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In Confessions 2, Augustine turns Sirach's image of sins melting like ice into thanks for God's mercy after his theft, crediting forgiveness to God's help rather than his own strength.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Sirach 3:15
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
14 For kindness to a father will not be forgotten, and will be credited to you against your sins; 15 in the day of your distress it will be remembered in your favor; like frost in fair weather, your sins will melt away. 16 Whoever forsakes a father is like a blasphemer, and whoever angers a 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? As for that man who, when called by you, obeyed your voice and shunned those things which he here reads of me as I recall and confess them of myself, let him not despise me—for I, who was sick, have been healed by the same Physician by whose aid it was that he did not fall sick, or rather was less sick than I. And for this let him love you just as much—indeed, all the more—since he sees me restored from such a great weakness of sin by the selfsame Saviour by whom he sees himself preserved from such a weakness.
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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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