24.13. 13. Of inexpiable Crimes.
It appears from a. passage of the books of
the pontiffs, quoted by Cicero,
[8]
that they had among the Romans
inexpiable crimes:
[9]
and it is on this that Zozymus founds the
narration so proper to blacken the motives of Constantine's conversion;
and Julian, that bitter raillery on this conversion in his Cæsars.
The Pagan religion indeed, which prohibited only some of the grosser
crimes, and which stopped the hand but meddled not with the heart, might
have crimes that were inexpiable; but a religion which bridles all the
passions; which is not more jealous of actions than of thoughts and
desires; which holds us not by a few chains but by an infinite number of
threads; which, leaving human justice aside, establishes another kind of
justice; which is so ordered as to lead us continually from repentance
to love, and from love to repentance; which puts between the judge and
the criminal a greater mediator, between the just and the mediator a
great judge — a religion like this ought not to have inexpiable crimes.
But while it gives fear and hope to all, it makes us sufficiently
sensible that though there is no crime in its own nature inexpiable, yet
a whole criminal life may be so; that it is extremely dangerous to
affront mercy by new crimes and new expiations; that an uneasiness on
account of ancient debts, from which we are never entirely free, ought
to make us afraid of contracting new ones, of filling up the measure,
and going even to that point where paternal goodness is limited.
Footnotes
[8]
"De Leg.," lib. ii, 22.
[9]
Sacrum commissum, quod neque expiari potent, impie commissum est; quod expiari potent publici sacerdotes expianto.
