against Him they bring in from a contrary- principle a substance of evil rebelling, which He could not have resisted, had He not blended with that same that was rebelling a portion of His own Substance and Nature, for it to contaminate and corrupt; and they say that they then sin when the nature of evil prevails over the nature of God. This is that most unclean madness of the Manichseans, whose devilish devices the undoubted truth most easily overthrows; which confesses that the nature of God is incapable of contamina- tion and corruption. But what wicked con- tamination and corruption do they not de- serve to have believed of them, by whom God, Who is good in the very highest degree, and in a way that admits not of comparison, is believed to be capable of contamination and corruption?
15. And there are also they who in excuse of their sins so accuse God, as to say that sins are pleasing to Him. For, if they were displeasing, say they, surely by His most Almighty power He would by no means suffer them to take place. As though indeed God suffered sins to be unpunished, even in the case of those whom by remission of sins He frees from eternal punishment! No one for- sooth receives pardon of more grievous pun- ishment due, unless he hath suffered some punishment, be it what it may, although far less than what was due: and the fullness of mercy is so conveyed, as that the justice also of discipline is not abandoned. For also sin, which seems unavenged, hath its own atten- dant punishment, so that there is no one but by reason of what he hath done either suffers pain from bitterness, or suffers not through blindness. As therefore you say, Why doth He permit those things, if they are displeas- ing? so I say, Why doth He punish them, if they are pleasing? And thus, as I confess that those things would not take place at all, unless they were permitted by the Almighty, so confess thou that what are punished by the Just- One ought not to be done; in order that, by not doing what He punishes, we may deserve to learn of Him, why He permits to exist what He punishes. For, as it is written, " solid food is for the perfect/' * wherein they who have made good progress already under- stand, that it pertained rather unto the Al- mighty power of God, to allow the existence of evils coming from the free choice of the will So great forsooth is His Almighty goodness, as that even of evil He can make good, either by pardoning, or by healing, or by fitting and turning unto the profit of the 1 Heb. v. 14.
pious, or even by most justly taking ven- geance. For all these are good, and most worthy a good and Almighty God: and yet they are not made save of evils. What there- fore better, what more Almighty, than He, Who, whereas He maketh no evil, even of evils maketh well? They who have done ill cry unto Him, " Forgive us our debts; " 2 He hears, He pardons. Their own evils have hurt the sinners; He helps and heals their sicknesses. The enemies of His people rage; of their rage He makes martyrs. Lastly, also, He condemns those, whom He judges worthy of condemnation; although they suffer their own evils, yet He doeth what is good. For what is just cannot but be good, and assuredly as sin is unjust, so the punishment of sin is just.
16. But God wanted not power to make man such as that he should not be able to sin: but He chose rather to make him such, as that it should lie in his power 3 to sin, if he would; not to sin, if he would not; forbid- ding the one, enjoining the other; that it might be to him first a good desert not to sin, and after a just reward not to be able to sin. For such also at the last will He makes His Saints, as to be without all power to sin. Such forsooth even now hath He His angels, whom in -Him we so love, as to have no fear for any of them, lest by sinning he become a devil. And this we presume not of any just man in this mortal life. But we trust that all will be such in that immortal life. For Almighty God Who worketh good even of our evils, what good will He give, when He shall have set us free from all evils? Much may be said more fully and more subtilely on the good use of evil; but this is not what we have undertaken in our present discourse, and we must avoid in it excess of length.
17. Now therefore let us return to that, wherefore we have said what we have. We have need of Continence, and we know it to be a divine gift, that our heart fall not away unto evil words, to make excuses in sins. But what sin is there but that we have need of Continence, to restrain it from being com- mitted, since it is this very Continence which, in case it have been committed, restrains it from being defended by wicked pride? Uni- versally therefore we have need of Continence, in order to turn away from evil. But to do good seems to pertain to another virtue, that is, to righteousness.4 This the sacred Psalm admonishes us, where we read, " Turn away from evil, and do good." But with what end we do this, it adds bye and bye, saying, 2 Matt. vi. 12.
3 Cut adjaceret.
4 Justitiajn.
386 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
"Seek peace, and ensue it."1 For we shall then have perfect peace, when, our nature cleaving inseparably to its Creator, we shall have nothing of ourselves opposed to our- selves. This our Saviour also Himself would have us to understand, so far as seems to me, when He said, "Let your loins be girt, and your lamps burning."2 What is it, to gird the loins? To restrain lusts, which is the work of continence. But to have lamps burn- ing is to shine and glow with good works, which is the work of righteousness. Nor was He here silent with what end we do these things, adding and saying, "And you like unto men waiting for their Lord, when He cometh from the marriage." 3 But, when He shall have come, He will reward us, who have kept ourselves from those things which lust, and have done those things which charity hath bidden us: that we may reign in His perfect and eternal peace, without any strife of evil, and with the highest delight of good. 1 8. All we therefore, who believe in the Living and True God, Whose Nature, being in the highest sense good and incapable of change, neither doth any evil, nor suffers any evil, from Whom is every good, even that which admits of decrease, and Who admits not at all of decrease in His own Good, Which is Himself, when we hear the Apostle saying, " Walk in the Spirit, and perform ye not the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: For these are opposed one to another, that ye do not what ye would."4 Far be it from us to believe, what the madness of the Manichees believes, that there are here shown two natures or principles contrary one to an- other at strife, the one nature of good, the other of evil. Altogether these two are both good; both the Spirit is a good, and the flesh a good: and man, who is composed of both, one ruling, the other obeying, is assuredly a good, but a good capable of change, which yet could not be made save by a Good in- capable of change, by Whom was created every good, whether small or great; but how small soever, yet made by What is Great; and how great soever, yet no way to be compared with the greatness of the Maker. But in this, nature of man, that is good, and well formed and ordered by One That is Good, there is now war, since there is not yet health. Let the sickness be healed, there is peace. But that sickness fault hath deserved, not nature hath had. And this fault indeed through the laver of regeneration the grace of God hath already remitted unto the faithful; but under - Luke xii. 35.
3 Luke xii. 36.
the hands of the same Physician nature as yet striveth with its sickness. But in such a con- flict victory will be entire soundness; and that, soundness not for a time, but for ever: wherein not only this sickness is to come to an end, but also none to arise after it. Wherefore the just man addresseth his soul and saith, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His returns: Who becometh propitious to all thy iniquities, Who healeth all thy sicknesses. ' ' 5 He becometh propitious to our iniquities, when He pardons sins: He heals sicknesses when He restrains evil de- sires. He becometh propitious unto iniquities by the grant of forgiveness: He heals sick- nesses, by the grant of continence. The one was done in Baptism to persons confessing: the other is done in the strife to persons con- tending; wherein through His help we are to overcome our disease. Even now the one is done, when we are heard, saying, " Forgive us our debts;"6 but the other, when we are heard, saying, " Lead us not into temptation. For every one is tempted," saith the Apostle James, "being drawn away and enticed by his own lust."7 And against this fault there is sought the help of medicine from Him, Who can heal all such sicknesses, not by the removal of a nature that is alien from us, but in the renewal of our own nature. Whence also the above-mentioned Apostle saith not, "Everyone is tempted " by lust, but added, "by his own:" that he who hears this may un- derstand, how he ought to cry, " I said, Lord, have mercy upon me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee."8 For it would not have needed healing, had it not corrupted9 itself by sinning, so that its own flesh should lust against it, that is, itself should be opposed to itself, on that side, wherein in the flesh it was made sick.
19. For the flesh lusts after nothing save through the soul, but the flesh is said to lust against the spirit, when the soul with fleshly lust wrestles against the spirit. This whole are we: and the flesh itself, which on the de- parture of the soul dies, the lowest part of us is not put away as what we are to flee from, but is laid aside as what we are to re- ceive again, and, after having received it, never again to leave. But " there is sown an animal body, there shall rise again a spiritual body."10 Then from that time the flesh will not lust after any thing against the spirit, when as itself also shall be called spiritual, forasmuch as not only without any opposition, but also without any need of bodily aliment, ON CONTINENCE.
387 it shall be for ever made subject unto the spirit, to be quickened by Christ. Therefore these two things, which are now opposed the one to the other within us, since we exist in both, let us pray and endeavor that they may agree. For we ought not to think the one of them an enemy, but the fault, whereby the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and this, when healed, will itself cease to exist, and either substance will be safe, and no strife between either. Let us hear the Apostle; "I know," saith he, "that there dwelleth not in me, that is, in my flesh, any good."1 This certainly he saith; that the fault of the flesh, in a good thing, is not good; and, when this shall have ceased to exist, it will be flesh, but it will not be now corrupted or faulty 2 flesh. And yet that this pertains to our nature the same teacher shows, by saying, first, " I know that there dwelleth not in me," in order to ex- pound which, he added, " that is, in my flesh, any good." Therefore he saith that his flesh is himself. It is not then itself that is our enemy: and when its faults are resisted, itself is loved, because itself is cared for; "For no one ever hated his own flesh,"3 as the Apostle himself saith. And in another place he saith, " So then I myself with the mind serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the Law of sin." Let them hear that have ears. "So then I myself;" I with the mind, I with the flesh, but " with the mind I serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin."4 How "with the flesh the law of sin?" was it at all by consenting unto fleshly lust? Far be it! but by having there motions of desires which he would not have, and yet had. But, by not consenting to them, with the mind he served the Law of God, and kept his members from becoming weapons of sins.
20. There are therefore in us evil desires, by consenting not unto which we live not ill: there are in us lusts of sins, by obeying not which we perfect not evil, but by having them do not as yet perfect good. The Apostle shows both, that neither is good here per- fected, where evil is so lusted after, nor evil here perfected, whereas such lust is not obeyed. The one forsooth he shows, where he says, " To will is present with me, but to perfect good is not;"5 the other, where he says, " Walk in the Spirit, and perfect not the lusts of the flesh. "6 For neither in the former place doth he say that to do good is not with him, but "to perfect,'' nor here doth he say, Have not " lusts of the flesh," but " perfect not." Therefore there take place in us evil lusts, when that pleases which is not lawful; but they are not perfected, when evil lusts are restrained by the mind serving the Law of God. And good takes place, when that, which wrongly pleases, takes not place through the good delight prevailing. But the perfection of good is not fulfilled, so long as by the flesh serving the law of sin, evil lust entices, and, although it be restrained, is yet moved. For there would be no need for it to be restrained, were it not moved. There will be at some time also the perfection of good, when the destruction of evil: the one will be highest, the other will be no more. And if we think that this is to be hoped for in this mortal state, we are deceived. For it shall be then, when death shall not be; and it shall be there, where shall be life eternal. For in that world,7 and in that kingdom, there shall be highest geod, no evil: when there shall be, and where there shall be, highest love of wis- dom, no labor of continence. Therefore the flesh is not evil, if it be void of evil, that is, of fault, whereby man was rendered faulty, not made ill, but himself making. For on either part, that is, both soul and body, being made good by the good God, himself made the evil, whereby he was made evil. From the guilt of which evil being already also set free through forgiveness,8 that he may not think what he hath done to be light, he yet wars with his own fault through continence. But far be it that there be any faults in such as reign in that peace which shall be hereafter; since in this state of war there are lessened daily in such as make progress, not sins only, but the very lusts also, with which, by not consenting, we strive, and b)r consenting unto which we sin.
21. That, therefore, the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, that there dwelleth not in our flesh good, that the law in our members is opposed to the law of the mind, is not a mingling of two natures caused of contrary principles, but a division of one against itself caused through desert of sin. We were not so in Adam, before that nature, having listened to and followed its deceiver, had despised and offended its Creator: that is, not the former life of man created, but the latter punish- ment of man condemned. From which con- demnation when set free by Grace, through Jesus Christ, being free they contend with their punishment, having received not as yet full salvation, but already a pledge of salva- tion: but when not set free, they are both guilty by reason of sins, and involved in pun- ishments. But after this life for the guilty 7 S&culo.
8 Indtilgentiam.
388 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
there will remain for ever punishment for their crime: for the free there will no more remain for ever either crime or punishment: but the good substances, spirit and flesh, will continue for ever, which God, Who is good, and incapable of change, created good al- though capable of change. But they will continue having been changed for the better, never from this time to be changed for the worse: all evil being utterly destroyed, both what man hath unjustly done, and what he hath justly suffered. And, these two kinds of evil perishing utterly, whereof the one is of iniquity going before, the other of un- happiness following after, the will of man will be upright without any depravity. There it will be clear and plain to all, what now many of the faithful believe, few understand, that evil is not a substance: but that, as a wound in a body, so in a substance, which hath made itself faulty, it hath begun to exist, when the disease hath commenced, and ceaseth to ex- ist in it, when the healing hath been per- fected. Therefore, all evil having arisen from us, and having been destroyed in us, our good also having been increased and per- fected unto the height of most happy incor- ruption and immortality, of what kind shall either of our substances be? forasmuch as now, in this corruption and mortality, when as yet "the corruptible body weigheth down the soul;"1 and, what the Apostle saith, "the body is dead by reason of sin;"2 yet the same himself beareth such witness unto our flesh, that is, to our lowest and earthly part, as to say, what I made mention of a little above, "No one ever hated his own flesh." 3 And to add straightway, " but nour- isheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ the Church."
22. I say not, therefore, with what error, but with what utter madness, do the Mani- chees attribute our flesh to some, I know not what, fabled " race of darkness," 4 which they will have hath had its own nature without any beginning ever evil: whereas the true teacher exhorts men to love their own wives by the pattern of their own flesh, and exhorts them unto this very thing by the pattern also of Christ and the Church. Lastly, we must call to mind the whole place itself of the Epistle of the Apostle, relating greatly unto the mat- ter in hand. "Husbands," saith he, "love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of the water in the word: that He might set forth unto Himself a glorious Church, not having 4 See De Ag. Christ. § 4.
spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it may be holy and unspotted. So," saith he, " husbands also ought to love their own wives, as their own bodies. Whoso loveth his own wife, loveth himself."s Then he added, what we have already made mention of, " For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it, and cherisheth it; as also Christ the Church."6 What saith the madness of most impure impiety in answer to these things? What say ye in answer to these things, ye Manichees; ye who wish to bring in upon us, as if out of the Epistles of the Apostles, two natures without beginning, one of good, the other of evil: and will not listen to the Epis- tles of the Apostles, that they may correct you from that sacrilegious perverseness? As ye read, "The flesh lusteth against the spirit,"7 and, "There dwelleth not in my flesh any good;" 8 so read ye, " No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cher- isheth it, as also Christ the Church."9 As ye read, " I see another law in my members, opposed to the law of my mind;",0 so read ye, " As Christ loved the Church, so also ought men to love their own wives, as their own bodies." Be not ye crafty in the former witnesses of Holy Scripture, and deaf in this latter, and ye shall be correct in both. For, if ye receive the latter as right is, ye will en- deavor to understand the former also as truth is.
23. The Apostle has made known to us certain three unions, Christ and the Church, husband and wife, spirit and flesh. Of these the former consult for the good of the latter, the latter wait upon the former. All the things are good, when, in them, certain set over by way of pre-eminence, certain made subject in a becoming manner, observe the beauty of order. Husband and wife receive command and pattern how they ought to be one with another. The command is, "Let wives be subject unto their own husbands, as unto the Lord; because the husband is the head of the wife;"" and, "Husbands, love your wives." But there is given a pattern, unto wives from the Church, unto husbands from Christ: "As the Church," saith he, " is subject unto Christ, so also wives unto their own husbands in all things." In like manner also, having given command to hus- bands to love their own wives, he added a pattern, "As Christ loved the Church." But husbands he exhorted to it from a lower mat- ter also, that is, from their own body: not only from a higher, that is, from their Lord.
S Eph. v. 25-28.
8 Rom. vii. 18.
11 Eph. v. 22-28.
ON CONTINENCE.
\Sg For he not only saith, " Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church," which is from an higher: but he said also, " Husbands ought to love their own wives, as their own bodies," which is from a lower: because both higher and lower are all good. And yet the woman received not pattern from the body, or flesh, to be so subject to the hus- band as the flesh to the spirit; but either the Apostle would have understood by conse- quence, what he omitted to state: or haply because the flesh lusteth against the spirit in the mortal and sick estate of this life, there- fore he would not set the woman a pattern of subjection from it. But the men he would for this reason, because, although the spirit lusteth against the flesh, even in this it con- sults for the good of the flesh: not like as the flesh lusting against the spirit, by such oppo- sition consulteth neither for the good of the spirit, nor for its own. Yet the good spirit would not consult for its good, whether by nourishing and cherishing its nature by fore- thought, or by resisting its faults by conti- nence,were it not that each substance showeth God to be the Creator of each, even by the seemliness of this its order. What is it, there- fore, that with true madness ye both boast yourselves to be Christians, and with so great perverseness contend against the Christian Scriptures, with eyes closed, or rather put out, asserting both that Christ hath appeared unto mortals in false flesh, and that the Church in the soul pertains to Christ, in the body to the devil, and that the male and female sex are works of the devil, not of God, and that the flesh is joined unto the spirit, as an evil substance unto a good substance?
24. If what we have made mention of out of the Apostolic Epistles seem to you to fall short of an answer, hear yet others, if ye have ears. What saith the utterly mad Mani- chaean of the Flesh of Christ? That it was not true, but false. What saith the blessed Apostle to this? "Remember that Christ Jesus rose again from the dead of the seed of David, according to my Gospel." ' And Christ Jesus Himself saith, " Handle and see, that a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me to have."2 How is there truth in their doctrine, which asserts that in the Flesh of Christ there was falsehood? How was there » in Christ no evil, in Whom was so great a lie? Because forsooth to men over-clean true flesh is an evil, and false flesh instead of true is not an evil: it is an evil, true flesh of one born of the seed of David, and it is no evil, false tongue of one saying, " Handle, and 1 2 Tim. ii.
2 Luke xxiv. 39.
see, that a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me to have." Of the Church what saith the deceiver of men with deadly error? That on the side of souls it pertains unto Christ, on the side of bodies unto the devil? What to this saith the Teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth? " Know ye not," saith he, " that your bodies are members of Christ? " 3 Of the sex of male and female what saith the son of perdition? That either sex is not of God, but of the devil. What to this saith the Vessel of Election? "As," saith he, "the woman from out the man, so also the man through the woman: but all things of God."4 Of the flesh what saith the unclean spirit through the Manichsean? That it is an evil substance, and not the creation of God, but of an enemy. What to this saith the Holy Spirit through Paul? "For as the body is one," saith he, "and hath many members, but all the members of the body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ."5 And a little after; "God hath set/' saith he, "the members, each one of them in the body, as He willed." * Also a little after; "God," saith he, "hath tempered the body, giving greater honor unto that to which it was wanting, that there should be no schisms in the body, but that the members have the self-same care one for another: and whether one member suffer, all the mem- bers suffer with it: or one member be glori- fied, all the members rejoice with it."7 How is the flesh evil, when the souls themselves are admonished to imitate the peace of its members? How is it the creation of the en- emy, when the souls themselves, which rule the bodies, take pattern from the members of the body, not to have schisms of enmities among themselves, in order that, what God hath granted unto the body by nature, this themselves also may iove to have by grace? With good cause, writing to the Romans, " I beseech you," saith he, "brethren, by the mercy of God, that ye present your bodies a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God."8 Without reason we contend that darkness is not light, nor light darkness, if we present a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God, of the bodies of the " nation of darkness/'