Letter 11040: Although the very title of "judge" seems dedicated to justice, and I am commanded to walk in the footsteps of equity...

40. INDULGENCE [a formal grant of pardon]. [1] Although the very name of a judge seems dedicated to justice, and we are commanded to walk the whole orbit of the year in the footsteps of equity, nevertheless in these days we rightly turn aside into the dwelling of mercy, so that we may be able to reach the Redeemer of all by the road of remission. For from this virtue we gather the sweetest fruits, and by pardoning others we spare ourselves. For we who are just at our peril always grant forgiveness in security. Therefore we renounce punishments, we condemn torments, and then we are truly judges. [2] Hail, Indulgence, who release even those who preside! You are the patroness of the human race, you the singular physician of afflicted affairs. Who would not have need of your gift, since to sin is common to all? You are of necessity sought by all, since under you the hope of life is taken up, which under justice is not possessed. For while you enjoy heavenly grace together with your three other sisters, and are bound together in lovely embrace, all of them yield honorably to you, although they too are virtues, since they recognize that you are the bringer of salvation to the human race. But why do we say so much about earthly conduct? It is Mercy that governs even the heavens. O, if only it were permitted to dwell with you for long ages! All guilt would be shut out, and by sparing it would come about that the need to spare was removed. [3] But most providently so great a thing seems to have been granted to sacred seasons alone, so that the world might receive it more gladly, rejoicing at it for its novelty. Therefore hold back your harmful axe, lictor [an officer who carried out punishment], you who are permitted to do with impunity what in others you are known to avenge: for a little while love the sword that shines, not the sword that is bloody. Let a more fortunate rust take up your chains, wet with tears: rather put away that which used to confine. Let the chambers of deadly voices fall silent by a better lot. Thus in truth you keep the name of guardian without the deaths of others. Why do you always labor for the powers below? Sometimes serve also the powers above. A merciful proceeding announces a holiday for you. He who of necessity keeps watch for inexorable justice must be ungirded by kindly mercy. [4] And therefore let the cell of groans, the house of sorrow, that lodging of Pluto among the living, the place blinded by perpetual night, at last grow white with the inpouring of light: in which the accused endures not one torment, who, before he meets the outcome of death, is proved cut off from those above. First that filth, the companion of chains, racks him with abominable grief: the hearing of another's groan and the laments disturb him: long fasts weaken his taste: the pressing weights wear out his touch: his eyes, dulled by long darkness, grow numb. For those shut in there is not one destruction: he is destroyed by a manifold death who is tortured by the squalor of the prison. [5] Now therefore send out from your Avernus those accused who are to live: let those return to the upper world who have for the most part endured the lower world: let your halls be filled with emptiness. Let that place of perennial tears lose its once-sorrowful inhabitants. There are none there who are glad: it will assuredly then have favor, if it appear deserted. Go out, you shut-in ones, always pale with death nearby: return to the light, you whom murky shadows possessed, who will suffer nothing more from the death you longed for, except that until now you could still be killed. [6] But you, who ought now to be deceived by no ambition, leave your offenses behind together with your chains, absolved by the benefits of these days. Live now in honor, you who have learned to die while surviving. Recognize how beneficial good conduct is: the one brought you the foulest prison, the other has known how to bestow splendid liberty: this latter will grant that you wish to live, the former gave you cause to choose henceforth to perish. If the laws bind you, no one shall confine you any further. Dread hidden places: come to the forum without trembling. [7] Justly do you flee those things through which you endured sorrows. Let those who saw you accused marvel at you free. You ought to hate what handed you over to death. The very cattle know how to avoid the things by which they recognize they have been harmed: they do not return to those paths where they fell into a pit. The cautious bird shuns the clinging snares; the wary winged creature does not settle on the gripping birdlime. The sea-wolf [a fish] plunges itself into the soft sands to escape the ambush of the leaded line: and when the nets drawn over it have torn its back in vain, it leaps eager into the waves and, set free, knows the joys of the danger avoided. [8] The parrotfish, enticed by the bait, once it has begun to enter the rush-woven prison, as soon as it has recognized that it has been invited to its own destruction, slips backward upon its tail, gradually drawing itself out of the narrow place. And if another of the same kind has recognized it entangled, it drags the other's hindparts with its teeth, so that the one who, being caught, cannot help itself, is proved to escape by another's aid. So too the saurus [a fish], a quick-witted kind of fish named from its swiftness, when they have driven themselves into the entangling ambushes, bound together as if uniformly by certain ropes, dragging backward with all their efforts strive to free their captive companion. There are more such instances, if such things be sought out. For an easy mishap would carry off all creatures that can have things hostile to them, if they did not take care for their own safety. [9] Let us call our words back to you, master of the prison-bars. Allow your penal chamber to be innocently secret. You are indeed tormented, because no one is afflicted: you are sadly excluded from the common joys, since to you alone the general pardon is not extended, you who must be compared to livid envy. Endure the loss arising from the security of all, you who had your joy from the affliction of many. But that we may console even your groans, claim for yourself only those whom the law of mercy does not release as a favor, lest, in sparing the savage, it should make light of the most cruel crimes. Let us all therefore be loosed, we who are entangled in worldly affairs. Every man suffers perilous bonds, which he should hasten to escape. Let the prison-bars dismiss the accused: let the chains of wicked thought absolve us. Cassiodorus

XL. INDULGENTIA. [1] Quamvis nomen ipsum iudicis dicatum videatur esse iustitiae et totius anni orbitam aequitatis iubeamur ambulare vestigiis, his tamen diebus in domicilium pietatis iure deflectimus, ut ad redemptorem omnium remissionis itinere pervenire possimus. ex hac enim virtute suavissimos fructus legimus et remittendo aliis nobis parcimus. nam qui periculose iusti sumus, sub securitate semper ignoscimus. quapropter poenas abdicimus, tormenta damnamus et tunc vere iudices sumus. [2] Macte, indulgentia, quae solvis et praesules. tu patrona humani generis, tu afflictis rebus medica singularis. quis tuo non egeat munere, cum sit peccare commune? ab universis necessario peteris, quando sub te spes vitae sumitur, quae sub iustitia non habetur. nam dum cum tribus aliis sororibus caelesti gratia perfruaris et amabili amplexatione nectamini, omnes tibi, quamvis et ipsae virtutes sint, honorabiliter cedunt, quando te humano generi salutiferam esse cognoscunt. sed quid tantum de terrena conversatione dicamus? pietas est, quae regit et caelos. o si tecum liceret longis habitare temporibus! totus excluderetur reatus, et parcendo fieret ut parcere tolleretur. [3] Sed providentissime tanta res sacris solum temporibus videtur esse concessa, ut gratius mundus acciperet, unde pro rerum novitate gauderet. quapropter abstine noxiam, lictor, securem, cui licet impune facere quod in aliis cognosceris vindicare: ama paulisper ferrum splendidum, non cruentum. catenas tuas lacrimis madidas felicior rubigo suscipiat: illud potius reconde, quod solebat includere. auditoria feralium vocum meliore sorte mutescant. sic re vera nomen custodis sine mortibus alienis. quid semper inferis laboras? aliquando et superis milita. otium tibi clemens actus indicit. qui iustitiae inexorabili excubat necesse est, ut eum pietas benigna discingat. [4] Et ideo cella gemituum, tristitiae domus, apud superos Plutonis hospitium, locus perpetua nocte caecatus, tandem infusione lucis albescat: in quo non unum tormentum sustinet reus, qui antequam incurrat necis exitus, a superis probatur abscisus. primum pedor ille collega catenarum abominabili maerore discruciat: auditum alieni gemitus et lamenta conturbant: gustum ieiunia longa debilitant: tactum pondera prementia defetigant: lumina diutinis tenebris obtusa torpescunt. non est unum clausis exitium: multifaria morte perimitur, qui carceris squalore torquetur. [5] Nunc ergo reos de Averno tuo victuros emitte: redeant ad superos, qui ex magna parte inferos pertulerunt: atria tua vacuitatibus impleantur. locus ille perennium lacrimarum quondam tristes incolas perdat. non sunt inde qui laeti sunt: qui tunc profecto habebit gratiam, si desertus appareat. exite, inclusi, vicina semper morte pallentes: redite ad lucem, quos caligantes tenebrae possidebant, nihil amplius optata morte passuri, nisi quod adhuc poteratis occidi. [6] Sed vos, qui nulla debetis ambitione iam decipi, delicta derelinquite cum catenis, dierum beneficiis absoluti. vivite nunc honestate, qui didicistis superstites mori. cognoscite quam beneficialis sit bona conversatio: altera contulit teterrimum carcerem, haec novit splendidam tribuere libertatem: ista praestabit ut velis vivere, illa dedit ut eligeres iam perire. si leges astringunt, ulterius vos nullus includit. secreta pavescite: ad forum sine trepidatione venite. [7] Illa iuste refugitis, per quae tristia pertulistis. mirentur vos liberos, qui viderunt reos. odisse debetis quod vos tradidit neci. pecora ipsa vitare norunt, quae se laesisse cognoscunt: itinera illa non repetunt, ubi in foveam corruerunt. tenaces laqueos avis cauta declinat, haerentem viscum ales suspecta non insidet. pisceus lupus harenis se mollibus, ut plumbati lini insidias evadat, immergit: cuius ut superducta retia eius tergum frustra diraserint, alacer in undas exilit et vitati periculi gaudia liberatus agnoscit. [8] Scarus esca pellectus, cum iunceum carcerem coeperit introire, mox se ad exitium suum invitatum fuisse cognoverit, in caudam labitur, paulatim se ab angusto subducens. quem si alter eiusdem generis cognoverit inretitum, extrema eius mordicus trahit, ut qui sibi captus non potest subvenire, alterius solacio probetur evadere. sic et sauri argutum piscium genus a velocitate nominati cum se in insidias nexuosas impulerint, quasi quibusdam funibus aequabiliter illigati totis nisibus trahentes retrorsum socium conantur liberare captivum. plura sunt, si talia perquirantur. omnia enim, quae possunt habere contraria, facilis casus absumeret, si curam salutis propriae non haberent. [9] Ad te, claustrorum magister, verba revocemus. patere poenale secretarium tuum innocenter esse secretum. torqueris quidem, quod nullus affligitur: a communibus gaudiis maestus exciperis, dum tibi soli non parcitur venia generali, lividae invidiae comparandus. sustine de omnium securitate iacturam, qui habuisti de multorum afflictione laetitiam. sed ut tuos quoque gemitus consolemur, illos tibi tantummodo vindica, quos lex pietatis gratia non relaxat, ne, cum truculentis parceret, asperrima facinora levigaret. solvamur ergo cuncti saecularibus actibus implicati. patitur omnis homo periculosos nexus, quos festinet evadere. claustra reos dimittant: nos vincula improbae cogitationis absolvant. Cassiodorus