Such Impiety Cannot Be Pardoned

If, then, you really mean to do an act of repentance for those evil sayings of yours; if you are not simply mocking us by saying so; if you are not at heart such a lover of strife and contention that you are willing even to slander yourself, on the sole condition that you can smear someone else by doing it; if you repent of what you said wrongly not as a pretense but in good faith: then come and do penance for this great and foul blasphemy. For it truly is blasphemy against God. If a man goes too far by speaking mistakenly about mere creatures, it is not so very detestable a crime, especially if he does it, as you say, not with a deliberate purpose of blasphemy but in seeking to defend the justice of God. But to lift up your mouth against heaven is a serious offense; to speak violence and blasphemy against the Most High deserves death. Let us spend our lamentation on what is hard to cure. For what man who has jaundice, and whose looks and life are both in danger, will complain loudly about a little hangnail on his foot, or because a scratch made with his own finger, which yields easily to treatment, is not yet healed? [a]