Letters 121.8–121.9

What is meant by what the apostle writes to the Romans: "But sin, taking occasion through the commandment, worked in me all concupiscence"? — Let us set out the whole testimony and, discussing each point with Christ's help, simply indicate what we think, not prejudging what you may wish to understand, but briefly explaining our own view. "What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Far from it. But I did not know sin except through the law. For I would not have known concupiscence unless the law had said, You shall not covet. But sin, taking occasion through the commandment, worked in me all concupiscence. For apart from the law sin was dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; and the commandment that was for life was found to be for me unto death. For sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Did what is good, then, become death to me? Far from it. But sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I do, I do not know. For I do not do what I want, but what I hate, that I do. But if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. For to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good is not. For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want, that I do. But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, when I want to do good, that evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man; but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and making me captive in the law of sin that is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Just as medicine is not the cause of death if it points out deadly poisons, although wicked men abuse them for death, either killing themselves or plotting against enemies, so the law was given to show the poisons of sins and, with the bridle of the law, to hold back man, who abuses his freedom and formerly was carried along heedlessly and slipped down a steep way, and to teach him to walk with ordered steps, so that we may serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter, that is, may live under a precept, we who formerly, like brute animals, said, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." But if, when the law has come in, teaching what we ought to do and forbidding what we ought not to do, we are carried against the law's decrees by our vice and incontinence, the law seems to be the cause of sin, since, while it forbids concupiscence, it is known in a certain way to inflame it. There is a worldly saying among the Greeks: "Whatever is permitted is less desired." Conversely, then, whatever is not permitted receives fuel for desire. Hence Tullius too says that Solon wrote nothing about the punishment of parricides among the Athenians, lest he seem not so much to forbid as to suggest it. So among those who despise the law and trample on its precepts the law seems to be an occasion of offenses, since by forbidding what it does not want done it binds with the chains of commandments those who formerly, sinning without law, were not held liable for crimes. We have said this understanding "the law" as the law given through Moses. But since in what follows it is written of the law of God, and of the law of the flesh and of the members, which fights against the law of our mind and leads us captive in the law of sin, and I see four laws fighting against each other written in one place, I think it not without purpose to inquire how many kinds of law are mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. The law given through Moses is so called, according to what is written to the Galatians: "For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written: Cursed is everyone who does not remain in all things written in the book of the law, to do them." And again in the same letter: "The law was set down because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made, ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator." And again: "So the law was our pedagogue in Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith came, we are no longer under a pedagogue. For you are all sons of God through faith, which is in Christ Jesus." History too, which contains no precepts but relates what was done, is called law by the apostle: "Tell me, you who want to be under the law, have you not heard the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free. But the one by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, and the one by the free through promise." The psalms too are called law: "That the word written in their law might be fulfilled: They hated me without cause." The apostle also calls the prophecy of Isaiah law: "In the law it is written: In other tongues and with other lips I will speak to this people, and even so they will not hear me, says the Lord"; I have found this written in Isaiah according to the Hebrew and Aquila. The mystical understanding of the Scriptures is also called law: "We know that the law is spiritual." And besides all these, the same apostle teaches a natural law written in our hearts: "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; they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing them witness." This law written in the heart embraces all nations, and there is no human being who does not know this law. Hence the whole world is under sin and all human beings are transgressors of the law, and therefore the judgment of God is just, who writes in the heart of the human race: "What you would not have done to you, do not do to another." Who does not know that murder, adultery, theft, and every concupiscence are evil, from the fact that he would not want them done to himself? For if he did not know them to be evil, he would never grieve when they were inflicted on him. Through this natural law Cain too recognized his sin, saying, "My guilt is too great for me to be forgiven." Adam and Eve recognized their sin and therefore hid under the tree of life. Pharaoh too, before the law was given through Moses, spurred by the law of nature, confesses his crimes and says, "The Lord is just, but I and my people are ungodly." This law childhood does not know, infancy is ignorant of it, and, sinning without a commandment, it is not held by the law of sin. It curses its father and strikes its parents, and because it has not yet received the law of wisdom, sin is dead in it. But when the commandment comes, that is, the time of understanding, which seeks good and avoids evil, then sin begins to revive, and he dies and becomes guilty of sin. And so it happens that the time of understanding, in which we know God's commandments so as to reach life, works death in us if we act negligently, and the occasion of wisdom seduces us, trips us up, and leads us to death; not that understanding is sin (for the law of understanding is holy and just and good), but through understanding sins and virtues sin is born in me, which, before I understood, I did not know to be sin. And so it came about that what was given to me for good is changed by my fault into evil, and (to speak hyperbolically and use a new word to explain my meaning) sin, which before I had understanding was without sin, through transgression of the commandment begins to be for me "more sinful." We first ask what this concupiscence is of which the law says, "You shall not covet." Some think it is the commandment written in the Decalogue, "You shall not covet your neighbor's property." But we think that by concupiscence are meant all the disturbances of the soul by which we grieve and suffer, fear and desire. And the apostle, the vessel of election, whose body was the temple of the Holy Spirit and who said, "Or do you seek proof of Christ, who speaks in me?" and in another place, "Christ has redeemed us," and again, "I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me," does not speak of himself, but of one who after sinning wishes to repent, and in his own person describes the frailty of the human condition, which suffers the wars of two men, the inner and the outer, fighting each other. The inner man agrees with both the written and the natural law that it is good and holy and just and spiritual; the outer says: "I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I do, I do not know, and I do not do what I want, but what I hate." But if the outer man does what he does not want and works what he hates, he shows that the commandment is good and that it is not he who works what is evil, but sin dwelling in his flesh, that is, the incitements of the body and the desires of pleasure, which were implanted in human bodies for the sake of posterity and offspring and, if they go beyond their limits, turn into sin. Let each one consider himself and, as his own accuser, examine the incitements of the vices: how in speech and in thought and in the heat of the body he often says and thinks and undergoes what he does not want. I will not say "does," lest I seem to accuse holy men, of whom it is written, "That man was true, blameless, just, a worshiper of God, withdrawing from every evil work," and of Zechariah and Elizabeth, "They were both just before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord without blame." And the apostles were commanded, "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." He would never have commanded this of the apostles unless he knew that a man can be perfect. Unless perhaps we say that "withdrawing from every evil" signifies amendment and a passage from the errors of childhood and the vices of a wanton age to correction and virtue, and that the righteousness proclaimed in Zechariah and Elizabeth is outward, while the concupiscence which is now said to dwell in our members is within. But it is not children but men of robust age, the apostles, who are commanded to take on perfection, which we too confess to be possible in a perfect age. Nor in saying this do we flatter vices, but we follow the authority of the Scriptures, that no man is without sin, and that God has shut up all under sin that he may have mercy on all, except him alone who did no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. Hence it is also said through Solomon that the tracks of a serpent are not found on a rock. And the Lord himself says of himself: "Behold, the prince of this world comes, and finds nothing in me," that is, nothing of his work or his trace. For this reason we are commanded not to reproach a man who turns back from his sins, and not to abhor an Egyptian, because we too were once in Egypt and built cities for Pharaoh from clay and bricks, and because we were led captive to Babylon by the law of sin that dwelt in our members. And when it seemed extreme despair, or rather an open confession that every man is caught in the snares of the devil, the apostle, turning to himself, or rather the man in whose person the apostle speaks, gives thanks to the Savior that he has been redeemed by his blood, has put off his filth in baptism, has put on the new garment of Christ, and, the old man having died, has been born a new man who says: "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord," who has delivered me from the body of death. But if anyone does not think that the apostle says this of others in his own person, let him explain how Daniel, whom we know to have been righteous, speaks as if of himself when he prays for others: "We have sinned, we have done wickedly, we have acted unjustly, we have acted ungodly, and we have departed and turned aside from your commandments and judgments, and we have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings and princes and fathers and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us confusion." So too what is said in the thirty-first psalm: "I made my sin known to you and did not hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my injustice against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the ungodliness of my sin. For this every holy one will pray to you at a fitting time." This fits not David, a righteous man and, to put it simply, a prophet, whose words are reported, but a sinner. And when the righteous man had poured out such words in the person of a penitent, he deserved to hear from God: "I will give you understanding and teach you in this way in which you shall walk; I will fix my eyes upon you." In the thirty-seventh psalm too, whose title is "For remembrance," to teach us that we ought always to remember our sins and to repent, we read something similar: "There is no peace in my bones because of my sins. For my iniquities have risen over my head; like a heavy burden they have weighed on me. My wounds have grown foul and festered because of my foolishness. I am afflicted and bowed down greatly." This whole passage of the apostle, in what precedes and in what follows, indeed his whole letter to the Romans, is wrapped in great obscurities, and if I wished to discuss everything, I would have to write not one book but many large volumes.

Why does the apostle Paul write in the same letter to the Romans: "I myself wished to be accursed from Christ for my brothers and my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the worship and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever, amen"? — Truly a strong question: how the apostle, who had said above, "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?" and again, "I am confident that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which we have in Christ Jesus our Lord," now confirms under oath and says: "I speak the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual pain in my heart; for I wished myself to be accursed from Christ for my brothers and kinsmen according to the flesh," and the rest. For if he has such love for the Lord that neither fear of death nor hope of life nor persecution nor famine nor nakedness nor danger nor sword can separate him from his love, and if, even should angels and powers and things present or to come and all the powers of heaven and height and depth and the whole creation together assail him (which can by no means happen), he still would not be separated from the love of God which he has in Christ Jesus, what is this great change, or rather this unheard-of prudence, that for the love of Christ he is willing not to have Christ? And lest we perhaps not believe him, he swears and confirms it in Christ and calls the Holy Spirit to witness his conscience, that he has sorrow, not light and passing but great and incredible, and pain in his heart, not the kind that stings for an hour and passes, but that remains continually in the heart. Where does this sorrow tend? What does the unceasing pain accomplish? He wishes to be accursed from Christ and to perish, so that others may be saved. But if we consider the voice of Moses asking God for the people of the Jews and saying, "If you forgive them their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of your book which you have written," we shall see the same affection in Moses and in Paul toward the flock entrusted to them. For the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, but the hireling, when he sees the wolf coming, flees, because the sheep are not his. And to say, "I wished to be accursed from Christ," is the same as to say, "Blot me out of the book which you have written." For those who are blotted out of the book of the living and are not written with the righteous become accursed from the Lord. And see at the same time how great is the apostle's love in Christ, that for him he desires to die and to perish alone, provided the whole human race believes in him; to perish, however, not forever but for the present. For he who loses his life for Christ saves it. Hence he takes an example from the forty-third psalm: "For your sake we are put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter." The apostle, then, wishes to perish in the flesh so that others may be saved in the spirit, to shed his blood so that the souls of many may be preserved. That "anathema" sometimes means slaughter can be proved by many testimonies of the Old Testament. And lest we think the sorrow light and the cause of pain slight, he adds: "for my brothers and kinsmen according to the flesh." When he calls them kinsmen and brothers according to the flesh, he shows that in the spirit they are strangers to him. "To whom," he says, "belongs the adoption," which is said more expressively in Greek, υἱοθεσία; of them the Lord once said, "Israel is my firstborn son," and, "I have begotten sons and exalted them"; now he says, "Foreign sons have lied to me." "And to whom the glory," that they were chosen out of all nations to be God's own people. "And to whom the covenants," one in the letter, the other in the spirit, so that those who formerly served in the flesh the ceremonies of the abolished law might afterwards serve in the spirit the commands of the everlasting gospel. "And the giving of the law" answers to both, the new and the old covenant. "And the worship," that is, true religion. "And the promises," so that whatever was promised to the fathers might be fulfilled in the sons. And, what is greater than all, "from whom is Christ," born of the virgin Mary. And so that we might know who this Christ is, he gathers up the causes of his grief in one phrase: "who is God over all, blessed forever, amen," so that it might be seen that one so great and of such a kind was not received by those of whose stock he was born. And nonetheless he praises the truth of the judgment, lest God's sentence on his brothers and kinsmen seem displeasing, or severe, or excessive. He grieves, then, that in those in whom there were such great goods there are now such great evils.