On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants 2.15–2.32

Showing also the very frailty, or rather the condemnation, of carnal generation from the transgression of original sin, when he was dealing with his sins, as if giving their causes, he said that man born of woman is of short time and full of wrath. What wrath, if not that by which all are by nature, that is by origin, children of wrath, as the apostle says, since they are children of the concupiscence of the flesh and of this world? He then shows that the death of man too belongs to this wrath. For when he had said, “He is of short time and full of wrath,” he added also, “And like a flower when it has bloomed, it falls; he departs like a shadow and does not remain.” And when he adds, “Have you not made the care of this one too come into your judgment? For who will be clean from filth? No one, not even if his life is of one day,” he says this, of course: you have made the care of a man of short life come into your judgment. For however short his life may be, even if it were of one day, he could not be clean from filth, and therefore he will most justly come into your judgment. And what he said, “You have numbered all my necessities, and nothing of my sins has escaped you; you have sealed up my sins in a bag, and noted whatever I committed unwillingly,” does it not show clearly enough that those sins too are justly imputed which are committed not by the enticement of pleasure but for the sake of avoiding some trouble or pain or death? For these too are said to be committed by a kind of necessity, although all things ought to be overcome by love and delight in righteousness. What he said, “and noted whatever I committed unwillingly,” can also be seen to belong to that saying: “For I do not do what I will, but what I hate, that I do.”

What of the fact that the Lord himself, who had borne him testimony, although Scripture too, that is, the Spirit of God, had said that in all that befell him he did not sin with his lips before the Lord, yet afterwards, when he spoke to him, spoke rebuking him, as Job himself testifies, saying: “Why am I still judged, being admonished and hearing the rebukes of the Lord?” But no one is justly rebuked except one in whom there is something worthy of rebuke. And what kind of rebuke is it, which is understood as coming from the person of the Lord Christ? He lists for him the divine works of his power, rebuking him with this meaning, so that he appears to say: Can you do these great things that I can? And to what end, except that Job should understand (we believe this too was divinely inspired in him, that he foreknew that Christ would come to his passion), should understand, then, with what equanimity he ought to bear what he suffered, if Christ, in whom, when he had become man for our sake, there was no sin at all, and in whom as God there is so great a power, nevertheless did not refuse the obedience of the passion? Understanding this with a purer intention of heart, Job added to his answer: “By the hearing of the ear I heard you before, and now, behold, my eye sees you. Therefore I have blamed myself and wasted away, and have reckoned myself earth and ashes.” Why was he so displeased with himself in this great understanding? For the work of God, by which he was a man, could not rightly displease him, since it is even said to God himself, “Do not despise the works of your hands.” But surely, in view of that righteousness by which he had known himself righteous, he blamed himself and wasted away and reckoned himself earth and ashes, beholding with his mind the righteousness of Christ, in whom there could be no sin, not only in his divinity but not in his soul or in his flesh either; in view of which righteousness, which is from God, the apostle Paul too reckoned as not only loss but even dung his own blamelessness according to the righteousness which is from the law.

That splendid testimony of God, then, by which Job was praised, is not contrary to the testimony by which it was said, “No living person will be justified in your sight,” because it does not prove that there was nothing at all in him which could either be truly blamed by himself or rightly blamed by the Lord God, although he was, without falsehood, called righteous, a true worshipper of God, and abstaining from every evil work. For these are God's words about him: “Have you noticed my servant Job? For there is no man like him on earth, blameless, righteous, a worshipper of God, abstaining from every evil work.” By the first words he is praised by comparison with the men who are on earth; accordingly he excelled all who could then be righteous on earth. He did not, then, have no sin at all because he surpassed others in progress in righteousness. Then is added “blameless,” one of whose life no one could justly complain; “righteous,” one who had advanced so far in uprightness of conduct that no one could equal him; “a true worshipper of God,” since he was a truthful and humble confessor of his own sins as well; “abstaining from every evil work”: it would be surprising if also from every evil word and thought. How great Job was we do not know; but we know that he was righteous, we know that he was great also in enduring dreadful trials of tribulation; we know that he suffered all those things not because of sins but to demonstrate his righteousness. Yet these words by which he is praised by the Lord could also be said of him who delights in the law of God according to the inner man, but sees another law in his members warring against the law of his mind, especially since he says: “I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I hate, that I do. But if I do the evil that I hate, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me.” See, this man too, according to the inner man, is a stranger to every evil work, because he himself does not do it, but the evil that dwells in his flesh; and yet, since even that by which he delights in the law of God he has only from the grace of God, still needing deliverance he cries: “Wretched man that I am! Who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

There are, then, righteous people on earth; there are great, brave, prudent, continent, patient, devout, merciful people, bearing with equanimity all temporal evils for the sake of righteousness; but if it is true (and it is true) that “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,” and that “no living person will be justified in your sight,” they are not without sin; nor is any of them so arrogantly mad as not to think that he needs the Lord's Prayer for his sins, whatever they may be.

As for Zechariah and Elizabeth, who are often put to us in disputes on this question, what shall we say, except that Scripture evidently testifies that Zechariah was of eminent righteousness among the chief priests who were concerned with offering the sacrifices of the Old Testament? But we read in the epistle written to the Hebrews (a testimony I have already set down in the former book) that Christ alone is the high priest who does not have the need, like those who were called high priests, to offer sacrifice daily first for his own sins, then for the people's. “For it was fitting,” he says, “that we should have such a high priest, righteous, without malice, undefiled, separated from sinners, made higher than the heavens, who does not have daily need, as the high priests do, to offer sacrifice first for his own sins.” In this number of priests was Zechariah, in it Phinehas, in it Aaron himself, with whom this order began, and any others who lived praiseworthily and righteously in that priesthood; who nevertheless had the need to offer sacrifice first for their own sins, Christ alone being he, whose coming they prefigured, who as the undefilable priest did not have this need.

What praiseworthy thing is said of Zechariah and Elizabeth that is not included in what the apostle professed of himself before he had believed in Christ? For he said that according to the righteousness which is in the law he had been blameless. And this is read of them too: “And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” Because, then, whatever righteousness was in them was not feigned before men, it was said, “before God.” And what is written of Zechariah and his wife, “in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord,” the apostle said briefly: “in the law.” For there was not one law for them and another for him before the gospel, but one and the same, which we read was given through Moses to their fathers, according to which Zechariah too was a priest and sacrificed in his turn. And yet the apostle, who was then endowed with a like righteousness, goes on and says: “What things were gains to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet I also think all things to be loss because of the surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord, for whom I have considered all things not only detriment but even dung, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God in faith, to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if in any way I may attain to the resurrection of the dead.” So far, then, are we from believing, because of those words, that Zechariah and Elizabeth had a perfect righteousness without any sin, that we do not think even the apostle himself was perfect at the summit of that same rule, not only in that righteousness of the law, which he had like theirs and reckons among losses and dung in comparison with the most surpassing righteousness which is in the faith of Christ, but also in the gospel itself, where he earned the headship of so great an apostleship: which I would not dare to say if I did not consider it a sin not to believe him. For where he goes on and adds, “Not that I have already received or am already perfect, but I press on, if I may lay hold of that for which I also have been laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not think that I myself have laid hold of it; but one thing: forgetting what is behind and stretching out to what is ahead, I press on according to my purpose to the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus,” he himself confesses that he has not yet received, is not yet perfect in the fullness of the righteousness which he loved to attain in Christ, but still presses on according to his purpose, and, forgetting what is past, stretches out to what is ahead; so that we may know that what he says applies to him too: “Even though our outer man is being corrupted, yet the inner is being renewed day by day”; although he was already a perfect traveler, even if not yet one who had arrived by completing the journey. Finally, he wishes to sweep along with him in this race companions such as these, to whom he at once adds and says: “As many of us, then, as are perfect, let us think this; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal this too to you; nevertheless, to what we have attained, in that let us walk.” This walking is done not with the feet of the body but with the affections of the mind and the conduct of life, so that those can be perfect possessors of righteousness who, advancing on the right road of faith by their renewal day by day, have already become perfect travelers on the way of that same righteousness.

So, then, all those who in this life have been proclaimed by the testimonies of the divine Scriptures for their good will and acts of righteousness, and all who have been such after them, though not proclaimed and praised by the same testimonies, or who are such even now, or will be such hereafter: all are great, all are righteous, all are truly praiseworthy, but they are not without some sin; since from the testimonies of the Scriptures, by which we believe in their praises, we also believe this, that no living person is justified in the sight of God, and that therefore he is asked not to enter into judgment with his servants; and that the Lord's Prayer, which he handed down to his disciples, is necessary not only for all the faithful collectively but also for each individually.

“But,” they say, “the Lord says: Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect; which he would not command if he knew that what he commands cannot be done.” The question now is not whether it can be done, if they take this perfection to mean that someone is without any sin while he leads this life (for we have already answered above that it can be done); but whether anyone does it: this is what we are now asking. And that there is no one who wills it as much as the matter demands was foreknown beforehand, as so many testimonies of the Scriptures which I recalled above declare. And yet, when someone's perfection is spoken of, we must see in what respect it is spoken of. For a little while ago I set down a testimony from the apostle, where he admits that he is not yet perfect in receiving the righteousness he longs for, and yet at once says, “As many of us, then, as are perfect, let us think this”; he would not say both unless he were perfect in one respect and not in another. For example, someone may already be a perfect hearer of wisdom (which those were not yet to whom he said, “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able, and even now you are not able”; for to them he also says, “We speak wisdom among the perfect,” certainly wishing perfect hearers to be understood); it can be, then, as I said, that someone is already a perfect hearer of wisdom who is not yet a perfect teacher of it; he can be perfect as one who knows righteousness, not yet perfect as one who does it; he can be perfect in loving his enemies, who is not yet perfect in bearing with them. And of one who is perfect in loving all men, since he has attained even to the love of enemies, it is asked whether he is already perfect in that very love as well, that is, whether he loves those whom he loves as much as that unchangeable rule of truth prescribes that they be loved. When, then, anyone's perfection is read of in the Scriptures, we must look carefully at what respect it is spoken of, since no one is understood to be altogether without sin because he is said to be perfect in some respect. Although even in this it can be so said, not because there is no longer any way in which he may advance, but because he has advanced for the most part, that he is held worthy of this name; as in the teaching of the law someone can be called perfect even if something still escapes him; as the apostle called perfect those to whom he nevertheless says, “And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal this too to you; nevertheless, to what we have attained, in that let us walk.”

Nor is it to be denied that God commands that we ought to be so perfect in doing righteousness as to have no sin at all. For it will not be sin, if there is any, which God does not command not to be. “Why then,” they say, “does he command what he knows no man will do?” In this way one can also ask why he commanded those first men, who were only two, what he knew they would not do. For it must not be said that he commanded it so that one of us might do it if they did not; for this, that they should not take food from that tree, God commanded to them alone, because, just as he knew what righteousness they were not going to do, so he also knew what righteousness he himself was going to do concerning them. In this way, then, he commands all men not to commit any sin, although he foreknows that no one will fulfil this, so that on all who have despised his commands ungodly and damnably, he himself may do in their damnation what is just; and on all who, advancing obediently and devoutly in his commands yet not fulfilling all that he has commanded, forgive others their sins as they wish to be forgiven, he himself may do in their cleansing what is good. For how is one who forgives forgiven through the mercy of God, if it is not sin? Or how is it not forbidden through the justice of God, if it is sin?

“But look,” they say, “the apostle says: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; there remains for me the crown of righteousness. He would not say this if he had any sin.” On the contrary, let them answer how he could say these things, when there still remained for him so great a conflict, so troublesome and great a fight, that of his passion itself, which he had said was already hanging over him. Or was little still lacking to finishing his course, when that was lacking in which the enemy would be fiercer and more cruel? But if he rejoiced, sure and secure, in such words because he had already been made sure and secure of victory in so great a coming fight by him who had revealed to him that that passion was imminent, then he said these things not in the fullest reality but in the firmest hope, and indicated what he confidently expected to come as though it had been done. If, then, to these words he had also added this, saying, “I now have no sin,” we would understand that he said this too not of the completion of a thing done but of a thing to come. For it belonged to the finishing of his course to have no sin, which these men think was already completed in him when he said these things, just as it belonged to the finishing of his course also to overcome the adversary in the fight of his passion, which even they must admit was still to be completed in him when he said these things. All this, then, we say was at that time still to be perfected, when, already trusting in God's promise, he spoke of it all as though it had been accomplished. For it belonged to the finishing of his course also that he forgave sins to his debtors and so prayed that they might be forgiven him; by which promise of the Lord he was most certain that at that end, which, though still to come, he spoke of in faith as already fulfilled, he would have no sin. For, to pass over other things, I wonder whether, when he spoke those words by which he seemed to these men to have had no sin, that thorn of the flesh had already been taken from him, concerning whose removal he had asked the Lord three times, and had received the answer: “My grace is sufficient for you; power is made perfect in weakness.” For the perfecting of so great a man it was necessary that the angel of Satan should not be taken away from him, by whom he was buffeted so that he should not be lifted up by the greatness of the revelations; and does anyone dare either to think or to say that anyone placed under the burden of this life is clean from all sin whatsoever?

Granted that there are men so excellent in righteousness that God speaks to them from the pillar of cloud, such as Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among those who call on his name, whose great praises for piety and innocence are proclaimed by truthful Scripture from his earliest boyhood, from the time when his mother, fulfilling her vow, placed him in the temple of God and dedicated him as a servant to the Lord; yet even of such men it is written: “You were merciful to them, and taking vengeance on all their affections.” For on the children of damnation he takes vengeance in anger, but on the children of grace he takes vengeance with mercy, since whom he loves he corrects, and he scourges every son whom he receives. But no vengeance, no correction, no scourge of God is due except to sin, except in the case of him who was prepared for scourges, so that he was tried in all things according to likeness, without sin, so that he might be the holy priest of the holy, interceding even for the holy, each of whom says, not falsely, even of himself: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” Hence even those who argue against these things, although they are chaste in life and praiseworthy in conduct, and do not hesitate to do what the Lord commanded that rich man who asked his counsel for obtaining eternal life, when he had answered that he had already fulfilled all the commandments of the law: that if he wished to be perfect, he should sell all that he had and give to the poor and transfer his treasure to heaven; yet none of them dares to say that he is without sin. And this, as we believe, they say without a deceitful mind; but if they lie, by that very fact they begin either to increase or to have sin.

Let us now look at what I put in the third place. Since a man can be without sin in this life, with divine grace helping the human will, why is he not? I could answer most easily and most truly: because men do not will it. But if I am asked why they do not will it, we go on at length; yet I will say this too briefly, without prejudice to a more careful inquiry. Men do not will to do what is just either because it is hidden whether it is just or because it does not delight them. For we will anything the more strongly, the more surely we know how good it is and the more ardently we delight in it. Ignorance, then, and weakness are flaws which hinder the will from being moved to do a good work or to abstain from an evil one. But that what was hidden may become known, and what did not delight may become sweet, belongs to the grace of God, by which he helps the wills of men; and that they are not helped by it, the cause likewise is in themselves, not in God, whether they are predestined to be damned because of the iniquity of pride, or, if they are children of mercy, to be judged and instructed against their very pride. Hence Jeremiah, when he had said, “I know, O Lord, that man's way is not in himself, nor is it for a man to walk and direct his steps,” at once added, “Correct me, O Lord, but in judgment and not in your fury”; as if he said: I know that it belongs to my correction that I am helped less by you, so that my steps are not perfectly directed; yet do not deal with me in this as in fury, by which you have determined to condemn the wicked, but as in judgment, by which you teach your own not to be proud. Hence it is said elsewhere: “And your judgments will help me.”

You should therefore refer the cause of no human fault to God. For the cause of all human vices is pride. To convict and remove it, such a medicine came from heaven: to man lifted up through pride God came down humble through mercy, commending clear and manifest grace in that very man whom he took up with so great a love above his fellows. For neither did that man himself, so joined to the Word of God that by that union one Son of God and the same one Son of Man came to be, bring it about by preceding merits of his own will. For it was necessary that he be one; but there would be two and three and more, if this could come about not by God's own gift but by man's free choice. This, then, is especially commended; this, as far as I dare judge, is especially taught and learned in the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ. That is why each of us now knows and now does not know how to undertake, do, and complete a good work, now delights and now does not delight in it: so that he may know that it is not of his own ability but of God's gift, either that he knows or that he delights; and so may be healed of the vanity of self-exaltation, and may know how truly it was said, not of this earth but spiritually: “The Lord will give sweetness, and our land will give its fruit.” And a good work delights the more, the more God is loved, the highest and unchangeable good and author of all goods of whatever kind. And that God may be loved, his love has been poured out in our hearts, not through ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

But men labor to find in our will some good that is ours, which is not ours from God, and how it can be found I do not know. For apart from what the apostle says, when he was speaking of the goods of men, “For what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”, reason itself too, which can be applied to these matters by such as we are, hems in hard any of us who inquires, lest we so defend grace that we seem to take away free choice, or again so assert free choice that we are judged ungrateful to the grace of God with proud ungodliness.

For some have wished to defend that saying of the apostle which I recalled by saying that whatever good will a man has is to be attributed to God for this reason: that it could not be in him if the man himself did not exist; and since he has it only from God that he is something and that he is a man, why should not whatever good will is in him also be attributed to God as its author, since it would not exist unless there were someone in whom it existed? But in this way it can also be said that bad will too is to be attributed to God as author, because it too could not be in a man unless there were a man in whom it was. And God is the author of man's existence; so too, his bad will, which could not exist at all unless it had a man in which to exist, would have to be referred to God as author. Which it is wicked to say.

Therefore, unless we hold that not only the choice of the will, which is freely turned this way and that and is among those natural goods which even a bad man can use badly, but also the good will, which is already among those goods whose use cannot be bad, can be ours only from God, I do not know how we are to defend what was said: “For what do you have that you did not receive?” For if we have from God a certain free will which can still be either good or bad, but the good will is from ourselves, then what is from us is better than what is from him. And if this is most absurd to say, we must confess that we obtain even good will from God. Although it would be surprising if the will could stand in some middle position so as to be neither good nor bad. For either we love righteousness, and it is good, and if we love it more, it is more good, if less, less good; or, if we do not love it at all, it is not good. And who would hesitate to say that a will which in no way loves righteousness is not only bad but even the worst will? If, then, the will is either good or bad, and we certainly do not have bad will from God, it remains that we have good will from God; otherwise I do not know in what other gift of his we ought to rejoice when we are justified by him. And hence, I think, it is written, “The will is prepared by the Lord,” and in the Psalms, “By the Lord a man's steps are directed, and he will will his way,” and what the apostle says: “For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good will.”

Therefore, since our turning away from God is our own (and this is bad will), while our turning to God we cannot do unless he rouses and helps us (and this is good will), what do we have that we have not received? And if we have received it, why do we boast as if we had not received it? And for this reason, so that he who boasts may boast in the Lord, that God wills to give this to some is of his mercy, not of their merit; that he does not will it for others is of his truth. For a just penalty is due to sinners, since the Lord God loves mercy and truth, and “mercy and truth have met each other,” and “all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.” And who could set out how often the divine Scripture mentions these two together? Sometimes even with the names changed, so that “grace” is put for mercy, whence it is said, “And we saw his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth”; sometimes “judgment” for truth, as in: “Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord.”

But why he wills to turn these and to punish those for their turning away: although no one can justly blame the merciful one in bestowing a benefit, and no one can justly blame the truthful one in exercising vengeance, just as no one could justly blame the householder in the gospel who paid some workers the agreed wage and bestowed on others even what was not agreed, yet the counsel of a more hidden justice rests with him. As for us, so far as it is granted, let us be wise and understand, if we can, that the good Lord God sometimes does not give even his saints either sure knowledge of some just work or victorious delight in it, so that they may know that it is not from themselves but from him that they have the light by which their darkness is enlightened, and the sweetness by which their land gives its fruit.