Annotatio XVI

”And it was made evening and morning, the fourth day.” — Genesis 1:19

Chrysostom, in the sixth homily on Genesis near the end, where he expounds this very thing, exhorting his hearers to please God by the confession of sins, and not to relapse into sins after confession, says:¹ “It suffices for God, on account of his great mercy, that we desist from sins.” Explaining the same more fully in the oration on Blessed Philogonius, he says: “I testify and pledge my faith, that if each of us who are liable to sins, withdrawing from his former evils from the heart, and truly promising [Chrysostom, on Blessed Philogonius:] “…and promise to God that he will hereafter never return to those [sins], God will require nothing else for further satisfaction: for he is benign.” Which opinion John Calvin, in the ninth chapter of his Institutions,² cites against the “satisfactionists” (for so the impious man calls the catholics, because they teach that satisfaction is the third part of penance); and John Oecolampadius, once a Brigittine monk, standard-bearer of the recent heretics, in the codices of Chrysostom translated by himself, over against this same sentence, placed in the margin a heretical objection in these words: “If it suffices God that we desist from sins, where then remain satisfactions and indulgences?” Retorting this man’s insane questioning upon the author himself, let us in turn ask him: If it suffices God that we desist from sins, and there is no further need of satisfactions and indulgences, why does Chrysostom everywhere preach the satisfactory works of penance?³ Indeed in homily 10 on Matthew, showing that it does not suffice to cease from sin unless we make satisfaction through those things which are contrary to the offenses committed, he says: “Let us do penance — penance, I say — not only that we desist from former evils, but also that we be filled with the fruits of good works. ‘Bring forth,’ says John, ‘fruits worthy of penance.’ But in what way shall we be able to bear fruit, unless we do the things contrary to our sins? For example: you have stolen others’ goods — begin now to give your own; you have fornicated a long time — suspend yourself from the lawful use of marriage, and meditate perpetual continence by [at least] a chastity of a few days. For it does not suffice for the wounded man, unto his safety, only to pluck the darts from his body, but it is also needful to apply remedies to the wounds,” etc. Again, in the homily on Psalm 106, which is carried among the works of Chrysostom, it is thus written: “When sin has brought death, confession brings health. For confession shows penance; satisfaction wins pardon for oneself by the divine mercy.” And below it follows: “It is worse not to placate God’s offense by satisfaction, than to offend God’s goodness by sinning.” And a little after: “Let confession restore what sin had taken away; let penance lack nothing; what the stain of offenses had defiled, let the serpent’s venom be cured by the antidote of satisfaction.” Thus Chrysostom. Answering Oecolampadius on his authority, we say: it suffices God indeed — for granting us the remission both of guilt and of eternal punishment — that we desist from sins now confessed to a Priest; but there remain satisfactions and indulgences to expiate the temporal punishments to which, as the sacred Letters teach, after the crimes are pardoned and the eternal punishment [remitted], we are still liable, whether in this life or in another.⁴ See below, Annotation 174 of this book, and 161 of the following book.