trying to cover up the fratricide, he deceived his father at the time, but he did not deceive his conscience, nor could he persuade it to be quiet; rather, it kept rising up against him continuously, crying out, and it could not be silenced. For when a long time had passed, the one who had denied the deed to his father—never having told anyone else, with no one accusing him, no one convicting him, no one pressing him, and no one reminding him of that drama—when he was in danger regarding his freedom and his very life, he showed that the accuser of the conscience had not been silent or suppressed during that long time, using these words: "Verily, we are in sin regarding our brother, because we disregarded his tribulation and the pain of his soul when he besought us, and now his blood is being required of us" (Gen. XLII, 21). A And yet the crime that was being laid to his charge was something else, for he was being judged for theft, as if he had stolen a golden cup, and was being brought into court; but because he was not conscious of any such crime, he felt no pain on this account, and did not say that he was suffering these things for which he was being judged and led in chains, but for those for which no one was blaming him, nor demanding an reckoning, nor dragging him into court—nay, rather, things that he had not yet fully paid for, he himself was confessing and accusing himself. For conscience was griping him; and he who had poured out the blood of his brother with such a firm and bold B mind, without being affected by any sense of grief, was now grieving for his sake; and he was accusing those whom he had held as companions and partners in the murder, and he was describing all the cruelty in tragic terms, saying, "When he besought us, and we disregarded his tribulation and the pain of his soul." This is as much as to say: "Nature itself was enough to soften our souls and turn us toward mercy; but he even added tears, and he was beseeching us as a suppliant; and not even then did he soften us—nay, we 'disregarded his tribulation and the pain of his soul.'" "Therefore," he says, "this judgment has been prepared for us; therefore we are in danger of our blood, because we have sinned against blood." In this way, too, Judas, not enduring the trial of his conscience, rushed to the noose, and by means of the rope put an end to his life. And when he C was not hesitant to undertake that shameless compact, saying, "What will you give me, and I will hand him over to you?" (Matt. XXVI, 15), he did not fear those who were hearing him—namely, that being a disciple he was plotting such things against a Master—nor during those days that followed between the events was he stung by any pain, but, intoxicated by the pleasure that the greed for money brought him, he did not particularly feel the accusation of conscience. But after he carried out the crime and took the money, and the pleasure of the gain ended, but the accusation of the crime began to flourish, then finally, with no one accusing, no one using force, no one urging him, he went off of his own accord, then threw the money back to those from whom he had received it, and confessed his crime to those who were hearing him, with these words: "I have sinned, in handing over innocent blood" (Matt. XXVII, 4). For he could not bear the D conscience that was convicting him. The conscience of sin is an executioner; sinners ought to be mourned; vice is the death of the soul. For such is the nature of sin, that before it is accomplished, it affects a man with intoxication; but after it is finished and complete, then that pleasure takes itself off and is extinguished, and only then does the accuser stand by, with conscience truly occupying the place of an executioner, and tearing the sinner to pieces, and demanding extreme punishments from him, and pressing upon him more heavily than any lead. Moreover, you know what will be proposed in the future for those who have bound themselves to these crimes. Therefore, it is fitting to follow these with tears and to mourn them, for Paul also does so, while he congratulates those who strive and contend and suffer evil, but mourns those who sin: and for this reason he also used to say, "Lest perhaps when I come, my God may humble me before you, and I may mourn many of those who sinned before, and did not commit repentance for the uncleanness and fornication and lewdness which they committed" (2 Cor. XII, 21); and again to those who were involved in the struggle: "I rejoice, and I congratulate you all" (Phil. II, 17). Therefore, let nothing that has happened, nor what is being threatened toward you, disturb you. For waves do not shake a rock, but the more vehemently they rush upon it, the more they are broken and destroyed by it: this also happened in those cases, and will happen, indeed much more so. For while the waves do not shake the rock, yet they have not only not shaken you, but have even made you firmer. For such is the nature of evil, and such is the nature of virtue. The former, while it wages war, is crushed; the latter, while it is harassed by war, shines forth more clearly. And this one obtains the palm not only after the struggles, but even in the struggles themselves, and the struggle itself becomes the reward for the struggle: the former, however, when it conquers, then it is suffused with greater shame, then it is tortured, then it is overwhelmed with great ignominy, and before the punishment stored up for it, it is tortured not only after the crime is committed, but even in the work itself. But if this seems clearer to you, hear the blessed Paul, distinguishing both of these. For writing once to the Romans, and exposing the impure life of some, and showing that sin even before the punishment is brought upon it, has attached punishment in the action itself, when he had commemorated the wicked deeds of both women and men, who had violated the laws prescribed by nature, and had devised a certain monstrous lust, he speaks in this way: "For their females changed the natural use into that which is against nature. In like manner also the males, leaving the natural use of the female, were inflamed in their desires toward one another, males with males working out uncleanness, and receiving in themselves the recompense, which it was fitting, of their error" (Rom. I, 26, 27). What are you saying, Paul? Are those who dare these things not affected by pleasure, and do they not perform this shameful and divinely forbidden union with desire? How then do you say they pay the penalty in this very thing? Because the sentence, he says, is not from the pleasure of the diseased, but from the nature of the things.