For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
And certainly we should not heedlessly neglect to call attention to the fact that of all the pronouncements in which the Lord has ordered us to pray, he has deliberately attached a very special commendation to the pronouncement that deals with the forgiving of sins. In this pronouncement he wished us to be merciful because that is the only prescribed means of avoiding miseries. Indeed, in no other petition do we pray in such a manner as to make a kind of covenant with the Lord, for we say, “Forgive us as we also forgive.” If we default in this covenant, the whole petition is fruitless, for he says, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” .
Nor are we indeed carelessly to pass by the circumstance, that of all those sentences in which the Lord has taught us to pray, He has judged that that one is chiefly to be commended which has reference to the forgiveness of sins: in which He would have us to be merciful, because it is the only wisdom for escaping misery. For in no other sentence do we pray in such a way that we, as it were, enter into a compact with God: for we say, Forgive us, as we also forgive. And if we lie in that compact, the whole prayer is fruitless. For He speaks thus: For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Nothing makes us so like God as our readiness to forgive the wicked and wrongdoer. For it is God who has made “the sun to shine on the evil and on the good.” For this same reason again in every one of the clauses Jesus commands us to make our prayers together in one voice, saying, “our Father,” and “thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven,” and “give us the bread, and forgive us our debts,” and “lead us not into temptation,” and “deliver us.” So everywhere he is teaching us to use this plural word that we may not retain so much as a vestige of resentment against our neighbor. How great a reproof then must they deserve, who, after all this, still do not forgive and even ask God’s vengeance on their enemies. In doing so they diametrically transgress this command. Meanwhile Christ is seeking in every way possible to hinder our conflicts with one another. For since love is the root of all that is good, by removing from all quarters whatever mars it he brings us together and cements us...
Then, as I said before, meaning to signify, that of all things He most loathes and hates bearing malice, and most of all accepts the virtue which is opposite to that vice; He has after the prayer also again put us in mind of this same point of goodness; both by the punishment set, and by the reward appointed, urging the hearer to obey this command.
For if you forgive men, says He, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not, neither will He forgive you.
With this view He has again mentioned heaven also, and their Father; to abash the hearer by this topic likewise; that he of all people, being of such a Father, should be made a wild beast of; and summoned as he is to heaven, should cherish an earthly and ordinary sort of mind. Since not by grace only, you see, ought we to become His children, but also by our works. And nothing makes us so like God, as being ready to forgive the wicked and wrong-doers; even as indeed He had taught before, when He spoke of His...
Again He teaches us not to remember wrongs. He reminds us of the Father so that we might revere Him, since we are the children of such a Father, and not act as fierce beasts, refusing to forgive.
