign of Jesus Christ, before I leave this world?

“As for paganism, I sucked it up with milk and kept to it by force of habit. I will forsake you when I can, when my time is right, and even if I don't, I can at least end my days marked with the sign of Jesus Christ and God won't have to ask you for an account of my soul."

What to respond to this speech? Will they consent to admit this heathen? God forbid that they could go to this extreme! What could they answer? Especially if the heathen asks that he not be asked to renounce idolatry, just as the primitive people were taught nothing before the passage through the Red Sea, because all these truths were included in the Law, which was received outside Egypt, after his release.

No doubt they will answer this man: “You will become the temple of God after you have received baptism. Now the Apostle says: How to reconcile the temple of God and idols? ⁴² ” Why don't they think that one can also say, “You will become a member of Jesus Christ after you have received baptism. Now the members of Jesus Christ cannot be those of a harlot.”

This is also the Apostle's argument, and he says, in another place, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not possess the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor fornicators, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers, shall possess the kingdom of God. ⁴³ .

Why then refuse baptism to idolaters, and believe that fornicators may be admitted, when the Apostle declares to adulterers and other sinners, At least some of you have been so. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God ⁴⁴ .

For what reason, when one can reject the adulterer and the idolater, allow the former to present himself for baptism without his renouncing his criminal relationship, and defend the latter, since it is said to both of them: “You have been this, but were cleansed”?

What worries our adversaries is the thought that they will be saved infallibly, even through fire, if they believe in Jesus Christ and if they have been marked with his sign. In other words, if one has been baptized, indifference has been led to reform the customs that lead to living in sin. But I will soon examine, with God's help, what needs to be thought on this point, according to the Scriptures.

42 2 Corinthians 6:16.

43 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 10.

44 1 Corinthians 6:11.

Chapter 19

Saint John the Baptist provided those who were going to be baptized with moral precepts.

The point that I am still examining at this moment is whether it is necessary, as our opponents think, to teach those who are baptized the rules of Christian life or to be content with inculcating faith in catechumens.

If that were so, John the Baptist—not to mention the numerous passages already quoted—would have used this language for those who presented themselves at his baptism: Breed of vipers, who taught you to flee from the wrath to come? Do you then bear fruits of true penance? This does not concern faith, but good works.

In the same way, when the soldiers came to ask him, “What should we do?”, he did not say to them: “Wait believing and be baptized. Later they will learn what to do.” Not. He begins by warning them, as a true precursor, to prepare the way for the Lord, who would descend into their hearts, and says to them: Do not do violence or defraud anyone, and be content with your pay ⁴⁵ .

Same answer to the publicans who asked him what they should do: Do ​​not demand more than you have been commanded ⁴⁶ .

Keeping to these passages, the Evangelist, whose objective was not to quote all the articles of the catechism, clearly shows that the catechist's duty is to give lessons and give moral exhortations to those who are willing to be baptized.

I even suppose that if they had answered John, “We will not bear fruit worthy of penance. We want to persevere in our violence, our fraud, our usury”. Such a statement would not have stopped him from baptizing them. In this hypothesis, it could not be concluded either, at the point at which the discussion has arrived, that the instruction that must be given to catechumens so that they live well, must not be subordinated to the time of baptism. John the Baptist, in fact, instructs publicans and soldiers when it comes to baptizing them.

45 Luke 3:14.

46 Luke 3:12.

Chapter 20

The catechesis of the Lord. Christ commanded to observe the precepts to obtain eternal life.

By the way, not to mention other passages, what was the Lord's answer to the rich man who asked him what good he should do to acquire eternal life? Let them go over it in their minds: If you want to enter life, observe the commandments. What commandments, he asked. Then the Lord reminded him of the commandments of the Law: Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, honor thy father and thy mother, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The rich man, having said that he had observed these commandments since his youth, the Lord adds the precept that brings together evangelical perfection: that of selling all goods and converting them into alms for the poor, in order to have a treasure in heaven and unite with the Lord who spoke to him ⁴⁷ .

Our opponents should note well that this personage was not invited to believe and to be baptized - the only means, according to them, of acquiring eternal life - but was instructed in the rules of conduct that only faith teaches to follow meekly.

In fact, I do not want to conclude from the silence that the Lord has kept about the need to inculcate faith, which should limit itself to teaching moral rules to those who aspire to be saved. Dogma and morality are linked by an indissoluble bond, as I have already said, for the love of God cannot exist in someone who does not love his neighbor, nor can love for his neighbor exist in someone who does not love God.

Scripture mentions both a moral precept and a dogma—rather than formulating the doctrine as a whole—to show that one cannot exist without the other. Indeed, to believe in God is to oblige oneself to fulfill God's commandments, and in order to fulfill God's commandments, one must necessarily believe in him.

47 Matthew 19:16-21.

Chapter 21

Faith without works is not enough to be saved.

We arrive then at the error that must be rejected by all Christian souls, if they do not want to lose eternal happiness, adopting the false opinion that faith is enough to conquer it and that it is not necessary to worry about living well or walking through life. path of good works in the way of the Lord.

At the time of the apostles, he relied on some somewhat obscure and misinterpreted passages of Saint Paul to attribute to him this thought: “let us do evil that good may come” ⁴⁸ , because he had said elsewhere: the law that sin might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded all the ^more .

This text applies to those who, after having received the Law with a proud confidence in their strength, did not implore in sincere faith for divine grace, to triumph over the disorders of lust, and burdened themselves with transgressions of the Law, through the most grievous iniquities. and multiple. Under the weight of this heavy responsibility, they had to resort to faith to attract the pardoning mercy and help of the God who made heaven and earth ⁵⁰ . Thus, under the inspiration of the love poured out in their hearts by the Holy Spirit ⁵¹ fulfill with love all the precepts that combat the lust of the world, according to the prediction of the psalmist: Many are the sufferings that those who give themselves to strange gods endure. ⁵² .

When, then, the Apostle says that he believes that man is justified by faith, without observance of the law ⁵³ and that no one is justified by the practice of the law, but only by faith in Jesus Christ ⁵⁴ , his idea was not to condemn the acts of justice performed after to have received and confessed the faith, but to teach Christians that one can be saved by faith, even when one has not practiced the Law before. Works are the consequence of justification; they are not his principle.

To insist on this point would be useless in this work. Especially after I dedicated a very long treatise to this topic entitled The Letter and the Spirit.

Seeing this opinion born, the apostles Peter, John, James and Jude rise up against it in their letters, with great energy and use all their strength to establish that faith without works is useless.

Paul himself understands by faith not just any belief in God, but the solid and truly evangelical belief that, through charity, becomes a source of good works. Faith works by charity ⁵⁵ he says. Of the faith which, according to some, is sufficient for salvation, he so forcefully affirms that it is useless, that he cries out: Even if I had all the faith, to the point of moving mountains, if I don't have charity, I am nothing ^. . To live well, charity must be in accordance with faith, for charity is the full fulfillment of the law ⁵⁷ .

48 Cf. Romans 3:8

49 Romans 5:20.

50 Cf. Psalm 120:2.

51 Cf. Romans 5:5.

52 Psalm 15:4.

53 Romans 3:28.

54 Galatians 2:16.

55 Galatians 5:6.

56 Romans 13:2.

57 Romans 13:10.

Chapter 22

St. Peter's Catechesis.

This polemic is manifestly related to a passage of Saint Peter in his second Epistle, in which he recommends an irreproachable purity of customs and predicts that the world is destined to perish and that it is necessary to wait for new heavens and a new earth, which will become the home of the righteous, wanting to warn the faithful to become worthy of that home, through the sanctity of their lives.

Knowing then that certain false minds took advantage of some difficult passages in the letters of the apostle St. Paul, to live in indifference to morals, as if they were sure of their salvation only by virtue of faith, St. brother some passages difficult to understand, and that ignorant people turned from their sense, as well as from other Scriptures, to their own ruin. For Saint Paul thought, like all the apostles, that eternal salvation could only be obtained on condition of living well.

This is what Saint Peter says: Since all these things are about to come apart, consider what should be the holiness of your life and of your piety, while you wait and hasten the day of God, that day in which the heavens ignited, and the scorched elements will melt! But we, according to his promise, look forward to new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness will dwell. Therefore, dear ones, while waiting for these things, strive to be found by him blameless and blameless in peace. Recognize that the long patience of our Lord is saving you, as your dear brother Paul also wrote to you, according to the gift of wisdom given to him. It is what he does in all his letters, in which he speaks on these matters. In them there are some passages difficult to understand, the meaning of which ignorant or weak spirits misrepresent, to their own ruin, as they also do with the other Scriptures. You therefore, dear ones, warned beforehand, take care that you do not fall from your steadfastness, carried away by the error of these ungodly men. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory now and forever ⁵⁸ .

58 2 Peter 3:11-18.

Chapter 23

The Catechesis of Saint James.

As for St. James, he has such an aversion to those who believe that faith can save without works, that he compares them to devils. He says: You believe that there is only one God. You do well. Demons also believe and tremble ⁵⁹ .

Is it possible to say something shorter, fairer and more energetic? For we read in the Gospels that the devil bore the same witness to Jesus ⁶⁰ and that he rebuked in his mouth what he approved in Peter's ⁶¹ .

Saint James says: What profit is it, brethren, for someone to say that he has faith, if he does not have works? And he adds, Can this faith save him? ⁶² What, then, is the error of those who put the hope of eternal life on a dead faith!

59 James 2:19.

60 Mark 1:23-25.

61 Matthew 16:16 and 17.

62 James 2:14.

Chapter 24

The refutation of those who assert that faith without works is profitable for salvation.

It is necessary to carefully consider the meaning to be given to this passage of the Apostle, which is very difficult to understand: As for the foundation, no one can lay anything other than that which has already been laid: Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation, with gold, or with silver, or with precious stones, with wood, or with hay, or with straw, each one's work will appear. The (judgment) day will demonstrate it. Will be discovered by fire; the fire will prove what each one's work is worth. If the building resists, the builder will receive the reward. If it catches fire, he will take the damage. He will be saved, but somehow passing through the fire ⁶³ .

In the opinion of some, those who build upon this foundation a building of gold, silver, or precious stones, represent Christians who add good works to faith. Whereas, those who only erect a building of straw, hay or wood, designate the sinners who, even having faith, do evil. They conclude from this that one can expiate one's faults through the pains of purgatory, and obtain eternal salvation by the very virtue of the principle that served as the foundation for acts.

63 1 Corinthians 3:11-15.

Chapter 25

The fake application.

If this interpretation is correct, we recognize that our adversaries are guided by a sublime charity, when they hasten to confusedly admit to baptism those libertines and concubines who, despising the command of Jesus Christ, hide their relationship under the veil of marriage. What I say? The prostitutes, stubbornly attached to their infamous relationships, were never admitted to the bosom of the most liberal Church, without first being taken out of their shameful activities.

Granted this principle, I do not see with what argument these creatures could be rejected, for who would not be happy to see that, after having piled wood, hay, and stubble on the sacred foundation of faith, they could purify themselves through from the more or less prolonged torture of fire, instead of being condemned to eternal death?

But, at the same time, these principles so clear and so little mistaken must be considered errors: Even if I had all the faith, to the point of moving mountains, if I don't have charity, I am nothing ⁶⁴ ; What will it profit, brethren, for someone to say that he has faith, if he does not have works? Can this faith save him? ⁶⁵ This passage must also be regarded as wrong: Do not be deceived: Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor fornicators, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor will robbers possess the Kingdom of God ⁶⁶ . And also this: Now the works of the flesh are these: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, superstition, enmities, strife, jealousy, hatred, ambition, discord, parties, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you of these things, as I have warned you: those who practice them will not inherit the Kingdom of God! ⁶⁷ All these statements become false, for it will suffice to believe and be baptized, to be saved by fire, despite your lack of repentance. All these crimes will not prevent one who has received the baptism into Jesus Christ from being an heir to the kingdom of God.

This passage: At least some of you have been that. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God ⁶⁸ there will be no more truth, for those who have been purified will remain tainted by the same vices.

Everything will be empty in these words of Saint Peter: This water (from the flood) foreshadowed the baptism of now, which saves you also, not by purifying the impurities of the body, but by asking God for a good conscience, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ ⁶⁹ .

Those who have a guilty conscience, so burdened by all crimes and all infamies, that penance will not be effective in erasing its filth, will be saved by baptism. Faith, that baptism secures the foundation, will secure their salvation, provided they pass through the fire.

I also do not understand why the Lord said: If you want to enter into life, observe the commandments ⁷⁰ and remember all the principles of morals, if it is possible to obtain life, without observing these rules, only by virtue of faith, which, however, , is dead without the works.

What truth then could there be in these words, which must one day be addressed to the wicked placed on their left: Depart from me, you cursed! Go into the eternal fire destined for the devil and his angels ⁷¹ ? For not their unbelief is here reproved, but their empty life of good works.

Lest anyone boast of obtaining eternal life through faith, which is dead without works, he was careful to say that he will separate the nations that obey the same shepherds, that it may be evident that those who then say to him, Lord, when did we see you hungry, thirsty, a pilgrim, naked, sick, or in prison, and did not help you? ⁷² will be the Christians who, even believing in him, neglected good works, with the idea that a dead faith was enough to lead to eternal life.

The eternal fire will be the sharing of those who were not merciful, those who appropriated the goods of others and those who treated themselves without mercy, destroying the temple of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Of what use are works of mercy, if love is not their principle? For, said the Apostle: Even if I distribute all my goods in support of the poor, and even if I give my body to be burned, if I don't have charity, it is worth nothing! ⁷³ Can he love his neighbor as himself, who does not love himself?

“Whoever loves iniquity hates his soul”74.

It could not be claimed here, like certain naive people, that fire and not torture will last forever. They instill in their adherents the hope that they will be saved through eternal fire and that it will be enough for them to have dead faith to escape the flame. In his thought, the fire will be eternal, but he will not devour them eternally.

But the Lord, in his sovereign wisdom, foresaw this error, summarizing his doctrine in these words: And these shall go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into eternal life. The torture, therefore, will be as eternal as fire, and it is reserved, according to the testimony of the Truth itself, for those who had faith, but did not add works to it.

64 1 Corinthians 13:2.

65 James 2:14.

66 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 10.

67 Galatians 5:19-21.

68 1 Corinthians 6:11.

69 1 Peter 3:21.

70 Matthew 19:17.

71 Matthew 25:41.

72 Matthew 25:44.

73 1 Corinthians 13:3.

74 Psalm 10: 6. But he who loves iniquity hates his own soul.

75 Matthew 25:46.

Chapter 26

The true meaning.

Are all these passages and many others found throughout the whole body of Scripture without the slightest misunderstanding false? Then it will be right to understand that the burning of wood, hay and stubble means the fire destined to purify those who have kept faith in Christ without adding good works to it. Or is it the other way around, are they as true as they are accurate? It is therefore necessary to seek a new meaning for the words of the Apostle and to place this passage in the midst of the truths difficult to understand in his Epistles, as St. Scriptures, blind assurance of their salvation, to sinners who, stubbornly holding on to their disorders, refuse to purify and convert through penance.

Chapter 27

Another passage from the Apostle betrayed by those who teach that faith saves without work.

No doubt they will ask me what is the meaning I attribute to this passage of the apostle St. Paul and what is its true interpretation. I would prefer, I confess, if my role were limited to collecting, from the mouths of more enlightened and more judicious people, an explanation capable of reconciling, with this passage, all the texts of indisputable truth that I have already quoted or that I could have quoted above and which prove, by the irrefutable witness of the Scriptures, that the faith that saves is exclusively that which, in the definition of the Apostle, works by charity ⁷⁶ whereas, if it is not accompanied by works, faith is powerless to save, with or without the help of fire. For if it works salvation with the help of fire, it really has, in itself, the virtue of saving. Now it is said clearly and without restriction: What profit is it, brethren, for someone to say that he has faith, if he does not have works? Can this faith save him? ⁷⁷ However, I will explain, as briefly as possible, the way in which I interpret this text so difficult to understand. It must not be forgotten that I would prefer, as I confessed, to hear theologians more enlightened than myself in discussing this passage.

The foundation of the building erected by the wise architect is Jesus Christ. This principle needs no demonstration, for, according to the words of the Apostle: As for the foundation, no one can lay any other than that which has already been laid: Jesus Christ ⁷⁸ . By Jesus Christ we must obviously understand faith in Jesus Christ, since he dwells in hearts through faith, according to the expression of the same Apostle ⁷⁹ . Now this necessary faith in Jesus Christ is none other than that faith which works through charity, as the Apostle also defines it. For it would be foolish to take as a foundation the kind of faith that imposes itself on the demons themselves, that makes them tremble and wrings from them the confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Would we like to take by faith, not the belief that fertilizes charity, but the confession that spurs fear? Therefore, it is faith in Jesus Christ, the faith that inspires Christian grace and that charity makes fruitful with good works, that is the foundation of salvation for all humans.

What is to be understood now by a building of gold, silver, stones or wood, straw and hay, erected on this foundation?

I am afraid to give, in delving too deeply into the text, an explanation more obscure than the text itself. However, I will try, with God's help, to express my feeling as accurately and clearly as I can.

Do you not remember the one who asked the Prince of Good himself, what good he must do in order to possess eternal life? He learned that he must keep the commandments if he was to earn eternal happiness. neighbor as thyself ^thy . In so doing, under the inspiration of faith in Jesus Christ, he would manifestly have the faith that works through charity.

For how can one love one's neighbor as oneself, without having received the gift of God's love; true principle of self-love?

But if he then observed what Our Lord adds: If you want to be perfect, go, sell your goods, give them to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me! ⁸¹ , he built, upon this foundation, a building of gold, of silver, and of precious stones, for all his thoughts, having no other object than divine things, would have been devoted to pleasing God, and it is these high thoughts which represent , in my opinion, gold, silver and precious stones.

But, if he had been bound by an altogether carnal affection to his riches, he would have in vain made alms out of his wealth, avoided fraud and theft to increase his treasures, withstood all temptations of crime and dishonesty to not see them diminish or run out. In vain would he never have departed from the unshakable principle which served as his foundation. In that utterly worldly passion which prevented him from renouncing his fortune without regret, he would have erected, on the solid foundation, only a building of wood, hay, or straw. Especially if he had a wife who took him, to please her, to think only of the things of the world, in the interests of his vanity.

We can only decide to lose without regret the goods to which we are not bound by an entirely carnal feeling.

Let us possess them on the basis of the faith that acts under the impulse of charity. Let us never, through greed or avarice, place our gold above our beliefs. If your loss grieves you like a sacrifice, we will only obtain salvation through the burning pain of fire.

The less exposed we are to this torture and to this repentance, the less attached we are to riches. Or if we possess them as if we don't.

Do we, in order to preserve or acquire them, fall into murder, adultery, fornication, idolatry, and other equally monstrous crimes? The solidity of the foundation does not guarantee salvation through the flames. We will lose that support and be abandoned to eternal torments.

76 Galatians 5:6.

77 James 2:14.

78 1 Corinthians 3:11.

79 Ephesians 3: 17. May Christ dwell in your hearts by faith, rooted and established in love

80 Matthew 19:18 and 19.

Chapter 28

The Pauline Privilege.

It is therefore in vain that, in order to prove the efficacy of faith, by itself, this passage of the Apostle is alleged: But if the heathen wishes to separate, let him separate; in such a case, neither the brother nor the sister are connected. God has called you to live in peace ⁸² . This means that faith in Jesus Christ alone authorizes leaving a legitimate spouse if he refuses to cohabit with the other party who is a Christian.

Here our opponents do not take into account that there would be complete justice in repudiating a woman who had a speech like this with her husband: "I don't want to be your wife anymore, if you don't enrich me anymore with your thefts, if you stop practicing - for who is Christian — the traffic, which turned his house into a place of pleasure”. In short, a woman who kept her husband in all the vices, in all the infamies that she knew of him and which she took advantage of with pleasure, whether to satisfy her lubricity, or to live in idleness or even to show off a greater pomp.

Surely, a man who had a wife who behaved like this would not fail to experience—if he had renounced the works of death through penance, approached baptism, and taken as the foundation of his conduct the faith that works through works—an attraction more alive and more powerful by divine grace than by the utterly physical beauty of his wife, and he would have enough energy to sever the member that scandalizes him.

Now, does this man experience, in breaking up his marriage, a pain inspired in his heart by the wholly carnal attachment to his wife?

Here is the straw that the flame will consume without compromising its salvation.

If not. If he had a wife as if he didn't.

Less from lust than from a feeling of mercy that made him want to save her with him and fulfill, rather than demand, the obligations of marriage? The flesh will not rebel in him when such a union is broken, because it will not prevent him from thinking only of the things of the Lord and will only inspire in him one desire, that of pleasing God ⁸³ . Therefore, as he only added gold, silver, and precious stones to the foundation, remaining in totally divine thoughts, he will lose nothing, and his building, with which straw is not mixed, cannot be consumed by the flame.

81 Matthew 19:21.

82 1 Corinthians 7:15.

83 Cf. 1 Corinthians 7:29-34.

Chapter 29

Conclusion.

Let the people see from here below their works are thus purified, since a judgment after death condemns them to this penalty.

The sense which I attach to this passage has nothing that is in contradiction with the true doctrine. If she bears another — which does not present itself to my mind — I pray that she be adopted preferentially. At least this interpretation does not oblige us to say to the unjust, the incorrigible, the sacrilegious, the criminals, the parricides, the murderers, the fornicators, the infamous, those who traffic in free people, liars, perjurers, in short, all which are contrary to the holy doctrine, contained in the Gospels that the sovereignly happy God takes away his glory ⁸⁴ : only believe in Jesus Christ and receive the sacrament of baptism, for even if you do not renounce your abominable lives, you will be saved.

84 Cf. 1 Timothy 1:9-11.

Chapter 30

Canaanite faith.

The example of the Canaanite woman could not lead us to this error either. Undoubtedly, the Lord answered his prayer, after having said to him: It is not appropriate to throw the children's bread to the puppies ⁸⁵ . But the heart-searching God had seen her inward conversion, when he had praised her faith, and thus did not say, “Bitch, your faith is great,” but O woman, great is your faith! ⁸⁶ He changes his expression because he sees that the Canaanite woman's feelings have changed and her reproaches have taken effect.

I could not think without astonishment that faith without works is advocated in this woman; that faith which is not followed by charity; that dead faith which is not the privilege of Christians, but of devils, as the apostle St. James does not hesitate to call it.

Who does not want to understand that the Canaanite woman saw a reversal in her criminal passions, under the disdainful and severe words of Jesus Christ, then, when they meet people who have the faith, but who do not hide their unruly conduct and even expose it publicly and refuse to change, let them heal their children if they can, as Jesus Christ healed the Canaanite's daughter, but let them not make these people members of Jesus Christ, when they persist in remaining prostitutes.

There is reason, I say, to believe that an irrevocable sin is committed with regard to the Holy Spirit, by persevering in unbelief to the end of your days. But it is also necessary to understand what the character of true belief in Jesus Christ is. It is not a dead faith - as it has justly been called - and which is found even in the devils themselves; it is faith that works through charity.

85 Matthew 15:26.

86 Matthew 15:28.

Chapter 31

The bad argument taken from the parables of the tares and the guests.

In accordance with these principles, our object, in refusing baptism to these sinners, is not to pull up the tares before the harvest, but not to sow them, as Satan does. Far from repelling those who want to join Jesus Christ, we prove to them by their conduct that it is they who refuse to come to him. Far from preventing them from believing, we show them that they are guilty of their unbelief, since they do not want to recognize adultery in the act qualified as adultery by the Lord Himself, they think that those who will never possess the kingdom of Jesus can be incorporated into Jesus Christ. God, as was also said by the mouth of the Apostle, and are opposed to the holy doctrine where God glorifies himself in his boundless happiness.

Let us not also compare these sinners to the guests who came to the wedding feast; they must be compared with those who refused to come. Too audacious to place themselves in complete contradiction with the very doctrine of Jesus Christ, and to revolt against the holy Gospels, they disdain to come, far more than to refuse.

There are those who renounce the world in words, far more than in deeds. These at least present themselves and are sown among the good ones. They are gathered on the threshing floor; they are with the sheep; they join the network; they are welcomed among the guests. Let them be hypocrites, let them be sincerely docile; we have no reason to reject them, since one cannot penetrate their consciences and one must not prejudge the reasons that would justify their excommunication.

Far be it from us the idea that admitting to the wedding hall those who are, whether good or bad ⁸⁷ , also introduces those who have demonstrated their resolve to persevere in evil. With this argument, in fact, the servants of the father of the family would also have sowed the tares and everything would be in vain in this passage: The enemy, who sows it, is the devil ⁸⁸ . Since this hypothesis is impossible, one must think that the servants led the good and the bad, hidden under false appearances or only recognized after being introduced into the feast room.

Perhaps even the expression good and bad has the same meaning as in common language, where it is but a term of praise or contempt, which even the heathens qualify. It was in this sense that Jesus Christ used it in speaking to the disciples whom he first sent forth to preach the Gospel. He recommends that they inform themselves, in every city they enter, about the people who are worthy of receiving them in their homes until their departure ⁸⁹ .

Now, by what mark would worthy people be recognized, if not through the esteem they enjoyed among their fellow citizens and unworthy people through their bad reputation?

Here are the good and the bad who are led to Jesus Christ and who come forward to believe in him. They are welcomed if they consent to free themselves, through penance, from the works of death. If they do not consent, they are rejected and, far from trying to enter, they close the door themselves, with a very clear opposition.

87 Cf. Matthew 22:10.

88 Matthew 13:39.

89 Cf. Matthew 10:11.

Chapter 32

Useless resemblance to the servant who did not want to forgive.

And as for the servant of the Gospel who refused to apply his master's talent! He should banish all worry and not fear being accused of neglect. They compare him with those who do not want to receive the talent that the Lord entrusts to them. This parable ⁹⁰ is addressed to those who do not want to assume the role of distributing the Lord's treasures in the Church, disguising their indifference under the pretext that they do not want to answer for the sins of others. They listen without acting and receive without giving anything back.

Now, when the upright and faithful servant, full of enthusiasm to apply his master's treasures, and attentive to administer his interests, comes to say to an adulterer, “If you would be baptized, stop being an adulterer; believe in Jesus Christ, who qualifies your relationship as adultery. Quit belonging to a harlot if you want to become a member of Jesus Christ.” If that man answers you: “I will not obey. I will not stop”. It is clear that he refuses to receive the good talent of the Lord, or else that he would like to mix with this treasure his falsehood.

Suppose that, after having promised to obey, he does not fulfill his commitment and cannot be corrected. It is necessary to see what to do with him, to stop him from ruining others, after he has ruined himself. Bad fish, lost in the divine net, must be prevented from trapping the Lord's fish. Let him not be allowed, by leading a guilty life in the Church, to give birth to a pernicious doctrine.

If these fishermen — making the apology of their filthiness, and spreading the express intention of persevering in them — are admitted to baptism, then all that remains, it seems to me, is to preach that fornicators and adulterers, who must keep their criminal habits to the end of their days, they will possess the kingdom of God, and through faith, utterly dead without works, they will obtain life and eternal salvation.

This is the most dangerous of nets and fishermen should be wary of it. I speak like this thinking that the Gospel parable designates the bishops and subordinate directors of the Church, according to these words: Follow me and I will make you fishers of men ⁹¹ . The net catches all kinds of fish, good and bad; but a bad net will never catch good fish. Now, within the true doctrine, one can be good if works are added to faith; bad, if you believe without practicing. In heresy, one is evil by not conforming to what is believed to be true; but guilty as well, if you settle for it.

90 Matthew 25:14-30.

91 Matthew 4:19.

Chapter 33

The prohibition of baptism to the hardened is not new.

In the opinion that separates us from our brethren and whose dangerous consequences force us to reject — whether ancient or modern — one thing seems strange to me: it is the classification as novelty of the doctrine that forbids admitting to baptism people so perverse that they proclaim the resolution of persist in their misdeeds.

It would seem that their imagination takes them to I know not where, for courtesans, the wicked, and other persecutors of public corruption are only admitted to the sacraments of the Church on condition that their chains are broken. Now, following the maxims of our adversaries, all would be admitted indifferently. But Holy Church remains faithful to the ancient and unalterable tradition which goes back to the principle very clearly established by these words: I warn you of these things, as I warned you: those who practice them will not inherit the Kingdom of God! ⁹² If penance does not erase these works of death, baptism is forbidden to sinners, and if they obtain it but do not reform their habits, their salvation is impossible.

The drunkards, the greedy, the slanderers, and all sinners whose criminal habits are no subject of condemnation on account of notorious deeds, are the object of vigorous admonitions in the catechism, and enter the holy bath only after they have shown better dispositions.

As for adulterers, condemned by divine laws and not by human laws, they are admitted perhaps too quickly into some Churches. But they are exceptions that should be condemned in the name of the rule, rather than relaxing the rule because of these precedents. In other words, it is necessary to remove the unworthy, instead of admitting as a principle that the postulants should not receive any moral instruction and welcome, as a necessary consequence, all slaves of public corruption, courtesans, prostitutes, gladiators and other people of this kind, who insist on remaining in their activities.

The crimes, whose enumeration made by the Apostle ends with the sentence Of these things I warn you, as I warned you: those who commit them will not inherit the Kingdom of God! find vigorous censors in those who act energetically. If they confess and proclaim, with all the dignity of their characters, that they intend to persevere in their errors, they are not admitted to baptism.

92 Galatians 5:19-21 and 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 10.

Chapter 34

Three deadly sins admitted by all.

Those who think that alms can easily absolve sins do not hesitate to acknowledge that there are three of them that are mortal and worthy of excommunication, inasmuch as they are not expiated by the humiliations of penance. They are: immorality, idolatry and murder.

It would be superfluous to examine this opinion here and seek, if necessary, to admit it with reservation or to approve it. This would complicate our subject with a question foreign to its purpose. This confession is enough for us, because if all sins are reasons to exclude from baptism, adultery is part of them. Now, this is the sin that has raised this controversy.

Chapter 35

Sloppiness and negligent tolerance.

As Christians - whatever the corruption of customs in preceding centuries - seem to have remained strangers to the criminal union of a man with a woman, or of a woman with a man, regardless of a previous marriage, this must probably be the case. reason for the lack of concern about this disorder in certain Churches and for having forgotten to include in the instructions of the postulants the description and condemnation of this immorality. This negligence gave rise to the need to banish such disorder. However, there are not few such cases among people who have received baptism, and if there are such numerous examples, it must be attributed to our apathy.

This want of vigilance, owing to the indifference of some, the inexperience of others, and sometimes ignorance, was truly called by the Lord sleep, when he said: But in the hour, when men slept, his enemy came. , sowed tares among the wheat and parted ⁹³ .

A proof that this disorder did not arise in the customs even of bad Christians, is that blessed Cyprian, in his letter about the fallen faithful, among all the crimes he pointed out, deploring and esteeming them and that, according to him, were capable of provoking in God such a lively indignation that he abandoned his Church to the horrors of a dreadful persecution, he never mentioned this sin. This silence is all the more significant that he does not forget to point out as a trait of corruption the marriage with infidels, which he sees as a prostitution of the members of Jesus Christ to the heathen. However, this marriage is no longer seen as a sin.

The New Testament left no precept on this point, and so it was concluded that such a union was legitimate, or at least subject to controversy.

It is also unknown whether Herod married his brother's wife before or after his death and, therefore, did not focus on the nature of the crime, which John reproved ⁹⁴ .

Should a concubine be admitted to baptism who has pledged never to have intercourse with another man and who has even been rejected by her seducer?

The case raises doubts, but one cannot confuse the outraged husband who separates from his wife and assumes a new relationship with another and the one who, without having caught his wife in adultery, divorces and marries another.

The sacred texts are so obscure on this point that it is difficult to decide whether a husband, while he may reject his wife in the case of adultery, does not also become an adulterer by forming a new union.

In this case, I believe, as far as I can judge, it is a venial error. Consequently, all sins of impurity, when they are evident, lead to exclusion from baptism; unless they are expiated by sincere repentance and penitence. Are they doubtful and ill-defined? These mistaken marriages must be prevented by all means. For, why compromise a principle with such enigmas? However, if the marriage is already consummated, I am inclined to believe that baptism should not be refused.

93 Matthew 13: 25. But while the men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares in the midst of the wheat, and went away.

94 Matthew 14:3 and 6.

Chapter 36

The order of healing catechumens.

In order to preserve in its integrity the true doctrine that forbids ensuring dangerous security to every mortal sin or surrounding it with a fatal prestige, here is the order in which the healing of catechumens must be carried out: they must believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, according to the formula of the Symbol; do penance for the works of death and be convinced that they will receive the remission of their sins in baptism, not to be authorized to sin in the future, but to be exempt from the penalties corresponding to their past faults, for the remission of sin does not include the freedom to do so.

Are they in these conditions? Then this passage may apply to them, in a spiritual sense, Behold, thou art whole; sin no more ⁹⁵ .

If the Lord spoke here of the health of the body, it was because he well knew that the weakening of the organs was, in the one who was healed by him, a consequence of his sins.

But I do not know in what sense our adversaries could say to him who entered the holy bath adulterously and came out adulterous: "You are healed." What disease would then be deadly, if adultery was health itself?

95 John 5:14.

Chapter 37

The catechesis of the apostles does not favor those who want to admit adulterers to baptism.

But, they argue, among the three thousand people who were baptized on the same day by the apostles or in the multitude of believers to whom Paul proclaimed the Gospel, from Jerusalem to the ends of Illyria ⁹⁶ there must have been men and women united without regard to the conjugal law. .

In this case the apostle must have laid down a rule designed to guide the Churches and decide that baptism should be refused to all those who have not renounced adultery.

Is it not easy to retort this argument by asking the name of only one person admitted to baptism despite his criminal connections? On the other hand, is it not impossible to enumerate the particular faults of each individual? Such a calculation would be interminable and utterly useless, since the rule laid down by Peter, in his long exhortation to those who were to be baptized: Save yourselves from the midst of this wicked generation! ⁹⁷ , suffices for its universality. For can we doubt that the corruption of the world encompasses both adultery and those who persist in this iniquity?

Following this principle, it would also be necessary to maintain that there could be, in this multitude of the faithful scattered throughout all nations, unfortunate prostitutes whom no Church ever admitted before having taken them out of their infamous activity and that the Apostle would have fixed the conditions under which they could admit or exclude them.

But this at least can be concluded: the publicans who presented themselves to John's baptism were commanded not to demand more than they were ^commanded . I would be very surprised if adultery were authorized for those who presented themselves for the baptism of Jesus Christ.

96 Romans 15:19.

97 Acts 2: 40 and 41.

98 Cf. Luke 3:13.

Chapter 38

It has no basis whatsoever to assert that the Jews were annihilated solely because of their unfaithfulness.

The Israelites are also mentioned, whose complete ruin came, not from the enormous crimes they committed, not from the blood of the prophets they shed so many times, but from the unbelief that made them not know Christ. They forget that the sin of the Jews was not only that they denied Christ, but that they sacrificed him. Their crime is barbarism, inasmuch as unbelief is as iniquity as lack of faith.

Now this double sin is not found in one who has faith in Jesus Christ. Not dead faith, which even demons possess ⁹⁹ but the faith of grace, which works through ^charity .

99 Cf. James 2:19 and 20.

100 Cf. Galatians 5:6.

Chapter 39

That the kingdom of heaven suffers violence was not said by faith, but by charity.

This is the faith mentioned in this passage: The Kingdom of God is already in your midst ¹⁰¹ . Only those who obtain, with the vivacity of faith, the spirit of charity are snatched from it, for charity is the full fulfillment of the law ¹⁰² and, apart from it, the law is nothing but a dead letter, which makes one guilty even of a crime. of malfeasance.

We would be mistaken, however, if we believed that the words, The kingdom of heaven is forcibly taken away, and it is the violent who conquer it, ¹⁰³ mean that the wicked obtain, through the vivacity of their faith, and notwithstanding the unworthiness of their conduct, the kingdom from the heavens. It teaches us only that the charge of prevarication — under which we were given the law; I mean, the letter without the spirit — it falls by the virtue of faith, whose vivacity makes us obtain the Holy Spirit, through which charity spreads in our hearts ¹⁰⁴ and the law is fulfilled less out of fear of punishment than out of love. the Justice.

101 Luke 17:21.

102 Romans 13:10.

103 Matthew 11:12.

104 Cf. Romans 5:5.

Chapter 40

The true knowledge of God, which leads to eternal life.

It is therefore in vain that a superficial mind thinks it knows God, when it confesses with a dead faith; I mean, without good works, after the manner of devils, or who claims to gain eternal life by relying on this passage: Eternal life consists in their knowing thee, one true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast ^sent .

It is necessary, in fact, to remember this other passage: This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments.

He who claims to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in ^him .

Do you believe that these commandments only have to do with faith?

Even though no one has dared to hold this opinion, the expression of the commandment prevents the mind from thinking of a great number of other precepts, when remembering the two commandments which sum up the law and the prophets.

Even though it may be rightly said that the commandments of God are related to faith — if by this we mean not dead faith, but living faith, which works through charity — nevertheless John himself explained elsewhere his thought. , saying, This is his commandment: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he commanded us ¹⁰⁷ .

105 John 17:3.

106 1 John 2:3 and 4.

107 1 John 3:23.

Chapter 41

One must forgive the repentant and wait for those who turn away from sin.

The benefit that grace avails us of sincerely believing in God, honoring God, knowing God, is to obtain his assistance to live well and his mercy if we sin. We obtain this favor not by persevering with indifference in the disorders which he condemns, but by renouncing them.

Pity me, Lord; heal me, because I have sinned against you ¹⁰⁸ . Now, one has no one to address this prayer to if one does not believe in God, and it is made uselessly by one who is so far removed from him that he has no part in the grace of the Mediator.

Hence these words, taken from the Book of Wisdom, and understood, I know not how, by people who affect a false security: Even if we sin, we are ^thine . For if our God is so good and so powerful as to have the desire and power to heal sin followed by repentance, he does not carry weakness so far as to lose those who hardened themselves in their crimes.

So the wise man, after having said: We are thine, adds: Because we know thy power. Infinite power from which the sinner can avoid neither the blows nor the surveillance. And he concludes: We shall not sin, knowing that we are counted as yours.

It is possible, in fact, to conceive in all its beauty the home where all those who are predestined there must dwell with God, according to the eternal counsels, without striving to lead a life worthy of that heavenly home, when John says: Little children mine, this I write to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone sins, we have an intercessor with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Is he the atonement for our sins and not only for ours but also for the whole world's ¹¹⁰ ?

Does he want us to sin without fear? Not. He wants us, renouncing the sins that we may have committed, to have confidence in the advocate that infidels lack, so that they do not despair of divine mercy.

108 Psalm 40:5.

109 Wisdom 15:2.

110 1 John 2:1 and 2.

Chapter 42

Eternal damnation in Scripture.

If the passage we have just quoted does little to allow for a happy fortune to those who want to believe in God without interrupting their disorders, even more threatening must appear to them when the Apostle says: All who without the law have sinned without the application of the law. they will perish; and as many have sinned under the law, by the law they will be judged111. There are those who believe that the expressions perish and be judged are different, but they are strictly synonymous.

In the common language of Scripture, the word judgment means eternal damnation. It was in this sense that Our Lord used it when He said: The hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will come out of them at the sound of his voice: those who have done good will go to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil will rise again. to be tried112, or condemned. And here it is not spoken of those who had faith or who were unbelievers; it is only those who have done good or who have done evil. For the honest life is inseparable from the faith that works through charity, or rather, it is entirely included in it.

It is clear, therefore, that by "resurrection followed by judgment" the Lord understands resurrection followed by eternal damnation, for he places those who will rise into two classes, not excluding unbelievers who are also in the tomb, and declares that some will rise to the grave. eternal life and others to be judged.

111 Romans 2:12.

112 John 5:28 and 29.

Chapter 43

Judgment, in Scripture, equates to eternal damnation.

It is held that this passage does not pertain to unbelievers, but to believers, whose faith will save them through the flames, notwithstanding their criminal life, and that by the term judgment the passing penalty to which they will be condemned is to be understood.

This speech sounds rather shameless after the Lord has divided those who will be resurrected, not excluding unbelievers, into two classes, characterized by the terms "life" and "judgment." He then implicitly designated eternal life and judgment; especially as he did not call eternal the life to which the good will rise again, though no other sense can be assigned to his expression.

But what will they say about this passage: Whoever does not believe is already judged113? Here, indeed, of the two, either it is recognized that the judgment implies eternal damnation, or it is boldly admitted that the unbelievers themselves will escape through the fire. The word judged, in this passage, means destined for judgment: Whoever does not believe is already judged.

In this way, a wonderful favor was not promised to believers who live in evil, since the unbelievers would also have to suffer a judgment, much more than a condemnation.

Isn't it very daring to have a speech like that? Let them not then have the boldness to entertain a sweet hope in those of whom it has been said, They shall be judged by the law,114 for it is indisputable that the word judgment is commonly synonymous with eternal damnation.

I would add that those who knowingly sin are threatened by a much stricter fate. They are far from expecting a gentler treatment. These sinners are chiefly those who have admitted the law, for according to what is written: The law produces wrath, and where there is no law, there is no transgression. And, in another place: I did not know sin but by the law. For I would have no idea of ​​lust, if the law had not said, Thou shalt not covet. It was sin, therefore, which, taking advantage of the occasion given it by the precept, excited all lusts in me; for without the law sin was dead.116 I omit a large number of passages in which the Apostle treats this point of doctrine.

This charge is very serious, but it falls, under the influence of the grace of the Holy Spirit, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace, in fact, poured out by charity in the depths of our hearts, inspires in us through justice a love capable of interrupting the attractions of concupiscence.

This is the evident proof that those who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law,117 and will suffer a more severe and severe punishment than those who, having sinned outside the law, will be condemned outside the law. The word judgment, in this passage, does not designate a passing torture, but the very penalty that will be decreed against unbelievers.

113 João 3: 18. But he who does not believe has already been judged.

114 Romans 2:12.

115 Romans 4:15.

116 Romans 7:7 and 8.

117 Romans 2:12.

Chapter 44

It must be understood that only evil believers will go to the resurrection of judgment, so that judgment is not eternal damnation.

Indeed, on the basis of this passage: All who have sinned without the law will perish without the application of the law, and those who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law,118 to maintain in their faithful, bound to an unruly life, the hope of of salvation through the flames, as if that were the case, instead of condemnation to purification by fire, they forget one point: it is that the Apostle, in speaking both to Jews and to Gentiles, had in view sinners under the law or strangers to their prescriptions. He wanted to prove to both that the grace of Jesus Christ was the indispensable condition of their salvation; capital truth which is the foundation of the letter to the Romans.

Let them not hesitate, then, to promise the transgressive Jews who live under the law and who will be judged by the law, that fire will purify them without the grace of Jesus Christ, because they will be judged by the law. Do not dare to go further, at the risk of contradicting and denying, after having recognized the overwhelming accusation of unbelief that weighs on the Jews.

Why then apply to believers and unbelievers, and refer to a matter of faith in Jesus Christ, a passage relating to those who have sinned without the Law or with the Law and inspired, with regard to Jews and Gentiles, with the sole object of attracting them? them for the grace of Jesus Christ?

Indeed, it has not been said: those who have sinned, not being under the dominion of faith, will be condemned in the name of faith. No, it is only a question of the Law, and from there it is evident that the whole question revolves around the discussion then being debated between the Jews and the Gentiles and which had nothing to do with good and bad Christians.

118 Romans 2:12.

Chapter 45

Let not freedom be the veil of malice.

Is there a desire, however — without shrinking from a hypothesis as false as it is deplorable — to take the word law, in this passage, as synonymous with faith? There is a passage from St. Peter to be read, which throws an irresistible clarity on this point.

He had spoken, in his first Epistle, of the faithful who, in order to live according to the flesh and cover their perversity, abused the principle established in the New Testament: We are not children of the slave, but of the free woman119. It is for us to be free men that Christ has set us free120. And, counting on the infinite prize of that purchase, they made freedom consist in the satisfaction of all their passions, without reflecting on this passage: You, brothers, were called to freedom. But do not abuse liberty as a pretext for carnal pleasures. Nor in these other words, from Peter himself: Behave as free men and not after the manner of those who take liberty as a veil to cover their malice122.

He takes up this subject in his second Epistle and speaks thus of these Christians: They find their delight in giving themselves up in broad daylight to their licentiousness. Perverted and filthy men, they delight in deceiving, while they feast with you. Their eyes are full of adultery and they are insatiable in sinning. They seduce fickle souls by their attractions; their hearts are accustomed to covetousness; they are children of the curse. They left the straight way, to go astray in the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of iniquity. But he was rebuked for his disobedience: a dumb beast, speaking with a human voice, checked the prophet's folly. These are waterless fountains and swirling clouds, destined for the depths of darkness. With words as vain as they are deceitful, they attract by carnal passions and debauchery those who have barely escaped from men who live in error. They promise them freedom, when they themselves are slaves to corruption, for man is made a slave of the one who conquered him. Indeed, if those who have renounced the corruptions of the world through the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior allow themselves again to be ensnared and overcome, their last state becomes worse than the first. It would have been better not to have known the way of righteousness than, after having known it, to turn back, forsaking the holy law which they were taught. It happened to them what the proverb rightly says: The dog has returned to its vomit; e: The washed sow turns around in the mire again123.

How, then, can we promise those who, having known the way of righteousness, that is, the Lord Jesus, did not, however, stop living in sin, a milder treatment than they would have had if they had never known it? Is this not to contradict the truth so clearly expressed in this passage: Better not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after having known it, to turn back, forsaking the holy law which they were taught?

119 Galatians 4:31.

120 Galatians 5:1.

121 Galatians 5:13.

122 1 Peter 3:16.

123 2 Peter 2:13-22.

Chapter 46

The holy commandment. What pity awaits those who, knowing it, break it?

Under the expression holy law, the obligation to believe in God is not to be understood here, although this precept includes everything in abbreviated form, if faith is not separated from charity.

The Apostle's terms are decisive; he understands by holy law the obligation to renounce the corruption of the world and to lead a pure life: “If, after having known Jesus Christ our Lord and our Savior, and having withdrawn themselves from the corruption of the world, they again allow themselves to be ensnared and overcome, their last state becomes worse than the first”.

It is not a matter of believing in God nor of renouncing the unbelief of the world, but of coming out of corruption; word that comprehends all filthiness.

It was these sinners whom the Apostle described a little before: Perverted and filthy men, they delight to deceive, while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery and are insatiable in sinning ¹²⁴ .

He calls them waterless springs; sources, why they were initiated into the doctrine of Jesus Christ; without water, because your actions do not correspond to his belief.

The apostle St. Jude characterizes them in almost the same terms: They feast with you shamelessly and are self-satisfied.

They are clouds without water, that the winds take away! ¹²⁵ The idea is the same in both passages. According to St. Peter, perverted and unclean men take pleasure in deceiving while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery and are insatiable in sinning. According to St. Jude, They feast with you shamelessly and are self-satisfied.

The bad, in fact, mingle with the good in the banquet of sacraments and in the effusions of charity. The dry fountain of Saint Peter and the cloud without water of Saint Jude are the dead faith of Saint James ¹²⁶ .

124 2 Peter 2:13 and 14.

125 Judas 1: 12.

126 Cf. James 2:17.

Chapter 47

A transitional punishment should not be promised to the baptized who live sinfully.

So let not purgatory be promised to those who, after having known the life of justice, live a life of disorder and crime, for it would have been better for them if they had not known it, according to the testimony of the Scriptures.

To them apply these words of the Lord: The last state of that man becomes worse than the ^first . When they refuse to receive the Holy Spirit into their hearts, that He may dwell there and purify them, they call upon the unclean spirit and its companions.

Would it be their merit that they had not relapsed into adultery, since they never renounced it, or that they were not covered with their past filth, since they never wanted to purify themselves?

But they do not even deign to enter the holy bath with a clear conscience of their faults and to reject their filthiness.

They must return to them, like the dog to its vomit. In the very bosom of the regenerating water, they hold in their hearts the weight of their perversity. Far from hiding their intemperance, even under the veil of a hypocritical promise, they proclaim it, and seem to spew it out, with the impudent confession of their hardening.

Not only do they imitate Lot's wife, who, in leaving Sodom, looked back, but they do not even want to leave Sodom.

What do I say!? They even strive to bring Jesus Christ to Sodom.

Why St. Paul said: Once he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a reviler. But I obtained mercy, because I had not yet received the faith and I did it out of ignorance ¹²⁸ , let us say to these sinners: "You will have a right to divine mercy, insofar as you have lived knowingly in evil, having faith".

But we would go very far, we would go to infinity, if we wanted to gather together all the testimonies of the Scriptures which clearly show that the condition of sinners, whose lives were guilty and infamous, despite the lights of faith, far from being milder, will be so severe. the more they acted consciously. This is a principle that we have demonstrated sufficiently.

127 Matthew 12:45.

128 1 Timothy 1:13.

Chapter 48

Baptism does not lead to the kingdom of heaven if life does not match.

Let us then, with the help of the Lord our God, put all our care into not inspiring false security in people, instilling in them the hope that they will be able, after being baptized into Jesus Christ, to obtain eternal salvation, whatever their disagreement of your conduct with this new faith.

Let us avoid making Christians as the Jews made proselytes of whom the Lord said: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! as yourselves ^bad .

Let us hold to the true doctrine established by God our teacher, according to which the Christian life must correspond with the sanctity of baptism and the hope of eternal life must be forbidden to anyone who does not fulfill this twofold law.

Here, in fact, are the words of the Lord: Whoever is not born again of water and the Spirit cannot enter the Kingdom of God ¹³⁰ . And also: If your righteousness is not greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven ¹³¹ . He describes them thus: The scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses' chair. Observe and do whatever they say, but do not do as they do, for they say and do ^not .

His righteousness consists, therefore, in speaking without doing. Consequently, ours must be more abundant than your sterile theory. It must consist in speaking and doing as Our Lord wants. Otherwise, the kingdom of heaven will be closed to us.

I do not mean to say that you should be so proud as to boast to others, or even in your conscience, that you are sinless here below; far from it. But had there not been faults so grievous as to merit excommunication, the Apostle would not have said, Gathered together ye and my spirit, by the power of our Lord Jesus, let this man be handed over to Satan, for the mortification of his body, to so that your soul may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.

Nor would he have added to this theme: I fear that at my coming among you God will still humble me concerning you; and have to weep for many of those who sinned and did not do penance for the impurity, fornication and dissolution they committed ¹³⁴ .

Doubtless also, if there were not certain crimes that should be spied upon by the humiliations of penance that the Church customarily inflicts on the faithful who repent, but more effective remedies, the Lord himself would not have said: If your brother has sinned against you, go and rebuke him between thee and him alone; if he listens to you, you will have won your brother ¹³⁵ .

Finally, if there were no faults inseparable from human life, he would not have established a daily remedy in the prayer he taught us: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us ¹³⁶ .

129 Matthew 23:15.

130 John 3:5.

131 Matthew 5:20.

132 Matthew 23:2 and 3.

133 1 Corinthians 5:4 and 5.

134 2 Corinthians 12:21.

135 Matthew 18:16.

136 Matthew 6:12.

Chapter 49

Unfounded criticism of those responsible.

I believe I have sufficiently developed my thinking on the general points of the subject. These points reduce to three.

First, the question has as its object the mixing of the good and the bad in the Church. This mixture is represented by the good grain and the tares. Now, on this point, it cannot be believed that under this parable, under the figure of the unclean animals introduced into the ark and other similar symbols, there is hidden the principle of letting the discipline of the Church weaken, so well represented by the woman of whom it is said. : "The laws of your house are severe."

These images are designed to prevent mad precipitation, like the exaggerated zeal to anticipate the separation of the good and the bad and produce an ungodly schism. These parables and figures serve to recommend to the just, not indifference to the disorders they must repress, but the patience necessary to tolerate, without prejudice to principles, abuses that cannot be repaired.

If it is written that Noah brought even the unclean animals into the ark, Church leaders must see therein a reason to let a wretch enter the holy bath with hideous filth and dancing, though this sacrilege was less serious than if he had entered it. with an adulterous thought.

So, under this symbol, God makes us understand that the Church must include impure people out of the spirit of tolerance and not to change its dogmas or relax its discipline.

The unclean animals were not introduced into the ark anyway; they were introduced there without degrading it, through the only door of entrance, which was opened to them by the builder of the ship.

Here is the second point of this controversy: our opponents understand that it is enough to initiate catechumens into the faith and wait for baptism to then teach them Christian morals. We have given superabundant proofs that the catechist must take advantage of the attention and zeal of those who aspire to receive the sacrament of faith, to show them the punishment that the Lord threatens Christians who live in sin; if he wants to prevent baptism, where they are to receive the remission of their faults, from being to them the source of the most fearful accusation.

As for the third point, the most fruitful in disastrous consequences, he has as a principle, in my opinion, a careless examination of the holy words which he contradicts. It consists in promising, to those who live in crime and infamy, that they will obtain eternal life, even if they persevere in their disorders; on the sole condition that they believe in Jesus Christ and receive the Sacraments. This is an opinion manifestly opposed to the principle expressly established by Our Lord, when he replied to him who sought eternal life: If thou wilt enter into life, observe the ^commandments . And since he even cites the commandments designed to outlaw the sins that one wants to reconcile, I don't know by what illusion one glimpses the possibility of arriving at eternal life through a sterile faith and without works.

On these three points, I have made all necessary developments. I proved that toleration of sinners must be reconciled in the Church with the maintenance of discipline. That it is necessary to teach and make the postulants adopt, not only the mysteries of faith, but the rules of morality. That it is necessary to assure the faithful that, in order to reach eternal life, they must have not faith that is dead and powerless to save without works, but the faith of grace that works through charity.

Far from accusing faithful servants of indifference or laziness, but rather focus on the obstinacy of the small number of sinners who refuse to accept the Lord's talent and would like to constrain their ministers to receive their false coin.

These are more culpable than the sinners mentioned by St Cyprian ¹³⁸ who renounce the world from the mouth and not from the heart, for, far from renouncing the works of Satan, even in words, they openly declare that they are ready to live until the end of adultery.

If there is any objection which they would like to raise, which I have omitted throughout this controversy, I think it is little worth refuting; either because she was a stranger to the subject, or because she offered a solution within reach of everyone.

137 Matthew 19:17.

138 Cf. CIPRIANO Of the Falls 27.

Original Credits:

Of Faith and Works

© 418 Aurelius Augustinus of Hippo

© 2018 Teodoro

Editor: Niterói – Rio de Janeiro – Brazil Translation by Souza Campos, EL de

Translation of: Of Faith and Works. Translation of the latim by M. Citoleux in Complete Works of Saint Augustin, edited by M. Raulx, Bar-le-Duc, L. Guérins & Cie publishers, 1867.

Cotted with: Faith and Works. Translation by Teodoro C. Madrid, OAR.