"Adultery, fraud, and manslaughter are mortal sins." St. Cyprian of Carthage
("Treatise VII," c. 250 A.D.)
"The clergyman who is deposed for mortal sin, shall not be excommunicated."
St. Basil
the Great ("Canonical Letter" c. 374 A.D.)
"There are venial sins and there are mortal sins. It is one thing to owe ten
thousand talents, another to owe but a farthing. We shall have to give an accounting for
an idle word no less than for adultery. But to be made to blush and to be tortured are not
the same thing; not the same thing to grow red in the face and to be in agony for a long
time. . . . If we entreat for lesser sins we are granted pardon, but for greater sins, it
is difficult to obtain our request. There is a great difference between one sin and
another." St. Jerome ("Against
Jovinian" c. 393 A.D.)
