On “What I do not want, I do” (Rom 7:19) 664–669

I praise your longing, I admire your zeal, and I welcome this fine rivalry of yours. For it is not a disorder that breeds …, but a pressure that weaves a crown of righteousness. I count blessed your fine eagerness, for which you endure every toil, hanging upon the divine citadel. But just as I admire this … toil. For yesterday this sacred assembly of ours was robbed, and instead of this divine and blessed stadium the hippodrome received the people; and I wondered how you sought a race of horses, leaving behind the race of the divine word. For there one could see a race of horses, but here the chariot of God, “ten-thousandfold, thousands of those who rejoice”; there one could see contest and racing and strife, here longing and zeal and eagerness. One chariot overthrows countless chariots. For the chariot of God is one, but the chariots of the … are many. But the one directs the course of godliness, while the others are overturned by the divine chariot. “For some,” it says, “trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we in the name of the Lord our God … ; but we have risen and stood upright.” This chariot breaks up the demons and lays the tyranny of the devil level with the ground. God has a chariot not of four horses, but harnessed of countless souls. “For the chariot of God,” it says, “is ten-thousandfold, thousands of those who rejoice.” The horses of God are the holy souls; the horses of God are the souls of the apostles, which travelled through all the earth and brought salvation to the world. For the riding of the apostles was the salvation of the inhabited earth. That is why the prophet proclaimed beforehand, saying: “You made your horses mount upon the sea, and your riding is salvation.” For these same horses brought salvation to the faithful, and … “your horses upon the sea,” he says, troubling the assemblies of the nations. Many kings were troubled, many tyrants were muddied, unable to bear the course of apostolic grace. That is why those who were troubled at the course of the apostles said: “Those who have turned the inhabited world upside down have come here too.” See the chariot of God; see horses that accept the bridle of godliness. Do not resist the word of truth, nor imitate the leaps of the brute beasts against the divine law, lest the divine Word say to you too: “Why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” Let us accept the bridle of godliness and turn our sight to a chaste spectacle; let us look at the charioteers of godliness, prophets and apostles. The prophets are charioteers of the truth, who steer the course of godliness. Such was Elijah, to whom Elisha cried out: “Father, father, …” … the godliness of all. When you hear the divine word, hang upon the teaching; but when you are outside the word, do not appear among the brutes … in the soul, and with the eye love the word of God. Do not … your sight … an unseemly spectacle, but toward a godly one. Accustom your eye to see nothing else but the beauties of heaven, so as to say: “To you I lifted up my eyes, you who dwell in heaven.” Accustom your hearing not to shouts, nor to uproar, but to the divine law, saying: “I will incline my ear to a parable,” and, “I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me.” One must not say what leads to flattery, but teach what instructs; for … nothing … , but the end of instruction … Do not … to the … spectacles, nor give up your … to the … songs. For you are able to master your reasoning, even if from … the … you see … your mind. You are not a slave, but … ; no one takes you captive, but you willingly sell yourself to sin. Do not lay hold of the apostolic saying; do not, when the reproof of truth comes in, exposing the hidden things of the …, say: “Am I above Paul, who says, What I wish, that I do not do, but what I hate, that I do?” Do not, being a slave to habit, slander the divine words; do not, fulfilling your own desire, defame the glory of the apostle. For many often “make excuses in sins,” and put forward to us the apostolic word that was just now read to us: “Paul said,” he says, “the vessel of election, who was steered at all times by the Holy Spirit: What I wish, that I do not do, but what I hate, that I do. I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin.” Every lover of sin likes to find a trustworthy person to support his sin, and they gladly … the apostles, not to insult them, but to provide a defense for themselves. “Paul said,” he says, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. If, then, nothing good dwells in Paul, how,” he says, “is it possible for good to dwell in me, and for me to share in good, and for there to be a root of good in me? If we find such a man a captive, … me, wretched and enslaved to sin?” So, lest two evils come about—that the apostolic word be slandered and that we provide ourselves license to sin—it is necessary … the whole … in the Scriptures … the solution, the subject. For when one knows the aim of the speaker, and to whom the word is addressed, and about whom, he gives a distinct and unconfused account of the words. The Apostle—to use a clear and short word—paints a picture of the whole human being: of the one formed from the beginning, of the one trained under the law, and of the one set free in grace; and he paints it, as in an image, in his discourse. What then was Adam before the commandment, and what did he become after the commandment? What condition did he have under the law, and what … did he receive in grace? And just as, if today I say, “He who made us according to his image and likeness … ; but since we transgressed the commandment, we were cast out of paradise,” I do not take the statement to myself, but … the ancient history to myself—for I neither saw paradise nor was cast out of paradise; but … the suffering of the father, and the original … of the calamity … I was trained, I was called back—so too Paul narrates about Adam, what he was before the commandment of the law (I mean the law given in paradise), and he says in the person of Adam: “And I once lived without the law.” Was Paul, then, older than the law? Paul flourished after all those reared in the law, after the appearing of Christ. If, then, he is after the law, how does he place himself as older than the law? For he shows … , saying that he was older than the law: “And I once lived without the law; but when the commandment came, sin revived.” Did the commandment come after Paul? And so that no one may suppose that the law existed before Paul, but that he himself once lived without the law, having taken up a gentile …, and was afterwards trained by the law, the history refutes it with the truth: for there is no time when Paul lived without the law. For how could the one who says, “a Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised on the eighth day, of the race of Israel”? When, then, did he live without the law? “And I once lived without the law; but when the commandment came.” Which commandment? The one that says, “From every tree that is in paradise you shall eat.” “But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” See how … righteousness … : that sin is put to death when … is achieved, and … sin. For to say, “But when the commandment came, sin revived,” shows that before the transgression sin was dead. And he calls “sin” not the act of sin, but the devil. Why does he call the devil … ? … teacher … became … of sin. For unless one … to the idioms of Scripture … of sin, he received the name of sin. “And I died” … but from me … the working of the transgression … the life … he gave the commandment to one who was not going to keep the commandment? Or rather, one must know that God foreknows all things, but gives laws looking not only to the one who transgresses but also to the one who will succeed. He foresaw that the choir of the saints would be formed; he foresaw that … would come through the universal destruction; he foresaw that Abraham, the root of faith, would flourish; he foresaw … the creature was mortal. For many thought this too, that God made it … not … the creature … if … death …

… has by nature; no one threatens food, which one receives by nature; … God threatens death. What the creature did not have at its making, it received through sin. For if Adam had remained keeping the commandment, the divine law, death would have had no room. And that wise saying bears witness: “God did not make death, nor does he delight in the destruction of the living; but through the envy of the devil death entered the world.” Hence, if one must speak according to truth, mortality came in upon us against nature, and the resurrection restores to us what is according to nature. That is why it is called resurrection: because the creature that was corrupted and had fallen through sin is set upright through righteousness. If Adam had remained in the commandment, he would have remained alive. And who guarantees the statement, so that it may not be thought conjecture and plausibility? So, brothers, that we may not be carried by conjectures to divine things, but may use the sequence of the argument and grasp the plain truth of things, … the immortality of the creature, what came after. If the creature was mortal by nature, if it did not receive death through sin but through its very nature, how did Elijah and Enoch conquer nature? How was Elijah taken up without tasting death? How was Enoch translated without experiencing death? See the pledges of the ancient creation: that it was possible for man to live, if he kept company with … law. That is why … God, taking first-fruits of our race, leads Enoch to immortality many generations before, and snatches up Elijah … many generations, and this usefully. For since godliness was to be practised in two peoples, in the people that has uncircumcision and in the people that professes circumcision, he does not take Elijah first, lest the Jew boast, priding himself on the first-fruits; he first takes Enoch, who did not live according to the law, but kept the good order of the church. For everything before the law was a type of the church. Examine who the righteous up to Abraham and the law were. Everything turns on names: Hellenism, the part of unbelief; Judaism, which lived according to the law; Christianity, guided according to the grace of the Gospel. Let our opponents be asked about Adam and Abel and Enoch and Seth and Noah, and all who were distinguished from his time up to Abraham: what were they? Greeks? But faith does not allow it. They were not Greeks; for they did not … submit, they resisted the error of the demons. So they cannot be called Greeks. Then what were they? Jews? But they did not receive the law, they did not keep circumcision. If, then, the ancients were neither Greeks nor Jews, another name has been found that can fit them. If indeed those who lived before the law were neither Jews nor Greeks, what name do they give them? What remains? Clearly Christians: not in name, but in power. That is why all the types of the church shone out beforehand. Enoch was uncircumcised, as the church is; he was not a slave to the law, as the people of Christ is not; he did not know distinctions of foods, as the church does not, which is … by the divine … word. The church, set in line with the type of godliness, is older than all, and the faith of Abraham is … not of the Jews but of the church. That is why the Apostle examines closely the … about faith, and wishing to show that Abraham is an image of the church and not of the Jews, he says: “Brothers, it is written that Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. When, then, was it reckoned to him? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision?” This is Paul, who was from the Jews, who knew the law and explained the things of the law: “Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision; and he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had in uncircumcision.” See the contemplation of many-layered thoughts; see how the Apostle moves Israel out of Abraham’s house, since it does not have the kinship of faith, and moves the nations in, as having the stamp of godliness. “And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of righteousness, so that he might become the father of those who believe through uncircumcision.” Do you see how the type of the church lived in Abraham? And the Savior too, wishing to show that the state of the Gospel leads back to the ancient state, when the Jews said, “Moses wrote: If anyone wishes to put away his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce,” the Savior, setting beside it what is in the law—not as undoing it, but displaying the true teaching—says: “Moses said it because of your hardness of heart; but from the beginning it was not so.” See how he restores us to the ancient state. I repeat the saying; but I beg you to contend alongside us by your silence, lest the uproar blow against us and break up the sense. My Lord, wishing to show that the Gospel teaching leads to the ancient state, when the … , or rather the Pharisees, said, “Why did Moses command: If anyone puts away his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce?”, the Savior does not accuse the law, but makes a defense for the law: “Moses said this because of your hardness of heart, but from the beginning it was not so” (see how he restores us to the ancient state); but “He who made man made them male and female. What, then, God has joined together, let man not separate.” And through many things I find the Savior leading the good order of the church back to the ancient state. So the type of the church lived before circumcision. And … carefully. Since from the beginning the type of the church lived, and afterwards again the rule of the church, while the law came in between, the Apostle, wishing to show the good order of the church running in sequence through time, says: “The law peeped in”; “but the law came in alongside.” He did not say, “The law came in,” but “came in alongside.” For the law that came in is one thing, and the law that came in alongside another. The law of the Gospel came in from the beginning, not observing days, nor attending to the purchase of foods, nor accepting circumcision. This law lived from the beginning among the ancients and reached down to the last; but in the middle the law came in, or rather came in alongside; and one may hear the Apostle saying clearly, as we have said, “but the law came in alongside” … Hear. Just as Jacob served Laban for Rachel, and at the wedding itself the one … did not come in; and the patriarch’s aim was to take Rachel, but the father-in-law’s deceit brought in one in place of the other, and the one who was not sought was found brought in alongside; so too God’s aim was to establish the church, but he brought in the synagogue alongside—not receiving it by force and deceit, but fitting events together according to the type of the ancient history. And just as Jacob, while with Leah, had his aim on Rachel, but bore the force that came from the deceit, so too God, during the time he had the synagogue, hated the one and longed for the other. And what word bears witness to us? Who guarantees the contemplation of the history? Often, living with the synagogue under the law, God said: “Your feasts and your new moons my soul hates.” And just as Jacob loved Rachel’s face but turned away from the weakness of Leah’s eyes—“for Leah,” it says, “was weak in the eyes”—so God turned away from a blinded soul. That is why the prophet said: “And who is blind but my servants? And who is deaf but those who rule over them?” And the servants of God were blinded. And just as there because of the weakness of the eyes, so here because of the blindness of the soul he turned away from the synagogue. That is why the Savior, hinting at their blindness, said: “Leave them; they are blind guides of the blind; and if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a pit.” And that through all the time in which the synagogue lived with the law God wished to cast that people out for its ingratitude, a prophet somewhere bears witness, saying: “From the day I brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt until today, it was before my eyes to cast out this city.” And that again, during the whole time the synagogue was with the law, God had his aim on the church, he says to Moses: “Let me,

“and I will blot them out, and I will make you into a great nation, and much more.” If you hold this in yourself, that the church is the image of the ancient history, how did the law come in alongside? As Leah alongside Rachel. And that, brothers, this is no forced contemplation or allegory, but that it truly was an image of … , that Jacob … the synagogue then, the church now, he himself says through the prophet: “I multiplied visions, and by the hands of the prophets I was represented. And Jacob served for a wife, and for a wife he kept watch.” Why, then, did he keep watch? Or how did he keep watch? You will find, brother, by another contemplation again, that Jacob took his wife in one way and Isaac, the father of Jacob, in another. Isaac, in taking a wife, did not himself go to Mesopotamia and take her, but sent his servant and betrothed her; but Jacob betroths not through a servant but through himself. For this too was a type of the Old and the New. For God, having betrothed the old synagogue, takes her through his servant Moses. Isaac, taking a wife, betroths through a servant, and … sends a servant; but Jacob, though he had servants, came himself to Mesopotamia. He came alone, he who had many servants; he came alone, he who had many beasts of burden. For God blessed the house of his master Abraham with sheep and cattle, silver and gold, slaves and horses and the rest. And having so many possessions he comes with only his staff, and Jacob says: “With my staff I crossed this Jordan,” that is, “Having only a staff I went out alone,” he who was the heir of many things. Jacob went out alone, came to Bethel, slept the night, and put a stone under his head; he found no house, no lodging. For he was an image of the one who says, “But the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Then, brothers, while sleeping he sees heaven opened. For just as Christ had nowhere on earth to lay his head, but heaven and the things of heaven were opened to him, so Jacob sleeps, having no house, and sees heaven opened, and a ladder fixed from earth to heaven. And in another sense he was a type of those who are persecuted. For since he came to Mesopotamia fleeing from Esau, God, wishing to show that heaven is opened to everyone persecuted on earth, lets him see heaven opened, and a ladder fixed from earth to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending by the ladder. “And the Lord,” it says, “was leaning upon it.” It did not simply say “was seated,” but “was leaning upon the ladder.” And what is the ladder? An image of the cross. For through it one can ascend to heaven. And some ascended to heaven through it, while others went down through it: the Jews fell from heaven through the cross, and the nations are led up to heaven through the cross. But since one must everywhere avoid forcing … , so that the Savior might show through the Gospels that those angels ascending and descending fulfilled an image of the grace of the Gospel, he says to Nathanael: “Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, you believed; you will see greater things than these. Truly I say to you, from now on you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” He came to Mesopotamia, and when he saw the vision he said: “This is none other than the house of God.” And yet you did not see a building of houses, but a ladder; but since he knew that the ladder was a type of the church, he says, “This is the house of God,” this is the church. And where do we learn that the house of God is the church? Paul says, writing this to Timothy: “I hope to come to you soon; but if I delay, I write so that you may know how one ought to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God.” Then, bearing everywhere the image of Christ, the image without possessions, … , he says: “If the Lord God is with me, and gives me bread to eat and a garment to wear.” See how the philosopher does not go beyond sufficiency. “If the Lord God is with me, and guides me on the way, and gives me bread to eat and a garment to put on.” Before the Gospel he utters the words of the apostles: “And if he gives me bread to eat and a garment to put on.” Paul speaks through Jacob: “For having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” “This place shall be to me a house of God.” This is also what “Bethel” means: for Beth is house, and El, God. He went off to Mesopotamia, and first a well meets him. He came to the well, and it was covered, and he found shepherds there. An image of Christ in everything. The first coming of Christ was to baptism, to the well, the well “springing up to eternal life.” He finds the well covered, since grace too was veiled before his coming. Jacob says to the shepherds: “Why are you still standing here? It is still broad day; water the sheep and go.” And they say to him: “Unless all the shepherds come, we cannot roll away the stone.” And what does Jacob do at once? What had to be done by many, by all the shepherds, he does alone; for he takes and rolls away the stone. How could he do what many could scarcely do? But since he was an image of Christ, Scripture showed the power of the Master: that what many could not accomplish, the grace of the Gospel accomplished. There he finds Rachel coming; for everywhere the ancient righteous received their brides for the most part from wells. Moses had his wife, the daughter of Jethro, from a well; Jacob from a well; Abraham’s servant received Rebecca from a well. Everywhere the betrothals of the ancients are from a well, since Christ too betroths the church from nowhere else than from the waters. And to be brief: he went in, asked for Rachel, and Leah came in alongside. It is necessary to hold to what is before us and return to it. The law, then, did not come in …, since Leah too did not come in, but came in alongside. For to come in is to use open boldness; to come in alongside is to come in together with another … So sin too came in alongside: the devil came in alongside through the law. “For sin, finding an occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.” So, lest anyone think that the commandment is what brings death, he says: “So the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means; but that sin might appear, working death in me through what is good.” Everywhere he calls sin sinful, that is, the devil. “That,” he says, the devil “might appear exceedingly sinful,” working death through the commandment. “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly.” You, Paul, fleshly—you who are steered by the Holy Spirit, who have Christ speaking in you? If you are fleshly, why did you deceive your disciples, saying, “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit”? Your disciples are not in the flesh, and are you fleshly? “But I am fleshly.” “I.” Who? The one who lived before … and under the law: “sold under sin.” He did not say “sold by sin,” but “sold to sin.” For no other human being sold him, but he sold himself. For just as among us human beings there are some who are sold by compulsion, while others who share in freedom give themselves up into slavery through marriage with slave girls or some other necessity, so too man, being free by nature and having received a free nature, willingly sold himself. Do you want to see a man selling himself? See what Elijah says to Ahab, when God sent him to reprove him for the vineyard he had taken from Naboth. Ahab says to him: “Have you found me, my enemy?” Elijah says to him: “I have found you, because you sold yourself to do evil before the Lord.” For our sale is through the works of wickedness. “But I am fleshly, sold under sin.” For the one who has been taken hold of by evil habit does not easily throw himself out of slavery even if he wishes. For habit is a second nature, and nature … against human beings. That is why he added: “For what I wish, that I do not do,” as once …