Sermons to the People 153.1–153.14

We have heard, and responded in harmony, and sung to our God with one voice: “Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach from your law.” If you give silence, you will hear. Wisdom finds no place where there is no patience. We speak, but God instructs; we speak, but God teaches. For he is not called blessed whom man teaches, but “whom you instruct, O Lord.” We can plant and water: but it is God’s to give the growth. He who plants and he who waters works from outside; he who gives the growth helps from within. How difficult, how obscure, how dangerous (if it is not understood, or is misunderstood) is the reading from the holy apostle’s Epistle set before us to speak about, you heard, I think, brothers, or rather I know, when it was read with us; and you wavered, if you were paying attention; or if some of you did understand, you certainly saw how hard it is. So we have undertaken, with the help of God’s mercy, to explain in discussion this reading and the whole of this troublesome and obscure passage of the apostle’s Epistle, healthful though it is to those who understand it. I know that we are debtors to your Charity; I feel that you are exacting creditors. As we pray that you may grasp these things, so you too pray that we may be able to explain them to you. For if our prayer is in harmony, God will make you fit hearers, and us most faithful payers of this debt.

“For when we were in the flesh,” says the apostle, “the passions of sins which were through the Law were at work in our members, to bear fruit for death.” Here the apostle seems (and for those who do not understand, this is the first and great danger) to rebuke and blame the law of God. Someone says: “Far be this from the mind of any Christian whatever: who, even a madman, would dare to suspect this of the apostle?” And yet, my brothers, these words, misunderstood, have supplied tinder to the raging madness of the Manichees. For the Manichees say that the law of God given through Moses was not given by God, and they contend that it is contrary to the Gospel. And when one deals with them, they try with these testimonies of the apostle Paul, which they do not understand, to refute Catholics who do not understand them; or should I rather say, who are negligent? For it is no great matter, if anyone wants to be diligent, after hearing the heretic’s slanders, at least to look in the book at the context of the reading. If he does so, he will soon find there the means to refute the talkative adversary, to throw down the enemies and rebels against the Law. For even if he is slow to understand the apostle’s words, a clear praise of the law of God is expressed there.

First see and attend. “For when we were in the flesh,” he says, “the passions of sins which were through the Law were at work.” Here the Manichee raises his neck, lifts his horns, goes for you, charges: “See,” he says, “the passions of sins which were through the Law. How is the Law good, through which the passions of sins are in us and are at work in our members to bear fruit for death?” Read on, go forward a little, hear the whole patiently, even if not understandingly. For what he says, “The passions of sins which were through the Law were at work in our members,” is a great deal for you to understand: but first be with me a praiser of the Law, and then you will deserve to become one who understands it. Your heart is shut, and you blame the key? See, meanwhile let us set aside for a little what we do not understand, and come to the praise of the Law, which is plain. “The passions,” he says, “of sins which were through the Law were at work in our members, to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law of death, by which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” He still seems to accuse the Law, to blame it, disapprove of it, detest it: but only to those who do not understand. For when he says, “When we were in the flesh, the passions of sins which were through the Law were at work in our members, to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law of death, by which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter,” he does seem to accuse and blame the Law. He saw this himself; he saw it; he sensed that he would not be understood, and that people’s thoughts would be stirred against the obscurity of his words: he sensed what you might say, he sensed what you might object; and he chose to say it first, so that you would find nothing to say.

“What then shall we say?” he says. This follows. “What then shall we say? Is the Law sin? Far from it.” With one word he acquitted the Law and condemned the Law’s accuser. You were bringing the apostle’s authority against me, O Manichee, and saying to me as you found fault with the Law: “See, hear the apostle, read the apostle: The passions of sins which were through the Law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law of death, by which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” You were boasting, shouting, saying, “Hear, read, see”: you had said this, and now you wanted to turn your back and go. Wait: I have heard you; hear me: or rather, neither I you nor you me, but let us both hear the apostle together, who frees himself and binds you. “What then shall we say?” he says. “Is the Law sin?” This is what you were saying, “The Law is sin”; this is surely what you were saying. See, you have heard what you were saying: hear what you should say. You said that the law of God was sin, when, blind and heedless, you found fault with it. You were wrong: Paul saw your error. What you were saying, he said himself. “What then shall we say? Is the Law sin?” Are we saying what you were saying, “The Law is sin”? “Far from it.” If you were following the apostle’s authority, weigh the word and take counsel from it. Hear: “Is the Law sin? Far from it.” Hear: “Far from it.” If you follow the apostle, if you value his authority most highly, hear “Far from it”; and let what you thought be far from you. “What then shall we say?” What shall we say, because I said, “The passions of sins which were through the Law were at work in our members, to bear fruit for death”; because I said, “We have been released from the Law of death, by which we were held”; because I said, “that we may serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter”? “Is the Law sin? Far from it.” Why then, apostle, did you say such great things?

Far be it that the Law should be sin. “But I did not know sin,” he says, “except through the Law. For I did not know desire, unless the Law had said, You shall not desire.” Now I ask you, Manichee, now I ask you: answer me. Is the Law evil which says, “You shall not desire”? Not even some debauched and worthless man would answer me so. For even outrageous men blush when they are rebuked, and when they are among the chaste they do not dare to be wanton. If, then, you say that the Law is evil which says, “You shall not desire,” you want to desire with impunity; you accuse the Law because it strikes at lust. My brothers, if we did not hear the apostle saying, “Is the Law sin? Far from it,” but only quoting the words of the Law, where it is said, “You shall not desire,” then even if he did not praise the Law, we ought still to praise it: to praise it, and to accuse ourselves. See the Law; see, from above the divine trumpet cries to man, “You shall not desire.” “You shall not desire”: find fault with it if you can; do it, if you cannot find fault with it. You have heard, “You shall not desire”: you do not dare to find fault with it. Because what it said, “You shall not desire,” is good, desiring is evil. The Law blames evil; the Law forbids you your own evil. So the Law blames the evil of desiring; the Law forbids you your own evil. So do what the Law commands; do not do what the Law forbids: do not desire.

But what does the apostle say? “I did not know desire, unless the Law had said, You shall not desire.” For I went after my desire and ran where it dragged me, and I thought its pleasant enticements, delightful with carnal sweetness, a great happiness. “For the sinner is praised,” the Law says, “in the desires of his soul, and he who does wicked things is blessed.” You find a man pursuing his carnal desires and giving himself over to them wholly as their slave, hunting pleasures everywhere, committing fornication, getting drunk; I say no more: committing fornication, I say, getting drunk. I have named these things, which are committed lawfully, but not by God’s laws. For who was ever brought before a judge because he entered a harlot’s brothel? Who was ever accused in the public courts because he melted away, wanton and unclean, among his harp-girls? Who that had a wife was ever found guilty of a crime because he defiled his slave-girl? But that is in the forum, not in heaven; in the law of the world, not in the law of the world’s Creator. And the debauched, unclean, wanton man is called happy, abounding in pleasures, enjoying delights. Now if he also gorges himself with wine, if he drinks measures without measure, it is not enough that he is charged with no crime; he even gets the name of a strong man: the more wicked, the more unconquered over his cup. When these things are praised, and it is said, “He is happy, he is great, he is doing well,” and not only is this not thought to be sin, but it is even thought to be a gift of God, or at least a sweet, pleasant, and lawful good, the law of God comes forward and says, “You shall not desire.” That man, who thought it a great good and reckoned it a great happiness not to deny his desire whatever he could, but to follow where it dragged him, hears, “You shall not desire”; and he recognizes that it is sin. God spoke, man heard, believed God, saw his sin; what he thought good he recognized to be evil: he wanted to rein in his desire, not to go after it; he held himself in, he tried, he was conquered. He who before was ignorant of his evils was made knowing, and, worse, was conquered: he began to be not only a sinner but also a transgressor. For he was a sinner before too; but before he heard the Law he did not know he was a sinner. He heard the Law, saw his sin; he tried to conquer, was overcome and thrown down; and he who before was an unknowing sinner became also a transgressor of the Law. This is what the apostle says: “Is the Law sin? Far from it. But I did not know sin except through the Law. For I did not know desire, unless the Law had said, You shall not desire.”

“But sin, taking occasion through the commandment, worked in me every desire.” Desire was less when before the Law you sinned without a care; but now, with the barriers of the Law set against you, the river of desire was checked a little, as it were, not dried up: but as its force grew, the river which used to carry you along with no barriers has overwhelmed you, bursting the barriers. Your desire was less when it stirred your lust; but it is complete when it overleaps even the Law. Do you want to know how great it is? See what it has burst through: “You shall not desire.” Not a man said it; God said it, the Creator said it, the eternal Judge said it; not just anyone said it. So do what he said. You do not do it? Watch out for the judge who said it. But what are you to do, O man? You did not conquer because you presumed on yourself.

So attend now to the earlier words, which seemed obscure: “For when we were in the flesh.” Attend to the words I spoke of earlier, with which the reading that seemed obscure began: “For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins which were through the Law.” How were they through the Law? Because we were in the flesh. What is “because we were in the flesh”? We presumed on the flesh. For had the apostle who was speaking already left this flesh, or was he speaking to those who had already left this flesh by death? Certainly not; according to the manner of this life, both the one who spoke and those to whom he spoke were in the flesh. What then is “When we were in the flesh,” but “when we presumed on the flesh,” that is, trusted in ourselves? For it was said to man, and said of men, “All flesh will see the salvation of God.” What is “All flesh will see,” but “Every man will see”? And what is “The Word was made flesh,” but “The Word was made man”? For it is not that the Word and flesh were there and no soul was there: but by the name of flesh man is meant in what we read, “The Word was made flesh.” So “when we were in the flesh,” that is, when we lived in the desires of the flesh and placed all our hope there, as if in ourselves, “the passions of sins which were through the law” were increased through the law. For by forbidding they made a transgressor of the law, because he who was made a transgressor did not have God as his helper. So they “were at work in our members, to bear fruit”: for whom, but for death? If the sinner was to be condemned, what hope has the transgressor?

So, O man, your desire conquered you; it conquered because it found you in a bad place: it found you in the flesh; that is why it conquered you. Move from there: why are you alarmed? I did not tell you to die. Do not be alarmed because I said, Move out of the flesh. I did not tell you to die; or rather, I dare to say it, I did tell you to die. “If you have died with Christ, seek the things that are above.” Living in the flesh, do not be in the flesh. “All flesh is grass, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” Let the Lord become your refuge. Desire presses on, urges you, has gained great strength against you; by the prohibition of the Law it has grown greater, you suffer a greater enemy: let the Lord be your refuge, “a tower of strength against the face of the enemy.” So do not be in the flesh; be in the spirit. What is “be in the spirit”? Put your hope in God. For if you put your hope in the very spirit by which you are a man, your spirit slips back again into the flesh, because you have not given it to him on whom it may hang. It does not hold itself up if it is not held up. Do not remain in yourself; pass beyond yourself too: place yourself in him who made you. For if you place your hope in yourself, having received the Law you will be a transgressor. The enemy finds you bare of refuge and attacks you: see that he does not seize you like a lion, with no one to rescue. Attend to the words of the apostle praising the Law, accusing himself, making himself guilty under the Law, and perhaps taking your person upon himself, and saying to you: “I did not know sin except through the Law. For I did not know desire, unless the Law had said, You shall not desire. But sin, taking occasion through the commandment, worked in me every desire. For without the law sin was dead.” What is “was dead”? It lies hidden, it does not appear at all; it is unknown, as if buried. “But when the commandment came, sin revived.” What is “revived”? It began to appear, began to be felt, began to rebel against me.

“But I died.” What is “I died”? I became a transgressor. “And the commandment that was for life was found by me.” See how the Law is praised: “the commandment that was for life.” For what a life it is, not to desire! O sweet life! The pleasure of desire is sweet indeed: that is true; nor would people follow it unless it were sweet. The theater, the show, the wanton harlot, the most shameful song: these sweet things belong to desire; plainly sweet, pleasant, delightful. But “the wicked have told me of delights, but not like your law, O Lord.” They are pleasant, they are sweet, they are delightful: but hear of better things: “The wicked have told me of delights, but not like your law, O Lord.” Happy the soul delighted by delights of this kind, where it is defiled by no foulness and is cleansed by the serenity of truth. But whoever is delighted by the law of God, and so delighted that it conquers all the delights of wantonness, let him not claim this delight for himself: “The Lord will give sweetness.” What shall I say? “Lord, give me that sweetness,” or the other? “You are sweet, O Lord, and in your sweetness teach me your righteous decrees.” In your sweetness teach me, and you do teach me. Then I learn so as to do it, if you teach me in your sweetness. Otherwise, as long as iniquity flatters and iniquity is sweet, truth is bitter. “In your sweetness teach me”: so that truth may be sweet, and iniquity despised through your sweetness. Truth is much better and sweeter; but bread is sweet to the healthy. What is better and more splendid than heavenly bread? But only if iniquity does not set the teeth on edge. For Scripture says: “As an unripe grape is harmful to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes, so is iniquity to those who practice it.” What does it profit that you praise the bread, if you live badly? What you praise you do not eat. So when you hear the word, when you hear the word of righteousness and truth and praise it, it is much more praiseworthy if you do it. So do what you praise. Or will you say: “I want to, but I am not able”? Why are you not able? Because there is no health. How did you lose your health, but by offending the Creator by sinning? So that you may eat his bread, which you praise, with sweetness, that is, with health, say to him: “I said, O Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” “So,” he says, “the commandment which was for life was found by me to be for death.” For before he was a sinner unknown to himself; he became a manifest transgressor. See, what was for life was found by him to be for death.

“But sin,” he says, “taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.” So it happened first in paradise: “It deceived me,” he says, “taking occasion through the commandment.” See the serpent whispering to that woman. He asked her what God had said: she answered, “God said to us: Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. If you eat of it, you will surely die.” This is God’s commandment. Against it the serpent: “You will not,” he says, “surely die. For God knew that on the day you eat, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods.” So “sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.” With the sword you were carrying the enemy killed you; with your own weapons he conquered you, with your own weapons he slew you. Take back the commandment: know that it is weapons, not for him to kill you with, but for you to kill the enemy with. But do not presume on your own strength. See little David against Goliath; see the little one against the giant, but presuming on the name of the Lord. “You come to me,” he says, “with shield and spear; I in the name of the Lord almighty.” So, so, and not otherwise: in no other way at all is the enemy thrown down. He who presumes on his own strength is thrown down before he fights.

See, nevertheless, beloved, see again and again that the apostle Paul, against the madness of the Manichees, is a most open praiser of the divine law; see what he adds: “So the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.” Can it be praised more richly? A little before, with the word “Far from it,” he had defended it from the charge; he had not praised it. It is one thing to defend from a charge brought, another to proclaim with due praise. The charge brought was: “What then shall we say? Is the Law sin?” The defense: “Far from it.” With one word the truth is defended, because the authority of the apostle who defends it is great. Why should he defend it at length? It is enough: “Far from it.” “Do you want proof,” he says, “of Christ who speaks in me?” But now: “So the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.”

“Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Far from it.” For death is not good. “But sin, so that it might appear sin, worked death for me through what is good.” Death is not the law; but sin is death. He had said a while ago: “Without the law sin was dead.” There I pointed out to you that he said “was dead” meaning that it lies hidden and does not appear. Now see how truly this was said: “Sin,” he says, “so that it might appear sin.” He did not say, “so that it might be,” because it existed even when it did not appear. “Sin, so that it might appear sin.” What is “so that it might appear sin”? Because “I did not know desire, unless the Law had said, You shall not desire.” He does not say, “I did not have desire,” but, “I did not know desire.” So here too he does not say, “so that it might be sin,” but, “so that sin might appear, it worked death for me through what is good.” What death? “So that the sinner, or sin, might become beyond measure through the commandment.” Notice: “beyond measure a sinner.” Why beyond measure? Because now there is transgression as well. “For where there is no law, there is no transgression.”

See, then, brothers, see that the human race has flowed from that first death of the first man. For “sin entered this world through the first man, and through sin death, and so it passed through to all men.” “It passed through”: attend to the word you have heard; consider, see what “it passed through” means. “It passed through”: hence even the little child is guilty; he has not yet committed sin, but he has contracted it. For that sin did not remain at its source, but passed through: not to this one or that one, but it passed through to all men. The first sinner, the first transgressor, begot sinners liable to death. The Savior came from a virgin to heal them. He came to you, but not by the way you came: for he was not from the desire of man and woman, not from that bond of desire. “The Holy Spirit,” it says, “will come upon you.” This was said to a virgin, said to one fervent in faith, not to one burning with fleshly desire: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” What woman would have such an overshadowing while she burned with the heat of lust? So because he did not come to you by the way you came, he sets you free. Where did he find you? Sold under sin, lying in the death of the first man, drawing the sin of the first man, having guilt before you could have choice. See where he found you, when he found you a little child. But you have passed the age of a little child: see, you have grown up, you have added many sins to the first sin; you have received the law, you have become a transgressor. But do not be anxious: “Where sin abounded, grace abounded the more.” Turning to the Lord, and so on.