Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 46 part 3/7

Yet we ought to will that these desires themselves should not exist at all, even if in the body of this death we cannot attain this. For hence in another place the same Apostle, speaking as it were by introducing his own person, instructs us, saying: 'For what I would not, that I do; but what I hate, that I do' — that is, I lust; for this too he would not do, that he might be perfect in every part. 'But if what I would not,' he says, 'that I do, I consent unto the law that it is good' — because this too the law does not call by that name which I too would not. For He who says, 'Thou shalt not covet,' wills not that I should covet, and I too will not to covet. In this, therefore, the will of the law and my own agree.

But because he was unwilling to covet and yet was coveting, though by in no wise consenting he was not enslaved to that same concupiscence, he added and said: 'Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.' But a man is much deceived who, consenting to the concupiscence of his flesh and resolving and determining to do what it desires, thinks it may still be said by him: 'It is no more I that do it,' even if he hates it because he consents. For both are present at once: he himself hates, because he knows it to be evil, and he himself does it, because he has determined to do it. But if he should further add that which Scripture forbids, saying:

'Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin' — so that what he has resolved to do in his heart he also completes in his body — and therefore say, 'It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,' because when he decrees and does it, it displeases him: then he errs so far that he does not even recognize his own self, since, while he is wholly himself, both in his heart resolving and in his body fulfilling, he still thinks that it is not his own self. Whoever, therefore, says, 'It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,' says truly if he only covets, but not if he decrees it by the consent of his heart, or even accomplishes it by the ministry of his body. Then the Apostle adds: 'For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing;'

'for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not.' This was said for this reason: because good is then perfected when there are no evil desires, just as evil is then perfected when evil desires are obeyed. But when they indeed exist, yet are not obeyed, neither is evil perfected, because they are not obeyed, nor good, because they exist; but there comes to be good in some part, because consent is not given to evil concupiscence, and in some part evil remains, because it is at least coveted. For this reason, then, the Apostle did not say that to do good was not present with him, but to perform it. For he does much good who does that which is written, 'Go not after thy lusts,' but he does not perfect it, because he does not fulfill that which is written, 'Thou shalt not covet.'

To this end, therefore, the law said, 'Thou shalt not covet,' so that, finding ourselves lying in this disease, we might seek the medicine of grace, and might know by that precept both toward what we ought to strive by making progress in this mortal life, and to what we may be able to attain in that most blessed immortality; for unless it were at some time to be perfected, it would never be commanded. Then the Apostle, repeating in order more fully to commend his former statement, says: 'For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.' And there follows: 'I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me' — that is:

I find that the law is a good to me who wills to do what the law wills, since not to the law itself, which says 'Thou shalt not covet,' but to me there is present the evil which I would not, because even unwilling I covet. 'For I delight,' he says, 'in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.' This delight in the law of God after the inward man comes to us from the great grace of God. For in it our inward man is renewed from day to day, when it makes progress in it perseveringly. For it is not a fear that torments, but a love that gives freely. There are we truly free, where we are not delighted unwillingly. But that which he says:

'But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind' — this is that very concupiscence of which we are speaking, the law of sin in the flesh of sin. But when he said, 'and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin,' that is, under it, which is in my members, either he said 'bringing into captivity' meaning 'attempting to bring into captivity' — that is, forcing to consent and to fulfill — or rather (which admits of no dispute) 'bringing into captivity' according to the flesh, which, unless the carnal concupiscence, which he calls the law of sin, held it captive, would assuredly stir up in it no unlawful desire which the mind ought not to obey. But that he did not say, 'bringing my flesh into captivity,' but:

'bringing me into captivity,' from this it came about that this other sense was sought, and we took 'bringing into captivity' as though he had said 'attempting to bring into captivity.' But why should he not say 'bringing me into captivity' where he wished his flesh to be understood? Was it not said of Jesus, when His flesh was not found in the tomb: 'They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him'? Was it not rightly said for this reason, because it was not said 'the flesh' or 'the body of my Lord,' but 'my Lord'? Although a little above the Apostle himself sufficiently plainly disclosed how he could rightly say of his flesh, 'bringing me into captivity.' For when he had said, 'For I know that in me dwelleth no good thing,' expounding this very point he added and said, 'that is, in my flesh.'

This, therefore, is brought into captivity under the law of sin, this in which no good thing dwells — that is, the flesh. But he now called 'flesh' that in which there is a certain diseased affection of the flesh, not the very conformation of the body, whose members are not to be applied as instruments to sin — that is, to that same concupiscence which holds this carnal part of ours captive. For as regards the bodily substance and nature itself, in faithful men, whether married or continent, it is already the temple of God.

Nevertheless, if absolutely nothing of our flesh were held captive — not indeed under the devil, since there too remission of sin has been made, so that sin, which is properly called the law of sin, is not imputed, but nevertheless under that same law of sin, that is, under its concupiscence — if our flesh were not somewhat held captive, how would that be true which the same Apostle says: 'waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body'? To so great a degree, therefore, is the redemption of our body still awaited, inasmuch as it is still in some part captive under the law of sin. Whence here too, crying out, he says: 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.'

Here what are we to understand, except that the body which is corruptible weighs down the soul? When therefore that same body shall be received now incorruptible, there will be full deliverance from the body of this death — from which those are not delivered who are to rise again unto punishment. To the body of this death, therefore, it is understood to pertain, that another law in the members should indeed war against the law of the mind, while the flesh lusts against the spirit — even though it does not subdue the mind, because the spirit also lusts against the flesh. And thus, although the very law of sin holds something of the flesh captive, whence it resists the law of the mind, it nevertheless does not reign in our body, mortal though it be, if its lusts are not obeyed.

For it is customary that even enemies against whom one contends should be both inferior in the contest and, though vanquished, hold something captive. And this, though in our flesh it be held under the law of sin, is nevertheless in the hope of redemption; for that vicious concupiscence itself will remain not at all, but our flesh, healed of that plague and disease and clothed with entire immortality, will abide in eternal blessedness. But the Apostle subjoins and says: 'So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.' This is to be understood thus: with the mind I serve the law of God by not consenting to the law of sin; but with the flesh I serve the law of sin by having the desires of sin, to which, even if I do not consent, I am nevertheless not yet wholly free of them.

Finally, let us attend to what he inferred after these things. 'There is therefore now,' he says, 'no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.' 'Even now,' he says, when the law in the members wars against the law of the mind and holds something captive in the body of this death, 'there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.' Hear why. 'For the law of the spirit of life,' he says, 'in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.' Made free — how? Except that by the remission of all sins it dissolved the guilt of it, so that although it still remains and is diminished from day to day more and more, it is nevertheless not imputed as sin.

This remission of sins, therefore, so long as it does not take place in the offspring, this law of sin is there in such a way that it is even imputed as sin — that is, so that its guilt too is present with it, holding the debtor of eternal punishment. For the parent transmits to the carnal offspring this, in that he too was carnally born, not that which he has been spiritually born again; because that very thing, that he was carnally born, although with the guilt loosed it does not hinder his fruit, nevertheless lies hidden as it were in the seed of the olive — even if, on account of the remission of sins, it does no harm to the oil, that is, to that life by which, according to Christ, who is named from oil, that is, from the chrism, the just man lives by faith.

But that which in a regenerated parent, as it were in the seed of the olive, is covered without any guilt (because it has been remitted), is assuredly held in the not-yet-regenerated offspring, as it were in the wild olive, with guilt, until there also the same grace remits it.

For from the time when Adam — from such an olive, in which there was no seed of the kind whence the bitterness of the wild olive might be born — was turned by sinning into a wild olive (because so great was the sin, where so great a change for the worse in nature came to pass), he made the whole human race a wild olive; so that — even as we now see in the trees themselves — if divine grace convert anything thereof into an olive, there the vice of the first birth, which was original sin transmitted and drawn from carnal concupiscence, is remitted, covered, not imputed; yet whence a wild olive is born, unless it too be born again into an olive by that same grace. Blessed, therefore, is the olive whose iniquities are remitted and whose sins are covered; blessed, to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin.

But that which has been remitted and covered and is not imputed, until there come to pass the full change into eternal immortality, has a certain hidden power whence a bitter wild olive is sown, unless there too the same husbandry of God remit it, cover it, not impute it. But there will be nothing at all vicious even in the carnal seed, when by that same regeneration which now takes place through the sacred laver — the same flesh, through which the carnal soul was made, purging and healing all the evils of man unto the end — that flesh itself shall become also spiritual, having no concupiscence of the flesh resisting the law of the mind, sending forth nothing of carnal seed. For thus is to be received that which the same Apostle says:

'Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it with the washing of water in the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing' — thus, I say, this is to be received: that by that same laver of regeneration and word of sanctification absolutely all the evils of regenerated men are cleansed and healed — not only the sins which are all now remitted in baptism, but also those which are afterwards contracted through human ignorance or infirmity; not that baptism should be repeated as often as one sins, but because by that very thing which is given once, it comes to pass that pardon of whatsoever sins, not only before but also after, is obtained for the faithful.

For what would penitence profit, either before baptism, unless baptism followed, or afterwards, unless it had preceded? In the Lord's Prayer itself also, which is our daily cleansing, with what fruit, with what effect would it be said, 'Forgive us our debts,' unless it were said by those who have been baptized? Likewise, largess of alms and beneficence, however great, to whom at last would it profit for the remitting of his sins, if he were not baptized? Finally, the very felicity of the kingdom of heaven, where the Church shall not have spot or wrinkle or any such thing, where there shall be nothing of reproof, nothing of dissimulation, where there shall be not only no guilt but not even any concupiscence of sin — whose shall it be except the baptized?

And by this means, not only all sins but absolutely all the evils of men are taken away by the holiness of the Christian laver, whereby Christ cleanses His Church, that He may present it to Himself, not in this world, but in the world to come, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. For those who say that it is even now such, and yet are in it — since they too confess that they have sins — if they speak truly, then assuredly, since they are not clean from sins, the Church has in them a spot; but if they speak falsely, because they speak with a double heart, the Church has in them a wrinkle. But if they say that they have these things, and not the Church herself, let them then confess that they are not members of it nor pertain to its body, so that they may be condemned even by their own confession.

Now concerning this concupiscence of the flesh, which we have taken care to distinguish from the goods of marriage by a lengthy discussion on account of the new heretics who, when it is censured, cavil as though marriage were being censured — namely, that by praising it as a natural good they may confirm their pestilent dogma, whereby they assert that the offspring which is born through it draws no original sin: concerning this concupiscence of the flesh, therefore, the blessed Ambrose, bishop of Milan, by whose priestly ministry I received the laver of regeneration, spoke thus briefly, when, expounding the prophet Isaiah, he was setting forth the carnal nativity of Christ:

'Therefore,' he says, 'He was tempted as a man in all things, and endured all things in the likeness of men, but, as one born of the Spirit, He abstained from sin; for every man is a liar, and no one is without sin except God alone. It was therefore preserved, that from man and woman — that is, through that commingling of bodies — no one should seem to be free from transgression. But he who is free from transgression is free also from such conception.' Did not the holy Ambrose too, by the truth of this his sentence, condemn — not the goodness of marriage, but rather the vanity of these heretics, although they had not yet then appeared? This I thought must be recalled for the reason that Pelagius so praises Ambrose as to say:

'The blessed bishop Ambrose, in whose books especially the Roman faith shines forth, who among the Latins stood out as a certain beautiful flower of writers, whose faith and most pure sense in the Scriptures not even an enemy has dared to censure.' Let him therefore repent of what he thought against Ambrose, lest he repent of having thus praised Ambrose. You have a book troublesome both by the annoyance of its length and by the difficulty of the question — as burdensome for me to dictate as for you to read — for those little portions of time in which it could or shall be able to find you at leisure.

This book, which, so far as the Lord has deigned to help me, I have labored over amid my ecclesiastical cares, I would assuredly not thrust upon you amid your public affairs, had I not heard from a man of God, who knows you more intimately, that you read so gladly that you spend even some nocturnal hours watchfully upon reading. BOOK TWO. Amid the cares of your military service and of the illustrious personage which you bear according to your merits, and amid the affairs of state that are necessary, most beloved and honorable son Valerius, it cannot sufficiently be told with how great delight of mind I am gladdened that you burn with such zeal against the heretics for the divine oracles.

And so, after I read the letters of your sublimity, in which you give thanks concerning the book which I wrote to you, but admonish me that through my brother and fellow-bishop Alypius I should hear what points of that same book the heretics take up for disputation, I was stirred to write this. And because I learned this not only from the report of my aforesaid brother, but also read the little papers brought forth by him, which after his departure from Ravenna you yourself took care to send to Rome, where I could find the empty babblings of the adversaries, I resolved to answer them, with the Lord's help, with as much truth and authority of the divine Scriptures as I could. The little paper to which I now reply is prefaced with this title:

'Chapters from the book of Augustine which he wrote, against which I have culled a few things from the books.' Here I see that the one who directed these writings to your excellence wished, from I know not what books, for the sake, as I suppose, of a speedier reply, lest he should delay your urgency, to cull them out. But when I considered who these books might be, I judged them to be those of which Julian makes mention in the epistle which he sent to Rome, a copy of which reached even to me at the same time. For there indeed he says: 'They say also that these marriages which are now contracted were not instituted by God, which is read in the book of Augustine, against whom I have now replied in four little books.' I believe these things were culled from these little books.

Whence perhaps it had been better that our endeavor should have labored at refuting and confuting his whole work itself, which he unfolded in four volumes, had I too not been unwilling to defer my reply — just as you did not defer the transmission of the writings which must be answered. He therefore set down these words from my book, sent to you by me and most well known to you, which he attempted to refute:

'They most invidiously cry out that we are condemners of marriage and of the divine work whereby God creates men from males and females, because we say that those who are born of such commingling draw original sin, and we do not deny that they, of whatever sort of parents they are born, are still under the devil, unless they be born again in Christ.' In these words of mine he passed over the testimony of the Apostle which I had inserted, by whose great weight he felt himself pressed. For when I had said that men who are born draw original sin, I straightway adduced that which the Apostle says: 'By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death; and so it passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.'

Having passed over this testimony, as we have said, he stitched together the rest, which have been recalled above. For he knows well how the hearts of the faithful within the Catholic Church are accustomed to receive these apostolic words which he passed over — words so upright and shining with such great light, which the new heretics strive to obscure and corrupt by their shadowy and twisted interpretations. Then he wove in other words of mine, where I said: 'nor do they notice that the good of marriage cannot be blamed on account of the original evil which is drawn from it, just as the evil of adulteries and fornications cannot be excused on account of the natural good which is born from it;

for just as sin, whether it be drawn from this side or from that, is the work of the devil, so man, whether he be born from this side or from that, is the work of God.' Here too he passed over the words in which he feared the Catholic ears. For in order to come to these words, it had been said above by us: 'Therefore, because we say this — which is contained in the most ancient and most firm rule of the Catholic faith — these upholders of a novel and perverse doctrine, who say that there is no sin in little ones which is washed away by the laver of regeneration, slander us faithlessly or ignorantly, as though we condemned marriage and as though we called the work of God — that is, the man who is born of it — the work of the devil.'

Having therefore passed over these words of ours, there follow those words of mine which he set down, as has been written above. And so in those things which he passed over, he feared this: that it addresses all the breasts of the Catholic Church, and with a clear voice, as it were, summons the very faith handed down and founded from antiquity, and stirs it up most vehemently against them — namely what we said, 'that they say there is no sin in little ones which is washed away by the laver of regeneration.' For all who run to the church with their little ones do so for no other reason than that in them the original sin, contracted by the generation of the first birth, may be expiated by the regeneration of the second birth. Then he returns to our earlier words, which I do not know why he repeats:

'But those who are born of such intercourse, we say, draw original sin, and we do not deny that they, from whatever kind of parents they are born, are still under the devil unless they are reborn in Christ.' These words of mine he had already stated a little before. Then he adds what we said about Christ: 'who willed to be born of the same intercourse of both sexes.' But here too he passed over what I set down: 'so that by His grace they might be rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of Him who did not will to be born of the same intercourse of both sexes.' See, I beg you, one who avoided our words as though an utter enemy of the grace of God, which came through Jesus Christ our Lord!

For he knows that, by that sentence of the Apostle in which he said of God the Father, 'who rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,' the little ones are separated most wickedly and most impiously. Therefore, without doubt, he preferred to pass over these words rather than set them down. After this he set down that saying of ours where we said: 'For this shameful concupiscence, which is shamelessly praised by the shameless, would not exist if man had not first sinned; yet marriage there would be, even if no one had sinned, for the sowing of children would take place without this disease.' Up to this point he set down my words; for he feared what I added: 'in the body of that life, without which now it cannot be done in the body of this death.'

And here too, so as not to finish my sentence but in a manner to lop it off, he dreaded that testimony of the Apostle where he says: 'Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' For there was no body of this death in paradise before sin, on account of which we said that in the body of that life which was there, the sowing of children could take place without this disease, without which now, in the body of this death, it cannot take place. But in order that the Apostle might come to this mention of human misery and divine grace, he had said above: 'I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive under the law of sin which is in my members.'

And after these words he cried out: 'Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' In the body of this death, therefore, such as it was in paradise before sin, there was assuredly no other law in our members warring against the law of our mind; because both when we are unwilling and when we do not consent, nor offer our members to it to accomplish what it craves, it nevertheless dwells in them and solicits the resisting and warring mind, so that the very conflict, even if it be not damnable — since it does not accomplish iniquity — is nonetheless miserable, because it does not have peace.

I have therefore sufficiently pointed out that he chose to set forth my words as though they were to be refuted by him in such a way that in some places, with the middle parts removed, he broke off the sentences, and in other places, with the final parts not added, he curtailed them; and I have shown sufficiently why he did this. Now let us look at those things which he opposed as his own to the things which, as he wished, he set forth as ours. For his words now follow; and, as this man intimated who sent the little document to you, he first composed something by way of preface — no doubt to those books from which he plucked a few things. And it runs thus:

'The teachers of our time, most blessed brother,' he says, 'and the authors of the wicked sedition which still rages, have decreed to arrive — through the ruin of the whole church — at the insults and destruction of those men by whose holy pursuits they are inflamed; not understanding how much honor they have conferred upon these men, whose glory they have shown could not be uprooted except along with the Catholic religion. For if anyone says either that there is free will in men or that God is the Creator of those who are born, he is called a Caelestian and a Pelagian.

Therefore, lest they be called heretics, they become Manichees; and while they dread a false infamy, they incur a true crime, after the fashion of wild beasts which are surrounded with feathers so that they may be driven into nets, into which — since they lack reason — they are thrust by a vain dread to their true destruction.' It is not as you speak, whoever you are who said these things; it is not so. You are much deceived, or you are plotting to deceive. We do not deny free will; but 'if the Son shall set you free,' says the Truth, 'then you shall be truly free.' You begrudge this Liberator to those to whom, while they are captives, you have granted a vain liberty.

For 'by whom anyone has been overcome,' as Scripture says, 'to him is he assigned as a slave'; nor is anyone loosed from this bond of servitude except through the grace of the Liberator — from which bond no man is exempt. For 'through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed unto all men, in whom all sinned.' Thus, then, God is the Creator of those who are born, in such a way that all, from the one, go into condemnation, unless He becomes the Liberator of those who are reborn. For He Himself is called the potter who from the same lump makes one vessel unto honor according to mercy, another unto dishonor according to judgment — to whom the Church sings 'mercy and judgment.'