The Second Sin
The Second Sin
The second sin is a sin that follows another sin preceding it. It is a sin born of a mother-sin.
A wise person, in treating his sins, does not suffice with treating his falls, but rather searches more for their causes, for the mother-sins that gave birth to those sins. Concerning this the Lord Christ said to the angel of the Church of Ephesus: “Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent” (Rev. 2:5).
Meaning that you should not look only at your fall, but at the source from which it came, so that you may eliminate it. For sins do not come from nothing, just as sins are not barren.
In reality, sin is a fruitful mother.
A mother that gives birth to children of her same kind, or of another kind. Therefore search for the first sin that gave birth to this second sin into which you have fallen, and search for where it came from.
This matter is clear since Adam.
We know that the sin of our mother Eve was that she plucked from the forbidden tree and ate, and gave to her husband and he ate with her. But this sin is a second sin preceded by another sin, and that other sin was preceded by many sins. For eating from the tree was preceded by the sin of lust—the desire for divinity and knowledge. “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6). And surely the sin of lust was preceded by the sin of unbelief, for the woman believed the serpent more than the word of God. And this doubt was preceded by the first sin, which was evil company—meaning sitting with the serpent, the most cunning of all the beasts of the field, and being willing to listen to words against God’s command…
Thus the sin of Eve began from sitting with the serpent and agreeing to listen to its doubts and its enticements. This is the mother-sin.
Therefore you must benefit from this lesson. Do not focus on your present sin, but search for its roots, its origins, its causes, and the ways that led to it. It is possible that this sin of yours is a second sin, a daughter of a mother you know or do not know. Let us give examples:
Dreams and thoughts:
Let us suppose that a person dreamed an evil dream and went to confess these wrong dreams and asked whether they are sin, although he committed them without his will.
In reality we cannot say that dreams are non-voluntary sins in an absolute sense. Some call them semi-voluntary or half-voluntary, for if they are not a direct warfare, then they must be the fruit of a prior voluntary sin.
Thus they are a second sin, born of another sin—perhaps wrong readings, wrong listenings, or what the eyes gathered of wrong images, or what the other senses gathered. They may be the result of wrong feelings and sensations in the heart.
All those mistakes accumulated in the subconscious and from them the evil dreams were born. It is therefore impossible in this case to say that they are a first sin, or a non-voluntary sin, because if in the heart there were no similar preceding sin, the dream could not have been completed. The person would have had to wake up before completing it, because his heart and mind would reject it.
And what we say about wrong dreams we say similarly about wrong thoughts.
If they are not a direct warfare from the devil, then they must be a second sin, daughter of a previous sin that gave birth to them. Therefore if wrong thoughts come to you, search for their causes and “remember from where you have fallen and repent.”
Examples from Scripture:
As we said, sin is a fruitful mother.
This matter is clear in the sin of King Ahab when he killed Naboth the Jezreelite. This killing was merely an automatic result of a group of many preceding sins… The first sin was lust: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house” (Ex. 20:17). Ahab broke this commandment and coveted to possess Naboth’s vineyard. This sin led him to evil counsel, to scheming, lying, fabricating accusations, bringing false witnesses, and finally killing Naboth (1 Kings 21). It is a second or fourth or fifth sin, not the starting point.
The same method applies to Peter’s denial of the Lord Christ.
Peter’s denial was not a first sin. Many sins preceded it that led to it, among them the sin of fear. For without fear he would not have denied Christ. The sin of fear was preceded by another sin: love of earthly life and lack of concern for eternal life, or lack of understanding what true life is. And there is another sin: preferring oneself over Christ… As a result of all these sins he denied Christ.
He who says “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21), does such a person care about death? Certainly not.
Thus the martyrs did not fear death, nor care for earthly life. Therefore they never denied their faith, but endured all means of torture, intimidation, and temptation… Likewise the holy Apostle Peter after the descent of the Holy Spirit and the start of preaching.
Denying the faith is not a first sin; many sins must precede it. What is important is treating all those sins so that the heart may be ready to remain firm in the faith without wavering or falling.
Another example from Scripture of the second sin is King Solomon.
Scripture says of him: “When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart after other gods…” (1 Kings 11:4). Was his going after Ashtoreth and Milcom a first sin? Certainly not. Two sins preceded it: first, Solomon’s marriage to foreign women who worshipped idols; second, Solomon’s love for his wives made him show them courtesy at the expense of faith. Then as a result he became entangled in this courtesy until he fell in practice…
After all this we must examine the effect of the subject of the second sin on spiritual life…
The effect on spiritual life:
For example, in confession: a person may confess a sin he committed without confessing the many sins that caused him to fall into that sin, though these may be more dangerous.
And this matter applies not only in confession, but even more in spiritual treatment. A person may think he has repented because he left practicing a certain sin while still keeping the causes of this sin and the fountains from which it is nourished. Therefore he easily returns.
Repentance is not only leaving the sin, but also leaving the sins that caused it.
A person may, for example, be struck with the sin of doubting his father-confessor. This is not an original sin; it is a second sin. The first sin may be his annoyance with his father-confessor because he prevented him from following his desire or opposed one of his wrong wishes! Or the first sin may be that he allowed himself to sit with others who distorted for him the image of this father, so he submitted to their thoughts…
Mother-sins:
A sin may give birth to another sin, or may give birth to a group of sins. Thus we call it one of the mother-sins.
A sin may be both a daughter and a mother at the same time—“a result and a cause.”
An example is fear. Fear may give birth to unbelief, and unbelief may give birth to fear. Thus they exchange places; each produces the other, or both gather at the same time. You do not know which is the first sin and which is the second!
Beware of the mother-sins. Let us give an example: the sin of pride.
Pride is a mother-sin. It may give birth to many sins and become a large family of its children. Pride gives birth to love of praise, love of honor, love of money and positions. It gives birth to talking about oneself. It also gives birth to hypocrisy and love of external appearances. It may also give birth to envy and jealousy. It may give birth to anger and hatred if someone stands against its love for greatness.
If you fall into any of these, it is likely a second sin.
For covering and for reaching:
Second sins are sometimes sins for covering or for reaching. Like a person who tries to cover a sin with a sin, or commits a sin to reach another sin. Let us give an example: the sin of lying.
The sin of lying:
The sin of lying is always—and without exception—a second sin whose purpose is covering or reaching…
If I were a father-confessor and someone came saying he lied, I must ask him: why did you lie? Is there a previous sin he wanted to cover with lying? This happened with our mother Sarah as it did with our father Abraham…
Our mother Sarah, when she heard the promise of the Lord that He would give her offspring, doubted God’s promise and laughed in her heart saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” (Gen. 18:12). When the Lord asked about her laughing, “Sarah denied, saying, ‘I did not laugh,’ for she was afraid” (Gen. 18:15).
Here we see the sins: the sin of doubt and unbelief gave birth to the sin of fear. The sin of fear gave birth to lying. Lying was a third sin…
The same happened with our father Abraham in his journeys when he said to his wife Sarah: “Say you are my sister” (Gen. 12:13), for she was very beautiful, and he feared that if they knew she was his wife they would kill him and take her. Thus the sin of fear caused the sin of lying.
Here lying was a second sin to fear, just as fear was a second sin to another sin… This is clear from Abraham’s words: “Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will kill me because of my wife” (Gen. 20:11). Why, our father Abraham, do you go to a place you know has no fear of God at all, and go without God’s permission, so that the result is that you fear?
Thus a sin leads to a sin. If a person had avoided the first, he would not have fallen into the second.
And the sin of lying, as we said, may be for covering or for reaching.
From the standpoint of covering, a person uses lying to cover a sin so it does not appear. He fears the exposure of the sin, or its scandal, or fears the punishment of the sin, so he lies.
It is better that the person does not commit the sin he fears will be exposed, causing him to lie to cover it…
Here we find three sins: the first sin, then the sin of fear, then the sin of covering through lying. The matter develops, and the one who committed the first sin becomes entangled and slips from one sin to another because of the first sin.
And lying, as it is a second sin for covering, is also a second sin for the desire to reach. A merchant, for example, loves money and wants to gain more profit. He lies about the price, saying that at the offered price he gains nothing but loses. Or he lies about the type of goods, claiming a quality they do not have.
Or a person wants to reach a position, so he lies a number of lies about his experience, for example. He may ask others to write him a certificate of experience and lead them with him into lying.
Or a person lies to obtain overtime pay or transportation allowance or similar matters.
Or lying which appears in the cheating related to marriage, in order for marriage to take place… The types of cheating in marriage are many, as with cheating in dealings and cheating in buying and selling. There is no need to enter the details of all this…
What is important is that lying may be caused by a previous sin or a subsequent sin…
A previous sin whose owner wants to cover it, or a later sin he wants to reach. This later sin may also be preceded by the desire to reach, and lying becomes the means.
Perhaps the cause of lying is embarrassment or lack of resourcefulness. Lack of resourcefulness may not be a sin but a weakness, as is embarrassment. Here some ask an important question:
Does hiding some facts count as lying and sin?
In some cases a person is obligated before his conscience and before people not to hide certain facts; he must tell the truth—the whole truth. But in many cases, hiding some facts is not a sin, nor is it anything of lying. An example:
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Every person has his secrets and private matters. Not every person is required to speak about his secrets. If you are asked about your private secrets and you do not speak about them, this is your right. Especially since many curious people want to know everything about the secrets of others, and they ask very embarrassing questions that enter into the privacy of others, insisting with great persistence and pressure to know. They try to squeeze their interlocutor to know all his news.
These curious people—you have the right not to answer them…
You may remain silent and not answer; you may redirect the conversation; you may politely apologize for not answering. You may avoid meeting them or end the session with them in some way, or seize an opportunity when they speak with another and leave. In all this you are not lying…
Such people we warn in this article not to delve into the secrets of others, for by their behavior they become a stumbling block, causing their interlocutor to lie due to their insistence and pressure to make him speak what he does not want, or causing him embarrassment so he speaks then regrets what he said.
Another point where you have the right to hide some facts: -
There are secrets of others that you are obligated to keep and not reveal. If you hide such matters, this is a virtue, not a fault. You may be honest in saying: “I cannot speak about the secrets of others.”
Those who insist on knowing the secrets of others are a stumbling block to others.
If one of them asks you: “Why do you insist on hiding?” say to him: “And why do you insist on knowing the secrets of others?”
Some who are forced to speak may be either lacking in resourcefulness or weak in personality, and a spiritual person should not be so.
The secrets you were entrusted with—you are obligated to hide them no matter how much you are asked.
Do not let it embarrass you if your questioner says: “Then you do not love me or trust me with secrets, so you hide from me!”
Do not be affected by this. Despite saying this to you, he will respect you inwardly because you keep the secrets of people. He will trust that you will in the same way keep his secrets that he tells you. Even if he is annoyed, bear this for the sake of your fidelity to others, for it is not right that you please one at the expense of another! -
There are also matters where revealing them may cause harm, or they are the responsibility of those in authority, who reveal them at the time they deem appropriate.
Thus, there are matters you have the right not to say, such as your private secrets, and matters you are obligated not to say, such as the secrets of others or matters whose revelation causes harm…
A person who does not pressure others to know their secrets is a gentle and sociable person whom others love.
But one who pressures to know the secrets of people—this pressure is a second sin, behind which are many other sins. Let him ask himself: Why?…
Even in confession, a father-confessor must not pressure to know; he helps the penitent to confess without pressing him. He is a father, not an official interrogator…
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Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III published in Watani newspaper on 20-4-1986.
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