De discretione in habenda misericordia
When Mercy Must Be Just
Drawing on Ambrose, Deuteronomy, and the example of Saul's misplaced pity toward Agag, the text argues that mercy without discernment can betray justice and endanger the innocent.
Likewise, on the need for discernment in showing mercy: Ambrose, in his exposition of the one hundred and eighth psalm, writes, 'There is a just mercy, and there is also an unjust mercy.' And so it is written in the law about a certain person: 'You will not pity him' (Deut. 19:13); and in the Books of Kings you read that Saul incurred offense on this very reason: because he pitied Agag, the king of the enemies' forces, whom divine decree had forbidden to be kept alive (1 Kings 13). For if someone, moved by a robber's children pleading and swayed by his wife's tears, were to think he ought to free a man whose heart still burns with the desire to rob — won't he hand the innocent over to destruction, when he's the one freeing someone who plots the ruin of many? Indeed, if he holds back the sword and loosens chains, why does he release from exile? Why not snatch away the very opportunity for robbing by the gentler path, when he could not wrest away the will to do it? Then, between two parties — that is, the accused and the defendant — both facing equal danger to their lives, the judge should not pursue what justice requires; but while pitying the defendant, he condemns the one who has proved his case, or while favoring the accuser who cannot make his case, he condemns the innocent party.
Mercy Ordered by Judgment
Within the Church's discipline, mercy must follow sound judgment so that easy pardon does not spread sin, using the physician's craft and Paul's call to discern God's goodness and severity.
Therefore this cannot be called just mercy. In the Church itself, where it's most fitting to show mercy, the pattern of justice must be upheld as much as possible, so that no one who has been withheld from the fellowship of Communion might — through a brief little tear, one prepared only for the moment, or even through more abundant weeping — wrench Communion from the priest's readiness, Communion which very many ought to seek at the proper times.1 When one person is indulged who doesn't deserve it, doesn't that cause many to be provoked into the contagion of falling away? For the ease of obtaining pardon provides an incentive to sin. This was said so that we might know that mercy is to be dispensed to those who are in debt according to the word of God and according to sound judgment. If a physician himself, when he finds deep within a wound the scar of a serpent's bite, ought to cut away the ulcer's flaw so it doesn't spread further — yet, turned aside by the tears of the sick person from the purpose of cutting and burning, covers with ointments what needed to be opened with a blade — isn't that useless mercy, if because of the brief pain of cutting or burning the whole body wastes away and the use of life perishes?2 Therefore a priest, too, like a good physician, ought to cut away the wound from the whole body of the Church — so it doesn't spread further — and bring to light the poison of the crime that lies hidden, not cherish it; lest, while he thinks nothing of excluding one person, he makes many worthy whom he excludes from the Church.3 The Apostle, with good reason, urges us by divine example, saying: See therefore the goodness and severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but goodness toward you, if you remain in his goodness.✦4
Scripture Citations and References
Closing citation markers for the Pauline quotation from Romans 11:22.
11, 22). »
Read the original Latin
Item de discretione in habenda misericordia, Ambrosius in expositione psalmi centesimi decimi octavi: « Est justa misericordia, et est etiam injusta misericordia. Denique, in lege scriptum est de quodam: Non misereberis illius (Deut. XIX, 13); et in libris Regnorum legis quia Saul propterea contraxit offensam, quia miseratus est Agag hostium regem, quem prohibuerat sententia divina servari (I Reg. XIII). Ut si quis latronis filiis deprecantibus motus, et lacrymis conjugis ejus inflexus, absolvendum putet, cui adhuc latrocinandi aspiret affectus, nonne innocentes tradet exitio, qui liberat multorum exitia cogitantem? Certe si gladium reprimit, vincla dissolvit, cur laxat exsilio? cur latrocinandi qua potest clementiore via non eripit facultatem, qui voluntatem extorquere non potuit? Deinde inter duos, hoc est accusatorem et reum, pari periculo de capite decernentes, alterum si non probasset, alterum si non esset ab accusatore convictus, non id quod justitiae est judex sequatur, sed dum miseretur rei, damnet probantem, aut dum accusatori favet qui probare non possit, addicat innoxium.
Non potest igitur haec dici justa misericordia. In ipsa Ecclesia, ubi maxime misereri decet, teneri quammaxime debet forma justitiae, ne quis a consortio communionis abstentus, brevi lacrymula, atque ad tempus parata, vel etiam uberioribus fletibus, communionem, quam plurimis debet postulare temporibus, facilitati sacerdotis extorqueat. Nonne cum uni indulget indigno, plurimos facit ad prolapsionis contagium provocari? Facilitas enim veniae incentivum tribuit delinquendi. Hoc eo dictum est, ut sciamus secundum verbum Dei, secundum rationem dispensandam esse misericordiam debitoribus. Medicus ipse, si serpentis interius inveniat vulneris cicatricem, cum debeat resecare ulceris vitium ne latius serpat, tamen a secandi urendique proposito lacrymis inflexus aegroti, medicamentis tegat quod ferro aperiendum fuit, nonne ista inutilis misericordia est, si propter brevem incisionis vel exustionis dolorem, corpus omne tabescat, vitae usus intereat? Recte igitur et sacerdos vulnus, ne latius serpat, a toto corpore Ecclesiae quasi bonus medicus debet abscidere, et prodere virus criminis quod lateat, non fovere, ne dum unum excludendum non putat, plures dignos faciat quos excludat ab Ecclesia. Jure ergo Apostolus divino nos hortatur exemplo, dicens: Vide ergo bonitatem et severitatem Dei: in eos quidem qui ceciderunt severitatem; in te autem bonitatem, si permanseris in bonitate (Rom.
XI, 22). »
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rom.11.22 — Consider then the kindness and severity of God: severity toward those who fell, but God's kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin extorqueat carries the force of 'wrest' or 'wrench' by pressure; rendered to capture the coercive sense without archaism.
- 2 ↩The serpent/wound/ulcer/blade metaphor is sustained from the Latin; the extended medical analogy is dense and has been rendered with natural contemporary syntax while preserving the rhetorical force.
- 3 ↩prodere virus criminis is rendered 'bring to light the poison of the crime' to capture both the sense of exposing and the metaphor of poison.
- 4 ↩Quotation from Romans 11:22 (Vulgate). Final source resolution belongs to a later stage.
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