BOOK ONE. Good discourse is necessary to discipline for all, full of prudence, and a mind intent on reason runs ahead by virtues and curbs the passions; for virtue is teachable. Indeed it is sought by zeal and learning, and lost by neglect. Otherwise, were not good discourse necessary for correction, the law would never say: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' But because bare discourse, useful for admonishing, is weak for persuading, therefore the consideration of right reason must be applied, that what good discourse has prescribed, reason, more fully handled, may persuade. For we are constrained to obedience by no servile necessity, but by the arbiter of the will, whether we incline toward virtue or are bent toward fault.
And therefore either free affection draws us to error, or the will, following reason, calls reason back. But the gravest passion of fault is concupiscence, which reason softens and represses. For it can soften it, but cannot eradicate it, since the mind, which is capable of reason, is not the master of its own passions, but their repressor. For it cannot come to pass that one prone to anger should not be angry, but that he should temper himself by reason, restrain his indignation, and call himself back from punishing, as the prophet too teaches us, saying: 'Be angry, and sin not.' He conceded what belongs to nature, he denied what belongs to fault. And so every... takes its origin from other things, not from itself, and therefore is secondary. For it is received either from natural things or from useful ones.
And so it either tempers natural things or is an asserter of usefulness. In short, it does not cut out concupiscence from the mind, but brings it about that we do not serve concupiscence. For who is so great that he could take away the bodily impulse, save He alone who was able to say of the unfruitful fig tree — that is, the malice of the Jews: 'Behold, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none: cut it down, then.' To whom the servant answered: 'Let it alone this year also, until I dig about it and put a basket of dung.' And if indeed it bears fruit, well; but if not, in time to come cut it down.' Rightly did he refer the matter to the Lord, because he could not claim for himself the power of cutting out the bodily fall, but reserved it for the Lord.
In short, what man shall we take up as better and stronger than holy David, who could not take away from himself the desire by which he had longed for water from the cistern of Bethlehem, cut off by the hostile army, but could mitigate it? For since we do not find that water was lacking to others — that is, to so great a number of an army — when surely much less could water from other springs be lacking to the king, suffering a kind of irrational concupiscence, he desired that water which was walled about by the encircling of the enemy, whence it could not easily be brought without the greatest danger. And so he says: 'Who will give me a drink from the cistern that is in Bethlehem by the gate?'
And when three men had been found who broke through the enemy's camp and brought the water which he had desired with the utmost longing, perceiving that the same water had cost him at another's peril, he poured it out to the Lord, lest he should seem to drink the blood of those who had brought it. This thing is an indication that concupiscence indeed runs ahead of reason, but reason resists desire. David therefore suffered what is human, in that he irrationally desired; but this is praiseworthy, that he defrauded the irrational concupiscence by a rationally prepared remedy.
While I praise those men who blushed at their king's desire and chose rather to put an end to it even at the risk of their own safety, I praise still more the one who, in his own desire, blushed at another's peril and weighed water bought at the price of a doubtful lot against blood. At the same time, as a victor checking his craving, as it were, he poured out the water to the Lord, to show that he quenched his own longing by the consolation of the word. A sober mind, therefore, is able to rein in and repress the impulses of even the gravest passions, to cool all the heat of the most burning desire, to divert its motions elsewhere, and by the exercise of right reason to spit out the passions.
For when God established man and planted in him character and senses, he then imposed upon man's motions the royal command of the mind, so that all of man's senses and motions might be ruled by its vigor and power. To the grace of the creature he added this, that he should form the mind itself by divine precepts and instruct it in the disciplines of wisdom, by which it might know both what to avoid and what to choose. The mind, therefore, holding fast by right reason the discipline of wisdom, that it may know things divine and human, is trained in the law, through which it learns which passions it ought to subject to itself. Now the leaders of the passions are, as it were, the natural ones, pleasure and pain, which the rest follow.
For these embrace them all, and each of the two is a passion not only of the body but also according to the soul. And since we have said that under these lie other passions: before pleasure comes desire, after pleasure comes rejoicing; while before pain comes fear, and after pain comes sadness; and agitation of the mind is a passion common to both pleasure and pain. I shall pass over the others—namely pride, avarice, ambition, contention, envy, which are passions according to the soul; I shall pass over also the insatiable lust of devouring and the excess of luxury and wantonness, which are vices bound up with the body and operate according to it.
And rightly does temperance most of all quench the ardor of these passions, for it first tempers the soul by sobriety and moderation and forms the mind, then also by abstinence from delicacies it draws tight the reins of bodily fierceness. Therefore the law cut back the license of foods and the abundance of feasts, not only to prune away luxury, but also so that, by contemplation of the restraining precept, it might open the way to the exercise of reason, which would cut back the incitements of gluttony and the other desires and restrain the bodily passions and their motions. Temperance, then, is the forerunner of correction, the mistress of discipline.
Setting out from this, holy Jacob received from his brother the birthright which he did not possess, and being preferred by his consent, he taught for the future that the intemperate are by their own judgment of little worth to themselves. Setting out from this, Joseph both subdued the heat of youth and, when tempted by adulterous allurements, strengthened his mind by the persuasion of right reason. In short, though he was brave and strong, he chose rather to support himself by the exercise of reason, saying to his master's wife: «If my master knows nothing because of me in his house, and has given into my hands all things whatsoever he has, and nothing has been kept back from me except you, because you are his wife—how then shall I do this evil thing and sin before God?»
This, then, is the exercise of right reason, which the Greeks call logismos, by which the mind, intent upon wisdom, is made firm. For the reasoning is beautiful, that he ought neither to be ungrateful for his master's kindnesses, nor could the sin be hidden which he would commit with God as witness, from whom he could not hide. Good reason, therefore, which both strips away for the most part a hostile disposition and sets aside the pain of injury. In short, even on the battle-line it often calms the victor and slows the sword of one about to strike and snatches a suppliant from death, because just reason persuades one to spare the subdued. For about excluding or softening the pain of injury, what better teacher than the patriarch Jacob, who, rebuking his own sons Simeon and Levi, said:
«You have made me hateful, so that I seem cruel.» And indeed they had avenged the wrong done to their sister, who, contrary to the customs of her fathers, had been outraged by the violation of her chastity. Yet Jacob, the teacher of discipline, the guardian of chastity, could not approve the rape that had been committed, but chose rather that the insolent be restrained by reason, knowing that reason could temper indignation. Temperance, then, is what prunes away desires. This God commanded the first human beings to hold fast, saying: «But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, you shall not eat nor touch it, lest you die.» And because it was not held fast, therefore the transgressors of that excellent virtue were made exiles from paradise and deprived of immortality. This the law teaches and pours into the affections of all.
That it is to be taught—both as wisdom and as discipline—Scripture bears witness: concerning temperance in the law, concerning the rest in the book of Job, in which it is written: «Is it not the Lord who teaches understanding and discipline?» And in the Gospel the Lord himself says: «Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.» And elsewhere he says to his disciples: «Go, teach the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.» But whence are they called disciples, or what else did they learn from Christ but to practice the precepts of the virtues? Finally David says: «Come, children, hear me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.» Surely the fear of God is among the number of the virtues, for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, through which is acquired the form of godly teaching, of which Paul says:
«But thanks be to God, that, though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you were delivered; and being set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.» Teaching, therefore, brings it about that we are able to attain to righteousness. Righteousness can therefore be acquired by learning. Let us, then, apply ourselves with zeal to the form of the Gospel's teaching. The least bit of zeal is often reckoned for the greatest. For everything lies in zeal, through which obedience is brought to bear, which will incline toward whichever side—either fault, or grace which it joins to itself. This drew us in the first Adam to death; this in the second Adam called us to life. There is no reason for us to ascribe our wretchedness to anyone but our own will.
No one is bound to guilt unless by his own will he turns aside. There is no crime in things that are inflicted upon the unwilling; only the deeds done willingly does the odium of offenses follow—which we transfer onto others. Christ chooses for himself a willing soldier; the devil buys at auction for himself a willing slave. He possesses no one bound by the yoke of servitude unless that one has first sold himself to him for the price of sins. Why do we accuse the flesh as though it were weak? Our members are weapons of unrighteousness and weapons of righteousness. You saw a poor man receiving injury; you protected him: your members are weapons of piety, by which you vindicated the poor man from wrong. You saw a needy man; you gave to him gifts: with your right hand you repelled death from your breast.
You saw one being led to death; you snatched him away, for it is written: «Snatch away him who is led to death»: your members are weapons of righteousness, if you did not allow a man to perish unjustly. You saw a woman; you chastised your body, you put to death your lusts, and turning away from the bold eyes of the harlot you forsook her: your members are weapons of chastity. But on the contrary, if your eye looked upon a woman to desire her, you opened a wound, you drove a spear into your own body: your members are weapons of sin. You saw the property of orphans, and you drove them from their fathers' homes, you removed the boundary-stones which your fathers had set: your members are weapons of iniquity.
The disposition, therefore, not the flesh, is the author of guilt; the flesh, however, is the minister of the will. Let not our will, then, sell us. The apostle cries out: «Do you not know that to whomever you present yourselves as slaves to obey, you are the slaves of him whom you obey—whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?» Therefore, if we serve either sin or righteousness, let us consider in which case the servitude is more bearable and the fruit more abundant. But what fruit can there be in death? For the wages of sin is death, and therefore there is no fruit in it, but loss of honor, since we blush at what we have done. But to serve righteousness is liberty; for he who has been called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord's freedman; likewise he who has been called as free is Christ's slave.
Both conditions are best—to be under Christ, under whom is both precious servitude and glorious liberty: precious servitude, as having been purchased at the price of so great a blood; glorious liberty, which no servitude of fault, no chains of sins constrain, which no burdens of disgraceful deeds, no traffickings in crimes consign to the bond of base servitude. Learn humility, O man; recognize the force of the apostolic teaching. If you call yourself a slave, you are a freedman; if you boast yourself free, you are a slave. For both he who has been redeemed as a slave has liberty, and as for him who has been called as free, it is good for him to recognize that he is Christ's slave, under whom servitude is safe and liberty secure.
Who asserts that Paul was, as it were, an amateur even in matters of law? He knew how to distinguish between a freedman and a freeborn man, and therefore he spoke not carelessly but precisely: «For he who has been called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord's freedman; likewise he who has been called as free is Christ's slave.» For in truth we are all Christ's freedmen, no one freeborn; for all were begotten in servitude. Why do you, of servile inheritance, take to yourself the arrogance of freedom? Why do you usurp the titles of nobility? Do you not know that the guilt of Adam and Eve enslaved you to servitude? Do you not know that Christ redeemed you, did not merely buy you? «You were not redeemed with gold and silver from your vain manner of life handed down by your fathers, but with the precious blood of the Lamb,» cries out the apostle Peter.
Therefore you have been redeemed by the Lord and you are a slave, because you were created; you are a slave because you were redeemed, and you owe servitude both as to a master and as to a redeemer. And do not think that freedman-status under Christ is anything inferior to liberty. In dignity it is equal, in protection it is more excellent, in grace it is on a par, against the fall it is more guarded, against pride it is more sheltered. You have so received liberty that you ought to remember the one who set you free, that you may know that lawful homage is to be rendered to your patron, lest your liberty be revoked because of ingratitude. What is more blessed than you, who reign under a master and serve as a soldier under a patron? But what is there that the Lord has not bestowed upon you? He gave the law, he added grace.
For the law denounced sin, but in our slippery condition it could not utterly restrain it. «For I came to know sin, which I did not know; I came to know that covetousness is sin; and by this occasion of the knowledge of sin, the debts were heaped up, because sin, which before through my ignorance seemed dead, revived in me; but I died under the wound of sin,» because the knowledge of fault, which seemed likely to profit me, this harmed me—that I should know what I could not avoid. For it betrayed sin, and through the good of its own denunciation it heaped up the odium of sin itself. And so sin became to me beyond measure, because it was heaped up by the denunciation of the commandment; for guilt grows when it is exposed and not guarded against.
How then is the commandment good, which is death to me? Or how is it not death to me, that sin, to be made manifest through the good of its own signifying, wrought death in me? For it is certain that death came to me, while I recognize as sin that which I do, just as the Lord himself says: «If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin.» Why then do you marvel if the law is death to some, since even the saving coming of the Lord, through whom we have been redeemed, is death to some? For the unbeliever seeks death for himself out of grace, while the grace of the commandment remains. For just as the knowledge of poisoned cups is perfected for the discipline of medicine, so the divine commandment is perfected unto eternal life.
But just as, to one who misuses harmful potions, the knowledge of them turns to evil and peril, and the more he comes to know poisons, the more he understands himself to be in danger, so the form of the commandment is the author of death to those who interpret the law wrongly, or who, though the sins are pointed out and forbidden, cannot avoid them. Just as, therefore, a good antidote is not good to one who is imprudent or intemperate, so a good commandment is not good to the intemperate. Therefore the commandment is good, which to someone is death. Take, then, your answer to the first proposition, that the commandment which is death to me can be good: good by the nature of the saving precept, death through the intemperance of the flesh.
And since we have learned that the commandment which is death to me is good, let us now examine how that which through the good has worked death for me is not death to me. For the apostle proposed it thus: «Did then that which is good become death to me? Far from it; but sin, that it might appear as sin, through the good wrought death in me.» And so let us look at the particulars. The commandment is indeed of the law, but the law is spiritual, whose grace I see, whose beauty I praise. I proclaim its form, I admire the precept: but because I am carnal and have been sold under sin, I am dragged unwilling to fault. For guilt lords it over me as over a slave. And so I hate the crime and yet do it. The mind hates, the flesh lusts:
Yet I am in both: I who consent to the law with my mind, and with my flesh do that which I do not will. Good, therefore, is the commandment to which I consent, and good is the mind which chooses that which is good. Good for judging, but for the most part weak for resisting, because the body's appetite fights against it and drags it captive to the allurements of error. In which peril there is one remedy: that the grace of God should free him whom the law could not free. For so it is written: «O wretched man that I am, who shall free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.» And so it comes about that, although the sin which lay hidden—that is, my covetousness, which I did not think to be sin—has wrought death for me,
while it is exposed, and the sin itself has been made beyond measure—for it was sin even though it was not known, but by knowledge it was heaped up and took on, as it were, an increase of error, and the form of the commandment passed over into the nature of an offense—yet it is not death to me, for whom it is ready to flee to Christ, through whom we are released from all peril of death. The second proposition, therefore, is also resolved: that the commandment of the law is not death to me, even if it works death. For our being troubled belongs to frailty, but our escaping belongs to Christ.
Therefore, to return to the beginning of this discourse: good is the mind which has the exercise of reason and is intent upon the disciplines of wisdom, but it has a grievous struggle with the body of death, and for the most part the allurement of the flesh overcomes the reason of the mind. Therefore the Lord first gave the law, to which the mind of man gave itself for obeying and began to serve it, that it might be made subject; but the flesh was not subject, because the wisdom of the flesh is not subject to the law and was fighting against its precepts. For it could not obey virtue, being given over to desires and entangled in carnal enticements. Therefore we must labor to hold fast the grace of God. The mind, then, is good if it is intent upon reason, but little perfected unless it has the governance of Christ.
For the Lord Jesus came, who would fasten our passions to his cross and forgive our sins. In his death we have been justified, that the whole world might be cleansed by his blood; in short, in his death we have been baptized. If, therefore, in his death our sins are remitted to us, let the passions of our sins also die in his death, let them be held fast, fastened by the nails of his cross. If in his death we have died, why are we recalled again, as though living, to the things that are worldly? What have we to do with the elements of the world, what with desires, what with luxury and wantonness, to which we have died in Christ? But if we have died in Christ, in Christ we have risen again;
let us therefore dwell with Christ, let us seek with Christ the things that are above, not the things that are corruptible and earthly. Christ, rising from the dead, left the old man fastened to the cross and raised up the new. Christ died for this reason, that we too might die to sin and rise again to God. Our flesh is dead; why does it live again to sin, why does it again obey sin? Why does sin again reign in the dead, since death is the end of sin? We are dead in the flesh; we have been renewed in the spirit. Let us walk in the spirit, because we have received the Spirit of Christ. But if Christ is in us, then let our flesh be dead because of sin, but let the spirit live because of justification.
Thus that which was impossible to the law is resolved, if we walk in the spirit: thus we bury the passions, if we do not loosen the cross of this body, if we do not rewrite the handwriting of sin which was blotted out on the cross of Christ, if we do not put on again the garment of the old man which we have stripped off. For it is written in the Song of Songs: «I have put off my tunic; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?» The members of the body, therefore, have been put to death for us; why do its vices sprout up again? For this reason the law did not prevail, because it did not mortify the flesh; for this reason it passed by like a shadow, because it gave no color; for this reason it even overshadowed us from the Sun of righteousness, because it heaped up crimes: therefore it even did harm.
Why then was it necessary that the law be promulgated, if it was not going to profit? We already had the law of nature; each one was a law to himself, who had the work of the law written in his heart. That we did not keep: why was another also added, in whose works the flesh could not be justified? A bond was added, not a release; the recognition of sins was added, not their remission. We all sinned, who could put forward an excuse through ignorance: the mouth was stopped for all. Yet it profited me. I began to confess what I was denying, I began to recognize my offense and not to cover up my unrighteousness, I began to pronounce against myself my unrighteousness to the Lord, «and you forgave the impieties of my heart.»
But this also profits me, that we are not justified by the works of the law. I have nothing, therefore, in which I might glory in my own works; I have nothing in which to boast, and therefore I will glory in Christ. I will not glory because I am righteous, but I will glory because I have been redeemed. I will glory not because I am empty of sins, but because my sins have been remitted to me. I will not glory because I have profited anyone, nor because anyone has profited me, but because Christ is my advocate before the Father, because the blood of Christ was poured out for me. My fault has become for me the price of redemption, through which Christ came to me. For my sake Christ tasted death. More fruitful is fault than innocence. Innocence had made me arrogant; fault rendered me submissive.
You have, therefore, the ways in which the giving of the law profited you. But you say that through the law sin abounded. Yet where sin abounded, grace also abounded. You have died to sin, O man; therefore the law no longer hinders. You rise again through grace; therefore the law profited, because it acquired grace. You have also received the pledge of Christ's love, since he who died for you is your advocate and reserves the reward of his blood, and he who reconciled the sinner to the Father much more commends the innocent and protects the subject, because he has adopted the guiltless. Being then a debtor of so great a benefit, do you not repay homage? He has made you an heir, he has made you a co-heir, an heir of God, a co-heir of Christ: he has poured into you the spirit of adoption.
Count these things and add them up, not so much toward the bond of debt as toward the preservation of the gift received. You are a co-heir of Christ, if you suffer with him, if you die with him, if you are buried together with Christ. Take up his sufferings, that you may deserve to be with him above the sufferings. See how he has forgiven you your former sins, so that he made what you sinned do no harm. See how he exhorts you not to lose what you have received. The goal of this brief labor is near, and the crown is the fruit of perpetual reward; the suffering is bearable, the recompense beyond all reckoning. For what afflicts you? Is it the abjectness of obscurity? But there will be for you in the future the glorious nobility of devotion and faith. Is your estate too slender, your sustenance too narrow?
But there will be for you the riches of eternal recompense, in which you can lack nothing whatever. Is it the loss of children? You will receive perpetual ones, whom you had received as temporal. It will be said of you: «Blessed is he who has seed in Zion and household members in Jerusalem.» «The sufferings of this present time,» she says, «are unworthy to be compared to the glory to come»—so Scripture tells you. Add that the blessed life is not diminished by these adversities of worldly troubles or bodily sufferings, but is rather proven. Add that it does not feel the losses of patrimony, or hides with a brave mind the loss of kindred, and swallows up grief. Add that he knows no shipwrecks who is ever in the harbor of tranquility.
What of this, that your labor is shared in common with the whole of creation, since for your sake the world itself endures the servitude of corruption, since with the saints you have a common fellowship of this labor and of expectation? The sun acknowledges its own setting, the moon its waning, the lights of the stars their wandering, while the redemption of our whole body is awaited. But do you fear the doubtful windings of life and the snares of the adversary, when you have the help of God, when you have so great a regard from him that for your sake he did not spare his own Son? Scripture has used a beautiful word, to declare the loving purpose of God the Father toward you, who offered his Son to death. And the Son could not feel the bitterness of death, in that he was in the Father:
He kept nothing for himself, he offered all for you, in that, in the fullness of his divinity, he himself lost nothing and yet redeemed you. Consider the Father's love. As an act of devotion he took on, as it were, the peril of a Son about to die, he drank, as it were, the grief of bereavement, lest the fruit of redemption should be lost to you. So great was the Lord's zeal for your salvation, that he all but put himself at risk, while he was gaining you. He, for your sake, took on our losses, that he might graft you into things divine and consecrate you to the heavenly. Marvel that Scripture even added: «For us all he delivered him up,» to show that he so loves all, that he delivered up for individuals the Son most dear to himself.