27. But what wonder is it if you should deny
salvation to others, who reject your own, though they lose nothing who
seek for penance from you? For I suppose that even Judas might
through the exceeding mercy of God not have been shut out from
forgiveness, if he had expressed his sorrow not before the Jews but
before Christ. “I have sinned,” he said, “in
that I have betrayed righteous blood.” S. Matt. xxvii. 5. Their answer was:
“What is that to us, see thou to that.” What other
reply do you give, when one guilty of a smaller sin confesses his deed
to you? What do you answer but this: “What is that to
us, see thou to that”? The halter
followed on those words, but the punishment is
all the more severe, the smaller the sin is.