Homily 4 — Second Corinthians 1, verse 23, to 2, verse 11

“But I call God as a witness upon my soul, that it was to spare you that I held back from coming to Corinth.” [a]

What are you saying, blessed Paul? It was to spare them that you did not come to Corinth? Surely you are presenting us with something of a contradiction. A little earlier you said that the reason you did not come was that you do not make your plans according to the flesh, and are not your own master, but are led about everywhere by the authority of the Spirit; and you set out your afflictions. But here you say that it was your own doing that you did not come, and not the authority of the Spirit. For he says, “To spare you I held back from coming to Corinth.”

What, then, are we to say? Either that this too was itself from the Spirit — that he himself wanted to come, but the Spirit prompted him not to, putting forward the motive of sparing them. Or else that he is speaking of some other visit, and means that before he wrote the former letter he had intended to come, and out of love held himself back, so that he would not find them still uncorrected. Perhaps also, after the second letter, though the Spirit no longer forbade him to go, he stayed away against his own wish for this reason. And this guess is the more likely one: that at first the Spirit forbade him, but afterward, being convinced himself as well that this was the better course, he stayed away.

And notice, please, how he goes back once more to his usual habit (and I will never stop pointing it out) of making what seems to tell against him tell in his favor. It was natural for them to suspect this and to say, “It was because you hated us that you would not come to us.” So he shows, on the contrary, that the reason he would not come was that he loved them.

What does “to spare you” mean? He says: “I heard that some among you had committed sexual immorality. So I did not want to come and make you sorry. For if I had come, I would have had to inquire into the matter, and prosecute and punish, and exact justice from many. So I judged it better to be away and to give room for repentance, than to be with you and prosecute, and be provoked still more.”

Toward the end of this letter he has declared it plainly, saying, “I fear that when I come, my God may humble me before you, and that I may mourn for many of those who have sinned before and have not repented of the indecency and impurity they committed” (Second Corinthians 12, verses 20 and 21). So he hints at the same thing here too. He says it, indeed, as though in his own defense; yet he rebukes them most severely and puts them in fear. For he implied that they were liable to punishment, and would have something to suffer unless they were quickly corrected. And he says the same thing again at the end of the letter, like this: “If I come again, I will not spare” (Second Corinthians 13, verse 2). Only there he says it more plainly; here, since this was the opening of the letter, he does not say it that way, but in a restrained tone.

And he is not content even with this, but softens it, adding a correction. The expression was that of someone asserting great authority, for a person spares those he also has the power to punish. So, to ease it and throw a shade over what seems harsh, he says (verse 24), “Not that we have lordship over your faith.” That is: “I did not say, ‘To spare you I did not come,’ as someone lording it over you.” Again, he did not say “you,” but “your faith,” which was both gentler and truer. For if a person has no wish to believe, who has the power to compel him?

“But we are helpers of your joy.”

He says: “Since your joy is ours, I did not come, so that I would not plunge you into sorrow and increase my own dejection. I stayed away so that you, corrected by the threat, might be made glad. For we do everything for the sake of your joy, and we work hard at it, because we ourselves share in it.” “For by faith you stand.”

Look at him speaking with restraint again. He was afraid to rebuke them again, since he had dealt with them severely in the former letter, and they had made some correction. If, now that they were corrected, they received the same rebuke again, it was likely to throw them back. That is why this letter is much gentler than the former one.

Chapter 2, verse 1: “But I determined this for myself, that I would not come to you again in sorrow.”

The word “again” proves that he had already been made sorry by what happened there; and while he seems to be speaking in his own defense, he is quietly rebuking them. Now if they had already made him sorry and were about to make him sorry again, think how great his displeasure was likely to be. But he does not put it like this: ‘You made me sorry.’ He turns the expression differently, yet implies the very same thing: ‘This is why I did not come, so that I would not make you sorry.’ That has the same force as what I said, but it is easier to swallow.

Verse 2: “For if I make you sorry, who then is the one who makes me glad, but the one who is made sorry by me?”

What is the logic of this? A very sound one indeed. For notice: ‘I did not want to come to you,’ he says, ‘so that I would not increase your sorrow by rebuking you and showing anger and disgust.’ Then, since even this was strong, and carried an accusation — that they were living in such a way as to make Paul sorry — he adds a correction in the words, “For if I make you sorry, who then is the one who makes me glad, but the one who is made sorry by me?”

What he means is something like this: “Even if I were to be in sorrow, being compelled to rebuke you and to see you sorry, still this very thing would have made me glad. For it is proof of the greatest love that you think so highly of me that you are hurt when I am displeased with you.”

Look at his good judgment, too. Their doing what all disciples do — smarting and feeling it when they are rebuked — he presents as an example of their pleasing him. ‘For no one,’ he says, ‘makes me so glad as the one who pays attention to my words and is sorry when he sees me angry.’

Yet the natural thing to follow would have been to say, ‘For if I make you sorry, who then is the one who can make you glad?’ But he does not say this. He turns his words back again, dealing tenderly with them, and says, ‘Even if I make you sorry, even in this you do me a very great favor, in that you are hurt by what I say.’

Verse 3: “And I wrote this very thing to you.”

What thing? That this was why I did not come — to spare you. When did he write it? In the former letter, when he said, “I do not want to see you now just in passing” (First Corinthians 16, verse 7)? I think not. It was in this letter, when he said, “Lest when I come again, my God should humble me before you” (Second Corinthians 12, verse 21). ‘So toward the end,’ he says, ‘I have written this same thing: “lest when I come, my God will humble me, and I should mourn for many of those who have sinned before.”’

But why did you write? “So that when I came I would not have sorrow from those over whom I ought to rejoice, having confidence in you all that my joy is the joy of you all.” He had said that he was made glad by their sorrow, and this was too arrogant and harsh; so again he gave it a different turn and softened it by what he added. “For this reason I wrote to you beforehand,” he says, “so that I would not find you uncorrected and be in anguish. And I said this, ‘so that I would not have sorrow,’ out of concern not for my own interest but for yours. For I know that if you see me rejoicing, you rejoice, and if you see me sad, you are sad.”

So look again at how what he said hangs together; that way his words will be easier to understand. “I did not come,” he says, “so that I would not cause you sorrow by finding you uncorrected. And I did this not looking to my own advantage, but to yours. For as far as I myself am concerned, when you are made sorry I get no small pleasure from it, seeing that you care so much about me that you are sorry and distressed at my being displeased. ‘For who is the one who makes me glad, but the one who is made sorry by me?’ Still, though that is how it is with me, because I look to your advantage I wrote this same thing to you, so that I would not be made sorry — here again looking not to my advantage but to yours. For I know that if you saw me sad, you too would be sorry, just as you are glad when you see me rejoicing.”

Now notice his good judgment. He said, ‘I did not come, so that I would not make you sorry — although,’ he says, ‘this makes me glad.’ Then, so that he would not seem to take pleasure in their pain, he says, ‘In this respect I am glad, in that I make you feel it; but in another respect I am sorry, in that I am compelled to make those who love me so much sorry — not only by this rebuke, but also by being in sorrow myself, and in this way causing you fresh sorrow.’

But notice how he puts this so as to mix in praise, saying, “from those over whom I ought to rejoice.” These are the words of someone declaring a family bond and deep, tender affection, as if a man were speaking of sons on whom he had lavished many benefits and for whom he had toiled. ‘So if this is why I write and do not come, there is weighty meaning in my not coming. It is not because I feel hatred or aversion, but rather overflowing love.’

Next: he had said that the one who makes him sorry makes him glad. So that they would not say, “So this is what you are after: to be made glad, and to show everyone how great your power is,” he added (verse 4), “For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not so that you would be made sorry, but so that you might know the love I have more abundantly toward you.” [d]

What could be more tender-hearted than this man’s spirit? He shows that he was pained no less than those who had sinned, but even much more. For he does not say merely “out of affliction,” but “out of much affliction”; not “with tears,” but “with many tears”; and “anguish of heart.” That is: “I was suffocating, I was choking with dejection; and when I could no longer bear the cloud of dejection, I wrote to you, not so that you would be grieved, but so that you might know the love which I have more abundantly toward you.”

And yet the natural thing to follow was to say, ‘not so that you would be grieved, but so that you would be corrected’ — for that was indeed the purpose he wrote with. But he does not say this. Instead, to sweeten his words further and win them to greater affection, he puts this in its place, showing that he does everything out of love. And he does not say simply “the love,” but “which I have more abundantly toward you.” By this too he wants to win them, showing that he loves them more than all others and feels toward them as toward chosen disciples. That is why he says, “If I am not an apostle to others, yet at least I am to you” (First Corinthians 9, verse 2); and, “Though you have many guardians, yet you do not have many fathers” (First Corinthians 4, verse 15); and again, “By the grace of God we conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you” (Second Corinthians 1, verse 12); and further on, “Though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved” (Second Corinthians 12, verse 15); and here, “which I have more abundantly toward you.”

“So even if my words were full of anger, the anger came out of great love and sadness. While writing the letter I suffered, I was in pain, not only because you had sinned, but also because I was compelled to make you sorry. And this itself came out of love. Think of a father whose true-born son has gangrene. Compelled to use the knife and the cautery, he is pained on both counts: that his son is diseased, and that he is compelled to take the knife to him. In the same way, what you take for a sign of my hating you was really a sign of overflowing love. And if making you sorry came out of love, much more did my gladness at that sorrow.”

Having made this defense of himself — and he often defends himself without being ashamed of it; for if God does so, saying, “O my people, what have I done to you?” (Micah 6, verse 3), how much more might Paul — having made this defense of himself, I say, he is now about to pass on to the plea for the man who had committed sexual immorality. He did not want them to be thrown into confusion, as though they were receiving contradictory commands, or to start quibbling because it was he who had been angry then and was now commanding them to forgive the man. So see how he has provided for this in advance, both by what he has said and by what he is about to say. For what does he say? [f]

Verse 5: “But if anyone has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me.”

He first praised them as feeling joy and sorrow over the same things as he does, and only then does he strike into the subject of this man, having said first, “my joy is the joy of you all.” “But if my joy is the joy of you all, you must also feel pleasure with me now, just as you were pained with me then. For in being made sorry then, you made me glad; and now, in rejoicing — if, as I suppose, you will feel pleasure — you will do the same.”

He did not say, ‘My sorrow is the sorrow of you all.’ He had established that in the rest of what he said, and now he puts forward only what he most wanted, the joy, saying, “my joy is the joy of you all.” Then he also mentions the former matter, saying, “But if anyone has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in part — so that I do not press too heavily — to you all.”

He says: “I know that you shared my anger and indignation against the man who had committed sexual immorality, and that what had happened grieved all of you in part. And I said ‘in part’ not as though you were less hurt than I was, but so that I would not weigh down the man who had committed sexual immorality. So he did not grieve me only, but you too, equally, even though I said ‘in part’ to spare him.” Do you see how at a stroke he calmed their anger, by declaring that they too had shared in his indignation?

Verse 6: “For such a one this punishment, which was inflicted by the many, is enough.”

And he does not say “for the man who committed sexual immorality,” but here again “for such a one,” as he did in the former letter too — though not for the same reason. There it was out of shame; here it is out of mercy. That is why he nowhere afterward so much as mentions the crime; for now it was time to speak in the man’s defense.

Verse 7: “So that, on the contrary, you should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest somehow such a one should be swallowed up by excessive sorrow.”

He tells them not only to lift the penalty, but, beyond that, to restore him to his former standing. For if someone lets a man who has been flogged go free, and does not heal him, he has done nothing. And see how he keeps that man too in check, so that he would not be made worse by the forgiveness. For though the man had both confessed and repented, Paul makes it plain that he receives forgiveness not so much because of his repentance as by this free gift. That is why he says, “to forgive him and to comfort him,” and what follows again makes the same thing plain. “It is not because he is worthy,” he says, “not because he has shown enough repentance, but because he is weak — that is why I ask it.” That is also why he added, “lest somehow such a one should be swallowed up by excessive sorrow.” And this both bears witness to the man’s deep repentance and does not allow him to fall into despair.

But what does “swallowed up” mean? Either doing what Judas did, or even, while still living, becoming worse. “For if he should rush away,” he says, “because he can no longer bear the anguish of this long-drawn-out penalty, perhaps in despair he will either go and hang himself or fall into greater crimes afterward.” So one ought to take steps in advance, before the sore becomes too hard to treat, so that we do not lose through lack of moderation what we have done well. Now he said this, as I have already observed, both to keep the man humble and to teach him not to become too careless after this restoration. “I have received him,” he says, “not as one who has washed everything completely away, but because I feared he might do some still deeper harm.” From this we learn that we must set the penalty not only by the nature of the sins, but also by the disposition and the habits of those who sin, as the apostle did in that case. For he feared the man’s weakness, and that is why he said, “lest he be swallowed up” — as though by a wild beast, by a storm, by a wave.

Verse 8: “So I beg you.”

He no longer commands but begs — not as a teacher, but as an equal. Having seated them on the judge’s bench, he has placed himself in the rank of an advocate. For since he had achieved his purpose, in his joy he takes up the tone of pleading without holding back. And what is it that you beg? Tell me.

“To confirm your love toward him.”

That is, ‘make it strong’ — not simply associate with him, nor in just any way. Here again he bears witness that their virtue was very great. Those who had been so friendly toward the man, and applauded him so much that they were even puffed up about it, had become so estranged from him that Paul takes great pains to make them confirm their love toward him. Here is the excellence of disciples, and here the excellence of teachers: that they should answer the rein so well, and he guide their movements so well. If it were so even now, those who sin would not have gone astray so senselessly. For one ought neither to love carelessly, nor to become estranged without some reason.

Verse 9: “For this is also why I wrote to you: to know the proof of you, whether you are obedient in all things” — not only in cutting him off, but also in bringing him back. [j]

Do you see how here again he brings the danger home to them? When the man sinned, Paul alarmed them in case they failed to cut him off, saying, “A little yeast leavens the whole batch” (First Corinthians 5, verse 6), and a good deal besides. So here too he confronts them again with the fear of disobedience, as good as saying: “Then you had to take thought not for him alone, but for yourselves as well. So now you must take thought for yourselves no less than for him, so that you do not seem to be people who love quarreling and have no ordinary human feeling, and are not obedient in all things.” That is why he says, “For this is also why I wrote to you: to know the proof of you, whether you are obedient in all things.” The first order might have seemed to come even from envy and spite; but this one shows above all whether your obedience is pure, and whether you are ready for kindness. For this is the test of right-minded disciples: that they obey not only when they are ordered to do certain things, but also when they are ordered to do the opposite.

That is why he said “in all things,” showing that if they disobey, they disgrace not him so much as themselves, and earn the name of people who love quarreling. And he does this so that on this ground too he may drive them to obey. That is also why he says, “For this is why I wrote to you.” And yet this was not why he wrote; he says so in order to win them. The chief object was that man’s salvation. But where it does no harm, he humors them as well. And by saying “in all things” he praises them again, calling their former obedience to mind and bringing it out into view.

Verse 10: “Anyone to whom you forgive anything, I forgive also.” Do you see how again he gives himself the second place, showing them as leading and himself as following? This is the way to soften a spirit that has been provoked and to calm one that is set on quarreling. Then, so that he would not make them careless, as though they were the judges, and so that they would not refuse forgiveness, he presses them to it again by saying that he himself had also forgiven the man.

“For what I also have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven for your sakes.” I have done this very thing for your sakes, he says. When he commanded them to cut the man off, he did not leave the power to forgive with them. He said, “I have already judged to hand such a one over to Satan” (First Corinthians 5, verses 3 and 5). And yet he made them partners in his decision, saying, “when you are gathered together, to hand him over” (First Corinthians 5, verses 4 and 5). In this way he secured two most important things: that the sentence should be passed, and yet not without their consent, so that he would not seem to be wounding them in this. He does not pronounce it by himself alone, so that they would not think him headstrong and themselves passed over. Nor does he leave it all to them, so that once they held the power they would not betray the offender by forgiving him before the time. He does the same here, saying: “I have already forgiven — I, who in the former letter had already judged.”

Then, so that they would not be hurt, as though they had been passed over, he adds, “for your sakes.” What then? Did he pardon for the sake of men? No; that is why he added, “in the person of Christ.” What does “in the person of Christ” mean? Either he means according to the will of God, or for the glory of Christ.

Verse 11: “So that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his schemes.” Do you see how he both hands the power over to them and takes it back again, so that by the one he may soften them and by the other root out their self-will? But this is not all he provides for by it. He also shows that if they were disobedient the harm would reach everyone, just as he did at the outset. For then too he said, “A little yeast leavens the whole batch” (First Corinthians 5, verse 6). And here again: “so that Satan may not gain an advantage over us.”

And all the way through he makes this forgiveness the joint act of himself and them. Look at it from the beginning. “But if anyone has caused sorrow,” he says, “he has caused sorrow not to me, but in part — so as not to press too heavily — to you all.” Then again, “For such a one this punishment, which was inflicted by the many, is enough.” This is his own decision and verdict. Yet he did not rest with this decision, but makes them partners again, saying, “So that on the contrary you should rather forgive him and comfort him. So I beg you to confirm your love toward him.” Having again made the whole thing theirs, he passes to his own authority, saying, “For this is why I wrote to you: to know the proof of you, whether you are obedient in all things.” Then again he makes the favor theirs: “Anyone to whom you forgive anything.” Then his own: “I forgive also,” saying, “if I have forgiven anything, it is for your sakes.” Then both theirs and his: “For if I have forgiven anything,” he says, “for your sakes I forgave it in the person of Christ” — that is, either for the glory of Christ, or as though Christ also commanded this, which was the most effective way to prevail on them. For after this they would be afraid not to grant what served his glory and what he willed.

Then again he points out the harm they would all share if they disobeyed, when he says, “so that Satan may not gain an advantage over us.” And he names it well: “gaining an advantage.” For Satan is no longer taking what is his own, but violently seizing what is ours, since the man has reformed. And do not tell me that only this one man becomes the wild beast’s prey. Consider this too: the number of the flock is made smaller, and especially now, when it might have recovered what it had lost.

“For we are not ignorant of his schemes”: we know that he destroys even under a show of piety. He can destroy not only by leading people into sexual immorality, but even by its opposite, the unmeasured sorrow that follows on repentance for it. So when, besides what is his own, he takes what is ours too — when he destroys both by urging men to sin, and, when we urge them to repent, by seizing them violently — how is this not “gaining an advantage”? He is not content to strike men down through sin; unless we keep watch, he does it even through repentance. So Paul had good reason to call it gaining an advantage, when Satan conquers us even with our own weapons. To capture by sin is his proper work; but to capture by repentance is not his at all, for that weapon is ours, not his. So when he is able to capture even by this, think how shameful the defeat is, and how he will laugh at us and run us down as weak and pitiful, if he is to beat us with our own weapons. It would be a matter for the greatest scorn and the utmost disgrace for him to wound us through our own remedies. That is why Paul said, “for we are not ignorant of his schemes,” exposing his shiftiness, his craft, his evil schemes, his malice, and his power to do harm under a show of piety.

With these things in mind, then, let us too never despise anyone. And let us never despair, even if we fall into sin. On the other hand, let us not be easygoing afterward either, but when we do wrong, let us afflict our minds and not merely let out words. For I know many who say that they mourn their sins, yet do nothing worth counting. They fast and wear rough clothing; but they are more eager after money than peddlers, more the prey of anger than wild beasts, and they take more pleasure in running others down than other people take in praising them. These things are not repentance. They are the look and shadow of repentance only, not repentance itself. [m]

So in the case of these people too it is well to say, Take care “so that Satan may not gain an advantage over us, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.” Some he destroys through sins, others through repentance, and these in yet another way: by letting them gain no fruit from their repentance. When he could find no way to destroy them by a direct attack, he came by another road. He made their labors heavier while robbing them of the fruit, and persuaded them that they had accomplished everything they had to do, and so could neglect what remains.

So that we may not afflict ourselves for nothing, then, let us say a few words to women of this kind, for this sickness belongs especially to women. What you are doing now is praiseworthy indeed — your fasting, your lying on the ground, and the ashes. But unless the rest is added, these are of no use. God has shown how he forgives sins. Why, then, do you leave that path and carve out another for yourselves?

Long ago the Ninevites sinned, and they did the very things you are doing now. But let us see what it was that helped them. With the sick, physicians apply many remedies; yet the sensible man does not look at the fact that the sick person has tried this and that, but at what did him good. Our inquiry here must be of the same kind. What, then, was it that helped those barbarians? They applied fasting to their wounds — yes, extreme fasting — and lying on the ground as well, and the putting on of sackcloth, and ashes, and lamentations. They applied a change of life as well. Let us see, then, which of these things made them well. “And how are we to know that?” If we come to the Physician, if we ask him. He will not hide it from us, but will even eagerly make it known. Or rather, so that no one would be left ignorant or need to ask, he has even set down in writing the medicine that restored them. What is it? “God,” it says, “saw that they turned, each one from his evil way, and he repented of the evil that he had said he would do to them” (Jonah 3, verse 10). He did not say, He saw their fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I do not say this to overturn fasting — far from it! — but to urge you to do along with fasting what is better than fasting: keeping away from all evil.

David also sinned (Second Samuel 12, verse 17, and the verses that follow). Let us see, then, how he too repented. For three days he sat on ashes. But he did this not for the sin’s sake but for the child’s, while he was still stunned by that affliction. The sin he wiped away by other means: by humility, by a crushed heart, by a soul pierced with sorrow, by never falling into the like again, by always remembering it, by bearing with thanks everything that happened to him, by sparing those who grieved him, by holding back from paying back those who plotted against him — yes, even by stopping those who wanted to do it. When Shimei, for instance, was spattering him with insults beyond counting (Second Samuel 16, verses 5 and 9), and the commander who was with him was furious, David said, “Let him curse me, for the Lord has told him to.” For he had a crushed and humbled heart, and this above all is what wiped away his sins. For this is confession; this is repentance. But if we are proud while we fast, we have not only gained nothing, but have even been harmed.

So humble your heart, you too, so that you may draw God to you. “For the Lord is near to those who are of a crushed heart” (Psalm 33, verse 19). Do you not see, in the great houses, those who have fallen into disgrace? How they do not answer back even when the lower servants insult them, but put up with it because of the disgrace their fault has brought on them? Do the same yourself. If anyone abuses you, do not turn fierce, but groan — not over the insult, but over the sin that threw you into disgrace. [q]

Groan when you have sinned — not because you are going to be punished, for that is nothing, but because you have offended your Master: one so gentle, so kind, who loves you so much and longs so much for your salvation that he gave even his Son for you. Groan over this, and do it continually, for this is confession. Do not be cheerful today, gloomy tomorrow, and then cheerful again; but continue always in mourning and in crushing your own heart. For “Blessed,” he says, “are those who mourn” — that is, those who do this continually. So keep doing it continually, keep watch over yourself, and afflict your heart, as one who had lost a beloved son would mourn.

“Tear your hearts,” he says, “and not your garments” (Joel 2, verse 13). What is torn will not lift itself up high; what has been broken cannot rise up again. That is why one says, “Tear,” and another, “A broken and crushed heart God will not despise” (Psalm 51, verse 17). Even if you are wise, or wealthy, or a ruler, tear your heart. Do not let it think high thoughts or swell up. What is torn does not swell; and even if there is something to puff it up, once it is torn it cannot hold the air. So you too, be humble-minded.

Consider that the tax collector was counted righteous for a single sentence, and that was not humility, but an honest confession. Now if this has so great a power, how much more has humility! Forgive the offenses of those who have wronged you, for this too wins the forgiveness of sins. Of the first he says, “I saw that he went on sorrowful, and I healed his ways” (Isaiah 57, verses 17 and 18, in the Greek Old Testament); and in Ahab’s case this turned away the anger of God (First Kings 21, verse 29). Of the second he says, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” There is yet another way that brings us this medicine: condemning what we have done wrong. For “First declare your transgressions, so that you may be shown to be in the right” (Isaiah 43, verse 26, in the Greek Old Testament). And for someone in hardship to give thanks sets his sins loose. And there is almsgiving, which is greater than all.

Count up, then, the medicines that heal your wounds, and apply them all without letting up: humility, confession, forgetting wrongs, giving thanks in hardship, showing mercy both in almsgiving and in deeds, persevering in prayer. That is how the widow won over the cruel and unyielding judge. If she won over the unjust one, how much more will you win over the gentle one! There is yet another way along with these: defending the oppressed. “For,” he says, “judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow; and come, let us reason together; and though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow” (Isaiah 1, verses 17 and 18).

What excuse, then, can we deserve, if with so many ways leading us up to heaven, and so many medicines to heal our wounds, we stay where we were even after the washing? So let us not simply stay there. Let those who have never yet fallen keep their own beauty — or rather, let them cultivate it more and more, for these good works, where they find no sins, make the beauty greater. And let those of us who have done wrong in many things use the means we have spoken of to correct our sins, so that we may stand before the judgment seat of Christ with great boldness. May we all attain it, through the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory, power, and honor to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, forever and ever. Amen.