Homily 12 — Romans 6, verse 19, to 7, verse 13

“I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to wrongdoing, leading to wrongdoing, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness.” [a]

He had required great strictness of life. He had charged us to be dead to the world, to have died to wickedness, and to feel no stirring toward the workings of sin. And he seemed to be saying something great and burdensome, too much for human nature. So he wanted to show that he is making no excessive demand — not even as much as might be expected of people who had received so great a gift, but one quite moderate and light. He proves it from opposites, and says, “I speak in human terms.” It is as if he said: “I am going by human reasoning, the kind one ordinarily meets with.” For by the phrase “in human terms” he means either this or the moderateness of the demand. Elsewhere he uses the same word: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is human” (First Corinthians 10, verse 13) — that is, moderate and small.

“For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to wrongdoing, leading to wrongdoing, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness.” “The masters are truly very different, and yet it is only an equal amount of slavery that I ask. People ought to give a much greater one — greater by as much as this mastership is greater and better than the other. Still, I make no greater demand, ‘because of the weakness.’” And he does not say the weakness of your will, or of your readiness of spirit, but “of your flesh,” so making what he says less severe. And yet on the one side there is impurity, on the other holiness; on the one wrongdoing, on the other righteousness. And he asks: “Who is so wretched, so hard-pressed, as not to spend as much earnestness on the service of Christ as on the service of sin and the devil?”

Listen, then, to what follows, and you will see clearly that we do not spend even this little. Stated so baldly, it does not seem believable or easy to accept, and no one would put up with being told that he does not serve Christ as much as he once served the devil. So Paul proves it by what follows and makes it believable, by setting that slavery before us and describing how they served the devil.

Verse 20: “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.”

What he means is something like this: “When you lived in wickedness and ungodliness and the worst of evils, you were so compliant that you did absolutely no good thing at all.” For this is what “you were free from righteousness” means: you were not subject to it, but wholly estranged from it. “You did not even divide your slavery between righteousness and sin, but gave yourselves up wholly to wickedness. So now that you have come over to righteousness, give yourselves up wholly to virtue, doing nothing at all that belongs to vice, so that the measure you give may at least be equal.”

And yet it is not only the masters that differ so widely; in the slavery itself the difference is vast. This too he unfolds with great clarity, showing on what terms they served then, and on what terms they serve now. As yet he says nothing of the harm that came of it; so far he speaks only of the shame.

Verse 21: “What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed?”

So great was that slavery that even the memory of it now makes you ashamed. And if the memory makes one ashamed, the reality would do so far more. So you have gained in two ways now: you have been freed from the shame, and you have also come to know the state you were in. In the same way you were harmed in two ways then: you were doing things that deserved shame, and you did not even know enough to be ashamed — and this is worse than the first. And still you went on in that slavery.

Having proved very fully, from the shame of it, the harm of what went on then, he comes to the matter itself. And what is that? “For the end of those things is death.” Since shame does not seem so serious an evil, he comes to what is truly terrifying — I mean death. And yet, in all truth, what he had mentioned before would have been enough. For think how exceedingly great the damage must be, when even after they had been freed from the punishment due to it, they could not get free of the shame. What wages, then, he asks, do you expect from the reality, when at the bare memory of it — and that after you have been freed from the punishment — you hide your face and blush, though you live under so great a grace? But God’s side is far otherwise.

Verse 22: “But now, having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit leading to holiness, and the end, eternal life.” [d]

Of the former things the fruit was shame, even after they had been set free. Of these the fruit is holiness, and where holiness is, there is every confidence. The end of those things is death; the end of these, eternal life. Do you see how he points out that some things have already been given and others lie in hope, and how from what has been given he draws proof of the rest as well — that is, from the holiness of the life? He does this so that you cannot object that everything lies in hope. He shows that you have already reaped fruit: first, being freed from wickedness and from evils so shameful that even the memory of them makes one ashamed; second, being made a slave of righteousness; third, enjoying holiness; fourth, gaining life — and not life for a season, but eternal life. Yet with all this, he says: “Only serve as you served sin. For though this master is far better, and the service brings many advantages, and so do the rewards for which you are serving, still I ask nothing more.”

Next, since he had spoken of weapons and of a king, he keeps up the picture in these words:

Verse 23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” [e]

After speaking of the wages of sin, he does not keep to the same order when he comes to the blessings. He does not say “the wages of good deeds,” but “the gift of God.” He wants to show that they were not freed by their own doing, and that what they received was not something owed, or a return, or a recompense for their labors, but that all these things came about by grace. So there was a superiority on this count too. God did not merely free them or change their condition for a better one; he did it without any labor or trouble on their part. And he not only freed them, but gave them far more than they had before — and that through his Son.

He has put all this in as someone who has finished discussing grace and is about to overthrow the law next. So that these two things together might not make them slack, he inserted the part about strictness of life, using every opportunity to rouse the hearer to the practice of virtue. For when he calls death the wages of sin, he alarms them again and makes them safe against dangers to come. The very words he uses to remind them of their former state he also uses to make them grateful, and better guarded against every assault of temptation. Here, then, he brings the part that urges them on to a close, and goes back to teaching again, speaking this way:

Chapter 7, verse 1: “Do you not know, brothers and sisters — for I am speaking to those who know the law?” [f]

He had said that we are “dead to sin.” Here he shows that not only sin but also the law has no rule over them. And if the law has none, much less has sin. To make his words acceptable, he uses a human example to make this plain. He seems to be making one point, but he at once lays down two arguments for his proposition. One is that when the husband is dead, the woman is no longer subject to him, and nothing prevents her from becoming the wife of another man. The other is that in the present case it is not only the husband who is dead, but the wife too. So one may enjoy freedom in two ways. For if she is freed from his power when the husband is dead, she is much more free when she herself is shown to be dead as well. If the one event frees her from his power, the two together do so much more.

Since he is about to go on to prove these points, he begins by praising his hearers, in these words: “Do you not know, brothers and sisters — for I am speaking to those who know the law” — that is: “I am saying something fully agreed on and clear, and saying it to people who know all these things accurately” — “that the law rules over a person as long as that person lives?”

He does not say “husband” or “wife,” but “a person,” a word that covers both. “For the one who has died,” he says, “has been freed from sin.” So the law is laid down for the living; for the dead it is no longer laid down. Do you notice how he sets out a twofold freedom? Next, having hinted at this at the start, he goes on to prove what he has to say in the case of the woman, in this way: [g]

Verses 2 and 3: “For the married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then, if she is married to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is married to another man.”

He keeps coming back to this point, and with great exactness, because he is fully confident of the proof built on it. In the husband’s place he puts the law, and in the woman’s, all believers. Then he adds the conclusion in a way that does not match the premise. What the flow of thought would require is: “And so, my brothers and sisters, the law does not rule over you, for it is dead.” But he does not say that. He only hinted at it in the premise. And afterward, in the conclusion, so that what he says might not be distasteful, he brings in the woman as the one who is dead, saying, “So, my brothers and sisters, you too have died to the law.”

Since, then, either event brings about the same freedom, what is there to stop him from showing the law favor, when no harm is done to the cause? “For the married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives.” Where now are those who speak evil of the law? Let them hear how, even when he is hard pressed, he does not strip it of its dignity, but speaks of its power in great terms: while it is alive the Jew is bound, and those who break it and leave it while it is alive are to be called adulterers. But if they let it go after it has died, that is no cause for wonder, for in human affairs no one is blamed for doing so. “But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.” [h]

You see how in the example he shows the law as dead, but in the conclusion he does not. “So then, if her husband is alive, the woman will be called an adulteress.” See how he dwells on the charges against those who break the law while it is still living. But since he had already put an end to it, he afterward shows it favor in perfect safety, without doing the faith any harm by it. “For if she is married to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress.” So the natural thing to say next would have been: “You too, my brothers and sisters, now that the law is dead, will not be judged guilty of adultery if you are married to another husband.” Yet he does not use these words, but what? “You have died to the law.” If you have been put to death, you are no longer under the law. For if the woman is no longer bound by it when her husband is dead, much more is she freed from the first husband when she herself has died too.

Do you notice Paul’s wisdom — how he shows that the law itself intends us to be divorced from it and married to another? There is nothing, he means, against your living with another husband now that the first is dead. And how could there be, when even while the husband was alive the law allowed this to the woman who had a certificate of divorce? But he does not set this down, since it counted rather against the woman; for though it had been permitted, it was still not free of blame (Matthew 19, verses 7 and 8). Where he has already won the victory with the proofs that are needed and accepted, he does not go into questions beyond his purpose, since he is not one to pick quarrels.

The wonder, then, is this: it is the law itself that clears us of any charge when we are divorced from it, and so it was its own mind that we should become Christ’s. For it is dead itself, and we are dead, and the grounds of its power over us have been removed in two ways. But he is not content with this alone; he also adds the reason for it. He has not set down death without a special purpose. He brings in the cross again, which accomplished these things, and in this way too he places us under obligation. You have not simply been freed, he means; you were freed through the Lord’s death. For he says, “You have died to the law through the body of Christ.”

Now it is not on this alone that he grounds his exhortation, but also on the superiority of this second husband. So he goes on: “so that you may be married to another, to him who has been raised from the dead.”

Then he meets what they might say: “What if we do not choose to live with another husband?” For the law does not make an adulteress of the widow who lives in a second marriage, but for all that it does not force her into one. To keep them from saying this, he shows that because of the benefits already given, we are bound to choose it. He lays this down more clearly in other passages, where he says, “You are not your own,” and, “You were bought with a price,” and, “Do not become slaves of human beings” (First Corinthians 6, verses 19 and 20, and 7, verse 23); and again, “One died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them” (Second Corinthians 5, verse 15). This, then, is what he alludes to here in the words “through the body.” Next he urges them on toward better hopes, saying, “so that we may bear fruit for God.” Then, he means, you bore fruit for death; but now you bear it for God.

Verse 5: “For when we were in the flesh, the stirrings of sins, which were through the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.” [i]

You see, then, what gain came from the first husband! And he does not say “when we were in the law.” Everywhere he avoids giving a handle to heretics. He says “when we were in the flesh,” that is, in evil deeds, in a fleshly life. He does not mean that they were in the flesh before, but now go about without bodies. By putting it as he does, he neither says that the law is the cause of sins nor clears it of discredit. For it held the place of a bitter accuser, by laying their sins bare; since a command that asks more of a person who has no mind to obey at all makes the offense greater. That is why he does not say “the stirrings of sins which were produced by the law,” but “which were through the law” (Romans 2, verse 27). He adds no “produced,” but says simply “through the law” — that is, which through the law were brought into the open and made known.

Next, so as not to accuse the flesh either, he does not say “which our members worked,” but “which were at work in our members.” He wants to show that the source of the harm lay elsewhere: in the thoughts that were at work in us, not in the members that had those thoughts at work within them. For the soul takes the part of the musician, and the frame of the flesh the part of the lyre, sounding as the musician makes it sound. So the discordant tune is to be laid to the musician rather than to the lyre.

Verse 6: “But now,” he says, “we have been released from the law.” [j]

See how here again he spares the flesh and the law. He does not say that the law was made of no effect, or that the flesh was, but that we were — that is, that we were released. And how were we released? By the old man, who was held down by sin, having died and been buried. That is what he sets out in the words “having died to that in which we were held.” It is as if he had said: “The chain by which we were held down has been deadened and broken through, so that what held us down, namely sin, holds us down no more.” But do not fall back or grow slack. You have been freed in order to be slaves again — though not in the same way, but “in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”

What does he mean here? It is necessary to make it plain here, so that when we come upon the passage we may not be perplexed by it. This is what he means. When Adam sinned, and his body became subject to death and sufferings, it also suffered many losses in its nature, and the horse became less active and less obedient. But when Christ came, he made it more nimble for us through baptism, rousing it with the wing of the Spirit. That is why the courses marked out for the race that people of old had to run are not the same as ours, since the race then was not as easy as it is now. For this reason he wants us to be clear not only of murder, as he wanted those of old to be, but of anger too. Nor is it only adultery that he bids us keep clear of, but even the unchaste look; and he bids us refrain not only from false swearing but even from true (Matthew 5, verses 21, 27, and 33). And along with our friends he commands us to love our enemies too.

In all our other duties as well he gives us a longer course to run, and if we do not obey, he threatens us with hell. So he shows that these things are not left to the contestants as freewill offerings, as celibacy and poverty are, but are absolutely binding on us to fulfill. They belong among the necessary and urgent requirements, and the man who does not do them is to be punished to the utmost. That is why he said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5, verse 20). And whoever does not see the kingdom will certainly fall into hell. For this reason Paul too says, “Sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.” And here again: “so that you may serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.” For it is not the letter — that is, the old law — that condemns, but the Spirit that helps.

That is why among the people of old, if anyone was found keeping virginity, it was quite astonishing. But now the thing is scattered over every part of the world. In those times a few men despised death, and with difficulty; but now in villages and cities there are hosts of martyrs beyond number, and not of men only, but of women too.

Next, having finished with this, he again meets an objection that is rising, and in meeting it he confirms his own point. He does not bring in its answer as his main argument, but as a reply to the objection, so that the need to meet it may give him grounds for saying what he wants, and make his charge less distasteful. So, having said “in the newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter,” he goes on:

Verse 7: “What then? Is the law sin? Far from it!” [m]

Even before this he had been saying that “the stirrings of sins, which were through the law, were at work in our members” (verse 5); and “Sin will not rule over you, for you are not under the law” (Romans 6, verse 14); and that “where there is no law, there is no transgression” (Romans 4, verse 15); and “But the law came in so that the offense might abound” (Romans 5, verse 20); and “The law brings about wrath” (Romans 4, verse 15). Since all these things seem to bring the law into disrepute, he raises an objection against himself, to correct the suspicion they give rise to, and says, “What then? Is the law sin? Far from it!” Before giving the proof he uses this strong form of refusal to win the hearer over and to soothe anyone who was troubled by what had been said. For once the hearer had heard this and felt sure of the speaker’s attitude, he would join him in looking into the seeming difficulty, and would feel no suspicion of him.

That is why he has voiced the objection, taking the hearer in with himself. So he does not say, “What am I to say?” but “What shall we say then?” — as though a debate and a judgment lay before them, and a general assembly had been called together, and the objection came up not from himself but in the course of the discussion, from the actual facts of the case. For no one, he means, will deny that the letter kills; and that the Spirit gives life is plain too, and no one will dispute it (Second Corinthians 3, verse 6). If, then, these things are admitted truths, what are we to say about the law? That “it is sin? Far from it!” “Then explain the difficulty.” Do you see how he imagines his opponent present, and how, taking on the dignity of the teacher, he comes to the explanation? And what is it? The law, he says, is not sin. “No, I would not have known sin except through the law.”

Notice the reach of his wisdom! What the law is not, he has set down in the form of an objection, so that by removing it, and so pleasing the Jew, he may persuade him to accept the lesser charge. And what is that? That “I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known craving if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’”

Do you notice how, little by little, he shows that the law is not only the accuser of sin but, in a way, its producer too? Yet he proves that this happened through no fault of the law’s own, but through the fault of the contrary Jews. For he has taken good care to stop the mouths of the Manichaeans, who accuse the law. So after saying, “No, I would not have known sin except through the law,” and, “I would not have known craving if the law had not said, You shall not covet,” he adds, in verse 8: “But sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of craving.” [p]

Do you see how he has cleared the law of all blame? “Sin,” he says, “seizing its opportunity through the commandment” — it was sin, and not the law, that increased the craving, and the reverse of what the law intended came about. This came from weakness, not from any badness in the law. For when we desire something and are then kept from it, the flame of the desire only grows. Now this did not come from the law. The law, for its part, kept us from the thing, to hold us back from it. But sin — that is, your own carelessness and bad disposition — used what was good for the opposite end. And this is no fault of the physician; the fault is the patient’s, who uses the medicine wrongly. For the law was not given to inflame craving but to put it out, even though the reverse came of it. Yet the blame belongs not to the law but to us. Suppose a man had a fever and wanted to drink cold water when it was not good for him, and someone would not let him drink his fill, and so increased his longing for this ruinous pleasure: no one could fairly blame that person. For the physician’s task is only to forbid; to restrain himself is the patient’s.

And what if sin did seize its opportunity from the law? There are plenty of bad people who grow in their own wickedness through good commands. That is how the devil ruined Judas: he plunged him into greed and made him steal what belonged to the poor. Yet it was not being entrusted with the money bag that brought this about, but the wickedness of his own soul. And Eve, by getting Adam to eat from the tree, threw him out of Paradise. But in that case, too, the tree was not the cause, even if it was through the tree that the opportunity arose.

If he handles the discussion of the law somewhat forcefully, do not be surprised. Paul is taking his stand against the need of the moment. He does not let his words give a handle even to those who suspected otherwise, but takes great pains to get the point in hand exactly right. So do not examine what he is about to say on its own. Set beside it the purpose that leads him to speak of these things, and take into account the madness of the Jews and their fierce spirit of contention. Because he is eager to do away with that, he seems to come down hard on the law — not to find fault with it, but to break the force of their resistance.

For if it is any reproach to the law that sin seizes its opportunity through it, the same will be found true of the New Testament too. In the New Testament there are thousands of laws, and about matters of far greater importance. And one can see the same thing happening there as well, not only with craving but with every kind of wickedness. For he says, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin” (John 15, verse 22). Here, then, sin finds its foothold in this very fact, and so does the greater punishment. And again, when Paul is speaking about grace, he says, “How much worse punishment, do you think, will he be judged to deserve, who has trampled underfoot the Son of God?” (Hebrews 10, verse 29). Does not the worse punishment, then, have its origin here, in the greater benefit? And the reason he says the Greeks were without excuse is that they had been honored with the gift of reason, had come to know the beauty of creation, and had been set on a good road to be led by it to the Creator, and yet they did not use God’s wisdom as they should have. Do you see that for the wicked, in every case, good things become occasions of greater punishment? Yet we will not blame God’s benefits for this. Rather, we will admire them all the more for it, and lay the blame on the spirit of those who abuse the blessings for the opposite purpose. Let this, then, be our approach to the law as well.

But this part is easy and simple; the other is where the difficulty lies. How can he say, “I would not have known craving if the law had not said, You shall not covet”? If people had not known craving before they received the law, what was the reason for the flood, or for the burning of Sodom? What does he mean, then? He means violent craving. That is why he did not say “craving” but “every kind of craving,” hinting by this at its violence. “And what good is the law,” someone will say, “if it adds to the disorder?” None; in fact, much harm. Yet the charge is not against the law but against the carelessness of those who received it. For sin worked this, even though it was through the law. But this was not the law’s purpose; its purpose was the very opposite. Sin, then, he says, became stronger and violent. But again, this is no charge against the law, but against their stubbornness. “For without the law sin is dead.” That is, it was not so easy to recognize. For even those who lived before the law knew that they had sinned, but they came to a more exact knowledge of it after the law was given. And that is why they were open to a heavier accusation. For it was not the same thing to have nature alone accusing them as to have, besides nature, the law, which spelled out every charge distinctly.

Verse 9: “For I was alive without the law once.” When was that, may I ask? Before Moses. See how he sets out to show that the law weighed down human nature both by what it did and by what it did not do. For when “I was alive without the law,” he means, I was not so heavily condemned. [w]

“But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.”

This seems, indeed, to be an accusation of the law. But if anyone looks at it closely, it will turn out to be praise of it. For the law did not bring into existence a sin that did not exist before; it only pointed out what had gone unnoticed. And this is actually praise of the law, if in fact they had been sinning before it came without realizing it. But when it came, even if they gained nothing else from it, they at least learned this plainly: that they had been sinning. And that is no small thing toward getting free from wickedness. Now if they did not get free, that has nothing to do with the law, which arranged everything with this end in view. The accusation lies wholly against their spirit, which was perverse beyond anything one could imagine. For what took place was not the natural course of things — their being harmed by what was meant to help them.

That is why he says, “And the commandment, which was meant for life, I found to be for death.” He does not say “it was made” death, or “it produced” death, but “was found,” so explaining this strange and unheard-of contradiction and bringing the whole thing down on their own heads. For if, he says, you want to know its aim, it led to life and was given for that purpose. But if death was the result, the fault lies with those who received the commandment, and not with the commandment, which was leading them to life. And this is a point he throws fresh light on in what follows.

Verse 11: “For sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.” You see how he everywhere holds sin to account and clears the law entirely of accusation. And so he goes on: [x]

Verse 12: “So then the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.”

But if you like, we will set before you what is said by those who twist these statements, for that will make our own statements clearer. There are some who say that he is not saying these things about the law of Moses here. Some take it of the law of nature, others of the commandment given in Paradise. Yet Paul’s aim everywhere is to do away with this law, the law of Moses; with those others he has no quarrel at all. And with good reason, for it was out of fear and horror at this that the Jews stubbornly opposed grace. But he does not appear ever to have called the commandment in Paradise “law” at all — no, nor has any other writer.

Now, to make this plainer from what he actually said, let us follow his words, going back over the argument a little. Having spoken to them about strictness of life, he goes on to say, “Do you not know, brothers and sisters, that the law rules over a person as long as that person lives? … So you too have died to the law.” So if these things are said about the natural law, we turn out to be without the natural law. And if that is true, we are more senseless than the animals that lack reason. But this, certainly, is not so. As for the law in Paradise, there is no need to argue the point, or we would be taking on needless trouble by entering the contest against what everyone has already settled.

In what sense, then, does he say, “I would not have known sin except through the law”? He is not speaking of complete ignorance, but of more exact knowledge. For if this were said of the law of nature, how would what follows fit? “For I was alive,” he says, “without the law once.” But neither Adam nor anyone else can be shown ever to have lived without the law of nature. For as soon as God formed him, he put that law of nature into him, making it dwell with him as a safeguard for the whole human race. Besides this, he does not appear anywhere to have called the law of nature a commandment. But this law he calls a commandment, and a “just and holy” one, and also a “spiritual law.” Yet the law of nature was not given to us by the Spirit, for barbarians, as well as Greeks and all other people, have this law.

Hence it is plain that it is the law of Moses he is speaking of above, and afterward too, and in all these passages. That is also why he calls it holy, saying, “So then the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” For even though the Jews have been unclean since the law was given, and unjust, and greedy, this does not destroy the excellence of the law, just as their unbelief does not make the faithfulness of God of no effect. So from all these things it is plain that it is the law of Moses he is speaking of here.

Verse 13: “Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Far from it! But sin, so that it might be shown to be sin.” That is, so that it might be shown what a great evil sin is: namely, a careless will, a leaning toward the worse side, the actual doing of it, and a perverted judgment. For this is the cause of all the evils. But he enlarges on it by pointing to the surpassing grace of Christ, and by teaching them what an evil he freed the human race from — an evil that had grown worse through the very medicines used to cure it, and had increased through the very means meant to prevent it. That is why he goes on to say, “so that sin, through the commandment, might become exceedingly sinful.” [ac]

Do you see how these things are woven together everywhere? By the very means he uses to accuse sin, he shows once more the excellence of the law. Nor is it a small thing he has gained by showing what an evil sin is, unfolding all its poison and bringing it into view. For this is what he shows by saying, “so that sin, through the commandment, might become exceedingly sinful” — that is, so that it might be made clear what an evil sin is, what a ruinous thing. And this is what the commandment brought to light. By this he also shows the superiority of grace over the law — its superiority over the law, not its conflict with it. For do not look at the fact that those who received the law were the worse for it. Consider instead that the law not only had no design of drawing wickedness out to greater lengths, but was seriously aiming to cut down what already existed. And if it lacked the strength, give it a crown for its intention, but revere still more the power of Christ, which abolished, cut away, and pulled up by the very roots an evil so many-sided and so hard to overthrow.

But when you hear me speak of sin, do not think of it as a power with a real existence of its own. Think of it as evildoing, which comes upon people and leaves them again continually; which, before it takes place, has no being, and once it has taken place, vanishes again. This, then, was why the law was given. Now no law is ever given to do away with what is natural, but to correct a way of acting that is wicked by choice. The lawgivers outside know this too, and so does the whole human race. For it is only the evils that come from vice that they set out to correct; they do not try to root out those that were given to us along with our nature, since this they cannot do. For what is natural remains unchangeable, as we have often told you in other sermons as well.

So let us leave these contests and practice ourselves in exhortation again. Or rather, this last part also belongs to those contests. For if we cast out wickedness, we would bring virtue in as well; and by these means we will teach clearly that wickedness is not an evil of nature. We will be able easily to stop the mouths of those who ask where evil comes from — not with words only, but with actions too, since we share the same nature with them and yet are free of their wickedness. So let us not keep looking at how laborious virtue is, but at the fact that it is possible to succeed in it. If we are in earnest, it will at once be light and pleasant to us. And if you tell me about the pleasure of vice, tell me its end too. It ends in death, just as virtue leads us to life. [ae]

Or, if you like, let us rather examine them both even before their end. We will see that vice has a great deal of pain attached to it, and virtue great pleasure. For what, I ask you, is as painful as a bad conscience? Or what is more pleasant than a good hope? There is nothing, truly there is nothing, that cuts us so deep and presses on us so hard as the expectation of evil; and nothing that so holds us up, and all but gives us wings, as a good conscience.

We can learn this even from what happens before our eyes. Those who are in prison waiting for sentence to be passed on them may enjoy luxury again and again, beyond counting; still they live a more miserable life than those who go begging along the back roads with nothing on their conscience to trouble them. The expectation of a dreadful end will not let them feel the pleasures they have in their hands. And why do I speak of prisoners? Take those who live outside prison and are prosperous, yet have a bad conscience. The craftsmen who work for their bread and spend the whole day at their labor are far better off than they are. This is also why we say, “How miserable the gladiators are!” We see them in the taverns, drunk, living in luxury, gorging themselves; and still we call them the most miserable of men, because the disaster of the end they must expect is too great to bear comparison with that pleasure.

Now if a life like theirs seems pleasant to them, remember what I keep telling you: it is no wonder that a man who lives in vice does not run from the misery and pain of vice. See how a thing as detestable as that still seems delightful to those who practice it! Yet we do not say for that reason, “How happy they are!” This is the very reason we think them pitiable: they have no idea of the evils they are living among.

And what would you say of adulterers? For a little pleasure they submit at once to a disgraceful slavery, to the loss of their money and to constant fear — in fact, to the very life of Cain, or rather to one much worse than his. They are full of fears for the present and trembling for the future. They suspect friend and enemy alike, those who know about it and those who know nothing. Even when they go to sleep they are not free of this struggle, for their bad conscience shapes dreams for them full of every kind of terror, and in this way horrifies them. How different is the chaste man! He passes this present life unshackled and in full freedom. Set, then, the many shifting waves of these terrors beside that little pleasure, and set the calm of a whole life beside the short labor of self-control, and you will find that the second holds more pleasure than the first.

And as for the man who is bent on plundering and laying hands on other people’s goods, tell me: does he not have to endure countless pains? He runs about; he fawns on slaves, on free men, on doorkeepers; he frightens and threatens; he acts shamelessly; he lies awake, trembles, is in agony, suspects everything. How different is the man who despises riches! He too enjoys pleasure in abundance, and lives without fear and in perfect ease. And if someone went through the other kinds of vice as well, he would find much trouble and many rocks.

But what matters more is this. With virtue the difficulties come first and the pleasant part afterward, so that even in this way the trouble is lightened. With vice it is the reverse: after the pleasure come the pains and the punishments, so that by these the pleasure too is done away. For just as the man who is waiting for the crown feels nothing of his present hardship, so the man who must expect punishments after his pleasures has no power to gather in a gladness that is unmixed, since the fear throws everything into confusion. Or rather, if someone examined the matter carefully, he would find that even before the punishment that follows these things, at the very moment when vice is boldly entered upon, a great deal of pain is felt.

If you like, let us examine this in the case of those who plunder other people’s goods, or who gather money together by any means at all. Let us set aside the fears and dangers, the trembling, the agony, the worry and all such things, and suppose a man who has grown rich without any trouble and feels sure of keeping his present fortune. He has no means of doing that, but for all that, let it be assumed for argument’s sake. What sort of pleasure, then, is he to gather from having so much? On the contrary, this very thing is what will not let him be glad at heart. For as long as he desires more besides, he is still on the rack, because desire gives pleasure at the moment it comes to a stop. When we are thirsty, for instance, we feel refreshed once we have drunk as much as we want. But as long as we keep thirsting, even if we had drained all the springs in the world, our torment would only be growing greater; even if we drank up ten thousand rivers, our punishment would be the more distressing.

So it is with you. If you were to receive the goods of the whole world and still crave more, you would make your punishment the greater, the more things you had tasted. So do not imagine that you will get any pleasure from gathering together a great sum; you will get it rather by refusing to be rich. If you long to be rich, you will always be under the whip. For this is a kind of love that never reaches its goal: the longer the journey you have gone, the farther you are from the end. Is this not a paradox, then — a derangement, madness in the extreme?

Let us, then, leave this first of evils — or rather, let us not even touch this greed at all. And if we have touched it, let us spring away from it at its first beginnings. This is the advice the writer of Proverbs gives us when he speaks about the prostitute: “Spring away,” he says, “do not linger, and do not go near the door of her house” (Proverbs 5, verse 8). This same thing I would say to you about the love of money. If you enter it little by little, you will fall into this ocean of madness and will not be able to climb out of it easily. As in a whirlpool, however often you struggle, it will not be easy for you to get clear; so, once you have fallen into this far worse abyss of greed, you will destroy yourself along with all that belongs to you (Acts 8, verse 20).

So my advice is that we be on our guard against the beginning and avoid little evils, for the great ones are born from them. The man who gets into the habit of saying at every sin, “This is nothing!” will ruin himself completely, little by little. It is this, at any rate, that has brought vice in; this has opened the doors to the robber; this has thrown down the walls of cities — this saying at each sin, “This is nothing!” So too in the body the worst diseases grow up when small ones are made light of.

If Esau had not first betrayed his birthright, he would not have become unworthy of the blessings. If he had not made himself unworthy of the blessings, he would not have come to desire the murder of his brother. If Cain had not been in love with the first place, but had left that to God, he would not have had the second place. Again, when he had the second place, if he had listened to the advice given him, he would not have given birth to the murder. Again, if after committing the murder he had come to repentance when God called him, and had not answered so irreverently, he would not have had to suffer the evils that followed. Now if those who lived before the law came to the very bottom of misery through this slackness, only think what will become of us, who are called to a greater contest, unless we pay strict attention to ourselves and hurry to put out the sparks of evil deeds before the whole pile catches fire.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Are you in the habit of swearing falsely? Do not stop at that alone, but do away with all swearing, and you will have no more trouble; for it is far harder for a man who swears to keep from swearing falsely than to give up swearing altogether. Are you insulting and abusive? Do you strike people too? Make it a law for yourself not to be angry or to quarrel in the least, and along with the root the fruit will be gone as well. Are you lustful and given to loose living? Then make it your rule not even to look at a woman (Job 31, verse 1), nor to go up to the theater, nor to busy yourself with the good looks of the other people you see around you. For it is far easier not even to look at a woman with a fine figure than, after looking and taking in the craving, to drive out the turmoil that comes from it; the struggle is easier in the opening stages. Or rather, we have no need of a struggle at all if we do not throw the gates open to the enemy, nor take in the seeds of wickedness.

This is why Christ condemned the man who looks at a woman with unchaste eyes (Matthew 5, verse 28): to free us from greater labor before the adversary grows strong, telling us to throw him out of the house while he can still be thrown out easily. For why take on needless trouble and get entangled with the enemy, when we can set up the trophy without any entanglement and seize the prize before the wrestling begins? It is not so great a trouble not to look at beautiful women as it is to restrain oneself while looking. Or rather, the first is no trouble at all, but after looking comes enormous toil and labor. Since, then, this trouble is less — or rather, there is no labor or trouble at all, but the greater gain — why do we take pains to plunge into an ocean of countless evils?

Besides, the man who does not look at a woman will overcome this craving not only more easily but with greater purity, while the man who does look gets free with more trouble, and not without a kind of stain — that is, if he gets free at all. For the man who does not take in the sight of the beautiful figure is also pure of the craving that might have come from it. But the man who looks with craving first throws his reason to the ground and defiles it in countless ways, and then has to cast out the stain that came from the craving — that is, if he does cast it out. This, then, is why Christ, to keep us from suffering in this way, forbade not only murder but anger; not only adultery but even an unchaste look; not only perjury but all swearing whatever.

Nor does he make the measure of virtue stop there. After giving these laws he goes on to a still higher degree. Having kept us far away from murder and told us to be clear of anger, he tells us to be ready even to suffer wrong — and not merely to be ready to suffer as much as our attacker pleases, but to go further still, and to overcome his utmost madness by the overflowing abundance of our own philosophy. For what he says is not, “If someone strikes you on your right cheek, bear it nobly and keep quiet.” He adds to this that we should yield him the other cheek as well, for he says, “Turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5, verse 39). This, then, is the brilliant victory: to give him even more than he wants, and to go beyond the limits of his evil desire by the lavishness of one’s own patient endurance. In this way you will put a stop to his madness, and you will also receive from the second act the reward of the first all over again, besides putting a stop to anger against him.

Do you see how in every case it is in our power not to suffer harm, and not in the power of those who inflict it? Or rather, it is not only not suffering harm that is in our power, but even having good done to us. And this is the truest wonder: if we are right-minded, we are so far from being injured that we are even benefited, and that by the very things we suffer unjustly at the hands of others. Think about it, then. Has someone insulted you? You have the power to make this insult turn to your honor. If you insult him back, you only increase the disgrace; but if you bless the man who insulted you, you will see everyone give you the victory and proclaim your praise. Do you see how, if we choose, we have good done to us by the very things in which we are wronged? One can see this happening in matters of money, and of blows, and the same in everything else. For if we repay them with the opposite, we are weaving a double crown for ourselves: one for the wrongs we have suffered, and one for the good we are doing.

So whenever someone comes and tells you, “So-and-so has insulted you, and keeps speaking badly of you to everyone,” praise the man to those who tell you about him. In this way, even if you want to avenge yourself, you will have the power to punish him. Those who hear you, however foolish they may be, will praise you and hate him as fiercer than any animal without reason, because he caused you pain without having been wronged at all, while you, even when wronged, repaid him with the opposite. And so you will be able to prove that everything he said was pointless. The man who feels the bite of slander shows by his annoyance that he knows what is said is true; but the man who smiles at it clears himself, by that very smile, of all suspicion in the eyes of those present.

Consider, then, how many good things you gather from the affair. First, you rid yourself of all annoyance and trouble. Second — or rather, this should come first — if you have sins, you put them off, as the tax collector did by bearing the Pharisee’s accusation gently. Besides, by this practice you will train your soul in philosophy; you will enjoy endless praise from everyone; and you will strip away any suspicion arising from what was said. And even if you want to take revenge on the man, that too will follow in full measure: God will punish him for what he said, and even before that punishment your own heroic conduct will strike him like a deadly blow. For nothing cuts those who insult us so much to the heart as seeing us, whom they insulted, smile at the insult.

Just as so many honors will come to us from behaving with Christian heroism, so from smallness of soul the very opposite will befall us in everything. We disgrace ourselves; we seem to those present to be guilty of the things that were said; we fill our soul with turmoil; we give our enemy pleasure; we anger God; and we add to our former sins. Taking all this into account, then, let us flee from the abyss of smallness of soul and take refuge in the harbor of patience, so that here we may at once “find rest for our souls” (Matthew 11, verse 29), as Christ also taught, and may obtain the good things to come, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.