Paraenesis, sive Exhortatorius Libellus, ad Poenitentiam

The Paraenesis, or Exhortatory Little Book, of Saint Pacian, on Penance. I. Although I have on several occasions, albeit in a tumultuous manner, not kept silent about the treatment of penitents, yet mindful of the Lord’s solicitude, which for the sake of the loss of a single little sheep did not spare even its own neck and shoulders, I, returning the delicate sinner to the restored flock, will attempt, as best I can, to commit to writing an example of such great virtue, and as a servant I will imitate the industry of the Lord’s labor, in the mediocrity that is fitting. I fear one thing, most beloved: that by the adversities of habitual contrariety, in inculcating what is done, I may rather remind of sins than repress them, and that it would have been better, by the example of Attic Solon, to be silent about great crimes than to beware of them, so far have the morals of our countrymen progressed that they consider themselves admonished when they are forbidden. For this, I think, is what that Cervulus recently achieved: that he became more diligent the more pointedly he was noted. And that whole reproach of expressed and often repeated disgrace seems not to have suppressed, but to have instructed, luxury. Woe is me! What crime have I committed? I think they did not know how to act like Cervulus until I showed them by reproaching. But let that be. Those who are fugitives from God or placed outside the Church are even exasperated by the injury of chastisement, indignant, of course, that their morals can be reproached by anyone.

And just as mud usually stinks most when you stir it, and a fire burns more fiercely if you turn it, and rabies rages more violently if you provoke it, so they broke the necessary goads of rebuke with a contrary kick, resisting not without their own harm and wound. II. Yet you, dearest ones, remember that it is set by the Lord: "Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you; but a fool, and he will hate you" (Prov. 9:8). And again: "I, whom I love, I reprove and chastise" (Apoc. 3:19). And therefore believe that the gentle and careful diligence of this work of mine, undertaken according to the Lord's will by myself, your brother and priest, is love rather than rigor, following amiably, not stubbornly resisting. Moreover, let no one think that this very discourse on the institution of Penance is ordained only for penitents alone; lest for this reason anyone placed outside this grade disdain whatever will be said, as if destined for others, since in this, as it were, the clasp of the whole Church's discipline is marked, when provision must be made both for Catechumens, lest they pass into this state, and for the faithful, lest they return to it; and for the penitents themselves, that they may labor to arrive quickly at the fruit of this work. Yet this order of my discourses will be preserved. First, that I may discuss the manner of sins, lest anyone think that the utmost peril is imposed on all sins without distinction.

Now I will speak about those faithful who, blushing at their remedy, are wrongly modest, and with polluted body and defiled mind receive communion: most timid in the sight of men, but before the Lord most shameless, defiling the holy and fearful altar with profane hands and polluted mouth. Thirdly, there will be a discussion about those who, with confessed and fully disclosed crimes, either do not know or refuse the remedies of penance and the very acts of administering exomologesis. Finally, we will strive to show most clearly what punishment awaits those who either do not perform penance or are negligent, and thus die in their wound and swelling; and what, on the other hand, is the crown, what the reward, for those who cleanse the stains of their conscience by a proper and orderly confession. III. First, then, as we have said, let us reconsider the manner of sinners, diligently inquiring what are sins, what are crimes: lest anyone think that, because of the countless offenses from whose frauds no one is free, I am binding the whole human race with an indiscriminate law of penance. Among Moses and the ancients, even the smallest sin, and the offense of a single quadrant (so to speak), were rolled about in the same whirlpool of unhappiness.

And those who had violated the Sabbath, and those who had touched unclean things, and those who had presumed upon forbidden foods, and those who murmured, and those who had entered the temple of the highest King through a broken wall, and those who had entered with a stained garment, and those who, liable for these things, had handled the altars with their hand or touched them with their garment—so that it would have been quicker to ascend into heaven, or better to die, than to observe all these things. Therefore, for all of us, and for many other carnal vices besides, so that each might more quickly attain what is destined, the blood of the Lord has set us free, redeemed from the servitude of the law and emancipated by the freedom of faith. And so the apostle Paul says: "But you," he says, "have been called into freedom" (Gal. 5:13). This is that freedom: that we are not bound by all the things by which the ancients were held; but a forest of sins (so to speak) has been granted, and an indulgence of remedies has been appointed, we have been confined to few and necessary things; which it would be very easy for believers both to observe and to avoid: so that most deservedly Tartarus would not be refused by one who, ungrateful for such a great gift, had not observed even these few things. But let us see what these things are.

IV. After the Lord's passion, the Apostles, having examined and discussed everything, handed down a letter to be carried to those who had believed from among the Gentiles. The content of this letter was as follows: "The Apostles and presbyters, brothers, to the brothers in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia who are from among the Gentiles, greetings. Since we have heard that some from among us have gone out and disturbed you with words" (Acts 15:24, 25). Likewise below: "For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose no further burden upon you beyond this: It is necessary that you abstain from idolothytes and blood and fornication; from which, if you observe, you will do well. Farewell" (Ibid., 28, 29). This is the entire conclusion of the New Testament. The Holy Spirit, disregarded in many things, has bequeathed these to us under the condition of capital peril. Other sins are cured by compensation through better works; but these three crimes, like the breath of some basilisk, like a cup of poison, like a lethal reed, are to be feared: for they know not how to corrupt the soul, but to cut it off. Therefore, tenacity will be redeemed by humanity; insult will be weighed out by satisfaction; sadness by cheerfulness; harshness by gentleness; levity by gravity; perversity by honesty; and whatever things, corrected by their opposites, improve. But what will the despiser of God do? What will the bloodthirsty man do? What remedy will the fornicator take?

Can he who has deserted the Lord placate him? Or can he who has shed another's blood preserve his own? Or can he who has violated God's temple by fornication restore it? These are capital sins, brothers; these are mortal sins. Now hear John, and take heart, if you can: "If anyone knows," he says, "that his brother is committing a sin that is not unto death, let him pray for him, and the Lord will give him life; if anyone has committed a sin that is not unto death. But there is a sin that leads to death: I do not say that you should pray for that one" (1 John 5:16). V. But if you please, let us also hear separately about each one. When Moses interceded for a blasphemous people, God addresses him thus: "If anyone," he says, "has offended before me, I will erase him from my book" (Exodus 32:33). And concerning a murderer, the Lord judges thus: "If anyone," he says, "has killed with a sword, he shall die by the sword" (Exodus 12:12). And concerning a fornicator, the Apostle says: "Do not violate," he says, "the temple of God, which you yourselves are. For whoever violates the temple of God, God will destroy him" (1 Corinthians 3:17). These things are written, beloved brothers, and engraved on everlasting monuments; written and incised not on wax or paper or bronze or with a reed, but in the book of the living God. Heaven and earth will pass away; the whole, he says, not a single letter or stroke can pass away before all things are fulfilled (Matthew 5:18). What then? Must we die? Many have also fallen in spirit into these sins. Many are guilty of bloodshed, many enslaved to idols, many adulterers.

I add that not only hands are punished in homicide, but also every plan that has driven another's soul into death: nor only those who have burned incense on profane tables, but absolutely every lust that wanders beyond the marriage bed and lawful embraces is bound by the guilt of death. Whoever has done these things after the faith will not see the face of God. Those guilty of such great crimes have despaired. What have I done to you? Was it not within your power that it not happen? Did no one warn you? Did no one foretell? Did the Church keep silent? Did the Gospels say nothing? Did the Apostles threaten nothing? Did the priest ask nothing? Why do you seek late comforts? It was fitting then, when it was allowed. This is a harsh word; but those who call you happy lead you into error and disturb the paths of your feet. He who flatters the guilty after their crimes shows the way of crime to the innocent. VI. Therefore (someone will say) are we to perish? And where is the merciful God, who finds no death, nor rejoices in the destruction of the living? Shall we die in our sins? And what will you do, priest? With what gains will you compensate the Church for so many losses? Seize the remedy if you have begun to despair; if you acknowledge yourselves wretched, if you are afraid. He who trusts too much is unworthy. Upon whom (says the Lord) shall I look, except upon the humble and quiet, and the one trembling at my words (Isa. 66:2)?

I therefore first appeal to you, brothers, who, having committed crimes, refuse penance: you, I say, timid after shamelessness, modest after sins, who do not blush to sin and blush to confess; who with a bad conscience touch the holy things of God and do not fear the Lord's altar; who approach the hand of the priest, in the sight of angels, under the pretense of innocence; who insult divine patience; who, while God is silent, as if He were ignorant, thrust in a polluted soul and a profane body. Hear what the Lord did; then, what He said. When the Hebrew people were bringing back the Ark of the Lord to Jerusalem, and from the house of Aminadab to the Israelites, Oza, who with an unexamined conscience had touched the side of the Ark, was killed; and yet he had approached not to take anything from it, but to steady the calf that was tilting toward a fall (2 Samuel 6). So great was the care for divine reverence that it did not tolerate audacious hands, even for the sake of help. The same Lord cries out and says: "Every man who eats flesh, and whatever soul touches the flesh of the salutary sacrifice, and there is uncleanness upon it, that soul shall perish from the people" (Leviticus 7:12). Are these things ancient, and do they not happen now? What then? Has God ceased to care for us? Or has He withdrawn beyond the sight of the world, and does He watch no one from heaven? Or is His power ignorance? Far from it, you will say.

He sees, then, what we do, but surely he waits and endures, and grants time for penance, and allows his Christ to delay, lest those whom he has redeemed perish too quickly. Well, sinner, understand: you are watched by the Lord; you can appease him if you wish. VII. But let that be an old saying, that it was not permitted for the unclean to approach the table of God: unroll the Apostles, and learn the new. In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul brought these words: Whoever, he says, eats or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:27). Likewise below: For whoever eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment for himself, not discerning the body of the Lord: Therefore, he says, among you, many are weak and sick, and many sleep. But if we were to judge ourselves, we would certainly not be judged; when we are judged, however, we are chastised by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned with this world (Ibid., 29–32). Have you trembled, or not? He will be guilty, he says, of the body and blood of the Lord. A man guilty of a human soul could not be absolved; does a violator of the Lord’s body escape? Whoever eats, he says, and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment for himself. Awake, sinner; fear present judgment in your own bowels, if you have done any such thing. Therefore, he says, among you, many are weak and sick, and many sleep. Now if anyone does not fear future things, let him at least dread present sickness and present death. When we are judged, he says, we are chastised by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned with this world.

Rejoice, sinner, if in this world you are cut off by death or consumed by sickness, so that you may not be punished after this world. Understand how great a crime is committed by one who comes to the altar unworthy; for whom it is counted as a remedy when he either labors under disease or is dissolved by death. VIII. But if your soul is cheap to you, spare the people, spare the priests. The Apostle cries out: A little leaven leavens the whole lump (1 Cor. 5:6). What will you do, you on whose account the whole lump is corrupted; on whose account the entire brotherhood will have to labor? Will you live as guilty of so many souls? Will you be excused when the innocent have charged you with their own Communion, when the Church has called you the author of its disaster? Behold again the Apostle to the priest: Do not quickly lay hands on anyone, nor share in the sins of others (1 Tim. 5:22). What will you do, you who deceive the priest? Who either trick him in his ignorance, or confound him when not fully knowing, by the difficulty of testing? I therefore ask you, brothers, even for the sake of my own peril, by that Lord whom hidden things do not deceive, cease to cover a wounded conscience. Prudent sick men do not fear physicians, even when they are about to cut or cauterize hidden parts of the body. We remember some, not blushing even at remote and shameful parts of the body, enduring the iron and the cautery and the most severe biting of that powder. And how great is that which men have endured? Will the sinner be afraid?

The sinner will blush—will he purchase eternal life with present shame? And will he, offering his hands to the Lord, draw back wounds poorly concealed? Does he have anything in himself to blush at, who has injured the Lord? Or is it better for him to perish thus, lest you, timid out of shame, die without shame, making no room for shame, gaining more from his loss than is better for him to perish on your behalf? But if you blush before the eyes of your brethren, do not fear those who share your misfortunes. No body rejoices in the affliction of its own members; it grieves equally and collaborates for a remedy. In one and another, the Church exists; in the Church, indeed, Christ. And therefore, he who does not conceal his sins from his brethren is absolved, aided by the tears of the Church, by the prayers of Christ. IX. Now let the word be to those who, well and wisely, confess their wounds under the name of penance, yet know neither what penance is nor what the medicine for wounds is; and they are like those who indeed open wounds and swellings, and even confess to physicians sitting by, but when advised, neglect what is to be applied and disdain what is to be drunk. This is as if someone were to say: Behold, I am sick, behold, I am wounded, but I refuse to have my stomach treated. This was the case, but see what is more foolish. A disease is even added to the cause, and a wound is joined, and every contrary thing is applied, pernicious things are drunk. With this greatest evil this brotherhood labors, adding new sins on top of old offenses.

Therefore, he has broken out into a more serious vice, and is now tormented by the most pernicious corruption. What, then, am I, a priest who is compelled to heal, to do now? It is too late for such a case. Nevertheless, if there is any among you who can endure being cut and cauterized, I can still do it. Behold the prophetic scalpel: "Turn," it says, "to the Lord your God, and at the same time with fasting, and weeping, and lamentation, and rend your hearts" (Joel 2:12-13). Do not fear this cutting, dearest ones. David endured it; he lay in filthy ashes, hideous with a rough sackcloth besides. He, once accustomed to gems and purple, covered his soul in fasting; he, for whom the seas, the forests, the rivers served, and the earth, pregnant with promised riches; he, with eyes worn out by tears—those eyes with which he had seen the glory of God—confessed himself wretched and miserable, he the father of Mary, the ruler even of the Jewish empire. That Babylonian king performs his exomologesis in solitude, and is consumed by seven years of squalor. The manes of lions, unkempt hair, and a barbaric horror surpass him; and his hands, bristling with long curved nails, counterfeit eagles while he, like an ox, chews pale grass, a ruminator of herbs. Yet this punishment commends him to God, and restores him to his former kingdom. Whom men abhorred, God received, happy in the calamity of that very harsh treatment. Behold the incision I promised: whoever can endure it will be healed.

X. I shall yet apply the fires of the apostolic cautery: let us see whether you can bear it. "I have judged," he says, "when you and my spirit were gathered together, by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, to hand over such a man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord" (1 Cor. 5:3-5). What say you, penitents? Where is the destruction of your flesh? Or is it that in your very penance you always go about more sumptuously, stuffed with feasting, polished with baths, composed in dress? Behold, I see someone once frugal, once poor, once filthy in a cheap tunic: now he is well-groomed and wealthy and handsome, as though he blames God that he could not serve Him, and revives his dying soul with the pleasure of his limbs. It is well that we are of modest means; otherwise we would do those things which some men and women are not ashamed to do—to be covered with marble, weighed down with gold, to flow with silk, to blush with scarlet. If any rusty powder glittered on the eyebrow, or any false brightness glowed on the cheeks, or any forced redness sweated on the lips: perhaps you do not have these things. Yet you do not lack your garden or seaside retreats, and more exquisite wine, and more sumptuous feasts, and the purging of old age. Act thus, believe thus, when will you live? I can no longer bear it, brothers. Daniel, with his companions, covered in sackcloth and ashes, bloodless even from fasting, speaks these words: "We have sinned, we have committed a crime, we have acted impiously, we have transgressed your precepts and judgments" (Dan. 9:5).

Concerning Azariah, divine Scripture likewise says: "Azariah stood and prayed, and opening his mouth, he made confession to God together with his companions" (Dan. 3:25). David himself says: "I will wash my bed each night, I will water my couch with tears" (Ps. 6:7). But we—what such thing, what like thing do we do? I do not speak of those things which we heap up, by huckstering, by trading, by plundering; by hunting after profits without, lusts within; doing nothing simply, giving nothing to the poor, remitting nothing to the brethren. Not even these things, which can be seen even by a priest and praised by a bishop as a witness, do we observe daily: to weep in the sight of the Church, to mourn a lost life in squalid clothing, to fast, to pray, to prostrate oneself; if someone calls to the bath, to refuse delights; if someone invites to a banquet, to say: "These things are for the fortunate; I have sinned against the Lord, and I am in danger of perishing forever; what are feasts to me, who have offended the Lord?" Moreover, to hold the hands of the poor, to beseech widows, to prostrate oneself before presbyters, to implore the intercessory Church, to try everything before you perish.

XI. I know that some of your brothers and sisters wrap their chests in sackcloth, lie on ashes, and practice prolonged fasts; and perhaps they have not sinned so greatly. Why should I speak of brothers? Even wild goats, as they say, know their own remedies: when pierced, I hear, by poisoned arrows, they roam the Dictaean glens until, by plucking the stalk of dittany, they repel the deadly venom and shake the darts from their bodies with healing juices. We do not repel the fiery darts of the devil with any juice of penance, with any herb of exomologesis. Does not the swallow know how to restore sight to its blinded young with its own chelidonia? Shall we, having lost the eyes of the mind, not heal ourselves with the root of good treatment? Behold, man, unlike the goat or the swallow, begrudges his own blindness and pain. Consider now, brothers, what we promised at the end: what fruit these works yield, or on the contrary, what outcome follows. To delicate sinners who do not perform penance, the Spirit of the Lord threatens and says: "They did not receive the beloved of truth that they might be saved; and therefore God will send them the operation of error, that they may believe a lie, so that all who did not believe the truth, but please themselves in injustice, may be judged" (2 Thess. 2:10-11). Likewise, the Apocalypse speaks of the harlot thus: "In proportion as she glorified herself and indulged in delights, so much give her torment and grief" (Rev. 18:7). And the Apostle Paul: "Do you not know that the goodness of God leads you to penance?

But you, by your hardness, are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God (Rom. 2:4-5). Therefore, dearest ones, fear the just judgments: abandon error, condemn delights; the final time is already hastening; Tartarus and Gehenna open their loosened bosoms to the impious. After the timely punishments of souls, perpetual punishment is also reserved for the renewed bodies. Let no one believe in the liver of Tityus and the Vulture of the poets. The eternal fire itself repairs the material of the regenerating bodies. Pay attention, if you do not believe: the rush of waters that rages against the fires will be restored by the nourishing punishment. If you are drawn back from exomologesis by the torment, remember the Gehenna which exomologesis will extinguish for you. Estimate its force even from present things; its little smoke-vents, so to speak, cook the greatest mountains with subterranean fires. Sicilian Aetna and Campanian Vesuvius boil with tireless globes of flame; and to prove to us the perpetuity of judgment, they burst apart, are devoured; yet they are never finished in any ages. Pay attention in the Gospel to the rich man suffering the punishments of his soul alone. What, then, will be that punishment for the bodies that will return? what gnashing of teeth in that? what weeping of eyes?

XII. Remember, brothers, that among the dead there is no exomologesis; nor can penance then be granted, the time for repenting having been consumed (Eccl. 9:10; Sir. 14:17). Hasten while you are alive, while you journey with the adversary. We fear earthly fires and tremble at the executioners' claws: compare with these the eternal hands of the torturers, and the tips of flames that never die with any age. I implore you by the faith of the Church, brothers; by my concern, by the common souls of all, I adjure and entreat: let there be no shame in this work; let it not irk you to seize the timely remedies of salvation as soon as possible, to cast down your spirit with grief, to wrap your body in sackcloth, to cover yourself with ashes, to be wasted by fasting, to be consumed by sorrow, to be aided by the prayers of many. To the extent that you have not spared your own punishments, to that extent God will spare you. For He is gentle and patient, and of great mercy, and He who bends the sentence imposed against wickedness (Joel 2:13, according to the LXX). Behold, I promise, I pledge: if you return to your Father with true satisfaction, erring no further, adding nothing to your former sins, and even saying something humble and tearful, "We have sinned in your sight, Father; we are no longer worthy of the name of sons" (Luke 15:22), immediately that unclean beast will depart from you, and the ugly food of husks. Immediately, upon returning, you will be clothed with the stole, the ring will honor you, and the father's embrace will receive you again.

Behold, He Himself speaks: "I do not desire the death of the sinner, but rather that he should return and live" (Ezek. 18:23; 23:11). And again: "Does not," He says, "he who has fallen rise again; and he who has turned away, turn back?" (Jer. 8:4). And the Apostle says: "God is able to restore him" (Rom. 14:4). The Apocalypse also threatens the seven Churches, unless they do penance. And surely He would not threaten those who do not repent, unless He forgave those who do repent. Even God Himself says: "Remember, behold, from where you have fallen, and do penance" (Rev. 2:5). And again: "When you have turned and groaned, then you will be saved, and you will know where you have been" (Isa. 30:15, according to the LXX). Nor should anyone despair because of the worthlessness of a sinful soul, so as to believe that he is no longer necessary to God. The Lord does not wish any of us to perish: even the small and the least are sought after. If you do not believe, look: behold, in the Gospel a drachma is sought, and when found, is shown to the neighbors. A little sheep, to be carried back on the shepherd's shoulders, is not burdensome to the shepherd. Over a single sinner doing penance, the Angels in heaven rejoice, and the heavenly chorus exults. Hark, you sinner, do not cease to pray: you see where there is rejoicing over your return. Amen.