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| Objections from the Revelation and the First Epistle of St. John Refuted.
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Chapter
XIX.—Objections from the Revelation and the First Epistle of St.
John Refuted.
But how far (are we to treat) of Paul; since even
John appears to give some secret countenance to the opposite side? as
if in the Apocalypse he has manifestly assigned to fornication the
auxiliary aid of repentance, where, to the angel of the Thyatirenes,
the Spirit sends a message that He “hath against him that he kept
(in communion) the woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophet, and
teacheth,932
| 932 Or, “saith and
teacheth that she is a prophet.” | and seduceth my
servants unto fornicating and eating of idol sacrifice. And I
gave her bounteously a space of time, that she might enter upon
repentance; nor is she willing to enter upon it on the count of
fornication. Behold, I will give her into a bed, and her
adulterers with herself into greatest pressure, unless they shall have
repented of her works.”933
I am content
with the fact that, between apostles, there is a common agreement in
rules of faith and of discipline. For, “Whether (it be)
I,” says (Paul), “or they, thus we preach.”934
Accordingly, it is material to the
interest of the whole sacrament to believe nothing conceded by John,
which has been flatly refused by Paul. This harmony of the Holy
Spirit whoever observes, shall by Him be conducted into His
meanings. For (the angel of the Thyatirene Church) was secretly
introducing into the Church, and urging justly to repentance, an
heretical woman, who had taken upon herself to teach what she had
learnt from the Nicolaitans. For who has a doubt that an heretic,
deceived by (a spurious baptismal) rite, upon discovering his
mischance, and expiating it by repentance, both attains pardon and is
restored to the bosom of the Church? Whence even among us, as
being on a par with an heathen, nay even more than heathen, an heretic
likewise, (such an one) is purged through the baptism of truth from
each character,935
and admitted (to the
Church). Or else, if you are certain that that woman had, after a
living faith, subsequently expired, and turned heretic, in order that
you may claim pardon as the result of repentance, not as it were for an
heretical, but as it were for a believing, sinner: let her, I
grant, repent; but with the view of ceasing from adultery, not however
in the prospect of restoration (to Church-fellowship) as well.
For this will be a repentance which we, too, acknowledge to be due much
more (than you do); but which we reserve, for pardon, to God.936
| 936 See the end of the
foregoing chapter. |
In short, this Apocalypse, in its later passages,
has assigned “the infamous and fornicators,” as well as
“the cowardly, and unbelieving, and murderers, and sorcerers, and
idolaters,” who have been guilty of any such crime while
professing the faith, to “the lake of fire,”937
without any conditional
condemnation. For it will not appear to savour of (a bearing
upon) heathens, since it has (just) pronounced with regard to
believers, “They who shall have conquered shall have this
inheritance; and I will be to them a God, and they to me for
sons;” and so has subjoined: “But to the cowardly,
and unbelieving, and infamous, and fornicators, and murderers, and
sorcerers, and idolaters, (shall be) a share in the lake of fire and sulphur,
which (lake) is the second death.” Thus, too, again:
“Blessed they who act according to the precepts, that they may
have power over the tree of life and over the gates, for entering into
the holy city. Dogs, sorcerers, fornicators, murderers,
out!”938
—of course, such
as do not act according to the precepts; for to be sent
out is the portion of those who have been within.
Moreover, “What have I to do to judge them who are
without?”939
had preceded (the
sentences now in question).
From the Epistle also of John they forthwith cull
(a proof). It is said: “The blood of His Son
purifieth us utterly from every sin.”940
Always then, and in every form, we will sin, if always and from every
sin He utterly purifies us; or else, if not always, not again
after believing; and if not from sin, not again from fornication.
But what is the point whence (John) has started? He had
predicated “God” to be “Light,” and that
“darkness is not in Him,” and that “we lie if we say
that we have communion with Him, and walk in darkness.”941
“If, however,” he says,
“we walk in the light, we shall have communion with Him, and the
blood of Jesus Christ our Lord purifieth us utterly from every
sin.”942
Walking, then,
in the light, do we sin? and, sinning in the light, shall we be utterly
purified? By no means. For he who sins is not in the light,
but in darkness. Whence, too, he points out the mode in which we
shall be utterly purified from sin—(by) “walking in the
light,” in which sin cannot be committed. Accordingly, the
sense in which he says we “are utterly purified” is, not in
so far as we sin, but in so far as we do not sin. For,
“walking in the light,” but not having communion with
darkness, we shall act as they that are “utterly purified;”
sin not being quite laid down, but not being wittingly committed.
For this is the virtue of the Lord’s blood, that such as it has
already purified from sin, and thenceforward has set “in the
light,” it renders thenceforward pure, if they shall continue to
persevere walking in the light. “But he subjoins,”
you say, “If we say that we have not sin, we are seducing
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins,
faithful and just is He to remit them to us, and utterly purify us from
every unrighteousness.”943
Does he say
“from impurity?” (No): or else, if that is so,
then (He “utterly purifies” us) from “idolatry”
too. But there is a difference in the sense. For see yet
again: “If we say,” he says, “that we have not
sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”944
All the more fully: “Little
children, these things have I written to you, lest ye sin; and if ye
shall have sinned, an Advocate we have with God the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous; and, He is the propitiation for our
sins.”945
“According to these words,” you say, “it will be
admitted both that we sin, and that we have pardon.” What,
then, will become (of your theory), when, proceeding (with the
Epistle), I find something different? For he affirms that we
do not sin at all; and to this end he treats at large, that he may
make no such concession; setting forth that sins have been once for all
deleted by Christ, not subsequently to obtain pardon; in which
statement the sense requires us (to apply the statement) to an
admonition to chastity. “Every one,” he says,
“who hath this hope, maketh himself chaste, because He too is
chaste. Every one who doeth sin, doeth withal iniquity;946
| 946 Iniquitatem =ἀνομίαν. | and sin is iniquity.947
And ye know that He hath been manifested to take away
sins”—henceforth, of course, to be no more incurred, if it
is true, (as it is,) that he subjoins, “Every one who abideth in
Him sinneth not; every one who sinneth neither hath seen nor knoweth
Him. Little children, let none seduce you. Every one who
doeth righteousness is righteous, as He withal is righteous. He
who doeth sin is of the devil, inasmuch as the devil sinneth from the
beginning. For unto this end was manifested the Son of God, to
undo the works of the devil:” for He has
“undone” them withal, by setting man free through baptism,
the “handwriting of death” having been “made a gift
of” to him:948
and
accordingly, “he who is being born of God doeth not sin, because
the seed of God abideth in him; and he cannot sin, because he hath been
born of God. Herein are manifest the sons of God and the sons of
the devil.”949
Wherein?
except it be (thus): the former by not sinning, from the time
that they were born from God; the latter by sinning, because they are
from the devil, just as if they never were born from God? But if
he says, “He who is not righteous is not of
God,”950
how shall he who is
not modest again become (a son) of God, who has already ceased
to be so?
“It is therefore nearly equivalent to saying that
John has forgotten himself; asserting, in the former part of his
Epistle, that we are not without sin, but now prescribing that we do
not sin at all: and in the one case flattering us somewhat with
hope of pardon, but in the other asserting with all stringency, that whoever
may have sinned are no sons of God.” But away with (the
thought): for not even we ourselves forget the distinction
between sins, which was the starting-point of our digression. And
(a right distinction it was); for John has here sanctioned it; in that
there are some sins of daily committal, to which we all are
liable: for who will be free from the accident of either being
angry unjustly, and retaining his anger beyond sunset;951
or else even using manual violence or else
carelessly speaking evil; or else rashly swearing; or else forfeiting
his plighted word or else lying, from bashfulness or
“necessity?” In businesses, in official duties, in
trade, in food, in sight, in hearing, by how great temptations are we
plied! So that, if there were no pardon for such sins as these,
salvation would be unattainable to any. Of these, then, there
will be pardon, through the successful Suppliant of the Father,
Christ. But there are, too, the contraries of these; as the
graver and destructive ones, such as are incapable of
pardon—murder, idolatry, fraud, apostasy, blasphemy; (and), of
course, too, adultery and fornication; and if there be any other
“violation of the temple of God.” For these Christ
will no more be the successful Pleader: these will not at all be
incurred by one who has been born of God, who will cease to be the son
of God if he do incur them.
Thus John’s rule of diversity will be
established; arranging as he does a distinction of sins, while he now
admits and now denies that the sons of God sin. For (in making
these assertions) he was looking forward to the final clause of his
letter, and for that (final clause) he was laying his preliminary
bases; intending to say, in the end, more manifestly: “If
any knoweth his brother to be sinning a sin not unto death, he shall
make request, and the Lord shall give life to him who sinneth not unto
death. For there is a sin unto death: not concerning that
do I say that one should make request.”952
| 952 1 John v. 16. But Tertullian has rendered
αἰτεῖν and ἐρωτᾶν by the one word
postulare. See Trench, N. T. Synonyms, pp.
169–173. ed. 4, 1858. |
He, too, (as I have been), was mindful that Jeremiah had been
prohibited by God to deprecate (Him) on behalf of a people which was
committing mortal sins. “Every unrighteousness is sin; and
there is a sin unto death.953
| 953 So Oehler; but it
appears that a “non” must have been omitted. | But we know
that every one who hath been born of God sinneth not”954
—to wit, the sin which is unto
death. Thus there is no course left for you, but either to deny
that adultery and fornication are mortal sins; or else to confess them
irremissible, for which it is not permitted even to make successful
intercession.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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