This was said in order that by this definition the willing might be distinguished from the unwilling, and thus the intention might be referred to those who were first in paradise, the origin of evil to the human race, sinning with none compelling—that is, sinning by free will—since they both knowingly acted against the precept, and that tempter urged that it be done, but did not compel it. For even one who sinned unknowingly may not unfittingly be said to have sinned unwillingly, although he too willingly did what he did unknowingly; so that not even his sin could exist without the will. And that will, just as it was defined, was a movement of the soul, with none compelling, either toward not losing or toward attaining something. For what he would not have done had he not willed it, he was not compelled to do.
Because he willed, therefore he did it—even though it was not because he willed that he sinned, since he did not know that what he did was sin. So neither could such a sin exist without the will, but by the will of the deed, not by the will of the sin, which nevertheless was a deed of sin; for what was done was something that ought not to have been done. But he who sins knowingly, if he can without sin resist that which compels him to sin and yet does not do so, assuredly sins willingly, since one who is able to resist is not compelled to yield. But he who cannot by his will resist compelling desire, and therefore acts against the precepts of justice, this is now so much sin that it is also the punishment of sin. Wherefore it is most true that sin cannot exist without the will. And likewise the definition of sin, in which we said:
Sin is the will to retain or to obtain that which justice forbids and from which it is free to abstain. This is true for this reason, that what was defined is only that which is sin, not that which is also the punishment of sin. For when it is such that it is at the same time the punishment of sin, how much is the power of the will under the dominion of desire—unless perhaps, if it is pious, it be to pray for help? For it is free insofar as it has been set free, and insofar as it is called will. Otherwise the whole is desire, which properly ought to be named will; and this is not, as the Manichaeans foolishly hold, an addition of an alien nature, but a defect of our own, from which it is not healed except by the grace of the Saviour.
But if anyone says that even this very desire is nothing other than a will, though a vicious one and enslaved to sin, we must not resist him, nor make a controversy about words when the matter is agreed. For even so it is shown that no sin exists without the will, whether in act or in origin. Again, in that which I said: I had already begun to inquire whether that evil kind of souls, before it was mingled with the good, had had any will—for if it had not, it would be without sin and innocent, and therefore in no way evil—'Why then,' they say, 'do you speak of the sin of infants, whose will you do not hold guilty?' The answer is that they are held guilty not by the property of will, but by origin.
For what is every earthly man in his origin but Adam? Now Adam certainly had a will, and when by that will he had sinned, sin entered into the world through him. Likewise, in that which I said: They can in no way be by nature an evil soul—if it is asked how we are to take what the Apostle says: We too were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest—we answer that in these words of mine I wished nature to be understood as that which is properly called nature, in which we were created without vice. For that is called nature on account of origin, and this origin certainly has a vice which is contrary to nature. And again, that which was said:
To hold anyone guilty of sin because he did not do what he could not do is the height of iniquity and madness—'Why then,' they say, 'are infants held guilty?' The answer is that they are held guilty by the origin of him who did not do what he could do, namely to keep the divine commandment. And that which I said:
If those souls, whatever they do, do it by nature and not by will—that is, if they lack a movement of the mind free both to do and not to do; if, in short, no power of abstaining from their own act is granted to them—we cannot hold their sin. For this reason the question about infants is not troubling, because they are held guilty by the origin of him who sinned by will, when he did not lack a movement of the mind free both to do and not to do, and had the fullest power of abstaining from the evil act. This the Manichaeans do not say of the race of darkness, which they most fabulously introduce and contend to have been always evil and never good. But this may be asked, how I said:
Even if there are souls—which meanwhile is uncertain—devoted to bodily offices not by sin but by nature, and which, although inferior, nevertheless touch us by some inner nearness, they ought not on that account to be held evil, because we, when we follow them and love bodily things, are evil. Since indeed I said this of those about whom I had begun to speak more openly, saying: Although, even if it be granted that we are enticed to base things by another inferior kind of souls, they do not thereby conclude either that those natures are evil or that these are the highest good—for I carried on the discussion about these up to this little passage, where I said:
Even if there are souls—which meanwhile is uncertain—devoted to bodily offices not by sin but by nature, and so forth. It may then be asked why I said 'which meanwhile is uncertain,' when I ought by no means to have doubted that there are no such souls. But I said this for the reason that I had experienced men who said that the devil and his angels are good in their own kind and in that nature in which God created them, being of their proper order such as they are, but that it is evil for us if we are enticed and seduced by them; whereas if we beware of them and conquer them, it is fair and glorious. And those who say this seem to themselves, in order to prove it, to bring forward suitable testimonies from the Scriptures, such as what is written in the book of Job, when the devil was being described:
This is the beginning of the Lord's creation, which He made to be mocked by His angels; or that passage in the hundred and third Psalm: This dragon, which You have formed to mock at it. This question—which was to be undertaken and resolved not against the Manichaeans, who do not hold this view, but against others who do hold it—I was then unwilling to handle and unravel, lest I should make the book longer than I wished, since I saw that even if this were granted, the Manichaeans ought nonetheless, and could already, be refuted, since with a most insane error they introduce a nature of evil coeternal with the eternal good. Therefore I said:
Which meanwhile is uncertain—not that I myself doubted about it, but that between me and those whom I had found to hold such an opinion, this question was not yet resolved. Yet this I resolved, with as much clarity as I could, in other far later books of mine On Genesis according to the Letter, in accordance with the holy Scriptures. In another place I say: On this account we sin by loving bodily things, because we are both commanded by justice to love spiritual things and are able by nature; and then we are the best and blessed in our own kind. Here it may be asked why I said we are able 'by nature' and not 'by grace.' But against the Manichaeans the question was concerning nature, and it is certainly grace
—it is grace that brings it about that this nature, which when vitiated cannot do so, may be able to do so through Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost. And recalling that grace even then, I prayed for my most intimate friends, who were still held by that deadly error, and said: O great God, God almighty, God of the highest goodness, whom it is right to believe and to understand as inviolable and incorruptible, threefold unity, whom the Catholic Church worships, I, a suppliant, pray, having experienced Your mercy in myself, that You will not permit those men, with whom from boyhood I have had the fullest agreement in the manner of human living, to dissent from me in Your worship.
Thus indeed praying, I already held by faith that not only are those converted to God aided by His grace, that they may make progress and be perfected—where it may still be said that this grace is given according to the merit of their conversion—but also that they should be converted to God pertains to the very grace of God; for I prayed for them who were exceedingly turned away from Him, and prayed that they might be turned to Him. This book begins thus: 'By the help of God's mercy.' Chapter XV. Acts Against Fortunatus the Manichaean, One Book. At the same time of my presbyterate I disputed against a certain Fortunatus, a presbyter of the Manichaeans, who had lived a very long time at Hippo and had seduced so many that on their account he was pleased to dwell there.
This disputation, as we contended, was taken down by shorthand writers, as though official records were being drawn up; for it bears both the day and the consul. This I took care to gather into a book for the record of memory. There the question is treated whence evil comes, I asserting that man's evil arose from the free choice of the will, while he strove to persuade that the nature of evil is coeternal with God. But on the following day he at last confessed that he found nothing to say against us; and though he did not indeed become a Catholic, yet he departed from Hippo. In this book, that which I said:
I say that the soul was made by God, as are all the other things which were made by God; and that among those which the omnipotent God made, the chief place was given to the soul—I said this in such a way that I wished it to be taken generally of the whole rational creation, although whether in the holy Scriptures the angels are called 'souls' either cannot be found at all, or not easily, as we have already said above. Likewise in another place I say: I say that there is no sin if one does not sin by one's own will. Here I wished that sin to be understood which is not also the punishment of sin; for concerning such punishment I spoke elsewhere in the same disputation, as was fitting to say. And likewise I said:
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So that afterward that very same flesh, which tormented us with punishments while we remained in sin, may be made subject to us in the resurrection and may shake us with no adversity, so as to hinder us from keeping the law and the divine precepts. This is not to be taken as though even in that kingdom of God, where we shall have an incorruptible and immortal body, law and precepts must be drawn from the divine Scriptures; but because there the eternal law will be most perfectly kept, and we shall hold those two precepts concerning loving God and neighbour not in reading, but in that very perfect and everlasting love. This work begins thus: 'On the fifth day before the Kalends of September, when Arcadius Augustus for the second time and Rufinus, most illustrious men, were consuls.' Chapter XVI. On Faith and the Creed, One Book.
About the same time, in the presence of the bishops who commanded me to do so, who were holding a plenary council of all Africa at Hippo Regius, I disputed on faith and the creed. This disputation, at the most earnest urging of some of those who loved us more intimately, I put into a book, in which the matters themselves are so discussed that nevertheless there is not made that connected text of words which is handed down to be held by memory by the candidates. In this book, when the resurrection of the flesh was being treated: The body, I say, will rise again according to the Christian faith, which cannot be deceived.
He to whom this seems incredible attends to what the flesh is now, but does not consider what it shall be in the future; because at that time of the angelic transformation it will no longer be flesh and blood, but only body—and the rest of what I there discussed concerning the change of earthly bodies into heavenly bodies—since the Apostle said, when he was speaking on this subject: Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God.
But whoever takes these words so as to suppose that the earthly body, such as we now have, is by the resurrection so changed into a heavenly body that neither these members nor the substance of flesh will exist in the future, is without doubt to be corrected, being reminded of the body of the Lord, who after the resurrection appeared in the same members, not only to be beheld with the eyes but even to be handled with the hands, and affirmed by His own word that He had flesh, saying: Handle and see, for a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see me to have. Whence it is clear that the Apostle did not deny the substance of flesh will exist in the kingdom of God, but either called those who live according to the flesh by the name of flesh and blood, or that very corruption of the flesh, which then assuredly will be none.
For when he had said, Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God—which is well understood as though by way of explaining what he meant—he immediately added: Neither shall corruption possess incorruption. On this matter, difficult for persuading unbelievers, whoever reads the last book of The City of God will find that I have discussed it as carefully as I could. This book begins thus: 'Since it is written.' Chapter XVII. On Genesis according to the Letter, One Unfinished Book.
When I had composed two books on Genesis against the Manichaeans, since I had treated the words of Scripture according to their allegorical signification, not daring to expound to the letter such great secrets of natural things—that is, how the things said there might be taken according to their historical propriety—I wished to try in this most laborious and difficult work also what I could do. But in expounding the Scriptures my apprenticeship sank under the weight of so great a burden, and, one book not yet finished, I rested from the labour which I could not sustain.
But in this work, while I was revising my little writings, this very book, unfinished as it was, came into my hands, which I had neither published and had resolved to destroy, since I afterward wrote twelve books whose title is On Genesis according to the Letter. In these, although many things seem rather to be inquired into than found, nevertheless that book is in no way to be compared with them. Yet after I had revised even this one, I chose that it should remain, so that it might be an index—not useless, as I judge—of my beginnings in unfolding and searching the divine oracles; and I wished its title to be On Genesis according to the Letter, Unfinished. For I found it dictated up to these words:
The Father, however, is Father, nor is the Son anything other than Son; for even when He is called the likeness of the Father—although it shows that no unlikeness intervenes—yet the Father is not alone, if He has a likeness. After these I again took up for further consideration and treatment the words of Scripture: And God said: Let us make man to our image and likeness. Up to this point I had left the book dictated as unfinished. But what follows there I thought should be added when I revised it; yet even so I did not perfect it, but even with this addition left it unfinished. For had I perfected it, I would at least have discussed all the works and words of God which pertain to the sixth day.
In this book it seemed to me superfluous to note the same things which displease me, or to defend those things which, being not well understood by others, may displease them. For I rather briefly admonish that those twelve books be read, which I made long afterward; from them let judgment be made concerning this one. This one, then, begins thus: 'Concerning the obscurities of natural things, which we perceive to have been made by God the almighty artificer, we must treat not by affirming, but by inquiring.' Chapter XVIII. On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, Two Books. About the same time I wrote two volumes on the Lord's sermon on the mount according to Matthew. In the first of these, on account of what is written: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God:
Wisdom, I say, befits the peacemakers, in whom all things are now ordered, and no movement is in rebellion against reason, but all things obey the spirit of man, when he himself also obeys God. This rightly raises the question, in what sense I said it. For it cannot come about for anyone in this life that the law warring against the law of the mind should not be in the members at all, since even if the spirit of man so resisted it that it slipped into no assent to it, nevertheless it would not on that account cease to war. Therefore this, which was said—that there is no movement rebellious against reason—can rightly be taken of those peacemakers who now act by subduing the concupiscences of the flesh, so that at some time they may come to that fullest peace.
Accordingly, that which in another place, repeating the same evangelical saying, when I had said, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God, I added, saying: And these things indeed can be fulfilled in this life, as we believe them to have been fulfilled in the apostles—this is to be taken not so that we suppose no movement of the flesh warred against the spirit in the apostles while living here, but that these things can be fulfilled here to this extent, insofar as we believe them to have been fulfilled in the apostles—that is, in that measure of human perfection which perfection can be in this life. For it was not said, 'These things can be fulfilled in this life, for we believe them to have been fulfilled in the apostles,' but it was said:
As we believe them to have been fulfilled in the apostles—so that they may be fulfilled just as they were fulfilled in them, that is, by a certain perfection of which this life is capable; not as those things are to be fulfilled which we hope for, in that fullest peace, when it shall be said: Where, O death, is your striving? In another place, that testimony which I inserted: For God does not give the Spirit by measure—I had not yet understood that it is more truly taken as properly of Christ. For to other men, unless the Spirit were given by measure, Elisha would not have asked for double what had been in Elijah. Likewise, that which is written: One iota or one tittle shall not pass from the law, until all things be done—when I expounded it, I said that nothing else could be understood but a vehement expression of perfection.
Here it is rightly asked whether that perfection can be so understood that nevertheless it be true that no one now using the choice of the will lives here without sin. For by whom can the law be fulfilled down to a single tittle, except by Him by whom all the divine commandments are done? But among those same commandments there is also this, that we are commanded to say: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors—which prayer the whole Church says until the end of the age. Therefore all the commandments are reckoned as done, when whatever is not done is pardoned. Indeed, that which the Lord says: Whoever therefore shall loose one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, and so on up to the place where He says:
Unless your righteousness exceed more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven—I have expounded much better and more fittingly in other later sermons of mine, which it is too long to weave again even here. But to this that sense is there brought: that theirs is a greater righteousness than that of the scribes and Pharisees who both say and do. For of the scribes and Pharisees the Lord Himself says in another place: For they say and do not. That too we afterward understood better which is written: Whoever is angry with his brother. For the Greek codices do not have 'without cause,' as it is here placed, although the sense itself is the same.
For we said that it must be considered what it is to be angry with one's brother, since he is not angry with his brother who is angry at his brother's sin. He therefore who is angry with his brother, not with the sin, is angry without cause. Likewise, that which I said: This is to be understood also of father and of mother and of the other bonds of blood, so that in them we hate what the human race has drawn by lot in being born and dying—this sounds as though these kinships would not exist in the future, if, with no preceding sin of human nature, no one were to die: a sense which I already disapproved above. For there would assuredly be kinships and affinities, even if, with no original sin existing, the human race grew and multiplied without death.
And on this account the question is to be resolved otherwise—why the Lord commanded that enemies be loved, when in another place He commands that even parents and children be held in hatred—not as it was here resolved, but as we afterward often resolved it. That is, that we should love our enemies in order to win them for the kingdom of God, and should hate them in our kinsfolk, if they hinder us from the kingdom of God. Likewise, concerning the precept by which a wife is forbidden to be dismissed except on account of fornication, I here indeed disputed most scrupulously; but what fornication the Lord wishes to be understood, on account of which it is lawful to dismiss a wife—whether that which is condemned in acts of lewdness, or that of which it is said:
You have destroyed everyone who commits fornication against You—among whom assuredly this one too is included (for he does indeed commit fornication against the Lord who, taking the members of Christ, makes them the members of a harlot)—this is again and again to be pondered and inquired into. Nor in a matter so great and so difficult to sort out do I wish the reader to think that this our disputation ought to suffice him; but let him read both those things, whether our own, which were written afterward, or those of others better considered and treated; or let him himself, if he can, discuss with a more vigilant and understanding mind those things which here may rightly raise questions—not because every sin is fornication (for God does not destroy every sinner, He who daily hears His saints saying:
Forgive us our debts—since He destroys everyone who commits fornication against Him)—but to what extent this fornication is to be understood and delimited, and whether even on account of this it is lawful to dismiss a wife, is a most hidden question. Yet that it is lawful on account of that fornication which is committed in acts of lewdness, there is no question. And where I said that this was permitted, not commanded, I did not attend to another Scripture saying: He who keeps an adulteress is foolish and impious. Nor indeed would I say that that woman was to be reckoned an adulteress, even after she heard from the Lord: Neither will I condemn you; go, and now sin no more, if she heard this obediently. In another place, concerning the sin of a brother unto death, of which the Apostle John says:
I do not say that one should pray for him—I thus defined it, so as to say: I think the sin of a brother unto death is when, after the acknowledgment of God through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, anyone assails the brotherhood and, against the very grace by which he was reconciled to God, is stirred up by the torches of envy. This indeed I did not affirm, since I said that I 'thought' this; but nevertheless it should have been added: if he ends this life in this so wicked perversity of mind—since concerning anyone, however wicked, established in this life, one must certainly not despair, nor is prayer offered impatiently for him of whom one does not despair. Likewise, in the second book:
No one, I say, will be permitted to be ignorant of the kingdom of God, when His only-begotten shall have come from heaven, not only intelligibly but also visibly, in the Lord-man, to judge the living and the dead. But I do not see whether he is rightly called 'the Lord-man' who is the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus [since He is assuredly the Lord]; but who in His holy family cannot be called 'a lordly man'? And this indeed, that I should say it, I read among certain Catholic expositors of the divine oracles. But wherever I said this, I would that I had not said it. For afterward I saw that it is not to be said, although it can be defended by some reasoning. Likewise, that which I said: For the conscience of hardly anyone can hate God—I do not see that it ought to have been said.
For there are many concerning whom it was said: The pride of those who hate You. In another place, in that which I said: For this reason the Lord said, Sufficient unto the day is its own evil, because the very necessity of taking food was pressing—which necessity I therefore think was named 'evil' because it is penal to us; for it pertains to this frailty which we have merited by sinning—I did not attend that food for the body was given even to the first men in paradise, before they merited this penalty of death by sinning. For they were so immortal in a body not yet spiritual but animal, that nevertheless in an immortality of this kind they made use of bodily nourishment. Likewise, that which I said:
As for the glorious Church, which God chose for himself, having neither spot nor wrinkle, I did not say this because it is now already such in every respect—although there is no doubt that it was chosen to this end, that it should be such when Christ, who is its life, shall appear; for then it too shall appear with him in glory. It is on account of that glory that the Church is called glorious. Likewise, regarding what the Lord says, 'Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you,' I thought I should laboriously set forth how these three differ from one another; but it is far better that they should all be referred to the most persistent asking. For this indeed he shows, when with the very same word he sums up all of them, saying, 'How much more shall your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him.' For he did not say:
'to those who ask, seek, and knock.' This work begins thus: 'The sermon which the Lord spoke.' CHAPTER 19. A PSALM AGAINST THE PARTY OF DONATUS, BOOK I. Wishing that the cause against the Donatists should come to the notice even of the most lowly common folk and of those altogether unlearned and untaught, and that it should cling in their memory as far as we could bring it about, I composed a psalm to be sung by them in Latin letters, but only as far as the letter V, of the kind they call alphabetic (abecedarian). The last three letters, however, I omitted, and in their stead I added at the end a sort of epilogue, as though the Church their mother were addressing them. The refrain also, which is sung in response, and the preface of the case, which we wished to be sung, are not in the order of the letters;
for their order begins after the preface. Moreover I did not wish this to be done in any kind of poetic metre, lest metrical necessity should compel me to some words less commonly used among the people. This psalm begins thus: 'All you who rejoice in peace, now judge what is true,' which is its refrain. CHAPTER 20. AGAINST THE LETTER OF DONATUS THE HERETIC, ONE BOOK. I also wrote, in the same period of my priesthood, a book against the letter of Donatus, who was the second bishop of the party of Donatus at Carthage after Majorinus; in which letter he argues that the baptism of Christ is to be believed to exist only within his communion. We contradict him in this book.