Caput XII
No Excuse in Ignorance
Those who claim ignorance as an excuse for sin are without defense, since God has given every rational person the capacity to know right from wrong through natural law and conscience.
Others are craftily led astray, on account of what the Lord says: "A servant who knows the will of his lord and does not do it will be beaten with many blows" (Luke 12:47).✦ They suppose that ignorance means impunity from sin. This must be made known to them: there is a difference between not knowing and not wanting to know. The one is slowness; the other is pride. Such people have no excuse, because if they were willing, they could know. Against them, surely, it is said in Job about God: "He marks all people by hand, so that each one may know their own deeds" (Job 37:7). For man is created rational in such a way that he cannot be ignorant of what he has done.✦ For by the natural law a person is compelled to know whether what they do is wrong or right. For by a just judge a person is then either punished or rewarded for their own deeds — if they could not have known what they did. Those who despise being instructed are witnesses against themselves, because they know they can learn what they are doing.
Conscience Accuses from Within
The wicked cannot escape the testimony of their own conscience, which first judges them through reason and then hands them over to the eternal Judge, as the Psalmist's 'deep calls to deep' reveals the chain of judgment within the soul.
Otherwise, why do they boast about certain deeds as if they were well done, making a show of them? And again, why are they ashamed to be seen in some of their own acts? As a certain wise man says: Since wickedness is timid, conscience bears witness to condemnation — because while the fear of conscience accuses, a person offers testimony against himself, since he knows that the thing he dreads being known is evil.1 Let the wicked flee, then, from human eyes — they certainly cannot flee from themselves. For into the sin they commit, they first find against themselves the judgment of reason, and afterward they are led to the punishment of the eternal Judge. And this is perhaps what is said through the Psalmist: Deep calls to deep (Ps.✦ 41, 8). For deep calling to deep means arriving from one judgment at another judgment.
Witnesses Against Themselves
However much sinners may despise rebuke and shamelessly defend their wickedness, their own conscience stands as an irrefutable witness that leaves them without excuse before God.
So let the holy preachers go ahead and rebuke the deeds of sinners; let the corrupt hearers despise their words; let them defend their wickednesses as much as they like, and what they have done shamelessly, let them multiply all the more shamelessly by defending it. They are certainly witnesses against themselves in their own conscience, because they are not excusable.
Read the original Latin
Alii subdole seducuntur, pro eo quod Dominus dicit: Servus sciens voluntatem domini sui, et non faciens, vapulabit multis (Luc. XII, 47); putantes ignorantiam impunitatem esse peccati. Quibus hoc intimandum est, quia aliud est nescire, aliud est nolle: hoc namque tarditatis est, illud superbiae. Tales igitur excusationem non habent, quia, si vellent, scire poterant. Contra quos nimirum in Job de Deo dicitur: Qui in manu omnium signat, ut noverint singuli opera sua (Job XXXVII, 7); homo quippe sic rationabilis est conditus, ut quod egerit ignorare non possit. Naturali enim lege scire compellitur, seu pravum seu rectum sit quod operatur. Nam a justo judice tunc pro factis suis aut punitur aut remuneratur, si non potuit scire quod fecit. Ipsi etenim qui erudiri contemnunt, sibi testes sunt, quia sciunt discere quod agunt.
Alioquin cur de quibusdam factis tanquam de bene gestis in ostentatione gloriantur? et rursus cur in aliquibus suis actibus videri erubescunt? unde quidam sapiens dicit: Cum sit timida nequitia conscientiae dat testimonium condemnationi, quia dum timor conscientiam arguit, ipse sibi testimonium perhibet, quia scit malum esse quod sciri formidat. Fugiant ergo iniqui humanos oculos, semetipsos certe fugere non possunt. In peccatum enim quod committunt prius contra se judicium rationis inveniunt, et post ad districtionem aeterni judicis perducuntur. Et hoc est forte quod per Psalmistam dicitur: Abyssus abyssum invocat (Psal. XLI, 8). Abysso enim abyssum invocare est de judicio ad judicium pervenire.
Eant igitur praedicatores sancti, redarguant facta peccantium, auditores autem pravi contemnant verba istorum, defendant quantum voluerint pravitates suas, atque impudenter gestas impudentius defendendo multiplicent. Certe ipsi sibi in conscientia testes sunt, quia excusabiles non sunt.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Luke.12.47 — That servant who knew his master's will but did not prepare himself or act according to his will will receive many blows.
- ↩Job.37.7 — He seals the hand of every person, that all may know his work.
- ↩Ps.42.8;Ps.42.7 — Deep calls to deep at the sound of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have swept over me. Ps.42.7 — Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
Notes
- 1 ↩The quotation attributed to 'a certain wise man' is a candidate scripture or sapiential allusion; source identification is deferred to the Moses resolution stage.
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