CHAPTER FIFTEEN

How His death blots out even the sins of those who put Him to death.

B. But now I see another point that must be questioned. If to put Him to death is as evil as His life is good, how can His death overcome and blot out the sins of those who have put Him to death? Or if it blots out the sin of one of them, how can it blot out any of the sins of other men as well? For we believe that many of the former have been saved and that countless other men are saved.

A. This question is answered by the apostle who said that “if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory.” For a sin done knowingly and a sin done in ignorance are so different from each other that the evil which these men could never have done knowingly, because of its enormity, is venial because it was done in ignorance. For no man could ever will, at least knowingly, to kill God; and so those who killed Him in ignorance did not rush forth into that infinite sin with which no other sins are comparable. Indeed, in order to ascertain how good His life was, we considered the magnitude of this sin not with respect to the fact that it was committed in ignorance but as if it were done knowingly—something which no one ever did or ever could have done.

B. You have shown rationally that the slayers of Christ were able to obtain pardon for their sin.

A. For what more do you now ask? Assuredly, you see how rational necessity shows that the Heavenly City is to be completed from among men and that this completion can be effected only through the forgiveness of sins—a forgiveness which no man can have except through a man who is himself God and who by his death will reconcile sinful men to God. Plainly, then, we have found Christ, whom we confess to be divine and human, and to have died for us. But now that we know this fact without any doubt, we also must not doubt the truth of all the things He says (since God cannot lie) and the wisdom of all the things He did (even though we may not understand the reason for them).

B. What you say is true. And I do not at all doubt that what He said is true or that what He did was done reasonably. But I have the following request: Disclose to me in what way there ought and can occur that thing whose occurrence unbelievers regard as unseemly or impossible in the Christian faith. Disclose this not in order to confirm me in faith but in order to make me, already so confirmed, joyful in the understanding of this truth.