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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 13: Whether He Who Has Sinned After Baptism Should Despair of His Salvation If He Be…
If it be possible to number the multitude of God’s mercies and the greatness of God’s compassion in comparison with the number and greatness of sins then let us despair. But if, as is obvious, the latter are subject to measure and can be numbered, but it is impossible to measure the mercy or number the compassions of God, there is no time for despairing, but only for recognising mercy and condemning sins; the remission of which is set forth in the blood of Christ, as it is written. But that we must not despair we are taught in many places and many fashions, but especially in the parable of our Lord Jesus Christ about the son who received his father’s substance and spent it on sins. And how splendid a feast his repentance merits we learn from the very words of the Lord. And God says by Isaiah: “If your sins are as scarlet I will make them white as snow; and if they are as crimson I will make them white as wool.”2 Which we ought to know is only true if the manner of our repentance is worthy, springing from a disposition that abhors sin, as it is written in both the Old and New Testaments, and if the fruit is worthy, as was said in the answer to the question about this.3
Notes
- The answer to this question is obvious to-day, but up to c. 250 the view was generally held that for certain sins no restoration was possible in this life. They must be left to God’s mercy at the Last Day. See Watkins, A History of Penance, pp. 143–259 passim.
- Isa. i. 18 ὡσεὶ (v.l. ὡς) ἔριον λευκανῶ with ℵ*, Sw. (B) ὡς.
- B. 5.