Commentary on Romans

I wished to skirt the coast of a calm shore, carried in a little boat, and to gather tiny fish from the pools of the Greeks; but you, brother Heraclius, compel me to spread my sails for the deep, and urge me to leave the work I had in hand of translating the homilies of the old man Adamantius, and to set out in our own tongue his fifteen books in which he discussed Paul's Epistle to the Romans. In these, while he follows the Apostle's meaning, he is carried out into so deep a sea that whoever follows him there has great fear of being overwhelmed by the greatness of his thoughts as by the vastness of the waves. Then you do not consider either that my breath is too slight to fill so magnificent a trumpet of his eloquence. But beyond all the difficulties is this, that the books themselves have been tampered with. For in the libraries of almost everyone (by what chance is quite uncertain) some volumes are missing from the very body of the work; and to fill these up, and to give a complete continuity in the Latin work, is not a matter of my talent but, as you who demand this believe, perhaps of divine gift. And you add, so that nothing may be lacking to my labours, that I should abridge this whole body of fifteen volumes, which the Greek text has extended to about forty thousand lines or more, and compress it, if it can be done, to half the length. Hard enough commands, and imposed as if by one who does not wish to know the weight of this work. Yet I will undertake it, in the hope that by your prayers what seems to me, as a man, impossible may become possible by the Lord's inspiration. But now, if you please, let us hear Origen himself, how he frames the preface of the work he undertook.

That this Epistle written to the Romans is thought harder to understand than the other Epistles of the apostle Paul seems to me to come about for two reasons. One, that he sometimes uses expressions that are confused and insufficiently explicit; the other, that he raises very many questions in it, and especially those on which the heretics rely when they argue that the cause of each person's deeds is to be referred not to choice but to a diversity of natures; and from a few words of this Epistle they try to overturn the meaning of the whole of Scripture, which teaches that freedom of choice has been granted to man by God. For this reason, first praying to God, who teaches man knowledge, who gives the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and who enlightens every man coming into this world, that he may deign to make us worthy to understand parables and dark sayings, the words of the wise and their riddles, we shall then at last take up the beginning of the explanation of Paul's Epistle to the Romans; first setting down what is usually observed by the studious, that the Apostle seems to have been more perfect in this Epistle than in the others. For when he wrote the first to the Corinthians he was indeed far advanced; yet he speaks of himself somewhat as one wavering, when he says, “But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become reprobate.” And writing to the Philippians too, he shows that there is something in him still short of that perfection which he afterwards attained, when he says that he is being conformed to the death of Christ, if by any means he may attain to the resurrection which is from the dead. For he would not say “if by any means” if the matter already then seemed to him beyond doubt. And in what follows in the same Epistle he shows this same thing, when he says, “Not that I have already attained or am already perfect …; I press on with purpose toward the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus”; and after this he says, “Let as many of us, then, as are perfect, think this.” In this he shows that perfection is twofold: one, which lies in the fulfilment of the virtues, according to which he says that he is not perfect; and another, when one has so advanced that he cannot fall away or look back, according to which he says, “Let as many of us as are perfect think this.” How, then, will it be shown that he was more perfect when he wrote the second to the Corinthians than the first? Without doubt from what is written in it, when he says, “We suffer tribulation but are not distressed; we are perplexed but not utterly perplexed; we suffer persecution but are not forsaken; we are cast down but do not perish; always carrying about in our body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” He, then, who always carried about the dying of Jesus in his body, in him surely the flesh never lusted against the spirit, but was subject to it, as having been put to death after the likeness of Christ's death. And if anyone tells us that this does not seem likely, because not much time passed between the first Epistle and the second, he may learn it more plainly from this: that the man defiled by the crime of incest, who in the first Epistle was cast out and delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord, in the second he now calls back and joins again to the members of the Church. This he surely would not do unless in the course of time he had seen in him worthy fruits of repentance, and that his flesh had already undergone the destruction which the Apostle had appointed, being dead, that is, to sin and vices, so that at last he might live to God. Since, then, there was time enough for the incestuous sinner to receive the salvation of the spirit through a praiseworthy destruction of the flesh, how should we not think that the Apostle attained perfection by a much swifter course? In those Epistles, then, let this have been his progress; but how much more sublime and eminent he is when writing to the Romans, let us gather from the words of the Epistle itself, in which he says: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword? As it is written: For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we more than conquer through him who loved us. For I am certain that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” “I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit.” Does he seem to have said, “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become reprobate,” with the same sublimity of mind with which he says here, “In all these things we more than conquer,” and, “For I am certain that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,” and the rest that he lists, “will be able to separate us from the love of God”? Having thus formed, as best we could, a view of his mind as more perfect in this Epistle, we shall not unfittingly also point out that he seems to write this Epistle from Corinth: this appears from several other indications, but most plainly from his saying, “I commend to you Phoebe our sister, a minister of the church which is at Cenchreae.” For Cenchreae is the name of a place near Corinth, indeed the port of Corinth itself. So it appears from this that it was written from Corinth, and from his saying, “Gaius my host greets you,” the Gaius whom he mentions when writing to the Corinthians, saying, “I thank my God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius.” A similar indication is then given where he says, “Erastus the treasurer of the city greets you,” the Erastus of whom, writing the second Epistle to Timothy, he said, “Erastus …” … of sin, concerning the inner and the outer man. It is enough to have mentioned these points one by one beforehand, for in them the contents of the Epistle seem to be contained. Now, as the Lord deigns to open the way for us, let us hasten as quickly as we can to its explanation. The first question seems to us to arise about the name of Paul itself: why he who is called Saul in the Acts of the Apostles is now called Paul. We find in the divine Scriptures that the names of certain men of old were changed, so that from Abram he was called Abraham, from Sarai Sarah, and from Jacob Israel. In the Gospels too Simon was named Peter, and the sons of Zebedee were called sons of thunder. But we read that these things were done at God's command; nowhere do we find anything of the kind done in Paul's case. On this question some have thought that the Apostle took for himself the name of Paul the proconsul, whom he had brought to the faith of Christ in Cyprus; so that, as kings are commonly named, for example, Parthicus after conquering the Parthians and Gothicus after the Goths, so the Apostle too, having brought Paul into subjection, was called Paul. Not even we think this should be wholly dismissed. Yet because no such custom is found in the divine Scriptures, let us rather seek a solution from the things that serve as examples for us. We find, then, in the Scriptures some who used two names, and others even three: as Solomon, who is also Jedidiah; Zedekiah, who is also Joachim; Uzziah, who is also Azariah; and you will find very many others in the books of Kings or of Judges called by two names. Nor do the Gospels reject this same custom. For Matthew himself relates of himself that as Jesus was passing by he found a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. But Luke says of the same man that as Jesus was passing by he saw a tax collector named Levi and said to him, “Follow me.” And the same Matthew in the list of the apostles says after many others, “Matthew the tax collector, and James of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, and Simon the Cananaean.” But Mark relates it thus: “Matthew the tax collector, and Thomas, and James of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus.” This same man whom Matthew put as Lebbaeus, Mark put as Thaddaeus. But Luke put it thus: “Matthew, Thomas, James, and Judas of James.” So the same man whom Matthew called Lebbaeus and Mark Thaddaeus, Luke wrote as Judas of James. It is certain, however, that the evangelists did not err in the names of the apostles; but because it was the custom of the Hebrews to use two or three names, each of them set down a different name for one and the same man. According to this custom, then, it seems to us that Paul too used a double name; and while … , which seemed more native to the name used in his homeland; but he was called Paul when he wrote laws and precepts for Greeks and Gentiles. For the very statement of Scripture, “But Saul, who is also Paul,” plainly shows that the name Paul was not then first given him, but indicates that it was an old name. These things were omitted by the author of the work himself; we have, I think, not unfittingly set them first, because the beginning of the discussion seemed to require it. The rest of the body of the explanations we shall carry through with such abridgement as we can.

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.” Of Paul we have already spoken. Let us now ask why he is called a servant who elsewhere writes, “For you did not receive the spirit of servitude again in fear, but you received the spirit of adoption, in which we cry, Abba, Father”; and again, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So he is no longer a servant but a son.” How, then, since he says even to those to whom he preached that “he is no longer a servant but a son,” does he profess himself a servant? If we think that it was said in accordance with that humility which the Lord taught, saying, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart,” we shall not err. For the truth of Paul's freedom is not harmed by this. For he himself says, “For though I am free from all, I have made myself the servant of all” … of him who had said, “Behold, I am in your midst, not as one who reclines at table but as one who serves,” and of him who emptied himself, taking the form of a servant; so that, just as for those under the law he too becomes as one under the law, and for those without law he too becomes as one without law, so also for those who are still servants, and not yet led through the spirit of adoption into the freedom of sons, he becomes a servant: this will not seem contradictory. To this can also be added that the same Apostle, writing to the Corinthians and giving instructions about marriage or chastity, inserts, as if under another heading, certain things about freedom and servitude, saying, “Were you called as a servant? Do not care; but even if you can become free, make use of it rather. For he who was called in the Lord as a servant is the Lord's freedman; likewise he who was called free is Christ's servant. You were bought with a price; do not become servants of men.” These words seem to some to have been inserted against reason. For why is mention of servitude and freedom brought into precepts about marriage or chastity? But we understand Paul's meaning thus: that he calls a servant the one who is bound by the condition of marriage, since the wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband; and the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife. For this reason he also says of them elsewhere that a brother or sister is not subject to servitude in such cases: implying, that is, that he knew them to be subject to servitude in other cases. He, then, is called as a servant who came to Christ while placed in marriage, and to him it is said, “Were you called as a servant? Let it not concern you; but even if you can become free, make use of it rather”; because in spouses the freedom of continence in one creates a danger to the chastity of the other. For they ought not to abstain except by consent, for a time, to devote themselves to prayer, and they must come together again, lest Satan tempt them because of their incontinence. He, then, who was called as a servant on account of the bond of marriage is the Lord's freedman. For a freedman is neither wholly free nor wholly a servant. If he has been free in the other virtues, if he has kept the freedom of faith, patience, mercy and justice, he is called the Lord's freedman, as one who is free by the virtues of his soul and a servant by the necessity of marriage. But he is free who comes to Christ without a wife through the purity of continence; and yet he becomes Christ's servant, while he serves the virtues wholly. Paul, then, as some relate, was called with a wife, of whom he speaks when writing to the Philippians, “I ask you too, true yokefellow, help them”; and since he was made free from her by consent, he calls himself Christ's servant. But if, as others think, he was without a wife, nonetheless he who was called free is Christ's servant. And what is it to be a servant of Christ, except to be a servant of the Word of God, of wisdom, of justice, of truth, and of all the virtues whatever, all of which Christ is? And let us add this too in this place, if it seems good: that just as the knowledge now given to the saints is given through a mirror and in an enigma, and so prophecy and the other gifts of the Holy Spirit, so too the freedom now granted to the saints is not yet full freedom, but as through a mirror and in an enigma; and therefore the saints say that they are servants in comparison with that freedom which is given face to face. For who, while placed in the flesh, can obtain complete freedom, so as to serve the flesh in nothing? Just as no one placed in the body can have the adoption of sons in full. And would that at least this might be obtained in the life of mortals: that a man become wholly Christ's servant, and not a servant of flesh, nor of blood, nor of vainglory, nor of greed, nor of avarice, nor of anger, nor of envy, but serve Christ alone, that is, all the virtues together. So much on what is written: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.”

“Called an apostle.” This name, that is, “called,” since it belongs to all who believe in Christ, can seem general; but each, according to what God foresaw and chose in him, is called either an apostle, or a prophet, or a teacher, or one free from a wife, or a servant in marriage; and according to the diversity of grace is fulfilled what is written: “Many are called, but few are chosen.” We must know, however, that it is possible for someone to be called an apostle, or called a prophet, or called a teacher, and, if he neglects the grace of his calling, to fall from it; as Judas, who was called an apostle and, neglecting the grace of his calling, became from an apostle a betrayer. And he was indeed a called apostle, but he was not a chosen apostle. And that prophet too, who is related in the third book of Kingdoms to have prophesied about Jeroboam, was a called prophet; but whether he was also chosen, judge for yourself, since, having been forbidden to eat bread in Israel, he ate, and was killed by a lion. There are also many called teachers throughout all the Churches of God, and called ministers; but I do not know which of them are chosen teachers and chosen ministers. So too I think there are some called to suffer for Christ, yet not chosen; that is, called martyrs, but not chosen martyrs, such as those … who, that is, was not holy in body and spirit. And there is a called shepherd but not a chosen shepherd, who presides over the flock and uses its milk and is covered with its wool, but does not seek out the weak, nor gather the lame, and hems in the strong with labour. So too there is a called abstainer, but not a chosen abstainer, namely one who fasts gloomily and disfigures his face so as to appear to men. And through each degree of graces you will likewise find many called but few chosen.

“Set apart for the Gospel of God.” In Paul not only the general calling to apostleship is signified, but also the election that followed immediately according to God's foreknowledge, through his being said to be set apart for the Gospel of God; as elsewhere he says of himself, “But when it pleased God, who set me apart from my mother's womb, to reveal his Son in me.” This, however, the heretics turn to calumny, saying that he was set apart from his mother's womb because there was goodness of nature in him; just as, on the contrary, it is said in the Psalms of those who are of an evil nature that sinners are set apart from the womb. But we say that Paul was not chosen by chance or by a difference of nature, but that he gave, in himself, the causes of his election to him who knows all things before they come to be; nor are the sinners who are separated from the womb separated by the injustice of the judge. Then see at once, in what follows, what the divine word says of them. For it is written: “Sinners are set apart from the womb; they have gone astray from the belly; they have spoken falsehoods.” If we understand how sinners, as soon as they come out of their mother's belly, have gone astray or spoken falsehoods, we likewise understand that they are justly separated from the belly. So too with Paul, in that he is said to be set apart for the Gospel and set apart from his mother's belly: he from whom no mind is hidden saw in him the causes and merits for which he ought to be set apart for this. For he foresaw that he would labour more abundantly than all the others in the Gospel; that in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in dangers from robbers, dangers from rivers, dangers from the sea, he would preach the Gospel of Christ, knowing that woe would be to him if he did not preach the Gospel; and that he would chastise his body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when he had preached to others, he himself should become reprobate. Foreseeing, then, these and many other such things in him from his mother's womb, Jesus set him apart for the Gospel on their account. For if, as the heretics think, he had been chosen either by the uncertainty of lot or by the prerogative of a better nature, he would surely never have feared that, if he held the reins of his body less firmly, he might become reprobate, or that woe would be to him if he ceased to preach the Gospel. Finally he himself, discussing it more broadly in what follows, says that those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son: showing plainly that those whom God foreknew would be such as to conform themselves to Christ in sufferings, these he also predestined to be conformed and like to his image and glory. God's foreknowledge, then, comes first, by which those are known who will have labours and virtues in themselves, and so predestination follows; yet foreknowledge in its turn will not be thought the cause of predestination. For what among men is weighed as each one's merit from past deeds is judged by God from future ones; and he is very impious who does not believe God in this, that what we see in the past he sees in the future. “Set apart,” he says, “for the Gospel of God.” In other places of Scripture the Gospel is said to be Christ's … “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet.” But since Christ is the Word, and in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, it is one and the same thing to say the Gospel of God and the Gospel of Christ; or else because the Lord himself says, “I and the Father are one,” and again he says to the Father, “All that is mine is yours, and yours is mine, and I am glorified in them.” So the Gospel of the Father is the Gospel of the Son. But Paul too says, “My Gospel, which I preach among the Gentiles”: which he says perhaps as an heir of Christ, and as a co-heir in the Gospel, since elsewhere too he says that the Gospel belongs to many, as to the Galatians: “But even if our Gospel is veiled”; “our,” that is, of all of us who are co-heirs of Christ. But also, inasmuch as he himself is its preacher, Paul rightly calls the Gospel his own.

“Which he had promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures.” Whether this ought to be taken simply of the Gospel promised by God through the prophetic Scriptures, or in distinction from another Gospel, which John in the Apocalypse calls eternal, which is to be revealed when the shadow has passed and the truth has come, and when death has been swallowed up and eternity restored, consider this too, you who read. With this eternal Gospel those eternal years too will be seen to agree, of which the Prophet says, “And I had the eternal years in mind.” And to it can be joined that book of life too, in which the names of the saints are said to be written; and also those books which in Daniel were opened when the judgement had sat; or those which in Ezekiel the prophet are said to be written within and without: all of which are recorded as written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. Although it seems dangerous to commit discussion of these things to paper, yet the sayings and riddles of the wise are not to be passed over idly, but are to be contemplated with a very fine edge of the mind, so far as the matter allows, as through a kind of mirror. Perhaps he who, as the Word made flesh, ap… (for “he was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to angels”): what appeared to angels did not appear to them without a Gospel; just as he did not appear without one even to us men, to whom he says he was sent to preach good news to the poor, to release captives into remission, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. If, then, when he appeared to us men he did not appear without a Gospel, consistency seems to show that he did not appear to the angelic order without a Gospel either, perhaps that eternal Gospel which, as we showed above, John mentions. But whether one should suppose that something of this kind was done by him in the other heavenly orders too, appearing to them in the form in which each of them is, and proclaiming peace, since through the blood of his cross he made peace not only for the things on earth but also for those in heaven: examine this too within yourself. “Which he promised through his prophets in the holy Scriptures.” What was foretold of Christ through the prophets must be understood to have been foretold of the Gospel too, although Mark the evangelist seems to make a distinction between Christ and the Gospel when he says, “Whoever leaves father and mother,” and so on, “for my sake or for the Gospel's.” And even if the promises of the Gospel must be sought in the strict sense, you will find them abundantly in the prophets, as this: “The Lord will give the word to those who preach good news with great power”; and, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good things!” To this too refers, “Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world,” and, “His word runs swiftly”; and also, “Behold, I send many shepherds and many hunters, and they will catch them upon every mountain and upon every hill.” Through Jeremiah there is a promise concerning the Gospel: this is what Paul now says, that God promised through his prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son.

“Who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.” He was made, without doubt, what he previously was not, according to the flesh; but according to the spirit he existed before, and there was not a time when he was not. For it must be observed that he does not say, “who was predestined Son of God in power according to the spirit of sanctification,” but, “who was destined Son of God.” And let no one think that we are examining this word more curiously than the matter allows. For although “predestined” is usually found in the Latin copies, yet according to what the truth of the translation requires, “destined” is written, not “predestined.” For he is destined who exists; but he is predestined who does not yet exist, like those of whom the Apostle says, “But those whom he foreknew, he also predestined.” Those, then, who do not yet exist can be foreknown and predestined; but he who is, and always is, is not predestined but destined. Let this be said by us on account of those who speak impiety against the only-begotten Son of God and, not knowing the difference between destined and predestined, think that he should be counted among those who, not having existed before, were predestined to exist; whereas he was never predestined to be the Son, but always was and is, as the Father too. He, then, who always is, is destined, as we said, not predestined; but he who is predestined did not yet exist when he was predestined, but began in time. The Apostle therefore uses a necessary distinction, calling him who is of the seed of David according to the flesh “made,” but him whom he names Son of God in power according to the spirit of sanctification “destined.” For when he had said “Son of God,” he did not superfluously add “in power,” indicating by this that he is Son in substance according to the spirit of sanctification. For Christ is called the power of God and the wisdom of God, and is also called the vapour of the power of God, the most pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty, the brightness of eternal light, and the image of the goodness of God. But the question is asked: if what is born of the seed of David is according to the flesh, and what is destined in power according to the spirit of sanctification is the Son of God and is in the substance of God, how is the soul of Jesus to be understood, which here is named neither with the flesh nor with the spirit of sanctification, or the substance of the divine power? Of it the Saviour himself says elsewhere, “My soul is sorrowful even to death,” and, “Now my soul is troubled”; it is the soul which he also laid down of himself, indeed which descended even to hell, and of which it is also said, “You will not leave my soul in hell.” For it is certain that this was not generated from the seed of David; for he says that what was made of the seed of David is according to the flesh. Since, then, it seems to be counted neither in what is according to the flesh nor in that wherein the Son of God is destined in power according to the spirit of sanctification, I think the Apostle is following his custom in this place too, knowing that the soul is always midway between the spirit and the flesh, and either joins itself to the flesh and is one with the flesh, or associates itself with the spirit and is one with the spirit; so that if it is with the flesh, men become fleshly, but if with the spirit, spiritual. And for this reason he does not name it separately, but only the flesh or the spirit; for he knows that the soul necessarily cleaves to one of these, as also in those to whom he says, “But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit,” and, “He who joins himself to a harlot is one body” (here calling the flesh or body a harlot), “but he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit.” So now too, knowing of the soul of Jesus that, joined to the Lord and cleaving to him, it became one spirit of sanctification with him, he did not name it separately, lest he divide Jesus: “For what God has joined, let not man separate.” And he is called the spirit of sanctification … is adduced. Although it is irksome, for reverence's sake, to meet them, yet our side will answer that Mary, who, betrothed to Joseph, was found with child of the Holy Spirit before they came together, was without doubt joined according to the law to a man of her own tribe and kin. And although the angel says to her, “And Elizabeth your kinswoman will herself also bear a son in her old age” (and Elizabeth is said to be of the daughters of Aaron), yet it is affirmed by our side that the name of kinship can fittingly be applied not only to members of the same tribe but to all who are of the race of Israel in relation to one another, as the same Apostle too says of all together, “Who are my kinsmen according to the flesh.” These and other such answers may indeed be given; but how strong they are against the assertions of those who press us with the testimonies of the Scriptures, test for yourself, you who read. To us, however, these things seem rather to be understood according to the spiritual or allegorical sense, according to which nothing stands in the way of Joseph's being called the father of Christ, though he is in no way his father; since in the generations given by Matthew too it is related that Jehoshaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Uzziah; whereas in the fourth book of Kingdoms it is written that Joram begot Ahaziah, and Ahaziah begot Joash, and Joash begot Amaziah, and Amaziah begot Azariah, the same who is sometimes called Uzziah, and Azariah begot Jotham. This Uzziah, then, who is also Azariah, though in the fourth book of Kingdoms he is said to be the son of Amaziah, is written by Matthew as the son of Joram, three generations in between being passed over. The discussion of this, it is certain, rests not on the literal account but on spiritual understanding; and it is not to be knocked at by us now in passing, for it will be touched on in its place. Meanwhile it suffices us to answer those who oppose us that, just as Jesus is said to be the son of Joseph … Son of God from the resurrection of the dead, is not difficult to see for one who has read what is written: “For it became him, through whom are all things and in whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” Now the end of Christ's sufferings is the resurrection; and since after the resurrection he no longer dies, nor will death have dominion over him any more; and since again it is said, “Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer,” therefore everything that is in Christ is now the Son of God. But how this is referred also to him who was destined Son of God in power constrains our understanding; except that, through the indissoluble unity of the Word and the flesh, all that belongs to the flesh is ascribed also to the Word, just as the things that belong to the Word are predicated in the flesh. And we often find “Jesus” and “Christ” and “Lord” referred to both natures, as in this: “One Lord our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things”; and again, “For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty.” Christ, then, is called the first-begotten or firstborn from the dead. But we must ask whether he alone is firstborn or first-begotten from the dead and has none with him sharing in the primacy, of whom the Apostle says that he raised us with Christ and made us sit together in the heavenly places. Perhaps, then, these too, whom he says were raised with Christ and sit with him in the heavenly places, are themselves firstborn or first-begotten from the dead, as were those who are said to have been raised with him, when the tombs were opened and the bodies of many saints appeared and entered the city of the saints. And perhaps it is of such that the Apostle says that Church of the firstborn consists, which he records as enrolled in heaven.

“Through whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all the nations for his name.” He says that he received grace and apostleship through Christ, as the mediator of God and men. “Grace and apostleship”: grace is to be referred to the endurance of labours, apostleship to the authority of preaching; for Christ himself too is called an apostle, that is, one sent by the Father, inasmuch as he says he was sent to preach good news to the poor. All that is his … grace, with which, as they labour, they may say, “But I laboured more abundantly than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” And since it has been said of him, “Having, then, a High Priest and Apostle of our confession, Christ,” he gives his disciples the honour of apostleship, so that they too may become apostles of God. For the nations, which were strangers to the covenant of God and the commonwealth of Israel, could not believe the Gospel except through the grace that had been given to the apostles; through it, as the apostles preached, they are said to obey unto faith, and the sound of their grace concerning the name of Christ is recorded to have gone out into all the earth, so that it reached those who are at Rome, to whom the Apostle says, “Among whom are you also, called of Jesus Christ.” Paul is said to be called an apostle, and the Romans called indeed, yet not apostles, but called saints, unto obedience of faith. Of the diversity of the called we have already spoken above.

“To all who are at Rome, beloved of God: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This blessing of peace and grace, which the apostle Paul gives to the beloved of God to whom he writes, I think is not less than was Noah's blessing on Shem and Japheth, which was fulfilled through the Spirit toward those who had been blessed; likewise the blessing with which Abraham was blessed by Melchizedek, and Jacob by his father Isaac, and that with which the twelve patriarchs are blessed by their father Israel; or the blessing of Moses with which he blessed the twelve tribes of Israel. I do not, then, consider this blessing of the Apostle, with which he blessed the Churches of Christ, inferior to all these. For he himself says of himself, “For I think that I too have the Spirit of God.” The Apostle, then, writes in the Spirit of God and blesses in the Spirit. Through that same Spirit, then, those who are blessed by the Apostle will receive the blessings, provided they are found worthy for his blessing to come upon them. Otherwise what is written will happen: “If a son of peace is there, your peace will come upon him; but if not, your peace will return to you.” What is written of peace, then, will happen also with grace, since he joins grace together with peace. We must know, however, that this custom of writing is not kept by the Apostle toward all the Churches. For to the Corinthians in the first and second Epistles, and to the Galatians, and to the Ephesians, and to the Philippians he writes in the same way. But to the Colossians he says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father,” and does not add “and our Lord Jesus Christ.” The first to the Thessalonians has, “Grace to you and peace,” and nothing more; but the second, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” To Timothy, the first and second: “Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” But to Titus: “Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour.” And although such an observation may seem rather too curious, yet one who believes that nothing in the divine Scriptures is idle will not think even these differences and variations meaningless.

“First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in the whole world.” When writing to some, the Apostle says that he gives thanks for all, as now to the Romans; but when writing to others he gives thanks indeed, but does not add “for all.” If you observe, you will find that where he says he gives thanks for all, he does not heap up serious faults or disgraceful conduct against them; but where he censures or rebukes some, he does not add to his thanksgiving that he gives thanks for all, as to the Corinthians or to the Colossians. But to the Galatians he does not set down a thanksgiving at all, because he marvels that they are so quickly turning away from him who called them to another Gospel. His first word, then, begins with thanksgiving. And to give thanks to God is to offer a sacrifice of praise; and therefore he adds, “through Jesus Christ,” as through a great High Priest. For whoever wishes to offer a sacrifice to God must know that he ought to offer it through the hands of the high priest. And his saying “my God” is not to be taken idly either. For this word can belong only to the saints, of whom God is said to be the God, as the God of Abraham, or of Isaac, or of Jacob. He whose belly is his god cannot call the Lord his God, nor he to whom avarice is god, or the glory of the world and the pomp of this age, or the power of perishable things. For whatever each person worships above the rest, that is his god. But let us see what it is for which the Apostle gives thanks to his God. “Because,” he says, “your faith is proclaimed in the whole world.” If we take “in the whole world” simply, it seems to signify that in many places of the world, that is, of this earth, the faith and religion of those who are at Rome is proclaimed. But if, as in some places, here too the world meant is the one which consists of heaven and earth and all that is in them, it can also be understood that the powers, of whom it is said that they have joy over one sinner who repents, rejoice much more over the conversion and faith of the Romans, when those angels report it to them who ascend and descend upon the Son of Man. For they too marvel at the conversion of the Gentiles, and that the sound of the apostles of Christ Jesus has gone out into all the earth. And indeed they rejoice watching their contests in this world, as the Apostle says, “For we have been made a spectacle to this world, both to angels and to men.” It can also be understood thus: that this faith which the Romans have is one and the same, and no other, as the faith which is proclaimed and believed in the whole world, and which is preached not only on earth but also in heaven; since Jesus has made peace by his blood not only for the things on earth but also for those in heaven, and at his name not only earthly things bow the knee but also heavenly and infernal ones. And this is what it is for the faith to be preached in the whole world, through which the whole world is made subject to God. It must of course be observed that to his saying “first” he did not add a corresponding “and second,” for example; but, as we said before, this is one of his less complete expressions; unless perhaps it seems to be answered when he says, “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers.”

“For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the Gospel of his Son.” God is witness for his saints, since they too are witnesses of God, according to what the prophet says: “You will be my witnesses, and I a witness, says the Lord.” And the Saviour too says to the disciples, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Samaria and to all the ends of the earth,” according to what is written: “Whoever confesses me, I too will confess him before my Father.” But let us see what he means by “whom I serve in my spirit.” To serve in the spirit seems to me similar to, indeed something more than, worshipping in the spirit, as the Lord himself said to the Samaritan woman: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” But Paul not only worships in the spirit but also devotedly serves in the spirit. For one can worship even without affection; but to serve devotedly belongs to one whom affection constrains. The Apostle, then, serves God not in the body, nor in the soul, but in the better part of himself, that is, in the spirit. For he indicates that these three are in man when writing to the Thessalonians, where he says, “That your whole body and soul and spirit may be preserved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And Daniel says, “Praise the Lord, you spirits and souls of the righteous.” The Apostle, then, everywhere prefers the spirit and rejects the flesh, or what belongs to the flesh. Accordingly he praises the spirit of the law itself, but spurns the letter as flesh, when he says, “The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” And also when he says, “For in that the law was weak through the flesh, God, sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,” by the flesh of the law he means without doubt the letter of the law. For through the letter the law was weak, so that it could not be fulfilled. For who could fulfil what is written about the Sabbath, “You shall not move from your place on the day of the Sabbaths” (for how could anyone not move from his place at all on the day of the Sabbaths?), or the laws about leprosy arising in the warp, or in a wall, or in a skin, and a thousand other things in which, according to the letter as according to the flesh, the law was weak? For this reason, then, the Apostle says that the law is spiritual. He, then, who understands the law to be spiritual serves God in the spirit. Hence he says elsewhere too, “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die,” that is, according to the letter that kills; “but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.” It must indeed be asked whether the ancient fathers too, the patriarchs or prophets, who were themselves also perfect, are to be believed to have served God in the spirit; since Abraham too desired to see the day of the Lord, and saw it and was glad; and Moses and Elijah appeared in glory speaking with Jesus on the mountain. In this it is shown that the Law and the Prophets agree with the Gospels and shine in the same glory of spiritual sight and understanding.

“Making mention of you always without ceasing in my prayers, asking if by any means now at last I may have a prosperous journey in the will of God to come to you.” His saying that he prays without ceasing for those to whom he writes shows that, mindful of his own command, he fulfils in deed what he enjoins in word. And since he says that he asks if by any means now at last he may have a prosperous journey, so as to come to the Romans in the will of God, we must consider that the apostle of God, setting out for a holy work, that is, the work of the Gospel, waits until by prayers he obtains not only that his journey be made prosperous, but that it be made prosperous in the will of God. Hence much more must we, who have no such consciousness either of work or of merit, ask God for a prosperous journey when we plan to do anything. Yet I think that the Apostle wished this too to be understood … is accomplished by the will. Accordingly Balaam too had a prosperous journey in going to Balak to curse the people of Israel; but that prosperity was not from the divine will. And many enjoy prosperous successes in the affairs of the world and exult in their prosperity; but such prosperity is not from the will of God, unless the work of our journey is such as the Apostle here indicates.

“For I long,” he says, “to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, to be comforted among you through the faith which is mutual, yours and mine.” First of all we must learn that it is an apostolic work to long for the brethren, but for no other reason than that either we may confer on them some spiritual gift, if we can, or, if we cannot, that we ourselves may receive from them. For without this the desire to go round to the brethren is not commendable. And his saying “that I may impart to you some spiritual gift” seems to indicate that there is something which is indeed a gift, yet not spiritual. For the gift of faith is without doubt spiritual, and the gift of wisdom and of knowledge, and likewise of virginity. But where, speaking of marriage and virginity, he says, “But each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that,” he calls marriage a gift, since, as it is written, a woman is fitted to a man by God; but this gift is not spiritual. Many other things too can be called gifts of God, such as riches and strength of body, beauty of form, or an earthly kingdom. For these too are given by God, as Daniel too says: “For he makes kings and changes them”; but these are not spiritual gifts. Blessed, then, are those to whom the Apostle wishes to impart spiritual grace for the strengthening of faith, so that they may no longer be children, nor be carried about by every wind of doctrine. When this is done by Paul, he too receives comfort, seeing his work firm and stable; and they are comforted who become partakers of the apostolic grace.

“But I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that I often purposed to come to you (and have been hindered until now), that I might have some fruit among you too, as also among the other nations. To Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish I am a debtor; so, for my part, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you also who are at Rome.” There is indeed a hyperbaton in this place, and a defect of expression. But we can render the hyperbaton thus: “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that I often purposed to come to you, that I might have some fruit among you too, as also among the other nations, Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish, and I have been hindered until now.” And the defect of expression will be filled up thus: where he says, “as also among the other nations, Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish,” the words “to whom” seem to be lacking, so that what follows is read thus, “to whom I am a debtor”; and the sequence will be this: “As I have fruit among the other nations, Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish, to whom I am a debtor, so, for my part, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you also who are at Rome.” For I have never been ashamed to preach the Gospel among any nation, because the power of God is in it for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek; because in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed, which before was covered and veiled in the Law. And it is revealed in those who come from the faith of the Old Testament to the new faith of the Gospel, as it is also said in the prophet: that the righteous man, even while still under the law, believing God and his servant Moses, lives by faith; and when he comes to the Gospel, he is directed from faith in the Law to faith in Christ, and so advances from faith to faith. Let this be said concerning the connexion of the Apostle's own words. Now let us look into what concerns their meaning. His saying “that I often purposed to come to you” shows the love he had for the Romans. And what he added, “and I have been hindered until now”: if he is thought to have been hindered by God, this shows also that it is God's concern where each of the apostles ought or ought not to go, and that by a certain dispensation he allows the word of God to be preached to some and forbids it to others; as he says elsewhere, “And when we tried to go into Bithynia, the Spirit of Jesus forbade us”; and in the Gospels it is said by the Saviour, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to others in parables, that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not hear.” But if “I have been hindered until now” is referred to the one of whom he says elsewhere, “Satan hindered us,” he fittingly shows that he strives in prayers without ceasing, so that, the obstacles of Satan overcome, his journey may be made prosperous in the will of God to see those who are at Rome. For he desires, and does not cease to beseech in his prayers, to gather some fruit from them, as from the other nations. Hence Paul, like one eager for great riches, desires to gather revenues from many rational possessions. He gathers fruits from the Greeks, gathers from the barbarians, gathers from the wise, and collects something even from the foolish: while to some, as to the perfect, he speaks wisdom, and to others, as to the foolish, he says he knows nothing except Christ Jesus, and him crucified; while he teaches some from the Law and the Prophets, and persuades others by signs and wonders. But Paul bears all these fruits because, as a good branch, he abides in the true vine, which is Christ, and the Father, the husbandman, often prunes him, and therefore he bears much fruit. And he prunes him in labours, in tribulations, in persecutions. For there are other branches which abide in the vine indeed but bear no fruit, and are dry. Of these are those who abide in Christ in name but are found fruitless and dry in works and deeds; they are said to be cut off by the Father and cast into the fire. For just as the first man Adam was a kind of vine of the human race, which bore some fruitful branches, such as Seth, Enosh, Enoch and the rest down to Noah, and others fruitless and useless, such as Cain and the whole stock begotten from him: so too in Christ, who is the last Adam, there are some fruitful branches, bearing fruit as in the true vine, and some dry, to be cut off by the Father, the husbandman. And this too must be observed, that the Apostle names the fruit of the good in the singular, as also elsewhere, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace”; but the works of the flesh, which he reproaches, he puts in the plural. And if anyone objects with what is written in the Psalm, “The labours …” … sold all and bought that one: so one who begins from many fruits ought to strive toward the one fruit of perfection. Now we must ask how the Apostle is a debtor to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish. For what had he received from them, so as to become their debtor? I think he became a debtor to the various nations in that he received, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, the power to speak in the languages of all nations, as he himself says, “I speak in tongues more than all of you.” Since, then, one receives the knowledge of languages not for oneself but for those to whom one must preach, he becomes a debtor to all those whose language he received the knowledge of from God. And he becomes a debtor to the wise by having received the wisdom hidden in a mystery, to speak it to the perfect and wise. And how to the foolish too? In that he received the grace of patience and long-suffering; for it belongs to the greatest patience to bear the impulses of the foolish. And very fittingly he added in what follows, “So, for my part, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you also.” He testifies that he is ready, who elsewhere too says, “If I do this willingly, I have a reward.” For one is ready to speak to the prudent. But of the foolish we must understand what he says, “But if unwillingly, a stewardship has been entrusted to me,” and, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel.”

“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel. For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” Many reproaches indeed arose against the Gospel at the beginning of the preaching; but Paul had learned patience from the prophets, who say, “Do not be overcome by their reproaches, nor give way to their contempt”; and he knew that he preached the Gospel not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the power of the Spirit. Defining, then, what the Gospel is, he declares, “For it is the power of God,” he says, “for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek.” His saying “the power of God for salvation” seems to show that there is some power of God which is not for salvation but for destruction. For he knows that it is written in the prophet too, “And the caterpillar, my great power”; and again in the Psalms it says, “Destroy them in your power”; and therefore he says here, “the power of God for salvation.” We must see, then, whether perhaps because of these differences of God's powers right and left are spoken of in God, so that the power for salvation is called his right hand, and the power by which he destroys his left. And this too must be considered, whether perhaps, since Christ is called the power of God and the Gospel the power of God, Christ, as he is understood to be many other things, ought also to be understood as the Gospel; and perhaps what is called the eternal Gospel should be thought to be said of him. “To everyone,” he says, “who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek.” … either a Greek … or a barbarian; and their distinction was such that whoever was not a Greek was held to be a barbarian. But Paul uses a much truer distinction, naming the Jews first, the Greeks second, and the barbarians last. For since the Greeks, because they themselves used laws, called all the rest, as living without laws, barbarians, rightly are the Jews preferred by the Apostle even to the Greeks themselves, because they began to live under laws even before them, and their laws were promulgated by God and not by men.

“For the righteousness of God is revealed in it from faith to faith.” The righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel through this, that no one is excluded from salvation, whether he comes as Jew or Greek or barbarian. For the Saviour says to all alike, “Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened.” Of “from faith to faith” we have already said above that the former people too was in faith, since it had believed God and his servant Moses, and from that faith it has now passed over to the faith of the Gospel. And as to what he says from the testimony of the prophet Habakkuk, “The righteous man lives by my faith”: either he who is under the law is meant, that he should also believe the Gospels, or he who is in the Gospels, that he should also believe the Law and the Prophets. … hold it indeed, but hold it in unrighteousness. To them he also says that what is known of God is manifest, showing that there is something of God that is known and something of him that is unknown. He says, then, that the wrath of God is revealed to those who hold the truth in iniquity. Things that are revealed are brought out of obscurity and hiddenness into knowledge. Since, then, here too the wrath of God is said to be revealed from heaven not to those who are ignorant of the truth but to those who hold it, though they hold it badly, he seems to say that the reason and knowledge of the wrath of God is manifested to those to whom the truth is known, though they hold it in iniquity. This, as is made clear by what follows, is understood to be said of the wise of this world, the learned, or the philosophers, who, though they had known the truth and righteousness of God, did not magnify him as God nor give thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, turned to

idols; “and calling themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of serpents.” In these words the Apostle also shows that whatever the wise of this world attained of the knowledge of the truth, they attained by God's revealing; but while they either pursue vainglory, or flatter ancient errors, or are held back by fear of rulers, they become the judges of their own condemnation, since by them the truth which they had come to know by God's revealing is either concealed, freedom of speech being shut out, or denied by the iniquity of their deeds. The wrath of God, then, sometimes seems to be the name for the very power that presides over the ministers of punishments and inflicts torments on sinners; as I think is signified in what is related, that the wrath of God moved David to order Joab to number the people. And its ministers and associates are signified in what is said, “He sent upon them the wrath of his fury, tribulation and wrath, through evil angels.” Sometimes also of conscience itself … as Job too says, “But the wrath of the Lord is in my body.” But why is wrath now said to be revealed from heaven? Perhaps to distinguish it from another wrath which is not from heaven, as in this: “Their wine is the fury of dragons, and the incurable fury of serpents.” Or perhaps because those against whom the discourse is directed are said to sin not in ignorance but in knowledge of the truth, punishment is directed against them from heaven: for from there the minister of punishments receives his power. Or certainly, because the spiritual forces of wickedness against which our struggle is are said to be in the heavenly places, consequently the wrath of God is said to be hurled from heaven against those who are overcome by them: as if we should say that fiery darts are brandished against them from there, and that from there they receive the wounds by which they run into sins; whereas those who have no share at all in the truth, as having nothing in common with heaven and light, endure the wrath either of their own vices and passions or of the demons to whom they have of their own accord subjected themselves. “Against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” Ungodliness is to sin against God; unrighteousness, against men. They sin, then, against God and against men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Men are to be believed to have known this truth by natural reasons implanted in the soul by God; and so much prudence was granted them that what is known of God, that is, what can be known about God by inference from creation, they could recognize, his invisible things from the things that can be seen. On this basis the judgement of God will be just even toward those who before the coming of Christ, though they could have known God, turned aside from his worship to adore the images of men and animals. For, to say it briefly and gather everything into one definition, to worship any other besides the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is the crime of ungodliness. “Because what is known of God is manifest in them; for God has manifested it to them.” We have already said above that what is known of God is what they can attain from the order or reasons of this world, as the Apostle himself indicates in what follows, saying that his invisible things are contemplated through the things that have been made. But what is unknown of God must be understood as the reason of his substance or nature; what its property is, I think, is hidden not only from us men but from every creature; or if at some time the progress of rational nature will be so great that it can come even to this knowledge, that is God's to know. For I think something of this kind is to be hoped from what is said by the Saviour: “No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” For he would not have added “and he to whom the Son wishes to reveal him” unless he knew that there are some to whom he wishes to reveal him.

“For his invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood through the things that have been made, and his eternal power and divinity, so that they are without excuse: because, though they had known God, they did not magnify him as God nor give thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, and their senseless heart was darkened. For calling themselves wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of serpents.” Almost all of these points have been discussed above. For we said that these things, though they concern all men in whom there is natural reason, yet especially concern the wise of this world and those who are called philosophers, whose discipline it is especially to examine the creatures of the world and all that has been made in it, and through the things that are seen to gather by reason the things that are not seen. We must know, however, that the invisible things he names here he says of creatures; of which the same Apostle also writes in another place that all things were made through him, that is, through Jesus Christ, whether in heaven or on earth, visible and invisible. And therefore, besides the invisible things he spoke of, he adds, “and his eternal power and divinity.” The power of God, then, which is eternal, and the divinity, which is likewise eternal, are recognized by inference from creation. Power is that by which he rules all things; divinity, that by which he fills the universe. From this, then, they become inexcusable: because, though they knew God by God's manifesting, they did not worship him as is fitting, nor give thanks; but through the vanity of their thoughts, while they seek forms and images in God, they lost the image of God in themselves; and those who seemed to boast themselves in the light of wisdom were rolled down into the deep darkness of folly. For what is so foul, so dark and so gloomy as to turn the glory of God into the bodily and corruptible likeness of human form, as is the custom of those who venerate idols, and to make the eminence of the divine majesty equal to birds and four-footed beasts and serpents?

“For which reasons God gave them up, most justly, in the desires of their hearts to uncleanness, so that they dishonour their bodies among themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.” Each of these points seems to be explained consistently according to the faith of the Church: namely, that for the preceding causes of their faults those are justly and deservedly abandoned by God who hold in iniquity the truth which they know by God's revealing, and that by being abandoned they are given up to the desires of their heart; and the desires of their heart were these, to dishonour their bodies among themselves with uncleanness and indignities; and with whatever judgement they treated the veneration of the divinity, when they brought down the glory of the incorruptible God to the foul and unworthy forms of men or animals, they experience a like requital toward themselves, so that, though rational men, they live after the manner of irrational beasts. Yet let us ask those who deny that the good God is also a just judge what they answer about what the Apostle says, that God gave them up in the desires of their heart to uncleanness, so that they dishonour their bodies. For in this not only will their reasoning seem to be wholly excluded, but our own answer will seem hard pressed. For how will it be just that he who is given up, even though he is given up for sins, should be given up to lusts, and given up to this, that he defile his body with uncleanness and lusts? For just as it cannot be imputed to one who, for example, is given up to darkness for punishment, that he is in the dark; and one who is given up to fire cannot be blamed for this, that he is burned: so too it will not seem fitting to impute it to those who are given up to desires and uncleanness so as to dishonour their bodies, if, placed in desires and uncleanness, they stain their bodies with dishonour. Marcion, then, and all who from his school, like … of the apostolic reading, by which doubtful minds seem to be offended, may open. We often find in the Scriptures, and it has often been discussed by us, that man is said to be spirit and body and soul. But when it is said that the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, the soul without doubt is placed in the middle, and either acquiesces in the desires of the spirit or inclines to the lusts of the flesh; and if it joins itself to the flesh, it becomes one body with it in its lust and desires; but if it associates itself with the spirit, it will be one spirit with it. For this reason, then, of those whose souls have joined themselves wholly with the flesh the Lord says in the Scriptures, “My spirit shall not remain any longer in these men, because they are flesh”; but of those whose soul had been joined to the spirit, the Apostle says, “But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit.” There are, moreover (as we find in many places of Scripture), certain angels who favour and help either part, or either way. For the devil and his angels, and all the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, and all those against whom men have a struggle, principalities and powers and world-rulers of this darkness, favour the flesh that lusts against the spirit. But on the contrary, the spirit that strives against the flesh and tries to call back to itself the human soul, which is in the middle, is favoured and helped by all the good angels, those of whom the Lord says that their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven, and of whom the Apostle says to the Hebrews, “Are they not all ministering spirits sent to serve for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” The Lord himself too gives his favour, as he who even lays down his life for his sheep. But on either side the rule of favour is observed. For the matter is not carried on by force, nor is the soul inclined to either part by necessity; otherwise neither fault nor virtue could be ascribed to it, nor would the choice of good deserve a reward, nor turning to evil punishment; but in all things the freedom of its own choice is kept for it, so that it may itself incline to whichever it wishes, as it is written: “Behold, I have set before your face life and death, fire and water.” Life, then, is Christ, and death the last enemy, who is the devil. The soul, then, has it in its choice, if it will, to choose life, that is, Christ, or to turn aside to death, the devil. And if the soul, knowing God, has not embraced Christ its life, nor magnified him as God, nor given thanks, but has become vain in its thoughts and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed beasts and serpents, and in all these has inclined to the flesh and to those who favour the desires of the flesh, it will without doubt be left and abandoned by those who by their favour were encouraging it to be joined to the spirit; and they will yield it up, or give it up, to the desires of its heart, by which it is associated with and cleaves to the flesh. For they will not call it back, resisting and struggling, to what it flees from and rejects. If the picture of this still seems obscure, we will make it clearer and plainer by a figure of this kind. Let us suppose that there is a dwelling in which the soul lives with the body and the spirit as with two counsellors; that before the doors of this dwelling stands godliness with all the virtues, and on the other side ungodliness with every form of luxury and lust; and that they await the soul's nod, which of the two companies watching at the doors it wishes to be brought in to it, and which to be driven off. Now if, obeying the spirit and using the better counsellor, it calls in to itself the company of godliness and chastity, that other, spurned and repudiated, will depart. But if, using the counsels of the flesh, it brings in to itself the troop of ungodliness and lust, that whole crown of holiness and godliness, to which the soul preferred the council of the wicked, will withdraw with just indignation, leaving it to the desires of its heart, to dishonour its body with ignominy and disgrace in itself; for it has changed the truth of God into a lie and, bringing in to itself the prince of ungodliness and unbelief, worships and serves the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. For what reasons the human soul enters so doubtful a state of this great crisis, it is not the place here to discuss. It belongs, then, to those who are servants of idols to dishonour their bodies, and to those who have forsaken the Creator to worship the creature. But we, who worship and adore no creature but the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as we do not err in worship, so let us not sin in deeds and conduct either; nor let us imitate those who dishonour their bodies among themselves; but looking to what the Apostle says, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” and again, “That your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit,” let us keep our bodies, as members of Christ and a temple of the Holy Spirit, in all holiness and purity, so that they may be made worthy not only of the entrances of angels but also of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the abode of the Father and the Son, who says of him who abides in his commandments, “I and the Father will come and make our abode with him.”

“For this reason God gave them up to passions of dishonour. For their women changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And likewise the men also, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their desire toward one another, men with men working shamefulness, and receiving in themselves the recompense of their error which was due. And as they did not see fit to have God in knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do the things that are not fitting, filled with all iniquity, malice, sexual immorality, wickedness, avarice; full of envy, murders, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, slanderers, hateful to God, insolent, proud, boastful, inventors of evils, disobedient to parents, foolish, disorderly, without affection, without covenant, without mercy. Who, though they had known the justice of God, did not understand that those who do such things are worthy of death; not only those who do them, but also those who consent to those who do them. Therefore you are without excuse, O man, everyone who judges; for in that you judge another you condemn yourself. For you who judge do the same things.” For the third time we find the Apostle writing, “God gave them up.” And he gave the causes of the first giving up: “Because, though they had known God, they did not magnify him as God nor give thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, and their senseless heart was darkened. For calling themselves wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of serpents. Therefore,” he says, “God gave them up in the desires of their hearts to uncleanness, so that they dishonour their bodies among themselves.” He seems to set first the cause of the second giving up when he says that they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator. “For this reason,” he says, “God gave them up to passions of dishonour.” This second giving up, however, seems liable to graver shameful deeds. “For their women,” he says, “changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And likewise the men also, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their desire toward one another, men with men working shamefulness, and receiving in themselves the recompense of their error which was due.” He seems to give the causes of the third giving up too when he says, “And as they did not see fit to have God in knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do the things that are not fitting, filled with all iniquity, malice,” and the other crimes which he lists in order. But these distinctions of causes do not seem to me to fit well enough the crimes placed under each. For how is he who serves the creature given up to more shameful deeds than he who changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed beasts and serpents? Or how are those who did not see fit to have God in knowledge given up, above both of these, to a kind of heap of evils? Hence it seems to me rather that all these causes, which are set before each giving up, should be heaped together into one, and again the kinds of giving up into one; so that (for example) we should say thus: Since men changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed beasts and serpents, and since they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, and did not see fit to have God in knowledge: on account of all these God gave them up in the desires of their hearts to uncleanness, so that they dishonour their bodies; and he gave them up to passions of dishonour, so that their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature; and likewise the men too, leaving the natural use of the woman, were inflamed in their desire toward one another, men with men working shamefulness. And God also gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do the things that are not fitting, because they were filled with all iniquity, malice, wickedness and avarice, and were full of envy, murders, strife, deceit and the other evils that are written; and though they had known the justice of God, they did not understand that it is this, that those who do such things are worthy of death, not only those who do them but also those who consent to those who do them. And therefore for all these evils they will be without excuse, since they judge and condemn others for the very crimes they themselves commit. For a man pronounces sentence on himself when he punishes another for what he himself commits. But I think that what was said above about the nature of this giving up suffices: how God is said to give up those whose acts and mind, turning away from him and indulging in vices, he abhors and abandons; and I think it superfluous to repeat the same things. Two things, indeed, I believe are indicated in this place, of which one seems to be signified by the other. For it is certain that if God has given anyone up either to the desires of his heart, or to passions of dishonour, or to a reprobate mind, at once, as in very bad and reprobate soil, the whole crop of crimes springs up in the one who is given up. And again, if anyone, though he has known God, does not magnify him as God nor give thanks, but is such

as the apostolic discourse has described in detail, there is no doubt that such a soul has been abandoned by God and given up. For it is not possible for God to have a dwelling with these evils, or for these evils to proceed from where God dwells. But since in these three the Apostle seems to have enumerated all the kinds of ungodliness, of those who worship idols, of those who serve the creature rather than the Creator, and also of those who did not see fit to have God in knowledge, under the first heading of which the pagans in general are signified, and under the second their wise men and philosophers, I think that in this third are indicated the heretics, who either deny God the Creator or speak various blasphemies against the Most High. If, then, each of those whom we said above err in the worship of the divinity is marked by such headings of evils, let us who seem to be in the Church and to hold the right faith consider ourselves, and weigh with all circumspection whether perhaps, separated from them only by the name of true worship, we are their associates in things and deeds. For it is certain that whoever, for example, is filled with iniquity, malice, wickedness and avarice has not seen fit to have God in knowledge and is of the number of those whom God gave up to a reprobate mind. And again, those whose women, or men, leaving the natural use, are inflamed toward that use which is against nature, are certainly of the number of those who serve the creature rather than the Creator and whom God gave up to passions of dishonour. And if any dishonour their bodies in uncleanness, they are of those who changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of man; except that it is with a graver sacrilege that one who is already a believer defiles the temple of God than one who is still profane defiles the temple of idols. Nor indeed must this apostolic saying be passed over, in which, when he says that they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of man, he must be understood not only to rebuke those who worship idols but also to refute the Anthropomorphites, who, placed in the Church, say that the bodily image of man is the image of God, not knowing what is written in Genesis, that man was made after the image of God. What is to be understood of this man is interpreted by the Apostle when he says, “Putting off the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, which is created according to God.” Do you hear that he calls the new man created according to God? This same new man he elsewhere calls the inner man; but this corruptible one, whose image he here rejects, he names the outer, when he says, “For even if our outer man is corrupted, yet the inner is renewed.” And that those who err about the image of God may know his meaning still more plainly, let them hear whom the Apostle says is the man who was created after the image of God, when he writes thus to the Colossians: “Do not lie,” he says, “stripping off the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him who created him.” By these words he plainly shows that the inner man, who is renewed through knowledge, is the one created after the image of God. But those who say that the outer man, that is, the bodily and corruptible one, is after the image of God are associated by the Apostle with those who changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man. And it was right that not even this should be omitted in the explanation of the apostolic saying, so that the Anthropomorphites, that is, those who say that the bodily image of man is the image of God, might know that they are convicted and refuted in this chapter of the Apostle, as in very many others. But let us now conclude the contents of the first volume with these things.

"But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who do such things." The judgment of God according to truth is to be awaited and believed not only against those who do the things listed above, but against all who have done anything good or evil in any way. But what this passage seems to show is this: that judgment according to truth belongs to God alone. For some things are committed by a deed that is evil but with a mind that is not evil: for example, if someone commits a homicide unintentionally. Other things are done by a deed that is good but with a mind that is not good: for example, if someone performs an act of mercy not because of God's commandment but in order to be praised by men. And there are others in which, whether for good or for evil, the mind agrees with the deed. And since to know the hearts of men belongs to God alone, and to discern the secrets of the mind, he alone is the one who can hold judgment according to truth.

But it is asked whether God seems to keep judgment according to truth toward those whose iniquities have been forgiven through the grace of baptism, or whose sins have been covered through repentance, or to whom sin is not to be imputed because of the glory of martyrdom. For the truth of judgment demands that the evil man receive evil things and the good man good things. And although the gifts and generosity of God by no means admit the curiosity of one who scrutinizes them, let us nevertheless show how great the truth of his judgment is even in this. It is a common conviction that the good ought not to be punished, nor the evil obtain good things. If, then, there is someone, for example, who once did evil things, it is certain that he was evil at the time when he was doing evil. But if he repents of the past and corrects his mind toward good things, and acts well, speaks well, thinks well, and wills well, does not the one who does this seem to you good, and rightly to receive good things? Likewise, if someone turns from good to evil, he will no longer be judged good, which he was and is not, but evil, which he is. For acts, whether good or evil, pass away; but according to their quality they shape and form the mind of the one who does them, and leave it either good or evil, destined either for punishment or for rewards. It would therefore be unjust either for a good mind to be punished for evil deeds or for an evil mind to be rewarded for good acts.

But to make what we are saying still plainer, let us add this as well. Let us suppose there is a soul in which impiety, injustice, folly, licentiousness, and the whole multitude of evils dwell, to which, that is, it has subjected itself as servant and handmaid. If this soul returns to itself and opens the door of its mind again to piety and the virtues, will not piety, once it has entered, at once drive out impiety? Likewise justice will thrust out injustice, wisdom folly, and sobriety will put licentiousness to flight; and so, having driven the barbarian inhabitants out of itself, it will offer the virtues a civilized and lawful hospitality. How then will it be just to accuse a soul now full of virtues for what it did when it was not yet a friend of the virtues, and to condemn the pious soul for impiety, the just soul for injustice, the sober soul for licentiousness? In this way, then, God is to be believed to keep judgment according to truth even toward those whose iniquities have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered.

"Do you suppose, O man, whoever you are who judge those who do such things and do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?" If everything the Law says, it says to those who are under the law, and what the Gospel or the Apostle now says, he says not to the rulers of this age nor to the kings of the world but to the rulers and leaders of the churches, that is, to those who judge those within, namely bishops, or presbyters and deacons: it is to these, then, that he says they should not suppose they will escape the judgment of God if they themselves commit the things for which they judge and condemn others. And therefore it is necessary … those who wish to preside over peoples would consider … [that they are to be judged rather than that they are] to judge. Let no one, then, suppose that he can escape the judgment of God, as the prophet also says: "Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your face?" And because these things are said above all to those who preside over the judgments of peoples, he therefore says elsewhere too that "judgment begins from the house of God." And again elsewhere the Lord says: "I will be sanctified in those who draw near to me," as happened with Nadab and Abihu when they offered strange fire, that is, fire that was not holy, on the divine altars. Judgment therefore begins first with the sons. For God "scourges every one whom he receives" into the number of sons. But, as I think, even if someone could, he ought not to want to escape the judgment of God. For not to come to God's judgment, that is, to correction, is not to come to health and remedy.

"Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God's kindness is leading you to repentance?" The riches of God's goodness can be recognized by one who considers how many evils men commit on earth every day, and how nearly all, turning aside and together becoming useless, walk the broad and spacious way of perdition, neglecting the narrow road of life; and yet God, for all of them, brings out his sun every day and supplies the rains. And by one who considers how many blaspheme God every day and stretch out their tongues to heaven. What shall I say now of frauds, of violence, of crime, of sacrileges and outrages? Yet of all these, in this passage those seem to be set first in wickedness who, judging others, themselves commit what they punish in the rest. If anyone, then, despises this goodness of God, and his forbearance and patience, he does not know that by these he is being called to repentance.

Forbearance seems to differ from patience in this: those who sin from weakness rather than from settled purpose are said to be borne with; but those who exult in their offenses, as it were, with an obstinate mind are said to be endured patiently. But just as God made all things in measure, weight, and number, so also his patience has a fixed measure; and that measure must be believed to have been filled up either by those who perished in the flood or by those in Sodom who were laid waste by fire from heaven. Hence it is also said of the Amorites: "For the sins of the Amorites are not yet filled up until now." God therefore bears patiently and waits for each one's repentance. But let this not make us slack and slow to conversion, since, again, his patience and forbearance have a fixed measure.

"But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his works." A heart is called hard in the Scriptures, it seems, when the human mind, like wax stiffened by the cold of iniquity, does not receive the seal of the divine image. The same is called elsewhere a thick heart, as when it is said: "The heart of this people has grown thick." The opposite of hard is soft, which in the Scriptures is called a heart of flesh; and the opposite of thick is fine or subtle, which the Apostle calls the spiritual man, the one who examines all things. When, therefore, someone knows what is good and does not do good, he must be believed to hold all good things in contempt through hardness of heart. Thickness of heart, on the other hand, is when the sense of a fine and spiritual understanding is not received. And so the heart, made impenitent, stores up wrath for itself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, while good work is not done because of hardness and good understanding is shut out because of the thickness of the heart.

About the wrath of God we have spoken both above, as far as the subject allowed, and often in other places. But what he says, "You are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath," must be considered. A treasury is the name for where wealth and riches of different kinds are gathered. We read of a threefold significance of this in the Scriptures. For in the Gospel there is said to be a treasury on earth, in which the Lord forbids us to store up treasure; and another treasury in heaven, in which he commands all the faithful to lay up their wealth; and here the Apostle now speaks of treasuries of wrath. All men, then, by what they do in this world, gather treasures into one or other of these three. For either someone is unbelieving and unjust, and through hardness of heart and an impenitent heart lays up his acts in the treasury of wrath; or he is earthly, and thinks of the earth and speaks of the earth, and when his field has brought him abundant crops he pulls down his barns and builds greater, and stores up treasure on earth. The former is called hard, the latter foolish; for it is said to him: "Fool, this night they will demand your soul from you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" … all that he does is worthy of the kingdom of heaven; and such a man lays up the treasures of his riches in heaven. Thus the owner and founder of each treasury can be called, the one a carnal man, another a soulish man, and another a spiritual man.

Now let us see what the day of wrath is that the Apostle names here. It will be recognized more easily if we ask what the rest of Scripture also indicates about it. We will therefore adduce the examples that come to mind for the present, and from them it will be shown what the day of wrath is. It is written in the prophet Amos: "Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light; as if a man fled from the face of a lion and a bear met him, and he went into his house and stretched out his hands against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light, and gloom that has no brightness?" Joel also says to the priests and to those who serve the altar: "Cry to the Lord without ceasing: Woe is me, woe is me for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and it will come like misery upon misery." And shortly after: "Sound the trumpet in Zion, proclaim on my holy mountain, and let all who dwell upon the earth be confounded, for the day of the Lord is at hand, for the day of darkness and gloom is near, a day of cloud and mist. Like the dawn a great and strong people will be spread upon the mountains. There has not been one like it from the beginning, and after it there will not be, to the years of the age of ages. Before it a consuming fire, and behind it a kindled flame. Like a paradise of delights will the land be before its face, and behind its back a field of destruction, and there is no one who escapes it. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like horsemen so will they follow. Like the sound of chariots they will leap upon the tops of the mountains." And he writes everything that follows about the same until the place where he says: "And the Lord will give his voice before the face of his host, for very great is the multitude of his camp, and mighty are the works of his words. Therefore the day of the Lord is great, great and very glorious; and who will be able to bear it?" Zephaniah says this: "Fear … a day of bitterness and destruction, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of cloud and mist, a day of trumpet and blast against the fortified cities and against the lofty walls. And I will afflict men, and they will walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord; and I will pour out their blood like dust and their flesh like dung. Their gold and their silver will not be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord. In the fire of his jealousy all the earth will be consumed, for he will make an end and a speedy one upon all who dwell on the earth." Isaiah likewise recalls: "For behold, the day of the Lord will come, of incurable fury and wrath, to make the world a desert and to destroy the sinners from it." And shortly after: "For heaven will be kindled with fury, and the earth will be shaken from its foundations, because of the fury of the wrath of the Lord of hosts, on the day when his fury comes upon it." Having gathered so many and such testimonies about the day of wrath, I think this passage needs no further exposition. For in all of them the day of wrath is clearly designated as a day of vengeance and of judgment. That is why the Apostle adds to "day of wrath": "and of revelation."

For he says thus: "On the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God." That all things are to be revealed is indicated also in the Gospel, when it is said: "Nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor covered that will not be revealed." And the Apostle too says later in this epistle: "Their thoughts accusing or even defending them, on the day when God will judge the secrets of men." By this he shows that the secrets of men are to be revealed only on the day on which God is to judge, as he says still more clearly to the Corinthians: "Do not judge before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of hearts." All these things are understood to be said of this same day, on which darkness and grief and sorrow are said to be coming, because of those who, pierced through with many wounds of sins, will need the remedies of fire. At that time it will be said to the saints: "Go, my people, enter your chambers, shut your door, hide yourself for a little while, until the fury of my wrath passes." How great riches of the goodness of God are hidden in these words it is not necessary to make manifest, because of those who despise his patience and goodness.

Some indeed ask why this day, for which we have stirred up the prophetic libraries above, has been fixed at the end of the world, so that all who have died from the beginning of the age to its end are reserved to be judged on this last day. It is certain that the inner causes of this matter are covered by more secret mysteries; and "it is good to hide the mystery of a king." Yet for the sake of explanation we will speak as far as it is possible to commit words to pages. There are many who, departing from this life, have left behind them certain seeds either of good or of evil, from which the men who remain receive occasions either of salvation or of perdition. I mean, for example, all those among the philosophers who founded perverse schools alien from God; or those who devised magical sacrileges, or the errors and decrees of the stars; or certainly those among us who, by publishing books, became the authors of heretics and perverse doctrines; or also those who brought about schisms in the churches, and scandals and dissensions. On the contrary, the work of the apostolic writings, and the progress of the whole Church through them, is the conversion to God and the amendment of the whole world. The cases of all these will not be closed until the end of the world itself; and therefore the judgment of God would not be just while either progress or hindrances were still hanging on each of them. The Apostle also seems to indicate this when he says: "The sins of some men are manifest, going before them to judgment; but those of some follow after." Now if even the saints who are out of the body and with Christ do something and labor for us, after the likeness of the angels who carry out the ministries of our salvation; or again if sinners too, themselves out of the body, do something according to the purpose of their mind, likewise after the likeness of the angels on the left, with whom Christ says they are to be sent into the eternal fire: let this too be kept among the hidden things of God, mysteries not to be committed to paper. Let this suffice about the day of wrath and of revelation.

Now let us inquire about the just judgment of God, in which he will render to each according to his works. And first, let the heretics be shut out who speak of good and evil natures of souls; and let them hear that God renders to each not according to nature but according to his works. In the second place, let the faithful be built up, so that they do not think that the mere fact that they believe can suffice them; but let them know that the just judgment of God renders to each according to his works. Indeed, since he says that the just judgment of God consists in rendering to each according to his works, the Gentiles will seem by no means to be excluded by this saying, if perhaps they too do something good and act more uprightly.

But what is written in Ezekiel also seems to oppose this statement. For it says: "When the righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity according to all the iniquities that the wicked man has committed, none of his righteous deeds that he has done will be remembered in the fall by which he fell; but in his sins that he has sinned, in them he will die." If, then, nothing of the righteousness of the righteous man will be remembered when he has fallen, how will God render to each according to his works? But let us see whether the divine word may not find its own resolution within itself, if we observe how what it says is written: "When the righteous man has turned away from his righteousness"; and it was not enough for it to say, "When he has turned away from his righteousness," but it added: "and has committed iniquity according to all the iniquities that the wicked man has committed." In this it seems to have inserted covertly an understanding of this kind: that if the righteous man has not committed iniquity according to all the iniquities that the wicked man has committed, not all his righteous deeds are removed from memory; but if he has committed all the iniquities that the wicked man does, then at last all his righteous deeds are withdrawn from memory in his fall. Although the Holy Spirit has hidden this in the Scriptures because of those who despise the riches of his goodness and patience, he has not altogether taken it away; for the treasure hidden in a field is not found by everyone, lest it be easily plundered and lost, but it is found by the prudent, who are able to go and sell all that they have and buy the field … ["to those who by patience in well-doing seek glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life; but to those who are of] contention and who disbelieve the truth but obey iniquity, wrath and indignation; tribulation and distress upon every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no respect of persons with God."

"To those who seek," he says, "glory and honor and incorruption, by patience in good work, life" kept in store "will be given," not only to Jews, to whom the oracles of God seem to have been entrusted, but also to Greeks, because the judgment of God is just, and he is not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles. But to those who through contentiousness of mind and perversity of spirit do not believe the truth but follow iniquity, wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress are rendered, not only to the Gentile but also to the Jew, because there is no respect of persons with God. This is as far as the order of the words is concerned. But now let us inquire into what belongs to the inner sense.

"To those," he says, "who by patience in good work." When he says "patience in good work," he shows that a certain labor and contests await those who wish to do good work. "For our struggle," as the same Apostle says, "is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of this world"; all these oppose good work, and therefore patience is necessary, because it is written: "In your patience you will gain your souls." But let us see what he calls good work. The Lord in the Gospel declares concerning the woman who poured the alabaster flask of precious ointment on his head, "She has done a good work for me," indicating that whoever … the word of God … ["if the ministry of death ... came in glo]ry, so that the sons of Israel could not look upon the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which is being abolished, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit be in glory! For if there is glory in the ministry of condemnation, how much more will the ministry of righteousness abound in glory?" And shortly after he adds: "But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." There is, then, according to the Apostle, a certain glory that is not glorified, like that which was on the face of Moses, which is said to be destroyed; this can be understood as the letter of the Law, having a certain glory of precepts, but one that cannot be glorified. And there is another glory, which remains and is glorified in Christ. For when he had gone up the mountain with Peter and James and John, he is written to have been transfigured into glory. "And then," it says, "Moses and Elijah appeared, talking with him." By this it is shown that the glory of the law and the prophets appeared when Christ had been transfigured in glory, so that prophecy and the law, illuminated by his glory, might be understood in the spirit once the veil of the letter is removed.

But since it is also said in Exodus that the glory of God filled the tabernacle of testimony, and again at the dedication of the temple that the glory of God likewise came down and filled the house with smoke, darkness, and cloud, by which the very presence of God is indicated: in these passages that glory must be thought to be meant of which the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says of the Son that he is the radiance of glory and the express image of his substance. By this it is declared that the Father is called the very fountain of glory, from whom the Son, the radiance of glory, is begotten, by participation in whom all creatures are said to have glory; as is written of those who belong to the resurrection: "There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory." Those, then, who seek this glory, which belongs to the resurrection, and honor and incorruption, will without doubt find what is written: "The body is sown in dishonor, it will rise in glory; it is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption." And therefore the seeker of this glory and honor and incorruption, through patience in good work, … life … we have discussed. Let us see also what honor signifies, since those who hasten to eternal life seek not only glory but also honor.

It is written that "man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he was compared to senseless beasts and became like them." He therefore seeks that honor which he had before he was compared to senseless beasts, that is, the honor he had in paradise before he sinned, the honor by which he was found worthy to hear the voice of God, the honor by which he enjoyed the fruits of paradise and the tree of life. And what the Apostle says, "Render to all what is due: honor to whom honor," seems to me to look to this. For I understand that the honor due to God is rendered if what is owed to justice is rendered and nothing of its portion is conceded to injustice; likewise to truth, if what is its own is so rendered that nothing of its portions is left to falsehood; to wisdom also, and innocence, and goodness, if we so render what is theirs that we allow nothing of their goods to folly or cunning or malice. For when, for example, in judging you have respected the person of a powerful man, or suppressed what is true for a friend's favor, you have not rendered the honor due to justice or to truth, but have dishonored justice and done an insult to truth. And since Christ is justice and sanctification and truth, you will be like those who struck Christ with their fists, and spat in his face, and, striking his head with a reed, put a crown of thorns on his head. What honor is owed by man to all these virtues we are taught in the Gospels, where the Lord says: "That all may honor the Son as they honor the Father." He therefore honors the Father and the Son who brings worthy honor and zeal to wisdom and justice and truth, and to all the things that Christ is said to be. In this way, then, those who hasten to eternal life seek glory and honor and incorruption.

But we will soon know what incorruption signifies if we examine its opposite. Incorruption has corruption as its opposite. Corruption is said to happen in two ways: bodily and spiritually. It happens bodily when what is written comes to pass: "If anyone corrupts the temple of God, God will destroy him." Spiritually, when there happens what the Apostle likewise says: "But I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity of faith that is in Christ Jesus." If anyone, then, has remained uncorrupted in body and spirit from the things we have mentioned, he is said to seek incorruption, so that through this incorruption of his conduct he may deserve to obtain the incorruption that belongs to the resurrection. But let us see what is given to those who seek these things. "Eternal life," he says: that of which the Savior teaches when he says: "This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." By this he shows that the substance of eternal life lies in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus. How the knowledge of God can be had we are taught in the Psalms, where it is said: "Be still, and know that I am God."

"But to those who are of contention, and who disbelieve the truth but obey iniquity, wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress." One who takes these words simply thinks it enough for understanding that, in line with what was said above, God renders to each according to his works: that is, just as he renders eternal life to those who by patience in good work seek glory and incorruption, so he renders wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress, to those who are of contention and disbelieve the truth but obey iniquity. But one who does not believe that a single iota or a single stroke in the apostolic letters, through which Christ speaks, is idle will maintain that it was not by mistake that the Apostle happened to use such an expression, saying: "He will render to those who by patience in good work seek glory and honor, eternal life." But of those who are of contention and obey iniquity he did not say "wrath and indignation" (in the accusative), so that this too would be referred to "he will render," which he had said above; but he said: "wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress." Hence one who is spiritual and understands what the Spirit says in Paul says that the Apostle wrote this not through lack of skill but through divine skill: namely, to show by it that what is to be rendered to those who by patience in good work seek glory and incorruption, that is, eternal life, is rendered by God; but what befalls those who through contention disbelieve the truth but obey iniquity is not given by God, whose gifts are certainly lasting and worthy of himself, but comes to them as the consequence of their own deeds … [he would have] put it in the accusative, if he had wished to refer it to the person of God as the one who renders.

The same is understood to be indicated similarly in other passages of Scripture, as in the first book of Kingdoms, where the Lord says: "Those who glorify me I will glorify; those who despise me will be despised." In this it is plainly shown that the Lord says that those who are to be glorified are to be glorified by himself; but of those who are to be despised he did not refer it to himself but said absolutely that they will be despised. For if God repaid evil things by himself as he bestows good things by himself, it would follow that, just as he said, "Those who glorify me I will glorify," so he would say, "And those who despise me I will despise." And in another place too something similar seems to be shown through the prophet, in that those who go into the fire find it kindled not by God but by themselves, as Isaiah says: "Walk in the light of your fire and the flame that you have kindled."

And to make the discussion of these things still plainer, let this be added. If someone, against the doctor's instruction, takes the juices of bad foods and, having upset the balance of his body, falls into fevers or any other diseases of this kind, it is certain that he received the plague of sickness not through the doctor but through his own intemperance; but if, keeping the doctor's instructions, he remains in health, he will certainly be said to have the gift of health through the doctor. In this way, then, God himself will consistently be seen to render by himself to each according to his works the things that are good; but the evils will be understood to come not from God but from the worst juices of intemperance and from the raw depravity of deeds.

But let us not leave undiscussed this very thing that he said: "Those who are of contention, who disbelieve the truth but obey iniquity." For in each of these the Apostle designates certain sicknesses of the soul, for which no one will find a cure unless he first recognizes the causes of the diseases. And that is why in the divine Scriptures the illnesses of the soul are enumerated and the remedies described, so that those who have submitted themselves to the apostolic teachings, having recognized their sicknesses from what is written, may be cured and say: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, who heals all your diseases." One sickness of the soul among the rest, then, and indeed the worst, must be understood to be contention, through which every perverse work is done. Through it heresies are born, through it schisms and all scandals are produced in the churches, while those who are prudent in their own eyes and wise in their own sight defend as law whatever has pleased them; and so it comes about that the truth is disbelieved and iniquity obeyed.

Now "to disbelieve" (diffidere) is usually found in the holy Scriptures in the sense of "not to believe" or "not to obey," as in this passage too; which the Latin translator might perhaps have rendered more aptly if he had said: "who do not obey the truth but obey iniquity." Everyone, then, who enters on a road alien to the truth and does not follow him who said, "I am the truth," disbelieves the truth and is disobedient to it. So are those who err not only in acts but also in thoughts and in faith, which happens above all from contention. And those too who resist wisdom and justice and sanctification disbelieve Christ, who, as he is truth, so is also wisdom, and so is also sanctification. And not to obey Christ, who is justice, is to obey iniquity and vices, which are without doubt followed by what is written: wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress.

About wrath we have often said already that sometimes the very torment that is struck into the soul from the consciousness of sin is called wrath; and indignation signifies a certain swelling of that wrath and the agitation in each particular: as if, for example, we were to take some very bad wound as wrath, and its swelling and distension were called the indignation of the wound. But the tribulation that distress follows is not to be thought like that tribulation of which the Apostle says that tribulation produces patience. For that kind of tribulation has no distress following it, as the Apostle himself says: "We suffer tribulation, but we are not distressed." Indeed, that tribulation of the saints has not only no distress but breadth. Thus the righteous man says: "In tribulation you have enlarged me." Conscious of this breadth, the Apostle too writes to the Corinthians: "You are not restricted in me, but you are restricted in your own hearts." And he added: "Be enlarged, you also." That is why God says of his saints, whom he knows to be enlarged and to have spaces spread far and wide within the dwelling of their heart: "I will dwell in them and walk among them." This gift, among the other gifts of wisdom, Solomon also received from him, as it is written: "And the Lord gave Solomon very much prudence" … [those whose hearts are] narrow places, because they have given place to the devil to enter: the devil enters indeed, but not to dwell or to walk about, for they are narrow; but to lurk as in a cave, for he is a serpent. So the unhappy soul that this worst of snakes has besieged is stiffened by the serpent's cold, is drawn together and constricted, and is forced into every narrowness; but the soul that obeys the truth … is enlarged and spread out, is illuminated by the rays of the sun of justice, and becomes a hall of wisdom and truth.

Why, though, wrath and indignation "to the Jew first and also to the Greek"? Because glory and honor are also theirs first. For the oracles of God were entrusted to them first, and they themselves say: "Blessed are we, O Israel, because what pleases God is known to us." And therefore, according to the sentence of the Gospel, the servant who knew his master's will and did not do it will rightly be beaten with many blows, that is, the Jew; but the one who did not know, the Greek, that is, the Gentile, will be beaten with few. For there is a difference between having known God and having known God's will, because God could be known from the creation of the world through the things that were made, even by the Gentiles, as could his eternal power and divinity; but his will is known only from the Law and the prophets.

But since the Apostle puts the Jews first both for punishment and for reward, and puts the Greeks after, we must ask whom he wishes to be understood here by Greeks and whom by Jews. If he calls Jews those who are still under the Law and do not come to Christ, and calls Greeks the Christians, that is, those who believe from the Gentiles, he seems to go against the meaning of the whole mystery. For how will those be called first of whom it was said, "Behold, the first will be last," and to whom he says again, "Behold, your house will be left to you desolate"? And again, when the Savior had come to the fig tree on which he found no fruit, he said: "May fruit never be born from you." … And [if he calls Jews] those whom he himself calls Jews in secret, it remains that he calls Greeks those Gentiles who have not yet believed. But how does the Apostle set such hope for Gentiles who do not yet believe, when the rule of the Church seems to oppose it, which lays down that unless someone has been reborn of water and the Holy Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven; and again Peter in the Acts of the Apostles declares of Christ, saying: "For there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved"? How then does he here make the Gentiles sharers of glory and honor and peace, in second place after the Jews?

But let us see whether that goodness and sweetness of God which is usually hidden in the holy Scriptures may not be working something hidden here too. The Apostle seems to me to have made three orders in this passage. First he speaks of those who by patience in good work seek glory and honor and incorruption, saying that God renders to them eternal life. And it is certain that patience in good work is in those who endure the contests and struggles of godliness; which we have explained above is clearly said of Christians, among whom martyrs are made. This is proved also by what the Lord says to the apostles: "You will have tribulation in this world, and the world will rejoice, but you will mourn"; and he added shortly after: "In your patience you will gain your souls." It belongs to Christians, then, to suffer affliction in this age and to mourn, and theirs is eternal life. And do you want to know that eternal life belongs to no one except one who believes in Christ? Hear the voice of the Savior himself, clearly indicating it in the Gospels: "This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Everyone, then, who has not acknowledged the Father as the only true God and his Son Jesus Christ is a stranger to the eternity of life; for this very knowledge and faith is designated as eternal life. This is the first place, then, that of the Christians, to whom, seeking glory and honor and incorruption by patience in good work, eternal life will be rendered: that life, without doubt, which says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." In Christ, who is eternal life, is the fullness of all good things.

In the second place are set those who are of contention and who disbelieve the truth but obey iniquity, over whom wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress hang; that is, upon every soul that does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek. And to these same people a reward of good things is also promised in the third place, with the same distinction, when he says: "But glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." As far as I can grasp, he says this of Jews and Gentiles, both not yet believing. For it can happen that someone from among those who are under the Law, if, by common persuasion, he does not believe in Christ, yet does what is good, holds to justice, loves mercy, keeps chastity and continence, guards modesty and gentleness, and does every good work: this man, even if he does not have eternal life, because, believing in the only true God, he has not believed also in his Son Jesus Christ whom he sent, yet the glory of his works, and peace, and honor will be able not to perish. And the Greek too, that is, the Gentile, if, though he does not have the law, he is a law to himself, showing the work of the law in his heart, and, moved by natural reason, as we see some among the Gentiles do, either holds to justice or keeps chastity or guards prudence, temperance, and modesty: although he seems a stranger to eternal life, because he does not believe in Christ, and cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, because he has not been reborn of water and the Spirit, yet it seems, by what is said by the Apostle, that he cannot altogether lose the glory and honor of good works. For if, according to what we discussed above, the Apostle seems to condemn the Gentiles because, though they knew God by natural understanding, they did not glorify him as God, why should we not think that he can and should also praise those among them who, knowing God, glorify him as God? I do not think, then, that it can be doubted that one who would have deserved to be condemned for an evil work would, if he had done a good work, be held worthy of the reward of a good work. For you see the Apostle saying that we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive what belongs to the body, according to what he has done, whether good or evil. That is why in this passage he adds: "For there is no respect of persons with God."

If this still seems doubtful to you, hear also what Peter declares in the Acts of the Apostles when he had gone in to the Gentile Cornelius: "I have found," he says, "that God is not a respecter of persons, but in every place and in every nation whoever does his will is acceptable to him." But there may be objected to us what the Lord says in the Gospel: "Everyone who believes in me will not be judged; but whoever does not believe has been judged already, because he does not believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." But let us see how we who believe in Christ are not judged, so that we may know how he too who does not believe has been judged already. Is it that someone who believes in Christ and after that commits homicide or adultery, or bears false witness, or does anything of this kind, which we see that even the faithful sometimes commit, will no longer be judged for these things because he has believed in Christ? It is certain that all these things come to judgment. And therefore the Lord's word, "Whoever believes in me will not be judged," must be understood thus: that in respect of his having believed he will not be judged as an unbeliever and faithless; but for his acts he will without doubt be judged. So too he who does not believe has been judged already in respect of his not having believed; and just as judgment awaits the believer, his faith being safe, if he has committed some sin outside of it, so too for the unbeliever, if he has done some good work, apart from his unbelief, the reward will not perish.

Unless perhaps someone wishes to object something heavy and intolerable, saying that one who sins is not to be counted among believers, because if someone believes he does not sin, and if he sins he is proved by that very fact not to believe. But I think no one doubts how harsh this opinion is. For how few will be found on earth who so balance their life that they offend in nothing at all? John the Apostle too, in his epistle, clearly censures an opinion of this kind when he says: "If anyone says that he has no sin, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him." But if we confess … by these things may the explanation become clearer of how the Apostle sets first the Jews and then the Greeks. Nevertheless let it be left to the judgment of the reader to test what has been said. We, however, have brought more into the treatise so as not to seem to leave anything of the Apostle's meaning undiscussed.

"For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who 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." Since the Apostle says that those who have sinned without the law will perish without the law, it is asked whether this is to be understood of the law of Moses alone, or also of the law of Christ, or even of any human law under which each mortal happens to live, so that one who sins in it can be judged according to it; or whether one who is outside the law of Moses alone, even if he lives under some other law, perishes when he sins as one placed outside the law. For the apostle Paul himself, when he says that to those who are without law he is as one without law, also adds: "though I was not without law, but was in the law of Christ," and so shows that he is not in the law of Moses, yet is under law. But see whether human laws too, as we said, ought to be counted for this very purpose.

As for the natural law, which is present in all men in common, it must be considered whether it makes nearly everyone sin in the law, as he says later: "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." Unless perhaps we should say that those are placed outside the law who obey neither written laws nor their conscience and their own thoughts, which rebuke and accuse them.

But how does he say: "All who have sinned in the law will be judged by the law"? Certainly one who is in the law of Christ will be judged by the law of Christ, and one who is in the law of Moses by the law of Moses. Nor is one who is under the law of Christ, even though he may seem also subject to the law of Moses, to be thought to be judged according to it for not being circumcised or for not keeping the Sabbath. And even if he is to be thought to be judged according to the law of Moses, he will be judged according to the fact that the law is spiritual. For this is what it means that not the hearer of the law but the doer is justified.

But since one who has sinned without the law seems to be struck with a heavier sentence, because he is declared about to perish, when surely one who did not have the help of the law seems also worthy of some pity, let us see whether something of the divine goodness may not lie hidden here again, as we have shown in other places, which he always hides for those who fear him. For perhaps it is for this reason that the Lord himself shows in the Gospel that he has a more inclined care for those who perish, when he says that "the Son of man came to seek and to save what had perished." And again he says: "I was not sent except to the sheep that have perished of the house of Israel." And David says: "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant." And in the Gospel the drachma that had perished is found by the woman when the house has been swept; and the father rejoices over the younger son who repents, who had been dead and come to life again, had perished and been found, more than over the one who had not perished nor been found. This younger son, as I think, had already fled even from the natural law itself; for this seems to be indicated in that he squandered the part of his father's substance that fell to him by living licentiously. And in the prophet Ezekiel the shepherds are charged with not having bound up the weak and not having sought what had perished; and shortly after the Lord himself says: "And what has perished I will seek."

Yet it must be observed that in all these places God is nowhere said to have destroyed anyone, but each one suffers by his own doing the fact that he perishes, as in this very passage he says, "Without the law they will also perish"; and "The Son of man came to seek what had perished," not what he had destroyed; and "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," not those he had destroyed. And when the Lord himself says, "All whom you gave me I have kept, and none of them has perished," he did not say, "I have destroyed none of them." Indeed, wherever God is said to destroy, you will find it said rather in the sense of "reject," as when he says: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent I will reject."

As for his saying that "all who have sinned in the law will be judged by the law," consider whether perhaps the future judgment will be in the manner of those punishments written in the Law by which judgments were carried out, where people are ordered to be stoned, or handed over to the fire, or to go to a city of refuge, or to suffer other things of this kind; since those who are under the law are said to serve a type and shadow of heavenly things, perhaps the future judgment too will be carried out by some similar principle against those who have transgressed the law. Since, then, it has become clear that different laws are spoken of in the Scriptures, if someone has fled all of them to such a degree that even the natural law itself, which is lacking to hardly anyone, seems to have been blotted out and abolished in him, either through hardness or through thickness of heart, it can be seen to be said of him that he perishes without the law; but one who lives under the law may be said to be judged by the law, because the Apostle too testifies to everyone who has himself circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

"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 witness to them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or even defending them, on the day when God will judge the secrets of men according to my gospel through Jesus Christ." It is certain that the Gentiles who do not have the law are not said to do by nature the things of the law with regard to Sabbaths or new moons or the sacrifices written in the law. For this law is not written in the hearts of the Gentiles; but rather what they can perceive by nature: for example, that they should not commit homicide or adultery, should not steal, should not bear false witness; that they should honor father and mother, and things like these. Perhaps it is also written in the hearts of the Gentiles that God, the one creator of all things, exists. Yet these things that are said to be written in the heart seem to me rather to agree with the laws of the Gospel, where everything is referred to natural equity. For what is so close to the natural senses as that men should not do to others what they do not want done to themselves? The natural law can agree with the law of Moses according to the spirit, not according to the letter. For what natural understanding will there be in this, for example: that someone should circumcise an infant on the eighth day, or that wool should not be woven together with linen, or that no one should eat anything leavened on the day of the New? When we have sometimes put these things to Jews and demanded that they show if there was any usefulness in them, we know that they used to answer only this: that it so seemed good to the lawgiver. But we, who hold that all these things are to be understood spiritually, therefore believe that not the hearers but the doers of the law are to be justified, not of the law according to the letter, which, because of its impossibility … [the law written in the hearts] of them by God, not with ink but with the Spirit of God.

As for his saying "in their hearts," it is not to be thought that the law is said to be written in the bodily organ called the heart. For how could flesh either send forth such great perceptions of prudence or contain such great storehouses of memory? Rather it must be known that the rational power of the soul is usually called the heart. And the Apostle says that those who hold the law written in their hearts use the testimony of their conscience. Hence it seems necessary to discuss what it is that the Apostle calls conscience: whether it is some other substance than the heart or the soul. For this conscience is also said elsewhere to rebuke and not be rebuked, and to judge a man, not itself be judged, as John says: "If our conscience does not rebuke us, we have confidence toward God." And again Paul himself says elsewhere: "For our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience." Since, then, I see such freedom in it, that it always rejoices and exults in good deeds, and in evil deeds is not itself accused but rebukes and accuses the very soul to which it is joined, I think that it is the spirit itself which the Apostle says is with the soul, as we taught above, joined to it like a kind of tutor and guide, to admonish it about better things or to chastise and accuse it for faults. Of this the Apostle also says that "no one among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him"; and that this spirit is the conscience of which he says: "The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit." And perhaps this is the very spirit that is joined to the souls of the righteous who have been obedient to it in all things; and therefore it is written: "Praise the Lord, spirits and souls of the righteous." But if the soul has been disobedient and stubborn toward it, it will be divided from it after death and separated. And for this reason I think it was said in the Gospel of the wicked steward that the Lord will divide him and put his portion with the unbelievers. Perhaps this is the spirit of which it is written that "the spirit in men is incorruptible." And in line with what we said above, that it is divided and separated from the sinful soul, so that the soul receives its portion with the unbelievers, what was said can likewise be applied to them: "There will be two in the field; one will be taken and one left; and two women at the mill; one will be taken and one left." These things on what is written: "their conscience bearing witness."

Now let us see what follows: "And their thoughts among themselves accusing or even defending them, on the day when God will judge the secrets of men according to my gospel through Jesus Christ." Who would doubt that the judgment of God is right, where accusers and defenders and witnesses are brought in? And indeed let us men take an example from this just judgment of God, and never think that a judgment can be held just without an accuser, a defender, and witnesses. Next we must see how on that day, when God will judge the secrets of men, the thoughts will either accuse or defend the soul: not, certainly, the thoughts that will exist then, but those that are in us now. For when we think either good or evil things, certain marks and seals of good as well as of evil thoughts are left in our heart as in wax; these, now placed in the hidden part of the breast, are said to be revealed on that day by no one else than by him who alone can know the secrets of men; and our conscience too will bear witness that the causes of these signs or marks are not hidden from God. This judgment, however, will take place according to Paul's gospel (that is, what Paul proclaims) through Jesus Christ. "For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son." Marcion, however, and all who by various fictions introduce different natures of souls, are most plainly refuted by this passage, since Paul says that God judges the secrets of men through Jesus Christ; and it is shown that each one, not by a privilege of nature but accused or excused by his own thoughts, is to be judged by the testimony of his conscience.

"But if you are called a Jew, and rest in the law, and glory in God, and know his will, and approve the more useful things, being instructed by the law, and are confident that you are a guide of the blind, a light of those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law: you, then, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one must not steal, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you commit sacrilege? You who glory in the law, do you dishonor God through transgression of the law? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, as it is written."

Just as we have observed in the prophetic Scriptures that not only the person of the speaker changes covertly and suddenly, but also the persons of those to whom or about whom the word is spoken (for example, that some things are said now in the person of the Father, now of the Son or of the Holy Spirit, now also in the person of the prophet or of any others; and that the word is directed now to the Israelite nation, now to foreign nations, or to kings, and to a thousand others), so it seems to me that this Epistle to the Romans too has been written in such a way that sometimes the person of the speaker changes: sometimes it is the spiritual Paul who speaks, as in many places of the Epistle, but sometimes the carnal Paul, as for example when he says, "But I am carnal, sold under sin," as will be shown when, the Lord directing us, we come to that passage. And sometimes there is also a change of the persons to whom the word is addressed: so that now it is said to the whole Church of the Romans, "I give thanks to my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in the whole world"; but in other places not to the whole Church but to everyone who judges another and himself does what he condemns in others, and is without excuse. But now this word is addressed neither to the Church nor to the one who judges, where he says, "But if you are called a Jew, and rest in the law, and glory in God, and know his will," and so on, up to the place where he says, "And the uncircumcision that is by nature, fulfilling the law, will judge you, who through the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law." Just as in the prophetic Scriptures one who wishes to grasp the understanding of what is written must watchfully attend to the persons of the speakers, or of those to whom or about whom the word is spoken, so it seems to me that one must now proceed in the Epistle to the Romans.

But let us now see what the Apostle says to the one who is called a Jew. First, it must be observed that he did not say of him, "But if you are a Jew," but "you are called a Jew"; because to be a Jew and to be called a Jew are not the same. For Paul himself teaches later that he is truly a Jew who is circumcised in secret with the circumcision of the heart, who keeps the law in the spirit, not the letter, whose praise is not from men but from God. But one who is circumcised openly, in the flesh, keeping the law in order to be seen by men, is not truly a Jew but is called one. For of these the Apostle himself says: "Look at the circumcision; for we are the circumcision, who serve God in the spirit." And John too says in the Apocalypse of certain people: "Who say that they are Jews and are not"; whom he also declares to be of the synagogue of Satan. It must be known, however, that he who is a Jew in secret and truly takes his name from that Judah of whom it is written in Genesis: "Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hands will be on the back of your enemies. A lion's whelp is Judah," and the rest that was prophesied of the Savior, the Lord.

If, then, it has become clear about the differences of persons, and who is truly a Jew and who is called one only in name, let us see what the apostolic word says to this one who boasts that he is a Jew and is not. "You," he says, "who are called a Jew, and place all your rest in the letter of the law, and glory in God as one who is his portion and to whom it has been granted to know the will of God; and you boast, as one skilled in testing, that you can know and discern the more useful and the differing things, so that you not only know what is good but also discern what is better and more useful; you are also confident that you can be a guide of the blind": no doubt you are of those guides of whom the Lord said: "They are blind guides of the blind; and if a blind man leads a blind man, both fall into the pit." He is confident, then, that he is a guide of the blind, a light also of those who are in darkness. But to these too the Lord says no less: "If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" They are confident, however, that they are instructors of the foolish and teachers of infants, as having received from the letter of the law the form of knowledge and truth. And because they profess this but do not truly hold it, the Apostle says to them: "You then who teach another, do you not teach yourself? And you who preach that one must not steal, do you steal" the coming and presence of Christ, which has shone out on the whole world? "You who say that one must not commit adultery" commit adultery against the synagogue of the people of God, bringing upon it a perverse and adulterous word of teaching; and you set it beside the letter of the law, which is outward, though you read it written of the law, "All the glory of the king's daughter is within"; and of it you read it said likewise through the prophet: "Unless you listen in secret, your soul will weep." You, then, who forbid adultery commit so grave an adultery that you bring an adulterous sense to her of whom you read that God said: "I will betroth you to myself in faith and mercy." "You who abhor idols commit sacrilege," violating the true temple of God, which is Christ Jesus. For you destroy the temple of God, which was raised up in three days for those who believe. And one who steals and hides the word of the law and the prophets that proclaims Christ, so that the people may not hear and believe, commits sacrilege and truly violates the temple of God. This same man, too, who is called a Jew and glories in the letter of the law of Moses, is convicted as a transgressor of the law when he does not believe in Christ. For if he believed Moses, he would surely believe this one, of whom Moses wrote. Because of such people, then, who are called Jews and are not, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles, not only for their very bad works but also because of the lowly and abject understanding they have of the law and the prophets. For things become ridiculous even to the Gentiles themselves when, following the letter of the law, they say: "Do not touch, do not taste, do not defile yourself"; all of which perish in their use, according to the commandments and doctrines of men.

The Apostle says these things, to be sure, to one who is a Jew in name, not in deed; yet they can also apply to every man in whom there is only the name of religion and piety, but works and knowledge and faith are lacking. And therefore we ought to discuss these things with greater care in ourselves than in those who do not come to the faith of Christ, lest any of us who, through the faith of Christ and the circumcision given in baptism, has been made a true Jew and rests in the law of Christ, and glories too that, having driven out the error of idols, he has come to know God and that God's will has become known to him (for he knows how to test what is good and well-pleasing and perfect), and has gone so far as even to be a leader and teacher of the Church, to enlighten those who are blind in knowledge and to instruct little ones in Christ: lest such a man, I say, should wish to teach others more strictly and demand the highest discipline of chastity from those he instructs, while he himself is driven by the vice of intemperance and greed, and sometimes even burns with the flames of hidden lust. To such a man, then, the apostolic word is fittingly applied, saying to him: "You who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one must not steal, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?" And if, as sometimes happens, he has turned to his own profit the gifts offered to God and the alms given for the use of the poor, it is rightly said to him: "You who abhor idols commit sacrilege." And if he also incurs open disgrace, and already bears public notoriety for his avarice and unjust judgments and drunkenness, God is dishonored in his acts; and when such a teacher of the Church has become known to the peoples, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles. For they are sure that disciples are like their teacher.

These same things can also, in the third place, be applied to heretics. For they too are called Christians, and some of them have even held to the Law; instructed by it, they profess themselves guides of the blind and teachers of infants, approving the "more useful things" that they say are hidden from churchmen. But since these steal the words of God and filch their meaning by perverse exposition, and bring an adulterous sense of the faith into the royal bridal chamber, to the Church, the bride of Christ, it is rightly said to them: "You who preach that one must not steal, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?" And those who abhor idols commit sacrilege, stealing the precious vessels from the temple of God, that is, the pearls of the true faith from the holy Scriptures; through them, too, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles, while they stain the chaste and honorable doctrines of the Church with the corrupt and shameful errors of heretical depravity. For from them arose the reproaches of infanticide and incest and other similar crimes, to bring hatred on the holy religion. It must be known, however, that the Apostle says these things to the Jews by irony. For one who truly rests in the Law and glories in God and approves the more useful things is not to be believed to do the things enumerated. The testimony that he cited, that is, "For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you," is taken from Isaiah.

"Circumcision is indeed of value if you keep the law; but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. If, then, the uncircumcision keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And the uncircumcision that is by nature, fulfilling the law, will judge you, who through the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one in secret, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God." What the circumcision is that the Apostle says is of value, or which law is of value … [the circumcision of the heart, which] has praise not from men but from God; and elsewhere he says: "Look at the circumcision; for we are the circumcision, who serve God in the spirit and put no confidence in the flesh." This, as I think, is the circumcision that the Apostle says is of value if you keep the law: not the law of the letter, whose circumcision in the flesh you certainly do not receive, but the law of the spirit, according to which you are circumcised in heart. "For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life," because the law of God too was not written with ink but by the finger of God, which is his Spirit, and not on tablets of stone but on the tablets of the heart.

But it may be objected to us: if the Apostle says that circumcision is of value, which is surely understood to be nothing other than the purification of the soul and the casting off of vices, how does he add further that such circumcision is of value only if you keep the law, since this very circumcision seems to come about only from the observance of the law? But consider whether perhaps circumcision signifies cutting off vices and ceasing from evil, while keeping the law means doing what is good and accomplishing what is perfect. For perfection does not consist in ceasing from evil, but in doing good, as we are more clearly taught in the Psalm, when it says, "Turn away from evil," and it did not stop there but added, "and do good." Likewise, then, the Apostle, being steeped in these things, says that circumcision and the casting off of evils are of value only if you keep the law of good things. For no one can be perfect if he has done nothing evil, but only if he has done something good. Hence the very circumcision that was done in the flesh will be signified as an image not without this understanding that we are now setting out. Indeed, it was given on the eighth day to little ones who had certainly not yet done any work.

And if someone brings against us what is set down at the beginning of the book of Job in his praise, where it is said, "blameless, righteous, a worshipper of God, keeping himself from every evil thing," where, after the praise of good works has come first, abstinence from evil is counted last: I think that what is indicated is what often happens, that very many do what is good but yet mix in something of evil work; but few are like Job, who are both so truthful and blameless, so righteous, and keep themselves from every evil thing. "If, then," he says, "you are a transgressor of the law," as we explained above, by not doing what is good, "your circumcision has become uncircumcision," while even this, that you seemed to abstain from evil, is counted to you as unbelief, since you do not do the works of faith and righteousness. For it is not possible for anyone's fleshly circumcision to be turned back into uncircumcision, since the flesh of the foreskin, once cut off, cannot return. It is therefore understood more fittingly and more clearly that abstinence from evil work, which is signified by circumcision, is counted as uncleanness if it does not have the works of faith. And in the Church too, one who is circumcised through the grace of baptism, if after this he is a transgressor of the law of Christ, the circumcision of baptism will be counted to him as the uncircumcision of unbelief: because "faith without works" is also said to be "dead," and the portion of the wicked steward is set with the unbelievers.

"If the uncircumcision keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not that which is uncircumcision by nature, fulfilling the law, judge you, who through the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law?" We said above that the Apostle discusses two kinds of Jews and two circumcisions, and mentions now the fleshly and now the spiritual. In the present passage, then, he seems to call "the uncircumcision" the Gentiles who have come to faith in Christ in the uncircumcision of the flesh: these, keeping the spiritual law, he sets beside and compares with the Jews who through the letter and the circumcision of the flesh are transgressors of the law, and he says that they are to be judged by those in whom there is not circumcision of the flesh but observance of the law. From this comparison we can also admonish our own people in the Church: for example, if we say that the catechumens, or even the Gentiles, are still in uncircumcision, and that the faithful are circumcised through the grace of baptism. If, then, a catechumen who has not yet been circumcised through the grace of the washing keeps the law of Christ and guards his righteous requirements and commandments, will he not by this comparison judge the one who is called faithful but does not keep the law of Christ? … The Lord himself says: "The queen of the South will rise in the judgment with the men of this generation and will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon."

Let these things be said by us for the instruction of the Church. But consider whether in this passage that understanding too can be admitted, so that it is said that even after the coming of Christ the fleshly circumcision observed from the law is of some value to those who keep the law, according to the fact that it was still observed at the beginnings of the faith, as it is taught in the Acts of the Apostles that Peter did in the distinction of foods, or Paul in the sacrifices of purification. Perhaps here too the Apostle may seem to have put forward a circumcision of this kind, which he says is of value only if the law is also kept; if not, this circumcision is to be turned into uncircumcision, that is, it will be of no value; indeed, one who through circumcision of the flesh seems to profess observance of the law has a greater judgment, and, by transgressing the law, is judged by one who has not received circumcision of the flesh but has kept the righteous requirements of the law. Whether this sense too ought to be received, see for yourself, reader; since indeed the Apostle himself professes that to the Jews he becomes a Jew, and to those who are without law as one without law, and becomes all things to all, that he may gain all; perhaps it is for this reason that here he seems to make allowances for the Jews which, writing to the Galatians, he does not allow to those who had believed from the Gentiles. For he says: "If you are circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you." Circumcision, then, was of no value to those who thought that some justification was gained from it; but it was of value to those who thought that they could not come to Christ if they were forbidden to circumcise their sons. For there were some at the beginning who kept circumcision as a native badge of their nation out of an excessive love, and who seemed … [to be kept from the faith] if they were forbidden what they could not do without. So the Apostle seems to say to people of this kind, so as not to close the door of faith to them, that "circumcision is of value if you keep the law; but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision." On the other hand, if those who believe from the Gentiles were compelled to be circumcised, an injury would seem to be done to the faith of Christ and to the preaching of the word.

This too must be observed: that when he had said, "Circumcision is of value if you keep the law," he did not add, "But if you do not keep it," as seemed to follow, but said: "But if you are a transgressor of the law." By this he shows that not to keep the law is one thing and to transgress the law another. For Paul himself did not always keep the law, yet he is never a transgressor of the law. That is why he says next: "But if the uncircumcision keeps the righteous requirement of the law, will not that which is uncircumcision by nature, fulfilling the law, judge you, who through the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law?" He keeps the law, then, who observes it according to the letter; and he transgresses it who does not hold its spiritual sense. The righteous requirement of the law is its moral part. For "law" is a general word, but righteous requirement is a part of the law: for the law contains righteous requirements, and judgments, and commandments, and ordinances, and very many other kinds. If, then, the uncircumcision keeps, not, he says, the law itself, but the righteous requirements of the law, it is preferred to the circumcision that transgresses the law so far as even to judge it. And he did well to add, "fulfilling the law." For the one who lives according to the letter is said to keep the law, but the one who lives according to the spirit to fulfill it; and the fulfillment of the law is in Christ, who said: "I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it." To fulfill the law is to bring the law to completion. The carnal Jew, then, keeps the law, but the spiritual Jew, who is a Jew in secret, fulfills it. In this the former becomes a transgressor of the law, and the latter the judge of the transgressor. The carnal Jew becomes a transgressor because the law itself was weakened through the flesh. For unless it had been weakened according to the flesh, it would surely not be said: "For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weak through the flesh." But you will never find it written that the law is weakened through the spirit. And therefore "those who are in the flesh cannot please God"; but those who through the spirit have put to death the deeds of the flesh will not only live but will be judges not only of men but also of angels; because the praise of the one is from men, of the other from God.

Let these things be said by us for the explanation of the apostolic word that we set out to discuss. Yet it will not seem out of place also to discuss the general principle of circumcision itself, since the passage itself has prompted us about it. Let us go back, then, and bring forward whatever is contained about it in the law or in the other Scriptures. We find written in Genesis the first commandment about circumcision, when answers were given to Abraham in this way: "And God said to Abraham: You shall keep my covenant, you and all your seed after you in their generations. And this is the covenant that I have set between me and you, and between me and your seed after you in their generations: every male of yours shall be circumcised, and you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you; and a boy shall be circumcised among you on the eighth day, every male in your generations: the home-born slave and the one bought with money from any foreigner who is not of your seed; the home-born slave of your house and the one bought by you with money shall be circumcised with circumcision; and my covenant shall be upon your flesh as an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin on the eighth day, that soul shall be cut off from its kindred, because he has broken my covenant." It should not escape us, however, that in other copies "on the eighth day" is not found in this place alone. Again in Leviticus it is written: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: Whatever woman has conceived seed and borne a male shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of her purification she shall be unclean; and on the eighth day she shall circumcise the flesh of his foreskin, and for thirty-three days she shall remain in her blood unclean." These are the testimonies we have set down from the law of Moses. The Savior, moreover, says in the Gospel that a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath and the law of Moses is not broken; and he says that it is from the fathers and was given before Moses. Moved by the authority of this saying and at the same time by the weight of the legal precept, some were persuaded to be circumcised even after the coming of Jesus, though they were from the Gentiles. But others, shuddering at the weight of the precept, fled altogether even from the very laws in which these things were seen to be written, so that they thought these were not the commandments of the good God, nor of the God whom our Lord and Savior had come to preach. And therefore it seems to me that a more careful discussion should be applied in such places: whether there is any usefulness in a commandment of this kind even according to the letter; and if there are people to whom it is useful, or to what end its usefulness tends; or whether something more useful is indicated figuratively.

Taking up again, then, the testimonies we brought forward from the law, let us discuss more attentively whether a commandment of this kind seems to bind the nation of the Jews alone, or whether it constrains with equal lot all who have believed from the Gentiles. Let us look, then, at the oracle given to Abraham, by which he was commanded to keep the covenant of circumcision. "You," it says, "shall keep my covenant, and all your seed after you through their generations. And this is the covenant that I have set between me and you and them, that every male of theirs be circumcised, and that they circumcise the flesh of their foreskin, that it may be a sign of the covenant between me and them; and let every male be circumcised on the eighth day." Whom he wishes to be circumcised also from among foreigners, that is, those not said to be of the stock of Abraham, he clearly declares. For he says: "Your home-born slave and the one bought with money from any foreigner who is not of your seed shall be circumcised with circumcision." Nowhere did he make mention of the proselyte, that is, the newcomer; but he orders to be circumcised the home-born slave, born in the house, certainly of that nation, or even one bought for a price; he does not bind the free man, nor the guest, nor the newcomer.

Let us now also examine the law of Leviticus, how God commands Moses there too: "Speak," it says, "to the sons of Israel and say to them: If a woman has conceived seed and borne a male"; and some way after: "On the eighth day," it says, "she shall circumcise the flesh of his foreskin." Look here too how Moses is commanded to speak about the law of circumcision only to the sons of Israel, and no mention is made of foreigners. For if we believe that what is set down in the law was written through the divine Spirit, it must surely not be thought that anything is either added or left unsaid without reason. And therefore, since in some commandments it is said, "Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them," but in others it is added that he should speak not only to the sons of Israel but also to the proselytes, that is, the newcomers, the distinction must necessarily be observed. For just as in these places it is said to one person, "Speak to Aaron," and elsewhere, "Speak to the sons of Aaron," and elsewhere, "Speak to the Levites and say to them," it is certain that the other sons of Israel are not subject to these laws that were promulgated to the sons of Aaron or the Levites or Aaron himself; so too in what is commanded to the sons of Israel, where no mention at all is made of the foreigner, it is not to be thought that the commandment is common in these cases or that the law becomes common, where there is an exception of naming. Let us, however, adduce a few testimonies out of many to prove this, by which we may show that the addition or exception of names of this kind is necessary.

In the first parts of Leviticus a law of this kind is given to the sons of Israel alone: "Speak," says the Lord, "to the sons of Israel and say to them: If a man among you offers gifts to God from the cattle," and so on; and again: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel: If a soul sins unwillingly," and so on. Who would doubt that these and things like them are commanded to the sons of Israel alone? But others are commanded not to them but to Aaron or his sons, as it says later: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Command Aaron and his sons, saying: This is the law of the burnt offerings," and so on; and again: "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: This is the law of the sin offering: in the place where they slaughter the burnt offering, there they shall slaughter for sin before the Lord"; and again to Aaron: "Wine and strong drink you shall not drink, you and your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of testimony." Others again are commanded neither to Aaron nor to the sons of Israel but to the elders of Israel, in this way: "Speak," it says, "to the elders of Israel, saying: Take a he-goat from the goats for sin," and so on. Is there any doubt that this law is commanded only to the elders of the sons of Israel? And about the clean and unclean animals, too, a special law seems to be given to the sons of Israel. For thus it is written: "And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, saying to them: These are the animals that you shall eat," and the rest. So, then, about circumcision too, whether in the answers given to Abraham or in what is contained in Leviticus, no one else is bound by the law of circumcision unless he either traces his origin from Abraham or is their home-born slave or one bought for a price.

But do you want to see that wherever he wishes foreigners also to be bound by one and the same law he shows it expressly? Hear what is written: "And the Lord spoke," it says, "to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and to his sons and to all the sons of Israel and say to them: Any man of the sons of Israel, or of the newcomers who are among you, who eats any blood, I will set my soul against that soul that has eaten blood, and I will destroy it from its people; for the soul of all flesh is its blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement with it upon the altar for your souls, because the blood will atone for the soul. Therefore I have said to the sons of Israel: No soul of you shall eat blood, and whatever newcomer is among you shall not eat blood." You see, then, that this law about the observance concerning blood, which was given in common to the sons of Israel and to the newcomers, is observed also by us who from the Gentiles believe in God through Jesus Christ. For Scripture is accustomed to call us proselytes and newcomers, when it says: "The newcomer who is among you will go up above you, higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower. He will be the head for you, and you will be his tail." That is why the Church of the Gentiles has taken up the law about the observance concerning blood in common with the sons of Israel. For understanding these things to be written thus in the law, that blessed council of the apostles then decreed, writing doctrines and decrees for the Gentiles, that they should abstain not only from what is sacrificed to idols and from sexual immorality, but from blood and from what is strangled.

But perhaps you will ask whether, just as it has become clear about the observance concerning blood, so too it is taught about what is strangled, whether the law was given in common to the sons of Israel and the newcomers, since the statutes of the apostles decree that the Gentiles observe this too. Hear how carefully provision has been made about this too in the laws of God: "Any man," it says, "any man of the sons of Israel, or of the newcomers who are among you, who has hunted a wild beast or a bird that is eaten, shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth, because the soul of all flesh is its blood." See, then, how carefully the lawgiver, where he wants the commandment to be common, joins the newcomers to the sons of Israel; but where he gives special precepts, he distinguishes by whom he wants them observed.

But since among those things from Leviticus that we brought forward above this too is reported as written: "Any man, any man of the sons of Israel, or of the newcomers who are among them, who has made a burnt offering or a sacrifice and has not brought it to the door of the tabernacle of testimony to make it to the Lord, that man shall be cut off from his people"; and by this the newcomer too seems to be enjoined concerning sacrifices, and the Church from the Gentiles to be made liable to bringing burnt offerings: these words, too, and syllables, so to speak, of the law must be observed more carefully. For it says: "If he has made a burnt offering or a sacrifice," that he should bring it to the door of the tabernacle of testimony. The law does not command him to make it, but teaches how he ought to make it if perhaps he has made it. For it is certain, and cannot be doubted, that while the temple stood at Jerusalem and the religion handed down to the fathers flourished, very many even of the Gentiles came to worship and offer sacrifices. But since it was commanded that this be done in one place only, about which he also commands here that the victim to be slaughtered be brought to the door of the tabernacle, it could be done lawfully only so long as the state of that place remained intact. Indeed, the Savior too said to the ten lepers he had cleansed: "Go and show yourselves to the priest, and offer sacrifices for yourselves, as Moses commanded"; and when one of them had returned to the Savior giving thanks, the Lord said: "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? None was found to return and give thanks to God except this foreigner." So, then, while the temple stood, it was customary even for foreigners to offer sacrifices; but now what is demanded of newcomers that is not permitted even to its own worshippers to perform?

All these things have been said by us to show how great the distinction of the commandments in the law is, and especially to teach about the precept of circumcision that it was enjoined on none but those who trace their descent from Abraham, and their home-born slaves or those bought for a price; but that those who from the Gentiles believe in God through Christ are free from laws of this kind. We have discussed these things for the moment without adding any allegory, so that no occasion might remain, as usually happens, for those who are of the circumcision to clamor against the truth. But they may still raise a strong weapon against us, maintaining that even proselytes are made liable to circumcision by the law, from what is written in Exodus in this way: "But if a proselyte comes to you and makes the Passover to the Lord, you shall circumcise every male of his, and then he shall come near to make it, and he shall be as a native. No uncircumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the native and for the newcomer who has come to you." Although this objection may seem clever, yet the admirable caution of the lawgiver comes to our aid everywhere. For consider that here too he did not say that the newcomer who has come to you should make the Passover to the Lord and be circumcised; but with the most careful restraint he decrees, saying: "If he comes to you and makes the Passover." For there can be no doubt that if someone makes the Jewish Passover with the Jews, he must also be circumcised. This is one point, meanwhile, by which the caution of the lawgiver provided for the refutation of those who contradict. There is also this besides, at which they will not be able to mutter a word. The Passover that the law commands to be made it orders to be made in the place that the Lord God chose, that is, at Jerusalem; for sacrifices are decreed to be offered only in that temple. Let them first recover the state of the temple, and then argue about circumcision; but if, according to the Savior's sentence, there has not remained there a stone upon a stone that has not been destroyed, the pleading about circumcision is superfluous.

So much, indeed, is circumcision the native badge of that nation and of no other, that nowhere in the histories of the ancients is anyone else recorded to have been reproved for it except the son of Moses, whose mother Zipporah checked by circumcision the force of the angel who threatened the death of her son. From all these things, then, it is shown that the Israel which is according to the flesh alone is liable to circumcision of the flesh; but the proselyte people is free from it and a stranger to it, the people who came to it, who went up and became higher, while that one went down and became lower; and through the mercy of Christ this people has been made the head and that one the tail. For "the last have become first, and the first last"; and for this reason that which is uncircumcision by nature, fulfilling the law, judges those who through the letter and circumcision are transgressors of the law. For it is not this circumcision, which is done outwardly in the flesh, that purifies the soul; but that which is in secret, the circumcision of the heart, itself purifies the mind and cuts away the stains of vices.

So far let what we could say about fleshly circumcision be said. Come now, according to him who said that "the law is spiritual," and who says of the things reported in the law that they were said by allegory, let us see what we should think of it also according to the laws of allegory. I know that the sayings or writings of many on this subject are reported; but we too will add what the Lord may give to those things that seem to have been suitably composed by others. To circumcise is to cut off some part of the genital member, through which the succession of the human race and the propagation of the flesh is provided. By this, then, I think it is figuratively indicated that whatever impurity has clung to the soul from its partnership with the flesh, whatever the evil-counseling sense of lust has covered it with, must be cut off from the soul. That is why this cutting is inflicted not on other members but on the genital members, so that it may be clear that vices of this kind come to the soul not from its own substance but from the inborn motion and incitement of the flesh. As for circumcision being given on the eighth day, I think this is designated: that a week is assigned to the present age, but the eighth day holds the mystery of the age to come. Spiritual circumcision, then, belongs to those who serve as soldiers for the age to come, in which they will neither marry nor be given in marriage but will be like the angels of God; and to those who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God; and to those whose citizenship, while they walk on earth, is in heaven, and who look not at the things that are seen but at those that are not seen, and know that the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal.

But, as we mentioned above, it has also been said by others that spiritual circumcision is to cut off and cast out of the heart every unclean thought and impure perception. But against explanations of this kind there is an objection from what is reported written in Ezekiel, where the Lord says: "No foreign son, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter my holy places, among all the sons of foreigners who are in the midst of the house of Israel." For here the prophetic word clearly shows two circumcisions, saying: "uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh." Hence we are compelled, according to the laws of allegory, to assign the forms and kinds of both circumcisions, although this could be objected to us also in the reasons we set out above. But meanwhile let us now pursue what figure of two circumcisions can be kept according to allegory, and let us see whether perhaps it can be referred to two general kinds of sin in which it is not good to be uncircumcised, that is, in faith and in works: so that he is uncircumcised in heart who does not have faith, and uncircumcised in flesh who does not have works. For the one without the other is rejected, since "faith without works" is said to be "dead," and "by works without faith no one is justified" before God. So, then, as I think, the prophetic saying will be fittingly applied to the people of the faithful, to whom it is said: "Every foreigner who is among you in the midst of the house of Israel, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, shall not enter my holy places." This is no doubt what the Lord also says in the Gospel: "Whoever believes in me keeps my commandments"; and again: "Whoever hears these words of mine and does them"; and again: "Why do you say to me, Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?" You see, then, that everywhere faith is joined with works, and works are associated with faith. Circumcision of the heart, therefore, is to think nothing sordid, nothing unworthy, concerning the faith. Circumcision of the flesh is to commit nothing unclean, nothing defiled, in work and deeds. For one who is uncircumcised and unclean in either of these is forbidden by the voice of God to enter the holy places. Yet even a foreigner enters the holy places, where according to the law of the letter only priests were allowed to enter. But now it is granted to foreigners too to enter, provided they have been purified by the circumcision of faith and of acts.

But if someone insists on calling us back to the earlier questions and objects to us again what is written about the foreigner, that if he wishes to enter the holy places not only circumcision of the heart but also of the flesh is required of him: to one who persists so troublesomely we in turn oppose what the prophet Jeremiah says: "Behold, your ears are uncircumcised." Let this demander of fleshly circumcision show us a perceptible and bodily circumcision of the ears, if he can; but it is certain that he can by no means do it. He will therefore turn back, compelled by necessity, to allegories, and will say that the ears are circumcised when, according to Solomon's warnings, they do not receive an idle report, and when they are stopped so as not to hear a judgment of blood, and when they are hedged with thorns so as not to receive slander, but are open only to the word of God and to what is said for edification. Let the circumcision of the heart, then, be such as this circumcision of the ears, which is commonly seen to be explained. In this way, too, one is said to be uncircumcised in lips who has not circumcised blasphemy, buffoonery, and foul talk from his mouth, who has not set a guard on his mouth and a door of enclosure about his lips, who has not circumcised his mouth even from the idle word. Indeed, where Moses says to the Lord, "Provide, Lord, another whom you may send; but I am slow of tongue and thin of voice," they themselves say they have in the Hebrew copies: "But I am uncircumcised in lips." If, in the way we said above, someone can be seen to be uncircumcised in ears and uncircumcised in lips, why should not one likewise be called uncircumcised in the foreskin of his flesh who pours himself out too immoderately and intemperately in the natural motion of intercourse; but held to be circumcised if someone in a matter of this kind uses lawful duties and only so much as suffices for posterity?

But since we are treating the principle of circumcision, it does not seem absurd to add this too: that Jesus the son of Nun is recorded to have circumcised the sons of Israel a second time with knives of stone by the Lord's command; which, as far as the letter is concerned, certainly seems an impossible deed. For in those once circumcised in the flesh of the foreskin, what could a second circumcision find to remove? But our Jesus, who truly after Moses leads the sons of Israel into the holy land flowing with milk and honey, into the land of promise: it is evident how he circumcises the people of believers not once but a second time. For his first circumcision is that by which he cut away from them either the worship of idols or the fictions of philosophical persuasion. But he uses a second circumcision when he cuts away from them the habit of the old man and the passions and vices of the flesh; and then is fulfilled what is written in Joshua: "Today I have taken away from you the reproaches of Egypt." For one carries about with him the reproaches of Egypt if, placed in the Church and serving as a soldier under Jesus as leader, he keeps Egyptian ways and barbarous motions of the soul.

Marcion, indeed, who is pleased to have nothing understood by allegory, will not find at all how to explain what the Apostle says, that circumcision is of value. Nor will he be able in any way to give an account even of the particular things that are brought in. Indeed, not only he but all the heretics who reject the Old Testament, together with the pagans, are accustomed to oppose and to censure with a certain mockery the God of the law who gave circumcision; all of them redouble such accusations against the God of the law as if in a league of slander. The Stoics say: "Granted that circumcision indicates something mystical and holds an allegorical figure: was it right that, with the pain and danger of little ones, with the torments of tender and still innocent infancy, the forms of figures and the riddles of the law should be established? Did the lawgiver have nowhere to put mystical forms except in the disfigurement of the private parts? And could the law of almighty God and the seal of an eternal covenant be placed nowhere but in the obscene parts of the members? Is this God so good that he commanded a man, as soon as he is born, to be wounded at the very first auspices of the new light? And if, as you think, he is the maker of soul and body, either he condemns himself for having fashioned superfluously that part of the body which he afterwards commands to be cut off, so as to correct his own error by the punishments of the wretched; or what he made necessarily and usefully he wrongly commands to be removed. Then besides, if God wishes very many to be brought to the worship of his religion, the greatest obstacle arises from circumcision. For each one both avoids the punishment and flees the mockery of the shame; hence this should be regarded as a hindrance to religion rather than a badge."

These and many things like them the pagans or the heretics loudly urge against the lawgiver. I think it necessary to answer them, but first the pagans. No wise man censures in others what he himself regards as honorable and great. For circumcision is held in such esteem among you, O pagans, that it is entrusted not indiscriminately to the common, ignoble crowd but only to priests and to those among them who are devoted to the more select studies. For among the Egyptians, who in your superstitions are held to be both the most ancient and the most learned, from whom nearly all the rest borrowed the rite of their sacred things and ceremonies: among these, I say, no one studied either geometry or astronomy, which are counted chief among them; certainly no one searched out the secrets of astrology and nativities, than which they think nothing more divine, unless he had received circumcision. The priest among them, the soothsayer, or the minister of any sacred rites, or, as they call him, every prophet, is circumcised. No one learned the priestly letters of the ancient Egyptians, which they call hieroglyphic, unless circumcised. No hierophant, no seer, no initiate and confidant, as they think, of heaven and the underworld is believed among them to be so unless he has been circumcised. Do you, then, judge shameful and obscene among us what among you is held so honorable and great that you believe the secrets of heaven and the underworld can be declared to you only through badges of this kind? And if among you, for so many and such great reasons of your secret rites that are performed with circumcision as their minister, it will be necessary to seek a reason, and one that ought not to be despised, lest all your ceremonies be overturned along with it, why should you not hope that the same can be done among us? And if you unroll your histories, you will find that not only the priests and hierophants of the Egyptians used circumcision, but also the Arabs and Ethiopians and Phoenicians and others whose zeal for superstitions of this kind flourished more nobly. Let this be said sufficiently against the pagans, to whom it was not right to speak more openly about the mysteries of our law.

Now let our word be directed to those who believe in Christ but do not accept the Law and the Prophets. You confess without doubt that what is written in the Epistle of Peter is true: that we have been redeemed not with the corruptible price of silver and gold but with the precious blood of the Only-begotten. If, then, we have been bought for a price, as Paul also agrees, we have without doubt been bought from someone whose slaves we were, who also demanded what price he wished, to release from his power those whom he held. Now it was the devil who held us, to whom we had been sold by our sins. He demanded, therefore, as our price the blood of Christ. But until the blood of Jesus was given, which was so precious that it alone sufficed for the redemption of all, it was necessary that those who were being trained in the law should each give his own blood for himself, as a kind of imitation of the future redemption; and for this reason we, for whom the price of the blood of Christ has been paid in full, do not need to offer a price for ourselves, that is, the blood of circumcision. But if it seems blameworthy to you that the God of the law commands wounds to be inflicted on infants and blood to be shed, you blame this also as done in Christ, who was both circumcised on the eighth day and received the wounds of the passion and shed his blood with the punishment of the cross. And if, because of the horror of circumcision, approach to religion seems difficult to you, entry into the Gospel seems much more difficult, where one is commanded to lay down not a small part of the body but the soul itself. But, according to you, the examples of the martyrs will forbid men to come to the faith! Or is a religion believed the firmer because it promises nothing slack, nothing soft or delicate? And even if circumcision held nothing else of a sacrament figuratively, what would be absurd if, to distinguish it from all the nations, the people that was being trained under the law of God should bear some badge of its own? And if the cutting off of some part seemed necessary, what was so fitting as to find that part which seemed obscene, and to remove those things whose diminution would in no way hinder the function of the body?

As for their saying that, if that part of the member was not necessary, it ought not to have been made by the Creator, and if it was made necessarily, it ought not to be removed: let us in turn ask them whether they say that the procreation of children is necessary. They will without doubt answer that it is necessary. Then those will be blameworthy who, for the sake of continence and virginity, do not serve the necessary functions of nature; and all who according to the laws of the Gospel have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God will have to be compelled to marry, though they have as the author of this example both many others of the saints and the Lord Jesus himself. In sum, it must be said that just as many baptisms were necessary before the baptism of Christ, and many purifications before purification through the Holy Spirit took place, and many sacrifices before the one sacrifice, the spotless Lamb, Christ, offered himself as a sacrifice to the Father: so too there was need of many circumcisions until the one circumcision in Christ was handed on to all; and the shedding of the blood of many went before, until through the blood of one the redemption of all took place. These are the things about the principle of circumcision that could occur to us for the present; yet let them be said by us on this condition, that if anyone says better and more reasonably, his words rather than these of ours are to be held.

But after a digression perhaps larger than was right, let us return to the conclusion of the apostolic passage. Since this treatment is frequent in the Apostle, by which he designates two men in each person, one of whom he usually calls the outer and the other the inner, and says that one is according to the flesh and the other according to the spirit (taught, I think, by what is written in Genesis, where one is reported made according to the image of God and another fashioned from the slime of the earth), and these same he now calls one a Jew outwardly and the other a Jew in secret: it must be known that each of these follows practices that in some things differ and in some are common. For there are some things that take their beginning from the inner man and reach to the outer; but others, begun from the outer man, reach to the inner. What I mean is this. If chastity takes its beginning from the inner man, it without doubt reaches to the outer. For it cannot happen that if someone first does not commit adultery in the heart he could commit adultery in the body. But it does not at once follow that if someone begins from the chastity of the outer man he also reaches inner continence, so that if he does not commit adultery in the body he will not commit adultery in the heart either. According to this, then, let the circumcision of the inner and the outer man be understood by the laws of allegory, when neither the inner man desires in the heart nor the outer man serves desire in the body: so that he may be called circumcised in the flesh whom the Apostle says is no longer in the flesh but in the spirit, and who through the spirit puts to death the deeds of the flesh.

But since one who is circumcised has given some flesh up to perish and kept some unharmed, by what he has given up to perish I think that flesh is signified of which it is written: "All flesh is grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass." But the flesh that is preserved and remains unharmed I think holds the form of that flesh of which it is said that "all flesh will see the salvation of God." But there is need of ears that can hear what the flesh is that perishes, and what is the flesh that will see the salvation of God, which remains safe after the putting off of the flesh of the foreskin, when that has fallen like the flower of grass. Whoever understands this will find the forms of immense mysteries set out beforehand in the principle of circumcision, and will find that he who is a Jew in secret and is circumcised in the inner man so far surpasses and is more eminent than he who … ["What advantage then has the Jew? …" Let] God [be true] but every man a liar, as it is written: "That you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged."

In this Epistle Paul, sitting as a kind of arbiter between Jews and Greeks, that is, those who believe from the Gentiles, so calls and invites both to the faith of Christ that he neither offends the Jews by altogether destroying the Jewish rites nor casts the Gentiles into despair by confirming the observance of the law and the letter; and whether he speaks of promises or of punishments, he divides the word between both peoples. For example, when he says: "But to those who are of contention and who disbelieve the truth but believe iniquity, wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress upon every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek." This about punishments. About promises he adds: "But glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." Again he seems to speak of the Gentiles: "For all who have sinned without the law will perish without the law"; and again of the circumcised: "And all who have sinned in the law will be judged by the law." Again, lifting up the Gentiles, he 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; they show the work of the law written in their hearts," and so on. And again he turns his word to the Jews, saying: "But if you are called a Jew and rest in the law," and the rest up to the place where he says: "For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." And so as not to seem excessive in rebuking the Jews, he says: "Circumcision is indeed of value if you keep the law." But again, so as not to puff up those who place excessive glory in circumcision, he added: "But if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision." And to lift up a little the spirits of those who believe from the Gentiles, he adds: "But if the uncircumcision keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?" And to raise the spirits of the Gentiles more strongly, and so that they might know that they could, if they observed the law more perfectly, be declared even better than the Jews, he says: "And that which is uncircumcision by nature, fulfilling the law, will judge you, who through the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law." But since he knew that there are many promises in the Law and the Prophets that seem to be made to the Jews, so that the Gentiles might not despair as having no share in the written promises, he teaches them that according to the mystical principle they too are Jews and have circumcision. That is why he says: "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one in secret, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God."

But since in all these he had in a certain way made the cause of the Gentiles superior, again, as if meeting the complaints of those who are of the circumcision, he puts to himself what is contained in the present passage, saying: "What advantage then has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way." If, then, he says, the one who is a Jew outwardly, and the circumcision that is outward in the flesh, is not counted, but he who is a Jew in secret, and the circumcision of the heart which is done in the spirit, is the true circumcision, you will say to me: What advantage is there in these Jews who are reckoned under this name? Or what value is held to be in bodily circumcision? To this, so as not to seem to have sat as a less than just arbiter between the two peoples, he declares what advantage the Jew has, and the circumcision that is in the flesh, and he says that they have much advantage in every way. And what the great advantage is he adds: "First," he says, "because the oracles of God were entrusted to them." For although the oracles of God are now entrusted to the Gentiles too, yet to them, he says, they were entrusted first.

I ask, however, what is meant by saying that the oracles of God were entrusted to them first: whether he says this of the letters and books, or of the sense and understanding of the law. For we see very many of the Jews always learning from infancy to old age and never arriving at the knowledge of the truth; and how will it seem true that is said, that they have some advantage in that the oracles of God were entrusted to them first, in which they understand neither what they say nor what they affirm? But if, according to Solomon, he is called wise who understands what comes from his own mouth and who carries understanding on his lips, these things must be understood to be said of Moses and the prophets, and others like them, to whom the oracles of God were entrusted, because it cannot be doubted that they too were Jews and had circumcision; and also of anyone among them who was wise and an intelligent hearer and a wonderful counselor, whom the Lord is said to take away from Jerusalem, offended by the impieties of the people. For thus Isaiah says: "Behold, the Ruler, the Lord of hosts, will take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the strong and mighty man"; and some way after: "and the prophet," he says, "and the diviner, and the elder, and the captain of fifty, and the wonderful counselor, and the wise architect, and the prudent hearer." To such as these, then, it must be thought that the divine oracles were entrusted first, and in these it must be confessed that there was much advantage in every way; and also if there were others like them, as the Apostle recalls is written in the books of Kingdoms: "I have left for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed their knees before Baal." And the apostles of Christ themselves, and Paul himself, the vessel of election, coming from the Jews and from the circumcision, had much advantage in every way over those whom he taught from the Gentiles. For the oracles of God were entrusted to them.

But this very saying, "because the oracles of God were entrusted to them," must be considered, because he did not say that letters were entrusted, but "the oracles of God." Hence a way is given us to understand that to those who read and do not understand, and who read and do not believe, only the letter has been entrusted, that of which the Apostle says that "the letter kills"; but the oracles of God have been entrusted to those who, understanding and believing what Moses wrote, believe also in Christ, as the Lord too says: "If you had believed Moses himself, you would surely believe me also; for he wrote of me." But granted that the Jew has an advantage in the letters, and has something also in the oracles of God: are those who come to Christ from the Gentiles altogether left behind? Or have they too something in which they have an advantage? Hear the Lord saying to the centurion who believed from the Gentiles: "Amen I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." See, then, how great an advantage the Gentiles have where it comes to faith; of whom the Lord says in another place that "they will come from the east and the west and from the four winds of the earth and will recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God; but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness." Where it comes to laws and letters, then, the Jews have much advantage in every way; but where it comes to faith, if I may say so by comparison, the Gentiles have much advantage in every way.

It must indeed be asked whether it should also be said of the Samaritans that the oracles of God were entrusted to them first, since the law of Moses seems to be kept among them too. But to them I would not say that even the letter that is said to kill has been entrusted. For the prophet says of them: "Woe to those who despise Mount Zion and trust in the mountain of Samaria," rejecting the prophets. Nor would I say that the oracles of God have been entrusted to the heretics, who speak iniquity on high, who by their impiety divide the unity of the Godhead, and who separate the law from the Gospels, merely because the divine volumes seem to be read among them; but because they perceive nothing spiritual in them, nothing worthy of God, I would say that only the letter that kills has a place among them.

But if perhaps the Jews are unwilling to accept the sentence of our Apostle, which says that the letter of the law kills, and think that an injury is done to the law if it seems to be despised according to the letter, let us go back to Moses himself and see how highly he himself esteemed the letter of the law. When he had received the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God, he showed so much "honor" to the letter of the law that he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them, though written by the finger of God, and yet he was not charged with the guilt of impiety for this. You see, then, that not Paul alone despises the letter of the law, but long before him Moses both despised and threw down and broke the letters of the law, signifying without doubt even then that the honor and power of the law were not in the letters but in the spirit. And when the Lord in the Gospel says, speaking to the Jews, "The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation producing its fruit," I think he called the sense of the law the kingdom of God, which was taken from the Jews, only the letters of the law remaining with them, and was given to the Gentiles, who can produce the fruit of the spirit through faith.

Since this is so, why are we so idle and slothful that we do not at last, casting off all malice, hasten with simplicity and purity of heart to receive the oracles of God and to grasp from them the mind of Christ, since we hear that the kingdom of God is in them? Let each one, certainly, according to his strength, receive such oracles of God as he can; and if he is fit for solid food, let him receive those oracles of God which are the wisdom that the Apostle speaks among the perfect. But one who is not yet fit for this, let him receive the oracles of God in which he may know nothing more than Christ Jesus and him crucified. One who cannot do even this, let him receive the oracles of God in such a way as to use milk and not strong food. And if he is still weak in faith, let him take the oracles of God in vegetables. It only matters that we all in common know that the oracles of God are chaste oracles, and "silver tried by fire, proved in the earth, purified seven times": that is, that we keep the divine oracles in chastity and holiness of heart and body.

The oracles of God, then, were entrusted first to those of whom we spoke above; but some, as he says, did not believe either God or the oracles of God. You see that those who do not believe are those according to the flesh, of whom he also says elsewhere: "The soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him." "But their unbelief does not nullify the faith of God." By the faith of God we understand either that faith which God has in those to whom he entrusts his oracles, or that faith by which those who receive the divine oracles from him believe God. We are reminded, then, that if the unbelief of those who either do not come to the faith or fall away from it should perhaps mock us when we do the works of faith, whether when we fast, or when we do acts of mercy, or when we give ourselves to study and to the law of God, or even when we suffer torments for the martyrdom of Christ, we should always remember that their unbelief does not nullify the faith of God that is in us.

After this, what follows seems to be attached less smoothly; for he says: "But let God be true, and every man a liar, as it is written: That you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged." Yet by some such turn as this we will try to fit it to what precedes. "Although," he says, "some of the Jews have not believed, yet concerning their unbelief it must be said that God alone is true, but every man is a liar": because even if someone is righteous, it is still necessary that in something he fall away from the truth, which it is almost impossible for human nature to keep in all things. Since, then, every man is a liar, some of the Jews, as lying men, did not believe. For since every man is a liar, necessarily on that day, when the Lord comes to judgment with men, he alone will be justified in his words. For his words are true in all things, because they are words of truth. That the Lord comes to judgment with men the prophet says: "Come, and let us be judged, says the Lord"; and: "The Lord himself will come to judgment with the elders of the people"; and again: "Remember, and let us be judged, says the Lord." The Apostle brought these things in with an eye to that objection which he puts to himself in another place, where he says: "But if our injustice commends the justice of God"; about which we will inquire when we come to its place.

Now, then, let us see what he says: "But let God be true, and every man a liar"; for so it is in the Greek copies, whereas the Latins read "is" instead of "let ... be." First, then, this must be known: that when he said "let ... be," he does not say it in the imperative mood. For it is foolish to think that God must be commanded to become true. But as we say, "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven"; or as we also say, "Peace be in your strength," not commanding but wishing, or rather declaring, because peace cannot come about except in the strength of God: so here too the word is to be taken as that of one declaring: "But let God be true, and every man a liar."

This too must be known: that this saying, that is, "Every man is a liar," is taken from the hundred and fifteenth Psalm, where it says: "I said in my ecstasy: Every man is a liar." Here, to illuminate the Apostle's meaning more clearly, let it not seem burdensome to readers if we briefly set out the content of the psalm itself from which he takes the testimony. The prophet seems to me to announce some such meaning as this. "Since there are many doctrines among men, and many philosophize in the search for truth, and since in all these questions the Son of God must go first: others, who sought without first believing, did not find; but I, because I believed before I sought, therefore found what I was seeking; and not only found, but also spoke, and announced to the peoples the truth that I had found. Yet having found the truth I was not lifted up in wisdom nor puffed up in my knowledge; but I was humbled the more when I recognized and understood that it is the Lord who teaches all knowledge. Then, considering what and how much men, whether among the philosophers or among the other barbarians, have said about the truth, and that, saying many things with much labor, they found nothing, because they did not believe before they sought; considering all their sayings or writings, and being brought into ecstasy of mind, that is, astounded with amazement of heart that all those volumes of the philosophers, which seemed composed in splendid and brilliant speech, stood far from the truth: brought into ecstasy and amazement of mind, I said: Every man is a liar. But I, to whom God had shown these things, was not ungrateful; but I thought and asked within myself what gift I should repay to the Lord for this, that the Lord had granted me the knowledge of the truth. Yet I understood that that eternal nature, the mistress of all things, needs nothing. I found, then, only one thing that I ought to offer to God, namely to believe of him that he can never receive anything from man, but always gives. And therefore I said: I will take the cup of salvation; as if I were answering one who says, Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink? and were saying, I can, Lord. So, then, I say: I will receive the cup of your passion willingly and with all my will; and so that I may keep the grace of your cup, that is, of your passion, to the end, I will not act by my own strength, but I will call upon the name of the Lord. For precious in your sight is death that is undertaken for piety and truth." According to this, then, "Every man is a liar" is to be taken in the apostolic sayings too, whether of one who trusts without faith in the letter of the law, or of one who glories in any doctrines and letters whatever.

But it is objected to us: If every man is a liar, Paul himself, since he is a man, will then be a liar. And David too, who said these things, since he was a man, if every man is a liar, will himself also be a liar; and this very thing that he says, "Every man is a liar," will be false, because he necessarily declares himself a liar along with the other men; and if he is a liar, what is said by a liar, that every man is a liar, will certainly not be true. His saying therefore seems to have fallen into the syllogism that is called aporos, that is, without substance, which is also called false. But if we return to the inner understanding of Scripture, we will find that all the prophets or apostles are among those to whom the word of God comes, as it is written: "And the word of the Lord came to this or that prophet." Those, then, to whom the word of God comes the Lord in the Gospel declares to be not men but gods. For thus he says: "If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken." Since, then, the word of God came both to David as a prophet and to Paul as an apostle, those to whom the word of God came were without doubt not men but gods. Therefore, since they were not men but gods, what they declare about the other men, to whom the word of God has not come, is true: that every man is a liar.

What follows is likewise taken from the fiftieth Psalm, that is: "That you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged." The complete sense is set down in the psalm in this way: "Against you only have I sinned and done evil before you, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged." And since it is a great digression to go back to the beginning of the psalm, for brevity's sake let us discuss only this saying that we have set in the middle; in which at once at the start this explanation seems difficult. For if we follow the history that is written in the title of the psalm, it is reported there that David took the wife of Uriah the Hittite after he had been killed. How then does he say, "Against you only have I sinned," when he certainly sinned also against Uriah himself and against his kinsmen, and also against Bathsheba herself and her whole house, on which he seems to have brought the stain of adultery? But it must be known that the content of a psalm does not always follow the history of its title, as anyone who observes will find in very many psalms. To give an example, the title of the seventeenth Psalm is: "To the end, for the servant of the Lord, David, who spoke the words of this song on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul; and he said." But the content of the psalm contains something far different from the title. For what foundations of the mountains were moved, or how was the earth shaken, when David fought against his enemies? Or where is it reported that there was darkness under the feet of the Lord? Or where is it indicated that he mounted upon the cherubim and flew, or upon the wings of the winds, and nearly all the rest, which differ in every way from the history of the title? In this way, then, in the fiftieth Psalm too there are things that do not agree with the history.

We must see whether perhaps mention of the woman was made figuratively in the title, so that under this name some such woman might be understood, either such as that valiant woman is described who made double cloaks for her husband, or certainly the opposite of her, as were those women who are said to have turned aside the heart of Solomon, so that he built altars and idols of the nations; who, taken in allegory, are not from the divine wisdom but from those things that are contrary to it, that is, the sects alien from God. Such, then, can be understood this wife of Uriah, a man alien from Israel, whom David, placed in the higher places, saw washing her uncleanness in the waters and wishing to wash off her filth, and whom he desired and took. But because it was not the will of the Lord that sects alien from the truth of God should be brought into the house of David, his first offspring and first fruit is extinguished, so that by a second offspring a wise king might be born from the foreign woman. But it is long to pursue the figures and riddles of these things. Yet we will briefly follow up what pertains to the matter. "Since," he says, "there is great subtlety in the variety of the sects, and it belongs to no one but God alone to know or judge which understanding is according to God and which is alien from God in the treatises and disputations of the wise, God who alone can catch the wise in their craftiness: therefore 'against you only have I sinned and done evil before you,' because all the others, being soulish men, cannot judge me, who am spiritual, even if I have erred; for the spiritual man judges all things, but is himself judged by no one." But since the spiritual Paul adds and says, "But he who judges me is the Lord," David too, knowing that it is the Lord alone who judges the spiritual man or the prophet, therefore says: "Against you only have I sinned," by whom alone I can be judged. For a human day cannot judge the spiritual man. And what follows also looks to this sense: "That you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged." For God is judged in the disputations of the wise, while some think of God in this way, others in that, and each differently. But he prevails over those who judge about him when he himself reveals to all who err his own sentence about himself, how or in what manner he is to be believed and worshipped. But let it suffice that the extent of the second book has been drawn out this far. For somehow, while we are reluctant to omit anything that suggests itself as necessary to the explanation, we are rolled away from brevity, which, if the subject allowed, we would greatly wish to keep, out of consideration for the reader's weariness.

"But if our iniquity commends the justice of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? I speak according to man. Far from it! Otherwise how will God judge this world? For if the truth of God has abounded to his glory through my lie, why am I still judged as a sinner? And why not (as we are blasphemed, and as some say that we say) let us do evil that good may come? Their condemnation is just."

The order of speaking will perhaps seem very inconsistent throughout almost the whole texture of this Epistle composed by the apostle Paul, while his word is now against … is also set down on behalf of the Jews; and of these he says that some are worthy of praise, while others he censures. This variety of meanings, in turn, will be thought to have drawn him outside the lines of the case he set out to argue, as when he uses that exclamation where he says, "But let God be true, and every man a liar"; or also that which he adds next, when he says, "But if our iniquity commends the justice of God," and the rest, so that by this he seems to have slipped from one digression into another. But we who believe him when he says that he has made us competent ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter but of the Spirit, find his meaning far loftier than the method of human art is believed to possess. For through the whole text of this Epistle he wishes to teach what salvation there was for those living according to the law before the coming of Christ, or how through the Savior's coming, in turn, salvation is conferred on the Gentiles from the unbelief of Israel; and again, that neither do the Gentiles come to salvation as a whole, but only those who have believed, nor is Israel rejected as a whole, but a remnant of believers is saved. And therefore, as I said, the order of speaking seems confused, while he follows up the differences between believers and unbelievers on each side. In these he necessarily turns his word to God too, so as to teach that in all these differences of acceptance and rejection the judgments of God are true and just, but that much falsehood abounds among men. And therefore he says: "But let God be true, and every man a liar; as it is written: That you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged"; about which we have spoken above as we could.

To this, then, seeing now that a plausible objection could be raised against him: that if, for God to be true, every man must be a liar, and if the justice of God is commended through the injustice of men, God will seem unjust in inflicting wrath on men, since he sees his own justice approved through the injustice of men; for if our, that is, men's, injustice commends the justice of God, men will surely not seem worthy of punishment, through whom the justice of God is held more proven and more glorious. "But far from it," he says, "that we should accept it thus, that God seems unjust who brings wrath against men. For how will he be thought unjust who judges the world, since by the very name of judge it is shown that he does nothing without judgment? And where there is judgment, there is certainly justice; for both judge and judgment are named from justice. If, then," he says, "as unjust men falsely make us affirm, 'the truth of God has abounded through my lie,' I am judged as a sinner for nothing." But that will rather seem to be the point in which they blaspheme us, he says, as if we seem to say this: that if the truth of God is shown more in the lie of men, and his justice is proved through the injustice of men, let us therefore do evil, that good may come from evil; and let us lie, that from our lie the truth of God may shine out. But these things they falsely invent about us when they blaspheme us, as if they seemed then to be said or to follow as a consequence of our own assertion; which the principle of our doctrine does not admit at all, since we understand God to be a just and true judge.

It must be known, indeed, that in some Greek copies too it is found thus: "Is God unjust who inflicts wrath against men?" And according to this sense what we have said will seem to fit better. But according to what we find in the Latin copies and in some of the Greek, "Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? I speak according to man. Far from it," it seems it should be understood thus: the saying "God is unjust who inflicts wrath," because our injustice commends the justice of God, is said not according to God nor according to the wisdom of God but according to man, and according to the saying "every man is a liar." We have said these things while still treating the very order of the words and the consequence of the sayings, so that the very division of the words might make the way of understanding more open for us.

But now let us inquire what meaning these words hold according to the dignity of the Apostle. Every discipline consists of favorable things and of adverse or contrary things. For example, medicine professes a knowledge not only of health but also of sickness; and although it pursues health, it cannot be ignorant of what belongs to sickness. Likewise prudence consists in the knowledge of good and evil; and temperance knows what is to be chosen and what avoided; and courage is not ignorant of what pertains to fear. So too justice. If we wish to know what justice is, we must know what injustice is; and when we have grasped a full knowledge of injustice, from it we will also know what justice is; for when it has become clear what is unjust, what is just will consequently appear. And since justice is in God, whose nature is inaccessible to human perception, while injustice is found in us men, or also in every rational creature, from this injustice of ours, which is known to us, the justice of God, which is as it were inaccessible and incomprehensible to us, is known and commended, and the contrary is disclosed, as it were, from its contrary. The apostle Paul, then, censures the unskillfulness of those who raise an inconsequent question, thinking God unjust in bringing wrath on men because his justice is commended from our injustice; not knowing that it comes about not as a benefit of our sins but by the consequence of reason itself that contraries are proved from contraries. That is why the Apostle speaks thus: "But if our injustice commends the justice of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? I speak according to man. Far from it! Otherwise how will God judge the world?"

God, then, is not proved unjust in this, if the principle of a discipline proves contraries from contraries and commends justice from injustice; but since by a necessary consequence injustice is, deservedly and rightly, hostile and opposed to justice, as life is hostile and opposed to death and light to darkness. And therefore God, in whom justice is, is said to inflict wrath on men in whom injustice dwells; for these are by nature opposed to each other. And how will God seem unjust from the very fact that he opposes injustice? And perhaps for this reason the Apostle did not say that we unjust men commend the justice of God, but said, "If our injustice commends the justice of God," to show that it is not God who is contrary to men but justice to injustice; and that wrath is brought on men because they have given place in themselves to injustice. God, then, who is justice, will not seem unjust when he is angry against injustice, to which it does not befit him to be favorable; but this wrath reaches also to men who have offered themselves as ministers of the injustice with which God is angry. For neither injustice nor justice can subsist in nothing; but just as justice is the disposition of just and right work, which is found first in God and then also in those who imitate him, so injustice is the disposition of unjust and perverse work, which is detected first in the devil and then also in those who wish to imitate him. And therefore wrath is rightly said to be brought on them, even though from their injustice, as from its contrary, the justice of God seems to have shone out. For just as they received into themselves the disposition of unjust and perverse work, they could much more have received that of just and right work.

Justly, then, wrath is said to be brought by God upon all men. For those in whom wrath has no place are to be called no longer men but above men. And perhaps for this reason the same apostle Paul pronounces of all men, saying that "we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest." For he did not say, "We were children of wrath," but added, "We were by nature children of wrath, like the rest." For all men have been made by nature children of wrath, from the fact that they were gods and sons of the Most High and through this came to be called men. For note more carefully how he says: "I have said: You are gods, and sons of the Most High"; and he added, "all of you." This addition signifies the whole human race joined together under this title. Then he says next: "But you will die like men." Hence also what is written, "And God considered that he had made man on the earth, and he repented in his heart; and God said: I will blot out man whom I have made from the face of the earth," I think was said not only of the destruction of the flood, but that something about the future was also foretold in it as a mystery: so that "I will blot out man" may be understood in the way in which God also says through the prophet, "For behold, I blot out your iniquities like a cloud"; so that he may be seen to blot him out in so far as he is man, and after this to make him a god, when God will be all in all. To this sense can also be applied what is said in Genesis: "The time of every man has come before me"; so that it may be thought to be said not only of that time of the flood but also of the mystery of baptism; just as the apostle Peter says that, as Noah was then saved from the flood, so now in a similar way believers are saved through baptism. And so what he says, that the time of every man has come, can be understood of salvation, so that through the grace of baptism believers may be understood to be changed from men into a higher order when the day of resurrection comes, when all the saints will be like the angels of God. Let these things be said, as far as could occur to us, on what is said: "Is God unjust who inflicts wrath," either "against men," as we said is read in some copies, or, as we have it, "I speak according to man. Far from it."

As for what he says, "Otherwise how will God judge the world?": in this place by "the world" he means the men who are in this world, as we also read elsewhere that "the whole world is placed in the evil one," which certainly shows that the men who live in this world are placed in wickedness. After this let us now see how it is said: "For if the truth of God has abounded to his glory through my lie." There are many kinds of religions in this world, many schools of philosophers, many doctrines handed down with false assertions and written with lying arguments, whose authors, though under the false name of wisdom, are yet held to be men of no small or contemptible authority; by whose prestige false things have been received for true, so that they have occupied almost the whole world with lying opinions about religion, so that even the elect, if it may be said, were led into error. Since, then, the truth of God, and his wisdom and his Word, came and refuted and confounded every lie and cut away all the assertions of false doctrines by the faith of truth, the truth of God abounded through every lie that had previously been asserted by men, by refuting their stealthy plausibilities and handing down in each doctrine the simple truth of the faith; and in this way the Apostle says that the truth of God has abounded in the lie of men.

But to make what we say still clearer, let us bring forward some examples. There was a doctrine among men that declared the highest good to be pleasure; in which it is also consequently asserted that there is no Providence, since one must live not by laws but by pleasure; and these things are set out in a rich and elaborate style, and with very strong arguments, in innumerable volumes. But see now how one who defends the truth of God, and who is a philosopher according to Christ, who is the truth of God and the wisdom of God, teaches men that the highest good is eternal life, and that this is eternal life, that men know the one only true God and his Son Jesus Christ; and how with all confidence he asserts the providence of God, which says: "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and one of them does not fall to the ground without the Father's will?" and that he himself orders his sun to rise on the good and the evil, and rains on the just and the unjust. By each of these, while those doctrines of false knowledge are refuted, the truth of God abounds in the lie of men. There are others again who say that there are three kinds of good: one concerning the soul, another concerning bodies, and the third external; when each of these is held profitably, they affirm that the highest good consists of them. These also, cutting short the providence of God, contend that it reaches as far as the sphere of the moon, but that below, that is, to men, it does not descend at all. There are others again who say that nothing is invisible and incorporeal, but assign everything that exists to bodies; hence they said that God, the Father of all, is a body. But since the consequence of their reasoning pressed them, by which it is established that every body is corruptible, so that if they assert that God too is a body they must without doubt confess him corruptible, they turned their words with a trick and said that he is indeed corruptible by nature, yet is not corrupted, because there is nothing higher than he by which he could be corrupted or dissolved. There are also innumerable other fictions of men, composed by dialectical subtleties and the fraud of sophisms. When the truth of God convicts each of these through churchmen learned in the divine wisdom, and refutes the snares of their arguments, the truth of God is said to abound in the lie of men; and not only to abound, but to abound to his glory.

This I think should be understood thus: if a teacher of the Church teaches simple hearers, not yet occupied by false doctrines, and opens to them the principle of the divine truth on each point, the truth of God will be seen to abound in teaching of this kind. But if the word is addressed to those who resist the truth, who contradict the words of sound doctrine, and the contradictors are refuted and convicted, so that, leaving the darkness of their errors, they come to the light of truth, then the truth of God will not only abound but will abound to his glory. For God is glorified through one who, snatched from the error of the lie, has beheld the light of truth. One who has understood these things thus will certainly not say what is brought forward next by a foolish objection, "Why am I still judged as a sinner?" but will notice that he is rightly to be judged if he remains in the lie of men; and one who, according to what we have explained above, convicted by the truth of God, perceives that he has erred, turns from his error and glorifies God, having recognized the truth, and no longer blasphemes those who preach the truth as if they said, "Let us do evil that good may come," knowing that in this saying the condemnation of the blasphemer is just. It must also be observed that he has put it that those who preach the truth are not so much reviled, which pertains to men, as blasphemed, which pertains to God.

"What then do we hold more? For we have charged that Jews and Greeks are all under sin, as it is written: There is no one righteous, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is no one who does goodness, there is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they have dealt deceitfully, the poison of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes."

We have already said that in this Epistle Paul, as a kind of arbiter between those who have believed from the circumcision and those from the Gentiles, always tempers and balances his word, so that he seems now to rebuke these, now those, in some things, and again to encourage each side with sure hope of promise. Since, then, he had seemed to say above that if the uncircumcision keeps the righteous requirements of the law it will judge the one who in circumcision is a transgressor of the law, he added, in order to lift up again those whom he had humbled: "What advantage then has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. First, because the oracles of God were entrusted to them." After this, having pursued certain things in sequence with these, he now adds and says: "What then do we hold more? For we have charged that Jews and Greeks are all under sin." And if all are under sin, there will be no cause for boasting of one against another, since each comes to salvation not by his own righteousness but by the mercy of God. He proved, then, that the Greeks, that is, the Gentiles, are under sin when he said: "For claiming to be wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed beasts and serpents; therefore God gave them up to a reprobate mind," and the rest; and the Jews, when he says: "But if you are called a Jew and rest in the law," and the rest; to which he added: "You then who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one must not steal, do you steal?" and so on. After these things, then, he says that "we have charged that Jews and Greeks are all under sin."

After this, as is his custom, he wishes to confirm from the holy Scriptures what he had said; and at the same time he gives an example to the teachers of the Church, so that what they say to the people they may bring forward not taken from their own opinions but fortified by divine testimonies. For if so great and such an Apostle does not believe that the authority of his own words can suffice unless he shows that what he says is written in the Law and the Prophets, how much more ought we, the least, to observe this, so that when we teach we bring forward not our own opinions but those of the Holy Spirit? We think it necessary also to point out this: that in some Latin copies the testimonies that follow are found set down entire, in sequence, in the thirteenth Psalm; but in almost all the Greek copies no further in the thirteenth Psalm than the verse where it is written, "There is no one who does good, there is not even one." And what the Apostle said, "As it is written: There is no one righteous, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God," is not found in the same words in the psalm, but some are changed, some added, some left out. If this is observed more carefully by the studious, I think apostolic authority is given in this, that when we have to use the testimonies of Scripture we should take the sense from it rather than the words. For you will find this done frequently in the Gospels too. In the thirteenth Psalm, then, it is written thus: "The Lord looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there is anyone who understands or seeks God." And in the fifty-second Psalm it says thus: "God looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there is anyone who understands or seeks God." And the same sense seems to be kept also in what the Apostle set down: "There is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God." And as for his saying, "There is no one righteous," I think … "under their lips," which itself too is taken from a psalm, with the words changed, as we said above. What follows, "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness," seems to be taken from the ninth Psalm. Then: "Their feet are swift to shed blood" you will find either in Isaiah or in Proverbs. But as for "Ruin and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known," I do not fully remember where it is written; yet I suspect it can be found in one of the prophets. And in the Psalms it is written: "There is no fear of God before their eyes." He seems to have wished to gather all these testimonies in order to show that in charging that Jews and Greeks are all under sin he is pronouncing not so much his own sentence as that of holy Scripture.

But let us ask what it is to be under sin; for his word seems to embrace all without exception, whether Jews or Gentiles. But another sentence of his meets us, where he says: "But where there is no law, there is no transgression." Among the Jews, clearly, there is the law of Moses; but among the Gentiles he affirms that there is the law of nature, which convicts the offender by the testimony of conscience. Where, then, shall we look for a man in whom there is no law, and who for that reason does not seem to be in the transgression of sin, since Paul himself says of himself, "But I was once living without law"? When did Paul live without law, who again says of himself, "Circumcised on the eighth day, a Hebrew of Hebrews"? How then will it be true that he once lived without law, who on the eighth day of his birth received the sign of circumcision from the law? Hence it is clear that a man comes to be under the law when he has reached the age at which he can choose and discern what the law is; and that he does not take up the outward yoke of that law before he begins to have the firmness of the inner and natural law. Indeed, in the place where he said, "But I was once living without law," he added: "But when the commandment came, sin revived." In this he shows that in childhood, before someone has the discernment of good and evil, he is said to be without law; since even if he sins, because the law is not in him, sin is not imputed to him. But when he has received the discernment of good and evil, the law is said to have come to him and to have given commandments. And where the force of the commandment is present, that is, the conscience that convicts, sin, which was previously dead in him, is said to have revived. From this time, then, if someone submits himself to the law of Moses so as to observe it according to the letter, he becomes … [if he] follows it [according to the spirit], he becomes a Jew in secret.

These things on what is said, "For we have charged that Jews and Greeks are all under sin": that is, "all" is to be understood as said of those who are clearly taught by the natural or the written law not to sin. For we also understand that the Gentiles are made under sin in the same way as we said above: when they have begun by nature to do the things of the law and to be a law to themselves, they are then convicted by conscience in the things they seem to do against the law. That is why those seem to me to have judged truly and consistently who call the law of nature the law of God, but call the law of Moses the written law. If, then, Paul were saying of the written law, that is, of the law of Moses, "But sin is not imputed when there is no law," sin will seem not to have been imputed to Cain, nor to those who perished in the flood, nor to those whom fire consumed in Sodom. But since we see that not only were sins imputed to them, but vengeance was also given against them, it is shown from these that Paul speaks of the natural law, which, except in the first age of childhood, is present in all men; and through this he says most rightly: "For we have charged that Jews and Greeks are all under sin." Hence one of the wise does not seem to me to have defined against reason that in the whole race of mortals, when one has come to the age at which one receives the discernment of right and wrong by the entrance of the natural law, first of all wickedness is roused, and after this it is gradually driven out by teachings, training, and admonitions, and one passes over to virtue. For Paul seems to me to have thought in agreement with this when he says: "But when the commandment came, sin revived." And when the Savior says in the Gospels, "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin," he will seem to have spoken according to this principle: that by that power by which he is said to fill the world he comes to each man and speaks in his heart and teaches the judgment of good and evil.

That is why Paul says it is written: "There is no one righteous, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless"; as the prophet also says elsewhere: "For no one living will be justified in your sight." This may seem contrary to other Scriptures, which bear witness to some as righteous, so far that it is even said to Jerusalem about Sodom that "Sodom has been justified by you." But look more carefully at the caution of divine Scripture, how it did not say, "Sodom has been justified," but said: … "you act so that you surpass all in the greatness of your sins; in comparison with your crimes Sodom has now been justified." And here too, then, in saying, "No one living will be justified in your sight," he did not wish it to be understood that no one living will be justified, but that in your sight, that is, God's, he will not be justified. For however righteous, however holy someone may be, not only among men but also among the heavenly and more eminent creatures, it is certain that in comparison with God he cannot be justified. Indeed, in the Apocalypse of John too, where the sealed book is brought before the Ancient of Days, and it is asked out of every tribe, tongue, and people who can open it, no one was found except the Lamb alone of the tribe of Judah, who was justified in the sight of God; and he alone was worthy to open the book, who alone is the one "who opens and no one shuts, who shuts and no one opens." Our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, alone, then, is justified in the sight of the Father, because "whatever the Father does, the Son also does likewise." But every creature is justified by comparison with inferiors. As if, for example, we should say: in comparison with the rest of the people, Miriam the sister of Moses was righteous; and again, in comparison with Miriam, Aaron was righteous; and again, in comparison with Aaron, Moses was righteous. Yet blessed is he who is called righteous by comparison with the better, and not by comparison with the worst, like Sodom, which is recorded as justified by comparison with Jerusalem.

Hence I too fear lest some unbelievers be found to be justified by comparison with us who seem to be in the Church of God and to give attention to his law and to serve the precepts of the Gospel. For example, if we serve lust and impurity, and a Gentile who is a stranger to the faith of Christ keeps chastity, that Gentile is justified by us. Likewise, if we are entangled in avarice, rapacity, pride, and other evils of this kind, while a Gentile abstains from all these, and those who do not know the law of God, they will be justified by us, and we will be condemned by comparison with them. Rather let us take pains that, as we go before the Gentiles in faith, so we may excel them in acts and works, lest our evils become others' goods and their temperance convict our intemperance.

What he said, "There is no one righteous," or what he says, "No one living will be justified in your sight," can also be explained in another way: that as long as someone … "Call no man blessed before death, for you do not know what his last things will be"; and again Ecclesiastes says: "And I praised the dead, who have already died, more than the living who are still alive; but better than both is he who has not yet been born." You have also another sentence of Scripture, which says that whoever is least in the kingdom of God is greater than one who is in the body, even if it is that John than whom there was no greater among those born of women. "There is no one righteous," then. And he added: "There is no one who understands." And indeed, since the Apostle himself says that he knows in part and understands in part, who will there be who may be called one who understands? For however much someone has understood, he will be seen to understand in a mirror and in a riddle; because after the laying aside of the earthly body it is reported that he understands face to face; but now, as Scripture says, "The corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that thinks many things." Hence it comes about that no one understands, nor "seeks God." For while we are occupied with the cares of the body and seek the things of men, we cannot seek God or think on the things of God.

"All have turned aside, together they have become useless." It seems to me that no one is said to have turned aside except one who once stood on the right way. Hence it appears that that first work of rational nature, which was made by God, was right and was placed on the right way by the gift of the Creator himself. But since it turned its course from this to the left, to sin, it is now rightly said to have turned aside, as the first man Adam is an example, who turned aside from the right way of paradise, by the evil-counseling fraud of the serpent, to the crooked and twisted paths of mortal life. Consequently, then, all who come into this world from his succession have turned aside and together with him have become useless. For this reason, I think, the Lord too gives a command in the Gospels that, when we have done all the precepts, we should nevertheless remember what we are and say: "We are useless servants; we have done what we ought to have done." For as long as someone does only what he owes, that is, what has been commanded, he is a useless servant. But if you add something to the precepts, then you will no longer be a useless servant, but it will be said to you: "Well done, good and faithful servant." What it is that is added to the precepts and done beyond what is owed, the apostle Paul says: "Concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord, but I give counsel, as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord." This work is above the precept. One, then, who after fulfilling the precepts adds this too, that he keeps virginity, will be called no longer a useless servant but a good and faithful servant. And again it is a precept that those who proclaim the Gospel should live by the Gospel; yet Paul says, "I have made use of none of these"; and therefore he was not a useless servant but faithful and prudent. "All," then, "have turned aside, together they have become useless."

To these he added: "There is no one who does goodness, there is not even one." A heavy sentence, and one difficult to establish. For how does it seem possible that no one at all, not even one, could have been found among the Jews or among the Greeks who did goodness? Are we really to believe that there was no one who ever received a guest, or gave bread to the hungry, or clothed the naked, or rescued the innocent from the hands of the powerful, or did some such good work? The apostle Paul does not seem to me to have wished to assert so incredible a statement; but I think it should be understood in this way: that he denies that anyone has made goodness complete. For example, if someone lays the foundations of a house and builds one or two walls and also brings together some material, will he be said to have made the house, although he seems to have worked on the house? But he will be said to have made the house who has brought every single part of the whole building to completion. So I think the Apostle says here too that no one has made goodness, that is, no one has brought it to completion and wholeness. But if we ask who is truly good and has made goodness perfect, we will find him alone who says, "I am the good shepherd"; and again, "The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep."

After this, taking from the fifth Psalm, as we said above, he says: "Their throat is an open grave." In these, as it seems to me, he describes sins of different kinds. Every grave covers the uncleanness of a dead corpse; hence the Lord too said in the Gospel of the scribes and Pharisees that they were whitewashed tombs, which outwardly seem beautiful to men, but inwardly are full of all uncleanness. But Paul seems in this place to show something more criminal in those of whom he speaks, when he calls them a grave not covered nor closed but "open." For those are called closed graves whom shame somewhat restrains from sinning openly and bringing their crimes out in public. But those are called an open grave who have their uncleannesses and impurities in the open, in whom the habit and practice of crimes, which is the last stage in evil, has taken away even shame for what they have committed: so that they no longer open their mouth and bring forth the word of God, the living word; but open their throat and bring forth a dead word, the word of the devil, not from the heart but from the grave. If, then, you ever see a man throwing out shameless words with a lewd mouth, or uttering insults and curses with a swollen and furious one, do not hesitate to say of him that his throat is an open grave. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

To this is added: "With their tongues they have dealt deceitfully." Deceit is when someone says one thing with the tongue and turns over another in the heart. I do not know whether this charge leaves even all the righteous and elect immune; but I think that one more, another less, yet no one is perfectly pure of it, except him alone of whom it is written: "Who did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth." For even if someone is found careful and cautious, he can perhaps guard himself in graver matters; but whom will you find who does not fall into this, either from embarrassment or from negligence? Sometimes too through forgetfulness things that should have been attended to are omitted, and, lest the fault appear, they are excused otherwise than they were done. Hence Peter too, knowing that these are the varieties of deceit, writes in his epistle, saying: "Putting away, then, all deceit and pretense and envy and slander, like newborn infants, rational and without deceit, long for milk, so that by it you may grow to salvation."

"The poison of asps is under their lips." The bite of a serpent kills the body with poison; the bite of a poisoned word kills the soul by deceit. This can happen through those who ensnare men with fabricated slanders; it can happen also through those who deceive the souls of the simple by heretical doctrine infected with the devil's poison. "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." Of the poison of asps he did not say that their lips are full. For in that vice perhaps many may be found, yet not many who put forth the venom of that poison fully and completely. But to have the mouth filled with cursing and bitterness belongs to very many. For who has a mouth so corrected that the habit of cursing does not tempt him, I will not say against those who are worthy of cursing, but against those whom the Lord has not cursed, that is, righteous and innocent men? This vice of human frailty is ready and easy, especially toward subordinates and inferiors, so that they no longer think this kind of name-calling to be cursing. And therefore their mouth is said to be full, and cursing to flow incessantly as from the full vessel of the mouth. To this, however, bitterness too is joined, because it is drawn from the gall of anger. For the tongue is driven to curse through anger and rage. And therefore the same Apostle says: "Bless, and do not curse"; and elsewhere: "Lest any root of bitterness springing up should hinder."

It is added next: "Their feet are swift to shed blood." Yet this crime will perhaps not seem applicable to many of those of whom he said, "For we have charged that Jews and Greeks are all under sin"; unless perhaps we understand it thus: that blood is shed not only bodily, of those whose bodies are slaughtered, but also those who separate a soul from God by any scandal whatever are called men of blood. For just as he is called a murderer who separates the body from the soul by which it is given life, so much more truly is he to be called a murderer who separates the soul from the true life, which is God. And understand the feet in this place as those of which the prophet says: "But my feet were almost moved"; that is, the counsel by which we travel the road of life.

"Ruin and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known." By ruin (contritio) he means here not that by which the spirit is crushed for its sins in repentance, of which it is said in the Psalms, "A contrite and humbled heart God does not despise," but that crushing by which sinners are said to break the yoke of the Lord and throw it off their necks. Likewise misery, or, as it is read elsewhere, wretchedness, is to be taken as that by which man was made wretched and unhappy, who, "when he was in honor, did not understand," but "was compared to senseless beasts and became like them." "And the way of peace they have not known." Christ is our peace. The way of peace, then, is the way of Christ. But if we also take it that sinners, while they are always pressed by the wars of the vices, do not know the way of peace, we understand rightly. For the prophet says to the Lord: "Great peace have those who love your name, and there is no scandal for them." And that people too which was led out of Egypt went by the way of peace, so as to come to the land of promise and dwell in Jerusalem, which is interpreted "vision of peace," as the prophet also says: "His place has been made in peace, and his dwelling in Zion." But he knows the way of peace more fully who is making for the dwelling of the heavenly Jerusalem, so as to ascend to the holy city of the living God.

After this it is added: "There is no fear of God before their eyes." If there is someone who always thinks of the fear of God, and seeks what pleases him and what displeases him, of him it is said that the fear of God is before his eyes. But he must be skilled and carefully instructed in the law of the Lord, lest perhaps he fear with fear where there will be no need of fear. The fear of God, then, is always to be set before the eyes: not these eyes of the flesh (for nothing visible or bodily is sought), but before the eyes of the mind, by which the understanding and teaching of the fear of God is perceived, through which, as we said above, it may be understood what is to be feared and what is not to be feared. One who fears God does not fear the powers of the world. And what do I say of the powers of the world? He does not fear even those principalities and powers and rulers of this world, nor the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. And that we may confirm this by the authority of Paul himself, hear how he speaks of human powers: "Do you wish," he says, "not to fear the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from it." And the prophet says: "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man may do to me." And the same prophet seems to me to have had in mind the adverse powers of the spirits when he says: "Many who fight against me from on high will fear by day"; and again: "Though camps stand against me, my heart will not fear." It is, then, a great and magnificent work always to have the fear of God before the eyes of the heart: that fear which filled the rod that rose from the root of Jesse and the flower that rose from its root, of whom he had said: "And the spirit of the fear of the Lord will fill him." And the fear of God makes a man so perfect that nothing is lacking to him, as the prophet says, that "there is no want to those who fear him."

These things we have fitted, as we could, to each of the testimonies taken up by Paul, showing how they seemed to suit those of whom he says, "For we have charged that Jews and Greeks are all under sin." Yet I think they should be understood not as though all these things are charged as having been in each single man, but one thing in one and another in another, yet so that in all of them together this whole sum of vices was fulfilled.

"Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are in the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become subject to God. Therefore by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin." We said at the beginning that the Apostle in this Epistle would treat of several laws, and unless their discernment and distinction is kept in each place, it can confuse the reader's understanding. In the present place too, then, where he says, "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are in the law," … if we wish to understand this of the law of Moses, which without doubt speaks only to those whom it circumcised from their mother's womb and taught, how will it seem consistent that through this law, which by its institutions touches only one nation, every mouth will be stopped and the whole world held liable to God through it? For what is to be believed that all the nations, what that the whole world, have in common with this law? And how is the knowledge of sin also said to come about through the law of Moses, when very many are found to have recognized their sin even before it? Cain, indeed, when he had sinned, said thus: "My sin is greater than that it should be forgiven." And the patriarchs too, when they had gone down to Joseph in Egypt and were pressed by his feigned accusation, say thus to one another: "We are in sins concerning our brother, because we despised the distress of his soul when he begged us, and we did not listen to him; for this reason this distress has come upon us." And Job, who certainly lived before the law, says thus: "If I sinned unwillingly, if I hid my sin, or was ashamed before the multitude of the people so as not to declare my offense." All these are clearly shown to have recognized their sin. From these, then, it is gathered that the apostle Paul says this, "The law speaks to those who are in the law," not of the law of Moses but of the natural law that is written in the hearts of men.

Whatever this law says, then, it says to those who are in the law. And those are in the law who are of the age at which they already grasp the discernment of good and evil. But those are without law to whom the sense of such discernment has not yet come, according to what Paul also says: "But I was once living without law." According to this natural law, then, the Apostle will seem to have said consistently that every mouth is to be stopped and the whole world will be liable to the judgment of God. For no one, whether of the Jews or of the Gentiles, is without a share in this law, which is in men by nature; and therefore it also seems consistently said that God is justified in his words and prevails when he is judged. For example, if it is asked what God conferred on man, and what man has done with what he received from God, God will seem to be judged with men; and it will be found that God gave man all the dispositions and all the motions by which he could strive and advance toward virtue, and besides implanted the power of reason, by which he might recognize what he ought to do and what to avoid. God is found, then, to have granted these things to all men in common. But if, having received these, man has neglected to walk the road of virtue, man, to whom nothing was lacking from God, is found to have been lacking to the things that were given him by God. Rightly, then, in such a judgment God is said to prevail and to be justified in his words.

This natural law, then, speaks to all who are in the law; from its precepts only infants seem to me to be exempt, in whom there is not yet the judgment of wrong and right. But see whether those too should be joined to these who for any reason whatever are not in possession of their minds. Apart from these, however, no man seems to me to escape this law. It must be considered, however, whether perhaps this law binds not only men but also angels and every rational creature whatever. For if it has been rightly defined by the wise that law is what dictates what ought to be done and forbids what ought not to be done, how will a law of this kind not be seen to be implanted also in the higher and heavenly orders, for whom there is certainly a discipline of observing some things and avoiding others? And if they were not held by this law, divine Scripture would never say of them: "And the angels who did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling God has kept under darkness for the judgment of the great day, bound in eternal chains in Tartarus." From this it is clear that there is a law in them, by not observing which they have suffered what Scripture testified above. And when Paul says, "Do you not know that we will judge angels?" what else does he know but that those whom he declares are to be brought to judgment are placed under law?

But if someone objects to us, from what we said above, that God is to be judged with men, as though we seemed to say that he too is under law, hear how great a caution is found on this point in the Apostle's letters, who records that Christ is not in the law but is the fullness of the law; and just as he is justice, from which all are made just, and he is truth, from which all stand in the truth, and he is life, from which all live, so he is also the law, from which all are in the law. He comes to judgment, then, not as one who is in the law but as one who is the law. And I think that those who are already perfect, and, joined to the Lord, have been made one spirit with him, are not themselves in the law either, but rather are themselves law, as the same Apostle says elsewhere: "For the law is not laid down for the righteous."

Thus: "Whatever the law says, it says to those who are in the law, so that every mouth may be stopped," according to what we said above, "and the whole world may become subject," or, as we read elsewhere, "liable, to God," which agrees better with the Greek copies. But let us ask what he has called "the whole world" here. Will it be thought that by "the whole world" this earthly place should be understood in such a way that the trees and stones and plants and seeds and straw that are in it are named along with it? For each of these seems to be part of the world. I do not think anyone will be found so foolish as to be able to assert this. It remains, then, that by "the whole world" he means every rational animal; and just as everything irrational is excluded from this sense, so no rational creature seems to me to be set apart from this condition. The whole world, then, becomes liable to God through the fact that he implanted the natural law in all; of whom he also says in another place that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. If it does this, it will seem to have fulfilled the law; if it does not, to be liable to the law, and through the law consequently to God also.

If it seems to anyone that this was said of men alone, since he said that the natural law is in them, and he takes "so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become liable to God" as written of them alone, let him use the occasion of the following words, where he says: "For by the works of the law no flesh will be justified"; which will certainly seem to be said only of those who are placed in the flesh. But those who wish to hold rather to the former sense will observe more carefully how the Apostle said that no flesh is justified by the works of the law: because the works of the law concern those who are in the flesh, but the sense of the law pertains to those who are in the spirit, that is, the higher orders of the heavenly ministries. "By the works of the law," then, "no flesh will be justified in his sight": I think this should be understood in this way, that everyone who is flesh and lives according to the flesh cannot be justified by the law of God; as the same Apostle says elsewhere, that "those who are in the flesh cannot please God"; and again elsewhere, that "the wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor can it be"; and the prophet says, "All flesh is grass"; and in the Gospel it is written: "It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is of no use at all." Of these, then, he says that by the law of God no flesh will be justified before him. And let what he added, "before him," not pass idly, as we have already often warned: because to be justified before God is one thing, before men another … are clean to us, that is, in comparison with men they are held clean and holy, but in comparison with God they cannot be clean.

"For through the law comes the knowledge of sin." Let us see how the knowledge of sin comes through the law. While we learn through the law what is to be done and what avoided, we at the same time recognize what sin is and what it is not. The law, then, is not, as the heretics who accuse the God of the law say, an evil root and an evil tree through which the knowledge of sin comes; because he did not say, "From the law comes the knowledge of sin," but "through the law," so that you may know that sin did not arise from it but was recognized through it. For example, if we said, "Through the art of medicine the knowledge of sickness is given," would medicine seem to you to be the cause of the sickness because through it the nature of the sickness is recognized? But just as it is clear that medicine is good, which gives an understanding of illness by which the infirmity can be avoided, so too the law is good, through which sin is detected and recognized. An exposition of this kind, I think, also keeps the consistency of the explanation we gave above of what is written: "For we have charged that Jews and Greeks are all under sin, as it is written: There is no one righteous, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God."

"But now without the law the righteousness of God has been manifested, witnessed by the law and the prophets; the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all who believe in him. For there is no distinction; for all have sinned and lack the glory of God, being justified freely in Christ Jesus." What we established above, saying that "whatever the law says, it says to those who are in the law" was not said of the law of Moses, someone will think asserted not so much truly as forcibly, when he sees that the name of law is now referred not to nature but to the law of Moses; and he will say that in the present place the Apostle declares the righteousness of God to be manifested through the law, and not only through the law but also through the prophets, so that what is written must be understood without any ambiguity to be said of the law of Moses; from which law the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus is manifested unto all who believe, whether they come from the Jews or from the Gentiles, who yet are justified not by works but by the grace of God, Jesus Christ himself having been made their redeemer. This, indeed, is what will be said by one who will accuse us of having forcibly bent the Apostle's meaning in what we explained above.

But this is what we can firmly affirm: that just as those who assert this think that we can find nothing in this word of the Apostle which we have now set forth by which to establish that these things were written not of the law of Moses but of the law of nature, so neither will they be able to find anything by which what was said above may seem to look to the law of Moses rather than to the law of nature. And therefore, just as the earlier statements will not stand for them because the later ones seem consistent, so neither will the first be disturbed for us if the second do not seem to run along the same path. What then? Shall we say that the Apostle writes things contrary to each other? And will this be the assertion of a distinguished expositor? This is what usually happens to those who break up the one doctrine of faith into the different senses of sects, and seek out from the divine Scriptures only those testimonies by which to establish their own doctrine, while the resolutions of the sayings of divine Scripture that come from the opposite side they do not touch, as the Lord says, even with their fingertip. But one who gathers the sense of the sacred volumes faithfully and wholly must show how the things that seem contrary are not truly contrary.

We will try, then, in the present place too to show how this subsequent passage does not conflict with our earlier exposition. We have often said, and said more clearly in the preface, that in this Epistle the Apostle makes mention of many laws in such a way that when he passes from one to another it can hardly be detected except by a very attentive reader. He had said above that "through the law comes the knowledge of sin"; and since he perceived that the answer could be made: "Then if the knowledge of sin is from the natural law, the knowledge of righteousness too can be from it," according to the image of the medical art that we gave above, so that just as through it sickness is recognized in order that health may be found, so too through the law of nature, if the knowledge of sin can come about, the knowledge of righteousness can likewise come about: when he saw that this could be objected to him, after he said, "For through the law comes the knowledge of sin," he adds: "But now without the law the righteousness of God has been manifested." What he says, then, is this: "The manifestation of the righteousness of God does not come about through the law in the way that the knowledge of sin comes through the law; but the righteousness of God is manifested without the law." For the law of nature could convict the nature of sin and show the knowledge of it; but the righteousness of God surpasses and towers above whatever the human mind can search out by natural perceptions alone. For it is not sufficient for understanding and contemplating, not just any human righteousness, but the very righteousness of God and the judgments that descend from it, of which it is said that they are "a great deep," and that the righteousness and judgments of God are so profound that the Apostle says: "How unsearchable are the judgments of God!" And Wisdom too speaks to men as though the righteousness of God could not be known by the motions of nature alone but must be sought through the study of teaching; and therefore she says: "Learn righteousness, you who judge the earth."

For recognizing the righteousness of God, then, the law of nature will help not at all, even if it seems to perceive something of human righteousness. For that law can perceive what is just among men: that what one does not want to suffer oneself one should not do to one's neighbor. Can it by nature perceive that righteousness which says: "See that you do not do your righteousness before men," and "Let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing"? The law of nature cannot dictate these and similar righteous things; and therefore the Apostle says: "But now without the law," that is, of nature, "the righteousness of God has been manifested," having the testimony of the law of Moses and of the prophets, in which the Holy Spirit had written many things about the righteousness of God through figures and riddles.

And do not be surprised that one word, "law," placed twice in the same place, signifies different things. We find that this is the custom of Scripture in other places too; as there: "Do you not say that there are still four months before the harvest comes? Lift up your eyes and see the fields, for they are white for harvest." Here too, is not harvest, named twice, referred first to the bodily harvest and second to the spiritual? And again in the Gospel, when the Savior says to the Samaritan woman, "Give me a drink," and after her answer says to her again: "If you knew who it is who says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water"; and again he added to her: "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I give him will not thirst for ever." Do you see how both "drink" and "water" are taken now bodily, now spiritually, in one and the same place? It is set down similarly there too where the man blind from birth is healed. After this the Savior says: "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." Is not here too both seeing and not seeing understood now bodily, now spiritually? So too in this place, then, when the Apostle says that the righteousness of God is manifested without the law, the law of nature is understood; but when he says, "witnessed by the law and the prophets," he designates the law of Moses.

And if what we have said is still thought less than plain to you, we will add this too. If it seems that the law of which it is said, "But now without the law the righteousness of God has been manifested," is the same as that of which he says, "witnessed by the law and the prophets": if indeed it has been manifested without the law, it does not receive the testimony of the law; but if it receives testimony from the law, then it has not been manifested without the law. Since this is insoluble and cannot be overthrown by any reasoning, it must be said that the righteousness of God is manifested by Christ Jesus, the law of nature, which is surely still small and slight, not bearing witness to it, but the law of Moses: not that which is according to the letter, but that which is according to the spirit, of which the same Apostle says that "the law is spiritual"; and likewise the prophets, through the Spirit of God who spoke in them. There is besides, if anyone observes carefully, a remarkable distinction in the Apostle concerning this word. It is the custom among the Greeks to set before nouns arthra, which among us can be called articles. Whenever, then, he names the law of Moses, he sets the usual article before the noun; but whenever he wishes the natural law to be understood, he names law without the article. And so in this place too, where he says, "Now without the law the righteousness of God has been manifested," it has no article; but in what follows, where he says, "witnessed by the law and the prophets," in the second place he put "law" with the article.

If, then, the difference in the term "law" has become sufficiently clear, let us now see what righteousness is manifested without the natural law. The same apostle Paul says of Christ that he has become for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. This righteousness of God, then, which is Christ, is manifested without the natural law, yet not without the law of Moses and the prophets. For the law gives testimony to him, as he himself also says: "Search the Scriptures; they are what bear witness to me." For the natural law can provide occasions and give understanding, as we said, either for the things that equity demands be done among men, or for this very thing, that one perceive that God exists. But can anyone perceive by nature that Christ is the Son of God? Therefore without this law the righteousness of God, which is Christ, has been manifested, witnessed by the law of Moses and the prophets.

But before we hasten to what follows, not even this observation seems to be omitted: that with sin he set "knowledge," but with righteousness "manifestation." "For everything that is made manifest is light"; and if what is made manifest is light, sin, which is not light, is not made manifest but recognized. I take in this way also the saying: "Nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor covered that will not be revealed." But let us return to our subject. The law and the prophets, then, are witnesses of the righteousness of God; and this righteousness is manifested through faith in Jesus Christ unto all who believe, among whom there is no distinction, whether they believe from the Jews or from the Gentiles. But see that for manifesting the righteousness of God he did not set down faith alone as the one cause, but joins also the law and the prophets; because neither does faith alone without the law and the prophets manifest the righteousness of God, nor again the law and the prophets without faith: each therefore depends on the other, so that perfection comes from both.

There is no distinction, he says, between Jews and Greeks, since it is clear that all alike have been made under sin, as became clear above, and that now the righteousness of God, supported by the testimonies of the law and the prophets, is given to all alike through faith in Jesus Christ. From the fact that all had been made under sin, they had without doubt also become strangers to the glory of God, since they could in no way either perceive it or deserve it. For how would a sinner dare to give glory to God, to whom the prophet says: "But to the sinner God said: Why do you recount my righteous deeds?" And again another Scripture says: "Praise of God is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner." Therefore the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, reaching to all who believe, whether Jews or Greeks, justifies them, cleansed from their former crimes, and makes them capable of the glory of God; and it does this not from their merits nor for their works, but grants glory to believers freely.

"Through the redemption," he says, "which is in Christ Jesus." Let us see more attentively what the redemption which is in Christ Jesus means. Redemption is the name for what is given to enemies for those whom they hold in captivity, so that they may restore them to their former freedom. The human race, then, was held captive among its enemies, overcome by sin as in war. The Son of God came, who has become for us not only wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification, but also redemption; and he gave himself as a redemption, that is, he handed himself over to the enemies and poured out his blood for them as they thirsted; and this has become redemption for believers, as Peter too writes in his epistle, saying: "For you were redeemed not with corruptible silver or gold, but with the precious blood of the only-begotten Son of God." This perhaps Solomon too was signifying as a mystery when he said: "The redemption of a man's soul is his own riches." For if you ask what the soul's own riches are, you will find that its riches are wisdom and righteousness and sanctification; and the Apostle says that Christ is all these. Christ, then, is the soul's riches, and therefore he himself is its redemption. For …

"Whom God put forward as a propitiation through faith in his blood, to show his righteousness, through the remission of former sins, in the forbearance of God, to show his righteousness at this time, that he himself may be righteous and the one who justifies him who is of the faith of Jesus Christ." Although the holy Apostle had taught us many admirable things about our Lord Jesus Christ, which are said of him through a mystery, in this place he has brought forth something more eminent, which I do not think is easily found in other places of Scripture. For when he had said above that he gave himself as a redemption for the whole human race, to redeem those who were held in the captivity of sins, when apart from God he tastes death for all, he now adds something more sublime and says that God put him forward as a propitiation through faith in his blood: that is, that through the sacrifice of his body he might make God propitious to men, and through this God might show his righteousness, in forgiving them their former sins, which they had contracted by serving the worst tyrants at the time when God bore with and permitted these things to be done. But he permitted it for this, that afterward, that is, at this time, he might show his righteousness. For at the consummation of the age, in the last time, God manifested his righteousness and gave as redemption him whom he made the propitiator; lest perhaps, if he had sent the propitiator earlier, he would not have reconciled so many of the human race to God as in these times, when the world is now seen to be filled with men. For God is righteous, and being righteous he could not justify the unrighteous; therefore he willed that there be the intervention of a propitiator, so that those who could not be justified by their own works might be justified by faith in him. Let these things be set out first, as far as they concern the explanation of the words themselves, so that the apostolic reading may become clearer.

But now, as is our custom, let us ask what the inner sense of the apostolic word contains; and first of all how it was said: "Whom God put forward as a propitiatory (or propitiator) through faith in his blood." It is certain that in almost all places the Apostle's meaning flows from the treasuries of the law and the prophets. Let us ask, then, where he found the name "propitiatory" and from where he took this word. I remember that in Exodus the Lord, speaking to Moses and instructing him what he ought to make, first orders an ark to be made, and its poles and rings along the sides of the ark; after this he says: "And you shall make a propitiatory of pure gold; two [cubits and a half] its length, and a cubit and a half its width. And you shall make two golden cherubim of turned work, and you shall set them on the two sides of the propitiatory: one cherub on this side and the other cherub on the other side of the propitiatory; and you shall make the two cherubim to be on its two sides, spreading out their wings and overshadowing the propitiatory; and their faces shall be toward one another over the propitiatory. And you shall make the cherubim, and you shall put the propitiatory upon the ark, and into the ark you shall put the testimonies that I will give you; and I will make myself known to you from there, and I will speak to you from above the propitiatory, between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the covenant, according to all that I will command you for the sons of Israel." It clearly appears that the Apostle has now set down in his letters the name "propitiatory," found in these places, of which we are speaking. And he seems to have referred this propitiatory, of which it is written in Exodus, to none other than the Savior, the Lord, when he says that "God set him as a propitiatory through faith."

It is worth the trouble to investigate how that propitiatory described in Exodus, made of the purest gold, was the form and figure of this true propitiatory. And first it must be considered in what places the gold used in the work is called pure gold, and in what places gold alone is set down without any addition. Observing this in many places, I seem to myself to have detected that wherever gold is called pure with the addition, it indicates that holy and pure soul of Jesus, which "did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth"; and that these measures of the length and width of the propitiatory fit it, although it is hard to explain these things and to fit each of the things reported of the propitiatory to that holy soul. First, then, let us see that it says the length of the propitiatory had neither only two cubits, a number usually suited to bodies that are joined and begotten, nor a full three, a number that usually surpasses the name of creature and is consecrated to incorporeal nature. It says, then, that the length of the propitiatory was two cubits and a half, and its width one and a half. If it is permitted to be bold in such matters, since the same Apostle says of Christ that he is the mediator of God and men, this soul seems to me to be midway between God and man: placed lower than the nature of the Trinity, having something less, yet, though it is beneath it, not mingled with the number two, which is assigned to those placed in bodies, without an exceptional and surpassing eminence of its virtues. For this is shown in that its measure is designated as having something above two cubits, though less than three. And that its width is recorded as having one cubit and a half is described for this reason: that from the unity and its single station it did not grow wholly into the number two, which is sometimes set down even for unclean things. For although it took on the flesh of our nature, yet that flesh was taken from an undefiled Virgin and formed by the chaste operation of the Holy Spirit. That is why the Apostle too, discussing the Mediator, marked a clear distinction, saying: "The mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus"; so that "mediator" is to be referred not to the deity of Christ but to the humanity, which is his … Its length and width, then, are set down. The length signifies that which reaches toward God and is joined to the Trinity; the width, that which dwells among men, who are accustomed to walk the broad and spacious way. And therefore he is rightly called by the name of Mediator, because, as we said, this holy soul was midway between the divinity of the Trinity and the frailty of humanity.

This, then, can be understood as the propitiatory, according to what we said above, on which two cherubim are said to be placed, one on this side and one on the other side. Whose form, then, are these two cherubim to be thought to have? For cherubim, translated into our language, signifies fullness of knowledge. Where, then, do we speak of the fullness of knowledge, except in him of whom the Apostle says: "In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge"? The Apostle says this certainly of the Word of God. And he writes similar things of the Holy Spirit when he says: "But God has revealed it to us through his Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God." It is signified, then, as I think, that in this propitiatory, that is, in the soul of Jesus, the Word of God, who is the only-begotten Son, and his Holy Spirit always dwell; and this is what the two cherubim placed upon the propitiatory indicate. But note this too: that it did not say, "One cherub on the right side and the other cherub on the left side," but said: "One cherub on this side and the other cherub on the other side," to show that in that propitiatory, that is, in the soul of Christ, there was nothing left-handed. These two cherubim are also winged; and not only winged, but spreading their wings. If any of the saints was found worthy to have the highest testimony from God, it was said that God was with him, as is said of Jesus son of Nun: "And God was with him, as he was with Moses his servant." But wherever the promise of a greater gift from God is given, God says: "And I will be in them and walk among them." But you will find among men no soul so blessed and so exalted, except this one alone, in which the Word of God and the Holy Spirit found so much breadth, so much capacity, that they are said not only to dwell, but to spread their wings, and by a new rite of the sacrament sometimes even to fly. Both cherubim are also said to have their faces toward each other over this blessed soul, by which a sense of divinity, in harmony and accord, is poured into it by the Son of God and by the Holy Spirit.

And where is this soul full of God placed, in which it pleased all the fullness of the Godhead to dwell? "Upon the ark," it says, "of the covenant." The ark of the covenant can be understood as his holy flesh, in which this blessed soul is placed, having in itself the testimonies of God, which are understood as the sufferings of Christ that he bore in the flesh, foretold long ago by divine testimonies. The heavenly powers too can be understood as the ark of God, which themselves too are capable of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit; but the soul of Jesus is set over them, and they receive the grace of the divine bounty with it, in a way, as mediator. After this: "And I will make myself known to you," it says, "from there, and I will speak to you from above the propitiatory." Not only to Moses but to each of the saints who is a servant of God, God is made known from nowhere else, nor is he known from anywhere else, than from this propitiatory that we have explained above, and from the midst of the cherubim. This the prophet Habakkuk too signifies when he says: "In the midst of two living creatures you will be known; when the years draw near you will be known, and when the time has come you will be shown." For no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. And Paul too says that "God has revealed it to us through his Spirit." That is why he says: "I will make myself known to you from there, and I will speak to you from above the propitiatory, between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the covenant." I think it was not out of place that what we took from Exodus has been explained, so that the sense might become clear of how the Apostle in the present place took up the name of propitiatory when he says: "Whom God put forward as a propitiatory through faith."

And this very word he used, "put forward," is felt to be said of the soul of Jesus rather than of his deity. For "put forward" (proposuit) is understood as "placed beforehand," that is, before it existed. For what exists is placed; what does not yet exist is put forward. It does not fit, then, to say of him who always was, that is, of the Word of God, that he was put forward; but of his soul, which, although it is inseparable from the Word of God, was nevertheless created and is later than the deity of the Only-begotten; it will not seem unfitting to say of it that before it existed it was put forward and preordained to be a propitiatory.

Since, then, according to what we explained above, God put forward Jesus Christ as a propitiatory through faith in his blood, it seems necessary to ask from the divine laws what propitiation is made through blood, so that from them we may gather how propitiation was also made through the blood of Jesus. It is written in Leviticus, after the sacrifice of the high priest: "But if the whole congregation of Israel has erred, and the matter has been hidden from its eyes, and it has done one of the commandments of the Lord that ought not to be done, and has sinned, and the sin that they have sinned becomes known to them, the congregation shall bring a calf from the herd for sin"; and shortly after: "And the anointed priest shall bring some of the blood of the calf into the tabernacle of testimony"; and shortly after again: "And he shall do with the calf," it says, "as he did with the calf for sin, and the priest shall make propitiation for them, and it shall be forgiven them." Through blood, then, the priest makes propitiation for the whole congregation, so that it may be forgiven them.

Let us now look for each of the names that are written of the Savior, and let us contemplate more carefully what is designated in each of the titles. You will find, then, since it pleased all the fullness of the Godhead to dwell in him bodily, that he is himself the propitiatory, and the high priest, and the sacrifice that is offered for the people. And about the propitiatory enough has now been said. About the high priest David clearly writes in the Psalm, and the apostle Paul to the Hebrews. And that he is also the sacrifice, John testifies, saying: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." In so far, then, as he is the sacrifice, propitiation is accomplished by the outpouring of his blood, in that he gives remission of former sins; yet this propitiation comes to each believer by way of faith. For unless he gave remission of former sins, propitiation would not be proved to have been accomplished. But when remission of sins is granted, it is certain that propitiation has been fulfilled by the outpouring of the sacred blood. "For without the shedding of blood," as the Apostle says, "there is no remission of sins." But lest Paul alone should seem to you to have presumed to use the name of propitiation for Christ, hear how John too speaks in agreement on this sense, when he says: "My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours but also for those of the whole world." With one and the same sense, then, the apostles name Christ "propitiatory" or "propitiation," or, as is found more often in the Latin codices, "propitiator." But it makes no difference whether "propitiator" or "propitiatory" or "propitiation" or even "entreaty" is written, since among the Greeks it is always expressed by one and the same word. Unless perhaps to some "propitiation" may seem to be understood as his divine substance itself, and "propitiator" when he carries out the dispensations among men.

And what John said, that he is the entreaty (or propitiation) for our sins, and not only for ours but also for those of the whole world, seems to have brought us certain increases of the mystery: to show that Jesus is the propitiator not only of believers but also of the whole world; yet not first of the world and then of us, but first of us and then at last of the whole world. For although the whole creation awaits the grace of the Redeemer, yet each will come to salvation in his own order. I think this is indicated also in Leviticus, where the sacrifices of propitiation are commanded to be offered by the high priest. Yet in these the order of the sacrifices is not set out confusedly; but first it says what the propitiation is and what sacrifice is offered if the priest has sinned; second, if the whole congregation has sinned through ignorance, with what victims God is appeased; third, if a ruler has sinned, it is written in what order he is to be purified; fourth, if one soul has sinned, the rite of expiation for this too is set out. Each of these, by a mystical understanding, designates the future propitiation of Christ not only for our sins but also for the whole world, by certain orders and modes and causes; if, however, one looks at it according to that revelation which is said to have been shown to Moses on the mountain, enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

Through the propitiation of the blood of Christ, then, remission of former sins takes place, "in the forbearance of God, to show his righteousness." The forbearance of God is when the sinner is not punished at once when he sins, but, according to what the Apostle said in the same place, is led through the patience of God to repentance; and in this God is said to show his righteousness. And he did well to add, "at this time"; for in the time of the present age the righteousness of God consists in forbearance, but in that of the age to come in retribution. For it seemed just to God that, since he had appointed the age to come for judgment, he should assign the present one to forbearance and patience. For if he punished the sinner at this time, it would not seem just to call again to judgment one whom he had punished. But if he bears with and is patient in the present age, he will rightly be a just judge in the age to come. He justifies, then, him who is of faith, as it is also written of Abraham, that "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." And if Abraham believed and was justified by faith, it will without doubt follow that now too one who believes God is justified through faith in Jesus Christ with faithful Abraham.

"Where then is your boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law." Again and again we remind those who wish to attend more carefully to the writings of Paul to keep more firmly that distinction which we mentioned above: how he pursues, always by a distinct path, now the cause of the circumcision and now that of the uncircumcision, that is, of believers or of Gentiles. For if even a little of this escapes the reader, at once this narrow and slender path of understanding will be thrown into confusion. When, then, the Apostle had shown above what advantage the Jew has, or what is the value of circumcision, and had taught that the oracles of God were entrusted to them first, and by this seemed to have encouraged their boasting, by which they are usually lifted up against the Gentiles; and again had set against this, in what follows, that the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ is unto all who believe and has no distinction, but that all, Jews and Greeks, have sinned and lack the glory of God, and are justified by grace and the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and that he is the propitiatory through faith, and that everyone who is of faith is justified by him: now, setting down as it were the conclusion of his assertions, he says in this place: "Where then is your boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law." And he says that the justification of faith alone suffices, so that one who only believes is justified, even if he has accomplished no work.

It falls to us, then, who are trying to maintain that the Scripture of the Apostle is consistent and that everything stands in its order, to ask who has been justified by faith alone without works. As far as an example is concerned, I think that thief is enough who, crucified with Christ, cried out to him from the cross: "Lord Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." No other good work of his is described in the Gospels, but for this faith alone Jesus said to him: "Amen I say to you: Today you will be with me in paradise." Let us now, if you like, apply to the case of this thief the words of the apostle Paul, and say to the Jew: "Where then is your boasting?" Certainly it is excluded; and excluded not by the law of works but by the law of faith. For this thief was justified through faith without the works of the law; because the Lord did not ask about this what he had done before, nor did he wait for what work he would accomplish after he had believed, but, about to enter paradise, he took him as his companion, justified by his confession alone.

And that woman too of whom it is reported in the Gospel according to Luke, that when she had learned that Jesus was reclining in the house of the Pharisee, she brought a vessel of ointment, and standing behind at his feet and weeping, she washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed them and anointed them with ointment. And the Pharisee who had invited him, seeing it, said within himself: "If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what sort of woman this is who touches his feet, that she is a sinner." And Jesus told him the parable of the five hundred and the fifty … [and because of her] faith he said to her: "Your sins are forgiven"; and again: "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." And in many places of the Gospel we read that the Savior used this expression, so as to say that the faith of the believer is the cause of his salvation. From all these it is clear that the Apostle rightly holds that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law.

But perhaps someone hearing this may grow slack and take up negligence in doing good, if indeed faith alone suffices for being justified. To him we will say that if anyone acts unjustly after justification, he has without doubt spurned the grace of justification. For no one receives forgiveness of sins so as to think that license to sin has been given him again. For pardon is given not for future crimes but for past ones. To return, then, to our subject: a man is justified through faith, to whose justification the works of the law contribute nothing. But where there is no faith which justifies the believer, even if someone has works from the law, yet because they are not built upon the foundation of faith, although they may seem to be good, they cannot justify the one who does them, because faith is lacking to them, which is the seal of those who are justified by God, as we said above, that "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." It only matters that one who is justified by the grace of faith should say with Paul that "the grace of God that was given to me was not in vain."

All boasting, then, that comes from the works of the law is excluded. And to make what we say still clearer, we will give an example from what is written in the Gospel, where a Pharisee and a tax collector go up to the temple of God; and the Pharisee, it says, standing in the middle, said: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men, robbers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess," and the rest. And perhaps he spoke truly; but according to the Lord's sentence, corrupted by the disease of boasting, he did not go down from the temple justified. Such boasting, then, as came from the works of the law is excluded, because it does not have the humility of the cross of Christ; hear what one who boasts in it says: "But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." You see the Apostle not boasting of his righteousness, nor of his chastity, nor of his wisdom, nor of his other virtues or acts, but most openly declaring and saying: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." And so Jewish boasting has been excluded, not by the law of works but by the law of faith which is in Christ Jesus, in whose cross the Apostle boasts. For who will rightly boast even of his chastity, when he reads it written that if anyone has looked at a woman to desire her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart? Hence the prophet too says: "Who will boast that he has a chaste heart?" Or who will boast of wisdom, when he sees it written that the world through wisdom did not know God, and therefore it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe? And again: "God chose what is foolish in the world to put the wise to shame." And who will boast even of his righteousness, when he hears God saying through the prophet that "all your righteousness is like a menstruous woman's rag"? The only just boasting, then, is in faith in the cross of Christ, which excludes all that boasting which descends from the works of the law.

These things have been said by us on what the Apostle said in the manner of one asking: "Where then is your boasting?" And to this he answered himself: "It is excluded." And again, as though questioning himself, he says: "By what law? Of works?" And he answered himself: "No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law." Of these things we have spoken above. But since in the present place too he again makes mention of two laws and speaks of the law of works and the law of faith, consider for yourself, reader, whether this word ought to be inclined toward the law of Moses and the natural law, or toward the law of the letter and the law of the spirit: because the law of the letter kills and works death, but the law of the spirit of life sets free from the law of sin and death.

Hence too he fittingly sets down next: "Or is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also. Since indeed there is one God who justifies the circumcision from faith and the uncircumcision through faith." To those who want the God of the Jews to be one and the God of the Gentiles another, that is, one God of the Law and another of the Gospels, this will be a tight and narrow answer on the point, since the apostle Paul gives his own view quite abundantly when he not only says that the God of the Jews and of the Gentiles is one, but also adds that it is one and the same who justifies the circumcision from faith and the uncircumcision through faith. And if they wish to take circumcision by allegory, so as to say that the saints and the spiritual are called circumcision by him, they will at once find an obstacle in what follows. For if he called the saints, or, as they name them, the spiritual, circumcision, it follows that he called the sinners, whom they call soulish, uncircumcision. And how will it be consistent that the good God justifies the spiritual and the soulish alike? For them, then, there will be an inextricable knot in these words of the Apostle. But according to us, who say that the circumcision means those who have believed from the Jews, and the uncircumcision likewise those who have been called to the faith from the Gentiles, the exposition will be plain and easy. For one and the same God justifies believers from both peoples not by the privilege of circumcision or uncircumcision but in view of faith alone.

There remains also the difference of one syllable in which the Apostle seems to have varied. Let it not pass us by idly that he says God justifies the circumcision "from faith" and not "through faith," but the uncircumcision "through faith" and not "from faith." For this change of prepositions does not seem to me superfluous in him, because we find these too set down by him in other places, not at random but with care, and the difference of this distinction necessarily kept: as when, speaking of God, he says: "For from him and through him and in him are all things." And again elsewhere he says: "For as the woman is from the man, so too the man is through the woman; but all things are from God." Such too is what he writes to the Corinthians: "To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit." And not only the apostle Paul keeps the observance of these distinctions, but John too, who, when he says of the Word of God that "all things were made through him," testifies that life was made not through him but in him, saying: "What was made, in him was life." And since it would be a long task to explain the things we have now brought forward as examples, let us briefly gather their sense according to our capacity.

When "from him" is said, something principal seems to be shown by the sign of this preposition. But when "through him" is said, the understanding of a following cause, that is, of one that comes after the principal, is designated. For example, in his saying, "From him and through him and in him are all things": "from him" gave the significance of the first creation of all things, and of this very fact that the things that exist began to exist from God; "through him," that the things which had first been made are ruled and ordered through him from whom they had the beginning of their existence; "in him," that those who have now been corrected and amended stand firm in his perfection. So these distinctions are drawn out as holding the fullest reason: that we may be said to have from God the fact that we subsist; that our being ordered and ruled may be designated as coming about through him; but that our standing firm in the perfection of all things may be declared to be "in him." In the present place too a difference of this kind can be observed: that the circumcision, which is justified as in the first place and order, is recorded as being justified "from faith" and not "through faith"; but the uncircumcision, which is drawn to justification in the second place, is said to be justified not "from faith" but "through faith."

I think that these things are designated more fully also in that difference which we mentioned above: "For as the woman is from the man, so too the man is through the woman." For in the first place is the man, from whom the woman is said to descend, and not through the man. But in the second place the man is through the woman, because the woman seems in a way to serve the man as author; and therefore the man is said to be through the woman, and not from the woman. But perhaps someone may meet this exposition of ours about the woman and the man, and object what the Apostle said of Christ: "made from a woman, made under the law"; and he did not say "made through a woman." To him I think the answer should be given thus. Of every man it will fit to be said that he was made through a woman, since, though he is born through a woman, he took his beginning from a man; but Christ, who is not from the seed of a man … For to her, that is, to the woman, the very principal origin of his flesh is ascribed, and rightly he is recorded by the Apostle as made not "through a woman" but "from a woman."

One and the same God, then, justifies the circumcision from faith and the uncircumcision through faith. And if someone asks more curiously through whom those who are justified from faith are justified, and again from what those who are justified through faith are justified: although there may perhaps seem to be much curiosity in this, yet we can fittingly say that those who are justified from faith, having made their beginning from faith, are brought to completion by the fulfillment of good works; and those who are justified through faith, having begun from good works, receive the summit of perfection through faith. So each, clinging to the other, is brought to completion by the other.

And for this reason, I think, the Apostle immediately set down next: "Do we then destroy the law through faith? Far from it; rather we establish the law." Since above he seemed to call everything back to faith, he puts forward to himself what could be proposed by another, and says: "If a man is justified through faith and not by the works of the law, and if God justifies the circumcision from faith and the uncircumcision through faith, do you then, Paul, destroy the law of Moses through faith?" But answering this himself he says: "Far from it; rather we establish the law," that is, we confirm it. But it is worth the trouble to see how he declares that he confirms the law, who said above that a man is not justified by the works of the law. The Savior says in the Gospels that Moses wrote of him. One, then, who does not believe in Christ, of whom Moses wrote in the law, destroys the law; but one who believes in Christ, of whom Moses wrote, confirms the law through faith, because he believes in Christ. And we speak of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, whole, full, and perfect, which professes nothing different, nothing discordant or foreign in the Trinity. For Marcion, who says that the God of the law is one and the Father of Christ another, does not establish nor confirm the law by his faith, but destroys it. Ebion does this too; so do all who insert anything of corruption into the catholic faith. I will also fittingly add this: that everyone who, believing in Christ, does good and keeps himself from every stain of sin, confirms the law of God by living rightly; but one who is driven headlong by the vices of sins and is stained by the habit of crimes without any check of repentance, even if he seems to believe in Christ, does not establish the law by his faith but destroys it.

But that objection too seems by no means to be passed over by us which someone can bring forward, saying that the Apostle seems to write things contrary to himself, since in the present place he says that the law is not destroyed but confirmed, while in the second letter to the Corinthians he writes thus: "But if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stones, came in glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look upon the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which is being destroyed, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more in glory?" And shortly after: "For if what is being destroyed was through glory, much more is what remains in glory." It can be said, then, that "the glory of Moses' face, which is being destroyed," and what he says, "For if what is being destroyed was through glory," seem contrary to this sentence in which he declares, "We do not destroy the law through faith, but establish and confirm it."

But see whether we can resolve what is objected in this way. It is not the same thing that he said, "we destroy the law," and "the law is being destroyed." In the present place, then, Paul declares this: that he himself does not destroy the law. For even if the law is destroyed by that glory which surpasses it, it is destroyed neither by Paul nor by any other of the saints. Hence the Lord himself too said: "I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it." None of the saints, then, nor the Lord himself, destroys the law; but its temporal and passing glory is destroyed and surpassed by the eternal and abiding glory. See, then, how cautiously and perceptively the apostolic letters are to be read. He did not say, "For what was glorious has not been glorified," and fall silent; otherwise it would seem false (for how would what is glorious not have been glorified?); but he added: "because of the glory that surpasses it"; to show that the glory of Moses, that is, of the law, is not destroyed by just anyone, but, as we said, that the glory which is in the law is covered and obscured by comparison with the greater glory which is in Christ. And therefore he says: "For if what is being destroyed was through glory, much more is what remains in glory." He says that the things of Christ remain and the things of Moses are destroyed; but destroyed not by man but, as we said, by comparison with the glory that came after; since indeed the law was our pedagogue in Christ until the fullness of the times came. And just as we say that the work of a pedagogue is necessary while the one who is under the pedagogue is a child, but that the office of the pedagogue is destroyed and no longer necessary when the one who was under the pedagogue has come to maturity, so we say that the work of the law is now destroyed when the fullness of time has come, and the son, who once differed in nothing from a slave, has become heir of the father's substance.

That the things which the Apostle calls to be destroyed should be understood thus, learn his custom with this word in other places too, where he says: "We know in part and we prophesy in part; but when what is perfect has come, the things that are in part will be destroyed." In this place too Paul's knowledge or prophecy is said to be destroyed without injury to the apostolic grace: that is, so that we may understand that in comparison with perfect things the imperfect are idle and of no use. So, then, in the present word too Paul does not destroy the law but confirms it. But when the glory of Christ has been revealed, that glory which appeared in Moses, and by which he had been glorified, it confutes and convicts by the very comparison with itself, in which it surpasses it, and shows that it is not even to be counted glory. Such too is what is said elsewhere: "He must increase, but I must decrease"; and what Paul himself says: "But when I became a man, I destroyed the things that were a child's." The comparison with the pedagogue shows this too, whose work is destroyed and ceases when the child has come to mature age. That is why the Apostle said most cautiously: "Do we then destroy the law through faith? Far from it!" And he did not say, "Is the law then destroyed through faith?" but, "Do we then destroy the law?" And again in what follows: "No, but we establish the law." For even if the law is destroyed, it is destroyed not through faith but through the surpassing glory. But through faith the law is not only not destroyed, but is established and confirmed through the apostles: because they preach that Christ, whom the law and the prophets foretold as coming, has now come; and it is certainly a confirmation of prophecy or of the law when what had been foretold is shown to be fulfilled.

"What then shall we say that Abraham, our father according to the flesh, found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has glory, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to one who works, the reward is not counted as grace but as debt. But to one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness without works: Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin."

Since above he set forth two laws, one of which he named the law of works and the other the law of faith, by which law of faith he says the boasting of those who glory in the works of the law is excluded; and since he declared that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law: consequently, so that these things may be confirmed from the Scriptures, he now brings forward the example of Abraham and says that Abraham, if he was justified by works, has glory, but not before God. He argues this, indeed, not without dialectical art. For if one who is justified by works does not have glory before God, but it is certain that Abraham has glory … because "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." And if God counted it to him as righteousness, without doubt his glory too is before God. That is why the Apostle joins to this testimony, which he took from the book of Genesis, a word of his own as well, and says that "to one who works, the reward is not counted as grace but as debt; but to one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness."

Throughout this whole passage, then, the Apostle seems to show that there are two kinds of justification, one of which he names "from works" and the other "from faith." And the one that is from works he says has glory indeed, but in itself and not before God; but the one that is from faith has glory before God, since he looks into the hearts of men and knows who believes in secret and who does not believe. And therefore it rightly has glory before God alone, who sees the disposition of a man's faith in secret; but as for one who hopes for justification from works, it can happen that his works are approved by men too. For whatever is manifest in work is open and can be seen with the eyes; and if faith is in secret, but works are in the open, what is written may fittingly be applied here: "The hidden things belong to the Lord your God, but the manifest things to you and your sons." And it will be fitting to apply also what is written, that "the righteous will live by my faith." We rightly say, then, that those who are circumcised according to the inner man, and are Jews in secret, in the spirit and not the letter, have their praise and glory not before men but before God. But as for those who are justified by works, since their works are open and manifest, their glory can be either before the saints and the just, who receive power from God to judge visible human works, or even before the angels and the other powers of the heavenly virtues, who can certainly glorify one whose works they have approved. But since to know the secrets of the heart belongs to God alone, he sees whether some disposition of faith dwells in each; and therefore one who is justified by faith has glory before God alone, who has knowledge of hidden things and is the only one who looks into faith. "Therefore Abraham too," he says, "if he was justified by works, has indeed glory coming from works, but not that which is before God alone"; but it is certain that Abraham has glory before God alone; it follows, then, that he was justified not by works but by faith.

But do not think that if someone has such a faith, by which, justified, he has glory before God, he can have injustice together with it. For faith has no part with unbelief, righteousness no fellowship with iniquity, just as light can have no partnership with darkness. For if everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and one who is born of God does not sin, it is clear that one who believes in Jesus Christ does not sin; and if he sins, it is certain that he does not believe in him. The sign of true faith, then, is where there is no offense, just as, on the contrary, where there is offense it is a sign of unbelief. That is why in another place of Scripture too it is said of Abraham that he was justified by works of faith: because it is certain that one who truly believes does the work of faith and righteousness and of all goodness, and becomes capable of both glories, both that which is before God in secret and that which is in the open and not only before God.

These things having been explained according to our strength, this too seems by no means to be passed over: that he named Abraham "our father according to the flesh." For Abraham seems to be the father of the Gentiles according to faith, not according to the flesh. For of the Apostle himself he can indeed be called father according to the flesh; for, being of the Israelite race, he could name Abraham his father even according to the flesh; but the other nations will name him father in the spirit, not in the flesh. Unless, in places so narrow, we turn to the breadth of allegorical understanding, where the father according to the flesh can be taken as one who handed down the first elements of carnal teaching, that is, of the law according to the letter, and was a master of the first instruction in the divine law. That teachers too are called fathers, the apostle Paul also says: "In Christ Jesus I begot you through the Gospel." But you too, reader, gather for yourself testimonies bearing on this from the divine volumes.

It is added next: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." This word is taken from the book of Genesis, from the place where not Abraham but Abram says to the Lord: "Since you have not given me offspring, this home-born slave of mine will be my heir. And the Lord said to him: This one will not be your heir, but he who comes forth from you, he will be your heir. And he brought him outside," it says, "and said to him: Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can number them. And he said to him: So shall your offspring be. And he believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." We have repeated the passages themselves from the book of Genesis at some length, for example's sake, so that we might know what the cause of this justification was. Hence we must attend more keenly whether it is said that his faith was counted as righteousness only because he believed that a son would be given him and from him a progeny to be multiplied to the multitude of the stars, or for this and for all the things he had already believed before. For it must not be thought that it was without faith that he went out from his land and from his father's kindred and came into the land that God had shown him; or that time when, after Lot had separated from him, the Lord said to him: "Look with your eyes and see from this place where you stand, and gaze to the north and the south and to the west and to the east, for all this land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring for ever." And who would say that it was done without faith that Abraham came and dwelt by the oak of Mamre in Hebron and built an altar there to the Lord? And how was not that too of faith … From all of which it is gathered that in each of these there was indeed faith in Abraham, but in part; but in the place where it is said that his faith was counted as righteousness, perfect faith is declared. For just as the Apostle says that knowledge and prophecy are in part, and again says that they are perfect, when he writes: "We know in part and we prophesy in part; but when what is perfect has come, the things that are in part will be destroyed": so too we can understand that faith is sometimes in part and sometimes perfect.

And that what we say may be fortified by still other testimonies of holy Scripture, hear the apostles saying to the Lord in the Gospel: "Lord, increase our faith." Do they not clearly show by these words that they had faith, but such as needed increase? And the apostle Paul himself, when he says, "If I have all faith, so as to move mountains": when he says "all," he teaches that it is a whole composed of parts. For a thing cannot be called "all" where there is no diversity either of quality or of quantity. In the present place too, then, it seems that, since many faiths of Abraham had gone before in each of the things that we mentioned above as being in part, now his whole faith was gathered in this, and so was counted to him as righteousness.

Now you will consider whether, as it was said of faith that it was counted to him as righteousness, so it can be said of the other virtues too: that, for example, mercy can be counted to someone as righteousness, or wisdom, or knowledge, or meekness and humility; or indeed whether faith is counted as righteousness to every believer. But when I return to the Scriptures, I do not find that faith is counted as righteousness to all believers. For it is written of the sons of Israel that they believed the Lord and his servant Moses; and yet what is written of Abraham, that it was counted to them as righteousness, is not added. I think this is because they did not have, as we have shown in Abraham, the perfection heaped together into one from many parts of faith, which would deserve to be counted as righteousness.

As for his saying: "Now to one who works, the reward is not counted as grace but as debt; but to one who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, faith is counted as righteousness": he seems to show that in faith there is the grace of the one who justifies, but in work the justice of the one who repays. But when I consider the eminence of the word by which he says that to one who works it is rendered as a debt, I can hardly persuade myself that there can be any work that would demand reward from God as a debt, since even the very fact that we can do anything, or think, or speak, we do by his gift and bounty. What, then, will be owed to him whose loan to us came first? And therefore we must rather see whether perhaps what he said, "But to one who works, the reward will be counted as debt," is to be understood as the debt of left-handed work. For you will often find in the divine volumes that sins are called debts, as the Lord himself taught us to say in prayer: "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors"; and again when the Lord himself says: "A certain householder had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty"; and he himself interpreted this as said of sins. Perhaps, then, in this place too the Apostle drew the reward of work that is rendered as debt into the sense we mentioned above, of those who so work as Cain worked the earth, and as he says elsewhere: "Depart from me, workers of iniquity"; to whom, certainly, punishment is paid as a debt, as the reward of iniquity. Hence the same Apostle says in another place: "The wages of sin is death"; and he did not add so as to say likewise, "But the wages of righteousness is eternal life," but said: "But the grace of God is eternal life"; so as to teach that wages, which is certainly like a debt and a reward, is the repayment of punishment and death, but to assign eternal life to grace alone. According to this sense I think that what is written in the Gospel, "With the measure with which you measure it will be measured back to you," should also be taken of left-handed works. For God has not set a measure to his grace, since it is written: "For God does not give the Spirit by measure."

If, then, these things are thought to have been rightly discussed, what follows will consequently be seen to be understood thus: that to one who works the works of iniquity, the reward is repaid according to the debt of sin; but to one who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, faith is counted as righteousness: if indeed we remember well what was said above, where we showed that faith can be counted as righteousness not to one who believes in part but to one who believes wholly and perfectly; which faith is so great that it justifies even one who was ungodly, so that he is no longer ungodly, like that thief who hung on the cross and blasphemed, but is like the one who confessed and said: "Lord Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

After this, as if to confirm the word he had spoken, "But to one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, faith is counted as righteousness," he takes a testimony from the Psalms and says: "Just as David also speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness without works: Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin." You see that through these words it can consistently be proved that righteousness is counted to a man without works. Hence the Apostle seems to me to have understood this: that it is impossible for a man who now, by age, has the understanding to discern good and evil to have in him neither injustice nor justice. If this is so, the soul cannot be found without one of the two; and it is certain that if it has ceased from evil things, it is now found in good things. But that soul is not in evil things whose iniquities have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered, and to whom the Lord has not imputed sin; it is fitting, then, that it should be in good things. Fittingly, therefore, in connection with the forgiveness of iniquities and the covering of sins, and with the Lord's not imputing sin, the Apostle says that righteousness is counted to a man, even though he has not yet done the works of righteousness, but only because he has believed in him who justifies the ungodly. For the beginning of being justified by God is faith, which believes in the one who justifies. And this faith, when it has been justified, clings in the soil of the soul like a root that has received rain, so that when it has begun to be cultivated by the law of God, branches may rise in it that bear the fruit of works. The root of righteousness, then, does not grow from works, but the fruit of works grows from the root of righteousness: that root of righteousness, namely, by which God credits righteousness without works.

For this reason, I think, David too gave this beginning to the thirty-first Psalm, which he entitled "Understanding of David," warning by the title itself that a higher understanding should be sought in what he was about to say, that "blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven"; of which we spoke, as we could, when we were dictating on the Psalms in order. But the difference in the order itself moves us: that first he said, "Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven"; second, "whose sins are covered"; third, "to whom the Lord has not imputed sin." And see whether perhaps this order can be understood in one and the same soul: that since the beginning of the soul's conversion is to abandon evil things, for this it deserves to receive the forgiveness of iniquities; but when it has begun to do good things, as though covering each of the evils that went before with recent goods, and bringing in a more abundant number of goods than there had been of evils before, it is said to cover sins; but when it has now come to perfection, so that every root of wickedness is wholly cut off from it, so far that no trace of it can be found in it, there at last the summit of perfect blessedness is promised, when the Lord can impute no sin. Iniquity indeed has this difference from sin: that iniquity is said of things committed against the law; hence the Greek word too calls iniquity anomia, that is, what is committed without law; but sin can also be said if one offends against what nature teaches and conscience convicts.

"Is this blessedness, then, in the circumcision, or also in the uncircumcision? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted? When he was in circumcision, or when he was in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which is in uncircumcision, so that he might be the father of all who believe through uncircumcision, that it might be counted to them too as righteousness, and the father of circumcision, not only to those who are of the circumcision but also to those who follow the footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham which is in uncircumcision."

When he had said above that "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness," and had shown what blessedness such faith had from what is written in the thirty-first Psalm, that the Lord does not impute sin to one who so believes, he now puts a question, from whose answer he may teach, from the very reckoning of times too, that the blessedness of Abraham's justification was given not in circumcision but while he was still placed in uncircumcision. And if Abraham, while he was still in uncircumcision, was justified by faith, everyone who believes God can also be justified through faith, even if he is in uncircumcision, and this blessedness of which it is said, "Blessed is he to whom the Lord has not imputed sin," can belong to him too. He shows, then, that the Lord does not fail to impute sin to just anyone, but does not count sins against one who has believed, because of his faith. For just as faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness, so too to every believer to whom faith is counted as righteousness sins are certainly not imputed. For he does not say of the righteous that faith is counted to them as righteousness. If it were thought so, what grace would it seem to count righteousness as righteousness to a righteous man? But he certainly says that faith was counted as righteousness to one who, before he had this faith, did not have righteousness; and this man is certainly blessed, to whom God credits righteousness without works, and to whom sin is not imputed, whose iniquities too have been forgiven, and whose sins, if there were any before, have been covered.

At the same time he also teaches us to attend more carefully to the reading, when he so watchfully recounts what is written of Abraham, that faith was counted to him as righteousness. He wants us to consider also when it was counted, so that the reckoning of time too may be gathered in what is written: whether he was still in uncircumcision when these things were said, or had already passed to circumcision; and he says: "How then was his faith counted as righteousness? When he was in circumcision, or when he was in uncircumcision?" For if he had been in circumcision at that time, the uncircumcision would certainly seem to have been excluded from the grace of this faith. But now he shows that faith was counted as righteousness to him while he was still placed in uncircumcision; and therefore he declares that since Abraham, placed in uncircumcision, was justified through faith, he is without doubt rightly called the prince and father of all who believe through uncircumcision.

And since after the faith in which he was in uncircumcision he received circumcision, he consequently sets out the reason why circumcision was given him: "That it might be," he says, "a seal of the faith that he had while placed in uncircumcision, so that through this he might be the father of all who believe through uncircumcision, that it might be counted to them as righteousness, and the father of circumcision, not only to those who are of the circumcision but also to those who follow the footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham which is in uncircumcision." And if Abraham, while he was still in uncircumcision, was justified by faith, he can also become the father of those who are born in circumcision, if only they belong to that faith which justified him while placed in uncircumcision. And since it justified Abraham while placed in uncircumcision, he is therefore made the father of both kinds: of those who are in uncircumcision through faith, and of those who are in circumcision through the flesh. And after circumcision he first begets Isaac, and with him begins the start of the ogdoad, that is, of the eighth day: in him the first mysteries are consecrated, and the posterity of Abraham begins in an eminent way to run with a twofold sacrament. For just as faith by its nature is understood to be one thing, and the righteousness counted to it through faith another, so too his posterity in uncircumcision is one thing and in circumcision another. For those who are uncircumcised I think are the very stones from which God is said to be able to raise up sons to Abraham; in whom too is fulfilled what is written: "For in you all the tribes of the earth will be blessed."

But let us go back again to what he says: "And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which is in uncircumcision," and let us contemplate the deep wisdom of Paul in these words. For perhaps to some he may seem to say the same word twice, that is, "sign" and "seal." But to me each word seems to have much difference from the other. For a sign is so called when through what is seen something else is indicated: as when, for example, the Lord says in the Gospel: "This generation seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so the Son of man must be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights." This, then, is a sign, where Jonah was seen and Christ was understood. Likewise it is said of the Lord himself in the Gospel: "Behold, this one is set for the fall and the rising of many, and for a sign that will be spoken against." For the sign in which Christ had come was spoken against, because one thing was seen in him and another understood: flesh was seen, and God was believed. So, then, Abraham too received a sign; and what the sign was he says next: "circumcision," he says, which circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of the faith that he had before he was circumcised. Rightly, then, he called circumcision a sign in Abraham, because it too was one thing seen and another understood; and he shows that already then that fleshly circumcision was a sign of the spiritual circumcision, which is received not in the flesh but in the heart.

And what he called a seal I think should be understood thus. A seal is so called when it is placed on something to be kept, as a safeguard for a time, which no one else ought to unseal except the one who impressed it. Through this seal, then, as the Apostle explains, the righteousness of faith which Abraham deserved to receive while placed in uncircumcision is shut up, and that he is the father of many nations: which we believe is then to be unsealed when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and all Israel will be saved. For then what the Apostle says will come about, that Abraham is father through faith not only of the Gentiles but also of the circumcision.

And let us discuss still more openly the sign and the seal. Since a sign is, as we said, where something is indicated through what is seen, while by a seal something is shut up for a time and is not open, it can also be understood thus: that the mysteries foreshadowed in the law and in the patriarchs were of such a kind that they had to be indicated by signs and kept by seals. Because they had to be indicated by signs in those who believed from the Gentiles, he is said to have received a sign … he is said to have received a seal. And this seal will at last be unsealed in that time when, in the last days, after the fullness of the Gentiles, as we said, has come in, all Israel will be saved. That is why Abraham is first justified in faith while he was still uncircumcised, and afterward is circumcised, to show that he would be first the father of many nations, and afterward of those who would believe from the circumcision. For those who are born from Abraham according to the flesh are not to be called sons of Abraham unless they have the faith and works of Abraham. That is why the Lord too says in the Gospel to the Jews who boasted that they were sons of Abraham: "If you were sons of Abraham, you would surely do the works of Abraham."

Do you want to be taught from the old Scripture too that one is called the son not only of him from whose fleshly seed he descends, but also of him whose acts and works he imitates? Hear what Daniel says to one of those elders whom he convicts of adultery: "Seed of Canaan," he says, "and not of Judah, beauty has deceived you and lust has perverted your heart." You see that one who had descended carnally from the race of Judah is denied to be a son of Judah, but of Canaan, that is, of him whose acts and works he followed. So, then, those too who trace their descent from Abraham's seed according to the flesh are not called sons of Abraham if they do not have his faith. Thus too the prophet says to them: "Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite"; to whom, certainly, not the bond of race but likeness of character joined them. "That he might be, then," he says, "the father of all who believe through uncircumcision, that it might be counted to them as righteousness, and the father of circumcision, not only to those who are of the circumcision, but also to those who follow the footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham which is in uncircumcision." In this he clearly declares, as we said above, that from both peoples what must be sought is not the origin of the flesh but the distinction of faith.

About the sacrament of circumcision we have already spoken at length above, and we have also set out in many other places what seemed to occur for the subject and the occasion. But the careful reader, from whom not one iota or one stroke of the law escapes, ought not to miss even this: that when the Apostle said, "Faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness," at that time when it was written of him that "he believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness," he was not yet called Abraham, but his name was Abram. For he was still uncircumcised, as the Apostle explains. About this it will perhaps seem to some that there is an error in the copies, since "Abraham" could easily have been written for "Abram." But since this supposition is uncertain rather than a firm proof, let us answer more briefly that the Apostle, observing the sentence of God who said, "No longer will your name be Abram, but Abraham," now called him not as it is written in that place of Genesis, but as God had declared concerning him. For what is sanctioned by God should be observed thereafter. These things, brought forth as we could in places so arduous and so difficult, anyone who perhaps considers the zeal of our mind will be able to embrace. But if he wishes to mark the weakness of our understanding, we ask pardon, and we gladly yield to anyone who can discuss or explain these things better. We, however, turn our foot, though with a slow step, to what follows.

"For the promise to Abraham or to his offspring, that he would be heir of the world, was not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." In this place the Apostle seems to me to be discussing the law of Moses, and to assert that the promise made to Abraham, that he or his offspring would receive the inheritance of the world, that is, of the whole earth, did not rest on the law of Moses. For before Moses the lawgiver appeared, it says, "the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him: Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house, and come into the land that I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and magnify your name, and you will be blessed; and I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, and in you all the tribes of the earth will be blessed." When he says, then, "In you all the tribes of the earth will be blessed," this means that he has been made heir of the whole world. This promise was certainly made to Abraham before anything was commanded through Moses about the observance of the law. So, then, the promise to Abraham or to his offspring, that he would be heir of the world, is not from the law, but through the righteousness of faith. What is this righteousness of faith? That of which it is written above, as we have often said, that "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." And not without reason: for the observance of the law only escapes punishment, but the merit of faith awaits the hope of the promise; and a precept is laid down for slaves, but faith is sought from friends. And if, according to what we discussed above, Paul is understood to be saying these things of the natural law, it will not be contrary to the reasons given above. For although the law of nature gives testimony about good and evil according to the judgment of conscience, it cannot be made equal to the law of faith, by which Abraham believed God and deserved to be justified and to be called the friend of God.

"For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith has been emptied and the promise made void. For the law works wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there transgression." "If," he says, "the promise was given to Abraham that he would be heir of the world not from the law but through faith, which was counted to him as righteousness, it will without doubt follow that all who hope that righteousness will be counted to them by God should hope for it not through the law but through faith." And to show this more clearly, he added: "If those who are of the law are themselves heirs of that promise which Abraham merited through faith, the fact that Abraham was justified by faith will be made void": since certainly, if the inheritance were to be from the law, Abraham too would have had first to fulfill the law and so to merit the inheritance of righteousness. And to show that this could in no way have happened so, he says that the law works wrath. But where there is wrath, there is no inheritance; and he added: "But where there is no law, neither is there transgression."

But let us go back a little and see of which law these things are said. Above, where he says, "For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith has been emptied and the promise made void," it can be referred both to the law of Moses and to the natural law. For it is certain that if the inheritance is granted from the law of Moses, what is written, that Abraham merited it by the trust of faith, is made void; and again, if the understanding is turned to the natural law, this can be said: if the natural law could have sufficed for faith, what was said to Abraham would seem superfluous: "Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house, and come into the land that I will show you." For why would he go out from his land and from his house, if the natural law sufficed him, which he could certainly have had and kept while placed in his own land? But now, as though that were less than sufficient, he is commanded to follow the law of faith, without which neither he nor his offspring could be heir of the world, nor could he be called the friend of God. So, then, what he says, "For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith has been emptied and the promise made void," can, withdrawn from both laws, look to the law of faith alone.

But now in this place, where he says, "For the law works wrath," we must look more carefully at which law this word seems to refer to; and also the one that follows, "For where there is no law, neither is there transgression." But before a fuller explanation is sought by us, let us briefly answer what the heretics usually put to us from this place. For they say: "See how the Apostle says that the law of Moses works wrath, but where that law has not been, there will be no transgression either." Let us ask them, then: if where there is law there will be transgression of the law transgressed, then where there is faith too there will be the transgression of faith transgressed. For if one who turns aside from the law becomes a transgressor, without doubt one who turns aside from the faith is also a transgressor; and if the law itself is the cause of that transgression which is in the law, faith too would be believed to be the cause of this transgression which is in faith. But if it is absurd to say that faith is the cause of someone's transgressing the faith, and that if he had not come to the faith he would not have been a transgressor of the faith, so it will be absurd to take the transgression of the law as coming from the fact that someone has undertaken the observance of the law. And let us add this too. What will they say to us about those who were in transgression before the law of Moses? For if no one was a transgressor before Moses, no one was condemned, no one punished. What will they say of the Sodomites? What of those condemned in the flood? What of Cain? What of Adam himself? What will they answer about Eve, of whom the Apostle says: "But the woman was deceived and came into transgression"? If without the law of Moses there is no transgression, why are Adam and Eve named transgressors by the Apostle?

But, as we have often said above too, the Apostle introduces different laws in this Epistle, and now speaks of the law of Moses, now names the law of faith, as when he says: "Where then is your boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith." He introduces besides other laws too, of which he says: "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 leading me captive in the law of sin"; and so he passes from one law to another in such a way that unless the mind is watchful and attentive it can hardly detect and follow him. We must see, then, whether perhaps that law which is in our members and leads us captive in the law of sin is itself the law which the Apostle says works wrath. For without doubt it works wrath for one whom it has led captive in the law of sin. But where this law has not been, it is certain that there will be no transgression there either. And those who have been under this law will consequently not be heirs either.

And if anyone wishes to say that this is mentioned of the law of Moses, and that it works wrath, perhaps he will be able to affirm it only because it orders one who sins against it to be stoned at once, or burned with fire, or whatever other punishment is decreed in the law for sinners: so that the very penalty inflicted on the sinner from the law seems now to be named wrath by the Apostle. Likewise also of transgression: so that he is not asserting that every transgression in general is named in this place, but that of one who has offended while placed in the law; so that the offense of one who sins though forbidden by the law seems graver than that of one who was warned by no law. And this too must be seen: that the Apostle did not say that where there is law, there is also transgression, but said: "But where there is no law, neither is there transgression." In this he shows that transgression can by no means exist unless there is law; yet not that, if there is law, there will in every case also be transgression. For it can happen that there is law and there is no transgression; but it cannot happen that there is transgression where there is no law. For even if we posit the law of Moses, not all who lived under the law of Moses were thereby in transgression; otherwise we would seem to involve the prophets and all the righteous along with them: unless perhaps someone says that all the righteous and the prophets lived not so much under the law as under faith, but sinners and the unrighteous were bound by the chains of the law, as the Apostle too says: "For the law is not laid down for the righteous, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the wicked and profane, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who lie with men, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine." And if the law is laid down for such people, will not those seem much better to you of whom it is said: "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 witness to them"? And let us set before our eyes, if you like, two people, for example, who have not lain with males as with a woman: one of them prevented by the precept of the law, who, if he had not had fear of it, would perhaps have done it; and another who by the judgment of his own mind has not allowed a defilement of this kind to approach even his thoughts: would you not much prefer the one who, frightened by no threat of the law, kept himself free from the defilement of the outrage? Likewise if an examination is held of the other sins.

And therefore, whether the law of Moses is understood, or that which is in our members and works wrath, those who are of it cannot be heirs, but those who are of the law of faith: of that faith, namely, by which Abraham was justified. But perhaps someone may ask how one who is under the law of Moses does not also seem to be under the law of faith, since it is written in Exodus: "And the people believed God and his servant Moses"; and again the Lord says in the Gospel: "If you believed Moses, you would surely believe me also; for he wrote of me." For it will seem that, just as he said of himself, "Whoever believes in me believes in him who sent me," so too he says of Moses: "If you believed Moses, you would surely believe me also." To this we will answer that what was said in the desert, "The people believed God and his servant Moses," is a narrative, by which it is shown that through the ministry of Moses, by which he ministered signs and wonders, the people believed God; but in the saying "If you believed Moses, you would surely believe me also," he convicts the unbelief of those who, by not believing him, show that they do not believe the writings of Moses either, in which the coming of Christ is contained in prophetic speech; but where he says, "Whoever believes in me believes in him who sent me," he raises the hope of believers up to God the Father, so that just as one who sees the Son knows that he has seen the Father too, so when he believes the Son he may know that he has believed the Father too.

"Therefore it is from faith, so that the promise may be firm according to grace for all the offspring, not only for that which is of the law but also for that which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written: I have made you the father of many nations), before God whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls the things that are not as the things that are." Above he gave a distinction between reward and grace, saying that reward is a matter of debt, but grace is a matter of no debt, but a benefit of goodwill. In the present place, then, wishing to show that God gives the inheritance of the promises not from debt but through grace, he says that the inheritance is granted by God to those who believe not from the debt of a reward but by the gift of faith. For just as (to give an example) the fact that we subsist cannot be understood as if we subsist by the reward of our work, but it is clearly the gift of God that we are, and the grace of the Creator who willed us to be: so too if we receive the inheritance of the promises of God, it is of divine grace, not the reward of some debt or work.

And if perhaps this very thing that is said, "from faith," seems not to be freely given, since faith must first be offered by man, and so grace merited from God, hear how the same Apostle teaches about this in other places too. For where he enumerates the gifts of the Spirit, which he says are given to believers according to the measure of faith, there among the rest he also asserts that the gift of faith is bestowed through the Holy Spirit. For after many things he says this too … to show that faith too is given through grace. And elsewhere the same Apostle teaches, saying: "For it has been granted to you by God not only to believe in Christ but also to suffer for him." You find this indicated in the Gospels too, where the apostles, understanding that the faith which is from man cannot be perfect unless that which is from God is also added, say to the Savior: "Increase our faith." From all these it is most clearly proved what the Apostle says here: "Therefore it is from faith, so that the promise may be firm according to grace": because even the very faith by which we seem to believe God is confirmed in us by the gift of grace.

And this is the grace that one who is blessed deserves to find like a great treasure. This Noah found; and therefore it is written of him: "But Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord God." This grace Moses too had found; and therefore he said to God: "If I have found grace in your sight." Yet we find some of the saints who found grace not only in the sight of the Lord God but also in the sight of men. For it is written of blessed Joseph: "And Joseph found grace in the sight of his master." But this grace that is found in the sight of men is granted by God's bounty. For thus it is written of the same Joseph: "And the Lord was with Joseph, and poured mercy upon him, and gave him grace in the sight of the chief of the prison." Something still greater of grace of this kind is recorded in the divine writings of blessed Esther. For it says thus: "For Esther found grace with all who saw her." A little after Scripture says: "Esther found grace above all the other virgins, and the king set the woman's diadem on her." I think that we have not inappropriately sought these things from the holy Scriptures to confirm the apostolic saying in which he discusses faith and grace.

He says, then: "Therefore it is from faith, so that the promise may be firm according to grace." And this too is to be noted, that he says, "Therefore it is from faith, so that the promise may be firm according to grace," as if wishing to show that if the promise were from the law and not from grace, it would not be firm; but now it is firm for this reason, that it is not from the law but through grace. In this I think he wishes something of this sort to be understood: that the things of the law are outside us, but the things through grace are held within us. For example, what is written in the law is written with reed and ink on parchments or papers; but what descends from grace is written by the Spirit of God in our heart, as the same Apostle, the minister of this grace, indicates in other places and says: "You are our letter, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart." Therefore, as it seems to me, he calls the things through grace firmer than those of the law, because those are outside us and these within us; and those consist in fragile material, so that they can easily decay, but these, written by the Spirit of God and impressed in the innermost parts of the soul, obtain the firmness of perpetuity. The soul, then, is inscribed with such letters of the promise which has offered its faith to God like prepared wax, so that the grace of God may graciously be written on it; and therefore faith of this kind, which has been eager to seize heavenly grace, is counted as righteousness.

And this happens to the offspring of Abraham, not only to that which is of the law but also to that which is of faith. For the succession of Abraham from faith is much nobler than that from the flesh, because he is recorded to have been justified not from the flesh but from faith. For if the succession is to be given not from faith but from the seed, it will be fitting for the posterity of Ishmael too, and those who descend from Keturah, to be brought to the sacraments of the promises. This is certainly not accepted, but only the posterity of the law and of faith is brought in.

But let not a somewhat wavering and ambiguously expressed phrase of the Apostle in this place escape us. For what he said, "so that the promise may be firm for all the offspring, not only for that which is of the law but also for that which is of faith," if it is understood as though he called one offspring of the law and another of faith, so that the promise of inheritance should be expected by both offspring, he is found to be saying things contrary to what he wrote above, when he said, "For it is not those who are of the law who are heirs"; likewise elsewhere: "For we hold that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law"; and again: "For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith has been made void." For if a man is justified by faith without the works of the law, and those who are of the law do not become heirs, how will what he says in this place not seem contrary, that the promise is firm through grace not only for the offspring which is of the law but also for that which is of faith? And since above he seems to have rejected those who are of the law, how does he here somehow make them equal to those whom he says hope for grace from faith? But it seems to me that when he says, "for all the offspring, not only for that which is of the law but also for that which is of faith," he here indicates by "law," as we have often said, the natural law, and asserts that the promise is firm not for those only who come from the natural law, but also for those who have added to the natural law that faith which Abraham our father had: so that he seems to indicate not two peoples, one from faith and the other from the law, but one and the same, which pleases God not only from the natural law which all men use but from the faith of which Abraham was the author. By this, namely, he shows that if someone has whole all that the natural law teaches, and the conscience of sin rebukes him in nothing, yet does not also have the grace of faith, he cannot be justified. For it is faith that is counted as righteousness. And the distinction held in this way makes the understanding plainer, and the things thought contrary are found to be in harmony and in agreement with one another. As for the diversity of laws, and that especially in this Epistle the Apostle often changes the order of his speech from one law to another, even covertly and suddenly, we have often shown, and to repeat it is superfluous.

And he did well not to say of Abraham, "the father of all," but "the father of us all": that is, not of us who descend from the law, but of us who succeed the law from faith. And since he is the father of all who are of this kind, he rightly set down next the sentence of the divine promise, saying: "As it is written: I have made you the father of many nations, before God whom he believed." If, then, he is promised to be the future father of many nations, he is not without reason named father both of those who come from the Gentiles and of those who come from the circumcision. And the Apostle rightly added from his own interpretation, "before God whom he believed": that is, he has been made father of many nations before God himself, whom he believed, whose promises he believed, and from whom he received the seal of faith in circumcision. How, then, does the circumcision claim Abraham as its own father, when that very God who gave him circumcision made him the father of many nations? And if anyone wishes to turn this to the posterity of Ishmael or of Keturah, what is written meets him: "For in you all the tribes of the earth will be blessed." This John too said in the Gospel: "For God is able from these stones to raise up sons to Abraham."

And he added next: "who gives life to the dead and calls the things that are not as the things that are." By the dead here we understand those dead by the sin of the soul, since "the soul," it says, "that sins will die." For just as in bodily death the senses perish, so that no one any longer receives through the body either hearing or smell or taste or touch, so too those who have lost the spiritual senses in the soul, so that they do not see God, nor hear the word of God, nor catch the sweet fragrance of Christ, nor taste the good word of God, nor do their hands handle the word of life: such men are rightly called dead. Such the coming of Christ found us, but it gave us life by his grace, as the same Apostle says elsewhere too: "And when we were dead in our offenses and sins, he raised us up together with him." And do you want to have it proved to you from the prophetic Scriptures too that all who worship idols and trust in them are dead? Hear how David says: "The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of men's hands. They have a mouth and will not speak; they have eyes and will not see; they have ears and will not hear." And some way after: "Let those who make them become like them," he says, "and all who trust in them." You see that those who worship them and trust in them are dead and have become like the idols. Hence let us look more carefully whether perhaps, just as those who worship idols and trust in them are said to become like them, so too those who worship the true God and trust in him may become like him. And perhaps this is why in the beginning man, when it had been proposed that he be made according to the image and likeness of God, was made according to the image, but the likeness was deferred, so that he might first trust in God and so become like him, and he himself might hear that everyone who trusts in him will become like him. These things we have joined, by a kind of digression, to what we discussed about the kind of death, so that it might become more manifest in what ways God gives life to the dead.

But let us see how what he says next, "and calls the things that are not as the things that are," should be understood. We have often explained in other places too that God alone is the one who says, "I am who am"; and that substance of God which always is, is one; and if anyone joins himself to it, he becomes one spirit with him, and through him who always is, he too is said to be. But one who is far from him and does not take participation in him is not even said to be, as we Gentiles were before we came to the knowledge of the divine truth; and therefore God is said to call the things that are not as the things that are. For among those who are, that is, who have participation in him who is, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the other saints are numbered. And if the Gentiles, by believing, come into the faith of Abraham, the Apostle consequently declares that God has called the things that are not as the things that are. Yet this too can be noticed: that in this place the Apostle seems to have poured himself out more broadly in the praises of God, and to have recalled with wonder the beginning of his first creation, when he made all things to be out of nothing, and by the strength of his power called forth the things that were not as though they were and subsisted; and that nothing was so difficult for him in creating that, when nothing existed, all things, suddenly called, were present as though they had always existed.

And if anyone objects to us that word of the Apostle which he writes to the Corinthians, where he says that "God chose the despised things of the world, and the things that are not, to destroy the things that are, so that no flesh may boast before God," and says that according to this exposition it is not fitting that the things that are should be said to be destroyed when the things that are not have been chosen, we will say to this that in that place he called some "those who are," and in this passage of the Epistle to the Romans others. For to the Corinthians he declared that he was speaking of those whom he had enumerated above. For he said above: "For consider your calling, brothers, that not many of you are wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many noble; but God chose the foolish things of the world to put the wise to shame, and God chose the weak things of the world to put the strong to shame." Just as he says, then, that God chose the foolish things of the world, that is, the Gentiles, to put to shame the wise, without doubt the Jews, and the weak things of the world to put to shame the strong, in the same order he speaks in this place of the things that are not, to destroy the things that are: and he shows that the Gentiles are not, but the Jews are, that is, those who were in the law but did not fulfill the law, so that they might be destroyed, and those might be brought in who were not in the law and might be joined to the faith of Abraham by the merit of belief. And when he said, "to put the wise to shame," it was not that they were truly wise; otherwise God would never put to shame those who are wise according to the wisdom of God; but he means those who think they are wise and are not, as he also says elsewhere: "Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" He puts to shame, then, the wise of this world by choosing the foolish: not because these too were likewise foolish through poverty of understanding, but according to what was said: "Whoever wishes to be wise, let him become a fool in this world, that he may be wise before God; for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God."

"Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to what was said to him: So shall your offspring be, like the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea. And he was not weakened in faith, nor did he consider his own body already as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb. Nor did he waver in distrust at the promise of God, but he was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and most fully knowing that whatever he has promised he is able also to do. Therefore it was also counted to him as righteousness." It seems to me that when the Apostle said "against hope," he had in view what is reported in Genesis that Abraham said to the Lord: "Lord, Master, what will you give me? I am left without sons; and this son of Masek, my home-born slave, is Damascus Eliezer." And Abraham said: "Since you have not given me offspring, this home-born slave of mine will be my heir." From these words, certainly, Abraham is understood to have despaired of having sons. And when he said, "believed in hope," he gathers, I think, that hope was given him again from where it is written: "And the voice of the Lord came to him, saying: This one will not be your heir; but he who comes forth from you, he will be your heir. And he brought him outside and said to him: Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can number them. And he said to him: So shall your offspring be. And he believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." From these words, then, both his despair first, and afterward the hope given him by the promises of God, are declared. And because he believed him, what the Apostle now sets forth is written of him, that it was counted to him as righteousness.

And rightly, and according to his usual custom when he treats of faith, the Apostle joins hope too, knowing that hope clings inseparably to faith, as the same Apostle also teaches in the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen." And again in this same Epistle to the Romans he says later: "For in hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what one sees, why does he hope for? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." What he says, "In hope we have been saved," is the same as what he says elsewhere, that "we have been saved through faith"; and "Your faith has saved you"; and "Let it be done to you according to your faith." These things are certainly said to those who, believing in Jesus, had the hope that they could be cured by him. And just as Abraham against hope believed in hope, so all who through faith are sons of Abraham believe against hope in hope … concerning each of the things they believe, whether concerning the resurrection of the dead or concerning the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. For these things, as far as human nature is concerned, seem against hope; but as far as the power of God is concerned, they are believed in hope, after the example of Abraham, who believed that whatever God has promised he is able also to do: if only faith, hope, and love remain in those who believe. And I think that the first beginnings of salvation and its very foundations are faith; the progress and growth of the building is hope; but the perfection and summit of the whole work is love; and therefore love is said to be the greatest of all.

Abraham, then, "against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations," who would be like the stars of heaven not only in multitude but also in brightness; and believing faithfully the one who promised, "he was not," it says, "weakened in faith." When he says, "he was not weakened in faith," he seems to me to show that there is a certain weakness in faith. And if there is weakness, there is without doubt also health, as he shows in other places too, when he says: "Rebuke them sharply, that they may be healthy in the faith." Blessed, then, is one who is not weak in faith. But if anyone is weak, the Apostle describes his care when he says: "Welcome one who is weak in faith, not for disputes over opinions. For one believes he may eat anything; but let him who is weak eat vegetables." By this he certainly indicates that vegetables of the word should be offered to one who is weak in faith, lest the full teaching of faith be forced on those who hesitate in it and are, in a way, sick. But that faith is called healthy which is perfect and lacks nothing; and it is the faith that believes it may eat everything, that is, that can receive everything; one who has it is called spiritual, and judges all things, and can be scandalized by no word. Hence it clearly appears that there are certain increases and progressions in faith, and that some have a small portion of faith, others a great one, and others have all faith. Hence the Apostle too said: "If I have all faith, so as to move mountains." And in the Gospels the disciples say to the Lord, as people in whom full faith was not yet present: "Increase our faith."

Consider, indeed, whether according to what we say of faith we can likewise understand about the increases of love too, so that we say also of love, as he said, "If I have all faith," "If I have all love": and that one has all love who has all those things that are proper to love, as the Apostle says: "Love is patient, is kind, is not puffed up, is not jealous, is not ambitious, does not act wrongly, is not provoked; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things," and the other things like these. If anyone has these, it seems to me rightly said that he has all love: which love without doubt consists of these several parts mentioned above by the Apostle. And I think the same can be said of mercy and piety and the other virtues. And perhaps through these several things, just as it was said of faith that faith was counted as righteousness, so it can be said of love too, that love was counted to him as righteousness, or piety, or mercy.

But let us now see what follows. "And he was not," it says, "weakened in faith, nor did he consider his own body already as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; nor did he waver in distrust at the promise of God, but he was strengthened in faith." As far as the simple understanding is concerned, he has brought forward an evident reason: that Abraham, when he heard that offspring was promised him by God, did not look to the dead strength of a hundred-year-old body, from which certainly no succession at all could be hoped; but looking at the power of the one who promised, he believed that nothing was difficult in what the Almighty promised. "But he gave," it says, "glory to God," understanding that it was the gift of God alone where the laws of human fertility had ceased. Rightly, then, he gave glory to God, who had been deserted by the aids of nature. These things, as I said, will seem sufficiently said as far as the simple understanding is concerned.

But if anyone objects to us: How can Abraham, placed at the age of a hundred years, be said to have a body as good as dead, when, after he had received Isaac, and Sarah had died, who had conceived him at ninety and had lived a hundred and twenty-seven years, and even after Isaac, when he had become forty years old, had taken Rebecca, after all these things it is written: "And Abraham again took a wife whose name was Keturah; and she bore him Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah"? How, then, will he seem to have a body as good as dead, who, having become much older than he then was, could both take a wife and beget six children? So that we may fittingly exclude these objections, let us carry over the exposition of "the body as good as dead" to another sense, so as to say that Abraham was as good as dead not by the weakness of age, but according to that virtue which the saints, first fulfilling it in themselves, also admonish others to have, saying: "Put to death your members which are on earth." For I think it absurd if we do not believe that this good which Paul had in himself (for he would not command others what he himself had not done), if, I say, we do not believe that Abraham the patriarch, whom the Apostle even calls his father, had this good which Paul had. There was, then, in him too this putting to death of the members: licentiousness was not roused, he did not burn with lust, like those of whom the Apostle says: "It is better to marry than to burn." The same was also in Sarah, since "the ways of women had ceased to be with Sarah." For there was not in her womanly wantonness or the laxity of incontinence, nor were they hurled unwillingly into the use of lust; but when they hear of so great a hope of posterity, and of the glory of their offspring, to be made equal to heaven and the stars, when they hear these things, they do not look to their own goods, to the grace of continence, to the putting to death of their members, but they count all these things, which they reckoned gains for themselves, as losses, that they may gain Christ.

But perhaps you think I have erred, because, when I ought to have spoken of the posterity of Abraham and his offspring, I spoke of Christ. We do not err, but speak with the Apostle. For he himself interprets these things as said of Christ, when he says: "It is written: To you I will give this land, and to your offspring. He did not say, And to offsprings, as of many, but, To your offspring, as of one, who is Christ." You see, then, how the Apostle teaches us that the Lord spoke to Abraham in such a way that he should understand that Christ was to be perceived in his offspring; and for this reason I think the Apostle added and said: "giving glory to God." For Abraham could not have offered so much glory about the birth of Isaac as he could give to God if he understood that Christ would be born of his body, already as good as dead and purged of vices. And you too, if you put to death your members which are on earth, if, having cast off all the heat of lust, you keep your body as good as dead and subject to no vices, can also beget the best fruits from it; you can beget Isaac, which means joy, and this is the first fruit of the Spirit; your offspring, that is, your works, can ascend to heaven and be declared works of light and be compared to the brilliance and splendor of the stars, so that when the day of resurrection has come, you may differ in brightness as star from star. I say still more: if you are so pure in mind, so holy in body, so spotless in acts, you can beget even Christ himself, according to him who said: "My little children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you." And so the Lord himself says of himself: "Whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother." Who, then, will be the mother of Jesus, except one whose womb is as good as dead, so that at last she may bring forth children of chastity, like the woman of whom the Apostle says: "But she will be saved through the bearing of children, if she remains in faith and chastity"? Hence I think it was fittingly added for these: "And it was counted to him as righteousness." For how would it not be counted as righteousness to one who held perfection not only in faith but in all the virtues?

"But it was not written for his sake alone, that it was counted to him as righteousness, but also for ours, to whom it will be counted, who believe in him who raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead, who was handed over for our offenses and rose again for our justification." In this place, when he says, "not for his sake alone," it is to be understood as "about him"; and again when he says, "but also for ours," that is, "about us too." For it is clear that Moses did not write what is said, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness," so that Abraham might read it, who had certainly died long before, but so that we might take progress in faith from reading of this kind, understanding that if we too believe God as he believed, faith will be counted to us too as righteousness, who believe in him who raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead.

I should like indeed to ask why it is that in this place the Apostle, naming God, in whom we believe and in whom Abraham believed, did not say, "who believe in God Most High," or "who believe in him who made heaven and earth," or "in him who made the angels and the other powers of heavenly glory," but said, "who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead." Let us ask, then, for what reason this title of the Lord's resurrection is taken up in comparison with the faith of Abraham. Had Abraham believed in him who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, when Jesus had not yet then been raised from the dead? I should like, then, to consider what seemed good to Paul in promising us that, just as faith was counted as righteousness to Abraham when he believed, so it will be counted to us too, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. In this, according to the smallness of my understanding, I notice this: that it is much more magnificent in the praises of God to have raised Jesus our Lord from the dead than to have made heaven and earth, created the angels, and founded the heavenly powers. For that was to make the things that were not; this was to repair the things that had perished. That was to establish things not yet destroyed; this was to restore things already destroyed. That, finally, was accomplished by command; this by suffering.

But the form and image of this so great and so magnificent mystery had gone before in the faith of Abraham. For when he was commanded to offer his only son, he had believed that God was able even to raise him from the dead; he had believed also that this was being done not for Isaac alone, but that the full truth of the sacrament was being kept for his offspring, which is Christ. That is why he offered his only son rejoicing, because he was thinking in him not of the destruction of his posterity but of the restoration of the world and the renewal of the whole creation, which has been restored through the resurrection of the Lord. And therefore the Lord says of him: "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; and he saw it and was glad." In this way, then, the comparison of the faith of Abraham and of those who believe in him who raised the Lord Jesus will be seen to be fittingly made: because what he believed would be, is believed by us to have been done. At the same time this too is shown, which does not please the heretics: that the God whom Abraham believed, and who counted his faith as righteousness, is the very one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead; and no room is left for one God of the law to be understood and another the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But let us ask further, since there are very many things that Christ is said to be (for he is called wisdom, and power, and righteousness, and word, and truth, and life), why the Apostle makes mention especially of his resurrection in our faith. The same Apostle says in other places that God raised us up together with Christ and made us sit with him in the heavenly places. This, then, is what he admonishes: if you believe that Christ has risen from the dead, believe that you yourselves too have risen together with him; and if you believe that he sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, believe that you yourselves too are now placed not in earthly but in heavenly places; and if you believe that you have died with Christ, believe that you will also live with him; and if you believe that Christ died to sin and lives to God, you too be dead to sin and live to God. And this is what he protests by apostolic authority, saying: "If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things on earth": because one who does these things shows that he believes in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, and to him faith is truly counted as righteousness. For it is not possible for righteousness to be counted to one who has in himself something of unrighteousness, even if he believes in him who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. For unrighteousness can have nothing in common with righteousness, just as light cannot with darkness, nor life with death. So, then, to those who believe in Christ yet do not put off the old man with his unrighteous acts, faith cannot be counted as righteousness. In a similar way we can say that, just as righteousness cannot be counted to the unrighteous, so neither can chastity be counted to the unchaste, nor equity to the unjust, nor generosity to the greedy, nor piety to the impious, until he casts off the old garments of the vices and puts on the new man, who has been created according to God and is renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him.

For this reason he also adds next and says of the Lord Jesus: "Who was handed over," he says, "for our sins and rose again for our justification"; to show that we too ought to abhor and cast away the things for which Christ was handed over. For if we believe that he was handed over for our sins, how is not every sin held alien and hostile to us, for which our Redeemer is recorded to have been handed over to death? For if any fellowship or friendship with sin comes about for us again, we show that we count the death of Christ Jesus as nothing, embracing and following the things that he fought and conquered. And the Apostle, joining all this together, called it, as it were, the very body of sin, the garment of the old man, which he urges those who believe in him who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead to put off, so that, having cast off the garment of unrighteousness, they may put on the Lord Jesus, who is the true garment of righteousness, so that faith may rightly be counted as righteousness to believers. He was handed over, then, for our sins and rose again for our justification. For if we have risen with Christ, who is righteousness, and walk in newness of life, and live according to righteousness, Christ has risen for us for our justification. But if we have not yet put off the old man with his acts, but live in unrighteousness, I dare to say that Christ has not yet risen for us for justification, nor was he handed over for our sins. For if I believe this, how do I love that for which he endured death? If I believe that he rose for my justification, how does unrighteousness please me? Christ, then, justifies only those who have taken up newness of life after the example of his resurrection, and cast off the old garments of unrighteousness and iniquity as the cause of death.

But let them be willing to ask whether the Apostle says only of this saying, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness," that it was written not for Abraham's sake alone but also for ours. Do you think that this word alone, out of all that are said of Abraham, was written not only for his sake but also for ours? Or will some others also seem written not only for his sake but also for ours? Or rather are all things said of him said not of him alone but also for us? And not only of Abraham, but see whether perhaps these same things should be taken likewise of Isaac too, so that what is written of him looks not to him alone but to us as well; and likewise of Jacob and the other patriarchs. For what reason will there seem to be that the things written of Abraham are said to pertain to us too, but not in a similar way those of Isaac, and of Jacob, and of Judah, or of Joseph, and the rest? And if there seems to be no reason why this should be taken so of one patriarch and not also of the others, it will follow that all the things written are seen to have been written not only for those who were then but also for us. In this I am especially persuaded by that word of the Gospel in which our Lord and Savior answered those who had said to him, "Abraham is our father": "If you were the offspring of Abraham, you would surely do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from my Father; this Abraham did not do." By this he certainly shows that those who do the works of Abraham are sons of Abraham, and that for them were written the things written of Abraham.

Here now it is for a wise man, enlightened by God, to look into and perceive how each work that is written of Abraham may be seen fulfilled in himself: for example, what was said to him, "Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house, and come into the land that I will show you"; how one who wishes to be seen to be of the offspring of Abraham by his works ought to obey these things, which were certainly written not for him alone but also for … [as the Lord had spoken to him]; how this too may be seen written not only for Abraham but also for us, that we may walk according to all that the Lord has spoken. And likewise about Isaac, or the other things written in a similar way, how they too may be seen to pertain to us. But it is not for the present occasion to bring everything forward and to discuss each thing, in what order the things said or done in the divine Scriptures of Abraham or the other saints are fulfilled also in us who believe in him whom Abraham believed; but, as far as the need of the present work allows, we have opened a way along which one who desires to be trained in the Scriptures may walk more widely. Thus far the discussion has run on the principle of the faith that was counted as righteousness, on the observance of the different laws, and on the difference of uncircumcision and circumcision. Now let us see how those who have been justified by faith and not by works are formed by the Apostle.

"Having been justified, then, by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God." Most openly by this he invites one who has understood what it is to be justified by faith and not by works to the peace of God which surpasses every mind, in which also the summit of perfection consists. But so that we may perceive the Apostle's meaning more carefully, let us search out what the name of peace means, and of that peace which is through our Lord Christ. Peace is said to be where no one disagrees, no one is at variance, where nothing hostile, nothing barbarous is done. We, then, who were once enemies of God, following the enemy and tyrant, the devil, if we now throw away his arms and take up the sign of Christ and the standards of his cross, certainly have peace with God, but through our Lord Jesus Christ, who reconciled us to God through the sacrifice of his blood, as it is written: "When we were enemies of God, we were reconciled through the blood of the cross of his Son." And elsewhere the same Paul added to these, saying: "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." If anyone, then, has peace with God through the blood of Christ, let him no longer touch the things that are hostile to God.

Do you want to hear what the things are that are hostile to God? Paul himself teaches you, who says: "The wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God, for it is not subject to the law of God." If, then, you are wise in a fleshly way, or expose your life to the desires of the flesh and are dissolved in an abundance of luxuries, or if you think of the understanding of the law in a fleshly and not a spiritual way, and defend this with assertions sought by human art rather than by spiritual grace and finer understanding, you are made an enemy of God through the wisdom of the flesh. Nor does Paul alone write these things in his letters: hear James too, the brother of the Lord, testifying to similar things, when he says: "Whoever wishes to be a friend of this world will be made an enemy of God." And John bears like witness: "Little children," he says, "do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world; for everything that is in the world is the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the pride of life, which is not from God." In whom these things are, then, he cannot have peace with God, but rouses up again those enmities for the dissolving of which Christ came, as the same Apostle says of Christ: "For he is our peace, who has made both one, and broken down the middle wall of the fence, the enmities, in his flesh, abolishing the law of commandments in decrees, so as to create the two in himself into one new man, making peace." And if Christ came to dissolve the enmities, to make peace, and, the fence of sin having been broken down, to reconcile to God us who were at variance because of the fence of wickedness that we had woven by sinning, one who turns again to sins without doubt repairs the enmities again and weaves the fence of dissension, and by these things undoes the work of Christ and makes void the cross of his passion.

But let us, "having been justified by faith, have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Let us have peace, so that the flesh no longer opposes the spirit, nor is the law of God resisted by the law of the members. Let there not be in us "yes and no," but let us all say one thing, think the same things, and let there be no dissension either within ourselves or outwardly toward one another; and then we will have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. But this must be known most certainly: that no one in whom is the vice of wickedness can ever have peace. For while he is always thinking how to harm his neighbor, while he is always seeking out the arts of injuring, his mind never stands in peace. And if you ask me how the righteous man can have peace, who is attacked by the devil, who sustains the wars of temptations, I would say rather that he above all others has peace. For see how carefully the Apostle writes. He did not say, "Having been justified by faith, let us have peace," and fall silent, but adds, "Let us have peace with God": knowing that war against the devil grants peace with God, and that we come more into the peace of God when we stand firm, unreconciled, against the devil, and when we fight against the vices of the flesh. Indeed the apostle James too says thus: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you; draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." You see that he too held that one draws near to God when the devil is resisted.

"Let us have peace, then, with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And he added: "Through whom we also have access into this grace in which we stand." How we have access to grace through our Lord Jesus Christ the Savior himself says: "I am the door"; and: "No one comes to the Father except through me." Through him, then, who is the door, we have access to grace. But let us see what kind of door it is, so that we may know what sort of people those must be who enter through it and have access to grace. This door is truth, and through the door of truth liars cannot enter. And again this door is righteousness, and through the door of righteousness the unrighteous do not go in. This door says: "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart." Through the door of humility and meekness, then, neither the angry nor the proud goes in. If there is anyone, therefore, who, according to the Apostle's word, wishes to have access through our Lord Jesus Christ into the grace of the Lord, in which Paul, and any who are like him, says he stands, he must be cleansed of all these things we have mentioned above. Otherwise this door will not allow those to enter through it who do things alien to it, but is at once shut and does not let those unlike it pass through. This, no doubt, is what happened to those five foolish virgins, who, because they had not gathered the oil of good works in their vessels, coming after delays, found the door shut. For foolish souls could not enter through the door of wisdom and have access into grace.

And the apostle Paul rightly says that he stands in grace, who also said elsewhere: "But I labored more abundantly than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God with me." Hence if there is anyone else who labors more abundantly, and who boasts in his weaknesses, who is often in dangers, "dangers of the sea, dangers of rivers, dangers of robbers, dangers among false brothers," and in all these always stands in faith, he likewise is said to stand in grace.

But let us see what kind of thing is what follows: "And we boast in hope of the glory of God." It moves me why he did not say that he boasts in the glory of God but "in hope of the glory of God"; in which something of the expression seems indeed to be lacking, so that it should be understood "in hope of seeing the glory of God." He teaches us by these words, as he says elsewhere too, that the things that are hoped for are eternal, but the things that are seen are temporary. For Moses too is said to have seen the glory of God; and the people too, at the consecration of the house of the Lord, are said to have seen the glory of the God of Israel. But of glory of this kind, which could be seen, Paul, who was acquainted with the mysteries of God, dared to declare that that glory will be destroyed, which was seen even on the face of Moses. But this glory which is hoped for, of which he says, "in hope of the glory of God," will never be destroyed. For it is such as that of which the same Apostle says, speaking of Christ: "Who is," he says, "the radiance of glory and the express image of his substance." The hope of seeing this glory, then, is borne by those of whom it is said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God," at that time when pain and sorrow and sighing have fled away, and when the things that are now seen in a mirror and in a riddle are destroyed, and those things remain that are face to face.

And if it should perhaps seem to anyone that against this exposition of ours there can be objected what the Apostle himself says, "But we, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord," and he says: "How does one still have hope of glory who says that with unveiled face he already beholds the glory of the Lord and is transformed from glory to glory?": see whether we can resolve the objection in this way. The Apostle seems to me to show differences of glories: that the glory revealed by the ministry of Moses, of which we spoke above, was one; another was that which was ministered in the fleshly coming of the Savior, of which John too says in the Gospel: "And we saw his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." Of this glory we cannot say that it is the one to be hoped for; for the apostles say they saw it; and true is that saying, "For what one sees, why does he hope for?" But that glory which is to be hoped for, of which in the present place too the Apostle says he boasts in hope of the glory of God, can be understood as that of which the Savior says in the Gospel: "When the Son of man comes in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." And when he said, "of the Father and of the holy angels," it is not that he means the glory of God the Father and of the angels to be one; but this seems to me to show that those glories which were brought either to those before through Moses or to us through the coming of Christ in the flesh were not of angels but of men; for they were ministered to men, and they were of such measures as men could receive; but that glory of the Father, in which the Son of man will come to judge the world, will be so great that it can be received by angels alone. And if some of the saints too prove capable of that glory, they will doubtless be those of whom it is said that "they will be like the angels of God." And in this way it seems to have been rightly said of the future glory, which is to be hoped for, that the Son of man comes "in the glory of the Father," which not earthly men but holy angels deserve to receive. For God dispenses the greatness of glories too according to the capacity of minds.

But just as no one could either believe or receive that glory which the apostles say in the Gospels they saw, "glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth," unless that glory too which was ministered through Moses in the law had held the way of understanding (as he testifies who said to Nathanael, "We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth"; in which he certainly shows that, enlightened by the Law and the Prophets, they beheld the light of this glory, which was as of the Only-begotten from the Father): so too what the Apostle said, "But we, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, by the same …" [means that one] who contemplates this glory of the Only-begotten with unveiled face, that is, with the full understanding of faith, by the same image by which he came from the Law to the Gospels and to the fleshly coming of the Savior, directs the gaze of the mind, with the sight of the heart enlightened by faith, to the second coming of glory as well, and is transformed from the present glory to the future glory which is hoped for. Hence I think that no one can either be or deserve to become capable of that future glory unless from here on he receives a certain practice and meditation of it, according to what the Apostle says, by beholding it in a mirror and in a riddle, so that from this image of constant meditation, which, placed in the flesh, he bears of the divine glory, he may be carried over, more prepared, to the capacity of that true glory through the power of the Holy Spirit.

"And not only that, but we also boast in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces patience, and patience proof, and proof hope; and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." The very first word of this passage contains some ambiguity: for it has nothing in what follows to which what he said, "And not only that," should be referred. Hence see whether we can resolve the ambiguity of the expression in this way. Since above he taught that many things have been granted us through our Lord Jesus Christ, as when he says that we have been justified by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ, and through him have access into this grace, and through him also boast in hope of the glory of God, I think "And not only that" should be referred to all these things that were said: that is, "not only the things I said above, but this too, that we boast in our tribulations, we have through our Lord Jesus Christ." For while the rest are sad in tribulation, we, strengthened by the power of his grace, boast in tribulations. For we have learned from his instruction a new discipline: that through tribulations we may take hold of the good of patience; and having the good of patience, we may be judged approved; and approved through the patience of many tribulations, we may have the hope of future reward from God; and this hope, since it is sure and true, does not put to shame those who hope. For the love of God follows faith and hope, which is the greatest of all, and not only fills our mind but also overflows and is poured out in our hearts, because it is not acquired by us by human art but is poured in through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Let these things be explained according to the sequence of the words themselves or of the letter, for the opening up of the apostolic speech.

Now let us ask what the inner sense contains. And first let us see about boasting, what he said: "We boast in our tribulations." For the word "boasting" is sometimes put in the Scriptures in praise, sometimes in blame. For when Jeremiah says, "Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor let the rich man boast in his riches; but let him who boasts boast in this, to understand and know me, that I am the Lord who establish mercy and judgment and righteousness on the earth," he put boasting both in praise and in blame in one and the same passage. For if anyone, he says, boasts in his wisdom, or in strength, or in riches, he boasts blameworthily; but if anyone boasts in knowing the Lord, and in understanding his judgments and mercy and righteousness, he boasts praiseworthily. Since, then, this word looks to both, we must ask in what things boasting is right and in what it is less right. This we will be able to recognize only if we hold the natures of things with a fitting distinction. What we mean is this. All things that are or are done are either good, or evil, or indifferent. Although a broader discussion should be held about these, we will set out as much as suffices for the present place. It is certain that those things are properly called good which pertain to the virtues of the soul; and that only those are defined as evil which look to wickedness and are against the law; and that those are to be named neither good nor evil which are, like riches, beauty of body, strength or stature, and the things that serve the uses of the body. If anyone, then, is ignorant of the distinction of this difference and boasts in things that are not truly good and do not pertain to the virtue of the soul, he boasts blameworthily. But Paul, who was most skilled in these matters, when he had said, "We boast in our tribulations," lest he should perhaps be thought to boast in things indifferent and intermediate, at once gives the reason and shows that his boasting, which he has in tribulations, pertains to the virtues of the soul. For he says that the tribulation for which he boasts produces patience, and patience proof, and proof hope, and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit; so that in these he teaches that through virtues succeeding one another the boasting of tribulations ascends to the summit of the Holy Spirit, as he says elsewhere too: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." It is fitting, then, to boast neither in one's own wisdom, nor in strength, nor in riches, but in God alone.

But perhaps you say: Does not wisdom pertain to the virtues of the soul? And why is it held blameworthy to boast in wisdom? See, then, how careful is the word of Scripture, which seems unpolished and rustic. It did not say, "Let not the wise man boast in wisdom," and fall silent; but it said: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom." For one who boasts in his own wisdom and not in God's boasts blameworthily, because the prophet also says elsewhere: "Woe to those who are wise in themselves and learned in their own sight." The wisdom of God, then, is to know God and to understand his mercy and judgment and the righteousness which he has done on the earth; and one who boasts in this boasts in the Lord. But human wisdom cannot know and understand the Lord, nor recognize the judgments and mercy and righteousness which he has done on the earth; and therefore it is indifferent and intermediate. For it can happen that someone instructed in this human wisdom comes better prepared to the understanding of divine wisdom, and, trained in this, becomes more capable of that. In a similar way one who uses the other things we called intermediate, such as strength or riches: while they are intermediate, that is, while someone is not strong in the work of God nor rich in mercies to the poor, he ought not to boast either in strength or in riches. But if these intermediate things are turned to the virtue of the soul and to the fruit of good work, they are made worthy of boasting; just as, on the other hand, if they are applied to evil work, so that someone oppresses the poor by riches and throws down the weak by strength, they are then thought to be not intermediate but evil. They are called indifferent and intermediate by their nature for this reason, that joined to evil work they can be called evil, and joined to good works they can be named good. But those who call them good without this inclination to one of the two must be believed unskilled and ignorant of rational definitions and names. By an improper use, however, we call a craftsman wise, and a pilot, and an architect, and we name a woman wise in weaving.

As for what the Apostle says in the present passage, then, that "tribulation produces patience": if patience is certainly one of the virtues of the soul, tribulation, which without doubt gives birth to virtues of the soul, is to be called neither evil nor indifferent but good. And, as we said above, patience is to be called a virtue of the soul so much that he says that through patience our proof comes about, and through proof hope is given; and since this is placed in God, who is the father of all virtues, it does not put to shame the one who hopes. For together with hope it also holds the abundance of love, which, because love is the greatest of all, is joined in the first place to the Spirit.

But if someone meets us and says that tribulation is intermediate and indifferent, since indeed we find that the wicked and ungodly too are afflicted, and their tribulation is not at once to be counted a virtue of the soul because they are afflicted for their evil acts, see whether we can answer in this way: that tribulation properly belongs to the saints, but the tribulation of the ungodly and unrighteous is called scourges. For thus it says in the Psalm: "Many are the tribulations of the righteous." But of the others it says: "Many are the scourges of the sinner." And perhaps tribulation and distress pertain to the saints for this reason, that they are the ones who walk the narrow and constricted way, and therefore they are said to be afflicted. This too I think the apostles understood in the Lord himself, who is the true way on which the saints walk, when they said to him: "The crowds press upon you and hem you in, Master." The tribulations of the righteous, then, we ought to take not only as those that come from outside from those things we called indifferent or intermediate above, that is, from losses, or illnesses, or any torment of the body, but also in that even when placed in rest they afflict themselves and wear themselves down by resisting their own wills, curbing lust, restraining license, and striking down everything that opposes the good of continence, according to him who said: "I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, after preaching to others, I myself should be rejected." And in this way the tribulation of the righteous cannot be called indifferent but plainly good, through which the goods of virtue are fulfilled. But the unrighteous, even if they are afflicted (which we said Scripture rather calls scourges), since in these very scourges and chastisements they do nothing according to the virtue of the soul, lead nothing to patience, nor hope for proof through patience: for this reason in them it is to be named not tribulation that arrives at these goods, but scourges, as Scripture wished, even if you sometimes find the name of tribulation used improperly of the unrighteous too.

And so that you may know that the tribulation of the righteous does not constrict the virtue of the soul but rather enlarges it, hear Paul himself writing to the Corinthians how he distinguishes these things; for he says thus: "In everything we suffer tribulation, but we are not constricted; we are cast down, but we do not perish." You see that he says he suffers tribulation not in one thing but in everything, that is, both in the things that happen from outside and are inflicted by others, and in those which he himself bears within himself for the continence of the body and the labors of the best practices; and therefore he says that "in everything we suffer tribulation, but we are not constricted." For one who is enlarged by virtues cannot be constricted. And to make what we say still clearer in this way, Paul himself writes later: "I know how to be humbled, I know how to abound (in everything and for everything I have been instructed), both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer want." If, then, what he said above is true, "In everything we suffer tribulation," it is certain that he indicates this: that both when he suffers want he is afflicted, and when he abounds he is no less afflicted. He is afflicted in want, because something is lacking; and in abundance, because he restrains himself, lest he be dissolved by abundance, or lest he dispense less fittingly the things that seem to abound. So too when he hungers and when he is full, and when he suffers persecutions and when he lives in rest. And in this way one who is afflicted in all these things rightly boasts in his tribulations: from which without doubt is born patience, which, made approved, gives birth to hope, which, joined to love, unites him with the Holy Spirit.

As for his saying, "The love of God has been poured out in our hearts," we must consider more carefully in whose hearts the love of God is poured out. I think it is in the hearts of those who no longer have the spirit of slavery again in fear, but also of those in whom perfect love casts out fear, to whom is given the spirit of adoption, which cries in their hearts, Abba, Father. It belongs, then, to no ordinary man but only to one who is perfect, and such as Paul was, that the love of God is poured out in his heart through the Holy Spirit. But this too seems to me to need consideration: whether he means here that love by which we love God, or that by which we are loved by God, as poured out through the Holy Spirit in our hearts. And if that love by which we love God is understood, this saying needs no proof; but if, since he said the love of God was poured out in our hearts, it should rather be understood as that by which we are loved by God, it is certain that he sets down love as the highest and greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, so that, having first received it as a gift from God, by this very fact that we are loved by God we can love God. For Paul himself names the spirit of love, and God is called love, and Christ is called the Son of love. And if the spirit of love, and the Son of love, and God love are found, it is certain that from the one fountain of the Father's deity both the Son and the Holy Spirit are to be understood; from whose abundance an abundance of love is poured also into the hearts of the saints, to take participation in the divine nature, as the apostle Peter taught: so that through this gift of the Holy Spirit that word may be fulfilled which the Lord … for we were ungodly before we turned to God, and Christ certainly underwent death for us before we believed; which without doubt he would not have done unless he had had an exceeding and most abundant love toward us, whether our Lord Jesus Christ himself in dying for the ungodly, or God the Father in handing over his Only-begotten for the redemption of the ungodly.

For since hardly anyone dies for a righteous man, and everyone hesitates to undergo death even if the cause of death is just, how great is this one, and how great must his love toward us be reckoned, who, according to that time in which he suffered, did not refuse to endure death for the ungodly and unrighteous? In this certainly is the sign of that supreme divine goodness. For unless he came from that substance, and were the Son of that Father of whom it was said that "no one is good except one, God the Father," he could not have shown such goodness toward us. Hence, since from this sign of so great goodness he himself is recognized to be good, for this good man perhaps someone would even dare to die. For when each one has recognized such goodness of Christ toward himself, and has had his love poured out in his heart, he will desire not only to die for this good man but to die boldly. This we often see fulfilled in deeds and works, when those in whose hearts the love of Christ has been abundantly poured out offer themselves to the persecutors even of their own accord and with all boldness, and confess the name of Christ, with the world listening, before angels and men, so that they dare not only to suffer injury for his name but also to undergo death for this good man, which hardly anyone endures for a righteous man. For the love of this life is so great that even when a just cause of death has come, hardly anyone accepts death patiently. And a just cause of death seems to be when it comes by the law of nature; and although it is just by the condition of mortality, yet the soul hardly embraces yielding to the laws of nature. "Hardly, then, does anyone die for a righteous man." For for a good man someone dares to die and boldly falls, especially if he has understood that, while according to the time we were still ungodly and weak, he died for us first. And how will one who recognizes that these things were first granted him by that one not repay to the good man the death which that one spent on the wicked?

The error of those is refuted who thought this place should be interpreted so as to affirm that what he said, "For hardly does anyone die for a righteous man," must be understood of the God of the law, whom they call just but not also good; but they assert that Christ is good, as the Son of a good Father. But what will they do, since we find many martyrs in the law too? Let them read the books of the Maccabees, where with all steadfastness a blessed mother with seven sons undergoes martyrdom, who not only bear martyrdom patiently but even heap insults on the tyrant; and let them see whether what they say is true, that hardly anyone dies for the just one. Let them see the three young men cast into the furnace of burning fire with all confidence for the freedom of their faith, and let them say that hardly anyone dies for the just one. Only death for God, then, is undertaken with all boldness; but every other death is endured hardly and with difficulty, even if it is just and comes down by the law of the human condition.

"But God commends his love in us, since, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us; much more, then, now that we have been justified in his blood, will we be saved from wrath through him." When he had said above that "Christ, according to the time, died for the ungodly," he now wishes to show from this the greatness of God's love toward men: that if it was so great toward the ungodly and sinners that he gave his only Son for their salvation, how much more generous and abundant will it be toward those who have been converted and amended, and, as he himself says, redeemed by his blood? I do not think that this variety of words in Paul is idle, that he names sometimes the weak, sometimes the ungodly, sometimes sinners, for whom he says Christ died; and although he confesses that he is unskilled in speech, yet I do not think he varied in these through lack of skill, but rather through deep knowledge. For through these three every kind of sin is gathered. For either someone, not knowing God, sins in darkness and is called ungodly; or, wishing to keep the commandment, he is overcome by the frailty of the flesh and deceived by the enticements of the present life, and is called weak; or, knowing and willing, he despises the commandment and hates the discipline of God and throws his words behind him, and is named a sinner. And so Paul, who [calls] himself unskilled … that it comes about for this reason, that, abandoning the God of their fathers, they worship the gods of the nations. And as for Paul numbering himself among sinners, who says in other places, "We, Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles," this is the virtue of his humility. For he imitates him who, though he had done no sin, was made sin for us, and, though he was God, lived among men.

"God, then, commends his love in us." Here "commends" is understood either as "confirms" or as "makes lovable through benefits." For the fact that "Christ died for us while we were still sinners" gives us hope that much more will he save us, cleansed from sin and justified, from the wrath that hangs over sinners, through him; and he who so loved us, strangers and enemies, that he gave his Only-begotten to death for us, much more will give eternal salvation to us who have become his own and been reconciled to him. How Christ died for us, and how, since he is the Lamb of God, he took away the sin of the world, and bore our weaknesses, and grieved for us, has often been said by us in other places, where we also brought in what is reported in secular histories: that among them too some are said to have driven back pestilences or storms and other things like these by offering themselves to death, and to have freed their country or nation from the destruction of an impending disaster. How truly these things were written, or what reason they have if they are true, God alone knows. Yet none of those of whom these things are told is said, not even in a fictitious tale, to have absolved the sins of the whole world, except Jesus alone, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself," and, according to the will of the Father, having taken the form of a servant, offered a victim for the whole world, handing over his blood to the ruler of this world, according to the wisdom of God, which none of the rulers of this world knew; for if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty; nor would that blood which they had thirsted for have quenched not so much their thirst as their strength, and destroyed their kingdom; nor would there have happened to them what the Lord says in the Gospel: "Behold, now the ruler of this world has been judged"; and that: "Behold, I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven."

"Much more, then," he says, "now that we have been justified in his blood, will we be saved from wrath through him." Above he had said: "Having been justified, then, by faith, let us have peace with God"; and now he says: "Much more, now that we have been justified in his blood, will we be saved from wrath through him." By this he shows that neither does our faith justify us without the blood of Christ, nor the blood of Christ without our faith; yet of the two, the blood of Christ justifies us much more than our faith. And therefore it seems to me that, whereas above he said simply, "justified by faith," here he added, "much more, then, now that we have been justified in his blood," to teach that, even if our faith saves us from the wrath to come, even if works of righteousness do, yet above all these the blood of Christ much more makes us safe from the wrath to come. How the wrath of God ought to be understood has been said more fully by us in the exposition of the second Psalm; and how what is written can be fulfilled, that we may be made safe by fleeing from the wrath to come, and fleeing wrath so that it does not overtake us, while pursuing righteousness, piety, faith, love, patience, meekness, and the other things like these. Wrath, then, is that to which each one is handed over according to the measure and merit of his sins, God, however, according to what is written in the seventy-seventh Psalm, not kindling all his wrath. For who could bear it if the Lord kindled all his wrath against sinners, since that which is pronounced in the song of Moses is so terrible, where he says: "For a fire has been kindled in my fury, and it will burn to the lowest hell; it will devour the earth and its produce; it will set on fire the foundations of the mountains"? Look, then, how this fire, which is kindled from the wrath or fury of the Lord, devours the earth and the lowest hell, and consumes earthly works; it sets on fire not the heights of the mountains but their foundations, that is, not lofty souls nor heavenly minds, but those cast down to the ground and onto the earth, or even sunk into the depth of the earth, as the foundations of the mountains are. It was necessary, then, to discuss wrath a little too, so that it might be known more openly from what evils the blood of Christ has rescued us.

"For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled … Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." When he says, "while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God," he clearly shows that there is not some substance which, according to the definition of Marcion or Valentinus, is by nature hostile to God: otherwise, if what is hostile were of nature and not of will, it would certainly have no reconciliation. But where someone is made a friend from an enemy, it is certain that while he does the works that God does not love, he is an enemy of God; and each one becomes as grave and as hateful an enemy as he has multiplied works worthy of enmity. There are, then, measures and certain degrees, distinguished by the quality or quantity of sins, in those who are enemies of God. Hence too he who has sinned above all is recorded by Paul as the last enemy to be destroyed. And on the other side and in the reverse order, it is certain that those who have been reconciled through the death of his Son are counted among friends: and that someone is a friend in such a way as Moses was called the friend of God; and that there are others to whom the Savior says: "No longer will I call you servants, but friends." And I believe that there are still more intimate friends with God in the heavenly places, either those who always see the face of God, or those who always stand in the sight of the Most High; so that, just as we said above that there is a certain last enemy, so there too, according to the merits of virtues, some may be held as the highest friends.

Since these things are so, I do not know whether one who still remains in those works which God hates, and for which there are enmities between God and men, is rightly said to have been reconciled to God through the blood of Christ. For how is he reconciled who does the things of enemies? Paul, then, rightly says of himself and those like him that "while we were enemies, we were reconciled through the death of his Son." It is a great shame, where such a reconciliation has been made, where not the word of a sinner but the blood of an intercessor has dissolved the enmities between God and men, for us to turn again to enmities and do the things that he hates, whom no one had reconciled to us except the outpouring of sacred blood.

Paul himself, writing to the Ephesians, recalls more fully the principle of reconciliation and enmity and the outpouring of the blood of Christ; and if we join these, they can more easily open up the place of the present passage. He says thus: "Therefore remember that you, who were once called Gentiles in the flesh, uncircumcision, by what is called circumcision in the flesh, made by hands, that you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in this world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made both one and broken down the middle wall of the partition, the enmity, in his flesh, abolishing the law of commandments in decrees, so as to create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, and might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, killing the enmities in himself; and coming he preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father."

But observe especially in these that Christ broke down the middle wall of the partition in his flesh, that is, the enmity; and that he reconciled both in one body to God through the cross; and that he killed the enmity on the cross. In this Paul seems to me not without cause to have named the enmity twice, and in the one place to have said that Christ dissolved the enmity in the flesh, but in the second that he killed it on the cross. For he seems to me to dissolve it in those who are still waging the contest against sin and resisting it with all their strength; but to kill it in those who now in no way at all receive sin, but have on every side put their members to death to sin; among whom was he who said: "I have been crucified with Christ; I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me." In this way, then, Christ too killed the enmity in his flesh, when, having undergone death, he gave men an example of resisting sin even to death; and so at last, the enmity having been dissolved in his flesh, he reconciled through his own blood men to God: those, that is, who keep the covenant of reconciliation inviolate by not sinning any more. His death, therefore, gave death to the enmity that was between us and God, and was the beginning of reconciliation. But his resurrection and life conferred salvation on those who believe, as the Apostle also says elsewhere of Christ: “For the death he died, he died to sin once; but the life he lives, he lives to God.” He is said to have died to sin, not to his own, for he committed no sin; but he died to sin, that is, as one who by his death brought death upon sin itself. And he is said to live to God, so that we too may live not to ourselves nor to our own will but to God, and so at last may be saved in his life, according to him who said: “I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” As for his writing, as in the previous verses, “Not only so, but we also now boast in God,” and adding nothing to “not only so,” this is to be understood, as above, as said of the things included earlier: that is, that not only “while we were enemies were we reconciled to God through the death of his Son,” and not only “shall we be saved in his life,” but “we also now boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the reconciliation.” And not without reason did he add “now,” when he could have said, “But we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the reconciliation”; he did so to show that boasting is given to us not only in the future but also in the present, from the knowledge of God, the amendment of life, and the correction of errors, as the same Apostle says in other places: “having hope both of the present life and of the life to come”: of the present, because it is more honorable and more amended; of the future, because it is eternal.

1. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death, and so death passed through to all men, in whom all sinned. For until the law sin was in this world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses, over those who sinned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one to come.” After he had taught the difference between faith and the law, and between those who are justified through faith and those who cannot hope through the law for the promises that were made to the fathers, and after he had opened the secrets of the hidden mystery, that “when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled through the death of his Son,” he now goes on to set out the reasons both why we were enemies and why this reconciliation needed the death of the Son of God; so that, seeing how much Jesus has bestowed on us, or rather how much he has endured for us, we may be held by a more deeply rooted faith toward him and by an inseparable love. For this reason, then, even though he does not lay it fully open, he nevertheless points out to us the reason of another secret too, when he says: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death,” and so on.

But before we come to the explanation of the whole passage, a few things must be said about what seems to be a defect in the wording that follows. For where it says, “Therefore, just as,” it seems necessary that some completion should be added, so that it would say, “so also this or that,” as he himself writes in a number of other places; for example, when he says: “For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” Here, however, when he has said: “Just as through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death, and so death passed through to all men, in whom all sinned,” he did not go on to say, for example: So also through one man righteousness entered into this world, and through righteousness life, and so life passed through to all men, in which all were made alive. For the sense of the passage seemed to require this, according to what he says elsewhere. For what he says elsewhere, “For just as in Adam all die,” does not differ much from what he says here, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death, and so it passed through to all men, in whom all sinned”; and again what he said, “so also in Christ all will be made alive,” differs not at all from the sense which we said above is lacking in the wording and left to the reader’s understanding.

But it seems to me that Paul, who says that “our sufficiency is from God, who also made us fit ministers of the New Testament,” and who again says, “Or do you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me?”, did not suffer this through a failure of eloquence, but foresaw some benefit in it. Even if the things we said are lacking in the wording and must be understood had to be understood, nevertheless, on account of the more careless, who might perhaps grow slack if they heard that, just as death passed through to all men through sin, so also life passed through to all men through Christ, he judged that these things ought not to be said openly and publicly. At the same time he also shows that, even if righteousness entered into this world through one man, and through righteousness life, and so passed through to all men, this nevertheless does not happen at once in the present, nor does it befall the idle, but those who with much labor and sweat have been able to seek what is hidden, to knock at what is shut, to long for what is concealed. Indeed, in the passage which we brought forward because it resembles these words, that is, “For just as in Adam all die,” he did not say, “so also in Christ all have been made alive,” or “are made alive,” but “will be made alive,” to show that the present time is a time of labor and work, in which merits are acquired through good conduct, and that the future is the time in which those who die with Christ in the present life will be made alive; as the same Apostle says elsewhere: “For if we die with him, we shall also live with him.” And for this reason in the present passage too he refrains from following through and completing in words what is understood from the sense and the sequence.

Another will perhaps say that what seems to be lacking, according to the order of the wording, in what we have discussed above is supplied, late indeed, but in what follows, where he says: “But not as the trespass, so also the gift. For if through the trespass of one many died, much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ has abounded to many”; and he maintains that by these words what seemed to be lacking above has been completed; and that it makes little difference that there he said sin passed through to all men, while here he says that the gift and grace of Jesus Christ abounded to many, since “all men” may be understood as “many,” and it does not seem absurd that “many” should be understood as “all”; especially since in what follows he says more plainly: “As through the trespass of one, for all men to condemnation, so also through the righteousness of one, for all men to justification of life.” And to show more clearly that “all men” and “many men” are the same, he added: “For as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one many will be made righteous.” And those he had called “all men” above, here, in the same sense, he named “many.” Unless someone says that the Apostle, wishing rather to blend and obscure what he had opened above, so as not, as we said, to make his hearers slack and loose, named “many” here those whom before he had called “all,” so that he might draw what he said about “all” to those alone who have obtained the gift of Christ, who are nevertheless not few but many. For it is the apostle Paul’s custom, when he has disclosed something about the kindness of God and his ineffable goodness, to hold out some threat to the more remiss; as when, discussing the end of all things with the Corinthians, he says: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive”; and a little later: “Then the end, when he has handed over the kingdom to God and the Father,” and so on. Afraid that because of these words someone might despise the riches of God’s goodness and patience and long-suffering, and by his hardness and impenitent heart store up wrath for himself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, he added, after what he had said about the end: “Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. Awake, you righteous, and do not sin. For some have no knowledge; I say this to your shame.” He acts, then, as a prudent steward of the word: when he comes to the passages in which God’s goodness must be spoken of, he sets these things out more covertly and obscurely because of the slower sort, lest perhaps, as we said, they despise the riches of his goodness and patience and long-suffering and store up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath, into which all must fall who have stored up for themselves deeds of this kind. You too will see after this what is to happen.

And what he says, “For until the law sin was in this world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law,” seems to show this: that until the law, that is, until Christ came, who takes away the sin of the world, sin was in the world. And it is plain that sin cannot be imputed where there is no law to convict the sinner. But death, which had entered through sin, reigned until Moses, that is, as long as the law remained, over those who sinned according to the likeness of the sin of Adam, through whom death itself gained entrance; and Adam is a type of the one to come, not according to his transgression, but according to this, that just as through him death, so through the last Adam life entered into this world; and as through him condemnation came to all men, so also through Christ justification came to all men. Let this be said about the sequence of the apostolic passage itself. Let us now see what the inner understanding also contains.

But first I think I should give this warning: it seems to me that the apostle Paul, especially in the passages now in hand, speaks in a certain way like a faithful and prudent servant who is led by a great king, his lord, into the royal treasuries and is shown various great chambers whose entrances are many and uncertain, so that he is shown in by one way and out by another; sometimes, from different entrances, one comes into a single room, as we often see palaces built on earth. This faithful servant who is being led round is also shown the treasury of the king’s silver, and another of gold, and of precious stones and pearls and various necklaces; the place of the royal purple too, and another of the diadems; and the queen’s bedchambers set in many different apartments are shown him as well; and yet each of these is not unlocked with the doors standing fully open, but half open, so that he recognizes indeed the lord’s treasures and the royal wealth, yet does not know each thing clearly and perfectly. After this, this servant, who has been held so faithful that the king and lord made known to him the greatness of his wealth, is sent to gather an army for the king, to hold a levy, to test the soldiers. Because he is faithful, so as to invite more to enlist and to gather a larger army for the king, he will be compelled to bring out in part what he has seen; and again, because he is prudent and knows that the king’s secret must be hidden, he will use hints rather than reports, so that the king’s power is not concealed, while the arrangement of the order, adornment, and furnishing of the palace remains hidden. So, as I said, the apostle Paul too seems to me to act in these discourses, not only because, as he himself says, he knows in part and understands in part, but also on account of us, who cannot grasp even what he knows in part: he tempers his discourse, touching on and half opening the chamber of each mystery in single or scarcely two words; and now, having gone in by one entrance, he goes out by another; now, having gone in from another, he hurries to another chamber; so that if you look for him to come out by the entrance by which he went in, you do not find him.

Having first set these things in order in our mind and soul concerning what Paul writes, let us now turn, as far as we are able, to examine and look at the things in hand. And first let us see how “through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death.” For someone may perhaps ask whether the woman sinned before Adam, of whom it is said that “being deceived, she fell into transgression”; and again whether the serpent sinned before her. For he sinned when he said to the woman: “Why has God said that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?” And again he sinned when, though God had said that “on whatever day you eat of it, you shall die the death,” he said to the woman: “You shall not die the death; but God knew that on whatever day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” If, then, the woman sinned before Adam, and the serpent before the woman, and the Apostle says in another place that “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived,” how will sin be seen to have entered through one man, and not rather through one woman? For the beginning of sin came from the woman, and before the woman from the serpent, or the devil, of whom it is said in the Gospel that “he was a murderer from the beginning.” But see that in these things the Apostle has kept the order of nature; and therefore, since he was speaking of the sin from which death passed through to all men, he ascribes the succession of human posterity, which succumbed to this death coming from sin, not to the woman but to the man. For posterity is named not from the woman but from the man, as the Apostle himself says elsewhere: “For man is not from woman, but woman from man”; and again: “For as woman is from man, so also man is not from woman but through woman.” And for this reason mortal posterity and bodily succession are assigned rather to the man as their author, and not to the woman.

But to make what we say still clearer, we will add what the same Apostle wrote to the Hebrews: “But Levi too, who received tithes, was tithed …” [the scan has lost text here] … of Adam, while he was still in paradise; and all men were expelled from paradise with him or in him when he himself was driven out of it; and through him the death that had come to him from his transgression passed through in consequence to those also who were in his loins. And therefore the Apostle rightly says: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” Not, then, from the serpent, which had sinned before the woman, nor from the woman, who fell into transgression before the man, but through Adam, from whom all mortals take their origin, is sin said to have entered, and through sin death.

But this, to be sure, is the one man through whom sin entered, and through sin death, whom the Apostle himself elsewhere calls “the first man, from the earth, earthly,” and the second … [the scan has lost text here] … when he exhorts us to cast off the image of the earthly and bear the image of the heavenly; that is, that by living according to the word of God we may be renewed and reformed according to the inner man to the image of God who created him. This man, who is already being reformed to the image of God, is neither earthly nor in this world, but his conduct is said to be in heaven; and therefore, according to him who said, “But you are not of this world,” death cannot pass through to him. But of him who is still in this world and earthly and bears the image of the earthly, it is said that through him sin entered this world, and through sin death. But if sin and death have their dwelling in this world, it is certain that those who through Christ or with Christ have died to this world, and, raised with him, have also been counted worthy to sit with him in the heavenly places, having their conduct no longer in this world but in heaven, are strangers to death and sin. Hence it is shown by the same reasoning that every man is first “from the earth, earthly,” as the same Apostle says elsewhere, when he bears the image of the earthly and walks according to the image of the earthly, thinks of the flesh and minds the things of the flesh; and only seldom does it happen that he turns to the Lord and is led by the Spirit of God and … [the scan has lost text here] … the life-giving Spirit.

Inquire, to be sure, since he said that sin entered through one man into this world, and it is certain that by “world” he here means this earthly place in which men dwell, whether sin entered into no other place, and is not found in those places where “the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” are named. And consider this too for yourself: whence sin entered into this world, or where it was before it entered here; or whether it existed at all, or whether it existed before him to whom it is said: “Until iniquities were found in you; and for this I cast you down to the earth.” But it is not safe for us to discuss these things further, since we see that the Apostle touched on them in scarcely single words.

“Through one man,” then, “sin entered into this world.” But “world,” as we said, is to be understood either as the place in which men dwell, or as the earthly and bodily life, in which death has its place; to which world, that is, to the earthly life, the saints say they are crucified and dead. “And through sin,” he says, “death”: without doubt that death of which the prophet also says that “the soul that sins, it shall die”; of which death one may rightly call this bodily death the shadow. For wherever that one goes, this one must follow, as a shadow follows a body. And if someone objects that the Savior did not sin, nor was there in him the death of the soul through sin, and yet he underwent bodily death, we shall answer him that, just as the Savior, though he himself did not sin, is nevertheless said to have been made sin for our salvation through the assumption of flesh, so also, though he owed this death to no one and was not liable to it, nevertheless for our salvation he undertook it, as a shadow of that dispensation which he had undertaken, of which we spoke above, willingly, not by necessity; as he himself said: “I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up again.”

But let us see how death passed through to all men, “in whom,” he says, “all sinned.” The Apostle has pronounced with an absolute sentence that the death of sin passed through to all men, in that in which all sinned; as also elsewhere: “For all,” he says, “have sinned and lack the glory of God.” And therefore, even if you name that righteous man Abel, he cannot be excused. “For all have sinned.” For why did he offer “after some days,” and offer his sacrifice from the firstborn after Cain, and not before him, and not at once? Even if you name Enos, who “hoped to call upon the name of the Lord”: why did he hope, and why does he not call upon it at once, but put it off and delay? Even if you name Enoch: it is not written that he pleased God until he begot Methuselah. And Methuselah is interpreted “sending out of death.” From this it is shown that this death which passed through to all men passed through to him also; but at length he perceived that death was within him, and turning to the Lord he sent it away from himself and cast it off through repentance; and therefore he is said to have begotten Methuselah, because he had cast off from himself the death that had beset him. Rightly, then, because he was no longer liable to death, but had cast it away from himself and put it to flight, it is said that God translated him so that he should not see death. And if you inquire more closely about Noah too, you will find that only in his five hundredth year is it written of him that “Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord God,” and that “he was righteous in his generation,” and that “he pleased God”; which, if he had deserved it earlier, divine Scripture would never, I think, have passed over in silence. And if anyone is willing to consider that he drank wine and was drunk and uncovered, he will find from all these things that the Apostle not unjustly says, “in whom all sinned,” even though Noah awoke from his wine. And what shall I say of Abraham, to whom it is said: “Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father’s house”? This certainly would not have been said if it had been possible to please God in his father’s house. But there is no need to enumerate each of the saints in these matters at great peril, since the sentence of the Apostle suffices, which says that death passed through to all men, and that of him who said: “No one is clean from filth, even if his life has been one day.”

But this death of sin which passed through to all, when it had come to Jesus and tried to pierce him with its sting (for “the sting of death is sin”), was driven back and broken. For he was life, and death was necessarily banished by life; and then it is said to it: “Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O death, is your victory?” For because it had conquered all, here it is said to it: “Where, O death, is your victory?”

And that he did not say sin entered into all men, but into the world, while he said death passed, not into the world but into all men, and not that it entered but that it passed through: I do not think Paul used this difference in vain. I think he says that sin entered into those who are called the world, that is, the earthly, and nowhere sets down its going out; but into those whom he wishes now to be understood as men he says sin passed through, that is, it was indeed there, but was driven out through the repentance of conversion, and passed through, and did not remain in them any longer. Hence it appears that in the letters of Paul not even one syllable should be thought empty of mysteries.

Let us now see how it is said: “For until the law sin was in this world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” In this place, according to the comparison we set out above, Paul seems to me to have gone in by one entrance and gone out by another. For who can follow him through that entrance by which most people think he went in, so as to understand him to say of the law of Moses that until the law sin was in this world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law? As if before the law there had been no sin, and no one had sinned, and sin had not been reckoned to anyone before the law of Moses was given, when we read that sin was reckoned both to Cain and to Lamech, and (not to go through them one by one) that God was so provoked by men’s sins that he brought a flood on the world and said: “I will blot out all flesh that is on the earth”; and again a rain of fire and a flame of sulphur laid waste the Sodomites. How, then, can it be said that in these, or in sins of this kind, there was no sin, or how will it be denied that sin was reckoned when there were such punishments? And therefore we must look for the more hidden entrance by which Paul went out, in what he says: “For until the law sin was in this world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” We find him saying later in this letter as follows: “For apart from the law sin was dead; and I was once alive apart from the law.” In this the sense of both passages seems to me one and the same. For what was lacking in the wording here he supplied there: in “For until the law sin was in this world,” the word “dead” is lacking, which he expressed more plainly there. If, then, we join that word here too, and say: “For until the law sin was dead in this world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law,” see that the sense can stand whole.

But we have often said this too, that in this letter Paul discusses many laws, but most often the natural law, which is especially found in this place. “For until the natural law sin is dead.” So at a certain time of life, when someone begins to be capable of reason and to distinguish between just and unjust, fair and unfair, then sin, which before was held within the man as if dead, is said to revive, because there is now within him a law that forbids and reason that shows it must not be done. But to make what we say more readily understood, let us use a plain example. It is written: “Whoever strikes his father or mother shall die the death”; and: “Whoever curses his father or mother shall die the death.” So if a little child of about four or five years, in a temper, strikes his father or mother with a stick, as often happens, as far as the precept of the commandment goes he deserves death. But because the natural law is not yet in him, to teach him that he ought not to do injury to his father or mother, and he does not know that in this the crime of impiety is committed, what he does is indeed a kind of sin, since he strikes his father or mother, or curses them; but the sin is dead in him, because through the absence of the natural law, which is not yet in him, the sin cannot be reckoned to him. For there is not yet in him enough reason to teach him that what he does ought not to be done; and therefore even by his parents it is not only not counted as a fault, but is received with delight and pleasure. And in this way, consistently, as I think, can be understood what the Apostle says: “For until the law sin was in this world,” understood: dead; “but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” According to this exposition it is fitting also to understand what the Apostle says: “I was once alive apart from the law.” For how is Paul found ever to have lived without the law of Moses, when he says of himself that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised on the eighth day, and was in the observance of the law of Moses immediately from birth? But it is clear that he once lived without the natural law, that is, in childhood, before he became capable of reason. For in that age the distinction between just and unjust was not yet in him, nor was the testing of right and wrong open to him.

That this is said of the natural law he shows plainly in what follows, when he says: “But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” By this he declares that the sins of that age existed indeed, but were held dead, because they will not be reckoned as fault. But when I began, he says, to know what must be done, what must be guarded against and avoided, and to receive the commandment of the law that was strong within me, then sin revived in me, which before seemed dead through the absence of the law; and “I,” he says, “died,” for sin now began to be reckoned to me.

But Basilides, not noticing that it must be understood of the natural law, dragged the apostolic word to foolish and impious fables, and tries to build from this saying of the Apostle the doctrine of metensomatosis, that is, that souls are poured over into one body after another. “For the Apostle said,” he says, “‘I was once alive apart from the law’: that is, before I came into this body I lived in that kind of body which is not under law, namely that of a beast or a bird.” But he did not look at what follows, that is: “But when the commandment came, sin revived.” For he did not say that he came to the commandment, but that the commandment came to him; and he did not say that sin had not been in him, but that it had been dead and revived. In this he certainly shows that he was speaking of both states within one and the same life of his. But let Basilides, and any who think as he does, be left in their impiety. Let us rather attend to the Apostle’s sense according to the piety of the church’s teaching.

And this very thing too he says, “Sin was in this world,” and not “in men,” although in the world there are cattle and other animals and trees and whatever this world consists of, and yet sin is not believed to be in them; let us inquire what it means. It seems to me that here the Apostle means those men who are already capable of reason and obey the natural laws, but called that age which has not yet arrived at the capacity of reason not so much “men” as “the world,” because they are indeed parts of the world, but have not yet come to the point of expressing in themselves, through the capacity of reason, the image of God to which man is said to have been made.

But I should also like (unless it seems more curious than is right) to inquire whether, according to those who wish the law of Moses to be understood in these words, through his saying, “But sin is not imputed when there is no law,” the devil and his angels too might seem to be acquitted, if where there is no law sin is not imputed. And how, before the law of Moses, was the serpent condemned, or did death enter the world through the devil’s envy? How, too, will what the apostle Jude says in the catholic letter be explained? For he says this: “And the angels who did not keep their own rule, but left their own dwelling, he has kept under darkness, bound with everlasting chains, for the judgment of the great day.” From all these things it is more and more clear that the Apostle says this about that law which each one, whether of men or of angels, carries naturally within himself by a certain divine dispensation or gift; whose force and power is so great that it convicts even angels and makes an exception for no person of any rank; and it is this law that did what the apostle Jude says above, that the angels who did not keep their own rule but left their own dwelling are kept, bound with everlasting chains, for the judgment of the great day. It is the very law which drags the devil and his angels too into the eternal fire which has been prepared for them. And just as it is certain that neither would those angels be kept bound with everlasting chains for judgment, nor would these be sent into the eternal fire prepared for them, except that they did not keep the law laid down for them by God, and they would not come to judgment unless they had committed something against the law; so it seems certain that, if they had kept the law laid down for them, neither would these have fallen into eternal fire, nor those under the everlasting chains of darkness.

It remains for us to discuss, as far as we can, how it is said: “But death reigned from Adam until Moses over those who sinned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one to come.” The Apostle now mentions death for the third time. First he says that through sin death entered into this world; secondly, “to all men,” he says, “death passed through”; and now, “Death reigned,” he says, “from Adam until Moses.” And knowing that there are certain differences in each of these, he has indicated when it entered and when it reigned. It entered, he says, when the first man transgressed. And he said how it entered: “Through sin,” he says. And now he marks the time of its reign, from Adam until Moses; but how it passed through to all men he does not show.

It seems to me, then, that in these words the Apostle describes something like the invasion of a tyrant who wished to seize the kingdom of the lawful king, and first occupied the very passes and entrances of the kingdom through the treachery of the guard; then afterwards tried to win the minds of all over to himself, and for the most part succeeded, and so claimed for himself a kingdom that was not his. While he reigned thus by tyranny, Moses is sent, a leader chosen by the lawful king, to call back the peoples occupied by him to the rights of civil government and to teach them to use the laws of the true king. Then that tyrant, that is, the death of sin, which had crept in through the treachery of the first guard, reigned over all those who turned aside to him by a transgression like that of the first one. But this leader of the lawful prince does everything he can to snatch some from the kingdom of sin and death; and at length he succeeded in converting one nation, and anyone who wished to join himself to it; and by the king’s command he first instituted sacrifices, by which, offered in fitting manner at fixed solemnities, sin was forgiven them. And so at last men began in some part to be freed from the kingdom of sin and death. For that tyrant who is called death reigned from Adam, who by his transgression first gave him entrance so that he might pass through to all men, until this Moses whom we have called a leader, who, sent by God the king of all, began to break his kingdom and to call it back under the law of the just prince.

“Death reigned,” then, “from Adam until Moses,” in the sense we set out above, not over all, but “over those who sinned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam.” For death entered into the world and passed through to all, yet did not reign over all. For it is one thing to pass through, and another to reign. For sin passed through even into the righteous and grazed them with a light contagion; but in transgressors, that is, those who subject themselves to it with their whole mind and devotion, it holds the kingdom and rules with all power. Death reigned, then, “from Adam,” who first opened by his transgression a passage for sin into this world, “until Moses,” that is, until the law. For through the law the purification of sins began to be opened, and in some part resistance began to be made to its tyranny, through victims, various expiations, sacrifices, and precepts. But since its dominion was so great that it exceeded the strength of the law, the prophets are sent to help the law. But they too, seeing clearly that the tyrant’s power was beyond their strength, pray for the coming and presence of the king himself, crying to God: “Send out your light and your truth”; and again: “Bend the heavens and come down”; and again: “Arise …” [the scan has lost text here] … “in that the law was weak through the flesh, God, sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh concerning sin”; and reconciled the world to God, and stripped the principalities and powers of the tyrant, triumphing over them in himself.

But we seem to have slipped into these matters by a kind of digression; let us return to our subject. The death of sin, then, reigned from Adam until Moses, that is, until the coming of Christ. For Moses is called the law, and the law, as it is written, had its place until the baptism of John, from which time Jesus began to preach the kingdom of God. And that he made an exception of certain persons over whom death reigned, when he says, “Death reigned over those who sinned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam,” does not seem to me to be said without the indication of some mystery. Perhaps, then, there were some, up to that time when men were held under the law as under a pedagogue, who did something like what Adam is described as having done in paradise: having touched the tree of knowing good and evil, having been ashamed of their nakedness, and having fallen from the dwelling of paradise. Or rather it seems it should be taken more simply, and the likeness of the transgression of Adam received without any discussion, so that by this word all who were born of Adam the transgressor seem to be indicated, and to have in themselves the likeness of his transgression, received not only from his seed but from upbringing. For all who are born in this world are not only nourished by their parents but also trained by them, and are not only sons of sinners but also their disciples. But when age has grown and the freedom of doing what one thinks has come, then a man either goes on in the way of his fathers, as is written of some kings, or else walks in the way of the Lord his God.

Indeed, something of this sort seems to me to be indicated about Abel in what is written: “But after some days Abel offered a sacrifice to God from the firstborn of the sheep and from their fat.” What he said, “after some days,” shows that in the first days of his life he was held by the training of his father’s transgression; but after those days, when he came to his senses, when, warned by the law of nature, he looked to God, he is then said to have offered a sacrifice to God. This place can therefore be explained simply in this way; or else the sacrament hidden in his saying, “in the likeness of the transgression of Adam,” stored away almost inexpressibly, can be gathered by a fine line of understanding: so that someone might hold that the death which is said to have reigned here from Adam until Moses, that is, until the end of the law and the beginning of Christ, is that death of which it is written in the prophet as in the person of the Lord saying: “From the hand of hell I will snatch them, and from death I will free them”; or else that certain persons are excepted, and designated by a more hidden mystery, who are recorded to have sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, over whom alone death reigned.

But if, as is found in some copies, death, that is, the death which held souls in hell, is said to have reigned even over those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, we understand that all the saints too fell under this death, if not by the law of sinning, at any rate by the law of dying; and that Christ descended into hell for this reason, not only that he himself should not be held by death, but that he might also draw out those who were held there not so much by the crime of transgression, as we said, as by the condition of dying; as it is written that many bodies of the saints who slept rose with him and entered the holy city. In this the prophet too agrees, saying of Christ: “Ascending on high, he led captivity captive.” And in this way by his resurrection he has already destroyed the kingdom of death; whence it is written that he set the captivity free. But the enemy and tyrant himself, whose kingdom he dissolved, is still to be destroyed, as the Apostle says: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” The kingdom of death has already been destroyed, and the captivity which was held under it has been led away. But because the enemy and tyrant himself is still to be destroyed at the last, at the end of the age, therefore even now we see him not so much reigning as plundering; and, driven from his kingdom, going round through deserts and trackless places seeking for himself a band of unbelievers; and for this reason the Apostle cried: “Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.” But we, content to have touched in a few words on what the Apostle wished to be covered, … [the scan has lost text here; the lemma “who is a type of the one to come” is wanting].

This indeed seems ambiguous to me: whether Adam is called a type “of the one to come” from the time when the Apostle wrote these things, that is, of the age to come; or from himself, that is, from Adam, “of the one to come,” so that it is to be taken of Christ: a time which, for the Apostle writing these things, … [the scan has lost text here] … Christ came to join the Church to himself. I do not know, indeed, how anyone could fit both his transgression and his sin, and the fact that through him death passed through to all men, to a type of Christ, unless perhaps by contraries, as the same Apostle sets out in the passages above, when he says: “For as through one man death, so also through one the resurrection of the dead”; and again: “For as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one many will be made righteous.” But if we understand that the Apostle said Adam is a type of the one to come with reference to his own times in which he wrote, it is rather understood that, just as in this age death reigned through the one Adam and the whole human race was made mortal, so in the age to come life will reign through Christ and the whole human race will be given immortality.

Just as we said this saying is ambiguous, “who is a type of the one to come,” we find it ambiguously written to the Colossians too, where he says: “Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a festival or new moons or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come.” And again the same Apostle says elsewhere: “For the law has a shadow of the good things to come.” In these there is certainly a similar doubt, whether food and drink and festival and new moons and sabbaths have the shadow of things to come in such a way that the truth of their shadow was fulfilled in the coming of Christ, or is to be fulfilled in the age to come. And when the Apostle says that the whole law has a shadow of good things to come, it is uncertain whether the truth of this shadow is to be fulfilled in the coming of Christ or in the age to come; since in another place too it is written of the things under the law that they serve as a type and shadow of heavenly things. He, then, who wishes to maintain that these things were fulfilled in the coming of Christ will confirm that the meaning of food and drink was fulfilled when Peter saw in a vision every kind of animal let down in a sheet and heard a voice: “What God has cleansed, do not call common,” which is certainly referred to the various ways of life of men; and he will say that the drink is the cup of the New Testament; he will prove the festival too, where “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed,” and “we keep the festival, not with the old leaven, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Likewise he will show that new moons, that is, new months, come about through Christ, the Sun of righteousness, and his apostles. And he will teach that sabbaths are kept by not carrying the burdens of sin, but … [the scan has lost text here] … “which you have kindled for yourselves.” But the other, who transfers these types and the shadow of the law to the age to come, and holds that they are images of heavenly mysteries to be fulfilled in that heavenly Jerusalem, says about food and … [the scan has lost text here] … “until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father.” And he will speak of the festival according to the prophet’s saying: “What will you do on the day of solemnity and on the festal day of the Lord?” And new moons, that is, new months, he will look for in those eternal years of which the Psalmist says: “I remembered the eternal years and meditated”; and again in the song of Deuteronomy: “Remember the eternal days”; and of the sabbath it is said: “There remains therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God.” And he will maintain that, just as each of these holds a type of the age to come, … [the scan has lost text here] … and therefore, when it had been said first of those who sinned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, there was added: “who is a type of the one to come.”

“But not as the trespass, so also the gift. For if through the trespass of one many died, much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ has abounded to many. And not as through one who sinned, so also the gift. For the judgment from one led to condemnation, but the grace from many trespasses to justification.” Since the Apostle had said above of Adam, “who is a type of the one to come,” he saw that it might be asked: if Adam is a type of Christ, then he must have borne the type of Christ also in the fact that he sinned, and in the fact that death reigned from Adam until Moses; but since it seemed absurd to think this of Christ, he at once adds: “But not as the trespass, so also the gift”; and with this word he begins, as it were, to explain himself, in what way he said Adam was a type of Christ. “For if,” he says, “through the trespass of one many died,” that is, in Adam, “much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ has abounded to many”: that is, if death, finding room in one who sinned, could be spread to many, much more the grace of God, which has abounded more richly and more widely in Christ than death in Adam, is spread to many. And the condition of the trespass is so far from being the same as that of the gift, that, whereas the judgment came from Adam, and from that one transgressor condemnation came upon all men, on the contrary through Christ justification was given from the many trespasses by which the whole human race was held, to all; so that, just as death had reigned through one in trespasses, so also through the obedience of one life might reign through righteousness.

It was not, then, without a profound art of speech that the Apostle set down Adam as a type of Christ, a type that is similar in genus but contrary in species. For the type is similar in genus in that, just as something is spread from the one Adam to many men, so something is spread from the one Christ to many men. But it is contrary in species, because through the transgression begun from Adam many were made sinners, but through the obedience of Christ many will be made righteous.

Since, then, it has been explained, according to the reasoning of his words, how far Adam was a type of Christ, whether in like things or in contraries, I do not think it will seem absurd now also to gather what deeper sense the Apostle indicates in these words. The Apostle set out to show what the first man Adam, who “was made a living soul,” brought upon the human race, and what the second Adam, who is “a life-giving spirit,” brought. Through the transgression of the one, he says, sin appeared, and through sin death entered upon all men; or rather, to keep the restraint which Paul held in this place in his letter, death passed through to many men. But through the obedience of Christ justification, and through justification life, has abounded much more to many. And he wishes to show that life is much stronger than death, and righteousness than sin; and by this to teach that, if sin and death could reign so in all, taking their beginning from the disobedience of one man, how much more powerfully and worthily will life reign through righteousness, taking its beginning through the obedience of the one, Christ; Christ, I say, who came to this work not by the necessity of his condition but moved by compassion alone. For he was in the form of God, and seeing death reigning through the peoples by the trespass of one man, he does not forget his own creature, and “does not count it robbery to be equal with God”; that is, he does not reckon it any great thing for himself that he is equal to God and one with the Father, while death devours his work through the trespass of one man. Therefore he empties himself of the equality and form of God, and takes “the form of a servant,” and becomes man; and he who reigned in all dared indeed to come to tempt him, but could not enter. Yet he took on this common death, though he did not receive that death of sin which reigned in all; so that, “as through a man came death, so also through a man” might come “the resurrection of the dead”; and as “through the trespass of one many died, much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ” might “abound to many.”

It is not without the profound wisdom which Paul says he speaks among the perfect that he tempered his words in this place, and those whom elsewhere he had called “all” he here called “many” or “more,” where he makes a comparison between the sin and death spread from Adam to all men and the justification and life spread from Christ; lest perhaps, if he had pronounced absolutely that, by the same reckoning and in the same order in which the death of sin was spread from Adam to all men, justification and life too, which are from Christ, are spread to all men, he might make his hearers slack, and they might become more sluggish in their observance, sure of the security of a life that would be handed on to all men through the grace of Christ. And therefore he holds back his words and does not put down “all men” (as he usually does elsewhere) but “many,” who through the trespass of one were made sinners; and again he declares that the gift in the grace of God through one man, Jesus Christ, abounds not to all but to many; so that he may hold the more careless in suspense with fear and make them anxious, and yet not shut the secrets of the divine goodness to the more perfect. And it is well that he set down as “more” those to whom the gift of grace belongs than those who through the trespass of one were made sinners. In this I think there is something of a hidden mystery too; for elsewhere he says that death reigned from Adam until Moses, not over all, but only over those who sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam. Yet by a simpler understanding too it may be seen that they are called “more” for this reason: although those made sinners from Adam are many, those who are made alive through the grace of Christ are called “more” because he too, from whom the death of sin was spread to the many, is added to their number, since he too is saved with all those whom he had made subject to the trespass; as is said of Wisdom: “She,” it says, “guarded the first-formed father of the world when he alone had been created, and delivered him from …” [the scan has lost text here] … was the cause of death to the rest, Christ called back to life; so that what the Apostle writes in what follows is true, that “as through the trespass of one man, for all men to the condemnation of death, so also through the grace of one, for all men to the justification of life.” But Adam too is a man; therefore the justification of life will reach him also.

But you will perhaps say: If, when one sinned, death passed through to all men, and again through the righteousness of one the justification of life came to all men, nothing was done by us either that we should die or that we should live; but Adam is the cause of death and Christ of life. We have already said above that parents not only beget children but also train them, and those who are born become not only children to their parents but disciples too, and they are driven into the death of sin not so much by nature as by training. For example, if someone departs from God and worships idols, will he not at once, if he has begotten children, teach them also to worship idols and offer sacrifices to demons? This he does according to Adam; and in this, death reigns from Adam, that is, from birth, until the time of the law, when, coming to the discernment of right and wrong action, he can be made capable of the grace of Christ; and there he leaves Adam, who either begot him or taught him unto death, and follows Christ, who both teaches him and begets him unto life.

Do you wish to know that that in which death reigned from Adam belongs not only to birth but also to teaching? Learn it from the contraries. For when the Lord Jesus Christ had come to correct what had been done amiss, because that first birth which came from Adam begot unto death, he brought in a second birth, which he called not so much generation as regeneration, through which without doubt he would abolish the fault of the first birth; and as he put regeneration in place of generation, so also he put another teaching in place of the teaching. For when he sent his disciples to this work he did not say only, “Go, baptize all nations,” but he said, “Go, teach all nations, baptizing …” [the scan has lost text here] … life is given by Christ, not to the unwilling but to believers, and the perfection of life is reached through the perfection of the virtues, just as formerly death was reached through the likeness of transgression and the fulfilment of the vices. And although the apostle Paul, as a prudent steward of the word of God, wished these things to be hidden and covered in his letters, he nevertheless put them in and was not silent, where he says: “But death reigned from Adam until Moses over those who sinned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam.” Do you see that Paul excuses no one from sin? And he marks out the kind of sin too, setting the likeness of the transgression of Adam in each one, although he did not think it safe to say more openly where, when, or how this likeness of transgression was committed by each. But he who is instructed in the law of the Lord knows how to understand a dark saying and the sayings and riddles of the wise. And for this reason, finally, he speaks more covertly of the salvation that is in Christ too: when he had said, “For as in Adam all die,” he did not say, “so also in Christ all are made alive,” but “will be made alive”; and again, when he had said, “For as through the sin of one death reigned through one, so also through the justification of one,” he did not say “life reigns,” but “life will reign through the one Jesus Christ.” For he knows, as I said, that it is written that “the faithful in spirit conceals matters”; and again elsewhere: “How great is the multitude of your sweetness, Lord, which you have hidden for those who fear you!” For if you ask when life will reign through Jesus Christ, and when his righteousness will … [the scan has lost text here] … for all men to the justification of life …

From the one Adam, then, sin began to reign in this world, and it reigned over those who followed the likeness of the transgression of Adam; and therefore “the judgment from one led to condemnation”; and again through our one Lord Jesus Christ grace began to reign through righteousness; and it will reign in all who obey him and keep his words, and through these they come from many trespasses to the justification of life.

“For if through the trespass of one death reigned through one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.” If the gift were as the trespass, the Apostle would surely have said: as through the trespass of one death reigned through one, so also through the righteousness of one life will reign through the one Jesus Christ. But now he says that death indeed “reigned through one through the trespass of one”; but in those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, not only does death no longer reign (which itself is certainly no small grace), but two other good things also are conferred on them: one, that instead of death, life, Christ Jesus, reigns in them; the other, that they themselves will also reign through the one Jesus Christ. Since, then, these necessary good things come to them, that is, that they escape the kingdom of death, and that instead of death life reigns in them, or rather that they themselves reign in life through the one Jesus Christ, it is plain how “the trespass is not as the gift,” and how it is said: “Much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ will abound to many”; and that other: “But the grace from many trespasses to justification”; and also what he says at present: “Much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ our Lord.”

What he says, then, “Through the trespass of one death reigned through one,” … [the scan has lost text here] … “shall die.” The soul itself, indeed, cries through the prophet, saying: “You have brought me down into the dust of death.” This certainly could not have happened to it except from trespass. Hence it plainly appears that through trespass it wrote out its own bond with death, so that, having lost the freedom of immortality, it took on the yoke of sin and the kingdom of death. The Apostle, then, wishing to show how much greater are the things the soul receives through Christ than those it had lost through Adam, repeats these words, saying “much more,” and “the abundance of grace,” and “the gift of righteousness,” and “they will reign through the one Jesus Christ”; all of which certainly declare that the gifts are far more abundant than the losses.

But you will ask over whom these will reign, whom he says will reign in life through Jesus Christ. It seems to me that, just as he showed that the kingdom of death was over those whom it made liable to itself by sinning, so also he shows that the kingdom of those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, and are said to be about to reign through the one Jesus Christ, will be over those who become subject to them in instruction in the kingdom of God, and, so to speak, who have been found capable of the wisdom, righteousness, and life which is in them and through which they reign. Hence it does not seem to me to be idle that the Apostle, who in the other places had said that “death passed through to all men,” and again, “The grace of God abounded to many,” and again, “The grace from many trespasses to justification,” in this place set down neither “all” nor “many” nor “more,” knowing that the summit of this blessedness belongs to few, those who, receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.

Here the kingdom of death itself is described, which elsewhere is said to be the last or final enemy of Christ to be destroyed. And it will be destroyed in this, that it will reign no more. And if it does not reign, it is certain that there will no longer be any trespass, in which alone the kingdom of death consists; then without doubt, when it will be said to it, “Where, O death, is your sting?” since, as the Apostle himself says, “the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” It follows, then, that at that time there will be no law either, if indeed it is called the very power of sin; so that, the power of sin being removed, the kingdom of death too may rightly be abolished. But let these things be said now by way of digression; they will be inquired into more fittingly in their own places.

Yet I should like to ask (since we have said that death held its kingdom until the presence of Christ, who is life; … [the scan has lost text here] … had come not only to destroy death, but also him who had the power of death, that is, the devil), in this interval, that is, before what is written comes to pass, “Then the end, when he has handed over the kingdom to God and the Father,” who reigns? For if we say what seems to follow, that life reigns now that death is destroyed, it may be objected to us: How then is there sin? And it is plain that death reigns through sin. But if we say that in some Christ, that is, life, reigns, and in some death, whom, or where, shall we find in whom the kingdom of life is such that the kingdom of death has no power in them, that is, who are wholly without sin? These things seem to me rather to belong to the kingdom to come, and to be fulfilled there, where it is said that God will be all in all. For this reason too we are taught to say in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your kingdom come,” as though it had not yet come; and the Lord himself at the beginning of his preaching does not say, “The kingdom of heaven has come,” but “The kingdom of heaven has drawn near.” But the present time I should say seems to be not so much a time of reigning as of war, through which war the kingdom to come is sought; although in this very time of war, since the kingdom of death, which before had spread to all men, is already being broken in part and gradually destroyed, Christ may be said to reign, according to what is written: “For he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet”; and again elsewhere he says: “But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.” Hence it appears that when he says, “For he must reign,” he put it for “prepare the kingdom.” For it is certain that one must first fight, and the strong man must be bound, and so his goods plundered. And therefore the Savior himself says: “I came not to send peace, but a sword.” And those who wish to reign in life through Jesus Christ must fight for as long as it takes until the last enemy, death, is destroyed.

And about the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness it must be known that no one comes to that kingdom which we said is being prepared through war who has obtained only one grace, that is, who has pleased God in some one work; but … [the scan has lost text here] … when he says: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you.” Grace, then, is multiplied and abounds if our speech too is always seasoned with salt in grace, and our work is done with the grace of humility and simplicity, and we do all that we do to the glory of God. Likewise the gift of righteousness too must be understood. For he who is justified by Christ ought to do nothing without righteousness, according to him who says, “Blessed are those who keep judgment and do righteousness at all times,” and according to what Wisdom pronounces, saying that even if someone is perfect among the sons of men, if the righteousness from God is not with him, he will be reckoned as nothing. And in this way those who have the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.

“Therefore, as through the trespass of one, for all men to condemnation, so also through the righteousness of one, for all men to justification of life.” We have already said above that through the trespass of Adam a kind of entrance was given, by which sin, or the death of sin, or condemnation, came to all men. On the contrary, then, Christ opened the entrance of justification, through which life might come in to men; and therefore he said of himself: “I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved.” But enough has already been said about these things above. Yet this must be observed, that he did not say, “As for all men to the condemnation of death,” but only “to condemnation,” so as to prove, namely, that in all things the gift is far more abundant than the trespass. How, indeed, or what condemnation came to all men must be considered. And according to a simple exposition it may perhaps suffice for us to say that the condemnation of the trespass is this common death which has come and will come to all, even if they seem righteous. And if someone perhaps objects about Enoch and Elijah, who were translated so as not to see death, the case is saved in this way: what is said of all is not at once to be thought false if some dispensation of God has been made in the case of one or two men. But someone might also fittingly, I think, bring forward in this place that, when Adam had trespassed, it is written that the Lord God cast him out of paradise and set him in this earth over against the paradise of delights; and this was the condemnation of his trespass, which without doubt came to all men. For all have been cast out into this place of humiliation and into the valley of weeping: whether because all who are born of him were in the loins of Adam and were cast out together with him, or whether in some other unspeakable way, known to God alone, each one seems to have been thrust out of paradise and to have received condemnation.

“For as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one many will be made righteous.” It may indeed be that, according to what we observed above, Paul, wishing to cover the more secret mysteries, sets down in one place as “many” those whom elsewhere he had called “all,” lest perhaps, if he had said that through the disobedience of one all were made sinners, and had necessarily added, “so also through the obedience of one all will be made righteous,” he might seem, through the security of such a promise, to loosen the minds of those for whom it is expedient to be under fear. And therefore we, keeping the counsel of the faithful and prudent steward in the word of God, ought rather to give an account of how through the disobedience of one not all but many were made sinners. For how through the obedience of one not all but many are made righteous will present no difficulty of understanding, according to what the Lord says in the Gospel: “For many will come from the east and the west and recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God”; and he did not say, “All will come.” But how sinners may be seen to be many and not all, when the same Apostle says that “all have sinned,” we must show.

It is one thing to sin, another to be a sinner. He is called a sinner who, by committing many trespasses, has now come into a habit and, so to speak, a pursuit of sinning; just as, on the contrary, he is not called righteous who has done something righteous once or twice, but he who, by always acting righteously, has righteousness in use and habit. For if someone is unrighteous in almost everything else, but has once or twice done some righteous work, he will indeed be said to have acted righteously in that work in which he held to righteousness, yet he will not on that account be called righteous. So too a righteous man will indeed be said to have sinned if at some time he has committed something not lawful, yet he will not on that account be called a sinner, since he does not hold the use and habit of sinning; just as he is not called a physician who knows how to lay a cobweb on the lightly broken skin of the head, or who has bathed the swelling of a wound with warm water, although this too seems to belong to medicine; but he is called a physician who has the use, pursuit, and discipline of healing. From all this I think it is sufficiently shown that it is one thing to sin, another to be a sinner. For it may be that all have sinned, even if they were saints, because “no one is clean from filth, not even if his life has been one day.” For who is there who has not sinned either in deed or in word, or, if he is most cautious, at least in thought? And therefore, as I said, all will rightly be said to have sinned, but not all were made sinners, but many. Likewise … [the scan has lost text here] … For since he referred the making of many sinners to the past, he transferred the making of many righteous to the future time, knowing without doubt that by the progress of the gospel preaching the multitude of the righteous would grow greater. And that there were many righteous even before the coming of the Savior the same Lord testifies in the Gospels, when he says: “Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see.” But the Savior calls the righteous “many” here in one way, and the Apostle has set it down in another. For the Savior, looking at the number of the apostles, called the righteous and prophets many in comparison with them; but in the present place the Apostle must be understood to have referred “many” to a comparison with all who have been born and will be born in this world. Therefore “through the disobedience of one many were made sinners,” the many sinners being understood according to the observation we made above about one who sins and a sinner.

And if someone objects to us what the Apostle says of himself, “that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first,” as though he seems to call himself a sinner too, we shall say that it is one thing for someone to be designated a sinner in the person of Scripture, or of a prophet, or of the Lord, and another for the righteous man himself to become his own accuser and humble himself so as to be exalted by God; although Paul too, in that he says he persecuted the Church of God and fought against it, and dragged men and women and threw them into chains, even if he did these things in ignorance and obtained mercy, may nevertheless perhaps admit, not undeservedly, that he ought to have been called a sinner when he was doing them. And so that the reason of this distinction we have given between one who sins and one who is a sinner may become still clearer, look at Cain, who, though he is plainly a sinner, nevertheless did something right; for which reason the Lord said to him: “If you offer rightly.” And Pharaoh, when he says, “The Lord is righteous, but I and my people are ungodly,” did something righteous, but is not called righteous on that account. And you will find many things of this kind in the divine Scriptures, from which you may discover both that a righteous man has sinned in something and that a sinner has done something righteous; and yet neither is the righteous man called a sinner because he sinned in something, nor the sinner … [the scan has lost text here] … “of one,” he does not add “man,” through whom many will be made righteous. For he through whom they are made righteous is without doubt righteousness itself, as the same Apostle says of Christ, “who was made for us righteousness from God.” Adam, then, gave a pattern to sinners through disobedience; Christ, on the contrary, set a pattern for the righteous through obedience; as it is also written elsewhere: “But you have obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over.” For this reason he himself became obedient unto death, so that those who follow the example of his obedience might be made righteous by righteousness itself, just as those who followed the pattern of disobedience were made sinners.

“But the law came in by stealth, so that the trespass might abound. But where sin abounded, grace superabounded, so that, as sin reigned unto death, so also grace may reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” If no one had sinned before the law was given through Moses, Marcion and the other heretics, wishing to accuse the law, would seem to take occasion from these words of the Apostle, as though this had been the reason the law was given, that sin, which had not existed before the law, might abound. But I do not know what time before the law they can find empty of sins. When Cain was killing Abel and polluting the earth with his brother’s blood, so that it was said to him, “Cursed is the earth in your work, which has opened its mouth to receive the blood of your brother,” was sin not abounding? Plainly it was abounding; and that when men did not yet abound. Or then, when Lamech said: “I have killed a man to my wounding and a young man to my bruising. Vengeance was taken for Cain sevenfold, but for Lamech seventy times seven”? In the times of Noah trespass so abounded that, it says, “the Lord, seeing that the wickedness of men was multiplied upon the earth, and that every man had diligently set his heart on wickedness all the days of his life, considered that he had made man upon the earth, and repented in his heart and said: I will blot out man whom I made from the face of the earth, from man to beast, and from creeping things to the birds of heaven, because I repent that I made them.” And again, when it is said: “The earth was corrupted in the sight of the Lord, and the earth was filled with iniquities. And God saw the earth …” [the scan has lost text here] … Or certainly when it is said by God of the Sodomites: “I came down to see whether their iniquities are being consummated according to the cry of the Sodomites”; when they surrounded the house of Lot, attempting the crime of lewdness even against angels? Or perhaps sin was not abounding then, when Pharaoh bound the children of Israel in clay and brick and ordered their newborn to be killed in the river? And certainly the law of Moses had not yet come in by stealth when so great a stain of sins was spreading on the earth.

From this it is gathered that the heretics we spoke of above, or any who think with them that these things were said of the law of Moses, have not managed to touch the apostolic sense even lightly. In this place, rather, it should be understood, as we have often said already, of the law of nature, which is written “not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.” This law was so written in the governing part of his heart by him who created man from the beginning that at a fitting time, when the pages of the mind have grown up, or rather, as Scripture has named it, when the fleshly tablets of the heart begin to be opened with the growth of age, it begins to be spread through the inward parts of the conscience and to fill them with reasons. Then, against the precepts which are naturally suggested by a law of this kind, the will of the flesh rises up and suggests other desires; and this is what the Apostle himself named the law in the members, resisting the law of the mind. It is this law of the members, then, that the Apostle seems to have set down in this place, which he says came in by stealth so that sin might abound. For the very word he used seems to me most fully to point to what we are saying. For it is one thing to come in, another to come in by stealth; one thing to lead, another to lead away by stealth; one thing to draw, another to draw away by stealth. For “to come in by stealth” indicates that, when another has come in, something comes in under cover of it. In this the reasoning we set out above plainly shows that under cover of the natural law, which the Apostle named the law of the mind, which consents to the law of God, there arose the law of the members, which, suggesting the desires of the flesh and making man a captive inclined to lusts and pleasures, makes sin abound. Thus, then, “the law came in by stealth so that the trespass might abound.”

“But where sin abounded, grace superabounded.” As we taught in the passages above, where he makes the comparison of each of the things brought in through the transgression, … [the scan has lost text here] … and in the present place, when he had said that sin abounded, he used a most worthy word, by which he overcame “abundance” and brought in “superabundance.” And the grace of Christ superabounded in this, that it not only absolved man from past sins but also fortified him against future ones. For he shows two kingdoms in man: one in which sin reigned unto death, the other in which grace reigns through righteousness unto life. It is grace, then, that has cast out and expelled sin from its kingdom, that is, from our members, and with it death too necessarily went out and was expelled together; so that thus at last grace might claim the kingdom for itself in us through righteousness, and where death had been, eternal life might stand. And this is what the same Apostle says elsewhere: “Therefore let not sin now reign in your mortal body”; and the same elsewhere: “For as you presented your members as weapons of iniquity to sin, so now present your members as weapons of righteousness to God.” There is, then, a great superabundance in this, that where sin and death were, there now are grace and righteousness and eternal life. And all these things are above the rest through our Lord Jesus Christ.

It may be, too, that, just as he said all these good things exist through our Lord Jesus Christ, so he wished those evils to be understood to have come about through the devil, but kept silent about the name of their author, so as to mark the superabundance of grace in all things. For just as Christ is one in substance but is designated as many by his powers and operations (for he is understood to be grace itself, as also righteousness, peace, life, truth, the Word), so perhaps the devil too can often be understood in various significations. For he is to be thought to be the sin which is said to reign; and he is to be believed to be the death of which it is said that “the last enemy, death, will be destroyed.” And he is understood to be perdition, according to what was said by the prophet: “You have become perdition, and you shall not stand for eternal time.” And what the Apostle says, “Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body,” I think was said rather of him. For he is the author of sin and death and perdition; and consequently he is named from the things he invented. … [the scan has lost text here] … whose yoke “is pleasant, and the burden light”; and not the devil, whose kingdom is heavy. For it is iniquity that sits upon the talent of lead. But where Christ reigns, there grace and righteousness superabound in eternal life.

“What then shall we say? Shall we remain in sin, that grace may abound? Far from it. For we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?” Since he had said above, “Where sin abounded, grace superabounded,” he now puts to himself the question arising from this: if the abundance of sin gives birth to a superabundance of grace, then we must sin, so that grace may abound more. But he shows a quick solution of the question when he says, “Far from it”; and at once he added the reason, saying that those in whom grace has abounded are dead to sin. And it is certain that one who is dead to sin cannot be a sinner. He who is dead to sin, then, will not be able to remain in sin.

But so that these things may become clearer, let us inquire what it is to live to sin and what it is to die to sin. As he is said to live to God who lives according to the will of God, so he is said to live to sin who lives according to the will of sin; as the same Apostle points out when he says: “Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.” In this he shows that to obey the desires of sin is to live to sin. And if to do the desires of sin is to live to sin, not to do the desires of sin, nor to obey its will, is to die to sin. Yet the Apostle says that sin has, as it were, a certain seat and throne of its kingdom set up in our body. For this part of our substance is more familiar to it, and it has a kind of friendly fellowship with the pleasures of the flesh; and taking from this the occasions of natural incitement, by a small turning aside it bends the order of nature over the precipice of death.

But so that what we say may be explained still more plainly, let us set down an example. The flesh has natural appetites for food and drink, which are contained within certain measures of sufficiency; and if someone exceeds these at the persuasion of sin, the flesh no longer demands the food and drink that suffices for nature, but luxury and drunkenness. In like manner there is in the flesh a natural incitement by which it demands to be joined to a woman for the sake of continuing descent; but if on this occasion, at the persuasion of sin, one turns aside from the law, and the movements of natural desire are stirred toward what is unlawful, he lives to sin who in each of these obeys not the law of God but the persuasions of sin. If, then, someone, admonished by the death of Christ, who died for the ungodly, repents in all these things, and drives out of his flesh, as the worst of kings, the one reigning there, and makes himself a stranger to his desires and precepts, this man is truly said to have died to sin through the death of Christ. And here I think the author of sin is himself named “sin.” If, then, someone dies to sin, it is certain that he dies through repentance. How, then, will anyone remain in sin so that grace may abound, when grace abounds from this, that someone dies to sin? For if we remain in sin, as is proposed, it is certain that we are not dying to sin but living to it; and in those who live to sin grace cannot abound.

It is asked, indeed, whether grace superabounds only in men in whom sin once abounded, and whether grace superabounds in no one except one in whom sin has abounded; or whether grace can superabound also in some in whom sin has never abounded or existed. And if anyone looks at what the Apostle says, that Christ made peace through his blood not only for the things on earth but also for those in heaven, and at that saying, “that apart from God he might taste death for all,” he will think that there too there was similarly some abundance of sin, so that there might nonetheless be a superabundance of grace. But if you attend to what the reading above mentioned, where sin is said to have entered into this world through one man, and through sin death, and so to have passed through to all, you will say that the things now in hand also proceed from that beginning, so that the Apostle seems to treat only of those things which he set out at the beginning, that is, those which concern men alone.

It must be observed, indeed, how weighed a word the Apostle used in saying, “Shall we remain in sin?” For to remain is not to cease from what has been begun. If anyone does this, it is certain that he has not even received the beginning of conversion. But this sometimes happens: someone does not indeed remain in sin, but when he has ceased, returns again to his vomit and becomes most unhappy, so that after he has driven from himself the kingdom of sin and death and received the kingdom of life and righteousness, he again subjects himself to the dominion of sin and death. And these are what the Apostle calls shipwrecks of faith. Nevertheless, although someone remains in sin, although he continues under the kingdom and power of death, I do not think this kingdom of death is eternal as that of life and righteousness is; especially since … [the scan has lost text here] … And indeed, if the same eternity is supposed for death as for life, death will no longer be the contrary of life but its equal. For the eternal will not be contrary to the eternal, but the same. But now it is certain that death is the contrary of life; it is certain, then, that if life is eternal, death cannot be eternal. Hence the resurrection of the dead also holds a necessary place. For when the death of the soul, which is the last enemy, has been destroyed, this common death too, which we said is the shadow of that one, is necessarily abolished; and then in consequence place will be given to the resurrection of the dead, when the kingdom of death has been destroyed together with death.

But let us not wait for the time when this last enemy is destroyed, we who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come; but let us remain in grace, and not wait to be renewed again to repentance after a fall, crucifying again for ourselves the Son of God and holding him up to contempt; but let the kingdom of righteousness become in us an eternal kingdom; and let us not flee again into the kingdom of death, from which we have been freed and have come to the kingdom of eternal life, so that grace may reign in us through righteousness in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What he said, then, “We have died to sin,” is what he says elsewhere, that we have been made conformable to the death of Christ, who died to sin once. And when he says “once,” he signifies “wholly.” For Christ died to sin wholly, “who did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.”

“Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized in his death? For we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that, as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.” Observe more carefully the order and sequence of the words. For he compares the death which is through Adam with the life which is through Christ; and he said, “Not as the trespass, so also the gift”; and again after this he says that the law came in by stealth so that sin might abound, but that where sin abounded grace superabounded; and by this he resolves what seemed to be contradictory, and says: “For we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?” Now, then, wishing to show by the facts themselves what it is to be dead to sin, he says: “Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized in his death? For we were buried with him through baptism into death”; teaching by this that if someone has first died to sin, he has necessarily been buried with Christ in baptism; but if someone does not die to sin beforehand, he cannot be buried with Christ. For no one is ever buried alive. And if he is not buried with Christ, he is not lawfully baptized.

But about the meaning of baptism we spoke, according to our strength, what could occur to us, or rather what the Lord granted, when we were expounding the Gospel according to John, when we came to the place where John says of Jesus, “He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit,” and again where the Savior himself says, “Unless someone is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”; where we also tried to open more deeply the force of the word in which it is said, “Unless someone is born again.” For what we Latins have as “again” (denuo), the Greeks say anōthen, a word which signifies both “again” and “from above.” In this place, then, since he who is baptized by Jesus is baptized in the Holy Spirit, it is not said “again” in such a way that it should not rather be understood “from above.” For we say “again” when the same things that have been done are repeated; but here the same birth is not repeated or done over, but, this earthly one having been left behind, a new birth is received from above. And therefore we should more rightly read in the Gospel: “Unless someone has been born from above, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”; for this is to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. To this reasoning, so as to confirm that baptism is from above, the waters too which are above the heavens and praise the name of the Lord are not unfittingly joined to the Holy Spirit. And although, according to the type handed down to the churches, we have all been baptized in these visible waters and with visible chrism, yet he who has died to sin and is truly baptized in the death of Christ and is buried with him through baptism into death, he is truly baptized in the Holy Spirit and with the water from above.

And look still more carefully at the sequence of the mystical order. You must first die to sin so that you may be buried with Christ. For burial is owed to the dead. For if you still live to sin, you cannot be buried with Christ nor laid in his new tomb, because your old man lives and cannot walk in newness of life. For this reason it was the Holy Spirit’s care to hand down through the Scriptures both that the tomb in which Jesus was buried was new and that he was wrapped in a clean linen cloth, so that everyone who wishes to be buried with Christ through baptism may know that nothing of oldness is to be brought to the new tomb, nothing of uncleanness to the clean linen. This, then, is the blessed death of which the Apostle says that we always carry about the death of Jesus Christ in our body; and again: “I die daily.” And when he says, “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or this world or life or death,” he counts in this death by which we die to sin and are buried with Christ.

But someone may ask in these places why the Apostle, speaking of our baptism and of Jesus, said, “We were buried with him through baptism into death”; and again elsewhere: “If we die with him, we shall also live with him”; and again: “If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him”; and nowhere said, “We were baptized with Christ,” although, as death is compared with death and life with life, so it would seem that baptism ought to be compared with baptism. But see how much caution there is in the letters of the Apostle; for he says: “All of us who were baptized in Christ Jesus.” He says, then, that our baptism is in Christ Jesus. But Christ himself is related to have been baptized by John, not with the baptism that is in Christ, but with that which is in the law. For so he himself says to John: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” In this he shows that the baptism of John was a fulfilment of the old things, not a beginning of the new. Indeed, it is related in the Acts of the Apostles that some disciples who had been baptized with the baptism of John were rebaptized, by the judgment of the apostles, in the name of the Lord Jesus. “All of us, then, who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized in his death.”

You may perhaps ask this too: since the Lord himself told the disciples to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, why has the Apostle here taken the name of Christ alone in baptism, saying, “All of us who were baptized in Christ,” when certainly baptism is not held lawful unless under the name of the Trinity? But see the prudence of Paul: since in the present place he wished to discuss not so much the meaning of baptism as the death of Christ, … [the scan has lost text here] … name the Father or the Holy Spirit. For “the Word became flesh,” and rightly, where there is flesh, there death is treated. Nor was it fitting for him to say: “All of us who were baptized in the name of the Father, or in the name of the Holy Spirit, were baptized in his death.” Hence from this place the Apostle’s custom in the other places too must be observed, that when he takes something from the Scriptures he does not always take the whole text of the words as it stands in its place, but only as much as the present matter requires; as also in the present saying, since he wished to teach about the death of Christ, it sufficed him to say: “All of us who were baptized in Christ were baptized in his death.”

And it seems to me that the Apostle did not idly set at the head of this passage what he says, “Or do you not know?” By this he shows that then, that is, in the times of the apostles, it was not, as we now see done, only the type of the mysteries that was handed on to those who were baptized, but their power and meaning; and as to people who knew and had been taught that those who are baptized are baptized in the death of Christ and buried with him through baptism into death; and that, as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so those who have been baptized ought to walk in newness of life. This the Apostle writes.

Perhaps this too may still be asked in the present passage: if we have died to sin and been buried with Christ and have risen with him, it will seem necessary to show according to this pattern how we too have been buried with him three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And see whether we can make three days buried with Christ, when we receive the full knowledge of the Trinity: for the Father is light, and in the light, who is the Son, we see the light, the Holy Spirit. And we make three nights too, when we destroy the father of darkness and ignorance together with the lie which is born of him, for he “is a liar, as also his father,” and “when he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own”; and in the third place we destroy the spirit of error, which inspires false prophets to say, “Thus says the Lord,” whom the Lord has not sent. These we destroy and trample, if we have been buried with Christ, according also to what he himself says: “Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all …” [the scan has lost text here] … to the truth. These things meanwhile have been able to occur to us in the present place. But if anyone has thought of something better, let him not be reluctant to set these aside and receive that.

Yet this is what is gathered from these words of the Apostle by a deeper understanding: that, as no living man can be buried with the dead, so no one who still lives to sin can be buried in baptism with Christ, who died to sin; and therefore those who hasten to baptism ought first to take care to die to sin beforehand, and so they may be buried with Christ through baptism, and say themselves: “Always carrying about the death of Jesus Christ in our body, so that the life of Jesus Christ too may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” And how the life of Jesus Christ is manifested in the body Paul himself shows when he says: “I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” This is the same as what the apostle John writes in his letter, when he says: “Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ come in the flesh is from God.” In this, certainly, it is not he who has pronounced these syllables and uttered them in the common confession who will be seen to be led by the Spirit of God, but he who has so shaped his life and so borne the fruits of works that he has shown, by the very devotion of his works and thoughts, that Christ has come in the flesh, and has died to sin and lives to God.

Now that we have opened, according to our strength, what it is to be buried with Christ, let us see also what he says: “so that, as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.” If we have been buried with Christ according to what we said above, that is, according to our having died to sin, then certainly, as Christ rises from the dead, we too shall rise together with him; and as he ascends to the heavens, we shall ascend together with him; and as he sits at the right hand of the Father, we shall be said to sit together with him in the heavenly places, according to what the same Apostle says elsewhere, that he raised us together with Christ and made us sit together in the heavenly places. Christ rose through the glory of the Father; and we, if we have died … [the scan has lost text here] … and put on the new, who has been created according to God, and who is being renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him.

For do not think that a renewal of life which is said to have been made once is sufficient; but always, and daily, if one may say so, the newness itself must be renewed. For so the Apostle says: “For even if our outer man is being corrupted, yet the inner is being renewed from day to day.” For as the old man is always growing old and is made older from day to day, so this new man too is always being renewed, and there is never a time when his renewal does not increase. Look, indeed, at those who make progress in faith and daily shine forth in virtues: how they always add better things to good works and acquire more honorable things to honorable acts; how they grow rich in understanding, knowledge, and wisdom; and things that before seemed less plain to understand they afterward see open and clear. And see whether you would not say, from the facts themselves, that such a man is renewed daily; just as, on the contrary, as we said, if someone begins to be made old, he will advance to the worse and will daily be found older and worse than himself. Let us walk, then, in newness of life, showing ourselves to him who raised us with Christ daily new and, so to speak, more beautiful, gathering the beauty of our face in Christ as in a mirror, and, beholding the glory of the Lord in him, being transformed into the same image; because Christ, rising from the dead, from earthly lowliness to the glory of the Father … [the scan has lost text here] …

“Let us walk in newness of life”: see whether perhaps it shows that mystery, that so long as someone is making progress he is said to walk. Yet it must not be thought that he is said to walk without end, but that those who walk in this progress come at some time to that place where one must stand. So, indeed, Jesus Christ appeared standing at the right hand of power to the first martyr Stephen, who had already come to the degree of perfection; and to Moses, who also after much progress had come to perfection, the Lord says: “But you, stand here with me.” And Paul, when he knew the consummation of perfection in himself, says: “I have finished the course.” But to those who thought themselves perfect, and yet were not, he says: “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” But to the imperfect and those still at the beginning it is said that they should walk after the Lord their God; and of others it is said: “I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way.”

“For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified together with him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed, that we should no longer serve sin. For he who has died has been justified from sin.” All these things look back to that question, so that he may not seem to have given room for sinning when he said: “But where sin abounded, grace superabounded.” For this reason he both says that we are dead to sin, and says that all of us who were baptized in Christ were baptized in his death; and now he writes that we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, adding that if we bear the likeness of his death, by which he died to sin, we ought also to hope for the likeness of his resurrection. But how far this can come about he shows, saying that our old man ought to be crucified together with Christ. And our old man is to be understood as the former life which we led in sins, of which we make an end and a kind of destruction when we receive into ourselves the faith of the cross of Christ, through which the body of sin is so destroyed that our members, which served sin, no longer serve it, but God.

But now, taking up the words again, let us see what it is to be planted together in the likeness of the death of Christ. In this he shows the death of Christ as the plant of some tree, in which he wishes us to be planted together, so that our root too, taking from the sap of its root, may put forth branches of righteousness and bear fruits of life. And if you wish to learn from the Scriptures what this plant is in which we ought to be planted together, and of what kind of tree, hear what is written of Wisdom: “She is a tree of life,” it says, “to all who hope in her, and to those who trust in her as in the Lord.” Christ, then, the power of God and the wisdom of God, is himself the tree of life in which we must be planted together; and by a new and lovely gift of God his death is made for us a tree of life.

And the Apostle did well, knowing that in the present place he was treating not of this common death but of the death of sin, not to say, “For if we have been planted together in his death,” but … [the scan has lost text here] … “if his life has been one day.” That very death, then, by which Jesus died to sin, so that he did no sin at all, we cannot die, so as to know no sin at all; yet we can have the likeness, so that, imitating him and following his footsteps, we may abstain from sin. This, then, is what human nature can receive: to come to be in the likeness of his death, when by imitating him it does not sin. For to know no sin entirely and wholly belongs to Christ alone.

But certain of the heretics, not understanding this, have tried to assert from this place of the Apostle that Christ did not truly die, but had a likeness of death, and seemed to die rather than truly died. Since it is very easy to answer them, I do not think it necessary to bring the weight of testimonies from the other sayings of the Apostle or of the Gospels, where death simply, and not a likeness of death, is written, since we can say to them: If it was a likeness of death and not a true one, the resurrection too was a likeness and not a true resurrection; and so we too shall seem to rise and shall not truly rise; and we shall seem to die to sin, and shall not truly die. And so everything that has been done and is being done has seemed to be done, but has not been done. It follows, then, that in our having been saved we seem to have been saved, but have not truly been saved. Since these things are so absurd that they need no proofs, let us turn to the explanation of what follows.

He wishes us, then, to be planted together in the likeness of his death, by which he died to sin once, so that we may also be planted together in his resurrection. For “planted together” must be understood with both. And see how necessarily he has taken up the figure of planting. For every plant, after the death of winter, awaits the resurrection of spring. If, then, we too have been planted together in the death of Christ in the winter of this age and of the present life, we shall also be found in the spring to come bearing fruits of righteousness from his root; and if we have been planted together with him, it is necessary that the Father, the husbandman, should prune us as branches of the true vine, so that we may bear much fruit; as he himself says in the Gospels: “I am the true vine, you are the branches, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch that does not abide in me, my Father cuts off. But whoever abides in me, he will prune, that he may bear much fruit.” In this way, then, we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, so that we may also be planted together in the likeness of his resurrection.

And what it is to be planted together in the likeness of his resurrection … [the scan has lost text here] … teaches: “Little children, we do not yet know what we shall be. But if he is revealed to us, we shall be like him.” And again the Savior himself says: “Father, I will that where I am, these too may be with me”; and again: “As I am in you and you in me, that they too may be one in us.” This he certainly says of those who in the present life have been planted together in the likeness of his death. And I think this can be said gratefully of that thief too who hung on the cross together with Jesus: through his confession, in which he said, “Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom,” and his rebuke of the other who blasphemed, he was seen by these things to be planted together in the likeness of his death; and he was planted together in his resurrection by what was said to him: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” For worthy of paradise was the plant that was joined to the tree of life.

Because, then, the Apostle had said “planted together in the likeness of the death of Christ,” he repeats it again with another figure and says: “that our old man was crucified together with him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed.” We have already said in many places and often what it is to be crucified together with Christ, and we have often treated of the old man; so in the present place we say briefly that the old man is he who lived according to Adam, liable to transgression and sin, over whom the death of sin ruled, and of whom he who had the power of death held the bonds of sin; and since Christ blotted these out with his blood and fastened them to his cross, we too ought to be crucified according to the old man, who was liable to sin, “so that the body of sin may be destroyed and we may no longer serve sin.” And I think it must be observed that where the Apostle says the body is to be destroyed he adds “of sin”; but where he does not say it is to be destroyed, he does not speak of the body of sin but says it is we ourselves who are not to serve sin; to show that, if the body of sin has been destroyed, we no longer serve sin, which, namely, we served so long as it was not destroyed in us, and our members which are upon the earth had not been put to death.

But we must go over still more carefully how he said “the body of sin.” In this a double … [the scan has lost text here] … can be put; we shall set out what seems right to us about both. For if we suppose that sin has its own body, it will seem that, just as it is said of those who have been restored in the new man, “You are the body of Christ and members in part,” so it can be said of those who have not yet crucified the old man that they are the body and members of sin, of which body the devil is the head, as Christ is the head of the body of the Church, which has no spot or wrinkle. And the members of which this body of sin consists may be seen to be those which the Apostle enumerated above as members that are upon the earth, that is, sexual immorality, uncleanness, shamelessness, greed, strifes, anger, deceits, quarrels, dissensions, heresies, envy, revelings, and things like these; from all of which members the body of sin may fitly be said to consist, and this body to be called the old man. If someone destroys this through the cross of Christ and is changed into the new man, who has been created according to God, he will no longer be said to serve sin, which without doubt he serves so long as he is subject to any of these which we set out above as members of sin.

But if the Apostle is rather understood to have called this body of ours the body of sin, it will certainly be taken in that understanding in which David too says of himself that “I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother conceived me.” And the Apostle himself says elsewhere: “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?”; and again he names our body the body of lowliness. And of the Savior he says in a certain place that he came “in the likeness of the flesh of sin,” so that “concerning sin” he might “condemn sin in the flesh.” In this he shows that our flesh is indeed flesh of sin, but the flesh of Christ is like the flesh of sin. For it was not conceived from the seed of a man, but the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her, so that what was born of her should be called Son of the Most High. So, then, Paul, through the ineffable wisdom of God which was given him, seeing some secret and hidden thing, I know not what, calls our body “the body of sin,” and “the body of death,” and “the body of lowliness.” And David too, knowing the heavenly secrets by the same Spirit, said of the body: “And you have brought me down into the dust of death”; and again: “Our soul has been humbled in the dust.” Jeremiah also, aware of a like mystery through the Spirit of God, says in his Lamentations that all men are prisoners of the earth, namely because of the body; and he says: “To humble under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, because they have turned aside the judgment of a man in the sight of the Most High, and have condemned a man in judging.”

Our body, then, is the body of sin; for neither is Adam written to have known Eve his wife and begotten Cain except after the sin. Indeed in the law too it is commanded that for a little child who has been born a sacrifice be offered, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, of which one is for sin and the other for a burnt offering. For what sin is this one young pigeon offered? Could a newborn little one already sin? And yet it has a sin for which a sacrifice is commanded to be offered, from which it is denied that anyone is clean, even if his life has been one day. Of this, then, David too must be believed to have said what we mentioned above, that “in sins my mother conceived me.” For according to the history no sin of his mother is declared. For this reason the Church also received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to little children. For those to whom the secrets of the divine mysteries were entrusted knew that there were in all genuine stains of sin, which ought to be washed away through water and the Spirit; on account of which the body itself too is named the body of sin; not (as some of those think who bring in the transmigration of souls into various bodies) for things which the soul committed when placed in another body, but for this very reason, that it was brought forth in the body of sin and the body of death and lowliness; and as he said: “You have humbled our soul in the dust.” These things meanwhile have been able to occur to us for the present about the body of sin. But which of the two expositions agrees with the apostolic sense, or whether neither, let the reader test.

But as to the Apostle’s saying elsewhere that we have already risen together with Christ and been raised together, and sit together in the heavenly places, while here he says, “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be of the resurrection”: that is, what elsewhere he said was already done, here he now says is to come and to be hoped for. The reason is that the resurrection is understood to be twofold: one, by which in mind and purpose and faith we rise with Christ from earthly things, so that we think of heavenly things and seek the things to come; the other, which will be the general resurrection of all in the flesh. The resurrection, then, which is according to the mind, from faith, is seen to be already fulfilled in those who mind the things above, where Christ is at the right hand of God; but that general resurrection of the flesh, which belongs to all, is still to come; for the one will be fulfilled at the first, the other at the second coming of the Lord.

“But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, rising from the dead, dies no more; death will no longer have dominion over him. For in that he died to sin, he died once; but in that he lives, he lives to God.” In all that the Apostle said above, he wished to show this: that if Christ first died to sin, we too have died to sin with him. And when he says, “We were baptized in his death,” and, “We have been planted together in the likeness of his death,” by all these he shows that we have died to sin with Christ, because Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and from his own death he has given to each believer the death of sin, as a kind of gift of faith; namely, to those who believe that they have died with him and been crucified and buried with him; and through this, sin cannot work in them, as in the dead, and so they are said to be dead to sin. For this reason, then, in the present words the Apostle makes a conclusion of all that he had established above, and says: “But if we have died with Christ,” namely through the things which we have shown above, “we believe that we shall also live with him.” He did not say, “and we have lived with him,” as he said, “we have died,” but “we shall live with him,” to show that death works in the present, but life in the future; namely then, when Christ shall appear, who is our life hidden in God. Now, then, as Paul himself teaches, death works in us.

But this very death which works in us seems to me to have certain differences. For as in Christ there was one time of death, of which it is said, “And crying out with a loud voice he breathed his last”; and another when he lay placed in the tomb with the door shut; and another when he was sought in the tomb and was not found, because he had already risen, and the beginning of his resurrection was visible to no man: so also in us who believe in him this threefold account of death must be held. First, the death of Christ must be shown in us by the confession of the voice, since “with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Secondly, in the putting to death of our members which are upon the earth, when we now always carry about the putting to death of Christ in our body; and this is what he says, that death works in us. Thirdly, when we now rise from the dead and walk in newness of life. And to explain it more briefly and clearly: the first day of death is to have renounced the world; the second, to have renounced also the vices of the flesh; but the fullness of perfection in the light of wisdom is the third day, that of the resurrection. Yet these differences in each believer, and the degrees of progress, he alone can know and discern to whom alone the secrets of the heart are open.

But see Paul’s wisdom in writing. Writing to Timothy he said that “if we die with him, we shall also live with him”; and he who there joined, as consequent and necessary, that those who die with Christ live with him, here added “we believe,” to show that, although it is consequent and necessary that one who dies with him lives with him, nevertheless this is accomplished by means of faith and belief; “being sure,” he says, “and knowing that Christ, rising from the dead, dies no more.” For if he were to die again, just as we showed it to be consequent and necessary that those who die with him also live with him, so without doubt it would seem to follow that, if after the resurrection and life he were to die again, those too who live with him would die again with him as he died. For this reason, then, the Apostle lays down in an absolute sentence that Christ dies no more, so that those who live with him may be secure of the eternity of life.

After this (to use the very words of the Apostle, in which he says, “But Isaiah is bold and says”), I too say: But Paul is bold and says, “Death will no longer have dominion over him.” Did you dare, O Paul, to say this of Christ, “Death will no longer have dominion over him,” as though it once had dominion? He whose voice in the Gospel is carried through the whole body of the Church, clearer than light, in which he says: “No one takes my soul from me, but I lay it down; and I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” Do you say that death had dominion over him who not only laid down his soul by his will, but took it up again by his power? Who alone was free among the dead, and whom alone death could not hold? These things, I suppose, and things like them, will be urged against Paul by those who are held by a tender affection toward Jesus and cannot bear to hear anything lowly, anything unworthy, said of him. But we too … [the scan has lost text here] … who could surpass him in love of Christ; whence he must not be thought to have spoken anything of him other than is worthy of him. And therefore let us search more subtly, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, the word of wisdom by which we may perceive the sense of Paul, or rather the sense of Christ that is in him, according to what he himself professes: “But we have the mind of Christ.”

Someone, then, may say more briefly in these words that here he speaks of this common and intermediate death, by which he died, as the same Apostle says, “according to the Scriptures”; and it will seem nothing absurd if he who had taken the form of a servant endured the dominion of death, which without doubt has dominion over all who, placed in the flesh, are counted under the form of a servant. And this too would help this assertion: that this form of a servant, that is, our very flesh, is sown in corruption so that it may rise in incorruption, and is sown in weakness so that it may rise in power, and is sown in dishonor so that it may rise in glory, and is sown a natural body so that it may rise a spiritual body, without doubt so that death may no longer have dominion over it, which had dominion over it while it was in weakness and dishonor and corruption. For of such flesh as is still in these vices of the passions Paul himself says: “That flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God, nor will corruption possess incorruption.” And what the same Apostle elsewhere named “the body of death,” he who maintains this says is to be understood of this intermediate death, which has dominion over a body of this kind until … [the scan has lost text here] … is said to be the enemy to be destroyed, and sometimes, too, he will confirm that the place of hell, in which the devil is said to have the power of death, is named by the Apostle. And here, then, he will confirm that what he says, “Death will no longer have dominion over him,” is said of that death by which Christ is believed to have died in common with all. How sound this assertion is, let the reader test.

But another, who beholds in the power of the Spirit the deeper sense of Paul in these words, will say that the death here, of which it is said that it will no longer have dominion over Christ, is to be understood as that very last enemy which bore the figure of that sea monster that swallowed Jonah, of which it is written in Job: “But let him curse it who cursed that day, he who is about to slay the great sea monster.” Into this death Christ entered as Jonah into the belly of the sea monster, namely into that place which the Savior himself named the heart of the earth, in which he says the Son of Man would spend three days and three nights after the example of Jonah, so as to deliver those who were held there by death. For this reason he had taken the form of a servant, so that he could enter that very place where death held its kingdom; according to what the prophet too says in his person: “And I was counted with those who go down into the pit”; and again: “What profit is there in my blood, while I go down into corruption?”

So that this may be grasped still more plainly, we shall use again a comparison of this kind. Let us suppose a just and noble king, wishing to wage war against some unjust tyrant in such a way that he may not seem to have won by a violent and bloody conflict, because those serving under the tyrant were his own, whom he wished not to destroy but to free. By a better counsel, therefore, he takes the dress of those who were with the tyrant and becomes like them in appearance in all things, until, placed under the dominion of the tyrant, he might persuade those who obeyed him to depart and return to the lawful kingdom, and at a fitting time might bind the strong one himself and strip him of his powers and principalities, and draw away the captivity which was held by him, torn from him. In this way, then, Christ too then emptied himself by his will and took the form of a servant, and endured the dominion of the tyrant, having become obedient unto death; through which death he destroyed him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, so as to free those who were held by death. For having bound the strong one and triumphed over him on his cross, he went on also into his house, into the house of death, into hell, and from there plundered his goods, that is, drew out the souls which he held. And this is what he himself spoke in riddles in the Gospel, saying: “Who can enter the house of the strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man?” First, then, he bound him on the cross, and so entered his house, that is, hell, and from there, ascending on high, led captivity captive, namely those who rose with him and entered the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem. Hence the Apostle rightly says in the present place that death will no longer have dominion over him. For he will no longer give himself into the dominion of the tyrant, nor will he again empty himself to take the form of a servant and become obedient unto death; lest again, placed in the form of a servant, though by will and not by necessity, he should nevertheless endure the dominion of the tyrant and of death.

Hence I wonder that some wish to maintain, against this most evident sentence of Paul, that in the ages to come Christ must again suffer the same or similar things, so that those too may be freed whom the medicine of his dispensation could not heal in the present life. For they say: “Can there be some age in the future in which nothing either good or evil is done, but things stand still and deep silences remain?” This, they maintain, seems absurd. “We shall grant, then, that something is done. And where something is done,” they say, “it is necessary that some things be done rightly and some less rightly, and that in the very doing some make progress and become better, others worse. For freedom of choice will always remain to the rational nature; and just as it was possible for him too who, for the splendor of his glory, was Lucifer, and because of the light of knowledge rose in the morning, to be changed from his glory and become darkness because of the wickedness he received; and for him who was spotless from his birth and dwelt with … [the scan has lost text here] … it may be that, in whatever state the soul is, and in whatever perfection of virtues, since virtue is changeable, it may incur a fall, so that, as it is turned from vices to virtue, so also it may be turned from virtues to vices. And if this is so, it will seem to follow that a physician is needed where there is sickness, because, according to the voice of the Savior himself, there is need of a physician for those who are ill.” Putting forward these and similar things, then, they think that the same dispensations are to be repeated by Christ in the ages to come too.

But to this we shall answer briefly, as we can. We do not deny that free choice always remains to the rational nature; but we assert that so great is the power of the cross of Christ, and of this death which he undertook at the end of the ages, that it suffices for the healing and remedy not only of the present and the future, but also of past ages, and not only for this human order of ours, but also for the heavenly powers and orders. For according to the sentence of the apostle Paul himself, Christ made peace through the blood of his cross not only for the things that are on earth, but also for those that are in heaven. And what it is that will hold the freedom of choice in the ages to come, so that it does not fall again into sin, the Apostle teaches us in a brief word, saying: “Love never falls.” For this reason love is said to be greater than both faith and hope, because it alone will be that through which one can no longer sin. For if the soul has ascended to such perfection that it loves God with its whole heart and its whole soul and its whole strength, and its neighbor as itself, where will there be a place for sin? For this reason, indeed, in the law too this is said to be the first commandment, and in the Gospels love is commanded above all else; and when the chief charge of feeding the sheep was handed to Peter, and the Church was founded upon him as upon the earth, the confession of no other virtue than love … [the scan has lost text here] … “that neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, nor angels, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” From all of which it is plainly shown that, if all these things which the Apostle enumerated cannot separate us from the love of God, when someone has ascended to that summit of perfection, much less will freedom of choice be able to separate us from his love. For although this too is a power and remains in our nature, yet so great is the force of love that it draws all things to itself and associates and claims all powers to itself; especially since God first gave us the causes of love, “who did not spare his only Son, but handed him over for us all,” and with him has given us all things. Hence, whether it be he who was Lucifer and rose in heaven, or he who was spotless from his birth and, placed with the cherubim, could fall before he was bound by the bonds of love toward the benefits of the Son of God, yet after the love of God has begun to be poured out in the hearts of all through the Holy Spirit, what the Apostle pronounced will be certain, that love will never fall.

These things we have said, as we could, about the questions stirred in this place, so that it might become more clearly evident how Christ died to sin once and dies no more, and that in that he lives, he lives to God. And to live to God is to be understood thus: as though, having fulfilled that work in which, being in the form of God, he emptied himself and took the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, he remains again in the form of God and equal to the Father. Hence he rightly sets down in what follows: “So also you, consider yourselves dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord”; that is, that by imitation of Christ we may die to sin, made strangers to it, and live to God, joining ourselves to him and made one spirit with him. And not without reason did he say, “Consider yourselves dead to sin,” which is better in the Greek: “Think yourselves to be dead to sin.” For the matter spoken of consists rather in thought and reason, because a death of this kind is to be held not in effect but in thought. For he who thinks or considers within himself that he is dead does not sin. For example: if desire for a woman draws me, if the lust of silver, of gold, of an estate knocks at me, and I set in my heart that I have died with Christ, and think of death, at once the desire is quenched and sin is put to flight. Or if, inflamed with hatred or anger, I am roused to the slaughter of my enemy, if I consider myself dead with Christ and set thoughts of death in my mind, without doubt the fury is quenched, the hatred ceases, the anger subsides, no place is given to sin; and in this way one is found to die to sin and live to God. And this too which he added, “alive to God in Christ Jesus,” does not seem to me idle. For I think it is as though he had said: alive to God in wisdom, in peace, in righteousness, in sanctification, all of which Christ is. To live to God in these, then, is to live to God in Christ Jesus. And if without righteousness, without peace, without sanctification and the other virtues no one lives to God, it is certain that no one lives to God except in Christ Jesus. Amen.

“Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires; nor present your members as weapons of iniquity to sin; but present yourselves to God as living from the dead, and your members as weapons of righteousness to God. For sin will not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law, but under grace.” Above he says, “As sin reigned in death.” But now he did not say, “Therefore let not sin reign in death,” but he says, “Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires”; teaching by this that sin has a kind of seat and kingdom in the body. This is what he said elsewhere too: “The prudence of the flesh is hostile to God”; and again: “The prudence of the flesh is death.” And the Apostle declares all sins to be works of the flesh, which he says are sexual immorality, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, shamelessness, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, strifes, jealousy, fury, contentions, dissensions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, revelings, and things like these. And if you ask how heresies too are numbered among the works of the flesh, you will find that they proceed from the mind of the flesh. For so the Apostle says of a certain man: “Vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh, and not holding the head.” We have said these things so that it might become more clearly understood how … [the scan has lost text here] … “the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are opposed to each other.”

Yet notice this: showing that it is placed in our power that sin should not reign in our mortal body, the Apostle gives a precept, saying: “Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.” For unless it were in our power that sin should not reign in us, he certainly would not have given a precept. How, then, is it possible that sin should not reign in our flesh? If we do what the same Apostle says, “Put to death your members which are upon the earth,” and if we always … [the scan has lost text here] … For it is certain that where the death of Christ is carried about, sin cannot reign. For so great is the power of the cross of Christ that, if it is set before the eyes and faithfully held in the mind, so that the eye of the mind looks intently on the very death of Christ, no desire, no lust, no fury, no envy can overcome; but at its presence that whole army of sin and the flesh which we enumerated above is at once put to flight; and sin itself does not even subsist, since its substance is nowhere except in works and deeds.

There is in us, then, both the desire of sin, which has its kingdom in the flesh, and the desire of the spirit, which has its kingdom in the mind, according to what we said above, that the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. When, then, we desire what is not lawful, or what is not fitting, or what is not expedient, it is the desire of the flesh. But when our soul desires and faints to see the salvation of God, this desire is of the spirit. Hence it appears that the soul is in a way in the middle between flesh and spirit; and if it joins itself to the flesh to obey the desires of sin, it is made one body with it; but if it joins itself to God, it is made one spirit with him; according to what was said: “For he who joins himself to a prostitute is one body; but he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit.” And do not wonder if he calls the flesh a prostitute, which lies subject to all those vices and sins which we enumerated above as to the foulest of lovers.

But I ask why he added “in your mortal body,” when it would certainly have sufficed to say, “Therefore let not sin reign in your body.” Why did he add “mortal,” as if anyone doubted that the body is mortal? But it seems to me that he did not add this without cause either. For by it he reminded us how sin can not reign in the body, according to what he himself had said elsewhere: “The body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” If, then, we know that our body can be put to death and be dead to sin, it may come about that sin does not reign in it. For according to this, that it is dead, it is said to be justified from sin. For a dead man does not desire, or grow angry, or rage, or plunder the goods of others. If, then, we restrain the body from all these desires, the body is said to be dead to sin. And this is what this addition of the Apostle, saying “in your mortal body,” seems to urge in the present place. Another will perhaps say that it is to distinguish it from another body which is im… [the scan has lost text here] … to sin; but present yourselves to God as living from the dead, and your members rather as weapons of righteousness to God.”

Look at the wisdom of Paul in each point, how he uses necessary distinctions. Where he says weapons are not to be offered to sin or iniquity, he sets down not ourselves but our members; but where he urges us to present ourselves to God, he wishes not our members but ourselves first to be presented to God, that is, our soul or our purpose; so that, when we have first presented ourselves to God and cleaved to him, so at last we may make our members too weapons of righteousness to God. For as hands are called holy which have served holy works, as the Apostle says, “lifting up pure hands without anger and disputing”; and again hands are called full of blood which have served the shedding of blood: so also in the present place the members which serve sin and iniquity are called weapons of iniquity; and again, if we put to death the desire of sin in our mortal body and labor in the work of righteousness and serve righteousness with all our members, we are made as living from the dead, namely dead to sin and living to righteousness; and consequently our members too become weapons of righteousness to God. And he has well kept the metaphor proposed above, so that, since he had said that sin reigns, he named the members weapons of sin, and again our members become weapons of righteousness to God the king.

After this follows: “For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under the law, but under grace.” Here too look at the wonderful caution in the Apostle’s words. When he speaks of us, he says, “Sin will not have dominion over you”; when he was speaking of the Savior, he did not say, “Sin will not have dominion” (for it was not fitting to say so of him), but he says: “Death will no longer have dominion over him.” For in him there was place for death, none for sin. But on the contrary, it was not fitting to say of us, “Death will not have dominion over you,” for this we cannot avoid; but, “Sin will not have dominion over you,” which without doubt he knew we can avoid, according to what we said above, if we put to death the desires of the flesh, in which sin could have dominion. For this reason he adds: “For you are not under the law, but under grace”; and he plainly shows by this that we are not under that law which he says is set in the members and fights against the law of the mind; because it is certain that he who puts his members to death is not under the law of the members but under the grace of God. Of this law he says elsewhere too that “the power of sin is the law.” But if anyone wishes to take these words of the law of Moses, he will without doubt say this: that we are not under the law of the letter, which kills, but under the law of the spirit, which gives life, which here he named grace.

“What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law but under grace? Far from it.” This seems like that saying which we expounded above: “What then shall we say? Shall we remain in sin that grace may abound? Far from it”; and therefore one and the same explanation may suffice for both places. This alone seems to make a difference: that above, where he says, “What then? Shall we remain in sin?”, it seems to be said as to those who have not yet departed from sin, that they should not remain in that in which they still seemed to be; but here the question seems to be put as by those who have already departed from sin; and there it was “that grace,” as though not yet present, “might abound”; but here he speaks as though grace were already present, saying that “we are not under the law but under grace.”

“Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are servants of the one whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness? But thanks be to God that you were servants of sin, but you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over. And being freed from sin, you became servants of righteousness.” The wording may perhaps seem less complete where he says, “You are servants of the one whom you obeyed, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness,” since reason would have required it to be said: “You are servants of the one whom you obeyed, whether of sin or of righteousness, through obedience.” But in one who freely professes himself unskilled in speech, I think it superfluous to look for the art of arranging words, when the sense is plain.

This, then, is what the Apostle teaches in this place: that each one has it in his own hand and in the power of his choice to be the servant either of sin or of righteousness. For to whichever side he inclines his obedience, and whichever side he is willing to obey, that side claims him as its servant. In this, as I said, he shows without any hesitation that freedom of choice is in us. For it is in us to offer our obedience either to righteousness or to sin. But no one “can serve two masters at once,” sin and righteousness. “For either he will hate the one,” namely sin, “and love the other,” that is, righteousness; or he will endure the one, namely sin, and despise the other, that is, righteousness. Like this, then, is what the Apostle said: “You are servants of the one whom you obeyed, whether of sin or of righteousness.” And what is said, “Everyone who commits sin is a servant of sin,” looks to this, although he did not add, “And everyone who does righteousness is a servant of righteousness.” Someone else will perhaps think it was left out so that it should be understood, as it were, from what follows. But to me it seems deliberately not added. For it was not fitting to say that everyone who does righteousness is a servant of righteousness. For God himself also does righteousness, and he cannot on that account be called a servant of righteousness, but the Lord of righteousness. Not everyone, then, who does righteousness is a servant of righteousness in the way that everyone who commits sin is a servant of sin. For the devil himself is without doubt a servant of sin, since he departed from the service of righteousness and rebelled in the sight of the almighty Lord, for which he was also called an apostate.

It is established, then, from these words in which Paul says, “that to whom you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are servants of the one whom you obeyed, whether of sin or of righteousness,” that we present ourselves of our own accord, with no one compelling us, to serve either sin or righteousness through our obedience. And therefore we ought always to remember these things, so that we do not bring forward empty complaints in excuse of sin, saying that the devil made us sin, or the necessity of nature, or a fated condition, or the course of the stars. But hear the plain sentence of Paul, in which he says: “To whom you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are servants of the one whom you obeyed, whether of sin or of righteousness.”

After this: “Thanks be to God,” he says, “that you were servants of sin, but you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over.” He seems to say this to those of whose life and progress he presumes, and of whom he had already said above: “I thank God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in the whole world.” … [the scan has lost text here] … men first serve sin. For so it is written: “For there is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin.” For first it is necessary that what is written be fulfilled in every man: “But when the commandment came, sin revived.” But what follows is said to few, and to those who are already being amended, namely what he says: “But thanks be to God that you were servants of sin, but you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over.” We were all, then, servants of sin; but when the pattern of teaching was handed over to us, and we chose to obey it, not in any fashion nor in words alone, but from the heart, from the soul, from our whole devotion, we are freed from the service of sin and made servants of righteousness. Hence I fear that perhaps there are many of us who seem to have received the pattern of the teaching of righteousness, and seem in words or by profession to obey righteousness, but in heart obey sin, the vices of the flesh still ruling in us. And therefore before all things we need that putting to death of the members which he taught above.

And as to his saying, “the pattern of teaching to which you were handed over,” I think it must be asked how each one is handed over. For we find that those who did not see fit to have God in their knowledge God hands over according to the desires of their hearts to uncleanness, so that they dishonor their bodies among themselves; and others who “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God” he hands over to passions of disgrace; of which we have spoken in their places as we could. These too, then, who present themselves as servants of righteousness through obedience, God has handed over so that they may be instructed and trained according to the pattern of the teaching of righteousness. And this too moves me, that he did not say, “You obeyed from the heart the teaching to which you were handed over,” but set down “the pattern of teaching.” Nor do I think the Apostle held the teaching and the pattern of teaching to be one; but it seems to me that he knew the pattern of teaching to be less than the teaching itself; and now, in the present life, while we are in this body, and “this earthly dwelling weighs down the mind that thinks many things,” we have the pattern of teaching, not the teaching itself; as the same Apostle says elsewhere: “But now we see through a mirror …” [the scan has lost text here] … but the virtues themselves then, when the things that are perfect have come. And therefore the righteous man now lives, as it seems to me, rather in the shadow of the virtues than in the virtues themselves. And for this reason perhaps Jeremiah says in Lamentations: “The breath of our face, Christ the Lord, of whom we said: In his shadow we shall live among the nations.” And if Christ is righteousness and wisdom and truth, and we say, “In his shadow we shall live among the nations,” then we live in the shadow of righteousness and in the shadow of wisdom and in the shadow of truth, even if we seem to be righteous and wise and lovers of truth. For this reason, then, it is said: “If anyone thinks he has known, he has not yet known as he ought to know.” For perhaps the very Word of God too, according as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, is known in one way in the present state of life, and in another when that which is perfect has come; and he is perceived one way now in the form of a servant, but another way then in the form of God and in equality with the Father. Because of all these things we seem to live among the nations either “in the pattern of teaching,” as the Apostle says, and not yet in the teaching itself, or “in the shadow of Christ,” as Jeremiah named it, and not yet in Christ himself.

“And being freed from sin, you became servants of righteousness.” This is an explanation of what he said above. For if you no longer serve sin, it is certain that, freed from it, you have become servants of righteousness. But it is asked who it is that frees from sin. Without doubt, the knowledge of the truth. For so Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him: “If you believe my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” It is the truth, then, that frees from sin, and the knowledge of the truth. And it is certain that everyone who has been freed from sin serves righteousness. And when we say he serves righteousness, since righteousness is one of the choir of the virtues, it is as though we said that if someone has been freed from sin, he will serve truth, and will serve wisdom, and will serve chastity, and will serve piety. For so I hear also what is said: “Open to me the gates of righteousness, and entering into them I will confess to the Lord.” For he who wishes to confess to the Lord enters not only the gates of righteousness, but also those of truth and wisdom and piety and chastity. For of all the virtues there is one hall, whose doors the righteous man asks to be opened to him under the name of righteousness.

“I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For as you presented your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve righteousness unto sanctification.” By these words the Apostle strikes a certain shame into his hearers, so that they may at least pay to righteousness and sanctification this much service, which they had before rendered to uncleanness and iniquity. What, then, is so human, that is, what so light, what so free of burden, and what no weakness of the flesh can excuse at all? “As you presented,” he says, “your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve righteousness unto sanctification.” It is indeed no glory that someone should serve the virtues just as he served the vices; for righteousness is to be honored far more and far more earnestly. But I, he says, deal in a human and ordinary way: I ask the same things, I require like things. Formerly your feet ran to the temples of demons; now let them run to the Church of God. Before they ran to shed blood; now let them run to deliver it. Before, your hands were stretched out to plunder what belonged to others; now let them be stretched out to give away their own. Before, your eyes looked round at a woman or at something belonging to another, to desire it; now let them look round at the poor, the weak, the needy, to pity them. Your ears delighted in hearing vain things or the disparagement of good men; now let them be turned to hearing the word of God, to the explanation of the law, and to receiving the discipline of wisdom. Let the tongue that was accustomed to insults and curses and foul talk be turned now to blessing the Lord at all times; let it bring forth sound and honorable speech, so that it may give grace to the hearers, and let it speak truth with its neighbor. But what need is there to go through each point, when it is plain to you too how to fit the service of each member, which it gave to the vices, to the virtues, and to turn the action which it gave to uncleanness now to chastity and sanctification?

He seems indeed to have named righteousness here for all the virtues together, just as, on the contrary, he set down iniquity for all the vices together. And he added “righteousness unto sanctification,” namely so as to commend the part of chastity both generally with the others and especially by itself. And see this too, that everywhere by these words he marks freedom of choice, and shows that each one has it in his power that the services which before he paid to iniquity unto iniquity he may, his purpose being turned to the better, pay to righteousness and sanctification; which certainly could not be done if either nature were opposed, as some think, or the course of the stars stood in the way.

“For when you were servants of sin, you were free of righteousness. What fruit, then, did you have at that time in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, having been freed from sin and made servants of God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life.” How someone is a servant of sin has already been sufficiently said above, when we were expounding that place: “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are servants of the one whom you obeyed, whether of sin or of righteousness?” When, then, someone serves sin, he is free of righteousness, that is, a stranger to righteousness. For here he calls a stranger “free,” and rightly. For no one can serve sin and righteousness at the same time, as the Savior also said, that no one can serve two masters. But we have spoken of these things more fully above. This, indeed, must be noted, that there is both a blameworthy freedom and a praiseworthy servitude. For to be free of righteousness is a crime; but to be its servant is praiseworthy. And when he speaks of becoming a servant of righteousness, understand at the same time of wisdom and piety and chastity and all the virtues together; just as, on the contrary, he who is a servant of sin is at the same time a servant of evil desire and anger and fury and shamelessness and robbery, and serves all vices and crimes together. Hence we ought always to examine ourselves in each thing we do, and in each act consider whom we serve, sin unto iniquity, or righteousness unto sanctification.

“What fruit, then,” he says, “did you have at that time in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.” Divine Scripture teaches that there is fruit both of good things and of evil, as the Savior himself says in the Gospels: “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” In these words the purpose and will of man seems to be called the tree, whether good or bad, and its fruit his works. If someone turns his soul and purpose to righteousness, without doubt he is ashamed and reproaches himself for the former deeds he did while placed under sin, because “the end of those things is death.” But I ask what death. It is certain that it is not this common one. For no one is turned to righteousness after death, or is ashamed of past evil deeds. What is it, then? Does he seem to mean the death of sin, since “the soul that sins, it shall die”? Or can it rather be understood that he means that death by which we die to sin with Christ and put an end to vices and crimes, so that for this reason he seems to have said, “for the end of those things is death”?

“But now, having been freed from sin and made servants of God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life.” He compares fruits with fruits; and the fruits of sin, for which now, that is, after being freed from sin and made servants of God, the saints are ashamed, he declares are ended by death; but the fruits of righteousness, which are unto sanctification, he says receive as their end eternal life. In this, first, it must not be passed over that he did not wish to name in what the fruits consist for which we are now ashamed, but says that the fruit of those who have been freed from sin and made servants of God is unto sanctification. For the memory of good things is to be kept more often than that of evil. And that he first mentioned evil fruits and their end, and afterward the fruits which are unto sanctification and their end, which is eternal life: see that this is like that prophetic saying in which he says, “I will kill and I will make alive”; and again, “I will strike and I will heal”; and again in Job: “He causes pain and gives remedy; he strikes, and his hands heal.” All of these look to this, that one must first die with Christ and so live with him, and first suffer with him and so reign with him. For unless we first die to sin through repentance, we cannot live to God through righteousness.

And this too: above he said, “And being freed from sin, you became servants of righteousness”; but now, when he has likewise said, “But now, having been freed from sin,” he did not likewise say, “you became servants of righteousness,” but “made servants of God.” The distinction is not idle. For by it it is shown that after someone has been freed from sin he ought first to serve righteousness and all the virtues together, so that from there by progress he may ascend to this, that he becomes a servant of God; although to serve righteousness is to serve God. For Christ is righteousness, and to serve Christ is to serve God. Yet there is an order of progress, and there are degrees in the virtues; and for this reason Christ is said to reign, namely according as he is righteousness … [the scan has lost text here] … the comparison which we said the Apostle made between evil fruits and good fruits: that there, where he was speaking of evil fruits, he did not say, “You had your fruit in the things of which you are now ashamed,” but said, “What fruit, then, did you have?”; but where he speaks of good fruits he adds “your.” For so he writes: “You have your fruit unto sanctification.” By this he seems to me to indicate that the evil fruit, the fruit to be ashamed of and repented of, is not our fruit. For God did not plant an evil tree in us to bear evil fruits; as he himself says through the prophet: “I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true; how have you turned into the bitterness of a strange vine?” So even if we bear evil fruits, they are not ours but another’s, that is, sin’s; but if we bear good fruits unto sanctification, they are our fruits. For human nature received from its Creator that it should bear these fruits. For those others, which are strange, were not sown in us by God. Do you wish to know that the Lord does not sow evil fruits? Hear him saying in the Gospel: “Did we not sow good seed in the field? Whence then does it have tares? And he answered and said: An enemy has done this.” And do you wish to learn still more that these fruits of the flesh are not ours but another’s? Again the Lord himself says in the Gospel: “If you have not been faithful in what is another’s, who will give you what is your own?” So, then, by the mystery of a deep reason, the Apostle did not add “your” to the evil fruit, but says of the good: “You have your fruit unto sanctification.”

And that he calls those whom he names servants of God more perfect than those whom he first said serve righteousness is proved also by this, that he placed their fruit in sanctification; and these can be understood to be those who have vowed themselves to chastity and continence; while those whom he called servants of righteousness may also be seen to be those who, placed in marriage, nevertheless give their effort to righteousness and all the virtues.

And about eternal life, although it has often been spoken of by us in other places, yet it must be touched on briefly in the present one too: that eternity in the Scriptures is sometimes set down to mean that which knows no end; sometimes that which has no end in the present age, but has one in the future; sometimes the space of some time, or even of the life of one man, is called eternity; as is that written in the law about the Hebrew servant: “If he loves,” it says, “his wife and his children, and wishes to remain in servitude for their sake, … [the scan has lost text here] … with an awl,” it says, “you shall pierce his ear at the door-post, and he will be your servant forever.” Here without doubt he set down “forever” for the time of a man’s life. And again in Ecclesiastes it is said: “A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth stands forever”: here “forever” shows the time of the present age. But where he says eternal life, one must look to what the Savior himself said: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent”; and again: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” And the Apostle himself says elsewhere that we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. As, then, to be always with the Lord has no end, so eternal life too is to be believed to have no end.

“For the wages of sin is death; but the grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” What he said, “The wages of sin is death,” is like what he had said above: “But the end of those things is death.” Of what things? Without doubt of those for which you are now ashamed, whose fruit he does not even think worth naming. And again, “But the grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” is like what he said: “You have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life.” And he well keeps the metaphor, that is, the figure of military service set out from the beginning, so as to say that to those serving under sin as king, or rather obeying his tyranny, death is paid as the wages due. But it was not worthy of God to give his soldiers wages as something owed, but a gift and grace, which is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. I do not think that this is empty either, that to eternal life he added “in Christ Jesus our Lord”; but … [the scan has lost text here] … of which it is written that “the soul that sins, it shall die.”

And although much has already often been said by us about the variety of death, yet since the place has warned us to repeat the same things more plainly and to gather into one what has been said here and there, let it be neither tedious to me nor burdensome to the readers. Death in the Scriptures is indeed one name, but signifies many things. For the separation of the body from the soul is named death. But this can be called neither evil nor good: for it is intermediate, what is called indifferent. And again the separation of the soul from God is called death, which comes through sin. This is plainly evil, which is also named the wages of sin. This death God did not make, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living; but by the envy of the devil this death entered the world. And again the author of this death himself, the devil, is called death, and he it is who is said to be the last enemy of Christ to be destroyed. And the place of hell too, in which souls were held by death, is itself also called death. And that death too is spoken of as praiseworthy by which someone dies to sin and is buried with Christ, through which amendment comes about for the soul and eternal life is gained.

Since, then, there is so great a difference in this one name of death, if you hear God saying, “I will kill and I will make alive,” you ought to understand what death it is fitting for God to bring: without doubt that which confers life, that is, that one should die to sin and live to God. “When he killed them,” it says, “they sought him and returned”: most plainly teaching by this that him whom God kills he kills for this reason, that he may die to sin and seek God. So I hear also what is written, that God killed Er, the son of Judah, because he was wicked; and anything else of this kind that we read written of God. So too the Apostle handed over a sinner for the destruction of the flesh, so that he might save the spirit, that is, that he might die to sin and live to God. And in the present place, then, the wages which sin gives are said to be death: not this death which separates the body from the soul, but that by which, through sin, the soul is separated from God. And again we are said to have been baptized in the death of Christ, in that … [the scan has lost text here] … is that, even if God is said to kill and hand over to death, the death that is given by God is of such a kind as to confer life. For nothing evil is given by the good; although it is sad, although it is full of pain, yet it is brought with a view to healing and in contemplation of health, so that the austerity of severity may separate from sin the soul which the allurement and sweetness of sin had separated from God. But, on the contrary, whatever sin gives, whatever it bestows, is the death of the soul, even if it lavishes wages.

“Or do you not know, brothers (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as it lives? For the woman who is under a husband is bound to the law while the husband lives; but if the husband dies, she is released from the law of the husband. Therefore, while the husband lives, she will be called an adulteress if she is with another man; but if the husband dies, she is freed from the law of the husband, so that she is no longer an adulteress if she is with another man. Therefore, my brothers, you too have been put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, who rose from the dead, so that we may bear fruit for God. For when we were in the flesh, the vices 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, having died to that in which we were held, so that we serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.”

In the passages above, discussing faith and the law at length, he showed that in all things faith is to be preferred, namely the faith of those who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. After this he added what their conversion too ought to be like, in the course of which he discussed both the sin of Adam and the righteousness of Christ; and he also argued about servitude and freedom, by which one either serves righteousness and is free from sin, or serves sin and is free of righteousness. Now, then, after a rather long digression, he returns again to the treatment of the law and of Christ, discussing such things as these in the present place; which, going over them little by little, we shall first try to open according to the sequence of the letter, and then also inquire, as we are able, what power each word has.

I speak, he says, to you who have knowledge of the law, … [the scan has lost text here] … joined, so too over the man who is under the law, so long as it lives and is in force, the law has dominion. But just as, if the husband to whom the woman had been subjected by the laws happens to die, the woman becomes free and is released from the husband’s power, so too he who is under the law, if the law happens to die, becomes free from the works of the law; and just as the woman who has been released from the laws of her former husband has the freedom to be joined to another husband, so he who lived under the power of the law, when he sees the letter dead, has power to be united to the living Word as to a husband. But if the woman wishes to leave her former husband while he is still living and be united to another, she will without doubt be called an adulteress. And this falls in like form on him who deserts the law as a living husband and is joined to another. These things, then, I speak, as I said, brothers, as to those who know the law, so that you may understand that you too have left the law as a dead husband. And its death came about through the coming of Christ and the assumption of his body, through which you have become another’s, that is, joined to another husband, namely to him who rose from the dead and no longer receives death, which that former husband, that is, the law, received. You, then, have now become the bride of that husband who rose from the dead; and therefore you ought to live according to his will, because we are no longer in the flesh but in the spirit, even if once, placed in the flesh, we were driven by the passions of sin and the flesh; and these passions, through the occasion of the law, bore fruit in our members, not for God but for death, for that death which God did not make. Now, then, as, when the husband dies, the woman is free and released from the law of the husband, so we too have been made free from the law which seemed to have dominion over us as a husband. To this law, without doubt, we too have died, and become strangers to its condition, in which we were held, so that from now on we may serve not in the oldness of the letter, as before, but in the newness of the spirit; which Spirit we have received from our Bridegroom as a wedding pledge, as he also says elsewhere: “who gave us the pledge of the Spirit.” This is the order of the words, and this the structure of the apostolic discourse.

But now, going over what has been said, let us discuss it point by point. “Or do you not know,” he says, “brothers (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as it lives?” Right at the beginning it has a hyperbaton, which is rendered thus: “Or do you not know, brothers, that the law has dominion over a man for as long as it lives?” and after this is rendered what was inserted in the middle: “For I speak to those who know the law.” And his saying, “I speak to those who know the law,” is like what he says a little later: “But we know that the law is spiritual.” And not Paul alone knew the law to be spiritual, but also those who were trained by him, who were, however, spiritual, of whom he says: “But the spiritual man examines all things.” For of the Galatians I cannot declare that they knew the law to be spiritual, of whom he says, “O foolish Galatians!”, unless perhaps they knew it when they had begun in the spirit; but they did not remain in this knowledge, because they were ending in the flesh. But the teaching of the apostles, and of those who were trained by them to teach, was such as to teach men to serve the law not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the spirit. And I think that not only the apostles, but also the prophets, and any who were wise then among the people of God, understood that the law is spiritual, although for the sake of the multitude they seemed to keep the fleshly observance too. Nor is this surprising, since Paul himself says: “To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews.” So, then, many among the former people made progress in spiritual knowledge and saw the glory of the Word of God, as Isaiah is written to have seen the glory of the Son of God, as John testifies when he says: “Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory.”

Paul, then, speaks to those who know the law, that is, to those who know what in the law is the oldness of the letter and what the newness of the spirit; and he who knows this well knows without doubt that the law has dominion over a man for as long as it lives, as a husband over a wife; and as by the death of the husband the woman is freed from the law of marriage and receives the freedom to unite herself to another husband, so too the soul, whose husband is the law, when it has detected the oldness of the letter in the law, since “what grows old is near to destruction,” receives, the law according to the letter being as it were dead to it, the freedom to marry another husband, who is the spirit of the law: “And the Lord is the Spirit.” And what he said, “The law has dominion over a man for as long as it lives,” is referred not to the man but to the law. For he shows this in what follows too, where he says: “While the husband lives, she is bound to the law”; and … [the scan has lost text here] … “she is released from the law of the husband.”

But if these things are understood as said of the apostles or of those who believed from the circumcision, no question will be stirred; for it is clear that they had the law as a husband, under whose power they lived. But when the fullness of the times came, the law began to be weak in the flesh, and death followed the weakness; and if any had lived as a wife under the power of this husband, now that the letter is dead they marry the spirit by believing in Christ. But those who believed in the Lord from the Gentiles will not seem to have lived under the power of this husband, that is, of the law, nor to have had the word of the law as a husband. And Isaiah declares the testimony of this, that is, that those who are of the circumcision were under a husband, but those from the Gentiles without a husband, saying: “Rejoice, barren one who do not bear; break forth and cry, you who are not in labor; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband.” He says that the children of the desolate are many, more than of her who has a husband, because far more believed from the Gentiles than from the circumcision; and he shows that she who has a husband is the Synagogue, which has the law, but the desolate one, wandering and living without any power of law, is the multitude of the Gentiles, which was also barren, bearing the offspring of no lawful word. Here, then, the man who lives under the law is set down by the Apostle as a woman who is under a husband. And he sets down as the husband the word of the law, which husband, however, he calls dead, which is the word according to the letter … [the scan has lost text here] … the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, interprets as the flesh of Christ. But when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, by his presence the earthly Jerusalem with its temple and altar and all that was done there was overthrown. Then her husband died, that is, the law according to the letter. Or is it not rightly said that in this respect the word of the law is dead, to which no sacrifices, no priesthood, no ministries of the Levitical order are offered? It cannot punish a murderer nor stone an adulteress; for the power of the Romans claims these things for itself. And do you still doubt whether the law according to the letter is dead? Every male does not go up three times a year to appear before the Lord; no sheep is slain at the festival of the Passover in the city which the Lord God is thought to have chosen; the sheaves of firstfruits are not offered, no oblation is celebrated; no leprosy, no uncleanness is purified. And can it be doubted in all these things that the letter of the law is dead?

Since, then, it has become clear through all these things that the former husband is dead, there is no transgression in being united to Christ as to another husband, just as it is no crime for a woman if, her former husband having died, she enters a second marriage. And for this reason he says: “Therefore, while the husband lives, she will be called an adulteress if she is with another man,” to show that the soul of a man too, if it has now come to Christ and been united to Christ as to a second husband, ought in no way to have living in it the oldness of the letter, which is as it were the former husband, lest perhaps, if it has him living in itself, it become an adulteress … [the scan has lost text here] … the body of Christ, in which body he bore our iniquities and carried our sins, and in which he stripped the principalities and powers, triumphing over them in himself. We must hasten, then, to this second marriage, which is far more blessed than the first.

And see whether perhaps even then the law was foreshadowing something of this kind, I know not what, when it commanded that a woman whose first husband had died, from whom she had not received seed (for he had been such as could not bear fruit), should be commanded to marry his brother. For the brother of the law of the letter seems to be the law according to the spirit, so that the woman may rather bear fruit from him. But these things will be inquired into more fully in their own places. Now, as we said, one must first die to the law of the letter, so that we may thus be joined to Christ, who rose from the dead. It may be, too, that this is to be understood not only of the law of Moses, which is according to the letter, but of every man; since it is certain that by whatever institutions, by whatever customs he is led, he is to be believed to live as under this law which he uses; to which law either he himself must die, or it must die to him, lest perhaps the soul, placed under another husband and coming to Christ, should seem not so much to enter his marriage as to become an adulteress, since it still lives by the laws of its former husband.

This, however, the Apostle again brings by another figure to the same sense of explanation. For he adds: “For when we were in the flesh, the vices 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, having died to that in which we were held, so that we serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” It appears in these words too, as we said above by the example of a certain comparison, that Paul passes from one chamber into another by uncertain and hidden steps. For when in the passages above he had argued about the law of the letter, which certainly seemed to belong only to those who had believed from the circumcision, now by a hidden turning he discusses the law of the flesh and the vices; without doubt so that this treatment may be seen to belong to other men too, not only to those who are of the circumcision. He says, then: “For when we were in the flesh.” And indeed, as far as the fact goes, he was certainly in the flesh when he said these things; but “when we were in the flesh,” that is, when we lived according to the flesh, “the vices of sins, which were through the law, were at work in our members.” What is this law through which the vices of sin work? Does the law of Moses, even if it is observed according to the letter, beget the vices of sins? But it is plain that he means that law in the members which resists the law of the mind, of which we treated before too, how the law came in by stealth so that sin might abound. This, then, is the law which in those who live according to the flesh makes the vices of sins abound to bear fruit for death. For that law is in our members for this, that, resisting the law of the mind, it may lead us captive to sin and offer these fruits to death.

“But now we have been released from the law, having died to that in which we were held.” From this law, then, in which we were held, we have now been released. Now: when? Without doubt when we died with Christ and were buried with him through baptism and crucified with him; and therefore he says: “We have been released from the law, having died.” For unless someone has died with Christ, he is not released from this law. I know that in other copies too it is written: “from the law of death, in which we were held”; but this, that is, “having died,” is both truer and more correct. And what he adds in the conclusion, “so that we serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter,” which without doubt seems to be said of the law of the letter, can be understood consistently in this way. Placed in the flesh and living according to the flesh, because of the vices of sins, which that law which was in our members nourished so that they bore fruit for death, we could not serve the newness of the spirit while that law of the members lived in us, or rather, while we lived according to it. But when Christ died for us, and we died to sin with him, we were freed through him from the law of sin in which we were held, and we can now serve the law of God; and serve it in the newness of the spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. For Christ did not draw us away from the law of sin so that we might serve the oldness of the letter, that is, so that we might receive circumcision and sabbaths and the other things which the oldness of the letter of the law contains; but so that we might keep the law of God in the newness of the spirit, that is, that from all that is written in it we may grasp the spiritual sense, as the Spirit grants; as the same Apostle says elsewhere, that a veil is laid on the face of Moses; but when someone turns to the Lord, the veil will be taken away. “For the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

I know, indeed, that some, understanding the newness of the spirit wrongly, have drawn it to this, that they say the Spirit is new, as though he had not existed before nor been made known to those of old; and they do not know that in this they blaspheme most gravely. For he himself is the Spirit in the law, he in the Gospel; he is always with the Father and the Son, and always is, and was, and will be, as the Father and the Son. He, then, is not new, but renews believers, when he leads them from old evils to new life and to the new observance of the religion of Christ, and makes them spiritual from carnal.

“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 desire unless the law had said: You shall not desire. But sin, taking occasion, worked in me through the commandment every desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. And I was once alive apart from the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; and the commandment which was unto life was found for me to be 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 as sin, through the good worked death in me …” [the scan has lost text here] … he transfers the name of law from one meaning to another by silent indications, with that purpose, as I think, with which the prophetic Scriptures too are composed, so that the things which those inspired by God speak should not be set out in the open for unpolished men, who bring as yet little either of faith or of study, and be handed over, so to speak, to be trampled under foot; but that, according to what we said above through a certain comparison, the mystery of his king might reach a few, and in a more hidden way.

He says, then: “What then shall we say? Is the law sin?” Did you think, he says, that I was saying of the law of Moses that it is sin? Far from it, far from it. Let this suffice for both: that I am neither speaking of the law of Moses, nor saying of it that it is sin; but, “I did not know sin except through the law. For I would not have known desire unless the law had said: You shall not desire.” Understand, he says, of what law I am speaking, without which no one would know sin. Is it the law of Moses through which Adam knew his sin and hid himself from the sight of the Lord? Is it the law of Moses through which Cain knew his sin and said, “My sin is too great to be forgiven”? Or through which Pharaoh knew his sin and said, “The Lord is righteous, but I and my people are ungodly”? But if all these, and others without number, knew their sin before the law of Moses, it will without doubt not be the law of Moses of which the Apostle says, “I did not know sin except through the law,” and of which he says, “I would not have known desire unless the law had said: You shall not desire”; but it is that law of which we have often spoken, which is written in the hearts of men, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, and teaches each one what is to be done and what avoided. This, then, is the law through which a man knows his sin. Here he plainly says that the natural law is unknown to us for as long as, with the advance of age, … [the scan has lost text here] … we have known how to discern between good and evil, and have heard it from our conscience. For it speaks to us within the conscience and says: “You shall not desire.” But since this law is not always found in man, nor from the beginning as he is born, but for some time, while age does not yet allow it, he lives without this law, as Paul himself also confesses, saying, “And I was once alive apart from the law,” in that time when we lived without the law we did not know desire. He did not say, “I did not have it,” but “I did not know it,” as of something that existed, yet it was not known what desire was. But when reason came, and the natural law found its place in us with the advance of age, it began to teach us what things are good and to forbid us evil things. While it says, then, “You shall not desire,” which we did not know before, we learned from it that desire is evil.

“But sin, taking occasion, worked in me through the commandment every desire.” That law of which he says, “I would not have known desire unless the law had said: You shall not desire,” is itself also called the commandment. He says, then, that by occasion of this commandment, by which we are forbidden to desire, sin blazed up more violently in us and worked every desire in us. For in that in which the flesh desires against the spirit, that is, against the law which says, “You shall not desire,” it also opposes it and wages a kind of contest, so as not only to satisfy desire but also to overcome an adversary. This, then, is the occasion which he says comes from the commandment. For somehow things that are forbidden are desired more ardently; and therefore, although the commandment is holy and just and good (for what forbids evil is necessarily good), while by forbidding desire it rather provokes and inflames it, through the good it worked death in me. Yet the Apostle indicates in these words that the origin of sin arose from desire, since, when the law forbids, whether that of Moses, which says, “You shall not desire,” or also, as we explained above, the natural law, what is forbidden is sought the more contentiously. It must be known, indeed, that desire is set down here as blameworthy; but in many places it is also praiseworthy, as we showed above.

“For apart from the law sin is dead. And I was once alive apart from the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; and the commandment which was unto life was found for me to be unto death.” Nearly all of these things have already been fully treated above; so, lest we go over the same things too often, we shall briefly call to memory what was said. That sin is dead in us apart from the law, that is, before the rational sense grows strong within us through age, we showed when we also brought forward the example of the child striking or cursing his father or mother. In this, according to the law which forbids father or mother to be struck or cursed, sin seems to be done; but this sin is said to be dead, because the law is not yet present in the child to teach him that what he does is not lawful to be done. And it is certain that both Paul and all men once lived without this law, that is, in the age of childhood. For all alike in that time are not yet capable of this natural law. For otherwise Paul’s profession would not seem true of this. For how will Paul be proved ever to have lived without the law of Moses, when he confesses himself a Hebrew of Hebrews and circumcised on the eighth day according to the precepts of the law? But in the way we have said, he too once lived without the natural law, in childhood. In that time he did not say that sin was not in man, but that it was dead, and revived afterward when the natural law, arriving, began to forbid desire; which law raised sin as if from the dead. For this is the nature of sin: if what the law forbids to be done is done. Sin, then, reviving, “I,” he says, “died.” “I”: who? Without doubt the soul, which had done what the law forbade to be done; for “the soul that sins,” as the prophet says, “it shall die.” The commandment, then, which had been given unto life, namely that of the soul, to teach it the works of life, was found to have turned out for it unto death, since it does not so much flee forbidden things as seek them more ardently.

Yet it moves me in these words how he said that sin was dead and revived. For it seems that nothing can be called dead except what once lived and afterward lacked life. And this very word “revived” teaches not life newly given but former life restored; for the word “revived” signifies to have lived again. If, then, sin is said to have revived in the soul, how do those, from this word of the Apostle in which he says, “And I was once alive apart from the law,” bring in the doctrine of metensomatosis, which teaches that the souls of men were first in cattle or birds or fish, and so came to men, and that for this reason the Apostle said, “And I was once alive apart from the law,” as one who, before he came into this human body, had lived in that order, for example, of birds or animals, where there was no law? How, I say, will they be able to answer this, when he says that it was not something newly arisen in the soul, but sin that was dead, that revived? And it is certain that he who revives once lived. The soul, then, will never be seen to have been in that order where sin without law could neither have existed nor lived. Let these things be said against those who drag the Apostle’s words into an impious doctrine. But we say that this death of sin was given by the kindness of God at the time when we lived without the law.

And if, when the commandment comes, which is holy and just and good, sin revives in us and kills us (“for sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me”), it is no accusation of the commandment that he says the occasion by which sin killed me came from the commandment; but this is the sequence of this saying. That is called law which teaches what ought to be done and what avoided; and what it says is to be avoided it must teach of what kind it is, so that through this it may be avoided more easily. For no one can avoid what he does not know. If, then, someone, taught by the law what kind of thing it is that he ought to avoid, does not so much avoid it as do it, he will seem indeed to have received, by occasion of the law, the knowledge of the thing not to be done; but the law did not teach him for this purpose, that he should do what he ought not and die, but that he should not do it and live. So, then, “sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.” Or certainly, since he said, “Sin deceived me through the commandment and through it killed me,” he may here have called the author of sin himself “sin,” of whom it is written, “The serpent deceived me”; or else he has made a person of sin, which seemed to deceive man by occasion of the commandment, so as to make desire sweet, and the soul, while it delights in the sweetness of desire, by transgressing the commandment which said, “You shall not desire,” died.

But lest anyone should lay this to the charge of the commandment of the law, that by occasion of the precept the soul was deceived and killed by sin, the Apostle adds and says: “So the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.” For the commandment is good and the law is holy; for it commands good things and enjoins the observance of good things. “Did what is good, then,” he says, “become death to me? Far from it.” He refutes the objection that necessarily arises, and says: it is not that the good of the law and the commandment brought death upon me; “but sin,” he says, “that it might appear how wicked it is, through the good brought death upon me.” For the commandment is good when it is kept; but if it is not kept, it will necessarily be evil to him who has lost the good. Sin itself, then, becomes a sinner beyond measure by occasion of the commandment. We said above too that he has, as it were, made a person of sin, and says of it that sin itself, of whose person he speaks, has become a sinner beyond measure by occasion of the commandment. For there is less sin if you commit what is not forbidden; but if you commit things forbidden and prohibited, you are a sinner beyond measure, so to speak, since you have not only committed what you ought not, but have also transgressed a precept. And as for our saying “sin a sinner,” we preferred to accept a fault of language rather than not express the Apostle’s sense fully: because in the Latin language the noun “sin” (peccatum), which is declined in the neuter gender, constrained us; but in Greek it is feminine; and therefore we called it a sinner (peccator), whereas there it can be called a sinner in the feminine (peccatrix).

“For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I do I do not understand; for I do not do what I will, but what I hate, that I do. But if I do what I do not will, I consent to the law, that it is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but the 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 I do not find. For I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I do not will, that I do. But if I do what I do not will, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. I find, then, the law, when I will 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 leading me captive in the law of sin which 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.”

If the exposition which we held about the diversity of laws perhaps seemed to anyone to be forcibly presumed, let him now notice in this passage how not only a diversity of laws but also of persons is brought in. For Paul, who said elsewhere, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh,” says in the present place that he is carnal; and here he says that he is sold under sin, who elsewhere said, “You were bought with a price”; and again, “Christ redeemed us”; and again elsewhere he says: “I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” And again he who says, “because of his Spirit dwelling in us,” now says “that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh.” But if good does not dwell in his flesh, how does he say that our body is the temple of God and the temple of the Holy Spirit? And the other things too, in which he confesses that he is led captive in the law of sin by the law which is in his members and fights against the law of his mind, how will they befit the apostolic dignity, and Paul above all, in whom Christ both lives and speaks? But let us gather from these how it is the custom of divine Scripture to change, covertly, both persons and matters, … [the scan has lost text here] …

But when he says, “But I am carnal, sold under sin,” here now, as a leader of the Church, he takes upon himself the person of the weak; for which reason he said elsewhere too: “To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak.” Here too, then, for all the weaker ones, that is, the carnal and those sold under sin, Paul becomes carnal and sold under sin, and says the things which they are accustomed to say under pretext either of excuse or of accusation. He says, then, of himself, as speaking in their person: “But I am carnal, sold under sin”; that is, living according to the flesh, and brought into the power of sin at the price of lust and desire. “For what I do I do not understand. For I do not do what I will, but what I hate, that I do.” As to his saying, “I do not understand what I do,” it is not that one does not understand the thing itself he does, even though he is carnal, but he is said not to understand the cause of the thing he does. And his saying, “For I do not do what I will, but what I hate, that I do,” shows that, although he who says these things is carnal and sold under sin, yet he also tries to resist the vices a little, namely by the prompting of the natural law, but is overcome by the vices and overwhelmed against his will; as often happens, for example, when someone resolves to bear patiently one who provokes him, and in the end is overcome by anger and suffers this against his will: he grows angry, then, even when he does not wish to be angry. The same tends to happen also with the vice of fear, so that against his will someone is terrified by fear and dread; this often happens too in the elation of a sudden or unexpected honor, so that he becomes more arrogant and puffed up than he wishes. He who is not yet spiritual, then, is overcome in each of these even against his will, because this will is not yet so strong and so robust as to determine within itself to contend for the truth even to death; nor is it such as to say, “Yes, yes; no, no”; and therefore it cannot do the things it wills, but those it does not will. Yet in that part by which it does not will evil, it consents to the law of God, that it is good, which forbids evil; and the natural law is brought into a kind of harmony with the law of God, so that they will the same things and do not will the same things. And if according to the will we consent to the law of God, then the evil we do is no longer worked by us, but by the sin that is in us, that is, the law and will of the flesh, which leads us captive in the law of sin which is in the members.

And here, indeed, the carnal Paul says, “It is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me”; but the spiritual Paul says elsewhere: “I labored more abundantly than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” As, then, the one ascribes his labors not to himself but to the grace of God which worked in him, so the carnal one counts works that are not good not to himself but to the sin which dwells and works in him. Therefore he says: “It is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. For good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh.” For Christ does not yet dwell in him, nor is his body the temple of God. Yet he whose person is set forth here is not altogether a stranger to good things, but has begun indeed by purpose and will to seek good things, though he cannot yet obtain good things in deeds and works. For there is a kind of weakness in those who are receiving the beginnings of conversion, such that, when someone wishes at once to do all that is good, the effect does not at once follow the will. For he reflects within himself and decides, for example, not to be angry, and determines this in his will; but since the vice of anger has ruled in him through long use and lasting habit, it resists even the will and the purpose, and the force of fury, taking its accustomed road, breaks out. The vice of lust acts likewise. By a like disease of habit lying too creeps in, fear deters; and in each of these he who is now receiving the beginnings of conversion fittingly says that “to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I do not find. For I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I hate, that I do.” And if the will has a judgment about the good, but the habit of carnal vices, which has been called the law of the flesh or the law of the members, resists and creeps in, then because I bear the will of the good, although I do evil things, yet since I do them unwillingly, I consent to the law of God, that it is good. For I hate evil things and long to do the good things which the law commands. And if against my will I do evil things, overcome by the habit of the vices … [the scan has lost text here] … of sinning he named “sin.”

“I find, then, the law, when I will to do good, that evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man.” In these words too, as we have often pointed out in the passages above, the expressions do not seem to be set out completely, but are hindered either by an abundance or by the peculiarities of conjunctions. We must, then, read them in some such order as this, so that the understanding may become clearer: Therefore, because evil is present with me, willing to do good I find the law of God, and delight in it according to the inner man. By this he shows that the inner man, that is, the will and purpose which receives the beginning of turning to the Lord, consents to the law of God and delights in it. But, as we said above, it is not at once, when someone has the will, … [the scan has lost text here] … For the will is a swift thing and is turned without hindrance; but the work is slow, because it requires use and skill and the labor of working. And so that this may become clearer, let us also use the comparison of an example. For instance, someone wishes to become wise, and yet as soon as he has wished it he has not been made wise; but the will indeed went before, and without the will no one can become wise; yet when the will is present, labor, study, care, watchfulness, teaching, and training must be applied; and only at length, by long use and continual meditation, is he made wise. This man, then, had the will to be wise at once from the beginning, but the work of wisdom was not at once present to him. And even while he is being taught so as to become wise, how many things he has done foolishly and against wisdom! Yet he could understand how foolishly he had acted, for he already had the study of wisdom; but he was not yet so wise that he could guard against committing something unwisely. This order is to be held concerning chastity too: that one will not, as soon as he has willed to profess chastity, also fulfil it in deed, so as to be stirred by no goads of desire. So too it must be known concerning gentleness and patience and each of the virtues. In all of these it is fitting to say: “I delight in the law of God,” that is, in the virtues, “according to the inner man. But I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members.”

What he had said above, “For to will the good is present with me,” here he named the will of the good, the law of the mind; which law of the mind agrees with the law of God and consents to it. But again the movements of the body and the desires of the flesh he calls the law of the members, which leads the soul captive and subjects it to the laws of sin. For it is certain that the desires of the flesh draw the soul to sin and subject it to its laws; and as the law of the mind, which consents with the law of God, if it can win the soul, leads it to the law of God, so too the law which is in the members, and the desire of the flesh, if it has seduced the soul, will subject it to the laws of sin. But when Paul, having taken on a frailer person, had taught that these contests are held within man, and had shown that even against its will the soul is snatched by the desires of the flesh, through the very use of sinning, into the jurisdiction of sin, he uses an exclamation still in the person of the one whom he has described, and says: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” He sees himself wretched, within whom so many laws fight against one another, so many battles are stirred up: the flesh fights against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; the law which is in the members fights against the law of the mind, and the soul is led captive in the law of sin and is put under its yoke, even while the inner man delights in the law of God. How, among so many and such evils, should a man not call himself wretched, and say that he dwells in a body of death? For it is rightly called a body of death, in which sin dwells, which is the cause of death. This exclamation, then, is made in the person of him whom the Apostle describes as having received the beginnings of conversion, in that the will of the good is present with him, but it has not yet come to the effect of the good. For he does not find how to accomplish the good, because the use and exercise of the virtues had not yet grown in him. But to what he had said, “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?”, the answer is made no longer in his person but with apostolic authority: “The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Hence it appears that the Apostle described all these things, and set out the evils which were at work within us, for this purpose: that at the last he might show and teach from how many evils and from how many deaths Christ has rescued us.

And that … [the scan has lost text here] … “they are heavy upon me as a heavy burden. My wounds have grown foul and festered because of my foolishness. I am afflicted with miseries and bowed down utterly,” and the rest, in which almost the whole of this Psalm is written. And if perhaps it seems to anyone that David could have said these things rather of himself, because of what had happened to him, than of others, what shall we say of Daniel, of whom no sin is related, yet a confession in fasting and sackcloth and ashes is described, and a prayer of this kind, in which among other things he also says this: “We have sinned, we have done iniquity, we have acted unjustly, we have committed impiety, and we have departed and turned aside from your commandments and your judgments, and we have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to us and to our kings and our princes and our fathers and to all the people of the land. To you, Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us confusion of face.” Who is there who can deny that in these words the person of sinners was taken on by Daniel, for whom he seems to say these things as for himself? Hence it is fitting that we, reading the sayings of the saints, when we see something like this said by them, should understand and perceive that they are describing in themselves our passions and our sins; and that they weep over these so that by their weeping we may be invited to tears. For they considered that no one could be found so hard and ungrateful that, when he sees his wounds lamented by others, he himself receives no sense of grief over his own wounds. So, then, in the present passage too the Apostle, so that none of us should be ashamed of the things he feels at work within himself, or, having turned to the Lord and his will now changed, should despair on feeling these things still stirring within him, himself described them as though at work within himself; so that by the Apostle’s example no one may be ashamed of the nature of the body, nor despair of amendment, nor be ignorant of the multitude of his evils, from which he is freed through the grace of Christ.

“So then, I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” Perhaps someone will say that the Apostle, who until now has spoken not as himself but having taken on another’s person, now, as if marking a change of person, says “I myself,” to show that what is to be said belongs to the same Apostle himself. And he says that with the mind he serves the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin, as though so great were the force of sinning, so great the tyranny of the flesh, that not even the Apostle could escape it; and for this reason he said elsewhere: “I bruise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, after preaching to others, I myself should be found reprobate.” But he who takes these things as said in the Apostle’s own person seems to me to strike despair into every soul, as though there were no one at all who does not sin in the flesh. For this is to serve the law of sin with the flesh. To me, then, he seems rather still to keep the person of him whom he described above in himself: one already turned to better things in will and purpose, and serving the law of God with mind and soul, but who has not yet attained to bringing the obedience of the flesh also into the consent of the mind. For since in the passages above he had discussed the putting to death of the body and taught that we must die with Christ, in these words he now seems to show how far from idle this work is, and to teach that, as soon as someone wills and has resolved on the good, it is not at once fulfilled in deed as well; but so great is the force of habit, or so great the sweetness of the vices, that, when the mind is already intent on virtue and determines to serve the law of God, the desires of the flesh nevertheless persuade it to serve sin and obey its laws.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and death.” What the difference is in those who, as though placed in a kind of contest, live with the mind according to the law of God but are driven by the desires of the flesh into the law of sin, he taught in the passages above. But now he speaks of those who are no longer partly in the flesh and partly in the spirit, but wholly in Christ; and he declares that in them there is nothing worthy of condemnation, because “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed them from the law of sin and death.” And the law of the Spirit of life is one and the same as the law of God; just as, again, the law of sin and of death is one and the same. There will therefore be no condemnation for those who are wholly freed from the law of sin, which is the law of death, and serve the law of God, which is the law of the Spirit. And to serve the law of God and to be under the law of the Spirit is to serve Christ. And to serve Christ is to serve wisdom, to serve righteousness, to serve truth, and to serve all the virtues together.

Hence it must not be thought that someone, suddenly and as soon as he has willed it, is transferred from the service of the law of sin and is found in Christ Jesus, so that there is nothing in him any longer worthy of condemnation on account of sin. For righteousness requires its own share in each one: it tests whether he has now been so amended and corrected that it finds in him no work of injustice from which condemnation would follow. Likewise truth too requires its share in each one, whether one transferred from the law of sin is found in no part any longer to defile the obedience of truth with a lie. Likewise chastity too examines its share, whether he is stained by no shameless desires. So piety, so wisdom examine their shares in each one; and if they find them standing rightly and wholly in him, then he will be thought to be in Christ and to have no condemnation. And there is no doubt that these things are acquired by practice and long meditation and watchful labor. And therefore it is certain that these things do not befall the idle or the sluggish, but those who make progress little by little, and sin at first in few things, then in the least things, and at last, if they can attain it, in nothing. And it seems to me that the same Apostle, perceiving this, wrote elsewhere: “Forgetting the things that are behind, stretching forward to the things that are ahead”; teaching by this that the things behind ought to be those in which there was something blameworthy and worthy of forgetting, but the things ahead are those that are in Christ; and these are the things toward which we must stretch ourselves and which we must seek with the whole eagerness of the mind.

And as to the law of the Spirit of life, which we said is to be understood as the law of God itself, we said it according to that part, namely, in which the law is said to be spiritual. Therefore he added, “the law of the Spirit of life.” For he could not say this of the law of the letter, of which he had declared elsewhere that “the letter kills.” This is also called elsewhere “the ministry of death.” The law, then, contains both: the letter that kills and the spirit that gives life. Hence consider whether perhaps that tree too, of which it is written, “of knowing good and evil,” holds a figure of this thing. For both are contained in one, as also in the law. And let us not pass over this either: that here he who frees from the law of sin and death is called the Spirit of life; but in the Gospel according to John it is written, the Lord saying: “If you remain in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” In this it seems to me that, although these may seem different from one another in work or in name, yet in reality they are one. For Christ is life, and he it is who will set free; and here the Spirit of life sets free. And how is there not one freedom in both? For what the Spirit does, Christ also does, and what belongs to Christ, the Spirit does. For as those whom the Holy Spirit sanctifies, Christ sanctifies, so too those whom the Spirit of life sets free, life also sets free. Only let us, freed by the law of the Spirit of life, remain in Christ, and no longer be found serving the law of sin; because, as he who is freed by the law of the Spirit of life remains in Christ, who is life, so he who serves the law of sin remains in death, which comes from the condemnation of sin.

“For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, so that the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For those who are according to …” [the scan has lost text here] … to choose. Yet I think that here too, as we have often said elsewhere, the Apostle divides the law of Moses into two parts, and names one thing in it flesh and another spirit; and the observance which is carried out according to the letter he calls the mind of the flesh, as he says of such a Jew, “vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh”; but that which is taken spiritually he names spirit, as he also says elsewhere: “The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” And in this place, then, what he says, “impossible for the law,” and, “in that it was weak through the flesh,” may be taken of the understanding which is according to the letter. For it was both impossible and weak, if it was understood according to the flesh, that is, according to the letter. For what is so impossible as the observance of the sabbath according to the letter of the law, as we have often said already in many places? For it is commanded not to go out of one’s house, not to move from one’s place, to lift no burden. And because the Jews who observe the law according to the flesh see that these things are impossible, they devise certain foolish and ridiculous things by which they may seem to patch up the impossibility of the law. And what shall I say of the system of sacrifices, which has all together become wholly impossible? For there is neither temple nor altar nor any place at all for sacrificing. In each of these, I will not say the law is impossible and weak, but it is plainly now dead. For before this death it was weak then, when it tried, yet could not, to take away sins with the blood of calves and goats; and it was weak in the laws of leprosy, which it could never either explain or fulfil. In all these, then, and others without number, the law was both impossible and weak, as far as the understanding of the flesh is concerned; and therefore “God, sending his own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, and concerning sin,” or, as it is more truly read among the Greeks, “and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”

What he said, “in the likeness of the flesh of sin,” shows that we indeed have flesh of sin, but the Son of God had the likeness of the flesh of sin, not the flesh of sin. For all of us men who have been conceived from the seed of a man coming together with a woman necessarily use that word in which David says that “in iniquities my mother conceived me.” But he who came to an immaculate body from no contact with a man, but by the Holy Spirit alone coming upon the Virgin and the power of the Most High overshadowing, had indeed the nature of our body, but had not at all the pollution of sin, which is handed on to those conceived by the movement of desire. For this reason, then, the Son of God is said to have come in the likeness of the flesh of sin. “And for sin,” he says, “he condemned sin in the flesh.” That Christ was made a sacrifice for sin and was offered for the cleansing of sins all the Scriptures testify, and especially Paul writing to the Hebrews, when he says: “For this he did once, offering himself as a sacrifice”; and again: “who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all.” Through this sacrifice of his flesh, then, which is said to be for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh; as the same Apostle says elsewhere, that he appeared in the last days for the destruction of sin; and again the prophet says: “He bore our sins and carried our iniquities.” “For sin,” then, that is, through the sacrifice of his flesh which he offered for sin, “he condemned sin in his flesh, so that the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.” For through this sacrifice of the flesh, which was offered for sin, he both condemned sin, that is, put sin to flight and took it away, so that the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us who keep the law according to the spirit and not according to the flesh; in which part, according to what we set out above, the law was impossible and weak.

“For those who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but those who are according to the spirit, the things of the spirit.” Here now, more openly, setting the law of Moses as it were in the middle between us and the Jews, he says, “Those who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh,” that is, the Jews, whom he calls Israel according to the flesh, mind the things of the flesh of the law, in that they understand the law according to the flesh; “but those who are according to the spirit” (speaking of those whom he calls Jews in spirit, not in letter) “the things of the spirit.” And he still fills out the same sense and opens it more plainly when he says: “For the prudence of the flesh is death, but the prudence of the spirit is life and peace.” Is not what he says, “The prudence of the flesh is death,” one and the same as that: “The letter kills”? Therefore “the prudence of the flesh is death.” Death to whom? Without doubt to the soul. For he who has understood the law according to the flesh, that is, according to the letter, does not come to Christ, who is life; and therefore the prudence of the flesh is death, but the prudence of the spirit is life and peace. For he who understands the law spiritually has life and peace, which is Christ.

“Because the wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be.” The same understanding seems still to be unfolded. For how should the wisdom of the flesh, that is, the carnal understanding, not be hostile to God, which opposes Christ; which does not receive him whom God sent; which says, “We have a law, and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God”? How, then, should such a wisdom and such an understanding in the law not be called hostile to God, and not be subject to his law, namely that which is according to the spirit, nor be able to be subject; because, as death and life are contrary to each other, so the killing letter of the law, which is also the wisdom of the flesh, and the life-giving spirit, which is truly the law of God, are contrary to each other.

“And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” The same understanding continues. “Those who are in the flesh,” he says, that is, who follow the law according to the letter, “cannot please God.” For this too was declared long ago by God through Isaiah, when he says: “Your fasts and holidays and your great day I cannot bear; your new moons and sabbaths my soul hates.” “But you,” he says, “in whom the Spirit of God dwells, if indeed he dwells, are not in the flesh but in the spirit”; that is, you do not follow the carnal understanding of the law but the spiritual, through which you have come to the life-giving Spirit; if indeed your acts and conduct are such that you deserve to have the Spirit of God in you.

Dividing the law of Moses, then, as we said, into two parts, that is, into spirit and flesh, he has handed on to us the things that are of the spirit, which he also called the spiritual law; but the things of the flesh he has left to the carnal Jews. So, indeed, he interpreted that saying about Abraham too, when he said: “But he who was of the slave woman was born according to the flesh; but he of the free woman through the promise. And as then he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so it is now also.” For it is certain that those who are Jews according to the flesh persecute us who are Jews not outwardly but in secret, and keep the law according to the spirit, not according to the flesh. Those, then, who mind the things of the flesh consequently hope for the promises of the law carnally too; but we await them spiritually, according to the word of Paul, who says, “that we may receive the promises of the Spirit”; and again: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” From all of which it is shown what the law according to the flesh is and what according to the spirit, and what the hope of the carnal promise is and what of the spiritual.

The passage can also be understood according to another exposition, if we go back to the beginning, “For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weak through the flesh,” of the law of the mind, which, he said above, wills to do good but cannot fulfil it through the weakness and frailty of the flesh; and that for this reason God sent his own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, and concerning sin, that is, through the sacrifice offered for sin, condemned sin. For when the forgiveness of sins was given us, sin was put to flight and banished from our flesh, and the justification of the law began to be fulfilled in us, namely of that law which delights in the law of God, which is quickly fulfilled when the law of sin which was in our members no longer resists it; if indeed we walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For so long as one is in the flesh and lives according to the flesh, he minds the things of the flesh; but when he has turned himself to the spirit and has died to the law of sin and the flesh, he minds the things of the spirit. For to mind according to the flesh is death to the soul, but according to the spirit is life and peace; because the wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God, that is, while the flesh resists the spirit and is not subject to the law of the mind, which is the law of God, it is hostile to God; and therefore those who live carnally cannot please God. “But you,” he says, “are not in the flesh,” that is, you do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit, “if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” These things too can be fitted to this place according to another exposition, as we said. Yet let the reader choose, and follow what he has judged more fitting, if indeed he has judged.

“But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. But if Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of justification. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit dwelling in you.” That the apostle Paul uses sound syllogisms gathered by the art of dialectic, whether in this place or in his other letters, does not seem to me something to set out now, lest we seem to be defenders not so much of his knowledge as of his speech, in which he does not wish to be called skilled; and therefore we shall hasten rather to discuss the sense of the passage before us.

In the passages above, where he said, “But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you,” we explained in a twofold way what it is to be in the Spirit: that is, either to understand the law not according to the letter but according to the spiritual sense; or else, the body having been put to death, to live by the laws of the spirit and not of the flesh. Now, then, as to his saying, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his,” and his adding, “But if Christ is in you,” it must be asked whether it is different for the Spirit of God to be in someone, or the Spirit of Christ, or Christ himself, or the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead. But as far as I look either at the sequence of the present place, or at what the Savior says in the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, that he proceeds from the Father, and, “He will take of what is mine,” and joins the explanation of this word in what follows, saying, “Father, all that is mine is yours, and yours is mine; therefore I said that he will take of what is mine”: when, I say, I behold this so great principle of unity between the Father and the Son, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ seem to me to be called one and the same Spirit.

Yet we can also understand what he said, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his” (for in truth it seems to be pronounced abruptly), in this way: that if anyone has not deserved to be so great and of such a kind as to have the Spirit … [the scan has lost text here] … “his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me.” Here too, then, he who does not have the Spirit of Christ, that is, who is not driven by the same Spirit, so that for righteousness, for truth, for announcing the word of God, for preaching the kingdom of heaven, for casting off the letter of the law and opening its spirit, for resisting sin, for all these he who is not ready to go even to death, is not his disciple. He, then, who is not such, and does not bear such a spirit in himself, is indeed his creature, as the beasts of the forest and the cattle on the mountains and the oxen, but he is not his disciple. So, then, “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.”

“But if Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” The Spirit of Christ and Christ seem to me to mean one and the same thing in this place. In whom, then, Christ is, he himself says, because we always carry about the death of Christ in our body. And death is laid on the body because of sin, that is, so that it may not sin. And if the body is dead to sin, the spirit necessarily lives to do righteousness. For he who is dead in the body and does not serve sin must live in the spirit and serve righteousness. So the same Apostle too says in a certain place that he handed someone over to the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit might be saved.

“But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit dwelling in you.” … [the scan has lost text here] … Since above he had spoken of the Spirit of Christ, or the Spirit of God, or even Christ himself, dwelling in us, I should like to consider of what kind this is: whether this Spirit is given to all from the beginning, and afterward is driven out by most wicked actions estranged from God, according to what is written, “My Spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh”; or whether it is given afterward by the merit of life and the grace of faith, according to what is taught in the Acts of the Apostles, that the Holy Spirit came upon each one of them like tongues of fire; or certainly as we are taught in the Gospel, when the Savior himself, after he rose from the dead, said to the disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and breathed on each of them. Hence it seems to me that this gift is both acquired by merits and preserved by innocence of life, and increased in each according to the progress of faith and grace; and the purer the soul is made, the more largely the Spirit is poured into it. And what he said, “My Spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh,” looks to this: that because their soul, having rejected the service of the Spirit, turned itself wholly to the service of the flesh, it took the name too of the flesh to which it joined itself and with which it was made one.

The Spirit, then, can be had in various ways. Either the Spirit of Christ is had, according to what we said above, from divine inbreathing, where he says, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and breathed on them; and again in the way in which it is said in the Acts of the Apostles to have happened, so that the apostles spoke in various tongues. There is also that way which is related in the books of the Kingdoms, when Scripture says: “And the Spirit leapt upon Saul, and he began to prophesy.” There is still another way: when the Savior after the resurrection, walking with Cleopas and another disciple and opening the Scriptures to them, kindled them with the Spirit of his mouth, so that they said: “Was not our heart burning within us when he opened the Scriptures to us?” And do you wish to know that not only did Jesus, speaking, hand on his Spirit to his hearers, but also he who speaks the word of God in his name … [the scan has lost text here] … Cornelius himself, and those who were with him, is filled with the Holy Spirit. Hence you too, if you speak the word of God, and speak it faithfully from a pure conscience, and are not yourself convicted by your own words, as one who teaches one thing and does another, it may be that, while you are speaking, the fire of the Holy Spirit inflames the hearts of the hearers, and at once they grow warm and burn to fulfil all that you teach, so that they fulfil in deeds what they have learned in words, and seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, and mind the things above, not those upon the earth.

In this way too each one is proved to have the Spirit of Christ in himself. Christ is wisdom: if someone is wise according to Christ and minds the things of Christ, he has in himself, through wisdom, the Spirit of Christ. Christ is righteousness: if someone has in himself the righteousness of Christ, through righteousness he has in himself the Spirit of Christ. Christ is peace: if someone has in himself the peace of Christ, through the Spirit of peace he has in himself the Spirit of Christ. So too love, so sanctification, so each of the things which Christ is said to be: he who has them is to be believed to have the Spirit of Christ in himself, and to hope that his mortal body will be given life because of the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him.

“So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.” He taught above that the Spirit of Christ dwells in us and that the gifts of the Spirit have been bestowed on us. Consequently he now adds that “we are debtors,” without doubt for the things we have obtained from the Spirit of Christ. “But to the flesh,” he says, “we are not debtors.” For God did not make us in his own image for this purpose, that we should be liable to the service of the flesh, but rather that the soul, serving its Creator, should itself use the service and ministry of the flesh. But perhaps someone will say: How are we not debtors to the flesh, when we are compelled by the necessity of nature to provide it with food and clothing? But to show that it is not blameworthy to give something to the flesh, but to hand over life itself to the flesh, he therefore adds: “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.” And what it is to live according to the flesh has often been said already: it is to indulge the desires of the flesh. In this, then, he denies that we are debtors to the flesh, as he also says elsewhere: “And make no provision for the flesh in its desires”; certainly not denying that provision for the flesh is to be made in necessities, but in desires. So here too: “For if,” he says, “you live according to the flesh, you will die.” And he adds: “But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.” And of this too it has been said above how the body ought indeed to be dead because of sins, but the spirit life because of justification. He, then, who, acting according to the spirit, puts to death the deeds of the flesh will live because of the spirit of life dwelling in him.

And one puts to death the deeds of the flesh in this way. The fruit of the Spirit is love; hatred is a deed of the flesh: hatred, then, is put to death and quenched by love. Joy likewise is a fruit of the Spirit; but the sorrow of this world, which works death, is a deed of the flesh: this, then, is quenched if the joy of the Spirit is in us. Peace is a fruit of the Spirit; dissension and discord are a deed of the flesh; but it is certain that discord can be put to death by peace. So too the patience of the spirit quenches the impatience of the flesh, and goodness destroys malice, and gentleness fierceness, and self-control intemperance, and chastity slays shamelessness; and in this order he who by the spirit has put to death the deeds of the flesh will live.

It must be observed, indeed, that just as he means not this common death but that of sin when he says, “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die,” so too he means not this common life but that eternal one, to which everyone will come who, according to what we have set out above, has by the spirit put to death the deeds of the flesh. And this too we ought to know, that this putting to death of the deeds of the flesh comes about through patience, and not suddenly but little by little. First they must grow faint in those who are beginning; then, when they begin to make progress more ardently and to be filled with a more abundant spirit, the deeds of the flesh will begin not only to grow faint but also to waste away; but when they have now come to the perfect, so that no signs at all of sin arise in them, whether in deed or word or thought, then they are to be believed to have fully put to death the deeds of the flesh and wholly handed them over to death.

As we have shown that various laws are mentioned by Paul in this letter under the one word “law,” and various deaths named under the one name of “death,” so now too we see various spirits indicated under the one name of “spirit.” He says, then, in the present passage: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God”; in which he certainly means the Spirit of God himself. And again in what follows: “For you did not receive,” he says, “a spirit of servitude again in fear”; in which he shows that the spirit of servitude is other than the one he called above the Spirit of God. And therefore he adds: “But you received the Spirit of adoption of sons, in whom we cry: Abba, Father”; in this he shows that the Spirit of adoption is the same as the one he called above the Spirit of God, of whom he also repeats: “The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit,” that is, the Spirit of God himself, in whom we cry to God as Father, bears witness to our spirit. And this spirit of ours is without doubt other than either that spirit of servitude, which is given in fear, or this one which bears witness to it about calling on the Father.

All men, then, as it seems, are led by some spirit, as Paul himself wrote: “But you know that when you were Gentiles you were led to dumb idols”; by this he shows that the Gentiles too are led to idols by some spirit. The Spirit of God, then, is the same as the Spirit of Christ, and the same is also the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit of adoption too seems to be called the same, as the present apostolic word declares. David also, who says, “Take not your Holy Spirit from me,” and, “Strengthen me with your governing Spirit,” seems to speak of the same; and I think he is named the governing Spirit to show that there are indeed many spirits, but that among them this Holy Spirit, who is also called governing, holds sovereignty and dominion. For just as there are many sons of God, as Scripture says, “I said: You are gods, and all sons of the Most High,” yet there is one Son by nature, the Only-begotten from the Father, through whom all are called sons; so too there are indeed many spirits, but one who truly proceeds from God himself and gives to all the rest the grace of his name and of sanctification.

And that there are many spirits the same Apostle declares, writing to the Hebrews and saying: “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for the sake of those who inherit salvation?” And David says: “Who makes his angels spirits.” And Daniel no less testifies and says: “Bless the Lord, you spirits and souls of the righteous.” And in the present place Paul says, “The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit”; and elsewhere: “That your spirit and soul and body may be kept whole on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” There is no doubt that all these were said of rational spirits. Besides, evil spirits and evil angels are spoken of, as David too says: “He sent upon them the wrath of his indignation, a sending through evil angels”; and as is written in the books of the Kingdoms of Saul: “And the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord choked him”; and as is related in the book of Judges: “And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem.” This evil spirit, then, which is said either to have gone out to choke Saul or to divide Abimelech and the Shechemites, and is recorded to have gone out from the Lord and been sent, is to be understood as a kind of executioner sent to exact punishments from sinners. And although they are called evil because of their purpose and will, yet in those who are worthy of punishment they render service to the divine will; as also that lying spirit of which the prophet Micaiah tells, who, when God had said, “Who will deceive Ahab for me?”, answered: “I will deceive him. And the Lord said: By what means? And he said: I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets, and they will say that he should go up to Gilead, and there he will fall. And the Lord said: Go; you will deceive him, and indeed you will prevail.” So, then, even those who are called evil spirits render to God the service of punishments. There are besides other spirits too, of which David says: “With a violent wind you will shatter the ships of Tarshish”; and there are spoken of “a spirit of storm” and “a spirit of burning.” These, however, I should call material rather than rational spirits.

Having set out this distinction of the name “spirit,” let us now see what is meant by what he said: “For you did not receive a spirit of servitude again in fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption of sons, in whom we cry: Abba, Father.” It is written … [the scan has lost text here] … “A son honors his father, and a servant his master; and if I am a Father, where is my honor? And if I am a Lord, where is my fear? says the Lord almighty.” And it is certain that one becomes a son of God through the Spirit of adoption, but a servant of God through the spirit of servitude. The beginning, then, of serving God, since “the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord,” is fulfilled through the spirit of fear, while someone is still called a little child. And for little children fear is a pedagogue. Hence the Apostle too says of such a little one: “As long as the heir is a little child, he differs nothing from a servant, though he is lord of all; but he is under tutors and stewards until the time set beforehand by the father; so we too, when we were little children, were serving under the elements of this world.” You see how Paul, according to the wisdom granted him by God, has here called the spirits which are given in fear the tutors and stewards of little children, who keep each one of us in fear while he is a little child according to the inner man, until he comes to that age at which he deserves to receive the Spirit of adoption of sons and is now a son and lord of all. “For all things,” he says, “are yours,” and with Christ God has given us all things.

This, then, is what Paul teaches: that after we have died with Christ and his Spirit has come to be in us, we have not received again a spirit of servitude in fear, that is, we have not been made again little children and beginners, but, as perfect, we have now once received the Spirit of adoption, in which Spirit we cry: Abba, Father. For no one calls on a father except a son. And as to his adding “Abba, Father,” … [the scan has lost text here] … The Spirit of adoption himself, then, through whom someone is adopted as a son, bears witness and confirms our spirit that we are sons of God, after we have come from the spirit of servitude into the Spirit of adoption, when there is now nothing of fear in us, that is, we do nothing for dread of punishment, but accomplish all things for love of the Father. And it is well said that the Spirit of God bears witness not to the soul but to the spirit, which is the better part in man.

And to distinguish those who are led by the spirit of servitude in fear from those led by the Spirit of sons, this too may be taken: that Abraham gave his inheritance to Isaac, but to the sons of the handmaids or concubines he is said to have given not an inheritance but gifts or presents. In this without doubt it is foreshadowed that not even those who still serve God in fear are wholly despised, but there are gifts for them, there are presents; but the inheritance, through which they are glorified together with Christ, belongs to those who deserve to receive the Spirit of adoption. After this the Apostle now joins a syllogism from what follows and says: If we have received the Spirit of adoption, then we are sons. And if we are sons, without doubt we are also heirs. For a servant looks for a wage, a son hopes for an inheritance. And again he adds another conclusion: “heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ.” One becomes an heir of God when he deserves to receive the things of God, that is, the glory of incorruption and immortality, the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden … [the scan has lost text here] … “will transform the body of our lowliness to be conformed to the body of his glory”; and also when he has deserved to attain what the Savior himself says: “Father, I will that where I am, these too may be with me.” There is besides that dignity of the joint heirs of Christ, that the Father has given all judgment to the Son. And … [the scan has lost text here] … suffers with Christ who says, “I have been crucified with Christ,” and, “I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me”; and again who says: “If we have died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with him”; or also who can say that “what was lacking of the sufferings of Christ I fill up in my body.” And as God highly exalted Christ, because he had humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and gave him the name which is above every name, so too those who suffer with Christ and imitate the example of his sufferings God exalts with him in glory. For this is the way which Christ has opened to his joint heirs: that they should be exalted not from strength, nor from wisdom, but from humility, and should attain the glory of the eternal inheritance from patience in tribulations.

“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. For the expectation of the creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself too will be freed from the servitude of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God. For we know that the whole creation groans together and suffers pain together until now.” If someone considers that, in return for one’s becoming a son of that most high God, and an heir of his goodness and glory, and a joint heir of Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, even if he remains without complaint in the observance of all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, and continues in them with watchful mind; even if he endures all the kinds of punishments that can be inflicted on human nature from within or from without; or even if someone endures those things which are recorded to have been written of Job, where not only the things outside him, in his possessions and his children, … [the scan has lost text here] … to the saints, and to those things which eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, he can understand how Paul, considering these things more deeply, says: “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.” For nothing can be found worthy, or comparable, to the glory to come. For how would you compare the mortal with the immortal, or the visible with the invisible, or the temporal with the eternal, or the perishable with the everlasting? Yet if in the present life certain seeds, as it were, of the future glory can be gathered, these seeds, I say, are gathered from tribulations and sufferings; as the same Apostle says elsewhere: “For our present momentary and light tribulation works for us beyond measure an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, while we look not at the things that are seen but at those that are not seen.” For he shows by this that he who looks at those things that are not seen, and are eternal, counts every tribulation, whatever has befallen him, however cruel, however long it seems, momentary and light; even if he is subjected to tortures, to goads and hooks, at the time when his body is afflicted with punishments, if he looks to the future glory which is to be revealed, and considers how after such tortures this body of his lowliness will be transformed so as to be made conformed to the body of the glory of the Son of God, he counts the present tribulation momentary and light, but reckons the weight of the future glory heavy, that is, great and eternal. And the more he sees the punishments of tribulations multiplied for him, the more he understands that the weight and greatness of glory is being heaped up for him.

And that a certain measure and greatness of glory is gathered from the quantity of tribulations I think David the prophet also judges, when he says: “According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your consolations have gladdened my soul.” Hence I think that in the present life the consolation which is given to the righteous is given according to the measure of torments and wounds; but the glory to come, of which the Apostle says that … [the scan has lost text here] … we brought forward, certain seeds gathered from the momentary and light labor of our tribulations will prepare for us beyond measure an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure. And that in the present life too divine consolation is granted to the righteous according to the measure of their sufferings the same Apostle confirms, writing in the second letter to the Corinthians: “Because as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds.” And he did not say “abounds beyond measure,” or “beyond all measure,” but as great as the sufferings are, so great are the consolations. And as to his saying, “to the glory to come, which will be revealed in us,” I think we have already shown sufficiently above, concerning the difference of glories, which is the glory that has already been revealed and which is that which is to be revealed; and how what we now see we see through a mirror and in a riddle, but then, when the Son of Man comes in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels, we shall see face to face; as John also said: “For we shall see him as he is.” And that glory too may be seen as the one to be revealed, when the doctrine about each of the principles of the world, or of the things that are above the world, begins to be known, and the treasures of his wisdom and knowledge to be revealed.

After this he says: “For the expectation of the creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God.” The Apostle, wishing to show how great and of what kind is the glory which is to be revealed in him, or in those who have sweated out the contests of Christ wholly, says that the creation too, namely the rational creation, has a certain expectation and bears the hope of that wonder in which the glory of the sons of God is to be revealed; that is, when the things are revealed that have been prepared for those who will deserve to be sons of God, or certainly when, the veil by which they are covered having been taken away from them, they themselves are made manifest as sons of God. And what is the creation that awaits the revelation of the sons of God? This one, he says, which is now subjected to vanity; subjected, however, not willingly, nor of its own accord, but by the will of him who dispenses all things. For his sake, then, it was subjected; and subjected not on the condition that it should always remain subjected to vanity, but with a certain hope. And what this hope is he tells, saying: “because the creation itself too,” he says, “will be freed from the servitude of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God.” And Paul says that he and those like him know “that the whole creation groans together and suffers pain together until now,” or, as is found in other copies, “groans together and travails until now.” And to groan together and suffer pain together is to groan or suffer pain with another who suffers pain or groans; that is, when one has no cause of one’s own for groaning or pain, but groans for him who has cause for groaning or pain. And he says the creation does this because it is subjected to vanity and placed in the servitude of corruption. Let these things be explained as far as the order of the apostolic discourse itself goes.

Now, going over it again, let us discuss more closely what this vanity is to which the creation is said to be subjected, and what this corruption from whose servitude it hopes to be freed. It seems to me that these things are said of this material and corruptible substance of the body. For corruption rules over nothing except the body. For that inner man who has been created according to God and made in the image of God is incorruptible and invisible, and according to its own proper nature can even be called incorporeal. But the outer man is called both corporeal and corruptible; for which reason Paul too said: “For even if our outer man is being corrupted, yet the inner is being renewed.” And the renewal of the inner man, since it is rational and mind, consists in the knowledge of God and the capacity for the Holy Spirit. But so that we may commit to our papers something, briefly and concisely, about such deep matters, let us gather an image from the very substance of the inner man, that is, of the soul and mind, of how “the creation was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope”; and, if it seems good, let us set Paul himself in the middle, whose soul or mind, which is his inner man, certainly passes beyond and rises above all that is bodily, visible, subject to sense and sight, and is made capable of the divine nature itself. Yet this so great and excellent substance of his soul, which holds the reasons and understanding of heavenly and divine senses, was (for what causes, God will see) subjected to the servitude of a corruptible body, and bound to its vanity. For consider the necessities of the body: the appetite for food, the shame of digestion, the embarrassment of renewing posterity, how offspring is sown, how it is brought forth, how it is nourished; and see in these how great a vanity there is, how great a corruption, to which the creature, the soul, noble and rational though it be, was subjected unwillingly; subjected, however, in hope, namely hoping for the time when it will be freed, when the time of freedom of the sons of God has come. This, then, is what the Apostle himself was saying more openly of himself elsewhere too, that while we are in this tent we groan. This Wisdom too was saying through Solomon, that the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that thinks many things. And the same Paul: “For while we are in the body we are away from the Lord,” and he desires rather to be away from the body and present with the Lord. He indicates this, and sets it out much more plainly, in that place too where he says: “I am hard pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.” In this he plainly shows that he did not willingly, as far as concerns the things of which he was conscious in his own soul, serve this corruption and vanity, but because of him who so willed these things, and for our sake, that we might be saved. He remains, then, in the flesh for our sake; but when the sons of God have been revealed, and gathered into one through the Church, which he has espoused to one husband, to present her as a chaste virgin to Christ, then he too will be freed from the servitude of corruption, as he himself says: “For I am already being offered, and the time of my release is at hand. I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; for the rest there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” This is to be freed from the servitude of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God.

But from these examples, if it seems good, climb to higher things too, and see how the ministries of the sun itself and of the moon and of the stars of heaven and of the whole world are subjected to vanity and serve corruption. For for the uses of men they nourish the crops, produce the fruits of trees and the grass of the fields; … [the scan has lost text here] … I am invited by the prophetic words to understand something of this kind of the archangels too. For what would you find of so great vanity and so great corruption as to wage wars in this world, to stir up battles of kings and nations against one another? See, then, that in these too the chief office of the archangelic work is held, as Daniel the prophet testifies when he says that an archangel spoke to him, who told him that he had fought against the prince of the Persians, “and no one,” he says, “was a help to me, except Michael your prince.” Through each of these, then, the rational creation is found to be subjected to vanity, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. For the hope is that at some time there will be an end of these bodily and corruptible things. For this rational creation has this expectation, that the revelation of the sons of God may come about, for whose sake angels are sent into ministry, so that they too, together with those to whom they have ministered, may receive the inheritance of salvation; so that there may be one flock of earthly and heavenly beings and one shepherd, and God may be all in all.

And to confirm more plainly what he had said, he added: “For we know that the whole creation groans together and suffers pain together until now.” Above he had said, “For I consider that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come”; and while there he said he considered, here he says he knows that the whole creation groans together and suffers pain together, so that there may be nothing of doubt in this sense. For the creation, although it was subjected unwillingly, yet since it yields to the will of him who subjected it, shows also a certain affection, in love, toward those for whose sake it seems to be subjected, and grieves for their griefs and groans for their groans. But if, as is found in other copies, we read “groans together and travails,” we shall take “travails” in that sense in which the Apostle says he begot through the gospel those whom he brought forth to the light through faith in Christ; or as he said of others elsewhere: “My little children, for whom I am again in travail until Christ is formed in you.” The creation too, then, travails for those whom it begets to salvation. And if this too seems to readers to need inquiry, why above he named the creation three times and nowhere said “all creation,” but at the last says, “For we know that the whole creation groans together and suffers pain together,” it can be understood thus: that it is not indeed the whole creation that groans and suffers pain, that is, which lies subject to the necessity of a corruptible body; but it is the whole creation that suffers with those who suffer and groans with those who groan. And the whole higher creation watches our contests and struggles, and grieves when we are overcome, but rejoices when we overcome; and far more than to us it belongs to them to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep.

“[Not] only so, but we ourselves too, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we ourselves also groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption of sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what one sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it through patience.” We have often taught that it is a custom of the apostolic manner of speech, when he says “Not only so,” and adds nothing to which it should be fitted, that it is to be referred to what was said above; as is given to be understood in the present passage too. For this is what he seems to say: Not only does the whole creation groan together and suffer pain together, but we ourselves too, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves. For we too await the adoption of sons of God and the redemption of our body. Although by this very fact, that we believe in Christ, we know that salvation has been bestowed on us, yet this salvation is still in hope, not in the sight of visible things. For if it were already seen, it would certainly not be hoped for. For one hopes in order to see. But if he sees what he was hoping for, it is superfluous to hope any longer for what he sees. But we do not have hope in the things that are seen, lest our hope be empty, but in those that are not seen. And therefore, because we hope for the things that are not seen, and so great … [the scan has lost text here] …

“But we ourselves too, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit.” For we know that it is written in the law: “You shall not withhold the firstfruits of the threshing floor and the firstfruits of the winepress”; and: “The firstfruits of all your crops you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.” What then? As the firstfruits of the threshing floor and the firstfruits of the winepress are of the same crop as the rest of the threshing floor, or of the same liquid as the winepress, will it seem so also with what he calls the firstfruits of the Spirit, that out of many other holy and blessed spirits one is preeminent? Or shall we rather understand that, according to what we discussed above, there are many ministering spirits, ministering in service for the sake of those who receive the inheritance of salvation, under whom each believer, acting as under tutors and stewards, is trained until the time set beforehand by the Father; that is, until he has come to the lawful age of the soul’s perfection, when one, having now passed beyond the spirit of servitude which he had received in fear, by which he was kept as by a pedagogue, is made worthy to receive the Spirit of adoption, the firstfruits of the Spirit, through whom, adopted as a son, he may also be joined to the Church of the firstborn which is in heaven? And as it differs greatly to be a son rather than a servant, so the Holy Spirit, whose firstfruits Paul says he and those like him have, differs greatly from the ministering spirits. Let this be one way in which we have been able to track down the understanding of this word.

Let us now see another too. We read in the apostle Paul himself that the gifts or graces of the Holy Spirit are named many spirits, as when he says: “But now, since you are zealous for spirits, seek to abound for the edification of the Church”; and again elsewhere: “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets”; saying that the spirits of the prophets are subject, not as inferior things to a better, but because one who has the spirit of prophecy is not compelled to speak against his will, as those who have unclean spirits are, but speaks when he wishes and reason demands; and when it does not seem opportune to speak, he is silent, knowing well that there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. And therefore it is said, not to their dishonor but by way of ordering, that the spirits are subject to the prophets; as we also take what is said of the Savior, that then the Son himself too will be subject to him who subjected all things to him. For here too “subject” is not said as of an inferior. For how can he be called inferior who is the Son and is all that the Father is? “For all things,” he says, “Father, that are yours are mine.” But in those whom he subjects to the Father, believing in him, since he says that he is in each of them, and says that in them he hungers and thirsts and is naked, and professes that in them he is fed and clothed, for this reason he himself too is said to be subject in them. But let these things be said by way of a digression. Now let us return to our subject.

The various gifts of the Spirit, then, are called by Paul many spirits. And of these many gifts, whatever is highest and greatest the apostles without doubt obtained, so as to be fit, as Paul himself also says, ministers of the New Testament, and able to fill up the gospel from Jerusalem round about as far as Illyricum. This gift of the Holy Spirit, then, which was bestowed on them more loftily and splendidly than on the rest, he rightly called the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit. And therefore he says, “But we ourselves too,” in which he seems specially to mark the apostolic dignity. “We ourselves,” then, he says, that is, the apostles, “who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,” who were chosen for this, to receive the firstfruits of the Spirit, “we ourselves also groan within ourselves.” So far, he says, is any creature from being free of pains and groans, that even we ourselves, who have received the highest and choicest gifts from the Holy Spirit, nevertheless, awaiting the adoption of sons, that is, the perfection of those whom we have been sent to teach and train, until we see them make such progress as to deserve to be adopted as sons, necessarily grieve and groan. So long, then, I say, as we who are trained by them are negligent and delay and put off the time of our amendment further, so long as we do not seek invisible things but take delight in visible ones, we stir pains and grief in the apostles, and, so to speak, rouse the groaning of the whole creation. For the whole creation groans and suffers pain together, sighing over the losses caused by our hardness and our indifference. This is another order of explanation that has occurred to us concerning the firstfruits of the Spirit; you will see whether it should be approved.

And we shall add a third too. The same Apostle again says of the Lord Jesus Christ that he is “the firstborn of all creation.” Perhaps, then, as he is called the firstborn of all creation, by some such reasoning the Holy Spirit too is called the firstfruits of many spirits. Let this too be the third mode of exposition. Let the reader test which of these better suits the apostolic sense. But if you take what he said, “And we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,” as said of all who seem to have obtained the grace of baptism, then that must be hoped for which the same Apostle said: “But if the firstfruits are holy, so is the lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.” And even if this is so, yet the firstfruits of that lump, in which the multitude of the faithful seems to be indicated, will necessarily be seen to be placed in the apostles. For so it is written, that “in the Church God set first apostles, second prophets, third teachers.” These, then, who are set in the first place, will fittingly be believed to have the firstfruits of the spiritual grace of the Holy Spirit.

Now let us see how he says he awaits the adoption of sons, who said above that “the Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are sons of God”; and again how he hopes for the redemption of the body who says elsewhere, “Christ redeemed us.” But, as it seems to me, he himself resolves this by the word that follows. For he says: “In hope we have been saved.” That we are sons, then, and have been redeemed, and have been saved, consists in hope. “For now we see through a mirror and in a riddle, but then face to face”: through a mirror, then, and in a riddle we receive both adoption and redemption. For the fullness of the times came, and “God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” We receive adoption, then, but that which is through a mirror and in a riddle. But when the things that are perfect have come, then we shall obtain adoption face to face. And as to his saying, “the redemption of our body,” I think he indicates the body of the whole Church, as he also says elsewhere: “But you are the body of Christ and members in part.” The Apostle, then, hopes that the whole body of the Church will be redeemed, and does not think that the things that are perfect can be given to the individual members unless the whole body has been gathered into one. It can also be understood thus: that he calls the redemption of our body that which will come in the resurrection, when not only souls but bodies too will come before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done; according to what was said: “Fear rather him who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.” And therefore each one must grieve and groan in this age, lest perhaps, through the evil deeds and negligence of the present life, he should not deserve to obtain the redemption of his body, but that sentence should find him which condemns body and soul to the fires of Gehenna.

After this he says: “For in hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope.” As above he had said of the creation that it was subjected to vanity because of him who subjected it in hope, so here too of himself, or of whomever he knows are to be counted with him, he says, “For in hope we have been saved”; just as he also joined his own groans to the groans of the creation. And how salvation is in hope, and hope is placed not in the things that are seen but in those that are not seen, we have already taught above. We shall add only this briefly: that both from these words and from those in which he says, “not looking at the things that are seen but at those that are not seen,” he teaches us that in the good things to come we ought to hope for nothing of the things that are now seen or can be seen, even if you see this visible heaven, even if the earth. Hear of these that heaven and earth will pass away, for they are visible; and “what one sees, why does he hope for it?” Nothing at all, then, is to be hoped for in the future from the things that are seen. “For eye has not seen what God has prepared for those who love him.” But the eye sees heaven and earth; it must not, then, be believed that what is seen has been prepared by God for those who love him; but heaven indeed, or rather heavens far more eminent and lofty than that firmament which can be seen by the eyes. And earth too is to be hoped for, yet not this which is called dry land and lies before the eyes, but it will be that … [the scan has lost text here] … are ended with time, “but the things that are not seen are eternal,” which the Apostle teaches are to be hoped for. For this reason the very restoration of our body too is restored from corruptible to incorruptible, from mortal to immortal, from weakness to power, and from a natural body it is made a spiritual body, so that, when it has been made spiritual, it may also enjoy invisible good things; which good things, not seeing them in the present age, we hope for through hope and await through patience.

“Likewise the Spirit too helps our weakness. For what we should pray for as we ought we do not know; but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings. And he who searches the hearts knows what the Spirit desires, because he intercedes for the saints according to God.” Since he had said above that the whole creation groans together and suffers pain together with those who are placed in the contest of this life, that is, labors with them and contributes its strength, and had then also mentioned that Paul himself and those like him utter groans for those who labor, so as by these things to comfort those placed in the contest, when they see all the saints and the whole creation laboring with them in affection and joining their groans, he now adds something loftier and more sublime. Do not think it a small thing, he says, that the whole creation groans together and suffers pain together with us; let it not seem small that we ourselves groan for your labors. Even in the divine nature itself there is a certain affection of compassion toward our contests (for I join myself with you), and the Spirit himself helps our weakness. Indeed, what we ought to pray for, what we ought to ask of God, we do not know. For sometimes, constrained by weakness, we desire things that are contrary to our salvation. For as someone placed in bodily sickness asks of the physician not the things that suit or conduce to health, but those which the craving of the present illness suggests, so we too, languishing in the weakness of this life, sometimes ask of God what is not expedient for us. Indeed I myself, Paul, who say these things to you, when an angel of Satan had been given me by the Lord to buffet me, lest I should be lifted up because of the loftiness of the revelations, besought the Lord three times that he might depart from me, not knowing what I was praying for; and therefore, because I did not know … [the scan has lost text here] … the Lord did not hear me, but said to me: “My grace is sufficient for you; for power is made perfect in weakness.” … [the scan has lost text here] … he feels in groanings; for see, he now sets down groans for the third time. For “the creation,” he says, “groans together,” and “we ourselves groan,” and “the Spirit himself” intercedes with God for the saints “with groanings.” And in these groanings which he says are offered to God through the Spirit he added that they are unutterable. This he did not say either of the groans of the whole creation or of his own. And see whether we can understand in these groanings much confidence and freedom in the sight of God: that the prayer which is offered to God with pain and groaning receives from the Holy Spirit confidence to ascend to God. Indeed Adam, when he had sinned, lost confidence and hid himself from the face of God. But holy David says that “my groaning is not hidden from you.”

But let us see what it is that he says: “The Spirit himself intercedes for us.” For John too indicates that Jesus does this, when he says: “Little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone of us has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus the righteous,” who also intercedes for us. And here, “the Spirit intercedes for us.” And the Spirit does this by helping our weakness. And what our weakness is the Lord himself teaches when he says: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Our weakness, then, comes down from the weakness of the flesh. For it is the flesh that desires against the spirit; and while it presses its desires upon us, it hinders the purity of the spirit and darkens the sincerity of prayer. But when the Spirit of God sees our spirit laboring in opposing the flesh and cleaving to him, he stretches out his hand and helps its weakness; and as a teacher, taking on a raw pupil wholly ignorant of letters, so as to be able to teach and train him, must bend down to the pupil’s rudiments, and himself first say the name of the letter, so that by answering the pupil may learn, and the teacher in a way becomes like the beginning pupil, saying and practicing the things which the beginner ought to say and practice: so too the Holy Spirit, when he sees our spirit troubled by the assaults of the flesh, and not knowing what it ought to pray for as it ought, himself, as a teacher, leads the prayer, which our spirit, if indeed it desires to be a pupil of the Holy Spirit, should follow; he himself offers groans by which our spirit may be taught, groaning, to make God propitious to itself again. But if the Spirit teaches and our spirit, that is, our mind, does not follow, by its own fault the teacher’s instruction becomes unfruitful for it. And Paul, knowing that this mystery is carried on within man, said: “For if I speak in tongues, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful,” calling his spirit the grace of the Holy Spirit which is given by God to men. Hence, exhorting us not to have this benefit of the Holy Spirit unfruitful, he adds and says: “What then is it? I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the mind also.” Although, then, Paul himself has indicated that these things are unutterable and are carried on with unutterable groanings, yet as far as was possible for us we have set out a kind of image of the things that are done divinely, which he himself presented in a more veiled way. But he who is spiritual examines all things, and if he has been able to search out something loftier than these, let him keep it to himself; “for the faithful in spirit conceals matters.”

Yet those are to be admonished who ask of God for themselves prosperity in the present life, and health, or riches, or honors, that they do not know what they should pray for as is expedient. For often these present gains and worldly rank turn to the loss of the soul or to its everlasting disgrace. And therefore that is rather to be held which the Lord taught us to say in prayer: “Your will be done.”

“And he who searches the hearts knows what the Spirit desires, because he intercedes for the saints according to God.” He shows that in prayer it is not so much our words as our heart and mind that are weighed by God; for he it is who searches hearts and reins. And that he says a second time that “the Spirit intercedes” teaches this: that no small dispensation is carried on among men through the Holy Spirit too. For although the only-begotten Son of God, made flesh and having suffered for the salvation of the human race, destroyed death by his death and restored life by his resurrection, yet great things are done, no less promptly, even without incarnation, through the Holy Spirit too. Only this: that he died for the ungodly (for so Paul himself shows when he says, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly”), but the Holy Spirit now intercedes not for the ungodly but for the saints; and he intercedes not according to the flesh but “according to God”; whereas Christ is said to have died not according to God but according to the flesh. Therefore the Spirit is said to offer intercession for the saints not with words but with groanings; and not with these common groanings, but unutterable ones. For how can what the Spirit of God speaks to God be uttered, when sometimes not even our own spirit can set out in speech what it feels and understands?

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called saints according to purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” If the Spirit, he says, intercedes for us with unutterable groanings, and the whole creation groans together and suffers pain together until now, which will be freed from the servitude of corruption only then, when the freedom of the glory of the sons of God has come, how will it not fittingly be declared that we know that for those who love God all things work together for good? For all things work together for good, and labor with those who love God, to such a degree that the Spirit himself helps, and the divine nature does not disdain to be the guide of the journey to the good.

Yet since there are some who have the spirit of servitude in fear, and others above them who receive the Spirit of adoption, because they now revere God not by fear but by love, and because in them perfect love casts out fear, it must be considered whether perhaps not all things work together for good for those who still remain in the spirit of servitude; but some things do work together even for them, though not all; and I do not know whether they lead them to the good itself, or rather, so to speak, to the doors of the good. But for those who love God and cleave to him with the whole affection of love, all things, as we said, labor with them and help them and contribute something of their own effort, so as to establish them in that good itself which can never admit of change. And if there are some who love God and others who receive the spirit of servitude, it must be considered whether perhaps this too which he says, “for those who are called according to purpose,” and, “he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,” does not befit those who are in the spirit of servitude. For they too can be said to be called, yet not called according to purpose; and because they are still in the spirit of servitude, they cannot be placed among the many brothers of whom the Son of love is firstborn, who is “the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of all creation.”

And this too which he said, “conformed to the image of his Son,” I wish to inquire into: to which form they are said to be conformed. For we read that the Son of God was placed at one time in the form of God, at another in the form of a servant. To which of these two forms, then, the Apostle says that those who love God, and for whom all things work together for good, will be conformed, seems to me no idle distinction. I think, then, according to what the same Paul indicates elsewhere, where he says, “My little children, for whom I am again in travail until Christ is formed in you,” that he says Christ is formed in those who strive toward perfection: according as he is the Word, so that the sincerity of the Word of God may be formed purely in them; and according as he is truth, so that truth may stand in them without the admixture of any deceit; and according as he is wisdom, so that the wisdom of God, that which Paul speaks among the perfect, may be kept pure in them and without any turning aside into error. So too according to all that Christ is, whether righteousness, or sanctification, or the other virtues, if these are clearly formed in them, they will be seen to have been made conformed to the image according to that form in which he is in the form of God. But if someone is still living in the beginnings (and the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God), and, still placed in fear, takes up the first elements of the worship of God, those who take up the first beginnings in the fear of God are to be understood to be made conformed according to the form of a servant, which he took up for this purpose, to teach the fear of God to the raw and ignorant.

“For those whom,” he says, “he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Let us not pass over what he said, “he foreknew and predestined.” For I think that, just as he did not speak of all as predestined, so neither of all as foreknown. For it must not be thought, according to the common opinion of the crowd, that God foreknows good and evil things; but it must be understood according to the custom of holy Scripture. For let him who is studious in the Scriptures observe whether he anywhere finds Scripture saying that God foreknew the wicked, as in the present place he plainly says of the good, “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” For if those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, and no wicked man can be conformed to the image of the Son of God, it is plain that he speaks only of the good: “whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son”; but of the rest God is said not only not to foreknow them, but not even to know them. For “the Lord knows those who are his”; and to those who are not worthy to be known by God the Savior says: “Depart from me, for I never knew you, workers of iniquity.” So, then, in this present place too, “those whom God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” But the rest are not said to be foreknown: not that anything can be hidden from that nature which is everywhere and is nowhere absent, but because everything that is evil is held unworthy of his knowledge or foreknowledge.

“Those whom,” then, “he foreknew he also predestined.” But consider this too: whether God can be said to foreknow and predestine those who do not yet exist, or those who do exist but are not yet conformed to the image of his Son; and whether foreknowledge belongs rather to this case than to that in which what does not yet exist is to come about. For in this it is rather the will than the foreknowledge of the Creator. For in what will foreknowledge be seen, when what is to come depends on the choice of the maker?

It will perhaps seem to attentive readers that this too must be asked: why he did not say, “conformed to his Son,” but “conformed to the image of his Son.” For he who raises this will say that, just as the Son himself, who is called “the image of the invisible God,” as far as concerns his person, is other than him whose image he is, so too here what is called the image of his Son ought to be other than him whose image it is. And although these things seem steep and difficult, yet see whether we can say this: that although everyone who has cultivated himself to that form which we set out above is an image of God, that is, an image of the Son of God, yet the special and proper image of him, which received him wholly and entirely and formed him in itself, is to be said to be the very soul of Jesus, which so fitted itself in all things to the Word and Wisdom of God that it was in no way discolored from his likeness; so that whoever pursues the summit of perfection and blessedness stretches himself toward the image and likeness of that soul, which in the first place and above all others is the image of the Son of God; so “that he might be the firstborn among many brothers,” namely among those in whom he holds the first place in being conformed to the image of the Son of God.

“And those whom he predestined, these he also called; and those whom he called, these he also justified; and those whom he justified, these he also glorified.” Above he said, “Those whom he foreknew, these he also predestined”; and now he adds, “And those whom he predestined, these he also called; and those whom he called, these he also justified.” And if we understand “foreknew” and “predestined” in the common opinion, it will certainly seem that he who has been justified has been justified because he was called; and he who was called was called because he was predestined; and he who was predestined was predestined because he was foreknown. And again you will understand the contrary: that if someone has not been justified, he has not been justified because he was not called; and he who was not called was not called because he was not predestined; and he who was not predestined was not predestined because he was not foreknown. And see into what an absurd opinion those fall who take the foreknowledge of God only in this sense, as of one who knows beforehand the things that will come afterward. For according to what we set out above, it is found that God did not foreknow those whom … [the scan has lost text here] … it is objected that not all who are called are also justified. For Judas the apostle too was called, but was not justified. And even if someone contends that he was justified by the very fact that he was called, he certainly was not glorified. And those too of whom the Apostle says that they “made shipwreck of the faith” were called, but were not justified. And according to the parables of the Gospel, those to whom the servants had been sent, and who excused themselves, were called, but were not justified; and he who entered the king’s banquet and did not have a wedding garment was called, but was not justified. Since, then, each of these is so, how will the word of the Apostle seem true, which he spoke about foreknowing, or predestining, or calling, or even justifying?

But I think, according to what we set out above about how God knows or foreknows, that we must return to the custom of Scripture, which is accustomed to use a native idiom in this word, that is, in knowing: as when it says, “And Adam knew Eve his wife,” instead of saying that he was joined to his wife. And again of Rebecca it says: “She was a virgin; no man had known her.” And of the sons of Levi it is said, when they were punishing transgressors, that each did not know his father or his mother; in which without doubt it is shown that he did not join his affection and love with father or mother. And you will find many things said in the Scriptures about knowing in this sense; and therefore in the present place too it is clear that the Apostle set down the word “knowing” according to the custom of holy Scripture, to show that those were foreknown by God on whom God, knowing what kind they were, had set his love and affection; according to which this too is written: “The Lord knew those who are his”; whereas certainly, as far as that common knowledge goes, God is ignorant not only of none of those who are his own, but not even of those who stray from him. But he is said to have known his own, that is, to have held them in love and joined them to himself. So, then, “those whom God foreknew, these he also predestined; and those whom he predestined, these he also called; and those whom he called, these he also justified.”

There still remains for us the solution of that question: how those whom he called he also justified, when, according to what we said above, it is clear that many are called but few chosen. But it seems to me that there is a certain difference of calling, according to what we set out in the passage above: that all indeed are called, yet not all are called according to purpose. For those who are called according to the good purpose and good will which they bear toward the worship of God, these are the ones who are said to be called according to purpose, and these are the ones who, being called, are justified. For to their good purpose only the calling was lacking. But those who do not have a good and fixed purpose either toward divine worship or toward good work are called too, lest any excuse be left them, and lest they could plead this very thing when they are judged: “Had we too been called, we could certainly have been justified, and not only justified, but glorified.” Therefore they too are indeed called; but, as if seed were sown on rocky ground, it springs up quickly; but when the sun of tribulations grows hot, because they do not have the deep root of good purpose, they at once wither and perish. And these are the ones of whom the Apostle says that they made shipwreck of the faith. Those whom he called, then, that is, whom he called according to the purpose of the good, these he also justified. And even if “according to purpose” is referred to God, that is, that they are said to be called according to the purpose of God, who knows that there is in them a religious mind and the desire for salvation, this too will not seem contrary to what we have set out.

In this way, then, the cause of our salvation or of our perdition does not lie in the foreknowledge of God; nor will justification depend on the calling alone; nor has being glorified been wholly taken out of our power. For even if we understand foreknowledge in the common sense, something will not come to be because God knows it will be, but because it will be, it is known by God before it comes to be. For even if, for example, we were to imagine that God does not foreknow anything, what is to be would without doubt be as it is: for instance, Judas became a traitor, and the prophets foretold that this would be so. It was not, then, because the prophets foretold it that Judas betrayed; but because he was going to be a traitor, the prophets foretold what he was going to do out of the wickedness of his own purpose; since Judas certainly had it in his power to be like Peter and John, if he had willed; but he chose the desire for money rather than the glory of the apostolic fellowship; and the prophets, foreseeing this future will of his, handed it down in the records of their books. And so that you may know that the cause of each one’s salvation is placed not in the foreknowledge of God but in his own purpose and actions, see Paul, fearing lest perhaps, having preached to others, he himself should be found reprobate, bruising his body and bringing it into subjection.

Further, against those who raise such questions against us, we can also say this: If those whom he foreknew he also predestined, but he did not predestine all, then he did not foreknow all; and according to them there will be some things of which God is ignorant. But if foreknowing is taken according to what we said above, that is, to receive into affection and join to oneself, it will be true that, as he did not predestine all, so he did not foreknow all. For in this way Jesus too is said not to have known sin. Shall we say that Jesus did not know what sin was, that is, that he did not know that murder is a sin, or adultery, or theft, and the like? Or is this what is meant by not knowing sin, that he did not mingle himself with sin, nor did sin cleave to him? So too it is written elsewhere: “He who keeps the commandment will not know an evil word”; that is, he will not receive an evil word, will not believe it, will not hear it gladly, nor let it enter his mind. Those, then, whom in this way God foreknew, these he also predestined; and those whom he predestined, these he also called, with that distinction of calling which we stated; and those whom he called, these he also justified; and those whom he justified, these he also glorified.

Of glorification we can understand in the present age too, according to what the Apostle says: “But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.” There is, then, both this glory which each of the justified receives in the present life, and there is that which is hoped for in the future, when this body of our lowliness, which “is sown in dishonor, will rise in glory”; and when, as there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, and as star differs from star in glory, so will the resurrection of the dead be.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare even his own Son, but handed him over for us all, how will he not also with him give us all things?” How God is for us is plain from what he set out above: that is, that the Spirit of God dwells in us, and that the Spirit of Christ, or Christ, is in us, or that the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in us, or that we are led by the Spirit of God, or that we have received the Spirit of adoption, or that we are sons of God and heirs and joint heirs of Christ, or that we receive the firstfruits of the Spirit, or that the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings, or that the whole creation groans together and suffers pain together with us, or that all things work together for good for us who love God, or that we are called according to purpose, and foreknown, and predestined, and justified, and glorified. For, making as it were an epilogue of all these, and repeating them all at once, he says: “What then shall we say to these things?”, that is, to all these things which we have said above: for if God is so for us that he has granted us all these, who will be able to be against us? Not that he says there is no adversary to us at all: otherwise how will what was said by Peter stand: “Your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour”? But this is what he shows: that, with God acting for us, our adversary is made contemptible and nothing. And David likewise says: “The Lord is my light and my Savior; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” He does not, then, say that there is no one whom he fears and who opposes him; but although, he says, “my enemies who afflict me draw near against me to eat my flesh,” yet, with the Lord defending my life, “they have grown weak and fallen.”

He gives the greatest proof of the immense love of God toward us, who loved us so much, he says, that he did not spare even his own Son, but handed him over to suffering for us all. And to bind us with greater wonder he added a word that holds a vast secret, saying that “he did not spare his own Son.” For he had said above that we too who receive the Spirit of adoption are sons of God. Lest, then, under this common name of sons, it should be thought that he handed over one of those who seemed to be adopted as sons, he added “his own Son,” to show him who alone is begotten of God himself by an ineffable birth. For us all, then, he handed him over; not by that handing over of which it is written, “Brother will hand over brother to death, and parents their children”; but he is said to have handed him over by this very thing, that, when he was in the form of God, he allowed him to empty himself and take the form of a servant and come even to the death of the cross; so that in him he might set before all an example of obedience and open the way of resurrection to the dead.

“For all,” then, “he handed him over.” Not only for the saints, not only for the great, but also for the least, and for absolutely all who are in the Church, the Father handed over his own Son; and therefore, if someone harms even one of the least and the weak by striking his weak conscience, he is said to sin against Christ, since he causes the stumbling of a soul for which Christ died. Since, then, the Father handed over the Son for us all, no one at all, not even the least who is in the Church, is to be despised; and therefore the Lord himself said: “If anyone causes one of these least little ones to stumble, it is better for him that a donkey’s millstone be hung about his neck and he be cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these to stumble.” God, then, who made us precious by pouring out for us the precious blood of his own Son, how will he not with him give us all things? For there is nothing of creation, whether visible or invisible, that can be equaled to the Son: for in no way can the creature be compared with its Creator; and if the Creator himself has been given to us, how will not all creation be given to us with him?

Though this saying can be understood in two ways, that is, that “with him he will give us all things.” For this too may be seen: that if we have Christ in us according as he is the Word and wisdom and truth and righteousness and peace, and all the other things that are written of him, with this fullness of virtues all things will be given us; so that we shall no longer hold one thing out of all creatures, and this small place of earth which we now seem to inhabit, but shall have together with Christ all things whatsoever God created, visible and invisible, hidden and manifest, temporal and eternal. But what he said, “with him he will give us all things,” can also be understood in another way thus: that is, that the whole creation will be given to be enjoyed, to him indeed as heir, but to us as his joint heirs, together with him.

“Who will bring a charge against the elect of God? It is God who justifies; who is it that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died, yes rather, who rose again, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” It seems to me that when he says, “Who will bring a charge against the elect of God?” he speaks of the devil. For no one is so elect and so great that he would not dare to accuse him, except him alone who did no sin, who also said: “Now the prince of this world comes, and in me he finds nothing.” But although he puts forth the wickedness of his purpose, when God justifies and blots out the iniquity of his elect like a cloud and their sins like a mist, and whitens them from their former trespasses like snow and makes them white like wool, what will the accuser accomplish? And since Christ died for them, or rather rose from the dead, and stands at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for them, who will be able to condemn them? Above, he says, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with unutterable groanings; here Christ Jesus, who died and rose again, himself intercedes for us. God, who handed over his own Son for us, himself justifies the elect: who will there be any longer who dares to condemn?

But look more carefully at how the Apostle nowhere in his words departs from his inborn caution. He did not say, “Who will bring a charge against the called?” but “against the elect.” For unless you have been elected, unless you have shown yourself approved to God in all things, you will have an accuser. For if your case is bad, if your crime binds you, what will an advocate profit you, even if it is Jesus who intercedes? For Jesus is the truth: the truth, then, cannot deceive on your behalf. In this the advocate will help you: that you are not entangled in the accuser’s slanders, that past sins, which have been blotted out through baptism, are not imputed to you. But if after this you sin again, and do not wash these away with any tears of repentance, you will give your accuser matter for charging you; and although Jesus intercedes for us, yet Jesus cannot say that darkness is light, nor bitter sweet. If, then, you wish to prevail when you are judged, do what is written of the righteous man: “Order your words in judgment; prepare your works for the end; remember your last things, and you will never sin”; lest there befall you what is written of someone: “When he is judged, let him go out condemned.” But see how you hear that Jesus intercedes for us. For he is the one of whom it is also written elsewhere that the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son; and as he is both victim and priest, and he is both in the form of a servant and in the form of God, so he is both advocate and judge.

“Who then will separate us from the love of God? Tribulation? or distress? or persecution? or famine? or nakedness? or peril? or the sword? (As it is written: For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.) But in all these we overcome through him who loved us.” For all these things, he says, which we have enumerated above, that is, that we are no longer in the flesh but in the spirit; and that the Spirit of God dwells in us; and that Christ is in us, through whom the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of justification; and that we are no longer debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, because by the spirit we have put to death the deeds of the flesh; and that through the Spirit of adoption we have been made sons of God, and if sons, also heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ; and that the whole creation groans together and suffers pain together with us, awaiting the revelation of the sons of God; and that for us who love God all things work together for good; and that he foreknew and predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son, we who have been called according to purpose: since for all these benefits, he says, which we have obtained, we are fixed and rooted in the love of God, who will be able to separate us from it?

If tribulation comes, we shall say to God: “In tribulation you have enlarged me.” If there is the distress of the world, coming also from the necessity of the body, … the breadth of the wisdom and knowledge of God … [the scan has lost text here] … if I suffer, and confess my Christ before men, I am sure that he too will confess me before his Father who is in heaven. If famine comes, it cannot trouble me: for I have the bread of life which came down from heaven and refreshes hungry souls; nor can this bread ever fail, for it is perfect and eternal. Nakedness does not confound me: for I have put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and I hope to be clothed over with our dwelling which is from heaven; for this mortal must put on immortality, and this corruptible put on incorruption. Peril I will not fear: “for the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? and the Lord is the defender of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” The earthly sword cannot terrify me: for I have with me a stronger sword, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; and with me is the living and effective word of God, which is more piercing than any two-edged sword. If, then, the sword of the world comes upon my neck, it wins me greater love toward God. For I shall say to him, as it is written: “For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.” For it is not enough for me to die for Christ, or to be tortured, for one hour, but all the day long, that is, the whole time of my life. For if I spend my whole life in persecutions and perils, I shall say that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, which will be revealed in us. For the time of this life is short, and slight that which we spend in persecutions; but eternal and everlasting is that which we await in glory. And therefore, he says, “in all these we overcome,” not by our own strength, “but through him who loved us.” For while we hang upon his love, we do not receive the sense of pain. For his love, with which he loved us and snatched our affection to himself, makes us not feel the torture and pain of the body. Therefore in all these we overcome. Something of this kind the Bride too says to the Word in the Song: “I am wounded,” she says, “by love.” In this way, then, our soul too, having received from Christ the wound of love, even if it hands over the body to the sword, will not feel the wounds of the flesh because of the wound of love.

“For 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 is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The Apostle seems to have shown two orders of the things that usually stir up temptations for men. And in those we discussed first, the order of human temptations is understood to be described; of which he also said to the Corinthians, as to those who could not bear greater ones: “Let no temptation take you except what is human; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.” But now, in these words that we have in hand, he indicates not human temptations but those greater than human. And therefore I think that in the former, when he had enumerated each one, at the last he says, “But in all these we overcome.” But in these temptations of the second order he does not say so confidently, “We overcome,” but says very slenderly that none of these will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. For of human temptations, as of small and light ones, he declares confidently that we overcome them; but those higher and more than human ones, even if we are not able to overcome and lay them low (for this is the work of Christ alone, who “stripped the principalities and powers, triumphing over them in himself”), yet this too stands in place of victory: if, when they have hurled against us all the engines of their assaults, they are nevertheless not able to separate us from the love of God.

But now let us try to discuss each point, and to open, as far as we can, what is to be thought of each word of the Apostle. Although the Apostle seems to have covered loftier things in these words than the power of our exposition is enough to bear, or the reckoning of brevity allows, let us nevertheless inquire whether all these things which the Apostle enumerated, or some of them, have this zeal or intent, to strive to separate human souls from the love of God, and for this reason set in motion against us all that we suffer. For death perhaps seems able to do this, that we be separated from the love of God, and angels, and principalities, and powers that are without doubt opposed to us, and things present, which are certainly slippery and perishable. And depth can be understood likewise. But how life, and things to come, and height, and any other creature strive to separate us from the love of God does not seem idle to explain. Unless perhaps someone says that the Apostle says these things by hyperbole, that is, that we are in no way turned aside from the love of God, not only through things that can happen, but not even through those that cannot happen at all: for example, if another life were given us than this which has been given by God, or if another hope of things to come were promised us, or height, or even a creature other than that which groans together and suffers pain together for us, which certainly cannot happen, not even these could separate us from the love of God. This, then, is one mode of exposition.

Yet let us see whether this understanding too can perhaps be admitted. The death of which he speaks here is to be taken as that which we explained above is said to be the last enemy of Christ to be destroyed. It is called death for this reason, that, as this common death separates the soul from the body, so that one strives to separate the soul from the love of God; and this certainly is the death of the soul. It may be, then, that there is also some life on its side, which acts with it to separate us from the love of God: which is the life of sin. For unless this life were evil, the Apostle would never urge us to die to sin, and to be baptized into the death of Christ and buried with him. It may be, then, that it is this life of sin that desires to separate us from the love of God. And I think that each sin too has a kind of life of its own within us: for each vice is a life of sin. The more vices, then, are found within us, the more lives of sins will be seen to be in us. And for this reason perhaps it is said: “For your mercy is better than lives.”

“Neither angels, nor principalities, nor powers.” It is easy to understand those angels for whom eternal fire is said by the Savior to have been prepared with the devil; and principalities and powers, without doubt, those against which our struggle is; or those principalities and authorities of which he says, “When he has destroyed every principality and authority and power”; from among which also the prince of this world is named. After this, “Nor things present,” he says, or “things impending.” This can be seen to be said of those whom the same Apostle elsewhere named “the rulers of this world and of darkness”; or also because the pleasure and delight of present things, and the vain glory of this world, strive to draw us away from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

After this let us see what the things to come are, which wish, but cannot, to separate Paul and those like him from the love of God. This too seems to me to be understood in two ways. For “things to come” can be understood from the time when he wrote these things, so that he seems to say this: If any trials, if any tribulations come upon me, they will not be able to separate me from the love of God. Or else understand “things to come” as those which will meet those departing from this world, when the prince of this world and the other powers under him will strive to hold back the soul setting out from the body, but will not be able to hold back those from whom perfect love, which is in Christ Jesus, casts out fear. And that Scripture will seem to confirm this sense which says: “For while we are in the body we are away from the Lord; for we desire rather to be away from the body and present with the Lord”; and, “We strive, whether absent or present, to please him”; calling us absent when placed in the body, but present when departing from the body; and he shows that the saints strive to please God even in departing from the body. If, then, love is perfect in them, none of the things to come, in which God is to be pleased, will be able to separate them from it; since those certainly will not please God who are so unstable in the love of God that they can be separated from it. These two ways of speaking of things to come we have given. But it may be that there is some third way higher than these, which let him who has been able to search it out judge worthy to be preferred to these.

Then he adds: “Nor powers.” This seems to be one kind among the many rational creatures, not leading its life in a mortal body, but like the angels, though of another order than the angels are. These powers too, then, have a contest to separate us from the love of God; but not even they, he says, will be able, if our love is rooted and founded. Likewise both height … [the scan has lost text here] … “Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord,” when he was assailed by those assigned to hell and by the spirits of Gehenna. But not even these, says Paul, will be able to separate us from the love of God.

“Nor,” he says, “any other creature.” He can be understood to have spoken of another creature besides this which we see: for there is another, invisible to us now. But it can also be taken thus: besides those which I enumerated above, that is, angels and powers, and if there is any other creature; so that he might not seem, by enumerating each by kind, to draw out a long and superfluous discourse. Or in yet another way: since Paul knew that the creatures of God are many and innumerable, of which he himself had received not the whole knowledge but knowledge in part, and of which not only the kinds but even the names are unknown in the present age; of which the same Apostle also says elsewhere that the Savior sat above every principality and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that to come: on account of these, then, which he knows can be named not only in the present age but also in that to come, he will seem to have said: “Nor will any other creature be able to separate us from the love of God.”

Yet from all these Paul shows the confidence of his salvation, when he says he can now be torn from the love of God neither by angels opposing, nor by powers assailing, nor by things present, nor by things to come struggling against him, nor by any creature at all opposing; and that he feels no fear of so many adversaries, so as truly to show that perfect love had now cast out fear from him too. For he too once had fear, and feared lest perhaps he should fall; and he who now did not fear if the wars of the heavenly powers were stirred up against him, once feared his own flesh and dreaded the snares rising from it, when he said, writing to the Corinthians: “I bruise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, after preaching to others, I myself should be found reprobate.” And therefore beyond all others the snares of the flesh are to be dreaded, and that enemy who comes forth from ourselves is to be guarded against, until the soul comes to such progress that, bound to God by the sweetness of love, it shrinks from the blandishments of the body and the enticements of the flesh, made one spirit with God.

“I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual pain in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brothers, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, whose is the adoption of sons, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever.” Paul sees that, according to what he set out above, that by no power, heavenly or earthly, present or to come, opposing him could he be separated from the love of Christ, what he now proposed to say would seem contrary and incredible: that he wished to become anathema from Christ, whom he loved so inseparably, that is, to be made a stranger to him. Lest he seem to incur the mark of a lie, he sets first a satisfaction, so that there may be no doubt at all about his words, and says: “I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit.”

But let us see why he said, “I speak the truth in Christ,” as though showing that there is some truth which is not in Christ. And see whether we can in some such way distinguish truth which is in Christ from that which is not in Christ; for elsewhere too the same Apostle says: “The truth of Christ is in me, that I do not lie.” The truth of Christ, then, is to be believed to be there where the other virtues also are which Christ is described as being: that is, where righteousness is, where peace is, where the word of God is, there is also the truth of Christ. But there is also truth in unrighteousness: as if, for example, we speak of that Pythonic demon which, it is related in the Acts of the Apostles, dwelt in a certain slave girl and cried out after the apostles that “these men are servants of the most high God, who proclaim to men the way of God”: there was truth in these words, for what was said was true; but this truth was not in Christ; and therefore Paul turned to her and said: “Be silent, and come out of her.” And what Caiaphas said was truth too: “It is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish”; but yet this truth was not in Christ. And therefore the Apostle, to distinguish it from that truth which is apart from Christ, says that he speaks the truth in Christ.

And this too which he says, “my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit,” seems to me to have a like meaning. For conscience bears witness to the Gentiles too, according to what the same Apostle says above: “their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or even defending them.” In those, then, in whom their thoughts have something to accuse and conscience comes to bear witness, it cannot be said that conscience bears witness in the Holy Spirit for evil deeds. But in the Apostle, where thought now has nothing to accuse, conscience rightly bears witness in the Holy Spirit. Yet see the greatness of the apostolic heart. From the love of God he cannot be separated; what he speaks, he speaks in Christ; what he has in his conscience is held by the Holy Spirit. What heavens, I ask, what thrones, what minds of the heavenly powers, however vast, will be able to hold the whole Trinity in such ample seats?

“That I have great sorrow and continual pain in my heart.” Granted, have sorrow; granted, feel pain over the perdition of your brothers who are your kinsmen according to the flesh: surely not so far as to wish to become anathema, to be separated from Christ? And how will you save others, if you yourself perish? It is not so, he says; but I have learned from my Master and Lord that he who wishes to save his soul will lose it, and he who loses it will find it. What wonder, then, if the Apostle is willing to become anathema for his brothers, who knows that he who was in the form of God emptied himself of it and took the form of a servant, and was made a curse for us? What wonder, then, if, when the Lord was made a curse for servants, a servant becomes anathema for brothers? And I think this is what Moses too said to the Lord when the people had sinned: “And now, if you forgive them their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of the book of life which you have written.” What then? Do you wish Paul to seem inferior to Moses? He asks to be blotted out of the book of life for his brothers; ought Paul not to wish to be anathema for his brothers? But perhaps someone will say that Moses, offering this, deserved to obtain the salvation of the people, while Paul wishes it but was not heard. What if I show you that Paul was heard more than Moses? For all those who had gone out of Egypt through Moses fell in the wilderness; and their descendants who received the land of promise even now wander from it as exiles and outcasts. But hear what Paul says of Israel: “I do not wish you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, and so all Israel will be saved.” You see, then, that Paul was heard, and because he offered himself as anathema, he won salvation for his brothers. And therefore he seems to me to have set first all those things, that he could by no power be torn from the love of God, so that, when he offers himself as anathema for his brothers, you should not judge a fall of his possible; but as he who is inseparable from the Father by nature and immortal came into death and went down into hell, so this man too, imitating his Master, although he cannot be separated from the love of Christ, becomes anathema from Christ for his brothers, by devotion, certainly, not by transgression.

That the Israelites are Paul’s kinsmen according to the flesh needs no explanation. “Whose,” he says, “is the adoption of sons.” For the sons of Israel were adopted by God at the time when the Most High divided the nations and scattered the sons of Adam according to the number of the angels of God, and Jacob became the Lord’s portion and Israel the lot of his inheritance. This, then, is the adoption of sons. “And the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law.” Of the glory of the law that was given it has often been said already, as the Apostle himself also says: “For if what is done away was through glory,” that is, the Old Testament, “much more what remains is in glory,” namely the preaching of the gospel. But when he says, “the covenants and the giving of the law,” he may perhaps seem to say one thing. For the law that was given is also called a covenant. But I think there is this distinction: that the giving of the law was one, and held once through Moses; but covenants were often established. For as often as they sinned and were cast off, so often they seem to have been disinherited; and again, as often as God, propitiated again, called them back and brought them into the inheritance of his possession, so often he must be believed to have renewed the covenants and written them in as heirs. “And the service, and the promises.” By service he means the priestly offices; the promises, those which were made to the fathers and are hoped to be given to those who through faith are called sons of Abraham.

Yet it is certain that from that very race according to the flesh, that is, the Israelite, came not only the fathers but also Christ; as he also says through the prophet: “Woe to them, because my flesh is from them.” And why “woe to them”? Because Jesus was born for the fall and the rising of many, and because he was rejected by those whose flesh he was, and was received by the Gentiles by whom he was not known; as he also says through David: “A people whom I did not know served me.” From them, then, is Christ according to the flesh. “Who is God over all, blessed forever.” That Christ is one thing according to the flesh and another according to the spirit he already indicated in the earlier parts of this letter, where he says: “Who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was destined Son of God in power according to the spirit of sanctification.” And how he is Son of God according to the spirit and son of David according to the flesh we explained there more fully, according to our strength. Him, then, whom there he called Son of God according to the spirit, here, the order of teaching advancing, as the hearers make progress, he declares to be God, who is blessed over all.

And I wonder how some, reading what the same Apostle says elsewhere, “One God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” deny that the Son of God ought to be confessed God, lest they seem to speak of two gods. And what will they do with this place of the Apostle, in which Christ is openly declared to be God over all? But those who think thus do not notice that, just as he did not call the Lord Jesus Christ one Lord in such a way that God the Father is not therefore called Lord, so neither did he call God the Father one God in such a way that God the Son is not believed to be God. For true is the Scripture which says: “Know that the Lord himself is God.” But both are one God, because there is no other beginning of divinity for the Son than the Father; but of that one paternal fountain, as Wisdom says, the Son is the purest emanation. Christ, then, is God over all. Over what all? Without doubt those which we spoke of a little before: above principalities and authorities and powers and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that to come. And he who is over all has no one over himself. For he is not after the Father, but from the Father. And the Wisdom of God gave this same to be understood of the Holy Spirit too, where it says: “The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of the voice.” If, then, the Son is called God over all, and the Holy Spirit is recorded to hold all things together, and God the Father is he “from whom are all things,” it is plainly shown that the nature and substance of the Trinity, which is over all, is one.

“But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are of Israel are Israelites; nor because they are the seed of Abraham are they all sons; but in Isaac shall your seed be called: that is, not those who are sons of the flesh are sons of God, but those who are sons of the promise are reckoned as seed.” Since he had said above that for his brothers, who are his kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, he could wish even to become anathema, because theirs were the adoption of sons and the giving of the law and the promises, he now says of them that the word of God has not failed, that is, the promise which was made to them has not come to nothing. For he who is the true Israel, not drawing his descent from Abraham by fleshly kinship alone (for not those who are sons of the flesh are also sons of God), but he who has descended from Abraham according to the promise of faith, he too obtains the promises of God. For many are of the race of Israel, but not all are called Israel. For Israel was named from seeing God. For so Jacob himself says: “I have seen the Lord face to face, and my soul has been saved.” Because, then, he saw God, he was called Israel. But he who does not see … [the scan has lost text here] … in Isaac alone, who was the son of promise, the posterity of his seed was set. And now, then, those who are sons of promise according to Isaac, that is, of that faith through which Abraham deserved to receive the promise of the future inheritance, they alone are reckoned as seed; for in them the succession of the inheritance is declared.

“For this is the word of promise: At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son. And not only so, but Rebecca too, having conceived from one intercourse with Isaac our father. For when they had not yet been born, nor had 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 that the elder will serve the younger; as it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” The Apostle set out to show that, although the people of Israel has been rejected through unbelief, yet the promises of God which had been made to them have not fallen away or been frustrated; and he teaches that, although Abraham had many sons, the promise was made in Isaac alone. For “not those,” he says, “who are sons of the flesh are sons of God.” And he strives to show how Isaac is not a son of the flesh but a son of God; and he goes back to what was written of him in Genesis. “For this,” he says, “is the word of promise: At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.” Isaac, then, he says, was not born by the order of fleshly birth, since Abraham was already held to have a body as good as dead, and Sarah’s womb was already dead, as was said above, but by the power of him who said, “At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.” Rightly, then, he is called a son not of the flesh but of God, who is born from the coming and the word of God.

This reasoning, then, he says, is to be accepted not only of Isaac but also of Jacob. For Rebecca too, he says, did not bring forth her offspring according to the order of fleshly birth. For when she had conceived twins from one intercourse with Isaac, the birth not yet having taken place, and no actions of the boys, good or evil, having been done among men, the divine election is directed toward Jacob, and it is said that “the elder will serve the younger,” and, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” And why these things were said so he teaches: “So that the purpose of God according to election might stand,” he says, “not from works but from him who calls, it was said”; that is, so that not those who are sons of the flesh, but those who are sons of God, may be reckoned as seed. For as there, out of many sons of the flesh, Isaac is chosen by God to be adopted as a son of God, so here too, of the two, the younger, Jacob, is chosen to be adopted as a son of God; and so it comes true that the promises of God rest not in the sons of the flesh but in the sons of God.

But all these things look to this, that the Apostle may prove that, if either Isaac or Jacob had been chosen by God for the merits which they had acquired while placed in the flesh, and had deserved to be justified through works of the flesh, the grace of their merit could certainly pass also to the posterity of flesh and blood. But now, since their election was made not from works but from the purpose of God and from the choice of him who calls, the grace of the promises is fulfilled not in the sons of the flesh but in the sons of God, that is, in those who likewise are chosen from the purpose of God and adopted as sons. For in them too is fulfilled what we have already set out above, that “those whom he foreknew, these he also predestined; and those whom he predestined, these he also called; and those whom he called, these he also justified; and those whom he justified, these he also glorified.” And whatever we set out above about these words suffices fully and abundantly for the explanation of the present place too, lest by repeating the same things we breed weariness in the readers.

“What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God? Far from it. For he says to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will show compassion to whom I will have mercy. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. You will say to me, then: Why then does he still find fault? For who resists his will?” It is fitting for one who reads these things to remember more attentively that comparison which we set down in the earlier books concerning the dispensation of the apostolic discourse: that, as in a royal house marked out by many entrances and exits, one passes from one chamber into another in such a way that the traces of one entering or leaving scarcely appear; so too Paul seems to half open the secrets of divine things a little, yet not to lay them out plainly and openly. Indeed, for the things he had said above about Isaac and Jacob, that through election and from the purpose of God, before they had done any work good or evil, God said either of the one, “At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son,” or of the other, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated”: when in the present passage he had brought in a certain person as if contradicting him and raising a question, and saying, “Is there injustice with God?”, and had answered, “Far from it”: if it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy; and if he chose Pharaoh for this purpose, to show in him the might of his power; and if he has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills, why, he says, does he find fault with men? And why is he who sins blamed, when such is his will concerning each? To one who stirs up these and similar things, and thrusts himself boldly and importunately into the chamber of this mystery, he meets him with the rebuke of a most worthy exclamation and says: “O man, who are you to answer back to God?” As if he said: Who are you, who plunge into the king’s hall and dare to penetrate the secrets of the inner chamber? For this reason, then, we too, in such matters, placed as in a royal hall, let us pass with hesitant step, few things in speech, more in silence, the apostle Paul himself being made our master and guide on this journey.

In the person, then, of one contradicting him the Apostle says, “Is there injustice with God?”, and at once at the beginning answers, “Far from it”; so that to all the other things which are to be objected in the person of the one contradicting, the Apostle may always be seen to answer, “Far from it.” This contradicter, then, also uses the words of Moses, in which the Lord says to him: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will show compassion to whom I will have mercy.” And if this is so, he says, then salvation is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of him on whom God has mercy. For to Pharaoh too, he says, it is said: “For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth”; so that from this it seems to be shown that, if Pharaoh was chosen for this, that through him the power of God might be declared to men, it was not in his own power that he perished. And he adds after all: “So then he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens.” This is what you assert, he says, you who contradict: that God complains and rebukes men without cause. For if he himself chooses whom he wills and casts off whom he wills, who resists the will of him through whom are all things? Without doubt this contradiction contrives this: that there is no freedom of choice in man, and that each one does not have it in his power either to be saved or to perish. Of these things each point has been discussed by us, as far as we could, more fully in that little book where we treated of freedom of choice, and they suffice more than enough for instruction. Yet now too we shall recall a few of the things said there.

What he said, “It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy,” is to be taken as David too says in the Psalm: “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, he watches in vain who guards it.” In this he shows not that he who builds a house does nothing and is idle, and so the Lord builds it; but that he spends as much care and labor as lies in man, while it belongs to God that, all obstacles being removed, the work comes to its effect. Since, then, it is taught by this that man spends labor and care, but God grants success and effect to the work, it is certainly pious and religious, since both God and man do what is in them, to ascribe the sum of the work to God rather than to man. So too, when Paul planted and Apollos watered, God is said to give the increase; and it is added: “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God who gives the increase.” So in the present place too we can say: So neither he who runs is anything, nor he who wills, but God who gives the effect. For he who wills and he who runs seem to be what he who plants and he who waters are; but the Apostle says that he who plants and he who waters are nothing, not that they do nothing, but that in comparison with God, who gives the work its increase or effect, they are said to be nothing.

And let us see what is meant by what is said to Pharaoh: “For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you.” It is certain that God not only knows but also foreknows the purpose and will of each one. And knowing and foreknowing, as a good and just steward, he uses the movements and purpose of each to accomplish those works which the mind and will of each has chosen. As if, for example, we say: if there is a householder who is wise and just and has many servants, will he not consider, with all the shrewdness possible, which of them has a mind fit for farming the land, and assign them to the country; whose is fit for trading, whose too for feeding the cattle, and whose talent he finds fit for household service and attending his chamber; and so, being wise, assign each to fitting duties? But since it does not escape him, whether he is a householder or a king, that subjects must sometimes rebel and break the rules of discipline, and for this need correction and stripes, he must therefore choose from all, as fit also for this, such dispositions, if there are any more fiercely stirred, as are carried by their own movements yet bring the correction necessary for wrongdoers. Let us suppose, then, that this householder, or king, saw the time when those must be corrected who have committed many things against morals and discipline, and chose some very harsh man, much harsher than those very ones who are to be corrected, who for his crimes is no longer worthy of correction but of death. And wishing his destruction to profit the correction of the others, he sends him to those whom he wishes to be corrected by his death, and says to him: “For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” For see that he did not say, “For this very purpose I made you”; otherwise the fault would seem to be referred to the Creator; but he says, “For this very purpose I raised you up”; that is, so that through the wickedness of your mind, which you acquired for yourself by living unbridled and without the fear of God, a useful and fruitful correction may be applied to others, and in you yourself a most notorious destruction may be set as an example to posterity.

And as to his saying, “So then he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens,” he seems to take it from what is written in Exodus. For there he says: “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, so that he does not let the people go.” And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened in this way. God did not wish to inflict sudden and full punishment on him. For although he was of consummate wickedness, yet God by his patience had not shut out even from him the possibility of conversion; and therefore he uses on him at first gentler, then gradually heavier, stripes. But what God did through patience, from this he was hardened to contempt, storing up greater wrath for himself, so that what the Apostle writes may fittingly be said to him: “Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and patience and long-suffering, not knowing that the patience of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you store up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath.” It is not, then, that God hardens whom he wills, but he who has not been willing to obey patience is hardened. It is superfluous, then, what you say to the Apostle, you who oppose him: “Why then does he still find fault? For who resists his will?” That no one withstands the will of God is certain; but it befits us to know that his will is just and right. For that we are good or evil is of our own will; but to what kind of stripes the evil man, and to what kind of glory the good man, is appointed is of the will of God.

“[O] man, who are you to answer back to God? Will what is formed say to him who formed it: Why have you made me thus? Or does the potter not have power over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” We read in the Gospels too that those who insolently and faithlessly asked the Lord by what authority he did the things he did, and who had given him this authority, were not even held worthy of an answer. Likewise in the present place too we see the Apostle stirred against insolent questions, and by what he answered he confounded the stubbornness of the questioner. For he says: “O man, who are you to answer back to God?” For man before God is what clay is before the potter. And as with a worthless servant: if perhaps it seems good to his master that some work should be done which is full of reason and use, and he, unwilling to work, begins to discuss what the master commands and to ask the master, “Why do you order this work to be done? Whom does it profit? To whom is it necessary?”, what answer will be so fitting for the stubborn servant as to say to him: “Who are you to answer back to your master? So it pleases; so it seems good to the master”? But I do not think that, if a faithful and prudent servant asks, wishing to understand and to marvel at his master’s wisdom, it is said to him: “Who are you?” Indeed, when Daniel the prophet had desired to know the will of the Lord, for which he was also called “a man of desires,” it was not said to him, “Who are you?” but an angel was sent to instruct him about all the dispensations and judgments of God. We too, then, if we desire to know something of the secret and hidden things of God, if we are men of desires and not of contentions, let us seek faithfully and humbly the judgments of God set more covertly in the divine writings. For this reason the Lord too said, “Search the Scriptures,” knowing that these things are opened not to those who, busy with other affairs, hear or read in passing, but to those who with an upright and simple heart, with unbroken labor and continual vigils, search the divine Scriptures more deeply; of whom I know well that I am not one. Yet if there is anyone who seeks thus, he will find.

But let us too, as far as we can, turn to the things in hand. “Will what is formed,” he says, “say to him who formed it: Why have you made me thus? Or does the potter not have power over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” And in Jeremiah the prophet we read something of this kind, where he is commanded by God to go into the potter’s house and see him forming; and indeed, gathering up a vessel that had collapsed in his hands, he formed it again according to his will. “And the word of the Lord came to him,” it says, “saying: Can I not do with the house of Israel as this potter?” And Wisdom says: “The furnace tests the potter’s vessels, and temptation just men.” God, then, has power over us as the potter has over the clay, to make from the same lump vessels for honor and vessels for dishonor. For you, then, who answer back insolently to God, let it suffice to have heard this. But let him who desires to behold the works of God’s wisdom in his dispensations hear Paul, who knows the divine secrets, discussing these very things in another place. “But in a great house,” he says, “there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware, and some for honor, some for dishonor. If then anyone cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work.” Do you hear how Paul, in these words in which he had no insolent contradicter, opened the differences of the vessels? For there, where the hearer was not worthy but was a contradicter, he mentions only earthen vessels; but here he says there are both golden and silver and wooden and earthen ones, and some, he says, are for honor and others are made for dishonor. Likewise the reason why some are made for honor and others for dishonor he kept silent there, but opened here. “For if anyone cleanses himself,” he says, “from these,” without doubt from the filth of sin, “he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work.” It remains, then, that he who has not cleansed himself, nor washed away the stains of sin through repentance, is a vessel for dishonor. And if he has also increased his wickedness and through hardness of mind and an impenitent heart has wholly despised being converted, he will now be not only a vessel of dishonor but a vessel of wrath.

So, then, the reason which there he shuts to those who demand it unworthily, here he opens to those who desire it worthily; through which that too which he set forth a little before about Jacob and Esau is explained more plainly. For, so that Jacob might be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work, his soul had cleansed itself; and God, seeing its purity, and having power to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor, made Jacob, who, as we said, had cleansed himself, a vessel for honor; but Esau, whose soul he did not see so pure nor so simple, he made from the same lump a vessel for dishonor. And so that you may know that Jacob was made a vessel for honor because of the purity and simplicity of his soul, hear what testimony of simplicity divine Scripture bears him: “And Jacob,” it says, “was a simple man, dwelling in a house.” Therefore, then, the Apostle says of them that before they were born it is said of them: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

“But if God, wishing to show his wrath and to make known his power, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, so that he might make known the riches of his glory in the vessels of mercy, which he prepared for his glory: even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles; as he says in Hosea: I will call not my people, my people; and not beloved, beloved; and her who had not obtained mercy, her who has obtained mercy. And it will be: in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.” We have often pointed out the Apostle’s unarranged expressions and their defects, which is found no less in the present place. For what he says at the beginning of the passage, “But if God, wishing,” is not answered by anything. For instance, as he also said elsewhere, “But if the firstfruits are holy, so is the lump”; here he answers nothing of the kind, but left this conjunction as it were idle; and even if it is not taken in, the understanding will be given more clearly without it: for example, if we read thus: “God, wishing to show his wrath and to make known his power, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, so that he might make known the riches of his glory in the vessels of mercy.” In this it seems to be understood that, while God endures and bears patiently with the unbelieving and faithless, he makes known to men both his patience and his power: his patience, while he endures long, if perhaps they may come to their senses and be converted; his power, while at some time he punishes and does not leave crimes wholly unavenged. And again “in the vessels of mercy,” that is, those who have cleansed themselves from all filth of sin, from which no one is clean, even if his life has been one day, he makes known the riches of his glory; which vessels he prepared for glory, not by some irrational or chance grace, but because they had purged themselves from the aforesaid filth.

And as to his adding, “even us, whom he also called,” it is as though he had said: “as us, whom he called not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles.” For he seems to have pursued the earlier things as about Pharaoh, who was a vessel of wrath, and about the sons of Israel, who were vessels of mercy. Here, then, what he adds, “even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles,” seems to take up a comparison; that is, so that it seems to be said thus: “As we too are vessels of mercy, whom he called not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles.” Let these things be said as far as concerns the order of the apostolic discourse itself and the explanation of the words.

Now, going over it briefly, let us inquire something too about the inner understanding. How, then, does God make known his wrath? Through the vessels of wrath, he says, fitted for destruction. I am astonished within myself as I behold the counsel of the Holy Spirit in the divine books. For it says that the wrath of God, which is foreign to his nature, is made known to men, as this present place of the Apostle indicates; but his goodness and sweetness, which is proper to his nature, it records to be hidden and concealed, as David says: “How great is the multitude of your sweetness, Lord, which you have hidden for those who fear you!” What reason, then, shall we give that God manifests his wrath to men and hides his sweetness? Without doubt he knows that the human race is frail and prone to fall through negligence, for whom it is more expedient to be under the fear of wrath than to be loosened by the hope of God’s kindness and sweetness; as the Wisdom of God also says: “He who spares the rod hates his son. For if you strike him with the rod, he will not die; but you will save his soul from death.” God, then, makes known his power while he chastises and corrects the ungodly, so that, according to the sentence of Scripture, “while the pestilent man is scourged, the innocent becomes wiser.” But he also makes known the riches of his glory in the vessels of mercy, which he prepared for glory. The riches of God become known when his mercy is shown toward those who are despised among men and are lowly, who hope not in their riches nor in their power but in the Lord. And as then the nation of the Hebrews, despaired of among men and cast off, obtained mercy from God, so now the people of the Gentiles, which was despised and despaired of by those who glory in circumcision, has obtained mercy.

But this is what we ought to attend to more keenly: that they too obtained mercy and were called the people of God and were beloved of God; but since they did not know how to keep the grace they had received, it is said to them: “Because the dwelling of Israel committed adultery, I sent her away and gave her a bill of divorce into her hands”; and again elsewhere: “You have become a weariness to me; I will no longer forgive your sins.” And through Jeremiah the Lord says: “My inheritance has become to me like the den of a hyena.” Lest perhaps we too, who were not the people of God, but through the riches of his glory he called us his people, and who were not beloved but have been made beloved and sons of the living God, if we do not walk as sons of light and sons of God, if we do not act as the people of God, so that men seeing our good works may glorify our Father who is in heaven, it is to be feared lest we fall under that word of the Apostle in which he says: “For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.”

“As he says in Hosea: I will call not my people, my people; and not beloved, beloved; and her who had not obtained mercy, her who has obtained mercy. And it will be: in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.” This testimony which the Apostle takes from Hosea does not seem, as far as the place of the prophet itself goes, to be said of the Gentiles, but of the people of Israel itself. But, as we said above, Paul takes an example from a like case, to show that, as it was once said to them when they had been cast off and despaired of, first, “You are not my people, and I am not your God”; and after this is added, “And it will be: in the place in which it was said to them, You are not my people, they too will be called sons of the living God”; so, he says, we too whom he called not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles, who before were not his people, he has now called his people; and her not beloved, beloved; and in the place where it was said to us, “You are not my people,” there we shall be called sons of the living God. But perhaps those who are of the circumcision may ask us and say: “Where, then, was it said to you that you are not the people of God, so that there you should be called sons of the living God?” For they will assert that God spoke these things in Judea (for in it alone is God known), and that none of these things concern us, because the law speaks to those who are under the law. But I will show a far worthier place, where it was both fitting and possible for God to speak. For it will not consistently be said that God speaks in mountains and rocks and any earthly places; but God speaks in the mind of man, in the rational sense, and in the governing part of the heart; and there, when deeds unworthy and estranged from God are blamed by the conscience that convicts them, there, I say, it is declared, there it is said to each one, “You are not my people.” But if someone amends himself from these things and purifies himself, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, begins to guard his heart, there, that is, in the secret of the heart, made a peacemaker, he will be called a son of that God, his conscience agreeing.

“But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. For he is completing and cutting short the word in equity, because the Lord will make a shortened word upon the earth. And as Isaiah foretold: Unless the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah. What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have laid hold of righteousness, but the righteousness that is from faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at the law. Why? Because it was not from faith, but as from works; they stumbled at the stone of stumbling, as it is written: Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.” After he had set out, through the wisdom of God which Paul speaks among the perfect, the secret and hidden things of the divine dispensation, and had shown by what reason or order God shows either his wrath in the vessels of wrath or the riches of his glory in the vessels of mercy; and had taught that each one becomes a vessel of wrath from this, that by his hardness and impenitent heart he stores up wrath for himself on the day of wrath, while the vessels of mercy are those who have cleansed themselves from these and prepared themselves for every good work: now, to confirm these very things with greater authority, he teaches that they were written beforehand in the prophets too. “Isaiah,” he says, “cries out concerning Israel: Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved.” For the prophet, foreseeing the future, saw that very many of Israel, and especially those who are compared to the sand of the sea, through their hardness and impenitent heart would be vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, not believing in their life, but crucifying the Lord of majesty. If, then, he says, they are as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. Those who are not saved are as the sand of the sea; but the remnant that will be saved are as the stars of heaven. For the word of the promise made to Abraham contains both: “Your seed,” it says, “will be as the sand of the sea and as the stars of heaven.”

And this is what he says: “For he is completing and cutting short the word in equity, because the Lord will make a shortened word upon the earth.” The word is shortened where many are called, few … [the scan has lost text here] … “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole strength, and your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments the whole Law and the Prophets hang”; in which he plainly shortened the Prophets and the Law into these two sayings. The faith of the creed too, which is handed on to believers, can be called a shortened word, in which the sum of the whole mystery is contained, joined together in a few words.

“And as Isaiah foretold,” he says: “Unless the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.” What seed does Isaiah say was left by the Lord? Without doubt that which the same Apostle explains elsewhere, when he says it was said to Abraham: “To you I will give this land, and to your seed. He did not say, and to seeds, as of many, but to your seed, as of one, who is Christ.” This, then, is what Isaiah says: “Unless the Lord had left us seed,” that is, unless he had given us Christ to be born from us, “we would have been as Sodom,” as far as the greatness of impiety goes; except that something even graver was done among the Israelites. For the Sodomites are related to have been incestuous and shameless toward strangers; but the people of Israel showed itself sacrilegious toward him who, though he is the Lord of majesty, willed both to be called and to be their brother. Unless, then, the Lord had left this seed, through which the remnant would be saved and the vessels of mercy saved, that people would have perished like Sodom. And yet not idly did Isaiah name what was left “seed.” For seed is what is sown in the earth and returns manifold fruit: teaching by this that Christ too was to be sown, that is, buried in the earth, and rising thence would bring forth the abundant fruit of the whole multitude of the Church; as the Lord himself also says: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it bears no fruit; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

“What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have laid hold of righteousness, but the righteousness that is from faith.” This may perhaps seem contrary either to what we said above, that each one should cleanse and purge himself so as to become a useful vessel and a vessel of mercy, or to what we discussed in the passages above, that the Gentiles too use the natural law, in which without doubt there is also righteousness. How, then, does he say here that the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have laid hold of righteousness? See, then, whether we can answer in this way. It is one thing to pursue, another to have it implanted. He is said to pursue who desires to attain something through teaching and much reading; whence too such teachings as are learned by the tradition of men are called “sects,” from “pursuing.” The Gentiles, then, because they did not have the law written thus on tablets or in books, are not said to have pursued righteousness; yet they had it implanted, as the natural law taught them. For this reason, then, they were near to that righteousness which is from faith, that is, to Christ.

“But Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at the law.” This place too, as we said above must be observed, names the law in different ways in one and the same verse. For it is certain that Israel pursued the law of righteousness according to the letter, but did not arrive at the law. What law? Without doubt that of the spirit. For the Apostle would not say that the law which it pursued, and held, and had, it did not arrive at. He gives the reason, then, why Israel could not arrive at the law: “Because it was not from faith,” he says, “but as from works.” Of the faith of Christ and the works of the law we discussed abundantly at the beginning of this letter; and therefore, so as not to repeat the same things too often, let us explain the present place in a few words of the Apostle himself, in which he says: “For not knowing the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Because, then, they pursued the law not according to the works of God’s righteousness but according to the works of their own righteousness, they therefore stumbled at the stone of stumbling, of which it is written: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

But it must be known that in Isaiah the prophet this testimony is written thus: “Behold, I send into the foundations of Zion a precious stone, chosen, a cornerstone, splendid, into her foundations; and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.” But the Apostle inserted “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense” into this testimony from another place of the same prophet Isaiah, in which it is written thus: “And you will not meet him as a stone of stumbling, nor as a stone of falling”; and taking from each place what seemed suited to his assertions, he fitted them together.

Yet it may perhaps seem strange why the Lord Jesus, whom we find addressed by very many, but good and saving, names, is named in this place, which the Apostle took from Isaiah the prophet, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; since certainly to the good Lord, and the Son of the good Father, whatever things seem good and saving ought to be fitted, such as peace, and righteousness, and truth, and the door through which one enters to the Father, and the shepherd, and the lion of the tribe of Judah, or the lion’s whelp roused from sleep, or sanctification, or redemption, and the other things of this kind which seem to befit his dignity. But see whether we can show how far “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense” too can fittingly be applied to him. Stumbling and offense signify nearly one and the same thing. For it is called an offense (scandalum) when some obstacle is found in the way which hinders the step of one walking or climbing (scandere); thence, then, “scandal” is derived. Since, then, those who were in Zion, walking ways that were not good, were running with hurried foot on the road of perdition, favoring one another in their evils, as the prophet says, that the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who is unjust is blessed: our Lord and Savior, coming, began to rebuke their ways and to say, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees”; and again, “Woe to you rich”; and again, “Woe to you, Jerusalem, who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you.” And saying many things like these, and rebuking them, he began to block their ways of perdition, and became for them a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, not allowing them to enter the broad way that leads to death. So indeed it is written in Hosea the prophet too of those who walk the road of sin: “For this reason,” it says, “behold, I will hedge up her way with stakes, and block her ways, and she will not find her path.”

Let us, then, if it seems good, again set Paul himself in the middle, who, having once received letters from the priests, was going to Damascus to bring bound to Jerusalem all men and women who believed in Christ. While, then, he was making this journey of sin, the Lord Jesus met him on the way and struck him for a time with blindness; and he became to him, as far as concerns the purpose for which he was going there, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, so that he could not complete that journey of sin which he was holding to, but, being converted, believed in him who had shut off his way and blocked it with certain stakes of threatening; and, believing in him, he was not put to shame.

“Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness.” Both at the beginning and as the text of the letter has proceeded, we have said that Paul speaks now on behalf of the Gentiles, now also on behalf of Israel. Since, then, in what has just been expounded he made use of many testimonies of the prophets against Israel, so that he cited from Isaiah, “Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us seed, we would have become like Sodom and would have been made like Gomorrah,” and again, “If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant will be saved,” and to these he added that “Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not attain to the law”: therefore now, wishing to console his people again and by this to invite them to faith, he says, “Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.” And he shows the reason why his desire and prayer for them is held before God. “For I bear them witness,” he says, “that they have a zeal indeed for God, but not according to knowledge.” Although, he means, they are entangled in so many and such great evils of their sins, yet there is in them an inexpressible zeal and emulation for God; and this cause has moved me to pray to God for them, that even at the end they may at some time come to salvation. For they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. And he proves how it is that they do not have their zeal for God according to knowledge: because, “being ignorant,” he says, “of God’s righteousness,” they comply with their own righteousness. It is of little profit, then, to have zeal for God and not to have knowledge of that zeal. Indeed, the Jews, thinking that they were acting out of zeal for God, became sacrilegious against the Son of God, because they were not zealous according to knowledge, as was Phinehas son of Eleazar, who, zealous according to knowledge, slew the Midianite woman together with the Israelite who was committing sexual immorality with her; and as was Elijah, who said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the almighty God of Israel, because the sons of Israel have forsaken you; they have killed your prophets and overthrown your altars”; and as was Mattathias, of whom it is written in the first book of Maccabees that “he was zealous in the law of God, and his reins trembled, and his anger rose up according to judgment.” The zeal and emulation of all these was according to knowledge. But the zeal of the Jews was not according to knowledge, because, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, they tried to fulfill their own, that is, what seemed righteousness to men, when it would surely have been more fitting for them to obey God’s righteousness, which is Christ.

But see now whether this saying, that “they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge,” may not be spoken of them alone. For the Apostle could likewise say of others, “I bear them witness that they have a fear of God, but not according to knowledge,” and of others that they have love for God, but not according to knowledge. For if someone has affection toward God but does not know that love must be patient, kind, not envious, not acting wrongly, not puffed up, not ambitious, not seeking its own; if he does not have these and similar things in his love, but loves God with affection alone, it will fittingly be said to him too that he has love for God, but not according to knowledge. Likewise it can be said of another that he has faith in God, but not according to knowledge, if he does not know that “faith without works is dead,” and that faith in God does not consist in words alone, which are sometimes learned as composed or written by someone else, but in a certain disposition of mind such as she had who said within herself, “If I touch the fringe of his garment, I shall be saved.” If anyone, then, does not have faith in such a way as to show by his good acts the one in whom he believes, it can be said to him too that he has faith, but not according to knowledge. It can also be said of another that he has chastity for God, but [not] according to knowledge. And another takes care of the poor, but not according to knowledge, since he wishes to be praised by men. And another can be called abstinent, but not according to knowledge, if he fasts in order to be seen by men. And so in every single thing we do, unless we do it according to knowledge and understanding, it can be said to us … knowledge. And therefore effort must be given above all to knowledge, lest it befall us unhappily that, though placed in the faith, we are cheated of the faith, and, though having a zeal for good things, we fall away from good things. Do you want to know that someone who does not have knowledge can come to nothing in faith? Hear Paul himself saying to certain people, “unless you believed in vain.” It happens, then, that those have believed in vain who do not apply themselves to knowledge, so as to receive also an understanding of the truth in what they have believed. Indeed, the apostles too, perceiving that there is this difference between faith simply handed down and faith that is according to knowledge, said to the Savior, “Increase our faith”; that is, that having the faith which is not according to knowledge, we may have also the faith which is according to knowledge. So Paul bears witness to the Jews that they have a zeal for God, although not according to knowledge. Yet because they have a zeal for God in some fashion, they gave the Apostle a reason to offer prayer for them to God. For it is better to have zeal for God, even if not according to knowledge, than not to have it at all. For “to him who has,” as it is written, “it will be given,” even at the last, when all Israel will be saved; “but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

“For Christ is the end of the law, for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes that the man who does the righteousness which is of the law shall live by it. But the righteousness which is of faith speaks thus: Do not say in your heart, Who has ascended into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down; or, Who has descended into the abyss? that is, to bring Christ back from the dead. But what does Scripture say? The word is near, in your mouth and in your heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach. For if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For Scripture says, Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” “Christ is the end of the law,” that is, the perfection of the law, and Christ is righteousness, but to those who believe. Those who do not believe, however, since they do not have Christ, do not have the perfection of the law, and therefore they will not be able to attain to righteousness either. “For Moses writes that the man who does the righteousness which is of the law shall live by it. But the righteousness which is of faith speaks thus.” Already above the Apostle had mentioned two righteousnesses, where he says that Israel, ignorant of God’s righteousness, sought to establish its own righteousness; and here now again he speaks of two righteousnesses, one which is of the law and another which is of faith. But it seems to me that the righteousness of God which he said above was not known by Israel is this very righteousness which is of faith, while the one of which he says, “seeking to establish their own righteousness,” is the one he suggests here in the words of Moses, that “the man who does the righteousness which is of the law shall live by it.” But see the difference of the righteousnesses, and likewise of the lives. For see how that righteousness of God, that is, Christ, who “became for us righteousness from God” and peace, says, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” This righteousness, then, supplies not only life but eternal life. But of that righteousness of the law he did not say, “the man who does it shall live forever,” but only, “shall live by it”; since, if Christ is the end of the law, as the Apostle says, one who does not receive Christ as the end of the law will not be able to fulfill without Christ even the righteousness which is of the law.

This righteousness which is of faith, then, which is Christ, as living and subsisting, speaks thus, he says: “Do not say in your heart, Who has ascended into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down; or, Who has descended into the abyss? that is, to bring Christ back from the dead.” And do not be surprised that, though Christ himself is righteousness, he seems to say these things of himself as though of another. For in many places you will find the Savior speaking of himself as though of another; as in the Gospel he says, “And he will set the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left; and he will say to those at his right,” and again to those at the left, the things that are written. As for what he says, then, “Do not say in your heart, Who has ascended into heaven, or who has descended into the abyss?” (apart from what he inserts in between, “that is, to bring Christ down,” or “to bring him back from the dead”), and also, “The word is near, in your mouth and in your heart,” it seems to be taken from Deuteronomy, where it is written thus: “This commandment which I command you today is not exalted above you, nor far from you. It is not in heaven, that you should say, Who will ascend into heaven for us and receive it for us, so that we may hear and do it? Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, Who will cross the sea for us and receive it, so that we may hear and do it? The word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart and in your hands, that you may do it.” Since, then, these words are taken from Deuteronomy, and the Apostle writes that the righteousness which is of faith, which is Christ, itself says them, without doubt the Apostle declares that the things said in Deuteronomy were spoken by Christ. It is he, then, who says, “This commandment which I give you today is not exalted above you, nor far from you,” and the rest that follows.

What, then, does the Apostle teach by this? Clearly, that we should not say in our heart and suppose that Christ is contained in some place and is not everywhere, though he is diffused through all things; for even when he was on earth he said that he was also in heaven. For thus he spoke to his apostles: “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” He did not say “who was,” but “who is in heaven.” And again, lest we suppose that he is in heaven only and that the abyss is empty of his presence, therefore the righteousness which is of faith says, “Do not say in your heart, Who has ascended into heaven?” And since this would be like saying, “to bring Christ down from heaven,” the Apostle added, “that is, to bring Christ down.” And again, if someone descends in mind and thought into the abyss, supposing that Christ is contained only there, since that would be like calling Christ back from the dead, he adds, “that is, to bring Christ back from the dead.” But you ought, he says, to think of Christ as the Word and the truth and the wisdom and the righteousness of God. Now all these things are not sought in a place, but are present everywhere; nor are they called up from the regions below, but are grasped by the mind and the understanding alone. As the Word and wisdom, then, he is near, in your mouth and in your heart. “And this,” he says, “is the word of faith which we preach. For if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

We ought also to know this: that it is one thing for something to be in someone as a possibility, another as actuality or effective working, which the Greeks call dynamis and energeia. For example, a newborn infant is a rational human being in possibility, for he can become rational if he grows up. And in possibility he is also called a craftsman and a helmsman and a grammarian, for it is possible that he will become one of these. But in actuality or effect, that is, in reality and in fact, he is none of these while he is an infant; but if he begins to be capable of reason, or to accomplish something in the craftsman’s art or in any other, then he is called rational in actuality, or a craftsman, or whatever it is that he does in the effect of his work. In this way, too, Christ, who is the Word of God, must be believed to be near us in possibility, that is, near every human being, as reason is in infants; but he is said to be in me in actuality when I have confessed with my mouth the Lord Jesus and believed in my heart that God raised him from the dead. Do you want to know that he is present everywhere and is in the midst even of those who do not know him and do not confess him? Hear how John the Baptist testifies these very things of him: “There stands in your midst,” he says, “one whom you do not know, who comes after me.” He is in the midst, then, even of those who do not know him; but he is in their midst in possibility, not in actuality. For they can receive him, but do not yet receive him. But in actuality or effective working he is in the midst of those to whom he said, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst.” For these confessed with their mouth the Lord Jesus and believed in their heart that God raised him from the dead. Otherwise it seems absurd for him to be said to be in the midst both of those gathered in his name and of those who do not know him, unless a distinction of this kind is kept: that among those who are ignorant and do not yet believe he is said to be in the midst in possibility, but among believers in actuality, that is, in the effect of the reality itself and of the work.

But observe this too, that he says, “For if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” … even if someone lacks the merits of good works, even if he has not applied himself to the virtues, yet by the very fact that he has believed he would not perish but be saved and have salvation, even if he will not be able to have the glory of blessedness. But see whether it ought not rather to be understood that whoever truly and not falsely confesses the Lord Jesus with his mouth and believes in his heart confesses at the same time that he is subject to the lordship of wisdom and righteousness and truth and all that Christ is; and that mammon is no longer his lord, that is, that neither avarice nor injustice nor unchastity nor falsehood any longer rules over him. For once he has confessed Jesus Christ as Lord, he professes that he serves none of these. And also, believing in his heart that God raised him from the dead, it is certain that he believes him raised for his own justification. Otherwise, what will it profit me to know and believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, if I do not have him raised in myself? So if I do not walk in newness of life and do not flee the old habit of sinning, Christ has not yet risen from the dead for me. With this sense the words that follow also agree, when he says, “For Scripture says, Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” This is written in Isaiah. If, then, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame, but everyone who sins is ashamed, as Adam sinned and was ashamed and hid himself, then one who still incurs the blush of sin does not seem to believe.

“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, rich toward all who call upon him. For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” How there is no distinction in faith between Jew and Greek we have already shown frequently above. That the same one is Lord of all you will understand in accordance with what we have just set out: that is, if righteousness and truth and sanctification and wisdom, all of which is Christ the Lord, rule over us. For these are his riches, inasmuch as in him are hidden the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Yet he did not say that he lavishes these riches on all people, but on all who call upon his name. But here too a question seems to arise similar to the one in earlier passages. For not all who call upon the name of the Lord in any manner whatever can be saved, even if they have not done works worthy of the name they called upon; especially since the Wisdom of God too says in Proverbs, “For it will be, when you call upon me, but I will not hear you.” In this it seems to me that Wisdom exhorts and presses those who wish to be saved to call upon Wisdom quickly, and not to delay or put it off, lest perhaps, when the appointed time has passed (that is, the time in which there is opportunity to repent), they call too late afterwards, when there is no place for repentance. And hence she says, “You will call upon me, and I will not hear you.” Yet the saying which the Apostle has set down here, that is, “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved,” is written in the prophet Joel thus: “And I will give wonders in heaven above and on earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord comes. And it will be: whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” Yet it seems to me that something great is signified in the divine Scriptures under this name of “calling upon.” For it is written not of men of any sort whatever, but of great and outstanding men, that “Enosh first hoped to call upon the name of the Lord”; and in the Psalms, “Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among those who call upon his name. They called upon the Lord, and he heard them; he spoke to them in the pillar of cloud.”

“How then will they call upon one in whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe in one whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without someone preaching? And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” … plainly in these words, by saying, “How then will they call upon one in whom they have not believed?”, that what he set down above from the prophet … doubtless they were calling upon Christ Jesus the Lord. And if to call upon the name of the Lord and to pray to the Lord are one and the same, then as God is called upon, Christ is to be called upon; and as God is prayed to, so Christ too is to be prayed to; and as we offer prayers first of all to God the Father, so also to the Lord Jesus Christ; and as we offer petitions to the Father, so we offer petitions also to the Son; and as we offer thanksgivings to God, so we offer thanks also to the Savior. For the divine word teaches that one honor is to be paid to both, that is, to the Father and to the Son, when it says, “That all may honor the Son as they honor the Father.” But as for what we set out a little earlier about the letter to the Corinthians, where the Apostle first says, “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints,” and after this, as if they were of another rank and another order, he adds certain others, of whom he says, “With all who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, theirs and ours”: it will perhaps seem to contain some difference, in that he names the former the church of God, and sanctified, and called saints, but the latter only people who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And see whether perhaps this diversity shows something such as the present section also seems to have, in which he teaches that the name of the Lord cannot be called upon unless one first believes in Christ. But when someone has believed in Christ, even if he is not yet sanctified and joined to the body of the church, yet he must now call upon the one in whom he has believed. For Christ came to reconcile the world to God and to offer to the Father those who believe in him. And those whom he offers to the Father the Holy Spirit … men, they call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; but after the Spirit of God is in their heart crying “Abba, Father,” the Spirit himself teaches them to call upon the name of the Father as well. Therefore, then, he says, “How will they call upon one in whom they have not believed?” And in this he binds them with a very tight conclusion. There is no salvation, he says, except for one who calls upon him; but no one calls upon him who does not believe. Therefore, because you do not believe, you do not call upon him; and because you do not call upon him, you are not saved.

“But how,” he says, “will they believe in one whom they have not heard?” That they have not heard we can understand thus: that they refused to hear either him when he was in the flesh or his apostles preaching about him. For so the Lord himself says, “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me.” But it can also be understood thus: that even now and always Christ, as Word and Reason, speaks in the heart of each person, teaches about piety, urges righteousness, and bears witness concerning chastity, modesty and all the virtues together, as he himself says, “My sheep hear my voice.” So, indeed, he was speaking in Paul’s heart too, so that Paul said, “Or do you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me?” There follows: “And how will they hear without someone preaching?” In this he shows rather that Christ is heard through the word of preachers, in whom, according to what we said above, Christ is shown to speak and teach. “And how will they preach unless they are sent?” A certain difficulty seems to me to arise in this saying. For if we understand it to mean that they do not preach because they are not sent, and, with no one preaching, they will not hear, and not hearing they will not believe, and not believing they will not call upon him, and not calling upon him they will not be saved, the conclusion from this is that the cause of their not being saved goes back to a fault of the Author, who did not send preachers. But let us rather turn aside to that path of understanding which is more correct, and take what he said, “How will they preach unless they are sent?” as if the Apostle were saying: We, the heralds and preachers of Christ, could not preach, nor would any power of proclaiming remain in us, unless he himself who sent us were present with us. But if you are unwilling to hear us when we preach, the fault is now yours, if hearing you do not believe, and not believing you do not call upon him, and not calling upon him you cannot be saved.

Because, then, they were sent to preach, therefore it is written of those sent by him, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” That he calls these beautiful feet not bodily but spiritual, I think no one can deny, however much a friend of the letter he may be. For he will not reduce the apostolic meaning to such absurdity as to think that the feet of the evangelists that can be seen with bodily eyes are called graceful and beautiful by him; rather, those feet are graceful and beautiful which walk through the way of life. For according to him who said, “I am the way,” understand those to be the graceful and beautiful feet of those who bring good news, who are worthy to walk along such a way. These are the feet with which Paul too said he had run the race, and was so running as to lay hold of the prize: that is, the vigor of the soul by which one strains and hastens toward heaven. And you will readily confirm that these are the feet which Jesus washes for the disciples and wipes with the towel with which he was girded. And although it was fulfilled then in bodily form, yet when Peter understood only what he saw being done and, as if for honor’s sake, protested that the Lord should not wash the feet of his servant, hear what a word of profound mystery is disclosed: “If I do not wash you,” he says, “you will have no part with me.” And again he brings out another saying like this, as from the secret treasures of knowledge, and says, “What I have done you do not know now, but you will know afterwards”; and he adds that, as I the Lord … living water, and if someone receives drink from Jesus and that water becomes in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life, he can wash the disciples’ feet with this water of spiritual teaching and rinse away all the uncleanness and filth from their soul; and doing this he will fulfill the example given by the Master. Beautiful, therefore, are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. Of these feet, I think, the Bride too says to the Word of God in the Song of Songs, “I have washed my feet; how shall I soil them?” And of them no less it is said, “Your legs are like marble columns on silver bases.” And perhaps, because this beauty is in the feet of the evangelists, the Lord Jesus does not want them to cover them with shoes and hide their beautiful form, but commands them not even to have shoes on the way.

But let us see what the good things are which they bring as good news, that is, which they announce. Although this very word he uses, “to bring good news,” is interpreted “to announce good things,” let us nevertheless ask what the good things are that he has added to the good. The one and true good is God, whose Son is the image of his goodness, and his Spirit, who is called good. This one good, then, because it is in God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, he has named “good things.” For this is what the evangelists announce, according to the command of our Lord and Savior, who says, “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” These, then, are the good things of those who bring good news. But since the messenger himself is called good, and announces good things, let the reason be this: that they not only announce good things but announce good things well. For there are some who announce and preach about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but not soundly, not wholly; such are all the heretics, who announce the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but do not announce them well or faithfully. For either they wrongly separate the Son from the Father, so as to say that the Father is of one nature and the Son of another; or they wrongly confuse them, so as to think either that God is composed of three, or that in him there is only the word of a threefold title. But one who announces the good things well will give to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit each his own properties, but will confess that there is no diversity in substance or nature. Those who announce the gospel thus not only announce good things, but announce good things well and wholly.

The example seems to be taken from Isaiah; but there the prophet referred the office of bringing good news to the Lord himself. For he says thus: “Since I myself who spoke am present, like a breeze upon the mountains, as the feet of one bringing the tidings of peace, as one bringing good news of good things.” But it seems to me that, because the prophet had said, “as the feet of one bringing the tidings of peace, as one bringing good news of good things,” Paul recalled this as a comparison with another, as if he were saying: I will be present as a man who brings good news of peace and brings good news of good things. But this the apostles do; therefore he seems to have taken this as said of themselves, that is, of the apostles, by comparison with whom Christ had said through the prophets that he would be present and bring good news of good things.

“But not all obey the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I say, Have they not heard? Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. But I say, Did Israel not know? First Moses says, I will provoke you to jealousy with a no-nation; with a foolish nation I will provoke you to anger. And Isaiah is bold and says, I was found by those who did not seek me; I appeared openly among those who did not ask for me. But to Israel what does he say? All day long I have stretched out my hands to a people unbelieving and contradicting.” Not all from the Gentiles have believed the gospel, nor all from Israel; yet more, and many more, from the Gentiles than from Israel. As for what the Apostle sets down, then, that Isaiah said, “Lord, who has believed our report?”, “who” is said for “few.” And we ought to observe that this word in the Scriptures is sometimes put for “few,” sometimes for “none at all”; for example, when it says, “Who is wise, and will understand these things?” and, “Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord?” and, “Who is the man who desires life?”, in all these “who” signifies “few.” But where he says, “Who has ascended into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down; or who has descended into the abyss? that is, to bring Christ back from the dead,” here “who” is understood as “no one.” For there is no one who ascends into heaven to bring Christ down from there. Now, then, in “Lord, who has believed our report?”, which Isaiah says, “who” signifies “few.” We should know, however, that in “Lord, who has believed our report?” the Hebrew copies do not have “Lord,” but it is in the translation of the Seventy Elders; and the Apostle, approving what is in theirs, set down “Lord.” Yet Isaiah seems to prophesy these words in the person of the apostles, to whom the office of preaching had been entrusted; and they, seeing the fewness of believers, especially from the people of Israel, say to the Lord, “Lord, who has believed our report?” — as this too is said in their person, “We announced, as a child before him, as a root in thirsty ground.” And they likewise are the ones who say, as if placed with him and seeing him in human form, “We saw him, and he had no form or comeliness,” and the rest. But if these words are referred to the person of the prophets themselves, as if they complained before the Lord that no one, or very few, of that people believed what they had prophesied about Christ, it will not seem out of place. Or must we not suppose that Moses says to the Lord: Lord, no one has believed my report? For if they had believed my writings, they would surely have believed Christ too; for I wrote of him.

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Here “the word of Christ” signifies the preaching about Christ. For not only those believed who heard the word from Christ Jesus the Lord himself speaking; but many more are those who heard him as others preached him, as the Lord himself had foretold when he said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me,” he says, “you have believed; blessed are those who do not see and believe.” Every word, then, which the apostles, and any others who received grace from him, preached about Christ, he declares to be the word of Christ. And in the church too, if anyone speaks the Wisdom which is from God and the truth of God, if anyone teaches the way of God, which is Christ, and expounds his righteousness, without doubt what he speaks is the word of Christ.

“But I say, Have they not heard? Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” This is taken from the eighteenth Psalm, where it says, “There are no speeches nor words in which their voices are not heard. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” In this, because of the variety of languages and speeches, the nations are without doubt understood; and it is said that the sound of the apostles of Christ went out into all the earth, but that to the ends of the world not the sound but the words reached. This can be understood thus: that he calls “the earth” all the unskilled and unteachable people, to whom there reached not the words, in which the reasoning of faith and the explanation of wisdom are contained, but the sound of faith, by a common and simple preaching; while he called “the ends of the world” all the more learned and prudent. For “end” indicates the perfection of things. To such as these, then, he declares that not the sound of the voice but the words and the reasoning reached; they, of course, on hearing the word of faith can also examine and search the divine Scriptures, so as to know the truth of the words announced to them by the apostles. And the Apostle, knowing that there is this difference between these, that is, between sound and words, says thus in a certain place: “And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” to show that the word is that by which, through the power of the Spirit, the wisdom of God is explained more clearly, but that the preaching is that of which the prophet says, “Their sound has gone out into all the earth,” in which, namely, there is a simple announcement of the faith, sufficient for all the simpler sort. And elsewhere too he says of himself that he is a preacher and apostle and teacher of the Gentiles. In this “apostle” indicates the general name of the office, as one who not only preaches but also teaches: he preaches the simple faith, as to those to whom he says, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified,” but he teaches those to whom he said, “Yet we speak wisdom among the perfect.” In these it is shown that to the former he brought the sound of preaching, but to the latter he set out the wisdom of God in words.

“But I say, Did Israel not know? First Moses says, I will provoke you …” What he said above … having spoken about the Gentiles; but now, as is his custom, he wishes to add something about Israel as well, and to prove by suitable witnesses that Israel is without excuse. Moses himself, he says, says in the person of God, “I will provoke you to jealousy with a no-nation,” speaking without doubt of the Christians, who were taken up by God to provoke the jealousy of the former people, unbelieving and contemptuous. But perhaps Moses may seem to have addressed rather insultingly the nation chosen by God for the merit of its faith and devotion, when he says, “with a no-nation,” and to have counted it as nothing, so as not even to deign to call it a nation, or, if he does call it so, to name it foolish. But Moses, as the friend of God, is not insulting toward his elect, nor will there seem to be an insult in the saying if the reason of the saying is made clear. Each nation, for example of the Egyptians or the Syrians or the Moabites, is called this or that nation because it is distinguished by its own borders and language and dress and customs and institutions; and neither are Syrians ever called Egyptians, nor Moabites called Idumeans, nor Arabs Scythians. But the Christians are not one nation, but one people out of all nations; and therefore Moses, as the highest honor, named it a no-nation, because it was not one nation but, if one may so speak, the nation of all nations. But we shall seem to be excluded by what follows, where he says, “with a foolish nation I will provoke you to anger,” in that he named it both a nation and foolish. But not even in this does Moses, the servant of God, insult the people of God; rather, he foresaw in the Spirit that if anyone wishes to be wise in this world he must become foolish, that he may be wise with God; and that, since the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe; and that through the preaching of the cross of Christ, which is foolishness to the Gentiles, a people would be gathered that becomes foolish in this world, that it may be wise with God. The Jews, then, are angry that, while they made excuses and refused, the Gentiles were invited to the king’s banquet, not looking to what Isaiah long ago boldly says about this mystery: “I was found by those who did not seek me; I appeared openly among those who did not ask for me. But to Israel what does he say? All day long I have stretched out my hands to a people unbelieving and contradicting.”

As we have often shown above that the apostle Paul speaks now of the Gentiles, now of Israel, yet without plainly and openly declaring the change of person, so Isaiah too does in these words which the Apostle has brought forward as an example. The first parts, that is, “I was found by those who did not seek me; I appeared openly among those who did not ask for me,” he says without doubt of the Gentiles; and where Isaiah changes the person covertly, the Apostle has given his words a plain distinction by adding, “But to Israel what does he say?”, and he explains that the earlier words are to be referred to the Gentiles and the following ones to Israel, in which he says, “All day long I have stretched out my hands to a people unbelieving and contradicting.” But first of all, as to his saying, “Isaiah is bold and says,” let us see what he dares, or with what boldness the prophet is here shown. If we attend to the words of blessed Stephen, who says, “Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute, who announced the coming of the Just One?”, then we understand the boldness of Isaiah, who, though persecution and death were set before him, yet dared to preach the coming of the Just One, and for the good man even dares to die. In this at the same time it is shown that the prophets did not, as some think, not know what they were saying and prophesy as if out of their minds. For what the Apostle says of Isaiah, that he is bold and says, indicates this: that, despising death and the persecutions inflicted, though he knew danger hung over him, yet he dares and preaches the word of God, as Paul himself also said, “I know that chains and prisons await me in Jerusalem; but I do not count my life dearer to myself.” So Isaiah too knew that he was to be sawn apart and killed by the ungodly; yet he dares, and says in the person of Christ, “I was found by those who did not seek me.” Now it is certain that the Gentiles were those who neither knew how to seek Christ nor had learned to ask about him. Yet they found the one they did not seek, because he first sought them. For he is the good shepherd, and sought the sheep that had been lost; and he is the wisdom that sought the lost drachma, and seeking found it. But the Jews still seek about Christ and question the Scriptures about him, and do not find, because his cross is a stumbling block to the Jews; and therefore he says to them, “All day long I have stretched out my hands to a people unbelieving and contradicting”: that is, when he hung on the cross, they not only did not find him, but in addition said, “If you are the Son of God, come down now from the cross, and we will believe you.” But hear also what is said in the Wisdom of Solomon, that he will not be found by those who put him to the test, but will appear to those who are not unbelieving toward him. And this too we should not be ignorant of, that in the copies of the Hebrews “and contradicting” is not found; but the Apostle in his writings followed the truth of the Seventy Translators, and sets it down as they translated it.

“I say, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Or do you not know what Scripture says in Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life. But what does the divine answer say to him? I have left for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So, then, at this present time too a remnant has been saved according to the election of grace. But if by grace, it is no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” Since, from what was said above, the people of the Jews might perhaps seem to have been rejected by God and to have no hope at all, if indeed God has provoked them to jealousy with a no-nation, and to anger with a foolish nation, and has been made manifest to those who did not seek him, and found by those who did not ask about him: therefore the Apostle, wishing to remedy this and to show that a way of salvation remains for the people of Israel if they believe, and that they were not rejected because they are the race of Israel but because they were unbelieving, says, “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.” And to prove this by a present example, he adds, “For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin,” and yet I teach the faith of Jesus and announce that he is the Christ. But if it did not hinder me from believing in Christ and being justified by faith in him that I am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, it is certain that God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. How “those whom he foreknew he also called, and those whom he called he also justified” has already been discussed above; and also that “to foreknow,” as said of God in the Scriptures, means not only to know future things beforehand (which cannot be doubted) but to approve and to count worthy of his knowledge.

But lest it seem a small thing that the Apostle was teaching by his own example that the people of God had not been rejected, he seeks stronger examples and says, “Or do you not know what Scripture says in Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life. But what does the divine answer say to him?” In these words we are taught that the prophet, once filled with zeal for God, laid before God a complaint against a transgressing people, which had not only killed the prophets and overthrown the altars but was also trying to destroy Elijah, who seemed to be the only one left of the prophets of the Lord. And as Elijah was lamenting this before God, hear what the divine oracles answer him: “I have left for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Baal is the name of an idol to whose worship that people, having abandoned God’s law, had fallen away. These are the things the Apostle brings forward as an example for the present time. And he adds, “So, then, at this present time too a remnant has been saved according to the election of grace. But if by grace, it is no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” We must show, then, as far as we can, how, just as it happened under Elijah, when the prophet had thought that the whole people was rejected at once, seven thousand men were found who had remained in God’s covenant, so it happened also at the coming of Christ and in the times in which Paul was preaching. And see whether perhaps we can put John the Baptist, who went before the coming of the Savior, in the place of Elijah, since the Gospel bears him such witness, that he came in the spirit and power of Elijah, and the Lord himself said of him, “And if you are willing to know, he is Elijah. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” He, then, who had come in the spirit and power of Elijah had so despaired of that people that he would not call them the offspring of Abraham, but the offspring of vipers, and added to these words, “Do not say, We have Abraham as our father. For I tell you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” To him, as he makes this complaint about the people, our Lord and Savior may answer, “I know whom I have chosen,” and again, “My sheep hear my voice, and I go before them, and they follow me,” and again, “I have other sheep which are not of this fold; I must bring them also.” But let us see what the very number of seven thousand men indicates. The number seven pertains to rest; for on the seventh day God rested. Hear, then, how Christ too invites to rest those who believe in him, and says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and you will find rest for your souls.” To this number seven, then, belongs everyone who comes to Christ, lays down the burdens of sin, and finds the rest of salvation. Rightly, then, the Apostle says that so at this present time too a remnant has been saved according to the election of grace, calling “remnant” those from the circumcision who believed, both the apostles, among whom he counts himself as well, and all the others who with them followed the faith of Jesus Christ.

But as to his saying that the remnant was saved according to the election of grace, this addition of “election” does not seem to me superfluous. For he could have said, “The remnant was saved by grace”; but by this he shows that there is grace both without election and with election. For all who are saved through faith are without doubt saved by grace; but those who are saved through the election of grace seem to me to be shown to be of a more perfect soul. For just as everyone who descends from the race of Israel is called Israel, but that one is the true Israel who sees God with a pure mind and a sincere heart, so we can take this also: that all who come to the faith of Christ come by grace, but one who adorns the gift of grace with works of virtue and purity of heart will be said to be saved by Christ not only by grace, but by the election of grace. Indeed, the apostle Paul himself, if one observes him carefully in his words, sees how he uses distinctions of this kind: in one place naming Israel according to the flesh, in another making no mention of the flesh at all regarding it, as in the present place, where, when he was saying that God has not rejected his people and wished to set forth the nobility of the Israelite soul, he says, “For I too am an Israelite.” But in the second letter to the Corinthians, where he is compelled to answer certain people who were boasting of the Israelite race according to the flesh, see what he puts first: “What I say,” he says, “I do not say according to God, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting. Since many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast.” And after a little he says, “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I.” So, where he was speaking of Israel in the inner man (for such is that people which God foreknew and did not reject), he does not say “Israel according to the flesh”; but to those who boasted of the race of the flesh he said beforehand that he spoke of such boasting neither according to God nor in wisdom, but, as he himself says, in foolishness. Such, then, is the remnant which has been saved according to the election of grace.

And he added, “But if by grace, it is no longer from works.” It must be understood that the works which Paul rejects and often censures are not the works of righteousness that are commanded in the law, but those in which people who keep the law according to the flesh boast: that is, circumcision of the flesh, or the rites of sacrifices, or the observance of sabbaths and new moons. These, then, and works of this kind are the works from which he says no one could be saved, and of which he says in the present place, “not from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” For if someone is justified through these, he is not justified freely. But from one who is justified by grace these works are by no means required; yet he must take care that the grace he has received does not become void in him, as Paul too says, “His grace in me was not void, but I labored more abundantly than all of them.” And again he adds, as one mindful of grace, “Not I,” he says, “but the grace of God with me.” He does not make grace void, then, who joins to it works worthy of it and is not ungrateful for the grace of God. For one who sins after obtaining grace becomes ungrateful to him who bestowed the grace. But if you do not make grace void, grace will be multiplied to you, and as a reward of good work you will obtain a multitude of graces, as he himself writes, and as Peter says in his letter, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God,” and again elsewhere, “as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

“What then? What Israel was seeking, it did not obtain; but the elect obtained it, and the rest were blinded; as it is written, God gave them a spirit of compunction, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, to this very day. And David says, Let their table become a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a retribution for them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see, and bend their back always.” In these words the Apostle divides Israel into two parts, one of which he calls the election, which obtained what it was seeking; the other he names the rest, who not only did not obtain what they were seeking but were blinded by a spirit of compunction. To them, he says, God also gave “eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, to this very day,” that is, until the consummation of the age. But a question is raised for us: how can it seem fittingly said of the good God that he himself gave to the rest of Israel eyes with which they should not see and ears with which they should not hear? And see whether this is not rather a retribution and wage for unbelief, according to what we expounded earlier, where it is said that, because they did not see fit to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind. For here too he speaks of the eyes and ears of the heart, not of the body, in which they were blinded and do not hear: those, namely, who saw Christ in the body and heard his teaching, and were willing neither to believe the works they saw nor to obey the word they heard. But of this question we have spoken sufficiently in the first parts of this letter. Yet where the very words the Apostle quotes are written, “As it is written, God gave them a spirit of compunction, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, to this very day,” I have so far been unable to find. If anyone who attends to the divine Scriptures more diligently than we do finds it, let him make it known. I think, however, that the Apostle spoke in this way: “But the rest were blinded; and, as it is written of them, God gave them a spirit of compunction,” so that he seems to say in his own words that God gave them a spirit of compunction, according to what was said through Isaiah about the blindness of the eyes and the hearing of the ears. For Isaiah says thus: “Go and say to this people: Hearing you will hear and not understand, and seeing you will see and not see. For the heart of this people has grown fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and they have closed their eyes, lest perhaps they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I heal them.” Here, then, the Apostle seems to have set out the sense of Isaiah in his own words, but, because he was stating the prophet’s sense, to have added, “as it is written.” And he does likewise with what he declares was said through David. For he says, “And David says, Let their table become a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a retribution for them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see, and bend their back always.” For in what he says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap and a stumbling block,” “a trap” is not found written in the Psalm, either in our copies of the Seventy Translators or in those of the Hebrews. And again, in the Psalm we have, “Let their table become a snare before them”; but the Apostle did not set down “before them.” We have mentioned these things about the order of the words and the character of the testimonies he adopts, to show in each case that apostolic authority by no means puts its trust in the copies of the Hebrews, nor always serves the words of the translators, but explains the sense of the Scriptures in words that suit it.

Now, then, let us see how the sense of the section before us should be explained. The blindness of heart with which the rest of Israel, that is, those who did not believe, were blinded, he proves by two prophetic testimonies, which seem to be taken one from Isaiah and the other from David … that they may not see. And it does not seem idle to show how these things can be believed to be said fittingly, and above all in the Psalm in the person of Christ. See, then, whether we can explain what is asked in this way. Just as each person uses his bodily eyes to see either good things or evil, and has it in his power either to lift his eyes to heaven and, through what he sees, recognize its Maker and praise the Creator, or to turn them to the shows of the circus or the theater, or to the delights of any filthy sights by which the mind is inflamed to lust or to greed or to any other vices: so, I ask you, understand the eyes of the soul too. Some use them to recognize the word of God and the teaching of truth and to make daily progress in his wisdom; but others use these eyes for the opposite, exercising themselves daily and inquiring how they may break down the doctrines of truth and attack, as far as they can, the faith of Christ. Let us suppose, then, that someone prays for those who are sharp and full of arguments in a false knowledge, and says: May God give them eyes that they may not see the subtleties of a perverse mind, and ears that they may not hear the teachers, namely, of falsehood; and may their eyes be darkened so that they do not see. Does not the one who wishes them things by which their sins are lessened seem to you worthy to be embraced? For it is much better not to be wise than to be wise wrongly. Does it not seem to you, I say, that Marcion, who composed blasphemous writings against God the Creator, or Basilides or Valentinus or the other authors of perverse doctrines, would have been blessed if they had not had those eyes of the heart with which they were so wrongly dazzled? For of them Isaiah says, “Woe to those who write! For writing they write wickedness.” And likewise for those who teach wrongly and speak wrongly David prays in the Psalms and says, “Let the lying lips be made dumb, which speak iniquity against the righteous in pride and contempt.” So too it is said of Israel, “Let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see,” and, “May God give them eyes that they should not see.” Let these things be said as far as concerns the blindness of the eyes, which seems to be given by God, as a kind of remedy, to unbelieving Israel, which sees wrongly.

Now let us look also at the table which is said to become for them a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a retribution. But first a few things must be said to those who reject allegories in the divine Scriptures and are accustomed to laugh at those who do not follow the historical sense in everything. Let them tell us, then, whether the prophet here means that table of the Jews at which they are accustomed to lunch or dine, so that it becomes a snare to them to catch them; or whether that table becomes a retribution to them, so that from it they receive vengeance for the things in which they have sinned; or let them explain how it is a stumbling block to them. But if they cannot give an explanation of each of these, and see their laughter turned to confusion, then let them come with us and inquire from the divine Scriptures how this table of Israel can be understood. To us, then, according to the capacity of our understanding, it seems that all the Scriptures which were with Israel before the coming of the Lord (for to them first were entrusted the oracles of God), and all that is called the Old Testament, is Israel’s table; at this table, if anyone wished to eat the word of God, he was fed by the words of the law and the prophets set before him. And I think this is the table of which Solomon says, “If you sit down to dine at the table of a mighty man, understand intelligently what is set before you, and put out your hand, knowing that you must prepare such things.” And when the Savior says, “When you eat and drink at my table,” what else do we understand by his table but the place where he teaches the worthy, those who can receive the word of wisdom and the knowledge of things? Solomon too testifies to this in Proverbs concerning Wisdom, saying, “Wisdom has built herself a house and set up seven pillars; she has slaughtered her victims, mixed her wine in the bowl, and prepared her table.” All Scripture, then, is the table of Wisdom. But let us see how David prays that this table may become for the unbelieving Israelites, in their sight, a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a retribution. Divine Scripture becomes a snare for them when they read what was prophesied about Christ, “He will build my city and turn back the captivity of my people,” and say that these things were not fulfilled in Jesus; for, they say, he neither built the city of God nor brought back the captivity of the people. But they say this because, sitting at the table of the mighty one, they do not do what Solomon advised, to understand intelligently the things set before them. For Christ was prophesied as one who would do these things not visibly but intelligibly, that is, spiritually. For he truly built the city of God, but from living stones, from which he raised up children to Abraham, and from them he built the church of God; and he turned back the captivity of the people, of those whom the devil held captive in sins. For them, then, since they do not understand it so, this table of divine Scripture has become a snare and a trap. And the trap of this table can also be seen in the way the Lord caught them when he said to them, “What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he? And they answered, David’s. And the Lord said, How then does David call him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand? And they could not answer him a word.” And this table also becomes a retribution for them, to put it briefly, according to the word of the Lord in which he says, “Do you think that I will accuse you before the Father? There is one who accuses you, Moses”; and according to what the Apostle says, “As many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.” And this table also becomes a stumbling block for them in this way. The Jews had learned from the Scriptures that the Christ remains forever; but seeing Jesus in the flesh, and not only in the flesh but in death, and the death of the cross, they stumbled over him, not knowing that though he suffered from the weakness of the flesh, yet he lives by the power of God. Because, then, they did not take intelligently each of these things which were set before them at the table of the mighty one, they stumbled, and the very table of the divine Scriptures became for them a stumbling block, and their eyes were darkened according to what we said above, and their back … with unclean and filthy garments, that is, with a defiled body or heart, sit down at the table of Wisdom; but, meditating even now on the form of the banquet to come in heaven, let us through conversion and repentance prepare garments daily cleaner and fit for a wedding, clothed in which we may be worthy to enter the hall of Wisdom and the bridal chambers of the King’s Son.

“I say then, have they so stumbled as to fall? By no means! But by their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. Now if their trespass is the riches of the world, and their diminishing the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!” The Apostle had set out the things in which Israel was rejected and the Gentiles brought in, and had also listed the prophecies which had foretold their blindness and snare and retribution and stumbling block. Lest he should in turn give the Gentiles occasion for insulting and matter for pride, he says that Israel’s lapse was such, not that they should fall, but that by their trespass they should give salvation to the Gentiles; and he says, “I say then, have they so stumbled as to fall? By no means! But by their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles.” And he shows how salvation is given to the Gentiles from their trespass: “to make them,” he says, “jealous”; that is, that seeing the conversion of the Gentiles, and the covenant of God which they themselves had received first handed over to them, and the law and the prophets held among them in greater and worthier observance, they too may take up zeal, at least in the last times; and that, as now their lapse has given salvation to the Gentiles, so the faith and conduct of the Gentiles may bestow on Israel a jealousy for conversion and salvation. It must be observed, however, that Paul puts “to stumble” and “to trespass” as one thing and “to fall” as another; and for stumbling or trespass he sets a remedy, but that they have fallen, as though there were some despair in this, he does not admit. For he says, “Have they so stumbled as to fall? By no means! But by their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles.” And it is a wonder how, among so many and such things as the text of the whole letter sets out about them, the Apostle nevertheless denies that they have fallen. But it seems to me that Paul knew well the differences of falling, and knew that to fall is one thing according to what is written, “The righteous man falls seven times and rises again”; and again, “Do not rejoice over me, my enemy, because I have fallen; I shall rise again”; and according to what Jeremiah says, “Does he who falls not rise again? Or does he who has turned away not turn back?” Job too says of himself, “At the appointed time it was prepared for him to fall under others, and for his house to be plundered by strangers”; and in the fourth book of Kingdoms it is written, “Hezekiah fell from the pride of his heart.” And all these falls, of which we have mentioned that Scripture speaks in the passages above, have of course a rising again, and their turning away has a turning back. But in the present section the Apostle, as if knowing that if they had fallen they could not rise again at all, so denies that they have fallen, and strongly excuses them in saying, “Have they so stumbled as to fall? By no means!” Perhaps, then, the Apostle, looking to another fall, excuses Israel and denies that they have fallen: perhaps that fall of which our Lord and Savior spoke, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,” and also the one of which Isaiah says, “How Lucifer has fallen from heaven, who rose in the morning!” With such a fall, then, he denies that Israel has fallen. For theirs will be a conversion even at the end of the age, then when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and all Israel will be saved; but for him who is said to have fallen from heaven there will be no conversion even at the end of the age. Let us notice, then, that the fall we spoke of above, that is, the one in which he who falls rises again, is like what the Apostle in this very place calls stumbling and what he calls trespass; which seems to me to be such as this. If ever a righteous man, overcome in some one thing, … knowledge. And therefore the Apostle says that they have not so stumbled as to fall, that is, as to turn away entirely from all observance or meditation of God’s law. And a fall of this kind he named a trespass: “For by their trespass,” he says, “salvation has come to the Gentiles.” Therefore David too, knowing that there are trespasses of this kind, in which one who has fallen may rise, and that there are others in which one who has fallen does not rise, not even at the consummation of the age, said, “Trespasses,” or lapses, “who understands?”

There follows after this: “Now if their trespass is the riches of the world, and their diminishing the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness?” Consider in this the wisdom of God, how with him not even trespasses and lapses turn out useless; but while each person sins by the freedom of his own choice, the dispensation of divine wisdom makes others rich by the very thing in which those become poor through the loss of their negligence. For when God divided the nations and dispersed the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God; and then Jacob became the Lord’s portion and Israel the lot of his inheritance. But since those angels, to whom the portion of the Gentiles had been distributed, in a way seduced and corrupted one by one those of the Lord’s portion, they made them stumble, so that the Lord said through the prophet, “My desirable portion has become for me an object of cursing”; it was necessary that, that portion being rejected and repudiated, there should be another portion of the Lord upon the earth, which should take up the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service … and be called the Lord’s portion in place of the portion that had stumbled. Therefore their trespass became the riches of the world. For now not the one nation of the Hebrews, but the whole world has been made the Lord’s portion; if indeed the Savior himself says, “For I came not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through me.” And lest the name “world” seem ambiguous, since the term “world” is often applied to heaven and earth, often to the earth alone, and sometimes also to all the people of the world, therefore the Apostle repeats it and indicates more plainly what he meant by “world.” For he says, “and their diminishing the riches of the Gentiles.” For what was diminished and taken away from those who stumbled was added to the riches of the Gentiles, who through faith were made the Lord’s portion and his inheritance. And well he set “fullness” over against “diminishing”; and not without some deep meaning does Paul call the people of Israel a fullness. In which, as far as I am able, I understand something like this. Now indeed, until all the nations come to salvation, the riches of God are gathered from the multitude of believers; but while Israel persists in unbelief, the fullness of the Lord’s portion will not yet be said to be complete, for the people of Israel is lacking to the whole. But when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and Israel in the last time has come to salvation through faith, it will be the people which was indeed first, but, coming last, will in a way complete the very fullness of the Lord’s inheritance and portion. And it is called a fullness for this reason, that in the last days it will fill up what was lacking in God’s portion; and so the dispensation of the almighty and good God makes the trespasses of some fruitful for others, as at present it makes the trespasses of Israel the riches of the world, and their diminishing the riches of the Gentiles. Now whether the Dispenser of all things does something of this kind also from the trespasses of the Gentiles, which they necessarily commit, and confers riches on some from them, so that this may not seem to have been special to Israel alone, but equity may be kept by the just and good God over all, you who read must inquire for yourself.

“For I speak to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I will make my ministry illustrious, if in some way I may provoke my flesh to jealousy and save some of them. For if their casting away is the reconciliation of the world, what will their receiving be but life from the dead?” As we have often observed in this letter, Paul speaks sometimes on behalf of the Jews, sometimes on behalf of the Gentiles, and at times to one of these or to both: as when he said, “But if you are called a Jew,” as though speaking to a Jew; and again, “to the Jew first and to the Greek,” speaking as though to both. So now he says openly to the Gentiles, that is, above all to those in the city of Rome who had believed from among the Gentiles, “For I speak to you Gentiles.” Let us see, then, what he says to the Gentiles: “Inasmuch as I am,” he says, “the apostle of the Gentiles, I will make my ministry illustrious, if in some way I may provoke my flesh to jealousy and save some of them.” Someone will say: What he says, “As long as I am the apostle of the Gentiles,” seems to show that he will not always be the apostle of the Gentiles, but that, his ministry completed, he will be the apostle of some others. But as far as can be gathered both from his own words and from the record of his deeds, it is proved that as long as he was in this world he remained the apostle of the Gentiles in faith and truth. What, then, shall we say? Did he know, as a good and faithful servant who had been faithful in a few things, that he would be set over many, and would be an apostle after his departure, not only of the Gentiles but also of the Israelites, and perhaps of other invisible beings, there where the spirits and souls of the righteous bless the Lord, sing a hymn, and exalt him above all forever? Or ought we rather to take “as long as I am the apostle of the Gentiles” as said simply, as the Lord also says to the apostles, “And behold, I am with you all days, until the consummation of the age”? He did not mean that after the consummation of the age he would not be with them, but he said “until the consummation of the age” to show that he would never depart from them; so the Apostle too said “as long as I am an apostle” for “always” and “without end.” Which of the two explanations ought to be accepted we leave to the reader’s judgment.

As long, then, as Paul is the apostle of the Gentiles, he says that he makes his ministry illustrious. And what is so fitting as that each person should adorn the ministry he receives through God’s providence? He adorns and makes his ministry illustrious who ministers well; just as, on the contrary, he dishonors his ministry and makes it notorious who ministers negligently and unworthily. For example, in the ministry of the church, “a deacon,” he says, “who has ministered well … a good standing, but acquires for himself an evil punishment, as one who has done insult to the divine ministry. Likewise he too who receives the rank of the presbyterate in the church has enough to do to make the ministry of the presbyterate illustrious. For to him belong both what the Apostle writes to Titus about presbyters and what Isaiah writes when he says, “The Lord himself will come into judgment with the presbyters of the people, and will judge with its rulers”; and he adds, “But you, why do you set fire to my vineyard, and why is the plunder of the poor in your houses? Why do you wrong my people and put the faces of the poor to shame?” According to these things a bishop too makes illustrious the ministry of his episcopate if he is as the Apostle describes: irreproachable, watchful, prudent, of good order, hospitable, a teacher, not given to wine, not a striker, but gentle; not quarrelsome, not covetous, ruling his own house well, having his children in submission with all gravity, not puffed up with pride, lest he fall into the judgment of the devil. One who is such makes illustrious the ministry of his episcopate, so that he too may hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many.” Likewise a widow too, if she continues in prayers and supplications night and day, makes illustrious the ministry of her widowhood. But if she is such as the Apostle censures, idle and talkative, and not only talkative but also a busybody, saying what she ought not; or if she lives in pleasures and is dead while she lives: she has dishonored, and not made illustrious, the ministry of her widowhood. In the same way a virgin consecrated to God makes illustrious the ministry of her virginity if she is holy in body and spirit, and thinks not of the things of men but of the things of God, how she may please God. But if she acts otherwise, not only does she not make illustrious the ministry of her virginity, nor make her lamp shine, but on the contrary her light is put out and she becomes one of the foolish virgins. Let each person placed in the church consider these same things with himself, so that in whatever place he stands, whether in the clergy or among the people, he may make illustrious the ministry of his faith, and make his acts such that people, seeing his good works, may magnify the Father who is in heaven. For Paul too did this by teaching and instructing the Gentiles, whose apostle he was: feeding the weak with vegetables, nursing the little ones with milk, giving the strong the more solid food of the word, and with a mother’s affection bringing to birth again those who wandered and wavered in the faith and had been reduced as it were to a miscarriage, until Christ should be formed in them; and making the ministry of his apostleship illustrious through all these things, he was bringing his flesh, that is, his kinsmen according to the flesh, to jealousy for the faith and zeal for good conduct, so that, if not all, he might yet save some of them. So, while he bears watchful care and constant anxiety for the teaching of the Gentiles and makes their conduct and life highly approved, he invites and provokes the Israelites who saw these things, who were his kinsmen according to the flesh, to imitate those who were advancing in faith in God; and it is the glory of his ministry when, from the instruction of the Gentiles, progress comes to the Israelites as well.

“For if their casting away is the reconciliation of the world, what will their receiving be but life from the dead?” The Apostle seems to me to show in these words that, Israel having been cast away and the preaching of necessity transferred to the Gentiles, the world (that is, all the nations) was reconciled to God, according to what is written, “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them”; and again, as Paul says, “Who has entrusted to us the word of reconciliation,” by which word he said, “We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” If, then, he says, the casting away of this Israelite nation furnished reconciliation to the world, and if the grace toward that nation was so great that, when taken from it, it sufficed to reconcile the whole world to God, how much do you think the world will gain then, when that nation also is found worthy to be reconciled to God? And what it is that the world will acquire from the reconciliation of Israel he shows briefly, saying, “life from the dead.” For then will be the receiving of Israel, when the dead too will receive life, and the world will become incorruptible from corruptible, and mortals will be given immortality … had given reconciliation to the world, their receiving should not bestow on the world something greater and more excellent.

“If the first portion is holy, so is the lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became a partaker of the root and the richness of the olive, do not boast over the branches. But if you boast, it is not you who bear the root, but the root you. You will say, then, Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. Well: they were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be high-minded, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. See, then, the goodness and the severity of God: toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in goodness. Otherwise you too will be cut off, and they, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut from the olive that is wild by nature, and grafted contrary to nature into a good olive, how much more will these, who are according to nature, be grafted into their own olive!” I do not know how those who come from the school of Valentinus and Basilides, not hearing these things as Paul has said them, suppose that there is one nature of souls which is always saved and never perishes, and another which always perishes and is never saved; since Paul plainly says that the branches of the good olive were broken off because of their unbelief and incurred the punishment of the divine severity, and again that branches of the wild olive, in which they place a lost nature, were grafted into the root and richness of the olive. But to them an answer through these words is easy. Nevertheless an objection can also be put to us, who say that there is one nature of all human beings, indeed of all rational beings, equally apt for salvation and, if it is negligent, for perdition; and it can be said: How, then, does Paul set down a good olive and a wild olive, since, if he knew that the nature of all is one, he surely would not have introduced the example of trees of different kinds? To this, then, we must say: just as all bodily matter, though it is without doubt of one nature, produces through the qualities that come to it different species of bodies or trees or plants, so too, though the nature of all rational beings is one, endowed equally with the freedom of its own choice, the movements of each, brought forth from the power of choice and leading the soul subject to them either to virtue or to lust, form it into the species either of a good or of a bad tree: so that it is called a good tree if through the power of choice … bad. And so each person, according to the movements of his own purpose, will be named either a good olive, if he walks the path of virtue, or, if he follows the opposite, a wild olive. That is why the Lord too said in the Gospel, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad,” to show that a good or bad tree is not born but made. And if something is added to the freedom of choice from outside, either provoking to evil or exhorting to good through certain ineffable dispensations of divine Providence, it in no way offends against the consistency of the explanation proposed. For the rational nature has in itself a freedom of choice vigorous even for these things, by which it can, if it will, obey the one who provokes, or, if it will not, spurn the one who exhorts.

What we said, that qualities coming from outside to bodily matter produce different species, some lasting for a long time, some for a short time, and some barely enduring not only for a few years but sometimes even for a few months or days, is to be understood thus. For example, the forms of the sky and the sun or the moon or the stars have been formed with certain qualities such as suffice to last until the end of the age, until they are set free from the bondage of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. But the qualities of earthly bodies are different, and among them there is great difference; for the bodies of some animals or trees or birds can last a very long time, others a short time or a very brief one. If you have understood this well, let us pass now from the examples of bodily quality to the quality of rational nature; and see how some last for many ages in qualities of blessedness, and others no less spend many ages in the quality of wickedness; some of them remain for a short time in virtues or in vices, others for a very short time, others for an extremely brief one. Of these, one by one, we humans, weighed down by the burden of a corruptible body, can receive very little knowledge, or even none. But the Holy Spirit, who searches all things, even the depths of God, knows all things and makes them known to whomever he wills to reveal them. For in these things above all, that is, in the dispensation of rational nature, that apostolic word is to be said: “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” So each person, by the power of choice, becomes either a good olive or a wild olive, either of the Israelite race or of another blameworthy nation, so that it is said of him, “Sinners are estranged from the womb; they have gone astray from the belly; they have spoken lies,” so that they are strangers to the covenants and foreigners to the promises of God. And others are cast upon God from the womb and say, “Upon you I was cast from the womb; from my mother’s belly you are my God.” But since, as we said, freedom of choice always remains to this nature, it is possible that someone of the Israelite nation and a branch of the good olive may fall into unbelief and be broken off; and again, that another, who had chosen to be of a blameworthy and sinful nation and was therefore called a branch of the wild olive, if he turns to faith (for he has in himself the freedom of his choice, by which he can be turned to the good), is grafted into the good olive through faith and becomes a partaker of the root and richness of the olive.

This root some name Abraham, others Seth, others set down some one of the well-deserving patriarchs. But I know no other root that is holy, and no holy firstfruits, except our Lord Jesus Christ. For he is the firstfruits of all, or the first portion, as we have it in the present passage of the Apostle, according to what is said of him elsewhere, “Who is the firstborn of all creation.” For into this root everyone who is saved is grafted, and from this holy first portion the whole lump of the human race is sanctified. And truly, as the holy root supplies the richness of holiness to the branches that remain in it, while through his Holy Spirit he gives life to those who cleave to him, cultivates them by the word, makes them flower with wisdom, and makes them bear rich fruit in the fullness of all virtues, so that the root itself says of them, “But I am like a fruitful olive in the house of God.” For if the branches which were broken off were broken off because of unbelief, and those who stand stand by faith, who else will there be in whom … After this the Apostle teaches us not to be lifted up against the root or against the broken branches, the Israelites, nor to insult them; for we do not bear the root, but the root bears us. For we have nothing that we have not received; and if we have received it, why do we boast as if we had not received it? Then, as if some were insulting them rather shamelessly and saying, “If the branches were broken off, well; they were broken off because of unbelief, so that I who believed might be grafted in,” the Apostle, restraining them, says: They indeed were broken off through unbelief, and you were grafted in through faith and stand in faith; but remember that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled; and therefore do not be high-minded, do not speak lofty and proud things. For though you stand in the root, and stand well, yet fear, seeing that others too, whom you insult, stood there where you stand; and you, when you were not there, were brought over from elsewhere to the root of this olive, and it is possible for you too to sin. Indeed, by the very fact that you are proud and lifted up, you already sin. And know that if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. After this the one who is proud and insults the fallen is instilled by the Apostle with deeper thoughts of humility, and it is said to him: You who say these things, see the goodness and the severity of God; and when you see his severity toward the broken branches, you must fear lest you too, while you are proud and insult the fallen, incur by sinning the severity of God which presses upon sinners. For his goodness remains on those who remain in goodness. Otherwise, in the same way you too, if you do not remain in goodness, will be cut off; and they, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in. For it is not impossible for God to graft them in again if they depart from the unbelief through which they were broken off; since it seems easier to restore the branches of a tree to their own root than to graft in foreign ones. And as to his saying, “from the olive wild by nature,” and again, “will be grafted according to nature into their own olive,” we ought to take the nature of the olive or the wild olive according to what we explained above, that freedom of choice has made for each one the nature either of the wild olive or of the good olive. It must surely be observed that those who fell from their own olive are said to be broken off; but those who are grafted in from the wild olive, if they sin again, are said not to be broken off, which would surely be lighter, but to be cut out. In this a more vehement severity of God is certainly indicated, if, after someone who was a wild olive and was gathered out of a forest of sins has been brought to the root of faith and holiness, he again produces the bitter juices of wickedness. But let this too not escape us in this passage, that the Apostle has not set down the comparison of the olive and the wild olive in the order farmers follow. For they are accustomed rather to graft the olive onto the wild olive, and not the wild olive onto the olive; but Paul, by apostolic authority, reversing the order, fitted the things to the causes rather than the causes to the things.

“For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own sight: that blindness in part has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in; and so all Israel would be saved, as it is written, There will come from Zion one who delivers and turns away ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” He is still speaking to those who had believed from among the Gentiles, as being lifted up and proud against the branches that were broken off, and thinking that it was not by the goodness of God and the ineffable dispensation of his wisdom but by their own merits that they obtained this: that, the others having been broken off, they themselves, though wild olives, were grafted into the good olive. He says, “I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own sight”; because to insult the fallen and to boast against the branches that were broken off comes not through the wisdom of God but through a human wisdom that is notorious and ignorant of the mystery of God. For one who is wise according to God does not, in the benefits of God, insult the rejected, but gives thanks with fear to the mercy that bestows them. The mystery, then, which was unknown to those who insulted them, is of this kind: how, at the dispersion of the sons of Adam, when all the other nations were distributed according to the number of the angels, Israel became a kind of special portion of God, as we have mentioned elsewhere where it was fitting and in these very passages a little above; to them both the promises of good things and the covenants and the giving of the law were made. As long, then, as that portion of the Lord remained in its state, it was not possible for us, who were Gentiles, to enter into the inheritance of God and to succeed to the right of his scepter. Therefore God allows blindness to befall Israel in part, that is, not all but some of Israel: a blindness brought on, without doubt, by those angels who had received by lot the rule over the other nations, under the pretext of envious jealousy. God allowed it, then, and though he could have prevented it, he would not, so that in place of those who were deceived by blindness, that is, who had fallen through hardness of heart, God might make his own portion out of the portions of those who had deceived them, so that in a way they might be caught in the very thing by which they had caught. For in turning the people of God aside to themselves by the allurements of sin, they had made room for the Gentiles to enter into the inheritance of God, God holding judgment with them by a common and most equitable right: that as long as they held the people of God in the captivity of blindness, a number of Gentiles would be rendered, as it were in place of those whom from the beginning they had stolen from God’s portion and his set-apart inheritance; but when the fullness of the Gentiles had been completed, and Israel, through jealousy of their salvation, had begun to shake off from itself the blindness of heart and, raising its eyes, to look upon Christ the true light, then, according to the earlier prophecies, Israel, stirred up, would seek the salvation it had lost when blinded, saying within itself that prophetic word, “I will return to my former husband, for it was better for me then than now.” That these things were promised to them through the prophets is found in many prophetic books; but we will set down, as enough for the present, one testimony from Jeremiah, which runs thus: “If heaven be raised up above, and the earth be brought low beneath, I will not reject the race of Israel for all that they have done.” If, then, in order that the fullness of the Gentiles might come in, blindness befell Israel for all that they have done, without doubt, when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, the blindness will cease. But if you want to know, says the Apostle, how Israel too is to be saved even after blindness, hear how it is written: “There will come from Zion one who delivers and turns away ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” We must certainly know that in the prophet Isaiah, from whom Paul takes this testimony, instead of what the Apostle said, “will come from Zion,” it is written, “will come for the sake of Zion”; and what he says here, “when I take away their sins,” is not written there at all, not even among the Hebrews; but it has been taken up by the authority of the Apostle. Meanwhile the Lord, coming from Zion, delivers and turns away ungodliness from Jacob. And he turns away ungodliness from him according to what is written: “For the Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and will cleanse the blood from its midst by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning”; and this was the covenant made for them by God, to happen so, that thus ungodliness should be turned away from them and their sins taken away.

But who this “all Israel” is that will be saved, or what that fullness of the Gentiles will be, God alone knows, and his Only-begotten, and perhaps any who are his friends, to whom he says, “No longer do I call you servants, but friends, for I have made known to you all that I have heard from the Father.” Yet this much can occur to our understanding too: that just as Israel, as long as it remains Israel according to the flesh and has not also become, according to the spirit, a true Israelite seeing God with the mind, cannot attain to salvation, so not all the Gentiles at all can be saved either, but only those found within the fullness, whatever that is which the Apostle names the fullness. So, then, the mystery of God is carried out by a certain ineffable dispensation of his wisdom, so that even when a soul has brought on itself a lot of evils, he who knows how to order all things makes its rejection and punishment the salvation of others. But this too seems to me to need more careful consideration in this passage, that he does not say this blindness befell all Israel, but “in part.” For a remnant has been saved according to the election of grace; of this remnant Isaiah too had prophesied, saying, “Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us seed.” This remnant, then, is placed side by side in blessedness with the fullness of the Gentiles; but the others of Israel who were blinded are placed side by side with those Gentiles who could not attain to the fullness. So, then, what is found written in the words of the prophets about the promises, containing blessedness, belongs, if it is about Israel, to this remnant which was chosen; if about the Gentiles, it looks to the fullness. But if sad things are said, if about Israel, they are without doubt referred to those others who were blinded; if about the Gentiles, they certainly bind those who are outside the fullness. Yet the end presses upon all things; and those who are blessed, whether they come from Israel or from the Gentiles, the word of the gospel teaching of the present time purifies, so that they may be such as those to whom the Lord said, “Behold, you are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” But one who has spurned the purification of the word of God and of the gospel teaching reserves himself for sad and penal purifications, so that the fire of Gehenna may purge in torments the one whom neither the apostolic teaching nor the gospel word has purged, according to what is written, “And I will purify you with fire until you are pure.” But in this very purgation, applied through the punishment of fire, for how long times or how many ages torment is exacted from sinners, he alone can know to whom the Father has given all judgment, who so loves his creation that for its sake he emptied himself of the form of God and took the form of a servant, humbling himself even to death, willing all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Nevertheless we must always remember that the Apostle wished the present passage to be held as a mystery, so that all the faithful and perfect may cover thoughts of this kind within themselves in silence, like a mystery of God, and not bring them out everywhere to the imperfect and less capable. “For it is good,” says Scripture, “to hide the mystery of a king.”

“As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake; but as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. For just as you once did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy because of their unbelief, so they too have now not believed in the mercy shown to you, that they too may obtain mercy. For God has shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all. O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him? For from him and through him and in him are all things; to him be glory for ages of ages. Amen.” Pursuing still the same matters about Israel and the Gentiles, and reproving the branches of the wild olive that insulted the broken branches of the olive, the Apostle adds this too: that Israel, as regards the gospel, has become an enemy to God because it did not believe Christ; but as regards the honor of the fathers, it is elect and held most dear by God. For once election has been given to the seed of the fathers and love granted, God without doubt keeps his gifts and his calling toward the seed of those for whose merits he once bestowed them; nor does repentance befall God, even if those on whom the benefits promised to the fathers are conferred seem less worthy. But, as we have often pointed out, in the present passage too that distinction must be observed: that the Israel which is an enemy to God is said to be the one which cries out concerning Christ, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” For how should they not be called enemies of God who, either then or even now, have said or say such things? And as to his saying, “for your sake”: that is, for the sake of those whose salvation they envy, forbidding the apostles to speak to the Gentiles and persecuting those who announce Christ. But according to the remnant which is said to be saved, in which the election of believers from Israel has followed, they are most dear for the sake of the fathers, whose faith, namely, they follow, believing in him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead. And accordingly, toward seed of this kind, the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.

After this he lays open also the hidden and deeper causes of their unbelief, and says: Just as you Gentiles once did not believe God, and yet God did not therefore leave you entirely, but at length you have finally obtained mercy, though the occasion for bestowing mercy on you was the unbelief of the people of Israel: so also those of the people of Israel who now have not believed, and have been left because of their unbelief so that God’s mercy might be turned toward you, will not be left altogether in their unbelief; but after the dispensation of the fullness of the Gentiles has been fulfilled, they too will obtain mercy. In this the Apostle, wishing to show the goodness of God by which he makes the unbelief of some the salvation of others, says, “God has shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all”: not that he himself cast into them the purpose of unbelief, but that out of their purpose of unbelief he opened an entrance to believing for others, who themselves too had formerly been unbelieving. Placed in these passages, and looking more deeply into causes of this kind, how God does not at once cut off and remove an evil purpose but bears with it and reserves it, foreseeing that some good will come to others through another’s evil purpose, Paul, I think, turned the eyes of his heart from those of whom he was speaking to the very origin of evil: that God did not judge it useful to cut it off from the beginning, as it sprang up and grew by the freedom of choice in those in whom it arose, whoever they are, but permitted them to use their own purpose, knowing and foreseeing that the progress and benefit of many would arise on the occasion of their wickedness. And with the good God there is so much room for virtue that even the work of wickedness, however destructive it is to the one from whom it proceeds, is so dispensed as to confer a benefit on the one in whom it stirs up contests, once it has been overcome. Considering, then, that the riches of God’s goodness are so great, and that so great a work of divine wisdom is carried on toward rational natures, and that God is so rich in mercy and rich toward all who call upon him, and that the greatness of his goodness and patience and long-suffering is so great, the holy Apostle, suddenly beholding these things with the inner eyes of his heart and perceiving their immensity, struck at once with astonishment and fear, cries out and says: “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” For whence could the understanding of the human mind conceive this: that, with each one’s freedom of choice preserved, the work of one person’s wickedness should be turned to another’s salvation, and that wickedness, which brings ruin to the one who uses it, should confer the palm on the one who overcomes it? Having seen these things, then, in a general way, as far as appears, the Apostle cries out and says that so great is the depth of the riches of God, and so great the depth of his wisdom, and no less so great the depth of his knowledge (for the word “depth” serves for all these), that no one is able to search out his judgments, by which he dispenses each soul and every rational nature, nor can anyone trace the ways of God along which his providence proceeds. And by “anyone” we mean not only of human beings but of the whole creation. For his judgments would not be called unsearchable, and his ways past finding out, were it not that there is no creature that can either trace or search them out. For the Son alone knows the Father, and the Holy Spirit alone searches all things, even the depths of God. And therefore this depth of God, which he calls unsearchable and past finding out, he says is unsearchable and past finding out to every creature. But he could not say this of the Son and the Holy Spirit, since the Son says to the Father in the Gospel, “Father, all that is mine is yours, and yours is mine”; and of the Holy Spirit Paul himself declares, saying, “For no one among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him; so too no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.” You see, then, that in the present section, in what he says, “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”, Paul speaks of creatures, but excepts the nature of the Trinity, which has nothing in common with creation except the work of beneficence. And as to his saying, “Who has been his counselor?”: not as if, being less sufficient, he needed another’s counsel; but he declares that there is no partner in his counsel among creatures. For the wise one, counsel is necessarily in his wisdom, which is Christ, and in holiness, which is the Holy Spirit. In a like manner also “Who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him?” is to be understood. For no one has first conferred anything on his Maker, since each one has received from the Creator even the very fact that he exists. “For from him and through him and in him are all things.” You see how in these last words he shows that in all that he said above he was marking out the mystery of the Trinity. For as in the present passage what he says, “For from him and through him and in him are all things,” agrees with those sayings which the same Apostle records in other places, when he says, “One God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” and likewise he says that all things are revealed in the Spirit of God, and by these indicates that the providence of the Trinity is in all things: so too, when he says, “the depth of the riches,” he signifies the Father, from whom he says all things are; and by “the depth of the wisdom” he shows Christ, who is his wisdom; and by “the depth of the knowledge” he declares the Holy Spirit, who knows even the depths of God. But what he says, “from him,” indicates the very fact that we exist; “through him,” that we are governed in life through his providence; and “in him,” that the perfection and end of all things will be in him then, when God will be all in all; and then “to him be glory for ages of ages. Amen.” “For ages,” because the perfection of all things is not concluded within one age, but extends over many, and is hoped to be fulfilled only at long last. And he adds “Amen,” that we may understand that we must come to that blessedness through him of whom it is written in the Apocalypse, “Thus says he who is the Amen.”

… the Apostle had shown how the sum of religion had been transferred from the Jews to the Gentiles, from circumcision to faith, from the letter to the spirit, from the shadow to the truth, from carnal observance to spiritual observance, and had shown that these things were marked out by the voices of the prophets as about to happen so; now he sets about establishing the morals and practices of this spiritual observance, to which he taught that the rite of the worship of God had been transferred, and he says: “I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.” Since, he says, we have shown that carnal sacrifices are to be given up, according to what the prophet too says, “Sacrifice and offering you did not want, nor were they pleasing to you,” now, he says, I teach you in what sacrifices God delights. And I teach these things not as one commanding (for the command of the law profits nothing), but as one who has received the office of reconciling you to God: I beseech you, brothers; and I beseech not by power but by the mercy of God. For because, as I showed above, all have been shut up under sin, human salvation now rests no longer on merits but on the mercy of God. And what is it that I beseech of you? That you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, so that it may be your reasonable service. By “service” he here means the worship of God. Since that worship formerly consisted in the bodies of dumb beasts, now, he says, let it be offered in the body of a rational human being, and let your bodies rather than those of beasts become a sacrifice to God and be placed on the holy altars. For those who put to death their members from the incitement of lust and rage, and keep the acts of their body pleasing to God, offer a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, in a reasonable way, and fulfill according to the spiritual understanding the law of sacrifices given in Leviticus. For example, as there they offered a calf in the first place, or a ram in the second, or a goat in the third, or turtledoves or even young pigeons in the fourth, so that in these each one’s soul might be purified according to the quality of his deeds: … when we were saying something on the book of Leviticus, we tried as far as we could to explain how each person, in the reasonable service of the worship of God, sacrifices a calf if he overcomes the pride of his body; slaughters a ram if he masters anger; offers a goat as a whole burnt offering if he conquers lust; and sacrifices doves and turtledoves if he cuts off the wandering and slippery flights of his thoughts. But these things, as I said, if anyone thinks them worth knowing, he will find discussed more fully there.

Now Paul beseeches believers in Christ to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God. He calls “living” the sacrifice which bears life, that is, Christ, within itself, and he says, “We carry about the death of Jesus in our body, that the life of Jesus Christ also may be made manifest in our body.” He calls “holy” the one in which the Holy Spirit dwells, according to what he said in another place, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” “Pleasing to God,” as being separated from sins and vices. And all this is the reasonable worship of God. For an account can be given for such worship, and it can be shown that it is worthy of God that such sacrifices be offered; but that rams and goats and calves should be offered to the immortal and incorporeal God no right and honest reasoning will accept. The Apostle not only teaches those who have believed in Christ to do these things so and to worship God so, but even beseeches them by the mercy of God, to show by this to the human race (since it is prone to sin) that sacrifices of this kind have been provided by God’s compassion, by which, if a lapse ever occurs, the soul can be repaired and restored to salvation through reasonable service and sacrifices offered in the way we described above. And that the mercies of God are many Paul indicates in the second letter to the Corinthians, saying, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies.” You hear that God, as he is the Father of Christ, and the Father of wisdom, and the Father of righteousness, all of which Christ is, so is also the Father of mercies. Christ, then, as he is all the other things, is also himself mercy, many mercies, not one; that is, as the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in him, but are hidden, so the treasure of mercies too is in him, but is hidden, lest, if it were brought out suddenly and before the time, it make me, and anyone who wishes to be like me in idleness, negligent.

The living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, will seem, then, to be above all an undefiled body. But since we see that some of the saints, and some even of the apostles, had marriages, we cannot by any means understand this of virginity alone, although in sacrifices of this kind it may hold the first rank; as in the law too there was one sacrifice of the priest, another of the ruler, another of the synagogue, and another of a single soul. And although in the church the first sacrifice after the apostles seems to be that of the martyrs, the second that of the virgins, the third that of the continent, yet I think that neither those who are placed in marriage and by consent are free for a time for prayer, as though paying the vows of Nazirites, are to be denied the ability to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, if in other things they act holily and justly; nor, again, are the bodies of virgins or of the continent, if they are polluted by the stain of pride or the filth of avarice or a slandering tongue or the uncleanness of lying, to be thought to have offered a sacrifice holy and pleasing to God on the ground of bodily virginity alone. For in the law too, when a sacrifice was offered, it was inspected carefully by the priest, not only whether it was from the clean animals, but lest it have a blemish in the eye or the ears or the feet, lest a lame or one-eyed or deaf animal be brought to the divine altar. So, then, the living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is to be offered reasonably, is examined and handled member by member.

“And do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.” It must be known that in the Greek we have, “that you may prove what the will of God is, good and well-pleasing and perfect.” But since one sense can be seen in both, we follow the custom of the Latins. “Do not,” then, he says, “be conformed to this age.” In this he shows that there is a form of this age and another of the age to come; and if there are some who love the present age and the things that are in this world, they are fitted to the form of the present age; but those who look not at the things that are seen but at those that are not seen and are eternal are transformed and renewed to the form of the age to come; and hence it happens that this world does not know them, but hates and persecutes them. But the angels of God, who are of that age to come, recognize that form. And this seems to me like the saying in which he says, “As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly.” See, then, lest perhaps, when anger comes into your heart, it make you conformed to this age; and likewise evil desire and avarice and the other vices in which the present age delights impose on you the form of the present age. But if, on the contrary, gentleness, patience, mildness, continence, faith, truth and the other virtues dwell in your mind, they will make you conformed to the age to come, and will render the form of your soul so beautiful that the Word of God, who has betrothed it to himself in mercy and faith, says to it, “You are all fair, my near one, and there is no blemish in you.” Attend more carefully to his saying, “But be transformed by the renewal of your mind,” to show that the former form was blameworthy; for every soul first had the form of wickedness. But the apostolic word exhorts us from this that, casting that away, they be transformed to the beauty of the several virtues, and so at length we may with unveiled face of heart behold the glory of the Lord, transformed from such an image. And how we are transformed into these he himself teaches, saying, “by the renewal of your mind.” Our mind is renewed by exercises of wisdom and meditation on the word of God and the spiritual understanding of his law; and the more one daily profits from the reading of the Scriptures, the deeper his understanding goes, the more he is always made new and new every day. But I do not know whether a mind can be renewed that is sluggish toward the divine Scriptures and the exercises of spiritual understanding, by which it might not only understand what is written but also explain it more openly and set it out more carefully. Yet it may be that not every mind can be renewed in this, that it be broadened by the recognition of knowledge. For the mind can be renewed to righteousness, to continence, to mercy, faith, patience. But see what the Apostle joins to this renewal of mind in what follows: “That you may prove,” he says, “what is the will of God, what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.” And surely, unless the mind has been renewed to all knowledge and wholly enlightened by the wisdom of God, it cannot prove what the will of God is. For in many things the will of God is thought to be present, and it is not; in this those who do not have a renewed mind go astray and are deceived. But in truth it belongs not to any mind whatever, but to one greatly renewed and, so to speak, already re-formed to the image of God, to prove in each single thing we do, say or think whether it is the will of God, and to do or say or think nothing at all which it does not perceive to agree with the will of God.

“What is,” he says, “the will of God, what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.” If we read according to what we find in the Latin manuscripts, this will be the sense: that the will of God is whatever is good and well-pleasing and perfect, and God cannot will anything except what is good; and surely what is good and perfect without doubt pleases God. But if we read according to what we said is found among the Greeks, that is, “that you may prove what the will of God is, good and well-pleasing and perfect,” the same may indeed seem to be meant as we said above, that every will of God is good and well-pleasing and perfect. But this too can be perceived in these words: that the will of God is always good, but we do not always deserve to be governed by his good will, nor by his well-pleasing and perfect will. For example, that Saul should be anointed king was indeed the will of God, but not well-pleasing, nor perfect. For, being angry with the people, which had refused to have God over it, … this will of God is good and well-pleasing and perfect, and not such as rather indulges our desires than consults our benefit. But now let us turn to what follows.

“For I say, through the grace given to me, to all who are among you: not to be wise beyond what one ought to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety, to each as God has distributed the measure of faith. For as in one body we have many members, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” It must first be known that where we have “to all who are among you,” in the Greek we have “to everyone who is among you.” This saying surely indicates that the word is addressed to those who, though they were not before, have now begun to be. For God, as the same Apostle says, calls the things that are not as though they were. And those are not who do not partake of him who truly is, who said to Moses, “Say to the sons of Israel, He who is has sent me to you.” What Paul says, then, “For I say to all who are among you,” or, as we said is in the Greek, “to everyone who is among you,” is as if he said, “For I say to everyone who is in God, not to be wise beyond what one ought.” Yet we must see that Paul, as he says elsewhere too, speaks not in persuasive words of carnal wisdom, but through the grace given him. For there is a great difference between one who speaks through grace and one who speaks through human wisdom. Indeed, it has often been found by experience itself that many eloquent and learned men, powerful not only in speech but also in thought, have said much in the churches and received great applause and praise, and yet none of their hearers received compunction of heart from what was said, nor advanced in faith, nor was stirred to the fear of God by remembering what was said; rather people go away with their ears captured only by a certain sweetness and delight. But often men of no great eloquence, who take no pains over the composition of speech, have with simple and unpolished words converted many unbelievers to faith, bent the proud to humility, and fixed the goad of conversion in sinners. And this is surely the sign, as the Apostle says in the present passage, that they speak through the grace given to them. But I think that grace is present not only for those who teach the church in the word of God, if their speech is such as we described above, one that does not so much delight the hearer as goad him and lead him to some progress in virtue; but you will find it so in almost everything that is done in life. For there is one who has grace both in what he does and in what he says; and another who sometimes speaks more wisely and acts more diligently and laboriously, and finds grace neither in his words nor in his deeds. Indeed, as we have said elsewhere too, it is written that Joseph found grace in the sight of the keeper of the prison, and Esther found grace with the king. And we have found it written in a certain more secret little book that there is as it were an angel of grace, who even takes his name from grace; for he is called Ananehel, which is interpreted “grace of God.” That writing contained this, that this angel was sent by the Lord to Esther, to give her grace with the king. So, then, the power of speech that is spoken through grace is one thing, and the force of the power of teaching another. And there is another speech from common learning which, though it be elegant and artfully composed, yet, if it is not spoken or written through grace, can perhaps delight the reader but cannot lead the hearer to progress. Paul, then, not only himself says what he says through grace, but also prays that grace be given to his hearers; and not only grace, but a multitude of grace. For thus he writes: “Grace be multiplied to you”; and in all his letters he says, “Grace to you and peace.”

But let us see what it is that the Apostle, through the grace given him, says to all who are among the Romans. “Not to be wise,” he says, “beyond what one ought to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety.” He seems still to be fitting this saying too to the proud branches of the wild olive which insulted the branches broken off from the good olive, and to tell them that they ought not to be wise beyond what one ought; which is like the saying he said, “Do not be high-minded”; for that is to be wise beyond what one ought. It must be known, however, that other learned men too use this definition, placing the nature or cause of sin in something being added to or taken from the virtues. For example, justice is a virtue; and if someone does less than justice allows, he is without doubt unjust; but if someone, under the appearance of justice, becomes excessive in punishments and pursues vengeance too fiercely, he has slid from justice into cruelty. Hence Solomon too says, “Do not be overly just.” Likewise freedom of speech too, if it is within its due measure, is a virtue; if it has less, it is called timidity; if more, rashness. In the same way prudence too, if it is within its measure, is a virtue; if it has less, imprudence; if more than it ought, it is called malice. Hence I think the serpent in paradise was called more prudent than the other beasts, that is, exceeding the measure of prudence and slipping into the region of malice. Hence too the children of this age are called more prudent than the children of light; for they are wise beyond what one ought to be wise. And so in each of the virtues one can be wise beyond what one ought. One can also be wise beyond what one ought in chastity, like those who give heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared, forbidding marriage, and abstaining from foods which God created. These are wise about chastity beyond what one ought. But the luxurious and incestuous person is less wise than he ought. And I say that the heretics too are wise about Christ beyond what one ought to be wise, who deny that he is the Son of God the Creator, but of some other better god, I know not who. But those too … the Apostle’s words would be clearer if we too had it written according to the force of the Greek word, “but to be wise unto temperance”; that is, that in all things that we do or say or think we keep temperance. For in the things we enumerated above, temperance alone knows how to keep the measure, so that neither more nor less is done.

After this he says, “to each as God has distributed the measure of faith”; that is, that each may know and understand what the measure of God’s grace is in him, which he has deserved to obtain through faith. For sometimes someone receives from God to be wise in the work of love, or to be wise in the duty of visiting, or toward mercy to the poor, or in the care of the infirm, or in the defense of widows and orphans, or in concern for hospitality. Each of these, then, God has distributed to each according to the measure of faith. But if one who has received grace to be wise in some one of these does not understand the measure of grace given him, but wishes to be wise about the wisdom of God, about the word of teaching, about the reasoning of deeper knowledge, in which he has not received grace, and wishes not so much to learn as to teach what he does not know, he, though less wise, wishes to be wise beyond what one ought. For he is not wise unto temperance, so as to keep “to each as God has distributed the measure of faith.” But in order to set this out still more clearly, the Apostle introduces an example and says, “For as in one body we have many members, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another,” arranging by these words the whole body of the church in the most orderly way: that just as each of the members of the body has its own functions, and each serves its own duties, and yet it is not possible for them not to yield to one another with mutual consent, so too, he says, in the church, which is the body of Christ, we have each our different functions. For example, one applies all his zeal to the wisdom of God and the teaching of the word and persists day and night in the meditation of the divine law, and he is the eye of this great body. Another, as we said above, takes care of the service of the brothers and of the needy, and he is the hand of this holy body. Another, an eager hearer … And so you will find each one more inclined to some one duty and giving more special attention to it, but holding the others as secondary. For we do not say that one ought to suffice, but speak according to the form of the example set forth. Just as, for example, the eye has the special duty of seeing, yet it is one of all and in all the members, and does all things with each, and each does all things with it, so too one who through the grace of faith has deserved some one special gift administers that principally, but in all actions is held to be a companion and partaker with the rest. And how this body is in Christ, that is, in truth and wisdom and righteousness and sanctification, all of which Christ is, we have often said already.

Now whether in this body, for example, someone is an eye, which is the nobler thing in the whole body, or a hand, which can be held in the next place, or an ear or a tongue or the other parts which seem more honorable; and again whether someone is some other member of those that seem less honorable: whether he himself has furnished some cause, or whether by God’s will, without any causes at all, this one or that one has been made this or that member, I think is beyond our understanding. But lest those who assert diverse natures of souls, made by diverse creators, seem to find an occasion for confirming their doctrine, let what we discussed above about vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor suffice in the present passage too. For it must never be granted that, whether in the present age or in past or future ages, divine Providence does not so dispense each one that each one’s merit, gathered by the freedom of choice, furnishes the material to the one who dispenses. For God is just, and there is no injustice with him.

“Having gifts differing according to the grace given to us: whether prophecy, according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, in ministering; or he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhorting; he who gives, in simplicity; he who presides, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” Having said that each of the believers is a member of the one body of Christ, he now lists, as it were, the diversity of work of the different members; and, for example, as sight to the eye, so he assigns the office of prophecy to the mind, which is the inner eye; to another, as to a hand, he ascribes ministry; to another, as to a tongue, he gives teaching; and likewise the rest. He also resolves what seemed doubtful to us above, where we asked whether each member came to the more honorable or less honorable duties of the body by furnishing some cause from itself, or whether for no causes, but by the will of God alone, it was assigned to each to be an honorable or less honorable member. What was less clear to us there the Apostle has plainly opened here, saying that prophecy or ministry or the other gifts of graces are given according to the proportion of faith; although this phrase, “according to the proportion (ratio) of faith,” seems to have been translated rather improperly among the Latins. For analogia in Greek can be called not so much ratio as “corresponding measure,” so that, since it cannot be explained by one word, it is explained by two. He declares, then, that diversities of graces are given according to the measure of each one’s faith, so that, for example, having received a grace, one becomes this or that member in the body of Christ. And here he has set down the measure of faith as the cause of receiving graces; but writing to the Corinthians he says, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for what is profitable”; and after a little he adds, “But all these the one and same Spirit works, dividing to each as he wills.” Hence it seems to me that, writing both to the Romans and to the Corinthians, he teaches three modes of receiving grace, to show that something is done in it by us, but that most rests on God’s bounty. He sets down, then, both that there is a measure of faith through which one receives grace, and that it is given for what is profitable, and that the Spirit divides as he wills. That so much faith be found in us as can merit a higher grace seems to be our work, … lest the power of choice seem to be taken away from man. Yet from his saying that grace is given for what is profitable, it may happen that, even if there is in someone so great a measure of faith as deserves to receive a more exalted grace, if the Holy Spirit, foreseeing the future, judges that it is not profitable for the recipient, he necessarily divides to each as he wills and as is profitable. Indeed, we see that some received the grace of teaching or exhorting the people, and, lifted up by this very thing and turned to pride, fell into the judgment of the devil; others received grace, but corrupted it by negligence of mind and sloth of life; hence was the man who tied up the denarius he had received in a napkin and would not work anything with it. For this reason too, indeed, the Apostle writes to his dearest son, saying, “Do not neglect the grace that is in you,” as knowing that grace can be lost through negligence. As for his saying, “according to the proportion or measure of faith,” I think it has already been fully explained above which faith is required of us and which is given by God through grace, according to what the same Apostle says, “to another faith by the same Spirit,” and again where the apostles say to the Lord, “Increase our faith”: that the faith which hopes and believes and trusts without any doubt is in us, but the proportion of that faith, and the knowledge and perfect understanding of what we believe, is given by God. But let us not omit in this place what seems to be of a more secret mystery. For if in the present age God gives grace to each according to the measure of faith, without doubt in the future too he will give grace to each according to the measure of merits; and if such is God’s dispensation in the present age, and such it will be in the future, how will it not be believed that in past ages too, which were before us, God’s dispensation toward every rational creature was similar?

But now let us see what the gifts are that he lists as given according to grace: prophecy, he says, and ministry, and teaching, and exhortation, and giving, that is, bestowing, and presiding, and showing mercy. To these he joins love too, and the rest. Of these someone may say: If all these are given through grace, it will not be one’s fault if someone does not prophesy, or does not minister, or does not teach, or does not exhort, or does not give, or does not preside, or does not show mercy, or does not love, since he did not receive the grace of all these. But to this we will say: as there is a faith which we have taught is in us, and again there is a faith given through grace, as we said above it is written, “to another faith by the same Spirit,” so also in each of the things we listed above as given by God through grace, there is also something in us, according to whose measure or proportion each one merits grace. For not only of wisdom is that to be taken which is written, that though someone be perfect among the sons of men, if the wisdom which is from you is lacking to him, he will be counted as nothing. In the same way we can say: Even if someone be perfect in faith among the sons of men, if the faith which is from your grace is lacking to him, he will be counted as nothing. So too, though someone be perfect in ministry, if the grace of ministry from God is lacking to him, he will be counted as nothing. So too, though someone be perfect in teaching, and the grace of teaching which is from God is lacking to him, he will be counted as nothing. And so in all the things listed there is a certain perfection among the sons of men which they attain by their own labor and efforts, whether in wisdom or in teaching or in other duties; yet if they do not have grace given by God, they will be nothing, because, if the grace of the Spirit is lacking to them, they cannot be members of the body of Christ either. But in these matters it is asked whether there can be some kind of prophecy in us or from us which does not have everything from God but takes a little also from human efforts. To others this will seem quite impossible; yet with Paul it is plainly proved when he says, “Earnestly desire the greater gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.” In this the Apostle shows that, as one desires ministry and teaching and exhortation and the rest by applying zeal and labor to them, so it must be with prophecy too. Hence the prophecy to be understood is this which the Apostle teaches, not that through which it is said, “Thus says the Lord”; for that lasted until John, according to what is written in the Gospel, “The law and the prophets were until John”; but that of which the same Apostle says, “He who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation.” With Paul, then, it is called prophecy when someone speaks to men for edification, and when he speaks for exhortation and consolation; and therefore it is possible for us to apply zeal to prophecy of this kind, and it is in our power that, as we give attention to these things, if we do them according to the proportion or measure of faith, that prophecy too which is from God may be added. And there is also, according to the Apostle, another kind of prophecy, of which he says, “But if you prophesy, and an unbeliever or an outsider comes in, he is convicted by all, he is judged by all; the secrets of his heart too are made manifest, and so, falling on his face, he will declare that God is truly among you.” For as the Spirit of God searches all things, so the word of God too searches out all things, even those that are hidden, especially since the word is living and effective and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints also and marrow. For when moral discourse is delivered in the church, then each one’s conscience is goaded within himself, as he recognizes his own sins from what is said and recalls whether he has perhaps committed something in secret. And sometimes the judgment of prudent men, gathering each one’s conscience from his face or his manners or his fear, has the form of prophecy. Let this be said by us about the grace of prophecy.

After … which was stated above, that is, “not to be wise beyond what one ought to be wise”: so that, for example, we may say that one who ministers ought not, in ministering, to be wise beyond what one ought; and one who teaches ought not, in teaching, to be wise beyond what one ought; and one who exhorts ought not, in exhortation, to be wise beyond what one ought. For many, having received a ministry or having received teaching, have been wise beyond what they ought, and, lifted up into arrogance or relaxed into pleasures, have fallen headlong. “He who exhorts, in exhorting.” Exhortation is a kind of teaching and of the word by which afflicted souls are relieved with words of the divine Scriptures prudently applied and gathered together. For despair often comes upon a soul from an excess of tribulations, and it cannot easily be repaired or restored by any words whatever, however polished and plausible they may be. But if a word having the power of God’s grace is applied, then it penetrates his heart and gives consolation and calls back hope, despair being removed, according to what was said by the Lord through the prophet, “Priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” “He who gives, in simplicity; he who presides, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” He who gives and bestows on the needy, he says, must do this in simplicity of heart; that is, lest he seem indeed to do good to the needy, while in his heart he seeks praise from men. It is not simplicity, then, if one thing is seen to be done with the hands and another sought in the heart. But he who presides over the brothers, or presides over the church, must be in diligent concern, not for human causes nor worldly affairs (for this concern ought to be foreign to those who preside over the church), but let him take on such concern as the Apostle speaks of: “The pressure upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?” He who presides over the churches, then, ought to have such concern, and ought not to have that other worldly concern at all. “He who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” It may perhaps seem to be one and the same, what he said above, “He who gives, in simplicity,” and this, “He who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” But to me it seems that it is perhaps one work, yet not one disposition of that work. For it is one thing to give to the needy, and another to share with the needy out of a disposition of mercy; and therefore he does not want there to be sadness in such a work. For one who pays out his money, if he is faithless and despairs of receiving it back, is necessarily saddened as one who has lost it. But one who does it with faith and hope does it in cheerfulness and gladness, sure that the small things he spends here for God’s commandment will confer on him huge riches of heavenly wealth, and in addition eternal life as well.

“Love without pretense.” I think that all love which is not according to God is feigned and not true. For God, the Creator of the soul, implanted in it the affection of love along with the other virtues for this purpose, that it should love God and the things God wills. Since, then, he has put this work of love into the soul, whoever loves anything other than God and the things that please God, the love in him must be called counterfeit and feigned. And if someone loves his neighbor, and when he sees him going astray does not warn him or correct him, that love must be called feigned. And therefore love ought to have nothing flattering, nothing painted over, as the same Apostle says elsewhere too: “Love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned.” “Hating evil, cleaving to good.” It may perhaps be surprising that among the other good things of the virtues hatred too is taken up and set down by the Apostle as something necessary. Hence it is certain that the affection of hatred is present in the soul: for it is praiseworthy to hate vices, to hate sins. For unless someone hates vices, … that just as he says in other places, “He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit,” so here too he says, “Let us cleave to the good,” doubtless so that it may be granted us to be one with the good.

“Loving one another with brotherly love.” This commandment, that we love one another as God also loved us, though it is the first after the first (for the first is to love God; and among human beings this in turn is first, that we love one another), is somehow despised among people as if it were the last and less necessary; and the hatred which we said is implanted in us so that we may hate evils we exercise in reverse order against good things, and, loving the vices and sins of the flesh, we hate our brothers. Nor does it happen that we hate what we ought not except because we love what we ought not. We are commanded, then, to love the brothers, not to judge them. For if you think someone is ungodly and therefore judge that he is not to be loved, hear that Christ died for the ungodly. Or if you think your brother is not to be loved because he is a sinner, hear that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners. And if he is righteous, much more is he worthy of love; for the Lord loves the righteous.

“In honor preferring one another.” This is what the Lord too taught, when he censured the scribes and Pharisees who claimed for themselves the first places at banquets, and taught that, when you are invited to dinner, you should recline in the last place.

“Not slothful in diligence.” Above he warned that he who presides must be diligent; but now he gives this commandment to all in common, lest any of us hear from the Lord, “Wicked and slothful servant.”

“Fervent in spirit.” This too looks to the unslothful and diligent person. For he wants us, who live under the law of the spirit, to have nothing slack, nothing lukewarm in us, but to accomplish everything with fervor of spirit and warmth of faith.

“Serving the Lord.” He serves the Lord who can say, “For us there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him,” and over whom neither lust nor avarice nor vainglory any longer rules. But I know that in some Latin copies we have “serving the time,” which does not seem to me to have been suitably inserted, unless perhaps someone thinks it was said as the same Apostle says elsewhere, “The time is short; it remains that those who have wives be as though they had none”; or as it is said, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”

“Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.” He rejoices in hope who does not look at the things that are seen, but waits for those that are not seen, and who knows that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that will be revealed in us. The same person will also be patient in tribulation, because tribulation works patience, patience proof, and proof hope; if, however, we fulfill the saying that follows, that is, “persevering in prayer.” For where human frailty does not suffice, God’s help must be implored by prayers.

“Sharing in the needs of the saints.” I remember that in the Latin copies we rather have, “sharing in the remembrances of the saints.” But we neither disturb the custom nor prejudge the truth, especially since both serve edification. For it seems fitting and suitable to share in the needs of the saints honorably and becomingly, not as if giving alms to the needy, but having our means in a way in common with them; and to remember the saints, whether in the solemn assemblies, or so that we may profit from the recollection of them.

“Pursuing hospitality.” How fittingly he comprised in one word the generosity of one who pursues hospitality! For in saying that hospitality is to be pursued, he shows not only that we should receive the guest who comes to us, but that we should seek, be concerned, pursue and search out guests everywhere, lest perhaps they be sitting in the streets, lest they lie without a roof. Remember Lot, and you will find that it was not the guests who sought him, but he who sought guests; and this was to pursue hospitality.

“Bless those who persecute you; bless, and do not curse.” Pursuing the moral topic more broadly, the Apostle orders the acts, the mind, the purpose, and even the very mouth and tongue of the disciples. He does not want believers in Christ to bring a curse from their mouth, but to speak well, to say good, to pray well, so that by this they may be believed to be both servants of a good Lord and disciples of a good Master. It must be known, however, that this word “blessing” is found used in different ways in the Scriptures. For God is found blessing men or the other things he had created; and men or the other creatures are commanded to bless God. But God’s blessing always imparts some gift to those who are blessed by him; whereas men are said to bless God in the sense of praising him and giving thanks. Here, however, the Apostle, saying, “Bless, and do not curse,” warns us that when we are provoked by enemies or stirred up by injuries, we should not return curses for curses, but do what he himself writes of himself, where he says, “Being cursed, we bless.”

“To rejoice with those who rejoice, to weep with those who weep.” Here too a fitting and suitable distinction must be kept. For the joys of Christians are not to be joined to just any joys, nor are our tears to be joined to just any weeping. For if I see someone rejoicing over the gain of money, or the breadth of his possessions, or the eminence of worldly honor, I ought not to congratulate such people, knowing that mourning and tears follow joys of this kind. Indeed, so far is one from rejoicing over such things that the Lord did not allow his disciples to rejoice even over seeing the demons subject to them, but said to them, “Do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you; but rejoice,” he says, “that your names are written in the book of life.” We too, then, if we see someone doing such a work as is worthy to be written in heaven, whether a work of righteousness or of love or of peace or of mercy, and done so that it deserves to be entered in the book of life, ought to rejoice with such people. And if we see someone turned from error, who has left the darkness of ignorance and come to the light of truth and has obtained the forgiveness of sins and the grace of the Holy Spirit, we ought to rejoice with such people. Likewise we are commanded to weep with those who weep, not with those who weep for their dead or who weep for worldly losses, knowing that the sorrow of this world works death. Our tears, then, are not to be joined with such people; but we must weep with those of whom the Lord says, “Blessed are those who weep, for they shall be comforted.” If someone weeps for his sins, if someone after a fault turns to repentance and washes his error with tears, if someone, placed in this dwelling, groans and longs to return to Christ and solaces his holy longing with an outpouring of tears, let us join our tears with such people and share their groaning; for the sorrow that is according to God works through repentance a steadfast salvation.

“Thinking the same thing toward one another.” This saying has been made more obscure not by its own nature but by the translation. For what he means is that we should think of a brother as of ourselves, and wish for our neighbor as we wish for ourselves; as the Lord too says in the Gospel, “Whatever you wish that men should do to you, do the same to them.”

“Not minding high things, but consenting to the lowly.” He teaches that pride must be shunned in everything; for this is what he calls minding high things. And rightly must pride be fled, since Scripture says that the beginning of departing from God is pride. And well he set out the instruction in humility in one word; for to consent to the lowly, to love the lowly and to stoop to them, is to accustom oneself to imitate him who, though he was in the form of God, took the form of a servant and humbled himself even to death.

“Do not be wise in your own sight.” One who seems to himself to be wise is a fool with arrogance; nor can he know the true wisdom of God who cultivates his own folly as wisdom. Indeed Paul himself taught above that this was the cause of unbelief for the Jews, saying of them that, being ignorant of God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. So, then, one who is wise in his own eyes cannot be wise before God.

“Repaying no one evil for evil.” If to inflict evil is to sin, then to repay evil is not, as some think, just, but a like sin, or, as I think, even worse. For the one who first inflicted evil perhaps did not perceive that what he did was evil; but the one who repaid evil, by the very fact that he was moved to take vengeance, has confessed that he perceived that what he repaid was evil. And therefore we must always look to him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

“Providing good things in the sight of all men.” One provides good things in the sight of all men if he does not please the vices or the habits of individuals; otherwise that sentence of the Apostle himself would be contradicted, which says, “If I wished to please men, I would not be the servant of Christ.” But one who keeps the balance of his life and conduct and actions so that he cannot be blamed by anyone, he provides good things in the sight of all men. And let us notice this too, that the Apostle did not say that we should please all, but that we should provide good things in the sight of all men; that is, that we do good things in the sight of all men, whether the good things please them or do not please them.

“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, having peace with all men.” The Apostle, knowing that the peace of those among whom peace is kept depends not on one side but on both, gave a most moderate precept, lest another’s mind, if it should prove implacable, seem to hinder us from the good of peace: that meanwhile our mind should always be ready for peace, and the blame for discord should lie not with us but with the other. But perhaps someone may say: How can it happen that we have peace with all men? And what shall we do about the Scripture which says, “You saw a thief and ran with him, and you put your portion with adulterers”? Therefore the Apostle well added, “as far as it depends on you,” that is, as far as befits your purpose and your faith. For to have peace and fellowship with the wicked does not befit our faith and purpose; although another distinction can also be kept in this passage. For it is one thing to love men, another to love crimes. He who loves men loves the creature of God; he who loves crimes follows the inventions of the devil. Those who are perfect, then, love the very men in whom they hate the crimes, and, hating in them that in which they sin, they do not cease to love that which God created.

“Not avenging yourselves, beloved, but give place to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” How those who do not avenge themselves give place to wrath seems to me to be understood in two ways. For by the very fact that, for example, they do not return hand for hand or insult for insult, they have given the wrath of the one who did the injury room to pass away and vanish. For no one will be found so rabid that, having inflicted an injury, if he does not receive the like in return, he rages again; rather, his fury as it were poured out and spent, he necessarily grows mild. There is, then, a great gain too where both the multitude of the sinner’s sins is checked, and the patience of the one who suffered the injury is made approved before God. And this too is to give place to wrath: when, for the injuries they inflict, those who sin, according to the statement of Paul himself, treasure up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath, when God will render to each according to his works. If, then, we avenge ourselves, it is no great thing that we return for an injury received, for example a slap for a slap, a stone for a stone, or for an insult of speech an insult of speech likewise. But if we reserve these things for the vengeance of God, we give place, in the one who has hurt us, to that wrath which without doubt he treasures up for himself by his own evil acts, which exacts from him in God’s judgment far heavier punishments than we can inflict.

“But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for in doing this you will heap coals of fire on his head.” The Lord too commands these things in the Gospels. And although the meaning is obvious, by which, according to what we said above, insofar as we not only do not return the like to enemies and those who hurt us but even bestow good things on them, so far we heap up their punishments in God’s judgment (for it is truly a just condemnation if they are convicted before God of having inflicted evils on those from whom they received good things), yet let us see whether the meaning of this commandment may not contain something worthier. For Jeremiah the prophet too says to the sinful daughter of Babylon, “You have coals of fire; sit upon them; they will be a help to you.” Perhaps, then, here too these coals of fire which are heaped on the head of the enemy are heaped for his help. For it may happen that the fierce and barbarous mind of an enemy, if it perceives our kindness, if it sees our humanity, our affection, our goodness, may receive compunction of heart and feel repentance for what he has done, and from this a kind of fire may be kindled in him which tortures and burns him for the consciousness of what he committed; and these will be the coals of fire which are heaped on his head from our work of mercy and goodness. And “head” is the name for the ruling part of the heart; and rightly it is called head, by whose understanding and prudence all the members are governed.

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” He is overcome by evil who, provoked by evils, returns evil. But he overcomes evil with good who, having received evils, gives back good things. For it is certain that this is the nature of evil, that it is increased and grows from its like, as if you join fire to fire, as if a cloudy sky is joined to the darkness of night. But if you apply good, evil is driven out. For contraries are destroyed by contraries, as fire is put out by water and darkness is put to flight by light. But perhaps someone may say that Paul, through unskillfulness of speech, has fallen away from his subject; for he set out to speak of the gifts of graces which are given through the Holy Spirit. And indeed what he says, “whether prophecy or ministry or teaching or exhortation,” can belong to the spiritual gifts. Perhaps also what follows, “he who gives, in simplicity; he who presides, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness,” can be joined to the preceding; but the things he lists after these, such as love without pretense, hating evil, cleaving to good, loving one another with brotherly love, preferring one another in honor, and others of this kind, one may say are precepts rather than gifts. But let us consider more carefully whether perhaps, since in all these he undertook to treat the moral topic, and to make the Christian not only stable and immovable in the faith of truth but also adorned in morals, he therefore joins moral precepts too to the gifts of graces, to show Christians that these too are given through the grace of God. For there are also some of the Gentiles with well-ordered morals and honorable habits, who nevertheless do not refer what they have to God nor confess it to be a grace given them by him, but either ascribe it to their own industry or boast of their masters and instructors. But the Apostle shows us that everything good is from God and is given through the Holy Spirit, as the apostle James too says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights,” so that he who boasts may boast in the Lord.

Let us see, then, what the Apostle adds also in what follows: “Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities.” It seems to me that here he very commendably named the soul as what he commands to be subject to the authorities. For he would never have said, “Let every spirit be subject to authority,” but “every soul.” Of this difference we have often spoken already: that a human being is named sometimes by the soul, sometimes by the flesh, sometimes by the spirit. When he is to be named from the better part, as one who is to be understood as spiritual, he is called spirit; when from the lower, soul; and when he is named from the worse, he is called flesh; and we have often brought testimonies of these from the Scriptures. Now, then, since the Apostle is laying down precepts for believers, he wants us to keep the quiet and peace of the present life as far as it depends on us. And if we are such as, joined to the Lord, are one spirit with him, we are said to be subject to the Lord. But if we are not yet such, but there is still in us a common soul that has something of this world, that is bound to some business, for it the Apostle lays down precepts and says that it should be subject to the authorities of the world; because the Lord too said that those who have Caesar’s inscription in them should render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Peter and John had nothing to render to Caesar; for Peter says, “Silver and gold I have none.” One who does not have this has nothing to render to Caesar, nor any reason to be subject to the higher authorities. But one who has money or possessions or some business in the world, let him hear: “Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities.”

“For there is no authority,” he says, “except from God.” Someone may perhaps say: What then? Is that authority too which persecutes the servants of God, attacks the faith and overthrows religion, from God? To this we will answer briefly. There is no one who does not know that sight and feeling have been given us by God, and hearing as well. Since, then, we have these things from God, it is yet in our power to use sight either for good things or for evil, and likewise hearing, and the movement of the hands, and the thought of the mind; and in this the judgment of God is just, that we misuse what he gave for good uses for ungodly and wicked services. So too, then, every authority has been given by God for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of the good, as the same Apostle says in what follows. And the judgment of God will be just toward those who govern the authority they have received according to their own impieties, and not according to the divine laws.

And therefore he says, “Therefore he who resists the authority resists the ordinance of God; and those who resist will acquire judgment for themselves.” He is not speaking here of those authorities which bring persecutions on the faith; for there one must say, “We must obey God rather than men”; but he speaks of these common authorities, which are not a terror to good work but to evil; whoever resists them surely brings judgment on himself according to the quality of his deeds. “Do you wish,” he says, “not to fear the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from it; for it is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do what is evil, fear; for it does not bear the sword in vain; for it is God’s minister, an avenger for wrath on him who does what is evil.” Paul stirs me in these words, in that he calls the authority of the world and the judge of the world the minister of God; and this not once, but he repeats it a second and a third time. I would like, then, to inquire how the judge of the world is the minister of God. We find it written in the Acts of the Apostles that the apostles, gathering together, established decrees which we who have believed in Christ from the Gentiles should observe, in which these things are contained: “The apostles and presbyters, to the brothers who are in Antioch and Syria and Cili… from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from sexual immorality; keeping yourselves from these you will do well. Farewell.” In these precepts, then, in which he says that no further burden is to be laid on those who believe from the Gentiles except that they abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from sexual immorality, neither murder is forbidden, nor adultery, nor theft, nor intercourse with males, nor the other crimes which are punished by divine and human laws. But if he says that only those things he mentioned above are to be observed by Christians, he will seem to have given them license in the rest. But see the ordinance of the Holy Spirit: since the other crimes are punished by the laws of the world, and it seemed superfluous for them now to be forbidden by divine law, since they are sufficiently punished by human law, he decrees only those things about which human law had said nothing and which seemed to befit religion. From this it appears that the judge of the world fulfills the greatest part of God’s law. For all the crimes which God wishes to be punished he willed to be punished not through the bishops and leaders of the churches but through the judge of the world; and Paul, knowing this, rightly names him the minister of God and avenger against him who does what is evil. But what he says of the authority, “Do what is good, and you will have praise from it,” seems to me to need deeper inquiry. For it is not the custom of the authorities of the world to praise those who have not been criminals; they punish those who sin, but they have no custom of praising those who do not sin. But let us see whether perhaps Paul, even when he seems to teach morals, never fails always to insert something of the mysteries as well. For he knows that all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law; and that law will without doubt convict each one in the judgment according to how he lived (and we have shown that the Holy Spirit has in many things given place to human law). It is certain, then, that on the day of judgment the one who has committed nothing against the laws established will have praise before God even from these laws, when the Lord says to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many.” It must be known, however, that the law is not laid down for the righteous, but for the unrighteous and insubordinate, the wicked, murderers, the defiled, perjurers, and the others of this kind. For these are the ones who fear the law. But he who does good, that is, who does what is good not from fear of the law but from love of the good, lives no longer under the law of the letter but under the law of the spirit.

“Therefore it is necessary to be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. For for this reason you also pay tribute; for they are ministers of God, attending to this very thing.” By these words Paul orders the church of God so that, doing nothing hostile to the rulers and authorities of the world, it may exercise the work of righteousness and godliness through the quiet and tranquillity of life. For if we suppose, for example, that believers in Christ were not subject to the authorities of the world, did not render tribute, did not pay taxes, paid fear to no one, honor to no one, would they not by these things deservedly turn the arms of governors and rulers against themselves, and make their persecutors excusable and themselves guilty? For they would seem to be attacked no longer for the faith but for defiance; and they would have a cause worthy of death, but a death unworthy of merit.

Foreseeing these things, then, through his immense wisdom, Paul says: “Render to all what is due: tribute to whom tribute, tax to whom tax, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” I think, however, that Paul brings out even these things not without the mysteries usual in his words. For … world, he says this too: “But we have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God.” But one who is still of the world, and minds the things of the world, and seeks the things of the flesh, is necessarily subject to the ministers of the world; subject, moreover, because of the wrath which he has treasured up for himself from sins. And for this reason he seems to me to say, “Therefore it is necessary to be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience”; since one who is subjected has in himself what may be accused by his conscience. To them, then, we also pay certain tributes, while we still live according to the flesh and think the things of the flesh. For if we cultivate the vineyard of the Lord and tend in ourselves the true vine, which is Christ, from that vineyard we will not pay tribute to the ministers of the world, but will render its fruits in season to the Lord himself, according to what the Savior himself says in the Gospels, that he will take the vineyard from the wicked tenants and give it to other tenants who will render him the fruits in season. And this very saying, “Render to all what is due: tribute to whom tribute, tax to whom tax,” seems to me to be separated from what is added after, “fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor”; and tributes and taxes seem to me to belong to those whom we called ministers above. For they exact from us tributes for our land and taxes on our trade. And why do I say “from us”? Tribute was exacted even from our Lord Jesus Christ when he was in the flesh; and he says that he pays it, not because he is a debtor, but lest he cause them to stumble. But if he who had nothing of Caesar’s in him, and in whom the ruler of this world, coming, found nothing of his own, though he was free, yet paid tribute (for he came even into death, that he might be free also among the dead), how much more must we pay these tributes of the flesh, and pay the taxes of our trade, if indeed we trade in the pearls of the kingdom of heaven, to the spirits who exact them from us through various temptations? But fear and honor we ought rather to refer to him who says through the prophet, “Do you not call me both Lord and Father? And if I am Lord, where is my fear? And if I am Father, where is my honor?” As for what he added afterward, that is, “Owe no one anything,” it is certain that it refers to the ministers to whom one is declared a debtor when he has sinned. For we have shown often and in many places that sin is a debt. Paul wants, then, every debt of sin to be paid, and no debt of sin at all to remain with us, but the debt of love to remain and never cease from us; for it is profitable for us both to pay this daily and always to owe it.

Next he sets out in what follows how great is the power of love. “For he who loves his neighbor,” he says, “has fulfilled the law. For: you shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet; and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And at last, briefly gathering the reason of so great a good, he says, “Love of neighbor works no evil; therefore love is the fullness of the law.” He had said above that he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law; and because it seemed difficult how someone could fulfill the whole law in one saying, he gives the fullest reason, saying, “Love of neighbor works no evil, and therefore love is the fullness of the law.” For put love into each of the commandments of the law, and see how easily they are all fulfilled. Can one who loves his neighbor kill him? It is certain that no one kills the one he loves. It is love, then, by which the commandment is fulfilled that says, “You shall not kill.” And again, does one who loves his neighbor commit adultery with his wife? Never, surely. If, then, you love your neighbor, you will not commit adultery either. Likewise one who loves his neighbor does not steal what is his; and one who loves his neighbor does not bear false witness against him. Likewise the other commandments of the law too, if there is toward … and of the Old Testament for the expenses of our care. If, then, we love this neighbor, we fulfill the whole law and all the commandments in love of him. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes; nor can it in any way happen that one who loves Christ with his whole heart and his whole inward being does anything that does not please Christ. For one who loves him not only does not kill, which the law forbids, but is not even angry with his brother. One who so delights in him whom he loves not only does not commit adultery, but does not even look at a woman to desire her; rather he says to him, “My soul longs and faints for the living God.” How should one who loves Christ think of theft, who even leaves all that he has to follow Christ? When does one who loves Christ bear false witness, knowing that he whom he loves was betrayed by false witness? But one who loves Christ necessarily loves his neighbor too. For by this sign alone one is marked out as Christ’s disciple, if they have love with their neighbors. For it is certain that one who does not love his neighbor does not know Christ.

“And this, knowing the time, that it is now the hour to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night has advanced, the day has drawn near. Let us cast off, then, the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light; let us walk honorably as in the day.” After those discussions which the Apostle pursued about the Gentiles or about the Jews, he had introduced the moral topic as well, to stir his hearers more and more to conversion; and now he introduces also the pressing reason of the time, which in all things is supreme. For no one is so sleepy and sluggish that the brightness of the coming day does not rouse him, and that the sun poured into his eyes does not open his sight. There is, then, a kind of sleep of the soul too. For if, as we have often said already, it has its own eyes and its own ears and hands and feet, each of which is to be reckoned not so much as bodily members present in it as powers by which it is moved and stirred to each thing, then without doubt sleep too befalls it according to its eyes. For if it does not do the things of God at the proper time, but grows torpid with sloth, it will rightly be said to sleep. Therefore Paul, the herald of Christ, going round the world laid in the sleep of sloth, announces that the light is now present and that it is time to rise from sleep; that the night, that is, the time in which ignorance ruled over men, has advanced, and that, as the coming of the sun of righteousness approaches and the darkness thins, the day of knowledge is now at hand; and therefore he cries out that we must awake, lest anyone through sluggishness endure night in the light; and that the works of darkness are to be cast off and the armor of light put on. The works of darkness are those acts which are alien to God; the armor of light is the taking up of the virtues. And as we said it is shameful to sleep when the day is already pressing, it is much more shameful to do the works of darkness in the time of day and light. But it must be known that the coming of this light and day is to be understood in two ways: both general for all and special for each one. Light and day will be present generally for all when the time of the age to come arrives, by comparison with which the span of this present world is called darkness. That time draws near as the days slip away daily, and the spaces that are added to the past are without doubt subtracted from the future; and therefore our salvation, he says, is now nearer than when we believed, and daily becomes nearer; as the Lord too, when he set out the signs of the consummation of the age, said, “But when you see all these things, lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near.” But the coming of this day also takes place in each one. For if Christ is in our heart, he makes day for us; if the reason of knowledge puts our ignorance to flight, and, turning away from unworthy acts, we pursue all that is holy and honorable, we are placed in the light and walk honorably as in the day.

What the works of darkness are which must be cast off he lists next, and says: “Not in revelings and drunkenness; not in chambering and wantonness; not in strife and jealousy.” These are the works of darkness, which are also called works of the flesh, in those who have handed over their flesh to luxury and wantonness, not to holiness nor to the Lord. For revelings, that is, disgraceful and luxurious banquets, of which the necessary companion is … they are called “chamberings” (cubilia), as befitting not so much rational human beings as wild beasts and brutes. “Not in strife and jealousy.” The things he spoke of above are vices of the flesh; these now are vices of the mind as well; although all together are called works of the flesh and works of darkness, because in truth strife and jealousy are in the minds of those who live according to the flesh and who walk in darkness. But one who is in the light, and walks honorably as in the day, does nothing through strife, nothing through vainglory. In this way, then, one casts off (as he said above) the works of darkness.

How what he said, “Let us put on the armor of light,” ought to be done he now explains. “But put on,” he says, “the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts.” We have often said that Christ is wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and truth and all the virtues together; and one who has taken these up is said to have put on Christ. For if Christ is all these things, one who has these necessarily has Christ too. And one who has these makes no provision for the flesh in lusts. The Apostle uses his usual moderation, since he does not deny that provision for the flesh is to be made in every respect. For it is certain that it must be cared for in necessities, but in pleasures and luxury and every lust it is to be excluded entirely.

“Receive one who is weak in faith, not for disputes over opinions. One believes that he may eat all things; but he who is weak, let him eat vegetables.” Above too the Apostle mentioned weakness of faith, where he says of Abraham, “Though he was nearly a hundred years old, he did not weaken in faith”; and in those places we explained, as far as it could occur to us, this weakness of faith. But now too he speaks of one weak in faith, whom he calls weak in this, that he does not believe he may eat all things, but his faith is so slight that he thinks vegetables alone are the food fit for him. This can indeed seem to be said to those who had believed from the Gentiles, who exalted themselves in the freedom of faith because they believed that nothing was common or unclean, against those who had believed from the circumcision and still kept the distinction of foods according to the tradition of the law; so that he seems to restrain them and warn them not to insult those in whom long custom still caused some discrimination and hesitation in keeping foods. He commands, then, that one who is weak in this faith be received rather, and not cast off, nor judged as an unbeliever. For it is one thing to be an unbeliever, another to be weak in faith. For an unbeliever is one who does not have faith; but weak in faith is one who doubts in some part of the faith.

Setting the body of the church in peace, then, the Apostle says: “Let him who eats not despise him who does not eat; and let him who does not eat not judge him who eats; for God has received him. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for God is able to make him stand”; so that, namely, through this there should be no dissension among believers on account of foods. But Paul seems to have said these things rather in a deeper sense. For the law had commanded nothing about eating vegetables to those coming from the circumcision, so that what he says, “but he who is weak, let him eat vegetables,” might seem to fit them. Hence it is clear that he is treating these things of the food of the word, and calls weak in faith one who is not so perfect in his senses that he can take every food of the word of God; as the Apostle himself says elsewhere, “But solid food is for the perfect, for those who, according to their capacity of taking it, have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” And again he says to others, “I gave you milk to drink, not food; for you were not yet able.” And shall we be so foolish as to think that the Apostle, who was sent to preach the word of God, carried milk with him to give the Corinthians to drink? But it is plain that he is speaking of the quality of the word, and therefore saying: if someone is weaker in his senses and not so perfect in faith as to receive the word about more secret mysteries, disputes over opinions ought not to be stirred up for him by things he cannot understand. “For one,” he says, “believes that he may eat all things.” By this Paul is not urging his disciples to eat everything, nor is he a teacher of gluttony and the gullet; but he is speaking without doubt of those whose faith is perfect and is hindered by no distinctions in the word of God, whom the same Apostle elsewhere calls spiritual, when he says, “But the spiritual man examines all things.” He, then, is the one of whom he says here, “But one believes that he may eat all things.” Indeed, even to the apostles, before they received the Holy Spirit, the Lord said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But the Paraclete will come, the Spirit of truth, and he will teach you all things.” These, then, are the “all things” which he believes he may eat who, through the perfection of faith, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, has proved capable of the more secret word. Yet the weak too has something to take from the word of God; and there is a certain kind of word which the Apostle here called “vegetables,” which does not so much make the hearer’s understanding robust and strong as sustain it and keep it from perishing. For in many places the divine Scripture speaks of the inner senses of the soul as if of the outer members of the body; and just as we have often taught that the inner man is said to see or to hear or to walk, so now too the inner man himself is said either to be able to take every food, if he is perfect, or, if he is weak, to eat vegetables.

But in order to set in concord in the church the perfect and the imperfect, like the less honorable and the honorable members in the body, and that there be no dissension among them, he says, “Let him who eats not despise him who does not eat; and let him who does not eat not judge him who eats.” This is what he says elsewhere too: “For the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you; nor the head to the feet, I do not desire your service. But much more those members of the body which seem to be less honorable are necessary.” Those, then, whose faith is so great that they can eat all things and receive every kind of word he commands not to be proud and despise those who are lower; and again he charges those who are incapable of more perfect teaching not to judge those whose understanding is more capacious and whose intellect is more eminent. For in perverse order the unskilled are accustomed to judge the skilled, and the slothful the studious; yet sometimes those too who have received some beginnings of knowledge are puffed up and lifted up against those who seem less capable. Therefore Paul, restraining the insolence of both parties with the rebuke of apostolic authority, says, “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.” As for … with love, as Paul admonishes, they think similar things of all the less skilled; and therefore he has taken away from a brother the power of judging a brother. And well he says, “another’s servant,” because the Lord says, “But you are all brothers.” All, that is, the whole creation; and there is one only Lord, Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all, rich toward all. At the same time he shows the ineffable goodness of God, when he says of one who seems to have fallen, even if he has truly fallen, that God is able to make him stand. For the Lord raises up those who are dashed down.

“One judges between day and day; another judges every day. Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind.” We said above that, according to the sequence of the apostolic letter, these things seem to be treated concerning abstinence from foods or freedom in them: since the freedom that is in Christ sets down nothing in foods as common or unclean, but the reason of continence counsels abstaining even from lawful things. For not, as he himself says elsewhere, because all things are lawful are all things therefore expedient or do all things edify. Yet the reason of abstinence differs according to the vow and purpose of the one who vows. For one judges this, and so decides in his mind, that he spends every day, that is, the continuous time of his life, in abstinence; but another decides on some period, as by a votive profession. In this he gives each one’s judgment free choice whether to undertake continence perpetually or for a time. Yet he promises that both are accepted with the Lord, and therefore he adds:

“He who regards the day regards it for the Lord; and he who eats eats for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who does not eat does not eat for the Lord, and gives thanks to God.” Thanks, then, are given to God by both: by the one for the fruit of continence, by the other for the freedom of eating. But since, as we showed earlier, the Apostle’s meaning is found to be deeper than the account of carnal foods contains, in a spiritual exposition, according to what we discussed above about those of whom one judges every day and the other alternate days, we can understand this: that in the divine Scriptures each chapter in which a doctrine of godliness and faith is contained is called a day. For truly that is day which enlightens the mind, which puts to flight the darkness of ignorance, which has within itself Christ, who is the sun of righteousness. If, then, there is someone who devotes such effort and study to the divine writings that he examines and judges every day and every sense of the divine Scripture, so that not one iota or one stroke of the law escapes him, he will be seen to judge every day. But one who is not so great in ability will take alternate ones, that is, a few senses out of many, which, if they do not suffice for the fullness of knowledge, yet are enough for the sum of faith. Let both, then, according to the apostolic counsel, give thanks to God: the one who regards every day and who eats all things, that is, who recognizes and understands all things; and the one who, though he does not eat all things and does not receive the understanding of all, is yet saved by a brief confession of faith. And therefore even one who does not eat all things nor take in the knowledge of all is still said to give thanks to God.

“For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself; for if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Whether, then, we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ both died and lived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” What it is to live in Christ and what it is to die in Christ has often been said by us in the exposition of this letter, and especially in the place where we tried to explain the Apostle’s saying, “But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.” If, then, we remember what was said in that place, from it the present saying of the Apostle too will become plainer and clearer, how none of us lives to himself and none dies to himself. For no one gives himself the pattern of death, but takes it from Christ, who alone died to sin, so that by imitation of him he too can be made a stranger to sin and dead to it. And the pattern of life too we do not have from ourselves, but receive from the resurrection of Christ, as the same Apostle says, “That as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.” The newness of life, then, in which we live in Christ through faith in his resurrection, is assigned to the Lord, because it takes its beginning not from us but from him; and therefore, “If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Whether, then, we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” For he calls “death” that in which, buried with Christ, as we said, and baptized into his death, we have died to sin; and “life” that in which, made strangers to this world and, as he himself says, living from the dead, we live not to ourselves, that is, not to the flesh, but to God, according to what he joins in what follows: “For to this end,” he says, “Christ died and lived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” He says that Christ died, without doubt, by the dispensation of the passion, and lived by the mystery of the resurrection. Hence he has left us a pattern first of passion and mortification, and afterwards also of resurrection and newness of life.

But perhaps it may disturb someone that the Apostle says he died and lived for this reason, that he might be Lord of the dead and the living, as though he gave us to understand that, had he not died, he would not have had lordship over the dead, and had he not lived again after death, he would not have held lordship over the living. To this I think one must answer thus. Christ’s lordship over every creature stands in two ways. One is that by which, as Creator of all and bearing power over all, he has all things subject by the force of majesty and the necessity of power; in which way he rules not only good and holy minds and spirits but also the wicked and the renegades and those whom the divine Scripture has called evil angels. For this reason he is also called the All-holder, or Almighty, as John indicates in the Apocalypse, saying, “Thus says he who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” This, then, is one way in which Christ rules over all. But the other is that in which, as good and the Son of a good Father, he does not want to bend rational spirits by force to obedience to his law, but waits for them to come of their own accord, to seek the good by will and not by necessity, and persuades by teaching rather than commanding, by inviting rather than extorting. That, indeed, is why he deigns to go even to death, to leave a pattern of obedience and a form of dying to those who are willing to die to sin and vices. And for this reason the Apostle writes in the present place that he died and lived for this, that he might be Lord of the living and the dead: of the living, surely, those who by the pattern of his resurrection lead a new and heavenly life on earth; of the dead, without doubt, those who carry about the dying of Christ in their body and put to death their members which are on earth.

If these things are so, “You,” he says, “why do you judge your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother?” since, whether there is in you a mortification of the flesh and of vices, it did not arise from you but was given by Christ’s death; or whether you have newness of life and, walking on earth, have your citizenship in heaven, you have obtained this by Christ’s resurrection. And well he marked the stigma of each fault with its common name, saying to the one, “Why do you despise?” and to the other, “Why do you judge your brother?” For those who seem to have advanced a little in knowledge are accustomed to despise and count as nothing those less capable of higher understanding; while, on the contrary, the unskilled and unteachable are accustomed to judge, that is, to accuse and condemn, those who search into things higher and deeper than they themselves can grasp or attain. And therefore the Apostle, wishing to cut off the fault arising from both sides, commands the former not to despise and look down on those beneath them, and the latter not to judge those above them, since they lack the skill to judge. Though, then, he rebukes both, the one who despises a lower brother and the one who judges a higher, yet, to show that the latter sins more gravely in judging than the former in despising a brother, he leaves aside the fault of contempt and enlarges on the presumption of the one who judges a brother; and therefore he adds in what follows:

“For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not, therefore, judge one another any more; but judge this rather, not to put a stumbling block or an occasion of offense in a brother’s way.” Taking up the reasons why those who judge their brothers do not judge rightly, the Apostle introduces the form of the right and just divine judgment, and says, “For we must all stand before the judgment seat of God”; so that, namely, one who judges his brother may know that he incurs so great a crime of pride that he seems to claim for himself the judgment seat of God and to anticipate the judgment of the Only-begotten. But let us see what the Apostle means by mentioning the judgment seat of God, and how it is to be understood. For not only in this place, but also writing to the Corinthians, he likewise mentions the judgment seat, where he says, “Therefore we strive, whether present or absent, to please him. For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive through the body according to what he has done, whether good or evil.” And in the prophet Daniel too we find some such things described about the form of judging. “I watched,” he says, “and behold, thrones were set, and the Ancient of Days sat, and his garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like clean wool. His throne was a flame of fire, its wheels burning fire; a river of fire ran before him. Thousands of thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The judgment was set, and the books were opened.” In the book of the Twelve Prophets too it is said in a mystery that in the valley of Jehoshaphat … higher and more eminent than the others who are to be judged, lest either the punishments of the guilty or the pleas of the innocent escape his sight; so let us understand that Christ too, the judge of all, eminent above all by nature and majesty, looks into the hearts and consciences of each, makes manifest hidden things and reveals what is covered, so that he may give praise to good acts, and the wicked may receive the punishment they deserve.

If, then, a future judgment of God awaits, and such a judgment that not only will each receive for his acts but will also give account for every idle word, according to the Lord’s sentence; and evil thoughts too will be refuted, conscience bearing witness against them; and in all things each of us will give account of himself to God: “Let us not, therefore,” he says, “judge one another any more”; as he says elsewhere too: “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of hearts; and then each will have praise from God.” For our heart, as I think, will be laid bare to the whole rational creation, and its hidden things will be revealed, or else made manifest. For there is a difference: the things that are revealed seem to belong to the wicked, of whom it is said, “For it will be revealed in fire”; but the things that are made manifest, to the good; and therefore it is said, “For everything that is made manifest is light.” And like certain books written, or tablets engraved, containing the letters of our acts and thoughts, … then we shall endure as witnesses the innumerable throngs of the heavenly powers. But since Paul says that we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God, and since he joins himself with those who will stand before the judgment seat of God, who is there who so deceives and misleads himself as to think that he will not come to the judgment of Christ and to the judgment seat of his inquiry, or that he will not be made manifest in what he has done, whether rightly or less rightly? As for his having put “the judgment seat of God” in the present place, but “the judgment seat of Christ” to the Corinthians, I think there is no difference to prevent one and the same judgment seat being called the judgment seat of Christ and the judgment seat of God, according to what the Savior himself says in the Gospel, “All that the Father has is mine”; and again, “Father, all mine are yours, and yours are mine.” Yet if someone thinks, since in Paul’s writings not even a syllable is idle, that the reasons for this variation in his words must be sought, he could perhaps say something like this. The name of Christ, as far as concerns the proper meaning of the title itself, is a sign of the Word placed in the flesh and reconciling the world to God, as the same Paul says, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” But the delay of our conversion and our negligence of amendment stretch out the spans of this reconciliation and make them longer; and until he abolishes all rule and authority, and puts all enemies under his feet, and destroys the last enemy, death, so he must reign, carrying out the mystery of the dispensation he took up in the flesh, and making the good manifest, while the guilty each receive according to their works. But when he has handed over the kingdom to God and the Father, that is, has offered to God all who have been converted and amended, and has fully completed the mystery of the reconciliation of the world, then, he says, all stand before the judgment seat of God, so that what follows may be fulfilled: “As I live, says the Lord, to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God.” And every creature will bow the knee to God in the name of Jesus, through whom it has been reconciled to him, according to what the same Apostle says, that in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, on earth and under the earth. The bowing of the knee, and every tongue confessing to God, the Apostle took from the words of the prophet Isaiah. Yet this is not to be taken carnally, as though we should think that even the heavenly beings, which he says bow the knee, are to be believed to do this with fleshly members; for example, that the sun or the moon or the stars, or even the angels, and whatever are called heavenly beings, are thought to worship bending bodily knees, or to confess God with a fleshly tongue, a member such as we humans speak with, though it is said of them that they are spirits and fire, according to what the prophet says, “Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a burning fire.” And what knees will be believed to be in spirits, or what tongue will be sought in the form of fire? But to bow the knee declares that all things are subject and obey the worship of God.

I am still moved by what we took from the letter to the Corinthians, where he says, “That each may receive what belongs to the body, according to what he has done, whether good or evil”: whether, because in all human beings there must be something good and something evil, and none is found among the good who has not had something evil too, nor again anyone among the wicked who has not had something good too, on account of the Scripture which says, “For an incorruptible spirit is in men,” he therefore said that each will receive both good things for his good and evil things for his evil; or whether he calls good those to whom nothing evil is to be ascribed, and wicked those to whom nothing good at all is owed. But if we take this last view, we shall seem to go against evident reason. For no one, as I said, will be found so good that some evil is not implanted in him, as seems very easily gathered from the examples of many saints; and again, no one is among the worst, even if Judas himself be set down, who was ungodly beyond all ungodliness, who does not seem to have had something good. For, to pass over the things he did while placed among the apostles as one of them (although even there evils were already mixed with his good, for he was greedy for money), yet this very thing, that, led by repentance, he brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the priests and said, “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood,” was something good. From all these it seems to me that, since one and the same person cannot receive good things and evil at once (for no one can be sent at the same time into paradise, or into the kingdom of heaven, and into Gehenna), the account of good is not kept only in those in whom evils greatly outweigh, and the account of evil is not taken in those in whom good things outweigh, and in whom the repentance of conversion has blotted out the traces of evils.

But to return to the end and conclusion of the section before us: since, he says, so great is the truth of judgment with God and with his Christ, so searching the inquiry of the examination to come, “Let us not, therefore,” he says, “judge one another any more; but judge this rather, not to put a stumbling block or an occasion of offense in a brother’s way.” “Judge this,” that is, resolve this, that you do not, through the observance of foods, create stumbling blocks or offenses for the brothers. Of the stumbling block or offense we have already said above that an offense (scandalum) is when something is found lying in the way one walks, against which the feet of those climbing or walking strike. This, then, is what those suffer who have recently entered the way of faith: they are made to stumble by the contentions or negligence or contempt and pride of those before them, and, struck by their examples, they are turned away from the faith.

“I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is common through itself; but to him who thinks anything to be common, to him it is common. For if your brother is grieved because of food, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not by your food destroy him for whom Christ died.” We have said elsewhere too that in the sacred Scriptures, by a kind of everyday term, what is not holy or clean is called common; this term, however, is found more often in the New Testament. In the Old … were called, and, to distinguish them, the remaining vessels were called common; so too, to distinguish foods, those which Scripture set apart as clean and to be eaten according to the law, all the rest were called common. But the Jews, not knowing the force of the word, why a man they called common was so called, kept the use of the word without understanding its meaning. For the foods which God created, taken either in ignorance or in simplicity, could not make a man common and unclean; but that mind of a man which is set apart for God alone is rightly called clean, while one that is alien from God, since it is possessed not by one unclean spirit but by many, makes such a man called common, as being the slave of many vices or demons; like him who, when asked, “What is your name?” answered, “Legion, for we are many”; and according to what the Savior says, that when the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, it goes through dry places seeking rest, and, not finding it, returns; and finding the house empty and swept, it takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they enter and dwell in him. And without doubt such a man is called common, being plainly made the slave of all the evil spirits that dwell in him. Rightly, then, Paul, knowing this to be the meaning of the word, says, “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is common through itself.” For nothing in the creatures of God is unclean by its own nature (for it is established that all things created by the good God are good and clean); but to him, he says, who thinks anything to be common, to him it is common; that is, to one who in the intention of his heart thinks something unclean and admits the observance of distinction, as he says in what follows: “But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because it is not of faith; for whatever is not of faith is sin.” Yet he did not exclude the distinction of the law in these things, so as to say absolutely that nothing of the things the law calls so is common or unclean; but to him, he says, who thinks and supposes something to be common, to him it is common. And do not wonder that the thought of the mind makes polluted a food which is not common or polluted by its own nature, since, on the contrary, simplicity of mind, with no scruple of thought cast in, absolves of all suspicion of contamination a food truly polluted (for food sacrificed to idols is truly polluted). And again, even if the food is clean, yet if someone suffers a suspicion as though it had been sacrificed to idols, it is said to be polluted on account of the scruple of conscience. “For if your brother is grieved because of food, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not by your food destroy him for whom Christ died.” Having defined by apostolic teaching that through the Lord Jesus nothing is to be thought common or unclean by its own nature, and having given all the faithful the most complete freedom in the use of foods, he again cuts back the license of freedom for the building up of brotherly love, and says: Even if nothing is common, and the use of all foods is freely admitted, yet if, because of a food which you think lawful to take, you cause your brother to stumble, who is not yet capable of this knowledge, you are no longer walking according to love, nor showing in yourself the affection of brotherly love. For what harm are you done if, so as not to grieve your brother, you abstain even from lawful things? For you, to abstain from lawful things is no crime; but for him, in the things he doubts and thinks not lawful, the use is condemnable. For he who doubts is condemned if he eats. And if you do this, you surely destroy your brother for whom Christ died, and you procure for him the causes of his perdition.

The same Paul, writing to the Colossians, says more grandly concerning these things: “Let no one, then, judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a feast day or new moons or a sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is Christ’s. Let no one lead you astray, wishing in humility of heart and the worship of angels, which he has not seen, exalting himself, vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh, and not holding the head”; and after a little, “If, then, you have died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in this world, do you decree: Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle? All these things are for corruption by their very use, according to the precepts and teachings of men; which have indeed a reason of wisdom in the observance of religion and in humility through the harsh treatment of the body, not in any honor for the satisfying of the flesh.” To discuss these one by one is not the task of the present work; for we are now trying to expound what the Apostle writes to the Romans. Yet this is what is asserted by the present example too: that we should not be judged by anyone in food or in drink or in observances of this kind, which among the Jews are thought to be a kind of worship of angels. For they exalt themselves in things that are seen, and are puffed up over visible things. But this pride is not according to the wisdom of the spirit but according to the mind of the flesh. And the precept, “Do not touch, do not handle, do not taste,” is not about carnal things. For all these, that is, carnal things, have been given for this corruptible use; and what observance of purity can there be in corruption? But while this law gives its precepts about rational things, which, if unclean, truly are not to be touched or tasted, lest they make us partakers of their sin and uncleanness, they, abandoning this and following the precepts and teachings of men, transferred this spiritual sense to these carnal and bodily things, which have a reason of wisdom in the observance of religion and in humility of body; not, however, that on the occasion of such observance some honor among men and the delights of the flesh should be sought, while, for abstinence from a few foods, many foods are sought out and chosen. But true observance is when food is taken, and everything is done, in such a way that it is not said of such people, “Whose god is the belly.” For it is fitting to abstain from every food which desire and lust seize on beforehand, which delicacies prepare, which luxury devises. For we must consider not only of what kind, but also how much food we use, and at what time, and how sparingly. For so all things become clean to clean minds; but to the defiled, as the Apostle says, and to unbelievers nothing is clean. In this he shows that even the foods which among the Jews are called clean cannot be clean to someone who is defiled and an unbeliever. It will follow, then, that if things that are clean become unclean to the defiled, things that are called unclean too become clean to the holy and faithful. For they are sanctified by the word of God and prayer, because every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving. Yet they are sanctified not by the prayer of just anyone, but of those who lift up pure hands without anger and disputing. Do you wish to be taught still more grandly about clean and unclean, that they are said not of bodies but of souls and minds? Hear the sentence of the Lord and Savior himself in the Gospel, saying, “Not what goes into the mouth makes a man common, but what comes out of the mouth; since from within, out of the heart, come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,” and so on. It is, then, the thought and the mind not rightly disposed that defiles a man, not the quality of the foods, which, of whatever kind they are, will fulfill with one and the same end the use of corruption. And no wonder if the saint sanctifies by the word of God and prayer the food he takes, when even the garments he wears are holy. For the handkerchiefs and aprons of Paul had received so much from the purity of his sanctification that, applied to sick bodies, they drove away diseases and restored health. And what shall I say of Peter, the very shadow of whose body bore so much sanctification that whomever, as he passed, not he himself but only his shadow touched, they were at once relieved of every sickness? But we have digressed a little too widely in discussing clean and common foods, in order to consider the Apostle’s meaning, as far as possible, more loftily. But, mindful of the brevity we proposed, having here brought the ninth book to its conclusion, let us take up the beginning of the tenth and last.

“Let not, then, our good be blasphemed. For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this serves Christ is pleasing to God and approved by men.” I ask how our good can be blasphemed. It is good to understand the law spiritually, and to shun the ungodly and foolish doctrines of the heretics, or of those devoted to false philosophy, as unclean and polluted foods; for this is what is enacted by the spiritual law. Yet if someone of the Jews, for example, or of those who are called Encratites, wishes to believe in Christ, but thinks there is no small importance in observing abstinence, either from the foods forbidden by the law, or from those which some think are to be avoided even on the authority of the Scriptures as being contrary to chastity: if you press such a man to the common foods of all, and tell him that he cannot otherwise be saved or come to the faith and grace of Christ unless he takes the foods he shuns, then truly the good of the spiritual teaching is blasphemed, since the one you press thinks that we hold this faith, that we believe no one is saved unless he eats pork or other common and indifferent foods of this kind. And he adds to this: “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” In this again I greatly admire the wisdom of Paul, who checks the faults of the present time by the authority of the future mystery, and, to establish the form of the church, discloses the mystery of the kingdom of heaven. He says, then: What need is there to disturb brotherly peace and love so much for foods and the qualities of foods, since the kingdom of God, for which we labor and run, consists neither in foods nor in drink, but these things are foreign to the kingdom of God and to that future way of life? For there, just as they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God, so they take neither food nor drink, but are like the angels of God. Therefore by a most absolute teaching and a plain sentence of the Apostle it is settled that in the kingdom of God neither bodily foods nor drink have a place, but righteousness and peace in the Holy Spirit; and therefore he exhorts us to exercise ourselves in these and to practice having those goods here already, and to possess that substance which can pass with us into the kingdom of heaven. Peace, then, and righteousness, and whatever things of this kind are acquired through the Holy Spirit, will themselves be our food and substance in the kingdom of God; and therefore by these words he teaches that care is to be taken not for the reckonings of bodily foods, which will be nothing in the future, but for the virtues, which remain with us both in the present life and in the future kingdom of God. And therefore he says that he who in this serves Christ is pleasing to God and approved by men. This is what he says of himself elsewhere too: “As I too,” he says, “please all in all things, not seeking what is profitable to myself, but to many.” For this reason, though he was an apostle of Christ, he became a Jew to the Jews, without doubt so that by pleasing the Jews he might save them; and to those who were without law he too became as without law, so that by pleasing them he might save them. But he says he pleases men not by humoring their vices but by bearing their weaknesses with patience. And let us not pass over idly what he says: “For he who in this,” that is, in the Holy Spirit, “serves Christ is pleasing to God and approved by men.” He speaks of serving Christ in the Holy Spirit according to what he says elsewhere too: “No one says ‘Lord Jesus’ except in the Holy Spirit.” Paul himself, then, serves Christ in the Spirit, who, having received the grace of the Holy Spirit, serves the word of God, serves wisdom, serves righteousness, and all the virtues together, which Christ is said to be. And therefore he is said to please God in these who fulfills the will of God, according to the word which he himself pronounced, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him.” He, then, who hears God and serves Christ, in whom God is well pleased, is pleasing to God and approved by men.

“So, then, let us pursue the things that make for peace and the things that build one another up. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.” Above he said, “pursuing hospitality”; and here likewise he says, “let us pursue the things that make for peace and that build one another up.” And as we showed there how hospitality is to be pursued, so here let us understand how peace is to be pursued, since David too says likewise, “Seek peace and pursue it.” Although in the Latin manuscripts we have “follow it,” yet there too “pursue” is written. In this, it seems to me, it is shown that since peace, he means, has been disturbed by many who act restlessly and insolently, and, as it were, put to flight, it slips away from people; on the contrary, by those who have learned Christ and serve him it is to be pursued even when it flees, and called back by every means. And he pursues peace who preserves the things on which peace can rest, even with his own toil, with loss, with reproach too, and, if it must be so, even at the risk of life and reputation. For thus they keep not only peace but also mutual edification. For one who sees you seeking not what is profitable to yourself alone but what is profitable to others is built up; and so the building of faith grows, and the temple of God rises from living stones through the construction of love; and therefore he adds, “Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.” For he destroys the work of God and pulls down the building of love who, through lack of moderation in foods, puts a stumbling block before the brothers.

“All things indeed are clean, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. It is good not to eat meat and not to drink wine, nor anything by which your brother is offended.” What he said, “All things indeed are clean, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense,” is like what he said above, that nothing is common through itself, but to him who thinks anything to be common, to him it is common. According, then, to their nature and the reason of creation, by which all things that exist were made by God, all things are clean, and nothing is unclean or what is called common. Yet he set down two causes by which things that are clean become unclean, or things that are good become evil. For in the present place he says, “But it is evil for the man who eats with offense.” What, then, is good by its own nature becomes evil from offense, that is, in that a brother is offended when you feed on those foods in which he suffers a stumbling block. But the other cause by which what is not unclean by its own nature is made common or unclean is if someone thinks and holds within himself that it is common. To him alone, then, who thinks so does it become common or unclean. From this the Apostle plainly teaches that uncleanness and pollution consist not in things or substances but in acts and thoughts that are less than right; although the law of Moses marked some things clean and some unclean, in which it wished to set certain distinctions, so that the people reckoned under the law might be seen to be distinguished by observances of this kind from the other nations. And as long as that people was held holy and set apart from the other nations, the discrimination of clean and unclean also seemed necessary, which separated and set apart the special people of God from the nations which ignorance of God and the worship of idols made unclean. But when the door of faith is opened to the Gentiles and all are invited to God, all four-footed beasts and creeping things and birds are shown to Peter, laid out in a sheet let down from heaven, and it is said to him, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” And when, mindful of the observance of the law, he had answered the Lord and said, “Far be it, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth,” it is declared by a heavenly sentence, “What God has cleansed, do not call common.” Where, then, all nations are cleansed from contamination through the knowledge of faith, there too all food is purified by the word of the Lord and prayer; [and so] the Apostle says that all things are clean, provided only that what he sets down in what follows is avoided, that things that are clean do not again become unclean to the one who eats through the offense of a brother.

Now as to what he adds, “It is good not to eat meat and not to drink wine,” had he not added, “nor anything by which your brother is offended,” it would perhaps seem contrary to what came before. For to eat … in what follows, “by which a brother is offended,” not to eat meat and not to drink wine is no longer indifferent or neutral, but truly good. For it is good not to put an offense or stumbling block before a brother. For this reason he says elsewhere too, “Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God.” And therefore let those consider whether they act rightly who compel in every way those who, for whatever reason, abstain from meat and wine to taste them, so that, namely, the suspicion may seem to be removed from them by which they are thought to cling superstitiously to distinctions of foods. For let them consider that the Apostle did not say, “It is good to eat and to drink wine,” but “not to eat meat and not to drink wine, if a brother is offended by it.” He did not want, then, the one who is offended by it to be compelled to eat for the sake of those who judge that one should eat; but for the sake of the one who does not think one should eat, he commands even those who judge that one should eat to abstain. For it is to be feared lest, the wall of continence once broken down and license received, one fall into the storm of gluttony and the depth of luxury, and shipwreck of chastity follow as well. Everything, then, must be done so that the work of God is not destroyed; and therefore one should eat if the brother is built up by it, and one should not eat if by it the work of God does not grow; and one should drink if by it the brother advances in faith, and one should not drink if by it the brother incurs loss of faith, or you loss of love.

After this he says, “The faith that you have, have it with yourself before God.” By faith he here means that by which someone believes that he may eat all things, as he said above, “One believes that he may eat all things”: he, without doubt, who believes that nothing in the creatures of God is common, nothing unclean. But it is enough for you, he says, to have such faith before God; yet another, who does not yet have such faith as to believe that all things may be eaten, is not therefore to be compelled to eat all things. And what he said, “you have with yourself,” cuts off boasting, lest what we believe be more for show than for strength. And he added, “have it before God,” to teach that we must take pains, not that our faith be spread abroad among men, but that it be approved before God. And it is much to have an approved faith before God. For before God even the faith of the apostles is judged small; hence it is said to Peter, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” Therefore he is truly great who has an approved faith before God.

“Blessed is he who does not judge himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because it is not of faith; and whatever is not of faith is sin.” One is called blessed not only if he does the things that are fitting, but also if he does not do the things that are not fitting; as that man is called blessed who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and that man no less blessed who walks in the law of the Lord. The one, then, because he does not walk in the way of sinners, the other because he walks in the law of the Lord, is blessed. So too in the present place the Apostle says, “Blessed is he who does not judge himself in what he approves.” But let us see of what work this blessedness is. For there are many who approve doing something good; for example, those who, hearing of the rewards of chastity, approve and resolve to live chastely; but in the course of time, either through negligence creeping in or lust overcoming them, what they had approved to be observed is stained and corrupted; and that man is unhappy who, overcome in what he had decided to observe, judges and condemns himself. But that man is blessed who remains so fixed and steady in what he approves and resolves that he judges himself in nothing, reproaches himself in nothing. And this, he says, is to be held in the observance of foods too, according to the rule he wove above: that if there is someone who, through knowledge of the spiritual law, approves that all things may be eaten and that all are clean, he should not then judge himself again and fall into doubt whether he ought to take them or not; for one who discerns in this way, that is, who doubts whether what he takes is truly clean or unclean, is condemned from the very doubt of his mind, his conscience accusing him. He sets out also the cause of this condemnation, saying, “because it is not taken from faith,” but surely from doubt. And after this he sets forth a general sentence over all things, saying, “And whatever is not of faith is sin.” By this saying he binds the negligent and slothful souls of all believers with a tighter bond, that they do nothing without faith, say nothing without faith, and think nothing without faith; for whether you have done something without faith, or spoken, or even thought, you sin. This is the same as what he says elsewhere: “Whether you eat or drink or do anything else, do all to the glory of God.” But someone may ask whether the heretics too, since they act according to what they believe, are to be thought to act from faith; or whether, since faith with them is bad, everything they do must be declared sin, because it is not from faith. I think theirs should be called credulity rather than faith. For as false prophets are sometimes called prophets by a false name, and false knowledge is called knowledge, and false wisdom is improperly named wisdom, so too the credulity of heretics is called faith by a false name. Hence we must see whether, even if some good work seems to be done among them, it is not turned into sin because it is not done from faith, as was said of a certain one, “Let his prayer become sin.” There is sometimes also a chastity that is not of faith, namely of those who give heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared, forbidding marriage and abstaining from foods which God created. There is, then, also a false faith of those who have made shipwreck concerning the faith; there is also a false wisdom, namely of this world and of the rulers of this world, which will be destroyed. For as pirates are accustomed at sea, in shallow places and among hidden rocks, to kindle a light in the dark of night, so as to lure sailors, in the hope of reaching a harbor of safety, to the shipwreck of perdition, so too this light of false wisdom or false faith … are of God. And therefore we must unceasingly pray for the help of the Lord, and hope that he will rescue us from the snare of the hunters, so that we too may say, “For our soul has been rescued like a sparrow from the snare of the hunters; the snare is broken, and we are set free. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

“We who are stronger ought to bear the weaknesses of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of you please his neighbor for good, to edification. For Christ too did not please himself; but as it is written, The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever things were written were written for our instruction, that through patience and the comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope.” In these words Paul seems to declare himself strong, as he also says in the first letter to the Corinthians, “I became weak to the weak, that I might win the weak.” For there too he does not say that he is weak, but that he becomes weak; and certainly, had he been weak, he could not have become weak. But do not take him from this as forgetful of that commandment which says, “Let your neighbor praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.” He declares himself strong, then, not for his own praise but for the consistency of the matter. For if he himself, under an appearance of humility, had avoided being counted among the strong, who among those who ought to bear the weaknesses of others would dare to undertake that duty, striving as a strong man to bear the frailties of the weak? But he makes this duty common for this reason, that each of us, in what he can, even if not in all things, yet in that in which he seems stronger than his neighbor, should bear his weakness; as he says elsewhere too, “Bear one another’s burdens.” But there he seems to have used “burdens” for bodily needs, so that if someone is richer in means, he should bear the burden of the poorer and relieve want by abundance. But where he says that the stronger should bear the weaknesses of the weak, nothing else can be understood than that the more robust should patiently bear those things in which others fall through weakness, and not at once despise them, cast them off, shrink from them, if perhaps they are overcome in some fault of weakness, nor, under pretext of a purer life, drive them from the assembly of the brothers and the fellowship of the church. For one who does this is not an imitator of him of whom Isaiah says, “He bears our weaknesses and grieves for us; and we thought him to be in pain and in a wound and in affliction.” But if Christ bears our weaknesses, and God patiently bears our sins, how is it that we by no means tolerate the sins and negligences of those who seem a little lower? This is surely to turn Christ himself away from this disposition, so that he would not wish to bear our weaknesses. For no one is so perfect as not to be found weak before God in something and to be carried by Christ; and therefore he teaches sympathy in this, that is, to suffer with one another and grieve with one another, as he writes elsewhere too: “Forgiving one another your sins, as God in Christ also forgave you.” But he does not command this so as to nurture sinners and loosen the weak with laxer indulgence; but knowing that if the weak one is carried, either he is ashamed to be carried longer and corrects the fault of sinning, or, if he is unable to amend himself, the fruit of the one who carries him will at least be this, that he does not advance to worse nor become worse than himself, like those of whom the Apostle says, “But wicked men and seducers will advance to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” And to bearing the weaknesses of the weak we must add this too, that we please not ourselves but our neighbor, only in what is good and for edification. The fault of philautia, that is, of pleasing oneself, the prophet too censures elsewhere, when he says, “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and learned in their own sight.” Likewise, then, we can say in this too: Woe to those who please themselves and seem good in their own sight. For one must please first in the sight of God, and secondly also one’s neighbors. For just as the first thing is to love the Lord God, and secondly one’s neighbor, so too the first is to please God, and secondly also one’s neighbors.

But perhaps someone may say that Paul contradicts himself in commanding us to please our neighbors, when he said elsewhere, “If I were pleasing men, I would not be the servant of Christ.” And certainly that each of us should please his neighbor, and what he says elsewhere, “As I too please all in all things, not seeking what is profitable to me but to many, that they may be saved,” seem contrary to this sentence. To this, then, we must say that it is one thing to be eager to please men so as to seek praise from them, and another to be eager to please men in this, that one’s life be blameless among men and that all who see or hear such a one profit from him. One must not please men, then, where what pleases is against faith, against honor, against religion; and therefore he says, “If I were pleasing men,” that is, the unbelieving and faithless Jews, “I would not be the servant of Christ.” For if Paul had wished to please the Jews, when sent to Damascus with letters he would surely have dragged men and women in chains to Jerusalem, and would by no means have believed the vision brought to him on the way and the heavenly voice. And if someone demands that we do something against justice, against holiness, against the Christian rule, and threatens hatred and enmity unless we do it, then we must remember this saying: “If I wished to please men, I would not be the servant of Christ.” But when it is said, “Let each of you please his neighbor,” a necessary distinction is joined, which plainly shows in what the neighbor is to be pleased, when he says, “for good, to edification.” When, then, we act well and teach well, we please our neighbor and build him up. For he does not advise seeking glory from men, but giving edification to our neighbors by our act and word; as also in what the Savior says, “Let your light shine before men, that seeing your good works they may glorify your Father who is in heaven.” By this he surely does not exhort the disciples to seek glory from men, but that, living rightly and honorably, they may give edification to those who see, and God may be glorified, who has opened to men the way of amendment and salvation. “For Christ too did not please himself, but as it is written, The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” In this he seems to show that Christ too, not pleasing himself, nor thinking it robbery to be equal with God, emptied himself; but, wishing to please men, that is, to save men, he bore the reproaches of those who reproached, as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” This will become plainer if we recall what is written in the Gospel: how, to help men and to save them, he ate and drank with sinners and tax collectors, and the Jews, reproaching this, said, “Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Or again when he did not forbid the sinful woman to touch his feet and wet them with her tears and wipe them with her hair and anoint them with myrrh; and for this the Jews, reproaching and upbraiding him, said, “If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what sort of woman this is who touches him, for she is a sinner.” And if you ask why the example he brought from the Psalm is such as if the reproaches cast at God fell on Christ, we can explain it thus: just as he said, “He who receives me receives him who sent me,” so this too can be taken: He who reproaches me reproaches him who sent me. The example he took is written thus in the sixty-eighth Psalm: “I have become a stranger to my brothers and a guest to the sons of my mother. For the zeal of your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”

“For whatever things were written were written for our instruction.” This is like what he says elsewhere: “But they were written for us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.” And if it is asked how the things that were written were written for us, see that for us it is written, “You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain”; for God does not care for oxen, but he speaks of us. And for us it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free, so that we may know that these things are allegorical and these are the two covenants. For us too it was written that the people ate manna in the desert and drank water from the rock, that we might understand that they ate spiritual food and drank spiritual drink, drinking from the rock that followed, and the rock was Christ. And these and other such were mysteries which had been hidden for eternal ages, but are now made manifest through the prophetic Scriptures and the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But that it may become still plainer how the things written were written for us: the prophet says of the former people, “With the ear you will hear and not hear; and seeing you will see and not understand”; but of us it is said, “Those to whom it was not announced concerning him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.” Consider, then, from this for whom the things written seem to be written. For what is written is without doubt written for those who are to see and understand, not for those who are said to be going neither to see nor to understand. And those who understand what is written will without doubt find what is added next: “that through patience and the comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope in God.” For it is not one who neither believes nor understands, but one who both believes and understands, who receives comfort from the Scriptures.

“Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be of the same mind toward one another according to Jesus Christ, that with one accord and with one mouth you may glorify God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore receive one another, as Christ also received you, to the honor of God.” If patience is a virtue, and every virtue is from God, patience too is from God. When, then, he is called the God of patience, what seems to be shown is that God is with those who have in themselves the virtue of patience; as when he is called the God of righteousness, it is shown that God is in those who keep righteousness. Likewise the God of truth and the God of wisdom are understood. And when he is called the God of comfort, God is shown to be with those who receive the comfort of the Spirit from the divine Scriptures through spiritual understanding. “May the God of patience and comfort, then,” he says, “grant you to be of the same mind toward one another according to Jesus Christ.” In this Paul, after the manner of the patriarchs and prophets, whose blessings are recorded in writing, bestows blessings on the Romans, praying that it be given them by God to be of the same mind toward one another. Great is this blessing, that all should think and feel one thing, and that each should wish for his neighbor as for himself. Do you wish to know how much the grace of unanimity avails? The Savior declares in the Gospels that if two or three agree together about anything whatever that they ask of God, it will be done for them; and again he says of himself that where two or three are gathered in my name, that is, thinking one and the same thing in the name of Jesus Christ, there, he says, I will be in their midst. Do you wish to take another example too of how Christ comes into the midst of those who think one thing? See in the Acts of the Apostles how after the Lord’s ascension, when, it says, the eleven apostles with the rest had raised their voice and prayed with one accord, the place where they stood was shaken, and they obtained the presence of the Holy Spirit. And that it may become still clearer how great is the power of unanimity and how great its grace, I do not think it will seem absurd if we bring forward what was reasonably handed down to us about these things in the Old Testament too by the fathers, namely those of the Hebrews who came to faith in Christ. They said, then, that the three sons of Korah, whose names we find in Exodus, that is, Assir, which is interpreted “instruction,” and Elkanah, which in our language means “possession of God,” and Abiasaph, which in the Latin tongue signifies “gathering of the father,” when their father Korah had sinned together with Dathan and Abiram and all who agreed with them, and the destruction of divine vengeance was being prepared against them, separated themselves from the wicked company and, set apart from the impious conspiracy, poured out with one accord a prayer of repentance to God; and, heard by God, they obtained not only pardon from punishment but also the grace of prophecy; and this too was granted to them at their request, that they should not be commanded to prophesy anything sad or destructive; and for this reason all the Psalms that bear their names in the title contain nothing sad or harsh against sinners. We have brought this forward so that it might be known more grandly how great is the power of unanimity, of thinking one thing and being of one mind toward one another. I think too that Paul’s joining the names of others with his own in some letters, saying, “Paul and Sosthenes the brother,” and elsewhere, “Paul and Silvanus and Timothy,” was not done idly; but by this it is shown that when two or three were set in one, the Holy Spirit drew from them one sense and one speech, so that those who wished to teach the churches that all should say one thing and be of one mind might first show that they themselves said one thing and were of one mind, and with one mouth glorified God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For it is called one mouth where one and the same sense and speech proceeds through the mouths of different people. And well the Apostle, where he says, “to be of the same mind toward one another,” added, “according to Jesus Christ.” For it could happen that some agree with one accord even in wickedness and are of one mind for the worse. For this reason, then, he added, “according to Jesus Christ.” And one who is minded according to Jesus Christ without doubt minds all that is good. After this he says, “Therefore receive one another, as Christ also received you, to the honor of God.” His saying, “Receive one another,” is to be referred to what he set out first, where on the occasion of clean and unclean foods they disagreed with one another, thinking differently; and he says, “Receive one another, as Christ also received you,” who shrank from no one’s uncleanness and did not count to anyone his sins. Judge nothing, then, about the uncleanness of animals, just as he did not count the uncleanness of believers. And he who said above, “Let him who eats not judge him who does not eat, for God has received him,” has said here, “as Christ received you,” to show that to be received by God and by Christ is one and the same. And he adds this too, that to be received by Christ is the honor of God. For those whom Christ receives he teaches that they must so act that people, seeing their good works, may glorify their Father who is in heaven.

“For I say that Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises of the fathers; but the Gentiles honor God for his mercy, as it is written, Therefore I will confess …” … by which he restrains and checks now those who had believed from the circumcision, now also those from the Gentiles who were proud against one another, he teaches that those who remain in the observances of the law are by no means to be judged, since even Christ in his own flesh became a minister of circumcision. Or in another way, so that Christ is said to have been the minister of that circumcision of which the same Apostle says, “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not the letter, whose praise is not from men but from God”; and according to what the same Apostle says elsewhere, “In whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the stripping off of the body of flesh, but in the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism.” Through a circumcision of this kind, then, it is certain that the promises of the fathers were fulfilled. And what the promises were he declares by the examples appended, in which he says, “Therefore I will confess you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.” This seems taken from the seventeenth Psalm, with a small change, not of sense but of words; for there the prophet says, “Therefore I will confess you among the Gentiles, Lord, and sing psalms to your name.” And what he says, “Rejoice, Gentiles, with his people,” is written in the same words in the song of Deuteronomy. “Praise the Lord, all Gentiles, and magnify him, all peoples,” is read in the one hundred and sixteenth Psalm; only that there “praise together” is put for “magnify.” The last example Paul himself says is taken from Isaiah, in whose body it is written thus: “And there will be in that day the root of Jesse, and he who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles will hope. And his rest will be honor.” Omitting, in the first part, two expressions, namely “in that day,” and at the end, “and his rest will be honor,” he set down the rest in the same words in which the Seventy Translators published them. Hence it must be known that in almost everything the Apostle keeps the edition of the Seventy Translators, except where some things perhaps seem less necessary for the argument he is pursuing, or when he wishes to use not so much the words of the translators as the senses of Scripture brought out in his own expression. This saying about the root of Jesse it seemed better to discuss in the explanation of the prophet Isaiah himself. Yet in the present place it will be said that Jesse is interpreted in our language, “he is to me.” At the coming of Christ, then, everyone who believed in him fittingly said, “He is to me.” For he of whom Moses said, “He who is has sent me to you,” he is to me; that is, I believe in him who is, not one made out of nothing, as pleases the ungodly, but who is, and always is, and this is his name; and he is the one who rose from the root of Jesse, and in him the Gentiles will hope. For this mercy which they have obtained from him, that he who always was should be born from the root of Jesse to give salvation to the Gentiles, for this mercy, I say, bestowed on them, the Gentiles honor and magnify God.

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope and in the power of the Holy Spirit.” Having said above what is written in Isaiah, “And in him the Gentiles will hope,” he gracefully added, “Now the God of hope”; so that, had it been written, “in him the Gentiles will believe,” he would without doubt have added, “Now the God of faith”; as now, from the Gentiles’ hoping, he calls upon the God of hope over those who hope in him, from whom he prays that the gift of blessing be increased for them. And the blessing is of this kind: that they be filled with all joy and all peace. Likewise the prophet too says in a certain place, “And in his days there will be righteousness and abundance of peace, until the moon is taken away.” But because these things are said of Christ, in him we can rightly see the abundance of peace, because he made peace through the blood of his cross not only for the things on earth but also for those in heaven. But how what the Apostle prays for can be fulfilled in all, that they be filled with all joy and all peace, seems to me difficult to explain, especially since the Apostle himself says that in the things he has obtained through the grace of the Spirit he knows in part and … are joined when they have cleansed themselves from all defilement and been made holy vessels; so that only then will someone seem filled with all peace if he has believed in the fullness of the Trinity. For this reason, indeed, the Apostle adds and says, “May he fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope and in the power of the Holy Spirit.” For if one who believes is fortified by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is certain that he always has the fullness of joy and the fullness of peace.

“And I myself am also persuaded about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, so that you are able also to admonish others.” For the same reason for which we said above that believers are filled with all joy and all peace, here too he affirms that those to whom he speaks are full of goodness and all knowledge. Likewise, writing to the Corinthians too, he says, “In all things you were made rich in him, in every word and in all knowledge”; though he, as we said above, declares even of himself that he does not have all knowledge or all prophecy, but in part; of which I remember that we have often spoken in other places too. And now we will say none the less that Paul, and any who are like him, are called perfect by comparison with others; but by comparison with that highest knowledge, or that perfection which is in the heavenly orders, no one among men can either be called or be perfect. As if we were to say: in children’s studies, compared with one who is just being taught and receiving the first elements of letters, the elementary teacher himself is called perfect; but he is not so perfect as the one who teaches grammar. And the grammarian, though he is perfect, yet the perfection of the rhetorician is higher; and far more eminent than all these is the perfection of philosophical teaching. And though in all these there is the teaching of letters, yet a different degree of perfection and mastery is held in each one. So it may be that Paul too, when he says, “Not that I have already attained or am already perfect,” seems to write this looking to that summit of heavenly perfection; but when he says, “Let as many of us, then, as are perfect be of this mind,” he looks only to the degree of human perfection. So, then, in the present passage too, the Romans or the Corinthians are to be understood as filled with peace or joy or goodness or even knowledge, insofar as it is possible for those to be filled who are taught in the church and live under perfect teachers. And he marks the measure of this knowledge itself when he says, “so that you are able also to admonish others.” In this he shows that in what each one has learned he ought also to admonish another, and to have conversations of this kind with fellow disciples, by which they may admonish and build up one another. For mutual exchange can confer very much instruction, if it is held with love, and if, about all the deeper or more obscure matters, it waits for the judgment of the learned and perfect, according to what Moses too says: “Ask your fathers, and they will declare to you; your elders, and they will tell you.”

“But I have written to you the more boldly in part, as reminding you, through the grace given me by God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus among the Gentiles, sanctifying the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit.” As one conscious that throughout the whole text of the letter, while he spoke sometimes to those of the circumcision and sometimes to those who had believed from the Gentiles, he had touched on some of the more secret and deeper mysteries, and in his zeal to give an account had laid open many things that were kept hidden, although in each he had kept the dispensation of the word with careful moderation, and, while disclosing in some part, had in a great part covered again, he therefore says, “But I have written to you the more boldly in part, as …” … he confesses to know, yet he knew more, and much more, than he wrote. For as one who himself knew many things, yet did not dare to bring out many, he says that it took boldness on his part to commit at least some things to writing. And what he says, “reminding you through the grace given me,” indicates that he had already spoken about such things and had often discussed the mysteries; but since what is said by word alone could easily be stolen away by forgetfulness, “by these few things,” he says, “which I have written through the grace given me, I call back to your memory those things that I have often discussed more fully.” Of the grace which Paul mentions as given him we have already spoken above. He says that this grace was given him for this purpose: “that I should be,” he says, “a minister of Christ Jesus among the Gentiles, sanctifying the gospel of God.” What we have as “sanctifying the gospel of God,” the Greeks say more grandly, hierourgōn, which, though not fully, could be said by us as “sacrificing the gospel of God”; by which it is shown that to announce the gospel is a sacrificial work. Therefore, indeed, he adds, “that the offering of the Gentiles may be made acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit.” As, then, the high priests, when they offered, had necessarily to see that there was no blemish in the victim, no fault, no defect, so that it could be acceptable and pleasing to God, so too one who sacrifices the gospel and announces the word of God must take care in every way that no blemish arise in his preaching, no fault in his teaching, no blame in his instruction; but, so to speak, if it can be done, let him first sacrifice himself, first slay himself to vices, first put to death his members to sin, so that not only by teaching but also by the example of his life he may make his offering, the salvation of his disciples, acceptable to God. “Sanctified,” he says, “in the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is the fount of sanctification; and therefore the offering of the Gentiles, which is offered as Paul sacrifices, is said to be made acceptable to God not through the observance of the law but through the Holy Spirit.

“I have, then, glory in Christ Jesus toward God. For I do not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has worked through me for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, through the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. And so I have preached this gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I build on another’s foundation; but as it is written, Those to whom it was not announced concerning him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.” True boasting toward God is none but that which is in Christ Jesus. But to boast in God without Christ is as if someone said he could have glory with God without righteousness, without wisdom, without truth. For Christ is all these things; and therefore true boasting toward God is in Christ alone. This is like what he himself says elsewhere: “But let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” How all boasting that is outside Christ is blameworthy, for example in riches or the honors of the world or the wisdom of the world or the other arts that are outside Christ, we have already discussed more fully above. It must be known that the Latins here have put “glory” for “boasting.” “For I do not dare,” he says, “to speak of anything except what Christ has worked through me for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, through the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit of God.” What I speak, he says, are not words of another’s work, nor am I made a praiser of others’ deeds; but what I know Christ has worked through me, this I write to you, what he has fulfilled in me in word and work for the obedience of the Gentiles: in the word of preaching, in the work of signs and wonders. What the difference is between signs and wonders we have both spoken of more fully elsewhere and will explain more briefly in the present place. Those are called signs in which, while there is something marvelous, something future is also indicated; but wonders those in which only something marvelous is shown. He said “signs and wonders,” then, as if to include both. Yet the divine Scripture sometimes keeps these proper meanings, and sometimes improperly puts wonders for signs and signs for wonders. Paul, then, through the power of signs and wonders, which signs and wonders he did, however, in the power of the Holy Spirit, fully preached the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum. God had given Moses and Aaron the power of signs and wonders, as it is written, “He set among them the words of signs and wonders in the land of Ham,” so that, Egypt being chastised, they might free the sons of Israel; but they could scarcely and rarely convert anyone from the nation of the Egyptians. Paul, receiving the power of signs and wonders, converted not one nation, nor two or three peoples, but all the nations and peoples from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum, by the preaching of the word and the might of works and powers, to the sacraments of Christ. And he so preached this gospel as not to insert his words as an addition to another’s labors or another’s preaching, lest he lay the building of his own preaching on foundations of faith laid by another and seem to steal the glory of another’s work. These things must be observed by the rulers of the churches and kept with careful attention, that they neither seem to speak of anything that Christ has not worked through them, nor to discolor the labors and studies of others. And one speaks of what Christ has not worked through him in this way: if he speaks and teaches about continence when he himself is not continent; or if he speaks about sobriety or about justice or about giving away wealth and despising possessions for the kingdom of God, and in the one who teaches these things Christ has worked none of them. And therefore the Apostle sets himself as a pattern, and says that he speaks and preaches to others those things which Christ has first fulfilled through him. “But as it is written,” he says, “Those to whom it was not announced concerning him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.” The Apostle, then, carefully observed, according to the prophetic word, to announce Christ to those to whom he had been announced by no one, and that those should understand about him who had learned from no one before. And this, I think, was the reason which often hindered him when he planned to go to Rome, as he says, “For this reason I was hindered many times from coming to you”; not, as he says elsewhere, hindered by Satan, but held back by the work of founding churches, and of founding them in those places where no foundation of faith had gone before. The example is taken from Isaiah and set down entire in the same words in which it is read in the prophet.

“But now, having no more place in these regions, and having had a desire to come to you for many years past, when I go to Spain I hope to see you as I pass through, and to be sent on my way there by you, once I have first enjoyed your company in part.” He seems to say this while placed in Achaia, at Corinth, as we have already shown as far as we could in the first parts of the letter; and Achaia is of course near and joined to Macedonia. Staying in these places, when he had traveled through each of them preaching the gospel in those regions only in which Christ had not been preached before, and had filled all with the knowledge of God, he says that he has no more place in these regions, that is, that no place remains for him empty of the preaching of Christ; and he indicates that the time has now come when he ought to fulfill his desire of seeing those who are at Rome, which he had held, conceived many years before, but which had been put off and set aside until he should fill every place in which Christ had not been preached with the knowledge of his gospel. As for his saying, “When I go to Spain, I hope to see you as I pass through,” it is not to be taken as though Paul were bound to the Romans by so little love that he judged them worth visiting only in passing on his way elsewhere. For see what he adds in what follows: “once I have first,” he says, “enjoyed your company in part.” In this he seems to place in their power when his journey should be released by them; and in a way he invites and nourishes their love toward him, so that, if they are held insatiably by affection for the Apostle, they may know that he too has this purpose, not to depart from them nor go elsewhere until he has enjoyed the grace of their love. Yet he foresees that this love will be so great that it cannot be satisfied entirely, but “in part,” he says. For he warns beforehand that the necessity of preaching the gospel is to be preferred in all things. And well does he promise his presence and stay more moderately to those whom he had not yet seen according to the flesh and to whom he had not yet come in the body. For we receive more eagerly the good things we fear will soon be taken away, but we neglect more carelessly what we believe we will keep longer. And he nourishes the Romans’ affection toward him so far, and places his stay in their judgment, that he says he is to be sent on by them to Spain, and sent on then, when he has first satisfied them in love; in which, of course, if they prove the more inclined, they will give the Apostle himself reasons to stay longer.

“But now I am going to Jerusalem to minister to the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints who are in Jerusalem. For they were pleased, and they are their debtors; for if the Gentiles have become partakers of their spiritual things, they ought also to minister to them in carnal things. When, then, I have completed this and have sealed to them this fruit, I will set out by way of you to Spain. For I know that when I come to you I shall come in the abundance of the blessing of Christ.” That Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem we can learn more fully from the second letter to the Corinthians, in which he writes thus: “We make known to you, brothers, the grace of God that was given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded to the riches of their simplicity; for according to their power (I bear them witness) and beyond their power, of their own accord, begging us with many prayers for the grace and fellowship of the ministry to the saints,” and the rest. And as in these words he bears witness to the Macedonians, so again he exhorts the Corinthians too, saying, “But as you abound in everything, in faith and in word and in knowledge and in our love for you, so may you abound in this grace too,” and the rest. And elsewhere, praising the Corinthians because they were ready for the fellowship of the poor in Jerusalem, he says, “And in this I give advice; for this is expedient for you, who began a year ago not only to do but also to will; but now complete the doing.” And in what remains he continues about this same fellowship of the saints, and after a little adds, “Concerning the ministry to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you; for I know your readiness, for which I boast of you to the Macedonians, that Achaia has been ready since last year, and your zeal has stirred up very many.” And that, after this ministry of Macedonia and Achaia for the saints in Jerusalem, the Apostle also proposed to see Rome is indicated in the Acts of the Apostles thus: “When these things were completed, Paul purposed in the Holy Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome.” From all these words it is gathered that not only the first letter to the Corinthians but the second too was written before this one to the Romans which we have in hand; and at the same time it is noticed that the later Paul is found in each letter, the more perfect he is; so that his saying is true, “Forgetting the things behind, I stretch out to the things ahead, pressing on to the goal, the prize of the upward call.” And in saying, “Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints,” while he praises the Corinthians he subtly and modestly exhorts the Romans. For devout minds are more easily invited to well-doing by examples than by words. And by what he adds, “For they were pleased, and they are their debtors,” what else does he want the Romans to understand than this: that if the Achaeans and Macedonians are debtors to the poor among the saints in Jerusalem, by the same reason, since the Romans too hold one and the same faith of Christ as they, they should notice that they themselves have become debtors to the same people? For not the Macedonians and Achaeans alone have become partakers in spiritual things with the saints in Jerusalem, so as to owe them ministry in carnal things; the Romans have too, and therefore they are debtors on equal terms; but he declares it only of those, so that these too may know that they are subject to a like sentence.

Let these things be said according to the common understanding of the letter. But let us seek the usual grandeur in the writings of Paul. For I do not think he meant to enclose the poor among the saints, whom he also called spiritual, within Jerusalem alone, a single city of Palestine, and to call all the rest throughout the earth Gentiles, who owe ministry in carnal things to the inhabitants of Jerusalem as if they alone were spiritual; since spiritual people can surely be found outside Jerusalem as well, whom not place but holy conduct and the perfection of faith and knowledge have made spiritual, as Paul himself also writes: “Brothers, if someone is overtaken in some fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness.” What, then, is it fitting for us to understand in these words? That everyone who is spiritual, that is, who serves God in the spirit and does not live according to the flesh but according to the spirit, dwells in Jerusalem, that is, in the place of peace, and stands in the vision of peace; and he is the poor among the saints, namely one of those blessed poor to whom it is said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Such, then, is the blessed poverty that says, “Silver and gold I have none; but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk.” Such a poor man always dwells in Jerusalem, possessing spiritual riches. His gold is wisdom, his silver the word of knowledge; his clothing is Christ; his banquets and delights are the table of Wisdom and the abundant food in the word of God; he drinks the wine of gladness which Wisdom mixed in her bowl, and from the victims of her understanding he eats solid food, and the Word made flesh. These are the spiritual riches in which the Gentiles, still placed in the flesh, hasten to share. It seems to me, then, that by those he names Gentiles he indicates all the less perfect souls, which need the instruction of the perfect; and if perhaps they are found worthy to become partakers with them … the difference of the words which Paul used toward each side does not seem to me idle. For in spiritual things he set down fellowship or participation, but in carnal things ministry; and he says that the latter is owed, the former shared, to show that all the more perfect things, as heavenly, are not so much owed to earthly things as lent; while earthly and carnal things are exacted as a debt. For we were made debtors according to him who first lost in paradise, by the persuasion of the serpent, the endowment of immortality and incorruptibility he had received; and therefore all of us who are bound by the lot of transgression in the likeness of Adam are made debtors. For this reason, then, commandments are given, so that we may pay our debts. Indeed the Savior too says thus in the Gospel: “But when you have done all that I commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we ought to do.” But the things we do beyond what is owed we do not do from commandments. For example, virginity is not paid as a debt; for it is not demanded by a commandment, but offered beyond what is owed. Hear, indeed, Paul saying, “Concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord.” So, then, of spiritual and more perfect things he spoke of fellowship; but of the lower and carnal he named the owed ministry. And through ministry of this kind I think one should also notice what is in the Psalms: “Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire”; that he called the good angels spirits, as being spiritual, but named ministers of a burning flame those who preside over the ministries of punishments and prepare flames for sinners. Although these things seem to have been said as a kind of digression, yet, because the passage prompted it, we have not omitted them.

After this he says, “When, then, I have completed this and have sealed to them this fruit, I will set out by way of you to Spain. For I know that when I come to you I shall come in the abundance of the blessing of Christ.” See with what caution he promises that he will seal the fruit of the givers. With what seal, do you think, does the Apostle seal the fruit of a holy work? With that, I think, by which the image of God is expressed; that is, that in completing the work there be no admixture of another thought, that praise not be sought from men, but that he who gives give in simplicity of heart, and not from sadness; for God loves a cheerful giver. And whoever observes these and similar things in the work of God seals his work with the seal of the divine image. “When, then,” he says, “I have completed this, I will then set out by way of you to Spain.” He promises the Romans a great gift, and says, “For I know that when I come to you I shall come in the abundance of the blessing of Christ”; which he promises only through the Holy Spirit and the grace of prophecy. For it is beyond man to know these things about the future, that he will come to them not only in the blessing of Christ but in the abundance of blessing. In this both the grace of the one who comes and the merits of those who receive are marked out together.

“I beseech you, then, brothers, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit, to help me in prayers to God, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers who are in Judea, and that this ministry of mine may be acceptable to the saints in Jerusalem, so that, coming to you in joy by the will of God, I may rest with you.” Although he had said above, “For I know that when I come to you I shall come in the abundance of the blessing of Christ,” he nevertheless knew that even in things he had known to be plainly future, prayer is necessary; and if, for example, it had not been applied, it would follow without doubt that what had been prophesied would not be fulfilled. Who, then, reading this, that Paul beseeches the brothers at Rome to pray for him, would despise or look down on asking the prayers of the church, even if those from whom prayer is asked seem lower in merits? For see, Paul, endowed with apostolic merits, exhorts not only the Romans but also the Corinthians to pray for him. And see too with what strong and religious oaths he binds them: “Through our Lord,” he says, “Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, I beseech you to help me in prayers to God.” What ours have rendered, “help me in prayers,” is read more grandly among the Greeks, synagōnisasthai, in which what is indicated is this, “that you help me in the contest of prayers to God,” showing that he himself has, as it were, a contest and a combat of prayer, those opposing him being without doubt those of whom he said, “For our combat is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” And it is certain that, as all these oppose faith and resist godliness, as they are contrary to righteousness and truth and all good things, so without doubt they resist and oppose prayer. And therefore Paul shows that there is no small combat in prayer too, since in this combat he believed that even the help of those at Rome must be implored. For demons and contrary powers truly resist in prayer, first in this, that one who sweats in the contest of prayer may not be found such as to lift up pure hands without anger. And even if someone can achieve being without anger, he scarcely escapes being without disputing, that is, without superfluous and vain thoughts. For you will scarcely find that something idle and foreign does not occur to anyone praying, turning aside and breaking the attention by which the mind is directed to God, and snatching it away through what is unfitting. And therefore great is the contest of prayer: that, while enemies resist and snatch the sense of prayer in different directions, the mind, fixed on God, may always strive with steady attention, so that it may deservedly say too, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course.” Now, then, the Apostle prays to be helped in the contest of prayers, that he may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, from whom he does not so much fear to suffer or to endure what belongs to the glory of his apostleship, as he fears being hindered, lest, held back longer by their obstacles, he either show less acceptable service to the saints (which itself needs prayers to become acceptable), or his desire to see the Romans be put off longer. If, he says, it so turns out that my ministry becomes acceptable to the saints in Jerusalem, and, delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, I am not hindered from coming to you, rejoicing over things well done I shall certainly come to you by the will of God, and rest with you. Paul surely did not seek bodily rest, but that which has comfort from God, as he himself said in the first parts of this letter: “To be comforted together among you through the faith which is in one another, yours … that the God of peace may be with them, that is, that the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, may guard their hearts in Christ Jesus, who is our peace.

“I commend to you Phoebe our sister, who is in the ministry of the church which is at Cenchreae, that you receive her in the Lord worthily, and assist her in whatever she may need of you. For she too has assisted many, and myself as well.” This passage too teaches by apostolic authority that women also are appointed in the ministry of the church. Paul pursues Phoebe, placed in this office in the church at Cenchreae, with great praise and commendation, listing also her splendid deeds, and saying that she so assisted all, that is, was at hand in their needs, that she assisted even me myself in my needs and apostolic labors with all the devotion of her mind. And I would call her work like the hospitality of Lot, who, while he always received guests, was once found worthy to receive angels as guests. Likewise Abraham too, while he always ran to meet guests, was found worthy that the Lord with angels should turn aside to his tent. So too this devout Phoebe, while she assists all and serves all, was found worthy to assist and serve the Apostle too. And therefore this passage teaches two things together: both that there are, as we said, women ministers in the church, and that such women ought to be taken into the ministry as have assisted many and by good services have deserved to come even to apostolic praise. It also exhorts that those who give their effort to good works in the churches should receive return and honor from the brothers, so that in whatever is needed, even in carnal services, they may be held in honor.

“Greet Prisca and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus (who laid down their own necks for my life; to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles), and the church in their house.” They seem to me to be those of whom it is written thus in the Acts of the Apostles: “After this Paul left Athens and came to Corinth; and finding there a certain Jew named Aquila, of Pontic race, who had lately come from Italy, and Priscilla his wife, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome, he went to them; and because they were of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together. For they were tentmakers,” that is, stitchers. And it is no wonder if Paul writes “Prisca” in the letter, who is written “Priscilla” in the Acts, the rest agreeing. It may be that, since at that time, the Jews having been expelled from the city by Caesar’s command, they had come to Corinth, they had returned to Rome again when the severity of the edict ceased, and are greeted by Paul. Yet it appears that, when Paul was in danger from the plots of the Jews, they put themselves in the way so that he might get away free; and a certain Jason is related in the Acts of the Apostles to have done this too. And the Apostle does not keep silent about this praise of theirs, but hands it on to all the churches to be admired; and therefore he says, “To whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles.” Hence it appears that they were dutiful and hospitable toward all faithful brothers, not only those who had believed from the Jews but also those from the Gentiles. For great favor is found in the duty of hospitality, not only with God but also with men. And since this matter rests not only on the will and purpose of the masters but also on the willing and faithful service of the servants, therefore he named all who fulfilled this ministry faithfully with them “the church in their house.”

“Greet Epaenetus my beloved, who is the beginning of Asia in Christ.” This Epaenetus seems to me to have been the first of all from Asia to believe; hence he called him the beginning of the church, or, as we have it in the Greek, “firstfruits of Asia.” Unless this saying signifies something deeper, that we should understand that the angels of God who preside over the churches offer to God individuals as firstfruits from those who believe; and with them those are judged firstfruits not who are first in time, but who excel in virtues and merits. Paul, knowing through the Spirit their choice of Epaenetus, and that out of the whole number of the faithful in Asia the choice of the angels had found him, called him the firstfruits of Asia. And in another letter too he says of certain people that they are the firstfruits of Achaia, without doubt looking at the same principle of the mystery in them too.

“Greet Mary, who has labored much among you.” He teaches in this too that women also ought to labor for the churches of God. For they labor when they teach young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to bring up children, to be modest, chaste, ruling the house well, kind, subject to their husbands; to receive guests, to wash the feet of the saints, and to do with all chastity all the other things that are recorded as written about the duties of women.

“Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow captives, who are noble among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.” It may indeed be that these were kinsmen of Paul according to the flesh too, and believed before him, and were held noble among the apostles of Christ; of whom it is also possible to understand that perhaps they were of those seventy-two who were themselves also named apostles, and that therefore he calls them noble among the apostles, and among those apostles who were before him. But this too moves me, that he says, “my fellow captives.” For what was Paul’s captivity, in which he testifies that Andronicus and Junia too were his fellow captives? Unless perhaps, by a deeper mystery, we look to that captivity which Christ came to set free, of which it is written that he came to give release to the captives and sight to the blind. In this captivity they seem to be on one and the same footing as Paul was. For example, if we say: When the people of Israel was captive among the Assyrians or Babylonians, all indeed seemed to be captives; but the reason of captivity was one in the rest, another in Daniel and Hananiah and Azariah or Mishael. For those were captives for their sins; but these were captives themselves too for the comfort of the captives. And therefore, if Daniel said of some one of the people, “my fellow captive,” it would not seem as fittingly said as if he said of Hananiah and Azariah and Mishael, “my fellow captives.” For in them there is one reason of captivity, far different from the reason of the rest of the people. So, then, Paul too, looking at something of this kind concerning himself and Andronicus and Junia, according to the reason of a more hidden mystery, names them his fellow captives in this world, and noble among the apostles.

“Greet Ampliatus my beloved in the Lord.” Although he seems to ascribe nothing outstanding beyond the others to him in praise, yet by the very fact that he is Paul’s beloved he is made praiseworthy and worthy of a greeting.

“Greet Urbanus my helper in Christ, and Stachys my beloved.” He joins Stachys in the greeting, but he placed Urbanus first in praise. For he called the latter his helper in Christ, but Stachys only his beloved, as he called Ampliatus. And a helper of the Apostle in Christ is understood as nothing other than a sharer in the apostolic work.

“Greet Apelles, approved in Christ.” I think this Apelles had passed through many tribulations, endured patiently and bravely, and was therefore declared by the Apostle “approved,” according to what he said elsewhere, that tribulation works patience, patience approval, and approval hope. We should certainly consider whether he is not the one who in the Acts of the Apostles is named Apollos, an Alexandrian, learned in the Scriptures.

“Greet those who are of the household of Aristobulus.” Since nothing is added or taken away idly in the Apostle’s writings, it is not for nothing that he names those who are of the house or household of Aristobulus neither beloved nor approved nor helpers in Christ; but perhaps because they had nothing of this kind among their merits, he therefore honored them only with the title of a greeting.

“Greet Herodion my kinsman.” He too, like Andronicus and Junia, is called a kinsman of Paul; but he is named neither a fellow captive like them, nor noble among the apostles, among those who were in Christ before Paul. Hence it is to be understood that even among those whom Paul calls his kinsmen there is great difference, according, as I think, to the principle we tried to open above.

“Greet those who are of the household of Narcissus, who are in the Lord.” There seem to have been many of the house or household of Narcissus, but not all were in the Lord; and therefore he added that those are to be greeted who are in the Lord.

“Greet Tryphaena and Tryphosa, because they labor in the Lord.” He gives a good testimony of them, whose labor he testifies to be not of this world, nor of common life, but in the Lord. For many labor, but it is not established that the labor of all is in the Lord.

“Greet Persis the beloved, who labored much in the Lord.” She seems to be praised more than Tryphaena and Tryphosa, since he says that they labored in the Lord, but that she labored much in the Lord, and to her he added “beloved” too.

“Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine.” I do not think that in these greetings the difference of praise and greeting toward each is made idly. For one who knows that Christ speaks in Paul is sure that according to merit one is called by him approved, another beloved, another laboring in the Lord, another laboring much in the Lord, another chosen; as Rufus too, of whom we are now speaking, is greeted as chosen in the Lord. I believe that Paul knew that he was of the number not of the many who are called but of the few who are chosen; whose mother too had so much merit that Paul named her his own mother, with whom he too, as Jesus with John, shares the one affection of a mother.

“Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them.” Of these the greeting is simple, and no mark of praise is added to them. Yet I think that this Hermas is the writer of that little book which is called the Shepherd, a writing which seems to me very useful and, as I think, divinely inspired. And as for his ascribing no praise to him, this, I think, is the reason: that he seems, as that writing declares, to have been converted to repentance after many sins; and therefore he wrote no reproach of him either (for he had learned from Scripture not to reproach a man who turns from sin), nor did he give him any praise, because he was still placed under the angel of repentance, by whom at the proper time he was to be offered again to Christ. And it is understood that those … the brothers receive one another. And the Apostle calls this a holy kiss. By this name he teaches first that the kisses given in the churches should be chaste; and then that they should not be feigned, as was that of Judas, who gave a kiss with his lips and plotted betrayal in his heart. But let the kiss of the faithful first, as we said, be chaste; and then let it have in itself peace and simplicity in love unfeigned.

“All the churches of Christ greet you.” Was not Paul placed in one church when he wrote this? And how is it true that he sends the greetings of all the churches together to the church of Rome? But we ought to understand it either because there was one spirit in Paul and in all the churches of Christ, or that he means that to greet is to be joined through faith and through the spirit.

“But I beseech you, brothers, to watch those who cause dissensions and offenses contrary to the teaching which you have learned, and turn away from them. For such do not serve Christ our Lord, but their own belly, and by sweet words and blessings they lead astray the hearts of the innocent. For your obedience has been spread abroad everywhere. I rejoice, then, over you.” Paul must be believed to write these things through the Holy Spirit both to those who preside over the churches and to all believers, so that they may more carefully consider and see who they are who create dissensions and offenses in the churches, and are strangers to that blessedness which the Lord promised, saying, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” For this, he says, you have learned from the Lord through the gospel, that you should be peacemakers; but to stir up dissensions or scandals is contrary to the teaching you have learned; and therefore let him be a stranger to you, and let him not be received among you at all, who stirs up contests, who sows quarrels, who rouses disputes and practices the pursuits of contention. For those who are such do not serve Christ our Lord, who is our peace, but their own belly. And what the cause is by which quarrels in the churches … darkness for light, sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet; and by these they lead astray the hearts of the innocent. And therefore one must carefully attend to the aim with which the teacher teaches: whether seeking favor and honor from his hearers, or hoping for a reward from the Lord for the instruction and progress of the learners. Subtly, certainly, Paul censures the undiscriminating and easy obedience of the Romans, and says that it is everywhere not praised but spread abroad. But lest, if he rebuked them more openly for this, he should in turn make them disobedient, he adds, “I rejoice, then, over you.” But you will say: How does he censure a common obedience in them, when he says that he rejoices over them? First, it is one thing to censure a fault, another to censure people. For he may rejoice over those in whom he had found many other good things, yet censure the fault that had displeased him, lest it be thought to have pleased him along with the rest. And the Apostle may also have said that he rejoices over them because one who is disobedient can be drawn neither to evil nor to good; but one who is obedient, if he is drawn to useless things, it is the fault of inexperience; for he does not know that the things to which he gives his obedience are useless. But when he has learned what is useful, having the good of obedience ready, he at once climbs the way of virtue by it. Paul rejoices, then, over the obedient, sure that when he has taught them that they ought not to use the common obedience which they give incautiously to all, but only that by which one must obey God rather than men, they will leave the others and use that alone. For in truth it belongs to no small discernment, but to a proved and most practiced judgment, to know to what word or what work one should yield and to what one should resist. Indeed the Lord himself says in the Gospel, “Beware of those who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” And therefore a watchful sense and an attentive mind are required, which know how to test either the open simplicity of the sheep or the hidden rapacity of the wolf. See, then, how near to danger they come who neglect to be exercised in the divine writings, from which alone the discernment of such examination is to be learned. At once, then, he briefly shows the form of the proposed distinction, and says: Since your obedience is easy and undiscriminating, learn what you ought to keep and what to beware of.

“I want you,” he says, “to be wise in good, and simple in evil.” This is like the saying he writes to the Corinthians: “Be children in malice, but in understanding be perfect.” And what the Lord said, that the children of this age are more prudent than the children of light in their generation, agrees with this saying. For the children of this age are more prudent in malice, because they always find something deeper and subtler in it by which to harm more and wound more vehemently; but in good they are foolish, for they scarcely find what good to do. On the contrary, Paul wants us to be wise in good, that is, always to find something more, seek out more, and think more deeply what good we may do; so that even if we are hindered from a good work by someone’s malice, we, if we are wise, may think out how, if we cannot do a good work, we may at least bring out a good word; and if not even this is allowed, we may at least show a good wish and spirit. So, then, we ought to be wise in good but simple in evil, so that, if we are struck by malice, struck by injury, we are not crafty and cunning, seeking arts and arguments by which we may return evil for evil and wickedness for wickedness. But in such a place we should remember that sentence which says, “If anyone wishes to be wise with God, let him become foolish in this world.” Let us be foolish, then, receiving injury and not returning it, that we may be wise with God, who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” For of the ungodly Jeremiah too says, “They are wise to do evil, but to do good they do not know.” To this too looks what the Lord said, that we ought to be simple as doves and prudent as serpents. And if some unbeliever cleverly meets us and says, “How can the same person be both wise and foolish?”, we will say to him: Look at the arts which are in use among men, how one who is, for example, a most wise grammarian is found most unskilled in the craftsman’s art; or again a most wise helmsman is found unskilled in the art of medicine. So, then, it is possible to be wise in the things that pertain to God and unwise in the things that pertain to the world. It must be known that where he says, “For such do not serve Christ our Lord,” it is not that they themselves profess not to serve Christ the Lord, but that, departing from the rule of his service, they show by the facts themselves that they do not serve Christ the Lord. For it does not seem that anyone can serve both Christ and the belly at once, and be a lover of pleasure and of God alike; just as no one can serve God and mammon at the same time.

“And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.” It is asked in this place what Satan he said would be crushed shortly by God under the feet of those to whom he writes. For if it is referred to one person, namely the one of whom it is said in the Gospel, “Behold, I see Satan falling like lightning from heaven,” and who is indicated as the Satan, the adversary of the human race, it will surely seem, if Paul truly says what he says, that he was shortly crushed under the feet of those to whom he was then writing, and that there is no longer a Satan to stir up contests and combats and persecutions for believers; which the truth of the facts certainly does not admit. But it seems to me that in this place he has called “Satan” every spirit that opposes believers. For Satan in our language is interpreted “adversary.” Whatever, then, resists and opposes a soul striving toward God, and whatever is contrary to its peace, this is named its satan. That, indeed, is why he put first, “the God of peace,” that is, the God to whom peace is pleasing will crush the one who is contrary to peace and works dissensions. So indeed we read in the books of Kingdoms too that God raised up against Solomon a satan, Hadad the Edomite; that is, against Solomon, who was peaceable, he raised up a satan, who is contrary to peace. But as to those whom the Apostle teaches, if they act so and show themselves such as his word has described, he promises for the amendment of life that Satan will shortly be crushed under their feet by the God of peace: so likewise the God of peace raises up a satan, that is, an adversary, against one who has not kept his peace with a pure heart and a clean conscience, so that one who has neglected the good of peace may endure the bitterness of attacks, and so at last, placed under assault, may remember the sweetness of the peace he violated. Let us, then, be built up by both passages of the divine Scripture, in which God is said either to raise up a satan against the negligent or to crush and subdue him for the zealous: so as to stir up the former to contests, and to give the latter the palm of victory over the prostrate adversary and bestow the rewards of virtue. And we can also say of each single contest, if we strive lawfully, that God will crush Satan under our feet shortly. For example, if someone has undertaken the contest of chastity, if he has persevered to the end with an unstained conscience, it can be said of him that God has crushed Satan under his feet, that is, the spirit that was contrary to chastity. Likewise one who undertakes the contest of faith, if, standing before kings and governors, he confesses the Lord Jesus Christ with confidence and remains in the confession to the end, God has crushed Satan under his feet, since by constant faith he has overcome the spirit of unbelief. So too one who perseveringly cultivates concord crushes the demon of dissension under his feet; one who keeps gentleness treads down the satan of anger with the footsteps of patience. This is surely what the Lord says in the Gospel: “Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy.”

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” The grace of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is to be taken as one and the same grace. For just as the Father gives life to whom he will, and the Son gives life to whom he will; and as the Father has life in himself, and gave to the Son to have life in himself, so too the grace which the Father gives, this the Son also gives. It must be known that all that human beings have from God is grace; for they have nothing as a debt. For who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him? Grace, then, is whatever one who was not, and now is, has, receiving it from him who always was, and is, and will be forever.

“Timothy my helper greets you, and Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen.” It seems to me that he thought something more of these whom he set apart from the whole list of those sending greetings. Indeed he calls Timothy his helper, and all of them together his kinsmen. And of Timothy it is related most fully in the Acts of the Apostles that he was a citizen of Derbe, the son of a believing widow, of a Gentile father; of whom Paul himself also says that he asked him to remain at Ephesus to charge certain people not to teach otherwise, nor to give heed to fables and endless genealogies. And some say that Lucius is Luke who wrote the Gospel, because names are sometimes given according to the native declension, sometimes according to the Greek and Roman. And Jason is the one of whom it is written in the Acts of the Apostles too that at Thessalonica, when the crowds raised a riot against Paul and Silas, he gave himself up so as to give the apostles freedom to depart. Sosipater too, who is joined with these, I suspect is the one who is written in the Acts of the Apostles as Sosipater son of Pyrrhus of Beroea. But one who considers Paul’s writings more carefully, as Christ speaking in him, will without doubt be moved how Paul, who professed that he was born at Tarsus of Cilicia, a Hebrew of Hebrews, is now said to be a kinsman or blood relation of Timothy, a citizen of Derbe with a Gentile father, or of Jason of Thessalonica, or of Sosipater son of Pyrrhus of Beroea. And if someone says for this that they too came in some way from the circumcision, then he ought not to have said it of these especially, but of all who were from the Jews, that they were kinsmen of Paul. But now, since he grants this name by no means to the others, but ascribes it to these and to some others, it is certain that he names another kind of kinship, which he holds in common with Timothy and Luke and a few others like them; a kinship or blood relationship which he knows without doubt descends to him and them from that fatherhood of which he says in another place: “For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.” Knowing, then, that there is a fatherhood in heaven as there is on earth, it is certain that those who are in no way related to him by kinship of earthly … belong to the heavenly fatherhood. And therefore he calls them kinsmen and fellow captives and helpers, inasmuch as with them he received by the lot of birth one kinship for preaching the gospel, and of enduring the Babylonian captivity of this world. Or if someone does not allow these things to be explained by such a tropology, let him explain to us how Timothy and Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, citizens not only of widely different cities but also of provinces, could be Paul’s kinsmen and blood relations according to the flesh; and not only these, but also Andronicus and Junia and Herodion, all of whom he calls his kinsmen and fellow captives.

“I Tertius, who wrote the letter, greet you in the Lord.” As one who was held worthy to write out the letter to the Romans at Paul’s dictation, he inserts his own name too, not out of rashness or boasting, but because he knew that he had not only performed the office of a scribe but had written in the Lord; since the righteous man does all that he does to the glory of God. If, then, he writes, he writes to the glory of God, and therefore writes in the Lord; for which reason it is fitting that he should insert in the letter a mention of his own name too. Or at least, because he had taken in the force of the thoughts of Paul as he dictated, and had understood that what he was writing was not man’s but the Lord’s, he therefore records that he wrote in the Lord.

“Gaius, my host and the host of the whole church, greets you.” This Gaius is understood to be the one he mentions when writing to the Corinthians, saying, “I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius.” He seems, then, to indicate of him only … he named him treasurer of the city. Whether, then, it is to be taken in some such way, or rather simply, and nothing deeper is to be sought in Paul’s writings, you who read must consider.

“Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept in silence for the times of the ages, but now made manifest through the prophetic Scriptures according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all the Gentiles for the obedience of faith: to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be glory for ages of ages. Amen.” This section Marcion, by whom the evangelical and apostolic Scriptures were interpolated, removed entirely from this letter; and not only this, but from the place where it is written, “And whatever is not of faith is sin,” he cut away everything to the end. But in other copies, that is, in those which have not been violated by Marcion, we find this section itself placed in different positions. For in some manuscripts, after the place we mentioned above, that is, “And whatever is not of faith is sin,” there follows at once, “Now to him who is able to establish you”; but other manuscripts have it at the end, as it is now placed. But now let us come to the explanation of this section. Paul seems to me to show two causes by which those who are established in the faith of the gospel are strengthened: one by which the preaching of Paul, which is also the preaching of Christ, becomes known to them; and the other by which the mystery is revealed to them which was kept in silence for all the times of the ages, but now, that is, at the coming of Christ in bodily presence, has been made manifest and opened, and, as far as concerns it, declared not without suitable witnesses, but with the prophetic Scriptures bearing witness. For such was the command of the eternal God: that through the preaching of the gospel the Gentiles should be called to the obedience of faith, but that from the revelation of the mystery, the wisdom of God being known, glory and splendor should be rendered to the only wise God for ages of ages. But let us return again and consider how it was said, “Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept in silence for the times of the ages.” It does not seem to me … establishing; but the gospel of Paul and the preaching of Christ belong to all who believe; while the revelation of the mystery kept in silence for the times of the ages belongs not to many but to the few and chosen who can be capable of the wisdom and knowledge of God, of whom it is said, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” And as to his saying, “of the mystery kept in silence,” we must ask whether he says it was kept in silence in such a way that no one at all knew it, not even the prophets who announced it; or whether some higher reason of the silence is to be understood. To me it seems very absurd to say that the prophets wrote of the divine mysteries in such a way that they did not understand the very things they said, since Scripture says, “The wise man understands what comes out of his mouth, and carries understanding on his lips.” If, then, the prophets did not understand what they brought out of their own mouth, they were not wise. But if it is foolish to confess them prophets and to deny that they were wise, it remains that they were wise, and understood what they brought out of their own mouth, and had understanding on their lips. What, then, is the reason of the silence? Let us see whether it is not that which Paul himself taught was handed down to him for the dispensation of the mysteries, where he says that he was caught up to the third heaven, and from there into paradise, and heard unspeakable words which it is not permitted to man to speak. In this he surely shows not that he did not know what he heard, but that it was not permitted to bring out and open to other people what had been shown him. So, then, in this place too the mystery may seem to be called kept in silence for the times of the ages because the prophets indeed knew it (for it is made manifest from the prophetic Scriptures), but did not make it manifest or open it to people, that is, to the crowd, but covered it in silence according to the command of the eternal God, until the time should come when the Word would become flesh and dwell among us, and be made manifest to all the Gentiles for the obedience of faith. And as for his saying, “to the only wise God,” do not take “wise God” as if wisdom had made him wise, as is held among men. For among men each one is called wise by participation in wisdom; but God is called wise not as one made wise by wisdom, but as being himself the author and begetter of wisdom. For, as we said, God is not wise from wisdom, but wisdom proceeds from the wise God. Rightly, then, it is said, “to the only wise God.” For God alone is so wise that he rather begot wisdom than was made wise by wisdom. And rightly glory is rendered to him through Jesus Christ, because Christ Jesus, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God, declared that God alone is so wise that he himself begot wisdom. As for his saying, “for ages of ages,” it is the custom of the divine Scripture to designate by this the immensity of times. And “Amen” he set at the end as a confirmation of all that was written above, by which, in the native speech of the Hebrews, he signified that what was written is true and faithful.