The Lantern

In Answer to the Letters of Petilian · Book 2106

CCEL

Chapter 108.

244. Petilianus said: "By this sentence, again, the apostle places in the same category those who have fellowship in the consciousness of evil. `Worthy of death,' he says, `are both those who do such things, and those who consent with those that do them.'"

245. Augustin answered: I care not in what manner you have use these words, they are true. And this is the substance of the teaching of the Catholic Church, that there is a great difference between those who consent because they take pleasure in such things, and those who tolerate while they dislike them. The former make themselves chaff, while they follow the barrenness of the chaff; the latter are the grain. Let them wait for Christ, who bears the winnowing-fan, that they may be separated from the chaff.