Origen, Commentary on Romans — Book 6
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 6
[§1] "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so that you should obey its desires; neither present your members as weapons of iniquity unto sin: but present yourselves to God, as those living from among the dead; and your members as weapons of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace." In the passages above he says: "As sin reigned in death." But now he did not say: Let not sin therefore reign in death; rather he says: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so that you should obey its desires" — teaching by this that sin has a certain seat and kingdom in the body. This is what he said elsewhere too: "The prudence of the flesh is an enemy to God"; and again: "The prudence of the flesh is death." But the Apostle also declares that all sins are works of the flesh, which he says are fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil concupiscence, shamelessness, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, quarrels, jealousy, rage, contentions, dissensions, heresies, envy, drunkennesses, carousings, and things like these. But if you ask how heresies too are numbered among the works of the flesh, you will find that they proceed from the sense of the flesh. For thus the Apostle says concerning a certain man: "Vainly," he says, "puffed up by the sense of his own flesh, and not holding the head." Now these things we have said so that the understanding might become clearer, how sin reigns in the body. For all those things which we enumerated above as works of the flesh are like a certain armed host soldiering under this king, sin, and obeying its law, which is inscribed in the members of the flesh. For it is certain that, from the fact that the flesh renders obedience to the desires of sin, "the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are opposed to one another." Yet notice this: that in showing that it is placed within our own power that sin should not reign in our mortal body, the Apostle gave a precept, saying: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so that you should obey its desires." For unless it were in our power that sin should not reign in us, he certainly would not have given a precept. How, then, is it possible that sin should not reign in our flesh? If we do what the same Apostle says: "Mortify your members which are upon the earth," and if we always carry about "the death of Christ in our body." For it is certain that, where the death of Christ is carried about, sin cannot reign. For so great is the power of the cross of Christ that, if it be set before the eyes and faithfully retained in the mind, so that the eye of the mind gazes intently upon the very death of Christ, no concupiscence, no lust, no rage, no envy can prevail; but at once, at its presence, that whole army of sin and of the flesh which we enumerated above is put to flight. Indeed sin itself does not even subsist, seeing that it has no substance anywhere except in deed and act. There is therefore in us both a concupiscence of sin, which has its kingdom in the flesh, and a concupiscence of the spirit, which has its kingdom in the mind, according to what we said above, that "the flesh lusts against the spirit, but the spirit against the flesh." When, therefore, we desire what is not lawful, or what is not fitting, or what is not expedient, it is the concupiscence of the flesh. But when our soul desires and faints when it may see the salvation of God, that is the concupiscence of the spirit. From which it appears that the soul is in a certain way midway between the flesh and the spirit; and if indeed it joins itself to the flesh so as to obey the desires of sin, it becomes one body with it; but if it joins itself to God, it becomes one spirit with him, according to what has been said: "For he who joins himself to a harlot is one body; but he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit." Nor should you wonder if he calls the flesh a harlot, since it lies subject to all those vices and sins which we enumerated above, as to the basest lovers. But I inquire why he added, "in your mortal body," when surely it would have sufficed to say: "Let not sin therefore reign in your body." Why is "mortal" also added, as though anyone doubted that the body is mortal? But it seems to me that he added even this not without cause. For by it he gave warning how sin can fail to reign in the body, according to what he himself had also said elsewhere: "The body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness." If therefore we know that our body can be mortified, and be dead to sin, it can come about that sin should not reign in it. For according to this, that it is dead, it is said to be justified from sin. For a dead man neither lusts nor grows angry, nor rages, nor plunders what belongs to another. If therefore we restrain the body from all these concupiscences, the body is said to be dead to sin. And this is what, in the present passage, that addition of the Apostle seems to bring to mind when he says, "in your mortal body." Another perhaps will say that it is by way of distinction from that other body which is immortal that he named this body, in which we now are, mortal. But what the immortal body is, the same Apostle teaches in other places, where he says: "For it is necessary that this corruptible put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality"; and there is no doubt that, once mortality is taken away, this very thing which is now mortal is made an immortal body. After these things there follows: "Neither present your members as weapons of iniquity unto sin; but present yourselves to God as those living from among the dead, and your members rather as weapons of righteousness unto God." Observe point by point the wisdom of Paul, that he uses necessary distinctions. Where he says that weapons must not be furnished to sin or to iniquity, he sets down not us, but our members; but where he urges that we present ourselves to God, he wills that not our members, but we ourselves first be presented to God — that is, our soul, or our purpose — so that when we have first presented our very selves to God and have cleaved to him, then at last we may make our members also weapons of righteousness unto God. For just as those hands are called holy which have ministered to holy works, as the Apostle says: "Lifting up pure hands without wrath and disputing"; and again, those hands are called full of blood which have ministered to the shedding of blood: so also in the present passage the members which serve sin and iniquity are called weapons of iniquity; and again, if we mortify the concupiscence of sin in our mortal body, and labor in the work of righteousness, and minister to righteousness with all our members, we become as those living from among the dead — dead, that is, to sin and living to righteousness; and consequently our members too become weapons of righteousness unto God. And he has well kept to the metaphor proposed above, so that, because he had said that sin reigns, he should name the members weapons of sin, and again that our members should bear weapons of righteousness for God as king. There follows after these things: "For sin shall not have dominion over you. For you are not under the law, but under grace." Here too observe the marvelous caution in the Apostle's language. When he speaks of us, he says: "Sin shall not have dominion over you"; when he was speaking of the Savior, he did not say: Sin shall not have dominion (for neither was it fitting that this be said of him), but he says: "Death shall no more have dominion over him." For in him there was room for death, none for sin. But on the contrary, concerning us it was not fitting to say: Death shall not have dominion over you — for this we cannot avoid — but rather, "Sin shall not have dominion over you"; which without doubt he knew we could avoid, according to what we said above, if we mortify the concupiscences of the flesh, in which sin was able to have dominion. For this reason he adds: "For you are not under the law, but under grace"; and he plainly shows from these words that we are not under that law which he says, being placed in the members, fights against the law of the mind, since he who mortifies his members is certainly not under the law of the members, but under the grace of God. Concerning this law he says elsewhere too that "the strength of sin is the law." But if anyone wishes to take these things of the law of Moses, he will without doubt say that we are not under the law of the letter which kills, but under the law of the spirit which gives life, which here he has named grace.
[§2] "What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." This seems similar to that saying which we expounded above: "What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid"; and therefore let one and the same explanation suffice for both places. This alone is what seems to constitute a difference, that in the earlier passage, where he says, "What then? Shall we continue in sin?" it seems to be said to those who have not yet departed from sin, lest they remain in that state in which they still seemed to be; but here the question seems to be put as though by those who have already departed from sin: and there, as it were, that grace, which did not yet exist, might abound; but here he speaks as though grace were already present, "because we are not under the law, but under grace." 3. "Do you not know that to whomever you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are the servants of him whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto justice? But thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you have been delivered. And being freed from sin, you have been made the servants of justice." Perhaps the expression seems less than complete when he says, "You are the servants of him whom you have obeyed, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto justice"; whereas reason would have required it to be said: You are the servants of him whom you have obeyed, whether of sin, or of justice through obedience. But in one who of his own accord professes himself unskilled in speech, I think it superfluous to look for artistry in the composition of words, since the sense is held to be evident. This, then, is what the Apostle teaches in this place: that each one has it in his own hand and in the power of his choice, to be either the servant of sin or of justice. For to whichever side he shall incline his obedience, and to whichever side he shall be willing to submit, that side claims him for itself as its servant. In this, as I have said, he shows without any hesitation that freedom of choice lies within us. For it is in us to render our obedience either to justice or to sin. But "no one can serve two masters at once," sin and justice. "For either he will hate the one," namely sin, "and love the other," that is, justice; "or he will bear with the one," namely sin only, "and despise the other," that is, justice. Similar, therefore, is also what the Apostle said: "You are the servants of him whom you have obeyed, whether of sin or of justice." But also what is said, "Everyone who commits sin is the servant of sin," looks to this same point, although he did not add: And everyone who does justice is the servant of justice. Which perhaps another might think was left out for this reason, that it ought to be understood as though from what follows. To me, however, it seems that it was deliberately not added. For it would not have been fitting to say that everyone who does justice is the servant of justice. For God himself also does justice, and yet cannot on that account be called the servant of justice, but the Lord of justice. Therefore it is not the case that everyone who does justice is the servant of justice in the same way that everyone who commits sin is the servant of sin. For the devil himself also is without doubt the servant of sin, inasmuch as he departed from the service of justice and rebelled in the sight of the almighty Lord, on account of which he was also called an apostate. It is established, therefore, from these words in which Paul says, "That to whomever you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are the servants of him whom you obey, whether of sin or of justice," that of our own accord we present ourselves, with none compelling us, to serve either sin or justice through our own obedience; and therefore we ought always to remember these things, lest we bring forward empty complaints in excuse of sin — that the devil made us sin, or the necessity of nature, or the condition of fate, or the course of the stars. But hear Paul's sentence, by which he speaks openly: "To whomever you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are the servants of him whom you have obeyed, whether of sin, or of justice." After these things he says: "Thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you have been delivered." He seems to say this to those about whose life and progress, and concerning whom, he had already said above: "I give thanks to God through Jesus Christ for all these, because your faith is proclaimed in the whole world." Then next he also shows this, that all men first serve sin. For thus it is written: That "there is not a just man upon the earth who does good and does not sin." For first it is necessary that in every man that be fulfilled which is written: "But when the commandment came, sin revived." But what follows is said to few, and to those who are already being amended, namely what he says: "But thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you have been delivered." We were all, therefore, the servants of sin; but when the form of doctrine was delivered to us, and we chose to obey it not in any casual way, nor with words alone, but from the heart, from the soul, with our whole devotion, we are freed from the servitude of sin, and are made the servants of justice. Whence I fear that perhaps there are rather many of us who seem to have received the form of the doctrine of justice, and in words indeed or in profession seem to obey justice, but in heart obey sin, the vices of the flesh still holding dominion in us. And therefore before all things we stand in need of that mortification of the members concerning which he taught above. But as to what he said, "The form of doctrine, into which you have been delivered," I think we must inquire how each one is delivered. For we find that those who "do not approve of having God in their knowledge," God "delivers, according to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, so that they dishonor their own bodies among themselves"; and others who "exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God," he delivers "unto passions of dishonor," concerning which passages we have spoken in their proper places as we were able. These too, therefore, who present themselves as servants of justice through obedience, God has delivered that they may be instructed and imbued according to the form of the doctrine of justice. But this also moves me, that he did not say, "You have obeyed from the heart" the doctrine "into which you have been delivered," but he put "the form of doctrine." Nor do I think that the Apostle held doctrine and the form of doctrine to be one and the same thing; but it seems to me that he knew the form of doctrine to be something less than the doctrine itself; and that now indeed in the present life, while we are in this body, and "this earthly dwelling weighs down the mind that ponders many things," we have the form of doctrine, not the doctrine itself, as the same Apostle says elsewhere: "But now we see through a mirror in an enigma"; while the doctrine itself is that of which he says: "But then we shall see face to face." Whence also in the present life I think that we can hold the form and shadow of the virtues; but the virtues themselves, then, when those things which are perfect shall have come. And therefore the just man now, as it seems to me, lives rather in the shadow of the virtues than in the virtues themselves. And on this account perhaps Jeremiah says in the Lamentations: "The Spirit of our countenance, Christ the Lord, of whom we said: In his shadow we shall live among the nations." But if Christ is justice, and wisdom, and truth, and we say, "in his shadow we shall live among the nations," then we live in the shadow of justice, and in the shadow of wisdom, and in the shadow of truth, even if we seem to be just, and wise, and lovers of truth. Therefore it is said on this account: "If anyone thinks that he has known, he has not yet known as he ought to know." For perhaps even the Word of God himself, according to that whereby "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," will be known in one way in the present state of life, and in another way when that which is perfect shall have come; and will be perceived in one way now in the form of a servant, but then in another way in the form of God and in equality with the Father. On account of all which things we seem to live among the nations either "in the form of doctrine," as the Apostle says, and not yet in the doctrine itself, or "in the shadow of Christ," as Jeremiah named it, and not yet in Christ himself. "And being freed from sin, you have been made the servants of justice." In these words there is an exposition of the things he said above. For if you no longer serve sin, it is certain that, being freed from it, you have been made the servants of justice. But it is asked who it is that frees from sin. Without doubt, the knowledge of the truth. For thus Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him: "If you believe my word, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." It is therefore the truth that frees from sin, and the knowledge of the truth. And it is certain that everyone who has been freed from sin serves justice. But when we say, let him serve justice — since justice is one out of the choir of the virtues — it is as if we were to say that if anyone has been freed from sin, he will serve truth, and will serve wisdom, and will serve chastity, and will serve piety. For thus do I understand also that which is said: "Open to me the gates of justice, and entering into them I will confess to the Lord." For he who wishes to confess to the Lord enters not the gates of justice alone, but also of truth, and of wisdom, and of piety, and of chastity. For there is one hall of all the virtues, whose doors the just man asks to be opened to him under the name of justice.
[§4] "I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members to serve uncleanness, and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve righteousness unto sanctification." By these words the Apostle strikes a certain shame into his hearers, so that they may at least render this much service to righteousness and sanctification as they had formerly paid to uncleanness and iniquity. What, then, is so human — that is, what is so light, what is so free of burden, and what could no weakness of the flesh whatever excuse? "Just as," he says, "you presented your members to serve uncleanness, and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve righteousness unto sanctification." It is indeed inglorious that anyone should serve the virtues only in the same measure as he served the vices. For righteousness ought to be honored far more abundantly and far more intently. But I, he says, act humanly and after the common measure: I ask the same things, I require like things. Once your feet ran to the temples of demons; now let them run to the Church of God. Formerly they ran to shed blood; now let them run to set blood free. Formerly your hands were stretched out to plunder what belonged to others; now let them be stretched out to bestow what is their own. Formerly your eyes looked about after a woman, or after something belonging to another, that they might covet it; now let them look about after the poor, the weak, the needy, that they may show mercy. Your ears took delight in empty hearing, or in the disparagement of good men; now let them be turned to hearing the word of God, to the exposition of the law, and to receiving the discipline of wisdom. Let the tongue that has grown accustomed to insults, curses, and filthy speech now be turned to blessing the Lord at all times: let it bring forth sound and honorable discourse, that it may give grace to those who hear, and let it speak truth with its neighbor. But what need is there to pursue these things one by one, when it is plain even to you how to fit to the virtues the service of each member which it rendered to the vices, and to turn now to chastity and sanctification the activity which it rendered to uncleanness? Here he seems indeed to have named righteousness for all the virtues together, just as, on the contrary, he has put iniquity for all the vices together. He added, to be sure, "of righteousness unto sanctification," namely so as to commend the part of chastity both generally along with the rest and specifically by itself. But look also at this, that everywhere through these words he indicates the freedom of the will, and shows that each one has it in his own power that the services which he formerly rendered to iniquity unto iniquity he may, his purpose being turned to the better, render to righteousness and sanctification — which surely could not come about if either nature resisted, as some think, or the course of the stars stood in the way.
[§5] "For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with respect to righteousness. What fruit therefore did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For their end is death. But now, having been freed from sin and made slaves to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life." How anyone is a slave of sin has already been sufficiently said in what went before, when we were expounding that passage: "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience — you are slaves of him whom you obey, whether of sin or of righteousness?" When, therefore, anyone serves sin, he is free with respect to righteousness, that is, a stranger to righteousness. For here he calls "free" one who is a stranger, and rightly so. For no one can at the same time serve both sin and righteousness, just as the Savior also said, that "no one can serve two masters." But of these things we have spoken more fully above. This indeed is to be noted, that there is both a blameworthy freedom and a praiseworthy servitude. For to be free with respect to righteousness is a crime; but to be its slave is praiseworthy. And when he says that one becomes a slave of righteousness, understand at the same time a slave of wisdom too, and of piety, and of modesty, and of all the virtues together: just as, on the contrary, he who is a slave of sin is at the same time a slave of evil desire, and of anger, and of rage, and of unchastity, and of robbery; and he serves all the vices and crimes together. Wherefore we ought always to examine ourselves in each single thing we do, and in every act to consider whom we are serving, whether sin unto iniquity, or righteousness unto sanctification. "What fruit, therefore," he says, "did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For their end is death." Divine Scripture teaches that there is fruit both of good things and of evil, as the Savior himself says in the Gospels: "Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree evil, and its fruit evil. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruits, nor an evil tree good fruits." In these words the purpose and will of a man seems to be called the tree, either good or evil, while his works are the fruit. If anyone turns his mind and purpose to righteousness, he is without doubt ashamed, and he himself brands himself for his former deeds which he did while placed under sin, because "their end is death." But I ask, what death? It is certain that it is not this common death. For no one is converted to righteousness after death, or is ashamed for past deeds done badly. What then is it? Does he perhaps seem to be speaking of the death of sin, since "the soul that sins, it shall die"? Or can it rather be understood that he is speaking of that death by which we die with Christ to sin, and put an end to vices and crimes, so that on this account he seems to have said that "their end is death"? "But now, having been freed from sin and made slaves to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life." He compares fruits with fruits: and the fruits of sin, for which the saints are now — that is, after they have been freed from sin and made slaves to God — ashamed, he declares to be ended in death; but the fruits of righteousness, which are unto sanctification, he says receive as their end eternal life. In this, first of all, this must not be passed over: that he was unwilling to name in what those fruits consist for which we are now ashamed, whereas he says that the fruit of those who have been freed from sin and made slaves to God is unto sanctification. For the memory of good things is to be kept more often than that of evil ones. And as to his mentioning first the evil fruits and their end, but afterwards the fruits which are unto sanctification and their end, which is eternal life — see how this is like that prophetic saying in which he himself says: "I will kill, and I will make alive"; and again: "I will strike, and I will heal"; and once more in Job: "He himself causes pain, and gives the remedy: he strikes, and his hands heal." All these things look to this, that one must first die with Christ, and so live together with him; and first suffer with him, and so reign together with him. For unless we first die to sin through repentance, we cannot live to God through righteousness. Moreover, as to what he said above: "But having been freed from sin, you were made slaves of righteousness" — now, when he has said in like manner, "But having been freed from sin," he did not in like manner say, "you were made slaves of righteousness," but, "you were made slaves of God": the distinction is not idle. For by this it is shown that after anyone has been freed from sin, he ought first to serve righteousness and all the virtues together, so that from there he may ascend by progress to this, that he may become a slave of God — although to serve righteousness is also to serve God. For Christ is righteousness, and to serve Christ is to serve God. Yet there is an order of advances, and there are degrees among the virtues: and therefore Christ is said to reign, doubtless according to this, that he is righteousness, until in each one the fullness of the virtues is completed; but when the measure of perfection has been fulfilled, then he is said to hand over "the kingdom to God and the Father," so that now "God may be all in all." But I think this too must still be observed (since we have said that the Apostle made a comparison of evil fruits and good fruits): that there, where he was speaking of the evil fruits, he did not say, You had your fruit "in those things of which you are now ashamed," but he said, "What fruit therefore did you have?" — whereas where he speaks of the good fruits, he adds "your." For thus he writes: "You have your fruit unto sanctification": by which he seems to me to indicate that evil fruit, fruit to be ashamed of and repented of, is not our fruit. For God did not plant in us an evil tree that would bring forth evil fruits, as he himself also says through the prophet: "I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true; how have you been turned into the bitterness of an alien vine?" Therefore, even if we bring forth evil fruits, they are not ours but another's, that is, sin's; but if we bring forth good fruits unto sanctification, they are our own fruits. For human nature received it from its Creator that it should bear these fruits. But those alien ones were not sown in us by God. And do you wish to know that the Lord does not sow evil fruits? Hear him saying in the Gospel: "Did we not sow good seed in the field? Whence then has it tares? And answering he said: An enemy man has done this." And do you wish to learn still further that these fruits of the flesh are not ours, but another's? The Lord himself again says in the Gospel: "If you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you what is your own?" Thus, then, by the mystery of a profound reasoning, in the case of evil fruit the Apostle did not add "your"; but of the good he says: "You have your fruit unto sanctification." And that he calls those more perfect whom he names as serving God than those whom he had first said served righteousness, is proved also from this, that he placed their fruit "unto sanctification"; and these may be understood to be those who have devoted themselves to chastity and continence; whereas those whom he said were slaves of righteousness may also be seen to be those who, though placed in marriage, nevertheless devote their labor to righteousness and to all the virtues. But concerning eternal life, although it has often been discussed by us in other places, nevertheless in the present passage it must be briefly touched upon, that eternity in the Scriptures is sometimes put in the sense that it knows no end, but sometimes in the sense that it has no end indeed in the present age, yet has one in the age to come. Sometimes the span of a certain time, or even of one man's life, is called eternity, as is that which is written in the law concerning the Hebrew slave: "If he loves," it says, "his wife and his children, and wishes to remain in servitude for their sake, you shall pierce his ear with an awl at the doorpost, and he shall be your slave forever." Here without doubt he has put "forever" for the time of a man's life. And again in Ecclesiastes it is said: "A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth stands forever": here "forever" indicates the time of the present age. But where he says "eternal life," we must look to what the Savior himself said: "But this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent"; and again: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." And the Apostle himself says in other places, that "we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord." Therefore, just as to be always with the Lord has no end, so also eternal life is to be believed to have no end.
[§6] "For the wages of sin is death; but the grace of God is eternal life, in Christ Jesus our Lord." What he said here, "The wages of sin is death," is like what he had said above, "But their end is death." But whose end? Doubtless of those things "for which you now blush," whose fruit he does not even judge worthy to name. And again: "But the grace of God is eternal life, in Christ Jesus our Lord," is like that which he said: "You have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end indeed eternal life." And he rightly preserves the metaphor, that is, the figure of military service proposed from the beginning, so that he says the wages due are paid out as death to those soldiering under sin as king — or rather to those obeying its tyranny. But it was not fitting that God give wages to his own soldiers as though some debt, but rather a gift and grace, which is "eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." I do not think that this too is empty, that to eternal life he added "in Christ our Lord"; but perhaps because he wished it to be known that it is one thing to have eternal life alone, and another to have eternal life in Christ Jesus. For those also who shall rise unto confusion and everlasting reproach will indeed have eternal life, yet not in Christ Jesus, but in eternal confusion and reproach; but the just, who shall rise unto eternal life in Christ Jesus, will have eternal life. Sin therefore bestows upon its own soldiers, in whom it reigns, the wages it deems worthy — death. But we call death not this bodily death, but that of which it is written, that "the soul that sins, that soul shall die." And although we have often already spoken about the diversity of death, nevertheless, since the present passage has prompted it, to repeat the same things more openly, and to gather into one what has been said in scattered places, would be neither irksome to me nor burdensome to my readers. Death in the Scriptures is indeed one name, but it signifies many things. For the separation of the body from the soul is called death. But this can be called neither evil nor good: for it is intermediate, which is termed indifferent. And again, the separation of the soul from God is called death, which comes through sin. This is plainly evil, and it is also named the wage of sin. This death God did not make, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living; but by the envy of the devil this death entered into the world. And again the very author of this death, the devil, is called death, and he it is who is said to be the last enemy of Christ to be destroyed. But also the place of hell, in which souls were held by death, is itself likewise called death. There is spoken of also that praiseworthy death by which one dies to sin and is buried together with Christ, through which the amendment of the soul is effected and eternal life is acquired. Since therefore there is so great a difference contained in this one name of death, if you hear God saying, "I will kill, and I will make alive," you ought to understand what sort of death it befits God to inflict: that one, doubtless, which confers life — that is, that one should die to sin and live to God. "When he slew them," it says, "they sought him, and they returned." Teaching most plainly through this, that whomever God slays, he slays for this reason, that he may die to sin and seek God. So do I understand also that which is written, that God slew Her the son of Judah, since he was wicked; and whatever else of this kind we read written about God. So too the Apostle handed over the sinner unto the destruction of the flesh, that he might make the spirit safe — that is, that he might die to sin and live to God. And so in the present passage too the wages that sin gives are said to be death: not that death which separates the body from the soul, but that by which through sin the soul is separated from God. And again we are said to be baptized into the death of Christ — into that death, doubtless, by which he died to sin once for all, so that we too may be separated from sin and live to God. For whoever dies by such a death is said to be justified from sin. Thus therefore the distinction must be held, that even if God is said to kill and to hand over to death, the death that is given by God is of such a kind as to confer life. For nothing evil is given by the Good; though it be sorrowful, though full of pain, yet it is inflicted with a view to healing and with regard for health, so that the soul which the allurement and sweetness of sin had separated from God, the austerity of severity may separate from sin. But on the contrary, whatever sin gives, whatever it confers, is death to the soul, even if it bestows wages.
[§7] "Or are you ignorant, brothers (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman who is under a husband is bound by the law while her husband lives. But if her husband dies, she is loosed from the law of her husband. Therefore, while her husband lives, she shall be called an adulteress if she be with another man. But if her husband dies, she is freed from the law of her husband, so that she is no longer an adulteress if she be with another man. And so, my brothers, you also have been made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may belong to another, who rose from the dead, that we may bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the vices of sins, which were through the law, worked in our members, so that they bore fruit unto death. But now we have been loosed from the law, being dead to that in which we were held, so that we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of the letter." Discoursing more broadly in the preceding passages about faith and the law, he shows that faith is in all things to be preferred — the faith, that is, only of those who believe "in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead." After this he adds what sort of conduct theirs ought also to be, in which he discoursed both about the sin of Adam and the righteousness of Christ; but he also disputed about servitude and liberty, by which one either serves righteousness and is free from sin, or serves sin and is free from righteousness. Now therefore, after a certain rather extended digression, he returns once more to the treatment of the law and of Christ, discoursing in the present passage in some such manner as this: which things, repeating them a little, we shall first attempt to open up according to the sequence of the letter; and then also, as far as our strength allows, we shall inquire what power each saying holds. I speak, he says, to you who have knowledge of the law, and know that its meaning lies not in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the spirit: that is, "I speak to those who know the law," and I call you, on account of this knowledge of the law, "brothers"; and I say: Surely you are not ignorant that the law has dominion over each one who is made over to it and serves it, just as a husband over the woman joined to him? And just as throughout all his life he has dominion over the woman joined to him by laws, so also the law has dominion over the man who is under the law, as long as it lives and is in force. But just as, if it should happen that the husband to whom the woman had been joined by laws dies, the woman becomes free and is released from the husband's power, so also he who is under the law, if it should happen that the law dies, becomes free from the works of the law; and just as the woman who has been released from the laws of her former husband has liberty to be joined to another man, so also he who has lived under the power of the law, when he sees the letter dead, has the power to be united to the living Word as to a husband. But if the woman should wish to leave her former husband while he is still living, and to be united to another, she will doubtless be called an adulteress. And this falls in like fashion also upon him who deserts the law as a living husband, and is joined to another. But this, as I said, "I speak to those who know the law, brothers," so that you may understand that you also have left the law as a dead husband. Now its death is through the coming of Christ and the assumption of his body, through which you have been made another's — that is, joined to another husband, namely to him who rose from the dead, and does not again take on death, which that former husband, that is, the law, took on. You therefore have now been made the bride of that husband who rose from the dead; and therefore you ought to live according to his will, since we are no longer in the flesh, but in the spirit, even if at one time, placed in the flesh, we were pressed by the passions of sin and of the flesh; which passions, by occasion of the law, bore fruit in our members, not to God, but to death — to that death which God did not make. Now therefore, just as when the husband dies the woman is free and released from the law of her husband, so we also have been made free from the law which seemed to have dominion over us as a husband. To which law doubtless we too have died, and are estranged from that condition "in which we were held," so that now after this "we may serve not in the oldness of the letter" as before, but "in newness of spirit" — which spirit we have received from our Bridegroom as a nuptial pledge, just as he says elsewhere: "Who gave us the pledge of the Spirit." This is the order of the discourse, and this the framework of the apostolic saying. But now, repeating what has been said, let us examine them one by one. "Or are you ignorant," he says, "brothers (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?" He has a hyperbaton at once at the beginning, which is thus resolved: "Or are you ignorant, brothers, that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?" and after this is restored that which was inserted in the middle: "For I speak to those who know the law." Now what he said, "I speak to those who know the law," is like that which he says a little later: "But we know that the law is spiritual." That the law is spiritual, however, not Paul alone knew, but also those who were instructed by him — those, that is, who were spiritual, of whom he says: "But the spiritual man examines all things." For concerning the Galatians I cannot declare that they know the law to be spiritual, of whom he says: "O foolish Galatians." Unless perhaps they knew it then when they had begun with the spirit; but they did not remain in this knowledge, because they were made complete in the flesh. But the teaching of the apostles, and of those who were trained by them for teaching, was such as would teach men to serve the law "not in the oldness of the letter," but "in the newness of the spirit." Which I think not only the apostles, but also the prophets, and any who were then wise among the people of God, perceived — that the law is spiritual — although for the sake of the multitude they seemed to keep the carnal observance as well. Nor is this to be wondered at, since Paul himself says: That "I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews." Thus therefore many in the former people were advancing in spiritual knowledge, and saw the glory of the Word of God, just as Isaiah is written to have seen the glory of the Son of God, as John testifies when he says: "But these things Isaiah said, when he saw his glory." Therefore Paul speaks to those who know the law — that is, to those who know what in the law is the oldness of the letter, and what the newness of the spirit; and he who knows this well knows doubtless that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives, just as a husband over a woman; and just as by the death of her husband the woman is freed from the law of wedlock, and receives liberty to be joined to another husband, so also the soul whose husband is the law, when it has detected the oldness of the letter in the law — since what grows old is near to destruction — the law according to the letter being as it were dead to it, receives the power of marrying another husband, who is the spirit of the law: "Now the Lord is the Spirit." But what he said, "The law has dominion over a man as long as he lives," refers not to the man, but to the law.
For he indicates this also in what follows, where he says: "While her husband lives, she is bound to the law;" and the very order of the example that has been taken up declares the same thing more fully: for he has put the law in the place of the husband, and concerning it he says: "But if her husband dies, she is loosed from the law of her husband." Yet if these things be understood as spoken of the apostles, or of those who believed from the circumcision, no question will be stirred up: for it is clear that these had the law as a husband, under whose authority they were living. But when the fullness of times came, the law began to be weakened in the flesh, and death followed upon its weakness; and if any had lived under the authority of this husband, they — like a woman, once the letter is dead — are wedded to the spirit by believing in Christ. But those who from among the Gentiles believed in the Lord will not appear to have lived under this husband, that is, under the authority of the law, nor to have had the word of the law as a husband. And Isaiah declares the testimony of this matter — namely, that those who are of the circumcision were under a husband, while those from the Gentiles were without a husband — saying: "Rejoice, O barren one who dost not bear; break forth and cry out, thou who dost not travail; for many are the children of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband." He says that the children of the deserted one are more numerous than those of her who has a husband, because far more believed from the Gentiles than from the circumcision; and he shows that she who has a husband is the Synagogue, which has the law; but that the deserted one, wandering and living without any authority of law, is the multitude of the Gentiles, which was also barren, putting forth no shoot of any lawful word. Therefore in these passages a man who lives under the law is set down by the Apostle as a woman who is under a husband. But he sets down as the husband the word of the law, which husband nevertheless he calls dead — that is, the word of the law according to the letter. But in what way this husband is dead must be thoroughly examined. He can indeed be seen as dead in this respect also, when the spiritual understanding shuts out and as it were slays the bodily understanding, and shows that the letter which kills is to be fled from, and the spirit which gives life is to be followed. But in this way too it will be more evidently proved that this husband is dead. For as long as the law bore the shadow of good things to come, and in the earthly Jerusalem the type and image of the heavenly worship was carried on, and the altar remained, and the priesthood, the word of the law — that is, the letter — seemed to be alive. For Christ had not yet entered into the holy places not made with hands, nor had he approached the inner veil, which the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, interprets as the flesh of Christ. But when "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," by his presence the earthly Jerusalem, with its temple and altar and all that was carried on there, was overthrown. Then her husband died — that is, the law according to the letter. Or is not the word of the law rightly said to be dead in this respect, when no sacrifices, no priesthood, no ministries of the Levitical order are rendered to it? It cannot punish a murderer, nor stone an adulteress: for these things the power of the Romans claims for itself; and dost thou still doubt whether the law according to the letter is dead? No male goes up three times a year to appear before the Lord; no sheep is slaughtered at the festival of the Passover in the city which the Lord God is thought to have chosen; the sheaves of first fruits are not offered, no oblation is celebrated; no leprosy, no uncleanness is purged. And can it be doubted, in all these matters, that the letter of the law is dead? Since therefore it has become clear through all these things that the former husband is dead, it is no transgression to be joined to Christ as to a second husband, just as it is no crime for a woman, when her former husband is dead, to enter upon a second marriage. And for this reason he says: "Therefore, while her husband lives, she will be called an adulteress if she be with another man," so as to show that the soul of a man too, if it has now come to Christ and has been joined to Christ as to a second husband, must in no way have the oldness of the letter — which is as it were the former husband — living in it, lest perchance, if it should have him living within it, she become an adulteress, having been so joined to the second that the former was still alive to her. This is what he said above under another figure, that one must first die and thus be buried together with Christ. Finally he adds this also in what follows: "And so, my brethren, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, that you may belong to another, who rose from the dead, that we may bear fruit to God." You see how, although a diversity of figures appears, yet all are brought back to a single sense. For also when he says that the law is dead to us, he wishes this same thing to be understood, namely, that we too have died to the law through the body of Christ, in which body "he bore our iniquities and carried our sins," and in which he stripped off "the principalities and powers, triumphing over them in himself." We must hasten, therefore, to that second marriage, which is far more blessed than the first. And consider whether perhaps even then the law was foreshadowing some such thing in this, when it commanded that a woman, upon the death of her former husband, from whom she had received no seed (for such had he been, that he could not bring forth fruit), should be ordered to marry his brother. For the law according to the spirit seems to be the brother of the letter of the law, so that from him rather the woman may bring forth fruit. But these things will be inquired into more fully in their own places. But now, as we have said, one must first die to the law of the letter, that so we may be able to be joined to Christ, who rose from the dead. And it can be that this is understood not only of the law of Moses which is according to the letter, but of every man: since it is certain that by whatever institutions, by whatever customs a man is governed, he must be believed to live as it were under this law which he uses; to which assuredly either he himself must die, or it must die to him, lest perchance the soul, placed under another husband, in coming to Christ should seem not so much to enter upon marriage with him as to become an adulteress, since indeed it still lives by the laws of the former husband. Yet the Apostle brings this same sense of the exposition forward again under another figure. For he adds: "For when we were in the flesh, the vices of sins which were through the law worked in our members so as to bear fruit unto death. But now we, having died, are loosed from the law in which we were held, so that we may serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter." Here too it appears — as we said above by the example of a certain comparison — that Paul passes from one chamber into another by uncertain and hidden steps. For when he had discussed in the foregoing the law of the letter, which certainly would seem to pertain only to those who had believed from the circumcision, now by a hidden turn he examines the law of the flesh and of the vices, doubtless to this end, that this treatment may seem to pertain to other men as well, and not to those alone who are of the circumcision. He says, then: "For when we were in the flesh."
And indeed, so far as the matter itself is concerned, he was surely speaking these things while set in the flesh; but "when we were in the flesh," that is, when we were living according to the flesh, "the vices of sins which were through the law worked in our members." What, then, is this law through which the vices of sin work? Can it be that the law of Moses, even if it be observed according to the letter, generates the vices of sins? But it is plain that he is speaking of that law in the members which resists the law of the mind, concerning which we have also treated earlier, when we discussed how "the law entered in secretly, that sin might abound." It is therefore this very law which causes the vices of sins to abound in those who live according to the flesh, so that they bear fruit unto death. For that law is in our members for this very purpose, that by resisting against the law of the mind it may lead us captive to sin and offer these fruits to death. "But now we have been loosed from the law, having died to that in which we were held." From this law, then, in which we were held, we have now been loosed. "Now." When? Without doubt when we died with Christ, and were buried together with him through baptism, and were crucified with him; and therefore he says, "We have been loosed from the law, having died." For unless a man has died with Christ, he is not loosed from that law. I know that in other copies it is written, "from the law of death, in which we were held"; but this reading, that is, "having died," is both truer and more correct. But as for what he adds in the conclusion, "So that we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter," which without doubt seems to be said concerning the law of the letter, this can be understood in the following consequent manner. Set indeed in the flesh, and living according to the flesh, we could not serve the newness of the spirit — because of the vices of sins which that law which was in our members nourished, so that they might bear fruit unto death — so long as that law of the members lived in us; or rather, so long as we lived according to it. But when Christ died for us, and we died with him to sin, we were set free through him from the law of sin in which we were held, and we are now able to serve the law of God; and to serve, moreover, in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. For Christ did not draw us away from the law of sin in order that we should serve the oldness of the letter, that is, that we should receive circumcision, and Sabbaths, or the other things which the oldness of the letter of the law contains; but that we should keep the law of God in newness of spirit, that is, that out of all the things which are written in it we should grasp the spiritual sense, the Spirit granting it, as the same Apostle says in another place, that "a veil is placed upon the face of Moses; but when anyone shall have turned to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." I know indeed that certain persons, understanding this "newness of spirit" badly, have dragged it in such a direction as to say that the Spirit is new, as though he had not existed before, nor been known to the ancients; and they do not know that in this they blaspheme most gravely. For the Spirit himself is in the law, he himself is in the Gospel, he himself is always with the Father and the Son, and always is, and was, and will be, just as the Father and the Son. Therefore he himself is not new, but he makes believers new, when he leads them from their old evils to a new life and to the new observance of the religion of Christ, and makes them spiritual out of carnal.
[§8] "What then shall we say? Is the law sin? God forbid. But I did not know sin except through the law. For I would not have known concupiscence, unless the law had said: You shall not covet. But sin, having taken occasion, worked in me through the commandment every concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. But I was living once without the law. Yet when the commandment came, sin revived, but I died; and the commandment, which was unto life, was found by me to be unto death. For sin, having taken occasion through the commandment, seduced me, and through it slew me. And so the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. That, then, which is good, is it death to me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear as sin, worked death in me through what is good, that sin itself might become sinful beyond measure through the commandment." When we are set in passages such as these, it is repeatedly necessary for us to give a reminder concerning the diversities of laws. For this is what Paul intends, who under the one name of "law" transfers the sense from one law to another by silent indications, with that purpose, as I judge, by which the prophetic Scriptures also stand, lest […] What then? Is the law sin? (Rom. vi, 7.) It is not the case that, just as "law" is a single name, so the discourse of Scripture about the law is everywhere one and the same. Wherefore in each single passage it is needful to pursue and contemplate it accurately, and to weigh now what is signified by the name of law, now what that other thing may be. But in very many other words as well this must be held to. For there are in Scripture words which have been allotted the same appellation for signifying different things, and these confuse those who suppose that, just as the word is one, so also the thing signified is one, wherever that name has its place. Now that the word "law" is not set down to signify one and the same thing, but several, we shall set forth — passing over many matters which would demand labor and study to resolve the obstructed senses they contain — those things which can satisfy anyone, namely, that the word "law" is set down for several things (to be signified): as when in the Epistle to the Galatians it is said, "For whoever are of the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written: Accursed is he who does not adhere to all the things which are written in the book of the law, to do them" (Galat. iii, 10). It is plain that by these words is signified that of Moses ... to those who bring them forward, they should be set out in the open, and handed over, so to speak, to be trampled underfoot; but rather that, according to those things which we said above by means of a certain likeness, the mystery of its king might come through to few, and more secretly. And so he says: "What then shall we say? Is the law sin?" Did you suppose, he says, that I was speaking of the law of Moses, that it is sin? "God forbid, God forbid." Let it suffice against both suppositions that I am neither speaking of the law of Moses, nor saying of it that it is sin; but rather, "I did not know sin except through the law. For I would not have known concupiscence, unless the law had said: You shall not covet." Understand, he says, of what law I am speaking, without which no one would know sin. Is it perhaps the law of Moses through which Adam knew his own sin, and hid himself from the face of the Lord? Is it the law of Moses through which Cain knew his own sin and said, "My sin is greater than that I should be pardoned"? Or through which Pharaoh knew his own sin and said, "The Lord is just, but I and my people are impious"? But if all these, and countless others before the law of Moses, knew their own sin, without doubt it will not be the law of Moses of which the Apostle speaks when he says that "I did not know sin except through the law"; and of which he says, "I would not have known concupiscence, unless the law had said: You shall not covet." Rather it is that law of which we have frequently spoken, which "is written in the hearts of men, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God," and which teaches each one what is to be done and what is to be avoided. This, then, is the law through which a man knows his own sin. Here he plainly says that the natural law is unknown to us for just so long as, with the advance of age... are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? Lift up your eyes, and see the regions, for they are already white unto the harvest (Joan. iv, 35). For "harvest" is named twice: the former indeed refers to the bodily harvest, but the latter to the harvest of the spirit. And you will find something similar in the case of the man blind from his very birth who was healed, to whom he speaks these words while he was still blind in body: I came into this world for judgment, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind (Joan. ix, 39). So too: But now, apart from the law of nature, the righteousness of God has appeared, foretold by the testimony of the law of Moses and of the prophets (Rom. iii, 21); and I would say to those who hesitate to admit a twofold signification of "law," whether the same law is understood both in this place, "But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has shone forth," and in that one, "proclaimed beforehand by the law and the prophets." If it has appeared apart from the law, it is not foretold by the testimony of the law; but if it is confirmed by the testimony of the law, it was not declared apart from the law. Accordingly, the law of nature by no means confirms by its own testimony that righteousness of God which was declared in Jesus Christ, for it is lesser than it. But the law of Moses does — not the letter, but the spirit — and the prophets who answer to the spirit of the law, and the spiritual words that are in them. Wherefore he who pores over the divine Scriptures must diligently observe that they do not always use the same words of the same things: which they do sometimes through likeness of naming, sometimes by the principle of figurative speech, sometimes on account of the context of the expression, which demands that a word be employed otherwise in some places than as it is set down in others. And if we observe this attentively, we shall avoid many lapses and sinister interpretations. It must therefore be known that "he saw" is not always set down with the same signification, but sometimes refers to the sight of the body, while at other times it is the same as "to understand." For this must be known universally: that since it has been decreed for the Spirit who speaks in the prophets to conceal, and not openly to set forth, the meanings of the truth — just as also for the word of Christ in the apostles — often it is even intermingled beneath the mode of speech, and is not woven together as under a single continuous sequence of discourse, lest, of course, the unworthy find, unto the judgment of their own soul, those things which have been hidden from them so far as the letter is concerned. And this is for the most part the reason why the Scriptures seem not to cohere with sufficiently fitting composition and sequence — but most of all, as we said above, the prophetic and apostolic writings, and especially the Epistle to the Romans, in which the things said about the law are said in diverse ways and applied to diverse matters, so that Paul seems in that Epistle not to follow through the matter he has proposed. ...we have come to know how to discern between good and evil, and have heard from our own conscience. For it speaks to us within the conscience, and says: "You shall not covet." But since this law is not always found in a man, nor from the beginning as soon as a man is born, but for some while, as long as his age does not yet allow it, life is lived without this law — as Paul himself confesses when he says, "But I was living once without the law" — in that time in which we lived without the law, we did not know concupiscence.
He did not say, "I did not have it," but says, "I did not know it" — as though the thing indeed existed, yet it was not known that it was concupiscence. But when reason came, and the natural law with the advance of years found a place in us, it began to teach us what things were good, and to forbid us from evils. Therefore, while this law says, "You shall not covet," we learned from it what we did not know before, that concupiscence is evil. "But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, worked in me all manner of concupiscence." That law of which he says, "I did not know concupiscence, unless the law had said: You shall not covet," is itself also called a commandment. He says, then, that by occasion of this commandment, by which we are forbidden to covet, sin blazed up in us more violently, and worked in us all manner of concupiscence. For in that respect in which the flesh lusts against the spirit — that is, against the law which says, "You shall not covet" — it is also set against it and wages, as it were, a contest, so that it may not only satisfy the concupiscence but may even conquer its adversary. This, then, is the occasion which he says comes from the commandment. For, somehow or other, the things that are forbidden are more ardently desired; and therefore, since the commandment is holy and just and good (for what forbids evil is necessarily good), yet while by forbidding concupiscence it rather provokes and inflames it, through what is good it worked death in me. Nevertheless the Apostle indicates in these words that the origin of sin has arisen from concupiscence, since, when the law forbids — whether the law of Moses, which says, "You shall not covet," or also, as we expounded above, the natural law — what is forbidden is sought after all the more contentiously. It must indeed be understood that concupiscence is here set down as blameworthy. But in many cases it is also praiseworthy, as we showed above. "For without the law sin was dead. But I was alive without the law once. Yet when the commandment came, sin revived. But I died; and the commandment, which was unto life, was found by me to be unto death." Concerning nearly all these matters full treatment has already been given in what precedes; and so, that we may not turn over the same things again and again, we shall briefly recall to memory the things that were said. Now, that sin is dead in us without the law — that is, before a rational understanding grows strong within us through age — we have shown, when we also brought forward the example of a boy who strikes his father or his mother, or curses them. In which case, according to the law that forbids a father or mother to be struck or cursed, a sin does indeed seem to be committed; but that sin is said to be dead, because the law is not yet present in the boy, the law which would teach him that what he does is not permitted to be done. And it is certain that both Paul and all men have at some time lived without this law, that is, in the age of boyhood. For all alike, throughout that period, are not yet capable of this natural law. For otherwise Paul's declaration on this point would not seem to be true. For how shall it be proved that Paul at some time lived without the law of Moses, when he himself confesses that he is a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and circumcised on the eighth day according to the precepts of the law? But in the manner we have said, he too at some time lived in boyhood without the natural law. And of that time he did not say that there was no sin in the man, but that it was dead, and that afterward it revived, when the natural law, coming upon him, began to forbid concupiscence: which law, as it were, raised up sin that had been dead. For this is the nature of sin: if that be done which the law forbids to be done. Therefore, when sin came to life again, "I," he says, "died." "I" — who? The soul, without doubt, which had done what the law forbade to be done: for "the soul that sins," as the prophet says, "shall itself die." Therefore the commandment which had been given unto life — that is, to the soul, that it might teach it the works of life — was found to have turned out for it unto death, since it does not so much flee from what is forbidden as more ardently seek after it. Yet in these words it troubles me how he could say that sin was dead and revived. For it seems that nothing can be said to be dead except what at some time lived, and afterward lacked life. And this very word which he uses, "revived," teaches that it is not a life newly given, but a former life restored: for the very expression "revived" signifies to have lived again. If, then, sin is said to have revived in the soul, how do these people, from this saying of the Apostle in which he says, "But I was alive without the law once," introduce the doctrine of transmigration of bodies (metensōmatōsis) — which teaches that the souls of men were previously in beasts, or birds, or fishes, and so came to men: and that for this reason the Apostle said, "But I was alive without the law once," as though he, before he came into this human body, had lived in that order (for example) either of birds or of animals, where no law was had? How, I say, will they be able to answer this, when he says that sin revived in the soul — not that it newly arose, but that what was dead came to life? And it is certain that whatever revives has at some time lived. Never, then, will the soul appear to have been in that order, where sin without law could neither have been nor have lived. Let these things be said against those who drag the Apostle's word to an impious doctrine. But we say that this death of sin was granted by the kindness of God at that time in which we lived without the law. And even if, when the commandment comes — which is "holy and just and good" — sin revives in us and slays us ("for sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me"), it is no accusation of the commandment that he says the occasion by which sin slew me came from the commandment; but this is the logical consequence of that saying. That is called law which teaches what ought to be done and what avoided; and it is necessary that it should also teach of what sort that is which it says must be avoided, so that thereby it may the more easily be avoided. For no one can shun what he does not know. If, then, someone, having been taught by the law of what sort that is which he ought to avoid, does not so much avoid it as rather do it, he will indeed appear to have received, by occasion of the law, the knowledge of the thing that was not to be done: but the law had not taught him for this purpose, that he should do what he ought not, and die; but that he should not do it, and should live. Thus, then, "sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." Or else, certainly, since he said, "Sin by the commandment deceived me, and by it slew me," he may here by "sin" have meant the very author of sin, of whom it is written, "The serpent deceived me"; or he may have fashioned a personification of sin, which is seen to have deceived the man by occasion of the commandment, so as to make concupiscence sweet, and that the soul, while it is delighted by the sweetness of concupiscence, might die by transgressing the commandment which said, "You shall not covet." But lest anyone should ascribe to the commandment of the law the fact that by occasion of the precept the soul was deceived by sin and slain, the Apostle adds and says: "And so the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good." For the commandment is good, and the law is holy. For it enjoins good things, and commands the observance of good things. "That, then, which is good," he says, "is it death to me? God forbid!" He refutes an objection that necessarily arises, and says: It is not that the good of the law and of the commandment brought death upon me; "but sin," he says, "that it might appear" how wicked it is, "through what is good wrought death in me." For the commandment is good when it is kept: but if it is not kept, it will necessarily be an evil to him who has lost the good. Therefore "sin itself becomes a sinner beyond measure" by occasion of the commandment. We said above too that he fashioned, as it were, a personification of sin, and says of it that sin itself — of whose person he speaks — was made a sinner beyond measure by occasion of the commandment. For it is less of a sin if you commit what is not forbidden. But if you commit things vetoed and prohibited, you are, so to speak, a sinner beyond measure: because you have not only done what you ought not, but you have also transgressed a precept. But as for our saying "sin is a sinner," we preferred to admit a fault of language rather than not express the Apostle's meaning in its entirety: because in the Latin tongue the noun for sin ( peccatum ) has confined us, since it is declined in the neuter gender, whereas in Greek it is feminine; and therefore we have called it a sinner in the masculine ( peccator ): for there it can be called a sinner in the feminine ( peccatrix ).
[§9] "For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I work, I do not know: for I do not do what I will; but what I hate, that I do. Now if I do what I do not will, I consent to the law, that it is good. But now it is no longer I who work it, but the sin that dwells in me. For I know that there dwells not in me, that is, in my flesh, what is good. For to will lies near at hand for me: but I find not how to accomplish the good. For I do not do the good that I will; but the evil that I do not will, that I do. Now if I do what I do not will, it is no longer I who work it, but the sin that dwells in me. I find, therefore, a law, for me who will to do good, since evil lies near at hand for me. For I am delighted with the law of God according to the inner man: but I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind, and leading me captive in the law of sin, which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord." If perchance to anyone that exposition which we maintained concerning the diversity of laws seemed to be violently presumed, let him now observe in this chapter how not only a diversity of laws, but also of persons, is introduced. For Paul, who in other places said, "For we, walking in the flesh, do not war according to the flesh," in the present passage says that he is carnal: and here he says that he has been sold under sin, he who in other places said: "You have been bought with a price;" and again: "Christ has redeemed us;" and once more elsewhere he says: "Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me." And again, he who says, "On account of his Spirit dwelling in us," now says: "For there dwells not in me, that is, in my flesh, what is good." But if the good does not dwell in his flesh, how does he say that our body is the temple of God, and the temple of the Holy Spirit? And moreover the rest, in which he confesses that by the law which is in his members, and which fights against the law of his mind, he is led captive in the law of sin — how will these things befit apostolic dignity, and especially Paul, in whom Christ both lives and speaks? But let us gather from these things how it is the custom of divine Scripture to change secretly both persons, and things, and the matters of which it seems to be speaking, and names — or rather, to use the same names in one set of things and another, as in the present passage the Apostle says: "For we know that the law is spiritual." This much, that he said, "We know that the law is spiritual," he pronounces with apostolic authority. For he who is carnal and sold under sin does not know that the law is spiritual; but he who has in himself the Spirit of God, he knows that the law is spiritual: which is fittingly said of the law of Moses. For it is that very law which, to him who understands it spiritually, is a spiritual law, and a Spirit giving life; but to him who understands it carnally, it is recorded to be a law of the letter, and a letter that kills. But as to what he says, "But I am carnal, sold under sin," here he now, as a teacher of the Church, takes upon himself the person of the weak; on account of which he also said elsewhere: "I became weak to the weak, that I might gain the weak." And here therefore, for whoever are weaker — that is, for the carnal, and for those who have been sold under sin — Paul becomes carnal and sold under sin, and he speaks those things which it is their custom to speak, whether under the pretext of excusing or of accusing themselves. He says therefore of himself, as though speaking in their person: "But I am carnal, sold under sin": that is, living according to the flesh, and reduced by a price into the power of sin, of lust, and of concupiscence. "For what I work, I do not know. For I do not do what I will; but what I hate, this I do." Now as to what he says, that "I do not know what I work," it is not the thing itself which one works that he is ignorant of, though he be carnal, but he is said to be ignorant of the cause of the thing which he does. But as to what he says, "For I do not do what I will; but what I hate, that I do," he shows that although he who speaks these things is carnal and sold under sin, nevertheless he also strives to resist his vices a little — by the prompting, that is, of the natural law — but is conquered by his vices and overpowered against his will: as often happens (for example) when someone resolves to bear patiently the one who provokes him, and in the end is conquered by anger, and suffers this against his will: he grows angry therefore even when he does not wish to grow angry. This same thing is also wont to happen through the vice of fear, so that against his will a man is terrified by dread and alarm; this also often occurs in the elation of a sudden or unexpected honor, so that he becomes more arrogant and more puffed up than he wishes. He therefore who is not yet spiritual is conquered in each of these things, even against his will: because that will of his is not yet so strong and so robust as to determine within itself that it must contend for the truth even unto death; nor is it such as to say, "It is, it is; no, no"; and therefore he cannot work the things he wills, but the things he does not will. Nevertheless, in that part by which he does not will the evil, he consents to the law of God that it is good, since it forbids evil; and the natural law is brought into a certain harmony with the law of God, so that they will the same things and do not will the same things. But if according to our will we consent to the law of God, then the evil which we do, it is no longer we who work it, but the sin which is in us — that is, the law and the will of the flesh, which leads us captive in the law of sin which is in our members. And here indeed the carnal Paul says, "It is no longer I who work it, but the sin that dwells in me." But the spiritual Paul says elsewhere, "I labored more abundantly than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God with me." Therefore, just as this one ascribes his labors not to himself, but to the grace of God which was working in him, so also that carnal one reckons his works, which are not good, not to himself, but to the sin which dwells and works in him. For this reason therefore he says: "It is no longer I who work it, but the sin that dwells in me. For there dwells not in me, that is, in my flesh, what is good." For Christ does not yet dwell in him, nor is his body the temple of God. Yet nevertheless he whose person is set forth here is not altogether a stranger to good things, but in purpose indeed and in will he has begun to seek the good, though he is not yet able to attain the good in deeds and works.
For there is a certain weakness of this kind in those who receive the beginnings of conversion: that although one may wish to do at once everything that is good, the effect does not immediately follow the will. For a man, deliberating within himself, resolves (for example) not to grow angry, and he settles this in his will; but because by long use and lasting habit the vice of wrath has held dominion in him, it resists even his will and purpose, and, taking the path customary to it, the force of rage bursts out. The vice of lust acts in like manner. By an equal disease of habit a lie too creeps in, fear frightens him off; and in each of these that man who is now receiving the beginnings of conversion fittingly says that "to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I find not. For the good that I will, this I do not; but the evil that I hate, that I do." But if the will holds the judgment of what is good, while the habit of carnal vices — which has been called the law of the flesh or the law of the members — resists and creeps in, then from the fact that I bear the will of the good, though I do evils, yet because I do them unwillingly, "I consent unto the law of God, that it is good." For I hate evils, and I desire to do the goods which the law commands. But if against my will I do evils, overcome by the habit of vices and by the practice of sinning, "it is no more I" — that is, the inner man — "who do the good I will; but sin that dwelleth in me." For he has named the habit of sinning "sin." "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man." And in these words, as we have often noted above, we seem not to be fully unfolded in the expression, but to be hindered either by the abundance of the conjunctions or by their peculiarities. We ought therefore to read them in some such order as this, that the sense may become clearer: Therefore, because evil is present with me, willing to do good I find the law of God, and I delight in it according to the inner man. By this he shows that the inner man — that is, the will and the purpose which takes its beginning of being converted to the Lord — consents to the law of God and is delighted in it. But, as we said above, it is not immediately, as soon as one has the will to be converted to good things, that the practice of good work also follows. For the will is a swift thing, and is turned about without hindrance; but the work is slow, because it requires practice, and skill, and the labor of working. And that this may become more evident, let us use also the likeness of an example. For instance, someone wishes to become wise, and yet he is not made wise the moment he willed it; but the will indeed went before, nor can anyone become wise without the will; yet nevertheless, when the will is present, labor must be applied, and study, and carefulness, and vigils, and teaching, and instruction; and scarcely at some time, by long practice and continual meditation, is he made wise. This man, then, from the beginning indeed at once had the will to be wise, but the work of wisdom was not at once present to him. But even in that very process, while he is being trained that he may become wise, how many things has he done foolishly and contrary to wisdom! And yet he could indeed understand how foolishly he had acted, for he already had the pursuit of wisdom; but he was not yet so wise as to be able to take heed lest he commit anything unwisely. This same order must be held also concerning chastity: that not immediately when one has willed to profess chastity will he also fulfill it in work, so as to be agitated by no goads of concupiscence. So too must it be known concerning meekness, and concerning patience, and concerning each several virtue. In all of which it is fitting to say that "I delight in the law of God," that is, in the virtues, "after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members." What he had said above, "for to will the good is present with me," he has here named the law of the mind, namely the will of the good; and this law of the mind agrees with the law of God, and consents to it. But again he calls the motions of the body and the desires of the flesh the law of the members, and the law of sin, which leads the soul captive and subjects it to its laws. For it is certain that the desires of the flesh drag the soul to sin and subject it to its laws; and just as the law of the mind, which consents with the law of God, if it can gain possession of the soul, leads it to the law of God, so also the law which is in the members, and the concupiscence of the flesh, if it seduces the soul, will subject it to the laws of sin. But when Paul, having assumed the person of the weaker man, had taught that these contests are held within a man, and had shown that even against the will, through the desires of the flesh, the soul is by the very practice of sinning snatched into the jurisdiction of sin, he uses an exclamation still in the person of him whom he has described, and says: "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" He sees himself wretched, within whom so many laws fight against one another, so many battles are stirred up: "the flesh fights against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh"; the law which is in the members fights against the law of the mind, and the soul is led captive in the law of sin and is brought under its yoke, even while the inner man is delighted with the law of God. How, amid so many and such evils as these, should a man not call himself wretched, and say that he dwells in a body of death? For deservedly is that called a body of death in which dwells the sin that is the cause of death. This exclamation, then, is made in the person of him whom the Apostle describes as having indeed received the beginnings of conversion, in that the will of the good is present with him, but he has not yet come into the effect of the good. For he does not find how to accomplish the good, because the practice and exercise of the virtues had not yet grown up in him. But an answer is given to him concerning what he had said, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" — no longer in that man's person, but out of apostolic authority: "The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord." From which it appears that the Apostle described all these things, and set forth the evils that were being wrought within us, for this reason: that at the last he might show and teach from how many evils and from how many deaths Christ has rescued us. But that it is the custom in the divine Scriptures for holy men to assume the persons of sinners, and for teachers to take upon themselves the infirmities of their disciples, we are most fully taught from the book of Psalms, when it says: "There is no peace in my bones because of my sins, for my iniquities are laid upon my head, and like a heavy burden they have weighed upon me. My scars have putrified and are corrupted because of my foolishness. I have been afflicted with miseries and bowed down even to the end," and the rest, with which nearly this whole Psalm is written. But if perhaps it will seem to someone that David could have said these things rather concerning himself, on account of the things that had befallen him, than concerning others, what shall we also say about Daniel, of whom indeed no sin is recorded, yet a confession is described in fastings and sackcloth and ashes, and a prayer of this sort, in which among other things he also says: "We have sinned, we have committed iniquity, we have acted unjustly, we have committed impiety, and we have departed and turned aside from thy commandments and from thy judgments, and we have not hearkened to thy servants the prophets, who spoke to us in thy name, and to our kings, and to our princes, and to our fathers, and to all the people of the land? And to thee, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us confusion of face." Who is there who could deny that in these words the person of sinners has been taken up by Daniel, on whose behalf he seems to say these things as though for himself? Whence it is fitting that we, when reading the sayings of the saints, whenever we see something of this kind said by them, should understand and perceive that they are describing in themselves our passions and our sins; and that they weep over these things for this reason, that by their weeping we may be invited to tears. For they considered that no one could be found so hard and ungrateful that, when he sees his own wounds bewailed by others, he himself should receive no feeling of grief over his own wounds. So therefore in the present chapter also the Apostle — lest any of us should blush at those things which he feels to be transacted within himself, or lest, even after being converted to the Lord and with his will already changed, he should despair on feeling these things still stirring within himself — himself described them as though they were transacted in himself, so that by the Apostle's example no one might either be ashamed of the nature of the body, or despair of amendment, or be ignorant of the multitude of his own evils, from which he is set free through the grace of Christ.
[§10] "Therefore I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." Perhaps someone will say that the Apostle, who up to this point has been speaking not as it were in his own person but having assumed the person of another, now, as though marking a change of person, says, "I myself," so as to show that these things which are to be said pertain to that same Apostle himself. And he says that with the mind he serves the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin — as if so great were the force of sinning, so great the tyranny of the flesh, that not even the Apostle could escape it; and for this reason he said in another place that "I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a reprobate." But whoever takes these things as spoken in the person of the Apostle seems to me to strike despair into every soul, on the ground that there is absolutely no one who does not sin in the flesh. For this is what it is to serve the law of sin with the flesh. To me, therefore, it rather seems that he is still maintaining the person of the man whom above he described in himself: one who by will and purpose has already been turned toward better things, and who serves the law of God with mind and spirit, yet has not yet obtained this, that he should bring even the obedience of the flesh into agreement with the mind. For indeed in the preceding passages he had discoursed on the mortification of the body, and had taught that we must die together with Christ; in these present words he seems to show how this work is not idle, and to teach that it is not the case that, as soon as someone wills, and as soon as he has purposed the good, it is straightway also fulfilled in deed; but that either so great is the force of habit, or so great the sweetness of the vices, that although the spirit already strains toward virtue and determines to serve the law of God, nevertheless the desires of the flesh persuade it to serve sin and to obey sin's laws.
[§11] "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sin and of death." What difference there is among those who, placed as it were in a kind of contest, live with the mind according to the law of God but are driven by the desires of the flesh into the law of sin, he taught in the preceding passages. But now he speaks of those who are no longer partly in the flesh and partly in the spirit, but are wholly in Christ; and he declares that in these there is nothing worthy of condemnation, because "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed them from the law of sin and death." Now the law of the Spirit of life is one and the same as the law of God, just as, again, the law of sin and the law of death are one and the same. There will therefore be no condemnation for those who are utterly freed from the law of sin, which is the law of death, and who serve the law of God, which is the law of the spirit. But to serve the law of God, and to be under the law of the spirit, this is to serve Christ. And to serve Christ is to serve wisdom, is to serve righteousness, to serve truth, and to serve all the virtues at once. Hence it is not to be supposed that anyone is suddenly, and as soon as he wills, transferred from the servitude of the law of sin and made to be in Christ Jesus, so that there is in him no longer anything held to deserve condemnation on the score of sin. Rather, righteousness demands in each one its own portion: it tests whether he has already been so amended and corrected that it finds in him no unrighteous work from which condemnation would follow. Likewise truth too demands in each one its own portion, whether one who has been transferred from the law of sin is now found in no respect to defile the service of truth with falsehood. Likewise chastity also examines its own portion, whether he is stained by no unchaste desires. So piety, so wisdom examine their own portions in each one; and if they find these standing rightly and entire in him, then he will be reckoned to be in Christ and to have nothing of condemnation. And of these things there is surely no doubt that they are acquired by long practice and meditation and by unsleeping labor. And therefore it is certain that these things do not befall the idle or the slothful; but by advancing little by little, and by sinning at first in few things, then afterward in the very least things, and at last, if they are able to attain it, in nothing at all. And perceiving this, the same Apostle seems to me to have written elsewhere: "Forgetting the things that are behind, stretching myself forth to the things that are before" — teaching by these words that the things behind must be those in which there was something blameworthy and worthy of oblivion, while the things before are those which are in Christ, and that these are the things toward which we ought to stretch ourselves out, and to seek them with the whole eagerness of the mind. As for our saying that the law of the spirit of life must be understood as the law of God itself, we said this, of course, according to that part of it which is said to be spiritual. For this reason he added, "the law of the spirit of life." For of the law of the letter he could not say this, concerning which he had declared elsewhere that "the letter kills." This is also called elsewhere "the ministry of death." The law therefore contains both, the letter that kills and the spirit that gives life. Hence consider whether perhaps that tree also of which it is written, "of knowing good and evil," holds the figure of this same thing. For both are contained in one, just as also in the law. But let us not omit this either, that here indeed he who frees from the law of sin and death is called "the spirit of life"; whereas in the Gospel according to John it is written, the Lord saying: "If you abide in my word, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." In which it seems to me indeed that, although these appear to differ from one another in operation or in name, nevertheless in the reality itself they are one. For Christ is life, and he it is who will set free; and here the spirit of life sets free. And how is there not in both one and the same freedom? For the things which the Spirit does, these Christ also does; and the things which are Christ's, the Spirit does. For just as those whom the Holy Spirit sanctifies, Christ sanctifies, so also those whom the spirit of life frees, life also frees. Only let it be that, freed by the law of the spirit of life, we abide in Christ and be no longer found serving the law of sin; because just as he who is freed by the law of the spirit of life remains in Christ who is life, so he who serves the law of sin remains in the death which comes from the condemnation of sin.
[§12] "For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weakened through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and concerning sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For they who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but they who are according to the spirit, the things of the spirit. For the prudence of the flesh is death, but the prudence of the spirit is life and peace: because the prudence of the flesh is an enemy to God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. But they who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if nevertheless the Spirit of God dwells in you." Since in what precedes he has named so many laws (for he spoke both of the law of God, and of the law of the mind, and of the law of the spirit of life), and on the contrary side has also mentioned the law which is in the members, and the law of death, and the law of sin, it is no small deliberation to choose which of these laws he now speaks of here when he says, "For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weakened through the flesh." I think, however, that here too, as we have often said in other places, the Apostle divides the law of Moses into two parts, and names one thing in it flesh and another spirit: and that observance indeed which is carried out according to the letter he calls the sense of the flesh, just as he says of a Jew of this kind, "Vainly puffed up by the sense of his own flesh"; but that which is received spiritually he names spirit, as he also says elsewhere, "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life." And in this passage, therefore, what he says, "impossible for the law," and "in that it was weakened through the flesh," can be taken of the understanding which is according to the letter. For it was both impossible and weak, if it were understood according to the flesh, that is, according to the letter. For what is so impossible as the observance of the Sabbath according to the letter of the law, as we have already often said in many places? For one is commanded not to go out of his house, not to move from his place, to lift no burden. And because the Jews who observe the law according to the flesh see that these things are impossible, they contrive certain inept and ridiculous devices, by which they may seem to patch up the impossibility of the law. But what shall I say of the system of sacrifices, which all at once has been made wholly impossible? Seeing that there is neither temple, nor altar, nor any place at all for sacrificing. In each of these things the law is, I will not say impossible and weak, but plainly already dead. For before this death it was weakened at that time when it attempted with the blood of calves and goats, and yet could not, to take away sins; and it was weakened in the laws concerning leprosy, which it was never able either to explain or to fulfill. In all these things, therefore, and in countless others, the law was both impossible and was weakened, so far as concerns the understanding of the flesh: and therefore "God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and concerning sin," or, as it is more truly found among the Greeks, "and for sin condemned sin in the flesh." In that he said, "in the likeness of sinful flesh," he shows that we indeed have sinful flesh, but that the Son of God had the likeness of sinful flesh, not sinful flesh. For all we men who have been conceived from the seed of a man coming together with a woman necessarily use that utterance in which David says, that "in iniquities did my mother conceive me." But he who came to an immaculate body from no contact of a man, but by the Holy Spirit alone coming upon the Virgin and the power of the Most High overshadowing her, had indeed the nature of our body, yet the pollution of sin, which is transmitted to those conceived from the motion of concupiscence, he did not have at all. For this reason, therefore, the Son of God is said to have come "in the likeness of sinful flesh." "And for sin," he says, "he condemned sin in the flesh." That Christ was made a victim for sin, and was offered for the purgation of sins, all the Scriptures testify, and especially Paul writing to the Hebrews, when he says: "For this he did once, in offering himself as a victim"; and again: "Who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." Through this victim, therefore, of his own flesh, which is called "for sin," he condemned sin in the flesh, as the same Apostle says in other places, that "he appeared in the last days for the destruction of sin"; and again the prophet says: "He himself bore our sins, and carried our iniquities." "For sin," therefore, that is, through the victim of his own flesh which he offered for sin, "he condemned sin in his flesh, that the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit." For through this victim of the flesh, which was offered for sin, he both condemned sin, that is, put sin to flight and took it away, that the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us who keep the law according to the spirit, and not according to the flesh: in which part, according to what we have expounded above, the law was impossible and weak. "For they who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but they who are according to the spirit, the things of the spirit." Here now more openly, setting the law of Moses as it were in the middle between us and the Jews, he says, "They who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh," that is, the Jews, whom he calls Israel according to the flesh, mind the fleshly things of the law, in that they understand the law according to the flesh; "but they who are according to the spirit" (speaking of those whom he calls Jews by the spirit, not by the letter), "the things of the spirit." And he still dwells upon the same sense, and opens it more evidently, when he says: "For the prudence of the flesh is death, but the prudence of the spirit is life and peace." Is it not one and the same thing that he says, "The prudence of the flesh is death," and that other saying, "The letter kills"? Therefore "the prudence of the flesh is death." Death to whom? To the soul, without doubt. For he who understands the law according to the flesh, that is, according to the letter, does not come to Christ who is life, and therefore "the prudence of the flesh is death, but the prudence of the spirit is life and peace." For he has life and peace, which is Christ, who understands the law spiritually. "Because the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God: for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be." The same understanding still seems to be unfolded. For how should the wisdom of the flesh, that is, the carnal understanding, not be an enemy to God, when it opposes Christ; when it does not receive him whom God sent; when it says: "We have a law, and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God"? How, then, should such a wisdom, and such an understanding in the law, not be called an enemy to God, and to his law?
To that which is according to the spirit, namely, it is not subject, nor can it be subject: for as death and life are contrary to one another, so are the killing letter of the law — which is also the wisdom of the flesh — and the life-giving spirit, which is truly the law of God, contrary to one another. "But they who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit: if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you." The same understanding holds throughout. "They who are in the flesh," he says — that is, they who follow the law according to the letter — "cannot please God." For this was long ago declared by God through Isaiah, when he says: "Your fasts and holidays and your great day I do not endure: my soul hates your new moons and your Sabbaths." But "you," he says, in whom the Spirit of God dwells — if indeed it does dwell — "are not in the flesh, but in the spirit"; that is, you do not follow the carnal understanding of the law, but the spiritual, through which you have come to the life-giving Spirit — if indeed your deeds and manner of life are such that you deserve to have the Spirit of God in you. Therefore, dividing the law of Moses, as we have said, into two parts, that is, into spirit and flesh, he has handed over to us the things that are of the spirit, which he also called the spiritual law; but the things that are of the flesh he has left to the carnal Jews. So, finally, he interpreted also that passage concerning Abraham when he said: "But he indeed who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh; but he who was of the freewoman, by promise. And as then he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him that was born according to the spirit, so also now." For it is certain that those who are Jews according to the flesh persecute us who are Jews not outwardly but inwardly, and who keep the law according to the spirit, not according to the flesh. Those, therefore, who are wise according to the flesh consequently also hope for the promises of the law in a carnal way. But we await them spiritually, according to the word of Paul, who says: "That we may receive the promises of the Spirit"; and again: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." From all of which it is shown both what the law according to the flesh is and what the law according to the spirit is, and what is the hope of a carnal promise and what of a spiritual one. It is possible also, according to another exposition — if we take it up again from the beginning — that "What was impossible to the law, in that it was weakened through the flesh," be understood also of the law of the mind, which he said above wills to do good but cannot fulfill it through the infirmity and frailty of the flesh; and that on this account God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and of sin — that is, by a victim offered for sin — condemned sin. For when remission of sins was given us, sin was put to flight and driven out of our flesh, and the justification of the law began to be fulfilled in us — of that law, at least, which delights together with the law of God, which is quickly fulfilled when the law of sin that was in our members no longer resists it, if indeed we walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For so long as anyone is in the flesh and lives according to the flesh, he is wise in the things of the flesh; but when he has turned himself to the spirit, and has died to the law of sin and of the flesh, he is wise in the things that are of the spirit. For to be wise according to the flesh is the death of the soul; but to be wise according to the spirit is life and peace: because "the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God" — that is, so long as the flesh resists the spirit and is not subject to the law of the mind, which is the law of God, it is at enmity with God; and therefore they who live carnally cannot please God. But "you," he says, "are not in the flesh" — that is, you do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit — "if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you." These things can also, as we have said, be fitted to this place according to another exposition. But let the one who reads choose, and let him follow whichever he judges the more fitting — if indeed he does judge it so.
[§13] "But if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of justification. But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies because of his Spirit that dwells in you." That the apostle Paul employs firm syllogisms drawn together by the dialectical art, whether in this place or in others of his Epistles, does not seem to me a thing to be set forth now, lest perhaps we appear to be advocates not so much of his knowledge as of his speech — in which he does not wish to be called skilled; and therefore we shall hasten rather to examine the sense of the chapter set before us. In what went before, where he said: "But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you," we explained in a twofold manner what it is to be in the Spirit: that is, either to understand the law not according to the letter but according to the spiritual sense; or else, with the body mortified, to live by the laws of the spirit and not of the flesh. And now, therefore, as to what he says, "But if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his," and then adds, "But if Christ is in you," it must be asked whether it is a different thing for the Spirit of God to be in someone, or the Spirit of Christ, or even Christ himself, or the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead. But so far as I regard either the sequence of the present passage, or that which the Savior says in the Gospel concerning the Holy Spirit, that "he proceeds from the Father," and, "He shall receive of mine" — and he joins in what follows the explanation of this word, saying: "Father, all mine are thine, and thine are mine: therefore I said that he shall receive of mine" — when, I say, I behold so great a principle of unity between the Father and the Son, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ seem to me to be called one and the same Spirit. Yet we can also understand in this way what he said, "But if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (since in truth it seems to be pronounced abruptly), namely, that if anyone has not deserved to be so great and such a one as to be worthy to have the Spirit of Christ, he is straightway denied to belong to Christ — whereas he says in the Psalms: "Mine are all the wild beasts of the woods, the cattle on the mountains, and the oxen." And if the wild beasts and the cattle are his, how are men not his? But it can, as I have said, be understood thus, like that saying in the Gospel: "He who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." And so here too, he who has not the Spirit of Christ — that is, who is not moved by that same Spirit, so as to be ready to go even unto death for justice, for truth, for announcing the word of God, for preaching the kingdom of heaven, for casting away the letter of the law and opening up its spirit, for resisting against sin — he who is not ready for all these things is not his disciple. He, therefore, who is not such, and does not bear such a Spirit within him, is indeed his creature, like the wild beasts of the woods and the cattle on the mountains and the oxen, but he is not his disciple. Thus, then, in "If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his; but if Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of justice," he seems to me in this place to call the Spirit of Christ and Christ one and the same thing. In him, therefore, in whom Christ is, he himself says that "we always carry about the death of Christ in our body." But death is imposed upon the body for the sake of sin — that is, that it may not sin. And if the body is dead to sin, necessarily the spirit lives for the doing of justice. For he who is dead in the body and does not serve sin must needs live in the spirit and serve justice. So too the same Apostle says in a certain place that he had delivered a certain man over to the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved. "But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies because of his Spirit dwelling in you." Since he had said above concerning those who, after the likeness of Christ's death, mortify their bodies that they may not sin, he necessarily now makes mention of him who raised Christ from the dead, so that in like manner and by the same reasoning by which they died together with him and were buried together with him, they may know that they are to be quickened through the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead, and to be raised from the dead after the likeness of Christ. And he shows in what way this comes about, saying: "Because of his Spirit dwelling in you." For if the Spirit of Christ dwells in you, it seems necessary that his dwelling-place be restored to the Spirit, and his temple given back. Yet I should wish to know what this very thing is which is said — that either the Spirit of Christ, or the Spirit of God, or even Christ himself dwells in us: whether this Spirit is given to all from the beginning, and afterwards driven away by the worst deeds and by deeds estranged from God, according to that which is written, "My Spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh"; or whether it is given afterwards by the merit of one's life and by the grace of faith, according to those things which are taught in the Acts of the Apostles, that the Holy Spirit came upon each one of them as it were in tongues of fire; or certainly as we are taught in the Gospel, when the Savior himself, after he rose from the dead, said to the disciples: "Receive the Holy Spirit," and breathed upon each one of them. Whence it seems to me that this gift is both won by merits, and preserved by innocence of life, and increased in each one according to his progress in faith and grace; and the purer the soul is rendered, the more abundantly is the Spirit poured into it. But as to what he said, "My Spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh," this looks to the fact that, since their soul, having repudiated the service of the Spirit, turned itself wholly to the services of the flesh, it takes the very name of that flesh to which it joined itself and with which it was made one. In diverse ways, therefore, can the Spirit be had. Either the Spirit of Christ is had, according to what we said above, from divine inbreathing, where he says, "Receive the Holy Spirit," and breathed upon them; or again in that manner in which it is said in the Acts of the Apostles to have been done, that the apostles spoke in diverse tongues. There is also that manner which is related in the books of Kings, when Scripture says: "And the Spirit leaped upon Saul, and he began to prophesy." There is also yet another manner: as when the Savior after the resurrection, journeying with Cleopas and another disciple and opening the Scriptures to them, set them afire with the Spirit of his mouth, so that they said: "Was not our heart burning within us, when he opened the Scriptures to us?" But do you wish to know that not only did Jesus in speaking hand over his Spirit to his hearers, but also that he who speaks the word of God in his name hands over the Spirit of God to his hearers? See in the Acts of the Apostles how, while Peter was speaking to Cornelius, Cornelius himself and those who were with him were filled with the Holy Spirit. Whence you too, if you speak the word of God, and speak it faithfully out of a pure conscience, and are not yourself refuted by your own words as one who teaches one thing and does another, it can come about that while you speak the fire of the Holy Spirit inflames the hearts of your hearers, and that straightway they grow warm and burn to fulfill all the things that you teach, so that they may fulfill in deeds what they have learned in words, and may seek "the things that are above," where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God: that they may be wise in "the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth." But in this way too is each one proved to have the Spirit of Christ in himself. Christ is wisdom: if anyone is wise according to Christ, and is wise in the things that are Christ's, he has in himself through wisdom the Spirit of Christ. Christ is justice: if anyone has in himself the justice of Christ, through justice he has in himself the Spirit of Christ. Christ is peace: if anyone has in himself the peace of Christ, through the Spirit of peace he has in himself the Spirit of Christ. So also with charity, so also with sanctification, so also with each and every thing which Christ is said to be: he who has it is to be believed to have the Spirit of Christ in himself, and to hope that his mortal body will be quickened because of the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him.
[§14] "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, that we should live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die; but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live." He taught above that the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, and that the gifts of the Spirit have been conferred upon us. Consequently, then, he now adds that "we are debtors" — debtors, without doubt, for those things which we have obtained from the Spirit of Christ. But "we are not debtors," he says, "to the flesh." For God did not make us to his own image for this purpose, that we should be liable to the servitude of the flesh, but rather that the soul, serving its own Creator, should itself make use of the service and ministry of the flesh. But perhaps someone may say: How are we not debtors to the flesh, since we are compelled by the necessity of nature to provide it with both food and clothing? But in order to show that it is not the bestowing of something upon the flesh that is held blameworthy, but the surrendering of life itself into the flesh's bondage, he therefore adds: "For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die." And what it is to live according to the flesh has already been said often. This is to indulge the desires of the flesh. In this respect, then, he denies that we are debtors to the flesh, just as elsewhere too he says: "And make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences" — by no means denying that care must be had for the flesh in things necessary, but in its concupiscences. So therefore here also, "For if," he says, "you live according to the flesh, you shall die." And he adds: "But if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live." And of this it has already been said above, how the body indeed ought to be dead because of sins, but the spirit is life because of justification. He, therefore, who acting according to the spirit mortifies the deeds of the flesh, shall live because of the spirit of life dwelling within him. Now one mortifies the deeds of the flesh in this manner. Charity is a fruit of the Spirit; hatred is a deed of the flesh: hatred, therefore, is mortified and extinguished through charity. Joy likewise is a fruit of the spirit, but the sorrow of this world, which works death, is a deed of the flesh: this, then, is extinguished if the joy of the spirit be in us. Peace is a fruit of the spirit; dissension and discord is a deed of the flesh; but it is certain that discord can be mortified through peace. So too the patience of the spirit extinguishes the impatience of the flesh, and goodness destroys malice, and meekness ferocity, and continence intemperance, and chastity slays unchastity; and in such an order he who through the spirit has mortified the deeds of the flesh shall live. It must indeed be observed that, just as he speaks not of that common death but of the death of sin — "For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die" — so also he speaks not of this common life but of that eternal life, to which everyone will come who, according to the things we have set forth above, has perfectly mortified by the spirit the deeds of the flesh. But this too we ought to know, that this mortification of the deeds of the flesh comes about through patience, and not suddenly, but little by little. First it is necessary that they grow faint in those who are beginning; then afterwards, when they have begun to advance more ardently and to be filled with a more abundant spirit, the deeds of the flesh will begin not only to grow faint but even to waste away; but when they have now come to perfection, so that no promptings of sin at all arise in them, whether in deed, or in word, or in thought, then they are plainly to be believed to have mortified the deeds of the flesh and to have handed them over wholly to death.