righteous man says in his song, " Blessed is the man whom Thou chastenest, 0 Lord, and teachest him out of Thy law: that Thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked. For the Lord will not cast off His people, neither will He forsake His inheritance, until righteousness return unto judgment, and all who follow it are upright in heart." ^ At this present time, then, in which the might of the people of God is delayed, " the Lord will not cast off His people, neither will He forsake His inheritance," how bitter and unworthy things soever it may suffer in its humility and weakness; " until the righteousness," which the weakness of the pious now possesses, "shall return to judgment," that is, shall receive the power of judging; which is preserved in the end for the righteous, when might in its due order shall have followed after righteousness going before.
For might joined to righteousness, or righteousness added to might, constitutes a judicial authority. But righteousness belongs to a good will; whence it was said by the angels when Christ was born: " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to. men of good will."^ But might ought to follow righteousness, not to go before it; and accordingly it is placed in " second," that is, prosperous fortune; and this is called "second"^ from "following." For whereas two things make a man blessed, as we have argued above, to will well, and to be able to do what one wills, people ought not to be so perverse, as has been noted in the same discussion, as that a man should choose from the two things which make him blessed, the being able to do what he wills, and should neglect to will what he ought; whereas he ought first to have a good will, but great power afterwards. Further, a good will must be purged from vices, by which if a man is overcome, he is in such wise overcome as that he wills evil; and then how will his will be still good? It is to be wished, then, that power may now be given, but power against vices, to conquer which men do not wish to be powerful, while they wish to be so in order to conquer men; and why is this, unless that, being in truth conquered, they feignedly conquer, and are conquerors not in truth, but in opinion? Let a man will to be prudent, * Ps. xciv. 12-15. 2 Luke ii. 14. ^ jjgg secundos.
will to be strong, will to be temperate, will to be just; and that be may be able to have these things truly, let him certainly desire power, and seek to be powerful in himself, and (strange though it be) against himself for himself. But all the other things which he wills rightly, and yet is not able to have, as, for instance, immortality, and true and full felicity, let him not cease to long for, and let him patiently expect.
Chap. xiv. — The unowed death of Christ has freed those who were liable to death.
18. What, then, is the righteousness by which the devil was conquered? What, except the righteousness of Jesus Christ? And how was he conquered? Because, when he found in Him nothing worthy of death, yet he slew Him. And certainly it is just, that we whom he held as debtors, should be dismissed free by believing in Him whom he slew without any debt.
In this way it is that we are said to be justified in the blood of Christ.-^ For so that innocent blood was shed for the remission of our sins. Whence He calls Himself in the Psalms, " Free among the dead." ^ For he only that is dead is free from the debt of death. Hence also in another psalm He says, " Then I restored that which I seized not;" ^ meaning sin by the thing seized, because sin is laid hold of against what is lawful. Whence also He says, by the mouth of His own Flesh, as is read in the Gospel: " For the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me," that is, no sin; but "that the world may know," He says, " that I do the commandment of the Father; arise, let us go hence." * And thence He proceeds to His passion, that He might pay for us debtors that which He Himself did not owe. Would then the devil be conquered by this most just right, if Christ had willed to deal with him by might, not by righteousness? But He held back what was possible to Him, in order that He might first do what was fitting. And hence it was necessary that He should be both man and God. For unless He had been man. He could not have been slain; unless He had been God, men would not have believed that He would not do what He could, but that He could not do what He would; nor should we have thought that righteousness Avas preferred by Him to might, but that He CHAP. XV.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST FREES FROM DEATH. 331' lacked miglit. But now He suffered for us things belonging to man, because He was man; but if He had been unwilling, it would have been in His power too not so to suffer, because He was also God. And righteousness was therefore made more acceptable in humility, because so great might as was in His Divinity, if He had been unwilling, would have been able not to suffer humility; and thus by Him who died, being thus mighty, both righteousness was commended, and might promised, to us weak mortals. For He did one of these two things by dying, the other by rising again. For what is more righteous, than to come even to the death of the cross for righteousness? And what more mighty, than to rise from the dead, and to ascend into heaven with that very flesh in which He was slain? And therefore He conquered the devil first by righteousness, and afterwards by might: namely, by righteousness, because He had no sin, and was slain by him most unjustly; but by might, because having been dead He lived again, never afterwards to die.^ But He would have conquered the devil by might, even although He could not have been slain by him: ialthough it belongs to a greater might to conquer death itself also by rising again, than to avoid it by living. But the reason is really a different one, why we are justified in the blood of Christ, when we are rescued from the power of the devil through the remission of sins: it pertains to this, that the devil is conquered by Christ by righteousness, not by might. For Christ was crucified, not through immortal might, but through the weakness which He took upon Him in mortal flesh; of which weakness nevertheless the apostle says, " that the weakness of God is stronger than men." ^ Chap. xv. — Of the same subject.
19. It is not then difficult to see that the devil was conquered, when He who was slain by him rose again. It is something more, and more profound of comprehension, to see that ti.^ c^evil was conquered when he thought himself to have conquered, that is, when Christ was slain. For then that blood, since it was His who had no sin at all, was poured out for the remission of our sins; that, because the devil deservedly held those whom, as guilty of sin, he bound by the condition of death, he might deservedly loose them through Him, whom, as guilty of no sin, the punishment of death undeservedly affected.
The strong man was conquered by this righteousness, and bound with this chain, that his vessels might be spoiled,^ which with himself and his angels had been vessels of wrath while with him, and might be turned into vessels of mercy.^ For the Apostle Paul tells us, that these words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself were spoken from heaven to him when he was first called. Por among the other things which he heard, he speaks also of this as said to him thus: " For I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen from me, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open the eyes of the blind, and to turn them from darkness [to light], and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified, and faith that is in me." ^ And hence the same apostle also, exhorting believers to the giving of thanks to God the Father, says: " Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son: in whom we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins." * In this redemption, the blood of Christ was given, as it were, as a price for us, by accepting which the devil was not enriched, but bound: that we might be loosened from his bonds, and that he might not with himself involve in the meshes of sins, and so deliver to the destruction of the second and eternal death,^ any one of those whom Christ, free from all debt, had redeemed by pouring out His own blood unindebtedly; but that they who belong to the grace of Christ, foreknown, and predestinated, and elected before the foundation of the world,^ should only so far die as Christ Himself died for them, i.e. only by the death of the flesh, not of the spirit.
CHAP. XVI.] WHY DEATH AND EVILS STILL EXIST. 333 Chap. xvi. — Tlie remains of death and the evil things of the world turn to good for the elect. How fitly the death of Christ was chosen, that we might be justified in His blood. What the anger of God is.
20. For although the death, too, of the flesh itself came originally from the sin of the first man, yet the good use of it has made most glorious martyrs. And so not only that death itself, but all the evils of this world, and the griefs and labours of men, although they come from the deserts of sins, and especially of original sin, whence life itself too became bound by the bond of death, yet have fitly remained, even when sin is forgiven; that man might have wherewith to contend for truth, and whereby the goodness of the faithful might be exercised; in order that the new man through the new covenant might be made ready among the evils of this world for a new world, by bearing wisely the misery which this condemned life deserved, and by rejoicing soberly because it will be finished, but expecting faithfully and patiently the blessedness which the future life, being set free, will have for ever. For the devil being cast forth from his dominion, and from the hearts of the faithful, in the condemnation and faithlessness of whom he, although himself also condemned, yet reigned, is only so far permitted to be an adversary according to the condition of this mortality, as God knows to be expedient for them: concerning which the sacred writings speak through the mouth of the apostle: *' God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."-^ And those evils which the faithful endure piously, are of profit either for the correction of sins, or for the exercising and proving of righteousness, or to manifest the misery of this life, that the life where will be that true and perpetual blessedness may be desired more ardently, and sought out more earnestly. But it is on their account that these evils are still kept in being, of whom the apostle says: " For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called to be holy according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, wliom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified." It is of these who are predestinated, that not one shall perish with the devil; not one shall remain even to death under the power of the devil. And then follows what I have already cited above:^ " What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all; how has He not with Him also freely given us all things?"^ 21. Why then should the death of Christ not have come to pass? Nay, rather, why should not that death itself have been chosen above all else to be brought to pass, to the passing by of the other innumerable ways which He who is omnipotent could have employed to free us; that death, I say, wherein neither was anything diminished or changed from His divinity, and so great benefit was conferred upon men, from the humanity which He took upon Him, that a temporal death, which was not due, was rendered by the eternal Son of God, who was also the Son of man, whereby He might free them from an eternal death which was due? The devil was holding fast our sins, and through them was fixing us deservedly in death. He discharged them, who had none of His own, and who was led by him to death undeservedly. That blood was of such price, that he who even slew Christ for a time by a death which was not due, can as his due detain no one, who has put on Christ, in the eternal death which was due. Therefore " God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified in His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." Justified, he says, in His blood, — -justified plainly, in that we are freed from all sin; and freed from all sin, because the Son of God, who knew no sin, was slain for us.
Therefore " we shall be saved from ^vrath through Him;" from the wrath certainly of God, which is nothing else but just retribution. For the wrath of God. is not, as is that of man, a perturbation of the mind; but it is the wrath of Him to whom' Holy Scripture says in another place, " But Thou, 0 Lord, mastering Thy power, judgest with calmness."^ If, CHAP. XVIL] how saved BY THE SECOND ADAM. 335 therefore, the just retribution of God has received such a name, what can be the right understanding also of the reconciliation of God, unless that then such wrath comes to an end? ^N'either were we enemies to God, except as sins are enemies to righteousness; which being forgiven, such enmities come to an end, and they whom He Himself justifies are reconciled to the Just One. And yet certainly He loved them even while still enemies, since '' He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all," when we were still enemies. And therefore the apostle has rightly added: " For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son," by which that remission of sins was made, " much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved in His life." Saved in life, who were reconciled by death. For who can doubt that He will give His life for His friends, for whom, when enemies. He gave His death? "And not only so," he says, "but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." " Kot only," he says, " shall we be saved," but "we also joy;" and not in ourselves, but "in God; " nor through ourselves, " but through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement," as we have argued above. Then the apostle adds, " Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned," ^ etc.: in which he disputes at some length concerning the two men; the one the first Adam, through whose sin and death we, his descendants, are bound by, as it were, hereditary evils; and the other the second Adam, who is not only man, but also God, by whose payment for us of what He owed not, we are freed from the debts both of our first father and of ourselves. Further, since on account of that one the devil held all who were begotten through his corrupted carnal concupiscence, it is just that on account of this one he should loose all who are regenerated through His immaculate spiritual grace.
Chap. xvii. — Other advantages of the incarnation.
22. There are many other things also in the incarnation of Christ, displeasing as it is to the proud, that are to be observed and thought of advantageously. And one of them is, that it has been demonstrated to man what place he has in the things which God has created; since human nature could so he joined to God, that one person could be made of two substances, and thereby indeed of three — God, soul, and flesh: so that those proud malignant spirits, who interpose themselves as mediators to deceive, although as if to help, do not therefore dare to place themselves above man, because they have not flesh; and chiefly because the Son of God deigned to die also in the same flesh, lest they, because they seem to be immortal, should therefore succeed in getting themselves worshipped as gods. Further, that the grace of God might be commended to us in the man Christ without any precedent merits; because not even He Himself obtained by any precedent merits that He should be joined in such great unity with the true God, and should become the Son of God, one Person with Him; but from the time when He began to be man, from that time He is also God; whence it is said, " The "Word was made flesh." ^ Then, again, there is this, that the pride of man, which is the chief hindrance against his cleaving to God, can be confuted and healed through such great humility of God. Man learns also how far he has gone away from God; and what it is worth to him as a pain to cure him, when he returns through such a Mediator, who both as God assists men by His divinity, and as man agrees with men by His weakness. For what greater example of obedience could be given to us, who had perished through disobedience, than God the Son obedient to God the Father, even to the death of the cross 1^ Nay, wherein could the reward of obedience itself be better shown, than in the flesh of so great a Mediator, which rose again to eternal life? It belonged also to the justice and goodness of the Creator, that the devil should be conquered by the same rational creature which he rejoiced that he himself had conquered, and by one that came from the same race, which by the corruption of its origin through one, he held altogether.
CHAP. XVIII.] WHY CHRIST TOOK FLESH OF A VIRGIN. 337 Chap. XVIII. — Why the Son of God took man upon Himself from the race of Adam, and from a virgin.
23. For assuredly God could have taken upon Himself to iDe man, that in that manhood He might be the Mediator of God and men, from some other source, and not from the race of that Adam who bound the human race by his sin; as He did not create him whom He first created, of the race of some one else. Therefore He was able, either so, or in any other mode that He would, to create yet one other, by whom the conqueror of the first might be conquered. But God judged it better both to take upon Him man through whom to conquer the enemy of the human race, from the race itself that had been conquered; and yet to do this of a virgin, whose conception, not flesh but spirit, not lust but faith, preceded.^ Nor did the concupiscence of the flesh intervene, by which the rest of men, who derive original sin, are propagated and conceived; but holy virginity became pregnant, not by conjugal intercourse, but by belief, — lust being utterly absent, — that that which was born from the root of the first man might derive only the origination of race, not also of guilt. For there was born, not a nature corrupted by the contagion of transgression, but the one only remedy of all such corruptions. There was born, I say, a Man having nothing, and to have nothing, at all of sin; through whom they were to be born again so as to be freed from sin, who could not be born without sin. For although conjugal chastity makes a right use of the carnal concupiscence which is in our members; yet it is liable to motions not voluntary, by which it shows either that it could, not have existed at all in paradise before sin, or if it did, that it was not then such as that sometimes it should resist the will.
But now we feel it to be such, that in opposition to the law of the mind, and even if there is no question of begetting, it works in us the incitement of sexual intercourse; and if in this men yield to it, then it is satisfied by an act of sin; if they do not, then it is bridled by an act of refusal: which two things who could doubt to have been alien from paradise before sin? For neither did the chastity that then was do anything indecorous, nor did the happiness that then was DE TRIN. Y 338 ON THE TPJNITY. [BOOK XIII.
suffer anything unquiet. It was necessary, therefore, that this carnal concupiscence should be entirely absent, when the offspring of the Virgin was conceived; in whom the author of death was to find nothing worthy of death, and yet was to slay Him in order that he might be conquered by the death of the Author of life: the conqueror of the first Adam, who held fast the human race, conquered by the second Adam, and losing the Christian race, freed out of the human race from human guilt, through Him who was not in the guilt, although He was of the race; that that deceiver might 'be conquered by that race whiqh he had conquered by guilt. And this was so done, in order that man may not be lifted up, but " that he that glorieth should glory in the Lord."^ For he who was conquered was only man; and he was therefore conquered, because he lusted proudly to be a god. But He who conquered was both man and God; and therefore He so conquered, being born of a virgin, because God in humility did not, as He rules other saints, so rule that Man, but bare Him. These so great gifts of God, and whatever else there are, which it is too long for us now upon this subject both to inquire and to discuss, could not exist unless the Word had been made flesh.
Chap. xix. — W7iat in the incarnate Word belongs to knowledge, ivhat to wisdom.
24. And all these things which the Word made flesh did and bare for us in time and place, belong, according to the distinction which we have undertaken to demonstrate, to knowledge, not to wisdom. And as the Word is without time and without place, it is co-eternal with the Father, and in its wholeness everywhere; and if any one can, as much as he can, speak truly concerning this Word, then his discourse will pertain to wisdom. And hence the Word made flesh, which is Christ Jesus, has the treasures both of wisdom and of knowledge. For the apostle, writing to the Colossians, says: " For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts might be comforted, being knit CHAP. XIX.] WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE BOTH IN CHRIST. 339