Small but Frequent Faults, and Rare but Grievous Ones

Admonition 34. Those who do unlawful things that are very small, yet do them often, are to be admonished differently from those who keep themselves from small sins but are sometimes plunged into grievous ones. Those who sin often, though in very small things, are to be admonished by no means to consider the kind of sins they commit, but their number. For if they scorn to be afraid when they weigh their deeds, they ought to be alarmed when they count them. For the deep places of rivers are filled by small but countless drops of rain; and bilge water, rising unseen, does the same as a storm raging in the open; and the sores of a skin disease that break out on the limbs are tiny, but when a multitude of them takes hold in countless numbers, it destroys the life of the body as surely as one grievous wound dealt to the chest. That is indeed why it is written, “He who despises small things falls little by little.” For he who neglects to mourn and avoid the smallest sins falls from the state of righteousness, not suddenly indeed, but bit by bit, and entirely. Those who sin often in very small things are to be admonished to consider anxiously how sometimes there is worse sin in a small fault than in a greater one. For a greater fault, being recognized as a fault the sooner, is corrected the more quickly; but a smaller one, counted as though it were nothing at all, is kept up as a habit, with worse effect because with less concern. So for the most part it happens that the mind, used to light evils, is not horrified even by heavy ones; and, fed on sins, it comes at last to a kind of approval of wickedness, and scorns to be afraid in greater matters all the more as it has learned to sin in little ones without fear. [a]

But on the other hand, those who keep themselves from small sins but are sometimes plunged into grievous ones are to be admonished to grasp anxiously the state they are in: how, while their heart is lifted up over the very small things they have guarded against, they are so swallowed up in the very pit of their own pride as to commit others that are more grievous; and how, while they master little evils outwardly but are puffed up inwardly with empty glory, they throw down their soul, overcome within itself by the sickness of pride, among greater evils even outwardly. So those who keep themselves from little faults but are sometimes plunged into grievous ones are to be admonished to take care that they do not fall inwardly where they think they stand outwardly, and that, by the retribution of the strict Judge, pride over a lesser righteousness does not become the road to the pit of graver sin. For those who, vainly puffed up, credit their keeping of the least good to their own strength are justly left to themselves and overwhelmed in greater sins; and by falling they learn that their standing was not from themselves, so that immeasurable evils may humble the heart that is lifted up by the smallest good. They are to be admonished to consider that, while in their graver faults they bind themselves in deep guilt, they nevertheless for the most part sin worse in the little faults they guard against; because in the former they do what is wicked, but in the latter they hide from men that they are wicked. So it happens that when they commit greater evils before God, it is open wickedness; and when they take care to observe small good things before men, it is pretended holiness. For that is why it is said of the Pharisees, “Straining out a gnat, but swallowing a camel.” As if it were said plainly, “You pick out the least evils; the greater you devour.” That is why they are again rebuked by the mouth of the Truth when they are told, “You tithe mint and anise and cumin, and neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy and truth.” For we must not listen carelessly to the fact that, when he said that the least things were tithed, he chose to name the lowest of herbs, yet ones that smell sweet; surely to show that when pretenders observe small things, they seek to spread for themselves the fragrance of a holy reputation; and though they leave the greatest things undone, they still observe those of the smallest that give a sweet smell far and wide in human judgment. [b]