DEGREES OF
SIN
"Adultery, fraud, and manslaughter are mortal sins." St. Cyprian of Carthage ("Treatise VII," c. 250 A.D.)
"The clergyman who is deposed for mortal sin, shall not be
excommunicated." St. Basil the Great
("Canonical Letter" c. 374 A.D.)
"There are venial sins and there are mortal sins. It is one thing to
owe ten thousand talents, another to owe but a farthing. We shall have to give
an accounting for an idle word no less than for adultery. But to be made to
blush and to be tortured are not the same thing; not the same thing to grow red
in the face and to be in agony for a long time. . . . If we entreat for lesser
sins we are granted pardon, but for greater sins, it is difficult to obtain our
request. There is a great difference between one sin and another." St. Jerome ("Against Jovinian" c. 393 A.D.)
CHURCH
BELIEFS & ISSUES
WHAT THE
EARLY CHURCH BELIEVED
Biblical quotations on this web site are
either from the King James Version or the Douay-Rheims Version of the Bible.
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