On the Spirit and the Letter 34–48

When he had said, “not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt,” see what he added: “because they did not continue in my covenant.” He attributes it to their fault that they did not remain in God's covenant, lest the law which they then received should seem to be blamed. For it is the very law which Christ came not to abolish but to fulfill; yet the ungodly are not justified by that same law, but by grace; for this is what the life-giving Spirit does, without whom the letter kills. “For if a law had been given which could give life, righteousness would certainly be from the law. But Scripture has shut up all things under sin, so that the promise might be given from faith of Jesus Christ to those who believe.” From this promise, that is, from God's benefit, the law itself is fulfilled; without this promise it makes people transgressors, either even to the effect of an evil deed, if the flame of concupiscence has leaped over the bars of fear, or at least in the will alone, if fear of punishment has overcome the sweetness of lust. For in saying, “Scripture has shut up all things under sin, so that the promise might be given from faith of Jesus Christ to those who believe,” the usefulness of this shutting up is stated. For for what purposes did it shut them up, unless as he says elsewhere, “Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up for the faith that was afterward revealed”? The law, then, was given so that grace might be sought; grace was given so that the law might be fulfilled. For it was not by its own fault that the law was not fulfilled, but by the fault of the wisdom of the flesh. This fault had to be shown by the law and healed by grace. “For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and concerning sin condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Hence also in this prophetic testimony: “I will accomplish,” he says, “upon the house of Israel and upon the house of Judah a new covenant.” What is “I will accomplish” but “I will fulfill”? “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.”

That one, then, was old because this one is new. Why, then, is that one old and this new, when the same law, which said in the old, “You shall not covet,” is fulfilled through the new covenant? “Because they,” he says, “did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord.” So, because of the guilt of the old man, which was not healed at all by the letter commanding and threatening, that covenant is called old, but this one new because of the newness of the Spirit, which heals the new man from the fault of oldness. Then pay attention to what follows, and see in how great a light that becomes clear which men who trust in themselves do not wish to look at. “For this is the covenant,” he says, “that I will make with the house of Israel: after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their heart, and I will write them in their mind.” See, this is the source of what the apostle says, which we mentioned above: “not on tablets of stone but on tablets of the heart,” because “not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.” And I think the apostle wished to mention the new covenant in that place (for there he says, “who also made us sufficient ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit”) for no other reason than that he was looking at this prophecy when he said, “not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart,” since here it is said, “I will write them in their hearts,” where the new covenant is promised by name.

What, then, are the laws of God written by God himself in hearts, if not the very presence of the Holy Spirit, who is the finger of God, by whose presence charity is poured out in our hearts, which is the fullness of the law and the end of the commandment? For the promises of the Old Testament are earthly; and although (apart from the sacraments, which were shadows of things to come, such as circumcision and the Sabbath and other observances of days and ceremonies concerning certain foods and the manifold rite of sacrifices and sacred things, which suited the carnal oldness under the law and the servile yoke) it contains such precepts of righteousness as we are now also commanded to observe, which were expressed chiefly on those two tablets without the figure of a shadowy meaning, such as, “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not covet, and any other command there is,” which is summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”; nevertheless, since in it, as I said, earthly and temporal promises are recited, which are goods of this corruptible flesh, although eternal and heavenly things belonging to the New Testament are figured by them, now the good of the heart itself is promised, the good of the mind, the good of the spirit, that is, an intelligible good, when it is said, “I will put my laws into their mind, and in their hearts I will write them.” By this he signified that they would not dread a law frightening them from outside, but would love the very righteousness of the law dwelling within.

Then he added also the reward: “And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” This is what that man says to God: “But for me it is good to cling to God.” “I will be their God,” he says, “and they shall be my people.” What is better than this good, what happier than this happiness, to live for God, to live from God, with whom is the fountain of life and in whose light we shall see light? Of this life the Lord himself says, “And this is eternal life, that they may know the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent,” that is, you and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, the one true God. For this too he himself promises to those who love him, saying, “He who loves me keeps my commandments; and he who loves me is loved by my Father, and I will love him and show myself to him”: certainly in the form of God, in which he is equal to the Father, not in the form of a servant, in which he showed himself also to the ungodly. For then will happen what is written, “Let the ungodly be taken away, so that he may not see the glory of the Lord,” when those on the left will go into eternal fire, but the righteous into eternal life. This eternal life, as I have mentioned, has been defined as this: that they may know the one true God. Hence John too says, “Beloved, we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” This likeness now begins to be re-formed, as long as the inner man is renewed from day to day according to the image of him who created him.

But in comparison with the perfection of that eminence which is to come then, what is this, or how much is it? Since the apostle, applying to those ineffable things some sort of example from things known, compared childhood with manhood: “When I was a child,” he says, “I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child; but when I became a man, I put away the things that were a child's.” And he shows next why he said this: “For now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I also am known.”

Accordingly, through this prophet whose testimony we are treating, this too is added, that in it the reward, in it the end, in it the perfection of happiness, in it the sum of the blessed and eternal life consists. For when he had said, “And I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” he at once added, “And they shall not teach each one his fellow citizen and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them.” Now it is certainly already the time of the new covenant, whose promise was made through the prophet in these words which we have mentioned from that prophecy. Why, then, does each one still say to his fellow citizen and to his brother, “Know the Lord”? Or perhaps it is not said, when the gospel is preached, and its very preaching is that this should be said everywhere? For why does the apostle call himself the teacher of the gentiles, unless because what he himself says happens: “How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? Or how do they believe him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?” Since, then, this preaching now spreads everywhere, how is it the time of the new covenant, of which the prophet said, “And they shall not teach each one his fellow citizen and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them,” unless because he joined to it, in promising, the eternal reward of the same new covenant, that is, the most blessed contemplation of God himself?

What, then, is “all, from the least to the greatest of them,” if not all who belong spiritually to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, that is, to the children of Isaac, to the seed of Abraham? For this is the promise by which it was said to him, “In Isaac shall your seed be called. For it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. For this is the word of the promise: ‘At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.’ And not only so, but also Rebecca, having conceived by one act of intercourse with Isaac our father. For concerning those not yet born, nor having done anything good or evil, so that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not from works but from him who calls, it was said to her, ‘The elder shall serve the younger.’” This is the house of Israel, or the house of Judah because of Christ, who came from the tribe of Judah: the house of the children of the promise, that is, not of their own works but of God's benefit. For God promises what he himself does; he does not promise and another do it, which would no longer be promising but predicting. Therefore “not from works but from him who calls,” lest it be theirs and not God's, lest the reward be counted not according to grace but according to debt, and so grace be no longer grace; of which the least of the apostles is a vehement defender and asserter, who labored more than all of them, yet not he, but the grace of God with him. “For all shall know me,” he says: “all,” the house of Israel and the house of Judah. “For not all who are from Israel are Israel,” but all those to whom it is said in the psalm “For the morning help,” that is, for the new light, namely of the new covenant: “All you seed of Jacob, glorify him; let all the seed of Israel fear him.” All the seed without exception, absolutely all the seed of the promised and the called, but of those who are called according to purpose. “For those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified, he also glorified.” Therefore “it is from faith, so that according to grace the promise may be firm to all the seed, not only to that which is from the law” (that is, which comes from the Old Testament to the New) “but also to that which is from faith” (not having had the law given it beforehand, but from the faith of Abraham, that is, imitators of Abraham's faith), “who is the father of us all, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations.’” All these, then, predestined, called, justified, glorified, will know God by the grace of the new covenant, from the least to the greatest of them.

Just as, then, the law of deeds written on tablets of stone, and its reward, that land of promise which the carnal house of Israel received when it had been freed from Egypt, belong to the Old Testament, so the law of faith written in hearts, and its reward, the vision of contemplation which the spiritual house of Israel, freed from this world, attains, belong to the New Testament. Then will happen what the apostle says: “Whether prophecies, they will be done away; whether tongues, they will cease; whether knowledge, it will be done away”: that knowledge, namely, of little ones, by which we live here, which is in part, through a mirror in an enigma. For because of this, prophecy is necessary, while future things still succeed past ones; because of this, tongues, that is, the multiplicity of signs, since one is reminded of one thing by this and of another by that, who does not yet contemplate the eternal light of clear truth with a mind wholly purified. But when what is perfect has come and all this which is in part has been done away, then the Word, which, having taken flesh, appeared to flesh, will show himself to those who love him; then there will be eternal life, that we may know the one true God; then we shall be like him, since then we shall know as we are known; then each one will not teach his fellow citizen or his brother, saying, “Know the Lord”; for all will know him, from the least to the greatest of them. This can be understood in many ways: either because there too each of the saints differs from another as star from star in glory (nor does it make any difference whether it is said, as it is, “from the least to the greatest,” or if it were said “from the greatest to the least”; and likewise it makes no difference even if we understand as the lesser those who have been able only to believe, and as the greater those who have been able also to understand, as far as is possible in this life, the incorporeal and unchangeable light); or he wished the lesser to be understood as those later in time and the greater as those earlier in time. For all will receive together the promised contemplation of God, since those also have foreseen something better for us, that without us they should not be made perfect; and so the earlier are found to be the lesser, as it were, since they have been put off less, as is said by way of likeness of that denarius in the gospel, which those who came later to the vineyard receive first. Or in whatever other way, which perhaps escapes me at present, the lesser and greater are to be understood.

But pay careful attention, as far as you can, to what I am striving with so much effort to show: that when the prophet promised a new covenant, not according to the covenant previously made with the people of Israel when freed from Egypt, he said nothing about a change of sacrifices or of any sacraments, although this too was without doubt going to follow, as we see it has followed, as the same prophetic Scripture testifies in many other places; but he commended only this difference, that God would put his laws into the mind of those who would belong to this covenant and would write them in their hearts (from which the apostle took “not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart”), and that the eternal reward of this justification would be, not the land from which the Amorites and Hittites and the other nations mentioned there were driven out, but God himself, to cling to whom is good, so that the good of God which they love may be God himself whom they love; between whom and men nothing separates but sins, which are forgiven only by the same grace. Hence, when he had said, “For all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them,” he soon added, “for I will be merciful to their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more.” By the law of deeds, then, the Lord says, “You shall not covet”; by the law of faith the Lord says, “Without me you can do nothing”; for he was speaking of good works, that is, of the fruit of the branches. Since, then, this difference between the old and new covenants appears, that the law is written there on tablets, here in hearts, so that what frightens from outside there delights from within here, and there one becomes a transgressor through the letter that kills, here a lover through the Spirit that gives life, it is not to be said that God helps us to work righteousness and works in us both to will and to work according to his good will because he sounds the precepts of righteousness outwardly in our senses, but because he gives the increase inwardly by pouring out charity in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

But we must see how the apostle says, “For when the gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts,” lest there seem to be no certain difference of the new covenant, in that the Lord promised that he would write his laws in the hearts of his people, since the gentiles have this by nature. This question, then, which has arisen and is no small one, must be thoroughly treated. For someone will say: “If God distinguishes the new covenant from the old in this, that in the old he wrote his law on tablets but in the new he wrote it in hearts, how are the faithful of the new covenant distinguished from the gentiles who have the work of the law written in their hearts, by which they do by nature the things of the law, as if they were already better than that old people which received the law on tablets, and prior to the new people, to whom this is granted through the new covenant which nature has already granted to these?”

Or did the apostle perhaps mention as having the law written in their hearts those gentiles who belong to the new covenant? For we must look at where he came to this from. First, commending the gospel, he says, “For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written: ‘But the righteous man lives by faith.’” Then he speaks of those ungodly people for whom, because of pride, not even the knowledge of God was of profit, since they did not glorify him as God or give thanks. From there he passes to those who judge and do such things as they condemn, surely because of the Jews, who boasted of God's law, although he does not yet name them expressly; and in this he says, “Wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and of the Greek; but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and to the Greek. For there is no respect of persons with God. For whoever have sinned without the law will also perish without the law; and whoever have sinned in the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.” To these words he joins what we are treating, and says, “For when the gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things of the law,” and the rest that I have already mentioned above. Accordingly, he does not seem to have signified here under the name of gentiles any others than those whom he signified above by the name of Greek, when he said, “to the Jew first and to the Greek.” Moreover, if the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek, and wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and to the Greek, and this Greek is signified by the name of the gentiles who do by nature the things of the law and have the work of the law written in their hearts, then certainly the gentiles in whose hearts the law is written belong to the gospel; for to them, as believers, it is the power of God for salvation. For to what gentiles doing good would he promise glory, honor, and peace, if they were placed outside the grace of the gospel? For since there is no respect of persons with God, and not the hearers of the law but the doers are justified, therefore whether Jew or Greek, that is, whoever from the gentiles believes, will equally have salvation in the gospel; “for there is no distinction,” as he says afterwards: “For all have sinned and lack the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace.” How, then, would he say that the Greek who is a doer of the law is justified without the grace of the Savior?

For he would not contradict himself in saying, “The doers of the law will be justified,” as though they were justified by works and not by grace, when he says that a man is justified freely by faith without the works of the law, and wishes nothing else to be understood by “freely” than that works do not precede justification. For he says plainly elsewhere, “If by grace, then not from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” But “the doers of the law will be justified” must be understood in such a way that we know that they are not doers of the law unless they are justified; so that justification does not come to doers, but justification precedes doers. For what else is “justified” than “made righteous,” namely by him who justifies the ungodly, so that from ungodly he may become righteous? For if we spoke in such a way as to say, “Men will be set free,” it would certainly be understood that liberation comes to those who were already men; but if we said, “Men will be created,” it would certainly not be understood that those are created who were already men, but that by the creation itself they become men. So, if it had been said, “The doers of the law will be honored,” we would rightly understand only that honor comes to those who were already doers of the law; but when it is said, “The doers of the law will be justified,” what else is said than “The righteous will be justified”? For doers of the law are certainly righteous. And so it is as much as if it were said, “The doers of the law will be created,” not because they were, but so that they may be; so that the Jews too, hearers of the law, might understand that they need the grace of the justifier in order to be able to be doers. Or else “will be justified” was said as if it were said “will be held righteous, will be counted righteous,” as it was said of a certain man, “But he, wishing to justify himself,” that is, to be held and counted righteous. Hence we say in one sense “God sanctifies his saints” and in another “Hallowed be your name”: the first because he himself makes those to be holy who were not holy; the second so that what is always holy with him may be held holy also by men, that is, may be feared with holy fear.

If, then, in mentioning the gentiles who do by nature the things of the law and have the work of the law written in their hearts, he wished those to be understood who believe in Christ, since they do not come to faith, as the Jews do, with the law given them beforehand, there is no reason why we should try to distinguish them from those to whom the Lord, promising the new covenant through the prophet, said that he would write his laws in their hearts; since they too, through the grafting which he says has been granted to the wild olive, belong to the same olive tree, that is, to the same people of God. And this apostolic testimony rather agrees with the prophetic one, so that to belong to the new covenant is to have the law of God written not on tablets but in hearts, that is, to embrace the righteousness of the law with inmost affection, where faith works through love. For God justifies the gentiles by faith, which Scripture, foreseeing, announced beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In your seed shall all the nations be blessed,” so that by this grace of the promise the wild olive might be grafted into the olive, and the believing gentiles might become children of Abraham in the seed of Abraham, which is Christ, following the faith of him who, without having received the law on tablets and not yet having circumcision itself, believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. And so what the apostle said of such gentiles, that they have the work of the law written in their hearts, will be like what he says to the Corinthians, “not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart.” For so they become of the house of Israel, when their uncircumcision is counted as circumcision, because they show the righteousness of the law not by the cutting of the flesh but keep it by the charity of the heart; since “if the uncircumcision keeps the righteous requirements of the law,” he says, “will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?” And therefore, in the house of the true Israel, in whom there is no guile, they are partakers of the new covenant, because God puts his laws into their mind and writes them in their hearts with his finger, the Holy Spirit, by whom charity is poured out there, which is the fullness of the law.

Nor should it trouble us that he said they do by nature the things of the law, not by the Spirit of God, not by faith, not by grace. For this is what the Spirit of grace does: it restores in us the image of God in which we were made by nature. For vice is certainly contrary to nature, and grace heals it, because of which it is said to God, “Have mercy on me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” Accordingly, people do by nature the things of the law; for those who do not do this fail to do it through their own vice. By this vice the law of God has been blotted out of hearts; and therefore, when the vice has been healed and the law is written there, the things of the law are done by nature, not because grace is denied through nature, but rather because nature is repaired through grace. “For through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all men, in whom all have sinned.” And therefore, since there is no distinction, they lack the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace. By this grace righteousness is written in the renewed inner man, which guilt had blotted out; and this mercy comes upon the human race through Jesus Christ our Lord. “For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

But suppose those who do by nature the things of the law are not yet to be counted among those whom the grace of Christ justifies, but rather among those, ungodly and not worshiping the true God truly and rightly, of whom we nevertheless read or know or hear certain deeds which, according to the rule of righteousness, we not only cannot blame but even rightly and justly praise (although, if one examines the end for which they are done, hardly any are found that deserve the praise or defense due to righteousness). Yet, since the image of God has not been so worn away in the human soul by the stain of earthly affections that no faint outlines, as it were, remain in it (so that it may rightly be said that even in the very ungodliness of its life it does or knows some things of the law), if this is what is meant by saying that the gentiles who do not have the law, that is, the law of God, do by nature the things of the law, and that such people are a law to themselves and have the work of the law written in their hearts (that is, what was impressed there through the image of God when they were created has not been wholly blotted out): even so, that difference by which the new covenant differs from the old will not be disturbed, namely that through the new the law of God is written in the heart of the faithful, which through the old was written on tablets. For what is written there by renewal had not been wholly blotted out by oldness. For just as the image of God itself, which ungodliness had not utterly abolished, is renewed in the mind of believers through the new covenant (for that certainly remained without which the soul of man cannot be rational), so also the law of God, not wholly blotted out there by unrighteousness, is certainly written, renewed by grace. And the law written on tablets could not produce in the Jews this writing, which is justification, but only transgression. For they too were human beings, and that power of nature was in them by which a rational animal perceives and does something lawful; but godliness, which carries one over to another life, blessed and eternal, has a spotless law that converts souls, so that they may be renewed by that light, and that it may come about in them, “The light of your face has been signed upon us, Lord.” Turning away from this, they deserved to grow old; but they cannot be renewed except by Christian grace, that is, only by the intercession of the Mediator. “For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.” If those of whom we are speaking, who in the way we have sufficiently discussed above do by nature the things of the law, are strangers to his grace, what good will their excusing thoughts do them on the day when God will judge the secrets of men, unless perhaps that they may be punished more mildly? For just as certain venial sins, without which this life is not led, do not keep a righteous man from eternal life, so some good works, without which the life of even the worst man is very rarely found, are of no avail to the ungodly for eternal salvation. Nevertheless, just as in the kingdom of God the saints differ in glory as star from star, so also in the condemnation of eternal punishment it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for another city, and some will be twice as much sons of Gehenna as others. So neither will it be without effect in God's judgment that, in the same damnable ungodliness, one has sinned more or less than another.