Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 47

(Admonition 32.) In one way are those to be admonished who even praise the unlawful things they do; and in another those who accuse depraved things, yet nevertheless do not shun them. For those who even praise the unlawful things they do must be admonished to consider that very often they transgress more by mouth than by deed. For by deed they perpetrate depraved things through themselves alone; but by mouth they display iniquity through as many persons as there are minds of hearers whom they teach by praising iniquities. They must therefore be admonished that, if they neglect to root out evils, they may at least dread to sow them. They must be admonished that their own private perdition may suffice them. And again they must be admonished that, if they fear not to be evil, they may at least blush to be seen what they are.

For very often a fault, while it is hidden, is put to flight, because, while the mind blushes to be seen what it nevertheless fears not to be, it sometimes blushes to be what it flees to be seen as. But when any depraved person shamelessly becomes known, the more freely he perpetrates every crime, the more he even reckons it lawful; and what he suspects to be lawful, in this he is without doubt plunged more manifoldly. Whence it is written: 'They have proclaimed their sin as Sodom, nor have they hidden it' (Isa. 3:9). For if Sodom had hidden its sin, it would still have sinned under fear. But it had utterly lost the reins of fear, which sought not even darkness for its fault. Whence again it is written: 'The cry of the Sodomites and Gomorrhaeans is multiplied' (Gen. 18:20).

For sin with a voice is a fault in action; but sin even with a cry is a fault with freedom. On the other hand, those who accuse depraved things yet shun them not must be admonished providently to weigh what they are to plead in the strict judgment of God for their excuse, who are not excused even by themselves as judges concerning the guilt of their own crimes. What else then are these but heralds of themselves? They utter voices against their faults, and by their works draw themselves as guilty. They must be admonished to see that it is of the hidden retribution of judgment, that their mind is enlightened to see the evil which it perpetrates, yet strives not to conquer it;

so that, the better it sees, the worse it perishes, because it both receives the light of understanding, and forsakes not the darkness of depraved action. For when they neglect the knowledge received for their help, they turn this against themselves as a testimony; and from the light of understanding, which assuredly they had received that they might be able to blot out sins, they increase their punishments. And when their wickedness does the evil which it judges, it here tastes the judgment already to come; so that, while it is kept as liable to eternal torments, it is here meanwhile not absolved by its own examination; and it there receives torments so much the graver, the more it here forsakes not the evil which it itself even condemns. For hence Truth says:

'The servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes' (Luke 12:47). Hence the Psalmist says: 'Let them go down alive into hell' (Ps. 54:16). For the living know and feel the things which are done about them, but the dead can feel nothing. For the dead would go down into hell if they perpetrated evils in ignorance. But when they know evils, and yet do them, wretched and feeling, they go down living into the hell of iniquity.