Confessional Corner: God Seeks Revenge? (Ap XIIb 51-81)
The adversaries object that revenge or punishment is necessary for repentance, because Augustine says that "repentance is revenge punishing" and so on. We grant that revenge or punishment is necessary in repentance. Yet it is not necessary as merit or price, as the adversaries imagine that satisfactions are necessary. But revenge is in repentance formally, that is, because rebirth itself happens by a continuous putting to death of the oldness of life. The saying of Scotus may indeed be very beautiful, that penitence is so called because it is "holding to punishment." But what punishment, what revenge, does Augustine speak about? Certainly true punishment, true revenge, namely, contrition, true terrors. Nor do we exclude here the outward putting to death (mortification) of the body, which follows true grief of mind. (Ap XIIb 51)
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