De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

But it remains for us to weigh by what supports they fortify this passage. For they chiefly make this error out of Paul and Augustine,¹ whom they twist far in another direction than they intended. First from that [passage]: I did not know concupiscence to be sin, unless the law said, You shall not covet.² Behold, says Luther, concupiscence is sin, and no room is left for interpreting that it is not properly sin, since Paul says it is prohibited by the law. Therefore Luther's sense is that by that precept which is in the Decalogue,³ You shall not covet, that concupiscence which is innate to us and survives even in the regenerate is prohibited. And thus his followers strive to defend it. This can be counted the second among his chief errors. Hear his words at the end of that cited second article against the Catholics: But they have come to such madness, he says, that they have been compelled to call the inevitable desire of the holy fathers, coveting against the law of God, a defect. As if to say, it is rather true and properly sin. But we can with much greater right return these words against this enemy of nature. For besides that he connects two contradictory words, namely that the saints are defiled by sin, who has been seized by such fury as to call that sin which is inevitable to us? For what does the natural ray of the countenance of God, which is stamped upon us, make more manifest than that where there is nothing of the will, there can be nothing of fault?⁴ For an action which is not in our power can truly be given neither to our praise nor to our blame. The reason is that the praise of a work or the blame is owed to the cause: but what a man suffers unwillingly, he is not the cause of those things insofar as he is a man, since it is by the faculty of free choice alone that we are masters of our actions. Whence one who reckons natural concupiscence as sin is compelled in like manner to say that our having eyes and ears and members, by which we are nourished and grow inwardly against our will, are sins. But, they say, no reasoning of nature is to be admitted where sacred Scripture is open.⁵ But I see neither open Scripture, nor can the sense of Scripture be what fights most openly with manifest reason. Truly if those things which are in us either by nature or inflicted by God as punishment were sins, they would be attributed rather to God, either as author of nature or as avenger of fault.

And Augustine,⁶ whom they follow as leader in this place, thinks it so known through itself that there is no sin except a voluntary one, that by natural consequence with him they posit and admit sin and voluntary evil. Whence in the book On True Religion⁷ he says: Sin is so far a voluntary evil that in no way is it sin if it is not voluntary. And against the Manichaeans, On the Two Souls, he defines sin itself as the will of retaining or obtaining what justice forbids, and from which it is free to abstain.⁸ And lest we be tedious to the reader by recounting everything, in the book of Retractations he establishes it in many ways in general, openly pouring back almost his own words against Luther: To hold anyone guilty of sin because he did not do what he could not do is the height of iniquity and madness. But from this they rise up against us, because Augustine in the same place thinks that even original sin itself is voluntary, by the will of Adam. We indeed confess it, but he says that all the guilt was remitted in baptism. For his words are: The guilt of this concupiscence is loosed in baptism, but the infirmity remains. He distinguishes most well, so that, with the guilt dismissed, concupiscence is not fault but infirmity.⁹

Nevertheless, since liberty is so inseparable a condition of sin, we must repeat in chapter 17; let us not now break the thread of speaking about the precept of concupiscence. For it is impossible that by that precept concupiscence be forbidden, which is not in our power, but only the consent of the will is prohibited, or perhaps its delay in restraining concupiscence, with reason attending. For this is among the ten commandments, of which Christ says, If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.¹⁰ And the word "wish" openly shows that it is in our power, through his grace, to keep all things: but that that concupiscence be removed in this life is by no means possible. Therefore whoever says that that tyranny and inevitable motion of concupiscence is forbidden to us by God is anathema to Jerome,¹¹ who in his exposition of the creed says that he is anathema who says that God has commanded anything impossible. And to Augustine,¹² whose words in sermon 61 On the Season are: God could not command anything impossible, because he is just, nor will he condemn a man for that which he could not avoid, because he is pious. Nay, since the commandments of God are not heavy, as it is in John,¹³ nay, the yoke is light, as the teacher himself testifies,¹⁴ how are we bound by divine law to do what is impossible?¹⁵ And besides, since all the other commandments are to be understood absolutely of our actions, namely, You shall not kill, you shall not steal, and the rest, which are contingent, it is a fiction that the word, You shall not covet, is to be understood of anything but a human action: yet such is not the motion of concupiscence, which forestalls the use of reason. The very form of the commandment shows this. For he did not say in general, You shall not covet, but, You shall not covet your neighbor's house, nor shall you desire his wife: and the rest.¹⁶

But these men say that not only that motion of concupiscence is prohibited, but also the very power and nature of coveting: which human sense shrinks from hearing. For who would bind by any law a child, either before or after baptism, in whom there is not only no will, but not even the use of concupiscence, but only naked power? Unless you likewise say that to suck, to nurse, and similar things are sin in him. Augustine condemns this in book 1 of The City of God, chapter 25, in these words: But if that concupiscential disobedience, which still dwells in our dying members, is without fault in the body of one who does not consent—since it is moved by our will's law only when we consent—how much more is it without fault in the body of one sleeping? By these words Augustine¹⁷ shows that concupiscence without consent is no sin, since it can be in a sleeping person.

Finally, by these things is beaten back what Luther¹⁸ in the same art. 2 devised in confirmation of his error: namely, that on account of that concupiscence of the flesh we daily pray in the Lord's Prayer, Forgive us our debts: since without the will there is no fault. But in this at least let them acknowledge that they contradict their own Augustine in express words. For he, in the place cited above, Against the Two Letters of the Pelagians, chapter 13, says: For the baptized do not say in prayer, Forgive us our debts,¹⁹ as we also forgive our debtors, on account of that concupiscence itself, whose guilt has already been consumed by the bath of regeneration: but on account of the sins which are committed, either in its consentings, when anything that pleases is overcome by it, or when through ignorance evil pleases as if good. But they are committed either by acting, or by speaking, or, what is easiest and quickest, by thinking. Indeed that which follows in the prayer is said on account of it: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Clearly therefore Augustine distinguishes that we say, Forgive us, because they are sins: but on account of the concupiscence itself tempting and besetting us we add, And lead us not into temptation. Where he plainly manifests that not concupiscence, but only the works of the will are sins. All which he confirms by the testimony of James²⁰ the Apostle, who set the matter forth more clearly even than Augustine: where he says, Each one is tempted, drawn away and enticed by his own concupiscence. Then concupiscence, when it has conceived (namely by the consent of the will), brings forth sin. Concupiscence therefore before consent is not sin, but conceiving by consent is the mother of sin. To this apostolic phrase agree the words of another Apostle: Let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its concupiscences,²¹ nor exhibit your members as weapons of iniquity to sin. For it is not forbidden to have the itch of concupiscence, but to obey it. So that by this you understand what he says in the following chapter, that the law forbids concupiscence. For it is not forbidden that it be in the flesh, but that the will covet. But here who can bear the stubbornness of these men, who bring this passage forward in their favor with a gloss of Augustine?²² For that holy man says in tractate 41 on John that Paul did not say, Let there not be sin in your body, but, Let it not reign. Therefore Paul (these men infer), according to Augustine as interpreter, does not deny that concupiscence, before it reigns by the consent of the will, is sin. But this collection is nothing, if it is collected that it is properly sin before it reigns. For since Augustine had so often admonished²³ that that concupiscence is not properly sin, but by that trope by which the effect or cause of sin is called sin, he safely said that sin is not prohibited from being, but from reigning. Because when it does not reign, he had often said that then it is not properly sin. And this exposition he himself immediately subjoins, saying: For sin consists in this, that it reigns, and that what it commands is done. We have also cited the same explanation above²⁴ from On the Merit of Sins, book 2, chapter 28, where he says: This law of sin, which the Apostle also calls sin, when he says, Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body, to obey its desires: does not so remain in the regenerate as if it were not remitted and destroyed, unless by illicit consentings it in some way revives and is recalled into its own kingdom and dominion. And he repeats the very same in On Marriage and Concupiscence, book 1, chapter 23, where he says: Concupiscence itself is now not sin in the regenerate, when they do not consent to illicit works, and do not give their members to the reigning mind to perpetrate them, so that if that which is written is not done, You shall not covet, at least that which is read elsewhere may be done: You shall not go after your concupiscences.

But these men think that these last words favor them: where he says that in this age we do not do what is written, You shall not covet, but, do not go after your concupiscences. And in On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 36, he says more clearly that in this life we do not fulfill, You shall not covet, but, do not obey your concupiscences: therefore they infer that not only obeying, but that inevitable coveting of the flesh is prohibited. But this inference is altogether nothing. For Augustine²⁵ does not think that, You shall not covet, is not fulfilled if it is referred to the innate tinder of concupiscence, as if that were prohibited by the law, but because it is natural in this mortal body to covet, until the animal body rises spiritual. Nay, in the same words he suggests that the prohibition is not referred to natural concupiscence, but to free and voluntary obedience. But if an analogy from a civil commonwealth²⁶ were worth anything among them, as is fair, surely when a tyrant presses a city by siege, as long as the citizens bear the burden of war and resist in good faith, they are beyond blame; but when they first surrender, then they begin to be in fault. Why then, while the will from the citadel of reason strenuously either endures or suppresses the incursions of sensuality, is that imputed to it as a fault, which a man suffers unwillingly, like a fever and a natural disease? But to conclude the disputation on the words, You shall not covet, let us examine whether these men say contradictory things in expounding this precept and that one, Let not sin reign in your mortal body.²⁷ For since they say that by this second it is not prohibited that concupiscence be in us or fight with reason, but that it conquer and reign (since they most sharply note with Augustine that Paul did not say, Let it not be, but, Let it not reign), from this indeed it is inferred that concupiscence to be in us and to fight is not a forbidden thing, nor to be forbidden: and so neither properly sin. But if it is so, why do they say that by the other words, You shall not covet, is prohibited not only free works, but even the very concupiscence of the flesh, that it not be in us and leap up? But so it happens to all who spit against heaven, that they sprinkle themselves with their own spit. Let us conclude therefore in both places that only consent to the work of concupiscence is prohibited.

They add, to persuade that the concupiscence of the flesh is sin, the subsequent words of Paul in the same chapter 7:²⁸ If I do what I do not will, it is no longer I that do it, but the sin that dwells in me. For I know that there dwells not in me, that is, in my flesh, good. And after many things interposed to the same sense, he concludes: Therefore I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh the law of sin. Behold, they say, without doubt the Apostle calls the concupiscence of the flesh, insofar as it struggles with reason, sin. But this passage of Paul,²⁹ which (like his whole epistle) is not so easy to understand, is understood by very many of the holy Fathers not of Paul already just, but of a Jew acting under the law. Of this order are Jerome and Origen (as Augustine himself confesses in Against Julian, book 6, chapter 11). And thus Augustine himself had always understood it up to old age, as he says there and in book 1 of Retractations, chapter 23. For which cause we could say that he called concupiscence, joined with reason, sin in unbelievers. But let us grant to these men, with Augustine now old and the others, namely Hilary, Gregory Nazianzen, and Ambrose, whom he cites there, that all this is understood of Paul, who, supported by the grace of God, nevertheless fought with the flesh, if only they in turn candidly follow Augustine as interpreter with us. He, not once or twice but often and most often, interprets that in this passage Paul does not call concupiscence properly and truly sin, but by metaphor, because it is the effect of Adam's sin and the cause of ours. But here Luther cries out: How is it that what is permitted to no angel, men interpret as only a defect, and the effect of sin, when Paul openly calls it sin? Surely³⁰ Luther, because Paul anathematizes only an angel who preaches anything other than what he himself announces. For men who clarify the metaphors of Scripture³¹ he not only does not reprove, but greatly praises among those to whom God distributes charisms. For to one, he says, is given prophecy, to another the interpretation of speeches. And again: Some God³² gave as evangelists, but others as pastors and teachers. Otherwise, where the same Apostle says³³ that God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, if it were not permitted to use a transfer, it would be necessary to think that Christ himself was properly sin. To avoid admitting this blasphemy, the saints have interpreted that by the name of sin the Apostle designated the victim for sin, which offered itself on the cross for us. He used the same signification again³⁴ when he said that God, sending his Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, condemned sin by sin. Although here it is more pleasing to understand by the name of sin our very nature and the flesh infected with sin: of which Christ, bearing the likeness of sin, when he fixed it to the cross, wrought our redemption. If therefore sin is not inaptly used of the victim which is the cause of remitting sin, and of the flesh which is the subject of sin, the exposition of Augustine is best, that it is used also for the effect of sin. Wherefore it is necessary to remember what we noted in the previous chapter concerning Augustine himself: namely, that since the guilt of original sin is the privation of justice, insofar as it made the rectitude of the soul toward God, and the proximate effect of that guilt is boiling and rebelling concupiscence, he calls the same concupiscence before the grace of baptism sin, by reason of the guilt attached; but when that has been removed in baptism, he calls it sin only by metonymy, because it is the effect or cause of sin. And that most frequently. First, where we cited him in the preceding chapter, namely, book 1 Against the Two Letters of the Pelagians, chapter 13, where he says that that concupiscence³⁵ which remains after baptism, by which the account of sin is most fully remitted and radically torn out, is called sin not because it is sin, but because it was made by sin: just as Scripture calls a man's hand that which his hand made, for we call the image of Apelles the hand of Apelles. Observe the negation, "not because it is sin." For he altogether denies that it is sin. And in On the Merit of Sins, book 2, chapter 4: Concupiscence in baptized little ones is loosed from guilt, but left for the contest. Consider the distinction between the guilt of sin and the contest, which is not sin. And in book 1 On Marriage and Concupiscence, chapter 25, he says: The concupiscence of the flesh is forgiven in baptism, not so that it not be, but so that it not be imputed as sin. But Luther has corrupted this passage, reporting it thus: Sin is remitted in baptism, not so that it not be, but so that it not be imputed. And from this he infers that sin remains, but is not imputed. But Augustine does not say sin, but concupiscence, nor does he say that it remains under the account of sin, but, as he immediately infers, to fight with our infirmity. And in the following chapter he adds an example from the contrary sense: namely, that just as in actual sin, when the act passes, for example homicide, the guilt remains, so conversely in concupiscence, when the guilt is washed away, the act remains. Do not understand the act of sin, but the act of concupiscence. And by the word "is not imputed" he designates that there is no fault, as we have just noted. And in book 1 On Marriage and Concupiscence, chapter 23, he expressly says that concupiscence in the regenerate is not sin unless consent is added. But it is called, he says, sin, just as the tongue is called speech, which the tongue makes: and the hand is called writing, which the hand makes. And likewise it is called sin, because if it conquers, it makes sin. Just as cold is called sluggish, not because it is made by the sluggish, but because it makes them sluggish. And against Julian, book 6, chapter 5, he says: The baptized person lacks all sin, not all evil. He did not say, It is not imputed, but, he lacks it. And he says this is said more plainly thus: He lacks all guilt of all evils, not all evils. Namely, suggesting that concupiscence is an evil, that is, a punishment, not the evil which is fault. And in book 1 of Retractations, chapter 15: The guilt of concupiscence is loosed in baptism, but the infirmity remains. What more can be desired to demonstrate³⁶ that concupiscence, with the guilt of original sin loosed, is not sin but a disease? And although Luther does not like the name guilt, it is indeed best derived from reus, as servitude from servant, and dominion from lord. And thus in Exodus³⁷ we have the guilt of the calf. And in Deuteronomy the guilt of blood,³⁸ so that guilt is the very account of sin, by which a man is and is held guilty. Whence to say that guilt is taken away in baptism is to say that any crime and fault is removed, so that the man is no longer guilty.

Wherefore it is most inept that the evasion of Bucer³⁹ in his book On Concord, and of his accomplices, which says that in these places Augustine speaks precisely of actual sins. For he makes a comparison of the works of free choice with concupiscence, saying that those are sins, but concupiscence is not. And besides, concupiscence with guilt is sin, but when that is removed, by no means.

Yet there remains one passage in Augustine⁴⁰ which they rightly make more of than the rest, book 5 Against Julian, chapter 3. Its words are: The concupiscence of the flesh, against which the good spirit lusts, is both sin, because there is in it disobedience against the dominion of the mind; and it is the punishment of sin, because it was rendered to the merits of the disobedient; and it is the cause of sin, by the defection of one consenting, or by the contagion of one being born. Where in the first member he says that concupiscence is sin, on account of disobedience, besides the subsequent reasons by which it is the effect and cause of sin. To this our men at the colloquy of Worms, and in the rest, answer that Augustine spoke there of concupiscence before baptism, which he calls sin by reason of the guilt attached. But although⁴¹ this gloss might perhaps suffice, yet to me, if I may conjecture, there is another more likely sense: since there Augustine intends without distinction to persuade that concupiscence is a bad thing even after baptism has been received. Against Julian, who said that it is good, either insofar as it is natural, or insofar as it was inflicted by God on account of sin. And therefore he establishes in four or five ways⁴² that it is bad, and by that figure of speech, sin. First, because it does not obey reason. He does not say, on account of the guilt attached, but on account of disobedience. That is to say, unless I am mistaken, since the natural good of man is to act according to reason (as we have frequently said up to now), sensuality not obeying it is a certain sin. Not indeed a damnable one and worthy of punishment, but natural. Just as a lame shin is a sin, because it does not serve nature rightly. And second, the same concupiscence is called sin because it is the effect of sin. Except that this mode is divided in two, so that before the guilt is remitted it is sin as to its material signification, but afterward it is only so called because it is the effect of sin. And fourth, because it is the cause transmitting original sin, as was explained in chapter 8. And fifth finally, because it is the cause inducing us to sin actually. Therefore obliquely⁴³ Luther in the same article 2, and his followers afterward, interpret that saying of Paul, Our inner man is renewed from day to day, in this sense, as if that renewal were a gradual and particular remission of sin by a certain succession, so that some particle of sin is always left. Yet sin is in a moment of time wholly remitted and forgiven. Wherefore the renewal of the just is nothing else than through the increase of grace to repress the powers of concupiscence, and more and more to weaken them. As Augustine clearly teaches against⁴⁴ Julian, book 6, chapter 5, whose conclusion is that concupiscence is loosed by indulgence in baptism, because it tended to harm: but afterward it is worn down by continence, lest it conquer in the fight.

Behold how Paul takes⁴⁵ sin: where he says, If I do what I do not will, it is no longer I that do it, but the sin that dwells in me. For that he calls the same concupiscence the law of sin fights more openly against us than for us: since the law of sin means the same as the rule (if it can be so called) of sinning. Whence just as reason is not called virtue except because it is the rule of virtue, so neither is sensuality called sin except because it is the cause of our slipping. In which sense, as by the virtues we serve the law of God in the spirit, so in the flesh by the vices we serve the law of sin. For between the spirit and the flesh warring, the will stands in the middle, having it in its choice to give its hand to whichever it prefers. Therefore before its consent, neither the one obtains the reality or the name of virtue, nor the other of vice.

Let it not finally be troublesome here to hear Bucer harmonizing this controversy,⁴⁶ nay rather more explicitly and stubbornly raising up the buried opinion of Luther. For from that saying of John, Every iniquity⁴⁷ is sin, he reasons that every nature, or force, or action not answering to its rule is sin, and so the very nature of sensuality, even before the consent of the will, is of itself sin, because it hinders us from loving God with the whole heart. But surely it is more easily gathered that his very exposition is iniquity. For who would induce himself to think that John called natural sins iniquities: so that there would be monsters and natural defects. For bodily diseases themselves are usually the cause of anger, blasphemy, and other outrages and crimes, and yet they do not come under the name of iniquity in John. He called iniquities, therefore, only the sins themselves. Just as all virtues are signified by the general name of justice. But we grant this to Bucer, as we were just saying, namely that sensuality is a sin of nature: that is, its disease and wound, like the vice of a lame shin. And in the same understanding⁴⁸ Paul understands that the wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God. Not that the knowledge itself or the propensity of the flesh is sin, but that it fights with reason, bending it in another direction. Just as gold itself, and honor, and the beauty of women could even be called hostile to reason and God, insofar as they are temptations to evil.

They devise yet another portent by which they defend that concupiscence is sin: namely, because it is an impediment to us, so that we cannot in this life fulfill the precept of loving God above all things,⁴⁹ and so neither the other commandments of the Decalogue. For thus error is usually small at the beginning, and greatest at the end. But this disputation has its proper seat in the third book.

Therefore,⁵⁰ since the disputation has gone further than I believed, to compress the matter into an epilogue, we have established that original sin is not formally concupiscence, but the privation of original justice, insofar as it rectified the soul and mind in order toward God; and when that guilt is loosed in baptism, the concupiscence that remains has no account of sin. But it is an infirmity and a wound, and therefore an evil of nature, fighting with reason, whose force and sinews the just wear down, diminish, and drain by the exercise of the virtues from day to day, until Christ our prize-giver⁵¹ refashions the body of our humility, configured to the body of his brightness according to the working of his power.