Chapter VII.
God, who taught in Adam not to sin, taught in Cain not to defend sin. And there, how prone one is to fall from impiety into other crimes, He instructs.
24. But because Cain disturbed this order, it is said to him: You have sinned, be quiet (Gen. IV, 7). God teaches everything. First, do not sin, as He advised Adam: secondly, if you have sinned, be quiet, as you are taught in the case of Cain. For we should be ashamed and condemn sin, not defend it; because guilt is diminished by shame, and increased by defense. And by remaining silent, we are corrected, by contention we stumble. Let there at least be shame, where there is no absolution. Hence the saying: 'The just person at the beginning of a speech is the accuser of themselves' (Prov. XVIII, 17). And elsewhere in the Lord's own words we read: 'Declare your iniquities, that you may be justified' (Isaiah XLIII, 26). How great is the grace of modesty, that it holds justice, and how it removes the guilt of sin! Therefore, he says: 'Be silent, for you have nothing to excuse. The turning of his own guilt is towards you. For he is not a brother assigned to him, but an error is attributed, of which he himself is the author.' In you, he said, the crime returns, which began with you. You have no one to blame but yourself. Your own wickedness will be thrown back at you, you are its leader.
25. He says well: You are the leader of that person. For impiety is a certain mother of offenses; and he who has sinned more gravely easily falls into other sins. For how can he who has violated divine things restrain himself from human ones, and be good to people who has harmed God? Therefore, vices follow a more atrocious guilt of crimes; because the more they have inclined towards shameful things, the more they lean towards other things. So you are the leader of your own work, the guide of the crime. You were not unwilling, nor unaware, that error drew you in: but as a willing defendant in judgment, not by a slip, you committed deceit, by which you yourself prove yourself guilty of divine wrongs.