The Mercy of the Divine Judge

No one is clean from filth, nor even for one day is his life. And who, being sensible, would think such a thing, as being subject to these same accounts in the court of God, to consider forgiveness superfluous and mercy useless?

If indeed they had run toward the very edge of justice and exactness, having truly trodden according to what is written upon the serpent and the scorpion (Gen 3:1), and having been proclaimed victors and crowned against sin, it was not so that they should regulate life toward their own courage and toward all other things, but rather to confess the grace to the Giver God for their own good-pleasing, that they had also masterfully controlled their nature and had not become handlings of satanic temptations, but to reach out with brotherly love toward those who have grown weak, and to raise them up from the mire and cleanse them from the pollutions.

For those receiving honors would thus have taken double praise, of their both their own manliness and of brotherly and good sympathy. But now, being humans who fall to the ground and living a life not the angelic one and near the incorporeal ones, but such as if anyone were to lead and judge by accounts, they judge strictly and with much of the authority that brings a condemning vote, as if to say of me, often being suffocated by the dust and by arrogance, I would speak the evangelical sayings against them, that not seeing the views of others through the eyes you suppose in your own, you remove the splinters (Matt 7:3-5). And binding the heaviest burdens to others, you bypass, heavy judges and weak burden-bearers, seizing the step of Christ and snatching away the decision of the Judge, contemptible slaves and unnecessary judges of fellow-slaves.

If you zeal for God as having been created according to an image, imitate the archetype yourselves; O Christians, the Philanthropic name, zeal for the love of Christ, and turn toward the wealth of his philanthropy. For, intending to appear to men through a man, he preordained John, the preacher of repentance (Luke 3:3), the introducer of regret, and all before John as teachers of turning, the prophets. Then also he himself, having appeared after a little time, cries with his own voice personally: 'Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt 11:28).'

How did he respond when persuaded by the call? He gave a remission of sins without cost, and a release from those who grieve that is uncalculated and brief. The Word sanctified, the Spirit sealed; the old man was buried by the water, the new man was born rising by grace.

What follows? A man becomes his own instead of an alien, a son instead of a stranger, a mystic out of the profane, a holy one out of the ungodly. Therefore, having been enriched by such magnificent and unsurpassed gifts, if one, sinning against the ambitious and good benefactor, were not immediately mindful of the word before you difficult and negligent judges, he would certainly be driven to destruction, being cut off from this life and being punished there.

But since another is the Lord of the verdict, who makes mercy into thousands and myriads and does not wish the death of the sinner, but awaits the return, even so those who insulted the former grace were not punished; rather, a second mercy follows the first, and forgiveness is joined with amnesty. A tear falling is equal to the washing, and a groan over toil brings back the grace that had withdrawn a little.

If you do not believe the word, ask Peter, sitting in the house of the high priest, and he will tell you how, bitterly mourning the lapse of his denial, he was cleansed, and he did not dissolve into Simon, but Peter remained the apostle.

I myself think that even Judas Iscariot, if he had quickly become his own executioner, judging his sin unpardonably and falling down to ask mercy, would not have missed the mercies that overflow throughout the inhabited world. The proof of this word is all the Hebrews who, after the cross, believed, washing their souls and their hands together in the washing. If those who crucified were shown mercy, how could the betrayer not have escaped the amnesty?

Paul also once bound Christians, but having later borne the chains for Christ, he released the complaints from his own passion; he sinned while stoning Stephen and consenting to the killers, but having been stoned, he wiped out the multitude. Matthew and Zacchaeus once were tax collectors, but having trodden upon the tax office through contempt for things, the one received Jesus in his house and more in his soul, the other received the works of wonders.