But since it was concerning the equality of sins — from which the question I was handling arose — that I had resolved to set forth my opinion for your examination, let me now at length bring it to a conclusion: that even though it be true that he who has one virtue has all, and he who lacks one has none, still the sins are not on that account equal; because, where there is no virtue, nothing indeed is right, yet not therefore is one thing not more crooked than the crooked and more distorted than the distorted.
But if — as I think to be truer and more agreeable to the sacred writings — the inclinations of souls are like the members of the body, not that they are seen in places, but that they are perceived in the affections; and one is illumined more, another less, another altogether lacks light and is overshadowed by a dark obstacle: then assuredly, just as each is affected by the illumination of pious love, more in one act, less in another, nothing in another, so may it be said that he has one virtue, has not another, and has yet another in greater or lesser degree.
For we can rightly say both 'there is greater love in this man than in that,' and 'some in this man, none in that,' as far as pertains to love, which is piety; and even in one and the same man, that he has greater chastity than patience, and greater today than yesterday, if he is making progress, and still does not have continence, and has no small measure of mercy. And, to embrace it generally and briefly — the notion I have of virtue, as it pertains to right living, is this: virtue is love, whereby that which is to be loved is loved. This is greater in some, less in others, in some none, and fullest — such as can no longer be increased — in no man so long as he lives here.
but as long as it can be increased, assuredly that which is less than it ought to be comes from vice. From which vice there is no just man on earth who shall do good and not sin; from which vice no living man shall be justified in the sight of God; on account of which vice, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us; on account of which also, however much we may have progressed, it is necessary for us to say: Forgive us our debts — even though all things in baptism, whether said, done, or thought, have been remitted. And so he sees, who sees rightly, where and when and whence that perfection is to be hoped for, to which nothing can be added.
But if there were no precepts, there would surely be nowhere for a man to examine himself more surely and to see whence he should turn away, whither he should strive, for what he should give thanks, what he should pray for. Great therefore is the usefulness of the precepts, if only so much be granted to free will that the grace of God may be the more honoured. And if these things are so, whence is it that he becomes guilty of all, if he offends in one, who shall have kept the whole law? Or is it perhaps because the fulfilling of the law is love, whereby God and one's neighbour are loved, on which precepts of love the whole law hangs, and the prophets? He rightly becomes guilty of all who acts against that on which all things hang. And no one sins except by acting against it.
For 'You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,' and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' Love of neighbour works no evil; the fulfilling of the law therefore is love. But no one loves his neighbour except by loving God, so that, as far as he can, he may spend this love upon the neighbour whom he loves as himself, in order that he too may love God. And if he himself does not love God, he loves neither himself nor his neighbour. And therefore he who shall have kept the whole law, if he offends in one point, is become guilty of all, because he acts against love, on which the whole law hangs. And so he becomes guilty of all by acting against that on which all things hang. Why then are sins not said to be equal?
Or is it perhaps because he who sins more grievously acts more against love, and he who sins more lightly acts less; and by this very fact he admits of a more and a less, so that, although he indeed becomes guilty of all, yet he who sins more grievously or in more points is more guilty, while he who sins more lightly or in fewer points is less guilty — with a guilt so much the greater the more he has sinned, so much the less the less he has sinned — and yet, even if he offends in one point, he is guilty of all, because he acts against that on which all things hang? And if these things are true, then in that same way is resolved also what the man of apostolic grace says: For in many things we all offend.
For we offend, but one more grievously, another more lightly, according as each shall have sinned more or less; so that the more one sins in committing the sin, the less he is in loving God and neighbour; and again, the less he is in the perpetration of sin, the greater he is in the love of God and neighbour; and thus he is the fuller of iniquity the emptier he is of love, and then most perfect in love, when nothing remains of infirmity. Nor indeed, in my judgment, is it to be thought a slight sin to hold the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ with respect of persons, if we refer that difference of sitting and standing to ecclesiastical honours. For who would tolerate that a rich man be chosen to a seat of honour in the church, while a poorer man, better instructed and holier, is despised?
But if he is speaking of everyday gatherings, who here does not sin — if indeed he sins — except when within himself he so judges that the other seems to him better in proportion as he is richer? For this is what he seems to have signified by saying: Have you not judged within yourselves, and become judges of evil thoughts? The law therefore of liberty is the law of love, of which he says: If, however, you fulfil the royal law according to the Scriptures, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself,' you do well; but if you accept persons, you commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors. And after that sentence most difficult to understand — of which I have said what I thought should be said — recalling the same law of liberty:
So, he says, speak and so do, as those about to be judged by the law of liberty. And since he knows what he had said a little before — that in many things we all offend — he supplies, as it were, a daily medicine of the Lord for our daily, though lighter, wounds. For judgment, he says, is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy. Hence too the Lord says: Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you; give, and it shall be given to you. But mercy exults over judgment. It is not said, 'Mercy overcomes judgment,' for it is not opposed to judgment, but 'exults over' it, because more are gathered in through mercy — yet those who have themselves shown mercy. For blessed are the merciful, for God shall have mercy on them.
And this indeed is just: that it be forgiven them because they forgave, and given to them because they gave. For in God there is both mercy in judging and judgment in showing mercy. On account of which it is said to Him: Mercy and judgment will I sing to You, O Lord. For whoever, as though excessively righteous, awaits judgment without mercy, as though secure, provokes a most just wrath, which, fearing, that man says: Enter not into judgment with Your servant. Whence it is said to a stubborn people: Why do you wish to contend with Me in judgment? For when the just King shall sit upon His throne, who shall boast that he has a chaste heart? Or who shall boast that he is clean from sin?
What hope then is there, unless mercy exults over judgment — but toward those who have shown mercy, by truly saying: Forgive us, as we also forgive, and by giving without murmuring? For God loves a cheerful giver. In short, the holy Apostle James speaks from this very passage about works of mercy, so that he may console those whom that sentence had greatly terrified, when he admonishes how even daily sins, without which one does not live here, may be expiated by daily remedies — lest a man who, when he offends in one point becomes guilty of all, by offending in many (since in many things we all offend) should carry to the tribunal of so great a Judge the great heap of his guilt, gathered together little by little, and should not find that mercy which he himself did not show —
but rather, by forgiving and giving, may merit that his debts be forgiven him and the things promised be rendered to him. Many things have I said, by which perhaps I have wearied you, who do not expect to learn these things — which nevertheless you approve — since you have been accustomed to teach them. But if there is anything in them, so far as pertains to the matters themselves — for by what style they are set forth I do not much care — if, then, there is anything in them that offends your erudition, I beg you to admonish me by writing back, and not to think it too much trouble to correct me. For unhappy is he who does not both worthily honour so great and holy labours of your studies, and give thanks for them to the Lord our God, by whose gift you are such as you are.
Whence, since I ought the more gladly to learn from anyone what to my hurt I do not know, than the more readily to teach anyone what I do know, how much the more justly do I demand of you this debt of love — you by whose teaching, in the name and with the help of the Lord, the ecclesiastical writings in the Latin tongue have been so greatly aided as they never before could be! Yet above all, if your Charity knows how that sentence — Whosoever shall have kept the whole law, but offend in one point, is become guilty of all — can be better expounded in any other way, I beseech you by the Lord, deign to share it with us. CLXVIII. To the truly most blessed lord and deservedly venerable father, Bishop Augustine, Timasius and James send greeting in the Lord.
So has the grace of God, ministered through your word, refreshed and restored us, that we may truly and fittingly say: He sent His word and healed them, O most blessed and deservedly venerable father. Indeed we find that your Holiness has sifted the text of that same little book with such diligence that we are amazed at the answers rendered to every single point — whether in those things which it befits a Christian to refute, detest, and flee, or in those in which it is found not sufficiently to have erred, although by some cunning I know not what, in these very things it thought the grace of God should be suppressed. But one thing there is that affects us in so great a benefit: that this so illustrious gift of God's grace shone forth so late, if indeed it has come about that some are made absent —
to whose blindness this illumination of so manifest a truth was owed; to whom, even if somewhat later, we do not doubt that, God being propitious, the same grace comes — He who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. But as for us, even though long ago, taught by the spirit of love which is in you, we had cast off the subjection of that error, in this too we now give thanks: that these things, which we before believed, we have now learned to open to others, a way of ease being laid open by the more abundant discourse of your Holiness. [And in another hand:] May the mercy of our God glorify your Blessedness, unharmed and mindful of us, forever. CLXIX.
If your Holiness thinks it worth so much to know those things which more occupy me, from which I am unwilling to be turned aside to anything else, send someone to copy them out for you. For already several are completed which had been begun by us this year before Easter, as Lent drew near. For to those three books On the City of God against the enemies who are worshippers of demons, we have added two others, by which five books I think enough has been argued against those who suppose the gods should be worshipped for the felicity of the present life, and who, imagining that felicity to be hindered by us, are hostile to the Christian name. Next it must be spoken, as we promised in the first book,
against those who, for the sake of the life to come after death, deem the worship of their gods necessary — that life for the sake of which we are Christians. I have also dictated an exposition of three psalms, in no small volumes: the sixty-eighth, the seventy-first, and the seventy-seventh. The rest, not yet dictated nor treated, are vehemently awaited and demanded of us. I am unwilling to be called back and delayed from these by whatever questions rushing in from the side, so that I do not even wish now to attend to the books On the Trinity, which I have long had in hand and have not yet completed, since they are exceedingly laborious and, I think, can be understood by few; whence those press the more which we hope will be useful to more.
For the Apostle did not say — as you write — 'he who is ignorant shall be held ignorant' concerning this matter, as though he is to be punished with such a penalty who is not able by understanding so to discern the ineffable unity of the Trinity as memory, understanding, and will are discerned in our mind. The Apostle was saying this on another account. Read, and you will see that he was speaking of those things which would build up the faith or the morals of the many, not of those which scarcely reach to the understanding of a few, and that a scanty understanding —
of however small a measure it can be in this life concerning so great a matter — that is, that prophecy should be preferred to tongues; that those things should not be conducted in a disorderly way, as though the spirit of prophecy compelled even the unwilling to speak; that women should keep silence in the church; that all things should be done honestly and according to order. When he was treating of these things, he says: If any man seems to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write to you are the Lord's commandment. But if any man is ignorant, he shall be held ignorant — by these words restraining and recalling to peaceful order the unquiet, who were the more prone to sedition the more they seemed to themselves to excel in spirit, while by being proud they threw everything into confusion. If any man, therefore, seems to be a prophet or spiritual,
let him acknowledge, he says, that the things I write to you are the Lord's commandment. If any man seems to be, and yet assuredly is not — for he who is, without doubt acknowledges it, and has no need of admonition and exhortation, because he judges all things and is judged by no one. Those, then, who were causing seditions and disturbances in the church were the ones who seemed to be what they were not. These he teaches to acknowledge that it is the Lord's commandment, because God is not the God of sedition but of peace. But if any man is ignorant, he shall be held ignorant — that is, he shall be disapproved. For God, if you refer it to knowledge, is not ignorant of those to whom He will say: I never knew you; but their disapproval is intimated by this word. And when the Lord says:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God — and that vision is promised to us in the end as the highest reward — it is not to be feared, if now we are not able clearly to behold what we believe concerning the nature of God, lest on that account it be said: He who is ignorant shall be held ignorant. For since in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.
This foolishness of preaching, and this foolish thing of God which is wiser than men, draws many to salvation, so that not only those who are not yet able with sure understanding to behold the nature of God, which they hold by faith, but even those who do not yet in their own soul so discern incorporeal substance from the generality of body as they are certain that they live, know, and will, may not be strangers to the salvation which that foolishness of preaching confers upon the faithful. For if Christ died only for those who can by sure understanding discern these things, we labour almost in vain in the church.
But if — as the truth has it — the weak among the believing people run to the physician to be healed through Christ, and Him crucified, so that where sin abounded, grace may much more abound: then it comes about, in wondrous ways, through the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God and through His inscrutable judgments, that both some who discern incorporeal things from bodies, when they seem great to themselves on this account and mock the foolishness of the preaching by which believers are saved, wander far from the one way which alone leads to eternal life; and many who glory in the cross of Christ and do not depart from that same way — even those who are ignorant of these things which are most subtly discussed, because not one little one perishes for whom He died — attain to that same eternity, truth,
and love — that is, to a stable, certain, and full felicity, where, to those abiding, seeing, and loving, all things are clear. Accordingly, let us believe with firm piety in one God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in such a way that neither is He believed to be the Son who is the Father, nor the Father who is the Son, nor either the Father or the Son who is the Spirit of both. Let nothing be thought to differ in this Trinity by times or places, but let these three be equal and coeternal and altogether of one nature; and that there was created no one creature different by the Father and different by the Son and different by the Holy Spirit, but that all things and each single thing which have been or are created, subsist by the creating Trinity.
Nor is anyone freed by the Father without the Son and the Holy Spirit, or by the Son without the Father and the Holy Spirit, or by the Holy Spirit without the Father and the Son, but by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit — the one true and truly immortal, that is, in every way immutable, God alone. Yet many things are also said separately in the Scriptures of the individual Persons, so that it may be intimated that the Trinity, though inseparable, is nevertheless a Trinity; so that, just as they cannot be named together when they are commemorated by bodily sounds — although they are together inseparably — so also in certain places of the Scriptures and through certain creatures they are shown singly and by turns, as the Father in the voice by which it sounded:
You are My Son; and the Son in the man whom He assumed from the Virgin; and the Holy Spirit in the bodily form of a dove. These things demonstrate those three separately indeed, but in no way separated. To understand this in some measure, we take up memory, understanding, and will. For although we enunciate these singly, one by one, at their own separate times, yet we do none of them, nor speak of them, without the other two. Nor for that reason are these three to be thought so compared to the Trinity that they should agree with it in every part; for to what likeness, in disputation, is so great a correspondence granted, that it should be fitted in every part to the thing to which it is to be applied? Or when is anything similar taken up from the creature to the Creator?
First, then, in this respect a dissimilar likeness is found, namely that these three—memory, understanding, will—are present in the soul but are not themselves the soul; whereas that other Trinity is not present in anything but is itself God. For this reason a marvelous simplicity is commended there, because in Him it is not one thing to be and another to understand, or whatever else may be said of the nature of God; but the soul, because it is even while it does not understand, is one thing in that it is, and another in that it understands.
Furthermore, who would dare to say that the Father does not understand through Himself but through the Son, just as memory does not understand through itself but through the understanding—or rather, just as the soul itself, in which these are present, understands only through the understanding, as it remembers only through memory and wills only through the will?
This likeness is therefore employed to this end: that it may in some way be understood how, just as of these three in the soul, when their several names are pronounced by which those several things are designated, yet each single name is uttered with these three working together (since it is said both by remembering and by understanding and by willing), so there is no creature by which either the Father alone, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone is manifested, which the Trinity, that works inseparably, does not work together; and hence that neither the voice of the Father, nor the soul and flesh of the Son, nor the dove of the Holy Spirit, was made except by the same Trinity working together.
Nor indeed was that sound of the voice, which straightway ceased to exist, joined into the unity of the person of the Father; nor was that bodily appearance of the dove joined into the unity of the person of the Holy Spirit: for it too, like that bright cloud which overshadowed the Savior on the mountain together with the three disciples, or rather like that fire which manifested the same Holy Spirit, once its office of signification was fulfilled, soon ceased to be.
But man alone—because all those things were done for the sake of that very nature which was to be set free—was joined into the unity of the person of the Word of God, that is, of the only-begotten Son of God, by a marvelous and singular assumption, while yet the Word remained in His own nature unchangeably, in which nothing composite is to be suspected, with which any phantasm of the human mind might coexist. It is indeed written: And the spirit of wisdom is manifold; yet it is rightly said also to be simple: manifold, because there are many things which it possesses; but simple, because it is nothing other than what it possesses—just as the Son is said to have life in Himself and is Himself that same life. But man came to the Word; the Word did not come into man by being converted into him.
And thus He is also called the Son of God together with the man who was assumed. Hence the same Son of God is unchangeable and coeternal with the Father—but in respect of the Word alone; and the Son of God was also buried—but in respect of the flesh alone. Accordingly, of the words that are said concerning the Son of God, we must see in what respect they are said. For by the taking on of the man, the number of persons was not increased, but the same Trinity remained. For just as in any man—except that one who was singularly assumed—the soul and body are one person, so in Christ the Word and the man are one person.
And just as, for example, a man is called a philosopher only in respect of his soul, yet we do not on that account speak absurdly, but by a most fitting and most customary manner of speech, when we say that the philosopher was beaten, the philosopher died, the philosopher was buried—although the whole befalls him in respect of the flesh, not in respect of that which is the philosopher—so is Christ God, Son of God, Lord of glory, and whatever of this kind is said in respect of the Word; and yet God is rightly said to have been crucified, since there is no doubt that in this He suffered in respect of the flesh, not in respect of that whereby He is the Lord of glory.
But that sound of the voice, and the bodily appearance of the dove, and the divided tongues as it were of fire which settled upon each one of them, just like those things on Mount Sinai which were done with terrible appearance, and like that pillar of cloud by day and of flame by night, were performed and passed away by a significative operation. In these things this above all is to be guarded against: that the nature of God—whether of the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit—be believed to be changeable and convertible. Nor let it disturb anyone that sometimes the thing which signifies takes the name of that thing which it signifies. The Holy Spirit is said to have descended in a bodily appearance like a dove and to have remained upon Him; for so also the rock was Christ, because it signifies Christ.
But I marvel that it seems to you that the sound of that voice by which it was said, You are my Son, could have been made thus, without the mediation of a soul, by divine command through bodily nature alone, and yet it does not seem to you that in the same way there could have been made, by divine command, the bodily appearance and lifelike motion of any living creature, with no animating spirit interposed. For if bodily creation obeys God without the service of a life-giving soul, so that sounds are produced such as are wont to be produced from an animate body, so that the form of articulate speech is conveyed to the ears, why should it not obey Him, so that without the service of a life-giving soul the figure and motions of a bird should, by the same power of the Creator, be presented to the sight?
Or can the sense of hearing merit this, while the sense of sight cannot—since both are formed from the adjacent matter of a body, both that which resounds in the ears and that which appears to the sight, both the articulations of the voice and the outlines of the limbs, both the audible and the visible motion—so that the body which is perceived by the bodily sense is true, and there is nothing more than what is perceived by the bodily sense? For the soul is perceived by no bodily sense, even in any living creature. There is therefore no need to inquire in what way the bodily appearance of the dove appeared, just as we do not inquire in what way the sounds of an articulate body resounded.
For if a soul could not be the intermediary, where a voice—not as it were a voice—is said to have been made, how much more could it be so where a dove, signified by this word, is said to have been rendered to the eyes by a bodily appearance alone, and not expressed as the nature of a living creature! In this way too is that said: There was suddenly made from heaven a sound, as of a mighty wind being borne along, and there appeared to them divided tongues as it were of fire, where a certain appearance is described as though of wind and as it were of a perceptible fire, resembling and akin to customary and familiar natures—not that those very customary and familiar natures, made for a time, seem to be signified.
But if a subtler reasoning or a more excellent investigation of the matter shows that that nature which is moved neither in time nor in place cannot be moved except through that which can be moved in time only and not in place, then it will follow that all those things were effected through the ministry of a living creature, just as things are done through the angels. It would be both lengthy and unnecessary to discuss this more diligently. To this is added that there are visions which appear to the spirit as though to the senses of the body—not only to those asleep or in a frenzy, but sometimes to those of sound mind and awake—not through the deception of mocking demons, but through some spiritual revelation, which takes place through incorporeal forms resembling bodies.
These cannot be discerned at all unless they are more fully revealed by divine aid and are judged by the understanding of the mind—scarcely ever while they occur, but for the most part afterward, when they have passed.
Since these things are so, whether they seem to appear—whether in the natures of a body, or by a bodily appearance alone but a spiritual nature—to our spirit as though to the senses of the body, when holy Scripture records these things, we ought not rashly to judge of which of these two kinds they are, and whether they occur through the mediation of a living creature, if they occur bodily; provided nevertheless that we either believe without any doubt, or grasp by whatever understanding we can, that the invisible and unchangeable nature of the Creator—that is, of the supreme and ineffable Trinity—is removed and set apart both from the senses of mortal and carnal beings and from all convertibility, whether into something better, or worse, or any other thing whatever.