A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 40
40 Section 40 PL 21, 377
40. As to the Forgiveness of Sins, it ought to be enough simple to believe. For who would ask the cause or the reason when a Prince grants indulgence? When the liberality of an earthly sovereign is no fit subject for discussion, shall man’s temerity discuss God’s largess? For the Pagans are wont to ridicule us, saying that we deceive ourselves, fancying that crimes committed in deed can be purged by words. And they say, “Can he who has committed murder be no murderer, and he who has committed adultery be accounted no adulterer? How then shall one guilty of crimes of this sort all of a sudden be made holy?” But to this, as I said, we answer better by faith than by reason. For he is King of all who hath promised it: He is Lord of heaven and earth who assures us of it. Would you have me refuse to believe that He who made me a man of the dust of the earth can of a guilty person make me innocent? And that He who when I was blind made me see, or when I was deaf made me hear, or lame walk, can recover for me my lost innocence? And to come to the witness of Nature—to kill a man is not always criminal, but to kill of malice, not by law, is criminal. It is not the deed then, in such matters, that condemns me, because sometimes it is rightly done, but the evil intention of the mind. If then my mind which had been rendered criminal, and in which the sin originated, is corrected, why should I seem to you incapable of being made innocent, who before was criminal? For if it is plain, as I have shewn, that crime consists not in the deed but in the will, as an evil will, prompted by an evil demon, has made me obnoxious to sin and death, so the will prompted by the good God, being changed to good, hath restored me to innocence and life. It is the same also in all other crimes. In this way there is found to be no opposition between our faith and natural reason, while forgiveness of sins is imputed not to deeds, which when once done cannot be changed, but to the mind, which it is certain can be converted from bad to good.
Verum de remissione peccatorum sufficere debet sola credulitas. Quis enim caussas aut rationem requirat, ubi indulgentia Principis est? Cum terreni Regis liberalitas discussioni non sit obnoxia, ab humana temeritate discutitur diviua largitio. Solent enim cum irrisione adversum nos dicere Pagani, quod ipsi nos decipiamus, qui putemus crimina, quae opere commissa sunt, verbis posse purgari. Et ajunt, Numquid potest, qui homicidium fecit, homicida non esse: et adulter non videri, qui adulterium perpetravit? Quomodo ergo hujuscemodi criminum reus, sanctus vobis effici subito videbitur? Sed ad haec, ut dixi, melius fide, quam ratione respondeo. Rex enim est omnium qui hoc promisit: terrae caelique dominus est, qui haec pollicetur. Non vis, ut qui me ex terra hominem fecit, credam quod ex criminoso me faciat innocentem? Et qui me, cum essem caecus, fecit videre: vel cum essem surdus audire: qui mihi claudo gressum reddidit, innocentiam mihi perditam non poterit recuperare? Et ut veniamus ad ipsius naturae testimonium. Occidere hominem non semper criminosum est, sed malitia, non legibus occidere criminosum est. Non ergo factum me in talibus, quia interdum et recte fit, sed animus male consulens damnat. Si ergo animus in me, qui criminosus est effectus, et in quo fuit origo vitii corrigatur, cur tibi videar non posse innocens effici, 105 qui prius fueram criminosus? Si enim, ut supra ostendi, constat, quod non in facto, sed in voluntate sit crimen: sicut mala voluntas, auctore malo daemone, peccato me et morti fecit obnoxium: ita in bonum voluntas mutata, auctore bono Deo, innocentiae me reddidit [Al. reddit] et vitae. Similis caussa et in caeteris est criminibus. Hoc modo fides nostra non invenitur naturalibus rationibus adversari, dum remissio peccatorum, non gestis, quae mutari non possunt, sed animo quem de malo in bonum converti certum est, deputetur.