Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 49 part 7/10

But indeed the Lord says: 'Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect'; which he would not command, they say, if he knew that what he commands cannot be done. It is not now asked whether it can be done — if they take this perfection to mean that each one should be without any sin while he leads this life (for we have already answered above that it can be done) — but whether anyone does it, this is what we now ask. But that there is no one who wills as much as the matter requires has been foreknown, as the so great testimonies of the Scriptures which I have mentioned above declare. And yet, when anyone's perfection is spoken of, one must see in what respect it is said.

For from the apostle I set down a testimony a little before, where he confesses that in the reception of the righteousness which he desires he is not yet perfect, and yet immediately says: 'As many, then, as are perfect, let us be thus minded' — both of which he would not say, unless in one respect he were perfect and in another he were not. As if someone were already a perfect hearer of wisdom — which those were not yet, to whom he said: 'I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able, nay, not even now are you able' — for to them he says also that: 'We speak wisdom among the perfect,' meaning assuredly to be understood perfect hearers — it can therefore come about, as I have said, that someone is already a perfect hearer of wisdom, of which he is not yet a perfect teacher;

someone can be a perfect knower of righteousness, but not yet a perfect doer of it; someone can be perfect in loving his enemies, who is not yet perfect in enduring them. And of one who is perfect in this — that he loves all men, inasmuch as he has even attained to the love of his enemies — it is asked whether he is now perfect also in that very love, that is, whether those whom he loves he loves as much as that immutable rule of truth prescribes that they ought to be loved. When, therefore, anyone's perfection is read of in the Scriptures, one must observe, not negligently, in what respect it is said, since a man is not on that account understood to be altogether without sin, because in some respect he is said to be perfect.

Although even in this case it may be said thus: that a man is deemed worthy of this name not because there is now nothing left in which he might advance, but because he has advanced in the greatest measure — just as anyone may be called perfect in the knowledge of the Law, even though something still lies hidden from him; just as the Apostle called those men perfect to whom he nevertheless says: 'And if in anything you are otherwise minded, this too God shall reveal to you; nevertheless, in that to which we have already attained, let us walk therein.' Nor is it to be denied that God commands us to be so perfect in doing righteousness that we have no sin at all. For neither will there be sin, if there be anything, which is not divinely commanded not to be. Why then, they say, does He command what He knows no man will do?

In this manner too it can be said why He gave a command to those first human beings — who were but two alone — a thing which He knew they would not do. For it must not be said that He commanded it so that some one of us might do it, if they did not; for this command — namely, that they should not take food from that tree — God gave to them alone, because, just as He knew what righteousness they would not do, so also He knew what righteousness He Himself would do concerning them.

In this manner, therefore, He commands all men to commit no sin, though He foreknows that none will fulfill this — so that whoever impiously and damnably despise His precepts, He Himself may do what is just in their condemnation; but whoever, advancing obediently and piously in His precepts, yet not fulfilling all that He has commanded, forgive the sins of others even as they wish their own to be forgiven, He Himself may do what is good in their cleansing. For how is it forgiven, through God's mercy, to him who forgives, if it be not sin? Or how is it not forbidden, by God's justice, if it be sin? But behold, they say, the Apostle says: 'I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith;'

'there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness' — which he would not say if he had any sin. Nay rather, let them answer how he could say these things, when there still remained for him so great a struggle of that very passion which he had already said was impending upon him — so grievous and great a contest. Or was there but little still lacking to the completing of his course, when that very thing was lacking wherein the enemy was destined to be fiercer and more cruel? But if for this reason he rejoiced, certain and secure, in such words — because He who had already revealed to him that this same passion was impending had also already made him certain and secure of the victory in that so great coming contest — then he spoke these things not in fullest reality but in most firm hope, and what he presumed was to come to pass he declared as though it had already been done.

If, therefore, to these words he had also added this, saying, 'I now have no sin,' we should understand this too to have been said by him not of a thing already accomplished, but of the perfection of a thing yet to come. For to have no sin belonged to the consummation of his course — which these people suppose was already completed in him when he said these things — just as to overcome the adversary in the contest of the passion also belonged to the consummation of his course, which even they must confess was still to be completed in him when he said these things. This whole matter, therefore, we say was then still to be perfected, at the very time when, already trusting beforehand in God's promise, he spoke of the whole as though it had been accomplished.

For to the consummation of his course belonged also this: that he forgave sins to those who were indebted to him, and thus prayed that they too might be forgiven him; by which promise of the Lord he was most certain that at that end — which, though still future, he already by faith spoke of as fulfilled — he would have no sin. For, to omit other things, I wonder whether, when he spoke those words by which he seemed to these people to have had no sin, there had by then been taken from him that thorn of the flesh, concerning the removal of which he had thrice asked the Lord and had received the answer: 'My grace is sufficient for you; strength is made perfect in weakness.'

For the perfecting of so great a man it was necessary that the angel of Satan should not be taken from him, by whom for this cause he was buffeted, lest he be exalted by the greatness of the revelations; and does anyone dare either to think or to say that anyone placed under the burden of this life is clean from all sin whatsoever? Though there be men so excelling in righteousness that God speaks to them out of the pillar of cloud — such as Moses and Aaron among His priests, and Samuel among those who call upon His name, whose great praises of piety and innocence the truthful Scripture proclaims from earliest childhood, from the time when his mother, paying her vow, set him in the temple of God and dedicated him as a servant to the Lord — yet even concerning such men it is written:

'Thou wast merciful to them, and taking vengeance upon all their doings.' For upon the children of damnation He takes vengeance in wrath, but upon the children of grace He takes vengeance in mercy, since 'whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.' But no vengeance, no chastisement, no scourge of God is owed save unto sin — except in the case of Him who 'was ready for the scourges,' that He might experience all things according to our likeness, yet without sin, that He might be the holy Priest of the saints, interceding even for the saints, who not falsely say even of themselves: 'Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.'

Hence even those very men who dispute against these things — though they be of chaste life and praiseworthy in their conduct, and do not hesitate to do what the Lord commanded that rich man who sought counsel for attaining eternal life (when he had answered that he had already fulfilled all the commandments of the Law), namely, that if he wished to be perfect he should sell all that he had and give to the poor and lay up his treasure in heaven — yet none of them dares to say that he is without sin. This, as we believe, they say with no deceitful mind; but if they lie, by that very fact they begin either to increase or to have sin. Now, therefore, let us consider what I set in the third place.

Since, with the divine grace assisting the human will, a man can be without sin in this life, as to why he is not, I could most easily and most truly answer: 'Because men are unwilling.' But if it be asked of me why they are unwilling, we enter upon a long matter; yet this too I will say briefly, without prejudice to a more diligent inquiry. Men are unwilling to do what is right, either because it is hidden whether it is right, or because it does not delight them. For we will each thing the more vehemently the more certainly we know how good it is, and the more ardently we delight in it. Ignorance, therefore, and weakness are the faults which hinder the will from being moved to do the good work or to abstain from the evil one.

But that what was hidden should become known, and that what did not delight should become sweet, belongs to the grace of God, by which He assists the wills of men; and that they are not assisted by it, the cause is likewise in themselves, not in God — whether they are predestined to be condemned for the iniquity of pride, or to be judged and instructed against that very pride of theirs, if they are children of mercy. Hence Jeremiah, when he had said, 'I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not his own, neither is it in a man to walk and direct his own steps,' immediately added: 'Correct me, O Lord, yet in judgment, and not in Thy fury,' as though saying: 'I know that it pertains to my correction that I am less assisted by Thee, so that my steps might be perfectly directed;

yet do not deal with me in this very matter as in the fury by which Thou hast determined to condemn the wicked, but as in the judgment by which Thou teachest Thine own not to be proud.' Hence it is said elsewhere: 'And Thy judgments shall help me.' Therefore refer the cause of no human fault to God. For the cause of all human faults is pride. To convict and to remove this, such a remedy came down from heaven: to man lifted up through pride, the humble God descended through mercy, commending a clear and manifest grace in that very Man whom He took to Himself with such great love above His fellows.

For not even He Himself — so joined to the Word of God that by that union He became one Son of God and the same one Son of Man — accomplished this by any preceding merits of His own will. For He had to be one; but there would have been two, and three, and more, if this could have come to pass not through God's own gift, but through man's free choice. This, therefore, is especially commended; this, in the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ, so far as I dare to judge, is especially taught and learned.

Therefore each one of us now knows, now knows not, now delights, now delights not, to undertake, to do, to fulfill a good work — that he may recognize that both his knowing and his delighting belong not to his own capacity but to the divine gift, and so may be healed from the vanity of self-exaltation, and may know how truly it was said, not of this earth but in a spiritual sense: 'The Lord shall give sweetness, and our earth shall yield her fruit.' And the good work delights the more, the more God is loved — the supreme and unchangeable Good, and the Author of all goods of whatsoever kind. But that God may be loved, His love is shed abroad in our hearts, not through ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit who is given to us.

But men labor to find in our will what good is ours which is not to us from God; and how it can be found, I know not. For apart from what the Apostle says, when he was speaking of the goods of men — 'For what hast thou that thou hast not received? and if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory, as though thou hadst not received it?' — the very reasoning also, which can be entered upon concerning these matters by such as we are, vehemently distresses whichever of us inquires: lest we so defend grace that we seem to take away free choice, and again, lest we so assert free choice that by proud impiety we be judged ungrateful to the grace of God.

For that saying of the Apostle which I have recalled, some have wished to defend in such a way as to say: 'Therefore whatever good will a man has must be attributed to God, because this too could not be in him if the man himself did not exist; but since, in order to be anything and to be a man, he has this only from God, why should there not be attributed to God the Author whatever of good will is also in him — which would not be, unless there were that in which it might be?' But in this manner it can also be said that an evil will too must be attributed to God the Author, because neither could it itself be in a man, unless there were a man in whom it might be. But that a man may be, God is the Author;

and so his evil will too — which could not exist at all unless it had a man in whom to be — would have to be referred to God as its Author. Which it is impious to say. Wherefore, unless we hold that not only the choice of the will (which is turned freely this way and that, and lies among those natural goods which even a wicked man can use ill), but also the good will (which is already among those goods whose use a wicked man cannot have) cannot be to us except from God, I know not how we may defend what was said: 'For what hast thou that thou hast not received?' For if there is to us from God a certain free will, which can still be either good or evil, but the good will is from ourselves, then that which is from ourselves is better than that which is from Him.

But if it be most absurd to say this, we must confess that even the good will we obtain from God. Although it would be a wonder if the will could remain in some middle position, so as to be neither good nor evil. For either we love righteousness — and it is good, and if we love it more, it is more good; if less, less good — or if we do not love it at all, it is not good. But who would hesitate to say that a will in no way loving righteousness is not only evil, but even a most wicked will? If, therefore, the will is either good or evil, and we assuredly do not have the evil from God, it remains that we have the good will from God; otherwise I know not, when we are justified by Him, in what other gift of His we ought to rejoice. And hence I think it is written:

'The will is prepared by the Lord'; and in the Psalms: 'By the Lord are the steps of a man directed, and he shall choose his way'; and what the Apostle says: 'For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, according to His good pleasure.' Wherefore, since our turning away from God is our own — this is the evil will — but our turning to God we cannot do unless He rouses and assists us — and this is the good will — what have we that we have not received? And if we have received it, why do we glory, as though we had not received it? And through this, that he who glories may glory in the Lord: that God has willed to give this to some belongs to His mercy, not to their merit; but that He has not willed to give it to others belongs to His truth.

For a just punishment is owed to sinners, since the Lord God loves mercy and truth; and: 'Mercy and truth are met together'; and: 'All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.' And who could set forth how often the divine Scripture recalls these two joined together? Sometimes even with the names changed, so that grace is put for mercy — whence it is: 'And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth' — sometimes judgment for truth, as it is: 'Mercy and judgment will I sing unto Thee, O Lord.' But why He wills to convert these, and to punish those for their turning away — since neither in bestowing a benefit does anyone justly blame the merciful, nor in exercising vengeance

does anyone justly blame the truthful — just as in those Gospel laborers, no one would justly find fault with Him who to some paid the agreed wage, and to others bestowed even what was not agreed, yet the counsel of the more hidden justice rests with Him — let us, so far as it is granted, be wise and understand, if we can, that the good Lord God for this reason sometimes does not grant even to His saints, for some righteous work, either sure knowledge or victorious delight, that they may know that the light by which their darkness is illumined is not from themselves but from Him, and the sweetness whereby their earth yields its fruit.

But when we beseech His help from Him to do and to perfect righteousness, what else do we beseech than that He open what was hidden and make sweet what did not delight? For that this too must be besought from Him, we learned by His grace, while before it lay hidden; and we loved it by His grace, while before it did not delight — so that he who glories may glory not in himself, but in the Lord. For to be lifted up into pride belongs to men's own will, not to the work of God; for God neither compels nor assists them to this. There precedes, therefore, in the will of man a certain craving after his own power, so that he becomes disobedient through pride.

But even if this craving did not exist, nothing would be troublesome; and when a man was unwilling for this, he would have been unwilling without difficulty. Yet there followed, from the owed and just punishment, such a fault that now it became troublesome to obey righteousness. And unless this fault be overcome by assisting grace, no one is converted to righteousness; unless it be healed by operating grace, no one enjoys the peace of righteousness. But by whose grace is it conquered and healed, save His to whom it is said: 'Convert us, O God of our salvation, and turn away Thine anger from us'? And if He does this, He does it in mercy, so that it is said: 'He hath not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.' And to those to whom He does it not, He does it not in judgment. And who shall say to Him:

'What hast Thou done?' — to Him, of whom mercy and judgment are sung by the pious mind of the saints? For this reason too He heals His saints and faithful ones more slowly in certain faults, so that in these things the good delights them less than suffices for the fulfilling of righteousness in every part — whether when it is hidden, or even when it is manifest — so that, as far as pertains to the most perfect rule of His truth, 'in His sight shall no living man be justified.' Nor in this very thing does He will us to be worthy of condemnation, but, making us humble, He commends to us that same grace of His, lest, having attained ease in all things, we suppose that to be ours which is His — an error much contrary to religion and piety.

Yet let us not for that reason suppose that we ought to remain in those same faults, but rather, chiefly against that very pride on account of which we are humbled in them, let us both watchfully strive and earnestly beseech Him — understanding at the same time that both our striving thus and our praying thus we have by His gift, so that in all things, not looking to ourselves but having our heart lifted up, we may give thanks to the Lord our God, and, when we glory, may glory in Him. Now there remains that fourth question, which being explained, so far as the Lord helps, this so lengthy discourse may at last reach its end: whether anyone who has never had, nor ever will have, any sin at all is not only found among those born of men, but even could ever have been, or could be.

It is most certain that such a one is none other, either is, or has been, or will be, than the one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Whence we have already said much about the baptism of little children, who, if they have no sin, then not only are there innumerable men without sin, but there have been and will be. Moreover, if that which we treated in the second place has been truly established — that no one is without sin — then assuredly not even little children are without sin. From which it is concluded that, even if anyone could have existed in this life who was so perfected in virtue that he attained to so great a fullness of righteousness that he had no sin at all, yet it is not to be doubted that he had previously been a sinner, from which he was converted into that newness of life.

For in that second place one thing was asked, and another is proposed in this fourth. For in that place this was inquired: whether anyone in this life could attain, through the grace of God by the zeal of his will, to a perfect life which is wholly without any sin; but in this fourth, this is asked: whether there is, or could have been, or could be, among the sons of men, one who came to the most perfect righteousness not from sin, but was never at all bound by any sin. Therefore, if those things are true which we have said in such abundance about little children, there is no such one among the sons of men, nor was there, nor will there be, except the one Mediator, in whom propitiation and justification are set for us, through which, the enmities of our sins being ended, we may be reconciled to God.

It is therefore not out of place, so far as seems sufficient for the present matter, to recall a few things from the very beginning of the human race, whereby the reader's mind may be instructed against certain things that might disturb it. After those first human beings — one man, Adam, and from him Eve his wife — having received God's precept, were unwilling to keep obedience, a just and owed punishment followed them. For thus the Lord had threatened: that on the day on which they should eat the forbidden food, they would die the death.

Accordingly, since they had received the power to use for food every tree that was in paradise — in which God had also planted the tree of life — but had forbidden them from that one alone which He called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (by which name was signified the consequence of experience: what good they would come to feel by keeping, and what evil by transgressing, the prohibition), they are rightly indeed understood, before the malignant persuasion of the devil, to have abstained from the forbidden food and used the permitted ones, and through this both the others and especially the tree of life.

For what is more absurd than that they should be believed to have taken nourishment from the other trees, but not also from that one which had likewise been permitted, and which by its special benefit did not allow their bodies — animal though they were — to be changed by the decay of the ages and to grow old unto death, granting this benefit to the human body out of its own body, and by a mystical signification demonstrating what was conferred, through wisdom (whose figure it bore), upon the rational soul, so that, quickened by its nourishment, it might in no way be turned into the decay and death of wickedness? For deservedly it is said of it: 'It is a tree of life to those who lay hold of it.'

Just as this tree in the corporeal, so that one in the spiritual paradise — the former offering vital vigor to the senses of the outer man, the latter to those of the inner man, without any change of time for the worse. They served God, therefore, being strongly commended by the piety of obedience, by which alone God is worshipped. How great this obedience is in itself, and how it alone suffices to preserve the rational creature under its Creator, could not have been more excellently intimated than by their being forbidden from a tree that was not evil. For far be it that the Creator of goods, who made all things — and behold, they were very good — should plant anything evil in the fertility even of that corporeal paradise.

But that it might be shown to man — for whom servitude under such a Lord was most useful — how great was the good of obedience alone, which alone He had required of His servant, whom to obey was more expedient not for the sake of His own dominion but for the benefit of the one serving, they were forbidden from that tree; which, had they used it not being forbidden, they would have suffered nothing evil at all — so that what they suffered by using it after the prohibition might sufficiently show that this was brought upon them not by a tree pernicious through harmful food, but only by obedience violated. Before, therefore, they had violated this obedience, they pleased God and God pleased them, and, although they bore an animal body, they felt nothing disobedient moving in it against themselves.

For the order of righteousness brought this about: that, since their soul had received the body as a servant from the Lord, just as the soul itself obeyed its own Lord, so its body should obey the soul and render to it a servitude befitting that life, without any resistance. Hence they were both naked and were not ashamed. For the rational soul is now put to shame with a natural modesty, because in the flesh — over whose servitude it received the right of authority — by some weakness or other it cannot bring it about that, when it does not will, the members are not moved, and when it does will, they are moved.

These parts, for this reason, are in every chaste person deservedly called 'the shameful parts' (pudenda), because against the mind their mistress, as though they were of their own power, they are aroused just as it pleases them; and the reins of virtue have this much right alone over them: that they do not allow them to arrive at unclean and unlawful corruptions. This disobedience of the flesh, therefore, which is in the very motion — even if it be not permitted to have effect — was not in those first human beings then, when they were naked and were not ashamed. For not yet had the rational soul, mistress of the flesh, stood forth disobedient to its own Lord, so as to experience, by a reciprocal punishment, its servant the flesh disobedient with a certain sense of its own confusion and trouble — which sense the soul certainly did not, by its own disobedience, bring upon God.

For it is neither shameful nor troublesome to God if we do not obey Him, whose supreme power over us we are in no way able to diminish; but it is shameful to us that the flesh does not serve our command, because this happens through the weakness which we have deserved by sinning, and it is called 'the sin dwelling in our members.' But this sin is such that it is the punishment of sin. Finally, after that transgression was committed, and the disobedient soul turned away from the law of its own Lord, its servant — that is, its body — began to have against it a law of disobedience, and those human beings were ashamed of their nakedness, having noticed in themselves a motion which they had not before felt; which noticing was called the opening of the eyes;

for they were not wandering among those trees with their eyes shut. So too it is written of Hagar: 'Her eyes were opened, and she saw a well.' Then those human beings covered their shameful parts, which God had made members for them, but they themselves made shameful. From this law of sin is born the flesh of sin, to be expiated through the sacrament of Him who came in the likeness of the flesh of sin, that the body of sin might be done away — which he also calls 'the body of this death,' from which the grace of God alone frees the wretched man, through Jesus Christ our Lord. For thus this law, the beginning of death, made its passage from them into their posterity, even as the labor by which all men labor on the earth, even as into women the bringing forth with pains.