It remains to reply to those who maintain that only those will burn in eternal fire who neglect almsgiving proportioned to their sins, resting this opinion on the words of the Apostle James, “He shall have judgment without mercy who has shown no mercy.” James 2:13 Therefore, they say, the one who has shown mercy, though he has not reformed his dissolute conduct, but has lived wickedly and iniquitously even while abounding in alms, will have a merciful judgment, so that he will either not be condemned at all, or will be delivered from final judgment after a time. And for the same reason they suppose that Christ will discriminate between those on the right hand and those on the left, and will send the one party into His kingdom, the other into eternal punishment, on the sole ground of their attention to or neglect of works of charity. Moreover, they try to use the prayer which the Lord Himself taught as a proof and bulwark of their opinion, that daily sins which are never abandoned can be expiated through almsgiving, no matter how offensive or of what sort they are. For, they say, just as there is no day on which Christians ought not to use this prayer, so there is no sin of any kind which, though committed every day, is not remitted when we say, “Forgive us our debts,” if we take care to fulfill what follows, “as we forgive our debtors.” Matthew 6:12 For, they go on to say, the Lord does not say, “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you your little daily sins,” but “will forgive you your sins.” Therefore, whatever their kind or magnitude, even if they are committed daily and never abandoned or subdued in this life, they can be pardoned, they presume, through almsgiving. But they are right to urge the giving of alms proportioned to past sins; for if they said that any kind of alms could obtain the divine pardon of great sins committed daily and with habitual wickedness, if they said that such sins could thus be daily remitted, they would see that their doctrine was absurd and ridiculous. For they would thus be driven to acknowledge that it would be possible for a very wealthy man to buy absolution from murders, adulteries, and every kind of wickedness, by paying a daily alms of ten paltry coins. And if it is most absurd and insane to make such an acknowledgment, and if we still ask what are those fitting alms of which even the forerunner of Christ said, “Bear therefore fruits worthy of repentance,” Matthew 3:8 undoubtedly it will be found that they are not such as are done by men who undermine their life by daily outrages even to the very end. For they suppose that by giving to the poor a small fraction of the wealth they acquire by extortion and robbery they can propitiate Christ, so that they may with impunity commit the most damnable sins, in the belief that they have bought from Him a license to transgress, or rather do buy a daily indulgence. And if they for one crime have distributed all their goods to Christ's needy members, that could profit them nothing unless they desisted from all similar actions, and attained the love which works no evil. Whoever, therefore, gives alms proportioned to his sins must first begin with himself. For it is not reasonable that a man who shows charity toward his neighbor should not do so toward himself, since he hears the Lord saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” Matthew 22:39 and again, “Have compassion on your soul, and please God.”⁠a How, then, can the one who has no compassion on his own soul so that he may please God be said to give alms proportioned to his sins? To the same effect it is written, “He who is bad to himself, to whom can he be good?”⁠b Sirach 21:1 We ought therefore to give alms so that we may be heard when we pray that our past sins may be forgiven, not that while we continue in them we may think to provide ourselves with a license for wickedness by almsgiving. The reason, therefore, for our predicting that He will credit to those on His right hand the alms they have given, and charge those on His left with omitting the same, is that He may thus show the power of charity for the blotting out of past sins, not for impunity in their perpetual commission. And such persons, indeed, as refuse to abandon their evil habits of life for a better course cannot be said to do charitable deeds. For this is the meaning of the saying, “Insofar as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” Matthew 25:45 He shows them that they do not perform charitable actions even when they think they are doing so. For if they gave bread to a hungry Christian because he is a Christian, certainly they would not deny to themselves the bread of righteousness, that is, Christ Himself; for God considers not the person to whom the gift is made, but the spirit in which it is made. Whoever, therefore, loves Christ in a Christian extends alms to him in the same spirit in which he draws near to Christ, not in that spirit which would abandon Christ if it could do so with impunity. For in proportion as a man loves what Christ disapproves he himself abandons Christ. For what does it profit a man that he is baptized, if he is not justified? Did not He who said, “Unless a man is born of water and of the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God,” John 3:5 say also, “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven?” Matthew 5:20 Why do many through fear of the first saying run to baptism, while few through fear of the second seek to be justified? Just as, therefore, it is not to his brother that a man says, “You fool,” if when he says it he is indignant not at the brotherhood, but at the sin of the offender — for otherwise he would be guilty of hell fire — so whoever extends charity to a Christian does not extend it to a Christian if he does not love Christ in him. Now whoever refuses to be justified in Him does not love Christ. Or, again, if a man has been guilty of this sin of calling his brother Fool, unjustly reviling him without any desire to remove his sin, his almsgiving goes a small way toward expiating this fault, unless he adds to this the remedy of reconciliation which the same passage commands. For it is there said, “Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you; leave there your gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23-24 Just so it is a small matter to give alms, no matter how great they are, for any sin, as long as the offender continues in the practice of sin. Then as to the daily prayer which the Lord Himself taught, and which is therefore called the Lord's prayer, it wipes out indeed the sins of the day, when day by day we say, “Forgive us our debts,” and when we not only say but act out that which follows, “as we forgive our debtors;” Matthew 6:12 but we utter this petition because sins have been committed, and not so that they may be. For by it our Savior meant to teach us that, however righteously we live in this life of weakness and darkness, we still commit sins for the remission of which we ought to pray, while we must pardon those who sin against us so that we ourselves also may be pardoned. The Lord then did not utter the words, “If you forgive men their trespasses, your Father will also forgive you your trespasses,” Matthew 6:14 in order that we might draw from this petition such confidence as would enable us to sin securely from day to day, either putting ourselves above the fear of human laws, or craftily deceiving men concerning our conduct, but in order that we might thus learn not to suppose that we are without sins, even if we are free from crimes; just as God also instructed the priests of the old law to this same effect regarding their sacrifices, which He commanded them to offer first for their own sins, and then for the sins of the people. For even the very words of so great a Master and Lord are to be intently considered. For He does not say, If you forgive men their sins, your Father will also forgive you your sins, no matter of what sort they are, but He says, your sins; for it was a daily prayer He was teaching, and it was certainly to disciples already justified He was speaking. What, then, does He mean by “your sins,” but those sins from which not even you who are justified and sanctified can be free? While, then, those who seek occasion from this petition to indulge in habitual sin maintain that the Lord meant to include great sins, because He did not say, He will forgive you your small sins, but “your sins,” we, on the other hand, taking into account the character of the persons He was addressing, cannot see how to interpret the expression “your sins” of anything but small sins, because such persons are no longer guilty of great sins. Nevertheless not even great sins themselves — sins from which we must flee with a total reformation of life — are forgiven to those who pray, unless they observe the attached precept, “as you also forgive your debtors.” For if the very small sins which attach even to the life of the righteous are not remitted without that condition, how much further from obtaining indulgence will those be who are involved in many great crimes, if, while they cease from committing such outrages, they still inexorably refuse to remit any debt incurred to themselves, since the Lord says, “But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses?” Matthew 6:15 For this is the meaning of the saying of the Apostle James also, “He shall have judgment without mercy who has shown no mercy.” James 2:13 For we should remember that servant whose debt of ten thousand talents his lord canceled, but afterward ordered him to pay up, because the servant himself had no pity for his fellow servant, who owed him a hundred pence. Matthew 18:23 The words which the Apostle James adds,“And mercy exults over judgment,” James 2:13 find their application among those who are the children of the promise and vessels of mercy. For even those righteous men, who have lived with such holiness that they receive into the eternal dwellings others also who have won their friendship with the mammon of unrighteousness, Luke 16:9 became such only through the merciful deliverance of Him who justifies the ungodly, imputing to him a reward according to grace, not according to debt. For among this number is the apostle, who says, “I obtained mercy to be faithful.” 1 Corinthians 7:25 But it must be admitted that those who are thus received into the eternal dwellings are not of such a character that their own life would be enough to rescue them without the aid of the saints, and consequently in their case especially mercy exults over judgment. And yet we are not on this account to suppose that every abandoned profligate, who has made no amendment of his life, is to be received into the eternal dwellings if only he has assisted the saints with the mammon of unrighteousness — that is to say, with money or wealth which has been unjustly acquired, or, if rightfully acquired, is still not the true riches, but only what iniquity counts riches, because it does not know the true riches in which those persons abound, who even receive others also into eternal dwellings. There is then a certain kind of life, which is neither, on the one hand, so bad that those who adopt it are not helped toward the kingdom of heaven by any generous almsgiving by which they may relieve the needs of the saints, and make friends who could receive them into eternal dwellings, nor, on the other hand, so good that it is of itself enough to win for them that great blessedness, if they do not obtain mercy through the merits of those whom they have made their friends. And I frequently wonder that even Virgil should give expression to this statement of the Lord, in which He says, “Make friends for yourselves with the mammon of unrighteousness, so that they may receive you into everlasting dwellings;” Luke 16:9 and this very similar saying, “Whoever receives a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward; and whoever receives a righteous man, in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward.” Matthew 10:41 For when that poet described the Elysian fields, in which they suppose that the souls of the blessed dwell, he placed there not only those who had been able by their own merit to reach that dwelling, but added — And they who grateful memory won / By services to others done; that is, those who had served others, and by this deserved to be remembered by them. Just as if they used the expression so common on Christian lips, where some humble person commends himself to one of the saints, and says, Remember me, and makes sure that he does so by deserving well at his hand. But what that kind of life we have been speaking of is, and what those sins are which prevent a man from winning the kingdom of God by himself, but still permit him to benefit from the merits of the saints, it is very difficult to determine, very dangerous to define. For my own part, in spite of all investigation, I have been up to the present hour unable to discover this. And possibly it is hidden from us, so that we do not become careless in avoiding such sins, and so cease to make progress. For if it were known what these sins are which, though they continue, and are not abandoned for a higher life, still do not prevent us from seeking and hoping for the intercession of the saints, human sloth would presumptuously wrap itself in these sins, and would take no steps to be disentangled from such wrappings by the deft energy of any virtue, but would only desire to be rescued by the merits of other people, whose friendship had been won by a generous use of the mammon of unrighteousness. But now that we are left in ignorance of the precise nature of that iniquity which is venial, even though it is persevered in, certainly we are both more vigilant in our prayers and efforts for progress, and more careful to secure with the mammon of unrighteousness friends for ourselves among the saints. But this deliverance, which is brought about by one's own prayers, or the intercession of holy men, ensures that a man is not cast into eternal fire, but not that, when once he has been cast into it, he should after a time be rescued from it. For even those who imagine that what is said of the good ground bringing forth abundant fruit, some thirty, some sixty, some a hundredfold, is to be referred to the saints, so that in proportion to their merits some of them will deliver thirty men, some sixty, some a hundred — even those who maintain this are still commonly inclined to suppose that this deliverance will take place at, and not after the day of judgment. Under this impression, someone who observed the shameful folly with which men promise themselves impunity on the ground that all will be included in this method of deliverance, is reported to have very aptly remarked that we should rather try to live so well that we will all be found among the number of those who are to intercede for the liberation of others, in case these should be so few in number that, after they have delivered one thirty, another sixty, another a hundred, there should still remain many who could not be delivered from punishment by their intercessions, and among them everyone who has vainly and rashly promised himself the fruit of another's labor. But enough has been said in reply to those who acknowledge the authority of the same sacred Scriptures as ourselves, but who, by a mistaken interpretation of them, conceive of the future rather as they themselves wish, than as the Scriptures teach. And having given this reply, I now, as promised, close this book.