Cornelius a Lapide

And immediately he denied with an oath, I know not the man. It appears from S. Luke and S. John that several others put the same question, and pressed him hard. On which Peter, finding that a stronger answer was required, added an oath, ue., committed perjury; for, as S. Gregory says, “a sin which is not blotted out by repentance, by its very weight quickly draws on to another,” both because it weighs down, depresses, and weakens the conscience, and also because the sinner thinks that as he has sinned, it is of little moment if he falls again into the like sin. Some Christians when they have once fallen into fornication or gluttony repeat the sin, as thinking, “We have already fallen, let us fall again, and then by the same confession we shall blot out all our sins together.” But they are wrong ; for a second is a new offence against God, and inflicts on the soul a new wound more deadly than the first; for repentance is more difficult after repeated sin than after the first fall. “ Perseverance in sin causes increase of guilt,” says Rabanus. His intercourse with the ungodly, which he ought to have given up after his first fall, drove Peter to this, though, assuredly, he never should have done it, 244 as having experienced its noxiousness and his weakness in their company