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Sirach compares forgiveness to warm weather melting frost. In the Confessions, Augustine uses the same image after recalling his theft, crediting God's mercy with melting away his sins.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Sirach 3:15
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
14 For the kindness to your father will not be forgotten. Instead of sins it will be added to build you up. 15 In the day of your affliction it will be remembered for you, as fair weather upon ice, so your sins will also melt away. 16 He who forsakes his father is as a blasphemer. He who provokes his mother is cursed by the Lord.
Augustine, Confessions 2.7
Early Christian
"What shall I render to the Lord" for the fact that while my memory recalls these things my soul no longer fears them? I will love you, O Lord, and thank you, and confess to your name, because you have put away from me such wicked and evil deeds. To your grace I attribute it and to your mercy, that you have melted away my sin as if it were ice. To your grace also I attribute whatsoever of evil I did not commit—for what might I not have done, loving sin as I did, just for the sake of sinning? Yea, all the sins that I confess now to have been forgiven me, both those which I committed willfully and those which, by your providence, I did not commit. What man is there who, when reflecting upon his own infirmity, dares to ascribe his chastity and innocence to his own powers, so that he should love you less—as if he were in less need of your mercy in which you forgive the transgressions of those that return to you?
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Notes and References
“... The
experience made it possible for him to look into the darkest depths of sin,
not concerned with an abuse of some good or unbridled desire for it any
more, but with evil for the sake of the evil itself. Yet if this is the true nature
of the human condition, then men cannot attribute it to their own powers
should grace protect them from certain sins:
I attribute to your grace and mercy that you have melted my sins away like
ice (cf. Ecclus. 3:17). I also attribute to your grace whatever evil acts I have not
done. What could I not have done when I loved gratuitous crime (gratuitum
facinus)?18 ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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