Question XLI. Was Achan adjudged to the eternal fire, or rather to heavenly felicity?

[St. Augustine] does not indeed deny [that] Achan [was] saved and blessed, but somewhat doubts (q. 8). But Cassian affirms [him] damned (Conferences 1, ch. 20), [and so do] the Fathers of the Council of Aachen under Pepin (bk. 2, ch. 7), and nearly Rupert (ch. 31). I judge [him] freed from the eternal [fire] by a temporary and suddenly-extinguished fire, and received into heaven. First: Because good authors also so judge — Cajetan (in this place), Abulensis (qq. 55 and 65), Masius (fol. 138), and all the Rabbis (in tractate Sanhedrin, ch. 6, fol. 43, col. 1, and 44). Then: Because there was in him a great force of repenting, and an all-pious confession, full of grief and of reverence toward God, as [was] declared above (q. 27). The Rabbis, with Abulensis, add another reason: that, to [Achan] now about to enter the pyre, Joshua said (v. 25) not simply, “Let the Lord disturb thee,” but added “in this day,” as if he should say [that] he indeed, in this life, was to be tortured and exterminated on account of his sin, [but] not in the future. R. Eliezer (ch. 38): “Because, before God the holy and blessed, he gave confession or glory, Achan has a part in the future age. For it is said, ‘Let the Lord disturb thee in this day.’ On this present day thou art Achor, that is, disturbed: and thou shalt not be Achor in the future age.” And Masius: “To us, indeed,” he says, “that seems credible: but not on account of those words, but rather on account of that ingenuous confession. For that בַּיּוֹם הַזֶּה [bayom hazeh, ‘in this day’] we reckon to signify nothing else than that oft-used בַּיּוֹם הַזֶּה [bayom hazeh], ‘as today,’ or ‘as this day’ — which the Seventy-two [LXX] expressed in this place too. And it is nearly a mark of a thing to be affirmed, as though by a certain evidence: as if thou shouldst say, plainly, altogether, utterly, clearly, openly, and as certainly as thou seest the light of the present day, which thou enjoyest.” But to me it seems [to be] not so much a mark of affirmation, as of time — set there, that it may be signified [that] the time of punishment [is] not so much [going to be] none thereafter, as those Rabbis will [have it], as [that it] ought indeed to have been sooner, [and] yet [is] now already deservedly [ended]. Elias, in the Thisbi [Tishbi], under the word hathad, relates this exposition, as if it were a prayer, thus: “Let the Lord disturb thee in this day: and be thou not disturbed in the future age.” But that God, the highest source of piety and clemency, assented to the prayer of so pious and clement — most pious and most clement — a man, Joshua — who would wish to doubt? But thou wilt object three [things]. First: Rupert (on Joshua, ch. 31): “Although,” he says, “Achar answered by confessing, ‘Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus I did,’ yet he could not merit any pardon, because, namely, the confession was too tardy. For Israel was disturbed before he acknowledged the guilt, and the truthful lot, with God [as] author, betrayed the person before he [betrayed] the fault.” I answer. First: in the one [respect], he was perhaps too late. Secondly: [it] can nevertheless be explained [that] Achan’s confession was thus late, and to it all pardon [was] denied, as to the temporary punishment which he had to undergo. Of this [temporary punishment], as is plain from the antecedents, Rupert there speaks. Thou wilt object secondly: [that] those whom I cited at the beginning, and especially the Council of Aachen under Pepin (bk. 2, ch. 1), attribute eternal death to Achan. I answer [that] the severity of his opinion is left by us to Abbot Moses, in Cassian: but Rupert and the Fathers of Aachen seem to have thought this to be the opinion of St. Augustine — whose words and opinions the Fathers use very much in the former Council of Aachen under Louis I. Secondly, in the other [work], as I said, [it is] St. Augustine’s opinion [that Achan was saved]. Thou wilt object thirdly: [that] the opinion adopted by the words of many [is] that penance is not to be deferred to the extreme time of life — because a single example is found of one to whom [penance] so late profited, namely of the thief crucified with CHRIST JESUS. I answer [that] this [is] the single example, [but] manifest, namely, and almost undoubted, on account of the adjoined most certain testification of God: “Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” [It is] not meanwhile that [example] which is less manifest, and [rests] in a certain hazard, [that is] to be cast aside: nay [rather it is] eagerly to be embraced, for the consoling of the minds of many whom the prison, the fetter, and the executioner hold, and for exhorting [them] to penance. Behold, when Achan bound himself with a most wicked sacrilege, [and] had stirred up the most grievous wrath of the Divinity against the whole people, [and] had been the cause of the deadly slaughter of several Israelites, and of the most shameful flight of some thousands: [when] by the divine nod, and by the judgment of the lot, [he was] betrayed, and by the divine sentence now adjudged to the most bitter punishment of fire; [when] there remained no, or the least, watch-post of denying, excusing, [or] escaping; [when] he was snatching with him into the same destruction his sons, daughters, and all his [goods] — and yet, because he confesses [his] sin so ingenuously, sincerely, and grievingly, because he gives glory to God, because he wishes to bear the decreed punishment with an even, submissive, and patient mind — [thereby] he turns away God’s wrath from the people, [and] restores himself into His grace: from the pyre to heaven, from the flames to refreshment [refrigerium], from the crash and weight of the stones to the aethereal seats of the blessed, he flies away — as far, indeed, as that old status of the Old Testament bore. Who would despair of [pardon for his] sins? who would not recognize himself, [led] into prison and chains, [to be] brought as [it were] to the most excellent port of penance and salvation, by a great benefit of God? [who would] not gladly receive any capital sentence pronounced by Judges, and use it as [it were] a notable instrument of satisfaction and penance? and so [render] God, the Saints, and all men favorable to himself? O splendid occasion! O great benefit of God toward sinners! It is not altogether rashly said by the common [folk], “more go from the gibbet to heaven than from the bed”: but yet let this comparison be removed, which, as [it is] odious, so [it is] uncertain, or rather false.