Those Who Praise Their Sins and Those Who Condemn Them

Admonition 32. Those who even praise the unlawful things they do are to be admonished differently from those who condemn what is wrong and yet do not avoid it. Those who even praise the unlawful things they do are to be admonished to consider how, for the most part, they offend more with their mouths than with their deeds. For by their deeds they commit wrong in their own persons only; but with their mouths they bring out wickedness in as many persons as there are souls listening to them, whom they teach wicked things by praising them. So they are to be admonished that, if they will not root out evil, they should at least be afraid to sow it. They are to be admonished to let their own ruin be enough for them. And again they are to be admonished that, if they are not afraid to be bad, they should at least be ashamed to be seen as what they are. For a sin is usually shunned while it is kept hidden; because when a soul is ashamed to be seen as what it is nevertheless not afraid to be, in time it comes to be ashamed to be what it avoids being seen to be. But when a bad man shamelessly seeks to be noticed, then the more freely he commits every wickedness, the more he comes even to think it lawful; and in what he imagines to be lawful he undoubtedly sinks deeper and deeper. That is why it is written, “They have declared their sin like Sodom; they have not even hidden it.” For had Sodom hidden her sin, she would still have sinned, but in fear. But she had utterly lost the curb of fear, since she did not even look for darkness for her sin. That is why it is written again, “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied.” For sin with a voice is guilt in act; but sin with even a cry is guilt let loose. [a]

But on the other hand, those who condemn wrong things and yet do not avoid them are to be admonished to weigh carefully what they can say in their own excuse before the strict judgment of God, since they are not excused from the guilt of their crimes even when they themselves are the judges. What are such men, then, but people who summon themselves to court? They speak out against misdeeds, and by what they do they hand themselves over as guilty. They are to be admonished to see how it comes even now from the hidden retribution of judgment that their mind is enlightened to see the evil it commits, yet does not strive to overcome it; so that the better it sees, the worse it may perish, because it both perceives the light of understanding and does not give up the darkness of wrongdoing. For when they neglect the knowledge that was given to help them, they turn it into testimony against themselves; and from the light of understanding, which they received precisely so that they could do away with their sins, they increase their punishments. And indeed this wickedness of theirs, doing the evil that it condemns, already has a taste here of the judgment to come: so that, while it is held liable to eternal punishment, it is not meanwhile acquitted here at its own examination of itself; and so that it may suffer the more grievous torments there, because here it does not forsake the evil that it itself condemns. For that is why the Truth says, “That servant who knew his lord’s will, and did not prepare himself or act according to his will, will be beaten with many stripes.” That is why the psalmist says, “Let them go down alive into hell.” For the living know and feel what is being done around them, but the dead can feel nothing. They would go down into hell dead if they committed evil without knowing it. But when they know what is evil and yet do it, they go down alive, wretched and feeling, into the hell of wickedness. [b]