Retractations 1.22–1.26

While I was still a presbyter, it happened that at Carthage the apostle's letter to the Romans was read among us who were together, and when I was asked certain things by some brothers and answered as I could, they wanted what I was saying to be written down rather than poured out without writing. When I complied with them, one book was added to my earlier small works. In this book I said: “But what he says, ‘We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal,’ shows clearly enough that the law cannot be fulfilled except by spiritual people, such as the grace of God makes.” I certainly wished this to be taken not as spoken in the person of the apostle, who was already spiritual, but of a man placed under the law, not yet under grace. For so I first understood these words, which afterward, having read certain commentators on the divine oracles whose authority moved me, I considered more carefully, and I saw that what he says, “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal,” can be understood of the apostle himself too; which I have shown as carefully as I could in those books which I recently wrote against the Pelagians. In this book, then, I said that both this which is said, “But I am carnal,” and then the rest up to the place where he said, “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” describe a man still placed under the law, not yet under grace, wishing to do good but, overcome by the lust of the flesh, doing evil. From the domination of this lust nothing sets him free but the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord by the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom the love poured out in our hearts overcomes the lusts of the flesh, so that we do not consent to them to do evil but rather do good. By this indeed the Pelagian heresy is already overturned, which holds that the love by which we live well and devoutly is not from God for us but from ourselves. But in those books which we published against them we have shown that these words are better understood also of a spiritual man, already placed under grace, because of the body of flesh, which is not yet spiritual but will be in the resurrection of the dead, and because of the very lust of the flesh, with which the saints so contend, not consenting to it for evil, that nevertheless in this life they are not without those movements which they resist as they fight against them. They will not have them, however, in that life where death will be swallowed up in victory. Because of this lust, then, and its movements, which are resisted in such a way that they are still in us, any saint already placed under grace can say all those things which I said were the words of a man not yet placed under grace but under the law. To show this here would take long, and where I showed it has been said. Likewise, when I was discussing what God chose in the one not yet born, to whom he said that the elder would serve him, and what he rejected in that same elder, likewise not yet born (concerning whom, for this reason, the prophetic testimony is recalled, although uttered much later, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated”), I carried the reasoning to the point of saying: “God did not, then, choose anyone's works in foreknowledge, which he himself is going to give; but he chose faith in foreknowledge, so that the one whom he foreknew would believe in him, him he chose, to give him the Holy Spirit, so that by doing good works he might also attain eternal life.” I had not yet inquired diligently enough nor yet found what the election of grace is, of which the same apostle says, “A remnant has come into being through the election of grace”; which certainly is not grace if any merits precede it, lest what is given be rendered to merits according to debt rather than given according to grace. Accordingly, what I said immediately afterward, “For the same apostle says, ‘The same God who works all things in all’; but nowhere is it said, ‘God believes all things in all’,” and then went on, “What we believe, therefore, is ours; but what good we do is his who gives the Spirit to those who believe,” I certainly ought not to have said, had I already known that faith itself also is found among the gifts of God which are given in the same Spirit. Both, then, are ours because of the choice of the will, and yet both are given because of the spirit of faith and charity. For not charity alone but, as it is written, “charity with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” And what I said a little later, “For it is ours to believe and to will, but his to give to those who believe and will the capacity to do good through the Holy Spirit, through whom charity is poured out in our hearts,” is indeed true; but by the same rule both are also his, because he prepares the will, and both are ours, because they do not happen unless we will. And thus what I also said afterward, “Because we cannot even will unless we are called; and when after the calling we have willed, our will and our running are not enough unless God both supplies strength to those who run and leads them where he calls”; and then added, “It is clear, therefore, that it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy, that we do good,” is altogether most true. But I discussed too little the calling itself, which takes place according to God's purpose; for such is not the calling of all who are called, but only of the elect. And so what I said a little later, “For just as in those whom God has chosen faith begins merit, so that by the gift of God they do good, so in those whom he condemns unbelief and ungodliness begin the merit of punishment, so that through that punishment they also do evil,” I said most truly; but that the merit of faith itself is also a gift of God I neither thought needed inquiring into nor said. And in another place I said: “For the one on whom he has mercy he makes to do good, and the one whom he hardens he leaves to do evil. But that mercy is granted to the preceding merit of faith, and this hardening to preceding ungodliness.” This is indeed true; but it still remained to be asked whether the merit of faith also comes from God's mercy, that is, whether that mercy is shown in a man only because he is a believer, or whether it was also shown so that he might be a believer. For we read the apostle saying, “I obtained mercy so that I might be faithful”; he does not say, “because I was faithful.” To the believer, then, it is indeed given, but it was also given so that he might be a believer. Most rightly, therefore, I said in another place in the same book: “Since, if not from works but by the mercy of God we are both called so that we may believe, and it is granted to believers that we may do good, this mercy is not to be begrudged to the Gentiles”; although there I treated too little of that calling which takes place by God's purpose. This book begins thus: “These are the thoughts in the Epistle of Paul to the Romans…”

After this book I explained the same apostle's letter to the Galatians, not piecemeal, that is, leaving some things out, but continuously and the whole of it; and I contained this exposition in one volume. In it, what was said, “The earlier apostles, then, are truthful, who were sent not from men but from God through a man, that is, through Jesus Christ while still mortal; truthful also is the last apostle, who was sent through Jesus Christ, now wholly God after his resurrection,” was said “now wholly God” because of the immortality which he began to have after the resurrection, not because of the divinity, always immortal, from which he never departed, in which he was wholly God even when he was still going to die. What follows makes this sense plain. For I went on to say: “The others are the earlier apostles, through Christ still partly man, that is, mortal; the last is the apostle Paul, through Jesus Christ now wholly God, that is, immortal in every respect.” For I said this in explaining what the apostle says, “not from men nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father,” as though Jesus Christ were no longer a man. For there follows, “who raised him from the dead,” so that it might appear from this why he said “nor through a man.” Accordingly, because of immortality, Christ God is now no longer man; but because of the substance of human nature, in which he ascended into heaven, he is even now “the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” since he will come in the same way as those saw him who saw him going into heaven. Likewise what I said, “It is the grace of God by which sins are forgiven us, so that we may be reconciled to God; but peace, by which we are reconciled to God,” is to be taken in such a way that we nevertheless know that both belong to the general grace of God; just as among the people of God Israel in the specific sense is one thing and Judah another, and yet both in the general sense are Israel. Likewise, when I was explaining, “What then? The law was set forth because of transgression,” I thought it should be punctuated so that the question was “What then?” and then the answer, “The law was set forth because of transgression.” This indeed is not far from the truth; but this punctuation seems better to me: that the question is “What then is the law?” and the answer follows, “It was set forth because of transgression.” As for what I said, “And so he adds most fittingly, ‘But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not still under the law,’ so that we may understand that those are under the law whose spirit so lusts against the flesh that they do not do what they will, that is, they do not keep themselves unconquered in the love of righteousness but are overcome by the flesh lusting against them,” this comes from that view by which I thought that what is said, “The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to one another, so that you do not do what you will,” belongs to those who are under the law, not yet under grace. For I had not yet understood that these words fit those too who are under grace, not under the law, for this reason: that they too, although they do not consent to the lusts of the flesh against which they lust with the spirit, would nevertheless prefer not to have them if they could. Not therefore do they not do whatever they will, but because they will to be without them and cannot. For they will not have them then, when they no longer have corruptible flesh either. This book begins thus: “The reason why the apostle writes to the Galatians is this…”

I had also undertaken an exposition of the letter to the Romans, as of that to the Galatians. But this work, if it were completed, would have run to several books, of which I finished one on the discussion of the greeting alone, that is, from the beginning up to where he says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” For it happened that we lingered when we wished to solve the very difficult question that came up in our discourse about the sin against the Holy Spirit, which is not forgiven either in this age or in the age to come. But then I ceased adding other volumes to explain the whole letter, deterred by the size and labor of the work itself, and slipped away into other, easier works. So it came about that I left alone the book I had made first, whose title I chose to be An Unfinished Exposition of the Letter to the Romans. In it, what I said, that grace is in the forgiveness of sins and peace in reconciliation with God, wherever I said this, is not to be taken as though peace itself and reconciliation do not belong to grace in general, but that by the name of grace in the specific sense he signified the remission of sins; just as we speak of the law in the specific sense, according to what is said, “the law and the prophets,” and in the general sense, so that the prophets too are included in it. This book begins thus: “In the letter which the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans…”

There is also among the things we have written a certain long work, which is nevertheless counted as one book, whose title is On Eighty-Three Different Questions. These had been scattered over many sheets, since from the very first time of my conversion, after we came to Africa, they were dictated without any order kept, as I was asked by the brothers when they saw me at leisure; and when I was already a bishop I ordered them to be collected and made into one book, with numbers added, so that whoever wishes may easily find what he wants to read. The first of these questions is: Whether the soul exists of itself. The second: On free choice. The third: Whether man becomes worse by God's agency. The fourth: What is the cause of man's becoming worse. The fifth: Whether an irrational animal can be happy. The sixth: On evil. The seventh: What is properly called soul in a living being. The eighth: Whether it is moved by itself. The ninth: Whether truth can be perceived by the senses of the body. In it, what I said, “Everything which the bodily sense touches, which is also called sensible, changes without any interval of time,” is without doubt certainly not true of the incorruptible bodies of the resurrection; but now no sense of our body touches them, unless perhaps something of the kind is revealed by divine power. The tenth: Whether the body is from God. The eleventh: Why Christ was born of a woman. In the twelfth place, where the title is “The opinion of a certain wise man,” it is not mine; but because it became known through me to certain brothers who at that time happened to be consulting these matters most diligently, and it pleased them, they wished to write it among ours. It is by a certain Fonteius of Carthage, On Purifying the Mind to See God; he wrote it while a pagan, but died a baptized Christian. The thirteenth: By what proof it is established that men excel beasts. The fourteenth: That the body of our Lord Jesus Christ was not a phantom. The fifteenth: On the intellect. The sixteenth: On the Son. The seventeenth: On God's knowledge. The eighteenth: On the Trinity. The nineteenth: On God and the creature. The twentieth: On the place of God. The twenty-first: Whether God is not the author of evil. Here one must see that what I said is not misunderstood: “He is not the author of evil, because he is the author of all things that exist, since insofar as they exist they are good”; and that it should not be thought from this that the punishment of the wicked is not from him, which is certainly an evil to those who are punished. But I said this in the way in which it was said, “God did not make death,” whereas elsewhere it is written, “Death and life are from the Lord God.” The punishment of the wicked, then, which is from God, is indeed an evil to the wicked, but it is among the good works of God, since it is just that the wicked be punished, and certainly everything that is just is good. The twenty-second: That God is not subject to necessity. The twenty-third: On the Father and the Son. There I said that he begot wisdom, from which he is called wise; but I treated this question better afterward in the book On the Trinity. The twenty-fourth: Whether both sin and right action lie in the free choice of the will. That this is so is altogether most true; but in order that it may be free for acting rightly, it is set free by the grace of God. The twenty-fifth: On the cross of Christ. The twenty-sixth: On the difference of sins. The twenty-seventh: On providence. The twenty-eighth: Why God willed to make the world. The twenty-ninth: Whether there is anything above or below in the universe. The thirtieth: Whether all things were created for the use of man. The thirty-first is not mine either, but Cicero's; but because this too became known to the brothers through me, they wrote it among those which they were collecting, wishing to know how the virtues of the soul were divided and defined by him. The thirty-second: Whether one person understands a thing more than another, and so the understanding of the same thing goes on to infinity. The thirty-third: On fear. The thirty-fourth: Whether nothing else is to be loved than to be free from fear. The thirty-fifth: What is to be loved. In it, what I said, that what is to be loved is that which to have is nothing else than to know, I do not sufficiently approve. For those did not lack God of whom it was said, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” and yet they did not know him, or did not know him as he is to be known. Likewise what I said, “No one, then, knows the happy life and is miserable,” I said “knows” in the way it is to be known. For who of those, at least, who already use reason, is wholly ignorant of it, since they know that they want to be happy? The thirty-sixth: On nourishing charity. There I said: “When God and the soul are loved, it is properly called charity, most purified and perfected, if nothing else is loved.” If this is true, how does the apostle say, “No one ever hated his own flesh,” and from this admonish that wives be loved? But it was said “is properly called” for this reason, that the flesh is indeed loved, yet not properly, but for the sake of the soul, for whose use it suffices. For even if it seems to be loved for its own sake, when we do not wish it to be misshapen, its beauty must be referred to something else, namely to him from whom all things are beautiful. The thirty-seventh: On the one always born. The thirty-eighth: On the conformation of the soul. The thirty-ninth: On food. The fortieth: Since the nature of souls is one, whence the different wills of human beings? The forty-first: Since God made all things, why did he not make them equal? The forty-second: How the Wisdom of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, was both in his mother's womb and in heaven. The forty-third: Why the Son of God appeared in a man and the Holy Spirit in a dove. The forty-fourth: Why the Lord Jesus Christ came so long afterward. There, when I recalled the ages of the human race as of one man, I said: “Nor was it fitting that the teacher from God, by imitation of whom it would be formed in the best morals, should come except in the time of its youth”; and I added that what the apostle says applies to this: “under the law as under a tutor, guarding little ones.” But one may be troubled why we said elsewhere that Christ came in the sixth age of the human race, as in its old age. This, then, which was said of youth refers to the vigor and fervor of faith, which works through love; that about old age, to the number of the times. For both can be understood in the whole of humanity, as they can in the ages of individuals; just as in the body youth and old age cannot be at the same time, but in the soul they can, the one because of its eagerness, the other because of its gravity. The forty-fifth is against the astrologers. The forty-sixth is on the Ideas. The forty-seventh: Whether we can at some time see our thoughts. There, as for what I said, “Angelic bodies, such as we hope to have, must be believed to be most luminous and ethereal,” if this is taken as without the members which we now have and without the substance of flesh, although incorruptible, it is an error. This question of seeing our thoughts, however, has been treated much better in the work On the City of God. The forty-eighth: On things to be believed. The forty-ninth: Why the children of Israel offered visible sacrifices of animal victims. The fiftieth: On the equality of the Son. The fifty-first: On man made in the image and likeness of God. There, what is it that I said, “Man, namely, is not rightly called life, since even a man's corpse is called man”? I ought at least to have said “is not properly called” where I said “is not rightly called.” Likewise I said: “Nor is it unskillfully distinguished that the image and likeness of God is one thing and ‘in the image and likeness of God’ another, as we have received that man was made in the image.” This is not to be understood as though man is not called the image of God, since the apostle says, “A man indeed ought not to veil his head, since he is the image and glory of God”; but he is also said to be made in the image of God, which is not said of the Only-begotten, who is only the image, not in the image. The fifty-second: On what was said, “I repent that I made man.” The fifty-third: On the gold and silver which the Israelites received from the Egyptians. The fifty-fourth: On what is written, “It is good for me to cling to God.” There, what I said, “But what is better than every soul, that we call God,” ought rather to have been said, “better than every created spirit.” The fifty-fifth: On what is written, “There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and young maidens without number.” The fifty-sixth: On the forty-six years of the building of the temple. The fifty-seventh: On the hundred and fifty-three fish. The fifty-eighth: On John the Baptist. The fifty-ninth: On the ten virgins. The sixtieth: “But of the day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven nor the Son of Man, but the Father alone.” The sixty-first: On what is written in the Gospel, that the Lord fed the crowds on the mountain with five loaves. There, what I said, “The two fish signify those two persons, the royal and the priestly, to which that sacred anointing also belonged,” should rather have been said “belonged especially,” since we read that prophets too were sometimes anointed. Likewise I said: “Luke, who presented Christ as a priest ascending after the abolition of sins, ascends to David through Nathan, because the prophet Nathan had been sent, by whose rebuke David obtained the abolition of that sin by repenting.” This is not to be taken as though the Nathan who was David's son was himself the prophet; for it was not said here, “because he himself had been sent as a prophet,” but “because the prophet Nathan had been sent,” so that the mystery is to be understood not in the same man but in the same name. The sixty-second is on what is written in the Gospel, that Jesus baptized more than John, although he himself did not baptize, but his disciples. There, as for what I said, “that thief to whom it was said, ‘Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise,’ who had not received baptism itself,” we find indeed that other rulers of the holy church before us have set this down in their writings too; but by what proofs it can be shown that that thief was not baptized, I do not know. This matter has been discussed more carefully in certain later works of ours, especially in what we wrote to Vincentius Victor on the origin of the soul. The sixty-third: On the Word. The sixty-fourth: On the Samaritan woman. The sixty-fifth: On the raising of Lazarus. The sixty-sixth: On what is written, “Or do you not know, brothers (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?” up to the place where it is written, “He will give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you.” There, wishing to explain what the apostle says, “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal,” I said: “That is, I consent to the flesh, not yet set free by spiritual grace.” This is not to be taken as though a spiritual man already placed under grace could not say this too of himself, and the rest up to the place where it is said, “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?” This I learned afterward, as I have already confessed above. Again, explaining what the apostle says, “The body indeed is dead because of sin,” I said, “He calls the body dead as long as it is such that the need of temporal things troubles the soul.” But afterward it seemed better to me that the body was called dead for this reason, that it already has the necessity of dying, which it did not have before sin. The sixty-seventh is on what is written, “For I consider that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, which will be revealed in us,” up to what is said, “For in hope we have been saved.” There, when I was explaining what is written, “And the creature itself will be set free from the slavery of corruption,” I said: “And the creature itself, that is, man himself, when, having lost the seal of the image because of sin, he remained only a creature.” This is not to be taken as though man lost entirely what he had of the image of God. For if he had not lost it at all, there would be no reason to say, “Be reformed in the newness of your mind,” and, “We are transformed into the same image”; but again, if he had lost it entirely, nothing would remain from which it could be said, “Although man walks in the image, yet he is disquieted in vain.” Likewise what I said, that the highest angels live spiritually but the lowest animally, was said more boldly about the lowest than can be shown either by the holy Scriptures or by the facts themselves; for even if perhaps it can be, it can only with the greatest difficulty. The sixty-eighth is on what is written, “O man, who are you to answer back to God?” There I said: “Because even if anyone, with lighter sins, or certainly with graver and many, has become worthy of God's mercy through much groaning and the pain of repentance, it will not be his own doing (for if he were left alone he would perish) but that of God who has mercy, who comes to the aid of his prayers and pain. For it is little to will unless God has mercy; but God, who calls to peace, does not have mercy unless the will has gone before toward peace.” This was said of what follows repentance. For there is also a mercy of God which goes before the will itself; if it did not exist, the will would not be prepared by the Lord. To that mercy belongs also the calling itself, which goes before even faith. When I treated of it a little later, I said: “But this calling, which works through suitable times either in individual human beings or in peoples and in the human race itself, will belong to a lofty and deep ordering. To this belongs also: ‘In the womb I sanctified you,’ and, ‘When you were in your father's loins I saw you,’ and, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated,’” and so on; although I do not know from where that testimony, “When you were in your father's loins I saw you,” came to my mind as though it were written. The sixty-ninth is on what is written, “Then the Son himself also will be subject to him who subjected all things to him.” The seventieth, on what the apostle says, “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your strife? Where, O death, is your sting? But the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” The seventy-first, on what is written, “Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.” The seventy-second, on eternal times. The seventy-third, on what is written, “And found in appearance as a man.” The seventy-fourth, on what is written in Paul's letter to the Colossians, “In whom we have redemption in the remission of sins, who is the image of the invisible God.” The seventy-fifth, on the inheritance of God. The seventy-sixth, on what the apostle James says, “Do you want to know, O empty man, that faith without works is idle?” The seventy-seventh, on fear, whether it is a sin. The seventy-eighth, on the beauty of images. The seventy-ninth: Why Pharaoh's magicians did miracles as Moses, the servant of God, did. The eightieth, against the Apollinarians. The eighty-first, on the forty and the fifty. The eighty-second, on what is written, “For whom the Lord loves he corrects, and he scourges every son whom he receives.” The eighty-third, on marriage. This work begins thus: “Whether the soul exists of itself.”

Likewise I wrote a book On Lying, which, although it is understood with some labor, nevertheless offers a not unprofitable exercise of intelligence and mind, and helps morals still more toward loving truthful speech. I had decided to remove this too from my small works, because it seemed to me obscure and intricate and altogether troublesome, for which reason I had not even published it. Then, when I later wrote another, whose title is Against Lying, I had all the more decided and ordered that this one should not exist; but it was not done. And so in this review of my small works, when I found it intact, I directed that it too, having been reviewed, should remain, especially because there are some necessary things in it which are not in the other. The title of that one is Against Lying, and of this one On Lying, for this reason: that through the whole of that one there is an open attack on lying, while a great part of this one is taken up with discussion and inquiry; yet both are directed to the same end. This book begins thus: “There is a great question about lying.”