Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 52 part 2/5

'Where then is your boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.' Whether he meant the praiseworthy boasting which is in the Lord, and this 'excluded' — that is, not driven off so as to depart, but pressed out so as to stand forth prominently (whence certain craftsmen who work silver are called 'excluders'; and hence too is that saying in the Psalms: 'that those who have been tried by silver may be excluded' — that is, that those tried by the eloquence of the Lord may stand forth prominently; for elsewhere too it is said: 'The words of the Lord are chaste words,

silver tried by fire') — or whether he meant to mention the faulty boasting that comes from pride, namely of those who, when they seem to themselves to live righteously, glory as though they had not received it, and this boasting he says is excluded, not by the law of works but by the law of faith — that is, cast out and rejected, because by the law of faith each one recognizes that, if he lives well in any respect, he has it by the grace of God, and that, in order to be perfected in the love of righteousness, he will obtain it from nowhere else. This meditation makes a man devout, because devotion is true wisdom — devotion, I mean, which the Greeks call θεοσέβεια — for this very thing is commended when it is said to man, as is read in the book of Job: 'Behold, devotion is wisdom.'

Moreover θεοσέβεια, if it were interpreted in Latin according to the origin of the word, could be called 'the worship of God' (dei cultus), which consists chiefly in this, that the soul be not ungrateful to Him; whence also in that most true and singular sacrifice we are admonished to give thanks to the Lord our God. But the soul will be ungrateful if it attributes to itself what it has from God, and especially righteousness — puffed up by its works as by its own, as though acquired by itself for itself; not commonly, as by riches, or beauty of members, or eloquence, and the other goods whether external, or of the body, or of the mind, which even the wicked are wont to have — but as though puffed up, seemingly wisely, over these things which are properly the goods of the good.

By which vice, driven back from the stability of the divine substance, even certain great men have sunk down to the disgrace of idolatry. Whence the same Apostle, in the same epistle in which he is a vehement defender of grace, when he had said that he was a debtor to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish, and that therefore, as far as pertained to him, he was ready to preach the gospel also to those who were at Rome, says: 'For I am not ashamed of the gospel; for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written: But the just shall live by faith.' This is the righteousness of God, which, veiled in the Old Testament, is revealed in the New;

which is therefore called the righteousness of God, because by imparting it He makes men righteous, just as 'salvation is the Lord's,' by which He makes them saved. And this is the faith 'from which' and 'unto which' it is revealed — namely, from the faith of those who announce unto the faith of those who obey. By which faith of Jesus Christ — that is, which Christ has bestowed on us — we believe that it is from God that we have, and shall more fully have, the fact that we live righteously. Whence we give thanks to Him with that devotion by which alone He is to be worshiped. And not undeservedly does the Apostle turn from this point to those who are to be mentioned with detestation, who, by that vice which I have mentioned above, being light and puffed up and, as it were, lifted up by themselves as by an empty void, where they could find no rest but, broken, would fly apart, fell into the figments of idols as into stones.

For because he had commended the devotion of faith, by which, being justified by God, we ought to be grateful, subjoining as it were the contrary thing which we should detest, he says: 'For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of those men who hold the truth in iniquity; because that which is known of God is manifest in them, for God has manifested it to them. For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, being understood through the things that are made, are clearly seen — His eternal power also and divinity — so that they are without excuse. Because, knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened;

'professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed 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.' See how he did not say that they were ignorant of the truth, but that they held the truth in iniquity. And because it came to mind that it might be asked whence there could be to them a knowledge of the truth, to whom God had not given the law, neither did he pass over in silence whence they could have had it; for he said that through the visible things of creation they had arrived at the understanding of the invisible things of the Creator, since indeed thus great geniuses persisted in seeking, thus they were able to find. Where then is the impiety?

Because, namely, when they had known God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their thoughts. Their vanity is properly the disease of those who deceive themselves, while they seem to themselves to be something when they are nothing. Finally, overshadowing themselves by this swelling of pride — whose foot the holy singer prays may not come upon him, he who said: 'In Your light we shall see light' — they were turned away from that very light of unchangeable truth, and their foolish heart was darkened. For not a wise heart, although they had known God, but rather a foolish one, because they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks. For He said to man: 'Behold, devotion is wisdom.'

And thus, saying that they were wise — which is to be understood in no other way than as 'attributing this very thing to themselves' — they became fools. What need is there now to speak of what follows? For by this impiety those men — those men, I say, who were able to know the Creator through the creature — how far they fell headlong, since God resists the proud, and where they were plunged, the sequel of the epistle itself teaches better than can here be recounted by us.

For we have not undertaken in this work to expound this epistle, but rather we strive, above all by its testimony, to demonstrate as far as we can that we are divinely aided in the working of righteousness not by the fact that God gave a law full of good and holy precepts, but by the fact that our very will — without which we cannot work the good — is aided and raised up by the imparted Spirit of grace; without which aid that teaching is a letter that kills, because it holds men guilty of transgression rather than justifying the ungodly.

For just as to those who knew the Creator through the creature that very knowledge profited nothing unto salvation — because, though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God nor gave Him thanks, saying they were wise — so also those who through the law of God come to know how a man ought to live are not justified by that knowledge itself, because, wishing to establish their own righteousness, they were not subject to the righteousness of God. It is therefore worth the effort to consider how the law of deeds — that is, of works — through which that boasting is not excluded, and the law of faith, through which it is excluded, differ from one another, if indeed we are able to perceive and discern.

For anyone might quickly say that the law of works belongs to Judaism, but the law of faith to Christianity, on the ground that circumcision and the other such works belong to the law, which Christian discipline no longer observes. But how much this distinction deceives, we have indeed for a long time now been endeavouring to show, and to men keen at discernment, and to you above all and perhaps to such as you we have already shown it; nevertheless, since the matter is a great one, it is not unfitting that in making it clear we dwell upon it with more and yet more testimonies. For he calls it the very law by which no one is justified, the law which he says entered in that transgression might abound, the law which nevertheless — lest anyone unskilled should on this account arraign it and, sacrilegious, accuse it — he defends, saying: 'What then shall we say?

Is the law sin? God forbid! Nay, but I had not known sin except through the law; for I had not known coveting, unless the law had said: Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting.' He also says: 'The law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good; but sin, that it might appear sin, through the good wrought death in me.' This, then, is the letter that kills, which says: Thou shalt not covet. Concerning which likewise he says what I mentioned a little before: 'For through the law is the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all who believe; for there is no distinction.'

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to show forth His righteousness on account of the passing over of former sins in the forbearance of God — to show His righteousness at this present time, that He might be just and the justifier of him who is of the faith of Jesus. Then he adds what we are now treating of: 'Where then is thy boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith.' This law of works, then, is the very one which says: Thou shalt not covet, because through it is the knowledge of sin. I wish therefore to know, if anyone dares to say it to me, whether the law of faith does not say:

Thou shalt not covet. For if it does not say this, what is the reason why, being placed under it, we should not sin securely and with impunity? For this too those men supposed the Apostle to say, of whom he says: 'And as some report that we say, Let us do evil that good may come; whose condemnation is just.' But if it also says: Thou shalt not covet — as so many evangelical and apostolic precepts do not cease to testify and proclaim — why is not the law of works itself so called too? For it is not the case that, because it does not have the works of the old sacraments, namely circumcision and the rest, therefore the works which it has in its own sacraments suited now to this present time are not works.

Or was the question really about the works of the sacraments, when mention of the law was made on this account, that through it is the knowledge of sin, and therefore no one is justified by it? Hence not by it was boasting excluded, but by the law of faith, of which the righteous man lives. But does not through this law also come the knowledge of sin, since it too says: Thou shalt not covet? What then is the difference? I will say it briefly. What the law of works commands by threatening, the law of faith obtains by believing. The former says: Thou shalt not covet; the latter says: 'When I knew that no one can be continent unless God grant it, and that this very thing was of wisdom, to know whose gift it was, I went to the Lord and besought Him.'

This is that wisdom which is called piety, by which the Father of lights is worshipped, from whom is every good gift and every perfect gift. And He is worshipped by the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, so that His worshipper may glory not in himself but in Him. And thus by the law of works God says: 'Do what I command'; by the law of faith it is said to God: 'Give what Thou commandest.' For the law therefore commands, in order that it may admonish us what faith is to do; that is, that he to whom the command is given, if he cannot yet obey, may know what to ask; but if he can obey at once and does it obediently, he ought also to know by whose gift he is able. For 'we received not the spirit of this world' — says the same most constant preacher of grace — 'but the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things that are given to us by God.'

But what is the spirit of this world except the spirit of pride, by which their foolish heart was darkened — the heart of those who, though they knew God, did not glorify Him as God by giving thanks? Nor are they deceived by any other spirit, those who, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish their own righteousness, were not subject to the righteousness of God. Hence it seems to me that he is more a son of faith who knows from whom to hope for what he does not yet have, than he who attributes to himself what he does have.

Although to both of these is to be preferred the man who both has and knows from whom he has it, provided nevertheless that he does not believe himself already to be what he is not yet, lest he fall into the fault of that Pharisee who, although he gave thanks to God for what he had, yet asked nothing to be given him, as though he lacked nothing for the increasing or perfecting of righteousness. These things therefore having been considered and treated according to our strength, which the Lord deigns to bestow, we conclude that a man is not justified by the precepts of a good life except through faith in Jesus Christ — that is, not by the law of works but by the law of faith, not by the letter but by the spirit, not by the merits of deeds but by free grace.

Although therefore the Apostle seems so to rebuke and correct those to whom circumcision was being urged, that under the name of the law he designates that same circumcision and the other such observances of the law — which Christians now reject as shadows of what was to come, holding fast to that which through those shadows was figuratively promised — yet the law, of which he says that no one is justified, he wishes to be understood not only in those sacraments which had promissory figures, but also in those works which whoever does lives justly; among which is also that: Thou shalt not covet. And that what we say may become plainer, let us look at the Decalogue itself.

For certainly Moses received the law to be administered to the people on the mountain, written on stone tablets by the finger of God. This is bound up in ten precepts, wherein nothing is commanded about circumcision, nothing about the sacrifices of beasts, which now are not offered by Christians. In those ten precepts, then, except for the observance of the Sabbath, let it be told me what ought not to be observed by a Christian: whether concerning not making and worshipping idols and any other gods besides the one true God, or concerning not taking the name of God in vain, or concerning the honour to be shown to parents, or concerning the avoidance of fornications, murders, thefts, false testimonies, adulteries, coveting of another's property. Which of these would anyone say a Christian ought not to keep?

Or perhaps the Apostle does not call the letter that kills this law which is written on those two tablets, but rather that law of circumcision and of the other ancient and now abolished sacraments? But how shall we suppose this, since in it is 'Thou shalt not covet,' through which commandment — although 'holy and just and good' — 'sin,' he says, 'deceived me and through it slew me'? For what else is the letter that kills? Although more evidently in that very passage to the Corinthians, where he says: 'The letter kills, but the spirit gives life,' he would have no other letter understood than the very Decalogue written on those two tablets. For thus he says:

Forasmuch as ye are an epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tablets of stone, but on fleshly tablets of the heart. And such confidence we have through Christ toward God; not that we are sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who also made us fit ministers of the new testament, not of the letter but of the spirit; for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. But if the ministration of death, figured in letters upon stone, was made in glory, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which is to be done away, how shall not rather the ministration of the spirit be in glory?

For if the ministration of condemnation is glory, much more shall the ministration of righteousness abound in glory. Many things can be said about these words, but perhaps more opportunely afterward. Now, however, mark what letter he calls that which kills, into which, as by contrast, he introduces the life-giving spirit. That surely is the ministration of death figured in letters upon stone and the ministration of condemnation, because the law entered in that transgression might abound. Yet the precepts themselves are so useful and wholesome to the one who does them, that unless one has done them he cannot have life. Or was the Decalogue really called the letter that kills on account of that one precept which is there placed concerning the Sabbath, since whoever observes that day

as the letter sounds, even to this day, is minded carnally — but to be minded according to the flesh is death — while those other nine precepts, which are rightly observed as they are written, are to be thought to pertain not to the law of works, of which no one is justified, but to the law of faith, of which the righteous man lives? Who would think so absurdly, that the ministration of death figured in letters of stone is said to be not from all ten precepts, but from one only which pertains to the Sabbath? Where then shall we place: 'The law works wrath; for where there is no law, neither is there transgression,' and 'Until the law sin was in the world; but sin was not imputed when there was no law,' and that which we have now so often recalled:

Through the law is the knowledge of sin — and above all that where he more evidently expressed what is at issue: 'I had not known coveting, unless the law had said: Thou shalt not covet'? Attend to that whole passage and see whether he says anything on account of circumcision or the Sabbath or any other matter of shadowy sacrament, and not rather says it wholly on this account: that the letter forbidding sin does not give life to a man, but rather kills, by increasing coveting and heaping up iniquity through transgression — unless grace set us free through the law of faith which is in Christ Jesus, when love is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For when he had said: 'that we should serve in newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter,' 'What then shall we say?' he says.

Is the law sin? God forbid! Nay, I had not known sin except through the law. For I had not known coveting, unless the law had said: Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting: for without the law sin was dead. But I lived once without the law; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was unto life, was found by me to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it slew me. Wherefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid!

But sin, that it might appear sin, wrought death in me through the good, that sin by the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I do, I know not; for what I would, that do I not, but what I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law, that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good. For to will is present with me, but to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.

I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. It appears therefore that the oldness of the letter, if the newness of the spirit be absent, makes men guilty by the knowledge of sin rather than delivers them from sin. Hence too it is written elsewhere:

He that increases knowledge increases sorrow — not because the law itself is evil, but because it has a good commandment in the letter that demonstrates, not in the spirit that aids. Which commandment, if it be done from fear of punishment and not from love of righteousness, is done slavishly, not freely; and therefore is not really done at all. For that is not good fruit which does not rise from the root of charity. But if there be present the faith which works through love, one begins to delight together in the law of God after the inward man; which delight is the gift not of the letter but of the spirit, even though another law in the members still wars against the law of the mind, until in the newness which increases from day to day in the inward man,

the whole oldness may be changed and pass away, the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord delivering us from the body of this death. This grace lay hidden, veiled, in the Old Testament, and was revealed in the Gospel of Christ by a most orderly dispensation of the times, as God knows how to arrange all things. And perhaps to that very hiddenness of it pertains the fact that in the Decalogue, which was given on Mount Sinai, this alone was concealed under a figured precept — namely, that which pertains to the Sabbath. But the Sabbath is the day of sanctification. Nor is it without meaning that among all the works which God made, there first sanctification was pronounced, where He rested from all His works — whereof this is not the place to discourse.

Nevertheless — which I judge to be sufficient for the matter in hand — it was not in vain that the people were commanded on that day to abstain from all servile work, whereby sin is signified, since sin is nothing other than the lack of sanctification, that is, of the gift of God through the Holy Spirit; which in the law, that was written on the two stone tablets, was placed alone among the rest under a shadow of figure, in which the Jews observe the Sabbath, so that by this very thing it might be signified that the time then was for the hiding of grace, which was to be revealed in the New Testament through the passion of Christ, as it were by the rending of the veil. For 'when thou shalt have passed over,' he says, 'to Christ, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.'

But this Spirit of God, by whose gift we are justified, by whom it comes to pass in us that not to sin is a delight — where there is liberty — just as, apart from this Spirit, to sin is a delight, where there is bondage, from whose works we must abstain, that is, must spiritually keep Sabbath — this Holy Spirit, through whom love is poured out in our hearts, which is the fulfilment of the law, is even called in the Gospel the finger of God. Hence, since both those tablets were written by the finger of God, and the finger of God is the Spirit of God, through whom we are sanctified, so that living by faith we may work well through love — whom would not this correspondence, and at the same time distinction in the same place, move?

For fifty days are reckoned from the celebration of the Passover — which was commanded to be figuratively performed by the slaying of a lamb through Moses, in signification indeed of the future Lord's passion — up to the day on which Moses received the law on the tablets written by the finger of God; likewise, from the slaying and resurrection of Him who as a lamb was led to the slaughter, when fifty days were completed, the finger of God, that is, the Holy Spirit, filled the faithful gathered together into one. In this marvellous correspondence, this certainly differs very greatly: that there the people were forbidden by a dreadful terror to approach the place where the law was being given, but here the Holy Spirit came upon those who, awaiting Him as promised, had been gathered together into one;

there the finger of God wrought on tablets of stone, here in the hearts of men. There, therefore, the law was placed outwardly, that the unrighteous might be terrified; here it was given inwardly, that they might be justified. For: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not covet,' and if there be any other commandment — which certainly is written on those tablets — 'it is summed up,' he says, 'in this saying, in that: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love works no evil to the neighbour; but the fulfilment of the law is charity.' This is not written on tablets of stone, but is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. The law of God, therefore, is charity. To this the prudence of the flesh is not subject; neither indeed can it be.

But when, for the terrifying of this prudence of the flesh, the works of charity are written on tablets, it is the law of works and the letter that kills the transgressor; but when charity itself is poured out in the heart of believers, it is the law of faith and the spirit that gives life to the one who loves. See now how this distinction agrees with those apostolic words which a little before I mentioned for another purpose and deferred to be more diligently treated. 'Being made manifest,' he says, 'that ye are an epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tablets of stone, but on fleshly tablets of the heart.'

Behold how he shows that the one is written outside the man, to terrify him from without, the other in the man himself, to justify him from within. And he called them 'fleshly tablets of the heart' not from carnal prudence, but as living and having sense in comparison with the stone, which is without sense. And what he says a little after, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold to the end the face of Moses, and therefore he spoke to them through a veil, signifies this: that the letter of the law justifies no one, but a veil is placed upon the reading of the Old Testament, until it be passed over to Christ and the veil be taken away — that is, until it be passed over to grace, and it be understood that from Him is our justification, whereby we may do what He commands.

Who therefore commands, in order that when we fail in ourselves we may flee to Him. Therefore most vigilantly, when he had said: 'Such confidence we have through Christ toward God,' lest this should be attributed to our own strength, he immediately commended that which is at issue, saying: 'not that we are sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who also made us fit ministers of the new testament, not of the letter but of the spirit; for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.' Accordingly, because the law, as he says elsewhere, 'was placed for the sake of transgression' — that is, that letter written outside the man — therefore he calls it both the ministration of death and the ministration of condemnation;