Having read the little works which I lately elaborated for you, my dearest son Marcellinus, on the baptism of infants and on the perfection of man's righteousness—that no one seems either to have attained it or to be about to attain it in this life, save the one Mediator, who bore human things in the likeness of sinful flesh without any sin whatever—you wrote back that you were troubled by this: that in the latter of the two books I said it could come to pass that a man should be without sin, if his will be not lacking, with divine aid assisting, but that nevertheless, save the One in whom all shall be made alive, there has been or will be no one in whom, while living here, this perfection existed.
For it seems absurd to you that anything should be said to be possible of which there is no example, since, as I believe, you do not doubt that it never happened that a camel should pass through the eye of a needle, and yet He said that this too is possible with God; you may read also that twelve thousand legions of angels could have fought for Christ, that He might not suffer, and yet it was not done; you may read that it could have come to pass that the nations should at once be exterminated from the land which was being given to the sons of Israel, yet that God willed it to be done gradually; and six hundred other things can occur to us which we confess either could have been or can be, and yet of which we are unable to bring forward examples that they were done.
Whence we ought not on that account to deny that it can come to pass that a man should be without sin, because there is no man—save Him who is not only man, but by nature also God—in whom we can demonstrate that this was made perfect. Here perhaps you may answer that those things which I have mentioned as not having been done, yet as having been possible, are divine works; but that a man's being without sin pertains to the work of the man himself, and that this work is the best, whereby righteousness is made full and perfect and altogether in every part complete, and therefore that it is not to be believed that no one either has been or is or will be in this life who has fulfilled this work, if it can be fulfilled by a man.
But you ought to consider that, although the doing of this pertains to man, this too is a divine gift, and therefore not to doubt that it is a divine work; 'for it is God,' says the Apostle, 'who worketh in you both to will and to work according to good will.' Accordingly, they are not much troublesome, and one must press them, that they may show, if they can, that it is so, who say that a man lives here, or has lived, without any sin at all. For if any one could teach that the testimonies of Scripture, by which I judge it defined that no man living here—though he use free will—is found without sin, such as this:
'Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified,' and other like sayings—and could demonstrate that some one man or several men have lived here without any sin—he not only would not have opposed me in the least, but would even have congratulated me most heartily; he is not stirred by any mean goads of envy.
Nay, even if there is not, nor has been, nor will be—which I rather believe—anyone perfect in such purity, and yet someone is defended and thought to be, or to have been, or to be about to be such, as far as I can judge, there is no great error, nor is anyone perniciously deceived, being deceived with a certain benevolence, provided nevertheless that he who thinks this does not think himself to be such, unless he has truly and clearly perceived himself to be such.
But those must be resisted most keenly and most vehemently who think that, without the aid of God, the power of the human will by itself can either perfect righteousness or, by tending toward it, make progress; and who, when they begin to be pressed as to how they presume to assert that this comes to pass without divine aid, restrain themselves and dare not utter this voice, since they see how impious and intolerable it is.
But they say that these things are not done without the aid of God for this reason: because both God created man with free choice of will, and by giving precepts He Himself teaches how a man ought to live; and in this at least He aids, in that by teaching He removes ignorance, so that man may know in his works what he ought to avoid and what to seek after, whereby, entering upon the way shown to him through the free choice naturally implanted, by living continently and justly and piously he may deserve to attain to the blessed and likewise eternal life.
But we say that the human will is thus divinely aided to do righteousness, that—besides the fact that man was created with free choice, and besides the teaching by which it is enjoined upon him how he ought to live—he receives the Holy Spirit, whereby there arises in his soul a delight in and love of that supreme and unchangeable Good which is God, even now while he walks by faith, not yet by sight, so that by this, as it were, given as an earnest of a gratuitous gift, he may kindle to cleave to the Creator and be inflamed to come to a participation of that true light, that from Him it may be well with him, from whom he has his very being. For neither is free choice worth anything except for sinning, if the way of truth lie hidden;
And even when what is to be done and what is to be striven for has begun to be no longer hidden, still, unless it also delights us and is loved, it is not done, not undertaken, not lived out well. But that it may be loved, the love of God is poured out in our hearts, not through free choice which arises from ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For that teaching by which we receive the command to live continently and rightly is a letter that kills, unless the life-giving Spirit is present. For it is not in that one way alone that we must understand what we read:
'The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life' — as though it meant only that we should not take something figuratively written, whose literal sense would be absurd, according to the sound of the letter, but rather, gazing upon that other thing which it signifies, should nourish the inner man with spiritual understanding, since to be wise according to the flesh is death, but to be wise according to the Spirit is life and peace; as, for example, if someone should take carnally the many things written in the Song of Songs, not toward the fruit of luminous charity, but toward the affection of lustful desire. Therefore what we read — 'the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life' — is not to be understood in that one way only, but also, and indeed especially, in that other way which he states most plainly in another place: 'I did not know concupiscence, unless the law had said:
'You shall not covet,' I would not have known concupiscence; and a little later he says: 'sin, having seized the occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it slew me.' Behold, this is what 'the letter kills' means. And certainly nothing figurative is being said, that ought not to be taken according to the sound of the letter, when it is said 'You shall not covet'; rather it is a most plain and most wholesome precept, which if anyone fulfills he will have no sin at all. For the Apostle chose this general thing, by which he embraced all things, as though this were the voice of the law forbidding every sin — his saying 'You shall not covet'; for no sin is committed except by coveting. Accordingly, the law that enjoins this is good and praiseworthy.
But where the Holy Spirit does not help by inspiring a good concupiscence in place of an evil one — that is, by pouring out charity in our hearts — then assuredly that law, however good, increases the evil desire by forbidding it, just as the rush of water, if it does not cease to flow toward the barrier set in its path, becomes more violent, and when it has overcome the mass of the obstacle, being hurled down with a greater accumulation it rolls more violently down the slopes. For in some way or other this very thing that is coveted becomes more delightful while it is forbidden. And this is how sin deceives through the commandment and slays through it, when transgression also is added, which is nothing where there is no law.
But let us, if you please, consider that whole passage of the apostolic epistle, and treat of it as the Lord shall help. For I wish, if I can, to demonstrate that what the Apostle says — 'the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life' — was not said of figurative expressions, although it may fittingly be taken there also, but rather of the law openly forbidding what is evil.
And when I have shown this, it will surely appear more manifestly that to live well is a divine gift — not only because God gave man free choice, without which one lives neither ill nor well, nor only because He gave the precept by which He teaches how one ought to live, but because through the Holy Spirit He pours out charity in the hearts of those whom He foreknew, that He might predestine them; predestined, that He might call them; called, that He might justify them; justified, that He might glorify them.
And when this has appeared, you will see, as I think, that it is said in vain that only those things are possible without example which are works of God — as we mentioned concerning the passing of the camel through the eye of the needle, and whatever other things are impossible with us but easy with God — and that human righteousness is therefore not to be reckoned among these, since it ought to pertain not to God's work but to man's, whose perfection, if it is possible in this life, there is no reason why it should be believed to be without example. This, then, will shine forth clearly enough to be said in vain, once it has become plain that even human righteousness itself is to be attributed to the working of God, although it does not come about without man's will.
And therefore we cannot deny that its perfection is possible even in this life, since all things are possible to God — both what He does by His will alone, and what He has determined can be done by Him with the cooperating wills of His creation. And by this, whatever of these He does not do is indeed without example among the works actually done, yet with God and in His power it has a cause by which it could be done, and in His wisdom a reason why it has not been done; and though this cause be hidden from man, let man not forget that he is man, nor on that account impute folly to God, because he does not fully grasp His wisdom. Attend, therefore, to the Apostle explaining to the Romans and sufficiently showing what he wrote to the Corinthians:
'The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life' — this is rather to be understood as we said above, since the letter of the law which teaches that one must not sin, if the life-giving Spirit is absent, kills; for it makes sin to be known rather than to be avoided, and thus rather increased than diminished, because to evil concupiscence there is added also the transgression of the law. Therefore the Apostle, wishing to commend the grace which came to all nations through Jesus Christ — lest the Jews should exalt themselves above the other nations on account of the law they had received — after he had said that sin and death entered into the human race through one man, and righteousness and eternal life through one man, most plainly intimating the one to be Adam and the other Christ, says:
'But the law entered in, that the offense might abound; but where the offense abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin reigned unto death, so also grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' Then, putting to himself the question, he says: 'What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.' For he saw that what he had said could be perversely taken by the perverse — 'the law entered in, that the offense might abound; but where the offense abounded, grace did much more abound' — as though he had said that sin is profitable because of the abundance of grace. Dissolving this, he answered: 'God forbid,' and subjoined: 'We who are dead to sin, how shall we live in it?' That is:
'Since grace has granted that we should die to sin, what else shall we be doing, if we live in it, but being ungrateful to grace?' For neither does he who praises the benefit of medicine say that diseases and wounds are profitable, from which it heals the man; but the more the medicine is proclaimed with praises, the more are the wounds and diseases blamed and abhorred, from which that which is so praised delivers us. So the praise and proclamation of grace is the blame and condemnation of offenses.
For the foulness of his sickness had to be shown to man — the sickness against which, opposed to his iniquity, not even the holy and good precept availed him, whereby his iniquity was rather increased than diminished, since indeed the law entered in that the offense might abound — so that, in this way convicted and confounded, he might see that not only a teacher was necessary to him, but also God as helper, by whom his steps might be directed, lest all iniquity should have dominion over him, and that, by fleeing to the help of mercy, he might be healed, and thus, where the offense abounded, grace might much more abound — not by the merit of the sinner, but by the aid of Him who comes to his rescue. Consequently the Apostle shows the same medicine mystically demonstrated in the passion and resurrection of Christ, saying:
'Or do you not know that all we who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him by baptism into death, that as Christ rose from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in that of His resurrection; knowing this, that our old man is crucified together with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he who is dead is justified from sin. But if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with Him; knowing that Christ rising from the dead dies no more, and death shall no more have dominion over Him.'
'For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He lives, He lives unto God. Likewise reckon also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.' Surely it is clear enough that by the mystery of the Lord's death and resurrection there is figured the setting of our old life and the rising of the new, and demonstrated the abolishing of iniquity and the renewal of righteousness. Whence, then, comes this so great benefit to man — through the letter of the law, or through faith in Jesus Christ?
This holy meditation keeps the sons of men, hoping under the protection of God's wings, so that they may be inebriated with the abundance of His house, and drink of the torrent of His pleasure; for with Him is the fountain of life, and in His light we shall see light — He who extends His mercy to those who know Him, and His righteousness to those who are upright in heart. For not because they know Him, but that they may also know Him, does He extend His mercy; nor because they are upright in heart, but that they may also be upright in heart, does He extend His righteousness, by which He justifies the ungodly. This meditation does not carry one off into pride, which vice arises when a man over-trusts himself and makes himself his own head for living.
By which movement one withdraws from that fountain of life, from whose draught alone righteousness — that is, the good life — is drunk, and from that unchangeable light, by participation in which the rational soul is in a manner kindled, so that it too may be a made and created light, just as John was a burning and shining lamp, who nevertheless, acknowledging whence he shone, said: 'Of His fullness have we all received' — of whose fullness, but assuredly of His, in comparison with whom John was not a light? For that was the true light which enlightens every man that comes into this world. Accordingly, when he had said in the same psalm: 'Extend Your mercy to those who know You, and Your righteousness to those who are upright in heart':
'Let not the foot of pride come to me, and let not the hand of sinners move me. There have fallen all who work iniquity; they were cast out, and could not stand.' For by this impiety, whereby each man attributes to himself what is God's, he is driven into his own darkness, which are the works of iniquity. For these plainly he himself does, and to the fulfilling of these he is competent of himself. But the works of righteousness he does not do, except insofar as he receives from that fountain and from that light, where is the life needing nothing, and where there is no change nor shadow of a moment.
Therefore the Apostle Paul — who, when he was previously called Saul, chose this name, as it seems to me, for no other reason than to render himself small, as it were the least of the apostles — strives strongly and keenly against the proud and arrogant, who presume upon their own works, for the commending of this grace of God; because in truth it appeared more evident and clear in him, who, when he was doing such things, vehemently persecuting the Church of God — for which he was worthy of the utmost punishment — received mercy instead of condemnation, and instead of penalty obtained grace. Deservedly, therefore, he cries out and contends especially in its defense, and does not, in a matter deep and too hidden, mind the envy of those who do not understand and who twist his sound words into a perverse sense, provided only that he may unhesitatingly proclaim the gift of God, by which alone are saved the sons of promise, the sons of the divine benefit, the sons of grace and mercy, the sons of the new covenant.
First, because his every salutation runs thus: 'Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ'; then, in the epistle to the Romans, almost this very question alone is handled so pugnaciously, so manifoldly, that it indeed wearies the attention of the reader, yet with a weariness useful and wholesome, so that it exercises rather than breaks the members of the inner man. Hence come those things which I have mentioned above; hence it is that he reproves the Jew, and says that he is surnamed a Jew and yet by no means fulfills what he professes.
'But if you,' he says, 'are surnamed a Jew, and rest in the law, and glory in God, and know His will, and being instructed out of the law approve the things that differ, and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light of those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and of truth in the law: you therefore who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say a man should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you commit sacrilege? You who glory in the law, do you by transgression of the law dishonor God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written. Circumcision indeed profits, if you keep the law;
'But if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore, if the uncircumcision keep the ordinances of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not that which is by nature uncircumcision, if it fulfill the law, judge you, who by the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.' Here he made manifest in what sense he had said: 'You glory in God.'
For assuredly, if such a Jew were truly to glory in God in that manner which grace demands — grace which is given not by the merits of works but freely — his praise would be of God, not of men. But they gloried in God as those who alone had merited to receive His law, according to that voice of the psalm in which it is said: 'He has not dealt so with any nation, and His judgments He has not made manifest to them.' Yet this law of God they thought to fulfill by their own righteousness, whereas they were rather transgressors of it. Whence it wrought wrath for them by abounding sin, which was perpetrated by those who knew, because even whoever did what the law commanded, without the help of the Spirit of grace, did it from fear of punishment, not from love of righteousness.
And by this, before God there was not in the will what before men appeared in the deed, and they were rather held guilty on this account, that God knew that they preferred, if it could be done with impunity, to commit sin. But He speaks of the heart — that is, a will pure from all unlawful concupiscence — which comes about not by the letter teaching and threatening, but by the Spirit helping and healing. Therefore the praise of such is not of men, but of God, who by His grace bestows that for which they are praised — of whom it is said: 'In the Lord shall my soul be praised,' and to whom it is said: 'With You is my praise' — not such as are those who wish God to be praised because they are men, but themselves because they are righteous.
'But,' they say, 'we praise God also as the author of our justification, in that He gave the law, by whose regard we may know how we ought to live'; nor do they hear what they read: 'that by the law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God.' For it can come about before men, but not before Him who is the inspector of the heart itself and of the innermost will, where He sees, even if he who fears the law does otherwise, what nevertheless he would rather do if it were allowed. And lest anyone should suppose that here the Apostle said no one is justified by that law which contains in the ancient sacraments many figurative precepts — whence also is that very circumcision of the flesh, which infants were commanded to receive on the eighth day — he immediately subjoined what law he meant, and says:
'For by the law is the knowledge of sin.' That, then, is the law concerning which he afterwards says: 'I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known concupiscence, unless the law had said: You shall not covet.' For what else is 'by the law is the knowledge of sin'? Here perhaps that human presumption, ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish its own, may say that the Apostle rightly said 'by the law shall no one be justified'; for the law only shows what is to be done and what is to be avoided, so that what it has shown the will may fulfill, and thus man may be justified not by the command of the law but by free choice. But, O man, attend to what follows. 'But now,' he says, 'without the law the righteousness of God is made manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.'
Does it sound too faintly to the deaf? 'The righteousness,' he says, 'of God is made manifest.' This they are ignorant of, who wish to establish their own; to this they are unwilling to be subject. 'The righteousness of God,' he says, 'is made manifest' — he did not say 'the righteousness of man, or the righteousness of one's own will' — the righteousness of God, not that by which God is righteous, but that with which He clothes man when He justifies the ungodly. This is witnessed by the law and the prophets; to this, indeed, the law and the prophets bear witness: the law, by this very fact, that by commanding and threatening and justifying no one, it sufficiently indicates that man is justified by the gift of God through the help of the Spirit; the prophets, moreover, because what they foretold the advent of Christ fulfilled. For hence it follows, and he adds, saying:
'But the righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ' — that is, through the faith by which one believes in Christ. And just as this 'faith of Christ' is so called, not that by which Christ believes, so that 'righteousness of God' is not that by which God is righteous. For each is ours; but it is therefore called God's and Christ's, because it is bestowed on us by His bounty. Therefore the righteousness of God is without the law, yet not manifested without the law. For how is it witnessed by the law, if it is manifested without the law? But the righteousness of God is without the law, in that God confers it through the Spirit of grace on the believer without the help of the law — that is, not aided by the law — since indeed through the law He shows man his infirmity, that fleeing by faith to His mercy he might be healed.
For concerning His wisdom it is said that it carries the law and mercy on its tongue — the law, namely, by which it makes the proud guilty, but mercy, by which it justifies the humbled. Therefore the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ is unto all who believe; for there is no distinction. For all have sinned and need the glory of God, not their own glory. For what have they that they did not receive? But if they received it, why do they glory as if they had not received it? They need therefore the glory of God; and see what follows: 'being justified freely by His grace.' Not, then, justified by the law, not justified by their own will, but justified freely by His grace;
not that it comes about without our will, but our will is shown to be infirm through the law, so that grace may heal the will, and the healed will may fulfill the law, being neither set under the law nor in need of the law. For the law is not made for the righteous; which law is nevertheless good, if one use it lawfully. These two things the Apostle, connecting them as if contrary to each other, admonishes and moves the reader to search out and solve the question. For how is the law good, if one use it lawfully, if also what follows is true: 'knowing this, that the law is not made for the righteous man'? For who uses the law lawfully but the righteous? Yet it is not made for him, but for the unrighteous.
Or ought even the unrighteous man, in order that he may be justified — that is, that he may become righteous — to use the law lawfully, so that by it as by a schoolmaster he may be led to grace, through which alone he can fulfill what the law commands? For by that grace itself he is justified freely — that is, with no preceding merits of his own works (otherwise grace is no longer grace) — since indeed it is given, not because we have done good works, but that we may be able to do them; that is, not because we have fulfilled the law, but that we may be able to fulfill the law. For He said: 'I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it' — He of whom it is said: 'We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.' This is the glory of which it is said:
'For all have sinned and need the glory of God'; and this is the grace of which he immediately says: 'being justified freely by His grace.' The unrighteous man therefore uses the law lawfully, that he may become righteous; and when he has become so, let him no longer use it as a vehicle now that he has arrived, or rather, to use the comparison of the Apostle mentioned above, as a schoolmaster now that he has been instructed. For how is the law not made for the righteous, if it is necessary even for the righteous — not that the unrighteous may be led by it to justifying grace, but that the righteous man may now use it lawfully?
Or perhaps — nay rather, not perhaps but certainly — the man now righteous uses the law lawfully in this way: when he imposes it upon the unrighteous for their terrifying, so that when even in them the disease of inbred concupiscence has begun to be increased by the incentive of prohibition and the heaping-up of transgression, they may flee by faith to justifying grace, and, delighted by the sweetness of righteousness through the gift of the Spirit, may escape the penalty of the threatening letter. Thus these two things will not be contrary, nor will they war with each other — namely, that even the righteous man uses the good law lawfully, and yet the law is not made for the righteous; for he was not justified by it, but by the law of faith, whereby he believed that in no way could his infirmity be aided to fulfill what the law of works commanded, unless divine grace came to his rescue. Therefore he says: