Letters 157.6–157.21

For the law itself was given as a help to those who use it lawfully, so that through it they may know either what righteousness they have already received, for which to give thanks, or what is still lacking to them, for which to ask earnestly. But those who hear what the law says, "You shall not covet," in such a way that, because they have learned it, they think it sufficient for them, and do not believe and ask that strength be given them by the help of God's grace to do what is commanded, for them "the law came in so that the offense might abound," which was said of the Jews. For it is not enough that they do not fulfill what the law commanded, "You shall not covet"; they are proud besides, so that, "being ignorant of the righteousness of God," that is, the righteousness which God gives, who justifies the ungodly, "and seeking to establish their own," as if made by the strength of their own will, "they have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." He certainly came for this, that "where the offense abounded, grace might superabound." If the Jews were enemies of this grace, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, why are these people so too, if they have believed in him whom the Jews killed? Or is it so that those may receive a reward who, after Christ was killed, accused their own impiety and submitted to his grace once known, while these bear judgment who wish to believe in Christ in such a way as to try to kill his very grace?

For those who believe rightly believe in him for this purpose, that they may hunger and thirst for righteousness and be filled by his grace. For, as it is written, "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved," certainly not with bodily health, which many have even who do not call on the name of the Lord, but with that salvation of which he himself says: "It is not the healthy who need a physician but the sick"; and, explaining what he meant, he goes on: "I came," he says, "not to call the righteous but sinners." He called the righteous healthy, then, and sinners sick. Let the sick man not presume on his own strength, then, because "by the abundance of his strength he will not be saved." For if he presumes on it, let him beware lest that strength be not such as the healthy usually have, but such as the delirious usually have, who, though they are insane, think themselves healthy to the point of not seeking a physician, and even beating him as a nuisance; just as these people, with insane pride, in a way beat Christ, contending that the so kind help of his grace is not necessary for doing righteousness once the precept of the law has been given. Let them stop being insane in this way, then, and understand that they have free choice, as far as they can, not to reject help with a proud will but to call upon the Lord with a godly will.

For this free will will be the freer the healthier it is, and the healthier the more subject it is to divine mercy and grace. For it prays faithfully and says: "Direct my steps according to your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me." For how is that will free over which iniquity has dominion? But see by whom it is called upon so that iniquity may not have dominion over it. For it does not say, "I direct my steps according to free choice, because no iniquity has dominion over me," but, "Direct my steps according to your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me." It prays, it does not promise; it confesses, it does not profess; it wishes for the fullest freedom, it does not boast of its own power. For not everyone who trusts in his own strength, but "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how will they call on him," he says, "in whom they have not believed?" Those who believe rightly believe, then, so that they may call on him in whom they have believed and be able to do what they have received in the precepts of the law, since what the law commands, faith obtains.

To pass over for the moment the many precepts of the law and mention from it the one the apostle chose to mention, when the law says, "You shall not covet," what does it seem to command but restraint from unlawful desires? For the mind is carried by love as by a weight, wherever it is carried. We are commanded, then, to take away from the weight of desire what may be added to the weight of love, until the one is consumed and the other perfected; for "love is the fullness of the law." And yet see what is written about continence itself: "And when I knew," he says, "that no one can be continent unless God gives it, and this itself was a mark of wisdom, to know whose gift it was, I went to the Lord and besought him." Did he say: "And when I knew that no one can be continent except by his own free choice, and this itself was a mark of wisdom, to know that this good is from myself"? Plainly he did not say what some say in their vanity, but what was to be said in the truth of holy Scripture: "When I knew," he says, "that no one can be continent unless God gives it." God, then, commands continence and gives continence; he commands through the law, he gives through grace; he commands through the letter, he gives through the Spirit. For the law without grace makes the offense abound, and the letter without the Spirit kills. He commands, then, so that, having tried to do what is commanded and grown weary under the law in our weakness, we may know how to ask for the help of grace, and, if we have been able to do any good work, may not be ungrateful to him who helps. This is what that man did; for wisdom taught him whose gift this was.

For the choice of the will is not taken away because it is helped; rather, it is helped because it is not taken away. For whoever says to God, "Be my helper," confesses that he wishes to fulfill what God commanded, but asks help from the one who commanded so that he may be able to. So too that man, since he knew that no one can be continent unless God gives it, went to the Lord and besought him; certainly he went willingly, besought willingly, and would not have asked unless there was will. But unless he had asked, what could the will have done? For even if it could do something before it asks, what does it profit unless it gives thanks for what it can do to him from whom must be asked what it cannot yet do? Hence even one who is already continent certainly does not have continence unless the will is present; but unless he had received it, what would the will have? "For what do you have," he says, "that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" That is, why do you boast as if you had from yourself what, if you had not received it, you could not have from yourself? This was said so that "he who glories may glory" not in himself but "in the Lord," and that one who does not yet have anything to glory in may not hope for it from himself but beseech the Lord. For it is better for anyone to have less, which he asks of God, than to have more, which he attributes to himself, since it is better to rise from the bottom than to fall from the height; for, it is written, "God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble." The law, then, to the abundance of offenses, teaches us what we ought to will, unless grace helps us to be able to do what we will and to accomplish what we are able. And it will help, if we do not presume on our own strength and mind high things, but agree with the humble, give thanks for what we can already do, and for what we cannot yet do ask God humbly with a longing will, supporting our prayer with fruitful works of mercy, by giving that it may be given to us, by forgiving that we may be forgiven.

As for their saying that an unbaptized infant overtaken by death cannot perish, since it is born without sin, the apostle does not say this, and I think it better that we believe the apostle rather than them. For that teacher of the Gentiles, in whom Christ spoke, says: "Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed into all men, in whom all sinned"; and a little later he says: "For the judgment from one led to condemnation, but grace from many offenses to justification." So let these people, if they happen to find an infant not begotten from the concupiscence of that one man, say that this infant is not liable to that condemnation and need not be freed from that condemnation by the grace of Christ. For what is "from one offense to condemnation" but from that offense by which Adam offended? And what is "from many offenses to justification" but that the grace of Christ dissolves not only that one offense by which infants begotten from that one man are bound, but also the many offenses which people add by their evil conduct when they have grown up? Yet he says that even that one offense, by which the fleshly offspring that draws its origin from that first man is bound, suffices for condemnation. Therefore the baptism of little ones is not superfluous, so that those who by generation are bound to that condemnation may by regeneration be freed from the same condemnation. For just as no human being is found who is begotten according to the flesh except from Adam, so no human being is found who is spiritually regenerated except through Christ. The fleshly generation is liable to that one offense and its damnation; but the spiritual regeneration abolishes not only that one offense, on account of which infants are baptized, but many offenses which people have added by living wickedly to that in which they were begotten. Therefore he goes on to say: "For if by the offense of one death reigned through one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of righteousness reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through the offense of one it came upon all men to condemnation, so too through the justification of one it comes upon all men to justification of life; for as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one many are made righteous."

What will they say to this? Or what remains for them but to contend that the apostle erred? The chosen vessel, the teacher of the Gentiles, the trumpet of Christ, cries out: "The judgment from one led to condemnation"; and these people cry back, asserting that little ones, whom they admit derive their descent from that one man of whom he speaks, do not go into condemnation even if they have not been baptized in Christ. "The judgment," he says, "from one to condemnation." What does he mean by "from one" but "from one offense"? For there follows: "But grace from many offenses to justification." On the one side, then, the judgment leads to condemnation even from one offense; on the other, grace leads to justification even from many offenses. Therefore, if they do not dare to resist the apostle, let them explain to us why the judgment leads from one offense to condemnation, when people who are to be condemned come to judgment from many offenses. Or if they think it is said in this way because the beginning of sin was made by Adam, which the rest imitated, so that those who sinned much by imitating him were dragged in this way from that one offense to judgment and condemnation, why was it not said in the same way of grace and justification? Why did he not say likewise: "And grace from one offense to justification"? For just as people's many offenses are found in between that one which they imitated and the judgment by which they are punished (for they came from the one to the many, so as to be led from the many to judgment and damnation), so the same many offenses are in between in the same way between that one, in imitation of which they were committed, and the grace by which they are forgiven, since from that one they came to the many, so as to come from the many to the grace of justification. Since, then, in both, that is, in judgment and in grace, the reasoning is one and the same as regards the one and the many offenses, let them tell us why he said that the judgment leads from one offense to condemnation, but grace from many offenses to justification; or let them agree that it was said so because in this matter two men are set forth: Adam, from whom fleshly generation derives, and Christ, from whom spiritual regeneration. But because the former is only man, while the latter is both God and man, it is not the case that, as that generation binds with the one offense which is from Adam, so this regeneration dissolves only the one offense which is from Adam. Rather, for that generation the bond of one offense suffices for condemnation (for whatever people add afterward by their evil works does not belong to that generation but to human conduct), whereas for this regeneration it is not enough to dissolve only that offense which is drawn from Adam, but also whatever is added afterward from the wicked works of human conduct. Therefore "the judgment from one to condemnation, but grace from many offenses to justification."

"For if by the offense of one death reigned through one" (an offense from which little ones are cleansed by baptism), "much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of righteousness reign in life through the one Jesus Christ": much more, certainly, will they reign in life, because it will be the reign of eternal life, whereas death passes through them temporally and will not reign forever. "Therefore, as through the offense of one it came upon all men to condemnation" (from which condemnation little ones are to be freed by the sacrament of baptism), "so too through the justification of one upon all men to justification of life." He said "all" both here and there, not because all people come to the grace of Christ's justification, since so many, estranged from it, die forever, but because all who are reborn to justification are reborn only through Christ, just as all who are born to condemnation are born only through Adam. For no one is in that generation apart from Adam, no one in this regeneration apart from Christ; hence "all" and "all." But the same "all" he afterward calls "many," adding: "As through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so too through the obedience of one man many are made righteous." Who are the "many" but those he had a little before called "all"?

See how he commends the one and the one, that is, Adam and Christ, the former to condemnation, the latter to justification, although Christ came in the flesh so long after Adam, so that we may know that even the righteous of old, whoever they could be, were freed only through the same faith through which we too are freed, namely faith in the incarnation of Christ, which was foretold to them as it is announced to us. Therefore he here calls Christ a man, though he is also God, lest anyone think that the righteous of old could have been freed only through Christ as God, that is, through the Word which was in the beginning, and not also through faith in his incarnation, by which Christ is also called man. For that statement cannot be overthrown, of which he also says elsewhere: "Through one man came death, and through one man the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive." He certainly speaks of the resurrection of the righteous, where there is eternal life, not of the resurrection of the wicked, where there will be eternal death; that is why he says "shall be made alive," because the others will be condemned. Hence too in the old sacraments the circumcision of little ones was commanded to be done on the eighth day, since Christ, in whom takes place the stripping off of fleshly offense which circumcision signifies, rose on the Lord's day, which is the eighth after the seventh, the sabbath. This, then, was also the faith of the righteous of old. Hence the apostle too says: "Having the same spirit of faith, as it is written, 'I believed, therefore I spoke,' we too believe, and therefore we also speak." He would not say "the same spirit of faith" except to remind us that the righteous of old too had this spirit of faith, that is, of Christ's incarnation. But because to them it was foretold as future, while to us it is announced as done, and in the time of the Old Testament it was veiled, while in the time of the New Testament it is revealed, therefore its sacraments have varied, so that some were in the Old Testament and others in the New, although faith itself does not vary and is true, because "as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive."

But what he adds to the words we were discussing, saying, "But the law came in so that the offense might abound," no longer concerns that offense which is drawn from Adam, of which he said above, "Death reigned through one"; whether we understand the natural law, which appears in the ages of those who can already use reason, or the written law, which was given through Moses, since neither could give life and free from the law of sin and death which is drawn from Adam, but rather added increases of transgression; for "where there is no law," says the same apostle, "there is no transgression either." Accordingly, since there is a law also in the reason of a human being who already uses the choice of freedom, written naturally in the heart, by which it is suggested that no one should do to another any evil that he himself does not wish to suffer, according to this law all are transgressors, even those who did not receive the law given through Moses, of whom it is sung in the psalm: "I have counted all the sinners of the earth transgressors." For not all the sinners of the earth transgressed the law given through Moses; yet unless they had transgressed some law, they would not be called transgressors; for where there is no law, there is no transgression. Since the law given in paradise was transgressed, then, man is born from Adam with the law of sin and death, of which it is said: "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members." This law, unless it is afterward strengthened by bad habit, is more easily overcome, yet only by the grace of God. When the other law is transgressed, which is in the use of reason of the rational soul at the age when a person already uses reason, all the sinners of the earth become transgressors. And when even that law which was given through Moses is transgressed, the offense abounds much more. "For if a law had been given which could give life, righteousness would indeed be from the law; but Scripture has shut up all things under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe." These words, if you recognize them, are the apostle's. Of this law he says again: "The law was set up because of transgression, until the offspring should come to whom the promise was made, ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator," commending Christ. By his grace all are saved: whether little ones, from the law of sin and death with which we were born; or adults, who, using the choice of the will badly, have transgressed the natural law of reason itself; or those who received the law given through Moses and, transgressing it, were killed by the letter. But when a man transgresses even the precepts of the gospel, he stinks like one four days dead; yet even of him one must not despair, because of the grace of him who did not speak softly but cried with a loud voice: "Lazarus, come out."

"The law came in," then, "so that the offense might abound," whether when people neglect what God commands or when, presuming on their own strength, they do not implore the help of grace and add pride to weakness. But when, by the divine calling, they understand to whom they must groan, and call on him in whom they rightly believe, saying: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy," and: "I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you," and: "In your righteousness give me life," and: "Remove the way of iniquity from me, and by your law have mercy on me," and: "Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of sinners move me," and: "Direct my steps according to your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me"; "for the steps of a man are directed by the Lord, and he will delight in his way"; and many other things which were written in order to admonish us that, to fulfill what we are commanded, we must ask help from him by whom we are commanded; when, then, a man has stretched himself out toward him and has groaned in this way, there will come about what follows: "Where the offense abounded, grace has superabounded," and: "Her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much," and the love of God is poured into the heart, from which comes the fullness of the law, not through the powers of the choice that is in us but "through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." For he knew the law who said: "For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man," and yet he added: "But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Why did he not rather say "my free choice," except that freedom without the grace of God is not freedom but stubbornness?

When, then, the apostle had said, "The law came in so that the offense might abound; but where the offense abounded, grace superabounded," he went on to add: "so that, as sin reigned in death, so grace too might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Now, when he had said, "so that, as sin reigned in death," he did not say "through one man" or "through the first man" or "through Adam," because he had already said, "The law came in so that the offense might abound," and this abundance of offense does not belong to the offspring of the first man but to the transgression of human conduct, which, in later ages, out of the abundance of iniquity, has been added to that one offense by which alone infants are held bound. But since the grace of the Savior is able to dissolve all this, even what does not belong to the origin of that one offense, therefore, when he had said, "so too grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life," he added: "through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Let no one's arguments, then, put forward against these words of the apostle, hinder little ones from the salvation which is in Christ Jesus our Lord; for we ought to speak for them the more, the less they can speak for themselves. "Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed into all men, in whom all sinned." As infants cannot be exempt from that one man, so they cannot be exempt from the same sin, unless they are released from its guilt by the baptism of Christ. "For until the law sin was in the world." This was said not because afterward it was in no one, but because what could be taken away only by the Spirit of grace could not be taken away by the letter of the law. Lest anyone, then, trusting in the powers not, I say, of his will but rather of his vanity, should think that the law could suffice for free choice, and deride the grace of Christ, the apostle says: "For until the law sin was in the world; but sin was not imputed when there was no law." He did not say "it did not exist," but "it was not imputed," because there was no law by whose reproof it could be shown, whether the law of reason in a little one or the law of the letter in a people.

"But death reigned," he says, "from Adam to Moses," because not even the law given through Moses could take away the reign of death, which only the grace of Christ took away. But see over whom it reigned: "Even over those," he says, "who had not sinned, in the likeness of Adam's transgression." It reigned, then, even over those who had not sinned. But he showed why it reigned when he said, "in the likeness of Adam's transgression." For this is the better understanding of these words: that when he had said, "Death reigned over those who had not sinned," as if we were troubled why it reigned over those who had not sinned, he added, "in the likeness of Adam's transgression," that is, because there was in their members the likeness of Adam's transgression. It can also be understood thus: "Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam's transgression," because in themselves, when they had been born, they neither yet used reason, which he used when he sinned, nor had received a commandment, which he transgressed, but were held bound only by the original fault, through which the reign of death would drag them to condemnation. This reign of death is absent only in those who, reborn by the grace of Christ, belong to his kingdom; for temporal death, although it too has been propagated from the original offense, destroys the body in them but does not drag the soul to punishments, which is what he meant the reign of death to be understood as; so that the soul renewed by grace no longer dies in Gehenna, that is, is not estranged or separated from the life of God, while the temporal death of the body is left for the time being even in those who are redeemed by the death of Christ, for the exercise of faith and the contest of the present struggle, in which the martyrs too contended; but it too will be consumed in the renewal of the body which the resurrection promises. For there death will be wholly swallowed up in victory; from it the grace of Christ now takes away its reign, so that it may not drag the souls of his own to the punishments of Tartarus. Some manuscripts, indeed, do not have "over those who had not sinned" but "over those who sinned in the likeness of Adam's transgression"; but by these words this sense is in no way removed. For in this reading they are understood to have sinned in the likeness of Adam's transgression in the sense in which it was said above, "in whom all sinned." Yet more of the Greek manuscripts, from which the Scripture was translated into Latin, have the reading we gave.

As for what he added about Adam, "who is a type of the one to come," this too is not understood in only one way. For either he is a type of Christ by contrast, so that, as in him all die, so in Christ all may be made alive, and as through his disobedience many were made sinners, so through Christ's obedience many may be made righteous; or he called him a type of the one to come because he stamped the type of death on his descendants. Yet the better understanding is that he is believed to be a type by contrast, which the apostle strongly commends. Indeed, lest these contraries should be weighed as altogether equal in this type, he adds: "But not as the offense, so also the gift; for if by the offense of one many died, much more has the grace of God and the gift in the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many," so that it is understood not "to more," since the wicked who will be condemned are more numerous, but "abounded more," because in those who are redeemed through Christ the type of death from Adam is in force temporally, but the type of life through Christ will be in force forever. Although, then, he says, Adam is a type of the one to come by contrast, Christ nevertheless gives more to the regenerated than Adam had harmed the generated. "And not as through one who sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment from one led to condemnation, but grace from many offenses to justification." Not only in this, he says, is the type unequal, that Adam harmed temporally those whom Christ redeemed forever, but also because by his one offense his descendants, unless redeemed by Christ, are handed over to condemnation, whereas Christ's redemption dissolves also the many offenses which the abundance of transgressing iniquity has added to that one, of which we have already spoken above.

Do not give way to anyone against these words of the apostle and their sound understanding, if you wish to live to Christ and in Christ. For if, as they say, the apostle had mentioned these things so that we might understand that sinners belong to the first man because we sin by imitating him, not because we have contracted the offense from him by being born, he would rather have named the devil, who both sinned first and from whom the human race has drawn no propagation of substance, but whom imitation alone has followed, so that he is called the father of the impious, just as Abraham is called our father because of the imitation of his faith, not because of fleshly origin. For this is why it was said of the devil himself: "But those who are of his party imitate him." Further, if the apostle mentioned the first man in this passage because of imitation, since he was the first sinner among human beings, so as to say that all sinful human beings belong to him for that reason, why did he not name holy Abel, since he was the first righteous man among human beings, to whom all the righteous would belong because of the imitation of righteousness? But he named Adam, and set against him none but Christ, because as that man by his offense corrupted his posterity, so this God-man by his righteousness saved his inheritance: the one by transmitting the uncleanness of the flesh, which the impious devil could not do; the other by giving the grace of the Spirit, which righteous Abel could not do.