Not, therefore, was your thought truncated, but the whole of it was demolished by a valid response. But now hear briefly: the Apostle, in that which he says—'Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord'—did not refer this to the mortality of our body, which the flesh of animals received from the institution of nature, but to the habit of sinning; from which guilt, after the incarnation of Christ, through the New Testament, whoever migrates to the pursuits of virtue is delivered. There, then, speaking under the person of the Jews, who err by the desire of enticements even after the interdict of the sacred Law, he shows that there was a single help in that season—if they should believe in Christ;
who so enjoined cautions concerning things to come, that He granted pardon for things done; nor did He press hard upon the guilty in the trial of punishment, but cherished with a most bountiful bosom those who ran to Him; not disheartening the downcast with terror, but restoring the corrected by kindness. This kindness he himself had already experienced, who said: 'It is a faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am chief; but for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me Christ Jesus might show forth all patience, for a pattern to those who shall believe in Him unto life everlasting.' That you might understand this to pertain to an evil life, not to the nature of men;
lest, on account of the cause of Christ's coming, you should think that little children too were pronounced sinners by Him, he says: 'In me He showed forth all patience.' Now the patience of God is that of which he speaks to the Romans: 'Or do you not know that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you treasure up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath.' The patience of God, then, is exercised when human conversion is awaited for no small time. But in little children patience cannot appear. For if there were sins of nature which the Saviour should ascribe to them, He would indeed be called patient falsely, but savage most certainly. But God cannot be otherwise than pious and just—which is my God, Jesus Christ;
whose patience either Paul, long a persecutor, or the others under whose person he speaks, have experienced; because they were long awaited, though late delivered. And hence by the Apostle the life of men, not their nature, is condemned. Commending therefore this grace to the Jews—because the Law punishes the wicked, and does not have that efficacy of mercy which Baptism has, in which by a brief confession the transgressions of deeds are purged—he shows that they ought to run to Christ, to implore the help of this indulgence; and to observe that the Law of morals threatens the wounds, but grace effectually and swiftly heals them. The 'body of death,' therefore, he said to be sins, not the flesh;
for if he had pronounced concerning the misery of the members, which you reckon to have befallen by sin, he would more rightly have called it 'the death of the body' than 'the body of death.' But that you may know that, according to the custom of the Scriptures, sins are called 'members,' read the Epistle to the Colossians, where the same Apostle says: 'Mortify your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, and covetousness, which is the service of idols; on account of which the wrath of God comes upon the children of unbelief, among whom you also once walked, when you lived in them.' Behold how he calls 'members' the things he pronounces to be sins. But the 'body of sin,' here to the Romans is this very thing:
'Our old man,' he says, 'was crucified together with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.' And so in this same manner he here too cried out under the persona, as we have said, of the Jews: 'Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?' — that is: Who will deliver me from the guilt of my sins, which I committed when I could have avoided them? A guilt which the severity of the law does not pardon but avenges? Who will be able to vindicate me from these members, that is, from the vices which by imitating the wicked I have gathered together, so as to build up a body full of sin? Who, I ask? And he answered, as though prompted by the very voice of the facts themselves: 'The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.'
The grace of God, which brings to the faithful a righteousness received without works, according to what David says: 'Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin.' He, therefore, who makes a man blessed is himself also blessed, being everlasting righteousness, by which He forgives no sin except that which He could justly have imputed. But He could not justly have imputed it, unless the one to whom it is imputed had also been able to guard against it. Now no one can guard against what is natural. Therefore no one whatsoever can, by the necessity of nature, have sin. Let it suffice to have said this briefly. AUGUSTINE: You have indeed tried, by arguing, to turn what the Apostle says — 'Who will deliver me from the body of this death?' — into your own sense;
but that you could not do this, that man saw better who sent a little note to a distinguished person; and therefore, in recalling my words, he passed this over, lest your awaited and produced reply be laughed at. For who would not laugh at this — I do not know whether you could have persuaded yourselves of it, and yet you thought it should be urged upon others — that the Apostle put on the persona of a Jew, not yet established under the grace of Christ, and saying: 'Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' Is he then really a Jew, and not yet a Christian, who says: 'The grace of God will deliver me through Jesus Christ our Lord'? But this I let pass; yet who could bear this — that a man is supposed to be speaking about his own past sins when he says:
'Who will deliver me from the body of this death?' — as if it were that they might be forgiven him through the grace of the forgiving Christ; when it plainly appears from what point he came to these words? Behold, his words are in our ears; let us therefore see whether he confesses himself to be wretched from what he did willingly, or from what he does unwillingly. The man cries out: 'It is not what I will that I do, but what I hate, that I do.' He cries out: 'Now it is no longer I that work it, but the sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, no good dwells; for to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I find not. For the good that I will, I do not do; but the evil that I will not, that I do.' He does not say: 'I did,' but 'I do'; he does not say: 'I have worked,' but 'I work'; he does not say: 'I acted,' but:
'I do'; and this: not 'what I will,' but 'what I will not.' Finally, he delights in the law of God according to the inner man; but he sees another law in his members, warring against the law of his mind, by which law indeed he is compelled to do, not the good that he wills, but the evil that he wills not. On this account he cries out: 'Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?' And you, against the clearest truth, close your eyes and expound his groaning, not as it lies open to all, but as it pleases you, saying: 'Who will deliver me from the body of this death?' means: 'Who will deliver me from the guilt of the sins I have committed?' He says: 'The evil that I will not, that I do'; and you say: 'which I have committed.'
Do you so despair of the people who read these things, that they would not rather hear him than you, and believe him rather than you? Allow a man to beg for the grace of God, not only that he may be absolved because he has sinned, but also that he may be helped so that he sin not: which is what is at issue in this passage. For he who says, 'The evil that I will not, that I do,' has no occasion to say, 'Forgive us our debts,' but rather, 'Lead us not into temptation.' Now each one is tempted, as the apostle James says, drawn away and enticed by his own concupiscence. This is the evil of which he says: 'I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, no good dwells.' This is the evil that is in the body of this death. This evil was not in paradise before sin;
because this flesh was not yet the body of this death; to which it shall be said at the end: 'O death, where is your struggle?' But it shall then be said, when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality; now, however, it is a body of death, because the same Apostle said: 'The body is dead because of sin.' Hear the catholic interpreters of the Apostle; receive their words, not mine, together with whom I receive your reproaches; hear not Pelagius, but Ambrose. 'Even Paul's flesh,' he says, 'was a body of death, as he himself says: "Who will deliver me from the body of this death?"' Hear not Caelestius, but Gregory:
'Within our very selves,' he says, 'we are assailed by our own vices and passions, and day and night we are pressed by the fiery goads of this body of lowliness and of the body of death, now secretly, now even openly, while everywhere the enticements of visible things provoke and irritate us — this mire of dregs to which we have clung, breathing out the stench of its own filth through its wider veins; and also by the law of sin, which is in our members, warring against the law of the spirit.' Barking against these luminaries of the heavenly city, you say: 'By "body of death" he meant sins, not the flesh,' denying that the Apostle referred this to the mortality of our body — 'which,' you say, 'the flesh of animals received from the constitution of nature.'
For you hold this opinion, which Pelagius in the Palestinian trial condemned with a feigned heart — namely, that Adam was made mortal in such a way that, whether he sinned or did not sin, he would die. And thus, resisting these men and other companions of theirs in the sound faith, so many and so great teachers, you are forced to fill paradise — even if no one had sinned — with the pain of women in labor, the toil of the newborn, the groans of the sick, the funerals of the dying, the grief of mourners. What wonder, then, if you also go out from this paradise, which is the Church — you who make that paradise, from which they went out who by sinning cast us into these miseries, to be such as no Christian, I do not say, but not even any human being would dare to imagine, unless he were mad?
[Heading:] Monica was called a wine-tippler. 68. JULIAN: For in my first work these matters were discussed more at length. Although you do not even speak plainly as to what death you wish to be understood, whose body you say was not in paradise before sin; for in the books which you published addressed to Marcellinus, you professed that Adam was made mortal. But as for your adding that the business of marriage is a disease, it can be heard indulgently, if you say this only of your own parents. For perhaps you may be aware of some hidden disease of your mother, whom in the books of your Confessions — to use the very word — you recorded to have been called a 'wine-tippler.' Otherwise, in the wedlock of the saints, and of all honorable persons, there is no disease whatsoever.
For the Apostle did not grant a disease as a remedy, when through reverence for marriage he was fortifying the men of the Church against the disease of fornication; and how this meaning has utterly erased both your effrontery and your dogma is shown near the last part of my first volume, and it has also been explained throughout the whole body of that reply, as the occasion of the passages afforded. AUGUSTINE: Nowhere did your guile so plainly appear, together with a conscience condemned through knowledge. For you know, you know full well; for it is so open that whoever reads those books cannot fail to know it; you know, I say, that in the books which I published to Marcellinus, I argued vehemently against your heresy, which was even then beginning to rise, lest it be believed that Adam, even if he had not sinned, would have died.
But since I called him mortal thus far — in the sense that he could die, for he could sin — you wished, by an insidious deception, to steal upon those who have not read those books, and perhaps never will read them, if they were to read these writings of yours; as though I had said that Adam was made mortal in such a way that, whether he sinned or did not sin, he would die. For this is what is disputed with you; on this the whole question about this matter is turned between us and you: that we say Adam, if he had not sinned, would not have suffered even the death of the body; while you say that, whether he had sinned or not sinned, he would have died in the body. What, then, is it that you pretend not to know — namely, what death I wish to be understood, whose body I say was not in paradise before sin;
since you know what I argued in those books, and how openly and plainly I argued it: that God would not, in punishing, have said to the sinner, 'You are earth, and to earth you shall go' (which who does not understand to be said of the death of the body?), if Adam, even with no iniquity committed, was going to go into the earth, that is, to die in the body. But as for your thinking that my mother — who did you no harm, nor argued anything against you — should be torn apart with reviling, you were overcome by a lust for maligning, not fearing what is written: 'Neither shall revilers possess the kingdom of God.' But what wonder is it that you show yourself an enemy even of her, when you are an enemy of the grace of God, by which I said she was set free from that girlish fault?
But I hold your parents as honorable catholic Christians, and I congratulate them that they died before they saw you a heretic. Yet we do not say that the business of marriage is a disease — that is, to lie together for the sake of procreating children, not for the sating of lust — which lust you deny to be a disease, though you confess that the conjugal remedy was provided against it. For assuredly, that fornication may not be committed, the lust which you praise is contradicted, resisted, opposed; so that if it transgresses the limit set for the procreation of children, at least the one who yields to it may sin only venially in his spouse; for the Apostle was speaking to spouses when, having said:
'Do not defraud one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that you may be free for prayer; and come together again for the same purpose, lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence,' he immediately added and said: 'But this I say by way of concession, not by way of command.' And so conjugal chastity alone uses this evil well, with the intention of propagating offspring; to this evil one yields venially in a spouse, not for the sake of offspring, but only of carnal pleasure; this evil is resisted, lest the damnable appetite for pleasure be fulfilled. This evil dwells in the body of this death; because of its motion, importunate even when the mind does not consent, it is said: 'I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, no good dwells.'
This evil was not in the body of that life, where either — the genital members also serving the will — there was no lust at all, or it never moved itself against the arbitration of the will. When this evil suddenly arose, they were ashamed, who before they sinned were naked and it did not shame them. The praises of this evil you have shamelessly scattered even in those four books of yours, to which I was compelled to reply with six of mine. [Notes:] 1 — Ambrose, On Penance 1, 3, 13; cf. Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4, 11, 29. 2 — Ps 143:4. 3 — cf. Lev 12:6-8. 4 — cf. Gen 17:14. 5 — cf. Josh 6:21; 10:32. 6 — Ps 143:4. 7 — 1 Cor 15:22. 8 — Job 14:4-5 (LXX). 9 — cf. On Marriage and Concupiscence 1, 1. 10 — cf. Mt 23:27. 11 — 2 Cor 5:20. 12 — cf.
(notes continued) Heb 12:23. 75 — 1 Tim 6:16. 76 — cf. Gen 17:12-14. 77 — Ex 34:7; Jer 32:18. 78 — cf. Rom 8:10. 79 — cf. Heb 12:23. 80 — cf. Col 1:13. 81 — cf. Cyprian, Letter to Fidus 64, 5. 82 — cf. Sirach 40:1. 83 — On Marriage and Concupiscence 1, 1. 84 — ibid. 85 — Col 1:13. 86 — On Marriage and Concupiscence 2, 4-5. 87 — Cyprian, Letter to Fidus 64, 5. 88 — Ps 118:175. 89 — Ps 50:7. 90 — Hilary, On Ps 118, 175. 91 — Ambrose, On Penance 1, 3, 13. 92 — Gregory Nazianzen, Oration on the Nativity of Christ 38, 17. 93 — Basil, Sermon 1 on Fasting 4. 94 — John of Constantinople, Letter to Olympias 3, 3. 95 — Eph 4:5. 96 — Against Julian 3, 8ff. 97 — cf. Mt 1:21. 98 — Gregory Nazianzen, Oration on the Nativity of Christ 38, 17. 99 — cf.
(notes continued) 158 — Rom 7:5. 159 — Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 1 on His Flight 2, 9. 160 — cf. Gal 5:17. 161 — Ambrose, On Penance 1, 3, 13. 162 — Gregory Nazianzen, Oration on the Nativity of the Lord 41, 14. 163 — Gregory Nazianzen, Oration on Pentecost. 164 — Hilary, On Ps. 118, 75. 165 — On Marriage and Concupiscence 2, 6. 166 — Ambrose, On Luke 7, 142-143. 167 — Ambrose, On Luke 7, 141. 168 — Ambrose, On Luke 7, 141. 169 — Gal 5:17; Cyprian, On the Lord's Prayer 16. 170 — Gal 5:16. 171 — Gal 5:17. 172 — Gal 3:2. 173 — cf. above, 71. 174 — Mt 26:41. 175 — cf. Ps 48:7. 176 — On Marriage and Concupiscence 2, 6-7. 177 — On Marriage and Concupiscence 2, 8. 178 — John 8:36. 179 — 2 Pet 2:19. 180 — Rom 5:12; On Marriage and Concupiscence 2, 8.
(notes continued) 340 — cf. Rom 3:29. 341 — Rom 4:4. 342 — Rom 9:11-12. 343 — 1 John 4:19. 344 — cf. Ex 3:6; Mt 22:32; Heb 12:16-17. 345 — cf. 2 Cor 13:3. 346 — Rom 9:18. 347 — Rom 9:20. 348 — Isa 45:9; Rom 9:20. 349 — Rom 9:21. 350 — cf. Acts 9:4; 8f. 351 — Rom 11:5-6. 352 — Ezek 36:22. 353 — Ezek 36:27. 354 — cf. On the Deeds of Pelagius 13, 30. 355 — Rom 9:11-12. 356 — Rom 11:5-6. 357 — Rom 9:12. 358 — cf. above, 132. 359 — Rom 11:6. 360 — Rom 9:22-24. 361 — 2 Tim 2:20-21. 362 — Prov 8:35 (LXX). 363 — cf. above, 133. 364 — 2 Tim 2:21. 365 — Ambrose, On Luke 7, 27. 366 — Rom 9:20-21. 367 — Rom 5:16. 368 — Isa 1:16-18. 369 — Isa 45:8-13. 370 — Isa 45:13. 371 — Ambrose, On Isaiah; cf.
39:184
Denupt. etconcup. 1, 40. 372 - Io 1, 1. 373 - Io 1, 14. 374 - AMBROSIUS, InLuc. 7, 27. 375 - Isa 45, 8-9. 376 - Cf. Num 21, 6-9. 377 - 1 Cor 1, 30-31. 378 - Isa 45, 9. 379 - Rom 9, 6-9. 380 - Rom 9, 10-13. 381 - Rom 9, 14. 382 - Rom 9, 15-16. 383 - Rom 9, 16. 384 - Ibidem . 385 - Prov 8, 35. 386 - Ps 36, 23. 387 - Rom 9, 13. 16-17. 388 - Rom 9, 18. 389 - Rom 9, 19-21. 390 - Rom 9, 24; Osea 1, 9. 391 - Isa 10, 22; cf. Rom 11, 5. 392 - Isa 1, 9. 393 - Rom 10, 13. 394 - Rom 10, 1-3. 395 - Rom 11, 1-6. 396 - Rom 11, 7. 397 - Rom 9, 11. 398 - Rom 11, 7.
(notes continued) On Marriage and Concupiscence 1, 40. 372 — John 1:1. 373 — John 1:14. 374 — Ambrose, On Luke 7, 27. 375 — Isa 45:8-9. 376 — cf. Num 21:6-9. 377 — 1 Cor 1:30-31. 378 — Isa 45:9. 379 — Rom 9:6-9. 380 — Rom 9:10-13. 381 — Rom 9:14. 382 — Rom 9:15-16. 383 — Rom 9:16. 384 — ibid. 385 — Prov 8:35. 386 — Ps 36:23. 387 — Rom 9:13; 16-17. 388 — Rom 9:18. 389 — Rom 9:19-21. 390 — Rom 9:24; Hosea 1:9. 391 — Isa 10:22; cf. Rom 11:5. 392 — Isa 1:9. 393 — Rom 10:13. 394 — Rom 10:1-3. 395 — Rom 11:1-6. 396 — Rom 11:7. 397 — Rom 9:11. 398 — Rom 11:7.