Letters

Reply. Those who are joined to husbands by their fathers’ will are free from blame, if the women whom their husbands had were not in wedlock.

Question VI. Concerning those who leave the women by whom they have children and take wives.

Reply. Seeing that the wife is different from the concubine, to turn a bondwoman from one’s couch and take a wife whose free birth is assured, is not bigamy but an honourable proceeding.

Question VII. Concerning those who in sickness accept terms of penitence, and when they have recovered, refuse to keep them.

Reply. Such men’s neglect is to be blamed but not finally to be abandoned, in order that they may be incited by frequent exhortations to carry out faithfully what under stress of need they asked for. For no one is to be despaired of so long as he remain in this body, because sometimes what the diffidence of age puts off is accomplished by maturer counsels.

Question VIII. Concerning those who on their deathbed promise repentance and die before receiving communion.

Reply. Their cause is reserved for the judgment of God, in Whose hand it was that their death was put off until the very time of communion. But we cannot be in communion with those, when dead, with whom when alive we were not in communion.

Question IX. Concerning those who under pressure of great pain ask for penance to be granted them, and when the presbyter has come to give what they seek, if the pain has abated somewhat, make excuses and refuse to accept what is offered.

Reply. This tergiversation cannot proceed from contempt of the remedy but from fear of falling into worse sin. Hence the penance which is put off, when it is more earnestly sought must not be denied in order that the wounded soul may in whatever way attain to the healing of absolution.

Question X. Concerning those who have professed repentance, if they begin to go to law in the forum.

Reply. To demand just debts is indeed one thing and to think nothing of one’s own property from the perfection of love is another. But one who craves pardon for unlawful doings ought to abstain even from many things that are lawful, as says the Apostle, “all things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient.” Hence, if the penitent has a matter which perchance he ought not to neglect, it is better for him to have recourse to the judgment of the Church than of the forum.