(Updated July 16, 2025)
This Author Quote Archive collects pertinent quotes from the Ecclesiastical Writer, Paschasius of Dumium.
Next to each quote are the Topic Quote Archives in which they are included.
This Quote Archive is being continuously updated as research continues. Quotes marked with “***” have not yet been organized into their respective Topic Quote Archives.
Treatises
Paschasius of Dumium, Questions and Answers of the Greek Fathers
- Miracles in the Ancient Church | Ch. 23, §1
MIRACLE: The Eucharist, and an Ancient Bishop’s Vision of the State of Souls
(Ch. 23, §1)1
One of the fathers told a story of a certain bishop to whom it had been reported that two men in his congregation were of very impure character and adulterers. He, accordingly, asked God to reveal to him whether this was so. As each one came forward for communion after the consecration of the host, he would study their faces and their souls. The faces of sinners he saw as black as coal and their eyes filled with blood; the others he saw with bright faces and clothed in white garments.
As they received the Body of the Lord, a light seemed to shine in the faces of some, but in others a flame. In order to learn about those who had been accused before him, he offered them communion, and he saw one of them with a bright honorable face, dressed in white garments, the other wearing black and with a terrible countenance. After they received the grace of the divine mystery, one seemed to be illumined with light, while the other was consumed with flame.
Therefore, the bishop asked God to instruct him in each matter that had been revealed. Whereupon an angel of the Lord stood by him and said: “All that you have heard about them is true, but one still clings to his depravity and his desire to sin and that is why you saw him with a black face and consumed with flame. The other also was similar to him, as you heard, but the reason why you saw his face illumined is that he recalled what he had done before and renounced his evil deeds and with tears and groans asked the mercy of God, promising that if his previous sins should be forgiven, he would never return to them. Therefore, his former sins are wiped out and he has achieved this grace which you have seen.”
As the bishop expressed wonder at the grace of God, that it not only set free of his torments a man of base life, but even honored him so greatly, the angel replied: “Well may you marvel, for you are a man. Our Lord and yours is by nature good and kind to those who cease from their sins and repent at confession, for He not only remits their torments, but even makes them worthy of honor. ‘For God so loved men that he gave his only-begotten Son’ (John 3:16) for sinners and appointed Him to death on their behalf. If He, therefore, though they were His enemies, chose to die for them, how much more shall He pity them when they are His own [Rom. 5:8-9]? This you should know, that no sins of men overcome the goodness of God, if only through repentance each one destroys the sins which he has previously committed. For God is merciful and knows the weakness of the human race and the strength of their passions and the ability and malice of the devil, and when men fall into sin, He is indulgent as if to sons and awaits their conversion; upon the penitent, as if upon those who languish, He has compassion and mercy: He soon dissolves their sins and even allows them the rewards of the just.”
Hearing this, the bishop marveled greatly and glorified God, revealing to all what had happened.
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