Chapter X.—Of Men’s Shrinking from This Second Repentance and Exomologesis, and of the Unreasonableness of Such Shrinking.

Yet most men either shun this work, as being a public exposure92    [Elucidation III.] of themselves, or else defer it from day to day. I presume (as being) more mindful of modesty than of salvation; just like men who, having contracted some malady in the more private parts of the body, avoid the privity of physicians, and so perish with their own bashfulness. It is intolerable, forsooth, to modesty to make satisfaction to the offended Lord! to be restored to its forfeited93    Prodactæ. salvation! Truly you are honourable in your modesty; bearing an open forehead for sinning, but an abashed one for deprecating! I give no place to bashfulness when I am a gainer by its loss; when itself in some son exhorts the man, saying, “Respect not me; it is better that I perish through94    Per. But “per,” according to Oehler, is used by Tertullian as ="propter” —on your account, for your sake. you, i.e. than you through me.” At all events, the time when (if ever) its danger is serious, is when it is a butt for jeering speech in the presence of insulters, where one man raises himself on his neighbour’s ruin, where there is upward clambering over the prostrate.  But among brethren and fellow-servants, where there is common hope, fear,95    Metus. joy, grief, suffering, because there is a common Spirit from a common Lord and Father, why do you think these brothers to be anything other than yourself? Why flee from the partners of your own mischances, as from such as will derisively cheer them? The body cannot feel gladness at the trouble of any one member,96    1 Cor. xii. 26. it must necessarily join with one consent in the grief, and in labouring for the remedy. In a company of two97    In uno et altero. is the church;98    See Matt. xviii. 20. but the church is Christ.99    i.e. as being His body. When, then, you cast yourself at the brethren’s knees, you are handling Christ, you are entreating Christ. In like manner, when they shed tears over you, it is Christ who suffers, Christ who prays the Father for mercy. What a son100    Or, “the Son.” Comp. John xi. 41, 42. asks is ever easily obtained. Grand indeed is the reward of modesty, which the concealment of our fault promises us! to wit, if we do hide somewhat from the knowledge of man, shall we equally conceal it from God? Are the judgment of men and the knowledge of God so put upon a par?  Is it better to be damned in secret than absolved in public? But you say, “It is a miserable thing thus to come to exomologesis:” yes, for evil does bring to misery; but where repentance is to be made, the misery ceases, because it is turned into something salutary. Miserable it is to be cut, and cauterized, and racked with the pungency of some (medicinal) powder: still, the things which heal by unpleasant means do, by the benefit of the cure, excuse their own offensiveness, and make present injury bearable for the sake101    Or, “by the grace.” of the advantage to supervene.

CAPUT X.

Plerosque tamen hoc opus, ut publicationem sui , aut suffugere, aut de die in diem differre, praesumo; pudoris magis memores quam salutis: velut illi, qui in partibus verecundioribus corporis contracta vexatione, conscientiam medentium vitant, 1245A et ita cum erubescentia sua pereunt. Intolerandum scilicet pudori, Domino offenso satisfacere, saluti prodactae reformari . Nae tu verecunda bonus, ad delinquendum expandens frontem, ad deprecandum vero subducens. Ego rubori locum non facio, cum plus de detrimento ejus acquiro, cum ipse hominem quodammodo exhortatur, Ne me respexeris, dicens, per te mihi melius est perire. Certe periculum ejus tunc, si forte, onerosum est, cum penes insultaturos in risiloquio consistit, ubi de alterius ruina alter attollitur, ubi prostrato superscenditur. Caeterum inter fratres atque conservos, ubi communis spes, metus, gaudium, dolor, passio (quia communis spiritus de communi Domino et Patre), quid tu hos aliud quam te opinaris ? Quid consortes casuum tuorum , 1245B ut plausores, fugis? Non potest corpus de unius membri vexatione laetum agere: condoleat universum, et ad remedium conlaboret, necesse est. In uno et altero Ecclesia est, Ecclesia vero Christus. Ergo cum te ad fratrum genua protendis, Christum contrectas, Christum exoras. Aeque illi cum super te lacrymas agunt, Christus patitur, Christus Patrem deprecatur. Facile impetratur semper, quod filius postulat. Grande plane emolumentum verecundiae occultatio delicti pollicetur. Videlicet si quid humanae notitiae subduxerimus, proinde et Deum celabimus? Adeone existimatio hominum et Dei conscientia comparantur? An melius est damnatum latere, quam palam absolvi ? Miserum est sic ad Exomologesin 1245C pervenire . Malo enim ad miseriam pervenitur, 1246A sed ubi poenitendum est deserit miserum: quia factum est salutare. Miserum est secari et cauterio exuri, et pulveris alicujus mordacitate cruciari: tamen quae per insuavitatem medentur, et emolumento curationis offensam sui excusant, et praesentem injuriam superventurae utilitatis gratia commendant.