64. The angels are in concord with us even now, when our sins are
forgiven. Therefore, in the order of the Creed, after the reference to
"holy Church" is placed the reference to "forgiveness of sins." For it
is by this that the part of the Church on earth stands; it is by this
that "what was lost and is found again" [132] is not lost again. Of
course, the gift of baptism is an exception. It is an antidote given us
against original sin, so that what is contracted by birth is removed by
the new birth--though it also takes away actual sins as well, whether
of heart, word, or deed. But except for this great remission--the
beginning point of a man's renewal, in which all guilt, inherited and
acquired, is washed away--the rest of life, from the age of
accountability (and no matter how vigorously we progress in
righteousness), is not without the need for the forgiveness of sins.
This is the case because the sons of God, as long as they live this
mortal life, are in a conflict with death. And although it is truly
said of them, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the
sons of God," [133] yet even as they are being led by the Spirit of God
and, as sons of God, advance toward God, they are also being led by
their own spirits so that, weighed down by the corruptible body and
influenced by certain human feelings, they thus fall away from
themselves and commit sin. But it matters how much. Although every
crime is a sin, not every sin is a crime. Thus we can say of the life
of holy men even while they live in this mortality, that they are found
without crime. "But if we say that we have no sin," as the great
apostle says, "we deceive even ourselves, and the truth is not in us."
[134]
65. Nevertheless, no matter how great our crimes, their forgiveness
should never be despaired of in holy Church for those who truly repent,
each according to the measure of his sin. And, in the act of
repentance, [135] where a crime has been committed of such gravity as
also to cut off the sinner from the body of Christ, we should not
consider the measure of time as much as the measure of sorrow. For, "a
contrite and humbled heart God will not despise." [136]
Still, since the sorrow of one heart is mostly hid from another, and
does not come to notice through words and other such signs--even when
it is plain to Him of whom it is said, "My groaning is not hid from
thee" [137] --times of repentance have been rightly established by
those set over the churches, that satisfaction may also be made in the
Church, in which the sins are forgiven. For, of course, outside her
they are not forgiven. For she alone has received the pledge of the
Holy Spirit, [138] without whom there is no forgiveness of sins. Those
forgiven thus obtain life everlasting.
66. Now the remission of sins has chiefly to do with the future
judgment. In this life the Scripture saying holds true: "A heavy yoke
is on the sons of Adam, from the day they come forth from their
mother's womb till the day of their burial in the mother of us all."
[139] Thus we see even infants, after the washing of regeneration,
tortured by divers evil afflictions. This helps us to understand that
the whole import of the sacraments of salvation has to do more with the
hope of future goods than with the retaining or attaining of present
goods.
Indeed, many sins seem to be ignored and go unpunished; but their
punishment is reserved for the future. It is not in vain that the day
when the Judge of the living and the dead shall come is rightly called
the Day of Judgment. Just so, on the other hand, some sins are punished
here, and, if they are forgiven, will certainly bring no harm upon us
in the future age. Hence, referring to certain temporal punishments,
which are visited upon sinners in this life, the apostle, speaking to
those whose sins are blotted out and not reserved to the end, says:
"For if we judge ourselves truly we should not be judged by the Lord.
But when we are judged, we are chastised by the Lord, that we may not
be condemned along with this world." [140]
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[132] Cf. Luke 15:24.
[133] Rom. 8:14.
[134] I John 1:8.
[135] In actione poenitentiae; cf. Luther's similar conception of
poenitentiam agite in the 95 Theses and in De poenitentia.
[136] Ps. 51:17.
[137] Ps. 38:9.
[138] II Cor. 1:22.
[139] Ecclus. 40:1 (Vulgate).
[140] I Cor. 11:31, 32.
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CHAPTER XVIII [141] : Faith and Works
67. There are some, indeed, who believe that those who do not abandon
the name of Christ, and who are baptized in his laver in the Church,
who are not cut off from it by schism or heresy, who may then live in
sins however great, not washing them away by repentance, nor redeeming
them by alms--and who obstinately persevere in them to life's last
day--even these will still be saved, "though as by fire." They believe
that such people will be punished by fire, prolonged in proportion to
their sins, but still not eternal.
But those who believe thus, and still are Catholics, are deceived, as
it seems to me, by a kind of merely human benevolence. For the divine
Scripture, when consulted, answers differently. Moreover, I have
written a book about this question, entitled Faith and Works, [142] in
which, with God's help, I have shown as best I could that, according to
Holy Scripture, the faith that saves is the faith that the apostle Paul
adequately describes when he says, "For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but the faith which
works through love." [143] But if faith works evil and not good, then
without doubt, according to the apostle James "it is dead in itself."
[144] He then goes on to say, "If a man says he has faith, yet has not
works, can his faith be enough to save him?" [145]
Now, if the wicked man were to be saved by fire on account of his faith
only, and if this is the way the statement of the blessed Paul should
be understood--"But he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire" [146]
--then faith without works would be sufficient to salvation. But then
what the apostle James said would be false. And also false would be
another statement of the same Paul himself: "Do not err," he says;
"neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the unmanly,
nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the Kingdom of God." [147]
Now, if those who persist in such crimes as these are nevertheless
saved by their faith in Christ, would they not then be in the Kingdom
of God?
68. But, since these fully plain and most pertinent apostolic
testimonies cannot be false, that one obscure saying about those who
build on "the foundation, which is Christ, not gold, silver, and
precious stones, but wood, hay, and stubble" [148] --for it is about
these it is said that they will be saved as by fire, not perishing on
account of the saving worth of their foundation--such a statement must
be interpreted so that it does not contradict these fully plain
testimonies.
In fact, wood and hay and stubble may be understood, without absurdity,
to signify such an attachment to those worldly things--albeit
legitimate in themselves--that one cannot suffer their loss without
anguish in the soul. Now, when such anguish "burns," and Christ still
holds his place as foundation in the heart--that is, if nothing is
preferred to him and if the man whose anguish "burns" would still
prefer to suffer loss of the things he greatly loves than to lose
Christ--then one is saved, "by fire." But if, in time of testing, he
should prefer to hold onto these temporal and worldly goods rather than
to Christ, he does not have him as foundation--because he has put
"things" in the first place--whereas in a building nothing comes before
the foundations.
Now, this fire, of which the apostle speaks, should be understood as
one through which both kinds of men must pass: that is, the man who
builds with gold, silver, and precious stones on this foundation and
also the man who builds with wood, hay, and stubble. For, when he had
spoken of this, he added: "The fire shall try every man's work, of what
sort it is. If any man's work abides which he has built thereupon, he
shall receive a reward. If any man's work burns up, he shall suffer
loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire." [149]
Therefore the fire will test the work, not only of the one, but of
both.
The fire is a sort of trial of affliction, concerning which it is
clearly written elsewhere: "The furnace tries the potter's vessels and
the trial of affliction tests righteous men." [150] This kind of fire
works in the span of this life, just as the apostle said, as it affects
the two different kinds of faithful men. There is, for example, the man
who "thinks of the things of God, how he may please God." Such a man
builds on Christ the foundation, with gold, silver, and precious
stones. The other man "thinks about the things of the world, how he may
please his wife" [151] ; that is, he builds upon the same foundation
with wood, hay, and stubble. The work of the former is not burned up,
since he has not loved those things whose loss brings anguish. But the
work of the latter is burned up, since things are not lost without
anguish when they have been loved with a possessive love. But because,
in this second situation, he prefers to suffer the loss of these things
rather than losing Christ, and does not desert Christ from fear of
losing such things--even though he may grieve over his loss--"he is
saved," indeed, "yet so as by fire." He "burns" with grief, for the
things he has loved and lost, but this does not subvert nor consume
him, secured as he is by the stability and the indestructibility of his
foundation.
69. It is not incredible that something like this should occur after
this life, whether or not it is a matter for fruitful inquiry. It may
be discovered or remain hidden whether some of the faithful are sooner
or later to be saved by a sort of purgatorial fire, in proportion as
they have loved the goods that perish, and in proportion to their
attachment to them. However, this does not apply to those of whom it
was said, "They shall not possess the Kingdom of God," [152] unless
their crimes are remitted through due repentance. I say "due
repentance" to signify that they must not be barren of almsgiving, on
which divine Scripture lays so much stress that our Lord tells us in
advance that, on the bare basis of fruitfulness in alms, he will impute
merit to those on his right hand; and, on the same basis of
unfruitfulness, demerit to those on his left--when he shall say to the
former, "Come, blessed of my Father, receive the Kingdom," but to the
latter, "Depart into everlasting fire." [153]
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[141] This chapter supplies an important clue to the date of the
Enchiridion and an interesting side light on Augustine's inclination to
re-use "good material." In his treatise on The Eight Questions of
Dulcitius (De octo Dulcitii quaestionibus), 1: 10-13, Augustine quotes
this entire chapter as a part of his answer to the question whether
those who sin after baptism are ever delivered from hell. The date of
the De octo is 422 or, possibly, 423; thus we have a terminus ad quem
for the date of the Enchiridion. Still the best text of De octo is
Migne, PL, 40, c. 147-170, and the best English translation is in
Deferrari, St. Augustine: Treatises on Various Subjects (The Fathers of
the Church, New York, 1952), pp. 427-466.
[142] A short treatise, written in 413, in which Augustine seeks to
combine the Pauline and Jacobite emphases by analyzing what kind of
faith and what kind of works are both essential to salvation. The best
text is that of Joseph Zycha in CSEL, Vol. 41, pp. 35-97; but see also
Migne, PL, 40, c. 197-230. There is an English translation by C.L.
Cornish in A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church; Seventeen
Short Treatises, pp. 37-84.
[143] Gal. 5:6.
[144] James 2:17.
[145] James 2:14.
[146] I Cor. 3:15.
[147] I Cor. 6:9, 10.
[148] I Cor. 3:11, 12.
[149] I Cor. 3:11-15.
[150] Ecclus. 27:5.
[151] Cf. I Cor. 7:32, 33.
[152] See above, XVIII, 67.
[153] Matt. 25:34, 41.
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