Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 42 part 2/5

but nevertheless, since you wish to dispute — and it does no harm, nay rather it profits, if a most firm faith go before, so that we do not suppose that human nature cannot be vitiated by sin, but, believing the divine Scriptures, that it has been vitiated by sin, let us inquire how that could have come to pass. Since we have already learned that sin is not a substance, is it not observed — to omit other things — that even not-eating is not a substance? For it withdraws from substance, since food is a substance.

But to abstain from food is not a substance; and yet the substance of the body, if food be abstained from altogether, so languishes, so is corrupted by the inequality of its health, so is drained of its strength, so is weakened and broken by weariness, that, if in any way life should endure, it can scarcely be recalled to that very food, from which by abstaining it was vitiated. Thus sin is not a substance; but God is a substance — the supreme substance and the only true food of the rational creature. From whom by disobedience withdrawing, and through infirmity not being able to receive that in which it ought to rejoice, you hear how one says: 'My heart is smitten as grass and is withered, for I have forgotten to eat my bread.'

But observe how he further presses himself with plausible reasonings against the truth of Holy Scripture. The Lord Jesus, who is for this reason called Jesus, because He Himself saves His people from their sins, says therefore — the Lord Jesus says: 'They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.' Whence the Apostle also says: 'A faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.' And this man, against the faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, says 'that this sickness ought not to have been contracted by sins, lest this be the penalty of sin, that more sins should be committed.' So great a physician and helper is sought even for little children, and this man says:

'Why do you seek? Those for whom you seek a physician are whole.' Nor was the first man himself condemned to death on that account; for afterwards he did not sin — as if he had heard something afterwards of the perfection of his righteousness, save that the Church commends him too as freed by the very mercy of the Lord Christ. This man says also of his posterity 'that they are not only not weaker than he, but have even fulfilled more precepts, whereas he neglected to fulfil one.' Which posterity he sees to be born in such a way that certainly he himself was not made, not only incapable of the precept, which they in no way perceive, but scarcely capable of the breast when they hunger. Yet is it in the bosom of mother Church, since He wishes to save them by His grace,

who saves His people from their sins. Men contradict Him, and, as though they knew how to inspect the creature which was created through Him better than He, with unhealthy voice they pronounce the sick to be whole. He says that 'the material of sin is a vengeance, if the sinner has been weakened to this end, that he should sin more'; nor does he consider how worthily the light of truth deserts the transgressor of the law — deserted by which, being blind, he must both offend the more and, by falling, be harassed, and, being harassed, not rise again, so that he may only hear the voice of the law, whereby he is admonished to implore the grace of the Saviour. Or is there no penalty of those of whom the Apostle says:

'Because, when they had known God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened'? Assuredly this darkening was already a vengeance and a penalty; and yet through this penalty — that is, through the blindness of heart, which comes about when the light of wisdom deserts — they collapsed into more and graver sins; for 'professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.' Grievous is this penalty, if one understand it; and from this penalty see whither they went: 'And they changed,' he says, 'the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping things.' These things they did out of the penalty of sin, whereby their senseless heart was darkened.

And yet on account of these things — because, although penal, these too are sins — he adds and says: 'Therefore God gave them up to the lusts of their heart, unto uncleanness.' Behold how God the more grievously condemned them, giving them up to the lusts of their heart, unto uncleanness. See too from this penalty what things they do: 'that they should,' he says, 'dishonour their own bodies among themselves.' And because this is a penalty of iniquity, since it is also iniquity, he commends it more evidently, saying: 'who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever, Amen. For this cause,' he says, 'God gave them up to passions of ignominy.'

Behold how often God takes vengeance, and out of that same vengeance more and graver sins arise: 'for their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature; and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working unseemliness.' And to show that these are sins in such a way that they are also penalties of sins, he added even this: 'and receiving in themselves the recompense of their error which was fitting.' See how often He takes vengeance, and how the very vengeance both bears and breeds sins. Attend yet further:

'And even as they did not like to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting: being filled with all iniquity, with circumvention, malice, avarice, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, proud, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, disorderly, without natural affection, without mercy.' Here now let this man say: 'Sin ought not to have been so avenged, that the sinner through the vengeance should commit more.' Perhaps he may answer that God does not force men to these things, but only deserts those worthy to be deserted. If he says this, he says most truly;

for, being deserted, as I said, by the light of righteousness, and thereby involved in darkness, what else do they bring forth than all these works of darkness which I have recounted, until it be said to them, if they hearken to the word: 'Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten you'? The Truth calls them dead — whence too is that saying: 'Let the dead bury their dead' — the Truth, then, calls them dead, whom this man says could not have been hurt and vitiated by sin, because, forsooth, he has learned that sin is not a substance. No one says that man was so made that from righteousness indeed he could go into sin, but from sin he could not return to righteousness; but that, to go into sin, free will suffices, whereby he vitiated himself;

but that he may return to righteousness, he has need of a physician, since he is not whole; he has need of one to give life, because he is dead. Concerning which grace this man says nothing at all, as though by his own will alone he could heal himself, because by it alone he could vitiate himself. We do not say to him that the death of the body avails toward sin, where there is vengeance only — for no one sins by dying in the body — but toward sin avails the death of the soul, which its own life, that is its God, has deserted; which soul must needs do dead works, until by the grace of Christ it lives again.

Far be it from us to say that hunger and thirst and the other bodily hardships carry with them a necessity of sinning — hardships by which the life of the righteous, when exercised in them, has shone all the more brightly, and by overcoming them through patience has won for itself the greater glory, yet aided by the grace of God, aided by the Spirit of God, aided by the mercy of God, not exalting itself by a proud will, but earning its strength by a humble confession. For such a life had learned to say to God, 'For thou art my patience.' Of this grace and help and mercy, without which we cannot live well, I do not know why this man says absolutely nothing; nay rather, as though a man's own will, if it be present alone, were enough for him unto righteousness, he most openly contradicts the nature of the grace of Christ, by which we are justified, while he sets himself to defend nature.

But why, when the guilt of sin has been loosed by grace, the death of the body should still remain for the exercise of faith — though it came from sin — this too I have already discussed, as best I could, in the books addressed to Marcellinus of holy memory. As for his saying that 'the Lord could have died without sin,' for Him even to be born was a matter of the power of His mercy, not a condition of nature; so too He died by power, and this is our ransom, by which He might redeem us from death. And the disputation of these men strives to make this void, since by them human nature is so defended that free will could have no need of this ransom, whereby men are transferred from the power of darkness and of the ruler of death into the kingdom of Christ the Lord. And yet when the Lord went forth to His passion:

'Behold,' He says, 'the prince of this world will come, and in me he will find nothing' — nothing of sin, that is, whereby the ruler of death might act by his own right to destroy Him — 'but that all may know,' He says, 'that I do the will of my Father, arise, let us go hence'; that is, because I do not die by the necessity of sin, but by the will of obedience. He says that 'no evil is the cause of any good,' as though a punishment were not a good, by which nevertheless many have been amended; there are therefore evils which profit us by the wondrous mercy of God. Did that man suffer any good, who said, 'Thou hast turned away thy face from me, and I was troubled'? Surely not; and yet this trouble was for him in some way medicinal against pride. For he had said in his abundance:

'I shall never be moved,' and he attributed to himself what he had from the Lord. For what did he have that he had not received? Therefore it had to be shown him whence he had it, so that being humbled he might recover what, being proud, he had lost. Therefore, 'O Lord,' he says, 'in thy will thou didst furnish strength to my beauty. In this my abundance I was saying, I shall not be moved, when this was mine only through thee, not of myself. At last thou didst turn away thy face, and I was troubled.' This the proud friend does not at all understand; but great is the Lord, who may persuade him of it in the way He Himself knows. For we are more inclined to seek what we may answer against those things that are objected to our error, than to attend to how salutary they are, that we might be rid of the error.

Hence with such men we must deal not so much by disputations as by prayers on their behalf, even as on our own. For we do not say to them what he set up against himself, namely 'that sin was necessary, so that there might be a cause for the mercy of God' — would that there had been no misery, that this mercy might not have been necessary! — but rather that the iniquity of sin was so much the graver, the more easily the man might have not sinned, whom as yet no infirmity held bound. A most just punishment followed, that in himself he might receive the reciprocal wages of his own sin, losing the obedience, as it were, of his own body which had been set beneath him — that chief obedience which he himself had scorned to render beneath his own Lord.

And as to the fact that now we are born with that same law of sin which in our members wars against the law of the mind, we ought neither to murmur against God nor to dispute against a thing most manifest, but for our punishment to seek and pray for His mercy. Give heed indeed, and watchfully, to how he has spoken: 'God indeed applies His mercy even to this part, whenever it is necessary, because after sin it is necessary to succour man in this way — not because God willed the cause of this necessity.' Do you see how he does not say that the mercy of God is necessary that we may not sin, but because we have sinned? Then he adds: 'But also the physician ought to be ready to heal one already wounded; he ought not, however, to wish that a healthy man be wounded.'

If this comparison fits the matters we are treating, then surely human nature cannot be wounded by sin, since sin is no substance. As therefore one limping, say from a wound, is healed for this end, that with the past evil cured his future gait may be set straight, so the heavenly Physician heals our evils not only that they may now be no more, but that henceforth we may be able to walk aright; which indeed, even when healed, we shall not be able to do save by His aid. For a human physician, when he has healed a man, thereafter leaves him to God, to be sustained by bodily nourishments and remedies, so that the same health, by fitting support, may grow strong and endure — God who supplies these things to those living in the flesh. His also were even those things which the physician applied while he was curing.

For no physician heals anyone from those things which he himself has created, but from the resources of Him who creates all things needful both for the healthy and for the ailing. But God Himself, when through the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, He spiritually heals the sick or gives life to the dead — that is, justifies the ungodly — and when He has led him on to perfect health, that is, to perfect life and righteousness, does not forsake him, if He be not forsaken, that he may ever live piously and justly. For as the eye of the body, even when most fully sound, cannot see unless aided by the brightness of light, so a man, even when most perfectly justified, cannot live aright unless he be divinely aided by the eternal light of righteousness.

God therefore heals, not only to blot out what we have sinned, but also to grant that we sin not. Acutely indeed he treats and turns over the matter, and, as far as seems to himself, refutes and convicts what is said to them, namely 'that it was even necessary for man, in order to take away the occasion of pride or vainglory, that he should not be able to be without sin. For it is most absurd and most foolish,' he thinks, 'that sin should have been, lest there be sin, since pride itself is assuredly sin' — as though an ulcer too were not in the pain, and the cutting works pain, that pain by pain may be removed. If we had not experienced this, and heard of it in some lands where such things had never happened, without doubt, deriding it, we should perhaps even use this man's words and say:

'It is most absurd that pain should have been necessary, lest there be the pain of an ulcer.' But God, they say, can heal all things; this indeed He does, that He may heal all things, but He does it by His own judgment, nor does He receive the order of healing from the sick man. Without doubt indeed He was unwilling to make the most steadfast apostle whole, to whom nevertheless He says, 'Strength is made perfect in weakness,' and does not, though he prayed so often, take from him that thorn of the flesh, whatever it was, which he says was given him, lest he be exalted by the greatness of the revelations. For the other vices have their force only in evil deeds, but pride alone must be guarded against even in right deeds. Whence those men are admonished, lest by attributing the gifts of God to their own power and by exalting themselves they perish more grievously than if they had wrought no good — those to whom it is said:

'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to work, according to His good will.' Why then with fear and trembling, and not rather with security, if God works — unless because of our will, without which we cannot work well? It can quickly steal upon the human mind, so that what it works well it should reckon to be its own alone, and say in its abundance, 'I shall not be moved for ever.' Therefore He who by His own will had furnished strength to its beauty turned away His face a little, so that he who had said this might be troubled, since that very swelling is what must be healed by pains. And so it is not said to a man, 'It is necessary to sin, that thou sin not,' but it is said to a man:

'God forsakes thee somewhat, wherein thou art proud, that thou mayest know it is not thine but His, and mayest learn not to be proud.' For what too is that word of the Apostle! Is it not so marvellous that, unless because he himself says it, whom, when he speaks the truth, it is impious to contradict, it would be scarcely credible? For who among the faithful does not know that the first persuasion to sin came from Satan, and that he is the first author of all sins? And yet certain men 'are delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.' How then is the work of Satan shut out by the work of Satan? Let him consider these things and the like, lest those things seem to him too keen which sound sharpish and, when sifted, are found blunt. What too of the fact that he even brings forward comparisons, by which he may the more remind us what ought to be answered him?

'What more shall I say,' he says, 'except that it may be believed that fires are extinguished by fires, if it can be believed that sins are cured by sins?' What if someone cannot extinguish fires by fires, yet nevertheless, as I have shown, pains can be cured by pains? They can also, if one should seek and learn, poisons be driven out by poisons. For if one has ever observed that the heats of fevers are broken by certain medicinal heats, he will perhaps grant that even fires are extinguished by fires. 'In what way,' he says, 'shall we separate pride itself from sin? For what forces this, since it is manifest that it too is sin? To sin,' he says, 'is as much to be proud as to be proud is to sin.'

For, he says, seek what any sin whatsoever may be, and see whether you will find any sin without the name of pride. And this opinion he thus pursues and thus endeavours to prove: 'Every sin,' he says, 'unless I am mistaken, is a contempt of God, and every contempt of God is pride. For what is so proud as to despise God? Sin therefore is altogether also pride, since Scripture too says, The beginning of all sin is pride.' Let him seek diligently, and he will find that in the Law the sin of pride is much distinguished from other sins. For many sins are committed through pride, yet not all are done proudly. Things that are done amiss — surely by the ignorant, surely by the weak —

surely for the most part by those who weep and are ignorant; and pride is a certain thing which, though it be itself a great sin, is so by itself apart from others, that even for the most part, as I have said, it steals upon and creeps in not among sins but among the very right deeds, with a swifter foot. But therefore it was most truly said — which this man understood otherwise — 'The beginning of all sin is pride,' because it is pride that cast down the devil, from whom the origin of sin arose, and by ensuing envy it overthrew man standing, casting him down from thence whence itself had fallen. For it was assuredly the door of boasting, by which he might enter, that the serpent sought, when he said, 'Ye shall be as gods.' Therefore it was said, 'The beginning of all sin is pride,' and, 'The beginning of man's pride is to apostatize from God.'

But what does he mean by what he says: 'Then how will a man be able to be subject to God on account of the guilt of that sin which he has known not to be his own? For it is not his own,' he says, 'if it is necessary; or if it is his own, it is voluntary; and if it is voluntary, it can be avoided.' We answer: 'It is altogether his own, but the vice by which it is committed is not yet in every part healed; and this vice, in order that it might grow ingrained, descended from health not rightly used; from which vice a man now ailing, whether by infirmity or by blindness, commits many things for which supplication must be made, that he may be healed and thereafter live in perpetual health — not that he should be proud, as though a man were healed by the same power by which he was made vicious.'

And these things I would so say as to confess that I am ignorant of the deeper judgment of God, why He does not quickly heal even that very pride which lies in wait for the human soul even in right deeds; for the healing of which pious souls supplicate Him with tears and great groanings, that to those striving to overcome and, as it were, to tread down and crush it, He may stretch out His right hand. For where a man has rejoiced in some good work that he has even overcome pride, from that very joy he lifts up his head and says, 'Behold, I live; why dost thou triumph? and therefore I live, because thou triumphest.' For perhaps before the time it delights him to triumph over pride as though vanquished, when its last shadow shall be absorbed at that noonday which, as far as I judge, Scripture promises, saying:

'And He will bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday,' if that be done which is written above: 'Reveal thy way unto the Lord, and hope in Him, and He will do it' — not, as some suppose, that they themselves may do it. For he seems to have had regard to none, when he said 'and He will do it,' except to those who say 'We do it,' that is, 'We ourselves justify ourselves.' Wherein indeed we too work, but working with Him as He works, since His mercy goes before us. And it goes before, that we may be healed, because it will also follow after, that even when healed we may be quickened; it goes before, that we may be called, it will follow after, that we may be glorified; it goes before, that we may live piously, it will follow after, that we may ever live with Him, since without Him we can do nothing.

For both are written: 'My God, His mercy shall go before me,' and, 'Thy mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.' Let us therefore reveal our way to Him by confession, not commend it by defence. For if it be not His way but ours, without doubt it is not straight. Let us reveal it by confessing, since it is not hidden from Him, even though we try to cover it. But it is good to confess unto the Lord. For thus He will give us what pleases Him. If what displeases Him is in us, let it displease us also. He will turn aside, as it is written, our paths from His way, and will make that to be ours which is His, since it is furnished by Him to those who believe in Him and hope in Him, that He Himself may do it. For that is the just way,

which, being ignorant of it, they who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, and wishing to establish their own, are not subject to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the Law unto righteousness to everyone that believes — He who said, 'I am the way.' Yet those already walking in it the divine voice terrified, lest they should exalt themselves as though by their own strength therein. And to those to whom the Apostle says for this reason, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to work, according to His good will,' to those for this very reason the Psalm also says, 'Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice with trembling. Lay hold of discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and ye perish from the just way, when His wrath shall be kindled in a short time upon you.'

He does not say 'lest at any time the Lord be angry' and 'not show you the just way,' or 'not bring you into the just way,' but He could so terrify those already walking there, as to say, 'lest ye perish from the just way.' Whence, save because pride — which I have so often said, and must often say, must be guarded against even in the very right deeds, that is, in the very just way — lest a man, while he reckons what is God's to be his own, lose what is God's and return to his own? Therefore let us do that with which the Psalm itself concludes: 'Blessed are all they that trust in Him' — assuredly that He Himself may do it, He Himself may show His way, to whom it is said, 'Show us, O Lord, thy mercy'; that He Himself may give salvation, that we may be able to walk, to whom it is said, 'And grant us thy salvation, O Lord';

that He Himself may lead us in the same way, to whom it is said, 'Lead me, O Lord, in thy way, and I will walk in thy truth'; that He Himself may bring us through to those promised things whither the way leads, to whom it is said, 'For thither thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall bring me through'; that He Himself may there feed us as we recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of whom it is said, 'He will make them recline, and will pass by and minister unto them.' For when we call these things to mind, we do not take away the choice of the will, but we proclaim the grace of God. For to whom do these things profit save to one who is willing, but humbly willing, not exalting himself over the strength of his will as though it alone sufficed for the perfection of righteousness?

But far be it from us to say to him what he says is objected against him by certain persons, that 'a man is compared to God, if he be asserted to be without sin'; as though indeed an angel, who is without sin, were compared to God. For my part I hold this: that even when there shall be in us such great righteousness that nothing at all could be added to it, still the creature will not be made equal to the Creator. But if some suppose that our advancement shall be so great that we are converted into the substance of God and become altogether what He is, let them see how they may build up their opinion; to me I confess this is not persuaded. Now indeed I greatly favour the author of this book in this, that against those who say:

'What you assert seems indeed reasonable, but it is proud to say that a man can be without sin' — he so answers that altogether, if it be true, it must in no way be called proud. For he says most acutely and most truly: 'In which part rather is humility to be placed? Without doubt of falsehood, if in that which is proved to be of truth there is pride.' And by this it pleases him, and rightly pleases him, that humility should rather be placed in the part of truth, not in the part of falsehood. From which it follows that he who said, 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,' should least of all be doubted to have spoken truly, lest for the cause of humility he should seem to have spoken this falsely. For therefore he added:

'and the truth is not in us,' when perhaps it might have sufficed to say 'we deceive ourselves,' had he not been mindful that some might suppose it was said 'we deceive ourselves' for this reason, that whoever praises himself even for a true good is puffed up. And so by adding 'and the truth is not in us' he manifestly shows — as most rightly pleases even this man — that this is altogether not true, namely, 'If we say that we have no sin,' lest humility, being placed in the part of falsehood, should lose the reward of truth. Moreover, as to the fact that he seems to plead God's cause for himself by defending nature, he does not attend to this, that by saying that this same nature is sound he repels the mercy of the Physician. But He is the Creator of it who is its Saviour.