Shame and Hidden Sins

One is able to say such things about oneself. But such a person is rare, and because of the difficulty of finding them, they are perhaps thought by some not to exist at all. Furthermore, the rarity is shown by the proverbist saying: 'Who shall boast having a pure heart and shall speak boldly as being free from sin?' (Psalm 25:3). By saying pure, he means the heart being rightly disposed and thinking concerning piety. He who is persuaded according to the truth, that one has a pure heart. And he who is outside of practical sin speaks boldly as being free from sin.

Because the truth and those things thought truly purify the soul and the heart, Peter the apostle writes: 'having purified your souls in the obedience of the truth' (1 Peter 1:22). And James writes: 'Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, double-minded' (James 4:8). They cleanse hands, those making their actions crooked, and they purify their soul, those casting away all double-mindedness; 'and purify' indeed, he says, 'hearts, double-minded.' Most of all, those thinking wrongly are double-minded. Sometimes they are seized by glory and held by it, but when they look at things otherwise, they find them to be having something else, and how they once remain in the grasping bad-glory.

Thus, one is presented as free from sin who has lived a life according to the right way. He has a pure heart, the one thinking the things of the truth, having taken 'the mysteries of the kingdom' (Matthew 13:11) in soul and having been initiated according to them. This one, therefore, lifts up the soul toward the Lord. It is not one who happens to do so who lifts it. To say it is perhaps easy for everyone, but to do it is either difficult or has reached the point of being nearly impossible, not because of his own nature.

And this, since according to the apostle 'no one says Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit' (1 Corinthians 12:3). And these men themselves, when they call the God Lord, do not say it with voice alone, but with deed and disposition. When they act thus, disposed as toward a master, doing what he wills and commands, they are truly slaves; and since what is turned toward him is that of a truly slave, he is truly a master. 'My God, in you I have trusted; let me not be put to shame' (Psalm 25:2). Happy is the one having precise knowledge, having trusted in it, who converses with all and is not put to shame. He who has trusted in virtue is not cut off...

They act wickedly; therefore, they are not ashamed. For those committing sin are the ones undergoing shame. Some say, 'they shall rise up for reproach and eternal shame.' Thus the word prays for the unfeeling that shame may come to be for them: 'fill their faces with dishonor'—speaking regarding faults—'and let them be ashamed and perish and know that you are the Lord' (Ps 51:1-4). When they feel shame, being such wicked people, they perish according to that state in which they are.

The one who is confident in his iniquities, if he knows that he sins wickedly, is ashamed and perishes as a wicked man, not as a rational substance. Because of this the apostles say: 'we have spoken the hidden things of shame' (2 Cor 12:7). We have not spoken only the manifest things producing reproach and shame, but also the hidden things. And it can be so: for some, the things of drunkenness are hidden. When they are intoxicated in wines, such as they were regarding whom Paul writes, 'whose glory is in their shame' (1 Cor 5:31), in whom it is necessary to be ashamed, they themselves wish to be honored. Indeed, one finds fifty men wishing to be honored through much variety.

But how are they hidden? I have spoken of the hidden things in two ways: sins are in thoughts. Therefore, not only does the diligent and the simple man refrain from practical deeds, but also from the hidden things, as he also sends up a prayer: 'cleanse me from my secret sins' (Ps 51:3). Otherwise, the unknown things are called hidden. Having been bold regarding all manifest transgressions, that they are forgiven him, the saint says: 'who will understand transgressions?' (Ps 19:12). He who understands transgressions is rare.

Since it is possible for me to be ignorant of them, 'cleanse me from these. Spare your servant from others' (Ps 51:3)—for they are foreign to me, to my essence, both they and those acting them against me. And furthermore he adds: 'lest they overpower me.' If the hidden things do not overpower me, 'then I shall be blameless.' And he adds: 'and I shall be cleansed from great sin.' We say these things are in thoughts, and to be so as to be unknown to the possessor. How then is the one being cleansed from these 'from great sin' cleansed? You know that the 'great' of it is in relation to what. As for the one desiring to be entirely pure, even the small things of sins seem to be great. And they once took such a pattern: if a garment many times...