On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 21–37

Next he brings testimonies to show that the divine commandments are not burdensome. But who does not know that, since love is the general commandment (for the end of the commandment is love, and love is the fulfilling of the law), what is done by loving, not by fearing, is not burdensome? Those labor under God's commandments who try to fulfil them by fearing; but perfect love casts out fear and makes the burden of the commandment light, not only not pressing down with the load of its weight, but even lifting up like wings. Yet for this love to be had, even as great as it can be had in the body of this death, the choice of our will is too little unless the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord helps; for it is poured into our hearts, as must often be said, not through ourselves but through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Nor does Scripture mention that the divine commandments are not burdensome for any other reason than that the soul that feels them burdensome may understand that it has not yet received the strength by which the Lord's commandments may be such as they are commended to be, namely light and sweet, and may pray with the groaning of the will to obtain the gift of ease. For one who says, “Let my heart be without blemish,” and, “Direct my steps according to your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me,” and, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and, “Lead us not into temptation,” and other such things that it would be long to list, is certainly praying that he may do God's commandments. For their doing would neither be commanded if our will did nothing there, nor prayed for if our will alone sufficed. They are commended, then, as not burdensome, so that one to whom they are burdensome may understand that he has not yet received the gift by which they are not burdensome, and may not think he is fulfilling them when he does them in such a way that they are burdensome (for God loves a cheerful giver); and yet, when he feels them burdensome, may not be broken by despair, but may be driven to seek, ask, and knock.

Let us hear, then, God commending his commandments as not burdensome in the testimonies he put next. “That God's commandments,” he says, “are not only not impossible, but not even burdensome. In Deuteronomy: ‘And the Lord your God will turn again to delight in you for good, as he delighted in your fathers, if you listen to the voice of the Lord your God, to keep and do all his commandments and his righteous acts and judgments that are written in the book of this law; if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. For this commandment that I command you today is not burdensome, nor is it far from you. It is not in heaven, that you should say: Who will go up into heaven and get it for us, and we will hear it and do it? It is not beyond the sea, that you should say: Who will cross the sea and get it for us, and we will hear it and do it? For the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart and in your hands, to do it.’ Also the Lord in the gospel: ‘Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ Also in the letter of holy John: ‘This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not burdensome.’” Having heard these testimonies from the law, the gospel, and the apostle, let us be built up toward grace, which they do not understand who, being ignorant of God's righteousness and wishing to establish their own, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For they do not understand how the apostle Paul cited that passage from Deuteronomy: that with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; because those who are well do not need a physician, but those who are sick. Certainly by that testimony of the apostle John, which he put last for this view, where he says, “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not burdensome,” they ought to be reminded that God's commandment is not burdensome to the love of God, which is poured into our hearts only through the Holy Spirit, not through human will, to which they give more than they ought and so are ignorant of God's righteousness. Yet this love will be perfect only when all penal fear has departed.

After this he put forward testimonies that are usually cited against them, and did not resolve them, but by citing others as if contrary he tied the questions more tightly. For he says: “Testimonies of the Scriptures to be set against those who ignorantly think they can destroy freedom of choice or the possibility of not sinning by the authority of the Scriptures. For they usually object,” he says, “that holy Job said: ‘Who is clean from sin? Not even an infant whose life on earth is one day.’” Then, as if answering this testimony with other testimonies, he says that Job himself said: “For I, a righteous and blameless man, have become a laughingstock”; not understanding that a man can be called righteous who has come very near to the perfection of righteousness, so as to be close to it; which we do not deny that many have been able to do even in this life, in which one lives by faith.

This is confirmed also by that testimony, which he added next, spoken by the same Job: “Behold, I am near my judgment, and I know that I shall be found righteous.” For this is the judgment of which it is said elsewhere: “And he will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday.” Indeed he did not say, “I am there,” but, “I am near.” But if he wanted to be understood as meaning that judgment of his, not in which he himself will judge, but in which he is to be judged at the end, then in that judgment all will be found righteous who say without deceit, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” For through this forgiveness they will be found righteous, and because they have blotted out by almsgiving the sins they had here. Hence the Lord says: “Give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.” Indeed, this will be said to the righteous as they go into the promised kingdom: “For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat,” and the rest of this kind. But it is one thing to be without sin, which in this life is said of the Only-begotten alone, and another to be without complaint, which could be said of many righteous even in this life, since there is a certain measure of good living about which there can be no just complaint even in this human life. For who justly complains of a man who wishes no one ill, faithfully takes thought for whom he can, and holds no lust for revenge against anyone's injuries, so that he says truly, “As we also forgive our debtors”? And yet by the very fact that he says truly, “Forgive, as we also forgive,” he declares that he is not without sin.

That is why he says: “There was no iniquity in my hands, but my prayer was clean.” For his prayer was clean because he who truly gave pardon did not unjustly ask for it.

And when he says of the Lord, “For he has made many bruises for me without cause,” he does not say, “He made none with cause,” but “many without cause.” For the many bruises were not made for him because of many sins, but for the proving of his patience. For on account of his sins, without which, as he confesses elsewhere, he was not, he judges that he ought to have suffered fewer.

Again, when he says, “For I have kept his ways and have not turned aside from his commandments, nor will I depart from them”: he keeps God's ways who does not stray so far as to leave them, but makes progress by running in them, even if at times, being weak, he stumbles or staggers; and he makes progress by lessening his sins until he comes where he is without sin. For he cannot make progress in that way except by keeping God's ways. But the apostate turns aside and departs from the Lord's commandments, not the man who, even though he has sin, does not give up perseverance in fighting against it, until he comes where no struggle with death will remain. In this conflict, then, we are clothed with that righteousness by which one lives here by faith, and we are in a way armed with it as with a breastplate. We also take up judgment, which we exercise even against ourselves on our own behalf, when we condemn our sins by accusing them. Hence it is written: “The righteous man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech.” Hence he also says: “I was clothed with righteousness, and I put judgment around me like a cloak.” For this garment is more usually one of war than of peace, where desire is still being fought, not where righteousness will be full, without any enemy at all, when the last enemy, death, has been destroyed.

As for what the same holy Job says again, “For my heart does not reproach me in all my life”: in this life, in which we live by faith, our heart does not reproach us if that same faith, in which one believes with the heart unto righteousness, does not neglect to reproach our sin. Hence the apostle says: “For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I hate, this I do.” For it is good not to desire, and the righteous man who lives by faith wants this good; and yet he does what he hates, because he desires, although he does not go after his desires. If he did, then he himself would truly be doing it, so as to yield, consent, and obey the desire for sin. Then his heart reproaches him, because it reproaches him himself, not that sin of his which dwells in his members. But when he does not let sin reign in his mortal body so as to obey its desires, nor present his members to sin as weapons of iniquity, sin is indeed in his members, but it does not reign, because its desires are not obeyed. And so, while he does what he does not want, that is, he does not want to desire and he desires, he agrees with the law that it is good. For he wants what the law wants, since he wants not to desire, and the law says, “You shall not covet.” Since in this he wants what the law also wants, without doubt he agrees with the law; yet he desires, because he is not without sin; but it is no longer he who does it, but the sin that dwells in him. Therefore his heart does not reproach him in all his life, that is, in his faith, because the righteous lives by faith, and so his faith is his life. For he knows that good does not dwell in his flesh, where sin dwells; but by not consenting to it he lives by faith, because he calls on God to be helped as he fights against sin. That sin may not be there at all, to will is present with him, but to accomplish the good is not present. Not to do good is not present, but to accomplish it. For in not consenting he does good; in hating his desire he does good; in not ceasing to give alms he does good; in forgiving one who sins against him he does good; in asking that his debts be forgiven him, and saying truly that he himself also forgives his debtors, and praying not to be led into temptation but to be delivered from evil, he does good. Yet to accomplish the good is not present to him; that will be when that desire which dwells in his members is no more. So his heart does not reproach him when it reproaches the sin that dwells in his members and finds no unbelief of his to reproach. Thus he is neither reproached by his heart in his life, that is, in his faith, nor proved to be without sin. Job himself also confesses this of himself, where he says: “None of my sins has escaped you. You have sealed up my iniquities in a bag, and noted if I have transgressed in anything unwillingly.” The testimonies, then, that he put forward from the words of the holy man Job we have shown, as best we could, how they are to be taken. But he did not resolve what he stated that the same Job said: “For who is clean from sin? Not even an infant whose life on earth is one day.”

“Again,” he says, “they usually put forward: ‘Every man is a liar.’” Nor did he resolve this, which he himself put forward against his own side; but by citing other testimonies as if contrary, he left the divine words in dispute before those who do not understand holy Scripture. For he says: “They must be answered with what is written in the book of Numbers: ‘A truthful man’; and of holy Job we read thus: ‘There was a man living in the land of Ausis named Job, truthful, without crime, righteous, a worshiper of God, keeping himself from every evil thing.’” I am surprised that he dared to put this testimony, where it is said, “keeping himself from every evil thing,” wanting this to be understood as from every sin, when he said above that sin is an evil act, not a thing. Let him remember, then, that even if it is an act, it can be called a thing. But he keeps himself from every evil thing who either never at all consents to the sin without which he is not, or, if at times he is pressed, is not overpowered; as a stronger wrestler, even if he is sometimes held, does not for that reason lose the advantage by which he is found superior. Certainly we read of a man without crime, we read of one without complaint, but we do not read of one without sin except the Son of Man, who is one and the same, the only Son of God.

“Also,” he says, “in Job himself: ‘And wonder took hold of the truthful man’; also in Solomon, about wisdom: ‘Lying men will not remember her, but truthful men will be found in her’; also in the Apocalypse: ‘And in their mouth no lie was found; they are without spot.’” To these we too answer, pointing out how a man is to be called truthful through God's grace and truth, who by himself is without doubt a liar. Hence it is said: “Every man is a liar.” This too is what the testimony about wisdom that he himself put forward means: “But truthful men will be found in her”; who without doubt will be found to be liars not in her but in themselves; as it is said: “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” When he said “darkness,” he did not add “in the Lord”; but when he said “light,” he certainly added “in the Lord,” because they could not be light in themselves; so that “he who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.” But those in the Apocalypse are called such because no lie was found in their mouth, because they did not say that they had no sin. If they said so, they would deceive themselves and the truth would not be in them; and if the truth were not in them, a lie would be found in their mouth. And if, to avoid ill will, being without sin, they said they were not without sin, this very thing would be a lie, and what was said would be false: “No lie was found in their mouth.” So they are without spot for this reason: because, as they forgave their debtors, so they were cleansed by God's forgiving them. See, we have explained, as best we could, how the testimonies he cited for his case should be taken. But he himself did not at all resolve how what is written should be taken, “Every man is a liar,” nor will he be able to resolve it unless he corrects the error by which he believes that man can be truthful by his own will alone, without the help of God's grace.

So he put forward the next question too and did not resolve it; indeed, he increased it and made it harder by putting forward against himself a proven testimony, “There is none who does good, not even one,” and by citing testimonies as if contrary, to show that there are men who do good. This he did show; but it is one thing not to do good, and another not to be without sin, even if a man does many good things. Therefore the testimonies he put forward are not against the statement that there is no man in this life without sin. But he did not show how it was said, “There is none who does good, not even one.” For he says: “Holy David says: ‘Hope in the Lord and do goodness.’” This is a command, not a deed; and this command those were certainly not doing of whom it was said: “There is none who does good, not even one.” He also says that holy Tobit said: “Do not fear, my son; we have lived a poor life, but we have many good things if we fear God and depart from all sin and do well.” Most truly will a man have many good things when he has departed from all sin; for then he will have no evils, so that he will not need to say, “Deliver us from evil.” Yet even now everyone who makes progress with right intention departs from all sin as he progresses, and becomes the farther from it the nearer he is to the fullness and perfection of righteousness; because desire itself, which is the sin dwelling in our flesh, though it still remains in our mortal members, does not cease to be lessened in those who make progress. It is one thing, then, to be departing from all sin, which is now the work in hand, and another to have departed from all sin, which will be then, in that perfection. But neither the one who has already departed nor the one who is still departing is to be denied to do good. How, then, was it said, “There is none who does good, not even one,” which he put forward and left unresolved? Only because that psalm blames a certain people among whom there was not even one who did good, since they wish to remain sons of men and not be sons of God, by whose grace a man becomes good so as to do good. For we must take it as said here of that good of which it says there: “God looked down from heaven on the sons of men, to see if there is any who understands or seeks God.” This good, then, which is to seek God, there was none who did, not even one; but in that kind of men which is predestined to destruction. For it was on these that God's foreknowledge looked down and pronounced sentence.

“Also they say,” he says, “what the Savior says: ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.’” This proposition too he did not resolve at all, but set other testimonies against it, as if from the opposite side, to prove that man too is good. For he said the answer must be what the same Lord says elsewhere: “The good man brings forth good things from the good treasure of his heart”; and again: “Who makes his sun rise on the good and the evil.” “And elsewhere it is written,” he says, “‘Good things were created for the good from the beginning’; and again: ‘Those who are good will be inhabitants of the earth.’” He must be answered in such a way that we also understand how it was said, “No one is good but the one God.” Either it is because all things that have been created, although God made them very good, yet compared with the Creator are not good, just as compared with him they do not even exist (for most loftily, and in a way proper to himself, he said of himself, “I am who I am”); so it was said, “No one is good but the one God,” in the way that it was said of John, “He was not the light,” though the Lord calls him a lamp, as he did the disciples, to whom he said, “You are the light of the world; no one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel”; but in comparison with that light which is the true light that enlightens every man coming into this world, he was not the light. Or it is because even the sons of God themselves, compared with what they will be in that eternal perfection, are good in such a way that they are still also evil. I would not dare to say this of them (for who would dare to say that those whose father is God are evil?) were it not that the Lord himself says: “If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” When he says “your Father,” he certainly showed that they were already sons of God, yet he did not keep silent that they were still evil. But he did not resolve how these are good and yet no one is good but the one God. That is why the man who had asked what good he should do was reminded to seek him by whose grace he would be good, for whom to be good is to be himself, because, being unchangeably good, he cannot be evil at all.

“Also they say,” he says, “‘Who will boast that he has a chaste heart?’” And to this he answered with many testimonies, wishing to show that there can be a chaste heart in man; yet he does not say how what he put forward as said against him is to be taken, “Who will boast that he has a chaste heart?”, so that the divine Scripture may not seem to contradict itself in this testimony and in those by which he answered. We, answering him, say that “Who will boast that he has a chaste heart?” followed because it was preceded by: “When the righteous king sits on the throne.” For however much righteousness a man is endowed with, he ought to consider whether something may not be found blameworthy in him which he himself does not see, when the righteous king sits on the throne, from whose thought no faults can escape, not even those of which it is said, “Who understands his faults?” When, then, the righteous king sits on the throne, who will boast that he has a chaste heart, or who will boast that he is clean from sin? Unless perhaps these people, who wish to boast in their own righteousness, not in the mercy of the judge himself.

Yet the things he added in answer are also true: what the Savior says in the gospel, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”; and what David says, “Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? The innocent in hands and pure in heart”; and elsewhere, “Do good, Lord, to the good and the upright in heart”; also in Solomon, “Good is the substance of one who has no sin on his conscience”; also there, “Turn away from sin, and direct your hands, and cleanse your heart from all sin”; also in the letter of John, “If our heart does not reproach us, we have confidence toward God, and whatever we ask we shall receive from him.” For this is done by the will: by believing, hoping, loving, chastening the body, giving alms, forgiving injuries, praying earnestly, begging for strength to make progress, and saying truly, “Forgive us, as we also forgive,” and, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” This is precisely what is being done, so that the heart may be cleansed and all sin removed, and whatever the righteous judge, when he sits on the throne, finds hidden and less cleansed may be forgiven by his mercy, so that for seeing God everything may be rendered healthy and clean. For judgment is without mercy, but to one who does not show mercy; and mercy triumphs over judgment. If it were not so, what hope would there be? For when the righteous king sits on the throne, who will boast that he has a chaste heart? Or who will boast that he is clean from sin?

Then, therefore, through his mercy the righteous, fully and perfectly cleansed, will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father; then fully and perfectly the church will have no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, because then she will also be truly glorious. For since he did not say only “that he might present to himself a church having no spot or wrinkle,” but added “glorious,” he indicated clearly enough when she will be without spot and wrinkle or any such thing: certainly then, when she is glorious. For she is not to be called glorious now, amid so many evils, so many scandals, so great a mixture of the worst men, so many insults from the ungodly, because kings serve her, which is a more dangerous and greater temptation; but she will rather be glorious then, when there will happen what the same apostle says: “When Christ your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” For since the Lord himself, in the form of a servant, through which as mediator he joined himself to the church, was not glorified except by the glory of the resurrection (whence it is said, “For the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified”), how can his church be called glorious before her resurrection? He cleanses her now, then, by the washing of water with the word, washing away past sins and driving out from her the dominion of evil angels; and then, completing her healings, he makes her come to that glorious state without spot and wrinkle. For “those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” In this mystery, I think, it was said: “Behold, I cast out demons and perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I am finished,” that is, I am made perfect. For he said this in the person of his body, which is the church, putting days for distinct and ordered times, which he also signified in his resurrection on the third day.

I think there is a difference between the upright in heart and the pure in heart. For the upright in heart stretches forward to what lies ahead, forgetting what lies behind, so that by an upright course, that is, by upright faith and intention, he may arrive where the pure in heart will dwell. So the individual parts are to be assigned to the individual parts in the passage, “Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? The innocent in hands and pure in heart”: the innocent in hands will ascend, and the pure in heart will stand; the former is in the work, the latter in the goal. And in that sense it is better to understand what was said: “Good is the substance of one who has no sin on his conscience.” For then the substance will be truly good, that is, true riches, when all poverty has passed away, that is, when all infirmity has been brought to an end. But now let a man turn away from sin, when by making progress he departs from it and is renewed day by day; and let him direct his hands in works of mercy, and cleanse his heart from all sin; let him show mercy, so that what remains may be forgiven by pardon. For this is well understood, wholesomely and without vain and empty boasting, in what holy John said: “If our heart does not reproach us, we have confidence toward God, and whatever we ask we shall receive from him.” For in this place he seems to have warned that our heart should not reproach us in prayer and petition itself; that is, that when we begin to say, “Forgive us, as we also forgive,” we should not be pricked with the knowledge that we do not do what we say, or not even dare to say what we do not do, and so lose our confidence in asking.

Next he set against himself the testimony of the Scriptures that is usually cited to them: “For there is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin”; and he answered, as it were, with other testimonies, since the Lord says of holy Job: “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him on earth, a man without complaint, truthful, a worshiper of God, keeping himself from all evil.” We have already discussed this above. Yet he did not show us how Job, if these words are to be understood in his way, was without any sin on earth, and it is also true, as he said was written: “There is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin.”