Accordingly Paul, who, although he was for- merly called Saul,"^ chose this new designation, for no other reason, as it seems to me, than because he'would show himself /////<'," — the " least of the apostles,"'^ — contends with much courage and earnestness against the proud and arrogant, and such as plume themselves on their own works, in order that he may commend the grace of God. This grace, indeed, appeared more obvious and manifest in his case, inasmuch as, while he was pursuing such vehement measures of persecution against the Church of (jod as made him worthy of the greatest punishment, he found mercy in- stead of condemnation, and instead of punish- ment obtained grace. Very properly, therefore, does he lift voice and hand in defence of grace, and care not for the env'y either of those who understood not a subject too profound and ab- struse for them, or of those who perversely mis- interpreted his own sound words; whilst at the same time he unfalteringly preaches that gift of God, whereby alone salvation accrues to those who are the children of the promise, children of the divine goodness, children of grace and mercy, children of the new covenant. In the salutation with which he begins every epistle, he prays: " Grace be to you, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ; " '^ whilst this forms almost the only topic discussed for the Romans, and it is plied with so much persistence and variety of argument, as fairly to fatigue the reader's attention, yet with a fatigue so useful and salutary, that it rather exercises than breaks the faculties of the inner man.
CHAP. 13 [vin.] — KEEPING THE LAW; THE jews' GLORYING; THE FEAR OF PUNISHMENT; THE CIRCUMCISION OF THE HEART.
Then comes what I mentioned above; then he shows what the Jew is, and says that he is called a Jew, but by no means fulfils what he promises to do. " But if," says he, " thou call- est thyself a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest His will, and triest the things that are different, being in- structed out of the law; and art confident that thou art thyself a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. Thou therefore who teachest another, teachest thou not ■i Jas. i. ijr. '° Acts. xiii. g.
88 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. 14.
thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonorest thou God? For the name of God is blas- phemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written. Circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law; but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore, if the uncircumcision keep the right- eousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circum- cision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is that cir- cumcision which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." ' Here he plainly showed in what sense he said, " Thou makest thy boast of God." For undoubtedly if one who was truly a Jew made his boast of God in the way which grace demands (which is bestowed not for merit of works, but gratuitously), then his praise would be of God, and not of men. But they, in fact, were making their boast of God, as if they alone had deser\'ed to receive His law, as the Psalmist said: " He did not the like to any nation, nor His judgments has He displayed to them." ^ And yet, they thought they were fulfilling tlie law of God by their righteousness, when they were rather breakers of it all the while! Accordingly, it " wrought wrath " 3 upon them, and sin abounded, committed as it was by them who knew the law. For whoever did even what the law commanded, without the assistance of the Spirit of grace, acted through fear of punish- ment, not from love of righteousness, and hence in the sight of God that was not in the will, which in the sight of men appeared in the work; and such doers of the law were held rather guilty of that which God knew they would have pre- ferred to commit, if only it had been possible with impunity. He calls, however, " the cir- cumcision of the heart " the will that is pure from all unlawful desire; which comes not from the letter, inculcating and threatening, but from the Spirit, assisting and healing. Such doers of the law have their praise therefore, not of men but of God, who by His grace provides the grounds on which they receive praise, of whom it is said, " My soul shall make her boast of the Lord; " •* and to whom it is said, " My praise ' Rom. ii. 17-29.
2 Ps. cxlvii. 20.
3 Rom. iv. 15. ■* Ps. xxxiv. 2.
shall be of Thee: " 5 but those are not such who would have God praised because they are men; but themselves, because they are righteous.
CHAP. 14. IN WHAT RESPECT THE PEL.'^GIANS ACKNOWLEDGE GOD AS THE AUl^HGR OF OUR JUSIIFIC.ATION.
"But," say they, "we do praise God as the Author of our righteousness, in that He gave the law, by the teaching of which we have learned how we ought to live." But they give no heed to what they read: "By the law there shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God." ^ This' may indeed be possible before men, but not before Him who looks into our very heart and inmost will, where He sees that, although the man who fears the law keeps a certain precept, he would nevertheless rather do another thing if he were permitted. And lest any one should suppose that, in the passage just quoted from him, the apostle had meant to say that none are justified by that law, which contains many pre- cepts, under the figure of the ancient sacra- ments, and among them that circumcision of the flesh itself, which infants were commanded to receive on the eighth day after birth; he imme- diately adds what law he meant, and says, " For by the law is the knowledge of sin." ^ He refers then to that law of which he aftenvards declares, " I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." 7 For what means this but that " by the law comes the knowledge of sin?"
CHAP. 15 [iX.] — THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD MANIFESTED BY THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS.
Here, perhaps, it may be said by that pre- sumption of man, whicli is ignorant of the right- eousness of God, and wishes to establish one of its own, that the apostle quite properly said, " For by the law shall no man be justified," ^ inasmuch as the law merely shows what one ought to do, and what one ought to guard against, in order that what the law thus points out may be accom- plished by the will, and so man be justified, not indeed l^y the power of the law, but by his free determination. But I ask your attention, O man, to what follows. " But now the righteous- ness of God," says he, "without the law is man- ifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets." * Does this then sound a light thing in deaf ears? He says, "The righteousness of God is manifested." Now this righteousness they are ignorant of, who wish to establish one of their own; they will not submit themselves to it.9 His words are, " The righteousness of God 5 Ps. xxii. 25.
Chap. i6.]
ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER.
89 is manifested: " he does not say, the righteous- ness of man, or the righteousness of his own will, but the " righteousness of God,'' — not that whereby He is Himself righteous, but that with which He endows man when He justifies the ungodly. This is witnessed by the law and the prophets; in other words, the law and the prophets each afford it testimony. The law, indeed, by issuing its commands and threats, and by justifying no man, sufficiently shows that it is by God's gift, through the help of the Spirit, that a man is justified; and the prophets, be- cause it was what they predicted that Christ at His coming accomplished. Accordingly he ad- vances a step further, and adds, " But righteous- ness of God by faith of Jesus Christ," ' that is, by the fliith wherewith one believes in Christ; for just as there is not meant the faith with which Christ Himself beheves, so also there is not meant the righteousness whereby God is Himself righteous. Both no doubt are ours, but yet they are called God's, and Christ's, because it is by their bounty that these gifts are bestowed upon us. The righteousness of God then is without the law, but not manifested without the law; for if it were manifested without the law, how could it be witnessed by the law? That righteousness of God, however, is without the law, which God by the Spirit of grace bestows on the believer without the help of the law, — that is, when not helped by the law. When, indeed, He by the law discovers to a man his weakness, it is in order that by faith he may flee for refuge to His mercy, and be healed. And thus concerning His wis- dom we are told, that " she carries law and mercy upon her tongue," ^ — the " lazu,"' where- by she may convict the proud, the " mercy" wherewith she may justify the humbled. " The righteousness of God," then, " by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all that believe; for there is no difference, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God " 3 — not of their own glory. For what have they, which they have not re- ' ceived? Now if they received it, why do they glory as if they had not received it?4 Well, then, they come short of the glory of God; now observe what follows: " Being justified freely by His grace." s It is not, therefore, by the law, nor is it by their own will, that they are justified; but they are justified freely by His grace, — not that it is wrought without our will; but our will is by the law shown to be weak, that grace may heal its infirmity; and that our healed will may fulfil the law, not by compact under the law, nor yet in the absence of law.
CH.\P. 16 [x.] — HOW THE LAW WAS NOT MADE FOR A RIGHTEOUS MAN.
Because " for a righteous man the law was not made; " '' and yet " the law is good, if a man use it lawfully."? Now by connecting to- gether these two seemingly contrary statements, the apostle warns and urges his reader to sift the question and solve it too. For how can it be that " the law is good, if a man use it lawfully," if what follows is also true: " Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man?"^ For who but a righteous man lawfully uses the law? Yet it is not for him that it is made, but for the unrighteous. ]\Iust then the unrighteous man, in order that he may be justified, — that is, become a righteous man, — lawfully use the law, to lead him, as by the schoolmaster's hand,'^ to that grace by which alone he can fulfil what the law commands? Now it is freely that he is justified thereby, — that is, on account of no antecedent merits of his own works; " otherwise grace is no more grace," ^ since it is bestowed on us, not because we have done good works, but that we may be able to do them, — in other words, not because we have fulfilled the law, but in order that we may be able to fulfil the law. Now He said, " I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it," '° of whom it was said, " We have seen His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." " This is the glory which is meant in the words, "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; " '^ and this the grace of w^hich he speaks in the next verse, "Being justified freely by His grace." s The unrighteous man therefore lawfully uses the law, that he may be- come righteous; but when he has become so, he must no longer use it as a chariot, for he has arrived at his journey's end, — or rather (that I may employ the apostle's own simile, which has been already mentioned) as a schoolmaster, seeing that he is now fully learned. How then is the law not made for a righteous man, if it is necessary for the righteous man too, not that he may be brought as an unrighteous man to the grace that justifies, but that he may use it law- fully, now that he is righteous? Does not the case perhaps stand thus, —nay, noX. perhaps, but rather certainly, — that the man who is become righteous thus lawfully uses the law, when he applies it to alarm the unrighteous, so that whenever the disease of some unusual desire begins in them, too, to be augmented b\' the in- centive of the law's prohibition and an increased ' Rom. iii. 22.
2 Prov. iii. 16.
^ Rom. iii. 24.
1 6 I Tim. i.
8.
24.
9 Rom. xi 6.
:o Matt. V.
i7- II John I. 1 Rom. iii 4.
12 23.
90 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. 17.
amount of transgression, they may in faith flee for refuge to the grace that justifies, and becoming dehghted with the sweet pleasures of hoHness, may escape the penalty of the law's menacing letter through the spirit's soothing gift? In this way the two statements will not be contrary, nor will they be repugnant to each other: even the righteous man may lawfully use a good law, and yet the law be not made for the righteous man; for it is not by the law that he l^ecomes right- eous, but by the law of faith, which led him to believe that no other resource was possible to his weakness for fulfilling the precepts which " the law of works " ' commanded, except to be as- sisted by the grace of God.
CHAP. 17. — THE EXCLUSION OF BOASTING.
Accordingly he says, "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay; but by the law of faith." ' He may either mean, the laudable boasting, which is in the Lord; and that it is excluded, not in the sense that it is driven off so as to pass away, but that it is clearly manifested so as to stand out promin^itly. Whence certain artificers in silver are called " exclusores." ^ In this sense it occurs also in that passage in the Psalms: "That they may be excluded, who have been proved with silver," ^ — that is, that they may stand out in promi- nence, who have been tried by the word of God. For in another passage it is said: " The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver which is tried in the fire." ■* Or if this be not his mean- ing, he must have wished to mention that vicious boasting which comes of pride — that is, of those who appear to themselves to lead righteous lives, and boast of their excellence as if they had not received it, — and further to inform us, that by the law of faith, not by the law of works, this boast- ing was excluded, in the other sense of shut out and driven away; because by the law of faith every one learns that whatever good life he leads he has from the grace of God, and that from no other source whatever can he obtain the means of becoming perfect in the love of righteous- ness.
CHAP. 18 [xi.] — PiETv^ IS wisdom; that is CALLED THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD, WHICH HE PRODUCES.
Now, this meditation makes a man godly, and this godliness is true wisdom. By godliness I mean that which the Greeks designate OeocrefSeLo, — that very virtue which is commended to man ' Rom. iii. 27.
2 [The allusion appears to be to the special workmen engaged in producing hammered or beaten {repoitsse) work. For other special classes of silver workers, see Guhl and Koner: The Life 0/ the Greeks ami Romans, p. 449. — W.j 3 Ps. Ixviii. 30.
4 Ps. xii. 6.
in the passage of Job, where it is said to him, "Behold, godliness is wisdom." s Now if the word 6f.oae(3eia be interpreted according to its derivation, it might be called " l/ie worsliip of God; " ^ and in this worship the essential point is, that the soul be not ungrateful to Him. Whence it is that in the most true and excellent sacrifice we are admonished to " give thanks unto our Lord God." 7 Ungrateful, however, our soul would be, were it to attribute to itself that which it received from God, especially tlie righteousness, with the works of which (the especial property, as it were, of itself, and pro- duced, so to speak, by the soul itself for itself) it is not puffed up in a vulgar pride, as it might be with riches, or beauty of linib, or eloquence, or those other accomplishments, external or internal, bodily or mental, which wicked men too are in the habit of possessing, but, if I may say so, in a wise complacency, as of things which constitute in an especial manner the good works of the good. It is owing to this sin of vulgar pride that even some great men have drifted from the sure anchorage of the divine nature, and have floated down into the shame of idolatry. Whence the apostle again in the same epistle, wherein he so firmly maintains the principle of grace, after saying that he was a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise, and professing himself ready, so far as to him pertained, to preach the gospel even to those who lived in Rome, adds: " I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." ^ This is the righteous- ness of God, which was veiled in the Old Testa- ment, and is revealed in the New; and it is called l//e righteousness of God, because by His_ bestowal of it He makes us righteous, just as we read that " salvation is the Lord's," "^ because. He makes us safe. And this is the faith " from which " and " to which " it is revealed, — from the faith of them who preach it, to the faith of those who obey it. By this faith of Jesus Christ — that is, the faith which Christ has given to us — we believe it is from God that we now have, and shall have more and more, the ability of living righteously; wherefore we give Him thanks with that dutiful worship with which He only is to be worshipped.
5 Job xxviii. 28.
6 Cultus Dei is Aiigustin's Latin expression for the synonym.
' One of the suffrages of the Stirsum Corda in the Communion Service [preserved also in the English service, which reads as follows: " Priest. Lilt up your hearts. Aitsiver. We lift them up to the Lord. Priest. Let us give thanks unto our Lord God. Answer. It is meet and right so to do." — W.J " Rom. i. 14-17.
9 Ps. iii. 8.
Chap. 21.]
ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER.
91 CHAP. 19 [XII.] — THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THROUGH THE CREATION.
And then the apostle very properly turns from this point to describe with detestation those men who, liglit-minded and puffed up by the sin which I have mentioned in the preceding chap- ter, have been carried away of their own conceit, as it were, through empty space where they could find no resting-place, only to fall shattered to pieces against the vain figments of their idols, as against stones. For, after he had commended the piety of that faith, whereby, being justified, we must needs be pleasing to God, he proceeds to call our attention to what we ought to abomi- nate as the opposite. " For the wrath of God," says he, " is revealed from heaven against all un- godliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them: for God hath showed it unto them. For the in- visible things of Him are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood through the things that are made, even His eternal pow- er and divinity; so that they are without excuse: because, knowing God, they yet glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools; and they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and to four footed beasts, and to creeping things." ' Ob- ser\e, he does not say that they were ignorant of the truth, but that they held down the truth in unrighteousness. For it occurred to him, that he would inquire whence the knowledge of the truth could be obtained by those to whom God had not given the law; and he was not silent on the source whence they could have obtained it: for he declares that it was through the visible works of creation that they arrived at the knowledge of the invisible attributes of the Creator. And, in very deed, as they continued to possess great faculties for searching, so they were able to find. Wherein then lay their impiety? Because " when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, nor gave Him thanks, but became vain in their imaginations." Vanity is a disease es- pecially of those who mislead themselves, and " think themselves to be something, when they are nothing."- Such men, indeed, darken them- selves in that swelling pride, the foot of which the holy singer prays that it may not come against him, 3 after saying, " In Thy light shall we see light; " * from which very light of un- changing truth they turn aside, and " their fool- ' Rom. i. 18-23.
2 Gal. vi. 3_.
3 Ps. xx.wi. II. * Ps. xxxvi. 9.
ish heart is darkened." s For theirs was not a wise heart, even though they knew God; but it was foolish rather, because they did not glorify Him as God, or give Him thanks; for " He said unto man. Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom."*^ So by this conduct, while " professing themselves to be wise " (which can only be understood to mean that they attrib- uted this to themselves), "they became fools." 7 CHAP. 20. THE LAW WITHOUT GRACE.
Now why need I speak of what follows? For why it was that by tliis their impiety those men — I mean those who could have known the Creator through the creature — fell (since " God resisteth the proud " ^) and whither they plunged, is better shown in the sequel of this epistle than we can here mention. For in this letter of mine we have not undertaken to expound this epistle, but only mainly on its authority, to demonstrate, so far as we are able, that we are assisted by divine aid towards the achievement of righteousness, — not merely because God has given us a law full of good and holy precepts, but because our very will, without which we cannot do any good thing, is assisted and elevated by the importation of the Spirit of grace, without which help mere teaching is " the letter that killeth," 9 forasmuch as it rather holds them guilty of transgression, than justifies the ungodly. Now just as those who come to know the (Creator through the creature received no benefit towards salvation, from their knowledge, — because " though they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, nor gave Him thanks, although professing themselves to be wise; " s — so also they who know from the law how man ought to live, are not made righteous by their knowledge, because, " going about to es- tablish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." ■°