Origen, Commentary on Romans — Book 5
Latin source: J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Graeca 14 (Rufinus's Latin version of Origen's Commentarii in Epistulam ad Romanos ). This English translation is in the public domain.
BOOK FIVE
[§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, even over those who sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the figure of him who was 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 when he had disclosed the hidden things of the secret mystery, that "when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled through the death of his Son," now he consequently sets forth also the reasons why we were enemies, and why that reconciliation required the death of the Son of God: so that, beholding how great the things are that Jesus has bestowed upon us — nay rather, how great the things are that he has endured for us — we may be held to him by a more deeply rooted faith and by an inseparable love. Therefore, though not in every respect laid open, he nevertheless indicates to us the account of yet another secret when he says: "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death," and the rest. But before we come to the exposition of the whole chapter, a few things must be said about what appears in what follows to be a defect in the expression itself. For where it is said, "Therefore, just as," it seems necessary that some completion ought to be added, so that it should say: So also this or that — as he himself writes in certain other places, for example when he says: "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." But here, 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 instance: 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 this is what the sense of the statement set forth seemed to demand, according to those things which he himself declares elsewhere. For there is not much difference between what he says in another place, "For as in Adam all die," and 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 shall all be made alive," differs in no way from that sense which we said above was lacking to the expression and left to the understanding of the reader. 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, "Do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ?" — did not suffer these things through a defect of speech, but foresaw through them something of usefulness: so that, even though those things which we said were lacking to the expression and are to be understood ought to be understood, nevertheless, on account of the more negligent sort who might perhaps be dissolved into laxity if they heard that, just as death passed 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. And at the same time he shows this also: that even if through one man righteousness entered into this world, and through righteousness life, and so it passed through to all men, nevertheless this does not happen straightway in the present, nor does it fall to the idle, but to those who by much labor and sweat have been able to seek out the things that are hidden, to knock at the things that are closed, to long for the things that are concealed. Finally, in that chapter also which we brought forward for the likeness of these sayings, that is, "For as in Adam all die," he did not say, "so also in Christ all" have been made alive, or are being made alive, but "shall be made alive" — that he might show that the present time is indeed the time of labor and work, in which merits are gathered through good conduct, but that it is the future in which those shall be made alive who in the present life die together with Christ, as the same Apostle says elsewhere: "For if we die together with him, we shall also live together with him." And for this reason in the present passage as well he forbears to carry through and to fill out in words those things which seem to be understood by the sense and by logical consequence. Someone else perhaps will say that what seems to be lacking in the things we have spoken of above, according to the order of the expression, is indeed supplied late, but is supplied in what comes after, where he says: "But not as the offense, so also the gift. For if by the offense of one many died, much more the grace of God, and the gift, in the grace of one man Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many"; and he asserts that from these words those things have been completed which seemed to be lacking in the earlier ones; 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 unto many, since both all men are understood to be many, and it does not seem absurd that "many" should be understood as "all" — especially since in what follows he says more openly: "As through the offense of one, upon all men unto condemnation, so also through the righteousness of one, upon all men unto justification of life." And that he might show more evidently that "all men" and "many men" are the same, he added to these: "For as through the disobedience of one man many were constituted sinners, so also through the obedience of one many shall be constituted righteous." And what above he had called "all" men, here in the same sense he named "many." Unless perhaps someone should say that the Apostle, wishing rather to mingle and to obscure what he had disclosed above — lest, as we have said, he should unnerve and slacken his hearers — named "many" here those whom before he had called "all," so that even what he called "all" should be drawn to those alone who have obtained the gift of Christ's grace, who nevertheless are not few, but many. For it is the custom of the Apostle Paul, when he has disclosed something concerning the kindness of God and his ineffable goodness, again, on account of the more negligent sort of hearers, to sharpen a little, as it were, what he has said, and to hold out some fear to the more slack — as when, disputing with the Corinthians about the end of all things, he says: "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive"; and a little after: "Then the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father," and the rest. On account of which words, fearing lest anyone, despising the riches of God's goodness and patience and long-suffering, should according to his own hardness and impenitent heart treasure up for himself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, he added after those things which he had said about the end: "Do not be deceived.
Evil conversations corrupt good manners. Awake, you just, and sin not. For some have ignorance; I speak it to your shame." He acts, therefore, as a prudent steward of the word; and when he comes to those passages in which something must be said about the goodness of God, on account of the more sluggish sort he brings these things forth in a more hidden and more obscure way, lest perchance, as we have said, they despise the riches of his goodness and patience and long-suffering, and treasure up for themselves wrath in the day of wrath, into which all must needs fall who have treasured up for themselves deeds of this kind. You too, after these things, may see what comes to pass. But also that which 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 should come who takes away the sin of the world, sin was in the world. And it is manifest that sin cannot be imputed where there is no law to convict the sinner. "But death reigned," which had entered in through sin, "until Moses," that is, so long as the law endured, "over those who sinned after the similitude of the sin of Adam," through whom death itself received its entrance; "who," namely Adam, "is the figure of him that was to come" — not according to that in which he transgressed, but according to this, that as through him death, so through the last Adam life entered into this world; and as through the former came condemnation upon all men, so also through Christ justification upon all men. Let these things be said concerning the plain sense of the apostolic utterance itself. Let us now see what the inner understanding also contains. But this too I think must be pointed out in the first place, that the Apostle Paul seems to me, especially in these passages which we now have in hand, to speak these things somewhat in this fashion: as if some faithful and prudent servant were led in by a great king, his lord, into the royal treasuries, and there were shown him various great chambers whose approaches are diverse and uncertain, so that entrance is shown him by one way and egress by another; and sometimes from diverse entrances one comes to a single inner room, as we often see certain palaces built here on earth. And there is shown also to this faithful servant who is led about the treasury of the king's silver, and another of gold, and of precious stones and pearls and various necklaces, and the place too of the royal purple, and another of the diadems; and there are shown him besides the queen's bridal chambers, set in many and diverse apartments — and yet each of these is not thrown open to him with the doors standing altogether wide, but only half-opened in part, so that he may indeed recognize his lord's treasures and the royal wealth, and yet not know each single thing clearly and perfectly. But after these things, let this servant, who has been held so faithful that the king and lord made known to him the greatness of his riches, be sent to gather an army for the king, to hold a levy and to test soldiers. For inasmuch as he is faithful, so as to invite more men to the service and to gather a larger army for the king, he will be under necessity of setting forth in part what he has seen; and again, because he is prudent and knows that it is needful to hide the king's secret, he will use certain hints rather than full accounts, so that the king's power may not indeed be concealed, and yet the ordering and the adornment of the palace and the disposition of its furnishing remain hidden. So then, as I have said, the Apostle Paul also seems to me to do in these discourses, and to temper his speech not only for the reason that he himself says, that he knows in part and understands in part, but also on account of us, who cannot grasp even those things which he knows in part; and to touch upon and half-open each inner chamber of the mystery with single, or scarcely with two, sentences; and now, having entered by one approach, to go out by another; now, having entered by another, to run together to yet another chamber, so that if you seek him by that approach by which he entered, you do not find his going out. Having therefore first set these things in order in our mind and spirit concerning what Paul writes, let us now turn, according to our strength, to examining and contemplating the matters we have in hand. And first let us see in what manner "through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death." For perhaps someone may ask: if before Adam the woman sinned, of whom it is said that "being deceived she was in the transgression," and again before her the serpent sinned — for he sinned when he said to the woman, "Why has God said this, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?" and he sinned again when, whereas God had said that "in whatsoever 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 in whatsoever day you eat of it, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" — if therefore before Adam the woman also sinned, and before the woman the serpent, and in another place the Apostle says that "Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived," how will sin seem to have entered through one man, and not rather through one woman? For from a woman was the beginning of sin, and before the woman from the serpent, or from the devil, of whom it is said in the Gospel that "he was a murderer from the beginning." But see that the Apostle in these matters has kept the order of nature; and therefore, since he was speaking of sin, from which death passed upon all men, he ascribes the succession of the human posterity — which succumbed to this death coming from sin — not to the woman, but to the man. For posterity is not named from the woman, but from the man, as the Apostle himself says elsewhere: "For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man"; and again: "For as the woman is of the man, so also is the man" not of the woman, but "by the woman"; and for this reason mortal posterity and bodily succession is reckoned rather to the man as its author, and not to the woman. But that what we say may become still more evident, we will add this also which the same Apostle writes to the Hebrews: "But Levi also, who received tithes, was tithed; for he was yet in the loins of his father" (Abraham) "when Melchisedech met him returning from the slaughter of the kings." If therefore Levi, who is born in the fourth generation after Abraham, is declared to have been in the loins of Abraham, much more were all men who are born and have been born in this world in the loins of Adam while he was still in paradise; and all men were cast out of paradise with him or in him, when he himself was driven thence; and through him death, which had come upon him from the transgression, consequently passed also into those who were held in his loins. And therefore the Apostle rightly says: "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." Neither therefore from the serpent, who had sinned before the woman, nor from the woman, who was in the transgression before the man, but through Adam, from whom all mortals draw their origin, is sin said to have entered in, and through sin death.
But this, doubtless, is the one man through whom sin entered in, and through sin death — the man whom elsewhere the Apostle himself calls the first man, of the earth, earthy, while the second is from heaven, heavenly, when he exhorts us, having cast off the image of the earthy, to bear the image of the heavenly; that is, that living according to the Word of God we may be renewed and reformed according to the inner man after the image of God who created him. This man, therefore, who is now being reformed and restored to the image of God, is neither earthy nor in this world, but his conversation is said to be in the heavens; and therefore, according to him who said, "But you are not of this world," death cannot pass through into him. But of the one who is still in this world, and is earthy, and bears the image of the earthy, of him it is said that through him sin entered into this world, and through sin death. But if sin and death entered into this world, and dwell in this world, it is certain that those are strangers to death and to sin who through Christ, or with Christ, have died to this world, and having been raised again with him have merited also to sit with him in the heavenly places, having their conversation no longer in this world but in the heavens. Whence also it is shown by a like consequence that every man is first "of the earth, earthy," as the same Apostle says elsewhere; when he bears the image of the earthy, and walks according to the image of the earthy, minds the flesh and savors the things that are of the flesh, and it is scarcely at some time that he turns to the Lord and is led by the Spirit of God, and being made spiritual becomes "the last Adam into a quickening Spirit." Inquire carefully, since he says that through one man sin entered into this world, and it is certain that he here calls "world" this earthly place in which men dwell, whether sin entered into no other place, nor is found in those places where "the spiritual wickednesses in the heavenly places" are named. But consider this too within yourself: whence did sin enter into this world, or where was it before it entered here, or whether it existed at all, or whether it was before him to whom it is said, "How long shall iniquities be found in thee? and on this account I have cast thee down to the earth." But it is not safe for us to discourse at greater length about these matters, since we see that the Apostle has here barely touched upon them with single phrases. "Through one man," therefore, "sin entered into this world." And "world," as we have 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 declare themselves crucified and dead. "And through sin," he says, "death" — that death, without doubt, of which the prophet also speaks, that "the soul that sins shall itself die"; of which death one might rightly call this bodily death the shadow. For wherever that death has entered, this must needs follow, as the shadow follows the body. But if anyone object that the Savior did no 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 no sin, is nevertheless said for our salvation to have been made sin through the assumption of flesh, so also, though he owed this death to no one and was not liable to it, yet for our salvation he took upon himself this death — as it were the shadow of that dispensation which he had assumed, of which we spoke above — willingly, not of 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 unto all men, in that all," he says, "have sinned." The Apostle has pronounced an absolute judgment, that the death of sin passed through unto all men, in that wherein all have sinned, as also elsewhere: "For all," he says, "have sinned, and need the glory of God." And therefore, even if you name Abel as that righteous man, he cannot be excused. "For all have sinned." For why did he offer "after 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 him at once, but defer and delay? Even if you name Enoch: it is not written that he pleased God until he begot Methuselah; and Methuselah is interpreted "sending forth of death." From which it is shown that this death, which passed through unto all men, passed also into him; but scarcely at some point did he perceive that death was within him, and being turned to the Lord he sent it forth 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 besieged him. Rightly then, because he was no longer liable to death, but had cast it off from himself and put it to flight, it is said that God translated him, that he should not see death. But concerning Noah too, if you inquire more attentively, you will find that it is written of him only in his five hundredth year 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 surely, if he had merited it earlier, the divine Scripture, I think, would never have passed over in silence. But also, if anyone wishes to take into account that he drank wine, and was made drunk and uncovered, he will find from all these things that it is not without cause said by the Apostle, "in that all have sinned," even though Noah awoke from his wine. And what shall I say too of Abraham, to whom it is said: "Go out from thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house"? Which surely would not have been said, if in his father's house he could have pleased God. But there is no need, with great peril, to enumerate the saints one by one in these matters, since the Apostle's judgment suffices, which says that death passed through unto all men, and that of him who said: "No one is clean from filth, even if his life has been but of one day." But this death of sin, which passed through unto all, when it had come to Jesus and had tried to pierce him with its sting (for "the sting of death is sin"), was repulsed and shattered. For he "was Life," and death was necessarily brought to an end by life; and then it is said to it: "Where, O death, is thy sting? where, O death, is thy victory?" For because it had conquered all, therefore it is here said to it: "Where, O death, is thy victory?" But as for the fact that he did not say that sin entered into all men, but "into the world"; and death, on the other hand, not into the world, but "unto all men," and not that it entered, but that it passed through — I do not think that Paul employed this distinction without purpose. I judge that by "world" he here designates all the earthly, and those who remain in the conversation of the earthy; but by "men" he means those who are now beginning to know themselves, and to know that they were made after the image of God.
Therefore he says that sin entered into those who are called "world," that is, the earthly ones, and nowhere does he set down its going out. But into those whom he wishes to be understood as already "men," he says that sin passed through , that is, that it was indeed there, but was driven out through the repentance of conversion, and passed through, and did not stand any longer in them. From which it appears that in Paul's writings not even one syllable ought to be felt to be empty of mysteries. Let us now see in what way it was 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 that comparison which we set forth above, Paul seems to me to have entered by one approach and gone out by another. For who can follow him through that approach by which he seems to most people to have entered, so that he would be understood to be speaking of the law of Moses when he says that "until the law sin was in this world: but sin is not imputed, when there is no law?" — as though before the law there had been no sin, and no one had sinned, nor had sin 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 (that we may not linger over individual cases) that God was so provoked by the sins of men that he brought a flood upon the world, and said: "I will blot out all flesh that is upon the earth;" and again that a rain of fire and a sulphurous flame laid waste the Sodomites. How then, in these sins, or in sins of this kind, can it be said that there was no sin, or in punishments such as these will it be denied that sin was reckoned? And therefore a more hidden approach of Paul's must be sought out by us 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 also in the later parts of this Epistle speaking in this manner: "For without the law sin was dead: but I was alive once without the law." In which one and the same meaning of both passages seems to me to lie. For what was lacking in the phrase here, he has filled up there. In "For until the law sin was in this world," there is lacking "dead," which there he expressed more plainly. If therefore here too we join that word, and say: "For until the law sin was in this world" dead : "but sin is not imputed, when there is no law," see how the sense will be able to stand complete. But this too we have already often said, that in this Epistle Paul disputes indeed about many laws, but more frequently about the natural law, which is especially detected in this passage as well. For until the natural law sin is dead. Therefore at a certain time of life, when someone begins to be capable of reason, and to have the discernment of just and unjust, of what is fair and what is unfair, then sin, which previously was held within the man as though dead, is said to revive, for the reason that there is now inwardly a law which forbids, and reason which shows that the thing must not be done. But so that what we say may be understood more openly, let us use a clear example. It is written: "He who strikes his father or his mother, let him die the death;" and: "He who curses his father or his mother, let him die the death." If then a little boy of about four or five years, as commonly happens, in anger strikes his father or mother with a rod, so far as the precept of the commandment looks to it, he owes death. But because the natural law is not yet in him, which would teach him that he ought not to do injury to father or mother, he does not even know that in this he is committing the crime of impiety: there is indeed a species of sin in what he does, 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, sin cannot be reckoned to him. For there is not yet within him so much reason as would teach him that what he does ought not to be done: and therefore even by his parents it is not only not reckoned as a fault, but is received with favor and delight. And in this way, consequently, as I judge, what the Apostle says can be understood: "For until the law sin was in this world," so that "dead" may be supplied. "But sin is not imputed, when there is no law." For it is fitting that according to this exposition that also be understood which the Apostle says: "But I was alive once without the law." For how is Paul found to have lived once without the law of Moses, when he himself says of himself that he is a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and, circumcised on the eighth day, was immediately from birth in the observance of the law of Moses? But it is agreed that he once, that is, in the age of boyhood, before he became capable of reason, lived without the natural law. For in that age there was not yet in him the distinction of just and unjust, nor did the examination of right and wrong lie open to him. And that this is said of the natural law he plainly shows in what follows, when he says: "But when the commandment came, sin revived: and I died." By which he declares that the sins of that age did indeed exist, but were held as dead, because they were not 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 is in force within me; then sin revived in me, which before, through the absence of the law, seemed dead, and "I," he says, "died:" for sin now began to be reckoned to me. But Basilides, not noticing that these things ought to be understood of the natural law, dragged the apostolic word off to foolish and impious fables, and from this saying of the Apostle tries to construct the doctrine of metensōmatōsis (μετενσωματώσεως), that is, that souls are poured over into one body after another. "For the Apostle said," he says, "that 'I was alive once without the law:' that is, before I came into this body, I lived in that kind of body which was not under the law; namely, that of a beast or of a bird." But he did not look to 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 had revived. In which he certainly shows that he was speaking of both things with regard to one and the same life of his own. But let Basilides, and any who think this along with him, be left in their impiety. Let us, however, attend to the Apostle's meaning according to the piety of ecclesiastical doctrine. But let us also inquire what this itself may be, that he says, "Sin was in this world," and did not say, in men, since certainly there are in the world both beasts, and the other animals, and trees, and whatever else this world consists of, and yet sin is not believed to be in these.
It seems to me that here the Apostle has in mind those persons who are already capable of reason and obey the natural laws; whereas that age which has not yet arrived at the capacity of reason he has called not so much "men" as "the world," inasmuch as they are indeed parts of the world, yet have not yet come to this, that they should express in themselves by the capacity of reason the image of God, according to which man is said to have been made. But I should also like to inquire into this (unless it seem more curious than is right), whether perhaps, according to those who wish the law of Moses to be understood in these passages, by the words "But sin is not imputed when there is no law," the devil also and his angels might seem to be absolved, if where there is no law sin is not reckoned. And how was the serpent condemned before the law of Moses, or how did death enter into the round world through the envy of the devil? How too shall what Jude the apostle says in his catholic Epistle be explained? For he speaks thus: "The angels also who kept not their princedom, but forsook their own dwelling, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." From all which it stands more and more firmly established that the Apostle is speaking of that law which each one, whether of men or even of angels, bears naturally within himself by a certain divine dispensation or gift; whose force is so great, and whose power is so great, that it convicts even angels, and excepts the person of no dignity whatever, and it is this law which brought about what the apostle Jude says above, namely that the angels who kept not their princedom but forsook their own dwelling should be kept bound in everlasting chains unto the judgment of the great day. This is the law which also drags the devil and his angels into the eternal fire which has been prepared for them. And just as it is certain that neither would those angels be kept bound in eternal chains unto judgment, nor would these be sent into the eternal fire prepared for them, save because they did not keep the law set for them by God, nor would they come unto judgment unless they had committed something against the law, so it seems certain that, if they had guarded the law set for them, neither would these have fallen into the eternal fire, nor those beneath the chains of eternal darkness. It remains that we also discuss, so far as our powers allow, how this was said: "But death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over those who sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come." This is now the third time the Apostle makes mention of death. First he says that "through sin death entered into this world"; secondly, "death," he says, "passed through unto all men." But now he says, "Death reigned from Adam unto Moses." And knowing that there are certain differences among these several statements, he has indicated when it entered and when it reigned. Then, he says, it entered, when the first man transgressed. And he said how it entered: "through sin," he says. And now he designates the time of its reign "from Adam unto Moses"; but how it passed through unto all men he does not show. It seems to me, therefore, that in these words the Apostle is describing something like the entry of a tyrant who wished to invade the kingdom of the lawful king, and who first seized the very gates and approaches of the kingdom through the transgression of the guard; then next attempted to bend the minds of all men toward himself, and for the greatest part succeeded, and thus claimed for himself a kingship not owed to him. While this man, then, was reigning by tyranny, there is sent a leader chosen by the lawful king, namely Moses, to call back the peoples occupied by him to the rights of civil governance, and to teach them to use the laws of the true king. That tyrant then, that is, the death of sin, who had crept in through the transgression of the first guard, was reigning over all those who had turned aside to him by a transgression like that of the first man. But this leader of the lawful prince does everything to snatch some out of the kingdom of sin and death; and he obtained at last that he should convert one nation, and any who wished to join himself to this nation; and at the king's command he was the first to institute sacrifices, by the offering of which with a fixed solemnity, as was fitting, sin might be remitted to them. And thus at length men began in some part to be freed from the kingdom of sin and death. For that tyrant who is called death, from Adam — who first by his transgression gave him an entrance, that he might pass through unto all men — was reigning up to that Moses whom we have called the leader, who, sent by God the king of all, began to break his kingdom and to call men back under the law of the just prince. "Death" therefore "reigned from Adam unto Moses," according to that likeness which we set forth above, not over all, but "over those who sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression." For death indeed entered into the world, and passed through unto all, yet it did not reign over all. For it is one thing to pass through, and another to reign. For sin passed through even into the just, and grazed them with a certain light contagion. But in transgressors, that is, in those who subject themselves to it with their whole mind and devotion, it holds a kingdom and lords it with every power. "Death" therefore "reigned from Adam," who first by transgressing opened a passage for sin into this world, "unto Moses," that is, unto the law. For through the law the purification of sins began to be opened up, and in some part his tyranny to be resisted through victims, through various expiations, through sacrifices, through precepts. But since his domination was so great as to exceed the strength of the law, the prophets are sent to the law's aid. Yet they too, seeing that the tyrant's power was beyond their own strength, entreat the coming and presence of the King himself, crying out to God: "Send forth Thy light and Thy truth"; and again: "Bow down Thy heavens, and come down"; and once more: "Arise, O Lord, bring us help." Jesus Christ the Son of God, therefore, was present, and "in that wherein" the law "was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin by sin in the flesh," and reconciled the world to God; and He stripped off the princedoms 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, however, return to our proposition. Therefore the death of sin reigned from Adam unto Moses, that is, unto the coming of Christ. For Moses is called the law, and the law, as it is written, held its place unto the baptism of John, from which time Jesus began to preach the kingdom of God. But that he singled out certain particular persons over whom death reigned, when he says, "Death reigned over those who sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression," does not seem to me to be said without the indication of some mystery. Perhaps, then, there were some, up to that time in which men were held under the law as under a pedagogue, who did something of such a kind as Adam is described to have done in paradise — and to have touched the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and to have blushed at his own nakedness, and to have fallen away from the dwelling of paradise.
Or perhaps it seems rather that the passage is to be taken simply, and that the likeness of Adam's transgression is to be understood without any elaborate discussion, so that by this expression all who have been born from the transgressor Adam appear to be indicated, and to have in themselves the likeness of his transgression, received not only from his seed but also from his upbringing. For all who are born into this world are not only nourished by their parents but also instructed by them, and they are not only the children of sinners but also their disciples. But when their age has matured, and the freedom to act upon what they perceive has come to them, then a man either goes on in the way of his fathers, as is written of certain kings, or else he walks in the way of the Lord his God. Indeed, something of this sort seems to me to be signified about Abel in what is written: "And after some days Abel offered a sacrifice to God from the firstborn of his sheep, and from their fat." So then, in saying "after some days," he shows this: that in the first days of his life he was indeed held fast by the instruction of his father's transgression; but after those days, when he came to his senses, when he looked to God, admonished by the law of nature, then he is said to have offered a sacrifice to God. This passage, therefore, can either be expounded simply in this manner, or else a mystery concealed in the words "in the likeness of Adam's transgression," and hidden away almost inexpressibly, may be gathered by a certain fine thread of understanding — as if someone should suppose that the death spoken of here, which is said to have reigned 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 though the Lord were speaking in his own person: "I will snatch them from the hand of hell, and I will free them from death"; or else that certain persons are excepted, and are designated by a more hidden mystery, namely those who are recorded to have sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, over whom alone death has reigned. But if, as some copies have it, this death — that is, the death which was holding souls fast in hell — is said to have reigned "even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam's transgression," then we understand that even the saints, every one of them, fell under this death, if not by the law of sinning, yet certainly by the law of dying; and that Christ therefore descended into hell not only that he himself might not be held by death, but also that he might drag out from there those who were held there not so much by the guilt of transgression, as we have said, as by the condition of dying — as it is written: "Many bodies of the sleeping saints rose with him, and entered into the holy city." In this too the words of the Prophet are fulfilled, in which he says of Christ: "Ascending on high, he led captivity captive." And in this way, through his resurrection, he has already destroyed the kingdoms of death, whence he is also written to have set the captivity free. But hear how the Apostle says that the enemy and tyrant himself, whose kingdoms he dissolved, is yet to be destroyed: "The last enemy," he says, "that shall be destroyed is death." Now the kingdom of death has already been destroyed, and the captivity that was held under it has been led away. But because that 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 playing the brigand; and, driven from his kingdom, going about through desert and trackless places, seeking for himself a band of the faithless. And for this reason the Apostle cried out: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so as to obey its desires." But let us be content to have touched briefly upon those things which the Apostle wished to remain covered, and let us look into what follows. After these things he added: "Who is the form of the one to come." This indeed seems to me ambiguous: whether Adam is called the form of "the one to come" reckoning from the time at which the Apostle was writing this — which would be the age to come; or from Adam himself, that is, "to come" relative to Adam, so that it is to be understood of Christ — a time which, for the Apostle writing these things, was not future but past. And yet in another place also, when the same Apostle was speaking of Adam and Eve, he said: "This is a great mystery: but I speak in Christ and in the Church"; in which he seems rather to have given us this to understand, that Adam is called the form of the one to come in that Christ came to join the Church to himself. I do not indeed see how anyone could fit his transgression, and his sin, and the fact that death passed through him upon all men, into a form of Christ — unless perhaps by contraries, as the same Apostle explains in the preceding passages, when he says: "For as by one man came death, so also by one man the resurrection of the dead"; and again: "For as by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous." But if we understand the Apostle to have said, reckoning from his own times in which he was writing these things, that Adam is the form of the one to come, then it is better understood thus: that just as in this age death has reigned through the one Adam, and the whole race of men has been made mortal, so also in the age to come life will reign through Christ, and the whole race of men will be endowed with immortality. And in like manner, just as we have said that the expression in which he says, "Who is the form of the one to come," is ambiguous, so we find that something was written ambiguously also to the Colossians, where he says: "Let no one therefore judge you in food, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day, or new moons, or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come." And likewise elsewhere the same Apostle says: "For the law has a shadow of the good things to come." In these passages there is certainly a similar uncertainty: whether food, and drink, and feast days, and new moons, and Sabbaths have a shadow of things to come in such a way that at the coming of Christ the truth of that shadow has been fulfilled, or whether it is to be fulfilled in the age to come. And likewise, as to what the Apostle says, that the whole law has a shadow of the good things to come, it is uncertain whether the truth of that shadow is to be fulfilled at the coming of Christ or in the age to come; for in another place too it is written, even concerning those things which are under the law, that they serve the forms and shadows of heavenly things. Whoever, then, wishes to maintain that these things were fulfilled at the coming of Christ will establish that the matters of food and drink were fulfilled in that place where Peter saw in a vision every kind of animal let down in a linen sheet, and heard a voice: "What God has cleansed, do not you call common" — which certainly refers to the diverse characters of men; and he will say that the drink is the cup of the New Testament; the feast day too he will prove, where "Christ our passover has been sacrificed," and we celebrate the feast day "not in the old leaven, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." Similarly he will show that new moons, that is, new months, come to be through Christ the Sun of righteousness and through his apostles. And he will teach that the Sabbaths too are to be observed, by not carrying the burdens of sin, but by each one standing firmly in his own place, and not kindling a fire — concerning which it is said through the prophet: "Walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame which you have kindled for yourselves." But another, who transfers these forms and the shadow of the law to the age to come, and holds that these are images of the heavenly ministries, to be fulfilled in that heavenly Jerusalem, will attempt to assign the meaning of food and drink according to what the Lord says: "Until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father." And he will speak of the feast day according to the saying of the prophet: "What will you do on the day of solemnity, and on the feast day of the Lord?" And the new moons, that is, the new months, he will look for in those eternal years of which the Prophet says: "I have called to mind the eternal years, and I have meditated"; and again in the canticle of Deuteronomy: "Remember the eternal days"; and concerning 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 the form of the age to come, so Adam also, of whom it is said, "Who is the form of the one to come," can be referred to the account of the age to come; and that this is why, when it had first been said of those "who sinned in the likeness of Adam's transgression," there was added: "Who is the form of the one to come."
[§2] "But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by the trespass of one many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abound unto many. And the gift is not as it was by one sin. For the judgment indeed was from one unto condemnation, but grace is from many trespasses unto justification." Since in what precedes the Apostle had said of Adam, "who is a figure of him who was to come," and since he saw that it could be asked whether, if Adam is a figure of Christ, then it is necessary that he bore the figure of Christ also in that wherein he sinned, and in that wherein death reigned from Adam until Moses — but this seemed absurd to think concerning Christ — he at once adds: "But the gift is not like the trespass"; and beginning from this statement he proceeds, as it were, to explain himself, in what sense he called Adam a figure of Christ. "For if," he says, "by the trespass of one many died," namely in Adam, "much more did the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abound unto many": that is, if, when one man sinned, death, finding a place, was able to be spread abroad into many, much more is the grace of God, which abounded in Christ more copiously and more widely than death did in Adam, spread abroad into many; and so far is the condition of the trespass not the same as that of the gift, that whereas judgment was passed upon Adam, and from that one man who trespassed condemnation came upon all men, on the contrary through Christ, out of the many trespasses by which the whole race of men was held fast, justification was given unto all: so that, as death had reigned through one man in trespasses, so also through the obedience of one might life reign through righteousness. Therefore it was not without a profound art of speaking that the Apostle laid it down that Adam is a figure of Christ — a figure that is similar in genus but contrary in species. For in genus the figure is similar in this, that just as from the one Adam it is spread abroad into many men, so also from the one Christ it is spread abroad into many men. But in species it is contrary, in that from Adam, once the transgression had begun, "many were constituted sinners"; but by Christ's "obedience many shall be constituted righteous." Since, then, it has been explained according to the logic of his own language in what way Adam was a figure of Christ, whether in things similar or in things contrary, let us now also see what inner meaning the Apostle indicates in these words, or rather conceals. And although it may seem hazardous to lay open those things which have been set down more secretly in the Apostle's writings, nevertheless, so far as it is possible, I do not think it will seem absurd to gather from them certain indications of the divine goodness. The Apostle set out to show what "the first Adam," who "was made into a living soul," brought upon the human race, and what also "the second Adam," who is "unto a life-giving spirit," brought. From the transgression of the former, he says, sin appeared, and through sin death entered into all men; or rather, that we may preserve for Paul's writings the restraint which he has maintained in the present passage, death passed through into many men. But through the obedience of Christ justification, and through justification life, abounded much more unto many. And he wishes to show that life is far stronger than death, and righteousness than sin; and by this to teach that if sin and death were able so to reign in all, taking their beginning from the disobedience of one man, how much more powerfully and more worthily will life reign through righteousness, taking its beginning through the obedience of the one Christ — Christ, I say, who came to this work moved not by any necessity of his condition, but by mercy alone. For he was "in the form of God," and, seeing death reigning throughout the peoples by the trespass of one man, he does not forget his own creature, "nor does he count it robbery that he is equal to God": that is, he does not reckon it any great thing for himself that he indeed is equal to God and is one with the Father, while death, having entered by the trespass of one man, feeds upon his own work. Therefore he "emptied himself" of equality and of the form of God, and took "the form of a servant," and becomes man, to tempt whom that one who reigned in all would indeed dare to come, but could not enter in. Yet he took upon himself this common death, though he did not receive that death of sin which reigned in all; that as "through a man came death, so through a man" there might come "the resurrection of the dead": and that as "by 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 "unto many." And it was not without that 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," here he named "many" or "the more," where he makes a comparison between the sin and death spread abroad from Adam into all men and the justification and life that are from Christ; lest perhaps, if he declared absolutely that by an equal reasoning and in the same order in which from Adam the death of sin was spread abroad into all men, the justification and life which are from Christ are also spread abroad into all men, he might make his hearers lax, and they might become more sluggish toward observance, being sure of the security of a life that would be handed over to all men through Christ's grace. And therefore he restrains his speech, and does not set down "all men" (as he is accustomed to do elsewhere), but "many," who by the trespass of one were constituted sinners; and again he asserts that in the grace of God the gift through the one man Jesus Christ abounds not unto all, but unto many: whereby he may both hold the more negligent in suspense with fear and make them anxious, and yet not close off from the more perfect the secrets of the divine goodness. And it is well that he set down as "more" those to whom the gift of grace pertains than those who by the trespass of one were constituted sinners. In which I do indeed judge that there is something of a hidden mystery, since elsewhere too he says that death reigned from Adam until Moses, not in all, but only in those who sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam. Nevertheless, by a simpler understanding also it can be seen that they were called "more" for this reason: that although those who were made sinners from Adam are many, yet those who are made alive through the grace of Christ are for this reason called "more," because even that very man from whom the death of sin was spread abroad into the rest is added to their number, inasmuch as together with all those whom he himself had placed under trespass, he too is saved; as it is said of Wisdom: "She," it says, "guarded him who was first formed, the father of the world, when he alone had been created, and delivered him from his own sin." And what is this Wisdom which delivered the first man from his own sin, if not Christ, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God?
Thus Christ brings back to life more than Adam led to death; for Christ has called back to life even Adam himself, who was for the rest the cause of death — so that what the Apostle writes in what follows may be true, namely that "as through the trespass of one man there came upon all men the condemnation of death, so also through the grace of one there came upon all men the justification of life." But Adam too is a man: therefore the justification of life will reach him also. But perhaps you will say: If, when one sinned, death passed through into all men, and again through the righteousness of one the justification of life has come to all men, then nothing was done by us either that we should die or that we should live; rather, Adam is the cause of death and Christ of life. Now we have already said, even in the passages above, that parents do not only beget children but also instruct them; and those who are born become not only sons to their parents but disciples as well, 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 immediately, if he begets sons, teach them also to venerate idols and to offer sacrifices to demons? This he does after the manner of Adam, and in this way death reigns from Adam — that is, from birth — up to the time of the Law, when a person, coming to the discernment of right and wrong conduct, can be made capable of the grace of Christ; and there he leaves behind Adam, who either begot him or taught him unto death, and follows Christ, who both teaches him and begets him unto life. But do you wish to know that the state in which death reigned from Adam is a matter not only of birth but also of teaching? Learn this from its opposites. For when the Lord Jesus Christ had come to set right what had been wrongly done, in view of the fact that the first birth, which came from Adam, brought forth unto death, he introduced a second birth, which he called not so much generation as regeneration, by which he would without doubt abolish the defect of the first birth; and just as he substituted regeneration for generation, so also he substituted another teaching for the former teaching. For when he sent his disciples to this work, he did not say merely: Go, baptize all nations; but he said: "Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Knowing, therefore, that both were at fault, he gave a remedy for both, so that mortal generation might be changed by the regeneration of baptism, and the teaching of piety might shut out the teaching of impiety. It is not, then, without any sinning on our part that death has reigned in us; just as, on the other hand, life will not reign in us while we are idle and do nothing. But the beginning of life is indeed given by Christ, not to the unwilling but to believers, and one arrives at the perfection of life by the perfection of the virtues, just as formerly one arrived at death by the likeness of transgression and by the filling up of vices. And although the apostle Paul, as a prudent steward of the word of God, wished these things to be hidden and covered over in his Letters, nevertheless he did insert it and did not keep silent about it in the place where he says: "But death reigned from Adam until Moses over those who sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam." Do you see how Paul excuses no one from sin? But he also indicates the kind of sin, placing in each one the likeness of the transgression of Adam — although he did not think it safe to declare more openly where, when, or in what manner this likeness of transgression was committed by each one. But he who has been trained in the law of the Lord knows how to understand a dark saying, and the words of the wise, and their riddles. And so for this reason he speaks also more secretly about the salvation which is in Christ; and when he had said, "For as in Adam all die," he did not say, "so also in Christ all" are made alive, but "shall be made alive"; and again, when he had said, "For as by the sin of one death reigned through one, so also through the justification of one," he did not say, life reigns, but "life shall reign through the one, Jesus Christ." For he knows, as I have said, that it is written that "one faithful in spirit conceals matters"; and likewise elsewhere: "How great is the multitude of your sweetness, O 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 be brought about unto the justification of life in all men, and when this blessedness will reach all: learn it from the words of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, in which he says to his disciples: "Have you heard all these things? They say to him: Yes, Lord. He says to them: Blessed are you, if you do them." Then, therefore, shall we be blessed, when we are able not only to hear and understand the word of God, but also to do it. For although it is promised that one is at some time to come out of the prison, yet it is indicated that one cannot come out from there unless each one pays back even the last farthing. But if even a farthing — which is the penalty of the smallest sin — is not remitted unless it be paid off in prison and through punishments, how shall anyone grow slack in the hope of impunity, or think that the gift of grace is a license for sinning? Therefore from one man, Adam, sin began to reign in this world, and it reigned over those who followed the likeness of Adam's transgression; and for that reason "the judgment came from one unto condemnation"; and again, through one, our Lord Jesus Christ, grace began to reign through righteousness — which will also reign in all who obey him and keep his words, and through these come from many trespasses to the justification of life.
[§3] "For if by one man's transgression death reigned through one, much more shall they who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one Jesus Christ." If the gift were as the transgression is, the Apostle would surely have said that just as by one man's transgression death reigned through one, so also through one man's righteousness life shall reign through the one Jesus Christ. But as it is he says that "death" indeed "reigned by one man's transgression through one." Yet those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness — not only does death no longer reign in them (which of itself is assuredly no small grace), but two other goods besides are conferred upon them: one, that in place of death Christ Jesus reigns in them as life; the other, that they themselves also shall reign through the one Jesus Christ. Since therefore these necessary goods come upon them — namely, that they escape the reign of death, and that in place of death life reigns in them, indeed that they themselves also reign in life through the one Jesus Christ — it is plain how "the transgression is not as the gift is," and how it can be said: "Much more shall the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abound unto many"; and that other saying: "But the grace is from many transgressions unto justification"; and likewise what he says in the present passage: "Much more shall they who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one Jesus Christ" our Lord. Now in saying, "By one man's transgression death reigned through one," he shows that it is through transgression that a kingdom is given to death, and that death cannot reign in anyone unless it receive the right of its kingdom from transgression. From which it seems to be judged that, although the soul was created free by God, it reduces itself into servitude through transgression, and hands over to death, as it were, the bonds of its own immortality which it had received from its Creator. "For the soul that sins, it shall die." The soul itself, in short, cries out through the Prophet, saying: "You have brought me down into the dust of death." Which surely could not have befallen it except from transgression. Whence it plainly appears that through transgression it has written out its own bonds with death, so that, having lost the freedom of immortality, it should take up the yoke of sin and the reign of death. The Apostle therefore, wishing to show how much greater are the things the soul receives through Christ than what it had lost through Adam, repeats these expressions, so as to say, "Much more," and, "the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness," and, "they shall reign through the one Jesus Christ." All of which assuredly declare that the gifts are far more abundant than the losses. But you will ask: these whom he says shall reign in life through Jesus Christ — over whom shall they reign? It seems to me that, just as he showed the reign of death to have been over those whom it made liable to itself by their sinning, so also he shows that the kingdom of those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, and who are said to be about to reign through the one Jesus Christ, will be over those who become subject to them in the instruction of the kingdom of God, and, so to speak, who have been found capable of the wisdom and righteousness and life that is in them and through which they reign. Whence it seems to me not idly that the Apostle, who in other places had said that "death passed upon all men," and again, "the grace of God abounded unto many," and again, "the grace is from many transgressions unto justification," has here set down neither "all" nor "many" nor "the more part," knowing that the sum of this blessedness pertains to few, "who, receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life through the one Jesus Christ." And here the kingdom of death itself is described, that death 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 shall no longer reign. But if it does not reign, it is certain that neither will there any longer be transgression, in which alone the reign of death consists; then without doubt it will be said to it: "Where, O death, is your sting?" — since indeed, as the Apostle himself says, "the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law." It remains, then, that the law too will not exist at that time, since it is called the very strength of sin, so that when the strength of sin is taken away, the reign of death may deservedly be abolished as well. But let these things be said now by way of digression, for they will be examined more fittingly in their own places. Yet I should like to inquire — since we have said that death held its kingdom up to the coming of Christ, who is life, and since the Apostle says that Christ came not only to destroy death but also to destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil — who reigns in this middle time, that is, before that comes to pass which is written: "Then the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God the Father." For if we say what seems to follow, that life reigns now that death has been destroyed, it can be objected to us: How then is sin committed? And it is manifest that death reigns through sin. But if we say that Christ, that is life, reigns in some and death in others, whom or where shall we find those in whom the reign of life is such that the reign of death has no power in them, that is, who are utterly without sin? These things seem to me to pertain rather to the future kingdom, and to be fulfilled there, where it is said that "God may 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." The present time, however, I should call one that seems to be not so much of kingdom as of warfare — a warfare through which the future kingdom is sought; although even in this very time of warfare, because already in some part the reign of death is being broken and gradually destroyed, which formerly had been extended over all men, Christ is said to reign, according to what is written: "For he must reign, until he put all his enemies under his feet"; and again elsewhere he says: "But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him." Whence it appears that in saying, "For he must reign," he has put this for "prepare the kingdom." For it is certain that first there must be fighting, and the strong man must be bound, and only so are his vessels to be plundered. And therefore the Savior himself also says: "I came not to send peace, but a sword." And the fighting must be carried on by those who wish to reign in life through Jesus Christ for just so long, until "the last enemy, death, be destroyed." But concerning the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness it must also be known that to that kingdom which we said is prepared through warfare no one comes who has obtained one grace only, that is, who has been pleasing in some one work; but an abundance of grace is required of him, according to him who says: "But I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God with me." He prays for like things also for those whom he instructs, when he says: "Grace and peace be multiplied to you." Grace therefore is multiplied and abounds if our speech is always seasoned with the salt of 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. Similarly is it to be understood also of the gift of righteousness. For he who is justified by Christ ought to do nothing without righteousness, according to him who says: "Blessed are they who keep judgment, and do righteousness at all times"; and according to what Wisdom declares, saying that "even if one be perfect among the sons of men, if the righteousness that is from God be not with him, he shall be reckoned as nothing." And in this way those who have had the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.
[§4] "Therefore, as through the transgression of one man it came upon all men unto condemnation, so also through the righteousness of one it comes upon all men unto justification of life." We have already said above that through Adam's transgression a kind of entrance was, as it were, opened, through which either sin, or the death of sin, or condemnation might come upon all men. Christ, on the contrary, therefore opened an entrance of justification, through which life might come in to men, and for this reason he said of himself: "I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he shall be saved." But enough has already been said about these matters above. This, however, must be observed: that he did not say, "As it came upon all men unto condemnation" of death, but only "unto condemnation," namely so that in all respects he might prove the gift to be far more abundant than the transgression. But we must see in what way, or what sort of condemnation, has come upon all men. And perhaps it can suffice, according to the simple exposition, that we say the condemnation of the transgression is this common death, which comes to all and will come, even if they are seen to be righteous. But if perhaps someone raises the objection of Enoch and Elijah, who were translated so that they should not see death, the case is safeguarded in this way: that what is said of all is not straightway shown to be false, if some dispensation of God has been made in the case of one man or two. But this too someone will fittingly, as I think, bring forward in this place: that when Adam had transgressed, 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 transgression, which without doubt has come upon all men. For all have been placed in this place of humiliation and in the valley of weeping; whether because all who are born from him were in Adam's loins, and were cast out together with him; or whether in some other unutterable manner known to God alone each one is seen to have been thrust out of paradise and to have received the condemnation.
[§5] "For as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one many shall be made righteous." It can indeed be the case that, according to what we have observed above, Paul, wishing to veil the more secret mysteries, puts "many" where elsewhere he had said "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 "shall be made righteous," he should seem, by the security of such a promise, to unnerve the souls of those for whom it is expedient to be under fear. And therefore we, preserving the counsel of a faithful and prudent steward in the word of God, ought rather to give an account of this: 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 to the understanding, according to that which the Lord says in the Gospel: "For many shall come from the East and the West, and shall recline with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God," and he did not say, All shall come. But we must show how sinners are seen to be many and not all, since the same Apostle says that "all have sinned." It is one thing to sin, another to be a sinner. He is called a sinner who by transgressing in many things has already come into the habit, and, so to speak, into the eager pursuit of sinning; just as, on the contrary, he is not called righteous who has once or twice done something of righteousness, but he who by always acting justly holds righteousness in practice and habit. For if someone is unjust in almost all other things, but once or twice has done some just work, he indeed will be said to have acted justly in that work in which he held to righteousness, yet he will not on this account be called righteous. So too a righteous man will be said indeed to have sinned if at some time he has committed something that is not lawful, yet he will not on this account be called a sinner, since he does not hold the practice and habit of sinning: just as that man 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 even this seems to belong to medicine; but he is called a physician who has the practice, and the pursuit, and the discipline of healing. From all which I think it has been sufficiently shown that it is one thing to sin, another to be a sinner. For it can be that all have sinned, even if they have been holy, because "no one is clean from filth, not even if his life has been of 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; rather, many. In like manner also the righteous will be reckoned many, not all, even if all do some work of righteousness. And the Apostle well preserves also the reckoning of the tenses. For when he referred the many being made sinners to the past, he transferred the many being made righteous to the future time, knowing without doubt that with the advance of the evangelical preaching the multitude of the righteous would increase greater. But that there were also 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 speaks here of many righteous in one sense, and the Apostle has put it in another. For the Savior, looking at the number of the apostles, said that the righteous and the prophets were many in comparison with them; but in the present passage 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 that observation which we set forth above concerning the one who sins and the sinner. But 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 even to call himself a sinner, we shall say that it is one thing for someone to be designated a sinner from the person of Scripture, or of a prophet, or of the Lord, and another for a righteous man to become his own accuser and to humble himself that he may be exalted by God; although Paul also, in that he says that he persecuted the Church of God and assailed it, and dragged off men and women and cast them into chains — although he did these things in ignorance, and obtained mercy — nevertheless, when he was doing these things, he may confess that not undeservedly perhaps he ought to have been called a sinner. But that the reason for this distinction which we have given between the one who sins and being a sinner may shine forth still more evidently, look at Cain, who, though he is manifestly a sinner, nevertheless did something right: on account of which the Lord said to him, "If you offer rightly." And Pharaoh, when he says, "The Lord is just; but I and my people are impious," did something just, but he is not on this account called just. And you will find many things of this sort in the divine Scriptures, from which you may perceive both that a righteous man has sinned in something, and that a sinner has done something of righteousness: nor yet will you find either the righteous man called a sinner because he has sinned in something, or the sinner called righteous because he has done something just. But let not even this escape the attentive hearer, that where he says "the disobedience of one," he adds also "man," "through whom many were made sinners." But where he puts "the obedience of one," he does not add "man," "through whom many shall be made righteous." For here he through whom they are made righteous is without doubt righteousness itself, just as the same Apostle also says of Christ: "Who has been made for us righteousness from God." Adam therefore gave to sinners a pattern through disobedience; but 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 unto which you were delivered." For on this account he himself also "was made obedient unto death," so that those who follow the example of his obedience may be made righteous by righteousness itself, just as those following the pattern of disobedience were made sinners.
[§6] "But the law entered in secretly, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, so also grace might reign through justice unto life eternal, through Jesus Christ our Lord." If indeed no one had sinned before the law was given through Moses, Marcion and the other heretics, wishing to accuse the law, would seem to seize an occasion from these words of the Apostle, as though this had been the reason for the law's being given, namely that sin, which had not existed before the law, might abound. But I do not know what time they can find that was empty of sins before the law. When Cain was killing Abel, and defiling the earth with a brother's blood, so that it was said to him, "Cursed is the earth in thy work, which hath opened its mouth to receive the blood of thy brother," was sin not abounding? Plainly it was abounding — and that when men themselves did not yet abound. Or then, when Lamech was saying: "I have slain a man to the wounding of myself, and a young man to my own bruising? And whereas vengeance was taken sevenfold for Cain, for Lamech it shall be seventy times sevenfold"? But in the times of Noe the offence abounded so greatly that, it says, "the Lord seeing that the wickednesses of men were multiplied upon the earth, and that every man diligently set his heart upon malice all the days of his life, the Lord reconsidered that he had made man upon the earth, and he repented in his heart, and said: I will destroy man whom I have made from the face of the earth, from man even to beast, and from the creeping things even to the birds of the air, because it repenteth me that I have made them." And again, when it is said: "The earth was corrupted before the Lord, and the earth was filled with iniquities. And God saw the earth, and it was exceedingly corrupted, because all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth." Who then is so stupid as to deny that in all these things sin abounded? Or surely when it is said by God concerning the Sodomites: "I have come down that I might see whether according to the cry of the Sodomites their iniquities are being brought to completion"; or when they stood round about the house of Lot, contriving the crime of their shamelessness even against angels? Or perhaps sin was not abounding then, when Pharao was afflicting the sons of Israel with mud and brick, and commanding their newborn to be killed in the river? And certainly the law of Moses had not yet entered in when so great a plague of sins was being spread abroad over the earth. From which it is gathered that the heretics whom we have mentioned above, or any others who along with them accept these things as said about the law of Moses, have not been able to touch even lightly upon the apostolic meaning. Rather, therefore, in this passage it ought to be understood — as we have already often said — that there is a law of nature which is "written not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart; not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God": which law was so inscribed by him who created man from the beginning upon the governing part of his heart, that at the fitting time, when the pages themselves have grown up with the mind, or rather, as the Scripture named it, when the fleshly tablets of the heart have begun to be opened by the increase of age, it begins to be diffused through the inward parts of the conscience, and to fill the senses with reasonings. Then, therefore, 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 "a law placed in the members," "resisting the law of the mind." — This law of the members, then, the Apostle seems now to have set down in this passage, which he says entered in secretly that sin might abound. For the very word which he used seems to me most fully to indicate these things which we are saying. For it is one thing to enter in, another to enter in secretly; just as it is one thing to lead, and another to lead away by stealth; one thing to draw, and another to withdraw. For "to enter in secretly" indicates this: when, another having entered, under cover of that one another enters. In which the reasoning we have expounded above evidently 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 leading man captive, bent toward lust and pleasures, makes sin abound in him. Thus, therefore, "the law entered in secretly, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded," he says, "grace did more abound." As we have taught in what precedes, where he makes a comparison of each single one of the adverse things which seem to have come about from Adam's transgression, and shows that far greater are the things which have been brought forward through the grace of Christ: so also in the present passage, when he had said that sin abounded, he used a most worthy word by which he might overcome the abundance and set down a super-abundance. But the grace of Christ super-abounded in this, that it not only absolved man from past sins, but also fortified him against those to come. Since indeed he shows two kingdoms, as it were, in man: one by which sin reigned unto death; another by which grace may reign through justice unto life. Grace, therefore, it is which cast out and expelled sin from its own kingdom, that is, from our members, and with it death also necessarily went out together and was expelled, so that at last grace might both claim for itself a kingdom in us through justice, and where death had been, there eternal life might stand fast. And this is what the same Apostle says elsewhere: "Let not sin therefore now reign in your mortal body"; and the same elsewhere: "For as you have yielded your members as weapons of iniquity unto sin, so now yield your members as weapons of justice unto God." There is therefore a great super-abundance from this, that where sin was and death, there now is grace, and justice, and life eternal. And all these things are indeed above the rest through our Lord Jesus Christ. But it may be that, just as he said that all these good things exist through our Lord Jesus Christ, so also he wished those evil things to be understood as having existed through the devil, but was silent about the name of their author, so that he might designate the super-abundance of grace in all things. For just as Christ is indeed one in substance, but is designated by many powers and operations (for he himself is understood to be grace, as also justice, peace, life, as truth, as the Word), so perhaps the devil also can often be understood under diverse significations. For the sin which is said to reign is to be thought to be he himself; and death is to be believed to be he himself, of whom it is said, "the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed." But perdition too is understood to be he himself, according to that which was said by the prophet: "Thou art become perdition, and thou shalt not subsist unto eternal time." But also as to what the Apostle says, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body," I think that it was said rather about him. For he is the author of sin, and of death, and of perdition; and consequently from the things invented the inventor is named. It cannot therefore come about that the soul should ever be without a king; but this must be provided for, that it have Christ as king, whose yoke is sweet and burden light; and not the devil, whose kingdom is heavy. For it is iniquity that sits upon a talent of lead. But where Christ reigns, there grace and justice super-abound unto life eternal.
[§7] "What then shall we say? Shall we remain in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. For we who are dead to sin, how shall we still live in it?" Since he had said above that "where sin abounded, grace did more abound," he now sets before himself the question arising from this: that if the abundance of sin gives birth to the superabundance of grace, then one ought to sin, so that grace may abound the more. But he shows the swift resolution of the question when he says, "God forbid"; and immediately he adds the reason, saying that those in whom grace has abounded are dead to sin. Now it is certain that one who is dead to sin cannot be a sinner. Therefore he who is dead to sin will not be able to remain in sin. But that these things may become clearer, let us inquire what it is to live to sin, and what it is to die to sin. Just as he is said to live to God who lives according to the will of God, so also he is said to live to sin who lives according to the will of sin — as the Apostle himself indicates when he says: "Let not sin therefore 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. But if to do the desires of sin is to live to sin, then not to do the desires of sin, and not to obey its will, this is to die to sin — which sin, nevertheless, the Apostle says has its seat, as it were, and the throne of its kingdom established in our body. For that part of our substance is more familiar to it, and there is a certain friendly fellowship with the pleasures of the flesh, from which, taking occasions of natural incitement, by a small turning aside it bends the order of nature into the precipice of death. But that what we are saying 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 anyone exceeds these at the persuasion of sin, then the flesh demands not the food and drink that suffices nature, but luxury and drunkenness. In like manner too there is in the flesh a natural incitement by which it seeks union with a woman for the sake of restoring the succession of the race; but if from this occasion, at the persuasion of sin, one turns aside from the law, and the natural motions of desire are stirred up to unlawful things, then he lives to sin who in each of these obeys not the law of God, but the persuasions of sin. If therefore anyone, admonished by the death of Christ, who "died for the ungodly," repents in all these things, and drives out sin like a most wicked king reigning in his own flesh, and makes himself a stranger to its desires and its commands, this man is truly said to be dead to sin through the death of Christ. And here I think that "sin" names the very author of sin. If therefore anyone dies to sin, it is certain that he dies through repentance. How then shall anyone remain in sin that grace may abound, when grace abounds from the very fact that one dies to sin? For if we remain, as is proposed, in sin, it is certain that we do not die, but live to sin; and to those living to sin, grace cannot abound. It is indeed worth inquiring whether grace superabounds only in those men in whom sin at some time abounded; and whether grace superabounds in no one except in him in whom sin abounded; or whether grace can also superabound or abound in some in whom there never will be, or has been, sin. And if anyone considers what the Apostle says, that "Christ made peace through his blood not only for the things that are on earth, but also for those that are in heaven"; and that other saying, "That apart from God he might taste death for all," he will suppose that there too there was likewise some abundance of sin, so that nonetheless there might also come to be a superabundance of grace. But if you attend to what the earlier reading recalled, where sin is said to have entered into this world through one man, and death through sin, and so to have passed upon all, you will say that from that beginning these matters also proceed which we now have in hand, so that he seems to be treating only of those things which the Apostle set forth at the beginning — that is, of those things which pertain to men alone. It should certainly be observed with what weighed speech the Apostle spoke, so as to say, "Shall we remain in sin?" For to remain is not to cease from what has been begun. And if anyone does this, it is certain that he has not even received the beginning of conversion. But this sometimes happens, that a man does not indeed remain in sin, but when he has ceased, he returns again to his vomit, and becomes most wretched, so that after the kingdom of sin and of death has been driven from him, and the kingdom of life and righteousness has been received, he again submits himself to the dominion of sin and of death. And these are what the Apostle calls shipwrecks of the faith. Nevertheless, although a man may remain in sin, although he may continue under the kingdom and power of death, yet I do not think that this kingdom of death is eternal in the way that the kingdom of life and righteousness is — especially since I hear from the Apostle that death, the last enemy, is to be destroyed. And in truth, if the same eternity be assigned to death as belongs to life, then death will no longer be contrary to life, but equal to it. For the eternal will not be contrary to the eternal, but the same. Now, however, it is certain that death is contrary to life; it is certain therefore that if life is eternal, death cannot be eternal — whence also the resurrection of the dead holds a necessary place. For when the death of the soul, which is the last enemy, shall have been destroyed, then also this common death, which we have said is as it were the shadow of that one, will necessarily be abolished; and then consequently place will be given to the resurrection of the dead, when the kingdom of death will be destroyed together with death itself. But let us not wait for the time when this last enemy is destroyed — we who have been "once enlightened," and have tasted "the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come"; but let us remain in grace, and not wait to be renewed again after a fall "unto repentance, crucifying again to ourselves the Son of God, and holding him up to open shame"; but let the kingdom of righteousness in us become an eternal kingdom; and let us not flee back again into the kingdom of death, from which, once delivered, we have come to the kingdom of eternal life — so that "grace may reign through righteousness" in us "unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." What therefore he said, "We are dead to sin," is that which he says elsewhere, that we have been made conformed to the death of Christ, who "died once to sin." But when he says "once," he signifies "wholly." For Christ died wholly to sin, he "who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." "Or are you ignorant that all we who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? For we were buried together with him through baptism into death; that as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life." Observe more carefully the order of the words and their sequence.
For he compares the death which is through Adam with the life which is through Christ; and he says: "Not as the offense, so also is the gift;" and again after these things he says that the law entered in that sin might abound; but where sin abounded, grace superabounded; and in these words he resolves what seemed to be contrary, and says: "For we who are dead to sin, how shall we yet live in it?" Now therefore, wishing to show by the very facts what it is to be dead to sin, he says: "Or are you ignorant that whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus, have been baptized in his death? For we have been buried together with him through baptism into death:" teaching by these words that if anyone has first died to sin, he is of necessity buried together with Christ in baptism; but if anyone does not first die to sin, he cannot be buried with Christ. For no one alive is ever buried. And if he is not buried together with Christ, neither is he lawfully baptized. But concerning the account of baptism, when we were expounding the Gospel according to John, where we came to that passage in which John says of Jesus: "He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit;" and likewise where the Savior himself says: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," we spoke according to our own powers, so far as we were able to attain — nay rather, so far as the Lord granted — where also we attempted to open up more deeply the force of that very word by which it is said: "Unless a man be born again." For what we Latins render "again" (denuo), the Greeks call ἄνωθεν (anōthen), which word signifies both "again" and "from above." In this passage, therefore, since he who is baptized by Jesus is baptized in the Holy Spirit, it is not said "again" in such a way as that, but rather it is fitting that it be understood "from above": for we say "again" when the same things that have been done are repeated; but here the same nativity is not repeated or reiterated, but rather, this earthly one being set aside, a new nativity is received from above; and therefore we should more rightly read in the Gospel: "If anyone has not been born from above, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God:" for this is to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And to this reasoning, that baptism may be confirmed to be from above, there will not undeservedly be joined to the Holy Spirit also "the waters that are above the heavens, and they praise the name of the Lord." And although according to the type handed down to the Churches we have all been baptized in these visible waters and in visible chrism, nevertheless he who is dead to sin, and is truly baptized into the death of Christ, and is buried together with him through baptism into death, he is truly baptized in the Holy Spirit and in the water from above. And consider yet more diligently the consequence of the mystical order. You must first die to sin, that you may be able to be buried with Christ. For burial is owed to one who is dead. For if you still live to sin, you cannot be buried together with Christ, nor be laid in his new sepulcher, because your old man lives, and cannot walk in newness of life. For on this account it was the Holy Spirit's care to hand down through the Scriptures both that the sepulcher was new in which Jesus was buried, and that he was wrapped in a clean linen cloth: so that everyone who wishes to be buried together with Christ through baptism may know that nothing of oldness is to be brought to the new sepulcher, nothing of uncleanness to the clean linen. This, then, is that blessed death of which the Apostle speaks, that "we always carry about the death of Jesus Christ in our body;" and again: "I die daily." But also that saying of his, "All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or this world, or life, or death" — he reckons among these that death by which we die to sin and are buried together with Christ. But someone may inquire in these passages why the Apostle, speaking of our baptism and of Jesus, said: "We have been buried together with him through baptism into death;" and likewise elsewhere: "If we die together with him, we shall also live together with him;" and likewise: "If we suffer together, we shall also reign together;" and nowhere did he say: We have been baptized together with Christ; since surely, just as death is compared with death, and life with life, so also baptism would seem to have had to be compared with baptism. But see how great caution there is in the Apostle's writings; for he says: "Whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus." Our baptism, therefore, he says is in Christ Jesus. But Christ himself is reported to have been baptized by John, not with that baptism which is in Christ, but with that which is in the law. For so he himself says to John: "Suffer it now: for so it becomes us to fulfill all justice." In which he shows that the baptism of John was the completion of the old things, not the beginning of the new. Finally it is related in the Acts of the Apostles that certain of the disciples who had been baptized with the baptism of John were, by the judgment of the apostles, rebaptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. "Whoever," therefore, "of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus, have been baptized in his death." You may perhaps inquire this also: that since the Lord himself said to the disciples that they should baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, why here the Apostle took up in baptism the name of Christ alone, saying: "Whoever of us have been baptized in Christ," since surely no baptism is held to be lawful except under the name of the Trinity. But consider the prudence of Paul, since indeed in the present passage he desired to discuss not so much the account of baptism as the death of Christ, to the likeness of which he would persuade us also that we ought to die to sin and be buried together with Christ. And it was surely not fitting that, where he was speaking of death, he should name either the Father or the Holy Spirit. For "the Word was made flesh," and rightly, where there is flesh, there death is treated of. Nor was it fitting that he should say: "Whoever of us have been baptized" in the name of the Father, or in the name of the Holy Spirit, "have been baptized in his death." Whence from this passage the Apostle's practice is to be observed in other places also, namely that he does not always, when he takes up something from the Scriptures, take up the whole text of the words as it stands in its own place; but only those things which the argument of the present case requires, as also in the present discourse, since he desired to teach concerning the death of Christ, it sufficed him to say: "Whoever of us have been baptized in Christ, have been baptized in his death." But to me the Apostle seems not even idly to have prefaced in this chapter what he says: "Or do you not know?" By which he shows that at that time, that is, in the times of the apostles, not — as we see done now — was only the type of the mysteries handed down to those who were baptized, but their power and rational account as well, and this as to those who knew and had been taught that they who are baptized are baptized into the death of Christ, and are buried together with him through baptism into death; and that, just 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 is what the Apostle writes. Perhaps in the present passage this too may still be asked: if we have died to sin, and have been buried together with Christ, and have risen again with him, it will seem necessary, according to this pattern, to show how we too have spent three days and three nights buried with him in the heart of the earth. And consider whether we may be able to spend three days buried together with Christ when we have begun to have the full knowledge of the Trinity: for the Father is light, and in his light, which is the Son, we see the light of the Holy Spirit. And we spend three nights also when we destroy the father of darkness and ignorance together with the lie that was born of him, and "he is a liar, as also is his father, and when he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own." But in the third place also we destroy the spirit of error, which inspires the false prophets to say, "Thus says the Lord," whom the Lord has not sent. We destroy these things and trample them down, if we have been buried together with Christ, according also to that which he himself says: "Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy." And these several things are so contrary to the Trinity as night is to day, and darkness to light, and falsehood to truth — these things, for the present, are what have been able to occur to us in this passage. But if anyone should have a better understanding, let him not be reluctant to set these aside and adopt those. Nevertheless, this is what is gathered from these words of the Apostle by the higher understanding: that just as no living person can be buried with a dead one, so no one who still lives to sin can be buried together in baptism with Christ, who died to sin; and therefore those who hasten to baptism ought first to take care of this, that they die beforehand to sin, and so may be able to be buried together with Christ through baptism, so that they too may say: "Always carrying about the death of Jesus Christ in our body, that the life of Jesus Christ also may be made manifest in our mortal flesh." But how the life of Jesus Christ is made manifest in the body, Paul himself shows when he says: "Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me." This is the same thing that the apostle John writes in his Epistle, when he says: "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God." In which, assuredly, it is not the one who has pronounced these syllables and uttered them in a common confession who will be seen to be moved by the Spirit of God, but the one who has so shaped his life, and so brought forth the fruits of work, that he has shown by the very religious quality of his deeds and thoughts that Christ has come in the flesh, and has died to sin, and lives to God. Now let us see, after we have opened up, so far as our strength allows, what it is to be buried together with Christ, this also which he says: "That as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life." If we have been buried together with Christ, according to what we have said above — that is, according as we have died to sin — then consequently, when Christ rises from the dead, we too shall rise together with him, and when he ascends to the heavens, we shall ascend together with him, and when 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 up 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 to sin and been buried together with Christ, and all who see our good works glorify our Father who is in heaven, shall deservedly be said to have risen together with Christ through the glory of the Father, so that we may walk in newness of life. And newness of life is where we have put off "the old man with his deeds," and have put on "the new, who is created according to God," and "who is renewed in the knowledge" of God, "according to the image of him who created him." And do not suppose that the renewal of life, which is said to have been done once, is sufficient; but always, and daily, if it may be so said, that very newness must be renewed. For thus the Apostle says: "For even if our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward is renewed from day to day." For just as the old man always grows old, and from day to day becomes older, so also this new man is always renewed, and there is never a time when his renewal does not increase. Look, finally, at those who advance in faith and shine forth daily in the virtues, how they always add better things to good works, and seek out more honorable deeds than the honorable ones they have done, how they grow rich in understanding, in knowledge and wisdom, and how the things that before seemed less plain to the understanding they afterwards perceive as open and clear. And consider whether by these very facts you would not say that such a man is daily renewed; just as, on the contrary, as we have said, if anyone has begun to become old, he will advance for the worse, and will daily be found older and worse than himself. Let us therefore walk in newness of life, showing ourselves daily new to him who raised us up with Christ, and, so to speak, more beautiful, gathering the comeliness of our countenance in Christ as in a mirror, and beholding in him the glory of the Lord, let us be transformed into the same image, since Christ, rising from the dead, ascended from earthly lowliness to the glory of the Father's majesty. But further, as to what he said, "let us walk in newness of life," consider whether perhaps it points to this mystery: that so long as a person 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 these advances come at some time to that place where they are to stand. Thus, in short, to Stephen, the first martyr, who had already come to the degree of perfection, Jesus Christ appeared standing at the right hand of the Power; and to Moses, who likewise, after many advances, had arrived at perfection, the Lord says: "But do you stand here with me." And Paul too, when he recognized in himself the consummation of perfection, says: "I have finished my course." But to those who think themselves perfect, and yet are not, he says: "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." To the imperfect, however, and to those who are still at the beginnings, it is said that they should walk after the Lord their God; and of others it is said: "I am unwilling to send them away fasting, lest perhaps they faint on the way."
[§9] "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be [planted together in the likeness] of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified together with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, so 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, lest he should seem to have given occasion for sinning in what he said: "But where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more." For it is on this account that he says both that we are dead to sin, and that whoever of us have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death; and now he writes that we have been planted together into 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 he shows in what way this can come about, saying that our old man must 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, as it were, a destruction when we receive within ourselves the faith of Christ's cross, through which the body of sin is so destroyed that our members, which used to serve sin, no longer serve it, but God. But now, taking up the discussion again, let us see what it is to be planted together in the likeness of Christ's death — in which phrase he presents Christ's death as, so to speak, the planting of some tree, with which he wishes us to be planted together, so that our root also, receiving from the sap of his root, may put forth branches of righteousness and bear the fruits of life. But if you wish to learn from the Scriptures what this plant is with which we ought to be planted together, and of what kind the tree is, hear what is written concerning Wisdom: "She is," he says, "a tree of life to all who hope in her; and those who trust in her are as in the Lord." Christ therefore, the power of God and the wisdom of God, is himself the tree of life, with which we ought to be planted together; and by a certain new and lovable gift of God his death becomes for us a tree of life. And the Apostle rightly, knowing that in the present passage he is treating not of this common death but of the death of sin, did not say, "For if we have been planted together" with his death, but "with the likeness of his death." For Christ so died once to sin that he committed no sin at all, nor was guile found in his mouth. And this can in no way be found in its entirety in any other human being. For "no one is clean from sin, not even if his life has been of a single day." Therefore, by that very death by which Jesus died to sin, so that he committed no sin at all, we cannot die in such a way that we know sin not at all; yet we can have the likeness of it, so that by imitating him and following his footsteps we may keep ourselves from sin. This, then, is what human nature is able to receive: that it should come to be in the likeness of his death, while by imitating him it does not sin. For to be altogether and entirely ignorant of sin belongs to Christ alone. But certain of the heretics, not understanding this, have tried to assert from this passage 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 to bear the weight of testimonies from the other sayings either of the Apostle or of the Gospels, where his death, and not a likeness of death, is written of plainly, since we can say to them: If it was a likeness of death, and not a true death, then there was a likeness of resurrection also, 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 remains, then, that in the matter of our being saved also, we have seemed to be saved but have not truly been saved. Wherefore, since these things are so absurd that they need no proofs, let us turn to the explanation of what follows. He wishes us, therefore, to be planted together with the likeness of his death, by which he died once to sin, so that we may also be planted together with his resurrection — for "planted together" must be supplied with both. And see how fittingly 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 Christ's death in the winter of this age and of the present life, we shall also be found, when the spring to come arrives, bringing forth fruits of righteousness from his root; and if we have been planted together with him, it is necessary that the Father, the husbandman, prune us as branches of the true vine, that we may bear much fruit, as he himself also 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 will cut it off. But him who abides in me, he will prune, that he may bear much fruit." In this way, therefore, we have been planted together with the likeness of his death, so that we may also be planted together with the likeness of his resurrection. And what it is to be planted together with the likeness of his resurrection, the apostle John 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 also may be with me"; and again: "As I am in you, and you in me, that these also may be one in us." This he certainly says of those who in the present life have been planted together with the likeness of his death. And I think that this may fittingly be said also of that thief who hung on the cross together with Jesus; and through his confession, in which he said, "Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom," and through his rebuking of the other who blasphemed, he is seen by these things to have been planted together with the likeness of his death; but he was also planted together with his resurrection through this, that it is said to him, "Today you shall be with me in paradise." For worthy indeed was that plant of paradise, which was joined to the tree of life. Therefore, what the Apostle had said about being planted together with the likeness of Christ's death, he now takes up again under another figure, and says: "Because our old man was crucified together with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed." In many places, and often already, we have said what it is to be crucified together with Christ; and we have often treated of the old man; whence briefly in the present passage we call the old man the one who lived according to Adam, liable to transgression and to sin, and over whom the death of sin held dominion, of whom he who had the power of death held the bonds of sin: and since Christ, blotting these out with his blood, nailed them to his cross, we too, according to the old man who was liable to sin, ought to be crucified, "that the body of sin might be destroyed, and that we should no longer serve sin." And I think it must be observed that where the Apostle says that the "body" must be destroyed, he adds "of sin"; but where he does not speak of destroying, he says not "the body of sin," but that it is we ourselves who should not serve sin — so that he may show that if the body of sin has been destroyed, we no longer serve sin, to which of course we were in servitude so long as it had not been destroyed in us, and our members which are upon the earth had not been mortified.
But we must still go back and consider more carefully in what sense he said "the body of sin." Here a twofold understanding seems possible: either he called our body the body of sin, or he means that sin itself has some body of its own, which must be destroyed by those who ought no longer to serve sin. Since, then, both senses can be admitted in this passage, we shall set forth our view on each. For if we posit that sin has a body of its own, it will appear that, just as it was said of those who have been restored into the new man that "you are the body of Christ, and members in part," so also of those who have not yet crucified the old man it may be said that they are the body of sin and its members, of which body the head is the devil, just as Christ is head of the body of the Church, which has neither spot nor wrinkle. And the members of which this body of sin consists may be seen to be those which the Apostle above enumerated as members upon the earth, that is, fornication, uncleanness, shamelessness, avarice, contentions, wrath, deceits, quarrels, dissensions, heresies, envy, revellings, and the like: of all which members it may fittingly be said that the body of sin consists, and that this body is called the old man. And if anyone should destroy it through the cross of Christ, and be changed into the new man who is created according to God, he will no longer be said to serve sin — to which without doubt he does serve so long as he lies under any of those things which we have expounded above to be the members of sin. But if instead the Apostle is understood to have called this body of ours the body of sin, it will surely be taken according to that understanding by which David also says of himself, "I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me." But the Apostle himself too says in another place, "Who will free me from the body of this death?" and again he names our body "the body of humiliation." And of the Savior he says in a certain place that he came "in the likeness of the flesh of sin," that "from sin" he might condemn "sin in the flesh." In which he shows that our flesh is indeed flesh of sin, but Christ's flesh 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 the Son of the Highest. Thus, then, Paul, through the ineffable wisdom of God which was given to him, gazing upon some hidden and secret thing I know not what, calls our body "the body of sin," and "the body of death," and "the body of humiliation." But David also, knowing the heavenly secrets by the same Spirit, said concerning the body: "And you have led me down into the dust of death"; and again: "Our soul has been humbled in the dust." Jeremiah likewise, aware of a similar mystery through the Spirit of God, says in his Lamentations that all men are prisoners of the earth — that is, on account of the body — and he says: "That he might 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." The body of sin, therefore, is our body; since neither is Adam written to have known Eve his wife and to have begotten Cain except after the sin. Finally, in the law also a sacrifice is commanded to be offered for the little child that has been born, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons: of which one is for sin, and the other for a whole burnt offering. For what sin is this one young bird offered? Can a newly born infant already have sinned? And yet it has a sin for which a sacrifice is commanded to be offered, from which sin no one is said to be clean, not even if his life has been of a single day. Of this, therefore, David too must be believed to have spoken that which we mentioned above, that "in sins did my mother conceive me." For according to the historical narrative no sin of his mother is disclosed. For this reason the Church also received a tradition from the apostles, to give baptism even to little children. For those to whom the secrets of the divine mysteries were committed knew that there are in all people inborn defilements of sin, which must be washed away by water and the Spirit; on account of which the body itself is also named the body of sin — not (as some of those think who introduce the transmigration of souls into various bodies) for those things which the soul, placed in another body, has committed, but for this very thing, that it has come to be in a body of sin and a body of death and of humiliation; and, as he said, that "you have humbled our soul in the dust." These, meanwhile, are the things concerning the body of sin that could occur to us for the present. But which of the two expositions suits the apostolic sense, or whether neither does, let the one who reads judge. But as to the fact that in other places the Apostle says that we have already risen with Christ, and been raised up together with him, 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 be so also of his resurrection" — that is, what he elsewhere said had already happened, here he now says is future and to be hoped for — the reason is this, that a twofold resurrection is understood: one by which in mind and purpose and faith we rise with Christ from earthly things, so that we may think upon heavenly things and seek after those to come; the other, the general resurrection in the flesh which will be of all. Therefore the resurrection which is according to the mind and from faith already seems to be fulfilled in those who savor "the things that are above," "where Christ is at the right hand of God." But that general resurrection of the flesh which pertains to all is still to come: because the one is fulfilled at the Lord's first coming, the other at his second.
[§10] "But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with him, knowing that Christ rising from the dead dies no more, death shall 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 everything the Apostle has said above, he wished to show this: that if Christ died to sin, we too have died to sin along with him. And when he says, "we were baptized into his death," and, "we have been planted together in the likeness of his death," through all these things he shows that we have died with Christ to sin, from the fact that Christ indeed died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and to each one of the believers he granted out of his own death, as a kind of gift of faith, the death of sin itself — that is, to those who believe themselves to be dead with him and crucified and buried together with him, and through these things sin cannot work in them as in dead persons, and thus they are said to be dead to sin. Therefore, then, in the present passage the Apostle draws the conclusion of everything he had established above, and says: "But if we have died with Christ," namely through those things which we have shown above, "we believe that we shall also live together with him." He did not say: and we have lived together, as he said, "we have died"; but, "we shall live together," so as to show that death is at work in the present, but life in the future — namely, then "when Christ shall have been made manifest, who is our life hidden in God." Now "therefore," as Paul himself teaches, "death works in us." But even this death that works in us seems to me to have certain distinctions. For just as in Christ there was one time of death, of which it is said, "And crying out with a loud voice he expired," and another when he lay placed in the tomb with the door closed, and another indeed when, sought in the sepulcher, he was not found, because he had already risen — of which resurrection the visible beginning was granted to no one of humankind — so also in us who believe in him this threefold account of death is to be held. And first, indeed, the death of Christ must be shown in us by the confession of the voice, when "with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Second, in the mortification of the members which are upon the earth, when we now always carry about the mortification of Christ in our body; and this is what he says, that "death works in us." Third, when we now rise from the dead, and walk in newness of life. And to explain it more briefly and more 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 resurrection. Yet these distinctions in each of the believers, and the degrees of their progress, he alone can know and discern to whom alone the secrets of the heart lie open. But do you observe Paul's wisdom in writing: he who, writing to Timothy, said that "if we die together, we shall also live together"; and who, to those dying together with Christ, joined as something consequent and necessary that they should live together with him — here he added, "we believe," so as to show that although it is consequent and necessary for one who dies together to live together, nevertheless this is accomplished through the mediation of faith and of believing. Being certain, he says, and "knowing that Christ rising from the dead dies no more." For if he were to die again, then just as we have shown it to be consequent and necessary that those who die together with him shall also live together with him, so without doubt it would seem consequent that, if after resurrection and life he were to die again, those also who live together with him would die again together with him as he died. Therefore, for this reason the Apostle determines by an absolute pronouncement that Christ dies no more, so that those also who live together with him may be secure concerning the eternity of life. But after these things (that I too may 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 shall no longer have dominion over him." Did you dare to say this, O Paul, concerning Christ, "Death shall no longer have dominion over him," as though at some time it had had dominion? — over him 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 then say that death had dominion over him who not only laid down his soul by his will, but also took it up by his power? who alone among the dead was "free," and whom alone death could not hold? These things, I suppose, and things like them, will be raised against Paul by those who are held by a tender affection toward Jesus, and endure to hear nothing lowly, nothing unworthy concerning him. But we too, when we look to Paul, do not think there is anyone who could surpass him in love of Christ: whence neither is he to be thought to have spoken anything about him contrary to what is worthy of him. And therefore let us search out more subtly, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, the word of wisdom by which we may be able to perceive Paul's meaning — nay rather, the mind of Christ which is in him, according to what he himself professes: "But we have the mind of Christ." Someone, then, may say more concisely on these matters that here he speaks of this common and middle death by which "he died," as the same Apostle says, "according to the Scriptures," and that nothing seems absurd if he who had taken up the form of a servant endured the dominion of death, which without doubt has dominion over all who, placed in the flesh, are reckoned under the servile form. But this too lies close to this assertion: that for this reason this form of a servant, that is, our very flesh also, is sown in corruption, that it may rise in incorruption; and is sown in weakness, that it may rise in power; and is sown in dishonor, that it may rise in glory; and is sown an animal body, 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 concerning such flesh as is still in these vices of the passions, Paul himself says: "That flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God, neither shall corruption possess incorruption." But also as to the fact that elsewhere the same Apostle named the body a body "of death," he who asserts these things says that this is to be understood of this middle death, which has dominion over a body of this kind so long as it is animal and corruptible, and not yet changed through the glory of the resurrection, and made incorruptible out of corruptible, and glorious out of ignoble. But that which is very much contrary to this assertion (that is, that we have died with Christ, and have been buried together with him — which certainly can in no way be understood of this common death), he will attempt to explain in this manner: that just as in the foregoing, when we were expounding concerning the diversity of laws, we showed that the Apostle in one and the same place names now the natural law, now that of Moses, now also that of sin, and taught by adducing testimonies from other places as well that this is the usage of divine Scripture, so also in the present passage he may establish that by the Apostle there is named now the common death, now that of sin, now also the very author of death, who is likewise said to be the last enemy to be destroyed, now also the place of the underworld, in which the devil is said to hold the empire of death.
Here too, then, what he says — "Death shall no longer have dominion over him" — one will maintain was said of that death by which Christ is commonly believed to have died. Yet how sound this assertion may be, let the one who reads it test. But another, who by the power of the Spirit looks into the deeper sense of Paul in these matters, will say that the death spoken of here, over which it is said that it shall no longer have dominion over Christ, is to be understood as that last enemy himself, who was prefigured by that whale which had swallowed Jonah, concerning which it is written in Job: "But let him curse it who cursed that day, he who is to destroy the great whale" — into which death Christ entered as Jonah into the belly of the whale, that is, into that place which the Savior himself named the heart of the earth, in which he says that the Son of man, after the example of Jonah, would spend three days and three nights, in order that he might bring out those who were there held fast by death. For he had taken the form of a servant precisely for this, that he might be able to enter that very place where death held its kingdom, according to what the Prophet also 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?" And that this may be perceived still more plainly, we shall once more make use of a comparison of this sort. Let us suppose a just and noble king who wishes to wage war against some unjust tyrant in such a way that he may not seem to have conquered by a violent and bloody encounter, because those serving under the tyrant were his own, whom he desired not to destroy but to set free. Therefore, by a better plan, he assumes the appearance of those who were with the tyrant, and in outward form becomes in all respects like them, until, placed under the tyrant's dominion, he might persuade those who obeyed him to depart and return to the lawful kingdom; and might at the opportune moment bind the strong man himself, and strip off his powers and principalities, and tear away and carry off the captivity that was held by him. In this way, then, Christ also, by his own will indeed, "emptied himself" at that time, and "took the form of a servant," and endured the tyrant's dominion, "becoming obedient unto death": and by that death he destroyed him who had the empire of death, that is, the devil, that he might free those who were held by death. For here, when the strong man had been bound and triumphed over on his cross, he went on even into his house, into the house of death, into hell, and from there plundered his vessels, that is, he drew out the souls which he was holding. And this is what he himself was saying through riddles in the Gospel when he said: "Who can enter into the house of the strong man and plunder his vessels, unless he first bind the strong man?" First, then, he bound him on the cross, and so entered his house, that is, hell, and thence "ascending on high, he led captivity captive" — namely those who rose with him and entered the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem. Whence the Apostle rightly says in the present passage that "death shall no longer have dominion over him." For he will not again give himself over into the tyrant's dominion, nor will he again empty himself so as to take the form of a servant and become obedient unto death; lest once more, in the form of a servant — though placed there by will and not by necessity — he should nevertheless suffer the dominion of the tyrant and of death. Wherefore I marvel that certain people wish to assert, against this most evident judgment of Paul, that in the ages to come Christ must again suffer either the same things or things like them, so that those also may be able to be freed whom in the present life the medicine of his dispensation could not heal. For they say: "Can there be any age in the future in which neither anything good nor anything evil is done, but things stand benumbed and deep silences remain?" This, they assert, seems absurd. We shall grant, then, that something is done. "And where anything is done," they say, "it is necessary that something be done rightly and something also less rightly, and that in that very activity some make progress and become better, others worse. For freedom of choice will always remain to a rational nature; and just as it was possible even for him who, by reason of the splendor of his glory, was Lucifer, and who because of the light of knowledge rose in the morning, to be changed from his glory and to be made darkness because of the wickedness he took upon himself; and for him who was spotless from his birth, and dwelt with the cherubim, and moved about in the midst of the fiery stones, and was clothed with every ornament of the virtues, nor was there any tree of the virtues in the paradise of God that could be compared to him — and after these things iniquities were found in him, and he was cast down from heaven to earth: so it can happen that in whatever state a soul may be, and in whatever perfection of virtues, since virtue is changeable, it may incur a fall, so that just as it is inclined from vices to virtue, so also from virtues to vices. And if this is so, it will seem consistent to require a physician where there is sickness, since, according to the Savior's own word, 'those who are ill have need of a physician.'" Putting forward these things, then, and things like them, they judge that the same dispensations must be repeated by Christ in the ages to come. But to these things we shall reply briefly, as we are able. We do not deny that free choice always remains to a rational nature; but we assert that so great is the power of the cross of Christ, and of this death which he underwent at the end of the ages, that it suffices for the healing and remedy not only of the present and the future age, but even of the ages past, and not only for this human order of ours, but also for the heavenly powers and orders. For according to the judgment of Paul the Apostle himself, Christ made peace "through the blood of his cross" not only for "the things that are on earth," but also for "the things that are in the heavens." But what it is that in the ages to come will hold fast the freedom of choice, so that it does not fall again into sin, the Apostle teaches us in a brief word, saying: "Charity never falls." For charity is therefore said to be greater than both faith and hope, because it alone will be that through which it will no longer be possible to sin. For if the soul shall have ascended to that perfection, that it loves God with its whole heart and with its whole soul and with all its strength, and its neighbor as itself, where will there be room for sin? Accordingly, in the law too this is said to be the first commandment, and in the Gospels it is charity that is commanded above all else; and when to Peter the sum of things was handed over concerning the feeding of the sheep, and upon him as upon solid ground the Church was to be founded, the confession of no other virtue was required of him but of charity; and John, along with many things about charity, also says this, that "he who abides in charity abides in God." And therefore rightly will charity, which alone is greater than all things, hold every creature back from falling. Then God will be all in all.
To this degree of perfection had the apostle Paul ascended, and standing in it he said with confidence: "For who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus? Tribulation? or distress? or persecution? or famine? or nakedness? or peril? or the sword?" And again: "For I am certain that neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, nor angels, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." From all which it is plainly shown that, if all these things which the Apostle has enumerated cannot separate us from the love of God, once a man has ascended to that summit of perfection, much more will freedom of choice not be able to separate us from His love. For although this too is a power, and abides in our nature, nevertheless so great is the force of charity that it draws all things to itself, and joins and claims to itself all the virtues — especially since God first gave us the grounds of charity, "who spared not His only Son, but delivered Him up for us all," and "with Him has given us all things." Whence even he who was Lucifer, and rose in heaven, or he who was without spot from the day of his birth and was set among the cherubim, was able to fall before he had been bound by the bonds of charity toward the benefits of the Son of God; but after the charity of God has begun to be poured forth in the hearts of all through the Holy Spirit, that will be certain which the Apostle declared, that "charity never falls away." These things we have said, as best we could, concerning the questions raised in this place, so that it might shine forth more clearly how Christ died once to sin, and dies no more; and that in that He lives, He lives unto God. But to live unto God is to be understood in this way: that, when that is completed whereby, being placed in the form of God, He emptied Himself and took the form of a servant and was made obedient unto death, He abides again in the form of God, and equal to the Father. Whence also with good reason he adds in what follows: "So do you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord" — namely, that by the imitation of Christ we may die to sin, being made strangers to it, and live unto God by joining ourselves to Him and becoming one spirit with Him. Nor was it without cause that he said, "Reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin"; which stands better in the Greek: "Consider (think) yourselves to be dead unto sin." For the matter of which he speaks subsists rather in thought and in reason, since a death of this kind is to be held not in actual fact but in thought. For he who thinks or reckons within himself that he is dead does not sin. For example: if the desire of a woman draws me; if the charm of silver, or of gold, or the covetousness of an estate assails me, and I set in my heart that I am dead with Christ, and think upon that death, straightway the concupiscence is extinguished and the sin is put to flight. Or if, inflamed with hatred or anger, I am stirred to the slaying of my enemy — if I reckon myself to be dead with Christ, and set the 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 a man is found to die to sin and to live unto God. But this too, which he further added, "alive unto God in Christ Jesus," does not seem to me idle. For I think it is as though he had said: Alive unto God in wisdom, in peace, in justice, in sanctification — all of which Christ is. To live unto God in these things, then, is to live unto God in Christ Jesus. But if without justice, without peace, without sanctification and the other virtues no one lives unto God, it is certain that no one lives unto God except in Christ Jesus. Amen.