We ought not therefore so to praise the Creator that we are compelled — nay rather truly convicted — to call the Saviour superfluous. Let us therefore honour the nature of man with worthy praises, and let us refer those praises to the glory of the Creator; but as He created us, so let us be grateful, that we be not, because He heals us, ungrateful. Our vices indeed, which He heals, let us attribute not to the divine work, but to the human will and to His just vengeance; yet as we confess that it was in our power that they should not have befallen, so let us acknowledge that for them to be healed lies rather in His mercy than in our power. This man places this mercy and the medicinal aid of the Saviour only in this, 'that He may forgive past deeds, not that He may help toward avoiding future ones.'
Here he is most perniciously deceived; here, even though unwitting, he forbids us to watch and pray that we enter not into temptation, since he contends that for this not to befall us lies only in our own power. 'The examples of certain persons whom we read to have sinned,' he indeed rightly says — whoever is soundly wise — 'were not written so that they might avail toward despair of not sinning, and might in some way seem to offer us security in sinning, but that we might learn either the humility of repentance, or that even in such falls salvation is not to be despaired of.' For certain men, fallen into sins, perish the more by despair, and not only neglect the medicine of repentance, but become slaves of lusts and of wicked cravings to fulfil their dishonourable and nefarious desires;
as though they lose something, if they do not do what lust urges, whereas a certain damnation already awaits them. Against this most dangerous and deadly disease the calling to mind of the sins into which even the just and holy have fallen has great force. But he seems to ask acutely, 'in what way we are to believe that those holy ones departed from this life, whether with sin or without sin'; so that, if it be answered 'with sin,' damnation may be supposed to have followed them, which it is impious to believe; but if it be said that they went out of this life without sin, he may prove that a man, at least when death drew near, was without sin in this life. Wherein he attends too little, though he is most acute. For not in vain do even the just say in prayer:
'Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors,' and the Lord Christ, when in teaching He had unfolded that same prayer, most truthfully subjoined, 'For if ye forgive men their sins, your Father will also forgive you your sins.' For by this daily spiritual incense, as it were, which is offered before God upon the altar of the heart, which we are admonished to have on high, even if here one does not live without sin, yet it is possible to die without sin, while by turns the pardon blots out what by turns is committed through ignorance or infirmity. Then he calls to mind those 'who are recorded not only not to have sinned, but even to have lived justly: Abel, Enoch, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua the son of Nun, Phinehas, Samuel, Nathan,'
'Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah, Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael, Ezekiel, Mordecai, Simeon, Joseph, to whom the virgin Mary was betrothed, John.' He adds also women: 'Deborah, Anna the mother of Samuel, Judith, Esther, the other Anna the daughter of Phanuel, Elizabeth.' Even the very mother of our Lord and Saviour, 'whom,' he says, 'piety requires to be confessed without sin.' Excepting therefore the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the honour of the Lord, I wish no question at all to be raised when sins are treated — for whence do we know what greater measure of grace was conferred upon her for overcoming sin in every part, who deserved to conceive and bear Him who is manifest to have had no sin? —
— excepting therefore this Virgin, if we could gather together all those holy men and women, while they were living here, and question them whether they were without sin, what do we think they would have answered? Whether this which this man says, or what John the Apostle says? I ask you, however great excellence of holiness they may have had in this body, if they could have been asked this, would they not have cried out with one voice: 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us'? Or would they perhaps have answered thus more humbly than truly? But it now pleases this man, and rightly pleases him, 'not to place the praise of humility in the part of falsehood.' Thus if they should say this as truth, they would have sin; and because they would humbly confess it, the truth would be in them;
but if they should lie about this, none the less would they have sin, because the truth would not be in them. 'Perhaps they will say,' he says, 'could Scripture record the sins of all?' And they will say truly to him, whoever say it. Nor do I see that he has answered anything valid against this, although I see that he was unwilling to keep silent. For consider, I pray, what he has said. 'This,' he says, 'can rightly be said of those of whose honours nor evils Scripture is mindful; but of those whose righteousness it mentions, it would without doubt have mentioned their sins also, if it had perceived that they had sinned in any way.'
Let him then say that it did not pertain to righteousness — that faith of those so great, who, going before and following after in a great multitude, cried out with the praises of the Lord to the ass amid the enemies who murmured why they were doing this: 'Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord!' Let this man then dare to say, if he can, that there was no one in that so great multitude who had any sin at all. But if it is most absurd to say this, why did Scripture record none of their sins, when it took care to record so great a good as their faith? But perhaps this too he himself saw, and therefore subjoined and said: 'But be it so; at other times, by reason of the multitude of the throng, it may have passed over weaving together the sins of all;'
'but in the very beginning of the world, where there were but four men, what,' he says, 'shall we say, why He was unwilling to record the misdeeds of all? Was it by reason of a vast multitude, which did not yet exist, or because He mentioned only those who had committed sins, but could not mention him who had committed none?' Further he adds words by which this opinion may be built up more richly and more plainly: 'Certainly,' he says, 'in the first time Adam and Eve, from whom Cain and Abel were born, are recorded to have been only four men.'
'Eve sinned — Scripture has disclosed this; Adam too transgressed — the same Scripture was not silent; but Cain also sinned, as that same Scripture has equally testified, and of these it indicates not only their sins, but even the quality of their sins. But if Abel too had sinned, Scripture would without doubt have said so; but it did not say so: therefore neither did he sin, nay rather it shows him to be just. Let us therefore believe what we read, and let us deem it impious to build up what we do not read.' In saying these things he attends too little to what a little before he himself had said, 'that when the multitude of the human race had already arisen, Scripture could, by reason of the multitude of the throng, pass over weaving together the sins of all.'
For if he had sufficiently attended to this, he would see that even in one man a throng and multitude of light sins either could not, or, even if it could, ought not to have been written down. For those things were written to which a measure had to be applied, and by which the reader was to be instructed toward many necessary things by a few examples. For since Scripture was unwilling to record even about those very men, then, though still few — Adam and Eve —
how many or who they were, that is, Adam and Eve, how many sons and daughters they begot, and what names they imposed on them — whence certain persons, considering too little how many things Scripture silently passes over, supposed that Cain lay with his very mother, to beget the offspring which is recorded, thinking that those sons of Adam had no sisters, because Scripture then kept silent about them, afterwards in recapitulating stating what it had passed over, that Adam begot sons and daughters, showing neither the time when they were born, nor the number, nor the names — so it was not to be recorded, if Abel, though deservedly called just, at some time laughed a little too immoderately, or jested in relaxation of mind, or looked upon something to be recorded, or plucked fruit somewhat too immoderately, or was made somewhat too full by a little excess of food, or when he prayed thought of something whereby his attention was called away to something else.
And how many times did these and many similar things steal upon him! Or are they perhaps not sins, concerning the general guarding against and restraining of which we are admonished by the apostolic precept, where he says, 'Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to obey the desires thereof'? For lest we obey these, unto things that are not lawful or are less becoming, we must contend by a daily and perpetual struggle. For assuredly out of this vice the eye is directed or sent whither it ought not; which vice, if it grows strong and prevails, adultery too is perpetrated in the body, which is committed in the heart the more quickly the swifter the thought is, and there is no impediment of delays.
This sin, that is, this craving of vicious affection, which in great part they bridled, so that they did not obey its desires nor present their members to it as weapons of iniquity, they even merited to be called just, and this too by the aid of the grace of God. But because sin often steals in in the gentlest matters and sometimes upon the unwary, they were both just and were not without sin. Finally, if in just Abel the love of God — by which alone whoever is just is truly just — still had whereby it could and ought to be increased, whatever was lacking was of vice; so that in him there is not less, until one comes to that strength of his wherein the whole infirmity of man may be absorbed. He concluded this passage with a plainly great sentence, when he said:
'Let us therefore believe what we read, and let us deem it impious to build up what we do not read; and let it suffice to have said this of all things.' Against this I say that we ought not even to believe everything that we read, because of that which the Apostle says, 'Read all things; hold fast the things that are good'; so that to build up something even which we do not read is not impious. For we can, as witnesses in good faith, build up something which we have experienced, even if perchance we have not read it. Here perhaps he answers: 'When I said this, I was treating of the holy Scriptures.' O would that he would say nothing other than what he reads in those writings, but would be unwilling to build up anything against what he reads! Faithfully and obediently would he hear what is written:
'Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed unto all men, in whom all have sinned.' Would that he did not weaken the grace of so great a Physician, so long as he refuses to confess that human nature has been corrupted! Oh, would that, as a Christian, he might read that 'there is no name under heaven besides Jesus Christ, in which we must be saved,' and that he would not so defend the capacity of human nature that a man is believed able to be saved through free will even without that Name! But perhaps he thinks the Name of Christ necessary only that through His Gospel we may learn how we ought to live, and not also that we may be helped by His grace to live well.
Or at least from this let him confess that there are pitiable shadows in the human mind, which knows how to tame a lion but knows not how to live. Or does free will and the natural law suffice him even to know this? This is the 'wisdom of speech, whereby the cross of Christ is made void.' But He who said, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise'—because this cross cannot be made void. Assuredly that wisdom is overthrown by 'the foolishness of preaching, whereby they that believe are healed.' For if natural capacity, through free will, suffices of itself both to know how one ought to live and to live well, then 'Christ died in vain; then is the stumbling-block of the cross made void.'
Why should not I too here cry out—nay, I will cry out and rebuke these men with Christian sorrow: 'You are made void from Christ, you who are justified in nature; you are fallen from grace!' For 'being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and unwilling to establish your own, you have not been made subject to the righteousness of God.' For as Christ is 'the end of the law,' so also He is the Saviour of corrupted human nature 'unto righteousness to every one that believeth.' But what did he set up as an objection—that it is said by those against whom he speaks: 'For all have sinned'? It is manifest that the Apostle was speaking of those who then were, that is, of Jews and Gentiles. But plainly that which I have quoted:
'Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed unto all men, in whom all have sinned'—that sentence embraces both the ancients and the more recent, both us and our posterity. He also adduces this testimony, whereby he would prove that when 'all' are spoken of, it ought not always to be understood of absolutely all with none passed over: 'As,' he says, 'by the offence of one upon all men unto condemnation, so also by the righteousness of one upon all men unto justification of life'—since, he says, by the righteousness of Christ not all, but only those who have been willing to obey Him and have been cleansed by the washing of His baptism, are without doubt sanctified. Yet plainly by this testimony he does not prove what he wishes.
For just as it was said, 'As by the offence of one upon all men unto condemnation,' so that none was passed over, so also in that which was said, 'By the righteousness of one upon all men unto justification of life,' none was passed over—not because all believe in Him and are washed by His baptism, but because no one is justified unless he believe in Him and be washed by His baptism. And so 'all' was said, lest anyone should be believed able to be saved in any other way besides Him. Just as, when a single teacher of letters has been appointed in a city, we most rightly say:
'This man teaches everyone here their letters'—not because all the citizens learn letters, but because no one learns save whom he shall have taught; so no one is justified save whom Christ shall have justified. 'But be it so,' he says; 'I grant that it is attested that all were sinners. For it says what they were, not that they could not be otherwise. Wherefore even if all men,' he says, 'could be proved to be sinners, that would in no way hinder our position, for we defend not so much what men are as what they can be.'
Here he rightly does at times consent that 'in the sight of God shall no man living be justified,' yet he contends that the question does not lie there, but in the very possibility of not sinning—wherein there is no need for us to strive against him. For neither do I greatly trouble myself whether there have been here, or are, or can be any who have had, or have, or shall have that perfect love of God to which nothing need be added—for that is the truest, fullest, and most perfect righteousness—since as to that which I confess and defend can come to pass by the will of man aided through the grace of God, I ought not to strive overmuch about when, or where, or in whom it comes to pass.
Nor do I contend about the possibility itself, since, when the will of man is healed and aided, that possibility comes forth together with its effect in the saints, while the love of God—as fully as our nature, healed and cleansed, is able to receive it—is 'shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given to us.' Better therefore is the cause of God pleaded—which this man says he pleads by pleading for nature—when He is acknowledged both as Creator and as Saviour, than when, nature being defended as though sound and with unimpaired powers, the help of the Saviour is emptied out. Yet true is what he says, 'that God, being as good as He is just, made such a man as sufficed to be free from the evil of sin, if only he had willed.'
For who does not know that he was made sound and blameless, and constituted with free will and free power to live righteously? But now the matter concerns him whom the robbers left half-dead on the road, who, grievously wounded and pierced, cannot ascend to the summit of righteousness as easily as he was able to descend thence, and who, even though he is now in the inn, is still being cared for. God therefore does not command impossibilities, but by commanding He admonishes you both to do what you can and to ask for what you cannot. Now then let us see whence he can, whence he cannot. This man says: 'It is not of the will, what nature can do.' I say: 'Man indeed is not righteous of the will, if nature can do it, but medicine will be able to do what the fault cannot.'
Why then need we linger longer on many points? Let us come more inwardly to the very cause, which in this question at least we have with these men, either alone or almost alone. For as he himself says that it does not pertain to his present purpose to ask whether there have been, or are, any men in this life without sin, but whether they could be, or can be; so I, even if I should grant that there have been or are such, yet affirm that in no way could they, or can they, be so, except being justified by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and Him crucified. For it was this same faith that healed the righteous of old, which heals us also—that is, faith in the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus; faith in His blood, faith in His cross, faith in His death and resurrection.
'having therefore the same spirit of faith, we also believe, and therefore also do we speak.' But let us attend to what this man answers to the question set before him, in which he truly appears intolerable to Christian hearts. For he says: 'But this is what troubles many, you will say—that you defend that a man can be without sin, not through the grace of God.' This is precisely what troubles us; this is what we object to. He states the very thing; this above all we bear most grievously; that such things should be disputed by Christians we cannot endure, by that love which we have toward others and toward these men themselves. Let us hear, then, how he extricates himself from the objection of this question:
'O the blindness of ignorance,' he says, 'O the sloth of an untrained mind, which thinks that to be defended without the grace of God which it hears must be reckoned owed to God alone!' If we did not know what follows, we might, hearing only these words, think that we had believed falsehoods about these men through boasting rumour and through certain brethren asserting themselves fit witnesses. For what could be said more briefly and more truly than that the possibility of not sinning, however great it is or shall be in man, must be reckoned owed to none but God? This we too say; let us join right hands. Or are the rest to be heard? To be heard indeed, and certainly to be corrected, or at least guarded against.
'For when it is said,' he says, 'that this power belongs not at all to human choice, but to nature, indeed to the Author of nature, namely God, how can it be understood apart from the grace of God, when it is judged to pertain properly to God?' Now it has begun to appear what he means; but lest perchance we be deceived, he explains it more broadly and more plainly. 'But that this may be made more manifest,' he says, 'we must discuss it a little more widely. For we say that the possibility of anything whatever consists not so much in the power of human choice as in the necessity of nature.' He illustrates what he means by examples or comparisons: 'For instance,' he says, 'I am able to speak. That I am able to speak is not mine; that I speak is mine, that is, of my own will;'
'and because what I speak is mine, I can do either—that is, both to speak and not to speak. But because that I am able to speak is not mine, that is, of my choice and will, it is necessary that I should always be able to speak; and even if I should will not to be able to speak, I nevertheless cannot not be able to speak, unless perchance I remove that member by which the office of speaking can be fulfilled.' Many things indeed could be said whereby, if he wished, a man might remove from himself the possibility of speaking without removing that member by which we speak. As if something be done whereby the voice itself is taken away, no one will be able to speak though the members remain; for the voice of man is not a member. If indeed some inner member be injured, it can be brought about, without the member's being removed. But lest I seem to press upon a word, and it be contentiously said against me:
'even to bind is to remove'—we can indeed accomplish this too, the mouth being so shut and barred by certain bonds that we are least able to open it, nor is it in our power that it be opened, whereas it was in our power that it be shut, the integrity and soundness of the members remaining. But what is that to us? Let us see what he weaves next. 'For,' he says, 'whatever is bound by natural necessity is deprived of the choice and deliberation of the will.' And here there is no small question.
For it is quite absurd that we should say it does not pertain to our will that we will to be blessed, because we cannot at all will not to be so, by I know not what and good constraint of nature; nor do we dare to say that God has therefore not the will but the necessity of righteousness, because He cannot will to sin. Attend also to what follows. 'This,' he says, 'is possible to be perceived also concerning hearing, smelling, or seeing: that to hear, to smell, to see is of our power, but that we are able to hear, or to smell, or to see, is not of our power, but consists in natural necessity.' Either I do not understand what he says, or he himself does not.
For how is the possibility of seeing not in our power, if the necessity of not seeing is in our power, since blindness is in our power—by which we may take away from ourselves the very power of seeing, if we so will? And how is it in our power to see if we will, when even with the integrity of our body's nature and of our eyes preserved, we cannot see even though willing, whether during the night when the lights that are applied from without are taken away, or if someone shut us up in some dark place? Likewise, if what we can or cannot hear is not in our power, but in the constraint of nature, while what we do or do not hear is of our own will—why does he not consider on how much our hearing depends?
For things which penetrate into our sense even when the ears are stopped—such as the grating of a saw close by, or the grunting of a pig? Although the stopping of the ears shows that it is not in our power, with ears open, not to hear; yet perhaps such a stopping may also be made as would take away our very sense, so that it should be in our power even to be unable to hear. But as for what he says about smell—
unless he attends too little to what he says, namely 'that it is not in our power to be able or unable to smell, but that it is in our power'—that is, in free will—'to smell or not to smell'—since, when we have been placed among heavy and troublesome odours, if someone should set us there with hands bound, the integrity and health of our members being wholly preserved, though we should will not to smell, we could by no means avoid it, because when we are compelled to draw breath, we at the same time draw in the odour we do not want. As therefore these comparisons are false, so also is that for the sake of which he chose to bring them forward. For he goes on and says:
'In a similar way, then, must the possibility of not sinning be understood: that not to sin is ours, but to be able not to sin is not ours.' If he were speaking of the whole and sound nature of man—which we do not now possess, for 'by hope we are saved; but hope that is seen is not hope; but if we hope for what we see not, then do we with patience wait for it'—not even so would he rightly say that not to sin only is ours, although to sin would be ours; for even then there would be the help of God, presenting itself, as light to sound eyes, to those willing to be aided by it, that they might see.
But since he is disputing about this life, wherein 'the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly habitation presses down the mind that museth upon many things,' I marvel with what heart he thinks that not to sin is ours even without the aid of the medicine of our Saviour, while he contends that to be able not to sin belongs to a nature which so plainly appears to be corrupted that not to see this is a mark of the greater corruption. 'Because not to sin is ours,' he says, 'we can sin and not sin.' What if another should say: 'Because not to will unhappiness is ours, we can both will and not will it'? And yet we cannot at all will it. For who could in any way will to be unhappy, even if he will something else where unhappiness follows him even against his will?
Next, since it belongs much more to God not to sin, shall we dare to say with him that He can both sin and not sin? Far be it from us to say that God can sin! For not, as fools suppose, will He therefore not be omnipotent because He cannot die and cannot deny Himself. What then is it that he says, and by what rules of speech does he strive to persuade what he is unwilling to consider? He still adds and says: 'But because to be able not to sin is not ours, even if we should be unwilling, we are not unable not to sin—we cannot not be able not to sin.' He said this in a twisted way, and therefore somewhat obscurely. But it could be said more plainly thus: 'Because to be able not to sin is not ours'—that is, whether we will or will not—'we are able not to sin.' For he does not say:
'whether we will or will not, we cannot'—for without doubt we can, if we will; but nevertheless he asserts that, will we or nill we, we have the possibility of not sinning, which he says is implanted in nature. But of a man with sound feet it can tolerably be said: will you or nill you, you have the possibility of walking; but of one whose feet are broken, even if he will, he has it not. The nature of which he speaks is corrupted—'why is earth and ashes proud?'—it is corrupted, it implores the physician: 'Save me, O Lord,' it cries; 'heal my soul,' it cries. What blocks these cries, so that by defending as it were a present possibility he should hinder a future soundness? And see what he adds, whereby he thinks to confirm that: 'because,' he says,
'the will can take away nothing that is proved to be inseparably implanted in nature.' Whence then that saying: 'that ye do not the things that ye would'? Whence also that: 'For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I hate, that do I'? Where is the possibility which is proved to be inseparably implanted in nature? Behold, men do not the things that they would. And he was surely speaking of not sinning, not of flying—for men were not birds. Behold, a man does not the good that he wills, but the evil that he wills not, that he does; 'to will is present with him, but to perform the good he finds not.' Where is the possibility which is proved to be inseparably implanted in nature?