228. No man thus profanes holy things who does not know them; for he who is ignorant of them cannot acknowledge them and afterwards deny them. Therefore those who are outside the Christian world, and who do not know anything about the Lord, and about redemption and salvation by Him, do not profane this holy thing when they do not receive it, or even when they speak against it. Nor do the Jews themselves profane it, because from infancy they are unwilling to receive and acknowledge it. It would be otherwise if they were to receive and acknowledge it, and afterwards deny it; but this rarely happens; for many of them acknowledge it outwardly and inwardly deny it, being like hypocrites. Those, however, who profane holy things by mingling them with what is profane are those who first receive and acknowledge them, and afterwards depart from them and deny them. [2] It matters nothing that these are received and acknowledged infancy and childhood, which is done by every Christian; for the things that pertain to faith and charity are not then received and acknowledged from any rationality and liberty, that is, in the understanding from the will, but only from what is in the memory and from trust in the teacher; and if the life is in accordance with these it is from blind obedience. When man, however, comes into the exercise of his rationality and liberty, which he does gradually as he grows up into youth and manhood, if he then acknowledges truths and lives in accordance with them and afterwards denies them, he mingles what is holy with what is profane, and from being a man he becomes a monster; as was said above. If however, a man is in evil from the time he attains rationality and liberty, that is, becomes his own master, and even in early manhood, and afterwards acknowledges the truths of faith and lives in accordance with them, provided he then remains in them to the end of his life, he does not mingle the two; for the Lord then separates the evils of his former life from the good of his later life. This is done in the case of all who repent. But more will be said on this subject in what follows.