THE REASON AND END OF DIVINE PUNISHMENTS.
Now that is in our power, of which equally with its opposite we are
masters,--as, say, to philosophize or not, to believe or disbelieve.
In consequence, then, of our being equally masters of each of the
opposites, what depends on us is found possible. Now the commandments
may be done or not done by us, who, as is reasonable, are liable to
praise and blame. And those, again, who are punished on account of
sins committed by them, are punished for them alone; for what is done
is past, and what is done can never be undone. The sins committed
before faith are accordingly forgiven by the Lord, not that they may
be undone, but as if they had not been done. “But not all,” says
Basilides, “but only sins involuntary and in ignorance, are forgiven;”
as would be the case were it a man, and not God, that conferred such
a boon. To such an one Scripture says, “Thou thoughtest that I would
be like thee.”[662] But if we are punished for voluntary sins, we are
punished not that the sins which are done may be undone, but because
they were done. But punishment does not avail to him who has sinned, to
undo his sin, but that he may sin no more, and that no one else fall
into the like. Therefore the good God corrects for these three causes:
First, that he who is corrected may become better than his former self;
then that those who are capable of being saved by examples may be
driven back, being admonished; and thirdly, that he who is injured may
not be readily despised, and be apt to receive injury. And there are
two methods of correction--the instructive and the punitive, which we
have called the disciplinary. It ought to be known, then, that those
who fall into sin after baptism[663] are those who are subjected to
discipline; for the deeds done before are remitted, and those done
after are purged. It is in reference to the unbelieving that it is
said, “that they are reckoned as the chaff which the wind drives from
the face of the earth, and the drop which falls from a vessel.”[664]