Letter 255

Isidore of PelusiumUnknown|isidore pelusium
From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Maron
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore warns that a first sin becomes the excuse for a second — vice propagates itself through the logic of precedent.

Your former transgression, Maron, has become a ready pretext for the present one. This is how sin works its way deeper into a person: the first wrong provides a plausible justification for the second, the second for the third, until the entire weight of the past is marshaled in defense of whatever is being done now. The chain grows link by link, and each link is forged from the one before it.

But consider: this argument, if accepted, would make repentance impossible in principle. For if the past excuses the present, then the longer one has lived badly, the more firmly one is imprisoned in bad living. This is precisely the opposite of the truth. The past does not obligate the future. The man who has sinned greatly is not therefore more permitted to sin, but more urgently in need of turning.

Break the chain now, while it can be broken. The logic of "I have already done this before" is the devil's arithmetic — it always adds up to more of the same. Grace reasons differently: however many times, now is when you stop.

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.