De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae
The Iniquity of Presuming on God's Patience
The sinner's presumption is exposed as a grievous ingratitude: by misreading God's tender forbearance as weakness, one sins against the very goodness that sustains him.
This iniquity — this into which you've fallen — deserves not momentary anger but eternal hatred: by it you desire and hope to be made equal to your sweetest and most high Lord, though he is unwilling, so that he may always see what grieves him, while he has you as his companion when he does not wish it, and does not cast you down when he can; nay, he chooses rather to grieve himself than to let you perish, though he could cast you down if he wished, but, because of his tenderness — as you suppose — he cannot bring himself to will it. Surely, if he is such as you think him, the more wickedly you act if you do not love him. And if he allows something to be done against himself rather than do anything against you himself, what great wickedness it is that you do not spare him who does not spare himself — sparing yourself by sparing him!
Mercy Tempered by Justice
God's mercy is never divorced from his justice; the sinner's false security rests on a fatal misreading of divine patience, and will be shattered when the pit he dug for his Creator swallows him instead.
Yet it would be a far cry from God's perfection if he were not just in the very way he is merciful — as though he couldn't be both merciful and just at the same time — since a mercy tempered by justice is better than a lax one; indeed, mercy without justice is no virtue at all.12 Because you have shown yourself ungrateful for the free goodness of God, by which you were made without any merit of your own, you do not fear the justice you have not yet experienced; and so you boldly commit the sin about which you falsely promise yourself impunity.34 Now mark this: you will come to know the just One — whom you know to be good — when you yourself fall into the pit you have dug for your Creator. For while you are contriving against him such a punishment from which he could, if he wished, hold back, yet, as you suppose, he is unable to wish to do so, and therefore cannot be without that goodness by which, as you have learned from experience, he has punished no one.✦567
The Just Sentence and the Hardened Heart
God's vengeance is tempered with mercy for the repentant, yet the sinner's own hardness of heart renders pardon inaccessible even when it is offered.
Such a just God will most justly turn punishment back upon you — he who neither can nor should allow his own goodness to be offended with impunity — thus carefully tempering his sentence of vengeance so that, if you wish to repent, he will not deny you pardon; yet because of the hardness of your heart and your unrepentant spirit, you are unable to will it, and so you cannot be free from punishment either.8
Read the original Latin
Haec, in quam, iniquitas, non ira momentanea, sed odio digna est sempiterno, qua tuo dulcissimo et altissimo Domino, licet invito, desideras tamen ac speras aequari, quatenus semper videat quod doleat, dum te socium habeat cum nolit, nec deiciat cum possit; quin potius eligat ipse dolere, quam te patiatur perire; possit quidem deicere si velit, sed prae dulcedine, ut aestimas, velle non possit. Certe si talis est qualem putas, tanto nequius agis, si non amas. Et si ille aliquid fieri patitur contra se, potius quam ipse aliquid faciat contra te, quanta malitia est, ut vel tu non parcas illi, qui sibi non parcit, parcendo tibi?
Absit tamen ab eius perfectione, ut qua dulcis est, iustus non sit, quasi simul dulcis et iustus esse non possit, cum melior sit iusta dulcedo quam remissa, immo virtus non sit dulcedo sine iustitia. Quia igitur gratuitae Dei bonitati, qua gratis factus es, ingratus exsistis, iustitiam vero quam expertus non es, non metuis; ideoque audacter committis culpam, de qua tibi falso promittis impunitatem. Iam ecce iustum senties, quem bonum nosti, cadens in foveam, quam paras auctori, ut dum scilicet talem in eum poenam machinaris, qua tamen valeat carere, si velit, sed, ut putas, non valeat velle, et ideo nec carere ea utique bonitate, qua neminem expertus es illum punisse:
talem iustus Deus iustissime in te retorqueat poenam, qui nec valet, nec debet pati suam impune bonitatem offendi, sic utique temperans in vindicta sententiam, ut, si velis resipiscere, non neget veniam, secundum tamen duritiam tuam et cor impaenitens, non possis velle, et ideo nec poena carere.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.7.16 — He dug a pit and hollowed it out, and he fell into the pit he had made.
Notes
- 1 ↩Dulcedo rendered 'mercy' rather than literal 'sweetness/gentleness' to capture the theological sense of God's gracious kindness in context; iusta dulcedo = 'mercy tempered by justice'.
- 2 ↩ut (token 5) taken as purpose clause after Absit ('let it be far… that…'); cum (token 20) rendered as causal 'since' rather than concessive 'although' — the argument requires the comparative claim to ground the preceding assertion.
- 3 ↩Quia igitur rendered 'Because, then' — igitur is inferential/resumptive, picking up the argument from the preceding section. vero (token 12) rendered as an unmarked shift; its adversative force ('however/indeed') is absorbed into the flow of the sentence.
- 4 ↩gratuitae bonitati rendered 'free goodness' to preserve the sense of gratuitous, unmerited divine generosity.
- 5 ↩ut (token 13) taken as result ('so that… you will come to know') rather than pure purpose; the irony is that the sinner's scheming becomes the occasion of discovering God's true character. ut (token 28) is a complementizer with putas ('as you suppose/think'). tamen (token 22) is concessive: the punishment is something God 'could nonetheless be free from.'
- 6 ↩The sentence is deeply ironic: the sinner projects onto God an inability to withhold punishment, thereby misreading the divine goodness. The phrase 'he has punished no one' (neminem… illum punisse) is the sinner's own false inference from God's patience — not the author's theological claim.
- 7 ↩auctori rendered 'Creator' rather than 'author' to clarify the theological relationship; bonitate rendered 'goodness' per lexeme policy.
- 8 ↩The clause 'non possis velle' ('you cannot will') touches the interplay of grace and free will: the sinner's inability to repent is presented as a consequence of hardened resistance, not as a denial of God's offered pardon.
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