規則之書 第 2 章 第 2/7 段

If the sons are by faith, why was the law of works given, when the promise would have sufficed for the begetting of Abraham's sons, and they should have been nourished by faith? 'Because the just lives by faith' (Rom. i, 17; Gal. iii, 11; Heb. x, 38). For before he had asked himself, 'Where then is the law of works?' he had already said that they should live who could not be justified by faith [i.e. by works], in this manner: 'But that by the Law no one is justified before God, it is evident; for the just lives by faith' (Gal. iii, 11). He shows moreover that it was said through the Prophet, 'He lives by faith,' so that it might be made plain how they should live who could not keep the Law. But it shines forth less what 'The just lives by faith' (Hab. ii, 4) means.

For no one placed under the Law could live unless he had done the works of the Law, and all the works; otherwise he would be accursed. God gave the Law and said: 'Thou shalt not covet' (Exod. xx, 17; Deut. v, 21). At once, occasion being taken, sin through the commandment worked all manner of concupiscence. For it is necessary that the passions of sins which are through the Law should work in the members of him who is under the Law. Therefore was it given: 'that sin might abound' (Rom. v, 20), because the strength of sin is the Law. But he who is sold under sin no longer works the good that he wishes, but the evil that he wishes not; for he consents to the Law according to the inner man.

But he is overcome by another law of the members, and is led captive, nor could he ever be set free except by grace alone through faith. But it is a great crime of unbelief not to have attended to the kind of arms by which the violence of sin might be overcome; and on the contrary, it is of magnificent faith to have sought out and seen them. It is therefore a sacrilegious mind, and one thinking ill of God, which, although it saw that the Law could in no way be fulfilled in a human manner and was prepared for vengeance, yet did not understand that there is some remedy of life—nor that it could have come to pass that the good God, who knew the Law could not be fulfilled, would not have left another entrance to life, and would have shut up the ways of life on every side against the men whom He had made for life. This faith did not bear, did not admit.

But when he was pressed by the weakness of the flesh and the power of sin, God gave light. Knowing that the Lord is good and just, and that He has not shut up the bowels of His compassion against the works of His own hands, he understood that there is a way to life, and he saw the remedy of fulfilling the Law. For when God said, 'Thou shalt not covet,' He did not lay bare how that might come to pass, but truly and decisively said, 'Thou shalt not covet,' because He left it to be discovered. For if He had commanded that the accomplishment be sought from Himself, He would have destroyed the Law and faith. For why would He give the Law, if He promised the Law in all the works? Or what would be left to faith, if He should anticipate faith by promising help? But now, for the good of faith, He gave the Law, the minister of death:

so that the lovers of life might see life by faith, and that the righteous might live by faith, who believed that the work of the law could be accomplished not by their own power, but by the gift of God. For the law cannot be fulfilled by the flesh; and since it has not been fulfilled, it punishes. What hope, then, is there for a man of fulfilling the law and of escaping death, except in the help and mercy of God, which faith finds? The flesh is not subject to the law of God; nor indeed can it be. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit; if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His (Rom. viii, 7, 9). He shows that the Spirit of God and of Christ is one and the same.

He shows besides that whoever has the Spirit of God is not in the flesh. If, then, the Spirit of God and of Christ is one, the prophets and saints, because they had the Spirit of God, had the Spirit of Christ. And if they had the Spirit of God, they were not in the flesh, and they fulfilled the law; for the flesh is hostile against God, and is not subject to His law. Whoever, therefore, takes refuge in God has received the Spirit of God; and when that Spirit is received, the flesh is mortified; and once the flesh is mortified, he could fulfill the law as a spiritual man, freed from the law, because for the righteous it is not laid down. And again: If you are led by the Spirit of God, you are not under the law (Gal. v, 18). Whereby it is manifest that our fathers, who had the Spirit of God, were not under the law.

For as long as anyone is in the flesh—that is, does not have the Spirit of God—the law has dominion over him. But if he has given himself over to grace, he dies to the law, and the law of the spirit operates in him, the flesh being dead, which cannot be subject to the law of God. For what was being done then is even now still being done; for it is not the case that, because we are not under the law, that prohibition against concupiscence has ceased, but rather it has been enlarged; yet we run together into revealed grace through faith, having been taught by the Lord to ask the work of the law from His mercy and to say: Thy will be done; and, Deliver us from the evil one (Matt. vi, 10, 13). But they, being driven by the fear of death into the grace not yet revealed by that same faith, beheld death threatened against them by the sword made ready through the ministry of the law.

The law was given until the seed should come, to whom the promise was made and to whom faith was to be proclaimed. But beforehand, the law constrained men toward faith; as if faith, in seeking out the grace of God, could not be expressed without the law, because sin had no power. But once the law was given, the passions which are through the law worked in our members, pressing us toward sin, so that at least by necessity we might be driven into faith, which would implore the grace of God to aid our endurance. We endured the custody of a prison, the law threatening death and encompassing us round about with an insurmountable wall, the only single gate of whose enclosure was grace. Over this gate faith presided as guard, so that no one might escape that prison except him to whom faith had opened it;

and whoever did not knock at this gate would die within the enclosures of the law. We endured the law as a schoolmaster, which compelled us to strive after faith, which drove us into Christ. For the Apostle says that the law was given for this reason, to shut us up under its custody unto faith, until such time as faith should be revealed in Christ, who is the end of the law, by whom all lived who sought out the faith of the grace of God. Before faith came, he says, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which was to be revealed. The law, therefore, was our schoolmaster in Christ (Gal. iii, 24): that we might be justified by faith. The law, I say, was the pointer to faith. But someone will say:

if the law was given for the benefit of faith, why was it not given from the very origin of Abraham's seed, since it was perpetual? Indeed, it was perpetual. Faith too is perpetual, as the mother of Abraham's children. The law also is perpetual, through the discernment of good and evil. But after the promise of Abraham's children, when they were multiplied according to the flesh, Abraham's seed too was to be multiplied, which is not of faith. This multiplication could not come about without the aid of the multiplied law, and so that the multitude might be led—as has already been said, at least by necessity—into the faith not yet revealed. By the providence of God, therefore, Abraham's seed being holy by increase and governance, that by the severity and fear of the law many might be compelled into faith, and the seed might be sustained until the revelation of faith:

But the law entered in, that sin might be multiplied. Where, he says, sin was multiplied, grace did superabound (Rom. v, 20). He did not say it was born, but that it superabounded. For from the beginning it was given to those fleeing the troubles and dominion of the law. But it abounded when the law was multiplied, and it superabounded indeed upon all flesh, being revealed in Christ. Who, coming to restore the things in heaven and the things on earth, proclaimed the good news of faith to those who were near and to those who were far off (Isa. lvii, 19; Eph. ii, 17), that is, to the sinners of Israel and to the Gentiles. For the righteous of Israel by faith were called into the same faith. For the same Spirit, the same faith, the same grace has always been given through Christ.

Coming to bring the fullness of these, He, having removed the veil of the law, lavished it upon every nation, which differed from those to come only in measure, not in kind. For otherwise Abraham's seed never existed. But if anyone has been justified apart from faith, he was not a son of Abraham. For he cannot be called a son of Abraham, if he has been justified from the law, and not as Abraham was, from faith. For the Apostle teaches that the Church has passed from the same image of grace and spirit into the very same, saying: But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of God, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory (2 Cor. iii, 18). And he says that this glory existed even before the Lord's passion, and he denies that it could be excluded—that is, expressed, produced, brought about—from the law.

Whence it is manifest that it was of faith. Where then, he says, is boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No; but by the law of faith (Rom. iii, 27, 28). For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness (Rom. iv, 3). To glory we have passed over from the same glory, which was not from the law. If it were from works, one has glory, but not toward God. For it is impossible, without the grace of God, to have any glory. For there is one glory, and it has always been of one kind. For no one has conquered, except him for whom God has conquered—which is not from the law, but is for the one who acts. But unto faith, God makes our adversary weak. Therefore, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord (1 Cor. i, 31).

For if what we conquer is not ours, it is not from works, but from faith. There is nothing, therefore, in which we may glory of ourselves. For we have nothing which we have not received. If we exist, we exist from God; so that the greatness of the power may be of God, and not of us. Our whole work is faith. And however great that faith is, just so much does God work in us. When Solomon glories in this, that man's continence was not from man but from the gift of God: When I knew, he says, that I could not otherwise be continent unless God should grant it. And this itself was a part of wisdom, to know whose gift this was: I went to the Lord, and besought Him (Wis. viii, 21).

We must believe, by the judgment of Solomon, that all were justified not from works, but from the grace of God—those who knew that the work of the law was to be fulfilled by God, whereby they might glory. And the Apostle says: That no flesh may glory in the sight of God (1 Cor. i, 29). The wicked, in every way, because they did not know God; the righteous, because the work is not their own, but God's. The useless things, he says, and the despised, God chose, the things that are not, that those which are might be brought to nothing, that no flesh might glory in the sight of God. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who has been made for you wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He who glories, let him glory in the Lord (ibid., 28-30). And again:

By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves (Eph. ii, 8). It is the gift of God, not of works, lest perhaps anyone should glory: for we are His workmanship, created in Christ. Thus no flesh can ever be justified from the law—that is, from works—so that every righteous man might have glory from God. There is another reason that no one should glory in the sight of God: for God so works in His own people that there remains something which He may forgive: For no one is clean from defilement, not even if his life be but of one day (Job xiv, 4). And David says: Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight no living man shall be justified (Ps. cxlii, 2). And Solomon, at the dedication of the temple, says: There is no man who has not sinned (1 Kings

viii, 46). And again: Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned (Ps. l, 6). For who shall boast that he has a chaste heart? Or who shall boast that he is clean from sin? It would be a small thing concerning a chaste heart—that is, free from evil thoughts—unless also no one should boast that he is clean from sin. Every victory is granted not from works, but from the pity of God, as it is written: Who crowns you in pity and mercy (Ps. ciii, 4). And the mother of the martyrs says thus to her son: That in that mercy I may receive you back with your brothers (2 Macc. vii, 29). But the righteous fulfilled the will of God by their vow and endeavor, who strive and desire to serve God, yet not under the law.

But if these things justify, all the righteous would be of equal merit, because He requires the same observance of all; otherwise, the curse would be at work. But if the merit was unequal, then each one received just so much of the grace of God's mercy as he believed was given to him, being transformed from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of God—that is, from the same into the same. For it is so, that since faith was given after Christ, just as the Holy Spirit was given, even so all the prophets and the righteous always lived by that same spirit. For they could not live otherwise than by the spirit of faith. For as many as were under the law were slain. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life (2 Cor. iii, 6). And yet the Lord says concerning that same Spirit:

Unless I go away, He will not come (John xvi, 7), although He had already given that same Spirit to the Apostles. But the Apostle says that the same Spirit was among the ancients: Having, moreover, the same spirit of faith, as it is written: I believed, therefore have I spoken (2 Cor. iv, 13). He said that the same one had the same spirit of faith who said: I believed, therefore have I spoken (Ps. cxv, 1); and he confirms this, saying: And we also believe, and therefore we also speak. By saying And we also, he shows that they too believed by the same spirit of faith. Whence it is manifest that the righteous always had these things not from the law, but from the spirit of faith. Whatever has come through the Lord is the fullness, of which a part was given through the same.

Just as a little child, who although he lacks nothing in comparison with a grown man, is nevertheless not a man, and through the growth not of new members but of those same members, the fullness of the body comes upon him, so that he becomes complete—the same one, however, who had been a little child. Indeed, the Holy Spirit was not in all before the Lord's passion; but He was in those who believed through Him while He was present, so that, with Him as conqueror and the one perfecting all things, those who were sealed might be perfected. For the righteous whom He found here had the Holy Spirit, such as Simeon and Nathanael, and Zacharias, and Elizabeth, and Anna the widow, the daughter of Phanuel. The promise is separated from the law; and since it is distinct, it cannot be mingled with it. A condition does not weaken the promise;

but we are compelled to speak of those things which we cannot hear without the fire of grief. For some say—those who do not know the firmness of the promises and the transgression which is from the law—that God indeed promised all the nations to Abraham (but with free will preserved), if they should keep the law. And although it may be profitable to lay open the perils of the inexperience of certain righteous men for the salvation of others; yet when the discourse is about almighty God, we ought to moderate what is to be said, lest by reckoning things that should be passed over in silence we recall them, and from our own mouth things, though belonging to others, be heard. Wherefore, speaking with trembling, let us leave to each one his own perils to be considered. It is manifest that God foreknew, out of free will, those whom He promised to Abraham, whether they would come to be or not. It is one of two things:

if they were to come to be, the question is settled; if they were not to come to be, the faithful God would not have promised. Or if it was thus decreed by God, then to grant the promised ones only if the promised were willing—surely He would have said it, lest His servant and believer, Abraham, be mocked, because what He promised, He is able also to perform. But that promise is one which incurs no condition. Otherwise, neither is the promise firm, nor is the faith whole. For what stable thing will remain in God's promise, or in Abraham's faith, if that which was promised and believed should depend on the will of those who were promised? Then both God promised what belonged to another, and Abraham believed incautiously. To what end also was that very promise afterward made a debt, when God said:

In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast hearkened to My voice, and hast not spared thy beloved son for My sake (Gen. xxii, 18)? Nor is it among those things in which it is easy even to clamor with calumny of free will against the merit of Abraham; for even after the death of Abraham himself, God confirms Himself a debtor to him, and declares that for his sake He will do what He was promising to his son, saying: I will be with thee, and will bless thee. For to thee and to thy seed will I give this land, and I will establish My oath which I swore to Abraham thy father, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and I will give to thee and to thy seed all the nations of the earth, because Abraham thy father hearkened to My voice (Gen. xxvi, 3-5).

Behold, the debt owed to Abraham is confirmed. For he could not, through free will, lose after death what he had merited while alive; but the nations were unwilling to believe. What shall Abraham do, to whom it is owed? How shall he receive the debt of his faith and temptation, which he was secure that God owed him? To whom if it is said: I will give what I promised, and I will repay what I swore (ibid., 3): if the nations were willing, He would not believe, but would await something fortuitous. If a condition is needed, it must be with the workman, not with the wage. For the workman can wish to receive or to refuse; the wage cannot be paid back or not paid back. For all the nations were given to Abraham as the wage of his faith, as God says: Thy reward is exceeding great (Gen. xv, 1).

For He did not promise them if they were to come to be, and not because they were to come to be. For it was not on account of Abraham's faith that it pleased God that all the nations should be saved—nations which He possessed not only before Abraham's faith, but before the foundation of the world. But He sought a faithful man to whom He might grant this, from whom should come that for which He had decreed the future. Therefore Abraham did not merit this, that those should exist who were to come to be, whom God had chosen, and whom He had foreseen would be conformed to the image of His Son. For in Genesis the Scripture testifies that all the nations were promised to Abraham according to the foreknowledge of God, saying: But Abraham shall surely become a great and numerous nation, and in him shall all the nations of the earth be blessed (Gen. xviii, 18).

He knew also that Abraham would instruct his sons and his household after him, that they should keep the ways of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, that God might bring upon Abraham whatever He had spoken to him. But we also come upon conditions, such as: If you will hear Me, and if you will be willing. Where is the foreknowledge of God, where is the firmness of the promise in conditions of this kind? The Apostle also said that the promise was given of faith, and not of the law, for this reason, that the promise might be firm (Rom. iv, 16). The law, he says, works wrath; for where there is no law, neither is there transgression (ibid., 15). Therefore of faith, that according to grace the promise might be firm to all the seed. Rightly, that the promise might be firm.

For he added: by a condition it is not firm. For it is foolish enough to believe that what is said to a body divided in two applies to the whole body. Far be it that God should say to those: If you will hear Me—those whom He knew would hear, those whom, before He made them, He knew would persevere in the image of God, those whom He also promised. A condition—that is, the law—is not given except to the wicked and to sinners: that they may either flee to grace, or be more justly punished, if they have made it void. To what end is the law for the righteous, for whom the law is not laid down, who, with God being favorable, fulfill the law without the law, who serve, who live unto the image and likeness of God and of Christ, who are good of their own will? For he who is under the law, by fear of death, is not such a one—he is not merciful, he is not the image of God.

The law displeases him; but he fears its avenger, and cannot perfect it; which he thinks must be done not by will, but by necessity. It is necessary that he be handed over to his own will; so that his will may indeed receive its reward, because he did not mingle his soul with the will of God. What God willed displeases him. For he is evil by will, who is good by necessity. The law is a hindrance to the deed, not to the will. He is not joined to God, who, if there were no penalty for evil, would pursue evil. Nor does he do the will of God, who groans that he does not do his own. He is not merciful, who fears to be cruel. He who is under the law is a slave. He does not hate theft, but dreads the punishment.

But it is necessary that he steal, being persuaded and overcome, who is carnal under the power of sin, not having the Spirit of God. But he who loves the good is the image of God, lives by the Lord's faith, and is an heir, now no longer the son of the bondwoman (Gal. iv, 30, 31), who received the law in fear; but of the free woman, according to Isaac, who did not receive the spirit of bondage in fear, but the adoption of sons, crying Abba, Father (Rom. viii, 15). He who loves God does not fear in a servile way. For it is written, servile fear is accompanied by hatred of discipline. But the children's fear is with honor of the Father. It is one thing to fear from the law, another to tremble in reverence of the awesome majesty of God. Such men are like their Father who is in heaven:

having been reminded and taught, they love the good and hate the evil. They are without the law, they are free, they themselves are the promised ones: it is not to them that it is said, If you will hear Me—for indeed He can hear: would it apply to him whom God has not yet foreseen as one who will hear? And the righteous indeed, whom God foreknew (ibid., 29), are under this law. To them also it is said: if you will hear Me; but for another cause, not because they can fail to hear, but that they may always be solicitous for their own salvation and certain of their own end. For no one is secure that he is of the number of the foreknown, since the Apostle says: Lest I myself become a castaway (1 Cor. ix, 27).

Therefore for them this law is not a worker of wrath, but an exercise of faith, whereby they may continually seek the grace of God, laboring, so that what God foresaw in them might be perfected, and they might, out of free will, have been destined unto life. Otherwise it is impossible that he should fail to hear, whom God foresaw, promised, and swore would hear. But into what part the law properly applies, although it is given to one body, the Lord declares in the Gospel, saying to the Apostles: If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I speak not of all of you: I know whom I have chosen (John xiii, 17, 18). Great brevity, which shows one body and yet distinguishes. For if He had said: I speak not of all of you; or, I speak not of all—He would not have shown one body.

But now He says, I speak not of all: He shows that even if not of all, He nevertheless spoke of them. Just as if someone should say, I did not speak of the whole of you; for two bodies are mixed together as if one, and in common, one body is praised or rebuked. As in Exodus, when a certain man, against the prohibition, had gone out on the Sabbath to gather manna, God said to Moses: How long do you refuse to hear My law (Exod. xvi, 28)? though Moses always heard. What shall we say of that law which seems openly contrary to the promise? It is written in Isaiah: If you had hearkened to Me, O Israel, your number would have been as the sand of the sea (Isa. xlviii, 18). Behold, Israel is rebuked, because by its own fault it had not become as the sand of the sea.

It remains to understand that, if he should never hear, he will always be small. And where is the firmness of the promises? But this happens because we wish to understand before believing, and to subject faith to reason. But if we believe altogether that it comes to pass just as God swore, faith will give the reason. How faithless it is to seek by reason, when we understand that the firmness of the promises is greater than the weakness we suppose. For this saying—If Israel had hearkened—is a commemoration of the righteousness of God, and a confirmation of the promises, by the disposition of God some being made unto death, but some unto life. Therefore He said to those present, If you had hearkened to Me:

so that it might be made manifest that those whom He promised should come to be as the sand, He promised for this reason: because He foresaw that they would hear. For before the Lord Christ, when this was said, was the seed of Abraham never as the sand of the sea? This is easy to prove. First, because He promised this multitude in Christ: Not in seeds, as in many, but as in one, And to thy seed, which is Christ (Gal. iii, 16). Then, because He promised all the nations, which could not come to pass before Christ. And if there was, before the Lord, a number of the sons of Israel like the sand of the sea, yet it was with false brethren, who are not the sons of Abraham. For it is not the case that, because all are from Abraham, all are sons of Abraham; or that, because they are Israel, all are Israel.

Just as the Apostle, when he wished to be anathema for Israel (Rom. ix, 3), whose was the adoption of sons and the covenants, shows that they were not such as the sons of Abraham, but that he grieved out of the affection of carnal kinship, because they were not of that very number. Not that the promise of God had failed, saying: Yet the word of God has not failed; for not all who are of Israel, these are Israel; nor because they are the seed of Abraham, are all sons; but in Isaac shall thy seed be called: that is, not those who are the children of the flesh, these are the children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for the seed (ibid., 6-8). Therefore in the ancient multitude there was no seed of Abraham, except in those who, according to Isaac, were the children of faith and of the promise.

He also brings in this example: If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved, that is, a small number (Isa. x, 22; Hos. i, 10). And, Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have been as Sodom (Isa. i, 9). Those very remnants were the seed of Abraham, lest all Judea should be as Sodom. Again, when he asserted that God had never abandoned His inheritance, but that just as at the coming of the Lord a part of Israel was saved, so it had always been. What, he says, does the divine answer say? I have left for Myself seven thousand living men, who have not bowed the knee before Baal (1 Kings xix, 18; Rom. xi, 4). So now also a remnant according to the election has been saved, by saying: