St. Pacian of Barcelona (c. 310-391) | WEST

(Updated July 14, 2025)

This Quote Archive collects pertinent quotes from the Church Father, St. Pacian of Barcelona.

Next to each quote are the topic-based Quote Archives in which they are included.

This Quote Archive is being continuously updated as research continues.

Treatises

St. Pacian of Barcelona, On Penitents (c. 387)

• Mortal Sin: Christians Can Lose Their Salvation | Ch. 4, §§2-3; Ch. 5, §1; Ch. 6, §2;Ch. 8

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(Ch. 4, §§2-3)¹

(§2) …But what shall he who is contemptuous of God do? What shall the blood-stained individual do? What remedy shall the fornicator have? Shall he who has abandoned the Lord be able to appease him? Or he who has shed another’s blood be able to preserve his own? Or he who has violated God’s temple by fornication be able to restore it? These, my brethren, are capital sins; these are mortal sins.

(§3) Now hear John and be confidence, if you can. “If anyone knows,” he says, “that his brother commits a sin which does not lead to death, let him entreat about this and the Lord shall give him life, if he has not committed a sin which leads to death. Indeed, there is a sin that leads to death: I do not say that you should pray about that” (1 John 5:16).

(Ch. 5, §1)²

But if it pleases you, listen also to what I say about each of these sins separately. God addresses Moses in the following manner when that man is praying for the people who had blasphemed. “Whoever has sinned against me,” he says, “I will delete from my book” (Ex. 32:33). And concerning the murderer, the Lord judges thus: “Whoever kills with the sword,” he says, “shall die by the sword” (Matt. 26:52; cf. Gen. 9:6; Ex. 21:12; Apoc. 13:10). And about the fornicator, the Apostle says, “Do not defile the temple of God, which temple you are; but he who defiles the temple of God, God shall destroy him” (1 Cor. 3:17).

(Ch. 6, §2)³

I appeal therefore first to you, my brethren, who, having 76 | 77 committed crimes refuse penance! You, I say, who are timid after being shameless, who are bashful after sinning! You who are not ashamed to sin, but are ashamed to confess! You who with an evil conscience touch the holy things of God and do not fear the altar of the Lord! You who approach the hands of the priest and who come within the sight of the angels [during the sacrifice of the Eucharist] with the boldness of innocence! You who insult the divine patience! You who bring to God a polluted soul and a profane body, as if, because God is silent, he does not know! Hear what the Lord has done, and then what he has said.

(Ch. 8)⁴

The Church is in the body and in the member; the Church, truly, is Christ. And so it happens that the person who is not silent about his sins before his brethren, when he is assisted by the tears of the Church, is absolved through the supplications of Christ.

Letters

St. Pacian of Barcelona, Letter 1: To Sympronian the Novatian (c. 383)

• The Sacrament of Confirmation | §6

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(§6)⁵

If, then, the power of both baptism and confirmation, which are far greater than charisms, is passed on in this way to the bishops, then, too, the right of binding and loosing was with them. Even though for us, because of our own sins it is presumptuous to claim it, nevertheless God, who has granted to the bishops the name even of his one and only [Son] [since they are anointed], will not deny this to them as if they were saints and sitting in the seat of the apostles.

Footnotes

1. St. Pacian of Barcelona, Orosius of Braga, Craig L. Hanson, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 99: Iberian Fathers, Vol. 3, Pacian of Barcelona, Orosius of Braga (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 75. ↩︎
2. St. Pacian of Barcelona, Orosius of Braga, Craig L. Hanson, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 99: Iberian Fathers, Vol. 3, Pacian of Barcelona, Orosius of Braga (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 75. ↩︎
3. St. Pacian of Barcelona, Orosius of Braga, Craig L. Hanson, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 99: Iberian Fathers, Vol. 3, Pacian of Barcelona, Orosius of Braga (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 76-77. ↩︎
4. St. Pacian of Barcelona, Orosius of Braga, Craig L. Hanson, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 99: Iberian Fathers, Vol. 3, Pacian of Barcelona, Orosius of Braga (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 79. ↩︎
5. St. Pacian of Barcelona and Orosius of Braga, The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 99: Iberian Fathers, Vol. 3 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 25. ↩︎