Moralia in Job 1092

Verse 27. — Who as it were on purpose departed from Him. Sin is perpetrated either by ignorance, or by infirmity, or by deliberate zeal, which is graver. It is one thing not to do good, another not even to love it, another to hate it. — It is to be known that sin is committed in three ways. For it is perpetrated either by ignorance, or by infirmity, or by deliberate zeal. And more gravely indeed is it sinned by infirmity than by ignorance, but much more gravely by deliberate zeal than by infirmity. By ignorance Paul had sinned, when he said: Who was formerly a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and contumelious; but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief (1 Tim. 1:13).

But Peter sinned by infirmity, when in him one voice of a servant-girl shook all the strength of faith which he had rendered to the Lord, and with his voice he denied God whom he held in his heart (Luke 22:57). But because the fault of infirmity or of ignorance is the more easily wiped away, in that it is not perpetrated by deliberate zeal, Paul corrected by knowing what he had been ignorant of, and Peter, by watering with tears the soft and as it were now-withering root of faith, made it firm. But on purpose had those men sinned of whom the Master Himself said: If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin (John 15:22). And a little after: And they have seen, and have hated both me and my Father (John 15:24).

For it is one thing not to do good things, another to hate the teacher of good things; just as it is one thing to sin by precipitation, another by deliberation. For often a sin is committed by precipitation which nevertheless is condemned by counsel and deliberation. For from infirmity it is for the most part wont to happen to love the good, but not to be able to fulfil it. But to sin from deliberate zeal is neither to do nor to love the good. As therefore it is sometimes graver to love a sin than to perpetrate it, so it is more wicked to hate justice than not to have done it. There are, then, some in the Church who not only do not do good things, but even persecute them; and what they themselves neglect to do, they also detest in others.

Their sin, namely, is perpetrated not from infirmity or ignorance, but from deliberate zeal alone, because, evidently, if they were willing to fulfil the good but yet could not, they would at least love in others the things they neglect in themselves. For if they desired these very things even by wish alone, they would not hate the deeds done by others; but because they know the same good things by hearing, despise them by living, and persecute them by taking heed, it is rightly said: Who on purpose departed from Him. Whence also it is fittingly subjoined: