Annotation CCLXXXVIII
”Unto the praise of the glory of his grace.” — Ephesians 1:6
Whether penance is again to be given to the lapsed.
Chrysostom, [in] the second homily on the Ephesians, seems, together with the Novatians, to deny penance to the lapsed — saying thus, in the beginning of the moral exhortation: “GOD advances to salvation those who, once they have been made his friends, persevere. But if they run back again to [their] former enmities, all [is] in vain and to no purpose. For a second laver of regeneration is not granted; nor does a secondary reconciliation remain over [again]; but a certain terrible expectation of judgment, and jealousy of fire, which shall consume the adversaries.” And a little after: “HE SHOWS thee
—the true light. But if, that being expelled, thou again incur darkness: what place of excuse is left to thee? what pardon canst thou hope? Not even one is to be hoped for thenceforth.” And a little below: “IF thou sufferest a necessity of sinning, or force, thou wilt indeed obtain pardon; but if thou fallest through cowardice [sloth] or torpor, not so.” Which words are not to be understood of private penance — to which Chrysostom so frequently invites sinners, [and] for which, as we admonished [in] Annotation 173 of the preceding book, he was gravely reproved by the Novatians — but are to be expounded of the solemn penance, which, according to the ancient laws, was not iterated [repeated], as Augustine is witness, in the epistle to Macedonius, 54, lest the medicine, iterated many times, should grow cheap; and the same is had in the decrees, On Penance, distinction 3.